A Touch of the Unknown (Short Stories)

Call It in the Air

It all started as I was walking home from the Burger Kid and spotted a Kennedy half-dollar in the dirt by the sidewalk. Naturally, I stopped to pick it up, but when I reached down to grab it my fingers seemed to slip straight through the coin as if it were liquid. I immediately doubted what had just happened, of course, and then considered the possibility that I had just touched a pool of mercury.

Before I continue I feel that I should comment on how easy it is to dismiss our own experiences at the first sign that they don't mesh with what we already know. This is something I've thought about a lot since then, and at the time it was definitely a factor. Anyway, why there would even be a pool of mercury in the dirt by the donut shop wasn't something I really considered.

I inspected the shiny liquid and watched as it seemed to wobble around in place, then, much to my surprise, it actually began to move across the dirt. It almost seemed to move like an octopus moves underwater, extending an arm and grabbing hold of something before pulling its body forward, though it was more like a little stream formed each time and then it pooled into the next spot. Honestly I don't know why I did what I did next, but I think maybe I just didn't want to doubt myself later on. I poured out my soda and stooped down to scoop it up in the cup. It seemed to stop as I did this and more or less pooled like any liquid into the cup. I put the cover on and continued walking home, already doubting my sanity after about the third step. I was sure that I had just scooped up about half a cup of mercury. Vague thoughts of drinking the liquid flashed through my mind.

By the time I got home I had convinced myself that the liquid was symbolic somehow. It was the alchemically purified form of everything that had gone wrong in my life, somehow leading up to my scooping up toxic substances in a Burger Kid cup.

When I got home I set the cup on the coffee table and forgot about it as I checked my accounts online. Now, I've never been particularly organized--let's just put it like that--so I didn't even notice until later on that the lid had fallen off somehow. Looking inside, I saw that the strange liquid was gone. My first thought was that this was the wrong cup. My second was that I had imagined the whole thing somehow. Still, I thought it would be a good idea to look around the coffee table, wondering the whole time how hard it would be to find a toxic waste cleanup crew on a Sunday.

Somehow, the strange liquid seemed to have disappeared.

I went on with my night. I started a movie and managed to put the strange happenings out of my mind. Nothing happened until the movie ended and I reached for the remote. When I picked it up I felt the strange liquid stuff pouring out of my hand. I dropped the remote and stared in confusion as the metallic liquid seemed to melt off of the remote and pool onto the coffee table. I could see it kind of wobbling in place like before, and then it began moving across the table; very slowly, though.

I jumped back. My hand seemed fine but the strange feeling of the liquid sent chills up my spine. It was revolting, kind of like accidentally picking up a sea slug except it was even colder. I watched as the blob thing seemed to stop at the edge of the table before moving back toward the center, then it stopped again and began to wobble in place. Suddenly it began to glow. This wasn't a uniform glow, mind you. It seemed like there were many small points of light glowing from the inside.

Suddenly, the TV went off. The room went dark since the room light was already off. I found myself staring for a brief moment at the strange thing glowing on the table before I made a dash for the light switch. The TV flicked on and off a few times in quick succession.

"Well, fuck..." was all I could say.

This had to be some kind of sea creature, I thought. How it got to where I found it was anyone's guess, though I reasoned that it might have lived in an aquarium before its owner dumped it there. Wouldn't it have died being out of the water for so long, though?