“But we are here to change that?” the hoodie-clad cohort inquired.
“We are.”
“How?”
“Did you know that when Doris was a young lady in elementary school, that she created Valentine’s Day boxes?”
“I didn’t, no.”
“Oh yes,” Jonas nodded. “Every year each box had gone from being made of macaroni shells to hand-carved, erected more and more elaborately. Year after heart-breaking year, the boxes remained empty. Our lovesick waitress has been waiting to find someone to capture her heart. Well, that day’s arrived! Our advantage here is that Doris suffers from low self-esteem, and her extreme affections haplessly attach themselves to anyone who gives her even the slightest interest. This feature will help enable my plan to entice her with a valentine.” He withdrew a piece of folded red construction paper that had been snipped into the shape of a heart. “I’ll intercept, hand this belated token of love, and we’ll have her.”
The driver’s side car door opened. An umbrella shot out from the interior, puncturing the rain like the tip of a sword. Doris fumbled with the umbrella until it spread wide.
Jonas took out a second piece of paper from his pocket: a violet envelope labeled with a handwritten number. He turned to his acquaintance in the black hoodie handing him the violet envelope. “I’ll expect to see you at our home after placing this on the empty driver’s seat.”
The figure in the hoodie nodded.
Jonas abandoned the umbrella, bid his colleague farewell and headed toward Doris with the valentine in hand. Jonas claimed this victim amidst an ostensibly neutral storm, creating his own love story in a malevolent line of attack.
*
Nathaniel had once overheard Harriet when she had said to Fiona: “The energy efficient light bulbs, the instructional video, the water coolers, you treat them as if they’re just as important as our clients.”
“Ah, but they are just as important as our clients,” Fiona had told Harriet.
“But they don’t have skin, brains, a beating heart, souls . . .” as Harriet had gone on, Fiona had carried a ladder out of the conference room down the hallway past the doorless offices. Nathaniel, who had been delivering envelopes to a muse’s postbox, hurriedly ducked into an office door to avoid contact. Harriet, having been unaware of Nathaniel’s nearness, said “They don’t have a projected purpose Fiona, but you’re acting as if they did.”
“Just like one of our clients, Harriet,” he had heard Fiona explain “If one little cog is missing, broken or obsolete, then circumstances would change. Management has things the way they like it for a reason, from a client that we inspire down to the energy efficient light bulbs in the hallway. Everything that we encounter deserves recognition.”
“I’m not trying to be difficult, Fiona.”
“Not being difficult at all, Harriet.”
Nathaniel peered around the corner. With their backs turned to him as they crossed down the hall, Nathaniel delivered the envelopes to the last postbox without being noticed.
“Only one more peg to go before I retire, and if I’m going to take over your position, I need to know these things.”
“When I started as a First Generation muse, Harriet, and was employed as Head Muse after the initial employment, do you think anyone passed down a guide book? Sure there was the demonstration about the Lite-Brite board but I personally formulated my own procedures as the need surfaced.”
“Management must have taught you something, Fiona.”
“There are many things that Management taught me, Harriet,” Fiona had sighed, “and many things I wish they had, but didn’t. Alas, like the lives our clients, we are only given enough to continue on our own path. It’s up to us, as it is for them, to figure out our own answers.”
This conversation had taken place right before Jonas appeared at the conference room door with news that he had neglected his twenty-second envelope.
In the present day, Fiona sat in her respective office. Fiona, who had once shown advertised managerial authority with dignified poise, showed physical signs of her exhaustion. After over ten generations as acting Head Muse, she was ready to retire. A smile formed on Fiona’s face as Nathaniel brought the last bin of reassigned white pegs. Seeing them meant Fiona’s freedom would be granted and Harriet’s tenure of being Head Muse would rapidly initiate.
“So this is the last of them?” she asked.
“These are,” Nathaniel told her.
He delivered the latest bin of purple pegs to Harriet who had been ready to take the role off her mentor’s hands, eagerly awaiting the coronation. With bobby pins puncturing her immovable hair bun, she bore a complacent look on her middle-aged face resembling a determined, sanctimonious rule-abiding sentry. Harriet was stringently unbending in her initiative to tolerate Management’s orders. It wasn’t that Harriet was set on running the diplomacy with a stricter hand; the truth of her motivation was much simpler. Due largely to the physical abuse endured in her previous marriage, Harriet was terrified of the living world and longed to stay in the safety of the afterlife.
Anna Pavlova practiced in her studio as Nathaniel brought the reassigned pink-colored pegs. The ballerina’s back was to him with one hand on the barre as she dipped into a graceful plié. He reverently watched her dance for several minutes, propping himself against the office’s doorframe. When she bent to the doorway, Nathaniel was gone. Paul Lawrence Dunbar raised his eyes from a newly-written poem when Nathaniel entered with the final bin of the reassigned cream-colored pink polka-dotted pegs. Mr. Andrews, while pacing the deck of the reconstructed Titanic as the ship, nodded to Nathaniel who delivered the red-colored pegs.
Lucas’ office was colder then Nathaniel remembered when he entered with the reassigned green pegs.
“Annette has yet to come by,” Lucas told him.
“Our retirement party will be upon us soon, and hopefully she will reconnect then.”
Lucas looked to the window. “I hope so.” He sighed heavily. “I feel so lonely, Mr. Cauliflower. I thought that, when I went to Heaven after retiring the first time, I wouldn’t feel this way anymore. But it’s still there: the loneliness. I wish I had someone to talk to, you know?”
“I know exactly what you mean, Mr. Richardson. More than you can understand.”
He started for Lucas’ door but turned back to see his client before exiting. In Lucas’ right hand, the guitar pick was being massaged. Watching Lucas with the guitar pick, Nathaniel wondered if it had been a mistake giving it to him.
Nathaniel visited the next to last office of his tour: the living Grecian beach, basking in afternoon sunlight, of which Icarus was engaged, staring off into the cloudless sky.
Icarus said Nathaniel, “Thank you for a familiar landscape, Mr. Cauliflower.”
Nathaniel brought the remaining bin of reassigned yellow pegs closer. “I hope the office is to your liking, Icarus.”
“Oh,” Icarus pondered, “it’s as if no time has passed since I last stood at this shore with my father. It’s not the real rocks and sand that I stood at before my initial flight, but it’s enough to bring back memories of more idyllic days.”
Nathaniel proceeded to go but Icarus had more to say causing a misstep in the postmaster’s walk.
“I take comfort in knowing that I’m not the only one who was meant to soar to such heights, only to have gravity pull you down.”
As these words were spoken, a memory swept over Nathaniel concerning his life’s conclusion in 1808.
*
Twenty-three year-old Nathaniel watched as the painter, and the loft, became smaller in perspective as he scrambled to right the falling ladder. Nathaniel felt a sense of panic in the moment between him falling through the air and colliding with the floor. It was a short-lived panic as the Parisian sunlight was ripped from his vision. When he opened his eyes again, he perceived a rotunda void of personal items. The only thing it contained was an oculus with a lone ray of sunlight shining around him.
His gaze then caught sight of a woman in a cream-colored paints suit.
“Hello Mr. Cauliflower,” the woman said to him. “My name is Fiona, and you’ve been hired by Management to be a muse.” She offered a hand to help him.
“A muse?” he asked her, righting himself with her assistance.
“Precisely,” Fiona confirmed. “Would you follow me please?”
*
Nathaniel knew what it was like to fall to his death, Icarus had been correct. Icarus had fallen to his death twice. The primary time had been when Icarus and his father Daedalus planned to escape from Greece. Daedalus had been a great inventor during the Bronze Age, favored in the court of the Great King Minos of Crete.
Minos had a labyrinth in his palace that had housed a horrific Minotaur which had been half man, half bull. For sport, Minos had brought many epic heroes into the labyrinth to battle the beast and find their way out of the labyrinth. No heroes had made it out alive. When the champion named Theseus had appeared, Minos had been shocked when the conqueror made it successfully through the labyrinth. To have made matters all the more spectacular, Theseus had brought Minos the head of the Minotaur, throwing it at the king’s feet. Minos had been so flustered by the success that he sent his men to investigate the labyrinth to see how Theseus could have found his way in, and out, so effortlessly. His men had discovered a string that had been tied to the labyrinth’s entrance.
“When you created my labyrinth to house the Minotaur,” Minos had consulted Daedalus that afternoon, “you told me that you made it so perfect, so confusing, that even the most intelligent warrior couldn’t flee from it alive. Yet, here we are with a dead beast and a proud vanquisher. Explain how this happened?”
“Perhaps Theseus had more wits about him than the others,” Daedalus had told the king.
“Or perhaps he had been informed by someone how to effectively navigate the routes.” Minos had held up the string. “Theseus was given a string to tie to the entrance. As it unspooled, he was able to create a clear path from the entrance to the center where he discovered, and slaughtered, the Minotaur. It was this string, given to him by you, the inventor of the labyrinth, which gave him the advantage to find his way out!”
Daedalus had looked at the string, feeling a sense of alarm rush through his blood.
“You’ve made a fool of me, Daedalus,” Minos had spat. “And for what purpose? Did you think that Theseus would carry you and your son on the boat back to his homeland?” Minos had tossed the string to the dirt ground, stomping on it several times to prove his control.
The shouting had brought Icarus into the room who had been no older than eighteen.
“As punishment, Daedalus, I’ll take the life of your son in exchange for the life of the Minotaur.”
Daedalus had begged forgiveness through tears, shaking his head maniacally. “Please, King Minos! Please! Not Icarus!”
Athenian guards had entered Daedalus’ home and pried the inventor from Minos. Icarus had started to flee but they took him as well. Minos had been alone in the room. He had looked at the string on the ground, examined Daedalus’ dingy home, and departed with his cape fluttering luxuriously behind him.
“The wind on this beach reminds me of the wind on the day of our escape from King Minos’ court,” Icarus said to Nathaniel. They were both staring into the clear skies and crystal-blue waters of the roaring sea. “On the night of our imprisonment, father constructed two pairs of wings; one for me, the other for himself. As the sun rose on that day, father told me not to fly too high or the sun would melt the wax on the wings. If I flew too low, the water would weigh me down. As he tightened the leather straps around my shoulders, he asked if I was listening. I told him I was but, truthfully, I was too excited to feel the wind rush against my face to care, to feel like a bird in mid-flight.” Icarus shifted his eyes heavenward. “I kicked myself into the wind. I shouted with hilarity as the beach disappeared beneath me. There were sea birds in the sky but I flew far above them to prove that I was more powerful. I wanted to kiss the clouds. I wanted to say hello to the Gods in the stars! I flew higher and higher! The wind rushed across my face and through my hair! It was almost deafening! I felt free, uninhibited! I heard my father screaming for me. He too was in the sky shouting for me to not fly too high. I turned to look at him feeling smug. I was defying the laws of gravity! What did I care?”
“And then the wax melted,” Nathaniel confirmed.
“I plummeted,” Icarus nodded. “The clouds were swept into a vortex. The sea birds cawed condescendingly as I descended. I fell headfirst into the rampant ocean and promptly drowned. I found myself in the Underworld faced with many abominations while in the company of . . .”
Icarus paused and did not refer to the Underworld or who he had encountered. He asked “If you were given the opportunity to rework a specific moment in your life, Mr. Cauliflower, would you?”
Nathaniel frequently wondered how things would have turned out had he not kept the paintings on display, but he didn’t share this with Icarus.
“When I was a Third Generation muse,” Icarus went on “I was assigned to work the resulting colored pegs of Evangeline’s neglectfulness. The circulating rumors of your affair were fresh, and I tried to be empathetic. If I may be so bold,” Icarus looked at Nathaniel “did you ever find her again?”
“Evangeline?” Nathaniel sighed. “No. I never found her. Eventually I gave up searching, hoping that, someday, Management would return her to me.”
“So then you would?” Icarus asked again, “you would change a moment in your life to have her in your arms?”
Nathaniel didn’t answer. He simply stared out at the sea while thinking of his beloved.
“Oh to have that kind of love for someone,” Icarus thought out loud. “When I was alive, I loved both men and women, I didn’t discriminate. I suppose you could say that I loved Persephone in the Underworld. She was filled with such beauty and hatred. Prior to meeting Persephone, before my fall, I was in love with a young Greek man named Castor. Mr. Richardson reminds me of him. I wonder what would happen if I were to befriend Mr. Richardson. I’ve seen the way he looks at me.”
“You should explore that,” Nathaniel then started for Icarus’ office door.
“I hope that you find Evangeline again,” Icarus told him.
Nathaniel sighed and said, after a brief hesitation, “Me too.”
The last bin of reassigned orange pegs was delivered to Annette. No doubt Annette was currently on an inspiration as her office was not in use. Though Nathaniel had seen little of her since they rotated Luanne’s blue peg, he tracked Annette’s progress. He was content that she had maintained an unprecedented momentum.
Nathaniel wheeled the bin alongside her desk and studied the dry erase board. Not much had been added save for a bit of commentary that she had scribbled with a blue marker that read: “What are the envelopes counting to? How many are there meant to be and why?”
Her cathedral office had begun to grow a garden of yellow tulips. Trails of yellow roses climbed the walls and columns. Nathaniel stepped to a rose and placed his nose to one of the yawning petals. Closing his eyes as he sniffed, he couldn’t help but to remember the fresh roses that were in Evangeline’s room when he had seen her in his second life in the year 1923.
*
Evangeline’s voice rang clear in his mind as he smelled the rose: “Promise me you won’t go after your painter, Nathaniel. Promise me that you’ll stay safe inside my home. Together we can live the rest of our days.” Her frail voice was that of a woman well over one hundred years. “Promise me that, whatever happens, you won’t let the darkness in your heart overtake you.”
Nathaniel, who was eighteen in his second life, and an immigrant from Russia, responded in a thick accent “I promise.” He knew his appeasing words were a lie. They were also the last words that he would speak to her before being murdered a second time.
*
Nathaniel felt a hand touch his right
shoulder. He spun to find Annette.
Annette said, “Hello.”
Nathaniel said quickly “Hello, Mrs. Slocum.”
“The flowers sprouted thirty envelopes ago,” Annette told him. “Thank you for adding them.”
“I didn’t add them,” Nathaniel retorted. “They must have grown on their own accord.”
“Have you come to help me turn a few more pegs?”
Nathaniel studied her. “Mrs. Slocum . . .”
“I need to see for myself if Jonas is responsible for stealing these people during thunderstorms,” she told him. “Plus, if I return home, there may not be a wedding to return to.”
“What do you mean?”
“The night before my wedding day in 2016, the night of the bachelor party, there was a thunderstorm. Adam was out with his guy friends at a local billiard hall. Whenever there’s the slightest roll of thunder, or hint of lightning, I’ve asked him to call me and check in. And to continue checking in until the thunderstorm has finished. It’s sort of our thing. And it brings me comfort from my paranoia. It’s one thing to be apart from your lover for a single night knowing that you’ll see him standing at the altar. It’s quite another to believe that, if the Thunderstorm Man truly chooses inclement weather to snag his victims, he might abduct someone close to the detective working the case.”
Asphodel: The Second Volume of the Muse Chronicles Page 15
