Fish on the Rotisserie
Treats of a Short Story
Click.
Angie, it’s November 1st, 7:45 a.m. You are not going to believe what I discovered at breakfast. You know those Little Debbie blueberry and cheese danishes? The ones in the basket display at the Chick n’ Barrel? Peanut Butter. And before you say those two don’t go together, just take a butterknife and scrape a sheet of the stuff (smooth, because I know you prefer untextured nut snot) over the top. Heaven!
Gravel crunching. Pulling into the station now. Time for the quiet, lonely music of the dishes. I know the agency thinks we’re burning benjamins. To that I say, “What if someone rings and we’re not at the phone?” Anyway it suits me fine. Nobody bothers-
Click.
Click. Cassette whirring. Sped-up speech.
Click.
Click.
-eight years and fourteen months! Nine years, two months, I mean. Who cares! Angie, I’ve triple checked. The readout isn’t garbling from another station. It’s not the Russians. And it sure as hell isn’t random space static. It’s goddamn latin! Latin script anyway. The words don’t mean anything to me. Yet. But these ARE words. I wonder if it’s a cipher; maybe the library has books?
Angie, this is a moment of Christian impact. Don’t think I’m going loopy on you, but I feel like a prophet hearing the voice of god. I’m staring at my coffee. Do you know - I’ve never really seen the pale steam rising off the surface; never really heard the trumpet of the red-winged blackbirds that nest in the spruce, below the eastern station windows, where the sunlight splashes in through the dust.
Maybe I am loopy. I feel strangely tranquil - like it’s my first day at the listening post - but at the same time so anxious. “How ill the scene that offers rest; and heart that cannot rest agree.” I’ll have to get copies made of the readout. And where do I take it? Rick Hedges down at The Grandstand Bulletin used to be an editor at The New York Times. Maybe he remembers a friend who works with a fella who knows the right people? But I can’t show Rick anything. He’d probably think it’s a word-find. And I doubt I can explain it in any way that doesn’t sound like conspiracy theory. “No really, Rick, I’m not joking. This sequence of random letters in the chart is a directed signal from beyond the milky way. It is, certainly, aliens.” He’d laugh me out of The Grandstand.
I’m going to erase the backup tapes. I won’t have Barry or one of the other night shifters taking the credit. You know those nighters have a cassette player? I found it hidden behind the old oscilloscope, along with a bunch of Ink Spot tapes. I don’t like The Ink Spots. They just play the same song with different words every time. I find their music more exhausting than the dish output, in as far as the dish is usually just empty noise, like a desk fan, while The Ink Spots are just varied enough to be insistently annoying on the brain. I believe it’s every working man’s right to listen to whatever music perks his ears. But NOT on the job. It’s unprofessional.
What I’m trying to say is that, while this message needs to be heard, I want people to know I heard it. First. I mean, I don’t expect them to name the discovery after me. Frankly, Angie, I think “The VanWoltersum Signal” sounds awkward in the tongue.
Man this is thrilling! I still haven’t pinpointed the possible stars in-
Click.
Pause. Sound of lighter. Slow Inhale. Slow Exhale.
Click. Cassette whirring. Sped-up speech.
Click.
Click.
-made two printouts. The Quickprintfax clerk kept glaring over me as I was making my copies. I don’t mean he was angry, but the sun was shining like spotlights off his glasses. In this acne-spotted highschooler’s defense, I was sweating profusely.
I’m quite sure now that the words are not in any earthly language. Which makes good clean sense. The words are just an arbitrary conversion from radio waves (measured by the ground station satellite) into alphanumeric characters. These extraterrestrials might have an entirely different conception of ’language’. Unwritten. Unspoken. There is, however, a visible pattern in the characters and gaps. It’s begging to be deciphered. I’m almost breaking in hives every time I look at it.
After the print shop I drove straight home, going five under the whole way. I went to my pantry. I pulled away the stained vinyl baseboard, folded up one of the two copies, and stuffed it into a wide horizontal crack in the wall. I put the baseboard back, shut the pantry door just as I had it, and locked the house again. I walked back to the car. Anyone tracking-
Horn honk.
-tracking my routines will of course notice that I stopped by Copyfax and then home before returning to the station, instead of my usual lunch at the Chick n’ Barrel. Can’t be helped. I feel reasonably sure, however, that the house isn’t bugged. Unless they’ve been listening since I started at the station? It’s a good thing I was very quiet as I moved around the house.
I have the other copy on my person.
Angie, I’m telling you all this so you know where that backup record is. In case something happens to me.
Don’t think I’ve taken up tin foil millinery. But as I stopped at the library to see if they had any books on ciphers, I saw Derrick Pierson sitting in the window eating a patty melt and fries. Derrick ALWAYS orders a reuben and onion rings when I see him after work, and he ALWAYS eats it at the diner. Now maybe you can chalk the difference up to the lunch hour. But Angie - he had drizzled his ketchup over the top of his fries. Derrick ALWAYS puts it on the side. All this on the same day we receive our first other-life signal?
I am of course exaggerating. Not about Derrick and his fries, but about the event’s significance. But I have been noticing small things. Keeping both eyes out as it were. I have a general feeling of suspicion. No one thing that’s ’wrong’ but small things that are slightly unusual. “Rain when it’s sunny out”, “A door without a knob”, “Braces on a middle-aged man”, “Flowers growing in the caldera of a volcano”, “The captain’s parrot walking the plank”, “Watermelon pie”, - you catch my drift.
izkkp ebuaa zkdhp oudh… What could it mean? I wonder if it’s some sort of musical-
Click.
Click. Cassette whirring. Speed-up speech. Scratching of pen on paper.
Click.
Click.
-being followed. The same black dodge van showed up in my rearview twice as I was making detours on the way home. I also saw it beside the curb outside of the department store.
Naturally I anticipated a certain difficulty in distributing the message under my own terms. izkkp ebuaa zkdhp oudh. The letters make a sound like a bug light! They’re alluring. Anyone with three functioning neurons is going to notice the moment they spot them in any wilderness of text. I had hoped that my precautions at the station and the copy store would buy me a few days at least.
Man proposes… Finger snap. Maybe someone intercepted the signal.
I told Gary I was sick this morning. He sounded concerned. “Tom, I’d sooner expect to hear you say you were too sick to walk.” His concern may have been genuine. I told him I was planning on driving down to the hospital, just in case he’s watching. Just so he doesn’t get suspicious that I’m moving around.
But I’m not driving to the hospital, Angie. And I’m not driving to work. I’m going to take the Pinto out to Saylorville. I’ll drive around the city until I’m sure that van has lost me. Then I’m hitting US-66 and heading west until I hit LA. Shouldn’t take more than 24 hours. I have my copy of the printout of course. izkkp ebuaa zkdhp oudh. Oh, and I’ve got my agency credentials, plus about 1,100 in cash. That should at least open a door with a reputable network. Don’t you think?
Originally my intention was to spread the discovery through print. I realize now that television will reach more eyes and ears…
Angie, November 2nd, 10:00 a.m. Just left Saylorville after-
Click.
Click. Cassette whirring.
Click.
Click.
“-distinct and exclusive privilege of first discovery. Amundsen at the Northwest Passage, Lewis and Clark-” Actually, I don’t like that. First contact is bigger than any earthly discovery. And besides that, it sounds pompous. I wonder if they’d let me-
Click.
Click. Cassette whirring.
Click.
Click.
izkkp ebuaa zkdhp oudh. Humming. izkkp ebuaa zkdhp oudh. Long silence. Should I take out every vowel and reverse them in the text? Scratching pen. No, that just doesn’t look right. The original message - which still doesn’t make any sense - it’s almost beautiful. Pure as the sky from-
Truck honk.
Gosh. I’ve got to pay attention to the road. But I can’t seem to help my eyes from wandering back to the page. izkkp ebuaa zkdhp oudh. I’ve tried just saying it out loud over and over again, but the letters don’t evoke the same feeling (even imagined in my head) as they do when written out in ink on paper. Whatever it means, I’ve got to pass it on. I mean-
I just saw the Dodge again. Damn it! I won’t let the agency take this. Or whoever is following me. Could they be private? Maybe someone-
Click.
Click. Cassette whirring. Scratching pen.
Click.
Click.
Sound of wind, and a car engine thundering. izkkp ebuaa zkdhp oudh. Whooo! Angie, I’m booking it right back to the station. I forgot we had the broadcast frequency. I mean, it’s only radio, but if I can just tell people to write it out I’ll-
Click.
Click. Cassette whirring.
Click.
Click.
Another man’s voice: Mr. VanWoltersum, we only want to help you. But you-
Tom VanWoltersum: Shut up!
Other man: Mr. VanWoltersum, put down that gun please. Step away from the microphone.
Tom: Are you with the agency? You’ve got a wire in the studio, is that it?
Other Man: Mr. VanWoltersum, Tom, you are not yourself. It’s the message from outer space. Yours is not the first station that has received it.
Tom: Bullshit.
Other Man: The message acts as a trigger when you see it on paper. The code is filling you with adrenaline and anxiety.
Tom: You won’t steal or hide izkkp ebuaa zkdhp oudh. It’s mine to share, and I will share it.
Other Man: We’ve already cut the broadcast lines, Tom. We can help you, but you need to put-
Tom: You’re lying.
Chair squeal.
Tom: This is Tom VanWoltersum calling to-
Other Man: Tom! Stop!
Gunshots.
Silence.
Click.
Long pause. Click. Sound of reversed speech. Tape whirring.
Whirring.
Whirring.
Click.
Click.
Other man: Gary, this is special agent Lambert Stropp. We’ve had another one. Poor man. The agency will clean it up. Try to keep your dish pointed away from orion.
Lighter click. Inhale. Exhale.
Nothing we need to keep on this. I’ll leave it recording. Seeya round, Gary.
Receding footstep. Door shutting.
…
Click.
Thank you for reading. For more short fiction, visit the index.
I can't quite decide what's going on but its decidedly unsettling and I really wanted to know more. all good signs! it felt slightly incomplete but more from a sense of incongruity in the beginning section and then a sudden switch up in the action. i couldn't reconcile the whole. maybe im reading it too late and after too much Gin....