Solitary Encounter

By Annette Gagliardi

When I woke up, the electricity was off. I couldn’t get my computer online. After breakfast, I read a brief that had come in the mail, with new protocols for filing adjustments. My neighbors don’t regularly check in on me. I’m not that old, yet. I work from home, because I do financial planning. Customers fill out online forms and submit them for analysis, then I do a phone consult.

After a while, I noticed there had been no phone calls, no texts on my cell phone. I don’t mind being alone, but I usually connect with someone at some point in the day. Too often, I connect with customers who are quarrelsome or very demanding . . . . and at first, I was grateful for the quiet.

About three hours into the day, I tried to call a co-worker, but got no response. I went down the list of co-workers; called then texted everyone. No answer. I called my mother, but her phone was dead as the proverbial doornail. Not even the annoying robo-voice saying her phone was disconnected. I was beginning to wonder if anyone was out there.

I began feeling a bit shivery, so, I went upstairs and grabbed warmer socks, threw on shoes and put on a heavier sweater. Then I thought hot coffee and a walk would warm me up and possibly help me find someone . . . anyone.

I grabbed my wallet and headed for the coffee shop. As luck would have it, all the strip mall stores were shuttered and dark. No one puttered around inside. The feeling of being a singularity grew. My body shrunk inside my jacket. My ears felt fuzzy. Yet, the surrounding area stood out in stark relief like the screen image in a darkened theater.

Now’s not the time to panic, I told myself. No. I won’t panic. I decided to see if any neighbors where home. I knocked on first one door, then the next. No answer. No answer on any of the doors on my block. No answer on any door in the next block either. I called; looked in windows — became a regular Peeping Tom, to no avail. I could rouse not one person.

The streets were completely empty and silent. Only my steps echoed softly along the sidewalk as I walked, steeped in mystification at the lack of even a single vehicle. I live directly under the flight path to the MPLS international airport, yet today there were no airplanes ruining the quiet of the neighborhood. I stuck my fingers in my ears, giving a good rubbing. I tugged and massaged them. Still nothing. As I continued on, the leaden silence seemed curiouser and curiouser. It grew so large as to become deafening. The silence echoed off the houses and bashed my ears with its lack of sound. The air pressed, like a pair of hands against them. I reached up to find my ears were naked to the light and lack of sound. Nothing physical pressed against them, yet the pressure of silence was still there. My eyes as well, felt pressed against, yet there was nothing physically there.

I walked for hours along the city streets without seeing even one, single, solitary, individual — no groups of kids, no mother strolling her infant, no one playing in the park, no one walking a dog, no one in a car or on a bike, not even a squirrel chattering from the tree. No birds flew or chirped or hid in tree or bush. I seemed to be the lone inhabitant of my world. “Where has everyone gone?”

“I must be dreaming.” I thought. “That’s it. I’m dreaming.” But pinching myself did nothing to rouse me to a new consciousness. “Wake up!” I shouted to myself. Yet, even that pronouncement seemed inaudible. Slapping myself in the face hurt, but did nothing to spur more lucid consciousness. Morosely, I continued walking, turning my path toward home. I was grateful to have a warm, safe place to return. I resolved to round up the candles and a book of matches to be ready for an evening reading the latest novel.

Then I saw them. The dog, a lean wolf-hound perhaps, or a tall version of a setter, closely shorn

with a grey coat and white muzzle. It loped along, shining flanks and lanky ears moving fluidly.

Its owner, tall and lean as well, wearing a grey hoodie, lead the dog by a long, narrow leash — the kind that can be let out and then retracked with a click of a button. Dog and master, matching and methodically moving forward across the street and away from me. The concert of their movement so coalescent as to be one entity.

I called, but the dog did not perk up. I called again; then a third time. Yet, I persisted, hurrying to catch up with them, so happy was I to encounter someone in this world that had become so solitary. I gained ground and eventually stopped alongside of them.

As they turned my way, dog salivating slightly, I was stopped in my stead, still as a street sign.

My mind reeled. What I saw was inconceivable. There was only a dimly lit screen where a face should be. No facial features — merely a blank screen.

“Surely, I am dreaming!” The oval face shone but was empty of image. The form stood at some form of attention, as if waiting for a command. The dog, as well, stood stock still. It breathed, as drops of drool slid down it’s jowls and landed on the cement sidewalk. No sound did those drops make. No sound at all.

I wasn’t sure if I should run away or continue standing there. Then I heard just two small words. Yet in this immense quiet, audible enough for me to hear, “Password Please.”

992 words.