The Endless Cycle

THE ENDLESS CYCLE

Jordan Madere

The soft, clunkety drone of the washing machines mulling their whites and colors, and the dryers rhythmically tumbled their sheets and pants and towels all filled the crowded laundromat, cleverly named The Endless Cycle. It was an ambiance that Jennifer hadn’t yet learned to enjoy the comforts of. Instead, she found herself wrapped up in her own thoughts... She’d been doing laundry for hours and was now burdened with memories and broken promises as the fabric of her social life seemed to be overturned. 

She was nineteen, Jenny. Her mother had only recently passed. Her sister and father had gone north when she’d graduated, though she’d stayed in Baton Rouge at the pleading of her friends and her now ex-boyfriend, and in the end they’d each decided on out-of-state colleges. Lucky her. So instead of enrolling at LSU like a good portion of her other peers, Jenny had decided to take a year off, something she now regretted as she labored at a grimy and exhausting waitressing gig, earning barely enough to make her minimal ends meet, hence the laundromat. ‘Every little bit counts’ had become a mantra at this point.

Even then, none of it mattered an ounce when all she really wanted was just to talk with James, just one more conversation to know that he was okay, that he’d made it California alright, that maybe… maybe he still missed her. Maybe she’d hear it in his voice and he’d call her his sweet pet name “Love” again, and she could hold back tears as she laughed at his uncommon sweetness... 

She could feel the poor, familiar sadness building up in her chest again. It had all been a pack of lies, everything he’d said about wanting to stay. In a way, she’d sensed it, she knew he was lying, though she’d held onto him like some kind of fool, not wanting to believe it could be true that maybe he’d wanted to let them end. It was the same story with Dad, the same story with Allie and Becca, so much so that being left behind had started feeling like a way of life.

A warm tear rolled down her cheek just as Side 1 of her cassette ended. New Order had just put out Brotherhood, their fourth album, and so far it had been everything she’d needed to make it through this awful time. She wiped the tear away with her palm and flipped the cassette in her Walkman and slapped it shut. As a familiar melody began, she rested her head back down atop her hands on the backside of the bench, returning her gaze out across the night blacktop that glittered with neon raindrops, and Bernard Sumner’s voice floated into her mind.

“Everytime I think of you,

I feel a shot right through with a bolt of blue…”

The glow of the parking lot lights across the pavement flickered. Startled, Jenny glanced up at the lights themselves, and then around the empty lot, searching the shadows. There was nothing… 

“...Living a life that I can’t leave behind…”

“Calm down, Jennifer,” she attempted, “stop being a weirdo.”

She allowed herself a deep breath before returning her eyes back to the pavement and bobbing her head to the music.

“...There’s no sense in telling me,

The wisdom of the fool won’t set you free…”

The lights flickered again, and this time stayed dark leaving tungsten-orange ghosts floating in the darkness beyond her own reflection. She scooted forward and cupped her hands to the glass, wondering if anything outside the laundromat would be visible at all.

In the distance, she could see the glowing screen of Paradise Drive-in. Above it, and above the silhouette of trees, the moon danced in the night sky beyond the steady sheets of rain. She pulled away from the window glass and stood, looking around the laundromat as she pulled a backpack over her shoulder. The entire facility was empty.

“...Well everyday my confusion grows…”

“Hello?”

Jennifer slid her headphones off of her ears, down over her long hair and around her neck. Silence. All of the machines had somehow turned off. Her brow furrowed. She looked across the entire laundromat and tried again, raising her usually soft voice in an attempt to reach the dimly-lit back end of the room.

“Hello! Anyone here?”

From her headphones weakly, “Bizarre Love Triangle” continued to play.

“...I feel fine and I feel good,

I’m feeling like I never should…”

She reached down to the bright yellow plastic Walkman and pushed the stop button. The clack of the tape deck freezing in place echoed loudly, followed by the amplified nothingness of total silence. The abruptness inspired her to keep up trying.

“I, uh— I don’t know what’s happening… The power is out in the parking lot and, uh—“

She inched forward down the aisle, making her way step by step toward the dryer that held her last batch of clothes at the far end.

“There’s… I’m scared… Is there anyone here?”

Behind her near the entrance, the sound of several machines trundling into motion. She breathed a sigh of relief and quickly spun around, expecting to see others. The sensation of ice water running through her veins gripped her fingers and toes. It crept up through her thighs and over her shoulders, and forced itself like needles into her chest. Her breathing went shallow, her heartbeat thumping erratically like an out-of-tune dryer, and her thin frame shivered in fear. Upon the bench near the front window sat a girl. It was Jenny.

The second row of washers and dryers came alive near the front of the room. Beyond the strange girl that seemed to be a copy of herself, the lights of the parking lot flickered on and shone brilliantly again through the shimmering rain. Several laundry patrons slowly materialized, milling about and chattering with one another. The entire place seemed to be winding back awake with crackling energy. Jenny didn’t know whether to be terrified or relieved, and try as she might her legs would not work, nor her lungs to speak. Overwhelmed with confusion at the sight of her own self across the room, her chin trembled wildly, and at last she wept quietly, tears pouring freely down her face.

Another set of washers and dryers powered on, and then another, drawing nearer to her. Several more patrons appeared, and between her and… her other self… a dark figure resolved from thin air. It was shaped like a person, like a girl, although… it was total darkness. Total, solid darkness, composed of a shadow perpetually consuming itself.

“What you get is what you need.”

Its voice was like tentacles reaching out into her mind, screaming and tearing. Another set of washer and dryers pounded to life.

“There’s no place you can hide.”

It was another shadowy figure, this one to her right, several rows of machines away. She forced her rubber legs into action and started to back away, reaching out to the nearest washing machine for support. Clumsily, she knocked over a box of Angel Dust detergent and it spilled to the floor in heaps of white.

“Leave me alone!”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?”

A third figure appeared to her left. A terrified gasp escaped her throat and she collapsed into sobbing, holding desperately onto the machine to keep from falling. The machine under her weight shook itself, coming alive, and she wept uncontrollably. 

Two more figures appeared behind her.

“What you get is what you need, Jenny.”

As she gaped in horror, they each began moving in, drawing closer to her from all directions. Without warning, her Walkman sprung to life, New Order continuing to blast from the headphones around her neck.

“...Whenever I get this way,

I just don’t know what to say...”

The figures passed through the rows of machines and down the aisle until at last they were upon her, and closed in around her, the frigid cold of their shadowed forms leeching the very essence of vitality from her. She wept and fell to the floor, curling into a ball. The shadows moved in, one-by-one taking turns in consuming her, pulling in parts away into separate depths.

“As it is when it was.”

Around them the last of the machines thumped into service with the last of the patrons materializing, and the night carried on as usual.

“...Why can’t we be ourselves

Like we were yesterday?…”

Jenny, her head on her hands as her lost herself rain, felt an unusual surge of confidence begin building inside her, something warm and new, as if all the sadness had somehow been chased away. She smiled uncontrollably for the first time in weeks, and her first instinct was to turn the volume of her Walkman up a few notches.

“...Everytime I see you falling, I

Get down on my knees and pray…”

Outside, past the glass window that streamed with rain drops, the bright lamps of the parking lot flickered.

“...Waiting for that final moment, you

Say the words that I can’t say...”