Everything dies.
And I mean everything. Trust me; I'm generally accepted to be the expert on the subject. But don't take my word for it. Look at the facts. People die. Animals die. Plants die. Even love dies, often when the two lovers depart this life; often long before that.
Everyone: innocent, guilty, both. I don't stop and ask questions. I simply am; it's my job, my purpose, my reason. And don't think I'm blind; I know what I am. I've known since the moment time began and will continue to know until time ceases to exist. It didn't hurt at first. Like I said, it was my job. But, after a while, it begins to hurt. Yes, you read that right. It hurts, deeply and truly. I don't like separating people, I don't like destroying families, I don't like ending that which is so young and beautiful. Sometimes, I simply don't understand.
So I do do the same thing that you do. I laugh. I giggle. I make myself an island, and surround myself with apathy. If I allowed myself to feel the pain of humans, if I even for a moment considered the unthinkable, then I wouldn't be able to do my job, and reality itself would cease to exist. It wouldn't do well for me to have a crisis of faith. That's why I make jokes, that's why I don't let myself care, at least not too much or even visibly.
That's why I didn't comfort him, then. There were so many things I could have said to the boy. Everything is forgivable, this too shall pass, every life is a mix of good things and bad things, and blah blah blah until the sun goes out and we're all icicles. But I said nothing, and watched him grieve. He stood in front of me, watching his father drift further and further away towards the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel, knowing more and more with every moment that it was completely and irreversibly his fault.
He turned to me.
“Is he going to live?” he asked. It was an innocent question.
“Probably not,” I said, and it was more or less the truth. It honestly wasn't up to me, but I didn't say that.
“You don't know?”
“The Universe is unknowable and complicated. Don't make me explain.”
He turned his attention back to his father.
“I don't know,” he said, his voice failing him before he could finish.
“Don't know what?”
“I just...I don't know. Where do I go from here?”
“Welcome to life, kid,” I said.
“But I'm dead,” he said. “Things are supposed to be simpler now. Not like life.”
“Death is simply another part of life,” I said. “Different sides, same coin.”
“Do you think,” he said. “Do you think he could survive-"
“If you're thinking of proceeding with the memory wipe,” I said. “Then it would be safe. At this point it would be like throwing a rock at a collapsing house that's on fire and sinking into a swamp. Can't do much more damage than you already have.”
He ignored the obvious cruelty in my words.
“So he's going to die?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
“C'mon, don't lie to me. You know. You always know. Hell, you knew right from the start. You knew what happened to me, you knew everything about Mom and Lila, and you know, you know, what's going to happen to him. So just tell me. Is he going to die?”
“Let me rephrase that,” I said. “I can't tell you.”
“Can't or won't?”
“Both.”
A silence fell between us.
Want to know a secret? I find silence fascinating. Silence can say nothing and everything, sometimes both at the same time. The only sound was the chirp of the life support system, letting us know that our patient was still gripping tightly to his mortal coil.
“I want to relive it,” said the boy, after a time. “My death, I mean. From his eyes, this time. Can we do that?”
“I can do that,” I said.
“Please,” he said. “Can we?”
“You're the customer,” I said. “And the customer is always right.”
The boy turned his attention to me, tearing his eyes away from his father for time since we had arrived.
“Do you hate me?” he said.
The question was simple enough.
“Not hate,” I said. “Never hate. Just disappointed. I thought, perhaps, you would be better than this. But you're not. You're just like the rest of them.”
His gaze drifted down towards the floor.
“Please,” he whispered.
He was tired. People think that death is the most peaceful, most beautiful sleep of all. But there is more unrest in death than there is in life. Again, I'm the expert here.
“Touch him,” I said. “Put your hand on his forehead. And for Christ's sake, don't start crying.”
The boy swallowed and did as I told him. I snapped my fingers, and sent the boy rocketing down into the wounded man's memories. I followed in mind and spirit. The hospital disappeared. We were the spectators now, watching what could very well be the final recollections of a dying man. I wondered – almost aloud – if the man would truly die or not. Truth was, I didn't know. For now, he belonged to Life, and Life keeps its secrets, just as I keep mine.
The man? Oh, yes. The man.
His name was Jack Chesterton. Husband of Maggie, father of Caleb and Lila. A king of nothing, a simple man living in an age of complexity.
It was his last job. He kept that notion tucked away in the back of his mind, letting it drive him wherever the dark roads took him. It had been so long since this whole thing had begun, so long since he had sold his soul and gotten nothing but shit back in return. He no longer felt the hollowness in his stomach, the sweat on his palms as he drove towards the target. His soul had hardened since then; his soul had emptied.
He was an indebted man, and indebted men could not afford to waste time or wait till tomorrow. He just had to get through tonight, and everything would be okay. And it was about damn time, too. Everyone had been asking questions, especially Caleb. He was a sharp kid, sure, but too damn sharp for his own good. Too many questions, and no answers worth telling or knowing.
He wiped the sweat from his brow, taking his hand off the steering wheel as he did so. Who was he kidding? He was nervous, yes, very nervous. It wasn't the act, no, it was the weight of it. The old cliché, he feared, would prove to be true. It's a known fact of life that cops are most likely to die on their last day before retirement; the same, he feared, would go for criminals.
He spotted his partner at the next intersection, and slowed to a stop before letting him in. Gabriel sat down, closed the door, and they were off again before anyone saw.
“Nervous?” said Gabriel. It wasn't a question, not really.
“Nah,” said Jack, his voice betraying a hint of the truth. “Just do what we gotta do. Get in. Get out. Nobody gets hurt.”
Gabriel scoffed.
“You look like you're about to piss your pants.”
Jack kept his eyes on the road in spite of Gabriel. He couldn't wait to be rid of this guy.
“Believe or not, Gabriel, some people have actual lives outside of this shit,” said Jack.
“What, like a family?”
“I don't do this for myself. I do it for them. Little thing called responsibility; ya heard of it? And for the record, I'm not your buddy.”
“Christ, who pissed in your Cheerios? Just remember, you got yourself into this. Everybody's got debts. You working for us, then, odds are, you got one too many. So you're doin' a job, just like me, just like the rest of us. I gotta pay for my fix, you gotta pay for your little girl's hospital bills. Everybody needs something.”
“Don't talk about her like that,” said Jack, his voice betraying a hint of anger. “This is completely different. All of this, every blasted second of it, is for people I care about. You don't even understand that, do you?”
“Does this beloved family of yours know what you're up to?” said Gabriel. “Bet they'd be pretty pissed if they did.”
“The ends justify the means. It's all for them. If I don't do this...”
His voice trailed off, whether he was afraid to answer or simply had none. I turned to Caleb.
“Sound familiar?” I asked. “Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”
We were sitting in the back seats, invisible to the actors in the all-too-familiar drama playing out in front of us.
Caleb said nothing. He turned his head around and looked out the back window, his eyes wide in search of something. I didn't pursue the matter, and simply pondered the play at hand.
Had Jack Chesterton been more alert, less scared, and slightly more intelligent, there were several things he might have noticed. He would have noticed that the car was dangerously low on gas; he would have noticed that the Mountain Dew can in his cupholder was dangerously close to tipping; and, infinitely more important than the previous two, he would have noticed that a young man on a bicycle had been following him for the past fifteen minutes. But he did not notice these things, because he is – for lack of a better, less clichéd term – only human.
So he drove without speaking, past the trappings of civilization and into the backwoods outside the neighborhood. He drove for another five minutes, completely unaware that he was being followed and watched at the same time, by two different parties.
We reached the edge of a small encampment, and the car slowed to a stop.
“Here we are,” said Jack, unable to hide the nervousness in his voice.
“You ready?” said Gabriel, turning to Jack. “No turning back, buddy.”
“Yeah,” said Jack, failing once again to hide the timidness in his voice. “Let's do this.”
The two men exited the car, and the ghost-boy and I followed.
The neighborhood, if it could truly be called that, was a shanty-town of trailers and mobile homes. Places like these have many name (let's go with trailer parks), but this was not that. Trailer parks were places of peace and redneckery of the most sophisticated order. But this place was different, lacking the silent but steady pride of southern metal monstrosities. This place didn't smell of fried food or beer or oil. This place smelled of desperation, of fear and of poverty. The only true community these people shared with one another was the quiet but firm hope that this was rock bottom, this was as bad as it got, and there was no possible way to fall any further.
The boy and I followed the two men past a series of broken-down mobile homes, their front yards littered with the projects and food cans of days past. Children played in the dirt, constructing castles and palaces out of the dusty skin of the earth. Seeing the two strangers, they fled, retreating to the safety of the shadows and their homes. This place saw few strangers, and almost no strangers bearing good news.
We arrived at the end of the park, stopping at a mobile home just as torn and run-down as all the others. A young woman with a pretty but rough-looking face was sitting in a small plastic chair outside the trailer, scribbling in a notebook. Her name is Pai-Ming, and she writes stories. Not very well-written stories, mind you. But hopeful stories, stories that make people laugh and remember and forget. Those stories, in my humble, omnipotent opinion, are ones worth telling.
“Excuse me, miss,” said Gabriel. “This Yen's house?”
Pai-Ming looked up at the intruders, and, after a few moments of hesitation, nodded nervously.
“Can you go get him for us?”
She nodded again, placing her notebook under the chair and standing up.
“Chichi!” she yelled, examining the men with nervous eyes.
“Shénme?” came a response from inside the trailer.
“Chichi!” she said again, this time more forcefully.
Caleb stood beside me, watching this all transpire. He glanced back over his shoulder towards the entrance. After a moment, he returned his attention to the scene at hand.
A skinny man with a pockmarked face emerged from the trailer, his skin glistening with sweat. He immediately took notice of the two strangers.
“Líkāi,” he said to his daughter, nodding in the direction of the other houses.
“Chichi,” said the girl, her voice shaking now.
“Líkāi!” he yelled, pointing off into the distance.
The girl nodded tentatively and left the scene, glancing back over her shoulder as she went. Yen approached the two men.
“What do you want?” he said in the best English he could muster.
“You owe some money, Mr. Chao,” said Gabriel. “My friend and I are here to collect.”
“No money,” said Yen, shaking his head. “Not yet. Next week. Promise.”
“How 'bout now?” said Jack. It was clear that he wasn't a professional here, at least not to the degree that his partner was. But he knew enough. More than enough.
“Next week,” said Yen, this time with a hint of anxiety in his voice. “Promise. Money next week.”
“That's not good enough,” said Gabriel.
“Please,” said Yen. “You don't understand...”
“No,” said Jack. “You don't understand. If you don't pay up, you know who gets their necks pinched? Us. We got families to feed too, ya know. So either fork out the cash or we have to bleed it out of you.”
“You can't hurt me,” said Yen, cautiously stepping back towards his abode. “Not here. No violence in town. The police.”
“We're out in the middle of Asscrack, Nowhere,” said Gabriel. “Who's gonna care? These people? Forget about it. They won't say a damn thing. That's called fear, my friend, and it's a hell of a silencer.”
The man called Yen stumbled backward into the metal casing of his house. He swallowed hard.
“Please,” he said. “No money.”
“Kick his ass,” said Gabriel.
“What?” said Jack.
“Loosen his wallet a little,” he said. “Now.”
“Nobody has to get hurt here. We can -”
“No, we can't. This dickhead's out of time. Boss says so. Either we resolve this right here, right now, or he's gonna be pissed. Don't wanna make the boss pissed, Jack. Trust me on that. Either you play ball, or you walk away. That's the deal, man. That's always the deal.?”
Jack looked at the Yen, whose eyes darted between his potential executioners.
“Damn you,” said Jack, shooting a hateful glance towards Gabriel.
He made quick strides towards the trembling Yen. He grabbed him by the collar, yanked him upwards, and pummeled him across the face with his empty fist. The man plummeted to the ground, stirring a small cloud of dust as he landed.
“Dad,” said Caleb, his voice breaking. “Don't.”
But Jack couldn't hear him. Death and Time stood between them, and the boy's pleas were lost.
“Pay up!” said Jack. “Don't make me do this!”
“No money!” yelled Yen. “Not now! Later, please!”
“Not good enough,” said Gabriel. “Show him we mean business.”
Jack grimaced at Gabriel, but said nothing. He gave Yen a hard kick in the ribs. An agonizing crack sounded as boot collided with flesh. Yen cried out in pain.
“Please, get me out of here," said Caleb. "I can't watch this. Not again.”
“Wait,” said Yen, coughing up blood now. “No more. No more. Pay later. Promise. Please...”
“Oh, for Christ's sake,” said Gabriel, shrugging. He pulled a handgun out of his pocket. “Boss says that if he doesn't cough it up, we beat it out of him. And if that doesn't work, well...” He shrugged halfheartedly. “Loosen the old mortal coil, I think he said.”
“What, you mean kill this poor bastard?” said Jack.
“You wanna help your family or not?” said Gabriel. “You got debts, man, and it's time to pay up. This is your only way out, and you know it.” He proffered the gun. “For your best interest, my friend.”
Jack turned and looked at the broken man moaning on the ground in front of him.
“This isn't right,” he said.
“Sometimes the truth sucks, man,” said Gabriel, and it was the last thing he said, at least coherently.
A figure approached Gabriel from behind, a metal rod in its hand. The figure lifted the weapon above its head and, with a strength that lacked grace but had plenty of anger to make up for it, struck the man square in the side of the head. Gabriel tumbled to the ground. As he fell, the gun slipped from his hand and onto the ground.
Jack turned, and saw his son standing above Gabriel's moaning form.
“Caleb,” he said, his voice flabbergasted. “What the hell -”
“Followed you here,” said the Living Caleb, shaking his head. “Dad, what the fu-”
“You followed me?” said Jack. “Boy, you have no right-”
“Screw you! What the hell are you doing to this guy, huh?! Why the hell are you palling around with scum like him?” He motioned to Gabriel, who was gripping his bleeding head. “You think this is gonna make things better? What else have you done?”
“I'm only doing what's best!” said Jack. "Some choices are impossible. Sometimes there are no right answers!”
“How about you take responsibility for your own bullshit?”
"I only did what I could! Listen, I'm not having this conversation, Caleb! Get the hell out of here, all right! Forget this! Forget all of this!"
“You're dead to me,” said the Living Caleb. “Ya hear me, you're dead!”
"You think I had a choice!?”
"There's always a choice!"
“Son of a bitch,” mumbled Gabriel, struggling to get on his haunches. “Boss is gonna hear about this. You're through, Chesterton, ya hear me? You're finished! Boss is gonna cut you loose so quick- wait a goddamn minute - where's my GUN?”
Gabriel stood up, wavering on his feet. He eyed the gun, rage boiling behind his eyes. He was about to make a leap for the gun, but Jack was too quick. As soon as he had the weapon, he pointed its barrel towards Gabriel, whose hands immediately went up.
“Death,” said Caleb. “Take me back. Make it stop. I don't want to watch this part. Please.”
I said nothing.
“You're not gonna say anything,” said Jack. “Ya hear me?”
“No,” said the Living Caleb. “We're not doing this!”
He lunged forward, wrapping his hands around the firearm. The struggled for the weapon, father and son, eyes locked on the bringer of death. Jack was a grown man, much stronger than his son. But Caleb had fire in him, anger that burned and raged. He ripped the gun out his father's hand. But his ring finger, lost in a mess of hand and sweat, slipped ever so slightly, and before either of them knew or could have known what was about to happen, a shot rang out as fiery death escaped from the barrel of the gun. Father and son's eyes locked, and for a moment, neither of them said a word. But as the reality of what had happened crashed into both of them, Jack's lips finally trembled to form words.
“Caleb,” he said, and collapsed onto the ground.
The Living Caleb backed away, the weapon still gripped in his hand. He watched as a pool of scarlet life spilled beneath his father. The boy's body trembled, his eyes filling with tears. Every fiber of his being fought to form some action, some coherent thought, but found none.
“Shit,” said Gabriel. He backed away from the scene, finally turning his back on it entirely as he stumbled half-blind back to his car.
Yen was still on the ground, his face puffy with Jack's assault. He looked at Caleb, eyes weary and full of shock.
“Sha shou,” he rasped.
Murderer. Taker of life.
“I've seen enough,” said Caleb.
I turned to him. Tears filled his eyes, and his voice croaked.
“Please,” he said. “Take me back. Can you?”
“What do you think?” I said.
The Living Caleb tucked the gun into his pocket, his eyes filling with tears just like his ghost, and turned away from the man he thought was dead, sprinting off into the crushing darkness. Yen fought to his feet, fishing a cell phone from his pocket and, upon finding the device, dialing it furiously.
“I think,” said Caleb, watching his memory fade away into the night. “I'm done. This is over.”
“Good,” I said.
I let the vortex envelop us, our bridge between the past and the ever-flowing present. The image of Jack's dying form slowly gave way to nothingness, and we were slowly surrounded by the emptiness of the void.
"Do you think," he said slowly, fighting to form words. "Do you think they'll ever forgive me?"
“I don't know," I said. "But do you want to know a little secret?”
He turned to me, his eyes red and teary, just as the memory had faded completely and we were now completely alone in the nothingness. Silence engulfed the whole of creation, and there was only the sound of our voices. I wrapped my arm around him, and opened a door before us, a pathway back into the mortal realm of the here and now.
"I forgive you."
