The Color Over Occam

by Jonathan Thomas

  As I trudged ahead to the inner sanctum door, also gaping open like the jaws of malice, I might have wrung some cheer from the insight that the dive must have yielded valuable results. And jangled a few autocratic and/or extraterrestrial nerves. But I didn’t. Too numb even for that.

  This self-detachment helped me plant one foot in front of the other till brazenly illicit cigar smoke beclouded me. Or was shock taking premature hold to cushion me from the moment of reckoning? Westcott was seething speechless from across the glossy flatland of his mahogany desk, and the multi-paned windows were down, as if to make this preserve of Victorian elegance as stuffy and inhospitable as possible.

  To spare my eyes the glare of his, I averted them to the leather-and-walnut ladderback chair on my side of the desk. With an inward shrug, I presumed to sit. No use at this stage in standing on ceremony, was there? Anyway, that gesture broke the ice. “Go right ahead,” Westcott bristled, “but don’t plan on getting comfortable.”

  When it sank in that no smartmouth reply was forthcoming, he blustered, “You were warned!”

  “Yes, three or four times.” Was that correct? Keying my car, pulverizing its glass, censoring my letter to the editor, canceling my cable TV, busting up OGAM? Five, for starters. No matter. Westcott was off and haranguing on his long-stoked head of steam.

  “Have you the faintest clue about the amount of damage control we’re going through to stop that report from leaking out? To clean up your shit? The kinds of promises and deals it takes to hush something up at a state level?” He may not have trusted himself to rise and pace around with a deserving target like myself at hand. Maybe on his lawyer’s advice. But his cheeks were burning, his basset hound nostrils flared, his jowls were trembling, and so was his desk, whose edge he gripped with ivory knuckles.

  “But what the fuck do you care? You’re only technically a town resident. You’re not affected by it out in the woods, so what’s it to you if everyone else’s property turns to worthless crap? Just because of your crazy speculations? You’re a reckless idiot like the rest of those radical environmentalist bastards. Do you remember what happened to the price of land around Love Canal?” Couldn’t tell if he was pausing for rhetorical impact or awaiting a repentant answer.

  “I remember what happened to the people around Love Canal.”

  “Well, this isn’t Love Canal!” His spray hung sparkling between us in the shafts of sunshine from behind. “We could sue you for fraud, for malfeasance, for misuse of your nonexistent authority by recruiting those divers. We won’t, because this mess has to die quickly and quietly. But that’s as far as the good news goes for you.” His present gloating pause was definitely aiming for dramatic effect. With it came my one likely opportunity to steal some of the s.o.b.’s thunder.

  “Strictly speaking, I work for Mr. Marsh. Shouldn’t he be firing me? Is he aware I’m here?”

  “You don’t think I have the power to bounce your ass to the curb?” he thundered. “When you get the boot I don’t want it to be a senile asthmatic whisper. You’re hearing it loud and clear.” He found himself halfway out of his chair, reconsidered, and plopped back down. “I bet you think I’m an asshole, don’t you? You want to know why I’m an asshole? Because I can be. Because everyone is, to the extent the market can bear. Including you, if you were in my shoes. Look at the way you tried dragging Water Resources into this. Except you’re not and never will be an asshole in my exalted position. So here are your options. Exit the building immediately, without talking to anybody or doing anything on your way, and never set foot in here again. Or security can throw you out.”

  I nodded and the chair scraped crassly on the hardwood as I got up. “Before I go, though, would you mind telling me if you even glanced at that water quality report?”

  He reached for his shiny black phone.

  “Okay, forget it, I’m going.” He stayed his hand, but not his acid glare at me. “You’re only human.” I swiveled about and never looked back. If Westcott was wondering what the hell I meant, he kept it to himself.

  Just as well. I’d have been hard-pressed to disguise what I was actually saying, that he was completely, merely human. Occam’s razor had cut to the marrow once more. No need to posit alien influence on third-floor mentality, when disordered Yankee priorities, shortsightedness, and narrow minds covered all the bases. Another cherished paradigm lost. City Hall was not a beachhead for cosmic trespassers. This late in the game, infusion with the “color,” as Professor Thayer coined it, would have left its telltale stain. As it had on poor unlovable Edward Orne, whom I always seemed to pass on the stairs, and who today was rooted to the second-floor landing, clutching the rail, too dazed or fatigued to climb farther. Blind to me, but not due to reflex arrogance. His gray lips were busily contorting into shapes that wouldn’t have produced syllables in English, had he been vocalizing them. These mouthings might have been the visible spillover of soundless communication with fellow vectors of the “color.” Or they might have reflected his semi-human exertions to process whatever unearthly vista his infested vision was showing him in lieu of a staircase. His fixated pupils reminded me of gaping black pits, manifesting his entrapment in a torturous, profane variety of out-of-body experience.

  No problem in this case complying with Westcott’s demand to broach no conversations. On ground level, I clocked out, violating Westcott’s injunction to do nothing, but met with no opposition from uniformed goons.

  Brilliant sunlight beating down on glazed brick plaza out front presented too drastic a contrast with my wretched morning. Sent me into emotional tailspin. Manfully sought to regain control of the figurative joystick. Monetarily, the forecast wasn’t dire yet. Like anybody else in my straits, I’d be putting in a claim to collect. Had a hunch it wouldn’t be contested, lest I wind up in court, where the facts of municipal cover-up would hemorrhage gruesomely into the public record. On another bright note, I never had to wait for coffee break again to skulk off and make personal calls. And I also had a blank slate on which to pencil in that hike to the haunted shack by the reservoir.

  21

  With nothing but freedom on my horizon, I had no heart to go anywhere except home. Warmed up my eMac, which knocked phoning Herb off the top of my to-do list. His e-mail had arrived at 9:40. Pretty much the moment I was getting canned.

  He engaged in minimal preamble. Hoped I was well, the Aviator sure was a trip, trusting I wasn’t pulled over for DWI. Attached please find a précis of the dive-team leader’s report. Kudos for persistence in shedding light on this situation, and prepare yourself, it reads like an episode of X-Files. That’s how it felt to Herb, and he had stayed aboard the launch, fathoms above the action:

  By approx. 8:30 P.M. (at least 2 hr. after dark) the boat was offloaded from the trailer into the water. Herbert Metcalfe of the Parks Department accompanied us as guide. Another hour elapsed in finding the general “ballpark” and cruising back and forth to locate purported “hotspots” of hazardous material(s).

  When a luminous streak or patch shone several yards off the starboard bow, we could not resolve whether or not we had previously traversed that area and seen nothing. The flashes were concordant with the low-temperature combustion of methane and phosphine gas released by the decay of organic matter, alias a “will-o’-the-wisp.” In keeping with folklore, the luminosity seemed to behave capriciously, i.e., it repeatedly vanished and reappeared at random places around the boat. In addition, it initially floated on the surface like a chemical slick, but on sustained viewing shifted to various depths, as if daring or enticing us to give chase. It was reasonable to conclude that we were anthropomorphizing the visual effects of chemiluminescence refracted through cross-ripples from the wake of our zigzagging boat.

  The dive went ahead, if only to verify the source of the methane. The four of us who participated can all vouch for the accuracy of my sometimes outlandish-sounding disclosures. For brevity, I will i.d. individuals, when necessary, by their initials. We learned ri
ght away that the antics of our “will-o’-the-wisp” must have been an optical trick, because as long as we regarded the phenomenon through our scuba masks, it nestled immobile in a circular structure that proved to be a well. However, becoming stationary made this “will-o’-the-wisp” no less off-putting and no less illusively alive. It was already a given that we were contending with more than swamp gas. Based on the agitated probings of our flashlights here and there, it was safe to conjecture we labored under a common anxiety in our descent toward the glow. (I say “conjecture” because we restricted ourselves to communicating information rather than emotional states on our person-to-person radios.)

  We had our first material indication of “troubled waters” when our roving LEDs found a fish. Rather than darting away, it swam along listlessly in the beam from D. R., with a diseased, inefficient kind of shimmying. This was attributable to ping-pong ball–sized lumps on its side and at the base of a pectoral fin, and to the crippling 45° bend in its spine. Because of these deformities and the unhealthy, uniform gray of its skin, classifying this specimen as a bass must remain an educated guess. The fish maintained its lethargic course, even as D. R. approached it, holding out her flashlight. It made no effort to elude being nudged by the flashlight, but on contact, a good part of its flank broke loose and sank, presenting a homogeneous consistency as of plaster or compressed ash. The main portion of the bass proceeded as if insensible of what had happened, though it was unable to continue in a straight line and also sank from sight, casting off a trail of gray flakes, unfortunately before any of us could regain the composure to try containing the specimen. A. G., however, did shoot confirmatory video, as he attempted to do from then on (vide infra). We noted more fish in the distance, but voted to concentrate on the putative cause of their condition, several fathoms below.

  Comparing our impressions later, we all felt more unwelcome, and more disliked, the closer we dove to the bottom. At the same time, we experienced an involuntary, almost hypnotic pull toward the glow, which on nearer view resembled smoke of indeterminate color that cohered unnaturally, as if heavier than the water on top of it. Our subjective conflict of attraction and repulsion persisted for the duration of the dive. On the other hand, before we ventured any farther, the Geiger counter provided reassurance on one front, i.e., the site was not radioactive.

  We attained a depth where careless overuse of our flippers should have raised too much sediment off the lake floor to see through, which might have been a happy accident, in retrospect. Technically, our environment was safe. Spot tests for pH, bacteria, and medical and industrial waste produced results within normal range, consistent with routine state and local analyses. Contrarily, everything preying on our nerves had us bracing for serious danger. Our “will-o’-the-wisp” never budged from its shallow cylinder of the fieldstone well, peeking over its lip like a cork plugging a bottle, but none of us trusted it to stay put. Nor were we in any hurry to come within arm’s length, even if it was our logical focus.

  Between our LEDs and the twilight surrounding the well, we were able to distinguish a nearby house foundation, rectangular, and scarcely exceeding the dimensions of a cottage, and at the edge of visibility, the much bigger square foundation of a barn. As a rule, our actions would have produced some turbidity, but the silt in a wide swath around the well was sticky as tar, porous like French bread, and oily black, releasing only an iridescent bubble from time to time.

  A white, haphazardly woven texture in the black made for a grisly contrast, upon our realization that it was a multitude of bones, similar to a fossil record of disaster, and though distorted and fragmented as if by geologic processes, these were recent and mostly no problem to classify. Many were of geese, and of mammals ranging in size from deer and coyote down to possum, raccoon, cat, and squirrel. Smaller rodents, birds, and fish were also plentiful, without being recognizable in terms of species. Immediately beside the well lay a human skeleton that must have predated much of the deposition, because most of it had sunk into the muck, except for the crown of the skull, a few tubercular-looking ribs, and a badly worn pelvic bone. Adhering to the letter of the law, we did not disturb these human remains, insofar as they might constitute a crime scene, regardless of their number of decades here. In collecting samples of the black silt, some small bones were necessarily admixed; otherwise we declined to acquire larger bones, in order to avoid gratuitous contact with the noxious sediment.

  Regrettably, no video exists of the “mass grave” or of the well and its contents. Fluctuating, amorphous areas of “dropout” marred all such footage on playback, and for these I have to blame the luminosity, though no difficulties were apparent to A. G. while shooting. Then, as now, we had no idea what we were facing, and only a few as to what we weren’t. Nothing radioactive (as the Geiger counter revealed) and no manufactured compound (to our knowledge) would be acting as a fatal attractant upon wildlife and human alike. Our one brittle, tumescent fish, however, had demonstrated a toxicity as potentially severe as that of radium or dioxin.

  The embedded human ribs we treated as extempore cordon between ourselves and the well, and even that much proximity may have been reckless. Hopefully, no physical repercussions will come of short-term exposure to the anomaly. Its effects on our mood, in the meantime, were becoming more pronounced, as if it could emit negativity, and its properties were proving more enigmatic and, in direct proportion, more disturbing.

  A. G., who had the phenomenon under the most intensive observation via his camcorder, had become motionless at some indeterminate point, as if catatonic or mesmerized. D. R. shook his shoulder, and A. G. showed brief signs of disorientation, after which his behavior gave us no cause for concern; he denied knowledge of going into any kind of trance or altered state.

  During visual appraisal, the color of the phenomenon switched arbitrarily from blue to beige to pink to gray, or approximations of these, rather, as if our eyes were repeatedly failing to register some wavelength for which they were not equipped. However, the interplay of the light sticks in our belts, our LEDs, and the tint of our masks may have been at fault.

  There was less room for ambiguity in our finding that nothing in the well was casting the glow, that the well held nothing but the glow, which within its circumference flexed, and winked, and churned so as to suggest prismatic planes as much as vapor or smoke. On the premise that the glow might consist of particles, C. W. briefly experimented with trapping some of it in a sample vial. Pinching the plastic base between thumb and fingertip, he scooped gingerly into the edge of the brightness. He pulled away an empty vial, and while the rest of us can vouch for his care in avoiding fleshly contact, he complained of a concurrent acute sensation sliding across the heel of his hand; whether it was freezing or burning he could not say, but it inflicted an ugly red soreness in an unusual stippled pattern (he is under medical surveillance for additional pathologic changes).

  We were also aware of a worrisome new development, or perhaps we had slowly become sensitized to something present all along but verging on subliminal. Previously we had thought in terms of a discrete phenomenon with a definite boundary and generating some modest candlepower, whereas now we perceived that the luminosity was not confined to the well but only most condensed within it, and gradually diffusing beyond it, such that we were floating in its attenuated but implicitly harmful range.

  I doubt that I alone was guilty of anthropomorphizing again, in crediting a luminous force with “tricking” and “catching” us. To the degree my comrades’ expressions were readable behind tinted plastic, I would say we were united in dismay. We had foremost to resist any urge to decamp prematurely. I promptly ran through our checklist of tests and procedures, and only after confirmation of mission accomplished did we resurface. Everyone later confessed to some relief at escaping the expansive luminous zone unscathed by another mysterious discharge like the one that had stung C. W. Moreover, the dive team will undergo medical follow-up for the next six months, to ascertain any s
equelae after being enveloped in the inexplicable glow. At least no early-onset symptoms have been reported.

  Results of sample analyses and tests are still several days away, and need to be collated with our anecdotal and preliminary findings; interpretations and conclusions will come still later, before state government can mandate a plan of action. These several preparatory steps, while scientifically compulsory, may prove too time-consuming in terms of the public interest. Given our fundamental ignorance of the luminous agency, its documented mutagenic and irritant effects, and our present inability to measure its dispersal beyond the reservoir, I would advocate a ban on human and agricultural consumption of the Gorman County water, until sufficient understanding of the problem allows us to neutralize or remove it.

  Randolph Angell

  Dive-Team Coordinator

  For the Mass. Water Resources Authority

  X-Files indeed. Vindication was mine. To bask in it for a long-deferred respite wasn’t asking too much, aside from pyrrhic upshot of livelihood down the drain, everything else in my life laid waste. Nope, my affect was flatter than morning-after beer. Herb had appended a few chatty lines more before signing off. He hoped none of this would get back to my bosses. Could only grimace sportingly at that. In case he hadn’t passed it along yet, here was his home phone so I could call this evening after business hours. And don’t forget, he’d gladly guide me to that “haunted hovel” in the forest, at my convenience, even if it didn’t clinch his fifteen minutes of local-access fame. His closing exhortation of “Stick to Your Guns, It’s Paying Off” smacked of Boy Scouts more than park rangers, but maybe I wasn’t being fair. He hadn’t had the rug pulled out from under him yet. Why spoil his sunny illusion? Official channels would do that for him all too soon. No need for him to associate me with that lesson in realpolitik.