Shane Kroetsch

Dark and Introspective Fiction

Story

Despite Everything He’d Said

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Grandad gave me a lot of advice when I was growing up.

Stand up for what you believe, but don’t ever go to bed angry.

Tell your secrets to the fireflies and moths, it’s the only way they’re safe outside of your own head.

Actions speak louder than words, especially if the action is a solid right hook.

The one he mentioned more than any other was, stay the hell away from the old Boundary Canyon mine.

I feel bad, thinking back, about how all his advice pretty much fell on deaf ears. For whatever reason, I’m a masterclass in doing the opposite of what I’m told.

Two failed marriages should tell you all you need to know about how accustomed I am to going to bed angry, about how I never figured out how to speak up for myself.

I learned the lesson about telling secrets too late. Sometimes trust isn’t as strong as you think, sometimes friend is a four-letter word.

Never did like to fight. Thought I could talk my way out of anything. Turns out reason isn’t always an effective tactic when you’re staring down an angry red neck.

That brings us to Boundary Canyon, and the opening of the big hole leading to the cold and dark and who knows what else. Except, I do know. At least a little. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing here, letting the barricades and bright orange warning signs taunt me. I’ve got a backpack of supplies that probably won’t help a bit, and a flashlight with half-dead batteries flickering in one hand. All going well, I’m about to put to rest the talk about Tom Payne’s bones, a treasure beyond the minerals the ground was opened up for in the first place, that the curse isn’t real, and neither is the ghost. Might even prove that Grandad was wrong at least once in his life. All going well.

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Photo by Valentin Lacoste on Unsplash

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Milk Farm

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I woke up on a milk farm, naked and afraid. The smell of cow shit and damp straw infesting my lungs. Damp straw and who knows what else jammed in the crack of my godamned ass. Cogs wobbled in my brain. The chipped teeth ground up against each other until something resembling a consistent rhythm was found. Hazy images of the night before flickered past. The girl from the record shop, the one with purple hair that used to be blonde. The twins that never smiled and their weird sunglasses. Bottle after bottle of absinth. Something that looked like a cigarette hanging out of the left corner of my mouth.

I shook it all away and looked down my scuffed and dirty arms to a tattoo at my wrist. The lines were blue like the ink from an old pen found at the back of the kitchen junk drawer, the skin around it red and angry. At first, I thought it was a key. When I held it closer, I realized, of all the stupid things, that it was a bottle opener. It looked like something beaten into shape out of a rusty railroad spike. The fleeting thought came to me that maybe I was right the first time, a key after all, but what door it would open by removing a crimped metal cap I had no idea.

I propped myself up in the middle of what I thought was an otherwise empty stall. That’s when I noticed the cat, perched on a post at the far end near the slat board wall, its glossy black coat camouflaged among the shadows. Half-closed golden eyes rested on me. I couldn’t tell if it was annoyed by my presence or entirely unaffected. The importance of the question was soon lost. The cat’s eyes widened, pupils and all, staring over my shoulder. Its body tensed, then it bolted away. I froze solid. It was one of those, couldn’t have moved if I wanted to type situations. The skin on my cheek prickled, like a kiss blown from Hell had found its target.

I want to say that’s when I woke up, for real though. That I opened my eyes, and the sun was shining, and I was perfectly all right except for a racing heartbeat. I want to say that’s when the nightmare ended. Unfortunately for me, that was just the beginning.

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Photo by Leslie Saunders on Unsplash

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The Word

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Boaz held a scuffed baseball at eye level, twisted it back and forth, inspecting the stitching through his dark sunglasses.

“This world, and many others like it, they started with a word, and the word was…chaos.” He lowered the ball, then stared off at nothing. “Actually, what started it all was something else entirely. Chaos is what came after.”

The young boy standing in front of Boaz pushed up on his hat and squinted. “Hey, mister? Can I—”

“The origin event. Everything was close together, then it wasn’t. The big bang. A hot, dense state. Sounds like some people I know if I’m being honest.”

The boy looked behind him. “Okay.”

“Expanding. Eons later, everything is still expanding. Again, sounds like some people I know…”

“I just want my—”

“Worlds blossomed. Life flourished…”

“—ball.”

“Only to eventually end,”

“It’s just—”

“but like a bad weed, life comes back, in one form or another.”

“—we can’t play without it.”

Boaz glanced from the ball to the boy, and back again. “Like humans, with your highly aggressive and expansionist tendencies. You destroy so much in the name of progress, not understanding that one day your time will come. And then what?”

The boy frowned, held his hand out, pleading filled his half open eyes.

“Chaos. That’s what.” Boaz dropped the ball into the boy’s waiting palm. “For a while, anyhow.

The boy turned and set off to join his waiting friends. “Whatever you say, mister.”

Boaz slid his sunglasses down his nose. Dark eyes, full of stars and worlds long dead, traced after the boy. “And then one day, perhaps, tools will be built, languages will form, and the cycle will begin anew.” He smiled. “Won’t it be fun to see how that turns out?”

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Photo by Chris Briggs on Unsplash

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True Colour

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The waiting room is silent, save for the glass-paned exterior door rattling in its frame. A storm is pushing in from the north, bringing with it the threat of late snowfall. I pull up on my collar, imperfect protection against the cold, but all the same, some small barrier between me and the world.

Boredom sets in early. It picks at my insides and makes my leg twitchy. Needing something to focus on, I lean over to take the only magazine from the cracked plastic file holder mounted to the wall. Page after creased page flips past. Fad diets. Relationship advice. The world’s best chocolate cake recipe. All filler, no substance. It only serves to feed my boredom. The last thing I see before I put the magazine back where I found it is a question, a lead-in to a quiz that promises insights into my very being.

If you were a colour, which one would you be?

It’s all nonsense, really. A person can never be one thing. We are all unique mixtures of experiences and learned behaviours. How can you contain so many variables under a single designator? The short answer is, you can’t. Still, I ponder the question.

I know there’s yellow. That’s easy. Like, yellow-bellied. Scared. Anxious. It’s how I spend most of my waking hours.

Red is next. Annoyance at best. Anger at worst. It formed from trauma and as a response to the ever-present fear because no other resource exists to take its place. It’s become a default that I wish could be reverted to its factory setting.

The last is blue. It used to be called the blues. A catch-all term for varying degrees of sadness or depression. A deep melancholy over how yellow I’ve become. Because of how often the red comes out for what is, on the surface, no good reason.

Those are my colours. My primary building blocks. But even then, it’s not that simple. The palette, given equal representation, churns and fuses to become what is my true colour.

Black. Like a shadow. Like the longest night. Not a colour at all. A distinct lack of colour. Nothing. Empty.

My train of thought is derailed from its darkened tunnel by a round, middle-aged woman with thick glasses standing behind the reception desk. “The doctor will see you now. Exam room three.”

I stand and stuff my hands in my pockets. I don’t speak, I don’t acknowledge. Limit the connection. It’s better that way. Go to the exam room. Shine a light into the darkness. Wonder if this time it will do some good. Know that it won’t. Walk out the door into snow that should be rain, then fade away like the shadow I am.

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Photo by Cat Han on Unsplash

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Teeth

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Her teeth are what I remember most, how white they were, how sharp they looked, framed by lips stretched into a smile wide and bent like a demonic Jack O Lantern. Her teeth. Not the incessant screaming of her victims. Not the blood, both the trajectory and quantity, raining down like a spring storm cloud’s first ejaculatory release.

I had never seen her smile before that day, not once since she arrived at the facility six months before. A prison masquerading as a hospital, one that required no judge or jury to lock someone away for the rest of their life. Bullies and masochists dressed up as doctors, as caregivers to those accused of being insane.

Most of the committed bow down and accept their fate. I certainly did. I thought she had as well. What I mistook for complacency turned out to be patience, letting the rage build and build until, one day, all it took was a small act of aggression, a shove from one of the staff as she shuffled her circles around the maze of halls, that instead of moving her out of the way, plunged her over a dark precipice.

Her teeth are what I remember most from that day. I keep the image of them in my mind while I wander the world, as free as someone can be living in the shadows. I hope to see that smile again one day, to find her and thank her, dedicate myself to whatever journey she takes in life and whatever other injustices she chooses to fight. To ask her to teach me how to keep my teeth as white, and just as sharp.

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Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash

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Penny District Manufacturing Company

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After the doorbell chimed, Rod snatched a dish towel from the counter and craned to see the clock on the stove as he passed. He wasn’t expecting company, and what a stranger would be looking for at that time of night he had no idea. Standing at the door with mostly dry hands he leaned in for a better look at the live image from the doorbell camera. Despite flickering lines over the distorted figure standing at the edge of the porch stairs, he keyed in the alarm code, slid back both deadbolts, then cracked the door open.

A man in a brown suit, about two sizes too big, stood hunched forward with a sweat stained fedora rolled in his hands. His lips twisted into something resembling a smile. His eyes bulged with a unique mixture of pleading and panic.
Rod planted his foot and opened the door a few more inches, resting it against his raised toes. “Can I help you?”

The man nodded. “Good evening, sir. How are you this…evening?”

Rod flipped the dish towel over his shoulder. “Okay, I suppose.”

“Excellent, sir, excellent.” The man reached into his open suit jacket with one trembling hand. “My name, sir, is J.R. Turner and I am here this evening representing the Penny District Manufacturing Corporation,” the man pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper and held it to Rod, “the number one manufacturer of cyborg implants in the world.”

Rod tucked his chin and stared at the crude images. As he fought to find words, he glanced across dot matrix interpretations of night vision eyeballs and hydraulic prosthetics. “A little early for Halloween, isn’t it?”

The man’s broken smile faltered further, as if he didn’t understand what a pending children’s holiday had to do with anything. Instead of acknowledging Rod’s comment, he continued with his sales pitch. “I’ve been authorized, for today only mind you, to offer up to 50% off of our already low, low prices, sir. As always, factory approved installation and 2-year parts and labour warranty are included.”

Rod reached out for the doorknob. “I appreciate it, but I’ll have to pass.”

The men held the paper closer. “I assure you, you won’t see an offer like this again, sir. Please look closer, I’m sure you’ll find something that you can’t live without.”

Rod began pushing the door closed.

“Sir, please.” The man’s right eye drooped, a streak of thick, oily discharge seeped from the corner. “I just need one sale, sir, just one.”

“I’m really sorry. Have a good night.” Rod latched the door. He leaned his back against it, reached out to arm the security system, then waited.

Through the solid door he heard mumbled muttering, then heavy footsteps down the treads of the porch. Soon after came a flash, a hollow thunk, like someone punching an unbreakable pane of glass, and then the silence of the night returned.

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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

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