The cameras whirred. The birds twittered. The refrigerated trucks rolled up to the edge of the band shell, and the man at the podium smiled.
'I supported the courageous decision of our brave leaders,' he said. His voice was less quiet now. 'There was only one way to respond to this devastating grief, this hideous loss, this violation of all that we hold dear and sacred. This was the principled stance taken by millions of people in our great nation. But certain others among us, among you'—here he glared at the person who had waved the second sign—'have claimed that this makes me unworthy to continue to hold office, unworthy to continue to be your leader. If that is true, then many of the leaders of this country are also unworthy.'
His voice had risen to something like a crescendo. The woman standing next to the man who had waved the second sign cupped her hands around her mouth and called out cheerfully, 'No argument there, boss!' A few people laughed; a few people booed; the cameras whirred. The man at the podium glared, and spoke again, now not quietly at all.
'But it is
'Must be ready to send innocent young people to kill other innocent young people,' the same woman called back. The booing was louder now. The man at the podium smiled, grimly.
'Let us remember who is truly innocent. Let us remember who was truly innocent four months ago. If they could speak to us, what would they say? Well, you are about to find out. I have brought them here today, our beloved dead, to speak to us, to tell us what they would have us do.'
He gave a signal. The truck doors were opened. The corpses shambled out, blinking in the glorious sunshine, gaping at trees and flowers and folding chairs and whirring cameras. The crowd gave a gratifying gasp, and several people began to sob. Others began to retch. Additional aides in the audience, well prepared for all eventualities, began handing out packets of tissues and barf bags, both imprinted with campaign slogans.
Rusty Kerfuffle, doggedly ignoring the trees and flowers and folding chairs and cameras, doggedly ignoring the knowledge that his beloved paperweight was in his pocket, moved toward the podium, dragging the unwanted corpses with him. In the van, he had accomplished the very difficult task of removing certain items of clothing from other corpses and outfitting these two, so maybe the man with the quiet voice wouldn't realize what he was doing and try to stop him. At least for the moment, it seemed to be working.
The man with the quiet voice was saying something about love and loss and outrage. His aides were trying to corral wandering corpses. More people in the audience were retching. Rusty, holding an unwanted corpse's hand in each of his—the three of them like small children crossing a street together—squinted his eyes almost shut, so he wouldn't see all the distracting things around him. Stay focused, Rusty. Get to the podium.
He got to the podium. Three steps up and he was on the podium, the unwanted corpses beside him. The man with the quiet voice turned and smiled at him. 'And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Rusty Kerfuffle, the heroic husband of Linda Kerfuffle, whom you've all seen on television. Linda, are you here?'
'Darling!' gasped a woman in the crowd. She ran toward the podium but was overtaken by retching halfway there. Rusty wondered how much she was being paid.
An aide patted Linda on the back and handed her a barf bag. The aide on the platform murmured 'public- relations disaster' too softly for the microphones. The quiet man coughed and cleared his throat and poked Rusty in the back.
Rusty understood that this was his cue to do something. 'Hi, Linda,' said Rusty. He couldn't tell if the microphones had picked that up, so he waved. Linda waved back, took a few steps closer to the podium, and was overcome with retching again.
The aide on the platform groaned, and the man with the quiet voice forged grimly ahead. 'I have brought back Rusty and these other brave citizens and patriots, your lost loved ones, to tell you how important it is to fight evil, to tell you about the waste and horror of their deaths, to implore you to do the right thing, since some of you have become misled by propaganda.'
Rusty had just caught a glimpse of a butterfly, and it took every ounce of his will not to turn to run after it, to walk up to the microphone instead. But he did his duty. He walked up to the microphone, pulling his two companions.
'Hi,' he said. 'I'm Rusty. Wait, you know that.'
The crowd stared at him, some still retching. Linda was wiping her mouth. Some people were walking away. 'Wait,' Rusty called after them. 'It's really important. It really is.' A few stopped and turned, standing with their arms folded; others kept walking. Rusty had to say something to make them stop. 'Wait,' he said. 'This guy's wrong. I wasn't brave. I wasn't patriotic. I cheated on my wife. Linda, I cheated on you, but I think you knew that. I think you were cheating on me too. It's okay; it doesn't matter now. I cheated on other stuff too. I cheated on my taxes. I was guilty of insider trading. I was a morally bankrupt shithead.' He pointed at the man with the quiet voice. 'That's his phrase, not mine, but it fits.' There: now he couldn't be blackmailed.
Most of the people who'd been walking away had stopped now: good. The man with the quiet voice was hissing. 'Rusty, what are you doing?'
'I'm doing what he wants me to do,' Rusty said into the microphone. 'I'm, what was that word, imploring you to do the right thing.'
He stopped, out of words, and concentrated very hard on what he was going to say next. He caught a flash of purple out of the corner of his left eye. Was that another butterfly? He turned. No: it was a splendid purple bandana. The aide on the platform was waving it at Rusty. Rusty's heart melted. He fell in love with the bandana. The bandana was the most exquisite thing he had ever seen. Who wouldn't covet the bandana? And indeed, one of his companions, the one on the left, was snatching at it.
Rusty took a step toward the bandana and then forced himself to stop. No. The aide was trying to distract him. The aide was cheating. The bandana was a trick. Rusty still had his paperweight. He didn't need the bandana.
Heartsick, nearly sobbing, Rusty turned back to the podium, dragging the other corpse with him. The other corpse whimpered, but Rusty prevailed. He knew that this was very important. It was as important as the paperweight in his pocket. He could no longer remember why, but he remembered that he had known once.
'Darling!' Linda said, running toward him. 'Darling! I forgive you! I love you! Dear Rusty!'
She was wearing a shiny barrette. She never wore barrettes. It was another trick. Rusty began to tremble. 'Linda,' he said into the microphone. 'Shut up. Shut up and go away, Linda. I have to say something.'
Rusty's other companion, the one on his right, let out a small squeal and tried to lurch toward Linda, towards the barrette. 'No,' Rusty said, keeping desperate hold. 'You stay here. Linda, take that shiny thing off! Hide it, Linda!'
'Darling!' she said, and the right-hand corpse broke away from Rusty and hopped off the podium, toward Linda. Linda screamed and ran, the corpse trotting after her. Rusty sighed; the aide groaned again; the quiet man cursed, softly.
'Okay,' Rusty said, 'so here's what I have to tell you.' Some of the people in the crowd who'd turned to watch Linda and her pursuer turned back toward Rusty now, but others didn't. Well, he couldn't do anything about that. He had to say this thing. He could remember what he had to say, but he couldn't remember why. That was all right. He'd say it, and then maybe he'd remember.
'What I have to tell you is, dying hurts,' Rusty said. The crowd murmured. 'Dying hurts a lot. It hurts— everybody hurts.' Rusty struggled to remember why this mattered. He dimly remembered dying, remembered other people dying around him. 'It hurts everybody. It makes everybody the same. This guy, and that other one who ran away, they hurt too. This is Ari. That was Ahmed. They were the ones who planted the bomb. They didn't get out in time. They died too.' Gasps, some louder murmurs, louder cursing from the man with the quiet voice. Rusty definitely had everyone's attention now.
He prodded Ari. 'It hurt,' Ari said.
'And?' said Rusty.
'We're sorry,' said Ari.
'Ahmed's sorry too,' said Rusty. 'He told me. He'd have told you, if he weren't chasing Linda's shiny hair thing.'
'If we'd known, we wouldn't have done it,' Ari said.
'Because?' Rusty said patiently.
