STEVE GERGLEY / 2 FICTIONS
KEYS
There is a small elevator in the basement of the school that leads to a very long hallway. For the past seven years you have stepped onto this elevator every night, dreaming of another time. But tonight the past is absent. The neon white glow of the fluorescent lights, the antiseptic smell of the waxed tile floor, the quiet whirr of the electronic motor . . . these things are all you remember of the world.
When you step off the elevator minutes later, you find a man in a gold tuxedo holding a large silver platter with both hands. The man does not look at you. He does not say a word. His eyes hide behind the opaque silver mirrors of his sunglasses.
Atop the man’s platter sits hundreds of small keys arranged into a mound of shining brass. For the next twenty seconds you study the mound of keys. You watch the man carefully. You peer down the hallway on your right. Overhead fluorescent lights illuminate the length of the hallway, but no matter how hard you squint, you cannot locate an end point. When you turn back to the man and his platter, you find a folded slip of white paper leaning against the mound of brass keys.
You watch the man carefully for another few seconds; you unfold the white paper and read.
Take these, buddy. You’re going to need them.
You return the note to the platter and stare at the man for a long time. He does not make a sound. He does not take a breath. His body does not move an inch. Now you wave your hand in front of his face and snap your fingers beside his ear. You whisper a quiet hello. You tap your fingernail against his cheekbone and hear the tunk of hollow plastic.
Blowing a quiet sigh, you remove the heavy platter from the mannequin’s hands and start walking down the hallway. Three steps into your trudge, you hear the mannequin clatter to the floor behind you. When you turn around, the mannequin is gone. In its place you discover a jagged fist of glinting red crystal. But you don’t go back. The platter is too heavy for you to bend down and retrieve the precious stone.
Now you begin to walk. You walk and walk and walk, and watch the buzzing lights slide by. A minute passes and your arms and shoulders begin to ache. Your breathing turns ragged and shallow. Your fingers begin to tremble and your forehead slicks wet with sweat.
Soon you arrive at a door. This is very surprising. How did you not notice this landmark before? Since you’ve only been walking for a few minutes, three or four at most, this door should’ve been easily visible from your starting point. To confirm this suspicion, you glance back at the elevator. But all you see is an impossibly long stretch of hallway, a tract that seems to extend for miles. You don’t understand what is happening, but you don’t have any more time to think. The muscles in your arms are on fire, and you can’t hold this platter for much longer.
So you turn around and rest the edge of the silver platter on the doorknob. Then, as you extend your right hand to pluck a brass key from the top of the mound, a sharp spike of pain tears through your left arm. Crying out in agony, you reflexively draw your left arm to your chest. The silver platter crashes to the ground with a clang; the brass keys scatter like shrapnel. Seeing this, you drop to your knees and frantically claw for a key, any key, but they shoot away along the floor at a speed that defies understanding.
Now all the keys are gone. As a last resort, you stand up and turn the doorknob, in case the keys were a trick and the door has been unlocked the entire time. It is not. The door does not open. Yet again you have fucked everything up beyond repair.
But all is not lost. Since you’ve occupied this school for the past seven years, walking this hallway every night, you know you will have another chance tomorrow. So you lay on the cold floor and stare at the lights on the ceiling. You draw a deep breath and wipe the milky sweat from your forehead. You close your aching eyes and think about nothing at all.
DRIVING IN CIRCLES
We drive circles around town all day and talk to each other on our cell phones about ravens. Our favorite species, the colors of their plumage, the shapes of their beaks, the particulars of their various habitats.
We have been doing this for many years. Our cell phones are very old. Mine perhaps was born just before the death of the last century, but I don’t know for sure. Nor do I remember how we found each other or when we exchanged phone numbers or what we did before this. But here we are, crisscrossing these gridded streets, stopping and starting at traffic lights, keeping our speedometers under thirty, and ceasing our ceaseless movement only when our identical SUVs require refueling.
We are careful to never drive on the same road at the same time. Though we are not breaking any laws, we wish to remain invisible. That’s why my SUV is the color of the clouds. Somewhere long ago I learned that white is the most popular car color in the country.
We have never met face to face. As a result, I don’t know what my conversational partner looks like, or how old he is. Nor do I know his name, his familial status, or where in the world he comes from. This is preferable. The exchange of scientific information, and the intellectual exploration of the various topics we have probed over the years is all that matters.
In my head there is a vague and frightening instinct that warns me to stay away from other people. It says that to become close with another person is to invite monumental suffering into my life. I do not know where this instinct originates from, but I suspect it is the byproduct of some horrific event from my past. This is just an intuition, but still. It feels exceedingly dangerous to probe the poisonous bramble of my memory. So I have implemented a strict rule against exchanging even the smallest fragment of personal information with another human being.
But I am afraid. Strange longings have begun to flood my brain. Yesterday, while stopped at a traffic light, I saw a woman sitting on the sidewalk across from the Grove Street Coffee House. As the woman drew something on a spiral-bound sketch pad, a blade of her almond hair drooped in front of her face in a very specific and intriguing manner. When I drove past that same location a second time later that night, I saw the woman tacking her drawing to the front door of the closed coffee house. Once the woman walked away, I pulled into the parking lot of the nearby CVS, jogged across the street, and inspected her artwork. To my great surprise, she had left behind the most beautiful drawing of a fan-tailed raven I have ever seen. The detail, the shading, the composition, the color, the dynamism of the raven’s flight . . . it was breathtaking. So I carefully removed the drawing from the door, snapped shut my elderly flip phone, and ran back to my SUV in the parking lot. For the next half hour, I sat in the driver’s seat of my strangely motionless car and studied the masterful drawing under the blue glow of the nearby sodium lamp.
Some time later, I discovered the woman’s name in the corner of the drawing: Jane. This was very distressing. For the next few minutes, I thought of nothing but the striking image of that woman sitting in the warm gold glow of the afternoon light as the almond strand of her messy hair dangled about her eyes. Soon many powerful emotions churned in my brain. With these sensations choking all rational thought, I felt a very strong desire to spend the next few days circling the Grove Street Coffee House, searching for the woman named Jane who had created this stunning artwork.
But I did not allow myself to do this. Instead, I tore my gaze from the drawing and placed it face down on the seat behind me. I pulled out of the CVS parking lot and drove away from the Grove Street Coffee House. I pressed my foot to the gas pedal and broke thirty for the first time in decades. Minutes later, once I was far away from that woman, her drawings, and the frightening emotions she had stirred within me, I answered my buzzing cell phone and began talking about rocks and minerals. I talked about earthquakes and volcanoes and plate tectonics. I talked and talked and talked until I didn’t feel a thing.
Steve Gergley is the author of The Great Atlantic Highway & Other Stories (Malarkey Books), Skyscraper (West Vine Press), and A Quick Primer on Wallowing in Despair (Leftover Books). His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Maudlin House, Gone Lawn, Rejection Letters, New World Writing, and others. In addition to writing fiction, he has composed and recorded five albums of original music. He tweets @GergleySteve. His fiction can be found at https://stevegergleyauthor.wordpress.com/.