Caroline: A Short Story Read online

  "What are you talking about?" Andrew pulled Caroline's neck closer, felt it throb in his hands.

  Emily blinked. "I know it's not the same as being a vegetarian, not as good, but it could be, I don't know, a compromise?"

  Andrew stood, backed away from the couch, from Emily. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Andrew, I—" She reached for him and he spun away from her, ran out the door, his prize held tight to his chest.

  *

  He spread the electric blanket over his bed and lay her body upon the blanket. She watched him and smiled as he placed her head on his pillow. The neck, still cool, was a perfect fit, bridging the terrible gap between her skull and body.

  "Just a few minutes more," he said and grinned as Caroline blew him a kiss.

  He wrapped the heated blanket around her body, stopping to kiss her before obscuring her face. Seated on the edge of the bed, Andrew turned away and cradled his head in his hands. It seemed unbelievable that she would soon be his, that they would be each other's. He felt as an expectant father must, alone in the hospital waiting room, useless and without recourse while his beloved did all the work, while everything depended upon her.

  A rustling noise drew his attention. The blanket moved like water stroked by a gentle breeze. His hands trembled and he was vaguely aware that he held his breath as he pulled the blanket from her face.

  She opened her eyes, her pupils growing larger and then retracting, and she smiled. Then she raised her chin, turned her head left and then right, showed him what he had done, what he had accomplished. Andrew laughed and tears streaked his cheeks. They kissed. They embraced.

  She said, “Andrew,” her voice both tender and raw.

  She pulled him atop her with surprising strength, held him close, pushed her hips into his, sighed. Her breath was warm and smoky, like summer picnics and backyard grills. He touched every part of her and marvelled at the wholeness, the completeness of her. And she touched herself, and smiled and laughed, and Andrew realized that, as he discovered her, she was discovering herself. She was virgin territory in the purest sense. Pitcairn before the Bounty. The Moon before Armstrong.

  She thrust her hips upward and, abruptly, he was inside her, warm and wet. A gasp hissed passed her lips and he slowed his movements for fear of hurting her. They were hesitant at first, but as they learned each other's rhythms, and Caroline learned her own, their pace quickened, their breathing deepened, and they pushed and thrust and pulled until they both cried out.

  Andrew collapsed atop her and Caroline wrapped her arms around him. They were both greased with sweat and breathing hard like overworked beasts of burden.

  Caroline touched his cheek, his lips, his chin, and said, "I love you."

  Andrew swallowed the tightness in his throat and said, "I love you too.”

  "I want to know everything about you," she said. "I want to share in everything that matters to you."

  Andrew nodded, but felt a shiver of apprehension, like the sound of distant thunder. He was most likely unemployed, given he hadn't been to work in nearly a week, and had no family, few friends—

  "Emily," he said.

  “Who?” Caroline asked, curious.

  "She's my best friend." He leapt out of bed, pulled on his jeans. "You have to meet her, right now."

  Caroline grinned. "I would love to meet her."

  Still slick with their love making, Andrew stood and watched her for a moment. Every single bit of her was perfect, but the whole of her, the totality of her, was beyond words.

  He took her smiling face in his hands, kissed her, and, before leaving the bedroom, before leaving the apartment, said, "Emily is going to be so happy to meet you."

  End

  Contact Andre

  I hope you enjoyed Caroline.

  You can also reach me by e-mail: [email protected]

  Or find me at www.andrefarant.com;

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  Hope to hear from you!

  Oh, and maybe give my first novel, Deer Lake, a shot—a thrillarious mystery that’ll appeal to fans of Carl Hiaasen, Janet Evanovich, and Christopher Moore.

  Surviving Immortality

  CHAPTER ONE

  Later, the news agencies and history books would report that Edward Savois was the first person not to die. In fact, Louise Hubert was first, Francis Blondain was second, while—a full sixty-seven minutes after Ms. Hubert—Mr Savois was the third person not to die.

  In the Montreal suburb known as NDG, on that twenty-third day of November, Louise Hubert awoke alone at seven AM, as per her usual routine. She did so not because she was some eager go-getter anxious for an early start to the day, but because she was eighty-two years old and trusted the tensile strength of her bladder about as much as she did the prognostications of the weatherman—meaning not a whole hell of a lot.

  After relieving her bladder of its burden, Louise Hubert made her way to the kitchen where she filled her blender with frozen mixed berries, half a banana, and a cup of vanilla yogurt, then blended the fruit and yogurt into an anti-oxidant-rich sludge. The smoothie had been her morning meal for the past twelve years, ever since an episode of Oprah had convinced her of the cancer-fighting properties of anti-oxidants and fibre. Her husband, Clarence, had died of colon cancer fifteen years ago and Louise had no plans of joining him. Not like that.

  Her breakfast consumed, Louise Hubert fixed herself a cup of coffee and moved from the kitchen table to the living room couch to watch the morning news and knit, as she did every morning. The news was dull or depressing, but it helped fill the silence while she knitted. That morning she was completing a pair of slippers for her daughter, Rolande. She planned to make matching ones for Rolande’s three kids.

  Rolande Patry, née Hubert, visited her mother often. She was dumb as toast and not much more interesting, but she was a good woman and a good daughter. She’d married an equally dull-witted man by the name of Denis Patry who made his living selling motorized lawn-ornaments to people even dumber than he. Upon meeting the man who would later marry his only daughter, Clarence Hubert had whispered to his wife, “Seems like a nice guy . . . but boy, their kids are gonna be capital-S stupid.” Clarence had not lived long enough to meet his grand kids, but he’d been right. Rolande and Denis had produced a trio of mental-miniatures the likes of which Louise had never seen outside of an American sitcom. But she loved those three half-wits as only a grandmother could.

  After the news came The View. Louise Hubert hated the women on The View. She hated the way they argued constantly with each other. She hated the way they fawned over their B-list guests. She hated their voices, the way they spoke and even the clothes they wore. And so, of course, she never missed an episode.

  At exactly eight fifty-three in the morning, just minutes before the end of the show, Louise Hubert’s heart coughed, choked and died. Though Louise Hubert had adopted a healthy diet and even the occasional burst of hyper-low-impact exercise since her husband’s passing, her lifestyle leading up to the day of his death had been less than exemplary. She had been especially fond of baked desserts. The richer the better. If butter was not the main ingredient in a particular recipe then it was hardly worth baking. Furthermore, she had been blessed with the kind of metabolism that had allowed her to live her entire life without ever passing the 120-pound mark, despite her five feet and seven inches. But such a metabolism could also prove a curse when a sudden jump in weight would otherwise signal a decline in overall health. Since she never grew fatter, Louise had always believed herself to be as healthy as they come. Heart problems followed an expanding waistline, it was that simple. Heart problems didn’t sneak up on you, the way cancer did. You saw them coming.

  But Louise Hubert never saw this one coming.

  She never saw the arteriosclerosis that tightened and hardened her coronary arteries, or the decreased flow of blood to her heart, which
led to a reduction in oxygen-laden haemoglobin, which meant that her heart did not get enough oxygen. At eight fifty, when Joy Behar, one of the hosts of The View, said something particularly irksome and Louise felt compelled to yell at the woman’s image, her sudden over-exertion caused a chink in the plaque lining her arteries, which then caused the formation of a blood-clot which, in turn, blocked the flow of blood, haemoglobin and oxygen to Louise’s heart completely. This led to ischemia. In short, her heart died.

  The pain rocketed through her chest, up her neck and down into her gut. Her hands, swollen with mild arthritis, flew open and her knitting fell into her lap. Her jaw clenched, her dentures were knocked askew. Her mug of coffee had been emptied over an hour ago, and so Louise did not have to contend with the added pain of scalding liquid. The pain of her heart attack was quite enough, thank you.

  That pain lasted exactly two seconds.

  At eight fifty-four on that November morning, Louise Hubert should have fallen victim to the leading cause of death in the industrialized world. Louise Hubert should have died of coronary artery disease.

  However, at eight fifty-five in the AM, Louise Hubert took a deep breath, wiped the thin sheen of sweat from her deeply lined forehead, and picked her knitting up off her lap. Her heart continued to beat, pushing blood through her arteries. The blood propelled the newly-formed blood-clot into her heart and back out again, carrying it throughout her circulatory system. This alone should have killed her a dozen times over. Still, Louise Hubert remained seated on her couch, knitting and watching Live! With Kelly.

  She made a mental note to mention the fleeting pain she’d felt to her doctor on her next physical.

  *

  Francis Blondain played hockey. He was no pro, but he played in a league every Tuesday and Thursday. Approximately five months ago, Francis Blondain, still hung-over from the previous night’s drinking, had not been paying attention when he was checked into the boards. His head first hit the board, then the ice. Though he wore a helmet, his vision was blurred for a full two hours after the incident and he was plagued with headaches for days afterward. He visited his doctor who ordered an MRI. It was determined that Blondain had suffered a mild concussion. This, however, was of very little concern when compared to the hypodense lesion visible on the parietal lobe of the left hemisphere of his brain.

  After a brain biopsy, it was determined that Francis Blondain had a brain tumour. The meningioma was attached to the dura of his periotal lobe and proved completely benign and entirely asymptomatic. It was relatively small but, given that Blondain was only twenty-three and that tumours in younger patients were more prone to growth, his neurologist, a man named Frederic Sample, decided to operate.

  As far as brain surgery went, it was a decidedly simple case. The tumour was superficial, perfectly uniform, and had not affected the bone. It could be removed in its entirety with very little difficulty. Sure, it would require open surgery but, hell, it wasn’t rocket science, after all.

  In fact, Blondain’s tumour could have been removed using sterotactic radiosurgery, which was a significantly less invasive form of surgery when compared to cutting a window into the young man’s skull. But Fred Sample was a man given to bouts of depression-inducing boredom. Stereostatic radiosurgery was easier, more effective and, as mentioned, less invasive, but it was also less fun. Brain surgery wasn’t about sending tiny probes into the brain through an equally tiny hole in the skull. It was about lopping the lid off the top of some poor schmuck’s head and digging the offending material out of the exposed brain with a shiny sharp scalpel.

  And so it was that Francis Blondain was scheduled for surgery on the twenty-third of November at Montreal’s General Hospital. And now, at nine seventeen in the morning, twenty-three minutes after Louise Hubert did not die, he sat with his head immobilized by a scaffolding of stainless steel, with a window cut into his skull, and with his eyes wide open. Though most would be terrified by the prospect of brain surgery, Francis Blondain was more than a little excited to experience such a rare adventure.

  Frederic Sample was much less excited. In fact, Sample was near catatonic, having been kept awake by the sonorous snores of the new intern with the nice ass. After weeks of effort, he’d finally managed to get her and her delicious rump into his bed, only to find that the woman and all of her hundred and ten pounds snored like a jackhammer. Now, as he approached Francis Blondain’s tumour—nestled snugly in Francis Blondain’s dura—with a shiny sharp scalpel, Frederic Sample fought to keep his eyes open.

  “Hey Doc,” Francis said. “You see it? You see the tumour?”

  “Hm?” Sample said, his eyes snapping open. He glanced over at the attending nurse. She hadn’t noticed that he’d been very close to falling asleep. “What was that, Frank?”

  “The tumour, you see it?”

  “Yes, Frank, I see it. We’ll have it out of you in just a sec.”

  “Cool. I can keep it, right?”

  “Hm?”

  “The tumour. I can keep it, right?”

  Sample took a deep breath and thought of cold water splashing his face. “Uh, yeah, sure,” he mumbled, having no idea what he’d just agreed to.

  “Cool!” Blondain said. “I’m gonna keep it in a jar. Hey, where can ya buy formaldehyde?”

  “Hm?” Frederic Sample said and killed Francis Blondain.

  Sample looked down at his shiny sharp scalpel’s blade. He looked down at the blood that rimmed its edge. He looked at the tiny little speck of brain tissue that clung to its tip. It had happened, quite literally, in the blink of an eye. For just a moment, Frederic Sample had closed both his eyes and, near sleep, had allowed his scalpel to dip into Francis Blondain’s brain. It had not touched the tumour. Instead, it had pierced the dura and plunged into the parietal lobe. In and out. The scalpel now hovered over the young man’s exposed brain and Fred Sample was amazed to note that his hand wasn’t even shaking. He looked around, sure that he would be met by at least one set of horrified eyes. Nothing. No one had noticed a thing.

  “Doc?” Blondain said. “The formaldehyde?”

  Sample said nothing. How could he? Francis Blondain should have been dead. He should have been killed instantly, as soon as he’d been stabbed in the brain. But he was still alive. His vitals were strong. Frederic Sample knew this because there was a whole array of very expensive machinery hooked up to the young Blondain, and designed solely to monitor his vital signs.

  “Uh, Frank?” Sample said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You feel okay?”

  “Well, all things considered, sure.”

  “Okay.”

  The attending nurse was giving him a funny look. Sample smiled at her and returned his attention to Blondain’s apparently indestructible brain and its tumour.

  Though Frederic Sample did not know how Francis Blondain could possibly still be alive, he did know one thing without a doubt: he was now fully awake.

  At nine twenty-four, Frederic Sample resumed the procedure aimed at removing the tumour from Francis Blondain’s brain—three minutes after Francis Blondain did not die.

  *

  At nine fifty-six, on the morning of November the twenty-third, Edward Savois was running from his office building in the Ville Saint-Laurent area of Montreal. Edward Savois was forty-eight years old and, interestingly enough, exactly forty-eight pounds overweight, if that issue of Men’s Health he’d read at the barber’s was to be trusted. Edward ran because he was on break and had only fifteen minutes to get from his office to his favourite shwarma place across the street. Though his wife, Clair, had packed him a lunch, Edward had made the mistake of telling her all about the article in Men’s Health and, fearing for his health, she had resolved to pack him only low-fat, low-carb and decidedly low-pleasure lunches from then on. Edward Savois knew that, in that brown paper bag lying at the bottom of his briefcase was a sandwich made with whole-wheat bread, bean sprouts, lettuce, and tomato. It was like a spy in the house of BLTs. Sam
e acronym, but meant only to deceive and demoralize. Along with the evil sandwich were a tiny orange and a bottle of water. These did not a good lunch make.

  To make matters worse, Edward had not had time to eat breakfast. Clair had agreed to leave one of his meals alone if he promised to stick to her meal plan at all other times. Though most would have chosen dinner, with its heaping plates of pasta or giant slabs of rare steak, not to mention the promise of dessert, Edward Savois had chosen to save his breakfast. He loved little else more than the smell of bacon, the sight of a couple eggs, side-by-side like a pair of cartoon yellow-nippled breasts. He swooned at the sound of bread popping golden brown and crispy from the toaster like a warm and tender stripper from a cake. He awoke every morning with a smile upon his chubby face, no matter how disappointing the previous day’s lunch and dinner had been, simply knowing that breakfast was his to enjoy. That morning, however, he had slept in. Ironically, he had been dreaming of waffles slathered with real butter and equally authentic maple syrup. The sound of his alarm had been no match for the imaginary flavours flooding his mind. As such, he had missed breakfast entirely. No waffles, no butter, no syrup, not even an English muffin and glass of OJ. Nothing.

  Consequently, Edward Savois was starving and knew that, if he did not eat now, he would be forced to slog through the day on nothing but water, an orange, and a treasonous BLT. And so he would forgo the waffles, but not the meal. He was still owed a breakfast. There was no statute of limitations on such things. He would have his breakfast a full two hours late, and it would be a shwarma, but it counted as breakfast nonetheless.

  And this is how Edward Savois, aged forty-eight years and overweight by forty-eight pounds, came to be jaywalking—or jay-running—across the intersection of Crevier and Marcel-Laurin. It is also how Edward Savois, at ten-oh-one in the morning, came to be hit by a milk truck.

  As he stood on the one side of Cote Vertu blvd, staring at the shwarma shack on the other side, he glanced up long enough to note that the light was green for the traffic running along the street. He also saw that the little white man who would promise safe passage across the busy street was currently lending its spot to the big orange hand that warned “Hang on, wait right there. The little white dude will be with you shortly.” But, just as people can hear without listening, Edward Savois saw these things without truly seeing. And so he ran. He ran as only a middle-aged office administrator with a spare tire can: badly. If Edward had been in better shape, if, for example, he had been carrying four, or even eight, extra pounds rather than forty-eight, he might have made it. If he had eaten breakfast and was not both enfeebled and blinded by hunger, he might have made it. As it was, he did not make it.