The Light at the Bottom of the Sea, and Other Things You Can Usually Only See Once

OCTOBER 15TH, 2006 

THE WORLD OF THE DEAD

           Being freshly dead is a phenomenon few people on this Earth have survived, and for good reason- Death is an expert at his job. A spearmint-like tingling, something in between throwing up and freezing water - will work its way under your too frail, too mortal skin, and your body will quickly melt into an undefinable mush, or it could only be defined as mush.

          Kiya snapped his fingers, relieved to discover he had not yet turned into mush. Or maybe this time he’d get to be a soup!

He looked out to see where he’d landed this unfortunate time. 

          Encompassing everything was a sea that reeked of death, a terrible smell that would make any living thing wither and die. He hated this smell, and resolved to take many, many, many long showers when he got back home. Right after he had a long, long, long drink of water, of course. Fresh water, not like the rotting stagnant waves that crashed together in their putrid glory in front of him.

          I should seriously get one of those Brita filters, he thought.

The crowd of newly-minted ghosts was beginning to grow restless, and he could feel their murmuring, a nervous albeit sinister hum that floated through the air.

          Kiya was not nervous, as practice makes perfect.He had been dead many times before, and each time he had swam back to that warm shore, coming back. He thought about Zhou, that hopeless! man, and whether or not he’d noticed Kiya’s temporary disappearance yet.

Unlikely, he thought. Kiya prided himself on being careful. 

          A boat the color of rot slowly unmoored itself from the harbor, and the accompanying boatman, a small stout man with a papery face, lowered the battered drawbridge, imprinted with the footsteps of millions of the dead.

Kiya cautiously stepped onto the boat, and in a careful and typical Kiya manner, shifted through the throng of ghosts until he was standing on the very side of the boat, only a couple hand widths from falling off.

A good vantage point, he thought.

          It was bad luck to talk to the boatman, and so he never did, but upon taking a quick glance, he noticed this one was new. The old boatman, curse his soul, was tall and reedy, with contortionist limbs. 

          The new boatman looked nervous. He lurched the lever forwards, then backwards, then forwards again, hands twisting and picking at themselves. Kiya felt sorry for him, for just for a second, because Death, that old, quivering angry man, was not an easy boss to work for.

          Death was old, older than he had been when Kiya made his first unwelcome visit to these lands, and he was tided over all of a sudden with not-so-fond memories of being chased down, all the way down to the gates by a stooped-over man with a cane.

          Come to think of it, he hadn’t died since last semester. A lucky streak indeed, but it had been quickly broken. 

          “Zhou probably forgot to eat his breakfast again.” said Kiya to nobody in particular. The ghosts surrounding him made no response. He sighed.

          “What would he ever do without me?” 

Then his mind drifted to all the times he had distracted Zhou from his work with demands that he help him with quests on Guild Wars, and the admonishing that had come after they both discovered it was 4 AM and the dishes (and the paper for Gallagher’s 9 AM) were still yet to be done. He laughed a little to himself, taking care to hide his upturned lips with a careful hand. No regular being looks happy when they’ve died.

          The boat lurched again, and Kiya realized he had missed his cue.

The craggy rock which he had hung onto many times before had just passed out of sight, and the boatman kept on lurching the boat ahead, each time rocking back and forth precariously.

This was very, very, very bad. He could jump now, and risk dying in the sea, or stay on the boat, and wait for Death to come and collect his prize, that slippery prize which he had hunted for years, the prize which had maybe dared to taunt him with a cartwheel on the shore as he stuck his tongue like a child out at Death cursing him with expletive-laden descriptions of the torments he would subject the runaway prisoner Kiya to. 

          He jumped. He jumped without thinking and his flesh and blood body launched through the ghosts surrounding him with an ugly shudder and the sheer will fear empowers you with.

Much to the protest of the boatman, who shrieked and let go of the lever, overturning the boat. Dozens and dozens of ghosts- now humans, perhaps born again from ghosts in that sordid sea, swam, and dozens more drowned, suffocated by the stench of the water. Kiya held in a great hulking breath, and dove underwater. The water was so filthy it whirled into dark slurries at parts, and Kiya swam as fast as he could to get out. Unlike the others, he had experience.

          He had missed the craggy rock, though, and could not make it in one breath. Floundering, he gulped in that seawater, and instead of a salty taste, he noticed this water had a distinctly metallic taste. Behind him, he heard the muffled choking of another dead human, dying for a second time in the terrible sea. 

          This is terrible, he thought, and another gulp of water filled his lungs. Zhou can’t notice I’m gone, he thought, and his legs desperately kicked forwards with a burst of energy. His breathing shortened, and the sea began to feel incredibly light. The blood pounded in rhythm with his legs, and a numbing, minty calm began to seep into his eyelids. 

As he sank to the bottom of the dead sea, a strange creeping light like a whisper with the strength of a thousand men blew away that minty sensation, and a lilting voice seemed to buoy him to the surface, singing to him from both deep down within him and from very, very far away all at once. 

It called to him like a far off lighthouse to a lost ship, or perhaps like a siren to a sailor, in that he ceased to think of anything but following that tone so whole and pure to the delivering shore. 

          Kiya surfaced with a straggling gasp at the island where he had left. He hauled himself to his feet, and ran for his life. Black clouds chased like banshees after his shadow and pellets of ice stung him from the storm above, for Death was angry. Familiar footsteps followed him, confirming that Death was beginning to catch up to the runaway prisoner. 

          He spared a quick look back, the gate to the world of the living in sight, and instead of old Death, he came face to face with a stranger. This was not the old, foolish man that had chased him before. No, it would seem that he had been replaced, and fairly recently, with a tall, greasy looking rail of a man who was much younger than the previous Death. He looks something like a slimeball CEO from the 80s, from those bad movies Zhou loves, thought Kiya to himself, and he almost keeled over with laughter, which would have been very, very, very bad to do when your life depends on running away as fast as you can.

It was also wholly inappropriate for the situation in general.

          Kiya did not have time to ponder this change in management, however, and he threw himself across the gate to the world of the living, crashing with a tumble into cold San Francisco concrete.