Marcus walked alone on a desolate road and looked at all the
fucking desolation around him. All around as far as he could see, barren
fields, filled with dying grass, nobody ever said limbo would look so much like
a North Dakota fall, that is to say, flat
barren and freezing, but too dry for
actual snow or maybe that was summer he
was thinking of. Marcus wondered if there were seasons in limbo. He had originally
been under the impression that limbo was neither terrible or particularly good,
the holy fathers place to sort out the lukewarm damned, but this, this sucked.
Marcus pulled his coat in tighter as he walked along. It took him long enough
just to find the road now he had some vestige of civilization. Suddenly over
the horizon a town loomed up. It came up to fast, jumping out of the horizon
like a big beige jack in the box. Everything in limbo is in shades of beige and
gray. It looked like something out of an old west movie set. Old wood buildings
with old timey signs and wooden sidewalks over what must have once been a mud
street that was long ago paved over by the dull gray asphalt. Where the hell
did they find the wood to build all this shit Marcus thought to himself as
walked up to the nearest building. A saloon. Ha. Marcus did his best Clint Eastwood
walking in. Clicking imaginary spurs as he tossed both doors open, he loved
these kind of scenes as a kid, and was disappointed to find no one turning to
look as he walked in the door, there was no one at all, hey at least he could
imagine he was getting silent glares, it felt that way most of the time anyway
down here. Up here? Over here? Where ever in hell or not hell limbo was.
Marcus
walked up and hopped over the bar, maybe some old cowpoke left him something to
warm the old bones. He rifled through old cabinets tossing the empties on the
saloon floor behind him listening to the glass break. It was fun breaking
things, he wished he’d done that more during his life. He found a bottle of
what tasted passably like whisky and decided to go a walk around this here
ghost town. maybe I’ll head down to the local sheriff’s office, he thought,
maybe I can take a picture of myself in a cell and send it back home as a post
card “Greetings from Limbo having a time. P.S. stay out of the garage until the
smoke clears” . Marcus wandered down the wooden walkway with the whiskey in his
hand looking in the windows like it was nearly Christmas in Chicago. Donnertown
supply, Donnertown clinic, Donnertown barber. What the hell I could use a
haircut, Marcus thought to himself as he wandered in. Marcus sat in one of the
barber chairs and played around, looking through the drawers. Rusty scissors
and dirty looking combs all neatly arranged. Marcus wondered what happened
here. Something shiny caught his eye. A polished oak handle and a silvery switch,
Marcus pulled and found a straight razor
like in a old movie. But this wasn’t like
anything else in this town, everything else was old and rusted, this looked
brand new. He held it up and turned in his hand, the blade was polished and
sharp. And as he turned it there was a reflection of a man in it. Marcus spun
around and was on his feet. The razor in one hand the bottle in another. The
man was standing toward the back of the shop, in the shadows.
“It’s funny what
people do after they die” said the man. he
was old, dressed in a brown shirt, gray vest, and dirty jeans like a decrepit
howdy doody. “Nobody knows the story of
the Donners, the real one. The real one was here.”
“What are you talking about? The cannibals?”
“No not the cannibals, the cannibals lived, they didn’t get
all this. Donnertown. Ha. Maybe if they knew they wouldn’t have stooped so low.
Shame really.”
Marcus stood silent still brandishing the blade. The
stranger abled to the door through all this, and Marcus didn’t want to be
trapped, so he edged to the door along with him.
“Come with me.” Said the old man. Marcus had noticed
something peeking out from then man’s back before, now he could see them
clearly. They were wings, old wings covered in a layer of dust that would have
sent Marcus into an asthma attack had he still been breathing. “The Donners
most of them, died right around the same time, which is a blessing, because
that means they arrived here right around the same time. They went to sleep and
opened their eyes, and they were here.”
“Here isn’t much of anywhere” commented Marcus.
“Isn’t it? I thought there was a town here, a town made out
of sheer will for there to be a town, on a lovely beach by the sea, that you didn’t
even care to notice.”
Marcus was taken aback, he looked and it was there. A whole
sea and he didn’t even notice.
“Life is what you make of it Marcus, Limbo even more so. These people were determined to make a place
for themselves, now look at what they have. A place. You, you have half a
bottle of bad whisky and a straight razor.”
“But where did they all go? There’s no one here.”
“This is limbo. They went on. And so are you.”
Suddenly all was darkness, except for one great light
rushing at him like a headlamp on a gigantic motorbike.
Aw hell.
No comments:
Post a Comment