A Short Story: Time v the Boiling Frog – Michael Fine

©2025 by Michael Fine

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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She knew she wouldn’t live forever.  But no one does.

Annie Ofrato was prepared for certain changes, but she wasn’t prepared for what she saw when she turned down the back street near the bus station, the one that runs up to where Sears used to be.  Near the muffler shop.  The short cut to her old house on Lafayette Street.

At that moment she discovered that everything she thought she knew about herself and her life was a fraud.

 

The sky isn’t falling, Annie told herself at first.  I can live with deporting undocumented immigrants who have criminal records.  Even if some of them don’t have real criminal records after all.  They broke the law by coming here.  They don’t really have rights.  Citizens have rights.

Shrinking the government is not necessarily a disaster either, she thought.  Lots of self-important self-perpetuating bureaucracy there.  When was the last time you spoke to a real human being in the federal government?  Websites and chat bots maybe.  Stupid forms with long explanations that don’t say anything real people can understand. Frequently asked questions. But never a person.  Never a human being.

We don’t interact with human beings any more at all, Annie told herself.  So why does having a government matter? No one in the government knows I exist – and thank goodness for that. The government doesn’t care about people and it sure doesn’t care about me.  It wants my taxes, and it wants them on time. Politicians like seeing themselves on TV.  Government employees fill big buildings and spend endless hours talking to one another.  But when did any politician or any government employee do one thing for me?  They do for themselves.  Let them fire a hundred thousand or so and see if anyone notices.  That way maybe some of  those fired people will come to understand how the rest of us live, which is hand-to-mouth, holding our lives together with paper and string,  talking only to automated attendants or to call centers someplace in the Philippines, to people who read from scripts and don’t really speak English, if and when you get to talk to a human being at all.

Annie was bothered some by the story of that illegal immigrant, the guy who first was, then wasn’t, then was, but probably isn’t a gang member, at least most of the time, except when he was driving a van full of undocumented people and got pulled over in Tennessee, the guy who got shanghaied out of the country and thrown in some dungeon in El Salvador despite what the Supreme Court said.  Annie was bothered, but not that much. Yes, perhaps they can use foreign prisons to disappear Americans as well, maybe, someday, but that hasn’t happened.  To Americans. Here.  Yet.

There just wasn’t anything Annie herself could do about that guy.  That’s what the ACLU is for.  And the courts.  And other people, who have time to start demonstrating, not that anyone cares about demonstrations or demonstrators anymore.  Singing songs and carrying signs.  Mostly saying hurray for our side.

Annie stayed busy.

Life goes on.

 

Then the economy cratered.  People lost their 401Ks.  The price of eggs rose again.  You couldn’t get toilet paper or lumber because it all came from Canada. Demonstrations got bigger.  Then there was a state of emergency.  And then martial law.  Which made sense.  You have to keep the peace.

 

It was late spring.  The daffodils had come and gone.  Then the tulips came and went, and then the trees came into leaf, first as tiny pale green leaves and then as yellow-green blossoms, which quickly fell and were scattered over everything, over the cars and roads.  Then those tiny pale green leaves became broad dark green leaves swaying in the least breeze.

They were doing a training at work which started at 7:30 –- 7:30 AM!  New computer software that everyone had to learn.

Annie decided that she would hit the gym first, so she got up at 430.  She drove to the gym as the sky was lightening, before the trucks started their daily stampede on Route 95, before the roar of their exhausts and the crunch and growl of their shifting gears filled the air around North Main Street.

She noticed the quiet.  She heard birds singing.  Trees with leaves.  Dawn breaking.  All must be right with the world.

Life goes on.

 

 

The arm hung out of a dumpster that was behind a church.

Annie drove past it.

The arm was in a yellow sleeve.  It’s a dummy, she told herself.  From a store window.  But it’s hanging loose.

Straight down, another part of her brain said. That’s not a dummy.

Don’t go there, the first part of her said.

There were men in unmarked cars on North Main street yesterday after the demonstration, the other part answered.  And men in pickup trucks, flying American flags.

It hasn’t come to this.  It can’t, the first part of her brain said.  This is Rhode Island.  Blue state.  America.  That stuff doesn’t happen here.

 

She drove home to change.  I’ll keep my eyes peeled.  Look at the newspaper online. Listen to the news on the radio.  If anything bad happened, I’m sure it will be in the news.

But there isn’t much news, anymore, that other part of her brain said.  That three minute newspaper, which has become the 90 second newspaper, is just a faint shadow of what it was.  They only have two or three reporters now.  The TV reporters are all kids with blow-dried hair.  You’ll never know if a body was found, she thought. It might not be on the news after all.

You don’t know what you don’t know, the first part of Annie’s brain replied.  The deeply unknown unknown.

 

A week passed.  There were caravans on Route 95. Cars with bumper stickers trailing banners drove together, twenty or thirty at once, and then slowed and stopped in the middle of the highway so no traffic could pass, so the trucks couldn’t move.  A big demonstration at the statehouse, with people walking there from all around Providence, from Silver Lake and Olneyville and South Providence and Pawtucket and Cranston, streets filled with people, all masked, walking silently, so many people that all you could hear was the thump of walking feet, a kind of drumming, the sound made when one person taps their finger on a wooden table in time to music, only multiplied thousands or tens of thousands of times.  Thousands of people.  Tens of thousands.  Walking.  No other sound but those footfalls.

Annie couldn’t get home from Stop-and-Shop for two hours. The police sometimes closed North Main Street in the springtime when there was a marathon, which made getting around town harder, but this was different. There was just no way to get home.

Annie couldn’t believe it.  What a hassle.  These people in the way, making her wait.

Maybe I’ll walk the next time, she thought.

Don’t be silly, the other voice in her head said.  Stay out of sight.  Out of trouble.  This isn’t your fight.  You only have so much time.  Don’t waste it.  This won’t last forever.  Get home and stay home.

Then there were helicopters and drones overhead, the helicopters flying low, a deafening whop whop whop whop that drowned out the sound of the marching feet. The helicopters created a crushing wind when they came close.  The drones, smaller and silent, darted from place to place, their bright red, blue and green lights blinking, so you saw them whenever you raised your eyes.  If you raised your eyes.

Sirens.  From several different directions at once.

Get home.  Go inside, the second voice said.  Quickly.  Stay there.

Annie drove home and went inside the moment she was able to get through the traffic.  She made tea and turned on music.  Wrapped herself in a comforter, although it was no longer cold at night.  She drew the blinds and settled in for a long stay at home.  I can sneak out in the morning to go to the gym, she thought.  Time to work from home again.  We got through the pandemic.  And survived that.  I can survive this too.

 

She woke before her alarm.  Huh.  She jumped out of bed.  Showered.  Dressed. Went to the gym again, all before there was any light in the sky.

She pushed herself in the gym.  She ran hard on the treadmill, long and hard, as though she was running from something.  From someone.  In a dream or nightmare.  Running from someone whose footsteps she heard behind her, getting closer despite her running as fast as she could.  She ran until she was completely out of breath, completely done.  It took her two full minutes to get her breath back after she clicked the machine off and stumbled off it, catching herself on the rails.

The darkness had thinned by the time she drove home.  She could see streets and buildings.  Thin blue in the eastern sky but still dark in the west.  The strange time of day when no one is about, when no one sees and no one knows anything, but the knowable world continues to exist, as if without people and devoid of human intervention, hopes, dreams, desires, or order.

 

Three full long black plastic bags lay on the ground in front of the dumpster behind the church. The bags were taped circumferentially with duct tape. Nothing remarkable.  Just garbage.  Bags of dead leaves, Annie thought.  Garden refuse.  Or someone throwing out old rugs.

She turned the corner in front of them, driving the half block to North Main Street.  Those black bags were pretty long , she thought.  Not big and round like bags of leaves.  And this is spring, not fall.  Who rakes leaves now?

Old rugs.  Someone was throwing out old rugs.

Oh no, one part of her brain said.  You didn’t see what you saw.  It can’t be that.

You know what you saw, that part of her brain said.

Don’t look back, the other part of her brain replied.

I’ll call 911, the first part of her brain said.

Don’t do that! the other part replied.  They’ll have your cell number.  You’ll be a witness.

Just drive home.  This will pass.  Time will fix it.  Business as usual.  Someone will do something.

She went home.  I’ll work from home today.  Plenty to do.  Stay close to home.  The world is unpredictable.

 

At midday, after she had put in three long hours and got a decent amount of work done, Annie stood up to stretch and make herself another cup of tea.  Time for a little lunch, she thought.  I worked hard and I deserve it.  And maybe a nap.

 

Her doorbell rang.

 

Annie froze.

No one knew she was home.  If she stood still, no one would know she was there.

Then there was a knock at the door.

Annie didn’t move.  If I’m still, they’ll go away.  Probably just Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons.  Who else comes to stranger’s doors anymore?  Everyone has door cameras.  No one will risk it.  Got to get myself one of those, Annie thought.

Then there was a thud, as if someone had dropped a heavy box on her doorstep.  Okay, Amazon, Annie thought.  But I haven’t ordered anything.  She listened for footsteps retreating from her doorstep and down the porch stairs.  But there was nothing.  No footsteps.  No further knocks.  She waited.

 

The man slumped onto his knees in front of the door was dark-complected.  He wore a blue suit with a pink oxford shirt open at the neck.  He looked like a bank manager or an insurance agent.  There was a dark stain on his right shoulder and a bruise and abrasion on one side of his forehead, skin scraped off with dots of red where the skin had been. He wasn’t moving.  Annie looked from side to side to see if there was anyone on the street, if anyone was watching.  Then she opened the storm door and caught the man as he fell forward into her arms.

“Oh”, she said, as she caught his weight.  She tried to lift him but could only hold him, could only keep him from falling forward.

The man groaned.  Then he stumbled to his feet, falling forward into her as he tried to stand.  Together, they got him onto his feet.  He stumbled forward again, leaning on Annie, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, his eyes closed but opening from moment to moment, just slits, and he shook his head, trying to shake himself conscious and to stay conscious that way.

“Are you okay?” Annie said and realized that was a stupid question as soon as she asked.

She helped him to the little day couch in front of the window near the door.

He moaned again as he collapsed onto the couch.

“I’ll call 911” Annie said.

“Don’t,” he mumbled, shaking his head again.

Stupid, Annie said to herself.  He’s in trouble. What am I thinking?

“Water,” Annie said.  “I’ll get water and bandages.”

This time the man nodded.  Annie stepped into the kitchen.  Maybe I’m not entirely dumb, she thought.  Maybe you can teach this old girl new tricks.

 

 

The sun was bright and strong.  The house got hot as the sun baked it.   Annie opened the windows. A fresh sea breeze blew in from the river and the sea.

Annie washed the wound on the man’s head and bandaged it.  He was barely responsive.  He shifted and moaned when something Annie did hurt him but mostly he lay still, his eyes closed.

She helped him out of his sport coat.  There was a wound on his right shoulder, just over his collarbone. Two holes, one front and one back.  Coagulated blood front and back and some on the surrounding skin below the entry and exit wounds. But no active bleeding.

She washed off the dried blood, put on an antibiotic ointment from her medicine chest, and dressed the wounds

The man slept.

He might die, Annie thought.  He belongs in the Emergency Room.  What if he dies here?

He’s not going to die, the other side of her brain answered.  He’s got a flesh wound.  And maybe a concussion.  Didn’t you learn anything from watching junk TV?  Call 911 and who knows what will happen.  The Israelis bomb ambulances in Gaza.  By mistake.  Who knows whether ambulances here are still safe?  Who knows who EMS talks to?  Who knows if he’d be safe in an emergency room?   ICE is going into schools and clinics. People are watching.  Nothing and nobody you used to trust is safe now.

What are you talking about?  the first side of Annie’s brain said.  This is the United States of America.  We are a nation of laws.

Used to be, the other side of Annie’s brain said.  All bets are off now.

 

 

 

His name was Martin.  That was all he was willing to tell her.  He woke in the evening, groaned, and stumbled to his feet.

“Bathroom?” he said, when Annie came into the room, his eyes not quite open.

“Through the kitchen, under the stairs,” Annie said.

He walked through the kitchen, his hands stretched out in front of him, leaning on chairs and the table and the counters, barely able to support his own weight, as if feeling his way in the dark.

You can do this, Annie said to herself, hoping and praying that he’d be okay, that he wouldn’t collapse again, that he wasn’t going to die right there on her kitchen floor.

He stumbled back a few minutes later and steadied himself with one hand on a bookcase, eyeing the front door.

“I’m Annie,” Annie said.

“Martin,” he replied.  He had a deep voice.  Clear, crisp, unaccented English, the speech of a professor or a doctor.

“Do you want…” Annie said, but Martin waved her off.  He took a few steps toward the door and then shook his head again, trying once more to shake himself awake.  Then he slowly turned and slowly lowered himself, collapsing onto the sofa near the door and was almost instantly asleep again, his slow heavy breathing filling the vestibule in front of the door.

Annie took the back pillows off the couch so Martin had more room, lifted his feet so they were draped over an armrest, found a throw pillow from the couch in the living room, lowered his head onto that, and covered him with a comforter that usually hung over a rocking chair nearby.  She turned out the lights and went upstairs to bed herself, making sure to leave the light in the bathroom on.

 

Annie barely slept.  She went in and out, her dreaming merged with wakefulness. She dreamed or imagined that she had come back to college after having dropped out and now felt the fear of being unable to keep up with her work: missed classes, late papers, not being able to understand the material because she hadn’t read the assignments, tests and exams that she slept through, the sense of being totally inadequate, incompetent, and unable.  None of that was true, of course.  She never dropped out of college.  She did well in school.  Not a star but solid enough.  Never got a paper in late.  Never slept through or missed an exam.

 

In the morning Martin was gone.

 

 

Annie hesitated before leaving the house on her way to the gym. Was it safe to go out?  What would she see today as she came home along the route that brought her past the dumpsters behind that church?

What was the truth now, anyway?  Are we in deep trouble? Annie asked herself.  That was the sense that Annie had from her dream, that her unconscious mind was telling her things were worse than they appeared.  Or will everything sort itself out, will the president back off, the Congress recover its backbone, will the state of emergency and martial law be ended, and the rule of law be restored?  Business as usual?  Or more civil strife and endless violence?

 

 

Things quieted but everyone had the sense that this was the calm before the storm, the eye of the hurricane.

Annie worked from home.

 

 

Time passed.  Things stayed quiet.  There were small daily demonstrations at the State House, but just a few people, maybe a hundred or so.  They were loud but they were ignored, at least as far as Annie could tell.

Annie thought about the black bags on the ground in front of the dumpster behind the church.  Don’t stress, she told herself.  Don’t rush.  One step at a time.  She’d sneak out to go to Stop-and-Shop just after dark and drove only on the highway or on well-lit main streets.

After three weeks, Annie went back to the gym.

Life goes on.

 

 

Martin, or a man who looked very much like Martin, was running on one of the treadmills in the back, near the mirror.

Annie looked twice and then three times.  Without the blue suit and pink tie, she couldn’t be sure.  Were her eyes deceiving her, the way her dream had muddled her thinking?  It couldn’t be Martin.  He was a hurting puppy when she last saw him. He was the last person Annie ever expected to see in the gym, let alone to ever see again.

“Hi Martin. I’m surprised to see you here,” Annie said.  “Out in public.”

“Ma’am?” Martin said.  He was sweating and breathing heavily.

He was wearing a T-shirt.  Annie couldn’t see the scars on his right shoulder, but she knew they were there.  His forehead had healed.

“Sorry you had to leave like that, and I didn’t get to say goodbye,” Annie said.

“Excuse me?” Martin said.  He looked at Annie hard for the first time, with a look that suggested he was trying to place this woman at the same time as he was trying to gauge how much trouble she might be, the look anyone gives a panhandler on a deserted city street at midnight:  just a drunk? or maybe real trouble, be on your guard, be ready to fight — or run.  He thought he had seen her at the gym before, seen but not noticed.  Maybe.  She was part of the early morning crew.  Maybe. They might have checked in at the same time, once or twice. Maybe. Maybe not.

“Sorry about your suit.  The hole in it.  The blood…” the woman said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Martin said.  “If this is some kind of… Did Bert put you up to this?  He’s always busting my chops.”

“The demonstration.  The police.  My porch,” Annie said.

“You must have me mixed up with someone else,” Martin said.

“Martin…” Annie said.

“That’s my name.  But I don’t think we’ve ever met,” Martin said.

“I’m Annie,” Annie said, confused but also desperate.  This was Martin.  Why did he not acknowledge their brief meeting?  Was he afraid of being exposed?  Everyone was a little afraid now, truth be told.  But she had saved his life.  Or if not actually saved it, taken some risk to hide him and help him when he was hurt.  She didn’t ask any questions then.  She sure wasn’t going to ask any questions now.  She didn’t want anything from him.  Just an acknowledgement that she had helped, that they were connected in this small way, that she wasn’t making all this up, that she wasn’t nuts.  Their time together was brief.  No one knew.  No one cared.  But even that tiny moment of connection mattered, at least to her.  Was there no hope for human beings?  Could we not see how we touch one another’s lives, even a little?

“Well, Annie.  Nice to meet you.  But I gotta go to work.  See you around,” Martin said.

`Annie watched as Martin came off the treadmill and walked into the locker room.  She was dazed.  She felt as though she’d been run over by a truck and had been left flattened on the tarmac, a pancake, and also felt as if a car had come speeding by on a dusty dirt road and left a thick cloud of dust in its wake, so she couldn’t see or breathe.

Had she imagined everything?  Had the incident with Martin been just a dream?  Was she so disconnected from other people that she could no longer tell the difference between her dreams, nightmares, and the actual world?  What about the repression?  Was that real?  The deportations?  The tariffs?  The election itself?  Everyone Annie knew said the sky was falling when Trump was elected.  But the sun still rose every single day despite all that.

What did any of it matter?  She was a woman alone.  She had enough to eat and a roof over her head.  She had her work.  Let the world go to hell in a handbasket. Life goes on.

She believed in moderation, in personal responsibility but also in going along to get along when necessary.  She believed that she could navigate the world on her own.  You keep a level head and make good choices, and you’ll be okay.

But now the world seemed topsy-turvy. She couldn’t trust her own senses or memory.

Annie got onto the treadmill Martin had just left and pushed start.  The front lifted to a 30 percent grade, and the treadmill began to turn, slowly at first, but then faster, and it took everything Annie had to run fast enough to keep up, to keep herself from being swept away.

 

 

 

Martin showered and changed.  The wound had healed.  But the flesh over his collarbone was still tender.  Close call.  Twice.  You gotta keep your wits about you.  Keep up appearances.  And never let your guard down, not once, not for anyone, not for one second.

 

 

 

Many thanks to Carol Levitt for proofreading, and to Lauren Hall for all-around help and support.

Please click here to receive Michael Fine’s monthly short stories and his new series, What’s Crazy in Health Care.  Please invite others to join by sending them the link here.

Information about Michael’s books, stories, posts, talks and performances is available at www.MichaelFineMD.com or by clicking the link here.   Join us!

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 All of Michael Fine’s stories and books are available on MichaelFineMD.com or by clicking here

The Last Jew In Foster recalls a folk tale called The Crying Talis, told by the Kelmer Maggid (Moses Isaac ben Noah Darshan) and passed down to me when I was a teenager.

Glossary

Mezuzah singular.   Mezozot (pleural) – a small rectangular case, usually made of metal,   which is hung on the right side (as you enter) on the doorpost of the front door and the doorways of most rooms in Jewish homes, just above shoulder height.   Mezuzot each contain a small piece of parchment, the klaf,  made from the skin of embryonic calves on which is hand-written (by a specially trained scribe) verses from Dvorim, the book of Deuteronomy, including the Shema, a six-word expression of faith in the one God of the Jewish people.   Observant people touch the mezuzah as they enter a house or a room and then kiss their fingers, kissing the mezuzah virtually.   The mezuzah is thought to provide spiritual protection to each place, and to some has some mystical associations that border on superstition as though the mezuzah provides some personal protection as well, although rabbinic authorities will tell you that those associations are idolatry, and that any benefit a mezuzah conveys comes from keeping your thoughts centered on God and God’s commandments, in order to avoid temptation.

Mitzvah – The act of fulfilling one of the 613 commandments inscribed in Jewish law.   Also any good deed or an act of kindness.

Ner Tamid — the eternal light.   A light hung over the ark that holds the Torah (the scroll on which is hand-written the Five Books of Moses) in a synagogue and which is never extinguished.   It represents the omnipotence and eternity of God, as well as the value of knowledge and learning.

Many thanks to Carol Levitt for proofreading, and to Lauren Hall for all-around help and support.

Please click here to receive Michael Fine’s monthly short stories and his new series, What’s Crazy in Health Care.   Please invite others to join by sending them the link here.

Information about Michael’s books, stories, posts, talks and performances is available at www.MichaelFineMD.com or by clicking the link here.     Join us!