Work's Final Call

Nelson Bussard glanced over his thick rectangular spectacles at the ding of the old doorbell above the creaky wooden door to his shop. In the dim light he could only see the man’s silhouette: tall, lanky, ruffled looking with a fuzzy black hat tilted back and to the left. Smoke or dust rose from the man when he moved as if he were smoldering, and he walked facing at an angle like he was sliding on grease.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Nelson asked, wiping his clay-soiled hands on the crusty white apron he always wore. His voice was low and musical.

“Please, keep working. I see you are nearly finished.” The man spoke softly. Nelson nodded, sat back down and spun his wheel a few more times, forming the vase to elegant perfection. The man moved among the shelves, smiling as Nelson worked. When he was satisfied he moved the tray with the vase to harden near the glowing embers of his oven.

“Your work is excellent,” the tall man looked over his shoulder to where Nelson was bent over washing his hands. “The intricate designs, the graceful shapes. Yes, this will do just fine.”

“Thank you, Mister…?” The man smiled, but there was something wicked about the curve of his lips. His eyes glimmered with the gold light of the oven, and it seemed to Nelson that his eyes were entirely black.

“Abaddon.” The man replied softly. He moved to Nelson’s work table and placed one hand on its worn surface. “I trust you still take commissions?” Nelson nodded, flattening his gray hair with his hand. He raised his spectacles to his forehead.

“I have been making custom pottery, dinnerware, and even urns for people’s pet’s ashes for fifteen years. I’ve been doing ceramics for over thirty years. What do you have in mind?” asked Nelson.

“Your life’s work,” the man smiled again. Nelson raised his eyebrows. “I need an urn,” the man continued, “fit for the ashes of the greatest of men.” The man proceeded to describe in intricate detail an incredible ceramic piece, beautifully decorated with gold and silver, and amethyst glaze. Then he told of the shrine that would hold the urn: the ceiling a curved canopy mosaic of ceramic tiles depicting life and death, the walls detailed stained glass, and the floor ceramic tiles bearing an intricate knotted design which would extend up the pedestal upon which the urn would stand.

“Where do you propose I build this shrine?” Nelson asked, shaking his head. He chuckled to himself, this was ridiculous.

“In your backyard, in a room, I will have built for you. Surely you wouldn’t want to haul such delicate and expensive tile for any great distance.” Nelson shook his head more.

“This is an absurd request…”

Abaddon interrupted him: “I will pay you with ten thousand solid gold bricks, each weighing six pounds.”

“No such fortune exists,” Nelson laughed.

“It does,” the man insisted, “I brought a sample with me. It is outside.”

Nelson followed the man to his door, and in the street outside was a pickup truck with a cloth drawn over the bed. Abaddon glided to the truck and threw aside the cloth, revealing a stack of golden bricks that filled the bed of the truck, weighing it down so that the fender nearly drug the ground.

"It's all yours," he grinned.

The room had been built two months ago, and Nelson worked in his shop shaping the tiles for the ceiling. He could already picture the image they would bear. The glass would be harder. But it was the urn that interested him. He had always enjoyed working on urns. It was somewhat morbid, but still, he found something ironic about them. He felt powerful and important when he worked on an urn. His work would honor the remembrance of someone’s loved one, now past. To think he could create something that could bring honor to even a dead man’s ashes. He would save the urn for last.

Day after day he rose at six thirty, stoked the fire, and slaved over more tiles as his wife watched, concerned, from the kitchen. The way she watched him. She never helped, just bustled about and reaped the benefits of having all that gold. She would spend money without asking him, buy fancy clothes, show them off to people and end up getting them invited to fancy dinners with the snobbish people Nelson despised. The last thing he needed was more relationships with snobbish people to distract him from his work. But she always had to be right. Her voice transformed into a nasal, nagging, yapping drone. Their arguments grew more fierce as the weeks went on until at last, they ceased to talk at all. It’s better this way, Nelson thought. Less distraction from the job. He liked being left alone. The silence helped him think, he could picture the patterns he would paint on the tiles more clearly.

Nelson began to sleep in his shop. He could occasionally be seen moving between the mysterious building behind his house and his shop carrying crates. As the months went on his figure became thinner, began to hunch over. He moved more slowly, painfully. Age and labor began to take its toll on him. He refused angrily all other jobs requested, and finally simply boarded up his front door. Yet his wife would silently place a meal on his work table three times a day. He ordered supplies from his home, had them left by his back door.

The inside of the room developed slowly over the months. The ceiling took shape, the walls, and floor, piece by piece, and the pedestal, at last, stood in the middle of the room. And with each tile, Nelson felt more and more like quitting, but he was unable to do so. He had to keep working. The tiles contained his life, he poured himself into them, and every time he entered the room they urged him on. And the gold, all that gold! It consumed him. He realized it, but he couldn’t stop. He would board the door of the room to keep himself from continuing the job, only to tear the boards down and stagger into the room. The tiles surrounded him, and he saw his reflection in them. How old he had grown! How gaunt and ugly! His wispy gray hair floated ghost-like on his skull. His skin was pulled tight across his forehead and protruding cheeks and hung limply below his chin. His eyes were sunken in dark sockets, and his clothes hung like rags around his gaunt skeletal frame. But the tiles and the beautiful images they held, how lovely they were. He had made them, they reflected his greatness, his skill, his youthful beauty and how they whispered and screamed for him to finish as they spun around him! Surely no other man before him had created such a marvelous work. It throbbed with his own life, it shone with a heavenly beauty and brought tears to his eyes. He would end it, he had to.

Nelson felt cold and damp. A dark hand held him in its terrible grip, and he knew the urn would take the last of his life. There was no sound, no scent, and all light was already fading. But still, he worked, shaping the urn, forming the pattern. The fire of his oven blazed behind him, and the shop’s window had long since been shattered, but no wind stirred him, no heat warmed him. He trembled, tears stung his eyes and blurred his fading vision, he clenched his teeth in pain, but still, he pressed on. There was nothing but him and the urn. It fought him, it threatened to shatter, it reeled on its stand, but he would not relent. He would defeat this final piece, and his name would be known. He would be glorified as the richest and greatest artist to ever live. Surely a great man’s ashes would be held in such an incredible urn. A storm raged around him, tools were thrown to the ground, but still, he worked. And then it was finished.

Nelson’s wife wept for him. Even though in the last year of his life he had neglected her, she had loved him.

“Whatever happened to old Nelson?” A tall lanky man with a fuzzy black hat stood in the door of the room, admiring the incredible artwork. “He sure was an amazing artist.” His soft voice drifted down on the intricate ceramic tile floor.

“I don’t know,” she replied, wiping her eye on her sleeve. “He disappeared in a storm, best anyone can tell.”

“My condolences. Who did he do this for?” the man asked, and dust or smoke seemed to rise from him as he moved towards the urn in the center of the room.

“I never found out,” Nelson’s wife answered. “Whoever it was, he paid him well. Seems an awful waste to pay a man so much and never show up in the end. I guess it was like all his work though. He did it more for himself than for the people who paid him. He put so much of himself into his work, know what I mean?”

“I think so,” the man smiled. “Mind if I take some pictures? I'd like to feature this in our ceramics magazine: Out of the Clay.”

“Go ahead,” She glanced at his press badge: Abaddon. “I have some things to do. Just close the door on your way out.” Nelson’s wife left the man in the marvelous shrine. He moved to the urn again and removed the lid. Then he took the cap off his lens. Inside there were ashes, which he dumped carefully into the urn. On top of the ashes, he gently placed a small, cast gold bar.

"Treasures in earthen vessels," he whispered. A name was branded in the gold: "Nelson."

Note from the Author:

This is a story I originally published back in 2005. It won several awards, including the blue ribbon in a regional writing competition. I thought I would re-issue it here, with a few very minor revisions, which I think make it a better story.