26

Excerpts from 7^th Meditation

 

 

where the philosopher and the madman intersect

 

It was an intractable place, a place where theories always appeared flitting without unity, theories that derived more complex creations and resisted resolution; a place where theories were merely stapled together in haste, in paper assignments, or bound together in books and dissertations, chronically unread, underdeveloped, incomplete glaciers in textual eternity.

The university buildings appeared warm to the touch despite the sharp cold in the air. A man in disheveled clothing was mumbling to himself while groups of students almost instinctively made a wide berth of him. He was jabbering with loose horse lips about energy and electricity, his eyes wild in contemplative stupor. His fingers uncurled and his hands gestured like pinwheels. One student, who travelled across the commotion of the others that moved in shoals to or from classes, came to a halt in front of the shambling man. The young student was robust in stature, yet his shoulders drooped as though the gravity of his academic involvement was playing a cruel trick on his body. At the sight of the student, the disheveled man stopped silent and glanced at him furtively over his bifocals, and perhaps with the look of investigative patience that seemed to pool in the eyes of one accustomed to making visual contact with text. In his life, the disheveled man had perhaps saw more of books than people; the young student had just begun on this path. The disheveled man looked first to his own gnarled hands, looking like fossilized worm trails in Cambrian limestone, and then at the smoothness and warm quickness of the student's hands. The first to show age were the face and hands, he thought, incidentally the primary two surfaces to ever come in contact with books. Perhaps it is our repeated contact with books that make us age so, he thought, a passing thought of illicit significance. The student, upon realizing that his hands were being visually examined, and that he had not said anything to the disheveled man, stiffened and spoke: “Professor Wyman, I had a few questions from class.” And Wally Wyman would only be so happy to answer them, albeit with more questions in the eternal bloodless sport of academic nature.

At the same time, another man was crossing. This man wore a tweed jacket, spectacles that couldn't decide whether to be at his eyes or on the end of his nose, and he carried a leather satchel—a perforated and torn stereotype image of the professorial. He did not like the disheveled man, his goblin walk, his muttering, his undignified composure, the way he wore those cheap winter boots year round. He did not like the way the man's loose slacks seemed to be rolled up over the boot on one leg and bunched on the other. No, he found these things repulsive. To this proper man, professional scholarly appearance was of vital importance, perhaps too important (”Truth, Beauty, and Justice are jealous sisters; deny one, and the other two set to squabbling... “). His steps were sure and arrogant, but with a slightly unsteady shyness that lurched alongside in an awkward gait, usually attendant in mid-stride. The sound of his shoes seemed to beat out a weak rhythm that punctuated his lie, mocking what he truly was behind this sartorial facade. He feared that one misstep, one inconsistency in the rhythm of his steps or a slip in speech would expose him for what he truly was. The desperation of his ego demanded that others see him for this image of the philosopher when, in fact, his true occupation was that of a dishwasher. So pronounced was his desire that it had began to worm its way inward, creating a delusion that he came to believe, causing him to stack lie upon lie about credentials he did not have, and the titles of books he never wrote. Blurring the line between fantasy and reality, he would spend his time off lurking in campus pubs and trying to look meaningful and meaningfully at books in the library. At times, he would attend public lectures and make an utter fool of himself during the question period. Of course, he never thought himself the fool, but rather that he was somehow superior in his intellect, wildly creative and daring. With his meagre finances, he swooped up any and all philosophy books he could find in used bookstores, and he would carry them about his person like ornaments, being sure that all around him could see that he was a serious intellectual. When he did bother to read these dense tomes, he feigned understanding, weaving ever more into his lie, impatiently speeding through these books as if he had read it before. If pressed with the truth, he would declare that fate had been unkind in granting someone like the disheveled man the honour of position that he himself felt was rightfully his.

He observed the impromptu professor-student consultation from a distance he was gradually closing. With a stiffly false confidence, he brazenly interrupted the conversation. He recognized the disheveled man from a dream, a dream where his false credentials were not questioned.

“Greetings,” he said with no mean pomp, interrupting the student in mid-sentence. “I think it vitally urgent that we convene a discussion on a few matters of extreme importance.”

“Certainly, and especially if the energies I see burning brightly in you are in accord with my temperament at the moment,” the professor said, a disagreeable collection of spittle collected in the corners of his mouth. “Flows and circuits, a whole landscape of electric intersubjectivity!”

The student concealed his insult, thinking the interlocutor was a colleague, and so immediately forgiven.

“I should be getting to class. Can I visit you during your office hours, Professor Wyman?”

“Yes, yes, of course!” The professor said jovially.

The two men – the professor and his shadow – wandered in the direction of the professor's office.

“Your name is Wally, am I correct?” asked the faux philosopher.

“Why, yes, it is. Wally Wyman. And you are?”

“Russell. I had a dream where you were present.”

“So did I! In fact, I had a dream where not only I was present, but you were, too. A philosopher, by my recollection. Oh, how I adore philosophers!”

Russell felt fluffed by the acknowledgement.

“The winter's setting in early,” the professor said, a random jetty of small talk.

“Yes it is.”

“The ducks are still here,” the professor indicated with a stained finger at the now more languidly flowing river.

“They never leave,” Russell corrected.

“Is that so? How splendid!”

When they both reached the professor's office, the office in more disarray than the man's appearance, Russell blurted out random philosophical fragments as if to captivate the professor with his diverse knowledge, to convince the professor of his trapped genius. The professor merely nodded as if his mind was on other things, which it was. He suddenly said, “I wonder what an orange laugh would sound like.”

The proper man was deflated; he was obviously talking to a tenured crackpot. “I wouldn't know,” Russell replied disappointedly.

“Or what hard smoke tastes like, or how to sleep lividly, or how one would mend saltiness... “

“We should return to the matter of the dream and its philosophical significance. Even allowing for coincidence, the state of affairs that would allow both of us to have the same dream is untenable according to any theory of consciousness. It would imply that consciousnesses can operate in a shared capacity.”

“You know, that's right,” said Professor Wyman. “It is a distinct impossibility, and yet we both experienced it. I suppose we would have to revise our assumptions and assign possibility to that kind of dreaming. You know, ever since that dream, I haven't been able to shake this one image, that of the red lion that was emblazoned upon that book the prophet showed us.”

“Red lion?” asked Russell, who had obviously not paid attention to that detail in the dream. “And, I hardly doubt that uppity dandy should be called a prophet.”

“Yes, a red lion. Very ornamental, almost Chinese. I noticed that every time the prophet spoke, he would caress it, like it was a touchstone of some sort.”

“I believe this detail to be a side issue to our more chief concern on this aspect of shared consciousness.”

“Maybe... maybe... but I just can't seem to shake it. I'm sorry to cut this short mister... ?”

“Russell.”

“Yes, Russell. I am due to lecture about five minutes ago, you see, so I'm awfully late. Like the rabbit what's-his-name. Perhaps you could come back during my office hours and we can talk strange dreams and red lions again. I would like that.”

Russell agreed, but was disappointed nonetheless. Wally turned out to be a burnout, and Russell still every inch a fraud.

 

3

where the prophet presents a gift to the artist

 

Ensopht knew that the book he carried was a dangerous one, but one that had been foretold in the Library. He had seen the book only once before in another incarnation, as a luridly opulent folio edition that Castellemare had chanced to show him. “This,” he remembered Castellemare instructing, “is what you must find... out there. This, I must impress upon you, is the engine of what must come to pass. You will facilitate the transaction, changing its carrier. Let none other than the appointed artist take possession of that book, and I will manage the who will assume authorship of the main script. You will recognize it by its cover, a red lion.” With those instructions firmly pressed upon Ensopht, his work as Castellemare's agent would have direct purpose. He now had the book, and now it was time for it to possess its new owner.

 

After another failed bout with the canvas, Leopold decided to make his way to the bar. With his creative zeal having abandoned him yet again, he reasoned that perhaps much drink would resurrect it. This tactic, of course, never succeeded. While en route, he was buttonholed by his frankest critic.

“Hello, Leopold,” Ensopht greeted.

“Um, hi.”

“Off to the bar, I presume?”

“Yeah.”

“Creative dysfunction?”

“I suppose so,” Leopold said indifferently.

In actual fact, Leopold was deeply suspicious of Ensopht. There was something not quite right about him, and it had nothing to do with Ensopht's negative appraisal of his pretension toward art. No, there was something almost palpably sinister about the man with the opalescent eyes, his eerie manner of dress, the comportment of someone who was highly unusual and unsettling. Leopold was more comfortable with conventional oddities: those who try to look weird.

“There is a cure for your ills; you need to become someone else,” said Ensopht.

“What? I don't quite follow you.”

“How we cleave so desperately to our sinking selves when it would be much easier to scrap it all and start fresh. All one needs is the right motivation.”

“Are you suggesting I become someone else?”

“Yes, it may be time to abandon the smoking wreck of the old Leopold. Listen to me carefully: an artist had recently terminated his lease on life, and his artistic territory has been left vacant in obscurity. He was never formally recognized and his work awaits an occupant. All that remains is for someone, the right someone, to take his place.”

“So you want me to 'move in' and claim the work as my own? That's someone else's labour, their blood and effort. I can't just take it over and claim it as my own. It's theft. It's morally wrong. It says that I can't create my own work. I won't do it.”

“Your unconvincing morality is being propped up as a blind. Your view of artists and their work is also rather facile. There is nothing original left in the world, and nothing left but plagiarism. Don’t be ridiculous: when there is an infinite library, we are all but plagiarists. I am offering you creative salvation. The work is what matters, not the artist. It doesn't matter who signs the masterpiece, but that the masterpiece is brought to the public. There is no original work – everything is derivative of everything else. Perhaps, under the right conditions and circumstances, you would have made these works.”

“Why me? Why have you selected me to be the plagiarist? What you are asking me is simply insulting to me as an artist.”

“Seems like you care more about yourself than about art. This gift I have for you is necessary. I am giving you the one-time opportunity to act as its author.”

Ensopht handed the sketchbook to Leopold who immediately recognized the red lion on the black cover from the dream. Leopold held it with delicate care.

“You say this comes from a dead guy?” asked Leopold.

“Very dead.”

“What does this mean?” Leopold pointed at the red lion.

“It means many things, Leo,” Ensopht said with a wry smile.

“The artist's girlfriend had asked me if I had seen this,” Leopold said. “She asked me to tell her if I came across it.”

“If I were you, I wouldn't dare parting with it under any circumstances. The previous owner did not dare to, and nor should you. You and this sketchbook were meant for each other. Was it by coincidence the artist killed himself, or that I was present to remove the artifact and hand it off to whom I consider its current rightful owner? Remember that all of this is foretold, but not forever. Eventually this sketchbook will become the property of someone else. Make use of it now and it will be retrieved and given to someone else when the time is right.”

That would be Ensopht's final word before departing. Leopold was left in the street, burdened with a dead man's sketchbook, caught between home and the bar.

 

4

where the philosopher is given a stern warning from the Third Man

 

It was a savage cruelty that the owner in his bristly moustache and grease-stained apron barked his orders to the faux philosopher - nowhere near recognizing the academic fantasy of his employee - an order half in Greek by this owner who was less than half a cook. No translation was necessary: the dishes were piling up insensibly with chaotic vengeance. Russell was attempting to phase out the harsh reality of his predicament by focusing on whatever dim philosophical reflections had earlier been beguiling him. His boss' snarling orders performed were quick to jolt Russell back into the moment, to the automatic task of hosing congealed egg yolk that clung stubbornly to over-washed plates. The breakfast rush was the cruelest shift of them all. His own wash apron was slicked in filth and soap, soiling his now damp pants underneath. The smell of his job clung to him despite repeated washings, and the heat of the dishwashing machine and the plates that needed to be removed from it immediately to make up the short stack had all but removed his fingerprints.

In another half hour the breakfast rush would be over, but the dishes would keep trickling in and the massive strata of ceramic and metal would not be under control for an hour yet.

“Russell!” the owner-cook barked again. “You get no break now. Finish clean first and cut potatoes, make fries.” This time with more friendliness, the peculiar pendulum between despot and kindly father: “you good boy, get done fast, and we see you get grill-cheese, heh?” Not that such slight reward would make up for the misery Russell suffered.

With glazed eyes, he nodded. He knew the break would never come, and that he'd remain hungry one way or another.

Russell's shift was finally over. He decided to go home, change into academic costume, and haunt the campus pub. Cleaned and changed, he left his home and boarded the subway where he was on the same car as another man he recognized from the dream, but a man who went nameless. Despite how absurd it felt for Russell to strike up conversation with more people that happened to be in his dream, at least he could take some solace in the fact that Wally Wyman had it as well. He overcame his reservations and stood in front of the nameless man.

“We have met before,” was Russell's opener.

“Yes, I remember you,” the man replied flatly as if it were no consequence.

“Then I can fairly reason that the dream was real.”

“The dream was a dream.”

“What do you think it meant?”

“The prophet told us what it meant. We would all meet again, out here. And so, now we are.”

“Yes, but to what purpose? This synthesis this so-called prophet was going on about – it seems ridiculous and farfetched.”

“Maybe to you, but I know it to be true.”

“How?”

The man was obviously becoming irritable and exasperated with Russell as if the issue was impossibly plain. “Because it is written.”

“Yes, but this courts the notion of determinism.”

“Ok, cool the philosopher bit. Putting a big, fat 'ism' on the end of your words doesn't impress me. What is it that you want?”

“Who are you? I am unclear about your role.”

“It is written that my role is supposed to be unclear. I'm the unknown element.”

“How nice. And what is that supposed to mean, really? You may not be impressed by my philosophical parlance, but I am not impressed by mystery.”

The subway car was by this time nearly empty.

“This is how it is going to go,” said the nameless man. “You are going to play your part, and you're going to play it well. I am going to do the same.”

“And what is your function in all of this, this synthesis.”

“You might say I'm the most important ingredient. I'm horror,” he said, getting up to exit.

The way the man said it unnerved Russell. He felt a chill in the way the man uttered the word 'horror', and was inclined against his better judgement to believe it. No, the man did not appear horrifying in any way – rather innocuous, really. But the flash of red, maybe blood, upon this man came to Russell's mind. Perhaps true horror does not go so literally garbed, but rather disguised in the appearance of the achingly normal.

Russell was not in the mood to let this be. He put his hand on the Third Man's shoulder to prevent him from departing. The Third Man jerked away.

“This is my stop,” he said icily.

“I don't for one minute buy any of this claptrap,” said Russell.

“I'm going to tell you this one time and one time only,” he replied as the subway was rolling to its stop. “You're going to cooperate, willingly or not. You'd do best to work with us, and with me, than against us... or me. Touch me again and I'll sew all your orifices shut.”

There was no doubt in the Third Man's cool delivery that he meant it.

 

5

the scientist, the prophet, and an opera

 

They will come no more, the old men with beautiful manners.

-Ezra Pound, I Vecchii

 

Dr Aymer, out of respect for one of his colleagues who moonlighted as a cellist for the symphony orchestra, went to the theatre for their rendition of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. The program notes gave shape to this particular Mahler piece, based on the death of children. The piece itself bled with this terrible sentiment, and according to the program, Mahler's younger brother, Ernst, had died of congenital heart failure in his arms. Uplifting stuff.

Ensopht had come to this symphony as well, more for the reason that he found the theme of the death of children to be strangely indicative of how he perceived the human condition. If pressed, he would have told you that the dead children were a metaphor for something well beyond what anyone would consider germane.

Mahler's pain was expressed in the heavy meal of Wagnerian influence, violin bows that jerked skyward in unison, falling back. Those who were emergent wealth and wanted to mitigate their absurd guilt for neglecting culture, postured hard and fought against the embarrassing social ruin of falling asleep. Dr Aymer himself felt drowsy, and even the rich otherworldliness, the overarching sonority, and grieving strings did not reach him as it did others. An old man turned around abruptly and snarled at Dr Aymer not to kick the seat. The seats were small, and more so to Dr Aymer who was taller than most. Suddenly, words that were not his own - but had appeared in the red lion sketchbook - this without Dr Aymer's knowledge - popped into his head. He knew better than to utter them aloud, but they ran in a taunting refrain: I'm sorry, are my legs kicking your seat, disrupting your enjoyment of Bruckner's 7th? It is the length of my legs, I'm afraid, legs that would have better suited someone with a corresponding torso. Luckily for all of us concerned, my growth plates have long since closed. Let us rejoice that my legs do not protrude from my forehead, for I am quite sure that you would rather contend with this small discomfort than to have me accidentally kick you in the head. Never you fear, for you are old and will die soon. By then, a lifetime's worth of having your seat kicked will be at an end. Oh, does my manner offend your sensibilities? Does my garb clash with your bourgeois pomp and money-pimping ardour, your highly refined sense of Epicure? Perhaps next time I will follow your example and dress like the dearly departed.

It was a strange and unlikely polemic to randomly erupt in Dr Aymer's mind, himself being of a docile and agreeable disposition. Stranger still that the mental episode made reference to Bruckner and not Mahler. Would not the mind make a proper adjustment to the present events, or was this thought caused by some external agent? Perhaps his mind associated Bruckner with Mahler: similar type of music, similar epochs. Yes, that had to be it, unless... There had been a flashing image in his mind as the polemic ran its course, an image of a younger man dressed in punkish clothing, an earring, offensive t-shirt, was in his own place, uttering these phrases. It then occurred to Dr Aymer that this event may have mirrored another event in the past, but to whom did it belong to? Who was that scruffy young man? He then had recourse to memories that were not his own, surfacing in a spontaneous genesis. Random memories beyond those of the young man began mysteriously surfacing, entirely occulting his consciousness: “I am Major Morell. It is March 26th, 1834. Bells that I cannot see or adequately locate have been ringing since February 2nd in my Suffolk home. I find myself at my escritoire, tracing a mutilated face on a page without knowing why”... “I am a Silurist poet, and I cannot paint in words what manner of beastly sight coming out of the fen”... “I am a Fourteenth Century friar. We must build walls of brass to defend ourselves against impious invaders that cannot be seen with the eyes, but that the Lord has imparted to me by the Grace of his vision and that have illustrated in secret”... “My name is Frederick Lerida. I first started seeing gruesome phantasms on the 24th of February, 1791 that I have dutifully reproduced on this page by way of a sketch... My name is Jason Johns and I have lost my way in the desert only to be rescued by a member of a strange tribe of glyph-makers... My name is Ian Plenkowitz, an artist. The codgers are giving me grief for trying to enjoy Bruckner's 7^th just cuz I don't need to dress like a posed man in an open casket to think the music beautiful.”

As this tumult of confused memories not his own viciously circulated through his mind, he didn't realize until quite later that he had been whining in pain and foaming at the mouth while his face was in rictus. Ensopht's eyes followed the whining distraction twelve aisles away and recognized the geneticist. Without hesitation, Ensopht left his seat and ushered Dr Aymer outside. By this time, the confusing memories collapsed in on themselves, and Dr Aymer could be heard to mutter as if in a trance, “The basalius is the carbuncle's house.” His body then swooned from exhaustion.

“Mahler not to your taste, I presume?” asked Ensopht wryly. “Quite the accompanying tone poem you were issuing in there – or was that an interpretive critique?”

“What? I... Do I? No. You?” Dr Aymer said with stuttering confusion.

“Yes, you know me, my speech-stilted friend. Let's go somewhere warm and talk - if you promise not to break out in any more tone poems, that is.”

Ensopht eased the overwrought Dr Aymer toward the vibrating core of the city, a frozen shower of stillborn sparks trapped in the office tower sheer glass faces. They entered a pub that Ensopht had visited once before.

“Do you like it?” Ensopht asked with the same wry smile. “This pub had been closed for a few weeks due to a somewhat fortuitously unpleasant incident.

“What happened to me out there? I mean, what came over me? I was enjoying the symphony and suddenly I was assailed by a montage of maddening thoughts. Did I fall asleep and have a nightmare? I must be overworked, that must be the explanation. Perhaps a vacation is due. Did I cause much fuss? Thank you for assisting me. Do I know you from somewhere? Your face seems familiar.”

“You vaguely recall my face. Remember... “

“That dream... You know, I met the artist, Leopold. Such unexplainable events have been occurring since then, you have no idea. And now, this, this unfortunate lapse of mine.”

The server came around and asked for the two men's order.

“None for me, thank you,” said Dr Aymer.

“He'll have a whiskey,” smiled Ensopht. “I will as well.”

“No, really,” Dr Aymer protested. “I really can't. I'm on this stomach medication and -”

“And you will enjoy it. Humour me.” And then to the server: “Make those doubles, no ice.”

The server disappeared, leaving the two men in their booth.

“Have you given any thought to the synthesis, doctor?”

“No, I'm sorry... I have been very busy lately, and I cannot say that I truly understand it, to be honest. I had dismissed the dream as just that: a dream, albeit a very strange one. I really have nothing much to go on other than your saying that it involved the six of us. Beyond that, you were not forthcoming about the details.”

“It is moving forward, and we've been able to roll out the next phase. Your little attack tonight attests to the fact that it is all underway, that all is happening according to plan.”

“I cannot say I like the sound of this. It feels as though I am some kind of puppet.”

“Embrace that which is out of your control,” said Ensopht.

“What is this synthesis? I would feel a bit better about this strange phenomenon if you would apprise me of its purpose.”

“We are making a new man. He will have parts of all of us.”

“What sort of man?”

“The sort of man you are becoming, doctor. These thoughts you've been having, these shadowy intuitions, these troubling episodes... These are the things of which the new man is made.”

“To what end? Assuming, of course, any of this is even remotely possible.”

“An avatar of a brand new age. The end of forestalling the inevitable. We must embrace something horrible so that the world can release its energy.”

“This sounds a bit new-agey to me.”

“I am going to illustrate by way of an example... If you'll allow me. Do you see that woman over there - yes, the semi-pretty one with the low-cut blouse and tight pants - what automatically springs to mind? Give me your first, uncensored impressions.”

“Um, I don't know what you're getting at or what kind of game this is. Let's see... human, female, presumably between the age of 19 and 25, five feet and six or eight inches tall, about 120 pounds, caucasian... Listen, I really don't know what you're asking me. I can offer up some obvious details, but you're obviously looking for me to say something more.”

“You are right. I do not want a bland observation. What I ask for is much more on the basis of opinion and free-association of thought. Don't fight it.”

Dr Aymer screwed his eyes tighter. He was unsure of what the strange man was asking for. Was he looking for something poetic? Dr Aymer knew enough about himself to know that he was no poet. He tried anyways. Quieting his mind, he let loose with the ambling thoughts that passed there, but thought them instead of voicing them. He evaluated the young woman, moving from the slight prognathism of her face, the slender suppleness of her form, the presumable soft texture of her young skin. His thoughts lost their reins and suddenly very disturbing thoughts entered – thoughts of performing experimental surgery, to apply a scalpel here, append there, something vaguely biomechanical, artistic. The woman was now filled with new possibility.

“Is there something the matter, Doctor?” asked Ensopht, still in rictus.

“I am having terrible thoughts. In some of them, I see a man that is not me, but is partially me... He is using women for art, using his scientific skills to make grotesques. If this is the result of a synthesis, I want no part of it. It is sick and depraved. I just want these thoughts to go away.”

“Why don't you talk to the young lady?” taunted Ensopht. “Enact what needs to be enacted. Follow the crescendo of an entirely new will.”

It is not recorded by this author what the doctor actually did – whether he took up on the provocation or not. What we may say is that the doctor was indelibly changed. What mattered was that the will of art and the will of science conjoined that night, under the light of exquisite atrocity.

 

Whatever had happened that night with Dr Aymer and the lady had visited Leopold by way of thought. Instead of Dr Aymer, Leopold was in his place. Leopold was smitten with the moment and absolutely rapt with his further delving into the sketchbook. That toxic book, crammed with lubricious images of horror, manipulation, orphaned fragments, and other unsettling matter had a bewitching effect. None of the fragments made sense in their arrangement, along with the sketches, but each was like an incantation or an invitation to draw closer into it, to become the book itself or surrender to it.

Red lion sketchbook fragment:

On Piotr.

The gun is located in the top drawer just beneath the typewriter. The typewriter was next to the drained bottle of scotch and the stuffed ashtray. The gun was loaded, and had been for twenty years. It had been loaded and ready ever since Piotr had arranged the pact with himself: “at the exact moment I write the perfect novel, I will put the nozzle in my mouth.” And one day, on a gloomy March afternoon, he did. Piotr was pleased with himself. A shot rang out and quickly receded back into the angry hum of the world...

But then Leopold was thrust into a dream, and the dream went like this:

I awoke on a landing at the very top of a long, stone-carved stairway that wound down along the inner wall of what appeared to be the inside of a colossal cylindrical shaft. Behind me was a sealed black stone door that I could not budge despite all efforts, and judging by my attempt to rap upon it, it was solid and so gave off no report of an echo. The stairway itself jutted from the stone wall as though a natural continuation of the very wall from which it was attached. Attending this endless stairway was an iron rail, positioned on the outer part of the steps, a little less than hip height. Seeing as there was no way to budge the monolithic door, I decided to make the perilous descent down these mysterious steps.

 

6

where a sixth meditation produces the monster of the extended substance, the body.

 

Chanted by all six, in dream or vocalized, wherever they happened to be at that particular moment: “There are children with mirrors everywhere, and they do not know why they are holding them. There is a long gallery of masks that are picked up and replaced at irregular intervals. There is the screaming streak of colour across my eye, and something eerie felt through the press of my fingertips. There is a sound like bells that is incessant, but the chiming seems mechanical. Everything is both an irritation and an ecstasy. And there is me and there is you, but that doesn't seem to mean much anymore, the divisions like shutters dropped down randomly between my-thought and your-thought, my-body and your-body. Something outside of the relation of my thought to itself guarantees what it is I sense, grants me substance, but it is no sort of god. And so, suddenly, the carnival of the senses entered into harmony. And everywhere the chorus is sung:

 

The normalcy I craved was slowly returning to me.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

27

The Day After

 

The normalcy I craved was slowly returning to me. Although I no longer had a supply of books to sell, I still had money in my account to sleuth for deals on the internet in order to rebuild my catalogue. I took an early lunch in the downtown core, and visited all my favourite bookshops. I was seeing books in an entirely different way, and although the idea of the infinite Library once frightened and defeated me, I realized that it was nothing more than the fragility of the ego that made me feel this way. It did not matter that everything that could have been written by my hand already existed, for the books were more important than the authors, and the purpose of writing is communicative, instructional, and a means to provide pleasure. And it also didn't matter that one did not have every single book ever produced, for the attempt to collect an entire set of anything was merely a cheap way of trying to recollect oneself. I was at peace with the idea of the Library, perhaps even quietly happy.

I still had in my possession the 7^th Meditation as well as the collated book from Setzer's labyrinth that I decided, with some irreverent cheek, to dub Finis Logos. The Backstory was still missing, but I couldn't exactly say that it was a terrible loss.

Such normalcy would, of course, be short-lived. Doubtless, word of what I did to Angelo would reach the ears of Castellemare, and it was him I spotted at a bookstore, pretending to be absorbed with a paltry collection of dramatic works.

“Gimaldi, what a fine day,” he greeted. I could see the mark of a split lip I had given him. “Oh, I just love drama, don't you?” he squealed.

“I bet you do,” I said icily.

“Tragedies and comedies, epic lineages cut short, treachery and betrayal, unrequited love and heroic triumphs. Ah, would life follow such excitements. Alas, life is mostly dull. But not for us drama buffs, eh? Speaking of treachery, Gimaldi, have you seen my dutiful assistant?”

“Your henchman? Yes. Like Humpty Dumpty, he took a nasty fall.”

“Whose hand was responsible for that?” he asked, probingly, yet still keeping his focus on the books.

“Mine, but you should be thanking me, not that I did it for you. He was a double agent under the employ of a different office,” I stated and then left the bookshop. I could see that my news had surprised him – his expression was as though he were just slapped. He followed me outside. For once, I knew much more than he did. With such a reversal, I wanted to savour it.

“Say, Gimaldi, pardon and all that, but what do you mean?”

I kept walking. I reached a set of traffic lights and waited for my turn to cross.

“I don't mean to insist,” he said, catching up with me. “What do you mean when you say 'double agent'? I am so very curious.”

“Why not consult your Library; perhaps you'll find the answers you seek there,” I said and could not help but to smile.

“Gi-mal-di, please. I beseech you to explain. I'd rather get all my information firsthand if possible.”

“It's as you say: good employees are so hard to find,” I said, and crossed the street.

He followed closely behind. “Gimaldi, wait. Let's be gentlemanly about all this. Make a clean breast of everything.”

“Perhaps we can make a deal, but it will cost you. I want to know everything about this proposed synthesis and my role in it.”

“Point blank. You have everything you need to know from that book which, if I may remind you, you stole. If anything, you are in my debt,” he said testily. “I have given you far more information than was necessary, and what reward did I get but a poke in the jaw!”

“You gave information willingly. I didn't solicit everything you told me, but like some penny dreadful villain, you felt the compulsion to unveil your master plan to satisfy your enormous ego. The vital questions I did pose, you coquettishly kept mum about. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go on alone.”

“Of all the nerve,” I heard him say to himself. “Gimaldi! Stand and face me!”

I turned on my heel and he was so close our noses were almost touching.

He spoke in harsh undertones: “I won't stand for this. I demand to know what you discovered about Angelo, and I must know now.”

“I'm not your personnel snoop. You should keep better track of your employees. I will not respond to your demands.”

“Gimaldi, let's not bicker like old lovers here. I will pay handsomely for your time and information. This is what you're after, am I right? You are a mercenary at heart, and every man has his price. Name it, and I'll be sure to make the proper arrangements to honour your request. I am quite serious.”

“I also met the Librarian. You had lied to me. You are not the Librarian.”

At this, Castellemare let out a raucous laugh. “Ah, so you met the caretaker!”

“He has a differing view than yours.”

“That he does, that he does. But think about it, Gimaldi: a Library of that size would require more than one Librarian. Doubt the credibility of my title all you like, but I perform all the requisite duties of my station.”

“According to the rules of the Order, not the Library. And the merger went through, regardless of your treachery.”

“There was a war in Heaven,” he said, as if quoting. “The new vanguard challenged the assumptions and rules of the ancien regime in an act of rebellion.”

“So you're the upstart. Figures.”

“There is much you do not understand, Gimaldi. Don't be so self-satisfied that you have all the answers. Granted, you have much more than most, but the picture is still so grievously incomplete.”

“I like the picture I have and am satisfied with it.”

“We are veering too far off topic. What is information on the deceased worth to you?”

“Not much, but I'd charge someone like you dearly for it.”

“Name your price.”

“I have already: knowledge for knowledge. Everything you know about the synthesis and my role in it.”

“I meant money, Gimaldi.”

“I have enough money to sustain myself, thank you. I don't feel comfortable taking money from you – servants take money. You know what I think? I think you know squat about this synthesis and are just prancing around as if you do.”

“Oh, very nice, Gimaldi... Trying to goad me to prove you wrong. The price you name is completely off-balance; the information I have is worth a fortune compared to the paltry news you may have. The only reason I need to know so badly is because I hate that feeling of being cheated.”

“So do I.”

“Gimaldi, are you implying that I had in some way cheated you? Did I not pay you promptly for your services? If you're going to say that I cheated you out of information about the Library and other like matters, well, that was not yours to have in the first place. You simply aren't entitled to that.”

“I've named my price, and if you reject my final offer, I'll be on my way.”

“Fine, Gimaldi. You drive a hard bargain. Listen to me, there are just some things you are better off not knowing. You will regret learning of the synthesis. There is nothing you can do to stop it.”

“That will be my choice and responsibility to bear.”

“Yes, we are all responsible for what we know, even if it brings sorrow. Come with me; we will sit ourselves down somewhere more comfortable and swap stories like good gentleman.”

Castellemare chose a quiet licensed bistro up the street and ordered an elaborate coffee. As if expecting to bear the brunt of terrible news, I ordered a scotch.

“Fairness and honesty,” he said. “For the purpose of expediency, I would recommend that you give me what I want to know first since it will be most likely a shorter tale, and then I will commence with my own. I promise on my word to honour this trade.”

“That's fine by me,” I said. “It won't involve much talking. Here.”

I fished the letter to Angelo from my pocket and handed it to Castellemare who, with the very first few words he scanned, was turning red. Defusing his mounting anger, he let out a laugh.

“Fabulous work, Gimaldi. A pious snake in the grass! You certainly weren't lying.”

“Your side of the bargain, now.”

“Ah, yes, the synthesis. Well, as the story goes, it follows what you have in your possession. Consider it a somewhat allegorical fable of the things to come. Of the six archetypes that will form one man, Leo – the artist – will be the crown. There is a prophetic character by the name of Ensopht who, I must remind you, is not entirely real. He is the facilitator of this synthesis. There is a scientist who will occupy the second tier of importance alongside the madman, for the synthesized man will have his origins in science – psychology, to be precise, despite the scientist in the story being a geneticist. The other members are like nuances of the man's character: the philosopher, the 'third man', and the madman. Each play their roles, six in all. They will all form to make a single person.”

“But if these figures are not people, and only aspects of a personality, then what is Leo?”

“This is where it gets a bit blurry and complicated. Leo represents the artist in the synthesized man, but it is the work that Leo does that truly operates in the synthesis. Suffice it to say, the synthesized man will prove to be like an avatar of a new age, one modeled after the distillation of all human history's atrocities. He will be an atrocity artist. He will augment bodies, he will commit unspeakable acts, and he will have the charisma and power to attract a multitude of devout followers. Picture, if you will, a mixture of Francis Bacon, Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Josef Stalin, and any other dark figures in history with great power matching an even greater madness.”

“This sounds horrifying. Why would I stand idle as such a thing takes place?”

“I feel safe in telling you the man's name if only because it is too late for you to do anything about it. There are certain moments in history that are necessary, regardless how tragic they may be or what lives are lost. The synthesized man will tap into a collective subconscious desire for cruelty. This is supported by an uneasy global peace, increased religious intolerance, widespread economic disaster, diminishing resources, environmental degradation, stagnation in the domain of creativity and fashion, all of which are not only supports for, but also representative of, a deep yearning for bloodshed. He is the chosen figure to bring this to term. We cannot forestall the narrative of history no matter how ugly events might turn out. When we take a longer view, we realize that certain dark episodes are required to push on further. The Second World War is a fine example of how it made history progress: the formation of a more viable global body like the UN, the progress in genetic sciences, development of atomic power, the meteoric rise of Communism, the creation of the US as a superpower... Yes, I know, these things don't sound very tasty, I admit, but even these are necessary steps to what comes after. You see, war is simply not enough to make history blow its load.”

“What is this man’s name?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“So what is my role in all of this?”

“Ah, the ego question. Much of what we do happens for a reason, a reason dictated by texts written and unseen. Your role could have been as small as choosing a particular coffee shop on a particular morning which may have caused a chain of events, or it could be as nobly important as writing the next part of the tragedy. Now that you've read the Backstory, you have a better narrative comprehension as to where we stand in relation to each other.”

“As diametrically opposed enemies.”

“Not enemies, Gimaldi. Opposed forces. Forces inhabit bodies, and we are merely the actors being worn by the masks. The fact that you also no longer possess that book has also been ordained, perhaps in the knowledge that you may have altered the course of events by referring back to it, rereading some vital passage.”

“Did you take it back?”

“No, I can honestly say that I have no idea where it is, nor did I arrange for someone to take it from you... Well, I did, once, but I called it off as you'll remember.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Sudden change of heart? In actual fact, it proved important to the synthesis that you kept and read it. I couldn't have known this previously, and you must not be under any illusion that I'm not also playing things as they land. I may get more information quicker than you, but I'm as equally distanced from the greater narrative controlling this state of affairs.”

“Why are we opposites?”

“Did you not read the Backstory? I thought it was plainly obvious – so plain as to spoon-feed the reader with the meaning. You are the force of the rational, of order... I am your shadow, the principle of chaos, entropy, play... You can consider me the court jester, if you like. The fool. And the fool always knows more than he tells, and tells with an impunity because, well, no one suspects the fool of being anything more than foolish.”

“How do the Devorants factor into this equation?”

“Again, I don't have all the details; that may be an auxiliary matter. Perhaps little more than a loose thread in the plot, a red herring to keep your attentions occupied and your fingers out of the pudding.”

“You continue referring to real events like they were a novel... Narrative, plot, characters... “

“As Billy Shakespeare said, 'all the world's a stage', my friend. The Library is what determines. The narrative is the glue that keeps our memories together, what makes history possible.”

“You have been vague about my role in this synthesis.”

“I have. I wanted you to have the proper context. We will preside over it, each in our own way. It was essential that you sought Jakob out, for one.”

“But that was only because he was mentioned in connection with me in the book. That was purely accidental.”

“Gimaldi, there are no accidents save the ones we fashion. You taking those two books was the Library's plan all along. There was something in your character which predicted your likely behaviour. The Library knew you could not resist taking those books, and in so doing, you moved the narrative of the synthesis progressively forward. The Library has its ways. This is the way it all began:

“Angelo, as well as my other employees at the time, were already occupied with a sudden surge of missing books they had to reacquire. The Library pushed out a very dangerous book in Vatican City, and it was geographically inconvenient to assign the task of reacquisition to anyone. The Library must have known you would be there doing research. I was forced to take the task on myself, but before I left, the Library gifted unto me a book describing our first encounter and that it was necessary. The Library has a keen knack for placing certain texts in our hands at the right moments, which I recall telling you in the labyrinth. It was ordained that we would meet and I followed the book's recommendation to take you under my wing. It also ordained that you would betray me, seek out Setzer, commit theft of books that the Library gifted unto you, and so forth. Books choose us, my friend, and that is my point. A few other volumes came to my attention about the synthesis. A long, and occasionally fatal, chain of events were prompted by merely the select releasing of books at their proper times in the right hands. All that I have done, Gimaldi, has been dictated by a narrative I do not control, nor can predict. Just when you think you have control, the Library proves ten steps ahead.”

“The world and all that is in it... Nothing more than characters and events in one of many books in a library,” I paraphrased.

“You get the picture. Even the events that led us to this conversation, if not this conversation itself, already written down in a book tucked deep in that Library. I am not a villain any more than you are a hero, unless the narrative of the Library determines it... And even then our roles may be variable and temporary: I am a hero in one act, and a villain in the next. I'm sorry I can't be more precise about your role, but I honestly know nothing more. We will play our parts. It is cold consolation, but hopefully you will note that my information on this matter has proven invaluable, despite my not having a precise idea of what your role actually is in the synthesis.”

“So much for free will,” I said.

Castellemare smiled. “Perhaps better to be ruled by a Library's narrative than an old man in a flowing white beard who condemns those who would rather sleep in on Sundays.”

“But there are a few more inconsistencies with what you say here that I would like to clear up.”

“I'm sure there are contradictions a-plenty, but our time is up. I grow tired and there is much to do. I hope we both come away satisfied with our little chat. As for the Angelo incident, I can't say that I am upset with you in light of this new knowledge you've furnished me with. As for you, perhaps the Devorants are still on your trail, still desperately trying to sabotage the synthesis. The Library's reasons are its own, and if it decides to give the Devorants a temporary feeling of victory in your death and the theft of that book, the synthesis may in fact be made the better for it. We know not how long we have in the narrative. But, I must fly! Ciao, Gimaldi.”

And then he left, without paying.

 

Without fail, the Library provided. I was convinced there must have been a sick genius operating it, wanting to torment me with a predictable narrative event. A group of old and stern faces were waiting for me outside my apartment, and I had already turned the corner on the stairs so that they saw me, making an escape seem too obvious.

“Can I help you?” I asked the closest one since it was hard to say given their sameness who was the leader of the group.

“We've come for the book. You will give it to us,” was the sanctimonious reply meant to be intimidating.

“Have you checked inside my apartment for it again? I lost it. Funny story, actually. You see, there was this guy who worked for the office of the Grand Inquisitor – a double agent – who also worked for a crazy librarian retrieving books. Well, anyway, he tried to murder me near the bottom of what seemed to be an endless stairway. So, anyway, there's this struggle and -”

They were not pleased, but I was not exactly trying to be accommodating.

“The book, now,” snarled another in the group.

“Give me back the rest of my books you stole. Now. And my computer as well.”

They weren't expecting such cheek, but I was more in the mood to give rather than receive orders. They furtively glanced at one another, searching for what to do next. Certainly, this was not the narrative they had anticipated, perhaps banking on their air of mystery, their affectations of being secretive and dangerous. I followed through with another taunt: “Clear off. Secret society or band of goofs, the cops will haul you in regardless. You can have all the knowledge you want, but unless any of you have close relatives at the police station... “

“You needn't be so difficult,” one of them in the group said, almost hurt. “Maybe we can have a conversation, let you know our point of view. Our work is very important to us, and we apologize for the inconvenience we have caused you. We aren't exactly adept at breaking and entering, or harassing people for that matter. Our domain proper is study.”

“You belong to the Devorants Order?”

“Yes,” said one with stiff pride before deflating.

“May I have my possessions back?”

“Oh, of course,” the hurt one deprecated. “We have all of it in the back of our station wagon. It's parked just outside.”

A secret society that motors about in a station wagon?

“Did you feed the meter?” another asked.

“I didn't think we'd be here all that long,” the first one protested.

“I'll go do that, but I'm a bit short. Does anyone have a few extra quarters?”

They all fished through their pants under their black robes.

“You'd do much better in not calling attention to yourselves if you didn't deck yourselves out as if you were en route to a satanic mass,” I offered.

“We thought it might intimidate you,” one of them said.

“You look as intimidating as a gang of old graduates.”

“We were just at meeting,” one of them defended.

“Well, you bunch ought to come inside – that is if you promise not to steal anything or sacrifice me upon a dark altar.”

A few of them wrinkled their noses as though the very thought was distasteful. There were six of them in all, and it was a challenge to seat them in my rather small apartment; two of them had to sit on the floor. I offered to rustle up some drinks as if I were playing host. Most of them declined, but a few were thirsty for some water. A very wild bunch.

“Oh, Henry, could you start fetching this fellow's things from the car?” one of them said to another seated on the floor. The respondent looked miffed.

“Don't use my Christian name! Rank and Order-given name only when we are in our vestments!” he rebuffed.

“Don't worry,” I said. “Let's not be sticklers for formality. I think I know what you are after, and I would like to know why.”

“Well,” said one of them, putting on leadership airs, “You have in your possession a... rather delicate book. We agree that it would be best if we held on to it, just for a while.”

“To prevent the synthesis from occurring,” I added.

“Well, that as well... You are a very fortunate man in having been able to visit the Library. None of our Order have been able to do that. It is like that Castillon wants to play keep-away with us.” He must have meant Castellemare.

“It makes no difference now. The Library has dictated that the synthesis will happen, and that it is too late to do anything about it,” I answered.

“By whose authority did you gain this information?”

“From the one you call Castillon, but it comes from much higher.”

“Are you still under his employ, still have access to the Library? Perhaps you would like to work for us, maybe even join our Order. You have some well-received journal articles... “

These were hardly the type of people who would have murdered Setzer; they were too meek and campy, just an old boys club of obsessive academics who got their jollies dressing up and being mysterious and self-important. I was beginning to think more and more that it was Angelo, operating under his other capacity. Was it not Angelo who had reported seeing the body first? But what reason would he have? I was not long in going over these thoughts as two of the Devorants picked up and started the process of returning my things. While the door was left ajar, who should come by but Castellemare, attended by Jakob.

“Look what I found wandering around with no tag,” announced Castellemare. “I was just in the neighbourhood, really, and it turns out that one of my appointments was postponed. What is this, Gimaldi? Are you moving out? And are you going with the 'old judges moving company,' too?”

The Devorants darted him a hostile and suspicious look. Castellemare grinned as broadly as usual, and Jakob was trying to look important.

“Quite the party,” remarked Castellemare.

“Who is this person?” asked one of the Devorants, taking another box of my things into the living room.

“Castillon,” I answered wryly before turning to Castellemare. “May I introduce you to the Devorants, mystical Order of the Station Wagon.”

“It's my aunt's!” one of them piped up in embarrassed protest. “And I'll have you know it is very economical.”

“Well, we'll just squeeze on in,” said Castellemare, leading Jakob gingerly. “The gang is all here, it seems. Let's party, gentlemen!”

“Y-you are Castillon?” asked one of the Devorants, Henry by name.

“Castellemare,” Castellemare corrected, “Although I'm sure a lot is lost in translation. Oh, Gimaldi: do you have anything for myself and my guest to drink? I would prefer something strong with a lime slice – if you can possibly summon up a piece of citrus in this place.”

“We have so much to ask you,” said the apparent leader.

“And I have so much not to tell you,” beamed Castellemare. “Rest easy, men of the cloth. Let's drop our banners and have ourselves a little shindig.”

I could tell that the Devorants could not conceal their awe, while Castellemare was very much enjoying himself with the comical social arrangement.

“Gimaldi,” Castellemare called out. “Jakob here is a bit loose-lipped and says he's been your research associate. Don't be angry with him.”

“I didn't mean -” began Jakob.

“Oh, shut it, you silly turd,” Castellemare upbraided mockingly.

“That's research assistant,” I corrected.

“Jakob here has been telling me all this very interesting information. His tireless research findings are spot on!” Castellemare said facetiously. “I had no idea that this nefarious, shadowy plot involved such notables as Marduk, the Earl of Sandwich, the Annunaki, and Aleister Crowley, no less!”

“No, it's the Earl of Brunswick,” Jakob said, proving himself the fool.

“So what are the cloaked ones doing with all this heavy lifting? That certainly can't be good for their arthritis,” asked Castellemare.

“Returning a few of my things.”

“I never would have figured them for thieves.”

“The best way to jack a house is -” began Jakob, showcasing knowledge he did not have, before being cut off.

“I really wish we could retire this 'thief' label,” Henry protested.

“To be honest,” said another of the Devorants to me, my computer in his hands. “We didn't get to pry all that much. We couldn't get into your computer.”

“It's password protected,” I said. “Every time it goes into screensaver mode.”

“Ah, yes. We aren't much for code-breaking. We're none too shabby when it comes to the written code, but computers are a little beyond our ken. Say, I think I will have something to drink.”

Perhaps he would have liked to see the wine list.

“Mr. Castill – Castellemare, level with us on this synthesis business. What is the meaning of it? I dare say that if it brings about atrocious consequences -”

“Hush, silly goat,” said Castellemare. “I can't just give away the whole program so early even before the first act has been completed.”

“My Christian name is Paul,” another member of the Devorants said, offering me his limp hand.

“That it is, very Christian,” guffawed Castellemare. The one named Paul pursed his lips disapprovingly.

“Ok, gang,” I raised my voice above the commotion. “Why don't you robed ones start from the beginning: why you raided my apartment, what you think you know about the synthesis, and all the rest so that we can feel good about each other.”

Henry was the first to step forward. “Mr. Gimaldi, again, on behalf of our esteemed Order, I would like to apologize for our actions, for although sometimes the ends seem to justify the means, we are still aggrieved to cause you any trouble.”

Castellemare was attempting to conceal his laughter, and not doing a very good job of it. The stiff comportment of the Devorants and the apparent non-threat they posed, was quite risible to the mad Librarian. I suppose it was jarring and a bit humourous to me as well, especially given that I had assumed all this time that the Devorants was a dangerous cabal. In actual fact, they were no more harmless or in the know about dark secrets than a group of Shriners.

As it turned out, the Devorants were not responsible for the spooky phone calls and knocking at the door – their only acts had been to keep tabs on me given some insider knowledge that I was now employed in connection with the Library, and in making themselves at home with my belongings. Beyond that, the source of my being terrorized remained a mystery. Their knowledge of the synthesis could be summarized as it being something bad, and little more. I was convinced that these could not be the real Devorants, but some hackneyed nostalgic throwback to Adam Weishaupt's Illuminati. I was able to deduce that their Order was established in 1949, and that their entire set of traditions from costumes to rituals had been borrowed from eager and obsessive research into secret societies. They were, in a pinch, the dog's breakfast of secret societies. All of this greatly amused Castellemare who was visibly trembling trying to stifle his laughter. Despite my relief, I was admittedly disappointed. It was quite a letdown that the Devorants were merely an exclusive bunch of book snobs.

“About that drink, Gimaldi,” Castellemare asked.

“I would favour one as well,” added Jakob. I merely shot him an annoyed glance.

“Fresh out,” I said.

“All these books, and not one on good hosting. Tsk tsk,” joked Castellemare.

“Henry,” I began. “There is nothing more that can be said. I accept your apology, but let's not have a repeat of this. I think it will be best if you and your colleagues take your leave. I don't think you fellows will be able to throw any light on my current list of questions.”

Henry cleared his throat and, not without some rushed embarrassment, said, “Mr. Gimaldi, I would like to take this opportunity to ask if you would consider a sponsored invitation to join our Order. In our estimation, you have many of the characteristic hallmarks of a fine member.”

At that point, Paul proffered me the Devorants brochure, done up on a dot matrix printer. I took it out of politeness and lied that I would seriously consider the generous offer for membership. Disappointed that I would not give them a peek of the book, and realizing that Castellemare was resolute in telling them nothing to satisfy all their eager curiousity about him, they were soon to file out, leaving me alone with Castellemare and Jakob.

“What a fun bunch!” beamed Castellemare. “So, are you gonna do it?”

“What?” I asked.

“Join them! Become a full fledged member of their sacred fraternity and be initiated into their most treasured secrets! Honour, title, respectability... Perhaps even a nice black robe if you pledge to their monthly dry-cleaning pool. Membership in such an illustrious group certainly has its privileges.”

“Can it, Castellemare. Yes, they were ridiculous, but now I'm coming up empty as to who is giving me a hard time.”

“Perhaps Jakob here knows.”

“I've been treated to enough of his theories,” I said. Jakob's expression became petulant.

“So, let me anticipate your question, Gimaldi. You want to know why I've paid you a visit, and why I brought the imbecile with me.”

“I'm sure you'll tell me,” I said resignedly.

“Well, I had been pressed for time and so could not enlighten you to all the details about the synthesis, and since there are so many it is hard to keep straight. You see, this idiot by my right hand will be reformed.”

The news was as mysterious to Jakob as it was to me.

“Reformed?” I asked, and Jakob also asked with a look.

“Yes, reformed. He is the perfect material for an anti-hero tragedy... A detestable character, pretentious, but so ridiculous that one could not see him as evil. Albrecht is evil, but evil needs intelligence. This boy here is but an egotistical brute, a wannabe, a man-child desperately looking for a father. He will gain in intelligence, but along the way he will commit acts of questionable morality that will more be on account of his blunders than any true conviction. Don't you see how the narrative will unfold? Stupid purity and impure genius. Jakob here will emulate and then fail, but he will remain pure. Albrecht will always be the evil genius and the absent father. Classic narrative.”

“Prosaic and mundane, if you ask me,” I said. Jakob also seemed to agree. I did not inquire after the name of Albrecht.

“Oh, Gimaldi, all stories are prosaic and mundane when you break them down to their basest elements. Look at our story: bookworm pulled along some bookish mystery filled with mysterious enticements, puzzles, terror, and an ambiguous villain figure who speaks in riddles. Betrayal, fights and flights, morose introspection, a bit of action, a murder, an accidental death due to struggle, a little bit of breaking the law here and there... Bo-ring! The motifs repeat: you failed to crack codes in your previous attempts with books, and redeem yourself in a labyrinth – of all places! All that is missing is a love interest, but that may unduly complicate the narrative and compromise your character as being somewhat asexual.”

“Asexual?”

“Oh, give it up, Gimaldi. The only proof of penis you can ever have in our little epic is if you take a piss. Aside from running into Alexa, this entire story has been a sausage factory! Feminists would be in an outrage with the implicit misogyny of our story since it seems to suggest that only men concern themselves with books, and books are symbolic representations of knowledge. We deal with secret fraternities, my employees you have met are all male. It's a classical narrative. If women were to suddenly delight our tale, would they not be just instrumental props? A conspicuous absence of women, yes, but at least we couldn't be accused of objectification.”

“What's the point, Castellemare? I'm getting tired of going around and around.”

“The point is that the outcome of the synthesis involves a woman, the very keystone of that arching epic of atrocity. Jakob here plays his part, and Albrecht's more cruelly refined misogyny places the feminine in its purely ineffaceable grandeur, but without being silly in the romanticist fashion. Of course, I don't want to give the whole thing away right here, now, do I?”

“Jakob, do you recall when I met you in the labyrinth?”

He merely looked at me, baffled.

“The labyrinth, Jakob,” I repeated. “You were with a rather tall and Germanic looking woman, very strong and lean. Short blonde hair, tattoo on her breast. You were lighting her cigarettes.”

Again, no flicker of recognition.

“Gimaldi, don't press the boy. What you saw were phantom images, symbols in flesh. Nothing in Setzer's labyrinth except for me could be considered anything more than illusions and artifice. You saw a cinematic taster of what is to come, and Jakob here was featured.”

“Now that you mention it,” Jakob was struggling to piece something together. “I did have this dream -”

“Bah!” Castellemare cut him off. “Dreams are all Freudian fluff pish-tosh! Spare us the recounting of your banal dreamscapes where you ride warring unicorns to bed the buxom princess tart!”

“No, let him continue. Jakob, what was your dream?” I asked in earnest.

“I... I remember something, but it must have been a week ago, and the memory is faded. But when you mentioned some woman with a tattoo, it started coming back to me a little. There was a fountain... “

“Yes,” I exclaimed. “There was a fountain! Go on.”

“Oh, really, Gimaldi... A fountain? Mere coincidence. I half expect that you two will agree upon having seen leaping satyrs as well. And then come to an agreement that he has maternal issues as a direct result of his being tapped on the head with a wooden spoon. Let's abandon this dead end chain of reasoning. Let's get back to why I am here.”

“Castellemare, the only reason you pop into my life is to drop another load of mysteries and riddles on my lap. You wish to torment me – that much I know.”

“You flatter yourself greatly,” he replied. “I come here presenting you with another little tidbit on the synthesis, and now you want to talk to the imbecile about his dreams. You'd make the world's worst detective. Moriarty would have given up on the likes of you. The time to come is a serious matter, Gimaldi, so don't waste your efforts on trifles. I have another reason for being here – it has come to my attention that I must vanish.”

“Vanish?”

“Yes, Gimaldi, our time is truly up. I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you well, say my goodbyes, pay my respects, and acknowledge you as a good foil. I am retreating into the Library for a long time and will not be making any further public appearances. My duties bid me there, and I cannot disobey the will of the Library. The boy here will also be making his way. It is for the best that he doesn't understand what will transpire so that the narrative will be pure and authentic. I can give you this information by way of parting that your neighbour, Leo, will at some point in the future commit suicide. Of course, it is all written, and you still have that book in your possession. Keep that, too, as a symbol of our friendship. May I offer you a shred of advice?”

I nodded, letting the 'friendship' reference go.

“Gimaldi, get a girlfriend. Really. You're strung so tautly, chasing after things you can barely understand... and if you're going to do that, you may as well chase the skirts since the mystery and anxiety that comes with the pursuit of women is far nobler, deeper, and rewarding.”

“Are you seriously leaving?”

“In a sense, yes. I am taking on one of my other monikers for a while to aid in the synthesis. That much I can tell you. You were a good employee, despite the theft business, especially in apprising me of the ulterior motives of my now deceased employee. For my part in being reticent and mysterious, I am sorry, but that is my nature. So long, Gimaldi... A long and prosperous trek through the narrative landscape. Come, Jakob, there are a few things you must know before I take my leave.”

Within minutes, Castellemare and Jakob were gone, leaving me in an empty apartment. All my leads were dried up save for that one book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28

Excerpts from 7^th Meditation

 

7

The First Synthesis: The Sabbatical Artist Breaks the Equatorial Line

 

The sky seemed to let go, disgorging itself of its heavy burden. All the shades of blue, all the tones of grey, every burr and edge, every billow and streak came slashing down as though from an overturned paint can. The wind had brought the snow, and with it the white pall of colourlessness. The snow fell rapidly upon leaves shredded into paste by rain and shoes.

Leopold felt like a stranger today, a kind of lurching hostility pirouetting in his brain that made his eyes appear hard and hateful to those who passed him. Even the music in his earphones went its own course, alienating him, despite his occasional attempts to arrest it with his careful attention. As vain as he could be, he would mentally place himself in a scenario where he was the one singing, the one who belted out the lyrics or the guitarist whose fingers glided like the sound of rain on a shingled roof or in the seat of the pianist whose skills did not surpass the occasional trill. He had felt this way as the incipient self always in a deferral, always waylaying the onset of a truly cohesive and unified self. The cruelty of the more robust boys and the pride that was hung between their legs like the butcher's best cut of meat in the window... It was they who caused Leopold to recede and shrink into his shell like a scared tortoise. It was they who had had a hand in making him a stranger - even to himself. On days like this, he spoke so little that he could hardly summon his voice to request a pack of cigarettes from the shopkeeper without it coming out in a strained squeak or rattle.

Other memories assaulted him, for today was a day marked with reminiscence. He thought of his older sister and the peeler girl who looked like her, the fatal Alexa Richter.

 

[First encountered textual reference in this book to Alexa Richter, the daunting woman Jakob was devoted to in Setzer's labyrinth. A possible lead? Perhaps I should query my neighbour about this woman, what her connection really is to all this – if any at all].

 

He didn't know which of the two, as memories, caused more pain, a kind of dual source pain that collided into one bruise on the memory.

On this day, when his voice failed from lack of use, it seemed like every object in his field of vision would trigger a small emotional episode. He began to analogize his emotions, transient though they were, in this way. He asked himself what colour he would paint today, what the essential character of his emotions were as if to derive a bottom line statement, some normative claim. On this day, he felt them all, and the combination of all the colours was in itself not a colour at all; the blank white of the canvas. All his thoughts had pushed to the fore, but none would come out... a kind of constipated crowd of thoughts stillborn in the threshold. And though the canvas mocked and dared him to express even one thought, he could not: he was not a colour, yet every thought individually inside him shone with a threatening vibrancy, an untouchable sense of the sublime. This thought mutated into something related, to a similar memory from childhood. In primary school, he had experienced a moment of innovative bravado. What would happen if I were to take every colour in the crayon box and mix them up? he asked himself. Would I discover a new colour? And he had set to work on it like a scientist while the teacher merely glanced over at his project with an uncaring, glazed, disinterested smile. Leopold had set out all the colours. First came the green, thatched in blocky wax across the page, and then the red overlaying it. The young Leopold was so excited about the prospect of discovering something new and receiving the praise of an intimidating adult world that impatience set in. He could not colour fast enough, though he had to be precise lest the adults not take his results seriously. But the idea was faster than his ability to execute it. Then came canary yellow, then deep blue, purple, sarasota orange, and then every minor and arbitrary shade in between. Once he had spent the last possibility, the disappointment set in: the product was a chaotic mess that appeared to have no colour at all, but rather this same crayon vomit colour of brownish-purple green all child predecessors had attempted before. He had inherited much of the same failures Jakob Sigurdsson would also inherit.

This was about the time that he had first been plunged into a classic paradox, the constant attempt to become who he was but always lagging at some distance. Tried as he did to traverse this distance, he was eternally halfway there... and another half, another half, always splitting the distance but never making contact. But Leopold knew that he would most likely die instead of ever eliminating that distance before what he was and what he could become. Applying this paradox to painting, he could not envisage how his paintbrush could ever touch the canvas in any meaningful way as that canvas blinked hard at him like an unsatisfied lover whose patience has run out. Would all this change with the possession of that inspired sketchbook?

Every painter learns that colours betray, and Leopold was quickly learning that the lulling charms of inspiration by way of theft was the scene of his betrayal of a now dead artist. Leopold rationalized to himself that this was no plagiarism, and that plagiarism itself was impossible when everything already existed and only needed to be mixed and mashed up into a new arrangement. Leopold leafed through the sketchbook once more before discharging the last vestiges of his underdeveloped moral decency. He had overtaken the identity of the former artist who had owned the book, somehow stepped into this artist's life as the perfect double rather than a rank emulator. Leopold would, upon the urging of Ensopht, write his own name over the former artist's, making the sketchbook his own creation. In doing so, he had doubled his life, incorporating the entire essence and artistic corpus of another into his own. In a particular section - “The Gallery of Femmes” - he came across a quote by the photographer, Peter Basch: “the bosom should be round, high, and firm, requiring no special posing to achieve this appearance.” This was how the section began, immediately preceding the table of contents and methodological statement. Leopold would read more about this new methodology as applied to the aesthetic. He would learn the fascination of art and its place as a form of orgiastic catastrophe. He would peruse the typology of women as set down in the book, and train his eyes to see the world on these terms.

The first sketch was of a woman with mechanical arms in a short party dress. Her head was tossed to one side, interpolated by a leopard-print shadow from multiple light sources. It was entitled “Femme Machina”. Running down the side of the page was some explanatory text, a kind of recurring legend for his types: Machine girl: I love you. There is an age for togetherness, for the pure connection technology has failed to provide in its calculated platform of promises. You are the pinnacle of fashion. Do you fuck with the lights off or do you rush for the strobe to render your contrived moments of hedonistic delight a stuttering of still images? The needle holes last forever: craters of pseudo-sex ecstasy meteors pockmarking fine flesh. O this lusty elegance, this torturous enmity ephemera of the fast-fuck-bang. O that you live in that kingdom of the moment, and are but a bond slave in only being able to retreat to those moments after the fact. I saw you kissing the magazine cover, your face, regarding every twist, whorl and fibre of that digitized flesh in print, those patterns on the night phallus. Cast another shadow of sexy blue-grey smoke love. Count those cigarettes like you count stimuli buttons pressed desperately in an effort to efface the inevitable tomorrow. How many adornments, pieces of designer wireless ware upon your person connecting your vacuum to all other vacuums?

Another image, this time a woman with short feathered hair in a vainglorious pose in a rainbow cotton tube top. The shadows obscured her eye in profile, a shadow in the roughly hewn shape of a bird's wing. This was the story of “Femme Narco”: Immortal you: glory, glory self-bomb destruction, that darkened spiral twist corkscrewing to the loud end. Every moment, another representation so plastic and non-biodegradable. A divine majesty that takes hold as hard, fast, and short as cocaine. Worry not about ephemera's touch, for I promise you a dynasty of a thousand years - a plastic castle.

“Femme Electronika” was drawn in a bas-relief style with a featureless, blank face with an enormous ringed piercing protruding from the middle where the nose would have been: She pierced her energy siphuncle and claimed divine pleasure from the transience of a phantom kingdom. Though she could transform into various avatars and fuse her body with the astral surfaces of sound, she couldn't break from the omnipresent kick-drum beat that kept her gyrating, rhythmically immobile. All out of flesh estate, every inch of skin surface conquered by tattoos and steel rings, she had to open up space on the inside. An alien on fire, a blue polyurethane pill-popping fanatic making the planet ill with her constant bristling.

And others... “Femme Fascist”: A genesis of anti-culture that preserves the old ruins of a collapsed Reichstag... A post-mortem pastiche of media bonhomie... “Femme Nihilo”: A Byronesque debonair ad nauseam worthy of the mausoleum or an ornate kind of suicide between the teeth of a Cheshire Cat's grin... She is a pious depiction of her abuses... The phallic rise pf neo-substantiality, the urban 'urbine' turbine engine of ideology. “Femme Chemi-Pious”: She's a well-worn insignia, a drug-poking priestess pointing the way to nihilist salvation, a chemical juggernaut... She's the junky pharaoh with the ankh syringe, or perhaps much later with the rood syringe of a Heroin-Christ... The icon slowly grows iconoclast of itself. And “Femme Fatale”, “Femme Urbanus”, “Femme Pharaoh”, “Femme Peni$ Envy”, “Femme Nova”, and “Femme Ephemera”. And where are you in the club mosaic? was written across the top of the page with bright blue and desperate strokes, pleading with the panoply of women in this age to fit themselves neatly into these new categories, these types. “I must have written all of this so many times before,” Leopold thought to himself, deluded. “I must become this man, setting myself at the dawn of the possibilities he provokes.”

Alone in his unkempt apartment, Leopold gave voice to an inner tangent that was burbling in that kind of way that felt as if despite him, the airs of a broken shaman:

“A dream of dogs without flesh... Nothing in the world is proscribed except morally. Deviance is the moralist's magical fish - their word, not mine, a word they use to pinion me, to coerce me into the arena of guilt. They react, and I act... creatively, with affirmation, by being different. They and their cheap, empty words like 'deviance' tries to limit what I can do... But , I will make myself worthy of what happens to me. To be an artist, one must not have patience for dogmatism and the stagnant complaints of whining moralists. In art, all is permissible, there are no taboos. No act should be valued in the narrow binary opposition of right and wrong, for those terms have lost their currency. If I choose to murder a man, remove his entrails, and arrange them in the name of art, no state authority should prohibit or punish me - No! I should be praised as a genius, loved like a physician. Wherever my creativity brings me, no boundaries should impede me. Let my art song, my invincible creative spirit, shatter all the stones of the law... those petty and inert laws... The might of the artist is the only true divinity... “

The words, although he took ownership of them, were not entirely his – emerging from the reservoir of the other five figures of the synthesis.

Leopold approached the canvas by way of an intoxicated siege, a kind of infernal bloodlust to apply the mixed principles of the sketchbook as it felt to thrum through his hands. He felt as though a glory of inspirational arcs were animating his limbs, the hesitance in his brush was gone, the weakness consumed by the fiery passion of pure will divested of weakness. Suddenly, he was deluged by an endless succession of creative possibilities. One after another, he slapped paint on the canvases in an inexhaustible fury, but he paused on the completion of one painting he was particularly pleased with. There were two figures, a man and a woman, emaciated and naked. Their hands held crosses with puppet strings. These strings - more like fishing wire - were attached by way of piercings that were in turn connected to erogenous zones and the miscellany of the body. Their faces twisted in agony and pleasure. “I will attach three to the penis, two to the testes, one for each nipple, four to each ear, and three to the lips. This will be the man, the one name Adam whom I created from the mere clay and shaped with my spirit of creation! I will attach two to the the clitoris, three to the labia, one for each nipple, three to each ear, three to the lips, five to the glans... And this will be woman, Eve, as born from the rib of pleasure. I will then draw in secondary wires that will directly connect the erogenous zones of the man and woman. There, yes... they are interconnected, attached in the intricate relation... The immanent plane of morbid sexuality par excellence!”

Although it could not fairly be said that Leopold had achieved anything as outre as it was orthodox in the domain of contemporary art, and although his application of the sketchbook's principles was juvenile and amateurish at best, it had broken the long and sleepy spell of his inability to commit himself to this fiery act of making.

His next cavalier act of inspirational fury involved a projector and a canvas scrawled with the caricatures of every member of the alleged synthesis, harsh-angled and severe. The only missing member in this diorama was himself. From stock footage he had of red paint falling in long streaks down a white backdrop, this was projected unto the scene while a camera filmed him standing in front of the projection with arms out as if in crucifixion. The projection gave the appearance that it was his blood flowing over the faces of the to-be-synthesized. Leopold was in a state of ecstatic trance.

There is an ancient practice among seafaring folk, now defunct, known as the “Baptism of the Line”. It was usually an initiation rite played on a fellow sailor who was crossing the equator for the first time. An elaborate and mischievous ritual, five participants would dress up as a cask, a courier, the Devil, a hairdresser, and a miller, respectively. These masqueraders would then proceed to hassle the uninitiated (whom was called the Virgin). The origin of this practice is enigmatic, patchy, and for the most part unknown, as are the reasons why these specific parts are played. Their significance has been lost to us. That Leopold had passed into the equatorial region of his creativity was most likely prompted by external forces, and these forces all have their faces. A line was indeed being crossed, and the synthesis was the baptism of an age, an avatar.

 

 

8

Where the Scientist Succumbs to a Metanarrative Moment

 

A motley of musical transgressions besieged his mind, and the sea gull squawk of a saxophone finally gave way to the flatulence of passing trucks. In the corner of his eye, he saw small hallucinatory images, tumbling cylinders that changed colours and flared their ends before retracting into the tight, collapsed yellow cornea ring it began with. The mirror's frozen face was full of the greasy prints of careless fingers, this mirror stuffed full enough of the faces that had been poured ritually into it. He saw himself in it, old, worn, a leathery vessel of fatigue. It would be fair to say that he was, indeed, losing it. It? Himself, perhaps, dissolving into that pool of the others, melting and fusing into that one being the alleged Prophet spoke of. Entirely absent from his thoughts were the concerns of the laboratory, the fruit flies multiplying winglessly, eyelessly. He tugged at his sagging cheek and was assailed by images unsavoury, a vast grey realm of cubicles, ergonomic chairs and gel padded wrist rests and paper nameplates and random pictures of their putrid children and forsaken lunch fruit and paperclips and coffee spotted mugs and awful personalized coffee cups and insincere birthday cards given by pseudo well-meaning coworkers – and, suddenly, that vast arcade of computerized and cubiclized hot flashes was sucked into itself, forming a dense and swirling dot like a neutron mass. From the center of this emerged a bloody hand grasping at the air. Glass shards showered down, obscuring what was left of the low-pile hypno-patterned office carpet. A series of manuals and textbooks formed a treacherous orbit around the now enormous hand that was beginning to look gnarled, misshapen, like that of a beast. The hand formed a fist and a geyser of blood sprouted from between the clenched fingers, refusing to adhere to the glossy surface of dry-erase boards frescoed with primary colour equations and PLO messages in hasty block capitals. The carpet edges were beginning to blacken as if burning from an invisible fire. The shards of glass were now seemingly suspended for a moment, electrified and entering into the orbit of office debris around the large fist. He saw someone who looked like him loping from desk to desk wearing nothing but his underwear, clawing at the air, his face, leaping on the furniture like an enraged ape. That vision of himself was unplugging wires from computers and trying to attach them to his body. His inner eyelid finally slammed shut on this scene and he was back in the bathroom, breathless at the mirror.

I'm sick, he thought. “Cetera Desunt” had been psychographically written with the smudge of his fingertip on the glass. The tousled hair and gaunt face of Leopold, the artist, eddied its way for dominant mental attention. The inner Leopold wanted stroking, pets of affection to make him or it purr. Dr Aymer saw Leopold in the mirror approaching. Was it him?

“I had some hell of a fucking time getting here,” Leopold said, shutting the front door behind him with a nudge of his dirty designer sneaker. “Cabbie lost his way four times – four fucking times! Can you believe it? He was lucky I paid him anything at all.”

It was Leopold, but Dr Aymer could not recall inviting him. Leopold was carrying a great deal of equipment and a canvas partially wrapped in brown paper.

Noting the confusion on Dr Aymer's face, Leopold said, “What? You commissioned this, didn't you? D'you have a place I can set it up? It beats the piss even out of what Jubal Brown does.”

He didn't know who that was. He didn't remember commissioning anything. Why was Leopold in his home? Who was Jubal Brown? He merely gestured impotently to the living room, and Leopold took this as his cue to set up the projector there.

“The others'll won't be too far behind, I bet,” called Leopold from the living room amidst a few frustrated expletives and the sound of setting up equipment. “Shit, how many crusty old textbooks on fruit flies does a man need? You need a maid.”

Then came the sound of a video from the speakers, Leopold's recorded voice: “The rapturous day will come when the dogs of every Hell, clothed in solid blood and the flesh of souls, will devour the sun and moon and stars. The sound of a great bull with four thousand eyes and four thousand mouths will rupture the skin of the world. And from this fissures will flow the most odious of bile and puss and excrement. And when the seed of the Returned King Satyr is planted in the whore, the cry of the infant hybrid will resound with a great keening that will dislodge the carbuncle of the heavens which will descend upon the world with the heat and intensity of a thousand million flames.”

“Could use an edit, I know,” Leopold called out in apology. “I was just letting the narrative flow, know what I mean? Let it roll fresh and uninhibited, whatever was in my head at the time. I doubt Ensopht will call it jejune, but I think the whole piece together is polychrome thinking, if you catch me.”

Knock-knock. Knock-knock.

“Gonna answer that, doc?”

Dr Aymer floated as if in a daze to the door. He wasn't even properly dressed. He opened the door, and there he saw Wally Wyman with the Philosopher and Ensopht. It was Ensopht who took charge.

“We're here for the opening, Dr Aymer. I brought along a few guests. Hope you don't mind.”

He let them in and turned to Leopold and said without concealing his confusion, “Did I... invite you over here? I don't remember.”

“You don't remember? Shit, doc, whatever you're taking, gimme some! We talked for like over an hour on the phone. Must've been an hour and a half ago. Say, you got any hooch? - This thing is better with the mind just right and tight.”

Wally, the Philosopher, and Ensopht were already making themselves at home, sitting on the leather couch and continuing their discussions from outside.

“Is this your piece de resistance, Leopold?” Ensopht asked.

“Well, we'll see. It was a bit of a chop job, but hopefully you'll get the general idea of what I'm trying to do.”

“All good art is raw,” Ensopht rejoined. “I'm sure it has legs.”

Wally, as disheveled as usual, was already licking the end of a 'D' dry cell.

“Come and watch with us, Dr Aymer,” Ensopht appealed. “Leopold's work no doubt promises to showcase the symbolic fruit of our union.”

With that, Dr Aymer sat with the others, watching as the vivid red streaked across the screen of the canvas with Leopold standing before it, his face twisted in rapturous, leonine bliss.