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Soul Survivor
by Edd Vick
Marcus Marquardt paused before opening the email from Patti. They hadn't parted on the best of terms. Would it be a diatribe? A summons of some sort? Or a restraining order? God forbid she'd send a suicide note.
But, he had to admit, Patti had never gone to extremes. She wasn't prone to depression, and excepting that unfortunate incident with his vintage Coca-Cola bottle collection, she hadn't even been particularly vengeful.
Marcus clicked on the message.
Dear M, Attached is my soul. You're the only one I can trust to hold onto it for me. Where I'm going it would only be a liability. Please keep it safe and when I return make me take it back.
There it was, the little paper clip symbol with the words "patricia olsen.soul" next to it.
What the hell? Maybe Patti was pranking him somehow. More likely, somebody or something malicious had gotten to her computer's address book. This was some trick to make him open the attachment and infect his own computer.
Still, what if? Patti's message hadn't even asked him to open the 'soul'. She'd just asked him to keep it safe. He could do that much. But why him? Why not that new boyfriend of hers? Marcus had heard he was sick; hadn't Deb said he'd gone into the hospital?
Marcus deliberately ignored the message and worked on a presentation due Monday. The clients had asked him to deliver something innovative while using their thirty-two page manual of specs. Typical. Two days later he got the call that Patti had died.
"Some weird suicide pact," said Deb. "Her boyfriend just died of cancer and she asphyxiated herself in the same room. That's love!"
Four months later Marcus cleaned out his email in-box. He paused, tapping his fingers too lightly on the keys to register. The cursor hovered over Patti's message. With a tap on the delete key he could put everything behind him. Never think about Patti again. It was absurd that the message could be from her, or if it was that she'd have been able to send something he'd have any desire to see. Her 'soul'. It was probably a picture of her boyfriend or a screed about how he was so much better than Marcus.
His finger drifted over to the key. A long moment passed.
Then he moved the message into his 'family' folder.
Comments
A very nice chill at the end. I wasn't sure what he would do. Effectively told us only a little about either character but made us care about Patti, by implying in a few words what she was trying to do, and why.
Posted by: David | March 9, 2009 12:22 PM
I don't get it. I liked it all the way up to the end, which I found vague and confusing. What is a 'family' folder and why would he put it there?
Posted by: Joe | March 9, 2009 5:20 PM
Thank you, David.
I'm sorry you found the ending confusing, Joe. Simply put, Marcus didn't want to forget Patti, and by implication he will save her when she returns with her boyfriend. A 'family' folder is one of many named folders in Marcus's email program.
Posted by: Edd | March 9, 2009 7:01 PM
You put neither of those things in the story, however. They remain in your mind. Which is fine for you, when you read the story -- your mind keeps that information in your own "family" folder. But not so good for us, your poor readers and fans, who do not get the whole picture. :-)
Posted by: Joe | March 13, 2009 5:03 PM
I like it. ... Also, it's.. just a smidge creepy, but not in a bad way.
I mean, what if she does return? Or what if she only expected the hospital to resussitate her? Or what if?
I like that it's short and I'm left with questions. Of course, I'd love answers but sometimes, the best bit of a short story or drabble is not having any.
Posted by: Katrina | March 13, 2009 9:41 PM
Or maybe it's not really supernatural at all. Maybe the attachment was just a heart or a picture of her smile, something to leave behind in lieu of an item that would normally be given away before imminent death. Maybe it's something as simple as hope. Just some of the thoughts that popped into my head reading the comments.
I use e-mail enough that the 'family' folder issue wasn't one for me. I guess with a varied audience different things will crop up.
I, too, felt a chill at the end, unsure whether he would delete it or not, and I think it's a feat to make the reader feel something so quickly for characters we barely know anything about. Nice work.
Posted by: Lene | March 17, 2009 12:04 AM