Xibalba

Xibalba

by Vivek Shah Chapter 1 What do you do for a living? Work in a bank?

Teach children? Stride about in huge corporate offices in pristine suits? Are you an artist? Do you write? Or do you indulge in the darker side of human nature to put food on the table? Do you sell women from the villages to the men in the cities? Do you indulge in the narcotic trade?

Do you take money from strangers to do jobs nobody else will? Do you kill people for the right price? Or worse, are you a bureaucrat?

I only ask because I know your answer isn’t going to change the way I look at myself – I won’t grieve over the difference in the size of our wallets, I won’t feel envy as you drive your sleek and powerful Mercedes into the parking lot of a new high-rise in the heart of town and then take the elevator to a new house whose price could buy entire villages in the countryside. Or even if you don’t spend your spare time sucking on a silver spoon and are one of those on the lower rungs of society, I won’t feel sorry for you.

You see, I don’t envy the rich because no matter how much money they have, what I do for a living everyday is much more interesting than anything they will ever do. I don’t pity the poor because what I do for a living is much more soul-wrenching than any pain they have ever felt due to the lack of access to the right kind of greenery.

What I do for a living, is calculate how much time it would take for me to destroy a person, to ensure that every trace of each of their atoms, their hopes, their dreams and even their fears cease to exist, as they were. I work in a crematorium and I earn my bread by calculating

how much time each cadaver will take to turn into nothing but ashes and dust.

Death. Death is what I do for a living.

3 hours.

Today was another usual day at work. Two cadavers showed up. The first arrived at the crematorium just as I did, early at seven in the morning. He was a forty-year-old morbidly obese man. My guess is that it was his girth that killed him. ‘Huh, maybe all those advertisements about exercising and eating healthy aren’t the usual consumerist hype.’

His family had come to see him off, as the families always do. When they were done saying their final good-byes, they sent him my way. This is where I play my glorious part. I have to estimate how long the body will take to go from flesh and blood to ashes and cinders. The cadavers arrive on a trolley, and I put them into the furnace, which I have named Xibalba.

It’s named after the dying star that the ancient Mayans found in the night sky, and thought it to be their underworld. It looks golden from Earth, but that’s because it’s wrapped in a nebula. Soon Xibalba will burst, and from that starburst, a thousand new stars will be born. Of course, rebirth is not so much of an option for the occupants of its namesake, but I think the name becomes the furnace.

Looking at the dead man, whom I had named Leviathan, I was sure he could not have been more than 5’10” and not less than 160 kgs; I allotted him a four and a half hour slot in Xibalba. Now for the main perk that comes along with this job. Whenever Xibalba is devouring her prey, I go to the Waiting Room and make up a story about the deceased and his family. Fabricating stories about people I’ve never met is almost as exciting as burning them.

3 hours.

Entering the room, I saw that Leviathan had a wife and two children, a girl and a boy.

All three of them were perfectly healthy and not an ounce over-weight. Obviously, obesity didn’t run in the family, so I guess the reason for Leviathan’s physique was a sad family life where his wife was to be found in his neighbour’s bed, and his children’s love for him was proportional to the depth of his pocket. He was into construction and made his money evicting slumdwellers from land he had bought at throwaway prices, erecting high-rises with opulent apartments and then selling these to the rich.

The excess of money didn’t fill the abyss of lost love between him and his family and since then, everything was a comfort food. The last woman who had warmed his bed did so for the lust for gold rather than her lust for him.

While I was constructing a tale for my first customer of the day, I tried to discern those relatives who were shedding crocodile tears, and not to my surprise, most of them were. ‘Aah, so no one truly loved Leviathan, not even in his family.’ Most of them had stoic expressions on their faces and looked pained to be there, to give Leviathan even four and half hours of their time. ‘Well,’ I thought, as I turned away and headed back to the Furnace Room, ‘Maybe no on else did, but at least Xibalba is giving him her undivided attention now.’ At the end of Leviathan’s allotted slot, I opened Xibalba’s jaws to peek inside and just as I expected, nothing remained.

But Xibalba wasn’t done yet, at noon, the cadaver of a young woman arrived with a smaller entourage than Leviathan’s. She could not have seen more than twenty-five name-days, and could not have been more than 5’1” and 50kgs; she wouldn’t take much of Xibalba’s time, two hours at the most. Unlike her predecessor, I could not immediately decide on the cause of death; but that was until they uncovered her body from under the white sheet. The coroner might have stitched it up and done his best to make it look inconspicuous, but there was no mistaking the inch and a half wide stab wound over her sternum.

Her family was absent, but she was surrounded by a handful of friends. One of them, a beautiful girl of probably the same age as her, kissed her on the forehead before I put her into Xibalba. I named the girl Florentyna, a pretty name for a pretty thing. Once Florentyna was within Xibalba’s embrace, I started weaving her life story.

Florentyna was a poet. She was studying medieval poetry and was on her way to publishing her own anthology. She used to teach English at a finishing school to pay the bills.

Things were going well for her; she had just rented out a new and bigger apartment, and had just decided upon the cover for the book that would carry the anthology. She was unmarried, but the girl who had kissed her goodbye was her lover. She had been the cause of her death. Her brother had caught her and Florentyna in a flagrante delicto. Enraged at seeing his sister defy the natural order, he had decided that if a man wouldn’t enter her, a knife would. He was now serving a life sentence, and her parents appealed in higher courts for his release. Her friends more than made up for the lack of family, all of who loved her, regardless of her sexual preferences.

She took a measly hour and forty-five minutes in Xibalba, and at the end, like always, nothing remained. She was the last customer of the day and once night fell, I left for home.

3 hours.

Chapter 2 People have always believed there is equality in death. They believe that one can go through life as a billionaire or his chauffeur, but in the end, both are going to end up in the same place.

People are comforted by the hope that once they are dead, they will be equal to their superiors.

They take solace in the fact that they will be able to achieve in the afterlife what they could never achieve in their present one.

Sure, Xibalba is nicer than most people. She won’t treat you any differently – whether you were white or black, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, young or old. However, Xibalba does not cover all aspects of dying. She doesn’t determine how a person will be remembered; that is determined by the people who still walk the Earth. The inequality of life continues into the afterlife, and as it always happens, every dead person is remembered in the way in which they lived their life. Since the way a person lived their life depends on their position in the food chain of the human society, the notion that the only sweetness death brings is equality is not only fallacious but also ironic, as death treats everyone as equally as their life treated them.

Equality is anarchy after all; neither life nor death will assure you any semblance of equal standing with the rest of humanity. In both life and death, people have always needed their gods and demons. The simultaneous need to look up to

someone and look down upon someone else is inherent to human nature. People are always fighting for equality, but they won’t know what to do once they get it, because they won’t be able to compare themselves to anyone else anymore. And yet, people crave for the equality they think death will give them.

But I have seen enough cadavers and families to know that equality is an illusion, something that can never be achieved. We are destined to go through life stuck in our pigeonholes. The best we can hope for is that Xibalba treats us lovingly once our time is up.

3 hours.

Chapter 3 I knew today would bring with it the black rain.

It always rained black when I had that dream. I had the dream when I was twelve. The next day, my brother was raped and murdered by men from his rival gang, and it rained black. I had that dream when I was twenty-three. The next day, my husband strangled our daughter and cut his own throat, and it rained black. I had that dream when I was thirty-seven. The next day my house and everything I owned burned down in an electric fire, and it rained black. I had that dream last night. Today Xibalba was melted down and sold for scrap after the sale of the crematorium, and it rains black.

It has been seven years since I’ve met Xibalba now, I keep her purring and she runs in perfect condition. In these seven years, I’ve fed her a total of five thousand, seven hundred and forty two cadavers. I have weaved a story for each of them, and stored each of these stories in this diary. This diary is as much of me as I am. It has the same thoughts as me, the only difference is that this diary does not live and breathe as I do.

This diary helps me keep my sanity. It is the voice for all of the five thousand, seven hundred and forty two of Xibalba’s friends. This diary contains everyone – from the bicycle boy Frank to old aunt Merida, from Timothy, who was valedictorian of his class, to Susanna the prostitute, from drug peddler Jones to Mary Ann, a bartender. It even includes army cadet Jack, newsman Richard and 4 year old Amelia who loved playing with her dolls and braiding their hair. It finally ends with Leviathan and Florentyna.

I headed to Mr. Dawson’s office, the owner and manager of the crematorium. He spoke to me kindly, told me that I would get a month’s pay while I looked for another job. He seemed to think that unemployment was my biggest problem.

‘Why did you melt Xibalba?’ I said through a clenched mouth.

‘Xi-what now, son?’

‘Xibalba. The furnace. Why did you melt Xibalba?’

‘Well, keeping that junk of metal wouldn’t do anyone any good now, would it? Sold it to Mr. Cribland around the corner, and made my self a tidy little sum.’

‘You had no right to sell her.’

‘Her? It was just a furnace, son.’

‘No, she wasn’t. She was Xibalba. My Xibalba.

You had no right to sell her.’

‘Look here now; you have a month’s severance pay. Stop talking like a lunatic and leave my office.’

He still thought the money was my problem. He would learn.

Chapter 4 I had that dream again that night, after I left Mr. Dawson’s office. It has always been the same.

I’m dead. The how, why or where of it has never mattered, all I know is that in that dream, I’ve ceased to live. Lying down on my back, paralyzed by rigor mortis, I’m awaiting something. Maybe it is what the Christians call Judgement Day, what the Hindus call rebirth, or what the Muslims call Jannat. As I’m waiting, I enter this tiny cave with walls too straight and smooth to be natural.

Though it is cramped and feels like the inside of an oven, it feels oddly familiar. I feel like a child wrapped up in its mother’s arms. Except it feels like the mother is going to strangle the child. A red glow shines into my eyes. It seems to be coming from the walls, like they’re emanating heat. A claustrophobic, dark place, with red flames? Afterlife seems like a cliché.

3 hours.

The red of the wall starts deepening, it turns to orange, and then to yellow. Vibrations run across my body and there is a roaring noise in my ears, and in that moment, I’m free from the dimensional hold that binds humans to things beyond themselves. I can see through things, and across things. I’m looking from everywhere. I can see myself, strapped to some sort of board. I can see my skin as easily as I can see my bones, I can see my muscles as easily as I can see my nerves. But in this new inside-out universe, the most interesting part is that my body is on fire.

Flames are licking at my corpse from head to toe. I am finally in Xibalba’s embrace. 3 hours. 3 hours. 3 hours are all it takes for me to forever become a part of Xibalba.

‘What now? Xibalba’s gone. What happens to me? How do I end?’

Chapter 5 Dawson was leaving the crematorium, or what remained of it, at twilight. He was wary as he saw me approach, but shook my hand nonetheless.

‘So, how goes the hunt for a new job? Your severance package should suffice for a while, I hope.’ Again with the money; did he really not see beyond slips of paper?

‘Mr. Cribland told me that Xibalba will be used as plumbing in low-income homes. He himself signed the deal with a construction company.’

‘Well, that’s good ain’t it? Those poor souls could do with some proper showers, god bless their souls.’

‘It’s because of you that my Xibalba is being used to reroute filthy water from the plant, to toilets and onwards to sewers.’

‘Been visiting the pub have we? Talking about a furnace as if it were a woman. I think the fumes from the furnace have gotten to you. Get help, son. You’re going to need it.’ Walking towards his car, he added, ‘I hope your new job has insurance that covers visits to the shrink.’

As soon as he switches on the ignition, the bomb placed inside the engine explodes, shattering all the windows of the cars nearby and knocking me down on the concrete. The front of the car is blown clean off, while the rest of the car has caught fire. Dawson himself is painted in hues of yellow, orange and red. A bloodcurdling shriek emanates from him as fire eats into flesh and bone. ‘That was supposed to be me, Dawson. I was supposed to die burning inside a metal beast. You stole my death from me, and now I have stolen your life.’

I knew today would bring with it the black rain.

It always rained black when I had that dream. I had the dream when I was twelve. The next day my brother was raped and murdered by men from his rival gang, and it rained black. I had that dream when I was twenty-three. The next day my husband strangled our daughter and cut his own throat, and it rained black. I had that dream when I was thirty-seven. The next day my house and everything I owned burned down in an electric fire and it rained black. I had that dream the night before last and the next day, Xibalba was melted down and sold for scrap after the sale of the crematorium, and it rained black. I had that dream last night, and today I lie in a parking lot near the building Xibalba used to call home, a piece of shrapnel from the exploding car embedded deep in my chest, feeling myself

much closer to Xibalba than I ever was. Today I shall finally be in the embrace of the star after which I named my love, and yet, it rains black.