Coffin Island (33 page)

Professor Coffin just shrugged. It was
like he was shrugging off half of Africa. That’s just the great
migration rolling off my back, you know? Pardon me while I
exterminate all of East Africa.

“
That’s why you’ve done this
to us?” I asked. “You’re just trying to save your own
hide?”

“
We’re out,” Madison
said.

Chapter

“
Our journey has just
begun,” Professor Coffin laughed. “I’m going to teach you to write
myself. Or rather I’ll do it through proxy which should be good
enough. However you’re my pupils now. We’re magically attached, you
see? I birthed you in that test for all purposes so now I own you
for better or worse. Don’t disappoint me. Or I’ll just kill
you.”

“
We’re your pupils in the
next world?” I gasped.

“
How many others are there?”
Madison asked.

“
None,” Professor Coffin
said.

“
Why pick us?” Madison
asked.

“
I can’t just die and be
forgotten,” Professor Coffin shrugged. “So I suppose vanity is a
considerable factor too. I’m enormously vain, you understand? I
like a mirror with myself in it. I don’t mind admitting that to my
potential successors. I actually like to flaunt it a bit. That old
narcissism is fun. You will have to embrace that reflection in the
mirror too if you’re going to someday topple me as ruler. Ousting
me from my chair is going to be quite the task. I enjoy that
cushion under my bottom. That’s how it is at the top. The belfry is
very cushy, indeed.”

“
Who are you?” I
demanded.

“
I am the Head of The
English Department of The Coffin Island School for Witches,”
Professor Coffin said. “I am regretting not making your test
harder. You seem a bit slow on the uptake. Perhaps I didn’t test
you enough.”

“
It was plenty tough,” I
said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“
Great artists never
apologize,” Professor Coffin said. “That’s rule number one. If
you’re looking for comfort buy a highchair. I’m playing on that
chair metaphor a bit. I’ll expect nothing less out of you too. I
like my metaphors as you can imagine. I want them forcefully played
out to the point of breaking. You will bend that language for me or
I will just kill you. The same goes for the writing. If you fail to
kill it on the page then I will kill you. I am an ill villain from
the old school, get it, young people?”

“
Why did you strand me on
the other Coffin Island for so long?” Madison demanded. “Four
hundred years is pretty severe.”

“
I was less famous before
Booster came along,” Professor Coffin shrugged. “It was necessary
to ward off all the prospective students no matter the talent
level. I was jealous and shallow too. So it was necessary to treat
the brightest lights hideously. Snuff you right out.”

“
You were jealous of me?”
Madison asked.

“
There was that,” Professor
Coffin said. “But there was also the practical matter, you see? I
needed time to write. I had no time for fantastically gifted
students. What a bother. The tedious ones are bad enough. The true
geniuses are a nightmare. You’ve got to squash them
immediately.”

“
That’s what you did to me?”
Madison asked.

“
Couldn’t you sense the
conspiracy?” Professor Coffin asked. “All those greedy eyes on your
back were real.”

“
I always thought everything
was out to get me on Coffin Island,” Madison said. “I just thought
I was crazy.”

“
Always go with your first
thought,” Professor Coffin said. “Especially if it’s crazy then you
can work it into something manageable. You form that insanity and
make it work for you. That’s how you do the writing with the spider
legs on Mars.”

“
That’s how you know you’re
a real genius?” Madison asked. “Or you’re just stark raving mad.
I’d like to shoot you in the face. How’s that for
honesty.”

“
It’s enormously difficult
to master my type of savagery on the page. It’s a freak show, my
talent, you know?” Professor Coffin said.

“
You needed the time to
write,” Madison snarled. “You couldn’t master your freak show
talent? So you punished me?”

“
To be perfectly honest with
you, Madison,” Professor Coffin said and pointed back and forth
with his cigarette holder with the pink whale on it. “We had a bit
of an artistic conflict.”

“
We had an artistic
conflict!” Madison shouted.

“
I’ve got to hear this,” I
said. “I’m glad that I survived long enough to get to this point in
the narrative.”

“
It’s quite interesting
actually,” Professor Coffin said.

“
I’m dying to hear your
explanation,” Madison said. “Tell me while I sharpen my spear. How
would you like it in your ear? We’re going to have some serious
problems, you hear? You’re not going to teach me. I can promise you
that. I’m going to school you before this whole journey is through.
Put the screws right into you, Professor Coffin. You can bet your
whole life on that. It’s a death threat that I will deliver
upon.”

“
Funny you should mention
that,” Professor Coffin nodded. “Death and dying is our artistic
conflict.”

“
How do you figure that?”
Madison asked.

“
We’re both preoccupied with
it artistically,” Professor Coffin said. “We enjoy gazing at the
valley below. Peering at death is what stimulates us.”

“
That’s why I murdered
everyone?” Madison gasped.

“
You wanted to watch them
die,” Professor Coffin confirmed.

“
Then see what happened
next,” Madison said.

“
You are preoccupied with
the postmortem,” Professor Coffin said.

“
How ghoulish,” Madison
said. “But it’s true.”

“
We’re pathologists on the
page,” Professor Coffin confirmed. “Your work is just a little
darker. I have paved the path for you though. You will make a
wonderful successor to me. There is a direct line between
us.”

“
It’s called death,” Madison
laughed. “I’m going to really savor killing you.”

“
On the contrary,” Professor
Coffin said. “Your writing will someday keep me alive.”

“
I should just kill you
right now,” Madison said.

“
Do it,” I
suggested.

“
I am the endowed Chair in
the English Department,” Professor Coffin hissed. “I can strike you
down with a single word.”

Professor Coffin was The Head of The
English Department? He could strike us down with a single word?
Something terribly true about this statement rang through.
Professor Coffin was physically forceful with his words.

Madison and I both shuddered. There was
something awfully dark about him when he turned it on. His effect
was brutal. The lights just flickered in your head like they were
about to go out. Professor Coffin was manning the light switch. He
could just flick that switch whenever he wanted to. He did it to be
a rude jerk too. He was just showing off with your whole life.
That’s all he was flicking. It’s just your whole life. It’s no big
deal, really, whatever. Flick.

Professor Coffin could definitely do
it. Extinguish your entire existence with a word. Blow you out just
like that Russian theorist that I had hallucinated. Puff, he just
did it. That candle that just went out was you. Or rather it used
to be you. You’re snuffed. The after burns are all that are left of
you. Those little wisps of smoke that refuse to let go? That’s all
you’ve got. But sit tight because there is more.

Professor Coffin just licked his finger
to flip the last page on your life. He’s going to touch that
smoldering ember with his wet finger. Those hazy, lazy bits of
smoke that are leftover from your life are deeply annoying to him.
Those brutal remembrances of things past that were once you are
about to no longer exist. It’s just easier to extinguish those
unpleasant thoughts with a wet snap.

Why roll around with those dark
thoughts if you don’t like them? You let artists do that. That’s
what they get paid for. They form all that unpleasantness into
something beautiful. Or they just cut off their ears. Or slit their
wrists. Get a little rope for the dope. Throw it over a beam in the
garage. Then the wife comes home with the automatic clicker. What a
shock.

Either way you better watch yourself
around Professor Coffin unless you want your lights shut out. He’s
got his finger on the switch. Which way is he going to turn your
dimmer? It’s troubling being around a mind like that.

“
I’ve won every award for
writing in the magical world,” Professor Coffin declared. “I can
read your thoughts too. You must really be quite the sensation in
that small town that you crawled out of. Thinking in that quaint
accent of yours is quite charming. I was helping you back there in
Flemish hell because I wanted you to make it. I’m actually rooting
for you, right now, in my own disturbed way.”

“
Those thoughts that I was
having back there in Flemish hell were yours?” I gasped.

“
They certainly weren’t
yours,” Professor Coffin said. “I had to see if your mind could
handle the really big thoughts. All really big writers are really
big thinkers. You can’t write big if you can’t think big. You’re
mind is adequate for the job. We’ll have to expand it a bit though.
It will be quite painful, of course. The road to greatness is
littered with broken glass. There is also the odd Molotov cocktail
that hits you in the chest too. Where would Russian letters be
without that? I have just the right Russian Barber lined up for you
from the former Soviet bloc.”

Why bother teaching me if I can’t
handle the lesson? I thought. You’re really quite the teacher. Just
teach the good students is that your policy? That highway of broken
glass sounds lovely. I’d love to chain you to my bumper and drag
you down it. That would be horror show.

“
Careful with those
thoughts,” Professor Coffin cautioned. “Extinguish your cigars for
takeoff. I don’t permit anyone to smoke on this flight except the
pilot, myself. I just don’t care for the smell of other people’s
smoke in interstellar space. I know it’s ungenerous of me but
that’s how it is at the top. I control all the smoke in outer space
because I’m the only real cosmonaut.”

Chapter

Madison and I dropped our cigars out
the window. We would have dropped our hands out the windows of the
glass Cadillac to placate Professor Coffin if we could have. When
he wanted to crank up the fear, he just did it. He didn’t just
casually strike fear in your heart with the humblest of words. He
stabbed you right in the chest. And he did it with the commonplace.
You just need to put out your cigars because I control all the
smoke in outer space? I’m the only real cosmonaut? Say what? Come
again? Is this guy for real?

It was also how he was saying it like
he was some sort of cruel joke. You understand? We’re all on the
same level here. I’m just a glorious joke, that’s all. I am
Professor Coffin. I am the Head of The English Department at The
Coffin Island School for Witches. Who are you again?

“
We’re about to bunny rabbit
so you’ve got to fasten your caterpillar too,” Professor Coffin
winked. “Don’t want the mouse to hit you in the face.”

Professor Coffin was messing with our
minds. There was no question about it. He was playing some sort of
high level trickery and jokes. It was up on such a weird level. Yet
it made perfect sense.

“
Shall we push off now?”
Professor Coffin grinned and then he evaporated. He sort of melted
in his glass seat.

Then he reappeared. Let’s do that one
more time he seemed to be saying in our minds. Then Professor
Coffin disappeared again. He melted right down to nothing. Then he
reappeared like sand falling through the hourglass. I was beginning
to understand that metaphor. Or rather it was just becoming vaster
and more complicated like the Sahara desert. How to cross that
wasteland? You need a proper vehicle like a camel, I suppose. Can I
get a camel driver up in here pronto? Mind if I smoke? I’m bit
nervous about this whole situation. Of course it’s Turkish tobacco
in a hookah. Don’t be foolish, man. I’m bunny rabbit.

Professor Coffin was like that. He had
energy. You know? It was like a freak show too as advertised. Let’s
just glimpse at it a bit. That circus is bunny rabbit. Never mind
the freak show. We can surely tame that. It’s the lion that I was
worried about. The mind that was operating the roar was appallingly
dangerous. You want to stick your head into that cavern? Be my
guest. Carnival freaks aren’t born. They’re made. I’m going to step
off gingerly to the side right now and let that circus caravan with
the pachyderm pulling the cart just thunder by. Reel that thumb
back in before the elephant sucks it off like a peanut. It’s what’s
attached to that thumb that’s caught the elephant’s attention.
What’s that thing that’s operating your arm called? Your brain, I
guess. The elephant is going to sit on that. Just take a load off.
Shove something delicious down its trunk too, you.