The first sensation was confusion. The second was thirst. Jim had never been that thirsty. He was ungainly on his feet and had to grip the closet door to keep from rejoining the floor.
He swung it open and found everything normal. There were no cosmic abysses, orbs, or goblin swarms. There was nothing but the balmy light of a Kentucky summer percolating through the window.
‘What sorta stuff have those hicks been sprinklin in my whiskey?’
But this thought was impossible. His face was raw and gritty. He wiped at it and gasped at the stream of reddish sediment that action produced. The sand was all too tangible, all too real. He plodded kitchenward, out the bedroom door, propelled by the gravity of crumbling denial.
Jim descended the stairs like a drunk and stuck his head under the faucet. After a sort of microcosmic phylogeny of lapping water like a beast, he regained enough humanity to shoot a hand for a large tin cup.
After three brimfulls he filled a fourth and sat on the cool marble floor with his back against the freezer. Yes, the floor was cool. And Jim was cold. No, this wouldn’t do.
All his bones ached as he stumbled onto the porch, down its steps, and into the meadow. The warmth of the sun was pleasant and he sank down making a mat of the tall grasses. He lay on this organic stretcher long enough to begin to feel the first effects of sunburn.
Sitting up Jim noted that the rings were still all there. He recalled all the strangeness. It was an insane reality he could no longer deny. Though traces of rationalization still lingered the insinct for survival overwhelmed them.
Supernatural or not, he must at least keep whatever was going on at bay. Right now his best bet, insane as it was, would be to use Dutch’s trick.
Realizing it would be an arduous task he decided to breakfast. Chasing away the soporific effects of a hearty meal with a large coffee he set about the business of checmical warfare.
His first idea was to make a Clorox trail to the hole by the stump. He was amazed old Lizzy hadn’t fallen into the trap when she’d come there to greive. He patted the grass to make certain the hollowness beneath the veneer was indeed present. He was very much satisfied that it was, and laid a bit of Seng on the mossy side of the stump, for good measure.
Next he laid out tins of the alleged goblin booze in all cardinal directions of the wood. He poured trails that circled in figure eights. He poured trails that led to water. He poured trails that led to cliff edges.
Maybe risking the injury of one of these critters was unwise but Jim was too annoyed by the alien nuisance to care.
The whole ordeal took up a quarter of the day. It was late afternoon that he placed the now considerably lighter and empty Clorox barrel in the center of the odd granite formation.
Once he returned home, had a late lunch and whiskey, he found that he was too tired to read the letter that was so perfectly balanced on the couch’s arm.
Though there was the sense of time slipping away. Though Jim’s sleepward brain was producing images of skeletons, galaxies, and hourglasses; he could not help but sink into yet another deep slumber.
He awoke in a desert. There was nothing about save for countless dunes that undulated like waves in every direction. The reddish sand was cold. In fact everything was cold despite the brightest sun that Jim had ever beheld.
It was well nigh white in luminosity. So ferocious was its radiance that he was forced to squint.
“Here the wrath of God descended.” Came a familiar voice.
Jim turned to see an unfamiliar face.
Or rather a mostly unfamiliar face. It took some time but the silver haired Wildman that stood before him was the very same specter that had rescued him from the granite.
“You stand upon ashes of the proud.”
Jim was dumbfounded.
“But it’s better to kneel…” Jim gathered before lightning pain crackled through his knees at the scythe swing of ghoul’s staff.
“Do not stand lest Abaddon be tempted. In this the place of desolation, the dwelling of wild animals, Jehovah has given the archangel charge.”
“What the hell is going on?” Jim ventured through gritted teeth.
“This was once Gomorrah.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“They were brought low. They who stood so high. Who counted themselves the equal of the most high. Who succumbed to the gifts of the stars, they whom the archer commands, it was their arrows that armed the citadels Sodom built up against the Lord. They inclined their towers towards the fallen. And so their towers fell forever. Do you not hear the howling of the Djinn?”
“Let me go…”
“Impossible. It is not I who holds you. Not I, but folly. You are a fool.”
“I don’t care if I’m the dumbest motherfucker on Earth. This ain’t right. Let me out…!”
“I cannot. It is not I who holds you. Not I, but folly. So cease to be a fool…and go.”
Jim’s eyes darted about wildly. Nothing, there was absolutely nothing but cold desolation and the shrieking wind.
“I…I…I can’t.”
“What’s that fool? You say you cannot cease your folly?”
“..Shu..sure.”
“Good.” Again, the lightning pain flashed this time on his neck as his face met the sand. “Then eat of the dead. It’ll keep that God damned mouth closed and those ears good and open, fool.”
Jim was powerless.
“Principalities and powers abound. They whom the Lord established and they who war. It is your duty to discern the true voice. But, not even I have done this. Not even our line…ranging to the very first pillars of Ur. Their cunning is great and we are inextricably bound to serve. For the most high hears the cry of all his creatures and even the most wicked are given their due. So through sin we have been cursed to guard the gate. We who propitiated Ammon in our madness must to this late day continue. For all must pass in its hour. So our duty is to turn the glass. And to turn aright one MUST READ.”
The sand filled his lungs utterly and Jim awoke coughing in the closet.
I really don’t recall the exact progression but it did feature an old flame. Someone who is very often forgotten behind a veil of things that actually matter. She’s a tall girl of my own blood. That is she is Slavic though there is some unfortunate Anglo-Celtic admixture. You must excuse me. I’ve grown a touch xenophobic with all the naked hatred of my kin alive in your Western media.
The purpose of this post is of course the escapism of dreams. So I should perhaps stray from the wearying prosaicness of bigotry.
We were in some hall. Which was very reminiscent of some old rail stations I had frequented as a boy. There was some commotion among familiar faces and much in the way of banter.
I approached a figure in riding attire. And immediately recognized her gangly frame and large liquid eyes. The autumnal hair and vacant expression is unmistakable.
I approached with a smirk, “Why are you dressed like a dyke?”
Funny how the flavor of the waking world works itself into more permanent realms…
It was quiet for a spell. Jim had a week free of chirping and stealthy footfalls. He wondered if Dutch’s weird remedy had actually worked.
The thought made him laugh.
‘Of course they stopped stalking round. They’re part of the same Scooby Doo schtick. I dunno why they don’t just fess up and offer a deal.’
Jim was a stubborn man and held to the drug ring hypothesis with an almost religious zeal.
He’d considered calling the police. But, out here ‘…they’re probably in on it.’ He was no stranger to dirty cops. There were plenty of reasons to arrest him. But, the couple of times he’d actually been busted was a setup.
‘Luck of the Irish, my ass.’ He mused ruefully.
‘No use getting the feds involved either. This is way too boondocks for the suits.’
Besides, he didn’t want to be a rat. It must be hard to scrape out a living here.
Jim sighed and stretched himself out on the couch.
“This shit will figure itself out. It always does.”
He phased in and out of conscienceness as the fire crackled. Soon that pleasant sound was joined by the pitter patter of rain.
It was the perfect ambience for a blissfull sleep.
Except there was something off putting in the rhythm. Rain did not fall like that.
Jim’s eyes shot open and he listened.
‘Yea…rain generally doesn’t fall specifically on the windows.’ The realization sent a chill up his spine.
It wasn’t rain at all. It was tapping. Like dozens of fingers tap, tap, tapping at the window.
‘Do I fuckin’ look like Edgar Allan Poe.’
Slowly, gingerly, Jim sinewed his way snakelike onto the floor and shimmied to the window.
He lay just beneath it listening, considering his next step, and cursing the missed opportunity to take the shotgun.
Pitter…patter..pitter…patter…it was naseauting….he could almost feel the strange rustic fingers on his skin.
‘Gettin goosebumpy…’ Jim smirked at his cowardice in the darkness.
‘Sounds like more than one. Substantially more…’
‘Jesus, how long can they keep this up for?’ The sound had continued for at least an hour.
‘Do they know what room I’m in or they just trying some kinda general purpose fuckery….’
Then it occured to him to seek higher ground.
In the same slow, silent, serpentine fashion, he crept to the staircase and gingerly carefully tried to silence his crackling alcoholic joints.
After an agonizing aeon he found himself on the landing, then turning the knob with Chameleon circumspection he was in Hant’s bedroom.
Pitter…patter…pitter…patter….
‘How the fuck…’ Jim was incredolous.
There were no footholds in the harsh autistic symmetry of Hant’s cottage. The hybrid roof was to awkward for purchase.
The chill in his spine doubled.
He was frozen at the foot of the bed.
Jim didn’t know how long he lay there listening before his temper got the better of him and he shot up to his feet.
It was a brashness he instantly regreted.
Strange grey shapes with inky black eyes, strafed across his window, their impish passage revealing a bluish glow from the meadow beyond.
Whitish sparks, and glowing orbs, flitted in a void where a field had once been.
Jim scuttled away from the window like an overturned crab. Having secreted himself in Hant’s closet he promptly passed out.
So, I was sat here drinking wine and trying my utmost to bang out some fiction and suddenly remembered the smell of a book. Then I recalled the smell of the resteraunt where I’d sat reading that book. Then I remembered the book itself.
It was good feel. The early aughts were a simpler time. When bookstores hadn’t started shutting down all around and random discovery was a lot more likely. This very nineties strain of weird fiction is like the lullaby of a rural Carolina sky in all its isolated grimness. Yes, it was such nights that found me curled up with some bit of reading I’d picked up here and there. It was a necessity to escape the cicada song and the mocking moon.
It was thrilling to wander among the stoic haunted halls of the Wyrd museum and other such places. Though I haven’t read the book since I was just barely in my teens and doubt it would have very much effect on me now; I’m profoundly glad for that sense of wonder. So glad that I felt inclined to share.
There it was balanced just so on the couch’s arm. Everything was the same. Manila colored, red lettered, and all – it was Hant’s letter. The very correspondence he’d so recently consigned to the fire.
“No.” He said rising to his feet and reeling.
“No, no, no, no , no….”
‘They drugged me.’
‘Keep it together.’
He once again unfastened the pin.
“I know you are a fool…” That first familiar line struck him like a blow.
He tossed it onto the coffee table. Some of the topmost pages scattered.
“Shit.”
There was that poem.
“They dance and play,
They with silver skin,
Sleek in the twilight,
Far from the day,
Children of the black sun,
Spirits so bright,
See how they run,
In rings,
Round,
Though without wings,
Flit overhead,
Above all kings,
Twilight world,
That sprang all this,
Symmetry unfurled,
By a distant kiss,
Apollo, o Apollo, appeal, to the maze of Saturn’s weal,
And send them as a dance
To heal
From this morbid trance
For mid-summer,
For mid-summer,
Give a root,
For the runner,
For the runner,
Dangerous,
Just so,
But just so,
Be sure to do,
Only if you know,
The black sun,
O the black sun…”
‘Must be the way the page is weighted, or the way it’s stapled, for it to fall open like that.’ Jim frantically theorized as his fracturing psyche grasped for the convenient nepenthe of amnesia. The document’s recent destruction was forgotten. After all he did drink heavily. He may well have dreamed the whole thing.
He looked out his window at the early evening. There they were. Rings, those damned rings, spread concentric and overlapping, in a dizzying maze pregnant with suggestion.
Jim shook his head and looked away.
But, his ears were still open. The sounds that sauntered through them were not pleasing. Amidst the incessant buzz of cicadas there was an occasional chirping.
Jim considered scattering the hicks with the Mossberg. But last night’s ordeal or… nightmare had dampened his spirit. He put on the nearest record.
“Abasalom, Absalom, why do you not heed?” A familiar nordic lilt flitted through the mystic stillness.
Jim arrested the spin with his finger. There was a green apple there in the center. It was Abbey Road.
Jim was about to play the record again, to confirm that he hadn’t hallucinated the obviously dubbed-in intro, when he heard three steady knocks.
He grabbed the Mossberg left leaning on the couch.
“Who is it?” He asked fingering the trigger.
“Dutch.” Came the plain clear answer.
“What the hell are ya doin’ here Dutch? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“I got somethin ya need.”
“I doubt it.”
“Ya really wanna disappear into the Earth?” Dutch asked coldly.
Normally Jim would have written this off, and told him to go fuck himself but too much had happened in too quick a succession.
As the giant entered Jim was overwhelmed by a strong chemical odor.
“Ya smell like a fuckin’ janitor…what the hell is up man?”
“Hant’s way is better, but this should work for ye… for a time.” Dutch said in a concerned tone.
“Huh?”
“Hold on.”
The giant leaned through the still open door and wrestled in an enormous metal barrel that wobbled and came to rest with a liquid thud.
“The fuck is that?” Jim demanded pinching his nose at the pungent present.
“Clorox.”
“….Clorox…do I look like a maid…isn’t this place clean enough?”
“It’s for them.”
“Them?”
“The goblins.”
Jim laughed. “I thought they were fairies.”
“Goblins, faeries, demons, it don’t matter. They love this stuff. Gets em drunker than a striplin ater his first moonshine.”
“Uhuh…” Jim laughed. This he could handle. It was actually amusing. Even if his immideate suspicion regarding illicit drug manufacture were true. The story was adorable.
‘Drunk fuckin goblins…’ He continued to chuckle.
“Ja, they love the smell of it. I left trails n cups o the stuff all through the wood. Keep em distracted till ya do yer homework.”
“Uhuh…” Jim said glancing at the letter.
“Mmmhmm, I’d suggest ya read that real careful like. Gonna take ye a bit to digest. In the meantime do like I did put this out in tins or whatever. Spray it in trails. They got a nose for it. For as smart as they are they’re kinda like bugs…it’ll send em in a tizzy. Kinda funny to watch em run ater it.”
“Ok.” Jim said smirking.
“Ye don’t believe now. But ye will. Ye’ll make real good use of this.”
“I’m sure.” Jim said.
The giant gave him an appraising look.
“Ya want a drink buddy?” Jim asked good naturedly. The story had amused him and he didn’t want solitude to bring fresh worries.
Dutch shook his massive head slowly.
“Nah, I must get goin’. Gotta look after Ma.”
“Ok…then…”
“Afore I go…we need to put this in the basement. Otherwise this’ll just bring em here.”
“Ok.” Jim said. He had no complaints about removing the eye watering cleaning product as far from his living spaces as possible.
Jim nearly fell as he and Dutch double-teamed the unwieldy demon booze down the steep stairs.
He really wasn’t keen on being alone despite the rise in spirit that the comical redneck lore had caused.
“Ya sure ya don’t want a drink?” Jim said pointing to the mantel.
Dutch simply shook his head and departed in that charecteriscally efficient manner.
Jim shook his head. “Where the hell do ya get a barell of fuckin Clorox…Boy, am I gonna have stories to tell…”
The Fractal Journal 