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Authors: Mon D Rea

Tags: #afterlife, #angel, #crow, #Dante, #dark, #death, #destiny, #fallen, #fate, #Fates, #ghost, #Greek mythology, #grim, #hell, #life after death, #psychic, #reaper, #reincarnation, #scythe, #soul, #soulmate, #spirit, #Third eye, #underworld

Spirit Wars (14 page)

BOOK: Spirit Wars
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The
other bit of mystery that supports my theory is how Sam never laid eyes on the
DVD of my recorded song. I suppose we were both simply overcome with happiness
that we didn’t bother to look deeper into these things.

As
it turned out, our happiness was short-lived.

I
was
sitting in the back of a taxi one evening on the way to a dinner date with Sam,
crisp jacket hanging from the grab handle as per lady’s request. I was ashamed
to think we even had a tiff over it because I rarely wore suits and I wasn’t
going to just to enter a fine-dining restaurant even though it was our third
year anniversary and all. We ended up sullen the rest of our walk to her
boarding house, with the result that Sam didn’t really know what to expect from
me on the evening itself. I would probably relent and wear a suit or stand my
ground and stay my casual self. It gave me the element of surprise.

But
then all at once inside the taxi, I felt my heart jump hard enough to burst out
of my chest as invisible metal bars tightened around it. Like I was being
squeezed inside King Kong’s fist. I was experiencing a heart attack so unreal I
was watching myself from outside my own body, seeing my forehead get beaded
with HD-clear perspiration while all the city lights outside blurred and swam
away.

Next,
all the cityscape whizzed back as a barrage of needle-sharp information. At the
same time it was as though someone had flicked on a literal Death Computer
inside me and I could hear and feel every vibration, every firing of
nano-circuit. I was instantly, horribly knowledgeable of the death dates of
random people. I couldn’t find the switch to turn everything off and my head
was getting filled to overflowing. It was the first time I had ever experienced
such awareness. My last thought before I passed out was:
All deaths are
senseless. 

When
I came to, I was lying in a hospital bed. The doctor’s diagnosis was severe
panic attack. For me, it was the devil’s underhanded blow, the ever ominous
complication in my life that finally revealed itself at a perfect, average
moment. Being sick and confined by the walls of the hospital gave me a good
excuse to stay away. I finally gave up reaching out for Sam and dragging her
down with me.

I
was a changed man after the diagnosis. I grew sick of life overnight and gave
up all manner of happiness and hope.

Of
course Sam was at our reserved table and waited all night for me. When we
finally saw each other again, after at least two weeks of no calls or messages,
I simply shrugged my shoulders like she meant so little to me. In fact, nothing
and no one mattered to me anymore. I looked at her with flat, lifeless eyes and
said the words I had prepared as if from a script: “I’ve changed, Sam. I’m not
the same Nate you loved.”

They
were the words I wrote to drive her away and straight out of my life. I was
being unbelievably cruel to her and she knew and expressed it through her
tears, screams and fists against my chest. She didn’t have to. I could feel it.
The fact that I looked at her but didn’t see her the way I did before, I knew
it was killing her. And I was sure of it because I was feeling the exact same
way. It was torture for me to say those things and act the way I did, but I
could do so in the end by keeping in mind that this purposeful, cooling-off
heartbreak for Sam was better than even greater sadness for her in the future.
She probably sensed it, too, that my taking the teaching post in the
hinterlands of Concepcion signaled the beginning of the end of my life.

And
now the park lagoon that used to comfort each of us every time we fought, the
lagoon that used to regard Sam and me knowingly like an old woman to young
lovers is still as it had been, lying there like a giant stained-glass window
in the center of People’s Park. I think if I try diving into it and clinging
onto its bottom, the water would shatter into a million pieces and cut me
relentlessly – cut through this parody of a man without shape or shadow,
without any hope of release.

As it
turns out, i
t
isn’t the lagoon that’s meant to shatter tonight but my mind. As I see on the
bench nearest the banks, perfectly hidden by the dark but not from me, a
sleeping form wrapped and curled up like a sold pup in a blanket. That blanket.

My
blanket.

Sam.
Dear God.

 
Chapter XIX: Hell-Breaker

They’ve
talked five hours straight, covered a broad range of topics and shared many
laughs. One of the few enjoyable and worthwhile conversations she’s ever had,
Lessa realizes. They feel like old friends who got out of touch and just found
each other again. They haven’t noticed where all the time went. For instance,
right now they’re both giggling at something funny that Chester has said but
she can’t quite remember.

Past
a certain point, all the words and reactions from him have started to seem
borrowed or made-up; made to be either occasionally impressive or occasionally
predictable. This sends a slight tingle on the back of her neck. He’s hiding
something. Most of the time he gave the impression of someone polite, eager to
hear what she had to say but contributing only what was necessary to keep her
going. He’d be the best fortress of secrets a girl could confide to, to be
sure, but everything’s just one-way. It builds the attraction but it’s a
disguise she’s finally seen through. 

Now
it’s time
to leave. There’s still tomorrow to think about. This is no life-altering event
like the death of a loved one or a love at first sight, in which case she might
consider putting everything else on hold. So she says, “Oh, look at the time. I
need to get home and get some shut-eye.”

Chester’s
looking at his hands on the table. He falls uncomfortably quiet. Then in a
grave tone he tells her, “Please stay a little bit more time.”

“I
can’t. It’s four in the morning and I have a photo shoot tomorrow – today.”

Chester
looks at Lessa and his eyes are pleading but simultaneously firm. There’s a
softness and a determination there that have surprised her several times
tonight. They give her a hint of happiness like a waft of cool air from some
secret waterfall she hasn’t seen yet but she knows lies just around the bend.
Could it be what she’s been missing all her life?

“Why?”
Now it’s her turn to demand. Enough with the games. It’s her emotions he’s
playing with after all.

“If
I ask you, if I ask,” Chester’s voice falls to barely a whisper, “Please run
with me, away from here, away from… your life, will you come with me, Lessa? No
question to ask.”

She
looks at him. “I can’t.” These are the words she says but for some reason her
heart’s being uncooperative and telling her to get to the bottom of the mystery
that’s Chester Imagay. “I can’t do that.”

“Then
please just stay.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because
what?”

They’re
looking into each other’s eyes, she expecting him to back down and fold like
the fake that he is. Interestingly enough, a part of her is still rooting for
him and wishing he’d see through her well enough to tell her what to do when
she herself can’t.

Over
the years Lessa has learned to ignore that small occasional flutter inside her
heart; and perhaps too well. She has had to, to protect herself from all the
dirty sugar daddies, their calming father figure, extramarital games and
extravagant bribes. And from the more invigorating young men who can never tell
the difference between physical attraction and love and has predictably left
her unsatisfied. How could she or anyone else hope to find her heart buried
under all that callus?

Chester,
in the face of her ultimatum, has the look of a gambler who’s about to lose the
last of his nest egg but still attempting a bluff. Leaving himself at her
mercy, leaving it up to her to call it.

“You
don’t know why,” she states, sounding a trifle disappointed.

“No,”
he admits. “I don’t know.”

WHERE
ARE YOU, CYHYRAETH?

This
is the answer Lessa expects. She’s looking at the zipper of her bag and her
mind moves on to the car keys inside.

WHERE
ARE YOU?

Sephtimus’
heart is hammering inside Chester’s chest.
Ok, Cyhyraeth said not to talk
about myself and to only let the woman speak…

A
flicker of Lessa’s eyes reveals that if there ever was a woman torn between
heaven and hell, it was her. It’s the sublime moment of indecision.

“I
don’t know many thing,” Sephtimus hears himself say. He’s experiencing a
dryness in his mouth so he swallows spit to lubricate his throat and a thought
runs wildly through his head:
The human mouth is so disgusting
. Still he
forces himself to concentrate – no, to feel – for the first time in this whole
business, like a human being. But how?

Raw
panic has started to set in.
I’ve done everything Cyhyraeth told me. There’s
nothing else. But now I need something different. Something personal. From the
heart. Wherever in blazes that is.

He
thinks back to all the stolen moments when nobody’s watching, away from the
invading awareness of the Crows and the childlike naivety of the
Helter-Skeletals.
Inside his sanctum santorum where lie the broken
fragments of a humanity he tries so hard to put together: the TV soaps on
Blue-ray that make him laugh out loud one moment and bawl like a child the
next, his very own (stolen) pool table and pinball machine, a private monitor
showing Chester making coffee day in day out, a baseball autographed by the
Bambino himself during the great “Curse,” a cookie tin filled with sewing
tools…

“I
know just coffee. Is… Is not so bad…” Sephtimus says. He’s trying to buy a
little time and the irony of it isn’t lost on the Grim Reaper.
I must think
like Chester. Like a human.

He
thinks of filthy pathetic insects scuttling towards an ever receding line of
sunshine in Koyaanisqatsi-esque rhythm; always rushing, in swarms or solitary,
on trains and off trains without any destination but finding comfort in motion,
in filling day after nondescript day with activity – nothing but stabs in the
dark – in the hope of storing grains of accomplishments to keep the cold and
the emptiness at bay.

Lessa’s
looking into Chester’s eyes. Sephtimus can imagine what she sees there now,
pools deep and black enough to drown. She looks at him warily and it pains
Sephtimus to see her behave like this towards him. It lands on him like a real
blow to the chest.

Yes,
they are very flawed creatures but they also have their moments. Moments that
they freeze and stretch and fill with emotion. They can still surprise. Their
tendency to look to the future and hope. Their capacity for courage and
sacrifice. Their plans may go to waste and all their balloon-dreams wash down
the Drain of the World. But there’s an undeniable poetry in the way they all go
down swinging. 

It
occurs to him then. “Stay for one story. This my last one. Could you p-please?”
he stammers.

She
nods because his begging eyes are the essence of kids and puppies. 

He
takes a deep breath and says, “When make cappuccino, everything need perfect.
If you will make perfect shot espresso, it take maybe 20 second. Then you make
milk like foam, very nice layer.” He narrates this with a lot of gestures as if
he were behind the Brew Bear counter and not seeing her.

“You
use all sense: eye, ear, taste, touch. By ear, I know what kind layer milk
make…

“To
make shape of latte, you need be patient and not rush. There is rhythm, like a
little lazy. And you don’t control timing. Time control you. Pouring… you do
like this, make thin line.” His finger traces the shape on the tabletop. 

“Shape
come out. If… put enough love in coffee, design will keep. Good picture mean
love. You give all heart.”

Chester
finally looks up into Lessa’s eyes.

“Coffee
teach people something. Me, I want pour same heart, same passion, in my life.
In my Bucket List, first I write is: I will propose to Ms. Celestina Conti. No.
2 is I will put my heart in her cup every morning. I wish I become this person
in she’s life.”

Lessa’s
eyes are bright with emotion. “Every morning?” she asks under her breath.

He
holds her gaze. “I can’t promise that I don’t have. I can’t promise my life. I
don’t keep my life.

“But
I can promise just one day. One day by one day, I promise to you. Every day I
learn how I love you.”

****

She
looks at him. At this point she seriously considers either one of two things,
to sleep with him or to say that she has also fallen for him. But the words she
finally chooses to say are these: “Thank you for this. This is really… special,
what you’ve given me. But I need time. You’ve given me plenty to think about.
I’m not ready for them. I’m not ready for you.”

The
hackneyed words sound as false as they come. But they aren’t. They’re in fact
the staple in the age-old affair of men undertaking women. For a man to receive
these words as an answer is nothing but a normal and good indication that he’s
doing fine and he’s doing everything right. But it’s a completely different
playing-field for the sons of Adam, a particularly tough one against their
bench-playing egos and the omnipresent fear of rejection.

Neither
an approval nor a dismissal from a woman matters. Unfortunately it’s the iron
law for a man to protect himself instinctively, to shut himself off and alone
with his ego that acts like an advisor and friend but in all actuality has been
working against him from the start. And once a man starts listening to his ego,
everything falls apart. 

****

WHERE
ARE YOU, CYHYRAETH?

There’s
this strange feeling welling up inside Sephtimus’ chest. An ominous rhythm like
a hundred war drums beating all together. He wants to thrust his hand inside
his chest and pluck the feeling out, to stop the hurt. This particular pain is
very curious. It borders the physical, something he can perhaps knead smaller
with his hand. It makes it hard for him to breathe, makes him feel sick. He
can’t understand it but he keeps recalling a scene he witnessed once on the spy
screens: a man getting drenched in the rain and shouting to the heavens while
pounding his fist against his chest.

Cyhyraeth
has explained to him once that love in the human world makes someone a gentler,
happier and better person. But the sudden absence of it makes the same person
feel small, turns him into something dark and nasty. Because love’s a drug and
sooner or later its effects are going to wear out. Then you’ll be down on the
cold, hard concrete like an angel with sheared wings. You’re unlovable,
undeserving of attention from the one you love. This magnifies every
insecurity, every inferiority you have. All your pores and demons will be laid
out for all to see.

This
is how broken-hearted men feel all the time. And even if Sephtimus tries to
sleep it off like a human, he’ll only prolong the drowsiness and meld one false
dream into the next. With no concern for time in the mortal realm because it
feels like everything has dropped dead on their tracks, he’ll chase dreams of
her disappearing into a crowd - not staying in one place no matter what he
tells her - then the pillows will be stained with a moistness he has never
really understood and will never understand. He will fill every minute, every
second with the thought of her. Every small thing and sign will remind him of
her while, on her part, she isn’t able to care any more than her nature or the
combination of chemicals inside her brain allows her. And this will literally
kill him.

The
Grim Reaper
wishes he were a monster again with ashes and swirls of
abysmal matter for a heart. Or if only his scalp could be opened like a hinged
door, he’d take out all the bits of memory he had of her – so she’d just be
another plain passerby, a typical soul for him to harvest, intriguing but no
more than that because she hadn’t crossed the line yet when she’d mean anything
to him and cause him this much pain. He keeps telling himself that this event
will come to pass but it doesn’t ease the pain one bit. It’s still as real as
it gets.

It’s
like the rollercoaster
, Cyhyraeth has described to him as well as
he could.
A bitter-sweetness that happens constantly, moment by moment.
It’ll teach you to scream at the top of your lungs and let go of the handle.
But no matter how high or low it takes you, don’t forget it ends right where it
started. You’re there just to enjoy the ride.

****

Nate?

As
if responding to some sense the average human doesn’t have, Sam stirs on the
bench and emerges right out of a dream she’s having, calling out my name. And
right here is the first stone in a landslide of mistakes. My instincts are also
blunted by the tears now blurring my vision, and they’re too sluggish to cut
off the words that naturally slip out of my mouth:

“Go
back to sleep, Sam. I’m right here.” 

Contrary
to the soothing effect I wanted to induce, my voice jerks Sam wide-awake. She
lets out a moan and her eyelids flutter open, followed by a frightened gasp.
“Nate? Is it really you?”

My
chimeric
form proves it has a mind of its own and reflects the battle raging over me.
It’s no different from the scales of the bottom-dwelling cuttlefish that can
shift even in total darkness. Thankfully, the only thing Sam sees at the moment
is the shadowy, normal figure of a man.

BOOK: Spirit Wars
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