The Tipping Point
by Shawn Yager
Barbara Avery, a middle-aged human resources manager, was walking her Shih-Tzu, Gus. They walked through a part of town that the pair had never walked through before. Why not? It was Saturday.
A breeze blew Barbara’s graying hair into her mouth. “I’ve got to get this mop trimmed someday, Gus!” she said, brushing the hair away.
They approached a little gray house and noticed that, inside the house, body parts had been moved against the window next to the front door. They saw body parts in the second story windows as well.
“Oh, dear,” Barbara said.
The house made a low, muffled sound. Barbara bit her fingernail.
“Come on, Gus,” she said to her dog. “Let’s get out of here.”
The front door flew open, and two male inhabitants fell out onto the narrow porch of rotting boards. Their hair was matted, dirt was smeared across their faces, and their clothes were shredded. They looked at each other, then at Barbara. They blinked at the blue sky, as if they hadn’t seen natural light in a while.
“Are you alright?” Barbara asked them.
“Fine, yep, fine, yep-yep,” they replied strangely, as one of them opened the door. Barbara saw bodies moving past the doorway. Eyes bulging, nostrils flaring, hands grabbing, voices grunting.
As the bodies moved, so did her stomach. “Don’t go back in there!” she blurted.
They didn’t listen. They pushed and shoved their way into the slow churn of bodies. The door shut behind them.
Why... how... what... who? Barbara’s thoughts stuttered.
She and Gus crossed over to the other side of the street. It was a safer vantage point from which to observe the disturbing goings-on.
The house was surrounded by vacant lots. Behind her, a rusty chain-link fence held back weeds, bushes, and spindly trees. In the hazy distance stood downtown skyscrapers.
She felt the little gray house vibrate, even from where she stood.
Barbara heard a crack, like a lightening strike, and all of the windows shattered. Gus yelped.
Legs, arms, feet, hands, and heads popped out of the openings where the windows had been. Male, female, old, young, bald, hairy, smooth, wrinkled.
A man’s head appeared out of a glassless window next to the front door. His eyebrows rose, his nostrils flared. He smiled and frowned. Moments later, he was sucked back into the house.
“Do you need any help?” Barbara yelled, but he was already gone.
She shivered. She wanted to walk home, but she needed to find words that would give what she was witnessing some kind of meaning. If she stayed a little longer, she would find the words. Fortunately, she was in no hurry. Her time was her own. She had no significant other waiting for her to return. Gus was all the male companionship that Barbara needed.
Besides, aside from Gus, no one would ever go along with her crazy, spur-of-the-moment notions of going for walks in the most desolate and forgotten streets in the city, as they had done today. That had been a mistake.
A woman fell out of a second story window, landing with a thud onto the weed-choked side of the house, yet she seemed unhurt. The woman was covered with blood and shards of glass, but that didn’t slow her. She ran for the front door. Her hair was matted, dirt was smeared across her face, and her clothes were shredded.
As the woman pulled the front door open, it came off its hinges, and filthy people tumbled out of the house. All of them fought their way back in.
No matter what happened, people wanted to get back inside, and as quickly as possible!
Loud cracking noises coming from the house pierced the air, as if it was crying out in pain from the relentless writhing, throbbing, undulating movement within.
She heard loud grunts and the sounds of bodies smacking against bodies. Barbara hoped to hear a cry for help.
Hands moved against heads, feet pushed against chests.
Gus strained against his leash. Like Gus, Barbara wanted to leave, but she hadn’t found the words she needed that would answer the questions “What am I seeing here? Why is this happening?” and “Why me?”
The house had reached its limits. It imploded in a cloud of dust. She felt it in the bottoms of her feet. A gust of air hit her with the scent of old timber and body odor.
Barbara heard the scraping sounds of board moving against board. Men and women, covered in blood and dirt, rose from the debris like weird sprouts. They found each other and helped each other to stand. They huddled together, and started going around again.
Bodies moving, churning, revolving around an unseen center. They were so close to each other, how could they breathe?
She felt as if she had stumbled upon a secret religious service, a pagan ritual dance while walking through a forest. But she and Gus were not in a forest. They were in a run-down corner of a major American metropolis.
As the group moved, it made a wet, slapping sound that came from the break-down of flesh.
“Oh, my,” Barbara said.
Barbara crossed the street once more, dragging Gus behind her, some part of her wanting to be closer to the wreckage. Something had changed.
What was once a group of individuals was now something that no one had ever seen before. Perhaps something that no one would ever want to see.
The throbbing, spinning collection of humans had transformed into a large round mass.
Splintered wood, bricks, shards of glass, and other debris had become a nest upon which the object rested.
She came to within touching distance, and saw that the mass was milky and transparent. Peering into its depths, she saw skulls, femurs, jawbones. She also saw stomachs, intestines, hearts. All slowly moving within the watery, milky, whiteness. The physical breakdown of the bodies continued within the huge tumor-like mass.
Reaching out a hand, Barbara placed it on flesh that was shiny and wet with newness. It felt like warm gelatin, and gave way under the weight of her hand.
Barbara felt a tingling sensation take over her body. The feeling seemed to take place so far from her brain that sensations took longer to register. She felt fear and disgust, but the feelings felt far away. She couldn’t tell where her feelings were. Or where her brain was.
“This isn’t right,” an old part of Barbara said.
“Oh, Barbara,” said a voice that sounded like a chorus of whispers, “It is, it is right! Join us, join us!”
Was this an invitation? Or something similar yet lacking the availability of choice that invitations have?
She yanked her hand away, and the tingling sensation subsided. She scooped up Gus and ran, leash flapping behind them, down the street, past the vacant lots.
Barbara never found the words she had sought. She hoped she never would. She could live the rest of her life not knowing the what’s, the why’s, or the who’s. Ignorance would be bliss.
Next morning, Barbara and Gus went for a ride. She had to get out of her apartment. Thank science for sleeping pills, because otherwise her night would have been hellish. Until she had taken the pills, she had tossed and turned, the events of the day playing over and over again in her head.
Dirty people falling out of the little old house. Strange white mass that looked like a huge tumor. Collapsing walls revealing writhing bodies.
The palm of her hand where she had touched the object felt hot.
After driving down deserted Sunday-morning streets, Barbara ended up on the expressway, which passed through downtown. She drove past the skyscraper in which she worked.
“They won’t miss me,” she said, looking down at Gus, curled into a sleeping ball. Even though she had worked there for the last twenty years. Even though she loved her job. Why did I just say that? she thought.
Soon, they were out of the city, and she saw signs for Wilson State Park. She had never been there, had never even heard of it. “Let’s stop there for a while,” she said to Gus.
She parked her car, without bothering to lock it. She and Gus walked to a wooded area with picnic tables and grills. The sounds of music and laughter, and the smell of barbecue, filled the air. People threw Frisbees, children chased each other. Adults sat in folding chairs, sipping drinks. People patted Gus and scratched him behind his ears.
They found a gap in the forest, away from people. Barbara sat on the forest floor, cushioned by a thick carpet of pine needles and leaves. She let Gus run free so that he could chase chipmunks. Barbara laughed at his efforts.
A man with gray hair, and a woman with black hair, appeared in the opening.
“Hi!” they said to Barbara. Gus was sitting next to Barbara, panting. “Oh, your dog is so cute! Can we pet him?”
“Of course,” Barbara said. “He loves it!”
The man and woman stooped down to pet Gus for a few minutes. When Barbara thought they were going to leave, they stood up and started walking around her in a circle.
“What are you doing?” she asked them. They did not answer.
More people appeared in the opening, and began orbitting around Barbara.
Barbara stood up. “Stop!” she yelled. “Stop! Go away!”
As if in response, more people appeared. Old, young, big, small, thin, fat, male, female. Soon there were so many people crammed into the clearing in the forest, walking around her, that they rubbed against her, causing her clothes to rip, her skin to burn.
People kept coming. The heat from the surrounding bodies made her sweat. It mingled with the sweat of those touching her and ripping her clothes.
“Where’s Gus?” she cried. “Gus! Gus! Where are you?”
There was no reply. She heard only grunts, moans, and half-words. Many of them coming from her.
It was like a controlled stampede, faces red, eyes bulging, sweat dripping. But what was controlling it?
She tried to yell, “Stop, please! I’ve got to find my dog!” but she could only grunt and moan. Her lungs could not inhale enough air. She felt a tingling sensation in her toes that moved up through the rest of her body.
She felt fear and disgust, but the feelings were moving away from her, like a ship leaving port. She now knew what it felt like to be those people she had met yesterday at the old gray house. Like them, she was filthy, her hair was a mess, and her clothes were tattered.
She knew she shared their fate as well, as did everyone here in this clearing.
She still didn’t know why. Perhaps she would find out, but did it matter?
“Thank you, Barbara!” said a familiar-sounding chorus of whispers. “You are the tipping point. Because of you, it is now inevitable. Because of you, we can now climb up the next rung on the ladder of human evolution!”
Barbara moaned.
Copyright © 2023 by Shawn Yager
