Chronicles of Ara: Perdition

by Joel Eisenberg

  DESER HOTEL, ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT

  “Selu, any last words?”

  “I’ll just say this, and thank you for the opportunity—”

  “You’ll come back?”

  “I’ll come back, if you let me finish.”

  “Go.”

  “The answers are out there. X is a prodigy, and he should not be ignored. But if you prefer to follow me, if you find my words and conclusions easier to digest, please check out my website . . . which is flashing right now on your screen. Thank you, all.”

  “And . . . goodnight, everyone.”

  ~~~

  Meanwhile, in Sidra’s room . . .

  She so wanted to sleep and skip the interview. But she was not allowed. “It’s a requirement,” Lucius told her.

  This was not a good idea. She has been reminded of her past. A past not forgotten despite her best efforts, when once she shed tears at a bar over her suspension from Artist’s Academy. She was consoled by a man who introduced himself as Selu. He was then just another drunk like her, and their meeting culminated in the only one night stand she had ever had.

  Not a good idea, maybe even a mistake, she thinks.

  ~~~

  Sidra peeks over her hotel room’s balcony working math in her head, arms crossed atop the barrier that separates her next step from a twenty-story drop onto the Cairo-Alexandria Deser Road. She estimates that her fall would be six hundred to seven hundred feet, and she would land no more than thirty yards from the surrounding Mediterranean Sea.

  Or maybe I should just go down there and drown myself. That’ll solve everything for sure.

  She’s miserable. She loathed the flight over and is not getting along with the associate she will be working with most closely. She despises Selu Hobbins.

  She is becoming obsessed with Selu Hobbins. Just as she implied X was becoming obsessed with her.

  Sidra quickly discounts the imposing thoughts and returns to her prior consideration. If she’s lucky, she imagines, she’ll be killed by a moving vehicle just prior to hitting ground. If fortune does not bless her today, she’ll lose her guts and stay where she is.

  She contemplates it. Strongly, as her turmoil is mounting, and . . .

  Sidra turns away from the balcony. She knew she wouldn’t have the guts. She steps back inside and locks the door. She had asked for a room with no alcohol. There is no bar present, and as she opens her fridge she is reminded of her wishes.

  But there is a bar in the lobby.

  Her demons will come to the fore in Egypt. In our own brief encounters, I swore to myself I could help her win these battles by facing them together.

  She grabs her purse, locks her room, and heads to the elevator.

  In the spirit of non-censoring, Selu Hobbins is a piece of shit. Honestly. Sidra and I should be together. We have the connection, we share the depth that they could only imagine and that commonality right there is your godsend.

  Once downstairs, she orders a Sakara Gold.

  Sidra and I will be together. Count on it.

  If you want to survive, you best count on it.

  And Selu, you best watch your ass.

  As the beer is poured into her glass, Sidra stares at her reflection through the brew . . . and tries to figure out what the hell it really is that she’s been searching for.

  I’m going away for now. Melancholy strikes.

  Until next time . . .

  WRATH

  SHEEPSHEAD BAY, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

  He got away. Again.

  X escaped to the downtown D Train platform, eluded the cops, and walked with forced calm from the Stillwell Avenue exit in Brooklyn, the train’s last stop, to the living quarters of one Aragranessa Flameleaf, two miles away.

  X has dreaded the visit, but now especially there is no recourse. “There will be a time,” Esme once told him, “when you will be called. You will know who it is that you need to see and when it needs to happen.”

  The time has arrived. He knows this. He knows this all too well as he climbs the first of five cracked cement steps into the lobby of the six-story Sheepshead Projects, aka the more politically correct Sheepshead Bay – Nostrand Houses as most of the locals call them.

  Esme Chaconte said the same. As he left the D Train and walked the distance from Sheepshead Bay Road to the projects, X recalled that she also mentioned to him the presence of an eccentric neighbor that at times was the “star of the neighborhood.” Esme had no idea back then if she was still alive.

  She is.

  The glass door entrance to the lobby is designed in a style that must have been from the fifties, at the latest. Crisscrosses of the thinnest possible black tape give the impression of hundreds of tiny boxes forming to create someone’s idea of an artful mosaic. A glass and black box mosaic.

  Why? is the first thought that comes to X’s mind.

  To X’s left is an intercom system that, he concludes, must have been built from the very first prototype. The name Flameleaf appears in raised white type on an unraveling piece of black tape behind a glass plate—more glass, more black tape, he thinks—and he presses the adjoining button that must be more than an inch in circumference.

  There is no response from the speaker, but within seconds the door buzzes. X swings it open and steps into the lobby. He can’t wait to escape; the longer he stands there, the more convinced he becomes that the walls are slowly closing in.

  He is right. They are.

  He shrugs off the sensation, blaming a latent claustrophobia, and heads directly to the stairwell. The freshly painted blood red elevator door with the dried runny paint drops is no proper invitation; today he’ll stretch the legs and walk up three flights.

  He opens the door to the stairs; the bottom of the door is painted the same as the elevator and just as recently, judging by the smell; the top is the same hideous mosaic from the holding area before the lobby.

  The stairs are green.

  His headache begins when he smells the inside.

  “Oh, that was a mistake,” he says.

  Apartment 3D. Flameleaf. It says so right on the dingy brown welcome mat right below the color-coordinated door—as are they all—that matches the stairs.

  As he’s about to knock, the door opens slightly, stopped by a chained-lock from the inside.

  “Well, hell, you decided to show up,” she says.

  He could barely see an eye. “Ms.—”

  “Flameleaf. You got her.” The door closes, the chain is unlatched, and the door opens. “Come on in,” she says. “I don’t have all the time in the world.”

  He can hardly wait to see what she looks like. As he enters, one whiff of the place is enough to exacerbate his headache.

  Aragranessa closes the door . . . which vanishes upon impact.

  Along with the rest of the apartment.

  The other four apartments on the floor remain. Where a moment ago stood the entrance to hers, however, is now only wall. The welcome mat is also gone.

  As is her name on the intercom downstairs.

  FREE CHURCH, BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NEW YORK

  Sunday services. Every one of the five hundred seats are taken.

  The setup is typical, but within the stained glass of Jesus’ outstretched arms are a Star of David and a host of other religious and cultural icons.

  Mother Billie Clance’s church is nondenominational, after all.

  As she begins her sermon, her congregants sit at rapt attention. Among them: nurses Christine and Pickett from Kingway Hospital, sitting with Dr. Katz, and the partner police officers—Franks and Palatnek—also sitting together.

  And Professor Searle. Alone. And quite intent.

  “Tradition,” Mother Clance preaches, “can be nonsense if not nonsense-cal, as there are just too many systems. This church—our Free Church—is so-named after free thought, so please, in all events, I encourage you to use your best judgment here today.” Her attendees laugh; she smirks. “I intro every sermon with those same words,
and it never fails to get a reaction. You’re just too polite,” she patronizes, to further laughter. “Any pagans in the audience this week?” One raises her hand, a young woman. “Welcome,” Mother Clance says. “Satanists?” Members of a punk rock group stand and shyly wave, as one. “Welcome to you too,” she says. “We never discriminate here; we all have our own habits, if not traditions. Many of you come here on alt Sundays while attending more traditional—there’s that word again—houses on the other weeks. Welcome to you as well.” She steps away from the podium. “Any first timers?” Several raise their hand. “I won’t ask, I think we have a mutt group here today so let’s just say . . . this is why cremation is my preferred send-off. Too many traditions to keep track of, otherwise.”

  Billie’s renown is enhanced by her acceptance. Also, aside from her church duties, she is a sought-after police and medical consultant due to a specific sensitivity: She possesses a keen gift for locating missing persons, based on a quick but intensive study of their philosophical or religious beliefs.

  Professor Searle, however, has never trusted her. He is a distant acquaintance through her late friend, Peter Levin, and he believes in her present service her abilities can be dangerous.

  Unless she pledges her allegiance to ENIGMA, he believes, she needs to be watched.

  ~~~

  Post-service.

  I’ve given entirely too much lately, she thinks, as she sits and takes stock in the back garden. Too much. Cops, doctors . . . too many strange phone calls. Even thinking of Peter, so much lately and why? I never mourn anybody. She decides on a whim to up and head to Hawaii for two months to recharge. Yeah . . . yeah. That’s the ticket. She stands to head back inside, but first looks up to a flap of wings. A black raven, hurriedly flying overhead. And there you go. A raven, in Brooklyn. Her decision has been validated. Aloha, y’all. Your girl desperately needs a break, nothing personal. See you in April. When I get back is when we’ll really stir some shit.

  MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK CITY

  On the MOMA second floor, as on all six, there is a window toward the side of the building facing an apartment-strewn avenue that offers one of the finest, and truest, views of contemporary New York City architecture. Today, on the museum-side of the second floor window, is a closed room presently off-limits to visitors, but within which an event takes place that is the most exclusive in all of midtown, if not Manhattan proper.

  The man known as The Editor stands to the side of a pull-down white screen, upon which slides of fantasy and futuristic art appear and mesmerize.

  He narrates the slideshow to a group of fourteen men and women. Officer Franks is among those present.

  “Let go of your preconceived notions,” he says. “Don’t respond to what you see; watch and allow the images to speak.” Though he is no cult leader, he talks as would a hypnotist brainwashing his audience. His, however, is an exercise in the power of art and nothing more. “Visit these bold worlds, do not turn away to consume art. To really . . . allow art to penetrate, you must take for granted that the artist worked on a canvas of experience. Within the genres of science fiction and fantasy, in particular, the detail of the strange, the colors, the lines . . . whether from dreams or imagination, are most vivid and all too real. Art . . . is life, most exemplified here.”

  The images that pass are those from old pulp magazine covers, movie poster art, book illustrations, and commissioned drawings and paintings. Images of outer space and monsters and myth . . . all have in common a uniqueness of vision as if, as The Editor says, the artists were actually present in such alternate universes when they composed their works.

  From the window, a commotion catches The Editor’s eye. He peeks outside the window, pauses for a second, then nods his head to Officer Franks, who has noticed The Editor’s distraction. The cop immediately stands and leaves the room.

  ~~~

  Once outside, he sees her immediately. Freak is screaming in the rain, kicking and clawing at a pedestrian, screaming incomprehensible epithets as if in another language.

  Officer Franks immediately breaks up the fight. He turns to the small crowd, “Go! Or I’ll take in the lot of you. Go!”

  They slowly disperse.

  Officer Franks escorts Freak to his police car. She says nothing further. He pushes her head and she enters the vehicle. The door is closed.

  The officer returns to the scene. He helps the pedestrian to his feet.

  Professor Searle. His suit is torn, but otherwise he appears uninjured.

  “You okay?” Franks asks.

  “I’m fine,” says Searle, embarrassed, as he dusts himself off.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m walking home is what happened. I didn’t see her coming. I’m walking and . . . she jumped me.”

  “Would you like to press charges, sir?” Searle turns to the woman, who now sits calmly in the car. “Would you like to press charg—”

  “No,” Searle says. “No . . . never been mugged before. First time for everything. Probably just another crazy, officer.”

  “Are you sure, sir?”

  Searle nods, waves, and walks away. Franks is about to call after him, when the officer turns in response to a violent thrashing on his car window.

  Freak is banging her head, and drawing blood. She breaks the window.

  Officer Franks rushes back to his vehicle. He enters, immediately turns on his sirens, and pulls away ...

  ~~~

  The Editor watches discreetly from the window upstairs, as the others in the room maintain their gaze on the slides that pass on the screen.

  “The artists, ladies and gentlemen,” The Editor resumes. “Your creators . . . all certainly from another world.”

  ANOMALY

  PARTS UNKNOWN

  Thomas delivers on his intention and disappears into parts unknown. He is burned out by life, convinced he must turn away. Now. En route, he thinks entirely too much, asking himself too many questions like, Is it a sea that informs our differences and nothing more? And other such time-wasters.

  During one restless night, he ponders how he’d be able to coalesce some of his conclusions within his fiction. His slumber must have been deep, because when he awakes he feels as though his world has turned upside down and Ara is guiding his ever action.

  Like so many other writers, notably Robert Louis Stevenson as it regarded Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Thomas becomes obsessed with his new work. A new work, like Stevenson’s immortal tale, which will be based on a dream . . .

  And a demon.

  And the death of me, he thinks.

  An Open Letter to the Media

  Just because I was on Twitter and someone by the name of Lynda posted this great meme:

  I mean, really. Is this convenient or what? Ara certainly has a tendency to back us against a wall, doesn’t she? Can we fight monsters without becoming monsters ourselves?

  Friedrich Nietzsche was a genius, wasn’t he? In fact, there are all sorts of meanings there, don’t you think? I mean, you have the drowning dragon and everything.

  Taebal, perhaps?

  Do you see? Really, do you see how this all works? Do you see how cyclical this all is? It’s 10:39 pm, and I’m writing this at Starbucks, of all places. They close in exactly twenty-one minutes, and this is what I find from a cursory glimpse of social media from my phone.

  Just figured I’d share.

  I find myself wondering about Nietzsche’s mindset when Ara came to him.

  There’s nothing else of substance to report tonight, as far as I could see. Reason for everything, natch, and really, nothing in this world is random.

  More words to live by, and that’s all you’re gonna get for the time being.

  My coffee is finished.

  Say goodnight, Gracie.

  DESER HOTEL, ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT

  Hotel restaurant.

  Lucius, seated with his team, presides over the small group in a private dinner room. Sidra sits opposite Selu, ignori
ng his occasional glances, doing what she can to focus on the benefactor.

  Only their glasses are clear. Water. The others are filled with red wine.

  “We will be met,” Lucius says, “at the mound we left last year, just outside the catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa—”

  “I’m sorry?’ Sidra says as others laugh.

  “Apologies,” Lucius says. “Kom el Shoqafa, Mound of Shards, the site of tombs, statues, and other antiquity. Hellenistic, some of Imperial Roman influence. You didn’t read your dossier.”

  “Sorry.” Sidra grits her teeth. How she hates dossiers. “I did watch his show, as you asked.”

  “Good times,” says Koloq Fa, an associate and native, mid-thirties, as he raises his glass. He’s the only one who drinks. The others laugh.

  Sidra, struggling more than expected, watches him as he downs the liquid.

  “Thank you, Koloq . . . I think,” Lucius responds. Most are having fun. The spirit is positive, constructive. “As I was saying, two miles southeast during our last trip our meters went a little . . . wonkers—”

  “Wonkers, sir?” interrupts Selu. “You must be tired.”

  Lucius, smirking, points at the archeologist, but otherwise does not answer. “—appearing to indicate,’ he continues, “the presence of either organic matter or working artifacts of a mechanical nature.”

  “Or electrical,” Koloq adds. “One never knows.”

  “This is why I pay you,” Lucius says. “Now, please shut up.” More laughter. “We have our permits. We will meet and dynamite the location tomorrow at noon.”

  “Dynamite?’ a surprised Selu asks. “Why?”

  “Because, while all you were back in the states we determined the presence of a cave,” Koloq explains.

  Selu is taken aback. He looks to Koloq first, then to Lucius. “Is that true, sir? Another cave?”