Three little tales, Four Endings

There was a wet, hacking noise from down the carriage. Jules ducked his head to see around Kim’s shoulder, expecting an everyday subway dweller. Instead, he saw a sharply dressed man, convulsing to the carriage floor, white hair sweat-slicked against his brow.

Concerned mumbles rippled through the mid-week commuters and travellers shuffled their bags aside, hiding in their scarves and coats. Jules tapped Kim on the shoulder, indicating with his head. She turned slowly, removing an earbud.

“Ew,” she said, reflecting Jules’ own conflicting feelings.

“Should we do something?” Jules asked.

“I’m not going near him. He could have a weird disease,” Kim snorted back. The thought didn’t calm the voice in the back of Jules’ head, but it did paint glue to the soles of his shoes. The sharp dressed man could have a disease. That’d be my luck, he thought, skip class for a day and get super-rabies.

They watched from a safe remove as people edged away and a homely woman tried to shove a wallet into the man’s mouth. The man’s convulsions slowly subsided.

The hiss of the doors opened onto Central Station and people started yelling out to the platform for the subway staff. Anxious travellers flowed around the old man on the floor and out through the open doors.

Kim and Jules kept watching. The man’s eyes were rolled up, only the whites showing.

“Could be the start of Walking Dead,” Jules said to Kim.

“End of days,” she murmured back.

People flowed out of the carriage and train staff waded in against the current. Jules remained transfixed as the man was strapped to a stretcher and carried out. Beeps and whirs travelled through the window as paramedics affixed monitoring equipment.

Jules reached into his pocket and pulled out some hand sanitiser, Kim grabbed it and they both stood watching, rubbing their hands together.

Kim nudged Jules, “Look,” she pointed at the seat where the man had been, “Nice coat.”

For three stations they watched the ¾ length black coat as it sat listlessly on the bench seat. The carriage slowly emptied out to the last few commuters bound for outlying suburbs. They joked, nervously about the apocalypse, patient zero, I’m too young to die, yada yada yada.

As coats are wont to do, the coat continued to not move. No one wanted to touch it.

Or be touched by it. Kim picked the coat up on her foot and kicked it at Jules.

In an octave he’ll never admit having access to, Jules squealed and jumped backwards. He frantically kicked the coat away and stood down awkwardly on top of a rectangular lump under foot.

An envelope.

In a moment of spite, he stepped to the discarded coat and kicked it at Kim, then he lined up and kicked the envelope too.

Their mouths drooped open as several $100 notes flew out.

Scrambling, eyes nervously darting around the carriage, Kim grabbed the cash and Jules picked up the envelope. Jules paused and adjusted, wrapping his hand with the bottom of his jumper.

Kim was at Jules’ side, peering into the full envelope.

“Fuck me,” he said.

***

I rub my eyes. My laptop sits hotly on my thighs, fan working overtime in spite of the winter chill in the air.

I’ve been staring at the screen, running different scenarios, walking down different storylines. All the words blur together, and I’ve hit that point.

The start of the story is clear. I’ve got that much.

It’s on the subway, there’s a guy convulsing, a seizure. Maybe he’s got a viral illness. Maybe some other pathogen. Maybe epilepsy. Could he have been poisoned?

Kim and Jules see it, they end up with the cash he’s inexplicably carrying.

Then, there’s probably the moral debate about spending found money. Theft by Finding. Or Larceny by Finding, given the value. A legitimate crime they’re trying to decide if they’re going to commit.

$20,000 is a lot of money to most normal people.

After that, I’m torn. Who’s is the money? How’d the man get it? Who is he? Prince or pauper? Illicit or innocent?

They’re all interesting questions. Too interesting. It spirals into never-ending branching possibilities.

What is the story? Is it the kids, or the man? The money or the people? Heart-stopping or heart-warming?

I pick up my little black notebook, checking my doodles and scribbles, the fun turns of phrase I’d written down at 2am, which never sound as good at 8am.

Should the story be:

a) Thriller – as Kim and Jules discover blood spatter on the money and come to understand through events of direct personal danger that they have taken money from a hitman / drug mule / drug dealer / arms dealer / rogue spy / other.

b) Character Drama - about the breakdown in their relationship as Kim and Jules argue about spending or returning the cash or handing it to the proper authorities.

c) Apocalyptic tragedy – as Kim and Jules go about their spending spree failing to notice the news bulletins about the new epidemic sweeping the city; patient zero on the morning train.

There’s potential in each. I already have little vignettes for each.

a) Thriller

At the station, they found a secluded spot behind the escalators to count the contents of the envelope.

The notes stuck together, splotches of blood coagulated and dried between them.

“Fuuuuck. Blood money,” Jules exhaled.

“Heh. Bloody money,” replied Kim.

They stare in silence.

“Do we wash it?” asked Jules.

“We can’t exactly walk around spending money covered in blood, can we?” Kim dribbled sarcasm.

“Should we spend it…?”

“The old guy ain't going to use it, and what’s he going to do? Report he lost a packet of $100’s covered in blood? It’s ours now. Why shouldn’t we spend it?”

Jules stayed silent, unable to articulate the dead weight of his uneasiness.

The silence stretched out, Kim waiting for his response.

Tired of waiting, she pointed over at the disabled toilet “Over there.”

They walked over and Jules stole furtive glances across the station as they entered the cubicle.

15 minutes later, exiting the cubicle Jules scanned the area again.

“Kim,” he whispered, “that guy over there… was he on the train?”

“In the grey suit? Maybe, why?”

“He was watching us go in, and I saw him look away real quick when we came out…”

“Maybe he’s just a perv, probably thinks we went for a shag,” she grinned, “let’s go to Hermes!”

Jules shook his head, “We’re not going to blow it all on a handbag Kim.”

“I don’t want to,” she smiled, “I just want to go there and know that I could.”

b) Drama

Jules snatched the envelope.

“We know it belongs to that old guy. It’s theft,” he stammered.

Kim’s eyes bored into Jules. “Theft? Finders keepers, Jules. Ever heard of it? Possession is nine-tenths of the law. You hearing me? People do this. People find things and keep them. If you find five cents on the ground, do you go to the cops?”

“It’s $20 grand Kim. If you find 400,000 five-cent pieces on the ground you turn that shit in. Hell, you’d probably call the media because why the hell are there 400,000 coins sitting on the footpath?”

She leaned in placing her hand firmly on the envelope, “We found it. WE. You wanna be a saint and give the money back, you take half. I take half and I go and buy a pallet of Red Bull, a new gaming rig and a pizza the size of a station wagon.”

c) Apocalypse

Kim coughed, eyes wide “OMG! BRAIN FREEEEEZE.”

Jules laughed until tears ran down his cheeks, “Oh god, that’s the best.”

They stumbled out of the arcade, Jules’ arms loaded with cheap prizes and game tickets.

Kim coughed again but didn’t stop. Dropping her slushie, she doubled over and kept coughing.

Jules laughed some more until he saw Kim struggling for air.

“Kim!” he dropped a plush octopus and reached for her.

She pushed him away dropping to a crouch, wheezing harsh, hacking intake breaths between coughing spasms.

Jules watched on, unsure what to do.

Kim’s coughing stopped, her breathing unsteady, hands shaking, face wet with sweat and tears.

“That… sucked,” she rasped.

a) Thriller

Jules’ eyes went wide, the man’s black tie, now pulled taught between his scarred hands, constricted Jules’ throat. He could only make a sucking sound as he flailed his hands desperately behind him. Searching for purchase, scratching for anything that could stop the pressure.

The world slowly faded to black.

As his ears filled with white noise, he heard a metallic crunching noise, and the pressure suddenly disappeared. Jules sucked air, light coming back in. He scrambled away, turning to see behind him.

Kim, stood over the man, holding a hand drier, tile fragments tinkling on the floor, electrical leads trailing in pooling blood at her feet.

“Handy work,” said Jules sniggering.

“Couldn’t leave you out to dry,” responded Kim sliding down the wall to sit against the cool white tiles.

b) Drama

Kim laughed a broken laugh. She looks down at the blood on her fist. Her hand shook as she raised it, staring closely at the tooth embedded in her knuckle.

She pulled it out and tossed it onto Jules’ prone form. He twitched and moved his arms to push himself up.

“Don’t,” she said, “Just don’t. I’m taking it Jules. I’m taking it all. We could have split it. We could have done every epic thing. We could have swum in a champagne swimming pool. But you’re some martyr or something. You want to give it away? This is why you’ll always be a loser.”

Jules coughed, “Sad.”

“What’s that? Speak up, I can’t hear you over the sound of loser.”

“You think $20 grand makes you a winner? There’s no coming back from this, you take that money and we’re done. I mean it. You find someone else to call when your mum drinks too much, find another shoulder to cry on. We. Are. Done.”

Silence stretched out between them.

“Good,” mumbled Kim, turning on her heels.

c) Apocalypse

Jules holds her tighter. The bus shelter lending poor protection to the rain hammering in sideways.

The coughs are slower now, weaker. He notices she’s stopped sweating.

“I’m so sorry,” he whimpered.

His hoarse voice barely audible now above the traffic, “Please… anybody… please… I’ll give you everything… just… please help her.”

He coughs, eyes drooping shut.

$100 notes whip around them in the wind, strewn across the wet road.

***

I sigh.

This is getting nowhere. I rub my eyes, coughing briefly.

What’s the point? I close my laptop and collapse backward in my chair. All of these stories are ending with pain and tragedy.

Jules and Kim end up traumatised in the thriller. Hunted, injured. Even if you recover from something like that, how do you ever look at your fellow human with trust again?

They end up divided and unhappy in the drama. Building resentment, accelerating rifts they didn’t know they had. They even come to blows.

Then in the apocalypse… They end up dead.

There has to be something I’m missing. The only way I can see their way to happiness is to have never found the money in the first place.

I scratch my chin and look around, considering the fat envelope of blood-spattered $100 notes at the edge of my cluttered desk.

I sigh again.

An alert on my phone shakes me from my musing. I collect the envelope and insert it into the chest pocket of my black ¾ coat.

If I leave now, I can just make that train.