“It seems you’ve run your race,” the bank director says, peering at Spark through bottle-top lenses, his mole-like eyes unblinking.
“Sorry,” Spark says, “who did you just call me?”
“Spark. That is what you call yourself, isn’t it? Not Richard Horton.”
Spark feels the hairs on his scalp stand on end. “How do you know about me?”
“Banking is a tough business. One doesn’t build an empire like this without being an astute observer.”
“I don’t see the connection,” Spark says, glancing at reception where two police officers wait to arrest him.
“You’ve been jumping bodies for as long as you can remember,” the director says. His lips draw into a thin half-smile.“A heart attack here, a drowning there, available bodies, all entry points. You’ve had it good, all the sensual pleasures of life without the responsibility.”
How does this blind stiff know about me?“I wouldn’t call being mauled to death by a bear or being run down by a bus, sensual pleasure.”
“Ah, that is the point, isn’t it? Your debt has accumulated. Your incarnations have hardly brought joy to others, so why should you experience happiness? Everything must be balanced,” the director says. His smile slips as if the strain of it has reached the breaking point. “Frankly, Spark, I think you’ve had more than a fair run in the body of the late Mr Horton.”
“He wasn’t a saint!”
“No, but he didn’t steal the bank’s money or cheat on his wife with my secretary.”
Spark shifts uncomfortably in his chair and for a moment considers making a dash through the police, but feeling Horton’s paunch and bird-like legs, he knows he would never make it. “Then what’s it all about? Why am I just floating about waiting to pop into the next available body? I mean, am I human, too?”
“Ever incarnated into a dog?”
“No.”
“Well then.” The director rises from his chair, straightens his pinstriped jacket and saunters over to the large terrace window. From the forty-second floor, the city sprawls below. The director stands with his back to Spark; his small stature and the way he holds himself so proudly reminds Spark of Napoleon. God, I hate banks.
“You’ve slipped off the cycle of birth and death,” the director says. “Without being born, you feel no sense of self with the body you inhabit, nor any empathy for those around you. As soon as things get a little uncomfortable, as they inevitably do, you take the easy way out — suicide.” He turns to Spark smiling. “Unless, of course, untimely death doesn’t get you first.”
“I don’t see anything funny about that,” Spark says.
The director opens a sliding door that leads out to the terrace. “I have something I want to show you.”
They stand at the railing, gaze down upon the urban panorama, and listen to the discordant music of traffic. “All the souls in this city are blissfully ignorant of their past lives,” says the director. “They have debts, but their good actions and death provide balance. Your debt, however, is no longer serviceable.”
Spark is suddenly aware of movement within the director’s office. He turns and sees the police officers standing impatiently by the director’s desk. Time’s almost up, thinks Spark.
“Your incarnations,” the director says, ignoring the police, “they’re becoming such short, violent apparitions, so unbearable that even the emptiness of space is attractive to you.”
“What the hell can I do about it?” Spark asks, suddenly feeling short of breath.
“Break the cycle by riding this life to its end. Whatever the hardships, don’t take the easy exit. And live an honest life too. Find compassion. Create good karma. Balance the books. Do this and you’ll take rebirth and rejoin humanity. All this will be forgotten.”
“And if untimely death takes me?”
“If you die trying, it’s all the same.”
“But it’s too late with the body of Horton. Growing old in prison, that’s hell,” Spark says.
“Your choice.”
The two police officers step out onto the terrace. “Sir, I’m afraid we can’t wait any longer. We need to take Mr Horton in,” one officer says and then reaches for his cuffs.
Spark pulls himself up onto the railing and balances himself precariously. He looks down upon the thin grey line of the street. It’s only an instant, thinks Spark. “How do you know all this? I suppose you’re God then,” Spark says.
“The shareholders think so.”
Silence.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“You’re going to jump, I suppose?”
“It’s not like I want to, but your solution is just not that attractive.”
“It won’t get easier,” the director says. But Spark’s attention is on one of the police officers who edges nervously closer. Everything is closing in on me, thinks Spark. The officer lunges, but he is too slow. Spark leaps into the abyss.
***
Brian Mullins’ enormous frame threatens to splinter the fold-out deck chair when he laughs in unabated admonishment at his host, the man whose wife he’s been having an affair with for the last two years. “Dwain, Dwain, Dwain, what are we going to do with you, ay? Pharlap was a gelding. There was no Son of Pharlap. Any fool who knows anything about racing knows that,” he says, and then leans across the table and scoops out another helping of Tzaziki from the salad bowl. Brian doesn’t know it, but Dwain Forrester died five minutes ago. He went below to “check something in the galley” and in his state of extreme stress his heart ceased beating. When his body clambered back up the stairs, no one noticed the subtle change — Spark was at Dwain’s controls.
Spark struggles to appear coherent; it takes time to assimilate the dead man’s memory. Since leaping from the director’s balcony and pancaking Richard Horton’s body upon the street below, Spark’s bodiless sojourn seemed to stretch for eternity. He circled the Earth awaiting a jump; none came. He soared to the remotest galaxies to look for life; he found none. And when the last vestiges of his humour were lost, he became so disillusioned he wanted to wail like a child, only he had no body to do so. All the while, the director’s words replayed endlessly in Spark’s mind: “It won’t get easier.” Spark never had faith in anything, but he needed it then. When he zipped past Jupiter’s rings, back towards earth, he thought, I’ll give his advice a go. The next instant he was lying on the galley floor, clutching his chest and sucking in the scent of diesel and salt water.
Brian looks up at Spark, who is standing at the end of the picnic table, his hair dishevelled. “You listening to me, Dwainy?” Brian’s ice-blue eyes are hidden behind gold-rimmed “Top Gun” sunglasses, and his bald head is hidden behind a floppy Sergio Armani sunhat. Spark feels his new body tense. He recognises the intense feeling of hatred discharging from Dwain’s brain. This pork chop is the dead man’s boss. Better be nice.
“Sorry, Brian, I’m with you now.”
Brian stares at Spark. “You trying to be funny?”
A middle-aged woman sits beside Brian. She laughs for a moment before muffling her mirth with a sip from her flute-glass of champagne and orange. Brian’s wife, thinks Spark.
A woman with a practiced smouldering expression upon her sun-bronzed face sits opposite Brian and his wife. She glares at Spark, and taps the table with her glossy red fingernails. “What is up with you?” she asks.
The dead man’s wife, Kathryn, thinks Spark. She’s something to look forward to. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to take a piss,” Spark says.
Brian erupts in laughter. “Well, please don’t hold back on account of us, Dwainy!”
Spark’s ears burn when he clambers down the steps to the galley. The excuse had popped into his head; Dwain had used it often, but not in this social setting. Standing in the galley, Spark looks out through the rectangular portholes. He can see the ocean. The waterline is level with his chin. The sound of trickling water makes Spark feel like he is drowning. He looks about for the source of the trickling, but it’s difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps it’s just the lapping of the ocean. He needs to concentrate, sink into Dwain Forrester’s past and absorb everything. Dwain’s wife, Kathryn — there is pain there. Something is wrong between her and Dwain. Dwain was frightened of losing her, yet Spark can feel a malicious hatred for her. Odd, he thinks. And who is Dwain? He’s in real estate. Spark senses a deep-seeded discontent, and a shrewd aggression that drew Dwain to Brian. Dwain wanted to be wealthy, and thought real estate would provide the key. Brian’s business — Dolphin Realty — was to be that key.
His feet, they’re wet. That can’t be right. He looks down and sees the thin film of water that glides over the cabin floor to the rhythm of the swell. He hears the clacking of heels on the timber deck overhead and then a set of tanned legs in tight-fitting shorts appear on the stairs. Kathryn steps down and stops on the bottom step. “Jesus, Dwain, where’s all this water coming from? Are we sinking?”
Spark probes Dwain’s grey matter for an answer. There it is, he thinks; Dwain had gone to some effort to find the right sealant, one that dissolves after eight hours in water. He used it in every joint on the timber hull. Perhaps I should keep this to myself, thinks Spark. “It’s nothing, darling — a minor hiccup with the pump. Just give me a few minutes and I’ll have it sorted.”
Kathryn glares at him. “You idiot! If Brian sees this or Pamela comes down and gets hysterical, that’ll be it. You can kiss your career goodbye!” The outline of Kathryn’s heaving breasts through her thin top catches Spark’s attention. He stares. “Dwain, are you mad? Are you even listening to me?”
“Sorry, darling, I was momentarily elsewhere.”
“You’re always elsewhere, you half-wit. You’d better fix this now or it’s over with us. This time I mean it.”
“Yes, love.”
Kathryn’s frown darkens and she gives Spark a searching look, then shakes her head in disbelief before climbing back up the stairs.
Was Dwain the damned fool that his wife thought him? Why would he go to such trouble to build a sinking yacht? Time — he needs more, but there is little left. The water is up to his ankles now. A radio! Boats have radios. I’ll call for help. He finds the radio in the pilothouse. Dwain’s memory flashes before him: Dwain pulled off the front casing and snipped the wires. Sabotage! A mobile. Someone’s gotta have a mobile, but where? He searches down the synaptic alleyways of Dwain’s recent history: He was below. He disabled the radio and then rummaged through everyone’s belongings. There, he had Brian’s mobile in his hand. He slipped into the engine room, opened a ventilation port and threw the mobile out. “Shit!”
“Dwainy, another bottle of chardonnay please,” Brian calls from the foredeck.
“Coming,” Spark shouts. Kathryn’s right. If Brian sees this, there’ll be trouble. He fumbles through the icebox, grabs the chardonnay and hurries back on deck.
“There’s a good lad,” Brian says while Spark refills Brian’s glass. Brian takes a perfunctory taste then holds up the glass and admires it. “Not a bad drop at all. Must be one of mine, ay, Dwainy!”
Kathryn sits opposite Brian. She looks at Spark; her eyes make small darting movements as she searches his expression, looking for an answer. “Did you sort out that thing downstairs?” Brian and Pamela look to Spark for an explanation.
“Yes, darling, it’s all sorted now,” Spark says.
“What’s that, then? You didn’t drop the Pavlova, did you?” Brian asks.
“No, just a problem with the pump. It’s fixed now.”
“The pump? We haven’t got a problem here, have we, Dwainy?” Spark feels the mercury rising. If the old toad calls me Dwainy one more time . . .
Pamela coughs as if to clear her throat, then says, “Brian, if Dwain says everything is ok then there is no need to go on about it.”
“Oh really, dear? The last time Dwainy told me we don’t have a problem, a good client, who I’d spent days softening up to buy the Sailors Arms, dropped the deal ‘cause Dwainy let it slip that there was a problem with the permit for the beer garden.”
“It’s the weekend, you’re forgetting yourself,” Pamela says.
Brian looks to Kathryn. They connect, only for a moment, but in that glance Spark feels a synaptic doorway open, and the information spills out: They’re having an affair. A sector in Dwain’s brain lights up in a jealous rage. Spark hates the feeling. Personally, he feels nothing for Kathryn, aside of a throbbing sensation in the front of his shorts when he stares at her breasts, yet he suffers the physical reactions to the emotions released from Dwain’s brain.
“You’re right, of course, darling. It was rude of me,” Brian says, resting his elbows on the table and clasping his large hands together. Spark notices the gold dress rings, the heavy wrist chain, and a faded tattoo on Brian’s forearm. “We’ll find another buyer for that white elephant,” Brian says. “Next time you’ll know when to keep a lid on things, right?”
“Shark!” cries Pamela, pointing across the starboard bow to a large dorsal fin carving a sharp line through the water towards the yacht. It disappears beneath the bow.
“Strike!” says Brian. “She’s a beauty. Definitely a White Pointer. There’s plenty about this area. Dwain’s planned our little picnic in the middle of their feeding ground, dear.”
Pamela’s face pales.
“No need for alarm. It won’t jump onboard and invite itself to lunch,” Brian says.
He’s enjoying this, thinks Spark.
The dorsal fin resurfaces portside, and then glides alongside the yacht, allowing the party a bird’s-eye view of the monstrous shark below. Pamela gasps and clasps Brian’s arm. Brian breaks her hold and points out across the water. “Hey,” he says, “looks as though his brother’s come to visit, too!” A second fin glides past before disappearing behind the stern. Suddenly water sprays across the aft deck and several deep thuds reverberate along the yacht. “It’s attacking the rudder,” Brian says. Startled, Kathryn jumps from her chair, strikes the boom with her shoulder, and cries out in pain. Pamela shrieks. Brian curses. The bottle of chardonnay topples off the table. Spark imagines treading that icy water, waiting for the inevitable. And then silence. As suddenly as the sharks appeared, they disappear.
“For crying out loud, everybody get a grip,” Brian says. “We’re not going to get all in a flap about a couple of bloody sharks. Pamela, sit back down, and Kathryn, you too! Dwain, be so kind as to get another bottle, will you? While you’re at it, bring up that Pavlova my dear Pamsy has so kindly made.” Clearly shaken, Kathryn and Pamela hesitantly return to their seats. Spark hurries back to the galley.
Below, freezing water sloshes about the cabin. Spark whimpers when the biting cold threatens his groin. What now? Another memory flashes before Spark: Dwain had tied a drum of offal to the stern. He wanted to feed Brian and Kathryn to the sharks. Murder! His pulse is now erratic. Fear and icy water is a lethal cocktail for his weak heart. And what of Dwain? Was he going to feed himself to the sharks, too? Spark imagines the searing pain of having one of his legs torn off in those ragged jaws. Soft footsteps overhead, another set of legs, this time pale and fleshy. “Dwain, are you down there? I just wanted to . . .” Pamela gasps. “Oh Lord, we’re sinking!”
Hell, thinks Spark, time is up. “It’s alright, Pamela. Just a problem with the pump. I’ll have it fixed in a few minutes.”
Pamela’s Pavlova, sitting on a white Tupperware tray, floats past Spark, bumps into the stairs, and abruptly capsizes. Pamela’s eyes widen and she shouts, “Brian, come quick!” Spark hears more footsteps, heavier and moving fast. Pamela backs up the stairs and turns to Brian. “We’re sinking!” she says in a wavering voice. Spark wonders if there is a forward hatch from where he might escape. His instinct tells him Brian’s reaction is going to be very ugly.
“What’s going on down here?” Brian asks as he steps below. “For fuck’s sake, Dwain! What have you done?” He eases himself into the icy water, looks about in disbelief, and then wades over to Spark, holding his breath against the rancid smell of his boss’s bad teeth and tobacco.
“It’s the pump,” Spark says.
“The pump?” Brian frowns, steps past Spark, and wades along the cabin. He stops; something in the galley has caught his attention. He wades over and inspects the hull. Water flows in. “It’s not the fucking pump, Dwain. This throw-together of a boat is bloody-well sinking!” He turns around and heads straight for Spark. Spark lunges for the stairs. Brian’s powerful hand clamps onto his ankle. Spark kicks down with his free leg, and feels it connect with Brian’s face. Brian bellows and releases his grip.
Spark clambers up on deck and faces Pamela. She steps back and gasps. Gotta get out of here now, thinks Spark. He dashes for the bow. Kathryn stands in Spark’s way. He doesn’t slow; instead he slams into her and shoulders her across the deck. He hears the thud as she lands heavily.
“You bastard!” she cries.
An escape, thinks Spark. Dwain had one. A kayak is tied to the bow. But Brian is close behind. “Come back here,” Brian shouts, his voice wavering with his heavy footfalls. No time to jump onboard and cast off, thinks Spark. A boat hook lies on the deck. Spark leaps for it, scratching his knees when he falls onto the non-slip decking. He grabs the hook, rolls over and holds it out. Brian runs into the boat hook, catching the blunt stock in his pot-bellied stomach. The boat hook flies from Spark’s hands, and he has to roll quickly to avoid Brian’s toppling mass. “Bloody murder!” Brian cries.
Spark gets to his feet, dashes to the bow and sees the small green kayak bobbing in the water below. He leans down, pulls out the paddle and then lowers himself into the cockpit. He frantically pulls at the knot in the mooring line, but it just gets tighter. Brian appears above him, his face contorted in rage. “You little fucker! I’ll have you!” Spark pushes off with the paddle, but the line pulls taut. Brian reaches down, grabs the line and starts to pull Spark in. Spark lifts the paddle and swings it at Brian, who ducks but drops the line. The line lies in the water. Brian leans to grab it, but then suddenly pulls back. A shark’s blunt snout breaks the surface, its giant jaws agape and the line resting between rows of serrated teeth. With a sudden shake of its head, the shark severs the line. Spark’s chest tightens and an uncomfortable pressure runs down his left arm. Breathe, just breathe, he tells himself while he slowly drifts away from the yacht.
Brian stands at the stern and curses Spark. The yacht is listing now and the waterline is high. Spark turns the kayak and paddles in the direction of a dark shadow on the horizon; he hopes it is land, not clouds. So that’s it, he thinks. Dwain might have been murderous, but not half as stupid as they thought him. The yacht will sink; they’ll be taken by the sharks, and Dwain’s a free man who has exacted his revenge. Except he’s not free, he’s dead, and I’m doing nothing to save them. More bloody bad karma! Hell! He takes a few more strokes, each one slowing until he rests the paddle upon the cockpit and the kayak lolls in the long swell. “Ah hell!” Spark turns the kayak around and paddles back toward the yacht.
Brian is no longer on deck, but Kathryn stands watching Spark. She shouts, “Dwain, please help us. Don’t leave!” She’s too far off for Spark to read her face clearly, but Spark hears the quaver in her voice. The sharks are becoming frenzied. One thrashes below the stern. The other darts in and bites the first. Bloody water erupts like a geyser. The yacht lists further. Spark stops paddling and allows the kayak to drift near the starboard side of the yacht. He imagines those ragged teeth tearing through the kayak as if it were a wafer biscuit. Untimely death, thinks Spark, and he shudders.
Brian reappears on deck. He gasps for breath and frantically looks about as if seeking a means of escape. He looks up and sees Spark sitting in his kayak. “For crying out loud, you cut the radio. We’re dead!”
“You had it coming,” Spark shouts, savouring the moment of revenge, and the next moment feeling the bite of remorse. “You think you can get away with it? Screwing Kathryn?”
Brian glances at Kathryn, but she avoids his attention. “Dwain, if not for my sake or for your wife’s, then think of Pamela. What has she ever done to hurt you?”
A shark glides between the kayak and the yacht. Its cold black eye stares up at Brian and Kathryn. Its mouth is partly open, as if grinning. Kathryn cries, “Oh fuck, we’re gonna die!”
Spark suddenly feels sick. Even if he wanted to help, he can’t. His kayak only holds one person. He has a strong urge to paddle away. Watching their deaths would be too painful. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. It’s too late,” Spark says, and then slowly paddles backward.
Brian’s face turns a shade redder. “Bullshit! Where’s the flare gun? What about a bloody inflatable? There’s gotta be something!”
Spark searches Dwain’s memory: No flare gun onboard. No inflatable, either. “Sorry, Brian, I really am.”
Pamela cautiously leans over the railing. “Please, Dwain, if you can help us, you must. I know about Brian and Kathryn,” she says. “You’re right what you said about him. He is no good.”
“
“Hold on, dear,” says Brian. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions. Dwain’s got it wrong!”
“You’re lying, you deceitful man. Kathryn, the little tramp, can have you.”
Kathryn turns to Pamela, her expression venomous. “Don’t you dare call me a tramp, you old bitch!”
From somewhere inside the kayak, a mobile rings. It takes Spark several moments to realise it is coming from his shorts. Brian, Pamela and Kathryn fall silent and stare at Spark when he takes the call. “Hello?”
“Hello, is this Mr. Dwain Forrester?”
“Yes.”
“Mr Forrester, I’m from the bank,” the voice says. “Have you a few moments to speak?
"
A large dorsal fin glides past the nose of Spark’s kayak. “Uh, you’ll have to make it brief.”
“It’s about your overdraft, Mr Forrester. You’re very over-extended. I need to know what you’re going to do about it.”
“For fuck’s sake, Dwain, call in a rescue,” Brian shouts.
“Pardon me, Mr. Forrester, but is everything ok?”
The yacht suddenly lists further. Pamela stumbles and falls headfirst into the water. “No,” Spark says, “everything is far from ok.”
“Help!” shouts Pamela, who splashes frantically, trying to find a handhold on the slippery hull. Brian leans over the gunwale and tries to reach her. A large shadow passes beneath Spark’s kayak and slowly glides toward Pamela.
“Mr. Forrester, I really need to know what you are going to do about your current account deficit,” says the voice on the phone.
“What the hell can I do?”
“Make a deposit, Mr Forrester. Immediately.”
“Ok! Ok! Just send out a rescue party, and fast.”
“Certainly, Mr Forrester. We look forward to your deposit. Have a nice day!” The line falls silent. Spark stares at the phone in disbelief, but there is no time to think; Pamela thrashes about in the water, doing everything she unwittingly can to attract the sharks. With his strokes weakened by his cramped arm and trembling chest, Spark paddles awkwardly alongside Pamela.
“Quick, pull yourself up!” he says.
A shadow passes beneath Pamela. She shrieks and then says, “Something just touched my leg!” Spark reaches for her flailing arms, and grabs hold of her wrist. Panicking, she pulls at him fiercely, and he drops the paddle.
“Stay calm,” he cries. But Pamela pulls even harder. Something nudges the kayak and it rolls, pitching Spark into the icy water. At first the shock is so great that he can’t breathe, and then Pamela is upon him, panicking, dragging him down. Then something strikes his foot, as if he had stepped in a bear trap. A searing pain and then a tingling numbness run up his leg. My foot — it’s gone! The water clouds crimson. Pamela releases him. He struggles to the surface, gasps for air and tries to scream, but no sound escapes him.
Pamela floats motionless, face down in the water. Spark reaches out to her, lifts her face out of the water, and with his free arm strokes to the yacht. Brian reaches under the railing, grasps Pamela and, straining under her dead weight, heaves her onboard. Spark tries to pull himself onboard, but the hull is too slippery. “Please help me.”
“To hell with you,” shouts Brian as he lays Pamela upon the deck. “It’s you that deserves what’s coming!”
Kathryn leans over the side above Spark. She looks down at him treading bloody water. Her face is contorted in anguish. “Oh, Dwain!”
“He might have once loved you, you know,” Spark says.
“Who?”
“Dwain … I mean … me. Please help me.” Spark reaches up to Kathryn.
Kathryn’s eyes open wide as she leans down to grab him. Something clamps down upon Spark’s legs, and he is pulled under, shaken, razor-sharp teeth serrating his flesh and splintering his bones. And then he is released; just a tingling numbness registers below his hips. He bobs to the surface, spluttering and whimpering. Kathryn shrieks and steps away from the railing.
The rapid chugging of rotor blades overhead suddenly drowns out Kathryn’s hysterical sobs. Brian cheers and shouts, “We’re saved!” But his voice seems to be coming from far away, and everything is growing dark. Death, thinks Spark, please let it be over. And then there is only blackness.
***
The fluorescent lights in the delivery room cast an unsympathetic light upon her now contorted face. The veins on her sweat-drenched forehead bulge with the pressure of her exertion. She cries out before slumping back into the bed.
“You’ve done it,” cries the father. “It’s a boy!”
The mother cries. The doctors wash up the baby and place him upon her breast. The father comes to her side and they admire their baby. “I think he has your eyes, honey,” says the mother.
“No, really?” the father asks, and then leans to take a closer look. “I don’t see how you can tell that. They’re all squinted and puffy.”
“Seriously, there’s something about them — a sparkle!” The baby opens his eyes, and his face blossoms into a radiant smile.
"Wow," the father says, tears welling in his eyes. "He’s our bright little spark."
BIO: Originally from Australia, Paul moved to Vienna, Austria in 2006 in a foolish bid to escape reality. This failed so he took up writing, and has since learnt that reality is what you make of it, so chose it wisely. He is the creator of Vienna Writers, a group of English language writers in--well--need it be said? His short stories have appeared in various print and online magazines. His blog: paulmalone.wordpress.com
