BY ALEX WJ BROAD
Copyright is held by the author.
I am fear at the end of time.
I am hope at the end of pain.
I am the eternal darkness.
I am the eternal light.
I am a welcome rest for the weary.
I am regret for those who slothed.
I am the final destination of a very short journey.
I am a beginning and I am an end.
* * *
THE ROOM was quiet. A soft, wheezing breath was all I could hear as I surveyed the soft gloom, the lights having been dimmed some hours ago. This was a still place, a place at peace. As it should be. This was my domain.
I looked towards the woman sitting in the chair. She was in a deep sleep, overcome by love and exhaustion. In her hand she held a book, half open, teetering on the edge of her thigh.
Then there was the bed. Up until recently it had been surrounded by all sorts of machines, wires and tubes. Not now though, that time was over. They knew I would be coming. I listened to the old man breathe, each breath slower and shallower than the last. Until, at last, the room was silent.
I watched the old man curiously, his eyes moving rapidly behind closed eyelids. He was dreaming his final dream. It was as long as a lifetime.
The old man smiled as he opened his eyes and looked towards me. They flickered with a sense of calm recognition.
“That was beautiful,” he said.
“It was,” I replied with a gentle smile. “And you are now free, my friend. From it all. Sorry it took so long.”
“It was worth it,” he said softly, his voice already starting to fade. ‘I will miss her most of all.” The old man’s smile finally fell away as he looked towards the chair. ‘She is my world you know, she gave it all meaning.”
I did not reply.
“What happens next then, is it time from me die now? I’m a bit scared now, come to think about it.”
I crouched down beside him and held his hands in mine. “Weary traveller, you already have. Now it is time for you to finally rest.”
The woman in the chair woke up with a start as her book fell to the floor. I left the room to the sound of her stifled cries.
* * *
I now stood in a quiet country lane. Yellow grass tickled my hands as butterflies skipped around me. The air was sweet and the sun was low. It was golden all around. This was a place of life.
A bicycle, decorated with lilac tassels and a little basket, sat leaning against a wooden post. The bear that sat in the basket smiled plainly at me as I looked on.
The owner of this bike stood at the side of a bridge, a little further up the path, looking down onto the train tracks. From between the tress I watched her hands curl around the bricks as she gently hoisted herself up and onto the top of the low bridge. Blowing several strands of hair from her eyes, she looked around at the evening’s beauty. Here she was a queen.
She edged forward. Grey, sooty rock crumbled beneath her shoes, falling onto the tracks far below. Putting her hands in the pockets of her jeans, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
I continued to watch, unflinchingly, as time slowed down.
She took her hand from her pocket and held it carefully front of her. Nestled in her palm was a small, mustard coloured bee. She looked at it curiously as she presented it up towards the blue sky.
“I’m sorry you had to die,” she whispered as she blew the bee from her hand. It was caught in a sudden and unnatural gust of wind. The girl watched the bee all the way, until she could see it no more.
I unfurled my hand and plucked the dead bee out of the sky as it flew by me. I held it there, between thumb and forefinger, holding it up in the dappled light.
“You did a very good job old friend. They really don’t know how lucky they are.” I looked down the lane, towards the girl who was cycling away. “Well, except her maybe.”
The girl spent the afternoon, after a moment of quiet contemplation under an old oak tree, cycling through fields and trying to catch grasshoppers.
* * *
Onwards I swept.
I sat watching him for several minutes as I rocked backwards and forwards on a grand office chair, looking at the array of hunting trophies proudly displayed around the man’s office. The man in question was particularly loud and particularly obnoxious, shouting down his mobile phone about things that only people who live to make other people’s lives a misery care about.
“Listen to me. He is nothing, less than nothing, a shit on the bottom of my shoe. God strike me down if we ever end up having to a pay a single penny to that scrote” he screamed, before he promptly collapsed and died.
“Well, that was poetic”, I muttered as I slid my feet off the top of the desk and strode over to him. He blinked several times before he heaved himself up off the floor.
“What the hell?” he spat, brushing down his chest. “Oh, I see, it’s you.”
Realisation. I do not know what the humans see when they look at me but, to their credit, they never fail to work it out.
“You’ve killed me.”
“No,’ I replied. “You did that to yourself.”
“This is really not a good time,” the man persisted. “How much will it cost to just send me back?” He reached for a cheque book on the corner of the desk. His hand passed straight through it. “You know I’m good for it. How much?”
I did not reply.
“Name a price. Come on.”
I smiled. “What would I possibly do with something as worthless to me as money?”
He tugged at his collar and took a few deep, nasally breaths. Slicking back thin strands of hair, it took the man several seconds to consider his response.
“Listen, I have a young daughter, surely even you can understand that?”
“She will not remember you. She will go on to live a full and happy life and you will not even be a memory. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you were ever a father.”
“Screw you.” He briefly closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his collar several times. “At least it’s warm up here.”
“Where do you think we are?” I smirked as the first blisters appeared on his neck and the sand whipped around us. They would come and collect him soon.
“What? Wait. No, surely not. There’s been a grave mistake.”
In the distance we could see the furnaces of Hell burning, a thick black smog clogging up the arid air. He turned back to me his eyes wide and frantic.
“Please, no. Tell me, sir, how do I get to heaven?” he pleaded, falling to his knees as he grabbed and pulled the hem of my cloak,.
“You had your entire life to work that one out,” I said, gently pulling myself free from his grip.
“No, no! I thought…why, why are you here then, if not to save me?”
“Because sometimes I like to watch.”
“Watch what?”
“Justice.”
* * *
This was a place where monsters dwelled. Horrible, unseen creatures which sucked the life out of their hosts like parasites.
I looked at the man hanging from the rope. This man was no stranger to me by this point. I had first seen him at the hospital, creeping out of a ward when he thought nobody was looking. I had next seem him throwing his mobile phone against a wall after a particularly heated discussion. Finally, I seen him quietly backing away down the lane after he had noticed the girl with the bee. And now he was seconds away from death.
“Perhaps I could cut you down so we can have a proper chat.”
The man looked me up and down at me as he slowly twirled around. “I’m guessing I’m dead?” he asked.
“No, not yet. As close as you can be though if that’s any consolation.”
“Can’t even do dying right,” he sighed helplessly as he began to awkwardly fumble at the noose.
“Let me,” I said. The air shimmered grey as I cut the rope in one flickering swoop. He fell to the floor and rubbed the base of his back.
“So you do carry one of those. Bit medieval ain’t it?”
I did not reply, but rather offered him my free hand and pulled him up onto a chair.
“Now, Jonah. That is your name, correct?” I asked, picking up the fallen chair and placing it on the other side of the table to where the man sat.
“Yes”
“That is a good start. I got it wrong once and it caused a whole load of problems.” I sat back and crossed my legs. “What are you up to then?”
Jonah just looked at me, the noose hanging down from his neck.
“Apart from that. That is obvious.” I added.
“Well, I’m trying to kill myself.”
“Are you?”
“Well, yes.”
“And yet here you are, still alive.”
“No thanks to you.”
“Yes. It is a curious thing…” I tapped the table, looking around the kitchen. “Do you have tea?”
“What?”
“Tea. Do you have the equipment to make a cup of tea? I’ll take one of those choccy biscuits too, whilst you’re at it.”
“You want…tea?”
“Splash of milk, no sugar. Bad for my teeth.” I smiled courteously as Jonah hesitatingly shuffled over to the worktop. I continued to watch him clatter about, searching for an acceptable vessel somewhere in the clutter of his kitchen. Eventually, something resembling tea was made.
“What is that?’” I asked as he placed a mug down in front of me.
“Tea.”
“That is not tea. That is tea when it has died and come back as ghost,” I snorted, looking at the swilling grey liquid. “And I am also not a…hot babe.”
“Yes, sorry, that was from an ex. It’s all I had.”
I pushed the tea to the side. “So, what is wrong with you?”
Jonah took a pause. “I guess I’m just… really sad.”
I reached across the tables and flicked Jonah’s ear.
“Ouch. That hurt.”
“And now?”
“And now what?”
“Does it still hurt?”
Joanna stopped rubbing his ear. “No.”
“Nothing in your life is permanent.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Yes, of course,” I replied, easing back into my chair. “But it’s a good place to start. I did also ask for a chocolate biscuit.”
“You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
Jonah muttered incoherently under his breath as he pushed himself up from the table and rummaged for a couple of open packets. “What would you prefer then, I’ve got – wait, what are you doing? Isn’t that…isn’t that mine?”
“Shh, I‘m trying to do the cat’s cradle. Oh, bugger it. You do it.” I tossed the yo-yo over to Jonah.
“This was mine. When I was kid.”
Muscle memory kicked in as Jonah executed several tricks, each flowing smoothly into the next. A smile teetered on the edge of his lips.
“When did you stop playing, Jonah?”
The yo-yo fired away from Jonah, striking a kitchen cabinet. We watched it roll across the floor.
“I grew up, I guess.”
“That is a funny thing with you humans. One day you just decide to stop doing all the things you actually enjoy.”
“Yes, well, people judge you don’t they. If I were to run around playing with toys and things, people would laugh at me.”
“It is a cruel thing. Often done by those who live in grey suits, in grey buildings within a grey life. Would you want to be friends with them? No? They why does it matter?”
Jonah shrugged.
“You almost smiled then, when you were playing.”
Jonah shrugged at me again.
“You remember fun then?” I asked.
Jonah walked over to where the yo-yo lay. Picking it up he turned and placed it on the table in front of me. “You keep it.”
I toyed with the yo-yo, flipping it over in my hands. “It can’t always be good, life you know. It’s meant to be hard sometimes, Jonah.”
He sat down and looked at me.
“Why?” he said bluntly.
“Because you are wonderfully complex creatures, who are lucky enough to feel.”
“Why can’t we just know happiness then?”
“Because how would you know what that felt like if you were never sad. How would you strive to be better people, without experiencing empathy? You would have never have helped that man get to the hospital.”
“But he still died!”
“Yes, because he was old and that’s what humans do. But because of you, he didn’t die alone and his daughter had a chance to say goodbye.”
“All I did was call the ambulance.”
“And travelled to the hospital with him. The thing is, you did something, Jonah. The same way you ran towards that girl when you thought she was going to jump. The way you fight greed and glut day on day because you believe in something better. Even when you feel like this.” I looked again at the noose around Jonah’s neck as his head fell into his hands.
“You talk a lot,” he said eventually.
“I do not usually get this much time to chat. Neither do you. At least people would want to talk to you, if only you asked.”
We didn’t speak for a few moments until Jonah sat back and rocked on his chair.
“It doesn’t matter. A million and one people would have done the same thing. On the grand scale of things I am nothing, I am insignificant,” he said.
The floor gave way as we fell into the universe, a myriad of stars, planets and other celestial objects flew past us as we corkscrewed through time, finally landing in an empty hallway. At the end of this hallway was a closed door, a light crawling out from underneath it. This was place was also full of monsters, the same monsters that infested Jonah’s kitchen. They were however, also slightly different, they’d adapted to their new prey. I could hear them scuttering above us, trying to work their way in further.
“Is that someone crying?” Jonah broke the silence, listening to the strained cries coming from behind the door.
“Go. We are but shadows in this place.”
We walked forward, the creatures above us laughing manically. Jonah peered through the crack in the door. A police officer, still half dressed in his uniform, was crouched on the floor. His cries had turned into guttural, feral sounding moans as he sought frantically for breath, chocking back his tears. His fists pounded the floor as he sought to make sense of it all.
“The one that finds you. The monsters eventually get in,” I whispered into Jonah’s ear.
“What monsters?” Jonah asked, his eyes wide.
They laughed again from within folds of darkness.
Before Jonah could ask again the world around us shifted, walls shrunk and rearranged themselves into a place that was familiar to Jonah.
“Mum?”
An elderly woman sat on a plain chair in an otherwise empty room. She looked like a corpse, taught yellow skin and sunken sockets.
“Life left her decades ago. Since then she has just existed. Her life ended the same day yours did.” In the shadows I heard them again, hissing and screaming. They were closer to their prey here.
Jonah stretched out his hand to touch her, the world falling down around him just before he could brush her cheek.
We were stood in Jonah’s kitchen again. I left him looking out the window as I took my place back at the table.
“Pain and sadness are a disease. A sickness that without treatment grows and grows. It doesn’t die with you, Jonah, you just pass the pain on.”
He didn’t say anything, just stared out the window.
“You see that star, the bright one? Keep your eye on it and . . .”
The lights went out and we were plunged into a sudden darkness. Jonah stepped back from the window, his breath short and stuttering.
“The star. Where, where did it go?”
I unfurled my hands as brilliant white light pulsated into the room. Hovering in front of me was a small, white orb, no bigger than a marble. It emitted a low, rumbling hum.
“In the grand scale of the universe, it is microscopically small,” I said, rotating the orb in my hands. “But this star has guided those who were lost back home, helped people to dream and changed the fabric of life itself. It achieved all of that just by being there. It has no idea just how many people it has helped.” With a flick of my fingers the star disappeared. “The greatest lie you humans ever told yourselves were that you didn’t matter. You, Jonah, fear you are worthless. You are no such thing. You don’t need to earn anything, your existence makes you worthy. You think you are insignificant. How can you be when you, born of stardust, are the universe itself. Without you to experience it, the universe ceases to exist.”
“Everything would still exist if I was gone,” replied Jonah, his dark eyes staring at the floor.
“Would it?’ How would you know?”
“Because the sun would still rise, and the world would keep spinning. Like it always has.”
“That’s all just cogs and gears,” I replied, waving my arms around. “Life is more than just processes, it needs to be experienced. Life’s no good if it can’t be lived.”
“Everyone else can do that.”
“But no-one else can do it quite like you. And that’s what’s important.”
Jonah finally looked at me. Were they tears? His voice creaked as he spoke.
“Why me? Why bother saving me?”
I stretched out my fingers and rotated my shoulders, listening to the clicks of my bones gyrate against each other. I stood up, palms flat on the table. “I’m not here to save you, Jonah. Only you can do that. I just brought you some more time. An extra breath. Plenty of time to have a proper think. The thing is”, I continued with a wink, “None of you ever make it out alive, so what’s the harm in just hanging around a bit longer, if only to see what happens next?” With one last look at Jonah I shrugged and turned away from him. “But I do need a proper cup of tea. So the question is, Jonah…” I walked over to the front door and pulled it open, revealing a small skiff bobbing on an endless black ocean under an endless black sky.
“Will you be walking with me tonight?”
***
Alex lives in the sleepy English countryside with his wife and two little moggies. Beyond wordy scribblings, Alex spends his days making films, getting lost on muddy rambles and waiting impatiently for the next crumble eating opportunity to arise. His short story “Playing Gods” was previously published by Commuterlit.
