Wind and needle-sharp snowdust blew something coughing and swearing through Gate 32B. They had opened the door but a crack so that Mark and the other guards would have an easier time of pushing it back into the closed position after their “guest” had entered. The servos were nightfroze again and no one had wanted to open the gate in the first place, but you just did not leave folks out in the cold on a night like this.
Even if every other word uttered out of that bundle of something questioned the humanity of their fathers and the wanton nature of their mothers, leaving someone out in the cold on a night like this was just not something one did these days, although Mark was starting to wish that they had done away with that cardinal rule.
The guards, and not a few of the gossipy lay-abouts looking for new material to pander to their network of nosey neighbors, all strained against the winds and infiltration of snow that already threatened to block the door to see that neither could find purchase in the staging area.
The snow-encrusted visitor was still filling the air with monosyllabic remnants of an Anglo-Saxon past as head beat mittened hands against his jacket to knock off the snow that encrusted nearly all visible surfaces of his outerwear as the door finally latched, their bulwark against the fimbulwinter raging without.
Mark gritted his teeth and walked towards the visitor. As much as he would have preferred to play any other role this evening, he was assigned to inspect documentation of those entering by Gate 32B. Normally, he did not mind reviewing identification, but something about their visitor struck him as someone used to privilege, and folks of privilege were typically a pain in the caboose. Judging from the growling and swearing from this man, he might be a whole trainload of pain.
As if arriving after nightfall were not enough to assure Mark of his status.
“Present documents, please.”
The new arrival took off his tinted snow-goggles and peered hard at Mark through the layers of headwraps still encrusted in white.
“Well… shit. They weren’t lyin’ none,” he said, voice muffled by the multiple scarves wrapped around his face.
Mark hesitated before repeating his request. “Umm, could I please see your documents?”
“Sure, sure,” said the man, who started fumbling around in the courier bag he carried with him before pausing to look up at Mark again. “But you sure as hell do look like the spitting image of your sister. Just… more male-ish and all. Not that she looks at all masculine, but you two are definitely two peas in a pod.”
Mark scratched his head while he waited for the man’s identification. “You must have me confused with someone else,” he said. “I don’t have a sister.”
The man shoved his official travel papers into Mark’s hands. “Well, son, I hate to be the one to tell you, but… SURPRISE! It turns out that you do. Twin sister, in fact. And she sent me here to find out if her brother was you. Lucky for me, my work is damn near done.”
In one of those rare moments in Mark’s life, he discovered he was speechless. Mostly, it turned out, as the man was giving him this news, Mark immediately knew it to be true — although he never imagined such a thing until the new arrival had said something.
He dropped the papers he had been handed and fainted.
3 responses to “Gate 32B”
You’ve really hit stride with the builds in these short stories. Just enough to give us a fuller picture, but leaving us wanting more.
Thank you.
It is practice for an envisioned fiction project I am toying with that relies on a framed narrative that ties a series of flash-fiction and short stories together, rather than the classic “novel narrative” approach. I’m still brainstorming a conceptual framework, tho’, so this is practice on structuring flash fiction in a way that asks, “and then what?” and yet allows each piece to work as a standalone piece. If that makes sense… Prolly not, but the idea is rattling around in this empty skull of mine.
That’s a great idea. Looking forward to reading more.