Thomas Pierce - Hall of Small Mammals - Stories

“You might find our method unusual,” he says. “But we’ve found that the typical questions don’t tell us anything useful. We like to start with hypotheticals.”

“Okay,” Ellie says.

“Excellent,” he says. “Here we go. You’re given a shoebox. In the shoebox are three mice. All the mice are going to die, but if you smash one with a hammer, the other two can live. What do you do?”

Ellie has never killed a mouse before, not even in a trap. When she was growing up, her family had a cat that took care of things like that. She tries to imagine smashing a mouse with a hammer. She imagines the mouse as a very still fluffy thing on a cold cement floor. She imagines the hammer in her hand. She swings the hammer down, but instead of a crunch, she imagines wind chimes.

“Don’t think about these questions too long,” Burton says.

“I guess I’d kill the mouse,” she says.

Burton makes a mark. She asks if she answered correctly.

“No right or wrong,” he says. “These are hypotheticals. Next. You’re on a spaceship. You’re set to become the first person to leave the galaxy by traveling at the speed of light. But then you realize that, because of relativity, a hundred years will have passed when you return to earth, and everyone you know will have expired.”

“Expired?” she asks, and thinks of milk.

“Yes,” he says. “They’ll all be dead, but you will be the same age. Do you complete your mission?”

“So,” Ellie says, “I only realize this once I’m all the way out there in space?”

Burton makes another mark. Then, without waiting for her answer to the space question, he says, “You’re a devout member of a religious group. You discover that your Spiritual Leader, henceforth referred to as SL, is a charlatan. He’s stealing money from all the other followers. This one’s multiple choice. Do you: A. Call the authorities. B. Interrupt a religious service and present evidence of the SL’s wrongdoing to the followers. C. Alert both the authorities and the followers with a strongly worded letter. D. Confront the SL in private. E. Claim to be a new prophet and banish the SL from the existing group for reasons unrelated to the financial crime. F. Leave the religious group and write a tell-all book. G. Blackmail the SL for a cut of the stolen funds—”

“How many choices are there?” Ellie asks. “I think I’m losing track.”

“I’m almost done,” Burton says. “ H. Start a new religious group and declare spiritual war. I. Go on a pilgrimage to a religious shrine and ask for God’s guidance. J. Wear a recording device and try to get the SL to admit the financial crimes on tape. K. Become an atheist.”

Ellie doesn’t know what to say. She grew up Methodist and nothing like that ever happened in her church. Their wine was grape juice. The minister played an acoustic guitar.

“I guess I’d do the thing where you confront the SL in private,” she says. “I mean, how much money are we talking about here?”

He doesn’t answer but makes another mark. Then he says, “You find out you’re pregnant and—”

He stops talking and looks up at her.

“Just so you know,” he says, “we ask the men this one too. Okay, you find out you’re pregnant, and it is revealed that your baby will very likely save the entire world one day. But giving birth to this baby might result in your own death. Would you terminate the pregnancy?”

“God,” Ellie says. “I guess I’d have to keep it, right?”

“And if that child only has a fifty percent chance of saving the world?”

“I guess I’d still keep it.”

“Twenty-five percent chance?”

“Maybe not,” Ellie says. “No, in that case, I probably wouldn’t go through with it.”

Burton makes a mark.

“I like you,” he says. “You seem to have your head on straight. You’d be surprised how many people don’t. By the way, do you know how to make a spreadsheet?”

Ellie says she does. Burton makes another mark and then presents her with a booklet and a pen for the essay portion. Ellie had no idea there would be an essay portion. He says it’s nothing major, just a few quick paragraphs. She’ll have fifteen minutes.

“Here we go,” he says. “The question is: How will the world end, and what will happen when we die?”

He leaves the room. Ellie didn’t get much sleep last night. She was out late for her friend Mary’s thirtieth birthday party, and her mind feels like Swiss cheese. She starts writing:

The end of the world will be like when the candles get blown out on a cake. Everything will end very fast but with a final little flicker so that we at least know it’s happening. Then the earth will just stop existing. And we won’t know why. We won’t even care why. Our souls will still exist but in a different way and they won’t care about why it ended because we won’t need the earth anymore. When we talk about the earth, we’ll laugh about how silly it was to be here. Earth will be like some dream we all had together. It will be like one of those dreams where you eat mud because in the dream eating mud seems like a perfectly natural thing to do. After the earth ends, it will be like waking up from a dream like that. We’ll all stand around wondering why we ate all that mud. Also, we won’t have private parts.

After Burton collects her essay, he shakes Ellie’s hand and says he’ll be in touch. She doesn’t feel confident. She probably shouldn’t have mentioned the bit about the mud. She probably shouldn’t have said she’d abort the baby with a twenty-five percent chance of saving the world.

Outside the snow is falling into the prickly bushes along the building entrance, collecting in the green groove of every leaf. She can tell the leaves are prickly but sticks her hand into a bush anyway. It pricks her in a few spots. She can’t tell where it hurts most. When she squeezes her palm, a few small drops of blood rise to the surface of her skin.

Ellie walks to the parking garage. She should call her mother. Her mother will want a full report. That can wait. She feels something in her pocket. She pulls it out. It’s the sticker that says TEMPORARY. She sticks it on the dashboard above the heater and drives to Pop-Yop, the soft-serve place where Mary works.

“But if they offer you the job, you’ll take it, though,” Mary says, wiping down a tabletop. Her friend, who used to say she was going to travel around the country in a Volkswagen Beetle selling homemade jewelry, has recently developed such a practical streak. She says she’s even been thinking about asking her brother for a loan so she can make an offer on this Pop-Yop. Ellie pulls the silver handle on the wall and fills her cup. Mary gives it to her for free so long as she doesn’t overdo it with the toppings. Ellie tries to never overdo it with the toppings but sometimes she can’t help herself.

• • •

Two weeks later, Burton calls to offer her the job.

“You’re our top choice,” he says. “And that essay. Loved it. So funny. I showed a few people. Hope that’s okay?”

Ellie doesn’t ask him what exactly he found so funny. She’s not sure she wants to know. She tells him she’d like a day to think about the offer, as if she has ten others to consider, but Ellie knows, eventually, she will accept. Otherwise her mother would kill her.

Big D organizes a small going-away party on her last day at the restaurant. He brings in chocolate cupcakes from the grocery store since the kitchen restaurant isn’t open yet. All the waiters and cooks stand around with dark chocolate in their teeth, asking Ellie questions about what’s next. This job, she wants to say, and after that, probably, some other job. Big D pours everyone a shot. He’s ready to pour another round but the manager says that’s enough.