Dystopian Fiction

Here is a sample from a book that I hope to get around to publishing before long. I feel I need to do it soon because it is a book that regards a dystopian future and day by day I see it coming true. Just as today Brave New World does not have the same bite it once did, I fear this book will lose some of its impact just because much of what I feared when I thought of it years ago has come to pass. Basically, it contains all of the things I feared through the years regarding the future. I was thinking of calling it Homo Ex Machina (Man From The Machine), a play on the famous Latin phrase Deus Ex Machina (God From The Machine), but I'm not sure if my Latin is correct. And hopefully the word "Homo" in the title won't bring forth the negative connotations that it did when I was in Junior High:

Night had fallen on the first truly warm day of spring. Mim’s body and mind were in tune with the weather, experiencing as primitive man once had the change of the seasons.  The electronic distractions that normally filled his leisure time held no interest for him tonight, so in touch was he with the world’s resurgence. The breeze that whispered to the plants to come to life again awoke something in him as well. He was content to watch the world outside his window and experience his connectedness to it.

He went to bed early simply because the conditions were so perfect for it. He had had a tiring day and the thought of the comfort of his bed appealed to him. It was a clear sky and he would be able to stare out his bedroom window at the world within his view. From his bedroom he could see the fence and the wilderness that lay beyond. The soft breeze was refreshingly cool after the unexpected heat of the day. All conditions were right for relaxation and sleep.

Yet when he slipped beneath the sheets, he noticed that the subtle discomfort he had been feeling had not vanished as he hoped it would. It had been with him all that day, though his conscious  mind had fought to keep it from surfacing. It flitted subtly at the edges of his awareness, yet it was driven back as if by some sub-conscious censor. “How odd this uneasiness is”, he thought to himself, for he was an honest man who had nothing to fear. So he set his mind to pursue this thing that was lurking around and behind his thoughts. He tried to focus his thoughts on this thing but his thoughts  just seemed to obscure it more. So he tried to tried to relax all thought in order that this thing might appear from the crowd. But when his thoughts quieted, this thing began to rise from his subconscious and a great wave of fear overcame him, and for a time he backed off. He was curious as to what remembrance could be so frightful to him that his consciousness would prefer it hidden. Some part of him cautioned him to just leave it alone, that it was best not to know.  He now wished he had stayed up later, watched more TV. He wanted this feeling to leave him, wanted to tear it from his mind. But he knew that it lived somewhere in his psyche and would never leave on its own. He would either have to face it or lock it away in one of the many dark rooms where he never went.

He did not wish to face any challenge like this at such a late hour. Night was a time to put away one’s worries, to rest from action in order to regain one’s strength for the following day’s problems. But there was some idea or memory that would not give him peace. He did not like the idea that there was some aspect of his life that he was not coping with, some disease within him that fed and grew stronger while he ignored it. And so he concentrated his attention on this discomfort, seeking to convert emotion into thought. He followed the strands of this sensation, hoping to link to it with his reasoning mind. Again a wave of fear shot through his mind, seeking to disrupt the process. Vague memories began to appear into his thoughts, things he could not make any sense of.  The only thing he could understand was the fear that accompanied these images of the past, so vague in form yet vivid in impact. The fear increased as the remembrances came to him, until at length fear overwhelmed him and he again ceased his efforts. He fled the thoughts, preferring to keep them buried than having to deal with them. So strong was the fear that his instinct for self-preservation decided that running away was preferable to confrontation. He would live with the feeling of unease. Perhaps with time it would subside.

But the fear did not subside, it grew until it raged within him with a voice so strong it was all that he could hear, all he could feel. It sucked whatever perceptions he had in the dark night from his eyes so that all was darkness around him. The connection had been made and the door to this dark closet burst open. Memories like flotsam on a wave of fear rushed over him as he curled up in his bed. He remembered now, remembered the first time he had felt like this, remembered the first embrace of madness. He remembered his meager attempts to cope with the outside world, trying to behave normally  as the flames of madness consumed him from the inside. He remembered his collapse, remembered them taking him away to a place where his worst fears were realized. He had been mad, out of touch with reality, dangerous to himself and others. With treatment and drugs he was in time cured, sent home to live a normal life. But it was happening again. With the return of the memories came the return of the madness. The fear that strove to redirect his thoughts had now gained control of him. The voices in his head had been reawakened, whispering lunacy to him. They slithered on his skin like snakes or unwelcome lovers. The animal in him strove to run away--anywhere--out into the night. But he knew there was nowhere to run; the thing that he feared was within him, and he would not escape it.

Their was no ebb to this tidal swell of madness. No current of thought could enter his head that could withstand the wave of fear that constantly crashed upon him. that was not instantly swept away. There was no interruption,  no brief reprieve that could give shelter to hope or change. Time itself seemed to cede its dominion over the world to this fear of madness, this madness brought upon by fear. For in Mim’s mind the two were separate yet one. Only a distorted mind can grasp such contradictions. He did not know if madness brought about this unreasoning fear or if terror drove him to madness. In his mind, it was a single entity with two faces. Madness brings its own unique clarity.

Morning’s first light brought some dim hope, if not relief. It symbolized change, for what it was worth. It marked the passing of time, demonstrating his ability to survive. Night had seemed endless. His body and soul had become a dwelling place for vermin that craved intimacy. His night was spent swatting at bugs that could not be squashed.  How many sunrises had Mim lived through without notice? But this dawn was eternal, its experiences surpassing all the memories of his life. His previous life was some distant memory with no colors or lasting impressions. His madness was all, excluded the outside world. Everything on the outside him was veiled by a wall of insanity, jealously guarding him from any influence but its own.

As morning advanced, some instinct towards motion stirred in him; humans seem to have within them some force that propels them onwards even when conscious thought cannot. While escape was impossible, movement might give some sense of normalcy, some illusion of flight. He arose slowly from his bed without any real idea of what he was doing or where he would go. Habit led him to the bathroom where he prepared himself as he normally did. In the shower, he scrubbed at his skin in the vain hope that his cleansing ritual might reach deeper into him. It did not touch his inner stain, but he clung to the thought of routine as a way to achieve normalcy. If he performed everything as he always did, habit may get him through the day. He needed to get through the day…which would be proceeded by night. He couldn’t afford to think of that right now. He could not afford to think that this unending day would lead to another unending night followed by…He just needed to concentrate on now, needed to act and survive. When we are on survival’s edge, there is no thought to waste on tomorrow. He performed his morning rituals as though he were donning a disguise or plastering over some gaping ugliness. He was concealing his inner disintegration the only way he knew how. He needed to throw whatever exterior signs of normalcy onto the barricade that separated his madness from the outside world.

For the first time in his life he felt his complete aloneness. He realized now that he had always been alone, but he had never felt the compulsion to actively separate himself from the world. He had never known intimacy, but he had always felt at home in his surroundings. He always dealt with people in a friendly way, even while maintaining a slightly lofty air. In the past he felt that, in his social interactions, he was freely giving of the riches of his personality. There was no barrier between him and others save the fact that he was made different and slightly better than they were. Now he had no feeling of superiority; he was a malfunctioning unit in a well-running machine. He could not let his defect be known. His first repair had been extensive enough. On a lesser worker, they may have taken a write-off and simply brought in a replacement. Fortunately he had been a valuable enough commodity to warrant the expenditure. But a second break-down might demonstrate that he was not cost-effective.  They would take his chip and that would be it.

He looked through the kitchen cupboards for some kind of breakfast food. Normalcy. He had no taste for food but he knew that he ate breakfast every morning. He chose some bread-like substance and began to chew on it, letting his jaw muscles perform the task they had been doing his whole life. He found swallowing uncomfortable, but forced the food down. Chewing from habit and swallowing with effort, he ate a portion close enough to what he ordinarily would eat to satisfy him. He still did not know what he would do with himself, but thought it best to go outside. He needed to get away from himself even if it meant exposing himself to the outside world. He would simply walk and see where that would take him. He opened up the door to his house to find a piece of paper on his porch that said “Jesus saves”. He unfolded the paper to find the full message: “Jesus Saves at Consummart”. Below that there was advertising  for the local food store with an image of a happy Jesus pushing a shopping cart full of groceries. “Very well“, he thought to himself, “I’ll buy some groceries”. Even though he had no thought for food. Normalcy. Act like a normal person would act. Act like you would act if the voices in your head weren’t drowning out reality.

He pushed himself outside the door and in a moment found his body locked into a stride as he walked down the street. It was still quite early, and as it was a Sunday, there were no Cargill about. They would all still be resting from their night at the tavern, regretting their free time and the pain it had caused them. By Monday morning, they would be ready for the drudgery of work again.

Not that he worried about Cargills anyway. He would have to malfunction very badly indeed to have one of them notice anything. He was more concerned with the monitors, and others like him. They would know how a well functioning Mim would behave. He passed by a few people on the street. Anxiety spiked in him until they passed from his sight. He threw back furtive glances to see if thy were looking at him. He carried his madness around with him like some hideous physical deformity that for some reason the world did not yet notice. So far, his barrier was maintaining.

Dread approached him as Consummart came into view. Walking through nearly empty streets had been a severe test of his stamina, now he would have to walk under the monitors, perhaps interact with people. As he approached the automated doors, he sensed the voices within him getting louder, multiplying. The door slid open in front of him and was about to close again before he summoned up the will to walk in. There were people inside, and although they did not notice him, he had no idea what he would do if they did. He conquered his urge to flee, knowing that that was the sort of behavior that would call attention to himself. Normalcy. He walked aimlessly, thinking he should grab some items but not knowing what he wanted. It seemed that all of the merchandise was screaming at him, extolling their virtues, or trying to tempt him with their charms. A box of snack cakes seemed to know his secret, telling him that he was a fraud and a defect. He rushed past the aisle; too fast, he noted to himself. He was losing control now, everything happening too fast. Habit was giving way to instinct, routine giving way to self-preservation. He found himself within the produce section and the call of  exotic birds thronged inside his head. He heard a rippling stream and voices that spoke of wilderness. He heard drumming and primitive chants and, before he knew that it had happened, he found that he had fallen to the floor. And all the while the noises and voices grew louder and more manifold. He lay on the floor , covering his ears and shouting “No, no.” He could hear the monitors turning to observe him. There was no normalcy now, no barrier. There was no self-preservation, only fear, panic, dread. They would come for him now.

Unnatural

I like to think I was wise by the age of five. Perhaps not, but I had already perceived something about the world that even today helps form my personal philosophy of life. I was born in 1966, so by the time I was five the United States was near the peak of its interest in the ecology movement. There was a sense that the way we were living was taking us in a dangerous direction and that we’d better do something about it if we didn’t want to be living in a world transformed by industrial waste. There was a sense, unlike in the 50’s, that technology was not an unqualified good, that science could just as well lead us to our doom as it could to our salvation. And somehow, even at that young age, I could detect the difference between natural and unnatural, and it felt to me the difference between God’s will and sacrilege. It was not an ideology but a feeling, as though the difference between what was healthy and what was not was obvious. What I could not understand was why the world was so willing to embrace that which was so wrong.

I remember seeing an advertisement on the back of a magazine that scared me even though I didn’t know what it meant. It was a picture of a man hooked up to a variety of machines. I asked my older brother what it was, and he told me it was about euthanasia. He said the person was being kept alive by all the machines attached to him and that some people thought that people like that should be allowed to die. I remember my brother asking if it were my dad if I would want him to be kept alive in that way. It was a horrible thought, my dad being in such a state. It was more horrible still, imagining that it was my decision to keep him alive or allow him to die. But I remembered I came to the decision quickly: if my dad were ever in such a position, I would allow him to die naturally than force him to live a mockery of an existence. Many years later, my dad approached me about his living will and asked me if I felt comfortable signing the form. After many years with that image in my mind, I knew that I could do what would be asked of me. I loved my father, but not to the degree of keeping him alive at any cost. To allow him to die was the right thing to do, I believe that now as I did at the age of five, when I was really too young to be contemplating the idea at all.

Perhaps the idea was already in my head because I watched more than my share of horror movies. Horror movies were always good at pointing out the dangers of going contrary to the laws of nature and God. My favorite was Frankenstein, and I knew that there were boundaries not meant to be crossed. Men attempting to create life, to play God, inevitably ended up creating monsters. While I sympathized with the monster, even the creator, I knew there was an inherent wrongness in such attempts. I loved the idea of scientific progress and dreamed of being an astronaut and exploring other worlds, but you just weren’t supposed to go tampering with human beings.

The idea of tampering with man’s nature has been the subject of many a Kinks song, and the first one that came to my awareness was Apeman. Admittedly, I was only four when my brother came home with the 45, so the reason I liked it was that it mentioned both Tarzan and King Kong. But at some level I connected with it. Somehow I knew we were children of nature and that it was not a good idea to start thinking otherwise. I’ve seen so many people adapt to whatever environment they were in, so willing to abandon the essential truth of what they are. Many years later I heard another Kinks song, Artificial Man, and it really brought home to me ideas that had been implanted in my head so many years ago by Ape Man as well as other influences:

Tell the world we finally did it.
Modified the population,
Put your senses and your mind
Under constant observation
Even when you're dreaming.
Replaced your nose, heart and lungs,
So shake me with your artificial hand.
We went and built a master race
To live within our artificial world.

 

But as bad as it was to modify humans, somehow it seemed the greater sacrilege to change nature itself. If man wished to alter himself—even if it was wrong—he was the victim of his own actions. But it seemed to me then as it does today that mankind is always trying to create some cheap copy of the real thing in order to sell it to the masses. We pollute lakes by building massive parking lots for water parks. I was still young, no more than eight or nine, when I had a dream I was at my favorite beach, a gorgeous stretch of lakeshore along Lake Huron, in the town of my mother’s birth. We were beginning to wade out into the deeper waters, the waves gradually getting us used to the cold water to come. When suddenly it occurred to me as I looked out towards where the great lake reached the sky along the horizon that they had done something to this spot that was so sacred a place to me. The water stretched out beyond me for perhaps another 40 feet, but at the end of it was merely a scene painted on a brick wall to simulate the sky and water that should have been there. They had converted this place of natural beauty into an indoor water park so that they would not have to take care of the lake that was beyond it. They had turned it into something fake and unnatural because that is what they tend to do. They could charge people for access while at the same time hide from the public the damage that they were doing to the larger world. I’m sure I could find song lyrics from the era to describe how that dream made me feel, also. Something like: “tear down paradise, put up a parking lot”.

I grew up in a time where it seemed the problems that mankind was causing through technology were beginning to be addressed. It seemed that people were beginning to look beyond the small worlds they lived in and see the repercussions to the larger environment that their actions caused. Man had lost his connection to nature, and the results could be catastrophic.

But unfortunately, it seemed that not much followed upon the initial awakening that occurred in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Some laws were passed, and some things changed, but then society seemed to turn its attention to other interests. People’s awareness shrunk away from the broader implications of their actions, focused more on the near at hand and the immediate present. We are increasingly becoming lost in little worlds of our own, unaware of our relatedness to the entire earth we inhabit. But we can only stay safe within our little bubbles for so long before the consequences of our actions come smashing through. We look away from the big picture, but it is only a matter of time before our own backyards are affected by ripples that our lifestyles produce. It’s sad to think that adults can hide from truths that are so obvious that even a child can see them. I guess it takes a child’s eyes to see the obvious, and an adult’s mind to be able to train oneself to not see what is so very natural.

Happy Earth Day, everybody.

 

Here is my new snippet of biography which I'll be using in an anthology of short stories entitled The Bitten:

James Rozoff is the sum of his influences, which include: Percy the Penguin and Eric the Half-a Bee, Harold the Barrel and Hobbes the Tiger, Adenoid Hinkel and Ma Hunkel, Featherhead and Lucky Lack, Gabrielle Maples and Ernest Everhard, Clarence Oddbody AS2 and Alucard, Terry and Julie, Desmond and Molly Jones, Latka Gravas and Sammy Maudlin, Alec Holland and Jim Nightshade, Mr. B Natural and Jim Anchower, Tasty Taste and Nigel Tufnel, Fatty Lumpkin and Jean Valjean…. You can find more about James by typing his name into a search engine.

I'm hoping there will be someone on this planet that will recognize a majority of the references I make. If I find such a person, I will consider him a brother (or sister). Actually, if you get the first reference, you're already in. You see, I've come to realize just how much I've been influenced by characters from books, films, and even music: many of the people who have most shaped my perception of life are entirely fictional. That's not to denegrate the wonderful people I have been blessed to know, but to be honest I find the people I hold most dear are those who have introduced me to those vivid characters stored on paper, wax, and celuloid. So with that thought in mind, let me introduce you to those influences of mine, hoping that you may experience some of the joy I've felt by getting to know them.

Percy the Penguin is a song by the band Stackridge and tells the story of a penguin who lamented the fact that he could not fly. You can hear the song here, but you'll have to go to 3:20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsmhRSmoEjk

From Monty Python, Eric the Half-a-Bee is a song that is a little less than serious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVhXkQu5_Ig

Harold the Barrel is a song from the band Genesis. It is every bit as absurd as the previously mentioned song, but decidedly darker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT7k7keej0k

Just to prove I'm not a total anglophile, Hobbes the Tiger is a character from Bill Waterson's great comic, Calvin and Hobbes: http://calvinhobbesdaily.tumblr.com/

Adenoid Hinkel was Charlie Chaplin's parody of Adolph Hitler from The Great Dictator. Here is a great moment of cinema: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcvjoWOwnn4

Ma Hunkel is an obscure reference, even for comic book readers. I'm rather fond of obscure references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Tornado_(Ma_Hunkel)

Featherhead and Lucky lack are from a Blues Traveler song. It is both absurdly touching and inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y1qdfrAPOM

Gabrielle Maples was from the movie The Petrified Forest. Portrayed by Bette Davis, she is a young woman stuck in the middle of nowhere who dreams of living in France: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze2ACs5MinY

Ernest Everhard is the main character of Jack London's The Iron Heel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel

It's surprising how many fans of It's A Wonderful Life don't recognize the name of Clarence Oddbody, Angel Second Class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fIrXo0raaU

I was refering to the Gentle Giant song when I referenced Alucard, but I see they are not the only ones, maybe not even the first, to use Dracula's name backwards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQlB6bDKqjE

I'm a huge Kinks fan, and Terry and Julie are characters mentioned in Waterloo Sunset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvDoDaCYrEY

Desmond and Molly Jones from Obladi, Oblada (The Beatles):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJhcGepfG04

Latka Gravas was a character from Taxi, a sit-com that ranks as highly as any other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmZAxRH3Ibs

Sammy Maudlin was the character I randomly chose to represent the SCTV, which was the funniest thing on TV when I was young: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoJroRHvp2M

It appears that I'm really delving into my childhood influences--perhaps they are the deepest kind. At any rate, I was six years old when I bought this comic, and it was always special to me. Of course, when Alan Moore started writing it, it affected me even at the age of eighteen: http://comicbookjesus.com/2011/07/02/extra-sequential-podcast-47-swamp-thing/swamp-thing-1-dc-1972/

Jim Nightshade was from Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. My fifth-grade teacher had the book and let me borrow it, making it perhaps the first real novel I ever read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Wicked_This_Way_Comes_(novel)

Mr. B Natural. What can be said about this one? I guess watching the clip her is the only real way to understand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAKentKiGOY

If you are a regular reader of The Onion, you should be familiar with Jim Anchower, a righteous dude: http://homepages.theonion.com/PersonalPages/jAnchower/

Tasty Taste is from the criminally unheard of movie, Fear of a Black Hat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk01a63Imt8 It was obviously influenced by This Is Spinal Tap.

Speaking of Spinal Tap, here is Nigel Tufnel doing what he does best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmHxYx74MTg

Fatty Lumkin never made it to the movie, but he was a hobbit in The Lord of the Rings.

It was the original one with Fredric March that I saw when I was 5 years old, with an older brother there to explain it to me. This scene has stuck with me since then, making me wiser than I elsewise would have been. It has lost none of its profundity through the years and has influenced many of my decisions in life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF3FX43F-7Y


My contribution to The Bitten anthology, I Shall See The Sun, can be found here on my blog, but only until the time the anthology is released. At that time it shall be available only in the anthology, which we have assembled as a sort of benefit for a fellow writer who is battling cancer. As you might guess, the insurance plan for writers is not an ideal one. More on The Bitten to follow.

The Sleep of Reason Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of my work in progress. I might have a rework or two to do on this yet, but I'm getting close to what I want:

Chapter 5

 

The door opened to reveal a dusty wooden floor that led into darkness. An objective eye would not have seen anything out of the ordinary with the picture, but fear twisted angles out of their ordinary proportions, shredding perspective. Dave tried to remain objective, and realized what an absurd notion that seemed to be. For all the glory of science, it failed to account for the observer or the participant of an event. Science was the act of looking in from the outside and he was very up close and personal with what he was encountering. Perhaps it was not something supernatural but only fear he experienced. But fear was enough. Fear was more than enough. Still, Dave knew it wasn’t the only thing he was experiencing. The cold that whispered from the darkness of the room was more than a result of the season. It wasn’t caused by his fear but rather the reason for it. He wasn’t sure which sense it played upon, whether it were light drafts of air upon his skin or subtle whispers that found their way into his ears.

Johnny took a few steps inside and Dave followed, his hands involuntarily groping in the cold darkness. The light bulb had been blown out by the Wilsing’s last encounter with whatever it was that inhabited the attic and had not been replaced. Johnny’s flashlight illuminated their path but it only showed what was in front of them and it was the shadows that frightened Dave. Fear always waited in the shadows. Dave’s foot touched the wooden flooring, found it less sturdy than he would have liked. Perhaps it was only his fear, but the mere act of walking seemed treacherous to him.

What a moment ago felt cold now gave way to a warm dampness, the moisture in the air hinting at coolness while the warmth seemed to make the air feel heavy. Dave wanted to keep Johnny in his sight, know that his protector was there for him. But his eyes followed the beam of the flashlight instead, searching for whatever danger may await them. The light did not travel as far as he would have wanted, did not touch the wall on the further ends, though it illuminated the beams of the roof above. “It’s just an attic, damn it,” thought Dave. “Pull yourself together.” But it seemed to stretch further than the size of the house should permit, the way something from one’s childhood can seem bigger in memory than it is in reality. Fear and reality were tugging at his perception, distorting and stretching it in waves that confused his vision.

He felt like a child again, confronting the fear that walled off his safe little world like an electric fence. And while he was fighting against his inner weaknesses, he felt a smooth presence brush up against him like a sentient waft of air. It felt like a large crawling thing gently feeling out its prey before coiling about it. He looked at Johnny, who appeared to be readying himself for contact. Dave didn’t know if Johnny felt what he was feeling. Fear spiked in him. The thought of running leapt in his mind and he couldn’t find a rational reason to oppose it. But his body was not responding, as though he was frightened of calling attention to himself. For good or ill, he was rooted to the spot.

“I can feel it,” said Dave in a whisper.

“Shh,” said Johnny. “Allow it to make contact.”

Dave willed himself to be quiet despite the desire to scream. He still felt what seemed to be a sentient draft brushing up against him, as though it were insisting on intimacy. There was a certain smell that seemed to accompany it that Dave found familiar but could not quite place. The whispering that Dave had earlier witnessed seemed like snakes writhing on the floor around him.

Dave felt a sudden jolt, as if time itself were being wrenched and he were alternating between two moments that should have been separated by decades. Light flashed like a strobe, providing glimpses of an occurrence from long ago interlaced with the present darkness. He saw a thin man in a white shirt and tie with his head cast downward. Each glimpse the light provided was accompanied by a feeling that built flash by flash within Dave, a despair the likes of which he had never felt. The whispers became more insidious, and the occasional word could be distinguished from the general murmur. Love. Betrayal. Death.

The bulb in Johnny’s flashlight burst, making the contrast between visions of the past and present more extreme. Behind him, he heard the door they had left open slam shut. Fear and despair alternated within Dave as he seemed to switch back in forth in time, each of them equally debilitating to his emotional state. The smell became more noticeable, but he was still could not remember what it reminded him of. Burnt rubber perhaps, but there was more to it than that. If he could just place where he had smelled that smell before, he might be able to deal with the fear a little better, if not the despair.

The man Dave had seen in the relative light of the flickering image raised its head now, and suddenly the look of despair merged with a hatred that seemed to burn its gaze right through Dave. The image was visible now in both the light and the darkness. Despair and fear still alternated within Dave, threatening to tear him apart from either side. Edwin Gauthier opened his mouth to speak, and it was a voice of hatred not despair that sounded.

“You shall die,” came a voice that sounded like a thousand whispers woven into a single scream. The thousand whispers that had writhed around them were summoned by that voice and came together to speak Edwin Gauthier’s message. The voice did not seem to be aimed at them, but Dave knew the hatred would not refuse any target it chanced upon.

And suddenly Dave recognized the smell around him, the smell of burnt rubber and blood, the smell he would always associate with a moment of his childhood when Gordon could not run fast enough to save his life. And it felt to Dave that death and hatred and fear were all the same thing, aspects of the darkness that always surrounded life even on the brightest of days. The look of hatred upon Edwin’s face seemed the same look Dave saw on the grille of that car that took his friends life. He remembered staring at it after the accident, stared at it because he could not bring himself to look at his friend’s body lying on the ground. He didn’t know if his friend was still alive, did not want to know. As much as he feared that he was dead, the thought of him being alive and experiencing the horror seemed to Dave to be worse. So he just stared at the car that was now stopped on the busy street, the grille of it like a grinning entity of malice and hatred. Like the embodiment of all that was evil, it did not care who or what it killed, the killing was all. It would eat its fill of children and mothers and puppies and anything that chanced in its path. It was this look he now saw upon the face in front of him, and the flashing of the light did nothing to deaden its intensity.

“Well hello to you, too.” The voice was Johnny’s, and the tone was a jarring contrast to everything that was going on inside Dave.

“You have betrayed me. I trusted you and you betrayed me!”

“I’m afraid you have us confused with someone else,” said Johnny, as though he were impervious to the hate and despair. Johnny’s voice expressed concern, but he maintained a certain authority, as though making sure that the world in which they both existed was Johnny’s world, subject to the laws of the living.

“Those who betrayed me will die. Those who stand between me and my revenge will also die.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m not standing in the way of your revenge,” there was sympathy in Johnny’s voice, replacing for a moment the authority he felt the need to convey. “That was a horrible thing they did to you, there’s no excuse for it. But they’re dead.”

The presence that had earlier seemed to rub up against them now seemed to smash into them from in front, as though confronting the source of its frustration. Long stagnant dust shook free from the overhead beams, falling upon them as the house itself seemed to shake. It seemed to be a physical projection of the image they saw. But Johnny and Dave were able to withstand the shock of the onslaught as one might stand against a bitter cold wave.

“In fact, everyone you know is dead,” Johnny continued, his tone of voice at absolute odds with everything Dave was experiencing. Johnny was talking as a mother explaining something to her child. “You’ve been hanging on quite a long time. Not to say I blame you. You must have been awfully hurt. But you see, the reason for all of your hatred is gone. You’re just a bit of emotion that has outlived its usefulness. The only people you can still affect are the current inhabitants of the house, and from what I know of them they seem like pretty decent people. They’ve never done you any harm and—to be honest—you’re creeping them out.”

The presence that a moment ago was in front of them now swirled around them. The cold seemed to intensify as the emotion grew. It was no longer a brooding hatred but an active malevolence, searching for a target. Why it did not strike them where they stood, Dave did not know.

“I live for vengeance!” The voice had lost none of its ability to strike fear in Dave’s heart.

“Uh, no you don’t,” said Johnny. His voice was compassionate but firm. “You’re not actually alive, I hate to say. And since there’s nobody living to exact your vengeance on, there’s really no reason for you to be here anymore.”

The rage in the voice woven from malignant whispers intensified, but it seemed to be coming from a greater distance. It felt to Dave like a hurricane that had passed by in its ferocity but did not touch down.

“I will kill those who have betrayed me.” The voice was desperate now, each utterance scraping Dave’s nerves like razor blades on violin strings.

“They’re already dead,” said Johnny, using a calm but firm voice to dissipate the violence. “Whatever judgment they receive is in God’s hands now.”

The presence before them had been flickering like a candle in the wind. At last, in a wavering motion upwards, it faded before them as if caught by a gust of air that blew it away. Dave and even Johnny let loose with sighs of relief as they felt the thing that was Edwin Gauthier’s grief-fed rage fade away.

“And so the life that Edwin tried to take from himself is finally ended,” said Johnny.

But even as they let down their guards, the presence seemed to blast from the floor, radiating a heat that made Dave close his eyes. But closed eyes did not prevent Dave from receiving a clear vision of the ghost in front of him. Gone was whatever despair had emanated from it, replaced with an intensity that demanded response. This was not a spirit that would abide Johnny’s paternal attitude.

The spirit spoke, its voice one of authority rather than fear and hatred. No longer did Dave see the vision of a man with hunched shoulders and broken spirit. “Mine was no act of suicide,” he said, and as he spoke, his image became part of a scene that acted out once again the events of nearly a century ago. In a bluish light, Edwin Gauthier could be seen with eyes staring at a figure that slowly entered the limited stage upon which the drama was being played for Dave and Johnny. “It was not me but my wife’s lover who took my life. They murdered me in order to live together in unholy union.”

Dave was silent and still, watching the scene of murder play out in front of him, Edwin confronting the other man, the other man striking Edwin, knocking him unconscious. Like an old film poorly shot, Dave witnessed as one man dragged the other up the stairs to the attic, threw a rope across a supporting joist and tied it to Edwin’s neck. As the man drew the other up, he saw the betrayed husband regain his consciousness as the noose tightened about his neck. Panic raised in his features as his eyes began to bulge. His gaze was unfocused as he struggled for breath. But as he came to accept the reality of his situation, his gazed fixed upon the man who was the cause of all his pain. There was calm in his stare, a cold calm that promised revenge despite his inability to achieve it. Edwin’s desire for vengeance would outlast his earthly existence, regardless of whatever physical laws he would have to break to attain it.

The scene in front of Dave and Johnny slowly faded, leaving at last only the bluish stare of those intense eyes, burning their conviction into the fabric of the material world. Turning away from the glare, Dave turned to look at Johnny, who seemed to get a glimmer of understanding in his eyes.

“I see,” he said. “You want not only vengeance but the truth to be told.”

“The truth will be my vengeance,” said the voice, no longer the slithery voice of fear and hatred but an ardent appeal for justice.

“I will let your story be known,” said Johnny solemnly. “The world will know that Edwin Gauthier did not die by his own hand. They will know the truth of your betrayal and death.”

The intensity in the air seemed to slowly dissipate as the eyes that were all that remained of the vision of Edwin Gauthier faded. So too did the presence that had seemed to crave physical contact with them vanish like dust in a breeze. This time, Dave felt as though it were really over, felt a normalcy beginning to creep back into his jangled nerves.

“What the hell was that?” asked Dave. “Were there two ghosts, or what?”

“An intense experience such as Mr. Gauthier evidently felt can bring about some strong emotions. I would guess that in this case, there were two separate strong emotions that survived Edwin’s existence: grief and a desire for vengeance.”

“You guess? You seem to trust a lot to guesses.”

“You could say I’m learning on the job. What a rush though, eh?”

“I don’t think it’s my thing.”

“But you saw it thought, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I saw it. I saw it and heard it. And I felt it. With every nerve in my body.”

“That’s pretty good. Come to think of it, I don’t think I saw anything on my first encounter. The first time, it was just all purple, and then the second time, it was like the purple separated and it was red and blue.” There seemed to be excitement in his voice, as though he were a surfer talking about a wave he had ridden.

“That’s all very good, but can we get out of this attic now?”

“Yeah, I think our work here’s done.”

Dave stared into the darkness. “Any idea where the door is?”

Groping around, they eventually found the door that led them back downstairs.

The Sleep of Reason Chapter 4

Wherein our hero meets the owner of a house she insists is haunted:

Chapter 4

 

Dave and Johnny got out of the van to introduce themselves to Lynn Wilsing, a woman who appeared to be approaching middle age without much care. She was in the process of exiting her car when she was momentarily startled by Johnny’s well-inked face staring into her window. She allowed herself to relax a little when Johnny explained that they had been sent by Doug to deal with her “situation”, but not entirely.

“We’ve been living at my mother-in-law’s house lately,” she said when they were inside and she took their coats. Considering it was her own house, she seemed less than comfortable being there. As they seated themselves in the living room, Mrs. Wilsing, who was a moment ago frightened by Johnny’s appearance, was now talking tattoos with him. Dave was left alone temporarily with his thoughts and the anxiety he was feeling at what he was about to encounter. Johnny had explained that the majority of such cases turned out to be nothing more than the over-active imaginations on the part of those who reported the incidents, but he also expressed his belief that this was likely to be the real thing. It was apparent to Mrs. Wilsing which of the two scenarios was the correct one.

“If you could explain what unusual events you’ve experienced, starting at the beginning, please.”

“Well,” she began hesitantly, apparently uncomfortable sharing the information even with people who took her situation seriously, “I don’t know if it was actually an event, but the first time I felt something was wrong was while I was lying in bed one night. I awoke from a sound sleep with just a really unsettling feeling, an unnamed dread. The more I tried to think about what it was that could be frightening me, the more the fear increased.” Dave noticed the anxiety level rising in her as she recalled the experience. Her skin seemed loose, as though she had recently lost weight through worry. “I wanted to call out to my husband, to reach over just to touch him and know he was there, but I was frozen. I was all alone, staring into some nameless fear. Or…or some nameless fear was staring into me.” She was caught in an imaginary shudder.

“Anyway, that’s all it was…the first time. But it happened again a few nights later, and again. Like the first time, it was just an unameable fear, but it was a fear of something, like something too horrible for my eyes to even perceive, as though they wouldn’t permit me to see what was there. After the third time, I began researching the matter online. I learned about night terrors, did you ever hear of those?”

 “Pavor nocturnus,” said Dave, recalling the research he had done when his own nightmares had first started. At the time, he had felt as if he were going crazy. He had no idea he was developing an ability to see things in his dreams. “Feelings of intense fear while being in non-REM sleep. That doesn’t sound like what you described. If you weren’t able to move, it sounds more like sleep paralysis, a condition where one awakens from REM sleep while still subjected to the paralysis that keeps us from acting out physically in our dreams.”

Both Mrs. Wilsing and Johnny looked at Dave with an appreciation he was not used to.

“But there’s more to the story, isn’t there, Mrs. Wilsing?” Dave asked, wanting to remove the attention from himself.

“Yes. At first I tried to look for the most obvious solutions, bad dreams or some kind of sleep disorder. But then I began to hear noises even when I knew I wasn’t sleeping. And…and my husband wouldn’t hear it. We’d be in the living room together, reading quietly, and I would hear a voice whispering, and I’d look at my husband and he wouldn’t notice anything. And he has better hearing than me, he makes fun of me because I always mishear what he tells me.”

“That’s not unusual, Mrs. Wilsing,” said Johnny. “Some people are just more receptive to such things than others.”

“I didn’t know that. For a while, I thought I was losing my mind. I mean, I couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t pretend I wasn’t hearing things, experiencing things. I even began to suspect that it might somehow be my husband’s doing, that he was trying to drive me crazy. Then, one night, I heard something up in the attic, like a buzzing or many different voices whispering. I looked at my husband, challenged him to deny that he heard anything. He tried to soothe my concerns. He wanted to go up there, but I wouldn’t let him. Finally, he pushed past me, walked up the stairs. I was too afraid to follow. It was like he was walking into a meat locker, it felt that cold. And it was summer! I could sense the courage drain out of him, thought he wouldn’t admit anything was wrong.”

She ceased speaking, waited for some kind of feedback from her listeners, as though she were looking for confirmation that what she was saying didn’t make her seem crazy.

“An experience like that can make you thing you’re losing your mind,” said Dave, picking up on her anxiety. He too had a similar experience. When he had first begun to have his revelatory dreams, he had never felt so frightened, never felt so isolated. He prayed he would never feel that way again. And yet here he was, perhaps about to plunge himself into someone else’s experiences. He looked over at Johnny, was amazed that his friend did not appear concerned, seemed almost anxious for such an encounter.

“Your husband’s reaction isn’t unusual,” said Johnny. “People do not believe in such things, do not wish to believe in such things, and so they prefer to pretend they did not feel what they felt, did not see what they saw. Please, continue.”

“Well, as he walked up the stairs, I could hear the buzzing getting louder, more intense. They, it, whatever was up there, was aware of us. I’d done some reading by this point, I knew some ghosts just go about their business without paying any attention to those who live in the house they share. But this one knew we were there, seemed angry at our intrusion. I tried to call to my husband, make him come back downstairs. But I couldn’t. It was like fear gripped me by the throat, and it was stronger than any will that I had.”

“And then…? Prompted Johnny. It seemed like she needed constant encouragement in order to continue her story. Even though she was convinced they would believe her, she was still not comfortable sharing the information, perhaps not comfortable remembering it.

“And then…when my husband reached the top of the stairs, I could tell that all of his courage went out of him. I could see it in his posture. He knew there was something up there. But he wasn’t about to let me know it. He walked to the right, out of my sight. And then, the light bulbs just exploded. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run and get a flashlight, I wanted to shout to him, make sure he was okay. But I couldn’t do any of that. I could only stare into the darkness, too frightened to do anything.” There something in her voice that made Dave feel as though a cold breeze had suddenly swept through the house. “I could still hear the whispering, no louder, but busier, more menacing. I just stood and waited for my husband to walk out of the darkness. And after a time that seemed forever, after I had time to imagine a thousand horrible things occurring to him, he walked back down the stairs and out of the darkness. But part of the darkness stayed with him. He had seen something in the attic, but he still won’t tell me what it was. Not that I’ve pushed him too hard to tell me. I’m not sure I want to know. But he believed me after that He knew there was something living in the house.”

“We left the house soon after that,” she continued. “When things started getting broken, we knew we were putting our lives in danger if we stayed another night. Of course, we couldn’t tell anyone why we left. Who would have believed us if we told them the truth? We…we told them we had to bug-bomb the house,” The embarrassment was evident in her mannerism.

“It’s true,” said Dave to Johnny. “This sort of thing really alienates you from others just when you need them the most.”

“At any rate,” she went on, “that’s when I started talking to others online. I was amazed at how many groups are out there that discuss such matters.”

“And that’s when Doug found you,” said Johnny.

“Yes.”

“We’ll take a look, Mrs. Wilsing, and see what we can do. I’d like it if you and your husband were gone while we deal with this. The only real danger is in your own reactions, but I’d hate to have it said that anyone was injured while I was doing my job.”

What about me? thought Dave. If Johnny was worried about the Wilsings getting hurt, might Dave and Johnny not be in danger as well?

“My husband’s already at his mom’s. To tell you the truth, I don’t like being here right now. I’ll join him and make sure we stay away until you give us the all clear.”

“We’ll let you know what we find out,” said Johnny. “A ghost is a riddle to be unraveled. They’re not unlike a psychiatric patient that needs to reconcile their strong emotions with reality. First I have to understand what their story is, then I need to help them make peace with whatever is bothering them. Oh, and just to warn you, things may get broken. A ghost is really not much more than a ball of frustrated emotional energy and they do tend to act out, especially as they approach the truth of their existence. If you have anything of great value you might want to take it with you.”

“We’ve already had things broken. Windows, dishes, that sort of thing. The neighbors are beginning to talk. After the front window blew out, my next door neighbor asked me if Ken was becoming violent. I covered, said he was playing around with the nail gun he got for his birthday.”

“So you haven’t told anyone you have a ghost in your house?” Dave questioned her.

“Why would I tell anybody that? Who would believe me? I hardly believe it myself. It’s bad enough having odd sounds in the house, things falling off shelves for no reason. I want to at least try to have a normal life outside of my house. If I started talking about ghosts, who knows what people would think of me?”

“But it’s really happening,” said Dave. At least, there was a good possibility that something was happening.”

“Yes, it’s really happening,” Mrs. Wilsing said, “but I don’t like to think about it. I just want it to go away. I just want my life to be like it was before. Can you help?”

“I hope so, Mrs. Wilsing,” said Johnny. “I can’t make any promises with something like this, but I’ll see what I can do. I have had my successes in matters of this sort before. But tell me, is there a certain time of day when the visitations seem to occur? Any certain event that tends to trigger them?”

She paused for a moment to consider, then said, “It seems to be sometime around eleven in the evening. Now that I think about it, that seems to be when most if not all of them occurred. We’re usually in bed by that time, and the one time I told you about in the attic, it was a Saturday night. We had just finished watching a movie and were about ready to go to bed.”

“That should give us a little time, then.”

Before they left, Lynn, as Mrs. Wilsing insisted they call her, gave them a brief tour of the house. It was the kind of place Dave would have considered a dream home, an older building meticulously updated and restored. Everywhere, the walls were coated with fresh, bright paint, augmenting the original design. High ceilings gave an airiness to the rooms without forsaking quaintness. A bright blue paint covered the living room, a cheerful but elegant flower patterned wallpaper in the dining room. Lynn and her husband must have spent long hours bringing the place up to the condition it was now. Dave couldn’t help thinking how unfair life was, for people to work so hard to make something beautiful only to find some darkness at its core.

From the dining room, Lynn led them to the kitchen. It was a bright white, even with the rays of the setting sun the only illumination. From the kitchen, a second set of stairs ran upward towards the bedrooms above, stairs that had originally been for the use of servants. They led to a bedroom that was once the servants’ quarters, which was also connected to the main upstairs hallway. But the stairs continued upwards beyond the servants’ quarters, as well. Lynn had no need to say anything, Dave knew that those stairs led to the attic. Without saying anything, Lynn led them through the servants’ quarters and out into the main upstairs hall, back down the other set of stairs that led back into the living room. Without further mention of the stairs that led to attic, Lynn grabbed a few items from around the house and left to join her husband. But before leaving, she turned back towards Johnny, apparently feeling the need to share one more piece of the puzzle.

“I wasn’t going to mention this, since I’m not sure it’s related. You must already think me…unusual. But in the interest of being honest, when we first moved into the house, I began to experience a rather intense bout of depression, despite the joy we had at finding this house. I’d had experienced depression before, but nothing like this. I don’t know if it’s related or not, but I thought I should mention it. Maybe it might help convince you it’s not the house but me that has the problem.” She laughed a nervous laugh, and then exited.

Dave and Johnny were left alone in the house, Johnny with a relaxed air, Dave not so much.

“Do you think we’ll encounter anything, Johnny?”

“Quite likely, quite likely. Mrs. Wilsing seemed honest enough. Her story sounds like a few I’ve heard before. The man I was telling you about, Edwin Gauthier, the one that committed suicide. I reckon it’s his ghost that’s causing the trouble. Although it seems odd. If he’s a suicide, he died in despair. That might account for the depression Mrs. Wilsing spoke about, but that doesn’t account for the rest of what they experienced. There seems to be a lot of anger. Angry ghosts instill that kind of fear, not suicides. Well, whatever it is, we’ll likely find out soon enough.”

Dave watched his companion as he talked, amazed at the calmness with which he discussed the impending appointment with a ghost. Johnny must know something Dave didn’t because Dave couldn’t imagine not being afraid. It seemed the Wilsings knew the right way to react a ghost, at least.

Seated on a couch, Johnny was content to stare absent-mindedly out the window. Dave was unsure if he were preparing himself for what was to come, or if he was trying to pick up on subtle emanations of the otherworldly nature. Either way, Dave didn’t want to distract him, so he tried to empty his thoughts, make himself receptive. But it was no good: he could not silence the disquiet that seemed to bubble up from the pit of his stomach. He wondered if this might be a result of some kind of supernatural contact, but decided it was just plain old-fashioned fear. Why was he here at all, and what did Doug think he or anyone else could accomplish against such phenomena? They were not things that humans were meant to deal with, they were all of them out of their depths. And yet they were each of them aware of things that others weren’t. Whether or not they were equipped to deal with such things, they seemed destined to encounter them nevertheless. At least it was better to deal with them as a group, not alone as Dave once had to do.

Alone, thought Dave. I wonder what Mindy’s up to now?

“So how come a ghost tends to show up at a certain time of night?” the question occurred to Dave suddenly.

“It’s probably the moment he died. Or some significant instant.”

“Yeah, but what does time mean to a ghost?”

“Well, it’s kinda…”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Well, no. But I’ve found it to be true. And I’ve had luck with ghosts, so far.”

“But you’re more or less groping in the dark. That’s just the way Doug described the whole problem. Something works for a while whether or not we really understand the situation. So we just get comfortable with it and trust it’s always going to work. It works until it doesn’t. It works until you encounter something that doesn’t fit your paradigm.”

“That’s life, inn’t? There aint no real answers, just some clues, some inclinations and a bit of faith. Leastways, I guess I know about as much as anyone about ghosts. Anyone living, anyway,” he said, and a smile slid across his face.

“So tell me something about them.”

“Well, for starters, there aint no such thing as an old ghost, at least not what I’ve seen. As far as I know—and like you said, I only see what little I’ve seen—a ghost is a thing formed by the intense passions of a particular event. Like this case here, a man’s wife cheats on him with his best friend. There’s rage for you. Like a child, a ghost is conceived of passion. Like anything that outlives the person who created it, it is conceived of passion.”

Dave was tempted to ask questions, but decided he wasn’t in any hurry to receive the answers. The conversation having come to an end, Johnny pulled an old paperback from his coat pocket that was hanging in the hallway, made himself at home on the couch, and began to read. Dave curled up on the chair he was on and watched the November sun make its early exit. The cold and dark outside should have made him appreciate the comfort of the house, but the thought that they were not alone sucked all comfort from him. Instead, having a few hours to wait until the anticipated encounter, Dave sought some sort of quiet and peaceful place within himself.

Sleep eventually overcame him. In time, dreams emerged from the darkness, though he didn’t recognize them as such. He was lying on a bed, felt himself being brought back from darkness towards the light. Coming back to life, he found himself looking at a man in clerical garb making the sign of the cross over him. The man’s face was filled with compassion, a slight smile on his face somehow connecting with something he himself felt deep within him. Some miracle had just ocurred, whatever had put him in this bed had been driven out by a miraculous power. And it was the man above him who had done the healing, or at least been the conduit for it. There was a bond between the two of them, healer and healed. Becoming more aware of his surroundings, he noticed himself to be in a rudimentary sort of hospital, something closer to a log cabin. There were other occupied beds around him, with other attending men and women dressed in religious garb. There was a warmth that radiated from a wood stove in the middle of a room large enough for perhaps twenty beds, but there seemed to be a different sort of warmth that radiated in the room as well. Without knowing why, he found himself saying, “Thank you Father Oxner.” The man who sat on his bed, a bald man of average build, said nothing but permitted his smile to increase somewhat. It was then that he noticed where the other sense of warmth was coming from. It seemed to radiate from Father Oxner’s smile.

 

“Did you hear that?”

The words brought Dave’s consciousness out of his dream, but it was not yet fully dragged back to the waking world. So deep had he been in his alternate state of consciousness that he did not immediately know where he was or who had spoken. Opening his eyes to see Johnny’s alert face staring at him mad Dave want to retreat back into himself, back into the comfort of his dreams. The contentment he had felt there was not something he wanted to leave. He felt quite at home there, despite the primitiveness of his surroundings. In the end, it was not the creature comforts but the warmth of a smile and caring community that seemed to bring true contentedness. But Johnny spoke again, wrenching Dave from the comfort he longed for. Instead, he stared at the faces tattooed on Johnny’s faces and arms that appeared to him like spirits trapped on flesh. Each of them seemed to share Johnny’s urgency. But the memory of where they were and why sparked a jolt of adrenaline that soon had him fully alert. Caught off guard as he was, he was unable to combat the fear that was growing within him. Between dream and wakefulness lay a darkness that seemed to cling to him. He did not yet have enough pieces of the puzzle of his current predicament to provide him any context. Fear, for the moment, was his surest protector.

“What?” asked Dave.

“There’s a noise upstairs. Not a noise, really, more like a stirring. I’m not sure if I heard something, but I sensed something.”

“So now what?”

“Now we get chummy with it.” Johnny must have noticed Dave’s state, because he said, ”You okay? Don’t worry, stick by me, you’ll be fine. Just listen to me, not it. Never do anything a ghost tells you to, for any reason!”

Dave and Johnny again ascended the stairs that led to the old servants’ bedroom. But this time, they did not stop there but continued towards the attic. There were perhaps fifteen steps, but each of them made an impression on Dave. Each step ramped up the fear within him. What he was about to encounter was a being the likes of which was once capable of causing sleepless nights for him as a child after merely hearing a story told around a campfire. It felt as he were about to cross a threshold, one that had been very well marked in him deep in his DNA. Every instinct he had, every story he had heard, every movie he had ever watched, was telling him to stay away from the door that by now was only a few more steps away. The image of the door was already etched upon his memory forever. This quite ordinary looking old door, painted white, assumed all of the fearful qualities that his imagination could summon. It was scrawled deep into the neural pathways of his mind, like some childhood trauma. His mind rushed back to such memories, his deepest fears realized. He felt himself again locked inside of a trunk, his brother’s cruel laughter drowning out any appeals to a saner world.

He remembered running with other boys through the crosswalk that led from his grade school towards home, remembered one boy who was a few steps behind the rest. He remembered the car they somehow did not see in the bright daylight of a late spring day. He remembered the daring and the feeling of immortality of youth wash away forever as the car pushed the little body of his friend Gordon, who always seemed to be a step slower than he was, into the air. With the sound of shrieking brakes in their ears, they saw Gordon’s body move in a way that did not appear real. But it was real, realer than many of the things he once believed to be real, and there was nothing—ever—that was going to make it not real. It was a stain in his memory, a black spot on the sun that would forever mar the brightness that had been his youthful life.

Feelings he had hoped never to feel again were rising from the dark places where he had stored them, places he had thought gone forever. And being an adult did not make him any more able to cope with such feelings. The fear he experienced now was the same he had felt as a child; nothing he had learned in all those years had given him any defenses against it.

Dave simply stared at the door, wondering how opening it could possibly make him more frightened, having no intentions of finding out. The price of freedom is high, he couldn’t help thinking, the idea of stepping away from the safety of the collective mind approaching insanity, an utter lack of security. Again he was asking himself to take the plunge into an utterly unknown universe, hoping that he could find something to grab onto before he fell into the awaiting abyss.

He noticed Johnny reach out his hand, grab the knob. He wished more than anything that Johnny would not open the door, but felt powerless to prevent it. And yet, while the better part of him wished for a small place to hide—even a jail cell of steel and cement, as long as it kept him safe from the outside world—a small voice inside him seemed to be whispering, even as the door was opening to reveal unnamed and unnatural fears: cool.

 

Trailer Video for The Amazing Morse

Here's a little trailer I did a while back for my debut novel. It's not professionally done but it was a fun thing to try. Music I borrowed from the band Devil Doll from their release, Dies Irae. If you like scary music, check them out.

The Amputation

I'm posting all of my short stories on my blog for a limited time. When I have finished the ones I have planned, I will be releasing them in 3 different collections, something like "The Good", "The Bad, and "The Others". "The Good" will include stories such as The Mountain and The Silver Sea, both included in this blog, stories that explore the meaning of life. "The Others" will include stories such as Eternity Inc. and The Love of Knowledge, stories that are neither dark nor light. This story is one that will be in "The Bad". It's sort of sick, and I would feel bad for writing it except for the fact that people are way more receptive to this story than anything I have written for "The Good". It was hard for me to write, even more difficult to proof. Why I wrote it I am not quite sure, but the idea occurred to me and I went with it.

“Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us…The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” Oscar Wilde

 

Have you ever been driving over a bridge and wondered what would happen if you were to turn the wheel sharply? A single thoughtless action which would take only a fraction of a moment can change a life forever. I do not think I am so unique in having had this experience. I have always had a fear of heights and it is because I distrust what I will do when I am standing on a ledge looking down. A single misplaced footstep could send me over the edge.

I have never plunged my car over the side of a bridge, but I am certain that there is a part of my psyche that would be quite willing to do it. Fortunately, there is that part of my mind that overrides such hasty notions. Am I too far away from any of your personal experiences for you to relate? Consider then being ten years old and standing atop the high dive for the first time. Your courage has made you climb up the ladder and you know there is no turning back. That voice inside begins the count of three, at the end of which you will take the plunge. During the counts of one and two, there is but one voice, the voice of courage and triumph. This voice is still strong as it shouts “three”, yet there you stand quivering, unable to make the movement necessary. Perhaps you made a partial start, only to end up lying on the diving board, holding on desperately to its sides.

For all the power that the cautious side of our mind has to override whimsy and even will, it too has its lapses. Countless comedies and tragedies have been based around what can result from a single rah word or action. Though I could blame it on many things, it was merely a sudden unchecked impulse which was my undoing. I would like to blame it on my girlfriend’s parents for the present they bought me for Christmas, for, without the saw, the thought never would have occurred to me. I could also blame it on the media that found it necessary to air repeatedly one of those “dangers of the wild” programs. While both played a part, it was a sudden and intense compulsion that changed my life forever. And although the event I am about to relate to you took a full twenty-seven minutes, I swear to you it all hinged upon a momentary lack of good judgment.

I was enjoying a few hours of solitude in my apartment after a couple days of constant visits to various friends and relatives over the Christmas weekend. I sat on my couch, my attention divided between the newspaper on my lap and the television across from me. My living room was cluttered by the gifts I had recently received as well as wrapping paper I had not yet put away. On my recliner sat the gifts my girlfriend’s parents had given me. Being that I came from a small town up north and that I once took their daughter camping, they somehow assumed that I must be some great outdoorsman. The gifts they bought me—a lantern, a little hatchet, and a camping saw—reflected their perception of me. To be honest, their presumptions about my proclivity for being in nature were not that far off, but it was not the image I had hoped to convey.

Seeing my camping equipment reminded me of the real-life story that I had recently heard, something which had troubled me ever since. A hiker far from civilization somehow got his leg trapped under a rock and could not free himself. After being trapped for a considerable amount of time, it began to dawn on him that he might die of cold or dehydration before anyone would come to his aid. Facing this possibility, he decided his best option was to free himself in the only way possible to him. Having only a pocket knife at hand, he cut off his foot in order to get out from under the rock.

This story disturbed me more each time I thought of it. A pocket knife! What a tremendous amount of will and discipline must be necessary in order to overcome the pain and doubt. What if he had been two-thirds of the way through and all of the sudden heard his rescuers arriving? As for myself, I could never even leave the house without a pack of cigarettes and some spending money. I just could not fathom leaving a part of my body behind.

The idea of hacking through flesh and bone with a tool so unmade for the task seemed equally unfathomable. It must have seemed at times that the only thing being accomplished was the reaching of new thresholds of pain. I looked at the saw lying on the chair and cringed at the thought of desecrating my flesh with it. What must it feel like? When would the pain become more than my weak mind could bear?

Looking at the saw, I noted that this at least would be more like an instrument a surgeon would use for such a job. Its sharp, jagged teeth were designed for sawing through tree limbs and would be adequate for ripping through bone. I am sure many Civil War soldiers had a good deal less worthy a tool separate their gangrenous limbs from their bodies. I picked up the saw to inspect it more closely, rubbing my thumb against its rough cutting edge. I next placed it across my leg at about the spot where my sock would ordinarily reach if it were fully pulled up. I pulled the saw blade across my leg through its full cutting motion. It produced a tickling sensation along the line where it had passed: something a little more than an itch, but far short of any real pain. It occurred to me at that moment what an act of will it would be even to draw blood, let alone sever a leg. I tested my will, determined not to give up until some blood appeared in order to prove my strength of character.

The next few strokes, however, resulted in little more than the initial itchy feeling. Some part of my mind withheld my arm from putting any force into its actions. I looked at the spot where I drew the blade across my leg and saw that there was only a small white streak of dead epidermis. I gritted my teeth and took a few more passes at it and at length I glimpsed the first sign of blood. Although it hurt, the pain felt somehow different than I had expected, making it somewhat more tolerable.

I watched as my hand continued to saw, awaiting the point where the pain gave my mind the signal to stop. I awaited the automatic response the body has when a hand is placed on a hot stove, but none was forthcoming. Although the pain was becoming quite intense, it seemed to have no effect either on my hand or my mind. My mind watched as though detached as my arm continued its back and forth motion. The blood was beginning to flow freely now, and I put the newspaper on the floor with my left hand to prevent it from staining the carpet.

It was when I finally reached bone and started to rip into it that the pain became almost unbearable. The slickness of the blood made it difficult for the saw’s teeth to catch hold of bone. It slid smoothly over the bone, the pressure alone causing me to let out my one scream of pain. I changed the angle of the saw, working closer to the front of my shin where there was less flesh to get in my way. The saw’s teeth began to catch, making a sound that I will never forget and cannot attempt to explain to you. Imagine the screeching of nails on a chalkboard and amplify it a dozen times. It is at this point that my mind went blank, lost in a haze of screaming pain. The next time my mind made anything of the messages my eyes were sending it, I could see that I was fully half-way through the bone. The paper on the floor was pooled in blood, spilling over in several places. The loss of so much blood left me weak. My arm was nearly numb with pain from the effort. But I felt that my only escape from my predicament was to finish what I had started. Only when I had finished would this spell I was under be broken. I removed my sock and applied it above the cut as a tourniquet. To do this, I was forced to let go of the saw, which hung loosely in the cut. When my makeshift tourniquet was finished, I looked in horror at the results of my work. But I could not quit now. My only thought was of finishing the act, and so end my torture. I resumed the work with a single-mindedness. I was over half-way through, now; the end was in sight.

My arm was becoming sore beyond endurance, but the tourniquet brought a certain numbness to my leg. I felt I could no longer continue, yet there was only one way out of my ordeal. Had I felt this way at the start, I would surely have quit. But I was nearing the end now. I considered breaking what was left of the bone, but the thought of shattered bits and pieces dissuaded me. With as much of a mess as I had made, it was still a clean cut. It seemed that there was still a part of my mind that was working normally, the part that demanded order.

As the sawing approached the last section of bone, I was forced to change the position of my leg. I knew that it would soon reach the point where the existing bone would not be able to support the weight at the end of my leg. I put my bloodied foot on the edge of the coffee table as gently as I could. Although I braced for the pain I knew this would cause, the act of doing it sent me into a moment of semi-consciousness where all my body felt the agony.

This new position forced me to use the saw at a more awkward angle. Ordinarily, this would have caused me great discomfort, but my aching shoulder welcomed any change of position from the one it had maintained for the last twenty minutes.

When the bone had finally been cut through, my foot slumped outwards at an unusual angle. Afraid that the foot would slip off the table, dangle uselessly from the rest of my leg, I was forced to make yet another adjustment. Even in my madness, there were some situations that I would not have been able to deal with. Had my foot slipped from the table and I was forced to pick the dangling thing back up, I would not have been able to endure it. I would have lost consciousness in the attempt. Carefully, I moved my leg outwards while lifting the limp foot with my hands. Although still connected to me, my foot no longer seemed a part of my body. I had apparently already cut through all the nerves. My knee was now sitting at the edge of the coffee table, my foot lying atop my still-whole leg.

Approaching the end of this ordeal, I worked with a frenzy, slowing down only to be sure that the deed was done properly. The pain in my shoulder from my hard work no longer bothered me, so intent was I at my task. When the final sinew was separated, my severed foot teetered for a short time on the thigh it had been resting on until it finally fell heavily to the floor, sole first. Finally freed from my compulsion, I tightened my tourniquet to the best of my ability, then arose from the couch in search of help. I hopped cautiously to the front door, seizing any opportunity I could to find something to lean on. I did not care about the trail of blood I made on the carpet, my only thought was to get some aid before I lost consciousness. The distance from my front door to my neighbor’s was about three feet. I covered the distance with a lunge. He arrived shortly after hearing the heavy thud at his door. The usually friendly smile that was on his face quickly turned to confusion and then to horror. This change of attitude on his part came simply from looking into my eyes. When his gaze slid down to where I held my footless leg awkwardly, he recoiled in shock.

 

I don’t recall anything more than that; knowing that there was someone to help allowed my tired mind to finally release its hold on the situation. I did not awake until nearly two days afterward. The first person I saw as I awoke was a nurse who seemed quite uncomfortable to be in my presence. None of my family were present, nor was my girlfriend. Apparently, the story of what had happened had been pieced together by those who rescued me, as well as the police. My neighbor had been alert enough to search for my foot in my apartment. The cut being a clean one, they were able to reattach it. They really have done a remarkable job—it works almost as well as it ever did. But though the physical damage has been incredibly minor, the stigma which I bear has changed my life forever. People cannot understand that I could be capable of such a thing. They do not want to believe that I—and by extension, perhaps themselves—can have such a lapse in sanity. As for myself, I am certain that I have exorcised this impulse, confident that it shall never return. But how can I convey that to others? My wound has healed, but the scar is forever a reminder of a mind that momentarily wavered.