The Last Lament of Castlereigh

 
Go Back
Ionospherics
About
Guidelines
Feature
   

 

By Ashley Arnold © 2005 E-mail the editor about this story

This is my third story in AntiSF. The idea for Last Lament came from a dream where monkeys in old-fashioned train engineer uniforms kept me conscious beyond death through numerous electrostatic shocks. At least, I think it was a dream. For some of my weirder work, see my website at <http://users.chariot.net.au/~thegoat/story_index.html>.


 

When Castlereigh wrote his final lament, the solar system listened.

Castlereigh had died the night before — Earth time — but his friend and physician Thalamina Reid had kept residual brainwave patterns active long enough for him to write a final master work.

"How much longer will he last?" Demeter Jones asked. The lament had started sixteen hours ago. Demeter's eyelids felt dense with lack of sleep.

Thalamina Reid shrugged. "A normal man, a few hours. But Castlereigh…"

The lament flared across the speakers. They stood in the observation room, adjacent to the stateroom where Castlereigh's body lay on a steel slab. Simultaneously all colonies in the solar system received a broadcast of the lament.

Even behind the two-inch thick glass, and despite being dead, Demeter felt a kind of magnetism emanate from Castlereigh. Maybe the feeling came from the lament itself, falling devilish from the speakers, but she could not be sure.

Then the words began.

Castlereigh had written countless laments and never before had he resorted to words. The sounds had always carried such emotion that all those who listened agreed that words could do nothing more, other than perhaps drive the listener mad.

Demeter tried to make out what Castlereigh said. "Those words, what language —" She turned to Thalamina and saw tears run naked down the physician's face.

"Those words are for me," Thalamina whispered.

Demeter relaxed, stopped trying to actively decipher the sounds. Instead she closed her eyes and let the lament wash over her. Images formed in her mind. Loss of love, hidden shame, endless friendship.

Demeter's eyes snapped open. "You were his lover."

Thalamina nodded. The tears ran furrows through her makeup.

Castlereigh had waited until death to reveal his great secret. Demeter calculated how long it would take to set up a link to interview Castlereigh's wife, but rejected the idea. Her instincts told her here the scoop lay still.

"How long were you…?"

Thalamina Reid tackled the question with a rueful smile. "Forever."

Demeter began to ask the next question — did Mrs Castlereigh know of the affair — but swallowed her words.

Castlereigh himself stood before her.

She glanced at the body in the stateroom. It lay there still in the traditional pose of death. The dead had not risen. Yet everywhere Demeter looked, the image of Castlereigh appeared before her eyes.

Castlereigh raised his hand and mouthed words — I love you — that merged with those from the speakers.

Perhaps the lament's power caused the apparition. Perhaps the power in Castlereigh's departing soul did it. Demeter would never know. All around the solar system all who listened to that original feed saw Castlereigh's image.

Those who listened to recordings replayed did not.

Thalamina Reid never spoke of Castlereigh again, so in a way Demeter got her scoop. But Demeter never published the truth. Only she, in Thalamina's presence at the time, had discovered the true meaning in Castlereigh's words.

For others, the feelings those words invoked had to be enough.

 

Click here to vote

 

 
First Story
Ionospherics
Vote
Guidelines
Feature