The Night Walk Men
A Novelette by
Jason McIntyre
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Published by & Copyright © 2011 Jason McIntyre
Smashwords Edition
Fiction titles by Jason McIntyre:
On The Gathering Storm
Shed
Thalo Blue
Walkout
Black Light of Day
Learn more about the author and his work at:
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.
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First: The Fuse Is Burning
You want to chat about the weather first?
Well, fine.
We can talk about that first. If it’s important.
Before that, though, you need to know one thing.
This is going to be painful.
This is going to be a bowling ball dropped from waist height on your toes. A dentist’s chair plus a drill plus small talk. This is going to be coming down from on high. Or finding your spouse in bed with another. Or murder-suicide. Or heavy metal from the neighbour at three in the morning. This is going to be the doctor telling you it’s inoperable. Or a chemical burn on flesh. Or pepper spray and a wrongful conviction. This is going to be a fire eating your life’s work. This is going to be Your First Time. Or Your Last Time. This is going to be twelve fresh body bags going under the yellow tape and into the house at the end of Sheppard Street. This is going to be malevolent eyes in the dark staring down into a crib at a screaming baby. This is going to be painful.
But we can chat about the weather first. That’s no big deal.
I’ll start by telling you something you didn’t know, something you’ll probably think is trivial. Something that even your local weather man likely hasn’t heard.
More people die when it’s raining. Did you know that?
Certainly, when it’s oppressively hot for days and days, even for weeks at a time, you’ll hear about the old and the infirm and how they just can’t make it through. How they’ll lean back in a chair, fade away and expire. That happens all the time when it’s hot. And during the holidays, that’s a big time for us too. You’ll have large numbers of folks simply switch off like bulbs in the attic. The lonely and the depressed, they’ll up and do something regrettable while they’re alone or they’ll succumb to sheer emotion – two outcomes that don’t offer an “undo” option.
But it really is raining when the lion’s share take that last bow. There’s just something about it, something that doesn’t jive with human guts. Dollar for dollar, day for day, soul for soul, it’s the rain that finishes most life sentences with that final period. It’s the patter of water on pavement, water from sky onto road and roof, water against the clapboard siding of an old home that brings most of us out to do our Work.
Be aware. When it’s mild, when it’s temperate, we’re there. We’re always there and that’s a promise. But when it’s raining, we’re there in droves. We’re there for keeps.
That’s a guarantee.
You want to chat about the weather first?
Fine. We can definitely chat about the weather first.
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Second: The Gathering Gloom
This is the story of a beautiful young girl named Gabriela who would live a beautiful life but take a bad step.
And, before details of our fair young one, you want to know who I am, don’t you? You want to know who I am and what I have to do with all this – what I have to do with our dear Gabriela.
Well. All I can say to you is: In due time.
You’re not ready just yet.
But I will tell you. No wink, no smile, no foolin’. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.
In the meantime, though, I’ll start by telling you some other necessary pieces, things you’ll want to keep track of, things that matter in the grand scheme. Now, don’t think I’m being morbid, but I need to say a few things about Death.
Death has no prejudices. None that I’m aware of. Well, unless of course you count a discordant bias for the elderly. Or that heaving soft spot for the unhealthy and for the careless.
I should tell you that I’ve seen Death. I’ve seen Death nearly every day. Just today, in fact, I witnessed Death walking down McMurchy Street. In what city, I cannot recall. And for what purpose, I cannot tell you. But at what time, that I do remember. It was just before high noon and He was there, moving south, determined. If you had eyes and were at my side, you’d have seen Him too. He might have been searching for a sick child, might have been hunting for a young fellow who didn’t look both ways before crossing.
A crow voiced his concern from a still treetop. A windchime rattled to life and sang a tune. There He was: plain as the day was blue, a whirling dervish. A presence. A storm. Just a tall shaft of invisible breath, drawn from nowhere, seen only by its dent in the world. There, on that street, it was a tiny tornado, a hurricane of force the size of a large man, or maybe two small ones going piggy-back. It grabbed litter and dust and gravel from the gutters, hailed it like bullets, threw it like darts in a spectacle of fury and concentration. Around and around and around.
Just the wind, you ask? Just a torrent brought by nature’s fingers? Well, I looked around and the day itself boasted of no winds, no breeze, no scented push from the west. There was no rustle of leaves – not even at the crow’s perch overhead. There was nothing but silence and stillness all around. So I say no.
The crow could feel it. So could I. And one day you’ll feel it too.
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In the beginning, He rehearsed his discourse but now knows it so well he can say it without flinching, backwards and forwards. He will not well up with tears when He arrives to say his piece. He’s done this too many times to let it affect his thinking.
And what is this discourse, this piece?
Imagine, if you can. He may hunker down beside you and whisper it in your ear, unseen to you, invisible, but heard clearly. Or He may stand before you and shout it like judgement. Or He may pass it to you in a song note on the skin of a breeze. But the discourse is always the same.
“Someone dies,” He says. “Every day, every minute. Every continent, every island, every everywhere. Could be you. Could even be me. No one knows for certain at this late hour. But I am contrary to you in every way. I am black volcanic glass to your white palomino skin. I am Obsidion and I am eternal. But I am not immortal. I can die. I see but am not omniscient. I can be blind. And I am not alive but I live. I walk at night and when the rains come. I am a foot soldier in the ever-stretching, never-ceasing de-cade. I equate what is unequal. I simplify what is convoluted.”
What does it mean? Well, I’ll answer all your questions soon enough. You have my word on that.
But in the meantime, you should know that He tells the truth. He can’t help it. (And neither can I.) It’s bred into him, it’s as much of who He is as what He does.
He is contrary to you. He is the Tall Dark Figure to countless. He is Obsidion. That’s his given name though he’s been called a hundred different things. By a million different men and by a million different women. Some have called his kind the Perpetual Guests or the Foreigners Afar. During war time, the worst stretch for His kind, when trenches and mass graves are filled with bodies, some began calling his kind the Night Walk Men. You should know that he is one of many. One of an innumerable militia.
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Again, forgive me if this comes across as gruesome, but you have asked so I will do my best to answer.
Two dogs had to die in a suburban neighbourhood near Bellingham, Washington before any of these wheels (or these words) could begin turning.
It was a Sunday afternoon in July and Obsidion was finally in search of His own understanding. He had been doing this for so long and was near his own end. He was heartsick, couldn’t seem to keep moving forward. He needed to know one simple answer: could he step out of his charge to find solace from the things he’d done, from the things he would one day do?
You should know the dogs were a vicious pair, a Rottwieller and a Bull Mastif named Deus and Machina. They didn’t so much live as they existed, surviving from meal to meal in a neighbourhood renowned for its problems. Deus and Machina had the run of five conjoined backyards along a gravel lane, burned out dumpsters and the train tracks. Plain and simple, they were a security patrol for the owners of those five houses. A handshake among them agreed that a good loud bark and a good deep bite is better than any alarm system set to alert a sluggish police force that wasn’t allowed to draw their weapons anyway.
Their master--their first master--was a vile woman who taught them to crave raw carcasses and praised them to snarl at passersby. If these dogs were ever to get out, to get past the chain link fence, or manage to finally leap it, the other neighbours all feared their children might be the first to get mauled. The block lived in constant fear of Deus and Machina.
As the sun stood tall in a deep blue sky, Obsidion descended into the long shared yard. He knelt on the grass. And the dogs could smell Him, could sense Him. But could not see Him. He spoke to them, tried to clear their minds but their minds were muddled, troubled, made unreasonable by madness. They were too far gone, Obsidion decided. The two dogs were riled by Obsidion’s presence, stirred to movement and noise as if by a coming storm. They growled and bit at each other. Saliva blew outward and yellow teeth grabbed at mangy coats. Their barking--their fighting--roused the neighbours. Windows opened in back bedrooms.
“Someone dies,” he said to the dogs, “Every day. Every minute.” And when Deus and Machina dared come close to the Tall Dark Figure, He snatched them up, each violently by their collars. He squeezed Deus until his neck broke and then He let his own teeth sink into Machina’s gullet until both dogs whimpered and fell away from Him. He knew the madness in them was not their fault so he took them as gently as he could. And then He looked up at the sky overhead.
He expected to hear the clouds rip open and an arm of wind to reach down for Him. He’d heard stories of it happening like that. But nothing appeared. Somewhere, a bird chirped. The day stood tall as it had before. And His question had been answered.
He left the dogs there. Their first master appeared in the yard and ran to her puppies. She began to sob. She laid down in the hot green grass with them and closed her eyes as she cried. She never saw what had silenced them.
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I can hear Him, as clearly as if he was standing beside me. Montserrat would say this to Obsidion in his plight, this to Him as He cries: Come now, o brother, come! O brother! Why does your heart fill so with tears? How now, brother?
And Obsidion would ask why he needed to carry on, why these tasks had been thrust upon him.
Duty o brother!, Montserrat would answer. You were borne, are borne, out of duty. With each night, passing and flailing, you are a creature of the highest obligation.
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And what of me? Like Obsidion, I suppose, but in some ways unlike Obsidion, I too am the personification of life. I am the taker of life. And, if need be, I am also its giver. We each are, in our own right. If you look at it one way, I am everything to you and your humanity. Yes, yes, you must be beleaguered--believe me that when I say I’ll answer your questions, I will. Any and all. And I’ll tell it how it is, to be sure.
Your curiosities are fair and I will treat them that way but before we go any further, you must know this: I will answer your questions. But in due time, vice-a-verse-a, you’ll be asked to answer mine.
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Third: Obsidion
Allow me to try and put this in terms that you may readily be familiar with. Obsidion is a Night Walk Man, an old one, an experienced one. He has been imbued with the lives of ten men, and He walks among you like a blur, unseen but often sensed or smelled like pollen in the air when you can’t see flowers -- or the tingle you get when the hairs on your neck stand up. There is no solid-core steel door that can stop Him when he is out to do His Work. If you’re walking home alone, down a desolate road and your own shadow cast by the streetlights seems to move on its own, in tandem to you but with a slightly longer gait, that’s most likely His shadow. If you hear footsteps on the parched earth behind you, or if dry autumn leaves scrape concrete with a breeze, that’s most likely Him, walking just a little ahead or just a little behind. If it’s dark and you climb into your car and for once--for no reason at all--wonder why you didn’t check the back seat for strangers, He’s mostly likely back there as you drive off.
He is everywhere at once and nothing can stop Him. He’s Death incarnate, walking under a long robe of blacks and chasing down the winds to read from his discourse.
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Mistakes are made. Not by Obsidion, at least, not yet. But from time to time things don’t go as planned. Who makes these plans, even I cannot say. But there is a Will and from that comes the Word. And when the Word goes astray, the Night Walk Men are commissioned and must perform a less common kind of duty.
I can tell you of one instance when a mistake needed correcting. Remember this: Night Walk Men do not only deal in death.
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Two youngsters--and I say youngsters because I too am very old--were to expect a baby girl in the springtime.
But due to what you would call ‘complications’, some beyond any earthly control, the baby girl was stillborn. She did not live to breathe fresh air outside her mother.
But as with all things that go to the left when they should go to the right, a Night Walk Man was summoned to put in place a repair. You see, there are certain things that should be. Simply should. And I don’t know if I can make it any plainer than that. Word of these “Should-be’s” comes down the chain from one in the line of Night Walkers to the next and to the next and so on.
And so it came to Obsidion, for these two parents-in-waiting were part of his herd, his flock if you want to think of it that way. He accepted the duty and took his Next In Line, my brother Fallow, to begin the delicate practice of ensuring parenthood for these two youngsters.
This man and this woman were heartsick – as you can imagine. But they still loved each other. Wealthy in dollars and in property and possessions, these two had secure futures but had banked on sharing that future with a little one. Even badly damaged for their loss, they still moved forward through each day and into each night with one another. But they were automatons now. Every evening, they each got into their bed, turned their backs, said their goodnights, and tried to sleep. Nothing was the same since their baby girl had been lost. And neither of them could find sleep until exhaustion finally claimed them and made them drift away.
They didn’t touch anymore. They didn’t kiss anymore. Their sleep was restless and uneven. When people are this badly wounded, no bandages can heal them.
But it was in the nearly forgotten warmth of skin against skin, that automation revolved into a different thing. It was in the movement of a finger along a wrist, or across a smooth leg. Unseen and unknown, Obsidion and his young protégé descended upon the nighttime bedroom of these two. Like wraiths in the blackness, they each maneuvered the lovers out of their fitful sleep. It was like a wakeful dream, many months after the doctors had said they could start trying again...if they wanted.
And so, out of sleep, brought this way and that, as if possessed body and mind by a long-dead ghost, each of them embraced and caressed the other, slowly at first, and then passionately, until, finally, they were each entirely awake. They were entwined and fully engaged, neither of them conscious of the other presences in the room.
Morning came to the two, long after Obsidion and my brother Fallow had taken their leave. And, in time a new baby girl was born: Gabriela. And along with her, this blessed gift from above, there was a baby boy. Twins were born. And the two parents were mended.
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So who am I, then?
Well, to begin with, I am not the Tall Dark Figure.
My name is Sperro, thank you for asking, and I must tell you that and I am not making any of this up.
It’s not hearsay, either. I was there. Or, for the most part, I was present in a kind of way that you would not understand.
Fate willing, let us continue.
You see, these aren’t really my words because I do not really exist. At least, not in a way that you would be able to comprehend. But I give them to you, these words. And now they are yours. You may do with them what you wish, you may breathe them in and live with them, you may burn them, you may forget them, you may tell them to the crows so that they will be misremembered or taken to the sky on cool winds. It’s up to you what becomes of them and up to you how they are spent and spread. Just as these are not my words, neither are they the words of that Tall Dark Figure you will one day come to know.
These words are yours now.
You do what you want.
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Fourth: Braille the Rail
He comes on a mist, you see, brings the cold when there is warm, the warm when there is cold. But silence. Always silence. Never does he bring calamity. He is the reversal of noise, the reversal of haste, the reversal of disorder.
Obsidion, like all Night Walk Men before him, lives above the rest of us. You don’t know about this, and will likely forget it shortly after I tell you, but there is a secret valley on a hidden moon called Cruithne, which orbits past the clouds and the air over the northern magnetic pole. True north, they call it. And back before you were born, when they said ‘True North’ that’s what they were talking about, the valley above the clouds: Cruithne.
There was a time when Obsidion savoured his duty. No, he didn’t like what he had to do, but he felt there was genuine meaning in it. He knew that it was important Work, perhaps the most important. And so there was salvation in that.
There isn’t down-time from this Work, not in the same way you can imagine. Night Walk Men don’t punch clocks or commute to a saw-mill to begin a shift and then punch back out at the stroke of five. But there are reprieves from Duty. And, not too long ago, it was in those short interims where Obsidion, like anyone, could find solitude. He would come down from the Perch of Cruithne and walk among the living, savouring their lives, learning from them, watching them. He used to revel in these pieces of personal time, when he could visit with those that populated the world, and in particular with the artists that He so much admired and that so much enthralled him. I tell you that He was obsessed with your kind, found it hard to believe that you could deal with so much negative and still, some among you could remain so positive. How, He wondered, could you create works of art out of a life of pain. It intrigued Him and He was drawn to your ways of life.
One of the artists he so admired and cared for was a musician, a blind sax-man who could play better than so many more who had the full advantage of sight. Can you believe it? A sightless man who lived alone near the train station and could play music that would soften even the most hardened soul. If that’s not an artist, Obsidion might have said not too long ago, then there is no such thing as art.
Now the thing about this sightless man at the train station is that he couldn’t see Obsidion. No one could, right? But with him, it was a-okay. He just assumed Obsidion was like anyone else. A frequent passenger passing through Grand Central and paying homage with a coin tossed into his case.
Obsidion knew his real name, knew the real names and all the real deals of every one in his flock. But he called the sightless sax-man by his nick-name, out of respect and genuine friendship built by years of passing visitations, conversations and, of course, songs. Braille the Rail, they all called him, this heavy-set black man who would stand and play in the station for hours straight, facing the wall because it carried the sound of his saxophone out into the theatre of the gates. His audience was the traversing crowds. Just men and women moving to and fro, all of them bent on Being Somewhere Else. None of them paid too much attention to the trials in-between their various Somewheres. Destinations were their core and nothing else mattered to them except for flagging comfort in the meantime. At these middle-roads, tips to a blind man playing saxophone were large. No one thinks their pockets hold real money out here in the Nethers.
To Braille, all shaggy whiskers and dark shades, Obsidion garnered his own little name. Obo the Hobo. He was a traveler, he told Braille, a salesman who only carried two cases. One filled by his personal belongings and one giant rolling beast filled with his wares, musical instruments. Brass mostly. Trumpets and clarinets, the odd obo (which Braille wanted badly to hear played) and, of course, a saxophone or two.
But enough about me, Obo the Hobo would say. I just sell ‘em. You actually make ‘em sing. Play me a tune, Braille, old friend, play it slow, so I can learn the notes and remember them when I’m on the road and away from my home.
They were long years of steady friendship, but often the sporadic visits were short and badly-timed. Sometimes two or three years passed between a meeting of Obo the Hobo’s ears and Braille the Rail’s lips and the whetted reed of a finely procured saxophone. Despite poverty, Braille the Rail always had a flawlessly tuned and expertly shined instrument to play, because, as Obo saw it, such raw talent should flourish with a fine instrument in hand, and would only whither and die otherwise. To give a second-rate gift to such an artist would be a grave sort of sacrament. And since the conjure of most anything--air, stone, fire, even precious metals--is second-nature in the domain of the Night Walkers, the finest saxophone was virtually a costless commodity. Why wouldn’t he deliver a new one every few years to his closest friend, to his only friend?
But Duty, Montserrat would say, comes before friendship. O come, Brother, he might say to Obsidion, Come sit with me and drink tea while I tell you again your lot. You were borne of duty, you are duty. You must to this attest your unflagging support. It is duty that makes you...and makes all the rest of us carry on. Without you, there would be no reason for anyone to live at all.
And Obo the Hobo would have to forget his nickname when Montserrat stood before him and handed his orders. Obo the Hobo didn’t exist while there was duty to perform.
You should know that there is no God, at least not in the sense that you have come to understand since your birth and your upbringing, no matter what faith (or lack of it) derives your wisdom. But there is a Word that comes from a higher place down a chute and into the ears of lesser beings. There is, as there should be in a universe that calls itself ‘ordered’, a chain of command. I am the second last in that chain. And Obo the Hobo, he is two links up from me. Demotion is not an option. But punishment has happened in the past. Punishment is final and there’s no coming back from it. His marching orders had arrived from Montserrat, who is one link up from him, and like all the times before, his duty spoke in volumes.
When the Word is said, the harbingers must throw out the nets. And so, like countless moments before, countless since, the nets were thrown.
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“There he is!” Braille would always say when He arrived, as a coin flicked from a gentle turn of His wrist into the black sax case near brown leather slippers, made ratty and comfortable with time. With regulars and strangers alike, he could tell how much you threw in and he could tell if kids scampered by and swiped some. Petty thieves would think he’s just an old cripple. But he’d always catch them in the act. As they slyly reached in to snag one of the bigger bills, the music would stop on a pin and out would come Braille’s fingers like pinchers, latching onto your arm or your shoulder like a giant insect with strength that fooled you coming from an elderly blind man who smells of liquor and cigar. He’d hold onto you until you dropped whatever it was and if you were stubborn, he’d holler for the station security. Some people swore that we wasn’t blind at all, that behind his black glasses, he could see better than anyone. Twenty-twenty vision for this undercover cop, or this transit patrolman, or this simple-minded scammer who just wants to play sax and milk the system for its sympathy, falling through the flaws year upon year.
Thieves didn’t bother him anymore. Nowadays, Braille the Rail was a fixture at the station, like the wall sconces and the newsstand. To some he was as old as the trains, had been there before the longest-standing employee, a man in his late sixties who had managed to outlast everyone else on the payroll, even the top brass. And even to him, Braille was a myth, a living legend of dark flesh and bone. And his predecessors had swore to him thirty-five years ago when he started, “The Rail Man, well he’s always been here. For years and years, was here even before I was...” and with that kind of longevity, word spread that you didn’t mess with that old blind geezer. Bad Karma. Just enjoy the music, if it’s your cup of tea. Or walk on by if a scraggly welfare case without a real job makes you uncomfortable.
“He’s back,” Braille would say, coming off the reed of his saxophone, not even out of breath after thirty or forty minutes of playing straight on through. “Obo da Hobo is back in the Station House, everyone listen up, you gotta know. There’s a special coin in the case to-nite. And now at long last, Obo and Braille, we gon’ do what they call a doo-ette.” The tradition was unbroken, their first few moments together unfolded like they always had on any number of nights over the years. Obo flicked a coin into the sax case and Braille said his short piece, same as ever. Then, like he always did, he put out his hand, steady as it had been when he was a young man. Obo always appeared at the end of a tune, never in the middle, never interrupting the flow of the impromptu jazz that spilled through the hollows. And it was always out of nowhere, almost as if he’d descended from the sky.
And Braille? He would always be excited. After the coin toss and their handshake, it would be a few pleasantries, then some of the ol’ “How’s it treating you?” or “Where they paying you to go these days, young man?” or “You still up to the same tricks ol’ feller?” Obo would reach out and take the old man’s arm -- firm, but not forceful -- just as he always did. Then he would lead Braille away and the two would sit at a table near the coffee stop. It was dark in the station tonight – no trains on schedule for a few hours. The hallows were empty except for the two souls.
On this night, nearly the same as any other, they talked for a good long while. A good long while, for sure. And then Obo the Hobo did what he always did. He stood up. He led Braille back out onto his ages-old stoop, where, on this night, a misty rain had begun to blow in, laying a blanket of damp down. Braille’s dark glasses clouded with spittle and he moistened the reed with his tongue and his lips. For these rare occasions when Obo was present, he would stand facing the tracks, his back against the brick – and not the other way ‘round.
“Play me a tune, old friend,” Obo said, “Play it slow, so I can learn the notes and remember them when I’m on the road and away from my home...”
And so Braille played. And on he played. Loud and proud, for an hour or more, giving everything he had left to the song. And to his friend.
As he played, Obo moved in closer to him. Minutes of long languid music would pass and still he played. And Obo would move in closer. More minutes of music would ring out. And still Obo the Hobo would move in closer. A bridge and then a heartfelt solo. Obo moved closer. And then a return to the first verse. Obo moved closer. And then back up into the heights of the song. And here was Obo, his lips wet from the rain next to Braille’s ear, so close they were almost touching.
“Someone dies,” He said to His friend. “Every day, every minute. Every continent, every island, every everywhere. Could be you.”
And then He was gone.
Brailled stopped playing.
He crept out from his spot near the brick wall. He called out for his friend. But Obo was nowhere. The station was empty.
Where did He go? No trains had come for him, Braille knew that much because he knew the schedules like he knew the keys on his sax. A train would arrive in moments but wasn’t here to pick up passengers yet. So where did He go? And what did He mean? What was He saying?
The rain came harder then.
It doused the old man.
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Fifth: Gabriela The Great
Little Gabby was running from her brother when she took a tumble on the cold tile of the train station. Her parents were taking her and Galbraith on the early train out to Dow Lake where they owned a sizeable resort home. Braille the Rail’s long drawling music had faded for the moment and a light rain had begun and turned harder.
The twins were three now, old enough to know better but young enough to still stir trouble up. When Gal threw Gabby’s dolly over the edge of the train platform, the children’s daddy was at the ticket counter asking if their train was still running on schedule and their mommy was digging in her purse to find a hairbrush or a bit of lipstick or some other trivial necessity.
Gabby didn’t think twice about moving out from under the overhang and into the rain then right over the edge of the concrete and tile platform. She did it without thinking, as three-year-olds do. She had scraped her knee when Gal had been chasing her moments before but that pain didn’t stop her, didn’t even make her cry, so why would the edge of the platform and a bit of rain hold her back now? She had no idea how deep the pit was and over she went, onto the dirty tracks below with a bad thumb, bruising her hip and bloodying her arm from her elbow to her armpit. Her beautiful summer dress was scuffed and filthy now, black with dust and wet with the rain. And her hat took a breeze and landed some twenty feet down the track in the mouth of the train tunnel which led out of the station and into the rest of the world.
But Gabby reached –strained—to get hold of her favourite dolly, thinking only that she would be in trouble from mommy for getting her dress dirty and losing her hat.
When her fingers touched the hem of the doll’s dress, that’s when she felt the first rumble and that’s when her mommy let out a scream.
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Braille the Rail had let the reed of his friend’s saxophone fall from his lips. He had heard a short discourse whispered next to his ear and found himself alone in the rain, coming to grips with what it meant when he heard the little girl go over the edge of the platform. A dog had been loosed in the station years ago and before it had been crushed by the coming train he could tell by the echoing of its whimpers that it was down in the track pit.
The little girl’s whimpers and grunts of effort had that same distinct hollowness and Braille knew in his bones that she was somewhere down below the platform, just as that dog had been.
The mother’s scream confirmed it.
Braille’s sax hit the tile floor hard. And he was off across the distance and into the pit before he could rationalize the decision.
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He’s lived past his due, Montserrat had said to Obsidion, as they had drank tea. He’s old and he’s tired and he’s slipped through the cracks for too long. No good can come of his creeping existence. You must perform your Duty.
Obsidion thought for a long time. The two of them sat in silence, Monserrat sipping from his cup, Obsidion saying nothing, only looking into his own lap.
Finally, he spoke.
But she still has so much life, Obsidion said to Montserrat, ignoring his own tea, not caring for its bitter taste any more.
Yes, but understand the Word, my brother. The Word says it’s her time as well as his.
And so Obsidion had. He bowed his head to Montserrat, as He had always done, and had set forth to perform his Duty yet again.
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The train roared into the station, not easing on its brakes as usual but trying to slow down faster than intended when the engineer saw what appeared to be two people on the track ahead. The window of the ticket booth shuddered. The brakes squealed.
As he scooped up the little girl, Braille the Rail had a recollection of Obo the Hobo’s final discourse, whispered to him only a half-minute before and finally understood what it meant. Moments after the blind sax man reached up to the platform with a dirty three year old girl in his hands, handing her off to the girl’s daddy, the train came in and took his place.
A panic-stricken father, only three or four paces behind the old blind man who had ambled over the edge faster than his age should have allowed, was now cradling his little girl, wet faced and shocked, still bawling at the ordeal. A similarly-shocked mother and twin son soon huddled them as other station employees began to crowd around.
Gabriela the great was healthy, save for bruises and that long gash on her arm. She would grow to be a young woman. But the Night Walk Men will come for her.
They always do.
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Braille the Rail, the old blind saxophone player, living long past his run, to the age of one hundred and nine, was finally taken at his train station on that rainy night in September, 1964. Before the train hit his body, Obsidion gently let his heart stop. Along with his music.
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Last: The Flowing Robes of Montserrat
You’re greedy. Look at you: you’re still here. Still wanting to hear the sordid details, still wanting for every last crumb. Can’t you let our Gabriela live her life, what’s left of it? Must you have your nose in it all?
You think you know so much. You think you’re so special, that you’ve done this and you’ve done that. The truth is that you think you know it all. But I’ve been around a lot longer than you have. I’ve seen a whale of a lot more in my ten lives than you have in your one life. The truth is, I’m probably more human than you are.
Fine. You’re still here. I can accept that. Let’s finish this then. It won’t matter much. You’ll still be the same as you were before.
I told you that I’d share what I know. Fine. Let’s share.
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What is a Life?
If you would ask Obsidion, standing with your feet in the warm sand, his robes of black touched lightly by movement off the ocean, He would tell you that a lifetime is a beautiful, throbbing piece of work. Obsidion is a lover of art, you already know this. But what you don’t know is that He often speaks in riddles and in infinite loops. So you should not be surprised that He would also tell you that real art cannot be seen in real life. A lifetime is a beautiful thing. But a Life, capital “L”, is nothing at all like true art. He would say this to you without an ounce of self-righteousness, without a mote of pretentiousness.
And he would clarify. He has clarified for me so I know. Life, He has said in my presence, is not like art insomuch as art contains finality, absolution, insomuch as art may contain meaning, depth. Insomuch as art may have recurring motif or symbols that convey universal truth. Or even characters with moral compunctions, conundrums and eventual successes with such conundrums. In life, not in art, good rarely seems to triumph over evil. Good does not always leave the table with all the chips. Not in real life anyway.
I believed what he told me. And, in turn, you should believe what I tell you: there is no real art. Real art only comes by accident. And there are no accidents. Certainly, there are compromises. There are mistakes. But there are no authentic accidents.
I mean to say this:
You didn’t honestly believe that train wreck in Bolivia was an accident, did you? Or that landslide in Northern British Columbia? Or that red light that made you late for work on a Monday morning? Everything happens for a reason. Gabriela knows that now. And so should you.
All’s fair. I told you I’d have my turn. So let me ask you something further, since you’ve had free reign to ask of me.
What if, at the age of fourteen in 1461, Christopher Columbus had died of Typhoid in Genoa before ever setting foot on a boat?
What if J. Robert Oppenheimer had developed his throat cancer twenty years earlier than his death in 1967 and perhaps one or two years before a single atomic bomb fell on the Japanese city of Hiroshima?
What if Louis Pasteur’s parents had never met? Or, what if young Pasteur had stayed in the Jura region of France and pursued his first love of art instead of his second love of science?
What if the rifle of nineteen-year-old Slavic Nationalist Gavrilo Princip, had jammed, not allowing two rounds to be fired on Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in 1914?
On December 9th, 1980, what if Mark David Chapman had given into his urges? What if he had barged in on the gay couple having sex in his neighbouring hotel room at the YMCA instead of waiting for John Lennon outside the Dakota, his New York City apartment.
Do you think any of that would have changed anything else?
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Yes. There are mistakes. A mistake was in letting Braille the Raille live so long. He was a hundred and nine, that’s too long, even for you. You wouldn’t know what to do with that much time, you would go mad. And Braille, he nearly did. Though he did a far sight better than most would have done, I will argue that to the end.
There are mistakes. Gabriela’s parents taking her to Dow Lake by train, that was a mistake. Gabriela and her brother almost not coming into this world, that was a mistake. Gabriela falling into that long dark tunnel filled with metal rails and crushed rock, that was a mistake.
But, likewise, Obsidion ignoring his orders and letting her carry on, one could make a case for that being a mistake too.
No, Gabriela is not evil, she surely has no bad intent. Letting her go on will not invoke a third world war, don’t kid yourself. She will not grow to a bitter and damaged sort who opens fire on a crowd of children (never!) nor will she calculate the assassination of some Higher Up to change the world order.
If you want to keep believing me, you should go right ahead. I can’t make promises but I can tell you some things you probably didn’t know.
I can tell you that, in time, Gabriela is set to do something very important, very altering, very crucial.
And I can tell you this.
A Night Walk Man is not a Godly sort. There are some startling contrivances which attend to the Work that He does, but He is not holy and not divine. We are not seers. We get no fraction-grasps, no smoldering hunks of Yet To Come. There are broad strokes, mind you, large trends that are interpreted and ordered upon, but, just like it is in your world, those decisions happen farther up the chain than you or me or even Obsidion. All of us, we can only wait for the Orders to come down. And for the most part, we can only sit tight and wait to see how it all plays out.
What I do know (and what Obo the Hobo knew) is that there are certain souls, whether by right or by might, that have to move in certain directions. Franz and Sophie, the archduke and his wife, they had to be on that step in 1914. And Pasteur’s mother and father, they had to fall for each other. Just had to. The whole house of cards would have crashed down otherwise. And these kinds of little things, these impossibly small details, they click into place every night, every day. Even when it’s raining.
And, surely you must know by now that, just like that, lickity-split, our Gabriela had to come out of that train tunnel well with breath in her lungs. Had to.
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Fate? A silly notion. Fate is a man hurrying to get a can of pizza sauce from the grocery store at rush hour. Fate is his car wreck as he dodges a bicycle rider on the way instead of slowing down to a stop. Fate is his head touching the windshield at 45 mph because the few seconds to fasten his seatbelt would have made him miss the green light.
I told you that mistakes are made. Even up here. Even in the heavenly world of Cruithne. What you don’t know is quite how the mistakes played out for Obsidion and Montserrat.
So I will tell you this. I will tell you and then you must promise to go because I will have nothing more for you then. Nothing at all.
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Obsidion walks through a torrent of white birds. Not doves. But sea gulls, crying as they ascend.
On the plain, he marches through waves of grasshoppers, among the honey-coloured staffs that flow with a gentle breeze and His presence.
He stands now in a wheat field in the middle of what you call the bald prairie, just an elongated breadbasket that, at harvest time this year and most every other, will offer up your survival.
It is the morning after our Gabriela has fallen, the morning after she is brought out of the dark train pit. Obsidion waits.
And then Montserrat is there. The rains don’t come--not yet. But thunder and lightning tear the sky apart, light it up like the flashbulb behind an angry sun. Inside a dome of quiet, however, where Obsidion and Montserrat stand silent, there is stillness. It’s the complete calm you’ve only ever imagined but have never found yourself. It’s like death. But the most peaceful sort.
They stare each other down. They do not speak for a long time.
Montserrat’s robe stands still down to his feet in the dirt.
Then Montserrat says, Welcome Brother. I am sad that it comes now to this.
I’m sad too, says Obsidion. But do what you must.
I charged you, Montserrat says, charged my Next In Line with taking Gabriela because she is destined to do momentous things. Momentous things that cannot come to pass.
And where do you come by this knowledge, Obsidion asks.
We are all Next In Line to someone, Montserrat answers. You to me. And me to another...further up the chain, he says. For you, Obsidion, that knowledge should be enough. It’s always someone else’s decision to make. Perhaps even mine. But not yours.
Obsidion cries. Momentous things? You stand here and claim that she will do momentous things? Her momentous things are to be battled for, not sacrificed, not destroyed... They must pass and I know this. So why was it her? Why? You made me return her to this world at her start, he says. She is like a daughter to me. You know that. I have watched over her since the beginning. In a sense, brother, I made her. Why make me take her?
And Montserrat only makes the statement he has always made. Duty, o brother. This is yours. And you should have attended to it. Now we are both to blame.
No, says Obsidion. Duty is nothing for me now. I have let so much go in the name of duty. I have taken great friends because you have called it duty. I am finished with that, brother. I am finished with all of it.
And so are we with you, says Montserrat, a touch of sorrow and sadness in his voice. He doesn’t want to do what comes next but his sense of duty is intact. And with the tail of his words, a new torrent comes out of the sky. Black and grey, churning against the stillness of the empty night, it burns down through the darkness from a hidden moon above the clouds. It tears across the open plain, breaking asphalt and grid roads, approaching the meeting of these two phantom brothers, lifting the soil and the wheat and leaving a wide open carriage path in a farmer’s field near a town whose name I can’t recall.
Then Obsidion is gone. Taken.
It is punishment for insubordination.
You want to tell me that Montserrat was wrong, that I told you so. You want to tell me what I’ve told you countless times already: Mistakes are made, Sperro, and Montserrat was on the side of err. A train edges off the track in Bolivia, you say. A plane goes down over the Pacific. A bomb goes off in a crowded theatre. And a twister touches down on a hot summer evening. Gabriela was meant to live--you believe this--and she lives at this very moment. You want it to be correct, don’t you?
But let me ask you this.
If there is a mistake, who pays for it? Someone has to. Don’t you think?
And in the chain, somewhere above us both, there is a nod of agreement. Overhead, the heat is sucked into the atmosphere. The rains finally do come. Thunder and lightning lock the sky in a war of light and dark, silence and sound. The heat wave is over and a giant hand of welcome coolness and moisture sweeps from the plains out here all the way across to the island, to Gabriela’s home on Sheppard Street. Out to the ends of the earth at Dow Lake and across the roves of people we are meant to protect and to herd.
But Montserrat was wrong, wasn’t He? Or was He?
It really doesn’t matter. He went into his brother’s flock.
He too went against the Word.
It was Monserrat who steered Galbraith’s hand as he threw Gabriela’s dolly, he who gave it the distance to see it over the edge of the platform. And it was Montserrat who took Gabriela’s hat from her head and blew it down the track twenty paces.
So His robes are pulled taught by the wind as it rises. He looks skyward. The fabric is yanked. It flaps and fusses about his head. And He understands what is coming.
Unsuccessful or not, His punishment is the same.
Death comes to them both because any chain of command will fail if there are hearts and minds near the bottom.
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I told you that all Night Walk Men have a Next In Line. Obsidion was that to Montserrat until they were carried off into the sky by another on the chain. Fallow, as you’ll remember, was Next In Line to Obsidion. He was our father. And to Fallow, my twin brother, I am His Next In Line.
It all comes down the line, you see. Just like that. Just as it should. Just as the rains always come after the heat has been here too long. For the most part, things move along as they’re meant to.
I say again: was Obsidion right? Or was Montserrat?
Who knows for certain at this late hour?
All I can offer is that I am the last to carry on. I am the youngest, but older than you by at least five hundred years.
I must leave you now. I am Sperro, a Night Walk Man. I have my own discourse to write and I have my own Work to do.
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About The Author // Jason McIntyre
Born on the prairies, Jason McIntyre eventually lived and worked on Vancouver Island where the vibrant characters and vivid surroundings stayed with him and coalesced into what would become his novel, "On The Gathering Storm". Before his time as an editor, writer and communications professional, he spent several years as a graphic designer and commercial artist. His novel,"On The Gathering Storm" is available now.
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