The Drawer
Contingency plans only work when they are within reach.
I pulled the handle, once, twice. Yanked harder. It didn’t budge. Somewhere beyond the shut door, an unmistakable tick, tick, tick of a timer resounded.
The weight of each second pressed down upon me. A high-pitched wheeze escaped my throat. The drawer opened just wide enough that my sweating palm could slide between the wooden panels. I felt around for whatever was keeping it from opening further.
It had been months, perhaps over a year, since I had rifled through the contents of this drawer. They had told me to keep the override safe. One of them had suggested keeping it within reach. I remembered laughing. What use was an override to a man who had already considered every possible outcome?
My foot slid on a discarded newspaper. Our Enemy Grows Nearer: Does the End As Well? Reporters were always so dramatic.
They had been predicting our defeat for months. Every fallen city, every retreat, every civilian casualty became another opportunity to question my judgement. They knew nothing of the decisions required to win a war. It was easy to demand restraint when someone else bore the responsibility for victory.
I kicked the newspaper aside. Tick.
“SECRET” was slapped across half the folders that lay open on the floor, their contents spilling out as if sick of holding what lay within. In my desperation, I had cleared every other cabinet and drawer. This was the last place it could be.
I had less than a minute left. I pulled twice more, except this time, part of the handle ripped from the wood, splintered and useless. I wedged my torn, sharp-edged fingernails into the gap. I tried to slow my breathing. Tick, tick, tick.
I wiggled and tugged. My vision swam. My fingertips caught against something hard.
The override.
The small device was wedged upright against the drawer’s frame. I pushed it free. The drawer slid open, and the override fell into my shaking palm.
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Something flickered at the edge of my vision. Tick. I kept my eyes on the drawer.
They had warned me that there would be sacrifices. As if that was something I hadn’t already considered. No. That was the nature of war. Some pieces were expendable, so long as the right ones survived.
My thumb trembled over the button. Tick.
I could still stop this. And if I did, they would call me a hero. They would forget their objections. Tick. They would only remember it was I who skirted disaster at the last moment.
And I would let them.
There would be questions. Accusations — certainly. Tick. But history had little patience for those who questioned the decisions of victorious men.
A rattled breath escaped my open lips. The ticking stopped. I pressed down hard. A single click filled my ears.
Only then did I turn toward the window, thumb still pressing down. Light flooded through the glass. White enough to erase the buildings beyond it.
I’d given the order. I wasn’t supposed to be among the dead.
I laughed. I had almost stopped it. I wondered what they would say about me in the textbooks —
Written for Microcosm’s November prompt, Almost.
Marena Kutschman is a physician and a writer of fiction and personal essays about memory, identity, womanhood, power, and the strange ways our past follows us.
While some decisions leave us facing consequences of our own making, others leave us carrying the weight of choices we’re too afraid to make. Consider reading The Floor Remembers Your Weight next.
