A New Story Most Thursdays
Hello Friends and Neighbors, and welcome to Thursday Stories. Looking back over my herd of short stories, I realize that more than three dozen of the little rascals have appeared only in print. Some of you may have forked over the dough for this or that literary review, but I don’t expect everyone to buy all of the reviews all of the time. And so, drumroll please, I give you Thursday Stories. I’m not guaranteeing a new story every Thursday, but I will do my best until all the print-only tales have been set free.
This week’s edition of Thursday Stories features The Good Fence. The Good Fence first appeared in Blue Moon Review, published in 2021. Without further ado, I give you another edition of Thursday Stories. I hope you enjoy it.
The Good Fence
by Marco Etheridge
Roberto Diaz glared through his kitchen window at the wooden fence that defined his world. The fence was not tall. A short woman could lean her elbow over the top rail of it, chat with her neighbor, share insights about flowering bulbs or proper turning of the soil. Roberto tried to remember why he’d built the thing so damn low, but the fever that wracked his brain was making him stupid.
Gloria had wanted the fence to be low enough to let the world in. She called it a border, not a barrier. So he built the fence short, back when they were both young and alive, and the neighbors were good. Now he was alone, and the new neighbor was not good, and he wished he’d made that damn fence ten feet tall and hung concertina wire along the top.
Roberto’s morning took another downhill jolt when he saw his neighbor’s stupid Swedish car pull into the driveway beyond the fence. Skinny Claudette, with her weird name and the strange hours she kept, coming home at breakfast time or in the middle of the night. She was some sort of nurse, always prancing off to work in an outfit that looked like pajamas.
She popped out of her car like a jack-in-the-box, crazy red hair tied up on top of her head. She turned his way, gave him a smile and a wave. Roberto ducked away from the window. The woman gave him the creeps. She had no right to be in that house, living there all alone.
That was the Barry house. Twenty-five years they lived there, a decent married couple, him Irish, her Mexican. They raised two kids in that house. Maria Barry was a good neighbor, a good mother, and a good Catholic, just like his Gloria.
It was a heart attack that took John Barry. Maria went to live with her daughter. Gloria took sick not long after that, and Roberto’s world fell in around him. Nothing would ever be the same, and now he was stuck with a weirdo neighbor and a too-short fence.
This Claudette woman was at least forty, maybe forty-five, but she was not married. What was wrong with her? A good woman should be married. Roberto never saw any men coming around the place, only women. Strange men would be improper, but somehow the women seemed improper as well. And she had a cat, an ugly beast that prowled into his yard and did its filthy business in Gloria’s flower beds.
Roberto blinked at the tidy kitchen. His eyes struggled to recognize the room that held thirty years of happy breakfasts, decades of evenings spent watching Gloria bustle around the stove. He shook his head and sank into one of the wooden chairs. This was wrong, all of it. The room swam around him as he lay his head on the table.
All he wanted was to feel Gloria’s soothing hand on his forehead, her cooling touch, that sweet, quiet voice telling him everything would be fine. But Gloria was gone, a year gone now, and he was alone in the kitchen and burning alive. The doctors had not saved his Gloria, and neither had the nurses, nurses just like that witch who lived next door. No, they did not save her, she who so deserved to be saved. At the end, they said they had done everything that could be done, but their everything had not kept his beautiful wife alive.
He raised his head at the ringing of the telephone, but he did not rise to answer it. It was too far across the room, too much trouble. That would be one of the kids checking up on him. They were always worrying and fussing. This was just a flu, nothing important, not even worth talking about.
The ringing of the phone stabbed into Roberto’s already aching brain. He let his head sink back onto the table and waited until the ringing died away. Dios Mio, he just needed to rest, some peace and quiet, that was all.
Later, the phone rang again, but this time Roberto could not raise his head. Then somehow, the ringing changed to the babble of too many voices talking at once. It sounded like the old bus station when he came home on leave. Announcements blared over a bad loudspeaker, and people were shouting, and everything echoed so that no one could hear anyone, but Gloria would be there. Young and beautiful, she would fall into his arms.
There were people all around him now, and then his body was floating in the air. There was the sky above him, and the tree branches reached down as if to brush his face. Doors slammed, and the sunlight fell into his eyes. He felt the lurch as the bus started rolling, but if this was the bus, why was he laid out flat? Everything was different these days, so maybe people lie down on buses now. Gloria would be there to meet him after the long ride, so he tried to get some sleep.
Roberto drifted with the pleasant dream, a bus ride with Gloria waiting at the end. Then the dream turned into a nightmare. He heard the metal clang of doors opening, and then he was tilted through the air. Robots were looking down on him, strange beings with plexiglass faces. He was swept down a corridor where a singular smell washed over him like a drowning wave.
Hospital, this was a hospital, and the stark realization chased away the tendrils of his dream. He was wide awake now. Eyes peered down at him through plastic shields, and muffled voices asked him questions. He found his voice, pleaded with them. No, no, not here, this is where people die, this is where my Gloria died, this is where it all ends. No, please, take me back, take me back home. He gasped for breath, tried to make them hear his words, but first the faces and then the corridor swirled into darkness and were gone.
* * *
The words reached deep under the water, into the black depths where Roberto struggled to breathe. He was in darkness at the bottom of the sea, amongst the strange creatures that lurked there, and they were watching him die. The words coiled about his ankles and wrists, lifting him, bearing him to the surface. Bright lights broke over him as he gasped for oxygen.
Roberto recognized the voice that was speaking, and that recognition snapped him back into consciousness. He was in a hospital bed surrounded by machines and tubes. Some of the tubes were hooked to his body. His eyes followed the lines of the tubes until he saw the faces. The plexiglass shields cast weird reflections and masks covered their mouths, but he knew that voice. He knew those eyes. It was his neighbor, Claudette Jenkins.
— Mister Diaz, are you awake now? It’s good to have you back with us. Can you hear me?
Roberto nodded his acknowledgment, unable to find the breath needed for speech.
— Good. You’re in the intensive care ward, Mister Diaz. You’re having trouble breathing. Your body is not getting enough oxygen. We’re going to intubate you to help your lungs cope with this. Do you understand what I’m saying?
He tried to control his thoughts against a wave of fear. Get a grip on yourself, Hombre. You are stronger than this. You’ve been through worse. You are a combat veteran, Viet Nam, you got to show this woman what you’re made of. He steeled himself, looked her in the eye, gave her another curt nod of the head.
— This is going to be a little uncomfortable, but it will be easier if you can cooperate with us. We’re going to slip a scope and a breathing tube down your throat. Don’t fight the tube if you can help it. Okay, we’re going to begin now. Just relax and let the team get this done.
The masked woman signaled to the others hovering over him, and then Roberto felt their hands on his body. He wanted to protest, fight back, fight them all. Fear surged through his brain, telling him to claw his way out of this bed and escape from the hospital. It was only stubborn pride that saved him. There was no way he would show weakness, not in front of this horrible woman.
He gagged as something entered his throat. They were killing him, choking him in his bed. He fought back the panic, forced his mind to focus. The thing in his throat pushed further, a foreign presence probing him, searching. After an eternity, the pressure eased, and the hovering figures moved back.
— We’re finished now, Mister Diaz. The oxygen is going to be flowing now. You should start feeling stronger soon. Try to relax and sleep if you can. The nurses are here if you need anything. Just push the red call button. It’s right here next to your hand.
He felt her hand on his, moist latex against his bare skin. He flinched at her touch, and she removed her hand. She gave him a long look. He saw her mouth move under her mask. It was so hard to focus his eyes. Was she laughing at him? I’ll show you. You watch me. I will show you what tough looks like. And then she was gone.
Time lurched past his hospital bed in fits and starts, now slowed to a crawl, now whirring into a blur of frantic images speeding past. Masked figures appeared and disappeared. Around his head, a cluster of machines pulsed and chimed and wheezed. The fires of hell coursed through his body and filled his brain. He tried to cry out against the raging flames, but no sound came from his lips.
* * *
Sunlight glares down through the smoke of the firefight. The air is pierced by the shriek of angry metal. Corporal Diaz presses himself flat into the sawgrass and fires another burst into the trees on the far side of the landing zone. Spent brass fountains into the air, tumbling and spinning.
Fifty yards out, a downed helicopter lies on its side, gouting sheets of flames and billows of greasy smoke. Fingers of fire grope across the scorched ground, crawling towards the body of a wounded man. Corporal Diaz hears him screaming, that son of a bitch Morris, goddamn him. No way, no way, any grunt on his feet is going to get cut in half most rikki-tik.
Then the gunships are in the air behind his platoon, raining holy hell down on those VC bastards, lighting the whole damn tree line up. Diaz is on his feet before his brain can say no. He’s running crouched down like a monkey, as if that will save his stupid ass. He can’t let Morris burn, just can’t do it, so he’s running and cursing, knowing he’s going to die.
He’s down beside the wounded man, using the poor bastard as a shield. Morris is still screaming, and he hears his own voice, I got you buddy, I got you, and Diaz is trying to slap a field dressing over the gut wound, hoping Morris’ intestines stay put.
A million angry steel insects scythe through the air above his head as the platoon pours fire into the tree line. Diaz prays they don’t take him down as well. He grabs Morris by the arm and digs a shoulder into his bleeding guts. It takes everything he’s got to hoist Morris onto his shoulder and lunge to his feet. He takes the first staggering steps back towards the line, lurching under the wounded man’s weight, and then the world goes silent.
The thunder of the choppers, the cacophony of automatic weapons, the dull thump of mortars, every sound falls away. Diaz can hear his ragged breath and the heavy pounding of his combat boots against the dry ground. Morris is moaning, and his moans mix with the scraping of sawgrass against his fatigues. Outside the bubble, the world is exploding and dying. Here inside, it is so quiet Diaz hears the jingle of his dog tags as he sucks in another ragged lungful of air.
Diaz plunges forward, and the bubble travels with him. Then he knows, knows without a doubt in his heart that it’s that crazy chica Gloria. She told you, looking up with fierce tears in her beautiful eyes. I will pray for you, Roberto, every day I will pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe that you come home safe and we will be married. That’s it, that’s what’s happening, Hombre. Gloria and her prayers are saving you and this heavy bastard Morris, and you better never forget it.
Then he is falling to the ground beside the medics, and the bubble melts away into the sawgrass around him. The medics grab Morris. One of them hovers over Diaz, but he waves him away. He feels the sweat sheeting over his face and the sticky blood that has run down his spine and into the crack of his ass. Diaz rolls over onto his back, stares at the sunlight. The smoke and noise wash over him, and he feels like sleeping.
* * *
Roberto rose into the bright light and the sound of beeping machines. Figures hovered over his hospital bed, and so too did a horrible stench. Dios Mio, he had soiled himself, a grown man shitting the bed. The shame was worse than the stench. Roberto wanted to crawl away and die, anything to avoid those eyes looking down at him.
They rolled him, cleaned him, diapered him like an infant. They spoke to him with kind voices, but Roberto had slipped away beyond caring. Nothing could be worse than this, nothing. He wished only for death to find him and take him.
He felt a hand on his arm. The touch calmed the bile of panic pressing up in his throat. It was her. He recognized her eyes behind the strange reflections that patterned the surface of her face shield. Roberto saw kindness in her eyes and bone-tired fatigue.
— Nothing to worry about, Mister Diaz. We do this every day. I’m going off shift now, but I will see you tomorrow, right? You get some sleep tonight. I want to see you strong and stubborn in the morning.
With another squeeze on his arm, she blended into the background and vanished.
Evening faded to night, and the lights dimmed. The semicircle of devices around the head of Roberto’s hospital bed beeped and chimed. Bulky ghosts cloaked in hazmat suits materialized in the gloom, adjusted a dial or checked an IV, then disappeared. The night drew on, and all was still.
Roberto awoke to find a woman standing at the foot of his bed. She wore no gown. No mask hid her face. She was both young and old beyond years. Her brown face smiled down on him. The air around her shimmered with a blue glow. Roberto tried to speak, tried to raise his head from the pillow, but his body would not respond. The woman reached out one arm, and he felt the touch of her hand on his foot. A cooling sensation ran up his leg and through his body. The fever in his head seemed to fade. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the woman was gone. Roberto’s eyelids fluttered as he fell into a deep sleep.
When the morning came, it was a real morning, full of detail and clarity and pain. Roberto was more than conscious; he was awake. He felt the ventilator tube in his raw throat, the stiffness of his back against the mattress. He rolled his head on the pillow and looked around the busy room. One of the three beds was empty, yet he knew they had all been full the night before. Nurses were moving about the cramped space. He did not recognize Claudette among them. Roberto needed her now, needed someone to tell him that this was all real, that he was really awake.
Then she was standing beside him, her gloved fingers gripping the chromium rails of the bed. Roberto tried to grimace a smile around the tube and tape of the ventilator. Claudette studied his eyes, then scanned the array of machines.
— Good morning, Mister Diaz. Looks like it is a good morning for you. Your condition is a lot better.
Roberto raised his hand and pantomimed writing. Claudette pulled a notepad and marker from somewhere behind his head. She uncapped the marker, handed it to him, and held the notebook. He penned large block letters across an entire line.
ROBERTO
Claudette smiled and nodded.
— Roberto it is, but not when the docs are around, okay.
He gave her a thumbs up, then pointed in the direction of the empty bed. She looked over her shoulder and then back, her gaze leaving the room and traveling somewhere far away. Roberto knew that look, the thousand-yard stare he had seen so many times on the faces of so many men. Pain and despair were etched into the lines around her eyes, and the grim realization that the end of all this was somewhere far beyond any visible horizon.
A gentle tap of the marker on the notebook brought her back. She came back into herself and looked down at him while he scrawled something on the paper.
I’M SORRY
— There’s nothing to be sorry about, Roberto. You had a good night. Your vitals are much stronger. You keep this up, and they’ll have to move you out of here.
Roberto shook his head and tapped the notebook.
BAD NEIGHBOR
— It’s true you’re not the chattiest neighbor I’ve ever had, but I know bad neighbors, and you aren’t one.
He shook his head again, tapped the notebook for emphasis.
NEVER INVITED YOU
— Never invited me for what?
COFFEE COOKIES
GLORIA WOULD HAVE
Claudette looked into Roberto’s eyes. He could see a smile pushing past the mask over her mouth.
— I’m sorry I never had a chance to meet her, Roberto. I hear she was a lovely lady.
Roberto smiled and raised his hand to the notepad.
I MAKE BAD COFFEE
Claudette laughed out loud. The notebook shook in her hand.
— Okay, it’s a deal, but I’ll make the cookies. In the meantime, I’ve got places to go and people to see. Keep doing what you’re doing, Roberto. I want to throw you out of here as soon as possible. You’re taking up space.
He tried to mime a laugh around the tube.
Her hand reached for his forehead, and for the briefest of moments, he felt her cooling touch. A quiet voice filled his head, telling him everything would be fine, but it was not the voice of his nurse and neighbor. Claudette raised her hand, smiled down at Roberto, and turned away.
Roberto lay back in the bed and saw himself looking out his kitchen window at the vision of a bright world. Below the window, a small brown woman leaned her elbow on the top rail of a short wooden fence. She was chatting with their neighbor, a tall red-haired woman. Roberto tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing, then turned to the coffee machine.
Fini
You can find Blue Moon Review here:
https://www.bluemoonreview.org/
That’s it for this week’s edition of Thursday Stories. More stories are coming your way. How will you know when a new story breaks? Glad you asked, Friends. Read On! Drumroll and… Meanwhile, don’t miss any upcoming stories. You can stay tuned for all the latest by following the MEF blog:
https://www.marcoetheridgefiction.com/whats-new-in-marcos-world-the-blog/
Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work has been featured in over one hundred and fifty reviews across Canada, Australia, Europe, the UK, and the USA. Marco’s short story “Power Tools” was nominated for Best of the Web for 2023 and is the title of his latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor for a ‘Zine called Hotch Potch. In his other life, Marco travels the world with his lovely wife Sabine.
And… if you desire more stories, look no further. The Good Fence appears in my short story collection Orphan Lies. Why not grab your very own copy:
Orphaned Lies – Collected Stories
The Journey of Orphaned Lies
The fifteen stories contained within these pages tell tales of love lost and love found, of darkness at the end of life, and light at the beginning. Unforgettable characters struggle against the impersonal forces of the outside world, and against the flaws they carry within themselves. There is quiet heroism and unwanted heroes discarded, acts of defiance and of acceptance. The inhabitants of these pages learn who they are, and sometimes, who they are not. Enter here, Reader, and join in the journey that is Orphaned Lies.
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