Thirty Things To Do After You Die — Chapter 14

Dexter and Gordon were leaning, though not too hard, on the stone wall of the executive balcony of Henry Ford House, the most important building in the sprawling network of office complexes that was New Limbinian Central Administration. It sat two-thirds of the way up the steeply terraced south side of the cone of the city, the greater clearance from the realm’s rock canopy making it a more comfortable meeting place, for Dexter at least.

It was almost midday, not that you would know it. Like Murmansk in winter, Limbo never really had a daytime. There was a rise and fall in the intensity of the points of light that speckled the basalt, tracking the rise and fall of the sun bathing the realm above, but even so it was really just graduations of gloom.

Here, on the south side, the roofs dropped away from Gordon and Dexter like a grey-tiled ski slope. At their foot lay the citadel wall and south barbican, then open ground to a tall wire fence, more open ground and then the thick outer wall that marked the city limits. Then the beginnings of the endless black gravel scrublands and uncharted spaces beyond. All appeared flat and featureless as the closed horizon faded into haze, all apart from a long, thin incline that led up to an expansive flat promontory in the middle distance. On it lay the yellowed pancaked ruins of the old capital, still and silent apart from a small area of intense animation at its centre. For this was still the location of the realm’s arrival gate — the only way into this desolate cavern. In size and form it matched its counterparts in the upper place and the lower place, and the Gate of Judgement on Earth, though here the structure itself was never in view, for Limbo’s cup runneth over. From Dexter’s and Gordon’s position on the balcony, it resembled a writhing off-white lava fountain, the lighting rendering the blacentas of Limbo’s latest arrivals a troubling mummy-like dirty cream. It was a great vomiting of humanity, spewing such numbers, and with such vigour, that fragments of blacenta rained down like snowflakes and so littered the site they gave the ruins an unbroken smokers’ yellow covering, like shit on the cliff of a gannet colony.

‘Look at it,’ said Gordon, ‘our numbers, our metrics, our souls per hour in physical form. Scares a lot of the section heads, you know, in private. Bhakta’s the worst, “But what if they attacked?” The man’s welnric, I tell you. The masses, the rejects, they don’t want what we have. I don’t know what those malingerers want. The best, the leaders, they come to us, like you came to us, my friend. Those chaff, out there, they have no leaders. And what nation, what people, have ever done anything without leaders?’

Dexter didn’t reply. He was lost in the recall of his own arrival. The fences, the mass of security managers, the orders to ‘piss off to the outlands like everyone else’; his protests, his insistence and refusal to go; his eventual admittance and long crawl to the bleak new city, the HR managers looking up from their clipboards, coldly telling him he could get to the interview and assessment centre if he wanted it badly enough. And they’d been right, of course. He was proud of that struggle and the struggles that followed. He owed his success to no one but himself.

‘Can you imagine this sight when we win?’ said Gordon.

‘It’ll blow like a geyser,’ said Dexter, ‘may even hit the roof.’

A rare low belly chuckle from Gordon. ‘I dare say it will. Human champagne. Only with scum instead of bubbles.’

‘Um. Indeed.’

Gordon turned to look at Dexter.

‘Well,’ said Gordon.

‘Well what?’

‘Have we found him?’

‘Found who?’

‘The prophet, of course, who do you think, fucking Glenn Miller?’

‘I’m sorry, but you’re seriously asking me that?’ said Dexter.

‘Yes.’

‘Well then no, of course we haven’t. You’d have heard about it if we had.’

‘We must look harder then,’ said Gordon. ‘We must redouble our efforts.’

‘We have redoubled.’

‘We must requadruple then.’

‘Gordon–’

‘No, not another word. I want everyone on this. We’ve done the prophet to death, so let’s shift our weight and open up on the second front — scan the financial press, Dex, the clues will be there.’

‘We already are scanning, Gordon.’

‘So scan harder. Find the other end of our trio, find the boy. I tell you, this is our moment.’

‘All right, leave it with me,’ said Dexter.

‘Good. Right, now, while you’re here, there is something else I want your opinion on. Delicate matter.’

‘Another one? What is it this time?’

‘Don’t panic, it’s nothing sweadly, just not something I could discuss with Grímsson, not his area, and besides, you can never be open with quacks, can you? Then they’re inside your head, and then they’ve got you.’

‘Understood,’ said Dexter. ‘Look, whatever it is, you can trust me.’

‘That’s the spirit. Right, now, have a look at this.’

Gordon turned and planted his right foot on one of the stone meeting benches behind them. He gave a double flick of his eyebrows then pulled up the hem of his caftan to reveal a pair of lilac linen half stockings.

‘Ooh,’ said Dexter, with a wince and a step back.

‘They’re called popsocks,’ said Gordon.

He posed his calves for Dexter and pulled his caftan higher still to reveal that each stocking was held in place with a small leather suspender belt, just below the knee. It appeared Gordon had shaved his legs.

‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I think,’ said Dexter, his lips pulling back from his teeth, ‘I think it’s fine if it makes you comfortable. I mean, they are technically undergarments, aren’t they?’

‘That’s not what I wanted an opinion on.’

‘Right, so … what did you want an opinion on?’

‘Whether I can get away with them in the lilac.’

‘You’re asking the wrong man, Gordon.’

‘I’m asking you, Dexter. Now, can I get away with it? They do also come in powder blue and flamingo pink.’

Dexter closed his eyes and rubbed his brow. ‘I don’t know what to say, Gordon. I’m strictly, strictly a suit-and-tie man.’

‘Don’t be so stiff. Haven’t you ever heard of the metrosexual?’

‘Not in Limbo.’

‘Well maybe it’s time we made some changes. In fact, yes, I could get you a pair, Grímsson and Spitback too, the section heads, the board …’

‘No. Thank you.’

‘Honestly, once you try these, you won’t go back. They’re so smooth — here, just feel.’ Gordon stretched out an arm to take Dexter’s hand.

Dexter sprang back, almost over the balcony wall. ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said.

‘What’s got into you?’

‘Look. I’m concerned, Gordon, about you … The pressure, it’s getting to you.’

‘Balls, man. I’m as fit as a fiddle.’

‘It’s just that–’

‘I’m fine. I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine. Best thing you can do for me, Dex, aside from giving me a straight answer on my popsocks, is to stop fretting and up the ante on the project. You need to find our prophet, or you need to find my son. No more excuses.’

You have been reading an extract from the novel Thirty Things To Do After You Die, by Colton Lazars. Available from existentially astute retailers everywhere.

Continue the story with chapter 15.