The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(87)

Yes, but why?

The Kid stopped again. Look, he said. We’re not going into the techs. I know you see it like some sort of spatiochemicalbiological misfit or something but most of our guys dont see it that way at all. They see it as a matter of belief.

Belief?

Yeah. As in nonbeliever. No matter the magnitude of your doubts about the nature of the world you cant come up with another world without coming up with another you. It may even be that everybody starts out fairly unique only most people get over it. Come on. I felt a raindrop.

But why do they get over it?

Christ on a bicycle, Bobbykins. How the fuck do I know? We dont make the people, we just make the templates. It’s a file, that’s all.

Are you saying that the only difference between her and everybody else is that you dont have a template for her?

No, you are.

Western looked out over the dark sea. He could taste the salt on his lips.

It’s some sort of electronic template.

No. It’s hydraulic. Jesus.

That maps the mental terrain.

Plus the gallbladder dont forget.

The gallbladder?

It’s a joke. Weeping Mother Mary.

Sorry.

Yeah, right.

You think I’m a dork.

You are a dork. What I think has got nothing to do with it. Can we move it along here? We’re going to get wet. Christ. Are nightbreezes off the sound supposed to howl like this?

They trudged on, the Kid’s robes flapping. You dont always get what you want. But then you dont always want what you get so it’s probably pretty much of a wash. Anyway, you dont really want to talk. You just want somebody to tell you that it’s not your fault.

It is my fault.

Let me try putting it another way. You just want somebody to tell you that it’s not your fault.

Maybe I dont know what it is that you want.

Yeah. Well, that’s my fault. I just never imagined that you’d be this thick.

They plodded on through the sand. They seemed to have some destination in mind. Western stopped again and then hurried to catch up.

Are you an emissary?

Of what?

I dont know.

Sure you do. Or you wouldnt be asking the question. Anyway, maybe I’m not the little dude we’ve all come to know and love. Harbinger of hope and suppository of dreams. Maybe I’m the evil twin. Who do you even get to talk to about her?

My grandmother. My uncle Royal.

Yeah? That’s a big help. Uncle Royal in the boobyhatch kitted out in nappies and bib. And I’m an agent? Who aint? You dont have to agree with everything but when you get assigned you go. Jesus, it’s freezing. Hell of a front for this time of year.

Do you think there’s some sort of shelter up ahead?

Not for you. Anyway, your problem is that you dont really believe that she’s dead.

I dont believe that she’s dead?

I dont think so.

You think I believe in an afterlife?

How would I know?

The first spits of rain fell.

Do you mind terribly if we dont loiter? How come you never got another cat?

I just didnt want to lose anything else. I’m all lost out.

Why is the lamp of wrong always sheltered from the wind? Anyway, you still got yourself to go.

I know.

What’s your thoughts on that? The sooner the better?

Sometimes.

A sharp crack of lightning lit up the empty beach before them. The rain began to pelt down.

Who knows? said the Kid. Maybe you and Sis can rendezvous in the sweet by-and-by. Jesus. Look at this shit. Pain and corruption. The times she went behind my back. Sometimes she’d just douse the lights and go to sleep. Midsentence. She’d of been a piece of work no matter what. Mary and Joseph, did you see that? Can we step it along? Dont you just love the taste of ozone? Like a fucking zinc milkshake. You dont say a lot do you? I’ve heard of rafts of nicely poached fish washing ashore after one of these electrical storms. You think that could be true?

Western slowed. He palmed the water from his face. The Kid was becoming obscured in the slashing gusts. Slapping along in his outlandish attire.

He was wet and chilled. Finally he stopped. What do you know of grief? he called. You know nothing. There is no other loss. Do you understand? The world is ashes. Ashes. For her to be in pain? The least insult? The least humiliation? Do you understand? For her to die alone? Her? There is no other loss. Do you understand? No other loss. None.

He’d fallen to his knees in the wet sand. The salt rain blew in off the sea. He seized his skull and called out after that small and shambling figure receding down the beach in the gusts. Lightning flared over the dark water and over the beach and the liveoaks and the sea oats and the wall of pines dim in the rain. But the djinn was gone.

When he woke in the small hours the storm had passed. He lay there a long time. Watching the gray light come up in the room. He got up and went to the window and looked out. Gray day. His wet clothes were piled in the floor and he picked them up and draped them over the kitchen chairs. Later he went down to the beach but the rain had washed everything away. He sat on a driftwood log with his face in his hands.

You dont know what you’re asking.

Fateful words.

She touched his cheek. I dont have to.

You dont know how it will end.

I dont care how it will end. I only care about now.

In the spring of the year birds began to arrive on the beach from across the gulf. Weary passerines. Vireos. Kingbirds and grosbeaks. Too exhausted to move. You could pick them up out of the sand and hold them trembling in your palm. Their small hearts beating and their eyes shuttering. He walked the beach with his flashlight the whole of the night to fend away predators and toward the dawn he slept with them in the sand. That none disturb these passengers.