The Parable of the Cogwheels | Alexander T. Damle

            One day Francis Grant McDonald woke up, though memory of going to asleep escaped him, and all about him he could hear a great low roar. When his eyes opened it was dark, black as pitch though not so black as that time he was locked in a windowless basement by his stepfather for three days, but too dark to see much, just the sound of that low roar, metallic, steel, glimmering steel against steel turning churning plates of steel against plates of steel, car crash nightblood.

            So he waited for his eyes to adjust to the light and he shifted around a bit because whatever he was lying on was cold and it hurt his back, bad back, football injury childhood cheerleaders lonely thought with the uniform he could fuck a cheerleader but then he realized he didn’t want to fuck a cheerleader and that was an awkward locker room conversation and then that day his own teammate ran him down on the field and it was just an accident (coach said, teammate said, saw eyes turn to him, body shift) but his back has been screwed up since then and now it’s giving him trouble then his eyes adjust.

            Above him the sound explains itself in giant gears the size of big men or small trees turning over and over about points of centre axis connected to seeming nothings, dripping occasionally with engine oil color of night soil, and then he looks down and it looks like a steel girder maybe as wide across as he is and then he looks over the edge of girder. More gears pounding away into nothing and he thinks what would happen if he had shifted in the darkness and he had fallen into the gears, they not far below the girder, not more than six feet, how would pain have felt in that perfect dark? (belt buckle), (doesn’t love him anymore), (car crashes again, life theme).

            Before him though is the biggest gear, at least his height times five, and behind him much the same, and these gears turn upwards with motion gentle and lumbering like high school football captain plus twenty years, brain damage, quiet, weight gain, wife beating, dead end job, meatloaf for dinner again? But above it is another gear this one up too and above it another gear pattern much the same and he looks down and he looks up and he recognizes down is not an option and sides too far to reach and they but more cogwheels, these not so perfectly situated for virtiguous climb.

            So onto cogwheel edge he grips, moist, oily, slick, can just hold on, scraping off metal with fingernail tips, good thing he didn’t trim them, and he feels his body pulled upwards and sick sinking feeling in his stomach and his arms aren’t strong anymore, used to be like ropes, toned them, Robert liked that it was what got them talking and who would have guessed rope arms could be start of something like that and it's over now but it sure was something before it was nothing.

            And up and up the cogwheel climbs, Francis clinging to its face sheer, fingernails skittering but holding death to life and backwards again, opposition to inevitable, climb up, then next cogwheel and he knows he has to move before he gets dragged between the cogwheels, body popping like overripe melon, not enough light here for that shattered watermelon colour, and just before final moment, life now before death, he grabs onto wheel above him, and this one grip is harder, negative grip he thinks its called or maybe that’s something else, either way vertical part ways towards him and he’s slipping but wheel seems to be rising faster and before he can fall he is high enough to lock feet (remembered to remove feet from last cogwheel at just last minute, right minute, could have been finality) and clarify grip, and upwards on second cogwheel now he climbs.

            Up and up and up and he glances down to see the girder and it seems not so far as it should seem and he still can’t remember falling asleep and can’t know how he woke up here and just knows he did wake up and the oil on the wheels is gumming up his hands, sticking together but sliding off the metal, and everything hurts and he wishes he’d bothered to use that pull up bar he got God knows why, would’ve helped now, but he’s moving and he looks up and he thinks he sees light or maybe it's an illusion but

            Very suggestion, notion, idea, theory, light at end of tunnel, point of hope against the darkness, star singular on cloud socked night, spurs onwards new strength in arms and two more cogwheels he rides and he thinks maybe he can do this and though the light seems not closer and in fact seems fainter he knows in his heart he is approaching fast and that the light shall soon be with him and he shall be free of this Hell and all shall thenceforth be good.

            Maybe call back that guy from that bar, he seemed nice and maybe go visit his mom at the retirement home, no wait, dead, keeps forgetting, not callous, just hard thing to force self to remember, can’t just sink in like into water, hard thing to believe, death, especially one so close. Should have called that guy back. Visited more.

            But his arms are giving out and his fingers are slipping more and more and his shoes what tread once had is now coated thick with oil and all is slipping and falling and all burns and then he looses his grip and he meant not to loose his grip but he loses his grip.

            As he falls through the darkness the light seems but a dream of fresh baked bread cooked with cinnamon and apples on Autumn night long gone, kid again, happy again, never happy, but the bread was there and his mom was too and it was good and it was warm and the night was beautiful and the stars all above called to him and were there and maybe the light and the stars and the bread were all made of the same stuff and he’s falling and he feels air rushing under him, air tastes sour and wrong, and he’s falling.

            And then he hits hard, feels right ankle snap immediately, screams but no one can hear him so he doesn’t scream and just opens lips and rushes air through lungs, tongue forms pattern of tongues, and he feels leg being pulled under but immediate moment before impact, pain, fingers grabbed something, looks up, girder, and his leg is being pulled under and there is no word for the pain because pain is an easy word and this isn’t easy and he reminds himself he can’t pass out, must free his leg, shock will save him from the pain, just has to stay awake, and he pulls and his arms strain and pop and pull and that word again pain said too easy, wrong, and but still he pulls loose somehow his leg, and onto the girder he pulls his body and lets it fall there discarded behind 7-11 on county highway fast food wrapper used condom homeless man.

            He looks now at his leg in front of him and below the knee it exists not but bleeding seems minimal by grace of God and he pulls off his shirt, tears it into bandage, staunches the blood flow, then lays back, pain subsiding.

            And he lays there for a long time he doesn’t know how long because now the light seems practically non-existent and even if it had stayed with him it was unchanging so time was unchanging too, but it doesn’t matter because the light is gone, and he tries to measure time by the sounds of the gears, but every time he thinks he has some scheme reliable to his purposes, they seem to speed up or slow down.

            And eventually his leg stops screaming at him and his arms feel rested, grown stronger even maybe for the stress and pain of his first attempt at a climb, so he pulls himself, half crawl, one leg now, to the cogwheel in front of him, and he grabs on with his two hands (a blessing) and begins once again his ascent.