Echo Paradise: Preview #2
Echo Paradise: Preview #2
The following is a free preview to my novel, Echo Paradise, releasing on Amazon in paperback and digital on Sunday, August 15th.
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It didn’t take long before she was standing in the parking lot. The lights illuminating this paved field were no longer tinged with azure. Instead they conveyed a dim, almost sickly yellow that permeated across the pavement. Unlike the street, where spots existed where her shadow would disappear, here she could see it stretched out forever, always striding by her side as she made her way to the dumpster. A short gust of wind picked up as she walked, chilling her legs and arms. It left as soon as it came, though, dying down without making a fuss of its return to nonexistence. She hoped that, when she was finally at the dumpster, the bag would do the same.
Her footsteps were silent as she made her way across the lot. Despite the wind having left, another chill ran up her arms and legs. It wasn’t the chill of the outside world, but instead a deeper, impending feeling that something was about to happen. The only way she knew how to describe it was as a premeditated instructor, an intuition buried deep within that this was not normal. For the briefest flash of a second, clarity returned to her. Here she was, out in the spring-turning-summer night, walking across the parking lot to a middle school she hadn’t attended in four years, gripping a backpack that shouldn’t have even been there in the first place. If it was even there at all. For a fraction of a second she thought back to the kitchen table, back to the first apple that had fallen away into the impossible dark. Was she that apple now, relapsing into the memories of a time she oh-so-desperately wished to forget? There were the questions again. But they were all that helped in the wake of a madness she could no longer process.
Distracted by her thoughts, she almost tripped on her way up to the dumpster. One moment she was walking with normalcy, her feet moving one in front of the other. The next she’d almost slipped and fallen onto the pavement, taken aback by her lack of balance. Deservation rang in her head once again. Even something so small could feel like a boulder. Even so, she picked herself back up, tightened her grip on the bag, and kept going. The dumpster was right in front of her. In just a few short paces, a few quick strides, she would be at its edge. And there she could toss it all into the black.
She paused at the edge of the dumpster. Peered in, stared down into its gaping maw. It was empty, a void waiting to be filled. Her fist started to hurt, the middle of her fingers starting to sting. Glancing down, she realized with a start that she had been white knuckling the bag, her nails digging into her fingers in the process. Her grip loosening, she kept looking down at the bag. While the streetlights were illuminating it, seeing it out in the open like this gave it a shape of unfamiliarity. She knew where the bag had come from, whose bag it was. At the same time, though, she couldn’t help but feel like it was something else. Not a bag, but rather a symbol of a time long forgotten. Now if only she could keep its existence out of her mouth for the rest of her life. If her tongue uttered it again, she may bite it and cry.
Scrunching up her face in determination, she lifted the bag up. Even without his body carrying it, it felt heavy in her hand. It weighed with the memory of it all, of what she wanted to forget. His face just before it happened, the roaring of the wheels as they continued to spin. Her arm, desperate as it reached out to him, grabbing his hand, telling him it would be okay. No one would ever be able to understand because she could do nothing but push it all down. Push it all down and hope that one day she would be able to forget the blood that smeared her hands, the only indication left that he’d been there at all.
She flung the bag into the dumpster. It arced for a brief moment before disappearing into the blue behemoth. Stepping away, she sighed. Her shoulders relaxed, feeling that invisible weight dissipate into the midnight atmosphere. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sound of her breathing as air whistled through her nose. The auditory ambiance of the night circulated alongside her respiration. The light chirping of crickets permeated from the grass and trees near the school. Small sounds of nocturnal animals broke the silence of the undergrowth. If she paid enough attention, she could even hear the faint buzzing of the lightbulbs above as they glowed against the parking lot. The sounds were encapsulating, all-encompassing, passing by at every moment…
…Wait.
Her eyes shot open.
Why hadn’t she heard the bag?
It would have thumped against the bottom of the dumpster after she’d flung it in. Instead, it had passed through in silence, becoming the ghost she’d suspected it was all along. Even so, even if it was the grieving process, would it not have smashed against the bottom of the dumpster when she threw it in? It was a deep container, one that should have made a reverberating sound as the bag found its depth. Instead, it was silent, cycling her thoughts back to ghosts…ugh!
She had to look. At least take a peek to see why it had fallen so quietly. If it was even in there at all when she glanced inside.
While the dumpster was deep, she was still taller than its edge. If she peered inside, the parking lot lights should have been able to illuminate its innards. Taking a step forward, she leaned toward the dumpster. She watched it for as long as she could, feeling her eyes pinch at the sudden need to adjust for the darkness. The lights above were doing a fine job at making the sides of the bin visible. That wasn’t the issue here. The problem was that she couldn’t see the bottom. Instead, a black pit with an invisible floor met her searching gaze.
Fuck it. If the lights above weren’t going to do the job, then she’d have to step in herself. Fishing around in her pocket, she brought out the little keychain light. Reaching her hand into the dumpster, she pressed the button on the top. A little blue beam of light jetted out from the device, reflecting off the side of the dumpster. She squinted her eyes at the sudden illumination, not expecting it to be so strong. Eventually, though, her eyes adjusted to the brightness, filling in what was laid out before her as it began to move through her mind. She must have been half-asleep still. It was the only way to explain this…this complete inconsistency with what should have been.
The beam of light moved lower. Lower. Ever lower. Lower still. And still it was in front of her, the truth she didn’t want to accept. But here it was, gaping its maw, hunting, doing everything in its power to swallow her whole.
There was no bottom to the dumpster. Only empty black nothing.
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