I stepped slowly forward as if the poor man's remains were potentially dangerous. Then I leaned over and said, "I am sorry. I am sorry." My hand came up of its own volition and rested on the collarbone of my victim. In a moment, it shattered beneath my touch, turning to salt and drifting to the dusty floor. I stepped back and watched as the process I had started in motion slowly spread like a plague through the rib cage and down the spine, disintegrating the entirety of Fenton until his skull crashed to the floor and disappeared in a shower of atoms.
Although there was some respite from the smell in there, I could not stay in his tunnel. I stepped back out into the horror of the mine and lifted my pickax. It required a firmer grip than usual, because the voluminous sweat that poured from every inch of me made the wooden handle as slippery as a fish. I brought the tool back over my shoulder, and then I struck the wall with a mighty blow powered by self-loathing.
I worked with an insane energy for about twenty minutes, after which, I collapsed against the craggy rock face I had torn away at. In a panic, I suddenly realized I wasn't breathing. The pick fell out of my hand onto the path. My eyes felt as if they had burned out completely. I could now no longer see. There was an intense pain in my head, and I could feel myself sliding down the wall, my hands and face being lacerated by the jagged stone.
Unfortunately, I woke a little while later. Breathing somewhat easier, I crawled over to where my food and water were. A big chunk of sulphur I had chipped from the wall had landed on my moist cremat disks, squashing the package to a disturbing thinness. I ripped the paper open. Moist was not the word for them, for I found no disks within, just brown cremat smeared upon the paper. I licked it off greedily and then downed it with some of the water.
When I was done, I rolled the paper into a ball and tossed it out over the edge of the pit. The rising steam prevented it from falling, and it floated for a minute or two before my eyes. Eventually the upward current overpowered it and carried it out of sight. I wondered what this phenomenon stood for in the mind of Corporal Matters of the day watch. If the mine was his mind, his mind was a hot stinking pit riddled with holes, holding the brittle remains of the dead. This struck me as humorous. But later, as I again dug away at the yellow wall, it dawned on me how accurate he had been.
The day was eternal. I passed out twice more and thought, once, that my blood was literally boiling. In my brain, I heard a constant sizzling sound. Soon after I had eaten, the cremat dug into my stomach like a demon and gave me no rest from its fury. In addition to these tortures, the abrasions I had received from sliding down along the sharp face of the wall stung from the salt of my sweat mixing with the poisonous air.
Finally, like a voice calling out of paradise, I heard my name echoing down through the emptiness of the mine. "Sundown, sundown, sundown," the corporal yelled. I gathered chunks of sulphur into the canvas sack I had been given and slung it over my back. On the other shoulder, I hefted the shovel and pick. The string for the water gourd, I held in my teeth. The ascent was brutal. My legs ached beneath the weight, and my arms shook with weariness. I stopped three times to catch my breath, but I made it out into the open air.
It was dark outside, but the air was filled with a night breeze that carried the smell of the ocean. I would have traded ten vials of the beauty for just one gasp of it. The corporal propped his torch in a hole in the ground and weighed my load on an antique scale that operated somehow with shifting stones and springs. He beat me with his stick when he found I had brought up ten pounds instead of seven.
"Does seven sound like ten?" he asked me.
"No," I replied.
"You are a moron of the first water," he said.
I nodded.
"You aren't the first physiognomist I've seen reduced to ash. I remember a Professor Flock. Oh, how I flayed that idiot. It was rich. I blinded him with a beating one day. Taking his sight was like pulling the wings from a fly. When he eventually went under, I stole this from him," he said.
He held his stick out to show me the handle—a carved, ivory monkey head. "Some evening Harrows hindquarters will not shit you out, and I will find you down there in a pose of agony, surrounded by the smell of baking flesh," he said. "Now get out of here. I will be by to fetch you early tomorrow."
The corporal took the torch with him and left me standing there in front of the mine. Above, the moon was shining and the stars were bright. My body stung all over as if I had a bad sunburn, and the cool night wind made me shiver. The abundance of fresh air caused me severe dizziness as I staggered forward onto the winding path that led through the dunes. It took me two hours to locate the inn.
The light was on in my room. The bed was made, and someone had drawn a warm bath for me. For a moment, it was a battle between the water and sleep. I ended up opting for both. I lay in the tub in my underwear, feeling the warm perfumed water wash the mine off me as I fell asleep. I was awakened sometime later by a soft hint of a sound coming from downstairs. I tried to ignore it and continue with my dream of Aria, but it was as persistent as a mosquito. After a while, I gave into it and discovered that someone was playing a piano.
After dressing in just my trousers, I went barefoot down the stairs, through the inn. I followed the sound of the music across the main bar, through a dining room toward the back of the place. A chair had been left in the aisle, shrouded by night, and I stubbed my toe against it. I held my voice, but the chair scratched along the floor and hit another one. With this collision, the music abruptly stopped.
At the end of the dining room, I pushed through a door and stepped out onto a large screened porch. Again, I could hear the ocean, and the breeze washed over me. The dunes beyond the screen were lit by the moon. Sitting before me was a small black piano, not very much bigger than a child might practice at. Across the empty plank floor, at the other end of the porch, was a polished wooden bar with shelves of bottles and a mirror behind it. As I stared through the shadows, it appeared to me that there was someone sitting behind the bar.
"Hello?" I called.
I watched the dark figure and saw it raise a hand and wave. Slowly, I made my way across the porch. When I was within a few feet of the bar, a match flared. I stopped but then saw he was lighting a candle and continued to take a seat before him.
"Silencio?" I asked.
He nodded and I saw his face. The caretaker appeared slight of build, a miniature old man with a wrinkled face and a long beard. My attention was momentarily distracted by something moving in the air behind him. Suddenly it became clear that what I was looking at was a long tail. Silencio was a monkey.
Seeing the look of recognition in my eyes, he reached below the bar and hoisted up a bottle of Rose Ear Sweet, which had been my standard cocktail at all political functions and social gatherings. With the other, he pulled up a glass. Putting the cork of the bottle in his teeth, he opened it. A smile grew around that cork as he poured me a double.
"Silencio," I said and he nodded.
We stared at each other for a long time, and I wondered if I had not died in the mines that day. "This is the afterlife, eternity for me—sulphur all day and a monkey at night," I thought. Then he nodded slightly as if he had been thinking the same thing.