So, a while back, my friend's AC started acting up. And, as any good friend would surely do, I sat down and wrote a super short story to poke fun at his dire situation. I figured it was the very least I could do.
Duct Work
by Guy Medley
He carefully pried
open the vent covering with his screwdriver and peered into the dark recess of
the exposed duct work. Shining his flashlight inside it became immediately
clear to him what the problem was.
“Sir,” he called over his shoulder into the silence of the
house. “Mr. Weiscott, sir, if you don’t mind, I’d like to show you something.”
The client, Mr. Weiscott, appeared almost at once without a
sound from around a shadowy corner and approached. The man motioned toward a
step stool adjacent to the one he stood atop, and Mr. Weiscott stepped onto it
and craned his neck to peer into his house’s duct work, following the
repairman’s beam of yellow light into the darkness within.
“There’s your problem, sir.” He reached in, moving around
with a gloved hand the crumbly sweaty lumps of grey and black debris blocking
the duct. “There’s just too many bodies in here for the air to move freely
around. It’s making the condensers freeze up.”
He and the client looked solemnly at the pile of human
corpses impeding the air conditioner’s air flow, silent in thought.
“Have you tried the cellar? Or even the lake? These ducts
simply can’t accommodate any more cadavers, Mr. Weiscott.”
Mr. Weiscott looked into the clogged duct work, scratching
his bristly chin contemplatively. “You may be right. I’ve just been so very
busy, you know.”
“I can see that, sir. There has to be what, five, maybe six
bodies crammed into here.”
“Six,” he answered. “Though in various states of
completeness, of course.”
“Yes, well, Mr. Weiscott, that’s well in excess of the manufacturer’s
recommended limit. I’ll clear some space around them as best as I can so the
air can flow through, but I assure you, any more bodies in this duct and you’ll
fry your unit.”
Mr. Weiscott lowered his head rather sheepishly. “Yes, I
suppose you’re right.”
“Hey, not to worry, Mr. Weiscott,” he said, patting him on
the shoulder, “these sort of things happen.”
Shock Totem is a very well put together publication, from it's more traditional book binding rather than magazine binding, to the overall layout of the contents. ST sometimes publishes short fiction that borderlines on novella in length, but also runs quite a bit of flash fiction, encompassing a mere page. The balance and flow works. I've become a fan of more authors I've discovered within the pages of this magazine than any other publication. That says a lot about the quality of the work you'll find here.
