the block
By: Austin Foster
Any time I find myself in a Block I start trying doors. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. At any rate it helps me to get my bearings. There have been times where I seemingly wake up, not knowing at first who or where I am, or who I’m with, or how I got there. I sometimes suspect I am a depressed narcolept. Really, I am just a repeating character in the mind of a depressed narcolept.
Each Block is different, that’s all but guaranteed. And I don’t necessarily hate any of them, though some, more than others, make me feel a bit claustrophobic when they last for too long. That’s sort of what happened this most recent time.
This time I woke up in what seemed to be an abandoned school. It’s always something different, you know? All around me was a helter-skelter conglomeration of two-by-fours that looked slapped together, no doubt, as quickly and cheaply as possible by municipal workers. Something to hold the place up, of course. What was left of the original structure all looked wet, moldy. A sad and crooked staircase huddled itself up and to the right of my vision and periodically creaked beneath the footsteps of ghosts destined to roam the decrepit hallways for all of eternity. At the upper limits of the main corridor in which I found myself, I saw curls of paint dangling into the darkness like sickly jungle ferns. I could smell something musty like old, wet textbooks in the damp air. That was how I decided the place was once a school. I took note, you see. At that point it became clear to me in the low, grey-blue glow of twilight that I had found myself in a place that was all but begging to be put to rest. I thought I was alone. I wasn’t.
“What’s the plan, Jack?”
That wasn’t slang. My name is Jack.
I looked to my right and saw someone looking back at me, someone a foot or so taller than me, staring like I knew something about a plan. But I didn’t. We were shoulder to shoulder.
I said hello and asked the someone who he was.
“You know what?” he said. “I’m actually not too sure. I don’t even know where we are. Where are we?”
I shrugged and said, “Beats me,” which was an adolescent thing to say. It was then that I realized I was an adolescent. I realized I was fifteen years of age. That might surprise you, that I didn’t know at first my own age, but don’t let it. I am personally quite used to it. I suspect I am one of those fellows who periodically comes “unstuck in time.” A real-life Billy Pilgrim, if you will. The only problem is I don’t know a damn thing about where I will go next, or when. Someone else has the pen, as the saying goes.
“Seems we’re in the apocalypse,” I said. “Lucky us. We’ve made it out alive.”
“Charley,” the guy said. “I just remembered I am Charley.”
“How do you do, Charley? I am just remembering that you are my older brother. Shall we try some doors?”
“Doors?” said my older brother Charley.
“Yes, I always try the doors first. Sometimes it helps to move things along.”
So, we tried the doors. One by one we went down the main corridor of the darkened, abandoned building, jiggling handles, looking for any way through. Charley asked if we should try the upstairs. I told him I sensed we weren’t allowed up there yet. He agreed.
We returned to the front of the building where we first met— how much time had passed I don’t know— where there was a soggy pile of old wood, which we sat upon to wait. We waited for I don’t know how long.
“We tried our best older brother,” I said, and we had.
“Sometimes I get claustrophobic,” Charley said, “when the place is dark and confined the way this one is.” He had just come to remember that this was normal, being in a Block. I had too. Charley comes “unstuck in time” like me, too. We’re both old pros at it.
“Do you remember that time we were stuck out in that tiny boat? Out on the Gulf of Mexico?”
I did.
“And the waves just kept coming,” he said, “but we didn’t move an inch for months?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “That was a long one. Do you remember the time when our father slapped me across the cheek then promptly sent us both to bed? We laid there for days in the night. Just talking.”
It’s eventually always just talking in a Block. What with nowhere else to go. We had laid under the covers of our shared bed for that one long night, talking as we were now. We were both just children back then. I suppose we’re always just children, though. We’ve only just gotten here.
“How long do you reckon this one will last?” Charley asked.
“I can’t say, older brother. It seems to depend on the weather, or the seasons, or most often nothing at all. Which makes things rather exciting for us, wouldn’t you say? We never know how much time we will get, just the two of us.”
“Yes. I always enjoy our time, just the two of us.”
“That’s good,” I said. “It seems we’ve lucked out to have each other in times like these. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be totally alone in times like these.”
“Yes, someone did a great job with us.”
We sat there talking like that for who knows how long. Two characters in someone else’s world. Eventually we tried the doors again and that was when I first started to feel the smallest bout of claustrophobia. Like I needed things to move along, or I would need to put things to rest. Charley said he felt it too. Knowing we feel it together always helps us. Helps us in a Block. Helps us with the waiting.
We sat back down after I don’t know how long. It was very quiet. It always is in a Block.
“What do you think will happen next?” Charley asked.
“I have this growing sense that we’re involved in some sort of monster hunt, maybe,” I said. “But you never know.”
“I have that sense too. It makes me feel a bit afraid. Oh, I hope I don’t show it.”
“Knowing you, it will all be fine, older brother.”
And that was when the Tapping began. I forgot to mention the Tapping before. A Block is always ended by the Tapping, a rapid clicking sound like things coming together, like a cosmic rhythm taking off again somewhere up in the atmosphere. It sounds quite pleasant. It always reminds me that my next move is already planned. Planned by God, if you like that term. I hope you should hear it one day, too.
“There we go,” I said.
“And just in time,” Charley said. “I was starting to feel hopeless.”
“Yes. Quite depressed,” I said.
We both held our breath and listened to the cosmic rhythm tapping itself away. We both closed our eyes. We both heard a click like a door latch coming unstuck from down the hallway. It was the click of a door latch. We both saw the black rectangle slowly swing open in the low, grey-blue light. We both heard the unsettling sounds of creaturely growling. We both understood that the doorway was for us. Had always been for us. Was what we had been waiting for.
“There we are,” I said. “I think we are out of our Block. Are you ready to go?”
The growling turned to snarling off in the grey-blue.
“I don’t particularly want to,” Charley said. “I feel a bit scared now to see what’s through there.”
“Well, I don’t either, older brother. But if we’re being brutally honest with ourselves, what other choice do we really have?”
And so, we got up and we went on.
Austin Allen Foster is a Texas-based writer with a background in southern folklore and religion. His work captures the essence of the human condition, the scars left to us by our families, and the small moments that make up the linear labor of life. Outside of writing, Austin finds inspiration in all things Louisiana, especially the eclectic gumbo pot that is New Orleans.IG | Substack