TIME EXPIRED

 

I

 

He was always a practical joker. And it wasn’t that he was ever so well loved as much as he was never so well hated. He was loved by some and he was hated by others. That is the truth of it. But whether he was loved or hated, he always could bring a smile to the most intractable face. Whether they loved him or whether they hated him, they laughed–and somehow, through their laughter, he found a sense of legitimacy that eluded him his whole life.

 

It was a shock when he died so young, so unexpectedly, like an audit done in crayon, like a bird that is afraid of heights. It was so unlike death.

 

Some of those who said they loved him and some of those who hated him, but who said they tried to love him on more than one occasion, assembled at the appointed hour to hear the reading of the will. And though they were surprised by the news of his untimely death, no one was surprised to find that he had embedded within it one last practical joke; though to be fair, it wasn’t very good and nobody laughed.

 

The will contained the standard array of clauses and such-and-suches left to so-and-sos. It was filled with scattered wherefores and plenty of in the event ofs, all of which were read with neither passion nor variation of tone. It was a slow moving parade of monotone syllables, viewed by expressionless spectators who occasionally offered a nod of the head, a shuffle in a chair, the odd adjustment of a leg, a random cough. It was a slow motion Zapruder film of an event, complete with its own bangs and exploding heads.

 

The dreamlike meandering trek through legal stipulations suddenly halted with the reading of the final clause, regarding the details of the burial and containing the joke. He cared nothing about the whys and wherefores, the particulars, rituals, and even the location of the burial, all he cared about was that wherever and however he was interred, he wanted a parking meter rising from his tombstone so that all who ventured near his grave would read the meter’s existential pronouncement of his death: "time expired."

 

 

 

II

 

She missed him long before he died. And when he died, she was lost. A fitting analogy would make sense here, but she was long past analogies – she needed something concrete, something honest. When she heard the news of his death, the only honest thing she could do was faint.

She was one of those who loved him; and upon occasion, she was someone who found it easier to hate him. But now there was nothing to love or to hate, except memories and a cold body. She was asthma. She was a dry-heave. She was beyond repair. He was dead. It was true. That was that.

She assembled on the appointed day to hear the reading of the will. She alone smiled when the final clause was read. Their meeting was a practical joke. Their marriage was hilarious. No one expected it. Fewer expected it to last. And to be fair, it didn’t. He died unexpectedly, without warning, without pain. He was strong, chopping wood – he was dead, feeding worms. And she learned to deal with it.

 

Among the scoffs and murmurs hanging in the air, she alone was determined to see that his final wish was carried out. Others would gladly divide the trinkets of his life, but she alone would honor his wishes. It proved to be a hard wish to honor. No one, it seemed, wanted a parking meter planted on their grounds amidst the solemnity of religious icons and civic monuments. After a myriad of aborted attempts, she found her way into a Baptist Church, speaking to a man behind a large wooden desk, wearing a dark blue suit, with neatly trimmed hair and a hoax of a smile. She sat in a small chair set before his large desk and began her well-rehearsed request.

 

"Uh, ma’am?" he interrupted after a few sentences, "Let’s cut to the chase. Was this man a Christian?"

 

"Not exactly," she hesitantly answered.

 

"Not exactly?" he asked condescendingly. "Could you explain to me how he was ‘not exactly’ a Christian? Because you’re either a Christian or you’re not. There’s no ‘not exactly’ about it. That’s like saying someone is ‘not exactly’ pregnant. But you and I both know that a woman is either pregnant or she isn’t. So tell me, which is it?"

 

"He was not not a Christian," she tossed out before him.

 

"I see . . ." the minister snickered, his eyes rolled up into his head as if he were spying on his own thoughts, "so the answer would be ‘no,’ wouldn’t it?"

 

"Not exactly," she rebutted.

 

"What do you mean ‘not exactly’?"

 

"He was not not a Christian. I seem to remember some place in the Bible where Jesus says that anyone who isn’t against him is for him. So according to Jesus, if he was not not a Christian, then he was a Christian."

 

"Well," the minister said, resuming his condescension, "I appreciate your use of Scripture to make your case, I really do, but it appears as if we are at an impasse. Jesus also said that anyone who was not for him was against him. So let me put it this way, was your husband born again?"

 

She knew that the correct answer to the question was a resounding "yes." She also knew that that answer would be a lie. "No," she finally admitted after a moment of squirming in her tiny chair, "he wasn’t born again, at least not in the way you mean. In fact, he often said that being born once was more than enough."

 

"So he wasn’t saved, was he?"

 

She was silent for a long time, scrutinizing the man with neatly trimmed hair sitting behind the large wooden desk in the dark blue suit, wondering what kind of satisfaction he was getting by making a woman in grief squirm before him, wondering what kind of a man coerces a woman to declare her recently departed husband unsaved. She refused to give him the satisfaction he seemed to be so desperately seeking. "I don’t know," she simply stated, "that’s between him and god."

 

"Well according to God," he said raising his eyes and his palms toward the ceiling, "those who are not Christian are not saved."

 

"You didn’t know him," she said sternly, almost whispering, almost growling, "he was a good man. He was a loving husband and a good father. He provided for us. He sacrificed. He never hurt anyone. He was faithful and compassionate. And because of the person he was in life, he certainly deserves more in death than to be denigrate by you or anyone else, even your god. If the only fault that god finds in him is that he was not a Christian . . . if being the good man that he was is not good enough . . ." she tried to continue, but her emotions overtook her and she was forced to pause.

 

"With all due respect, ma’am," the minister said in a tone that suggested that she deserved no respect at all, "good people don’t go to heaven, Christians do."

 

In her mind she was beating him to death with her chair. In her mind she was hurling curses at him that would make a drunk sailor blush. In her mind she was telling him in no uncertain terms what a hypocritical, petty, puny, narrow-minded, used-car-salesman of a person he really was. Outwardly, however, she forced a smile. "Look, I’m not asking you to condone anything about him. I’m just asking you to allow me to honor a dead man’s last request. You’re my last hope. I’m just asking you to show a little compassion. Please!" her voice cracked, tears leaked from her green eyes, rolling down her cheeks.

 

"I’m sorry," the minister said as she fondled for a tissue in her purse, "I am truly sorry for your loss. And I am deeply sorry for your troubles, but the fact is that our cemetery is for church members and their families. Neither you nor your husband have ever been members of this church. You aren’t even Christian. I’m afraid I’m going to have to follow the advice of Jesus and let the dead find a way to bury their own dead."

 

"Thank you for your time," she said, rising from her seat. As her hand touched the doorknob to leave, an epiphany sparked within her mind. "What if I were to join your church?"

 

The words expanded in the room, crowding out everything else. "I just don’t think that’s a good idea."

 

"Why?"

 

"You’d only be joining the church so that your husband can be buried in our cemetery. That just wouldn’t honest, now would it?"

 

"How do you know that god isn’t using this situation to lead me back to church? How do you know that god isn’t using this situation so that my children will be saved? Regardless of what my motivations may appear to be right now, perhaps god is saving me through this experience."

 

The minister quietly mulled over her words, "Hmmn . . ." he occasionally inserted in the silence. Finally he declared, "I’m sorry but I’m just not convinced."

 

"And because of what god will do for me through this church, I’m certain that my gratitude will motivate me to make some kind of donation to the church."

 

A slow smile imperialistically stretched across the minster’s face. "Donation? What sort of donation would your gratitude," he paused, searching for the proper word, "induce?"

 

"Oh," she said cooly, "I’m certain that my gratitude would induce a large financial donation in whatever amount is deemed appropriate, if, of course, I were to find myself welcomed into this church family, and if my husband were permitted to be buried, according to his wishes, in the church’s cemetery."

 

"If you were to join this church, a donation would be welcomed, of course. But more would be expected of you. After all, you can’t buy salvation. You can’t bribe God," he said, once more raising his eyes and palms toward the ceiling.

 

"What do you have in mind?" she queried.

 

"You would have to be baptized."

 

"I’ve been baptized," she said.

 

"Into this church? No? Then you would have to be baptized. You will be expected to attend worship. You will be expected to tithe ten-percent of your income, that’s before taxes. I’d also expect you to attend my weekly Bible study on Wednesday evenings. The church also expects that you refrain from drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and engaging in any kind of extramarital sexual relations. The church would also frown upon any advocation of liberal ideas, which all truly saved men know are contrary to the will of God." He paused after each requirement as he presented it to her in order to appraise her response. She simply dropped her eyes to the floor, nodded her head, demonstrating her acceptance and her submission, which only seemed to invite another requirement for membership. "Well," he finally said, "this sheds a whole new light on the situation. Praise Jesus, another lost sheep has found its way to the fold!"

 

"Amen," she dryly whispered.

 

"By the way, how many children do you have?"

 

"Two sons, five and three."

 

"Based on what we discussed here today, I believe that I can convince the church board that one body is worth three souls. I see no problem with giving your husband a decent Christian burial, for your sake of course, during which time you can come forward and declare your intention to accept Jesus into your heart and live a Christian life."

 

They discussed the details of the funeral. He was interred in the church’s cemetery under a shady tree near the road. The minister almost had a seizure the first day he saw the parking meter rising from the tombstone. He called her up, demanding that the meter be removed immediately. She simply told him that that is what he had agreed to and if he wasn’t prepared to honor his part in the agreement, then she would not feel compelled to honor her’s. The minister relented.

 

It took a while but her life slowly took on trappings of normalcy. Not all at once, an inch here, a foot there, but over time she began to feel much like she had when he was still alive. There were those times when the crushing awareness of his absence made her life seem excruciatingly unbearable, but those times became more and more infrequent as the months and years passed, though they never disappeared completely. Before she knew it, seven years had passed. And she, true to her word, attended services every Sunday morning and Bible study every Wednesday evening. She never took a drink or smoked a cigarette. And as far as anyone knew, she never had sex or even voted for a democrat.

 

 

III

 

The one thing that makes this world interesting is that everyone has theories. And when it happened everybody had theories. He suddenly appeared one day, standing in the middle of the one intersection that comprised the town square, confused, wandering out in front of moving cars, like a sleepwalker. Horns blared but he didn’t seem to notice. He was like a senile old man who suddenly had forgotten how to cross the street. Somebody finally grabbed him, pulling him to the sidewalk, explaining to him how he should be careful in the future, but he simply looked at her like a ghost, like someone who had been dead for years, who had not heard language in such a long time that each and every word had to be translated in his mind.

 

He stumbled upon the crooked sidewalk, passing shops, meandering into the five-and-dime, finding himself chased out, acquiring the epithet of "bum," sniffing the scents of the pizzeria. He eventually blundered his way into one of his old haunts, finding a seat at the bar. "What can I get you?" asked the young bartender who approached him, who never once noticed the absurdity of a dead man sitting at his bar.

 

"What?" is all he could find to say.

 

"What can I get you to drink?"

 

"Drink?" he responded.

 

"Uh," the bartender looked around ironically at the assembly scattered around the barroom, which inspired the assembled patrons to laugh scornfully, "yeah, what can I get you to drink?"

 

"I like drinking," he said matter of factly, as if he was reminding himself of something he should have already known. "I like to drink . . ." he seemed to be struggling with a memory, "bourbon. I like to drink bourbon." The crowd displayed the exact opposite of graciousness by the manner of their laughter, but he felt neither their derision nor their mocking. He simply looked like someone who had recently emerged from a fever, who had vivid dreams, only to awake to find that they were dreams after all.

 

"So, you’d like a bourbon?" the bartender asked.

 

"I think so," he said.

 

"Any particular kind?"

 

"Brown."

 

The bar erupted with laughter. He looked around at the jeering faces with a confused expression. The bartender finally felt the need to explain. "All bourbon is brown," he said, bursting into laughter as the words escaped his lips.

 

"I would like a glass of brown bourbon," he said as if he hadn’t noticed anything that had transpired.

 

"One glass of brown bourbon coming up," the bartender said with a chuckle. He grabbed a bottle and a small glass, "You want that neat?" the bartender asked. He simply looked at him expressionlessly. "Neat it is," the bartender concluded, tilting the bottle. "That’ll be $3.75," the bartender said, sliding the bourbon-filled glass toward him. He looked at the bartender as if he had spoken Chinese. "Ahem," the bartender asserted, "that’ll be $3.75." The bartender slipped the bourbon-filled glass away from him, "You do have money, don’t you?"

 

"Money?" he responded, "I don’t seem to have any . . . money?"

 

"Then you’ll get no bourbon."

 

It was about this time that he heard a name. A name that he recognized, but hadn’t heard in a long time. He turned to the source of the name and saw a surprised man creeping into the barroom.

"I know you," he said to the man, confusedly.

 

"Holy Jesus, is it really you?" the man asked, "how the hell could you be here? You died years ago!"

 

"Oh yeah," he said, remembering an important piece of information, "that’s right – chopping wood . . ."

 

"What the hell?" the man asked, "is this real?" he lunged toward him, feeling his arm and his head, "It’s you! You’re here! What the hell? How can this be possible?"

 

"I . . . I am dead . . ." he said. Then he disappeared.

 

The theories multiplied like ravenous bacteria. Some simply said, "Well, what do expect from a group of drunks in middle of the afternoon?" Others assigned it to some kind of repressed grief that suddenly found a release. And still others developed even wilder theories.

 

But what no one suspected was that the cause of this particular incident was an eleven year old boy in a red jacket, who walked home from school every day, passing by the cemetery, everyday reading the pronouncement of the meter, "time expired," never getting the joke, every day wondering one thing and one thing only: "I wonder if that parking meter works?" This particular autumn day, as he was walking home from school, he decided to find out. He put a quarter in the meter and turned the dial, and seeing that the arrow within the meter spun to "2 hours," he continued to venture home, never noticing that a man suddenly appeared from behind the tree, who seemed to be trying to get the boy’s attention, but who also seemed to be mute.

 

 

IV

 

Most rumors are like viruses. There are those rare virulent strains that destroy their hosts, tearing communities apart. Most, however, sneak in, multiply, mutate, make life uncomfortable for a while, run their courses, and expire. The rumors of his rising at first appeared to follow the typical common cold variety of rumor.

 

The initial carriers were those who were present in the bar that afternoon. As sources of information go, some were perceived to be more reliable than others. The testimonies offered by the general crowd that assembled that day were generally regarded as questionable at best. These were after all those who had nothing better to do with their lives than to slowly decompose, a bit at a time, day after day. Few believed their story. Even the other drunks who were absent suspected that rubbing alcohol had found its way into a whiskey bottle. Nevertheless, those who littered the barroom that day asserted that they saw a strange man sitting at the bar and then vanish right before their eyes.

 

The friend who knew him was a little harder to dismiss. Although most who heard his tale were incredulous, there always seemed to be the nagging questions of "Well, why would he lie about seeing him?" and "What does he have to gain by telling such a story?" which granted it a minute sense of veracity.

 

"Christ, man, what the hell were you drinking?" the people who heard the tale would ask.

 

"I only had two Manhattans," he would answer, "honestly, I wasn’t even drunk. I sure as hell got drunk after I saw him disappear in front of me, but I swear to god, I was more or less sober at the time."

 

"Sure you were," they would always rebut, "I’ve seen you ‘more or less sober’ on more than one occasion when I had to drive you home or call you a cab."

 

"I know what I saw," he would always conclude, "I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a liar," to which the listener would have to concede. He may upon occasion drink too much, but he was as honest as minor-league drunk could be. Even if the audience hearing the story did not readily believe it, they believed that he believed it, eagerly passing the story on to the next person.

 

The bartender was the hardest to ignore. He was no drunkard murdering time until his own extinction. Although he was known to sneak a shot upon occasion, he was never tipsy behind the bar. The fact that he claimed to serve a confused individual whom another patron claimed had died years ago, and then who vanished before him furnished the story with much needed credence.

 

Fortunately, there are always newer rumors in circulation. As the weeks passed, the population lost interest in the tale. The tale, of course, found its way to her, always from somebody who knew somebody, who knew a guy who was there. At first she was startled, then angry. "If he really did come back from the dead," she often rebutted, "why would he waste his time with a bunch of no account drunks that he didn’t even know? Don’t you think that he would have shown up at home instead?" Eventually she became resigned to let the rumors run their courses because her protests only seemed to add new life to a dying story.

 

Then one day another sighting occurred. Then another. Then still another. The appearances seemed random and the accounts were vague, but the more they seemed to happen, the more detailed they became. A strange man was seen sitting on a fence, with the exact expression of someone who was attempting to figure out why air isn’t a purple. Others claimed to see a strange man lurking around the Baptist cemetery, apparently reading the information on tombstones, or at least one tombstone in particular – his. Hundreds of people claimed that a man interfered with a play during a high school football game by walking onto the field, getting in the way of the receiver, who ran into him and fell on top of him, only to find that no one was there when the boy got up. The description of the man was always the same and those who knew him in life swore that this phantomlike figure was at the very least his twin.

 

Then one late afternoon the local police picked up a befuddled man in his early-forties, who was aimlessly wandering around town, periodically shouting things to no one in particular. "What am I doing here?" and "How did I get here?" and "Why do I keep coming back?" he inquired loudly to passers by, some of whom claimed to recognize him. The police took him to the station for public drunkenness and disturbing the peace. They asked him the standard questions for their report, questions that he seemed unable to answer.

 

After some time they managed to get a name and an address, but he didn’t appear to be very certain about either of them. The only thing that he did seem to be certain about was the name he offered as his spouse. The police locked him in the drunk tank while they attempted to contact the woman he identified as his wife.

 

"Um, ma’am, this is Sargent Andersen, we picked up a man who claims to be your husband. Could you come pick him up?"

 

"I don’t know what this is about, Sargent," she said sternly, "but my husband died seven years ago." The officer was silent for a long time. When he finally did speak again he described the person in custody. Her heart seemed to stop beating as the policeman narrated the list of physical features and a chill crawled into the room, pouncing upon her. She dropped the receiver.

 

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" she asked when she had picked up the phone from the floor. She was assured that it was not and that it was necessary for her to come down and see if she could identify the person in question. When she arrived at the station she was greeted by the embarrassed apologies of Sargent Andersen. The man in custody had escaped.

 

"Escaped?" she asked doubtfully.

 

"Yes, ma’am," he confirmed, "right after we spoke on the phone I went back to tell him that you were on your way . . . but he was gone. I don’t understand it. The cell was locked. I am at a complete loss as to how this happened."

 

She ventured home unamused. She fixed dinner for her children, discovering that she had no appetite. Her hands trembled when she attempted to sip her tea. She spent that night wriggling among her sheets in discomfort, tormented by dreams of him, accosted by the desolation of a barren bed.

 

About a week later she arrived home and was greeted by her next-door neighbor. "I don’t want to alarm you," he said, "but there was a strange looking man standing in your front yard, staring at your house today. I tried to ask him who he was but he seemed disoriented – probably hopped up on drugs. I called the cops, but by the time they arrived he was gone. They said his description matched someone who escaped from the station a week-or-so ago. If you want, I’ll go into the house with you so you’ll feel safe."

 

She thanked him and together they walked through her house, looking in every closet and under every bed. They searched through the basement. There was no sign of anyone in the house. The kids came home during the search and demanded to be told what was happening but their curiosity was never satisfied.

 

"I’d make sure all the windows and doors are locked tonight if I were you," he advised. If you need anything just give me a holler." She thanked him and followed his advice. That night she slept with the lights on.

 

 

V

The wind blew angrily that day, like a cantankerous old man ensnared in a tedious argument. The leaves shivered from fear and fell like kamikaze pilots purchasing eternal life as they crashed upon the dark concrete of the road that ran adjacent the cemetery. No one paid the slightest attention to the eleven year old boy in the red jacket and his friends as they walked together down the inconspicuous street, swishing their feet through the leaves that gathered along the curb. The boy in the red jacket began to separate himself from the others.

 

"Hey, what are you doing?" asked his friends.

 

"Putting some change in the parking meter," he answered matter of factly.

 

"Why?" the asked.

 

"I don’t know," he replied, "I just do it every once in a while."

 

"Isn’t it bad luck or something to walk in a cemetery?"

 

"Don’t know," he sounded confidently, "Is it?"

 

"Dude," they counseled, "you’re asking for trouble."

 

"Whatever." He stood before the grave, carefully slipping the quarter into the rusted slot, turning the dial, the arrow within the meter spun to "2 hours." He turned to his audience, "See!" he said.

 

A hand slapped down upon the boy’s shoulder, turning the boy around. The boy looked up into the face of a confused man. "You!" he said, "It’s always you! You bring me back! Why do you bring me back?"

 

The boy later admitted that he was embarrassed by the fact that he shrieked like a little girl. He shook off the grip, and after catching up to the others, they decided that they would never speak of the incident ever again. But speak of it they did – often. As a matter of fact, they spoke of it a mere seconds after they had vowed that they would not. They spoke of it throughout the evening. They spoke of it with their parents around the dinner table, who simply assumed that their children had become infected by the emerging town legend about a mysterious ghost-man who was rumored to be lingering around the borough. They spoke of it years later, whenever they met together during college. And even long after they had families of their own, whenever they found time to sneak out for a drink, they would speak of it. One of them would say after a few drinks, "Hey, you remember that time you put money in that parking meter on that grave, and that weird guy suddenly appeared and grabbed you? Man, that was some wild s**t, wasn’t it?"

 

What they never spoke of, however, were the events that transpired in the following days. Even when they were grown up and the events had slipped away, safely becoming part of the remote past, sleeping peacefully with other moments of lifeless history. The boy in the red jacket never once told his friends of his return to the grave and his encounter with the strange wraith who materialized with the deposit of a coin and a turning of a knob.

 

 

 

VI

 

Buried somewhere between the fourth and fifth page of the six pages that comprise "Section A" of the local newspaper ran the curious headline: "A GRAVE MESSAGE: VANDALISM OR VOICE FROM BEYOND?" The article that followed recounted how a plot in the Baptist cemetery had been disturbed. A particular grave site had been marred by someone of seemingly insidious intent, who employed a sharp stick or some type of gardening utensil to carve into the grass a message: "BOY BRING ME BACK AGAIN." It went on to detail how the minister of the church had no clue as to the meaning of such a message, though he was certain that it was somehow satanic or the product of trespassing teenagers, who had been raised by ungodly parents and who were victims of their own seething hormones. The report also recounted somewhere in the second paragraph that it was his grave, which had of late been the subject of various rumors and strange tales, causing many citizens within the small burg to speculate as to the source of these stories, ranging from an angry spirit haunting the municipality to anecdotes of how he and his wife must have faked his death in an attempt at insurance fraud.

 

Nevertheless, even though the story was hidden somewhere near the back of the paper, it became the topic of discussion. She arrived at work one morning to find one of her office confidants clutching the paper, pointing to the headline asking "Did you see this?" She carefully probed the article, asking in exasperation to no one in particular, "Why is this town so obsessed with him? Why can’t they just let him rest in peace? Most of them seemed eager enough to ignore him while he was alive, why do they suddenly need to talk about him in death?"

 

As the town speculated about the meaning of the inscription carved into the ground, one person knew exactly what it meant, the boy in the red jacket, he had slowly come to realize that the specter’s appearances coincided with those days that he slipped change into the meter. The man who grabbed him that day was the man that everyone about town had seen. And he knew that he was somehow responsible.

 

 

VII

The thing about life is that it is remorseless. It neither gives a damn about the weather, nor does it give a damn about the amount of money found under the pillow of a child who lost her tooth, nor does it give a damn about milk that has past its prime. Life is the mean drunk who chats up your sister while punching you in the nose.

 

And yet, it is somewhere within the forum of this remorseless life, which witnesses the rise of Stalins and Hitlers, and the advent of Lincolns and Washingtons, no more distinguishing between them any more than the slime upon a lake distinguishes itself from the mud – it is within this not-so-likely-world that a boy in a red jacket distinguished himself from all the others who play at history, from all others who went through the motions of populating this sad excuse of a town.

 

The boy in the red jacket stood at the grave, alternating his gaze between the message and the meter, jingling the random pieces of change in his pocket, periodically choosing a coin, extracting it form his pocket, moving it slowly toward the slot, yanking it away at the last moment, concealing it once more within his pocket.

 

It had been days since he had even walked anywhere near the cemetery, let alone ventured into it. He always found alternate routes to and from school. When his friends asked where he was going, he always had a clever excuse to be some other place, leading him to some other part of town, whether he actually had to be there or not.

 

The story in the paper only reinforced his resolve never to venture anywhere near the cemetery ever again. But the message torn into the dirt gnawed at him whenever he was alone. And one day he found himself standing at the grave, vacillating between two reasonable choices: following the directions carved into the gravesite, or just going home, forgetting everything that had transpired since he stumble upon the dingy-mildly-rusted-parking meter.

 

A car occasionally ventured by and he felt naked. The autumn air was chilled by the death of the afternoon. He stood. Time passed. He stood some more. Change jingled. He moved. He recoiled. He stood. History yawned. He read the message. He reached into his pocket. He snagged a coin. He slid it into the slot. He turned the knob. It rattled and spun, clicking upon "1 hour."

 

He was not alone. With the boy a man now stood, shocked, smiling, impaled by the moment, exhaling like a bass yanked into a boat, "You," he finally said, after catching what must have been his breath, "you brought me back. Thank you."

 

 

VIII

There are clichés that mention the silence of tombs or graveyards or other serious, silent places – but clichés were reduced to just that at that moment when the boy saw him.

Time stopped, hiccupped, and started again with a sudden jerk. The boy in the red jacket looked at him, wanting to run away, forcing himself to stand his ground. The man slowly held out his hand in the way that someone does when he is trying to convince someone not to run away, "Thank you," he said again.

 

"Why . . . what do you want . . . why did you want me to bring you back?" the boy said, searching for words. "You’re not gonna eat my brains or anything, are you?"

 

He was confused. The genre of flesh-eating zombies had long been forgotten in his seemingly infinite death, "I want you to find my wife," is all he said.

 

The boy looked at him with the same lack of trust as someone being offered a once in a lifetime opportunity, or a get rich quick scheme, or an eat all you want and lose weight anyway diet. "All I want is to find my wife," he said with determination, "Please, help me find my wife."

 

"I don’t know your wife. I don’t know who you are, other than a name one a tombstone."

 

He couldn’t help laughing, "Isn’t that all any of us are, a name carved upon marble? Something for future generations to satisfy their curiosity as they randomly wander among the monuments of the dead?"

 

The boy was silent, "I don’t know," is all he could say, embarrassed by the fact that he did not understand the question.

 

"I don’t know either," he said, attempting to sound much less frightening then he apparently sounded a few moments before, "I’m only guessing at all this. I’m no longer comfortable with being alive." He looked deeply into the boys face. The boy seemed confused, yet understanding. "Are you?"

 

"Am I what?" the boy replied.

 

"Comfortable being alive--are you?" he asked the boy.

 

The boy snickered, then looked seriously at the figure before him, then collapsed in confusion, "Is anybody?" the boy finally responded as honestly as he could.

 

"Huh," he commented at the child’s response, "again, I don’t know." The autumn wind seemed to blow in a way that made the clouds run for cover. "Will you help me find my wife?"

 

"I don’t know who your wife is," he disclosed, "isn’t she dead too?"

 

"I don’t know." Time seemed to cry at the confession offered in the cemetery.

 

"Why are you here?" asked the boy poignantly, "Why do you need my help?"

 

"You bring me back," he said, matter of factly, "I don’t know how, but you bring me back. You’ve got to help me," he implored, then seeing that the boy appeared to be outwardly unmoved, he raised his voice like a starving man pleading for bread, "Please! I was snatched from life, without so much as a hint or warning. Then I was snatched from death, and I know that you have something to do with it – all I want . . . all I need . . . is to say ‘goodbye.’ I don’t know how I’m here, but when I’m here, I just want to say ‘goodbye.’"

 

The boy could not hear an admission such as this and remain unmoved, "What can I do?" he asked.

 

"Help me find her."

 

"Where would she be?"

 

"I don’t know," he admitted, "but I remember an address – perhaps it is still her address."

 

"What’s the address? If I’m able, I’ll find her."

 

For a brief second, he laughed, in the way that a condemned criminal laughs after finally confessing a grievous crime. He told the boy the address, which the boy recognized. The boy ran off. She lived about a mile from the cemetery. He arrived at her front door, knocking feverishly. She wasn’t home. The boy sat upon the front steps and waited.

 

She arrived home about forty-five minutes later, surprised to find the boy waiting at her front door.

 

"Can I help you?" she asked the boy.

 

"You’ve got to come with me!" the boy said plainly.

 

"Go where?" she laughed.

 

"To the cemetery . . . your husband . . . he sent me for you." She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or patient with the boy. She had had enough with rumors of her undead husband.

 

"That’s not funny," she said in a way that would make Hitler squirm.

 

"I know it’s not," he rebutted, "but it’s true. Your husband sent me for you. He wants to say ‘goodbye.’"

 

"He wants to say . . .?" She had to pause to compose herself, "Then why doesn’t he come here and say it to me?"

 

"Don’t know. He said that he needed my help, gave me your address, and sent me to get you," the boy looked at her imploringly, but she seemed unmoved, "Look, somehow I brought him back – something with that damned parking meter. I brought him back, do you understand? It was an accident, but I brought him back. He wants to see you. Please, go see him. He looks like he’s in pain, and I did it to him. For the love of god, please go to the cemetery!" by this point the boy was clutching at her arm and beginning to physically drag her with him as he moved back toward the route that led to the grave.

 

She didn’t trust the boy for a second, but yet she inwardly applauded the performance, "Okay, I’ll go with you to the cemetery, but if this is some kind of joke . . ." she didn’t have to finish the theat to make it menacing. The boy was still clutching at her, attempting to drag her down the road. "Hold on, hold on," she shouted, "no sense walking when we can drive." With that they leapt into her car and she drove to the Baptist church.

 

She parked the car on the street that ran along the cemetery, opposite his grave. She and the boy walked to the plot. There was no one there. Together they traced the plot, she looked at the boy suspiciously, "Well?" is all she said. The boy twitched, inspecting the landscape nervously.

"I knew it!" she blurted at the boy, "I knew it was some kind of joke!" She lurched upon the boy menacingly with both her words and her body, "What kind of sick pleasure do you get out of tormenting me like this?"

 

As she was moving toward him, the boy saw that the meter read "time expired."

 

"Oh," the boy said calmly, "this happens sometimes. Watch." the boy reached into his pocket and produced a quarter, slipped it into the meter and turned the knob.

 

She remembers feeling that at that moment gravity was a practical joke. Her legs would have been more solid if they were made of sticks of butter on a hot August afternoon, and she would have been more sure of step if she were tap-dancing in tapioca pudding. It must have been some kind of dream.

 

But yet it wasn’t.

 

 

IX

He walked out from behind the tree. She examined the figure. It was his build. It was his height. It was his . . . "Who the hell are you?" she demanded.

 

The figure said nothing. It walked out further from behind the shade of the tree, moving toward her. It looked like him. But how could it be him? He died seven years ago, myth and legend aside, he had died seven years ago. Everyone knew it, especially her.

 

He said her name in a way that made it sound as if it had not been spoken in years.

 

"Stop!" she said.

 

"What?" he asked surprisedly.

 

"I don’t buy this for a second." She examined him purposefully, " You’re dead. I buried you myself."

 

"I’m just as surprised as you," he said in a manner that was, yet was not, humorous.

 

She moved toward him cautiously. He took a couple of clumsy steps toward her. "If it is really you," she said like someone who had just cracked a secret code, "tell me what you said to me when we first met." He stopped in mid-step, struck by the request. "Ah," she boasted, "can’t do it, can you?"

He hiccupped something like a laugh. "You were with your sister at the bar. She always made you feel insecure because you always thought that she was more attractive than you, and you always thought that every guy in the bar was looking at her and never at you. Maybe you were right. I don’t know. All I know is that the moment I saw you there was no one else. My first words to you were, ‘You’re beautiful.’ You laughed in my face and said something like, ‘You have me confused with my sister.’ And I said something like, "I think you have me confused with somebody else. I don’t know your sister. I just know that you’re beautiful.’ You laughed in my face again. I remember thinking that I should walk away, but I stayed next to you. And I said something like, ‘I’ve lived all over this country, and I’ve been all over this world, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything as beautiful as you . . . but I can see that you’re nowhere ready to believe that, so I’ll just go away now. I just figured one of two things: either you know how beautiful you are, in which case I apologize for wasting your time by telling you the obvious, or you have no idea, in which case I thought that you should probably be informed.’"

 

She heard his retelling of the past, her face softening with every sentence, "And I laughed in your face again, she said pensively."

 

"Yeah," he admitted, "and I stayed with you anyway," he said, tear leaking from his eye, stepping toward her.

 

"It’s you," she declared, "How? . . . What? . . . I can’t believe it . . ." by now they were only a foot or so apart. She examined him. He stood, withstanding examination. "You look exactly the same . . . as when you . . ."

 

"You’ve changed," he said matter-of-factly.

 

"I’ve stayed alive," she retorted, "It tends to age one a bit," she continued to inspect him. Suddenly she threw her arms around him, exploding with tears, "I’ve missed you!" Then just as suddenly she pulled away from him, banging her fists into his chest, "You son-of-a-b***h! You left me, you son-of-a-b***h! You left me with two sons . . . and a pile of debt . . . and nothing else!" She collapsed into his arms, wailing, "I hate you, you son-of-a-b***h," she said sobbing into his chest. He held her, keeping her from becoming a slave to gravity. She moaned, sometimes pausing to punch at him. And he absorbed her curses and her punches and her tears and her sobs and her wailing – almost like a hero.

 

"I’m sorry," is all he could say in response, which simultaneously said everything and nothing.

After a long while she pulled away from him, "How? . . . How are you here?"

 

"The boy," he said, pointing to the trespasser who had been standing among them, "he brought me back – I don’t know how, but he brought me back."

 

"How?" she asked the boy, suddenly reminded that he was there, "Why did you bring him back?"

 

"It was an accident," the boy announced, "I didn’t know what would happen. I just put a quarter into the meter. I didn’t know anything would happen, honestly!"

 

"You put a quarter in the meter?" she responded incredulously, "that’s ridiculous!"

 

"Life is ridiculous," he said, patting the boy on the back, "haven’t you learned that by now?"

 

"Now that you mention it," she said with a laugh, "I’ve always suspected it, I just never knew that the universe had gotten this out of hand."

 

"You have no idea," he sighed, "it’s out of hand." He laughed a full-belly laugh, "It’s really out of hand."

 

 

X

She gave the boy some money that she found in her purse, thanking him, sending him back to her house to wait for her kids, who would be getting home soon, wondering where she was. "Tell them I’ll be there shortly," she instructed him. The boy ran off, apparently relieved to be dismissed.

They sat together on his plot, holding each other, leaning against his tombstone.

 

"How long have I . . .?" he stammered.

 

"Been dead?" she finished his question, "seven years."

 

"Feels longer," he responded.

 

"The meter," she said after a long silence, "I should have known that it would bite me in the a*s somehow. You have no idea of the s**t you put me through with that damned thing."

 

"I seem to recall," he said.

 

"You do?" she said surprised, "You were conscious?"

 

"It’s not so much as being conscious as it is not being unconscious." She pretended to understand, but she had no clue what he meant.

 

"What’s it like to be dead," she finally asked.

 

"I don’t know," he said after much reflection.

 

"What do you mean you don’t know? You’re the one who died."

 

"I don’t remember much about being dead when I’m alive. And I don’t seem to remember about much about being alive when I’m dead." She was obviously disappointed by his answer. She was disappointed because she wanted insight into the next life if such a thing existed, but she was also disappointed because his dead self did not seem to be concerned with the life that he left behind. She challenged him on this point.

 

"It’s not that I don’t care," he said after some thought, "I just don’t feel the need to care. I know that everything takes care of everything else. You just kind of trust it." He could see that she did not appear to be convinced, "Trust me," he finally concluded, "When you’re dead, the last thing you’ll do is dwell on life."

 

"Is there a god?" she ventured.

 

"Yeah," he said plainly.

 

"What’s god like?" she asked.

 

"When I’m dead, I am god," he answered. After seeing the doubt that paraded upon her face, he elaborated, "Well, obviously I’m not god, but at the same time, there’s no distinction between me and god. It’s just hard to explain."

 

"What’s it like to be alive?" he asked after a long pause. She looked at him like he was the biggest a*****e in the world.

 

"I’m serious," he said, gauging her expression, "I don’t rightly remember."

 

"It’s hard," she commented, probing deep into his eyes, "you really don’t remember?"

 

"I remember being alive like you remember dreaming last night."

 

"Well," she said in a manner that betrayed a sense of exasperation, "I’m only forty-three, and most of the people I know are people ‘I used to know.’ It hurts! Being alive hurts more than dreaming about it. You want to know what it’s like to be alive?" she stopped to fully examine the facts that could plead her case, "It just hurts! There’s a billion words I could affix to how it feels, but when it comes down to it, ‘it hurts’ is all that captures it. It hurts a lot. And when it doesn’t, I sit back and wait for it to hurt again. That’s what life feels like."

 

He seemed to contemplate his next words carefully. "It hurts for me to come back."

 

Her body flung away from him like she had been shot by a bullet, then she slowly moved back toward him, "I don’t know what you mean," she eventually whispered.

 

"It hurts to be here."

 

"That’s life," she consoled.

 

"It’s not my life," he rebutted.

 

"What are you saying?" she finally asked, after another long silence.

 

"I can’t come back," he said plainly, as if he had diagnosed cancer.

 

"What do you mean you can’t come back?" she tossed away from him.

 

"I . . ." he looked deep into her eyes, hoping to find some kind of anchor, "I just don’t belong here anymore," he finally found the truth.

 

"Are you saying that you don’t want to be with me?" she asked defensively.

 

"Oh god!" he countered, "There’s nothing more that I want. I want to be with you like I want my next breath . . ." he paused uncomfortably, "assuming that I breathe . . ."

 

She was not convinced, "Then why can’t you come back? I know how to do it now. You can be here as long as you want. We can grow old together. You can watch your children grow up. You can be at their graduation. You can be at their weddings. You can . . ." she trailed off, finding only futility in her words, examining his face for a reason, for logic, for something to explain the present.

 

"I don’t belong," is all he said.

 

"You b*****d!" she sealed the moment with her brand, "You’re leaving me again!"

 

He spoke her name in a way that calmed her. "I’m dead. I don’t belong here. We both know it. I can’t live ‘2 hours’ at a time."

 

She observed the earnestness crawling across his face. "You know," she blurted, "when you died, I would have given anything to have you back. I made bargains with god that I never thought a sane person could ever make. When I heard you were dead – before I saw you of course, I didn’t believe you were actually dead. And all I remember, as I was walking toward your body, was the thought that maybe it wasn’t you, and that it was some kind of misunderstanding . . . then I began imagining who I would rather see dead than you . . . people that I loved . . . members of my family . . . friends that I’ve known for years . . . our children . . . I would have bargained away the world to have you with me . . . and I hate that moment! I hate that you brought me to that moment! I hate that there are so many people that I would so willingly barter away. And I hate that it was you!"

 

A long silence crept into the cemetery, broken only by the odd fluttering of the occasional bird and the vapid cricket who had not realized that its time had passed, "You’re right," she eventually admitted, "Even I’ve moved on." After a brief pause, she laughed, "You know I’ve become a Baptist."

He laughed in a way that allowed for the passage of mucous to seep through his nose. He wiped at his face with his sleeve, "You?"

 

"Yeah," she admitted, "me . . ."

 

"Good."

 

There seemed to be little else to say. She grasped him tighter. He let her. Periodically they looked up at the meter, measuring the amount of time that they had together. It slowly wound down – "1 hour" . . . "30 minutes" . . . "10 minutes" . . . "5 minutes" . . . And when the pressure seemed unbearable he cracked. "Everything!" he blurted out.

 

"Everything?" she asked.

 

"Everything that I never said . . . everything that I should have said . . . everything that I take back that I should never have said . . . just . . . everything."

 

She clasped his hand even tighter than she had up to that moment, looked deeply into his eyes, and with all of the truth she could muster she found her words. "Me too," she croaked. "Me too."

 

Click!

 

 

XI

The next day there was no parking meter stretching up above his grave. She sawed it off herself.

She never told anyone of their time together. The boy in the red jacket never spoke of the events. The boy never even spoke to her again, except for the time that she asked for his picture, which the boy gave her with a certain amount of apprehension.

 

The boy matured, grew to middled age, suffered the hardening of arteries and an expansion around his middle. He never once realized that the meter, along with his childhood portrait, affixed next to his, leaned in the corner of her bedroom.

 

Every night she kissed both pictures as she turned the knob of the meter like a sacrament.

 

 

THE END

Reviews

[Genie]

I am SO glad Emily sent this my way! What an incredible story. Imaginative, compassionate, thoughtful, well-crafted ... in a few short chapters you've immersed me into something like a theology of life that is like no other I've ever read. This is one of those stories that are so good I imbibe with delight as I'm caught up with the characters and the storyline, and when I'm finished reading, I sigh with a righteous satisfaction. To say this is impressive doesn't nearly do the story or your skill justice, but that's all I can come up with right now .... All I know is I thoroughly enjoyed this write!

[Raef C. Boylan]

Thank you Emily Burns for sharing this with me. And thank you, writer, for creating this. It's incredibly well-written and original in a believable way. Like Emily, when I was reading it, time felt kind of suspended and I didn't want anything to disturb my reading of it.
The way you don't name any of the characters, as minor a technique as that may sound to some, is very skilful and made this extra special - only someone who'd travelled the story was able to understand who was being referred to when seeing "he" and "she" etc. Most writers would trip themselves up when doing this, but you managed it very well.
Your dialogue is great, very real-sounding and well-crafted. I disliked a few of your [I'm afraid I've forgotten the grammatical term for this, so bear with me] speech descriptions/'dialogue attributes'(?), e.g.

she responded incredulously
asked the boy poignantly

- there just seemed to be a few too many of them. Although I personally quite like being given clues re: how things are being said, my opinion as a writer is that they should be used sparingly.

Overall, amazing story.
I enjoyed reading this - it has everything: original ideas, believable characters, great narrative and dialogue, emotion and humour, some social commentary, thought-provoking concepts...

Thanks for posting it.

p.s.
"he paused uncomfortably, "assuming that I breath . . ." " (breathe)

[Emily B]

I read this story in one long silent breath. Brilliantly written. I can't begin to express how amazing a line you've tread between the ridiculous and the sublime. I'm so glad I found it.

[Emily B]

I think it's probably time for this one to come out of hiding. I cam looking for it.

[Father Mojo]

Don't worry, it's included in my collection of short stories about to be unleashed upon the world.

[Emily B]

that's good to know