But not leaving, either. Not as yet.
And: Sleep, the angels tell me, silently. And: Make me, I reply. Equally silent.
To which they say nothing.
I know a lot about this woman, Pat Calavera — more than she’d want me to, if she only knew I knew. How there are days she hates every person she meets for not being part of her own restless consciousness, for making her feel small and useless, inappropriate and frightened. How, since she makes it a habit to always tell the truth about things that don’t matter, she can lie about the really important things under almost any circumstances — drunk, high, sober, sobbing.
And the puppets, I know about them too: How Pat’s always liked being able to move things around to her own satisfaction, to make things jump — or not — with a flick of her finger, from Barbie and Ken on up. To pull the strings on something, even if it’s just a dead man with bolts screwed into his bones and wires fed along his tendons.
Because she can. Because it’s an art with only one artist. Because she’s an extremist, and there’s nothing more extreme. Because who’s going to stop her, anyway?
Well. Me, I guess. If I can.
(Which I probably can’t.)
A quick glance at the angels, who nod in unison: No, not likely.
Predictable, the same way so much of the rest of this — experience of mine’s been, thus far; pretty much exactly like all the tabloids say, barring some minor deviations here and there. First the tunnel, then the light — you rise up, lift out of your shell, hovering mothlike just at the very teasing edge of its stinging sweetness. After which, at the last, most wrenching possible moment — you finally catch and stutter, take on weight, dip groundwards. Go down.
Further and further, then further still. Down where there’s a Bridge of Sighs, a Bridge of Dread, a fire that burns you to the bone. Down where there’s a crocodile with a human face, ready and waiting to weigh and eat your heart. Down where there’s a room full of dust where blind things sit forever, wings trailing, mouths too full to speak.
I have no name now, not that I can remember, since they take our names first of all — name, then face, then everything else, piece by piece by piece. No matter that you’ve come down so fast and hard, fighting it every step; for all that we like to think we can conquer death through sheer force of personality, our mere descent alone strips away so much of who we were, who we thought we were, that when at last we’ve gotten where we’re going, most of us can’t even remember why we didn’t want to get there in the first place.
The truism’s true: It’s a one-way trip. And giving everything we have away in order to make it, up to and including ourselves, is just the price — the going rate, if you will — of the ticket.
Last stop, everybody off; elevator to… not Hell, no. Not exactly…
… Goin’ down.
Why would I belong in Hell, anyway, even if it did exist? Sifting through what’s left of me, I still know I was average, if that: Not too good, not too bad, like Little Bear’s porridge. I mean, I never killed anybody, except myself. And that-
— that was only the once.
Three years back, and counting: An easy call at the time, with none of the usual hysterics involved. But one day, I simply came home knowing I didn’t ever want to wake up the next morning, to have to go to work, and talk to people, and do my job, and act as though nothing were wrong — to see, or know, or worry about anything, ever again. The mere thought of killing myself had become a pure relief, sleep after exhaustion, a sure cure after a long and disgusting illness.
I even had the pills already — for depression, naturally; thank you, Doctor. So I cooked myself a meal elaborate enough to use up everything in my fridge, finally broke open that dusty bottle of good white wine someone had once given me as a graduation present and washed my last, best hope for oblivion down with it, a handful at a time.
When I woke up I had a tube down my throat, and I was in too much pain to even cry about my failure. Dehydration had shrunk my brain to a screaming point, a shaken bag of poison jellyfish. I knew I’d missed my chance, my precious window of opportunity, and that it would never come again. I felt like I’d been lied to. Like I’d lied to myself.
So, with a heavy heart, I resigned myself once more — reluctantly — to the dirty business of living. I walked out the hospital’s front doors, slipped back into my little slot, served out my time. Until last week, when I keeled over while reaching for my notebook at yet one more Professional Development Retreat lecture on stress management in the post-Millennial workplace: Hit the floor like a sack of salt with a needle in my chest, throat narrowing — everything there, then gone, irised inward like some silent movie’s Vaseline-smeared final dissolve. Dead at twenty-nine of irreparable heart failure, without even enough warning to be afraid of what -
— or who, in my case -
— came next.
Am I the injured party here? I hover, watching, inside and out; I can hear people’s thoughts, but that doesn’t mean I can judge their motives. My only real option, at this point, is just what the angels keep telling me it is: Move on, move on, move on. But I’m not ready to do that, yet.
There were five of us in the morgue, after all, but the body-snatchers only took two for her to choose from. And of those two…
… Pat chose me.
Lyle turns up at one, punctual as ever, while Pat’s still dripping. She opens the door for him, then drops her towel and stalks nearly naked back to her room, rooting through her bed’s topmost layers in search of some clean underwear; though he’s obviously seen it all before, neither of them shows any interest in extending this bodily intimacy beyond the realm of the purely familial.
Which only makes sense, now I think about it. In Pat’s mind — the only place I’ve ever encountered Lyle, up till now — their relationship rarely goes any further than strictly business. He’s her prime “artistic” pimp, shopping the act she and Ray have been working so hard to perfect to a truly high-class clientele: One time only, supposedly. Though by Lyle’s general demeanour, I get the feeling he may already be developing his own ideas about that part.
Pat discards a Pixies concert T with what looks like mould-stains all over the back in favor of her Reg Hartt’s Sex And Violence Cartoon Festival one, and returns to find Lyle grimacing over a cup of coffee that’s been simmering since at least eight.
“Jesus Corpse, Pats. You could clean cars with this shit.”
“Machine’s on a timer, I’m not.” Then, grabbing a comb, bending over, worrying through those last few knots: “Tonight all set up, or what?”
He shrugs. “Or what.” She shoots him a glance, drawing a grin. “Look, I told you it was gonna be one of two places, right? So on we go to Plan B’s all. The rest’s still pretty much as wrote.”
“‘Pretty much.’’
“Pretty, baby. Just like you.”
And: Is she? I suppose so. Black hair and deep, dark eyes — a certain eccentric symmetry of line and feature, a clever mind, a blind and ruthless will. Any and all of which would’ve certainly been enough to pull me in, back when I was still alive enough to want pulling.
The angels tell me I’m bound for something better now, though. Some form of love precious far beyond the bodily, indescribable to anyone who hasn’t tasted it at least once before. Which means there’s no earthly way I can possibly know if I want to till I’m already there and drinking my fill, already immersed soul-deep in restorative, White Light-infused glory…