The New Death and others (18 page)

"Now, at last, no more hasty resolutions," he
said. "I will choose a new spouse with neither impossible
fussiness, nor unseemly haste." But by now the prince was
middle-aged. And every woman remembered the time years before when
he had rejected her, or her mother.

"Why would you want to marry me, with my
overly-large ears?" they asked him sarcastically, and a thousand
variations besides.

He went from woman to woman, but every one
turned him away. At last he had been rejected by every woman in the
land. He had no hope. And so he again climbed the highest mountain.
There he joined the blind, crippled god in waiting for the other
gods to return. And unless he has died, he must be there still.

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The
Exchange

I was the best writer in my school. He was an
exchange student, as exotic and familiar as someone on TV, foreign
and glamorous.

I was in the middle of a long story about a
girl who falls in love with a terminally ill boy. The male
character became a foreign exchange student. For a while he was a
vampire, but an exchange student seemed more realistic.

The boy in the story wrote passionate poems
to his love. In real life, unable to think of a rhyme for "amazing
long eyelashes", I wrote his name on my pencil case. I looked at
him in class. If he looked back, it was never at the same time.

I imagined him returning to his home country,
and I waiting the rest of my life for him. He'd want to come back,
but something would stop him. Perhaps he'd get a disease and die.
Perhaps his plane would crash on the way back to me. I'd be
eighteen, and able to wear all black no matter what my parents
said.

---

At a party celebrating the end of school I
looked at him, and this time he looked back. A song was playing.
I'd heard it before, but it had never sounded as profound and
tender. I gathered my courage, and took his hand.

---

Afterward I turned to him.

"It's so sad that we only got together now.
You'll be going home in a few days."

"What do you mean?" he replied. "I'm here for
another six months."

He smiled. His hand around my shoulder felt
clumsy, unwelcome. I wanted to cover myself.

"Oh," I said. I looked down at my hands.
"Oh."

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Mourning Has Broken

The first time I saw him was at the funeral
for a guy called Winston Peterson. I was doing my usual thing:
standing near the back, speaking when spoken to, agreeing that it
was a sad loss, and not eating too many of the little triangle
sandwiches. He, on the other hand...well, it was like he wanted to
attract attention. He went over to this lady who was crying and
comforted her, and he was saying things like, "Yes, he was a very
caring man,"--making it obvious that he knew him.

Anyway after the eulogy I started to stand
up, when I notice
he's
talking to the preacher. Then the
preacher says

"Mister Harris would like to say a few
words." Of course there's the noise from the crowd, like in a play
when everyone's saying 'rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb'. He stands up and
he gives this big speech about how he met 'Winnie', and they were
secret gay lovers for twenty years. Then he walks out, smiling like
an angel, to absolute silence.

Two weeks later I saw him again. Two weeks!
He didn't even wear different clothes. This time the funeral is for
some doctor I think--I can't remember his name. Anyway at the end
of the service, same thing: he talks to the preacher, the preacher
introduces him (he was Mister Morris this time), and he does this
speech about being secret gay lovers for twenty years.

After the funeral I got on the phone to Kyle
straight away. Kyle's a good guy. He does 'I'm the long-lost son by
another woman'.

"Listen, I gotta check my schedule here. I
had the idea I had Our Lady of Peace for the whole month. Can you
check that's me?" Of course Kyle says it is, and asks what's the
problem. So I tell him about the guy.

"OK, well, maybe it's just some joker from a
radio station or someone making a film or something. But you should
have called in the first time."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"If it happens again you call straight away,
all right?" So I said I would.

So of course I've missed two in a row now,
and I'm getting edgy, reading the death notices in the paper twice
a day, you know. Anyway the very next funeral, there's this guy
again! I can't stand it. I have to run out of the church. Luckily a
few other people are crying and such too, so I didn't get
noticed.

So I ring again. This time Laura's on. She
does 'long-time mistress'. Not that original, but it gets the job
done. Anyway, Laura tells me to tail the guy and warn him off.
Well, as you can imagine I'm so keyed up now I didn't need telling
twice. So I follow this guy to his house (actually it was one of
those units, but whatever). I ring the buzzer.

"Yes?"

"I need to talk to you urgently Mister Hall."
The name's next to the little button.

"All right. What's this about?" I know he's
not going to let me in, and to be honest I'm just about bursting
with stress. I lean down so no one can hear me, and I let him have
it.

"Listen here you, I saw what you did at that
funeral, and you've got some god-damn nerve my friend!"

"I'm so sorry. It must have come as a great
shock to you. I thought about not coming, but in the end I thought,
for his sake, that to let him be buried without the truth being
known-"

"Don't you give me that crap. I know you made
it up."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand-"

"Listen, I don't know how they do this
wherever you're from, but around here we
share
. Do you know
I've missed three funerals in a row because of you?"

He doesn't say anything, so I go on.

"Look, we're not unreasonable people here. I
got the Catholics this month, but the Wiccans are free." There's a
silence, so I say "I know, it's not the same. But listen, next
month the Episcopalians are free. C'mon, the
Episcopalians
.
I can't guarantee it, but if you play ball I'll put in a good word
for you." Which is horseshit. If it was up to me this guy'd get the
Hare Krishnas if he was lucky, but that's what I said.

Then he goes 'uhhh', like he's not sure which
way to go. But in the end he says

"I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to
leave. I understand your hurt, and I understand that you blame me,
but I will not be threatened-"

"OK, OK, I'm going. You're making a mistake
my friend."

Well, we had an emergency meeting right that
night. Me, Laura, Kyle, Tran (he does 'he left my mother in
Vietnam'), Ben ('he took my identity when he thought I was dead in
the war'), and Morty (he dresses up as a woman and does 'he got me
pregnant when I was fifteen and in twenty years he's never seen his
son.' I swear, you can't tell. Morty's a good guy, so you can see I
ain't one of them gay-bashers). So I tell everyone what's
happened.

Next week there's an announcement in the
death notices. I actually wrote most of it. Maybe it was because I
didn't have the usual outlet, but man...I shouldn't say it, but I
did a great job. This guy, he was a successful businessman, a lay
preacher (ha ha,
lay
preacher. You see what I did there?),
veteran, survived by Betty, his wife of forty years, and six
children, including Warrant Officer Calvin DeWitt- I'll stop there
because I'll quote the whole thing otherwise. We had to have a
closed casket of course, but other than that, wow! Oh, oh, and no
wreaths, please donate to Veteran's Help instead. Well, if this guy
could stay away from that, he had a lot more willpower than me.

So the day comes. I'm disguised as one of the
undertakers just in case the guy's seen me. Almost everyone else is
there as a mourner.

We baited the hook, and the fish bit--oh man,
the guy actually turned up half an hour early. Anyway Sherrie was
the priest (Sherrie does 'he murdered my father.' You should go to
one of her funerals some time. It's very moving). She reads the
eulogy, and at the end she says,

"Now I will ask if anyone wants to share
their memories of Rupert." She's kind of looking at this guy, and I
think,

"Don't blow it Sherrie". But this guy jumps
up and walks down the front. He does his thing, and then Sherrie
takes the microphone.

"Well thank you sir. That was very
interesting. But I'd like to add something. You weren't his lover,
you didn't even know him!"

He kind of looks at her, and then says,

"I realise this must come as a great shock to
you all-"

"No, it does not come as a shock. You pull
this crap all the time!" Sherrie's pointing at him. His mouth kind
of drops open. "You go around to funerals and you
ruin
them
with stupid
lies
! What kind of sick bastard does that?" Then
everyone in the audience--we worked this out beforehand--starts all
talking over each other, saying "How does he live with himself?"
and "What kind of asshole--" and all that kind of stuff. The guy
goes bright red, and he runs out of the church.

Man, the little triangle sandwiches tasted
extra good that day. I hadn't spoiled anyone's funeral in a month,
but you know what? I felt like I'd spoiled a king's funeral. The
funeral parlor even gave us a discount because they heard what
happened and they felt so sorry for us! Nobody ever saw that guy
again, and a week later when I went around to his place he was
gone. But I gotta wonder what kind of idiot--nah, there's no point
trying to make sense of someone like that. Some people aren't like
you and me. They've just got no morals.

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Temptation

In a far corner of the Roman Empire a
sorcerer raised a demon.

The demon appeared as an old man of great
dignity and wisdom. Despite the sorcerer's youth, he saw much of
himself in the demon's appearance. The sorcerer well knew that it
was the way of demons to appear, not in the image of those who
raised them, but as those who raised them wished to appear, or as
they believed they appeared.

"Tempt me, O demon," the sorcerer commanded,
"for I grow weary of the world, and there are no more secrets."

"As you command, O eminence of mages," the
demon replied.

"Strange," the sorcerer thought, "that I can
recognize flattery for what it is, yet I am still pleased by it. I
cannot choose not to feel pleasure, just as when I am slapped I
cannot choose not to feel pain. Is vanity a reflex of the body
rather than an action of the mind or soul? If so, perhaps the
priests err who call it a sin." It was testament to his despair
that he did not immediately write this thought down for later
investigation.

The demon opened an ornate scroll case, and
began to read from the scroll within.

"An appearance of unfading youth and beauty
can be yours."

"If I desired this would I work with
skin-staining powders and inks, in an atmosphere of pestilent
alchemic vapors?"

"Indeed not. That is why I am also prepared
to offer uncountable wealth."

"Uncountable using Roman numerals, or
uncountable using the numeric system of the Arabs, which has no
upper limit?"

"Well, ah, I'm not...but what if I threw in
the praise of the whole world, in whatever field of endeavor you
nominate?"

"If I desired fame, would I not be in Rome?
Not to mention that 'occult' means 'hide, or keep secret', and
refers both to the subject of study and to the student themselves.
Such a field is unlikely to attract those who--"

"Your reasoning is clear," the demon snapped,
and replaced the scroll in its case.

The demon reached into its robe, replacing
the scroll case and drawing forth another. This case was even more
elaborately ornamented than the first. It was also far larger. The
sorcerer was surprised that the demon could fit it inside his
robe.

"Though, of course," said the sorcerer to
himself, "there is no clear distinction between demon, scroll, and
robe, since I gaze upon an illusory projection, while the real
creature remains in the infernal realm." His mind still gathered
facts and speculated upon them, though the joy of doing so had long
departed. He was like one whose head has been severed but who still
eats, chewing and swallowing food to deliver it to a non-existent
stomach.

The demon read from the new scroll.

"A release from suffering and the material
world, and attainment of a state of blissful nonexistence."

"I do not have enough, and you offer to take
away even that which I have?"

"Then, to live forever in a beautiful garden,
wherein are a score of virgins, each eternally renewing--"

"I remember my first awkward fumblings, O
demon. To reenact them forever would be hell, not heaven. Is the
trick here that most people remember their first such experiences
through a haze of nostalgia?"

"I'm not here to entertain some bloody--" the
demon's eyes and mouth were white with a flame beyond all flames.
Just as quickly, it regained its composure.

"One more. This is all I have. You will die.
But first you will be the follower of a great sage, and afterwards
your name shall live forever. You know what? 'Forever' in this case
means 'a guaranteed two thousand years'. You were going to ask that
weren't you?"

"Indeed I was. But, well, two thousand years
is quite a long time. Becoming a follower would not involve any
degrading or excruciating initiation? No mutilation of my body? No
exploitation of my labor?"