When Onkar got warped, he didn’t quite know what to think.
Francis watched the new materialization from the corner of the room, resting her cylindrical, shiny green e-cigarette on her pink-painted lips as a new form came to be. It looked as if bits of broken glass had fallen from nowhere in the shape of a man whose color caught up with him just a moment later. And then he was, a new occupant in the Waiting Room.
“Wh-wha-where am I?” Onkar said in some big show, knees bent, taking the room with fanatic swivels and pivots. He had black hair gelled into a rugged quaff, a nine-day beard connecting his ears with curling follicles. With his bent stance, he looked like he was an athlete with an emphasis on the past tense, his dark brown skin bloated by the markings of well-lived fraternity days. He wore old sweats, the pair with that burn hole from that joint that one time, and a blue Nike t-shirt made out of some fake, sweat-absorbing textile.
The room itself really wasn’t much to take in. From the inside, it seemed to be a cube of drywall, each of the six walls painted a browning white. The air was stale with a green apple fragrance that did little to mask intermittent whiffs of mildew. Fixed to the ceiling center was a yellow-lit nipple light, its metal fittings worn with the same sheen as the Statue of Liberty. And on only one side, there was a brown door, wooden with a worn brass knob.
The room looked like it could almost exist. It was plausible, at the very least.
There was also a woman, maybe, in the corner left of the door: sharp nose, bleached blonde hair, black roots about three inches long, too much eyeliner, too high of boots, too short a skirt. Onkar was no traditionalist; he liked his women skimpy, but even at a glance he knew something with her was off.
Francis scoffed a laugh. She had seen this all before. She took a mouthful of vapor, pulled it into her lungs then blew it to the ceiling where it lingered over the two as a candy cloud. Onkar turned to face Francis, poising taut a mortal grimace
“Don’t tell me…” Onkar must’ve said, his muscles chattering through his teeth.
Francis cheeked a smirk. She took another hit, then exhaled it just the same.
“You’d best believe it,” Francis said, the apple on her throat bobbing concordant with her crosssexual way of speaking. “So, who was it?”
She talked a bit like the kind of guy who would always be telling a joke.
“I can’t believe this is fucking happening.” Onkar began pacing, back and forth between the two blank walls in a brief thump of soundless stomps. Then came the claustrophobia. Onkar balled down and gripped his temples in the center of the room, facing the door.
“Well,” Francis said. “You’d best find your peace with it.”
Onkar looked up with misplaced venom, then back down before he hit the floor with his right palm. It was a funny thing—the ground neither reverberated nor delivered pain, it just sat flat with bumpy indifference.
“This is just where we belong, y’know?” Francis continued. “You would’ve ended up here one way or the other.”
Onkar looked up. “Yeah, maybe you, you belong here.” Onkar looked back down. “There must’ve been a mistake. There had to.”
Francis stepped forward from her corner lean and kneeled several feet before Onkar.
She thus spoke a pitied deliverance:
“Sorry, friend. The Blorgites are never wrong.”
* * *
It was April 20th, 2023, when the Blorgites first became known. They had slipped through manufactured cracks in between gluons and electrons Earth scientists call “xorniums,” though their word for it requires a great deal of clicking and ƨ̶̡̰̼̅́͊ʞ̴͓̫̦́̊̚l̶͉̹̾̀͝ͅɒ̸̰̭̦͂͑̋ɿ̶̛̳͖͖̃̊ƨ̷͖͕̻̏̐͠ṉ̷̨͆̔͌͜ɒ̸̻̼̠̍̂̈́ɿ̸̡̠͚́͊͘ƨ̴̢͚̖̒̂͠į̷̤͎̑̓̂n̵̯̗̟̿̊̾ϱ̴̓͆ to properly pronounce. Blorgites are as inconvenient to physically describe as they are hard to imagine; their form doesn’t quite sit well in our atmosphere, or any atmosphere really. If you must know, they resemble the concept of hunger adrift in a bountiful sea, at peace with its desire to do no harm unto any being. Yes, they look like all that and more, tied messily into a bundle of gas so hued it’s white.
They came from The Beyond, so they said in a telepathic address in every language to every human all at once. The Beyond, so the Blorgites say, is what happens after. After what?—well, it’s just not for us to know.
What they made clear was the following:
“You, humans, have new gods. Your old ones went out to lunch. This is our decree: if any human wishes death upon another human in earnest, the offending human shall start over.”
The Blorgites did not clarify any further, and in one year, an estimated one-sixth of the human population disappeared. In that time, seventeen governments collapsed, two major religions conceded, a White House janitor named Jesús became president by default, Israel decided they really didn’t need that Gaza Strip, and the State of Florida sank into the ocean.
There has not been a single murder.
* * *
“What’s that door?” Onkar asked, sitting crisscross-applesauce below the nipple light pointing in front of him.
Francis scooted to her left, intercepting Onkar’s view, and sat down Indian style.
“That’s The Beyond,” Francis said. “It’s where you start over.”
“What does that mean?” Onkar said back, recalling that one day. He had been watching the solar eclipse when it happened, high out of his mind off an edible he got from a frat brother. He thought he was hallucinating. Everyone did.
“You’re guess is as good as mine,” Francis said, also recalling that day. She was having sex at the time, really taking it from some dickhead guy she met on Grindr. Funny thing is, they hadn’t stopped to properly listen. It just blended in with the animal pleasure.
“You haven’t walked through it?” Onkar asked.
“Does it look like I’ve walked through it?” Francis asked back.
“I don’t know,” Onkar said. “I guess not. I figured you’d know, what with you being here and all.”
Onkar raced a thought, discovering his conclusion as he spoke it.
“Are you…a Blorgite?”
“Wow.” Francis sprung up; she had braced for the wrong question. “I’m actually offended.”
She turned around and put her hands onto her hips in that sort of half-ironical way, her vape poking through her fingers between sharp red acrylics.
Onkar skipped his next question and began to consider his options. He then considered that he only had two. He could A: walk through the door and then “start over,” whatever that meant, or he could B: stay here with this alleged woman for probably the rest of eternity. Neither seemed particularly favorable.
“How long have you been here?” Onkar asked.
“Hard to say. Time doesn’t really work the same in this room.” Francis turned back around, extending her right arm that held the vape, and looked at it as she spoke. “Using my nicotine addiction as a benchmark, this should’ve died a long time ago.”
Francis sat back down, assuming her position from before, and offered the vape to Onkar. He tried to take it, but his hand passed right through it like she was a ghost and that was her ghostly fix, and it fell to the floor. He was too disorientated to even question it.
Francis gave a sly smile, a sharp exhale through her nose; she picked up her vape and hit it once more.
“Have there been others?” Onkar asked. “I mean, others before me?”
“Sure,” Francis said. “Maybe ten or twenty or fifty. Maybe even a hundred. I sorta lost count. They’ve all been the same as you—they come here, out of nowhere, act all surprised like ‘woe is me’ and ‘I don’t belong here,’ and then some sit down and chat, like you, and some make a break for the door. They all go for the door, though, in the end at least.”
“And you…?”
“I’m not going through that door.”
The two sat in silence for an amount of time that was impossible to define, until one of them broke the existential tension.
“I’m Francis, by the way.”
“Onkar. I’m Onkar.”
“Ooooh, Onkar.” Francis said, a cheeked grin. “That’s fun. What is that, uh, Pakistani?”
“Indian,” Onkar replied, looking down, thoroughly bored with this line of questioning.
“India! Nice! I love Indian food. Like, butter chicken? Curry? Naan? So good. So, so, so good.” Francis closed her eyes, trying to recall her last meal. It was a plate of salami, provolone, and two pickles, though the memory escaped her. “Where in India are you from?”
Onkar met Francis’ face with an oft given glare.
“Detroit.”
“Jeez,” Francis said with a roll of her eyes. “No need to be so touchy.”
“That was racist. You’re racist,” Onkar said. “I literally have an American accent.”
“Dude, everyone sounds American in here,” Francis said. “This room translates.”
“This room translates?” Onkar said. “What, like the fucking TARDIS? It translates?”
“From what I have surmised,” Francis said, standing up to start a scholarly pace, one arm behind and the other wagging. “Each person hears whatever dialect they speak. Here, listen to this.”
Francis stopped in front of the door and turned to Onkar, clearing her throat with a cough at her fist, deepening her diaphragm to its unpracticed decimals.
“I have a bigger dick than you.”
“What?”
“I said that in German.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Come on, try it!”
“I won’t. You’re fucking with me. You’re definitely fucking with me.”
“Tryy ittttt.”
Onkar took a moment of recollection. Fleeting: a three-year high school Spanish education, almost completely lost after the disastrous Birthday Bash of ’21.
“Where is…the library?”
“Seeee?”
“But like…” Onkar paused, both brows raised, an expression of disbelief no less. “Why? Why does it do that? What could possibly be the point?”
Francis’ pupils darted up. She really hadn’t considered this. She shrugged and hit the ghost vape.
“So, there have been others, right?” Onkar asked, and Francis nodded, before she noticed the telling sparkle hung right above Onkar.
“Watch out!” Francis said, considering a lunge before nixing the idea and scooting to the side. Above Onkar more glass was falling; this time, it looked like loose aspects of a kaleidoscope that untangled their refractions in a mighty fall of quick succession. Onkar felt a heat which he could not place but knew the meaning of, innate, urging him to spring back with his arms and legs.
Stuart now came to be.
“Hey,” Onkar and Francis both said to Stuart, this balding stocky white man who bore a striking resemblance to the character George Costanza from the sit-com Seinfeld.
“SHITFUCK! WHAT THE HELL? NO! no, no, no, NO! FUCK! FUCK!” It went on sort of like that before Stuart saw the door, shut up, and ran right towards it.
“Hey!” Onkar shouted. “Don’t do that, man!”
They both just watched as he fiddled with the knob, failing to properly grip it in a mutter to himself before the door burst open. Outside the room revealed a deafening white of every color that ate Stuart up before the door then slammed shut.
“What the fuck just happened,” Onkar said, heart racing, somewhat grasping what had just happened.
Francis forgot to respond for a moment; her tongue was feeling around her teeth for food the wasn’t there. “Oh,” Francis said. “That’s about half of people’s reactions. Screaming then running then door then gone. You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t think…” Onkar noticed he was staring at exactly nothing before he found Francis’ face. “I don’t think I want to get used to that.”
Francis stuck her lips out in consideration. “Why don’t you start over then?
“See,” Onkar said. “What does that mean? I still don’t know what that means.”
“You know I don’t know,” Francis responded.
“No really, what do you think it means?”
“Hmm,” Francis decided not to hit her vape, instead tapping it on her chin like some all-knowing, addicted academic. “If I had to guess, then I’d think it be like, a reincarnation sort of deal. Like what you Hindu’s believe in.”
“That’s Buddhism,” Onkar replied. “And you’re racist.”
“No, you’re ignorant,” Francis said back. “Reincarnation is Hinduism, too.”
“Whatever,” Onkar said, pupils meandering in recollection of temple. He hadn’t been since tata died; all he remembered was sandalwood incense and the elephant-shaped god Ganesha. His mom had a little Ganesha statue on the dashboard of her car. It watched over him when she could not. “If it’s that, then why don’t you go? Why not reincarnate?”
“But it might not be that.”
“Right, but suppose it is.”
“I’m not doing it. No matter what.”
“Well why not?” Onkar said, standing up, sudden vertigo, a sit back down. “That sounds like a great deal! Starting over? I mean, that’s pretty good, right? It’s not like, ‘brimstone and fire’ or whatever. And like, what if it’s our same life, and we live it again? Haven’t you ever wished you can have that? a do-over?”
Francis stood up over Onkar, a small step away from the center of the room.
“No,” Francis said. “Not even once.”
“Not even once?” Onkar looked up at Francis, her face sharpened by the angle.
“Look, dude, you don’t get it,” Francis glanced behind her, at the door. “If I go through there, I’ll have to do it all over again.”
Francis hit her vape. Onkar opened his mouth to talk, but she started again.
“Like, you and me—it’s just not the same. We are not the same. You got to like yourself—your entire life; you didn’t have to fight, and claw, and lose family, friends, nearly get murdered, just to be who you are. I don’t want to do that again. I already did it—I won’t even chance it! I’m here and I’m me and I’m finally okay with myself and my body and I’m…” Francis’ throat finally began to give that telling curl. “I’m staying.”
“Look, Francis.” Onkar animated his arms to talk, thinking of standing up before nixing the idea. “First off, you’re projecting. Completely projecting. How do you know that I like myself? Shit, you barely know me! We just met!”
“I don’t know, man. You just like, have that vibe.”
“I ‘have that vibe’? Y’know what? You don’t know what I’ve been through. Do you know what it’s like to be first generation? Strict foreign parents that cane your ass over an A-? for being out past 8? Do you know what it’s like to be brown? Every time I see a cop, every time, I nearly have a fucking panic attack—I can’t help it! All my life, all of it—I’ve always been that token Indian kid, the one that everybody in middle school called ‘curry’ or ‘streetshitter.’ And I just had to take it. I don’t want that again, but y’know, that’s life. You just have to keep your head down and keep going. What’s the point of waiting around, feeling sorry about yourself?”
Onkar stared far past Francis, who was looking down at her feet. To her, they looked so much bigger than they really were. They always have.
And then, Onkar said something mean:
“At least you can hide it.”
“What?”
“Well, you don’t have to be like—”
“Like what? A tranny? Is that what you were going to say?”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“Listen, man, if you want to start over so bad then why don’t you just do it already?” Francis walked back to her corner, leaned, then pointed. “The door’s right there.”
The two looked away from each other, and Onkar backed himself into the opposite corner with an awkward crab walk. Another form came to be, though neither looked. His name was Jerry, and he was 60. He had long, disheveled gray hair with a matching beard, dressed as a proud member of the Grateful Dead’s color guard. He was still tripping, actually, so all of this made perfect sense. He didn’t even notice Francis and Onkar as he became one with The Beyond.
Some time passed, probably. They were still looking away. Onkar spoke first.
“So.”
“So.”
“Who was it?”
“Why are you still here, man?”
“Who’d you wish death to? I’m kinda curious.”
Francis closed her eyes and laughed through her nose before she found Onkar’s gaze, adrift in the drywall. She shrugged before she spoke.
“Just some guy,” Francis audibly laughed to herself, then gave a toothy smile. “It was just some guy on the street. I wasn’t even thinking about it. I just saw him and wished him dead.”
Onkar found this disturbing before he found it funny.
“What, so it was just some guy?” Onkar was laughing now. “You risked everything for just some guy?”
“Hey!” Francis said, lightening her voice, a humored diaphragm. “I wasn’t thinking, okay? And he wasn’t just some guy—you should have seen him! You would’ve been sent here too!”
“Yeah? What’d he look like?”
“White. White man. Bald. Gym bro. Aviators. Fucking aviators. He looked like suuuuuch an asshole. Such an asshole! You should have seen his tattoos. They were bad, like really bad, like, a republicancore vomit of stars stripes and skulls up and down his arms. He was wearing a red tank top, ‘guns out,’ awful. And do you know what it said? On the tank top? Basic biology. That’s it. That’s all it said! But it was enough. I just thought, ‘Wow, I’d really like this guy to drop dead right here on the sidewalk.’ And I meant it. And here I am. Here I am.”
Onkar laughed again before he considered his ill-fated wish. The humor left his face.
“Mine was my mom,” Onkar said. “I wished my mom dead.”
“Wow dude.”
“I know right? Sorry,” Onkar found a small, sorry laugh. “I don’t mean to kill the mood.”
“It’s okay. I get it. I have parents too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“It was stupid. Just a stupid argument. It just slipped out before I knew what I was saying. I was just tired of her manipulating me. I’m an adult, y’know? She just doesn’t see it. She expects my life to revolve around her just because what? She birthed me? I didn’t ask to be born.”
Francis tried to think of something else to say, before Onkar started again.
“She knew what she was doing, pushing my buttons like that. It’s always ‘Onkar did this’ or ‘Onkar failed to do that’—she goaded me into saying it, really. She said ‘Onkar, baba and I did not raise you for 23 years so that you can leave us to be a failure. You need to come home now or get a job or re-enroll or else you will kill me with shame.’ That was over the phone. I wonder if she even realized what happened to me.”
“You regret it?” Francis said after some time. “Your wish?”
Onkar considered for an infinitesimal moment.
“Yes. Yes and no. It needed to be said. I really meant it, and now I’m here. But I don’t stand by it, y’know? It’s just not true anymore, the moment passed. Kind of unfair, don’t you think? The Blorgites sending me here for such a fleeting wish?”
Onkar stood up. His vertigo was gone.
“You going?” Francis said.
“Yeah. I think so. It’s about time.” Onkar walked to the door and gripped the brass knob. It felt cold, very cold, but in the way that it simply lacked heat. He looked to Francis.
“What about you?”
“Well…” Francis stared down at the vape in her hand, its green metallic sheen, the warped reflection of her face meeting her eyes. “Maybe when this dies.”
“Yeah?” Onkar said. “And when will that be?”
Francis closed her eyes and pictured a light blue sky, the kind of sky where the moon hasn’t quite faded as the sun marches the day ever forward, the kind of sky you can only discover if you manage to look up.
“It’s been hitting weak since you got here. It shouldn’t be much longer.”
Robin Ottenfeld is a junior at DePaul University, studying creative writing. They focus on short fiction on the more absurd side of things and will soon have their work “Joe’s Nose” featured in the upcoming issue of Crook & Folly. They are hopelessly addicted to the news cycle, and while they haven’t found any good news yet, they do harbor a stern appreciation for cat videos that is almost never sated.