Short Stories

Sick Week

The weeks before were just so nice; warm and bright as the sun shone down on your back like a personal sauna. However the skies began to darken, clouds began to roll in and pretty soon green was drowned out by white when a blizzard so inordinate spanned over the small town of Louisville.

It was bewildering to all who lived there; Louisville was usually a town of pretty plants and hot skies, joggers in shorts and t-shirts, bouts of greenery to relax in—even a small forest.

Everyone was trapped inside their houses. Children wept desperately at their parents, "Mommy, I want to go outside and build a snowman!"

But their parents held firm in their deterrence, for going outside in a blizzard so nasty would surely result in someone getting a cold.

Joseph walked the wooden floored halls of his house once more, his mobile device in hand playing a battle-themed piece of music. Just over the music, Joseph could hear the hushed howl of the blizzard that taunted him from outside; its winds violently whipped against his house.

Joseph had beaten the game over and over again, replaying the same stage to try a new tactic and challenge himself with a harder difficulty. But pretty soon Joseph ran out of difficulties, and with a sigh, the man still dressed in his PJs threw his phone on the couch when he entered the living room for the 12th time.

The man surveyed his house for something to do, and when he spotted his refrigerator, he began to notice the growl of his stomach in the blizzard.

Joseph waltzed over to his refrigerator and pulled it open. "Pizza," he thought. Landon's favorite food was pizza. Landon whom he'd moved with to Louisville in the first place, and Landon who he hasn't spoken to in a week. Joseph looked over the counter in the kitchen to the couch where his phone was. That's why Joseph bought the pizza for them to share, but he hasn't heard a peep from the other man.

He closed his refrigerator, then Joseph glided around the kitchen counter and dove for his phone on the couch.

Joseph didn't know why he hadn't pondered his friend's disappearance before. Usually, Landon was the one to initiate things. He'd always been the one to take charge of their friendship. Like an unspoken rule, one that now needed to be broken.

Joseph went to his friend's contact; their last message to each other was a week ago. Where was he?

The man's fingers pressed the icon for calling as they did many times before, he hid his intentions behind those 3 rings before his friend finally answered.

"Hello?" A creamy voice crude with coarseness like the man's leather couch answered from the phone speakers.

Joseph yelped. Never has his friend sounded like this before.

"Landon, what the fuck is wrong with your voice?" Joseph said.

"What do you think? This lame-ass blizzard, ugh," Landon coughed.

"Are you sick?"

Joseph's question was met with silence, and then following that silence was the sound of sniffling. It slowly got more and more violent until it exploded into full-blown sneezes.

Joseph quirked a brow at the phone as he pulled it away from his ears.

"Dude!" He said, "Why would you do that like right into the speaker."

And Landon laughed, he laughed like he always did at Joseph. When he nudged him or grabbed him in some way, how he dragged the funny moment far longer than intended. It was as if he wanted the moment to last as long as plausible. And Joseph was an enabler.

Joseph ruffled his hair; brown and curly like a tangled mop that sat upon his head. He dropped to his leather couch with a creak and leaned back playing with the ends of his shirt.