Bettor's Prayer
A ~600 word short story
Travis Joseph Rodgers
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“You don’t look well,” the pencil thin figure said.
Peggy couldn’t help it; she laughed. “I’m going through a lot right now,” she said. “I’m stressed. I can’t believe this is happening. I’m sick. My husband is dying. I may lose the house. Humans experience stress. It--,” she gestured with her hand like she was trying to catch a word that flitted just out of her grasp. “There’s only so much energy. It takes time to charge up that energy, like a battery and stuff like that. Do you – does this make sense to you?”
She stood in the corner, inside the liberally poured arc of salt. They, the being, were seated in the battered but comfortable armchair where Stanley, never Stan, had sat so many nights. He might have a Scotch or, later, an iced tea on the table next to him. The coaster would be six inches away from the sweating glass. She never understood why he couldn’t just move the coaster or the glass a few more inches. Maybe he didn’t understand what was at stake, how it would harm the wood.
“I understand goals. Your husband wanted to convince people. He failed.”
She punched the wall. “He controlled everything he could!” A snarl curled her lip. “Science is conservative, slow to change. He told them about the pithos, and they didn’t fucking listen. He can’t control their minds.”
“And you know the pithos, the box, works.”
“Of course. You’re here. Aren’t you?”
“And he’s dying.” The figure flicked a finger as if the chair had dirtied their pretty hand.
“That’s why I want to make an offer.”
“You didn’t believe him at first either,” the figure said. Their face pointed in her direction, but she couldn’t see the eyes. She felt them.
“I do now. And I’m willing to do anything I can.”
The figure shook their head. “Anything?”
She swallowed hard. Felt the gulp descend into her sternum. “How much can I get for a year of my life?”
They tittered almost soundlessly. “This is embarrassing,” they said. “For both of us.”
“Are you fucking laughing?”
“You found the pithos. You poured over his notes. You know it works.”
“Yes…”
“How do you think you recovered from your illness last year?”
“What?” A little over a year ago, their positions had been reversed. She was the near-corpse, scrawny, cold, bedridden. He was at her side all the time. She would awaken to see him reading some scrap of text, examining the little jar he called a pithos. When she’d speak to him, he would drop what he was doing. Devotion. Love. She saw and felt it all in him. “The cancer went into remission,” she said.
“I extended your life.”
Her heart dropped.
“In exchange for what…?”
But she knew the answer.
“The final ten years of his life.”
Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor, breaking the circle of salt. “How long do I have?”
The figure checked his watch. “Go be with him.”
On all fours, she closed her eyes. Took a moment to steady herself.
“You’ll want to hurry,” they said.