Narrative: No one dared // Disturb the sound of silence
WHO: Jack Cavanaugh
WHEN: Somewhere this summer
WHERE: Afghanistan & Wisconsin
She was screaming.
A bomb had gone off by the side of the road, she remembered. Fire, heat and most of all pain. Shrapnel making a thousand little cuts on her face, her hands, some of it even slicing through her protective gear. The car she had been in had toppled over, but she could not quite recall that. Just pain and then… nothing.
And then there was this man, dressed in a tweed suit, looking utterly out of place in the mountains of Afghanistan. She had looked up at him, her vision blurry, while around them soldiers ran about, following barked orders. It did not make sense, none of it made sense. She was outside of the car. Had she been thrown out – had she…?
He kneeled by her side and now she could make out his face. He looked so sad, she realized, but he still could spare a smile for her. “Hi, Sarah.” His voice was low and soothing, like a comforting melody during a wake.
“How…” It seemed as if her voice was ragged, but then she realized the trick of using it again. “How do you know my name?”
“Part of the job,” he said, and despite all the consternation around her, she could hear his voice as clear as glass.
“What – I don’t understand…”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, my dear, but you’re dead.”
Her reaction was a disbelieving chuckle as she sat up. Obviously, she was not dead: she was still there. While she held some notions about what death might entail – in fact, she was sure every soldier in the service had some notions about that – it was not this… this weirdness. “I’m not dead!”
He gave her a resigned, weary smile. “I assure you, you are. And I will show you.”
Jack recognized this. When they were young and died in an accident or incident, they rarely believed they were dead. Why would they? They were invincible. Those who had been sick or old, they often realized it on their own. But the good who died young? They required some evidence.
For Sarah, it was enough to realize that she was no longer a part of this world – she could move through people – and the sight of her own body. The memory of the bomb, of being torn apart… Jack put an arm around her shoulder when she started crying, and she buried her face against the chest of the tall, lanky gentleman. When she had calmed down a little, she asked: “But who are you?”
“I’m a banshee,” he replied. “Due to your Irish heritage, you get one of those to help you cross over.”
“Can you—My boyfriend, I’ve got to tell him…”
Jack shook his head with a compassionate sense of finality. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. It’s against the rules. But I’m sure he knew you loved him.”
“My sister, she just had a baby girl, she…”
“And she will tell your niece all about her brave aunt Sarah when she grows up. But you’re dead, dear. They will mourn you and then, slowly, they will move on, until they move past their grief and are left with fond memories. And perhaps, when it is their time, you will see them again. But if you start leaving messages… If you start haunting them…”
Sarah nodded. She understood, or at least, she thought she did. And then she asked: “And what now?”
“Now you move on to a better place.”
“How do you know?”
Jack grinned knowingly. “Because someone made sure I would be here to help you pass on. Your soul is precious, somebody wanted to preserve it. It’s a bit of a leap of faith, but I think you’ve always been good at those, haven’t you?”
***
Morning in Afghanistan, night in the USA. A quiet, suburban street in Wisconsin. Jack mused that a bigger contrast could not be possible. He sighed, feeling bleary and a little rough around the edges. Jack used to believe that at one point, you would get used to it, that the longer you were a banshee, the easier it would get it. The young ones, the desperate ones, the ones that felt that what they got – one lifetime, nothing more – was not enough. But it never got easy.
He wondered if it should. Maybe the day that he started seeing it as a job, as something that just needed to be done, was the day he would be done. All banshees knew that, one day, they would also move on, but no banshee actually knew what the specifics were.
Mystery. Jack shook his head with a wry grin. In the end, all of life was just one big unknown.