Louis Maistros - The Sound of Building Coffins

Typhus hesitated. There was one more question, and the question came in the form of a single word:

“Lily?”

“Your mama’s name was Gloria, son.”

“Gloria.” The word felt holy on his lips.

“And I guess the answer to what you’re asking is yes .”

“Gloria.” Fresh tears welled in Typhus’ eyes.

“There was no shame in the love you felt for our Gloria; my wife, your mother. Shame not even in the passion. She was the love of my life, Typhus-and my hand was on your heart through no fault of your own-God Himself having put it there. You had no way of knowing why you felt the way you did. But that bastard Jack sure as hell did know. He knew every bit of it.”

In spite of this truth, Typhus could no longer bring himself to feel hatred or anger towards Doctor Jack. Couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but regret-regret at knowing the most powerful thing he’d ever felt in his life, his love for Lily, was not even a thing he could call his own. It was a passion borrowed from a dead man, his father.

“That ain’t so, Typhus.” After fifteen years residence in his son’s soul, Noonday had no problem plucking thoughts from his head. “Your love was your own. It was always your own. I just give you a little nudge is all.”

“Sounds like you done a lot of nudgin’.”

“Guess I did.” Noonday smiled. “I hope I nudged you right once or twice along the way.”

“Maybe you did. I guess you did. I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s hope-at the end of the day, hoping is all anyone can do. Anyway, now that you done spat out my hand, I guess I’ll be off on my own shortly. Off to the Spiritworld, sure enough. And this time all in one piece.”

“Heaven,” said Typhus, squinting his eyes at the sun. “Up in the clouds.”

Noonday lowered his eyes. “I guess I gave you some wrong information about that back when I was a living man-but damn if I didn’t take the Holy Bible literal at every word. Truth is, there ain’t no heaven and hell, son. Just one Spiritworld. And it ain’t in the sky, neither.”

“Where, if not up?”

“Think.” Noonday winked at his son. Spat another stream of juice in the water; a hint.

“The river.”

“Water, son. Ain’t nothin’ more sacred than water. Even more sacred than air.”

“I think I’m dying, Daddy.”

“I know, son.”

“But I’ve got so many questions-”

“Shhh. Time for that later.”

“I don’t understand.”

Noonday stroked his son’s forehead. “Ain’t you been listening to a word I just said? In the water. We’ll meet again in the water. Soon.”

“I need something, Daddy.”

“What might that be?” said Noonday, knowing full well what Typhus needed.

“I need the truth.”

“The truth is what it is, Typhus. Real truth is common knowledge in the world of living men. Men only get to asking about it when they have a hard time accepting what they already know. But you knew that, didn’t you, Typhus? Ever since you was small, you knew that. You just done forgot is all.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, boy.” Noonday touched Typhus’ cheek. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

The mind of Malvina Latour had been in steady decline for better than two decades now, its process of deterioration having integrated itself into her daily routine. Recent events passed through her head like a sieve and lately she’d found herself mostly unable to form clear thoughts of any kind. Being aware of such weakness failed to distress her, though, for she found comfort in the night.

In dreams, she was vibrant and young, her mind sharp and clear. In dreams, she was not a doddering old woman who babbled endlessly and bitterly about shoes left in the middle of the damn floor. While asleep, all was right and peaceful. All this had been so-until Coco Robicheaux had come to call.

Since the coming of Coco Robicheaux her nights had brought only dread, the vivid calm of dreams stained by something dark and deathly. A ghostly thing had invaded her dreams, never far off but never too near-getting nearer with each night.

Coco Robicheaux . His presence had become so strong that she now felt him even while awake-as a wisp of smoke encircling her heart, a noose slowly tightening. She didn’t know what he wanted, but she knew he was coming for her.

Tonight as she drifted off to sleep a heavy sense of dread fell-something like a premonition of her own death. She might have snapped awake had the dread evolved to fear, but the sensation of it had left her remarkably unafraid. Though dread and fear are often mistaken for one another, they are hardly the same thing. She dissolved into sleep with a thin smile on her lips as she let the dream take her.

The thin smile remains as she walks. She is walking now as she always does in dreams, at the bottom of a river. The object of her dreams, she believes, is to find Manman Brigitte , her spiritual mother, her personal met tet. It’s a journey that has yielded not one clue, but a journey full of wonder and gorgeous mystery. To Malvina Latour it is the mystery of a poem constructed by angels.

There is no perceptible current this far below the surface; Malvina moves easily, only remotely aware of the tons of water surrounding her, pushing down from above, reducing far away sunlight to luminescent brown, caressing her skin and causing her thick black hair to drift wildly about her eyes. She is strong in the dream; her joints do not ache, she is not short of breath, her back is straight and absent of pain, her head is held high and proud. She is beautiful in the dream; her skin is a glowing and fair tan, her breasts are firm, her stomach flat, and her eyes as bewitching as they’d been in her youth.

Suddenly she falls, landing softly on palms and knees. Her head turns to investigate what she’s tripped over.

Shoes.

In my damn way…

Dread and fear become one. This is not right, this cannot be. Mundane realities like this are not allowed in dreams. There are no misplaced shoes here, no regret, no betrayal, no guilt, no pain, no pain, no pain…

Not allowed, not here.

There is music now. She hears music; tinny and fine, joyous and troubling. Wisps of red and orange weave through the brown of deep river before her eyes: a subtle invasion. The wisps move easily but there’s anger in their movement, they are cool liquid fire. They petition her to remember things that have no business here, things not allowed in sweet dreams of night.

She means to get to her feet, she means to run, she means to wake, she means to leave-but the river floor is soft, slippery, treacherous and she cannot rise up. There is pain in her joints, her legs and back become racked with creaking misery, she can’t catch her breath. She notes the thick, flowing black hair so recently dancing around her eyes is now wispy and white. She wishes to sink into the river floor; disappear, be gone. She is ready.

She will not be waking up. This is Coco Robicheaux’s doing. He is, she presumes, the thing she’d called into the world on that black night so many years ago. And now, after a lifetime of anguish and regret, he has finally come to thank her with his cold touch. Manman Brigitte had been wrong; pain has healed no one, no one has done right by anyone, there is no saving grace. Promises were made but not honored, only bad things truly are.

Her eyes close tight.

There’s a hand on her forearm, lifting upward, its grip gentle.

“Mother?” she asks in her mind, with eyes still closed, praying her search might be over, that questions might be answered, that an end might be near. She hears only a laugh in return. A deep, male laugh.