1.6 Sunset Boy

     “I got a number on me.” 

The voice stirred The Herald, and he looked up from his melting ice for the first time in three hours. The hot bar was empty, aside from himself and four others. The Roach was cleaning a glass behind the counter, his wooden arms creaking with each movement. The Pilot stood perfectly still in the darkened corner by the jukebox with their dog curled up at their feet. The Sunset Boy was tapping a coin on the table to the tune of Dylan’s Hurricane. The Architect sat closest to The Herald, her head resting on one hand while the other built a village inside a globe.

“I got a number on me.” The Architect repeated. 

“What’s the number?” The Herald responded. He hadn’t spoken for two years straight, but the words slid smoothly from his lips. 

“Thirty-eight. We all got a number.” She responded. “Start with your lovers, then add your regrets, and every time you burned up your inspiration.”

The room went silent for a moment until one by one, the math was done. 

“Twenty-four.” The Pilot said. 

“Fifty-three.” The Roach said. “I’ve burned a lot of inspiration to save this place.” 

“Thirteen.” The Herald said. “Love and I don’t fancy each other.” 

The Sunset Boy stopped tapping the coin and quietly said “Zero.” 

The Pilot’s dog lifted his head and laughed with the cadence of a man. The Pilot shoved him. 

“Zero?” The Architect asked in disbelief. “You ain’t never regretted a thing?” 

“I’ve never done much of anything.” He responded. “I was born at the wall and I do my work.” 

Clouds of steam expelled from the floorboards like ghosts of the old world. The Roach put down the glass and stepped out from behind the counter. The cogs on his back spun endlessly, clicking and scratching and spitting out oil with the grace of a bulldozer. He slumped down in the chair across from The Sunset Boy and stared him down. 

“Tell me what it’s like,” he mumbled in the voice of an earthquake made calm. 

“It’s not like much of anything.” The Sunset Boy said. “It’s a curtain blowing in the wind, and a year without seasons. It’s a pride of lions roaming the Serengeti. It’s an hourglass without sand. I can’t be sure because I’m nothing but whatever this is.” 

The Herald turned away from the two at the table and back to The Architect. 

“So what do you do with the number?” 

The Architect sealed the top of her globe and then shook it with both hands before rolling it across the bar to The Herald. 

“Ain’t nothing to do with it.” She said. “A number is just a number, but it’s on you anyway.” 

The Herald twirled the globe in his hand. The simplest of creations, made with the care of a thousand years. A light in its core bubbled like boiling water and words rotated around the settling village inside. ‘Sun don’t set in here.’ 

The Pilot kicked off of the wall they were leaning against and walked over to the table. Their dog begrudgingly loped along beside them. 

“So, you work at the wall?” they said to the Sunset Boy. “What do ya’ll do over there?” 

The Sunset Boy shrugged. 

“Beats me. I’m given a sack full of baubles that I shatter every day, and I break the wall down just to build it back up. I step across the ruin sometimes before I rebuild it, and there’s a table there. It’s bloody and worn, and I can see the heat of someone’s body next to it, but they’re never there. They are everything that I’ve never seen. If I were to have a regret, it would be building that wall up every night before I can see them.” 

“That’s one then.” The Architect spoke up over her shoulder. “You got a number on you boy.” 

“I suppose so.” The Sunset Boy said. 

The jukebox stuttered and rotated before Cohen’s Avalanche tumbled out of the machine. 

“Why do you do this?” The Herald asked, setting the globe on top of his empty glass. “Make these prisons?” 

“Ain’t a prison.” The Architect said. “It’s the farthest thing from it. Nothing’s good other than what’s in there. They live to live, not to die like us out here. I can get you set up in one if you want. It don’t hurt.” 

She pulled out an empty globe from her cloak and cracked it open like an egg. 

“I don’t live to die.” The Herald said. “I don’t need to be given a world to make something worthwhile.” 

“You don’t sit in the same hole of a place-no offense Roach-for two years straight without saying a word if you’re trying to live,” she said. 

“It’s a hole alright.” The Roach called over from the table. “I made it that way.” 

“I’ve seen enough of what the people out there call living. That’s not living for me. That’s terror.” The Herald said. “No, this is what I’m looking for. Shaky ice and flat air and a rusted corner of time.” 

“Can...can I see that globe?” The Sunset Boy said. “The empty one.” 

“Somebody wants in.” The Architect said as she nudged The Herald in the side before joining the others at the table. “Sure thing kid. It don’t look spacious, but I can make it whatever you want.” 

With the Architect’s permission, the Sunset Boy closed it up and held it tight in his hand like a baseball. He laughed a small laugh. It wasn’t loud, or extraordinary, but the weight of it was striking. Like a drop of water in a well. 

“These are the baubles,” he said. “This is what the bag they give me every day is full of. I break these on the wall like water balloons.” 

“How can that be!?” The Architect exclaimed. “Those are not baubles, those are my worlds!”  

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.” The Sunset Boy said. “But your worlds are cannon fodder.” 

The Roach grunted.

“In that case, maybe I’ll rent out one of those things. Get the kid here to smash my life to bits.” 

The Architect slumped down at the table as the foundation of her work cracked beneath her. The Pilot’s dog walked over and nudged her hand atop his head. The Herald swung his barstool around to face the table. 

“Hey kid.” he pushed back the silence that had so nearly returned to them all. “When you break that wall down and step over into the ruins, what do you see? I mean aside from the table and the heat and whatever else it was that you said.”

“It’s funny you should ask. I’ve seen you before. It can’t be you, of course, but it sure does look like you. There’s a golden rope tied tight around your waist, and you're always flanked by silhouettes, taller than any men I’ve ever known.”

The Herald stood and walked over to the table. All of them now were gathered around the boy like moths, fluttering anxiously in their own ways. 

“What...what is it that I do...or he does...when you see him?” The Herald asked. He felt a fear swelling inside of him, but he didn’t know why. 

“Nothing at first.” The boy said, enjoying the attention. “He just stands and waits. Then one of the silhouettes hands him a pickaxe. He swings it wildly with a passion I could only dare to imagine, but there’s nothing there for him to strike. The stone, the rubble, all of it simply melts away as he draws near. Quickly he begins to cry out and howl in frustration. Sometimes he burns out quickly, and other times he continues longer than I can afford to watch, or longer than I want to. It’s painful and desperate, and I feel an overwhelming sadness for him. Only once did I watch his fit through to the end. He shriveled to a thin version of himself and collapsed. The two silhouettes moved forward and dragged him back into the mist that surrounded the old ruins. His body was limp, but the golden rope around his waist resonated and a noise echoed out of it. I’ll never forget it. It plucked along slowly at first, like a heartbeat, and then began to quiver. A bell chimed, dissonantly for a moment, and then fell in tune with the beating. Soon it was raucous and loud, crashing down upon me with such force that I had to brace myself. Like the man, it was desperate and hungry, but insatiable. As the silhouettes reached the mist and dragged the man within, the sound died off as quickly as it had escalated.”

The jukebox stuttered again as Cohen’s Avalanche gave way to The Partisan. His voice was strained with the weight of another’s words, but he carried them well. The Herald stared straight at the Sunset Boy but said nothing. The Architect carefully picked at one of their baubles, continuing to build despite knowing it would be destroyed. The Roach absentmindedly wiped a rag back and forth along the table, cleaning the same spot. The Pilot remained standing with their arms folded, waiting for a reason to go. The Sunset Boy began to tap his coin once more, wondering how high his number would be in the end. The Herald closed his eyes and leaned his head back, letting the music wash over him. Beneath the music, silence returned to the rusted corner of time.