Purgatorium (4 page)

My watch beeps. I pick up a newspaper on my way out the door.

20 Minutes

Once across the street, I lower my head, lost in thought. I walk across the dry, brown grass and dirt of the park. I can hear the rusty Ferris wheel turning ominously in the corner. I’m startled by the sight of shoes and pant legs a few feet ahead. There’s another man, probably in his late-thirties, smooth silky hair, wearing a white suit, sitting on a bench.

The man’s appearance is just as stylish as that guy
—
what was his name again
—
Barachiel? Yea, that’s it. And just like Barachiel, I don’t see a flaw anywhere on him. He’s simply perfect in every way, like he popped out of a magazine. Oddly, he’s sipping tea from a teacup and saucer.

Stranger still, there’s an Ace of hearts card protruding from his breast pocket. The man is older, graying slightly at the temples, with an animated expression as if he were listening to a favorite niece telling a story.

I take a seat on the other end of the bench and smell bergamot tea, still steaming.

“If I may say, you’re acting quite the lost soul,” he says to me in an impeccable British accent

His way with words alone leads me to believe that he is a man of tasteful elegance and sophistication.

“Pleased to meet you.
Sealtiel
’s the name.” He has the same green eyes like mine. “It’s quite pleasant out today,” he continues. “Quiet, too. Makes you wonder where everyone’s disappeared off to. One cannot even hear the birds chirping.”

I look around, suddenly overwhelmed by the silence.

“Strange, wouldn’t you agree?” he asks. I nod.

“Have you noticed that even your shadow has escaped you?”

I look down, alarmed to see I’m casting no shadow.

“I see you nipped yourself this morning. Very strange.”

All I can do is nod dumbly.

“You seem slightly out-of-sorts,” Sealtiel continues, his green eyes curious. He notices my watch. “Exquisite
timepiece
. May I examine it?”

I’m about to refuse when he puts a finger on my lips and says, “Don’t say anything that will get you in trouble later.”

He takes off my
watch
as I sit there, frozen. I don’t want any trouble.

Sealtiel
seems excited, almost childlike while he handles my watch. He toggles between the different display options before returning it to its original settings. He turns the piece over to look at the back and smirks.

“It’s a powerful thing, love,” Sealtiel says wistfully. “It can never be taken, only given, much like this
watch
. To other people, acts of love may seem meaningless, but to the recipient? Love is everything. That, my friend, is more valuable than gold.”

Sealtiel uneasily hands the watch back to me and takes my newspaper from where it sat on the bench, finding the crossword section.

“I love these!” Sealtiel says. He studies the clues for a moment. “You wouldn’t happen to know a nine-letter word for
A Season in Blank
by Dominick Dunne, would you?”

Annoyed by Sealtiel’s strange behavior, I ignore the question. I look at the ace in Sealtiel’s pocket, wondering what the deal is with the playing cards.

Fashion trend, maybe?

“The 550-foot High Roller is the tallest Ferris wheel in the world,” Sealtiel says. “It has 28 glass-enclosed, air-conditioned gondolas that can each hold up to 40 people. A full revolution just takes a few minutes too. Simply fantastic.”

I look up at the Ferris wheel. I had not noticed how tall it was.

“You cut yourself?”

I don’t answer.

“Never thought of you as someone who made mistakes. Interesting.”

I am now troubled not only at my mistake, but by someone else knowing about it. I give him a sour look so he’ll quit talking to me, which of course he ignores.

“Do not associate with a man given to anger, or go with a hot-tempered man, or you will learn his ways and ensnare yourself.” Sealtiel laughs giddily for a moment, then replaces the paper with his cup and saucer and takes another sip of tea.

I look out at the park, trying to clear my head of this loony tune. I notice a deer in the distance, just in front of the trees.

25 minutes

“Truly an amazing sight to see,”
Sealtiel
says, glancing at my
watch and not the deer. A
gust of wind interrupts the calm of the moment and the newspaper blows away, its pages scattering. Two sections are caught against the huge, dead tree. The wind calms. I look over and see Sealtiel is holding on to the same newspaper. Not a paper in sight against the tree.

How did he do that? I must be seeing things.

He takes his pen and goes back to the crossword puzzle. “Purgatory,” he says triumphantly. “Nine letters!” He grins like he just won a million dollars. I look away to deny him satisfaction.

“Here’s a good one: ‘What year is it?’”

1999
, I think, and look at him oddly knowing he can’t be that dumb. I turn over the newspaper page and show him where it says the year. I am utterly shocked at what I see.

Well that must be wrong
, I think.

“2015,” he says. “Can’t believe it slipped my mind. You would have to be an idiot to forget that.”

I look away, trying to clear my head of what’s happening. I could have sworn it was 1999. I’m almost sure of it. I look up to find the deer gone. Instead, there is only the dead tree. Haunted by its evil presence, I can’t shake my fear of what could be inside it.

As if reading my mind, Sealtiel warns, “Some would say there is a door inside that leads to hell. But not the hell you learned about in bedtime stories. Your own personal hell,” he says ominously, “where a man’s personal demons lurk. They are chained and locked away inside, just wanting to get out.”

Sealtiel suddenly
breaks into song. “Where your fears and sins collide into one, and your demons play tricks ‘til your soul is done.”

Sealtiel stops and
takes a long sip of tea. The sound is cloying.

“However, these are only ghost stories. Demon stories, rather. Not afraid of demons, are you? Or are you the kind of fellow who wrestles with them on a daily basis? Sometimes they get the best of you, don’t they? Well, that’s what second chances are for, I suppose. You believe in second chances, don’t you?”

I feel the cold wind on my face again, and it chills me to the bone. I look over to
Sealtiel,
tipping his teacup towards his lips with a satisfied look. But no tea meets his lips. He turns the cup sideways over the saucer and a small disc of frozen tea drops onto the saucer with a
tink!

“Looks like it’s ‘time’ to go,” he says gleefully.

I’m confused. Why hasn’t my alarm gone off?

I look down at my
watch
: 26:05. It’s past 25!

Anxious, I rise and run in the direction of my office building. All the while I keep repeating to myself that I am content, though I feel not as strongly as I once was. I keep repeating that I am, almost hoping it will build it back up.

I am content. I am content. I am content.

30 Minutes

As I reach my office building, the wind dies and the temperature is back to normal, as if by magic. I reset my watch alarm to 30:05.

The elevator doors open and I step into my office. I hang up my coat and turn on the phonograph, carefully placing the needle on vinyl.The music starts to play. I sit down, glancing at the glass display case that I vaguely recall once contained two pistols. I am slightly alarmed that they’re gone.

I close my eyes, the events of the last half hour racing through my mind. Both the stranger in the elevator and the odd man in the park were exceedingly weird. I force myself to take deep, slow breaths to calm my mind.

The sound of the grandfather clock eventually penetrates my meditation, letting me know that I need to get to work. As I relax, the elevator doors across from my office open.

“Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock goes the clock,” the stranger says.

Weird.

A black man saunters in. He appears to be in his late-forties, wearing a tailored silk suit, dark violet, with a Ten of hearts card protruding from his breast pocket. His swagger and style screams ‘corporate.’ He looks like another model coming from a Vogue photo shoot, just like the rest of them.

The song ends and the needle arm lifts off the vinyl and sets itself down on the handle. The man picks up my grandfather clock and throws it in the trash, then takes out a cigar and lights it.

I lean away from him, wary.

“You’re late, brotha,” he says, blowing smoke in my face. His voice is soothing and smooth. “
Raphael
takes pride in the work that
Raphael
does here. You know why?”

The man takes another pull and swaggers toward the window, gazing out over the city.

Who is this guy?

I am about to say something until he puts a finger over my lips. His similar green eyes lock on to my own.

“Because
Raphael
is good at what
Raphael
does,” he says,
answering his own question
.

Who is Raphael? Is he talking about himself in the third person?

Raphael continues, dripping with cool. “You good at what you do here?”

Not knowing who he is and what he does here, I’m not sure how to respond, but it’s clear I should defend myself.

I nod.

Raphael cocks his head. “You nodding at me? Nodding’s just another way of saying ‘pretty well.’ Did you know that? ‘Pretty well’ gets you a measly hot meal, a peasant’s warm bed, and a homely wife to screw, if you even feel like screwin’. Does that sound like living to you? Yesterday, some poor family man tells me he wants to be like me. He went down the list. This man said he wanted the nice suits, fancy cars, high rise apartment, the whole parade! I looked him square in the eyes and you know what I said to him back?”

Feigning indifference, I shake my head.

“‘Screw you!’ I said. ‘You gave up your one-time admittance once you put a ring on it!’”

He laughs. “To be in this world there needs to be sacrifices. No emotion, no ties. A man only knows his worth when he can grab life by the balls and no woman is there to loosen his grip. They are merely cattle to men like us. After we take care of one, we move on to the next. The life of the rich and sinful. The ultimate price that must be paid to get what you desire. It really all comes down to the heart of a person’s soul, asking it one simple question: Is the sin worth the price?”

I can’t tell if he is joking or not, so I force a smirk in response.

“We both know your answer,” he chuckles. “Ergo, why you’re here and that’s why I like you, brotha. No chains.”

I nod to placate him.

He laughs heartily, his green eyes trained intensely on mine. He grows serious. “But if you’re late again, I will swan-dive your flat butt right out that freakin’ window.”

Raphael
takes his cigar out of his mouth and puts it out on my desk. “I’m your new boss. I bought your company out today. This publishing company needs a restart. Needs a name. How can a multi billion dollar company such as this not have a name? I am off track. I tend to do that. Where was I? Ah! A refresher course on what works and what doesn’t, you feel me, boy?”

He’s supposed to be my new boss?

Raphael takes his finger and grazes my shaving scar. “Something’s off with you, but I can’t figure it out just yet. While I’m thinking about it, why don’t you pull up the book you been working on?”

Unsure where to look, I try to remain calm as I flip through the folders on my desk for anything. Grabbing one, I hand it to Raphael.

“This must be what ‘pretty well’ gets you,”
Raphael
says, opening the folder. He pulls out a blank page. “Still waiting,” he says, handing the folder back to me. I begin flipping through the other pages looking for anything resembling a body of work.

This has to be a joke.

Raphael
leans against the desk, uncomfortably close, and pulls out another cigar. “All the long hours…I mean minutes, spent scribbling over what? Your garbage sees more action than you do.”

I look over at the plentiful amount of crumbled up paper in my overflowing garbage can.

He lights his second cigar of his visit and blows smoke in my face. Again. “What do you even do here? Write books, right? Like these on your shelves here?”

I watch him go to my bookshelf. “These are yours, correct?”

I nod.

He opens each one of them up and immediately tosses them to the floor after going through one page. “Is this a joke?”

He gives the book back to me to see it. I flip it open to find it blank. I flip through the empty pages wondering where all my words went. “Each book that I have tossed from your so called bookcase bares the exact similarities as this one here. Completely blank. You have any words to say about that? Because apparently you don’t have any to write.”