Depth Charges

By Steve Gergley

At noon I drive home for lunch and eat a turkey sandwich topped with thousand island dressing. When I walk into the bathroom to wash my hands, I find a man in a black rubber biohazard suit sitting in the bathtub, playing with a set of WWII U-boats and intricately detailed destroyers. Lost in his world of imagination, the man punches the water with his gloved fist. He imitates the booming bellows of the frenzied American naval officers. He fabricates crackling explosion sounds with the wet-muscle machinery of his invisible tongue and lips. From the side of my eye I see that things are not looking good for the American destroyer, but it appears that they have just set their depth charges to the correct time delay, so the battle might not be over after all.

Steve Gergley is the author of The Great Atlantic Highway & Other Stories (Malarkey Books ’24), There Are Some Floors Missing (Bullshit Lit ’24), Skyscraper (West Vine Press ’23), and A Quick Primer on Wallowing in Despair (Leftover Books ’22). His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Maudlin House, Passages North, Hobart, Always Crashing, and others. His fiction can be found at: https://stevegergleyauthor.wordpress.com/. He tweets @GergleySteve. In addition to his own writing, he is also the editor of scaffold literary magazine.