Asphodel: The Second Volume of the Muse Chronicles

by David P. Jacobs

In his private bathroom, as the fire raged only in his private office, Nathaniel cradled Annette. She had suffered from massive internal bleeding and outwardly noticeable cuts from the shards of glass. She lay motionless in his arms and was without breath. Emotionless, he dipped a spare, clean hand towel into the water basin. Carefully and slowly he brought the moistened towel to Annette’s lacerated skin and dragged the plush fabric from her unmoving shoulders to her static elbows. He cleaned her forearms and non-trembling fingertips. Nathaniel closed his eyes and, for the last time, thought of the culminated moments that had brought him here. The towel was rinsed of her blood. It was moistened and reapplied. He patiently washed the cuts and removed the glass from her broken neck. As Nathaniel washed her face he reflected on Annette and the lives that she had touched. Nathaniel remembered their bickering. He recalled her smiles when she had laughed at something Nathaniel had said. He deliberated on the visions of her frowns, her scowls, and the expressions of her pent-up frustrations.

  “I love you,” he whispered to Annette. “That’s why I didn’t want you to stay. I couldn’t imagine seeing you vulnerable in this kind of environment.”

  He placed the crimson-stained towel into the basin.

  Though Annette was stock-still, Nathaniel held her. “You asked me once, Annette, what my favorite story was. I never gave you a real answer. I’ve read many books in the lifetimes that I’ve lived but there’s been one story that I’ve loved. That story, Annette, is yours.” He looked to the white tiles of his bathroom. Nathaniel gave a sigh and closed his eyes giving a confession: “You were the greatest library book that I’ve ever checked out from Management’s collection.”

  For at least ten minutes, Nathaniel held her and warmly remembered their story from start to finish. Despite remembering what there was to recollect, Nathaniel felt starved for more. But he knew that there wasn’t more.

  Feeling a hand on his cheek, Nathaniel found Annette was awake. Her raised right hand was placed on his cheek. She looked at him attentively. In the same miraculous manner that he had repaired the library books in his life, Annette had been stitched! There were no signs of cuts or bruises or markings on her of any kind. As she smiled at him, and he gazed at her, Nathaniel couldn’t help but to live in this perfect moment – those exceptional seconds that resounded following his most unanticipated considerable salvages.

  *

  A hammering of a post into the ground could be heard in the early morning air. The skies were clear. A single sparrow flew from one downed tree branch to another. The resulting damage of the recent suburban flood was overwhelming to witness. But there was a sliver of hope that presented itself: a lone, brand new mailbox which had been erected by Annette and Nathaniel. To anyone who noticed the mailbox it was a sign that promised, amidst chaos in any capacity throughout history, there will be a point in time charged with a serene hope to rebuild.

  CHAPTER 28: CONCLUDING DEPARTURES

  Directly after public speaker Edgar Allan Poe’s speech, he was taken to his own time believing what he’d seen in the department to have been a fleeting dream. He had been brought to the muses after his brother, Henry, had died due to an illness partially related to alcoholism in 1831. He was returned on the same day where he fervently resurrected his prolific writing and publishing career thusly creating the well-known works that exist in anthologies at present.

  As the group retirement party was exhausted of its mirages, the Nine Greatest Muses huddled at the end of the hallway. There were six candlelit pies on an office desk. Beside the pies were the respective ivory boxes labeled “Know Thyself” in Greek. While Nathaniel held the boxes open for the retiring muse he was dressed in a spare outfit of a white dress shirt, brown corduroy pants with matching suspenders and loosened necktie. He wore a second pair of glasses which granted him vision of the muses as they assembled. Fiona, wearing her baby blue pants suit, held the candle-topped pies.

  Anna Pavlova placed her object of memory, a pair of ballet shoes, inside the box. She made a wish and blew out the candle activating the swirling light from the waiting room’s asphodel door. As she walked to her respective timeline, Paul Lawrence Dunbar unhurriedly discarded his object. Forfeiting his memories, Mr. Andrews blew out the candle on his own apple pie and strode into Heaven which, for a brief instance, smelled of a clean sea breeze.

  Icarus stepped forward. He didn’t break his stare as he placed the feather inside the ivory box of knowledge. He stopped in front of Fiona and thought about his wish. He blew the flame out with a single puff.

  “Are you absolutely sure that’s what you want, Icarus?” Fiona asked him.

  He turned his eyes to Lucas who was in line. Icarus’ look of longing was short. While looking at Lucas, Icarus nodded. He turned to Fiona. The dazzling illumination was replaced by familiar Purgatorial warehouse lights.

  “What are you doing?” Lucas shouted. He rushed to Icarus and held him. “Whatever horrible things you’ve done, Icarus, whatever awful things have brought you here – you don’t deserve Purgatory. You don’t deserve to have your soul eaten like that, you know? You, Icarus, are whole. Gabriel once told me ‘You’re here to live in the happiness of which we all lose track. You are here; here is a start. Because no matter where you go, or come from, you can start where you are!’” Lucas turned to Fiona and Nathaniel in tears. “Am I right? Please tell me I’m right!”

  “This door was meant for me, Lucas,” Icarus told him. When Lucas turned to him, Icarus went on in saying, “My destiny isn’t in Heaven. Nor is it through reincarnation.”

  “Your destiny shouldn’t be a punishment!”

  “Who said it’s a punishment?” Icarus asked with a furrowed brow. “If anything, it’s an adventure. An unwritten epic poem that needs a hero to challenge its dragons.”

  Lucas shook his head. “I don’t see it as such . . .”

  Icarus took Lucas’ hands in his. He kissed him on the right cheek and whispered, “I’m not expecting you to.”

  Icarus released his friend’s hands and slowly walked into the warehouse of Purgatory. Icarus turned to see Lucas and eventually disappeared into the shadows of forgetfulness.

  When the light from the asphodel door returned, Nathaniel opened the lid of Lucas’ ivory memory box.

  Lucas scrutinized the box and felt for the guitar pick in his pocket. The grip on the pick was so strong that it left a tear-shaped indentation in Lucas’ palm.

  “I refuse to accept this curse of loneliness that Management’s put me under. They took Gabriel from me and now Icarus? No. I’m not going to forget,” Lucas told both his caretaker and Head Muse. The flickering candle on his personal cherry pie was then snuffed. “I’m going to find him and bring him back.”

  Hearing these words, Nathaniel wanted to stop him. He wanted to warn Lucas of the perils that came from journeying to find someone who didn’t want to be found. At this moment, as he looked into Lucas’ eyes, he could see himself as Fiona had seen Nathaniel while in hot pursuit of his reincarnated female companion. Like Nathaniel, there were lessons regarding the heart and jaunts that had to be explored, which Lucas needed to experience for firsthand.

  With the pick still in hand, Lucas gave a nod to Nathaniel and Fiona. He looked at Harriet and Annette who stood waiting. Lucas waved at his best friend in her wedding dress and also to his own client, Harriet, whom he had inspired during his former term. The warehouse of barn lights returned. He exhaled deeply. With the music swelling within his spirit and the guitar pick in hand, Lucas began his expedition to dynamically reclaim what had gone missing from his heart.

  “I suppose that leaves me,” Annette said quietly as she stood in her recently re-stitched wedding gown. “I don’t have an object to put into my memory box, do I? You had originally intended those sixty-eight violet envelopes to do the trick but it was your words that caused me to recall being the Ninth Generation muse.”

  Nathaniel spoke up first. “The three violet envelopes gave you back your memories. Not my word
s. However, due to those unforeseen circumstances, Fiona and I have something special that will take your memories. I’ll give you the time-sensitive trinket when we return to your wedding day.”

  She approached Fiona and the flame-topped candle it held in the latticed strawberry rhubarb pie. Fiona asked Annette, “Are you ready to go home?”

  Annette looked at Nathaniel who nodded slightly while looking at the candle atop her pastry.

  Harriet was in Annette’s line of sight who nervously bit her lip as the bride gave a goodbye.

  Annette blew out the candle. The light from the waiting room door shone once more. With it came the sound of chirping birds in nearby branches, the sweet scent of fresh-picked yellow tulips and the tread of the church’s parlor carpet underfoot. Prior to reinserting herself back into her own timeline, Annette surveyed the hallway of the department. She looked from floor to ceiling as if recalling what she had come to learn as a person and muse . . . and then crossed the drape of white. It was laced with the smell of honeysuckle as she crossed into the shining daylight of her mid-afternoon marriage.

  *

  Nathaniel soaked in Annette’s reflection as she nervously ran her hands along the front fabric of her wedding dress. Her red hair had been put up into a solid bun of hair-sprayed curls. Her sculpted bangs had been positioned to the left. Her lips had been polished with a nude gloss. She wore a moss-based eye shadow to match the natural green in her eyes which were accentuated with thin black eyeliner.

  Though to Nathaniel she looked exquisite, Annette sighed. “Something’s missing,” she said into the mirror. “I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Allow me,” Nathaniel interposed. He approached her from behind and, with steady hands, took the opal necklace from around his neck and fastened it around hers. The stone fit perfectly. As Annette opened her mouth to object, Nathaniel captioned his gift in explaining, “Something old.” He reached into his pocket and took out the two wedding rings from the black hoodie pocket. He dropped them into her open right hand. To this exchange, he added: “Something new.” From another pocket, he extracted a small navy blue jewelry box. Nathaniel circled round and met Annette’s gaze and opened the lid. Inside were Fiona’s pearl earrings. “Something borrowed” He held a blue-colored Lite-Brite peg and placed it into the petals of her bouquet of yellow roses. “And the peg of Sarah Milbourne which started this whole mess that brought you to me. This makes your ‘Something blue.’”

  Annette hesitated. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s the least we could do, considering what you’ve done for us. For Management.”

  “I could do more . . .” Annette told Nathaniel.

  For a brief moment, a tongue-tied silence existed.

  He took the pearl earrings out of the box. “You’ve done more than enough.”

  “Have I, Mr. Cauliflower?” When it was obvious that Nathaniel didn’t have anything else to say on the matter, Annette took the pearl earrings and fit them in her ears. She looked at herself in the mirror and was openly satisfied with her up-to-the-minute appearance. “And what of the object that’s going to take my memory?”

  “The rings,” Nathaniel spoke softly.

  Annette studied the rings in the daylight.

  “When Adam puts the ring on your finger, you’ll forget being one of the Nine Greatest Muses and prior memories. When you put the ring on Adam’s finger, he too will forget what’s transpired.”

  There came a gentle knock at the closed parlor door. Annette and Nathaniel broke eye contact. Annette turned to the door as she heard Adam’s voice.

  “Annette,” Adam timidly called, “Are you in there?”

  “Yes, Adam, I’m here,” Annette answered.

  “I’m glad, you have no idea. When you left me I wasn’t sure if you were coming. That is to say, I hoped you would. I know that I’ve done unspeakable things but I wanted to reassure you that everything I did was so that we could be reunited.” He paused and, when Annette didn’t respond, Adam went on. “I didn’t tell the other muses this, but I did remember our past life together.”

  As Adam said the word memories, Annette looked down at the rings.

  “The memories didn’t come at once. In fact, the only memory that I had at the beginning came after I brushed my finger along one of the dusty empty bookshelves on the wall at the store. Memories resurfaced later but that initial memory was of the day you and I met in our first lives. I was reorganizing the history section when I found you, or at least the past version of yourself as a muse named Annette Slocum. I remembered how beautiful you looked that day standing there in The Muse’s Corner. And how, even at that short-lived moment, I knew we were destined for one another. After everything, I believe that. Don’t you?”

  Annette didn’t answer.

  “Say ‘yes,’” Nathaniel whispered.

  She gave Nathaniel a sharp look for butting in. “Yes,” Annette blurted loud enough for Adam to hear. “Yes, Adam, I do.”

  “If there’s any way we could forget it happened and move forward, oh man. I would jump at the opportunity to get it right a second time.”

  Annette shot a look to Nathaniel who raised his eyebrows and cupped her fingers around the rings.

  *

  Pachelbel’s Canon played as the wedding party processed down the aisle. Nathaniel, who stood beyond the sanctuary’s rear doors, watched with finality as the ring bearer, a stocky young fellow of nine years, paraded with his pillow held high so the congregation could see. He was followed by the flower girl who Nathaniel roughly guessed to be about the same age. She tossed tulip petals to the ground as she approached the groomsmen, bridesmaids, priest and Annette’s groom-to-be.

  Annette was in the back of the church with, who Nathaniel guessed, was her father in her second life. Her full attention was focused on the procession. As the wedding march erupted from the church organ pipes, Annette took her first steps to her future and, justly so, her last steps from Nathaniel and the world of the muses. As she entered the sanctuary, heads turned. The congregation rose to their feet and gasped in admiration of her beauty.

  The remaining three muses stood at the doors as Annette reached the front altar where the two lovers met with joyful smiles. The march ended and the priest, after a brief pause, requested that the congregation “Please be seated.”

  Nathaniel sullenly dug his hands into his pockets as Annette’s father handed her to Adam’s care. The preacher began the service.

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God to join this man, Adam Eustace McCloud, and this woman, Annette Liliana Redmond, in holy matrimony . . .”

  The priest’s reading spoke of marriage being a union of “two hearts” but his words were garbled as Fiona, in an audible aside to Harriet, said “And think, Harriet, once we return to the department, you have one peg before you so aptly take on the role of Head Muse, which I know you’ve been eager to obtain.”

  “Yes,” Harriet’s voice cracked a bit as she said to Fiona. “I suppose I am . . .”

  Nathaniel, suffering from his misophonia and annoyance to certain sounds, which in this case was the sound of the two women talking over the ceremony, stepped forward to hear better the tail end of the priest’s speech.

  “Do you, Adam Eustace McCloud,” the priest asked the groom, “take Annette Liliana Redmond to be your lawfully wedded wife, promising to love and cherish, through joy and sorrow, sickness and health, and whatever challenges you may face, for as long as you both shall live?”

  Adam seized the ring from the boy and took Annette’s hand. “I do . . .”

  Not wanting to see any more, Nathaniel turned his back on the wedding. He started to go but Fiona stopped him.

  “Will you be alright on your own, Mr. Cauliflower? Honestly and truly?”

  Without turning to see Annette’s blissful proclamation, Nathaniel nodded and said to his Head Muse, “Aren’t I always?”

  When he arrived to the department in the after
life, Nathaniel’s obsessive mind worked industriously as it had earlier. With the illusions of the retirement party having faded, leaving the plainness of the inspirational hallway and offices, Nathaniel secured the ivory memory boxes behind the mural of the original muses in the conference room. Nathaniel took the broom to the hallway tiled floors. He buffed and waxed the tiled floor until it sparkled under the newly installed replacement energy-efficient bulbs of the ceiling, which he also installed for safe measure. The post boxes were repositioned by the doorless offices and awaited envelopes. Not yet knowing who would be arriving in the wave of Generations, Nathaniel replaced the old decorations of the recently retired muses and draped rooms with four uniform barren egg-shell walls.

  He started with the office of thunderstorms. Taking an axe to the wooden glass cabinet with the ten-digit combination lock, he splintered it into brushwood and tossed the fragments through one of the hall’s nine different archways. He kept the framed photographs of the Nine Greatest Muses and discarded everything else. The blowing wind carried the pages of his manuscript and divided the passages until all that was left were miniscule pages flapping at a distance in the approaching storm’s perspective. Along with his manuscript, he unscrewed the jars that contained both the twenty-one dead dandelions and the single torn ledger page. Nathaniel soberly permitted the wind to carry these portions. He reached into his pockets and emptied them of items. He took a special moment to toss the glow-in-the-dark star into the tempestuous chasm as if flipping a coin into the expanse. As the illusions disappeared, taking Nathaniel’s prized memorials with them, he stood in the center of the office with the nine picture frames in hand. He considered the disinfected office for a short time. He then headed to the adjoining offices to further fumigate.

  The living Grecian beach with its waves crashing upon sandy shores was stripped. The Russian cityscape and a brilliantly sculpted ballet studio complete with elegant mirrors and hardwood floors were torn down in seconds without a single dust mote left as a reminder. The Titanic in its gleaming majesty set sail and was replaced with nothing more than an empty cabin of plaster and dry-mold. Evangeline’s obsolete office of sculpted ribbed vaults and elaborately constructed columns crumbled silently into a sinkhole until it was rid of anything equally as spectacular. Office after office, the department was peeled of its preceding miracles until it looked no different than any other empty organization that one might find on any given quiet weekend.