Dr. Steven Wolfson sits up straight on the couch, awakened from his afternoon nap by the loud shook-clang of the garage door chain engaging below. Eliza is back home.

He had fallen asleep in the extra room upstairs, which doubles as his office.

The house shakes as the door gurgles open along its rusty brown rails.

Eliza will need my help bringing in the groceries. Her batteries must be depleted. 

He reaches down for his shoes; they are not there.

Kierkegaard was right. Sometimes you just can’t tell the difference between God’s will and a trick. Socks will have to do.

He rocks back and forth to escape from the cotton candy couch, his two large feet landing with a splashy thud onto the goulash rug. He hopes Eliza hears it, so she knows he’s coming. He trudges through the calf-deep potato soup, out the office door, and to the top of the stairs.

A thousand fleshy, winking eyes line the walls and ceiling of the two-story open stairwell. The steps are covered in lachrymal fluid. He grabs the soft macaroni railing with both hands as he steps gingerly onto the first slimy stair.

He slips, kerranging to the bottom, his titanium coccyx now in his throat.

* * * *

An exhausted Eliza Marsh pulls into the driveway and clicks the garage door open. Her compact vehicle slides smoothly into the spotless garage.

She checks her makeup in the rearview mirror, then her watch, which shows she switched to backup power during the drive home. She opens the driver-side door and slides out of the car seat onto the pristine concrete floor. 

She hears a dull thud from upstairs. She knows how hard it is for Steven to get up off the couch.

The extra dose I gave him earlier must be doing its job if he’s coming down to help.

She glides to the back of the car and grabs the two grocery bags out of the open hatch. The door slowly lowers as the kitchen door whooshes open.

She hears a series of louder thumps from inside the house.

She drops the groceries and quickly accelerates up the ramp on the metallic wheels embedded in her feet, depleting the backup battery completely in the process.

To be continued…