Contest Entry: The Chosen (rough draft)

Written to the prompt: You're plucked from the cornfield and placed in a vase on the counter in an alien's kitchen.



The Chosen

(999 words)

Judy Hershiser was the first among us to be chosen. That was last year, on March twenty-third, just after three o’clock in the afternoon. She’d just finished her shift at Sheldon’s on the square and was counting her tips as she walked to her car. A trucker out of Yuma, Arizona was in the parking lot and saw her. I’ve forgotten his name, but he said – and I quote – “One second she was there, and the next, POOF! She was gone!” Bennie Loveless later told me that the trucker noticed her because of her … let me be sensitive here … her Dolly Parton figure. Even if Bennie weren’t a deputy, I’d still believe him. Everybody noticed Judy Hershiser because of her figure. Why not them?

Of course, since Judy was our first to go, her disappearance caused the biggest ruckus. Everyone for miles around came to the restaurant parking lot to lay cut flowers and teddy bears and hand-written poems on the spot where she disappeared. A few reporters came, too, and some wack jobs who stood on the sidewalk and shouted about the End being Near. But, since it had already happened so many times in so many other places, our crowds were mostly locals. Still, it was really touching to see so many of our people turn out. And it made a nice pile, our offerings did. Well, until the rains came.

The second to go was little Iris Peabody. She was only seven, the youngest so far. It was Easter Sunday and she was spinning pirouettes on the sidewalk in front of Our Savior’s Righteous Temple. I wasn’t surprised when they chose Iris. She was the most beautiful child in town. Everybody thought so. In fact, a lot of the children resented her for her beauty and a lot of the parents were jealous of her, but I liked Iris. She was a sweet kid, the kind you didn’t mind tagging along. Besides, she couldn’t help it that she was beautiful.

Missy Emory was chosen third, though nobody could figure out why. It was a sweltering morning in early August and she’d just finished milking Whitman’s dairy cows. Anyone who’s ever milked cows knows she must have stunk to high heaven. But, they grabbed her anyway. In fact, they grabbed her so fast she left her boots in the mud.

I heard later that her parents were going to donate them to the visitor’s center. But, before they could, Missy came back. She’s the only one from our town to come back, though. She says she doesn’t know what happened. Last thing she remembers before waking up over on Brushy Knob was stepping outside the barn to smoke a cigarette. It’s sad, but now that Missy is among The Rejected, no one wants a thing to do with her and she’ll probably have to move. There’s just no living with that much shame in a place like Thomasville.

After Missy, a lot more were chosen. Not only from here, but from nearby Hatter’s Mill and Greenwood, and Lake Renee. Pretty soon, every time you turned on the news, someone else was gone. Most of them were girls, some were women, a few were boys or men. Once they chose identical twins, Becky and Brenda Barnhart, another time a dozen students playing kickball during recess at Twain Middle School. By the end of the year, when we held our Day of the Chosen celebrations, we counted nineteen gone. More than any other town with a population under five thousand in the state of Missouri.

Unfortunately, by then the governor had stopped sending out bronze plaques inscribed with the names of the chosen. I guess there were just too many and it got too expensive. Instead, she sent their families form letter proclamations and bright pink paper stars to hang in their front window.

After the New Year, folks stopped disappearing. Not just here, but everywhere. Days went by without a single person chosen. Folks began to wonder about it, then talk about. It was weird. Uncomfortable. People got edgy. Arguments broke out. There was even a fist fight in Taylor’s Hardware when Danny Licking and Tommy Spivey tried to convince the other that his daughter would be chosen before the other’s.

Then I got taken.

It was on a Saturday. I was hanging around outside the Blue Moon. Jimmy Daniels worked there and I liked him. A lot. Too much, maybe. And that’s what I was thinking about. I was wondering if I liked him too much. Then, Whammo! I was blasted by a rush of hot air. Everything went blurry, spinning, helter-skelter. I tried to scream, but nothing came out of my mouth.

I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually everything slowed. I could hear and see, but I couldn’t move. Something warm was clutching me, pushing me downward, jamming me into something cool and tight and tube-like. When I was stuck fast, it let me go.

I was so nervous and frightened, I almost forgot to recite the greeting we were forced to memorize. Stumbling over the words, I said “Hail Chooser, I am here to represent my country and am honored to have been chosen.”

There was no reply, just a swishing of movement. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I looked around. There were enormous machines nearby. They looked vaguely familiar, a bit like --. Is that a stovetop over there? I squinted my eyes. It looked just like Mom’s new GE, only much bigger. And that over there, was that a microwave? Maybe. Then I looked at the tube holding me. It was made of glass and placed in the center of a long, flat plane. A table perhaps?

And then it hit me and I almost cried for the inhumanity of it all. I was not here to honor and be honored. I was a decoration. A flower in a vase in the Chosen’s kitchen.

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