A Stark and Wormy Knight

by Tad Williams

  TOPHER

  Did you really think you were in a place where that would work? This all belongs to me — don’t you know that? This is all my dream, and this time I’m taking you along.

  BRENT sobs and lifts the gun.

  BRENT

  There’s one bullet left…

  TOPHER

  Go ahead. What was it you said? “One bullet in the brain of Topher Holland will end all this?”

  BRENT slams the gun against his own head and pulls the trigger. Nothing. A moment later the gun crumbles into dust in his hand.

  TOPHER

  You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?

  He turns to ERIC and JANICE; they tumble to the floor, moving again.

  TOPHER (cont.)

  I never finished my story. See, I spent a long time — years — thinking about what to do to you. But then, slowly — oh, I had a lot of time — I came to understand that there are levels of betrayal. Many levels. And you were scared and young, just like I was.

  (a beat)

  But there are some betrayals that can’t be forgiven.

  (he turns to BRENT)

  Right, Topher? Come here.

  BRENT (as we’ve been thinking of him) sways and crumples to the floor. TOPHER (as we’ve been thinking of him) points, and BRENT begins to crawl toward him, despite himself. TOPHER’s skin is giving off faint curls of smoke now. The music is growing more insistent as it builds toward its slow climax.

  TOPHER

  You ran, and ran, and ran, didn’t you? But you never really got away.

  BRENT

  (weeping, fighting, crawling)

  No, please! I didn’t mean to… !

  TOPHER

  But you did it, and that’s all that matters. Abandoned this body like rats off a burning ship. Pushed me out of my own, so I had nowhere to go.

  (a beat)

  Black Sunshine. We’ll never know quite what that shit was, will we? The answer is probably buried in some government file forever. But it was sure something strange, something… bad. But no one asked you to take those pills, Topher. It was your own stupid idea. So why didn’t you live with it, you selfish bastard?

  (he leans down toward crawling BRENT/TOPHER)

  You wanted to get out of this body bad, didn’t you? What you did to Kimmy, all the other crazy shit — none of that bothered you. But when the pain came, then you wanted out. And you got out. Jumped right into my body, didn’t you, Topher? And I had nowhere to go but this ruined, mutating shell. You took my body, didn’t you? You took my whole life!

  BRENT/TOPHER has now arrived weeping at TOPHER’s/BRENT’s feet.

  BRENT

  I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!

  TOPHER

  Sometimes it’s too late for “sorry”. Twenty five years… Yeah, I’d say it was too late.

  ERIC struggles to his feet.

  ERIC

  (to TOPHER)

  Brent… ? It’s you?

  TOPHER

  He took my body just like a thief. Tried to make it his own, like repainting a stolen car. But it’s over now, Holland, isn’t it… ?

  TOPHER/BRENT pulls BRENT/TOPHER up off the ground and into his arms. The smoke is rising in earnest now, the first flames beginning to flicker from TOPHER/BRENT’s skin. BRENT/TOPHER is screeching and fighting, in pain, but can’t escape.

  JANICE

  Don’t! Oh, God, don’t… !

  ERIC

  Brent, we’ll help you… !

  TOPHER/BRENT shakes his pale head. As the Roxy Music song comes up louder, he leans close to BRENT/TOPHER, close as a lover, and stares into his eyes. BRENT/TOPHER struggles even harder, like an animal in a trap, but it’s no use.

  TOPHER/BRENT

  (to ERIC)

  No, there’s no help now — only loose ends. Only circles being closed. Sometimes the future can’t begin… until you kill your past…

  Fire and smoke are leaking out of TOPHER/BRENT’s mouth as he turns back to BRENT/TOPHER.

  TOPHER

  And now I want back all the things you took. The things that would have been mine…

  The smoke and light is leaking from BRENT’s mouth, nose and eyes now, being INHALED by TOPHER.

  TOPHER (cont.)

  A life… you got to live a life… but it should have been mine…

  BRENT

  (shrieking in terror)

  No… no… !

  TOPHER

  We got married, didn’t we… and we even had a child! Ah, she’s beautiful…

  BRENT

  No! Not them! Tracy, Joanie! Give it back!

  TOPHER

  (gently)

  No, it’s you who have to give it back now, Topher. Everything you stole. But don’t worry — it’s only for a moment…

  BRENT is fighting, struggling, but his life and memories are leaking out of him, being devoured by TOPHER — the real BRENT. The music comes up — Roxy Music, swelling…

  TOPHER

  So many things, that should have been mine. My memories, my future. Stolen. All you left me was the past. All you left me was that night.

  (a beat)

  Remember this song, Topher? It used to be one of your favorites…

  (sings, almost a whisper)

  “Inflatable dolly — dee-luxe and dee-lightful. I blew up your body… but you blew my mind!”

  As the guitar solo wails in, the flames suddenly become an INFERNO — a wall of fire. We see the two figures writhing within it, hear BRENT/TOPHER’s shrieks grow more and more SHRILL, then descend into bubbling GASPS as the figures in the flames slowly MELT TOGETHER…

  A moment later, there is NOTHING: TOPHER and BRENT and the painted EYE on the wall are gone. The music is gone. ERIC and JANICE are huddled together in the deserted empty bedroom, with dawn light filtering through the cracked windowpane.

  Silently, and as carefully as if they’ve both been badly bruised, they walk down the stairs, which look quite normal now. They make their way across the bare living room and out onto the front porch, where they stand for a moment, looking out across the empty dirt lot in the early morning lot, to the trees and town beyond.

  JANICE

  What happens now?

  ERIC

  The future.

  JANICE

  Brent… Topher… whoever he was. He has a wife, a daughter. What are we going to tell them?

  ERIC

  (shrugs)

  The truth? Or some part of it?

  (a beat)

  Maybe not.

  Without looking, they reach out and find each other’s hands, then walk down the porch steps and out into the field that once was an orchard. We pull back, watching two small figures walk slowly, holding hands, across the empty field. Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” comes up, sweet and sad:

  “So, so you think you can tell

  Heaven from Hell,

  Blue skies from pain.

  Can you tell a green field

  From a cold steel rail?

  A smile from a veil?

  Do you think you can tell… ?”

  ROLL CREDITS.

  THE END.

  Ants

  IT FEELS GOOD TO SWING HARD, to feel his muscles flex and the blade of the ax bite deep into the wood. It feels even better that it’s the old apple tree, the one whose apples have never been any damn good, puny and sour. But the blossoms, she always says, it blossoms so nice – it makes the whole yard look pretty! Yeah, and who gives a crap about that?

  Well, today he’s made his mind up. If there’s one upside of having lost his job down at the salvage yard, it’s that he doesn’t have to pretend to care about anything around here that isn’t pulling its weight. The apple tree is a perfect example: a few useless blossoms versus the need to bring down the heating bills next winter equals the tree is history.

  As he finishes setting the cut wood onto the pile, which is getting impressively high, he sees her watching from the window. Oh, God, that face. Like he
was killing a family dog instead of just taking down an old eyesore of an apple tree. He gives her a mocking smile and wave, a little twiddle of the fingers. She turns away.

  He married her. He must have – everybody tells him so. But he doesn’t really remember it happening and certainly doesn’t remember why. Sometimes, listening to her complain about all the things that (according to her) he should have done and hasn’t, or shouldn’t have done but did anyway, he has a sudden fantasy of just taking a big old swing at her with his fist, like something out of a Popeye cartoon, hitting her so hard she just flies away and he never has to hear that voice again.

  He even sees it with a caption, like one of those rumpled, Xeroxed cartoons they used to pass around at the yard in the days before the internet: Bitch In Space.

  * * *

  “That’s just great, Karl,” she tells him as he comes in and sets the ax in the corner of the kitchen. It needs to go out to the garage to be oiled and re-sharpened and put away properly, but he’s going to have a beer first because he goddamn well deserves it. He wipes sweat from his face and the back of his neck. Maybe two beers. He’s only had a couple today so far and it is Saturday. Is there some law that says you have to have a job to enjoy a few beers on Saturday?

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Just great. Spend an hour chopping down a harmless tree for firewood in the middle of July instead of doing something useful. It’s ninety goddamn degrees outside — what do we need firewood for?”

  He ignores her, feels the beer sliding down his throat, icy and perfect. If only there was a way to pour cold beer over his whole life. Yeah, drown the bitch with it…or at least drown her out.

  “Have you done any of the other things I asked you to do? Did you call the exterminator?”

  “We don’t need any goddamn exterminator. Do you know what those cheating bastards charge? It’s just a few ants.”

  “Just a few?” She stares at him like he’s crazy. “If you were ever in here for any longer than than it takes to open another beer, you might have noticed that we’re being overrun by the creepy little things. Look. Look!” She’s waving her arm like her turn indicator’s broken. He rolls his eyes, which just makes her more pissed off. “Look in that sink, damn you!”

  He takes a long swallow of his beer, hitches his pants up, rubs some sweat from the small of his back and ambles over to the sink. It really would be nice just to plant her one, a shot in the nose to straighten her right up. Yeah, he’d probably go to jail, that’s the way things are nowadays, but oh my God it would be like a dream come true… “So what?”

  “Do you happen to notice about a thousand ants in there?” She points at them like he’s stupid – like he really doesn’t see them. “And in the cabinets, and on the table, and all over the floor. It’s gross, Karl, it’s goddamned gross and disgusting! I can’t walk across the kitchen without stepping on hundreds of the things!”

  “So why do you want to pay an exterminator if you’re doing it yourself?” A good one. He laughs.

  She slaps him stingingly on the arm. “You’re not funny, you mean bastard!”

  For an instant – just an instant, but it rushes through him like a wildfire – he almost does hit her. Things go a little bit upside-down, like when he sometimes gets up too quick, gets dizzy, and almost falls. “Don’t…don’t you ever do that again,” he tells her, with enough of his true feelings in his voice that she backs away a few steps, like a dog trying to decide whether to bolt.

  “I want those things out of here, Karl,” she says, but whining now like a stuck-up kid. “They’re disgusting.”

  “Oh, they’re in the sink, isn’t that too bad,” he says, mocking her. “Did it ever occur to you, you lazy bitch, that all you have to do is turn on the water and wash ‘em down the drain?” He does, using the rinsing hose to send all the little leggy black creatures sliding and swooshing away to watery death. “Bye-bye, you little fuckers.” He turns to her. “See? Problem solved.”

  She’s gone pale now, her face cold and hard. She hates it when he calls her “bitch” — as if it wasn’t the best possible name for someone like her, someone who was pretty damn cute in high school but has long since gone fat and mouthy, just like her chain-smoking, vodka-gargling mother, but who also puts on airs like she’s too good for him because she watches Oprah and reads an occasional book.

  “Why are you so hateful, Karl? It’s not just ants in the sink.” Her voice starts to rise. “What about the ones on the floor? What about the ones on the counter, and in the damn cabinets, and in the goddamned sugar bowl, Karl? Huh? What about that?”

  Why don’t they think, he wonders. Why can’t they think? Because all this Oprah, Dr. Phil, everything’s-about-feelings bullshit clouds their minds, that’s why. Not a one of them can think about things logically, make a plan, solve a problem… “Oh, Jesus, shut your mouth for just a minute, Norah — I know it’s hard for you, but try – and I’ll show you what to do with the goddamn sugar bowl.”

  The ants trek across the table in a wavering line. You have to admire their focus, if nothing else, he thinks. They’re like him, in a way – small, maybe, but tough and strong and well-organized. They’re carrying little grains of sugar from the bowl across the table and down onto the floor, then off to their nest or hive or whatever they have. It’s kind of funny, really. If you’re an ant, finding that sugar bowl must be like winning the lottery.

  He put his hand under the sugar bowl to lift it. The plastic table cover is sticky and it grabs at the hairs on the back of his hand. Something hot and red flares in him again. “No wonder we got ants everywhere. This place is filthy. Now, pay attention, stupid, and I’ll show you something. Ants in the sugar bowl, big problem? I don’t think so.” He goes to the sink and dumps out the sugar, stands for a moment, sweat on his face and his heart beating strangely as he watches the little black shapes dig out of the pile of white crystals on the floor of the basin. Then he sluices them away with the rinsing-hose.

  “Empty the sugar bowl,” she said. “Real clever, Karl. God, it’s just like you always say, men are just smarter. I wonder why I never thought of it? And when I want to put sugar in my coffee, or on my cereal, why, I’ll just go scrape it out of the drain. Brilliant.”

  He isn’t going to look at her because if he does he’s probably going to smack the shit out of her. He only ever did it once before, when they were first together. She came back from her mother’s after two weeks and they didn’t talk about it again. She hadn’t seen Oprah in those days.

  “Just because you don’t use sugar doesn’t mean I don’t want to use it, Karl.” She was still using that voice, the one that made his hairs stand on end. “They’re into the sugar bag in the cabinet, too, but I’m sure you thought of that already with your superior male logical intelligence. So tell me, Mr. Spock, am I just supposed to give up sugar entirely?”

  Wouldn’t do you any harm, you fat bitch, he thinks. His head hurts and he doesn’t really want to talk any more. He wants another beer, maybe two – shit, maybe four — and then he wants to go sit in the living room and watch the baseball game, or wrestling, or anything that means he won’t have to think about any of this.

  “Shut up and look,” he tells her. “Just…shut up. I’m warning you.” Mr. Spock, huh? Compared to the crap that fills her head, he is an alien genius. His teeth are clenched so hard now that it’s making the headache worse. He rinses the sugar bowl, dries it off with a paper towel, then refills it from the sugar bag after flicking off a few six-legged explorers. It’s the hot weather. The ground gets dry and the little bastards come in looking for water, but then find out where all the good stuff is. Little shits. His moment of identification with the ants is long gone. Just somebody else who wants to rip him off.

  When the clean, dry sugar bowl is full of clean, dry sugar, he takes it to the dishes cabinet and rummages around until he finds a bowl large enough for it to sit in comfortably. Then, with it nesting there like a s
mall boat in a bigger boat, he fills the outer bowl with water and holds the whole arrangement out for Norah to see.

  “Get it?” He points to the inch-wide span of water now ringing the sugar bowl. Karl is pleased to get the last word for once – he couldn’t have proved his case against her lazy thinking more completely if he’d had a chance to prepare in advance. There’s absolutely no way for her to refute this evidence. “It’s like a moat around a castle, see? The ants can’t get to the sugar bowl. They try to cross the water, they drown. No ants in the sugar. Get it, Norah? Get it?”

  He’s about to set the sugar bowl back on the table when he remembers the stickiness that had sucked at his arm. He wipes the sweat from his forehead. Bad enough the heat, but the whole goddamn house is sticky, too. Ants? The way she cleans, they probably have roaches… Karl puts the sugar bowl up on top of the refrigerator, then pulls the plaid cover off the kitchen table and holds it out toward her. “Go on, make yourself useful. Clean this shit up, the ants won’t even want to get on the table. It’s only because you keep this place like a pigsty…”

  He picks up his ax and starts toward the garage. The headache is beginning to ease.

  “You…you bastard!” she shrieks. “You stupid, ignorant bastard! Those damn ants are everywhere! What am I supposed to do, bring in the hose and just fill the house with water? Is that what you’re saying?”

  He’s not going to argue any more. He showed her — he shut her up – so why won’t she stay that way?

  “Don’t walk out on me!” She’s screaming louder now, that voice like a dentist’s drill — he swears he can feel it buzzing in his fillings. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Shut your damn mouth or I’ll slap you silly.” He tries to get the garage door open but she’s blocking his path. He grabs her arm and yanks her out of the way. The garage beckons like a cave, dark and cool, quiet and safe. Then he feels her fingernails in the skin of his neck, burning, sharp, and her other hand in a rude little fist, smacking away at the back of his head.