by Micah Castle
Robert nodded, grinning.
“Damn, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know I was making so much noise. It won’t happen again, I assure you. This is just a one-time deal.”
“It better be. Not to be an asshole, but I need my sleep for school and if there’s banging or whatever else going on, it’s just not going to fly here.”
“I understand. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“Good,” Robert said flatly, then went into his room and laid down. Within minutes he had fallen asleep.
III
When he came out of his room the next morning, he turned on the coffee maker and waited as it gurgled and filled. Idly he glanced over at Nathan’s door and wondered what he actually did build, and if he had locked the door. Cautiously, as if it wasn’t his own apartment, he snuck over to the doorway and tried the knob. It turned. A chill ran through his body and something uncomfortable settled in his gut. Quickly he opened the door.
The light coming in through the living room’s open window partially illuminated Nathan’s room. He found it was the same as before. No new cabinet or drawer, no new table or chair. Hell, not even a new sheet or blanket had been used for the mattress on the floor. As Robert scanned the room, he finally noticed what had changed. The window. A thin sheet of blackened plywood, nailed to the outer frame, now covered the window.
“Why the hell would he do that? Is he some sort of vampire?” Robert asked.
The front door was being unlocked. As fast as he could he shut the door and leapt over to the kitchen and slid across the linoleum floor to the coffeemaker, grabbing a mug from the counter in the process. As the door opened, he began pouring himself a drink. Nathan walked into the apartment, noticed Robert’s glistening face but said nothing.
“Would you like a cup? It’s fresh.”
“No, thank you. Been a long night, think I’m going to go to bed. Good night.” Nathan said, then went into his room, locking the door.
Robert finished his drink, then got dressed. He wondered why Nathan would board up his window. What reason would a person have to do that? He clearly wasn’t afraid of the light, or photosensitive. Robert pondered the strangeness of Nathan as he left the apartment and went to the library. Even while he studied for an English quiz coming up, the ideas raging in his mind never ceased.
IV
Before he returned to the apartment, Robert picked up a bottle of Old Overholt rye whiskey and a bottle of Gosling’s black rum. He thought maybe he could learn more about Nathan without having to sneak around in his room; maybe he would be one of those talkative drunks.
“Hey,” he said as Nathan came out of the bathroom that night. “Why don’t you have a drink with me?”
He grew hesitant, stopping mid-walk. “I’m not a big drinker, you could say I’m a lightweight, so no thank you.”
“C’mon, just a few drinks. We can sit here, and I can tell you about growing up and you can tell me whatever you want. I haven’t got to know you and I’d really like to. We’re living together, after all, aren’t we?” he said, smiling and waving him over to the vacant chair in the living room.
“Uh… I guess. Yeah, sure, just a few.”
“Great!” Robert took the rum and whiskey from the brown paper bag and put them on the coffee table. He went and got two cups from the kitchen, then sat back down.
“Rum or whiskey?”
“Rum, please.”
“A rum man, nice.” He twisted the lid and poured the contents into a cup. “Sorry, my fridge doesn’t make ice.”
“It’s fine, I like it warm anyway.”
It was two hours later when the rum was nearly finished, and the scotch was half gone. Robert’s cup sat on the coffee table, toppled over, while Nathan’s was lost somewhere underneath his seat. As they drank and drank, they discussed normalities: Robert explained his love for rock and roll music, didn’t have a plan to get married anytime soon and his favorite food was pancakes; Nathan was thirty-five years old, was once married but got divorced, and liked classical music. They fell into a comfortable silence after a while.
“So,” Robert began, “why do you, uh… do the things that you do? Like the suit, and, uhm… the briefcase and the wind—”
Robert’s question was cut off by Nathan snoring.
His head swiveled, as if made from lead, from Nathan sleeping, slumped in the chair, to Nathan’s bedroom.
Damn… How the hell am I going to get him into his bed?
Slowly he pulled himself from the chair and stood, waiting a moment to steady himself. As carefully as he could, he weaved between the two chairs and tripped, falling hard onto the carpet. He looked to see what he tripped on and saw Nathan’s briefcase. Robert turned and pulled the briefcase over to him, then sat against the kitchen counter, using what little overhead light to figure out the locks. He tried several different four-digit combinations, until he gave it one last shot with 2400, then he heard the clink of it unlocking.
Midnight.
He craned his neck to see Nathan still sleeping, then opened the case. There were only two objects, strapped to the bottom. An old withered, wrinkled book and a dull crimson, caked in rust and dirt, hand mirror that laid face down. Ignoring the mirror, he slipped the book out, found it had no author or title, and flipped it open to the first page.
The Journal of Nathan G. Adams
This couldn’t be Nathan’s journal, it’s far too old… Maybe it was one of Nathan’s ancestor’s journal?
As if Robert’s body knew that this was something he would have to remember, he felt like the alcohol in his system had vanished. The drunken stupor he was once in now slowly ebbed and faded away. He looked to Nathan in the chair, then back to the book, then rubbed his eyes, as if to ensure he would read everything clearly.
July 15, 1898
I do not know why I had not started a journal sooner, but now I have so here I am. I believe my life now must be recorded, lest I forget.
Inside the pubs they speak of a witch, but only in whispers. He lives in a hut down by the shore. He is damned by the denizens of Clifden, for he does unspeakable acts, like abortions for the unwedded and the young, and performs rituals and casts spells. People go to him with their troubles, their curses and charms; but they hate him for it, despise him to his very soul. They need him but are too ashamed to speak good will of the man.
Despite the words of the drunks at the pub, curiosity got the better of me. After all, I did have a wish of my own. The following dawn I set out to the hut. I followed a dirt beaten path that started just outside of town. It weaved up a few large, greenery covered hills but after an hour or two, began to descend gradually to the shore below.
The place stood deep in the sand, below an overhanging cliff. The shadows cast made my sweat turn cold. The stillness and silence were palpable, and it seemed that even the tides were quiet. I was surprised that I could still feel my legs when I moved forward. Before I knew it, I was at the door.
I knocked and knocked and knocked. The sound of flesh against wood echoed all around me, reverberating off the jagged rocky walls surrounding the hut. When my knuckles grew red and stung with each rap, I gave up and began the trek back to town.
Then I heard the door open. A gaunt, wrinkled, bald man stood with an overgrown beard, and gripped in his skeletal hand a wrinkled, redwood cane.
He spoke in Irish, but it was in very old tongue, archaic even. I decipher it here in English for simple reading later.
“Were you knocking?”
I nodded.
“What do you want? Why do you come to my door?”
“The locals say you grant wishes.”
“Do they?”
I nodded again
“If they say it, then it must be true. What do you wish for, then?”
“Forever lasting life.”
A sharp, sudden light appeared in his glassy, green eyes then vanished, like a star ripping across the sky.
“Are you certain you want that?” he asked.
I nodded one last time.
With a wave of his gnarled free hand, he escorted me into his hut.
The door swung shut when I entered. Inside I saw large, water-bloated books lining the walls, the creaky, weathered rafters holding up his home, the emptiness of it all. The witch stood in the center, holding up a door in the floor.
“If you want your wish to be granted, descend the rungs.”
I was hesitant at first, but despite the skepticism, I wanted my wish to happen more than anything. I was already thirty-years-old, and I knew that soon I would be an old man. I did not want the painful joints or wrinkled flesh, I did not want to wear glasses or carry a cane, I did not want to begin to forget who I am or who my colleagues are, and I did not want to wither and perish like a flower without water. I did not believe in Heaven, nor Hell, and I did not want to leave this world and drift in an endless abyss without my thoughts or my books or the wonderful music I hear in the theaters.
The cold rungs felt good gripped in my warm palms and after only a few moments, I stood on solid ground. A stout corridor appeared before me. The shaman came down the ladder, slid around my body and moved ahead. I followed.
The path veered and came to an open room. The floor, the ceiling and the walls were lined with mirrors. Endless reflections of each other, endless abysses of madness and nothingness, repeated over and over again. In the center of the room was a chair, with leather straps at the end of the armrests and legs. I had to stare at my shoes, to avoid becoming dizzy.
“Sit in the chair.” He said.
“Are you mad? I am not stepping foot in that room.”
“Then leave. Return to the village, to the alehouse. Drink away your life. I do not care.”
Damn it, I thought. I looked at the chair, only a yard or so away, then closed my eyes and walked forward over the mirrors. Strangely I did not hear my shoes clank upon them or feel them shatter under my weight. I bumped into the chair, then slowly managed to sit down.
The straps were pulled over my wrists and ankles. When I opened my eyes, the witch still stood in the corridor, as if he never moved.
“Endless years,” he began, “endless memories, endless times. These will be pulled from you, from your mind, from your soul. They will cease forward movement, they will become frigid like the dew on the grass in the winter, they will glisten underneath Qaeceit. She will hold them, caress them, for all eternity. Only until your eyes glance over the mirrors, any mirror, any glass. The gift She grants will be snatched away and the years left in Her home will come upon you like the boulders of a mountain.”
A rancid smell wafted up my clothes. I damned myself for not relieving myself before visiting the witch. I asked after I pushed down the bile in my throat. “What must I do?”
“Cease movement. Cease living. Here, for one full day.”
“And after?”
“You must carry Her other gift, always and forever — then your wish will be granted.”
“Then let’s begin.” I said through trembling lips.
The room illuminated in a warm, soft light. The witch walked away, shutting a door between the corridor and the room, which was also covered in mirrors.
Everywhere I turned I saw my perspiration-covered face, my wrinkled clothes, my disheveled hair. I tried to look elsewhere but my face, my eyes were there. I looked into myself, beyond my strained eyes and the bulging veins in my neck and temples, deep down into the depths of my soul. Time was lost to me. It could have been only five minutes or five months or even five years. Even when I closed my eyes I still felt the weight of my reflection upon me, in all directions. At some point, I tried to sleep but the straps burned my flesh and the pain of it kept me awake. I soiled my trousers after a while. Tears streamed and dried over my face and I screamed for help. I called for someone to get me from that place of my own selfish volition. I prayed for any god to lift me from the chair and bring me out into the open world.
The air grew stale and musty. My eyes stung, and my entire body seemed to be enveloped in an endless throbbing pain. I hung my head, idly staring at the floor. My neck and shoulders no longer had the strength to keep me sitting straight. Then as sudden as the light came, it disappeared, casting everything into Oblivion. My eyelids grew heavy and shut. Immediately I fell unconscious. There was a bright orange and yellow light in the gloom. It twisted and swirled and formed into a golden silhouette of a giant woman that rose up, blotting out the darkness. Below her hovered a brilliant yellow symbol that looked similar to a halo and the sun but conjoined. Words like sweets drifted over me, into me, filled me up and spurted from my pores.
Then I felt something hard below me, heard the lapping of waves in the distance, felt a breeze wash over me. When I opened my eyes I found myself outside, and it was night. Gripped in my hand was a large mirror, set face down. The back was colored a deep ruby with obsidian lines that weaved and twisted to form the halo-sun symbol. I tried to stand but drowsiness pulled me back under.
When I awoke again, must have been a few days later, I was in a cottage in Clifden, lying in bed. An old woman sat near and she told me about how her husband found me out near the shore. He put me in his carriage and brought me here. I hastily noticed the mirror was no longer in my grasp, but the old woman showed me that it was in the stand next to the bed.
After a week’s stay, I left the old woman and her husband, paying them handsomely for their hospitality. I found some parchment and wrapped the mirror in it, then traveled away from Clifden, towards England.
Although he didn’t quite believe the story he had just read, Robert’s hands grew numb. 1898? Impossible. No one could still be alive if they were born then, hell, no one over eighty looks the way Nathan does. No, no, no. He quickly rifled through the pages.
September 3, 1902
January 14, 1928
March 28, 1960
October 5, 1989
June 7, 2013
The journal slipped from his hands and fell to the floor. Who the hell is Nathan? What the hell is Nathan? Is he just a fiction writer and this is his book, or was this his ancestor’s journal, or was this actually Nathan’s? Is he truly immortal, or does he just think he is?
Nathan slumped over in his chair, then fell to the floor, a pool of drool steadily growing underneath his head. Robert closed the journal, slid it back into the briefcase, closed it and rested it where he found it.
Fuck… Robert thought. I’ll deal with this in the morning. Even if he’s crazy, I can’t leave him like this. I did this to him.
He went over to Nathan, pulled him onto his feet and half-carried, half-walked him to his bed. He let Nathan fall face first onto the mattress, then switched off the lights and went into his room.
Despite his best efforts, he never got to sleep that night.
V
Robert had to talk to someone, he had to let out all the thoughts and ideas running mad in his mind. He called his friend Spencer before the sun rose. He asked if he could meet him at the diner in about an hour. Groggily, Spencer agreed and hung up. Now Robert sat a table by himself, waiting. His eyes stung and no matter how much he rubbed them, the pain never ceased. He felt dirty, as if he had run a marathon and let the perspiration dry over his body, but he had to talk to Spencer first before showering. What he learned the night before ran rampant in his mind and Robert believed venting would help relieve the building pressure.
Dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, Spencer came into the diner, saw Robert and sat across from him at the table. He ordered coffee from a passing waitress.
“So, what was so important we had to talk this early, Bobby? I didn’t get to sleep until three last night and it’s seven now.”
It was like a dam bursting, the water erupting out from the opening in powerful streams, unable to be stopped or controlled. The words were spewed out like vomit, and before long, he realized he was nearly shouting. So
me of the other diners looked in his direction, but he didn’t pay them any mind.
Spencer sat back with wide eyes as he listened to his friend go on and on about Nathan, who apparently was an immortal man, or believed to be an immortal man, and was afraid of his own reflection. He sipped at his coffee and waited for his friend to shut up before grabbing the waitress and ordering some food. At last, Bobby’s wild story ended.
“So, what do you think?” Robert asked, his face blanketed in a cold sweat and his hands trembling around a cup of coffee.
“I, uh, hmm… I don’t know what to say, exactly. It’s pretty fuckin’ nuts, you know? Honestly, just because he wrote it in his diary and put the date as 1898 doesn’t mean he’s that old or what he said happened. What do you think he is, a vampire? Anyone can pick up a journal from the store and scribble bullshit down.”
“So, what do you think I should do?”
“What should you do? Jesus Christ, Bobby. Why should you do anything? The dude doesn’t cause trouble, pays his rent, and even stayed up all night drinking with you — only a saint could put up with you drunk.
“You should just leave him alone. Even if he does believe he’s immortal, what harm does that do to you? If he’s not doing something to you, then you really shouldn’t care. I’m surprised you even believed all that, man. You’re a damn creative writing major for God’s sakes, you study stuff like this all the time, those weird novels and stories and whatever else.”
