The Saw

The house is silent. It is almost nine o'clock and already shadows gather to make their nightly rounds. One room escapes their tide, kept at bay by the glow from a small crackling fire. Here in the den a grandfather clock counts away the seconds, its wise oak countenance always wary of time's fickle passing. The room smells of age, reeks of it in fact. Volumes of tattered yellowing books line the shelves, gathering dust and age. A sense of loneliness pervades, the oppressive feeling that belongs to all neglected objects. It has been a long time, too long, since any of these volumes were opened. Here was a room that was once filled with dreams, that was once vital and alive. Those dreams are gone and what was once vital now lies comatose, just like the old man who sits across from the fire. His eyes stare in to the embers, but he is not looking. His vision is fine, yet still it has been some time since he has really seen anything. The fire longs for a new log, even just a poke or a prod. In his faded green leather chair, the old man fails to care. Like the neglected books, like the encroaching shadows, like the watchful grandfather clock and the slowly dying fire, the old man waits.

His hair is a disheveled mess of white and gray strands, wild like an aged Medusa. Skin dry as leather hide, he was once a strapping young man and worked a hard life. Those years of toil have left their mark in the sallow complexion which stares back at him on the rare occasions he glimpses himself in a mirror. Where sharp eyes used to take in the world, listlessness now resides. There are many who have commented that he looks dead already. He used to maintain a goatee, sometimes a beard. The wiry nubs of hair that grow on his chin could hardly be called either. He appears a homeless man, and isn't that how he feels? Isn't that why he sits alone, bitter from memories he has long since locked away? His eyes tell his tale. One look and the whole story is revealed. He has the look of Lear, and has fallen just the same.

The old man's name is Fredrick Mourn. This house is his life. He has been alive for seventy-four years. He has been dead for far too long. In five years he has not made a single attempt to leave his house. The drapes are closed tight. The outside world is a virus, his home the quarantine. Neighbors have pondered over his mysteries. Some even tried to be helpful. He stopped acknowledging their attempts at consolation long ago, and they stopped caring. The young children have decided he is a warlock, or a vampire. If life were that magical, he would not have had to lock himself away. He talks to his lawyer three or four times a year over the phone. He hangs up on his children on the rare occasions they try calling again. There are hours between when he wakes up and when he sleeps. They have long since become a blur. Just at night, when he takes a seat in his old leather chair and stares at the fire, does he really pay attention. He sometimes thinks. More often than not, he doesn't. His heart still beats. At times he is angry for that. He comes to the den for comfort. He is not completely alone, not here. A strange companion found him five years ago, right at the time he sealed his tomb. It lives in the far corner of the basement, covered in spider webs, dust and shadows. Nothing spectacular, except for once every night, without fail. A reminder perhaps that not everything has abandoned him.

The table saw is broken. It was broken nearly ten years ago, perhaps more, and it is still broken. Its cord hangs dispiritedly on the floor. Even if it was plugged in, Fredrick is reasonably sure the nearest plug was one of the ones damaged in the flood of '83. It is unlikely the machine would get much of a jolt. The circular blade was damaged on the last job the little rust bucket was employed for, and now sits at an odd angle within the device, rusted to the point that Fredrick would not be surprised if it simply would not budge even if the saw had power. The tool should have been taken to the dump long ago, and yet, just like himself, it remains in the house, stubborn and refusing to pass on.

At nine o'clock on the dot every night for five years the table saw has turned on. The blade has started spinning, the motor buzzing. In a house of silence it is the closest sound to joy that Fredrick has known. For sixty minutes the saw sings, uninterrupted and without fail. At ten o'clock, as mysteriously as how it turned on in the first place, the saw shuts off. In the early days, Fredrick used to busy himself trying to understand the phenomena. He would travel down the rickety old stairs to the basement risking death if he fell. He would surely crack a hip and there would be no one coming to check on him. He would get to the bottom of the stairs and look dumbfounded as the saw roared as if new. He checked the limp cord and noted that it was not plugged in. He sliced a few pieces of wood a time or two. The cuts were straight. That blade should not have even spun and yet the pieces were flawless. Of course he wondered whether he imagined the whole thing. He lived by himself. It was conceivable he had gone mad. After a while he realized he didn't care. It was just himself and the table saw now, alone in the house and sealed from the world. He cared little for that world, the one that would insist that the table saw could not turn on once a night at nine o'clock. So he started coming to the den. He would sit in his chair and stare at the fire and listen to the saw until it stopped.

The grandfather clock began to chime, its resonant voice announcing what Fredrick already knew. The table saw had started to spin. It was nine o'clock. He pressed his lips and cast a wary glance around the room. Everything looked the same. Everything was the same. The books, the fire, the clock. Was it the fire that was different? Perhaps it did not burn as bright as it normally did. He listened to the sound of the table saw. Was it the same sound it always made? He couldn't be sure. He thought that it was. Castrating himself mentally for his sudden anxiousness he tried to settle in his chair. Something was different. He could not put his finger on it but he knew for certain that he was right. Being the sole resident, the self imprisoned recluse in this house for five years, you had come to know its feel. The taste of the rooms, the feel of the spaces, expansive or cramped, the give of the floorboards. It was not a lot different than a spouse, not to Fredrick. This house had been his mistress. He knew her every secret.

The thought brought with it a tide of memory, the kind he had locked away long ago. Painful. Accusing. These were the reasons that Fredrick was hiding, but it was no use. A switch had been flipped. The flood came and his eyes widened.

The car.

Janice.

The black Cavalier lurched around the corner like a locomotive. Eddy Pierce was at the wheel, drunk. Sober Eddy would have had time to stop the car or swerve out of the way. Probably. Fredrick could almost see the Cavalier's evil intentions, always remember the way that haunting vehicle had laughed at him. That didn't happen though, did it? Janice had already stepped out on the road. She didn't see the black Cavalier coming. It had happened so fast, but there had been time. Time enough to save her, to shout at her, to leap out and push her out of the way. Why hadn't he saved her? He just stood on the sidewalk, frozen, and watched for Christ's sake!

It started at the wake. People whispering. People always whisper at a wake, but Fredrick knew better. They were talking about him. They had probably read the paper. That article about the accident might has well have spelled it out in black and white. It was right there between the lines. They all thought it was his fault. Fredrick Mourn could have saved his wife and he didn't. Now they whispered. The kids too. Stacy the worst. Tears barely covered the malice you could see in those eyes. She knew her father was guilty.

“It should not have been her.”

Who said that? Was it Stacy? Adam? Someone said it. He knew what they meant, whoever said it. No, it should not have been her. Not Janice. It should have been him. They knew, and he knew. All those eyes, weeping and accusatory.

The whispering did not stop with the wake. Every time he went out he could hear it. In every consoling look he could see it. They wanted Janice to be walking out of that house. That was what their looks said. They loved Janice. The world would be better if she were alive and he was dead. Stacy would phone. Adam less so. Adam had always been that way, never had a great relationship with his old man, but Fredrick knew the real reason. They were ashamed of him, probably couldn't even wait for the inheritance now that mom was gone. Greedy bastards. So he drew the lines while drawing the drapes, mounted his defenses inside his castle, and waited.

He had not thought about Janice in five years. He could feel the tears mounting in his eyes like water behind a cracking dam. He felt wretched. For five years he had forced himself not to think of his wife, the woman he had loved for forty-two years. He had never grieved her loss, never accepted that she was gone at all. Stacy and Adam tried to get through but his shield was too strong.

He wept, each tear carrying another regret to pool upon the floor. There was something different tonight. He thought that perhaps it had been different for some time now, that he had just been ignoring it. He tried to stop time five years ago. How foolish. How childish it now seemed. The black Cavalier killed two people that day, they just hadn't buried the second in the ground yet.

He thought he understood the permeating differentness in the house. Death. That old trickster would not be fooled by a few pulled drapes. He almost smiles, except it is not funny. So many forms the reaper could take, it chose this one. He supposes he is not afraid. He thought that he would not care, but he does. If he could do things differently, but no, no one gets a chance to do things differently. Just Jimmy Stewart.

I'm sorry Janice. Stacy. Adam.

I'm sorry Fredrick.

The house is quiet. It takes a moment for the realization to dawn. The table saw has shut off. It can't be ten o'clock yet. He glances warily at the grandfather clock. He feels suddenly very alone. He can hear the quietness of the house. It is almost maddening. The crackling of the fire, the ticking of the clock, the clanks and clunks of the ducts. It is only 9:32. In five years the saw has been consistent. Why has the table saw turned off early? He feels faint. A shortness of breath attacks him and for a moment he thinks that it may be a panic attack. An image of a scythe etches his thoughts, not a scythe this time but a circular blade. A rusty, bent, circular blade. He knows why the table saw has quit before its time. As the last breath escapes his lips, the fire dies out as well.

The End