EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the second in a series of short stories written by local thespian Jack Mint. Mint submitted these stories for a 250-word writing contest. The writing contest is called NYC Midnight and hosts short-story and screenplay contests nationally where writers are tasked with writing and submitting a story in 24 hours. Others writers interested in participating in the contest can go to nycmidnight.com.
By Jack Mint
Mother waits.
It’s a shivering blue light at the mouth of a tremendous machine.
The professor reaches in. I cross myself every time he does. Though I fear God, I fear the professor more. He decides if I graduate.
The electric blue light thrums as his fingers embrace the threshold of space. Like many times before, he delivers a child back into the world. She violently inhales, rescued momentarily from her death. I vowed I would never reach into the quaking blue light.
They hold each other. They both used to share his black hair. Now his is mangled, grey. He whispers her words of comfort. The same words I wish I could say to the man I lost. At the three-minute mark, the shivering blue gateway recalls the professor’s daughter to suffocate in a space shuttle accident six months ago.
The blue light evaporates. He slumps in the darkness. Teeth fall out of his mouth and with eyes sunken deep in his skull he looks at me and says
Turn on the machine.
The professor is dead. An emaciated skeleton sprawled on the floor. His daughter, finally dead too.
Mother waits
The departed professor said Mother possesses what you want most. What would my lover’s hands feel like one more time?
My hand leaves the shut-down button.
