Box Set - Chapter Eight

            I stand in a cell with my hands over my ears. The screams are unbearable. Penny’s travel guide is clasped in my hand and I cannot concentrate to move. I am trapped in a room. The door is a set of bars and the walls crumble with yellow stone.

            My hand flies out to find some sort of purchase. The sounds are so loud, I can’t even fall to the Edge, travel to another place. I don’t need to close my eyes to hear the dead, because they exist all around me.

            I can feel them pressed against each other, writhing and crying, screaming and shouting for parents and loved ones long, long dead.

            I fall to my knees. I feel the sharp grain of the sand through my jeans and wish it would stop.

            I open my eyes by my vision swims.

            I have to get away, far away from this place so I can’t hear it anymore.

            I look up and the sun blinds me, directly overhead, like a lighthouse shining down on me.

            I stagger over to the bars of the door. Surely that will be easier. The bars are rough and rusty to touch, old metal flakes off to my touch and I push against them. The screams are louder here. Pushed up against the bars.

            I grit my teeth and push with all my might. Rattling the metal in front of me. I push, push, push until I feel the purchase in the atoms of the iron. I pass through and I’m in a corridor.

            I take off to the right, hands still over my ears, the travel guide pressed to the side of my face.

            So many people died here, this is a terrible place, a place of horror and death and blood and gore and I have to get away.

            I turn corner after corner. The place is a maze and every time I come to a dead end, the sound amplifies, like I’ve walked right into a speaker.

            I turn a final corner and cry out, seeing my exit, a modern door set into the wall of the old structure. I close my eyes and barrel towards it, trusting my body to take me through.

            I feel the pinch of travelling through and I travel further, the sweet relief of a layer of stone between me and the unending screams.

            I feel another pinch and then another, this one much longer, like I’m holding my breath underwater. Then the air outside. The ground is still grainy but out here it’s quiet.

            I run and run until my legs give out. From the floor with my breath catching in my throat, I look back on the place of horror I’ve just escaped from.
The squat, yet tall cylindrical building is unmistakable. I’ve arrived in the right place.

                The Colosseum towers above me. Just as the picture in Penny’s guidebook suggests, the top right section is missing, like a giant has stooped down and taken a big bite out of the stone.

                I climb to my feet and put a hand on each knee for support. I can still hear them. The screams inside the building. I realise how many people must have died in that arena. There must be thousands of spirits, thousands of years old who just stay in the place, because the terror won’t let them leave. I felt it myself, like an anchor rooting me to the spot. The claws of a thousand terrified human beings.

                I wonder if you feel it when you’re alive. You can’t hear it of course, but I wonder; if you stand in the queue, waiting to be charged entry, can you feel the pressure of all the lost life hanging in the air. Or even at night, if you were brave enough to break in, would you hear an echo, a footstep and blame it on a trick of your overactive imagination.

                Some places are drenched in human blood. They must act like sponges for human souls.

                I flick open Penny’s guidebook and turn to the page on the Colosseum. I read:

                Underneath the arena floor, now visible from above, there were a series of interconnecting access tunnels, meaning gladiators and dangerous creatures such as lions and tigers could be placed into the arena from underneath using lifts and pulleys. The arena was sometimes also used to stage sea battles. The arena would be filled with thousands of gallons of water, and two opposing ships would wage war…

                Penny had underlined the whole section in green pen. She must have thought it was cool. I can imagine her standing here, seeing the scene in ancient Rome. She’d loved knowing about ancient  history. There wasn’t a myth or legend under the sun she didn’t know; something she only ever shared with me. She even used to write her own stories about gods and monsters when she was little. The ones she knew just weren’t enough.

                At least I know where I ended up. In a cell used to keep gladiators before they were sent to their deaths. I had no way of knowing where I’d emerge. It was a danger of travelling by picture not memory.
 It’s strange to think that as different as we are in life, in death we are all connected by the same things. The abilities we gain, the things we lose, the ever present threat of the Edge. I am the same as those thousands of people in the Colosseum. I can close my eyes, reach out to them and know what they’re feeling in the here and now.

                We spend our lives labelling each other, black, white, gay, straight, woman, man, but when it comes down to it, as your spirit leaves your body does any of that matter? At our base, we are one and the same. What does it matter who you love or what colour your skin is when you can both be trapped inside yourself, unable to escape.

                It makes me want to get a can of red paint and write on the wall of the Colosseum, a message to all the haters reminding them what’s important. I dread to think how many spirits live on after death, still affected by the hate they experienced in life; just like Yates. This is a sad place, and the horror of its history lives on, and it’s been packaged and sold for people to stare at.

                Who ever said time is a healer really hadn’t been hurt that much. Tell that to the Gladiators, tell that to Holocaust victims.

                I turn away, knowing my Penny won’t have stayed here.

                The urge to help someone is greater than before. I know I did nothing wrong in my life, nothing unspeakable, but being connected to these people, screaming for eternity, makes me feel a guilt that I can’t escape, because I lived a relatively happy life.

                So as I turn away, I walk with the desire to help.

                I know Penny will want to do the same. I try to ignore the nagging doubt clawing its way forward in my mind. The doubt that tells me that I’ll never be able to find her.

                I sit down on the kerb, looking back at the building. What can I do? There must be a way. Why didn’t we plan for this? If we ever die, meet at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentines Day. In true romantic style. But we have no such plan. There are a thousand places Penny could be.

                What even do I do with myself? I am free from the restraints of life. I don’t have to go to college or get a job, go to university or do anything that could be considered stressful.

                But if I can’t do that, and I can’t do anything else, what do I have left?
 I can travel. The answer comes to me, swimming through the mist. The world is mine to see and I can appear anywhere I want in an instant, based on whim or something stronger.

                Tears pool in the corners of my eyes. Of course I’ll stick to the places Penny would have wanted to see. I think I’d subconsciously gravitate to them anyway. Maybe that means the search isn’t over though. Maybe the world will pull us back together. Isn’t that what people say? The person you’re meant to be with will find you in the end. I think I have to trust that.

                I set off down the street, ridding myself of the tears that attempt to take me over.

                I walk for a while, taking in the sights that surround me. A fact that occurs to me as I walk around the city: Rome is big. Everything is big.

                You can be walking down the narrowest street, taking in the beautiful architecture, the cobbles, the high quality of clothing everyone decides to wear, turn a corner and be stood in front of the world’s biggest church, or most impressive fountain, or gargantuan temple.

                I use Penny’s guidebook to take me round the city. I decide to head for the Capitol Building as the book suggests it contains a museum. A consistent fact of my life that I have always been unable to shake, is that I’m a sucker for a museum.

                The sun is bright and the air is cool as I continue my solo walking tour. I flick through the guidebook as I go, reading Penny’s annotations. There are so many underlined passages, and folded down pages. She must be here somewhere, this is her city. It’s strange how you can make a place yours, even without visiting. Some places take on romantic images in our heads. Oases of perfection in a world we don’t have the time or patience to fully explore.

                In the back of my mind, the cruel voice whispers. If she’s here, why didn’t she take her guidebook?

                Of course there are a thousand answers. Maybe she doesn’t know she can touch things yet. Maybe she’s committed it to memory.

                I push the thoughts from my mind. They’re not good for my worrisome brain.

                I turn a corner and smile. The sign says ‘Finnegan’s’ and the pub is most definitely Irish.

                The green inside me can’t resist and in duck inside, glad to have found a slice of myself in a foreign place.

The first thing I notice is the music. There’s a band on, playing a track I recognize; an Irish song called ‘Fisherman’s Waltz’, but sung in thick Italian accents. The marrying of two cultures is quite a sight to behold.

            I edge past a couple at a table, I see he’s coaxed the waitress down to sit with him.

            I decide to stand and watch the band through the gaps in the crowd. Naturally, I could pass through all of them and gain front row seats, but it’s not in my nature to cause discomfort.

            I close my eyes and reach out on a whim. The room appears in shadows. The feelings of the living are invisible to me, their innermost thoughts are guarded by layers of flesh and bone. I imagine that if I’m a signal, the denseness of their bodies distorts the wave, and bounces it back towards me.

            The music pulses towards me in the same way as Yates when I saw him through the door. The sound emerges from the guitars in jagged lines, cutting the air, the accordians are languid and easy going, easing the tense knot left by the Colosseum. The set of drums reverberates with a low vibration. I feel the sound shake me, from my toes, up to my chest, the same way that it would at a gig. I remember the countless times I’d seen my favourite bands. The moments the music became a part of me and flashes emerge from my memories, instances when the music and my soul walked hand in hand.

            And there, towards the edge of the room, is one more spirit. I walk towards him, the curiosity of my new discovery alighting my scientist’s brain. I want to know if this is something I share.

            I cross the room, stopping in front of him.

            ‘Hi,’ I venture.

            He explodes in a rapid foreign language, not Italian. He waves his arms to the side and I see I’m blocking his view. I start and stumble to my left. He dismisses me with a wave of the arm. I guess not all spirits are Benjamins.

            I’m about to turn back to the band when I see something. A man, and he’s staring. I turn and there’s no one behind me. I stare back, unsettled by him.

            He’s tall and wears a long moleskin coat. The hems are muddied and the sleeves turned up on account of the heat. His hair is long and wiry and really needs to be cut. His face would compliment it. His features are striking and jaw angular, and his grey eyes pierce me, unblinking.

            He is alive, and he can see me.

 There can be no doubt about it. His eyes bore into me. I’m rooted to the spot. But there is something in the stare: a whispering hint of threat.

            I’m staring back at him so intently, that when he makes a sudden movement, I fall back into the table behind me and have to catch myself. It rocks and drinks go flying. The music fans and patrons around it groan and start to blame each other. One pushes another and there is a domino effect around the room.

            The man doesn’t notice a thing. I can’t hear him over the music but the intense look on his face disappears and he jumps for joy. He raises his hand and I see a complicated piece of equipment in my hand, about the size of a remote control but with wires and complicated little gadgets sticking out here and there.

            He turns and starts out of the bar, moving more quickly than would otherwise be normal.

            I stand and move after him. He had seen me, I’m absolutely certain of it, and that means I have to catch him. If there’s a way of reaching my loved ones again, then I will find it. I had thought it impossible, it’s what we’re conditioned to think - the people that leave us are gone, they’re not coming back.

            But what if they’re not, what if I’m not. I don’t know how I’ll explain appearing to my parents in the middle of the living room. Surprise, your son’s a ghost! I will find a way though.

            I burst out into the sunlight, passing out of the noisy, crowded room and exchanging the music for the urban orchestra of the Roman streets.

            I cast around, whipping my head this way and that. He must be out here, he has to be.

            There he is, already at the end of the road. He must have sprinted away from the pub. Why’s he in such a hurry?

            I sprint myself, absent mindedly dodging a car as it turns towards me. Some human traits are hard to shake. I don’t think I’ll ever stop behaving like that. I want to live, not even death will stop me.

            I turn the corner he disappeared round and catch him again, halfway down the next street. I pump my arms, quickly losing my breath and stamina. I really should have worked out more in life. Then again, the call of science books was always too great for me to resist, not to mention the pull of the comic tradition.

            Without warning or cause for concern for his own self preservation, he stops in the middle of the road and turns, just as I see the tourbus barrel towards him.

‘No!’ I shout. I stop without meaning to. My subconscious must know that all hope is lost. My muscles fail, my hand stretches out.

            The man turns, and sees the big yellow bus looming over him. I can’t tear my eyes away. It’s like watching a horror movie. Or a film that will make you cry. You want to look away, but you carry on watching.

For as long as I remember I’ve been scared of smalls spaces. The feeling of being trapped is something that closes my throat, and brings a cold sweat to my brow. Of all the things in the world, that is what I think of now, I’d feel trapped in that split second before the bus hit me. It’s how I felt when the van came spinning towards my Triumph. My fists seized, my breath stopped.

He raises his fist and clamps his thumb down on a button at its base.

Inexplicably, the bus with a terrified looking driver, does not hit the man in the moleskin jacket. It reaches him and passes on. He travels through it like he was never there in the first place.

I watch in awe as the bus travels on. What do you do in that situation? Stop the bus and look at the no body on the road. That driver would be haunted for the rest of his life. He’d think it was a hallucination. I’m not altogether convinced it wasn’t myself.

The bus doesn’t stop. I watch the rear end with bated breath but he doesn’t reappear.

My legs find the ability to move again. I stumble at first, but quickly I find the ability to run.

I cross the street, ignoring the other cars this time and find the site of the almost death. A large, round scorch mark lies on the ground, as though it’s been there forever. And in the middle, a matchbook.

I stoop and pick it up. The man is nowhere to be seen.

On the front is a sight I know well from the guidebook. Lights, water, cherubs, gods and their steeds. One of the most beautiful places in Rome.

I read the name on the back: Hotel Fontana. I have my next destination.

I turn it over in my hand and something catches my eye inside. With an unexplained note of fear gripping my throat, I open it and read words inside, written in red pen.

‘I see you.’