The Link

Rest In Piece

A tragic scene is the beginning of our tale
A cold winters night and a billowing gale
One single ballerina leaps and strides
An audience watches, their eyes gleaming wide
The girl is graceful, dainty as a doll
The stage light is loose, it slips, it falls
A tragic scene before an audience is made
As the pretty young girl’s spirit fades.

William had and always would be the Link.  It was not William’s job to judge a human’s fate, and it was not his job to choose who should stay and who should leave. William was just the Link between this world and the next. 

The Link received his guests in all shapes sizes and conditions, they would speak to him, they would tell him their stories as he mended what he could of their broken forms, before allowing them to follow their paths to whatever awaited them.

William’s theatre is in a place were nothing lives and nothing dies, everything is struck, frozen is a state of being, a faded mirror of our world. William had simple thoughts, his desire for complex thoughts spent a millennium ago when the One’s from beyond sewed his lips together, so that his complex thoughts would not lead to complex situations.

It was on an occasion much any other when a spirit entered the graveyard. William took up his shovel and passed into the gateway. The tombstone was sharp, recently carved and polished, a regular name and a regular date displayed. 

The coffin was as many coffins were, the rose wood stained and cracked. It was not until with a defining crack the lid slipped away and the girl inside was revealed.  Never before had William seen such beauty clash with such horror so beautifully. Her body had been mangled, clumsy black stitches weaved through her pale porcelain skin, dried blood crusted on her full bruising lips. William reached out, gingerly petting her tangled ink black locks, her sunken eye lids lifting slowly to reveal glazed milky blue eyes.

Those eyes, magnificent and brutal regarded William as his own near black pits roamed her spirit. Taking a mental note of what was to be fixed; two lacerations to from the lips to the ears, a severed arm, several lacerations to the legs and feeble human autopsy stitches. 

With an outstretched hand, William gently lead the grotesque beauty to his place of business. The girl was quiet, and complied with no struggle. Laying herself gently down upon the metal slab, the girl continued to stare un-blinking at the Link as he worked.
“I was a prima ballerina. It was my best performance too.” 

William twitched his mouth in acknowledgment, his nimble fingers clutching a needle, piercing her skin over and over. He was gentle. She was silent.

When the girl was whole again, William was sad. A spark suddenly ignited in his dull thoughts, a glimmer shone in his eyes. Taking in the girl’s form, the Link hurryingly searched around the possessions of those who had paced, everyone was naked in the presence of the beyond. Clutching at scraps, William’s fingers darted needled through the materials, a crazed determination on his brow. 

Finally, the garment complete. William slipped the docile girl into the fabric. The girl blinked, seeming to shock herself with the movement, as she craned her neck to take in the mis-matched dress she adorned, not unlike her living tutu. The sleeves her odd lengths and the Link had only been able to retrieve one glove, but it was perfect. 

Williams lips strained at their stitching, a smile uncontrollable breaking out on his face. Graceful as a dove, the girl lifted herself from the gurney and placed a kiss upon the man’s lips, then in one swift movement she selected a scalpel from the table and severed the stitching over his lips.

The One’s beyond watched curiously as the Link gasped and clutched at his mouth, the spirit before him smiling. The Ones knew they should reapply those silencers, but as they watched the Link embraced the spirit, her ghostly skin beginning to shade. They decided to let the Link keep his spirit, until his duties lacked at least. Perhaps eventually the spirit could come to replace the Link, allowing the man to finally pass on, though they doubted he recalled living at all.

“I shall name you Faith.”