Lacrima: Chapter Twenty Three

Eulogy

You are Konrad O’ Flannery. Born and raised in Macon, Georgia.

Within the stiff dream, Konrad heard the sound of rubber hitting the sidewalk. Closer to the road, one of his baby cousins had drawn a picture. White, blue, and pink chalk lines, guided by the excitable hand of a five-year-old, formed a stick-person approximation of a unicorn. Konrad and the three other Horse players tried to evade the precious picture, but competition demanded some sacrifices.

Uncle Ezekiel dribbled twice, paused, then did another double bounce.

Konrad’s mom crossed her arms and looked expectantly. “Staring at the hooping isn’t going to make the shot for you, Zeek.”

“Can it.” His smile betrayed his grim put-on. Uncle Zeek finally aimed the shot and sent it flying. The ball hit off the backboard and gently slid through the net.

Tearing the ball from its descent, Delilah replaced her uncle’s spot. She gave one bounce before making a clear shot. It soared and arched through the hoop. Nothing but net. She ran off, tapped her brother on the arm, and assumed a spectator position on the sideline.

Konrad gripped the ball, holding it like a foreign object rather than a humble basketball. His dark tank-top hung off his thin frame. Shorts, a little too short due to his sudden growth spurts, swayed above his unsteady kneecaps. He assumed the spot the rest of the players successfully achieved a clean hoop. He tried to imagine a court beneath him, rather than a sidewalk.

This is about the distance of a three-point shot, he gauged. He bit his bottom lip.

“Mom, why did you have to make this shot?” he complained.

“That’s the aim of the game, honey,” she replied.

“Yeah, come on,” Delilah piled on. Their mother shot her a glance and preemptively glared at Zeek, who raised both hands up.

Konrad pumped the ball against the ground. Then again. And again. Finally, he tossed the ball upward. Both hands launched the ball. It flew forward with a negligible spin.

Clank!

The ball ricocheted off the hoop, went leftwards, and landed in the yard.

“Got your E!” Uncle Ezikiel slapped Konrad on the back. “You’re a Horse, buddy.”

Konrad laughed. “Neigh,” he sighed and walked off to collect the ball.

“How can someone so tall be so bad at basketball,” Delilah teased. Mom elbowed her daughter.

“I ask that myself sometimes,” Konrad said, scooping up the ball. He passed it to Mom before sliding over to the cooler. He stooped down and rummaged for a Coke among the ice pile. Plunging his hand in the cooler felt divine compared to the scorching late June heat. Once he got his prize, he cracked open the tab. Smoke carried savory smells to him. Konrad looked over at the grill and the lanky figure that presided over his duty. He wore an apron over a multi-colored lined button-down. “Pops, how’s it looking?”

“Looking good.” His father carefully turned a few sausages with a pair of tongs. Fine char lines marked the casings. “The sausages are almost ready.”

As Dad looked to his son, he waved at the neighbor across the street. The old auntie rocked from her chair on the opposite porch. Dad poked Konrad under the ribs.

“Wearing the Mothman necklace Me-Ma gotcha, I see?”

Konrad picked up the pendant and turned it in the evening light. “I want it to be my good luck charm.”

“Didn’t do you much good in Horse,” he snickered. “Plus, ain’t Mothman supposed to be ‘bad omen’ kinda cryptid.”

“Sure, but who’s to say he can’t protect from bad luck too,” Konrad objected. “And to your first point. I think you need to wear a good luck charm enough before good things happen. You gotta invest first.”

“You’re starting to sound like Me-Ma,” Dad said.

“And there’s damn worse things to be, Daniel,” Me-Ma called from her roost. The O’ Flannery matriarch seated herself on a fold-out chair beneath the lone tree in the front yard. Blue glass bottles hung from the branches.

“Ma!” Dad yelled back. “Language.” He gestured at Konrad’s baby cousins and gave a wayward jab towards his son.

“If you don’t like me swearing, don’t speak against me,” Me-Ma declared, blowing a fan of gray smoke from her mouth.

“I wasn’t… Ah…” Daniel O’ Flannery shook his head. “Y’know, I didn’t mean anything by it, Mom.”

“I’m teasing you is all,” she tittered.

Konrad ventured over to Me-Ma, planted firmly in the lovely shade. He slipped his limbs underneath him and crossed them together. She patted his head with his dark, short-cropped hair.

“How are you doing, kid?”

“Alright.” He sipped his Coke as he watched the Horse game continue. Delilah threw her back as the ball rebounded off the backboard.

“Disappointed?”

“A little. Not too much though.”

“Then that really is alright,” Me-Ma commented. “You’ll stick through and win one day.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Or I’m just not athletically gifted.”

“Well, that we already know.” She tapped the side of his head. Konrad didn’t take offense to the jabs. Couldn’t be too mad about something true. “Still, there’s always a chance you can do better.”

“That’s why I keep saying yes to the game.”

“Exactly!” She tapped her cigarette to loose some ashes into the tray she placed in the cup holder net of the chair. “Never lose heart. It’s all we have in the end.”

Konrad muttered a “yeah” as he glanced up at the bottles. A cloud made its passage and sunlight hit the bottles. Light arced and curved through them. They cast blue shadows which extended off the shade of the tree. The shade stretched out to the road where a Sudan rumbled on by. Wind weaved through the branches and bottles, making them plink against one another. He squinted his eyes to look at one particular bottle - one darker in hue, almost a navy blue. Konrad didn’t know why, he just picked it to look at on a whim. He liked the color, that’s all.

You had to deal with a lot of tragedy at a young age. It happened all at once.

The scene flashed with Konrad still looking at that navy-blue bottle. This time, the sky was nothing, but clouds. No light traveled and bounced through that bottle. At this moment, he knew why he focused on the bottle. His cheeks bounded up and down with his sniveles. He wiped his cheeks with the sleeve of his dark suit jacket. Konrad breathed heavy - in and out. Sitting in the cold grass, he buried his face in his knees.

Konrad looked over at a lone basketball laying in the same yard as he was.

But one funeral wasn’t enough.

Konrad stood up. Above, the sky had a patchy tapestry of clouds strung across it. He wore the same black clothes. His legs needed to move. He passed a dead grill. The rocking chair across the street creaked as the auntie looked to him with sympathy. Konrad waved to her, as Dad wouldn’t be around to return it. He took that same hand and wiped off the stream that went down the one cheek.

But no matter how many funerals you had to go to.

Another day. Swelteringly hot. The sun beaded down, but Konrad still had to wear his blacks for the day. The tie chaffed against his neck. His dress shoes clapped against the sidewalk. He wondered when the last time his baby cousins came over. When their drawings decorated their sidewalk. They don’t visit much at all after the funerals.

You showed strength in spite of it.

Inside, Konrad hung up his blazer. His dress pants. His black button-down. He found a place in the back, stashing them out of sight and mind. He hoped the moths would get to them. Give him an excuse never to see them again.

He emerged from the closet and went to the bathroom. Konrad sighed when he looked at his face. Exhausted, drooping, but placid. Him and Me-Ma just got back from the church, but no raw grief burned in him. If he knew grief was a finite resource (which no one told him), he would have saved some of it for his Dad, his Mom, his older sister…

Konrad sneered at himself. “Damn you.”

Is that strength? Konrad asked, beyond the pale of time. Not feeling at all.

Think about it, Lucille’s voice cut through the void. So many people lose themselves in grief. But you still have that “devil-may-care” grin! You still have your ambition and passion! You use humor and your unintentional charisma to warm up to people around you - even if they find you a bit off-putting.

Past Konrad distorted for a second and Present Konrad took his place. The rapid replacement made the differences all the more glaring. He was older, that much could be seen. His skin didn’t sag now. Konrad looked in the mirror with a calm tranquility the more-ill-adjusted Past Konrad could have only dreamed of achieving.

You found your peace, Lucille said.

Did I? Konrad asked, the vision-experience snapping back to Past Konrad as the subject. Or did I just become more numb?

When he asked that question, the warping flashback shot him back to the game of Horse.

You are Konrad O’ Flannery, Lucille reiterated. Born and raised in Macon, Georgia.

The scenes replayed. One right after the other. Fractured, but emotionally consistent. Konrad watched through his own eyes, felt through his own skin, heard through his own ears, and tasted with his own tongue. The loop spun forward, forcing him into the same, dread sensations as previously shown. At the same time, that script also reeled through his mind, telling him who he is.

What are you doing? This would be the forty-sixth time he relived these events. A wild tempest of discomfort raged as he struggled against Lucille’s words. This would not end until he relented, but he did not know what she even wanted from him. He remembered how she revealed her powers as an “Administrator.” But what could she want from him? Why torture him with the sorest bruises of his past?

I want you to know who you are, Lucille said.

Oh. It clicked all at once for Konrad. You’re asking me to play a role.

I want you to be yourself.

Konrad knew the script conflicted with what he knew himself to be. Lucille was telling him who he was, but this wasn’t him. However, she wanted him to be this “imagined Konrad.” A conundrum!

But, luckily, he had done this sort of performance before.

The loop abruptly shuddered to a completely different scene, mobilized by Konrad’s tentative acceptance. He sat within a small, cramped room. Cheap purple curtains bought second-hand gave the repurposed backroom a modicum of taste.

You are a roleplayer. A frequent player in a secluded group at your local game store.

“Okay, I want to use Outrage to unlock my phone from when I was alive,” Konrad said. A pair of fellow players gave a combined, impressed “ooo” as this suggestion was registered by the Storyteller at the head.

“That’ll be Dexterity plus your Outrage.”

Konrad counted the filled in pips on his character sheet. “I have three in Dexterity and two in Outrage.” He scooped up five 10-sided dice for his pool. In one hand, he cupped the incumbent dice pool. With the other, he pinched his Mothman necklace. The dice fell from his hand and struck the interior of the dice tray in the center. After a quick stumble, the bones landed. Konrad and the Storyteller counted the successes.

“That’s a critical success right there,” the Storyteller said, pointing to the two 10 he rolled. Everyone at the table cheered. Konrad got a high-five out of that gambit. “Alright, with that, you unlock your old phone. In fact, with critical success, I’ll let you do one discrete task on your phone. No further rolls needed.”

“Cool,” Konrad said. “Through the Shroud, Damien carefully opens up his messages and pulls up his sister.” He looked expectantly at the Storyteller, waiting for him to introduce a complication. But the Storyteller nodded for him to continue, so he did. “I want Damien to text her: ‘I’m still here even though I’m gone. I love you.’”

The Storyteller chuckled as he raised a finger. He picked up his own dice pool and rolled from behind his screen. A malicious, but playful glint sparked across his eyes.

“Damien gets a text back,” the Storyteller said. The player, but especially Konrad, held their breath. “‘I don’t know if this is really you, but I miss you. If you can, give me a sign that this is you.’” He cleared his throat. “With that, I think that’s a good time to wrap-”

“Damn you!”

“No!”

“Come on!”

The group nearly fell back laughing, knowing that it was getting far too late. The scene spiraled to static, leaving Konrad as a mote of consciousness.

Yes, Konrad, Lucille added. It was those rollicking games of Wraith: The Oblivion that got you interested in ghosts and the paranormal. Or, perhaps, added gasoline to a fire that always burned.

Sure, he conceded, realizing the game he had to play. Yeah, that’s me.

Are you ready for a fresh start? Lucille asked. To truly be you.

Not lying, but not really saying the truth, Konrad replied: Let’s do this.

In a blink, Konrad breathed in and woke up in his bed in Esau’s mansion. It took him a few rouses before he could get his feet to the floor. But it wasn’t skin that met the boards, but the rubber soles of a pair of black dress shoes. Konrad hoisted himself up, not noticing how much brighter his room was. He went to the bathroom and found a strange self in the mirror. It was him alright. Konrad pressed a hand to the felt of the turtleneck, his turtleneck, but then he saw the dark blazer and the black slacks. It reminded him too much about the clothes Me-Ma told him he had to wear to the… funerals.

Wires of burning metal burrowed at the back of his eyeballs. The pain made him lean over the sink. He dry retched before breathing in.

I look good, he told himself. Lucille picked a nice outfit.

Immediately, he felt the friction die away. The wires retracted and his head cleared of any and all pain.

I’ve played characters before, Konrad thought. I can play “myself.”

Konrad practiced a grin, spun on his dress shoes, and exited his personal room. He sauntered out and spotted a glitched-out Servant. It paced the length of the hallway with a grace mildly interrupted by flicks and snaps in its form. A passing desire wanted him to scrutinize this well-dressed shade just as he did on the camera feed. This up-close opportunity with one of Lacrima’s ghosts couldn’t be passed up. But then Konrad let the idea pass.

Lucille got annoyed when we tried to dig too deep, he thought. A headache didn’t arrive, so he assumed his train-of-thought was on the right track.

Konrad bowed respectfully to the Servant, who gave a very shallow tilt of its head before passing him by. He then made a full stride down the hall.

Soon, he would have a great chat about his adventures as a ghost hunter with his fellow guest Bae Yuri. Then he would learn the true history of Lacrima from Lucille Azure. Then, he would initiate a rollicking game of pool.

Yes, Konrad thought. You are Konrad O’ Flannery.