Duty
by Chris Chapman
Snow falls and I cannot even feel it, I wonder whether it’s the soft fall of delicate snowflake or if the reception to my vision has gone on the blink. A quick tap on the side of the temple would have solved that dilemma, to recalibrate the wires within, an age-old remedy used by my father to fix any ailing electronic device. I’m not a machine though, I’m pretty sure of that, maybe at times I just wish I were. Maybe right now I’m pretending I am, and that’s why the snow falls and I can’t feel it.
It’s round about now I first noticed the crunching sound. I think it’d been there ever since I turned up, but the loud clunk of steady thought that churned through my rusted mind meant that only my words could be heard. But now I’ve stopped thinking, and now I hear the unmistakeable sound of footfalls landing upon gravelled ground.
Before me lies thousands upon thousands of grey rectangles. They etch marks upon the white blanket of snow akin to like the markings on a chessboard. The only other thing to be seen all around bar the rectangles and me is another man.
I run over to him, (I don’t feel I do but I turn up next to him anyway, so I’m assuming it happened) and he scowls at me and goes about his business, walking in a straight line, straight over the gravel onto the snow and onto the next rectangle before him. He’s wearing a tired tweed suit and is strangled by an unruly tartan scarf. All I can see of his face is a pair of beady black eyes holding up layers of furrowed brow, his hair is also black, and receding.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he growls, almost clattering me out of his way, transfixed as he was upon that straight line, as though his body were a bead on a great unseen abacus.
“But were is here?” I ask him, following in his wake, being mindful not to walk upon the gravel rectangles as he does.
He continued, and muttered under his breath, the words of which I assumed were for me and so I asked him to repeat himself.
“Be quiet will you? My mind balloons with things that you shouldn’t concern yourself with. I suggest you be on your way and leave me to my duty.”
“But how can I leave when I don’t know where I am?” I ask him, regardless of his wish for me to remain silent. I received no answer, but he continues to mutter under breath, the words of which left his mouth like wisps of smoke and entered the white that ensnared us both.
Clearly he felt the cold, his hands were forced deep into his trouser pockets, his body drawn in close and stooped to give him the posture of least wind resistance possible. It looked as those he not only wore his clothing but also aimed to take refuge in them.
“Are those names you’re saying?” I said after catching a draft of the wind that left his lips. “Did you just say Michael?”
“Shush!” He commanded, his crumpled brow reddening with anger. “I have work to do and work to be done, and not enough time to do either. You’ll be gone soon enough; you’ve come to the wrong place. Why don’t you just stand still and wait your wakening? Do be careful not to place hand nor hair upon the graves.”
“Graves?”
The man stopped for a moment, and from within his coiled tartan snake he let out a roaring laughter.
“Yes these are graves,” He answered, and rubbed his hands together vigorously. “You really haven’t a clue have you? Each and everyone one of these will house a man or woman or child, these are pre-prepared so that I may carry out my duty.”
“Has there been a great war?” I ask him, for surely such a vast amount of bodies could not have come from anything less. “Is that what this is?”
“Don’t be foolish, not one of them actually holds a corpse, I told you that not but seconds ago.” Sensing my fear and relishing the opportunity to add to it he pointed a finger towards me and croaked. “One of them will allow you sanctuary in grand time too”
“Me?” I find it hard to shoot the words out of my throat, and this is not out of fear of the concept. Something has begun to happen to me, all of a sudden I feel like I’m less there than I am.
“One of them will allow you sanctuary in grand time too,” he repeated solemnly. “But before that day arrives I will step upon your empty grave and I shall mutter under my breath, like I have done since time moulded man, the name I have to at that instance, and that will be your name, Howard Philips.”
I start to drift off, simply floating away like a child’s lost balloon, away from this place with its black graves and surly figure, I’m sucked into the white and yet I still feel nothing, not comfort, or sorrow, or anything. The last thing I hear are the remains of the man’s speech, as his voice spits out into the cold.
“And at that moment,” he concludes. “Wherever you are, whenever it may be a shiver shall run up your spine, and you will know that far, far away, in a place elsewhere, a man walks alone, simply doing his duty.”
Copyright © 2006 by Chris Chapman
