Vanishing Point by Jonathan Bridge

“You sometimes snore at night, and it disturbs my sleep,” she began.
“And you sometimes toss and turn, which wakes me in the middle of the night,” he added.
“So this new arrangement is the sensible thing to do,” she concluded.
“And pragmatic,” he said.
“We both work long hours, and need lots of rest.”
“And we can sleep together on weekends still.”
“Oh yeah, of course,” she reassured.
That was their justification for sleeping in different rooms. They both knew deep down that there was much more to this, but they stayed away from that dangerous topic. Allowing themselves to reason this out rationally meant that they did not want to deal with it emotionally. Focus on the practical side of things. As time passed, this more pragmatic weekday arrangement spilled over into weekends.
As David crawled into his bed and rolled around in his sheets to form a makeshift cocoon, he thought about Eliza, and how they used to be in the beginning. Before the marriage, the engagement, even the first official date. Back when he had long shaggy blond hair hanging over black sunglasses, and she let her long brown hair flow freely in the air, matching her beautiful brown eyes. Back when Eliza’s father had outlawed her from dating any guys, period. He was the warden, sheriff, and deputy when it came to his “baby angel”. But you can only keep the long-sleeve plaid button-up, hair combed over Romeo from the sun-dress, double pig-tailed Juilet for so long. Eventually they were sneaking around together behind her father’s back, which only added more excitement to the arrangement. At first they were content to see each other once or twice a week when her father went to bed early. But their relationship developed, and they needed more. They enjoyed spending time together, not just making out on the swing sets in the park, and by the monkey bars, in the slide, and under the jungle gym. Eventually Eliza joined the non-existent Community Service club at school, which met frequently on the weekends. David joined too.
He thought back to their first kiss, the first time they had sex, their official first date with her dad’s approval, and yes, they occurred in that order. But soon these thoughts faded, dimmed, and were slowly pushed out of his mind to make room for television. It was his brain’s way of protecting itself. Just focus on the detective show, it was telling him, worry about Eliza another time. And sure enough, David was fast asleep with the TV still running, snoring only slightly.
******
The alarm clock did what alarm clocks are supposed to do, and David rolled out of bed, revving himself up for another day at work. Shuffling straight for the shower, David looked around and noticed something was different. He wasn’t in the bathroom at all, but instead in the guest room, which was separated from his bedroom by the bathroom. It was no big deal though, as his sleepy eyes weren’t fully adjusted to the light yet, and he must have overstepped the route to the bathroom. But as he stepped out of his room, he realized that the door next to the guest room was not to bathroom, but in fact his bedroom door.
What the hell? David thought to himself. He tried opening and closing all the doors again, took a look around to orient himself, then tried it again.
Fully awake now, he realized that in fact his bathroom was gone, like Houdini, if it had been a lavatory instead of a person. David did what any normal person does when faced with something unexplainable: call in someone else to make sure you are not crazy.
“Eliza, are you up?” he called out as his voice trailed off, leaving a lingering feeling of uncertainty.
“Something wrong?”
She approached him cautiously, studying his expression for clues. She followed his eyes to the opened doors of his bedroom and guest room.
“Where is the bathroom?” she asked.
“I have absolutely no idea,” he replied, “but thank God.”
“Why thank God?”
“Because for a minute there, I thought you were going to have to call in a couple of buff men to put me in a white jacket, toss me in a comfy room, and throw away the key.”
“They wouldn’t need to be buff,” Eliza chimed in.
Following in David’s footsteps, Eliza went into both rooms, checked the doors and walls, and came back to the hallway.
“Is this some trick?” she asked as she stepped in and out of both rooms, double-checking to make sure for herself.
“The weirdest thing is that neither the guest room nor your room looks extended,” she said ignoring his sarcasm, “how is this possible? Pinch me.”
After they traded pinches, David on the butt and Eliza a little extra hard on the arm, they stood in the hallway, not sure of what to do next. They tried going into opposite rooms and knocking on the walls. Even though they both clearly heard knocks from the other side, David wanted to drill a hole through the wall, just to be sure.
“David, I just painted these walls.”
“If a man’s got tools, honey, he needs to use them.”
“Well you do look rugged with that tool belt on, Mr. Handy-man.”
After the hole, perfectly drilled David would add, confirmed that the bathroom had vanished, Eliza went to turn on the TV to see if they were not alone in this unexplainable phenomena. It was all over the news. The headline at the bottom of the screen read: Unexplainable Phenomena: Items or Entire Rooms Gone Missing. David turned up the volume to hear about a reporter discussing how his garage had vanished. Flipping through the channels, he realized that it was on every channel. The only channel not covering the phenomena had a marathon of Without a Trace reruns.
Everything came to a standstill, as if the world was stuck at a red light. Everyone found themselves tuning into whatever media form suited them to see if someone, somewhere, had an explanation. A variety of different people were being interviewed on different networks, from scientists, priests, politicians, to acclaimed psychics. Scientists were dumbfounded, unable to cite any past events that shared any resemblance to this. Priests were talking about how God was angry at how materialistic we had become, and He was punishing us. Politicians were saying not to panic. The psychics were saying they felt something like this coming. David switched to his favorite local news team, Daily-Low-Down, where renowned news reporter Jimmy McMaster was in mid-interview with a psychic from the local Tarot shop.
“Did you know that this is vanishing was going to happen?”
“Oh yes, yes, my dear. It was all in the cards.”
“And what did the cards say?”
“They told me that a great evil was going to fall upon us all.”
“Can you tell us why this is happening, or if it is going to stop?”
“It is different for everyone, Jimmy. But if you out there would like to know your own future, you can call me at 1-800-FORTUNE, and for a small fee, I can show you the cards that lay out your destiny.”
“You heard it straight from the source. This is Jimmy McMaster signing off. Remember, keep your heads up, and we’ll give you the low down.”
Eventually the news was no longer new, and David turned off the TV after listening to another politician telling the public not to be alarmed, and that it was best to remain calm, and that everything would be “alright”. It was late in the evening, and he looked over at his wife who was curled up in her favorite spot on the couch, with one leg stretched out on the futon and the other one curled in to support her salad bowl. He found himself half zoning out and half staring at her, and after a few seconds she felt his gaze upon her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I was just thinking…”
“About what?”
“About this whole vanishing business,” he stated, “I wonder if it will happen again tomorrow.”
“Who knows,” she said in a tone as comforting as she could manage, “I want to think that it was just a onetime thing, but something inside me says that this is far from over.”
“I have that same feeling.”
“David…I’m scared.”
“It will be alright,” he began, but then realized that he wasn’t a politician. There was no reason for him to try to protect her. Sure he was the man and by society’s norms the protector of the house, but she was a woman, not a child. “We have each other,” he concluded as he walked over, leaned awkwardly over the couch, around the salad bowl, and gave her a light kiss on the forehead.
“Good night.”
“Night.”
*****
In the morning the alarm clock in David’s room did not go off. Well, it may or may not have gone off, but David would never know. When David eventually awoke, he found that his entire dresser was missing. He looked at where it had been the night before, but once again, there was no sign that it had ever existed. No indentions in the carpet where the base had placed all of the weight of the dresser, no clean area on the carpet where the dresser had prevented stains and dust from accumulating, no outlet on the wall behind the dresser where the alarm clock had been plugged into.
“David, I have searched the house and nothing seems to be missing!”
“Don’t get too excited,” David said. “Come in here and tell me what you see, or rather, don’t see.”
Noticing its absence, she looked at the blank area as if the dresser were still there, then to her husband, then back to the blank spot. Watching his wife look back and forth reminded him of when he used to pretend to throw the tennis ball with his dog, only to amuse himself as the dog looked out into the field, back at him, and then back to the field. I guess it’s only funny from one side, he thought to himself.
“Anything new on the news?” David asked.
The networks didn’t have much to report. ABC and CNN were both down because some of the essential equipment needed to broadcast had disappeared overnight. What they did say, however, was that witnesses reported from all over saying they saw different objects disappear right before their eyes. The Local-Low-Down had Jimmy McMaster back on, urging people to go onto a new website created by brilliant scientists, whathaveyoulostandwhatdoyoustillhave.com, to list what you know you have lost, and what you still have, in hopes that they can determine some kind of pattern to this randomness. “If there is a pattern, we’ll find it!” they exclaimed. Jimmy was demonstrating how to do it from a network computer. He was listing all the things that had vanished, and he was doing it with his head up.
David and Eliza decided that they, like Jimmy, should go into work, to take their minds off what was happening. Yet as they drove off, they both knew their offices would be closed. It may have been partly intuition, but mostly from the fact that everything along the way, even the 24-7 convenience stores and food markets, were closed. For some reason, however, they both decided to drive all the way to their work, just to make sure, before turning back.
That night, as David turned off the TV in his room and snuggled under his covers, he thought about the situation. As he laid there, he mind drifted and a picture of Eliza emerged.. It was her, the day before their wedding, in a pair of sweats and a tank top. Most would describe what she was wearing as nothing special. But to David, he remembered thinking how naturally beautiful she was, and this image of her ousted the one of her in a wedding dress every time. He couldn’t even explain to himself why this was, and never really tried to. He almost got up to go check on Eliza, make sure she was okay, maybe even keep her company. He flipped off the covers, but that was as far as he got. She is probably already asleep, he told himself, I wouldn’t want to wake her.
****
Two days later, and two rooms smaller, David awoke not to the backup alarm clock, but instead from the sun shining directly into his eyes. His room had been the mystery’s latest victim. The bed and sheets were there, but it was as if he had put a bed in his front yard. The unfamiliar sight of waking up to the sunrise, combined with the notion that he would never figure this out, caused David to fly into a rage. It wasn’t terrible timing, however, as the only things in his front yard were his bed frame, mattress, sheets, and pillows. The pillows, sheets, and mattress were soft enough to do very little damage as he threw them violently through the street, and the frame was heavy and bulky enough to prevent him from doing anything more than simply tipping it on its side and back. If he had not been swearing loudly to himself, or to God as some of his phrases suggested, he wouldn’t have even woken up Eliza.
“David! Come inside the house right this instant!” Eliza demanded from the doorway.
“That was actually very therapeutic,” David replied as he dropped the mattress, “you can use my bed and pillows to relieve tension if your bed is next.”
“I don’t think that is going to be happening anytime soon. Come inside and check out the news. Scientists have found some things out.”
Dr. J.M.Richards was on two different channels, which was impressive, as only three stations were still broadcasting. David stayed with Local-Low-Down, even though they were just taking the feed from a national network. He claimed that after much research on what people lost first and what people still had, he had discovered that beds are always the last thing to go. Upon a more in depth analysis, once again he discovered that if you fall asleep touching something, it will be much less likely for that thing to go missing. His main evidence was that no beds, sheets, or pillows that were in use had reportedly gone missing. He also stated that the vanishing always occurred sometime between sunset and sunrise. He closed by thanking everyone that went onto whathaveyoulostandwhatdoyoustillhave.com and posted their own lists, and that this website had the most up to date findings and discoveries.
***
Two weeks had gone by, and while scientists had not yet figured out the how, why, or where objects were disappearing to, they pursued the predicament persistently. Many had begun to support the “reverse big bang theory”, others working diligently to refute that, and others searching for even more abstract theories. Some priests were saying to pray and ask God for forgiveness and you would be saved. Others were saying that this was a modern day flooding, and like Noah and his family, God would save those that were good and smite the sinners into nothingness. Politicians asked the public for ideas and possible solutions, no matter how crazy, as they were just humble servants doing the people’s will. Psychics were foreseeing good and bad omens, depending on the particular client’s nonverbal signals.
The sun set quickly, reaching the horizon and leaving just enough light to show rows and rows of beds where houses used to be. Left with only two beds and their essentials, David and Eliza tried to create a plan of action. They decided that it would be better for them to each sleep in their own bed, so it would take longer for all their things to vanish. Each evening before the sun set, one of them would throw something off their bed, essentially giving that item a vanishing sentence. Eliza still held onto hope, clinging to it and making herself believe that this predicament was something that she could “ride out”. David had given up on the scientists, priests, politicians, and psychics when the Local-Low-Down channel went down, and was instead wondering about where all this stuff was vanishing to. He imagined a giant junkyard in heaven, or at least in the clouds, where all this stuff was piling up to form a great mountain. It was kind of like Olympus, if it had been made out of shopping carts, refrigerators, and toys. David had not become obsessed with the vanishing as most people had, as no human had reportedly vanished. Yet he hated thinking about this, as if even thinking about could cause this phenomenon to realize its mistake and start taking people too. He knocked on wood, even though superstition was not in his nature.
**
The next morning David almost felt guilty when he found out that the Goodfellows down the street had supposedly vanished in the middle of the night. Yet he knew he wasn’t to blame for all of this. At least that is what he hoped.
“Maybe they decided to run away,” Eliza said not wanting to believe it.
“Why would they do that?” David interjected, playing devil’s advocate, “Richard said that people with a lot more stuff just lost it at a faster pace than someone with less stuff. It is likely that Bill Gates and the Queen of freaking England are sitting outside on beds like we are right now.”
The argument was put to rest when a young man came down the street, wearing dark pants, a white button up, and a Bible in hand. Since David and Eliza were on the corner, he came up to them first.
“Hello brother and sister,” he began, “I come to you in this time of peril to give you relief, as God is watching over all of us. The Lord only asks that you repent your sins, and His love and mercy will save your soul, as our life on this Earth is limited, as you can see from the vanishing that is occurring all over the world.”
“Isn’t God the reason for all of this?” David retorted cynically.
“We do not understand God’s intention, that is our flaw as humans, not His. We must always remember, however, that when God closes a door, he always opens a window.”
“What if a guy is crippled?” David replied. “A crippled could roll out of an open doorway, but I doubt he could manage to get his body up and out of a window. And even if he did, he would still be without his wheel-chair, stuck outside and forced to crawl.”
“It is a metaphor, sir. It symbolizes God’s compassion for us, all of us.”
“What if he is metaphorically crippled?”
The priest in training was too flustered to even attempt a comeback, and so he mentally labeled them as “sinners” and walked to the neighbor’s beds. David found the argument, which he viewed as a win, to be very therapeutic. Eliza did not share this view. She didn’t say anything however, but instead got under her covers and laid there like a mummy, silent, still, and stoic.
As the last rays of light gleamed over the horizon, Eliza began to whimper. Her tears rolled down across her cheeks, falling softly onto the pillow. At first David did not hear her light sobs, but just before darkness engulfed him he looked over at his wife, tucked in under the sheets with watery eyes. Beautiful, brown, watery eyes. At that moment David really looked at his wife. He saw more than just a pirouette, curled up under covers. He saw her as his companion, the one with whom he had shared the greatest experiences of his life. Even though she was crying, without make-up or a shower, and covered from the neck down by a navy sheet, David saw the beauty that was radiating from the other bed. He couldn’t explain how he saw it, just like he could not explain how she looked more beautiful to him in sweats than in a wedding dress, but he saw it. Her beauty had been there the entire time, he had just been missing it, slowly letting it slip through his fingers. Now he had to grab it back before it completely slipped away.
Getting up from his bed, David began to walk over to Eliza’s bed across the front yard.
“What are you doing David? The sun will set any second now and you’re out of your bed!”
“I don’t care about the bed. It can go ahead and disappear right now for all I care.”
Getting into Eliza’s bed for the first time in weeks, David ripped off the sheets, began kissing her and caressing her like he did back in high school. He began ripping off her clothes and she returned the favor, as if the same passion had been bottled up inside of her this entire time too. David didn’t care about the bed, the family heirlooms, or the “valuables” across the yard. He did not care about vanishing or dying, or if there was even a difference, as long as in the time he had left, he shared it with Eliza.
*