The Worst Distance Between Two People is Misunderstanding: A short story

The gravel crunched noisily as Alfred followed his familiar path back to his cottage.

The day was bleak, although less bleak than usual with the kind of rain that feels like it’s standing still rather than falling from the sky. A few stretches of the sky were even so dull a color of grey they nearly passed for blue.

Maybe summer wasn’t too far away, Alfred mused as he scratched his nose and pulled his jacket tighter.

It was a few hours past midday, or so he thought, and Alfred had finished his project sooner than he expected. His cat, Nola, would be excited to see him.

Perhaps that had more to do with his ability to open the jar of Tuna than Nola’s love for him. Alfred thought disconcertedly.?Or maybe it was both, those things need not be mutually exclusive.

Either way, Alfred loved Nola dearly. She was all the companionship he had in life.

“Morning Alfred, done for the day?” Chet, Alfred’s neighbor, and lifelong acquaintance shouted his way.

Alfred, somewhat startled from his thoughts, replied, “Nearly, just gotta get Nola fed.”

Chet chuckled and waved lazily, sitting back comfortably in his whicker rocking chair, rocking slowly to the beat of nature.

Alfred paused, decided the conversation must be over, and turned his attention to his own front door, excited at the thought of taking off his boots, drying his bones, and getting to bed early.

Much to his joy, Alfred found himself in bed an hour earlier than usual. He was relieved to end the day, his most recent project had taken a toll and he was to begin an even more difficult one early tomorrow. Maybe it will stop raining, he thought, listening to the pitter-patter on his roof as he drifted to sleep.

A loud crash shook Alfred’s body back to consciousness, as his brain attempted to make sense of the situation.

It was 1810, things didn’t make loud crashes without cause for alarm.

Alfred found himself out of bed, with pants and one boot on before he realized what was happening. He finished getting dressed, grabbed his wooden truncheon, and burst into the darkness outside.

The rain had stopped, but there were no stars or light from the moon. He stared off into the pitch darkness, wondering what to do next.

“Chet?” Alfred whispered into the night, wondering if his neighbor was up investigating as well. “Chet”, he tried again, slightly louder.

But Chet wasn’t outside. In fact, no one seemed to be outside.

Had Alfred dreamed up the noise? How could no one else have heard it? It sounded like a tree crashing into a cottage!

As Alfred stood on his porch in confusion, something caught his eye, standing out in the moonlight near the property line he shared with Chet.

He moved off the porch, his hand gripping his truncheon tightly, and slowly walked towards an odd shape a few meters away.

Alfred was a veteran of the early Napoleonic wars and had seen this before.

It was a large iron ball or the remnants of one. About 1/3 of the structure was missing, but it was still heavy, warm, and reeked of gunpowder.

Alfred looked up at Chet’s dwelling.?Could Chet have set this off? And in God’s name, why would he?

Alfred decided to wait until morning when he could enlist the other villages as allies.

To his uncomfortable surprise, not another living soul had heard the explosion — for Alfred was now sure that’s what it was. Were they all conspiring against him? It made no sense!

After spending the morning going door-to-door, Alfred spotted Chet in his familiar perch on his porch. Chet smiled and gave his characteristic lazy wave.

Alfred glared at him suspiciously and re-entered his hut, already late for his new assignment. He dressed hurriedly and made his way out the door.

He pondered as he walked, his breath rising in great plumes of smoke on the cold, late-morning air, catching the sunrise and increasing in intensity as he started climbing a hill.

Alfred and Chet had never been close, but they had known each other for years and had once worked together. Although that had been many years ago Alfred remembered Chet being jealous of him, and holding him down for promotion for as long as he could.

Alfred reflected on the past wondering if maybe Chet had been holding a grudge all these years.

He stayed lost in his thoughts throughout the day, making a few costly mistakes on the job. But the more he thought about it the more sense it made.

Chet was jealous of him, plain and simple. Alfred saw him in his mind, giving a half wave with what once seemed a friendly smile.

There was animosity in those waves, and there was envy in that smile.

But was Chet trying to kill him?

Surely not.

Yet there was no scenario that Alfred could concoct that explained Chet’s behavior in any other light than nefarious. At worse he?was?trying to kill Alfred! And at best, he was trying to sabotage Alfred’s career.

Alfred wasn’t really the type to seek confrontation. Besides, all Chet would do is deny it, and what proof did Alfred actually have?

It’s no use, he thought hours later as he rolled onto his side, his mind still racing too quickly for sleep.?But something has to be done, I can’t just let him get away with it!?Revenge fantasies eventually morphed into dreams, and Alfred drifted to sleep late in the night.

In the next house over, Chet too lay awake. A loud explosion the night before had rocked his bed-chamber, and he worried something similar would happen tonight.

His leg was hurting. He had injured both in the war, but he no longer had the ability to bend the left one from the hip down, and it often hurt late in the night, the muscles clamping tighter than a miser’s grip on his gold.

This is what stopped him from investigating the noise last night. That, and the rain. Chet despised the rain. Too many days spent outside, suffering in miserable rainy conditions for someone else’s ambitions.

These days Chet was more of a decoration than a useful member of the community, and he knew it. His war injuries made work impossible, and years of being unable to pull his weight had left him apathetically depressed.

He saw his son at least twice a week, who always brought him groceries.

Living to die, he often thought as he sat on his porch and watched the grass grow.

Living to die.

But last night he felt truly alive for the first time in years. The blast startled him so strongly that he hopped out of bed, his injured leg cramping painfully on him and he fell bodily to the ground.

He struggled to pull himself back into bed, wheezing from the effort and gasping from the pain.

His frustration and humiliation at inhabiting such a weak body rose to the surface of his shallow emotional pool, and he slammed his head onto his pillow in anger.

Anxious sleep came with the dawn, and Chet was hopeful to speak to Alfred about the events.

But the next day Alfred seemed so unwilling to talk that Chet started suspecting that perhaps?Alfred?had caused the commotion.

But that made no sense. Why would Alfred do that?

Maybe he was just messing around and set one off on accident... But why even have one of those bombs in the first place?

Nothing added up.

Chet’s mind slowly started to settle on what felt more and more like the truth.

That bomb was meant for Chet, and it was only by some stroke of luck or stupidity that he was alive to ponder the implications.

Chet thought back to ten years ago when he had been Alfred’s supervisor. Chet always felt relatively indifferent towards Alfred and so he never put him in for a promotion.

It wasn’t that Chet disliked Alfred, he just didn’t stand out from the crowd in any meaningful way.

He eventually was promoted, thanks to Peter’s Law, and started climbing the ranks more quickly thereafter.

Did Alfred perhaps blame Chet for slowing him down?

Chet wasn’t quite sure how Alfred started climbing the ranks so quickly after leaving Chet’s branch. He just assumed Alfred had found the right ass to kiss.

Other than the semi-friendly interactions they shared when catching each other outside, they weren’t familiar.

Chet knew Alfred had a cat but he had never seen anyone visit. Not that he watched Alfred’s door all day long, but he didn’t know of anyone close to Alfred in the village or otherwise.

One thing I do know,?Chet thought, his leg starting to cramp painfully again,?was that Alfred was mad about something and had come for revenge. The more Chet dwelled on this satisfying thought the less concern he had to elucidate a motive.

What really mattered is that Alfred tried to kill him, goddammit!

And Chet needed to do something about that, regardless of how weak they all thought he was now.

The benefit of a night’s rest did little to clear Chet’s mind. He wasn’t quite sure how to take revenge but he now felt confident in this desire.

He chose to keep quiet in the meantime and even gave Alfred one of his customary waves when he saw him later that evening.

Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and the animosity between the two started to boil over.

What had started as passive-aggressive attacks were shedding their passive skin.

Alfred started kicking gravel onto Chet’s porch so Chet started throwing garbage on Alfred’s roof.

Alfred started emptying Nola’s litter on Chet’s property.

So Chet burned the refuse in large fires while Alfred was at work. The billowing clouds of smoke blowing into Alfred’s property filled Chet’s soul with righteous satisfaction.

Alfred took it up a step and salted Chet’s garden.

So Chet picked all of Alfred’s fruit.

Their schemes dwindled in creativity as they rose in maliciousness. Each man retreated further into his own version of events, neither seeking any allies.

Alfred didn’t know how to connect with people and Chet was too prideful to seek validation.

But Chet did spread rumors about Alfred to anyone passing by his cottage. He had heard that Alfred had been demoted. Chet hoped, thanks to him.

But they weren’t all rumors.

Chet was positive the two weeks he spent living in the outhouse owed their thanks to Alfred poisoning his water.

It had become difficult for Chet to think of anything other than his hatred for Alfred. His dogmatic views and absolute certainty that he was in the right fueled his resolve.

Chet couldn’t explain this obsession, but it had morphed into a moral imperative. Alfred had tried to kill him, and had been too much of a coward to even air a grievance! An individual of such low moral fiber deserved justice.

But what was justice, and how was Chet to deliver it?

Alfred didn’t feel much differently. In fact, he was even more upset over the situation. But the difference between the two was that Alfred would do something about it.

As he sat at his kitchen table he made up his mind.

A horrible thought infected his brain like spilled black ink spreading over white paper. A thought he wouldn’t dare utter out loud.

But,?Chet had to pay.

Alfred stood up and walked towards his kitchen sink. He pulled a bottle of high-proof alcohol out of the cupboard and placed it on the counter. He bent down and opened a lower drawer, securing a thin, well-used hand towel.

Alfred whistled as he worked, twisting off the lid of the alcohol and stuffing the towel down inside. He tilted the bottle over, letting the cloth soak up more alcohol in the knot that had formed at the opening. Careful to keep the end dry, he turned it right side up and started towards his fireplace.

A large fire crackled merrily as Alfred reached down and pulled out a burning log, grasping it with difficulty in his free hand.

As he turned to walk toward his front door, the burning log caught the corner of the stone fireplace, pulling it free from Alfred’s grasp.

Alfred watched in slow motion as the log landed on a pile of kindling, instantly bursting into flames.

Panic seized Alfred’s nervous system, and he fled the home. He bumped painfully into the doorway in his haste to escape, dropping the bottle of alcohol at the threshold.

Flames exploded behind Alfred, engulfing the entire northern wall of his home in fire.

The massive fire illuminated the area, and Alfred looked up to see the flames spreading, licking the upper part of Chet’s roof, and erupting into a second inferno.

Chet’s home was going up fast, the large fire climbing ever higher into the night.

The heat was unbearable, and Alfred took several steps back, not believing what he witnessed.

The fires consumed the oxygen in the air, creating a suffocating atmosphere that was intensified by the sounds of wood splintering and crackling, as well as beams crashing to the ground.

But Chet’s screams rose above the cacophony, causing Alfred’s blood to run cold.

Alfred started to hyperventilate.

He couldn’t believe what he had caused as he watched the two homes and all of his possessions go up in smoke.

Villagers had joined the commotion. Some were digging ditches around the burning homes, and others throwing buckets of water at the two insatiable monsters.

People shouted directions at each other. Children cried and villagers moaned, yet through it all, Alfred heard the sounds of a terrified animal.

He had forgotten Nola, asleep in his bed.

Alfred fell to his knees, a broken man, wailing inconsolably.

As the fires were fought into submission, people started to return to their homes.

A few villagers tried in vain to console Alfred, who continued to sob hysterically.

The barkeep threw Alfred over his shoulder and took him to a neighbor’s barn.

Alfred sobbed all evening, the noise finally subsiding with the morning son. But when they opened the barn door to check on him, he couldn’t be found.

And he never was.

Years after the events villagers still talked about the war between Alfred and Chet, each with a different theory of how the animosity got started.

Most believed it had roots from the time the two were co-workers. But none were aware of the events that truly started the tragic feud. Few people remembered Alfred’s complaints of a bomb going off, and anyone who did had not believed him.

In fact, there were only three people in the village cognizant of the event. Alfred, Chet, and one other villager, Jiminy, the 14-year-old son of a war veteran.

Jiminy was not a bad kid but his inability to stifle his curiosity often got him in trouble.

But when he was not causing trouble one of his favorite things to do was hear his father’s war stories. He wanted to believe the stories yet he couldn't help but ponder their veracity.

For instance, he didn't believe that one of the bombs could blow a hole into the side of a castle. The biggest explosions Jiminy had seen would do little more than leave the stone scorched.

And he knew that his father kept bombs hidden for “Napolean’s next great adventure”, but no matter how much he pleaded his dad had denied requests to see one in action.

But as luck would have it, one evening he was given the chance to find out.

While finishing up his chores before bed, Jiminy stumbled upon his father’s hiding place.

Excitement coursed through him like a river in flood, surging and overflowing its banks. Shaking, he secured a bomb and snuck it into his bedroom, hiding it under his bed.

When he was certain the rest of the family was asleep, he quietly opened the door and escaped into a dark and cloudy night.

He headed in the direction he thought was east, towards the old village. There were abandoned stone huts in the old village and he could see for himself if it would blow a hole big enough “for a man to run through”.

He stumbled over a familiar trail in the pitch-blackness, losing his sense of direction.

He stopped and listened to the dead silence. He looked behind him, unable to see anything, and met a similar view as he looked in front.

Jiminy started to second guess the whole operation, as he wasn’t entirely sure where he was.

He felt like he had been walking for the better part of 30 minutes, so this was likely far enough out of town. Yet it was so dark he really couldn't be sure.

He squinted ahead and thought he could just make out a structure, not too far away from him. It looked like an abandoned hut...

He bit his lip, not sure what to do. I can't come all this way and not do it, he decided, taking his pack off his back and squatting down to open it up.

He pulled the bomb out of his bag, amazed by its weight and density. It felt like it could crush a man even if you just lobbed it at him!

He turned it over in his hands, and imagined a whole army of the enemy, standing atop the wall only 50 meters away. They were holding his princess captive and he had been promised her hand if he could help the King take this caste.

He was within arrow range and they would see him soon!

His fantasy taking over, he placed the bomb on the ground and eagerly struck his knife against the flint, lighting the fuse on his third attempt.

He hurried to his feet placing his knife and flint back in his bag as he stood. He slung the bag over his shoulder, scooped the bomb up in his hands, and hurled the projectile toward the “castle” wall.

Like a typical teenage boy, he overestimated his athletic prowess and the heavy ball landed 30 meters shy of the structure, making a metallic clang as it rolled to a sudden stop.

Wonder what that was, he thought, hearing the ball clunk into something metal.

He stood perfectly still, waiting much longer than he had anticipated, hearing nothing but the sizzling fuse.

Quite suddenly, the moon made its first appearance of the evening, illuminating the surrounding area.

He looked up and to his horror, realized the dark object was an inhabited hut! And there was another one mostly hidden by the trees off to the left.

He was not in the old village.

He stood frozen on the ground, unsure of what to do. Before he could think of anything to do, the bomb went off.

Whatever metal it had rolled into took a large part of the force, making the blast surprisingly quiet from where Jiminy stood.

But the resulting explosion lit up the area, making it feel like daytime for a second or two before the darkness came rushing back like a flash flood.

Jiminy heard a surprised shout from one of the huts, the noise bringing him back to his senses. He turned and quickly made his way back to his home, relieved to see no one else on the streets.

He found his way home and settled gratefully into his bed. He was glad to have escaped punishment although he was somewhat disappointed he was unable to properly test his thesis.?

Oh well, he thought as he reflected on his adventure,?at least I didn’t kill anyone.