This city, built by men, sustained by their movements, creaks and groans under this vital transference of energy. It is a corpse, resurrected each day by work and the act of living. It is alive because we are alive, and it dies every day, during the little moment of stillness that happens when everything stops for just a moment. At this moment of the city-death, the silence I imagine lingers. The dead should be laid to rest. Resurrection is a terrible curse. It perpetuates work on a body unfit for work. It gives energy to a body that cannot hold it. I say this only because they finally exorcised my father today.
I had called for the grave priest when my father first dropped dead. I tipped the sparrow boys, and they ran dutifully, bare feet on salted pavement. Most sparrow boys have thick soles after years of running, but the kid that ran my street was 10, a neophyte leaving bloody footprints on the barest hints of white salt that we had painstakingly scattered as best we could. He came back without one of the old men that hung around the local coffee shop, panting out the second of the three rules that were taught to every child that attends the compulsory five years of lessons: In the absence of a grave priest, burn and salt the body (or exorcise it yourself). Between the five streets that connect at the intersection next to the salt trader, we had about four spots to burn our loved ones. We had five, but all that remains of that barrel is the charred spot left when they removed it for maintenance three years ago. Most of us could barely afford the amount we pooled together for the salt necessary for the streets, let alone enough for one person to be purified. I knew that my donation was measly, but I was at least hoping for Uncle Jia, who would sometimes perform the funerary rites with half a silver piece, would think about it. He was the only one consistently drunk enough to attempt to halt the resurrection with just a sliver of silver. I had held out hope that I would be able to bury my father. I made the decision to risk the resurrection with thick ropes, and wooden stakes. We lived around the docks and could scrouge up these materials under the sympathetic unseeing of the dock workers, whom were often neighbours and childhood friends. I staked my father in the five organs and tied him up with the worn but salt-water-weathered ropes. He was a mild-mannered man, so we all knew his resurrection could be contained.
The aunties that made up the invincible triumvirate ruling the five streets of the dockworker district, were unquestionable. They swept into the house when they heard the news and arranged and prepared the wake, all whilst chiding me for my ineptitude. While they had no training in the temple traditions, each of them was an encyclopaedia of traditional practices. Auntie Chin, for example, knew exactly how to banish a house spirit. The cleaver wrapped in blood-stained talismans she wore on her hip was a testament to that. She would be the one to exorcise my father when the resurrection came. She was born into the violence that erupted after the resurrections first began, the desperate attempts at fighting, or more realistically, escaping the spirits, demons and monsters that birthed from the corpses of the dead. When her brothers were enlisted into the ranks of grave priest initiates (dying in the trials as most of them do), she had to hunt minor spirits to harvest ghosts for a little cash. It was with that same viciousness that she cursed me out for not having enough rice in the house, in case of a hungry ghost. My father had not starved to death, but he had started skipping meals after he lost his job making ropes. The chance of him becoming a hungry ghost, while distant, had indeed been present. I had sold most of the belongings that were left, but my job as a salt miner paid little.
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The locals don’t talk about the black rain that falls during the thirteenth month. Everyone has a story about a great-uncle or third cousin that remarked with impunity about the drops of inky black, who were struck with terrible misfortune soon after. This superstition is ignored by what remains of a proud imperial guard, who coincidentally were subject to the most catastrophic decimation of a standing military force in history, oral and written. The county warlock assured that the rain was just water but given that he was eaten by a demon three days after, people err on the side of caution. So, as the Muo (or ink in Théan Trade Speech) pelts the salt-brick streets of Corphaksa, the locals wipe the liquid darkness off their faces, without once acknowledging that their faces are wet. This complex exploration of the ambiguity of the luck-bending attributes of the rain is lost on Rete, whose mastery of the topic extends to a vicious caning when he dared mention it as a child. It seemed funny, to him at least, that most of the stories involved the death of the offender at the hands of those nearby, fulfilling the promise of misfortune in a neat and gruesome little story to tell noisy children.
Rete was sixteen and gainfully employed as a runner for the Grave Priests, colloquially known as a Sparrow. It paid decent money, but was full of terrible responsibility, which was why only the best of the best were selected. A crow had to be a fast runner, sharp of hearing and able to maintain perfect manners despite being out of breath and close to vomiting. He would run around the houses with just enough income to afford a real funeral, waiting for someone to die. When he heard the cries of despair and the wailing for a priest, he would quickly make himself known and have 34 minutes to run over to a temple and call a Grave Priest over. It was harder to start fires in the blackened metal barrels that were placed at every street corner when the rain poured like this, so business was booming. When the poor were unable to perform a salt and fire exorcism, they would have to find a way to afford a Grave Priest. Luckily, Uncle Chen offered a very reasonable loan for his grave rites, one that most could pay off within the second generation. It was this or risk vicious maiming, haunting and the occasional spree of abductions and murders. Every child knows, as soon as they’re old enough to speak, that the dead come back in 108 minutes, and they come back broken.
Rete sprinted down Tobacco Lane, pushing past the lackadaisical Prince of the Road that governed that specific stretch of infrastructure. Prince Vatu, or the Smoky Sultan as he claims for his title, was an unimpressive man wearing the garments of a much larger man, whose shadow still lingers in Tobacco Lane. This is meant quite literally, as Vatu’s father’s death was the first instance where Rete had seen a resurrection. The attending crow had slipped on the slick pavements and broken his leg, which meant that the corpse was not exorcised in time. Luckily, Vatu’s father was as mild-mannered as his son, which meant that the resultant spirit of fire and shadow stalked the streets in a milquetoast manner, occasionally darkening the streetlamps or lightly singeing hair. The resurrection itself led to the destruction of three houses as well as two deaths, one of which was the crow that failed at his duty, as well as a tendency for Rete to wet the bed on bad nights. It also meant that Vatu was severely in debt, having incurred a hefty fine. He spends most of his time moping and whinging, surviving on the meagre stipend, which is all that’s left of the tax he collects after his monthly payments. From that experience Rete learned two things, namely that one/tenth of the total taxes paid by the cigarette peddlers in Tabacco Lane was enough to sustain a gloomy bachelor, and to wear spikes when running in the rain.
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