Like a Tsunami Barreling Toward the Shore

The ultimatum that Will’s fiancé, Leslie, had given him wasn’t sincere, and he knew this. Really, it was more of a nudge, an encouragement to push past whatever the fuck it was which rendered him incapable of accomplishing such a rudimentary task. Shit, even small children with their limitless imaginations and even grander terrors have an easier time with this than poor old Will. But sincere or not, Will was determined to take it with the utmost severity.

“It’s not that big of a deal. A lot of people fall asleep watching TV,” Leslie said, standing at her side of the bed, rubbing lotion on her legs and arms.

Will shook his head, sitting down on his side of the mattress. “Yeah, but most people can turn off their TV before going to sleep. I can’t. I need it playing in the background. Like, I genuinely need it.”

Leslie said, “No, you don’t need it.”

But I really do, he thought. And this was true. If Will so much as had the notion to forego his nightly ritual of scanning the numerous streaming services—for which he was forking out around a hundred bucks a month—in search of something to put on in the background as he drifted off to dreamland, the pores on his skin would ooze cold, sticky sweat and his mouth would go drier than the shed skin of a snake after sitting under the Mojave sun for a few days. And then there was the distant, muffled sound that crept into his ears. A dull, rolling noise, like standing on the shore of a beach, watching a tsunami barrel its way toward you. Unmenacing though it appears, it carries on its shoulders the inevitability of your forthcoming annihilation. Will suppressed a shudder just thinking about it.

“It’s just a bad habit you need to break,” Leslie said.

But Will was not a novice at breaking bad habits. He’d broken many, arguably worse, bad habits over the years. He’d quit smoking. Despite having never been a morning person, he trained himself to wake up at the asscrack of dawn and hit the gym every day. He’d even managed to  put on a solid ten pounds of muscle. Not bad, big dog. Hell, he’d even gone an entire year without a single drop of alcohol after he and the rest of Western civilization drowned themselves in booze as the world incinerated during COVID.

“I feel fucking stupid.”

Leslie examined the overwhelmingly pathetic way Will’s face sank as he said this. “Maybe you just haven’t had the right motivation.”

“I’m all ears.”

Leslie said, “Go to bed without the TV on, or I’ll leave you. I’ll marry someone else and start a family with them. How’s that?”

Will gawked at his fiancè. She’d always been so much smarter than him, and he loved her deeply for this. “You’re a goddamn genius,” he said, beaming.

“Now you are being fucking stupid.”

His idiotic smile grew wider.

“Will, I’m just kidding.”

He vaulted over the mattress, grabbed her waist and pulled her back down onto their bed. He kissed her hard, running his fingers up her thighs, taking a handful of her ass. “Maybe it is stupid,” he said, “but I think it’s a great idea. I’ll convince myself that if I don’t get over this, you’ll leave me.” Will kissed Leslie’s neck and told her that when she visited her sister over the weekend, he’d kick this thing for good.

 

Will doesn’t sleep the first night Leslie’s gone. He can’t. He has, however, been steadfast in his refusal to turn on the television. Baby steps. Instead, he masturbates once or twice. Okay, he masturbates four times. Better to crank some hog than go back on his word—right, folks?

On the second night, Will lies beneath the sheets, hopelessly unable to shutter his eyelids no matter how fiercely he begs them. He is visited by a thought that he is not alone. That someone else, someone unseen is occupying the same space as him. He quickly assures himself that such thoughts are merely a byproduct of sleeplessness. That there is no one else with him. That he is perfectly fine. Best not lose your shit, big dog.

So, now, on night three, here sits our boy at the edge of his bed, beat with exhaustion, staring at the seventy-six-inch Samsung 4K UHD LED HDR Smart TV hanging above the mid-century dresser, holding the remote control in his hand and speaking words of encouragement to himself like: This is not that hard, dipshit; Just go to bed like a normal human being, jackass; and the ever-so-uplifting, You’re a fucking moron. He raises the remote to turn on the tube, then drops it into his lap. He raises it, then drops it. Raises, then drops. Raise. Drop. Raise. Drop. Raise. Drop.

Expelling a deep sigh, he shakes his head and surveys his reflection on the empty screen above him. “If this is so fucking easy, why can’t I do it?” he asks.

Why, indeed? He’s long since been removed from such childish fears as the dark or the boogeyman or ghosts or whatever dangerous monsters may lurk in the shadows. In fact, he finds those sorts of things entertaining. Big fan of horror films, this guy. No, this is something else. This isn’t fear. This transcends fear. Is there a word for what transcends fear? If there is, big dog, this is exactly it. And our boy, Will, is smack dab in the middle of that unknown word right fucking now. As he glares into the Samsung, that low rumbling sound slithers up his back and into his ears. A voice (or voices) whispers to him. It’s too low to make out what it is this voice or voices are saying, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it ain’t Happy fucking Birthday. No, sir, these are not warm words of lovers and friends. These words are enmity and hostility and misery. The sound expands and strengthens so greatly that Will’s head feels as though it’s being crushed under the back tires of a big rig. His eyes roll back until there is nothing but a tapestry of blood vessels, each one on the brink of bursting, sprawled across a canvas of white. And there our boy goes. Watch him as he falls, falls, falls, falls, falls…

 

With great effort, Will raises his eyelids just enough to discern exactly where he is.

Good news: He’s still at home, stretched out atop the baby blue down comforter of his and Leslie’s bed with his head propped up on a couple of pillows. The bedroom is quiet. Moonlight travels through small cracks in the blinds draping down from the single hung window to Will’s left. The vanity lights are still on in their bathroom, illuminating the floor. He sees all this both from the corners of his eyes and in the reflection on the TV screen. All is as it should be. Sitting up, however, is an entirely different story.

Bad news: Will is unable to move. Not a single muscle in his body, except for his eyes, of course (because of fucking course, right?), bend to his will. Not even an eensy bit.

“Baby’s awake,” a rough, shrill voice says. “Baby’s awake. Baby’s awake. Baby’s awake. My little baby-waby is finally awake for Mommy. I missed you, baby.”

Worse news: You’re not alone, big dog.

Will tries to exorcise his vocal cords of any sound whatsoever. He’s shit out of luck. His pupils bounce like pinballs, searching for the voice calling out as Baby’s Mommy. Will watches as the silhouette of a woman standing at his bedside slowly leans over, coming within inches of his face. Mommy sensed her baby was looking for her. Will feels tears rolling across his cheeks, his heart pounding inside with more horsepower than any muscle car Vin Diesel can shoot into space, and possibly (definitely) a whole lot of piss hosing down his thighs.

Mommy’s face is the color of slate and covered from forehead to chin in tiny pustules that ooze yellow and green. A crooked, joyless smile stretches across the entire width of her face. Inside her mouth, thick crimson drips along the rim where brown teeth meet black gum.

“Where do you go when you dream, my baby?” she asks, licking the thin skin of her upper lip with a bone-dry tongue. “Stay here with Mommy.”

Behind her, another silhouette materializes. From it barks a voice that sounds to Will like a wet garbage disposal. “Is that my boy? Let me see my boy.” Mommy obliges and steps aside. “Oh, Daddy missed his boy while he was sleeping,” it says.

And here we meet Daddy. As wide as he is tall, with the same gray, pustulated skin as Mommy. But where Mommy’s face is long and sharp, Daddy’s is round and flat, and within his smile there is a black hole that promises the destruction of all it consumes. Daddy’s home.

“Mommy, baby looks hungry, don’t you think?” he asks.

Will pleads with every higher power he can think of to give him the strength to move, run, fight, anything, Jesus fucking Christ, please! I don’t want to die, he screams inside the empty room of his mind.

Mommy shoves Daddy to the side. He growls at her, drool foaming at the corners of his hollow mouth. She hisses, “Baby needs to eat.” Daddy reclaims his composure and gives Mommy her space.

Our boy, Will, is a motionless meat bag soaking in his piss on that beautiful baby blue down comforter. His horror crescendos as Mommy unbuttons her blouse and removes a large breast enveloped in a spiderweb of black veins. In the center of her breast, where a nipple should be, is a large, inflamed skinfold. She squeezes it, expelling a discharge that looks like soggy, uncooked bread dough and smells like rotten fruit. The odor floods Will’s nostrils, causing him to gag and choke. Mommy sits on the bed and moves her breast slowly toward his face. The sludge fills Will’s mouth instantly. He gags with such force that something in his throat pops. Tears fill his eyes so completely that the world now appears underwater. He prays to drown. He prays for it all to just fucking end. For the angel of death to wrap its cold, dead arms around him and carry him off to that sweet darkness that awaits us all.

Mommy pulls her breast out of Will’s mouth. Discharge drips from the fold in wet clumps. She scowls as baby spits up his supper. Mommy lifts the sack of flesh attached to her chest and shoves it back into her blouse. “You ungrateful little shit! You pathetic little cunt! You fucking little cunt!” Moving away from the bed, Mommy turns to Daddy whose open cave of a mouth now droops down to the middle of his neck. “He needs to be changed, Daddy,” she tells him.

Daddy waddles over to Will’s side and begins removing Will’s clothes.

In the distance, Will hears Mommy screaming maniacly. “Ungrateful cunt! Ungrateful cunt! Fucking little shit! Fucking shit!”

“You’re bad,” Daddy says. “A bad boy. You’re a bad boy. Making Mommy so, so angry.”

From the pit of his soul, Will screams silently, Kill me! Kill me! Please, Jesus, kill me! 

“Dirty boy,” Daddy mumbles. He removes Will’s shorts, stained now with piss and shit, and smears it across Will’s face. “Dirty, filthy, ungrateful little boy! I ought to snip that little prick right off of you.”

I want to die. I want to die. I need to die. I need to die. 

Mommy stands over Daddy’s shoulder, watching Daddy fingerpaint Will’s face with excrement. She laughs.

Please kill me. I need to die. 

Mommy’s neck lengthens like a Jack jumping out of the box. She bounces in Will’s face, screaming and laughing and screaming and laughing. Daddy’s mouth expands, covering the entirety of where his face should be. From it comes that sound, like the tsunami barreling toward the shore. Blood dribbles out of Will’s ears.

I need to die. Please, God. 

His eyes scan furiously around the room. There’s no sense in searching for help. That ship has long-since sailed, big dog. He knows this, though. Consider it a reflex. As he continues searching, Will becomes vaguely cognizant of something in his hand. He’d forgotten it was there. His television remote. And look at that, his thumb is already on the Power button. With every ounce of grit and strength and balls and desperation, Will forces his thumb down, down, down. A faint click is heard from inside the seventy-six inch Samsung 4K UHD LED HDR Smart TV followed by an explosion of white light so sharp that it knocks Will off the bed.

And there goes our boy again. Watch him as he falls, falls, falls, falls, falls…

 

“Baby,” a voice says. “Baby, wake up.”

Will cracks open his eyelids. As the figure above him, shrouded in morning light, comes into focus, a calm washes over him. Leslie.

“Looks like you kicked it,” she says. “The TV, I mean.”

Will searches for words. None come.

“That’s good news, baby. I’m really proud of you.” She kisses him on his forehead.

“I missed you,” Will croaks. His throat feels like it’s been set on hot coals overnight.

“I missed you. Do you want to hear some more good news?” she asks.

“I’m all ears.”

She sits back, adjusting herself as she straddles him. “You and I are gonna be a mommy and a daddy.”

A distant, dull sound like a tsunami barreling toward the shore fills Will’s ears.

* This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are producs of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.