Lowest Spaces

fiction by Keith Long

Visual by Sandolore Sykes

This piece is part of The Lot, the first volume of SUM FLUX. Featured in Edition II, this work is one of eight contributions to this edition. Read more about this zine and its theme here: https://sumflux.substack.com/p/volume-1-the-lot.

The saccade of his eyes grasshoppered from parked car to parked car in search of a vacancy, and the wipers mirrored the action. Back and forth and back and forth. He rounded the block yet again, his trawl yielding no catch. He drove down the street, but it too was lined with a wall of vehicles, until a small gap opened ahead. The man slowed down and found it was not a space, but an entrance. He read the sign: 'Parking Garage' with the word 'Free' below it. The wipers slid across the glass, and the rain murmured like a crowd. He did not recall seeing this parking garage in his earlier rounds, which struck him as strange. The man clicked his turn signal on and pulled hesitantly into the dark mouth of the garage. The low ceiling felt oppressive, and the fluorescent lighting rendered the cement unreal.

The parking garage was empty.

The spider webs strung along the ceiling all fluttered vacantly. The man pulled his car further in, the headlights giving life to a reflective sign mounted on a support pillar. The sign read, ‘Fill Lowest Spaces First’ with an arrow pointing down the ramp to the lower levels. The man stared at the sign, and then slowly moved the car over to the ramp.

He drove down.

As above, there were no parked cars, only lines for the stowing of inert forms. Down once more, deeper into a catacomb of unease. He drove around and descended another downward incline. The air had grown colder, more acrid and briny. The brakes squeaked to a halt above the next downramp, and the sound was muffled by cotton air. The man suppressed a shiver and felt the skin on his arms prickle. Halogen beams fought their way through the dark, expiring into dimness sooner than they ought to — choked out by the thick air. The man could not see what was at the bottom of the ramp. The garage was too deep already, yet there were levels lower and darker than this one. It was undefined absence down there, lack of form— nebulous.

Instead of descending further, he reversed the car into a nearby space. The car idled in its unmarked grave and the man listened to the susurrations of the engine. The headlights shone dimly across the aisle, illuminating two white parking lines and a wall. His hand shook slightly, hovering above the car’s auto-start button. He felt he was not alone, that he was being watched.

He pressed it.

The engine chugged, then heaved to a stop. The tinnitus silence swished with the man’s elevated pulse. The whole of what existed lay confined within the theatre spotlight of headlights, and in center stage was the cement wall and the painted lines. The man did not move, save to blink and breathe, and at times, he neglected even that. He had the sense that something was not right — that he was not alone in this empty place. He sat and felt the drums in his chest staring at the cement wall and the white lines.

The darkness seemed to encroach on the spotlight. The cold began to reach and grasp and press in on the glass, frost forming and growing at the edges. The man sat and stared for a liminal eternity, watching his breath twist in the air in front of his face. He inhaled and held the pressure in. A wisp writhed from over his shoulder, a breath that felt like it was not his own. Fear deepened to terror, and as the man turned to look behind, the car clicked off completely. The headlights ceased with a sigh, and darkness rushed in.