Moons are a mysterious thing. Jack had never considered it before, but it seemed entirely clear to him as he stood on the bare wooden floor of his bedroom made cold by the coming winter chill. He held the curtain back from the window and just watched and wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him before, but then he remembered that he was not the sort of man who looked inward with any sort of regularity. Still, the idea was there in his mind now – the strangeness of the moon. The isolation of the night. The oddity of being called awake by the pain, which was almost constant now, and a sense of – something – of something just there, so close just waiting, barely kept at bay. He couldn’t quite name it, didn’t quite wish to face it, but knew just the same, could feel it like a chill ever-present – lurking – at the corner of his mind. “Are you coming back to bed?” Joan asked, her tone sounding oddly imperious, even when she was half asleep. “No,” Jack said, turning back to the moon, full and wide – like a bowling ball prepared to crush the house. “I need a drink,” he muttered, not quite for Joan’s benefit but not entirely for himself. He turned and headed out of the room, not bothering to shut the door or put on a robe. The house was quiet at night. There had been a time when all Jack would hope for was some peace and quiet. With the sounds of a baby crying echoing down the hallway, or Joan’s clattering – always clattering, always busy – and he would sit and steadily raise the volume on the TV, watching the game and wishing that for one god dammed moment things could just be quiet. Now the silence was eerie, haunting in a way he didn’t want to think about. Now memories lurked around every corner, brought forward in his mind by the oddest of things. The alcohol didn’t chase the memories away, but sometimes it helped get passed them. He left the lights on. Jack knew his way around well enough, and soon he was twisting the key in the lock that had been put into the liquor cabinet years ago in preparation for a new addition no one wanted. “What a time to become a fucking good Catholic,” Jack muttered as he groped in the cabinet. There was a bottle of whisky but only enough for one mouthful. He took a swig and carried the bottle with him to the kitchen. Jack had never understood why Joan hid her liquor. There was a perfectly serviceable liquor cabinet, but she kept it in the damned kitchen cupboard with the jam and the peanut butter and the fucking cereal. He shoved aside a box of frosted Mini-Wheats and grabbed the bottle. The bitch had a bottle of gin. He switched the gin for the empty bottle of whisky and wondered if she’d notice. Jack took a long swig from the bottle, washing down dreams in black-and-white, of graveyards and dark pits and dirt and pain. Every step he took these days felt haunted and he tried to find the humour in it but failed every time. He could find only a certain sense of self-pity. Old, but not old enough to take the surprise out of the news that he was dying. He’d sat in that damned leather chair and laughed and rubbed his palms on his thighs and asked the doc for the prognosis. When he got his answer he hadn’t been laughing and then Joan had started crying -- as if his death would mean anything to her. Old and dying, counting down the days before his soul got chased out of his cancer-riddled body, and there wasn’t a damned thing to be proud of, not a damned soul who he thought might actually give a shit. “How drunk do you have to be to start praying?” a voice asked. A stranger’s voice, young and warm, and even if Jack’s senses were screaming at him that an intruder had somehow made it into his house, he couldn’t find it in him to be frightened. It was as if he’d been expecting this, as if he’d been waiting. He found himself instead, relaxing, something in him easing. The slight figure that sat perched on the back of the kitchen chair wasn’t a surprise to him. The young man’s presence felt right, felt good in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. Jack Kinney forgot to feel pain for just a moment. “Before you ask,” the young man said, holding up hand to forestall the question Jack hadn’t even known he’d been about to ask. “I figure you need at least half of this before you’ll actually believe me.” Jack watched as a pale hand held-up a bottle of Jim Beam and set it out on the table. The hand, the arm, and the rest of the slender body was glowing with a faint light – impossible to notice if you looked directly at the figure. He was young and pale, with full lips and blond hair and the bluest eyes. Like the ocean. “Jesus,” Jack muttered. “Not quite,” the blond replied ruefully. “Sit down.” “Who are you?” “The first of three ghosts.” Jack rubbed his brow and shook his head, but then the blond’s serious expression disappeared and Jack was somewhat awed by the bright smile that was flashed in his direction. “You know who I am,” the blond answered, this time with a soft expression that Jack thought might be compassionate, except Jack wasn’t used to seeing people look at him with compassion. “It’s time, then?” he asked. He rubbed his thighs and looked around, nodding resolutely to himself. “Not quite,” the blond said. “What do you mean?” He watched as the young man poured the Beam into a glass and held it out. “Drink up,” was the only response he got. Jack wasn’t the sort of person to turn down a drink; he sat down at the table and accepted the glass. Despite the stranger’s insistence that Jack knew who he was, he disagreed. Jack knew what he was tempted to say but each time he choked the thought down. You didn’t live under the roof that Jack lived under as a child, or even the one he lived under now, and not pick-up a thing or two about religion. Jack put-on a relatively good front, voicing disdain for Joan’s Sunday morning traditions, and scorning the faith more often than not, but it was ingrained – force of habit. If he was drunk enough, and he usually was, he still muttered prayers when he passed a graveyard. “There’s an ugly truth in here, somewhere,” the blond said. Jack suddenly remembered the stranger’s presence and looked up from the glass he’d been mulling over, watching the young man who was inspecting the kitchen, running his fingers over the thick wooden cross that hung above the table, a relic from Jack’s childhood. Joan loved the thing. Jack hated it. He looked around the kitchen with new eyes. Christ, religion was everywhere, even on the damned counter where the blond was holding a church pamphlet outlining the up-and-coming events. For some reason, Jack couldn’t stand to be associated with the annual children’s spelling bee, or the choir performances. “It’s my wife’s,” he said, finished off his glass and tried to focus. The blond paused, his blue-eyes unfocussing for a moment. “Joan,” he said. “Who are you?” “You know who I am,” the blond repeated. “If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.” Jack glared and tried to look threatening. It didn’t seem to be working, instead, those blue eyes looked back at him calmly, and Jack was surprised to find himself shrinking back, like a petulant child. “Jack,” the blond said, again his voice was soft -- filled with compassion -- and he leaned forward, as if he were talking to a five year old. “You do know.” Jack stared into the unfathomable depths of blue and felt something in him give-out, something in him ease as he realized yes, he really did know, he just hadn’t wanted to accept it. “You can call me Justin.” “Justin,” Jack said, trying it out. Then he asked the most important question. “Am I dying?” “You know you are,” Justin said. “Right now? Am I going to die now?” “Soon,” Justin said, his gaze open and voice steady. Hearing it didn’t scare Jack, he felt very calm, maybe a little resigned. “Why are you here?” “You’re good at handling things, aren’t you, Jack?” Justin asked as he drifted to a chair and settled onto it. Jack tried to pretend that he wasn’t mildly discomfited by the fact that, as before, Justin was once again inexplicably managing to balance on the two-inch thick back of the chair, with his feet tucked on the small ledge the seat made, and not tipping the whole thing over. “This is the one thing you can’t handle, though.” “What?” “You’re death,” Justin said. “You can’t avoid it, you have to confront it.” “You sound like my fucking wife,” Jack snarled. “When she told you to tell your children about your cancer?” Justin asked. His look of surprise seemed to amuse the blond. “I know more than you think.” “You’re not going to tell me that I’m going to hell for using profanity?” Jack said derisively. “Nope,” Justin said. “You’re going to hell for something a lot more significant than profanity.” That made Jack pause. He couldn’t quite tell if Justin were joking. A moment later, a devilish grin that had no place on the angelic face told Jack his answer. “Relax,” Justin said. “Relax?” Jack shouted, his voice echoing off the walls. “This isn’t a fucking game! This isn’t some feel-good Christmas movie! This is my life!” “No,” Justin said, once again annoyingly unmoved by Jack’s outburst. “This is your death. And it can end however you want it to.” “What are you talking about?” “You made choices, Jack. That’s what humans do. That’s why you were given free will, so you can go out and make decisions, and make mistakes and learn from them,” Justin said. “But those choices brought you right here, to this moment, and the powers that be have given you yet another choice to make.” “Which is, what? To get to see what my life would be like if I never existed, and then everything will be perfect again? What is it?” “They gave you me,” Justin said with a grin, he grinned brightly and cocked his head to the side, as if Jack should be thankful. “You’re talking in circles,” Jack muttered. Justin turned very serious, and though Jack never saw the movement, suddenly the blond was no longer perched on the chair, but leaning forward very close to Jack’s face. “Then understand this. You fucked up.” That Justin would swear was surprising, but somehow, it did help Jack understand. “And now here you are and you have another choice: keep ignoring your imminent death, tell me to piss off, and accept where you’ll end-up.” “Where’s that?” “I can’t tell you.” “Some divine regulation?” Jack taunted. “No,” Justin said. Jack instinctually sat-up straighter, as if there was something in this young kid he had to respect and fear. The tone in which Justin spoke was certainly authoritative. “You’re not in any position to accept what I have to tell you about the after-life. I’m not going to preach to you, I’m not going to urge you to repent. What I’m going to tell you is to get off your ass and turn your life around before you kick-off. I’m here to help, but if you want to stick your head in the sand, that can work, too. I have better things to do than sit around and listen to you bitch and moan about the injustices of your life.” Even if Justin’s outburst had terrified him on some basic level, Jack still found it in him to make a feeble protest, “I did have it hard.” “Get over it,” Justin said. “You want sympathy, talk to someone who gives a shit.” “Are you supposed to talk like that?” “I’m talking in the only way you’ll understand me,” Justin said with a shrug. The blond’s shifting moods were making Jack dizzy, but he’d received the message loud-and-clear. “Okay,” Jack said. “Good.” ………………………. Jack had imagined things differently. Even after meeting Justin, he hadn’t thought that anything the blond was talking about might be immediate. It was. Justin had insisted that Jack have a cold shower and get dressed, and they were out walking along the sidewalk before the sun was even peaking over the horizon. He was bitter and dying, wanting nothing more than to spread his anger at his situation, but he couldn’t, because there was Justin – Justin who glowed and wasn’t afraid to swear and shot-down his self-pity and dismissed it. Jack learned to shut up and listen. “I’m not fucking making amends!” Well, sometimes Jack couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Justin didn’t seem to be listening. He’d stopped talking and was instead looking with a quietly intense expression at a black wrought-iron gate. “This way,” Justin said. “This is a cemetery,” Jack said. The pedestrian’s gate was already swinging closed behind Justin and Jack hurried to catch-up. “Why did you bring me here?” Justin kept silent and continued on, heading further into the bowels of the cemetery. Jack allowed himself to get deliciously maudlin. He watched the morning mist drifting idly across the cold ground, stiff with frost, the grey of the early morning sky muting any possible colour. The silence was almost suffocating and yet disturbingly sentient, Jack felt as if he was being keenly observed and the thought chilled him. Every now and then, he was cross a grave that housed a single candle in a glass case – red, sometime blue. Some tombstones sported small flags, and others had a wreath, but the majority were unadorned. Forgotten. They stopped at an open grave, the diggers only just disappearing behind the tall monuments. Jack wished the unwanted awe away, because without it he knew he’d have no trouble yelling at the enigmatic boy who was leading him around. “Everyone just wants to be loved, don’t they?” Justin asked. “Love’s a bunch of crap,” Jack answered automatically. “Everyone just wants to be free.” Justin smiled a little wistfully and nodded as if there was a possible truth in the words. “I keep telling my Sonnyboy,” Jack continued. “I tell him, ‘Don’t you tie yourself down to one woman.’” “So you’re free,” Justin said, in a tone that made Jack believe the boy was being hypothetical. “What happens when you live a great life of freedom and you reach this point?” “What point?” Jack asked, not quite following. Even standing in a graveyard, he refused to acknowledge death. “Right here,” Justin said, he looked down into the empty pit that would soon be filled by some stiff in a coffin. “You get right here, and then what?” “I don’t believe in hell,” Jack said with a shrug. “Convenient,” Justin said. “I wonder if that’s true.” Memories of long Sundays spent in church, fighting the urge to cling to his mother’s hand as the minister spat images of eternal damnation down to him. Like his faith, his fear was ingrained, repressed. He was almost scared not to believe. “You say you don’t want to make amends, but you’re angry and you’re bitter because you don’t think there’s a single person who’s going to stand by you when you die and actually be sorry to see you gone.” “I did everything I could,” Jack said. “I have nothing to regret.” Justin turned to face him directly, his blue eyes flickering left then right as if he could see things in the graveyard that Jack couldn’t see. “I could show you things, make you see.” The offer sounded threatening. Jack imagined the kind of things that might be surrounding them that only someone like Justin could know about. He didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to hear any of what might be echoing around him in the voices of the departed. “You say love is a lie,” Justin said. Jack turned away, looked down at the pit by his feet and on a whim, tried to picture his coffin being lowered into the earth. Imagined Joan and Claire and Brian standing by his grave. He tried to imagine them crying. He couldn’t. A square cut of paper obstructed his view of the pit and he refocused on a photograph that Justin was holding out. “Where did you get this?” Jack asked. Justin didn’t answer but allowed Jack to take the photograph from him, smiling at Jack’s surprised laugh as the older man looked down at the picture. “This is me and my wife,” Jack explained, looking down at the photograph of two stupid kids dressed-up, sitting on the trunk of a convertible and laughing. Joan had her head tilted back, her smile broad, and Jack – Jack was looking at her, smiling and laughing, but mostly just watching her. “Christ, that was ages ago.” He was young and clearly smitten, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t clear away his wistful smile as he stared down at the photograph in his hands. “We were just a couple of kids, going to some dance. She went to a snot-nosed Catholic girl’s school but she kept skipping classes and causing all sorts of trouble. We danced, and then left early and drove-out to this deserted little spot and we fucked. We were so eager. I didn’t even bother to take her dress off or that vest-thing she wore.” Jack laughed at the memory, of how it had felt to drag Joan out of the gym where the nuns were watching each of the dancing couples with eyes like hawks. He’d whispered in her ear and then caught her wrist, and she’d been laughing and trying not to trip over her pink chenille dress. “What changed?” Justin asked, when Jack had been quiet for a while. “We had plans. I was going out of state to school, and she was going to take-over her mother’s shop. She had a real head for business.” He lost his smile as the memories changed. “She got pregnant near the end of summer … or she found-out near the end of summer anyway. I tried to tell her to get the damned thing aborted but she wouldn’t. Told me that she’d take care of it herself, that I should go.” He laughed harshly. “What a bitch. It was her way of guilt-tripping me into it. So I fucking stayed and married her, still trying to do every damned thing I could think of to make her change her fucking mind. But she wouldn’t.” “That was, of course, your choice,” Justin said, as if he were only partly listening. “Some choice,” Jack scoffed. Then a disturbing thought crept into his mind. He hadn’t thought of it before as a choice, there had never seemed to be one. Either Joan aborted, or he had to help take care of the baby. Leaving her alone had never crossed his mind at the time. He’d blamed her. Rightfully, he thought. She should have aborted. But he’d had his own choice – he could have aborted their relationship. He hadn’t. “What are you playing at?” Jack snarled at the blond. “I don’t think this is a game, do you?” Justin asked. Jack frowned, and then tossed the photograph into the pit. He’d meant to turn on his heel and walk away, but somehow he found himself looking into the open grave where the photograph lay, Joan laughing and smiling. There was a brief touch on his shoulder, but Jack couldn’t look away. He couldn’t remember Joan being that happy any time after that night. He’d almost forgotten what her smile looked like. There were wrinkles on her face, but none of them were laugh-lines, and that had been what he’d teased her about most in those days. There was a gnawing in his gut. A heaviness in him that seemed unnatural. His uncle had once told him about the fish of sorrow that sometimes found its way into grown men’s bellies. As a child, it has seemed more like a late-night horror story than an apt description of the sensation. A gaping, flopping fish gasping, desperate for space to breathe, sucking down every emotion in lieu of oxygen until Jack felt empty. He stood there and stared. …………………… It seemed like an age, but slowly sensation returned. Jack found himself blinking out of his daze, his head – neck somewhat stiff – jerking upwards at the sound of a bird’s chirp, and he looked around the graveyard, only slightly less solemn in the sunlight, to realize that there was no sign of Justin. He didn’t expect the feel of sudden vulnerability, finding himself alone in the graveyard. Turning, Jack walked through the rows of grave markers, trying not to look at them, and instead searching for where the young man had gone. The quest was futile. Brittle grass crunching under his feet, stiff with frost, and wind that was biting through his clothes, but mostly, Jack didn’t feel like being surrounded by death any longer. He’d had enough. The gate swung behind him, and he didn’t look back. Stepping out onto the street where the noise of the busy traffic overwhelmed his senses purged his mind of death and quiet. He began the walk back, thinking on Justin’s strange appearance, and the riddles the young man had presented. Mostly, Jack thought about that image – Joan laughing – and of his imagined burial, where he still could not imagine any of his family crying. Halfway home, as he passed a variety store, Jack noticed Justin leaning against the yellow brick wall, his eyes closed, his head tilted back. “What am I supposed to do?” Jack asked, feeling alone and lost in a way he had not felt in a very long time, or maybe, had been feeling for too long. Justin didn’t startle. With his face turned towards the sun he answered, “I can’t tell you what to do.” Jack nodded, tensed his jaw a bit and tried to keep-back his frustration as he thought about his reply. “But maybe your wife had the right idea,” Justin offered, finally opening his eyes and pushing away from the wall. “What?” Jack frowned, trying to think what Joan had said in the passed little while that might be insightful into how to handle this new and wildly bizarre situation. A few hours ago, Jack had been marvelling at the moon, at its secrets and mysteries. The moon had nothing on this blond, who spoke in riddles and was nothing like what he’d been raised to expect from the after-life. “When she said you should start with your kids,” Justin offered. Jack tucked his hands in his pockets and looked at the street. The lights turned to yellow, and he watched the cars slow. He nodded his head and started walking. End Chapter One: