The Segmentation Fault of the Soul
Matty had his accident on a sparkling summer?s day in the city. I?d been wandering around there, as I do so often, just meandering around, allowing myself to flow through the crowds, when this huge white Beemer with Matty in it smashed neatly into a wall just about next to me.
I don?t think it was fate. In my heart and mind, I haven?t believed in anything like fate for a long, long time.
So this Beemer flattens itself against the wall, it?s entire engine block landing up on the passenger seat, instantly killing the poor devil behind the wheel. I never saw it with my own eyes ? I haven?t had eyes, in the technical sense, for over six years.
He shouldn?t have run that red robot.
But all that?s in the past now.
I did see a little bit of the Beemer?s impact ? I saw a few million bacteria on the wall it hit dying instantly in the furious heat generated by the kinetic energy of the impact. The reason I saw them is because a whole bunch of connections to them suddenly collapsed, like a flower closing it?s petals, only this flower was meters wide and had billions of petals.
And then, the weirdest thing ? the driver, who was supposed to be long dead, he calmly picked himself up and out of the car and said:
?What the f*ck just happened??
I could hear his voice and everything. It was a rare, treasured experience to hear someone?s voice, something that?d only happened to me a few times since I died in a plane crash in 1997.
?Your car crashed, buddy, that?s what happened,? I immediately said, walking over to introduce myself.
Of course, Matty didn?t really expect a huge, tangled glob of glowing coloured lines and dots in a vaguely humanoid shape to come up to him and say hello, so naturally the fella backed away a bit, and said:
?And who the f*ck are you? What are you??
?Ok, man, just calm down. Take it easy. Look, I?ll tell you what. I might look a bit odd, but it sorta comes with the territory. My name?s Joseph, Joseph Virek. And you are?? I said, walking very slowly towards him, trying not to scare him.
?You?re human?? he said, carefully examining me, ignoring my proferred hand. I took it back, then said:
?Yes, yes I am. As human as you. And you are called?? I said.
?Matty. Matty Kroned,? he replied, gazing at his ruined car. I knew it was ruined because the sheer heat of it?s impact was still killing off bacteria and other tiny beasties on the outer edges of the heat-crescent on the wall it was crushed against.
After a while, I thought I should continue, so I said: ?I know it doesn?t look like it, but eventually you?ll understand that I?m just a man like you. For now, I?m not going to mince my words. What you see here is what we in the industry like to call a Fatal Car Crash.?
?I don?t understand. One moment I was driving, then the next, my wheels skidded, and I was aiming right at this wall. Now look, my car?s ruined!? he said, overlooking the extremely obvious.
?Matty, please do us both a favour and look and see who?s sitting in the driver?s seat!? I said, tiring of the endless charade, one I?d had to perform over and over again. It?s amazing how people will continue to believe in their own comfortable, pre-conceived notions of reality, even when confronted with undeniable evidence to the contrary.
He did as I asked, leaning over carefully, then stood up with a start, shuddered a little bit, and looked inside again, this time more gingerly. Then he said:
?That guy looks just like me!?
?That?s pretty much what I was expecting, Matty. Pretty much, yeah. Why do you think he looks like you??
I think little lights started going on in Matty?s head at exactly that point in time. It?s quite delightful, seeing someone emerge from the prison of their preconceptions like that. I enjoy it more every time I see it, to be honest. Cases like his happen occasionally, and today I?d just been lucky enough to be right on the spot when someone like Matty came along and died violently.
Maybe he was seething with anger when he died, or pining for his long-lost love. Who knows? Hopefully I?d get to find out before he disappeared like all the others did.
?This is?this is?it?s unbelievable! You?re not telling me that that?s?? he said, stammering. Previously, Matty was a very confident, slightly overbearing man in his early fifties. A regal, commanding figure. Now he had been reduced to a lost sheep by a car crash. Poor him.
?Matty, let?s not dally around,? I said. This was quickly starting to become just like all the other cases. ?You?re dead. Hammered. Pegged. Kicked the bucket. Shuffled off the mortal coil. You know, six feet under. Except your body?s still in that car.?
He said nothing, only easing his silver-haired skull back into the car through the ruined window to take another look at his own dead body again about three times, before he looked back at me, his eyes empty.
Thank God you can?t cry in this place. Tears were really the last thing I needed at that point.
?I know it?s pretty hard, but hey, look on the bright side, at least you died quickly. You probably didn?t suffer for more than a second or two,? I said.
?This is impossible. That isn?t me. That?s not me. Not me. No. No. NO!? he shouted, turning and loping away with considerable speed for one his age. On second thoughts, his age probably doesn?t matter in this place, just the way mine doesn?t.
?You can?t hide from the fact that you?re as dead as a doornail, Matty. Run all you like!? I bawled at his receding figure, which was about to enter the crowded, fiercely glowing street. It looked like someone had dumped a huge load of torches in the street, torches that moved around and had terribly brilliant beams.
?I?ll catch up to you eventually!? I yelled. ?There?s nowhere you can hide from me, friend! All I wanna do is help!?
And Matty ran into the street and stopped, his breath halting so loudly that I could hear it all the way down the alley he?d run through to reach the milling, coruscating clumps of light that were all the ordinary people. Some were going to work, some were going home. All of them were glowing like storm beacons covered in black chintz cloth.
Then he screamed, and he carried on doing that for quite a while, until I went there and pulled him out of the street and into the alley and sat him down. Your throat doesn?t get sore when you scream in this place, because you have no throat. You can still scream quite loudly though, which I find very puzzling, and in this case, it was also supremely annoying.
I sat patiently next to him until he calmed down enough to talk to again. He was mumbling, so I said: ?Easy now. You?ll be okay. Really, I promise.?
?Where am I?? he said, finally ending his mumbling. I could sense that self-important, despotic side of him starting to take over again. Here was a man who wasn?t used to not getting his way.
?Earth. El Planeto Terrarium, if you?ll excuse my French. You?re where you were just fifteen minutes ago, when your car crashed. And now, my friend, you are dead. Is that easy enough for you to understand?? I replied.
?But that?s impossible. This isn?t my home! What are those things in the street? Where is all this light coming from? It looks like someone dumped a boxful of glowing silk on everything!? he said.
?Oh, you are home, you just can?t admit it yet. Eventually you?ll realize the truth, I?m sure. For now, I suggest we take a walk. There are a few things you need to know before we can go any further,? I said, getting up and gesturing for him to follow.
He reluctantly walked out of the alley with me, clenching his eyes shut automatically as they were assaulted by the searing light of hundreds of people walking around, going about their business, all of them glowing fiercely.
All of them connected by huge, pulsating tendrils of light, a sort of continuous lightning snaking across everyone in the street.
?What the hell?? Matty said, standing at my side, looking like a puppy whose nose had just been firmly tapped with a rolled-up newspaper after it took a crap in the kitchen.
?Those are people. Ordinary citizens of this glorious nation-state, friend. Just normal dudes, doing the shit they do. You dig? Look carefully!?
He peered at the people, then stepped back abruptly as one of them veered closer to us, an old homeless man. The man nearly walked straight through poor Matty, who recoiled quite violently.
?Why are they all shining like that? What?s wrong with them??
?Nothing?s wrong with them. They?re just alive, is all. That glow is sort of a spectral aura, their karma, whatever you want to call it. It just means that they?re alive. After a while you?ll begin to see that every living thing glows around here.?
Matty didn?t say anything. He just carried on watching the roar of light that composed the street.
?It?s pretty f*cking weird, I?ll admit,? he finally said.
We started walking. Matty seemed to have calmed down enough to be rational, which was pretty important. I didn?t want to waste my non-existent breath.
?I?ll give it to you straight, Matty. Most people, when they die, they just sort of disappear. If you?re looking at them from our vantage point, it looks almost like they merge with all of those glowing lines. But sometimes, it doesn?t work, and they stick around after they?re dead, except the lines leave their bodies and start wandering around on their own, like you and me.?
?That makes no sense, Joseph,? he said, carefully dodging a pack of flaming ropes that turned out to be a secretary in a rather nice little black number under closer scrutiny.
?Well look, I ain?t got nothing to prove to you, Matty man. I?m your helper and friend here. I try my best to guide people through to whatever awaits them on the other side when they get stuck here. I don?t even know what this place is, really. It?s sort of an in-between place, like a doorway. You understand??
?Not in the slightest. But I get the general drift of what you?re saying,? he said. Now he was beginning to warm up to me a little. Maybe he?d finally realized that I was probably his only way out of this royal mess he?d gotten himself into.
Most people who get stuck here are pretty much the same as Matty. They just have enormous willpower, for the most part, and a good number of them are as wily as hell, scalier than a rattlesnake, so they often chum up to me real good when they realize the truth.
But I?m wise to their little schemes.
Helping them, that?s what I do. Don?t ask why. I don?t know myself. Charity? Maybe. Maybe not.
So Matty accidentally brushes up against someone when he looks back at me, and he jumps and does his little shudder-thing again, like somebody just stuck a big old soldering iron up his ass and pressed the ON button.
?Yeah, you don?t wanna do that. Never, ever touch them. They get the shivers, you get the shocks,? I said, smiling. Matty grinned back nervously, then carried on walking immediately behind me, ducks-in-a-row style.
?Where are we going?? he asked, after a long stint of goggling at various glowing people walking past.
?The hospital. There?s someone there who can see us. An old lady. Hang tight, we?re almost there.?
*
This old lady, she was blind. Don?t ask me why she could see us ? she just could. During the past few years, there?s a lot of things I?ve learnt to just accept, weird, outrageous things that would?ve made any other man go spare. Luckily for me, you?re a hell of a lot calmer when you don?t have adrenaline glands to muck up your thought processes.
?Hello, Christine,? I whispered into her ear. Her room was a private unit in the East Wing of Laudermeir Hospital, and I knew that sunlight was streaming into the window ? a whole variety of bacteria species were feasting on it on the table, their photosynthetic processes giving them a vibrant sheen.
One other thing about being dead ? although you can see every living thing, as well as it?s connections to every other living thing, you can?t perceive light. That?s something you need eyeballs and optic nerves for.
Or sound.
Or heat, smell, anything like that.
You can only see the connections, the ties that bind.
And because there are so many of these little hooks and links, you can see so much more than you ever would with a plain old pair of eyes.
Christine was beautiful ? a radiant, shining angel, her light sufficiently muted by old age so that you could look at her directly without suffering pain.
Matty gasped when he saw her. She?s a special one, Christine. She really helps out the newcomers, and I?m grateful for that. Helps them understand.
?Hello, stranger. Hi Joseph. Please, have a seat. It?s been a while since I last saw you. And who is your friend?? she asked.
?How can she see us when nobody else can?? Matty whispered, even bending over.
?Oh, there?s no point in whispering, I can hear everything you two say no matter how softly you say it. I?m not being rude, that?s just how it goes,? Christine said, pulling herself up carefully onto a huge white hospital pillow with regularly spaced blue marks. On each blue mark, tiny clumps of bacteria had enjoyed a diet of cotton pigment, which was how I knew the dots were there.
?Well, hello, I guess,? Matty said, chastised. Christine was very, very old, and you could make out every feature of her face. That?s why I take the newcomers to see her ? it?s more comforting that way, when they can see a real face. Looking at just about any other person is like trying to see a picture on the face of the sun ? you can?t do it, no matter how hard you try.
?I?d offer you folks a cup of coffee, but of course, that would be callous of me, wouldn?t it?? Christine said, smiling gently.
?Christine can see all the dead people. She?s been able to do it since she was a kid. Someone else brought me here when I died, another guy. So she?s sort of our grandma,? I said.
?And Joseph here has stuck around longer than any of the others, I might add,? she said. ?He?s a real stickler. Honestly, I don?t know why he doesn?t sublime. He won?t tell me.?
?Sublime?? Matty asked.
?That?s just our little word for when you die properly. See, the both of you are caught in a place between two worlds. I?m lucky enough to be able to see you, but only very vaguely. You?re like the shadows of a moth?s wings in the firelight, to use an analogy. But see you, I can and do. What is your name, young man?? she asked Matty.
?Matty. And I?m not a young man ? I?m past fifty. Quite a bit past it, truth be told,? Matty replied.
?Oh no, you were fifty-something. I don?t think age really applies, where you are. Not in the way you?re used to.?
?Look, lady, I?m pretty confused as it is, so please help me out here! That?s crazy talk!? Matty said, obviously frustrated by the helter-skelter of our conversation.
?My, but this guest of ours is headstrong! Joseph, where on Earth did you go digging up such a feisty fellow?? Christine said, smiling again.
?His car whacked into a wall right in front of me. In fact, I think a part of his bumper actually went through my hand,? I said.
?Well, I suppose Matty here will be more careful at the wheel in future,? Christine said. She was evidently enjoying this, although I feared she would be quite embarrassed if a matron or a nurse wandered into her room and saw her having an animated conversation with the wall.
?Listen, I just want to go home. I?m lost, and confused, and I need a stiff drink. Just tell me what the prank is, or whatever this crazy place is, and let me go, please!? Matty said.
Christine sighed. ?Ain?t no prank, son. You?re dead. Joseph?s probably told you that a couple of times already, but I?m gonna tell you again: you?re dead. Understand??
?So this is the afterlife??
?No,? Christine said, then she descended into a bout of heavy coughing. ?No, uh, no no no. Not exactly. Like I said earlier, this is just a place between my world and whatever is next. You?re stuck in a landing zone, if you can call it that. A crummy place to be, but stuck you are.?
Matty pondered this for a moment, then tried to bite a tiny piece of skin from his finger, but stopped when he realized that his entire hand was glowing so brightly that it would be hard to look at it.
Then he said: ?So how do I get out of here? What do I do??
Christine smiled again, and said: ?Thank God you brought us a bright one this time, Joseph.? She winked at me and continued: ?Most of the others took days to understand what this man has just grasped in a few seconds. You have a task, something to do, something unfinished. I think you know what it is. Usually it?s the last thing that was on your mind when you died, something major. Last guy that came in, he?d had a huge fight with his wife and he?d slapped her so hard that blood came out of her mouth. He got so mad that he was busy loading his shotgun to shoot her, but then he accidentally shot himself in the stomach. He was stuck because he realized as he was dying that he?d been an idiot, but there was nothing he could do.?
I sat down on a plastic chair and made myself comfortable, as far as that was possible without a real body.
Christine continued: ?So this guy died, but he didn?t go to the other place, the world past ours. He was stuck ? he became kind of like a ghost, like you and Joseph. He was just absolutely determined to tell his wife what a dope he?d been, and that was his last thought when he died. Joseph found him wandering around in the street outside his house, bawling his eyes out. Well, in a manner of speaking. Anyway, he brought him to me, and we arranged for him to see his wife, and did a few other things, and then he was at peace, and he sublimed.?
Matty?s eyes brightened up, and he said: ?So the last thing you think about when you?re dying, that?s what you need to do? I?ve heard ghost stories, hauntings, that stuff, but I always thought it was just hogwash, or maybe a demon. I believe in demons, you know.?
?Ain?t no demons here,? Christine said. ?And I should know. Joseph will tell you the same thing. They?re just stories made up by parents to scare little kids.?
?I was thinking about my son. I was pissed off with him, actually. He disassociated himself from our Congregation. We?re Jehovah?s Witnesses, and he suddenly decided that he no longer believed in God. So I was driving over to his apartment to straighten him out. We had an argument on the phone, and I was screaming at him, telling him he was going to die at Armageddon, and??
They didn?t notice me stiffen when he said all those words, code-words designed to prick the ears of any Witness, words I?d thought I?d never hear again. Maybe Christine saw me tighten up inside, but she didn?t say anything. Christine sees everything. She?s had eighty years of practice at it, unlike me.
Matty sat down heavily, like a bag of potatoes. I wonder sometimes, does the soul, the bearer of the points of light that got separated from my body and Matty?s at the point of death, does it get so used to gravity that it pretends to be affected by it even when it?s technically weightless?
In other words, is gravity just a habit?
I know I?ve flown a few times, when I wasn?t walking and I decided I needed to go somewhere quickly. You?re weightless, after you die, but at the same time you can feel the enormous pull of life, all around you. The connection, the hook, the link-up.
That?s a different kind of gravity, and I think that?s what we feel, but don?t necessarily react to in the same way.
His face was empty, as blank as that of a newborn. I think it was the very first time in Matty?s life that he had no words to express what he felt.
Finally, after what looked to me like a fierce internal struggle with himself, he haltingly began to speak again.
??and?Jehovah?God?but this place??
Christine looked at me, then down again at Matty.
?Tell me more about Jehovah, Matty,? she said, her voice slightly kinder now.
?That?s God?s real name. He?s going to destroy the Earth soon, and here I am, dead. Or whatever this place is. How am I going to convince David that he should return to the Truth now??
?Matty, I hate to break it to you, but this is pretty much what comes after life. You?re looking at it,? I said.
?No, no, it can?t be. There has to be more. Jehovah is still out there, this is just?the underlying fabric, the firmament that I?m seeing. It doesn?t make sense! Why didn?t they tell us about this??
?Maybe because they didn?t know? Whoever they are??
?But?but?this changes everything!? Matty shouted.
?No need to raise your voice, son. Tell you what ? stay with Joseph, until you figure it all out, then you?ll know what you need to do. Any questions, ask him, or me if he doesn?t have an answer. Joseph?s a pretty bright kid, so he should be able to help you out with most anything.?
?Thanks Christine!? I said, and slowly led Matty out through the door. He stumbled slightly, ancient reflexes kicking in to prevent a collision, but I just steered him straight through it. Being a ghost isn?t all bad, all the time.
In fact, if I?d still had a sex drive, I would?ve been having one hell of a good time, being able to walk through walls and being invisible. Sadly, that?s another thing you need a small set of glands for, so I just sort of mooch around now.
*
Matty took nearly three days to reach his conclusion. It was pretty long compared to some other guys I?ve ushered through this place, but then again, Matty was no ordinary guy. He reminded me strongly of myself when I was his age.
We talked a lot, and he told me that he was an Elder at his local Kingdom Hall, apparently quite a high-ranking one too. Someone important.
I was once an Elder, too.
He seemed to cling to his religion like a bat to the wall of a cave, not wanting to let it go, despite seeing proof to it?s contrary for virtually every second of his present existence. That kind of thought takes some tenacity to maintain, so let?s give him some credit here. He only did what he felt was right.
Three days after he arrived so violently in this silent, bright place, he figured out how he was going to get himself out. Smart man, that Matty.
He?d noticed how our corporeal bodies, or spirit bodies, whatever you want to call them, could interfere with some kinds of electronics.
And he knew that his son knew Morse Code.
All of these entirely unrelated things meant that he?d figured out how to send his son a message, a message from the dead.
Which was how we landed up on Birch Street, walking towards his son?s apartment block. Thankfully, this son was in possession of a small portable radio that he enjoyed listening to during dinner.
I guess I don?t have to tell you exactly what Matty planned to do with it ? you know already.
We talked a bit on the way there. Matty said: ?So why are you still here, Joseph??
?I don?t honestly know,? I said, not meeting his gaze.
?Oh, surely you must also have a duty, a mission to fulfill?? he said. Matty was really getting down with this whole post-life thing, it seemed, and it was starting to get creepy.
?I just don?t know, Matty. Wish I did, in fact.?
But I did, and I couldn?t tell him, or anyone. Christine knew, but she didn?t say anything, as tactful as always.
Our feet made no sound as we entered his son?s apartment. His son was a tall, handsome guy, with wavy black hair and a gray radio perched on his small kitchen table. He appeared to be eating something that looked like it had a lot of bacon in it, and cheese.
WBTS was playing on the radio, but not for long, because Matty waved his hand around the antenna, finally making it pulse out a horribly loud screeching noise every few seconds.
Well, I must admit, it worked. After a few minutes of retuning his radio, his son realized what was happening, and began to shakingly write down the pulses his father was producing, grinning as he waved his palms up and down the antenna.
Soon, his son began to cry. I looked down at the note he?d written:
THE WATCHTOWER IS WRONG STOP LOVE U SON STOP YOUR DAD STOP
I hadn?t expected that. It made me want to burst into tears too, but of course, I didn?t have any.
*
We left a little while later, the proud father jumping around, trying his best to hug his son, who shivered a lot and finally went to his room and emerged wearing a pullover.
I brooded on the couch, then hurriedly had to get up when the son almost came and sat on my lap.
Eventually we left, Matty skipping from streetlight to streetlight. Moths swarmed around them, lighting up their immediate vicinity, even though we couldn?t actually perceive the streetlights that attracted them.
Matty stopped and looked at me, then held his hand out for me to shake. I remembered the way he?s ignored my hand the first time I?d met him, as if I was beneath him and my hand didn?t deserve a shake. I took it, grasping it firmly, then shook.
His grin widened, and he let go of my hand and said: ?Thank you, Joseph, thank you, thank you thank you. You have no idea how happy I am right now. I know what?s really potting, and it feels great! To think, I nearly shunned my son for the rest of his life because of that stupid religion!?
?Well, I?m glad for your sake, Matty,? I said, and we continued walking.
By the time I got back to the Laudermeir Hospital, Matty wasn?t there anymore. Somewhere in between his son?s house and the East Wing, he?d simply?sublimed. Gone, like a puff of smoke.
A return to the firmament.
He?d become part of the world again, the same place that his soul, his locus of consciousness had sprung from.
And I?d been too lost in my own brooding thoughts to notice.
*
Dawn broke, and I was sitting next to Christine?s bed.
?Joseph, I don?t think I have a lot of time left, not anymore. This morning the doctor?s voice held foreboding, like none I?ve ever heard before. He told me I was healing well, but he really said that he didn?t have much hope for me. They?re just waiting for me to die, now,? Christine said. Every time I saw her, the number of connections to her had decreased, and now she was beginning to resemble a woman-shaped spider web more than anything else, glowing faintly there in the dim light of dawn.
?Please don?t leave me here alone, Joseph,? she said, and that?s why I waited, waited until she left. It only took a few hours, and then her heart monitor began to buzz, flatlined. I saw her heart stop pumping, and then the little strands of gossamer and points of gorgeous light that were Christine from my point of view slowly began to curl, a sort of gently glowing smoke travelling on something lighter and finer than air.
And Christine was gone.
Across her body, the greater number of cells had died, but enough remained for me to look down and see that her hand was clenched where mine was.
*
I?d waited long enough.
I cried a little, dry tears underneath the brazen sunshine of noon, and then I walked, stepping through what had once been a familiar street. Now every brick was delineated by crops of fungi and bacteria, all the life around me bursting with pleasure at the heat and light of the sun, sensations I would never experience again.
All afternoon, I walked, avoiding people with the unconscious ease that?d been the first thing I learnt, when I found this strange, terrible place layered on top of my world.
And I arrived outside my daughter?s door, my first visit in seven years.
Surprisingly, I couldn?t walk through it. I tried and tried, and eventually chided myself, then slipped through it, as lightly as a breeze.
She?d recently had it fumigated ? there were very few of the little creatures that grace the home of every human in the world here.
So it was that I arrived in her bedroom that evening. I?d walked far, but I had no feet to ache with. Only my heart ached, when I saw her.
My grand-daughter was curled up in her arms, a six-year-old angel with golden hair.
Her face instantly reminded me of the last time I?d seen her. She?d visited me at the Patterson Branch to tell me that she was moving in with her worldly boyfriend, and even worse, that she was pregnant with his child.
I?d chased her out in my anger, cursing under my breath, herding her into her car and instructing her to never contact me again. That was 1996, and a week later, I died when that Boeing plowed into a Connecticut cornfield, still angry.
And now I was ashamed, so ashamed.
My grand-daughter?s lip was frozen in the most unbearably beautiful shape, like a little butterfly had deposited pink wingdust all across her mouth.
Little hands had wrapped themselves around my daughter?s neck, glowing warmly.
I said, ?I love you, I love you, oh God I love you both, please forgive me?? and I said it so softly that it was barely a whisper, and then I bent down to kiss her ear, then the ear of my grand-daughter.
All of me was dissolving, churning and fading, subliming, and my daughter?s lips parted and she whispered: ?Love you, Dad.?
Author's Note: Story dedicated to Ray, our main Canadian man, and also to Shamus, marmot-handler extraodinaire!