Purgatorium

by J. H. Carnathan

  I unbuckle my seatbelt and open my frozen door. It falls off and shatters to the ground on impact. I step out, feeling my body aching in many places. I look at the hourglass in the reflection of the coffee shops window. I made it, I think, watching the sand collecting at the bottom. I turn around to see Madi’s car. Its whole exterior is gone. I smile, thinking how lucky I am that I survived. I hobble towards the coffee shop, then hear a loud screeching sound behind me. I quicken my pace.

  Once inside, I feel completely safe. I fall to the floor as if I were out of breath.

  Sealtiel was right. I am the one to blame for this. I either gave up or cheated through what life was trying to teach me. But not anymore.

  I get myself collected and think of the first thing I should do. If I am going to survive this race then I will need to know Sealtiel’s trick—how to appear as someone or something different. That way I may be able to hide from the reapers when they come. I look at the reflection in the window and watch the hourglass flip over. I would like to think of this as a metaphor for turning over a new leaf.

  20 Minutes

  I make my way up the hill, knowing I should apologize for my shortcomings to Sealtiel. That’s if I ever see him again. I get to the top and low and behold, there he is, sitting on the very same bench in which I first met him. I walk further in, head down. Nearing the bench, I bring my gaze up again. Sealtiel has his teacup in hand.

  I sit down next to him, watching the lightning flash, followed by the crack of thunder that echoes in the night sky. Getting closer to Sealtiel, I see the necklace is no longer around his neck. His playing card peeks out of his chest pocket. Before I can think of anything, he says,“Calming, isn’t it? Even in a place like this you can find solitude.” He sips his tea, gazing out at the vast park. “Good to see you have ascertained a new perspective on life. I will take that as your apology.”

  He hands me a cup of tea, nudges my shoulder, and says, “Now tell me, was that a ride or what? I saw you going down into that frozen twister. Did your testosterone kick in? Starts from your heart and ends at your head. Feeling that beautiful rush of adrenaline is a sign that you know you’re alive. A feeling such as that, I can sadly only bear witness to. If I had a desire for anything, that would be mine.”

  The word desire makes me remember the logbook in my jacket. DESIRE is six letters.

  “Maybe when I see you make your way to that finish line, I will feel a hint of it,” Sealtiel says with a kind-hearted smile towards me.

  I raise my cup to him and we clank them together. He takes a sip while I look into my cup, wondering what’s the point if I can’t taste anything? I place it beside me, staring down at the cup. I am absorbed with powerful thoughts of wanting to remember how good liquor tasted on my tongue. A liquid beverage of the highest possible alcohol level would make this day go by a lot quicker. More of a reason for me to hurry up and leave this place.

  We watch the lightning strikes in the clouds. The thunder sounds are almost soothing as we sit there in silence. Sealtiel looks down at my watch as I take the logbook out of my jacket. Fooling around with the rotary dial, I begin thinking of words that have five letters and are somehow related to my desire. For kicks and giggles, I put in JESUS. Nothing happens. Maybe it’s my daughter, but ANNA is spelled with only four letters. What would be another word to describe my child?

  It only takes me a few seconds to figure out what I just said. I put in CHILD. Nothing happens. Okay, I need to really think here. Sealtiel said that desire could be either good or bad. If my desire was bad, then it could somehow be related to my sin.

  I press the five letter word DEMON in the top rotary dial. Clack! The first lock is open. I hold in my excitement, looking over to see if Sealtiel has noticed. He seems occupied with watching the big oak tree getting engulfed by the tornado. The tree seems stable enough that not even a twister can release it from its roots. I slowly put the logbook back in my jacket, hoping to not catch Sealtiel’s wandering eyes.

  I look away from him and spot the stairs to the subway station across the park.

  The 42:02 problem.

  Sealtiel looks away from the tree and back over to me as if he just heard my thought.

  Does that mean anything to you?

  He responds right away. “You’re simply far too pedestrian, plebeian even, to understand just yet.”

  What’s that suppose to mean?

  “I mean, you’re still new at this. You still use your watch to help you track the seconds here. The old you use to count every single second from 1 to 60 minutes just to understand where he needed to be at the exact time he was supposed to be there. And look how far he got. I mean, you got. I mean…well you know what I mean!”

  I sit there wondering how I am going to get his help. He did say he loved to gamble. But what do I have to offer?

  Sealtiel’s ears turn red of the thought of me wanting to gamble. “Ah! So you want to make another deal? Go on.” He looks over at my watch and smirks.

  I take off my watch and place it on his lap. If you help me, it’s yours, I think to him. Sealtiel eyes it surreptitiously and scratches his chin for a moment.

  “You are willing to part with something so precious, so unique for something you will just learn tomorrow?”

  It’s just a watch, I think.

  “Just a watch? Never have I ever seen you bargain with this extremely rare antique before. Interesting,” he says as he rubs his chin towards me.

  Interesting? The watch isn’t real. None of this is. I just want to learn what I have to learn so I can make it back home. So please just take it.

  “A deal then,” he says, lifting his hand out to me. I quickly shake it to speed things up. His grip is heavy up against mine. He lets go and picks up the watch. Looking back at me, he gives a certain facial expression as if I were tricking him in some sort of way. He latches the watch buckle around his wrist. His prestigious smile is glowing while he models it to himself.

  “I suppose that does change things now, doesn’t it?” Sealtiel holds his ear out and a mischievous looking smile runs across his face. “Well, Judicial explains it funny anyway. I am sure he won’t mind if we skip ahead just a tiny bit.”

  Sealtiel stands and walks to the tree. I guess that’s his way of telling me to follow him.

  “The infamous 42:02 problem. Now I bet you are wondering to yourself, ‘42:02? Isn’t that the time the music plays on the outside? Why would that be a problem?’”

  Sealtiel takes a sip of his tea. “The 42:02 problem is more of a danger to you than you know. It will be the hardest thing to face in your race.”

  I feel uneasy about this already.

  “When the time hits 42:02, you know by now the music will start to play. While your mind transports you back into your past memories, the time begins to slow down. Since you and the time here are connected to each other, that means you as well are slowed down. The only things that don’t slow down are…?”

  Reapers, I think we displease. Reapers have the ability to go into my past too?

  “It’s not the past. What you are seeing is picture on picture. A virtual slideshow of what your memories feed off of. You are just a man coming in late to a moving picture show and sitting right between two fat slothful human beings, looking up at a big screen. The movie playing is called, ‘Your past memories.’ The reapers are like the ushers, coming to escort you out. While sitting between two fatzillas makes running away a little more impossible to accomplish.”

  All this time I thought I was reliving my past, but it turns out to be nothing more than a home movie tape, I depressingly think.

  “You have been safe for the past few days because you were in the right time zone during the occurrence. But in three days, the race will start and you will not be getting on that train at 42:02. You will be somewhere else; maybe on that rickety old bridge, your apartment building, and
worst case scenario, anywhere that is not on the subway car. And when that time turns 42:02, the music will still sound. Once you get sucked in by it, your body would act like it were standing still from a reaper’s point of view. This will allow them plenty of time to rush right in, erasing your memories before you even knew what hit you, like a cat chasing a turtle. Ergo, why we named it the 42:02 problem. Questions?”

  Unknowingly perplexed by my situation, I bend down my head and take a breath.

  Are you trying to tell me that not only do I have to break all the hourglasses in perfect sequence while being chased down by probably over a hundred reapers, mind you, but also keep a watchful eye out for lost souls and demons who might get in my way? Not to mention, I have to do all that in under 42:02?

  “There is one other way. That entails of you finding your equilibrium,” he says with a sour face.

  Equilibrium?

  “When you find peace between your mind, body, and soul you can then form your equilibrium. By finding, said peace, the music will have no affect on you. Because ultimately, you will no longer have to look at your past for answers. You will already know and have learned from them. Though once again, it’s a point of clarity that is hard to reach. The past always seemed to present you a safe haven. Where Madi is happy and unknowing of your future sins. Where she is very much alive with Anna in memories that you personally found were satisfying enough, rather than what your future holds after all this. Leaving that idea, that memory, has become a hard acceptance for you.

  Have I never once found my equilibrium?

  Sealtiel bows his head, sipping his tea, shying away from the answer I have already calculated in my head. Sealtiel leans over to me and says, “I bet you are wishing that whoever is playing the music out there would just shut it off already, am I right?”

  I turn in anger and walk away from him, heading to the publishing office, all the while thinking that it’s becoming clear to me why I have lost this race so many times.

  25 Minutes

  After a few seconds, I can hear my watch on Sealtiel’s wrist going off in the distance, letting me gladly know that he isn’t following behind me.

  I step into the elevator, its walls lined with mirrors. Doubts fill my head concerning all that I have come to find out about the race. I know that I must win by beating the time of 42:02, and that will be nearly impossible.

  While looking at my reflection, I select the office floor on the panel. The doors start to slide closed but something interrupts it.

  I am shocked to see a reaper unexpectedly in front of me. I feel no coldness in the air. How did it just sneak up on me? I’m still in my correct time zone. It shouldn’t be here!

  I just stand there, despondent, waiting for the reaper to just get it over with.

  What are you waiting for?! Erase it all away! Go on!

  I impatiently reach out my hand to touch the reaper’s mask, when all at once it transforms into Sealtiel.

  “I am very disappointed in you,” he says, pushing me to the floor and pressing the button on the floor panel. The elevator doors close us in together.

  How did you do that? I think, feeling resigned on the elevator floor.

  “Why do you care? Teaching you how to do it would be like firing that gun of yours without gun powder, useless. You once again gave up. I knew you wouldn’t change. All of this again was for nothing,” Sealtiel says, turning his face to the doors.

  I stand back up to show him that I made a mistake. I wasn’t in the right mind set, all the while thinking about his little magic trick he just did. By saying that he could teach me must mean I can learn to do it too. If I were to learn how to change my appearance to look like a reaper, then there wouldn’t even have to be a race. That might be my only resolution out of this mess.

  Sealtiel turns to me. “It sounds to me like you are down for another arrangement, a deal if you will?”

  I try thinking of what I could possibly give him that would mean anything.

  “Who am I kidding? This deal would be too rich. You have never mastered this trick and I mean never. You haven’t the answer to the main question to even begin the thing!”

  What question?!

  Sealtiel looks me over, playing with his tongue. “Alright, I will give this one question up to ya for free. But that’s it! Hear me?”

  I nod.

  “Your poker face needs a little work, cowboy. Listen closely before I change my mind, ‘Who do you want to be?’”

  I stand there, clueless at where this random question originated from.

  “If you want to learn how, then you have to learn who you are. It’s the only way to go about it. Told you it wasn’t going to be easy for ya.”

  Who did I want to be? I think back to myself.

  “No, not who you were but who you want to be. Let me tell you a small fact of who you were. A writer with no ambition or goal. A book you have worked on for many years that in all honesty you never truly wanted to finish. You hid behind. shame and doubt long enough that you brought down your family because of it. You have rewrote it so many times that you could have made a series out of them!

  Concentrating, I look in the mirror. My mind goes off course again to the deeper meaning of the question, which gets me thinking, Who do I want to be? If I remember correctly, didn’t I want to be a writer at one point? Throughout my time here I had an enormous amount of writer’s block, not ever once writing a single sentence. I don’t really know if I am even good at writing.

  I snap back, looking at myself in the mirror.

  “Writing is one of the ways that you use to free yourself from concern, a way to stop the world through total mental, spiritual and physical involvement. Maybe writing will help you with the situation you’re in now. Make you think clearer in maybe finding out who you want to be.”

  The elevator doors open. We walk out and through the many cubicles leading back to my office room. Once I enter, I see the desk that I spent a countless amount of time at, trying to write the perfect story. Nothing ever coming out right. Nothing ever coming out at all.

  I hear the grandfather clock ticking away by my desk. No matter how many times it gets destroyed, it always seems to come back a bit more louder than the day before. Maybe because before all this happened to me, it was the only type of soothing noise that I was accustomed too. Now it just haunts my soul.

  I touch the marbleized desk, hearing the whispers in my head, telling me that I wasn’t good enough at being a writer, that I could have been better. I crawl down into despair, not knowing whether what it is saying is true or fiction.

  I loud crackling noise is heard out the window. That pops me up.

  Sealtiel looks down to me, “If you listen for sinful wisdom, then that is what you will hear. There will always be someone who seems to be doing better than you. No matter what you gain, your demon will not let you rest. It will tell you that you cannot stop until you’ve left an indelible mark on the earth, until you’ve achieved immortality. How tricky is the sin that it would tempt us with the promise of something we already possess.”

  He picks me back up, brushing off my shoulder, then walks over to the corner to make a fresh pot of tea. While he is distracted, I get out the logbook and see where I put DEMON on the top rotary dial.

  30 Minutes

  I look out the window, feeling dejected at not knowing the second password to the book. My true desire has to do with my demon. In other words, my demon is formed by my biggest sin from my strongest desires. But if that’s the case, why wouldn’t lust be the answer? That is my biggest sin, isn’t it?

  Sealtiel brings out a tea set and puts it on the desk. He sits me down in the chair and lays down a piece of blank paper.

  “The only way to truly know is to try,” he says placing a pen in my hand.

  Just like the many times before, I look at the white paper, no
t knowing where to begin. Just staring at its blank white surface leaves me restless and unkempt. I hold the pen steady, pressing it up against the sheet. I mark it as I always do. Out of anger, I toss the paper and pen, not wanting to go through this again. I stroll over to the window and watch the lightning dance across the cloudy sky, knowing that any minute now the day will end and the night will come forth. The object of time is seen through the window. I touch the hourglass reflection again and feel its warmth on my skin.

  “You are one stubborn individual. Okay, fine! Let’s make a deal then.” Sealtiel picks up the pen and paper. “If you write two things true to yourself then I will tell you the trick, deal?” He lays the paper before me and once again holds the pen out. “But if you don’t write anything in the last remaining minutes we have in this place, then I want you to finally give yourself up to the reapers so no other angel will waste their time on your consistent failure.”

  I look over at the nice texturized pen as it glistens off the office lights hanging above it.

  I need to know that trick if I am ever going to win the race.

  I take the pen and sit back down.

  “That’s a deal then. You have two minutes.” Sealtiel lays the tray down in between us and takes a seat on the other side of the desk. He holds the tea pot and pours a murky liquid into his tiny cup. Steam hovers above the rim, forcing him to blow over the cup to cool it down. He takes seven sugar cubes off the tray and drops them into his tea cup, one by one. Lifting his spoon, he begins to stir the tea counter clockwise.

  With each revolution he makes, I can hear the spoon clank up against the inside of the tea cup. The sound that carries from it goes along with the old grandfather clock. Both ticking to a sound that can drive a person mad. He is doing this to distract me. I steady my wrist, touching the pen down on my paper. Quickly, I come apart from the constant noises. I throw the pen down, not even knowing why I ever thought I could do this.

  Sealtiel stops. Taking a sip from his tea cup he says, “You are ahead of the game. You already know you are a writer and that peace, that peace that you’re after, lies somewhere beyond personality, beyond the perception of others, beyond invention and disguise, even beyond effort itself. Don’t let anything distract you from the light that shines through your soul to the words you write or let others read.”