For One There Is No Mandatory Age...

For One There Is No Mandatory Age of Retirment


         She perches on the listlessly drifting swing. Back and forth on rusty chains, back and forth over littered ground, back forth toward the graffiti clad walls of the tower blocks. She drifts to escape the niggling that eats into her mind, a desire that crawls unabated whenever there is nothing to suppress it. It always starts there just as it always spreads. Back and forth, she doesn’t have the time to take in the used syringes and pieces of broken glass that brush beneath her scuffed trainers, back and forth, time is always running out. Soon it will spread to her body, to the aching muscles, the itching insanity. Realising she is thinking of it once more she forces her mind away. Back and forth, in and out of that fearful urge: back and forth, in and out of being free.
         The night is dark as always, the thin glow of the street lights that still work shed only small pools of quickly snatched orange into this gloom. Beneath each of these towering concrete fingers there is a small dome of sickly illuminated hope. Dismally, these fragmented reflections on the greasy street scream not of any real beauty, but do hint at the very least of some escape. Whether this escape will come in the form of righteousness is debatable, she knows this because escape is often only a temporary solution, and on the streets these temporarily exits come brewed up and sold out on practically every corner and shady back alley. The sad fact is that every time she really believes she has gone somewhere else, every time she glimpses escape, it is then that she always ends up back in the same place, always shown a distanced promise of utopia but denied its glory at the very last possible moment… just left wretched and forever in need, so very much in need.
         Now sitting there swinging slowly back and forth, back and forth, she understands that perhaps she is destined to forever go back and forth in her life for all eternity, as if there were never really any beginning or end, flying up to that glimpsed utopia but forever crashing back down to the cold hard earth below, up and down, back and forth, back and forth. She’d realised long ago the biggest joke of all wasn’t that it was any omnipotent force that had sealed her fate; it probably wasn’t even something which could be accredited or blamed on those people around her. Ultimately this burden was unquestionably her own in the making, she knew she had made mistakes, taken the wrong choices, the problem was that now there seemed no way out and rather dishearteningly no one seemed to care less. Now she understood the sad fact that for only a handful of mistakes a persons life could simply be thrown away, deemed worthless by those with power and more importantly by those with fear. It was true, fear’s best ally had always been revulsion, and when there was revulsion there was also disgust, and then finally when there was enough disgust people tended to turn away, otherwise they felt sick, in truth they always wanted someone else to clean up the mess, it was just easier not to comment and keep silent.
Maybe that was fair, after all swinging back and forth she knew she had created the jumbled mess of her own life, yet without someone to help her clean up it seemed there was very little chance of ever getting on top of things. If her life were a room, then she had discovered that even though she were capable of cleaning out the odd corner, discarding all the broken memories, scrubbing until everything gleamed, even then she would only ever turn round to find that the rubbish she had tried to throw out had actually just landed to stack up even higher somewhere else. The biggest problem was that there was so much trash littering this space, it was impossible to get out, the door was piled high with broken and wasted memories; there was no where for the festering refuse to go. When she had entered into her life, to be born into her room, back then things had been very different, the walls had been blank, the whole space empty, it had all been so white and airy. Only, over the years the clutter of repressed emotions just backed up; the twisted voyage of her up bringing had virtually crammed the space wall to wall with bitter souvenirs, drowning her in contempt and grimy blackness. Presently swinging back and forth, unable to get out, trapped in a rising sea of despair that hints of soon reaching the ceiling and deciding her fate forever, she instead prays that someone might come along and open the door to her room from the outside, that someone might unblock this soon to be tomb and let the deluge of pain come pouring forth. If anything can be clear in this filthy prison, then she had always been certain that the light needs to be let back in, only she will never do it on her own. On her own all she can do is go back and forth, over and over until there is no where left to go.
The sudden shriek of a crow rises above both the low murmuring of distant traffic and the mournful lingering of her thoughts; a solemn sound dancing over the still air of the playground like the spectre of a long lost child. The noise is abrupt, so apparent in fact that she immediately stops swinging, no more back and forth, no more nagging desires and troubled thoughts, for a moment there is only intrigue. The city has been her home for the duration of her short life, whilst there are a great many birds that call the city their home as well, the thought of seeing such a black feathered magnificence on such a lonely and dark night fills her with a growing wonder. The animals of the world remain very different to humans, both are cruel, but only the former has the excuse that it knows not what it is doing, that it has no morality and so might never be truly malicious in intent or purpose.
Now she sights the bird for it perches directly right above her, peering down with beady jet eyes from the rusty frame holding the chained swings. It appears to be watching and she looks back enthralled, feeling unsettled but not scared. Somehow she instinctively knows this bird represents a force quite macabre, but strangely this is also something very natural, a concern unavoidable and therefore better off simply accepted. She knows this implicitly even if she could never explain such an emotion in physically defining words.
Because she is so taken by looking up at this creature she completely fails to see the lone figure come strolling into the deserted playground. Through the passageway between the towers and onward through a gap in the beaten fence where a gate once hung. Over broken glass, blowing paper, onward unnoticed across cemented gum and yellow stained cigarette butts, purposeful steps, onward, on.
Finally, at the point when he is all but upon her she turns, shocked yet perversely not quite surprised.
‘Might I join you?’ His face is masked by the heavy hood of his baggy black top, yet peculiarly his voice is clear and precise.
‘I… I don’t really won’t to work at the moment.’ Regrettably she knows only one reason why hooded men would wish to seek her out in the dead of night; it is not a career choice she has ever been proud of. ‘I’m trying to clean myself up, no more business.’
‘It appears we all toil so hard day after day, but ultimately the job of cleaning up has always been mine and mine alone.’ Outwardly oblivious to the implicit meaning of her words this new comer instead comes to rest on the swing besides her, his hood up way over his head, the sleeves and legs of his baggy black garments concealing both his hands and feet in the shadowy folds of jet fabric. In many ways he resembles just another one of those lost beings who call this decaying part of the city home, only in many ways he is also an enigma. ‘What job is it that you do?’
For a second she considers not replying, is this stranger taunting her, should she be afraid, if her life were worth anything could she be afraid... maybe it is too late, yet this stranger doesn’t seem a threat in any personal way, menacing but entirely assiduous in purpose. There is something very odd about his voice, the neutrality of his tone. Perhaps this being might not really live here at all...
‘Will you not answer my question?’ Not moving from where he has come to rest the query offered is polite, whilst his face forever hidden.
‘Is it not obvious, do I really have to spell it out?’ Her shame meanwhile remains purely her own.
‘You do not have to do anything; you have always been given the choice, that is the point, that remains the gift of sorts.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘That which actually needs no explanation at all, it is inerrant in you and all the other life you might ever see, the final conclusion, that which has an inevitability so certain.’
‘I don't understand, to be honest I was never really any good at school, that’s when I was actually in school.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, the pursuit of knowledge has never been the underlying reason for all this, the choices you make, true they are important, but cramming your head full of other peoples ideas is hardly necessary. In the end every being comes to realise that knowledge is relative, some things you know deep down intrinsically within, a few very important truths accumulated entirely by ones own self. The rest however, well the rest only exists in relation to your physical surroundings, your environment, the other people, the history, it is only meaningful in it’s relation to time and space and abstract language, it is outside not inside.’
‘Right, I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it, like I said I was never really any good at school, especially not at the deep stuff...’ She laments this fact more than most; she had an opportunity, only like nearly everything else in her life it didn’t pan out. ‘What are you, some sort of preacher?’
For a second all the hooded being can do is laugh. It becomes apparent to her that there is another voice joining in this merriment. Looking up she sees the all but forgotten crow is sharing in this it's companions mirth, cackling away and strutting merrily along its corroded perch as though quite delighted.
‘I am sorry, please forgive my amusement but religion most surely exists only as a relative, not a certain. You must understand I am unequivocal and therefore have never been so subjectively aligned, I have always tended to occupy the middle ground between all else, beyond all else and for all else.’
‘You don’t have to take the piss; I only asked if you were a preacher.’
‘Your frustrations are all too evident May, but you wouldn’t tell me what you do for a living so why should I indulge you in my affairs.’
‘My name… I never told you my name, how do you know my name?’ She now wonders who actually lies beneath this black hood; surely it is someone who knows her, someone who is playing with her. May realises she should feel scared, she should feel utterly alone and vulnerable sat out late at night in this deserted inner city playground. If her life had a meaning she probably would have retreated long ago, as it is she’s hooked, she has to wait. This doesn’t mean that she can’t be angry, her fury spurned by a sense of deep and long ingrained frustration. ‘Spit it out asshole, how do you know my name!’
‘How do you know those things that are so certain for every being that lives?’
‘That is not an answer, who are you?’ In her rising anger she lashes out, swipes for his hood, only he is too quick, indeed her hand is immediately ensnared by the black glove that shoots out from beneath the endless shadows of his baggy sleeve.
‘You do not need to ask who I am because you all know instinctively of my true meaning, it is perhaps the only thing any of you can ever know for certain.’
‘Let me go.’
‘This time, yes.’ Amicable in tone he releases her hand and shrugs. ‘You have no fear of me do you?’ It is an odd question, it implies no sense of malice, yet neither does it carry any hint of regret.
She considers the query carefully before answering. ‘I have no fear because I don’t think I have anything to lose, my life is already fucked in every way.’
‘That is a rather crude expression, one which speaks of no truth whatsoever.’
‘What? Who the hell are you to come here telling me what I think and feel, you can’t tell me what I know?’
‘Well I think I know you are dissatisfied, except that is very different form saying you have nothing to lose, the most precious thing you have is life itself, you are not fucked because you still have that gift, and if I might be so bold to say, even when the time comes to lose that life I still doubt you’ll be fucked… really sometimes you all amaze me so greatly.’
‘I amaze you? Lets get this straight, you’re the fucking screwball here buddy.’
‘I’m not the one who said life is fucked.’
‘Just tell me, what the hell are you doing here, did somebody put you up to this? Are you just here to mess with my head?’
‘Hardly… The truth is I’m always in many places at once; everywhere really. Anyway if you must know I’m actually here to meet someone, you could say they have been waiting on me for a lifetime.’
‘What does all this shit you’re spouting really mean, do you just want to confuse me or something?’
‘No, you all seem to want to confuse yourselves.’
‘Maybe...’
‘No you are are May not Maybe.’ Muttering this little pun more for his own amusement the one is black urges her to continue with a casual movement of his baggy sleeves.
'But… but there really isn’t anything I can do about that, I don't think I can stop all this confusion... will you at least tell me who it is you’re meeting, maybe that will help?’ Of course May has her own meeting to keep; there could be no other reason to sit out on this cold night with a screwball dressed all in black and cackling crow for company. The run-down playground can hardly be considered a beauty spot worthy of admiration and ponder, addiction on the other hand is all consuming. ‘So?’
         ‘If you insist, although you must understand that telling you my motives for being here will make no difference to what has been certain since the very beginning.’
         ‘I don’t want to hear your riddles, I just want to know.’
         ‘Fine, I’m here to meet with Nathanial Jones known to most as Itch.’
         Now her blood runs cold, now May worries, if her life were worth anything she might have run. But she needs her hit, she needs to stay. Eaten up inside she is condemned to wait until the cold tip of a syringe comes to soothe with it's own parasite, until this steel mosquito can spit its own numbing poison and start the cycle all over again. For a while the addict had forgotten about the nagging urge building inside and then this stranger mentioned her dealer. This name has suddenly brought it all rushing back; and now May's discomfort is immediately intensified by the return of the old and familiar grasp on her soul, the war within rages again. Her body needs to be fed, her craving demands to be sated, this sickness is consuming. ‘Are you with the police?’
         ‘May really, I had expected better than that from you, why do you ask such ridiculous questions, do I look like I’m with the police anymore than I do a preacher?’
‘Well no, but you could be undercover…’
‘No, you know full well that isn’t the case, you know exactly what the truth is, just like deep inside you know exactly why I’m here, its just sometimes you beings, well you chose not to admit it, ignorance is a fallacy and sometimes it seems easier that way…’ He trails off quietly as though considering his next words for a few seconds. ‘Only you fail to see that in the long run it isn’t easier this way. Trust me, I am the one truth, the one thing that you can know for certain, the one thing you can count on above all else. Believe in me if no other for I will always be there at the very end.’
‘But I don’t know anything for certain; I don’t even know your name so why would I ever believe?’
‘My name isn’t important, like a lot of things that arbitrary term is purely relative, as is the form I might chose when your day finally comes, just be sure that eventually I always arrive. I am not the transient one, I am the absolute. Over the years I have been named many times but always I have been there. When I flew across the burning deserts of Egypt searching out those first born some later called me Azrael, others named me Michael, Gabriel, Sammael, and Sariel. In some parts I was known as Suriel, Mot, Mairya, others called me Rahab and when that name wore old so some thought of me as Yama. I come from many places and I have been called many names, and whilst it matters not if I really rowed backwards and forwards so tirelessly across the river Styx you can be certain I have always held those oars.’
‘The wings of Azrael?’ May has no religion but the name stirs a moment of recall, something from a blurry lesson long ago, a hazy revelation… or did it perhaps come from deep within, she has no way to know whether such a thing has been concluded from inside or out, or perhaps from both, only that this understanding is certain in its concern.
‘Yes the wings of Azrael, the beating wings that fly through the night, whether feared, loved, craved or rejoiced, these wings will no doubt beat on forever, over the deserts I shall fly on and on and on.’
‘Is this why you have to meet Itch, because the wings always beat on?’
‘I don’t need to grace that question with a response, you know the answer already, you have known from the moment your existence started.’
The bird on the frame above suddenly becomes restless with this promise, it has sat head crooked, and throughout it has seemed to be listening intently, only now with a shrieking cry it flies upward, back toward the dark heavens of the night sky. Taking this fluttering motion as some sort of sign, the hooded stranger steps gracefully to his feet in preparation.
‘What is happening?’
‘You know full well what is happening, the one you call Itch is almost here.’ In honour of his proclamation the hooded being reaches inside his coat and pulls out a matt black pistol. ‘Although I still wonder what exactly it is that you will do?’ He tosses the weapon across to his other gloved hand and slaps a full clip in place with a small satisfying click. ‘This day you are not scared, it saddens me that you are not, for I of all beings know life to be so very, very precious.’
‘I… I didn’t think I was scared.’ She can now hear the sound of a car approaching, in the deathly silence that has descended the quiet rumble of this vehicle is getting closer, drawing nearer with every second, May realises instinctively that the final destination is always approaching and eventually it always arrives. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Yet you still persist with these pointless questions, such questions that you have already answered in your own soul many times before.’ With solemn promises aired the hooded figure produces a large serrated blade to accompany his gun. ‘This gift was never meant to be endless, what good is a gift without parameters to define it within. This being, this Itch he has had his gift, he has taken his choices and now for better or worse it is over.’
The rumble of the car engine is somewhere close by now, trundling down some deserted street adjacent, not long to go. May realises that everything has taken on an almost ghost like quality. The desolated playground is just that, filled only with the disenchantment of dappled light and shadows, a filthy clump of broken apparatus scattered with the litter of misguided youth, it is so empty of all it has originally been designed for it almost hurts, it almost screams. In this fast arriving final moment there appears to be no one left to turn too, not even the phantoms of lost childhood. ‘I can’t let you do that… I can’t just let you kill him.’
‘Is that so, tell me May, if I do not even relent to weeping mothers and fathers, if I do not feel pity for sobbing orphans and broken lovers, if I ignore all their bitter cries of appeal, tell me, why would I listen to the pleas of a smack addict looking only to fulfil her own selfish and corrupted desires.’
This reply is deeply shocking. The words are like a slap to the face, hard and purposeful, dreaded and reprimanding. She offers no reply, for now she can be certain he knows the ultimate truth.
‘I will not apologise, nor will I spare this being just so you can get your fix, your failings and problems are most certainly relative, they have nothing to do with any greater truth that might exist, they do not share a probability so certain, they never have.’
‘You know all about me don’t you, you know all of it, you know I’m just a desperate addict, you know I’ve sold myself… you know everything.’
‘No I don’t, like I said, there has only been one thing worth regarding with any certainty, that’s all we know.’ With this declaration he lets his long sleeves drop to conceal the weapons, his tools of the trade waiting forever posed out of sight, but always waiting. ‘My work was never taken through choice.’
She stands there suddenly shaking with the full realisation of this moment. Shaking not only in fear but also because her sick body demands treatment, it demands to be fed. She is thinking of replying, she is willing up words, yet it is too late, there is a car pulling up in a parking space. Now there is a man getting out, a man she knows all too well, a man she has let do the most depraving things to her just to feed the habit. This man has seen them, he is sauntering across. Through the passageway between the towers and onward through a gap in the beaten fence where a gate once hung. Over broken glass, blowing paper, onward across cemented gum and yellow stained butts, purposeful steps, onward, on.
‘Do you really want to witness this; you already know the final outcome inside?’
But May can’t reply to the hooded one's question, her mouth is dry, drier than it’s ever been on any passing high.
‘May who is this?’ Itch has arrived, Itch is perturbed.
‘I…’ The words are too difficult to form.
‘Fucking speak up you dirty little whore, who the fuck is this fool.’
‘He…’ Now in hesitation she finally understands that there is a truth, no matter how bad at school May knows unquestionably that there will always be one great certainty, and suddenly there is no point in lying about such unequivocal regrets. Perversely for the first time in a long time she finds herself smiling as she stares into the seething face of her dealer. ‘He once went by the name of Azrael?’
‘What the hell are you on about?’ Evidently enraged by the addict Itch turns instead to take in the hooded figure who is leaning ever so casually against the swing frame, completely assured in his conviction and eternal task. ‘You got a problem mate; you want trouble or are just here to do business?’
‘Unfortunately he is here to do business.’ May now finds herself responding for her silent companion, after all that is what he is, however silent and foolishly ignored he is everyone’s companion in the end. With these sombre thoughts she looks to Itch, knowing somewhere inside that she hates him, but also aware that she is intrinsically afraid of what will happen, for May realises that some part of her is actually worried, some part of her is actually worried for him. Her mind is in turmoil because if she can care for Itch, if she can care for her tormentor and supplier of fake utopias then maybe someone else could in turn care for her, maybe someone out there will be willing to open the door to her room and take part in a little social waste disposal, maybe…
‘What’s the matter, can’t you speak for yourself, you have to get the whore to speak for you?’
‘We all understand, I do now and somewhere inside so do you, the wings of Azrael beat on…’ With this May sheds a single tear; it is an accompaniment to that with a probability so certain, for now she knows regret can never be a resistance only an experience.
‘What have you been taking you stupid slag?’ At the end of his tether in more ways than he might every really know, Itch steps forward ready to strike out. He is losing his patience and soon to lose much more, and if he is to ever consider the meaning of truth then all he really wants is for her to get on her knees and suck for a hit, that is what he drove here for. Relativity was unfortunately never in question and now it is all too late.
There is a soft thump; a gentle whoosh of a noise, the gun is of course silenced. That’s when he falls; Itch falls with blood spurting from between the fingers of his hands. Now the essence of life fountains onto the dirty floor, spent in certain predictability as a dark haze of crimson soured in hue by dull orange of man's fake light.
‘You know inside your heart I am the one who does the taking.’ Striding forward in a flash, covering the broken syringes and used condoms with unnatural haste, the hooded being who has known so many names now stands directly above Itch, as ready as ever to work, eager in certainty. ‘Your time has come.’
Now May finds the emphasis to run, as the bright flashes of the keen knife blade flick through the air and the first of the last screams arise, May abruptly understands it all, she may not have paid attention at school, but now every truthful word he has uttered makes total sense. It is those understandings that lay deep down inside, she knows now that those are the ones that matter at the end.
Retreating over broken glass and blowing paper, onward across cemented gum and yellow stained butts, panicked spurting steps, onward, on. The screaming of the dying, the screaming of the one whose time it is to end fills the air, only she knows now no one else will notice, when you understand something so deeply in your being, when something has a probability so certain you don’t question it, you turn away and run safe in the knowledge that for the time being he has not come for you… not yet.
‘May!’
The voice of the one with many names is calling out, it causes her to stop dead in her tracks, she cannot turn to face such an undeniable truth but May will listen, she will listen one final time before the very final time.
‘My dear May understand this, you have been given two great gifts. The first is the gift of life itself, this is a fragile present which may never be fully explained, it is a delicate and finite moment suspended in a vast eternity, it is something very, very precious. The second gift is choice, this gift is what makes the first gift of your life worthwhile, it is what gives it meaning, it is in your hands, it always has been. Understand that why you still live you are never truly fucked, no doom or despair is ever as certain as it may first seem. Remember there is only one definite, one certain that you know full well to be true, I am forever that certainty, my wings will always beat across the desert. Go now, go out into the world, out into your life, think about your choices May, think about everything why you still have time, think about what it means, think about it all because one day we will meet again, and I’m afraid that when that day comes it will all be too late, there will be no more time left to think.’
And that is it, those are the final words, now all that can be heard is screaming, she knows now she must go, she must run, time will always tick, tick away and it is so, so precious. She darts through a gap in the beaten fence where a gate once hung and then onward through the passageway between the towers. Away, away, running with the screams lingering in the distance, the screams no one will pay any attention to, running, just running, the screams abruptly stop only she is still running, running on the certainty that for Itch it is done, the race has ended.
Only May doesn’t stop, her legs just keep on pumping. The ache of the craving, the ravage of that sick need is for once completely forgotten, there is no more back and forth, the swing has been ripped clear from the constricting chains that hold it and thrown violently forward through the air. She is running, running for the gift of her life, she has a choice, there are always choices as there will always be time, neither can be reversed. Chains might suspend every being but they are relative and can be broken, she knows this is true because in the end the searching hand of probability has proven itself to find all life no matter how far it strays. It is ok to soar high and free, it is ok to be certain only of certainty. The room of her life only ever had walls because she had built them, brick by brick they had gone up but now with a fierce burst May has simply smashed straight through mental cement and stone, she is like an unpredicted deluge through a mighty damn. The seemingly most impenetrable is often just relative and there is only so much time to be free, only so much time before He comes. Running she thinks of his final words to her, his final warning, she will not waste another day. His words play on in her head; no doubt they will continue to play on until the day when he finally comes back for her. He has many names and the wings of Azrael will always beat on, ultimately he is as endless as he is certain.

‘Think about everything why you still have time, think about what it means, think about it all because one day we will meet again, and I’m afraid that when that day comes it will all be too late.’