Skillful Death

by Ike Hamill

  “Fill them,” Dom said to himself. He lowered himself back down and tried the old man’s advice. Denpa arrived at his side as Dom settled into the water. The gentle waves lapped over his mouth and threatened his nostrils. Dom began to thrash his arms and pull his feet back underneath himself, but Denpa put a calming hand on his shoulder.

  “Once you learn that you cannot sink, you will be able to float,” Denpa said. “This is how my father taught me.”

  Dom took a tiny experimental breath through his nose. When it worked, he breathed deeper, feeling himself sink and then bob back up when he pulled in fresh air. He tested, raising one foot from the rocky bottom and then the other.

  After counting to a hundred, Dom worked himself back to his feet.

  “What’s next?”

  “Next, you do the same thing on your stomach, instead of your back,” Denpa said. “I’ll hold you up at first.”

  Dom did as he was told and he found himself with only his head and shoulders out of the water. In the course of minutes, he understood how he could keep himself afloat through forward motion. The act was nearly as natural as walking. He and Denpa moved deeper into the water, so he could practice his paddling without accidentally aiding himself by touching his feet to the lake bottom.

  “You’re a natural,” Denpa said.

  “I don’t know if I’m learning, or remembering,” Dom said.

  “Does it matter?”

  “I suppose it doesn’t,” Dom said. He practiced, paddling back and forth in the chest-deep water as Denpa watched. His legs burned with the unfamiliar motion and his lungs felt heavy.

  “You can allow your nose to go under water and then lift it when you need to breathe,” Denpa said. The old man crossed his arms against the cold water.

  Dom pushed his limbs aggressively, losing efficiency but still gaining speed. He turned and swam towards the depths.

  “You don’t have to swim the whole lake today,” Denpa said. “Save a challenge for tomorrow.”

  “I’m trying to learn,” Dom said, gasping to keep his head above water as he spoke.

  “So you are,” Denpa said.

  Dom paused his forward progress and tried to tread water, as the women often did near the ledge on the hottest days. His dexterity was not up to the task and his head dipped below the surface. Clawing at the water, Dom struggled and breached, pulling in a tortured breath. He paddled frantically back over to Denpa, who shivered in his own embrace.

  “How do you tread water?” Dom asked.

  “You have to push the water down with your hands and kick with your feet. Remember to fill your lungs, like you did when you learned to float a few seconds ago.”

  Dom tested the depth with his foot and bounced deeper until the water was just above his head. He comforted himself with the idea that he could always push off the bottom and come back to the surface if he couldn’t keep himself afloat. Denpa demonstrated by waving his hands in the air, and Dom tried to reproduce the motion of pushing the water down to produce upward thrust. His arm muscles now burned too, and his legs threatened to cramp as he finally found the technique.

  Denpa was puffing out his lips and shivering as he looked at the sky.

  Dom went under. He stopped moving his arms and legs, letting himself slip beneath the surface. The world contracted to a bright glittering circle above him. Around the ring of light, he saw only black. He realized that everything he knew, all the people he loved, fit inside that circle of wavering light. Below him, the lake bottom eluded his feet and he sunk farther. What little breath he still had in his lungs felt hot, and he fought the urge to push it out.

  Dom’s ears popped.

  He sank lower.

  The pressure against his eardrums intensified and Dom raised his hands to his ears, as if he could block out the pressure. He kicked his feet, but it seemed he was too late. The circle of sunlight didn’t grow any closer with his effort. The urge to suck in a deep breath of water was nearly overpowering. Dom felt his chest hitch with the desire to breathe.

  His flailing feet touched the rocky bottom. Dom bent his knees and tried to push off, but first he needed to sink lower. He blew out the last bubbles in his lungs and felt himself sink as he bent his knees again. Dom kicked. His feet hit the rocks and propelled him up, towards the light. He opened his mouth in anticipation of the surface. When his face hit the air he pulled in a loud, hungry draft.

  With a quick paddle in the direction of the shore, his feet found the bottom again, and Dom’s panic subsided. He spun as he walked back, looking for Denpa. The old man wasn’t where he’d been. He wasn’t anywhere. Dom’s mind raced, trying to calculate how long he’d been under, and whether Denpa could have waded to shore and disappeared.

  “Denpa!” Dom shouted. “Denpa!”

  Some people appeared atop the hill to the west. They shielded their eyes from the sun and looked down in Dom’s direction.

  “Denpa!” he shouted again. He spun frantically, looking for the old man. He heard shouting from the hill and followed their pointing arms. He saw a light patch of water not too far. Dom struck out in that direction, running slowly through the deep water, and then kicking himself forward in an awkward paddle when the bottom fell away.

  As he reached Denpa, the old man bobbed back to the surface. His nose breached first.

  Dom exhaled with relief and then had to suck in a quick breath to keep himself afloat.

  The old man didn’t push at the water, or kick, or part his lips to inhale. The old man didn’t move.

  “Denpa,” Dom said as he drew close enough to touch the old man. Denpa didn’t reply. Dom grabbed for the old man’s wrist and then tried to turn towards shore. His inexpert swimming was hampered by dragging the old man, but he managed to make progress. He looked back and saw Denpa’s face often dipping below the water. He kicked faster.

  When his feet could touch the bottom again, Dom pulled on Denpa’s arm and grabbed the old man around the neck to hold his old bald head out of the water. As his legs pulled him even closer, Dom shifted his grip to under Denpa’s armpits.

  “Denpa!” he never stopped shouting.

  Dom pulled the old man to the shore. The people from the hill arrived at the same time—a boy and a young woman. For a second, Dom thought the young woman was Tara, and he thought, “This is how we’ll meet again. I’ve traded Denpa’s life for another chance to see this lovely girl.”

  But it wasn’t Tara. The woman was too young.

  Denpa’s lips were blue. Dom rolled him onto his side and tried to press and beat the water from Denpa’s lungs.

  “Move aside,” the boy said. “My sister will try to save your poppa’s life.”

  “Can she?” Dom asked.

  “Probably not,” the boy said, but the girl moved with confidence. She flipped Denpa to his back, manipulated his head, and straddled his naked, lifeless body. She pressed on his chest and breathed into his nose. White bubbles gurgled from the corners of Denpa’s mouth, but life didn’t return.

  The girl rose from Denpa’s chest and Dom picked up the old man and hoisted him over his shoulder. Dom let his tears flow freely as he carried Denpa down the steps and streets, back to his house. He laid Denpa down in his tiny bed and pulled a blanket up to the old man’s chin. He sat on the edge of the bed and clasped Denpa’s cold hand.

  “I’m so sorry, Denpa,” Dom said. “I knew the water was too cold for you. I knew I should have sent you back to the shore as soon as I had the knack. You shouldn’t have even been out in the water this time of year. I knew all these things, but I wanted to learn to swim so I could walk across the water in my dreams.”

  Dom didn’t look up as people began to file in through the open door. A woman from across the street arrived first. When she saw Dom sitting naked on the edge of Denpa’s bed, she left to retrieve her own son.

  People pulled Denpa’s bed away from the wall, and the boy from across the street led Dom away to dress him for the coming cold evening. Dom just sto
od while the boy draped clothes on him. Eventually, Dom was allowed to return to the grieving room, where people knelt around Denpa’s bed. Some people prayed, and some whispered stories from Denpa’s life.

  Dom knelt at Denpa’s head and looked at the upside down head of the bald man. People touched Dom’s shoulders and told him how much he meant to the old man. People told Dom that Denpa lived only for him. Before Dom arrived, Denpa had felt close to death already, but taking care of the boy had added another ten years to Denpa’s life.

  Dom heard all this but none of it made much sense to him. He knew that these people all thought of him as an outsider and a parasite on poor Denpa. Their kind words felt false. Before the sun set outside, Dom was pulled away from Denpa’s body and guided with gentle hands to a nearby house.

  The house smelled funny, but Dom let himself be pushed into a corner where he took a bowl of rice and fish. He heard a quick conversation but couldn’t make out the words. The fish was taken away and replaced with a bowl of rice, bread, and meat—probably yak. The room seemed too dark for him to focus on any one thing, so Dom focused on the food. Conversations swirled around him, but the words drifted away.

  He saw Denpa’s face peering down at him in the center of a bright circle of light, as if Dom were trapped at the bottom of a well and Denpa was looking down.

  Someone lit a lamp next to Dom’s head and he noticed an old man just to his right, close enough to touch. The old man smiled a toothless grin and chewed on something green that looked as tough as leather. The old man leaned toward Dom, and Dom thought that he was about to say something, so he leaned closer to the old man.

  With a smile, the old man farted and then settled back down again.

  When he’d finished his food, the bowl was lifted from his hands and replaced with a cup of hot tea. The vapor stung his eyes, but felt soothing on his throat. He drank it quickly and the cup was taken away. Hands guided his head down to a pillow and pulled a blanket up to his chin. He thought of the way he’d pulled the blanket up to Denpa’s chin, and for a second wondered if he was dead too.

  Then he noticed that the old man, the windy man, had settled beside him and pressed against his legs. Dom figured that he hadn’t died because the old man wouldn’t be so anxious to cuddle up next to a corpse. He slept. He dreamed of the lake and Tara standing on the surface of the water as he slipped down into the depths.

  In the morning, Dom rose with the sun and tried to make his way back to Denpa’s house. He felt disoriented and blinked at the sun to find his way home. Before he reached the door, a woman set down a bucket and ran over to intercept him. She steered him to another house and said, “Three days. Three days.”

  When he found himself in another kitchen, sitting in another corner, being handed another hot bowl, he asked, “Three days?”

  “You give Denpa three days to understand his death. The monks will pray to him until he understands. Then you can arrange for his body.”

  “Arrange?” Dom asked. He’d never been this close to death. He didn’t have experience with any of the rituals.

  “Don’t pay for cremation,” the woman said. “Denpa wouldn’t have wanted anyone to waste all that money on his body. He was old and humble. He would have wanted a sky burial. Did you never talk about it?”

  “Sky burial?” Dom asked.

  “That’s what you should do,” the woman said. She took away his oats and handed him a cup of hot tea. When his brain became fuzzy again, new hands guided his head to yet another pillow.

  Dom lost track of the time and then the days. He moved when hands pressed him to. He found his needs predicted and attended. On the third day after Denpa’s death, he blinked several times before he realized that he stood in front of Denpa’s door. He glanced over his shoulders. Nobody stood with him. He was alone for the first time since he’d kicked his way up from the bottom of the lake.

  He pushed open the door and let the light stream into Denpa’s house. It smelled funny. He’d spent days moving from house to house, each smelled more foreign than the last. Now that he’d returned home, it no longer smelled like home. Dom walked inside and saw that Denpa’s food was gone. Everything was clean, but it was all put away in the wrong place. Denpa would have been furious at the disorder if it had been at Dom’s hands. In his death, furious or not, he just lay there on his bed.

  Dom crossed and knelt by Denpa’s side. The old man’s bald head looked shiny and stretched. His mouth hung open and his lips were cracked and dry. Dom felt for Denpa’s cold hand, but was repulsed by the dry skin.

  Denpa had been dressed in simple, everyday robes. Dom lifted the body. It felt lighter now. He carried Denpa’s body in his arms and walked him out into the sun.

  Dom walked uphill with Denpa. He walked until the end of the path and then climbed the stairs past the lake. He climbed the hill and then set Denpa’s body down on a rock while he rested his arms. He looked back to see a dozen robed people, with deep hoods to hide their faces, following him up the slope.

  After he rested, he nodded to his entourage and resumed his climb. As the gentle hill turned into a rocky slope, Dom often had to lift the body onto a ledge and then climb up behind him. His back ached more each time he lifted Denpa. The body’s limbs were mostly rigid, and only flopped a little as Dom trudged.

  When he reached the top of the mountain, Dom set Denpa’s body down on a big flat rock. Other peaks to the east and west were a little taller, but this was where Dom and Pemba had been forbidden to play, so he thought it was the right place for Denpa’s body to rest. Only one thing confused him: he didn’t see any other bones around. If this was the place for a ‘Sky Burial,’ then where were the other bones?

  Dom walked to the robed figures and began to ask his question. “Is this the correct place...”

  Before he could finish, a hand came from under a robe and held out a long-handled maul. One side was sharpened and the other blunt. Dom took the tool and nodded.

  He returned to Denpa’s body and raised the tool above his head. He looked back at the hooded group. He couldn’t see their faces, but nobody told him to stop, so he swung the tool at Denpa’s remains.

  The sharp side of the maul cut halfway through the corpse’s elbow. The edge dinged against the rock. Dom’s eyes shot up to Denpa’s face, where the old man’s mouth gaped in a silent scream. In his head, Dom thought he could hear Denpa’s cry of pain. Dom shouldered the maul and took a half-step back. A few dozen paces away, he saw a vulture flutter down to another rock. It held its wings at the ready as it shuffled forward.

  Dom wiped sweat from his brow and swung the maul again. This blow severed Denpa’s lower arm. It rolled over and came to a stop. Dom raised the maul again. He worked his way around the body, first cutting off the extremities, and then the limbs all the way back to Denpa’s trunk.

  One of the feet slipped off the rock and Dom tripped on it as he circled. He looked to the hooded people and wished for their help. They stood in a semi-circle and watched. Behind Dom, a vulture fluttered closer.

  Dom flipped Denpa’s body. He couldn’t stand to stare at the old man’s silent scream any longer. The back of Denpa’s robes were stained with leaking bodily fluids. Dom brought the dull end of the maul down on the old man’s shoulders and prayed that his soul had already moved on. The bones broke with muted crunching. His skin tore like soaked leather. Dom sweated and cursed as he worked the maul.

  A bold vulture crept forward to steal a foot and its feathers brushed Dom’s leg. Dom screamed and spun with the maul. He missed the vulture, but the bird dropped the foot as it retreated. The vulture screamed back at Dom and its cries set off the other birds into a chorus of screeching calls.

  Dom yelled a wordless curse at the birds and turned back to his duty. He pulverized Denpa’s body with blow after blow until the robe was a lumpy mess. Dom finished with Denpa’s skull, breaking it into pieces so the birds could carry it away. Dom retreated, dropped the maul near his hooded entourage, and collapsed to t
he ground, weeping. Back on the rock, the vultures swarmed and fought over the carrion.

  Sometime later, Dom looked up from his tears and saw that only one hooded figure remained. The person stood between Dom and the body.

  “Leave me,” Dom said.

  The figure neither turned nor replied.

  “Just leave me. I’ll see my master off,” Dom yelled.

  The hooded person turned slowly and pulled the hood back. For a second, Dom thought the hooded figure was Tara, and he thought, “This is how we’ll meet again. I’ve traded Denpa’s corpse for another chance to see this lovely girl.”

  But the figure wasn’t Tara. It was his friend, Pemba.

  “What are you doing here?” Dom asked.

  “I came to help you dispose of the body,” Pemba said. When he approached and sat down, Dom saw that Pemba’s face was also wet with tears.

  “Why didn’t you help me?” Dom asked.

  “It wasn’t my place. That job belonged to you.”

  “That was terrible. I won’t forgive you for this.”

  “Dom, you’re thinking of this all wrong. Denpa is gone on to his new existence. He didn’t need this body any more. He discarded this body so he could move on. It was your duty to help him return to the sky. See there?”

  Pemba pointed to the sky, where a vulture fled the group with a piece of flesh and a long, ripped piece of robe. As it moved in front of the sun, it looked like the robe had taken flight on its own and fluttered away.

  “It still looked like Denpa,” Dom said.

  “You were only seeing the outside of Denpa. Inside, his light was gone. You must have seen that. Did it feel like Denpa in your arms as you carried his flesh and bones to the top of this mountain?”

  “No.”

  “Did it smell like Denpa? Talk like Denpa?”

  “No.”

  “Somewhere in the world, Denpa with his new name is born into a new body. He’s fresh and clean. He cries, suckles at his new mother’s breast, and knows the world afresh. Would you rob him of that?”