Lost Souls

The man in the suit wasn’t okay. He was by all means, not okay. And he wasn’t going to pretend that he was. He had been shifting between the worlds far too much. He could feel it in his very bones, the sense that what he was doing was very much wrong. What he was doing couldn’t be possible. It shouldn’t be possible. He slouched against the damp wall of the alley, his dark coat and tie blending in with the inky passageway. He was tired. Traveling between worlds took everything out of him, everything he offered even what he didn’t. Now, he waited. Soon, the doorway between the worlds would open. Then, the pain that he felt wouldn’t matter anymore. He would achieve his goal, no matter the cost. He would find himself again. 

Several moments later, a creaky door opened. Behind it, a small figure appeared. For a second, the figure tried to step out onto the sidewalk. Something was pulling him back, preventing him from reaching far enough beyond the extent of the doorway. The figure sighed. It looked like it was once human, but had spent too many years in the sun and had shriveled up like a leaf in the fall. The man in the suit would never admit it, but it pleased him to see this figure. “ Sneed,” the man in the suit said confidently, attempting to cover the growing smile that appeared on his face. Sneed only grunted in response, his ugly, misshapen potato - sized lump of a nose twitching, the only indication that Sneed wasn’t a lump of a statue. Sneed widened the door, turning away from the man in the suit. The man took this as an invitation to go in.

He entered through the arched doorway, the seemingly transparent entrance rippling like a pool of water as he walked through it. From a close distance, the entryway looked as if it opened up to a home, albeit shabby. The home was simple, an umbrella stand on the right side of the door and a coat rack on the other. A single pair of shoes were propped up on the wall. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

Suddenly, the scenery changed. Instead of being indoors, he was suddenly outside again. He looked upon a lush forest. No, a jungle. Forest is a word used to describe greenery that he would’ve seen back in England. Perhaps, the countryside. This was something else entirely. It was not teeming with life, it was life itself. A living, breathing entity. The air smelled unlike anything he had ever smelled before, like the petrichor of an afternoon mingling with the scent of jasmine. It was intoxicating. Everywhere he looked, he saw flowers. Some were small and shy, barely peeking out of their petals. Others were lithe, sneaking around trees and on the cloven ground. Looking around with wonder, he almost forgot to follow Sneed.

 Only his heavy footsteps gave him away, carrying a basket that he filled with flowers. The basket was almost as large as he was. But then again, Sneed wasn’t that large himself. He stopped in front of a tree. He picked a flower, orange in color. Sneed sniffed it, then put it in his basket. They continued walking in silence, the man in the suit knowing far too well than to ask questions. They suddenly passed upon an especially large evergreen, which looked almost out of place to all the other trees in the jungle. In the trunk, the words ‘to sọnu ọkàn’ were carved in a jagged script.” What does that mean? ” the man in the suit pointed to the writing. “ I don’t know,” Sneed grumbled thoughtfully. “ It has always been here. ” he said sagely. There was a skinny vine hanging from the tree, looking as though it could snap off the tree at any given moment. Sneed looked at him expectantly. “ Well? ” he questioned, looking almost baffled at the stupidity of the man in the suit. The man in the suit looked at him, unsure of what he would do, but almost certain that this was a test. 

He walked around the tree, looking at the vine as though it was his nemesis. The man in the suit removed his jacket, folding it and putting it gently on the ground as though it was a baby. He rolled up his sleeves and reached out hesitantly, tugging the vine. With his hand still on the vine, he shot up, the vine retracting faster than a snake lunging for its prey, with him still holding it. Just as fast as the rope had reversed itself, it suddenly stopped. 

He now saw that the vine was hanging from the highest branch on the tree, tied in an intricate knot with the dexterity of a sailor. Still hanging on the vine, a single arm holding the creeper and the other on the railing, He scrutinized the scene in front of him. It was a house, of sorts. But when the man in the suit thought of a house, he thought of a small, boxy building with a small front porch and fencing, shutters on the windows that were artificial and could never be opened or closed anyways because they weren’t real. They served no purpose. That wasn’t what this was. 

There was a moutheaten couch that was once home to a multicolored design of stripes, but now was faded and peppered with holes. A ratty blue blanket was carefully folded and layed on top of the stained couch, clearly there to serve as a form of decoration rather than comfort. No one in their right minds would actually use the blanket for comfort. Next to the couch there was a table, quite literally standing on its last leg. The thought almost made the man in the suit laugh. However, he didn’t. He sat down on the couch gingerly, careful to avoid the stains of bright blue and orange that lingered not only on the couch, but on the air as well. The man in the suit couldn’t quite pinpoint it, but he was sure that he had smelled it before. 

“ To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? ”, Sneed croaked, his face contorting with every word he managed to get out. The man in the suit could see the effort it took him, but chose to ignore it. “ I’m afraid you won’t have the pleasure of enjoying my company for long,” the man in the suit said. “I must be on my way soon.” But even with those words, he stretched himself out on the couch even more, his lanky figure clearly too large for the weak and flimsy structure. “ It’s quite a life you’ve made for yourself here,” the man in the suit observed, looking Sneed directly in the eyes. If there was any hope for getting exactly what he wanted out of this meeting, the man in the suit knew he had to appeal to the old man’s ego. 

Sneed just grumbled in response, but the man in the suit could tell that it pleased him to hear it. “ I’ve heard, ” the man in the suit started. At that moment, Sneed got up from his perch on the vine, where he was adjusting the knot. He jumped down onto the platform where the couch was, taking his bucket of flowers with him. He flipped the bucket of flowers on to the platform, sat down on the bucket, and began dethorning the flowers. Undeterred, the man in the suit continued. “I’ve heard rumors of things. Places no man has ever ventured before. Places so far away, no ship nor car could ever possibly reach them. Places so fantastical, men and women were monsters and monsters were men and women.” The man in the suit paused, looking at Sneed. Sneed didn’t look up from what he was doing, only silently continuing the preparation of his flowers. “ I’ve heard of places without pain, without sickness, where everything was cured by some sort of plant or flower. Where the oceans were floating high above the sky, the moon a hazy picture glimmering in the water. I’ve heard that the sky was the ground, and creatures simply stood on the clouds.” 

“ You don’t want to see those people or those places,” Sneed choked out spitefully, ripping a flower in the process. “ I’ve seen them. They aren’t worth it.” he spoke softly. 

The man in the suit ignored this and continued. “ But I’ve also heard that these creatures, these monsters who walk on clouds and live in the ocean, these creatures that do all sorts of things. I've heard things about them too.” At that, Sneed looked up. “ What sorts of things have you heard?” The creature asked carelessly, although it was clear from its expression that the answer meant more to him than the man in the suit knew at that moment. The answer would be Sneed’s window into a world that he himself would never see again, no matter how much he longed to. The man in the suit smiled. Finally, the man in the suit had approached his destination. “ I’ve heard that they live among us. That they have families. That they go to clubs and restaurants. They take their sons and their daughters to school and kiss their wives goodnight. They go to carnivals and movies, laughing and smiling, kissing their sweethearts on the cheek. ”

Sneed paused. He closed his eyes for a moment. To the man in the suit, it felt like a millisecond. To Sneed, it was an eternity of contemplation. Sneed was thinking about a life that might’ve once been his, but didn’t belong to him anymore. “ You lie, ” Sneed said. His voice was barely audible over the sound of the jungle, a scratchy whisper that emanated through his home. “ That world fell long ago.” 

“ No, it hasn’t,” the man in the suit whispered. “ It’s still here, and it’s beautiful.” Sneed sat remarkably still, breathing in those words, which lingered in the air just like the scent of that jasmine that Sneed had grown so sick of in his many years in the treehouse. “ Help me get back there,” the man in the suit was silently pleading now. Sneed’s face fell, a sad smile playing out on his ashen lips. “ You can’t go back now.” he uttered. “ You will never go back there now.”

_______________

The world Sneed once knew no longer existed. His universe, which had been endless and knew no bounds, was reduced to ashes. Sneed had nothing left. He was a man scorned by the universe he once loved so much, and who lived because Death wasn’t kind enough to take him. He was trapped here, forever. When he died, his corpse would rot on the couch that he hated so much, and no one would care. Because there was no one left to care. And the man in the suit knew. He knew all of this. He knew because it was starting to happen to him. The man in the suit was losing himself. His identity, even his own name, wasn't his own anymore. It belonged to the worlds that he traveled too. Funnily enough, it was the reason why he went to the other worlds in the first place. He wanted to find what he was missing so much that he lost more of himself in the process.

And the truth, that the man in the suit could never utter out loud was that he would suffer the same fate as Sneed.