Saint of Sixth

between; anthology; daniel thompson; afterlife; purgatory

Welcome to the Between (Anthology)

Chapter 8: Over and Over

How could I have ever forgotten?

The words scream in my head so loud that I can’t even hear the sound of my feet as they sprint across the street to his door. 

I already know he wasn’t lying about leaving. But even in Hell, there has to be hope. 

What else could you use to keep the suffering fresh?

The door opens without even the slight resistance of an attempt to close it tightly or keep whatever is inside secured. 

He’s gone. 

As if for the first time, I look around the space he’s called his own here. Nearly every inch of it is some totem of something we shared in life. A crude, wood carving on his table reminds me of the dog — Ishmael — we decided to get from a shelter after we accepted we weren’t going to be able to have kids. 

Jack insisted on the name, saying it was funny to him based on the stories his father used to tell him when he was growing up. I didn’t care enough about it to fight for something else. 

Even the impression of his body where he lies down — like we all do for no reason around here — only affects the side of the bed that was always his, for 50 years. 

How long has he had to just accept this? 

I don’t let myself bask in the stand-in memorabilia for long. He can’t be far. I can find him. 

Back out on the street, it hits me how infuriating the repetition of this place is when you actually have somewhere you want to go. Everything is a copy of something else. Everything just seems like it repeats. I can remember that certain things exist here. But I don’t always remember the way to them. 

As I’m sprinting down the road, scanning for nonexistent road signs, I hear a voice shout my name from behind. 

For a second, my little hope felt well spent. 

But turning around, I see Sarah hanging outside of her window, cupping her hands to her mouth. 

“June,” her voice screams, hitting me just loud enough over the distance that I can make out the words. “Left at the next street.”

I don’t question it. 

Before I even comprehend her directions, my feet adjust my path, and I’m headed down a sidestreet as I hear Sarah cry out to me one more time, this time clearly more frustrated. 

“It’s always left.” 

A little ways down the road, I can see some storefronts clustered under low lights overhead. 

As I move towards them, something catches my eye so aggressively that I don’t even notice that my brain slows my body down to try to piece together what my eyes are trying to show it — as if it really had to bust out its barely-used glass frames and take its damn time with this one. 

It feels like I close most of the distance between it and myself in a matter of seconds, my theory of what — or rather, who — it is confirmed when I can make out the backpack swaying in the same rhythm as those shoulders that I’ve spotted out of crowds all over the world, at various points along the now never-ending spectrum of time we’ve experienced together. 

But I slow down. 

And then I’m walking. 

And then I’m not. 

Because beyond the rush of wanting to let him know that I remember him, that I remember everything, I also remember where we are now. 

I remember the rules of this place. 

And I know what might happen to him if I do what I want to. 

Standing there, calculating if I can continue to exist with that potential guilt, I remember how things ended between us before. The first time we ever separated, when I was the one who left our home for the last time before he followed me shortly after, just like always. 

But I also remember what it felt like knowing that, just for one moment in all of that, I still made him happy. 

Even at the end, if I could just remember a joke or something we had done or even just … even just remembered him, I knew he’d smile. 

I knew that for one graceful minute in all of the trials of our golden years, he’d forget how hard it had become. And he’d remember how easy everything always was with us underneath it all. 

We wouldn’t be those elderly, de-powered versions of ourselves anymore. 

Sharing that moment, we’d once again be those younger people who met and who got to know each other deeply inside and out. That couple with momentum who shared the seemingly uncontainable euphoria life has to offer, and who even endured the heartbreaking misery when we found out they could be contained quite easily by circumstance. 

And you know what, I’d do it all over again. 

I’d be them over and over again. Forever.  

So. 

I breathe in deep. 

And I yell out, as loudly as I can, the only word that I know he’s been aching to hear.

“Jack.”

And amidst shop windows and dim lights — and the echo of my voice calling out his real name one more time — he freezes. 

— End –

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