Cold Chat
Beth just moved in and was busy unpacking boxes. Above her flat, someone kept dropping things. Outside, a fierce wind blew; lightning and thunder broke the silence of the night. An hour later, her stomach growled. She remembered she had a jar of peanut butter in the fridge. While grabbing the door, lightning struck the electricity pole nearby. The plug of the fridge flickered. Then all the lights went off. But her hunger couldn’t wait. Using her phone’s flashlight, she opened the fridge.
“What the -"
Her peanut butter was gone. Instead, a set of canned beer took its place. Her heart raced and goosebumps prickled her skin. She didn’t drink.
No matter how hard she tried, there was only one thing she could think of.
“It’s a possibility,” she thought. An idea formed in her head. “No harm in trying," she added.
With a stick paper and a pen, Beth wrote, ‘Give me back my peanut butter! It was my dinner. If I die of hunger, I’ll haunt you forever’, and stuck it back on the canned beer. She grinned. She closed the fridge door and waited.
Ten minutes later, rays of green light glowed inside the fridge illuminating the dark room. Slowly, Beth opened its door. She gasped. The bottle was gone, but her peanut butter was back with a note.
‘Thanks. I never knew wine tastes so good with peanut butter. Sorry, I almost emptied it.’
“Impossible!”
Beth’s face beamed. She took out another leaf of stick paper and wrote, ‘You owe me a trolley of peanut butter. Throw in a loaf of bread as well. I prefer whole grain bread.’ Then she added her address below it. ‘Waiting for home delivery.’
She placed the note inside the same jar and closed the fridge door. Just then she heard a loud thud followed by glasses breaking into pieces above her flat.
“I have to get used to it,” she thought.
Seconds later, the power came back. Relieved, she sat in front of her fridge waiting for a reply. Half an hour had passed, but no glowing light came. She checked her fridge. The jar and her note were gone, but nothing replaced them.
Somehow, she felt disappointed. A strange feeling of loss filled her.
Next day, she was roused by a commotion at the hallway. She opened the door and saw her landlord.
“What happened, Mr. Kane?”
“The guy just above your flat is dead. He seemed to be working on some experiment about teletranspo -”
“Teleportation!”
“Yeah! That’s what they...Beth, where are you going?”
Beth sprinted towards the next floor. Just then a stretcher came out of one of the flats carrying a dead man.
“What happened to him?” she asked the paramedics.
“Experiment gone wrong.”
"Food allergy!"
Both answered in unison.
Curious, she went in. The whole place looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. Looking around, her eyes caught familiar things: her peanut butter jar, empty beer cans, and her sticky notes.
_*_*_*_
_*_*_*_