Lament for the Afterlife

by Lisa L. Hannett

  And Blink: he’s gone.

  And Blink: Euri’s gone.

  And Blink: the baby’s gone.

  Blink.

  The noise is so loud, it’s quiet.

  Blink.

  Beside him, the shroud’s head turns and Blink: she’s a silhouetted pyramid and Blink: she’s a flickering boxed-screen and Blink: a cloth-wrapped secret, watching Peyt watching her. He grinds the glass hard and Blink: iron floods his tongue and he sucks pain from cheeks and Blink: salt burns from his eyes and Blink Blink: nostrils flow and he tastes slime and sharp consonants and Blink: the black veils are in motion, the shroud’s silks rustling closer and Blink: she’s old Ruby with her shawl slung over head and shoulders, framing a wicked glare and Blink: she’s a photograph from Esther’s archives, a phantom caught in flight. Peytr looks down and up and away and Blink: his head meets the wall and the boarded window rattles and Blink: a canvas tarp vibrates him to sleep.

  See you in the morning, Peytie, Jean says, screwing the grenade’s lid on tight, giving it a couple good hard jolts before placing it on his dresser.

  He closes his eyes and breathes slow and deep until the tightness in his chest eases.

  A rough cloth scrubs his nose and—No—a rough scalp grates his lips and—No—stubble scrapes and a frenzied ’wind prickles his skin as he licks and gulps and swallows and—No—spits and spits and spits and Blink: melted glass and blood fume through his cavities and he balloons upward, body lifting, drifting, tethered only by the cord of his skinny right arm, a flesh-ribbon clutched in the shrouded woman’s cold grasp.

  “Focus,” she says, making another pass with the handkerchief. Peytr squirms like a pup as the woman reels him back down from the sky, grounding him with a voice firm as her hands. He feels her fingers prodding, pinching, tweaking, slapping—he thinks he feels—but she is sitting a foot away now. Stuffing the grimy cloth up her sleeve. Plying him with tea. Holding the cup to his mouth until he swallows.

  “Drink,” she says. “Deep swigs. That’s it, Two—don’t be afraid to gargle.”

  The brew is bitter, a pungent rosehip and lemon that stings the gashes inside Peytr’s mouth. It swishes and cleans on the way down, expanding as it goes, filling his belly with lead. Euri climbs on Peyt’s back, bear-hugs until his spine wilts. His lungs deflate against the table’s edge. Head cradled in his hands, he can no longer hear the stars.

  “What do you want?” The question is barbed, but doesn’t shred his mouth so sweetly as glass. He peers at the woman sideways through the V of his arm. Slits his eyes. Focuses. “I know you.”

  “Says the junkie to a stranger.”

  “All right, stranger.” Peytr sits up, trying not to sway as he leans in close. “Maybe you’ve heard of Jean—”

  The woman hushes him with a smooth white hand. “No names, soldier. We do not, nor will we ever, know each other personally. Should we ever meet again, it will be for the first time. Understand?”

  Blink: a box wrapped in newsprint and string appears on Peyt’s lap, small as a deck of Hoad’s cards.

  “For now,” she continues, “I’ll call you Two.” Pointing at the same figure scrawled in ink on the paper, she speaks slowly, as if Peyt is simple. “Consider it a tracking number.”

  “And should I also carve it into my palm, Your Honour?”

  Cardea winces.

  Blink: her eyes have no pupils. They’re polished blue stone. Solid. Grey-touched.

  Just like the rest of us, Peytr thinks—then snatches his sympathy before she can see it. Buries it deep in his ruck with the shells Jean gave him, long ago, before she offered to cut herself into history.

  “What’s the point?” he says, grabbing Cardea’s hands. She stiffens but doesn’t pull away. Peytr bends her fingers back, harder and harder, exposing pristine flesh. The table legs screech on the concrete as he jostles, moving so close his ’wind oozes bile onto the PM’s veils. At the noise, Gerte looks up from behind the bar.

  Blink: the waitress’s ’wind twists into a lasso. A noose from which Peyt can hang.

  Blink: she grimaces, elbowing Brandt.

  “Play nice,” the bartender says. “We’ll bounce you quick-as, Peytie boy.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Peyt snaps. Then lowering voice and hands, he turns back to Cardea. “Your cutpaws bleed so you don’t have to—am I right?”

  “You’ve no idea what you’re saying, Two.”

  “Maybe not,” Peyt says and Blink: she’s wiping his tears. Blink: she’s cowering under blankets of guilt. “So educate me.”

  “A parcel left my offices yesterday.” Discreetly, she takes a pouch of coin from her purse and another filled with enough seeds to feed Peyt and Mireille’s whole tenement for years. “This one needs to arrive first. That’s all you need know.”

  “An address wouldn’t hurt,” Peytr says.

  Cardea tilts her head, ceding the point, and passes him a tiny slip of crisp white parchment.

  “Why don’t you get one of your people to carry this? Send in a chopper or something. Special delivery, VIP. Bound to get there quicker by air …”

  Blink: there’s a pinch—a tug at Peyt’s ’wind and

  Blink: Cardea’s mouth is opening, closing, her jaw is crunching and

  Blink: why was he thinking of choppers?

  “Proof of delivery costs extra,” he says, getting back to business. Turning the paper over and over, he admires its clean grain.

  “Failure to deliver will cost more.”

  “Whatever you say, Your Honour—” and Peyt glances at the details she’s inked—inked!—in miniature cursive. An address. In theory, a simple mission. And Blink: he’s back at basecamp. Blink: he’s following the other vultures and Blink: he’s back in the alley. Blink.

  Blink.

  Blink

  “I can’t do it,” he says, paper dropping from numb fingers. “I won’t.”

  “You can, soldier.” Blink: the Prime Minister rips glowing red resistance from Peytr’s wordwind, crumbles it into her cup and Blink: she’s dabbing her lips. “And you will.”

  Peytr’s legs resist carrying him across town to the stadium. He’s determined to make it there—Cardea drained his reluctance along with her cup—he’s determined to deliver this parcel immediately. His mind has been made up.

  His body has different ideas.

  Instinct kicks in: a physical fight to his flight. Stay put, his muscles shout with cramps and crippling tremors. Sweat chills every part the rain hasn’t reached. His cock turtles inward, balls hiking up into his bowels. He spends over an hour in a public outhouse, squeezing panic out through his arsehole. Just get on the road, he tells himself, clutching his packs to his belly while he shits. Get it over with. Get moving. Walking usually calms him, the left right left flexing anxiety out with each step. Long strides and a steady pace soothe better than talk or pills or the quack meditations Tantie May says he should do; as if all his worries, his nightmares, his memories can be pounded to dust underfoot.

  It galls spending coin before it’s counted, but if Peyt’s going to make it to the drop-off he’ll have to hire four legs to replace his rebellious two.

  Five taxis clatter past before Euri grabs Peyt’s arm and forces him to hail one. A blue-and-white sedan with tailfins and chrome hubcaps, the hood torn off and transmission gutted, two mules hitched in the engine’s place. Fat as his animals, the driver grunts while twisting to unlock a back door for them. The vinyl seat squeaks as they clamber in, adding to puddles collected in the grooved cushion. Mould blooms across the moth-eaten roof and big-bellied drops plink onto their shoulders and heads. The cab smells of damp canvas and musk and stewed onions. Peyt’s stomach rumbles with hunger.

  He gives the driver directions that will take them to the south end of the CBD, a few streets away from the blockade. Close enough that his traitor legs should be able to cope; far enough not to get tangled up with protesters, or to raise any suspicions. Taking roads he hasn’t travelled since Daken�
��since before— he’ll veer west, offloading the package at the first sentry post he sees. Let them carry it across the perimeter. Past convenience stores and schoolyards. Down alleyways choked with dead words. Over vast evac-filled parking lots to the stadium.

  Let someone else do it.

  Anyone.

  No way he’s crossing into that territory himself, Pigeon or otherwise. No fuckin’ way.

  Glancing in the rear-view mirror, the mule-driver sneers and says, Thought you birds was supposed to be all high and mighty, flying come rain or sleet and all that shit. Then he names a price that blinks Peyt into a fury—until Euri rests a small hand on his thigh. Presses a finger to her lips. Gives him the settle-down stare.

  “You’re right,” he mutters, and the driver nods while Peyt doles out coin after coin. With his pockets sufficiently weighted, the fat man lashes the mules, who point their dripping beige muzzles toward the city’s arse-end. On the way, their hooves clank across railway lines, clop under overpasses, thud along wooden bridges barely wide enough to fit the car. The driver whips the fear out of them, so the pair travels even the narrowest lanes at full speed. At the parkway, he gives them their head; their jerky canter sets Peytr’s teeth rattling. Still, he admits, sleeving the steamed-up window. It’s nice to be out of that. Faded pennants on lampposts thrash in the gale. Flags twist, throttling rooftop poles. Curtains of rain sheer down before glass-fronted buildings, obscuring the people inside. They might be greys, for all Peyt can tell. They might be friends.

  Beside him, Euri’s ’wind cycles through travelling songs as she traces stick figures into the condensation. Next she makes little footprints, pressing the side of her fist into the glass, using thumb and fingerprints for the toes. When she makes a mistake, Euri simply leans close, exhales an erasing fog, and starts again. Peyt wishes it was always so easy.

  Heavy, he slouches. Leans against the headrest. Wishing he had another shard, he watches neighbourhoods evolve according to street signs. Blink: Brinnenberg and Blink: Kesoi—bombed-out shitholes, both, and crawling with greys. Blink: Slakt halvmåne, the first of a few blocks further north that are crammed full of tunnellers’ brick cottages. Mimi once applied for housing there, years ago. Before the baby came. Thought she’d make a good digger, thought she’d fit right in. After all, she was used to being underground and wasn’t afraid of the dark. Her stamina was good, she’d said with a wink. She liked the idea of proving there were no greys in the black, of unearthing, undermining. And the danger pay was good.

  She had no fuckin’ idea. Mireille thought packing their apartment full of garbage pilfered from the museum—cuckoo clocks, imperial doo-dads, moth-eaten tapestries, fossils of things that could never have been—made her an expert at recon. She thought stacking more and more shit along the walls and hallways, making little warrens out of each room, had trained her to cope with tight spaces. She thought using a shovel instead of a gun meant she wasn’t contributing to the war effort. She thought she was being a rebel.

  But accidentally plant a kid in her belly, Peyt thinks, and then see how fast she softens. Blink: she’s an instant believer and Blink: she sees greys behind each city corner and Blink: gets a low-rent share apartment in the suburbs and Blink: starts paying attention to politics and Blink: wishes she’d voted in the last election.

  On the sly, Peyt had gone to the polling stations. Told Mimi he was heading out of town for weapons training, then went to the bank and stood in line for hours just to press his ’wind on the Prime Minister’s empty helm. One politician is as bad as the other, far as Peyt’s concerned. Believers. Non-believers. Doesn’t matter. As long as there are ghosts the war will go on. No screen-head’s policies will change that. The whole thing’s gone way too far now to change course, way too far to go back. Simply stopping is not a conclusion. There have been too many Dakens lost. Too many volunteers like Jean.

  And the shells just keep on coming.

  Peytr voted anyway. Out of principle, out of right. He won’t pretend it made a difference.

  ####

  The mules slow at the parklands, wary of mines. Banners woven from childish wordwinds drape from wire fences, the writing beautiful but illegible. To the gate’s left, one says תפגמ העבג, the oncered letters now faded to pink. Another reads พื้นศูนย์—and Euri laughs, saying the word looks like a little face with funny pierced ears, a little pierced nose, and irises shifty-looking over to the right. Peyt tells her to hush as the cab crunches over a dirt meadow scrapped with tall weeds, ringed by brown grass tussocks and low mounds. Under a foot of rain-churned water, any pink-painted warnings are invisible. At any second, they could roll over a grey’s hideout, trigger an IED, fall into an explosive trap. Peytr rolls down his window, straining to hear the hum of bottled words. The twang of a released snare. The click that could end their lives.

  Nearly there, says the driver softly, to the animals or passengers or himself.

  Not so brash now, Peyt’s tempted to say, but keeps his mouth shut, his ’wind hooded. He reaches over to take Euri’s hand, but she shakes him off. Cross-legged on the seat beside him, one of his satchels pulled onto her lap, she’s looking down at it in concentration. Digging under the canvas flap. Tugging at what’s inside. Pulling it out.

  Think we should open it? That other Pidge didn’t give his a second look before tossing it… . And how much you want to bet Hoad’s got the other one, propping up his deck? Why should we be the only ones to risk our necks? Without even seeing what we’re in for?

  “Put that away,” Peyt whispers, willing the mules to move faster. Another fifty metres or so and they’ll be out of the park, back on asphalt. Heading for military traffic and the camouflage of crowds.

  Climbing up and down her pigtails, Euri’s ’wind spells out False hope… . False hope … and Blink: the rough cord around the package is untied, snaked on the cab floor. Blink: the newsprint falls open around a stiff cardboard box, another string holding its lid in place.

  “Don’t,” Peytr starts to say but then thinks, Why the fuck not? Maybe Euri’s got the right idea. Whatever’s inside, Cardea didn’t want her own people anywhere near it. Instead she hired a trio of nobody Pigeons—loners, he realises, who can’t be traced back to her. But why? What’s she playing at? Something that’s obviously worth paying way too much for, Peyt thinks. Something she can’t—or won’t—do herself.

  It’s a set-up, he decides, as Euri works at a tight little knot in the string. The thing’s full of grey-bait; it’s a box loaded with delicious eyes. That’s it: I’m not supposed to make the drop. Before I even get there, the reek of trapped sight will lure the fuckers out, giving the vultures a clear shot, a perfect shot to attack out in the open… . Guaranteed there’ll be no report filed after the grunts pump me full of verbs. I’ll be ghosted while the squad celebrates, my core shunted into the black, into nothing. And then the fucking PM will pin medals on the shooters’ chests while brooms brush my remains into the gutter. And when the dust settles, the roaches will feast.

  As Euri pops the lid, there’s a metallic clinking inside. A rattling of something like beads. Fuck, Peyt thinks, forgetting about vultures and roaches and eyes. It’s a compact shell. Flat instead of round, ideal for sliding through gaps in old stadium walls or under loading bay doors or into an unsuspecting Pigeon’s bag …

  “Do you hear gears? Do you hear ticking?” he asks, heart jumping when Euri fumbles the box. The driver replies, There’s a construction site a block thataway, but he hasn’t got a fuckin’ clue what he’s talking about. He let a fuckin’ suicide bomber into his backseat for a few fuckin’ coins—what the fuck does he know? Peyt tries to calculate how long it’s been since he picked up the bomb, how long before that Cardea might’ve ignited the thing, how long she would’ve given him to reach the stadium. Did she read the future in that screen-helm of hers? Did she know he’d catch a cab, this fucking slow cab with its fuckin’ skittish donkeys? Or did she think he’d walk? Did she guess his ro
ute? Maybe the destination was a ruse—maybe she planned for the bombs to detonate before the Pigeons got anywhere close to the CBD.

  He can’t really remember what buildings are between here and there. Probably an op-shop and army surplus. A couple of groggers. The local shelter. There’s a travel and passport agent somewhere, close to a ransacked Pick ‘n’ Mix. A hostel or two. An evac processing centre. “Stop,” Peyt says, banging on the back of the driver’s seat. “It’s too dangerous. Let us out.”

  Everything’s fine, the man replies, laughing as his mules jog the last few metres out of the park, pulling the cab onto firmer ground. Road ain’t even flooded up here! He flogs them into a trot. Their shoes clatter on the pavement, ringing doom.

  “Stop!” Peytr shouts.

  We’re going to explode, he says. He thinks.

  Shortcut, says the cabbie, swerving into a narrow lane between a bottle factory and an evac centre. Sirens wail in the distance and suddenly the grey sky blooms green. Around them, the brick canyon is plunged in suffocating darkness, rusted water hissing down the walls, men hissing from behind, Cap and his lackeys hissing pussy pussy pussy, blocking the way out, blocking them in and

  Blink: Peyt’s gripping something cold, something metal and Blink: his face is burning, rubbed raw on stubble and Blink: Daken’s moaning and Blink: he’s moaning and Blink: he’s gagging on ‘e’s and ‘r’s and ‘y’s and

  He’s gripping something cold, something metal, flat and smoothly round in his palm. It’s not long, it’s not a spoon, there’s no handle-gouging. Through his tears he sees yellow, not silver; Borys didn’t make this at the Wheels ‘n’ Heels, could never make something so fine. Breath shudders in and out of Peyt’s mouth as he gapes, blinking, not at scraping-steel bones, not at a stealth bomb, but a man’s unadorned pocket watch. Burnished gold with an ivory face, its archaic numerals of inlaid ebony. Time stopped with its hands up, frozen behind the cracked glass. Looped around the winding mechanism, a ribbon of paper, inked in a feminine script.