Vapors: The Essential G. Wayne Miller Fiction Vol. 2

by G. Wayne Miller

  No, a man like him had to start anew.

  He had to create his own god. Any simpleton could see that.

  What a simpleton couldn’t see was the only place such a deity could be born: inside, deep within the wellspring of dynamism and fierce individuality that powered the external being. A transcendental, metaphysical process, whose ambition and daring would stagger the most sophisticated intellect.

  Of course, a man could not come by his own god without unlocking great secrets. In his travels over the next several years, he sought out shamans and soothsayers and priests proclaiming intimacy with such mysteries. In alleys and temples, on mountaintops and behind curtains, in tents and at dusty bazaars — alone or with the assistance of interpreters — he met with them, rewarding them richly for their say. Later, he would sift and sort through what he’d heard, retaining the valuable nuggets, tossing the garbage, of which there was plenty.

  Bobby D. Wilson: God.

  A simple but beautiful concept, one’s personal god. Infinitely more exciting than one’s personal yacht, or personal chauffeur, or personal woman.

  His plan, when it was complete, involved significant sacrifice.

  Every religion did. Sacrifice of respect, however transitory. Sacrifice of mobility. Sacrifice of the bodily functions: speech, manners, fine motor control, continence. Sacrifice of the pleasures of the flesh — perhaps the greatest of all for a man perpetually in love with brandy and having his cock sucked dry. Yet he would not emulate the Buddhists, with their abandonment of self before passage into Nirvana. His plan was not modeled after the Catholics, with their subjugation to the altruism of Jesus of Nazareth. He could not, has not, neglected the inherent concept of self.

  On the contrary, self is to be the very cornerstone of his religion.

  Such a bold concept.

  Looking back this Christmas Eve, he sees just what a gamble it is. How easily it could all come to naught. Tomorrow, the chosen day, he could just as easily die as transcend. By the end of the week, he could be in a grave, not at the center of the universe he would fashion after himself. Yet isn’t all of life a gamble? Isn’t it only the losers who never lay their money down and give the wheel of life a spin?

  In the hall, the voices of his relatives fade and are gone, replaced by the convalescent home’s normal background moaning and whimpering.

  Through the window, he sees December darkness settling in. When he concentrates, he can actually hear the snowflakes fall. Angels walking across the clouds would make such sweet sounds, he whimsically supposes.

  He imagines it is very cold out there, and he’s overheard someone say a good blanketing of snow is predicted. A white Christmas, after all. A very nice touch, he thinks. Very symbolic, in a purifying sort of way.

  At 4:30, the lights come on, chasing the shadows away. There is never honest darkness in the home, only degrees and zones of light.

  At 6:20 Sally pokes her head in and concludes he is snoozing, all is well.

  At 7:35, the strains of carolers from the local Methodist church. They are outside the front door.

  At 7:55, the carolers departing in a flurry of holiday cheer.

  At 10:15, bits and pieces of Sally talking on the phone, reluctantly agreeing to work a double shift.

  At 11:30, the distinctive voice of a man he once adored, Jay Leno, coming from the staff lounge TV.

  At midnight, the hail clock striking twelve.

  At 1 a.m., nothing.

  At 2, nothing.

  He is fully awake now, almost painfully conscious. The first traces of doubt are beginning to creep into his mind when he thinks he feels it: a twinge in his chest.

  At first, it is only a minor irritation. He’s had worse from indigestion.

  But soon, it is a galloping pain. The burning shoots up and down his arms, his legs, through his neck, penetrating his skull. His breath grows short, labored. A heavy sweat glistens his face, his armpits, his crotch. His head feels suddenly very light. Something smells foul, like rotted meat. He recognizes these as the classic symptoms of a heart attack, but he prays that is not what is happening.

  Please! he begs.

  His body obliges. The pain crescendos, building on itself, until it has blocked all other fleshly sensations.

  With a wheeze like the last turn of an old diesel engine, his breathing stops.

  There is silence.

  Then the neurons begin their death dance, telegraphing his muscles to begin twitching. At first, the muscles merely flex, as if the organism is only mildly annoyed. But very quickly, he is engulfed in spasms — violent, lurching, head-to-toe spasms that rattle the metal frame of his bed with a clatter that can be heard at the nurses’ station. There is a gurgling sound and his mouth gushes blood. His jaw snaps open and shut, open and shut, his teeth clicking, his mouth frothing like a fish yanked from water.

  His sweat is profuse now, and it is tinged with crimson. His heart is pumping like a mad thing, pumping so hard his chest actually thumps from the raw power of it. Capillaries are bursting everywhere with the sudden pressure. The veins on his forehead bulge like tiny fire hoses.

  Without fanfare, his heart gives up.

  His muscles relax.

  Immediately, he starts to cool.

  From inside the crumpled shell of his earthly remains, he has been observing in an almost detached manner.

  This had been one of the biggest unknowns: how would it feel? He can tolerate pain, but there are worst feelings than pain. Nothingness would be worse than pain. A gradual loss of consciousness would be worse than pain. Suddenly encountering a rival god — a false idol — would be much worse than pain.

  (Saint Peter don’t you call me, fragments of a long-forgotten song, echo bizarrely.)

  But there is nothing like that. His thoughts are pleasant, fluffy, non-hurried affairs. At first, they remind him of riding first class in a train that glides noiselessly through a forest. He is alone, the entire train to himself. Without warning, he is heading into a tunnel. Silent still, the train hurtles along, surrounded not by darkness but by a welcoming bluish glow.

  He begins to shrivel, much as an orange will shrivel when left unrefrigerated.

  His fingers and toes retreat into his hands and feet. His limbs collapse into his torso, his head into his neck, his neck into his shoulders. His hair recedes to nothingness. His skin takes on the texture and tinge of water-soaked parchment. The process stops when he is the size of a melon, stranded comically in the center of his bed. It is impossible to determine how much he weighs any more, if he weighs anything at all. It is entirely possible he is two-dimensional.

  Will anybody notice?

  This had been another gamble. He’s had no way of predicting if his god would be visible. That is critical. Even the Buddha, a highly introspective deity, made sure he was seen.

  He cannot see himself any longer. But he can hear.

  He hears the screams of Sally discovering him. Her panic penetrates, but only barely.

  “Oh my God!” she screams, unaware of the irony.

  She touches him, lightning-quick, the way she might touch a radiator to see if it were hot. As if somehow that will make the nightmare go away.

  It doesn’t. If anything, the thing on the bed seems to be taking on a new form, a new gloss and density. It is shimmering now. It must be getting ready to do something. She doesn’t know what, only that it will be awful.

  She has to get away. Yes. She has to get help. They have to stop it before ... before...

  She doesn’t finish her thought. Through her fear, she is aware of a new sensation. A humming. It seems to fill the room, resonating off the walls, rattling the window panes and the steel rails of the bed. She has to get out.

  Her legs thaw, and she begins to back away from it. She is almost to the door when she can get no further. Yet another sensation: this time, of being pulled. Of being ... suctioned. Slowly, she is being dragged back toward it.

  A bizarre image pops into her mind. It is a
childhood memory, the time she was very naughty and went after the cat with a vacuum cleaner, chasing it into a corner, the animal leaping and clawing as it tries to evade her, its mewling and spitting when she finally has it trapped. Then, a wicked smile on her face, its tail disappearing slowly inside the hose.

  The force is increasing.

  She is knocked to the floor. She is bleeding profusely from a cut on her head. She is on her back, her eyes locked onto the ceiling, her face pallid and sweaty. She is trying to grab onto something, anything, but there is only polished hardwood floor. Her fingernails find a crack, and for a moment, she is able to resist. Then the force picks up a notch. Four of her fingernails are ripped off. With a giant whoosh, she is sucked onto the mattress.

  Now she is next to it. Now she can feel its intense heat, like a furnace. The heat seems to burn its way through her skull and into her head. Consciousness is singed away. Her last thought is of a cat, its fur on end, its tiny cat’s brain flooded with terror. Foot-first, she is sucked into the vortex of the god he has created. There is the sound of small bones being crushed as her toes disappear inside. The sounds are louder as if consumes her shins, knees, upper legs, hips, ribs, neck. It’s as if she were being fed through an invisible rolling mill, a sheet of textile disappearing into the bowels of a finishing plant.

  It is over. There is no trace of the sacrifice: no blood, no flecks of tissue, no bits or pieces of skeleton or bone. A faint odor that could be electricity is all that remains.

  Sally has achieved sainthood. Saint Sally, the floppy-fitted.

  Let us pray.

  The God of Self is pleased, but his appetite is nowhere near satiated.

  It is as has been pre-ordained: only a beginning. No matter how small, the God of Self understands, every religion requires its congregation. Every Supreme Being demands worship — endless, unconditional worship — or he cannot, by definition, be divine.

  In the nurses’ station, Sally’s shift mates have heard the commotion. They head down the hail to investigate.

  On the drive back to Boston two grandchildren abruptly pull off the road. Without a word of discussion, they turn the car around.

  Asleep, Grandma has a compelling dream. In the morning, she will ask her chauffeur to prepare for the trip north.

  Inebriated after the party she has attended, his daughter feels sudden pangs of guilt. Crying, she vows to her equally drunk husband that they will make the drive tomorrow morning in time for Christmas dinner, come hell or highwater. She cannot explain the urge to bring candles, but she will bring them.

  There are many others, too: former work colleagues, gold buddies, a barber, a lawyer, beautiful women.

  Omniscient, he knows all this. He is greatly pleased.

  Secure in his temple, the God of Self rests from what he has created and sanctified, and looks forward to the dawning of a bright and glorious new day.

  Gnawing

  August 23

  Dear Herbert,

  Mother, I fear, has taken a turn for the worse.

  Until this afternoon’s visit to Dr. Morton, I had hoped and prayed that her present condition would be temporary. Since the first signs of her decline (ten full years now, can it possibly be true?) she has had her spells, as you well know. But she’s always bounced back, Mother has, as you know. She has fought off her pneumonias, has learned to live with her arthritis, has been successfully treated for her sugar and thin blood, has broken her hip and come through the subsequent operation with those proverbial flying colors. A woman of great courage and mettle, to use your very words.

  I fear we’ll not be so lucky this time, Herbert.

  You see, Mother is going senile. Just like Father, God rest his soul.

  If Dr. Morton is proved correct, this will be a progressively worsening condition without hope of treatment or cure. The best we dare ask is that things go slowly and gently, and that Mother have no insight into what will befall her with the passage of time.

  Understand that I refer not to her forgetfulness, her frequent lapses in memory.

  Mother has always been absentminded, just as she has always had a temper, as I need not remind you. Certainly you remember when we were children, the sister and little brother (partners in crime, as it were!), scampering across the lawn on a summer’s eve after dinner was finished and Father off to his club. Playing hide and seek as the sun dipped behind the hills and a rind of moon was taking its place. Can’t you still picture those nights, the sunset like the inside of a kaleidoscope, the fireflies lighting the dusk with Oriental elegance, the wind warm and smelling of fresh-mown grass, and Mother — Mother, God bless her! — forgetting all about us as she lost herself in one of her oils. And then, long after dark, her finally remembering, running screaming onto the porch, cursing the hour and our miscreance, laying in with wooden spoon on my bare bottom until the tears flowed and it was impossible to sit. Blaming me for leading my younger brother astray.

  Forgive my rattling on so. What I am leading up to is that the latest development has little or nothing to do with memory, but with imagination — that region of the brain, Dr. Morton reveals, most likely to be affected at the onset of senility.

  Mother, you see, insists there is something inside her head. Something gnawing and scratching, like squirrels in the attic.

  That is how she described it the first time. Those were her words, exactly: “Like squirrels in the attic.” I realize how absurdly comical this must sound. Let me assure you that I, too, would be laughing, were she not so deadly serious about the matter.

  One night last week, about 11 o’clock in the evening, was the first time Mother said she heard it. She had been asleep since 8:30, her regular bedtime since her health started to go, and was sleeping comfortably as best I can determine.

  Suddenly: screaming, the likes of which I have never heard.

  At first, I did not recognize it as Mother. When I say I have never heard a sound so filled with terror and pain, believe that I am telling the truth.

  I ran up the stairs to her room. Herbert, it was a sight I pray never again to see. She was on the floor, strangled in her bedcovers, writhing as she clutched her head with both hands. The room was dim, but the fright in her eyes was unmistakable.

  “Make it go away! Make it go away! Make it go away” she was yelling.

  “What, Mother?” I asked, the panic mounting.

  ‘Make it go away” she kept yelling. I will carry those words with me to my grave, I swear.

  “What, Mother?” I repeated.

  “The gnawing!”

  ‘What gnawing?’

  “Inside my head!”

  ”Now, Mother,” I said, trying to soothe, but to no avail.

  Dr. Morton was there not ten minutes after I telephoned. He was able to calm her after a bit, and eventually she found an uneasy sleep. The Ambien had a large hand in that, I suspect.

  The next two nights I listened carefully, apprehensively, but there was nothing. Then came the weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday, the incident repeated itself. Today, Monday, Dr. Morton saw her in his office.

  “I have to conclude she’s going senile,” he confided.

  “Oh, Lord.”

  ‘I’m sorry, Ruth,” he said, trying to comfort. “But she is 87. Senility isn’t that unusual at that age.”

  “Is there anything we can do?” I felt such desperation.

  “I’m afraid nothing, only ease the passage.”

  So there it is, Herbert.

  Except for these developments with Mother, little is new or different here. Things never are in this part of New Hampshire. We’ve just passed through a terribly sticky spell (those infernal dog days of summer!), but now it is cooler, less humid, and the garden is in full bloom. You know how Mother loves flowers. She had her usual garden this year, although I admit to doing most of the planting, and I have been the one to keep up with the weeding and pruning. Asters, zinnias, marigolds, geraniums, roses — oh! those roses. As spectacular and majestic as
ever.

  I do hope you can visit us soon; it’s been such a long while. I know how busy you are, but just think how Mother’s face would light up at the sight of yours! You always were her favorite. I say that with utmost respect.

  Love,

  Sis

  September 22

  Dear Herbert,

  Ah, New England autumn!

  What a glorious time of the year, the pumpkins ripening, the nights crisp, the days still warm, the fall foliage all afire! What a show this year! I’ve sampled the season’s first cider from Hillside Orchards, and it is wonderful as always. And believe it or not, we are getting a last bloom on the roses. In the years before he took ill, Father, God rest his soul, certainly knew how to choose his stock.

  I know how concerned you must be about Mother, and I wish I had happier tidings. Alas, I do not. She is not improved.

  She still thinks there’s something inside her head.

  In fact, she is becoming possessed by this notion. Not that it is on her mind every minute of every day, don’t get me wrong; there seems no rhyme or reason to her spells. Some days, she passes the time as always, propped up in her chair, afghan around her, watching TV, or doing the best her poor hands will allow her with one of her oils.

  Other days, she goes on and on about the gnawing. It’s no longer just nighttimes.

  “Make it go away!” she will shriek, clutching frantically at her, ears, her forehead, the back of her neck.

  “But Mother, there’s nothing there,” I’ll say in my gentlest but firmest voice. But inside, Herbert, I’m a wreck.

  “Something’s gnawing at my brain! Make it go away!”

  “It’s must be a headache.”

  “It’s no goddamn headache, I tell you! There’s something in there! Now make it go away! Make it go away! Oh, Lord ...”

  And then she collapses, sobbing and quivering so violently that the floor itself shakes. It’s then that I give her two of those yellow pills Dr. Morton prescribed.

  There are other symptoms of her encroaching senility, as well. Sometimes she forgets who I am.