Purgatorium Page 9

  He is right. I could see myself moving but I didn’t have any control over it. I feel afraid once again as I continue to move my body closer to the door without any say so in the matter.

  “I know how to get you to stop. Let me tell you another story,” begins Michael. “A telling of a story distracts the brain’s primary functions. It’s like if you were to watch a movie, your brain becomes more focused on the tall tale than what’s going on around you.”

  He pauses, looking at me. I look towards the door, letting him know the time is up, but instead of leaving he walks over to the piano. He breathes in deeply, closes his eyes, unbuttons his jacket, and seats himself slowly on the piano bench. The piano is silent. Michael begins playing “The Light in the Piazza.”

  “You see, there are lots of souls out there just like you. I can think of one in particular, actually. His name was David. Well, at least he thought his name was David. He didn’t actually know his real name. Can you believe that?”

  I feel a chill go up my spine. I look around to make sure there is no frost on the floor or walls. My watch reads: 5:25, 26, 27. The time makes me feel intensely worried as Michael continues to tell the story.

  “He was a man following the American dream. He fell in love when he was young and got married, but he thought it was more important to make his mark on the world. Though he hadn’t intended to, the man had a baby with his wife. He let his wife know everyday how he regretted her having the child. He sunk deep into this rabbit hole, and his life and thoughts became darker and darker. But no matter what he did or said, his wife stayed with him in his darkness. Her love was strong, but he never valued her love. He went so far down that hole that when he hit bottom he thought he was finally free from all the pain, but God had other thoughts in mind for him. Death wouldn’t be his fate. Instead he was given a second chance. A place that God built to test your mind, body, soul. A place that showed this ungrateful man things he had done in his darkest moments—his sins,which haunted him every day without ceasing. A place that ultimately locked his soul up. He never could understand that where there is a lock there will always be a key.”

  Michael stops playing, then holds out the photo he took of me in his left hand and sighs. His breath hangs in the air.

  I turn my head quickly to look over at the time which reads 6:00. Wild panic takes over me once again.

  “I can tell you still don’t quite understand what I am trying to say to you. It’s okay. It’s always hard to take in the complexity of a place like this and figuring out what parts we all have to play.”

  I stop, my heart racing with the spike of adrenaline as my body prepares to run for the door. I look at the doorway to the living room and see frost is forming on the doorknob.

  Michael continues to look at the photo. As he seems to be distracted, I slowly inch my body closer to the door. I am about to make a run for it until I hear Michael’s foot stomp the floor. I stop moving instantly.

  “There are superstitions that say a simple photograph can steal a person’s soul, imprisoning it in its amalgam of polyester, celluloid, salts, and gelatin, leaving it trapped with nowhere to go. Think of this place like a photograph. You would be like the image in the picture which would make me the lighter.”

  Michael reaches into his inside jacket pocket and takes out a lighter. He flicks it open and holds the flame to the photo, lighting it. “Only one way to be free.” Michael stares into my eyes. “We must burn it. Burn it all down.”

  I see him stare deep into the fire like it was calling to him.

  This is my chance!

  I run for the door as I see the walls have started to freeze over. Michael appears right in front of me blocking the door exit.

  “With pain comes chaos. With chaos comes retribution. With retribution comes salvation. That is the righteous path we are here to set you on. You may think of our methods as a bit harsh or extreme, but you will soon realize after awhile the effects it will have on you.”

  A bit frightened, I begin to wonder what he means by harsh or extreme methods.

  “The best results are achieved by first going through the pain. But eventually, you come to like the pain. The more difficulties you have, the more you enjoy your success. The pain becomes a motivator—an indicator, if you will, of a job well done. The reapers are coming to bring us pain, we must bring them chaos. Destroy the rules so you can find salvation.”

  A screech echoes through the air. I shudder. The sound is close. Why do they want to come after me? I think. I look over to find Michael putting on my black leather gloves over each of his hands. He tightens them in, preparing for a horrible climate change that is soon to occur.

  Michael chuckles dryly. “Remember! The reapers are the timekeepers, and they will do whatever it takes for you to not stray from the rules that you have lived by for so long.”

  Stray? Stray from time he must mean. I watch him pull back on his poncho as if he was about to enter a western duel.

  Another shriek, this one even closer, shakes my resolve. Frost starts forming under the front door. Michael backs away from the door and reaches back to push me farther behind him.

  “I know you don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you, but you will. While we don’t have total control over our lives, we have a responsibility to live nobly, honorably.”

  The frozen door explodes open, a reaper in its wake. Michael stands firm. I look at the dark cloaked figures in fear of what they are about to do. I look to Michael as he stands there like a rock, not afraid and ready to take them all on if he has too. A courage I do not possess at the given moment.

  “Today, we die a little. It’s at the borders of pain and suffering that men are separated from boys,” Michael says, still facing the reapers as they enter the living room. “Don’t give them the chance to get their legs on solid ground,” Michael advises. “The minute they touch something, it and everything near it freezes.”

  Michael reaches up and pulls off the reaper’s hood, revealing its deathly, skeletal face. “Throw me your knife!” he screams at me as I quickly toss it to him.

  Another reaper screams, making me trip backwards through the doorway into my bedroom and onto the floor. I watch helplessly as Michael flips his balisong knife towards the reaper.

  “Down hood and strike!” shouts Michael.

  Michael quickly jabs the butterfly knife into the reaper’s skull. It shrieks and falls to the floor, but another one is right behind it. Michael kicks off the first reaper’s head with just enough time to dodge another reaper’s attack. Michael pulls his knife out of the first reaper’s frozen skull and stabs it into the second reaper’s face, while the third reaper advances on me.

  “Stab it!” yells Michael as he slides the knife to me.

  I freeze with fear as if frozen by the reapers themselves. The reaper screams, going in for the kill. I try to flip the knife open but it falls out of my hand and onto the floor. I put my left hand down, stabilizing myself from falling back. My fingers graze something on the floor.

  I look over to find the handbook lying beside my left hand. I quickly take it up, turning my head back to see the reaper’s hand getting closer. I shield my face with the book, only to hear the reaper’s loud screech, painful to the ears.

  Michael jumps over, grabs the knife from the floor, pulls the reaper’s hood off, and thrusts the knife into its mouth in a sequence of smooth, confident motions—pure violence and deathly skill. All three reapers lie on the floor and begin to steam, melting the frost that had formed just minutes earlier.

  I toss the handbook to the floor, feeling lucky enough to have survived this whole ordeal.

  “Never ever let them fly. They form a frozen grid from under their cloaks and can take to the sky. You’re all theirs if they get you in the air. That is the end of chapter one! Any questions, class?” asks Michael, closing the knife and placing it back in my ri
ght hand. I just stare at it. Michael grasps my shoulder. “Keep practicing.”

  Michael walks across the wet floors, carefully tiptoeing around the fallen reapers who appear to be melting. “I would try not to touch a reaper’s remains in any kind of way. Unless you feel like sticking around.”

  I look at the watered down remains of the reapers and see my handbook being soaked from where I dropped it. I quickly take up the soaked book and place it on the piano. I then follow Michael, trying not to touch the hazardous water either.

  “Today we purge,” he says with a grim look on his face.

  Michael walks out my front door and into the hallway. I look down to make sure I avoid the water. When I look up, Michael is gone. My watch beeps.

  10 Minutes

  I am late! I look down and see the candy by my door again. I glance up to see if my neighbor, the waitress, is there. Sadly she is not. I bet she got frightened from all the noise that was happening. Hopefully the reapers didn’t come after her too.

  I look at my watch, suddenly panicked by my lateness. I run down the hallway to the open elevator and jump in.

  Suddenly, I feel a hard impact on my throat. Michael’s hand moves out of my view. I gasp and fall down onto the floor, holding my throat. Why did Michael hit me? I think, trying to get my bearings. I fall to the floor trying to catch my breath.

  The elevator quickly ascends to the rooftop. Why are we going up? That’s the wrong way! I think to myself as I look behind me at the painting stealing away any other thought I once had.

  Above me, Michael stares in deep thought at the painting for a few seconds. He snaps out of it and looks back down.

  “You need to learn to defend yourself,” Michael taunts. “You acted like a child in there. I can’t keep saving you forever. You need to learn how to save yourself.”

  Michael helps me back up. “Punch me.”

  I am shocked by the blow to my throat as I look up at Michael, quizzically. I shake my head no, and turn my eyes back to the elevator doors as they open. I see the rooftop and know I shouldn’t be here right now. I try to push the lobby button but Michael kicks me out.

  I curl up, trying to get enough of a barrier so I can find an opening and defend myself.

  “You see, that’s what’s wrong with you right there. Before we go any further on your surviving skills, you have to stop being afraid of everything. I know that I am particularly to blame for your emotional handicap but that doesn’t mean you can’t grow from it.”

  I look at him not understanding what he is trying to tell me. Michael goes and picks up a chair, breaking it repeatedly up against the elevator door. Once the chair is unrecognizable, he calms himself back down.

  “It’s like teaching a robot how to express feelings,” Michael says to himself. “Now why did I do that?”

  He looks over to me as if he were thinking I was actually going to say something.

  “My mistake. Still getting use to you not being able to talk. As I was saying, emotions come from different levels. What I just did was anger. Anger is a very high level of emotion with fear being the highest. Anger is the one emotion that can break off to many different other emotions. My other prime objective today is to get you angry. I bet you are wondering to yourself why I would want that from you? Right?”

  I lie there, nodding my head in agreement.

  Michael goes and grabs a brick off the ledge. “Think of this brick as anger and that window being an emotional barrier.” He chunks the brick off to another building’s window. It breaks straight through, shattering the glass.

  I freak out thinking the reapers may have heard the loud noise too.

  “All those pieces of broken glass over there are the cause and affect of anger. Pieces making up of a bit of sadness, remorse, courage, hope, and without a doubt love. Many emotions spawn from angers wreckage. The person that said love is the most powerful feeling in the world is a liar. Love is like a two-sided coin. It only works when both sides are the same. It only feels half the heart while anger can feel it up to the brim. It’s like that moment when you go all in at a poker game. Your actions are your own personal decisions. So where I am getting at with this is if you don’t feel anything but fear, then how will you ever survive? Emotions are said to keep people weak but without caring for something. The mentality of any kind of progression has no overall purpose. But one does not just feel anger for the sake of feeling angry. There is something linking between fear and anger that you will have to acknowledge first. You must fight fear with pain and with pain comes anger which soon after will bring back your humanity. So are you ready to learn some some Pain 101?”

  I panic and quickly try to drag myself away from Michael, desperate to get someplace safe.

  I just need a minute.

  I struggle to the edge and look down, remembering being pushed off the very same ledge and surviving the fall. I glance at Michael to make sure he’s not about to hit me.

  My watch beeps.

  15 Minutes

  I watch Michael’s poncho begin to flap from an unexpected breeze passing through on the right side. He tosses it over his neck as the wind picks up, then gazes out towards the severe climate change. His poncho acts almost like a cape as it flaps uncontrollably from the high winds. A chill soon engulfs me. I look back down to see my car.

  Looks like an ant from up here.

  Snow begins to fall.

  I should already be at the coffee shop by now. I am screwed!

  Michael looks over the ledge along with me.“Well there is your beautiful car. I guess it’s about time you go get in it now.” I look back to Michael and suddenly see a fist colliding with my face. I fly over the edge as I see Michael cracking his knuckles while looking down at me. “Was that too much?! Oh well.”

  As I am falling, I look up to see Michael turning toward a reaper that has appeared behind him. He throws his arm around the reaper’s neck and forces them both off the ledge.

  The reaper forms a frozen grid from under his cowl. Michael takes his knife and stabs the reapers skull. “Not enough to kill it, but enough to control it,” he says, steering the reaper towards me.

  Michael smiles as he passes me from above. I notice the frozen horizontal grid as he gets between me and the streets below. I see him use the reaper to make a frozen slide for me to fall onto. I land right on it, as Michael acts like he just caught the winning homerun ball. The frozen grid breaks from my impact, sending me hurtling toward the ground again.

  Michael hurries and swoops past me so I can fall onto another frozen grid. This time the grid doesn’t break as I start to slide on it. Michael dodges another reaper in front of him. I soon can only see his poncho as his and the reaper’s speeds have increased.

  As my feet tread across the ice, I feel the spikes ejecting out from under my shoes, letting me know that the auto cooling sensor must have kicked in.

  I try to use my cleats to dig into the icy structure but fail as I reach the end of the frozen grid. Suddenly, the other reaper forms its own grid and it just misses Michael. I fall and land on the other reaper’s grid. This time, I have a good hold until the reaper notices it has a hitchhiker on its frozen tail.

  It quickly makes its way straight up as I fall back down, trying to use my cleats to grab hold of anything from its vertical icy grid. At the last second, I stomp my foot down, burying my cleat right into the ice of the grid. I take my other foot and bear it down, making another strong hold.

  I begin to climb up the frozen grid as the reaper looks down to see that I am still on it. It screeches and heads straight toward me. I see the grid start to fracture as the reaper gets closer to me. The grid breaks from the top and I immediately jump off. The reaper holds out its skeletal hand towards me as I make my way down. Its finger is only inches away from my head when Michael tackles the reaper.

  Still in control of the other rea
per, he has managed to form a grid under me once again. The reaper after me flies back and lands on the same grid that I am on. I see Michael is steering straight so the grid wouldn’t be as shaky. I dig my cleats inside the icy slide and look at the reaper with fear. The reaper walks to me and takes out a scythe.

  I look down and can see the coffee shop. The time reads 15:55. It’s already far too late to get in the car. Unless that was what Michael was planning all along. As the coffee shop gets closer, I finally understand what he is trying to do.

  The reaper swings and I duck. Feeling helpless, I pretend to plead with it by putting my hands together and kneeling. The reaper gets his hand ready to lay on top of me.

  I look up to see Michael jabbing the rest of his knife down on his reaper’s skull, which starts to freeze itself over. The grid begins to crack. Michael jumps back and tackles me off the grid as we crash right into the coffee shop along with the reaper. My watch beeps.

  20 Minutes

  As we hit the ground, the leftover frozen grid breaks apart above us. Big ice blocks fall sporadically. Michael gets up like it’s no big thing as I begin to panic, wondering if the reaper is still alive.

  As the heels to my shoes touch the floor, they automatically retract in the cleats, leaving me astonished at how well they seemed to work.

  Michael glances around the shop and sees the now frozen reaper lying still, dead, atop the espresso machine. He smirks at me and says, “I hope you like your coffee chilled.”

  I look out the window to find the snow has stopped. I don’t waste anymore time. I stumble my way in to the park as Michael screams back, “Come on! That was fun! Wanna go again?” I look back and see him taking a picture of the coffee shop window. I continue on, not thinking anything of it.

  Looking around outside, I find no trace of anything remotely covered in snow, like it all just evaporated into thin air. Where did it all go? I wonder.