Funnybones

  Manuel Calavera adjusted his tie nervously, feeling the smoothness of silky material. How a dead person, a skeleton nonetheless, could feel a semblance of anything that came with nerves and skin, he never knew, but the heat crawling up his face was as real and intense as it could get. He even thought he was sweating. What was it, some sort of phantom pain or ghostly haunting of what it was like to be, long ago, in the Land of the Living? Maybe it was a curse that came with the purgatory. Or some sort of act of grace from a merciful God.

This prattled uselessly in his mind as he faced the music, albeit in the very unmusical tones of his furious boss. These random musings came like delirium from a fever, anything to distract from the those emotions rising from the pit of his...stomach. Ah, there's another unexplainable sensation to add to the list. ...Maybe it was the breakfast he had this morning. What was it again...? Was it in the coffee he drank? He usually didn't put cream in it, but out on a rare whim he indulged in a spoonful. Maybe it had gone bad, maybe all the idiocy he had committed today could be blamed on a bad cup of coffee addling his brain. With the caffeine and all, and the coffee maker always worked kind of crappy anyway...

Oh, yes, he forgot. He technically didn't have one.

  "She left about fifteen minutes ago, sir. She said she had a long walk ahead of her and she wanted to get started."

Walking all the way on foot...and in those heels...getting her slender legs broken tripping on the twisting roots of the Petrified Forest...not to mention the freaky flying bats...and...Ay caramba, he almost forgot the fire beavers! How in the heck would she get past those horrid monstruos alone?

Alone.

  "That woman was a SAINT and a shoo-in for a Double-N ticket that's she's not gonna get because YOU-!"

But that WAS the best package he could find for her! He could stake that on his death that that was the only option on the stupid list. He had been completely stumped. He even grilled her to the point even she, as a saint, got annoyed. Her, a pure, unadulterated woman who had no deceptive bone in her body that he could see. And he was a pretty good judge of character, that he could boast. Not one deceptive look on her face, not one blemish on her gentle soul. She was the very description of a beautiful saint.

A saint.

"...just couldn't find it! And now, because of your stunt, she's out there..."

...He was starting to believe he probably didn't have a brain at all at this point, ghostly or otherwise. Maybe if his head would stop rambling he could better pay attention to stifling the horrible nausea. And, oh yeah, also to Copal. Couldn't do the stifling part with that option, unfortunately.

"On her own...!"

By herself...

"Walking by herself through the Petrified Forest..."

With the demon beavers...

"Facing the demons of the Underworld alone and unprotected...!"

Ay chihuahua.

The nausea rose and he could just feel the sweat on his brow. He rubbed the back of his head, he just felt so hot.

He remembered her soft voice as she patiently answered his questions, and the righteous fire in her tone as she answered his...somewhat silly ones  about whether she really didn't commit something horrible in her life. There had also been a hint of humor in there, a spicy sarcasm, a whiplash wit.

"THIS is her reward, after a lifetime of hardship and public service?!"

He wiped his brow, for some reason feeling a panicked pulse where his heart would've been, over where his scythe was kept. Thump thump. He could hear it where his ears would've been. He felt it all. He felt it all. It was like he was on fire. What was she feeling right now?  Was she in agony too? This just made his ghost of a heart feel even more like it was being squeezed. He had no lungs, so why did he feel like he couldn't breathe?! If only he really had a heart, so he could whip out his scythe and pull it, and the infernal beating, out!

"...Her destiny stolen by some overreaching salesman looking for a fat commission he didn't deserve!!!"

He found he couldn't even look at Copal--even him, of all people--straight in the face. He stared at the floor, wishing his eyes could truly bore a hole through it, which he dive into and escape, wishing he could just fall apart like the shambling skeleton he was and rest in pieces, wish he could see Meche's face somewhere there, so he could look at her soft face again and and know that she was all right.

He could feel Domino looking down at him with a satisfied grin on his face. He just knew he was. Grinning with such a saccharine smile, faking pity that couldn't even fool Copal.

  "Manny, now I'm embarrassed for you."

He knew what he was feeling, as he stood there, paralyzed.

He felt ashamed.

Greatly, overwhelmingly, nothing like he had ever felt before---total, complete shame. It felt like he was dying all over again. Only this time, he had no afterlife to escape to.

His mind finally stopped rambling, dying too, as the guilt washed over him and focused into a suffocating, heavy weight in his empty heart chamber.

He looked up at his boss' face, which was as hard as a stone wall in fury. Yet, his face was not the one that he saw.

Meche.

"Please forgive me, Meche..."