Sunbonnet Sue
My flash fiction entry to The Substack Zone - A Twilight Zone tribute event
A very special episode of Mechanical Pulp in collaboration with the Substack Zone team: a Twilight Zone tribute event! A list of all the participants follows after the story . . .
Do your thoughts ever lie? Does it distress you?
She watched the suds rise with the water as the sink filled, overwhelming the dishes bit by bit. The lump in her stomach grew with the bubbles at a new, sudden fear—it choked her, as if there was something else amongst the dishes, something lurking on the cups and bowls and the greasy frying pan, she couldn’t see it but she could hear it, a tinny scream between her ears.
The sink almost overflowed before she could move the tap from the full left side to the empty right side. A droplet of water hit her arm—it burns like acid—it burns like acid—it’s acid—
That voice. It replaced the scream and invaded her space. That damn voice. “It doesn’t burn. That’s ridiculous.”
It does burn. Don’t you feel your flesh melting?
She grabbed the soap and scrubbed the spot clean. Is it clean enough? She scrubbed again, watched the water rinse the soap off. Enough? Scrubbed again.
Like a button pressed she felt some relief. The sun from the window above her sink, for a brief enough moment she could feel warmth without dread—but everything out that window vanished like the button unpressed, relief so short-lived, as she looked down upon the dirty dishes soaking and the empty rack waiting for them to be clean and the tea towel with the Sunbonnet Sue embroidered with Monday Washday stitched in curly letters waiting to dry them.
Say the rest.
“Monday Washday Tuesday Iron Wednesday Mending Thursday Market Friday Baking Saturday Cleaning Sunday Church.”
Water is getting cold.
Only thing worse than dish water was cold dish water, so she repeated her Sunbonnet Sues and returned to her work. It’s getting under your fingernails. You didn’t trim them enough.
“Shut up.” Monday Washday Tuesday Iron . . .
Blue bonnet green bonnet red pink yellow purple—the whole set of towels flashing through her head and the repetition helped her to soap the sponge and squeeze it until the lather was right.
The water was still quite hot and her hands were red and aching but that voice in her head was there to remind her that if she did wear rubber gloves she couldn’t feel if the dishes were actually clean . . . She ran a finger along the rim of a teacup and, satisfied, rinsed it and placed it in the rack. The bowl she lifted out next was a little more stubborn—the fact she had found that bowl in the refrigerator with leftovers still in it from God-knew-when and although she had scraped the fuzzy remnants out it was still . . . She washed it three times just to make sure.
One more time. Wouldn’t want the bowl to poison anyone.
The cutting board got a similar treatment—wash wash wash, wash again.
Her hands were so raw and cracked. One day you’ll get gangrene from doing dishes because you won’t wear gloves.
But I can’t wear gloves.
Sweating, she thought again: Monday Washday . . . Surely no one has rotted their hands doing dishes. There’s a first time for everything.
“Shut up!”
Who are you talking to? Are you crazy?
You’re crazy. Ask your husband if you’re crazy.
Ask him.
* * *
“McKinley Auto Body.”
She wrapped the phone cord around her finger. “Hey Jim, is Mike available?”
“Who’s calling?”
She paused. Shouldn’t he know? “It’s his wife.”
There was a moment of static crunch, maybe the connection was bad. “Don’t be calling here again.”
“I’m sorry, but can you just . . . Can you put him on real quick?”
Jim left the receiver on the table, and she could picture the whole scene as she sat on the couch, wrapping the phone cord tighter and tighter. The back office with all the filing cabinets and the coffee maker and a tray of mugs no one ever washed, not as far as she knew—Mike’s was a souvenir from their trip to Niagara. She suspected whenever he brought home a cold, it was because someone else used his mug. The blood rushed in her ears while she heard the office door open and close, a creak of old wood chair, the brush of hand over the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hey hun. Listen, I just had a question for you.” I’m scared and I don’t know why.
“You can’t be calling me like this.”
“I—I know. Sorry. What do you want for supper?”
“Whatever you want.”
* * *
“I can’t do this anymore, sir.” The headset hit the desk and rattled the monitors. “I can’t. It’s enough, and I’m exhausted.”
Jim McKinley folded his arms and huffed at his assistant as she rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t quit—not when Michael was determined to have this model ready before the new year, and everyone’s job was on the line. That little stunt with the phone call was some funny improvisation on her part, he had to admit, but also stupid. “Well?”
“Well . . . the protocol isn’t working anymore. It ignores the code words, somehow. And the stuff I’m getting back—look, it doesn’t make any sense. Just looped gibberish. I want it to cook a roast and I suggested for it to check the meat, and now it’s fixating on . . . if the surface of the meat is too sticky.”
“Has this happened before?”
“Not usually this bad. If we’re trying to make sure the unit is strong against malicious interference, then I can’t say it’s totally broken, because it seems to choose when to ignore me, but at the same time it most certainly is defective. I try power cycling it with the Sunbonnet script and all it does is loop the ‘thought.’ As if it refuses to turn off.”
Jim grunted. “Interesting. We’ll keep an eye on it a little longer. That failsafe needs to work. Might have to look inside it.”
“I think this whole test is cruel.”
He rubbed his beard as he watched a string of obscure worries cascade down the screen, live as the artificial wife “thought” them. Even he was beginning to agree that the test was—not cruel, can’t be cruel to something that wasn’t alive—unnecessary. “How’s this. Try one more suggestion while I watch, and then we’ll call it a night. What happens if you tell it there’s a rash on its hands?”
“Oh, raw beef and a rash. This’ll go great.”
“Is that sarcasm, Miss Anderson?”
Hey, reader—why don't you check if you left the stove on? Did you lock the door?
The Twilight Zone redefined storytelling, drawing audiences into the unimaginable. Now, 66 years later, top writers, artists, and musicians are stepping into its eerie glow with a fresh twist. Ready to see where they’ll take you?
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PS: Sunbonnet Sue is a motif seen in vintage quilts and embroidery designs.
Check out my books:
Pallas - Old-school inspired scifi with a horror bent
The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick - Literary fantasy, Snatch meets Barry Lyndon with magic
Sign up for an ARC of The Ghosts of Tieros Kol - Sword and Planet/Planetary Romance
Pull Me Under - Heavy metal-inspired portal fantasy, free on Substack
Loved this. The first bit reads like neurosis and intrusive thoughts, and the twist to what's actually going on... Well done.
Crisp prose, great premise, good turn, yeah, I don't think I had read any of your fiction before this. I knew there was a reason I liked you. For as short as it is, you did a lot, and I loved it. Out-fucking-standing. Can't wait to read your non-Twilight Zone related work.