http://chumpco.com/~snicker/novel
Approximately two months ago I found a package in the mailbox at my apartment. It was buckled in half straining at the sheet metal walls holding it, a thick wad of papers stuffed into an envelope, clearly addressed to me but with no return address and no postage either. My mail key opens the mailboxes of two other tenants in my building, but I keep mostly to myself and did not expect that either of them would have given me this package. It also seemed unlikely that the landlord would have sent this to me, since he seemed to like having nothing to do with me at all. This left the postman, but this too was unlikely, a dedication to the precepts of his employment would keep him from leaving a package like this without having sent it, stamped, through the system proper.
This was the first mystery I encountered that day, the origin of the package. I was coming back from my class, a morning two hour discussion of Humanism and "Enlightenment and Post-Enlightenment Thought". I wrestled the package out of the mailbox and heard a pop as the sheet metal sprung back into place where the bulky envelope had bent it awry, fumbled my keys into the locks of the front door, of my apartment, uncoated, put my shoulder bag on the floor, the package on my bookshelf, and so forth, my ritual of returning home.
My apartment is a modestly sized but well-appointed bachelor in the midst of the Toronto neighbourhood "The Annex". Hardwood floors, high ceilings, water radiator heat, an inexplicable second refrigerator built into the cabinets under the kitchen counter, huge windows, many bookshelves. I'm an avid reader, I guess you could say, a book junkie. So I was sort of happy to open up the package and find the papers inside to be filled with several handwritings, dates, it was repackaged letters, some epistolary compilation, good. Wide variety of paper sizes, folding patterns (from when they had been in other envelopes), paper types (airmail thin, resume thick), each page with a page number and date written in thin black block letters in the top right hand corner by the same hand, ordering all these varied sheets together into a structured compilation. Underneath the date and page number was a code of some sort.
So my shoes were off, I was sitting in my comfortable chair by an open window. It was mid summer, but in Toronto that really means late spring, our seasons are pretty much four months behind the pop-cultural perception of persephonic peregrination. A warm breeze of impending dry summer wriggled in through the screen, birds chuffed and huffed outside, a dog, cars passing. Children playing their lunch break games down the street at the lab school.
I was feeling intellectually stimulated! My humanism course was almost always a fierce contest of wills, arguments and spinning tales of logic and logic's limits, citations from broad backgrounds, it was a small class and we made up for that with large conversations. Often we'd spend an hour or two after class walking around campus continuing our arguments. Eager for more thoughts and ideas to chew on, I had sat, feet up on my bed, nestled in the chair as I said, holding this thick dark orange envelope.
First game: discerning aspects of the author's intent by examining the handwriting. Thin black ink, some careful pen, maybe even for drafting. The kind that is held carefully, too much of a tilt restricts ink flow. Block letters, but not careful and trained like architect's writing. Someone who is used to easy communication by speech, but I'm cheating, I've already read the letters and the whole thing, but still, even then I suppose I could have thought "Here is someone who is used to typing or talking to people and who is suddenly aware of the need to communicate effectively through text. Suddenly terrified by some knowledge, some thing that must be expressed, not able to turn to friends not able to post some online journal entry, has to share this with...
"Someone who not used to writing by hand. Someone who is being very careful to make sure this is read."
But wouldn't that person be some crank? They stuff a thick envelope full of other people's mail into my box, no name or return address. No name or return address! It's probably, I was thinking, some autobiography of a child molester, a mass murderer, but why did I get it?
I was sort of disappointed that it wasn't some Dargeresque pesudo-Max Ernst collage novel, pasted together from magazines to approximate the vivid delirium of some lonely psychotic. Just words.
I skimmed through the pages. There was an obvious 'cover letter', and a few phrases seemed to shew up repeatedly in the subsequent letters. "Dear Original" was the greeting to each letter. "Ran into Copy Such-and-such", "Had to cover up for Copy Such-and-such"... no actual "such-and-such"ing, that's me wildcarding the strange descriptives. Similar to the codes written below the date and page number, actually. (If I have time I'm going to make a key, translating the code to the person described by it)
It wasn't easy to start at the beginning, the appeal of all these different letters made me almost want to toss them in the air and snatch random pages, make the act of deciphering the intent of the package that much harder. I suppose I really was disappointed by the variety of letter types: if it had truly been some psychotic spurting fantastical punishments and relationships with imagined people, he'd only have to convinced himself of their reality and there wouldn't be so much variation in the tone and timbre of the letters, the handwritings and so forth as I described earlier.
Well, it was an idle thought.
Oh, I should explain this: I've signed up for National Novel Writing Month, and have to write a fifty thousand word novel in November alone. I tried it last year, failed, but I figure this envelope should help me, inspiration or at least some cheating bootleg of the contents could do the trick. I'm going to retype as many of the letters as I can and add them to my word count. I figure it's strange enough stuff that I can pass it off as my own, and since I'm writing these sections at the "work meet-ups" I can pass the whole thing off as some unlikely conceit. Even admitting to it in the introduction! My friends will read this and say "I don't believe you" on account of how I didn't mention this envelope at all when I first got it, how I can't possibly be telling the truth since I am going to have to invent conversations with them in order to keep this from being a long sort of art-critical essay of some ranting madman's writing. But that's okay. I just have to get the word count! Anyway, it's more true than not true and that's all that really matters.
More true than not, but here's a conversation with Allison about this book that never actually happened:
--You're even claiming that your beard you grew is part of the book?
--Oh, it's better than that, I'm going to get progressively more flaky as the month progresses so that people start to wonder if the whole thing is actually true after all.
--How is that going to help you get the word count?
--Well, uh. It's more than just word count. It's an artistic program that engages all the senses at once!
--Because it stinks.
--You know, I finally heard a definition of an "artist" that I'm comfortable with. And it was in my Jung class.
--I'm going to step out of character and explain that Nick, who I'm talking to, has a huge problem with self-defined "capital-A artists", the sort of pretentious twits who go around making Statements with their Art. I do too but I'm rather more clever at my arguments against it and Nick's not comfortable putting those words in my mouth.
--Right. Our teacher said that the project of an artist is the mediation between inspiration and implementation. It wasn't quite those words exactly but it really made sense. Art is the activity that is reaching towards a goal that cannot be reached, in a sense. It's the expression of an idea. And that's not only a really good way to think about what an artist is, it's also one of the first definitions of art-itself that I'm comfortable with, since it includes a lot of craft and untraditional art forms.
--And found art? Outsider art?
--Yeah, we've talked before about the problems with that: is intent enough to make art out of an observation? I think this definition allows that, the inspiration-implementation tension is the "desire to create art from the observed". Found poetry is art because the inspiration is to make poetry out of some words that were not intended as poetry. The implementation is the unwillingness of those words to leave their previous life as functional or decorative objects and become poetry.
--That explains found art but what about the class issues with outsider and folk art?
--Functional art, tribal items and totemic fetishes, those aren't art any more, which is good. A fetish is equivalent to a screwdriver, it serves a purpose and although that purpose is representative, it is not concerned with the mediation between interpretation and implementation.
--And class? You seem to be avoiding that.
--I want outsider art to stay art. I know that there is a disgusting aspect of "taking advantage" with the labeling of private expression as "outsider art". I mentioned Darger earlier in expressing my desire for a collage work to be found in the envelope.
--Aren't you guilty by proxy, then, of taking someone's "pure expression", a functional creation, and claiming it for yourself, making your role the mediator of inspiration and implementation? Was Darger an artist, or are the people who put his work in galleries the artists?
--Darger is borderline. A psychotic makes art because they have to, in a sense, the critical aspect of the implementation is often suppressed. An "Artist" paints a painting and then relates the following paintings to that painting as a development. A psychotic views each work as both independant (commanded by the inspiration of the moment) and as entirely subsumed in the overall "command" of the psychotic expressive need.
--So the mediation there takes place across the artist's entire project. Each work is dealing with a single inspiration. Darger didn't have "multiple works", he had one large work that he continued adding aspects to.
--Right, and it's still art. The best thing about this is that the people who put him in galleries after he died, about the people putting Daniel Johnston in high-end recording studios, they're not artists at all because they're only recontextualizing the Artist's authentic mediation. Marketing the mediation is not a new mediation.
--So where are you, as the author of this book? You're not an artist because you're just reframing the letters that you found, assuming that they're real.
--This book isn't restricted to a brief contextualization of the package and then a retyping of the letters. Later on I plan to describe my search for the author in a sort of reverse-Pale-Fire commentary.
--But that's still the lame "outsider art" urge to claim some "helpless" person's art as your own by adding some frame story. Assuming this envelope is even real in the first place.
--So you're saying, taking a favoured book of the both of us, if Paul Auster were to reveal that the red notebook in "City of Glass" from the New York Trilogy was in fact a real notebook he had found, would that reduce the importance of the trilogy as a whole? The notebook, although ostensibly containing another person's work, fits into the greater whole as a support and extension of the ideas Auster is trying to express. I'm not allowed to be inspired by someone else's work?
--If you're inspired you're inspired and the mediation is between this inspiration and what you make from it. But implementation is not the same as typing up someone else's writing and saying that that that act is a sufficient act of creative genesis to justify calling it a new work of Art.
--You only say that because I've only written this much of it! I'll get more done and you'll come around. The mystery will thread its way into the labyrinth.
I'm in my comfortable chair, writing on my laptop. Thinking about that day two months ago about when I found that envelope. It's sitting on the footrest beside me, on top of a tie, and a couple books. Should probably start typing up the letters. The "cover letter" is in the same overly careful handwriting as the addressing on the envelope, and as the numbering of the pages. Thin thin lines. It has got to be a drafting pen, one of those evil-smelling expensive deals. The handwriting is really sparse as a result, the thin little lines look like they could fall right off the page if you didn't hold it perfectly flat, or like they'd ripple into curlicues if you put a magnet underneath. It's written without guides but with clean sharp margins, it must have been thought out very carefully before being committed to the page. No misspellings or mistakes. And such a strange opening:
Dear Myself,
I suspect that you are surprised to receive this in the mail. I suspect that you are surprised to read this letter. It is not particularly reasonable for you to be surprised to be reading it if you have already been surprised to receive it though. You do not remember writing this, as I do. I have practiced this letter many times. I hope that you read it and understand what is going on because I have only your best intentions in mind. Only your best intentions and I know you are probably reading this and already asking yourself how that could be how could some strange weirdo sending a letter to a stranger have any good intentions at all especially if he is claiming to be the very person who received the letter well maybe you should sit down but of course I know you already are.
I grew up in this city like you did of course because we both did and we have a lot of the same friends are you paying attention? I am telling you important things and they will not seem important until later because you do not understand why I am telling you these things. You will not understand until later why I am even talking to you in the first place because first I have to convince you that I am telling you the truth.
We grew up in this city together as close as one person can be. I attended all the same schools as you but we never really talked we weren't close like friends we were close like the two strands of protein that wind around each other in DNA we were the same and carried the same information and we are still the same but you are the opposite of me in a sense. In the same way that on DNA the amino acids but you are already aware of this anyway it is how the information is the same but opposite on the two strands. It is not the this way or the other way that matters in DNA so it does not matter that the information is opposites. What matters is how as you walk down the long curled strand the information moves from side to side. How much does it move. If you are only looking at how much it moves it does not matter which way it moves.
This is probably not helping to convince you that I am not a crazy person writing you a crazy person letter. And I am writing so carefully so that you will have no excuse to say later on that I had written a word sloppily so it can hardly be your fault that you didn't understand. It is very late at night right now but I am awake anyway because I have to finish putting this envelope together because very soon you are going to need to get this in the mail and I have to make sure that it is ready for you in time. It is very late at night and my eyes hurt and my fingers are aching inside the bones and I am dizzy and sore and would like to go to sleep but I don't think that would be a good idea.
There is a pretty good chance that if I fall asleep I will not wake up again which is why I am writing you this letter. And also if I fall asleep one of the copies might come in and find this letter and realize what I am trying to do and then you will never find out the truth about what has been going on.
At least you know why I did not put on a return address you would have been even less likely to consider this letter as a real artifact which is to say you would decide that someone is playing a ridiculous prank and even though you have a great love of the bizarre and the unfamiliar you would maybe be a little too scared if your own name were above the return address and the return address were your own and if I were writing less carefully you would recognize your own handwriting and it was already suspicious that there was no stamp so how did it get in the mailbox but at least that is a sort of standard "wow there is a mysterious object in my life now" sort of thing to happen. But people have this innate distrust of copies or I suppose since I haven't explained that yet I should say dopplegangers.
A copy of someone is a copy of someone. I can make copies of myself. So can you because you and I are the same person. I hope that you are not a copy of me though. The copies I made of myself have something very wrong with them and I cannot quite figure out what it is and I hope that you will be able to figure out what it is and that is why I am writing you this letter and sending you this package. I made copies of myself and made them go outside and do things and send me letters and bring me news and tell me about things because I hated going outside and I hated dealing with other people and I thought that it would be good to just stay inside and live vicariously through the lives of the copies. Because since they were copies of me I would in a sense actually be experiencing these things instead of just hearing stories about it. I get so sick of just hearing stories about things and it ended up that having these copies going out and doing things was no different from getting letters from people I know telling me about the delightful foods they have been eating or beautiful places they have been walking around in or the attractive people they have been fucking and I got sick of just sitting around and so I wanted to do something about it but the copies decided that I was probably wrong to want to go outside after all because they wanted to keep doing the things they did and I had made them pretty good copies after all. So I am inside here and hoping that when you get home and get this in the mail you will understand what is going on and you will help me go outside and enjoy life for a change if you know what I mean. Which you do. But you don't yet. But you will.
My head was swimming by that point when I first read the letter. It's got a rhythm to it, you know? If you're not paying attention to how ridiculous it is, it lulls you into a sort of quiet nodding of the head. It took me the rest of the day and well into the evening to finish reading the whole package. Sat at my kitchen table for a while, cooked dinner. Troubled sleep. It was really easy to tell it was just some twisted prank but still but still. Resonant thoughts, buzzing... I had a dream.
In the dream I am walking down Yonge Street. With a certain girl. It is somewhat cold out, winter is approaching as it is now, but it is dry whereas this early november day is wet. We are dressed lightly, anyway, walking down towards Eglinton Avenue. I'm wearing a suit, it is light material like linen, black with dark grey threads here and there. A white shirt and a dark green tie. Black shoes with leather soles and they are polished and reflecting the garish triply-gentrified Entertainment Complex lights back into my eyes crisply like the air burning on its way into my lungs. Tap tap tap down the street and beside me she's wearing her hair swept back by a shiny shiny metal clip on each side and the hair swings back behind her ears and forward. She has a white dress shirt on and a blue ankle-length skirt. I do not remember the shoes. Dressed like we are coming home from something or going somewhere. It's late though, the sky has that tired heavy swollen anxious for the dawn feeling. There are many taxis passing by but we do not want any of them.
At Yonge and Eglinton on the south-west corner there is a large glass atrium. If we were to go inside we would be headed towards the subway station, but we sit down outside facing north. We sit down and are not particularly cold because the winds that are common to that intersection are blowing somewhere else right then. She has a backpack with her, it's blue like her skirt, and they're probably both denim. Dark denim. The skirt has silver threads in it by the hem and the thread is embroidered into patterns like stars. There aren't many passers-by but some boy, some boy, late teens, nondescript, short hair and I Am Cool thick framed black plastic glasses. He walks towards us and stops and kneels down in front of her. He starts to unbutton her shirt and neither of us are surprised. In the dream it is like starting a conversation, like waving hello to someone you already know, or like telling a stranger you have the same shirt but it is at home. Or maybe more like smiling with flirty warmth at a stranger who is already sort of coming over to talk to you. Her shirt is now completely open and she isn't really sitting any more, her head and shoulders are still leaning against the wall but the rest of her body is laid out across the pavement. The boy parts the halves of her shirt and reveals a blue bra. Dark blue. The same shade of blue as the skirt and the bag but shinier, probably smoother to the touch, it has that fading shine as the curves curve away out of sight that smooth fabrics have.
The bra is constructed such that the cups are held vertically by a loop around the neck, running up from the top of one cup over the shoulder around the neck and back down to the top of the other cup. The horizontal fastening is similar, the side of one cup has a flat cord that runs around the back all the way around to the front again. So there are two cords in the back and they meet twice, and at the front, where they meet the second time, they are tied into a knot. The boy unties the knot. His fingers are cold and he has trouble untying the knot. She is staring at him. It is not an easy expression to read. It could be disdain, it could be anticipation. It is a very blank stare but her eyes are alert. The boy slides the cups of the bra, slides them up, exposing the nipples that fill with blood in the cold air. The boy's right hand has a thumb and a finger that measure the width of her left nipple. Observing the resistance and texture of the nipple.
She signals that he stop, she narrows her eyes, but it is clear that he should stop. It was not expected but it is not surprising. He removes his hand and he looks rather surprised with himself for having done what he did. She reaches into her bag and takes out a small notebook and her red-inked calligraphy pen. She writes a message in the notebook, upside down, but in completely clear script. Intended for the boy. The pen stains her fingers slightly with the red ink. "There is an object of extreme importance in my bag. Remove it and describe it to me."
The message is intended as a test of the boy to see if he should be allowed to continue. He spreads apart the top of her backpack and reaches into it. He pulls out a yo-yo. It is blue, in hourglass shape. A trick yo-yo, one of mine. It has my red thread I like to use on my yo-yos. I have her fingers in my mouth, I am getting the ink off of them. That part of the dream is true. He holds the yo-yo up.
--Is this it? This can't be it.
He is incredulous but she is inscrutable. Disdainful. The boy does not know if the disdain originates from his choice of object, his comment... he does not know anything at all. He puts it back in her bag, blushing furiously. He pulls out a drawing on a piece of letter-sized white paper. Normal mid-bright 20 pound laser printer paper. The paper is completely smooth. It was not in a binder or folder in the bag but it is creaseless and undented. There is a drawing on the paper, done with a fine black pen. Carefully. The drawing is of a female sheep-lady. Pointy sheep ears, covered in wool, humanoid body though, naked breasts, kneeling on the ground in front of a torso bearing a penis. The penis and torso are not wooly and look relatively normal. There is no shading. It is very cartoon-like. The sheep lady is looking up to where the face of the torso would be if we could see. She is about to put the penis in her mouth but she is clearly hesitating. In the background are three other humanoid sheep drawn in a Japanese cartoon style, with oversized heads. One is lustful, one is angry, one is worried. The three are just walking in through a door that is open.
The boy looks at the picture for a long time. He wants to figure it out. I know what he should have done. I know who drew the picture, so does she. It is not the object though. There is no object. The thing he should have done is refuse to look. He should have said that he was not going to look. He should have refused to play that game. There is no way to win that game. There was no object.
--She has been drinking, he said, a lot. She's drunk. She just met this guy and she is not sure if she wants to do it but she is going to figure she might as well. In the background are three of her friends from the same party, coming in to see what she is doing. They are looking forward to having more fun at the party.
Perhaps it's notable that he clearly forgot to include an explanation of the expressions the three other sheep-people had on their faces. But it doesn't matter. She grades his response.
--Yes, they're all drunk. They've been out partying -- drinking! -- and they're all drunk. They drink and they are all drunk because they drink when they party and so they are all drunk!
She grabs the drawing out of his hand and shoves it one-handed back into the bag. It is in that bag and it is still uncrumpled and unfolded and clean. The boy stands up, trying to be proud in his failure. His total failure. He stands up straight and walks off pretending to have never stopped in the first place. I move myself closer to her. She pulls her shirt halves closed and leans against me. She is still mostly on the pavement but her head is against my right side and I slide my hand between her and her skirt down her right side and gently hold on to her right outer thigh. The elastic of her underpants is going to leave a mark on my forearm. Her skin is cool. We are relaxed nicely together and she tilts her head back to look at me and she prepares herself to tell me something.
--Nacilbuper, she says. Tarcomed.
I woke up at that moment, on the floor in my kitchen. Naked, under the table. I sat up slowly, it was so hot, I was sweating and I felt like I had been rolled in flour while I had been asleep. Gritty and uncomfortable. The lights were off and it was dark except for the streetlight julienne of the blinds. And the blue glow of the oven, which was open, and at full blast. And the pages from inside the envelope laid out edge to edge to edge on the floor.
I'm trimming my beard. I am standing in my bathroom, and I have a beard trimmer in my hand, and it is plugged into the power outlet below the light above my medicine cabinet's mirror. The cable dangles in front of the mirror and I keep having to move one way or another to be able to see myself. It's the first time I've trimmed it. I have been growing it since I got that letter in the mail.
That can't be right. I got the letter while I was in school. I started growing my beard in the summer. But the reason I'm growing the beard is because of what the letter said. I need to think about the chronology some more, work out the dates better. I am pretty sure that when I went to Wisconsin last, in late August, I was already growing my beard. Maybe I was just growing it for kicks then, and once I got the envelope I started growing it for a reason.
It's pretty short now, and I've been soaking it every day with conditioner to keep it from feeling like pubic hair. I'm not sure if it's my style but you know, it's something to try. And I feel more comfortable knowing that I can grow a beard.
The little tough hairs from my face are clumping in the sink, and if I turn on the water they'll be swept down the drain. Buzzing from the trimmer. Also scissors, for the parts that the trimmer doesn't want to help with. I don't like the light in bathrooms. It's too white, everything is white and even if it's not cleaned often -- I am making no claims as to the cleanliness of my bathroom -- it's uncomfortable. It's bright, and I don't like bright light.
You don't see many people with beards these days. I can ride on the subway or the bus or the streetcar, or walk down the street, and it seems like only a few people have beards. Do they notice me the same way?
--Hello, Brother Beard.
--And hello, Brother Beard.
--I notice your face has hairs upon it.
--And I notice the same features upon yours.
--It has been a pleasure meeting you.
--I have enjoyed it as well. Fare well, with your beard.
--And you, with yours.
The letter continued:
I have the innate ability to create duplicates of myself. With modified attributes. They are not even in most cases recognizable as me. But there they are. Walking around. They buy coffee and wear hats in the cold. They put on shoes. Hold down jobs. I have made hundreds of them. They are all me. It is a strange power and I can understand that it is difficult to accept. The strangest power I have heard of before now is essentially the power to count very well. There are people who can count things very easily. They are usually sick in some way though. The powers people have come at a price which is often other abilities that most take for granted. For example the people who can count well often have extremely poor social skills. Or they have useless limbs. There are brilliant musicians who can only play with their feet. Carl Unthang played in Strauss's orchestra. He was born without arms. Mutatis mutandis. Consider Fedor Jeftichew whose stage name was Jo-Jo The Dog-Faced Boy. He was exceedingly famous. Noted for his kindness and civility. Fluent in many languages. Perhaps the normal faculties in the cases of freaks are enhanced to make up for supposed losses. But it seems more likely to me that what we call freaks are simply farther out from the centroid of human experience.
It is a wide continuum. The word most relevant is "deviance". It is often used these days to represent a sort of differentness. Uncomfortable otherness. In mathematics is is used to describe being "not near the average". That is not a bad thing. If someone is very advanced in intelligence they are deviating from the norm. It is interesting that I have distracted myself this way. I am talking both about how my power is strange and how I am able to modify the attributes of my copies. I could turn them all out as freaks. Missing limbs or joined together. Small heads or hairy faces.
But in fact they are all naked of the face with normal heads and intact limbs and none of them are physically joined to each other.
They are all naked of the face because how else would they know that they are copies? It is a service to everyone. None of the copies I made can grow hair on their face. They are all male as you are and as I am. And post-pubescent. However I chose to ensure that the attribute of facial hair was suppressed in each and every one of them. The idea is that over time they will be forced to remember that they are not like other people and that they ultimately come not from a Parents but from a Duplicator.
I have not tried to create a female duplicate nor do I feel comfortable with the attempt. For similar reasons the copies are also all sterile. Functioning and so forth. But unable to conceive. This is appropriate. I am able to conceive, by myself. It is a ridiculous masculine fantasy I suppose. But I have no dynastic desires. I do not know if I myself am able to conceive. But with my power I am both able to conceive in a more limited but more direct sense. And I can ensure that my copies do not have the power.
This package which I have sent you is my journal. I have created many copies of myself and sent them out into the world and instructed them to write me letters telling me of their adventures. I crafted them carefully. Tuning their attributes so that I could use them as experimental vehicles. Sending them out into the world to try things out. That I am curious about. It is a science of sorts. The universe is very large. I am a space ship. Sending out probes. These probes are humans with specific controlled behaviours and physical aspects. They report back to me through the void. Specifically through the mail system. They write me letters.
It took me a while to get up the courage... I went door to door in my building asking the other tenants if they knew who had lived in my apartment before. My apartment is on the first floor of an old big rooming house that's been slowly converted into larger apartments. I'm right next to the front door, the first apartment in the place. Next door is a family starting out. A fairly young couple and a new baby. They're really nice to me, they say hello sweetly when we bump into each other. Sometimes when I'm going to class in the morning the little baby's being bundled into her stroller, and we play a happy game of making a baby laugh. I was walking to the subway a couple days ago and passed the father carrying her in his arms, and she stretched out her hand towards me and pointed and laughed and smiled and he seemed a bit embarrassed.
But I'm terrible at talking to people I don't know, especially if there's something I want from them. What right do I have to demand things from people? But I managed, I guess. It didn't go very well.
My plan was to just ask them about the different people who had lived in my apartment. Since I had moved in just a month or two beforehand, in mid summer right around when I started growing my beard, it would be a good way to meet people. I spend a lot of time sitting in my apartment, you see. I hear everyone walking back and forth from the door and their apartments going about their chores and all those daily social activities people seem to do. I'm just not very well-equipped to share in that sort of thing. I go to class, and I go to meetings of the various groups I'm involved in, and I see my friends occasionally, but I don't feel like I do these things regularly. And I probably spend about 18 hours a day on average inside my apartment. I like it there.
So maybe talking to the people around me would help me get out of my shell a bit more. I've been working on building up my confidence and this would be a good test of such. Maybe they'd have me over more, and I could have them over, and I could cook for them. Then I'd have a good excuse to keep my apartment more clean, too. And they seem nice. And diverse, lots of sorts of people living here.
But why not start with my immediate neighbours? Okay. I knew they were both home. I had heard them go out with the baby a few hours earlier, and then they came back and the little one was mewling a bit. Can't really hear it once they're back in their place, the sound-proofing's quite good even if the doors are thin, but I waited a while and then figured I could go safely knock on the door without disturbing them too much.
It took me a while to get up the courage... I had spent the day worrying about how to go about doing this. Should I wear my shoes? Should I have a tie on? Should I shower first? (I did shower first. I did not wear a tie, I wore a nice shirt though. I didn't wear my shoes, since I didn't know if their apartment was a shoes-off sort of place.) Probably the biggest sticking point was how to go about alerting them to my presence. If I rang the doorbell outside they'd think I didn't have my key, except that I wouldn't be wearing shoes, so I should knock on their door. Except that is so intimate, unnerving. I didn't know the layout of their apartment, but my bed is directly across from the door and it is sort of scary when one of the caretakers has a question for me and I have to put my pants on but I know they have a key...
But I settled on knocking on their door: I walked into the hallway and turned away from the front door. It was darker there, my apartment's cream and white and has huge windows, the hallway's dark red and brown and has small windows high on the walls. It has mirrors though. Most of the light comes from the mirrors which flattens the colours out and makes it difficult to see the edges of things. Low-contrast. I could sense my night-vision beginning to operate, graininess, and the few highlights spread more across my sight.
Stepped towards their door on the weather-proof carpet, felt my socks sink a bare half-centimetre down to the wood underneath. A smell of cooking vegetables increased as I got closer, dulling the wax and wood cleaner smell of the hallway. Their doorknob was cool. I realized I shouldn't try to just walk in, I had somehow forgotten my whole plan of knocking and my nervous prepared introduction. I had left the envelope in my apartment but that was on purpose. When I released my grip from the doorknob little marks from my fingertips condensed water onto them. The water evaporated off as I watched, little waning crescents. It was brighter than I had realized, or my night vision had adapted faster than I had thought, or I had been standing there longer than I had planned, because the lights reflecting off the doorknob were bright, bright, bright.
Dizzy. I sat down on the floor for a minute. I was starting to get a headache. As usual my left eye stopped working. Everything flattened out. There was an ache on the left side of my head and it felt as though my left eye had dried out and then been inflated, crusty chunks of it abrading against my socket. Head spinning. This happens every now and then. One reason for my agoraphobia. Don't really know when it's going to happen. Causes problems. Worried about going outside and so forth. Left side of body tingled. Not like a limb waking up from a pinched nerve. Like electrocution instead. Involuntary contractions of muscles. Uncomfortable.
But as always it passed quickly too. Soon enough I had regained my feet and before I even realized it I had knocked on the door. The husband opened it, and looked on me with a warm and friendly smile.
--Hello, neighbour! What can I do for you?
--I... I would...
I was still dazed somewhat from the headache but I quickly gathered myself.
--I was wondering if maybe I could just introduce myself. I haven't really gotten around to that yet, and I've already been living here for a couple months, so I thought it would be a neighbourly thing to do.
--Oh.
There was a bit of a pause. His smile left him for a moment, he seemed to be measuring me. I suppose whatever I had said wrong did not bother him much, though.
--Sounds like a good idea. Why don't you come in? We'll be eating dinner in a half hour or so but beforehand we'd love to have you introduce yourself.
--My thanks.
It took only one and a half steps for my foot to cross the threshold into their apartment.
Inside it was light colours, like mine. Larger, though. I had stepped into a large living room with a divider near the windows. To my right was a full kitchen, door and all. A window cut in the wall beside the door, so that one could stand in the kitchen and talk to people in the living room even if the door were closed. To the left was a closet, and a hallway. Doubtless down the hallway, at least one bedroom, and a bathroom. Probably two bedrooms, otherwise the bedroom could have just abutted the living room. A television was on, playing advertisements. A few low bookshelves, a few display stand sort of things with bric-a-brac. Some canvas chairs, a dark brown coffee table, and a red cloth sofa. I knew from walking by that side of the house that behind the partition was the family computer. In the kitchen there was water boiling and also a pan with some vegetables slowly hissing. The mother, the wife, she was sitting on the sofa holding the baby in her arms.
--Well hello, neighbour! What brings you here? Sorry about the mess but you know how it is with a baby in the house.
--Is that what it is! I must have quite a few babies in my apartment, then.
Pleasant laughter all around.
--Nick was thinking we could introduce ourselves a bit better, isn't that right?
--That sounds like a wonderful idea.
--Yes, I'm feeling uncharacteristically sociable today. Figured I should use it up on some people not accustomed to it. My regular companions are all rather too spoiled by me of late.
Pleasant laughter all around, although they weren't quite following me.
--Well, here, have a seat.
A cursory adjustment of a canvas chair, indicating I should choose that one to sit in. I did.
--Your apartment is really quite beautiful. I am jealous of the size, although I realize that is for the most part a cunning optical illusion caused by your clever placement of objects highlighting the available space.
Very subdued pleasant laughter, this time. I was alienating them. I have this problem sometimes. I actually do talk like that much of the time, and it gets worse the more nervous I am. Not so helpful, that!
--So, Nick, what do you do these days?
--I am a student, primarily. I've just begun my studies for the year and am excitedly progressing towards teacher's college, where I plan to train for the r™le of a grade-school educator.
--Oh, wonderful! You'll have to teach M_ once she is old enough!
--Perhaps you'd hire me as a tutor, then? Home-schooling is the best way, after all!
Pleasant laughter again. I was talking about their world now, their world of Baby, and Planning for the Future.
--So what occupies the both of you? Other than raising a beautiful child?
I cannot for the life of me remember their answers. I cannot remember their names, their professions, their hobbies. I have no patience for superfluous chit-chat. That is one of the main reasons I have trouble in this sort of situation, that I can't bear to hear this sort of drivel from people. It's tolerable from my friends because I actually know them, and care about them. And I suppose because it has some bearing on me, yes. I guess that is it. The only reason I can remember the name of their baby is because when I run into her with her parents, they coo and say "Look, M_, it's Nick!" and she gurgles sweetly.
Which is not to say I was uncomfortable. Once I am in the swing of things it is quite easy to get along with people. I suppose I should have said "I have no patience for remembering superfluous chit-chat". There are some people I am quite fond of and with whom I love to spend time, whose conversations with me amount to little more than a "how's the weather" and such. Eventually I managed to swing the focus to the other tenants, hoping to find some justification for my mailbox having received that strange envelope.
--Who else lives in this building, by the way? I've seen a few people around, like the Chinese lady around my age, or the grim smoker who lives upstairs and seems more shy than gruff despite his best efforts.
--Ha ha, oh that's (so-and-so), he is a really nice fellow but just does not like having new people around.
--And the Chinese lady is a student like yourself, but in post-graduate. Very sweet girl, you would probably get along well with her.
--If you weren't too gregarious.
--It is my only flaw. They both sound like good eggs, though. But say, my apartment had been for rent for a month or so, hadn't it? This is such an extraordinary building, and the location, you'd not expect a flat to go unrented so long.
--Well, the last person to live in that apartment is the lady upstairs from you directly, when you moved in in the early spring, she moved upstairs.
--Yes, she used to have parties in that place, but the sound never bothered us luckily enough. And they'd go all night, no less!
--Yeah, she had problems with her boyfriend, too. Bad problems, with police and the works.
--Oh! The poor lady. Okay. I should talk to her, then, though.
--Why is that?
--Oh, I got some strange letter in the mail. Not a bit of return address, quite mysterious, all that. Must have been intended for her. The letter claimed to have been sent by someone named...
But by the time I was even that far into the sentence they had managed to graciously manoeuver me into the hallway. Graciously but surely, and with not a little bit of grim anger swarming hostility under their cracking politeness.
--Have a good day, Nick.
--Yes, do take care of yourself.
And they closed the door in my face. I was left in the hall by myself, stunned. Half by wondering how they had got me up out of my seat, half by wondering why they were so adamantly uncomfortable discussing my strange letter. I resolved to go upstairs and interrogate the young lady previous tenant. As soon as possible. As soon as I spent a few days in my room recuperating from the shock of dealing with people I didn't know too well.
I should explain how I discovered I was capable of summoning this strange power. I am a naturally stressful person. Full of stress. I am excited easily. I worry about things. The summer was hot. Windows open and fans blowing. Blinds shut to keep hot sunlight out. Hot enough still. Hot enough still that touching the radiators you'd think they were running. Hot metal. Could cook an egg in several parts of the apartment. Usually the kitchen. Was not attending work. Depression and anxiety. Supporting myself was becoming difficult. I had friends then. They had concern for my health and mental acuity. Their concerns were outweighed by my own. They did not realize how bad it was. I was in a very poor state. Unhealthful. Dangerously incapable of taking care of myself. Not eating. I had food and it was spoiling. I'd skulk out of the apartment in the middle of the night.Not midnight. Three in the morning. Four in the morning. As you know there is a neighbourhood twenty-four hour supermarket. I would buy non-perishable food items. Cans of tomatoes. Avoiding talking to people. Bags of pre-washed lettuce. I never got around to eating those. The bags would get steamy and wet inside. I would pick them up and the lettuce would fall apart into clumpy fluid. Paying with debit cards. Not wanting to have to maybe touch people in order to give or receive change.
The problem of course with going out at that time of night is that there are crazy people. They talk to me. It is as if I attract them. Ha ha perhaps they see something in common with me. They come up to me. I can be fishing through the jugs of orange juice trying to find a kind without pulp. And they come up to me. Or I am looking for a bacon package that is not too fatty. And they come up to me. It happens to me in other places or anyway it did when I went to other places. In office supply stores I would be walking around minding my own business and people would come up to me asking for directions to particular forms or types of office supplies. Even in stores where the staff are required to wear uniforms. They would come up to me. Even normal people.
--Where can I find the cerlox strips?
--I don't work here! They are in aisle 3 near the far wall.
I suppose it is because I have a helpful and friendly demeanour. It is difficult for me to tell people to go away. It is difficult for me to properly project the antisocial aspect I would like to. Crazy people make me very uncomfortable. Perhaps more so than physical cripples. I feel cruel saying such a thing. But I am sure you understand. I do not hold it against them. They cannot go and grow new arms. Or cast off their superfluous chromosomes. Nevertheless there is some twinge in my lower gut. Perhaps my testicles climbing up their cabling back into my torso for fear of being somehow affected by the nearbyness of a freak. That is the physical disorder sensation I get. The sensation I attain around those who are mentally broken is somewhat different. It gives me both the sense of physical danger and also a sense of mental danger. Perhaps I will end up like them. I notice that when I talk to people who have strong accents that I after a few minutes begin to imitate them without meaning to. If I am around crazy people perhaps the same thing will happen. That would not be good.
I was out on a bad night. My brain was twisting and writhing in my skull. Sticky and wet. Slapping weakly against my temples. I could feel it wishing for claws. If it had claws it could rake my scalp and tear its way free. I keep my mouth shut a lot when I feel like that because my guts will heave up out of me.
Like I suggested I was crouched over the jugs of orange juice. I cannot stand commercial orange juice that has pulp. When they process the orange juice they filter out the pulp and boil the orange juice. Then they put the pulp back in. That is disgusting. Once that has happened the pulp no longer has any honest business with the juice. It is an interloper.
--You don't like pulp.
I wasn't really capable of making eye contact with this person.
--Not many people like pulp I can tell you don't like pulp Have you noticed that there is always very little pulp free orange juice available Perhaps you are not alone in your dislike of pulp
I was crouched over but rotated my head at the neck so that I could at least look at the legs and feet of this person. Not a good sign. Dirty sweat pants with holes. Old dirty running shoes clumsily tied with broken and repaired laces. These are good signs of a crazy person. Crazy people do not take good care of themselves. They are too busy being crazy.
--Frankly I am used to fresh squeezed juice. All of this processed juice makes my skin crawl one way or another.
--I understand your concern It is good to consume healthful items When you eat healthy food your body is happy
--I don't see any orange juice that doesn't have pulp.
--Over here Over here On this wall in the refridgerated section there is orange juice without pulp But instead of coming in jugs It is coming in wax paper containers Like what you buy milk in Do you ever wonder why milk does not come in jugs like orange juice does
--It does in some places. I remember in Wisconsin where I have family you can buy jugs of milk. Also you can buy jugs of root beer.
My patience was wearing thin. This person could not help me find jugs of orange juice. They were delaying my return to the apartment. I wanted to be back home. I wanted to be back home. I could feel the tension rising in my gut. I was on the edge of a panic attack. There was panic in my gut. I could feel it rising. My fists were clenching and unclenching. I was starting to sweat. I had to try very hard. To not lose my patience. I was angry. I was mostly angry at myself. I have only lost my "cool" once. In public I mean. I was walking down the street. I had had a bad day. No sleep either. I curled up in an alley and cried for a few hours. This is true. You recognize this. You have this happen too. You are doing so much better. You are healthier. But you know what it is like.
And now it was happening again. I had to not let it happen again. But the trying hard. But the striving. It makes it more difficult. I was beginning to melt. I felt the blood dripping out of my fingertips. Running out of my nose and ears. I couldn't breathe. The crazy person was shuffling feet side to side impatiently. Probably wanted to ask for money. Probably wanted to bite me. Get teeth embedded in my flesh. Shake head side to side. Tear me open. Get their saliva in the wound. Their saliva mixing with my blood. The chemicals and bacteria in their saliva mixing with my blood. My body with its stupid slurping pumping idiocy eagerly accepting the saliva. Running through my body. The saliva rubbing against the wall of tissue at the brain barrier. The bacteria slipping in. Infecting me. I would be sick like them. It is zombification. In horror movies zombie problems spread that way.
--You okay man You look kind of down Is there something wrong
--I'm... okay... please...
I started slumping to the ground. I wanted to lie down.
--Do you want some orange juice It's right here on the shelf Let me get you a carton of orange juice man You look in bad shape
--Would it be... possible... to get a rain cheque... on the orange... juice...
And I hit the ground. My right hand was scratching my head vigorously and already bloody. My left hand was clenching and unclenching. You can see why I don't like being around crazy people. I am vulnerable.
But another person walked towards us. I was expecting an employee of the grocery store.
--Stand up
and he grabbed me under the arms and lifted me to my feet.
--Come with me
and he grabbed my upper arm and dragged me away leaving my little basket of groceries and the crazy person.
--Man wait where are you going Don't go off with him You don't even know him What about your orange juice What about your groceries Man hey Hey man
We were outside before I knew it. My head was still spinning. I couldn't see out of my left eye. It felt like I was being electrocuted. This person was familiar. A friend? I hadn't talked to anyone in weeks. I thought I had managed to not keep anyone in my life. Familiar.
--Thank you. The fresh air is doing me good.
--Thank you. It was the least I could do. Hold still.
This stranger looked me in the eye. I dislike looking people in the eye. I saw my reflection in their pupil. He stepped towards me. It took one and a half steps and he was gone. He had walked right back into me.
Time had slid to the weekend before I was comfortable enough to try more experiments in identifying the author. It had really creeped me out, that encounter with my next door neighbours. Hadn't really managed to go outside again since then. Missed a couple classes, even. But you don't expect things like that. No-one expects to be bustled out of an apartment... I'm still upset about it I guess. Still dwelling. Maybe they just really wanted to get around to eating their dinner. Anyway. That weekend I figured I would talk to the pervious tenant. I'd reread the entire package a few times now. It was hard to keep track of, like sometimes there'd be a letter I didn't remember reading before, and other times I couldn't find one I wanted to reread. It seemed like an educative experiment. Someone had sent this to me as a puzzle. It wasn't meant to be factual, it was meant to be illustrative of some aspect of my life, or of theirs. They were helping me, or were asking for help. I could say it was rude of them to do it this way but it was certainly compelling.
I'd have to go upstairs. I've been upstairs only once, it was when I had just moved in. I was exploring around, just seeing what the traveling around spaces in the building were like. Up on the third floor people had mats outside their doors they kept their shoes on and little jars with dried flowers and name tags on the doors. The second floor had mats outside their doors that they kept their shoes on. The only thing left in the hall on the first floor was the stroller for the baby.
So I put on shoes. Going upstairs is a shoes sort of action. Going next door was not so much a shoes needing action. Plus wearing shoes would convey a seriousness that was perhaps lacking from my previous attempt. Should I wear a tie this time? No. The lady who lives upstairs had seen me previously on a weekend wearing a sport coat so I might as well wear one of those again. Demonstrating a seriousness and style exceeding the standard of weekend attire for most people, and all.
Again though I left the envelope behind. If it were handwriting she'd recognize it would cause awkwardness.
--Where did you get this?
--It was in my mailbox addressed to me...
--That was a mistake! This is clearly mine!
And so forth, maybe even ending up with the envelope being taken from me. But it was addressed to me, it was talking to me. So it was mine, absolutely. Couldn't risk it.
Walked upstairs. Knocked on the door. No answer. I had somehow forgotten to make sure that someone was home before trying this out. A mistake, indeed. I walked back downstairs. My door was open. I must have forgotten to lock it. But I was sure I had closed it. My door is difficult and wants careful fiddling to be closed properly, and I had a fresh memory in my mind of performing those fiddling acts before heading upstairs.
As my foot passed the threshold into my apartment the building alarms went off. The alarms go off when there is smoke or if the building power is cut off. The problem with the alarms is that it is several alarms pitched very close to each other but not quite at the same pitch. And terribly terrifically loud. So if you turn your head the vibrations change, interfering. It just cuts my balance out. I dropped like a hatchet through a wedding cake. Flat on my face. I had my contact lenses in which was good because I would have broken my glasses I hit so hard. My nose was sore and bleeding. Aching all over. The alarms turned off. I could see my bedside table and the clock on it, flashing 12:00. So the power had cut out and come back. The front door was opening, I could hear someone rattling keys around. I sat up as best I could, crouching on my threshold. The door opened. It was the upstairs tenant, whom I had wanted to talk to.
--Hey... Nick... are you okay?
--Sure! Yeah.
I stood up and closed my door. My apartment isn't as clean as it could be, and I'm embarrassed of it. Plus I wanted to talk to her. So.
--Hey so you live upstairs right?
--Yeah but... you're getting blood everywhere.
I wiped my face with my hand. She was right, I was bleeding profusely. The carpet was pooling, already. It was streaming, not dripping.
--I just wanted to ask you something, though. I was just going to knock on your door. Well I did knock on your door.
--Nick, do you need some paper towel?
--No, I'm fine, it doesn't hurt. I just tripped on the way into my apartment. I went and knocked on your door.
--I'm going to go upstairs. Why don't you talk to me later?
--I just wanted to ask you about something quick. It'll just take a moment.
--I... well, okay. What is it?
--I got this weird thing in the mail and I was just wondering about the history of the apartment, like who... I'm dizzy... man... maybe we should talk about this later.
--Okay, that's a good idea. Why don't you come up when you're feeling better, I'm staying in tonight.
--Thanks... thank you.
She walked upstairs and I was tired so I sat down. The blood was thick on my shirt. It had run fast enough that the shirt was wet and the blood wasn't soaking it any more. It was running down the shirt like vomit, clumping even. Chunks. Meaty chunks. This was horrible. I'm not one for nosebleeds, normally. I have friends who are susceptible for various reasons but even this was extreme compared to the worst of their horror stories. I closed my eyes. There wasn't any pain but I could feel the blood pumping out of my nose. It was not comfortable. Once I cut my finger badly and when I went to the hospital they injected some pain-blocking chemical into my finger. As they sewed it up, I could feel the thread pulling through my flesh but I couldn't feel pain. The sensation was so bizarre. This was similar.
No pain, just an observation. I was standing in the hall looking down at myself. I looked like a corpse. My skin was blanched and I looked wilted and boiled. Blood was everywhere. I stood watching myself for a few minutes, watching my fluids leak out onto the ground. I walked over to the neighbour's door. They were probably home, the stroller was there. I knocked on the door.
The wife answered the door. I could hear the baby inside, crying. She look confused, then looked past me, down the hall, to where I was lying against my door bleeding.
--Shit! Shit.
She called an ambulance. I rode in the ambulance beside my body. The ambulance operators didn't mind. They wheeled me away once we reached the hospital. I stood around for a while, then started walking home. It was a cool night. Autumn had started to flex and strut. I wasn't really dressed warmly enough. I thought about myself lying in the hospital, bleeding uncontrollably. What would happen to me? Would they give up? Would they try filling me up with new blood, blood from other people? I decided I didn't really care. It wasn't my problem any more. I walked home. It was night already. My door was still unlocked. My apartment seemed unfamiliar. The blood had been mostly cleaned up, except where it had seeped under the door onto the floor inside my apartment. I got some paper towels and some windex and I scrubbed for a while. I got it mostly up, but you can still see some places where there is a faint stain. If you come over, anyway.
I went upstairs. I was feeling confident, sort of. More distant. Not connected to the world. All that blood. Hopefully I'd just die in the hospital and then I wouldn't have to worry about that any more. I could just get on with my life. I knocked on her door. She answered it and she looked surprised. I smiled and and insinuated myself inside.
--So are you okay now? You looked really fucked up.
--I had a nosebleed. Went to the hospital. But I walked back, I'm fine now.
--That was a hell of a nosebleed, what happened?
--I fell, right on to my face. PAF!
--Paf?
--It is a good sound effect they use in french comics.
--Ha! Okay. How are you liking the apartment?
--It's really nice. I can see why you moved upstairs though.
--Yeah, it's got more space... I miss that kitchen though.
--Oh, it's so fun to cook in. I bet you have more privacy though, too. People are always smoking outside my window. Just because it's so conveniently located right outside the main door!
--Ha ha! I think I've done that a few times. Sorry about that. Hey, sit down. Can I get you a drink?
I have this suspicion that my upstairs neighbour is a prostitute. She keeps strange hours. I can hear her walking around all times of night, not that I'm complaining, she doesn't wake me up or anything. She has a wide variety of gentleman callers. And it wasn't the first time my neighbours had mentioned her boyfriends having law trouble. "Boyfriend's out of jail parties". Also she wears strange clothes and far too much makeup. But this day she was clean-faced and in casual clothes. Looking like a normal girl, sweet and kind. And inviting me to sit down.
--Soda pop?
--Ha ha, okay, how about a Coke?
--That is a soda pop that I will drink, yes!
From the kitchen she calls out over the sound of the open refrigerator:
--Ice?
--Yes please!
--So what was this about a strange envelope?
She walks back in with a tall opaque yellow plastic tumbler, filled with cola and ice. Sets it on a small table, on top of a "women's magazine". By that point I was sitting on an overstuffed chair. She sat on the footstool associated with the chair. Kind of too close. Her knees were almost touching mine. She had a beer in her hand, opened, and with a couple swigs already taken out of it.
--Oh, it was a week ago or so. I was coming home and found this weird envelope in the mailbox. I thought you might know something about it, since you were the last person in that apartment?
--Did it have a name?
--No, and it was addressed to me. It was just so weird, I thought maybe you'd... yeah I guess I didn't really think this through well enough. I guess... do you know anything about previous tenants?
--Well, I'd actually lived in that apartment for a couple years when I moved out in the spring. Got pretty used to it, too. I plan to stay here for a few years, as well. It's a wonderful neighbourhood.
--It really is a wonderful neighbourhood. I can understand moving upstairs. I just don't feel comfortable keeping my blinds open, you know? And I do love the sunlight coming in, it keeps me sane.
--Yeah. I feel the same way. This is a wonderful building. But what was in this letter? It was for you?
--I think so. It never came out and said it but it kept addressing me. I guess it would address whoever read it... I don't know. It just seemed really personal, like whoever wrote it meant for me to write it. I mean read it. I just can't figure out who it came from.
--Well you moved in right after I moved up here. Back in March.
She wasn't really interested in the conversation, it seemed like she was being polite but would like me to leave soon. It'd be fun to have some tale to tell of some ridiculous sexual adventure but not all of my chance encounters with the ladies end that way, I'm sorry to say. I'm pretty good at overestimating people's affection towards and interest in me, but this was one of those clear cut cases. She was sitting close because she was hoping I'd have something interesting to say. Raving about some letter from some crank that put the heebie-jeebies in me wasn't cutting it. I gulped down my drink, protecting my teeth from the ice by curling my lips over them and excused myself soon after.
It was a cold lousy bust. Something wasn't adding up, and I had to get to the bottom of it.
Instead of going back into my apartment after the failure talking to my upstairs neighbour, I walked outside. I checked my mail on the way out, the box was empty. It was dark out, I could see through the glass front door. I idly stuck my mail box key into another mailbox. And turned it. It opened. It was empty, no mail delivery on the weekend, but that was a surprise. I tried it on another box. And another. It seemed as though I had a skeleton key. Did everyone? I started to worry. Perhaps the envelope was not meant for me after all, maybe I should ask around and see if anyone recognized the handwriting. I felt pretty dizzy again. This was an unproductive behaviour. I closed up all the mailboxes and walked outside.
Down the walkway to the street. The hedges opened out and I was on the sidewalk. Streetlights of sodium glare glared garishly. A car pulled around the corner, and past me. I took a deep breath in. I let it slowly out through my nose. A cat pulled around the corner, and past me. I took a deep breath in. I let it slowly out through my nose. I turned left and walked around the corner, breathing deeply. My intention was to hypnotize myself. I walked in a very regular rhythm, breathing deeply, flooding my blood with oxygen. Out to Spadina, down to Bloor. I was walking South. Down Spadina. Walking past the university, walking past the strange buildings there. Down to Chinatown, then West away from the core of the city and out towards the hip bar and grill district. Or whatever it is, they're not night clubs but they're not restaurants per se. Lots of drinking goes on but there's no dancing. I wasn't intending to go in, and it was a weekend so there was a lot of foot traffic, but I wasn't worried, either. I looked busy and determined and I wasn't even noticing the people around me so I was feeling fairly comfortable.
I started walking up one of the small residential streets back to Bloor. I put my hands in my pants pockets, just to give them something to do. The fingers on my left hand bumped into something unfamiliar. My left pocket is generally my wallet pocket and sometimes also my small notebook pocket, but this time the fingers encountered something smooth and cold like a pebble. I stopped still on the sidewalk. No one was nearby and the street was free of cars in every way I could see. There were people blocks away walking along the main streets but I was in the middle of a quiet area.
I fished the thing out of my pocket and sat down on the curb under a streetlight. The yellow light made my skin look unhealthy. I rotated my wrist, causing my hand to face palm up, and opened the fingers. I had a snail shell in my palm. The size of the tip of my thumb, in two lobes, dark brown with yellow stripes chasing the whorl. Inside was white like pearl or shell of any sort. I could feel the grooves of the shell. My other hand moved over to touch the shell with some of its fingers. The shell was hard and cold and wet. I closed my eyes and touched it again and I could feel the water on the shell, it was water from a pond. The shell had come from a pond very recently, and I started to be able to smell the water from the pond.
I opened my eyes and the shell was still in my hand. I raised my hand to my face and placed the shell on my tongue which I had extended out of my mouth. As I stood and turned towards home, I bit down on the shell and felt it give way. It shattered in my mouth. My feet slapped against the pavement and the air rubbed against my skin and clothes as I walked home and I ground the shell to powder in my mouth. I could taste the water from the pond. I could taste the slime of the shell and the dirt and the traces of snail still secreted away in the centre of the maze. I ground it all down to nothing. I swallowed it as I went, and the last grain went down my throat as I reached my front door. I went into my apartment and into the bathroom, and I threw up into the toilet. Three times. Then four, after I thought it was done. Twice more, then, ten minutes later. Then once more ten minutes after that. All that came out was water, it looked like. Surely some of it was stomach acids, but there was no trace of the shell at all. I locked my door and turned off the lights and took off my clothes and got into bed and I slept.
That night I didn't have any dreams at all, but as I fell asleep I wondered if maybe everyone in my apartment had gotten a strange envelope around the same time that I did.