Hellbound Hearts

by Paul Kane

  WE’RE IN A SECOND CLASS CARRIAGE, A SMALL, SMOKE-FILLED COMPARTMENT, ON A SUNNY MORNING. THE SUN COMING THROUGH THE WINDOWS BECOMES SOMETHING MUGGY AND UNHEALTHY. CLAUSTROPHOBIC. A LITTLE MAN, WORDSWORTH, DRIED-UP AND GRAY AND SHRIVELED SITS ON THE LEFT. A HUGE GUY SITS ON THE OPPOSITE SEAT, READING A MAGAZINE. THE HUGE GUY HAS NO FACE, JUST STARING, PIGGY LITTLE RED EYES STARING OUT OF THE SHADOWS. WORDSWORTH IS DOING A CROSSWORD.

  His name is Wordsworth.

  The final clue, 12 down: You imply no blazing fronds grow in the abyss? (7).

  Inferno.

  He writes it down and sighs dustily.

  (WORDSWORTH PUTS HIS PAPER DOWN ON THE EMPTY SEAT NEXT TO HIM.)

  Then, crossword completed (6 minutes, 12 seconds), Daily Telegraph abandoned, Wordsworth stares out of the carriage window at a parade of allotments, at the ugly backs of houses.

  Unsatisfying.

  The train shudders into the city center and a fly makes languorous love to the grimy window. Wordsworth lights his cigarette, and reads, unconsciously, the name of the brand that circles the base.

  Half an hour to go before he arrives at the library.

  Half an hour to kill.

  (WHEN THE STRANGER OPPOSITE TALKS, I LIKE THE IDEA OF COLORING HIS WORD BALLOONS GENTLY, JUST AROUND THE EDGES, SO THEY LOOK LIKE THEY’RE WRITTEN ON OLD PARCHMENT.)

  Man Opposite: You finish puzzle.

  Wordsworth: Sorry?

  Oh, the crossword.

  I see.

  Yes, yes I’m afraid so.

  (THE MAN OPPOSITE SMILES; HIS FACE IS IN SHADOWS. POSSIBLY HE HAS NO FACE, JUST A SMILE, WITH A HINT OF SOMETHING SHARP AROUND THE CANINES. HE SAYS:)

  Man: Words.

  Wordsworth: Er . . . Yes.

  (THE MAN STANDS UP, RIPS A PAGE OUT OF HIS MAGAZINE, HANDS IT TO WORDSWORTH.)

  Man: You need good puzzle. Here.

  (WORDSWORTH SITS, HUDDLED IN HIS SEAT, NERVOUSLY CLUTCHING THE BIT OF PAPER.)

  Wordsworth: Oh. I see. Right. Well, uh . . . thank you.

  (SILENT PANEL/S: THE FACELESS STRANGER, HIS SMILE NOW GOES FROM EAR TO EAR – AND I MEAN THAT QUITE LITERALLY, A SMILE FAR WIDER THAN ANYTHING HUMAN. HE’S GETTING OFF THE TRAIN. WORDSWORTH SITS ON THE TRAIN, LOOKING OUT OF THE WINDOW TOWARDS THE STRANGER.)

  OVER THE PAGE TO PAGE 4:

  WE ARE LOOKING FROM WORDSWORTH’S VIEWPOINT AT THE PUZZLE. NOW, ONE POSSIBILITY MIGHT BE TO MAKE IT THIS KIND OF SHAPE:

  – A SQUARED-OFF SPIRAL OF LITTLE SQUARES, LIKE CROSSWORD SQUARES. DOWN THE SIDE A NUMBER OF CLUES ARE PRINTED, BUT WE CAN’T READ WHAT THEY SAY. EVERY NOW AND THEN ONE OF THE LITTLE BOXES SHOULD HAVE A NUMBER IN IT. FAILING THAT YOU MIGHT JUST WANT TO CUT OUT A BLANK CROSSWORD PUZZLE FROM THE TIMES OR GUARDIAN OR WHATEVER, WORK INTO IT A LITTLE, PERHAPS. IF YOU DO THAT THEN ADD (DOWN) AND (ACROSS) TO THE CLUES GIVEN HERE – OR JUST GIVE THEM TO ME TO RENUMBER.

  Wordsworth gazes at the paper [in dismay. No true crossword here1]. He scans the first clue, expects nothing of substance.

  1. What you did to the rabbit. (7)

  (SLIM PANEL OF A RABBIT’S FACE LOOKING AT US.)

  Wordsworth ponders. An anagram, perhaps? He combines permutations of ‘you’, and ‘U’, with both ‘Rabbit’ and ‘hare’, and, as an afterthought, ‘lapin.’

  It isn’t coming.

  But deep in his dry soul something flutters. He knows he knows the answer . . .

  (RABBIT PICTURE AGAIN)

  He just doesn’t know what it is.

  And then . . .

  SILENT, PASTORAL SEQUENCE, IN A DIFFERENT STYLE – COLORED PENCILS, PERHAPS?

  A SMALL CHILD WHO IS PRETTY DEFINITELY YOUNG WORDSWORTH, STANDING BESIDE A POND, HOLDING A WHITE, FLOPPY-EARED BUNNY RABBIT. IT’S A BEAUTIFUL SUNNY SUMMER DAY.

  (Wordsworth was seven.)

  (His rabbit was called Flopsy.)

  THE BOY, WHO IS ABOUT SEVEN, KISSES THE RABBIT.

  THEN, HOLDING IT BY THE EARS, HE PUSHES THE STRUGGLING BUNNY INTO THE POND.

  IT THRASHES FOR A BIT, THEN GOES LIMP IN THE WATER.

  THEN WE’RE BACK IN THE HERE AND NOW LOOKING AT WORDSWORTH, WHO IS WRITING SOMETHING.

  . . . he knew.

  AND WE CAN SEE THE FINAL PANEL ON THE PAGE, WITH THE BEGINNING OF THE PUZZLE ON IT. IN THE FIRST SEVEN SQUARES IS THE WORD DROWNED, HANDWRITTEN IN INK, IN BLOCK CAPITALS.

  OVER THE PAGE TO PAGE 6.

  A HUGE MUSEUM LIBRARY. STACKS OF BOOKS AND PAPERS EVERYWHERE. IT’S DUSTY AND DRY AND OLD. A SYMPHONY OF DUSTY BROWNS – THE ONLY COLORS WE CAN SEE ARE SPLASHES OF BRIGHT CLOTHES AND LIPSTICK WORN BY THREE YOUNG, ATTRACTIVE FEMALE LIBRARIANS. WORDSWORTH IS ENTERING, HOLDING A BRIEFCASE. THERE’S A BALCONY, A MEZZANINE FLOOR, AROUND THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING, WHERE THE FIRST FLOOR OUGHT TO BE. WE COULD BE PANNING AROUND, LOOKING AT THE BOOKS, THE WOMEN, WORDSWORTH HIMSELF.

  Wordsworth worked in the museum library, in the stacks of books, organizing and classifying.

  There were over 200,000 books and manuscripts in the museum. They were friends, albeit friends composed of words and stories.

  True friends, unlike his workmates – creatures so incomprehensible to him as to be almost alien: Miss Watson; Miss Priddow; Mrs Kelly.

  The second clue was this:

  2.) Miss Watson’s cry of book-borne pain. (5, 7, 4).

  WORDSWORTH IS UP ON THE BALCONY BY NOW. HE’S HOLDING A LARGE BOOK. LOOKING DOWN AT THE WOMEN BELOW HIM.

  HE LETS THE BOOK FALL.

  Cry from below: Jesus sodding wept! Owwwww!

  WORDSWORTH, LEANING DOWN, TALKING TO THE PROSTRATE GIRL. HE LOOKS CONCERNED.

  Wordsworth: I, I beg your pardon, Miss Watson. I’m afraid my elbow knocked The Albigensian Crusade off the mezzanine ledge.

  Are you all right?

  UP TO YOU HERE – YOU MIGHT EITHER SHOW THE GIRL ON THE FLOOR WITH THE OTHER GIRLS AROUND HER. OR YOU MIGHT JUST WANT TO SHOW WORDSWORTH UP ON THE BOOK-COVERED BALCONY, WITH THE GIRL’S WORD BALLOONS COMING FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE PANEL. SO WE NEVER SEE HER – JUST HIM.

  Girl: ‘Course I’m not all right, you stupid old tit-mouse! I think my shoulder’s broken!’

  WORDSWORTH IS SMILING.

  WE SEE THE NEXT SECTION OF THE PUZZLE FILLED IN IN WORDSWORTH’S NEAT CAPITALS. JESUS [.]SODDING [.]WEPT.

  OK – FROM HERE OUT WE’RE ABANDONING LINEAR STORYTELLING. GO FOR COLLAGE, OR FOR FLEETING IMAGES, SO THAT WE CAN PORTRAY WORDSWORTH’S DESCENT IN OCCASIONAL IMAGES: POSSIBLY LAY THE OVERALL DESIGN (BLOWN UP) OF THE CROSSWORD OVER THE PAGES?

  Wordsworth doesn’t know where the puzzle comes from, nor does he care. The puzzle is all. The words are everything.

  3. The gift of the Scavenger’s Daughter? (5)

  He finds out, and fills in the answer on the puzzle in his precise, neat handwriting.

  IT’S BLOOD, BY THE WAY. I’LL LEAVE IT TO ANYONE READING TO DISCOVER WHY, ASSUMING YOU’RE INTERESTED. A SCAVENGER’S DAUGHTER IS AN ARCHAIC INSTRUMENT OF TORTURE.

  Answers.

  Wordsworth discovers there is a specialized vocabulary in the more uncompromising realms of bondage and flagellation.

  From that province he takes away a scarred back and expertly pierced genitalia; and, more importantly, he fills another nine squares on the puzzle.

  Wordsworth attends a meal, at which noble and affluent coprophiliacs[2] dine for twelve courses on forty kinds of human shit.

  He’s there for the last word on the menu: it turns out to be coffee. Someone has a sense of humor . . .

  The delights of reluctant perversion chill him, although each new experience has a specific end in view.

  Words.

  For a word he cuts a dog apart and casts its entrails upon his kitchen floor, seeking sense in the loops and whorls of its intestines.

  (WE SEE A WORD – LUNAR, POSSIBLY, OR ANY FAIRLY LOOPY AND CURLY WORD – SPELT OUT IN INTESTINES AND BLOOD, IN A LOOPY HANDWRITING.)

  For a word he violates a small child.

  There are some clues he could guess. 9) The taste of Janet Prid
dow’s flesh (4).

  He could guess. But he had to know.

  (WE SEE THE PUZZLE FILLED IN, AND THE WORD IS PORK.)

  All his life he had loved words; now he found his love to be a demanding, meticulous mistress.

  His job was abandoned, following the fire that destroyed the museum and almost claimed his life.

  NEWSPAPER HEADLINES POSSIBLY; 90 DIE IN MUSEUM FIRE.

  He no longer ate. His actions were solely defined by the puzzle . . .

  And, in the end, there were only four spaces to fill in. One word. One clue.

  50) The doorway (4).

  And the thing that had once been Harrison Wordsworth grinned through messy, suppurating lips, and wrote:

  (WE SEE THE LAST PLACE ON THE PUZZLE FILLED IN. THE INK IS REDDISHBROWN. BLOOD COLOR. THE WORD IS: HELL)

  NEXT PAGE:

  THE PUZZLE, COMPLETED, BUT THE MIDDLE OF IT IS IN FLAMES, AND THROUGH THE CENTRE OF THE BURNING PUZZLE WE CAN SEE AN INFINITE CORRIDOR, LINED WITH BURNING, TWISTING PEOPLE, BLEEDING AND CHEWING AT THEIR OWN FLESH.

  THEN A HUMAN BEING, WORDSWORTH, NAKED, IN ABSTRACT, BEING RIPPED APART.

  Ohhh the sweetling pulsing joy, the coming through the pain, Wordsworth feels the probe slide down the throat, pierce the wrecked anus, puncture the skull . . .

  The plasma ceases to pump through the arteries, the liver no longer secretes bile, the urine dries to salt in the bladder, but the blood washes over us all . . .

  In the night of hell, that glows with its own black light, I remember the burning spasms and freezing pangs that beset me when our lord took me and terribly refashioned me according to his will.

  Will it ever, can it ever, be that good again?

  Ripped to shreds and patched together, I knew then consummately what I was. What I am. What I always will be . . .

  OK. NEW PAGE HERE. EXTREME CLOSE UP ON A BLURRED, DISTORTED WORDSWORTH, HIS HANDS COVERING HIS FACE.

  THEN HE TAKES HIS HANDS DOWN AND OPENS HIS EYES. ONE EYE HAS A WORD – STORY – TYPED ON THE EYEBALL. THE OTHER HAS A WORD LIKE LOVE OR DESIRE OR KISS CARVED OR SCRATCHED ONTO THE WHITE OF THE EYEBALL.

  THEN WE PULL BACK SLOWLY. HIS SKIN – FACE AND FLESH – IS A MASS OF WORDS. SOME CREATED FROM HOOKS, SOME FROM SCARS, SOME IN BRUISES OR TATTOOS. SOME IN BIRO, SOME HACKED AND CARVED WITH KNIVES, SOME IN BARBED WIRE, SOME UNDOUBTEDLY IN COLLAGE.

  UP TO YOU WHETHER YOU WANT TO GO BACK INTO WORD BALLOONS HERE, OR WHETHER YOU STAY IN CAPTIONS, OR A MIXTURE OF THE TWO.

  See me.

  Love me.

  Look at my words. (Examine the writhing tapestries of choice delight implicit in each scratching and each syllable.)

  I guard the words.

  I keep them tenderly, express them with my tangled flesh and tattered tongue.

  Words that form stories, or tales, or patterns.

  Words that can but hint at the delights of damnation, of the ultimate pleasures that wait for them all on the beyondside of pain.

  NOW HE’S STARING STRAIGHT AT US AS WE PULL AWAY FROM HIM. WE CAN SEE THAT OTHER THINGS ARE CLUSTERED AROUND HIM, LISTENING, AS ONE DOES TO A VILLAGE STORYTELLER. WE CAN’T MAKE OUT ANY DETAILS, JUST THAT THEY’RE MONSTROUS, DISTORTED, DELIGHTFULLY SHATTERED AND REBUILT. ICONS OF THE PERVERSE. SLOWLY WE START TO PAN IN ON THEM AND WE’RE BACK ON A SIMILAR SEQUENCE OF FINAL PANELS TO THE OPENING PAGE, ALL HOOKS AND LEATHER.

  (COULD WE SNEAK IN THAT IMAGE FROM APOCALYPSE CULTURE, OF THE HOOK THROUGH THE FOOT?)

  Stay with me, my shattered children. Stay and listen and stare and learn. Was that tale good?

  I’ll show you another.

  I’ve got thousands of them. I hold the stories. I guard the words.

  Love me.

  ENDS.

  [1] Lose this section in square brackets if you make it in a proper crossword.

  [

  2] Actually the technical term should be coprophages—dung eaters—rather than coprophiliacs—dung lovers. But I think we can assume this bunch tended to do more than just eat the stuff.