Fiction

The Package

by S. D. Liddiard

A bead of cold sweat trickled down my forehead and caught in my left eyebrow. I gave my head a quick shake and sent the droplet flying over my shoulder. A brief tremor coursed through my body. Although the late summer air was warm and still, I felt a sudden chill. Goose pimples made every hair on my arms stand to rigid attention. I swallowed hard and risked a furtive glance around me.

In the throng of mid-afternoon, downtown strollers, I caught a guy pulling his eyes off me. Not looking right at me: peeling his eyes off me at the last second, as though he was glancing around and I just happened to be in his line of sight. I saw him though, and I knew.

With an effort, I resisted another look at the rabble drifting past. Their stares, plain or veiled, would go unchallenged and unimpeded. I needed to move. I hugged the package more tightly to my chest and strode on. I had to get home. I had to get off the street, away from the onlookers. I had to get away before anyone noticed it. Wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, I had thought it appeared innocuous: the package.

I walked briskly and straight as an arrow. I kept my eyes on the sidewalk 10 feet ahead of me. I tried to be unnoticeable, though I could feel the eyes of strangers burning into my flesh. They knew. How could they not? It was obvious. What had made me believe I could just walk down the street with this ... abomination under my arm? I had been naive to think no one would suspect.

The sidewalk was wide and thick with people. It was the height of tourist season. Suddenly my forearm, the one supporting the package, felt damp. Damn. The cursed thing was leaking. All the breath went out of me. This was not possible, yet I could distinctly feel moisture oozing out of the package. The bottom felt cold and sticky. I panicked and bolted. I tore down the street, dodging the strollers. There was no longer any point in trying to pretend nonchalance. I had to get off the street before anyone saw the real evidence of my disgrace. I zigged and zagged. I brushed a startled pedestrian, barely, cloth against cloth. I bobbed and weaved. I missed another and another. I found shifting holes in that bubbling stew of humanity and darted through them.

A thick clot of people had congealed on the corner waiting for a light to change. As I neared them, a tall, balding man wearing shorts and a camera poked his head out from a small family grouping. His eyes widened as he watched my approach. He held up an arm and stepped back, forcing his brood back with him. As he did so, a space opened up between the family and the storefronts. I swerved toward the gap, but the tourist, second-guessing my heading, leaned his family back toward the storefronts. I cursed under my breath and leaned the other way, to try and pass them on the outside. The tourist reacted again by leaning his family into my path on the outside. I seemed to be watching from somewhere outside my body as I led this hapless stranger and his whole family in a macabre dance that could have only one conclusion.

I bounced off the man. He went down in a heap. I teetered on one leg and thought for a moment I could catch myself and keep on going. I willed it. Then I knew I was headed for the concrete. At the last moment, I wrapped both arms around the package and curled myself into a tuck. I hit the sidewalk with my right shoulder and rolled. I should have just somersaulted and come up again intact and with the package still in my arms, but I guess I miscalculated. Instead, I landed hard on my back and the package went flying. My stomach turned at the thought of its rotten contents spilling all over the street.

I had not been down for more than a second, but when I looked up, a dozen pairs of eyes were boring into me. A dozen more stared in the direction of the package. Nakedly curious, blithely accusing eyes poked their gaze all over me, emboldened by their numbers. There was no sly gaze, no peeling away to avoid detection, just hostile intrusion. I turned toward the package and steeled myself for the sight of its fetid contents.

A child, one of the tourists, was between me and the package, hunched over it, examining it. He kneeled down and I caught my breath as he reached out to pick something off the ground. I jumped to my feet. I had to stop him. I had to hide that package, get it away from the kid, somehow protect my secret shame from all these prying eyes. I lunged toward him and he turned, his eyes round in shock as he saw me bearing down on him. He raised his hand and shoved the brown paper parcel at me, still miraculously intact. I grabbed it and took off down the side street without a backward glance.

The sidewalk was nearly empty, so I was able to run hard and fast. I did not stop again until I reached my front door. I fumbled my key around the keyhole for an eternity of milliseconds before I finally managed to slip it in. I exploded through the door and stood there gasping, my heart pounding in my ears. As I leaned back against the door, my arms slumped unconsciously to my sides. The package slipped from my grasp and thudded dully to the floor. I glared at it. Then, remembering the unexpected wetness, I examined my left forearm. Completely dry and clean.

I knelt down beside the package and inspected the exposed surfaces. No dark patches, no sign of dampness or discolouration. I poked it gingerly with a forefinger and turned it over. Nothing. I let out a sigh and realized I had been holding my breath. It was time to get rid of the vile thing, to destroy my shameful handiwork and the abject rejection it represented before anyone important found out about it, before I could be held to account for it.

I picked up the package and carried it into the kitchen, where I dumped it on the counter. I slid open the utensil drawer and drew out a razor-sharp utility knife, then slowly and deliberately, sliced through the string holding the profane object together. I peeled back the wrapping to reveal the 1,000-page manuscript of my pitiable attempt at a novel, rejected for the dozenth time and sent back to its sad creator.