by Albert Berg
of David's delusion bleeding over into my subconscious, but it felt...so real. It was a sudden powerlessness, that's really the only thing I can say to explain it. But it was almost tangible, as if an alien force had taken hold of my being and turned my will like a rudder.
And it scared me. And I thought, if that's what David's dealing with, if that's what he's facing off against, maybe I don't want to get any closer to it than I have to. But it didn't matter. In the end, none of it mattered.
December rolled around, and with it all the hustle and bustle of Christmas, but I wasn't feeling particularly joyful. David was all the family I had left in the world, and though he was still alive, he had gone to a place I dared not follow.
Business at the restaurant had picked up with the season, and I was running non-stop trying to keep everything running smooth. But in the back of my mind, David was there, hunched over those manuscripts, the pile of notebooks growing mountainous behind him.
It occurs to me now that he must have left that table, that he must have gone out once in a while if only to forage for food and buy more notebooks. Of course by the time I found him that last time he was emaciated almost beyond recognition, but he must have eating something, right?
But it doesn't feel right to think of him outside of that house. He was a prisoner in every real sense of the word, the chains in his mind holding him in one place as surely as any physical manacles ever could.
And on Christmas Eve, I got the text. It came through sometime around three o'clock, but by the time I saw it, it was nearly one in the morning, and I was exhausted from the long day's work.
It read simply this: "Gone Fishing."
And I should have rushed over there right then. I don't know if it would have made a difference, but...anyway, the only thing I can tell is what happened. And what happened is this. I read the message, turned off the light, and went to bed. And did I dream that night? Did I see a fisherman in his boat being sucked down into dark water where all the fish were hungry for flesh?
Who can tell?
And it was only later that I allowed myself to think of David again, going on lunchtime when I picked up my phone and happened to glance again at the message he had sent. And only then did I fully understand. Only then did I grab my winter coat against the chill air and rush over to his house.
The streets are eerily empty on Christmas Day. You can almost imagine yourself the survivor of some horrific apocalypse, driving alone through the wasteland of a world once glorious. And today it meant that I could floor it, taking the car up to ridiculous speeds.
It occurs to me that I should have been pulled over at some point during that ride. With so few cars on the road, there must have been some cop along the path I traveled watching for speed demons like me tearing up and down the quiet streets. But there was no one. I sped on through without a hitch, the red lights seeming to turn green just for me, all the intersections open.
And when I got to David's house, when I pulled up in the driveway, as breathless as if I had run the whole way instead of driving, I already knew what I would find.
David was sitting there at the table slumped over one of the notebooks with a pen in his hand. It might have been the pose of a man who had fallen asleep in the midst of the exertion of writing if not for the knife buried in his back all the way to the handle. It was a knife I recognized, one from David's kitchen.
I stepped closer a little at a time, careful to avoid the pool of coagulated blood on the floor. And there, on the table, I saw something else.
It was the recorder, the one David had used to record all of his conversations for his endless notebooks. It had a thin piece of scotch tape affixed to the front with two words written on it: "Play Me." I would be lying if I said that the image of Alice and her bottles and cakes didn't cross my mind then.
And while I could have reached for the phone in my pocket and called the police I didn't. Instead, I reached out and hit, "play."
At first there was nothing but white noise. Then David's voice came on:
"It all started when Celia died. No, that's not true actually. I really started...before. When I wrote this story. Just a little thing. I was excited about it, but Celia thought...well anyway it was a little more than I'd usually do. Sort of violent in a psychological way. And the main character...well he didn't get off so well. Because it was his wife I killed off. She was murdered. With her throat slit wide open from ear to ear.
And Celia...when they found her like that...you can imagine what went through my mind. But that kind of thing...it's only for crazy people right? So I went on like normal, as well as I could for a while. But all the time, I can't explain it, but I had the feeling I was being watched. I've heard people talk about it before, but now it plagued me constantly. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere I could rest. It...no he, was watching me every second of the day.
That was the thought that entered my mind, and once it was there, it wouldn't leave. I knew it was him, knew he had come to get revenge. I don't pretend to understand it all, but...that dream I told you about? I kept having it. Over and over, night after night. And I understood what it meant. It was me. I was the fisherman. Only the tables had been turned see? The things I had made in my story, my character had somehow found a way to turn the tables. Don't ask me how, but...somehow he was controlling my life now. And I know this, because...because when they found Celia she was wearing that red coat, the one you got her for Christmas a few years back. Only, and I don't suppose telling you now will matter much, she hated that coat. Couldn't stand the sight of it. But she went out wearing it on the night she got killed? You can't tell me that isn't wrong.
Maybe if it was just that I could have written it off. Only there were other things. I found myself doing things, little things, but things that weren't me. He was controlling me. Don't you see?
It's my own fault really. I always swore I'd never write about writers. Because it always seemed so shallow to me, so transparent, when I'd read books with writers as the main characters. As if the real writer had become so detached from the normal world he could no longer understand what it was like to do anything but write. But this story, this one story, it sang to me. Can you understand that? It was so beautiful. And then...it turned ugly.
So I did the only thing I could think to do. I fought back. I started writing my own life, writing down what I would do before I did it, or sometimes just after if it was something I couldn't predict.
That really seemed to help for a while. I had to write it on paper, because that made it real, you see? If it wasn't real he could just make me erase it, delete the file. But on paper it was real and I had control. Only there were moments when I would slip, when I would lose control. I'd go back and compare what happened with what I wrote had happened, and they were different.
I know you can't believe me. But I need you, need someone to understand. You and I, we used to be so close. What happened? But no, I remember what happened. Celia happened. I don't regret on minute with her, but...it does make me sad that I started to lose touch with you.
And now...now I've lost you both. I'm sorry. I have to accept the fact that I'm done. Done writing forever.
He's here now. Here to exact his final revenge. And I have to say...it feels good. It feels good to finally let go. I've been fighting so long. So long..."
And the recording stopped.
I don't know how long I stood there before I called the police. And when they came...I don't remember much.
They took me in for questioning. I remember that. I remember crying in that little room with the officer staring at me from across the table.
They thought I had killed him. And I suppose, in a way, I had.
David. Poor, poor David. He never knew the truth. If he had, maybe he'd be alive today. Because the truth, the simple and unforgiving truth, is that I killed Celia. David didn't understand. She wasn't good for him wasn't right. But I saw. I saw how she flirted with other men, I saw how she wedged herself between us after
all those years when all we had was was each other. She had to go. For his sake. And yes, for mine too.
Except there's more to it than that. Because I had to kill her. Not because I hated her, though I did hate her, but because there simply wasn't a choice. I remember the feel of the knife in my hand and the look on her face and I wanted to stop, but something drove me forward. An unfathomable, undeniable power took hold of me like a puppet and I was there but not there, drawing the knife across her throat and she fell. And as the blood drained from her neck I stood there watching as the life faded from her eyes.
And did I hear that sound? That horrible insectile scritching sound of pencil on paper echoing ever so faintly from the darkness of that alley? That same sound that hovers just at the edge of my hearing even now when I know that I am alone? I think that I did.
And now David is dead, and I'm sitting here in a cell waiting to die.
I told them I did it, admitted to the crime of killing my own brother. Not because of the guilt I felt over what happened to Celia, but because I knew they would bring me here, here to this cell, where I could be fully alone with my thoughts.
I failed David in every way imaginable, but I have one last chance to make things right. I can't bring him back. But I can carry on where he left off. Because the guards have given me paper
