Eternity's Echo

by H. C. Southwark

  Suddenly he was standing in the room with her. The warmth of him, a soul without a body, was more than the heater. And he was naked, blood and mash from his wounds. Long past shame at nudity, Ellie felt odd prickles that she identified as her pores opening in the increased temperature. No more goosebumps.

  “You bastards!” Keith Smithson yelled, jabbing his crooked broken finger at the leaving doctors like a wand. “Get back to work! I have a very important meeting today!”

  “Yeah,” Ellie interrupted, “you’re taking a rain check on that one.”

  Keith Smithson whirled, and just like that he had a new target. He boomed, “You!”

  “Me,” answered Ellie. Bored with this one already. He was going to be a hassle. She hated complainers. Sometimes she swore that Susan gave them to her on purpose.

  Keith Smithson’s form changed. At once he was clothed, wearing his oversize green coat, body unmarred. But he was not a perfect replica; his eyes still held the odd buggy look. He finished the shout he had directed at her before the impact:

  “Just what is your problem, huh? You’ve been standing here making faces and glaring at me for five minutes. I didn’t do nothing! You mistake me for somebody else?”

  Ellie blinked in surprise, but caught on quickly. “Here,” he had said—Keith Smithson was no longer aware of the accident itself, had re-wound his mind to the moment that had been interrupted. If she let him, then he would walk out of the hospital in a daze, all the way back twenty city blocks to his car, which he would get into, and be upset when the engine refused to start. Ellie had seen the like before.

  Despite knowing all this, she was always caught a little off guard when this happened. Sometimes souls—or ghosts, or whatever—got into this pattern. A coping mechanism, Ellie thought—but she had no patience for any of it.

  “You have bigger concerns,” said Ellie. “You’re dead meat. Literally.”

  Keith Smithson jabbed his finger again, this time at her. His voice went up an octave in rage. “Oh yeah? Do you know who you are speaking to, you little bitch?”

  “Let me guess,” said Ellie, “Keith Smithson. Age sixty-four. Married. Divorced twice. Two kids on child support visited every other month. Employed by Colorado Springs Environmental Action Now, nonprofit dedicated to environmental works.”

  “Exactly,” said Keith Smithson. Rather than surprise, a normal reaction, his deluded mind scuttled logic and settled on pride over her knowing him.

  People were like this, Ellie knew: people don’t care about anyone but themselves. They lived their whole lives just looking and waiting, desperate for acknowledgment, but when they were acknowledged they acted as though it had been their due all along.

  “And I’ll have you know, I have a very important meeting today with Colorado Springs public union leaders. We’re going to save the Colorado wetlands.” On went Keith Smithson, prattling about his new project, which was clearly the most important thing in the world.

  Ellie had never heard of wetlands in Colorado, despite growing up here. And dying here. But she was not in the least bit curious or patient to learn about them. You stopped caring about a lot of things when you were dead, Ellie thought. Or, at least, when one realized that one was dead—because Keith Smithson was still talking.

  Other reapers would have tried to be reassuring, Ellie knew. Her mentor, Niles, would have talked Keith Smithson through acknowledging that one’s life works were only meant to last during one’s lifetime. There were more important things.

  But Ellie was not that kind of reaper.

  “Look,” Ellie interrupted. “This is just my job, okay? I take you upstairs, you go where you’ve chosen to go. Deal with your issues up there where they actually care.”

  “Upstairs?” said Keith Smithson, and for a second his voice and confidence faltered.

  Impatiently, Ellie gestured to her right.

  Making an about-face, Keith Smithson was confronted with his own body, chewed meat and blood. Flecks of asphalt and bone. The limbs were at odd angles, like a doll with joints, bent in ways that the human body should not bend.

  “Wait,” said Keith Smithson, and Ellie saw the gears in his head turn. “Am I dead?”

  “Feel free to go back into your body,” said Ellie. “But it’ll spit you out right quick.”

  She did not add that she would not allow this, as she was bored of him and felt no need to draw this out beyond the obvious. She felt his soul heating up—almost to the point that she wanted to shed her coat. A wet feeling on her back, possibly sweat.

  “But you don’t understand,” said Keith Smithson, “I have life goals. I can’t die now!”

  “Oh no,” said Ellie, scuffing her boot. Her patience was like a string Keith Smithson had plucked. “It’s not like death is unstoppable, or you knew this moment would come every single day of your life. No, this is something that has never happened to anyone before, ever. How unfair.”

  “I can’t be dead!” Keith Smithson shouted, spewing flecks of blood, then faltered: “Because... because... if I’m dead, then how am I here?”

  Ellie raised both her eyebrows and stood on tiptoes, then rocked back onto her heels. Getting him to see reality was taking longer than she wanted. “Because you just died in the hospital?”

  “But that means I survived death!”

  “...So?”

  “So I don’t believe in life after death!” Keith Smithson shouted. “No afterlife, no souls, no ghosts, no nothing! Poof! I should be gone!”

  “Whoops,” said Ellie. The passion of Keith Smithson’s rant had upped the temperature even more, so she took another step back from him. “Turns out you were wrong. Bad timing, eh? Regret giving the wrong answer to Pascal’s Wager?”

  “Huh?” said Keith Smithson, and he stared at her like she was the crazy dead person. Which, technically, was also not untrue.

  Ellie shrugged, scuffed her boot again. “So you’re dead,” she said. “Big deal. I’m dead, you’re dead. Loads of people are dead. Everyone dies, or so I’m told.”

  Even God, Ellie added, but not aloud. The image flashed in her mind: a crucifix, bloody.

  “You’re dead?” said Keith Smithson, and now he moved away from her. At first, Ellie thought he was afraid, but he was taking another look up and down her form. His face began to settle as he processed her words, the sight of his body, and what his subconscious was telling him. He morphed again, smoothing out as acceptance came, finding a midpoint between bloody mash and unhurt. He kept his clothes, thankfully.

  “You don’t look dead,” said Keith Smithson. His voice was very small.

  “I age well,” Ellie said. Her hand snuck up and tugged at the end of the scarf coiled around her neck. The bruises smarted, kept her grounded—this conversation was not going a direction that Ellie liked. This is what happened when she spent too long with souls—turns out ghosts liked to talk about death.

  “You look like a hobo,” Keith Smithson added. His voice was back to normal. Probably made himself feel better now that he had critiqued her appearance.

  Asshole, Ellie’s mind supplied. The garbage man getting hit by a garbage truck—apparently she got her wish. Still, Ellie could appreciate gallows humor and irony.

  “And you look like a butcher block,” she retorted, and Keith Smithson flinched back, blood droplets spattering as he moved. Ellie was glad that her coat was red.

  “Well, let’s get this over with,” she said. Now that he was aware, she could start. She reached into her breast pocket, paused as Keith Smithson’s soul-face went as white as the cooling meat on the slab. Ellie raised an eyebrow, “What?”

  “Are you...” Keith Smithson hesitated, “Are you going to...?”

  “What?” said Ellie, impatience rising like a blister. She recalled the voice of her mentor, Niles Hepburn, tutoring her: “Remember, Ellie, the souls... they’ve never died before. It’s all new and they’re afraid of everything. You experienced this, too. U
se empathy.”

  The memory did not soothe her, but it did prevent the blister from popping.

  “Are-you-going-to-put-me-in-Hell,” said Keith Smithson, words coming so quickly that Ellie had a little trouble following.

  “I dunno,” said Ellie, but secretly her mind was saying, Probably, yeah. Three years on the job and she was starting to get a sense of these things. Most people went to one of the Hells anyway, so a good guess. Her fingers found the rivets of her pocket-watch.

  Keith Smithson was still talking: “Is there a hell? I mean, capital-H, Hell? Is there a god? Or, capital-G, God? Do we get to choose our afterlife?” He waved his bloody hands like a small child asking to be picked up. “Don’t we all just go to a kind of happy place?”

  “No place is happy,” said Ellie, pulling out her pocket-watch.

  “But what about Heav—” and Keith Smithson broke off, for now his attention was entirely on the pocket-watch. Ellie was not surprised. Every soul she had reaped—must be around a thousand, by now—had been fascinated by the pocket-watch.

  Turning it to face her, Ellie held the watch upright between herself and Keith Smithson’s soul, and watched the whirring dials and gears inside the golden birdcage as the reaper’s tool responded to Keith Smithson’s presence. The machinery began to shift, to change to a time and place from his file—about fifty years ago, also November.

  Keith Smithson found his voice again, only now full of wonder. “What is that?”

  “This,” said Ellie, speaking mostly to keep him quiet, “Will take us back to moments in your life so we can weigh your heart.”

  “My heart?” said Keith Smithson, still in a dreamy voice, staring at the pocket-watch. Then he seemed to realize what she had said, and the implications. He sounded more alert: “You mean, I go to which afterlife based on my actions? My motives?”

  Ellie was too busy observing the dials to bother answering.

  In the periphery of her vision, she saw Keith Smithson straighten. He had been deflated in the course of their conversation, and had leaned toward the pocket-watch like a flower toward the sun. But now he looked like he had when crossing the street towards her, confident, and somehow also ready to take offense.

  “I’m safe then,” he said. When Ellie did not answer, he supplied: “I mean, I spent my whole life fighting for planet Earth. That’s probably worth a lot.”

  Uh-huh, Ellie thought. She watched as the last gear turned counter-clockwise and clicked into place. All set.

  “I wonder if capital-H Heaven is ecologically sound,” said Keith Smithson. “Must be. I’m sure the people of Heaven care a lot more about ecology, I mean, how could they not? It wouldn’t be Heaven if they didn’t. Bad people must go—”

  Ellie clicked the knob on the side of the pocket-watch, and off they went.

  Chapter Three: Ellie Watches Philosophical Roulette.

  “What is the point of everything?” a teenage Keith Smithson complained. He had acne sprouted up the side of his face, and his braces gave him a lisp. But his hand gestures were familiar from his wetlands speech in the hospital room.

  “We live, we die, for what? Poof. Gone. And in the meantime we have to put up with the parents telling us what to do while they wreck the planet. Life is suffering, man.”

  Curled up on the park bench beside him was a red-haired girl in a faux-fur lined parka. “Haven’t you heard? The origin of all suffering is desire.”

  Pimply Keith Smithson paused. “Who said that?”

  “The Buddha,” drawled redhead. She was picking at her cuticles.

  “Deep.”

  Standing before the pair, who were about her own age, Ellie snorted. She put the pocket-watch back into her coat and rocked back on her heels. Bored. Another philosophical discussion—nearly everyone’s life revolved around such things.

  Beside Ellie, salt-haired Keith Smithson stood, staring openmouthed at his younger self. He had gained more than twenty pounds in beer gut, Ellie noticed. Slowly, trembling, Keith Smithson raised his hand to almost touch his younger self’s face.

  “What is this?” he asked, sounding equally fascinated and revolted.

  “Your defining life moment,” said Ellie. She hoped the man would be quiet; many souls saw this part as important. “Some people have lots. You just got the one. So shh.”

  “Life moment?” said Keith Smithson, and ready to argue: “Only one? To decide my afterlife? My whole life in one moment? That’s not fair. I’m sixty-four—”

  “You’re gonna miss it,” said Ellie, and because Keith Smithson opened his mouth again, she interrupted: “This is the ‘your life flashing before your eyes’ part. No replays.”

  At that, Keith Smithson fell silent, turned to his counterpart.

  Keith Smithson the younger paid no attention to Ellie or his older self. Instead, he was staring at the girl across the bench with a lost look on his face.

  Ah, thought Ellie. Angsty teenage love. Here we go.

  Ellie had never had a crush. She had dreamed of boys, while alive, but only dreams. Real boys were disgusting. She eyed the pimples on Keith Smithson the younger as he mooned over the girl, felt reassured that she had made the right call.

  Keith Smithson the elder looked constipated, torn between anger and what Ellie identified as sorrow. At last he looked away, but snuck glances, unable to stop.

  The girl on the bench, meanwhile, kept at her cuticles. Ellie could see what both Keith Smithsons were missing—the way the girl was a little too focused. She was aware of what Keith Smithson the younger wanted, and hoped he would never bring it up.

  The moment dragged on too long. Even Ellie was beginning to be embarrassed.

  “You like Buddhism?” said young Keith Smithson. “I might become a Buddhist.”

  Ellie snorted; typical boy logic. I like girl, girl likes thing, I like thing too, girl should like me. Doesn’t work that way, bucko, Ellie thought.

  The redhead at least pretended to believe him. “Really?”

  “Well,” said Keith Smithson the younger, “It’s a perfect philosophy to protect the planet. Like, it’s environmentally conscious in a way that defies western categorization.”

  The redhead frowned. Ellie found herself looking up, directed by the girl’s gaze. The sky was pure Colorado—bluer than anything else in reality, blue like a child’s cartoon.

  “I don’t think you should become a Buddhist,” the girl said, after a moment.

  Keith Smithson the younger was not expecting this reaction. He probably intended her to be intrigued, or impressed, by his claim. His plan had been foiled.

  “Why not?” There was enough of a whine in his voice for Ellie to wince.

  “Buddhism is a religion, right?” she said. “You should join a thing like that because you believe it, not cause it’s convenient. Or the sake of something else. Be a Buddhist only if you actually think Buddhism’s real.” She still did not look at him.

  “Yeah,” said Keith Smithson, “but Buddhism is pro-environment.”

  “Every religion is pro-environment,” said the girl. The boy scoffed.

  She continued, “But Buddhism and environmentalism aren’t the same. Buddhists believe other things. Like reincarnation. They probably care about Earth because of reincarnation, too—because when you reincarnate, you come back. So you protect Earth to protect people’s souls.”

  “Souls,” said Keith Smithson, like the word tasted bad.

  “Well, yeah,” said the girl. “Souls.”

  The boy jerked to his feet. Beside Ellie, Keith Smithson the elder stumbled back to avoid collision, not realizing that the living would just move around him. It was the sort of thing Ellie had done in her early days. The boy paced, frowning.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t want to lie to you. So I’m going to tell the truth.”

  On the bench, the girl slouched and watched him. She looked amused. “Okay.”

  “I think this ‘soul’ thi
ng is made up,” said Keith Smithson, still pacing. He was not looking directly at the girl anymore, as though afraid of her reaction stopping him from speaking. “I don’t believe in God or souls or reincarnation or anything like that.”

  “I kind of got that,” said the girl, but attempted humor did not hide tension in her tone.

  “Good,” said young Keith Smithson. But his older version was shaking his head, looking at his younger self with pity. Ellie knew a regret when she saw one—if Keith Smithson could, she knew, he would change something here: about himself, his life, his choices.

  “I think this life is all we got,” continued the boy, “And you should, too.”

  The girl let out a giggle, a little too strained. “What is this? You go around knocking on doors, ‘Hello, have you considered our lord and savior Atheism today’?”

  “I do have a point,” said Keith Smithson. He stepped around Ellie to face the girl. “Okay. You were right about the Buddhist thing. But that only proves my point.”

  “I don’t follow,” said the girl. But she was looking directly at him.

  “You said they only believe in environmentalism because of reincarnation, right? So they don’t believe in helping the Earth for its own sake. Only because they have a deeper reason. And if that reason changes, then they stop helping Earth.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, as for me? I believe we should save the Earth because it’s all we got. There’s nothing else. If we screw up, then everyone is just screwed. There’s no do-over.”

  The older Keith Smithson was nodding his head along with these words, a faint smile on his lips. Whatever he regretted, this speech was not it. This was likely a beta version of a speech he had given many times in his sixty-four years.

  “But religious people, like Buddhists.... or, no, not Buddhists,” Keith Smithson interrupted himself, “More like your dad. Christians.” The word was spit from his mouth, and he did not notice the girl flinch in response. “And my parents. Maybe other religions, too. They don’t care about Earth—they don’t care about all of this...”