Order of Dust

by Nicholas J. Evans

  “My dear, what was that dreadful tension about if you do not mind me asking?” Aldrich asked the angel, flipping through his pages slowly with eyes that traced each sentence like a typewriter.

  She turned her back towards the group and faced the window once more. She maintained her imposing stance still watching over the busy town. “The Un-Ascended are not demons,” she said sternly. “But Azazel is as close as it comes to one. He is not to be trusted.”

  “I would have to agree wholeheartedly, love. From my personal experience the name he carried over a century ago fit much better than the one he carries now. Title as well,” he said with that horrifying child-esque voice.

  Everyone had their own business to attend to, no one made eye contact or felt the need to interact at all. This was an uneasy silence, and the tension between the three only made it worse. There was no trust, as Jackson felt they were nothing more than babysitters sent by overbearing parents. He had completed assignments given to him, and the more he fired his weapon, whether it was the mystical Arm or the lethal pistol, the easier pulling the trigger had become. The young man, loving and weak, had been nearly completely erased by the gruff one who could take a life without question. But there was some small part of Jackson still alive inside, and this is why Jackson believed the higher ones sent these things into his home.

  Then, for a moment, the old Jackson reared his head and gave an odd thought of his group. A portrait of the oddest family could have hung over the unused and outdated television: Father in a long trench coat with dual firearms and blood stained fingers, Mother with her glowing cinnamon skin and pristine medieval armor, and of course their old, English son. Jackson could picture it clear as day, and nineteen years ago he may have even laughed at this thought.

  In the span of a short breath, Jackson had shot a small, yet noticeable smirk as if he was once again the man he had originally died as. It was brief, but just enough for Ayres to flick her eyes over and notice. She made no gesture, no glance, but the angel held on to that for just a moment. As quick as the smile had come, it had already faded until nothing remained but a scowl.

  Now, the new Jackson could only feel disgusted.

  Jackson released the tight lock of his jaw, “Tell me, how do you say his name without him appearing?”

  “We harbor no intent for his arrival, dear Order,” Aldrich said.

  Ayres nodded sharply. “We say his rotten name and do not wish to see him. It does not mean he doesn’t hear it. Just means he ignores it.”

  “Precisely, my sweet angel,” chuckled Aldrich, “hundreds say his name a day, to a higher being such as himself it is a mere mumbling of pedestrians on a cobblestone road. Until you want his appearance known of course.”

  “Cobblestone roads?” Jackson queried. “...Just how old are you?”

  Aldrich closed his novel and turned to Jackson with a cheeky grin. “Why, I am but twelve years of age!” He chuckled and leapt from his seat. “Now, tea time? I’d love a nice Earl Grey,” and he trailed off to the kitchen amongst the opening and shutting of cabinets.

  Jackson stood, dirty boots pressed into the freshly cleaned and spotless carpet. He lumbered his bruised and damaged body towards Ayres who did not acknowledge his approach. The small apartment was full of clattering from the kitchen and the thud-pounding of Jackson gait was a just bass drum to the other noise. He made his way beside Ayres, who took a small side-step to allow him room before the glass window. For a moment, he did not see the city. Only the near-translucent reflection of his own eyes, and he could almost see the Jackson that rotted away from this world in the breath of a single bullet on the floor behind him. Then, the young man was gone and what remained were bricks, lights, and stars.

  “I used to…” Jackson began to say, as he shot scattered glances out at the city before them. “I used to stand here, before. I looked over the same view, same shit hole of a city that I took for granted. Maybe my view was all surface, looking for rainbows through storm clouds. Look at what this city has become.”

  “Maybe the view is still the same, Jackson,” she remarked quietly. “Maybe you are all that is different.”

  Jackson answered in his grumbled tone, “Yeah. A new man, I guess.”

  Ayres turned her head to him, “My advice, Order,” she began. “Do not forget the human you were before this. I’ve been around, I have seen how a person can change–”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Jackson interjected coldly and focused on the life that scattered outside below them.

  Beneath them the roads were crowded. Flashing cars, busy people shoving one another to make way to their mundane jobs. People shouting, strangers laughing, children crying. Across the street stood a tall and wide building that clogged most of their view from the apartment window. The light brown bricks were evidence of the age, not to mention the crumble of debris and the colorful pop of graffiti right around its corner. The pair stood in silence for a moment, a peaceful moment with the exception of Aldrich who slammed and tossed things in the kitchen using long outdated swears.

  “What is Aldrich's deal?” he asked with crossed arms.

  “He is the billboard, poster child would be a better phrase, of what happens to someone who defies Azazel,” she answered still watching out of the window. “I won’t go into detail. That’s for him to tell you on a rainy day, but let’s say he is much older than he would choose to be.”

  The sun was beginning to set with just the faint glow nesting at the top of the New Ashton skyline before the pair. As the streets grew darker, the crawl of people grew scarcer as they scuttled off into their homes to wait out another night, and get ready to begin again the next day. It was a life that seemed so different to Jackson now, but one he craved with every fiber of his being.

  “No tea?” Aldrich called from another room.

  4

  Masquerade

  “Babe, pass me more of those sweet potatoes when you have a chance, they are delicious!” said the father, as he reached his hand over with a big smile.

  The family sat at the table laughing, smiling, and sharing the stories of their busy day. The table had a red-black flannel print cloth draped over it with glossy wooden chairs as its company. A small floral arrangement sat in the center, brightly glowing in colors of pink and yellow with fresh green stems in a clear vase of water. All across its top were plates holding a variety of classic dinner options. Heaping mountains of mashed sweet potatoes, a small roasted bird that appeared to be chicken with a radiant brown skin, and a bowl of mixed vegetables consisting of broccoli, carrots, and a few other choices. Capping it off was a large loaf of freshly baked bread that's very essence poured out of the cracked open window and out into the night, wafting the empty suburban settlement.

  The light echoed out of the dining room window spotlighting the lush green lawn outside, surrounded by the classic white picket fence. Just beyond the soft light’s edge, amongst the comfort of the shade and the cool night air, stood Jackson. Hands buried in his coat pockets, and an intense gaze that you’d swear could set fires. The grass cushioned his steps as he roamed through the lawn and made his way around the home to the blackened back yard. Jackson waited, quietly hedged amongst the general chirp of insects and light gusts of cool air, within the dark.

  For Jackson, this was a job, and nothing more. He had watched the home now for three nights, and he gathered their routines. The man of the house would leave for work pretty early, when the sun had barely set its rays on the street and most would still be asleep. He would return late, and on each of these nights his car headlights flared nearly right overtop of Jackson as he stood in the shadows and observed them like a hunter observes the hunted. He watched carefully as the father, or so he claims, would carry out the same movements each night. Never missing a beat.

  Unfortunately for this Un-Ascended, Jackson was patient.

  Inside, the family began to clean up from dinner, following the same nightly routine: clearing the table, washing the dishes,
masquerading as the man he was not, and then getting into bed. As a traditional family would. Dorian had been a cigarette smoker for most of his life, and while Scott had not, this meant he would still have to keep up appearances. Recently he disclosed, as Dorian to Dorian’s wife and daughter, that he was “quitting” but to show withdrawal signs he would have to lumber the big, stolen body outside between 8:00pm and 9:00pm, then claim it was just habit since Dorian would have his nightly smoke before bed on the back porch.

  “Baby, I’m headed out on the porch for a few minutes. I’ll meet you in bed!” shouted Scott/Dorian.

  “Don’t be out all night!” responded a sprite feminine voice from down the hall in a cheery manner.

  His struggle was paying off handsomely; his new family were overjoyed.

  He stepped out onto the back porch and into the casket of the night. The dark enclosed him, and, as he did most nights, he just paced the porch in the dark, waiting for the moment he can be back with her. He wanted to rush, Scott wanted to just jump back inside but he had come so far already in this life. He would not risk it. Then the sound of scurrying and a feint snap of a twig sounded from the shadows.

  “Hello?” called Scott/Dorian but met no answer. His bare feet moved softly down the wooden steps and into the backyard.

  Another scuffling sound scratched nearby. Closer now.

  He whipped around and came face-to-face with the grey barrel of a handgun a mere moment from touching his skin. He could read For Humans etched into its metallic side. Scott swallowed spit, eyes shaking, and legs frozen.

  “W-Who… who the hell…” He tried to piece together a statement but the words were caught like a rodent in a trap.

  “Hell… is gone,” Jackson rumbled low as the sound of the gun hammer being pulled back echoed.

  “Alright… easy now. E-easy... Money? You want money?” Scott asked nervously.

  “You know, Scott,” Jackson began as he pushed him further towards the pitch-black end of the yard, “I could just expel you from this body... Got a special weapon just for that.”

  Scott felt the solid plane of the wooden fence slap his back and he knew he could move back no further.

  “Heard Dorian wasn’t so great either, so I figured this one was more appropriate.”

  “How...” Scott barely croaked out from his near-trembling throat. “How did you know I’m an Un–”

  “Demon.” Jackson interrupted. Gun still pressed forward, bottom of his long coat flapping with the passing wind.

  “Hmph. Got that right,” he said. “The owner of this body was a demon. I fixed it. S-so,” he continued as he mustered the false confidence that he believed Dorian would have had. “You got the wrong guy.”

  Jackson looked the man up and down. The phrase Built-Like-A-Brick-Shit-House came to mind. His eyes said he wanted to hurt Jackson, but clearly knew better than to turn on a man with a gun. What he could not figure out about this man, or these men, is just how much of the scowl written on the body’s face was just the general stare of Dorian, and how much was imposed by the new host, Scott.

  “Your kind. They don’t normally possess so close to their own home.” Jackson pointed a thumb over his shoulder with his free hand to the dark, gloomy house behind them. “Why take over this man?”

  The thought of firing the gun and walking away crossed through Jackson’s mind over and over again. A sprinter running a lap, jumping hurdles, and crossing the finish line on repeat. Yet, this man was not a human trafficker. He was, by all current accounts, nearly harmless. The urge to just end it was restless, and he concentrated to fend it off. There was something else, something he just could not see, that kept him locked in an exchange he never wanted to have with a Demon.

  “As if you’d understand...” Scott said, and pushed himself back more against the fence. He was careful, keeping his hands up passively without even shifting his eyes off of Jackson for a moment.

  Jackson lowered his weapon, reluctantly yet still firmly clutched in his hand but no longer at the large man’s face. “Try me…”

  Scott walked the worn out halls of his high-school alone, and most days he would swear that not a single word was spoken to him directly from the time he awoke to when he would sleep. He carried a large chip on his fragile shoulders, a chip so colossal that it would topple his body instantly if it materialized. Faces passed him, some smiling and some frowning but all showing more emotion than his own. It wasn’t the isolation so much as it was the lack of understanding for how he became so isolated. Somehow he had become more reclusive over the years, only to find himself alone like a spider deep in a tunneled web who was waiting for something, anything, to come its way but never bothering to come out itself. The loneliness was a curse that caused each day to bleed into the next in an endless loop.

  Biology was right around the corner, past the rows of bursting blue lockers and a left at the flickering light. Faded linoleum tile carried him all the way to his class; well, almost all the way. As he turned the corner with a quickened pace and a lack of focus, he hit the brick wall known as Dorian White.

  Dorian turned and with one thick arm shoved Scott backwards, dropping him to the ground. Scott looked up at him to apologize, but he did not even possess the social grace to muster an apology, which only infused the bully’s misplaced fury. Dorian stood over him as a mountain would stand over a sapling.

  “Watch it, bitch,” he said sternly in the strong voice that Scott dreamed he could possess.

  Scott gathered his belongings and stood again, staring at the ground and nervously made his way around the boy to get to his class. It would have been so easy, but an arm shot out once more like a city bus and blocked his path.

  “Woah, woah, let’s take a step back there, white Urkel,” he said with a smirk. His friends chuckled from the sidelines. “Don’t you have something to say?”

  Dorian was many things to many people. What he mainly was known as was the boy not to get involved with. He wasn’t actually a bully as much as he was the poster child for a soon-to-be dropout. A similar outfit was found on him each day, despite the weather, which reminded Scott of a cartoon character. Today’s choice was a white t-shirt with an obscure metal band coated with a flannel, unbuttoned with rolled up sleeves. His real signature were his shorts, all of them shades of black and all of them were purchased as pants but somewhere down the line he decided they should be shorts. Scott didn’t hate how Dorian dressed, but he could do without the thick cloud of cigarette smoke that wafted off of him like a cheap cologne.

  “Dipshit, do you speak?” Dorian said loudly. Now people in the hall were stopping to watch what could have surely been the ass beating of a lifetime.

  “I... uh…” were the only noises Scott could make. Luckily for him his clothes were so large his trembling was sure to be invisible.

  Then, she came.

  Megan McCurry. Not the most popular girl in school, not the prettiest girl but by no means was she unattractive. Yet, to Scott she was the only woman who existed and in that world he was content. Even though she would seem to forget him every time they met, he still found her to be the only pleasant person in this school, and possibly the world. The shine of her natural black hair bounced the school’s shoddy fluorescent lighting back, and her eyes were the rarest shade of hazel he ever noticed.

  “Oh, back the hell off, Dorian,” she said as she glued herself to his side. From this view they were truly the odd couple.

  He moved his arm from the doorway so that the tiny boy could slip past. Then, right before he passed the false safety of the doorway, Dorian clutched his thin arm and bent down into his ear. “Listen, wimp. Bet the football team tries to find out if you are a wedgie guy or a swirly guy daily, but me? Well, I’m a fuck-you-up kind of guy. So, watch yourself.” Then he released his grip like a python releasing a mouse, and the mouse scurried into class taking his seat at the back of the room. Dorian’s promise of harm would not come for many, many years.

  Fast forward
a little over a decade. Scott has a mundane yet stable job in the mailroom of a big-name tobacco corporate headquarters. The perfect job for him, he felt, due to his lack of creativity and his biggest weakness: weakness itself. In this cramped room he had the privilege of solitude, just him and heaping piles of junk mail to open and sort. The eight-hour days ran by as fast as a sloth, but to Scott he was only counting down the minutes of his life anyway.

  Scott still did not pull in many friends, or many dates, and it was partially due to his “bachelor pad.” The decor did not exactly scream someone was in their late 20’s or early 30’s. It really screamed “Hey, my parents lived here. Now, I do. Well, I always have and I do not care enough to redecorate. Now, how about seeing the bedroom?”

  Scott’s mother passed from cancer right after he graduated high school, and a few years later his father would pass due to liver failure. They left him the house, everything in it, and even the outdated white Buick that he had taken to work every day. Luckily the house always smelled nice because of the two things Scott did well: clean and cook.

  And, at times when the world was quiet, or when bitter nostalgia would creep in unwarranted, he would remember Megan.

  Unfortunately, she had forgotten him the minute he would walk away from her. Even worse, after Dorian and her married they had a daughter, Caroline, and purchased the house next door. When he would see them outside, neither recognized him, although at times Dorian appeared to be confused as if trying to place his face. The two households seemed to have a rhythm now, a pattern for how they interacted every few days.

  “Morning Scott!” Megan would call out as she loaded her daughter into the car and looped around to the driver's seat.

  “Morning Megan,” he would respond just loud enough for her to hear, followed with a “Morning Dorian,” that he would hope was low enough for him not to hear.