Upside Down

by Jaym Gates

  When the Magician turns, the thing that was their daughter is there, at the threshold of what was once her room. It stares at the designs the Magician has drawn on the floor. Its body an absence of light in the shape of a small girl, about eight. More presence than body there. Blood and gore trailing from little fingers. Its eyes points of white light in negative space, its features lines traced in charcoal across a mostly hollow frame.

  It mimics breathing, remembering.

  The Magician watches it. Coat held tight around her, her own features drawn tight, straining against the bonds of her flesh.

  The revenant crosses the threshold, one tentative foot laid into her old world. Into the space she left behind, the room oppressively full with the memory of her.

  The Magician’s hands unclench, and her features soften. “I’m sorry.” The ghost locks eyes with her, no understanding there.

  She opens herself wide, lets her shadow unfurl. Shapeless. Dark. Hungry. It floods back against the walls of the room, blots out what moonlight comes through the room’s lone window, and sloshes across the length of the wood. A flood of oil and motion and teeth.

  It falls on the revenant. Tears the embodied ghost limb from limb to get at precious bone. Splattering second hand gore across shadowed walls and windowpane.

  When it’s done, the Magician rises from the floor where she’s fallen. Body shaking, the hole in her so full she can barely stand, she gathers up her things and erases any trace of her presence.

  She waits until the cool breezes of dawn are blowing before she leaves town. She passes through the black gates as the rising sun lights their edges in pale fire. Different guardswomen than the day before eyeing her back as she makes for the carnival grounds, distant pennants crowning big top tent poles waving in the wind.

  #

  When she gets back to her tent the Ringmaster’s waiting for her. “Did you give them what they wanted?”

  “Yes,” says the Magician, and drops her bags on the only table in the room. “They came in the night?”

  “They came. The fires held them at bay. But they won’t for another night. You’re right: their numbers are higher every time. What happened in this place that so many linger?”

  “Same thing that happens everywhere. Children die.” The Ringmaster casts down her eyes. “Are we ready to leave?”

  “Yes, I’ve laid down the cage. All the revenants are forever bound to this place; to the city. You know, the city council wanted them bound to the tracks — wanted them scattered along the rails as we left. As if secrets can be kept from coming home.”

  “It’ll be a slaughter,” says the Magician.

  The Ringmaster shrugs. “They brought it on themselves. Whatever they did to have so many dead children to shift. We need to move on anyway, the numbers were down while you were away; this town’s had its fill of freaks and magic. The advance sent back word of a contract down the line. Another binding. I’ve closed the show for the day to tear down. We’ll be gone before we’re missed.”

  “Always a binding,” says the Magician. Throws off her coat and tosses it across the table.

  “Better than nothing. Can you imagine trying to support this place with ticket sales alone?”

  The Magician’s reply is slow to come. “I’m so tired.”

  “I know,” says the Ringmaster, and strokes her lover’s face. “But the moving on is all there is.”

  #

  It’s twilight by the time the carnival train gets up a full head of steam and pulls away from the former midway. The sun riding low along the horizon, aching to kiss the ground, as the Magician watches the town whose name she couldn’t be bothered to learn fall into long shadow.

  The ghosts of the town’s dead children glimmer along the edges of the fields. In gulleys and long stretches of waving grass, bent low in soft wind.

  The Magician watches them mass. Watches an army of them drawn toward the town by the Ringmaster’s binding. Watches it call them home.

  The first alarm bells sounding from behind the walls as the guardswomen catch sight of the revenants on their doorstep. The sound faint and already growing fainter.

  The Magician’s alone on the caboose as the town grows smaller in the distance. Just her and the cold of the rail under her fingers, the wind carrying the scent of dry creekbeds and the stink of the abattoir. And even that fades as they start their curve south along the rail lines, steam dispersing into the sky. The engine’s lonely, whistling scream their only goodbye.

  When the town is out of sight and dusk has almost given way to night, the Magician heads inside.

  Her shadow rumbles from deep inside her chest. Still sated from their last meal. It’s sleepy. Contented, nestled in her breast, in the hole where her heart should be. Its warmth the stroking of a lover’s hand along the inside of her ribcage.

  She catches her reflection in the edge of a silvered windowpane. Kinked, hopelessly tangled hair wild and windblown, threatening to come free of the tie she’s used to bind it. Every line of her face as flawless as cut stone. Her body a carved statue, cast in flesh. No sign of her age, even if she knew how old she is.

  The Magician studies her reflection. Runs a too-smooth hand along the edge of her jaw. Along the line of her neck. Takes up her top hat, tamps it down smartly, and completes her costume.

  Another name. Another role. Another mantle to wander the world with, in a body too small to hold all of her forever.

  But she’s fed. And she has the Ringmaster. And there’s always somewhere else down the line.

  It’s not enough. But it’ll do.

  She smiles at her reflection, and goes to find the Ringmaster. The rumble of the train under her feet, and the roar of the engine in her ears.

  The whole world waiting for them to bring a little magic into their lives.

  Super Duper Fly

  Maurice Broaddus

  Topher Blanderson stared at his computer screen, knowing something wasn’t quite right but unable to put his finger on it. The account numbers scrolled past, a series of figures moving so quickly, they were almost hypnotic. His head ached. It hadn’t pained him this much since his accident at the ski lodge so many years before. Topher felt his mind drift, not quite going to sleep, but relaxing. Expanding. Touching something deep and otherly. Suddenly everything seemed perfectly clear.

  Topher touched the computer screen. His fingers danced across the monitor, the data spinning past a blur of ones and zeroes, fragments of information coalescing into folders. He pressed his hand flat against the surface, the warmth sinking into him. He shut his eyes for a moment and briefly there was darkness as ...

  … his manager, Ana Pedestal, waited at a restaurant at the hotel of the conference she attended. With him. Not him. He was there, but it was in someone else’s body. The CEO. Her shoe dangled from the tip of her foot. She touched his arm … they were in his (not his) hotel room. She poured champagne into a flute which had Gummi Bears in it. Ana threw her head back in laughter. They kissed. She…wore dark sunglasses. She was lost, a stranger walking about the corridors of the Cayman Islands National Bank, not wanting to be seen. Not wanting to be noticed. More numbers. Account names. Money transferred to … sand. So much sand at the beach, with its ocean view. So blue. So blue. Cobalt blue. Cobalt Coast. Her body brown in the sun. She held her empty glass out. A young man quickly refilled it for her. She allowed her gaze to linger on him for a heartbeat longer as she … broke off her kiss with him and dismissed him from her room. A knock came a minute later. She opened it expecting the attendant, but the CEO barged through. His (not his) face a sneer of anger. Ana pulled away from him. His desperate fingers searched for any purchase. He tore the thin cloth of her sundress. He slammed his hand over her mouth. She bit into the fleshy side of his palm. He pulled away then backhanded her. She licked the warm trickle of blood from her lip. She grabbed the phone from the nightstand and swung it in a large arc connecting with his head with a loud thunk. Her eyes bulged. Her face went pink to r
ed as she slammed the base of the phone into his head again and again. He tried to scream …

  “… don’t put the Gummi Bears in the champagne glass,” Topher yelled.

  “What did you say?” Ana said from his doorway. And then he was back. He wiped the thin sheen of sweat from his forehead. She squinted at his computer monitor. “Is everything all right, Mr. Blanderson? I hope you aren’t using company resources for anything … inappropriate.”

  “Yes, yes. Everything’s fine. I just … dozed off.”

  “Might as well go home then. You’re the last one here. We aren’t paying you to sleep on the job.”

  “I’m fine. I just wanted to check a few things.”

  “That’s the thing, Mr. Blanderson, you’re not fine. I’ve been keeping my eye on your call metrics. They’ve dipped precipitously in the last weeks. Yet even as your work began to slide, you’re staying later and later, running through files and reports that are out of your purview.”

  “I just wanted to go over a few reports. I thought I found a few anomalies.”

  “We don’t pay you to ferret out anomalies. We pay you to balance the accounts in front of you.”

  “Yes, but in order to reconcile …”

  “… the only thing you need to reconcile is your job and your place in this company. Do you like your job, Mr. Blanderson.?”

  “I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

  “Good. We’ve had our eye on you for a long time. We want you to be a part of our family for a long time.”

  “Me, too. Didn’t you just get back from a conference?”

  “Yes, with the entire management team.”

  “Including the CEO?”

  “We’re getting off-track. The path you’re on can go two ways, but only one involves having a future at this company. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes. Ma’am.”

  Ana turned and walked out of his area, leaving him alone on the sales floor. Topher leaned back in his chair. He didn’t know what his vision meant. Only that it wasn’t just a dream.

  The sales floor took on a whole different aspect when he was the only one there. The cubicle farm had more of an echo, like the vast belly of a corporate beast which had long ago swallowed him but hadn’t finished its digestion of him. The vent sighed the way old buildings did. The tell-tale click of a door opening sent a shiver of apprehension through him. He hated knowing he was alone. The realization that should anything go wrong, no one would be around to help him slowly crept up on him. The same sense of dread filled him when he walked through the garage, all shadows and silence. A low squeak neared, increasing his vague panic. A figure appeared down the hall. All that registered with him was that the man was black and they had no black people working at their firm. They tried that once. Ruling out the idea of attempting to defend himself with his cell phone, Topher reached for his stapler.

  “That you, Mr. Blanderson?” the man asked.

  The familiar strains of Bagger Hallorann filled Topher with relief. He relaxed his grip on his stapler. Bagger was just so safe. He even wore glasses. Black people with glasses always seemed less threatening.

  “Yeah, it’s me Bags.” Topher called him Bags. He gave the man the nickname because it made him feel more connected to the janitor. Obviously Topher cared. He’d wager no one else in the company even bothered to learn his name. “Another late one.”

  “It’s never too late to be what you were meant to be.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “When was the last time you made time for your family?” Bags nodded toward the framed picture on Topher’s desk. “You have to be careful not to neglect them.”

  “It’s just that I have all this money and opportunity and education, but I can’t seem to figure out life.”

  “The love of family is much more important that wealth and privilege.”

  “You always know the right thing to say,” Topher said. “How come you’re always there when I need you even though I barely know you?”

  “I’m the wise janitor. I come to impart wisdom and assuage fears.” Bags emptied the trashcan. “It looked like you needed some friendly, black, optimistic advice.”

  “You ever have that feeling where you’re not sure if you’re awake or still sleeping?”

  “The hardest thing to do is wake up and not sleep through your life. You’re looking for the answer to a question you haven’t yet thought to ask.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You tell me. Has anything unusual happened lately? Anything at all?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Try me.” Bags leaned against his trash bin. “You’d be surprised.”

  “I had a dream. Not a dream exactly, more like a vision. I think it was both of the past and of the future.”

  “Go on.”

  “I think there’s something terribly wrong with the company.”

  “It’s like the world doesn’t quite make sense anymore but you’re the only one who has noticed.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe you’re ready after all.” Bags straightened.

  “Ready for what?”

  “First tell me, were you ever hit in the head? As a child? In an accident?”

  “Yes. When we were skiing a few years back. How did you know?”

  “I think your employers have underestimated just how important you are.”

  “I am?” Topher rested his chin on his hand and leaned forward.

  “I have plenty of things to show you, but I don’t know if we have enough time.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “You have potential. A power within you. You may be one of … the Chosen.”

  “I …”

  “Sh! We don’t have much time.”

  Bags fished around in his pocket. “In my right hand is a red Skittle. In my left hand there’s a green Skittle.”

  “Skittles?”

  “Who doesn’t like Skittles? You eat the red and life goes on as normal. You eat the green one and life as you know it changes.”

  “But they were in your pocket.”

  “They’ll be coming for you soon. I can guide you or you can worry about pocket lint. You need to choose.”

  Topher eyed each piece of candy carefully. He reached for the red one and almost took it before pulling back. Then he snatched the green one. He glanced at it then at Bags. The janitor watched him with a cool, level gaze. Topher popped the green one in his mouth.

  “Good, good. Now you just sit here for a minute while I prepare a few things.”

  “All right,” Topher said. “What do I do in the mean time?”

  “Finish your Skittle.” Bags wheeled his trash bin back down the hallway. When he rounded the corner, he swung by Ana Pedestal’s office. She was about to switch off her light when she caught sight of him. She jumped with a start before recognition filled her eyes.

  “Getting a late start?” she said.

  “As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry. Wisdom reflex,” Bags said. “I don’t know if this is any of my business, but Mr. Blanderson’s down at his desk going on and on about affairs and embezzlement.”

  “Really?”

  “Sounded mighty peculiar. Thought you ought to know.”

  “Thanks for telling me.” Ana punched in the extension for security.

  “If you can’t trust a white woman, who’s left to trust?”

  Bags wheeled his trash bin down the long hallway as security came around the corner. The hallway stretched on and on. The lights flickered until they finally gave out. Bags kept walking even though the trash bin he held onto faded into the shadows. In the distance, light outlined a door. He took the handle and pushed it in.

  “Welcome to your judgment, Bagger Hallorann,” a voice said.

  #

  Five columns of light broke the chamber of shadows. Within each beam stood a figure. An old man stepped awkwardly forwar
d as if peeling himself from a box of rice. He shuffled toward Bagger with an easy grace. Two large hummingbirds, their colors too bright to be natural, materialized out of nowhere and flitted about the man.

  “The Tom. It’s been … not long enough.” Though Bagger met him with his gaze, the old man’s eyes remained downcast.

  “Bagger Hallorann? Seriously? Boy, you don’t think that name’s a little too on point for The Magical Negro?”

  “It is a little dated. I figured no one would notice.”

  “The Magical Negro is not bound by the rules of space and time. It is a sacred responsibility.” Another man stepped from his light. Over six and a half feet tall, weighing over two bills, he strutted toward the two, all swagger without consequence. He held his arms out, either for an embrace or waiting for a white woman to swoon and fall into them. “You had one job. One.”

  “What was that, The Buck?” The Magical Negro asked.

  “You help the white hero on his journey.”

  “The Chosen? I can barely say that with a straight face. “I wasn’t even the point of view character in that scene.”

  “That’s not your job, child.” A large, buxom woman sashayed toward them. She wore a checkered apron and a handkerchief around her hair. “Your job is to get them out of trouble. Help them recognize their own faults and help them overcome. Transform them into competent, successful, and content people.”

  “The Mammy? Is that you?” The Magical Negro asked. “I thought you got a perm?”

  “In their hearts, I’ll always have a handkerchief.”

  “What was he ‘chosen’ to do?”

  “We’ll never know now. He may have gone on to become a super hero,” The Tom said.

  “Or he may have saved a whole village of us. You know how they love to rescue us from the mess of their own making,” The Buck said.