by Emmy Ellis
“See what? I don’t see anything much except you and all this whiteness. And that’s hurting my eyes, like there are knives in them.”
“A knife is what got you here in the first place, Wayne. The knife is a tool of the Devil. And the fact that you’re hurting is good.”
“Good? Oh, so you’re more of a sadistic fuck than I first thought, then.”
I wanted to choke Mr Grace, make him suffer, see how he liked it.
“I’ve done my share of suffering, Wayne. I learned my lessons. Granted, it took me some time, and no, I didn’t do bad things like you’ve done.” He held his hands palm outwards to stop me from verbally retaliating. “But I do understand why you did what you did. However, retribution coupled with violence isn’t always the answer. Sometimes walking away makes you the bigger man. Sometimes the act of completely ignoring the situation that causes you pain gives you better growth.”
“Growth for what?” Shit, he was talking in riddles that only half made sense. “So, say I didn’t go after Scott a second time. Say I didn’t get Mags good and proper, how would walking away from the pair of them make me feel better? I needed them out of my goddamned head and put into the bin.”
“You should also be in the bin. The recycle bin.”
What is this guy going on about?
“Do you even hear what I’m trying to say, Mr Grace? I did it my way, and if you turn me in, and I spend the rest of my days in prison, well, fuck me, I’ll die a happy bloke. You’ve no idea the crap I’ve been through. Yeah, Jen scribbled on her pad, told you and Them Upstairs everything I told her, but listening isn’t living. Listening isn’t enduring. So fuck you and your advice. Just ring the police and be done with it.”
“Oh, I hear you, Wayne. But do you hear me? Did you hear us, any of us? No, you didn’t. You heard, but you didn’t listen, didn’t heed those nuggets of advice bestowed on you for your own good. You knew best, blinded by revenge, vengeance, and getting your own back. Persecuted by the demons of your past, only to be led by the Devil on your journey to a better life, a purer soul.”
“Mr Grace, it’s all very well gassing on about pure souls, but I’ve been tainted since the day I was born, and nothing can change that.”
“But it can, Wayne. This is what we’ve been trying to teach you.”
“Well, you’re crap tutors, then, because I’m none the wiser now than I was when I woke up.”
“You didn’t learn the lessons all the other times.”
“Other times? What other times?”
“Wayne. I’ll explain things to you if you’d just calm down. Will you try to stay calm? Getting riled lets me know there are devils still running through you, can still make you do their bidding. By remaining calm, you can banish them. Please try to do that now. It’s nearly too late to help you. Time is running out.”
I inhaled deeply, telling myself to breathe slowly, listen to what this whacko man had to say. I had no choice until I could get hold of my tablets and eat the lot, despite him telling me it’d make no difference. Like he’d know. “Yes. I’ll listen.”
“No interruptions?”
“No, I’ll keep quiet.”
“Even if what I say may be hard to hear?”
I thought about that for a second. “Uh, yes.”
Mr Grace settled back into his chair. The feathers looked so soft. I could just curl up against them, close my eyes, and never wake up again.
“I’ll give it to you straight. When you attacked Scott all those years ago and banged your head, you never regained consciousness. You didn’t wake up in the hospital like you thought you did. You’re still in a coma, and you’re about to have the machine switched off.”
What?
“Some souls have a problem moving on and want to sort through the mountain of information gathered in their previous life or lives. They want to make sense of what they have experienced. You were a particularly insistent soul. You were so scarred by what you’d endured, your defences weakened, and demons were able to infiltrate, get inside, and direct your thoughts. They enticed you to the dark side. If you think about your thoughts while comatose in the hospital, you will see what I’m saying. A mixed-up, struggling soul—something that for us was very difficult to witness. But we can’t interfere, can only give you pointers. You must make your own decisions at this stage, but some of yours were less than pure.”
Mr Grace sighed; it sounded weary, like he was fatigued. A little like me. The wind had been knocked out of my sails. What he’d said should sound ridiculous, but you could say the light bulb had been lit to its full brightness. He made sense.
“Wayne, had you been good at The Apartments, I suspect you wouldn’t have fallen into any of the traps set. The brothel; many new men visit there and totally ignore the church. Gogglins Theme Park—all the new members waste their time messing around in there, yet it’s right next to the school and the university, where you could expand your knowledge and have a better chance at life.
“Since your soul decided to linger, many of us tried to help you. Barb, she was sent to show you the way. The TV—remember Liar Liar?—just a subtle nudge with that movie, but we tried to show you goodness, the right path, in everything we did. Sadly, the demons were stronger at that time, so we waited for our next opportunity to help you.
“You ‘woke’, grasped at the chance to purge everything holding you back, but we really thought you’d make it this time. That one word—Ribena—in the counsellor’s office at the hospital told us that with guidance, you’d maybe pull through. So you went to Klinter, spoke with Jen, got encouragement all the way from Kathy and Herbert. We tested how far along in your journey you’d come with Dean Campbell and, despite what you did, you had remorse at that time.
“We were fully aware that deep inside the demons still lived. We knew when you went to The Apartments that you’d listen to the dark side in the end. Not by abusing the brothel or the casino, but by swerving to the true darkness. So we used Wilf in the hopes you’d listen to him. Sadly, a demon, a distracter in the form of Nicola appeared. Easily distracted, aren’t you, Wayne? Nicola was also a distracter in your life. Placed there for you to like and trust her so that when you found yourself in limbo as it were, you’d automatically trust her again. You didn’t learn to spot the signs. That’s been your downfall all along. The man in the newsagent’s, the girl in the sweet shop, the old woman in the pharmacy, the people at Gogglins, you didn’t listen to them. They knew you were teetering on the brink of going back for Scott and Mags.
“When you were a child, in the life you just led, you called goblins ‘gogglins’; everything from that life was interspersed into this afterlife experience by your own soul latching on to what once was. You created everything: the hospital, Klinter, The Apartments. Even the name of Klinter—you once got a deep splinter in your hand, and your father, a good soul placed in your life to make you see people can be good, pulled it out with a pair of tweezers. You called it a klinter.”
Shit, yeah. I remembered that.
“Your father was placed in your life to try to help Mags become a better person. He failed, so we brought him back to us. Most people who die young in life are one of us. We’ve all done our time and become who we are in the hopes we can help everyone else get through their lifetimes, learn their lessons. Wayne, I mentioned this being your last chance. There is only so much we can do for lost souls who find their way to us. We can try to help you learn the lessons, but if you’re disinclined to do so, we have to let you go.”
It all made sense…so much fucking sense.
“Life as you knew it… Lessons are repeated throughout that lifetime, and your soul, if you’re lucky, picks up on these lessons after being burned a couple of times—the burn is from the dark side, they wouldn’t want you to learn goodness and purity—and by the end of that lifetime, you would have hopefully learned all you needed to know to move on to The Greater Good. What you might know as Heaven. Rarely do we learn first time round. And beca
use of this, we go back, live that exact lifetime and time again until eventually, with all the information stored in the recesses of your mind from previous lives, you’ll have got it. Despite living a life of hell with people like Mags and Scott, you would have learned to move on, to not retaliate, and your soul would be so serene, so calm, that you can then enter The Greater Good.
“Wayne, some people, no matter how many times they go through that same life, never learn. After the seventh attempt at Soul Growth, if you haven’t got it, well, The Darker Side claims you. There is nothing more that can be done.”
Mr Grace had tears in his eyes, and I got the sense that shit, I was on my last round here. I was going to the fucking Devil. Why did I have to go after Mags and Scott that last time? Why didn’t I listen?
“Also, when you commit crimes or act far from what The Greater Good would like, saying sorry and meaning it is the key, Wayne. So, I’m going to ask you a question now, and you need to answer it honestly. Truly and honestly.”
Mr Grace’s bottom lip quivered. It obviously meant a lot to him that I didn’t go to The Darker Side, or wherever the hell—ironic—I was destined to go. But I knew that if I lied, I was going to make it worse than even going to Hell would be.
Mr Grace cleared his throat. “Are you sorry you killed Scott and Mags, Wayne?”
Aww, shit. Shit.
I took a deep breath. “No. No, I’m not.”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to go back.”
“Back?”
“Yes, live that life all over again, one last time.”
I closed my eyes, steeled myself to accept what was to come. “Okay.” Like I had a choice.
“Things from your past life, things from this experience, will linger in your new life. That’s where déjà vu comes from, but for the most part, you’re there to learn once more, there to take what you will from that life and enrich your soul. You’ll meet people you think you’ve met before, like Peter Brand, Nicola, and if you look hard enough, you’ll see Dean Campbell again. He featured in your previous lives, but you didn’t see him. You’ll think you know them—and, in fact, you do—but your rationale will take over and tell you not to be so silly…”
Mr. Grace stood and held out his hand to me. I clasped it in mine, felt the love he had for me. Shit, this guy wanted me to succeed so badly.
“Come with me, Wayne. It’s time to go.”
Hand in hand on a carpet of white feathers, I walked with Mr Grace. I didn’t want to let go of him. My whole body was filling with goodness, surging from him to me.
“I’m making you pure, Wayne. Making your soul ready to start again.”
We stopped at an elevator. Its white door slid open.
“I’m going to leave a few extras stamped on your soul. I’m not going to wipe as much out as maybe I should. I want you to succeed this time round, do you understand? Next time, maybe you’ll be one of us at Klinter, one of Them Upstairs. I hope to God you’ll come through.”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I fully understood. All I knew was that I didn’t want to let go of this bloke’s hand. Like, if I did, that was it for me for fuck knew how long. And if this new life didn’t work, if I didn’t learn to walk away from the shit and smile, if I didn’t keep myself pure and let everyone else live lives of debauchery and sin, then what? What happened if my soul didn’t listen to the signs? It hadn’t listened in the last few lifetimes…
“Wayne. You must go now.”
I stepped into the elevator—still holding Mr Grace’s hand.
“I don’t want to go. I need to stay here with you. Please, tell Them Upstairs I didn’t mean it. Don’t make me go back. Not to them. Please!”
Mr Grace gazed deeply into my eyes. An electric fizz spread into my brain, working its way over my body, smoothing all my nerve endings, and disintegrated all the jagged, harsh thoughts. All the hurt and pain, the sick games, the ridicule—it was all being banished by the love in Mr Grace’s eyes. How come Mags hadn’t loved me like he did? How come…how come…?
“I’ll be seeing you again, Wayne, but hopefully not for the same reasons as before.”
I looked at Mr Grace. He was crying, fucking crying! Tears fell down his face and mine, and my throat hurt so badly I wanted to crumple up on the feathers at his feet, hold his ankles so I didn’t have to leave. I got it now, I got it.
The elevator doors began to close, nearly trapping my hands as I reached out to touch Mr Grace one last time, to feel the love I’d never felt in my whole sorry life, to feel his goodness, his faith in me.
An inch before the side of the door met the elevator frame, Mr Grace said, “This is your last chance, Wayne. No more after this. Good luck.”
Epilogue
Mags Richards threw baby Wayne up into the air. She really shouldn’t do that. His neck muscles hadn’t gained the strength needed for that kind of activity. After all, he was only two weeks old. She caught him, just, and a waft of tainted air met her nostrils.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Have you shit again, kid?”
She dumped the child on the sofa, yanked off his babygro, and began the ghastly business of changing a soiled nappy.
“What the fuck I went and had a kid for, I’ll never know. Shit, piss, puke, and sleep. Only been here for two weeks and it already feels like a lifetime.”
She wiped baby Wayne’s bottom with a cloth held by spiteful fingers.
“D’you know what, kid? A fortnight of hell I’ve had since you’ve been here. Don’t reckon that’s very fair, d’you? No, I don’t think that’s good at all. So, how d’you feel about me paying you back, eh? Life of hell suit you, will it? No? Well, tough, because that’s what you’re gonna get.”
Moon mist flitted over baby Wayne’s pupils.
