“I see…,” she said, her gaze taking him like a maelstrom.
“Something’s been happening to me. Something’s been...I don't know...changing me.”
“You are so perceptive,” she said with a sad little grin. “But you haven’t caught on completely, have you?”
Carlo didn’t like the sound of that. He gripped the edges of the table, reminding himself to keep control. “What’re you talking about. What’s happening to me?”
“You’re becoming a demigod.”
He looked at her and felt a furious tightening in his gut. “A what? What does that mean?”
Persephone leaned forward, reached for his hands, taking them into her own. It was, however, a touch with something missing. He imagined she’d done it to make him feel better, but it left him cold and wary. “I will assume you have noticed how...how good you feel since you’ve been working here...? How healthy?”
“Yes, I have noticed...go on . . .”
“That’s because you’ve become immortal...well, sort of….”
Carlo pulled his hands away from hers, ran his fingers through his hair. Her words didn’t surprise him, not really. For the first time, he admitted to himself that maybe he’d actually suspected such a thing on some, deeper, unconscious level. And yet, he couldn’t actually accept what she said a face value either. The idea of living forever, while greatly appealing, also sounded silly—especially when you considered the little coda she added to the end.
“Ah...could we possibly get a little more explanation of the phrase ‘well, sort of…’?”
“As long as you are here,” said Persephone. “As long as you stay in the lighthouse...you cannot die. Nothing can harm you.”
“Okay, so what does that actually mean?” said Carlo, wondering if he already knew the answer to his next question and needing only to hear her confirmation. “What does that have to do with me and my painting?”
Persephone half-lidded her eyes, shook her head so subtly he almost missed it. “Carlo, you are very intelligent...I think you know.”
Standing up, he backed away from the table and walked to one of the windows. The vista of the river valley was now draped in gray and purple mantles of twilight as he pondered her words. He did know, goddammit, and he’d kept thinking that if, somehow, he never spoke about it, never let his words make it real...then it wouldn’t be real.
But it was.
The unspoken, but implied second part of the corollary proffered by Persephone was elegant in its simplicity—as he’d become more godlike, then, he must, by definition become less human.
And that meant...what? Just about everything, when you took the time to think about it. It was no accident he’d lost his passion, his turbine-intensity to create, because that kind of energy came from the dark well of the soul. From a place where the essence of what it means to be mortal is heated and forged and tempered in that weird crucible of human experience.
Oh yeah, he knew, all right....
There’d probably been some piece of him, some micro-fragments of the collective unconscious that shot through him like gamma rays at the moment of his conception, that had always known on the intuitive level what was going on. Always known a weird transaction had been completed here. And Carlo felt so ashamed of himself. He’d always lived his life knowing there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but this time, he bellied up to this particular trough, self-deluding himself he was going to make it happen.
No way, baby..., he thought as he turned back and looked at Pluto’s main squeeze, sitting there like she was posing for Praxiteles.
“I want out,” he said softly.
“Excuse me?”
“Don't act so surprised. Don't tell me there’s no way out—I didn’t sign any contract! No drop of blood, none of that Faustian crap here!”
Persephone stood and moved to him, her long skirt imparting for an instant the illusion she glided rather than walked. “No, none of that...you are correct.”
Carlo exhaled, relieved at a very basic level. “So...what’s next? Is this where you tell me that when I walk out of here...I'll die?”
She smiled. “You are an unusual man,” she said. “I could grow to like you very much. I think I already have.”
Backing away, he shook his head. “Uh-uh, we’re not going there.”
“No, I mean I admire you—in the classical sense. And you will die when you leave here...but not right away...but in the right and due course of your life. You will be mortal again.”
He exhaled again. More relief. She had this way of keeping the tension-levels torqued way up there. Carlo was walking a metaphysical high-wire, and the subject of safety nets had never come up.
“Thanks,” he said. “you've made me realize a few things about myself.”
“You are most welcome.” Persephone smiled, and for the time, allowed herself to look quite attractive.
“I guess I’d better gather up my things. I have this very strong hope I’ll be needing them.”
“You will,” she said.
“Thanks. Thanks for everything. I hope you don't think I’m ungrateful, or anything like that...and I hope you understand why I have to go….”
“I do,” she said. “Probably more than you. Good-bye, Carlo Duarte.”
Carlo nodded, began walking towards the stairs to his studio, then paused, turned to look back at her. “What about this...job? Do you think you’ll have any trouble getting somebody else?”
Persephone considered the question for only an instant, her gold-green eyes flashing a look first to the window which had become an oblong of shiny obsidian, then back to him. “No, I will be a little more careful with the questions I ask.”
Carlo paused. “Meaning...?”
“I will ask them if they are chasing any dreams.”
Despite the swirled-palette of emotions he currently felt, Carlo couldn’t keep from smiling. “Most of them won't know what you’re talking about...you’ll have plenty of unimaginative pinheads to choose from.”
Persephone chuckled. “I’ll take that as both a curse and a blessing.”
As Carlo put some miles between himself and the lighthouse, he could feel his mortality seeping back into him, invading the molecular structures of his cells like the metaphysical disease that it was. And it felt good. He slipped his Disraeli Gears CD into the deck; and sang along with Clapton, Bruce, and Baker as they rattled through “Tales of Brave Ulysses”—a fittingly Hellenistic reference to the latest chapter in his own life-saga. By the time the song had ended, he noted the farther he drove, the less real the whole experience was becoming. In fact, the more he tried to concentrate on specifics, the more foggy and less distinct his mind-images became.
Weird. Very weird.
His thoughts kept him paying close attention to his driving; and more than a couple of times he’d kind of snap back to attention with his hands gripping the wheel on autopilot. He felt like an idiot, looking down the shafts of his headlights as they tried to find the tortured two-lane “tar-road.” It made him wonder how the hell he’d gotten to this point without realizing it. Had he passed that quaint bastion of socialism they called the Vermont Law School yet?
Where was he?
State Route 4 through this rural part of Vermont twisted through endless curves as it struggled to follow the course of the White River. It was a bad road in daylight and downright treacherous at night. Everything tended to look the same until you were right on top of it.
It was just after he’d seen the signs for the town of Sharon and the Interstate that it started to rain.
Drops as big and heavy as bullfrogs. They spattered on the window like little bodies exploding with the suddenness of a mortar attack. Carlo kicked in the wipers, but not quick enough. As he leaned close to the steering wheel, trying to see what lay beyond the smeared glass, he felt the Blazer’s big tires lose purchase on an upcoming curve. Power-sliding towards the riverbank to his right, Carlo yanked the gearshift downward into second a
nd buried the gas-pedal.
It was a brilliant maneuver, which saved him from a launch into the dark water, but Carlo couldn’t stop the lurching SUV from the crossing the center-line at the blindest point of the next curve. That’s why the driver of the Peterbilt truck and trailer didn’t see him until the dark hull of the Blazer literally exploded over the grill and hood of the giant tractor.
Carlo vaguely remembered the shockwave of the impact, but could recall no sound. Nor did he have any memory of being thrown clear of the wreckage...but he must have been, because he was now picking himself up, pulling himself out of the soft cloying mud of the riverbank. A cold nightwind laced through him as he turned away from it...
…to see the stark tower looming up before him. Its silhouette against the darker tapestry of the sky was hideously familiar, and its recognition vibrated deep into his soul like the idiot-hum of oblivion.
The sweeping beam of light passed over him, and as he acceded to Charon’s gesture to come aboard, Carlo paused to look up for a last glance at the lighthouse lamp. He wondered who might be the “unimaginative pinhead” staring down at him from beyond the fortress of its glass.
First appeared in Lighthouse Hauntings, edited by John Helfers, 2001.
DEVOTION
By J.F. Gonzalez
They started arguing when Karen and Travis got home.
Jerry didn't remember much about his own drive home from work; it was so routine for him now, such a part of his day-to-day life, that he did it by rote. The days, in fact, seemed to blur together. His daily routine was an endless repeat of wake up, shower, dress, go to work, come home, argue with Karen about money, about her parents, about everything, go to bed, repeat the process. No wonder Travis had been giving him odd looks for the past few weeks. It was as if his son thought he was losing his mind. Something had to give.
He was sitting at the dining room table when Karen and Travis walked in the front door. He listened to her as she spoke to Travis. They were talking about mundane things: what to pick up at the grocery store that week, chores that had to get done, how they needed to choose a weekend to do a complete clean-up of the house because it hadn't been done in over a year. Jerry took a glance around the dining area and the living room, frowning. It would be just like Karen to say the place was a mess. As usual, everything was tidy, the furniture was devoid of dust, the end tables were empty of magazines and knick-knacks. Well, there was a stack of weeks-old People magazines on Karen's end table. And Travis hadn't put away his iPod or his Game Boy console and cartridges.
Jerry sighed. They were in a rut. A dead-end spiral. It had to stop.
It had to end.
“Karen,” he said.
Either Karen didn't hear him or she ignored him. She placed her briefcase on the living room chair, still talking to Travis. “Maybe later this month we can go to the shore,” she said. “Your grandma said she would pay for us to have a little getaway some weekend. How about it?”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Jerry said. “But we don't need your mother's money. I can swing it.”
This time Karen heard him. She turned toward the kitchen, and he saw Travis stiffen beside her.
“What was that?”
“I said that's a great idea. We need to get away. Need to get out of this rut we're in. But your mother doesn't have to pay for it. I can handle it.”
Karen and Travis stood there for a moment, and he could feel the tension rise, could feel Karen's anger start to build. She took a step toward the dining room, cocking her head as if she were trying to fix her gaze on him.
“I thought you were leaving,” Karen said, her voice thin, but firm.
“No,” Jerry said. He stood up from the dining room table. “I love you, Karen. And I love Travis. I can never leave you. I know things haven’t…haven't been going so well for us. All that's happened the last two years—the layoffs, getting the roof replaced, the car trouble, all the shit that sapped out bank account. The unemployment. I know we're deep in the hole. But we don't have to live like this. This is just temporary.”
“Really?” Karen was stepping tentatively into the dining room, the expression on her face changing from stunned amazement to frustration. “This is just temporary? Have you been blind to what's been going on around you?”
“No, I haven't,” he said.
“Even now you're still giving me this bullshit!” Karen's voice had taken on a sharp tinge of anger. “You never faced up to what was happening before, and you're still not facing up to it. Why can't you accept the fact that—“
“I have faced up to it!” he thundered back, and the loudness of his voice caused Karen to flinch. He saw Travis flinch too; his son was at the foot of the staircase, ready to bound up and seek refuge in his bedroom should the argument reach a fever-pitch. “I faced up to it the moment I got laid off! I wanted to cut the frivolous spending and you—“
“Frivolous spending? Oh, so we're going to avoid the issue—”
He continued on as if he hadn’t heard her. “I'm talking about all the shoes you buy, all the clothes you get from those mail-order catalogues. An endless supply of clothes you have no room for in your closet and—“
Karen threw her hands up in despair. “I can’t deal with this! I just can’t deal with it!”
“—and really, do we all need our own iPods and laptops and digital cameras? I can understand having one of each device, but when Travis breaks his iPod, he needs to suffer the consequences of his actions and go without one until he earns the money and shows the responsibility to—”
Karen whirled to face him. “That was his cell phone he broke, and no, I am not going to let him go without a phone!”
“We didn't have cell phones when we were fourteen!”
“We didn't have serial killers and child molesters on every corner in our day, either!”
“Listen,” he said, starting to feel exasperated. “I don't want to argue about this. What's done is done and—“
“You brought it up with your comment about my frivolous spending! At least I was thoughtful enough to get Christmas presents for your parents.”
He sighed. “Mom and Dad knew I was unemployed and that money was tight. They told me we didn't have to get them anything for Christmas. For that matter, my sister was fine with it, too. They understand that times are tough.”
“You don't suddenly stop buying Christmas presents for your loved ones just because you're out of work. Limiting gifts to twenty bucks per person isn't asking too much.”
“It is when you consider that everybody in my family except me was born in December,” he said. “That adds up. I would rather have used that money to pay the utilities for the month. My family understands that.”
“And my family doesn't?”
He was getting aggravated. Once again, Karen was putting words into his mouth, turning his intentions into something else. All he'd wanted to do was tighten their belt a little until his unemployment issue had turned into gainful employment. Had that been so much to ask for?
“The problem is, you were a tightwad even before you got laid off,” Karen said. She took a step toward him and fixed him dead center in her gaze. “When the Camaro broke down you didn't want to replace it with a new car, you wanted to get another used one. Why keep pouring money into used cars when we could just spend the money and get something new?”
“I’d just gotten a new job and had no money in savings,” he said, gritting his teeth. “The monthly payments alone would have killed me.”
“Excuses, excuses. That's all you have.”
He closed his eyes in frustration. This was going nowhere. All he wanted was to stop this, end this cycle of arguing and bickering. He had started off with the notion that he would spring for the cost of a weekend getaway. He would put it on his VISA card. He was so far in debt already, what would another grand added to it matter? It wasn't like the entire unpaid balance of twenty-three grand was going away anytime soon. But no, things had spiral
ed quickly out of control, and now they were back to their usual bickering and arguing and he was getting tired of it. Travis was on the verge of bolting up the stairs, Karen was getting angrier, her voice was getting shriller, more hysterical, more heated, and he just wanted everything to change. He just wanted this all to go away.
“...If you had only accepted what happened maybe—“
“I have accepted what happened, goddamnit!” Jerry shouted. “You just never fucking listen to me!”
The sound of his voice was so loud it startled him. He started, blinked, expecting Karen to be taken aback in surprise. His breath came up short and heavy as he looked at where she'd been standing only a moment ago.
Karen was no longer standing at the threshold to the dining room.
Travis was no longer hovering near the foot of the staircase, poised to dart up to his room.
Jerry was alone.
The realization hit him suddenly, full force. It was so overwhelming that he broke down and sobbed at the kitchen table.
It's happened again, Jerry thought, as he sat at the kitchen table, face buried in his hands, the sadness welling out of him like an untapped spring. It's been over a year and it's still happening! They're still haunting me! They won't let me rest!
The silence of the house, the emptiness of it, was heavy. This was normal now. He could hear them, he could see them, they could sometimes hear and see him. But they could not reach him. They could not touch him. It was like they were living together under the same roof but there was a thin barrier between them at all times, a veil preventing them from interacting fully as a family.
Jerry wiped the tears from his eyes and looked out into the empty living room. Karen and Travis weren't there. They were never there. They hadn't been there for a year.
But he could still feel their presence.
“I miss you so much,” Jerry whispered.
Jerry hung his head and struggled to contain his emotions as the tears flowed again.
* * *
Mister October - Volume Two Page 8