Flash Fiction, Desiree Remick
On Monday, I’m doing online research for an article about walruses and sunshine when I see an advertisement for a Galileo thermometer. It’s always too cold in my house. I want to know how cold. I buy it. The thermometer arrives that afternoon, cushioned by live mice. The postal worker has a Hitler mustache. He sees me glancing at it and says, “I’ve tried to grow the rest of it, but the hairs keep falling out.”
I ask him about the mice, which have streamed from the box and are now devouring Neighbor’s lawn ornaments. The postal worker tells me his company uses live mice as packaging material.
“They’re inconvenient,” I say.
“The children love it,” he says.
Neighbor comes out and asks me what I bought. I show him the thermometer.
“Can I watch you set it up?”
They both watch me set it up. Immediately, all the colored orbs sink to the bottom of the tube. The thermometer is reading the temperature as higher than 75°, which is incredible because I’m shivering. Neighbor puts his arm around my shoulders, but his hands are like frozen clams and only make me colder.
The postal worker says, “If you want to return it, you’ll have to catch all the mice.”
On Tuesday, I’m again doing research on walruses and sunshine when I see an advertisement for a coffee mug that says GIVE ME CHOCOLATE OR GIVE ME DEATH. I love chocolate and I love death, so I buy it. The purchase gives me half-off on another coffee mug with a picture of Bob Ross, so I buy that too. My goal is to have a designated mug for every day of the year.
The two mugs arrive two hours later in separate boxes that are filled with crickets. The postal worker says, “The mice were becoming troublesome. People complained, even though the children loved them. Our CEO has decided to switch to crickets. Feel free to eat the crickets, though if you do, you won’t be able to return the item.”
Neighbor brings out a pot of oolong tea that has been steeping all day. He pours it into both mugs. Crickets float in the tea like battleships.
“Don’t you have any hot chocolate?” I ask.
“Sorry,” says Neighbor. “I’m out of hot chocolate and I’m out of death.”
On Wednesday, as I’m researching whether chocolate will kill walruses, I see an advertisement for the complete series of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts on VCR. I buy it, which requires me to also buy a VCR player. I see an advertisement for a 13-piece flamingo tea set, which reminds me of the tea set I had when I was four. I buy that too. Then I buy a pair of tactical knives, which seem useful, and a game called Bee Slots, which seems fun, and a blank certificate of excellence. I am seeing so many advertisements for products that will improve my quality of life in ways I’ve never conceived of.
Ten minutes after I click CHECK OUT, the packages are on my landing. The postal worker has piled them up so high that my door, which opens outwards, cannot open outwards. Through the peephole, I look at the stack of plain brown boxes. Someone has opened them already; they are full of crumpled $20 bills. The wind steals handfuls of cash and scatters them across the parking lot. A bird swoops down and gathers some for the penthouse she’s building in my eaves.
Neighbor calls from the bottom of the stairs, “Hey, are you alive in there?”
I open the window and lean out. “Yes?”
“I thought you’d gone away forever,” he says.
Neighbor is falling in love with me. I can tell because his bald spot grows by the day. The postal worker is in love with something, but it isn’t me. Maybe he loves every package he delivers.
I ask Neighbor to move the mountain of boxes so I can come outside, but he doesn’t hear me. He’s whistling to the bird, trying to charm her down from her nest.
On Thursday, I am researching escape routes when I see an advertisement for medieval knights. I buy one. He arrives instantly in my living room, but something is wrong with him. He is defective. I want to return him, but the packaging was a layer of pistachio ice cream that melted in the terrible heat of my house.
I ask the knight to remove his armor so the clanking won’t frighten the bird. The knight does not understand me. I think he speaks French, so I buy a French-to-English dictionary.
“Par-lay voo Fronsay?” I ask.
He stares at me. He does not understand.
I offer the knight some tea in the Bob Ross mug because I can tell he does not enjoy chocolate or death. He lifts the visor on his helmet to drink it. In the apartment below, Neighbor taps out a message in Morse code: in order to escape, you must grow out your hair.
“Do you love me?” I ask the knight, first in French and then in English and then in every other language I can imagine. He does not understand any of them. His beard thickets like brambles around his jaw.
On Friday, it becomes apparent that the knight will never fall in love with me. He just stands in a corner and stares at the Galileo thermometer, which I’ve set up on the coffee table. I wish I could show him The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts or confirm his excellence with a certificate, but I can’t. Instead, I research cures for chronic depression.
At noon, the geisha I order to cheer up my knight is delivered by drone through the living room window. She dances and plays the shamisen and speaks perfect medieval French. She’s a real professional. The knight is completely bald by Saturday morning.
Desiree Remick (she/her) is pursuing a BFA in creative writing at Southern Oregon University. She is also the fiction editor of Nude Bruce Review. In her life before college, she taught fencing, picked cones for the forest service, and worked with a partner to translate poetry from Japanese to English. Her debut short story was the runner-up for Kallisto Gaia Press’ 2020 Chester B. Himes Memorial Short Fiction Prize. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Gravity of the Thing, The Orchards, Albion Review, and other places. You can connect with her on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/desiree-remick-writes/.