Johnny Wraith Stories

And there I was, sitting in a crypt on a stone floor, staring into an ancient sarcophagus at the remains of a crumbling skeleton. I was beneath an ocean somewhere far away. Perhaps it was another dimension, a state of death, or my mind trying to find its way out of a coma? I had no clothes. The few friends I’d made along the way had abandoned me, or were nowhere to be found. Vatsulu and the red-haired mermaid were gone. Home? Would I ever find my way back? Wine? Would I ever have another drink? Everything, even my memories, suddenly seemed so distant. Perhaps I’d traveled so far into something else I was no longer myself?

I pondered.

In a lot of ways, we aren’t ever the same person from one day to the next, one second to the next. I’d once been a churchgoing fellow, and had really believed. Now I wasn’t religious and questioned the gods. I’d once fallen in love with a girl and married her. We were “soul mates,” we used to swear. Now she was in another man’s arms. I’d lived in the snow, the desert, the mountains, and near an ocean. I’d had a lot of friends, but had lost most of them along the way. Wasn’t it peculiar how I was always a different person in every place I’d been? In one place I’d made my living as a bouncer. I was a rough, tough guy. In another, I’d been a lawyer. I was a briefcase, a talking suit and tie. I’d been a student, a lover, a hater, a good employee, a bad employee, a loyal friend, a scoundrel, a thief, a savior, a good son, a bad son, and an aspiring, alcoholic writer, falling apart at the seams. Hell, what was I? All of it? None of it? All of it at once? Time, distance, sentiment, belief, hope, happiness, and sorrow, loss and gain  – all of it can permanently change us into something entirely different than before, down to the quick, from one day to the next, one second to the next. Who I am? It is always something else other than what I’d been a million times before.

I realized.

I am all of what I have been and will ever be, all at the same time. Somehow, it was all tied together, into me – attached by something, be it spirit, memory, tendons, spider webs, or the branches of trees, the stars in the sky. My guts told me so, whispered it to me, and I knew it, however fleeting, intangible, or ineffable. Vatsulu was starting to make sense. When I look into a mirror, my face never looks exactly as I remembered it; yet, I still see it as my face. It always reflects back the same expression I offer. Should I offer a smiling face, I am given a smiling face back. Should I present a sad face, a sad face is returned. There is no more to it than that. Quit seeking answers and find the bigger questions. Recognize and move on. Don’t get tangled in the riddles, smoke, and fog.

I stood up and explored the crypt. There were two pillars, stairs leading up to the exit, flaming torches casting light and flickering shadows, stone walls, a stone floor, and a vaulted ceiling. In the middle of it all was a crumbling skeleton lying in an open sarcophagus.

I bent down and examined the skeleton. It was on its side, in a fetal position. The bones were brittle and porous, and had turned dark brown. The finger and toe bones had all but disintegrated, as had a few ribs and vertebrae, but the skull and its teeth were still intact. Slowly, I reached into the sarcophagus. As my fingertip touched a bony knuckle, the knuckle crumbled to dust.

“Ouch!” yelled the skull’s lower jaw.

“Shit!” I jumped back. “Shit!”

The jaw continued moving. My heart raced and my eyes gaped, as did my jaw.

“That’s right, I’m a talking skeleton, and you can’t believe it.” Dust swirled around him as he spoke. “I can’t believe it either. So, get over it. I used to be a man like you, and still am in small part. I’ve still got bones, even though they are crumbling. I’m just missing the flesh and blood.”

I just stood there, still speechless, heart racing, eyes gaping, as was my jaw.

“Flesh got your tongue?” chuckled the skeleton with its flapping lower jaw. “I understand. Anyway, I already know your name. It’s Johnny. Don’t ask how I know. I just do. You can call me Adam because I’m the oldest remains of any man that’s ever lived. And no, I’m not The Adam of the Bible either. I doubt anyone was. But who knows or cares about that? I just think I’ve earned the right to be called Adam because, as I said, I’m the oldest remains of any man. And for this same reason, I’m going to be your guide. Well, I won’t actually guide you because I can’t stand and walk. All I can do is talk you through the steps you’ll be taking. As a matter of fact, talking will kill me a little faster than I’m already dying – decaying actually because I’m already dead – you’ve seen how easily I break into dust. Just flapping my jaw makes me crumble faster. So, remember all my words and don’t waste them. Ask me to repeat something, and it might take away something else I could have told you.”

I finally mustered the courage to speak. “Wh…why…why have you remained… er… um, alive – I mean around – for so long?”

“Now that is the question, isn’t it? I must have really been something when I had flesh on my weary bones, huh?” flapped the jaw and swirled the dust. “In fact, I am here now exactly because I was nothing, rather than something, when I had flesh on my bones. What you see is all that remains of me because when the end of my fleshy days came, when I died, as you call it, all I had to leave behind was my body. It was all I had to offer. The flesh rotted away, and here I am, nothing but bones. Still taking up space. This is it. That is it. These damn bones are all I ever had to say or do, or be. A carcass. I left nothing behind but a carcass. So, I’m being eternally punished for being so greedy.”

“Who is punishing you?”

“Me, can’t you see? I’m the punisher and the punished.”

“Then why are you my guide?”

“I know better than anyone how to avoid my mistake. You are my student now. You will be my atonement. In the end, you will crush my bones to dust.”