Normal, draft one.

(Tell Me Which Character You Think Is) Normal
by Christopher Atkinson


The train shudders as it takes a turn. As he rests in his seat, he watches the other passengers vibrate in unison. In their simultaneous motion no one is discernable from the rest. If someone’s watching him, he thinks, he must also look like part of the whole, a cell in this organism of humanity.
He shuts the book in his hand and drops it on the empty seat beside him. This author’s usually good, but this story’s trite and boring. He’ll leave it on the train - perhaps the next person who happens upon it will find it entertaining. For him, he’d much rather watch these people. Them in their suits and ties and him no different.
Most of them look so plain, so regular that he can’t help but wonder what they’re like at home, tucked away from the rest of the world. This guy in the corner, he can’t even fall asleep without clutching the briefcase in his lap. Maybe he’s a serial killer, or worse, a pimp, leaving his victims alive to suffer under his strong arm and be in his debt.
A bald man with a red face and glasses can’t stop checking his watch. Maybe he cheats on his wife with his secretary, his bulbous belly bouncing beneath his mistress’ tits.
Then there’s the librarian-looking lady, with her bun in her hair, her glasses on the end of her nose, legs crossed. She might sell her cats to some Chinese food place. Maybe she owns the place, cooks it herself. Everybody’s got their secrets. None of these people are special in that regard.
The man, this Observer of Humanity, let’s call him Ted. He can’t tell his suit, tie, or briefcase from anyone else’s on the train. Who knew which was which or who was who?
The train halts. Ted hears his stop called over the PA. Maybe the conductor is a rapist.
The walk to his apartment from the train station is never eventful. No one on the street watches their steps as they walk. They chat on their phones or listen to their music. They stare into space. They’re there but not now. They’re there in the future. They’re there in the past. And Ted, he’s there with them. He’s the one that makes their lives worthwhile. He’s the only one watching it happen.
After a mile or so, he retreats, as always, into his home. This is when it turns into a sitcom. He enters the apartment, drops his briefcase, removes his jacket and loudly lets his wife know he’s returned. She never answers. She’s always watching TV in the kitchen, cooking dinner. Or she’s always on the computer, reading the news and chatting to her girlfriends, headphones on, oldies blaring.
Today, he finds her sleeping on the couch. She snores lightly, her chest rising and falling. He watches the rhythm of her breasts. He wishes he could jump on her, ravage her. She’s so beautiful. She’s his wife, he ought to be able to. He knows she’d scream, she’d kick. They’d both get injured. Bleeding and bruised, they’d sleep.
Instead, he works his way to the kitchen and finds some leftovers.

Another night watching the news. Other people’s misery is on for the next three hours, commercial-free. Ted never misses it. Stacked beside the television, atop the VCR, are VHS tapes, all labeled “NEWS REEL,” followed by dates: 7/7/85, 9/20/88, 6/6/93, 9/11/01. All in chronological order. All with ratings on them, one to five stars. Most have three or more.
Ted watches the attractive lady recite the news. Her left eyes twinkles and Ted wonders if maybe she’s a nympho. Ted stops listening, but when they go to the footage, returns his full attention to the screen. The video shows an apartment building being ravaged by fire. The flames escape through windows halfway up the building, reach desperately for the roof.
Ted’s eyes light up. The building seems familiar, as do the buildings around it. Ted knows this neighborhood. The fire engines, the scared bewildered people, the natural quality of the violence. This is all so delightful.
And there, in the top corner of the video, it says, “LIVE.” Ted’s keys are already in his pocket. His wife still snores in the living room. And it’s early yet.
When he leaves, he makes sure the door is locked behind him.

Around the corner from the fire, a block and a half down. He sees the flames, or at least the light emanating from them. He hears the crackling, either from the fire or the building it’s destroying. He smells the smoke, inhales it. His lungs embrace the smoke of a cigarette called destruction. Decimation.
He rounds the corner and there’s the scene from the TV: The fire, the tenants watching their lives literally go up in flames. The firefighters working so hard to curb the damage. The spectators, the news teams. Everyone finds a purpose to serve, even if it’s just calling a friend to let them know what the flames are like.
But that’s not the show Ted came to see. Surrounding all this hubbub, engulfing it, or right smack dab in the middle of it, depending on how you look at it, is a much more subtle show that still tells the how story.
Ted came to watch the faces.
There’s a family. The father’s face remains emotionless, stoic. For a moment, his cheek twitches, nearly giving way to whatever fear or anxiety crosses his mind this second. He doesn’t blink, so his eyes reflect the flames that burn turn the pants he wears in the family to ash, that fry the bacon he brings home. Maybe it’s the smoke or maybe it isn’t but something is watering his eyes. Maybe he doesn’t blink because it would send the water down his cheek in tear form, letting his kids, who already had that horror-movie-protagonist, what-the-hell-is-happening-and-what-do-we-do look on their faces, know that there’s something to worry about. You don’t even get that in the best movies or TV shows. Actors spend their entire careers trying to achieve that moment. But no matter how much talent they’ve got, how amazing they are, there are just some things they’ll never be able to replicate.
Like watching everything you’ve spent years working for, a life you’ve spent a decade or more to build, go up in flames and be gone in minutes.
No evidence it ever happened.
Ted wanted to pop popcorn over the fire; this was sheer entertainment.
A firefighter, his eyes narrow. There are other fighters, in their big yellow coats and pants, with the matching helmet. It all must keep them nice and toasty by the fire. The Fighter, he looks determined with that clenched jaw of “There’s got to be something else we can do,” while the others just try to contain the flames, fatigued; one even yawns.
Ted can tell that Fighter has the superhero instinct in him, that if -- wait.
Wait.
This is exactly what Ted had crossed his fingers - an
elderly woman, curly gray hair, wrinkles like a shirt crumpled up in the back of a drawer for a month. Ted wonders if you could iron a face.
Then he wonders if that would cause her as much pain as she already appears to be in. Her expression is as twisted and skewed as her arthritic hands. Her eyes wide - she’s not holding back those tears. There might even be enough of them to douse the flames. Her mouth is wide like when the dentist puts that plastic piece in it to hold your cheeks apart. Ted isn’t sure which is more profuse - her tears or her slobber.
And the wailing! Oh, the wailing. It’s mangled, screeching, terrible and glorious. If you tear her limb from limb, light her torso on fire while slicing her skin with rusty nails from the top of her neck to the top of her thigh, you won’t hear such tortured screaming.
That can only mean all that Ted could ever hope for.
“My granddaughter!” she cries. “My granddaughter and my car are up there!” She points to a general top-story floor. “Somebody help!”
Ted swears he hears someone tell her there are no pets allowed. Then he turns his gaze to the superhero Firefighter. The Fighter eyes all the fighters around him.
This is it, thinks Ted. The moment of truth.
It’s now or never.

Ted enters his apartment, closes and locks the door behind him. The lights are out and it’s mostly silent except a soft voice coming from down the hall. When he follows it he finds his wife has made it down to the bedroom; she’d fallen asleep to the news.
There in bed she lay naked and sexy. He thinks of how he should have just taken her on the couch, how he should now, and without thinking he’s naked. Without thinking, he’s under the covers.
She might be asleep, but she’s wet, so without thinking he’s not sure whether or not he’s raping his wife. After a few pumps, she’s awake and saying, “I saw the news.” And she says, “Did you go?”
Ted just pumps.
“There was a fire,” she says, and Ted thinks she’s getting wetter.
“A little girl died,” she says, “and a firefighter.”
Ted needs to hold back his cum. “A father couldn’t cry in front of his kids,” he tells her, “and the grandmother of the dead girl lost it.”
“But they saved a cat,” she says, and they cum together.
Ted asks, “Did you tape it for me?”