Hereafter

Hereafter: Part III The Soul Stitchers, Chapter 46

46

KOWING NOT TO KEEP YELRAM waiting, that is if he wanted to keep breathing on a regular basis, the vendor marked stopping at Csrezenebe Clothiers as the first thing on his morning to-do-or-else list. Unable to sleep the night before, he knew this wasn’t going to be straight forward. Egoor had his own muscle—the crew of thugs who would do literally anything he ordered. Either way, the outcome of this meeting was not likely to turn out well for him.

Several days had gone by, one blending into the next like butter on hot bread as I labored hour after hour, pocket after pocket, turning out garments for my taskmasters. My only solace was the overwhelming comfort of remaining connected to Autumn’s precious soul—an oasis of peace radiating the very majesty of God’s essence. 

The night before the vendor’s meeting with Egoor, Antonio took the opportunity to slip away from Yelram’s soul and transport to the factory so we could talk. I was still sleeping when he arrived.

Not really wanting to wake Autumn, Antonio sent my soul a spiritual text message that alerted me to his presence.

Autumn . . . I mean Fallon . . . wake up I need to talk to you.

Like a buzzing cell phone, my soul sputtered to life. Separated from Autumn I was soon standing in front of him in my clone form, identical to her in every way except that my soul was whole and in control.

“Antonio, it’s you, right? So this must be Bocaj Yelram. I’ll have to get used to seeing you this way,” I teased, given that his clone was middle-aged, gray, hair thinning, short in stature—not at all the devastatingly handsome young man who always turned my insides molten whenever I was close enough to gaze into his magnetic indigo Mediterranean eyes.

“Well, this is the new me for awhile and there’s not much I can do about it. It’s hard for me to look at you as well. I mean you’re cute as a stuffed bunny’s button nose despite the grime and grim everything else, but all this just can’t go on. Hey, we’re making progress. Let me tell you what’s going to happen in the morning,” Antonio said, beaming with both hope and pride.

“In the morning—I know where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing,” I teased, trying to lighten his dark mood all while looking down to my shackles and rattling my chains like the Charles Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past.

“Yeah . . . yeah . . . I get it, but seriously, it took a nudge but Mr. Bocaj has his Wall-Street greed feed bag on and he’s ordered Egoor’s vendor to jack the prices up. He’ll be here in the morning to do just that. So, to save money it might not be long before you see Egoor walking the aisles instead of your current supervisor!”

“Yep, I’d say that’s real progress for sure!” I replied supportively.

Just then the doors to our floor opened and the four thugs that kidnapped me quietly came in, one with a flashlight, the others carrying a large, thick plastic bag with a zipper along its entire length.

ONE OF THE SHOP GIRLS HAD passed out during the last shift, was callously shoved into her stall without being given any medical attention, and subsequently died before the supervisor left. She alerted Egoor and he made the arrangements to whisk her away in the middle of the night without any fanfare, also without notifying the authorities.

This wasn’t the first time, so the crew knew just what to do. The flashlight made sure most of the girls would sleep right through the entire grizzly affair. Her shackles were removed quietly and her body slipped into the bag along with all of the other items in her pod. Just in case there were some germs that might spread through the floor, the space was disinfected with bleach. The dastardly deed done, they each took a hold of the heavy sack and carried her off, down the back steps, tossing her like a tuna into the back of the waiting idling truck.