Coffin Island (32 page)

Perhaps the black hole pulled the souls
of the dead from the killing fields into some other world. Why not
just push them all in with a bulldozer. The chimney, The Tower of
Babel, seemed redundant. It was an unnecessary sacred monument that
should be demolished immediately. It also had stairs leading down
into the abyss on the inside for the chimney sweepers.

There must have been a billion stairs
on that spiral staircase on the walls. It seemed to laugh at the
concept of infinity. It was a quantifiable number in witchcraft.
There was no way that I was walking down that morass. Jumping into
the abyss was the ticket. Or what about driving into it with
appalling speed in a glass Cadillac? This was my proposal. That’s
why we climbed into the backseat of the glass Cadillac that was
teetering over the precipice. Why not shove this ride to hell on
its merry way? Let the occult take the wheel.

Madison had two cigars in her mouth.
She flipped her fingers like horns and flames lashed out. She lit
the two cigars and handed one to me. Madison had called them
down.

“I just did the devil horns to be
obnoxious,” she said.

“
You know what I think is
awkward and funny,” I said. “We’re sitting in a glass Cadillac atop
The Tower of Babel which is actually some sort of chimney for souls
into the next world.”

“It’s worse than that,” Madison
said.

“What could possibly be worse than
that?” I asked. “We’re about to go over the abyss like we
discussed. We’ve committed.”

“I teleported within the teleport,”
Madison snorted. “I did it just to be a total jackass.”

“I felt you let go,” I said. “Where did
you go?”

“I went for cigars,” Madison said. “I
figured why not croak smoking?”

“You didn’t just call down those
cigars?” I asked.

“I went right to the store,” Madison
laughed. “I scared the daylights out of the owner.”

“There is an actual cigar store?” I
gasped.

“There is a whole world beyond this
one,” Madison said. “It’s magical too.”

“There is a whole magical world beyond
this one?” I gasped. “What do you call this?”

“This one is just a test as we’ve been
told all along,” Madison said.

“You’ve confirmed it?” I asked. “The
test isn’t just a trick.”

I rolled down the window of the glass
Cadillac and threw my arm out the window. Why not catch a few rays
in Flemish hell now that the pressure was off? I puffed heartily on
the box cut cigar. At least the cigars were of the finest quality.
Why not savor the only good part of witchcraft?

“This test was the entrance exam to The
Coffin Island School for Witches,” Madison practically shouted. “We
passed.”

“We passed?” I asked dumbfounded. “This
whole terrible journey was nothing more than an academic
exercise?”

“Yup,” Madison said. “We killed
it.”

“What’s the bad news?” I
asked.

“The immediate score to settle is my
bill at the cigar store,” Madison shrugged. “It’s
substantial.”

“You have to pay for all those cigars?”
I asked.

“I put yours on my tab too,” Madison
grinned. “The cigar purveyor is a pretty reasonable creature. His
name is Professor Cigar.”

“
He teaches smoking at The
Coffin Island School?” I gasped.

“
I don’t know how much he
teaches,” Madison said. “He’s a puff of black smoke that
criticizes.”

I groaned.

“
It’s so much worse than
that,” Madison said. “I got a glimpse of the school.”

“
You saw the real Coffin
Island School for Witches?” I asked. “Don’t even tell
me.”

“
You’re going to die,”
Madison said.

“
What did you see,” I
demanded.

“
I caught a glimpse of it
out the window,” Madison giggled. “I was in The English Department
Tower.”

“
The English Department is a
tower?” I roared.

“
We haven’t been cleared for
math,” Madison said.

“
I’m not learning math at
The Coffin Island School for Witches,” I roared.

“
They figured as much,”
Madison said.

“
What’s out the window of
the tower?” I groaned.

“
Campus,” Madison laughed.
“It looks like magical Manhattan.”

“
Magical Manhattan,” I
sighed. “This just gets worse.”

“
There are five boroughs,”
Madison said. “Our dormitory is out in the sticks of Buenos
Aires.”

“
What?” I asked. “We have to
commute from Buenos Aires?”

“
On the subway,” Madison
said.

“
We can’t teleport?” I
demanded.

“
Underclassmen aren’t
permitted,” Madison said. “We’re lower than pink whale dung. That’s
what Professor Cigar told me. We’re lucky to be admitted. All these
corpses here are the students that didn’t get in.”

“
You’re telling me that I
didn’t learn anything on this journey?” I demanded. “I thought the
Coffin Island library just entered me.”

“
You just tapped into your
own knowledge like witchcraft,” Madison said.

“
What about all that power
that I was just jiving on?” I asked.

“
Same deal,” Madison said.
“You just tapped into what you have.”

There was a birdhouse nailed to the
dash of the glass Cadillac. I had been peering at it for some time.
It was beginning to really trouble me. I wanted whatever bird that
was within to come out pronto.

“
Professor Coffin,” I said
to the birdhouse nailed to the dash of the glass Cadillac. “Come
out.”

Chapter

“
I’m not decent,” a shrill
woman’s voice said from within the tiny birdhouse.

I could tell that it was a man’s voice.
There was too much gravel in it to be a woman. The voice sounded
like it broke rocks in its free time. The sand and gravel factory
in the middle of the highway was just a passion project. It built
entire worlds out of rock and glass in its free time. Why not build
Old Havana in glass for fun? The magical force within the birdhouse
on the dash had that much power. I felt like I was beckoning
fission.

A little door swung open on the
birdhouse. Out walked a tiny little parrot. The creature had a tiny
stuffed Professor Coffin on its shoulder. What was the meaning of
this parrot? Was this journey just a cruel prank? The tiny parrot
with the stuffed Professor Coffin on his shoulder was drinking a
cocktail with an umbrella in it if there was any question. He was
also a Toucan which was particularly infuriating. He had to flash
that tropical lifestyle on top of all the other insults to good
taste and decency.

“
Hallo Booster Boo and
Madison Kidd,” the tiny Toucan squawked. “Are you sure you want to
be in this glass Cadillac? It’s not too late to get
out.”

“
Cut it out, Professor
Coffin,” Madison snapped. “We already figured it out.”

“
I had to give it one last
shot,” the tiny Toucan squawked. “Some students break at the last
moment of the test.”

The tiny Toucan hopped off the end of
the pole of the birdhouse. There was a flash of explosive light. It
was incredibly powerful. It blinded our eyes for a second. Then we
were looking at Professor Coffin. He was sitting in the front seat
of the glass Cadillac under the wheel.

Professor Coffin wasn’t some old pirate
fool. He was a dignified gentleman in evening clothes. He looked
like an emperor in his white tails. The jeweled panther cane that
he was holding was just there to demonstrate the exclamation point.
That’s how important my owner is. He carries me. I am an
astonishingly expensive and unnecessary accessory. My greatness is
here to dignify my owner’s presence, the jeweled panther seemed to
suggest. I can crush your skull with all my black diamonds and
rubies too.

Professor Coffin was also wearing a
devilishly expensive top hat. I shuddered when I thought of all the
beavers that had been slaughtered to make it. It was the finest
felt ever. It was racked off to the side with jovial charm. That
old hat, I cut it off an emperor. Put his head in it. Now they’re
both mine as well as his former kingdom.

Professor Coffin was also smoking a
cigarette in a bone holder. He hung that over the backseat for
emphasis. It had a little pink whale stamped on it. Why not enjoy
scrimshaw for your smoking pleasure?

“
Those frauds that I
perpetrate on the page are in fact real,” Professor Coffin said.
“You don’t just fake it until you make it. You fake it until you
make it real. That’s how I was able to put you in those worlds.
They’re real.”

Madison and I both froze in
terror.

“
You’re Professor Coffin?” I
stuttered.

“
Who else would I be?” he
laughed.

“
Who was that other person?”
I asked.

“
Those were just some
writing odds and ends that I couldn’t do anything with,” he said.
“A bit of a rough draft but I didn’t have much time to work on your
test. I wrote it on some napkins when the time permitted. I was
typically waiting to go up on the podium to speak for profit to
capitalist organizations. I command hearty speaking fees these
days. Who wouldn’t want to listen to me speak?”

“
Those three worlds that you
just put us through were something that you wrote in your free
time?” I gasped.

“
I used three napkins,”
Professor Coffin shrugged. “I thought you might like a
triptych.”

“
Why did it have to have
three parts?” Madison shouted.

“
We are born into a magical
world,” Professor Coffin said. “We are then tested in yet another
magical world. Then we graduate to another magical world if we’re
good enough.”

“
You’re an animal,” Madison
said.

“
I’m thrilled you
experienced the alienating affront,” Professor Coffin beamed. “That
whole off-kilter thing, that’s the ticket. That’s high art. You
take that ride. Chills and thrills to the top of the
world.”

“
You think what you did to
us is art?” Madison demanded.

“
It was horrible,” I said.
“I’ll grant him that.”

“
You’re a rude hick,”
Madison said.

“
That’s my background, of
course,” Professor Coffin said. “We all emerge from the sticks.
That’s why we’re called emerging artists at the beginning of our
careers.”

“
You couldn’t do any better
than that?” I demanded.

“
He didn’t even give us his
best work,” Madison shouted. “That’s the cheap shot right
there.”

“
He didn’t think that we
deserved it,” I agreed.

“
You haven’t earned it,”
Professor Coffin agreed.

“
How do we earn it?” I
asked.

“
You can’t,” Professor
Coffin said. “There is certain writing talent that is dispensed
from the top. God hands it out. You can’t earn it.”

“
Are you mad?” I
asked.

“
That little test of yours
wasn’t even remotely close to my best work,” Professor Coffin
shrugged. “But you have to pay handsomely for that. You
understand?”

“
I don’t understand at all,”
I said.

“
Those amusement park rides
that the Hollywood people like are deliciously expensive,”
Professor Coffin explained. “I do this pedagogical thing unpaid for
the betterment of letters. You aren’t going to get much out of me
as the head of the English Department at The Coffin Island School
for Witches. Now are you? Frankly none of us would chair our
departments if it weren’t so prestigious. We’re basically
blackmailed by the status gratification. Our egos demand
it.”

“
You only do this for your
ego?” I asked.

“
Eternity is a big issue
too,” Professor Coffin sniffed. “I don’t mind admitting that I want
to live forever. I’m greedy like that.”

“
How do you figure that
you’ll live forever?” Madison demanded.

“
Without any successors,”
Professor Coffin said. “I’ll just die.”

“
Your coffin won’t keep you
alive?” I asked.

“
Writers need other writers
to keep them alive in this world,” Professor Coffin said. “The arts
are extremely dangerous. You play with your entire life. That’s why
nobody enters the arts anymore. Along with the vicious admission
tests that we artists dream up. You’re lucky that you didn’t take a
tryout for the visual arts department. The chair of that department
makes me shudder. He’s truly a devil. I just play at
one.”

“
You need us to write like
you?” Madison asked.

“
Is that what we’re looking
at here?” I asked.

“
I just need you tie in,”
Professor Coffin said. “That’s all.”

“
You want us to connect in
with that nightmare that you just put us through?” I
asked.