Song of the dead: Part one
By our own hand
My mind was floating high above my body, escaping me like unruly child running after the ball. Through the rapidly narrowing keyhole of my vision I managed to spy something white.A hand. Cracked, bitten fingernails, extending towards the soft fabric of a towel.
Remember Syv you have to remember…
Remember what? For crying out loud, tell me what, I cannot grasp it now! My head hurts, my thoughts are fleeing and there is a steady rumble of car engine down on the street.
I woke from my slumber. The Katrina Trask Park was humming with the cacophony of noises. People were walking, chatting shouting jokes to each other. Hive of youth, coming here to enjoy peace and quiet of the art colony before filling it with voices. Before I shut out the distinct echoes of the Skinlands, I took a moment to relish in their joy. Group of young artists, two boys and two girls, were walking towards me along the gravel path, laughing and talking about the latest poem one of the girls had written. She recited it to them in a mockingly pompous tone. The poem was bad, but nevertheless, I drank the pride she felt those clumsy verses. It made me full. It made me happy. They walked right through me, unaware of my presence and went towards the campus building talking of this afternoon creative writing lecture they were planning to attend. Suppressing the stupid desire to follow them, I decided to get ready for work. Maybe some lost soul needed my guidance. I opened the small soulmetal chest, and shivered in anticipation of its scream. But whatever unfortunate soul was trapped in the hard shell of its warm, bronze sheen (Oh Syv, you romantic) it remained silent. I rummaged through knickknacks finding the soulmetal nametag. I snapped it on the lapel of my jacket. Under my name and title, four words adorned the metal.
By our own hand.
Point of pride, down here in the halls of the Silent legion. They like to think they knew something other Quick did not. Maybe it was the rotting fingerprint of death, slow decay that permeated every aspect of the Skinlands, mute memento to its mortality. Maybe it was the troubling notion that their unhappy life makes no sense in the end.
My office was in decayed five- story building in the abandoned downtown mall that had previously housed a motel, a brothel, and a shelter for town's winos. I walked towards it along the same gravel paths, stretching themselves between the rows of dead trees. For the Quick that walked under them or read, chatted & kissed beneath their shade they seemed alive and deep green with the lush freshness of May, but the never-shut eyes of the dead observed only skeletons of twisted branches, with rotting patches of yellow and black gangrenous leaves clinging to them. Late November never ends after you kick it.
Depressing? It depends. To the crowd of wrist- slitters, bridge- jumpers, bullet-eaters and pill-poppers (let's not forget the monoxide-chuggers, won't we, gal?) I hung out with it was the only way to see the world. For some of us, even when we were breathing. It might bum out some of the others who hoped for harp playing angels, reincarnation or eternal peace of mind but we were pessimists to begin with. By our own hand, oh maiden fair, won't you join the ranks of Despair? We cannot offer you dough; we cannot offer you fame, but everything rots is the name of the game.
Leaving the Yaddo complex I traversed the dusty country road that connected it to the town. In Skinlands the Main street was filled with noisy traffic, but over here in Shadowlands, few grim legionnaires, walked between gray derelict buildings clutching their soulforged spears and maintaining the Charon's Law. I crossed the road and walked into the street that ended in the parking lot of the abandoned Spring Lady motel. The old burned out neon sign still spelled out the name and proudly displayed three stars. Hartford was working reception, a tall, youth in immaculate, if old- fashioned suit. Round spectacles were tittering on the narrow ledge of his nose, as he observed the entrance; long white fingers assembled the pyramid under his chin.
"Anyone dropped in while I was gone?", I asked while assessing the old hotel lobby through the Veil. Rusted shopping cart left in the corner. A couple of new graffiti scribbled on the moldy walls. If' someone is crashing in our offices we ought to scare them out. Subtly, off course. In line with the Law.
"Nope. Old Archie is doing the reaping today. He hadn't come back yet."
"Not many new recruits lately. Maybe we need a new Wall Street crash."
"Very funny", Hartfort, a '29-ner himself, shot back with a cynical smile.- I don't think new stock market crash would do anything to improve our ranks. Businessmen these days are far less desperate. People of letters on the other hand never stop despairing. Although, I don't think we need any more poets. Most of you were never taught how to hold a sword or a gun, and they tend to be really bad with numbers."
"Ever heard that pen is mightier than a sword?"
"True, if you are fighting evil literary critics. Does nothing for Spectres, though."
"You win. Gotta go now, See you."
"See you. Don't let Archie pester you too much. Tell him to stick it and send the obviously bummed out to the Dreyne for military training."
"I'll try. You know he hates to deal with the Lethe crazies."
"Everybody does."
Old motel-rooms, furnished with few soulforged desks and chairs were doubling as our offices. Apart for a few paper pushers and old McDouglas, late FBI spook turned intelligence clerk for the Silent legion after drinking himself to death, the place was largely empty. He greeted me with a welcoming smile.
"Looking stunning today Syv."
"Thank you Mac.,"I smiled back. There aren't many people in the Underworld that are as friendly as our little crowd., "Working on those Apocalypse crew contracts?"
"Uh-uh. Trying to make sense of his insane babble. Those heretic cults are getting crazier every day. But I'd rather have them under my control then feeding the Oblivion. It's not like Spectres need more apocalypse worshippers in their bunch."
Taking the desk by the window, and doing my best to ignore the gross heap of rubbish that was attracting vermin to the corner of the room I started my mental preparations for endless hours of boredom. My job in the Saratoga chapter of the Silent legion consisted of accommodating new recruits. After our reapers freed newly deceased from their cauls they would be dragged before me. Then I used castigation techniques Cletus thought me to check the power of their Shadow. If they were dangerous I reported that to Cletus – dealing with Oblivion-tainted was a huge security risk, especially with the new Manhattan Nihil spewing dark energy of the Void into this part of the Shadowlands. If they seemed acceptable I ran them throughout the whole concept of Hierarchy legions and asked them if they wanted to sign with us. Of course, engraving on my nametag that read: Sylvia Plath, clerk of Silent Legion: NYN - By our own hands came as great PR for all those desparate, dead literature aficionados reapers would drag to my desk.
Silent Legion recruits victims of despair. That means we managed to lay our paws on most suicide victims (at least those of them that aren't grabbed from under us by Spectres in Training), most drug and alcohol related deaths and people who simply give up on living. Most of our recruits, after initial shock, realize one suicide is enough and decide to get a job inside one of multiple Legions civil branches; for others there is a position within Warriors of Lethe, glorious kamikaze of the Hierarchy.
To kill the long waiting hours I decided to use Lifeweb and check up on my Fetters, anchors connecting me to the world of the Quick. If they are gone, Shadowlands are pretty much lost to you- only thing that remains are the secure islands inside the Tempest. I hadn't sensed anything funny happening but I also hadn't sensed nothing when Ted did his latest idiot's move and destroyed my diaries until the Oblivion pulled me down. Next two weeks were a nightmare to me.
I concentrated on the spiritual image of the location. The old archive roomed slowly and blurrily came into my vision. There were cardboard boxes full of documents, rectangular shapes floating into my mind, like an image of a dream. Rows of them filled the small basement room, lit only by the winking gaze of the phosphorescent light-bulb. Archive clerks moved amongst them, carrying different carefully marked boxes or leather bound binders full of files. Ten long boxes marked with my name and signature code collected dust. Clerks, mostly students slaving there to earn their scholarships, paid them no mind.
Tell you what Syv: what if one of them decides to smoke, regulations be damned and has an accident. Whoom! Everything goes to cinders while you are stuck there smiling for the bunch of screw-ups.
Throwing this unpleasant notion away, like somebody might toss a boring book across the living room, I decided to check on Katrina Park once again- if anything because I liked to mentally be there. Even in my breathing years, when I was staring into the factory-induced everlasting dusk of depressing London, my mind would always come back to the late Victorian calmness and vigor of Yaddo. The centennial trees were starting to shape themselves inside my inner eyes.
"Sylvia! I got one here for check up and check-in. Just found her as I was driving back from NYC."
Archie barged in, puffing smoke out of his last cigarette, the one he is never going to finish. Trailing behind him was a known face, face of a girl, framed by the pigtails of red hair, with a red bullet wound on her temple.
It took me a moment to remember where I had seen her before.
She passed me by this morning in Yaddo, reciting her poem. Back then she was still alive.
Now she was dead. And she seemed happy.