He got down on his hands and knees and examined the watery brown-red color. Something thin stuck out from the center of the shadow. He reached inside to pinch it between his fingers but his nails were too short. He brushed his thumb over it.
Paper.
If he reached into the shadow completely, he’d run the risk of losing the paper, but he hadn’t come three years this far to let this chance go.
Jared plunged his hand inside.
And pushed the paper out of reach.
“No!” he cried, his brow suddenly dappled in sweat. “No!” he shouted again when he lost hold once more.
Not thinking, he rammed his arm inside, almost to the elbow. Electricity flowed into him, spiked micro-insects chewing on the nerves in his hand and sending messages of fiery pain into his shoulder and brain. He bit his lip and cold iron flooded his mouth. The feathery touch of paper between his fingers—he caught it and pulled his arm out.
The pain was too much to do anything but lay there clutching his arm for a while. His mind kept going to the paper in his hand and what it would say—what he wanted it to say. When his arm finally numbed and tingles ran out of his fingertips, Jared rolled over and looked at the thing he’d pulled from the corridor shadow.
The envelope had an impression of the first syllabary symbol from the Statemen’s district in the Free Zone. From Banch’s visits there as the Assembly’s currier, Jared recognized the quality of the stationary. It was from Felderman’s wood pulping facility. There was an invisible seal on the back, one of Felderman’s most recognized inventions: transparent wax. Jared almost felt bad pulling the substance away, but this wasn’t a letter he would think of leaving unopened. Whoever sent it had to go to great lengths to ensure opening a route here. It had to have been sent outside the Free Zone somehow, since no known routes led to this world. Dangerous. But he’d received the missive. It was in his hands and there was a single card inside.
After he read it, Jared felt dizzy. He started laughing and shouting and fought to stand up. He took the card and ran to the front door. He shoved his feet into his tennis shoes and bolted outside to the beach. In only minutes he was hip deep in the Paled Ocean, the one place they shared in common. It was the only thing he could think to do in response to this, the only way he could feel closer.
To her.
Still giddy, he sloshed back toward the shore. He held the card up to read it in the moonlight, but it slipped from his fingers and blew away. He yelled out in panic and tore toward the place the card had landed. Luckily the wind carried it no farther and he snatched it up in time.
He let himself drop down and sit there on the sand, looking at the card: the lipstick imprint of Banch’s lips on the boiling white surface. He recognized the shade of lipstick immediately and the memory warmed him, made him feel like he’d found something ancient inside himself, lost even before Banch, something primeval in his thirty year old mind.
Then he read her note under the painted lips once more.
I’m with you, Jared.
He couldn’t go to sleep that night. He’d promised the students his chicken tacos tomorrow and wondered how he’d get through the crosshatching lesson and still have time. He could grill the chicken now and warm it in the oven tomorrow. That would give him a buffer. He had to do something productive anyway since he couldn’t very well sleep right now.
So he took the chicken out to the grill, along with a bottle of his dad’s favorite Dark Heineken he’d had in his fridge for the entire time he’d lived on the beach. It was the first beer he’d ever try. He’d never understood what occasion he’d been waiting for, but there could be no other more important than this night and the soaring in his heart.
The flames on the grill were the same brand of red as the setting sun. As he flipped the chicken breasts, he’d occasionally pull out Banch’s card from his shirt pocket. He pressed his lips into the impression—and somehow it felt just like kissing Banch’s full moist lips. Another one of Felderman’s creations, the sensory responsive parchment paper.
“Love you,” Jared whispered, and tucked the note back into his pocket.
He opened his beer then and took a long swallow. It actually tasted a lot better than he’d expected. He continued then to cook and sip beer, a smile stretched on his lips. Everyone he’d ever loved seemed to be present at that moment. Kaitlin, his mother, his father, the Kangjuns. They were his energy, and Banch was the racing world beneath him.
He hoped every Jared in every dimension had a moment like this one.
A pair of seagulls squawked and took to the sky. Jared watched them, his heart filling with an exaltation he’d never expected to find in his lifetime. The gulls, soaked deep through their feathers, flapped away, crossing over and trading flight plans with each other, merrily calling, back-dropped against the copper dome sinking behind the remaining stupor of sapphire sky. Night had fallen, and after a long harsh day, with all of its trials behind them, it was clear the birds had found themselves ready for what would come next. Without a doubt, they were heading for an unseen brilliance beyond the dark, and they were finally content.
THE END
Benjamin Kane Ethridge is the Bram Stoker Award® winning author of the novel BLACK & ORANGE, NIGHTMARE BALLAD, BOTTLED ABYSS, as well as countless short stories and articles on writing and being human. Benjamin lives in Southern California but would very much love a corridor shadow to take him to Florida whenever he chose.
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