Fic: Pacta, chapter one redux
Goddamn this has taken me forever...
Title: Chapter one
Storyline: Pacta Sund Servanda
Characters: People dying in alleys, Mystery Man, Marianne, Damma, Iomuel, angry neighbour lady
Medium: Barely restrained fic
What: Urban semi-supernatural... stuff. Join our hero as he gets shot in the head and teams up with his gangster buddies for shenanigans.
Status: 3602 words. Revised; suggestions for further improvement always welcome. Chapter two's getting looked over again, should be posted tomorrow or so; chapter three's in progress. Bloody progress.
Warning: Dying, vomiting, blood, gore, angst, drinking, smoking, bad language... No sex!
It starts with a series of murders.
The alley isn’t so much dark as teased with third-hand shades of dim mustard yellow, leftovers from the newspaper block. It is filthy, lined with broken bottles and paper, every window grimy, and nearly empty. Two men stand smoking, laughing over some quietly shared joke, as the last tram rattles by in the distance.
”Have you seen the new Cary Grant movie yet?” The man in the sport jacket pulls at the cuffs, examining some small stains.
The man in the cardigan shakes his head. ”The wife’s crazy about him.”
”I can hear her. ’Stig,’ she says, ’you take me to that film or I’m going home to my mother.’”
Stig makes a sound somewhere between a spit and a sigh. ”Her mother already lives with us; you’ve met her.”
”Haggard looking bitch, face like a gypsy?”
”Oh, she likes you. ’Why didn’t you marry Bo, Elsa? He seems so charming!’ The wife ever gets like that, I’ll take her out back and shoot her.” Stig spits, glaring at Bo when he laughs.
A third man rounds a corner and they look up.
Bo grins. ”About time.”
”Some damn meeting place,” Stig mutters, tossing his cigarette end to the ground, blowing out smoke in a practiced, irritable plume.
The third man says nothing, just pulls a revolver from inside his worn brewer jacket.
The men start, Bo dropping his cigarette. He holds his hands up, placatingly.
”Hey, friend, look, it’s all right. Whatever you want, you know we can get it, it’s all right.” He’s talking fast, in the tones of someone clinging to his confidence tooth and nails.
”What the hell is this about? We ain’t done you any wrong!”
”This isn’t about me,” the man finally says, in a very quiet voice. ”It’s about everyone else you hurt.”
”What? What in hell, you’re no better! You’re just like us!”
Bo opens his mouth, looks like he wants to shut his companion up, but he never gets the chance.
”May God have mercy on your souls.” He doesn’t sound like he believes it as he pulls the trigger.
The shots echo through the alley. The man in the brewer jacket is gone long before the sirens start to wail.
Or maybe it starts much earlier, all the way back before the Book, or maybe not so long ago. Maybe it starts with a miracle.
Marianne Teng wakes up after three months in a coma, surprising her doctors. The last week has been given her only as the result of a long-drawn argument among the medical staff over who should get to call her family and tell them it’s time. Now she sits up, if carefully, and smiles. The head trauma, the internal bleedings, the broken bones - every reason for her to be dead, on the mend. Doctors who’ve been too busy with other patients drop by to debate whether she was ever as damaged as they believed. Either way, Marianne Teng is the talk of the break room that week.
She makes the front page of the morning papers: Miracle Marianne, the brave young girl who survived a brutal beating against all odds. She’s the sunshine story that makes even the surly nurse on front desk smile, and seems to spread confidence and a renewed sense of purpose among the entire med staff. Exactly what everyone needs after the war.
Marianne just asks for lemonade, and her brother.
Damma cares for none of this, wouldn’t even if he knew about it. To him, it starts with a shot in the head.
He doesn’t see who does it, only knows that one minute he’s lighting his cigarette, the evening’s pay a bulge next to the Koskenkorva in his pocket, and then his brains splatter over the wall like bad graffiti, and everything turns extremely painful.
A tiny part of him that can still form sentences says, Headshots are supposed to be quick! The rest of whatever’s left of him is a screaming white static.
Then, to the tiny part’s annoyance devil’s cliché and the larger part’s infinite relief, everything turns black.
He wakes again, confused, his head hurting like the devil.
A dream? The memories of roughing up reluctant payers seem too vivid; he doesn’t dream like that. So if he hasn’t been sleeping... Tentatively, he touches the back of his head. His fingers feel hair, shaggy and in need of a wash, and skin. No oozing brains. Remembering that it’s the exit wounds, not the entries, that get messy, he runs his fingers down his face. Forehead, nose, lips, chin. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Not a zombie then. He would laugh, but his head feels like it’s splitting in two and that just takes the fun right out of it.
He takes in familiar rumpled sheets, the fact that he’s still wearing his leather and boots, the bulge of money and Kosken pressing against his ribs. He sits up carefully, cradling his head in one hand, and peers through his fingers at his apartment. Cracked mirror with the faded lipstick mark and toothpaste spatters, gaffered aluminum chair, folding table, even the piles of styrofoam take-out boxes and dirty laundry are the same. He runs through the possibilities: drugs, hallucinations, practical jokes. Remembers, as vividly as work, gore on a beige facade.
There’s a knock on the door and a voice calls out, ”Are you decent?”
Before he can answer, the door opens. The man stepping inside is ridiculously handsome, like something from a postcard his mom might’ve sent him; she loved old art. He’s dressed in a pale suit, and Damma is briefly thankful it’s not a loincloth.
”How are you feeling, Daniel?” the man asks and sits down on the aluminum chair.
Like shit, and now this.
Damma wishes he still carried a gun, wishes he knew what was going on, wishes his head would stop hurting.
”Who the hell are you?”
”I’m Iomuel. I’ll be your guide, your liaison, your best friend.” He smiles. ”I can make all your dreams come true.”
Damma doesn’t think the man looks foreign, but maybe his parents were hippies.
”What the hell is going on? If this is some kinda joke- Are you with the Russians?”
Iomuel shakes his head. ”No. Our agency doesn’t adhere to any nationality. And I’m afraid it’s not a joke, either.” He looks truly apologetic. ”What’s the last thing you remember, Daniel?”
Damma hesitates.
”I was having a smoke, minding myself.”
”And after that?”
He can tell Iomuel is fishing for something, like someone waiting for their cue.
”You’ll think I’m crazy,” he says as casually as he can, fishing out his cigarettes and lighting one. ”But I think I was shot in the head. It’s sick, I have a devil’s headache.”
”Yes, that happens sometimes.” Iomuel is perfectly straight-faced.
”You should play poker.” He exhales, glares at Iomuel through the smoke. ”Right now and get the hell out of my apartment.”
”I can’t do that, Daniel.”
”It’s damn best for you, ’cause I have friends coming over and they ain’t gonna be happy to see your fag ass here.”
Iomuel smiles, shakes his head. ”I know you don’t, Daniel. But I understand, it is hard to believe. Here, let me show you.” He stands, walks over to the window. Damma flings his hand up, prepares for the glare of the morning sun as the blinds are pulled up.
There is nothing there. The opposing houses, the red facades and galleries, the neighbours’ laundry - none of it is there. The only thing outside his window is a compact grey mass. Now that he thinks of it, he hasn’t heard a sound from outside his own apartment. Not even the Finnish tango.
Damma stares at Iomuel, who drops the blinds back down.
”This is an exact replica of your apartment; we thought it might be more comforting for you to wake up in a familiar-”
But he can’t hear what the man says; there’s a sudden dizzying rush, the taste of copper up his nose, and the pressure in his head, all combining into a great, sickening- He folds over and vomits on the floor, heaving, thinks maybe those are tears running down his face, or sweat.
”What... What in hell...” He reaches up with a trembling hand to wipe his mouth on his sleeve.
Iomuel glances towards the window. ”The afterlife isn’t like in the movies, I know.” He walks over to the tiny kitchen corner, with its two-plate stove and piles of yet more take-out boxes, and fills a glass of water. Incredible, Damma thinks, that he found a clean one.
The water’s sweet and cool, and exactly what he needed. He rinses his mouth out, spits on the floor - not like it makes a difference - and swallows the whole glassfull in a single gulp. He closes his eyes and puts the cool glass against his sweaty forehead, feels the headache ease off, relief settling in like a heroin comfort blanket.
But there’s that feeling, cold and empty, like there’s a void inside him, a jagged opening straight into outer space, his own portable black hole, and it hasn’t been this bad since - a long time. Blindly, he fumbles for a cigarette, has to turn it around a few times to get the right end into his mouth, then sucks it like a straw in the milkshake of life. A few deep breaths, giving some texture to whatever it is he has inside him.
”I’m dead.” His voice sounds strange, very small, and he wonders if Iomuel can even hear him.
”Yes.” Iomuel sounds genuinely sorry. Damma appreciates the simple answer.
”I’m fukking dead.” He puts sharp edges on the syllables, pushes it all into anger, familiar, wonderful anger, burns the edges of the void. His trusty Zippo flame against the infinite space.
”So what in hell am I supposed to do now? Sit in this copy and wait to go nuts?”
He opens his eyes, finds Iomuel sitting again, looking at him.
”There’s another alternative. We can give you the real thing back. We can improve it.” A corner of his mouth pulls up, crinkling one eye. ”We can give you better porn.”
”Who are you?” he asks again, but it’s a different question now.
Iomuel shrugs. ”I’m Iomuel.” Maybe seeing something on Damma’s face, he adds, ”I’m not The Man, Daniel. I’m just like you: someone doing the best he can. And I’m here to help you out. It’s not a fair deal for you, and it’s not your fault. I know all about that.” For a moment, there’s a hint of genuine bitterness, and Damma doesn’t doubt it.
”So what do I do now?” He feels tired and weak now, like a sick child.
Iomuel rises, holds out his hand. ”Come with me. There’s something I want you to see.”
Damma’s guts clench in absolute terror as Iomuel pushes the doorhandle. He doesn’t want to go outside, doesn’t want to know what it feels like to move in the empty he knows is there - fears he might disappear himself, fade into nothing. He wants to tell Iomuel to go to hell, so he can open the door himself and go back to his real life.
Iomuel meets his eyes, seems to think.
”Think about it. I’ll be back.”
Before Damma can say anything, no, don’t go out there, Iomuel has closed the door behind him. Damma stares at the door for a while. Gets up to find his CD-player, which won’t work, devil’s Korean crap; lost the TV to Babak last month, poker’s an idiot’s game; flips through some tittie mags but can’t even focus on the well-rounded flesh of that, whatshername, media chick. There’s nothing in the fridge, a jar of instant coffee and, bizarrely, a box of crackers shaped like monkeys in the cupboard. More smokes, a small box of weed. He makes himself some coffee, rolls a joint, curls up on the bed and stares at the door as the world softens a little. Eventually, he falls asleep.
And wakes up.
Oh thank god, just a dream. He snuggles into the comforter. The sheets smell of home; unwashed, sweat and cigarette smoke lingering. He breathes in deep to ease the discomfort, then realizes it must be the headache stabbing through his brain doing it, that and the nausea. He squirms out of his jacket and rolls over, sneakers scrunching down on a pizza box and empty beer cans. German import; must be from Krille’s last tour, in December. Maybe a shovel and a flamethrower will do; for the mess or his head. He pulls the t-shirt off and is about to fling it into a corner when he notices the man sitting by the table.
He freezes, arm half-bent mid-air
”Hello, Daniel,” the man says, and the pale suit and calm face seem familiar, but dreams are tricky devils that way, and Damma asks,
”Who the hell are you?” He shakes his head and black spots blind him for a moment. ”Shit that, get out, right now.”
”You know who I am, Daniel. And you know that I can’t; I told you before.”
Nonononono.
He pulls the t-shirt back on. It’s cold and moist against his skin.
”It’s best for you that you’re gone when I get back, cunt,” he growls. It’s far too early to deal with this shit; Dragan will take care of it, him and Raymond. There’s nothing the asshole can steal here anyway.
He stalks past the man and tears the door open.
He wakes with his face pressed into the pillow, his head feeling like it might explode or just did. He wishes it would, and moans.
His shirt clings to his skin, but he can’t be bothered to get it off.
Eventually, he realizes that the pills are in the kitchen cabinet, and wonders not for the first time why he was born such a damn idiot.
He pulls an arm under his chest to push himself off the bed, squinting at the room.
The man by his rickety table, legs crossed and hands folded as if he wasn’t sitting on a stolen and broken street kitchen chair, does not come as a total surprise, but Damma still wants to cry.
He buries his head back in the pillow. ”No...”
”Would you like something against the pain?”
Damma wraps his arms around his head, fingers clenching in hair.
”What do you want?” The pillow muffles his voice, makes it sound nasal and buzzy to his own ears. He lifts his head a little and finds the man holding out a glass of water.
”I would like you to drink this.”
He drags himself up to lean against the wall, grabbing the glass in both hands but not drinking the water.
”It’s not a dream,” he says. Just to get it off the list.
Iomuel shakes his head.
Damma nods and drinks the water. Feels it seep down his throat and thinks that it doesn’t usually come this cool from his tap.
Thinks of times spent on bridges and train tracks, nights spent stroking a gun, before he got it out of his hands. Thinks of the polka-dots of the satellite dishes and the stolen bikes that should be outside his door, and all the ways he’s imagined blowing up or tearing down the whole neighborhood.
He finds his coat, rummages for his Luckies. His fingers brush against the Kosken, tempting.
He lights a cigarette, but drops the lighter. It burns a hole clean through the comforter before he can get the lid shut and slam the glass down on the smoulder.
”Hell!” He feels the urge to laugh hysterically and pushes it down. Take it like a man, his dad would say. ”Shit; now I got fukkered sheets for eternity...”
”It isn’t real, Daniel.”
”I want to go home.” He doesn’t mean to say it, but he does. He’s only just strong enough not to start wailing like a kid. Take it like a man, Damma.
”We can do that.”
Damma lights another cigarette with shaking hands, refuses to think of anything else. Hold, flick, drag, breathe, shut, breathe. He finally asks, ”How?”
”How?”
”How can you fix it? Will I be some kind of...” he can feel the sneer on his face before he says it, ”ghost?” He doesn’t look at Iomuel, keeps his eyes on the floor, familiar. Scratched linoleum and cigarette ashes.
”No. It will be just like before. Like you were never gone at all. You can have your entire life back, Daniel, just the way it was.”
Damma considers this, all the stories of deals with the Devil and that more real case with the Yugos last fall, and all the takeout boxes.
”And we can make it better. Favours and returns, Daniel.”
”What’s the return?”
”You do exactly what you’ve done before; you just do it for us, too.”
”Why? Can’t you do it yourselves?”
Iomuel smiles.
”There are some difficulties that make it better for us to subcontract. You understand.”
”Who’s ’us’?”
”People just like you, Daniel. People with an interest that everyone should get their time.”
”What’s the catch?”
”No catch. Just live.”
Damma glances at the window, senses Iomuel following his gaze.
”Do I sign somewhere?”
”No, it’s not that kind of deal. We trust you, Daniel.” He holds out his hand.
Damma hesitates, then takes it. Iomuel’s hand is cool and dry, his shake firm. He smiles and puts his hand on Damma’s shoulder. The world goes away.
Damma wakes again, and the headache is back. He grits his teeth around a groan, feels his cheek scrape and stick against the ground. His whole body feels sore as he pushes himself up to hands and knees.
Maybe, he thinks, maybe I just imagined it all. Maybe I just gotta beat the shit outta someone.
The Kosken and wad of money are still a weight in his pocket. Real. Like the houses around him, undeniably familiar. The early morning sky - probably night still, actually - a wonderful testament against the empty.
His shoulder brushes against the wall, and he leans his head against the rough plaster. There’s something moist against his scalp, and he pulls away, raises a hand to the wall before he can register what he’s touching. Grey and red and some colour he can’t quite define, maybe sort of yellow, of the sickest conceivable kind. Little hard white bits in it. Fingers held still, away, he raises the other hand to touch his head. Hair caked together, feels tacky and slick. His hand comes away red.
He brushes the back of his hand down his face, feels the same tacky-slick mess there - and whole smooth skin but underneath that a soft spot in his forehead the size of a snuff container that makes him feel sick to touch. He looks at his hands, covered in oh god and it’s it’s it’s his and now he’s gone and done it-
Damma doubles over, vomits and just narrowly misses his own lap, purely by luck because he sure as hell is in no position to do anything but heave. He comes to just in time to stop himself from planting his hands in the sick, slaps them down wider apart than is comfortable. Thinks of all the traces he’ll leave for the cops, and wonders if he will be blood bound to this alley somehow for the rest of his life.
He drifts with the rustling elm seeds down the street to the tube, slips between the barriers and spills down the escalator. There’s a screaming in his mind and let’s not, he thinks, let’s not dwell on that. Only a headache but don’t think about that, either; it’s not there. Last train rolling in to the empty platform. Almost home. The tube ride is a haze, he might as well have teleported. The Kosken is gone by the time he reaches his stop.
He unlocks his front door and stumbles inside. The place is the same: tiny, messy, with the mended aluminum chair and the takeout boxes and the drifting dust. But on the table sits a neat pile of glossy magazines and a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes.
He pulls his jacket over his head and curls into a ball on the floor and bawls.
He wakes to a banging on the door, not even given time to wonder why he’s on the floor before the old bitch from next door starts hollering.
”-at it again, I had enough, you have to tell them-”
She stops short, stares at him.
”What in god’s name have you done to your face, boy?”
He slams the door in her face, ignores her protests. Now he hears the loud music that must’ve been there all morning, some of that hysterical stuff from the Balkans, and the sound of people trying to talk over it. Next door, the crazy bitch is shouting at someone else, no doubt adding a refrain about youth violence and doorslamming to her other complaints. There’s a song or a nursery rhyme along those lines, but he can’t be bothered to think about it. He looks himself in the mirror and wishes he hadn’t.
The shower runs cold before he’s convinced it’s all gone; the crazy lady will be back to complain about the water soon. Live like you did before. Like nothing happened.
He wraps a towel around his waist and picks up the phone to call Dragan.
Title: Chapter one
Storyline: Pacta Sund Servanda
Characters: People dying in alleys, Mystery Man, Marianne, Damma, Iomuel, angry neighbour lady
Medium: Barely restrained fic
What: Urban semi-supernatural... stuff. Join our hero as he gets shot in the head and teams up with his gangster buddies for shenanigans.
Status: 3602 words. Revised; suggestions for further improvement always welcome. Chapter two's getting looked over again, should be posted tomorrow or so; chapter three's in progress. Bloody progress.
Warning: Dying, vomiting, blood, gore, angst, drinking, smoking, bad language... No sex!
It starts with a series of murders.
The alley isn’t so much dark as teased with third-hand shades of dim mustard yellow, leftovers from the newspaper block. It is filthy, lined with broken bottles and paper, every window grimy, and nearly empty. Two men stand smoking, laughing over some quietly shared joke, as the last tram rattles by in the distance.
”Have you seen the new Cary Grant movie yet?” The man in the sport jacket pulls at the cuffs, examining some small stains.
The man in the cardigan shakes his head. ”The wife’s crazy about him.”
”I can hear her. ’Stig,’ she says, ’you take me to that film or I’m going home to my mother.’”
Stig makes a sound somewhere between a spit and a sigh. ”Her mother already lives with us; you’ve met her.”
”Haggard looking bitch, face like a gypsy?”
”Oh, she likes you. ’Why didn’t you marry Bo, Elsa? He seems so charming!’ The wife ever gets like that, I’ll take her out back and shoot her.” Stig spits, glaring at Bo when he laughs.
A third man rounds a corner and they look up.
Bo grins. ”About time.”
”Some damn meeting place,” Stig mutters, tossing his cigarette end to the ground, blowing out smoke in a practiced, irritable plume.
The third man says nothing, just pulls a revolver from inside his worn brewer jacket.
The men start, Bo dropping his cigarette. He holds his hands up, placatingly.
”Hey, friend, look, it’s all right. Whatever you want, you know we can get it, it’s all right.” He’s talking fast, in the tones of someone clinging to his confidence tooth and nails.
”What the hell is this about? We ain’t done you any wrong!”
”This isn’t about me,” the man finally says, in a very quiet voice. ”It’s about everyone else you hurt.”
”What? What in hell, you’re no better! You’re just like us!”
Bo opens his mouth, looks like he wants to shut his companion up, but he never gets the chance.
”May God have mercy on your souls.” He doesn’t sound like he believes it as he pulls the trigger.
The shots echo through the alley. The man in the brewer jacket is gone long before the sirens start to wail.
Or maybe it starts much earlier, all the way back before the Book, or maybe not so long ago. Maybe it starts with a miracle.
Marianne Teng wakes up after three months in a coma, surprising her doctors. The last week has been given her only as the result of a long-drawn argument among the medical staff over who should get to call her family and tell them it’s time. Now she sits up, if carefully, and smiles. The head trauma, the internal bleedings, the broken bones - every reason for her to be dead, on the mend. Doctors who’ve been too busy with other patients drop by to debate whether she was ever as damaged as they believed. Either way, Marianne Teng is the talk of the break room that week.
She makes the front page of the morning papers: Miracle Marianne, the brave young girl who survived a brutal beating against all odds. She’s the sunshine story that makes even the surly nurse on front desk smile, and seems to spread confidence and a renewed sense of purpose among the entire med staff. Exactly what everyone needs after the war.
Marianne just asks for lemonade, and her brother.
Damma cares for none of this, wouldn’t even if he knew about it. To him, it starts with a shot in the head.
He doesn’t see who does it, only knows that one minute he’s lighting his cigarette, the evening’s pay a bulge next to the Koskenkorva in his pocket, and then his brains splatter over the wall like bad graffiti, and everything turns extremely painful.
A tiny part of him that can still form sentences says, Headshots are supposed to be quick! The rest of whatever’s left of him is a screaming white static.
Then, to the tiny part’s annoyance devil’s cliché and the larger part’s infinite relief, everything turns black.
He wakes again, confused, his head hurting like the devil.
A dream? The memories of roughing up reluctant payers seem too vivid; he doesn’t dream like that. So if he hasn’t been sleeping... Tentatively, he touches the back of his head. His fingers feel hair, shaggy and in need of a wash, and skin. No oozing brains. Remembering that it’s the exit wounds, not the entries, that get messy, he runs his fingers down his face. Forehead, nose, lips, chin. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Not a zombie then. He would laugh, but his head feels like it’s splitting in two and that just takes the fun right out of it.
He takes in familiar rumpled sheets, the fact that he’s still wearing his leather and boots, the bulge of money and Kosken pressing against his ribs. He sits up carefully, cradling his head in one hand, and peers through his fingers at his apartment. Cracked mirror with the faded lipstick mark and toothpaste spatters, gaffered aluminum chair, folding table, even the piles of styrofoam take-out boxes and dirty laundry are the same. He runs through the possibilities: drugs, hallucinations, practical jokes. Remembers, as vividly as work, gore on a beige facade.
There’s a knock on the door and a voice calls out, ”Are you decent?”
Before he can answer, the door opens. The man stepping inside is ridiculously handsome, like something from a postcard his mom might’ve sent him; she loved old art. He’s dressed in a pale suit, and Damma is briefly thankful it’s not a loincloth.
”How are you feeling, Daniel?” the man asks and sits down on the aluminum chair.
Like shit, and now this.
Damma wishes he still carried a gun, wishes he knew what was going on, wishes his head would stop hurting.
”Who the hell are you?”
”I’m Iomuel. I’ll be your guide, your liaison, your best friend.” He smiles. ”I can make all your dreams come true.”
Damma doesn’t think the man looks foreign, but maybe his parents were hippies.
”What the hell is going on? If this is some kinda joke- Are you with the Russians?”
Iomuel shakes his head. ”No. Our agency doesn’t adhere to any nationality. And I’m afraid it’s not a joke, either.” He looks truly apologetic. ”What’s the last thing you remember, Daniel?”
Damma hesitates.
”I was having a smoke, minding myself.”
”And after that?”
He can tell Iomuel is fishing for something, like someone waiting for their cue.
”You’ll think I’m crazy,” he says as casually as he can, fishing out his cigarettes and lighting one. ”But I think I was shot in the head. It’s sick, I have a devil’s headache.”
”Yes, that happens sometimes.” Iomuel is perfectly straight-faced.
”You should play poker.” He exhales, glares at Iomuel through the smoke. ”Right now and get the hell out of my apartment.”
”I can’t do that, Daniel.”
”It’s damn best for you, ’cause I have friends coming over and they ain’t gonna be happy to see your fag ass here.”
Iomuel smiles, shakes his head. ”I know you don’t, Daniel. But I understand, it is hard to believe. Here, let me show you.” He stands, walks over to the window. Damma flings his hand up, prepares for the glare of the morning sun as the blinds are pulled up.
There is nothing there. The opposing houses, the red facades and galleries, the neighbours’ laundry - none of it is there. The only thing outside his window is a compact grey mass. Now that he thinks of it, he hasn’t heard a sound from outside his own apartment. Not even the Finnish tango.
Damma stares at Iomuel, who drops the blinds back down.
”This is an exact replica of your apartment; we thought it might be more comforting for you to wake up in a familiar-”
But he can’t hear what the man says; there’s a sudden dizzying rush, the taste of copper up his nose, and the pressure in his head, all combining into a great, sickening- He folds over and vomits on the floor, heaving, thinks maybe those are tears running down his face, or sweat.
”What... What in hell...” He reaches up with a trembling hand to wipe his mouth on his sleeve.
Iomuel glances towards the window. ”The afterlife isn’t like in the movies, I know.” He walks over to the tiny kitchen corner, with its two-plate stove and piles of yet more take-out boxes, and fills a glass of water. Incredible, Damma thinks, that he found a clean one.
The water’s sweet and cool, and exactly what he needed. He rinses his mouth out, spits on the floor - not like it makes a difference - and swallows the whole glassfull in a single gulp. He closes his eyes and puts the cool glass against his sweaty forehead, feels the headache ease off, relief settling in like a heroin comfort blanket.
But there’s that feeling, cold and empty, like there’s a void inside him, a jagged opening straight into outer space, his own portable black hole, and it hasn’t been this bad since - a long time. Blindly, he fumbles for a cigarette, has to turn it around a few times to get the right end into his mouth, then sucks it like a straw in the milkshake of life. A few deep breaths, giving some texture to whatever it is he has inside him.
”I’m dead.” His voice sounds strange, very small, and he wonders if Iomuel can even hear him.
”Yes.” Iomuel sounds genuinely sorry. Damma appreciates the simple answer.
”I’m fukking dead.” He puts sharp edges on the syllables, pushes it all into anger, familiar, wonderful anger, burns the edges of the void. His trusty Zippo flame against the infinite space.
”So what in hell am I supposed to do now? Sit in this copy and wait to go nuts?”
He opens his eyes, finds Iomuel sitting again, looking at him.
”There’s another alternative. We can give you the real thing back. We can improve it.” A corner of his mouth pulls up, crinkling one eye. ”We can give you better porn.”
”Who are you?” he asks again, but it’s a different question now.
Iomuel shrugs. ”I’m Iomuel.” Maybe seeing something on Damma’s face, he adds, ”I’m not The Man, Daniel. I’m just like you: someone doing the best he can. And I’m here to help you out. It’s not a fair deal for you, and it’s not your fault. I know all about that.” For a moment, there’s a hint of genuine bitterness, and Damma doesn’t doubt it.
”So what do I do now?” He feels tired and weak now, like a sick child.
Iomuel rises, holds out his hand. ”Come with me. There’s something I want you to see.”
Damma’s guts clench in absolute terror as Iomuel pushes the doorhandle. He doesn’t want to go outside, doesn’t want to know what it feels like to move in the empty he knows is there - fears he might disappear himself, fade into nothing. He wants to tell Iomuel to go to hell, so he can open the door himself and go back to his real life.
Iomuel meets his eyes, seems to think.
”Think about it. I’ll be back.”
Before Damma can say anything, no, don’t go out there, Iomuel has closed the door behind him. Damma stares at the door for a while. Gets up to find his CD-player, which won’t work, devil’s Korean crap; lost the TV to Babak last month, poker’s an idiot’s game; flips through some tittie mags but can’t even focus on the well-rounded flesh of that, whatshername, media chick. There’s nothing in the fridge, a jar of instant coffee and, bizarrely, a box of crackers shaped like monkeys in the cupboard. More smokes, a small box of weed. He makes himself some coffee, rolls a joint, curls up on the bed and stares at the door as the world softens a little. Eventually, he falls asleep.
And wakes up.
Oh thank god, just a dream. He snuggles into the comforter. The sheets smell of home; unwashed, sweat and cigarette smoke lingering. He breathes in deep to ease the discomfort, then realizes it must be the headache stabbing through his brain doing it, that and the nausea. He squirms out of his jacket and rolls over, sneakers scrunching down on a pizza box and empty beer cans. German import; must be from Krille’s last tour, in December. Maybe a shovel and a flamethrower will do; for the mess or his head. He pulls the t-shirt off and is about to fling it into a corner when he notices the man sitting by the table.
He freezes, arm half-bent mid-air
”Hello, Daniel,” the man says, and the pale suit and calm face seem familiar, but dreams are tricky devils that way, and Damma asks,
”Who the hell are you?” He shakes his head and black spots blind him for a moment. ”Shit that, get out, right now.”
”You know who I am, Daniel. And you know that I can’t; I told you before.”
Nonononono.
He pulls the t-shirt back on. It’s cold and moist against his skin.
”It’s best for you that you’re gone when I get back, cunt,” he growls. It’s far too early to deal with this shit; Dragan will take care of it, him and Raymond. There’s nothing the asshole can steal here anyway.
He stalks past the man and tears the door open.
He wakes with his face pressed into the pillow, his head feeling like it might explode or just did. He wishes it would, and moans.
His shirt clings to his skin, but he can’t be bothered to get it off.
Eventually, he realizes that the pills are in the kitchen cabinet, and wonders not for the first time why he was born such a damn idiot.
He pulls an arm under his chest to push himself off the bed, squinting at the room.
The man by his rickety table, legs crossed and hands folded as if he wasn’t sitting on a stolen and broken street kitchen chair, does not come as a total surprise, but Damma still wants to cry.
He buries his head back in the pillow. ”No...”
”Would you like something against the pain?”
Damma wraps his arms around his head, fingers clenching in hair.
”What do you want?” The pillow muffles his voice, makes it sound nasal and buzzy to his own ears. He lifts his head a little and finds the man holding out a glass of water.
”I would like you to drink this.”
He drags himself up to lean against the wall, grabbing the glass in both hands but not drinking the water.
”It’s not a dream,” he says. Just to get it off the list.
Iomuel shakes his head.
Damma nods and drinks the water. Feels it seep down his throat and thinks that it doesn’t usually come this cool from his tap.
Thinks of times spent on bridges and train tracks, nights spent stroking a gun, before he got it out of his hands. Thinks of the polka-dots of the satellite dishes and the stolen bikes that should be outside his door, and all the ways he’s imagined blowing up or tearing down the whole neighborhood.
He finds his coat, rummages for his Luckies. His fingers brush against the Kosken, tempting.
He lights a cigarette, but drops the lighter. It burns a hole clean through the comforter before he can get the lid shut and slam the glass down on the smoulder.
”Hell!” He feels the urge to laugh hysterically and pushes it down. Take it like a man, his dad would say. ”Shit; now I got fukkered sheets for eternity...”
”It isn’t real, Daniel.”
”I want to go home.” He doesn’t mean to say it, but he does. He’s only just strong enough not to start wailing like a kid. Take it like a man, Damma.
”We can do that.”
Damma lights another cigarette with shaking hands, refuses to think of anything else. Hold, flick, drag, breathe, shut, breathe. He finally asks, ”How?”
”How?”
”How can you fix it? Will I be some kind of...” he can feel the sneer on his face before he says it, ”ghost?” He doesn’t look at Iomuel, keeps his eyes on the floor, familiar. Scratched linoleum and cigarette ashes.
”No. It will be just like before. Like you were never gone at all. You can have your entire life back, Daniel, just the way it was.”
Damma considers this, all the stories of deals with the Devil and that more real case with the Yugos last fall, and all the takeout boxes.
”And we can make it better. Favours and returns, Daniel.”
”What’s the return?”
”You do exactly what you’ve done before; you just do it for us, too.”
”Why? Can’t you do it yourselves?”
Iomuel smiles.
”There are some difficulties that make it better for us to subcontract. You understand.”
”Who’s ’us’?”
”People just like you, Daniel. People with an interest that everyone should get their time.”
”What’s the catch?”
”No catch. Just live.”
Damma glances at the window, senses Iomuel following his gaze.
”Do I sign somewhere?”
”No, it’s not that kind of deal. We trust you, Daniel.” He holds out his hand.
Damma hesitates, then takes it. Iomuel’s hand is cool and dry, his shake firm. He smiles and puts his hand on Damma’s shoulder. The world goes away.
Damma wakes again, and the headache is back. He grits his teeth around a groan, feels his cheek scrape and stick against the ground. His whole body feels sore as he pushes himself up to hands and knees.
Maybe, he thinks, maybe I just imagined it all. Maybe I just gotta beat the shit outta someone.
The Kosken and wad of money are still a weight in his pocket. Real. Like the houses around him, undeniably familiar. The early morning sky - probably night still, actually - a wonderful testament against the empty.
His shoulder brushes against the wall, and he leans his head against the rough plaster. There’s something moist against his scalp, and he pulls away, raises a hand to the wall before he can register what he’s touching. Grey and red and some colour he can’t quite define, maybe sort of yellow, of the sickest conceivable kind. Little hard white bits in it. Fingers held still, away, he raises the other hand to touch his head. Hair caked together, feels tacky and slick. His hand comes away red.
He brushes the back of his hand down his face, feels the same tacky-slick mess there - and whole smooth skin but underneath that a soft spot in his forehead the size of a snuff container that makes him feel sick to touch. He looks at his hands, covered in oh god and it’s it’s it’s his and now he’s gone and done it-
Damma doubles over, vomits and just narrowly misses his own lap, purely by luck because he sure as hell is in no position to do anything but heave. He comes to just in time to stop himself from planting his hands in the sick, slaps them down wider apart than is comfortable. Thinks of all the traces he’ll leave for the cops, and wonders if he will be blood bound to this alley somehow for the rest of his life.
He drifts with the rustling elm seeds down the street to the tube, slips between the barriers and spills down the escalator. There’s a screaming in his mind and let’s not, he thinks, let’s not dwell on that. Only a headache but don’t think about that, either; it’s not there. Last train rolling in to the empty platform. Almost home. The tube ride is a haze, he might as well have teleported. The Kosken is gone by the time he reaches his stop.
He unlocks his front door and stumbles inside. The place is the same: tiny, messy, with the mended aluminum chair and the takeout boxes and the drifting dust. But on the table sits a neat pile of glossy magazines and a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes.
He pulls his jacket over his head and curls into a ball on the floor and bawls.
He wakes to a banging on the door, not even given time to wonder why he’s on the floor before the old bitch from next door starts hollering.
”-at it again, I had enough, you have to tell them-”
She stops short, stares at him.
”What in god’s name have you done to your face, boy?”
He slams the door in her face, ignores her protests. Now he hears the loud music that must’ve been there all morning, some of that hysterical stuff from the Balkans, and the sound of people trying to talk over it. Next door, the crazy bitch is shouting at someone else, no doubt adding a refrain about youth violence and doorslamming to her other complaints. There’s a song or a nursery rhyme along those lines, but he can’t be bothered to think about it. He looks himself in the mirror and wishes he hadn’t.
The shower runs cold before he’s convinced it’s all gone; the crazy lady will be back to complain about the water soon. Live like you did before. Like nothing happened.
He wraps a towel around his waist and picks up the phone to call Dragan.