Ceremony
Note: This takes place following the final episode of the anime. If you haven't seen it yet, it may not be immediately clear what's happening.
Information within Section II of the Social Welfare Agency was disseminated on a strictly need-to-know basis, even among its field agents. Paul and Vincenzo, the men charged with burnable waste disposable on the second Thursday of every month, had little need and therefore little knowledge, and only knew that neither of them enjoyed being hauled out of bed at half-past four on a frozen October morning, while the streets were still grimy dark, to lug a shipment of medical waste to the bulk incinerator.
Paul smoked a cigarette while Vincenzo, propping the door open with his hip, hauled out the bags. Vincenzo stopped and glared.
"You wanna gimme a hand here!"
"In a second."
Holding the cigarette between his fingertips, Paul watched through the corner of one eye and sucked gently until the flame burned to the edge of the filter, then let it drop and ground it on the concrete with his heel. Then he walked with long, lazy strides to where Vincenzo stood and shouldered one bag and Vincenzo shouldered the other.
"Sonfabitch."
"Aw, where'd you be without me, Vic?"
"Sonfabitch."
"Hey, cool it already."
"I wasn't talkin' bout you," said Vincenzo.
"Oh."
Sodium lights fixed to the side of the hospital building filled the alleyway with thick half-gloom. It was the sort of place that when they were boys they would have avoided, or else dared each other to enter. At the other end was the door to the basement and the incinerator.
"I was having a real good dream, too," said Vincenzo.
"Oh yeah? Who was it this time, Priscilla?"
"You always gotta make everything carnal. For your information—"
"What's that mean?"
"Huh?"
"What's carnal mean, smartass."
"Oh that just means, like, sexy-like. You know?"
"Where the hell d'you learn a word like that, Vic? You can't spell your own fucking name."
"Nevermind where I learned it. All I'm saying is, all the dream was about was my uncle's farm where I grew up. And the kind of days we used to get there. Golden days—not like you get around here. There wasn't anything sexy about it. Jesus Christ, Paul."
Then in the dimness and silence, they heard the rustle of footsteps and stopped dead. Paul was the first to look back. Near a pillar ten yards behind them was a heavyset man, standing with his hands in his pockets, nonchalantly, watching them. He wore a leather jacket and spectacles without frames. They stared at him and the man stared back. No one had anything to say. Finally Paul glanced at Vincenzo, cut his head forward, and they re-shouldered their loads and began to walk again and the rustling of the man's footsteps continued. Paul glanced back again. The man followed them at the same distance, still with his hands in his pockets. His face had the same blank quality as the concrete wall by his shoulder.
"Who the hell is that?" hissed Vincenzo.
"I think I recognize him," said Paul. "It's one of the Section Two guys."
Vincenzo's face slackened and with his free hand he crossed himself.
In a still lower whisper he asked: "Then what the hell's he want with us? We're just the fucking garbagemen."
"Aint it obvious?" Paul jounced the bag on his shoulder. "Now you wonder why they got us up so early? There's gotta be some seriously sensitive shit in here."
"You mean like documents?"
"I mean like the goddamn used needles from the Big Chief's heroin habit. I don't know. You name it. All I know is, that guy's here to make sure we get rid of it, and do it right."
"Then why don't he just fucking do it himself, then?"
Paul snorted. "That's the way with these guys. They never dirty their own hands."
Vincenzo glanced back at the man. He still shuffled after them with no change in his expression—no trace of expression at all.
"Hey…boss!" he called out, and tried uneasily to grin. "You can count on us, right? We know what to do."
The man gave no answer. When Vincenzo slowed he slowed, and when he resumed his pace the man matched him.
"Just ignore the guy," muttered Paul.
But when Vincenzo adjusted the bag, his look remained uneasy. "There's something funny 'bout the shape of this one."
"Don't even think about it."
"I'm telling you, Paul. Just what the shit is in these bags?"
"Look, we're almost there."
Ahead the door to the incinerator had been left ajar. Inside there was no light at all, and the faint smell of oil and carbon wafted out. They went inside, Vincenzo now walking unevenly as if trying to keep the side of the bag out of contact with his shoulder, and the man followed and went in and shut the door.
In the hot darkness inside, Paul turned and confronted him. He held up his hands.
"Hey, chief. I swear to God neither of us got any idea what this shit is. And I don't know about Vic here, but I got a girlfriend and a kid to think of. So…"
Then man stared at him as if he were a small yapping dog. Finally he stopped and looked away.
Then the man said in low, raw voice: "Go ahead."
Vincenzo nudged him. "You heard the boss."
Together they lifted the two uneven, strangely-shaped sacks of opaque plastic, and Paul balanced the one on his knee as he threw back the bolt and opened the door of the incinerator. The black room was full of angry red light and streaks of yellow that shot up and died and curls of charcoal smoke from waste not consumed in that undying fire.
Paul threw in his sack, then Vincenzo, and in the face of the roar that followed he tried to slam the door, but the man reached out with a sudden motion and stopped his hand.
"Wait."
Vincenzo, white-faced, nodded.
Slowly the man unzipped his jacket and both the garbagemen stiffened, but his hand brought out a small cream-colored envelope. They looked away as if denying even the knowledge of this innocent object. Neither of them could know what was written on the plain card inside:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you: except a seed of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
—Jesus of Nazareth
signed—Claes. Triela. Rico. Henrietta.
The man flicked the envelope through the crack of the open door and with another hiss it vanished. Then he removed a second object, a thin hardcover book, a snapshot visible stuck between its pages. Paul couldn't help a glance as the man wedged this also through the door and then shut it himself, and threw the bolt back and turned away.
He stood there for a moment with his shoulders squared. Then Paul and Vincenzo crept past him, and when they stopped near freedom on the threshold, and looked back, even in the darkness they could see the tears running down his motionless face.