Between

A Short Story

By Eric McQuiston

"Damnit!" Jeff cursed as he spilled his coffee on his lap. Hot liquid soaked through his khakis burning his crotch and legs. He jerked the wheel, sending his sedan swerving briefly onto the shoulder before yanking it back onto the road.

Of course... Of course this would happen today.

This day was worse than most. He was already late for work, thanks to a morning full of chaos. The kids dragged their feet getting dressed then had fought over who got the last clean bowl for cereal. And his wife, Claire, had bolted out the door before sunrise to meet a coworker about a new client. That had left Jeff alone to referee breakfast, pack lunches, and hunt down missing shoes... all while the clock ticked mercilessly on.

Now he was twenty minutes behind, wet, frustrated, and barreling down the interstate faster than he should. He tried to wipe his lap with a crumpled napkin from the console, but it was no use.

"Maybe," Jeff muttered bitterly, "this is just how it's gonna be from now on."

The thought weighed on him, heavier than the stain spreading across his pants.

He didn't see the semi-truck until it was too late.

One second there was nothing but open road ahead... the next, blinding headlights cut across his path. He slammed the brakes. Tires screamed. There was a jolt, a shuddering crunch, and then—

Stillness.

Silence.

Weightlessness.

---

When Jeff opened his eyes, he wasn't in his car anymore. He wasn't anywhere he recognized. He stood barefoot in a wide, endless field under a sky painted in colors he couldn't name, colors that felt like a half-remembered song at the edge of his mind. The air was thick with a scent like fresh rain and something sweeter, familiar; though he couldn't place it.

Somehow, impossibly, Jeff felt he had been here before.

But how?

And why now?

Jeff turned in slow, disbelieving circles, trying to make sense of the endless horizon, the heavy sky. The ground beneath his feet felt soft, warm... like the earth after a summer rain.

Everything smelled alive.

Then he noticed the man.

He stood just a few feet away, hands tucked loosely into the pockets of a simple gray jacket. Middle-aged, like Jeff. A bit taller. His face was weathered, kind, and.. strangely, almost familiar, as if Jeff had seen him in a dream, or maybe in a faded photo he couldn’t quite recall.

The man smiled gently. "It’s beautiful, isn’t it?"

Jeff opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out at first. His heart raced, and for a terrible moment, he thought maybe he was dead. Maybe this was it.

"I..." Jeff tried again, voice cracking. "I don't know where I am. I don't know how I got here."

The man’s smile didn’t falter. He stepped closer, easy, unthreatening, like an old friend trying not to startle him.

"Everything is okay," he said, voice low and even. "You’re safe."

Jeff frowned, still breathing hard. His mind spun, grasping for reason. The crash.. the truck... the coffee... the morning... Claire... the kids... work... his life.

"Am I...?" he started to ask, but couldn’t finish the thought.

The man shook his head slowly, as if answering both the question Jeff spoke and the dozens he couldn’t. "You’re between," he said simply. "You’re not gone. You’re not quite there either."

Jeff blinked. His knees felt weak, but somehow he remained standing. "Between?"

The man gazed out at the shimmering fields stretching into eternity. "A place you already know," he said. "You just forgot."

The breeze picked up, carrying whispers in a language Jeff didn’t recognize but somehow understood in his bones; a lullaby from long ago,.. maybe, or something deeper.

Jeff looked at the man again, more closely now. There was something almost mirror-like about him, a familiarity not just of face but of feeling. A pull in his chest, sad and tender at the same time.

"Who are you?" Jeff asked.

The man smiled again, not with smugness, but with an odd, sorrowful kindness.

"Someone you’ll remember when it’s time," he said. "But not yet."

---

Distant voices and the stench of gasoline filled the air.

Jeff's body was a crumpled mass inside the mangled frame of his car, pinned between the dashboard and the twisted driver’s side door. Steam hissed from the shattered hood. Glass littered the pavement like shards of ice.

Red and blue lights strobed against the wreckage. Sirens wailed from all directions, growing louder until they seemed to pierce the haze itself.

"Got a live one!" a voice shouted.

Shoes shuffled on the the asphalt. Two police officers arrived at the driver’s door. One dropped to his knees, grimacing at the sight inside.

"He's not breathing!" the officer barked. "Get extraction tools! Now!"

Moments later a crowbar popped against the bent metal. Another officer heaved at the door with his shoulder, gritting his teeth. Jeff’s head lolled to the side, blood matting his hair, his face pale and slack.

An ambulance skidded to a stop. A stretcher rattled across the pavement. Gear bags thudded onto the ground. "Move it!" a paramedic shouted.

The officers managed to wrench the door open with a final grunt. They pulled Jeff free, lowering him onto the cracked roadway. His chest unmoving... a non-existent pulse.

"Start compressions!" a paramedic ordered.

The young officer knelt and locked his hands over Jeff’s sternum, remembering the Bee Gee's, pumping to the beat of 'Stayin' Alive'. Bones cracked under the force; a brittle, sickening sound. Sweat streamed down his temples as he counted aloud, desperate to keep rhythm.

"One, two, three, four... stayin' alive!"

Another paramedic jammed an oxygen mask over Jeff’s mouth while a second stabbed an IV needle into his arm, squeezing fluids into his collapsing veins. Blood welled bright and fast. A third paramedic peeled back Jeff’s blood soaked shirt and slapped defibrillator pads onto his chest.

"Charging!"

The paddles beeped. Static crackled.

"Clear!"

Jeff’s body jolted off the ground as electricity ripped through him. His arms spasmed before flopping back down, limp and lifeless.

"No pulse!" a medic snapped. "Hit him again!"

The chest compressions resumed; brutal, relentless. A second shock. More pumping. Someone shouted that a medevac was already inbound as the medics worked.

---

The rhythmic thudding of rotor blades grew louder, dust and debris whipping across the wreckage as the life flight helicopter touched down a few hundred feet away.

"Let's move!" barked the team leader.

The paramedics lifted Jeff onto the stretcher with mechanical precision, never stopping compressions. His head lolled against the gurney, an IV line bouncing at his side, the defibrillator still wired to his broken chest.

They rushed toward the helicopter, ducking low against the storm of wind from the rotors.

Inside the bird, a flight nurse and trauma medic took control, shouting orders over the deafening engine noise. A syringe plunged into his IV line. A monitor clamped onto his finger. Another shock was prepped.

The doors slammed shut. The helicopter lifted away from the chaos, banking hard toward the trauma center.

Beneath the rhythmic beat of the blades, Jeff’s life dangled by a thread, the world below shrinking into a blur of flashing lights and twisted steel.

---

The light around Jeff shimmered like heat rising from a distant road. The colors of the sky, soft, nameless hues, blurred at the edges. He stood, barefoot, unsure of how much time had passed.

The man in the gray jacket was still there, standing quietly beside him, hands in his pockets, eyes kind and steady.

Jeff turned to him, struggling against the strange weight pressing against his thoughts.

"Where... where am I?" he asked, his voice thin, uncertain.

Already, memories slipped from his mind like water through open fingers. Claire’s face... the kids... the coffee spill... the crash.... they all began to dull, fading into mist. He tried to hold onto them, but they slipped away.

The man watched him with quiet sympathy.

"This place," the man said gently, "is just between."

"Between what?" Jeff asked, his brow furrowed.

"Between where you were... and where you might go," the man answered. He gestured to the endless horizon. "There are others here. Some move on. Some go back... to the life they left behind, as if waking from a long, strange dream. Some... return to a different place and time, starting anew."

The man’s eyes grew distant.

"And some," he added softly, "never leave."

Jeff shook his head, panic rising in his chest. "I have a life," he said, almost pleading. "A wife... kids... at least... I think so."

The man nodded kindly. "You do. But that is not all there is."

"I don't understand," Jeff said.

The man smiled with patience. "Did you think that was all there is?" he asked. "That your life... your job, your family, your days... was the whole of it?"

Jeff said nothing, overwhelmed.

At that moment, another figure approached... a man made almost of shimmering light, a presence more than a form. His face was plain yet radiant with peace. As he neared, Jeff felt a wave of stillness and calm so profound that it seemed to silence the very air. The two figures exchanged a few low words... Jeff couldn’t hear them... then the newcomer turned to him, smiling warmly.

He reached out and took Jeff’s hand.

"You are at peace now," the shimmering man said, his voice soft as a promise.

The touch was cool and grounding. Jeff felt the last of his fear slip away.

But then... a tug, deep and insistent, pulling him backward.

The man in the gray jacket — his face familiar now — looked at him with a bittersweet pride. "You’re being called back," he said.

Jeff looked into his eyes... and remembered. "Granddad?" Jeff whispered. The man smiled.

And then Jeff was pulled away, the field vanishing into blinding light and rushing sound.

---

Beeping.

Steady, mechanical beeping.

Jeff opened his eyes to a blinding white ceiling. Oxygen hissed in his ears. A nurse’s face leaned into view, smiling gently. "You’re in the hospital," she said. "You were in a bad accident. You’re safe now."

Tubes. Monitors. Pain seared through his ribs with every shallow breath. His body was wrecked, but alive. As the fog lifted, memories came... the crash, the kids, the frantic morning... and something else.

A field.

A man.

A hand reaching out in peace. Son, there’s so much more. Tears slipped down Jeff’s cheeks, silent and grateful. He was back. And somehow, he knew, his life would never be the same.

---

Seven months later, Jeff stood barefoot in the backyard, the cool grass brushing his toes, a mug of coffee in his hands. His body still healing.

Through the open kitchen window came the cheerful chaos of breakfast... the kids arguing over waffles, Claire laughing at something on the news.

The sun was rising, slow and golden over the rooftops.

Jeff smiled and closed his eyes, breathing it all in. He hadn’t been given all the answers. Maybe he never would. But he knew now... in a way deeper than thought... that life was more than bills and errands and spilled coffee.

It was a gift.

A mystery.

A doorway to something greater.

When the time came again, he would be ready. But for now, this life... imperfect, beautiful, fleeting... was enough.

More than enough.