Coffin Island

by Will Berkeley

  “Right back at you,” I said.

  “I may have my way with you first,” Professor Coffin bellowed. “Forewarned is forearmed, madam.”

  “You leave us no choice but to let Professor Coffin pillage you,” Madison snorted.

  “I’m going to be doing the pillaging,” The Red Lady shouted.

  The Red Lady was attempting to hack her way out of the hull with her cutlass.

  “You’re not doing any pillaging anytime soon,” I shrugged.

  “We can consider how to pillage you at our leisure,” Professor Coffin said. “No need to hurry us.”

  “You’ll be so tired by the time that you get out,” Madison said. “I’m going to break your elderly skeleton over my knee like a stick.”

  “Then the pillaging will commence,” Professor Coffin bellowed.

  “I’m going to stone you to death,” I said. “That’s just how it’s going to go down if you poke your head out of that ship.”

  “Old Testament style,” Madison snorted.

  “We’re a bundle of billets in this world, old girl,” Professor Coffin bellowed.

  “We’re all kindling for the pyre?” The Red Lady crowed.

  “The bubbling rum hints at it,” Madison snorted.

  “What do I have to do to get out here?” The Red Lady asked. “Promise not to pillage you. That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Your word is worthless now that you are a zombie,” Professor Coffin said.

  “A pirate’s word is worthless,” Madison said.

  “That’s why we can’t trust each other,” Professor Coffin said. “We’re two pillagers passing in the village at night.”

  “It sounds consensual,” Madison snorted.

  “I feel terrible,” The Red Lady groaned. “Something really bad is happening to me now. There also is this very scary creature down here in the hull.”

  “What’s the problem, madam?” Professor Coffin asked and put his ear to the shipwreck to diagnose the patient.

  “I stopped bleeding but now something worse is happening to me,” The Red Lady gasped. “My blood from the bilge is reentering me!”

  “How do you feel?” Professor Coffin asked.

  “I feel horrible,” The Red Lady groaned. “Blood is breaking into my feet like a thief.”

  “Her blood is reentering her,” Madison said. “Damn it.”

  “She could still be in-charge,” I groaned.

  I then pounded on the hull of Doctor Fast in deep frustration. Couldn’t witchcraft cut us a break?

  The creature in the hull of Doctor Fast pounded back with ferocity. I just ignored it. Didn’t I have enough on my plate? It seemed like the key to that creature was to flat out ignore it.

  “She’s still a suspect,” Madison groaned.

  “That’s humanness entering you,” Professor Coffin shouted. “I just felt a ping of it myself through the hull.”

  Professor Coffin thought the hideous pounding of the creature in the hull was a ping of humanness?

  “It’s worse than The Black Death,” The Red Lady coughed. “Which of you would like to drown me now? Someone needs to hold my head under. I can’t stand being human. I feel terrible. There is also this hideous creature in here. It demands to be acknowledged.”

  Chapter

  “We’re all hitches here now,” Professor Coffin beamed. “You’re no longer a womb.”

  “I’ve been birthed into this world of glass?” The Red Lady gasped. “I’m a hitch?”

  “Another human witch,” Madison groaned. “Aren’t there any real witches left?”

  “My cutlass is offensive to me,” The Red Lady said. “I can’t even pick it up. The creature in here is taunting me.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Professor Coffin frowned. “Who is going to protect us from No Thing when it finally shows up?”

  “I thought you wanted to go to glass Alcatraz,” I said.

  “I do,” Professor Coffin beamed. “But not without a proper fight waged by proxy. I have my own hide to protect. There is my dignity too.”

  “I don’t think that I can kill anymore people,” The Red Lady said. “I’m too depressed. The creature in the hull is really distressing.”

  “Is your conscience bothering you now that you are human?” I asked.

  “I have a few regrets,” The Red Lady snuffed.

  “Don’t we all,” Madison snapped. “Get over your remorse before I get over it for you. Lop your head off and kick it down the temple stairs like a bag of garbage.”

  “Or an infant,” Professor Coffin said. “We used to do that during The Great War to toughen up the newborns.”

  “Would you do that for me,” The Red Lady asked shakily.

  “It’s a good thing that the young don’t murder their elders in this culture,” Professor Coffin mused. “It’s not in the hitch tradition.”

  “We’ve got to patronize the old bags in this culture,” I groaned.

  “Youth must suffer,” Professor Coffin confirmed.

  “It might be time to modernize,” Madison said.

  “Professor Coffin’s bumbling has turned us into hitches,” I said.

  “We might need to reconfigure our standards to a more human level,” Madison said.

  “We can’t lower ourselves to that level of savagery,” Professor Coffin growled. “We have hitch standard to uphold as ambiguous as they might be.”

  “We have to be mindful of the fact that we are hitches without any standards whatsoever?” Madison sneered.

  “We just make it up as we go,” I said.

  “Why else would we be hitches?” Professor Coffin demanded.

  “I don’t think that hitches exist,” I said. “I’m not buying into the concept.”

  “How can you be a human witch?” Madison demanded. “It sounds ludicrous.”

  “They exist in the realm of the impossible,” Professor Coffin said loftily.

  “Where else would they be scampering around?” Madison asked.

  “Little gossamer hooves,” Professor Coffin agreed.

  “We’re just running around in the vapors like unicorns,” I said.

  “Of course,” Professor Coffin grinned.

  “Could you stop bickering amongst yourselves?” The Red Lady asked from inside the shipwreck. “I’m getting hysterical now that I’m a hitch.”

  “What’s your problem?” Madison snapped.

  “Why are you so special?” I asked.

  “Can’t you see that we’ve got our hands full being hitches ourselves?” Professor Coffin demanded. “We can’t counsel you too.”

  “We’re too busy dealing with our own panic,” Madison said.

  “I’m getting a little anxious,” I agreed. “When is the ruler of this world going to stop demonstrating all these uncomfortable truths to us?”

  “I’m loosing my mind stuck here,” Madison said.

  “Patience of the doldrums, pupils,” Professor Coffin counseled.

  “You brought the doldrums with you, Professor Coffin,” Madison shouted.

  “How else can you explain this world of static?” I asked.

  “Who wants to kill me now that I am human?” The Red Lady asked. “I need to be put out of my misery right now.”

  “I’m too busy meddling in other people’s lives,” Professor Coffin said.

  “I’m too busy with the voices in my head,” Madison said.

  “I’m too busy trying to get us out of here,” I said and tugged on the invisible leash.

  “Don’t I get a vote on my own suicide?” The Red Lady asked.

  “You’ve been outvoted,” I said.

  “Suicide denied,” Professor Coffin bellowed.

  “Can’t you drown quietly like a balanced person,” Madison said.

  “I wish I could,” The Red Lady said. “But the water isn’t rising and my conscience won’t let me go under.”

  “Not our problem,” I said. “Get that creature in there to kill you.”


  “He won’t do it,” The Red Lady pouted. “He enjoys watching me suffer.”

  “Welcome to the doldrums,” Madison said.

  “We’re hitches,” Professor Coffin bellowed. “But we’re still witches with impeccable moral standards of dubious value.”

  “Find some stones for your pockets,” Madison suggested. “Drown yourself like a talented woman.”

  “To the lighthouse, madam,” Professor Coffin bellowed.

  “I object,” The Red Lady shouted.

  “We haven’t convicted you of anything yet,” Professor Coffin said. “Have some patience, madam. This is the doldrums.”

  I can’t believe that it’s inside the hull of a ship in the doldrums with a rude creature in it,” The Red Lady said. “What sort of maniac thinks of this?”

  “She’s probably not running the test,” Madison said.

  “This is the worst gallows that I have ever stood upon,” The Red Lady shouted.

  “I’ve stood on far worse,” Professor Coffin grinned.

  “You’re going to have to brave whatever horrors Old Havana in glass holds for you,” I said. “I’m still the Headmaster.”

  “That’s my sentence, Headmaster Booster?” The Red Lady sniffed from inside the shipwreck. “You’re too cruel. The creature is laughing at me now.”

  “Everyone has to face their humanness here including that creature that we won’t dignify,” Madison said.

  “Why should we?” I demanded. “Nobody is dignifying us.”

  “That creature has to look its humanness right in the glass peeper,” Professor Coffin said as he unblocked one of the portholes of the shipwreck. “Come out of that wreck, madam. Leave the shipwreck to the creature that we refuse to acknowledge.”

  “You’ve paid your debt to society,” I said.

  “Just don’t let that damn creature out,” Madison said.

  “He refuses to come out,” The Red Lady said.

  “He’s just being contrary because I’m being contrary,” I said.

  “He won’t acknowledge you either,” The Red Lady said.

  “We’re in business,” I declared.

  “Join the human race while it goes under,” Professor Coffin said.

  “Or just stay in there with the creature,” I suggested. “I don’t care.”

  “Welcome to the end of the line,” Madison said.

  “I think we might have learned something here,” I said.

  “I’d rather go back down below deck and give drowning another try,” The Red Lady said as she poked her head out of the porthole like a bird in a birdhouse. Why wasn’t it nailed to the sun?

  “The Red Lady is the bird in the hourglass in this world,” I gasped.

  “It helps explain why time has stopped,” Madison said.

  “She has to come out,” I said.

  “Will she peck your finger if you put it in a porthole?” Professor Coffin pondered.

  “I refuse to be a cuckoo,” The Red Lady shouted.

  “There is no escaping the monkey bird here,” Professor Coffin said. “Come out of that birdhouse, you monkey bird.”

  Chapter

  “Get out my shipwreck,” I said. “I’ve sentenced you, you monkey bird.”

  “I’m going back below deck,” The Red Lady pouted. “I don’t like my sentence. And I don’t appreciate being called a monkey bird.”

  “You’re not supposed to like your sentence, you big old monkey bird,” Madison snorted.

  “I want you to kill me,” The Red Lady snarled.

  “Denied,” I said.

  “You’ll get a lighter sentence next time,” Professor Coffin bellowed.

  “I’m taking this shipwreck down to Davy Jones,” The Red Lady said.

  “Why does she get to go to that hallowed locker?” Professor Coffin demanded.

  “I’m climbing back into the keel with the creature,” The Red Lady said and went below deck. “You can’t stop me.”

  “I can pull you out of that keel anytime I want,” Madison shouted. “I’m feeling downright human myself.”

  “You aren’t killing yourself on our watch, madam,” Professor Coffin said. “We’re all carriers of this blasted humanness now.”

  “Why does she get to go down with my ship?” I asked.

  “You’re making me do your dirty work,” The Red Lady shouted from below deck.

  “Somehow drowning in the emerald ocean does seem like progress,” I said.

  “Should we join her?” Madison asked.

  “The end of time,” I mused.

  “Will time sail off?” Madison asked.

  “Going down with the ship in spite of the specifics is specific,” Professor Coffin said.

  “Drowning in this world is full, final and not magical,” Madison said.

  “Are you trying to sell me on drowning?” The Red Lady shouted from below deck. “I’ve already made up my mind.”

  “You’re hemming and hawing,” Madison snorted.

  “Stop threatening us with your death, madam,” Professor Coffin bellowed.

  “Why won’t you let me drown in peace?” The Red Lady pouted.

  “I’m the captain of the ship,” I said. “Get out of my wreck.”

  “That death doesn’t belong to you,” Madison said.

  “You can’t expect that wretch of death with the icy fingertips to take a murderous stowaway down with it when it has refused the rightful Captain of this magnificent ship,” Professor Coffin growled.

  “Not in this world,” Madison said.

  “This world has much bigger plans you,” I said.

  “The telescope with the all-seeing eye hints at it,” Madison said.

  “The glass eye has some sort of symbolic import,” Professor Coffin marveled. “I wonder what it is.”

  “Shall we begin this fascinating adventure that the glass eyeball suggests?” I asked.

  “We have to get droopy drawers out of the shipwreck first,” Madison said.

  “I can’t muster up the courage,” The Red Lady said from below deck.

  “You’re too much of a coward to take the coward’s way out,” Madison sneered.

  “We’re all cowards here,” Professor Coffin said. “Come on out.”

  “Join your people,” I said.

  The Red Lady climbed out of the shipwreck. The bleeding in her lungs seemed to be fully clotting now. Humanness had probably saved her life. Now if I could only get my hands on a guillotine. Where was the French Revolution when you needed it? Also what to make of that creature in Doctor Fast? Was he just the boogeyman or what? What is a character that never reveals itself? I suppose it doesn’t exist. Boogie on boogeyman, boogie on. You don’t exist.

  Chapter

  “You drank this world into existence,” Madison said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Speak up,” I said.

  We were now stuck on the shoreline boulevard. We were waiting for the mailman to show up with a check. Perhaps a bribe would do the trick in this Third World of witchcraft. Where were the corrupt authorities when you needed them? In the meanwhile I figured we would torment The Red Lady.

  “Or forever hold your peace, madam,” Professor Coffin bellowed. “It is time to be judged by your peers.”

  “I thought you already judged me,” The Red Lady said. “How can you judge me now that I have come out of the shipwreck? I have faced being a witch. I have faced being a womb. I have faced being a hitch. What more could I possible face? Haven’t I given you everything that you wanted? I deserve to be let go now.”

  “You haven’t answered for Old Havana in glass just yet,” Professor Coffin sniffed. “All the blame has been pinned on me. Quite unfairly I might add. I need to defer a bit of it for my conscience’s sake now that I have one.”

  “Stop trying to steer your guilt onto the old broad,” Madison said.

  “You can’t expect me to shoulder my own guilt,” Professor Coffin said.

  “It rolls right off yo
ur back,” Madison said.

  “How else could I walk?” Professor Coffin said.

  “What do you have to say about Old Havana in glass?” I asked.

  “How do you feel about drinking Old Havana in glass into existence?” Madison asked.

  The Red Lady stiffened like a ship’s figurehead. However she wasn’t much of a talisman for good luck. How to read this wooden woman?

  “Is this a reflection on us?” The Red Lady asked.

  “A refracted one, I suppose,” I said.

  “Stop badgering the witness,” Professor Coffin bellowed. “That’s my job as her attorney.”

  The Red Lady blinked Old Havana in glass into her soulless eyes.

  “This is our fault because we drink too much?” The Red Lady stammered.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” I asked.

  “I thought I was on trial for murder,” The Red Lady said. “I don’t care that I drink too much.”

  “What is your plea?” Professor Coffin asked.

  “I need a drink,” The Red Lady said.

  “That’s it,” Madison shouted. “You have nothing more to say for yourself.”

  “Make it a double,” The Red Lady shouted.

  “You see?” Professor Coffin said. “I rest my case.”

  “That’s your excuse,” Madison snapped.

  “I need a drink too,” Professor Coffin grinned. “Four fingers if you please.”

  “We’re pirates,” The Red Lady agreed.

  Maybe they weren’t running our test. Or they had just gone off-kilter.

  “Finally,” Professor Coffin said. “There is a sensible pirate to have an adult beverage with. Let’s get a nightcap in Old Havana in glass to celebrate our victory over youth and ignorance before it sinks into the ocean like Atlanta.”

  “I thought it was Atlantis,” I said.

  “Atlanta,” Professor Coffin confirmed. “Custer sank it during the Moonshine War.”

  “I bid you pupils, adieu,” The Red Lady said. “Cocktail hour calls before the end of this world.”

  “It’s always happy hour for adult pirates,” Professor Coffin agreed. “Pupil pirates need not apply.”

  “It’s always the witching hour too,” Madison snorted.