by Peter Marks
Now just because Wright couldn’t verify the concept didn’t mean he wasn’t terrified of being wrong. An affirmed atheist, he chose to keep his options open. Christ, he may have been a non-believer. But he wasn’t crazy enough to risk eternity in some God’s awful place (that probably resembled his much loathed Melbourne, Wright thought).
Eternity was no laughing matter (nor was Melbourne for that matter). Therefore, to protect the next life, the himself currently closeted in the this life did what every-one else did when it came to religion. He invented. He theorised, hypothesised about it.
His latest baseless mind-spill concerned the afterlife.
Nathan proposed that life after death was, in essence and if believed, a timeless eternity. This being the case, now was a good time to die. Before he got too old. Or wrinkled. Or found a religion that preached otherwise for Wright, thirty something, mad at being older than 25, earnestly believed that whatever a person died with - they were stuck with. Forever. Went up stairs or down to the furnace with the body and the brain they’d slept in. Lived in. He believed with sincere dismay that people were tied to their earthly parts for ever and ever in that vacuum called eternity (or so the infantile abacus in his head said).
‘Imagine it. When you die, you stay dead!’ He’d advise the Mormons anytime they were daft enough to imagine they could convert him. Or talk some nonsense into him.
‘That’s a startling insight,’ they’d chorus, taking several steps backward, clutching umbilical Bible’s to their convinced souls. Ready to use them in self-defence if the mad Apostle became any more profound.
‘Yes siree.’ Nathan would continue certain. ‘There’s no sudden plunge in the fountain of youth. Or some celestial Lourdes to reverse age or infirmity,’ he’d exclaim. ‘If you die geriatric, you stay incontinent. If you die eight foot tall, you stay a mutant too big to do anything but play basketball for The All Stars All Stars....if you kark with bad breath you’ll remain some-one to be avoided...but...BUT ..if you park life in God’s garage before you reach twenty and maturity you can stay young ...forever!’ He’d announce as if the Lord himself had whispered it to him.
The Mormons said this was nonsense. But they couldn’t convince Wright who still felt that tripping around heaven (or hell or where-ever) as dead as a dodo with the body of a prune and the mind of a deranged toucan was a future not worth pursuing.
Utterly convinced, Nathan therefore annually contemplated getting out before the years withered him. And forced him to wander dead with a himself well past its prime.
Essentially, the way the misanthrope Wright figured it, if humans were as smart as they claimed, they’d choose to die at 19. Why? Because at the age of nineteen, they could get to spend the rest of their afterlife, the decades upon centuries upon millennium of it; young. Find that place in space where they would stay active, vigorous and forever youthful. Where they as the dead, so departed, could remain eternally sag free and as physically perfect as their bequeathed genes would allow.
Die at their peak so to speak.
Strangely, this nineteen year expiry date seemed not to have been widely embraced by humanity so he was forced to live with the various nations of them. (Luckily for an overdue Wright. Were it to be made mandatory, were he forced to put his mortality where is mouth was - he for one wouldn’t be around to debate the issue for starters).
It was an idea, a concept, which the nutter well knew had many drawbacks. And many cruelties if taken to its logical conclusion. For instance, what if the angel of death harvested a four year old? The real gone kid would be forced to after-live as a circus midget (which was no way to spend eternity. Or infancy). An old fart would stay an old fart. An amputee would remain armless, an alcoholic legless. If, in life, the now corpse had been ill, or handicapped, or retarded, or just plain ugly, Wright’s concept that they’d stay that way forever was demonstrably grotesque (and patently unjust so these unfortunates had better pray Wright was wrong).
It was a crazy theory but he believed it. It was why he thought it was a good time to leave. Before he got too old to go.
________________
‘What are you doing?’
‘Hatching eggs,’ Wright decided, adjusting a plump red cushion under him.
‘Haemorrhoids more likely,’ Jenny suggested, scampering from the room before he could swear at her .
Wright slumped back into the depths of the ash blue armchair contemplating. Heaven? Hell? Up or down? It was only a matter of choosing the correct lift he argued.
________________
Wright believed in death. At least there was enough evidence to convince the ever questioning Nathan of its existence. Conversely, he had little time for the fiction of reincarnation.
Basically, there were two reasons for his scepticision about this particularly dead end career path.
Firstly, what the hell was the point? Apparently, the theory is that some disembodied remnant of the past life you, could be reborn as anything. A tree, a pig or a turkey. Animal, mineral or vegetable. The Supreme One didn’t seem to care. So what damn good was half a century or so of being human when all you’ve got to look forward to was to be reincarnated as something to hang Christmas decorations on, or some overweight truffle hunter or some-one’s Thanksgiving dinner? What the fuck was the point? If that’s all you achieved from this life why not save yourself the trouble? Decorate yourself, admit you’re a pig and act like a turkey. Just like this life.
Christ, if you can’t waltz into the next life form with your this life’s wealth or wisdom intact, why the hell bother dying? Why the hell bother coming back?
Surely there’s a planet somewhere out there where you can take it all with you. Surely there’s some vermilion skied, five moon star out there, way beyond the galaxies and this loopy idea of reincarnation, where you can take everything you’d learnt and experienced this time around with you? Have them repacked in a fresh body or brain so they’d be of some use to you?
Wright hoped so.
Secondly, and more to the point, he thought God would need to be a major sadist to force him to gestate on this earth yet again. Surely not even the omnipresent one would force him repeat the performance. Make him go through the identical turmoil and shit he’d claimed to have endured thus far in his paltry existence. (Wright was also scared shitless that as a joke, or in retaliation for his undoubted cynicism and ingratitude, God would reincarnate him as a starving African; or a black Australian; or a garbage drilling Filipino. Or a cripple or cretin or one of the conspicuously ugly. Then he’d really have something to moan about).
Life could be hell for some. And heaven? What was that like? Was it some vast fun park with rides and fairy floss? A colourful carnival filled with the joyous laughter of cherub cute children, a sort of fabulous Disneyland for the deceased? Or was it some huge rest home filled to overflowing with cane towed ancients wandering content amongst tall willows on lush lawns below a cloudless sky? Maybe. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe God’s own was an island of the lifeless - warm, balmy and tropical with jade seas and sand splinter beaches.
Perhaps heaven wasn’t that primitive. Or idyllic. Just as likely it’s some huge glass domed city with horrible high-rises. A towering celestial Tokyo with beings from a trillion planets wedged into cubicle apartments all of whom, every hour of every day, are forced by the winged storm-troopers of the Gentile Gestapo to watch religious programs on the single channel glory box wedged tight in the cloud walls? The more Wright thought about it the better hell sounded.
But then he thought maybe not. Maybe heaven really was Paradise. A climate perfect resort like Vanuatu, the Bahamas or the Greek Islands. Only better.
It was a giant brothel Wright hoped.
Chapter Six
FLEEING THE GOBLIN
SNUGGLED DEEP IN THE CUSHIONS, Wright moaned softly. Behind him, squat on the window-sill and wrapped amongst cinema sized drapes, a thin cat, black with splashes of white patch
fur, sat preening itself with a flannel tongue.
Hidden from view by the velvet veil, it bathed itself for a few minutes before sticking a friendly face out. Purring softly, it sent serene slit pupils, two vertical diamonds in round eyes, about the dim room. Finding nothing of any redeeming value on view, Lassie retreated. Warm behind the doona drapes, she tried to get back to sleep. Soon, her breathing became shallow. Then silent as she yoga’d herself into oblivion. Lassie was Hindu.
Lassie was also the self appointed mother of the household’s cats. She was a feline foster parent who had sauntered in off the street one day, taken one look at the other two cats roaming the halls and decided both needed mothering. So adopted them, forcing the household to adopt her. She was always sleeping, always tired, always dog tired so Wright, in a fit of retarded wit, called her Lassie and the cat’s dog of a name had stuck ever since.
Waking from karmic trance, the cat gave itself a good licking before finally concluding this hairy orgy of self abuse with a few minutes of tubercular coughing and spluttering as large balls of gum fur stuck fast in a trap door throat. Refusing eviction.
Wright, still firmly settled three inches from the twenty six inch screen, was engrossed and content, doing his sleepy best to ignore the convulsions as the cat behind the curtains turned blue in the face, green at the gills. Ready for resuscitation.
Lassie was having a blow out. Then wasn’t.
There was a lull in the onslaught as she stopped hunching, ceased coughing to sit suddenly upright looking suitably astounded by such a dangerous affliction. The respite was temporary however. Almost immediately she resumed her hunch and with renewed vigour began choking again, her small whiskered face contorted in pained onslaught. Bewildered, Lassie wondered, between gasps, why her phlegm had turned solid and her cough chronic.
Wright, shoving feet, one socked blue, one orange, in front of a warming heater, was also astounded by the performance. But decided that the TV was more interesting so ignored it. Ignored the invisible but epileptic animal which was busy attempting to resume a dialogue with its despairing diaphragm. Which it duly did.
From atop the ledge, Lassie crawled out to clear her throat.
She did this by spitting hairy cannonballs in a flak attack of fifty mile per hour projectiles that began spraying the room in a saliva shower which hit the furniture; then the walls; then the floor. Then the ignorant Wright who, when thumped smack on the left ear by a product of reverse resuscitation, was too engrossed to notice. He was utterly captivated by the small screen. He thought it was rain and didn’t bother to test the logic.
Nathan didn’t seem to care that the sky was falling.
Whack. Another pasty gob lobbed on Wright’s head compliments of the cannon cat. Chicken Little’s feeble attention finally gained, Nathan, wiping a Lebanon scalp, gazed concernedly at the heaving cat.
Turning to Lassie, he offered some soothing advice to this spluttering sentinel.
‘Stop that bloody racket,’ he advised, pin eyes straying momentarily toward the feline carburettor before lurching back to the box. He was concentrating on the third girl on the left onstage of ‘Perfect Match’, a voyeuristic game show that mated the single with the singularly revolting in imperfect union.
Wright was sure he knew her (she was very ugly so the chances were good).
The cat meanwhile continued its recitation of the T.B. Anthem. So Wright turned again. Spoke again.
‘For God’s sake, you whining little shit. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out!’’ So with Wright’s blessing, Lassie did just that. With stunning suddenness, she commenced regurgitating great balls of food and fluff onto the lounge floor.
Again Wright glanced up, this time more sympathetic.
To the plight of the one on the box he knew he knew. The poor girl had been passed over yet again (by the ugly wand by the look of her) so she’d just missed out on a romantic weekend with a slab faced accountant in F..a..aabuu..lous Launceston. She looked devastated.
‘Don’t look so distraught baby,’ Wright comforted her. ‘You haven’t missed much.’ He reassured her, remembering the last time he’d visited Launceston. And then chosen to forget it. Just as time had seemed to.
‘Jenny!’ He screamed suddenly. This scared the shit out of the cat so that it was busy leaking from both ends as Wright bellowed for the cleaner.
‘Jenny! Your cat’s chucked chunks of itself all over the carpet,’ he reported, loudly exchanging ownership for Lassie was, by adoption, his cat. Not Jenny’s.
Hearing this, the animal on the ledge now looked hurt, as well as sick. Hunched sad, it frowned in whiskered layers, contemplating the fickleness of affections (which was exactly what Wright spent too much of his emotions and energies on when his romances turned sour. Which was most of the time). Sitting breathless, perched high above the carnage, poor Lassie appeared truly embarrassed about the fuss she was causing.
‘You clean it up! It’s your cat.’ Jenny reminded him in Hiroshima threat from the kitchen, where she was waiting for the jug to boil. Wright yelled. Jenny screamed. And Lassie felt more and more unwanted with each exchange of invectives while her foster parents fought to avoid custody. Of her or her innards.
While Wright remained seated, Jenny remained distant. Fortunately for him. They continued shouting at each other for what, to Lassie anyway, seemed like hours until silence prevailed.
Wright finally relaxed, foolishly believing he’d won the loss of ownership. But he hadn’t. He was more likely to lose an arm or a leg and knew it as soon as he saw Jenny appear in the doorway.
Weapon in hand, vengeance in her heart, she was coming for him. Wright, being the confirmed coward he was, didn’t hang about to argue the point. Preferring fleeing to injury, he leapt from the chair and laughing like a demented macaw, he escaped. Running. Zapped out the other door of the lounge before she could maim him.
‘Nathan, you shit! Get back in here and clean up this mess!’ She bellowed at the fast fleeing blur. Nathan was heading for his hide-out (which was a bloody stupid move considering Nathan’s hide-out was about as well hidden as Jenny’s anger).
On reaching the imagined sanctuary of his bedroom, he slammed the door firmly shut behind him. Then stood leaning, listening. Ten minutes later, hearing no sound of pursuit, Wright relaxed.
Grateful that he seemed to have escaped her intact, but with one eye leery on the door, just in case, he went to the far corner of the room where a cluttered desk had almost disappeared beneath a mountain of litter. With a contemptuous sweep of an outstretched arm, he cast most of the trash off the desk and onto the floor before sitting down. The stool groaned, Wright grimaced as one shin collided sickeningly with the leg of the desk. Yelp. He was up and hopping. Mad.
From the lounge, which was directly below where he now jigged in limb gouged agony, an angry voice rose in verbal vapour. The some-what muted screaming came muffled through the wooden floorboards.
From below, Jenny shrieked and cursed. Then assailed. Thump, scream, thump, curse, thump. Wright’s floor began to vibrate as the demon downstairs began whacking her ceiling (his floor) with the head of the broom she’d used to clean up the cat’s liquid confession.
Jenny seems incredibly pissed off about something Wright sniggered, hopping about upstairs like a pogo flamingo.
Jenny was incredibly pissed off about something. HIM. She charged about the lounge threatening and banging and shaking her fists demanding that God above kill him. Unfortunately God wasn’t above. Not directly anyway. It wasn’t heaven above, above her was a heathen. A wright heathen hopping.
A thin crease turned to a monster smile on the face of the heathen directly above the outraged Jenny. Nathan, standing gingerly in the middle of a pale blue but certainly not celestial bedroom, rubbed a corrugated shin. Unaware of his new career as the omnipotent one, he realised Jenny would make him pay for such dereliction of duty. So he stopped smirking and started worrying.
/> Still in pain, he was in no mood for murder or mayhem. So he ignored the racket. Resigned and shin sore, he decided that all retribution could wait ‘til tomorrow (if she didn’t kill him today). Such calm resignation was ominous. And entirely transient. And a sure sign that tomorrow Nathan would be ready to kill for his moods were appalling elastic.
Inevitably, if he was passive one day, he’d be aggressive the next. The man was completely schizoid and no-one could ever be sure which day it was. Was it a Teutonic Tuesday or a Wimp Wednesday? Sometimes he’d run, sometimes he’d attack. One never could tell. Today? Today was a Faint Before Ferocity Friday so he wouldn’t argue with Jenny (or her battering broom).
Still limping slightly, he ignored the trampoline floor vibrating loudly beneath him. It was time to debate the typewriter. Sitting more cautiously this time, he switched on the machine which purred like a contented kitten. Leaning back in the chair, dangling worm fingers an inch above the sleeping keyboard, it wasn’t too long before he noticed that the quiet hum of the electric circuits was a more emphatic response than his brain could muster. It was vacant. His body - metal. Nathan, in search of inspiration, swivelled restlessly. Like some wayward compass, he spun first one way, then reversed polarity to swivel in the opposite direction, desperately in search of words to write (or magnetic north apparently).
Exasperated, totally bereft of any ideas or inspiration, he sighed. Reaching for the packet of Alpine’s by the ancient typewriter he’d nicked from his best friend Simon, he found a match and, with a flourish, set fire to another snorkel cigarette. Wright was stuck. Staring. He was hypnotised by the sheet of pale blank paper that drooped like washing on a windless day from between its captive grey rollers.
As time passed, snowing gently to the floor like incendiary talc, tiny feathers of white ash fell redundant from his collapsing cigarette. When one died, another was lit like a memorial candle for the dearly departed. Devoid of ideas, chain smoking, he waited impatiently for some spark of inspiration. For something to happen. Anything. A thought, a concept. A brainwave to wash across the mind beach. Zip. Nothing happened. Paralysis happened. No words sprung from fertile mind to deserted page.
