Triptych

In Search of.

The hot wax dripped down the candle, it was hot and Tesla welcomed the scalding for the counterpoint it gave to the rest of his surroundings. It was cold, vast, and empty. He shouldered a heavy door open and peered inside, the voices that had seemed so dim and promising were clear now. In front of him, three people stood in a semicircle, bickering. 

A woman held an old-fashioned kerosene lantern, its glass case smudged with fingerprints. The other occupants- a man with a wooden contraption whose electrical bulb seemed to pulse brightly, and a little girl with a matchstick. 

Tesla saw all this with his candlelight held out since the combined light sources, meant nothing. He had learnt that, he could see the light of others but he could not see with their lights. If this place had been normal, the light from the man’s box would have banished all the shadows, ushered awareness of the little room at least, little in comparison to the maze. That was what it was, Tesla had decided, an endless, cavernous maze. The girl’s matchstick flickered, it seemed to bow like grass, struggling with a ghost wind that seemed determined to shred it like cloth.

“Papa, ” she clung to the man’s pinky and ring finger with a groping left hand. “We need to find Mimi.” her voice was urgent, bold and weak, like her body had been so desperate it had borrowed a voice from the future, borrowed its years to fight to be heard. Tesla saw the man look around the room without squinting and envied him. His candlelight was burning, it was burning down and he knew it would eventually be nothing but a nub of wax. A nub clenched lightly in a tight fix sealed shut by melted wax. 

“Who are you looking for?” the man asked the woman, shadows played around her face, and her reflection on the wall stroked its horns, Tesla raised his candle and squinted. She had on a headband, a pink headband that clamped behind her ears, and on top were two pink, furry cat ears. He lost it, the sob of laughter that escaped him as his mind tried to juxtapose the cat-ears and the outdated lantern was empty and dry. They ignored him.

“I’m looking for Minnie.” she replied “thirty-two years in this place-I can tell, don’t ask me how-thirty-two years here and I haven’t…” she trailed off into an inaudible mutter, her lips moving like she was choking on words. Tesla followed her gaze and saw the little girl, wide eyed with fear as her matchstick burnt down with a fervour. When the flame reached her fingers, she let out a soft cry, and something that sounded like “Papa!” as the darkness swallowed her. Tesla could not look away, he had seen it happen before, but usually from afar, this time it was up close. The girl was no longer, as though she had never been.

“Did you see it?” Tesla asked the dumbstruck fellow who shook his head. He collapsed to his knees, letting the box thud and its light dimmed for a moment. Then the man spoke “I thought I could find it, they said I would find it if I kept looking.”

 “Find what?” Tesla asked.

“Meaning.” the man replied sobbing, his hands on his face.

“What is meaning?” Tesla asked, was it a gate out of the empty darkness, the maze that shifted forms, or was it a person, a guide, a source, he would take anything, even an enemy.

“I don’t know.” came the strange retort as the man belched, breaking his tears and moans into two. 

Tesla lunged for the bulb, its wooden box and flashing electricity drawing him in; he noticed too late as he stumbled down a step his candle flickered as his robes brushed into it, and killed his flame. 

He felt in that moment, like his heart was a screeching dog, flinging itself at a cage as a huge hand crushed his neck.

The Last Supper.

Many years of online shopping had prepared Ola for this day, but his palms still sweated when he thought of the anticipation he felt. The buyers’ high had not left him and he grinned his milky white grin in the mirror. The pair had been well crafted and well kept, upper and lower pieces swept with a thin brush and polished. In the mirror or in a picture, they would give him a serious look, the shape of his jaw suggesting something studious if lost. 

His doorbell rang and he hustled out the bathroom in his Reds shirt, a grey-haired curve sniffed at him with a frown as he opened the door. “Grandpa, you should be dressed and ready by now.” she said by way of greeting. Though her stooped frame would not allow it, if one were to place her face and that of the young-looking man who had opened the door and stepped aside to usher her in, if one were to place their faces side by side, distinguishing features would appear. The same shape of nose, the inquisitive brown eyes, the disproportionate length of limbs. Ola clicked his dentures with his teeth and they played a sound, something soothing he had heard from a guitar-playing colleague. G key, if he remembered correctly. 

“The guests are arriving already,” the woman chastised to which he winked “I’ll die in my Jersey, Lotta.” After his third refurbishment, Ola had decided to let the old snake lie, with his declining grey matter it would be a disaster for someone of his calibre to end up hormone-sick, humping every straight leg with curves that caught his eye. 

By the time the guests had all arrived, his body was tired again and he needed to rest in his bed. Sweet music and conversations mingled around him, intoxicating and filling his chest with a brimming feeling, like he was a cup about to overflow. He raised his eyes and saw the clock. 11:49. He ticked the side of a wine glass with his fork and smiled at the sudden silence.  

“And now, for the moment we’ve all been waiting for” he made a show of glancing at a watch “for twenty-four years, give or take ten minutes.” There was laughter.

“Some of you have known me since birth, two hundred years ago we met at some random part of our lives and sidled up to each other conversing in urgent tones, with voices then strange and now familiar. We have been friends for years, and for that I thank you. For taking time out of your busy schedule to attend my deathday, I have no words to say how honoured I am. Some of you are my children and grandchildren. My late wives both opted for the transition years ago but in your faces and your lives I see our past and our future. It is with great love that I bid you farewell, as you can tell I didn’t make it through writing this speech thoroughly and my daughter Lotta will no doubt scold me in the great beyond, whatever it is.” A teardrop rolled down his eye as he raised his glass and cheered “Goodnight and goodbye.”

A chorus of “Goodnight and Goodbye” shared his dimming senses with the clock’s chimes, Ola closed his eyes and breathed his last.

Haste Delays.

The rectangle screen beamed in the dark, as the man got out of his car, Gerald didn’t know where he was or how he got there but the corpse at the steering wheel seemed to wipe away all thoughts of reason, meaning or context. 

The man puffed up a cigarette and as if knowing he was there all along, offered one up to Gerald. He shook his head.

 “Shouldn’t we call the police? Call 911 or something so they can get an ambulance?”

“Meh, what’s the point.”

“Your wife!” Gerald exclaimed, he nearly pointed, nearly shook the man.

“She’s dead. She’s not in a hurry to go anywhere soon.” he shrugged.

“Shouldn’t you make her decent?” Gerald pleaded, he had patted himself down and couldn’t find a phone, or his wallet. 

The man narrowed his eyes “Are you calling my wife indecent?”

Gerald stammered “No but” he licked his lips “You can’t just let her body be there” he pled

“It’s a corpse, it’s just a pile of flesh. She’s gone.” tears streamed down the leather face as he grabbed a spray can. “Come, let’s throw up some bars”

Gerald followed the man, as he crept down the deserted city in search of a blank wall. “I’ll do a haiku, one of her favourites. Then I’ll call the lawyers so they can arrange for her heart to be cremated.” The spray can bobbed over the grey wall, tracing out red letters.

“Spring ocean

Swaying gently

All day long.

”