Serial Fiction: Part 2

07Apr09

In part two of our story, we find our characters at a sort of crossroads, a holding area for the lovelorn and long-forgotten. Let’s see what happens.

The Shifting Supercontinent: Part 2

This parking lot is liminal. Like living in the wooded median between directions on the interstate. I’m leaning on the still-warm hood, eating the last peanut-butter sandwich and stamping my feet against the cold and wind.

In the distance, I know there’s a lighthouse. But it doesn’t burn anymore, and its ghost shadow stands, a discoloration in the night sky, where it should be. A relic. Were there a ship out there, tossing in the cold, would it crash at the hands of a memory, a shell, an archetype that’s outlived its function?

Karen gets out of the car and empties her guts in the shells and sand of the deserted parking lot. “Oh my God, Chuck,” she says. “This is it?”

I turn to her in time to see her drag the sleeve of her sweatshirt across her mouth. Offer her a corner of my sandwich. The moon casts a halo around the public restrooms at the edge of the boardwalk. The whisper of the low waves slap-echoes against the brick wall of the boarded-up pizza place across the street.

“I don’t want that thing,” she says, gets back in the car.

Will the sun rise soon, a relic?

Tune in tomorrow to find out if the sun, indeed, will rise.

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