Page 10 of Where Light Cannot Follow

"Well, no." His eyes twinkle with insufferable mirth. "Roman, actually. A few dozen centuries ago, I would have found that slip deeply offensive. Time has a way of softening things, though.”

A scoff escapes as I turn and resume my endless trudge down the street. He follows. There are no audible footsteps, but somehow his presence registers behind me. He's correct, of course. Virgil wasn’t Greek. He was, in fact, Roman. He worked for… Augustus? Or was it another emperor? One of them, certainly. The poet who stitched Rome’s myths into a single epic. The title of his epic hovers just out of reach, something beginning with an A. My mind scrapes for it the way fingers fumble for a coin dropped between floorboards. The only aspects of Roman history that interested me in college were the empire's mechanics: the rise, systematic expansion, and the inevitable, devastating collapse.

"Running from this doesn't make it disappear," the man calling himself Virgil says.

"I think you're delusional. Or I am."

"Perhaps we all are, to some extent."

The casual philosophical deflection irritates me enough that I whirl around, ending face-to-face with him. Close enough that I should feel his breath and detect his body heat. I would if natural law operated normally here. But, of course, it doesn’t. I step back.

"You have to be a neurological artifact,” I say. “Comas can cause vivid hallucinations. The brain misfires—neurochemistry, memory reconstruction, things like that. I watched a documentary once. That explains this entire scenario.”

Virgil nods along with genuine interest. "That does sound logical. Can you explain what a coma is, though? That particular term is unfamiliar."

“It’s a protective response,” I say. “The brain shuts things down when the damage gets too severe—injury, oxygen deprivation, shock. It suspends consciousness before the system completely fails. Cortical activity drops and⁠—”

My explanation halts mid-sentence. Virgil absorbs every word with scholarly intensity, leaning forward, fingers twitching as though reaching for a pen to record my explanation. Or would it have been a quill? My Roman history is hazier than I would have anticipated.

"If you're a construct of my mind, how do you not possess my knowledge base?"

Virgil shrugs with maddening casualness. "Perhaps the question is the problem."

Another sigh escapes as I shove my hands deeper into my pockets and resume walking, slower this time. Slow enough for him to stride alongside me. Snow drifts like ash from bruise-blue skies, and the silent city carries endlessly forward.

"I'm a man of logic, Virgil. And you don't make sense."

He nods as if this is perfectly reasonable. “All right. What sort of explanation would your logic sign off on, then?”

We turn a corner. Lights are still darkened, windows still empty. "If you're a Roman poet, why are you speaking modern English and wearing cashmere?"

His face lights up as he runs his hands down the sweater. "Are you a fan as well? Softer than lamb's wool, they tell me." He chuckles, glancing at an abandoned halal cart but not slowing his pace. "I died over two thousand mortal years ago by my last count, and I've encountered more people than memory can catalog since then. Along the way, I've absorbed their cultures, cuisines, clothing, and languages. Words have always been my particular talent. It's amusing how some writers struggle with second languages while others, like me, absorb the nuances and rhythms naturally. Take Akkadian, for instance. In that language, they emphasize the final syllable of compound verbs, creating this musical quality that⁠—"

"I don't know that language."

"What's that?"

"I've never heard of Akkadian.” The name stirs something faint, an echo from a college lecture, maybe, but I’m certain I’ve never heard anyone speak to the sound of the language. My chest tightens as if my heart’s racing, only to remind me there’s no heartbeat to quicken. The realization knocks loose the question before I can stop it. “How does a figment of my imagination possess knowledge I lack?"

Virgil's expression softens. We've slowed to barely more than a stroll. Which is something I've never done on these streets, though it's slowly sinking in that perhaps I've never walked these particular streets before at all.

"Maybe it's because I'm not a product of your imagination."

"Far easier to believe that than accepting some famous dead Roman poet has decided to have a nice chat with me after my supposed death."

"I never claimed it was a pleasant chat, but I'm glad that's your interpretation."

I cut my eyes toward him, but he only chuckles and continues walking, hands folded neatly behind his back, the gesture oddly formal for a deserted street. There's something infuriating about this man. He’s exactly the type who could have sidled up to an emperor, used cunning and charm to secure a place in a powerful, disciplined ruler's court.

We turn another corner, and my feet stop moving entirely.

Before us stands a massive Christmas tree. Dark, sparsely adorned with broken bulbs that catch no light. At its peak, a star flickers intermittently like a failing neon sign, the kind that draws insects to their doom.

"Where did that come from?" Virgil opens his mouth to answer me, but I cut him off. "And don't tell me to ask better questions."

"I shall remain quiet, then." He maintains silence for perhaps thirty seconds before breaking his vow. "Have you ever heard of the stages of grief? A woman I met here told me about them once. I believe the—ah, hmm—is it the fourth or fifth stage that's acceptance?"

"It's the fifth."