Daylight sank away, the hazy remains of the fall sun's imposing figure pierced by looming trees sitting on the other side of the four-way, no cars passing by. A lanky man in a dull, white coat leaned on the front counter of the pharmacy, staring out a large window, past the cracked and pot hole infested parking lot. Down the road, as one exited the town, lay a cemetery, one he couldn't see from the window but still felt the chill of some days. He chewed on a tongue depressor, an open box kept on the counter, just by the register, nearly half empty. The sight of the setting sun inspired something between relief and distress, a feeling he couldn't put a name to. Soon he'd get to close the pharmacy. Soon he'd have to go home.
Behind him, a phone rang. He should have been excited to answer it, finally have something to do, someone to talk to, but he hung his head and sighed before turning around and slinking to the small table it sat on, otherwise occupied by a computer, a printer, and some trays for counting out pills.
He took the tongue depressor out of his mouth and picked up the handset, "Lesterville Rx."
"Lucas, dear, how are you today?" came a thin voice on the other side, distorted somewhat by the aged system, a perpetual aural haze infesting it. Lucas still recognized the voice, having heard it on the other side a multitude of times.
"I'm doing well, Mrs. Fenns. How are you?"
"Just lovely, thank you for asking. I'm calling because I wanted to make sure that my prescriptions have been refilled, I was hoping to come in soon and get them."
Lucas knew they were, he remembered filling them, but wanted to be sure. "Let me check real quick." It didn't take long to find it on the computer, one of the few prescriptions still coming through on the regular. "Leflunomide, twenty milligrams, and methotrexate, nine milligrams. Ninety day supply for the leflunomide and twelve weeks for methotrexate. Is that right?"
There was a pause. "I believe so, I can never remember the strange names of these pills."
"It's alright, ma'am."
"Do you also have Dramamine? My doctor told me I could take Dramamine to help with my nausea."
"Yes, ma'am, we do."
"Thank you so much. I'll hopefully stop by in a few days to pick them up."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Bye-bye, dear."
"Goodbye, ma'am."
Lucas roughly set the handset back into the depression in the main body of the phone, sighing. Phone calls were always somehow so exhausting. Walking back to the counter, Lucas found himself staring into the aisles of the pharmacy. The grungy tiles and bleached wood shelves almost glowed under the hanging fluorescent lights, buzzing in their tubes. He could remember walking up and down the aisles as a kid, trying to parse the strange names beneath the ones he'd heard in commercials, reading the cards for all kinds of occasions, staring longingly at the candy. It'd always been busy, too. A handful of people perusing the shelves, three or four at the counter, someone there to drop off a package.
Now it was empty. People rarely came in, the chain pharmacies ten minutes away in Grinwalle offering the same things he did, but cheaper. It didn't help that he sat on the outskirts of Lesterville, almost adjacent to the ramp onto I-185. The occasional traveler would stop if they really needed to, but mostly they were interested in the gas station only a few yards from the pharmacy, the last bastion of thriving business in Lesterville. For the most part, anyone else who came in these days was either just dropping off a package in the FedEx box or grabbing a prescription. Even when COVID was running rampant, everyone got their masks and tests from Grinwalle. They hadn't even flocked to the pharmacy when the vaccine finally came and they'd offered it for free. Kelly, the old owner, had attributed that more to the unfortunate mindset of so many of the scant few left in Lesterville than a need for cheaper products.
Closing his eyes now, fighting off the irritating lighting, Lucas let himself remember Kelly. He and his wife, June, had owned Lesterville Rx for as long as he could remember. They were the kind faces behind the counter, the people who'd always handed his mother her prescriptions, occasionally slid a treat to him on the sly. Sometimes a sucker, sometimes a caramel. If he was lucky, it'd have been the little hard candy with strawberry-flavored filling. Those had been his favorite.
When he'd come back to Lesterville after getting his Doctorate of Pharmacy, they'd readily taken him on. In the wake of COVID and continuous economic downturn, they'd lost almost all of their employees. By the end, it'd just been the three of them.
Then Kelly caught COVID, caught it bad. He'd already been in poor health, a roaring and brutal flu barely a month before having stolen much of his waning strength. It ended up only being a matter of time, not a question of if but when. And when he did go, June wasn't far behind, as tended to be the case with people who'd been together as long as they had, were so close as to be one whole rather than two joined.
In her last days, June had transferred ownership of Lesterville Rx to Lucas. It was apparently something the two had discussed beforehand, one of Kelly's last wishes. Everything else they had to their name went to distant family when they died, all flooding into Lesterville to pick at the scant remains like vultures. They'd never had kids.
Their deaths had gutted him, nearly sent him spiraling, already so low, wallowing in despair and confusion. It was difficult to communicate how much they'd meant to him, some of the few friends he'd had, some of the best friends. If he hadn't had the pharmacy to run, something to ground him and keep him focused, he might have just slipped off and fallen away. Into what was hard to say, but it wasn't anything he wanted to think on. He still felt angry.
Angry. He hated that he felt angry. That they'd been so kind to him, been so loving, so supportive. When his mother had died, they kept him from going slack. Then they left. And he had no one else.
Standing up straight and wiping off his eyes, Lucas tried to shake the thoughts off. The analogue clock on a nearby wall read 6:24, sunlight long dead, only the parking lot left outside the window, lit by a large, gnat-swarmed light attached to the pharmacy. He left the counter and started his walk around the small building, turning off lights and locking doors. His last stop was the main entry, flicking the switch for the parking lot light off and locking the door behind him.
He stood for a moment in the dark parking lot, staring out towards the road, taking deep breaths. Grounding himself, trying to let all of his anxieties and stressors drift off of him like smoke, carried by the passing breeze, chilling his skin, goosebumps forming. As with every night he tried, he was unsuccessful.
Lucas walked off into the darkness towards home, feeling as if wild animals were clawing at his ankles as he went. The asphalt beneath his feet was shaky, unsightly.
Deep in Lesterville proper, near his apartment, Lucas was once again forced to confront the infirmed body of which he occupied only a weak appendage of for most of the day. It wouldn't be proper to call the town a corpse yet, errant muscles still twitching. It felt more as though it were in its death throes, the softly whistling breeze that continued to float by playing the part of a wheezing rattle as he walked down the sidewalk of what was once an artery— at least, in his memory.
A car hadn't passed him by in nearly twenty minutes, a multitude of streetlights dead, some bulbs simply burnt, others' plastic chassis broken open, glass and plastic shards scattered below them. Businesses long abandoned, glass shattered, signs faded; plywood boards and spray paint were their new faces, showcases of wounds that would never heal, only be haphazardly patched, butterflies and stitches. A multitude of corners, stretches, and alleys were occupied by the homeless— congealed blood, doomed to rot away with the body. Lucas stared wide-eyed at the trash-strewn, cracked concrete under his feet, anxieties of how far he himself was from clotting foaming and spraying in the hurricane surges that crashed against his mind.
Further down, a homeless man sitting in the empty window of an old business, hiding away from the bitter wind, caught Lucas' attention. "Excuse me, sir!"
Lucas stopped and walked over. "Yes, sir?"
The man pulled the bundle of blankets around him tighter, his face pale. "I know you're in that pharmacy downtown, and I'd heard you'd been helping some of the others out here—" he coughed, deep and rough, full of phlegm. He spit out onto the street, sickly yellow. "I was hoping you'd be able to help me too."
Lucas nodded. "Something to do with the cough?"
"Please."
"I can get you something to help abate it. Will you be here tomorrow afternoon?"
"Yes, sir."
"See you then, I guess."
"Thank you so much, sir." The man pulled his hands free of his bundle and reached for a ratty backpack, zipping it open and beginning to dig. "I have some money I can give you. It isn't enough for the full price, but—"
"I ain't taking your money."
The man paused, thinking to fight before nodding his head. "Thank you."
"See you tomorrow," Lucas waved as he walked on, already planning out what he'd set aside. Something to suppress the coughs, syrup or drops; something to thin the mucus; and some bottles of water.
Finally, he made it back to his apartment complex and started digging around in his left pocket, standing before the worn metal door, its dull beige paint peeling. Lucas pulled his keys out, past a pen, ear plugs, and fresh tongue depressor, the jangling mess of metal hanging from a ring looped into a carabiner. He quickly let himself in and climbed the concrete stairs upwards, the walls pressing tightly into him. Up two floors, he left the staircase and walked past a handful of doors until he got to 209.
Once he'd let himself into his apartment, he sighed with some relief, twisting the lock on the knob and closing the deadbolt behind him. He turned some of the lights on, their shine far softer than in the pharmacy, much more to his preference. Some lamps scattered around, bulbs that mimicked the soft white of incandescents, no overheads, no buzzing, no burning blues. It was soothing. Lucas slipped his shoes off and walked deeper in, the old facsimile of hardwood floors a familiar and comfortable feeling, even where the "boards" were loose and slid a bit, where the veneers were bubbling from water damage.
Silent and empty. One hollow shell for another.
Lucas walked into the kitchen, opening a cabinet and pulling a worn plastic cup out. Every cupboard was carefully labeled with taped-on note cards, detailing what was in them. A parade of sticky notes was stuck to the one next to the cups— in addition to the inventory— giving instructions on how to use the adjacent microwave, finishing with "Call me if you need help" and the pharmacy's phone number. Lucas opened the freezer portion of the stained fridge, taking a few ice cubes out and dropping them into his cup. When he closed the door, he was confronted with another mess of sticky notes covering much of it, most of them reminders of doctor's appointments already passed, loan payments, and bill deadlines.
With weary steps, he bellied up to the sink and filled his cup, the flow taking a sputter or two to get going. He stared at the label work that littered the kitchen and considered tearing them all off, bundling them up, and throwing them in the trash. They weren't of any use anymore. But he only walked away into the cramped living room, slumping down onto the ratty, stained couch.
Across from him was an old TV, one item of many taken from his mother's old home. On its side were more sticky notes, these pointing out which buttons were for volume, changing the input, and power, ending again with the pharmacy's phone number. A note below it specified that HDMI 1 would show the free channels and that HDMI 2 was for using the DVD player.
A Wrinkle in Time sat on the coffee table in front of him, old and worn, its spine marked by white lineation, spelling out time and love. Lucas stared at it, silent, taking in the aged cover, its top corner creased, edges scarring. He envied the characters within, their capability to defeat evil, to be so wondrously faithful and uplifted. They struggled, but came out all the stronger, together, understanding.
Looking up, he watched himself in the dark reflection of the TV for a moment, considering the person at the other end, before closing his eyes and tilting his head back, a loose, pathetic sigh wriggling free of his neck and sloughing out of his mouth.
In the darkness of his room, Lucas got up from bed, pulled on his clothes, and quietly walked out of his apartment. As he went down the stairs, the metal and concrete creaked beneath him with every step, filling his mind with horrific visions of it crumbling under his weight, of him falling and being impaled on rebar. A discomfort sprang up on his side where he'd envisioned the dull, twisted bar of steel running through him. He grimaced and tried to move on, but the image continued to haunt him even as he stepped out of the building and started down the sidewalk.
He stopped by a shoddy white car parked nearby and pulled his keys out of his pocket. Lucas didn't have the faintest clue what the car was outside of its make, had never taken a shining to anything even adjacent to that world. All he knew was that it had been his mother's car, that he didn't like driving it because of how expensive gas was, and that if he didn't occasionally drive it then there'd be even more problems after things inside it started to degrade from disuse. Otherwise, the only other important things were that when he pressed the gas pedal it went forward, when he pressed the brake it came to a squealing stop, and the speakers still worked. Now, on sleepless nights, if he hadn't driven it in a bit, he'd go and take it out for a while and listen to music. It helped to calm his nerves, especially on cool fall nights where he could roll down the driver-side window and let the air cascade over him.
Unlocking the door, Lucas swung it open and slid inside, roughly pulling it closed behind him, some extra gusto needed to ensure it was properly shut. He shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled an old iPod out, its silver exterior scratched to hell and back, and plugged it into the car, the two cables already dangling out of different parts of the center console, auxiliary and power. He'd found the thing in a now-closed thrift store before he'd moved away for college, snatching it up for only thirteen bucks and putting all the music he could onto it.
Nothing stood out to him, no albums, bands, or even individual songs, so he let it just shuffle through his fairly homogeneous library— primarily in regard to artists. He'd never been much of a genre surfer, getting stuck to a handful of bands in particular rather than feeling the pull of a greater exploration of the sweeping breadths the world of music had to offer. They never seemed to satisfy or engage in nearly the same way, those other things, though he could never verbalize what they lacked, what the few had over them. As Lucas shoved the key into the ignition and started the car, he wondered if that was normal. It was something he'd asked himself a multitude of times before, seeing how everyone seemed to be in on something else entirely, a multitude of things even.
Pulling free of the two white lines and beginning down the road, he came to the same conclusion he had ever other time: How the hell should he know? It seemed to be another one of those niggling, unspoken rules and frameworks of the everyday world, the ones he could never seem to parse all that well. It sure seemed like everyone was exploring and coming back fruitful, but it could be that that wasn't the case at all and everyone but him knew it. It'd happened a few times before, Lucas only coming to learn the truth of the matter once someone sat him down and explained it to him.
Those moments haunted him, made him paranoid about all the things he was still missing, still didn't realize.
Could, he tried telling himself, Could still be missing. But he knew it wasn't a matter of chance, there were bound to be things he didn't understand or know the truth of, things that seemed to be woven into the peoples. He hated that. One of the things he was sure he still didn't understand was why people were like that. It seemed unfair, as if the whole of humanity were playing some sick joke on him.
Lucas took a hand off the steering wheel and smacked himself on the temple, trying to dislodge the frustration and anxiety. When that didn't work, he just let himself slip into the music, sing softly along as he drifted down barren streets framed by cardboard stand-ups painted to be reality, buildings and pastures. Music didn't lie to him. Like books, songs were forthright. Maybe they had secrets, but those secrets were never sewn with the intent of obfuscation or deception, but as a presentation of depth, talent, or a greater message. Books and songs wanted to be unraveled.
It wasn't long before he was beyond the outskirts of Lesterville, traveling down a road with only empty fields and trees on either side. The spectacle would soon pass by on his left, he knew it, but still he drove onward. He'd avoided the calcified heart of the town with great purpose, yet was seemingly willing to let the great behemoth crash into his periphery before seducing a side-eye, a twist of the neck. Maybe it was the lack of options, as if he were being funneled. Either way, it was too late to turn around now.
Whatever song was playing hitched, the old aux cable long-suffered, needing to be bent just the right way, loosened by a jolt. He'd lost focus on it completely.
The slumbering beast slouched into view, trees suddenly breaking away as a field opened, a grand ossuary. Barren, plain concrete buildings laid out, conspicuously organized with industrial intent, some unfinished, some crumbling, most both. Paths etched into the dirt with gravel and asphalt, winding veins displaced outside the body, cold and dead having likely not seen tread in decades. Every edge was tinged by nature, weeds drinking away the defined sinew, creating rough, jagged outlines. Nearly every facet was shrouded by night, only haunting silhouettes and shadows left by the cloud-laden moon; faces were rendered pale where light reached, though the openings— whether window or wound— that pockmarked them revealed the darkness within, the external illumination only a facsimile of breath.
Looming over it all, casting vast shadows in the moonlight, were the two massive towers, great concrete vases that stood on massive stilt frames, crosshatchings wrapped with kudzu. Wide at the base, they gently curved inward as they rose before blooming out again. They stood next to one another, twins born and left to rot, hollow, never knowing their purpose. Their only remaining identity, tying them to a dying mother, could be found in the faded, flaking words painted onto their flesh: "LESTERVILLE NUCLEAR POWER".
It was a common story, another victim of the damning year 1979. Hope for the future, dashed on the rocks after a child cried in Pennsylvania. Now naught but bones and tanned hide, left with nothing to do but stand and watch. Every day that had passed, week, month, year, decade— they'd all been promises of resurrection that wasn't coming, a hope for the future wasted away.
Lesterville Nuclear Power would never be pulled up, forearm-in-hand, hand-in-forearm. No one was going to save it.
Lucas turned his gaze back onto the path ahead, throat tight. An opossum stood in the road, frozen in the brights that now rapidly approached it. He swerved, just violently enough to dodge the animal but not so much as to topple and roll. He wanted to bawl, slam his fists onto the steering wheel, scream, but he didn't, just shoved and crammed off into some far, unknown corner.
His mother had adamantly taught him to never swerve, but he'd done it anyways.
She'd taught him so many things, enforced so many norms of life, but so many he couldn't handle, couldn't understand, couldn't perform.
What kind of son was he?
The scent of the pharmacy still cascading off of him, Lucas stepped up the narrow concrete stairway of his apartment complex. At the second floor, he stepped off and walked to his door, but stopped suddenly, the usual atmosphere of the place disrupted.
Someone was laughing.
For all the time he'd lived in the complex, it'd been largely silent and still, the only traces of life being the sound of steps above him, trash bags outside doors, and the occasional spotting of another resident, walking just as he did, hunched and quiet. Following the curious sound, Lucas turned a corner and found a young man leaning on a railing, staring off into the night, his back to Lucas, talking to someone, phone to his ear. He frowned.
"… right, right. Well, I'll see you tomorrow, man. Yeah. You too, man, have a good night." He stuck the phone in his pocket, sighing contentedly, before turning around to find Lucas staring at him. He jumped, "Oh! Scared me."
"Sorry," Lucas apologized, eyes widening as he fell out of whatever stupor had taken hold of him, about to walk away, "I didn't mean to stare, I'm sorry, just got lost in thought or something, sorry."
"You're fine, dude."
Lucas nodded, "Right, thanks, sorry again."
The man watched him as he stumbled about, "You good?"
"I'm fine, very good."
"Don't seem it."
"Just not great at talking, sorry."
"Take a breath, man. It's all good."
Typically quick to follow a verbal instruction, Lucas took a deep breath, flexing his jaw a bit as he did. He'd sometimes wondered if he'd fare better in the military than real life.
"See? All good."
"Yeah, yeah. Sure."
"Everything not good?"
"I mean, I guess."
"Sorry to hear."
"It's fine, not your fault, just how it is, y'know."
The man solemnly nodded. "Yeah, messed up place, the world."
"Not to even speak of this place."
"Especially. Just can't let it beat you down."
"Hard not to."
"Can be, but what's the use of spiraling?"
"Not much." Lucas felt like a hypocrite. "But dunno what else you're supposed to do sometimes."
The man shrugged. "Hold the people around you close, I guess."
Leaden, the notion sat on Lucas' chest, a deluge of cold and wrathful waters pooling, almost an allergic reaction. "I guess," he echoed.
The man smiled, "Frankly, I think we were screwed the second we got any bigger than tribes and villages, but nothing you or I can do now except adapt. Be ancient men in modern times, y'know?" He checked his phone. "Shoot," he muttered, "Gotta go."
"Right."
"Have a good night, man," he said as he passed by, patting Lucas on the shoulder. He cringed away a bit at the sensation, but the man didn't seem to notice.
Lucas was left alone by the railing, staring off into the night, trying to figure out what he had found so annoying about the man. It seemed unfair to feel such a way, especially with someone so kind and happy. It was frustrating. He gritted his teeth, grinding, gnawing on his own enamel, wearing down like a stone beneath water.
Leaning on the counter, Lucas fought to keep his eyes open. He'd long gotten accustomed to sleeping on the lumpy mattress, but some nights still found himself stuck in place, staring up at the popcorn ceiling. If not that, then at the backs of his eyes, feigning sleep. The last few nights had been restless ones, nearly five in a row. Something always prodding and tugging, keeping his mind from rest. Of course, this had always been the case, he could scarce name a time where there was ever true quiet in his head, always something running the track, usually the last song he'd listened to. But the pests that'd been tearing his mind to shreds the past nights had been ones already gnawing in his waking hours. Malignant lepers that he usually managed to shove away under tune or page but had no choice but to consort with in the stillness while he bargained for and play-acted sleep.
For now, though, Lucas was back to shoving them away, choosing page over tune, but the restless night was marring him in its backlash, making it hard to keep focused. He roughly closed the book he'd been reading— Sailor Song— and rubbed his eyes, yawning. A glance at the clock hanging by the almost abandoned FedEx drop-off box showed that it was 9:12 in the morning, sunlight pouring through the large window, enough to keep the awful overhead lights off and not get a complaint from anyone who would walk in. Not that he expected any customers.
Lucas lazily slid the book across the counter, letting it run into his small pile of priority to-reads, Roadside Picnic, Zoo Story, and Deadeye Dick to follow it close behind, if only he would finish the thing. In recent months, Lucas had found it harder and harder to start reading a book, much less finish one. He stared behind the counter, taking in the three large cardboard boxes of books, idly gathering dust. The boxes constituted maybe a sixth of the books his mother had had in her old home before she'd been forced to vacate, unable to afford the rent after she'd stopped working, most sold or donated, a few more boxes sitting in his apartment.
She'd always been a voracious reader, a trait passed on to Lucas early through nights of reading to him. He'd spent much of his life hiding behind walls of cellulose and ink, finding it far more comforting and usual than the world around him. In fact, it seemed to him in retrospect that much of what he learned about other people that hadn't come from his mother's direct teachings had come from books, the characters within usually far more bare with their thoughts and processes, victims of descriptions and omniscient narrators.
A pool of something dull was building in his teeth, the urge to gnaw drawing Lucas' hand over to the open box of tongue depressors. He pulled one out and shoved it between his left half of teeth, lightly chewing against it, suddenly more comfortable and content, anxieties flitting away for a moment.
The little bell hanging just on the pharmacy's entrance rang off, jumping Lucas out of his stupor. A little old lady shuffled inside, hunched over a walker, its four legs footed with worn tennis balls, sliding across the linoleum. Close behind her, a man, roughly similar in age, his plaid button up tucked into well-creased khakis.
Lucas took the tongue depressor out of his mouth and threw it into a trash can underneath the counter. He pulled his lips back in a good-natured smile, showed no teeth, working on automatic processes and old blueprints. "Good morning, Mrs. Fenns," he called out. He'd forgotten she was coming.
"Good morning, Lucas, dear," she said back as she shuffled up to the counter.
"How are you two doing?" Lucas performed his usual facade of eye contact, staring at the point of Mrs. Fenns' face where her eyebrows would have met, above the bridge of her nose. His mother had been a strict enforcer of social graces and politeness, eye contact especially, so he'd found a work around that didn't pique his fight-flight and lied through his teeth that he was doing as she asked.
"We're doing wonderful, just stopped by to get my prescriptions," Mrs. Fenns smiled. Behind her, Mr. Fenns gruffly cleared his throat, the affair quickly turning into more of a hack, phlegm loosening. He punctuated it with a sniff.
Lucas turned and walked back to a large shelf filled with little baskets, one for each letter of the alphabet, some larger than others. Most were empty. He reached into the basket labeled "F" and pulled two tall white paper bags free, stapled closed and adorned with a small strip of thermal paper each.
"And how are you doing, dear?" Mrs. Fenns called to Lucas as he compulsively double checked the details attached to the bags, printed on the paper strips.
"I'm sorry?" he called back after a moment, lost in thought.
"How're you doing?"
"Oh, I'm fine," he said as he walked back, eyes wandering. He set the paper bags on the counter, tapping their price into the register. He knew why she was asking, but couldn't look it in the eye, though for a wholly different reason. She asked every time. Said the same thing every time.
Mrs. Fenns nodded sadly. "You were a good son to her. Most don't have to deal with such hardships as young as you are, but you handled it well, did the best you could for her. Your father would be so proud of you, I'm sure."
"Suppose it's just a consequence of them having me so late, I guess," he muttered, staring at a register. He'd heard that kind of talk all his life, that he was mature for his age, how grown up he seemed so young, now at the expense of his mother's health and life. That his father would be proud of him. His mother had said those often, June and Kelly too.
Mr. Fenns walked up to his wife and handed her a bright yellow box. He muttered something Lucas didn't catch. "Oh goodness," she said.
"Everything alright?" Lucas asked, pulled back to reality.
"Nothing, nothing," she said as she stared at the Dramamine, frowning. "Just a little pricey, especially with the medication."
"Insurance… whatta joke," Mr. Fenns grunted under his breath, scowling.
Lucas frowned himself. "Gotta make every dollar count, times like these. I understand."
The three stood in silence for a moment, the weight of their circumstances dragging their minds through cognitive mud, slowing and bloating. Nothing felt right, everything was a mess.
"Just take it." Lucas put the Dramamine on top of the two bags.
Mrs. Fenns looked up at him. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, ma'am. I- I promise one box ain't gonna bankrupt me." It'd only bankrupt him if he were doing it constantly, those acts compounding with the continual financial edge he clung to, just barely staying afloat. And he was.
"Thank you so much, Lucas."
"No problem at all, ma'am. I hope it helps with the nausea."
Once they'd paid for the prescriptions, the pair walked out and back to their car. Lucas watched through the window as they climbed into the equally aging vehicle, rusted and dented. They'd parked right in front of the window and the day was quiet enough that Lucas could hear the engine turn over unsuccessfully a few times before it finally coughed to life and pulled out of the parking lot, but not before it dipped into a shallow pothole.
Lucas sat at the small square dining room table, beneath a hanging light, his own shadow cast over the mess of papers his head hung above, resting in tired hands. Numbers in unfeeling black ink swirled around in his mind, running laps as they gouged. They jumped from corporate copy paper to notebook by way of a nubby pencil, scrawled in something akin to a depressive frenzy, a wonder as to how they could amount to so much, the small calculator lying next to the notebook always quick to confirm his work. Often, he found himself punching in the numbers multiple times over, just to be sure, praying for error.
Rent and bills were the standard-bearers heralding the bastards that marched alongside them, the first to get a bullet to the throat. He could pay them off completely, but they'd always come back, again and again. Behind them, more insidious, were the debts, college and medical. He'd had to take out loans in order to afford college and now they were coming back to bite him, the ideal of a well-paying job able to balance out the incurred cost disintegrating in his hands as he compared it to the slim income he made with the pharmacy, so much going into keeping it alive while so little came out. He couldn't help but feel as though he'd been conned by the world around him as it preached the benefits of higher education.
What the student loan debts paled to, though, were the medical debts. Individually, they were often lower than the total of his education-induced burden, but they'd piled atop one another as his mother had gotten sicker and sicker. The memory of his mother pulled his eyes away from the papers and onto the wood box that also sat on the table, lying in wait on the other end, almost demanding he take notice of it.
Lucas put his pencil down and grabbed the box, leaning back in his chair. It wasn't very sizeable, a little bigger than a box of dominoes, not very heavy either, but still it felt leaden in his hands. He gently pulled the top off and set it aside, staring at its contents. It was nothing more than a plastic bag of grey dust, the mortal remains of his mother. He'd picked them up from a funeral home in Grinwalle over a year ago, but hadn't done anything with them. He didn't know what he was supposed to do with them.
It felt strange, holding her remains. All her life, she'd been a charismatic force of nature, everyone drawn to her. When he was a kid, it seemed like nearly everyone in Lesterville had known her. In church, she pulled him around as she spoke to a multitude of other goers with such familial intent, genuine care in her words. At stores, on the street, everywhere. He'd even come to be defined by her in the public eye, never Lucas Breaux but Jennie Breaux's son. It's how he'd introduce himself if the occasion so arose, rarely of his own volition. Rarer still outside of the times he'd braved it or his mother had egged him on. It seemed he radiated a sort of discomfort, something others skirted around. At least, that's what he began to feel after so many years of the same pattern.
Staring at the pathetic little bag, a tsunami of guilt crashed over Lucas. She'd asked for a funeral, open casket. She'd hoped family and friends would visit, say final goodbyes, living in foggy memories of years ago, sometimes decades. But he hadn't had the money. No one had had the money. Even the county had turned him away. There was little family left, most estranged or dead. Friends, likewise. The best that could be amassed was enough for a cremation, though it still put a gaping wound in what little financial security Lucas had.
For a brief moment, an old compulsion to prayer sprang up somewhere in his mind, but it was swiftly tamped down.
With gritted teeth and a heavy heart, Lucas put the lid on the box and set it back on the table. He wiped his eyes and picked the pencil back up, trying to lose himself in the forest of financial distress.
At twelve A.M., Lucas was on the road again, his journey past the old power plant only a few nights ago. Now he drove with a purpose, beyond it just having been a sleepless night. There were old bones he needed to see, felt compelled to touch, smell. He was moving almost in the opposite direction, sticking to the main streets of Lesterville, running its length until he was nearly at the outskirts of the outskirts, not quite the end, not quite the interior. Some hideous appendage nearly as old as the body, a putrefying digit.
Alive with intent, Lucas pulled into the cracked, weed-strewn remains of a public parking lot and turned his headlights off. He sat in his car for a time, idling, listening to music, staring up at the corpse, splayed out on a hill. Working up the bravery. The fear that crept through his form was far divorced from any notion of illegal trespassing. What little police presence remained in the town were around the core, patrolling for theft and assault, if not cruelly and pointlessly harassing those in the act of homelessness or other petty "crimes," in search of their precious, precious broken windows, missing the greater underlying cancer entirely, though they never cared to begin with.
What was the fear, then? Lucas searched for a time, but couldn't find it. The only thing he could grasp was the compulsion to stalk through the remains and find something.
Turning the key back to himself, Lucas pulled it free from the ignition as the car quieted, the lights behind the dashboard winking off. He grabbed the flashlight he'd brought from the passenger seat and opened the driver-side door, climbing out into the chilling night, his breath visible in the moonlight. With a slam, he closed the door and started off toward the chainlink fence that sat just beyond the lot, carefully watching his step, hoping to avoid tripping into a pothole and twisting his ankle.
The old fence, worn and rusted, was an easy, if shaky, climb, nearly twice Lucas' height. They'd never bothered to coil barbed wire along its top, leaving collapse or breakage his only concern as he clambered up, over, and down some before dropping. The thick brush caught him with ease, no landscaping having been done in roughly eighteen years. Slowly, he began his trek up the great hill, approaching the remains, the hulking thing casting a long shadow over his ascent as the moon was caught behind it, peering through abstract bends and openings. The flora that had grown around it or been planted to obfuscate or abate its industrial harshness were falling into death too, brown and grey, leaves and flowers wilted as the vestiges of fall rotted under the rapidly oncoming promise of winter. Lucas shivered.
The closer he got to the remains, the clearer they became and the more of a mess it revealed itself to be. He'd never come up here before, had only spied it from a distance, passing by. Unlike the old power plant, the thing was far more condensed, everything packed tightly together, mismatching shapes kitbashed together, creating a winding and treacherous amalgam of industry. Yet, in spite of the cramming, it was still massive, stretching out into the far distance either way he looked, a true king of the hill— though more a plateau, Lucas realized, the top flattening out, as if the original constructors had carved off the top half of the hillside. And it was rusting, every inch of it. A brown-red monstrosity, looming even in death, tattooed like pig skin, artists adorning it with whatever they pleased.
As he approached another chainlink fence, embedded in a vast plain of concrete, the morgue slab, Lucas saw a large sign bearing the beast's name, resting in a nook of the industry: "FURROW STEEL MILL". Its deep red lettering had long faded into near nothingness, the white background tarnished, the whole print peeling and ripped. Seeing its name elicited something akin to dread in Lucas, an old, dull feeling, but still he continued on, the second fence an easier climb than the first.
His steps on the crumbling concrete weren't quiet, loose fragments and pebbles crackling with each footfall, slight twist, and scrape. His presence loudly announced to the forum of ragworts and dandelions that had sprouted up throughout the ruins, flashes of yellow, paled in the moonlight, accompanied by faceless crowds of grasses. They were one of the few constants of the town, one of the rhythmic pulses still left. They weren't signs of life left in the construction, but rather harbingers of what would remain after it was dead and gone, what was there before and would still be there long after, only lying in wait now, endlessly patient.
Lucas kicked one of the larger dandelions, its head snapping off and falling away into the grime.
It wasn't hard to find a way into the old mill, the walls breaking down, weather and vandals long having gotten hold of it after upkeep had stopped. Stepping through a large hole in the side of one of the more massive flanks, supports like ribs, Lucas found himself enshrouded in darkness, the moonlight that peered through holes in the ceiling far, far above him illuminating scant parts of the interior, stage lights. They shone on fragments highlighted desolation, rotting roll stands, complex systems of conveyors, and deadly catwalks and balconies, the ground blanketed in detritus, dirt, dust, concrete, and scrap metal.
He clicked his flashlight on, the bright beam driving away the heavy shade, the air thick, particulates shining in the light. He gently stepped forward, taking in the cavernous body, chewing on his lip. Memories of his mother's words flooded through, things he hadn't given himself the opportunity to truly ruminate on, lying in wait, weeds. They were vague memories of his father, an almost ethereal man whose face he knew from photographs and word of mouth, whose actions were sacrificial and sweet, nearly saccharine to the unknowing and callous. He'd worked in the steel mill, the very same Lucas now trespassed in. Father and son, step-by-step, decades apart, weariness in their eyes.
Standing at the center of it all was the great cold heart of the plant, it seemed to Lucas as he approached it. A massive blast furnace, as wide as a carousel, extending up beyond the distant, collapsing roof, littered with pipes and beams, coated in thick rust. He slowly approached the behemoth, eyes glued to a gaping maw sitting just at the floor, its exterior jagged with slag, a conduit dug to allow the metal to flow once it'd been turned to glowing sludge. In his mind's eye he could see it, metals and ores poured into the vast crucible, swallowed whole, sparks flying, dancing twinges of heat, a display of fire and industry with little like it.
He came to wonder about his manufacturer, His great steel mill. Scraps and ore, piled into the depths of the blast furnace. Lucas could almost see himself in the vast crucible, melting away, some more primordial and unimagined self. And when he and the rest were melted, turned to a molten glow, and poured out, he spilled first having risen to the top. He'd clambered down the conduit, bright and alive, only to be cut off from the rest, his form filled with dregs, the garbage of the yield. The slag.
His father had died by the blast furnace. Lucas didn't know the details, a mixture of his mother sparing him whatever she knew and the company staying tight-lipped. Officially, it'd been a freak workplace accident. The words that drifted below the current, though, they whispered of mismanagement, cut corners, profit over safety, an inevitability; he'd just been the unlucky sucker made to suffer for it. Of course, they company never saw a modicum of flack for the supposed part they'd played in his death. And they'd never even been made to pay anything out to the Breauxs, to a grieving widow and her slag-child.
He'd never known Lucas much beyond meaningless tantrums and soiled diapers. If he'd seen what he'd become, would he have truly been proud of him? It seemed like people were constantly pulling the wool over his eyes about everything else, so what made that statement the true one? What guaranteed it, proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Would his mother have lied to him? Kelly and June?
Not that it mattered anymore. Scraps of metal and chunks of slag lay all around Lucas, his brethren. The factory itself was junk now, had been for nearly two decades. Even when his father had been working, Furrow Steel was on hobbling legs, another company, Nucor, simply kicked its feet out from under it. When Nucor had leapt into the waters with their electric arc furnaces, Furrow investors and owners felt safe, their steel mills producing flat products, panes and plates, all shipped to distant places, while Nucor was local and spit out long products, bars, rails, rods, wire.
But Nucor grew, and soon they stepped into Furrow and others' territory, swiftly kicking them to the curb. Not that Furrow's investors and owners cared. They'd already bought into Nucor, leaving the old plant to rot, too old and unsafe to renovate without expending precious, precious capital.
Staring still at the blast furnace, into the black of the crucible, a new thought seeped out of Lucas' mind, lurched about, raw. He wondered what it felt like to be inundated with molten metals, be engulfed by the stuff. Would he die from the heat, his flesh charring and sloughing away as it ran down his throat? Or would the pain be too great, a heart attack pushing him over the edge? Presumably it would be like burning to death, nerves searing away, leaving him to writhe in nothingness as it slowly killed him.
Lucas gritted his teeth. These gruesome thoughts passed through his mind all too often, more frequently in recent years, notions of how much more swift and sure death was than life. It'd done good work with the last three people who'd stood firmly on winding asphalt with him. He bit his tongue until blood seeped and the thought fell away, shoved off into a corner with everything else, as he always did. Another frequent visitor cropped up, the one that stared at that corner with a dread in its eyes, a question of how much a nook could hold. It too was crammed away.
With a sigh, Lucas turned and began the walk out, feeling the rusted core of the mill reach out and try to take hold of him. When he felt the great hand was too near, he ran until he was outside again, breathing cold air, his mouth dried out, filled with dust. The moon had sunk further into the horizon, now fully embedded in the hellish industry, leaving him with only the ragworts and dandelions who mercilessly mocked him.
Against his better judgement, Lucas had brought the financial puzzles typically relegated to his apartment to the pharmacy in an effort to get work done while he idled, worlds colliding. Now he felt the consequences as his eyelids began to drift, vision blurring. He stood his ground for a while longer, trying to be content with losing where he was, skipping important details, and the endless jumping back after nearly tilting forward, little doses of shock jolting through him, but eventually gave up.
He sighed, staring at the mess of numbers and papers. He still felt compelled to get as much work done as possible, not waste even a single minute, and hopefully to go back to his apartment with nothing that needed to be done. Maybe that would be a salve for his seeming insomnia. He took a step back and stretched, a low groan escaping from his lips. The atmosphere of the pharmacy was dense and choking, he suddenly found, and quickly walked out from behind the counter and through the front door, taking a deep breath of the chilly air, eyes adjusting to the sun, about midday.
A car passed by on the four-way, slowing and beginning to turn in to the nearby gas station, the structure blue and white, "CHEVRON" in bold, white lettering attached to the massive overhang, shielding the pumps. He started walking over to it, striding through the overgrown grass field that sat between the two businesses. He had a notion to buy a cheap energy drink, something to keep him rolling. Even in college, he'd never been a fan of the stuff, only serving to make him more anxious, make his heart race, but he was desperate to unravel and wrap up his financial woes. Give himself a break, maybe find some peace. Even if only for a few weeks.
By the time he was there, the car— an old pickup truck, riddled with rust and holes— had already pulled up to a pump. It's driver leaned on it as he waited for the gas to stop pumping, watching Lucas with some inscrutable emotion as he passed by. He spit between his teeth, a vile, acidic brown spraying out onto the ground.
An electric chime played out as Lucas opened the door to the small store, sharp and almost discordant. The interior was cramped with shelves and refrigerators, cheap snacks and drinks splayed out nearly haphazardly, little order given to their placements. Behind the counter was a bored teenager, head resting on one hand, the other holding her phone. If she'd noticed him walk in, it was only barely, some part of her brain pinging off that there'd been a chime, thus someone was there.
Lucas passed down the wall of fridges, eyes scanning, until he found a small collection of energy drinks. He didn't recognize many of the names, didn't care much either. He quickly grabbed one that seemed both cheap and adequately stuffed with caffeine and other chemicals that would burn through his stomach and intestinal lining. Quietly, staring at the tiled floor, he brought it to the counter, the girl coming alive somewhat, setting her phone down and taking hold of the drink.
"Nice coat. You the guy works at that pharmacy?" she idly asked as she passed the can under the barcode scanner, the machine dining in response.
"I'm sorry?" Lucas asked, lost in his thoughts as he pulled his wallet out.
"Are you that guy that works at the pharmacy next door?"
"Oh. Yeah, yeah, I am."
"Cool."
"I guess, I dunno." He grimaced.
"Don't see much of you, always figured you'd be in here sometimes, maybe get some gum or something, a snack."
"I try to not spend money too often," Lucas answered as he stuck his debit card into the card reader.
"Fair."
The teen stared at him as he punched his pin number in. Lucas felt tense and awkward, wishing she'd just go back to her phone. Guessing that it was maybe a moment where he was supposed to carry a conversation forward a bit further he asked, "Do you, uh, you go to school around here?"
"Only one high school 'round here, unless you go to Grinwalle."
"Right, sorry. I used to go to Lesterville High School too."
"Uh-huh."
"But that was a while ago." He swallowed as he put his card back into his wallet, shoving the old, worn thing into his back pocket. "Why aren't you there, anyways?"
"It's Saturday."
"It's Saturday?" Lucas blinked.
"Yeah."
"Sorry you're having to work on a Saturday."
She shrugged. "It's whatever. Gotta pay the bills."
"You're paying bills?"
"I'm helping my parents."
"Right. Everything's expensive."
"Especially with my two younger brothers around."
"I'm sure." He quickly moved onto the next part of the usual script for a high schooler. "You know what you're gonna major in in college?"
She gave a small, tired laugh, only a single exhale. "Probably ain't going."
"Oh."
"Just expensive. Got a few scholarships, but not nearly enough."
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Not like there's any all that close."
"Something of a homebody?"
"No, love to get the hell out of here, but gotta help my family."
"Hm."
"It's fine though, I'm just happy that we're all warm, fed. That's a tall ask."
Looking at the young girl, Lucas could tell she meant it too.
"I'm sure you'll get to leave one day."
The teen stared at him for a moment. "Wouldn't bet on it. You're still here."
"But I did leave for a time."
"Why'd you come back?"
"My mom was sick, but she's gone now."
"My condolences."
Lucas nodded.
After a moment she quietly asked, "Why are you still here?"
"I have to take care of the pharmacy, as hard as that can be some days."
"Why not just sell it?"
The question rocked Lucas, roaring through his mind like wildfire. He'd never even considered it before. "I can't."
"Why not?"
Lucas shrugged. "It was a gift. The old couple who ran it before me both died and gave it over." You weren't supposed to get rid of gifts, that's not how a gift worked.
"Huh. Heck of a gift."
"I guess." Lucas had never given that much thought either.
"I mean, they gave it to you, seems like its yours to do with as you please. Besides, if they liked you enough to give you their old place, they'd probably only want what's best for you."
"Maybe." The concept was still running laps around Lucas' head, poking and prodding, screaming.
The teen slid the energy drink back to him and he quietly took it, blinking a few times before beginning to walk away, chewing on the dried, cracked skin of his lip. Before he could leave, though, the girl asked him a last question.
"Why do pharmacists wear those white coats?"
Lucas stopped for a moment. He'd never given it much thought, had only put one on because Kelly and June had worn them, because pharmacists in media wore them. It seemed like it was just what a pharmacist did. "I don't know," he answered, "I just kinda do."
"Weird."
It'd been another long, lonely day at the pharmacy, not a living soul ever walking through the doors. Even back when June and Kelly were running it, the place had become largely dead. But still, it wasn't lonely, because they were there. Shining lights beneath the fluorescents, smiling at him.
Lucas found himself fighting back tears as he thought of the old couple, how much they'd meant to him. When he'd left Lesterville for college, he'd hoped he wouldn't have to step foot there again, but had found himself reeled back in by his rapidly ailing mother, no one else there to care for her. Their kindness and support had been a salve. He'd never made many friends in life, adhering to a certain reticence towards other people, confusing and frighting as they could be. Those few he'd had back in middle and high school felt more like coincidences, random happenstance he'd had no control over, something that had happened to him rather than anything he'd done of his own intent. The few he'd made in college, he'd abandoned for Lesterville. For his mother. Did they still think of him?
When he'd walked into the pharmacy for the first time in over eight years, June and Kelly had remembered his name. There was some of the usual old folk disbelief at his physical development— the rhetorical questioning of if it could really be the same Lucas Breaux who used to walk about with great apprehension, staring wide-eyed at everything, never a word to anyone but his mother. They'd given him a job, given him advice, listened to his woes, invited him to their home for dinners. Their eyes had never gone half-lidded when he'd gotten lost in spiels about largely pointless nuances in pharmaceuticals— and not just intently listened but understood, responding, retorting, and reasoning.
Like his mother.
The box still sat on the small dining room table, a leaden silence coating the apartment as Lucas stared at it from the living room, laying down on the couch. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, grinding this teeth, jaw aching. He could hear her words in his mind, her stern chastising. Could hear her biblical tongue espouse verses and sermons.
When had he drifted? It was hard to pinpoint an exact moment, more a general loosening of a grip, despite his mother's seemingly steadfast religiosity. Some culmination of small little events and notions, a scale tipped by a final, greater weight. Maybe it was when he'd realized he wasn't made for the world He'd created. Maybe it was when she'd died.
He thought about the last night he and his mother had spent together in the apartment. Before she'd fallen into a spiral she hadn't been able to recover from no matter how much he plead with God, falling away in the Grinwalle General Hospital, Lucas asleep in the chair next to her bed.
They'd spent the night finishing some puzzle, making idle, sometimes looping, conversation all the while. After that, Lucas had helped her up and worked to get her ready to go to sleep. Once she was comfortable in bed, Lucas had sat in a nearby chair, pulling A Wrinkle in Time off of the nearby dresser.
Lucas had paused, about to open the book, putting a confused look on his face. "What happened to the kids last?" He'd looked back at her, waiting for her answer. It'd felt like staring at an imperfect imitation of the woman who'd raised him, once so poised and firm, eyes drilling holes into him. By then, there had only been cloudy gazes and grips loosened not through a mellowing, but at the hands of an insidious trick, creeping and choking.
She'd paused— a pause that had infected the space between his every question to her, growing longer and longer as time wound on mercilessly. Finally, the answer came in a whisper. "The Happy Medium showed the kids how the Dark Thing had engulfed Earth and they found out they were headed off to fight it and find their father." There had been a new youth in her eyes, the clouds almost parted, pain and discomfort abated, even if only somewhat. Books and music, what miracle workers they'd been.
"Right, right, thank you," Lucas had nodded, moving the bookmark away from the later part of the book, knowing where her mind had placed them having read the book to her a multitude of times before, it being a cherished part of her childhood. He'd cleared his throat and began reading the sixth chapter over again.
Outside, he heard ducks calling, grounding him back in the bitter present. They occasionally flapped and stumbled through the streets, but he wasn't sure where they came from, not aware of any nearby bodies of water. Drifters from another world, fresh water dripping from their feathers as they soared, dust kicked from boots.
Miserable, he was miserable.
Discerning the minutia of emotions had never been Lucas' strong suit, struggling to pinpoint the why of it, if he could even put a finger on the emotion at all. People around him seemed to understand themselves, why couldn't he? They said with complete certainty that they felt a certain way, that it was because of this or that, but he was always left to answer "I don't know." They hadn't liked "I don't know," it'd frustrated them: family, friends, doctors, his mother. Often it came from wanting to help him, plagued with the idea that he was just holding back, hiding away, held captive by a self-destructive reticence, but it was always a facet of the wish for help. He never blamed them, even if he got frustrated in turn. He fantasized about how much easier it would all be if someone could just feel exactly what he was feeling for but a moment, then they'd be able to help him untangle the mess.
The misery, though, that he understood, could pinch between his fingers and hold up to a scrutinizing light. He pantomimed the idea, holding the tips of his fingers together up to a nearby streetlamp. In the now waning darkness of another sleepless, cold night, the member of the legion turning softly red in the rising sun, the fit spent walking the streets of Lesterville, he could almost see the whispy thread of time falling back, back, back away from the pinch, winding down the sidewalk. He limply let it go, flexing his jaw, wishing he had something to chew on. Days were subsumed by a lingering slumber, head tilted and eyelids slack, while nights were quiet and aware, leaps of electricity across his system, gears clicking in time, all the while the clock of his mind perpetually chimed off-minute, off-beat.
Nothing felt right, all was askew. He crossed the street, not even scouting for traffic, unflinchingly sure that no car would wind a corner and charge, leave him paralyzed in the gaze of its brights, the hum of its engine. He didn't know where he was going, so mindless was his gait, staring at the ground, hardly ever looking in front of him, up toward the sky. It wasn't until the destination came that he found himself entrenched in reality again.
The center of town, a haphazardly constructed roundabout, circling a small patch of grass. Standing in the patch was the fetid heart of Lesterville, tall and proud. He'd always avoided it as best he could whenever he could, but something had drawn him to it now, a lead looped 'round his neck, pulled by some unseen hand. Or perhaps it was a vortex, the earth swirling around the damning eye, and he'd simply been swept up in its churn.
Surrounded by grass and weeds was a marble statue of a man in old military drab, double-breasted, crowned with a cavalry hat, rifle in hand. On his hip, a sabre with which to command the hatred and slaughter of a multitude then and for generations to come, long after his body had rotted away. The grand stone pedestal he stood on declared his name and rank, "COLONEL CONSTANCE LESTER", subtitled, "Endless Bravery In The Midst Of Untold Aggression". Still red with dawn, the backing sun tinged the beast, a silhouette of history.
Lucas sat in the middle of the road and stared up at the statue, reckoning with its empty eyes and burning smirk.
During the Civil War, the town that Lesterville would become, still shambling about, like a foal, was bayoneted by the Union, its guts spilled in Sherman's wake. Union soldiers stationed in the town held captive from the Confederates precious, precious farmland and slaves. In an act of pathetic vengeance and as a grasp for a secure future in land, Colonel Lester took his scant remaining regiment and pushed the Union troops out as the war waned, defeat inevitable, reclaiming the town. The Confederate soldiers and sympathizers who found themselves newly homed named it in his honor, burning records and cutting out tongues that dared utter its old name, leaving it a mystery to the modern residents if they'd ever bothered to care.
So long later, yet so soon too, drowning in the throes of the Lost Cause, the statue of the town's revered savior was erected, carved out of Sylacauga marble. And though the name of the Lost Cause had long fallen from mouths, its ghost continued to haunt the Southern states, a swooping phantom dead only in policy that siphoned the life from Lesterville as it did so many others, ruthlessly corporeal and vindictive, hands choking like kudzu. A people held captive by their own prejudices, lashing out and killing those they deemed lesser than them, a warping yet doggedly persistent collective of caricatures they were all too happy to hate so long as it was never a mirror, though reflections quickly became twisted and distorted in their eyes, a new paradigm.
Perhaps it was inevitable then that Lesterville would shrivel as it had. It stood on a foundation of blood and misery, the people from it damned to blood and misery themselves, little else left for them to grab hold of. It was a sinkhole that pulled in all it could, every last one. Inside the sinkhole were countless human hands, the people of Lesterville grabbing hold of the people of Lesterville, grappling and dragging.
Lucas hated the statue. He hated how everything in the town bore the bastard's name, as if he hadn't been a racist mutineer and marauder, a vulture scrapping for any semblance of glory amidst what he saw as utter ruin. How he and his beliefs had lived on, encased in marble, pouring forth from rotting antebellum mouths. Everything was tainted, not even the soil pure. A town built on endless sorrow inflicted by man upon man. A cruel reality that refused to lift, so long as his eyes watched, unblinking, rifle parade ready.
Lesterville was decaying, he was decaying. All was coming to an end and there was nothing he could do. The asphalt beneath him was tacky and came up in strings as he stood, the last gasps of fall doing little to chill the boiling blood laying beneath the road, flowing like a raging river. What was it he felt in himself now, standing before the carved-stoic portent, knowing this unassailable truth?
There was nothing he could do. So he only walked away, off to the pharmacy.
To begin another day.
Lucas had finally made up his mind, a choice floating up from the scrap junk, words poured out of inscribed stonework. Railings and gasoline.
The night was bitterly cold and he shivered under its weight despite the coat he wore, the stars and moon completely lost behind a thicket of clouds. No guidance, no light, nothing but near-formless black and grey. He tried to assure himself that it was simply better for his intent, fighting off some weighty draw in his stomach, the stygian depths that wrapped tight hands around his form. The hood of his car was rapidly losing warmth. The small wooden box rested next to him on it, silent as the night, waiting.
Finally, he uncrossed his arms and stood up, walking to the back of his car and opening the door, pulling a shovel that'd been lying across the seat, bought just that afternoon in Grinwalle, no hardware or general supply store left in Lesterville to sell to him. He took it up in his left hand as he walked back to the front of the car, picking the box up with his right. With a deep breath, he set off toward the old, wrought iron fence just ahead of him, one of the edges of Lesterville's cemetery.
As with the steel mill, Lucas wasn't worried about being caught in the act, so few people left who cared or whose job it was to care. It still would have been his preference to do the act in a more official manner— more respectful too, likely— but the plot cost alone was too punishing, much less the labor. All he wished to do was bury his dead, bury her someplace she would have wanted.
The fence itself wasn't very tall, thankfully, the top reaching Lucas' chin. He threw the shovel over and passed the box through a space between the iron bars, gently setting it down on the other side. Stepping back slightly, Lucas eyed the structure, trying to figure out how he'd climb over it, having not given it much thought beforehand, working on impulse and conviction. Unlike the chainlink of the steel mill, there were few footholds. Fortunately, the finials were squat and rounded at the top, only faux-imposing, a facsimile of a stereotype, more showman than warrior.
Taking hold of the top-most bar, just above which the caps sat, he began to pull himself up, one foot on the bottom bar, the other pressed up against a slick pole, the old and rough texture giving him just enough friction to swing the foot at the bottom up and onto the top bar. From there, he managed to get himself in a crouched position, one hand on a finial, before hopping forward and onto the grass below.
After a breath, he picked the shovel and his mother up and headed off into the black, taking slow, measured steps, his breath a pale ghost running before him, drawn to the nearing stones.
Navigating the cemetery was an easy task once Lucas managed to identify a landmark, having walked its winding paths a multitude of times before, though the years had been merciless to the landscape, erosion and a lack of caretakers taking its toll. He was walking through a degraded memory, following maps warped in rot.
Finally, he reached it. Sitting in a cold and desolate spot of the lot, just behind a hill, no trees or bushes or flowers, some of the headstones obscured with age, the poorer ones rotting as their wood decayed, was his father's final resting place. His headstones was simple, "Daniel Breaux" carved in a roman typeface. It didn't even have the date of his birth or death, only "Ecclesiastes 4:9-12".
Lucas' mother had taken him out to visit the grave a multitude of times in his youth, then a good few times more once he'd returned to Lesterville. She'd always pointed to the verse, reciting it from memory. It'd been some of his father's favorite verses, as personable as he'd apparently been, much like his wife. It was the memory of those verses that brought him here in part.
The grave to the right of his father's was maybe eight feet away, giving Lucas ample room as he pressed the end of the shovel into the dirt, hardened with the cold, as close to the grave as he dared. He dug, sweating in his coat, his toboggan, hands quickly rubbing red with the unfamiliar work and freezing air. After much effort, when he'd made it about a foot and a half into the dirt, he stood back and stared, leaning on the shovel. A torrent of thoughts raged through his mind, none of them slow enough for him to take hold and scrutinize, his stomach full of boiling, buzzing insects.
Letting the shovel fall to the ground, he knelt down and picked up the unremarkable box, staring now at it rather than the small hole. He considered opening it again, but chose not to, only setting it gently down into the makeshift grave. Reaching into the left pocket of his coat, he pulled out the old, worn copy of A Wrinkle in Time and laid it atop the box. There was another heavy silence, no crickets and katydids to sing in the night.
Lucas took hold of the shovel again as he stood up and began slowly moving the dirt back, shovelful by shovelful, the box and book both disappearing beneath the black soil. The covering was far swifter than the digging out, far easier too. He was left to trawl through his thoughts, rumination and old piety that swirled and sank, foaming like the sea.
After moving the final scatterings of earth back into place, Lucas patted it down with the bottom of the shovel's head, pressing it flat, compacting it a bit. Even in the midst of his doubts, he offered up a small prayer. Though he was far from rest, a newfound sense of ease slowly spread through his body, a new finality before a step beyond, chapter six.
All was quiet once more, his labored breathing calming, shovel at ease. The night passed on without a second thought, regarding the family with indifference.
When Lucas opened his eyes, he saw daylight streaming through the spaces between the closed slats that covered the one window in the tiny bedroom. For the first time in nearly a month, he'd slept well, slept deep. The alarm clock sitting on a small nightstand read 8:29 A.M., the numbers a dull red. He couldn't remember shutting his alarm off. Not that anyone would be visiting the pharmacy. Swinging his legs out from beneath the sheets, he sat on the edge of the bed, eyes suddenly catching the imitation leather-bound Bible sitting on his dresser, a solid, wooden relic from his mother's old home. After he'd graduated high school, she'd given the Bible to him as a gift, something to take to college.
He could remember the moment she gave it to him, how she'd sat him down at the dining room table and expressed how proud she was, how much confidence she had in him, how she knew that God had a plan for him. She'd encouraged him to be brave, be bold, to meet new people, to make friends. At the time, the comment on friends had stung, reading to him as a jab, already regularly beating himself up for his insociability. Now he could see that the remark was less a prod or a plea, but a reminder, an assurance, even. And he'd failed even that basic a task, in the end saved only by the loving graces of the old pharmacy owners. Then swept away once more, his feet kicked out from beneath him.
Lucas pressed the heels of his hands up into his eyes, trying to rub the frustration and anger out of his head, scrub it clean, let it leak out and drip away.
As he stood and solemnly dressed, the thought of the pharmacy filling his stomach with sickly anxiety, a sudden compulsion rang out in his mind. It suggested that he forgo the pharmacy for now, to instead take a morning walk off somewhere else to sooth his nerves. Immediately, he started playing point-counterpoint with the idea, finding reasons to not go, the nervous idea of someone needing something and him not being there to help them leading the charge, but still the compulsion stood strong. Finally, he acquiesced, somewhat content with what was almost fact: No one was going to show up at the pharmacy any time soon.
Climbing down the stairs of his apartment, they creaked and groaned under his weight, but his mind was empty, no thoughts racing through. It was a strange, soothing feeling. When he got out onto the sidewalk, he didn't give any thought to where he was headed, only started walking. It wasn't like the walk he'd taken a few nights ago, finding himself before the statue of Constance Lester, his head filled with static and jellied gasoline, eyes crusted and blurred. Now all seemed clear and he walked with something akin to a purpose, feet sure and back straight. The air was cold, but crisp, clean. It felt rejuvenating to breathe in.
He walked mindlessly for over an hour, down winding sidewalks, across roads, until he was nearly out of town. The area was one he'd never explored much of, off in a corner with nothing else, old houses lining the street. They wrapped around in an awkward circle, the eye of which was a small lake, its surface glassy and serene. Lucas walked off the road he'd been following and shuffled down to the shore, shoes and thighs wetting with the dew that still coated the grass, rapidly growing wild with no one to care for it. Jutting out of the shoreline, just beyond a faded sign warning of it being private property, was an old dock, its wood greyed, water gently lapping at its sides.
The planks creaked beneath his feet as he walked down it, old, rusting nails threatening to come loose with a mere jolt. He sat down at its end, crisscross, staring into the water, across the shore, into the blue sky. Ducks swam about, squawking in some discordant song, abrasive and ugly. Their feathers were a haze of black and white, unseemly scatterings, set against the red masks on their faces, beady eyes embedded. The area reeked of their excrement, the shore and nearby road littered with loose feathers and scat. Lucas watched them for a time, staring in silence. They never much regarded him, just continued on as they were, as if he weren't even there, a phantom whose thoughts or presence meant nothing to them. He couldn't help but feel they were somewhat unsightly creatures.
Yet still they played, flew, walked about, and called. Unabashed, being as they were. What else were they to be but ducks? Thus they were created and thus they would be, authorial intent inscribed nevertheless into their musculature and mind. It was far from a particularly beautiful sight or locale, but still Lucas could feel tears welling up as he watched. A new resolve solidified in his chest, one he could scarcely conjure up a memory of, thoughts, hopes, and dreams long left to rot in the depths given new life. They emerged from the lake and shook the water off their feathers.
Soon, they left, flapping their wings, splashing as they took off. They rose into the sky and drifted off into the blue. Lucas followed their path until they were specks his eyes could no longer catch, gone to places new and untold. Even after they'd left, Lucas sat on the dock, taking it all in, absorbing the environment through his skin, a cutaneously respiring creature. He didn't have every answer he wanted, the woods still thick, brush choking some light, but there was nevertheless a trail.
After a time, he stood, smiling, and walked away, off the dock. When he reached the road, it seemed made up of new stuff, strong and assuring. He'd never taken the time to watch the path he walked, but now couldn't help but take it in. It was cracked, but remained firm still, bolstered anew. It stretched off into the distance behind him as he craned his neck, the path winding and irregular, but still traceable, ahead the same. The sky was clear and the sun was bright, warming Lucas' skin.
In time, he would leave Lesterville.