Someplace Comfortable by Josh Maurin
2021 Writing Contest Winner
HONOURABLE MENTION
“But Barbara! I don’t even like smoothies!”
“That’s because you’ve never tried them in this: the patented new Juices Galore! It’s perfect for mixing your favourite smoothie, pureeing some tasty pesto, getting juice from fruit and veggies, and so much more!”
“I dunno about that…”
“Why don’t you sit yourself down and let me whip us up a couple of these fresh smoothies? If you like them, the Juices Galore can be yours for only $19.99!”
Chris sat on the couch, eyes unfocused, and watched the infomercial extol the virtues of…whatever this thing was. He looked up to the clock on the wall. It read 4:37 a.m. His eyes returned to the screen and he shifted down in his seat.
It was still dark outside. Clouds blocked out whatever moonlight they should have gotten, and the streetlights had gone dim. The street itself was quiet; Chris hadn’t heard any traffic for almost an hour. Not since they had pulled in, at any rate.
From behind him, Chris heard footsteps approaching. He turned and saw Samantha, hair wet and wearing clothes a little too big for her.
“I showered,” she said.
Chris gave her a weak smile. “Feel good?”
Samantha sat down next to him on the couch. “Yeah. Ended up being in there longer than I planned. But I’m fresh!” She held out her arm to show off the clean sleeve draped over her. She turned to see what her friend was watching.
“Wow! You can really taste the strawberry!”
“And with these blades, you don’t get any of the seed grit!”
“Why are you watching this?” asked Samantha.
“I couldn’t find the remote,” said Chris. He shrugged. “Just killing time. Filling the quiet. Couch is comfy, though.” He closed his eyes.
Samantha continued to watch. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I had a smoothie.”
“Do you want to see if we can make them?” asked Chris.
“Think there’s time?”
Chris opened his eyes. “I dunno,” he said. There was a long pause. “But we could try?”
“That’s okay,” said Samantha. “They may not even have the stuff.”
Chris nodded slowly. The two continued to watch—sort of—the infomercial. Barbara now had a handful of friends in front of her all trying her various blended concoctions, each one pleased with the result.
“These people got paid for this,” said Chris.
“Huh?”
“These are all actors, right? They all got paid to sit around and pretend to like to drink stuff.”
“They couldn’t have gotten paid much,” said Samantha.
“How do you figure?”
“You’ve been watching,” she replied. “Would you have paid for the performances they’re giving?”
Chris laughed. “Should I shut it off?”
“Nah,” she said. “Just making idle conversation.” Samantha stood up and walked over to the window. She looked out and then up, squinting at the sky to see what she could make out beyond the clouds. There was nothing.
Her eyes returned to the earth. Up close like this, it was easier to notice peculiarities about the street this morning. Driveways were empty, or down to a single car. Lights were on sporadically but not consistently. A few doors were left open. A few windows were broken broken. That’s how Chris and Samantha had gotten in.
Samantha watched as a set of headlights pierced the early morning dark. A nice car, something new but she didn’t know what, pulled up to the house they now occupied. An older man got out and ran to the door.
“Chris, there’s someone here.”
Chris got up from the couch and met with Samantha by the door. They opened it as soon as the man knocked. His mouth dropped when he saw them standing there.
“Who are you?”
“Are you looking for someone?” asked Samantha.
“My son and daughter-in-law live here,” he replied. “You do not.”
“We do now,” said Chris. The old man’s eyes widened. “Relax. We didn’t do anything to them. They were gone by the time we got here.”
“But…they would have called,” he protested. “They should have called.”
“Have you called them?”
“Yes! I told them to wait! I told them the roads would be busy and to wait. We’d all go together!”
“I’m sorry,” said Chris. “I guess they didn’t wanna.”
“Look, call them for yourself,” said Samantha. “We didn’t do anything.”
The old man’s eyes began to tear up as he pulled out his phone and dialled. His hands were shaking. Chris and Samantha stood in the doorway and watched. They gestured that he could come in, but he shook his head no. He turned to his still-running car, confirming that it was there. In an instant, his eyes lit up.
“Elliot? Oh thank god,” he said. “I stopped by your house to pick you up and found other people there.” Pause. “I don’t know, just a man and a woman. Look, did you make it?” Another pause. “I told you to wait for me! Now you’re stuck in all that traffic…doesn’t matter. You call me the second you get out. I’m just swinging by to pick up your sister and then I’m gone too.” A third. “Okay, love you too. I’ll see you soon, you hear?” The old man hung up.
“Everything okay?” asked Chris.
The old man had tears rolling down his cheeks. “What? Oh yeah, yeah. They’re in their car. Waiting, but at least they’re on their way.”
“Good,” said Chris.
“You should probably get to your daughter’s,” said Samantha.
The old man looked at her and nodded. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he asked. “Didn’t you hear?”
“Not everyone has the luxury of getting out,” she replied.
“So you came here?”
“Look, man,” said Chris. “We just wanted to go someplace comfortable.”
The old man looked down. “Right,” he said. “I’ll just be on my way.” He turned and started back to his car.
“Hey,” called Samantha. “Any word on how much longer?”
He turned around. “Long enough, I hope.”
Chris and Samantha watched him from the doorway as he walked back to his car and pulled away. They shut the door and returned to the couch. There were credits on the tv, and a voiceover was telling people how they could order.
“Did you want to shower?” asked Samantha.
“Nah,” said Chris. “But I think I am done looking at commercials. Nothing else on at this hour.” He stood up and found the power button on the tv again. A small blip sounded as the screen shut off.
“We could look around, I guess.”
Chris considered the suggestion and shrugged. “Why not? If we’re gonna die here, we may as well know who’s making it comfy.”
Samantha stood up. “I’ve already gone through their bedroom. They did too, from the looks of it. Guess they grabbed what they could of clothes and stuff before going. Have you been to their kitchen?”
Chris was looking at a photo on the wall. It was of a nice-looking couple on vacation somewhere with a beach. They were standing on the shore in their bathing suits, sunset in the background. He was pale and clean-shaven, not even a hint of stubble on his face. She was tall and similarly pale, with long dark hair. His arm was wrapped around her waist. It looked like he was tickling her; his one finger extended to her stomach and the photo caught her mid-laugh. It made him smile.
“Yeah, I grabbed something to eat while you were in the shower,” he said. “They’re pretty well-stocked here.”
“Didn’t even wait for me to have breakfast?” she asked with a smile.
He laughed. “Well, if you had been quicker in the shower…”
Samantha walked into the kitchen and looked around in the cupboards, eventually settling on some cookies. “This is probably a silly question, but did you look for a computer or anything? There were phone chargers in the bedroom, but the phones were gone.”
“No, why?”
She poked her head out of the kitchen. “For updates. These people’s dad didn’t tell us. Aren’t you curious?”
“No,” said Chris. “I don’t want to know.”
“How can you not want to know?”
“I looked at the clock once the whole time I was watching that juicer thing,” he said. “I came here to enjoy just living in a place for a bit. If I know when it’s coming, I’m just gonna be counting down the time.”
Samantha cocked her head at him. “I don’t get that. I wanna know. I wanna know if I have five minutes left. I wanna know if I have an hour left! I don’t much care which, but then at least I can make the most of whatever it is!”
“See, but then there’s the pressure to do it, whatever it is for you. Like then you have to decide what matters most and make sure you get it in. If you don’t know, it doesn’t matter what you do, because you couldn’t plan for it. Besides, if movies if have taught me anything, we’ll hear the, you know.” Chris whistled to mimic a bomb falling. “Before it actually happens. Or as it’s happening, I guess.”
Samantha frowned. “I mean, I guess…”
Chris walked over to her. “Look, we’re gonna look around the house, right? We can make a point of looking for a computer. And if it’s on the internet, you can look. Just don’t tell me.”
Samantha smiled. “Oh, I was gonna look for one anyway,” she said. “But good to know you’ll help too.”
Chris returned her smile and then walked up some stairs. “The bedrooms were up here, right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Samantha replied. “Couple bedrooms, a bathroom. Don’t know beyond that.”
“Could you c’mere?” he called.
Samantha finished her cookies and followed him upstairs. “Sure,” she called back. “Find a computer?”
He turned towards her. “Just didn’t wanna have to keep calling around.”
“You can just say you didn’t wanna be alone, you know.”
He gestured to one of the doors nearby. “That’s probably the bedroom you found, cause your clothes are in there. No need to go back inside. This next one looks like a guest room?”
The two stepped inside the guest room. They found a bed, made but not freshly, a dresser, and a desk with a small tv on it. Samantha started opening the dresser drawers.
“Empty,” she said.
Chris laid down on the bed. “Feels like a hotel in here. These blankets are pulled so tight.”
Samantha laid down next to him. “Still comfier than usual, though.”
He looked at her. “True. I was looking for comfy.”
They both got quiet after that. A car drove by and quickly broke that silence. The sound made both Chris and Samantha hold their breath for a moment.
Samantha got back up. “Alright, no computer in here. No anything in here, really.” She turned back to Chris. “Shall we move on?”
Chris stood up, albeit more slowly than Samantha. “Let’s do it.”
They skipped the bathroom and found only one other door upstairs: a linen closet. The two headed back downstairs and continued their search on the main floor. Aside from the living room and kitchen, they explored their way through a laundry room, makeshift gym, and what looked like a room just for sitting.
Their last stop on the main floor ended up being an office. There were filing cabinets and bookshelves, all filled to burst with books and papers that neither Chris nor Samantha understood. There was a desk with a nice-looking office chair tucked underneath. And on the desk sat a big computer, much to Samantha’s great delight.
“Finally!” she exclaimed. She ran over and sat in the chair. It took her a minute to find the power button, but eventually she got it.
Chris followed her to the desk. He looked over her shoulder as he watched the monitor slowly come to life.
“What are you gonna do once you find out?” asked Chris. “What’s your priority gonna be?”
Samantha bit her lip. “I dunno yet,” she said. “I think that’s why I want to know. You said you didn’t cause there would be pressure to do the right thing, but I don’t even know what that would be. Maybe if I find out how long is left, something will come to mind.” She watched the cursor spin in front of her. “Why? Do you know what yours would be?”
“I have a bunch of answers,” he said. “But I think whatever I ended up doing would feel like the wrong one. So I’ll just do whatever till the end.”
“I guess I can see that,” she replied.
The screen went dark and then lit back up with a login page for the woman Chris had seen in that vacation photo.
“Please don’t be password protected…” Samantha clicked on the “log in” button. “Success!”
The two now faced the computer’s desktop. It was covered in icons. Samantha scanned the screen for a web browser and clicked on the first one she found. It opened to a local news page.
The top story was still what it was hours ago: bombs on their way across the country, with one headed straight for them. Neither Chris nor Samantha knew who sent them; at this point, it didn’t matter much.
Samantha turned to Chris. “Alright, I’m gonna look for an update. See if there’s a time yet. If you don’t wanna know, I would step out now.”
Chris stood up from the desk and walked to the door. “Good luck,” he said. He stepped back into the hall, shutting the door behind him.
Back in the living room, Chris wandered over to the front window. The skies were a little lighter now. He checked the clock on the wall; it read 5:41. With still no sign of other life on the street, Chris sighed. Then, like almost an hour ago, he heard footsteps from behind him. He turned around.
Samantha was walking towards him, smile on her face and tears on her cheeks. She grabbed one of his hands in hers and squeezed it.
“Thank you,” she said.
He smiled and nodded at her but didn’t say anything.
“Why don’t we sit down?” she asked. “Enjoy the quiet for a little bit.”
Chris nodded again. The two walked over to the couch and returned to their original seats. And without the tv on, without the noise of anything, it was easier to appreciate how truly comfortable the couch really was.
Josh Maurin is a student and amateur writer from Hamilton. After finishing his Master’s in Philosophy, Josh turned away from academic work and towards the creative. He is currently exploring creative writing, photography and filmmaking from his home studio. This is only his second ever writing submission, but he hopes that it is a sign of good things for his work.