And then there were those who had lost hope somewhere along the way, the ones who, after a long and dark desperation, had finally given up—the ones who had stopped living long before they stopped breathing.
All of them had stories to tell before they moved on.
And so he listened, and he gave them all what they needed.
***
He listened to the oak tree’s song of its life, a chorus for every ring. It was a nameless song, for names are as meaningless to trees as legs are to worms, and it was a slow, winding tune, full of rustles and sighs, at turns mournful and joyous. It was a song of quiet triumphs over hurricanes and floods; it was a song of remembrance for its offspring, lost to the Great Burning.
Eventually, the tree fell silent, and it listened to him sing the tree’s song of death, how its body would continue to provide shelter and nourishment to countless living things.
When he, too, fell silent, the oak rustled one last time in a final farewell, and it moved on.
***
He gently scooped up the kitten, which had been too young to open its eyes, and nuzzled it until it blinked up at him. It purred him a question, and he answered. The kitten stretched, kneaded his arm—careful not to stick him with its claws—and then moved on.
In the cardboard box behind the garbage can, its littermates slept on, as did its mother, who twitched once as Death passed by.
***
The livestock after slaughter. The prey after the hunt. Flies after a swatter.
He was there for them all—them, and for all living things. He spoke to them all, and they all spoke to him in the ways of their own kind.
And then they moved on.
***
It had been a long day, even as one such as he considered time. He felt the age in his bones. That, and something more.
Something colder.
It was coming. It wasn’t here yet, but it was coming: winter’s frost creeping in amid the autumn branches.
Soon.
Next to him, the pale steed nickered, “You okay? You seem . . .” The horse stumbled for a word. “I don’t know. Sad.”
“I’m fine,” he replied. “Just tired.”
“Want to stop?”
Of course he did. He knew what was to come.
But he would do what he had always done when that knowledge became unbearable: He would step into the Slate and find that one thing that he needed to see him through. If he were alive, it would have been the one thing he lived for.
Yes, soon he would have to retreat to the Slate, retreat and replenish. But soon was not now. Until then, he had things to do, dead people to see.
“A couple more,” he murmured, “then a brief respite.”
The horse nodded, in the way that horses do. “Respite is good. Maybe call the others, play a game of cards?”
“Maybe.”
“Just be careful with War. She cheats.”
That made him smile. “None can cheat me. They only think they can.”
“You’re too trusting.” A pause as the steed snorted. “Would that be a fatal flaw?”
He groaned. “Oy.”
“Sorry, has that been done to death?”
“You’re trying to cheer me up, aren’t you?”
“Is it working?”
He chuckled. “It is. My thanks.” He patted the steed’s neck. “All right. A couple hundred more for today, then a break.”
The late bell rang. Actually, it beeped—which, Xander thought as he peeled down the school hallway, was exceedingly strange. Bells didn’t beep; they rang. Or, in the case of the late bell, it shrilled like a fire alarm. But not today. Today, the late bell beeped exactly once, then gave up the ghost.
He raced inside his philosophy and film studies class ten seconds later. “Sorry, sorry, sorry . . .”
“The late Mr. Atwood,” said Ms. Lewis, shaking her head. “At this rate, you’ll be late for your own funeral.”
He grinned as he slid into the seat to Ted’s right. “Wouldn’t you want to be?”
Ms. Lewis sighed loudly, then turned her back to finish writing on the board.
“You’re only half as clever as you think you are,” Ted whispered.
“Which is still twice as clever as you.”
“Ouch. You practice that comeback as much as you practice smiling in front of a mirror?”
Xander should have known it was a mistake to share that tidbit with Ted. “Riley has no complaints.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ted snorted. “Can five minutes go by without you mentioning Riley? Never mind five—can
one
minute go by?”
Xander grinned. “Nope.”
“And you’ve only been dating for what, two months? God help me if you make it through the end of senior year. You’ll be insufferable.”
“It’s good to have goals.”
Riley was the reason Xander had been late for class, again—they’d been hanging out by the lockers, just talking and touching and making plans for after school, and then the late bell had rung. Well, beeped. Xander knew that Ms. Lewis was marking down every time he bolted into class after the bell, but he couldn’t help it; he loved spending as much time as possible with his significant other. Was it because of Riley’s amazing smile? The black hair styled in those elaborate braids? Those dark chocolate eyes that he could drown in? The infectious laugh? Those were all part of it and yet didn’t begin to scrape the surface of why he was obsessed with Riley Jones. He knew he was a little crazy, but it was a good sort of crazy, the kind of feeling that made him believe anything was possible.
He thought he might be falling in love.
Ms. Lewis turned to face the class. On the blackboard, she had written a quote.
I think; therefore, I am
.
—
Descartes
“Before we get started,” said Ms. Lewis, “a quick reminder that if you’re going to get involved with the school musical, today’s the last day to sign up. I promise not to be an evil faculty advisor and micromanage everything. My job is to make sure no one does anything illegal or dangerous. That’s it. Everything else is up to you.”
Ted shot Xander a look:
You signing up?
Xander nodded. Of course he was; he did so every year as part of the musical’s Art Squad. He didn’t crave the spotlight like Ted—the leading man for two years running—but Xander absolutely loved making something from nothing. When he looked at a blank canvas, he didn’t see emptiness; he saw potential. In his creative writing elective, they talked about world building. He thought that concept applied to art as well, especially as part of the Art Squad: He helped build the world of the school musical with every stroke of a brush. It was like playing God. Total head rush.
“Now that my public service announcement is done,” said Ms. Lewis, “I have your existentialism essays to hand back. Overall, very well done. I’m glad most of you enjoyed
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
”
When Xander got his paper back, he noted the big A at the top—unsurprising, since Ms. Lewis gave everyone an A as long as the work was handed in on time and answered the assignment questions completely—and then he scanned the rest of her comments.
Good job showing how the main characters struggle to define themselves and their confusing world, and how they eventually come to the conclusion that their destiny is their own fault
.
Xander grinned. Was that what he’d done? He thought he’d just been using meaningful quotes at opportunistic times. He liked the “film” part of the elective, but the “philosophy” part was weird. Whatever—it was still an easy-A class.
After she returned all the essays, Ms. Lewis said, “Time for our next segment. Let’s talk about solipsism.” She pointed to the quote on the board. “The idea of solipsism is that we can be sure that our own minds exist, but that’s it. Everyone else’s minds, even the world itself, might not exist at all.”
Ted raised his hand. “That’s stupid,” he said when Ms. Lewis called on him. “The world’s right here. I see you.”
“But what you’re seeing might not be real. I might not be real.”
“Of course you’re real. I’m looking right at you.”
“What if I’m an illusion?”
“Like in
The Matrix
?” Xander asked, belatedly raising his hand. “Everyone thought they were in the real world, but that was just the machines fooling them so they could feed off of them.”
“Good example,” said Ms. Lewis. “If you want to get technical,
The Matrix
falls under Cartesian skepticism.” She pointed again to the quote on the board. “If you doubt everything, then the only thing you can know for sure is that we exist as thinking beings. I think; therefore, I am.” She smiled. “Descartes went on to say that there’s no way for us to know whether the world we’re experiencing isn’t really just an illusion created by a ‘malevolent demon.’”
An appreciative murmur rippled through the class.
“Cool,” said Xander.
“That sort of explains my math grade,” said Ted.
“Or, you know, your lack of studying.”
Ms. Lewis continued: “Descartes’s notion leads to the idea of solipsism. Keep in mind that what one person perceives to be true may not be true for another person. It’s subjective reality. Which brings us to this week’s film.” She nodded at Xander. “It’s similar to
The Matrix
in that the main character lives in a false reality. But the main difference is that the main character is the only one fooled by what’s false. And now, the first part of
The Truman Show.
”
As Ms. Lewis got the DVD set up, Xander settled back in his seat. He was all about getting graded for watching movies—especially movies he’d already seen. The lights went off, and he propped an elbow on his desk and his head in his hand.
Naptime.
His eyes closed as the movie began. He heard an announcer’s breathless voice setting the scene as background music began to swell, rising, building until the sound carried like a scream—
***
—there’s a sound like a scream he’s screaming in pain there’s so much pain and he can’t move can’t think can’t get away he has to get away because something’s coming for him so he screams again screams until the roof of the world is ripped away and there’s noise and glaring lights and a dark shadow reaching for him—
***
“Xander? Seriously, dude, wake up.”
Xander sat up with a start, his breath caught in a scream, his heart lodged in his throat. He blinked at Ted, then looked around. He was in a waiting area of some sort, complete with pseudo-art-deco chairs and low tables wedged between them, bookended by magazine racks overstuffed with reading material. Large windows would have let in daylight, if only it were daytime.
“Um,” Xander said. “Hey. Weren’t we in class?”
Ted grinned, shaking his head ruefully. “That explains the screaming. You must’ve been dreaming about school. Waste of a good dream, if you ask me.”
“Dreaming . . . ?”
“Nightmaring, based on how you were yelling.” Ted chuckled. “At least you grabbed a little sleep. You’ve been here what, six hours, yeah?”
Xander blinked again. “I have no idea.”
“Bumped into Riley. Said you guys came here right after school.”
They did? He didn’t remember anything like that. He didn’t even remember being with Riley. He mopped his hair away from his face and looked around. “Riley’s here?”
“Riley was on the way out when I got here. Had to get home, make an appearance for the parents, do homework. You know. The usual. I got here to see you snoozing. Or, more accurately, thrashing. Hey, want me to grab you some food?”
“Food,” Xander repeated. He felt like his brain had been turned into tapioca pudding—his thoughts felt too thick, almost soupy, and he had a nagging feeling that something was wrong. He just couldn’t figure out what it was. He dug a hand into his jeans pocket and found his lucky penny, squeezed.
The cold flat metal was reassuring. Solid.
Real.
“Food,” Ted agreed. “Or, in the case of hospital fare, overpriced food-like substances. I bet the coffee’s decent. If Suzie was here, she’d be all mother hen and insist you eat something. Riley mentioned you were too anxious to eat. Said it was, and I quote, ‘adorable.’ Hear that, dude?” He clapped Xander’s shoulder. “You’re adorable!”
Xander frowned. Hospital. They were in the waiting area of a hospital. Why . . . ?
Before he could ask, a door opened. Xander turned, and for one moment, one crystalline moment in which time itself froze, he saw a shape filled with shadows, saw a man who was not a man standing in the doorway, standing and looking right at him.
The shadows beckoned to him, whispered his name.
Xander’s throat tightened and his stomach clenched. He gripped his penny tightly.
The crystal shattered and time resumed: The shadows gave way to Xander’s father, pink-faced and grinning like a lunatic, wearing ill-fitting hospital scrubs and calling his name.
“Xander! Xander, it’s a boy! You officially have a little brother! A healthy, six-pound-six-ounce baby boy! Mom’s great, your brother’s great, life is great!”
Xander’s head spun. He felt his mouth pull into a grin, felt himself stand and then sit back down again, felt Ted clapping him on the back in a volley of congratulatory thumps. He was giddy with relief, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought that was wrong—he should be giddy with excitement, with joy over having a baby brother. But he couldn’t quite convince himself that he was feeling anything other than a palpable sense of relief, like something dark and terrible had passed over him and left him unscathed.
He let out a laugh, even as he gave his lucky penny a final squeeze. Of course he was relieved; his mom wasn’t exactly young, so there had been some risk with the pregnancy and the birth. But his dad just said that she was fine—and so was his brother.
He had a little brother.
His dad said he’d let Xander know when he could visit Mom and meet his brother, and then he retreated. The door shut behind him, swallowing him whole.
“So cool,” said Ted. “Hope you enjoyed being an only child for so long, because now everything changes.”
Xander grinned. Change was good. Change meant life.