Walking Shadow

The bass drums strike their final heartbeats before flatlining into silence. It's getting close to dark; it's so late. Gerard calls company halt, we all breathe out a long breath. Blood, Chemical and Amp sections throw some hats in the air. They're always so happy when we stop; I've never understood why, they get to be so close to our heroes all day. Maybe something about setting the pace, I don't know. We're always tired, way back here in Romance Formation, but it's GOOD-tired. We picked up 5 marchers today, Romance didn't get anyone but that's OK. More Marchers means more confusion and new kids are always in shock anyway.

It looks like we can have a normal night. But, since when have things EVER been as they seem?

We're about to unload the storage float and get the tents; it's always pitch and sleep on whatever hard ground we've got. The line for tents is actually forming when someone from Funeral section notices something. It's a building, tall and dark gray. You can't imagine how weird that is to us. None of us had ever seen one untouched by flames. Most of us hadn't even seen wreckage in Deadworld. My section, Romance, is too far back to see closely, but it looks like an old insane asylum to me. I shudder.

Gerard calls all the way back to Murder formation; the rest of us get it secondhand. We're staying in there tonight. Sarah finds me, she looks like she wants to cry. The place is scaring most of the girls. I, Leader Jenny from Lovesick Formation, Leader Kevynn from Sin, and Leader Cordelia from Knives all exchange worried glances. Something is a little bit not right about a group of us not feeling well about this place. Nevertheless, Gerard calls it back again. Our orders are just to  put the stuff in Float Three and change out of our dress uniforms.

Romance formation shares the burden of a few extra formations between us and 2, where we have to go to get our downtime clothes. When I finally get through the line, Fear hands me my bag and strokes my hair in that way she has. She's always loved my hair.

"Gerard was complaining about how you snubbed him, every time he took a break to walk."

She rubs my hair between her fingertips. I hear the scratching noise.

"I didn't snub him. I was heading Romance today. I couldn't."

Fear laughs and kisses me once on each cheek, her lips like ice right below my eyes. "You could have been HAVING romance."

I shrug her away and leave to find Sarah. I do not. Instead I crash into Frank. He's holding a coffee, coming back from the other side of Float Two. Half of it spills on me. I won't go into a lot of detail about the incident... just that I'm not sure I knew half the cusswords we both used exsisted prior. Today I found out that Frank Iero drinks iced coffee. I also found out that my dress uniform's jacketfront is rather thin when met with liquid. And wind is cold.

He apologizes all the way to Three, where I have to take off my jacket and clean off the worst of it before I give it to Mother War.

Mother tsks. "Again, my dear?"

"I'm sorry Mother, it's all my fault, I wasn't watching my step," Frankie says.

Meanwhile, as I'm feeling rather naked without my jacket, Sarah comes up behind me. Her is breathing calculated so as not to seem odd when Frankie hears it. Sarah idolizes him; she'd do anything to impress him.

"Miss lady, where are your flute gloves?" Mother War asks Sarah, and she hands them to her. She smiles, but Sarah's twirling her hair at Frankie. He smiles dazedly and then goes back to explaining to Mother War why she has to wash my uniform jacket again.

"I spilled my coffee on her, it was entirely my fault, you shouldn't be angry with her."

Mother War, always stubborn, disagrees. "This is the second time I've had to wash this girl's jacket with the special soap, the second time in two weeks, how do you explain that? This is coffee, at least, not blood."

Frankie frowns. "Blood?"

I look at my feet. "His... his arm was bleeding... I... I wrapped my jacket around it..."

Sarah bouncily says, "She means Gerard. When the microphone stand caught his arm last week after-hours when we were packing up, do you remember, Frankie?"

He nods, breaking from his transfixation with Sarah. "Ohhh. So YOU'RE the girl from Romance Formation he keeps talking about."

I am suddenly quietly livid. "I'm sure he doesn't talk that much about me; Mother, may I go?"

Mother War waves a hand. "Go, child, change into your down clothes."

My brain is running like an overheated engine. "TALK about me? How could he TALK about me? I have no fucking NAME! What in all the hells...?"

All I say aloud is, "Thank you, Mother War."

Sarah stays and chat with Frankie. I collapse on the back bumper of Three, then begin to change into my downtime outfit. Off come my uniform pants with the two white stripes down the legs, my black marching shoes, my black under-jacket t-shirt. My pride and joy, my jacket, was already with Mother War. It looks almost exactly like Gerard's, but since I'm in Romance Formation I have a single red rose medal on my right breast, and since I am a leader my collar stripe is red. I love my jacket, and it usually stays with me, but not tonight.

Since I haven't got it, I throw on the red tank top, then a black t-shirt shirt reading "Romance" in red. Then I put on my old zip-up sweater. It's red with black pockets, sleeves, and hood. In place of my uniform pants, I wear dark jeans. My feet slip into battered tennis shoes. I'm thinner, shorter, overall smaller here in the Deadworld than I ever was in the Livingworld, yet stronger and curvier. Here, I might pass as pretty, if anyone cared about that sort of thing. Well, actually, I'm pretty sure they do... but I like to say it isn't so. I keep myself under the delusion that in the Parade, nobody ever loves, and only new marchers like my friend Sarah are still operating under the Livingworld wants of love and desire and infatuation.

I can't explain to my mind what I feel, so most days, I don't.

I throw my uniform pants, shoes, and shirt into the laundry hatch on the other side of Three. By now I'm so late nobody's around. Most of the kids have gone to look at, with morbid curiosity, the huge building.

The sky is darkening into a murky black now, illuminated in a strange round patch by the moon behind the ashes. There has been ash in the sky for as long as I've been in the Parade. Regret, Fear's twin sister, tells me of nights once every few decades when the sky clears completely, and you can see the moon and the stars. It's due to happen again sometime soon. I don't believe her.

I haven't seen stars since I died.

As I walk closer to the building, I come out of the shadow of Float Three and I see that the building is bigger than I thought. So much bigger, in fact, that I have to crane my neck back to see the roof. It's tall, and water stains, rust stains, blood stains drip from it at the seams, like a horrific painting. The kids who are inside seem to be all right; it's dry and there seem to be no demons or deserters inside. I near the doors, and I hear talking. Laughing. It's really rather comforting.

There's already a line of marchers lounging around waiting to get in; Regret is assigning rooms or floors while Ray leans against the door chatting idly with Bob and some marchers from Undertaker, the last formation in the Parade. I'm distressed; I may have missed the Romance room assignings. I wouldn't know if anyone was calling me, and besides nobody would, I have no name.

I've not had a name, because in the Parade you're rechristened the moment you join with a name that truly fits you. Many people had tried to name me when I first came, but nothing seemed to fit. I don't quite care. 

In any event, Regret waves to me and I walk over. "Listen love, Romance is on the top floor with the boys and the officers tonight."

"What the fuck?" I ask, and take her list to see for myself.

So far this day, I've been inspected then asked to ride float by the Parade leader, seen a building, and had coffee spilled on me by high-ranking officer. Now, suddenly, my formation is staying with them. I'm telling myself that I'm wondering what gives, when in the back of my head I know. I just can't let myself realize that.