EXCERPT

The Silence

For the fourth day in a row, Robert Whyte woke with a gasp. Each morning was always the same as the one before. Gray light of dawn filtered through thick bedroom curtains. The duvet covering him clung to his body like heavy bread dough. Today, it was even more of a struggle getting out of bed. He squirmed, wriggling free of the hardening cocoon formed by the bedclothes. They had the

weight of cement. He wondered if he would be able to manage it tomorrow.

Tomorrow always came—always the same, but always different. Of course, nothing worked, that was the one constant. Light switches could not be flipped. Water faucets were frozen shut. Doors could not be opened or closed. and then there was the silence—not just silence—but a total absence of sound. For some inexplicable reason, the entire world had simply stopped. Suspended in one single moment of purgatory, he feared he might be forced to endure this deafening silence throughout eternity.

It really had started about a week ago, when his world abruptly changed. He had been an architect living in a Malibu beach house in 1957. Then he was a bionic technician in the year 2138. Now, his home was a high-rise condo in 2001, but he had no idea what he did for a living. Perhaps he had gone mad. That would explain everything! The scene beyond the open doors leading to the balcony attested to that.

Sheets of rain fell. Actually, the raindrops didn’t fall. They merely hung in the air, forming thin, glassy rods. A lone gull hovered in the sky, wings locked in a perpetual down-stroke. Worst of all was the gaping hole and the glaring white light that shone through it. He’d done that yesterday. In a fit of panic, he’d lashed out at the rain with flailing arms and it had broken. The drops had shattered, evaporating into nothing.

Then, a crack formed in the air where the raindrops had been. It raced in an arc, forming other jagged tributaries while an intense white light bled through. Then, pieces of reality fell into themselves, leaving an unnerving breach. The light from within was blinding. This was when he realized that, as insane as the notion was, the scene beyond his railing had to be a backdrop. The eight floors down to the street were an illusion. When he reached out again and tentatively touched the lower edge of the gap, more of it fell away.

Today, the void was still there. Not wanting to, he stepped onto the balcony. As he did, the entire streetscape beyond the railing crumbled, imploding to a black dot, which also vanished. Now, only the dazzling white light remained. Nearly blinded, eyes streaming, he forced himself to look into the light.

Black letters slowly became visible, floating in the glare. Suddenly, Robert Whyte had all the information that he would ever need. The concrete floor beneath him dissolved as he read: FILE DELETED.