Isaiah Benton, Iz to friends, sat on the couch stroking his prized possession — a green anaconda named Sarasota, Sara for short. Twenty feet long and eight inches wide at her thickest, Sara’s cantaloupe head lay on his lap and her body stretched off the end of the couch, her tail curling around a spindle of the stair railing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iz was a conman who took advantage of rich widows. He had a killer headache because the night before he\u2019d been celebrating with a friend and fellow pillager of the aged rich, Dieter Schmidt, whom he\u2019d met long ago in Germany. Diets had travelled to Canada at some risk to visit, which had touched Iz deeply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vee live once, Iz, und it shouldn\u2019t always be amongst ze blind and ze tight-arsed<\/em>. Dieter had said this the night before in his thick German accent which got thicker with drink. He\u2019d looked incredible, cleanly shaven, minus a good twenty pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iz lived in an abandoned hunting cabin near the southern border of CFB Suffield, one province over from his British Columbia hunting ground. Some might have found it odd, a criminal hiding out beside the country\u2019s largest military barracks. But all access to the base was from the north so traffic along the south was minimal, and the small path that had once led from the highway had been erased over time by forest growth. In five years no soul had entered Iz\u2019s area uninvited, and he\u2019d taken precautions so anyone foolish or unlucky enough to try would pay a steep price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cExcuse me, sweetheart,\u201d he said, lifting Sara\u2019s head. He needed some hair of the dog; this headache wasn\u2019t giving up. Sara studied him for a moment with her marble eyes before slithering away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iz headed to the kitchen for a beer. His place was a disaster. When he was on a job his personal hygiene was immaculate but holed up he lived like an animal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He got his beer and grabbed a large bong from beside the stove, figuring he\u2019d use it later, and that was when he saw Dieter\u2019s phone on the counter. \u201cYou\u2019re losing your touch, buddy,\u201d he said as he slipped it into his housecoat pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He headed back to the couch. Sara\u2019s muscular midsection blocked his progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cC\u2019mon,\u201d he said, nudging her with his foot. \u201cBack to the couch girl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Settled again with Sara half on his shoulders and half on the back rest, he turned to an episode of Pawn Brokers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She flexed and he gave her a light slap. \u201cWatch it or get down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She began to slide away, then did something she never had before \u2013 she dropped her full weight on his shoulders. He slumped forward, his breath exploding from him, his beer dropping from his hand and foaming as it rolled across the hardwood floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cChrist, Sara, get off\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She spun her body like a whip and dropped another loop of herself across his lap. She squeezed harder and he sat up like a jerked marionette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes they play wrestled. This wasn\u2019t that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGet\u2026 off!\u201d He wanted to shout but could only croak. \u201cGet\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She squeezed harder still and he stopped talking because he could no longer breathe. His midsection was on fire. His head pounded like a bass drum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One more squeeze and all his ribs collapsed with the crisp sound of snapping twigs. He opened his mouth and a glut of bright blood slopped out, splashing an abstract pattern over the front of his shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The snake\u2019s head spun around and locked its gaze on his rictus face. Its creamy green eyes transformed to portals through which he witnessed a desiccated landscape with a burnt sky and skeletal trees. A mad monkey danced and flailed in the distance, large as a man, its long teeth glinting like sharpened kitchen knives in the dim light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Far away, drawing near.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The couch, the television, the cabin, all gone. he shivered in the dusky woods of a desolate other world, the terrible monkey man before him, its grinning face inches from his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThoth,\u201d it grunted before unhinging its jaws and burying its fangs in his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their bus stopped in front of a ragged structure at the end of a mud road. Egyptian tourist shops were usually clumped near sites like the Sphinx or the Tombs of the Kings but this one was in an open field and could have been mistaken for abandoned if not for the colourful rugs on display out front, their tiny white price tags spinning in the breeze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their tour guide — also their bus driver — was Amon, and this was his favourite stop. Not to be missed<\/em>, he\u2019d told everyone back at the hotel. Everything authentic and one-of-a-kind. No toilets, so go before we leave.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda hadn\u2019t wanted any of this. She had neither the cash nor the emotional stamina for this trip, having recently been swindled out of her life savings, but Paul and Amanda had insisted, going so far as to buy the tickets behind her back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bus door accordioned open. Amon got up with a long groan, cursed in Arabic, then lowered himself down the stairs into the hot sun. A short man in a white robe and turban \u2013 Brenda guessed the shop owner \u2013 appeared out of the small structure. The two men shook hands and kissed one another on the cheeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019re friends,\u201d Paul said. He\u2019d been dozing the whole drive but now he gazed out the bus window with his mother. \u201cThat\u2019s a good sign, right? It means we probably won\u2019t get ripped off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOr they\u2019re in cahoots,\u201d Brenda said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy do you have to be so negative all the time?\u201d Brenda knew his tone intimately. Annoyed with solid undertones of pissed. An echo of Paul\u2019s father, Manny, God rest his soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSorry.\u201d She wasn\u2019t, but she didn\u2019t want to fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They were the first ones off the bus after Amon and as soon as their feet hit the ground the shop owner was on them: \u201cFriends, come inside! I\u2019m sure to have something you like!\u201d He led them over an intricate rug so abused by foot traffic it was impossible to tell where its edges ended and the ground began. \u201cWhere you from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCanada,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCanada Dry!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes indeed,\u201d Paul answered in the voice Brenda always thought of as his sales voice, the one she could never reconcile with the bashful boy she\u2019d raised. \u201cI bet you say that to all the Canadians.\u201d A little joke. Egyptian vendors had a catchy greeting for every nationality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shop was tiny, the ceiling so low that Paul ducked on his way in. It smelled of incense and damp earth. Oil lanterns burned in the corners, which gave the place a cavernous glow. Rickety shelves full of ceramics lined the perimeter. A wide-faced woman in a dark robe and purple hijab sat on a low stool on the far end of the room, bare feet set on the dirt floor and an ornate metal cash box cradled in her lap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you think of this?\u201d Paul said, holding up a ceramic cup with the Eye of Horus on the side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat would I use that for?\u201d Brenda asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou don\u2019t use it, it\u2019s a souvenir.\u201d His eyebrows furrowed, he smiled. \u201cYou haven\u2019t bought a single thing so far. I\u2019m afraid you\u2019re going to go home with no proof you were ever here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have time. I\u2019ll pick something, just not that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul sighed and put the cup back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few minutes later they left to let others squeeze in and shop. Outside Brenda sat on a log positioned to stand in as a bench, while Paul took a selfie. She had the feeling he was going to sulk the rest of the day. He was impatient and didn\u2019t understand how much she still hurt. How could he? He\u2019d witnessed her tragedy; he hadn\u2019t lived it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A half hour later small clutches of people stood talking outside, while more peered from the bus windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThings are wrapping up,\u201d Paul said, putting his phone in his pocket. \u201cShould we get on the bus?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSure,\u201d Brenda said, standing, flinching as her arthritis flared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amon and the shop keep, near the bus door, stopped talking and turned to them as they approached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMiss Brenda,\u201d Amon said, \u201cmay Chisisi speak with you a moment?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat about?\u201d Paul asked, stepping between the men and his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want you to have this,\u201d Chisisi said, handing Brenda a small wooden statue of a squatting baboon about eight inches tall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul plucked it from his mother\u2019s hand and pushed it back. \u201cI know this trick,\u201d he said. \u201cI suppose this is a priceless statue we won\u2019t find anywhere else in the world. It will bring us untold wealth and happiness and we would be foolish not to buy it. We\u2019re not interested.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPlease,\u201d Chisisi said, looking mortified. \u201cYou don\u2019t understand, it is not for sale, it is no charge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul stared at him. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt belongs with her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul stared at the little man as if he were insane. Chisisi handed the statue back to Brenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you think, Mom?\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda looked at the statue. It was ugly but there was something appealing about it as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI guess this can be my souvenir,\u201d She said. She turned to Chisisi. \u201cThank you very much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGreat,\u201d Paul said, tugging at his mother\u2019s arm. \u201cLet\u2019s get on the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later that evening, after some delicious Kushari in the lobby restaurant, they reclined in the living room of their hotel suite to watch TV before bed. The suite was something else. Brenda guessed it had to be close to fifteen hundred square feet, which would have been excessive even if Amanda had come along. The hardwood floors gleamed. Every room featured a different chandelier and if they weren\u2019t crystal they looked it. The balcony, large enough to accommodate a party of ten, gave them a breathtaking view of downtown Cairo. It was such extravagant overkill for a mother and son on a short vacation that for the umpteenth time she wondered how much it cost, only she wouldn\u2019t dare ask. If she did Paul would reprimand her then act hurt and probably remind her how well he was doing financially these days, ask why he shouldn\u2019t spoil her after all she\u2019d been through. Some conversations were best avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul paused the show while Brenda got up to pee, and when she returned he pointed at the monkey statue on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you think about that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He gave her the are you serious<\/em> eye roll he\u2019d sometimes flashed her as a child, and it made her want to slap him just as it had back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMom, have you noted the look of desperation on everyone here? This is an impoverished nation. They rely on two industries for their livelihoods, rug manufacturing and tourism, and a decade ago political strife nearly wiped out both. People in these circumstances don\u2019t give things away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re thinking about it wrong, honey. Nations aren\u2019t people. We didn\u2019t meet the nation of Egypt today, we met a shop vendor with a family who gave me a gift out of the goodness of his heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou could look at it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat crap about the statue belonging with you was pretty creepy, don\u2019t you think? Like some Monkey\u2019s Paw<\/em> shit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat does a monkey\u2019s paw have to do with it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul stared at her. \u201cYou\u2019re kidding me. You\u2019ve never heard of the movie The Monkey\u2019s Paw<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She shrugged and her son\u2019s eyes flashed. He was an enigma, a buttoned down professional one moment and an excited child the next, spouting trivial details about movies and TV shows as if they held the meaning of life. She was struck by his generation\u2019s ability to be both child and adult simultaneously. In her day you were one or the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was originally a short story,\u201d he said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t become a pop culture phenomenon until Norman Lee turned it into a movie in 1948. There have been remakes since, but the original is still the best. It\u2019s a three wishes tale. A woman is sold a monkey\u2019s paw that has magical powers. She wishes for her son, who died in the war, to come back to life, and he does, but he\u2019s a walking corpse. There\u2019s more, but\u2026 well, it\u2019s not your type of movie. The moral is to be careful what you wish for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She glanced at the statue. It looked harmless enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou don\u2019t think it\u2019s dangerous, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He laughed. \u201cOf course not. I just think the way that vendor gave it to you was like a scene from Gremlins<\/em> or something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnother movie reference I should understand?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYeah. Don\u2019t worry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They watched Storage Wars in silence for another hour before going to bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being sent in unarmed sans backup was sheisen<\/em> as far as Dieter was concerned. He was a disposable, a canary down the hole ahead of the constable and his boys, yet he couldn\u2019t complain. He wouldn\u2019t have caught any breaks back in Germany where the Bundezpolizei had been sleeping in their cars for months on his account and wouldn\u2019t rest until he was dead or doing long time. The Canadian R.C.M.P calling for a plea bargain in exchange for his help with Isaiah Benton had been a miracle. He would take their shit all day because he could tell Constable Wallace wanted his cooperation but didn\u2019t strictly need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He broke the tree line, careful to step between two leaning pines forming a V as he had the night before; it was the only safe way to enter Iz\u2019s property. The crazy bastard had spread booby traps all along the perimeter, stuff like bear traps that had the power to snap your leg off at the shin or coiled spikes attached to pressure plates that would shoot up and turn your balls to shish kebab. The man was insane, which might have been why the cops were having so much trouble apprehending him. He didn\u2019t think or act like any criminal Dieter had ever met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Dieter approached the front door he heard a series of low snarls. The wolverines in the back yard. Iz kept a menagerie of illegal animals, an eccentricity Dieter had never appreciated. Dieter had been mauled by a dog as a child so didn\u2019t trust animals all that much. He wouldn\u2019t even enter the room when that fucking giant snake of Iz\u2019s was around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He rapped the front door. \u201cIz! It\u2019s Dieter! I come to get my phone!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The constable didn\u2019t believe Dieter could leave his phone and pick it up later without suspicion, but there\u2019d been no doubt in Dieter\u2019s mind. Iz had modeled his entire criminal life after Dieter\u2019s. He\u2019d flown to Germany in the first decade of the millennium and paddled around in the underground social scene for months only to find out where Dieter holed up. He idolized Dieter as much as anyone had ever idolized another human being which made taking advantage of him almost embarrassingly easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIz!\u201d Dieter shouted again. He went to the side of the cabin. Most criminals habitually closed windows to avoid intruders looking in but not Iz; he maintained visuals, which was why the police had kept their distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bright sun made it hard to see, so Dieter cupped his hands and pushed his face against the windowpane. What he saw made him stand up and back away to recover his composure before peeking in again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iz was on the sofa with a TV remote in his purple, swollen hand. Sara the snake was wrapped around his midsection. She\u2019d clearly crushed him to death; his torso looked like a carnival mirror special effect, pinched so dramatically where it disappeared into Sara\u2019s coils that it couldn\u2019t have been more than five inches across. Blood had spattered over Iz, the snake, the walnut coffee table, the floor. Sara had jimmied her gruesomely distended mouth over Iz\u2019s entire head and neck, stopping at the shoulders, so it looked like Iz was wearing a fat opaque stocking over his head made of reptile skin which trailed off the far arm of the couch. A stocking with bulging green eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJesus fuck,\u201d Dieter whispered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would have been far better for Dieter if Iz had run. His death shot Dieter\u2019s place at the constable\u2019s bargaining table all to hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A movement inside the cabin caught his eye. He cupped his hands on the window again and peered through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Impossibly, it seemed Iz was still alive and pawing at the snake\u2019s mouth, trying to free himself. Hi biceps bulged as he wrenched up on the snake\u2019s snout with both hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dieter, stunned that anybody could still be alive in such a state, thought about how the bodies of most animals \u2013 people included — experienced rigor mortis shortly after death. Even if Iz managed to lift the enormous snake, he wouldn\u2019t get free of the jaws, which were surely locked in place by now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet Iz was<\/em> making progress. The snake\u2019s jaws suddenly slid up and over Iz\u2019s lips; only there were no lips anymore because razor teeth had ploughed through and sheared them off. Instead there were ribbons of ruined flesh, bone, and the occasional tooth peering through, all obscured by the gouts of blood streaming from Iz\u2019s mangled stump of a chin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dieter felt like he might be sick, yet he was unable to move. The horror before him gripped his mind and cemented his limbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iz doubled down on his efforts and amid some terrible ripping and squelching that Dieter wished he hadn\u2019t heard he forced the snake\u2019s head up and off, along with the rest of his face. The thing that had once been Isaiah Benton, its face shorn off, heaved the snake carcass to the couch, where it bounced and flopped ingloriously to the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThoth<\/em>,\u201d it said through its ruined features. It seemed to be looking right at Dieter despite possessing no eyes. \u201cThoth<\/em>.\u201d It sprung at the window and that was when Dieter found his senses, turned, and ran for the woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An icy torrent of realization struck him a fraction of a second before he breached the first trees, but by then it was too late. There was a hollow, airy woosh like one of those shirt cannons used at football games, and then pain rippled like an exploding supernova through his mid-section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dieter Schmidt had stepped on one of Iz\u2019s pressure plates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019d been ball-kebabbed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda had to pee. She looked at the clock to see she\u2019d only slept a few hours. The extra glass of apple juice before bed meant she\u2019d be up at least one more time before dawn, maybe twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul snored down the hall. The fact that he was in another room reminded her again of how absurdly large this place was. She grabbed her glasses from the nightstand, slid into her slippers, and toddled down the hall. She\u2019d finished her business and was shuffling back when she stopped in the hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A while back \u2013she was startled to realize it had been nearly twenty years ago \u2013 her husband Manny had slipped in the garage and knocked himself unconscious on the edge of his work bench. She\u2019d been out working in the garden at the time. She had known something was wrong, not because she\u2019d heard anything \u2013 the cars driving by had drowned out any noise \u2013 but because she\u2019d felt something thump solidly on her chest, as if Manny\u2019s guardian angel were saying, hey, come with me<\/em>. She\u2019d heard of premonitions; that day she\u2019d learned what one felt like. To this day she had trouble accepting the supernatural, but that thump on her chest had been as real as the sun beating down on her handkerchief-covered head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now she felt it again, and the small hairs stood on the back of her neck. She wondered what the monkey statue was doing in the other room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nothing<\/em>,she told herself, feeling stupid. Inanimate statues don\u2019t do things.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, she went to the living room. If Paul woke up and found her standing here in the dark she would claim she was sleep walking. One benefit of old age, people rarely question your infirmities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statue was on the table where she\u2019d left it. Of course it was. She switched the light on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something had changed. The statue hadn\u2019t had any teeth before, but now there were two bumps at either edge of its upper lip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chisisi had told her the statue was hers. His voice and mannerism had insinuated it was hers long before she ever showed up at his shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She thought about her son\u2019s story of the monkey\u2019s paw. Placed her hand on the statue\u2019s head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is your fault, Paul<\/em>. What did you think your stupid story would do to me?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n She closed her eyes and made a wish: she wished she would never see Noel Bailing again. She\u2019d spent the past six months telling herself there was one upside to losing half her worth to a romantic thief: she would never again fall for the likes of Bailing or men like him because she knew all their tricks now. That sounded good but it wasn\u2019t true. All the logic in the world couldn\u2019t silence her wounded heart, and if Carl walked through the door this moment she would betray everyone and everything to be with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The monkey wriggled under her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She shrieked and stumbled back, nearly falling. managing to pinwheel her arms and stay on her feet. In that moment she was certain the monkey would scramble off its pedestal and come after her and if that happened she would lose her mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It didn\u2019t. It sat there in the dim light from the chandelier. She didn\u2019t have the nerve to touch it again so for several minutes she stood motionless, the patio curtains open and all of Cairo shining at her. She finally convinced herself she\u2019d imagined it and went back to bed. She looked in on Paul as she passed. He hadn\u2019t stirred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It took her a long while to get back to sleep — she kept hearing the shuffle of little claws on the hardwood floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n She woke again, blinked sleep from her eyes, rolled over to grab her glasses. It was morning, as evidenced by the slant of dim light through the window. She\u2019d been wrong about having to pee during the night, but now she did<\/em> have to go, like a racehorse, as the old saying went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She peeked in on Paul. He hadn\u2019t moved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moments later her teeth were brushed and her hair tidied. She\u2019d slipped on some loose slacks and a yellow top with navy blue polka dots. She\u2019d been dressing more adventurously since her run-in with Noel, one of the very few good things to come from it. The black-and-white wardrobe she\u2019d hidden in for years had gone to charity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As she slipped on her shoes she glanced back at the monkey. She grabbed her reading glasses from beside one of the chairs and moved in for a closer look. After a little scrutiny she decided the incisors had been there all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re not so scary in the light of day,\u201d she said to nobody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She wrote a note to Paul telling him to meet her downstairs for breakfast. She left it on the table beside the monkey. She knew her son, knew he held a child\u2019s fascination for the statue, and would examine it the moment he was up. Then he would see the note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On her way out she decided that at the next tourist shop they visited she would buy herself a ceramic cup or scarab scroll to take home and tell Paul the monkey was his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the lobby restaurant Brenda ordered a waffle and a coffee from the same Egyptian girl who\u2019d taken her order the night before. She was maybe nineteen and, aside from the caramel skin and sharp nose line, was indistinguishable from any teenagers Brenda knew back home. She took Brenda\u2019s order as if she had somewhere else to be and sauntered, loose hipped and unhurried, toward the kitchen. Like the white floor tiles and the photographs of generic beaches and sunsets hung on the walls, she bore no voice of local authenticity. Brenda suspected she was the hotel owners\u2019 kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was only five-thirty, the restaurant still empty, so Brenda propped her iPad on the table and started CBC news. Paul had put a link to it on her home screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The female anchor announced: \u201cOn the stranger side this morning, police in southern Alberta made a gruesome discovery last night of a man killed and partially devoured by his pet snake. You heard that right, folks. A criminal recluse according to police, he owned, among other illegal species, a twenty-foot-long reticulated python, which squeeze their prey to death and are capable of eating mammals as large as goats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe deceased was identified as Isaiah Benton. Police believe he may have been responsible for a string of fraud cases perpetrated against elderly women across British Columbia over the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe snake, arguably Mr. Benton\u2019s final victim, did not survive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n An age tinted photograph came up showing a gawkishly skinny man at a kitchen table. He sported a thick head of copper red hair. He was maybe thirty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda set her cup down, sloshing an ink blob of coffee on the table. He\u2019d had white hair and more of a paunch when she\u2019d known him, but there was no doubt she was staring at Noel Bailing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPolice are aware of six women Mr. Benton may have defrauded over the past ten years by masquerading as a wealthy businessman. They are doing their best to determine the whereabouts of the stolen money in hopes of returning what they can to the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda didn\u2019t care about the money. Noel had gotten what he deserved, and she sincerely hoped he knew what was happening as the snake squeezed the life out of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The restaurant was filling up as she polished off her first coffee and began to wonder where Paul was. Telling him about Noel might turn this trip into something they might both actually enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time she finished her second cup she was genuinely worried. She left five dollars on the table, not because the waitress deserved it but because Brenda and Paul would be down there many times in the following week, then she headed back upstairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n The monkey\u2019s gaze was on her the moment she entered. She turned the thing around so it could stare out the patio doors at Egypt, where it would stay. Paul could find himself another souvenir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPaul?\u201d No answer, so she went down the hallway, stopped at his door. His back was to her; he hadn\u2019t moved. \u201cHoney?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her mind was spinning into a dark tunnel, but she reminded herself Paul had no serious health issues. He made it to the gym occasionally and watched what he ate. Soon he would roll over and ask her why she was staring at him in his sleep and she would feel like an idiot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPaul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She sat beside him, touched the side of his face. It was cold, too cold. Her heart did a quick and painful little tap dance in her chest. She remembered the snippet of story he\u2019d told her the night before about the woman who had wished on a monkey\u2019s paw that her dead son would come home to her, and in her mind\u2019s eye she saw the corpse arriving at its mother\u2019s door, grey and bloated, moss and dirt clinging to its hair, a bouquet of rotten flowers in its desiccated grip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPaul,\u201d she said quietly, desperately, and when he didn\u2019t answer: \u201cPAUL!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a small employee\u2019s room nestled behind the hotel front desk, a cold compress on her forehead, a young woman from reception sitting beside her wearing the same put-upon, so tired of these tourists look on her face as the waitress. Another staff member gone upstairs to confirm Paul\u2019s death. Brenda silently prayed he would return with Paul by his side but instead he came back looking pale and faint and nodded somberly at the girl and Brenda knew this was no mistake, Paul was gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The girl told her the owner of the hotel had called the Canadian embassy. A representative was on their way. They would explain to Brenda the process of getting her and her son back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n God<\/em>, she thought, staring at the bare walls. How is Amanda going to deal with this? What is she going to tell the kids?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A man from the embassy arrived twenty minutes later. Tall, thin, his gaunt face offset by a welcoming smile. \u201cMs. Hanson, my name is George Till,\u201d he said, shaking her hand. \u201cI am so sorry for your loss. I\u2019m here to make the next twenty-four hours as anxiety free for you as I possibly can.\u201d He spoke a few words in Arabic to one of the hotel employees, who hurried off and returned with a glass of water. Mr. Till took it and handed it to Brenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo you need anything else before we begin?\u201d he asked. Brenda shook her head. \u201cIf you need anything at all, just let me know. I\u2019m going to ask you to endure some unpleasantries for which I apologize ahead of time. I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s protocol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe local police are going to be here any minute to investigate your room. They\u2019ll be followed by an officer from the embassy who will do the same. They look for any signs of foul play. Once they\u2019re done, a coroner will remove Paul. You won\u2019t be able to enter the room until they\u2019re finished.\u201d Brenda nodded. None of this felt real. \u201cThe local police and the embassy rep will want to speak with you to establish what happened. Are you up for that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI would like to inform next of kin while we wait. What other family does Paul have?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHis wife Amanda and their two children, Riley and Amber.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere do they live?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNear me in Abbotsford, B.C.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked at the ceiling as if figuring math in his head. \u201cIt would be around midnight there. Do I have your permission to call them now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI would like to have you in the room in case I have any questions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She nodded again. Tears gathered so she grabbed a tissue from the table. Mr. Till pulled out his cell phone and patted her hand reassuringly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNumber?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She recited the number from memory. Before he could hit send she said: \u201cThere is one thing you can do for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat is that Brenda?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s a statue of a monkey in my room. On the living room table. Can you please have someone dispose of it before I go up there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Till smiled. \u201cConsider it done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019d never been close. It wasn\u2019t like they had a hostile relationship, they just had little in common, avoiding small talk over the years to the point where they didn\u2019t really know one another, so Brenda was shocked when Amanda invited her to stay with her and the kids until the funeral. She said yes out of sympathy more than a need for company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda was ordered to take the week off, so she and Brenda visited in the kitchen while the kids were at school. It was awkward at first but Paul\u2019s death served as the topic of discussion they\u2019d always lacked, and soon they grew comfortable with one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda worried about her kids\u2019 mental states. Amber only expressed mild concern over her father\u2019s death, acting, in Amanda\u2019s opinion, as if her dad were on an extended business trip he would soon return from, while seventeen-year-old Riley had stomped to his room and slammed the door and informed his mother he hated her and wished she\u2019d died instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust be there for them,\u201d Brenda said. \u201cThey\u2019ll work through it in their own way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda nodded and sipped her coffee while Brenda burned with guilty for having waxed wise. What did she know about navigating life and death? Less than a year ago she\u2019d played the fool to a snake owning hermit who\u2019d stolen everything she ever cared about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two days before the funeral Brenda sensed Amanda was unsettled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou look tired,\u201d she said from the kitchen table. \u201cHave you been having trouble sleeping? I can give you something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda stopped putting away the dishes. \u201cPaul\u2019s stuff arrived yesterday when you were out. Two boxes, downstairs. I haven\u2019t had the nerve to open them.\u201d She wiped tears with the back of her hand. \u201cI\u2019m scared, I guess. Part of me thinks he isn\u2019t really gone until I open them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI get it, hon, but the funeral\u2019s Saturday. We all have to face the truth soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know. Listen, I can\u2019t tell you how glad I am that you\u2019re here. We\u2019ve hardly talked about how hard this has been on you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda hadn\u2019t allowed herself to think too much about Paul. They had been distant the last few years, which wasn\u2019t entirely due to his work schedule or her time with Noel. The truth was that they\u2019d never been very close. Early on Paul had distanced himself from his violent father and from her as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t we go down there and open them together?\u201d Brenda suggested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda set her cup down. \u201cNot sure I\u2019m ready.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou never will be. Come on, it\u2019ll be good for the both of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda split the first box open with a carpet knife and Paul\u2019s black nylon suitcase dropped onto the dusty cement floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou do the honours,\u201d Brenda said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJesus, My hands are shaking. Isn\u2019t that stupid?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside they found Paul\u2019s shirts and socks and a small scroll of an Egyptian scarab Brenda remembered him picking up their first day in Egypt. Under that were his shaving kit and his cell phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t we look at the pictures on the phone?\u201d Brenda suggested. \u201cMaybe it will be therapeutic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda held the phone out to her. \u201cAre you never going to look at these?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGood point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda swept a finger across the phone and entered what Brenda assumed was a secret code. Brenda and Manny had never been so trusting with one another. Near the end, when he\u2019d been too ill to raise up and hit her, she\u2019d fought with him about switching his bank account to joint, lost, and fought with the bank just to get at her own money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda pulled a rocking chair from under the stairwell and a nylon camping chair from a hook on the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSit,\u201d she said, patting the seat of the rocker as she took the fold-out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All the pictures were from Egypt and they were almost all selfies featuring Paul in front of pyramids, Paul near large stone sculptures, Paul amid bustling Cairo streets. There were a few of Brenda, and she looked pained in all of them. She hadn\u2019t realized how blatantly her inner emotions had shown on her face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One picture gave Brenda a nasty start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat is this?\u201d Amanda said. \u201cDoesn\u2019t look like something Paul would have taken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The monkey statue stared at Brenda from the table in the hotel room. She didn\u2019t remember Paul taking this shot, yet there it was. He must have snapped it when she was in the bathroom. And something far more mysterious than the picture\u2019s origin had grabbed her attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statue had changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The monkey had been squatting before. Now it leaned forward as if about to leap. The mouth was slightly open and canines showed prominently where there hadn\u2019t been any before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda turned the phone, cocked her head, bit her lip. \u201cThis is interesting. I think I may be able to use this\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda plucked the phone from her and Amanda stared at her, shocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre you okay? Give that back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda handed it back. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t know what came over me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t be sorry. I understand. We both want to hold onto our memories. Grief can manifest in some pretty weird ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda nodded and smiled, though that wasn\u2019t it at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n The kids got home from school in the middle of The Price is Right. Brenda heard Amber\u2019s pixie voice in the kitchen asking if she could go to a friend\u2019s later, the siren scream when she was told yes, followed by the soft thumping of small feet up the stairs. A moment later Riley shuffled in front of the TV and dropped into Paul\u2019s La-Z-Boy, snapping the footrest just as his father always had, even crossing his legs the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s new, kid?\u201d she said, trying to sound nonchalant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riley sighed. \u201cSo how long are you staying with us?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s a fine thing to say to your grandmother. Do you want me to leave?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo. Can we watch something else though?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSure. You know, Ri, we can talk about whatever\u2019s on your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of answering he pressed a button and the Netflix logo took over the screen. Brenda hated when he changed stations because it usually left the TV in a bad state which forced her to ask Amanda for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m good, Grandma,\u201d he said after a moment of silence. \u201cSorry for snapping. I\u2019m tired from school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She left Riley to stew in the living room and went upstairs, where she found Amber on her bed staring at her iPad. From the sounds of it she was watching TikTok, a phenomenon Amber had recently introduced to her grandma. Brenda pretended to like the short videos Amber shared with her when in truth they drove her nuts. TikTok\u2019s agenda seemed to be to drive older people insane with grating sounds and pulsating lights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou want to see my new video?\u201d Amber asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI sure do!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWoo hoo!\u201d The young girl swung her legs out and sat beside her grandma. She turned the device\u2019s volume up, swished a finger, and the video she\u2019d been watching restarted. Amber in black leotards dancing to a repetitive techno beat, her hips snapping back and forth as she punched her fists to the rhythm. Brenda pretended to pay attention to the dancing when she was really drawn to something else in the video, on the dresser behind Amber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The video ended and Amber shouted: \u201cWhat did you think, Gam Gam? Am I a good dancer?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVery good.\u201d Brenda pointed to the picture on the dresser. \u201cWhere did you get that, honey?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI made it myself!\u201d Amber exclaimed. The simple wood frame was covered with complex paisley patterns coloured with pencil crayons. \u201cIt\u2019s a Colour Me Frames.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI mean the picture, sweetie. Where did you get it from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMommy gave it to me. It was on her desk and I asked if I could have a copy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the monkey from Paul\u2019s phone, leaning a little further forward now on its pedestal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHoney, I know you aren\u2019t going to like this, and I want you to know it\u2019s not because of your dancing. I loved your dancing. But you should take that video off the Internet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amber looked devastated. \u201cYou don\u2019t like it? You just told me you liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do, sweetie, but you shouldn\u2019t put recordings of your bedroom on the Internet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHasn\u2019t your mom ever told you not to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDinner!\u201d Amanda called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amber squeezed her iPad against her chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m NOT deleting it! It\u2019s MINE!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following dinner, Brenda and Amanda sipped iced teas at the kitchen table. Brenda knew that when Paul was alive he and Amanda had spent most of their evenings in front of the television after dinner, and she wondered whether Amanda would ever go back to that comfortable habit. Once I leave<\/em>, she thought. Which would be soon. After being spoken down to by her grandson and then upsetting Amber, she considered whether she might have overstayed her welcome. She planned to head home after the funeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m going to the bank tomorrow morning,\u201d Amanda said. \u201cI thought you might want to come along. I could run you by your place so you can pick up whatever you\u2019re going to wear to the funeral. Save you burning your own gas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThanks, that would be great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda gave her a studious look. \u201cAre you okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda set her glass down. \u201cAmanda, have you ever talked to Amber about the videos she puts online?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI mean, should she be filming herself in her bedroom dancing around in leotards and putting that online?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda smiled and shook her head, a snippet of body language familiar to Brenda. She associated it with every man in her life including her deceased son. It effectively stated: You\u2019re an innocent. You don\u2019t understand what you\u2019re talking about. You wouldn\u2019t understand if I explained it to you slowly.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think you need to worry about that,\u201d Amanda said. She pushed her chair from the table and crossed her arms. \u201cI mean, I appreciate your concern. I do. But let me take care of my own daughter, okay?\u201d She cleared her throat. \u201cAmber told me before dinner what you said to her upstairs. I don\u2019t think you should come in here and lecture my kids. Until all this happened you were hardly even a part of their lives.\u201d Her eyes grew huge. She clamped her hands over her mouth. \u201cGod, Brenda, I\u2019m so sorry! I don\u2019t know where that came from!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s okay.\u201d Brenda thought it was more than okay, it was fitting that Amanda call her out for thinking she could be a significant part of this family again, a family she\u2019d all but abandoned for the past two years. Worse, she\u2019d stolen Paul from them. She was certain now, no matter how illogical, that her wish in Egypt had killed her son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not okay,\u201d Amanda said. \u201cIt\u2019s the grief talking. I don\u2019t think I could have gotten through this week without you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAmanda, you know as well as I do that I wasn\u2019t involved in the kids\u2019 lives when I was with Isaiah. I want to make amends. I don\u2019t want to take your place as a parent, I just want to be a proper grandma again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI would like that,\u201d Amanda said in a soft voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is one other thing,\u201d Brenda said. \u201cAnd I know it\u2019s stupid, but I\u2019m hoping you would humour this old woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s about that picture of the monkey statue on Paul\u2019s camera. I saw you gave Amber a copy. It bothers me. Every time I see it, I\u2019m pulled back to that morning at the hotel. I was wondering if you would get rid of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda blinked. \u201cWhat do you mean? Delete it from the camera?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd destroy any copies. It would give me peace of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda crossed her arms. \u201cLook, I can make sure the picture isn\u2019t out while you\u2019re around, but I\u2019m not going to take it away from Amber. It reminds her of her dad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust the original then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda didn\u2019t answer for a long time. Finally she said: \u201cDid it occur to you that I might want to keep it? That I have as much right to it as you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPaul\u2019s not even in it. Just that ugly monkey. I\u2019d appreciate if you got rid of it.\u201d Brenda understood the offence. Amanda had an equal right to Paul\u2019s memories, but she didn\u2019t have any right to that monkey; for better or worse that was Brenda\u2019s and Brenda\u2019s alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda took their dishes to the sink. \u201cI\u2019ll think about it\u201d she said, her back turned. \u201cMy offer for tomorrow still stands. I\u2019ll take you by your place after I go to the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThanks,\u201d Brenda said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThen I think you should give me and the kids some space,\u201d Amanda said before slipping quickly past Brenda and out of the kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The day of the funeral was sunny and bright, not a cloud in the sky, as if nature herself were mocking Paul\u2019s passing with cheerful weather. Brenda struggled to hold her sorrow and rage in check as she studied her son\u2019s pale face at the open casket. Their relationship was strained before his death and now the universe had robbed her of any reclamation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What stood out more than the hymns sung or the kind words shared were her grandchildren. Amber was so pale that Brenda wondered if she was ill. Reality has settled in on her<\/em>, she thought. Riley just looked rageful. Everyone avoided him, even his cousins who had flown in from Saskatchewan and hadn\u2019t seen him for years. Brenda hugged Amber in the parking lot after the service but could only bring herself to nod at Ri. Like his father, he was an unpredictable soul, gentle one moment, a cocked trap the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda had packed that morning before anyone was up. Now she walked to her Hyundai once Amanda and the kids had driven out of sight, careful to avoid any stray mourners who might want to stop and talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n She climbed the stairs to her condo around four that afternoon, gripping the thin metal railing with one hand and lugging a suitcase with the other. She stopped halfway up because the arthritis in her knees throbbed something terrible. At the top she took a moment to catch her breath before fishing her keys out. She opened the door, looked down at the car, and realized she\u2019d left her trunk open with her other suitcase in plain sight. If someone happened by and wanted to take it they could; she wasn\u2019t capable of stopping them. How vulnerable she\u2019d become. Normally Paul would be there to help her, but not anymore. Not ever again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A surge of heat smacked her when she opened the door. She\u2019d left a key with Rhonda Hutchins across the street and asked her to open the windows once a day and water the plants; clearly she\u2019d forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She did a round and found all her plants were, unsurprisingly, dead. Oh well, they hadn\u2019t been expensive. Outside her bedroom door she heard buzzing that fell silent as she approached. There was a fly swatter in the kitchen, but she hated killing bugs. Paul had always done that for her; before that, Noel; before that, Manny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She entered the room and then slowly backed out, almost tripping over her own legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her bedroom window was carpeted in house flies. She\u2019d never seen so many in one place; it reminded her of the huge swarms she\u2019d seen on the Bee Rescue show that engulfed trees or the back end of a car. They undulated like a belly dancer\u2019s mid-section if it were made of thousands of shiny black buttons. Occasionally a few flies broke from the pack to buzz aimlessly for a second, before diving back into the parent mass. A larger group took flight and descended onto the night table, where they spun like a mini tornado before settling into a perfect likeness of Brenda\u2019s Egyptian monkey statue. Some of the flies shifted their iridescent bodies and the monkey winked at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A scream whistled out of her as unexpected and unplanned as sick, and the flies spun into the air all at once, turning the room into a black tempest. Within the madness Brenda saw something flash on the dresser, where the winking monkey had just sat. Fighting her fear that the dive-bombing insects would cover her face, clamber into her mouth, go up her nose, she stumbled forward and grabbed the object before clamoring back into the hallway and slamming the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It took her several minutes to catch her breath. She held the object up and examined it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was Noel\u2019s ring, the big silver one with the grey stone he\u2019d once told her his mother had given him. She\u2019d learned he\u2019d stolen it from a woman from Kamloops who had once been married to a rich news mogul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What was it doing here? Noel had taken it when he left. Now that he was dead, shouldn\u2019t the police have it in an evidence room somewhere, tucked in a plastic baggie? It couldn\u2019t be here, that was for sure, and yet here it was, solid and cold between her thumb and forefinger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She slipped it into her pocket. Cursing at her aching hips, she managed to make it back down her front steps and into her car, slamming the trunk shut on her way by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She would call an exterminator in the morning. Until then she wanted to be as far away from this place as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sitting by the window in the Sunrise Caf\u00e9 off the hotel lobby, she wondered how many of the rooms upstairs she and Noel had made love in. They\u2019d gone there four, five times a week for two years, so odds were she\u2019d just checked into one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ring lay like a silver rivet in the center of the table. She was still trying to figure it out, a riddle she had to solve, or she wasn\u2019t going to get any sleep that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She\u2019d decided the flies had been natural. She\u2019d once seen a massive army of ants invade her mother\u2019s porch, some of them \u2013 the queen ants she\u2019d assumed \u2013 over an inch long. Over a few weeks the fly population in her apartment had simply grown out of control; gross but completely explainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ring was a tougher nut. She\u2019d tried to convince herself Isaiah might have forgotten it when he\u2019d left. It hadn\u2019t been on her end table before she\u2019d left for Egypt, she knew that, so maybe Rhonda came over after all, snooped, found it, left it on the end table. This theory didn\u2019t hold much water because Rhonda was no snoop and Noel never would have left an expensive ring behind. That meant someone must have come into her apartment and put it there on purpose. In the corny TV movies she sometimes watched, the twist would be Noel faking his death to drop the ring off as a message; but that was even more far-fetched since the police had found his body in rural Alberta part way down the gullet of a snake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then her mind served up a terrifying thought. Chisisi had told her the monkey was hers, which she\u2019d taken to mean she and it were connected in some profound way. Was that connection still binding, even from halfway around the world? Did the picture from Paul\u2019s camera somehow strengthen it? She still missed Noel despite what she told herself. She knew those feeling of loss and yearning might never leave her. Had they been enough to constitute a wish in the monkey\u2019s unnatural logic? Had the monkey brought Noel back to life, in the manner described in Paul\u2019s terrible Monkey\u2019s Paw story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She closed her eyes, watched Noel\u2019s reanimated corpse place the ring on her nightstand at home. In her imagination a grave-bloated version of him stumbled past the front desk, unnoticed by the skeleton staff. She saw him outside her hotel door, scratching to be let in, his yellow ruined eyes staring straight ahead, bereft of life; she swore she could smell his putrefaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was being foolish. The flies in her apartment had sent her into a downward spiral of paranoia and fear. She had to get a grip on herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The restaurant was empty other than the solitary waiter, who was setting tables. He stopped and asked if she needed anything else. She said no, settled her bill, and walked out into the lobby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hotel lobby was far brighter than the cave-like restaurant, more exposing. There was a sitting area to one side with a stuffed leather couch and two matching recliners arranged around an artificial fireplace. Above the TV, a television played a gardening show on mute. Brenda took off her shoes, stretched out on the couch, and turned her head so she could watch people come in and out of the front doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was no way she was going to sleep tonight. Even with the lights on, she would be a nervous wreck. But there was no way she was going back to her apartment either, and she wouldn\u2019t beg Amanda to let her back in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was an open-plan lounge on the far side of the lobby with a floor-to-ceiling mural of a glamour girl dancing at a night club on the back wall. Bathed in the full exposure of the lobby\u2019s lights, its vibe was more clothing store vestibule than bar. Brenda slipped her shoes back on, fixed her hair, and sauntered over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWelcome to the Regency Lobby Bar,\u201d the young bartender said. \u201cI\u2019m Jeff. Would you like a drink?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She would indeed. She wasn\u2019t a drinker — Manny had held that title in their marriage. In the years before cancer put him to rest, when she refused to buy him his regular cases of whiskey, he had screamed the most terrible obscenities at her while suckling at the rims of empty bottles like a deranged baby. Now, despite knowing the damage it could do, she wanted something to numb her senses. She might end up sick, but she had witnessed enough with Manny to know it would solve her current problem, one way or another. The only pressing question was what to order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGin and tonic?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSure,\u201d the young man said. He straightened his shirt and got down to the business of making her drink. \u201cYou\u2019re a welcome change from the usual Saturday crowd here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI mean we don\u2019t get many\u2026\u201d he paused for a moment and Brenda knew he was picking words. \u201c\u2026mature people in here on a Saturday night. Give it an hour and this place will fill with clubbers. It\u2019s been that way since they opened that new dance place across the street, Thrill Bang<\/em>.\u201d His pale face reddened in embarrassment. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, that\u2019s just what it\u2019s called.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t be sorry,\u201d she said. \u201cMost of us old timers aren\u2019t as innocent as you think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He set her drink in front of her. She took a sip and shook her head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs it alright?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYeah. Just surprised at the bite. I\u2019m not used to drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMay I ask why you\u2019re starting now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019d rather not say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFair enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda asked, \u201cAre you going to be here all night, Jeff?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes ma\u2019am. My shift ends at four.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCould you do me a favour?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDepends on what you\u2019re asking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCareful there, I\u2019m old enough to be your grandmother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This made him chuckle and blush all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy room number is 412. Could you call up if you see a man walk into the lobby who looks like this?\u201d She fished a picture of Noel out of her purse and held it up. Nobody knew she still carried it and she wanted to keep it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeff studied it. Smiled. \u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda could tell he thought Noel was the reason she was drinking, and that was alright with her. He probably figured Noel was potentially dangerous, and that was even better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Up in her room she experienced a moment so profoundly out of sync with the paranoia she\u2019d felt downstairs that it made her dizzy. She recalled standing at the window in a room nearly identical to this one \u2013 this might be the very room for all she knew — wrapped in Noel\u2019s arms by the window. It was early morning. They were watching folks pull from the parking lot while the sun broke over the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure I can leave everyone behind,\u201d she\u2019d said. She hadn\u2019t meant it, she was<\/em> sure. Resisting was simply her way of saying goodbye to everyone and everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho are you leaving behind?\u201d he said, with the gentle cadence of a mentor. \u201cFrom what you\u2019ve told me your entire existence was with your husband. The way I see it, your family will barely notice you\u2019re gone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later those words would sound foolish to her. Dangerous even. That day they had freed her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She left the windowsill and went to the bathroom where all her warm memories melted away, for sitting on the edge of the tub was a white towel folded in the shape of an animal. Hotel staff did that sometimes — swans and rabbits were popular bath towel origami subjects. This one was in the shape of a monkey, and its resemblance to the statue from Egypt was uncanny. Its face was blank, but she could imagine the details well enough. She wanted to shake it, transform it into a harmless towel, but something stopped her, the same something that had stopped her from throwing Paul\u2019s camera to the ground and crushing it when she\u2019d seen the monkey photo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She placed the towel monkey out in the hall, had a shower, then ordered room service. She tried to watch television but couldn\u2019t find the stations she liked. The sheer number of channels gave her a headache. She remembered a book in her suitcase, dug it out, started reading. The phone rang when she was on page 25 and she nearly shrieked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could only be Jeff from downstairs. Nobody else knew she was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The phone rang again, and she seriously considered not answering it. But what was her plan, then? To cower in fear of her dead ex-lover coming up to claim her and drag her into hell? That was insane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She answered, and to her surprise it wasn\u2019t Jeff but Amanda, who was panicked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBrenda, thank God! I need your help. I had a fight with Riley and he\u2019s taken off. I think he might do something stupid. You saw how he was at the funeral. I need you to watch Amber while I go look for him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSlow down,\u201d Brenda said. \u201cHow do you know he\u2019s in trouble? Maybe he just wants some time to himself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda sighed in a way that made Brenda want to grind her teeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t you think I thought of that? Are you suggesting I don\u2019t know my own son?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI didn\u2019t mean it that way. Listen, I\u2019ll be there as soon as I can. Everything\u2019s going to be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThanks. Look, I\u2019m sorry\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d Brenda said. \u201cJust hang in there. I\u2019m on my way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She hung up, then considered how it was that Amanda had known where to call her. The answer came to her immediately, both obvious and embarrassing: Amanda knew all the intimate details of her and Noel\u2019s trysts, because she and Paul had sat in on the fraud investigation, insisting on being in the room whenever the police spoke with Brenda, as if she were too mentally feeble to testify on her own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Struggling with discordant emotions \u2013 both concerned for her grandchild\u2019s safety and smugly satisfied over her daughter-in-law\u2019s panic — Brenda thought Amanda was right to be concerned. There had been more than simple rage in Riley\u2019s eyes that afternoon; there had flashed a promise of dire consequences. It was that promise everyone had shied from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On her way out she glanced down at the monkey towel, considered touching its head and wishing for her troubled grandson\u2019s safety. Instead she scooped it up and took it along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda paced briskly through the kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve texted and called him repeatedly and gotten nothing, which tells me he\u2019s either in trouble or ignoring me.\u201d She stopped long enough to look beseechingly at Brenda. \u201cWhich do you think it is? Be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda hadn\u2019t spent nearly as much time with her grandson as she should have the past few years, so her opinion could be off, but she\u2019d never seen Riley as a victim. He was a smart kid, a natural leader. If there was something going down he probably helped instrument it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think he\u2019s ignoring you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight,\u201d Amanda seemed buoyed by the insight. \u201cAmber doesn\u2019t know where he went. I\u2019ve called all Riley\u2019s friends I have numbers for, and they either aren\u2019t home or are denying they\u2019ve seen him. I think it\u2019s time I go out and find him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou go,\u201d Brenda said. \u201cI\u2019ll see Amber gets to bed. Do you have any idea where he might be?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s been seeing a new girl lately, he\u2019s probably at her house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda\u2019s cell phone buzzed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHello\u2026 yes, this is his mother.\u201d She glanced at Brenda with a look of terror on her face. \u201cIs he okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riley had taken a corner too quickly and slid his car into a light post at high speed. As Amanda had suspected, he\u2019d crashed near his new girlfriend\u2019s place. The airbags had deployed, but since it was a side collision his head had smashed against the window. The doctor had already stitched up a five-inch gash above his temple by the time Brenda, Amanda and Amber arrived at emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s stable,\u201d the doctor informed them in the lobby. The doctor glanced at Amber and then back at Amanda, which made Brenda\u2019s heart sink. \u201cDo we want to continue this conversation away from young ears?\u201d he asked. Amanda shook her head, so the doctor continued: \u201cThere\u2019s been cranial swelling. At this point we\u2019re not sure what brain damage may have occurred.\u201d The doctor stopped, licked his lips. \u201cI wish I had better news, folks, but I don\u2019t want you having unrealistic expectations either. We don\u2019t know when \u2013 or even if — Riley will wake up.\u201d He closed the file he\u2019d been holding as if he\u2019d just completed a recitation. \u201cYou\u2019re free to go up and see him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amber, inconsolable on the way over, was the first to her brother\u2019s side. She squeezed his hand, careful of the IV catheter, as her mom had told her. She kissed his arm and declared that he had to wake up, that she would never forgive him if he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda approached next, took her son\u2019s limp hand, stood by him silently. Tears worked their way down her cheeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda hugged them both and reflected on how important family was when life led you through dark storms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only this storm is manageable<\/em>, a voice in her head reminded her. The solution is sitting in the back seat of your car.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n After a few moments Brenda excused herself to get some fresh air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out in the parking lot she knelt on the back seat of her car and stared at the towel monkey, its blank face reflecting the ghostly light of a nearby lamp post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was at least some chance Riley was never going to wake up. If he didn\u2019t recover \u2013 if, God forbid, he died \u2013 would she forgive herself for not doing everything she could to help?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She reminded herself that the one time she\u2019d done something like this the fall out had far outweighed the benefits. But what if she specified<\/em> who would be affected? Last time she\u2019d left it up to the monkey; but the monkey was hers<\/em>, she should be telling it<\/em> what to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She closed her eyes, laid a hand on the towel monkey\u2019s head, and said, in a shaky but determined voice: \u201cLet Riley make a full and speedy recovery. Let the consequences fall on Jeff the bartender.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shocked by her own words, she gasped and stumbled back. The monkey didn\u2019t move. There was no thunderbolt from the sky. She had no idea if anything had happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She scrambled forward, grabbed the damn thing by its pointed ears, and shook it into the night air until it was nothing but a harmless bath towel once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On her way back in, she dropped it unceremoniously into a garbage bin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n The three of them held a silent vigil by Riley\u2019s side for another two hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTake Amber home,\u201d Amanda said to Brenda. It was nearly midnight. Amber squeaked that she didn\u2019t want to go, but she was flagging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOkay,\u201d Brenda said. \u201cTry to get some sleep. I\u2019ll call you first thing in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda and Amber were nearly to the door when Riley emitted a weak moan \u2013 the first sound he\u2019d made since they\u2019d arrived — around his breathing tube. Amanda rushed to his side; Brenda and Amber were close behind. Riley made a few more weak noises before settling back into silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A nurse poked her head in. \u201cYou folks staying the night?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe made a sound!\u201d Amanda told her. \u201cI think he might be waking up!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The nurse smiled and tilted her head in a way Brenda took as patronizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cProbably not, I\u2019m afraid. Even patients in deep comas make noises occasionally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda sighed deeply. Amber\u2019s shoulders slumped and her eyes dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The nurse, still smiling, said: \u201cYou\u2019re welcome to stay if you want. I\u2019ll bring some pillows and blankets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riley wouldn\u2019t spend the rest of his life in a coma. That day at the hospital had been the start of a slow but certain recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A week later Amanda asked Brenda to move back in. She said she needed an amateur therapist to talk with, her only other option being Amber, whom she joked lacked the requisite experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda said yes. She was still staying at the hotel, refusing to go back to her condo despite assurances by the exterminators that the flies were gone. They\u2019d called her the day following the hospital visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut there weren\u2019t any flies, ma\u2019am,\u201d the guy on the phone had said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey were all over the bedroom,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was the biggest swarm I\u2019ve ever seen. Do they go away on their own sometimes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The man sighed. \u201cNot to my knowledge, ma\u2019am. Afraid we\u2019re still gonna have to charge you for the call out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The doctor predicted Riley needed another month or so of recuperation and would suffer few to no long-term effects, a much rosier picture than he\u2019d offered up before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Brenda had worried constantly about Jeff the bartender, always expecting him to be absent for his shift or at least to show up damaged in some fashion, but the week she spent in the hotel he was always at work on time and looking fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The evening of her first day back at the house she showed Amanda the ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m no expert, but this might be worth something,\u201d Amanda said, eyeballing it with fascination. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me and Paul about it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI haven\u2019t had it long. I just found it on my dresser when I went home after the funeral. It wasn\u2019t there when I left. I can\u2019t explain it.\u201d Then, before she could stop herself: \u201cI think it might be a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda stared at her. \u201cA gift? From whom?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d She shouldn\u2019t have said anything, but it felt so good to get the thought out of her head. \u201cAnyway, I can\u2019t accept it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe should get it appraised,\u201d Amanda said. \u201cIt could be worth something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sure it is.\u201d Noel never owned cheap jewellery, although this ring didn\u2019t impress Brenda much with its large, muddy brown gemstone. \u201cBut we need to take it to the police. They know it\u2019s stolen. They showed us a photo of it once. You were there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat was a long time ago,\u201d Amanda said. \u201cI think there are statutes of limitations on these sorts of things. Let\u2019s get it appraised before we make any decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n The gentleman behind the counter of Regal Jewellers studied the ring in silence. Eventually he dropped his eyepiece into his hand, scanned the room — which was empty of customers other than Brenda and Amanda — and called to the only other employee in sight, who was busy dusting a display case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMichael, lock the door for a moment and go to the break room. I\u2019d like to speak with these ladies privately.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael nodded and left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda felt a cold rush. This man knew the ring was stolen. He was going to call the police, and her alibi was going to make her sound like an absolute lunatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the man didn\u2019t call the police. He smiled and set the ring gently on top of the display case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cListen, if you two are police officers, then this is entrapment, and I won\u2019t have it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ladies stared at each other, then back at the jeweller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re not police officers,\u201d Amanda said. She glanced at the closed door. \u201cI\u2019m a graphic designer. This is my mother-in-law. We just want this ring appraised.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNeither of you know Detective Price? I told him he wasn\u2019t going to get a second shot at destroying my business with his unsubstantiated insinuations, and I meant it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about,\u201d Amanda said. \u201cAre you telling us this ring is worth something?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou honestly don\u2019t know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda shrugged. Brenda did the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The little man leaned over the counter, the ring balanced carefully between his index finger and thumb, his pinky as if he were enjoying tea with the Queen. His eyes remained laser focused on the ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis, ladies, is a musgravite gemstone, arguably the rarest stone on the planet. There are fewer than a dozen this size and condition in existence. In my two decades of studying rare stones, I\u2019ve seen but one of this quality, in Switzerland in \u201898. If you came across it by accident, as you\u2019ve told me, then you\u2019re two of the luckiest people alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow much?\u201d Amanda said, the uncertainty in her voice transforming to giddiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The jeweller looked up. His eyes sparkled. \u201cHow do you ladies feel about a cash transaction of one hundred?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda looked confused. \u201cA hundred dollars?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne hundred thousand<\/em>, my dear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda gasped. \u201cWe\u2019ll take it!\u201d she shouted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHold on\u2026\u201d Brenda said. Amanda and the jeweller turned to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHold on?\u201d Amanda said. \u201cA hundred grand<\/em>, Brenda! That\u2019s at least half of what Noel took from you. It won\u2019t make you financially whole, but it\u2019s a hell of a start!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda still didn\u2019t know how the ring had gotten on her dresser. But since her time at the hotel, she\u2019d concluded that the monkey was somehow involved in its appearance in her bedroom. The ring was a gift, a bribe, however one chose to view it. Selling it would be finalizing a pact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo,\u201d she said, more forcefully. \u201cNo deal, sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBrenda\u2026\u201d Amanda began, but Brenda had already scooped the ring from the jeweller\u2019s hand and was hobbling determinedly out the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome back if you change your mind,\u201d the jeweller called after her, sounding for all his polished showmanship like a broken-hearted teenager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n She shaded her eyes against the early afternoon sun, leaned against a sign to give some relief to her throbbing back. Amanda burst out after her a moment later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy the hell did you turn that down? Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have that ring?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI told you, it\u2019s stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda\u2019s hands balled into fists. Her face clenched. Brenda thought she looked like a wild animal clad in a sundress and Birkenstocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d Amanda said slowly, as if scolding an ignorant child. \u201cHe was going to pay us cash. He was going to sell the ring out of country. Nobody would have known we ever had it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At that moment Brenda yearned for her dead son. Her relationship with him hadn\u2019t been stellar, but at least he\u2019d tethered her to her family. Once upon a time he\u2019d stopped her from going off with Noel, which would have been the worst decision of her life. Now he was gone and she was adrift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI just want to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, okay,\u201d Amanda barked, tossing her arms out, letting them slap back to her sides. \u201cWell, you know what I<\/em> would like? I would like some stability. I would have liked not to financially bail you out of your stupid delusional fling with Noel!\u201d Spittle gathered at the corners of her lips. She wiped it away aggressively. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she muttered, not sounding sorry at all. She stared into the sky for a moment. \u201cThings are really fucked up for us right now, aren\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey are,\u201d Brenda said. She was not surprised by Amanda\u2019s tantrum. It was in line with the driven professional she knew, the perfect mom, the woman she once hadn\u2019t wanted her son to marry. She lifted herself off the sign and stretched her back. \u201cI think we just need to cool off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d Amanda said. \u201cThis guy\u2019s offer will still stand tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda wasn\u2019t coming back here tomorrow or any other day, but she didn\u2019t see the point of saying so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda sighed. \u201cAmber needs picking up from school in twenty minutes. Can you drop me off at home and take her to dance class tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda\u2019s family were infamous for dining on packaged food and take-out so it was a surprise when Brenda and Amber returned from dance class to a roast beef dinner with all the trimmings on the kitchen table. Brenda wondered whether this was an apology dinner. If it was, she was hungry enough to accept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want to show you something in my office,\u201d Amanda said once the table was cleared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As they walked down the hall, Brenda caught snippets of the news from the living room TV. Amanda ran the TV all day. She said it helped fill the void left by Paul, who\u2019d worked out of his own office downstairs and used to drop in and chat with her regularly throughout the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The newscaster\u2019s voice peaked as she announced eleven more deaths in Ontario from a new illness out of China they were calling the Coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIsn\u2019t that horrible?\u201d Brenda said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat new disease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda shook her head. \u201cDon\u2019t get too worked up. Remember SARS? This\u2019ll blow over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. They\u2019ve been announcing new deaths every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s media fodder, Brenda. Meant to keep people eating up the video feeds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The office was small and heavily cluttered, dominated by a wall-to-wall easel-style desk plastered in dog-eared pages of hand-drawn art. To the right of the big desk was a minimalist desk on wheels with two thirty-four-inch curved monitors side-by-side on its surface, attached to a laptop tucked into a lower shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda stopped at the doorway, for plashed across the large monitors was a grotesque version of her monkey. At least she assumed<\/em> it was her monkey \u2013 the resemblance was passing. Rendered in flat pastels like a child\u2019s cartoon, it stood erect on hairy oversized feet, its arched back testing anatomical correctness, its face upturned, eyes bulging, mouth agape and bursting with oversized incisors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is my most recent version,\u201d Amanda said, looking proud. \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d Brenda asked, trying to sound casual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s your monkey from Egypt, silly. I presented it to my executives yesterday. They went nuts. They already have a buyer in mind \u2013 a company that wants to use its likeness on their summer clothing line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI asked you to get rid of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know, and I\u2019m sorry, Brenda, but this Bad Monkey account is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBad Monkey?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s the name our think tank came up with. I think it\u2019s pretty good. Do you like it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat does this mean?\u201d Brenda asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt means everything, Brenda. Not just for Crystal Designs, but for me personally. Hon, this could make me a rich woman. My artwork is going to be advertised everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda felt faint. The monkey wasn\u2019t Amanda\u2019s, it was hers; she alone controlled it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been gathering initial reactions. Let me show you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda opened a section of the Crystal Designs website called Your Feedback<\/em> and Brenda read the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Love the new Bad Monkey logo guys! I think its good luck, cuz after seeing it I found a twenty in my coat pocket! Coincedents? Dunno\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Forgot I had a test on Monday! Did NOT study! Wished on Bad Monkey and think I did OK! Will post and let yall no<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Moms in remission!!!! I know its because I prayed on bad monkey the other day\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda felt faint. The wishes on the screen \u2013 and that\u2019s exactly what Brenda considered them, veiled wishes — were innocuous enough, but still, what sort of horrific karmic blowback would the monkey dole out in compensation for a thousand strangers\u2019 wishes? How about a million?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow many people use this site every day?\u201d Brenda asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda frowned. \u201cI.T. might know, but I would guess it\u2019s in the tens of thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the living room television, loud enough to be heard in the office, a focus group discussed the Coronavirus. One man proffered the term pandemic. <\/em>His colleagues dismissed him with groans. A naysayer suggested the mystery disease would be gone by the end of the month, which was met with a smattering of applause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can\u2019t use the monkey like this, Amanda,\u201d Brenda said. She very nearly called it her<\/em> monkey before correcting herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda\u2019s expression fossilized. Her eyes darkened. \u201cWhat is wrong with you? What is your obsession with this monkey?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of answering, Brenda asked: \u201cWhy did you draw it all crazy like that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you mean? It\u2019s modelled after the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe picture doesn\u2019t look anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda grabbed Paul\u2019s phone from the pencil well of her drawing desk, found the picture, held it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt looks exactly<\/em> like that, thank you very much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Brenda\u2019s memory, the statue Chisisi offered had been of a sitting monkey with a somber face, its front paws settled on its knees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What was before her now could only be described as a monster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n That evening, once everyone else was asleep, Brenda slipped her clothes on \u2013 slowly, since her hip joints were acting up again \u2013 and snuck out of the house. She walked a half block before stopping at a sidewalk grate, into which she dropped Noel\u2019s ring. It barely fit through the rusted bars. There was a satisfying plop when it hit the water below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She snuck back to the quiet house, changed, climbed into bed, and lay staring at the ceiling. She was feeling the same way she had felt during her final few weeks with Noel \u2013 as if she were being duped, yet unsure how and by whom. In her mind\u2019s eye she saw Amon and Chisisi standing in the Egyptian sun, insisting she take the statue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What had Chisisi and his family been through by the time she\u2019d shown up that day? Where had he<\/em> gotten the damn thing from? How many lives had it touched \u2013 possibly destroyed — before that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her mind drifted to the man from the Canadian embassy who\u2019d helped her the day Paul died. She couldn\u2019t recall his name, but remembered she had his card. She dug it out of her purse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n George Till.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hadn\u2019t he told her to call him anytime? It was a little past midnight, almost the same time Mr. Till had called Amanda to tell her about Paul\u2019s death. In Egypt it would be late morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Till answered on the third ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGeorge Till, Egyptian Embassy to Canada. How may I help you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She hadn\u2019t considered what to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMr. Till, I don\u2019t know if you remember me. My name is Brenda Hanson. My son Paul passed away when I was in Egypt last month and you helped me through it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBrenda, of course. What can I do for you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda paused, then remembered Mr. Till\u2019s reaction when she\u2019d asked to have the statue removed from her room; in short, he hadn\u2019t reacted at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s about the monkey statue I asked you to remove from my room that day.\u201d This was met by dead air, which strengthened her suspicion he knew more about the statue than he\u2019d shared with her. \u201cDo you know what that statue symbolizes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMs. Hanson, are you calling for general information on the statue? I don\u2019t mind the call, but you could have consulted the Internet for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes, I\u2019m sorry,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m no good on the computer and I don\u2019t have anyone to help me.\u201d This was partially true. She really was terrible with computers, but she had enough know-how to perform a Google by herself. The only computer she had access to was Amanda\u2019s, which was locked, and she wasn\u2019t going to ask Amanda for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI understand,\u201d he said. \u201cMy grandmother is the same way. Life moves so quickly these days, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat statue represents the god Thoth,\u201d he told her. \u201cHe\u2019s a moon god in Egyptian mythology — the god of knowledge and the afterlife. If you\u2019re thinking of getting another one shipped to Canada, I\u2019m afraid we don\u2019t do that sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, nothing like that. Besides, I still have my original statue, in a manner of speaking. My son took a picture of it before he passed. My daughter-in-law works for a large advertising studio and they\u2019re planning on using it for merchandising.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a pause he said: \u201cI would be careful about distributing the likeness of any artwork from Egypt for commercial gain. That could be a legal morass.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs that the only reason?\u201d It was cool in her room, and yet she felt sweat trickling down her side, under her nightgown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, no.\u201d He was being cautious. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019re superstitious, Ms. Hanson. I\u2019m ashamed to admit I am. After two decades in Egypt, the local mythology has seeped into my bones. Some Egyptians believe Thoth wants to cleanse the human race; balance from chaos if you will. You see, Thoth is also a god of reckoning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLike the biblical story of Noah and the Ark,\u201d Brenda said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSomething like that,\u201d Mr. Till said. He uttered a hollow laugh. \u201cOf course, we\u2019re talking about a myth. Your daughter-in-law should consider the legal consequences first and foremost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda considered asking him about Chisisi and any others who might have been touched by the statue, but knew that line of questioning to be a dead-end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThank you,\u201d she said, and hung up before he could respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was straightening the bed in Riley\u2019s room a few days later, in preparation for his impending return, when she heard about Jeff via the living room television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA tragedy unfolded yesterday evening right here in downtown Kamloops when a twenty-four-year-old man named Jeff Crozier was struck and killed by a bus on his way to his job as a bartender at the Regency Hotel. The driver told police he\u2019d been distracted by an unruly passenger and hadn\u2019t seen the young man until it was too late. Word is still out on whether any charges will be laid. In other news\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda dropped onto the bed, causing the headboard to crack against the wall. She covered her face. There was no doubt in her mind she\u2019d killed him. Manny had always told her then without him around she couldn\u2019t manage to walk a straight line, and how right he\u2019d been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEverything okay?\u201d Amanda called from her office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFine,\u201d Brenda responded, her voice hoarse. \u201cJust sat down to take a break.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wiping tears from her eyes, she turned back to straightening the quilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next three months spun chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The disease Brenda heard about on the news — initially referred to as Coronavirus, then Covid-19, and eventually just Covid — spread across the globe at an obscene rate. Historians compared it to past pandemics until it was clear it would outpace any disease in recorded history, save perhaps the Black Plague, and even that was a race too close to call. Eventually the news stopped reporting the deaths. The Canadian government declared martial law at the end of the second month, one of the last first-world countries to do so. Everyone was forced into strict home arrest. Doctors made house calls in the direst of circumstances, under military chaperone. Provisions were delivered to people\u2019s doors by officially sanctioned volunteers folks took to calling the Covid Angels. Their deliveries came with makeshift news tracts, presumably to keep people minimally connected with what was happening outside their doors. These amateur local papers contained pictures showing the sad state of the neighbourhood: abandoned streets, food rotting in shops, scroungy-looking abandoned pets wandering the streets. The feds bought up huge tracts of empty industrial land all over the country to serve as mass graves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TVs went dark as the cable companies closed their doors. Internet providers were limited, on threat of paralyzing fines for non-compliance, to virtual meeting channels run through government-controlled server farms. Amanda\u2019s company was allotted a mere six hours of meeting time a week, which she claimed was a bald attempt at limiting the spread of information to control the masses. Cell phone service was cut back to 911 until further notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda slept until noon most days. When awake she watched the birds \u2013 unaffected by the pestilence \u2013 flit through the front yard. She hadn\u2019t been back to her condo since the day of the flies, and sometimes she wondered if there would be anything left to go back to. There had been an awful lot of looting according to the flyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The kids were coping in the barest sense. Riley slipped through each day like a zombie while Amber, more demonstrable in her agony, threw daily tantrums, during which Riley liked to poke her ribs with his foot as she wriggled on the ground and howled. Eventually Amanda would storm from her office and sent them both to their rooms, a futile gesture given the circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brenda feared Amanda was losing her mind. She spent every waking hour in her office, surfacing only to announce how her company was riding the storm. According to her they\u2019d pivoted from general ad campaigns to online educational material. Amanda still spearheaded the Bad Monkey brand which had become the most popular avatar among children ages five through fifteen. In remote focus groups young kids said Bad Monkey\u2019s warrior stance gave them hope for the future. Older teenagers had caught the Bad Monkey bug too, using it as ironic meme fodder with captions such as Be a Bad Monkey \u2013 snort Covid <\/em>and This is ANYTHING but FUCKING fine, folks!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda\u2019s reassurances garnered dead stares from her children and the odd obligatory nod from Brenda. Amanda always ended her speeches by ushering the family into the washroom where she took everyone\u2019s temperatures. When it was determined nobody was ill \u2013 so far nobody had been \u2013 she scurried back to her office and shut the door. Brenda sometimes heard concerning noises from her office \u2013 crying, banging, the occasional curse. She never intruded. Manny had always told her not to stick her nose into other people\u2019s business unless she was sure she wasn\u2019t going to make things worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was under this blanket of oppression and death that Brenda came to terms with what had happened to Jeff. She\u2019d been wrong to throw him under the bus \u2013 literally — as she had, but she\u2019d panicked. She was only human, after all. Besides, she didn\u2019t really know if it was her fault. It might have been a coincidence<\/em>, she told herself. Scratch that,<\/em> it was almost certainly coincidence<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life went on this way for a very long time, amid a disease which threatened to set the world\u2019s population back to pre-industrial numbers by the time it was over, if it ever ended at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n One day, around seven-thirty in the evening, Amanda came out of her office wearing a dour expression. She gathered everyone in the kitchen and informed them she\u2019d been unceremoniously kicked off the Bad Monkey account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDidn\u2019t you invent Bad Monkey, Mommy?\u201d Amber asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI did,\u201d Amanda said. \u201cBut Harold Dempster convinced the board he was a better pick moving forward. There\u2019s nothing Mommy can do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre we going to have enough money?\u201d Amber asked. This was a very grown-up question from the little girl. Until that February she probably hadn\u2019t really grasped the concept of money, let alone her family\u2019s financial stability. But Amanda had been reporting profit numbers daily, which had clearly left an impression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t be stupid,\u201d Riley shot back. \u201cNobody needs money in the pandemic.\u201d He wasn\u2019t wrong. The government, as well as other public and private entities, had been supplying most food and medicine for free. Nobody was allowed out to shop, and non-essential supplies were banned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey, don\u2019t talk that way to your sister,\u201d Amanda said. \u201cListen, kids, Mom is still doing okay. I\u2019ll get on another project. Maybe something more profitable than Bad Monkey. By the time this pandemic ends we\u2019ll be in a good position, I promise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her words were inspiring. Her harried expression less so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amber\u2019s fever struck a week after Amanda\u2019s work demotion. Early that afternoon she complained of feeling funny and asked if she could take a nap, which scared Brenda badly, since Amber was the last kid in the world to volunteer to sleep in the middle of the day. By dinner time she was burning up. Brenda given her all the pills she could safely administer but her fever wasn\u2019t breaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda had been holed up in her office all day with the door locked. Brenda called to her from the hallway, stressing Amber was sick and needed help. When she got no answer she pounded on the door, panic fluttering through her like a razor-winged butterfly. Her head and hips throbbing, she gave up, fetched a glass of water from the kitchen, and took it upstairs to Amber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThanks,\u201d Amber croaked, her eyelids half closed. She took a small sip, set the glass on the end table, and rolled back into a fetal position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re welcome, sweetheart,\u201d Brenda said. She kissed the child\u2019s sweat-covered forehead. \u201cI\u2019m going to call the doctor, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She went to her own bedroom down the hall and dialled 911, got a busy signal, and realized that she\u2019d been mad to expect otherwise. No government anywhere had a practical plan for dealing with an event of this magnitude. Overcome by rage, she threw her phone against the wall, where it exploded in a shower of glass and plastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Till had agreed the monkey\u2019s motives were like those of God in the Old Testament when he\u2019d flooded the world to wash away man\u2019s sin. The implication of that, as far as Brenda could tell, was that this pandemic and the flood were both necessary corrections on some path to enlightenment. She couldn\u2019t believe that. She saw nothing positive in this predicament, and it seemed almost sacrilegious to suggest as much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She\u2019d considered wishing the apocalypse away, but whad stopped her \u2013 what should have stopped her from dooming Jeff \u2013 were the potential consequences. What would happen if she wished an entire pandemic out of existence? Perhaps an asteroid the size of a city would drop out of the sky, or some far worse disease would swoop down and finish off the human race. God\u2019s flood had been unstoppable. Noah hadn\u2019t had any say in the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then she thought: Hadn\u2019t he? What if he\u2019d denied God?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n She went back to Amber\u2019s room. The child had kicked her blankets off and lay uncovered in her nightie, shivering, her eyes squeezed shut and her blond hair stuck to her forehead in damp clumps. Brenda covered her back up and placed a hand on her forehead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan you promise me something, sweetheart?\u201d she said. She didn\u2019t think the girl was hearing her but she continued anyway. \u201cPromise me that if you make it through this you\u2019ll live your life on your own terms. Don\u2019t ever let someone tell you who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amber, teeth chattering, shuffled closer to her and hugged her side. Brenda kissed her granddaughter on the forehead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then she stood up, walked to the picture on the dresser, and recited her final with to the monkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The funeral proved a brutal return to normalcy. People meandered about the air-conditioned church in their dark suits and skirts as if lost. Amanda couldn\u2019t help thinking that every one of them had recently pondered, in the most brutal of pragmatic senses, how long they had to live. Amanda had done the same, and now she wondered how she was ever going to slide back into her old life as if nothing had happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pandemic had changed course. Scientists around the world were scrambling to explain it. So far they had no definitive answer, but they all agreed on a few key details: the world had gone to sleep riddled by arguably the worst disease to ever infect mankind, and had woken the next morning cured. Millions of people world-wide who had tested positive the day before were suddenly, inexplicably testing by the light of dawn. Every petri dish in the world showing evidence of the disease had been swept clean overnight by some unknown force. Scientists were calling it the turning event<\/em>. They refused to call it a miracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A camera crew set up feet from where Amanda and the kids stood in the receiving line partially blocked incoming traffic. They chuckled to one another as people shuffled around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nobody lingered in the receiving line, not even the people Amanda had known her entire life. Everyone offered brief condolences before moving quickly on, looking like spooked mice yearning to scurry to the safety of their holes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The day Amber had gotten sick, Amanda had suffered one of her fugues. She remembered staring at the image of Bad Monkey on her computer screen and trying to formulate a plan to wedge her way back into the account. One moment daylight had been streaming into her window, and the next it had been dark, her office lit by the weak glow of her computer monitor. She\u2019d gone upstairs to find Brenda and Amber laying side by side in Amber\u2019s bed, both sweating profusely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Less than twenty-four hours later Amber was back to her old self and Brenda was dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When news broke of the turning event a few days later, McCormick\u2019s Funeral Home called. The mayor had contacted them about redirecting Brenda\u2019s body, which lay in storage awaiting dumping in a mass grave, for a proper service instead. It would be the first funeral service in the city since the start of the madness. The mayor hoped it would underline how life in the city was returning to normal. The city would pay all expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda was stunned and a little scared. She wasn\u2019t sure she was ready to be around people again. Had she known what a media spectacle it would become, she might have said no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan I go outside now?\u201d Amber asked, tugging at her mom\u2019s pantleg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGo already,\u201d Amanda said. She turned to Riley. \u201cWatch her, please. Don\u2019t talk to any reporters. Make sure your sister doesn\u2019t either.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riley nodded and took his sister to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Amanda watched them take to the swings, she wondered whether their childhoods could ever be reclaimed. It seemed to her this savaged world wouldn\u2019t allow such a miracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet a miracle was in store. Things did return to normal for the family, and it didn\u2019t take long. Fall tourism was a bust in most places because people were still too spooked to travel, but by September \u2013 six months after the last mass grave in British Columbia was filled in, paved over, and marked with an onyx marble memorial stone \u2013 the streets were full of people and things were plugging along pretty much as before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the smoke cleared, the World Health Organization announced the disease had killed roughly 3% of the population of Canada and 4% of the world population. Amanda did the math one day on her desk calculator and stared in disbelief at the number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What if Amber or Riley had died instead of Brenda,<\/em> she thought. What if it had been me?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But as she resumed face-to-faces with her co-workers and her kids reintegrated at school, her panic faded. Her children hadn\u2019t<\/em> died. Life was settling into a familiar groove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She\u2019d taken a U-Haul truck to Brenda\u2019s condo a week after the funeral. Brenda hadn\u2019t left a will, so she sold what she could and deposited the proceeds in an education fund for the kids. She searched for the musgravite ring, both at her place and Brenda\u2019s condo, but hadn\u2019t found it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda still missed Paul but by winter the pain, like the memory of the pandemic, was fading. The kids still talked about their father but they did so less and less, which Amanda considered a good sign. The family was struggling financially, as Amanda had predicted. She\u2019d been assigned to a new account for a store-bought coffee brand which only occupied a quarter of her days. She had no clue what, if anything, she might nab after that. At least Paul\u2019s life insurance had paid off the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bad Monkey account was going strong under the helm of the ever-cheeky Harold Dempster. He sent Amanda daily emails detailing his successes on the account. His messages were congenial on the surface but overtly cruel in their frequency. They made Amanda consider whether the man was a sociopath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At least people weren\u2019t wishing on the monkey anymore. That fad died hard, for reasons the researchers at Crystal Design were still trying to nail down. These days the main revenue for Bad Monkey was coming from clothing and backpacks for grade school children. Amanda didn\u2019t know what she was going to say when Amber inevitably asked for something with the Bad Monkey logo stamped on it, but it would equate to a firm no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This afternoon she was folding clothes in the living room, while Derry Girls played on the TV. The kids wouldn\u2019t be back from school for a few hours. While she ironed she thought about Brenda, particularly how Brenda had been convinced that the monkey statue was changing over time. It was sad how elderly people sometimes lost their grip on reality. She wondered whether she might lose her mind in a similar fashion someday. Her mother\u2019s mind had been sharp to the end but her father had spent his twilight years drooling and crapping his drawers, so she supposed it wasn\u2019t out of the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She heard a noise down the hall. A deep, low buzzing sound. She wondered whether she\u2019d left the printer on. Sometimes documents didn\u2019t print at the moment, only to come shooting out of the printer hours or even days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As she headed down the hall she realized the noise was far too loud to be the printer. She opened her office door. Her breath caught in her throat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her draftsman desk was carpeted in flies, as was her computer desk and her office chair. She couldn\u2019t see the furniture at all, only millions of bugs crawling and squirming in endless, undulating motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Run<\/em>, a voice screamed in her head. She stayed put, her curiosity overriding her instincts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the flies on her draftsman table moved. They revealed a manilla envelope. She stepped forward, grabbed it, and stepped back into the hallway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside were ten printed pages of an online text conversation between two people. One went by the moniker katerpillar<\/em> and the other calling himself alpha_dude_56<\/em>. A brief scan told her katerpillar<\/em> was a young girl, maybe thirteen, maybe slightly younger. Her real name was probably Kate. Alpha Dudewas clearly an older man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few pages in Alpha Dude expressed an interest in meeting Kate in person. Kate wasn\u2019t so sure. Her parents were going away for the weekend and a neighbour would be checking in on her and her older brother every day. Alpha Dudeassured her he wouldn\u2019t let her get in trouble. He was a grown-up, he knew how to talk to other grown-ups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Amanda turned to the fifth page, a huge grin cracked her features. Alpha Dude\u2019s idiocy was more than a match for his arrogance. On the top of the page was a photograph — a headshot of Alpha Dude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was Harold Dempster. He was in a suit and tie, his smile small and prissy, his wispy thin hair brushed across his bald scalp. The idiot had posted his picture from the Crystal Designs online directory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She looked up at the swarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is a gift,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The swarm was silent but Amanda sensed a horde of tiny eyes assessing her. Brenda had once told her the ring had been a gift she couldn\u2019t accept. Amanda hadn\u2019t understood at the time but she did now. Brenda had been well-intentioned but weak-willed. Accepting this swarm\u2019s offer probably would have killed her. Amanda was stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI accept.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The swarm lifted. She felt the wind of a million wings beat against her face. They swept around her like a cyclone. It was glorious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I bet this is how Harold feels when he sends me those cocky emails every day<\/em>, she thought. Not anymore, motherfucker.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The flies blocked the sunlight from the window, reducing the room to a black void. They crawled all over her, wriggled up her nose, jammed themselves in her ear canals, They beat at her lips until she opened her mouth and let them in. They scrambled down her throat in a mad stream, packing her lungs until she could no longer breathe. Her body spasmed in its panic to draw air, while tears of joy streamed down her purple-veined cheeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The remainder of the swarm spun to rest in the center of the room and assumed the form of Bad Monkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThoth<\/em>,\u201d the fly creature uttered, its insectile voice far older than the Tombs of the Kings or the Pyramids at Giza, perhaps older than the universe itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda thought one last, terrified thought — What\u2019s going to happen to my children! — <\/em>before the flies chewed through the soft constructs of her inner ears and hit her brain, and then she thought no more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThoth<\/em>,\u201d the creature grunted again as it pushed Amanda\u2019s inert body out of its way and stumbled from the room. \u201cThoth.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It had a world to conquer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chapter One Isaiah Benton, Iz to friends, sat on the couch stroking his prized possession — a green anaconda named Sarasota, Sara for short. Twenty feet long and eight inches…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-377","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/377\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wleebrooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Chapter Two<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Chapter Three<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Chapter Four<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Chapter Five<\/h1>\n\n\n\n