Finality

Sensitive Themes: Gore, Death, Innuendo.

The first time was the easiest - painless. We had no idea what was coming. I was walking my dog, a beautiful Australian shepherd, blue heeler mix. His name was Alexander, after the emperor, but I called him Ally. I made boats for the war effort and we spent much of our time at the water's edge. He and I were strolling along the fishy harbor of Halifax. I was nearing thirty, and Ally to thirteen. His whiskers had long since turned grey, and his back legs occasionally slipped out from under him.

We could smell the salt air, the pulp of a nearby mill, fires burning in homes, stews brewing, and breads baking in the taverns. The bustle of an early morning upon a briny cove. Ally’s head snapped to the right, a second later I could hear the crackle and snap of fire as well. Then, we were incinerated.

It was the second time that was the most confusing. I was shorter, sprier, skipping on my way to school for which I was late. Adorned in a blue dress, with a matching ribbon in my hair. I could smell those same odors of morning. My school was in sight. I could see Stanley peaking his head out of the door for me. My eyes were better and so were my ears. My senses were sharp, and there was no ache in my bones. Where is Ally, I thought, but there was a pull toward the schoolhouse - it's where I was supposed to be.

I ducked into the stout building, slipping my bag off my shoulder. Sneaking into my seat I slipped an apple into my desk compartment. I had missed math, my worst subject. My legs swung, and I smiled to see my teacher, Ms. May grinning back at me despite my tardiness.

“Now children. On your tablets I would like you to write a letter to your mother or father, or perhaps to a relative. Tell them your perspective on the war. Why are we fighting the Germans?”

This time there was no cue. Just a flash of light, then a “BOOM”. We jumped in our seats, our ears beginning to rupture. Ms. May pounced toward the window. “Keep back!” she shouted at us, wide-eyed with confusion. The glass wall of the window shattered into a million shining pieces drilling into Ms. May’s face. She was blasted into the desks, and laid there like a broken marionette with its strings cut, wood splintered, her head and face already welling with blood. The screaming began, and someone grabbed my hand ripping me out the door and into the street. The dizziness abated, and my hearing returned. It was Stanley, he was pulling me down the road away from the school. To my right smoke was boiling up into the sky. A heavy ‘creak’ sounded. We halted on the cobblestone and a large fiery wall from one of the buildings fell toward us. Stanley urged me forward, but I was too slow. As the wall struck me, my hand was torn from his and the world went dark. I didn’t even feel the fire. Small condolences.

Third was the most terrifying. Waking up, there was a soreness between my legs. My hair was stuck to the salty boards of the boat's hull. The sailor had left, and I remained to clean myself up. He had taken me into his employ late last night. He had been rough, and during the disassociation, I closed my eyes and thought of the high, green hills of Cape Breton where I’d grown. I had fallen asleep after he abandoned me, tossing some flapping bills into the bottom of the little row boat. One of my breasts had fallen out of my dress, and my shoes were loose in the hull. I clutched onto the gunwale of the vessel and hurled over the edge. I splashed some of the salty water into my face, wiping it into the pits of my arms, and under my dress around the start of my thighs. The brine was better than the sweaty stench left by the man.

The screech of metal on metal, I looked up.

The two ships clashed together, and the sparks of friction dancing on the deck. I watched in awe, squinting in a drunken attempt to get them into focus. Then the sun shone. My face alight, I dove back into the boat. Flame and hell exploded out of the harbor at me. Ships were launched into the sky, splinters and shrapnel raining down. A gigantic wave erupted in my direction. My little boat soared into the sky before being tossed and tumbled into the undulating water of the harbor. I was thrown, and for a brief moment I could see the paper money floating in the air as I plunged into the depths of the harbor. I couldn’t swim, or at least this body couldn’t. I feel like I could have in my first life, but now which was first?

My frilled dress absorbed the sea water like a sponge. The drag of the fabrics ripping me downward. The necklace gifted by a lover now choked my throat as if it were leaden garrote. I counted four large, undulating bubbles as they were expelled from my mouth. The light of the fire and explosion faded and so did I.

Fourth was fast. Tending an early morning fire on the banks of Tufts Cove, I could see the light of morning casting long shadows around me. The heat of the sun bathing my back - I ceased to exist. Vaporized.

Fifth was the longest. Waking up this time was hard. My bones were frail, and my back ached with the weight of age. Running my fingers around the crusty buildup around my eye sockets I attempted to stretch myself - stretch through the cold of morning, and through the pain of aged consciousness.

Looking to the east through my salt stained window, gulls sounded round the Narrows, a shrill and obnoxious morning alarm.

Slipping myself out of my night shirt, I reached for the matching night cap tilted upon my crown, itching fiercely. Would there be one instance where I woke comfortably? Lighting a candle, I called to a servant whose name I cannot recall. A proper young man entered the space and helped me stand. My knees cracked, and popped. I crinkled my toes into my slippers. My arms, fingers, and back snapped with the constant cadence of breaking wood.

Couldn’t hear a thing, but my aide could, and he shot toward the window, nearly knocking me over. "Steady on!" I croaked.

The wall erupted. Splinters sprayed like split shot, smashing into the wall behind me. Blasting the shades, candles, and the mirror that adorned my vanity. My aide was somewhere screaming, wailing for the embrace of his mother. I was sitting. Had I sat? I couldn't remember. Looking down, I saw the culprit. A thick oaken thorn protruded from my belly.

I knew from my time in the army that I should leave it, but already my palate was metallic, so I pulled it free. The iron flavor bubbled up from my throat, and with the realization came the pain. Falling to the floor - alone, trembling, shaking on my side. My insect thin limbs unable to hold me in any way. It was now just a matter of time.

Passing out from the pain, I dreamed of my childhood sweetheart. I met her as she played with a stick and hoop in the streets of Lunenburg. I was ten, she eleven. She had orange cream colored hair, and dark chocolate eyes. Her name was Edith, I chased her, followed her through life. Our childhood - sneaking looks at one another in the schoolhouse. Marrying her on the rocky outcropping that jutted into the Atlantic. Our children, young, then grown, the loss of one son at Vimy Ridge. Edith couldn’t remember his name, or anyone’s by that point, and she passed soon after. I was alone now. Bleeding on the floor.

The heat of the fire cackled some sick joke, the screams and shouts of the street echoing up to me. The sun attempting to touch my face through the pillar of black and grey smoke - I saw light behind that veil.

The last life was mine, actually mine. This is where I was, who I am. I woke to the sounds of sirens. I had survived the blast. Hoping somewhere Stanley was safe, knowing Ally was gone. The man who helped me from the bed, my aged wife… All of them now figments, images I couldn’t quite get into focus. Bernard was my name. My hair was shaggy, spilling into view in front of my eyes. I was filled with muscle and fraught with sinew, a lifetime odd jobs and homelessness. My left ear was no good from a beating I’d received in the foster home as a youth. My heart didn’t beat quite right, and because of it I was denied from joining my friends in Europe. Some called me a dodger. My brothers would either come home in a proud procession or in a pine box, and how I envied them that chance - to make something of my sad existence.

Instead, I was here.

I donned my clothes, what little I had. A dirty button up, mired with muck and mud. Flat cap which kept my lice-ridden mane in check. My jacket, which also served as a blanket, tent, and sheet when I performed tricks for loose change.

Many folks about the roads wept, digging into the rubble and refuse, searching for their loved ones. In that road laid a blasted truck of potatoes. Already it was being raided from one side, while others picked up the emptied bags, filling them with items of the dead.

Upon a pile of boxes an organizer stood tall and handsome. “Find who you can! Put what you can of theirs in a bag, and fill out the tag. Here is a pencil, try your best. The Germans will not win this day!”

I stood in the line, grabbed a number of bags and walked into the street. Had what I’d seen been real? How could it? Had I died all those times for others? Why would I be left?

The first spot I could see was the old man’s. I found the view out of the window. I watched his body pulled out, ivory eyes watching me as two women moved on a stretcher over the debris. Whether he knew it or not, he wasn’t alone when he died. I was there with him.

Circling the harbor I could see the spot where I had stood with Ally. Two black splotches upon the walk marked where we had been together.

Continuing south I found the washed up boat the lady had rode. She had washed up too. Her dirt blonde hair sweeping in the waves like rotten kelp. I dove toward her, flipping her. I had smelled death before on the streets - this was different - the pungent fumes of a body swelled but not quite yet gone to bloat. I searched her for an identification, I found none.

Woman. Nearly two yards. Beautiful.

Drowned.

Items: Pendant, brass ring, and bible.

I looked across the narrows to Tufts Cove, the damage evidenced by a swath of the forest which had either been knocked down, or burned. The little schoolhouse now just a singular wall.

Turning back into town I found the young girl's school. Down the street I had run with my friend Stanley were a number of men. They were bending and breaking their backs to lift a gargantuan length of a wooden wall which had been extinguished by the rain of harbor water as it returned from the atmosphere. Taking my spot among them, I dug my fingers into the stone and dirt, right where they'd always belonged. I heaved - first with worry, then with frustration, and finally with sorrow as I saw her.

Beneath that burning wall she laid. A blackened body contorted in a sickening sprawl. Someone started writing out her card. “May I?” tears streaming down my freckled cheeks, “I knew her.” and the stranger stepped aside.

Girl from Primary School. Student of Ms. May.

3.5 Feet. Hated math. Ran from school when it was hit.

Burned to Death/Crushed.

Friend of Stanley.

It was discovered soon after that two ships had collided in the harbor, sparking cargo bound for the war effort. All those people hurt. Those lives lost… Did I live them all?

A mere accident killed those people, and all of them better beings than I, and for them I wept.