Curse: The end has only just begun

by Rich Hayden

  Amil tried to suppress his anxiety, but he was made to squirm, as Mr. J was so matter of fact about the rigid classification of people. He was bound and chained upon his arrival, and then, he was told exactly where he stood. It might be safe, but he was growing suspicious of the utopian fantasy of The Eternal City.

  “Hey, we take care of our own. You will not find a fairer society,” the mayor calmly said.

  “I just need some help,” Amil admitted.

  “I’ll have one of my assistants help you with whatever you need. They’re experts in helping the dead to acclimate themselves to our way of life. But first, I need to know your intentions. Would you like to stay here, in The Eternal City?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. At least a while, I suppose.”

  “Okay. If you want to stay, you will be documented. The process doesn’t take very long. You will have to abide by all our laws, and, in doing so, we will provide you with everything you need. You may leave at any time. Now, if you wish to go, please let the authorities know, and you will be escorted to the nearest exit. So, what do you say?” asked Mr. J.

  “I can go whenever I want?”

  “Yes, declare you want to leave, we strike you from the registry, and it’s goodbye,” he said with a wave of his fingers.

  “Alright, yeah. I want to stay, at least for a bit.”

  “Maravilloso,” he chirped while flipping open a battered cell phone.

  Mr. J cursed the bad reception under his breath and was forced to redial the number a few times. He shook the shabby device a time or two, as though this could accomplish anything, and strained to communicate with the person on the other end of the line. Once he had finished, Mayor Jimenez gave a smile to Amil and urged him to sit tight.

  Another vast expanse of time, if time still continued to roll, would be put behind Amil before he would meet Mr. J’s assistant. He was left alone to the distractions of his room again, but, strangely enough, he did little. In fact, he scarcely moved. The enigmatic TV remained silent, the assorted books and magazines that intermingled upon a shelf were ignored, and the twin closets that sat to each side of the bathroom went unexplored. Amil did nothing other than look deep within himself. He sat on the edge of the bed and thought endlessly of this life that refused to expire. He had been given paltry few opportunities to reflect up until this point, that engaging in the act of introspection felt foreign. It became overwhelming, as his mind devolved into a mush of unanswered questions and regrets, so chaotic that no divine intervention could emancipate him from their barbaric assault. Under the suffocating weight of his own mental anguish, he again fell into sleep.

  He awoke, and only by the grace of a lantern that burned fragrant oil was Amil spared the company of total darkness. As the presence of shadows grew to disturb him, he quickly rolled from the bed and rushed to the nearest light switch. He flooded the room in light, and placed his mouth under the faucet in the bathroom. Amil rubbed the cool water over his eyes and drew the liquid through his hair. Gazing upon his reflection in the mirror, he couldn’t remove his eyes from those of the dead man that stared back at him. With heavy breath that coated the glass with a fog, the staring contest was at once called off. The small sounds produced from knuckles as they tap upon wood could be heard, and they pulled away his rapt attention.

  Amil nervously twisted the knob in his hand and cracked the door open. It was a pleasant experience, opening a door and finding nothing more than the banality of the hallway on the other side. There was no vortex or alternate plane of being, just a continuation of the hotel, and a short girl with amber pigtails, a nose ring, and mildly bloodshot eyes. She burst in and introduced herself as Rave, in as bubbly a fashion as possible. She wore baggy jeans and a white tank top, and urged Amil to follow her down to the registry department.

  “You look pretty good, not all mangled up and sick and stuff like most of the dead can be,” she said, with a crack of chewing gum.

  “All thanks to this,” Amil admitted, while drawing attention to the key which hung from his neck like an anvil.

  “Wow! Oh, this is trippy,” she said, staring at Amil’s key. “I’ve never met one of you before.”

  “I don’t care. Where are we going?”

  “To the registry. Weren’t you paying attention?” she chirped, smacking one of her multicolored nails against an elevator button that read G1.

  “No, no, I was. I’m just still really confused.”

  “Yeah, everybody is when they first arrive here. Just be glad you’re not a Nothing. Those poor bastards don’t have a clue!” Rave said.

  On the way down, Amil was struck by the effervescent attitude of Rave. She was undoubtedly ecstatic to be dead. She bounced on her feet as the elevator descended and hummed loudly, bobbing her head in concert with the phantom song.

  “How did you die?” he questioned quietly, frightened to find himself in a world were such a question could be asked.

  “At a rave, that’s how I got my name. I took a shitload of Ecstasy, and that was all for me.”

  “Don’t you have a real name?”

  “I’m sure I did once, but I’m a Halfway. I forgot that part.”

  “What do you remember?” asked Amil in a tone so dismal it sounded ready to wage war on Rave’s perky nature.

  “Let’s see...” she thought, while tapping a finger against her head. “I remember music, TV, 90s television was awesome! And the taste of fast food. Mostly a lot of pop culture stuff.”

  “No people?”

  “Nope, no people.”

  “Not even like family? No friends or anything?” asked Amil, a bit saddened but also shamefully jealous.

  “Nobody,” she admitted slowly. “Hey, no memories, no regrets, right? I’m happy as shit here.”

  When they arrived at the registry, it proved to hold all the charms and charisma of an office building. Amil was guided into a cubicle where his picture was taken and all the pertinent information that he could recall was recorded. He described his skill set and answered general knowledge questions. He divulged likes and dislikes, and took a brief, and rather silly, personality quiz. During his earthly life, he’d had little patience for such trivial matters, but there was something in pretending to be alive that made him feel better, almost whole.

  “Okay,” said Rave, after the last series of questions were asked. “This is how it basically works, you’ll be assigned a job. We don’t have a monetary system yet, so if you work, everything is free! Well, kinda, we have vouchers.”

  “So, money.”

  “No dum-dum, these are different. Contributing is what’s important here. Work, prove you’re contributing, earn vouchers, get stuff. It’s like this, a candy bar and a car might cost about the same price. It just depends on the seller. The guy with the car might not need many vouchers to get by at the moment, so you might get it cheap. The guy with the candy bar might need a job done that you’re good at, do it for him, document the work, and get a snack. Trust me, it’s simple, you’ll figure it out.”

  “Sounds brilliant to me,” said Amil, with sarcasm.

  “Pipe down, I’m not done. We have laws and fair punishments. You can review them here,” she offered, with the exchange of a small book. “But we have two that you can’t ignore. No rape, no murder.”

  “Murder? We’re all dead,” said Amil, dryly.

  “Don’t be difficult,” scolded Rave. “Call it what you want, if you’re responsible for causing another resident to turn into a Waste, we call it murder. So, if I can continue, no rape, no murder. The punishment for either is immediate banishment.”

  “Immediate banishment,” he echoed.

  “We don’t have time to sort out that shit. More dead come in every day, and, other than the Ghosts, they require a lot of time and attention. Banishment simplifies things, because anyone who has ever left the city, willingly or not, has never found their way back. It’s a punishment that will deter almost anyone. So, you ready?”

  “For what?”
>
  “Well, you can’t stay here, silly. C’mon, I’m gonna take you to your new place.”

  Amil thought a moment and looked around. He saw as a dozen or so other workers like Rave, and studied them as they attempted to classify the dead. Some of the interviews looked to be replications of the exchange between he and his perky guide, while many others were painful to view. People, some maimed and horribly deformed, cried at the reality of their new setting, and had to be assisted and comforted by numerous employees of The Eternal City. Others were coldly silent, some loud and uncooperative. The more boisterous types were restrained by guards, as they could not come to terms with the conditions of Aphelianna’s house. But as Amil set his eyes upon a girl no older than ten, he was made to look away. She seemed sweet, and not totally aware of the finality of death. Even with wounds scattered about her face that told of a vicious animal attack, she behaved as though relatively unaffected by the sorrow that gripped the room. Then he figured it out, what acutely bothered him about the girl. She was just behaving like a child, innocent and ignorant to the wretchedness of reality, and it broke his heart.

  “So, let me get this straight, you decide where I live, too?” asked Amil quickly.

  “No, Mr. Grumpy,” Rave began as she grabbed his trembling hand. “We provide you with a place to live, and once you get settled, you can relocate on your own. We can’t do everything for you!”

  “Alright then, take me to my shitty new apartment. Just get me out of here.”

  Predictably, Rave smoked clove cigarettes and drove a cheap compact that masqueraded as a sports car. Although the techno she played was juvenile and annoying, Amil paid it little mind once he was permitted to set his vision over the true wonders of The Eternal City.

  As they drove over asphalt roads that begged for repair, he became enthralled by the different districts they passed. There was the Antiquity District, which catered to those who had lived out the back pages of history. They tended to prefer the company of their own, as the industrialized world and all its tiny devices were frightening and odd. The architecture of this district seemed to be formed from the melding of many villages and timeworn cities. Ripped from differing points in time, and across all the cultures of ancient man, the Antiquity District sprawled out over the land. It came to Amil’s eyes like all the beginnings of man’s inventiveness had been sloshed together and let to spill out in random arrangements.

  The splendid construction of ancient Greece was prevalent, as was the influence of the Middle East, when it reigned supreme in the days that predated Christendom. Glimmering under the sun, Aztec temples spotted the streets, and Asian craftsmanship could be seen everywhere the eye could wander. Small castles, obvious nods to the heavy brick edifices of medieval Europe, rose from random locations, and forced Amil to cast a thought to the residents. Perhaps King Henry III and Faisal I were neighbors, or maybe the kings of the earth never made it this far. He almost smirked as he imagined the common dead occupying structures they could only once marvel upon in life. As Rave drove on, Amil witnessed a kaleidoscope’s worth of races intermix and commune while they shopped in the markets and went about the day’s work. Death had erased all their differences, and the hole left behind after life’s vacancy had been filled by a miraculous combining of knowledge.

  They slowed their pace, and Rave quieted the music as they progressed over the bumpy roads of the Lush District. This was a land ruled by the fury of nature, and stood as a testament to man’s mastery over it. Rave mainly stuck to the main roads as the pair crossed this land. Flanked by massive farmlands and interminable rows of crops, the Lush District appeared orderly and groomed. But, in the distance, Amil could glean a vision of the true wildness of the area. Dense jungles closed in all around them like a tapestry woven from every thread of green that had ever once existed. The landscape of the jungles held a partiality to the look of a rainforest, but among this orgy of feral growth, flora from every corner of earth carved out places for themselves. Stretched over the canopy was a blanket of Japanese kudzu, and hanging like apparitions from the limbs of the trees was Spanish moss. The brilliant blue chicory of Amil’s Virginia was in bloom, and among the shadows of giant baobabs, were clusters of white pines, the very trees who dare to stand in flushed defiance to the scourge of winter.

  On they traveled, and, as the tires of Rave’s car kissed the outskirts of the Industrial District, a place where the majority of The Eternal City’s technology and energy was produced, Amil noticed something a bit curious. Over the towering stacks and busy factories hung the sun, or something purported to be a star. Its blaze had cooled, and the light was noticeably less intense than when they departed, but as they carried on over the concrete of the highway, he was certain that the orb had never moved.

  “Rave, what’s up with the sun?”

  “You’re perceptive, just like a Ghost! It took me ages to realize that our sun doesn’t move.”

  “Okay, why? What is it?” asked Amil.

  “Well, when you died, you entered into a great mansion, right? So, this is just another room. Fly high enough and you’ll find a ceiling, run far enough and you’ll hit a wall. Crazy, right? Anyway, somebody got the idea to replicate an ordinary day on earth. They built a huge sun,” explained Rave, as she removed her hands from off the steering wheel and spread them wide.

  “But it’s dimming,” said Amil, as he studied the phony star.

  “Yep, we dim the fucking thing! Every day, it’s somebody’s job to set the sun to slowly brighten, and then slowly fade out until it’s dark, just like a real day. We’ve even developed clocks that are fairly representative of what a 24 hour cycle feels like. It comes in handy having some of the greatest minds in science all here. Hey, you wanna hear something weird?”

  “I just did, Rave.”

  “This is cool. There was this Greek philosopher guy named Aristotle, who was supposedly super smart...”

  “I know who he is, Rave,” griped Amil, as he grew weary of her schoolgirl cadence.

  “Yeah, he’s here, but he’s a Nothing. He has been unable to learn, so now he sits in one of our asylums and mumbles.”

  “Alright, stop! Please, just be quiet.”

  With no offence taken, Rave turned up the music and continued to drive without another look in Amil’s direction. During this welcome absence of exchange, the dead pair plunged into the heart of the city’s center. It resembled a proper town, complete with apartment buildings, shopping plazas, and grocery stores. They passed a prison, and, as his vision washed over the gray stone of its formidable body, he squeezed the book in his hands. There was an eatery on the corner of a busy street, and as a group of patrons dined on a patio, it resembled lunch hour on the set of a zombie flick. Amil almost laughed, but he felt too disturbed to exhibit proper enjoyment. They turned down a side street, lined with row houses, and it appeared that their journey had come to an end as Rave whipped the car into a space and killed the engine.

  “We’re here,” she squeaked. “Apartment 3,” Rave said, as she handed Amil the most ordinary of keys.

  “That’s my place?” asked Amil, as he glanced up at a large brick house that, predictably, had seen its insides ravaged by the need for subdivisions.

  “Sure is. Most everybody in this neighborhood speaks English, and lived within about a 300 year window, so you should adapt quickly. You’ll find a phonebook and a map of the city inside. There’s a part in the beginning of our law book that explains things a bit more clearly, and, although we haven’t been able to reproduce the internet just yet, channel 1 on the TV gives constant updates on things going on around town.”

  “Okay,” whispered Amil, as he grabbed the key from Rave.

  “Hey, I could stick around for a bit. I won’t get in trouble. I fuck off on these assignments all the time, especially when I have to escort a cute boy around town!” she said with a smile.

  Rave was downright adorable, and, although she could be annoying, her sweetness in a world of gloom wa
s a blessing. She wasn’t deformed, cut all to hell, or old and sickly like most of the dead were. If anything, she promised to be the perfect distraction from the coldest of realities. But Amil denied her company. He had become so accustomed to sorrow that to abandon its embrace would have felt foreign and uncomfortable. He didn’t say a word, and stepped out of the car and walked toward his new residence. With his back turned to her, he gave a mild wave, and studied the street sign that hung above his residence. In an ordinary arrangement of green and white, the sign read mercy. Mercy Street. Amil couldn’t decide if this was a monstrous hilarity played at his expense or just a failed attempt at humor. He pondered the notion that the street was named in an effort to comfort those like him. No faith was found in this idea, and he discounted the charity offered from the streets moniker. To him, it seemed like another monstrous lie. A jagged riddle that one day would unfurl, to turn its teeth upon him.

  Amil walked about the interior of his new home. He felt out of place, like a prowler nervously skittering around a stranger’s house. He peered into every room and behind the doors of every cabinet and closet. Slowly, Amil calmed himself, and took a seat in a worn armchair. Unable to relax, he sat up straight and thumbed through the laws of The Eternal City.

  Most were predictable and made sense to him. The penalties were understandably light, loss of vouchers and privileges, as to live within Aphelianna’s house was punishment enough. And, in lieu of fines, extra work was assigned to those who committed minor infractions. He traced his fingers over the lines of a massive map that he bothered to only partially unfold, and was struck by how many different faiths were represented. The sites of churches seemed to be everywhere, and almost every religion conceivable had at least a modest smattering of temples. As Amil set aside the map, he appreciated the true power of denial, and almost longed to suffer from its delusions. For in a world of irrefutable evidence that boldly colored the sickest of pictures, there were those who still held fast to their beliefs, no matter how absurd they obviously had become.