Yellow
Calling Jen was the only thing I could do. After all, she was there when I got the damn thing. I couldn’t talk to anyone else; Jen was the only other person that knew I had it. Talking to anyone else on the crew would mean admitting that I stole something from the dig site.
Still not sure why I pocketed it in the first place. It wasn’t very extraordinary — nothing about it seemed eye catching, or to stand out, really. It was fairly plain: smooth and glassy, dark, almost pitch, black, and gently round, like a pebble found at the bottom of a stream. It was slightly cool to the touch and fit snugly and comfortably in my palm.
I had found it inside the ancient bungalow Jen and I were assigned to today. There it was, lying unassumingly under an aluminum pre-fab table. I picked it up and stared at it, admiring its endless contour and glassy, yet non-reflective surface; I must have been looking at it for a while because I caught Jen staring at me out of the corner of my eye with an odd look on her face. She snapped me out of whatever thing I was in.
“Paul, you here? We should get to work.” She gestured at the stone in my hand. “What is that thing?”
“Oh, I, uh, I’m not sure, actually,” I managed, as I looked back down at it, wondering why I had found it so enthralling.
“Can I see it?”
“Oh, uhm, it’s nothing, really, just a rock. It’s nothing.” I attempted to shake my head dismissively and nonchalantly. I think I was less than convincing. She gave me that same odd look again and turned away, going toward the kitchen to poke through the cabinets. When she turned away, without thinking, I stuffed the rock in my pocket. She turned back.
“I saw that! I don’t care what you found, I really don’t, but we can’t take anything. Put it back.” I started to deny and object, like a child caught making a mess. “Paul. I’m serious. Put. It. Back.” She looked at me for a moment, but I didn’t move, unsure of what to say. “Look, we have no idea what happened here, ok? Anything could potentially be a clue, at best, or, at worst, contaminated with something. We need to leave it here. Or, if you think it might be important, we need to get an iso kit and seal it up before we take it back to the ship.”
I stared at her for a moment, then: “I…really, it’s just a rock.” She stared back, concerned, then finally gave up.
“Fine. But if anyone else finds you with it, I don’t know about it. Got it?”
“Yeah, sure.”
And now, in my cabin, it was glowing a bright, neon yellow. I had to call Jen.
I called Jen on the intercom. She had been asleep and answered groggily. “Yeah?”
“Jen, hey, listen — ”
“This better be important.”
“Yeah, no, I know, I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t — ”
“Just get to the point, yeah?”
“My rock is glowing. I need your help.”
She was speechless for a second. “You know, you’ve had some bad ones, but that has to be the weirdest line to use for a booty call I have ever heard. I’m almost impressed. But, no. The answer is no, and the answer will always be — ”
“No, listen, I’m serious. The rock. The one I took from the site today.”
“The black one?”
“Yeah, well, I mean…It used to be black.”
The whole cabin was awash in a neon yellow glow. The battleship grey bulkheads softened the light, and made it look like a nebulous aura — like what I imagined the inside of the Sun to look like when I was a child.
Jen had the rock in her hand, turning it over and running her fingers over it. The glow from the rock beamed over her face, and, with her eyes alight with the pure curiosity reserved for those moments you remember “why you got into this business in the first place”, made her seem fairly angelic. She had on the expedition-assigned shipwear, glorified sweats with the ship logo and “CSV Haumea” plastered over them. Despite the ill-fitting outfit, her frame was still apparent. As she sat there, the glow of curiosity alight on her face by the grace of the rock, I couldn’t help but notice her shape: her legs, her waist, her chest, her…it’s amazing, how, after all these years, and everything she and I have been through — the divorce, least of which — I can still sometimes find her physically attractive, seductive in a way. I had been staring. She was calling my name.
“Paul! Listen. We have to tell Dr. Howe.” I didn’t say anything. “Paul. Dr. Howe. We have to tell him. Come on, let’s go.”
“No! I mean — I can’t. Look, let’s just put in a box, and I’ll bring it back tomorrow, or toss it somewhere outside the settlement. Dr. Howe can’t know I took it. I’d be off the dig. There’s no way I’d be able to complete my doctorate in time. I — ”
“Paul,” she looked at me sternly, and I have never seen her so serious in my entire life. “I really don’t give a shit.”
I’m not sure exactly what happened next, but all I remember was standing over her body, blood oozing from a gash in the side of her head, and holding the rock in my right hand. I watched the glow fade from neon to a pale, sickly yellow, then to nothing. The room went dark.
I slipped the rock into my pocket and discreetly opened the hatch to the corridor. My cabin was at the end of the crew quarters, so I had to walk past every other cabin — including Dr. Howe’s — to get out of there. I had to get out of there. If they found me with Jen’s body, there’d be no real investigation, no real mystery. Ex-lovers, alone in a cabin at night, one’s dead, you know the rest: I’d be put in the brig then blown out of the airlock when we broke atmosphere on the way home. Definitely wouldn’t finish that doctorate.
I walked briskly, but not noticeably fast through the corridor. I was almost at the end, almost to the airlock, when I heard a hatch open up behind me.
“Paul! Hey, Paul!” It was Karen. Perky and over-eager as always, even at 2 am. “I heard someone pacing back and forth through the corridor and thought I’d check it out. Whatcha doin’?”
I took a moment to collect myself. “Pacing?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. Back and forth, back and forth.”
“I wasn’t, I was just headed out — ”
“Where ya goin’?”
“Oh, well, couldn’t really sleep, you know, was going to take a walk around, outside.”
“I thought we couldn’t leave the ship at night. Can you do that? Can I go with you? I want to go outside.”
Dammit, Karen, I thought, it’s 2 am. Why are you awake? I was starting to get annoyed. “Uh, well, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Look, our secret, ok? You just stay here.”
“What? Fuck that, I’m coming with. Let me get my jacket.” She turned back into her cabin, but left the hatch slightly open. I quickly followed her inside and closed the hatch behind me. She turned and looked at me, surprised. The room started to glow a faint, sickly yellow.
I remember Karen’s hands flailing and beating the side of my head as I had my arm around her throat. I clamped down harder, trying to avoid her hands. I looked around the room for something I could tie her hands with, but everything took on a jagged and nightmarish shape in the intense neon yellow glow.
Suddenly, Karen got solid footing and managed to push back with her legs. I felt my head connect with the frame of her bunk, sharp and flooding pain filling my body as I fell to the floor. As I slumped down at the foot of the bunk, the rock slipped out of my pocket to my side. Karen didn’t see — she had run out of the room. The glow began to fade. I blacked out.
I woke up for a moment, everything hazy, with the entire crew standing around me. Karen was shaking and screaming. Hans was trying to calm her down and keep her away from me. Dr. Howe was confused and flabbergasted. Someone was leaning over me, checking the back of my head. She leaned back. It was Jen, completely clean and unhurt. She looked me in the eye, then reached down and picked up the rock. She slipped it in her pocket and stood up. I blacked out again.
As Jen was walking out of the brig after having locked me in, I saw her pocket start to glow a bright, neon yellow.
Robert W Loughlin is the manager of The Spring House and author of the serial Chapel on the Hill. For more, visit his website or follow him on Instagram.
