Purgatorium

Copyright © 2015 by Jaymes Carnathan

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ISBN-10: 0-692-72533-7

ISBN-13: 978-0-692-72533-7

“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.

Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.

Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.”

—Matthew 12:43-45

Prologue

The A-Side

I wake up, cold and uncertain of where I am. Slowly, I rise and stabilize myself. My fine black suit is tattered and torn, a Jack of hearts card protruding from my vest pocket. I’m on a rooftop, gentle flakes of snow floating down around me.

I shiver.

The aurora borealis glows above the horizon. I see a Celtic
hourglass
slowly emptying its sand on the ledge. The city is white, covered in a fresh layer of snow.

My
watch
beeps. 55:00.

I look for clues. In my hand is a snow
globe
. It rests comfortably in my palm as if it belongs there. I peer inside it and recognize a miniature city skyline, an exact replica of the cityscape I see from the rooftop. I shake the globe, watching the tiny fake snowflakes fall in precisely the same hypnotic pattern as the snow falling around me.

I hear sand. The sound grows louder with every grain. I look around for the source, but a distant screeching weaves into the cacophony.

I realize my other hand holds a necklace with an
hourglass
pendant. The chain is broken.

Slowly, I remember how I got here. What I’ve done. What’s become of me and the reason why I am left here standing alone.

I feel myself smirking. I know my fate and welcome it.

The screech grows louder. I can barely make out the large, dark, ominous figures approaching in the distance.

The
hourglass
drops its last grain of sand. From atop the roof, I look over the ledge. Horrified, I see the dark figures floating up the sides of this very tall building.

I am powerless.

Darkness blocks the sky. I am surrounded, swallowed by the dark creatures. My hunger for vengeance is stronger than my fear.

I am consumed by an insatiable need for more...more power, more wealth, more everything.

A skeletal hand emerges from the darkness, touching my head. A wave of memories, past and present, will be erased, the darkness spreading like a cancer through my cerebellum, leaving nothing but my soul.

Everything I know and love will be taken from me.

My hatred for the one who put me here will no longer exist. I will be a wandering soul, alone, trapped in a world of darkness. I feel my reality slipping away from me now.

And just like clockwork, here comes the pain.

It is unbearable. My head feels like it’s going to explode. My eyes are burning as if on fire.

I am blind, adrift in a sea of blackness. My memories pour out into the darkness as I try to hold on to…anything.

My name…what is my name?

I hear hard snow pelting glass and look up, my eyes now functioning. Windshield wipers squeak across the glass.

Why am I driving in a blizzard in the middle of the night?

A necklace hangs from the rearview mirror. It’s a coin with an
hourglass
carved into it. There’s a buzzing in my ear. Getting louder. Painful. I let go of the wheel and cover my ears. The sound is unbearable. I’m dizzy and faint.

Everything goes black.

FRIDAY

Genesis 2.0

I jolt awake, the alarm clock still buzzing insistently. The cloudy day slips in between the curtains.

It must have been a nightmare, though I don’t remember much about it. I am content.

A leather-bound handbook and my
watch rest
at the base of the lamp on the bedside table. I snatch my watch and wrap it around my wrist, snapping it in place. My watch is the most priceless object that I have. It is my life. I would be lost without it.

I am suddenly curious to find something is off. I look back at the handbook on my nightstand and am confused. I have a place for everything. Nothing is ever out of sorts in my life. Having order and control are the keys to success with time overlooking them both. Without time there can be no order and without order there is no control. It’s a simple law that I have put upon myself. Ergo, why I live the way I do. Nice, neat, and everything put into place. Except for this misplaced handbook.

I shove it in the drawer where it belongs.

I am content.

I wipe sweat from my brow and remember the alarm, turning it off.

The display changes to that of a stop
watch. 00:01…00:02…00:03…00:04…

I check the watch. Same thing. The countdown has begun.

T
ime to start my day.

I edge to the side of the bed, watching the seconds count down on my watch. I force myself to stand up and trudge past my desk to the window as the curtains fully retract. The sky is dark and cloudy, as usual.

I look out of my highrise view, focused not on the view in question but on my own self-reflection. My world is made from my own perfection. Living my life is measured by what I do, how I do it, and the time it takes to make it happen. The elegance of the idea comes from the way I represent myself. Be it either by style, grace, sophistication, refinement, dignity, beauty, poise, charm, culture; suaveness, neatness, and most of all simplicity.

To me, all these words represent a certain class that can neither be bought or sold but earned. I have earned my class title and the rewards from it are quite fair. If I could build a heaven, this would be mine. Isolated, quite, peaceful, and all mine. My own personal state of Purgatorium.

I turn away from the skyline view and look back to my desk, knowing something is very off about it. A small object of some sort is lying on it. I go over to pick this misplaced item up and discover it’s just a snow globe.

Where did this come from?

Looking inside of it, I see that its interior is exactly the same as the city skyline outside my window. For some reason it grabs a hold of my attention more than it should. Something comes over me.

An image floods my consciousness. Me, holding the snow globe in the middle of the night.

My heart is oddly racing. My head begins to hurt. I quickly put the snow globe down.

It’s as if I felt…

I stop.

I look out once again to see my city. I take a couple of breaths, regain my focus, and think the truth.

I am content.

A phrase I like to use to put me back into place. I must always stay in control and never be late.

Speaking of time, I look at my clock. It has officially been a minute.

I look around my room. There’s a framed American flag on the wall over the bed. I stare at the colors
—
red, white, and blue. None of it matters to me.

There’s a
hatchet mounted in a glass case on the wall. It’s worn and beat-up,
used
, like a tomahawk. B
rutal by juxtaposition with the upscale decor.

Once again I check the time, knowing the seconds are climbing to a pivotal deadline. A deadline that must be met.

I walk past the
hatchet
and into the living room.

The apartment is huge, with gleaming hardwood floors and ornate moldings. Everything is of the highest quality, masculine and immaculate, as if I were in a museum. Neatness is key.

I am a little OCD to say the very least. When I say a little, I mean I need everything to be perfect. When I say perfect, I mean just that. Let’s really define OCD or Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder. It’s an anxiety disorder in which people have repeated thoughts that make them feel driven to do something. That is me in a bubble. Driven. I don’t believe in flaws. Man creates his own flaws by his insecurity. Women, for example, make a man insecure. Family, friends, tv shows, music, magazines, feelings, even speaking can all make a man insecure.

I am not insecure. Why? Because I am single with no family, friends, and so very much out of touch with the outside world. Feelings make people weak. My feelings are buried deep. It’s all about self control. I choose not to speak for the sake of time wasted on breathless words that won’t amount to anything perfecting my way of being. My life at this moment would be considered flawless. If I could make a self-help tape it would only last five seconds with me only saying three words.

I am content.

If that isn’t a confidence booster, then I don’t know what is. Those three words wash away any insecurity I might have and brings me back up just in time to continue my everyday routine.

My book collection
is stacked neatly in tall columns around the room. “Alexandre Dumas” catches my eye. There are at least forty Dumas volumes. Inexplicably, I feel a brief but fleeting joy, then anxiously turn away to prepare myself for the day.

There’s a deadline to meet.

Pushups to get my heart pumping. Thirty, breathing heavily.

Pull-ups in the doorframe. Fifteen and done.

The bathroom is marble tiled, a rich clean interior space. Just as immaculate as the living room. I admire my muscular, toned body in the mirror. This is what perfection looks like. I push the dirty blonde hair from my face, mesmerized by my own dark green, Godless eyes.

I’m powerful. I’m rich. I’m God.

I get in the shower and turn the polished faucet handles. There’s a clanking in the pipes, followed by a chunky brown liquid. I turn it off and step out. I go to the basin and lather up, removing a straight razor from the medicine cabinet, but there’s no water here, either.

Same clanking, same disgusting brown liquid.

I unfold the cutthroat and start to shave very carefully without water. I see something sinister in my reflection, an evil glint in my glowing green eyes. I bring the blade to my neck and press firmly, but the man in the mirror takes a different action.

My reflection slits its throat.

I drop the razor. Blood droplets ring the sink around the blade. Nicked myself. In the mirror, everything is back to normal. I move my hand and my reflection follows.

I must be tired. Nothing supernatural, just lack of sleep. I am content.

I pick up the blade. It feels good in my hand. I am quite adept with a straight razor
—
a perfectionist, a running machine that never makes mistakes. But as I watch the blood drip down my neck, I realize I’m imperfect. I look at the tiny cut, but feel nothing. I am numb. I finish shaving with no problems.

I wipe the blood from my neck and comb my hair straight back like Gordon Gekko. Seems appropriate.

My
watch
reads: 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

‘The Light in the Piazza,’ begins to play in the living room. The music sends a tremble down my spine. An unfamiliar feeling of pain and death enters my thoughts.

I find a Yamaha Grand Disklavier, barely noticed, in the dark corner of the living room. The keys move on their own. It’s a player piano. I find the amplifier console under the keyboard and send the music throughout the entire apartment.

The melody reminds me of something pure yet terrible, something I cannot place. I’m neither comforted nor distressed, but somewhere in between.

I keep reminding myself to stay on track. Keep to the deadline. I must not let another second go by.

In the closet are long rows of finely tailored suits. Ties hang to the side above rows of gleaming designer shoes. The shirts are all perfectly tailored, as well. The racks and drawers extend the full length of the room.

This is where my ingenuity corresponds with my tastefulness. Everything from the prestigious closet to the ironed hand-knit suits are my safe haven. You can tell a lot about a man by his apparel. The saying “the suit doesn’t make the man, the man makes the suit” is undoubtedly wrong. Whomever quoted that phrase must have had a bad tailor. I expect nothing but the best when it comes to style. Every month I replace my entire closet with the next upcoming top ten menswear from Vogue. I am always in sync with the latest fashions and ideals of each new generation. I am only as good as I allow myself to be.

I am content.

I get dressed. As I button my suit vest, I feel something in my handkerchief pocket. A playing card. Jack of hearts.
The colors are different though. They appear to be inverted. The reds replaced with green. The whites with black. The green heart beside the Jack grabs my attention. It distracts me in a way I can’t explain. The color alone makes me feel a certain way about myself. Almost more confident.

I leave it half way tucked in so it can be viewed by others. Maybe to spark a trend in my name. I grab some leather gloves, a pair of cufflinks, and a shearling three-quarter dress coat.

I open a cabinet in the back corner of the closet. Inside are shelves full of neatly stacked cash, sorted by denomination. I remove a single bill from each stack. In a smaller drawer is a leather wallet. I put in the cash and take out a business card.

“Peter J. Cameron, Music Producer”

Who is this man? I slide the card back in the wallet and into my coat. I come out with an engraved flask inside the same pocket.

Après moi, le déluge

I put it back in my coat, not understanding where it came from or why it’s even there.

I am content.

I leave the closet and go to look out at the city one last time. In my reflection, I see blood running down from my cut. I catch it with my finger.

This drop of blood represents something that for most can mean the difference between life and death.

Not in my case, however.

Because I know the secret to life, and I will never die. I am invincible, all thanks to time.

Speaking of which, I check my
watch
, grab an apple from the fridge and a book from the stacks, and head out.

My watch beeps.

5 Minutes

Just outside my door are three bags of gum, each stick packaged in silver and white wrappers labeled “Tredstones.”

Across the hallway, an attractive woman in her late-twenties with long brown hair and cherry red lipstick exits her apartment. She looks oddly familiar. There’s an innocence about her, or perhaps it’s the waitress outfit. She nods and walks towards the elevator.

Before I can ask her about the gum, the elevator doors close and she’s gone. I drop the bags in the trash chute and take the next elevator. I feel a renewed sense of urgency. I must stay on schedule and stop being distracted by everything I see, whether it’s bags of gum, pretty neighbors, or anything else.

Time is all that matters. I am content.

The elevator doors open and a painting presents itself, hanging on the wall in the back. It holds me in a trance.

Once in, the doors shut behind me, trapping me inside. I continue to gaze at its religious undertones and broken ideals of evil vs good. In the center, it shows a cross. Not a wooden cross but almost an electric blue type of color. It almost glows off the canvas. But that’s not the most interesting part. Around this bright shining cross are seven demons, latching themselves on to its top, arms, body, and leg. Each demon displays an odd characteristic from one to the other. I get my head back on straight and turn away from the mystical canvas to press the L button.

The elevator quickly descends six floors to the lobby, which is completely empty. I exit through the revolving glass doors to the street. There’s not a single human being in sight. Cars are moving, but no one is driving them.

Isolated and quiet. Everything is as it should be, I think to myself.