‘What?’ said James.
‘I’m one of the dumb ones,’ said Allan, ‘one of those assholes who doesn’t believe in ghosts because I’m not special enough to commune with them. But then again I don’t try enough, maybe. Where’s your Ouija board, James? Time for some necromancy.’
‘Man, I don’t believe in free-floating spirits. I do, however, believe that sometimes the spirit of one person inhabits the body of another person, like after death, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Allan.
I lit a cigarette and snapped the match toward the ground from the dock but it went out and took off in the wind.
‘If after you die you come back as a ghost, I want to die,’ said Allan.
‘Psssst,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be dead soon enough.’
‘But what’s so crazy about that?’ said James.
‘Transmigration of souls,’ said Allan.
‘Yes, I think,’ said James.
‘You’re having metempsychotic fantasies, James,’ said Allan. ‘Traits are passed on, obviously, through genetics and so on, but not actual souls. This idea of a soul is a byproduct of consciousness.’
‘I don’t follow,’ said James. ‘Didn’t realize you’ve been eating dictionaries for dinner. But I do believe that people are reincarnated, so to speak.’
‘No,’ said Allan.
‘How do you know?’ I said.
‘Because,’ said Allan. ‘Everything’s probably happening at once, or in a blip, anyway,’ he said, ‘so how could souls, then, keep coming back, over and over again, when the entirety of human existence has happened in a flash already? History repeats itself but we don’t!’
‘Whoa, what?’ said James.
‘I think I sort of followed,’ I said, inhaling smoke, thinking, though not very clearly, looking up at the sky, at the moon and the clouds.
‘But you don’t believe in ghosts?’ said James.
‘Neither do you, you said,’ I said.
‘I don’t,’ he said.
‘You do,’ said Allan.
‘I want to know what Al means when he says that it’s all already happened, like humanity,’ said James.
‘I don’t know,’ said Allan. ‘It’s sort of like we know it but can’t admit it till it unfolds, as it unfolds. It’s all already happened — Nero, Napoleon, now us — it’s a lightning flash, never to return.’
‘Well, that’s quite interesting,’ said James. ‘Still, you don’t believe in spooks.’
‘So it’s all happened already but it’s all happening, too, and it’s disappearing,’ I said.
‘I guess,’ said Allan. ‘It’s a trace that’s fading out.’
‘So Fate’s sealed?’ I said.
‘In a sense yes and in a sense no,’ said Allan. ‘It’s going to go down but you have to play your part.’
‘So that’s my agency,’ I said.
‘I guess,’ said Allan, lighting a cigarette. He started coughing as soon as he took the first drag, then said, ‘A ghost’s your future. And your present, too, I guess, in the sense that there’s a present. And your past’s certainly a ghost there below, obviously. You’re your own ghost, always and forever.’
‘Till you’re not,’ I said.
‘Well, you’re still a ghost — just one of a more etheric variety, a collection of egoless molecules amongst and now indecipherable from other molecules in, like, the great white ocean of oblivion.’
‘Why white?’ I said.
‘I don’t know — black or white,’ said Allan. ‘It’s just the way I picture it. But there’s a lot of muck on the road to there.’ He was worked up and his voice was hoarse and he peered through the window into the mill and it looked like a puff of his breath hit the windowpane, briefly clouding it with hoarfrost, though as quickly as the icy cobwebs formed their complex crystalline patterns, they receded and vanished. ‘It’s freezing,’ he said, shivering. ‘Let’s go inside.’
We went in the office and sat in chairs and sipped some more whisky, while talking more about ghosts and other things.
‘Ghosts are an invention of man,’ said Allan.
‘Okay, okay,’ said James. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’
‘So who turned out the light?’ said Allan.
‘I sincerely don’t know,’ said James.
‘That’s a good answer,’ I said. ‘Time to leave him alone, Al. You bully people.’
‘I bully people!’ he said incredulously, sneering, adding, ‘That’s outrageous.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Outrageous.’
‘All I was saying, before you rudely interrupted me — ’
‘I didn’t interrupt you.’
‘ — was that ghosts are a creation of man, like God is a creation of man — and/or gods, plural. Man’s become a slave to his inventions before, you know — look at humankind’s relationship to God, obviously, for example. And we’ll become slaves to our computers, too — it’s already happening, right? Anyway, James is a slave to the idea of apparitions, I think, who turn off office lights.’
‘Okay, man, enough,’ said James. ‘I must’ve shut off the light. Are you happy now?’
‘Yes,’ said Allan.
‘Good.’
‘I’ve been happy all along,’ he said.
The conversation eventually lulled and we dozed off from time to time. I couldn’t really sleep well in the chair and I kept coming to and looking out the office window and then fading off again. Toward dawn, the mill parking lot filled with fog and the Riviera couldn’t be made out, though the odd goose would pierce through the fog, craning its neck, hissing in the fog, all neck like a screaming white serpent save the tips of its wings, the tips of its spread wings that could be made out vaguely — a screaming winged serpent submerged in fuming smoke, scorched white.
STANDING IN FRONT OF THE KAZAN CATHEDRAL: ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, 2005
Tears began to form in his eyes while, thinking of his mother and brothers and father and sisters and friends and girlfriend, as he stood in front of the Kazan Cathedral, staring at its gold cross penetrating the blue sky, an artificial-looking sky, like a Technicolor movie sky, and the gold twinkling in the omnipresent sun, he dreamed of a video camera recording him, men in masks and a knife to his throat, all of these things he thought of while tears formed and he thought about what he’d say, what he’d do, in the last few minutes before these men, these men he had nothing to do with, decided to chop off his head, like they’d done to others, while staring at the spire shining in the bright sun, and tears were growing larger and starting to leak out of the corners of his eyes, but he’d be brave, he decided, not begging but smiling, smiling into the camera, and he’d say that he loved his mother and his brothers and his father and his sisters and his friends and girlfriend very much, especially his girlfriend, who was his favourite person that he’d ever met while living, and that he was grateful to her, perhaps, but that would sound lame so maybe he’d just tell everyone that he loved them all, keep it simple, not waste words, and be brave right before the men with the black balaclavas cut off his head and it fell to the dusty ground of some cave, though maybe he’d say something about his captors, too, like they were just fools so the world should forgive them, something Christlike and understanding, something full of infinite love, since he wouldn’t have to make good on that love but rather he’d just die and be done with it so he could afford to say something special and sweet for the world to remember his boundless benevolence by and he hoped that people would miss him, miss him so much, and he thought about Tom Sawyer and going to one’s own funeral and he wondered what people would say, if they’d express anger over his terrorist kidnappers or if they’d talk about what could’ve been, the potential he wouldn’t have to make good on but would nevertheless be remembered for because he’d had his head chopped off by terrorists in some remote locale, as a result of some conflict he had nothing to do with, and the clouds moved fast past the Kazan Cathedral in the big blue northern sky, and he started to cry a little more as he pictured his brothers hugging his mother, his girlfriend sedated with pills, everyone dressed in black, and his father silent as stone as his friends smoked cigarettes, not knowing what to say to one another, simply shaking their heads in disbelief, and he started shaking, thinking of all the people he loved mourning him and missing him and they wouldn’t be able to forget about him because he was killed by terrorists so he’d have scholarships named after him and maybe a day named after him, too, or a street or something, or a statue like Field Marshal Kutuzov, in his hometown and then he said, This is ridiculous and narcissistic, and his thoughts started to calm down.