ash

Julio looks up at the man standing in the doorway, leaning casually against the doorframe. Watches the smoke trailing upwards from the smouldering cigarette that the man pinches between thumb and forefinger.

The room is dimly lit; one fluorescent lamp the only source of light other than the interrupted slashes of sun that comes through the faulty blinds of the window that Julio sits in front of, nursing his styrofoam cup of tea.

"You must be Julio." The words roll off the man's tongue in velvet, silky husk, until he reaches Julio's name. Then the syllables stop their smooth flowing, and Ju-lio becomes Ju-li-o, slight staccato accenting the end of the sentence.

The man is fair, much fairer than Julio, who has been tanned golden by wild days at the sun-bathed beaches down at the coast. Julio has sun-bleached brown hair that has lost its colour, but the man has ebony locks that stand in not unpleasant contrast with his alabaster skin.

Julio is curious to know just who this strange customer is.

"And you are?" Julio's voice is nowhere as smooth as the man's; it is a rasp that comes from drinking too much tea in a day, but Julio is Julio and the man is the man.

The man brings the cigarette to his lips and takes a draught, exhaling cigarette smoke as he talks. "Banquo." He says his name like it is the name of some expensive vintage, some priceless exotic caviar. He says his name as if everyone in the world should know it.

Julio has never heard of Banquo before. He has heard of the Shakespearian Banquo of Macbeth, but not this Banquo, this debonair, alabaster-complexioned, silver-eyed Banquo, leaning on the doorframe of Julio's office, smoking his cigarette.

"What do you want?" A simple enough question, one that Julio always asks.

Banquo's thin, pale lips curve into a smile. "It's nice to find someone who's always straight to the point."
Julio doesn't know whether to answer Banquo or not. He cannot read the expression on Banquo's face; neither can he decipher the tone of Banquo's velvet voice.

The room is warm- swelteringly hot, in fact, and the standing fan that blows from the corner does nothing to lower the temperature. Julio is sweating in his three quarter pants and open shirt, but if Banquo is uncomfortable in his black silk shirt and tie and narrow pinstripe trousers, he doesn't show it.
Slowly and painstakingly deliberately, Banquo paces into the room and around Julio's desk, stopping beside Julio, forcing Julio to have to tilt his head to look up at him from his chair.

"Tell me, Julio, would you like to make another trip down into the Hypogeum?"

Julio swallows, somewhat painfully. He takes a sip of his tea. He can feel Banquo's silver eyes boring into him. He knows Banquo is waiting for an answer.

He can say no, give up a customer, and he will carry on with his own life, in the sun and under the sky, with the water and on the sand, and this enigma, this Banquo, will leave and look for a better man who is brave and reckless enough to enter the Hypogeum. Or he can say yes, and return once again to the darkness and the suffocating claustrophobia of the Hypogeum, to face sunless days and starless nights, to do business with the denizens of the shunned underground world, and probably earn enough money to last him three lifetimes.

The first time Julio entered the Hypogeum, he was barely a man, rash and impulsive. He counts himself lucky that he is still alive. The second time he entered the Hypogeum, he entered as a professional hired transporter. He still remembers the little winged flight that he brought back up to the surface, thrashing and crying and screaming in its cage. He still remembers how human the flight looked, apart from its adolescent wings. But he is older now, and wiser, and he knows more of the world than he did at that time. And there is that money.

"How much are you willing to pay?"

Banquo's thin smile widens.