Wicked Time

by Amitrani, Michele

  Pacific took off his sunglasses and for the first time Alfred could see the color of his eyes. They were of a very light grey that reminded him of cold stone.

  “You did well,” Pacific said, glancing at Alfred. “I didn’t expect you to see much, your first time.” Then the tall man turned on his camera and took a picture of Steve’s body from up close.

  Alfred looked at Pacific, and what he saw made him shiver. There was nothing on the man’s face. No sorrow, no excitement, no worry, no delight over the man’s death. No emotion at all. Pacific reminded him of a businessperson talking about last quarter’s earnings.

  It did seem like Pacific was used to seeing people die. Was that really nothing more than routine for him? What kind of person sees death on a daily basis? More importantly, what kind of person can predict it?

  Yes. Now that Alfred’s mind was clearing, that was plain. Pacific knew Steve was about to die. But how was that possible? And why did he want Alfred to witness that death?

  Pacific stepped away from Steve, and offered Alfred his hand. “Can you stand?” he asked.

  “I … I think so.”

  “Here. Let me help you.”

  Alfred took his hand, and Pacific helped him up.

  “Now look at me.” Pacific said. “You’re still wheezing. You need to calm down. Breathe in, and breathe out. Yes, just like that. Now do it again.”

  Alfred did. After a while, he felt a bit better.

  “Now, sit here.” Pacific pointed to the hood of Steve’s car. Alfred dragged his feet and sat. Pacific rummaged inside his pocket and emerged with a small, round object. “Eat this,” he said

  “What is it?”

  “A candy. Caramel flavour.”

  “I … I don’t want it,” Alfred closed his eyes and waved the candy away. The thought of food made him sick again.

  “You do want it,” Pacific insisted, pushing the candy to Alfred’s hand. “This is a special candy. It will help you feel better. Trust me.”

  “What do you mean by special?”

  “Just eat it. You’ll feel better. I promise.”

  Alfred clenched his jaw, but didn’t argue. He had no strength for it. He unwrapped the candy and ate it.

  Alfred felt an inexplicable wave of heat as soon as he swallowed the candy. It felt strange but invigorating, like drinking a mug of hot chocolate in the middle of winter. His muscles relaxed instantly, and he immediately felt stronger.

  “How do you feel now?” Pacific asked.

  “Well … I … I feel better, actually. Much better.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  A black bird came down from the sky, and landed on Steve’s stomach. It stayed on top of it for a while, then scampered toward the half finished burger and started picking at it. Another two crows soon followed the first one, joining the feast.

  “Is he really dead?” Alfred asked, trying not to stare at Steve’s face.

  “As dead as it gets.”

  Alfred diverted his look from Steve and studied Pacific. “Can you …” he trailed off, unsure on how to continue.

  “Go on,” Pacific said. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, and used it to polish his sunglasses. “Ask away.”

  Alfred gathered his thoughts and then continued, “Can you always see a countdown? I mean … the remaining life span … Can you see it always? On … on everybody?”

  Pacific smiled. “Right,” he said. “You want to know if I can see when you’re going to die. Or maybe you don’t. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that seeing those numbers is not my prerogative. I just know where to look, and how.”

  Alfred had a million more questions and no way to ask them. He just felt devoid of everything, numb and confused. He didn’t remember the last time he had felt so lost and scared.

  “Come on,” Pacific said, gesturing him to stand. “Steve is going to attract attention soon enough and we want to be as far away as possible before that happens. Besides, we got another appointment with Destiny, remember?”

  The tall man turned and started walking away from the corpse.

  Alfred watched Steve’s horrified expression one last time then he stood awkwardly from the car’s hood and staggered behind Pacific.

  The Richest Place in the World

  They walked for a couple of blocks in silence, Pacific leading the way, with Alfred slightly behind, deep in thought.

  He was still trying to deal with Steve’s death, a death that Pacific anticipated and had wanted Alfred to witness for some reason.

  But why?

  Alfred had no real answer to that question, nor the heart to ask Pacific for any further explanations. He was still dealing with what happened just a few minutes prior. All he knew was that there was a corpse lying at the end of Insinua Avenue, with crows picking at his food.

  Alfred glanced at Pacific. The tall man was whistling joyfully. Alfred looked away from him and closed his eyes. Whistling! A person had just died in front of their very eyes, and he was whistling! It was so wrong it wasn’t even funny.

  Alfred wiped the sweat from his forehead, and tried to calm down. He needed to analyze what had happened. But how?

  The fact that Pacific knew when the man was going to die, the countdown appearing on Steve’s head, the camera immortalizing the event and showing the red numbers. All of that had no right to be.

  And so Alfred looked for answers outside the realm of reality, to things that society labeled inexplicable, impossible and completely, utterly mad. He looked for answers far from the logic of everyday life, and allowed his mind to embrace the impossible.

  ‘Magic’ was the answer that came to him first, dark magic, like sorcery, the stuff of fantasy books and fairy tales.

  The thought made him shiver. Here he was, an adult person thinking of wizards and fairy tales to try to give sense to what had happened.

  Of course he didn’t believe that kind of stuff. His mind wasn’t going to just accept the inexplicable. It was going to fight it, trying to constrain those events to something familiar, something Alfred knew and understood. But it was a useless effort destined to fail.

  You can’t explain magic or miracles when they happen, he found himself thinking. You either believe them or you don’t.

  Again Alfred looked at Pacific. This time he studied his lean figure covered by the long, laminated coat. He tried to unveil the mystery behind the person who came into his life so suddenly. The sunglasses once again shielded his grey eyes, and his forehead and ears were covered by the beanie hat he always wore. The only portion of visible skin was the lower part of his face, clean shaven and as pale as a hospital wall. Had that man something to hide?

  Alfred looked at Pacific for so long that he was no longer just looking, but rather staring.

  Other questions surfaced like bubbles in the pond of his mind.

  Who was this person? Why had they met? How could he possibly know when people were going to die?

  “Are you the devil?” Alfred heard himself asking the question, but couldn’t believe he actually asked it. It had just been a passing thought, no more than a glimpse of awareness at the back of his mind. But the question was there now, in the real world, and Alfred could not take it back. So he waited, and hoped the answer would not be the one he feared.

  A wry smile flashed on Pacific’s face. “The devil is an idea made up of stories and faith,” he said. “I’m flesh and bones. There is no Devil without Christianity, there is no story without a storyteller.”

  Alfred frowned. “I … I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not a story,” Pacific explained. “I am a fact of life. Think of it this way: If you were to erase every single religion from the history of mankind, I would still be standing in front of you. No, Alfred White, I’m not the Devil. I’m just a fellow trying to make ends meet.”

  Alfred didn’t know if he could trust Pacific’s answer. However, somewhere, somehow, a part of him suspected that if the Devil really existed, he would have probably ans
wered that question the same way.

  “But you can see when somebody is going to die,” Alfred pointed out.

  “I can,” Pacific agreed, “but so can you. Does that make us the Devil?”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Alfred thought a bit about that. “Well, I could see the countdown, yes, but … I mean, why? Because I was with you? Maybe because you did something special to me and—”

  “There’s nothing special in seeing those numbers,” Pacific cut him off. “I’m not special because I can see death coming, my young friend. I’m special because I can use that knowledge to my advantage.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Pacific pushed back the sunglasses on his nose again. “Understand this: death is a commodity, a resource that can be used,” he said. “That is the main reason why I’m here. I’m here because I can use death, and what it brings with it.”

  “Wait … What?” Alfred was very confused. “That doesn’t make any sense. How can death be a commodity? I mean … death is just death. The cease of life. The end.”

  “That is true for a person who can’t see anything beyond that point. But trust me when I say, there is much more than simply an end, for somebody able to understand that death is only a part of a bigger truth. You see, when you are able to see death as a commodity, it becomes a story, just like money. And a story can be a good one, or a bad one. It depends very much on the person who’s telling it, and on who’s listening.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. It just doesn’t make any sense!”

  “What, precisely, is puzzling you?”

  “Um, everything!” Alfred blurted out.

  “Well, you’ll have to be a bit more specific than that if you want a meaningful answer.”

  Alfred sighed. “OK, let me get this straight,” he said. “Basically, you just know a bunch of random stuff about a person, picture a square in your mind and you can see his or her remaining life span? Is that how it works?”

  “No,” Pacific shook his head. “It’s not random stuff, it’s information that makes up that person’s life. And thinking of a square would only work for men. You need to picture a circle if you want it to work for women.”

  “Why a circle?”

  “Because the circle is the perfect shape,” Pacific added with a knowing smile.

  “Oh,” Alfred had no idea what that meant, but he also had no idea how to explore the subject further. “I … I don’t know what else to say,” he admitted.

  “Then say nothing,” Pacific suggested. “Don’t be in such a rush to understand. To figure things out. The path to knowledge is a marathon, not a sprint. Watch, and learn. Words can bring you only so far. Experience is a far better teacher.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that knowledge is a double-edged knife. You have to be trained to handle it without hurting yourself. I always choose the words carefully when talking to you because I’m aware that the wrong word in the wrong place could crush you, and cast your sanity into oblivion. You are not ready for the knowledge you seek, Alfred White. Not yet.”

  Alfred muttered under his breath, but said nothing more.

  Pacific turned left, then right. Alfred followed him to a part of the city he had never been before. They walked for a few minutes along a commercial street with lots of stores and street vendors. Eventually the stores became fewer and scanter, and they found themselves in a quiet neighbourhood at the end of the West End. It was a residential district, with lots of cars parked along the street but almost no stores.

  In the middle of the neighbourhood there was a massive building made up of grey marble that stood out in the jungle of houses. It was beautiful and imposing, and seemed quite old. A white cross as big as a tree dominated the entire structure.

  Around the building there was a metal fence that spanned from left to right as far as the eye could see. The entire structure was surrounded by the fence.

  “Speaking of the devil,” Pacific said, looking at the white cross with a smirk. “Here we are. Our second meeting with Destiny is about to begin.”

  “A church?” Alfred asked, clearly taken aback. “You want to go inside that church?”

  “We’re not going inside it,” Pacific corrected him, “we’re going behind it.” Pacific walked past the gate and so did Alfred.

  The church was not the only building inside the fence, only the biggest one. There also was a smaller building that looked like a chapel, an apartment unit and a parking lot covered by solar panels.

  Alfred didn’t see a living soul while walking inside the property, but he heard sounds and voices coming from inside the church. People were praying and singing. Apparently, there was a mass service going on.

  They walked past a line of trees that flanked a small garden with statues of angels and past a couple of small fountains. A few steps beyond the fountains the garden ended, and they reached the limit of the church’s massive structure. Alfred looked in front of him, where there was nothing except what seemed a very large and very empty square. It was plain and bare, and surrounded by the same enclosure that protected the entire property. Hundreds of rectangular shapes stuck out of the ground like countless white, grey, and black fingers of a multitude of buried giants trying to emerge from the ground. Alfred looked more closely at them. He saw something written on each surface, names and numbers, and then realized what they really were—tombstones.

  This was a graveyard, and a very big one at that. Alfred had no idea there was one so vast inside the city.

  “The richest place in the world,” Pacific looked around, arms spread wide as if he owned the entire place. “As author Les Brown would poetically put it: ‘Where you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream’.” Pacific looked at Alfred and smiled his half smile. “Don’t you find it a befitting quote?”

  “Why are we in a graveyard?”

  “Mr. Steve Rowsons Junior will be buried here,” Pacific explained. He pointed to a bunch of tombstones a few yards away. “Where all his family is waiting for him six feet below the ground.”

  “You mean, that man?”

  Pacific nodded. “Yes, him,” he said. “I wonder what he saw the last moments of his life, when he knew he was going to die? Were they the things he regretted doing? The things he didn’t do? The dreams he never pursued?” Pacific paused. He looked at the closest tombstone, not five yards away, and then said, “He had a dream when he was younger, you know? Steve wanted to be an artist. A painter, to be precise. Oh, he wanted it so bad! He would wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, an image in his mind and he would take a canvas and draw with passion for hours. He would pour himself in those paintings, and he would look at them with satisfaction and pride because he would see himself in those creations.” Pacific started walking toward the nearest tombstone. Alfred followed him.

  “His family told him he had no chance,” Pacific stopped in front of the tombstone. “His friends laughed at him when he confessed to them of his canvas paintings, of his passion. There was no future in his dream, they told him. No career, no money to be made. And somewhere along the way, Steve listened. He listened, and he changed. He decided his dream was too unrealistic, too childish and too stupid. He decided to live a life other people had chosen for him. And so he went to finance school, got his degree, found a stable job, married a woman he never really loved, fathered two children he never really wanted and lived unhappily ever after.”

  Pacific took the gloves off his hands, and touched the surface of the tombstone. No. He wasn’t simply touching it, he was caressing it. One, slow, gentle stroke after the other.

  “What are you trying to say?” Alfred took a step forward. He was looking at the tombstone
now too. “That he would have been better off as a penniless bastard at the side of a street, selling paintings?”

  “It’s easy to judge a person when the corpse is cold and forgotten,” Pacific placed both hands on the tombstone, resting his weight on it. “No. Only a fool judges a rotten apple when it is already rotten. I am but an observer of death, and of all things that may have happened, and didn’t. Tell me, Alfred White. Did you ever have a dream?”

  Alfred blinked, surprised by the sudden question. “What?” he asked.

  “A dream,” Pacific repeated. “Have you ever had one?”

  The image of a young boy with a cowboy hat holding a whip and following maps with a big, fat red cross on it flashed before Alfred’s eyes. The memory came to him so naturally he couldn’t believe it was his.

  “When I was ten,” he said, evoking the memory, “I wanted to be a treasure hunter. I wanted to explore exotic places, solve riddles and find impossibly precious treasure I would sell to museums for glory and fame. You know, like Indiana Jones?”

  “Yes,” Pacific said. “I got the picture. What stopped you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What stopped you from becoming Indiana Jones?”

  Alfred blinked several times, bewildered. Was that a serious question?

  “Well?” Pacific pressed him. “What stopped you?”

  “Well, I … I don’t know.” Alfred said defensively. “It was just a bunch of movies, I guess. Just a young boy’s fancy.”

  “That’s not true, and you know it.” Pacific took off his sunglasses, his grey eyes fixed on Alfred. “I’ll ask you once more. What stopped you from becoming Indiana Jones?”

  Alfred didn’t answer. He had no idea what Pacific wanted him to say.

  The tall man looked at the tombstone one last time, then he put his gloves and sunglasses back on. “When you have an answer to that question,” he said, “you’ll have figured out what most people never will.” Pacific looked around, taking everything in. “This place you call a graveyard is a museum of lost things, broken and neglected. It is full of countless Steves, men and women who died without realizing their full potential, bringing to the grave their true selves. It’s sad but also how things work in the world you live in, the world of commitments, of haste, the world of denial and delusion.”