“It’s a typical coming-of-age-meets-Horatio-Alger story,” said Cameron via email. “Four kids from what one of the characters describes as the “affluent working class” come together after a tough few years–one of them has had to work a summer job, the other has lost his country club membership, another has overheard his parents discussing selling their summer home–and they meet each other and discover this world of shared trial and travail that bonds them together for life as each of them attempts to curry favor with well-connected professors, navigate the Manhattan literary cocktail circuit, and compete with other authors for a scarce spot at Yaddo for a summer writing retreat.”

“These kids represent the true underground literature of America, the kind you never get to see, or hear from,” said Universal rep Shelley Anderson. “It’s about time their stories were heard.”

by Dan Black

Behind a great wooden door – etched with the very history of the man in himself, in carvings so small a magnifying glass barely helps – a white bearded mystic absorbs the life from a stiffening filing clerk with a penchant for cheating. Cards, wives, work. The body lays neatly on a sanded slab of glowing blue stone. It’s cold, save the smoldering chest where an intricate symbol made of smoke rises up, hitting the old man’s face and dissipating upon impact. Minuscule threads of matter whirlpool below his hands, stretched to the brink with a silver ring on each finger above the torso. Nothing his study hasn’t seen before.

A crusted servant made of Earth dismembers and disposes of the cadavers when need be; he’ll drop the drained pieces down a chute leading to a stone chamber, buried underground holding a creature not from this Universe. A diseased man with machine parts for a face gave the creature to the mystic in exchange for a spell in a jar, it evolves at an accelerated pace.  The study ceiling encloses four stories up. All the way to the top, the walls are covered with bookshelves. Filled with a barely mortal life’s worth of knowledge. Encyclopedias, records, maps, novels, texts, journals; walls stocked of history and tragedy. All sorts of globes spin slowly, orbiting around the room. He once said it resembled his “perfect solar system”, before he lost his vocal chords. Rows of chambers trace a curved walkway on the floor. They’re golden, complex locking mechanisms with a small oval window. Inside each window pieces of slippery flesh squirm for freedom. The mystic’s lidless black eyes wander up to a dull silver knife on a shelf as the study fades and time shifts.

He’s a young man. He grips a heap of long blurry hair with his left hand, slamming the thief’s head onto the market table. Right eye splits open, splinters of wood barb into the skin. People are shouting. The young mystic tears open the man’s shirt with the same knife, revealing the veins of his wet neck. “NO!”, a woman cries behind him. He pushes her backwards, mob hands grab her. The star of light gleams onto the steel. As he places the thief into a catatonic state, the woman breaks free and grabs him from behind. He instinctively shoves at her again without looking. The woman begins sobbing, barely audible through the angered crowd. At this, the young mystic turns, eyes fading to blackness. The woman collapses to the ground; it is his own mother, face soaked with tears. He drops the knife and falls to his knees with her. As an onlooker picks up the blade and slices the man’s throat open wide, he returns to the empty shell in front of him.

The body of the cheat steadily starts shaking as the mystic drains out the last bits of self. Purify the wicked by draining them dry. Something’s wrong though. The shriveled corpse turns to fire, not stone, in the mystic’s vision. Blue flame hot. He reaches a thin hand up past his flowing white beard to his nose.  It’s bleeding profusely, ears too; blood flowing out of each, down to his neck. He keels over before the flaming corpse, he singes his palm grasping at it with desperation. His obsidian eyes peer to the far wall, second shelf, a thick frayed book marked only with a symbol of circles large and small. He crawls towards it, struggling to retain consciousness. The blood from his face and neck drips onto the wood floor. SPLAT – as loud as a gunshot. Just short, the mystic falls forwards, smashing his face onto the bottom of the shelf. Motionless except spastic twitches.

The collision knocks several books down, pages flapping as they land on or near the decimated old man. The symbol of circles falls opened to page 638: …citizens of Univ.Y3 – E1 will not resemble their Univ.X2 – E1 counterparts physically or spiritually, they may or may n… Across the room, closer to the door, a beautifully carved brass and marble washbasin stems up through the floorboards. It’s engraved with ancient writings in a continuous pattern around the outside. Filled with water that changes color based on a triangular clock attached to the edge. The water begins to bubble and steam wildly. From inside, a man dressed in red and white traces a pattern onto the water’s changing surface. He’s writing something, a message: “luferac eb … nepo altrop 1E-2X\\1E-3Y”. This, the mystic did not know.

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It had been a good day even though I’d been at work and done a ten hour shift, the people I’d worked with had been kinder that day, not their usual. Usually they were barbarians, demanding barbarians.

My ankles ached from being stood up straight, my left in particular, around the Achilles throbbed as I took each step home.

I’d forgot that we were supposed to be going out to her friends, it was quite an important occasion, just not for me.

“But you promised, you said it was fine and that you’d love to go.”

She was right I had promised I’d go, at the time even enthusiastic about the birthday party for her friend that thought I was a waste of time.

Her friend like all of her friends had their lives boxed off and safe and I hated this. They were all comfortable and content and I was nothing like this at all. One day maybe I would know this feeling but at the time I was wild in the head with very little patience. The sun was always in my face.

I couldn’t get to that place they were all at, I couldn’t deliver myself there, I tried, and always failed, it never felt right.

I sat in the chair and stared through the big window, it was a beautiful evening, blue and soft with the sound of the traffic moving gently somewhere. I watched the bees at the window, heard the seagulls call to one another.

I was simply too tired and that was that.

“You’re fucking crap you know that?” she said.

I looked over, she was pulling on her new dress, bought specially for the occasion. It was a nice dress, and I wanted to be with her at some occasion with her in that dress, just not tonight, I was too beat.

The day had had me, the head was like ground beef and the legs were like no bones were in there at all. I wanted her to realize this, but it was no good, her heart was set and her mind made up. She would be going, with or without me.

“I’m just tired I’m sorry, she’s your friend anyway, maybe I’ll come later when I’ve cleaned up and eaten.”

She turned her head, fitted some nice shoes to her feet, snapped her head back, her long hair spraying out and coming to land on her back, between her delicate shoulders. Shoulders I’d massaged and kneaded and taken the ache out of when they were sore.

“Look just forget about it you’re always the same and you’ll never change.”

I put on some music then got up and went to the bathroom and washed my hands and face in cold water. I toweled them dry and went back through to the livingroom,

She was applying make-up, just a little, she never wore much, she didn’t need to. I wasn’t attracted to women who wore pounds of the stuff, I couldn’t see the point. Even if you had bad skin and were ugly, let it show. At least then you were showing yourself in full.

I got up again and went into the kitchen. Made a sandwich and a cup of coffee, stood there eating and slurping and wondering what was coming next. I hoped she’d see reason, understand I was beat and that there’d be other times, because there always were.

No. To her there was only tonight.

“Well are you going to come?” she asked with her face peering into the kitchen, all made up, looking exquisite.

“I can come later,” I said.

“No now, what’s up with now?”

“I forgot about tonight, and I’m too tired, can you not see that? Look at my eyes for God’s sake.”

She was looking, it made no difference. She could only see a man who was lazy and couldn’t be bothered, a man who had promised to come.

I finished my sandwich, drank my coffee. Leaned against the wall and burped.

“It’s just not working is it,” she said. There was fire in her eyes, same kind of fire as when I’d first laid eyes on her. I guess we were two of a kind. She liked her own way, so did I.

She slammed the door as she left.

I went back trough to the livingroom. It was a great room. High ceilings, old feel. The CD had finished, I slipped on another, some jazz, Bill Evans. As his fingers began to glide over the keys I looked back out through that big window.

When I awoke the music had finished but it was still light outside. I checked my watch, I’d been asleep for nearly two hours.

I put the Bill Evans CD on again and went to take a shower.

It was a good move, the warm water heeled me a little, the aches faded in their power.

I turned the water off and stepped out then wrapped a towel around my growing waist. I used to be thin, I used to be a lot of things. But everything changed.

I dressed and lit a cigarette and cracked the window, blew my smoke into the yard below. There was no smoking in the house. I didn’t mind this, it was no deal.

I smoked and watched the sky, that subtle pinkish shade was blossoming everywhere, quite beautiful. I saw the woman next door in her garden, she had her young daughter with her, the daughter was about two and pretty. They were playing ring a roses. I watched for a while. Then the mother saw me looking and frowned at me, the kind of frown you would give a dog with a filthy coat and fleas.

I finished my cigarette and pulled my head back inside.

I went to the hotel around the corner as it was open to the public and generally a quiet place to be. They had a few tables in the carpark out the front, I got my beer and got sat at one. The traffic was slow and I watched it for a bit. The sun in the west was dropping slowly and its power was nearly all used up.

I took a long drink and lit a fresh cigarette and watched a black and orange butterfly on the floor. One of its wings had been damaged and it was flapping like crazy and getting nowhere very fast.

There seemed very little I could do for it, even though I wanted to help. I got up and went over for a closer look. The wing was crushed and the body was oozing something yellow and thick like carnation milk. It continued to writhe about in agony. I knew it was done for. This was one butterfly that would never take flight again.

I couldn’t watch anymore, and brought the heel of my boot down. I then got sat back down and took another drink. In the west the sun had set, another day.

Jay was brought up in Yorkshire, but soon left as there was very little by way of opportunity for such a type as himself. Thatcher had her reign and did her best as a destroyer. He moved about quite a bit and worked a variety of jobs: Barman, Chef, Waiter, Window Cleaner, Market-researcher, Factory worker, Construction worker, painter, gardener…he also found time to study a little: Photography and acting in Edinburgh and creative/novel writing in Brighton. He also likes to play his guitar and sing and regularly plays some of the bars and pubs in Brighton,  the place He currently resides with his partner Rachel, their three year old son Lucas and 2 cats.

The word “STUPID” flashed over and over, like a white neon sign in my brain. I had been showing off—the whole damn thing, just a lark. The three of us were out for a Sunday drive when we were stopped at a train crossing in the middle of nowhere by a slow-moving freight train. If it had just been moving a little faster, the crazy idea would never have popped into my brain. The idea was to demonstrate the technique I had used as a teenager to jump trains for a joy ride. When I jumped out of the car and sprinted off to grab the side-ladder on the boxcar, I never thought about the boy following. Now, I had nothing but time to think about the accident. Whenever my brain replayed the surreal sequence, my whole body would shudder and an unbidden whine would escape from my throat. Sometimes, I would stay up all night moving restlessly about the house, chain-smoking and drinking. There was no way to put this thing behind me. Inside, a storm continued to build.

______

“Fran, will you stop staring at me? If you’ve got something to say, go ahead and say it.”

“Staring, who the hell is staring?” she says and lowers her glass to the table.

“I won’t have you blaming this on me. It was a goddamn accident and you know it.”

“Well, you tell me John, who do I blame?” she says, looking down at the pattern of wet rings she’s been stamping on the table with the bottom of her glass, “Maybe I should just blame it on fate, or an act of God. Is that what you need from me? Will that clear your fucking conscience?”

Before I can stop myself, I reach out, snatch the glass from her hand and smash it against the wall. The tea runs in tiny rivers down the white sheet rock like a shifting Rorschach pattern.

“Screw you Fran. He’s my son too.”

I push back from the table, pick up my cigarettes and walk out to the porch. Cars are speeding up and down the street completely ignoring the “Slow/Children Playing” sign. For a second, I wish I had my gun so I could shoot out a few tires, then frustrated, I unfold one of the lawn chairs propped against the wall and sit down hard. I feel the nylon webbing give a little, as if one of the interwoven strips in the seat has split. Hoping it holds, I bend over and pick up the paper. When I unfold it, there’s my name right there on the first page along with the whole fucking story. I sling the paper as far as I can out into the front yard. One of the pages breaks away and blows back into the sad-looking shrubbery surrounding the porch. It hangs there waving in the breeze like a white flag. I take a drag on my cigarette, lean back in the chair and close my eyes.

I hear the screen door open and suddenly feel the sting of an open hand across my face. Startled, I open my eyes just in time to catch Fran’s wrist before the next blow can land. Instinctively, I raise my right fist—then catch myself just in time.

Trembling with rage, I lower my hand slowly to the arm of the chair. I want to stand up and shake her. I want to shake her until she breaks.

“It was an accident Fran. It was just a crazy goddamn accident.”

I stand up and walk back into the house. Still trying to calm myself, I walk to the kitchen cabinet, take out a bottle of scotch, pour myself a strong one, and sit down at the table. Fran walks in from the porch, goes directly to the bedroom, and starts packing. I make no move to stop her.

______

After Fran’s exit, I stayed in the house for three days in a row, without eating, without sleeping. I disconnected the phone and spent most of my time on the living room floor, staring up at the ceiling. Whenever I was thirsty, I’d walk into the kitchen and use my hand to get a drink from the spigot. One morning someone came to the front door and rang the bell. I waited. After a minute, another ring, then they went away. I didn’t give a fat-fuck who it was—there was no way I was going to open the door.

I was feeling shitty about not going back to the hospital to see Shane, but I was afraid of running into Fran and setting off another nasty scene. So, I just added one more failure to my growing list of things done wrong. At night, I lay motionless in the dark, my head pulsing with the same gruesome images. I would sweat until my clothes were soaked through. I thought of myself holed-up in the blackness of a locked house, completely mad, feeling a rage without focus, and I knew I would have to do something soon.

Then, it came to me. I had to feel the pain. I had to know what it was like to be without a part of my body. Not just any part, but the same part as Shane. Maybe then, I could be forgiven, released from these shackles. I stood up and stumbled through the room bumping into furniture. I turned on all of the lights: the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom. I took off all my clothes, found the key to my workshop, and walked out into the backyard. The moon was shining across the lawn like a searchlight. I unlocked the door to the shop, walked over to the workbench and picked up what I was looking for. I plugged the thick black electric chord of the skil-saw into the outlet and sat down on the floor. Everything had come down to this single, blinding point—understanding this one thing perfectly. I extended my right leg as far as I could along the cool, white linoleum, and placed the circular blade against my thigh, just above the knee. I leaned forward and pushed down as hard as I could. I found the trigger with my right index finger and squeezed…

_____

I’m sitting in a wheelchair, staring through a metal-grate that covers the window. I’m watching the gardener, who’s hard at work in the flowerbeds. It’s the same guy who’s been the gardener through all of the years I’ve been here.  There’s nothing to do here in the dayroom except sit—unless you’re into jigsaw puzzles, playing cards or wandering aimlessly around the room. I hear the ward door open—up the hall out of my sight. I wonder, as I do every time someone walks through the door, if this time it might be her, coming to apologize and take me home. After all this time—a little mercy.

The mail carrier’s voice calls out, sounding bored and impatient, “mail for John English”, but I’m so weighed down by medication and disappointment, I don’t feel like answering. So, somebody from the nurse’s station brings a plastic-covered magazine down and lays it in my lap. There must be some mistake. I don’t know anybody who would send me a magazine. The label is addressed: Mr. John English, St. Landry Psychiatric Treatment Center, Opelousas, Louisiana.

I look down at this alien communication from the outside world—something called “Contemporary Living”. On the cover, there’s a picture of a good-looking couple in a golf cart. Both are smiling as they travel along, in style, to the next tee. There’s a large caption under the picture that reads “Get Back In The Game”.

For the first time in years, I laugh. Through the metal mesh in the window, I can see people moving across the hospital grounds—all walking with a sense of purpose. “The game” is about movement over time—the illusion of moving toward something: Cars and trucks speeding in both directions along the street, trains rushing along static steel rails to nowhere, fading jet trails intersecting across the skyline—already history. All headed for some crucial appointment with the nobody that waits in the distance.

My rambling thoughts are interrupted by one of the nurses.

“Mr. English, would you like to get up and walk a little today?” she says holding out her hand to help me up.

“Hey, fuck you—get up and walk! You know I have only one leg! I’ll tell you, just like I’ve told the rest of the talking heads in this factory—I’m on to your bullshit game.”

“Oh come on Mr. English, you have both of your legs. Look, you can count—one, two.” she says pointing them out, as if she’s talking to a child.

But I’ve already turned her off. No more talk. I bring the black curtain down like a lead pipe. Shut her out. Shut it all out. I know what they’re trying to do. They want to suck away the only thing I have left. Destroy my last hope for forgiveness. Erase my precious sacrifice as though it never happened.

It’s quiet here, inside my hole. The hum of the machine, just blue static in the distance. Each time I’m able to stay here a little longer. Soon I’ll be strong enough to stay here permanently. Here, where I control time—slow it down, speed it up as I please. The hands on the clock move at my command. A world without motion where I can sit and wait. I can wait for as long as it takes.

DB Cox is a blues musician/writer from South Carolina. He can often be found in the early-morning hours bent over a Fender Stratocaster guitar in roadhouses, honky tonks, and juke joints throughout the south. His poems and short stories have been published extensively in the small press in the US and abroad. He has published four books of poetry. His first chapbook, entitled “Passing For Blue”, was published by Rank Stranger Press. Two other chapbooks, “Lowdown” and “Ordinary Sorrows”, were published by Pudding House Publications. Main Street Rag published his first full-length collection, entitled “Empty Frames” A new chapbook called “Nightwatch” has just been released by Pudding House Publications.

“Tower to alien craft, you’re cleared for a holding pattern at 5000 feet, repeat, 5000 feet. Meanwhile, beam down Scotty, we know he’s up there. We need a little face time. Do you read me?”

“Hrompa gak kot koot kawanga raqnaptaw koowee!”

They ran that through the decoder and came up empty handed, and then they made a voice pattern copy and slapped it down on the desk of the Pennsylvania Polyglot, a guy who sat around all day doing nothing but picking zits and whose job description was conjured out of thin air by his uncle, a powerful flight-attendant lobbyist.

“We need a translation pronto,” said the shift supervisor, “or we’ll have to send up the fighter jets and blow those creeps out of the sky, and Scotty with them.”

A half hour later the Pennsylvania Polyglot strolled into the bee hive of the flight tower and announced rather drolly that Scotty was in the men’s room and refused to come out, and the green men from Mars were going to circle the earth three times and if we didn’t have our shit together to give them a landing clearance by then, they were going to turn everyone on earth green and fly home again.

This is usually where the hot line to the president gets activated, but the shift supervisor hesitated. How would a black president take the news that aliens were going to turn him green?

The air traffic controllers, totally whacked out on crystal meth and bouncing around in their chairs like syphilitic monkeys, joyfully began clearing away all the planes in the D.C. sky, shooing them off like flies to New York and Newark, Detroit and Atlanta and St. Paul, clearing the deck for some real action.

The aliens completed their three laps around the earth and then banked hard and began radiating waves of equality over the entire planet, turning everyone green within hours.

A green President Obama went on world-wide television and urged everyone to remain calm, and Fox News interrupted his broadcast to have a green Rush Limbaugh deliver a scathing, off-the-cuff speech in which he denounced the Green Scare as something Obama himself had orchestrated to deflect attention from his plot to destroy unborn children and euthenize old folks, thereby showing his true colors, which were all yellow.

Millions the world over took to the streets chanting in many languages, “You lie! You lie! You lie!” and Obama flew off to Camp David in Air Force One where he brooded in seclusion for forty days and forty nights and then resigned the Presidency.

Everyone moved up a notch, and by the time Christmas rolled around, department stores were reporting record sales. A Gallop poll showed that nine out of ten people believed the Green Scare was a gigantic hoax and that we had been green all along.

After that new wars broke out in Iran and Turkey, and things went back to normal.

Scotty was never heard from again, and he was skillfully erased from all Star Trek reruns.

bio: Most of what I write these days comes under the heading of Shards, a literary journey I embarked on back in the mid-90s, defined more by a mind set than a specific form.  The Color of Equality is a Shard with a stronger story line than most. Shards usually have a poetic hard drive and are the life blood of my writing.

Get a load of this…last night…guy, real melancholy fellow, slips in here like a fugitive, like he’s loving the shadows…took that bar stool at the very end where the light ain’t frisky.

He’s looking shriveled, sort of famished.

I ask him: “Yep?”

He sez: “Gimme something new.”

I sez: “You mean invent it, on the spot?”

He sez: “Sure, surprise me.”

I scratch my head and get to work. Guy seemed okay for a freak. Or maybe that’s a bit harsh. Just…he ain’t my ordinary fare.

I like a challenge, sometimes…when I’m in my element. So I start from scratch, taking my time.

Joe – I’ll him “Joe” – gets real quiet while I’m creating. Then he makes this strange sound, like a ghost is chokin’ down in his larynx. No…more like an oyster moaning up a pearl. Hey! How about that? I’m a poet!

Anyways, I’m thinking, I’m mixing, glancing over at him time to time. Then he looks up and smiles, grin looks more like a grimace.

And he says, right out loud, as if he was on the stage or something, “Why must I tell a truth I don’t know myself?”

Sez me: “What’s that?”

“Why must I tell a truth I don’t know myself?”

‘Course I heard him the first time. ButI figured he wanted to repeat it. After all, I’m an observer. You get the hang of this stuff. Psychology. Tricks of the trade.

Sez he: “It’s all gluttinous, man.”

“Gluttinous? What’s that mean?”

“It’s all slimy and sticky — glutenous. And all so hungry — gluttonous. Put em together, ya got ‘gluttinous,’ well close enough, I think. It’s all simply a crime, merely grime smeared on a tiara. Everyone’s talking at me, but I can’t hear a damn word they’re saying.”

“Umm…you okay, buddy?” (See I was beginning to think this freak was a lunatic.)

His eyebrows got darker and pinched down toward his nose. I lost his eyes in the shadows, or it was more like his eyes turned inside out…you know, looking at something inside and giving him a hollow expression. Finally he laughed.

“Yeah…I’ll be all right. Just need to unwind. Need a new drink. Need a new key. Everybody thinks I think in simple majors. But it’s more elliptical, more pungent, ain’t whole or true…got an accent vibrating in the superstrings. Call it F#. Yep. It’s just off…like an orange rind or a banana peel getting just a tad aromatic…Ha! Or – ditto — desperation turning into Aramaic! And I’m sick of receiving sugar-coated messages. Call it a ‘confectionery disdain.’”

His look turned sarcastic, but he kept smiling.

“Well, here you go. Give this a try. If it don’t kill you, I’ll take out a patent on the recipe…heh.”

“This looks evil, whatdaya call it?”

“Hmm…how about this: ‘To Be Used At Least Twice.’”

“That’ll work. ‘To Be Used At Least Twice.’ Hey…you’re a dandy barkeep.”

“You staying around here close?”

“Two blocks. The Palace. Ironic, ain’t it? Decrepit. Looks more like Hell now than in the old photo
behind the desk. But at least they got hot water and a clawfoot bath tub. That’s means a lot, means the world to a guy coming hard off stress.”

“Say…what’s your name, bub? I mean…if you’re gonna be a regular customer….”

“Bub? I like that. I like slang down here, like words slung over the shoulder. Bub…yeah, call me ‘Beelzebub.’”

I felt a chill running up my spine because the whole thing didn’t feel right from the beginning. But he wuz just kidding.

“So, what’s your line of work?”

“I have two jobs. One, being a loner. Two, trying to track her down.”

“Femme fatale, I bet. Seems everybody’s got one stirring things up. Giving no peace.”

“You got that fucking right.”

I think my new invention was beginning to have the intended effect. He was almost finished with the second one.

“See…it’s like this. She don’t even exist. I was just there and compelled to make everything up. But I couldn’t make her up. You people don’t know how lucky you got it. So, I’ve been chasing a dream, and she’s so ephemeral that no proper name will stick.”

By now, he was officially soused, and I hoped he would stop at two drinks. But he ordered another, going past the “At Least.” His words were slurring, and I thought I saw a tear running down his gaunt cheek.

“Yes, she’s my dream. She keeps me going now, keeps me moving one step ahead of Nietzsche’s assertion. And since I can’t hold her with a simple name, I had to beg Yeats for suggestions. He came up with a doozy.”

“Yeats…ain’t he the guy runs The Palace?”

“Nah…that’s Bates. Yeats…well, it’s a long story. But he nailed it. Captured her in just a few lines. And now my dream has grown more tangible. At least I can now put an image to feelings, a form to needs. She dances inside my dreams now, a gypsy made of fog and furtive glances. Here’s what Yeats wrote for me…

“In the mirrors she moves, a phantom
of pure holy feeling. And those mirrors
move, shift with myriad facets of a face. I Am
her silent troubadour, walking beside
the wandering minstrels of her own dark eyes.”

Things got real quiet for a while after that. But he finally came to his senses.

“So…ya shovin’ off? It ain’t closing time yet. And look, it’s starting to rain.”

“Don’t matter. I gotta go. Here……does this square us?”

“Sure thing pal. You take it easy, okay?”

He gives me this peculiar smile, then turns and walks unsteady. Out the door, into the rain.

I gotta tell ya. Whole thing was creepy…actually weird mixed up with a whole lotta sad. Fellar needed a dame real bad…and seemed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Tim Buck lives in Jonesboro, Arkansas. His essay “The Art of Conversation” is included in the anthology Vocabula Bound (Marion Street Press, 2004), and he self-published a novel in 2005 — Séance in B Minor. His article — “Thoughts on Poetry” — was recently published in the online journal Troubadour21, and an essay — “Lost in Gothic Woods” — will be included in the next issue of the UK print magazine The Black Light Engine Room.

Tim has written songs most of his life, and in 2008 formed the duo The Gothic Rangers, with lead guitarist Robin Willhite. They released a CD of Tim’s songs — Omen — in June of that year and continue to promote the band on MySpace: www.myspace.com/thegothicrangers. In October, Tim’s songs were a week-long feature on Mnemosyne, an online literary/arts journal. Presently, he is a goofy/melancholy presence on Facebook, airing out dubious thoughts and the occasional poem.

John’s been wearing that thinning band shirt for a few days. His enormous hands fold over the front of it, you almost can’t make out their name. The oxygen machine is pounding out a beat not unlike the steady pongs from the cheap drum machines he loved to record on.

“It’s just Scooter and me now,” his wife says, as the dog fidgets even worse, as if he understands.

John is illuminating the room, but not from his own dying body, his still, withering body, turning into something that looks like it needs to be reborn. He is shining through the faces of his family, made up of spunky blonde girls who play sports and steel working brothers and an Irish Catholic passion for their beloved John so thick I’m more stoned than he is on the incessant painkiller drip device.

His sister doesn’t want to let go of his hand. She keeps whispering in his ear, talking, but I can’t hear her. I stand behind her, waiting for my turn to say goodbye. His mother’s face is sympathetic, she knows I want to get in there, taste a little more of divine John, it’s like he’s a special thing we’re all sampling and marveled by, and they are generous beyond belief to let a stranger like me get in there at the table somehow.

Behind me I realize now is his father. A large man, strong like them all, even the cousin with the cane and salty smile, and he looks like this should not be happening, that this is just not right, that this is ridiculous beyond belief losing his boy like that.

I introduce myself, then I say, “John used to drive me out to the mountains when I was at my worst. He would pick me up from downtown and we would drive out to the mountains and we would buy each other lunch — and talk about you all the time, sir. He always talked about you, how much he respected you.”

The rooms erupts in laughter. The boys are snarking and the gals are snorting a bit.

I become very nervous very fast. What did I say — wrong? What is this?

“You sure he was talking about THIS dad?” his brother asks. “Couldn’t be this one here, who he fought with all the time!”

His father smiles. It’s the last time I see that.

The Big Top.

They never have drink tickets for the publicist. I get over it fast usually. The painfully passed along truism: “When things go well for the band, it will be because they did it,” Roy said. “If things go wrong, it will be your fault.” Roy was a label manager for a big international record company in Los Angeles. He’s back in school now. I am still a publicist and when I do well for a band, I am terminated, so they can go to the “next level.” I am congratulated with rejection.

But standing with Dave Day from legendary punk band The Monks, several months before he died, watching the band who signed to the label to have me work them play out at the Havana, the band I loved so much I stayed at the label and worked for even though I was horribly ill, I felt that stunning vicarious satisfaction all people who work with music but don’t actively make music feel.

“How did Betty Davis get on the cover of the Seattle Weekly?” a small, pretty woman named Heather asks, standing next to me, drinking a whiskey.

The editor really loves her, I should have said.

“And how did she get in The New Yorker?”

I begged, I should have said.

Nurse’s Office.

I was very young, maybe about seven years old. My mother was at my bedside, smiling, her scarred face so comforting to me. There had been a mysterious lump in my neck for weeks. A boil, a goiter, something bulbous at the right side of my throat. The doctors said they didn’t know what it was. I was taken to the hospital late one night, and early the next morning was prepped for the operation to remove it. Everyone said it would be OK. I could tell my mother was a little afraid. As they wheeled me into the operating room, before they gave me the gas, the hard little bump disappeared. Just vanished. They released me and we went home.

The Basement.

I took Robert, a musician and psychiatrist, to lunch last week. He’s Welsh, so of course it was dutch, but somehow he figured out how to get me to pay a little for his beer too (I had soda pop). He’s an old friend I met in the music business, and he squeezed out a couple of pretty good records in the 90s, before counselor’s training and the choke of religion made him forget how to play to honestly express feeling. A smart guy but pretty anal, Robert was trapped in his problems about his house. He had been part of a revenge scheme on a neighbor who had done some illegal building, so when he did his own (making his basement a home for his wife and renting the upstairs to a couple of women artists) that neighbor turned him in. He knew this was killing his creative spirit, and he knew he never should have been enlisted in someone else’s vendetta (hey, at least now he knows). I had just come from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which is an intensive counseling program from people with Borderline Personality Disorder, which is my diagnosis. People like me either blow up or plot vengeance habitually due to hard-wiring and trauma. I could relate and sympathize, especially when my therapist friend said that he had allowed the guy from the city into his basement and didn’t have to (impulsive submission is a common trait and twist in the religious and the sadistic, like de Sade allowing the government to walk all over him at his trials). The inspector had simply written down, “Remove drywall.” What did that mean? Those two words were nerve-wracking to Robert. Did it mean shredding up ALL the sheet-rock, throughout the basement? Was the electrical so suspicious that all the walls had to be punched in and possibly reworked? I mean, this is where he and his wife live now, and on a probably arbitrary whim of the government it all has to be torn away to reveal something he’s personally worked hard for years to shelter him and give his married life peace and meaning. Two or three words scribbled out, and everything changes.

A Parody of Asimov
Empire and Foundation

Braves travel great distances between the planets of Donk. They must use wireless there. The Clown came into the glen the Maiden noticed him the Brave stood up by fire protectively he scowled down at the Clown ignoring him was found a pantomime he drew a heart in air but such a sad face on Clown made his white face an agony he finally speaks a lost Tribal toungue comes painfully ” a heart, a woman with a heart, and thats not all, a mind with which to think good thoughts; if trouble comes I think this woman would come to aid, this total stranger, even this sad Clown face in danger.” The Brave takes time to look at trail the Army men on horses there. The Leutinant dismounted two men on either side of him with horse whips at the ready. By this time the tribe was coming to the glen all about the men they stood the whole Imageination. The Clown was standing loose a goose about to cook. The Brave stepped closer to the Leutinant smiled up into disaster as the Army pulled his gun from holster Brave was faster grabbed the gun and twister. He stood there as the Leutinant smiled and said we come from Donk. What about that. Brave smiled back we come from Tribe take look about you Army guy. I am keeping the Clown send DONK to me, what about that. They fell all about the place whipping the tribal people with the horse whips. Soon it was over and the Leutinant left without his gun in holster gone. Brave looked down at piece in hand he wept. Sorry for what his nerves now felt. The Army played a band happy that they got to hit someone. The Maiden and the Clown and the Brave all went back to Village Square to use the wireless there until DONK was sure to come. To find his Clown. Foundation and Empire. The Leutinant and the Clown.

by Geoff Ward

THE telephone rang, breaking into my reverie at the writing desk. “You have rooms to let?” came the polite inquiry. I’d advertised for a lodger who might like to take a couple of rooms upstairs. The house was too big for one person and, belatedly, I’d come to realise it was in need of repair. The rent would help with upkeep of the place and, literally – in particular – the roof over my head.

“Yes,” I replied, somewhat distracted, my mind still attached to the ponderings over the first draft of  my new book’s early chapters, the book I’d had bottled up inside me for years, but had been unable to get out. Lately, the urge to write this, the real work, the one of significance, had been inflating inside me, like an expanding balloon. My imagination had been turning into a kind of pressure cooker where ideas were bubbling away with abandon. Grappling with these ideas, I’d been living a hermit’s life in the old house in recent weeks, shored up against eternity.

“Could I call to view the rooms this afternoon?” was the man’s next question. There was something foreign in his tone, a faint accent which I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “Er, yes,” I said, cradling the phone against my shoulder and scrabbling about for my diary among the books, papers and various other objects scattered across the desk. “That should be OK. What time?”

“Three o’clock, thank-you. My name is Haller.”

Perhaps the name should have struck me right away, but it didn’t – I was preoccupied. I gave him my address and replaced the receiver, turning back to my meditations, surveying for a moment the paraphernalia on the desk: a small bust of Socrates stood among the empty coffee cups and assorted reference volumes bristling with bookmarks; a card with a picture of Marian Evans and her quote “It is never too late to be what you might have been” was propped up prominently, reminding me that there was always latent potential to be tapped, the chance to reinvent oneself. Existence is potentiality.

For me, no question was more important than the existential one. Not only why are we here, but where are we going. All values were connected with the problem of human existence. Surely, I thought, all art asked the question “what is the meaning of human life?” – yet why were the answers so often unsatisfactory, why were there sometimes no answers at all? For me, the greatest literature was a linguistic mirror in which we saw reflected our own souls, a means of freeing the imagination and letting it take flight towards a renewed humanity, a higher turn on the evolutionary spiral – an avenue towards our deepest, truest selves. These were the ideas  that, with a passion,  I wanted to absorb into my new work; otherwise, I felt, I would be producing little more that was actually meaningful. Clearly, therefore, my new project was to be on my own terms, a bulwark against a world  I saw as increasingly dominated by crassness and absurdity, by image over substance, by mediocrity and malevolence. I had been guilty of all these things, in my life and in my work. Now, I felt, it was time for change, to start over. Writers had to get back to the fundamentals. Such was my manifesto . . .

There was a sharp knock. It was three o’clock exactly. How very punctual, I thought, going out into the hall. I opened the door to look straight into a pair of dark eyes that glittered strangely in the afternoon sun and which held me momentarily motionless.

It was a few seconds before I was able to utter: “Hello, you must be Mr Haller. Come in.” “Yes. Thank-you.”

I shook hands with my visitor. Crossing the threshold was a man of late middle age, of medium height and build with grey, cropped hair, and smartly dressed in what looked like a new suit of clothes slightly too large for him. He carried a small briefcase. There was definitely a cosmopolitan air about him.

I led him to the staircase and as we passed the door to my study, he paused and peered inside, but did not say anything. I noticed he had a slight limp. Upstairs, he paced about the rooms, going over to each window and looking out, fractionally pulling aside the curtains. Oddly, he seemed to sniff the air. “I’m afraid the rooms are not very well furnished,” I apologised. “There’s room to bring in some of your own furniture if you want.”

“The rooms are excellent for my purposes – I would like to take them,” said Haller, fixing me with a curious, knowing look. “A month’s rent in advance will be no problem, and I have the references. With your permission, I would like to move in tonight. I do have a few things to bring.”

“That’s fine with me,” I said. And indeed it was. The sooner I found a lodger, the better. Haller had immediately impressed me as a man of culture, of intellect. He had an air of refinement, but also of sadness and vulnerability. He was surely not of English ancestry; there was something of Old Europe in his voice and bearing. And that name, Haller . . . Haller . . . it sounded German, Swiss perhaps, and not unfamiliar. I knew I’d heard it before somewhere, but, there and then, I couldn’t place it. Maybe it would come to me later, I said to myself, heading back to my desk and what I thought were more important matters to mull over.

A few hours later, Haller was back. From a taxi he carried into the house two expensive-looking leather suitcases, some boxes full of books, and a large old cabin trunk covered with hotel and travel agent stickers. He told me that he had arranged for a van to deliver some items of furniture the next day. As he went back for the cabin trunk, temporarily leaving the suitcases and boxes in the hall, I noticed that the books seemed to be mostly of poetry, in English as well as other European languages, and of all periods, from what I could see at a glance.

“You seem to have travelled a lot,” I said to him, gesturing towards the trunk as he began taking his effects upstairs.  The reply was cryptic. “It seems that I am condemned to wander,” he said, in a tone of resignation.

I heard Haller moving about in his rooms for a while, and then things were quiet. An hour or so later, I thought it would be friendly to knock on his door and ask him if he would like to join me for a coffee, or perhaps a cognac. downstairs. To this, he readily agreed. “I would be delighted to join you,” he said. “My first name is Harry.”

I took him into the living room and opened the drinks cabinet, motioning him into an armchair. I poured the drinks and sat down myself. He sat quietly opposite me, taking the first sip of his cognac. Then, inquiringly, he turned his gaze fully on me. His eyes glittered in the lamplight, and I became overwhelmed by a sensation that I recognised him, a feeling that here was a man who had been suffering in loneliness, who had been ailing spiritually, whose malaise of the soul was indeed the malaise of our times. Harry Haller. Quite suddenly, realisation dawned.

“I’ve read about you,” I said, taken aback. I heard myself sounding foolish. “I didn’t think you were real. You’re the . . . ”

“Yes, I visited Mr Hesse. He wrote about me and published the Treatise which I left behind for him. Mr Hesse, you see, had joined the quest. You are a writer also.”

“I’m still trying to be,” I said.

“You too could write about me,” he suggested. “You are receptive. I know the man that must hear me.”

“But this is incredible,” I protested. “You can’t be Haller. He was a character in a novel written in the 1920s. This must be some sort of practical joke. Who sent you?”

“I can assure you this is not a joke. No one sent me. I am Harry Haller, the one who is called the Steppenwolf. You must trust me, please”

I slumped back in my chair, thoroughly perplexed. For a while, I was lost for words. Then, I said: “Look, if you’re Harry Haller, and Haller was a real person, Hesse’s book came out in Germany in 1929 – you’d be more than 120 years old by now!”

“I am not bound by time and reality in the same way as you are. In a way, I have always existed and will go on existing.”

I had read and re-read Steppenwolf over the years. Hesse was among my most favourite authors. More was coming back to me. The Steppenwolf, Harry Haller, was the wolf of the steppes, a being of two natures, human and wolf, restless, astray in an alien world, our world, where he was unable to find contentment, fulfillment, a world which he had continually to revisit on a never-ending sentence of suffering, where he was made time and again to travel the hell of his hidden inner nature, yet a world where there was promise that he would be finally healed.

“If  that’s the case, why were you planning to commit suicide at the age of 50?” I asked in response to his last statement, perhaps trying to catch him out, perhaps still thinking – hoping  – that this was all someone’s idea of an elaborate joke. “It wouldn’t have been possible, would it?”

“Contemplating suicide is a perfect means of confronting your own existence,” said Haller. “Obviously, I didn’t kill myself. I moved on. I had new lessons to learn.”

There was another short silence. Should I be laughing this off, treating it as a game? How could I really take this seriously? Yet there was something other-worldly about this man, some force or aura that emanated from him and enveloped me. I let my intuition take over. I asked him about the poetry.

He said: “Mr Wilson, who has also written a great deal about me, described a poem, or a book or a symphony for that matter, as not just another experience but a mystery, ‘a wind blowing from the future’. That is exactly how I see it. We must let that fresh breeze invigorate our consciousness. Dr Donne said: ‘Be more than a man, or thou’rt less than an ant . . .’ Men and women are not yet fully human. You must be more than a man to become fully human. A secret lies within your innermost self, your deepest soul, but it is a long and dangerous journey to find it out. The role of the poets is not to point out ways, but to arouse a longing. They are symbols of  what the future can bring.  That is why I read them, and why you do too. You’re very well read, it’s well known.”

My mind was racing. It seemed I had only more questions: “But why are you here? Why me?”

“I am interested in visiting your libraries and museums, and the ancient places near your city,” Haller replied with a casual air, then adding with a glint in his eye: “But you interest me as well.”

He finished his cognac and put down the glass on a side table. “If you will forgive me,” he said. “It has been a long and tiring day for me, and I should like to rest now. We shall speak again. Goodnight.”

With that, Haller had put an end to my questions. I couldn’t concentrate on any work that night. I went to my desk but simply sat there, turning over myriad thoughts in my mind. My rationality was at war with my intuition.

Neither side would allow the other to offer an explanation of what was happening. It was incomprehensible. I didn’t write a word. I made coffee. When at last I dragged myself to bed in the small hours, I couldn’t sleep for a long time, though my weariness was extreme. I was worn out. When I did at last sleep, I dreamed of following Harry Haller through endless subterranean tunnels, lit by fiery torches, and leading into an ever-deepening, ever-embracing mystery.

Next day, the van arrived with pieces of furniture which Haller seemed to have bought from a second-hand store: they included an armchair, a capacious bookcase, a small desk and table, a footstool, all of which had seen better days. Haller asked the men to carry the things up to his rooms. When the van had gone, he locked his door with his key and went out, without saying a word.

I didn’t see him again until the following day. It was late on Sunday afternoon. I was in my study when he suddenly appeared in the doorway and asked if he could come in. “Of course,” I said, beckoning him to a chair. Before sitting down, Haller stood for a minute or two scanning the bookcases, as if looking for a particular work. He seemed to be particularly satisfied at seeing several volumes of Nietzsche on the shelves, and nodded to himself. Then, as his dark eyes settled on me, the feeling of familiarity, of deep empathy, washed over me again.

“There is a particular experience I once had which I would like to mention to you, and which I described in my records,” he began. “In a little old tavern, after drinking wine on one occasion, I was suddenly immersed in a moment of pure joy, in a kind of vision. I was reminded of the eternal, of Mozart, of the stars, and, briefly, I was able to face existence again. I think you know what I’m talking about.”

“Yes. You mean the peak experience, or ecstasy as some people call it, when you get a feeling like a huge bubble about to burst in your chest, and a tremendous surge of optimism. You seem to soar above the world and your normal everyday consciousness is suddenly expanded. I’ve had those feelings, sometimes, and I’ve cherished them.”

“It is your unconscious pushing itself into your conscious mind, gloriously enlarging it. Something happens in the outside world which unexpectedly triggers an inner release. The problem, of course, is how to sustain that feeling once it is triggered. If we could sustain it we would be truly with the gods.”

“Maybe. The trouble is, you never know what’s going to trigger it, and you can’t seem to create the experience at will.”

“You need to be on better terms with your unconscious.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my credulity again coming under severe strain.

“If you have a little spare time today,” said Haller, seeming to ignore my question, “There is something I would like to show you, if you would care to accompany me into town. It’s not for everybody, but I think you will find it interesting. It’s not far. It’s a pleasant evening and we could walk.”

The fact that I assented readily to his request was a measure of the extent to which I had fallen under Haller’s spell. The strangeness of  the world from which he came, that world of infinite loneliness and pain, was impinging on the triviality of mine with such piquancy, such implacable force, that I felt myself being drawn irresistibly by a terrible fascination into an unexplored dimension of existence.

We went out together into the gathering dusk. Soon, we had left my own neighbourhood and entered another locality, nearer the city centre, where I had not ventured before. The street lamps were coming on, burning sulphurous against the darkening sky. Haller turned me first this way, and then that, through side streets, until eventually we paused before a large, gaunt building, tall, with dark, vacant windows. Above its shadowy doorway was an ancient, faded sign on which I could just make out two words in the dwindling twilight: “Magic Theatre”.

“This is our destination,” said Haller, guiding me up a short flight of steps towards the imposing portal. “Let us go in.” Silently, the heavy double doors swung open before us. I stepped inside, both curious and cautious,  knowing that this was the point of no return. We stood in what indeed appeared to be the thickly-carpeted foyer of an old theatre. It was deserted. The air was warm and the light soft. To the left and right were staircases, and in front of us, velvet-curtained entranceways into what I supposed was the auditorium. Haller pointed towards the staircase to our right, and we ascended. At the top, we were confronted by our reflections in a mirror of gargantuan size covering the walls from floor to ceiling; and as we followed the balustrade around we passed the entrances to two long galleries curving away into infinity and studded with a vast number of narrow doors which evidently opened into boxes.

Haller, checking my progress with a slight touch of my arm, said: “Tonight, I am your host at the Magic Theatre, as my friend Pablo once was for me. He told me that it was the world of my own soul that I was seeking, and I can say that it is the same for you. In the Magic Theatre, you can find that world. But no two people’s experiences in the Magic Theatre are alike. For me, it was no delight – you know that I found a hell inside its doors. Who knows what you will find . . . I shall leave you to explore.”

Before I could collect my thoughts to say anything in reply, Haller had disappeared into the gallery opposite, leaving me gazing at my lone image in the huge mirror. After a moment, I turned and directed my steps into the nearest of the two galleries where I could now see that each door had a small sign on it. The first one had a sign which read: “Sapentia – wisdom unlimited.” With some trepidation, I opened the door and went in.

At once, I found myself in a sunny landscape of ruddy Mediterranean hues, with craggy mountains and blue lakes in the far distance, and a serpentine road leading across a plain towards them. As my eyes adjusted to this bright but puzzling vista, following the subdued lighting of the theatre, I noticed I was looking out from a balcony, and I became conscious of a female figure seated to my right, on the edge of my vision. Turning, I saw that a young woman was watching me with a steady gaze; she was in calm repose, still, with her hands crossed in front of her. I sensed  the door closing behind me as our eyes met, her lips gently curved in the enigmatic Sophia smile of the eternal feminine which radiated love as wisdom.

Almost immediately, I knew who she was. My heart beat faster. As I moved towards her, she stood up and gracefully held out her hand, which I took and was able to hold for a moment, transfixed, before she withdrew it. She was sphinx-like, with an equivocal, elusive air, yet full of promise, both young and old, daughter and mother, childlike yet unchaste, ancient and contemporary.

“Yes, I am Isabella, of the court of Aragon, Duchess of Milan,” she said. “Leonardo painted me many times. He lived in the palace, but he was not my lover, you should know. He was beneath me.” Then, pointing to the countryside beyond, towards the road which snaked across the plain, she added, in her soft voice: “You must take the road to enlightenment. You will go this way.”

To one side of the balcony there was a low gate leading to a downward flight of stone steps. I moved towards the gate as if hypnotised, but pushing it open to pass through, I suddenly found myself  back in the gallery of doors. I had just stepped out of a Renaissance painting! In a state of baffled wonderment I began to look at the signs on some of the adjacent doors: “Meet your favourite philosopher – all questions answered”; “How to be a celebrity in three easy lessons”; “Commit the perfect crime – again and again”;  “Make any woman yours – satisfaction guaranteed”; “Clone yourself for a day – fun unlimited”; “Freedom is the greatest burden of all”.

I paused for a moment at this last sign, took a deep breath, and turned the door handle. Had I not taken that breath, it would have been snatched away by the panorama that now confronted me – a scene on an even grander scale than before. I stood on the edge of a great expanse of languid, sun-dried savannah which stretched before me to a far-off range of vermilion mountains. I saw immediately that the tallest peak had a huge cavity in its side, giving it the appearance of being hollow, and that on its lower slopes two gigantic faces, one male, one female, were carved in the rock at an angle, so that it was as if they were watching the skies. Off to my left, I noticed a small settlement of some kind, perhaps a native village, or camp, with makeshift shelters or cabins.

As I neared the village, there came a rumbling sound, and the ground began to shake. Across the plain, and heading towards the village, there appeared a massive herd of stampeding elephants. I watched in horror as the unstoppable beasts thundered through the village, crushing people underfoot and demolishing houses left and right. And yet they were not all elephants! In the rampage were many other strange and huge creatures resembling dinosaurs or dragons. I was only yards from their scaly flanks, their fetid breath was upon me, and clouds of dust swirled violently about me. Awestruck, my eyes and  throat burning, I staggered backwards, groping for the handle of the door. Seizing it, I flung myself into the corridor outside where I lay gasping, uncomprehending.

As my eyes cleared, I found my shoulder was against a door which was ajar and bore a sign saying: “The Steppenwolf sends his regards – enter at once.” The door swung slowly open, and I heard a voice say: “Come in, young man, calm yourself and rest awhile.” Getting shakily to my feet, I found myself greeted by a frail-looking elderly man, perhaps eighty years old, in round-rimmed spectacles and wearing a suit and tie with matching waistcoat. His long neck emerging  from a loose white shirt collar supported a head held in a birdlike attitude. He stood by a large antique desk in a room full of books which lined shelves covering the walls. He was smiling, his blue eyes bright, but there was a sadness in the expression. I detected the aroma of sandalwood incense. It was Hesse.

“Leonardo was a universal genius because his painting was magical,” he said. “Most people only understand what they feel with their senses; they know nothing of what lies behind them. Only magic can express that which is unattainable in any other way. Our soul has in it a magic we can trust. It seeks wholeness and strives to compensate for every gap, every deficiency. To transform the outside world by magic without going mad – that is our aim. In the Magic Theatre you have come into contact with the tremendous forces of the unconscious, and you are unscathed. The way is open now for you to continue your quest, and you have a guide – Isabella.”

Hesse went to the desk, picked up a small object lying there, and handed it to me. It was a ring with the number eight set in a stone of violet amethyst. “I have been keeping it for you,” he said. “It is an Egyptian ring. The number eight is the symbol of the infinite, of the labyrinth, and the journey into the unconscious.” I knew he was speaking in German but I understood him perfectly, even though I had never learned the language.

“The things we see are the things that are in us. There is no reality except for the reality we have within. What makes the lives of most men so unreal is that they mistake the images outside them for reality and never let their own world speak. It is possible to be happy in this way. But once a man knows the other way, he is no longer free to go the way of the many. But it is time for you to return now. The Steppenwolf is waiting for you.”

I was unable to utter any token of response. I struggled to find even coherent thoughts.  My whole being was immersed in a transcendent tranquillity which obviated anything as imprecise as words, words which seemed no more than masks, masks that hid true meaning. Graciously, Hesse held the door for me, bowing slightly as I passed. Like a sleepwalker, I went out, and the door was closed behind me. I stood as if frozen, at odds with time and space. I could conceive of nothing except the present moment in which my past and future were irrevocably fused. The silent, empty  gallery with its countless doors held me suspended with no purpose of direction.  I felt strangely, uniquely, alone.

Divisions of time had become meaningless. Moments passed, perhaps minutes, or even hours, before, as if upon a reflex, my muscles suddenly propelled me forward. I began to walk in the direction of the landing where the immense mirror drew me relentlessly towards my approaching image. It was my normal self confronting me, looking remarkably composed, serene even, but I scarcely had time to register surprise or consternation at my appearance before, within a fleeting moment, the reflection split and multiplied into a thousand teeming aspects. Each step I slowly took, my feet weighted as if mired, engendered flickering images of a figure transformed from childhood to adulthood to old age, and back again, a farrago of selves merging and separating, cast off and reconstituted, like shoals of  mad, lost spirits in a void, filling the mirror and seeming about to burst free from the glass and smother me.

Breathless, my heart pounding, it was with acute relief that I reached the top of the staircase and was able to turn myself away from that seething vision. As I went down the stairs, I could see that Haller was standing in the foyer, his manner casual. “What’s happening to me? I can’t believe all this is real,” I blurted out as I came up to him, gesticulating at the surroundings.

“We could spend an eternity discussing what is real and what is not,” Haller replied, “And not come to any conclusion. What each person finds in the Magic Theatre is peculiarly his own. He must make up his own mind about it, as I did, as you will.”

In avuncular fashion, Haller ushered me out of the building. Silently, we retraced our steps through the dark, deserted streets, absorbed into our own inner voices which the night brought close to our hearts. Upon reaching the house I realised that I had lost all track of time. I hardly knew what day it was. Again, I was enveloped by that amazing weariness which had followed my first conversation with Haller. I sank into sleep like a stone sinking to the bed of the ocean.

I don’t know how long I slept, nor if I dreamed, but it was well into the next day when I awoke to a feeling of unfamiliarity, of displacement, in my own otherwise familiar surroundings. Things had changed. I was different. I felt wiser, and sadder, certainly, but also as if I had been the subject of someone else’s imaginings, as if all my memories, hopes, fears, convictions and, yes, illusions too, had been given a subtle shift of emphasis. Something, someone, had invaded my innermost soul, made a profound alteration to the course of my life. It was not Haller himself, man or spectre, whatever he was, or his personal tale, but rather something he represented, something for which he was an emissary. It was to that subtle power that I had paid the price of admission to the Magic Theatre, a price which had indeed been my mind. I sensed that the quality of my existence had been transfigured, its meaning widened, deepened, by traversing that inner world. I was disturbed, disquieted, yes, but crucially, I felt more alive, revitalised. I was a like a limbeck ready to boil with alchemical activity.

I knew then that the Steppenwolf would be with me for a long time to come. He was beginning the game anew, testing the world’s fortunes once more. He was prepared to abase and castigate himself for centuries yet, if need be, before the game could be mastered. This time, I would be the one to share in his wisdom, but I would not share in his guilt, nor in his alienation. I had a growing affection for him. But not for me the life of the steppes. I would seize that “one life within us and abroad” which had eluded him but which now seemed within my grasp.

Life would not be easier as a result of my metamorphosis – no, I did not expect that – but its potential enlarged, its rewards revalued. The need was now to re-write my novel. The quest was to find out just who was re-writing me.

Geoff Ward is a British journalist, author and musician who lives in Somerset, England. He has a world mysteries website (www.mysteriousplanet.net) and also manages a website for the best-selling British author Colin Wilson (www.colinwilsonworld.co.uk). Geoff is the author of Spirals: the Pattern of Existence, an exploration of the prevalence and significance of the spiral form and pattern in nature and human culture, which was published in 2006, and which has an introduction by Colin Wilson. Geoff has a Masters degree and a BA (Hons) degree in English literature and is married with two grown-up children. In addition to English literature, his key interests are existential philosophy, Jungian psychology, the music of Bob Dylan and writing short stories – he’s also played in rock bands for most of his life and picks a pretty mean lead guitar!

My wife came running from the house with my big Bowie knife I used for deer hunting. The knife was heavy and razor sharp. I hacked once, twice, sawing the dog’s head off. The dog’s jaw muscles finally relaxed their grip. My daughter had passed out from the shock.My wife cradled her head as I examined her wound. It didn’t look too bad, it was in the fleshy part of her thigh.

Then I noticed my hands were bleeding badly. Two fingers were missing from my right hand, the left was minus a pinky. Ripping my shirt I made bandages for my daughter and myself.

I looked at the dog’s head, there hanging out of its mouth were what was left of my fingers. One glassy eye seemed to stare at me in triumph. I gave the head a good kick, I knew I’d made a good bargain. My wife ran after it to retrieve my fingers. A garbage truck came around the corner, squashing the dog’s brains all over the street.

I’ve been published widely for 20 years. Done 20 chapbooks, 1 with Bukowski & Jack Micheline. I’ve worked with Mike Tolento, the genius artist on Bitchslapped. I read last year in Paris in the Beatnik bookstore overlooking the Seine.