by Brad Oates
Taking it up delicately, he cracked it open with little fanfare but much relish. The black metal lid clattered to the floor as the warm glass rim met his lips. His nostrils thrilled, and the sharp, burning liquid soothed his throat. He helped himself to a long swallow, chasing away the lingering ghosts of the night before.
That's more like it, he acquiesced with a relieved smile.
"Hello?" he called again, to no avail. "It's been, well..." Edgar had to consider here, crunching numbers in his aching skull before concluding it was a fruitless endeavour. "Well, it's been a while since I last confessed."
Still, no answer came.
Edgar continued, surprising even himself with his single-minded determination. "I don't really remember how all this is supposed to go," he lied, "but I suppose it's time to touch base—to settle accounts, as they say."
Edgar was stalling.
Amongst all the indescribably obscene atrocities for which Edgar was entirely in need of confessing, he found himself at an impasse—namely, where to begin.
Tipping the fresh bottle high into the air, Edgar savoured the familiar burn. The Hall of Memories—its sights and revelations played out before him as he sat in contemplative silence. He recalled the earliest details of his childhood in the heavy Sunday air, and the brutal revelations of the alley the night before flashed like perverted pantomimes across the frail wooden walls of the confessional.
"I was trying to remember how many days I've been here," he started, "but it's all blurred together. Not like that's some kind of epiphany—it's always been that way.
"I've been wasting my time here, squandering an amazing opportunity. I know that, but facing the truth is never an easy thing to do.
"It's like Duncan said, I've been running my entire life. One day after another, each one carrying some excuse not to act. I've treated time like it was meaningless—some unlimited resource to be burned away with no care or thought. It was inevitable that I eventually ran out."
He took another swallow of scotch, then one more to force down the nervous lump welling up in his throat. Finally, he pushed on. "I grew up feeling like I was guaranteed so much—as if fantastic opportunities beyond count lay just over the horizon.
"But my generation never had any great calling. I was taught in broad strokes. I've always felt ready to defend my love or to support my children. If cornered in an alley or faced with dire straits in a foreign land, I'm certain I'd have what it takes.
"But I haven't. I've been faced instead with great stretches of boredom, and my sole enemy has been the treacherous mix of tedium and convenience. For that, I've proven less of a man than I'd hoped.
"Looking back now, I realize all the things I've missed out on—things I always thought would just happen. Having my own family, that's a big one. I took it for granted that it would come about eventually—that one day when I least expected it some ideal vixen would steal my heart and set everything right. It was in the back of my mind every night I went out, and with the first shot at each bar, I'd scan the room wondering if she was there, hiding somewhere in the shadows, waiting for her moment to shine.
"But one shot leads to another, and distraction always shone the brighter. "I wanted to achieve the sort of artistic success I felt I deserved. Ever since Duncan and I were young, that was the plan. 'Rule the world', we'd always say." Edgar chuckled distantly, but his face was carved from stone. "BHI was supposed to do that. It really was the project I'd been waiting for. But I couldn't complete it. It sat for so long with just a few sections to finish. I know the director pretty much gave up on it, but not me. I never stopped believing I'd finish it, and then everything would be OK. I can't say for sure why I didn't. It's just that one thing would come up, then another.
"I guess that with so many strange stories and amusing encounters always going on, I failed to realize that's all I was doing: going on, day after day.
"Now it's all over, and when I look back on my life the distractions just blur together; one long hazy Sunday, with nothing to show for all the wasted time but a sense of weariness I just can't shake."
Edgar was exhausted.
"I know I was an asshole. It's pretty hard to deny from this vantage point.
Still, I think I did some things right. I was headed in the right direction at least, even if the progress was slow."
Taking a long swill from his bottle, the warmth of the liquor combined with the sweltering confessional, creating an inferno inside him. He sat silently for a long while, sifting through the wreckage to filter out the few decent times in his life.
"I can't say exactly what I wanted to hear from Bev. In fact, I honestly can't imagine," he started, stealing another chug of whiskey as he wondered if the existential nature of his dilemma merited an explanation to the absent confessor.
No, fuck that, he decided.
"I realize it's strange that she's still in my thoughts. At least that's what many a woman has told me since. I don't know what it is, exactly. That memory just holds me fixated for reasons I could never quite articulate. What is it about her that made no other woman worthy?"
Edgar considered this for a moment, but nothing came to him besides a dirty joke.
"Maybe it's a product of the time. Or maybe it's just the easiest time to look back on," he speculated. "I suppose I was at my very best back then, starting out with a head full of promise. Whatever the reason, I was never a better man than I was with Bev."
Reflecting for a second on the countless mistakes and lies, the silence of the confessional was a terrible burden. Even with Bev, I was never an especially good man, he accepted with a defeated sigh.
Clenching his eyelids to force back the pounding in his skull, Edgar watched the sordid history of his love life play through his mind's eye. Women desperate for connection pleaded with him. Their wet and sparkling eyes were inevitably met with only a cold gaze and flippant joke.
The cramped wooden bench was rough even through his jacket, catching and pulling with each small movement, and on the walls were sharp knobs and points waiting to catch an errant arm. From deep within the sable void before him, visions of the angels danced: Tyra with her red lips and sensuous smile, Tiffany's youthful exuberance and empty head. He witnessed Leslie's vice-fuelled glee and recalled the comforting insights of Chanel's passionate intellect. Jasmine's classy curves bounced in her expensive silks. All were overplayed and utterly trite—the sorts of twisted caricatures to which Edgar could so easily boil any woman down at a glance.
What kind of man can conjure up any woman he wants, and end up hating the result? He shuddered and took a hard swallow from his bottle, striving to dodge the impending answer.
It had always been the same—whenever things got too serious, Edgar would bail. He'd run away like a scared child, making cynical jokes to his friends while secretly reminiscing about easier times, as if they excused his present behaviour.
"It's unfair, but I guess Bev was the measuring rod I used ever since.
"I hope," he finished sadly, "I haven't derailed too many other great stories as I've struggled to glorify my own."
Edgar was afraid.
Passing a hand over his brow, he sighed under the hot blanket of the confessional's interior. The tie bit like a viper into the bare flesh of his neck. His forehead was damp with sweat. He was weak with dehydration, yet the feeling of a cigarette rubbing against his hand from behind his ear painted an eager grin across his handsome but worn face.
Serendipity, he thought. Sparking it to life, he took a long drag and groaned with relief. A quick swallow of whiskey to wash down the stale flavour lingering in his mouth, and Edgar was in...
Well, still one shy of the Trinity, he joked. But female company was not a priority for Edgar just now.
"I was always so focused on myself," he continued, staring ahead absently as he puffed on his smoke and sipped from his bottle. Part of him was beginning to feel rather proud of his newfound clairvoyance and personal insight, but the remainder underst
ood that pride served only to flip the process back onto himself. So he let it slide and forged on determinedly.
"And not just with women, I realize that now. I was a constant letdown to my friends as well." The memories of the night before were hazy at best, yet Edgar didn't need a vivid recollection to know he'd treated his friends like complete shit.
Just a rudimentary knowledge of history.
"Alex and Emeric, Jake and Duncan. They all did so much for me in my life.
"What would I have been without Alex's subtle encouragements to find my own direction? I had the opportunity to finally reconnect with him after all these years, and I didn't do a damn thing different.
"And Emeric was just so fucking good-natured." Edgar couldn't help but laugh to himself, sending a long trail of smoke snaking from his mouth to twirl about in the steamy air around him. "To be honest, I don't even know why he hung out with me. I certainly did nothing to help him along the way. I treated him like a child and a coward, but he knew exactly where he was going and got there in spite of my teasing.
"Jake is a different story, mind you." Edgar was caught up in his own momentum now and no longer stopped to consider his confessor's absence.
It wasn't really the point.
"That dolt would do anything for me, but I just used him for an ear—an excuse to go out and get hammered without running the risk of being that lonely drunk at the bar. And I've got to give it to the guy, he served his purpose well.
"I hope I get the chance to thank the dumb bastard." Edgar laughed, and took another pull from his bottle.
"And of course there's Duncan, my oldest friend. I have memories of Duncan that date back earlier than memories of my immediate family. To be honest, he's probably been the most consistent factor in my life. Without fail, he believed in me through it all. He never lost sight of my potential, even when I was a blazing contradiction to everything he thought of me.
"But I only paid him back with spite and scorn, acting like he didn't understand me." Edgar twirled the cigarette between his fingers, lazily flicking the tip onto the floor and watching the blazing embers simmer out into dull ash.
"I hope I'll get to make it up to them," he mused. But wondering exactly how much control he still had over his afterlife caused his head to spin, and gazing again at his surroundings made an angry sea of his stomach. "They were the first familiar people I saw here, yet I went straight back into my old habits despite their warnings."
Edgar shook his head, ignoring the protests of his aching skull as his hands clenched into fists of stone. The burn on his right hand sent painful sirens screeching through his mind, but ultimately went ignored. "Dammit, I've always been this way. Pushing away the important things—avoiding what matters for fear that it might vanish on closer inspection.
"This self-destructive urge has been in me as long as I can remember. I can't say why, but it seems to be one of the few things that followed along into this realm—an intrinsic part of me I just can't shake.
"I did it with Bev, I did it with BHI, and I did it with my friends in life. Then I got up here, got a fresh start, and I fucking did it all over again.
"If nothing's changed, and I'm stuck here forever, then what's the point? My afterlife is pointless!" Slamming his fist against the rickety wood-paneled wall sent a thunder crack through the confessional, and Edgar cowered in his seat.
Then, collecting his composure, he realized sadly the lie of his previous declaration.
No, he corrected himself, my life was pointless.
A hit of his bottle settled his beating heart, and with a great force of will, he stiffened his upper lip before continuing. "But at least I know that now. I know where I fell short. There's a great deal I wish I could change, but that's beyond me now." Edgar ran his dry tongue over cracking lips.
"I tried to be decent, even if I failed. But if I ever have the chance again, I know I'd set it right. No more mistakes. Not now. I never wanted to hurt anyone; I wanted to be the man they all deserved. I definitely failed, but still, I did try."
Edgar was a liar.
"I remember," he pushed on, unsure if the honest reflection or the bottle in his hand deserved the credit for his slowly increasing enthusiasm. "I was so certain things would work out. It's what I was always told, and for a long time, it seemed true enough. Little mistakes don't amount to much for a young man, but they begin to stack up with the years.
"Under the assumption that things will always be fine, it's easy to ignore the casualties on the endless road to satisfaction."
Edgar took another swig from the whiskey bottle before returning it to his lap. "I barely knew my father, but my mother was a constant source of comfort. Still, it was my grandmother who made the biggest impression. She always assured me that God had a special purpose for me, and I just needed to have faith that it may be fulfilled. It's what I was taught from a young age, and I still have trouble accepting that it wasn't really true."
He paused a moment, taking a slow pull from his cigarette as he chuckled to himself, half-amused at the situation's irony, half-disappointed by his own naïve hope that some assurance might still come.
"We sang songs, recited prayers," he finally went on. "I was told constantly that a pure heart was what really counted. But that's the way with religions— they're for the living.
"Maybe it's all bullshit. Maybe we don't really need it. Then again maybe we're just such stupid, mindless creatures; that without some clear and irrefutable rules to follow, we're doomed to go mad.
"Or maybe that's just me...it doesn't matter anyway."
Mold was forming on the crusts of Edgar's motivation, and he shook his head hard to chase out his growing sense of unease. "I've made my choices, and I guess this is me accounting for them now. I want to be good; I want to make people happy. To those ends at least, I suppose my family's teachings were a success. There are certainly people who strive for less.
"Still, a good heart has served me exceptionally poorly when everything else is so fucking rotten. It takes more than faith and ignorance to navigate through life, and a blind eye serves only the vultures."
It struck him as funny how the existential nature of his dilemma no longer seemed especially strange. His cigarette was making a brave last stand, and a quick hit of scotch told him his bottle wasn't doing much better.
"I certainly maintained at least a vague idea of where I wanted to go. But I was always content, and I always felt safe. Maybe that's what kept me from making significant changes in my life. It just never occurred to me to trust in anything but time to get me there. I considered it part of my charm—the flippancy and avoidance—they just made my inevitable success that much more impressive.
"I wish I'd started earlier, but that's the power of hindsight—especially in a place like this. I had what it takes; I don't think anyone would deny that. Maybe if I'd had better inspirations, or if I hadn't placed my faith in fatalism and taken personal responsibility instead, things would have worked out better. Who can say?
"Perhaps that's the real lesson beneath blind faith, and I've just learned it a bit too late."
Edgar was a phony.
He sighed, feeling utterly naked in the dim, hot silence of the booth. The edges of the bench tore at his tired legs—straight razors forming the walls of a sadistic holding cell. In front of him, the inky void twisted and morphed before his eyes, etching images of suffering and torment into his worn-out mind.
The light in the confessional was dim, but what little there was appeared to flicker—the entire enclosure lit as if by roaring fires sufficient to account for its overwhelming heat. Edgar's head still throbbed, and his squeamish guts roiled with the potent cocktail of Sunday sickness and candid introspection.
"I know," he began again, hesitating just long enough to take a quick swill from his bottle. He coughed and sputtered as the noxious flavour hit his tongue, then continued. "I always knew things needed to change. It was simply a matter of when. It felt like I had a lifetime
ahead of me—time to re-evaluate and plan—but more importantly, time to stay lost in the comfort just a little while longer.
"I guess it keeps coming back to time. Life must always do that when it begins to grow short. Wish I had more, but wasted what I had...it's all the same shit.
"I never intended to squander my opportunities, not consciously at least. I always had an escape plan, ready to go into effect on any given tomorrow. But that never comes. Each day is written off before it begins: one more day of freedom or one final day of recovery. One or the other, then the cycle continues back around. But it's never too late..."
...until it is.
The space remained silent, and peering at the jet-black hole to the other side, he let his bottle rest in his lap. The room looked strange, blurred and distorted as if a thin veil of smoke hung between Edgar's eyes and his reality. "Despite how satisfied I felt with where I was, I'd never have said it was where I wanted to end up. It started as a pit stop of sorts, but the road was so easy, and I guess the distractions eventually overtook the destination.
"Even up here, it somehow seemed like I'd have plenty of time to get around to what mattered. I knew I had to do the decent things and have the tough conversations, but there were other things to do as well. I've never in my life been an unhappy man; it's just that a swallow of whiskey or the touch of a woman has always promised to make me even happier."
Edgar was lost.
He took a deep drag from the cigarette hanging limply in his mouth.
Holding his breath, his head rolled and the room wheeled about madly. Exhaling slowly, he watched the smoke coil around like dragon's breath, wreathing his monastic trappings in its reeking haze.
"Who the hell was I? What did I think made me so different?" Edgar asked with a cynical laugh. Only silence met his question, but he smiled, easing back on the hard wooden bench and letting his mass slide down the rough backrest. He was growing strangely comfortable with the quiet and wondered if that was all he'd ever needed—a chance to hear himself: unjustified, unrestrained. The booth was free of judgment, and that only made its inevitable verdict all the more profound.