Week 2 Story: What Comes Around

I was sitting in Trig class, one ragged dress shoe kicked up on the chair in front of me, when Brendan Russ leaned over my desk.

“Tyler, man,” he said, glancing warily across at Mrs. Ramirez. “I need to talk to you.”

I lifted an eyebrow. Russ and I weren’t exactly friends. We got along just fine, and we were next to each other on Ramirez’s assigned seating chart, which also made us occasional math partners. But that was about the extent of it.

It really wasn’t in Russ’s best interests—short, curly-haired Russ, with his polished dress shoes and just-so school uniform—to talk to me.

“Shoot,” I said, unwrapping a piece of gum, only halfway disinterested.

He said, “It’s about my life before,” and I felt my disinterest plummet another few notches. Together, we turned and looked back at his shadow.

Brendan Russ’s shadow was a thing of nightmares—much bigger than he was, hulking and hunched over itself, gnarled and snarling. It had spines and wicked edges and too many arms that never seemed to stop moving. The kind of thing that bewildered you at first—what could a simple creature like Russ have ever done to earn a Shade like that—but that everybody eventually got used to.

It didn’t really matter what he’d done in his past life. Something pretty nasty, sure, and a whole lot of it, if the embodiment of all his sins looked like that.

But in this life, Russ would probably have trouble maiming a fly. So nobody worried too much about it.

“I think I’ve got a lead on what exactly I did,” he said eventually. “Who I was before.”

I snorted. “I think you’ve got a pretty good idea who you were before even without any digging, man.”

“I know.”

He was quiet for a minute, and at first, I didn’t think he was going to answer. I turned back to my trig assignment. Not that it was any more entertaining, but the cost of tuition at Ashford Prep was obscenely high, and I wasn’t letting it go to waste.

Then he said again, stronger this time, “I know. That’s why I have to find out for sure. I need you to track this person down for me. Ask your drug dealer people or whoever.”

I laughed, maybe a little harshly, snapping my gum. “My drug dealer people. Christ, Russ.”

“I’m serious. This is important.”

The bell rang. I looked across the room at Laurel Wesson, who was standing and straightening the lapels of her Ashford blazer. She scowled when she saw me.

“So will you do it?” Russ asked. “Everybody says you’re the guy to go to. I have money.”

I glanced at him. Normally, I’d found it was best to stay out of situations like this. But he looked obstinate in that desperate, teeth-set way people got, and the money was always nice, and I was kind of curious about his Shade despite myself.

“I’ll think about it,” I said absently.

Then I stood and followed Laurel Wesson out of the classroom.

***

Fourth period, I had World History with Mr. Dennis, but I headed across the Quad to Laurel’s study hall instead, keeping pace with her. Eventually—probably when she realized I wasn’t going away—she whirled around, face pale.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

I smiled pleasantly, reaching into my backpack. “I think the real question here is what you want.”

She actually flinched when she saw the manila envelope. At first, I didn’t think she’d touch it, but then she lunged forward at the last second, snatching it out of my hands. Like if she was holding it now, she was suddenly holding all the power, too.

“That’s your copy,” I said. “You can go ahead and keep it.”

I watched her shaky hands as she lifted one of the photos out, but I didn’t look at the picture itself. I didn’t need to see it again.

“The question,” I said again, “is if you still want to be valedictorian.”

She stared across at me, dead-eyed. A blotchy flush was rising up her neck.

“And how much you’re willing to pay to make sure that happens,” I added.

She snorted. “You’re scum, Tyler Strauss. Literal scum of the earth. I didn’t think lowlifes like you actually existed. You’re—”

“Ten minutes late for class,” I interrupted, checking my invisible watch. “Which means I’m fifteen minutes late to the headmaster’s office.”

When she didn’t say anything, just slid the photos back into the envelope and folded the little metal arms firmly closed, I grinned.

“A thousand dollars,” I said. It was a lot of money, but rich kids like her always managed to pay up when it mattered. And Ashford Prep was expensive. “Cash only. All of it by the end of the week, or the headmaster gets a copy of all this too, and the end of the year looks a lot different for you.”

She looked like she was about to cry, and I really didn’t have time for that, so I turned and walked back towards World History.

Beside me, my shadow was mild and amicable, hands in his pockets.

***

Russ tried to corner me at my picnic table after school. When I saw him coming, I nodded at the small ring of guys I’d been talking to, and they scattered. Russ hesitated, fidgeting at the other end of the table.

“Well?” he said. “Think you can get that info for me?”

I looked at his Shade again, all looming menace, and at mine, thin and relaxed and easygoing. I even halfway thought about telling him it was better for him if he didn’t know all the things his past self had done in that other life, that that Russ probably wouldn’t have wanted future versions of himself to know anyways. I knew I wouldn’t.

But he looked determined. And Ashford was expensive.

“What do you want to know?” I asked.

Author's Note: While the Ramayana’s main plot is interesting itself, when I read it with the weekly retelling in mind, I find myself focusing more on small, random details than on the bigger picture. This week, for instance, I was struck by a throwaway line of Sita’s, just after she’s first glimpsed Rama.

Though the pair haven’t even spoken in this life, they knew each other in a previous one, and that connection sparks something that feels like love at first sight. Love, as it turns out, is kind of miserable, and pretty soon Sita is irritated by every happy thing around her, since she can’t be happy herself without Rama. When a bird starts singing outside her window, she cries at it, “The sins I committed in a previous birth have assumed your form and come to torture me now!”

I was really struck by this idea of a physical embodiment of somebody’s sins from a former life, so that’s what I explored with my retelling. More than that, I was curious what kind of impact that would have on people, literally being followed around by all the mistakes they’ve ever made. Through Russ and Tyler, I was able to look at both extremes: someone who desperately wants to know what he’s done wrong, and someone who desperately wants not to, because he already knows what he's doing now.

Bibliography: The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R. K. Narayan.

Image Credit: "Money" by 401kcalculator.org. Source: Flickr.