“But I must have made an error in judgement because after all these centuries of chances, allowances, and turn-the-other-cheek’s, we are still behind schedule. My proposal to the Elders states in no uncertain terms that I will empty Quadrant City and successfully reincarnate every soul that will be sent here upon its suicide. I am obligated by Elder law, something I was confident enough to sign off on, to take only one century to clean up this city and open it to fresh recruits for two more centuries by which time no soul in the Orion galaxy will take their lives because all the ones that did have reincarnated after ridding themselves of the urge. Three centuries, that’s all, and we would never have crossed paths again. Sadly, edits were needed for my proposal and with not a small amount of humiliation I have continued to encourage and indulge you, children that you are. This year marks the tenth century since Quadrant City was founded, and we’re all still here. New suicides are happening because the energies you’re sending out into the Universe are not vibrating pure. More people are being drawn to the deed. Today, on the day I wanted to reincarnate a whole slew of souls so I could have something to show for all this wasted time, I haven’t a single soul to perform the Sendoff. The ritual cannot happen now. There are approval forms, paperwork and several requests, I can assure you of that—in fact, there are fifty in today’s list—but I am the last word in wisdom when it comes to the afterlife. I found none of them ready. As with all things in existence, deeds reflect on leaders. No matter who is part of the pack or group, the leader takes responsibility for their failures and their successes. In this case, the leader—and I use the term loosely—is Courtier Helidon, your Reincarnator. You as much as he has failed miserably.” His voice rose.
“He cannot sign approvals when you haven’t shown readiness to leave, and you cannot show readiness to leave Quadrant if he doesn’t find a way to create a system to make change happen. Yet for the past four months, neither the people of Quadrant City nor their Reincarnator has worked together. There are more political power plays in this sordid dimension than there is teamwork. It was the same with the previous Reincarnator and the one who came before him and the one before him. There is so much weakness!” The word rang out across the space. “Every life-form in this city is weak. You took your own lives because you couldn’t take living any more. Weak! You came here only to continue your pathetic existence with no real desire for change. Weak! You are adding to the burden you are simultaneously trying to pull. Weakness leads to greed and greed to stupidity. In short, we’re going nowhere. We’re stagnating in our own filth. I include myself in all this because I blame myself for even giving you insipid worms a home where you can eat, sleep, have sex, work, scheme, plot, suffer, defecate, and do all sorts of other things, continuing a pointless existence. Now tell me, wouldn’t the lot of you be better off in a battery nestled inside the Pure Efflesia Bank?
“What good are you here when you are no good at all? You laugh, have fun, be merry. You have lived in this afterlife dimension for centuries and only a tiny fraction of the overall populace has been reincarnated. Fools and weaklings, all of you! The Von Heisens, the Crystal-Bloods, the Humans, and every single race I see before me! Weak! Greedy! Imbecilic! I wash my hands of you self-murderers who think that you can change trains as you please if life doesn’t offer you a good set of cards. Who are you to complain? Who are you to demand justice? This is your final stop, you have nowhere else to go.” Many in the city were crying. “I will now create a time-stamp. If Reincarnator Helidon doesn’t bring me one soul from this soup of idiots to reincarnate, just one soul that I can honestly approve... If he doesn’t bring one in the next five minutes I will fly immediately to the Elder Realm and terminate my Suicide Pact upon which every single one of you will be transferred to the Pure Efflesia Bank before you can scream bloody murder. Time-stamp begins now.”
King Death pointed a claw at the throne on which he’d been sitting to watch the Featherball match. The heavy object floated speedily to him and he sat down on it just as its seven legs met the grass. He waited. Voices rose and kept rising. There was palpable panic in the air. People didn’t run, they were too paralyzed with fear. All eyes were on me. I had just four minutes left to come to a decision. I didn’t know what to do. I just saw the people’s names, their activities, their progress reports, the number of recommendations they had, the witnesses to attest to those recommendations, their credit statements, how long they’d been in the city, and a few other factors. I shortlist them to the best of my understanding and take the papers to the King who sees connections and details that only his mind can. How, from among seven hundred million souls in Quadrant City, am I going to pick one in the next three and a half minutes whom the King will approve and not deny like he has three-fourth and often all of my choices ever since I came here?
I didn’t care about decorum, flipped decency the bird, and threw any hope of political dignity out the window. All I could see before my eyes was the end of all these life-forms and a close to what they had built together over the decades. I slipped as I rushed to the microphone. How bloody convenient that thunderclouds came to see us in misery and mock us with rain. Nobody cared to hold up umbrellas or slip into raincoats. The stadium engineers didn’t toggle the rain canopies either. We were all drenched when I caught hold of the microphone and fixed one person in one of the special balconies with an urgent gaze. “Baroness Von Heisen! Carina Jelva!”
She moved so fast I lost a few heartbeats before I understood what she was doing. The lady of the castle knew all her four-hundred-something staff by name and corresponding scent. The vampire baroness leaped on the balustrade and moved like a supernatural beast. In the blink of an eye she had turned into the feral version of her kind and she had already made it halfway across the thoroughfare where only a few hours ago the King and I, along with the other courtiers had made our way to watch a match of Featherball. The Baron turned into a feral vamp and followed his lady. More Von Heiseins turned and ran on animalistic limbs as they followed the two heads of their family. Carina was at home, watching the telecast live, and saw everything. I came to know this fact only later but she’d put two and two together and ran to get her baby who was sleeping in the cradle.
The entire Crystal-Blood team took wing and flew after the Von Heisens. They were as fast as they’d been when they played the game a while back. The baby was already dead, so to speak. If they could return her at their greatest speed back to the stadium not only will she remain unharmed by the swift movement but so will every other being in Quadrant City. All our hopes rested on the only infant, let alone child, in this dimension. I stood counting imaginary approximates in my head. We barely had two minutes on the clock and King Death was not one to forgive unpunctuality. Infant or not, innocence or not, ten centuries of suicide afterlife or not, he would make good on his word and we all knew it. The people in their seats cried, mewled and hugged. They didn’t know what to do for the next several seconds.
In corporeal bodies we could do so much, but as souls—even though we were inside fleshified forms for this dimension to hold us—could do so much more. With one minute left on the clock, the people had given up hope. They didn’t want to run, because where would they go? They didn’t care about begging, because who could convince almighty King Death who has been around before anyone in all galaxies combined had breathed life? They gave up, knowing they couldn’t do squat about their fate.
Cameras followed the vampires but reached them only in time to capture the next phase of events. Floating on gravity-suspension wheels, the cameras could function at the twist of a console by life-forms in the media room. To them the show must go on even in the face of utter doom. They broadcasted the baroness reaching a rundown apartment complex where the streets ran with rain and muck. The door opened and there was a woman crying so hard I thought she contributed to the rain. She couldn’t even stretch out her arms, Carina was that miserable. But I was wrong. She wasn’t upset, she was happy. “Thank you, thank you, ohhhh
, thank you!” She practically threw the words at Baroness Von Heisen who carefully took the baby from her arms. Having lost a head start, the angelic beings landed a few ticks later. The baroness, watched on by the baron and her family, handed the child over to the fastest Featherballer on team Mesk. The female Crystal-Blood was already in the air by the time she received the infant. She soared at her swiftest, her wings beating in tune to the claps of thunder as she flew several meters forward with each motion.
The vampires panted from exhaustion and the rain had made a mess of their clothes but they remained in feral form and ran back to the stadium just in case they were needed again. Other Crystal-Bloods from both teams produced thin rods and donned strange looking gloves. They caught the lightning and hoped to keep it away from Kalia, the one with the baby. Their uniforms had light metal extrusions in them that small electric pulses could render slightly heavy. The design feature helped them gain control mid-flight during matches when a small push of a button on their thin utility belts would do the trick. Tonight those metal threads could inconvenience Kalia, so they distracted the lightning with attractor rods that their gloves somehow earthed.
Half a minute left on the clock. She soared above the walls and made an angled swoop toward the stadium’s center. People half-cried, half-praised, most of them started clapping and shouting. Everyone’s sorrow turned temporarily into elation mixed with fright. I was shifting my weight from one foot to the other like a runner about to begin his sprint. Kalia landed, the Von Heisen vampires had scaled the stadium walls and looked my way from their positions along the rim of the edifice. I took the baby who was crying her little eyes out. I turned, ran to stand before His Majesty and with two seconds to spare, knelt on one knee.
“Your Majesty,” I said and breathed heavily as if I was the one who’d run the impossible distance and flown back in less than four minutes. I was glad the Human Quadrant adjoined the Fallen Lands. “I’m afraid conditions aren’t ideal for me to fill out the paperwork, but I’m sure I can find this little one’s details back in my office.”
His Majesty stood up, tall and imposing, the unbreakable breaker of souls. His golden gaze cut through me like truth itself. For the next few minutes, he laughed. His wide chiseled chest shook, he had one hand on his belly then at the back of his horned head. His wings opened and closed of their own volition. Water dripped off his blades and evaporated into steam as fire grew along his form, covering his shoulders, the tops of his wings, his hocks, head and forearms. He laughed, the baby cried, we were all drenched, thunder slammed and lightning crackled. He laughed. Whether at our childishness and misery or the fact that we succeeded at his incredible challenge, I do not know. All I knew was that Quadrant City held its breath, the little girl in my arms cried desperately for comfort and King Death laughed raucously like he’d just heard a world-class joke.
18
It was half past two in the morning and the sky was dark. Mist creeped around and the air was moisturized by the rains that stopped pouring about an hour ago. All of us were assembled in the Grand Imperial Harbor and Captain Charon’s massive ship was moored to the wharf. Standing before His Majesty the King was Lady Life, dressed in luminescent white and aglow like a star lost in space. Cameras captured the moment for posterity and stored copies in specialized tech centers in a block west of central government. I stood behind King Death and a few feet to my left was the infamous captain kithself, all scary tentacles, bizarre musculature and strange bio-features. Kith’s antlers reminded me of the rocktallica band.
“I take this offering freely given,” said Lady Life and her body glowed in accordance with her words. She was beautiful indeed but nobody was in the mood to appreciate that fact. Our souls were shaken as it is after recent happenings. “I claim Maria Jelva, daughter of Carina Jelva, and deem her fit for reincarnation. Her crime is innocence for which there is no punishment, save that which has already been her fate. She will be reborn a human being on Earth and live out her life as her karma dictates. All is well, the deal is made. I carry this soul from Quadrant City in the name of the Almighty Mother Goddess, Galactic Empress Athena, Queen of all worlds.”
“Long live the Queen. Long live Athena.” King Death said those words in bold tones free of pride, his fist positioned at his heart. All of Quadrant City was taken by surprise but caught on to what he silently demanded. Before long, we together spoke a slow but steady chant. “Long live the Queen. Long live Athena.”
Enchanted quills, one white as pearl and soft in appearance and another quill, black as depravity and as sleek as an assassin’s blade scribbled something together on a long length of parchment that floated to the side of Life and Death.
The White Spirit floated aboard Charon’s ship. The captain paid kith’s respects to His Majesty and left. All of us saw the reason for our existence sail away and disappear when it arrived at the horizon. It was frightening and humbling that on the day after Moo-Day little Maria saved us, and she would never know how many lives she had rescued from oblivion.
19
“Did you read today’s Quadrant Chronicle?” Krell was unexpectedly enthusiastic when he received me the next morning. He even came out to the steps of government building alpha. Was that coffee in his hands? He took a sip as he waited for me to pay the taxi guy and walk up to him. He had shouted the question at me all the way from the steps. If I didn’t know any better he made subtle bounds on the balls of his strange feet as he waited for me to catch up to him. Sure enough he shoved the paper in my face. I took it, unfolded and read the headlines and there was a wide snapshot of me being handed Carina’s baby.
Kalia, the fastest Featherballer of last night’s match, had her arms outstretched as she proffered the infant to me. Her beauty eclipsed most things in the picture; and those wings. There was the Baroness Von Heisen whom I hadn’t noticed had made it to my position. She was caught side-profile in the photo and even though she was drenched head to toe she still had that uncanny grace and beauty I remembered from my first visit to the castle. On his throne and glowering at us all with golden eyes and impossible fire was King Death. And the stadium light limned us all in a surprisingly gorgeous wide-angle glow. ‘Savior of Quadrant City’ read the headline.
Just yesterday most of the citizens didn’t even know my name. After today it’ll be hard to find someone who doesn’t. But I don’t want fame, in fact I hate it. I abhor the spotlight and the ill attention it brings to my work. This isn’t my ego speaking just to appear humble on the outside while I beamed with pride. It isn’t one of those weird moments when you want to be the center of attention for just a little while and then never more. I just didn’t want this, pure and simple. All I could think of when Death issued his time-stamp was that he would destroy everything and I had to do something. I didn’t want to be the one Reincarnator who saw an end to a whole system that had been in effect for a millenium. Fame brought its own pressures and burdens.
King Death didn’t care for accolades or pomp so I was certain his ego wouldn’t be affected by any of this. Many life-forms in Quadrant City were celebrities in a way. But what did scare me was how he was going to react to the fact that the people had made a hero out of me. Me, who didn’t earn it through discipline and timely method. Me, who was yet to create a system to have all these souls reincarnated. Me, who was supposed to have been responsible for at least a few thousand souls leaving the city yesterday but ended up sending only one. And they called me a savior for it? His Majesty would not be pleased with any of this.
Krell handed me a bunch of paperwork that had approval forms. He hadn’t done this much work since he was appointed my assistant. Instead of taking the route to my office, I took the file filled with papers and headed to the throne room. Everyone I passed, from the secretarial pool and assistants to courtiers of all shapes and dimensions, smiled or waved at me in a fashion so friendly I must be dreaming. I checked to see if the file contained all the right papers.
I walked into his office, w
hich was often called the throne room. He was looking out the window as he usually does, his arms folded before him. That unique sense of intense direness hit me. I had walked into his presence, his aura, and all the lies, excuses and delusions in the world couldn’t have made me feel any different. Today he emitted a stronger sense of doom. I would not know this fact until much later but after every fifth-month celebration, His Majesty’s mysterious energies would be replenished and he would give off this intense feeling. Everyone kept away from him today wherever they could but my duties didn’t make that possible.
“Papers,” he said. He sounded deep and dangerous. I felt a distinct shiver shoot up my spine as I sat down and spread the papers for his approval. He came round to stand behind me, placed a heated hand at the back of neck and swept his lighning gaze across the information on the desk. He denied all of them. “The secretary has come down with a case of rain flu. One of your contractual obligations is to step in during times like these. Prepare my open-topped carriage. We’re going to the inauguration of Lacy’s 7-Star Hotel.”
Long Live Death: Welcome To The Afterlife Page 16
