ST1.6 | "Shoelaces"

PROMPT: The twenty-first of June is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. But our longest days (or nights) aren’t measured by minutes but by worry, hardship, or struggle. We’ve all had days like that, where it feel as if hours have passed only to see a couple minutes have vanished off the clock. So to honor the solstice, we want stories about somebody’s longest, unending day. Send us tales of what someone is going through that is making every minute, every second, tick by in the most agonizing way.

SHOELACES

by Jonathan Newman

The old man would rise early and have no idea where he was. He would sit at the foot of his bed and blink himself into something resembling consciousness, never remembering when the previous day had ended. He would reach for the curtains and allow the sunlight to pour into his small bedroom and close his eyes and enjoy the feel of the light just for a few moments before he forgot all over again. He would sit at the foot of his bed and look down at his bare feet dangling a few inches above the floor. His body was hunched and curved and dwarfish in stature; his feet no longer even grazed the ground when he began his endless days. His fat stomach protruded. His breath rattled. A pair of shoes sat next to his bed, and the old man would look at them for what felt like a long time, and still, he had no idea what they were for.

He would frown and think and screw up his face and shake his head and even cry at the loss of a memory that he knew he had once possessed. He remembered, possibly, his Mama used to do the same, and he would search for her in his memory, the days bleeding together like spilt wine.

Each morning his tears and his movements would bring a visitor to his room. There was always a gentle rap, and the young man would enter. He would speak to the old man as though he knew him, but the old man could only stare. The young man would take the clothes from the chair and would help the old man from his bed, and he would help the old man to dress. Neither said much. The young man pulled the old man’s body where it needed to go and slipped each item of clothing on with the care of a friend. The old man would just stare at the younger man and try to remember him. When all that remained was the shoes, the young man would sit the older man back down on the bed and he would crouch down to push the shoes back onto those old feet. Each day when the young man crouched, his shirt would rise, and the old man would see the pistol and the badge, and the young man would see those grey eyes looking and he would shake his head and tell him not to worry.

They would go downstairs and eat breakfast. Sometimes other young men would join them, and sometimes even young women; the old man preferred it when there were young women, but he never remembered that. They would eat toast or pancakes or cereal. They would drink coffee and orange juice, and sometimes the young man would let the old man slip a drop of whiskey into his coffee and then put his finger to his lips and wink. But the old man never remembered, so what difference did it make?

They would do nothing all day. The old man would wander out onto the porch and see he was at a farmhouse in the middle of the desert; he would gaze all around him at the gasping desert and he would be happy just for a few moments before he forgot and sat in the rocking chair on the porch. He would read the newspaper and forget; he would read books and fall asleep. Sometimes the young man or one of his even younger or prettier friends would bring the old man an old, weathered radio and the old man would listen to sports. Only sports. They didn’t like the old man listening to the news. Sports was the only way he could tell what time it was during the day. The old man never cared. He never remembered.

This day was different. The sportscaster had said that it was June 21st, baseball season, but the old man had forgotten that by the time he had brushed his teeth, the desert grit staining his teeth. There was a crease to the young man’s smile that the old man suspected was probably always there and he just couldn’t remember, but he knew he didn’t like it. They went downstairs and dined together in silence until the vehicles arrived. More young men entered. It was breezy outside, and the wind flapped and lifted the men’s shirts and the old man saw the pistols and the badges. The young men huddled together in the front yard and spoke in voices of low hush that the old man was unable to decipher. He sat on the porch and frowned and enjoyed the feel of the sun. There was sand in his shoes and he did not know why. The men had arrived in a large truck. The old man stared at it and decided that he did not like it.

The young man came over to him and smiled. “Time to go.”

“Where we goin’?”

“New place,” said the young man. “You’ll like it.”

“We ain’t stayin’ here?”

“No, sir,” said the young man, draping a jacket over the old man’s shoulders.

“I like it here.”

“You only been here a day.”

“What?”

The young man smiled. “Hands.”

The old man held out his hands and the young man snapped on a pair of handcuffs.

“What’re those for?” said the old man.

“Protection.”

“Whose?”

Winking, the young man led him over to the truck. The back was open, but the old man still balked and hesitated at the doors. He looked like a mule fearing the darkness ahead. The young man spoke in his ear and calmed him and walked with him up the small ramp and into the back of the truck. He slid back the cage door and sat the old man on the chair inside and took his wrists and fastened the handcuffs to the seat and then did the same with the seatbelt.

“Am I dangerous?” said the old man.

“Why d’you ask?”

“You’re chainin’ me,” said the old man. “Did I do somethin’ bad? I can’t remember. This day . . . all my days . . . I can’t remember . . .”

The young man placed a hand on the old man’s face and smiled and told him not to worry then stepped out of the cage and closed and locked the door. The old man felt tiny inside those bars; he looked tiny. He felt like an animal and didn’t know why this was happening to him. The sun was lost to him. Wind and sand pounded at the side of the van. His days stretched off into an endlessness of despair. He started to cry but something in the back of his mind forced him to stop and suck down his breath and grit his teeth and close his eyes as the doors were closed and the engine rumbled into life and the truck drove him away into the desert and confusion and nothingness.

They drove for what felt like an eternity and yet the old man forgot every second of it. The truck would bump and roll and growl over the hard earth of wherever they were, and the old man would be shaken from side to side. Sometimes the young man, seated just outside the cage with two others, would ask him if he was okay, and the old man would nod and look away and have no idea who he was. Sometimes the young man would pound his fist against the roof of the truck and yell for the driver to slow down or take it easy.

In what could have been the tenth hour or the tenth second of the journey, the brakes slammed on and the old man and everyone else in the back of the truck, blind to the outside world, was tossed around like toys in a child’s satchel. The vehicle stopped and the old man watched the young man reach up to strike the roof once more.

And then the gunfire began.

The old man felt the truck lurch and heard glass shattering and the cries of men dying and the sound of bullets ripping through the air and the metallic raindrop as those bullets struck the vehicle in which he cowered.

He remembered, then. Combat and wars in jungles. But his hands were old, this couldn’t be that, couldn’t be then, couldn’t be now.

The rear doors of the truck exploded, and the smoke and sunlight and sand poured in and blinded the old man. He blinked. Held his ears. Focused on his shoes on the floor until he could see. The old man looked through the smoke and saw the young man’s face pressed up against the bars of the cage; his eyes were wide and staring, but there was no life in his body, and he slid away from the bars. The falling body reminded the old man of something from his childhood, but what . . .

The smoke and sand stung his eyes but outside the gunfire ceased and the old man heard more voices but could not understand them. He looked over towards the blasted door and the smoke and the searing sunlight and saw a glimpse of a highway and then a shadow blocked it out.

A man entered the truck, climbing out of the smoke, and walked toward the old man. Two more shadows followed, and the old man looked down. He saw that one of his laces was undone and he realised that he couldn’t remember how to tie them.

Keys rattled, and the first figure unlocked the cage door and walked inside, smiling at the old man.

“Hola,” he said, kneeling to unfasten the old man’s chains.

The old man said nothing but stared at the face until he felt he was free of his shackles. He allowed the man to help him out of his chair and lead him through the back of the truck, stepping through the fallen youth at his feet. The old man held his head high and refused to look down; yet the air stank of death. He was passed down from the back of the truck into the waiting arms of others and he emerged into the sunlight and saw that he was indeed in the middle of a highway, and he squinted into the vastness all around him and saw the smoke and the bullet casings and the blood and the fallen bodies steaming in the sand.

Three pairs of eyes surrounded him.

“Hola,” said one.

“Who’re you?” said the old man.

The man who had freed him from his chains was the last to jump down from the van. He said something in Spanish. The man leaned in and whispered to the old man. A story from his past. A story they’d both been in. But then the wind blew and the memory was gone, just dust caught in a storm.

The first man took a step backwards and the other two followed.

The old man had nothing to say. The three men backed away towards where a brown pickup was parked at the side of the road. There were bullet casings on the ground and holes in its windshield. They climbed inside and the one in the baseball cap turned to wave back at the old man, and then the truck turned back onto the highway and drove towards the setting sun, leaving the old man shivering and alone.

The old man started to cry. He looked down and saw that now both of his shoes were untied, and he could not remember how to tie them. Ahead of him was an endless highway, a brooding, festering desert, stretching on forever.

The old man bent, removing his shoes, then began to walk, the asphalt scorching his feet.

Jonathan Newman (@TheHudsonLives) is an unpublished British writer and long-suffering English teacher. He spends most of his days attempting (unsuccessfully) to convince his students that reading Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King are more valuable interests than using TikTok and Snapchat.