Coffin Island

by Will Berkeley

  Was this the coffin room on Coffin Island? Was this the waiting room for the witches that were waiting to enter the coffin room? How to die here and get to the next death? Or live and simply get out of here?

  This hideous hallucination that some frontal lobe madman depicted after his absinthe ran out? Was this his suicide note? Was there something to be concerned about?

  Perhaps that was the big problem right there. I needed to suicide out to pass the test? Kill myself to get out of Flemish hell?

  I certainly wasn’t killing myself. Forget about it, examiner. People like me don’t kill themselves. We kill other people. Or people kill us if they’ve got the resources which frankly you don’t, examiner. You would have done it by now. I’d run because I’m leaping off the page right now. That’s my hand on your throat. How’s that for chilling?

  Chapter

  The chilly most, the dead, weren’t offering much in the way of chilling advice. The dead were useless for instruction as always, the bunch of useless stiffs. They just wanted to give me the secret handshake of the ancients. They could keep it. Try to send the shivers up my spine? Good luck. I’m going to burn all you corpses shortly.

  What the hell were they doing here in hell anyway? Shouldn’t they just move along if they are going to idly congregate? Stop stinking up the joint and get the holy hell out here. You don’t belong in hell if you aren’t going to do something constructive. Aren’t you supposed to be busy with hellish instruction? Where was the fable in all of this?

  I was shouting at the devil to come out again. Reveal yourself so I can cut you down. Or you cut me down. I don’t care which. Someone cut someone down in hell. Otherwise this isn’t hell.

  I was really beginning to have serious doubts. Was this even in hell? What to make of this complicated ruse? Certainly if you are in real hell and you call the devil out. He will come howling out.

  What was going on here? Had my examiners forgotten about me? How insulting. I wasn’t even worth keeping tabs on during my examination. I wasn’t expected to make it this far, I suppose. Hello, I’m here. Did you forget about me?

  Was it time to blast a hole through the Tower of Babel so the train can get through? We don’t want those corpses to arrive late for their deaths. I don’t care if they’re already dead. I’m going to make them do it again. They’ve infuriated me. Shall we get the horror show on the road? The carnival of the absurd with the dead circus freaks at the end of the magical river? Show yourself, beast.

  The Tower of Babel was looking like a decidedly delicious candidate for total destruction. It was the only thing that was standing in this world. Everything else was dead. That pile of blocks was going to do some tumbling. Dice style. Why not funk it up in here?

  There we were back in that unhappy place again. It was all about what you destroyed. That’s how you get ahead in this hideous world. You tangle with the most the vicious enemy that you can find even if it’s hiding. You shout at it enough. Taunt and threaten it. It will come out.

  It comes out with a furious vengeance because your darkest enemy is yourself. Trust me. I just prodded that beast right out of his bone ridden cavern. I was shooting fire out of my mouth.

  “I’ve watched you shout your way through some pretty dark thoughts,” Madison said. “Are you okay?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “Totally lost it?” Madison said.

  “You could say that,” I said.

  “I’m with you,” Madison said.

  “I was wondering who else was screaming,” I said.

  “Rubber room,” Madison said. “I’ve been raving like a lunatic.”

  “Crypt Island is doing something terrible to us,” I said.

  “It’s scary,” Madison agreed.

  “You go deep enough into yourself,” I said.

  “You scare yourself,” Madison said.

  “You question yourself too,” I said.

  “There are no good questions in witchcraft,” Madison snorted.

  “Or good answers,” I agreed.

  “Witchcraft stepped over the line,” Madison said.

  “And it took us with it,” I said.

  “I’m not going back,” Madison said. “That’s the freaky part.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “Forget about that.”

  “Forget about the past,” Madison agreed.

  “We’re through with it,” I said.

  “Are you mad with me?” Madison asked.

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “I’ve always got a little love for you,” Madison laughed.

  “Seeing as we’re the only love we’ve got,” I said.

  “We are magically attached and all that,” Madison snorted.

  “Witchcraft did provide that,” I said.

  “The generosity perplexes me,” Madison said.

  “It was a punishment that backfired,” I said.

  “A little too much of a contrived error,” Madison laughed. “It would have never happened on my watch.”

  “We would have never made it without it,” I said.

  “That’s why I wouldn’t have granted it,” Madison said.

  “Your savagery has grown on me,” I laughed. “I’ve come to admire it actually. There is something honest in your total brutality. I also like the fact that you would never apologize even if you are wrong. In this world that is high art.”

  “You fight your way through your humiliating defeat,” Madison said. “You right yourself with your wrongs and you do it with no apologies.”

  “It makes a certain sense in this world,” I shrugged. “Or this world makes it a necessity.”

  “You never back down,” Madison said. “You can be dead wrong but you fight until you somehow right yourself. Or you just go down in flames.”

  “It’s the wisdom of the ancients,” I agreed.

  “How do you want to dispense with these annoying pirates?” Madison asked. “I can’t listen to them complain a second longer. We can then deal with the larger task of taking down this entire world.”

  “One brick at a time if necessary,” I said.

  “We’re out for blood on this outing,” Madison agreed.

  “Don’t go hunting without it,” I said.

  “How brutally do you want to handle the elders?” Madison asked.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” I said.

  “I’m wondering if it might be nice to quarter them with four invisible horses,” Madison said coolly. “I’m considering dishing up some horsemen of the apocalypse right now.”

  “That might be nice,” I said.

  There were filaments of light shooting out of Madison’s hands. She had picked up Professor Coffin and The Red Lady with them. Why not? If you’re going to have horrendous magical power you might as well make it crank down those stairs in that castle with the music at high volume.

  Madison was operating Professor Coffin and The Red Lady like marionettes. She was hitting them together with the power that was shooting out of her hands. I applauded her with a click of my heels. I was levitating off the ground. It suited me to not be standing on this filthy corpse ridden planet. If I had to be on it, I might as well not tread upon it was how my logic was operating. You’ve got to make your own options when the circumstances deny you. I was also planning on scorching this planet a little bit.

  Madison was making Professor Coffin and The Red Lady dance in a mawkish fashion. I approved heartily. I clicked my heels a bit to encourage those two leprechauns in their merry little jig. They were screaming horrifically like banshees being thrown into the fireplace. You wouldn’t think that making two leprechauns scream horrifically was deeply funny but it was. I suppose if you’re seriously twisted then it’s pretty funny right out of the box. I was laughing. Why not? They’re just test humans.

  I was peering at my own madness a bit too. I was off to the side of my disturbed mind. I was peering at my pathology a little bit. My madness was highly entertaining with just the proper di
stance. If you could step outside your madness for just a little bit your madness was really quite funny. What a hilarious psychopath.

  I was chuckling at my psychopathic self a little bit. You had to cut that jugular with swift precision if you had any desire to gnaw on the chicken wing with a beer on the side to wash it down righteously. How about some hot sauce to spice things up? Eating Professor Coffin and The Red Lady seemed like the height of civilization. Why not peer with the dead eye at the carnage on the television over the bar? That horrifically brutal war on the television is fascinating. Barkeep, my good man, can you crank up the volume so I can hear the bullets hit the bodies?

  Chapter

  I wanted to reach into Professor Coffin and The Red Lady. I wanted to squeeze out that last beep. What an interesting song to find within yourself? Whoever is responsible for these thoughts should be shot. Witchcraft will pay, I thought.

  Periodically Madison flicked our teachers, elders, whatever they were, under the chin with her thumb in an almost imperceptible way. Their heads would bobble on their broken necks. Sadly they were still living for now, the vegetables. You can’t have it all. Otherwise we’ll need canoes to get down the bloody rapids. The world doesn’t need anymore rapids of plasma. We got plenty of puddle of blood that we’re constantly stepping around.

  You’ve got to try to think constructively periodically and not make matters worse. There are just too many thinkers out there in the world these days as it is. We throw treasure at them to placate them, the savages. We gift them with higher office, the savages. We let them wage unnecessary wars all over the planets, the savages.

  We’re currently topped out on global conflict to keep that gamey riffraff occupied so we can’t make anymore savages right now. Pretty soon we’ll have to start executing the ones we’ve got. We have to give their successors a shot in the barbaric carnival. Or we’ll just put them all in the trenches instead of the other way around.

  I was beginning to really have a happy day here in Flemish hell. What a gorgeous place to take your mind. Maybe I wasn’t going to hideously kill whatever force was behind this. I was just going to pluck it until it stopped clucking. Then pluck it a bit more for good measure. At some point that cluck would restore then vanish forever. How do you like your chickens now? I believe that it has come home to roost. At least that’s what that fire bird is intimating as it flies off in a burst of fire.

  The most disturbing piece of what Madison was doing vis-à-vis the corpses, our former instructors, elders, whatever, because corpses was what they were now. The most disturbing piece was the utter casualness with which she operated their dead bodies. The sheer force of Madison was what was so disturbing. It was not only horrendously powerful. It was graceful. See, that’s the thing that was so frightening.

  The utter graciousness of her savagery was elegant. She knew it too. The fact that Madison knew what she was doing and she persisted in doing it was extremely disturbing. Where to file a creature of such deadly self awareness?

  I didn’t give a damn about the dead bodies or the fraudulent lives that they had once contained. I wasn’t lamenting the loss of the even worst ideas that those hides had once contained. I could bring them back anytime I wanted. Not that I would. Perish the thought along with the mind behind it.

  The thing that I couldn’t control was Madison or her massive power. That’s what was so troubling.

  The gruesome horror that was flying out of her fingertips with such elegance was a total affront to the system. The way that she delicately operated the corpses with such a light touch was horrific. It was artistry of the first right. It was a mastery that seldom comes into your life. It was a greatness that constantly avoids you. It’s done such a good job avoiding you your entire life that you’ve forgotten that it actually exists in people. It’s safer to think that way because if you think the other way it will drive you crazy because you don’t have it. You can’t capture it either.

  That greatness is constantly spying on you like a rabbit. It’s under your bed when you’re in it. You get out of bed because you have a hunch that there is a rabbit under your bed. It’s just a crazy thought but to dismiss it is the quickest solution so you get out of bed. There is no rabbit under your bed. Turn out the light and stop having crazy thoughts. The rabbit has gone in the closet. You’ll never catch him. Why do you think he takes the form of a rabbit? His name says it all. He’s a rabbit.

  It was like having a Russian theorist destroy your entire life while casually reaching for his cigarettes. Why don’t you stop by the housing project for a cup of saw dust coffee and a corn cigarette, comrade? We shall have a little chat about art. You need to get out of the Politburo a bit more often. Even apparatchiks need a breath of fresh air from time to time.

  If you were stupid enough to darken that bearded lunatic’s door he would nail you to the floor before your first puff of that proffered corn cigarette. You’re leaning over the battered, ancient stove trying to get that black tobacco cigarette lit and not cough like the charlatan that you are and you were already finished.

  You were shorthand to him. All your incorrectly held beliefs meant nothing to that bearded Russian lunatic. He could shatter your whole existence over a cup of saw dust coffee. That’s why he invited you over. He needed a little stimulation. That small mind of yours was his hunting concession. He could see through you like a glass of sawdust coffee. Connect back all the dots. He knew where you came from better than you. He was a rabbit too. He had been studying you.

  Where does talent like that come from? Can it be learned or is it just bred out in the hills? It’s definitely something that comes out of the wild. And it doesn’t show up that often. It rears its ugly head once a generation tops. Typically it tops itself too which makes violent symmetry. Who could live with this madness?

  An intellect that is so vicious and cunning that it stabs you in the face and then itself without mercy. It doesn’t even have any pity for itself. Not even the madness itself can survive for long in the host, because if it doesn’t run its deadly course, the government will kill it, which they should.

  The real question, the unknowable one, is where does it make its deadly home when it’s hunkering down in the bush between executions? Where does it hunker down while awaiting its next host? That garish bed of thorns that it slumbers in while it’s waiting for its next resurrection that’s was what was troubling me. I had apparently snuck up on its lair unannounced. Perhaps I had been bidden. That dead hand that tried to signal me. You know the one that connects back through all the corpses to the original suicide. A bloody hand signed me.

  The horrendous venom and spite wasn’t just greeting me. It was taking up residence in me. Percolating like so much saw dust coffee. Where can a man get a corn cigarette up in here? Haul that ancient stove over here too. I aim to fire up. Give me that firewater too. What’s an Indian on the warpath without any scalps?

  Thankfully the horrific power had moved into Madison too. She got the short portion though. That’s what was so horrifying. The black snake had cut me a break. That old mamba had soul. And yet still.

  I was poisoned. The damage was irreparable. It was a turning point from which there was no turning back. That boat. You know the one that beats against the past? Well, it had been sunk. The old man in the sea had been horrifically butchered too. His hands had been chopped off and thrown to the sharks. Try to write that.

  Not that I wanted to venture back. My mind had been too damaged by the journey. It rejected the concept of retreat utterly. Tapping out wasn’t even in the lexicon of the fighter who wasn’t at rest. You were going to have to break the arm. Then the unbreakable spirit that was within. Go ahead and dump gasoline on top of that corpse. Set it on fire like a monk. Savage it anyway you like.

  That spirit was going to haunt you from the afterlife. Haunt you in your victory. Haunt you in defeat. Why not? It was haunted in this one. You expect it to not be haunted in the next one? Haunt on, ghost. Haunt on.

 
; Chapter

  Madison looked like she was merely turning the most delicate of light bulbs with her fingers. It was like there was an invisible life force in her hands that required white gloves for installation. It was all becoming clear to me. It just took one witch to screw the life out of two test humans. That was my takeaway.

  The power was that delicate and fine. You couldn’t even touch that finicky light bulb that she was operating with your bare hand. Your hand is too filthy because it is attached to you. A buffer is required. Why not murder in white gloves and make your murder more pronounced?

  Madison was deftly demonstrating the ferocity of the power that was within her. Two corpses that were dancing in mawkish fashion in the air were the recipients. Madison had already killed them. I was mourning this. Had she no sense of artistry? How dare she make me mourn my tormenters?

  I wanted to watch Professor Coffin and The Red Lady suffer more. I wanted to drink up their howls like the finest red wine. I wanted to roll that blood over my tongue. Taste the iron. Identify all the subtle flavors like deceit and trickery. I wanted to sniff at that hot glass. I wanted her nimbleness to make them scream in anguish forever. They deserved it. Wasn’t this all their fault? How else to explain this hideous mental space?

  I looked back over my journey. That’s one way to work your way out of the hunter’s clutches. You retrace your steps back from the fatal shot. You reverse the film and the arrow comes out of your heart. Sayonara heart shot.

  What I realized about my foray into the wickedness of witchcraft wasn’t nice. Nobody had given us a break with the exception of the volcano. It had done it very begrudgingly because we needed to land in Flemish hell to finish our sufferings. That was a break that I could do without. All we really needed was just a little kindness along the way. But nobody would give it. If you don’t pamper those boughs then they’re going to reach too far. Start tapping on your window during a storm. Then a little glass breaks. The next thing you know you’ve got a monster on your hands.