The Last Aurora by Marco Etheridge
The hotel room is cloaked in shadows that have not changed with the passage of a century. The dark room is perched above a darker cobblestone street. A single lamp casts a cone of golden light over an old man sitting in a worn armchair.
The man sits upright, gnarled hands in his lap, gray eyes alert in his head. Below the curtained windows, a taxi passes in front of the hotel. Loose cobbles shift under wet tires. The old man doesn’t hear a taxi. He hears stones grinding on ancient seabeds. The taxi rounds a narrow corner. Its squelching passage fades to silence.
The seated man is as a statue, matching the stillness of the room. There is no television, no radio, nothing to disturb or distract. He waits in silence, but his mind is not stone.
How long have they kept me here? He searches his memory, tabulating the empty time of waiting. Ten days have passed. Yes, this is the eleventh night. And the others, the enemy, they arrived just behind you. They follow you like dogs on a scent.
And how much longer in this tomb? The man shifts, sighs, waves a stiff hand through the still air. A worthless question. Why do you bother? Have they ever deigned to tell you how long you will wait, or even why you must fight? No, never once in this endless passage of time.
Questions are for scholars, not warriors. The powers will contact you when the appointed hour is come. You have spent many hours waiting for battles to commence. This is only more of the same. And so you wait.
The old man is not one given to idle questions. Who will live? Who will die? Why does he fight? These are mere distractions, and a distracted man can easily become a dead man. He does what he does because he must because he always has, always and always, back into the dimness of memory and forgetting.
And what lies at the beginning of memory, at the edge of forgetting? An image of a strong-limbed youth, a bright cold land of fjords, of stone cliffs and narrow skies. The image wavers, a vanishing mirage, and he is once more an old man in a musty room.
Beside the chair is a marble-topped table, and atop it a shaded lamp. A telephone of molded plastic squats on the marble surface. As if conjured by the man’s thoughts, the telephone begins to pulse out an electronic chime. Two pulses, a beat of silence, pulsing again, the sound punctuating the shadows.
The man consults a silver wristwatch. He lowers his arm to the chair. He counts the pauses between the rings. After the ninth ring, the phone ceases. Nine tolls of the bell, a clear message. He knows it is the last message he will receive from those that command. The next will come from the enemy.
Minutes slide past. The man rises from his chair. He stands tall and lean, unbowed despite decades of toil and struggle. Silver hair falls past his shoulders, bound at his nape by a braided leather thong. The plait of silver spills down over a coarse wool shirt, gleaming against the dark weave.
He unbuttons the heavy shirt and peels it from his body. He drapes the shirt over a carved footboard at the near end of the bed, then pulls an undershirt over his head. The revealed flesh is pale, the frame beneath it muscled and hard.
He sheds clothing until he stands naked at the foot of the bed. He stoops to extinguish the lamp. The room is engulfed in darkness. He stalks the threadbare carpet. The floor creaks beneath the weight of his bare feet. He stops before a tall window, parts the heavy curtains that block the view to the street. He is peering down through a narrow gap, seeing but unseen.
He squints through the ice-streaked glass. The city casts a feeble glow over tiled roofs. Below his room, light pools beneath two lamps that mark the entrance to the hotel. Sleet patters against the windowpanes and falls to the cobbles below. The stones glisten black or silver in the reflected wet.
There is a bar just across the narrow street. A sign above the barroom door spells out a name in an elegant script: Mimir’s Place.
The old man makes careful note of everything he sees. The façade of the bar is cut sandstone stained with spattered graffiti. A tattered awning juts out above a Belgian block sidewalk. And in the shadows beneath the awning, he sees a solitary figure draped in black.
The watcher in the window is not surprised. He does not know the black-shrouded figure’s identity, but he recognizes a sentry when he sees one.
The sentry leans against the stone wall, a shadow under shadow. He wears a long black coat, and his hands are hidden. A black hat is pulled low over the man’s brow. No flesh is exposed to the prying eyes. The old man in the window watches and waits.
The door of the bar opens, and a huge silhouette fills the doorway. A giant steps into the night. His bald pate shines in the dim light. A thick black beard hides the lower half of his face. The massive head swivels from side to side, taking in the confines of the street.
This one the watcher knows, even from two storeys above. Willem Garm, the Black Dog, a foe to be respected if not feared. The big man approaches his minion. Steam rolls from Garm’s mouth. His meaty hands weave emphatic gestures in the cold night air.
The cloaked servant leans against the stone wall, nodding his head without raising his face to his master. Garm grips his minion by the shoulder, shakes him once. Then the Black Dog turns and strides away. His hulking shadow disappears through the doorway and the door closes behind him.
The watcher at the window eases the curtains closed. He retreats a step into the dark room. You watch them and they watch you. The forces of the night are gathering, the Black Dog and his demons. Knowing this, what will you do? He walks away from the window, stands naked in the center of the room.
Will this be the end of it all, alone in this dismal place? Where are the others, your allies, your kinfolk? You wait for them, but what if they do not come? You are not an old badger trapped in his den. You have more strength than that. There are other ways.
Aye, I could go into the street, take the fight to them. I could strike the first blow and wait for the dogs to pour out of the shadows. And then? Then end it, once and for all. Fight until the last of them falls, or you fall. Yes, and with either ending be at peace.
He shakes his head. No, that is the temptation of the easy way, peace bought with the coin of selfishness, without regard for your comrades and the larger fight. This cannot be.
The shadows of the room begin to deepen to absolute blackness. Night rises from the floor, from the corners of the room. Darkness flows over him where he stands, engulfing him, drowning him beneath the smothering tide.
* * *
You stand on a frozen lake. The ice is black beneath the soles of your bare feet, a frigid barrier between arctic night and bottomless deep. Snow crystals dance and whirl over your naked flesh, but you feel no cold. Where are you? Do you know this place?
The northern horizon is ablaze with a frigid fire. Shimmering curtains of electric green dance in a solar breeze shot through with carmine and crimson. Sheets of color rise above the dark edge of the world, brilliant hues that swirl, fade, rise again.
You do know this place. You see more than just swirling color in the arctic night. You see the homeward path of the honored dead, illuminated by the shields and armor of those who guide them. Your heart floods with the desire to join them, to be on that same path, to put an end to the fight. Death seems a very small price to pay.
You begin to move, walking across the frozen surface of the lake, bare feet on black ice carrying you to the northern shore. Your pale flesh is illuminated in the alternating glow of the Aurora Borealis: The pale green of spring, the yellow of morning, the crimson of blood.
A snow-rimed meadow runs down to the shore of the frozen lake. Beyond this tufted field, a black forest of fir covers all the world to the North.
You step from the dark ice and climb the loose shingle of the beach. The sole of one foot touches the barren meadow. Brittle skeletons of winter grasses crack beneath it.
That first step is your last step. Your foot is frozen in an instant, anchored to the snowy ground. You strain against the icy bonds but cannot raise your foot to take another step. Tendrils spring from the flesh of your feet. Hungry roots spring from your body, reaching down to penetrate the frozen ground. You are bound to the soil beneath the snow.
The roots push deep into the earth. You cannot move. The clinging wooden fingers intertwine, overlap, climb over the flesh of your naked legs. The creeping tendrils weave themselves into a sheath of coarse bark, encasing your legs, your hips, binding your torso. Your body becomes the trunk of a tree, your upraised arms the crooked limbs. The northern lights still beckon, but you cannot answer.
* * *
When the hotel room swims back into focus, he is standing on the threadbare carpet. The heavy curtains have been thrown aside. He is naked, his body facing the sleet-smeared windows, his arms reaching for the shadowed ceiling. Neon light washes into the room from the blinking hotel sign outside, an alternating glow of green and red and yellow.
The man lowers his arms to his sides and stares out into the city night. He does not remember drawing back the curtains. He shakes his head to clear away the fog of fatigue and dread and grief. He turns, sees his clothing laid over the footboard of the bed. The sight of it nudges his memory, as a hunting dog pushing its head under his hand.
Don’t be an old fool. You have not yet taken complete leave of your senses. You think they have abandoned you, but that is the voice of weakness. This is not abandonment. You are not alone. You are here, you are waiting, and this is what you must do.
They will summon you when the time is right. This is no different from past battles or battles yet to come. Yes, except this may be the last. Perhaps, but only as each fight may be the last if one does not survive the battle.
That is surely the way of it. Survival writes a fresh chapter in the saga. Death writes the epilogue. He laughs out loud and the sound of his laughter fills the room.
Still chuckling, the man steps to the windows and draws closed the heavy drapes. The room is once more swathed in darkness. His hand finds the table lamp and switches it on. The empty armchair appears in a pool of light, but he does not sit. He moves through the shadows to a paneled door.
A harsh fluorescent light flickers to life, glaring sickly white over white-and-black ceramic tile. A clawfoot bathtub squats on the floor and above it a stained vinyl shower curtain hangs from a chromium ring.
The man turns a porcelain knob. Water spurts into the tub and he tests the temperature of it with outstretched fingers.
Coarse towels hang from a rack on the wall. Block letters in faded blue proclaim the Hotel Vigrid. The man pulls a towel from the rack and waits for the gushing water to run hot.
When the water nears scalding, he steps under the stream of it. Steam rises from his flesh. The slimy curtain pushes in on him as if to wrap his body in a burial shroud. He fends it off while scrubbing the pale flesh that covers his ribs. Age has loosened the once taut skin, but the muscles beneath are still hard.
The steam becomes a heavy fog that fills the room. Eyes closed, he sucks the thick warm air into his lungs. Hot water beats against his chest, his back, his shoulders. Minutes pass and he thinks only of heat, of warmth, of the blood pulsing in his body.
When the water loses its scalding edge, he reaches for the porcelain knob. He flings aside the mildewed vinyl shroud and towels himself dry. The rough towel chafes his skin pink. He laughs to himself and rubs harder.
Rubbed dry and raw, the man walks naked from the bathroom. His body is warmed to the core, and in that warmth, he feels the kindling of a familiar spark.
He crosses the dark room, feels the gritty carpet through the soles of his bare feet. He halts before the tall windows, flings the curtains aside. The room shimmers under a sheen of neon blues and greens. He dresses himself by the eerie light.
His ears catch a noise outside the room’s paneled door, a furtive sound from the hallway beyond. His fingers freeze on the buttons of his woolen shirt. There it is again, the creak of a floorboard under a slow footstep, movement more sensed than heard.
The man drops his hands to his side, turns to face the closed and bolted door. The hallway is silent, but he can sense the presence of another. There is no knock, no summons, yet he knows that someone or something is standing on the other side of the wooden barrier.
Heartbeats pulse in the silence and waiting, and with the heartbeats a flame rises, a fire kindled from one small spark. Come now at last in the final need, the flame burns away fear, torches weakness. The wait is over, and the time is now. He is ready. The heat of blood rage boils within him and the darkened room goes red with it.
* * *
The Aurora Borealis flares crimson across the arctic night. You strain against the wooden sheath that imprisons your body. Your eyes search across the frost-rimed field. You see yellow eyes gleaming from beneath the black wall of the forest. The eyes glow bright, grow dim, reappear under another dark bough.
This is the time. This is the place. You will not be bound. They cannot bind you. You wrench your arms downward and feel the crucifying bark crack beneath your strength. You suck in a breath of cold air, look to the shining light, squeeze your arms together with all the strength you have within you. The wood splinters, breaks asunder, and your arms are freed.
You flex the muscles of your body, strain against the enclosing bark, rip at it with your loosened fingers. The shell cracks and shatters. With a roar in your throat, you break free and leap out of the broken wooden shards.
More yellow eyes gleam out of the midnight darkness beneath the fir trees. You reach a mighty hand to the frozen ground, seize the largest fragment of broken wood. Swinging the weapon aloft, you send a battle cry thundering into the night.
From up and down the rocky shore, your cry is answered, again and again, rebounding across the frozen field. Your heart leaps in your chest, sending hot blood surging through your veins. They have heard the call, your sisters and brothers. You are not alone. Now is the time. Let the battle be joined!
You stride forward across the frozen ground, raising crystalline clouds around your pounding feet. You see the others, on your left and your right, weapons raised above their heads, a wave of reckoning on this last night. You charge ahead, joy coursing through you, the joy and lust for battle. Under the blackness of the forest, the yellow eyes await the onslaught.
Public Announcement: Thursday 29 October.
Oslo Police are seeking information regarding the identity of an elderly man found dead at a local hotel. The dead man was found in a room at Hotel Vigrid in the Brugata area. The deceased man was approximately 75 years of age. No cause of death has yet been established.
The Hotel Vigrid register lists the dead man as one Lars Torson, but Oslo Police report that documents found with the dead man are believed to be forgeries. Police are seeking any information that might positively identify the dead man.
Police ask citizens with any knowledge of this individual to call the number listed below. Callers may remain anonymous if they so desire.
“Complete at 2,846 words, it is the story of an old man alone in a dingy hotel room. He is haunted by doubt, decades of struggle, and a tenuous grasp of reality. The genre is literary fiction. I retired this story to the bin because no matter how many times I rewrote the thing, rejections followed. This is the bad luck dog of short stories. And, oddly enough, I still believe in the damn thing. Writers! What are you going to do with them? Homeless optimists and terrible pessimists at the very same time. Anyway, here is my story.”
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 reviews and journals across Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. His story “Power Tools” has been nominated for Best of the Web for 2023. “Power Tools” is Marco’s latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor for a new ‘Zine called Hotch Potch. In his other life, Marco travels the world with his lovely wife Sabine. https://www.marcoetheridgefiction.com/