Marching back through the community centre lobby I glance towards the gym and see Nora staring at me through the tall windows. She’s wearing snug black shorts and a white tank top, as are all the pre-teens on the volleyball court behind her. Nora’s ‘team’, her sad attempt to distract a few kids from reality for two hours a week. I walk past her without so much as a nod, and as I start to push the front doors open I hear her sneakers slapping the tile floor behind me.
‘Perry!’
I stop and let the doors swing shut. I turn around and face her. ‘Hey.’
She stands in front of me with her arms crossed, her eyes stony. ‘So today’s the big day, huh?’
‘I guess so.’
‘What area are you hitting? You got it all planned out?’
‘The old Pfizer building on Eighth Ave.’
She nods rapidly. ‘Good, that sounds like a good plan, Perry. And you’ll be all done and home by six, right? ’Cause remember we’re taking you to the Orchard tonight. We’re not letting you spend today moping alone like you did last year.’
I watch the kids in the gym, bumping-setting-spiking, laughing and cursing. ‘I don’t know if I’ll make it. This salvage might go a little later than usual.’
She keeps nodding. ‘Oh. Oh, okay. Because that building is crooked and full of cracks and dead ends and you have to be extra careful, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Yeah.’ She nods towards the envelope in my hand. ‘You checked that yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, you should probably check it, Perry.’ Her foot taps the floor; her body vibrates with restrained anger. ‘You need to make sure you know everyone’s profiles, strengths and weaknesses and all that. Mine, for instance, because I’m on there.’
My face goes blank. ‘What?’
‘Sure, I’m going, Rosso put me on yesterday. Do you know my strengths and weaknesses? Is there anything on your agenda you think might be too hard for me? ’Cause I’d hate to jeopardise your very first salvage as team manager.’
I rip the top off the envelope and start scanning the names.
‘Julie signed up, too, did she mention that?’
My eyes flash up from the page.
‘That’s right, fucker, will that be a problem for you?’ Her voice is strained to breaking. There are tears in her eyes. ‘Is that a conflict at all?’
I shove open the front doors and burst out into the cold morning air. Birds overhead. Those blank-eyed pigeons, those shrieking gulls, all the flies and beetles that eat their shit – the gift of flight dumped on Earth’s most worthless creatures. What if it were mine instead? That perfect, weightless freedom. No fences, no walls, no borders; I would fly everywhere, over oceans and continents, mountains and jungles and endless open plains, and somewhere in the world, somewhere in all that distant untouched beauty, I would find a reason.
I am floating in Perry’s darkness. I am deep in the earth. Somewhere far above me are roots and worms and an inverted graveyard where the coffins are the markers and the headstones are what’s buried, piercing down into the airy blue emptiness, hiding all the names and pretty epitaphs and leaving me with the rot.
I feel a stirring in the dirt that surrounds me. A hand burrows through and grabs my shoulder.
‘Hello, corpse.’
We are in the 747. My piles of souvenirs are sorted and arranged in neat stacks. The aisle is softened with layers of oriental throw rugs. Dean Martin croons on the record player.
‘Perry?’
He’s in the cockpit, in the pilot’s chair with his hands on the controls. He’s wearing a pilot’s uniform, the white shirt stained with blood. He smiles at me, then gestures at the windows, where streaks of clouds flicker past. ‘We are now approaching cruising altitude. You’re free to move about the cabin.’
With slow, cautious movements, I get up and join him in the cockpit. I look at him uneasily. He grins. I rub a finger through the familiar layers of dust on the controls. ‘This isn’t one of your memories, is it?’
‘No. This is yours. I wanted you to be comfortable.’
‘Is it your grave I’m standing on right now?’
He shrugs. ‘I suppose. I think it’s just my empty skull in there, though. You and your friends took most of me home for snacks, remember?’
I open my mouth to apologise again, but he shuts his eyes and waves it away. ‘Don’t, please. We’re past all that. Besides, that wasn’t really me you killed, that was older-wiser Perry. I think this is mostly junior-high Perry you’re talking to, young and optimistic and writing a novel called Ghosts vs. Werewolves. I’d rather not think about being dead right now.’
I eye him uncertainly. ‘You’re a lot more cheerful here than in your memories.’
‘I have perspective here. It’s hard to take your life so seriously when you can see it all at once.’
I peer at him. His reality is very convincing, pimples and all. ‘Are you . . . really you?’ I ask.
‘What does that mean?’
‘All this time I’ve been talking to you, are you just . . . leftovers from your brain? Or are you really actually you?’
He chuckles. ‘Does it really actually matter?’
‘Are you Perry’s soul?’
‘Maybe. Kind of. Whatever you want to call it.’
‘Are you . . . in Heaven?’
