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The Survivor increasingly finds himself talking comfort in the late nights he spends with the Transporter; loneliness wants company it seems even if company comes in the form a man who hasn’t said a serious word in his life.
“Do you--” the Survivor stops. “Do you want to play cards?”
“No, I couldn’t possibly let you have my credit card! Or my driver’s license, no matter how fun the game is.”
“Relax, nobody wants your illegally obtained driver’s license. And I was talking about the other type of cards.”
“I know,” the Transporter blinks owlishly at him. It’s...it’s not right.
“Do you want to play then?”
“No.”
“Come on,” he says, “I’ll even let you cheat on Go Fish.”
“It’s not cheating if it’s following rules you’ve never heard of.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s no rule set that states that you can use face cards interchangeably if you happen to have three aces in your hand.”
“Well, you don’t know, there could be some obscure group that plays by such rules. No need to be so imposing with your own conformist rule set.”
***
“This really needs to stop,” the Witch tells him, for once her haughty demeanor nowhere to be found.
“I don’t know why you bother,” the Survivor snaps at her, “it’s not going to affect my voting patterns.”
***
The Survivor really wishes that the rest of this madhouse of a town would let him sleep.
Well fuck. There’s movement in the kitchen, and the Survivor’s pretty sure that he’d bolted and locked the door.
“Oh it’s you. How the fuck did you get in?”
“I asked your door very nicely,” the Transporter says, “you know, you really should treat your door nicer, instead of slamming it in peoples’ faces. Doors do all sorts of things for people who speak politely.”
“You speak door then?” The Survivor blames the fact that he’s indulging the Transporter’s nonsense at all on the fact that it’s probably a fuck all hour of the morning
“Yes, I do in fact. Your door says that it wants a new paint job. You really should paint it a lovely bright color. Like mine!”
The Survivor thinks of the Transporter’s eye-wateringly lime green door. “...I’ll pass.”
“I made you cookies,” the Transporter says brightly, “you said that they weren’t supposed to contain an entire cup of salt, so I just added a cup of sugar instead.”
“Ah,” he breaks off a small piece gingerly, “they’re very--” disgustingly sweet and likely to make my teeth fall out “--flavorful.”
“I thought so!” the madman has the nerve to say, grinning from ear to ear. “Also I might’ve broken a few of your plates.”
Hopefully it was one of the uglier ones. He sighs and glances down at the broken pieces of the plate resignedly. Thankfully, it’s one of those sets that the Witch had gifted to him a few months earlier as a “birthday gift,” the one with the bright red swirls that looked like an odd combination of a hundred tiny little tapeworms. He’ll just quietly sweep this one into the trash again.
“That’s fine.” The world’s spinning again; it’s really not the proper hour of the night to be dealing with this. He pushes past the unwelcome guest in his kitchen to find a glass of water.
“I’ll buy you a new set,” the Transporter is saying, “I saw this one really cool design…”
The Survivor finds himself stumbling, tripping over some invisible wire.The pieces of the broken plate clatter to the ground, and he leans against the counter heavily, one hand rubbing at his forehead and his heart beating erratically fast. The Transporter stops mid-rant about some awful new set of ceramic plates they must be selling, fixing him with another one of those rare serious expressions. “Are you alright?” Then- “Have another cookie, it’ll make you feel better.”
“I’m going back to bed,” the Survivor says, cursing his own stupidity as he takes another piece of the mess the Transporter’s presented. The kitchen is too small all of a sudden, the Transporter is too close, too loud, too real.
He wakes up with an awful taste in his mouth and an unquenchable thirst, even though he distinctly remembers drinking several glasses of cold water right before bed.
The only sign of the events of the night before is the cut on his left hand from where he dropped the broken pieces of the plate.
***
“You haven’t been sleeping again,” the Transporter says, in a quiet voice that doesn’t fit him at all. He’s stretched out on the floor as if the tile isn’t fucking freezing, one hand hovering over a black pawn.
“Says the guy who stays up all night driving and honking his stupid taxi--”
“Well, you managed to sleep in the back of my car anyway. And don’t call my beautiful baby stupid--how would you feel if your feelings had been hurt by a grouchy Survivor?”
His hands are trembling by now, he can’t think straight, stupid, he’s never allowed himself to get close enough to the other members of the town, because this is what happens.
The Transporter doesn’t look up at him, not really, and perhaps that’s for the best. When he follows every rule to the letter, staring intently down at the pieces on the board, the Survivor suddenly feels like crying.
He tells himself it’s because of the checkmate the Transporter has just put his King into.
“Silly Survivor!” the Transporter says, still not looking at him, “there’s really nothing to cry about.”
***
“Hey, do you know where the white king piece is?” The Survivor asks without meaning to. Surely the Transporter knows, the man has a ridiculous and god-defying penchant for knowing where random lost trinkets are when he asks but never knowing where anything essential is when they actually need them.
There is no reply. He’s a fool for expecting one.
He finishes picking up the pieces scattered on the floor from the previous night and tucks them back in the box, setting it in an empty corner of the house.
There’s still no sign of the missing pieces.
***
“You missed the last town meeting.”
“I must have overslept.”
“Yes, well, except without you there to deadlock votes the Godfather is dead,” the Witch sighs then pats him on the back. “He’s not coming back, just let it go already and stop uprooting your own life over it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
***
The Survivor throws a vest on. He doesn’t think he’s going to get attacked tonight, but he needs more than that empty assurance tonight.
His hands are trembling again, he’s been too stupid, stupid, the room is flickering again, dull, distorted, and then comes the knock at the door.
The Transporter stands in the doorway in bright neon that somehow glows in the fucking dark, a wild grin on his face.
“Get in,” the Transporter says, gesturing carelessly at the taxi that seems to have already ruined half of his lawn, “sleep is for the weak.”
For once the Transporter seems content to take it easy on the gas pedal; the taxi ambles along on dirt roads and runs along the edges of another poor farmer’s crops. By the distinct sound of the grinding against the wheels, The Survivor sits back and lets the rocking and the odd musky smell of the taxi lull him back to a half-asleep state.
“I know I haven’t been visiting as frequently,” the Transporter says, one hand on the wheel and the other hanging loosely out the window. “I hope you don’t mind!”
“Don’t mind? I’ve finally been getting a decent amount of sleep.”
“Some things are just more important than sleep,” the Transporter shakes his head exaggeratedly, abruptly hitting the brakes. He winces at the sound of the taxi scuffing against the dirt road as the Transporter kicks the door open, dragging him out of the comfortable and somewhat warm position he’s tucked himself into and outside.
Something flickers at the edge of his vision. “Hey hey, there’s a shooting star!” His companion exclaims, tugging at his arm.
“What am I looking at?” He asks distractedly, half asleep on the ground next to the Transporter.
“Make a wish, you silly Survivor!” The Transporter says, with his strange combination of duh and oblivious cheerfulness.
I wish this was actually real. “I wish you would stop waking me up in the middle of the night because you’re bored.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the Transporter says, several hundred miles away, “even the stars can’t make the impossible come true.”