by Rich Hayden
A small envelope, horribly beige and bound by string, was stuffed into the pages of his new book. He had ignored it thus far, but stamped in block letters with a smeared blue ink was a print that he could no longer deny: AMIL YOUNG.
He undid the tie and studied the contents held within the dull folds. There was an appointment book and a calendar, which suggested that it was February. Given the pleasant nature of the day, this felt quite empty as Amil recalled the cold winds and snow that tend to pound Fog Lake in late winter. Throughout the rest of the month, the blocks of the calendar were left blank. A note was affixed to the page that encouraged him to use this free time in order to familiarize himself with the city. But the two weeks that followed were already filled out. It was ordained that due to his relatively good health, he had been assigned the job of a courier. Amil knew what that meant and dreaded the occupation. He imagined that there were more important, more skilled, jobs that he could do. But then he thought of the true meaning of the occupation. He had experience inside Aphelianna’s house, and he had retained his knowledge of life. Again, it seemed, the conditions of a Ghost would serve to torment him further.
He hoped that Rave had been sincere when she suggested that after an initial break-in period, Amil would have the opportunity to make his own way. Out from the embrace of a few more information cards and an assortment of flyers, which looked to have been ripped directly from a Val-pak coupon book, there slid a plastic identification card. Much like a driver’s license, it had his picture and apparent address. It listed his height and other banal things, along with his country of origin and preferred language. As cold as the blood in his silent veins, Amil read the date of his birth, and then the date of his death. He set his eyes upon his classification: Ghost. It shattered him, his earthly existence disregarded with such easy indifference.
That evening, or what disguised itself as the latter part of the day, saw him do nothing more than stare into his television set. He watched, with tired eyes, the programming of channel 1 that described life in The Eternal City. When he could bear no more evidence that he was, in fact, very much dead, Amil flipped through the rest of the channels with restless fingers, and without any care for what he might actually find. Sometime after 2am, he grew weary of the torturous needles of conscious thought, and gave in to boredom and old habits of the body. Still in that heavily used chair, he sealed off his vision, and mercifully drifted off to sleep.
In defiance of recommendation, Amil barely left his apartment for the first two weeks. He seldom ate, and paid little attention to the books that were provided for his entertainment, and treated his neighbors like the phantoms that they were. But like any animal that hides from a beast more monstrous than itself, he eventually grew bored, curious, even, and poked his head out of his hole.
As that faux sun overhead started to quell its glare, Amil stepped outside and decided to take an aimless stroll. According to his map, National Street ran through the heart of his neighborhood, and hosted the densest concentration of businesses. Although this promenade was wide, and graciously accommodated plenty of car and foot traffic, it was unreasonably steep. He knew his lungs no longer performed their intended purpose, but he could feel them burn, and, as he stepped over the chunky sewer lids that were sunk into the concrete of the sidewalk, he cursed the man who built National Street.
During his walk, he was again treated to the power of denial, and of the need to feel human. All around him were restaurants and pubs that offered products that the body had ceased to need, along with other establishments that allowed the dead to play life. He passed tattoo parlors, arcades, a hair salon, and a clothier, surely one of the busiest careers in The Eternal City. He watched as couples walked hand in hand, and viewed a decrepit old man as he relaxed on a bench with a ragged dog. He noticed the stares that swept over his unscathed form, and, as he passed all manner of the mutilated and diseased, Amil felt like the freak.
He stepped into a bar that was comically named The Dead Zone, and ordered a beer. The man behind the counter, a genuinely friendly soul with a large gouge in the side of his face, poured the drink and offered him a cigarette. Amil didn’t smoke, but the temptation to join the cult of denial was too much to resist. He lit the stick, and sucked the mightiest drag he could muster into his hollow chest. He sipped his brew and stared up at the muted TV, which was tuned to a sports network.
A good time played out around him, as most of the people in The Dead Zone were clearly regulars who had all lived in the city for some time. A jukebox played, and the atmosphere felt friendly and ready to accept a new arrival into its circle, but Amil kept to himself. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, or what he should do next, and as he sipped a relatively cold glass of beer, he thought of Ali. He could almost feel the bark of the tree as it bit at her naked skin, and he could swear to the taste of the Spirit Ripper’s breath. With images that battered him with guilt, Amil slid the half-empty mug away from him, and walked back outside.
A journey of a few city blocks and the procurement of one beer hardly sounded like a full evening, but by the time he had returned to his apartment and flopped on the bed, he felt exhausted. It was as though the memories that should have died with his corporeal self would prove to be his undoing. As he had wandered alone, he harbored a brutal sense of despair. Hopelessness, as wide as his anguish was deep, was born within him. The only force that served to push him on was the absolute fear of standing still. But, with safety all around him and the prospect of a second chance that most could scarcely imagine, Amil wanted nothing more than to keep running. Into the teeth of a Waste he might fall, or in the divine presence of Isadora he would stand. In a fresh world of opportunity, these seemed to be the only options left to him. With agony as his attentive lover, into sleep he once again fell, and, for the next two weeks, entwined in the grip of his bed he would stay.
A new morning came, and its bright rays brought a lessening of Amil’s pain. It wasn’t something he could detect, for it was so minute it bordered on the epitome of insignificance, but it was there all the same. The friction of time and a sense of security had started to rub away at his sorrow and shame.
Into the third week on the job of collecting those who tripped their way into the city, Amil remained a silent being, with eyes drained of vigor and of purpose. He reported for duty, did his tasks with a total absence of enthusiasm, and slumped home without as much as a whispered goodbye to his coworkers. But this drudgery was approaching the level of tolerable, and on an ordinary Wednesday night that promised to be as empty as its name, a radical change shook inside Amil.
All to himself one evening, Amil laughed as he watched a comedy revue on his grainy television set. He felt a bubble in his chest, and the tickle of enjoyment was his to appreciate once again. It was a strange sensation, one that put him off, initially, as the experiencing of mild pleasure aroused his guilt. But this small prick of joy acted like a drug far superior in potency to any narcotic. He needed it as sustenance. It dulled the spears in his mind and made the act of simply existing a bit easier.
As Amil slipped into a routine of a morning coffee stop, and as he developed a rapport with those he worked with, he began to assign rationales to the inner demons that screamed at him. This reliving of life was necessary to prepare him to continue his search for Isadora. It would rejuvenate him, and give to him the strength required to stand in the face of impossible odds. But as the weeks vomited across the calendar and spread themselves into months, Amil began to lose faith in his own excuses.
The iron truth of the situation was that the further he segregated himself from Aphelianna and all her wretches, the more fearful of them he became. He honestly desired to free Ali, but he was stopped by the weight of the fact that he was an inconsequential man who wallowed among forces far greater than he. In his repose, Amil dreamt of Ali, and was made to endure vivid nightmares brought about by his inaction. But these nocturnal stalkers failed to push him out and back onto the darkened paths that spre
ad themselves throughout Aphelianna’s impossible quest. Amil acknowledged that he had been beaten. He became a scared man and, relieved of determination, he began to wonder if he would ever leave The Eternal City.
As the grains of the hourglass continued their tumble, Amil ventured further and further up and down National Street and the concrete veins it sprouted. His tongue, or, rather, old habits of his mind, fashioned a liking for the barbeque served at the corner of Miracle Lane, and a dusty record store that he frequented would often see him leave with the weekly maximum of 5 LPs. As most of the cafes reminded him too much of life as it once was, he took to hanging around a bar situated partway down America Alley. He liked most of the music in the jukebox, and formed a genuine friendship with a war vet named Curtis, a man who saw his earthly life extinguished by a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Baghdad.
Amil danced with a few of the girls, and secretly nourished a crush for Jill, a pale twenty-something from Nova Scotia. She was friendly, and known for her wild collection of colored wigs, as cancer once robbed her of hair and complexion alike. But for the twisted feelings that strangled his heart, he never left the pub with anything more than a few beers in his gut and a gentle hug from thin Jill. Amil knew that the more time he spent with Jill the less likely he would be to resume the task he promised to complete. But, all the same, he desired to abandon his resolve, and welcomed the day when he would give in to the temptations of a fresh beginning with Jill.
The endless sun shone, and, most predictably, this day was clear and absent of clouds or rain. Although the wrappings were pretty, the day that they contained was quite far from the description of its pleasant box. It was ugly and violent. It oozed with all the vulgarity of the underworld, and introduced Amil to the rarely spoken about Waste District.
Stationed near a door only recently discovered among the maze-like and overgrown condition of the Tribal District was where Amil and a couple of his coworkers found themselves. A land of narrow paths and modest villages constructed from materials harvested from the ground was where many peoples of Earth’s tribal societies felt most comfortable. Clans from Africa, the Aborigines of the Australian outback, and many Native American tribes shared space and called this place home. One of the city’s earliest settlements, it was a refuge for those who shunned, or were intimidated by, other cultures. It allowed dead chiefs and their deceased people to continue unabated in the practice of their old ways. In-fighting was rare, as most of the clans developed a higher understanding of harmony that many had failed to attain during life. Unbothered by self-righteous conquerors, left alone by the government of The Eternal City, their state of being was barely caressed by death’s interruptions.
Ordinarily, those descended from one of the tribes would stand sentry over all the known passages in this sector. But this day was different. With major religious ceremonies taking place that saw the district understaffed, Amil and a couple other men were assigned to monitor a recently discovered pathway. To them, it was a humbling honor. On earth, white men on native land usually meant genocide and betrayal. Here in The Eternal City, it was cooperation and respect.
Unloaded from out of the back of a Jeep Cherokee, which was nearly beaten into ruin, were three milk crates that served as stools for Amil and his mates. A folding table with a top of plywood was spread between them, and it played host to a spirited game of blackjack.
Greg, a retired NFL player who had dropped dead of a heart attack at 47, had won the first four hands. He was boisterous and engaging, and, with every victory, he alerted all to his prowess. The spirits of the men were high, and the pleasant day promised hours of ease and leisure. Amil had grown to enjoy the company of Greg and Seamus, an Irishman who’d had the sour luck of succumbing to the afflictions of food poisoning. The men were friendly and kind. He felt mildly blessed to share their company. They preferred a gentle approach to greeting those that entered into the city, and employed none of the mad zeal that Amil had been forced to endure when he had arrived.
They were positioned mere feet from the door they were charged to watch, with not a worry in their minds. The barrier appeared to be part of the background. It barely seemed real. The door rested over the dusty ground, with nothing more than silence and a water-starved thicket as its support.
They were on the plains, and, with only mild vegetation and the relative accessibility of the area, it was a wonder that this entry point had gone unnoticed for so long. It made Amil think of the room that lay beyond. It must be quite vast, or extremely hostile, to have produced almost no one from its mouth. It made him quiver with anxiety as he imagined the horrors that irritably stirred on the other side, but as the minutes slipped away, his tension melted with every new hand dealt.
The hours of a dull day ticked by, and the men, who often rode together and had formed a tight bond, shared laughs and tiny snippets of the pain formed from the memories they still carried. But conversation only kills so much time, and so above the dirty ground and under the watch of a clear sky, they began to check their watches with increased regularity. The boredom mounted, and the desire to see this mundane shift end intensified within them. On most days, Amil was without complaint over the dull nature of his occupation. It was a banality that he welcomed, as the task of a courier typically involved little more than babysitting a door that might never open. On this day however, he appeared distracted, distant to the company of his friends.
“How you been holding up, Amil?” Seamus asked.
It was a vague question, but all present knew its implications well. A week before, Amil had been behind the wheel, directing the three of them back to the city, when he spilled his guts to Seamus and Greg. He wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t stop blubbering about his walk through the orchard, and the guilt that pressed upon him over his leaving of Ali. His sobbing became so intense that Greg was forced to muscle his way over to the controls and stop the vehicle. On the side of the road, Amil cried into the arms of the former defensive lineman.
In life, Greg had fancied himself the most macho of men, and was rather homophobic, but as a friend fell to pieces in his embrace, Greg comforted him with a well of compassion. With Amil absorbed into Greg’s massive body, Seamus had attempted to lighten the mood. He cracked a joke about how he had died a virgin, but what did he know? Seamus was a Halfway. In that moment, his ignorance worked well and relieved Amil of a scrap of anguish, but on this day, it felt cruel.
“Seamus, now ain’t the time,” scolded Greg, as he, too, was shackled to the full weight of his earthly memories.
“No, it’s okay,” said Amil quietly, mustering the courage to speak aloud the thoughts that he had begun to harbor. “Honestly, I’m getting over it. Remember when your first girlfriend broke up with you?”
“End of the world, right?” asked Greg.
“Yeah, it’s kinda like that. But the further away you get, the less it hurts,” admitted Amil.
“How long you figure you’ve been dead?” Seamus asked.
“How should I know, leprechaun?”
Greg and Seamus both laughed at the joke they recognized as a shield, but there was something about this little discussion that felt therapeutic. Prior to this, Amil had only spoken about the past. Here, on the desolate plains, he was confronting the present. Out loud, he was being honest with himself.
“It feels like forever,” Amil began. “Ali just feels like a part of someone else’s past that I’m forced to relive. I know this is gonna sound fucked up, but I know I can’t save her. I’m done trying. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.” He turned away from the others and stared off into the distance. In his own way, he was saying goodbye to Ali.
“There’s no shame in telling the truth. Hey, I’ll never win the Superbowl,” said Greg, with a sheepish smile.
“That was never gonna happen anyway. You rode the bench your whole career. We came from the same era, remember?” said Amil.
“Hey, shh. Shut up,” whispered Seamus, sharply.
A scratching, wild and desperate and of an animalistic fashion, could be heard. The knob jostled, and a beating was applied to the other side of the door, as the creature struggled to work the simple mechanism. A screech that Amil knew too well tore through the air, and as the men readied themselves, each silently hoped that the Waste beyond would give in to frustration and move on with its torturous day. But it was a stubborn beast. It could smell the stench of the others, and the Waste hungered to spill the cold blood of those that possessed conscious thought.
“It’ll pass, they always do,” said Greg, with a finger pressed to his lips and his eyes on the door.
During the time that Amil had worked as a courier, he was yet to encounter a Waste. Most days passed as nothing of consequence, as a visitor to The Eternal City was actually a rare occurrence. When a door would open, it usually only produced a startled traveler. Events unfolded rather predictably, and only once were Amil and his mates forced to throw someone back. The discarding of a conscious soul was a troubling experience. The man they were forced to cast back into the mercy of Aphelianna’s house came at them erratic and crazed. He bit and snarled, overwhelmed by his new condition, much the same as an animal gone rabid. In his mind, Amil could still see the man’s eyes. They were wild, like those of a horse, bullied and lassoed. Amil saw no understanding in the eyes, but still, he felt as the pins of shame sunk themselves into his conscience. On that day, he had felt like an executioner.
He imagined that the disposing of a Waste could feel no worse. It would be a difficult order, yes, and frightening, but Amil assumed the task would be easier to carry out. Wastes were simple creatures, unbridled by the complexities of intelligent man. But these were the assumptions of a man without proper experience and knowledge, as he was yet to be asked to perform his duty to the fullest.
