Ch 2, reg 4: The Senate

____________________________

Chapter 2 - The Legislature

Regulation 4: The Senate

The legislative instrument of the Other Side is contained within the Senate. The Senate comprises representatives equal to the number of domains. These representatives are hereinafter referred to as the Senators.

____________________________

“There must be a mistake.” Gemma said.

“If we were paid each time somebody said that,” Madame S sighed, “we would be in a very different position.”

“But I’m not dead.” Gemma protested.

“Or that.”

“I can’t be dead, I just fell asleep on the train. Unless, no, unless the train crashed?”

“Are you a particularly heavy sleeper?”

“Not at all.”

“So, you think you might have woken at the sound of screeching brakes, sudden screams, and rending metal?”

Gemma paused, before slowly nodding.

“Do you have any idea how many people die in their sleep?” Madame S asked.

“But there is usually some underlying cause. Something that I would have sensed. I would have felt-”

“Rundown, lethargic, exhausted? A general sense of malaise?”

“Well,” Gemma recalled her exhaustion, her strained limits, and frayed tether upon her sanity, “everybody gets like that sometimes. Not all of them die.”

“Yet many do. The feelings one experiences prior to death are not as novel as you might think.”

Gemma shook her head.

“I would ask that you prove it to me then.”

“Prove what?” Madame S asked.

“That I’m dead.” Gemma folded her arms about her chest, searching for some certainty within. “Because while a reasonable doubt remains, I would believe that I am not.”

“It is an impressive depth of faith you hold. Entirely unfounded. Yet impressive.” Madame S looked out to the garden as she thought. There was a small herb garden growing in the ceramic trough by the outer walkway. Bees moved about lavender, pausing to rest on the purple flowers. The bamboo contraption continued its clacking beat.

“We could stab you,” she said, to Gemma’s sudden horror, “though it would hurt, and we tend to frown upon treating the guests like that. We’re not in the Old Days anymore.” She shook her head, as if dispersing the cloud of a memory from her mind.

“Why would it hurt if I’m dead?” Gemma asked, feeling she had caught onto a trick. “If I’m not physically here.”

Madame S did not respond. Instead, she leaned forward, pulling her glasses to the edge of her nose to peer over them. Her startling red irises, set into slate-grey sclera, locked onto Gemma’s eyes. She watched her for a moment.

“Are your contacts irritating you?” Madame S asked, leaning back in her seat.

“How the hell-” Gemma blinked and recoiled as she realised that she still had her contacts in from the previous morning. “How did I forget to take them out?”

"You had other things on your mind, undoubtedly. And, we would imagine, that they weren't causing you distress. Until we reminded you of them." As Madame S said it, Gemma suddenly felt like her eyes were remarkably dry and the contacts were causing her immense frustration. She briefly imagined her otherworldly journey being derailed as a result of a staph infection. She once again cursed herself for leaving her bag - containing her glasses and contact case - on the train.

“You are correct that your physical presence remains on your Side. However, pain is a mental faculty; an arm does not know it has been stabbed, nor a leg severed. It is the mind that sends the signals. And your mind is most certainly here.”

Gemma restrained herself from rubbing at her eyes, blinking against the irritation.

“We apologise for bringing it to your attention. It was not kind of us.” Madame S said, genuinely somber in her tone. “We imagine you would like to remove them now."

"I would if I could. I left my bag on the train." She said, as a way of explanation.

Madame S shook her head.

"We doubt your bag made it through the veil. It is a capricious one. We can have glasses made for you.”

"That would be much appreciated." Gemma said.

"Midari." Madame S said, never raising her voice beyond the volume she spoke to Gemma with. After a moment, the two-faced man walked into the garden.

"Madame S." the right-faced Midari said as acknowledgement.

"A pair of glasses for Ms Beck."

"Certainly."

"You'll need my prescription." Gemma said.

"He will not." the left-faced Higi said. "He's rather talented at these things."

Gemma saw what appeared to almost be a blush from Midari before the man bowed to the two of them, and vanished through an external gate in the garden.

“Thank you.” Gemma said. “Though this is hardly conclusive evidence of my death.”

“As you wish.” Madame S conceded. “Regardless, it may prove that your soul is here. On the Other Side.” Madame S said.

“You mentioned this ‘Other Side’ before. I am not familiar with it.”

“You may be more familiar with the colloquial ‘afterlife’, though we think it a misnomer.”

“This is the afterlife?” Gemma asked, looking about her at the confines of the small garden at the back of the inn. “A bathhouse at an abandoned station?”

“Reductive. Though not inaccurate.” Madame S admitted. “It was not always like this, and there are others now much larger than our own. Our domain is but one of many within the collective of the Other Side.”

“So, it's a collection of different afterlifes? How did I end up here then?”

“We are not wholly privy to the process in which the souls are distributed. You are the first in a very long time to arrive in our domain.”

There was a shifting of the shadows upon Madame S’s jacket, the line of forms twisting and moving around her raised collar until it formed the shape of a creature that whispered something in her ear.

“We must beg your pardon. It appears that our attention may be temporarily required elsewhere.” Madame S said, slowly rising to her feet.

“May we speak again later?” Gemma asked.

“Certainly.” She said. “We shall not be wanting for time.”

With that, Madame S walked from the garden, her jacket’s coattails moving gracefully behind her. The figures upon its back seemed to wave to Gemma in the shifting reflections of light.

Gemma held herself in the garden for a moment longer, clasping her hands between her thighs as she sat there. She knew she wasn’t dead. She wouldn’t have died like that. She couldn’t have, she concluded.

When she returned to her room to change, Gemma found that the bedding had been tidied and shut away. A small table with a few sticks of incense was in its place. Upon the table was a pair of glasses, sleekly designed with rounded frames. They had been carved of treated wood and sat atop a note which read simply: 'Let me know if there are any issues. M.' She put them on, and found that Higi had been right not to doubt Midari’s prowess. They were light and easy to wear, and her vision was clear. She looked at her phone, which remained unresponsive. Gemma felt odd, and she realised that it was the first time in a long while that she had cleared her mind of the numbing pressure of submission deadlines and court orders. It was blissful. She wondered whether people knew that she was missing at home. She thought about whether her mother was worried about her. Though the prospect of having to explain why she missed Father’s Day was terrifying, she owed it to her to at least figure out a way to get home. Whether she took it immediately or not would be a question to deal with at that moment. She pulled on her flats and stepped out from the inn through the side entrance which seemed to be used more often. It led out to a path across wooden slats that had been obscured on the opposite side of the inn, and it seemed like the preferred passage rather than the ivy-burdened entrance. She retraced her steps down the main path, taking the long walk down to the station. There remained no sign of life at the platform, nor any sign that another train had passed through during her absence. She approached the wide tunnel mouth. The darkness within was complete in its swallowing of all light, from the very beginning of its gaping maw. There was a quiet whisper on the edge of her hearing, the sound of something akin to breathing. She raised a hand to reach out to its surface.

"I'd resist the temptation, if I was you." A voice spoke from behind her.

The elderly woman from breakfast was standing at the end of the gravel path, dressed in slacks, a woolen jumper, an apron, and thick boots.

"The veil between domains isn't kind to sole travellers." She said, while casting a careful eye over the heads of wheat she held in her hands. "Almost ready." She muttered before releasing them and stepping into the tall crops, vanishing from sight.

Gemma staggered after her, pushing through the long stalks.

"Excuse me, I'd like to ask a few questions if you wouldn't mind." She called into the crop.

"You best keep up then." came the reply on the wind.

Gemma pushed through the whipping lashes, grateful for the glasses that protected her eyes as she tried to keep up with the surprisingly spry woman. She could just make out the trailing edges of her apron's cord as they pushed forward, seeming to know each path of least resistance whereas Gemma forced her way through brashly, enduring each blow of the crops against her.

Eventually, she stepped out into a small copse of trees, the one that she had seen from her window. The woman walked between them and eyed their branches, loaded with a bounty of shining red apples, with a wide grin upon her face.

"How delightful." The old woman said as she looked at them. She sat at a long stone bench, white discoloured by green lichen on its edges, and legs entirely swallowed into the thick roots of the trees. She patted the spot next to her without taking her eyes off of the gently shifting branches of the orchard. Gemma slowly approached the bench and took a seat by the woman.

"It's been a long time since we've seen somebody new. They're all quite excited." The woman said in a quiet voice.

“They?” Gemma asked, before realising that the woman was still looking up. “You can speak to the trees?”

“Everybody can.” She said. “If you learn to listen.” She held up a crooked finger for silence. Her arm was like a gnarled root. The woman closed her eyes as she listened to the creaking and croaking of the woods. The wind picked up, billowing through the branches of the trees in a sound like static. Gemma watched her smile grow, and the set of crow’s feet deepened about her hazel eyes. “They’re asking for your name.” She spoke, eyes still closed.

“My name is Gemma Beck.” After a moment of hesitation, Gemma added, “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

The woman laughed, the sound seemed to echo from the shifting leaves of the trees as the wind buffeted through them.

“How formal you are, Miss Gemma. They’ve taken a liking to you, indeed.”

The wind faded, and the sound of the trees quietened.

“The wind is rather unusual here.” Gemma noted.

“It is certainly a funny feeling, to be where the wind goes when it dies.” The woman said as she opened her eyes. Her everlasting smile widened briefly as she looked to Gemma. “Though it allows us to share these moments.” She patted Gemma’s hand. “My name is Eve.”

“I saw you at breakfast.”

“Correct. I appreciated the dessert.” Eve said.

“I noticed though I must confess some confusion as to how I am related to it.”

“As far as I understand it, each of us souls fattens the coin purse here. Your arrival meant that the receptionist boy could buy more ingredients at the market.”

“Oh.” Gemma said.

“So, thank you.”

“There are quite specific rules for this place, then?”

“Plenty of them. Very highly regulated nowadays. Good thing too after all of that bloody nonsense way back when.” A shadow briefly fell upon Eve’s face. She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Such a waste.”

“I would like to read these regulations if I may.” Gemma said.

“Ah, what would you want to be doing that for?”

“To find a way to get back home.” Gemma said.

A whisper of a breeze rippled through the tree branches as Eve stared at her.

“It’s not easy to accept for some.” Eve said.

“Until it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, I shall proceed on the basis that a mistake has been made.”

Eve shrugged. “If you insist. There’s probably a copy somewhere in the Archives,” she shrugged, “though we’re usually not meant to go in there.”

A bell tolled, its deep peal carrying throughout the domain.

Eve went silent, listening as it rang twice more. Its echo through the woods came from the direction of the station. The wind rose. The trees picked up their chatter again. Eve did not interpret.

“What was that?” Gemma asked.

Eve stood. She cast a concerned look towards the inn as the bell tolled thrice again, her smile dropping. They watched through the gap in the trees as they saw Madame S and the two-faced receptionist head down the main path from the building. Eve whispered quietly. “A Senator is coming.”