Sargasso #2
Page 10
Thus we seem to have come to the end of the line: we know the Hog’s goal (to expand the time of its own possible existence by introducing entropy into our own era); we know the Hog’s methods (forming an army of swine-things; swine-things are produced by invading the dreams [i.e., personal reality] of common men); we know the Hog has been encountered by both Carnacki and the Recluse; we know that the Hog is ultimately victorious. The House on the Borderland is destroyed; it seems the house is—or is one of—the linchpins holding reality together. The Recluse, in a vision, watches the final destruction.
We know all—and shudder.
But If I may be forgiven a whimsy, we may yet follow the hog tracks deeper into Hell. Consider what Berreggnog and Tonnison find near the ruins of the House: “And then, without any warning whatsoever, the river we had followed so confidently, came to an abrupt end—vanishing into the earth.” And then, a bit later, the men come across “a great open space, where, not six paces in front of us, yawned the mouth of a tremendous chasm. . . . The abyss was, as Tonnison put it, like nothing so much as a gigantic well or pit going sheer down into the bowels of the earth.” Upon their exit from the ruins, Tonnison and Berreggnog are pursued by the man-like things that inhabited the forest.
Thus we can begin to build a profile for the hog-entrances to this world: near a river (good, good), a forest filled with manlike animals (fascinating), and a pit that drops to the bowels of the earth (very good). It should be expected that whoever descends will come face-to-face with the swine-things.
These are exactly the conditions met with by the most famous of subterranean explorers. I am not speaking of Arne Saknussemm, nor Otto Lidenbrock, nor David Innes. Instead, I am speaking of someone far more honored and far more eminent than they: Alice Liddell.
That Alice Liddell.
The Alice Liddell who began “to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the [river] bank.”
The Alice Liddell who looked into the thick bushes and saw “a rabbit . . . with a waistcoat-pocket, [and] a watch to take out of it.”
The Alice Liddell who fell down a tunnel that “dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well . . . down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end?”
The Alice Liddell, in short, whose first journey to Wonderland conforms to every one of the items we should expect from a portal into the Hog’s world.
If Spurlock is correct that the Hog is a being of pure entropy, then we have found its home. This may seem insane, yet consider: Wonderland is a place where entropy is consuming the physical world.
Space is wrong. One must run—run as fast as one can, faster than a train—in order to stay in the same place; however, standing still will move you across the countryside at impossible speeds. At other times, as Achilles and the Tortoise discovered, movement is literally impossible. There is an infinite gulf of space between the merest footstep. (For example, suppose you wanted to move an inch: that inch can be divided to one-half, one-fourth, one-eighth, one-sixteenth, one-thirty-second, one-sixty-fourth, and so on, forever. In our place and time, it’s a mathematical trick. In Wonderland, on occasion, it’s an unalterable law. Movement is impossible.)
Time is wrong. As the Red Queen said to Alice, “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” With entropic memories that work in all directions—I am not so limited to confine entropic minds to two directions—Wonderlandians punish criminals, then hold a trial, then allow the crime to be committed. “. . . there’s the King’s Messenger. He’s in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.” Time has so far broken down that cause and effect no longer operate. Wonderland is a society on the edge of entropic dissolution.
The reader may already be asking: what about the swine-things?
Swing-things are born here. It is as Spurlock suggested. The Hog and its children come from the end of entropy’s rule. The Hog, for convenience, may create swine-things in any age (consider the unfortunate Bains), but the bulk of its army comes from this dissolute age.
In her first adventure in Wonderland, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice stumbles into a peppery kitchen. A Duchess and a Cook and a Baby are screaming madly, sneezing madly, singing madly, in a cacophony of spice. The Duchess gives Alice the Baby; Alice takes it, without complaint, feeling it would be murder to leave it behind.
Consider the description of the baby.
Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, “just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. . . . The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had a very turned-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at all. “But perhaps it was only sobbing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears. No, there were no tears.
Thus is Alice’s description of the baby-pig. Let us compare it to the Recluse’s description of the swine-things.
The nose was prolonged into a snout . . . I think it was the eyes that attracted me the most; they seemed to glow, at times, with a horribly human intelligence, and kept flickering away from my face . . . [the swine-thing’s claws] bore an indistinct resemblance to human hands, in that they had four fingers and a thumb; though these were webbed up to the first joint, much as are a duck’s . . . I may explain my feeling better by saying that it was more a sensation of abhorrence; such as one my expect to feel, if brought in contact with something superhumanly foul.
Can there be any doubt that what Alice described as “tears” that weren’t tears is the Recluse’s horrible “glow”? Can there be any doubt that what Alice described as a “very turned-up nose” was the Recluse’s “nose . . . prolonged into a snout”? Can there be any doubt that the appendages Alice described as “like a star-fish” are not the same nubby, webbed appendages the Recluse described? Can there be any doubt that what Alice described as “not [liking] the look of the thing at all” is the Recluse’s “sensation of abhorrence”?
There cannot.
What of the Duchess?
We are provided with two distinct possibilities. First, she was exactly what she seems: an entropically insane noblewoman whose baby was chosen by the Hog. Second, she was far more than she seems: an aspect or manifestation of the Hog itself. Alice does not describe her. The illustration amended to her account shows a huge, swinish head.
We do not have the data to confirm what the Duchess is.
What we know is this: Alice encountered the swine-things at their birth. We do not know how they form, save that they reshape a human body to a hoggish mien. We do not know the intimate details of their biology, save that which Alice and the Recluse witnessed in passing. We know nothing. Only three facts are evident: first, the Hog is eternal; second, the Hog is encroaching on our existence, making agents in every time and place; third, as Carnacki and the Recluse attest, the Hog will win.
Back in Wonderland, the infant swine-thing slipped out of Alice’s arms and ran away, squealing, leaving us with a concluding oink.
Coral Seas
By Phillip A. Ellis
The swell of the water’s a green with a movement
that passes like dreams, or the breath of emotions
as calm and unhurried as time, with its passing
and silent immensity crystalline, perfect.
I dream of this water. I dream of its motions,
the barrier coral, that takes it and tames it,
the life in the innermost bastion, perfect
and marked by fecundity, marked as by colours.
O coral, you tear at unwary and heedless,
remind that the water is alien, ever
to still, be lagoon, and be beautiful, dreamlike.
The swell of the water’s a green with a movement
that passes like time, or the breath of emotions
as calm and unhurried as time, with its passing
and silent immensity crystalline, perfect.
After “The Voice in the Night”
By Laurie Needell
(owed to William Hope Hodgson, 1877–1918)
Horror stories and s’mores. It was Halloween at the library and it fell to her to nuke the marshmallows and tell the stories. She was drawn to the Edwardian take on horror: the language, the build-up of tension, the rising anxiety, the reveal. No blood, no guts, just a quickening of the heart and a widening of the eyes. There was a story, with a rowboat and a man on a cloudy quiet night on calm tropical water....
September had bullied its way into her garden. The weeds had used the heat of summer against her; by October their victory was plain. She closed her eyes and briefly prayed for snow. Kill it all and start fresh in the spring; it was her only hope. Weeds had sprung up in every bed, of every variety, waving at her like so many fungal fingers. There were tree-weeds and vine-weeds and clump-weeds; most of them were plain and unremarkable, save for their aggressiveness, but some were breathtaking: pokeweed with its fuschia stems and black button berries, and porcelainberry with its gorgeous steely blue and purple fruits, were particular favorites. Once she saw pokeweed nestled up against the big white head of a paniculata hydrangea in a bouquet in a very expensive flower shop. Its shiny (and toxic) black berries and shocking pink stems glowed against the creamy bounty of the hydrangea. One hundred fifty dollars for that arrangement: not a bad living for a weed. She was less than thrilled to discover that the exact same arrangement had taken root right in front of her house. She imagined a satirical September garden, filled only with her favorite weeds. By October, satire turned to horror; she was certain only death could save her.
Eh. She turned the key and drove off, putting the mess of green behind her. The town was hilly, as river valleys are. She headed north and then down the hill, off to the boat club. It was a glorious fall day, the kind they used to call Indian summer, back when it was still a game for cowboys to chase Indians. It was a beautiful day for a sail: sunny, breezy but calm. Perfect cruising weather.
Her husband was already on the patio, chatting with the other sailors. He stood out among the middle-aged-to-older crowd in two regards: he still had a full head of thick hair, and he was thin. She was grateful on both counts. Although the racing season was over, the warm day drew a number of boaters looking to get in a final sail before hauling out. It looked as though there would be a lot of company on the river that day, but not on their boat. On their boat, they were alone.
They headed down to the launch, leaving behind the sailors swapping their horror stories about the repairs they had planned once the boats were pulled from the water. So much work, so many hours of scraping and painting and engine winterizing and trouble-shooting and sail repair and replacement. Her husband’s boat was old and made of wood; beautiful, but so much more work than the newer, sleeker Fiberglass boats. Their joke: the boat was a piece of work.
The launch was waiting for them to make their way down the ramp. She didn’t recognize the launch operator, but she gave him a big smile and their mooring number. He nodded and revved the engine. In spite of the crowd on the patio, she and her husband were the only ones to board the launch. The clouds started rolling in before they even reached their boat. Glancing up at the sky, her husband asked the operator if he knew of any weather rolling in. She noticed that the operator’s eyes were both gray and brown, like the river itself. He shook his head and lifted his shoulders, a gesture she took to mean no. “OK then, thanks.” The launch carefully pulled up alongside their boat so they could both climb up.
As they set to readying the boat to leave the mooring field, she noticed that the water was so calm and still it gave the appearance of glass. Gray and brown glass. The sky was a gray and brown mirror of the water. It looked curiously dirty, where only minutes before the sun had been bright and shining. Her husband checked his phone for the weather. “Nothing on the radar. Weather’s local—I’m sure we’ll see the sun in a few minutes.” And they motored off out of the mooring field.
She was not a sailor, but over the years she had learned a few things. Weather’s local was one of her favorites. Like that time on a beautiful Bermuda beach, drinking pina coladas with Joanna, tracking the ominous-looking funnel cloud across the bay, toasting each other and the gorgeous beach they were sunning on, “Glad we’re not over there.” But their husbands were, struggling against the storm to keep their small rented sailboat from smacking up on an inconveniently placed rock. The women heard about it over dinner later; the relief of lobsters and Sancerre made the men recount the afternoon comically, though at the time the genre was horror. The dirty sky reminded her of that Bermuda bay, the one she had been so pleased to be nowhere near.
Her husband cut the motor and raised the sail. It seemed hesitant to fill; the wind was uncertain and lacking a clear direction. And then a gust, and they were sailing. They headed north, where the view was cliffs and trees and quaint villages nestled against hillsides. On the far shore, a tiny tin train chugged along the water line, picturesque as hell. She took the tiller and squinted at a spot in the distance. She aimed for the trees, then for the prison that lay beyond them. They headed up the river, propelled slowly forward by a steady gentle wind. Until under that dirty sky, the sail emptied itself of wind and they were becalmed. There is no quiet like the quiet on the water on a windless day. The water was so still you couldn’t even hear the slap-slap-slap of waves meeting boat. She and her husband were quiet together, as if they had an agreement to give the river what it gave: silence.
With the quiet came the fog. They anchored and settled in, waiting for the fog to lift. Her husband turned on the navigation lights and they took turns, alternating between the cockpit, ringing the bells at one-minute intervals, and acting as lookout on the bow.
Time passed slowly. She guessed it had been many hours, but it could have been two, or it could have been six. Her husband’s phone had lost its signal; they were on their own. She heard it first: the slight subdued sloshing of an oar displacing water, first on one side, then the other. She thought the sound was approaching them head-on: she went up to the bow rail and leaned over the railing to see. She couldn’t see. The dirty sky was coloring the fog all around her. She turned toward her husband, but couldn’t see him. And then from the water, in a low tone, distorted but distinct, “Hello? Hello? Ahoy?”
“Yes, yes, hello, hello, I hear you!”
“Ah . . . ah . . .” The voice was near and coming from a point low on the water, from a kayak, or maybe a canoe.
“Listen . . .” The voice was low and cracked, old and worn, yet somehow youthful. “Listen . . . I’ve come because I need your help. I’ve never come out on the water before, not since—not since—it—happened. And I would never have come if . . . if it weren’t for . . . her. I had to leave her behind, you see.”
She didn’t see. Not the man who left her behind, not her own husband, barely even the fingers on the hand of her outstretched arm.
“What can I do for you? What do you need?”
“She—no--we are hungry. I was hoping you might have some food. Maybe some water?”
“We are only out for a short cruise. We brought a picnic for the sail, just some sandwiches and some brownies. Oh, and some apples and grapes.”
“Oh.” She had never heard so much longing in a single word before.
“You are welcome to it. We brought too much and we really don’t need it all. Can you come up closer, so I can give it to you?”
“Oh.” Such desire and such sadness. “I am afraid to draw any closer to you. I am not fit for your kindness.” Again she was struck by the curiously muffled sound of hi
s voice, struggling against the mist to be heard.
“Don’t be silly. You need it and I am happy to help you. Come closer, so I can give it to you.”
His sigh contained so much: longing, hope . . . a bottom note of dread. “I shouldn’t . . . couldn’t . . .” His voice was weakening, evaporating into the mist.
“Why? Why won’t you come closer?”
The voice, shaky and curiously muffled, replied, “Because I am not fit. I am not well. Neither is my wife. We need your help so very badly, and yet, I am afraid . . . for you . . . and for us.”
Her husband, hearing two voices but unable to make out the conversation, had joined her on the bow. She explained that she wanted to give the man some of their food, but that he would come no closer to the boat, that he was not well and did not want to pass his illness on to them.
“Hello!” he shouted toward the voice. “I have a raft. I can load the supplies and push the raft off to you. You will have to come closer, but not too near.” She could practically smell the man’s relief. And as her husband returned to the cockpit to ring the bells and gather the food and sort out the raft, the man, emboldened by the enveloping fog and the promise of food, drew closer and explained what had befallen him.
“It was less than a year or so ago, when I came out on this river with my wife. We were so happy . . . then. It was a beautiful day for a sail, we thought.” He was overcome by coughing, and the sentence was left to hang in the dirty misty air between them.
“The weather changed on us, quickly. I was an experienced sailor, but maybe I was an overconfident one, God forgive me.” She could hear that the telling of his story was taxing work. She waited as he paused to gather his thoughts, and his strength.