SHANEGORMLEY

Oscar awoke for the second time that day. His head felt groggy and his eye sight was even more blurred than it had been that morning. Panicking that he had gone blind he rubbed at his eyes. A sense of delirium overwhelmed him. Slowly everything began to gain focus but what he saw made no sense to him. He had expected to see teems of people. He assumed everyone would be straining to see what had happened after the accident, but oddly no one was there. Then Oscar realised he wasn’t even on a street. He was stood in the middle of a small grey room. It seemed nothing more than an elevator, except there was no seam where the doors met. Furthermore, there was nothing to interact with in the room, no buttons for floors, no emergency phone, nothing. It was merely four walls, a floor and a ceiling. Panic overwhelmed him. He screamed with all of his might but the sound seemed to fill the empty vacuum of the box and suffocate him with an endless ringing in his ears. He tried to cover them to shut out the sound but as he raised his hands he noticed they seemed bigger, paler too. He thought he even seemed a bit taller but it was hard to tell trapped inside the featureless cell. The thought that he’d aged without realising it suddenly snapped into his mind. He’d heard about people who had been in comas for years and began to worry that he had missed most of his own life.

 

Consumed with rage and confusion Oscar fought against the walls of his prison. He punched and kicked and hammered at every surface. Nothing gave way, but the pain surging through his body felt real. Finally he slumped defeated against one of the walls nursing his bleeding knuckles. Softly he began to weep into his hands. Oscar longed to be with his family; all of them, any of them, he just wanted a familiar face to reassure him.

 

Without warning the wall he was resting against vanished. He fell backward and his head and back collided painfully with the floor causing a cloud of dirt to fly up and choke his lungs. For a while Oscar gazed blankly up, too distraught to move. The sky was full of stars. More beautiful and vibrant than any night sky he could ever remember seeing. There was something about the sight of them that gave him hope and with renewed ambition to discover his new surroundings he got to his feet.

 

Before him was a path that cut through the heart of a craggy mountain landscape creating ominous towering cliffs on either side. The wall behind him had sealed again leaving Oscar trapped like a rat in a maze. Gingerly he walked forward toward an unknown destination. As Oscar walked he realised he was probably dreaming, but still it troubled him how realistic it all felt. Every emotion seemed genuine and he could even feel pain coursing through his temples where his head had collided with the tarmac; or maybe it was from hitting his head when he fell backward out of the elevator, he couldn’t remember if the pain had been there before that. Yet, he carried on walking determined to discover what exactly was going on.

 

After some time Oscar rounded a rocky outcrop and was dismayed to see a line of people before him. So relieved was he to see someone else that he broke into a run. He definitely seemed faster than he had been earlier that morning. Briefly Oscar thought this must have been how Spiderman felt when he first got bitten by the radioactive spider and began to discover his super-human powers. That thought was quickly whisked out of his head when he reached the others.

 

Everyone seemed to be scared of something. They stood in stony silence and glared unflinchingly forward, each ignoring everyone else. Oscar’s Dad had told him that people in London were like that on the underground train. So, assuming he might have somehow wandered in a daze into the underground, Oscar silently joined the queue and waited patiently.

 

As he stood there his thoughts whirled. He remembered the car. He remembered the tie. He remembered flying through the air, but try as he might he could not remember anything after that. The memory of the strange grey elevator haunted him like a spectre. Everything seemed so peculiar here.

 

The line crept slowly forward. Oscar kept his ears strained hoping for the sound of a train, yet he could hear nothing, only the sound of his own blood pulsing in his ears. Sometimes he thought he could hear the gentle lapping of water, but he assured himself he was imagining it. After what felt like hours another person edged into the queue behind Oscar. He looked ill. His skin was milk white which contrasted starkly to his jet black hair and his dark eyes that darted too and fro like startled fish. From what Oscar could tell he looked about eighteen, but everything seemed so vague and unusual in this strange place that he couldn’t be certain of anything. After all, he too seemed to have aged, but obviously that couldn’t be true.

 

Every now and then it looked like the boy behind him was going to speak but his mouth merely twitched and remained silent. Feeling awkward Oscar urged himself to ask, “Where are we?”

 

“I don’t know. No one knows do they?” responded the boy curtly.

 

It struck Oscar as an unusual response. “What do you mean no one knows? How can no one know where we are? There are loads of us.”

 

“It’s a mystery isn’t it?” Oscar stared blankly at the boy hoping he would offer more. “I’m Rowan … well at least, I used to be. Maybe that has change too.”

 

“I’m Oscar. Oscar Rose, but I don’t understand. What do you mean that has change too?”

 

“Well, everything’s changed, hasn’t it?” Rowan had an annoying habit of answering questions with other questions. “Don’t you, feel, different?” He emphasised the word feel so strongly that Oscar’s heart began to palpitate with anxiety.

 

“Actually, I, I, do,” stammered Oscar, “I’m not sure, but I think I’m taller than I used to be. But, that doesn’t make sense.”

 

“It’s not supposed to make sense.” Oscar felt like Rowan knew more than he was letting on so he waited for him to continue. “I mean, if it made sense then what would be the point of life. It would be meaningless. Well, even more meaningless anyway.”

 

“Life isn’t meaningless. I’m going to be a pilot in the R.A.F. I’ll help protect our country.” Rowan laughed a dry, harsh laugh.

 

“You’re joking right? Good one. I’m going to be the Pope.”

 

“No, really. I’ve already looked into it. All I need is to pass my GCSE’s and then get decent A levels.”

 

“Oh God!” blurted Rowan, “You’re just a kid. At least I got to graduate. I’m sorry.”

 

Now Oscar became really confused. “What are you apologising for? What’s going on?” he shouted. Other people in the queue turned to look at them in silence.

“You really don’t know?” There was a long pause. Oscar couldn’t hear a thing over the sound of his own heart beating like a Congo drum in his chest. He feared at any point it might explode under the strain. “You’re dead,” finished Rowan looking down at his shoes to avoid making eye contact with Oscar. “I’m dead.” He lifted his head; his eyes were glistening with tears. “They’re dead,” he gestured to the rest of the queue. Some of those near enough to hear him groaned as though in pain. “We’re all dead. I’m, I’m sorry.” He rested a hand on Oscar’s shoulder.

 

“NO! NO!” Oscar screamed, shoving the hand away as though if Rowan weren’t touching him he couldn’t be corrupted by his words. “I have to go to school. It’s my first day. I … I …” Oscar sank to his knees and cried freely. Hot tears trickled like blood down his cheeks. He cried until he couldn’t cry any more. No one stared at him because they all knew.

 

            Oscar looked around him forlornly searching for a door, a way out, a way back to reality and his family. Yet all he saw was dark looming rock faces on either side of him. A wave of anguish swept over him like a sickening ocean tide as he began to realise that Rowan might be right.

 

            A hand offered itself to Oscar. He looked up to see Rowan gazing down at him. His face seemed to be different. His sharp features had softened and his eyes seemed somehow warmer. Oscar took his hand and pulled himself to his feet. Rowan felt stronger than he looked, practically lifting him up with one arm. For a while they remained in grave silence. Now Oscar realised why everyone else had been so hushed. Thoughts of his family flooded into his mind. He yearned deeply for them. He longed for the womb-like safety only the love of his family could provide, but now he knew he would never feel that love again.

 

            Wiping away the last of his tears Oscar tried to hide his emotional trauma. He forced himself to think about something else other than his old life. Looking up and down the queue Oscar noticed that everyone seemed to be roughly the same age. Turning to Rowan he asked, “how old were you when you …?” Oscar couldn’t say the word ‘died’, it felt too raw, at this point it was the ultimate taboo. To speak the word meant to acknowledge the concept. He didn’t want that. More than anything he wanted to be alive.

 

“I was twenty three,” Rowan replied with a heavy sigh,” Twenty-fucking-three.” He scuffed at the floor with his boot, kicking up a cloud of dust. There was something in his response that relieved Oscar; it made Rowan seem human too, not just another ghostly figure void of emotion. He felt guilty taking solace in Rowan’s resentment, but still, it was reassuring. It enabled Oscar to think about the afterlife for the first time since he had arrived. His mind blossomed with thoughts and for a brief second a bud of excitement of the unimaginable things that might exist danced through his head. “I should never have moved to London,” grumbled Rowan, crumbling Oscar’s delicate thoughts like so many brittle autumn leaves underfoot.

 

“London,” mumbled Oscar, mostly to himself. “I live … lived there too.”

 

“Small world,” said Rowan. He seemed once more to have slipped into a bitter mood.

“What do you think is at the end of this queue?” interrogated Oscar, hoping to distract Rowan from his dark ruminations.

 

 “God knows.” He broke into a sudden burst of hysterical laughter. “I probably shouldn’t say that should I? I mean, if he does exist, now is probably not a good time to be blasphemous, is it?” He chuckled a little more before falling abruptly quite.

 

“Umm. I guess not.” Oscar was beginning to get used to Rowan’s habit of turning almost everything he said into a question. It was strangely comforting to note that habits, presumably picked up from their previous lives had remained with them. The thought made Oscar want to see if he still looked the same, but he had no way of knowing. Aware that it was a strange thing to say he tentatively asked, “Rowan, what do I look like? I know it sounds strange, but, I just want to know if I’m me.”

 

            Rowan smiled at Oscar. “I was actually wondering the same thing. I dunno. You’re blonde. You have blue eyes. You’ve got a square looking jaw and you look about eighteen. Everyone here looks about eighteen though don’t they? I bet I look younger, don’t I?”

 

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you used to look like. That sounded like me though, except for the square jaw thing anyway.” Rowan stood in silence, scratching his chin that was sparsely decorated with uneven stubble, then suddenly he blurted with wide eyes, “Do I have a scar on my left cheek?”

 

            Oscar craned his neck for a closer look. “No,” he said after a stern examination. Rowan broke into a mirthful laugh. “Yeah I cut my face pretty bad one day when I fell over drunk outside a club, but that was when I was twenty one. We must have somehow reverted to ourselves when we were eighteen or something. Or in your case, you’ve grown into how you would have looked, I suppose.”

 

            Oscar groped at his face. His jaw felt wider than it had been and he felt the first meanderings of stubble that had never been there before. Once more he felt overwhelmed. How could he have aged so much? “What was the last date you can remember?” he queried.

 

“It was September 4^th. I’m sure of it. It was a Wednesday.”

 

“That’s the last day I remember too,” said Oscar, “but how have I aged so much? It doesn’t make sense.”

 

“Like I said, it doesn’t have to make sense. I have a strange feeling that whatever is at the end of this queue isn’t going to make sense either.”

 

            Blankly they both stared forward. The queue seemed to be considerably shorter than when they had joined it. They could now make out a dark black river undulating some distance before them.  It shimmered eerily under the light of the stars which were also casting oblique shadows of the rocky cliffs above that flew across the dead like the silhouettes of carrion crows.

 

            They shuffled nearer and nearer to edge of the obsidian waters. It barely seemed to move and in Oscar’s opinion the liquid seemed more viscous than river water should be. The horrible notion that the blackness may be blood flooded into his mind. The thought seemed too repulsive to bear, especially now. Noticing Oscar’s unease Rowan placed a firm hand on his shoulder in reassurance. Oscar didn’t turn around or even contemplate thanking Rowan for his action, the contact was enough. Human contact seemed to be the most important thing anyone could offer right now. Oscar knew Rowan felt the same. They had only just met, but the terrifying experience had united them. The sense of relief each offered one another brought them closer together than they could have scarce thought possible in this oppressive atmosphere.

 

“Look,” said Oscar, pointing out into the depths of the darkness, “something is moving out there on the river.” Sure enough a shape stirred in the black fathoms. It was not accurate to call it night, for there appeared to be no moon and no promise of a sunrise. Oscar felt certain that here on the cold bank of the jet black river no sunlight had ever pervaded. No ray of light belonged in such a dark place. Light was the symbol of hope, the bringer of life. Here there was only death.

 

“Yes I see it,” responded Rowan, squinting into the gloom. “It looks like someone on a raft.”

 

            As the object neared it could just be made out that there was a cloaked figure slowly manoeuvring a raft of blackened logs across the silky jet river. It glided across the surface without the slightest sound, barely making a ripple. The spectral oarsman monotonously urging the raft forward with a gnarled old staff seemed more alive than any of the other people Oscar had seen bar Rowan, yet there was something in his movements that made him appear entirely inhuman. His elbows bent the wrong way, flexing outward with stomach churning arcs each time he lifted his staff and thrust it back under the surface of the water and with each motion dark crimson tendrils of blood lurched from the river, clawing upwards as though trying to break free.

 

            With a gentle bump the barge hit the bank. Oscar realised there was only one person in front of him. He watched on with bated breath as the oarsman drew one of his unnatural arms into the air. He stretched out his deathly limb with a series a belching pops that signalled his joints bursting out of their sockets and twisted his hand palm up before the girl. “Token,” he rattled. The girl before him withdrew a small bronze coin that resembled a penny and placed it into the figures outstretched palm. As the girl in front of Oscar shifted her weight he was able to clearly see the outstretched hand of the oarsman for the first time. It was not completely fleshless, but what remained was putrid and rotten with clumps of meat dangling precariously from the bones. Sinew knotted with muscle visible to the eye, but it was frayed and malformed with broken strands swaying limply as his hand moved.