A Mythos Grimmly

by Morgan Griffith

  In her hands, he becomes something More.

  Muscle and bone are trivial in their mortality, he reaches beyond both things, flexible without the need of contrived joints and pulleys. He can do anything with this body, fashion it into any shape he likes, and he finds he likes many. In many guises he walks through the rows of those yet sleeping, those who need waking. His fingers long to stir them from their slumbers, but she tells him no, tells him wait, and he waits, for what is time? It matters little to them, they who are so very powerful beneath the vast skies.

  Black stars in black heavens, and Ismail knows he has never seen anything so beautiful until he finds himself once again seeking her face, but she has none. Never needed one when she could inhabit all. The flicker of moonlight skin through parting hair teases him closer, until his hands close into her, until she wraps around him in answer, presses him down into the rot of the room, and subsumes everything he once called his own. No longer--he is something More: concave and convex, capable of filling and being filled, flowing within and without, filled though empty.

  He rises newborn and understands what is left to him, what she will bid him do. And though he understands, he weeps for the last time, knowing he will soon no longer be capable of such mortal things.

  ___

  Chimney: Fifteen hundred feet of refractory bricks, drawing air and gas into perfect toxic exhalations against skies foggy or clear. The flue, once again no wider than shoulders. Deep grooves within the flue's inner stone walls, worn by two feet still relatively mortal. Then.

  Soot and flesh cake every stone, burrowing into crevices where the two soon become one and the same. Words traced unseen into the mess--was nicht umgebracht wird, ist nicht wirklich tot.

  ___

  The salt sea cracks beneath his feet, ancient rings of power further destroyed as he moves away from the iron tower. His shadow on the ground is her shadow on the ground, hair spooling in his wake, stroking the stars down from the sky. His mouth holds the curve of her mouth, pleased and terrified both. He does not look back, for the tower has become an abomination to him; it only kept him from wandering, only kept him from spreading. The line of the tower runs down his spine, long to harden to metal, but sensation and tower no longer draw his attention as they once did. He moves ever forward, toward his trusty ship and once there, takes again to the stars.

  They are imperfect in their brightnesses against the black of the void, but this will soon be repaired, as would everything be. He never once looks at the planet he leaves; it too is full of imperfection, of doubts, despite it being his birthplace. He never once looks back, only guides himself toward the horrible glow of the system's sun (a radiant egg perched on the rim of a mud crater), and sets his engines to overload.

  The blow is staggering. But his body is no longer his body, and there is no agony even as he is ripped asunder. He becomes the stars, becomes the meteor, the bright burst streaking through all the night skies. He finds himself lodged in places he has known before, his hands pressed against a marble capstone where they will imprint words, his belly echoing the hollow metal curve within a fleetfoot, his feet pressed pale against a burning iron bowl. His prints are eaten from his skin, his body (concave and convex, filled and filling) made and unmade in a hundred thousand nightmares across a thousand million universes. The children cry his name in writhing terror until he is nameless in all his towers, until he bids them: seek me, for that which was not killed, is not dead.

  ___

  The black bramble wood before the iron tower: Clawed from the earth when the stars rained down, brambles as black as the world behind eyes when closed. Every bramble thorned, awaiting the kiss of a prince's blade, a kiss that may never come. A river from the window in the tower's stony side: loose hair, a cupped hand.

  “Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”

  ―Franz Kafka

  I am…

  Waking in fire.

  I feel eternally in flame.

  My breath rises from singed lungs, climbing my esophagus, exiting in clipped bleats from a throat scarred by smoke. I feel I am gagging just to breathe. I feel I am drowning in fire.

  I am drowning in fire.

  Somebody says, “Calm down, Miss. Calm down. I’ll get the doctor.”

  I am in a hospital. As my eyelids flutter open, my vision is blurred, though the room is dark. Perhaps my perception is skewed by the darkness; a cloying, pervasive darkness. Yet, I sense I’ve not used my eyes in a while.

  How long? I do not know.

  The skin of my face and neck sings a song of severe distress. My brain takes the flood of input and swerves toward shutting down, but I stall it. I hold my breath and stall everything. Though my nerve endings attempt to scatter, seek refuge in the internal sanctuary of blood, viscera, and possibly soul, it is to no avail. This song must be endured. This pain. This experience.

  Even with the chorus rising up in chattering, masticating timbres, gleefully gnawing on the chaos-filled realm of gray matter that is my brain, my mind—these spiraling, absurd thoughts--I am able to raise my left hand to my face, to feel the soft, coarse texture. Gauze, not skin.

  Then, I remember:

  “I told you never to enter this room, Elizabeth. Never.”

  Stafford was furious.

  My arms ache, twisted behind my back. I am tied to a hard, wooden chair. I stamp my feet on the ground, try to move. My exertion is muted: the heels of my shoes barely scratch the hardwood floor. Rope cuts into my shins. My message of frustration nothing more than indecipherable scribbles in dust.

  I realize instantly the futility of the act. For what purpose was the effort expended? Escape? I am tied to a chair, with a madman who I thought I loved having done the tying.

  “What are you doing?” I say. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  He laughs. It is not joy that fills the laughter. Something more devious, perhaps more lunatic.

  He is a lunatic.

  I should have known this from the beginning—dyed blood red hair; blue-tinted beard braided down to mid-chest; a jumble of indistinct tattoos up and down his arms, his neck; intensity that simmered always, as if to strike with cobra-quickness; occult interests that bordered on obsessive--but that lunacy was part of the attraction. Especially the occult interests, something I’d just gotten into, while he knew things, lots of things draped in obscurity. That said, all of this was a harbinger of the level of lunacy that abounded within his broken brain.

  “I told you never to enter this apartment. There are things you should never know. Never witness.”

  The apartment, part of Simmons Terrace, a complex in the battered part of town. The complex: a gift from his dear old dad before he passed. Number 234, second floor, far end of a worn green carpet hallway. Flickering light playing Catch Me If You Can with the moths, hanging askew from a sconce screwed into the wall, and missing some screws. Painted brown wooden door, smudged doorknob, cold to the touch; so cold it hurts, but that didn’t stop me from inserting the strange key.

  Entering a room of dust and secrets.

  A room of mystery and promise…

  “Miss? Elizabeth?” The voice is deep, cautious; it wears kid gloves.

  “Yes,” I say. My voice is rough. Charred, I expect.

  “How do you feel?” A light jab with the kid gloves, searching for answers that seem more than obvious to me.

  “Not well. Not right.” Strength is woven into the words. I scoot back, sit up taller. Prop myself up with pillows.

  “Careful,” he says, as my vision begins to clear.

  “What time is it? What day?”

  A hushed utterance is passed between the doctor and nurse. Though the room is dim—my vision adjusting, from dark to dim, but light is sparse--I can make out a Mickey Mouse barrette in the nurse’s hair. Bug-eyed, it stares at me.

  The doctor, a man with silver-trimmed temples and stern eyes, says, “Two thirty in the morning. August sixteenth.�
��

  I emit a groan of despair. A tone that scales my throat, its talons digging deep as it exits. I’ve been gone, for lack of a better word, since the sixth. When the incident happened…

  “I know, but…” Was I to lie to Stafford? Would he know I was lying?

  “No buts. I told you time and time again, never to enter this room. You promised you wouldn’t, yet here we are. After all my warnings, I had to leave, if only for three days. I left you the keys in case a tenant needed help or lost their keys, and pointed specifically to this one”—holding up the strange one (one of these does not go with the others) (mysteries and secrets; hush, hush)--“and to this apartment, and said, no. No. Never enter this apartment.” He paces in front of me, swinging what looks like a leather strap from his right hand, occasionally slapping it into his left, for emphasis.

  As he has just done.

  I pause, no words to say to appease him. Taking in the empty room, it is as it was when I entered. Bereft of anything of substance, of life. Not of this earth, I thought then and think again now. A different plane, perhaps.

  Except for the spirits of his former wives and girlfriends, who huddled in a scrum of knotted limbs, skin-eating decay, and filth in the far corner, watching. Evidence my perception that this is a different plane, an intersection between, well…simply between, confirmed by their presence.

  There is no use tip-toeing around the obvious.

  “How bad is the damage?” I say, expecting the worst, but the doctor’s expression crinkles oddly, confusing me. “Well?”

  He inhales deeply. The nurse turns away, stares at the door. As if she would rather be anywhere but here.

  “The…damage...” He stops, turns and looks to the door as well. What the hell, he’s a doctor. Give me the lowdown so I can move forward.

  Is there moving forward from this?

  “Tell me,” I say, trying to sound strong, but my voice cracks. It’s a tiny crack. The kind of barely noticeable crack that ends up breaching a wall, and the water flows; and annihilation smiles.

  “Fourth degree burns over your whole head, part of your neck and chest. You were rescued before it spread further.”

  Though he states the ugly facts, there’s an avoidance woven into his words that is the perfect partner to the crinkled expression he still wears.

  There’s something more, I’m sure.

  “What else?” My eyes moisten as I say this, uncertain if this event has altered too much of what I wanted from life. From my goals; my new goals. If this outward scarring would inhibit what I need to know.

  I am sobbing now, body quaking, uncontrollable.

  “There, now. Just rest.” This patented and pulled up from the black bag of by rote phrases signifying compassion bandied about as they seek their own means of escape. The doctor nods to the nurse, who approaches with a syringe.

  “No. Tell me what else is wrong,” I say, though the word “wrong” is chosen more for their comfort than meaning it is in any way elucidating the situation. I am not sure of anything at this point. What’s right or wrong or been altered besides my flesh, and does that really matter? Though I want answers, I don’t want to inspire more questions from them, or anybody.

  I say, “Fuck,” as I sense the tranquilizing fluid the nurse had injected into the IV spread like lava in my veins. More heat. More fire.

  I drift off within seconds to their soft putty faces wearing masks of caring.

  The dream is more a memory, continuing with the incident…

  I watch Stafford squat down and pick up something.

  I cannot tell what it is until he points it at me and squeezes. The shock of the smell, the bitter tang of the taste—lighter fluid.

  “What’s this?” I say, spitting fluid from my lips. He continues to drench me in the liquid. It burns before it is lit.

  “No! What are you doing, Stafford? Honey…”

  “Honey? You know what I am doing. Ending this as I have done before. Those who lose my trust, lose everything. That is the only way to keep the knowledge at bay. Humanity cannot know—”

  “I won’t tell anybody,” I say, fighting with lies, but not exactly. I need to know more, learn more, but right now is not the time to fend for my heart’s aspirations. Right now, I need to find a way out of this situation.

  “It doesn’t matter, Elizabeth. You know, and that’s one too many. You know too much after looking…in there,” he says, eyes angled down to my lap, where the ancient book rests, the substantial weight holding it in place. “I’ve had enough of trying to protect humanity from its power. I’ve had enough of being its caretaker.” He stops, laughs again. Rats scatter from the scrum of dead wives and girlfriends in the far corner, scamper along the floorboards. The dead wives and girlfriends dissipate; perhaps the rats carry their souls, trapped in this room forever.

  “No. Please. I just—”

  He squirts what remains of the lighter fluid all over the book and drops the empty can to the floor. It clanks, muted and hollow; the room echoes in response, but there’s no more noise from either. It settles stiffly next to a bright red fire extinguisher.

  At this point, all I am is perplexed. What exactly does he have planned?

  He reaches into his pocket and says, “I warned you this would not end well if you broke your promise.” He lights a match.

  There’s not ending well and there’s catastrophic. This was well beyond either.

  I scream.

  Voices rise from beneath me. The Henderson’s from 134. Newlyweds.

  Stafford tosses the lit match to the floor. It fizzles to a whisk of smoke. He takes the strap, whatever it is, and approaches me. He presses it over my eyes, pulling tight, tying it into knots at the back of my head. I can tell it is knots by his grunts, the effort he exerts.

  “What is this?”

  “I want you to remember what you’ve done,” he says, close to my right ear. It is not a whisper. I almost jump at his words, flinch from his presence.

  Confusion teethes on my thoughts. It seemed his intentions were to kill me, so what would there be to remember if I were dead?

  And what of the fire extinguisher?

  I hear the snick of another match come to life. As well as a heavier snick: the cocking of a trigger.

  I hear the voices below me, Vicki and Chuck who likes to be called Charles but everybody calls him Chuck. Their inflection wears a cowl of disorientation.

  I scream again, sensing part of Stafford’s path, but not all of it. Not wanting to know all of it. Not wanting to know what I already know of his lunatic ways.

  The voices remain distant, as if deciding on a plan of action. That’s when I remember the best way to get somebody’s attention.

  “Fire,” I yell, moments before the match ignites my face.

  Waking again, this time in a fog of fragmented memories and shadows culled from a Boschian nightmare.

  The world I’m sure Bosch lived in. Or perhaps Stafford.

  A world I expect I will need to get used to.

  One would think there would be curiosity at the damage, but not having seen what Stafford did to me, I contemplate what I can deal with. Having spoken to his dead wives and girlfriends, the coven of rotting spirits and minds gone to shit, I learned much about Stafford. Much about why the room was meant never to be explored.

  I did not understand the whole of it, and sense was made flimsy by this lack of understanding. Yet one knows when one is supposed to be at a certain place, at a certain time, in the broad scope of the world one lives in. A moment to swing the pendulum toward a truth I have searched for years to understand.

  I was not looking for what I found, but what I found is the key to who I am. I know it, whether I can explain it or not. Hence, my physical condition is only a hindrance if it impedes me from finding out more. I wonder if Stafford’s single shot sayonara and the message he intended would cripple my newfound quest.

  I had a seed of perception, but did not understand how to nurture it unt
il I found the book.

  “It holds secrets,” Darlene had said, needles dangling from her skeletal arms; from the mist of her being.

  “It opens doorways that should never be opened,” Kay said. Sweet Kay, tracing Stafford’s warning with a fingernail in the plume of her corroded breath.

  “He’ll take you before you learn how to use it,” Maria said. Clever Maria, a voice adorned in snippets of the knowledge. She knew something.

  “What is it?”

  “It is the key,” she said, stepping forward.

  “It is pure evil,” Doreene said, cowering as she did. She was barely there.

  “Evil is not what it is, foolish child,” Maria said, tsk-tsking Doreene, and the rest of them. “I will never understand what Stafford found appealing about you. Such a wilted flower. I suppose compliancy was all he really wanted from us.”

  “Shut up!” Doreene said, with the force of a blown dandelion.

  Turning her attention again to me, Maria said, “It is our only path to freedom—”

  “Not with what it awakens,” Darlene said. Maria turned to face her, stare with intent. Darlene faded, though I knew she was still there.

  “All you have to do is open it and read… Perhaps you are the one who is meant to awaken…” Her statement incomplete, yet the path she portended was clear.

  These thoughts waver as I notice a figure sitting in the darkness of the room.

  I wonder if the room is always dark, and why. And who fills the indistinct blob of the silhouette, when she speaks.

  “Darling,” she says. Mother.

  I am…

  Light made of heat made of stars going supernova in the condensed, concentrated realm of my head. The head of a lit match, hypnotic as it shimmies, made flesh.

  It is a heat that turns flesh to liquid, to melting wax. Visceral turbulence etched with splintered nails like branding irons into my face; ripping, tearing. Deep down the trauma hounds feast on the patches of gristle and blackening bone. The skull beneath the bubbling epidermal lava. Not much to turn to fat there, but tidbits they lap with eager tongues.