God, why is this happening to me? I rack my brain for answers. I know now that there’s life after death and I’m in hell for being sinful and taking my own life. But of all seven billion people in the world, or the hundreds of billion people who have died from the beginning of time till now, why did Death choose me to be his plaything?
It feels utterly empty pondering the weight of these statistics. It’s like I’m flickering between two planes. The first a vast wasteland, the post-apocalyptic world in my vision where I’m the only human not allowed to die, and the second, the familiar world indeed populated by billions of people but not a single one able to hear my voice or feel my touch.
I have slept fitfully, tormented by vivid, psychotic nightmares that I know are poor imitations of the real horrors that await me when I succumb to consciousness. I’m still in shock from everything; all the irreparable psychological damage. There’s also this creeping feeling of having made a mistake and now paying for it far beyond human capacity.
Of course I’ve done many other stupid things in life, bringing harm to myself and sometimes to others, but everything just pales in comparison to this. It’s like what the Angel of Death himself said, all a human can do is face the consequences of his own actions. Still I can’t help wondering how different things might've been had I not died when I did. Being always alone, depressed and scared I could’ve probably borne or spent my whole life trying to, but eternity’s a phenomenon whose scope and limits I can never dream to grasp, let alone survive.
Having lived in a predominantly Catholic country, I’ve been preached at, laden with guilt and warned of a realm that arranges the eternal punishment of the wicked. Who could've thought such a place had any basis in fact? My flesh crawls and my insides chill every time I think of what other revelations lie in store on this topsy-turvy zoo tour, where all the showcased animals were once human, only they can't remember anymore how it was being anything but beasts.
I could pass out again just thinking of my own sentence: to be thrown at the mercy of potbellied, winged viragos, the infamous Harpies, every waking moment of insomniac death. Like I thought at the way station, there’s a thin line between real men and sissies in the face of hellfire.
And my body! It takes a great deal of positivity to hold back despair at the sight and feel of my wet and slimy flesh, as though all the time I was emerging from a moss-covered lake. Sephtimus has begun calling me by a foreign name, too, which at first sounded Egyptian to me but which my psychic connection explains is actually Welsh. It’s spelled Cyhyraeth and is pronounced Tuh-huhreth, meaning “specter” or “death-portent.”
I also learn that a fershee, like its female counterpart the banshee, is a type of wailing spirit.
Suicide’s not an option simply because you can’t kill someone who’s already dead. I’ve basically landed myself in the ultimate prison, a place akin to a mental institute where all the doors have no knobs to turn. Or there are simply no doors.
The only thing that holds me together in this accursed place, where God Himself turns a blind eye, the only thing that keeps me from unraveling is the fact that at least one person in the world of the living knows about me and remembers. Sam. My undying light in the pitch-black depths where I descend. Memories of her readily bring tears to my eyes.
I turn my thoughts back to Sephtimus Rex. The Chief Soul Deporter knows about my past; my being an orphan, a non-person, for most of my childhood. This could hold the key to the mystery of why I was chosen out of countless others. Unfortunately, when it comes to my past, I have walls put up for good reason. I simply don’t venture that deep inside.
I consider what the reaper has offered me, the possibility of seeing Sam again. Though I don't want to pin my last hope on the words of a demon, at the same time there’s nothing else for me to hold on to except the wish, no matter how improbable, that I could visit Sam one last time. I suppose looking forward to even the briefest meeting with her in my present state is better than facing eternity without a glimmer of hope. Just a few minutes in my appointed prison yard and I’ll surely cease to understand how I existed, whether I walked or crept.
But how could I volunteer to be used by the evil incarnate in his sinister plot? Isn't it more decent to suffer for my mistakes than drag down another person, the woman in the coffee shop, with the doomed plan of slipping back to the surface world? Maybe I should cling on to the last ounce of human goodness in me even if it means never again experiencing a smile or seeing Sam's. Just do my time and pray for the strength to last till the expiration of the universe.
And then there’s the other part of me that says I should live as everyone else lives in this place. Survival of the fittest, the meek are meat for the strong. The small voice in my head talking about morality is my last, obsolete connection to being human and I should just take advantage of this special treatment being granted me, use mounds of other people as footholds if I have to. Then again the moment I turn into that person is the time I truly deserve to be in hell. No, I have to keep believing the only reason I’m here is because I’m a suicide.
I’m on the horns of this dilemma when Death yanks away the illusion of choice. He whispers a threat in my fin-ear: “Since you don’t seem to be very pressed for time you should chew on this. Emasculated though I may be and prohibited from ever doing anything worthwhile, from laying a finger on a mortal outside their contract, you better believe it when I tell you, there are other ways to make the life of your precious Samantha a living hell.”
That and a mischievous wink. That’s enough to drive me to my knees like a sad, vacant-eyed genie summoned to do the bidding of his dark master.
****
It’s hard to believe but the only thing the Death Angel needs to masquerade as a human is the capacity for speech; the rest is child's play. For the father of wolves to fit in sheep's clothing it’s easy to mimic everything – the face of Brad Pitt, the body of Vin Diesel, the dough of Bill Gates –everything except the very words that’ll come out of his mouth. If forced, he’d appear like a character in those dubbed Mexican soaps who looks heavenly but is either a ventriloquist or possesses a hen's hyperactive butthole for lips. I believe it’s because the only real privilege that separates humans from creatures of the nether-realm, like in the Jewish legend about the golem, is man’s ability to articulate his thoughts.
Also, there’s a certain warped logic when a grim reaper that’s bored out of his mind attempts to cultivate himself. It’s only Sephtimus’ low opinion and abhorrence of everything human that has left him unlearned all this time.
As to the question of what human language to learn, although it’s said that French is the most romantic, English is still the most practical. First, should Sephtimus strike out and taste bitter rejection for the first time in his eternal existence, he’ll have a vast international sea of other fish to cure his wounded pride.
Second, Ms. Beatrice (I never did catch the name of the woman on the monitors) happens to be partial to English though she was born to both Italian parents, first-generation immigrants who had settled in an old Italian neighborhood in New York. Ms. Beatrice’s current location though is my home country, the sunshiny islands of the Philippines, where she’s been selected to endorse a clothing company’s Fashion Week collection. This confirms my earlier guess about her occupation and gives another plausible reason for my being selected as Death’s tutor.
I condition myself mentally. At first I worry I’ll be hopelessly conflicted, but I’m surprised, even feel guilty at my enthusiasm. I suppose I still have more guts left in me than I imagine in these strange, troubled times. It’s like I’m being possessed by a completely different persona, one that’s been hidden deep in the recesses but has now taken over, a character that’s a hundred times a go-getter and a survivor.
This bare stratum of identity is the only bastion Death can't break down so I’m going to bet everything on it. This undertaking will be my lifeline to the human world and my diving helmet in this psychologically and spiritually toxic world. It doesn't matter who the student is, if it means passing on the last traces of my humanity to him, I’ll do it and do it well. I fancy myself as an underground figure like a surgeon paid to fix up the blasted bodies of gangsters.
Our predetermined deadline is October 30th, seven days from now based on Beatrice’s human clock. Sephtimus figures that if the Christian God managed to create an entire universe on such a tight deadline, surely he can learn a foreign language in the same amount of time, plus the extra day when God rested.
I suppose it is within the realm of possibility since in this world there appear to be no switching of night and day and no sign of anyone ever needing rest. The clock’s stuck at forever midwinter midnight so we’d have an infinite wealth of time if we only shut out all thoughts of the living. What awaits me, however, if I fail to meet Sephtimus' deadline is a fate too terrible to contemplate.
Lastly, it’s not immediately apparent but a hive of monitors that show each and every inch of the human world will be an invaluable teaching aid. With them, I shall become a sleeper trainer not unlike what the Soviets had, enlightening an extra-dimensional spy on even the most basic things so he can pass himself off as human.
Under all these conditions, I resolve to perfect my Sistine Chapel, however blasphemous it is.