Purgatorium (46 page)

“Why do you care? Teaching you how to do it would be like firing that gun of yours without gun powder, useless. You once again gave up. I knew you wouldn’t change. All of this again was for nothing,” Sealtiel says, turning his face to the doors.

I stand back up to show him that I made a mistake. I wasn’t in the right mind set, all the while thinking about his little magic trick he just did. By saying that he could teach me must mean I can learn to do it too. If I were to learn how to change my appearance to look like a reaper, then there wouldn’t even have to be a race. That might be my only resolution out of this mess.

Sealtiel turns to me. “It sounds to me like you are down for another arrangement, a deal if you will?”

I try thinking of what I could possibly give him that would mean anything.

“Who am I kidding? This deal would be too rich. You have never mastered this trick and I mean never. You haven’t the answer to the main question to even begin the thing!”

What question?!

Sealtiel looks me over, playing with his tongue. “Alright, I will give this one question up to ya for free. But that’s it! Hear me?”

I nod.

“Your poker face needs a little work, cowboy. Listen closely before I change my mind, ‘Who do you want to be?’”

I stand there, clueless at where this random question originated from.

“If you want to learn
how,
then you have to learn
who
you are. It’s the only way to go about it. Told you it wasn’t going to be easy for ya.”

Who did I want to be? I think back to myself.

“No, not who you
were
but who you
want
to be. Let me tell you a small fact of who you were. A writer with no ambition or goal. A book you have worked on for many years that in all honesty you never truly wanted to finish. You hid behind. shame and doubt long enough that you brought down your family because of it. You have rewrote it so many times that you could have made a series out of them!

Concentrating, I look in the mirror. My mind goes off course again to the deeper meaning of the question, which gets me thinking,
Who do I want to be?
If I remember correctly, didn’t I want to be a writer at one point? Throughout my time here I had an enormous amount of writer’s block, not ever once writing a single sentence. I don’t really know if I am even good at writing.

I snap back, looking at myself in the mirror.

“Writing is one of the ways that you use to free yourself from concern, a way to stop the world through total mental, spiritual and physical involvement. Maybe writing will help you with the situation you’re in now. Make you think clearer in maybe finding out who you want to be.”

The elevator doors open. We walk out and through the many cubicles leading back to my office room. Once I enter, I see the desk that I spent a countless amount of time at, trying to write the perfect story. Nothing ever coming out right. Nothing ever coming out at all.

I hear the grandfather clock ticking away by my desk. No matter how many times it gets destroyed, it always seems to come back a bit more louder than the day before. Maybe because before all this happened to me, it was the only type of soothing noise that I was accustomed too. Now it just haunts my soul.

I touch the marbleized desk, hearing the whispers in my head, telling me that I wasn’t good enough at being a writer, that I could have been better. I crawl down into despair, not knowing whether what it is saying is true or fiction.

I loud crackling noise is heard out the window. That pops me up.

Sealtiel looks down to me, “If you listen for sinful wisdom, then that is what you will hear. There will always be someone who seems to be doing better than you. No matter what you gain, your demon will not let you rest. It will tell you that you cannot stop until you’ve left an indelible mark on the earth, until you’ve achieved immortality. How tricky is the sin that it would tempt us with the promise of something we already possess.”

He picks me back up, brushing off my shoulder, then walks over to the corner to make a fresh pot of tea. While he is distracted, I get out the logbook and see where I put DEMON on the top rotary dial.

30 Minutes

I look out the window, feeling dejected at not knowing the second password to the book. My true desire has to do with my demon. In other words, my demon is formed by my biggest sin from my strongest desires. But if that’s the case, why wouldn’t lust be the answer? That is my biggest sin, isn’t it?

Sealtiel brings out a tea set and puts it on the desk. He sits me down in the chair and lays down a piece of blank paper.

“The only way to truly know is to try,” he says placing a pen in my hand.

Just like the many times before, I look at the white paper, not knowing where to begin. Just staring at its blank white surface leaves me restless and unkempt. I hold the pen steady, pressing it up against the sheet. I mark it as I always do. Out of anger, I toss the paper and pen, not wanting to go through this again. I stroll over to the window and watch the lightning dance across the cloudy sky, knowing that any minute now the day will end and the night will come forth. The object of time is seen through the window. I touch the
hourglass
reflection again and feel its warmth on my skin.

“You are one stubborn individual. Okay, fine! Let’s make a deal then.”
Sealtiel picks up the pen and paper. “If you write two things true to yourself then I will tell you the trick, deal?” He lays the paper before me and once again holds the pen out. “But if you don’t write anything in the last remaining minutes we have in this place, then I want you to finally give yourself up to the reapers so no other angel will waste their time on your consistent failure.”

I look over at the nice texturized pen as it glistens off the office lights hanging above it.

I need to know that trick if I am ever going to win the race.

I take the pen and sit back down.

“That’s a deal then. You have two minutes.” Sealtiel lays the tray down in between us and takes a seat on the other side of the desk. He holds the tea pot and pours a murky liquid into his tiny cup. Steam hovers above the rim, forcing him to blow over the cup to cool it down. He takes seven sugar cubes off the tray and drops them into his tea cup, one by one. Lifting his spoon, he begins to stir the tea counter clockwise.

With each revolution he makes, I can hear the spoon clank up against the inside of the tea cup. The sound that carries from it goes along with the old grandfather clock. Both ticking to a sound that can drive a person mad. He is doing this to distract me. I steady my wrist, touching the pen down on my paper. Quickly, I come apart from the constant noises. I throw the pen down, not even knowing why I ever thought I could do this.

Sealtiel stops. Taking a sip from his tea cup he says, “You are ahead of the game. You already know you are a writer and that peace, that peace that you’re after, lies somewhere beyond personality, beyond the perception of others, beyond invention and disguise, even beyond effort itself. Don’t let anything distract you from the light that shines through your soul to the words you write or let others read.”

He hands me back the pen. “The first step to achieving anything is to try. You can’t write based on the assumption that you can write. It’s like saying, you can’t sell based on the assumption that you can sell. To sell, you must first sell yourself before you can sell to others. Sell yourself, just don’t sell yourself short. Same philosophy goes here. Write for you, not for anyone else. Let your heart bleed onto the paper, not caring for one second who reads it. Assuming anything in life only leads to you doubting yourself. Don’t assume and just try. There is nothing wrong with failing. I’d rather you try and fail than assume and miss out on what might have been. Find that self-peace, hold it deep in your mind, push through that writer’s block inside your head that’s telling you that you’re not good enough.”

Once again, Sealtiel starts to make the sound of his spoon on his cup again. He flows back in harmony with the clock. “Listen for it.”

He is doing the sound on purpose, I come to realize. But why? What is he trying to tell me?

Putting the pen to paper again, I still can’t concentrate hard enough to tune out the distracting sounds. The only thing still left fresh in mind is the 42:02 problem.

That’s it! He wants me to remember the music!

Thinking of the music that plays at 42:02 gets me humming its melody in my head. I use my humming to follow along with the beats of the clanking of the spoon and ticking clock. I hear it all coming together now as I guide the pen to the paper, imagining how the music makes me feel. I write:

“
The music that comes from above is always manufacturing scenarios that try to keep me trapped in the multiplex of my own mind. My eyes are not only viewers, but also projectors that are running a second story over the picture I see in front of me. My memories are writing that script and the working title is, ‘A Face to Call Home.’”

The words are unraveling all at once. The walls that were once blocking my imagination are being torn down. I hear Sealtiel cheering me on, clicking the spoon harder against his cup. Words of passion breathe out of my heart, through my lungs, and into my head. I have become witness to whom I once was and who I want to be again. A writer, till I live and breath. I continue to write:

“Who am I? I am an unknown soul lost in a world that leaves me with no voice or memories. I have come to understand that what I lack in memory I gain in discipline. I am formed through pure absolute light. A light that my soul perceives to be good and at times bad. When that shift happens, the battle between my inner demons and my free will converge. I take arms to defend against its unsavory motives. My white paper becomes the shield that blocks away the evil force of fear and doubt. My pen is the sword that strikes down despair and stress with the words I lay down. There’s no story the mind could create that will be as compelling as facing one’s sins with the outcome always being in the mind of the believer.”

I lay the pen down, feeling well-accomplished at the progress I just made. I fold up the paper and place it in my jacket. I hear the clanking of the spoon come to a stop. Sealtiel slurps his tea, distracting me from my thoughts. “Well a deal is a deal. Look in the first drawer to the right. You will see a pack of playing cards that Jehudiel likes to store in there. Grab them up and meet me at the restaurant in five.”

A loud thunder is heard followed by a lighting bolt, striking down right outside the office window. The power goes out. I turn my chair around and watch the cloudy sky go dark with only the lightning bolts showing any kind of light left.

I then
look away from the sky and down to see everything—my apartment, the lighthouse restaurant, the subway station, the coffee shop, the park, and the interstate. Maybe I can beat 42:02.

I suddenly see my reflection take on a life of its own again. I breathe on the glass window and write out GREED.

A lightning bolt strikes again in front of the window, blinding me. The loud roar of the thunderstorm seems to be getting more fierce.

I rub my eyes and see my reflection is back to normal. I wonder for a few seconds what he was trying to tell me until I realize that GREED is five letters. That’s what my reflection is trying to tell me! Greed is the answer to what I desired most! Greed is my true sin!

I am about to take out my logbook when I realize the hourglass’ reflection is almost at the bottom.

I take the playing cards from inside the desk. I glance back in to find something else that seems a little off. I take out a key with a room number 5 attached to it.

This is the waitress’ apartment room. Why would it be in here?

The thunder crackling in the sky is enough to pocket both the items and make my way out.

I step into the elevator and head down. I look at the mirrors surrounding me. Staring into one, I can see rows upon rows of infinite versions of me, all of them staring back into my soul with their green eyes of torture and pain. They bury me with those eyes. I am slowly losing control of myself. My mind is slipping into madness with every day that goes by and half of me wants it to. This place will not be my end.

I start to concentrate. I close my eyes and think not about Madi or Anna, but of something peaceful instead.

A calm breeze hits my face. The sound of the ocean crashing on the shore. My feet rubbing up against sand and the sun beaming its warm rays on my face. I feel something small dig into my toes. My eyes open to the beautiful ocean scenery cast out before me. I look down, finding something shiny is stuck in between them. It looks like a coin of some kind. I gaze back up and see my father running towards me. The light reflecting from the coin shines in my eye. I am blinded.

I open my eyes. Looking at the mirrors, I see that I am back inside the elevator. After descending a few floors, my sweet emotions turn to reasonings. What was that, a memory I just had? It must have been. I am sure I know where I saw that coin before too.

The elevator doors open and I walk out. Taking out the paper I just wrote, and reading the line by line, puts a smile on my face. For the first time, it feels genuine.