Forever After

5



He woke up with a breathless start, a dream fresh on his mind.

Jessica was there. They were together, arguing. She wasn’t happy, he didn’t seem to mind. Then she left him, just turned away and walked out of his life.

He saw himself at that point, watching his own image as if through the eyes of a camera. He saw the misery and helplessness on his own face. The anguish and agony in his tear drenched eyes.

Jessica was gone, she had left him. He didn’t know the details, didn’t know why or how, didn’t know what he had said, what he had done or how he had said or done it. She was just gone.

He wondered at his own feelings when he woke. He liked her, but he had only known her for a few weeks. Was his subconscious really that anxious that she was going to get up and leave him? Would he be that traumatised if she did? Clearly she would have her reasons and, as much as he liked her, if those reasons revolved around her not feeling the same way, he wouldn’t, surely couldn’t, be that affected by it.

He dressed lethargically, his mind heavy with thought.

He decided to perk himself up with a hefty breakfast and a few cups of coffee. Joseph was a renowned cook and would put Michael on the breakfast order without a moment’s thought.

By the time he made it down the spiralling staircase, bypassing one of the lodgers on the way -- a short woman with a rodent smile and wiry blonde hair -- Michael had already forgotten about the dream and the emotion it invoked. When he made it to the dining room, he also forgot about his hunger.

Samson sat alone in the room at the head of an empty table, his eyes pinned on the entrance that Michael strode cautiously though. He looked serious. The carefree demeanour was stripped from his wizened face, his knuckles pressed sternly and thoughtfully under his chin.

Michael flopped down opposite and absently picked at a crusted mark on the table top -- the remnants of a previous breakfast.

“What is it this time?” he queried.

“It’s about Jessica,” Samson said simply.

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake,” Michael spat tiredly. “Not this again--” he paused, stared darkly at his superior. “How do you know her name?”

Across from him Samson merely shrugged his shoulders, a gesture that indicated there wasn’t much he didn’t know.

“What do you have against her?” Michael demanded. “Or is it us that you have something against? Is it because she’s alive?”

“That’s not--”

“I’m going to continue seeing her,” Michael interjected.

Samson sighed. He rocked back in his seat. A cup of coffee had grown stale and cold in front of him, a thin spoon lolled about lazily on its scummed surface. He reached out and flicked the spoon, watching it dance its way around the cup.

“What is wrong anyway?” Michael said, thrown by the dejected nature of the typically composed man opposite.

Samson glanced up soulfully. “I don’t know how to tell you this...” he said deeply.

“Try.”

He shook his head, rejecting whatever notion his mind had just offered. “You have feelings for this girl right?”

“Yes, of course. We get along.” Michael offered little, not wanting to commit himself to her before their relationship progressed.

“I think you should call it a day.” Samson deflated as he spoke, as if he knew his words weren’t going to be well received.

“You have got to be f*cking kidding me!” Michael threw his hands down on the table. “What the f*ck is this? First you leave me in the shit, drop me in the middle of f*cking nowhere, tell me f*ck all about what I’m doing here and what this place even is, and then this?” he stood up defiantly, his calves kicking back his chair which skidded with screeching fluidity across the floor before toppling over.

“Calm down,” Samson offered up his hands: “Calm down.”

“You f*cking calm down,” Michael said angrily, throwing his hands. “How dare you come here and try to dictate my f*cking love life!”

“It's not like that,” Samson tried to explain, growing more animated. “If you would just listen--”

Michael roared: “Get the f*ck out of my sight!”

Samson stood slowly. He faced up to Michael, a pleading and sympathetic look in his eyes. Michael’s anger wouldn’t allow him to see it. He stared straight through Samson until the older man backed down, strafing around his former protégé and leaving through the kitchen door.

Michael heard Joseph and Mary on the other side, the smell of toast and sizzling bacon broke on a wave of muffled discontent.

He paced around his room with the timer held tightly in his hand. Nothing today; nothing all week, beyond that, who knew. It felt weighty and cold in his hand, an empty digital screen awaiting news of another demise.

He was angry, in that moment he hated his job and his responsibilities more than ever. He felt like a retaliatory teenager stuck in the throes of parental oppression. A small part of mature logic niggled at the back of his mind, trying to calm him down and telling him to come to his senses, but he ignored it -- forced it away on a torrent of righteous aggression. Samson had ignored him and then betrayed him, trying to end the one good thing that had happened since the curse of immortality had been bestowed.

He threw the timer across the room, revelling in the cathartic anger that surged from his muscle as the device was violently propelled against the wall. The plaster chipped, a bright white dent in the soft blue paint. The timer lumped to the floor without a scratch, its screen still alight and patiently waiting.

Michael ignored it. He grabbed his jacket and left.

When he returned in the evening he continued to ignore the device, kicking it under the bed where it nestled into an unseen clump of forgotten clothing. The following day he didn’t have breakfast at the B&B, instead he chose to dine on a sandwich and a coffee from a local cafe. On the second and third night he continued to ignore the timer. He also ignored Mary and Joseph -- the couple that had unconditionally sheltered him for a year -- and left the building as early as he could to avoid their attentions.

On the fourth night he saw Jessica for dinner. On the sixth he took her bowling. By the eighth day he was seeing Jessica every night, no longer concerned with his job or with the timer, which gathered dust underneath his bed.

After a few weeks Michael had almost forgotten about his argument with Samson. He was happy, ecstatic in his new relationship. He had been with Jessica for a month and had slept with her for the first time, then the second, third, fourth. When they started they couldn’t stop, he felt alive for the first time since his death.

He saw her every day. She had taken a break from her studies -- he suspected it was because of him, because of them, but he didn’t mind. He wanted what was best for her but the relationship was young and fresh, and seeing her took selfish priority over everything else.

They had been together for a month when Michael took her out for a slap-up meal. He spared no expense and blew a fortnight's pay on an expensive dinner. He didn’t have much money but what he did have he spent, and as he had abandoned his chance of finding more work -- if there was any, he hadn’t seen the timer for a few weeks -- there was little chance he could recoup that money. Yet when he left the restaurant, broke, penniless and practically destitute, he was happy, because Jessica was happy.

“You shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble,” she told him, her head peeking around from the crook of his arm.

“It’s our months’ anniversary,” he said proudly.

Jessica smiled timidly and slipped back under his embrace.

A wobbling hen party, an olfactory concoction of cheap perfume, cheap wine and desperation, waddled by. One of them brushed passed Michael; he felt her heavy breasts clap against his left elbow. He turned to look at her as she passed, preparing to offer or receive an apology. She beamed back with an unashamed lick of her glossy lips.

She seemed to be horny; Michael felt a little sick to his stomach. She looked like a morbidly obese siren; her fat folds flopped out of her mini skirt and tank-top like bread dough in an overfilled tin. She walked backwards whilst she tried to entice him, her heels hit a chip in the pavement and she stumbled like a flip-flopping Jabba the Hut before being saved by a heavyset friend.

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath as they gathered themselves and clip-clopped their cheapened heels away from the scene, their scents dissipating and their raucous voices fading.

“Except,” she said slowly, ignoring the horny women. “You know that technically it isn’t.”

Michael gave her a questionable frown.

“Anni, or Annus rather, is Latin,” she elaborated. “It means year.”

“Oh. So a month...”

“Isn’t an anniversary.”

“Oh.”

“Is there a word for it then?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, probably, but not one we commonly use.”

Michael looked a little dejected. Jessica reached around and pinched the back of his jeans as if to spark some life into him.

“And versary?” he wondered.

She shrugged passively. “Turn, pass, something like that.”

A light rain began to patter the skies, dotting the pavement with specks of black. The night was mild but the day had been unbearably warm, the sun-stroked streets, still warm from the heat of the day, sizzled under the dripping drizzle. A dozen drinkers patted nosily up and down, leaving the clubs and heading for the nightclubs. A line of taxi’s, official and unofficial -- husbands, wives, mothers and fathers hired as drivers for the night -- stopped, started and cruised by on the street.

Michael swerved around a group of teenage drinkers exiting a grotty pub, spilling out in the midst of a heated, but amicable debate. He held Jessica tighter in his arm, keeping her away from the concoction of cheap body spray, excessive hair gel and obscene conversation as they continued down the path.

“We haven’t been to a nightclub,” Jessica noted. Her dazzling eyes caught the glint of a neon spectacle above a building on the other side of the road, where a stubby bouncer with a Popeye build prepared for a night of intimidation.

Michael sneered distastefully, Jessica caught the look.

“Not a fan?” she wondered. “I thought a nightclub would be ideal for charmers like you. Rows and rows of drunken girls, all up for a bit of fun?” she said with a cheeky grin. “By the end of the night they’ll all be drunk, high, desperate or lonely. They’ll practically fall into your arms.”

“Nah,” Michael said calmly. “I never leave it till the end of the night.”

“Never?”

A beaten-up up car, with teenagers slotted into the seats like sardines, sped by, spilling an assortment of jeers, obscenities and bone-crushing music out of the opened windows. Michael grimaced and watched it race down the street, it halted with a clattering thunk as it slowly turned the corner, before struggling to pick up its pace again as the driver floored the pedal to speed down the opposing street.

“Never,” Michael said when the noise of the mobile tin-can had faded.

Jessica did a little two-step and lowered her right hand in a ceremonial bow, “Explain master,” she mocked.

Michael laughed at her theatrics. “You can’t kiss them at the end of the night.”

“Me? I wouldn’t kiss them at all,” she joked.

“You, me. People in general,” he explained. “You don’t know where they’ve been. You certainly don’t know where their lips have been. You don’t know on who or what they’ve been suckling.”

“Suckling?” Jessica recoiled at the choice of word.

Matthew grinned at her sardonically. “Well, you know, when the drink is flowing and the night is young, most girls are on the prowl. If you, me, whoever, decides to pick them up at the end of the night, that’s a good four hours they’ve had to circulate. Is that the salt from a margarita I’m tasting? Or the residual spunk from the bouncer?”

Jessica feigned a gagging noise and looked at him in disgust, shifting out from his grasp slightly.

Michael beamed proudly and threw an arm around her. She ducked out from under him, spun around and stopped in the middle of the street, her hands thrust on her hips, a mock look of quizzical shock on her delicate face.

“Is this why you never kissed me at the beginning of the night Michael?” she asked sternly. A sly smile tried to force its way twitchily onto her lips.

Michael held up his hands. “I didn’t need to with you,” he said softly.

Jessica threw her hand in an understanding nod and moved forward.

Michael continued, “I was with you all night. Plus, if I’m honest, it was your friend I was after.”

Jessica stopped. Her face exploded with feigned indignation that she hid behind a barely repressed smile. Michael took an instinctive step back, avoiding the inevitable slap.

“How dare you!” she roared, unable to suppress a laugh that twitched epileptically at her mouth. She pushed her hands stubbornly to her hips and moved towards the middle of the road, her head turned away in snobbish refusal. She took a few strides out into the road, watching Michael through squinted eyes. “If that’s the way you feel then I’ll just leave--”

Her words were shocked short by the screech of car tyres and a dull thud that reverberated around the street as her body clattered into the bonnet of a passing car. Her frail figure was propelled into the air where it slammed with disgusting force against the car’s windshield, splintering a spider web fracture in the glass.

The driver slammed on the brakes instantly, but the car didn’t screech to a halt until it was a good twenty feet from the impact; Jessica’s body clattered to a halt a further ten feet away.

Michael felt his knees wobble. He sunk to the floor, the pavement crunched painfully against his kneecaps. His ears buzzed and whined. The lights from the pubs, clubs and streetlights danced dizzily in front of his eyes.

There was a lot of noise. The driver and the passenger screamed aggressively at each other from inside the car, unsure who should react first or how they should react. A woman on the other side of the road had witnessed the collision and stood rooted to the spot, squealing like a new-born child. Up and down the street revellers diverted their attentions away from their prospective clubs to concentrate on the scene of carnage on the road. Conversations were already flowing, the split-second shock had died away and those who had witnessed the bloodthirsty moment bragged about their presence whilst those who didn’t pretended otherwise.

Michael heard another noise. A low strung moan which increased in volume with each painful octave. It took him a few minutes to realise the sound was coming from his own throat, a few more before he had the power to suppress it.

He dragged himself to his feet, forced his eyes to tune into the impact over his shoulder. He looked at Jessica and prayed for some sign of life, but what he saw vanquished any glimmer of hope that his heart had held.

Jessica was a mangled wreck on the floor, a dozen rivulets of blood branched away from her torn body and seeped a path into the gutters. Above the body, with a content stance and a warm smile, was Jessica's spirit. She looked at Michael, smiled happily and then calmly walked over to him.

He deposited Jessica's soul like he had done with a dozen souls before her and would do with many souls after her. He didn’t allow himself any emotion, didn’t let a single thought of what might have been, what could have been and what should have been, cross his drained mind.

Jessica said she was sorry they couldn’t go on seeing each other. She said it was unfortunate that nothing could become of their relationship and that maybe they would meet on the other side and could try again. Michael gave a few nods and strained smiles in reply, he held her hand gently and he kissed her on the cheek, but it was all for show. When she was dead to the world she was dead to him, he was never going where she was going.

He felt cheap and dirty when he collected the money for her. He felt angry when Seers interrupted and patronised him about his position, felt like ripping the smug head of his spindly shoulders and shoving it up his pompous arse. He felt like telling the gravelly voiced, arse-faced receptionist what he thought of her when she sneered down at him under the rim of her spectacles. But throughout it all he maintained an expression of nothingness, a feeling of complete dissociation.

His first love in his new world, his first semblance of hope in a place he despised and didn’t understand, had died, and with it a small part of him had also died.

A trio of sympathetic ears and open shoulders were waiting for him when he returned to the bed and breakfast. Samson, Joseph and Mary all eyed him as he strode inside, cutting a melancholic figure as he exited the darkness of the garden and broke the cosy glow of the living room.

He stood in the doorway, didn’t look at them, didn’t meet their pitying glances. “You knew this was going to happen,” he said distantly.

“We didn’t know,” Joseph said defensively. “It’s just--”

“Relationships with the living can be complicated,” Mary helped. “These things happen. I’m sorry sweetheart.”

“I knew,” Samson said plainly.

Michael lifted his eyes and stared straight at his supposed mentor.

“I tried to tell you,” Samson noted, staring into Michael’s tired, blackened eyes.

“You did,” Michael said softly with a nod of his head.

“I thought you might have known something,” Samson added. “Even without the timer.”

The images, the dreams and the strange feelings all rushed back to Michael. He nodded methodically. “It doesn’t matter now,” he said, turning away from their condolences. “It’s over.”