The Crimson Afterworld

A short tale for the spooky season

Illustration by the author

A guilty crimson spread from one end of the morning horizon to the other, the color that blooms in the face of an embarrassed child. What a coincidence, or, was I looking for something external to mimic the impossible feelings of my interior?

Rough feelings.

These were the emotions one hid under the living room sofa, or kicked to the curb during a rainstorm, so that the water will carry them into the sewer.

It really did happen though, just as I remember it.

Stealing wasn't enough, I had lied as well, and deftly. It was, after all, what I did best, and therefore I felt the deepest and most abiding shame. So deep was it, that it registered as grief, and that crimson was forever struck from the palette of my identity. Yes, alas, I had been caught.

And by this I mean, I had been killed.

I could still see myself as I had been that night, dressed for an event in suit and tie, my earring twinkling below a new haircut. The congealed blood on the floor was sticky as I brought myself up on an elbow. Oh, the stained shirt, was it real, or could this just be the persistence of memory, and if so, for how long? Would the props just melt away to nothingness? I got up with difficulty, I had been shot, I remembered. Dead or no, the pain clamored to be heard and felt. I groaned and tried to be more careful.

Time to look around.

Still in the theater. I could see the stage and the plush red seats. I could see everything because the lights were on, though there was no sound or movement in the hall, cleaners or something. No one was there at all. The silence was so thick I snapped my fingers to make sure it wasn’t that I had suddenly become deaf as well as dead. I heard the sound and felt more perplexed than relieved. 

I was supposed to be dead.

My shoes were splattered with blood. A shame. I was fond of them, and I had bought them thinking that it was an appealingly uncommon shade of brown. Now a large, indecent stain had spread over the left shoe and spattered the right. My feet were solidly balancing my body weight in them. I could take a step or two and see that walking as a dead man was much the same as a living one. The door to the dressing room was open, and I took a last look around to see if I should take anything with me. My beautiful Borsalino was on top of the wicker basket.  Putting it on, I made my way through the dim corridor and down the stairs to the back stage area. Then, through the emergency exit, I found myself on the street. 

It was neither day nor night. 

Where had I seen this light before? The colors were drained of vibrancy, and the shadows lacked the sharp contrast that would have been normal at this time of day—like during an eclipse. Even the sun was too weak. I could peer at it with less trouble than I would have had looking at a forty-watt bulb. If in death, I thought, the heat of the living does not reach, what keeps things robustly solid is not here, then I should just accept this, and perhaps I would find out the meaning of all things on this side of being. I had never taken my own counsel so well. 

Where were the others? The silence had followed me out of the theater and into the street, although the buildings in front were familiar. This was comforting. The streets, however, were also empty. This was not convenient, as I had many questions. Patience was required while I took in the paradox of familiarity and newness. That was apparently my only job right now, not to find any facts or come to any conclusions.

Bene.

I had time to think and also, to feel, and to observe. The silence was following me, and so was the crimson color of my shame. I had been caught. I did not want to dwell on the events leading up to this momentous change. It was enough that I existed. Oh god, I could no longer say ‘my life’, but I could refer to my existence, such as it was. How long this was to last I forbid myself to consider. Patience. Patience. 

Down the avenue, the streets were much the way I remembered them too. The Packards, the De Sotos and Pontiacs. There was even an Alpha Romeo and a gleaming Pierce Silver Arrow. The shops were the same. 

But unpeopled. 

I saw a figure coming towards me. A woman. She was sobbing, and it was her. It was my Helen. My Helen. Oh, dear god, no. Helen. Why was she in this place? Or was she on the other side, and because of our connection, simply visible to me? It was a mark of my ability to remain lucid under duress that I could even come up with such a theory. I prayed this was the correct interpretation, and it occurred to me that I could test it. If she could hear and see me, if I could feel her, then she was on my side of existence. If not, then safely in her world, safe, however distraught. 

Mourning me.

          “Helen.” 

She continued to cry, and I had spoken too softly. Indeed, it’s not an easy thing to find pitch and register once dead, and my sense of volume was off. I would try again.

          “Helen,” I said much louder this time.

She stopped crying and looked all around her, bewildered. She must have recognized the sound of my voice. I called her again, and she looked in my direction, but not at me. I called one last time. Now her eyes made a direct line to mine, but I could tell she saw nothing. It was like looking at someone through a two-way mirror. She had stopped sniffling, but her lips quivered, especially the bottom one. Her eyes scanned and scanned. A long shuddering breath left her, and she raised her eyebrows. I knew this look. She was telling herself it was wishful imagining.

This was all I needed. 

Poor thing. She would learn to live without me, swallowing the painful irony, the cruelty. We had only been married a few months. For both of us, it had been the way to start over and we were so grateful. This was something we had not even had time to say to each other out loud. Of course, the sentiment was felt in everything we did. Ours were acts of love and service that complemented the nights we shared and the beautiful, plain moments of living, when beauty was nothing special yet glorious. Still, it would have been wonderful to say it aloud:

Thank you for rescuing me.

A disquieting thought came over me. If she could not see me, only hear me through the enormous connection we had shared, then she was alive. But if she were alive, why was I seeing her in the same desolate street, her and no one else? Could it be that on this side one could only perceive what had been important in life? I could only follow my darling. It was the only thing I needed and wanted to do. Stay with her no matter what, cling shamelessly to her every coming and going. I was good for nothing else, and I did not know the rules of this place.  

No sooner had I thought this, than a moving car passed me, two people in front and one in back. They stopped. One opened the trunk, the other two accosted Helen. She tried to scream. The two men held her as her legs collapsed, I could only see their backs. Blood spread on the sidewalk like a deathly crimson shadow under Helen’s feet. They were covering her in a black thing, a sac maybe, feet off the ground and into the trunk. Away it sped, smaller and smaller into the gloom.

But she was standing there facing me.

          “Oh god, Matthew.”

She could see me.

          “Matthew, my god, what just happened?”

          “You died so fast, baby.” I held out my arms and she came running.

         “We’re dead, Matthew. First you, now me.” She was sobbing again.

          “It’s not so bad now that you’re here.”

She hugged me tightly.

I heard the sudden peal of a bell and then sound and motion flooded my senses. The street was full of action, and I was startled to see that we were standing in the middle of a four-way. Cars and trucks and vans whizzed around and through us. I laughed.

          “I can see everything!” I shouted. 

Helen looked away from my tear-sodden shirt, wet hair plastered to her cheek. She saw the people and traffic and had the same thought.

          “We are impervious.” Her eyes got mischievous.

Now she was laughing too, though the last tears still streamed down her cheeks. I held out my arm and she took it. There was triumph in this. We walked at our leisure, straight against the red lights on the boulevard and into a shop, where I picked a pretty necklace and held it up to Helen’s face. I asked if she liked it and she that she’d always wanted one like it. To be honest, I had no idea why I was able to undo the clasp and drape the gorgeous thing around her neck. It closed with a snap and I told her how swell she looked. There was no one to ask why or how this was possible, but we left the shop contented, though our eternity would be crimson.