Michael Seidlinger - Falter Kingdom

End of lesson, or whatever.

But yeah, I was drunk and on a short fuse. Brad was selling Steve on the whole thing, legend and all, and I downed the last of the beer in that can.

Then I said it: “I’ll do it.”

Instantly the conditions changed.

“Really?” Blaire had joined us, standing at my side.

Brad grinned. “My man!”

Steve didn’t say anything. He wanted to run it. He wanted the respect.

I just wanted the conversation to end. I didn’t want to hear any more about Becca.

So they crowded around me as I took my first steps into the tunnel.

“Ten minutes, bud, you got this,” Brad said.

Running the gauntlet is more or less exactly how it sounds. You run into the tunnel, into the darkness, for ten whole minutes or until you reach the end. But no one’s ever reached the end. So I had to run, sprint really, for ten whole minutes. They synced up and set a timer on each of their phones. On their count — three, two, one — I ran.

It was actually kind of easy, going through with it.

Everything leading up made it feel impossible. I wasn’t into running it; I had nothing to really prove, which could be cause for a bigger problem.

But I don’t know—

I guess it had a lot to do with being fed up.

With their voices. With their claims. With the fact that they were kind of right: it’s almost graduation and nothing’s changed.

It’s like I needed something to prove to myself. I needed to do something that anyone who knew me would have problems believing if told in the context of some story.

The actual running was the hard part. I felt like I couldn’t keep to a straight line. I felt like I couldn’t run fast enough. The air was thick in the tunnel, kind of a strange musk, the same kind you smell in old basements or places with stale air. The ground muddy and wet, each step had that sinking feeling that you get when you find out you spaced a test or some other important event.

But I ran the whole ten.

It didn’t even last that long.

I ran with my eyes wide but they might as well have been closed. The dark was so thick it was like running in place.

Something worth mentioning — you can’t really hear anything in the tunnel. You can’t hear your own footsteps. I ran until it felt right to stop and turn around. I didn’t hear my feet slipping in the mud. I didn’t hear my lungs gasping for air. I didn’t hear.

If I didn’t hear my own breath, there’s no way I heard their phones.

It probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

It’s hard to explain. Telling it right is usually tougher than you think; it’s all about using the right amount of words to get your point across. You say too little and it’s just strange; say too much and you’re not really making any sense. This is probably one of those situations. It’s just that being inside the tunnel felt like… what’s that term for when you are frozen in a chamber?

Cryosleep?

It’s kind of like that. But there’s a better word. Let me look it up.

Oh, right—

It’s like being in suspended animation. Stuck in place, but you also know that your body is moving, your thoughts racing, because I could feel the sweat dripping from my forehead.

While inside, I could think about only one thing.

I thought about my body breaking into pieces.

And even now I can’t make complete sense of why.

When I made it back to them, you can bet they were surprised.

Brad saw me first. “Shit, bro.”

I was drenched in sweat. Dirt caked in layers all over my body.

Steve didn’t say anything.

Blaire played concerned friend: “Are you insane?”

I asked them if I lasted the full ten, but the words didn’t come out until later, after I had lay down against a cool rock. By then Brad and Steve had left. Blaire stayed with me. She was sitting next to me when I woke up. I stirred shortly before the sun completely disappeared.

“Did I make the full ten?”

Blaire stared at me in disbelief. Maybe she really was worried. I’m not sure what she felt that day. But when she told me I had been in there for twenty-five minutes, it clicked into place.

I didn’t feel any different but, well, it kind of made sense. I felt peaceful sitting there, letting the information sink in. Like I did something I wanted to do.

We walked back in silence.

I didn’t say anything and she didn’t say anything.

When we got back to Meadows, our cars were the only ones left in the parking lot. “Where’d Brad and that other guy go?”

Blaire kind of ignored me but also kind of didn’t. It was a mumble, one that I maybe imagined. “They went for help.”

We left without saying good-bye.

By the time I got home, I felt fine. Not tired at all.

I stayed up with a six-pack that I finished and watched walkthroughs of two different video games. I didn’t have trouble sleeping at all that night.

Stuff started happening the following day. Minor things: mostly the broken vase and my bedroom door opening and closing on its own. I misplaced my cell phone twice only to find it where I couldn’t have left it. Why would my phone turn up in my dad’s pocket when he had been at work all day and I used the phone not ten minutes before it went missing? These aren’t really questions, really, just the mind fighting the facts.

And I knew the symptoms.

They say it’s best to get rid of a demon quick.

Yeah, I know, I know.

But just thinking about how much effort it would have been to tell my parents… what it would mean for them — their only son, haunted —made me feel exhausted. I would never hear the end of it.

So then it just felt better to put off telling them for a little bit.

It won’t be much longer.

Soon everyone will know.

MONDAY. WHERE THE HELL DID THE WEEKEND GO? Ididn’t get a whole lot of sleep. I mean I actually did — something like twelve hours last night — but I feel tired. It’s probably me. I’m doing this to myself. I’ve been fixating on what’s been happening lately. I can’t shake the fact that everyone’s right: it’s almost over. After that day at Falter, all I can think about is breaking up with Becca. I think about stuff I should have done a long time ago. Now might be my last chance. It’s now or never.

But, man, I never get used to these mornings.

Note to self: Don’t sign up for morning classes next year.

Can’t wait to be able to choose when my classes start. I’m going with the major made for insomniacs. What career paths involve working late into the night? Gravediggers? Um, doctors, nurses, mental ward psychos?

Man, I’m tired.

I drive to school the same way I always do: half awake. It’s out of the driveway, then it’s a left, right, right, stop at that annoying intersection with the really long red light that I always get stuck at, straight past that, two more lefts, and then I’m there.

Meadows. On time for once too.

I park the car in my assigned space and I look at the time on my phone: 7:40 A.M. Know what that means — ten minutes to sleep in my car!

Believe me, this adds up. It helps. Power naps keep me from turning into a zombie. But then again, it’s kind of hard to sleep when Brad taps on the glass.

“What, man? Go away.” I wave him off.

But he taps on the glass again.

“Fuck,” I grumble. “It’s open.”

He gets in the front passenger seat. He sits down and looks at me.

I look at him. He’s a blank stare. “What? It’s too early for this stuff, man.”

Brad shakes his head. “Bro…”

Of course I know what he’s thinking about. I haven’t been able to brush it off either. It kind of settles in the back of the mind, making everything I do a little plainer because I’m paying even less attention to the things around me.