Vol. II. Issue. III September 2011 - The Criterion: An International ...

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www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 I. Inside Passages Charlotte Lenox Philadelphia, PA USA 19104 No roads led in or out of Juneau, sealing off a silent city from a silent world. Traffic never clogged its only highway. Houses were vacant, the cars and boats in their driveways still bright and shiny. Yet, somehow, Brown Bear Groceries was always well-stocked with food that never spoiled. Movies at the cinema played on endless loops. Water dripped from faucets, and electricity raced through power lines heavy with the weight of winter. The seasons turned, and the sun rose and set on a city that was empty, save for one. Sometimes Jonathan, who lived deep in the city’s suburban valley, wondered why he couldn’t remember seeing another person even though he occasionally felt watched. But despite his suspicions, life moved on. During the week, he woke up to dawn’s powder blue light, ate cereal, and watched reruns after getting ready for work. All of his energy went into filing papers downtown--no one was there to do it for him or tell him to do otherwise. No one was there at all, and his car was always alone in the parking lot. At home, he sank into his chair and read. The day’s work, as always, joined his blurred memories of the past. On weekends, he slept late and went to the store for groceries. On his way in, he always turned his head away from the connecting hallway of the gutted Mendenhall Mall. Thoughts of its darkness and vacancy made him nauseous, made him want to run home and drown out the shadows he felt reaching for him as he hurried by. On each trip, he quickly took what he wanted- -there was no one to pay--then left without a backward glance. At home, he would fret about the hallway and its phantoms while taking out the garbage (which would always be gone by morning) even as daylight faded and other shadows stretched their fingers from houses onto streets. After a night of pastel dreams, the hallway would always diminish, then finally disappear. At work, he turned on the breakers for his floor and continued filing. His life always fell back into a rhythm that adjusted as seasons came and went. When it snowed, he shoveled it off his car. Sometimes the door froze shut, but he was never late for work. When the sky warmed to a softer blue, he slung his coat into the back seat of his car and forgot about it until it rained. The only sounds that filled his day were the shuffling of papers, the creaking of his chair, the whisper of the wind through cottonwoods and spruce boughs, the roar of the Mendenhall River, and occasionally the rumble of snow falling down Thunder Mountain. When had he last heard his own voice? His life was a series of days passing, of waves hitting the shore one after the other and foaming in the seaweed. But as he aged, he increasingly felt uneasy. Sometimes he wanted to go to the beach. Other times, he caught himself looking down the street, glancing into a window, rushing around a corner, only to find nothing there. What was he looking for? The eyes he sometimes felt trained on him? No, he could sense that this was different, as if something was missing but desperately needed. Vol. II. Issue. III 278 September 2011
www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 One evening, a gallon of milk he had taken home the day before went sour. Perplexed, Jonathan decided to take it back and exchange it for a different one, not knowing what else to do even though there was no customer service desk to accept it. Entering the store, he paused, suddenly unsure of himself. Was this really what he was supposed to do? It made as little sense as paying a ghost at the register. What then, put it back on the shelf? This had never happened before--there was no routine to follow. The problem so distracted him that before he knew it, before he could turn away, he found himself staring down the mall’s musty hallway and at the barren storefronts, dirty carpets, and motionless mirrors of the ceiling. His stomach churned and bubbled up into his throat, the same sensation that warned him to keep moving every time he passed the hallway, but this time he couldn’t look away. A heart-clenching cold suffused him, making him want to cry out into the void of his life if only for the hopeless chance that someone, somewhere, might hear him. But his voice would only echo back to him, a reminder of the emptiness surrounding him. Deeper inside, shadows were clotting beyond the dim light from the grocery store. He was sweating profusely, now, as he stared and stared into the worst thing he had ever felt. The gallon of milk slipped out of his clammy hand, hit the floor, and exploded in a shower of white. The shadows rolled toward him, his mind screaming at him to get out of there, to run away before he lost himself, before everything he knew fell apart. Run! GET OUT! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, RUN! But he couldn’t--the hallway and shadows had taken hold of him. Jonathan slipped in the puddle of milk and came crashing to the floor. Those who were studying him wondered what he had seen and felt. ### II. On his way home, Jonathan was shaking so violently that he almost swerved the car into the river. What was worse, he wasn’t even sure that he cared if he did. The world had suddenly stopped making sense. Distraught as he was, he didn’t notice that the boats in other driveways had filmed over with mildew since his trip to the store. That night, hours passed before he could fall asleep, only to be later awakened by reaching out to touch the unoccupied side of the bed. He rested his hand on the sheets, wondering why he thought anyone else should have been there, why he even slept on one side of the bed. His fading dream echoed the cold hollowness that pervaded him then and the day before: There were blurred greys, greens, browns, blues--none of the comfortable pastels from his usual dreams, but dark colors that made him recall the river and his swerving car. Jonathan lost himself in his thoughts--preferring to think about anything other than the hallway or the river--and nearly missed getting ready for work. The colors of the strange dream puzzled him throughout the day, but all he could grasp from them was a name: Lena. At first he thought it was a woman’s name. But it was only when the dream returned a few days later that he could piece together the full name: Lena Beach. Vol. II. Issue. III 279 September 2011
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