Earth spun one rotation every twenty-four hours, tides rose and fell, the moon waxed and waned, and every July Pamela Burgess won TPRK Realty’s highest award.
Prior ceremonies saw certificates, ink pens, and bottles of wine surrendered to the sound of polite applause. This year, the award had merited a lapel pin—gold-on-black lettering spelling the firm's initials with a diamond star twinkling in the upper right corner.
Pamela flirted with the bauble in her car's visor mirror.
Under the July sun, the tar pit highway boiled and gummed, fresh asphalt exhaling forever chemicals and popping brain cells like microscopic water balloons. Tires inched forward. Traffic crawled. But the pin sweetened the moment.
Top Producer and Achievement of Excellence. She whispered the honors, tasting last night's celebration merlot on the words, reveling in the audience's expressions: Her drama-school-dropout receptionist’s clenched smile. Her half bald broker’s raised eyebrows threatening to roll off the back of his head. Amanda Jansen, who was so sure she'd break Pamela's winning streak that she stood up when the award was announced. The scarlet of her face had matched the banquet hall's cheap linen.
The rusty red pickup in front of Pamela screeched to a halt. Smashing her brakes, she swore.
Slapping the right turn signal, she glided towards the exit leading down to the industrial district, sitting mostly empty on the weekend.
There were clients waiting, and she'd never been late to a showing.
Pausing for another car at the bottom of the exit ramp, she turned left, speeding as she waited for the GPS to reroute her.
The pin glistened in the mirror. Grinned at her. Bounced into her curls and rubbed dew into her complexion. Nobody triumphed like she did.
Dropping her eyes back to the road, she perceived that the yellow line was on the wrong side of the car.
A pale van turned into the intersection.
Swinging away, dirty-white and rust flooded her window. The explosion of two tons of plastic and metal, folding together like fingers, cracked her body.
The lights went out.
When she opened her eyes, the van was gone.
She examined herself in the mirror for injuries. Finding none, Pamela forced her door open, clinging to the vehicle’s crumpled black shell, wobbling out of her seat. She felt no pain.
Her fingertips leapt to the lapel pin. Finding it, she closed her eyes and exhaled, zooming in on next steps.
Police needed to be called. So did the clients. And a tow truck.
Pamela slid back into her seat, fumbling for her phone and dialing. Four descending musical notes signaled the call was cut short.
She pulled it away from her ear and studied the screen. No bars.
Grabbing her purse, she looked up and down the street. She was alone. The sky was beige, light filtered through smog. Factories and shipping warehouses lined the road as far as she could see, blocking the phone’s reception.
Returning to the highway meant struggling uphill to a hellhole covered in traffic and wet asphalt. It'd be easier finding a break in the buildings.
She hurried down the gravel-and-scrub-covered curb, her phone raised to the sky. By now, she was late, and the clients were at the house. Probably typing a merciless review. Pamela broke into a jog, the only noise the clip-clop of her heels.
Turning a bend, she spied an old railroad tunnel. Beyond, the buildings ended.
She ran. “Yes yes yes yes yes.”
On either side of the track, objects swished by. Potted plants. Autographed photos. A baseball glove. Musical instruments—electric guitars to grand pianos. Wigs. Shoes. Watches. A twisting, red modern sculpture. Cell phones. Wedding dresses. The leavings of a hundred lives.
Pamela halted before the tunnel, studying a line of gold glinting from the ground. She bent down and dug it out of the dirt. Factory grime couldn't hide the truth of it. It was a bracelet, made of yellow gold roses with a diamond at the center of each. Worth tens of thousands of dollars.
“That's not yours.”
Pamela stumbled back, pressing her hand to her chest.
On the track, between her and the tunnel, stood a man. He was tall with dark skin and dressed in a black suit—faded, but good quality. His hands rested in his coat pockets. His face shone, untroubled. His feet were bare.
She stared at him. “I'm sorry, it was just sitting here on the ground. Is it yours?”
He smiled and tapped a china teapot with his toe. “None of this belongs to anyone.”
She placed the bracelet back where she found it. “I didn't mean to bother you. I was in an accident down the road, but I've called the police, and they should be here soon, so I better get back to my car.”
She swiveled and began walking, but the man chuckled. “You can't call anyone from here. You need to get to the other side of the tunnel.”
A heaviness behind her pin began to ache her left collarbone.
Massaging the discomfort, she spun back to face him. “Thank you, but I'm sure there's another way.”
He shook his head. “Trust me, I've been here a long time. If there were, I'd know about it.”
Giving him a wide berth, Pamela glued her eyes to him and hurried towards the tunnel. “Then, I'll be on my way. Thank you.”
The man smiled. “You can't go through until you've paid the toll.”
There was no way she could outrun him. If she made it back to the highway, she could flag down help, but he'd overtake her before she had the chance.
The ache in her clavicle radiated.
Her hands trembled as she dug through her purse, tearing open her wallet. “I'd be happy to pay. I've got cash here—twenty, forty, sixty—would that be enough? No? How about a hundred? Tell you what, I'll give you the whole hundred and sixty, and we have a deal.”
She thrust the cash at him, but he was still as stone.
Pressure surrounded the tenderness in her collarbone.
“I've got some credit cards, all with high limits, or my phone, it's only a month old.”
Wallet and phone fell from her quaking fingers. Kneeling, she scooped them into her purse.
A stone jutting up from the ground was shuffled in with the rest.
Rising, she dusted herself off. “And, of course, this would be between us. The authorities don't need to find out.”
A half-smirk lifted the corner of the man's mouth. “None of that stuff is any good here.”
Pamela's fingertips brushed the rock in her bag. “Then, how do I pay the toll?”
The man's eyes rolled over the objects peppering the dirt. “Like the ones who came before, you've got to leave behind what's holding you back.”
Pain swelled behind the pin. It was part of her, and the man was trying to amputate.
He strode towards her, his hand open. “You've got to let it go.”
His empty palm was a bottomless pit, a place to fade into nothing and no one, to be less than herself. Every angle of her life reflected superior in the pin’s facets. It was command. Triumph. A thousand conquered hills, and she was ruler of them all. It was her kingdom and she its queen.
Wrapping her fingers around the rock in her purse, she swung, bashing the man in the temple, and fled into the tunnel.
At the other end was a dim, parched glow.
Gaining it, she skidded to a stop.
Before her yawned the opening to another tunnel, surrounded by photos, musical instruments, wedding dresses. At her feet lay a bracelet of gold roses and diamonds.
Spinning around, she gazed back the way she'd come. The track and the road stretched uncovered around a bend and out of sight.
She wasn't standing in front of another tunnel. This was the same one.
The man was gone.
Pawing her head, she searched for injuries, but the only soreness in her whole being was the one throbbing under the pin.
Aiming her body at the tunnel entrance, she sped through towards the end.
When she stopped, the bracelet was at her feet.
Racing in a third time, she stumbled forward, landing with her cheek pressed into a gold rose.
Understanding flooded her mind. She'd never make it to that showing or any showings. Never pop the cork on another merlot. Loop her signature PB on a contract. Accept an award.
Of all her life and accomplishments, only the pin remained.
Her fingers clutched her clavicle, grown heavy, the trinket a rope and weight hanging from the bone.
The weight of triumph, she thought, grinning. No one can carry it like I can, and no one can take it away.
Pamela rose and gazed out over her new kingdom.
A tide of darkness swelled, lapping at and washing away the buildings, the street, the track, the sky.
Hoisting her left shoulder up with her right hand, she straightened and marched into the black.
END
If you enjoyed this story . . .
Acheron
A man’s sins follow him into the grave. Arthur believed that. He’d never made a mistake, not since he’d been a child, and those wrongs were all accounted for. He was a man of his word. A man of principle.
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
Your writing really makes the story more gripping. Great premise delivered well by great writing. Keep writing, fellow writer!
Love it. It’s very you