Penni Jones - Suicide Souls

Doris puts our files down and sits in the wingback chair behind the desk. She steeples her fingers together at her mouth, and her lips spread into a wide grin.

At least she’s looking at us now.

“Edgar sealed his own fate.”

“How? It was awful. You didn’t see it. Or hear it.” Naomi jumps up to punctuate her words. I tug at her arm. She must feel it because she sits back down.

“I understand why you are upset. But I assure you, he could have avoided it.” She pulls another manila folder from nowhere. This one must be Edgar’s. She opens it and starts to talk again without reading anything in it. “Edgar was a particularly restless mentor. And he wasn’t the only one.” She pauses and looks down to the file before she continues, “Some of the mentors like to conduct contests between their charges. They compete to see who can have the fastest complete grief watch, which our Naomi here won by a mile. But they also liked to compete to see who could have the slowest without actually losing to the Shadow.”

Doris pauses, either for dramatic effect or to let us take in the new information.

“He was winning with you, Luke. But he played it too close to the Death Shadow. And he paid the ultimate price.”

We sit in silence for a moment before Naomi asks, “But why? What was the point?”

“Transition. If a mentor could hold both records at once, he or she could transition without completing the remainder of his or her prerequisites, or waiting in line behind anyone else. It was a way to pass the time and cheat the system.”

“He was playing with our fate,” I say.

“You can choose to see it that way. It doesn’t really matter.”

“Are we done now? Can we find new bodies?” Naomi asks.

“Not quite,” Doris says, and smiles at us like we’re silly little children.

I get what she’s going for with her 1970s power suit, and I can respect it. However, I can do without her condescending bullshit attitude. But I’m not exactly in the position to tell her that.

“What else do we have to do?” Luke asks in the most meek church boy voice I’ve heard since middle school.

“The two of you have found yourselves in a unique position.”

I keep expecting her to sigh between sentences, but she doesn’t have to do that. She’s just as dead as we are.

“You have both technically completed your grief watch. But your mentor behaving the way he did has thrown everything out of balance.”

“So now what?” I ask.

Fucking Edgar and his fucking bullshit mentoring. Maybe he deserved to get sucked away by an evil shadow. A chill runs down my non-existent spine and I feel guilty.

Maybe I’m growing as a person.

“I’m short one mentor. He had two new souls scheduled to arrive today. Since you two were his prize ponies, the new souls are your responsibility.”

“That’s bullshit!” Luke says, and I’m grateful for him doing that so I don’t have to.

Doris shrugs and smirks and the same time. Smug bitch.

“If you,” she says while looking at me, “had been more caring and taken a little more time with your loved ones,” she does air quotes for loved ones, “you would not be in this position.”

“And if you,” she says to Luke, “had taken responsibility for killing yourself and done what you needed to do in a timely manner, you would already be in a new body.”

She stands behind the desk, and she appears taller than what is probably possible. “There are consequences to your actions. Be good mentors to the incoming souls, and you’ll be on your way before you know it.” She gives a tight-lipped grin.

“How will we know what to do?” I ask. We can’t screw up.

“Edgar gave you most of the information you need. Just pass it onto your charges in a timelier manner than he did.”

“You said ‘most of the information.’ Is there more we need to know?” Luke asks.

Doris reaches behind her and pulls another file folder from somewhere. She drops it on the desk and pushes it toward our side.

“A summary of the Mentor’s Handbook . If it’s not in there, you don’t need to know it.”

Luke picks it up and opens it.

“Don’t I get one, too?” I ask.

Doris rolls her eyes and grabs another folder. She tosses it to me, and I catch it clumsily mid-air, though it feels like it wouldn’t have fallen if I had missed.

She pulls two more files from nowhere, and places them on the desk. “These are your charges. Good luck.”

I pull one file toward myself and push one toward Luke.

My charge is named Louisa. She’s only fifteen. I can’t do this.

“No,” I say and look up, ready to state my case to Doris. But she’s gone. “Where did she go?”

Luke looks up and says, “I don’t know. Not a real helpful bunch around here, are they?”

“Does this mean we have to separate?” I ask.

Luke’s the most important person in my dead life. He’s the only person in my dead life. We survived the Shadow together.

“I guess so,” he says. He looks like I feel.

“Mine is a fifteen-year-old girl.”

“Mine is a sixty-two-year-old man.” Luke stares straight ahead. “I know this will sound dumb. But I clearly never learned how to communicate with my own dad. What good can I do with a grown-up man?”

It doesn’t sound dumb. It would be weirder if a suicide soul didn’t have issues with at least one parent.

“Wanna trade?” I ask. “Older men usually like me. And you might be more tuned in to the suicidal teen thing.”

“Yeah. I think that would be best.” He nods. We both place the files on the desk and try to push them toward each other. Each time we try, the original files land before us.

“I guess it’s not up to us,” he says.

“Why the fuck would it be?” I ask, then immediately feel guilty for my self-pity.

I have strong memories of fifteen being a craptastic age, but suicide wasn’t one of my options yet.

What if the girl talks to me like I’m her mom or something? Gross.

“Do you think maybe we can hang out sometimes in the foodless food court during our downtime?” he asks.

“Are you asking me out?” I’m kidding, but not really. He’s Plath-esque and his clothes are all wrong, but he is really cute. And we’ve definitely bonded.

“Is it okay if I’m asking you out?” he says to my chest.

“Eyes up here, Luke.” I crook my finger and tilt his chin up, or lead it up with energy or something. Maybe one of these files will explain all this shit. “Yes, it’s okay.”

I think I would have been a good dad. Was Nolan a good dad? I don’t have that information in my charge’s file. Charge. Such a weird word. Sounds like I’m a benefactor taking care of an 1800s orphan. Too bad his name isn’t Pip.

Okay. Nolan. Nolan was sad because he had Parkinson’s and erectile dysfunction. Can’t blame the guy for being depressed.

“Louisa had a shitty life.” Naomi sits across from me in the foodless food court.

“Nolan wasn’t doing so hot, either.”

“That’s how people end up here, I guess.” Naomi shrugs and smiles a little. “Nobody kills themselves when things are tip-top.”

Maybe the idea of taking care of someone is doing her some good. She looks prettier than she did in Daisy’s trailer.

Maybe everyone is prettier outside of a trailer.

“I’m scared,” I say, even though I don’t want to. “I’m afraid we’ll lose each other.”

“Me, too,” she says and looks back to Louisa’s file. “I’m used to your weird emo shit. No telling what another sidekick’s shit would be like.”