Transmigration

by Nicholas Maes

  “You know what, Dog Bone?” Winston said, handing his laptop over to Peter. “I really can’t stand it. I’m gonna kick your ass to Hong Kong.”

  His fists were curled and he was ready to strike. Simon almost grinned. How interesting. He was hoping both parties would come off badly, even if it meant his shatl might get bruised. What a pity that, before Winston could pounce, Jenny Frobisher stepped in. She pushed him hard and he backed off quickly.

  “One day your angel won’t show,” Winston snarled, “and you’ll have to face me all on your lonesome.”

  “Big deal,” Cletho said. “Whether I’m alone or not, you’ll still be just a punk.”

  As Winston moved off down the hall, Cletho glanced at Jenny. “What do you want?” he asked. “A medal or something?”

  Her reaction was odd. She looked at Cletho and her face went pale. Without a word, she hurried off, like someone fleeing an accident scene. She was easily the toughest kid in school, yet something about Cletho scared her badly, as if … no, that couldn’t be.

  The bell rang. Recess was over. With a shake of his head, Simon stalked down the hallway. While he was curious to know what Jenny had seen, he had to get that address for Koblansky’s. He would solve the mystery some other time. A minute later, he drew up to the library door and meowed until the librarian took notice. A lover of cats as well as books, Ms. Lambert smiled and let Simon in.

  “I see you have some reading to do,” she joked in passing.

  Little did she know.

  He passed a line of bookshelves until he reached three tables that were crowded with computers. Each was taken — a few students were on spare and checking their Facebook accounts. If Simon wanted to look up Koblansky’s, experience told him he’d have to wait a long time.

  Unless …

  He headed over to the Current Events corner. This space was removed from the rest of the room and was where Ms. Lambert kept the periodicals. It was a comfortable spot, hidden from view, and the perfect place to play a game of online poker, which was why Peter and Winston often hung out there. And, sure enough, there they were, seated at a table with a laptop between them.

  They were eyeing the screen, entirely absorbed. Winston was saying how their opponent was bluffing and they should call his bet and raise him twenty. Simon leapt onto the table and bore down on their laptop.

  “What the hell?” Peter cried, as Simon sprawled beside the keyboard.

  “Hey, cat! Go away!” Winston yelled.

  Simon merely glanced at them and hissed. They retreated from the table, leery of his fangs. Simon placed his paw on the mouse and moved the cursor to the X in the corner. He depressed the pad and the window closed, cancelling their poker game.

  “What is this?”

  “Hey, cat! You tired of living?”

  Again Simon hissed and motioned with his paw, causing them to keep their distance. Turning to the laptop, he placed the cursor on the Google icon and clicked it hard. The search engine opened and he laughed within. Now came the tricky part …

  “Holy crap!” Peter spoke. “It can use a computer!”

  “It’s luck,” Winston answered. “Hey, cat! I guess you think you’re Bill Gates or something? Well, smart or dumb, we’re going to teach you a lesson. Grab him, man!”

  “No way. I hate cats. They give me the creeps.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not afraid.” Winston rolled a magazine into a club. He turned to Simon, grinning cruelly.

  “You want to mess, cat? Well, you chose the wrong victim.”

  There are advantages to being a cat. Your control is so precise, your muscles and balance are so finely tuned, that when you’re faced with a human, even an athletic one like Winston, you realize just how awkward they are.

  “You gonna leave? No? Then take that, you ugly creep!”

  Winston swung his “club” at Simon. Evading it easily — it seemed to move in slow motion — Simon lashed out, unsheathing his claws. He caught Winston on his right wrist and felt the skin give way. Instantly four lines appeared, each spitting drops of red.

  “You freak!” Winston screamed, glancing at his wounds then waving his club. “I’m gonna make you history, bro!”

  “Maybe that’s not a good idea,” Peter warned.

  It wasn’t.

  As Winston swung the club three times, Simon ducked and jumped onto a shelf. Certain that he’d chased him off, Winston was about to crow in triumph, but that’s when Simon lunged at him. Covering six feet in a standing jump, he hit Winston’s chest and dug his nails into his shirt — it was silk and must have cost a miniature fortune. By twisting his front paws, he clawed the silk open and left eight lines on Winston’s skin. As Winston spun about in alarm, Simon retracted his claws, dropped to the ground, and quickly resumed his place on the table. He hissed and spat for further effect.

  “Let’s get outta here!” Peter cried.

  “That lousy cat! My shirt cost two hundred bucks! I’m gonna fetch a broom and beat its brains out!”

  “Just move it, bro! He’ll attack if we don’t!”

  When the pair left the alcove, Simon returned to the laptop. This was the hardest part. Gingerly he placed his paw on the pad and started punching out the different letters. Typing ‘Koblansky Vancouver’ took awhile, because his paw kept hitting several keys at once. When the words were in the search box, he hit Enter.

  Thirty-four results appeared. There was Bill Koblansky Business Solutions, Paul Koblansky Interior Design, Sharon Koblansky with children’s aid, Mike Koblansky and his big brass band, Koblansky Printers, Koblansky Linens, Koblansky Meat Packing, juggler Stan Koblansky …

  Wait. Koblansky Meat Packing. What had Pebhlo said last night? Something about Tarhlo and the smell of blood? Simon chose this entry.

  “Koblansky Meat Packing. Feeding BC families for fifty years. Located in Surrey, on 66th Avenue.” His instincts tingled. This had to be it.

  There was shouting in the distance. Peter and Winston. They were coming back with Ms. Lambert in tow. He closed the window and was about to leave. Just as suddenly he turned to the laptop.

  He opened up Word. Manoeuvring his paw he typed a sentence. It wasn’t perfect but his meaning was clear. He left the table and approached a group of students who would keep Peter and Winston from striking back.

  What would they think when they saw Simon’s message? It read: “dogbon says ’tings arnt alwys wat they sem.”

  Chapter Nine

  The sun was almost below the horizon. A breeze was blowing in from the west, interfering with Simon’s progress. It pushed him too far left, then right, then way too high, then in a downward spiral. And a bird had its eye on him — he thought it was a bird. Bird or otherwise, it passed him by. Whew!

  He was in a common house fly. If a meeting was taking place at Koblansky’s, dozens of hemindhs would probably show, some of whom might be keeping a lookout. It went without saying that he couldn’t be caught. To prevent this from happening Simon had to hide in something small. A fly fit the bill, even if it posed problems.

  To start with, his vision was all off. He was seeing lots of objects at once, none of which was sharply in focus. He could absorb light easily, even as the sun was setting, but couldn’t interpret what his fly eye was seeing. He was relying more on what his own senses told him, a good thing too as he’d have been lost otherwise.

  At the same time he was used to piloting birds. When the wind had struck his sea gull’s wings, he’d known how to twist them and to coast just so. The fly was much more difficult to steer. Its weight was tiny compared to the gull’s, and its paper-like wings were miniscule too. The slightest breeze could knock it off course. But it was more manoeuvrable: it could turn on a dime and perform loop-the-loops.

  The worst part was his vulnerability. After leaving school, Simon had transferred to a sparrow, spent time in a raccoon, then hopped on board a sparrow again until, at 66th and the Pacific Highway, he’d boarded a fly. He was barely in it when a passing bird ha
d nabbed him.

  Being eaten was … uncomfortable. It was like a fist pounding down on him and bursting his vessel apart. The fly’s kaba had dissolved, emitting a high-pitched shriek, a horrible, blood-curdling sound. Simon had felt bad for the fly: while small, almost trivial, its life had value, surely. As the bird had swallowed the fly’s vadh whole, which had twitched and shuddered in a last act of protest, Simon had transferred to a second fly — the one in which he was travelling now.

  He was nearing his objective. Ahead of him was a low, squat building that was a hundred metres long and had aluminum siding. There were vents at even intervals and, over to the back, a series of docks with retractable doors. Above a glassed-in entrance was a sign: Koblansky’s. There was also a gut-wrenching smell in the air, of blood and guts and life cut short.

  The fly’s kaba was twitching. It found this stench exciting.

  Simon wondered if he’d got the right Koblansky’s. There was a stillness hanging over the place, as if the building were tired from the day’s business practice, receiving carcasses and trimming meat off the bones. Why was it so quiet and dimly lit if it was the meeting place? Still, having travelled all that way, he had to look it over.

  He landed on an outer wall, just above the entrance. Wandering over the aluminum surface, he drew near the roof. At a point where the wall and an overhang met he stopped abruptly. Just in time: an inch away hung a spider’s web, with a large, hulking mass at its centre. Simon could sense the spider holding its breath and waiting for the fly to graze its strands so that it could pounce and strike out with its fangs. With a shudder of revulsion, Simon avoided the trap.

  There. A gap in the siding drew him over. Squeezing through, he reached the cinder blocks behind. Searching out these blocks, he discovered a pair with crumbled mortar that formed a crack just large enough to pass through. Beyond these blocks there was a length of drywall. Simon found another tiny gap immediately beside an electrical outlet. A moment later he was in the building.

  He flew across an office space. There was a cup with some drops of coffee at its bottom and he drank from it to give his vadh strength — the sound of the fly sucking was faintly disgusting. At the back of this room was a metal door. It was open slightly and he drifted through, somewhat apprehensively. What was waiting further on?

  The answer came quickly. He was in a warehouse space. Some overhead lamps were on but the lighting was eerie. Metal hooks hung from the ceiling. Attached to some were carcasses of beef, suspended by the hooves. The skin had been flayed and the blood drained off. The bodies had been split in two, the ribs were visible, and the flesh was vivid. There were lots of carcasses, all hanging inert, the muscles intact but stilled by Death’s wand.

  Simon was spooked. He was thinking of fleeing when he heard some voices up ahead. So this was the place and there was a meeting. He inched his way forward bit by bit, flying a few feet then pausing briefly. After what seemed like an eternity, he reached a second room.

  There were more dangling hooks, but all of them were vacant. There were also eight enormous band saws — to cut the carcasses, Simon assumed — as well as long tables with built-in troughs. There were hoses coiled all over the place and heavy metal doors attached to industrial fridges. In front of these doors was an open space. Simon gasped. It was packed with … weirdos.

  There were just a few animals, otherwise the bolkhs were riding in shatls. These human “shells” weren’t exactly normal. Most were like Henry, homeless boozers. Then there were some older people whose dishevelled looks led Simon to suppose that they had Alzheimer’s or something like it. With their worn out faculties they’d be easy to hijack. Some children were present, teens as well, and a dozen adults in their prime. Simon was wondering how the bolkhs had nabbed them, until he noticed that this crew was dressed in hospital gowns. They were patients suffering from a range of ailments, madness, concussions, accidents, diseases, violence, and the occasional coma. The fly’s antennae shivered all over.

  As creepy as this setting was, he’d be wise to stick around and listen. He alighted on a ceiling beam, giving him a view of the proceedings.

  “So, where’s Tarhlo?” a hemindh grumbled. He was riding the body of a ten-year-old girl who was dressed in a nightie that was filthy and torn, a shocking contrast with its teddy bear pattern. The girl’s stare was vacant and gave Simon the creeps.

  “The wind will bring him. Be patient, Dohl,” a huge man in an overcoat rebuked the girl. This figure had a hatchet face and hands that were grimy and covered in sores.

  “Why should I be patient, Rahl?” Dohl complained. “Once again Tarhlo is like a charging bull, all madness and no wisdom. So a strange bolkh has surfaced. What does this prove?”

  “You should speak less recklessly,” Rahl murmured in warning.

  “Why? I am tired of Tarhlo’s promises. Hope doesn’t feed the belly like meat. And other bolkhs agree with me.”

  His statement caused the crowd to grumble. Some hemindhs murmured their assent, while others, like Rahl, urged less dangerous language.

  “Where is Tarhlo?” Dohl yelled above the hubbub. “If matters are so pressing, why does he linger?”

  “He is coming from Chicago and beyond,” a lady spoke. She looked like a grandmother, only her hair was tangled and her neck was fitted with a brace.

  “And he has others to advise,” Rahl resumed. “You shouldn’t distract him when he toils at the hunt.”

  “I like that!” Dohl yelled. “He has missed the target ten thousand winters, and you dare suggest that I’m distracting him! If he were here, I would question him.”

  “And what would you ask?” a voice broke in. From the centre of the crowd a figure strode forth, causing everyone to gasp and murmur.

  Tarhlo. He was riding the shatl of a man in his twenties, a tall, strong-looking specimen. He was dressed in a pinstripe suit, the sort of clothes an executive might wear, only some of it was bloody and a leg was torn. And when Tarhlo showed his left side off, Simon saw his shatl’s head was badly damaged.

  “You are a welcome sight,” Dohl spoke, his confidence leaving him like air from a balloon. “And I see you are riding an interesting shatl.”

  “I found him a short while ago. He was struck by a car and pronounced dead by a doctor. He didn’t need his shatl so I helped myself.”

  “He’s … you mean … you’re riding a corpse?”

  “Yes. It is a talent of mine. But the corpse cannot be more than two days old.”

  The crowd was silent. The bolkhs backing Dohl were uncertain now, while the ones supporting Tarhlo were clearly pleased to see their leader.

  “But you have questions,” Tarhlo continued, in a tone that was friendly and at the same time dangerous.

  Dohl swallowed hard. Tarhlo’s arrival had splashed water on his rage, and Tarhlo had an air that wasn’t to be toyed with. But Dohl’s resentment got the better of him and, after clearing his throat, he spoke his mind freely.

  “It is said you have summoned us because a stranger has appeared. Is this true?”

  “No,” Tarhlo answered. Then, in case the figures in the back hadn’t heard, he repeated in a thunderous voice, “It is not true that a stranger has appeared.”

  “But the rumour …”

  “In actual fact,” Tarhlo went on, holding up a hand to keep people from speaking, “TWO new bolkhs have come to light. And they are far from normal. They are the bolkhs we’ve been searching for these last sixteen winters. Have you forgotten your joy when these saviours appeared and your misery when they were taken away, stolen beneath our very noses? Even as we despaired, I assured you we would track them down and, sure enough, that day has come.”

  Tarhlo smiled. The effect was ghastly. Even when he smiled, a corpse was still a corpse.

  “Think what this means,” he urged them. “The male is a woplh, according to Cletho. And where there’s a woplh, there must be a hamax. Think of it, a hamax! After waiting bitter winters past counting, we have at last th
e means of incarnation!”

  He paused. He was overcome with such emotion that his shatl was weeping tears of blood. Droplet after droplet spilled from his ducts, leaving stains on his ashen cheeks. But these tears weren’t enough of a release. He flew from the shatl and circled the room in spirit form. Although his kaba was invisible, its life force was so explosive, so much like a shock wave from a bomb, that Simon sensed the course of its trajectory. It wafted close to the beam he was on and practically sucked his vadh into its wake. As quickly as he’d left the corpse, Tarhlo stole back in and raised its limbs from the floor.

  The crowd was mesmerized. No one spoke. Even those who’d been impatient with Tarhlo were standing at attention, rapt and full of awe.

  No. One was unimpressed. Dohl had lost his fear of Tarhlo and was making his hostile feelings clear. He was crossing the little girl’s arms in defiance and holding her head scornfully high. When he spoke his tone was sharp, insulting, even though his shatl’s voice was thin and reedy.

  “Do you expect to sow hope in us?” he asked. “For centuries you have promised our lot would improve. A hundred times I have heard you say, ‘This time we will be restored! Now the age of incarnation is near!’ But always, without fail, we have suffered disappointment.”

  Dohl paused, as if daring the crowd to contradict him. When no one spoke, or moved a muscle, he nodded to himself and continued speaking. “It has been countless winters since the time of our expulsion. Untallied winters of waiting and false hopes. Whenever luras went to war, what did you say? ‘This time they will destroy each other and we will feed upon their weakness!’ When luras of the desert warred, of the rivers warred, of the wooden horse warred, of the great marble city warred, of the forests warred, of the castles warred, of the machines warred, of the hand-made fires and hurricanes warred, then, then, you promised always, we would rise, we would live, we would catch the summer breeze and have our retribution! ‘Now it happens!’ you promised. ‘Now we will prevail!’ But you were wrong. Always, you were wrong.”