Stray Cat
The kitty
without a name
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http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z157/Eukara_photo/Public/Railroadconversation.jpg
It was not a terrible pain, but it bothered him all the same.
Tentatively, he rubbed his forearm. It made no difference. The pain struck his whole body: his bones, his muscles, his head, chest, arms and legs all burned with the same mild ache. And there was a ringing in his ears, a curious rattling sound that might have been the rumble of a…train?
The world around him was imprecise, permeated by a thin mist. He was standing in a clearing – that much he knew. As he glanced about, though, the details grew more and more distinct. A forest parted around him, its trees standing sentinel to either of his sides. The sky above him was overcast, hazed in silver, and beneath his feet, the stones of a railroad track prodded his soles and feet. The tracks were pristine: lustrously sleek, untouched by rust.
“You’re new here, then?” a voice from behind him said.
With a start, he whirled around, glimpsing golden hair just as the speaker sidestepped him. She was behind him again. He turned, slowly, uncertainly.
“Hi,” she said, faintly breathless. She was at least as tall as he was, though she could not have been more than a few years his senior. A great necklace of pearls fell from her neck, its white stark against the black of her blouse. She dropped to the floor and sat on a rail opposite from him. After a moment’s hesitation, he did the same.
“Hi,” the boy replied. “I—” He paused to search for the words. When none came, he simply said, “I’m Cole.”
“Nice to meet you, Cole. I’m Alyss.” She smiled then, and he knew he could grow to like her. They lapsed into silence, though a comfortable one. Cole could still feel the ache, but it was dulling. The rattling was as loud as ever.
“Where—”
“I guess the—”
They flushed, and broke off in chorus. Cole motioned to the girl, and she went on.
“I guess the main thing to know,” Alyss said, “is that you’re dead.” That final word hung between them, and left Cole at a loss. How was he meant to respond to that? He sorted through his head for something to say, but found only indignation at her casual unmourning. “Don’t give me that look,” she continued, frowning slightly. “You wouldn’t know it, looking at me, but I’m dead too. Not that you’d know it, looking at you.” She said it brightly, conversationally, but not without a certain undertone – a kind of melancholy, or perhaps bitterness.
Cole opened his mouth, but the words did not come. He drew a breath and closed it. It was a while before he spoke. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. So I’m dead.” He studied a tree in the distance, and then the back of his hand. “So then where the hell am I?”
“A café, but, really—”
Cole cut her off. “Hold on. I see a forest. A railway.”
“Really?” said the girl. Her eyes lit up and she began to laugh, shyly at first, and then uncontrollably. “I see a café,” Alyss told him, clutching her stomach. She gave a final snicker and said, “Here. Wait a moment. I’ll fix you something to drink.”
She busied herself with something to her side that Cole could not quite see, though he knew that there was definitely something there. When she was finished, she gave a flourish and, inexplicably, pressed a mug of hot, scented coffee into his hands.
“Now. Where were we?”
“My death.”
“Your death.” The girl’s voice became a whisper, and her expression collapsed, giving way to a sudden tenderness. “Cole, do you remember?”
“Do I remember?” he said, and the rattling that echoed in the din of his ears ceased. “Do I remember? Do I remember?” Then it struck him that of course he remembered: how could he forget? It was his own death, after all, and then the sound resumed, a hundred times louder than before, and suddenly he was standing before the train, dead in its path. It smashed into him and something behind his face that might have been his tongue – or had he bit that off himself? – was pulverised, quickly followed by the rest of him. The hurt became his world, its caress the only that he knew.
Something met his cheek, and it began to sting. “Cole. Cole. Listen to me. You have to realise.”
Alyss’s face swam into being somewhere above him. Her palm was still held mid-air. “Oh,” he said, and he began to cry."
His arm was wet and slightly singed: the coffee, he supposed. It almost felt good: to have something to focus on, to have something to fix him to reality – though he wasn’t sure that this was reality.
“Listen, Cole,” Alyss said, and through his tears he did. “Everyone here is dead.” She gestured toward the woods and, suddenly, Cole realised that there were other people there, a dozen or a hundred, or maybe more. “Hugh died in a car crash. Marcie drowned, though you should probably avoid bringing that up with her. Jamie, Kat, fire. Derry… You don’t want to know. But Cole: you’re not alone.”
He nodded, thankful. “I know,” he murmured, rising to his feet. “So what comes next?”
“First you have to head out that way.” Alyss pointed to somewhere along the railway, indeterminate in the distance and the fog.
“What do I look for? Is there something on the track?”
“This is a café to me,” she reminded him. “You just have to go out through the door.”
Their eyes met, and then Cole found himself asking, “Are we going to see each other again, or is this...it? Am I ever going to meet them?” He pointed to the trees and the people beyond.
“Yes,” Alyss promised him. “You will." Cole stared at her for a time, but she only smiled and nodded toward the distance – to the door.
He gave her one last glance, and went.
< Message edited by Stray Cat -- 1/29/2012 1:14:40 >
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