“So now you are to see all of this for yourself,” Howard said to me.
I suddenly felt a chill crawl through my body. “What makes you so sure that I won’t have an experience like yours?” I asked Howard. He could read the impatience in my voice.
He shook his head and replied as a confident father, “You won’t. I have no doubt. You are Basil’s brother.”
“Why are you so sure that I am his brother?”
“For a couple of reasons,” Howard said. “First, I recall, long ago, your real mother had spoken of you. Well, not your name, but she said that Basil had a brother. After some investigation, you are the one. Most importantly, I think, is Basil’s dream.”
“A dream?” I gasped. “A dream is evidence that we are truly brothers?”
Howard’s expression was empathetic. “Yes, seems illogical, right? Though, I’ve come to trust in dreams more and more these days. Especially Basil’s dreams.”
“You have the same talent, the same blood,” Basil answered. “You will understand.”
“You keep saying. . .” I said.
Howard reached to Basil’s hand and squeezed it. Basil grasped the edge of the fabric.
“I-I-I think you’re ready,” he stammered. “Other than to help p-p-pop, you’re the f-f-first to see m-m-m-my painting. T-ttell me what you th-th-th-think.” Basil’s hand tore the shroud away from the frame and I nonchalantly looked into the work.
It was a rendering of me. A portrait in oil. The expression I’d seen on my face many times in mirrors—calm, thoughtful and careful. There was some tragedy in the eyes. The background was a wash of muted orange and grey. The image was loose, painterly, composed of simple, accurate strokes. I shook my head, amazed. Then, I blinked.
A small flicker of light caught my eye. First it looked as if a flake of glitter was pressed into the portrait’s painted right pupil. I thought to check the other eye for symmetry, but I couldn’t move my gaze from the spark that had already captured me. The glitter then multiplied and seemed to spiral outward. Gold and silver-blue streams of light gathered and pulsed, forming the rim of some deep abyss. I felt my hands clamp down on my knees as I gazed down into a framed, pupil black chasm. All balance, all reason, all meaning—forgotten. The light spread beyond the borders of the frame. Then eclipsed, it became an enormous pitch black circle, that was unimaginably deep, from the rim fired lines of color, stretching out in all directions, until my periphery filled with the unfathomable gulf.
I could still feel the heat in the room. I could smell the incense and the fumes of wet paint. A hair thin line of silky light —The Silk—shot from the Center to meet my gaze. The music was now reaching its climax. A mesmerizing drone of sound reaching toward a higher, loftier dynamic. Then the Center captured me.
Silence.
Flash.
Gone.
I could no longer feel my body. The abyss pulled my sight in or down, I wasn’t sure which. A wide grey blur was growing below. The larger it became the more I could detect features that were familiar. It was water. A wide, flat body of grey and black water, raging. A light mist laced over the waves. The horror, I thought. I will drown.
Just as I thought my vision would plunge into the dark liquid, I stopped, suspended above and hovering up and down over each crest, nearly eye level to the raging waves. Silence.
A hand shot out of the froth. A young hand. It grasped for some hold in the air that didn’t exist. Then, the face of a young boy appeared with his mouth agape, struggling for breath, drowning. I forced my sight to find my body. There was nothing but the foam and spray of violent water.
Then, sound. Water thrashing.
The face surfaced again, struggled, coughed and gurgled, then disappeared below. I watched helplessly. When he emerged again his eyes were wide and filled with terror. His skin gleamed a sickly pale blue. He let out a hoarse, fractured scream. A scream that echoed across the silent void.
Then, he saw me.
His hand reached out, and his eyes were pleading. I could do nothing. The helplessness was maddening. With a final desperate cry, the face and the pleading reach sunk below the bleak surface. Silence.
My sight flitted across the rolling water, searching. I was now closer to the water than before. I must have the ability to move, I thought, I must go in for him. I forced my view down. The water was so close that all before me was both a dark wall of moving black and a glazed view of what lay beneath. I saw, like blinks from a dream, the sinking youth. My courage failed. I could not enter the water. Instead, howling words came to my mind. The words came but without voice. Silence.
I should have been seeing tears blur my vision. There were none, though my entire being cried out an anguish immeasurable. I could do nothing to aid the boy. A few moments passed.
A voice came, soundlessly.
—I could swim, but something froze my limbs. I could not move. Why did you not come in for me?
I whirled around to see the boy hovering above the water. A young boy of nine or ten. His naked skin was a blur of pale moonlit blue. His face was calm and his voice like song.
I struggled to answer, but I could make no sound.
—I couldn’t move, my mind cried
—Is that true? the boy asked.
It wasn’t true, I thought.
—You are afraid, the boy said.
—I am. The water—I couldn’t reach you to help, I thought.
The boy smiled peacefully.
—You will find that you cannot help here, nor can you help outside the Center. It is forbidden. Some must drown. Some must suffer, but the trying is the passion, he said.
The glistening body swiftly slipped down into the waves. The water calmed. The dark surface shimmered and then stilled. A black mirror.
Suddenly, I could feel my body. My feet felt wet and chilled. I looked down to see myself standing on the water. I turned around to see a chair beside me. Taking an uneasy step toward it I found that the liquid surface held my weight. I moved to the chair and lowered myself onto it.
The boy’s head appeared in the water below me.
—What are you doing here? he asked.
—I don’t know, I replied.
The boy fixed me with eyes that swirled like glitter in a jar, and then he drifted behind me.
—You’ve come in through the Center, and yet, you are still able to see. . . and stay. The boy hovered close to the side of my face.
—You are the subject of the Center, are you not? You are the Poet.
—I don’t know what I am, I replied.
—Speak to me. Make me feel your words, Poet.
—I don’t know what you mean, I confessed.
His eyes flashed as if in understanding.
—You haven’t the talent, yet. You will. You will make life. You will write the doors, open them, close them, for all of us. Within your story, so it shall be without. You will create within the Creation. But not yet. The day will come. The Eye will find you, and you will see how it sees, what it sees.
—Who are you? I asked.
The boy circled around behind me and appeared to my right.
—I am a Watcher. One of the many Watchers. I come here to feel the Creation.
—Whose Creation?
The boy’s answer was a smile.
—Learn your world for us, he whispered. Learn your talent and, we will ever arrive to witness, for the love of man. So we can feel what we cannot become. But now you must go. Go, Poet. Go back.
I blinked.
Not a moment had passed. The black fabric that Basil had pulled from the frame fluttered, still in motion. I could see it waving like an underwater hand in the corner of my eye. As quickly as he had pulled the shroud from the painting, he replaced it. I raised my hands to my face and lowered my head.
Howard touched my shoulder. The old man gently called my name, “Loche? Are you alright, Loche?” I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. I uncovered my face. I was still seated on a chair i
n the sweet smelling smoke of the flat. I looked up to see Basil. He stood beside the shrouded portrait with a stare of concern.
When I found my voice, I was only able to say one word, “Brother.”
Basil’s eyes smiled.
Howard and Basil hung on every syllable that slowly spilled from my lips. “It is truly beyond words. Beyond words. How could I possibly describe the emotion of—of knowing?” I told them of the young boy and the black void of water. Bits and pieces of the experience were too amazing and far beyond the ability of language to articulate. What had happened? Why had all of my beliefs been based on what I could conceive as rational? Suddenly, I could feel the universe and the hope of my very soul swirling together through a wondrous, gleaming answer. There is a life beyond this life, and I was there, if only for a second.
What now would I do? What now could detain me from using this knowledge to help my clients—my fellow man? How wonderful and terrifying my existence had become. There is more than this. . .more than life and death.
“You sure you’re okay?” Basil asked.
I looked at him. “I don’t know if okay is the right word. This is really happening, isn’t it? I mean, every fiber in my rational mind wants to discount—not believe —that I was just in the presence of—of a god. This is really happening.”
Howard said, “For me it was like looking directly into the summer sun. It was overwhelming. The second painting, the one that brought me back, I saw nothing but myself healing, restoring. It was as if Basil managed to place a kind of filter over the Center to keep my mind from exploding.”
“I suppose that’s what I did,” Basil said. “It’s hard for me to tell.” He turned to me, “I think I know what you’re talking about, Loche. I sense a kind of ominous audience behind the paintings, but I don’t see them. Much less have conversations with them.”
“The boy, or whatever it was, told me that they come to look in on man—to feel what it is like to be human. Somehow you’re making windows for them to see through.” I turned to Howard, “Are you telling me that I have the same sort of power that Basil possesses?”
The two smiled as they looked down to the leather case between my feet. “Yes,” Howard agreed. “With words.”
“My work is in no way comparable to Basil’s. Absolutely not,” I stated.
“You wouldn’t know,” Basil said. “You wouldn’t be able to feel anything other than the desire to write and the desire to keep it away from others. As I’ve said, I can’t feel the power of my work the same way you did. All I know is that I created a portrait of my brother, Loche, and paid an incredible amount of attention to the Center.”
“The right pupil?” I asked.
Basil’s hands flew up to his face, and he covered his eyes. When he removed them tears moistened his cheeks and they made his smile shine. “Yes, the right pupil.” He then began to shake his head and wipe the tears away. “Sorry. It’s just that I don’t get the opportunity to talk with anyone about my paintings other than Howard. All my life I’ve kept them hidden. All of my life—I couldn’t share what makes my life worth living. The accident with Howard had me convinced that I could never share my work. And here you are, seeing it. You must understand that this is hard for me to explain.”
“I think, like Basil, you wouldn’t be able to detect your own work’s super-nature,” Howard ventured. “Your writing to you is merely your writing. Nothing more than your life’s work, sure, but it will become something magnificent.” He asked carefully, “Has anyone ever read your work?”
“My wife has read some, but not all—and,” a chill plinked down my spine, “William Greenhame. A client of mine. He broke into my office, and I would guess that he’s read everything.”
“Who is William Greenhame?” Howard asked.
“I believe he’s the one that has been watching Basil and me,” I answered.
“Is he dangerous?”
“Well, I—”
“One thing at a time,” Howard interrupted. “First tell us about your wife. You say that she’s read your work.”
“Yes,” I said. “But not all of—”
“And nothing strange or out of the ordinary has happened?” Howard shrugged.
“No. Nothing.”
Howard looked at Basil. “That is curious. And you say that this William Greenhame has—”
“Yes,” I said.
“He is a client of yours? Is he mad?”
“I have diagnosed him with several disorders. But what plagues me is all that he knows about Basil and myself. He knows too much. If he’s broken into my home, I can only expect that he’s been here, as well.” I could feel my throbbing head. All that had happened in the last fifteen minutes would take a considerable time to digest.
“Well, I doubt he’s seen my paintings.” Basil growled, suddenly angry. “If he had, I think I would have discovered him on the floor, twitching and crying out—or dead, maybe. Besides, I make sure my stuff is always locked up and covered—”
“You have no idea,” I said. “None whatsoever concerning my precautions. My work is securely hidden away, and only I can access it. It seems to me, Basil, that a person could enter your studio when you are away and lift one of your shrouds with ease.” Basil glanced around at the studio. “William Greenhame has foiled my precautions,” I said.
“I’d know if someone broke in,” Basil pursued, “and there is no evidence of—”
“No,” I stopped him. “I detected no forced entry, nothing. It was as if he just materialized in the room.”
Howard raised his hand and silenced us. “I see you have brought some of your work, Loche.”
I nodded.
“Will you allow Basil to see some of it?”
“Yes,” I said, still with a slight tinge of hesitancy. “Yes. Of course.”
I lifted the case onto my knees and pulled from it a single sheet of paper. It felt strangely heavy in my hand. Lines of branch-like letters sliced across the page. Basil took hold of the paper and lifted it close to his face. He turned the paper upside down, scanning it from top to bottom, turned it again and gave it a puzzled expression.
“Aren’t you going to read it?” I asked.
His eyes rolled up to me from behind the paper then dropped back down still studying. “Nope,” he answered.
Howard watched Basil closely. “What do you see?”
“A poem on a piece of paper,” Basil answered.
Basil’s eyes scanned across the page. Howard and I watched for any out of the ordinary expression to cross his face.
“Read it,” Howard said.
“What the hell?” Julia cries, her eyes frozen to the rearview mirror. “Where did you come from?”
Rearden closes the book and looks over his shoulder. A grey sedan is following close.
“Not good,” the old man mutters. But as he turns forward the windshield fills with another car, parked in the roadway, blocking their route.
“Julia!”
Julia’s eyes snap from the mirror to the car ahead and she reacts. She is going too fast. With her hands clasping the wheel and horror-wide eyes she tries to maneuver. The car, now freely sliding, begins to spin to the right. Rearden drops the journal and braces his feet against the floor. The deafening crunch of impacting metal bangs through the vehicle.
Rearden opens his eyes and feels his limbs tingling. The vehicles are mashed together like two aluminum cans. He looks to Julia. Her body is slumped against the driver’s side window.
“Are you okay?” She is unconscious. “Julia,” Rearden yells, “are you okay?”
He leans his body across the front seat and reaches for her. No movement—a smear of red is streaked across the driver’s window.
“Jesus!” Rearden feels for signs of life. He feels the dull throb of her heartbeat in her wrist. He scans the scene. Idling a few feet behind is the grey sedan. The driver’s door opens, one man steps out and moves steadily toward the crash. Is there only one?
Rearden steadies himself and rolls his window down. The man approaches and stoops. In the rearview mirror there is a blur of another man positioning himself just slightly out of Rearden’s sight. They are both dressed in dark overcoats.
“Are you the police?” Rearden asks, his voice shaky.
The man blinks and a hidden smile crosses his face. “Yes. Detectives,” he says. “Are you Dr. Marcus Rearden?”
“No,” Marcus says, “never heard of him.”
“May I see some identification?”
Rearden replies quickly, “My friend is injured, help me —”
“Some identification, please,” the man repeats reaching into his coat, letting his hand rest there.
A flash of anger lights in Rearden’s eyes. Detectives, my ass. “How about you show me some identification first, young man,” he growls.
Their well-dressed and sharpened features are strangely out of place, Rearden thinks. They carry a kind of European posture, too stylish to be detectives from Sandpoint, Idaho. The man’s lips pinch into a smile. A mocking smile. “Very well,” he says. He stands up straight and exchanges a dubious look with his partner—a look that to Rearden says, Harmless, scared old man. Let’s get on with this. From his coat comes a gleam of black metal, and he lowers the weapon to his side.
With a sigh he leans back down and starts, “Dr. Rearden will you please step out of the—” but he is met with a snub-nosed revolver pointed directly between his eyes.
“Fuck off,” Rearden spits, firing a shot, slapping the man’s head back in a pink mist—he quickly turns and aims over the back seat. Another shot pops from Rearden’s gun crashing through the rear window and into the chest of the other man behind the car.
Rearden calmly opens his door, crouches down as best he can and moves to the back of the vehicle, listening intently. Sprawled in the snow and moaning for air, the second man struggles to crawl away, clawing with one hand. “Any more of your pals sneaking around out here, detective?” Rearden asks him. The moaning stops as Rearden fires twice into the man’s head. The report echoes against the hills.
The Invasion of Heaven, Part One of the Newirth Mythology Page 14
