Sludge Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
If only it hadn’t rained that day. For some reason Siegel had let
his friend Warren convince him that cutting out of work was a good idea. They
were going to spend the day like tourists and go see tourist attractions they
never had a chance to go see. But then it rained that day. It was a drizzle at
first, but it was enough to make them not want to spend the day outside.
They were on the outskirts of Chinatown and stopped in at the
restaurant. It was pretty awful – dark and grimy and the food looked terrible.
But the rain had picked up, so they decided it was good enough. Exactly the
phase a restaurant would want to hear – “good enough.” It looked like a Chinese
restaurant, but nothing made sense. There was a buffet that had things like pickled
vegetables and spaghetti. There was a soup that looked like it was mostly made
of bones. A cook stood at a grill making personalized dishes, but Siegel
couldn’t tell what any of the food was supposed to be. And yet he still watched
the action with the knives and flames, transfixed by they motion. When he got
back to the table Warren was eating a baked chicken. Not a piece of chicken. A
whole chicken. By that point Siegel had lost his appetite.
Siegel looked out the window and saw a row of industrial trucks
and military vehicles driving by.
“Did you see—“
Siegel turned just in time to watch the waiter, while trying to
refill a glass of water, end up spilling the whole pitcher of water on the
table. The waiter took away Warren’s chicken, but offered no replacement.
“That’s bullshit. You know it is.”
“Come on; let’s just get out of here.”
They got up from the table, but were blocked at the door by two
girls. The girls were watching the weather as things had gone from bad to worse
outside. The girls told them about the inclement weather and yeah, they were right,
it was pouring rain and looked like hurricane season had come to visit.
The girls lived nearby and suggested Siegel and Warren ride the
storm out there. Maybe they were offering more. Siegel wasn’t sure. His friend
was. So that’s where they went. Siegel would have walked the extra six blocks
to get to their car and driven in the storm. He didn’t know these girls. He
didn’t need to know them just because of a little bad weather.
But the weather was bad and the girls had been right. Siegel
begrudgingly had to admit that. The streets were flooded. He probably wasn’t
going anywhere.
Siegel couldn’t sleep. He hated sleeping in strange and new places
and he couldn’t sleep. It must have been around five in the morning when the
sun was just starting to come out. Siegel couldn’t sleep, but apparently Warren
could. Siegel slipped out of the apartment and went for a walk.
That was a mistake. If it hadn’t rained and he had been able to
sleep, things might have been okay. But it had and he hadn’t. And so there he
was on the street in the wee hours of the early morning.
There were the trucks again and Siegel’s curiosity got the best of
him. He moved further to investigate.
There were trucks and the
men in the hazmat suits. There were temporary sewage pipes and men sweeping something
towards hoses to be sucked up into storage tanks. Clearly something was
happening.
Then Siegel saw it – the pink sludge.
That was when everything became a blur – the running, the yelling,
and the men in suits chasing him. He was sure he stepped in a puddle of
something. He was sure when one of the tubes exploded that some of the splatter
had gotten on his skin. This was bad. The toxic pink sludge was bad. Soon he
was suffering from SLUDGE syndrome – SLUDGE sludge. And it was bad.
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