“Correction,” Mr. Whittier says. “The most hated juvenile offender, dude . . .”
“You might recognize that knife,” Agent Tattletale says. His camera next to him, so heavy he can't lift it.
Her parole-officer security bracelet, it's gone. Her hand starved so small, so bony, the bracelet slipped off, Countess Foresight says, “You butchered me with that knife.”
“And slit my nose,” says Mother Nature, tilting her head back to show the scabbed scars. The diamond of Lady Baglady, it rattles so loose on her finger she has to make a fist not to lose it.
And Mr. Whittier looks from her split nose to the Earl of Slander's bloody-bandaged hands to the rind of scar tissue that used to be Reverend Godless's ear. He claps his hands, once, loud, in front of his chest, and says, “Well, the good news is . . . your three months are finished.” He fishes in the front pocket of his trousers and brings out a key, saying, “You're all free to go.”
The lock is still stuffed with a thin shard of plastic fork. No way can you put in a key.
“Last night,” Mr. Whittier says, and he shakes the key in the air, “your friendly ghost picked the lock clean. I assure you, it works fine.”
All of us, we're still sitting in our circle, some of us stuck to the stage boards by our own dried blood. Our clothes, the fabric of our gowns and cassocks and jodhpurs, it glues us to the spot.
Mr. Whittier leans down a little to offer his hand to Miss Sneezy, and he says, “And the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all . . .” Wiggling his fingers for her to take, he says, “Shall we go now?”
And she doesn't take the hand. Miss Sneezy says, “We saw you die . . .”
And Mr. Whittier says, “You've seen a lot of people die.”
The dried-turkey Tetrazzini split his stomach from the inside. He died screaming. We wrapped his dead body in red velvet and carried him to the subbasement.
“Not quite,” Mr. Whittier says. With Mrs. Clark's help, they faked his death so he could watch events run their course. All he did was watch—the last camera—even when Mrs. Clark died, stabbing herself for sympathy—but doing too good a job. Even when Director Denial found the body and ate half a leg. All Mr. Whittier did was watch.
Director Denial lifts her head from her chest. She belches and says, “He's right.”
Again, Mr. Whittier stoops to offer his spotted hand to Miss Sneezy. He says, “I can give you all the love you want. If you can overlook our difference in age.”
Her being twenty-two. Him being thirteen—fourteen next month.
The Earl of Slander says, “You're not going to rescue us. We're staying here until we're found.”
We always do this, Mr. Whittier says. For the same reason our children's children's children's children will always have war and famine and disease. Because we love our pain. We love our drama. But we will never, ever admit that.
Miss Sneezy reaches to take the hand.
And Mother Nature says, “Don't be stupid.” From her pile of rags and hair, she says, “He knows you're infected with that . . . brain virus.” She laughs, her brass bells ringing, and scabs everywhere, and she says, “How can you possibly believe he really loves you?”
Miss Sneezy looks from the Mother to the Saint to Mr. Whittier's hand.
“You have no choice,” Mr. Whittier tells her. “If you need to be loved.”
And Saint Gut-Free says, “He doesn't love you.” The Saint, his face is nothing but teeth and eyes as he says, “Whittier only wants to destroy the rest of the world.”
Still reaching toward Miss Sneezy, Mr. Whittier shakes the key in his other hand, saying, “Shall we go?”
If we can forgive what's been done to us . . .
If we can forgive what we've done to others . . .
If we can leave all of our stories behind. Our being villains or victims.
Only then can we maybe rescue the world.
But we still sit here, waiting to be saved. While we're still victims, hoping to be discovered while we suffer.
Shaking his head, clucking his tongue, Mr. Whittier says, “Would it be so bad? To be the last two people in the world?” His hand slips around, wraps around, tight around Miss Sneezy's limp fingers, and Mr. Whittier says, “Why can't the world end the same way it started?” And he pulls Miss Sneezy to her feet.
Proof
Another Poem About Mr. Whittier
“How would you live?” asks Mr. Whittier.
If you could not die.
Mr. Whittier onstage, he stands straight,
on two feet, not stooped.
Not trembling.
The stereo earphones looped around his neck,
leaking loud drum-and-bass music.
Both feet in tennis shoes, the laces untied and one foot
tapping.
Onstage, instead of a movie fragment, a spotlight,
not a fragment of some old story projected to hide him.
A spotlight shines so hard it erases his wrinkles.
Washes away his age spots.
And, watching him, we were God's children he held hostage, to make God show
Himself.
To force God's hand.
And if we suffered enough, if we died . . . if Whittier could just torture us,
starve us,
maybe we would hate him from even beyond this life.
Hate him so much, we'd come back for revenge.
If we died in enough pain, cursing old Mr. Whittier, then he begged for us to come back.
To haunt him.
To give him proof of a life after death.
Our ghosts, our hate would prove the Death of Death.
Our role, when he finally told us: We were only here to suffer and suffer,
and suffer and suffer,
and suffer and die.
To create just one ghost—fast.
To comfort old, old dying Mr. Whittier—before he died.
That was his real plan.
Leaning over us, he says, “If death meant just leaving the stage long enough
to change costume and come back
as a new character . . .
Would you slow down? Or speed up?
If every life is just a basketball game or a play that
