Static

“Hello,” Barbara called out. “Jim are you here?” No answer, he must be out getting breakfast she thought.

She laid back down in the warm thick blankets, enjoying the fuzzy fabric. Rubbing her cheek against the smooth, texture of the silk pillow she smiled. She had finally worked up the courage and stayed the night at Jim’s. It had been glorious, a beautifully laid supper of salmon with a lemon sauce, stir fried vegetables on the side, and a sinfully delicious black forest cake. She could still smell the lemons. And then the dancing in his living room, his wooden floors would definitely need to be polished before they were presentable again. And then the bedroom, she blushed a little thinking about that little bit. Tara wouldn’t believe her, she thought Barbara was, in her words, a huge chicken when it came to men. Barbara smiled, it would be funny to hear the disbelief on Monday morning.

She reached over the side of the bed to gave her dog, Prince, a pat on the head. After patting the ground for a minute she hit her head lightly. Prince was in the living room. Last night was definitely not a night to have a dog wandering around the room. Barbara thought about getting up to open the door, but clutching the blanket to her chin decided Prince could wait a little bit longer. She pulled the blanket over her head and let herself doze off.

---

Barbara woke up later with Prince pawing and whining at the door.

“Jim?” she called out. The sun was shining on her, it must be close to noon. Where was he? “Jim are you here?” she yelled again. He couldn’t have just left her like a one night stand, it was his house.

She got out of bed and began looking for her clothes. The soft white rug tickled her bare feet and hands. She saw her shirt and pants in a pile beside the bed. But her underwear wasn’t with them. Getting onto her hands and knees she began looking for it. If it wasn’t so irritating she’d have killed herself laughing. Instead, the image of her stark naked, crawling on the floor with her nose a foot away from the carpet made her blush fiercely, she prayed that no one could see her.

She finally found her bra halfway under the bed. She spared herself a second to wondered how it had gotten there. Her underwear turned out to be hanging from the corner of Jims’ nightstand. Barbara promised herself to be more careful with her clothes next time.

Prince was barking to be let out by this time. Barbara threw her clothes on and opened the door. The golden retriever grabbed Barbara’s hand in his mouth and walked quickly to his harness. Barbara decided not to bother with the harness, they weren’t going far so she just put on his leash. Grabbing a bag from her coat pocket they left the house.

Prince walked to the middle of the front yard to do his business. Barbara breathed in the fresh air, and closed her eyes to feel the light, cool breeze on her face. She smelled something odd. She thought she smelled smoke. She sniffed the air carefully, definitely smoke. Not wood smoke she thought, and on a hot day who would be lighting a fire. The breeze was coming from the direction of the city. She listened tried to listen trying to gauge how far away the fire might be, but silence surrounded her.

In this part of town most of the people would be at work, despite it being a Saturday, or at a weekend cabin enjoying the nice weather. She opened her eyes, straining to see something, but all she could see was the blurry outline of Prince, and the box like shapes of the houses surrounding her. Barbara stooped down to clean up Prince’s mess, and walked back in the house by the garage throwing the bag out in the outside garbage can.

After wiping Prince’s feet and getting him settled again, Barbara turned on the TV. If she could smell the fire out here they must be reporting it. Cursing she got out of her chair and kneeled in front of the screen trying to read the small print. Jim had a different satellite company, so his channels were all different from hers. Slowly she paged down the list trying to make out the words. Her eyes ached by the time she finally found the proper channel. She cursed, it would have been easier just to start flipping until she came to the right channel at random.

Sitting back down she waited for the commercials to end. Prince curled up at her feet his wavy, pale fur just covered hers toes. Barbara sighed, she had wanted to put her feet up, the velvety material felt nice on her skin. But she didn’t have to heart to push her dog out of the way.

The newscaster seemed nervous when he came on the screen. Barbara could hear his voice shake and crack, it was almost unnoticeable, but it was there. There was some shouting in the background as well. The voices sounded angry but that was all she could tell.

“We have confirmation now, the interview that we reported on earlier is true. The Canadian news station CTV did get a message from a Canadian Ambassador to China approximately fifty minutes ago. She spoke of widespread fighting between rioters and the Chinese military. According to her report and our own sources most of China is currently suffering brutal riots and massacres across the country. More importantly these resemble the fighting we have seen in New York and throughout much of the continental US.”

Barbara leaned forward and clutched her knees. What was going on? What had happened while she’d been asleep? The background voices were becoming more distinct.

“The President is currently meeting with his advisors to deal with this threat. We are currently being told this is not a case of terrorism as they had stated earlier. Unfortunately we have been informed as to what sparked these bloody rampages. But the governments of Japan, Britain and Canada have made statements clai-” the tv went blank. Words flashed on the screen. Barbara assumed they said something about technical difficulty.

She changed the channel hoping to hear something else. She jerked back in amazement that the first channel she got to was reporting the news. It was an aerial shot of a city, but aside from that she could only make out smoke surrounding some building. A woman was speaking, “-e can’t make out much. The military appears to be firing into the crowd of people, but the people are not stopping. It’s a blood bath down there. I repeat, the military is firing into the crowd, trying to disperse them. I can also see on Brock St. a crowd of people running towards our position. They have just passed the Bradbury Library.”

Barbara turned off the tv, that riot was down town. It was practically at her condo. She got up, stumbling over Prince, and went to her purse. Fumbling inside she found her phone. She had to call her parents. No she had to phone Jim. No she should phone her roommate. Yes her roommate, she thought, make sure she was safe.

Hitting speed dial she waited, praying that Nichol was there. Three rings, five rings, seven rings, and then the phone was picked up.

“H-he-hello?” Nichol, obviously crying, answered. Rapid gunshots could be heard outside.

“Nichol,” Barbara almost screeched, “are you okay?”

“Barb, thank God your safe. The army is right outside and they‘re shooting, and the people are all bloody, and I saw them rip up Smith from next door, and they‘re throwing grenades, and they‘re moaning, and, and, and,” Nichol’s voice rose until she was squeaking.

“Nichol! Breathe!” she heard her friend gasp for air. “Just answer yes or no. Has anyone tried to break into the house?”

“No.”

“Ok, I want you to move the couch in front of the door. It will slide along the wooden floors, you can do it if you put your back into it. Wait before you do that take the two metal wedges you call art and ram them under the door. Can you do that?” Barbara asked.

“Y- ‘static’ -ing up. I just hea- ‘static’ -uch, and wedges, ‘static‘,” she cried.

“Block the door. Don’t let anyone in,” Barbara shouted into the phone.

“Ok block ‘static’ -or. ‘static’ -afe.”

“I can barely hear you. Stay there the police will save you.”

“Lo- ‘static’ -e,” the phone went dead.

Prince heard Barbara sobbing and walked over to gently place his head against her thigh. Petting him she asked, “Ok Prince who do I call now Jim or Mom?”