A Fools Quest: Chapter 2

The youth stood transfixed by Asheford. Suddenly, as if waking from a dream, he leapt from his seat and ran across the room, dropping down besides the still prostrate Detective.
'You're finally here! Now, you'll need a gris-gris... It's dangerous to go alone, take this.' he mumbled, almost to himself.
“Take what! For God's sake, if someone doesn't tell me what's happening, I'm leaving! There must be someway I can reach saner civilisation.'
'Why would anyone ever want to reach a sane civilisation?' the youth replied as he pulled a small, leather pouch from beneath his seat.
'Well, I don't want to go among mad people.'
'Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here.'
'Well I'm not mad and if someone doesn't show me some sanity I won't be here either!'

'Ha! That's the fighting British spirit! Ok, explanations. Well, as I hope you've already realised, you died when the Pohjola went down. This is, of course, the Afterlife.'
'I haven't realised and I never will. This isn't Heaven and it isn't Hell. The only sane, Christian explanation is that I'm still alive and I've washed up on some Pacific Bedlam.'
'Since when has Christ been sane? There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Asheford, than your philosophy allows. But, if you won't admit to your death, you at least understand the Pohjola went down?'
The Detective's face flushed red. 'I- I couldn't stop them.'
'Of course you could! You thought they couldn't outsmart you, mixed-race peasants they were, so you didn't even try to stop them. You could have saved everyone, but you thought your enemies and friends were stupid, and that made you stupid.'
'We were so close to the colony...'
'You still are! Everything's still close. Nothing's ever more than a step away.'
'Well, we all died, right? The others must be here as well!'
The youth's gaze passed off of Asheford and into the horizon. 'I'm truly sorry.' he said. 'Even here, beyond death, the World is vast and complicated. Anything could have happened to her. There's no single fate for the damned.'
'Than this really is Hell. She's gone, lost in the infinite, and I won't even know what happened to her.'
'It's not that bad! Glass is half full! A minute ago, you didn't even know you were dead. A minute later, you could know exactly were she is! You've got your whole death ahead of you!'
'You really think I-'
'Yes siree, but for now, you have soiree to attend!' The youth pushed the pouch into Asheford's pocket and began to drag him from the room.
'A party? Well, I- uh, I'm not really dressed for it.'
The Detective's mysterious guide looked down at his clothing. He was wearing a standard issue Rotheran thermal suit. A one piece suit covered him up to his neck, which was covered in a zipped up helmet, with a small, glass visor. Otherwise, the suit was covered in synthetic polar bear fur, all soaking wet from the wreck and shore.
'That shouldn't be much of a problem.' he said. 'You don't even need the body for it. You could get by without so much as a brain.' he pulled the Detective further out, onto the beach. 'Now, stay completely still. This is going to be unpleasant the first few times."
'What? What kind of soiree is this?'
'An Anarchist soiree. With the ones who took down the Pohjola. You don't really care where you are or how you got here, and that's all I can tell you. That's all there is up here. For now, you have to go back. They're the ones who killed Alice. You can only learn so much from friends, now you have to speak to the ones who sent you both beyond the veil.'

And then, it all faded to black.

Author's Note

This website is the best one I can find for info on Voodou

http://webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/voodoo/voodoo.htm

The quotes from Alice in Wonderland and Hamlet aren't coincidences. I had references to Karl Jung and Shakespeare's Julius Ceaser before, but they got cut out in editing.

I'm reading City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandemeer at the moment and it is SPECTACULAR. It all adds up in a greater than the sum of its parts kind of way, but you can read part of it here

http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/dradin2.htm

If you're at all curious, I can write something like this about once a day without it cutting into work, social life and hobbies. That's about an hours of work.

Reviews

[StarNinja]

Zelda reference! I have to say, the Detective is taking his death a lot better than I would. Then again having adventures in the world after the world doesn't sound too bad either. Hey, that sounded pretty cool. The world after the world...
Anyway, this was another good chapter. Keep writing!