Part I: The Bridge [IV]

The hot, popping noise of bubbling water imitated the clanking and rusting of the gears within Rhamiel's tired mind, and he allowed the steam to touch his face, recognizing discomfort, but enjoying the falseness of it. He closed his eyes and imagined a great light, shining onto him and warming his white skin, darkening him. The grass and the trees and all living things were rich, surrounded by a bright aura that pressed into them, forcing their smiles from their stomachs and stems like bad eggs, and the face he saw there, smiling in his imagined sunlight, stopped him. Rhamiel pushed his face from the heat and opened his eyes.

How surprising should it be that two strange things happen to a man in a single night? If he were a mathematician, he would have been calculating the percentages instead of cooking the last of the packaged meat from their ration. He could imagine what he would do if he were a scientist - asking questions, conducting experiments, analyzing. He would have taken Lailah to the hospital, and a proper scientist would have been much more cautious in allowing a tall, unfamiliar stranger into his home. Perhaps years of unexcited, unenthusiastic security detail had lead him to this denial, had lead him to this exact moment of admiring silences and hiding in moist heat. If Rhamiel were a philosopher, he imagined that he would be reveling, would be thrilled to think that maybe, and this was just a thought, that these things were not chance at all, that there were no percentages to calculate, because this effect had been brought about by the causes that had preceded it. He would rather have been a scientists.

The clatter of silverware pulled him from his thoughts and he turned to see the girl who was not Lialah standing, holding a bundle of forks, knives and spoons in her two hands, the drawer open. Her eyes were fixed onto him, and a chill ran up his spine. Not her eyes. Its eyes. It blinked, looking down at his shoes finally and releasing him from its silent scrutiny. "The food. It is almost finished. I should prepare the table."

Something inside of him twisted and he grabbed its hands, taking the silverware from it with a kind of hesitance. His hands shook. "No, Lialah," - That name. The pot boiled - "Go sit down. You're not feeling well. I'll take care of it."

"There is nothing wrong with this bo-"

"Stop talking."

It looked up, but he was looking down, unable or afraid to look into its face, to see the life and the Lailah that wasn’t Lialah standing, waiting for response. He watched the forks instead, the way the candlelight fell onto their mirror surfaces and disappeared as the flames broke, and it was quiet again. Rhamiel cover his face with his hand, trying to force the images down, downward. "I'm fine in here, thank you. Wash your hands."

"These hands are clean."

These. A pain rose in his throat, but he took a deep breath, and the feeling momentarily subsided. He could not open his mouth before it continued. “You washed them.” It must have seen him still, must have seen the chill that ran upward over his spine and into the back of his skull. It opened up its hands and gently took the silverware from his sweaty palms, but he could not look up. If he did, he would have hit the thing. It wore Lialah’s skin like a suit and it used her mouth to speak in its tones. It used her fingers to brush his hands, warm now, and it was just his luck that it had the silverware in hand, or he might have allowed them to fall. Warmth. Incomprehensible. Impossible. It smiled, raising Lialah’s lips into a taught, wise and knowing version of the expression the face had once worn, and it leaned forward to whisper into his ear. “Do not be afraid,” she breathed. His eyes fell onto her feet, still bare, and something in his chest cracked. “I am what I appear to be, nothing more.”


Candlelight illuminated Rhamiel’s heavy frown and wrinkled forehead, and for a long time, their meal sat in the middle of the table, untouched. The Lailah thing waited, hands in Lailah’s lap and its eyes straight ahead, watching the wall as though it were some distant truth that required her attention, and the Messenger stood at the edge of the shadows beside the doorway, eyes alight with an attentive fire. Rhamiel shifted his eyes between the two, suddenly aware of how emotionally drained he had become, and set his face into his palm. The two faces turned to look at him. “Sit down. Don’t pretend that you’re not hungry.”

The Messenger closed his eyes. “I have already borrowed a room. This is quite all for me.”

Rhamiel looked up from underneath his bangs and softly shook his head, pushing out the chair beside him with his foot in one last, frustrated offering.


Waiting. It had been the word “waiting” that had pulled Rhamiel from the sidewalk, down into the dark, damp places where sunlight did not touch, but death often did. His work pulled him far away from home, an hour’s walk at least, and his schedule had him working from dawn until dusk for little pay. It was strange that despite his wandering, weary mind, he had heard the noises, the soft, gutterel moans of pain that rose out from the darkness of that alley way, and in his memory he paused, and remembered, for the first time since her was a little boy, being frightened of the dark. Work clothes in hand, gun at ready, he had stepped uneasily through the darkness and had practically tripped over his legs, him, heavy with sweat, fever and dirt, bare to blue skin and bone.

Anticipation. He remembered this feeling most of all: this fear, this confusion and misunderstanding, but the excitement, the richness of it. If a man finds two-hundred dollars lying in a wet gutter, he does not likely say to himself, “Well, what a coincidence.” Man is amazed by the smallest and least prominent of his inventions, namely, two pieces of paper with the number “one-hundred” printed on them. Yet, in this finding of two pieces of otherwise useless paper, the man may buy himself any number of things. He may purchase furniture, paints, an album, a front on his loan payment, or even the pleasure of a company for the night. The power of two pieces of rectangular green paper is practically endless. In this day, in this time, man finds himself forever unlucky, forever broke and more than any time before this one, man sees how his external gravitational pull separates him, blocks him, while forever tugging, forever nudging. So, man finds two hundred dollars on the pavement, and where else is there to look but the sky, perhaps around to find some noble-looking old gentlemen in a business suit? Man smiles, and while somewhere in his mind there is guilt, an excitement rises in him. The thought that perhaps he is not alone, and that somewhere something is watching him, navigating his luck and his good fortune, haunts him, has him smiling inside and always, now and forever, questioning.

His shoulders shook, though he did not feel cold, and his hands had fallen to his sides, his gun held loosely. A man; just a man.

Not just a man.

Rhamiel got down onto his knees and carefully assessed him, moving to push the hair from the man’s face, but stopping. The man’s mouth was open, then closed, and then open again, but there were no words, only breath, steaming warmly against the cold air, and Rhamiel stared in what could have been horror- what could have been pity. Chest aching, fingers fumbling, he rubbed away the sweat from his hands on his pants, and he wondered.

Miracles – things Rhamiel never believed in. At most, miracles were rare, beautiful coincidences. Still, when a man finds two hundred dollars, even he, most skeptical, will look about themselves for its rightful owner-someone more deserving than he, someone better suited for it. He may even look up.

“Hey.” Rhamiel tapped his face with the back of his fingers lightly, but received no response. “You’ve probably already got the flu- or pneumonia. Come on, you idiot- even the crazy old hags know where to find something to cover themselves up with-“ He looked down and sighed. “At least they’ve got clothes.” Strange enough as it was that he was talking to a man who was quite obviously half-dead, but even more strange was that he was talking to a man who was half dead with the knowledge that the man could not understand him, nor was the man of any relation to Rhamiel, his house or anyone related to him. His hair was long, white- strange color, even for a foreigner, matted now with dust and the filth at the gutters. His skin was pale, and though he had not thought it at the time, in present, in the lamplight that lit them, their bounty and the Messenger, he imagined that such skin had never touched sunlight- perfect, without freckle nor blemish.

Crisp. New. One-hundred-dollar bills.

Rhamiel tilted his head upward and watched the smoke drift for a long time, falling onto his rear and the palms of his hands in the dark, his gun beside his fingers should anything be required of it. It was a question of morals now. The man wasn’t waking up, and no matter how many excuses Rhamiel could have come up with or made, it came down to two choices- let die, or let live. He could have just as easily brushed it off. There were plenty of other helpless, homeless beggars on the street, waiting for his kindness, but the word “waiting”, so faint, so dim, and so final. It was a word that had rode on the chord of a dying breath, a word expressing a lifetime worth of unsatisfied appetites. Still waiting.

“Waiting for what?” He asked himself, but the answer he heard startled him, sent his blood racing, forced open his eyes to see. Rhamiel looked back at the man, whose eyes were still closed, and yet Rhamiel had heard him, had heard those two words as though the man had been directly at his ear, and he had understood them. The how and the why were unknown- pieces of things that never mattered- pieces of things, but not this thing. This was his, this feeling of understanding- this feeling of believing. It was his, meant for him, to be felt in this moment, in this space. How he knew this- he would not have been able to tell you, but tears found the edges of his eyes, and his chest burned.

The bridge -to connect everything to everything else, cause to effect, misdeed to misdeed, life to purpose. No one throws away treasure. No one throws that shit away.


Rhamiel had carried him home. Luckily, the streets had been quiet and, for a major portion of the trip, empty. When Rhamiel fell, no one saw, no one was there to pick to him up, and he felt a little better. He gave the man his bed, had slipped him beneath the covers and had watched him breathe onto his sheets. Rhamiel had stuffed the bottoms and tops of Lailah’s doors, but the death seeped out all the same. It made him gag, and it made him weep, and he smelled it now, watching the man breathe the way his Lailah had never breathed, and his face twisted into a forced apathy in the darkness. “If you’ll be my bridge,” he said, the house around him quieting, listening. He paused to look down at his hands and sighed, trembling. “I’ll be yours.”


The three of them ate in silence, at least two of them either enjoying or not noticing the awkward quiet that had descended onto them, and neither the Messenger nor the Lailah-thing followed Rhamiel when he excused himself. It had been two days since that day in the alley, three since Lailah’s chest heaved its last, wrecked heave. Its mannerisms, its habits, its tastes were different. Its eyes were different, and the way it opened her mouth was different. He had watched her beside him, eating out of order, finger placing the food into Lailah’s mouth as they had done at five years of age- now the gesture seemed out of place, sinister and wicked.


The walk did him good. Crisp air blew through his coat and made him shiver, the sweat at his brow a cold compress, and when it dried he was disappointed. He walked past the designated living area and into the center of industry, where walls did not exist. The gears had gone silent for the night, and Rhamiel found comfort in winding around the metal presses, navigating his way trough steam pipes and jungles of wires like hanging snakes. More than once he tripped, but did not stop. The ghost cries of the day’s grinding metal sank into the earth and receded as Rhamiel reached the tramway. The lights were off, the seats empty, and he looked inside for no reason other than to see if the shadows would shift, if, when he looked back up into the horizon, he would find something new.

Nothing had changed. When he looked up, he saw the tower, its windows casting a soft reflection onto the barren land far ahead. Rhamiel’s eyes followed the tracks, then the light, but the reflections disappeared, moving far passed his field of vision, and he squinted for a long time, waiting.

Waiting.

He put the palm of his hand to his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose, settling down at the base of the tram with his shoulders leading the way like stones. His mind felt clouded and warm, and he realized then that he must have been catching a fever. Rhamiel wiped his nose and took one more look out into the distance, where the Waste glowed and glittered in the moonlit reflection of those tower windows.


Rhamiel jumped and fumbled to recapture the coat rack, eyes only beginning to adjust to the dark. The dark shadow stood between the entry and the kitchen, too tall to be the Lailah-thing, and the voice was unmistakable. Rhamiel looked around, attempting to spot any more strange shadows before they could surprise him, and the Messenger spoke. “Gone to bed.”

He stopped. “Uh-what?”

“The female has gone to her room. She sleeps. We are alone.”

“Oh.” It was a sound that had tumbled from his lips like a bad habit, and the silence that followed it he could only blame himself for. He breathed out slowly. “Well, you should probably sleep too, you know. I don’t think you’re quite rested up enough yet to leave. You can stay as long as you like.”

But I hope you leave- words he thought, and then was ashamed he’d had. A part of him, a frightened, boyish part of him wanted him gone, and quickly, before any more damage to be done. He did not take back his statement, but he stood quietly, facing the coat rack, and inhaled the dust smell of the corner. It was the preferred option at the moment.

“Sanctuary,” he thought. “Forget me. Go to bed and give me some peace and quiet.”

“I heard you.”

Rhamiel said nothing.

“You must understand that a bridge cannot be made. A bridge must be found. A bridge is fated to be a bridge, and man’s wishes are of no consequence to the divine. Our bond is proof of this fact.”

“Bridge,” he said, without any real emphasis, and let his head fall against the wall. His eyes closed. “Bridge to where?”

“The bridge is merely a path by which the means may overcome their obstacles. The means lead to the end, and the end is a message.”

“What message?”

The Messenger did not answer. He watched Rhamiel’s back, and Rhamiel shivered. “

"Who are you?”

“I am I.”

“No. Who are you? What is your name? Where did you come from?”

“I have no name but my status. I am a Messenger, a servant of the pull- what I call the divine. The rest is only the rest.”

“What’s the rest?”

“A disturbance- a great shaking at the base of the first world. That is all I know.”

“What would be the use in denying all of this and kicking you out of my house?”

“None at all.”

Quiet. Rhamiel’s eyes were adjusting, and when he finally gathered the energy to look over his shoulder, the Messenger was leaning against the doorframe, and his face was as clear as the day. Rhamiel looked down, and then looked back up. “What happens now?”

The messenger smiled, flawless complexion twisting to reveal perfect teeth. “We wait.”


End Part I