Coffin Island

by Will Berkeley

  “Got my power back,” Madison winked. “It’s horrendously powerful here.”

  “Same boat here,” I said. “I’m thinking of moving this whole continent counterclockwise just because I know that I can do it. I also need to blow off a little steam before I top. I can hardly master what’s going on inside me right now. Could you please stop playing with them?”

  “Why?” Madison asked and flicked the corpses under the chin. Their heads bobbled. Madison was jigging them about a bit. Their bodies seemed to be getting a little lighter on their feet with every mawkish step. My suspicion that they were leprechauns was seemingly being confirmed. The mind has a curious way of front running you at times. It’s a couple of time zones ahead of you. It works for a couple of seconds when the lights finally get snapped out.

  I’d watched with deep fascination as Professor Coffin had his last thought. It was petty, of course. I could hear it in my mind that he wanted one last glass of rum for the road. He went out with poetry in his heart that buffoon. It pleased me that he went out thinking something stupid. He didn’t care that he was dying. He could shrug that off. He just wanted rum before he died horrifically. That last thought really suited him. I was pleased that it was denied too.

  That old bag of bones in a pirate suit, I might have to revive him at some future point. Give him a reprieve and kill him again for old-time’s sake. Killing you reminds me of my youth. Those were some heady days back when I murdered you for the first time. I can’t believe that I had that level of conviction. Success has really made me soft. I’m just not the fierce young man that I used to be. I actually feel badly about what I’m about to do to you. Run a saber right through your heart for old-times sake. Madison had torn their hearts out and thrown them into the sun for their final pass. Even puppets have hearts in witchcraft, I suppose.

  “Professor Coffin and The Red Lady don’t amuse me now that they’re heartless,” I said.

  “I disagree,” Madison said. “They’re just getting good. I might retrieve their hearts from the sun.”

  “Don’t do that,” I said.

  Professor Coffin and The Red Lady were dead. Kaiser and Honey Badger were dead too because I could have killed them just by thinking it. I had actually already done it.

  Kaiser was crying out in the wasteland again until I put him out of his misery again. Then I reanimated the two of them for the final time and did the whole little penny opera again. They were keeping quiet for now because I had thrown them into the sun. The third death was the final one because so many things happen in threes including ultimate death in this world.

  Kaiser and Honey Badger had incinerated into nothing. It was no big deal. I could probably retrieve them if I wanted to from the red sun of this world but why bother with the headache? I’d already killed them three times. I reanimated them twice. Hadn’t I suffered them enough? I actually pulled Kaiser out of the sun. Reanimated him and very gently put him back into the sun. His final death was an incineration of great care. Then I did it to Honey Badger. I thought they should be reanimated three times in honor of the three worlds. The four deaths hinted that we might have yet another world to visit. At least that was my symbolic hope.

  Madison hurled the other two bags of garbage into the sun with furious force. A puff of ash fell out the other side. Perhaps that red hot hell was a lovely bedroom community that lay above the city limits of this hell. It was the Hollywood Hills of Hell. A crime free living room in the hamlet of Hades had just been invaded by two flying corpses. Perhaps this is how nursery rhymes involving prowlers and chimneys come about. The facts just get twisted to suit the minds of the weak. The two prowlers become one prowler. Then the solitary prowler leaves gifts instead of thieving with his accomplice. He also isn’t two corpses being thrown into the sun like bags of garbage, Merry Christmas.

  “How are you doing?” Madison asked.

  “I went up a couple clicks in intellect,” I said. “But I’m okay now.”

  “It’s just you and me, pal,” Madison said.

  “And The Tower of Babel,” I said.

  “That old thing,” Madison said.

  “We’ll make short work of it?” I asked.

  “Depends on what’s in it,” Madison shrugged. “Take my hand.”

  “I wouldn’t want to go out into this world without it,” I said.

  “You’re the most powerful witch in creation,” Madison said. “I’m holding your hand. You’re not holding mine.”

  “I prefer it my way,” I said. “I’m holding your hand.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you,” Madison said. “You are astonishingly powerful. Are you sure you’re alright in there?”

  “I’m a little tight,” I stammered. “I’m topping off right now.”

  “I think if my powers get any stronger we might have a problem,” Madison said. “I’m not sure how you’re doing it.”

  “My mind is on fire right now,” I said.

  “Taking on that magical honey badger is what’s got you all squirrelly,” Madison said.

  “Honey Badger is crawling around on my hypothalamus,” I groaned. “She just made her bed in my pituitary gland.”

  “Where do you think The Red Lady went?” Madison asked.

  “Are you getting any action from Professor Coffin?” I asked.

  “What do you think?” Madison laughed.

  “He’s trying to be a gentleman about it?” I asked.

  “What do you think?” Madison laughed.

  “We should have never killed them,” I said.

  “Of course not,” Madison imitated Professor Coffin.

  “How do we get rid of them?” I asked.

  “I don’t think that we can now,” Madison said.

  “It makes perfect sense that’s where our lousy teachers would take up residence,” I said.

  “If you don’t know what you are doing,” Madison said. “You can always teach.”

  “You can see why they kill all the intellectuals in some countries,” I said.

  “Good luck to them in this one,” Madison snorted. “I’m a broad from the old school.”

  “You gnaw on some steak that’s been in the freezer since the last ice age,” I said.

  “Eating wooly mammoth makes you squeamish?” Madison laughed. “Wait until I tuck into some corpses. I figure eating them ought to draw some fire.”

  “I wonder how you prepare leg of human,” I said.

  “I’m thinking sushi,” Madison said.

  Chapter

  Madison and I were looking at the glass Cadillac. It was sitting on the precipice of The Tower of Babel. It had driven up the scaffolding. The wooden scaffolding on The Tower of Babel was sturdier than it appeared. I had teleported us here. I had merely thought where is the cuckoo clock in this world?

  I knew the creature in-charge would be residing within. Perhaps he was incarcerated. A little chain wrapped around his bird leg. His wings deftly clipped. I didn’t care about his circumstances. It was mine that I aimed to fix. Frankly I wanted to maim that bird. However Madison’s laughing threw me off-kilter. I was deadly serious about murder. What was so funny about that?

  “What are you laughing at?” I demanded.

  “Get in the Caddy and I’ll tell you,” Madison snorted.

  We climbed into the backseat of the glass Cadillac. It was teetering over the edge of The Tower of Babel. The center of the tower was an abyss. So The Tower of Babel is some sort of well? Some fool had built a tower around an abyss. Why bother giving a black hole a chimney?

  Perhaps the black hole pulled the souls of the dead from the killing fields into some other world. Why not just push them all in with a bulldozer. The chimney, The Tower of Babel, seemed redundant. It was an unnecessary sacred monument that should be demolished immediately. It also had stairs leading down into the abyss on the inside for the chimney sweepers.

  There must have been a billion stairs on that spiral staircase on the walls. It seemed to laugh at the conc
ept of infinity. It was a quantifiable number in witchcraft. There was no way that I was walking down that morass. Jumping into the abyss was the ticket. Or what about driving into it with appalling speed in a glass Cadillac? This was my proposal. That’s why we climbed into the backseat of the glass Cadillac that was teetering over the precipice. Why not shove this ride to hell on its merry way? Let the occult take the wheel.

  Madison had two cigars in her mouth. She flipped her fingers like horns and flames lashed out. She lit the two cigars and handed one to me. Madison had called them down.

  “I just did the devil horns to be obnoxious,” she said.

  “You know what I think is awkward and funny,” I said. “We’re sitting in a glass Cadillac atop The Tower of Babel which is actually some sort of chimney for souls into the next world.”

  “It’s worse than that,” Madison said.

  “What could possibly be worse than that?” I asked. “We’re about to go over the abyss like we discussed. We’ve committed.”

  “I teleported within the teleport,” Madison snorted. “I did it just to be a total jackass.”

  “I felt you let go,” I said. “Where did you go?”

  “I went for cigars,” Madison said. “I figured why not croak smoking?”

  “You didn’t just call down those cigars?” I asked.

  “I went right to the store,” Madison laughed. “I scared the daylights out of the owner.”

  “There is an actual cigar store?” I gasped.

  “There is a whole world beyond this one,” Madison said. “It’s magical too.”

  “There is a whole magical world beyond this one?” I gasped. “What do you call this?”

  “This one is just a test as we’ve been told all along,” Madison said.

  “You’ve confirmed it?” I asked. “The test isn’t just a trick.”

  I rolled down the window of the glass Cadillac and threw my arm out the window. Why not catch a few rays in Flemish hell now that the pressure was off? I puffed heartily on the box cut cigar. At least the cigars were of the finest quality. Why not savor the only good part of witchcraft?

  “This test was the entrance exam to The Coffin Island School for Witches,” Madison practically shouted. “We passed.”

  “We passed?” I asked dumbfounded. “This whole terrible journey was nothing more than an academic exercise?”

  “Yup,” Madison said. “We killed it.”

  “What’s the bad news?” I asked.

  “The immediate score to settle is my bill at the cigar store,” Madison shrugged. “It’s substantial.”

  “You have to pay for all those cigars?” I asked.

  “I put yours on my tab too,” Madison grinned. “The cigar purveyor is a pretty reasonable creature. His name is Professor Cigar.”

  “He teaches smoking at The Coffin Island School?” I gasped.

  “I don’t know how much he teaches,” Madison said. “He’s a puff of black smoke that criticizes.”

  I groaned.

  “It’s so much worse than that,” Madison said. “I got a glimpse of the school.”

  “You saw the real Coffin Island School for Witches?” I asked. “Don’t even tell me.”

  “You’re going to die,” Madison said.

  “What did you see,” I demanded.

  “I caught a glimpse of it out the window,” Madison giggled. “I was in The English Department Tower.”

  “The English Department is a tower?” I roared.

  “We haven’t been cleared for math,” Madison said.

  “I’m not learning math at The Coffin Island School for Witches,” I roared.

  “They figured as much,” Madison said.

  “What’s out the window of the tower?” I groaned.

  “Campus,” Madison laughed. “It looks like magical Manhattan.”

  “Magical Manhattan,” I sighed. “This just gets worse.”

  “There are five boroughs,” Madison said. “Our dormitory is out in the sticks of Buenos Aires.”

  “What?” I asked. “We have to commute from Buenos Aires?”

  “On the subway,” Madison said.

  “We can’t teleport?” I demanded.

  “Underclassmen aren’t permitted,” Madison said. “We’re lower than pink whale dung. That’s what Professor Cigar told me. We’re lucky to be admitted. All these corpses here are the students that didn’t get in.”

  “You’re telling me that I didn’t learn anything on this journey?” I demanded. “I thought the Coffin Island library just entered me.”

  “You just tapped into your own knowledge like witchcraft,” Madison said.

  “What about all that power that I was just jiving on?” I asked.

  “Same deal,” Madison said. “You just tapped into what you have.”

  There was a birdhouse nailed to the dash of the glass Cadillac. I had been peering at it for some time. It was beginning to really trouble me. I wanted whatever bird that was within to come out pronto.

  “Professor Coffin,” I said to the birdhouse nailed to the dash of the glass Cadillac. “Come out.”

  Chapter

  “I’m not decent,” a shrill woman’s voice said from within the tiny birdhouse.

  I could tell that it was a man’s voice. There was too much gravel in it to be a woman. The voice sounded like it broke rocks in its free time. The sand and gravel factory in the middle of the highway was just a passion project. It built entire worlds out of rock and glass in its free time. Why not build Old Havana in glass for fun? The magical force within the birdhouse on the dash had that much power. I felt like I was beckoning fission.

  A little door swung open on the birdhouse. Out walked a tiny little parrot. The creature had a tiny stuffed Professor Coffin on its shoulder. What was the meaning of this parrot? Was this journey just a cruel prank? The tiny parrot with the stuffed Professor Coffin on his shoulder was drinking a cocktail with an umbrella in it if there was any question. He was also a Toucan which was particularly infuriating. He had to flash that tropical lifestyle on top of all the other insults to good taste and decency.

  “Hallo Booster Boo and Madison Kidd,” the tiny Toucan squawked. “Are you sure you want to be in this glass Cadillac? It’s not too late to get out.”

  “Cut it out, Professor Coffin,” Madison snapped. “We already figured it out.”

  “I had to give it one last shot,” the tiny Toucan squawked. “Some students break at the last moment of the test.”

  The tiny Toucan hopped off the end of the pole of the birdhouse. There was a flash of explosive light. It was incredibly powerful. It blinded our eyes for a second. Then we were looking at Professor Coffin. He was sitting in the front seat of the glass Cadillac under the wheel.

  Professor Coffin wasn’t some old pirate fool. He was a dignified gentleman in evening clothes. He looked like an emperor in his white tails. The jeweled panther cane that he was holding was just there to demonstrate the exclamation point. That’s how important my owner is. He carries me. I am an astonishingly expensive and unnecessary accessory. My greatness is here to dignify my owner’s presence, the jeweled panther seemed to suggest. I can crush your skull with all my black diamonds and rubies too.

  Professor Coffin was also wearing a devilishly expensive top hat. I shuddered when I thought of all the beavers that had been slaughtered to make it. It was the finest felt ever. It was racked off to the side with jovial charm. That old hat, I cut it off an emperor. Put his head in it. Now they’re both mine as well as his former kingdom.

  Professor Coffin was also smoking a cigarette in a bone holder. He hung that over the backseat for emphasis. It had a little pink whale stamped on it. Why not enjoy scrimshaw for your smoking pleasure?

  “Those frauds that I perpetrate on the page are in fact real,” Professor Coffin said. “You don’t just fake it until you make it. You fake it until you make it real. That’s how I was able to put you in those worlds. They’re real.”

  M
adison and I both froze in terror.

  “You’re Professor Coffin?” I stuttered.

  “Who else would I be?” he laughed.

  “Who was that other person?” I asked.

  “Those were just some writing odds and ends that I couldn’t do anything with,” he said. “A bit of a rough draft but I didn’t have much time to work on your test. I wrote it on some napkins when the time permitted. I was typically waiting to go up on the podium to speak for profit to capitalist organizations. I command hearty speaking fees these days. Who wouldn’t want to listen to me speak?”

  “Those three worlds that you just put us through were something that you wrote in your free time?” I gasped.

  “I used three napkins,” Professor Coffin shrugged. “I thought you might like a triptych.”

  “Why did it have to have three parts?” Madison shouted.

  “We are born into a magical world,” Professor Coffin said. “We are then tested in yet another magical world. Then we graduate to another magical world if we’re good enough.”

  “You’re an animal,” Madison said.

  “I’m thrilled you experienced the alienating affront,” Professor Coffin beamed. “That whole off-kilter thing, that’s the ticket. That’s high art. You take that ride. Chills and thrills to the top of the world.”

  “You think what you did to us is art?” Madison demanded.

  “It was horrible,” I said. “I’ll grant him that.”

  “You’re a rude hick,” Madison said.

  “That’s my background, of course,” Professor Coffin said. “We all emerge from the sticks. That’s why we’re called emerging artists at the beginning of our careers.”

  “You couldn’t do any better than that?” I demanded.

  “He didn’t even give us his best work,” Madison shouted. “That’s the cheap shot right there.”

  “He didn’t think that we deserved it,” I agreed.

  “You haven’t earned it,” Professor Coffin agreed.