Delayed Reaction
It’s a good thing Virgil doesn’t react to the knock on the door and squeeze the trigger. Because, well, because his head would be on the kitchen wall. Virgil has to admire the irony. He is sitting in the kitchen with a fully loaded gun resting on his bottom teeth. It isn’t a series of events that has brought him to this. It is a series of nothing. Not even really a series. More like a wave. A giant wave of static nothingness slowly devouring his sanity.
No friends. No conversation. No laughter. No visitors.
This knock on the door is the first knock he’s heard since moving into his apartment two years ago. Roughly. Somewhat bemused, he puts the gun in the refrigerator and walks to the door. Opening it, he is stunned. There are five girls backed out into the hall.
“Hello,” he stammers.
“Hi,” a blond girl in the front says. She looks to be at least seventeen or eighteen. The rest look younger. They all look delicious. “We’re from the Springdale chapter of the Daughters in Christ Brigade. Mind if we come in?”
“No. Not at all. Please do.”
Virgil steps aside and motions them over to the beaten couch. They all sit down in a militant line, their skirts riding up as they cross their legs.
“You ladies care for a drink?”
“No thanks,” they all reply in unison.
“Well, then, I’m just gonna go get myself a drink.”
He walks into the kitchen and stands frozen for a few minutes. He can hear them talking in the other room.
“It’s so bare and… and run down.”
“Isn’t he ugly?”
“My goodness, he smells.”
“What do you think he uses in his hair?”
“Did you see his shirt?”
Virgil looks at his shirt. A few holes here and there. A grease spot or two. Damn, he’s buttoned it up all wrong.
He puts some ice in a cup and runs some water from the tap, walks into the family room and sits in the chair across from the couch. The chair looks like rats have tried to eat it.
The oldest blond who answered the door starts talking but he’s long since lost himself in the blue of her eyes. They sparkle with complete emptiness. Then he looks at her legs. From where she has recrossed them he can see a lingering red spot on one of her calves.
The time flies by and he tunes in to hear her say: “All we need you to do is sign right here and we’ll be by later in the week to drop off some of our literature.”
“Oh, sure,” he says, shaky hands reaching out for the pen and paper.
“Thank you, Mr… Bentley?” She tries to read his signature from the paper.
“Bunting.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bunting,” she says and leads them out the door. The apartment is still filled with their collective scent. It’s light and beautiful. He hasn’t smelled anything like that in a very long time.
Good, he thinks, they’ll be back.
Virgil goes out the next day and buys an entire used suit. He is careful to make sure there aren’t any stains or tears in it. He shaves, clips all of his nails, tears the hair from his nose and takes four showers a day.
For the next three days, he sits around in his suit, graying hair combed, and waits for the girls to return.
On the evening of the third day, he hears a knock on the door.
It has to be them. Virgil doesn’t even know anyone else. He eagerly crosses the room and opens the door. There are only three of them this time, but the older one is still there. All of them carry pamphlets and register a look of surprise at the new Virgil.
“Have a seat,” he invites them.
They do so, sitting in the same semi-militant formation.
“Lemonade?”
“Sure,” they say.
Already, Virgil can sense they feel more comfortable around him.
He enters the kitchen and pours the lemonade, sporting a semi-erection.
As he begins walking toward the living room, he stops, holds his head, and then bursts into flame, the lemonade in the glasses lighting to a boil before the glasses fall to the floor, nothing left to hold them. From his torso up, he has exploded, the rest of him burnt down to a charred stalk.
After their intitial surprise, the girls walk over to his remains.
“Oooooh, are those pieces of his brain on the wall?”
“My goodness, he’s all black!”
“Oh, can you smell the stink?”
