A New Story Most Thursdays
This Edition of Thursday Stories Features Magical Realism!
Happy New Year, Friends and Neighbors, and welcome to Thursday Stories. Looking back over my herd of short stories, I realize that more than three dozen of the little rascals have appeared only in print. Some of you may have forked over the dough for this or that literary review, but I don’t expect everyone to buy all of the reviews all of the time. And so, drumroll please, I give you Thursday Stories. I’m not guaranteeing a new story every Thursday, but I will do my best until all the print-only tales have been set free.
You can find all of my stories and more at the Marco Etheridge Fiction Website:
This week’s edition of Thursday Stories features Passages, the story of a woman in a concrete bunker limbo, her friend, and the transformations that occur as limbo becomes something altogether other. The genre is literary fiction and magical realism. This story first appeared in The Gateway Review, published in 2024. Now, without further ado, I give you another edition of Thursday Stories. I hope you enjoy it.
Passages
by Marco Etheridge
Her eyes stray across a chessboard, the mismatched pieces of a game she can’t remember. A narrow bed, a green woolen blanket, and a young man sitting cross-legged at the end of the steel cot. She struggles to find a place for him in the hierarchy of her memory.
Not a lover, or why would we be playing chess? But he’s sitting on the bed like he belongs there. Younger than me. Friend? Cellmate? Why does my head feel like it’s full of molasses? What is this place? Looks like a jail cell or some kind of bunker. And this halfway handsome guy on my bed. Is it my bed? Why don’t I know? Maybe I’ve been drugged. Thorazine, or something like it.
She stares at the concrete walls and floor, two rows of steel bunks facing each other. Looks up to the half-round ceiling with concrete arches. The room has a subterranean feel as if it’s many thousand feet below ground. Then she hears a voice, a single word.
— Jen.
She snaps her head back to the man sitting on the cot. He is looking at her, but his mouth does not move.
— You okay?
This is seriously the worst dream ever. No more vaping before bed because this sucks.
— Jen, I think you’re having an episode.
His lips aren’t moving, but I hear his voice. Way weird. Wait. Jen. Jennifer. That’s me. Jennifer Vaughn. And his name is something easy, a double first name. Howard, Howie, something. No, it’s Paulie, Paul Howard. Shit, can he hear what I’m thinking?
— Can you hear me?
— Hey, you’re back. Man, you drifted way off that time. Take it easy for a few. It’ll pass.
But the episode does not pass away easily. Reality snaps back with a vengeance, hard and sharp. A flood washes over Jennifer Vaughn. Surging waves of information, of weirdness, and not enough time to process what she is experiencing. A spasm of nausea rushes through her. She feels as if she might vomit.
Okay, maybe that foggy part wasn’t so bad. Please don’t let me puke in this guy’s lap.
— Just focus on me, Jen. That’s right. You’re gonna be okay.
The bunker swirls, fades at the edges, then snaps back into focus. Paul at the end of the cot. Four cots on this side, three on the far side. A ramshackle shelving unit where the eighth cot should be. Stacks of second-hand board games on the bowed shelves, jigsaws missing critical pieces, and well-worn paperbacks.
Fucking hell. No, this is hell’s waiting room.
The concrete room is a windowless rectangle bisected by a narrow aisle. Bunks run down each of the longer walls. Heavy steel industrial doors at either end of the aisle. The door on her right has no handle, lock, or window. The one on the left, at the far end of the aisle, is identical except for an oversized latch handle, like a walk-in freezer.
There are no other rooms, halls, or doors. No bathroom, no kitchen, not even a chair. Nothing but six people, counting herself and Paulie. Seven cots, six people. Then the smallest click of realization in her brain. Someone is missing.
— Shit, Paulie, that sucked. How long was I out?
Paul smiles, and Jennifer remembers that she likes this man. Not a lover, but a good friend. A comrade.
— A couple of minutes, maybe. I thought you were thinking over your next move, but then your hand went slack, and you drifted off. It happens, right? I mean, this place, it sucks up memory like it’s food.
Anger rises in Jennifer’s throat, pushing away the nausea in her gut. She focuses her brain, feels a sharp stab of pain, pushes it away. Memories begin to emerge. She reaches for them, gathering them in, a process of reorienting herself. It is a familiar sensation. She has done this before.
— I’ve been here longer than you, right Paulie?
Again, his sweet smile.
— You got it, Jen. I’ve been here about twenty-eight, twenty-nine days. I’d have to check the scratch marks on my bunk. And yeah, you were here when I got here.
— Okay. And someone’s missing. A woman, I think. Dark hair, older.
Now it’s Paul who looks confused. He twists on the bunks, looks up and down the concrete rectangle. Jennifer follows his gaze, counting, remembering.
Two women sit on opposite bunks, leaning close, heads together. And in a burst of recognition, she knows them. Sonya, the older of the two. Sonya touching Terri, her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder, comforting her. On the end bunk, nearest the far door, a man on his back, hands beneath his neck, staring at the ceiling. Another memory. Jake, the man who never speaks.
And on the near side of the aisle, two men hunched over a card game. Old Willie and Thomas the kid, both perched on Willie’s bunk. Two empty bunks in between. One for the kid, and one for the missing woman. Katie. That’s her name. But Katie is gone.
Paul swings back around to face Jennifer.
— Katie, right?
— Exactly. And how did Katie disappear without anyone noticing?
You know how it happens, don’t you Jen? This isn’t the first time. Always in the night, and always the one who’s been here the longest. A snap of that latch, the heavy creak of the door. You’re not awake, but you’re not dreaming, either. Someone rises from their cot like they’re sleepwalking. In the morning, an empty bunk. Another night passes, maybe two, and we wake up to find a newcomer rubbing their eyes, not knowing where they are.
Right, I know this. Katie is gone and a new person will appear out of nowhere.
Another idea gnaws at her brain, a combination of memory and something in the now, something that doesn’t fit into the niche of memory. An absence that makes no sense. Six people in one long room, a single rectangle without kitchen or toilet.
— Hey, Paulie, do you remember food, the taste or smell of a particular dish?
— It’s getting harder and harder, you know? I remember general stuff, but if I concentrate on a certain thing, I start getting a headache. You know, that dull throb at the front of my skull.
— Yeah, I know, and it sucks, but I want you to give it a try. What else do we have to do?
Paul nods his head and closes his eyes. He is still for a few moments. Jennifer sees a wince pass over his face. Then he smiles and his eyes pop open.
— I’ve got one! Pickled watermelon rind. Someone used to make it, an older woman. Maybe my grandma or one of the aunties. I remember Mason jars on a shelf full of pink and yellow chunks. Nothing else tasted like that. Tangy, sweet, salty, all at the same time. Damn, now it’s gone.
Jennifer searches for a similar mental image, just one tangible link to physical sensation. She’s frustrated, drawing a blank, and then she senses the vaguest image of two bodies, skin touching skin, sweat and heat. One word appears and fades.
— That’s weird.
— What?
— I was trying to imagine the taste of food and I remembered sex. I got the tiniest glimpse, like a peeping Tom. Damn.
A smile breaks across Paul’s face.
— Now that’s worth a bit of a headache. I can’t remember having sex with anyone. I remember the concept, but not the act. Which makes no sense because I know it was a big part of my life. I guess I should miss it, but I don’t. What I miss is the desire, that hot hunger for another person.
Jennifer leans back against the concrete wall. The steel bars of the cot dig into her lower back. She ignores the discomfort. It seems more important to feel something than to be comfortable.
— You’re a handsome young man. I’m not surprised sex was a big part of your life.
— You’re the one who brought it up, Miss Jenny. And here I am sitting on your bed. Believe me, I’d be making my play if we weren’t stuck in this place, whatever it is.
— And what would that make me? A cougar of the nether world?
— Yeah, well, wishes and fishes.
Jennifer sinks back into herself. She scans her memories for the image of heat and bodies, but there is nothing. No, not nothing. Shrouded images flit and fly through her brain. A misty field at dawn. Darker shadows at the borders, shifting and reappearing as the fog swirls. She sees hedgerows surrounding rows of ghostly trees. An orchard? A familiar place. England, maybe France. Was she born here?
— Dammit. I just saw, I don’t know, a vision maybe. I’m sure it was something from my past, but it’s gone.
— Jen, are you sure it’s worth trying this hard?
— Damn right, I’m sure. Do you know where you came from?
— Not really. Maybe America? I don’t know.
Jennifer kicks her foot, and the chessmen topple and roll. She looks at Paul, sees his sweet, sad smile.
Damn this place to hell. I want to throw myself on Paulie and wrestle him down onto the green blanket. Smell his skin and sweat, taste every inch of him. I’ve done it before, I know I have. Would do it now except… shit!
Paul waves his hand at the scattered chessmen.
— So much for that game.
— The hell with it, Paulie. I used to be a good player. I know I was. Someone taught me, but I can’t remember who. It’s so goddamn frustrating.
— Hey, you beat me most of the time and I play a fair game.
— Paulie, I barely know which way the pieces move. I mistake a knight for a bishop. What the hell is that?
— I don’t know, Jen, I really don’t.
— Right, and something else that’s bugging me. You said you’ve been here four weeks, right?
— Yeah, give or take.
— And I’ve been here longer. And Katie longer than me.
— That sounds right. What are you getting at?
— Now that Katie has vanished, I think I’ve been here longer than anyone else. I’m next.
— Next for what?
— Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
That night, Jennifer has her first vision. It is not a dream. She pinches herself and feels the pain. The room is devoid of light, yet she senses shadows moving about. She imagines monsters under the cots, childhood fears, shakes them away.
Flickering images manifest from the blackness, jerky and stuttering, an old film reel jumping the sprockets of an ancient projector. Jennifer sees a woman rocking a crying girl, crooning away tears. An older man demonstrates how a rook moves across a chessboard. Flashes of ceremonies, celebrations. The scenes appear and vanish, the film speeding up, faster and faster.
The film of memory flutters to a stop. A voice fills her entire being. The voice resonates, ageless and calm, neither happy nor sad. A message. Jennifer must choose. Go back to these fragments of memory or turn away from them and move on. But the choice comes with a price. She must surrender.
Jennifer sits bolt upright on the narrow cot. The others are still asleep in their bunks. A faint glow trickles through the bunker. Another false morning. She is exhausted. Her head falls back onto the pillow.
The day begins. Jennifer and Paul work on a jigsaw, as much to discover the missing pieces as anything else. The assembled pieces reveal an idyllic impressionist scene that looks as if it’s been gnawed by rats. And through those voids, the rough green wool of the blanket.
Jennifer stares at the irregular shapes of olive drab peeking from beneath the puzzle. The vision of the night comes back to her, the siren’s voice, the ghostly memories.
That’s where my memories live, in those blank spaces. The missing pieces of me. Am I supposed to forget or remember? What was that crap about surrendering? To what? I don’t understand any of this.
Paul smiles from his usual station at the end of her cot.
— Well, so much for Monsieur Seurat. We’ve got no more pieces.
Jennifer stares at the jointed rectangle.
— What’s missing, Paulie?
Paul points to a ragged gap in the center.
— There should be a woman standing under that parasol. She’s holding hands with a little girl. And over here, the woman with the flower in her hat, her giant butt is missing.
— Damn. The image is flickering in my head, like, now you see it, now you don’t. I think it was one of my favorite paintings.
Paul peers at the faded image adorning the flimsy cardboard lid.
— The copyright says nineteen sixty-five. Almost sixty years old. No wonder it’s missing a few pieces.
Jennifer looks up and catches his eyes.
— That’s me, nothing but missing pieces. Something weird happened last night and I’ve gotta tell you about it.
Jennifer rewinds her vision for Paul. She describes every detail she can remember, the sound of the siren’s voice, the quiet urging to choose. She finishes with a question.
— Anything like this happen to you? Dreams that aren’t dreams?
Paul shakes his head.
— I can’t remember a single dream, not one. End of the day, the lights dim, and my body and brain go with it. Asleep in a few minutes. Man, I wish it had been like that before. I mean, back when I was… you know.
— Alive?
— Yeah. Alive.
— Listen, it was the same for me, right? But then last night, everything changed. I think it’s important, like a test. I think it will happen to you. You need to be ready.
Paul grins, slips off the cot, spins, grabs the metal bars at the foot of the bed.
— I’m ready, Jen. Are you?
He starts beating out a rhythm on the steel tubing, exaggerating the one beat, pounding and grinning. By the third repetition, an inkling of recognition dawns in Jennifer’s brain. It’s funk, a funk anthem. No lyrics, but she doesn’t need lyrics. She knows that beat.
Then the beat duplicates from the other side of the bunker. Sonya is banging out the same riff. She smiles at Terri, throwing her grey dreads from side to side. Then Terri jumps in. Thomas gives it a go, misses a few, then catches it coming back around to the one, the anchor of the funk. Behind him, Willie nods his head. Jake sits up and stares.
Paul leaves the others to hold the beat. He throws his arms out and starts to dance.
— C’mon, Jen. Dance with me.
— You’re nuts.
— Yeah, so? You got something better to do?
Paul stretches out his hand, wiggles his fingers while his body dips and shakes. He shakes his ass, shuffle-steps, all the while beckoning to Jennifer. Now Sonya is up and dancing, double swaying to the pounding. She throws down the challenge.
— Let’s go, Jen. Get up and shake it, Girl!
Jennifer’s brain is fighting with her feet, and her feet are winning, tapping and twitching.
No, no way. This is crazy. There are a thousand things you need to figure out. A million. This ain’t no time for dancing.
And then the voice of restraint plummets away, falling over a cliff edge, replaced by the overpowering need to dance like a wild thing.
Why the hell not? You got nothing behind and nothing ahead. Get on your feet and dance with the man.
Jennifer is on her feet like a cat, shimmying toward Paul. Then they’re in the aisle, paired off between the bunks, while the others pound out the beat. Jennifer and Paul grind and strut, come together, pull apart. Sonya weaves in and out between them, now in front, now in back.
Young Thomas finds his rhythm, starts doubling the beat while the others bang out the baseline. It’s a heartbeat, a blood call, a warrior stomp, all of that and more. They dance into a blur, a tangle, a perfect mesh of bodies.
Sonya yells for a partner. She grabs Terri and the two women are on their feet, young and old, twining in and out of each other. On and on it goes, beating hands and slithering bodies.
The pulse is so strong, it moves the immovable Jake. He’s kneeling on the end of his bunk, pounding the steel railing like it’s the last thing he may ever do. Jennifer pulls Paul around, points to Jake. Together they laugh and dance, dance and laugh, on and on and on.
The visions return to Jennifer as the bunker room fades from light to dark and sleep takes the others. Her memories flicker past, slower now, moving and changing at the pace of a heartbeat. She recognizes each image. Childhood, the pain of adolescent hopes and fears, adulthood, triumphs and tragedies. A life compressed and shuffled.
The siren is there as well, urging Jen to choose. But this time, Jennifer understands the choice. She can retreat into the past, feed on morsels of memory, a trail of breadcrumbs that leads backward. Or she can turn away from the temptation of memory, from attachment. Move forward, into nothing, no false promises, but an infinity of possibility. Fear behind, the unknown ahead.
The voice of the siren comes to her. Choose. And Jennifer does. The images of memory fade and flutter, drifting further into shadows until the blackness swallows them. Jennifer dreams no more.
A young man sits at the far end of a narrow cot. Jennifer leans back against the rough concrete at her back. An empty space of green blanket runs between her bare feet and his.
— It’s Paul, yes? Your name is Paul.
— That’s right, Jen. Paulie.
Paulie. That sounds right. Yes, you know him. Your friend Paulie. The rest doesn’t matter. Knowing he is your friend is enough.
— It feels like a good day, Paulie.
He smiles at her, and it is a good smile.
— I’m sorry. I think I drifted off. What were we doing?
— Just this, Jen. The two of us sitting here together.
Jennifer looks around the room, turns her eyes to the arched ceiling, then back to the young man smiling at her. This man named Paul.
— Just sitting here. That’s enough, isn’t it?
— Yes, it is, Jen. More than enough.
Jennifer’s last days and hours pass in a dreamlike blur. It is nightfall, or as close to nightfall as a windowless room can offer. The room fades to darkness.
She bids the others goodnight, Sonya and Terri, Thomas and Willie, silent Jake, and her precious friend Paulie. They do not hear her. Sleep has taken them, but not Jennifer.
The room is illuminated by starlight and Jennifer marvels at the silver glow. She swings her legs over the edge of the cot. Her bare feet touch the concrete floor. She feels every rough grain, every tiny pore, each mote of dust against the soles of her feet. She steps into the aisle without making a sound.
Paul is asleep in the next bunk. In the glow of starlight, Jennifer sees her friend’s sleeping form. One foot and ankle are thrust free of the blanket. She pauses, smiles, reaches down to stroke Paul’s foot. Her fingertips graze, linger, savor the touch of her friend’s flesh. Then she lifts her hand and glides to the far door.
The door latch is cool to her touch. She pulls. There is a metallic snap, the sound of seals parting, and the door opens.
Jennifer steps through the doorway. The glow of starlight is stronger now, illuminating a passage carved through living stone. She takes one step beyond the lintel, feels the rough dry stone beneath her feet. Behind her is the concrete room that has been her home for the last seven weeks. She does not look back.
Another step and Jennifer hears the door close. Without a backward glance, she knows that the door has not only closed but vanished. The stone passageway leads on. With each step forward, the glow increases.
The passage ends and the walls fall away. Jennifer is standing on a tongue of stone, bathed in the gleaming light of everything. Spread out before her dazzled eyes, the stars roll on forever, every star that is, ever was, or ever will be. And scattered between the stars, worlds upon worlds, uncountable and infinite.
Jennifer feels the light of the cosmos pass through her. The celestial glow washes over her, dissolving the last vestiges of her past. A woman naked and nameless, transfixed by the eternity of the all. She stands for an eon, a lifetime, a heartbeat, beyond time and thought. A single step, a swirl. The woman becomes the light, and the light becomes the woman.
Fini
You can find Gateway Review here:
https://gatewayreview.wordpress.com/
That’s it for this week’s edition of Thursday Stories. More stories are coming your way. How will you know when a new story breaks? Glad you asked, Friends. Read On! Drumroll and… Meanwhile, don’t miss any upcoming stories. You can stay tuned for all the latest by following the MEF blog:
https://bro.uxw.mybluehost.me/whats-new-in-marcos-world-the-blog
And… if you desire more literary fiction, look no further than my collection Orphaned Lies:
Orphaned Lies – Collected Stories
The Journey of Orphaned Lies
The fifteen stories contained within these pages tell tales of love lost and love found, of darkness at the end of life, and light at the beginning. Unforgettable characters struggle against the impersonal forces of the outside world, and against the flaws they carry within themselves. There is quiet heroism and unwanted heroes discarded, acts of defiance and of acceptance. The inhabitants of these pages learn who they are, and sometimes, who they are not. Enter here, Reader, and join in the journey that is Orphaned Lies.
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