Taylor Thornburg

Short Fiction

Jonah unfastened and fastened and refastened his belt. Groaning. He groaned long and low. He groaned like an ox. An untreated ulcer. He doubled over, fussed with his belt, and groaned again. Come on, come on, come on, he thought. Come on. Jonah tightened his belt. He shuffled around his apartment, from the living room to the front door. Donned a cap and trench coat. He grabbed the cane that leaned by his coat rack. Felt his way along walls and railings. The clack of the cane on the stairs and his footfalls beat a steady rhythm, clack-brush-pause-brush-clack. Each step echoed in his knees. Pain rippled from foot to knee where it pooled and rippled back. Come on, come on, come on.

Jonah made it out of his apartment building to rest on the stoop. The weather was mild and sweet – an autumn day. He liked autumn. He liked the leaves. He minded the way their colors turned – orange and gold and red and brown – less than he minded the way they crunched under foot when they fell. Crisp. Nothing felt crisp like leaves at his age. Come on, come on, come on.

Jonah meandered down Sweet Street. He spat at the rumbling cars and buses on the road. Nothing about driving appealed to him anymore. It hurt worse than walking – the sounds, the fumes, the fury, the cruel and anonymous aggression. Jonah relied on his feet. Sometimes agonizing but always true. He still trusted them. Come on, come on, come on. 

Jonah made good time to Sweet Street Park. Settled into his favorite bench. He felt better in the park. He smiled for the silence. Perfect silence. No birds in the trees – the birds flew south for winter. No kids playing games – the kids were in school. Jonah dozed on the bench. “Come on,” Jonah welcomed the rest.

Bitter cold woke him up again. Snow? Jonah dusted his lap. He dusted his arms. His fingers ached for the cold. He dusted his cap and shoved his hands in his coat’s pockets. Snow? He thought again. Snow and black skies. When did the sun set? He leapt to his feet. Jonah surveyed the park by the glow of the string lights in the trees and the decorated evergreens in the windows in the buildings around him. Jonah wandered home. “Come on,” he pushed through the cold.

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Snow flattened under foot, thick on the sidewalk, thicker on the ground. Slow at first, he quickened his pace – faster, faster. Jonah rushed the way he rushed before he got old. No stars in the sky, he rushed by the lights in the trees, the trees in the windows. They reflected an unfamiliar figure. Jonah had white hair and a crooked posture. His reflection had thick brown hair and stood upright. Bewildered, Jonah did not notice his reflection. Christmas already? He thought. Come on, come on, come on.

Jonah leapt the stairs to his apartment when he reached the building. He rushed to the door. He stopped with one hand on the knob. He heard rustling. Footsteps. Pots and pans. Who could this be? Jonah lived alone ever since his divorce. He pressed an ear to the door. Pressed his hands flat. He smelled familiar smells – roast beef and carrots and mashed potatoes and garlic and green beans sautéed with shallots. His ex-wife used to cook that way for Christmas. “Julia?” Jonah opened the door. “Is that you?” He greeted his wife. His wife greeted him from the kitchen. “You’re late, Jonah. Come on.”

Julia looked exactly like Jonah remembered her – short blonde bob, little makeup, large brown eyes, statuesque nose and jaw, subtle jewelry, gold stud earrings, a ring to match, a trim figure in a red blouse and white pants, reindeer oven mitts. Jonah marveled at her. He had not admired those features for thirty years. She did not admire his. Julia spooned green beans into a serving bowl. She turned off a burner. She checked a pot. She opened the oven.

“What year is it?” Jonah asked aloud. Julia ignored him.

 “Go check on Donny,” she said and sighed. “Dinner’s almost ready.” Jonah obediently crept to his son’s room. He passed the Christmas tree he remembered, a special thing – silver, tinsel, and tin, lit from below by a rotating light behind candy-colored gels. Julia would take it in the divorce. Come on, come on, come on.

He checked on his son, opening the door to the bedroom quietly so as not to wake him. He was sick. Beads of sweat shimmered on his forehead. The boy took long, belabored breaths. Jonah loved him. When he grew up, his love would be unrequited. He would leave the way Jonah left his father but going further, calling less, writing even more infrequently. Jonah did not hesitate. He laid down in the boy’s bed and held him close until Julia called him back to the kitchen. “Come on, Jonah.”

“How is he?” she asked. She set a final platter on the dining table. The roast beef made Jonah’s stomach turn. The hunk of meat looked too much like his feverish son. “He’s sleeping,” Jonah said. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. He loved that lock. He loved that ear. Jonah approached his wife from behind. He did not want to miss his opportunity. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Come on, Julia.”

“What are you doing?” Julia asked, flat.

“He’s sleeping,” Jonah whispered in her ear. He loved her perfume. “He’s going to sleep all night, Julia.” He kissed her neck. Julia swatted at him.

“Stop it, Jonah.”

“Come on,” Jonah insisted. He gripped her harder, pressed her harder. “Come on. He’s going to sleep all night, and it’s Christmas.”

“No,” Julia protested. She slapped Jonah’s arms. She pushed him away. Jonah reached back, and she raised her hands. “Stop it.”

“Come on,” Jonah pleaded. He took one step forward, and Julia slapped him across the face. Hard. Jonah saw stars. His vision tunneled. He did not see, but he felt himself falling. Falling, falling, he flew.

Flung from the passenger seat, Jonah saw his father in the driver’s seat – slack in the arms, folded over the steering wheel, drunk. The truck veered off the road at forty-three miles per hour and hit a tree. Jonah looked to his father for comfort. He looked to his father for help – anything would count. His father did nothing. Jonah wept. He begged his father. “Come on.”

No seatbelt, the collision flung him into the glass. He later learned that to break through, he would have had to be traveling at least fifty miles per hour and have had to have been larger. Jonah did not know to count his blessings. He had hardly learned to count. He was five at the time of the accident. He blacked out when he hit the glass. Went to the place he lived before he was born and then the place he would live after he died. Never said much about either.“ The two places are different.” “They’re not what you would expect.” His audience usually rolled their eyes at this, sarcastically. “Come on.”

“Come on, come on, come on,” he heard the prayer in the dark. “Come on, Jonah,” his mother pleaded. “Come on.” Jonah splashed water on his face. Focusing, he searched the mirror in a discotheque bathroom under blinking red and blue lights. He fingered his cheeks. No blood. No stitches. The faint memory of the scars from the accident, maybe. Twenty-seven still. Vaguely handsome. Brown hair. Clear eyes, wide now from fear. Breathing heavily – panic and a long night of dancing throttled his breath. 

“Excuse me.” Jonah approached another man washing his hands. “Excuse me, but what day is it?”

“Come on, man,” the stranger said. “It’s Saturday.” He left the bathroom.

Saturday. Jonah loved Saturdays. Saturdays were for dancing. His father never liked dancing. He did not tolerate horseplay at home. As an adult, Jonah lived a long way from home. Distance between himself and his past, which still lingered like a large stone in his belly that weighed heavy. Jonah danced for joy. He sang to purge that stone. “Gimme, gimme, gimme,” he liked to sing with Abba.

He stumbled home in the early hours. He tripped, but he did not fall. Jonah loved to dance, but he had enough for the night. Still he could not help grooving to an imagined rhythm. The night air was sweet, albeit speckled with the ripe aroma of trash bags full to bursting along the way. The stars in heaven lighted his way and made the concrete glimmer underfoot. At home, he went straight to the bathroom to get ready for bed. He gasped when he flicked on the light. He did not recognize the face in the mirror. Deep wrinkles, yellow teeth, and thin white hair. He had deep jowls and a bent back and glossy eyes. He studied his reflection for a moment.

Jonah fumbled back to the bathroom door. His apartment was empty and cold, unlike a twenty-something’s home. Unlike a loveless home. Jonah shivered. His eyes passed over stacks of newspapers, dirty plates on the living room’s coffee table, his coat hung on the coatrack. Jonah tugged at his sleeve. He wore a woolen cardigan. He did not recall removing his coat. He did not recall his wife leaving. He did not recall his friends letting him leave the dancefloor to wander home. He found himself suddenly and completely old and alone. Jonah turned back to the mirror. He prodded his cheeks. Where had the years gone? He wondered. “What time is it anyway?” He asked aloud. Jonah felt for the switch on the wall. The lights went out. No bother. Come on, come on, come on. Jonah groaned and rubbed his belly.

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Taylor Thornburg is an author, essayist, filmmaker, and critic based in Omaha, Nebraska. His fiction explores strange yet humane ways of being. His debut short film, Leviathan, is to be released in spring of 2023. He has fiction forthcoming in the Garfield Lake Review.

Photo Credit: Image by Robert Nathan Garlington from Pixabay