Coffin Island (36 page)

I bravely raised my hand expecting it
to be cut off at the elbow. Short sleeve or long sleeve, how would
you like your arm?

“
Me never going to call on
you,” Chinese Flannery O’Connor said.

“
What could there possibly
be left to do?” I demanded.

“
Me crush you to death,”
Chinese Flannery O’Connor said. “Then you leave room in
coffin.”

At least there was some logic to this
place, I thought as Chinese Flannery O’Connor drifted towards us.
It was actually my last thought before I died for the first time at
The Coffin Island School for Witchcraft.

Fin

Madison and I were sitting on some
boulders on an island at the base of Iguaçu Falls in Paraguay. We
were on the Paraguayan side. Madison and I were conversing in
Paraguayan Guaraní. We had picked it up like so many speckled river
stones upon arrival. Witchcraft was not without its uses. I’ll
translate though back into Colonial language.

We woke up in the Coffin Room. It was a
lot vaster than I could have expected. I had no idea that there
could possibly be this many students of witchcraft. It was quite
horrific to see the sheer volume of witches that had been killed. I
learned later that was how the school day was concluded at The
Coffin Island School for Witches. All the pupils are slaughtered
and then they wake up in their coffins. Education is
lovely.

Death was unremarkable. It was terribly
painful but after that it was nothing but black. It was a brutal
black space of pure black. Witchcraft had no heart. Expecting an
afterlife from witchcraft was foolish. It was merely another test.
Real death it was not. However you thanked witchcraft for not
having a fake afterlife because it would be hideous. You just knew
that.

Madison and I climbed out of our coffin
which was a double. That was one thing that Professor Coffin hadn’t
lied about. He had told the truth. Madison and I were magically
attached. It was creepy to wake up holding her hand. We were both
revolted by the concept but we hugged in joy that we were still
alive. And best of all still together. Not even death at The Coffin
Island School for Witchcraft could separate us.

The bureaucracy of death then greeted
us. The line to get out of the Coffin Room was appalling. Then we
had to cue to get down to The Tube. It wasn’t a subway line or a
metro line. It was truth in advertising, The Tube. We went down a
vacuum to take The Tube out of town.

The Tube was constructed by steam
punks. We learned this from a friendly pusher. His job was to shove
students into the overfilled subway cars. Every student in The
English Department reported to a bureau within The Coffin Island
School for Witches. The students worked on projects that built the
world that we lived in.

If you worked on steam punk then you
worked on The Tube. If you worked on The Detective Genre then you
were in The Police force. Murders worked in Murder Mystery. Romance
worked in The Church as well as The Courts were they presided over
divorces. The whole world was perfectly sensible to me. You were
whatever you wrote. Or you were erased.

Madison and I inadvertently tried to
step on the train to Brooklyn. We didn’t know where the train was
going. We were just trying to flee. The steam punk pusher wouldn’t
permit us though. He said that more award winning writers than
anywhere in the world lived there. Every piece of literary hardware
on the planet was out there. The writers walking the streets of
Brooklyn had won everything. It was confusing information. We just
wanted to escape.

Madison threatened to punch the steam
punk in the face. The literary cops were called and we were
escorted to an interview room. The interrogators were Soviet
thriller writers.

We were going to Buenos Aires. Madison
flipped out. Who wants to commute to South America from Manhattan
for school? They assured us the steam punks had the details worked
out. Madison and I were shoved on the proper train. We were the
sole occupants. It really didn’t matter what we said. The train
left and we were the only two people on it. The train lurched
forward with a blast and somehow we weren’t crushed.

Madison and I floated for about twenty
seconds in zero gravity. That lunar feel of weightless permitted us
to do a few gymnastics before we crashed to the floor of the empty
subway car. The steam punks had somehow worked it out. My daily
commute was going to include weightlessness. It seemed somehow
appropriate because we were assigned to The Experimental Division
of The English Department.

We were the only two pupils in it. It
was called The Experimental Division because it was experimental.
You experiment, the Russian cop had said. Get out of my interview
room.

The ride terminated in La Recoleta
Cemetery in Buenos Aires. One of the most famous cemeteries in the
world, a raven with spectacles crowed as we walked out of it. He
was apparently the doorman and tour guide. We just hunched our
shoulders and tried to get out of there.

We trundled onto a bus that was waiting
for us. It was one of those converted school buses that had been
heavily decorated to hide the fact that it was so battered. It was
decorated like The Day of The Dead. They had decided not to hide
that whole death and dying preoccupation.

I fully expected that Saint of Death to
be driving. That Lady of Shadows, of course, she drives a bus.
However a cheery ghost in filthy combats fatigues greeted us. A
cheery Bolivian ghost was installed under the wheel.

The driver told us that he was a
Bolivian ghost. He had just been dug up for us. We were to call him
Che. He said it means dude in Argentina. That’s what you call the
bus driver. Hey dude, let me out. Pull over. I want to get off this
bus, dude. Then he laughed. He was smoking a cigar. The smoke was
coming out of the bullet holes in his chest.

Madison asked him if he was Che
Guevara. He laughed and said I get that all the time. Madison said
I thought you just got dug up. You don’t think there is revolution
in the afterlife?

Che put on an old record that sang
about Detroit. He had outfitted the bus like some sort of prankster
vehicle. Lights were whirling. Someone was singing about
voodoo.

Madison found a pack of Argentinean
black tobacco cigarettes that somebody had left behind. We just lit
up. Why not enjoy the ride? Who cares if the ghost of a dead
communist revolutionary is driving you around on The Saint Death
Express? At least he had the lay of the land. He drove a diesel
bus.

We trundled uptown. Our dorm was
somewhere out in the swamps of Buenos Aires. We were in The
Experimental Division of The English Department. We reported
directly to Professor Coffin. He had tasked us with learning The
Tango. We were going to have to make a pit stop for a steak dinner
and that little dance lesson. Get some red wine, the ghost
cautioned. It will limber you up for your lesson. The Tango is a
very sexy dance. Don’t let those uniforms fool you. The Tango is a
very sexy dance. That was our homework assignment? Professor Coffin
was a genius. What better way to prepare a writer than to send them
to the Paris of South America? Break the young artist in a bit
before sending them to the real thing.

As far as homework assignment are
concerned there are certainly far worse. You’re tasked with a night
out on the town in Buenos Aires which includes wining, dining and
dancing. You can smoke too. We’d already crossed that bridge with
spectacular results. What are you a werewolf? How could find fault
with any of that you uncreative savage?

However Madison and I had slightly
different plans. We were considering the hotel options. Why should
we sing for our beds? We were both cranky and tired. We frankly
wanted to go to bed, together.

The prospect of sex had reared its ugly
head. I knew that creature was going to come up. And Madison, for
her part, meant to beat it down with horrific force. She spoke
openly about the biblical riot that she meant to commit in bed. She
was quite threatening about it too. She was going to crush me worse
than Chinese Flannery O’Connor. Her raw concepts were highly
attractive to me. I was quite fearful of them. Was I truly ready
for this?

I pulled the Emergency Door on the bus
right in front of The Opera House. We were stalled in evening
traffic. Madison and I both jumped out of the bus. Unfortunately we
landed on the island at the base of Iguaçu Falls in Paraguay. Our
feet didn’t even touch the Avenue in front of The Opera House in
Buenos Aires. Professor Coffin had teleported us for our
insolence.

Madison and I were sitting on a rock
below the falls on the Paraguayan side of the falls.

“
So this is what happens
when you misbehave,” Madison snorted. “Iguaçu is no big
deal.”

“
I agree,” I said. “I aim to
swim it.”

“
Why do you think that I’m
taking off my shirt,” Madison snorted. “You know how I’m the
meanest witch in creation?”

“
I heard that,” I said as I
took off my pants.

I was standing there in my underwear
about to take the plunge. Just take everything off.

“
I got the best breasts
too,” Madison said as she unclasped her bra.

“
Wow,” I said. “That’s all I
have to say. Wow.”

“
Drop them,” Madison said.
“I need to see what I’m up against.”

“
It’s substantial,” I
said.

“
I would expect nothing less
from the most powerful witch in creation,” Madison said.

We both stripped and then dove into
Iguaçu Falls for a quick skinny dip.

A horrendous cloud opened in the sky
above the falls. It was Professor Coffin’s disembodied face. He
bellowed down at us.

“
Pupils stop that!” he
shouted.

Madison and I ignored him. We were too
far gone. We laughed right at the cloud. We showed off a bit for
the cloud. Why not give the cloud a good show. He had certainly
toyed with us. The cloud seemed to cringe a bit.

“
I’m too late,” Professor
Coffin grunted.

The real Professor Coffin morphed into
the pirate Professor Coffin. That Professor Coffin was back. He was
jollying us now.

“
Carry on,” The Pirate
Professor Coffin bellowed. “Carry on, pupils.”

“
I’m not even going to
cringe,” Madison said.

“
Me neither,” I said. “Are
you kidding me?”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to David J. Gardiner and
Bradford Kendall.

Dave designed the covers and Brad
contributed the illustrations.

Visit davidjgardiner.com and
bradfordkendall.com to see more of their work.

A WORD ABOUT THE COVER FONT

Eduardo Recife designed
Porcelain.

Please visit misprintedtype.com to see
more.