I couldn’t post anything before, but perhaps this time I will be able to, signals rarely leave the Phantom Coast ever since our separation with the Baseline, but every few weeks I try to post here nevertheless, so that the people may know, if not the reason we exist, the way we exist.
For instance, the funeral rites.
Yes, even here do people die, and yes, even here, in the Phantom Coast do people need a send-off, and though the religions of the old hold no sway here and though the spirits are restless, we do try.
That’s what I do, anyhow, I am one of those who send the spirits away, I am one of those who travel through the Phantom Coast, hiking, biking and walking, marking its relics and counting its ruins and, when people ask me, I am the one who climbs down whatever practical method of transportation I have found and helps them send their spirits away.
Today, after passing through what used to be a small town, if even that, I am hailed down by locals who must have noticed my clothes that clearly mark me a Spiritsender beside an old hush of a building.
Upon getting down the small electrical motorcycle that had seen better days much like the building we stand in front of, and offering them my services, I am ushered through the sidepath which snakes around that decrepit building and leads to a clearing of green glass and large pine trees. “He is dead now…” one of my guides says as they lead me to the body,, and I smile comfortingly, “…but it used to be that he was full of life, even after the bombs he would host us here for many years….” as he weeps and the other one takes on the leading role I choose not to comment on the decrepit state of the building and the implications thereof.
I walk through the grass and the bushes, and through trees whose roots form an arboreal sort of hazard, and as the clearing makes way to a hill which overlooks the smaller of the bays that make up the Phantom Coast, it is explained to me that, the man whose body now sits propped up against the roots, and whose long hair gently rustles in the wind in sync with the leaves once had the restaurant here, and indeed the people w.ho passed through these parts frequented it, making the man able to live a comfortable life.
As my guides leave me with the man who was once older than them both, I gently lower the body parallel to the ground and recite the old prayers first for he must have believed in those once, and even if his beliefs might have changed in the succeeding years due to the hauntings, the prayers bring me a sense of comfort if nothing else.
Then come the new prayers, ones that we have found, through trial and error, by scanning books and scrolls and hard-drives worth of copies of Wikipedia, ones that are as mathematical as they are religious, ones that, if not directly, through their implications, call upon some creators or perhaps creations that have at least passing ties to this cursed land we call home.
The body speaks.
His voice is slow and hoarse, how could it not be when the man has lost so much of his vocal cords? Methodically, he lists off his dreams, his desires, those whom he has not missed and shall not see, and those whom he has missed and cannot see, for his eyes are eaten by seagulls that have frankly become aggressive after the bombs due to lack of food.
I listen intently, and let the man speak, I can see shadows in my periphery, possibly my guides watching my craft, even if they know they shouldn’t, and even if it might catch them a case of haunting, or perhaps even demons and gods I have just called upon, but I am not interested it seeing miracles today, and I am content with watching my client intently.
The man eventually breaks into a hymn, one which I methodically write down, and will file back at the Institute for research even if it is probably just a song the poor man liked and won’t bring us any new conclusions of note, and as the wind picks up, his voice drifts off and the soul goes into its eternal, as far as we can say, slumber.
I am approached by my guides, who ask me if they should burn the body, to which I say no, the disposal makes no difference, and I know they will burn it anyway as they nod in understanding, and walk back to my vehicle and ride off to the distance.
Behind me the Phantom Coast glistens for miles, it stretches on for a few miles more in my direction, after which I will hit its border, though I will be turned around before hitting the said border by some unexpected occurrence, either by my a momentary confusion, or because the road itself will switch directions, or perhaps even through a mechanical failure of the motorcycle itself, but in any case, it won’t let me leave.
But that’s fine, someone needs to chase the spirits away, after all.