Tuesday, May 21st,
Dear Mister Resident,
I hope you are well wherever your travels have allowed you to precipitate. Rest assured, your exquisite home is safe under my care.
I arrived by train at one in the morning and spent a good few hours weaving through backroads and former industrial lots. I now set my weary bones on the steps of your side door. I like your home; it’s dilapidated in a quaint sort of way. Something about a compact cottage on such a large empty lot—it makes the most of what area it does command. The negative space is its own sort of dark sea, disuse surrounded by woods and grass gone to seed.
This place is black like carbon and talk of ants, yellow like sulphur and shit-eating grins. The only outliers are the tulips, which scream in siren red.
The streetlamp strikes your yard and carves it. In this light, it is a stark world of figure-ground, ripe for shadowplay. It is here that I write to you. It was here, moments ago, that I saw that nothing creature, melon-sized, a featureless thing except for four little legs prancing, run from the road and into the brush. Seemed to be in a hurry. That, or it was just in the spirit of things. Indeed, the yard has a match-strike circuitry, a dopaminergic spring in its synaptic snap. I am caught in this myself.
Thank heavens for the absence of neighbors. I’d hate to see the residents of a place like this—I suppose you and I would be examples. This is a writer’s retreat in the sense that a wooden plank to the head counts as anesthesia. One gets a sense that they are a few streets over and off a cliff from the edge of the world.
I know you hoped to disappoint me with this place. I know the trick you always pull; it is the trope by which I can distinguish your works, regardless of which of your aliases you use: First, an aura of mystery is inflated, an elevated sense of “what if?!”. You lead the reader down a twisted path into a fairy circle only for the ground to give way to mud. That just-so material reality, so static and stark, returns with a smile.
In a moment of blunt force trauma, the reader comes to find there are no fairies in your circle. There is merely the donkey’s bray, so many pounds of flesh, and a man with a fork in his eye, lying on his impromptu grave with a cheap beer in his hand—the beer can and his eye now dotted with the march of ants.
But then what do you do? You proceed to take this new extreme so far as to lead the reader out the other end. A new and horrible light occurs. That pile of a man turns to slime, and slime to the blossoms of putrid magnolias. A discordant chorus sears what little is left of the air. A new sort of magic occurs, more obscene than anything words could apprehend.
I know the nature of your doings, and I’m wise to your ways, old man. Your cottage smacks of them. I will care for it well in your absence.
Best regards,
Post Script:
After writing the above, I stepped inside, walked through the hall, and… Your sense of humor really is its own sort of momentum, isn’t it? How did you do it? When I stepped through the doorway on which you scrawled in permanent marker “your payment,” and into the mostly empty room—save for those multicolored pairs of wind-up teeth—I can assure you I took the bait. Like an idiot, I took them, and like ripples under skin, the rug moved and pulsed. Through it came the wafer-thin music of a chorus of insect buzz.
And a thousand flies came out.
Thursday, May 23rd,
Dear Mister Resident,
I have settled in nicely in spite of the flies and the sporadic nature of your electricity. Actually, I have learned to live within the disjointed schedule this amenity keeps.
I like making dinner by an emergency candle, and when the television comes on at midnight, I sit crouched and watch till its failure. Since there is no working off switch nor channel changer, and the cable reaches through a hole in the floor down to the basement, I let it keep my schedule.
Having one’s own light and noise is a unique luxury not lost on a young whippersnapper like me. I am a little surprised that you don’t even have so much as a record player. Do you really never listen to the albums on which you’ve been an uncredited composer? I suppose such self reflection can be stressful on the mind.
I do, in spite of this, hear an occasional mechanical churning from the basement that tells me your washing machine may have been left on. Would you like for me to investigate?
Early in the morning, I was feeling nostalgic and went out on a jaunt to the lot strewn with refuse: orphaned couches and plastic shopping bags, mirrors lying broken, filled up with acid rain—now an ecosystem for larvae and their reflections cast against the blue, clouded sky. I can’t believe the tree is still there—you know the one: the stillborn sapling jutting out of the mud with its curious decorations. I know you have a fondness for it, so I shall continue to report on its status.
How are you enjoying your time away?
Friday, May 23rd
Your sense of humor really is something…
I finally gave way to my curiosity, slid aside that sheet of plywood, and entered the basement through the hole in the back room.
It is quite spacious down there. I was relieved to find that your washing machine was not left on—nor do you have one. What exactly is the purpose of the machine that makes this noise? Are the blankets over the moving parts necessary? I imagine you’re aware of the black fluid which is seeping out onto the dirt floor, as I do see a few towels tucked around.
I would be eager to have spent more time down there, but the smell tells me I would need a respirator. The layers upon layers of newspapers, unopened but badly rusted cans of food, and refuse of animals living and dead made for quite a landscape to wade through. There’s a musk too thick to cut by machete; one can hardly yawn down there for fear of the mouth becoming real estate for heaven-knows-what.
And of course, I fell for Your Second Joke.
I emerged from the basement to see you standing there. You looked disappointed. Your back was leaned against the wall, and your head was tilted back, your half-lidded eyes framed in shadow. I stood paralyzed, truly falling for it. You said nothing. My mind searched for a response and drew a blank.
And then came that hissing noise—first ever so subtle and finally building up into a sputter, like the air being let out of a balloon.
I noticed that in your eyes there were no irises, just pupils—swollen and black, with no gleam from my flashlight.
The pressure finally rose to a fever pitch, and your head was ripped from your neck, which now waved frenetically in all directions. That wordless scream of air escaping like a cry for help through kazoo—your body was slowly collapsing to its knees. You were deflating.
First, it was your face which sagged on the left side, as on the right your eye became a fleshy sinkhole. Your head grew wider, swallowed up by folds of itself, and tilted to the side, adding a sardonic quality to your expression.
At this point, I realized it couldn’t have been you. What I still don’t understand is how you managed to have this prop you built collapse down into just a small pile of rags.
Well done.
Best regards
Wednesday, May 28th
These are interesting shows the TV picks up. Now I understand why. Its chord that reaches through the floor seemed, at first, unnecessarily thick.
Does its connection to the churning device downstairs allow it to pick up these broadcasts? I am only beginning to understand its functionality. Be patient with me, indulge my curiosities.
Here are the broadcasts that I viewed in case you were concerned about missing them:
⁃ A documentary about some snow- or dust-laden, uninhabited wasteland. Particular attention was given to the fierce winds and an unexplained symbol carved into the ground. It was shaped not unlike a tuning fork. Whether it was a natural formation or the handiwork of man was not stated.
⁃ (Very fuzzy) A man, not unlike yourself, eating in an empty restaurant. As far as I can tell, the surroundings are lavish, and the room, vast in size, dwarfs the table. I cannot make out any walls in this space, only identical tables stretching off into the dark. He is having a conversation with someone off-screen. The only words I could make out were, “You’ll know where to go.”
⁃ A stunningly realistic portrayal of a white dog with limbs stretching so long that it towers higher than the doorway behind it. This can only be a feat of puppetry. Its long face droops, its eyes bulge in opposite directions, giving an expression of dread. Its surroundings appear to be a family home, only crumbling and painted a host of garish colors. It is crowned with a paper party hat. Off-camera, what sounds like a family sings to the dog puppet: “Happy happy happy and we like you! Happy for today and the night!” At the very end, before the TV cut out, the creature’s snout appeared to drop off and plop onto the ground like melting cake frosting.
⁃ A boiling vat of gray liquid with scum floating to the surface. The liquid and everything surrounding it have a leaden, deeply heavy quality, as if dusted like the wasteland in the first broadcast. The footage appears to be slowed, giving the liquid an even more viscous appearance. The camera moves with a perfect, smooth omniscience over to a conveyor belt, in which a machine is coating various fruits in this substance and arranging them in a bowl.
⁃ Possibly a local commercial. A man in an empty room furiously rants while neatly avoiding having any point at all. A phrase which is repeated again and again was, “There’s gonna be more of it! All attached and ready!” He then proceeded to violently bite chunks out of what appeared to be a sheet of plexiglass, only stopping to comment, “This is the kind of thing that I do! You all have to tolerate it!” His gums snap and strain; I cannot help but grip my jaw in discomfort as I watch this. He moves too fast, and his skin hardly keeps up. At the end, there is no business address or number you could call. It just fades out.
⁃ A view up into the very high ceiling of a long corridor painted baby blue. Ceiling fans and industrial lamps are arranged randomly, like bacterial growths. The camera moves, once again with that perfectly measured omniscience, to a night scene viewed out the window. Outside, beyond a burning black canopy, there is a great black roof. On it, amorphous things are seen dancing by the firelight against the sky, polluted with mustard-brown ashen light.
I enjoy these especially for their brevity and the purity of their independence from narrative structure.
Hope you’re doing swell. How is retired life treating you?
Tuesday, June 2nd
Thank you for your response. I did as you asked.
Is everything alright?
Thursday, June 4th
I understand now.
Last night, 3 a.m., the churning machine downstairs had gotten far more furious in its motions, just speeding up and up. I headed downstairs to see that, in its fury, it had moved itself several feet across the room.
Much the way the television was connected to the churning machine, so too was the machine connected to a flooded hole in the floor which, when I checked prior, was hidden under it.
By the beam of my flashlight, I saw its depths. Wormlike brown ribbons of bacterial growth silently swayed, coating the walls. Down below, this corridor widened and twisted into oblivion. A rainbow slick of multicolored slimes seemed to compete for every spare inch of space.
Am I to be the keeper of this fortune? I guess so.
Friday, June 5th
Let’s be clear. I am not insane.
I know full well that I am not writing to you and that the sole response I received can only be a fabrication. The work of a ghost writer maybe?
I know this because hanging in that little sapling in the empty lot are your perfectly preserved face, hands, and stomach. This was exquisitely done, I’ve gotta say. They must have taken some extra skin from your back or somewhere, because it’s all sealed without a trace of blood, stitching, or open wounds. They even left you smiling.
One has to wonder about the rest of you. Why was it only these parts that swayed gently in the wind, the sun glinting off your retired flesh? Do your feet still walk the streets at night? Do your bones keep the cottage from collapse? Does that rusty tap water course through your veins? Did the plants in the garden inherit your synapses and the concepts which played electrically in their branches?
I hope you’re well.
Friday, June 20th
It was fun to fall for this nonsense while it lasted.
The suspense, both that which hangs static in the air and that which I maintain in myself to keep my grizzled skepticism at bay, is important. Of course I know that this was all trick shots and flubble, but a story is no fun if you don’t let it string you along.
So is this it? Is this your final prank? Am I simply a delusional squatter in an abandoned house somewhere deep in the backwoods? Is that what we’re doing here? Your literary and musical oeuvre—was this indeed the work of different anonymous creatives who just so happened to squeeze out a drop of the same precious substance? I somehow expected more from you, old man…
Or maybe I’m just the new keeper of your fortune. Now I’ve inherited the duty of transcribing what plays on the TV, which pulls from the machine, which in turn dredges the depths of this sea of filth. And who knows how low that reaches. Maybe there’s a source deeper yet.
I sit crouched on the floor of this empty house. The TV comes on in the other room, but I, for once, don’t scamper over to view it. I just sit in its glow—flashing red, then shades of blue. My skin is sticky in the dew of the spring night. I try to remember my name.
To be fair, at the risk of sounding like a grubby little orphan boy begging for a pat on the head, being a part of one of your fictions was a hoot and a holler. It wasn’t too hard to fall for your tricks, my disbelief was well kept at bay.
The beating in the walls has a fork in its eye.
Sunday, June 22nd
Tonight came the true initiation.
I descended to the basement to see an arrangement of dead saplings planted in the layers of waste. They were silver, as if cheaply painted. Each was crowned with refuse and the skulls of possums and cats, they had once thrived on the ecosystem which your basement became. I wonder how many generations flourished in the dark among slime molds and old fax machines. The saplings appeared to be synthetic in nature but I don’t know what kind of manufacturer would create things that looked so dead.
Behind them all was an object which I will attempt to describe: It was large in size. It seemed to be made of something like a cross between putty and skin. If one was to look at an artist’s rendition of this object, they would only see a featureless lump being crushed under its own weight.
If one was to really see it, they would see something unspeakable. It had that just-so quality, an impact on its surroundings as if the gravity in the room increased. A brutal reminder of the matter and fact that runs in the foundations of this cheap world. A great zipper peeled away the fabric on which we have always walked.
The lump spoke. Its only massive, blistering syllable was a noise—partly the bray of an ass, partly a rusty tool dragged across the strings of an out-of-tune cello. As if cued by this sound, a fine dust filled the room from every angle, transforming it into a landscape like none I have ever seen in person. The ceiling, for a moment, was obscured by the dust such that it looked like a sky.
The water that filled the hole with ribbon worm growths trembled to a boil. In the confusion, I dropped my flashlight down into its depths.
At this point, there was only darkness and noise.
I sat down there for I don’t know how long. I could not find any walls, no matter how far in one direction I stumbled. My only sense of space came from that one source of noise. It became increasingly hard to stand, so I crawled in the filth. In that sideways eternity, I became a blind creature adapted to this new landscape.
It was there, down in the refuse, that I encountered Your Third Joke.
This joke took the form of a bodily sensation. I wonder if this is due to the extreme sensory deprivation of the space: it was more or less body temperature, the noise of the lump syllable swallowed up any other, and it was pitch black. Is that how you pulled off this miracle? Trim off anything else and my skin shimmers with overactive architecture?
It felt as if my limbs and torso were growing long. Parts of me first felt tender and then viscous like runny wax. I heard shuffling in the waste that filled the space that I began to realize was caused by the convulsions of my distant extremities. My mouth extended further and further until it drank. As soon as it hit that water it split, branching off into so many sensitive feelers.
You spoke to me through the water. Not in words but in a single image: An ever curling smile that did not exist. Behind this hateful cartoon was an uncountable infinity, layers after layers of increasing fakery.
It was too dark to see and too loud to hear but I tasted. My body at this point was merely a root system of soft skin and throat which sprawled and consumed. My long winding neck fed a little trembling stomach so far away until I had my fill.
And then it stopped. I feel my way out, quite human again and shuffle through the refuse, outside and into the yard. Something in me has changed.
A bursting of a membrane, a thinning of the blood. I am sure that I am free to leave this place but where would I go? I no longer remember my previous life well enough to even know where I lived. I wonder if such memories, or perhaps fictions, are gone with the crystal thread of drool which is spooling out of my mouth and into a puddle on the steps.
So here I write, keeper of the fortune. Thank you for the teeth.
Written by WallaceTheMagpie
Content is available under CC BY-SA