Eddie's Choice
by Jessie Laverton
“It’ll be the second door on the left,” said the receptionist as she took the form that Eddie signed. She gestured to the corridor beyond her desk.
Eddie began to walk towards the door. He glanced back. The receptionist was scanning his form, with one hand on top of the printer and one scrolling on her phone.
He had been expecting a cleaner place; bright, white, and smelling of antiseptic like a hospital. Instead, the corridor was quite dim, the lower parts of the walls were scratched and dirty. Hundreds of overlapping footprints darkened the middle of the corridor, revealing the most commonly chosen path.
He pushed open the door the receptionist had indicated and entered a square, windowless room. The cinderblock walls were unpainted. About five rows of five gray plastic chairs stood facing another door on the opposite side of the room. Above it hung a small screen. It read “54” in red lights. He looked down at the small ticket in his hand: 67. Several other men were seated in the plastic chairs. Holding tickets. Waiting.
“May I?” he said to a man on the back row, indicating an empty chair. The man shrugged and Eddie sat down next to him.
“Eddie.” He extended his hand to his neighbor, introducing himself.
It had been several years since he had shaken anybody’s hand, it wasn’t really a thing people did anymore, but today, it seemed to happen without him really thinking about it. The man returned the gesture and put his hand in Eddie’s.
“Frank.” Frank’s hand was warm. His skin was soft. As his grip tightened, he looked straight at Eddie. His eyes were pale blue, and the creases around them deepened as he smiled. “Well, there’s a thing you don’t get to do every day no more,” said Frank.
Eddie smiled back. He looked down at their joined hands. Then he loosened his grip and put a hand on each of his thighs. He looked at the scratched gray plastic of the chair in front of him, silent for a moment.
He hadn’t expected to feel anything today, but this moment of contact with a stranger had taken him by surprise. It was an unforeseen complication.
He decided not to pursue the conversation any further. Frank however didn’t appear to notice Eddie’s changed disposition.
“So, what brought you here?” he asked.
Eddie glanced sideways at him quickly, then fixed his stare again on a particularly deep scratch.
“Oh, s’okay, you don’t hafta to say nothin’. I’m sorry to pry. You know, it might sound real shallow, but one of the things I missed the most was food. I remember goin’ to a steak house, so hungry I could eat the north end of a south-bound goat. If you had to wait twenty minutes, it felt slower than a Sunday afternoon, and the smells, the smells…” Frank paused for a second. “And then, they finally brought you the juiciest, tenderest, most perfectly cooked steak, with fries like sticksa gold an’ all…”
Eddie was drawn into the conversation like a hungry man pulled off the sidewalk into the restaurant by the smell of grilled meat and fries. “Yeah. Sure, you don’t get hungry anymore with the pills, but I miss the flavors, and the smells, and the feeling of eating with an appetite.”
“An’ everythin’ that used to happen ’round a dinner table,” added Frank. “I took my girl to dinner once. She didn’t want no steak house though, it had to be fancy shmancy—wine an’ candles an’ white linen an’ all. She thanked me at the end, ’s if I’d been doin’ her some favor all along. I shoulda been thankin’ her. I’m tellin’ ya, she was beautiful. And we talked. Talked till there were chairs on all the other tables and the waiter moppin’ the floor.” His accent drawled, so unlike the formatted way most people spoke now.
“Sounds like my wife,” said Eddie. “God, I wish I knew where she went. But the worst thing was…” His eyes were wet. His voice had started to tremble. He exhaled slowly through his mouth. He was afraid to feel.
“Not here, not today,” he thought to himself, but a gate had been pushed open, and he couldn’t jam it shut again, no matter how hard he tried.
“What?” asked Frank quietly.
“The worst thing was….” Eddie tried to steady his voice. “The worst thing was my kid. I just don’t know where they took him. Thirty-two years have passed. I think about him like it was yesterday. If only I knew, maybe it would be easier… And he had this puppy. A beautiful long-haired little thing. I couldn’t look after her after that. I always think if he came back, he would ask after his puppy, and I wouldn’t know what to tell him…. I guess that’s the short answer to your question about what brought me here.”
Frank gripped Eddie’s shoulder for a moment, “I’m sorry.”
Eddie looked sideways at him, and there it was again. His eyes were a pale, crystal blue, but it was like looking into deep water.
“You feel that?” asked Eddie under his breath, turning to face Frank fully.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. It’s like, like… somethin’ wakin’ up. Somethin’ human risin’ up.”
“We have to get out of here.”
The men in the rows in front of them were starting to fidget. A couple of them looked quickly at Eddie and Frank, uncomfortably.
Number fifty-five flashed up on the screen, accompanied by three short buzzing sounds to notify the men that the number had changed. Someone rose from the front row and went through the door.
Eddie glanced at Frank’s ticket, number sixty-five. There was still time.
An orderly in a white coat came through the door behind them.
“Excuse me,” Eddie beckoned to him, “we have changed our minds. We’d like to leave now, please.”
The orderly raised his eyebrows, “I’m afraid that is not allowed, sir. It was clearly indicated in the form you signed at the reception. As you can see there is an increasing demand for this service, it just wouldn’t be feasible to have people coming and going on a whim.”
“But we don’t want to do this anymore.” Eddie lowered his voice. “Please, show some humanity.”
“Oh, I’m not human,” replied the orderly. “They had humans working here before, but it wasn’t manageable. Too much emotion.”
Eddie swore the orderly’s lip curled slightly as he pronounced the word emotion.
He looked at Frank. They made for the door.
“I had it bolted as soon as you started talking to me,” said the orderly holding up a remote control. “Besides, your replacement embryos have already been produced. There’s no room for you out there.”
He passed into the next room, leaving Eddie and Frank standing by the bolted door.
“We could wait till the next person comes in,” Frank said.
“Forget it,” came a flat voice from the front row. “It won’t open again now till this room is empty. Besides, how many doors did you come through to get in here?”
The speaker then resumed staring at the floor, like everyone else in the room.
Eddie and Frank went back to their seats. They had no hope, so their minds weren’t busy scheming. They waited. That was all that was left to do. Eddie stared at his ticket, 67. Tears flowed down his face till the number was blurred, but his breath was calm. He felt a warmth spread over his chest, then an intensity of feeling, like a physical pressure, pushing outwards from all over his body.
The buzzing sound came and went several times. Still his tears flowed, and he stared at his ticket. At one point, when the buzzer sounded, Frank rose. He laid a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, and said “Well, thank you.”
Eddie was aware that Frank was walking away towards the door, but he was unable to process what that meant.
Then, he didn’t know how many minutes or hours later, he felt another hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see the orderly leaning over him. “Did you not hear the buzzer? It’s your turn.”
Eddie had not heard the buzzer.
The orderly took his ticket and guided him towards the door.
Eddie walked, but he felt like he was watching someone else move through the room. He looked around. Only empty chairs remained, but again, he was unable to process what that meant, where everybody had gone. The walls, the chairs, the orderly… nothing felt real. All he knew was that he was breathing. It was a new sensation, to be so acutely aware of his chest rising and falling, of air entering and exiting his body. Every breath filled him with awe, ecstasy and despair fought for his attention, clouding his perception. Years’ worth of unfelt feelings washed over him in minutes.
On the other side of the door, the doctor greeted him. He felt he should reply to her, but all he could do was slowly and faintly smile, his lips parting and his head nodding very slightly.
The nurse guided him towards a big lozenge-shaped red and black box, which seemed to be cut in half lengthways to make a lid.
“So, that must be the pod,” Eddie thought to himself dimly, without any further coherent thought, despite having read so much about it in the past. It was open, and inside was an almost bare mattress. Only a pillow lay on it.
“Please enter the pod, sir,” said the nurse.
Eddie did so without protesting. It felt like someone else was moving his limbs. As the nurse buckled his arms and legs to the mattress, Eddie looked at him tenderly, not caring or not remembering what the orderly had said about no humans working there.
The nurse stepped away and pushed a button. The top half of the pod closed over Eddie, and he inhaled the poisonous, perfumed gases with as much intensity as he had the odorless air of the waiting room.
Five minutes later, two orderlies entered and wheeled Eddie’s pod away through the door that led to the incinerator.
The doctor looked at the nurse. “Did you see the expression on his face?”
“Yes,” replied the nurse. “He seemed to be smiling. Just like that man yesterday.”
“Strange…” shrugged the doctor as she flicked a switch. The buzzer sounded in the waiting room.
Eddie began to walk towards the door. He glanced back. The receptionist was scanning his form, with one hand on top of the printer and one scrolling on her phone.
He had been expecting a cleaner place; bright, white, and smelling of antiseptic like a hospital. Instead, the corridor was quite dim, the lower parts of the walls were scratched and dirty. Hundreds of overlapping footprints darkened the middle of the corridor, revealing the most commonly chosen path.
He pushed open the door the receptionist had indicated and entered a square, windowless room. The cinderblock walls were unpainted. About five rows of five gray plastic chairs stood facing another door on the opposite side of the room. Above it hung a small screen. It read “54” in red lights. He looked down at the small ticket in his hand: 67. Several other men were seated in the plastic chairs. Holding tickets. Waiting.
“May I?” he said to a man on the back row, indicating an empty chair. The man shrugged and Eddie sat down next to him.
“Eddie.” He extended his hand to his neighbor, introducing himself.
It had been several years since he had shaken anybody’s hand, it wasn’t really a thing people did anymore, but today, it seemed to happen without him really thinking about it. The man returned the gesture and put his hand in Eddie’s.
“Frank.” Frank’s hand was warm. His skin was soft. As his grip tightened, he looked straight at Eddie. His eyes were pale blue, and the creases around them deepened as he smiled. “Well, there’s a thing you don’t get to do every day no more,” said Frank.
Eddie smiled back. He looked down at their joined hands. Then he loosened his grip and put a hand on each of his thighs. He looked at the scratched gray plastic of the chair in front of him, silent for a moment.
He hadn’t expected to feel anything today, but this moment of contact with a stranger had taken him by surprise. It was an unforeseen complication.
He decided not to pursue the conversation any further. Frank however didn’t appear to notice Eddie’s changed disposition.
“So, what brought you here?” he asked.
Eddie glanced sideways at him quickly, then fixed his stare again on a particularly deep scratch.
“Oh, s’okay, you don’t hafta to say nothin’. I’m sorry to pry. You know, it might sound real shallow, but one of the things I missed the most was food. I remember goin’ to a steak house, so hungry I could eat the north end of a south-bound goat. If you had to wait twenty minutes, it felt slower than a Sunday afternoon, and the smells, the smells…” Frank paused for a second. “And then, they finally brought you the juiciest, tenderest, most perfectly cooked steak, with fries like sticksa gold an’ all…”
Eddie was drawn into the conversation like a hungry man pulled off the sidewalk into the restaurant by the smell of grilled meat and fries. “Yeah. Sure, you don’t get hungry anymore with the pills, but I miss the flavors, and the smells, and the feeling of eating with an appetite.”
“An’ everythin’ that used to happen ’round a dinner table,” added Frank. “I took my girl to dinner once. She didn’t want no steak house though, it had to be fancy shmancy—wine an’ candles an’ white linen an’ all. She thanked me at the end, ’s if I’d been doin’ her some favor all along. I shoulda been thankin’ her. I’m tellin’ ya, she was beautiful. And we talked. Talked till there were chairs on all the other tables and the waiter moppin’ the floor.” His accent drawled, so unlike the formatted way most people spoke now.
“Sounds like my wife,” said Eddie. “God, I wish I knew where she went. But the worst thing was…” His eyes were wet. His voice had started to tremble. He exhaled slowly through his mouth. He was afraid to feel.
“Not here, not today,” he thought to himself, but a gate had been pushed open, and he couldn’t jam it shut again, no matter how hard he tried.
“What?” asked Frank quietly.
“The worst thing was….” Eddie tried to steady his voice. “The worst thing was my kid. I just don’t know where they took him. Thirty-two years have passed. I think about him like it was yesterday. If only I knew, maybe it would be easier… And he had this puppy. A beautiful long-haired little thing. I couldn’t look after her after that. I always think if he came back, he would ask after his puppy, and I wouldn’t know what to tell him…. I guess that’s the short answer to your question about what brought me here.”
Frank gripped Eddie’s shoulder for a moment, “I’m sorry.”
Eddie looked sideways at him, and there it was again. His eyes were a pale, crystal blue, but it was like looking into deep water.
“You feel that?” asked Eddie under his breath, turning to face Frank fully.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. It’s like, like… somethin’ wakin’ up. Somethin’ human risin’ up.”
“We have to get out of here.”
The men in the rows in front of them were starting to fidget. A couple of them looked quickly at Eddie and Frank, uncomfortably.
Number fifty-five flashed up on the screen, accompanied by three short buzzing sounds to notify the men that the number had changed. Someone rose from the front row and went through the door.
Eddie glanced at Frank’s ticket, number sixty-five. There was still time.
An orderly in a white coat came through the door behind them.
“Excuse me,” Eddie beckoned to him, “we have changed our minds. We’d like to leave now, please.”
The orderly raised his eyebrows, “I’m afraid that is not allowed, sir. It was clearly indicated in the form you signed at the reception. As you can see there is an increasing demand for this service, it just wouldn’t be feasible to have people coming and going on a whim.”
“But we don’t want to do this anymore.” Eddie lowered his voice. “Please, show some humanity.”
“Oh, I’m not human,” replied the orderly. “They had humans working here before, but it wasn’t manageable. Too much emotion.”
Eddie swore the orderly’s lip curled slightly as he pronounced the word emotion.
He looked at Frank. They made for the door.
“I had it bolted as soon as you started talking to me,” said the orderly holding up a remote control. “Besides, your replacement embryos have already been produced. There’s no room for you out there.”
He passed into the next room, leaving Eddie and Frank standing by the bolted door.
“We could wait till the next person comes in,” Frank said.
“Forget it,” came a flat voice from the front row. “It won’t open again now till this room is empty. Besides, how many doors did you come through to get in here?”
The speaker then resumed staring at the floor, like everyone else in the room.
Eddie and Frank went back to their seats. They had no hope, so their minds weren’t busy scheming. They waited. That was all that was left to do. Eddie stared at his ticket, 67. Tears flowed down his face till the number was blurred, but his breath was calm. He felt a warmth spread over his chest, then an intensity of feeling, like a physical pressure, pushing outwards from all over his body.
The buzzing sound came and went several times. Still his tears flowed, and he stared at his ticket. At one point, when the buzzer sounded, Frank rose. He laid a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, and said “Well, thank you.”
Eddie was aware that Frank was walking away towards the door, but he was unable to process what that meant.
Then, he didn’t know how many minutes or hours later, he felt another hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see the orderly leaning over him. “Did you not hear the buzzer? It’s your turn.”
Eddie had not heard the buzzer.
The orderly took his ticket and guided him towards the door.
Eddie walked, but he felt like he was watching someone else move through the room. He looked around. Only empty chairs remained, but again, he was unable to process what that meant, where everybody had gone. The walls, the chairs, the orderly… nothing felt real. All he knew was that he was breathing. It was a new sensation, to be so acutely aware of his chest rising and falling, of air entering and exiting his body. Every breath filled him with awe, ecstasy and despair fought for his attention, clouding his perception. Years’ worth of unfelt feelings washed over him in minutes.
On the other side of the door, the doctor greeted him. He felt he should reply to her, but all he could do was slowly and faintly smile, his lips parting and his head nodding very slightly.
The nurse guided him towards a big lozenge-shaped red and black box, which seemed to be cut in half lengthways to make a lid.
“So, that must be the pod,” Eddie thought to himself dimly, without any further coherent thought, despite having read so much about it in the past. It was open, and inside was an almost bare mattress. Only a pillow lay on it.
“Please enter the pod, sir,” said the nurse.
Eddie did so without protesting. It felt like someone else was moving his limbs. As the nurse buckled his arms and legs to the mattress, Eddie looked at him tenderly, not caring or not remembering what the orderly had said about no humans working there.
The nurse stepped away and pushed a button. The top half of the pod closed over Eddie, and he inhaled the poisonous, perfumed gases with as much intensity as he had the odorless air of the waiting room.
Five minutes later, two orderlies entered and wheeled Eddie’s pod away through the door that led to the incinerator.
The doctor looked at the nurse. “Did you see the expression on his face?”
“Yes,” replied the nurse. “He seemed to be smiling. Just like that man yesterday.”
“Strange…” shrugged the doctor as she flicked a switch. The buzzer sounded in the waiting room.
Jessie Laverton has always loved reading. As a small girl, the only thing she was ever scolded for was keeping her reading lamp on late at night when her parents thought she was fast asleep. Today, she still loves words, molding them by day into sales copy to make a living and crafting deep, dark stories by night. Self-taught (although to say that really is very dismissive of the many teachers life provides), she has no literary qualifications to share and hopes her written words will be met with the approval of at least one reader willing to look beyond the frontiers of formal education.