Jonah Before the Whale

The boy known as Jonah wasn't born with that name; he discovered it in a small motel Bible hidden in the laundry chute at the halfway house. The pages were thin enough to roll smokes. When he first read about the man swallowed whole, he laughed because being devoured felt more genuine than being saved.

He ripped out the first page and folded it into a little boat. He sent it drifting in the puddle behind the chain-link fence. It didn’t stay afloat. The water soaked in and dragged it down like a rock.

"Nice metaphor," he muttered, giving it a kick.

His real name was Marcus, but no one called him that after he left the second group home. He'd been through three, changing something each time: a deeper voice, harder eyes, shorter hair. Names never stuck. He chose Jonah, deciding to pick his own whale if something was going to swallow him whole.

Saint Jerome’s housed about twelve boys, fluctuating with runaways or arrests. The counselor, Ed, wore polos and clung to laminated worksheets for protection. Every Tuesday, they had "emotional check-ins," and Jonah always said the same thing.

"I'm fine."

Ed put a circle around it on his clipboard. "Thanks for sharing."

Jonah spent late nights watching the gas station from his window. At 2:35 a.m. every day, a man in a hoodie with a limp appeared to fill pump three, always buying Marlboros, never looking around. Jonah called him Lazarus, wondering if coming back wrong meant forgetting how to turn your head.

When the breakfast lights turned on, Jonah was already at the table. He didn't eat the eggs, just peeled them slowly, smashed the yolk, and stared as if expecting movement.

Raheem, a kid from down the hall, sat across from him and made a face.

"That’s gross, man."

Jonah shrugged. "It’s biology."

"Still gross."

Raheem was new, chatty, and didn't yet grasp the unspoken rules at Saint Jerome's. Crying was only for after lights out, questions about stripped beds were off-limits, and the staff bathroom magazines were untouchable. Pretending to stay was pointless. Everyone was just trying to keep afloat.

Raheem leaned in. "You read a lot, huh?"

Jonah looked up from the torn-up Bible. "Beats listening."

"To what?"

He didn’t answer.

After breakfast, Ed caught Jonah in the hallway.

"Group's starting the 'mapping your future' module," he said like it meant something.

"I skip that?"

"Not if you want your privileges. Still aiming for that level-three pass?"

Jonah said nothing. He walked to the common room and dropped into his usual chair, back corner, near the radiator that hissed in winter like a sick snake.

"Let’s talk about calling," Ed said. "What’s something you feel pulled toward?"

"Escape," Jonah said under his breath.

"Jonah?"

"Art," he said louder.

He sketched on paper plates—faces from shards, cities swallowed by roots, a whale with a house in its belly. People thought it was symbolic, but he just liked the idea of something preserving another whole.

As the talking stick circulated, one kid mentioned music, another fixing engines. Raheem wanted to be a firefighter like his late uncle. No one laughed; the story lingered like burnt toast.

That night, Jonah took his spot by the window at 2:35, watching Lazarus at pump three. He lit a cigarette, leaning into the hood for protection.

Jonah pressed his palm to the window. "You’re not real."

Behind him, Raheem’s voice cut in.

"Who’s not real?"

"Nobody."

Raheem moved in closer. "You ever think we’re not real either?"

Jonah turned. For a moment, Raheem’s face looked like someone else’s. A face that hadn’t been worn down by repetition.

"What’s your story?" Jonah asked.

Raheem blinked. "I got born, I guess."

"No whale?"

"Not yet. Just the ocean."

Jonah nodded. "It gets deeper."

They stood silently, observing the man at the pump as smoke curled up, an unanswered question. Raheem returned to bed, but Jonah stayed. He read the next page from the Bible—Jonah. He tried to believe and feel its significance.

A man swallowed whole.

Not killed.

Not digested.

Held.

Held long enough to pray.

By week's end, Raheem no longer asked questions. He still sat with Jonah at breakfast, silently watching him peel eggs, but his hopeful tone had faded, like overused chalk. The others noticed, understanding the risks of attaching to someone who spoke the truth. Jonah wasn't sure if Raheem was brave or just naive.

He didn’t think it made a difference.

Saint Jerome’s adjusted the TV schedule after a boy cracked the screen with a remote during a movie. Now, only old, safe shows play—cartoons with laugh tracks and no dads.

Jonah avoided watching. Instead, he sat with a forbidden notebook, copying verses from the Book of Jonah in various handwriting styles, unsure why, but it prolonged the quiet.

The quiet didn’t last.

"Can I ask you something?" Raheem crouched next to him one night, voice low.

"You just did."

Raheem smiled, but it looked like it hurt. "Why do you keep reading that one part?"

Jonah looked at the line he’d just written. Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

"It sounds different every time."

"You think that’s what hell is? A belly?"

"Sometimes," Jonah said. "Sometimes it’s a room where no one looks at you long enough to remember your face."

Raheem didn’t answer. He reached for the notebook, careful with it, and flipped through. He stopped at the whale with a house inside.

"You live there?"

"I used to think I could."

Raheem handed the notebook back. "It looks quiet. Not bad quiet. The kind where no one asks you who you used to be."

Jonah closed the notebook. "No one would survive in there with me."

"You sure?"

"I’ve tested it."

Later that night, someone set off the smoke alarm in the laundry room with a roll of toilet paper in a dryer vent. No one confessed, so everyone was punished: no weekend calls, visitors, or outside time for a week.

Jonah didn't mind the rules since he wasn't expecting a call. But Raheem was. He lingered by the payphone the next two nights. On the third night, he knocked on Jonah's door after lights-out.

"You awake?"

"Obviously."

Raheem came in and sat on the floor. The room was small, shared, and the other bed was empty. The boy who’d slept there had been sent back to juvie the week before. No one mentioned his name.

"You ever think about your real parents?" Raheem asked.

"No."

"That’s a lie."

Jonah stayed quiet.

"I do," Raheem said. "I know it doesn’t help. Still happens. I picture my mom with a whole shelf of cereal in her kitchen. She tells people I died so they don’t go looking."

"She might just be scared."

"She might just not care."

Jonah turned on his side, away from the light spilling in from the hallway.

"When I was six," he said, "someone told me my mom named me after a lake. Said she liked how it looked frozen. She never told me that herself. I think the person made it up to be kind."

"Did it help?"

"No."

Raheem leaned back against the wall. "I used to imagine smelling her perfume in crowds before I even knew its scent."

They sat quietly as the building creaked. Jonah stared at the ceiling. "You ever fear the best parts of you are just borrowed from stories?"

"All the time," Raheem replied.

Jonah sat up. "We need to leave."

Raheem blinked. "What?"

"This place. We’re not supposed to grow in here. It’s a holding tank."

"Where would we even go?"

"Doesn’t matter. Somewhere else. That’s enough."

Raheem hesitated. Then, "You’ve got a plan?"

"I’ve got a map," Jonah said, tapping his notebook.

"You drew a map?"

Jonah skimmed a page near the back, filled with unscaled maps and unnamed streets, marked by a laundromat with a broken vending machine, a gas station with an oblivious man, and a bus stop without shelter. Each had a time, suggesting a hidden pattern.

Raheem leaned in. "That's the guy you watch every night?"

"Lazarus."

"Think he'd help?"

"He knows something about leaving."

Raheem exhaled nervously. "If we get caught."

"We won't."

"You can't know that."

"I don't, but staying here isn’t safer, just slower."

Outside, the wind slammed against the building, pipes rattled, and a screen door clattered down the street.

Raheem paced twice before stopping. "Okay," he said. Jonah didn’t smile, tying his shoelaces carefully.

They moved silently through the hallway, avoiding creaky spots and listening for adults. Once outside, they walked slowly until the house disappeared into the dark. Jonah didn’t look back, determined the whale would have to find him.

The town beyond Saint Jerome’s was small. Streetlamps buzzed, and most businesses had windows painted white, as if someone had tried to erase the town. They moved through it as if rehearsed. Jonah kept the notebook under his jacket, its paper worn from handling. Raheem carried nothing, believing it was bad luck to bring old weight into a new place.

At the bus stop, they sat quietly behind the bench, watching the dark road. A semi-truck passed by, and they waited for the noise to fade.

“Did you think it would feel louder?” Raheem asked.

“No.”

“I did.”

Jonah watched a moth flutter against the shelter’s lamp. “Quiet is just noise waiting.”

A few cars drove by, but no one stopped to question two boys there at 3 a.m.

At 3:10, Lazarus arrived at the gas station.

“On time,” Jonah said.

“He always is?”

“So far.”

They crossed the street together, careful not to move too fast. Jonah kept his eyes on the man’s shoes. Old boots. Dragged heel on the right foot. Probably a former injury that never healed right.

Raheem whispered, “You gonna talk to him?”

“Not yet.”

They waited by the vending machine. Lazarus stepped into the gas station, bought his smokes and a coffee, and left. He never turned his head. Not even when Raheem waved.

“I don’t think he sees us,” Raheem said.

“He does.”

“He didn’t look.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Jonah followed Lazarus’s car with his eyes until the taillights were gone. Then he pulled the notebook out and crossed off the station with a black X.

“Where to now?” Raheem asked.

Jonah pointed left. “Laundromat. It stays open all night.”

They walked together, Raheem kicking gravel while Jonah hummed an old tune about dry rivers and distant trains. The laundromat's yellow light made everything look sickly. Two dryers spun, and a man slept against a table using a backpack as a pillow. Raheem sat on a washer, and Jonah flipped through a notebook before heading to the half-broken vending machine with expired items.

He pressed D6. A candy bar dropped.

Raheem raised an eyebrow. “That part of the plan?”

“No.”

“You believe in signs?”

Jonah handed Raheem the candy. “I believe in vending machines that still work when they shouldn’t.” Raheem opened the wrapper and split the bar. They ate in silence. Outside, the street was deserted, dust swirling in the wind. A distant dog barked once, then silence. Jonah approached the corkboard by the coin machine, scanning local ads—babysitting, guitar lessons, a recliner for forty dollars, must pick up. In the center, a missing poster: a brown-eyed girl, seventeen, missing since January. "Come home," someone had written in blue pen, with a phone number. Raheem joined him. “You know her?”

“No.”

“She’s about our age.”

“Doesn’t mean I know her.”

Raheem tapped the corner of the poster. “I think about stuff like that too much. Who notices when we’re gone.”

Jonah turned to face him. “Someone did. They made the poster.”

“Someone,” Raheem echoed. “Singular.”

He leaned against the washer again, head low, as Jonah folded the poster into his notebook—not to call, just to remember someone had tried. They waited until the dryers stopped, while the man on the table slept undisturbed.

At sunrise, they walked west. Jonah didn’t mention the distance to the next mark; the map had blurred in reality. Passing a park with a rusted swing, Raheem swung once, making the chain creak. Jonah kept moving.

“You never played?” Raheem asked.

“Not since I could read.”

By midmorning, the streets bustled with people, shops opened, and folks walked dogs with coffee in hand. No one noticed the boys in secondhand jackets, eyes hungry.

Jonah led them to a bridge over a dry creek bed and sat, dangling his feet. Raheem joined him.

“There’s no whale, is there?” Raheem asked.

“There’s always something that swallows you.”

“And lets you go?”

“That’s the part I don’t believe.”

They watched the light move across the cracked concrete, as weeds grew through broken slabs below. Jonah sketched a boy on a bridge with a sea of weeds beneath him.

Raheem pulled out a worn photo of a woman smiling in front of a gas station. "She’s probably not alive," he said. "But sometimes I think if I walk far enough, I’ll find the version of her that didn’t leave."

Jonah didn’t ask to see the photo, letting Raheem put it away.

"You ever think we’re not runaways," Raheem asked, "just pilgrims?"

Jonah traced a line on the page. “Pilgrims go toward something.”

“And we’re just leaving?”

“Maybe.”

“What happens if the whale never comes?”

“Then we build something from the bones it left behind.”

The wind picked up. The sun moved higher. They stood.

They kept walking.

By noon, they’d crossed the county line, venturing beyond the map's reach. Jonah glanced at his notebook's last sketch of the bridge, dry river, and Raheem, then tucked it away.

They stopped at a highway diner with pale blue walls and silver stools; its blinking OPEN sign was silent. Jonah held the door for Raheem.

A woman behind the counter, absorbed in her crossword, said, “Seat yourselves.”

They picked a window booth. Jonah sensed her gaze, but Raheem ignored it. A twangy country song played on the radio as the waitress refilled an unattended coffee cup.

When she came over, pad in hand, she didn’t ask for names.

“What can I get you?”

Raheem ordered a grilled cheese, Jonah pancakes. As the server left, Raheem leaned forward, sensing a shift. "This feels like something," he said. "Like what?" Jonah asked. "A checkpoint," Raheem replied. Jonah rubbed his temple. "Or we're just hungry." Yet, the diner's sacred stillness felt like a church post-service—a place for rest, not revelation. The food arrived quickly; the plates were chipped but clean. Raheem devoured his sandwich, while Jonah spiraled syrup on his pancakes and slowly ate a small piece.

Outside, the highway kept humming. Cars didn’t stop.

Jonah watched Raheem eat. There was a piece of something in his face—joy or memory or stubbornness. A flash of a kid who hadn’t yet been packed into the shape people wanted him to be.

When the check came, Jonah slipped his last crumpled five-dollar bill from his pocket. The waitress collected it without a glance and called after them as they left, “Whatever you’re running from, I hope it doesn’t catch up.”

Raheem paused at the door. “We’re not running.”

She looked at Jonah. “No. You’re drifting.”

They walked silently for a while. As the road curved toward a storage facility and a closed bait shop, Jonah tore out the last page of his notebook, folded it, and handed it to Raheem.

“What’s this?”

“A map that doesn’t end.”

Raheem unfolded it. “There’s nothing on it.”

“Exactly.”

He tucked the blank page into his coat. “You’re getting poetic.”

“I’ve been infected.”

The sun tilted low. They walked on.

By early evening, they reached the town's edge, where buildings gave way to fields and distant power lines. As the sky shifted colors, Jonah stopped.

“We should stay here,” he suggested.

“Here?” Raheem asked.

“For now.”

They followed a dirt road to a copse of trees by a dry irrigation ditch, sat down, and Raheem picked at some bark.

“You ever wonder if you already met the person who could’ve saved you?”

Jonah pulled his knees to his chest. “I don’t think people save each other.”

“You saved me.”

“No. I left the door open. You walked through.”

They stayed until the sky turned lavender, stars emerging. A fence clanged in the wind, and Jonah felt a shift in time. Raheem lay back and asked, “Tell me something real.” Jonah admitted, “I used to sleep under my bed to feel invisible.” Raheem retrieved a photo, studied it, then tore it in half and buried it under a rock.

“That’s not forgetting,” he said. “It’s just offering.”

Later, when the cold set in, they pressed their backs against a cedar trunk. Raheem’s shoulder rested against Jonah’s. He didn’t move it.

Jonah closed his eyes.

He dreamed of water rising. Gentle. Like the world wanted to carry him somewhere. In the dream, he was inside the whale at last. But there wasn’t a stomach, no acid, no decay. Just warmth. Just a low thrum that felt like a heartbeat.

He woke at dawn.

Raheem was still asleep, his hand tucked under his cheek. The wind had gone quiet. The grass didn’t move.

Jonah stood and walked a little way down the dirt road. From the hill, he could see the highway again, and past it, a wide stretch of land that looked like a sea missing its tide.

He opened the notebook. Only a few pages were left.

He wrote a single sentence on one.

I wasn’t swallowed, but I was held.

Then he closed the book, turned, and walked back toward the trees, where Raheem was stirring in the early light.

They hadn’t been found.

They hadn’t been eaten.

They weren’t finished.