It was three thirty in the afternoon and Benjamin was itching to get away from his desk. “Almost five… Almost five… Soon it will be four and then once it’s four, just one more hour before I can leave,” he thought to himself. The fact that it was a Wednesday didn’t make things much better. Ben was ready to just go home. He had determined that working in customer service was no longer for him. Sure, he had been very excited to receive the call that he had gotten the job after several months of being laid off during the pandemic, but now he had grown to hate this position. He just wasn’t a people person in the traditional sense. It gave him no joy to fix the problems of customers. Every “I’m sorry” or “Have a great day!” was severely insincere and it ate him up on the inside. But hey, it was a job and it paid the bills, so he knew he had no right to complain. It was the only way to keep food on the table for his family, so he begrudgingly carried on mindlessly repeating the words in his troubleshooting script.

He looked at the clock again and wanted to shed a tear. Three thirty-seven. Hardly any time had passed. He covered his computer monitor’s clock and tried his best to find something else to focus on. He looked around and noticed that the coworkers around him all looked miserable too. Edward, the man working to Benjamin’s left droned on, talking to a customer in a monotone voice and seemingly elongating words unnecessarily. Holding in a sigh, he turned to his left and caught the eye of Kelly, is favorite co-worker. Everyone called them work-bros because the two always got along so well and could be a laugh-riot when alcohol was involved. Kelly gave a wink in Benjamin’s direction and Ben pretended to catch it as if it were a kiss. Kelly chuckled and went back to typing at his desk.  

It was stuffy in the office today, Benjamin noted. The whole place was an open-air concept, but it felt like there was no air in the room. “Are we all exhaling from sheer boredom?”, he wondered.

Ben couldn’t help himself and he peeled the sticky-note off his screen just in time to see the time change to four p.m. “Finally!” he exclaimed in a whisper. Makena, the co-worker to his right, looked over with a knowing smile.

“Ready to go?” She asked.

Ben gave a quick nod, “As soon as Thea leaves, I’m out of here.”

“Leaving with the boss?” Makena frowned.

“Leaving very soon after. She won’t even know I’m gone.”

“You know what, I’ve never thought about that. How would she know, right? Unless someone snitched.”

“Yeah, no one likes this job enough to snitch. I dare say we could all leave about five minutes after she’s gone and she wouldn’t be the wiser.”

Makena nodded while clicking a button to answer a new customer service call. Moments later, his own screen lit up with a new call of his own. Benjamin sighed and plastered a smile onto his face as he answered the phone. The company insisted that they all smile while on calls because their research reported that smiles, even fake ones, made for better customer service and happier work environments. Ben was unconvinced and thought they all looked like idiots. He placed a new sticky-note over the time and smiled while giving his forty-ninth “I’m so sorry you’re having this issue” of the day.

Before he knew it, Thea was walking out of the office with her sweater, briefcase, and purse. He didn’t even bother checking the time, Ben gathered his things quietly, arose from his desk, and speed walked his way out of the front door, almost not caring whether the boss saw him leaving early or not.

He knew that if he hurried, he could probably beat the majority of the five o’clock traffic. His commute home could be either twenty minutes or an hour and a half, it just all depended on how fast he could get on the road.

Hopping into his green 2012 Camry, Benjamin ignored the time and sped out of the parking lot. “Twenty minutes… Twenty minutes…” Ben chanted to himself, hoping that his wishful thinking would hold off any traffic jams coming his way. After about forty minutes of sitting in traffic, he realized that his thoughts hadn’t willed the traffic to go his way.

An hour later, Benjamin was finally home. He tenderly kissed his wife’s hand while whispering an “I love you” into her ear. They both sat on the living room couch, facing their children. Austin, age thirteen, and April, eighteen, sat on the floor, completing the one activity that they could still agree upon, a puzzle.

Benjamin gave a light laugh remembering all the times his children had completed this same Pacific Ocean puzzle from the tender ages of three and eight. Austin, at the time, of course had no idea how to assemble a puzzle and had no concept of the small pieces eventually becoming a full picture, but he wanted to be a helpful little brother, so he did his best to put the pieces wherever his big sister pointed. He was smart kid; Benjamin could always tell from the very beginning.

Still holding Chelsea’s hand, this scene brought a tear to his eye. Time stood still for Ben. He sat with them all in bliss for a moment longer before deciding that it was time to rearrange the scene.

First, he moved his wife’s cold, decaying hand out of his own. Next, he placed Austin on the couch in his stead and positioned him toward the television, game controller in melting hand. April was moved onto the couch as well, after Benjamin had sat his wife in her favorite rocking chair.

It was always difficult to put his wife into this specific chair because placing her deadweight changed its momentum. He always made an effort to be gentle while moving his family around, but no matter how hard he tried, Chelsea always either hit her head on the top of the wooden chair or would slide out due to all the motion.

This time, Chelsea fell forward and nearly onto the floor before Benjamin could catch her. He placed his wife back into the chair, trying to slow the rocking without making it cease completely. Her cold, bleak, black eyes stared back at him, reflecting a contoured and demented version of himself.

Benjamin queued up a demo version of Call of Duty and just let the noise play. Gunfire seemed like the perfect soundtrack for this picture.

He then took a step back and was almost pleased with his handywork.  They all sat there frozen in time, but the scene still didn’t feel quite right. He maneuvered Chelsea’s face into a gentler expression, her jaw nearly detached now, he had to use his imagination a bit in order to see the happy expression. He attempted to give April’s eyebrows a raise as if she were invested in the game, and he imagined a look of wonderment on the face of Austin.  

Ben took another step back and smiled at the picturesque view. The scene was just as how he had remembered it back when they were all still alive.

After an hour of staring at this scene while being a silent observer, Benjamin looked at his watch and decided that it was time for dinner.

First, he set the table. White porcelain plates, sterling silver flatware, fresh white cloth napkins, and a glass at each setting. One by one, he gingerly carried each family member to the oval wooden dining room table, ignoring their pungent odor, and engaging them all in light conversation.

To his wife, Chelsea: “Dear, did you read in the paper about this heat wave we have coming? Now I know you want to pick at me for still reading the paper rather than gathering my news from online, but you know my stance on that. Yes, yes, dear you’re right, it has its merits. Yes, also true, but how do you really know who to trust and what news is real on the internet? Oh I know, I know, you don’t have to admit that I have a point there, it’s fine.”

To his daughter, April: “I’m so proud of your “A” in science class, honey. See what happens when you put in the true effort? We studied hard for that one, didn’t we? Yep, it was all worth it in the end.”

To his son, Austin: “Now son, you must remember to practice that throw, baseball season will be here before you know it and I want you to be ready. It’s going to be a good season for you, I can feel it! I’ve already asked my boss to modify my schedule this Spring so I can come to every game. Maybe after dinner we can throw a few pitches. Yes, I knew that would get you excited!” 

And to them all while sitting at the table: Work was boring as usual. Yes, hun, I know that I should just be happy that I’ve gotten a new job, but I do wish it were in my field. April, always a jokester, I know that Editors aren’t deemed essential in times like these, but it would still be nice to be in something at least adjacent to my area of knowledge…

The conversations continued throughout the dinner with Benjamin filling every instance of preserved silence.

…

Ben had been a horrid father in life, and he knew it. The pressure of the pandemic did nothing to help the situation either. They had all been alive at the start of everything. The school closings, the layoffs, the health regulations… but it wasn’t the illness that killed his family, it was Benjamin himself.

His last memory was of yelling at his son for playing video games on the wrong television and going out for a drink so that he could escape his pitiful excuse for a family.

All the bars were closed, but he found plenty of beer at a local gas station. He sat outside that place for hours, bellowing along to every song playing on the oldies radio station and sloshing beer all over the cat’s interior as he tried to dance along to his raucous.

He had awoken the next morning to a bright, but cloud-filled sky in the local mall parking lot. His car engine sputtered as it drank the last of its tank’s gasoline. Groggy and unclear on why he had chosen to sleep in this particular parking lot, Benjamin turned the car off, popped his trunk, and grabbed his gas can.

On his way back home, he had decided that there was no need to rush. He wasn’t sure exactly what he had said the night before, but he remembered yelling at both kids and refusing to sleep in bed with his wife. He hadn’t meant to do all of that in all honesty. Ben just knew that he was just stressed and trying to find space from them all. It had been hard to do so since most things were closed or canceled these days. Yelling just seemed like the most effective way to get them to leave him alone.

As a kind gesture to make up for his adverse behavior, Benjamin stopped at his family’s favorite breakfast café and ordered their Family Special to-go. He barged through the front door with his arms filled with bags and he shouted, “I’m home!”

To his surprise, no one ran down to greet him. One step farther into the house and Benjamin gained a clue as to why the house was so quiet, the house smelled of gas.

He let the food drop out of his hands and onto the foyer floor as he rushed upstairs. The scene was both serene and grotesque. His entire family all looked to be peacefully sleeping, though death had already come for them.

Ben desperately ran to each room and opened every window, hoping that fresh air would somehow resuscitate their gas-smothered lungs. After trying repeatedly to shake his wife awake from demise, he realized that there was no use, they were all gone.

He wrapped each body in bed sheets and carried them down to the basement. For days, he pretended as if Chelsea and the kids had just gone on a quick vacation. It was a Sunday night when he finally decided to bring their bodies back up the stairs and to make them all dinner. His first conversation with them was a lively talk about the amusement park the three had visited while on vacation. He was sad that he had to missed out on it.

---

He sat next to his wife at the dining room table and carried on a conversation about a new movie theater that was being built in town. He said that things were finally starting to get back to normal out there. Ben then turned to his kids and asked them if they wanted to have ice cream after dinner. Dissatisfied with their responses, he went around the table and attempted to fix everyone’s face into a happy grin. Benjamin sat back down and asked the question again. He smiled back at all the “eager” faces. With this manipulation, Chelsea’s jaw finally gave way and became completely detached, landing in black and grey pieces onto the clean white plate in front of her. He ignored this and kept on chatting.

Later that night, after enjoying a scoop of his children’s favorite brand of rocky road ice cream, Benjamin bore the weight of a backbreaking task. He carried each limp body up the stairs and into their rooms and tucked each body cozily into the sheets. Ignoring the scent, in turn, he kissed them all goodnight. His heart was light as he skipped down the stairs and set an alarm for work in the morning, satisfied that he was finally a good father and happy to be able to provide in times like these.

E.J. Batiste is a writer, screenwriter, poet, and artist originally from Raeford, North Carolina. She holds an MFA degree in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. E.J.'s creative work has appeared in various literary publications in North America and Europe.