700 WAYS

The drain started making noise again. I fitted my head between the little green spouts of speed rack bottles thrust upwards where the wood bar juts out. My chin scraped against the dried alcohol on the tips. The noise was there.

A weird wurring, like an engine starting sounded A wet engine. Gurgling, soppy. I push my ear as close into the sink as it can get. I’m thinking the sound could be the old pipes of the building. I’m thinking a trash collectors truck lodged outside in a snow bank. Or something else. But the smell of the cleaning solvent burns my nostrils and my eyes water.

The soppy wurring gurgles. I can almost make out a voice.

—No, that’s crazy.—

It’s definitely coming from the drain.

I hear the door open and I pop up from the bar.

I can’t see anything at first. The snow outside glows from the clear cloudless day and when the door opens the reflection of the suns’ rays block out the figure that walked in through the door.

I can’t quite make anything out. The door closes behind, cutting out the light. But I already know it’s a woman by the way her boot heels clack on the wood floor.

My eyes adjust and I see her clear. She leans up on the bar, her two black long sleeved elbows dig into the lip of the bar, and pulls back her hood. Big green eyes followed by the hair spilling down her shoulder, mussed from the wind outside. She sees me noticing her. She laughs and brushes her hair out of her face. She has the kind of teeth I like, white and clean and perfect. They look like little buttons lined evenly against each other.

I don’t hear the wurring anymore.

“It’s actually nice outside,” she says.

“I’m in the dark today,” I say, raising out my arms.

“I can see that,” she says.

“Bad news though,” I say.

She lets those rows gleam.

I try not to stare.

“What’s that?” She asks.

“We’re not open yet,” I tell her.

Her eyebrows furrow. She points to the door.

“Bu your door was open.”

“My mistake. I forgot to lock it.”

She straightens up.

“You’re Victor, right?”

“I am.”

“Well, anyway, I don’t want a drink. I have something for you.”

The woman brings up from her pocket a small little box no bigger than an egg. She places it right on the bar. Tucking up her hair, replacing her hood, her little green eyes gleam and her lips peel back to reveal her teeth, she grins.

I’m confused. “What is this?”

“Something to remember me by,” she says over her shoulder and she’s gone. The door opens, the whole bar showers with light, all reflections from the sun high above and closes behind her. Her boot heels echo outside as the darkness returns.

As does the gurgling.

I stare down at the rusted drain, still mucked by squeezed limes and lemons. The soppy sound almost makes words out through the dirty drain grate.

That’s impossible.

No, crazy.

Or something else.

-

In my room, alone now, in the quiet, I flip my desk lamp on. The small beam sprays down a cone of light in the center, right around this industrial grade white pill.

This was the marking etched onto its side. In all research online there was nothing in Pillfinder or Pharmacom that matches or even comes close. I bring the pill close to my eye.

No note in the box. No message. Just this little pill rolling around in the box like a baby’s rattle.

I thought it was some piece of metal, or a marble.

And how did she know my name? Or where to find even me if she did?

That was a couple hours back. Now staring at the pill, things have changed. I considered the properties of this pill long before my glass of whiskey. And after the third one. And then the beers. And after some dull television. And after checking my email. And now I’m back to looking at the pill, staring back at me.

I take it. Right to the back of my throat. I swallow the thing and feel it go down my throat. I drink beer to wash out the bitterness, and then I sit and stare out of my window. New snow is falling. The limbs of the trees are like white coated straw hairs sprouting from the heavy brown trunks.

The feeling starts in the gut. A overwhelming sensation of vomit. But it doesn’t last. The indigestion fades and is replaced by odd warmth. The bottom of my spine fills with a warm liquid and I push my chest hard against the desk to see if I still have feeling and then rest my head down by the little box and my eyes are heavy and I don’t think about any of that anymore.

-

The woman is serious. She doesn’t show me her teeth like I want her to because she does not smile. Her hair is over me now and I feel her hands. They are cold, professional hands like a doctor’s, as they hold my mouth closed and I push myself harder into her. And there’s no gurgling sound in the bar now, just her panting and pushing back at me.

No two objects can occupy the same place at the same time.

This pushing is relentless in the back of the bar on the dirty floor. I feel the heat of my blood.           I hear her breath rushing through those solid white teeth and the sound of her speaking between the breaths is now seven different tracks all starting at different times, crossing over each other as our legs are pinned to the floor together. I feel myself push into her one last time with all of my strength and the soppy wurring from the drain returns and fills the whole bar echoing off the shadowed walls surround us.

She whispers, right in my ear:

“You don’t know where you are and you never will.”

-

I clean out the drains. The water down within the drain is black and thick. I stick my finger into the drain hole and out comes this black substance slopped on my fingertip. The sound has been gone for some time. Now this substance is creeping up the drain, bubbling through the drain sifter. I run hot scalding water on the black mass and it does nothing. I hear a sound again. This is the same sound from before, but now the gurgling moans out from the walls of the bar. I look back at the black clump of polyps, and start to get my coat on to leave when the door opens to the bar. The light blows out from the reflective snow and I see the figure walk in into the bar and I know from the sound of the boot heels on the wood just exactly who it is and what she has for me. And she does not smile or place her hand hard over my mouth.

She just says, walking up to the bar, digging her black sleeved elbows into the lip, revealing again the line of button white teeth.

“This is for you, Victor.”

There is the small box on the counter between us.

I think I remember the pill and know what it’s in the small box.

She smiles, finally like I want her to and the soppy wurring begins again, echoing, over and over. I stare down at the egg-shaped box. This time I don’t have to shake it by my ear to know what’s in the box or what it will do when it is inside of me.