Amana

Silence & Starsong is pleased to present the winner of our July 2024 Flash Fiction Contest, “Amana” by Aaron D. Schneider. The prompt was “An inanimate object has a secret.”

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You stand at your window, looking down the street, your lungs refusing to fill up with the air you need. You don't want anyone to notice something is wrong, but your arms move hands to interlace tingling fingers behind your head. Each an attempt to expand your chest, to let in a little more air. Your heart hammers in your chest as you try to stop staring at Amana.

Why are you staring at the fridge on the sidewalk?

That question gnaws at the back of your mind with small, sharp teeth, an invasive rodent nestling somewhere just above your brainstem. 

“Hey babe," your wife calls from the kitchen. “Did you make sure to put the bikes out for Spring Cleanup?"

A spike of frustration lances through your brain.

“Y-yeah," you manage, forcing the heat out of your voice.

Spring Cleanup.

It should be a good thing, local government doing something useful for once. After all, those bikes had all been outgrown and needed to be disposed of, so you should be glad.

But with the removal of the bikes you know that the crews won't stop at your house. They’ll trundle down the street and then they'll take it. They'll take Amana.

What they will do with it seems inconsequential, unknowable, impenetrable. Where does the garbage go? Sure, put this in the blue topped or green topped bin, and all that, because the faceless entity say so, but after that it was all ritual and faith. The pungent priesthood of refuse arrives at their appointed time upon engines chanting-chugging the garbage benediction and then in short order offal, waste, and dirty secrets are spirited away into a nether realm.

If garbage day was the weekly service then Spring Cleanup is the Holy Day of the rubbish religion, that sacred festival when even the most manifest sin is banished.

In truth it makes sense that only on this day could Amana be taken from you, and taken it shall be. You have hours, minutes, before the clerics of clutter come.

And then Amana is gone, forever.

You know you should be happy about that, welcoming it. Once gone everything goes back to what it was, back to a time before a gleam of chrome handles quickened your pulse and dried your mouth. You know that time, that before was better than now, but somehow it doesn't change the conviction, the absolute certainty that you feel standing at your front window.

If Amana is gone before you do what you must, you will never ever know, and that… that will be more than you can bear. The vermin has been chewing, chewing, chewing away and it feels like there are only threads holding everything together in your head.

You are going to feel really stupid when you open that door and see nothing to justify all this.

Yes, you know that is the reasonable answer, and that should be the end.

It should be… but it isn't.

—

A scuff of shoes on pavement, your toe nosing up against the curb, brings you out of your crowded skull and you realize the truth.

You’re here, and there's only one thing left to do.

Up close you can see the marks of careless creatures. Nicks, chips, gouges, streaks, scars of living around humans, careless and cruel with all but their own skin. It suffered, it endured, proud and upright, now as monolithic as anything in a soggy field or dusty hillside.

With trembling hands you reach out, a pilgrim at long last coming to the end of your journey. Stinging, sharp-winged thoughts surge like riled hornets.

Stop.

Don’t

Go home.

Not worth it.

Think of the cost?

Cost? What cost?

The thought falls apart under its own weight, even as your chest tightens with your grip on the door handle.

You open the door.

It's… It's empty. Dingy, nothing else.

The gnawing at the back of your head migrates to settle into the pit of your stomach.

A fool, an idiot, a melancholy, morose moron. An—

“You interested?"

You cough out a vaguely quizzical sound that might have been something like “What?" to buy time.

“I said, you interested," calls the older woman from her doorway, veiled behind the screen door. Her eyes are swollen, glossy, insectile things behind her glasses and the metal mesh.

“N-no," you declare, quicker than is polite before adjusting your cadence respectfully. “I mean no ma'am. I don’t have any money or a-any place for it."

“To be honest I'll about give it away," she announces, voice pitched in expectation of curious attention.

Despite the pressure from thinly veiled bait you shake your head, taking a step back.

“You got kids?” the old woman asks, voice sharp. “I thought I've seen some look like they would be yours."

“Yeah."

“Thought so. Maybe then you shouldn't take it. Look at the door."

You feel the deep frown forming as you look at the front of the door. There's nothing, but something pulls at the edges of your mind.

“No, inside—"

The door swings with casual ease, gliding, and then your eyes look inside the door.

So many shallow, riven etchings…

Utter darkness, smothering and taunting as you claw, fingers raking at an unseen, unyielding surface, breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps, punctuated by high, whining pants, the primal sound of a desperate, trapped mammal.

“…suppose you've heard the stories,” the old woman was saying . “Kids locked inside?"

Your body is shaking, cold sweat crowning your forehead.

“When?" you breathe, your throat tight enough to the vowel whistle.

“This one?" the old woman asks, raw, brittle voice cracking. “Oh, no, no, I was just saying… hey, you okay?"

You turn toward her, but you have no answer.

Helpless, your gaze turns back to the inside of the refrigerator door. The interior bears the smears of time blasted fingerprints, but the scratches are gone.

Just down the street the Spring Cleanup begins.