Real

  "So they don't want to do the same thing."

  "It’s not only that. There's something called compassion fatigue. I didn’t hear about it until just know. The way it was explained to me, people feel bad about something for so long, and then they get tired of feeling bad about it. They don’t want to give a shit any more. And if something else bad happens, and you’re like, hey, what about bad thing A? They get turned off completely."

  Sam hung up on the agent without another word. When his phone started to vibrate with another incoming call, he turned it off. He felt sick to his stomach again. This had been a regular condition since returning to Ohio, feeling nauseous or crying suddenly for no reason. Or for too many reasons, really, if he was being honest with himself.

  Writing the book had felt like a violation. The original book had felt like a partnership with Jesse, and with the other Veterans he had interviewed. The new work felt as if he were raping his corpse. He had done it because, in his heart of hearts, he wanted to hurt the man. He wanted to make him pay for ruining his life, to a degree anyway, although Sam still wasn’t sure if or how Jesse had put the message on the computer that had driven Lena away. And it wasn’t slander, not really, because the facts of what Jesse had done were visible to the entire world, and had been reported by the national media for months on end.

  But when it came right down to it, Jesse was just another psychopath hell bent on a bloody end, in the eyes of everyone else, and such people were nearly interchangeable these days. Sam felt as though he had sold his soul for nothing. Or nearly nothing, anyway, he had hung up the phone before he had the opportunity to ask the agent if the publisher would want the advance returned. That could be a real problem, if it came to that. He would have to get a day job, and what the hell did he qualify for, anyway?

  Sam looked around the one-bedroom efficiency apartment. He had left all the furniture back at the condo. There was an air mattress on the floor of the bedroom, and a card table where he sat at the computer. The room was drafty enough so that he had to wear a coat full time, in the winter. He was renting out the apartment in Santa Monica, mostly because due to the economy he would have had to sell at a loss. If he could even sell at all. As far as he knew, Lena still had a key, and if she wanted to she could even let herself back in.

  The Lena document was still on the computer. He had thought about deleting everything, burning all the notebooks, and forgetting the entire thing. He had almost had done that very thing, when a new phrase revealed itself, below the bold type that could not be erased on the word document

  Lena was pregnant

  Which caused Sam to shiver with apprehension, and something else. Maybe joy. She was still there, at least. The words proved that she was still there, and that she was not a product of Sam's imagination. When he stared at the words he thought of them as a message. Lena had obviously done other things since leaving him, and been other places. But maybe, just maybe she had chosen to share this moment with him. Even if she didn’t do it consciously, even if she only thought I want Sam to know. Now she was going to have a child. Sam realized that it might be his baby, after all. There was no getting around it. With the laptop he was now responsible for two lives. He felt a deep ache in his chest, and wetness clogged his eyes until the tears spilled down his cheeks. What if she would get an abortion? Or give the baby away? She had been single, after all, when she left him. With no job or money to speak of. He had no idea how she got by day to day, with the simple business of survival. But maybe she had a man. Someone good and fair, who would treat her right and provide for her future. If not maybe she would come back to him, and Sam could apologize, and more than apologize, do the right thing. Treat her like someone real, instead of a creation. A creation implied property, and Sam no longer wanted to possess Lena. Instead he simple wanted her presence.

  But when Sam regained control of his emotions he went out to Best Buy and bought a small hard drive. He backed up the Lena file and all its writing, just in case the computer would short out one day, or become infected with a virus. A week later and he did better than that, Sam disconnected the laptop from the internet and bought a new machine, to allay that fear. Going above and beyond he printed out every page of the Lena file, and bound them together at the bottom of a thick cardboard box. It was a manuscript he never intended to sell, or read again.

  Merrell Michael

  Beaumont, Texas May 2014