Indistinct

Paul had been plagued by intrusive thoughts this morning, imagining someone just in front of him being flattened by a piano, carried above on ropes by workmen with abnormal, trunk sized arms, like in a cartoon. The irony was not lost on Paul, driving in his medium sized delivery truck, that he was far more likely to flatten someone himself, if his thoughts didn’t stop intruding. As he pulled in behind “The FairGround” a cavernous downtown bar, his first destination, he thought about velocity, and if in some way imagining flattening was compensation for wielding his delivery truck. Although the truck was about half the size of a long haul, it was still a massive construct for anyone. More irony made Paul smile to himself: truck drivers may be low skill, (Paul did not identify with his job) but are entrusted with such powerful machines, the scales of skill to power, knowledge to strength, are inverse. Rambling thoughts sustained Paul on these cold mornings, and as he parked the truck back behind the bar, his thoughts had moved on past piano flattening's and onto his delivery itinerary. Paul marked his arrival time down in his green binder.

As Paul jumped down from the truck’s door he felt a dizzy rush of blood to his head. He had opened the door and jumped out all in one fluid motion, and now had to steady himself like he had always heard old men did when they stood up too fast. Suddenly the dizziness painfully popped in his head, and he realized he should have taken it easy last night.

It was ten in the morning, so he would have to unload all the beer kegs alone, as the only people likely to be there this early would be kitchen guys, who wouldn’t help because the front of house, and alcohol, wasn’t their department. All the money this bar raked in did not extend to the outside staircase to the basement. The wooden steps were worn and rotting in the middle. If it weren’t for the concrete under the wood, Paul thought as he negotiated the first keg down the steps, someone would have broken some bone already. The back door was propped open, so Paul started dragging the kegs through the dank and mold. No amount of cleaning could cover up the years of alcohol and sweat from the bar above, and now the basement with its intruding ceiling smelled of disgustingly sweet Pine-sol, beer, and must.

Paul had barely begun stacking his load by the keg room door when he heard his name from the top of the kitchen stairs. “Paul! What’s up?” A feminine voice barely carried above the music from the kitchen. “I’m here early today, I’ll come down in a minute with a cheque and I’ll show you what needs to be hooked up.” Paul couldn’t distinguish who was yelling at him. He rarely arrived at a time when the front of house staff was present. Maybe it was Kat? She sometimes came in early to help prepare for special events. But today was just another day. Whatever, Paul thought. He didn’t need her to start connecting kegs, so he unlatched the door and started lifting in the beer.

To maintain a clean path through the back of the refrigerated room, kegs were stacked like sentries on either side. Paul thought of the hallway of the keg room extending like an accordion back and forth, pitching like a ship as it elongated and snapped back again. Exerting himself lifting kegs up and down made him feel like some sea sick slave, rowing back and forth beneath the waves, and every time the pressure from his arms traveled down to his feet and up again to the crown of his head he breathed out, and felt like a human towel, strung out after being wrung.

He had already replaced four full kegs and was sweating through his undershirt despite the cold, and the end of the room appeared farther, and the kegs more numerous, more in tune with the longest stretched end of his slave ship reverie than its actual dimensions. Sitting down on the fifth keg he had lugged in, he closed his eyes. The hungover over balloon was back with Paul’s exertion, and he kept trying to empty his head of any visualization of pain. He let the sudden nervousness that he would be found slacking leave his head with the expanding blood vessels on the hungover balloon. His body became a generator of nervous energy, with every breath he produced more, and let go of more, circuitously. And the stress made him fall asleep.

Paul didn’t think he lost consciousness. He wasn’t disoriented, but calm, and when he stood up from the keg he didn’t feel any stiffness. His calmness was short lived as he saw the heavy keg-room door that he left wide open was now only slightly ajar, with an envelope taped above the handle. Embarrassed, he retrieved the envelope and realized that Kat or her boss had seen him snoozing on the job and instead of waking him, decided to let him sleep. Don’t they like me? thought Paul. Letting him sleep may seem an act of kindness at first but was instead cruel, letting him languish an hungover idiot, rather than expend the small effort it would take to wake him.

Quickly depositing his task, Paul noticed he no longer heard anything. The kitchen staff turned off the music? Whatever, he thought, and still annoyed, he opened the envelope. Inside was a small note, jotted quickly in pen, with a bundle of cash. The note read: “Sorry for cash, couldn’t find my cheque book and had to run out. Payment here for this week and next week's order. Maybe a bit over/under? Will pay difference if under next week will try to catch you then. Miguel.”

Paul counted the cash. A bit over? On first count there seemed to be around twenty grand in the envelope, the total for this week and next week’s order came to only twelve grand and change. Surely Miguel wasn’t so disconnected from less solvent people that seven thousand dollars was considered only a “bit over.” There was horror in that, because although Paul tried to eliminate the cliché from his thoughts, the cash truly had a weight for him. It felt like it was boring down from his jacket pocket into his ribs. The leftover thousands felt like another lack of consideration, and it’s vectorized coolness returned him forgotten, slumped over to the keg room.

Paul still needed to deliver a receipt, and supposed he would leave the cash with someone upstairs. He realized, as he walked through the completely empty kitchen, how odd it was for no one to be there. Was everyone at an early lunch? Everyone? They all left at exactly the same time?

Entering on the stage that bordered the kitchen, Paul surveyed the dining area. It was silent as well, no background music pierced the stillness. The chairs were down, the room was clean, and no one was there. Kat, along with all the kitchen staff, were gone.

Suddenly, that made Paul excited. He couldn’t just leave seven thousand dollars lying around the dining room for anyone to find, and he shouldn’t leave it in the kitchen. Even if Miguel didn’t care about the money, Paul did. Suddenly, Paul imagined the money giving off heat rather than frost, and his slighted feelings over the lack of consideration showed to him were starting to dissipate. This was because, to his surprise, he did feel considered. Whether through contrivance or thoughtlessness, he had been trusted with a non-insignificant amount of money, and he might as well enjoy it.

Instead of immediately leaving for his next delivery, Paul left for the convenience store next door. Paul’s thoughts went like this: he had been left twenty thousand dollars of which seven thousand was unspoken for. Spending a little on himself, not too much, seemed fine, and perhaps this should be considered, Paul thought “the way the universe was going.” Paul barely noticed his stupid justification because he was so excited to buy something silly for himself, like a lottery ticket. Maybe two lottery tickets. Paul was so distracted that he didn’t realize the city also seemed empty; there was no traffic in the road and no one on the sidewalk.

But even a distracted Paul was not so oblivious as to miss that the convenience store was missing a clerk and shoppers. The situation finally caught up to Paul. He wanted a lottery ticket, and those were behind plastic. The clerk had to get them. He felt comfortable leaving cash if he just wanted a chocolate bar or a bag of chips, but going behind the counter and taking a lottery ticket? That seemed too bold. And besides, where was everyone?

Back now at the truck, Paul finally turned his attention to the empty block. Was everyone evacuated? No, because cars would still be on the road. Did everyone just disappear? Well, no again, because there would still be empty cars on the road. Maybe both people are cars vanished? Why was his delivery truck still there? Were trucks immune? Was he immune? Maybe, Paul thought, the money Miguel had left for him was a harbinger of truly special consideration, and when he had stepped onto the stage bordering the dining room and the kitchen, he was being elevated to the unique status of last person on Earth.

Paul was unconvinced. He would need more evidence. Besides, being the last person on Earth offered up many possibilities, and his first action once he “officially recognized” his position would need to be special, befitting his new role.

And still, thought Paul, even if I’m not the last person on Earth, I can still use fifty bucks to buy a couple lottery tickets.

Paul decided the best course of action would be to continue on his day as normally as possible, and even though he was late due to his nap, the roads were clear. Feeling for the green binder beside him, Paul felt only the seat, until he grasped something smooth. Instead of the Green binder he used to mark down figures from deliveries, he held a black notebook. Opening the notebook, he noticed it was blank, except for a doodle in the bottom right corner. It was of a truck with central storage replaced by accordion bellows, and as he flipped the pages, the truck-accordion expanded and contracted faster and faster until it disappeared in a puff of smoke. Was it possible he grabbed this book by mistake, drew in it, and forgot?

Whatever, Paul thought. The ledger was just a formality to leave a paper trail. Paul recorded the relevant information, put the truck in gear, and left. His next destination was west, in the suburbs. As Paul drove, the streets and sidewalks remained empty. Nervously, Paul stepped on the gas, and after a few minutes, people started appearing on the sidewalk, all going with him west. After another minute driving, Paul parked his truck on the street and got out, to ask someone where they were going.

Everyone Paul had seen from the truck appeared too far now, but he saw, across the street, an old man sitting on a bench. Despite the empty roads, Paul ran.

The old man looked at the young man calmly, not disturbed by his sprinting.

“Are you going to the parade,” he asked Paul.

“The Parade,” Paul swallowed. “What parade, is it a holiday?”

“It’s a celebration, it’s been in the papers.”

The papers? Paul took his phone out of his pocket and looked at the lock screen like he expected something to happen, and maybe something did. The old man had risen and was pointing west. Paul looked, and slowly he began to hear music.