Borderlands 6

by Thomas F Monteleone

  “I found her phone,” Luci said from the other room, “my old one we gave her when she was six and wanted to have a phone like Mom. Remember?”

  “I do. Luci, we need to—”

  “She used to record herself singing.”

  “The Redolent. She loved a band called the Redolent for some reason.”

  “I followed bands like that, too, when I was her age. I’ve been charging the phone. Want to listen?”

  Gün released a held breath he was saving to tell her no.

  “It’s not a thing; it’s a memory,” she said, and that seemed to make sense, because memories were not meant to be thrown away.

  Without saying anything, they had agreed to listen.

  The rain won’t fall on the both of us

  If I pull you in close

  And you pull me in close

  The sky, although it cries

  The sky won’t cry on the both of us

  Her voice, like a tone-deaf angel, ripped open his heart and flooded him with warmth, catching him off guard because hearing her voice after all these years was something he had not prepared for, and it was . . . it was “Though It Rains”. She had always skipped the second stanza because she could never quite remember the lines, and so she’d burst right into the chorus, nearly yelling:

  And the water cascades

  Cascades, cascades, cascades . . .

  And more often than not, he and Luci would sing along at this point. Luci was in fact mouthing the words now, singing along with their dead daughter, tears streaming down her face, fucking up the lyrics like always, skipping verses:

  The rain, yes, it will fall

  If you’re the one I choose

  And I’m the one you choose

  The sky, yes, it will cry

  But it won’t cry on the both of us

  And when the chorus repeated, now both Luci and Gün sang with their daughter, who was anything but dead in their hearts, although their broken voices were just above a whisper.

  The pink hairbrush finally found its way into the trash, along with some strands of hair, but Gün rescued the mood ring from the wads of tissues and cotton swabs. He didn’t tell Luci he still had it—secretly transferring the thing from pants pocket to pants pocket over the last three days, sometimes reaching in to feel the cold, sometimes slipping a finger through the band and wondering what color it turned within the darkness.

  He eventually brought it with him to the creek, where he could hide it from Luci forever. It had rained hard, so the creek had transformed from trickling to flowing, how he remembered it the springs and summers when the three of them would walk the creek in their rain boots.

  He slid the ring onto his finger one last time and spun it around and around, making sure it left a ghostly ring of green behind, and smiled when the plastic or stone or whatever it was in the middle turned dark blue, which he remembered meant either calm or happy, and then tossed it into the largest pool of water. The blackness of the creek swallowed the ring, but he’d from now on know it was there, hidden below the surface, where it would forever remain colorless.

  Gün didn’t like keeping secrets like this from Luci, but was sure Luci had kept or had hidden certain things without him knowing. Some secrets were good secrets, after all.

  He and Luci had gotten better over the last ten years. Getting rid of Airavata’s things had helped, yet a small part of him wondered if the happiness would last, whether or not they would ever return to normalcy, whether or not they could ever love each other the way they had before—

  When was the last time either had ever spoken those magical three words: I love you? Their hands had symbolically said those unwords a number of times, along with other unspoken phrases in their secret language, but when was the last time they were spoken aloud?

  Twenty years.

  Jesus.

  Gün crouched down and leaned over the water, once again looking at his reflection. He remembered the last time he’d visited the creek, over ten years ago, and had asked the all-important question: Will she stay?

  The answer had been yes, and she had stayed.

  But for how much longer?

  Will she stay? he had asked the water. Will she stay for ten more years?

  They hadn’t aged ten years the moment he peered into their future all those years ago; they had lived those years, together. Hadn’t they? The last ten years were a blur. Had they really lived ten additional years together in such unhappiness, holding on to Air’s things for so long? Had it taken them twenty fucking years to finally rid their lives of her personal belongings, to try to forget her? No, that wasn’t right. They would always remember her.

  Time is a wheel, he mused, sometimes turning slowly, sometimes spinning out of control.

  Time had spun for the last ten years, and had for some reason stopped at this exact moment, on this cold winter morning, so he could once again reflect on life.

  The wonderful colors of autumn were gone, the leaves fallen, the world moodless.

  Although the creek flowed steadily along, the pool of water over which he leaned was placid as could be, the insects gone, the newts and salamanders hibernating, or whatever they did in the winter, the birds long migrated to warmer, more lively places, and the life around him, for the most part, silent; only the soft, therapeutic sounds of water and wind kept him company.

  Two heart-shaped leaves slow-raced along the surface and fell over the waterfall by the large rock; neither won, but tied as they tumbled over.

  Will she stay? Gün once again asked the water, meaning Luci. And he wondered for how long. Will she stay for ten more years? Will we ever get over our loss? Will we last?

  A brown redwood leaf with spiky needles fell from above just then, landing on the face of his reflection, rippling the water, changing him, aging him.

  When the obsidian water once again settled to mirror glass, Gün’s beard and sideburns had become half-brown, half-gray, along with the rest of the hair on his head, which appeared sparse in places, wispier, his hairline higher. His nose and ears had stretched a fraction longer, it seemed, his eyes swallowed by dark, tired circles, the color in his eyes milkier. His reflection had aged ten years, not only physically but emotionally. Gün touched his face and watched his reflection do the same; both sets of hands felt weathered skin, and—

  He waited for Luci to join him in the water.

  Will she stay for ten more years?

  And he waited, and waited, his reflection transforming.

  His heart sank and felt heavy, although he knew this was all in his head. He hadn’t aged ten more years, or twenty, since he had asked the question again. It was the water creating the wrinkles, not time; the wheel could not be forced to turn.

  Will she stay for ten more years?

  “Cascades, cascades, cascades . . . ” he sang.

  He felt older, thirty years older now, could feel the change in the cold aches of his bones, in the more difficult way he breathed, and by his reflection becoming out of focus.

  “Will she stay?” he said aloud. “Will Luci stay with me ten more years?”

  Gün cried once again, the image in the reflection blurring.

  Will she stay just ten more years?

  And blurring.

  He was losing it, fucking losing it, having a panic attack, which he’d had once before when finding the red balloon with the last of Air trapped inside, and that’s exactly how he felt now, his air trapped inside an ever-shriveling balloon and unable to escape, his chest tightening, his heart palpitating . . .

  A murder of crows—what he had read once were the harbingers of death—cackled above, hidden in the trees and inviting Death to take him away, to be with Airavata—

  And then she came.

  Gün could barely see her through the tears, and the blur, but she was there
.

  A reflection of Luci stood over the reflection of his shoulder.

  She put a papery, bony hand on his shoulder and his heart could once again beat, his lungs could once again breathe.

  He put his own aged hand over hers and squeezed one long time, which didn’t mean anything, but meant everything, and she squeezed back, three times.

  “I will stay with you until the end,” she said; and she had.

  He could never ask Luci to do something so difficult, but she had stayed.

  Gün wiped at the tears with his free hand, and their reflection came into better focus, although the phantasm of their potential future remained blurry as hell.

  “If you’re the one I choose,” she sang, “and I’m the one you choose.”

  Together they sang the chorus.

  He didn’t turn around, couldn’t look her in the face just yet, and that was okay. It would all be okay. Instead, he squeezed her hand in a way he knew would make her smile.

  Luci reached a hand across his shoulder, not pointing at a newt this time, but holding a pair of glasses, which he instantly knew were his glasses, although he couldn’t—but at the same time could—remember wearing glasses and, still holding her hand, he took them with his other and shook them open, placing them onto his face the way he had done either a million times before or had never at all.

  The world came into focus.

  Gün looked at their reflection in the water, and then turned to face Luci.

  They were so very old.

  He squeezed her hand, three times, the way Airavata had taught them.

  She squeezed back, three times, and said the words.

  He said them too.

  What kind of play is this? he wondered, but he already knew. Their life had not been a single type of Shakespearian play, but a combination of all three: a tragedy, a history, a comedy. But would they ever laugh again?

  They both returned their attention to the water, and perhaps asked the same questions to the looking glass:

  Can we ever have her back? Can we have her back for just ten more years?

  ACT 3: The Future

  Sometimes the last act of a play can be short, and sweet; sometimes those are the best kinds of plays, or so Günay believed for him and Luci; they had seen many over the years.

  Their daughter was turning ten and she wanted red balloons.

  “What do you want to do after the party?” Luci asked her.

  Air filled the first of what would be ten balloons, one for each of her years, which had become the tradition over the years, something she had wanted; next year she’d have eleven, and then twelve, and so on . . .

  “When I’m as old as you,” she said, meaning her father, “I may need some help.”

  And they laughed.

  She caught her breath, tied off the last of the balloons, and flicked it across the room.

  Airavata held her mother’s cell phone, the old one they gave her when she was six and wanted to have a phone like Mom so she could record videos of her singing the Redolent. Her voice, that tone-deaf angel, ripped open his heart once again and flooded him with warmth as she remembered a stanza from “Though It Rains” that she sometimes forgot:

  The sky won’t cry on the both of us

  When I pull you in close

  And you pull me in close

  The rain, although it falls

  The rain won’t fall on the both of us

  Luci sang along for the chorus, and Gün joined in, the three of them bursting right through the chorus, their voices cracking, nearly yelling, and finally breaking into another fit of laughter . . .

  What kind of play is this?

  Summer Gullet

  John Boden

  It seemed like every few days we received a new submission from John Boden. That’s not altogether true; he did send us more stories than anyone else trying to storm the Borderlands barricades. Every one of them was well written, brief to the point of being just this side of flash fiction, and having the feeling of sketches or scenes from a larger work—not really stories as much as the writer flexing and toning his literary muscles. But his persistence showed us several important things: he had lots of ideas, had total control of skills, and was determined to be in this anthology. And here he is . . .

  They stood before the hole: Stiggy, Donny, and Joanie. The three musketeers in black leather and torn denim. The sky was fading to a dull pumpkin orange and the wind had slowed to an almost nonexistent whisper. The smell still hung over the pit before them. It was a completely unique odor, thick and sticky. A multitude of carnival fragrances—cotton candy, corn dogs, fry oil, sugar, and salty sweat—all wrapped together in a funky burrito of stench that was dancing from the yawning chasm before them. Underneath those nostalgic scents were some things dank and sinister—mud and rot and something unsettlingly organic. Behind them the skeleton of the roller coaster loomed like a sleeping dinosaur. The derelict Ferris wheel was a blind eye. Bats dove and whipped about the dead lights that hung from bird-shit-crusted wires. The trio paid no attention to any of this; they were staring at the hole.

  Stiggy reached down and picked up a large chunk of brick that was laying next to his foot. He tossed it into the pit. They all leaned forward and listened for it to hit the bottom and Joanie grimaced as she looked into the thing. It was like an enormous mouth. Toothless but hungry. The walls were wet and bright, swirled with garish colors. Pink and blue. Gold and brilliant red. In addition to the stinking breeze rising from below, were sounds. A cacophony of calliope music, screams, and laughter, the occasional shard of rock music—bands like Journey and Styx, bands that were popular that last summer before the park closed. Underneath those sounds, something very low—a coarse rumbling, an animal growling deeply in its throat, or a stomach betraying its hunger. Or the slight hiss of scales on stone. The amplified rattling of bones. The last wheeze of exhausted lungs.

  Stiggy straightened his posture and stepped back a little. “So what do you think?” he asked his cronies. They continued staring into the abyss.

  It was Donny who first offered his answer, “What the hell, dude? Maybe a sinkhole. Park’s been shut up for like three years now.” His voice was quavering slightly, as if he was very nervous. He looked like a scared little boy, aside from the lion’s mane of permed, wooly hair that framed his features. Tiny blue eyes darted like minnows.

  “It’s like a big mouth. A big, lipless, toothless mouth,” Joanie whispered, her uneasy gaze never straying from that gaping maw at their feet. She looked at Donny, who was tugging at the pewter skull that dangled from his earlobe. She did not like this at all. A shiver climbed her spine.

  When did you find it?” Donny asked. He kicked a dented soda can until it rolled over the edge and into the void. They listened for it to hit the bottom but, like the brick, it never did. The only sound was an eerie burst of high-pitched giggling from the bottom of a well. The laughter fluttered about them like moths.

  “I was here last week. That night Gina pissed me off. I either needed to walk off some anger or put my fist through her damn teeth. So I decided that walkin’ off some anger was probably the best choice.” Stig spit onto the dusty ground, licked his lips, and continued, “So I was walking around in here, cuz it’s quiet and creepy and I dig that. I was over by that ticket booth takin’ a piss when I heard laughin’ . . . a kid laughin’. So I zip up and come to see who it was and there was this big hole here. I yell down, thought maybe some kid fell in there. I don’t know. Nothing. No answer, but it smells . . . this hole.” He pauses and studies the faces of his friends. They stare like a hypnotist’s audience. “Like summertime. Like years ago. Summertime. Candy and fun and sweating and laughing and eating . . . the sounds were down there too, roller coasters clunkin’ and carousel music and rockin’ music shit from the whippit ride . . . I even heard people doin’ it . . . all kindsa w
eird shit.” Stig paused and jammed his hands farther into his pockets. The tip of his pinky poked from a ragged hole in the denim, like a grub.

  “I must’ve zoned out a bit and when I snapped out of it, I was almost ready to fall the hell in. I was leaning so far over it. It creeped me out and I left . . . fast. But I been thinkin’ about it ever since.” Stig stood very still and looked at the other two. “I think it’s a grave; yeah, I think that’s what I think.”

  Donny and Joanie looked at him, with arched eyebrows.

  “It’s alive,” Donny stammered. “A living grave, how is that?” They stared and listened. As they did so the night sky darkened as the stars began to wink out in surrender, handing all attention to the moon.

  “It’s where summers and childhoods go when they die,” Stig clarified. “That’s what I think.” He stepped closer to the edge. A faint mist began creeping from the mouth of the hole, like smoke-machine, fun-house fog. There was the clunky sound of bumper cars colliding . . . squeals . . . giggles . . . the guitar riff from “You Shook Me All Night Long”. Stig snaked an arm into the mist and touched the inner wall of the pit. It was warm and moist and pulsing. He withdrew and licked his fingertips. They tasted like caramel-covered apples. He looked up at his friends with tearing eyes. “I’m not sure how somethin’ that ain’t really living can die.” The encroaching shadow was splintered by strobing beams from the pit, which pulled back into it, like some disco proboscis.

  “This is it . . . ” he swallowed thickly, “ . . . this is where it goes. When we trade in our fun cards for timecards. Hand over our cool clothes for monkey suits, uniforms, or business casual. Go from rock and roll to whatever shit our geezer parents are diggin’. We sacrifice ourselves a little at a time without realizing it . . . until we are just plain gone!” He wiped his nose on a denim sleeve. The smear it left was shiny as glass. “We watch as we slit our own throats with an endless piece of paper, and we do it over and over again!” Tears were running from his squinting, angry eyes.