NOVEMBER 1, 2017
THE 19TH CROSSING
So anyway. The dismal time of the Crossing, the time of El Dias de los Muertos when the veil between the worlds is most thinnest had arrived. Right on time the dense pogonip draped the hills with mysterious beauty.
Denby drove out to the place he had always parked for the past 19 years and took out his cane and began to walk along the path that bordered Shoreline and the Strand. The moon hung in a cresent, waxing but still not conquering. The evening winds had kicked up, but without the accustomed force, and fortunately so for those fighting the distant fires. The hope was that this fog would dampen the fires destroying the lands further north. The dense pogonip had begun to usurp the visual reality of this world. Strange creatures began to appear in the mist with glowing eyes.
Denby had already entered that other realm beyond the veil as his cane went "Stump! stump!"
Then he came to It. The gate in the stone wall, which did not exist at any other time. He faced this thing as he had 19 times before, but paused. A distant dog or set of dogs set up an infernal barking.
He used his cane to push open the gate and so step through a veil of mist to the Other Side where a long reach of strand with bonfires extended to north and south, broken only at this height by the extension of a stone landing.
As in years past, as he approached the Portal, the Voice bellowed to him from some echoing deep cavern.
"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate"
"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate!" and the words flamed inside the skull as if poured in molten steel. Just as it had for the past 19 years, echoing now down the long hallways of the years.
For pete's sake. As per Tradition, dammit.
A large owl, about two feet tall, perched on a piling and scolded him with large owl eyes.
"Hoo! Hoo! Hoooooo!"
Okay, okay. Poor choice of words.
A dense, lightless fog hung a few yards offshore
On the other side the ground sloped down as usual to the water for about thirty yards, but he could not see the far lights of Babylon's port facilities or the Coliseum. A dense, lightless fog hung a few yards offshore, making it appear that the water extended out beyond to Infinity. The distant garlands of Babylon's lights remained hidden behind that murk. The rain had stopped but the sky above was filled with black cloud and boiling with red flashes of lightening and fire.
All up and down the strand he could now see that countless bonfires had been lit, as is customary among our people in this part of the world to do during the colder winter months along the Strand, and towards one of these he stumbled among drift and seawrack.
Sitting around that fire, he recognized many faces. And many more all up and down that beach.
A small child, barefoot and wearing a nightdress ran past and disappeared as quickly as she had come.
At the bonfire's edge a bright familiar voice greeted us, "Denby! Back again so soon?"
A sort of pale glimmer drifted towards him over the dark sands, a woman dressed in white with frizzy platinum blonde hair. She reached out with her left arm. But her hand went right through his arm, leaving a clammy, cold sensation.
"Hello Penny." Denby said.
Several little girls, all between the ages of six and nine ran barefoot across the sands between them and vanished into the misty beyond.
"Well, here you are again," Penny said. "Has a year passed already? I see from recent events you are approaching closer to the Final Crossing. How is your health?"
"O, I have had a few hitches and such. Seeing a doctor about things," he said.
Penny shaded her eyes as if seeing something inside something.
All up and down the strand he could now see that countless bonfires had been lit, as is customary among our people in this part of the world to do during the colder winter months along the Strand, and towards one of these he stumbled among drift and seawrack.
Sitting around that fire, he recognized many faces. And many more all up and down that beach.
Strange words in another language reverberated inside the skull: "si lunga tratta / di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto / che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta" echoing and echoing down long hallways of mirrors into an eternity of echos. Everyone who arrives at the Lands of the Dead is always surprised.
A small child, barefoot and wearing a nightdress ran past and disappeared as quickly as she had come.
"This is the 19th time you have crossed over," Penny said. "And each time you look a little paler and more transparent. I think the time is coming when you cross over and do not return to that other place."
"19 years," Denby said. "And each time I ask about the future only to get images of the Past. I think, soon, the world above will change. It is changing already and I do not know how the Island can last through it. Penny, if you have any insight, please, please let me know now."
The dead soul looked at him and the wind blew and the children ran between them, laughing in their games.
You among the living cannot know . . .
"How can you expect that we know what is going to happen when we have no connection any more to the world. We are all waiting here for transit to the Other Side. You among the living cannot know how much I long for that ship to carry me across."
The plaint in her voice caused a lump to rise in his chest. "Penny, I am sorry, but I was sent here to find out what is to be. And I do not think I have much more time."
"O don't be so lugubrious!" Penny suddenly said brightly. "Come along and meet some people!"
From far across the water came a glimmering that slowly revealed itself to be two beacons held head high above a skiff poled by a dark figure.
Other figures began to move down the slope to a stone jetty that extended out beyond the beach. It was a curious gaggle of people that advanced towards the landing there. A tall, patrician man wearing a silk bathrobe emblazoned with a familiar bunny logo strode along with two woman who were naked save for small angel's wings sprouting from their shoulders accompanied a stout man with bushy eyebrows and smoking a fat cigar. Another man darted along the strand and pulled up on a motorcycle before hopping off, leaving the machine to fall into the surf.
A black man with a moustache duckwalked along with an electric guitar that seemed energized by the very air itself and this he sang:
Swing low chariot, come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone
Cut your engines, cool your wings
And let me make it to the telephone
Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia
Tidewater four ten O nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land callin'
And the poor boy's on the line
A lanky man passed close by, also with an electric guitar.
"Bye bye Tom," Denby said.
The man with the guitar responded:
Well I don't know what I've been told
You never slow down, you never grow old
I'm tired of screwing up, I'm tired of goin' down
I'm tired of myself, I'm tired of this town
Oh my my, oh hell yes
Honey put on that party dress
Buy me a drink, sing me a song,
Take me as I come 'cause I can't stay long
Last dance with Mary Jane
One more time to kill the pain
I feel summer creepin' in and I'm
Tired of this town again
A lanky western-looking man ambled down the shore. "Hey Sam." Denby said.
The man responded as follows before going down to the landing where the skiff was now making its dock:
"I used to talk to you all the time, even though I was alone. I walked around for months talking to you. Now I don't know what to say. It was easier when I just imagined you. I even imagined you talking back to me. We'd have long conversations, the two of us. It was almost like you were there. I could hear you, I could see you, smell you. I could hear your voice. Sometimes your voice would wake me up. It would wake me up in the middle of the night, just like you were in the room with me. Then... it slowly faded. I couldn't picture you anymore. I tried to talk out loud to you like I used to, but there was nothing there. I couldn't hear you. Then... I just gave it up. Everything stopped. You just... disappeared. And now I'm working here. I hear your voice all the time. Every man has your voice."
Down at the dock the ferryman was tossing his line and beginning to take his toll of the obolus that each soul carried in its mouth.
"Do not stare too close at his eyes - they are wheels of fire," Penny said. "Remember what happened last time when you did that."
Indeed the excruciating, searing pain of looking into the eyes of the infernal Charon had nearly wasted his own soul and body as he had fallen wailing into the sedge along the shore.
But still he could not help but see how the two naked women with wings were taken onto the skiff, now loaded with souls, and how the skiff was poled away to leave the patrician man sitting there on the dock, quite alone. Perhaps for the first time, ever, in his existence.
"How long do you think that man will wait?" Denby asked.
"No one knows what lies within the heart of any man," Penny said. "But I suspect it will be quite a long time in his case."
The skiff became smaller as it poled away and the glimmer shrank to the size of a distant star or a tiny comet heading to some unimaginable heavenly destination.
"Some go quickly," Penny said. "Others, like me and some of your friends, must wait until they learn patience for one or many years of your time on earth."
A group of men wearing battle fatigues and jogging together passed below them. A few of them called out to Denby, who waved. Old buddies. From back then.
All along the strand the bonfires flickered, each surrounded by groups of souls each having something in common with one another. A bevy of girls wearing old fashioned pinafores ran past, shrieking with laughter. A girl with big round eyes magnified by large eyeglasses ran right up to Denby and shouted "Boo!" before darting away into the darkness.
"And what about these?" Denby said. "These innocents."
"You are right to call them Innocents. They are the souls of those not born and never were and those perhaps to come. They are visible to you because they have something to do with your own life," Penny said. "Some are the possibilities of that which happened between you and me. They are the Daughters of the Dust."
"This is not fair," Denby said. "This is not fair. We have so little time." He made a guesture of futility. "There is so little time."
An iron bell began to clang.
"The time is up; you are right. Now you must go." Penny said. "Or the portal will close and you will have to waste away here a year or more."
"I want to stay here with you Penny," Denby said.
"Foolish man! That would be self-murder and cost you a thousand years or more! Go now!"
Reluctantly Denby turned and ascended the slope as the iron bell clanged more insistently.
There is some comfort in knowing that there is an end to it; this does not go on forever.
At the gate, he paused to turn back, a modern Orpheus, and Penny stared at him. "You are concerned about the Island and what will come after. Know this: the Island will continue long after you are gone. Life is a vale of tears and suffering. There is some comfort in knowing that there is an end to it; this does not go on forever. Remember the Sybil of Cumis. I will be here waiting for you at the end. Go out there and live life that remains. And Denby . . .".
"Yes?"
"Above all, practice your singing. You really should practice." She bent forward and his lips felt a wetness.
With that, Denby stepped through the gate and the mist that hung all around and his face was slapped by a salt spray so that his cheeks were wet as he stumbled out onto the path along Shoreline Drive. When he looked back, the portal had closed and all he saw was a black and empty beach extending for miles in either direction and all trace of the stone jetty had disappeared down below.
He stumped his way along until he came to the car where Jose sat smoking a jay. Jose drove him silently to the Offices and let him out before driving off without saying a word.
The Editor reached into the cabinet and brought out the the rare 19 year old Scotch and poured each of them a drink.
"They happen to mention anything about WWIII and North Korea, ISIS or our idiot President?" asked the Editor.
"Somehow the subjects never came up," Denby said.
"I do not know why I send you each year," the Editor said. "I keep hoping for forecasts."
"I do not know either," Denby said. "This reminds me way too much of things I would rather forget.
"It is Tradition," said the Editor. "Get ready now for year 20."
"Oy gevalt," said Denby. "Splash a little more of that juice in this glass. Tradition!"
The Editor did so.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the haunted waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the expanse of the former airfield that was now sanctuary for the Least Tern, the ghostly grasses of the Buena Vista flats that was now the Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve, the construction zone of the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading dock, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park, and dying between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to a mysterious, spectral, unknown future.
