The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
1 
The Shadow
at the Bottom
of the World
"Thomas Ligotti is an absolute master of supernatural horror and weird fiction, 
and a true original. He pursues his unique vision with admirable honesty 
andrigorousness and conveys it in prose as powerfully evocative as any writer in 
the field. I'd say he might just be a genius."
--Ramsey Campbell
2 
Songs of a Dead Dreamer
Grimscribe: His Lives and Works
Noctuary
The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein & Other Gothic Tales
The Nightmare Factory
In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land
I Have a Special Plan for This World
This Degenerate Little Town
My Work Is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror
Crampton
Death Poems
3 
The Shadow
at the Bottom
of the World
Foreword by Douglas A. Anderson
4 
Cold Spring address
P.O. Box 284, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724 E-mail: Jopenroad@aol.com
Copyright ©2005 by Thomas Ligotti
"Foreword" copyright ©2005
by Douglas A. Anderson
ISBN 1-59360-058-5 Library of Congress Control No. 2005928861
- All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America
"Horror Stories: A Nightmare Scenario" copyright ©2005 by Thomas Ligotti
Stories from Songs of a Dead Dreamer, including "Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech," 
"Alice's Last Adventure," "Vastarien," and "Dr. Locrian's Asylum," copyright 
©1989 by Thomas Ligotti
Stories from Grimscribe, including ""The Last Feast of Harlequin," "The Mystics 
of Muelenburg," "The Spectacles in the Drawer," "The Shadow at the Bottom of the 
World," "Nethescurial," and "The Cocoons," copyright ©1991 by Thomas Ligotti
Stories from Noctuary, including "The Strange Design of Master Rignolo" and "The 
Tsalal," copyright ©1994 by Thomas Ligotti
Stories from The Nightmare Factory, including "The Bungalow House," "Teatro 
Grottesco," and "The Red Tower," copyright ©1996 by Thomas Ligotti
"Purity" copyright ©2003 by Thomas Ligotti
5 
To the memory of my uncles Leonard Ligotti and Joseph Mazzo.
6 
Contents
Foreword by Douglas A. Anderson 8
Introduction: Horror Stories: A Nightmare Scenario by Thomas Ligotti 10
The Last Feast of Harlequin 17
Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech 53
Alice's Last Adventure 63
Vastarien 80
Dr. Locrian's Asylum 94
The Mystics of Muelenburg 104
The Spectacles in the Drawer 112
The Strange Design of Master Rignolo 124
The Shadow at the Bottom of the World 135
Nethescurial 144
The Cocoons 158
The Tsalal 168
The Bungalow House 196
Teatro Grottesco 216
The Red Tower 234
7 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
8 The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
Foreword
In the historical development of the artistic horror story, there are three 
major figures. The first is, of course, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-
1849), the father of the modern psychological horror story. The next, 
chronologically, is H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), who brought cosmicism--an 
awareness of the vastness of the universe and of the insignificance of the human 
race-- to the weird tale. And now there is Thomas Ligotti (b. 1953), who has 
extended Lovecraft's cosmicism by suggesting that an inescapable malignancy and 
nightmare inheres in all existence, manifesting itself in both the individual 
psyche and the physical cosmos. Interestingly, these three writers have found 
the short story rather than the novel to be their ideal vehicle for expression. 
For Ligotti, "the short story allows a purer and more intense expression of 
horror ... than do novels."
Born in Detroit, Ligotti grew up in a nearby suburb and in 1977 graduated from 
Wayne State University with a B.A. in English. From
1979 to 2001 he worked in the literary criticism division of the Gale Research 
Company (now Thomson Gale), a publisher of reference books. Ligotti then moved 
to Florida, where he makes his living as an editorial freelancer.
He began writing horror fiction around 1976, and published his first short story 
in 1981. His first book, a small press collection entitled Songs of a Dead 
Dreamer, came out in an edition of 300 copies in 1985. Today it is a 
highly-prized rarity. An expanded edition appeared from a trade publisher in 
1989, followed by further collections: Grimscribe (1991), Noctuary (1994), and 
the omnibus volume The Nightmare Factory (1996). Since then Ligotti has worked 
mostly with small publishers, like Durtro Press, which has issued elegant 
limited editions like In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land (1997), a collection 
of four
9 
interconnected stories; an unproduced screenplay, Crampton (2002), written in 
collaboration with Brandon Trenz; and some small books of Ligotti's verse, I 
Have a Special Plan for This World (2000), This Degenerate Little Town (2001), 
and Death Poems (2004).
In 1994, Silver Salamander Press collected Ligotti's vignettes in The Agonizing 
Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein & Other Gothic Tales. Another small press, 
Mythos Books, has published My Work Is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate 
Horror (2002), whose eponymous story is Ligotti's lengthiest tale. Forthcoming 
from Mythos Books is Ligotti's long essay, The Conspiracy Against the Human 
Race: On the Horror of Life and the Art of Horror, a kind of personal credo of 
Ligotti's views on life and literature. The two main websites devoted to 
Ligotti's work are Thomas Ligotti Online (www.ligotti.net) and The Art of 
Grimscribe (www.ligotti.de.vu). Both websites have a complete Ligotti 
bibliography, and much else of interest.
The stories in this volume were selected by Ligotti and myself as an 
introductory sampler of his works. They are arranged in the order in which they 
were written. Thus, "The Least Feast of Harlequin"-- which Ligotti has referred 
to as the first story he wrote that he thought was good enough not to throw 
away--opens the collection, and "Purity," one of his most recent tales, 
concludes it. The bulk of these stories, however, date from the late 1980s and 
early 1990s, Ligotti's most productive period.
Unlike the bulk of horror fiction past and present, Ligotti's work" is 
essentially outside the tradition of strict realism in which a neatly demarcated 
natural world is threatened by a supernatural menace, an aberration in the 
normal course of things that more often than not maybe combated and conquered. 
In the universe of Ligotti's fiction, the natural and the supernatural merge 
into the same nightmare; to distinguish them is meaningless and no salvation is 
to be found in this world or any other. As Ligotti has noted, many of his 
stories "focus on those anomalous moments in which a character's perception of 
his world is shaken and he is forced to confront a frightening and essentially 
chaotic universe." Which is, in its way, a realism of the highest order.
--Douglas A. Anderson
10 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
Introduction
HORROR STORIES: A NIGHTMARE SCENARIO
Extracted from the forthcoming book, The Conspiracy against the Human Race: On 
the Horror of Life and the Art of Horror.
For a horror story to be effective, it must both reflect and deform the world we 
know, the place in which we eat and fight and procreate. This means that it must 
not intrude on the sacred ground already being worked by established 
institutions of faith, which at some point inevitably deviate into the 
unknowable in order to comfort their audience rather than distress them. Should 
it follow this craven path, the horror story would lose its greatest value--the 
power to convey truths that have currency with respect to our evolving 
trepidations rather than perpetuating some primitive lore of the remote past. A 
literary law that only the greatest writers in the genre, such as Edgar Allan 
Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, have followed in their writings maybe stated as 
follows: No horror tale shall take advantage of its readers by playing upon 
their religious beliefs. This is an easy and a vile game that only the lowest 
form of scribe would perpetrate on those who already have their heads filled 
with all kinds of fears conditioned into them since they were children in the 
hands of an angry god. Fortunately, we find that a model for creating horror has 
been provided for us that has nothing to do with preachers and pulpits and the 
puppetry of doctrinal compliance. This model is given to us in the form of 
nightmares, which conform to no orthodoxies except those of our developing 
fears. No bad dream ever ended with its dreamer finding salvation from his 
mind's hell. Such finales are always invented after the fact by storytellers 
with a redemptive agenda.
11 
As necessity dictates to most of us that we must be conscious of death, disease, 
damage, and derangement, however reluctantly and infrequently we submit to this 
knowledge, it also forces us to leave that world on a regular time-table and 
enter another one where we face horrors beyond the natural, warped realities 
that are produced simply because our brains have shifted to a different mode of 
activity and that by the reckoning of our wide-awake selves can only be 
described as lunatic. An equally apt term would be "supernatural," since there 
obtains a tradition of symbolically equating states of mental abnormality with 
bizarre incidents in the "real" world, as elaborated by Sigmund Freud in his 
famous essay "The Uncanny" (1919). This is the basis for the longtime 
association between the supernatural and horror fiction. When we take a ghost 
from our dreams and place it in the context of waking consciousness, if only in 
the pages of a ghost story, we have chosen, as though freely and of our own 
will, to engage in the metaphysics of the mistake. The point of this act is a 
tangle of motives we cannot begin to unravel any better than all the other 
actions in which we engage on this earth. The only thing that is certain is that 
we do this because we are driven to do it. But such speculation is distracting 
us from our concern of the moment, which is the plot of a supernatural horror 
story and its source in the nightmare.
It is usually a long and twisted road between the nightmare and a horror story. 
As far as offering a writer some useful storyline, nightmares are notorious for 
generating plots that are either wearyingly simple, and therefore unaffecting 
outside the confines of the dream, or too complicated to sort out for any kind 
of sense. Of course, the same might be said of our waking existence. On the one 
hand, its course tends to present a few basic routines that have no interest in 
themselves once we strip them down to their bare bones. But we must go through 
these motions if the show is to go on. We eat because we are hungry and will die 
if we fail to heed that hunger. We work because we need to provide ourselves 
with food as well as shelter from the elements. We sleep because we are tired 
and need to recharge ourselves so that we can work, which in turn enables us to 
feed and shelter ourselves. But these routines, and the kind of sense behind 
them, are not sufficient fodder for fiction and would make for painful reading. 
On the other hand, things can get so involved and mysterious in our lives that 
we are hard pressed to determine what is happening
12 
or why. One day we are just punching the clock at the biological factory, and 
the next day we find ourselves embroiled in the strangest situation because we 
saw a pretty face or got wind of some words that set off a conflagration of rage 
that may last only a matter of hours or could drag on for years. At first we may 
take a stab at explanations, but ultimately we are at a loss to name the 
mechanism of our initial impulse, to follow its developments and 
counter-developments, and to know what happened in the end. This is one of the 
reasons we engage in such activities as reading fiction in the first place: we 
are unsatisfied or frustrated by the both the basic tedium and the inconclusive, 
strung-along complexity of our lives. They lack something we desire--meaning ... 
or, in other words, a plot. No other creature in this world requires anything in 
the way of meaning, but we appear to be burdened with this desire. This is why 
the Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe regarded human beings as a mistake 
in the world of nature. We have a desire that can never be satisfied, a need 
that is not natural, or at least one that is not found elsewhere in nature's 
kingdom. Nevertheless, we will persist in chasing the impossible and ultimately 
die trying. This is the tragedy of human existence that Zapffe concluded we do 
our best to cover up in order to tolerate an existence that holds terrors for us 
at every turn. Hence, we make up narratives that are rich with meaning, 
conspiring among ourselves to tell lies in order to create the coherence that 
both our waking and dreaming lives withhold from us. Thus, there are the 
mythologies, the religions, and even scientific scenarios that open with a big 
bang, continue until some characters come along, and then end in entropy. At 
this stage in history, it may seem unnecessary and more than a little trite to 
go over this ground upon which so many have trod before us. But we are here 
concerned with fictional plots-- specifically, with plotting a course between 
the nightmare and the horror story. If we have again wandered off the topic, 
this should be no surprise. Indeed, we may profit from wandering a bit further.
Part of our inheritance as conscious organisms--creatures who are aware of being 
alive and know about the inescapability of death-- is that we are subject to 
having nightmares. Every move we make in our lives entails risk. What we risk 
each time we lie down to sleep is that our minds will drift off like a balloon 
into a sky freaked with clouds and shadows and be battered about in 
misadventures of unimaginable madness. While our bodies are held in paralysis, 
unless
13 
we are sleepwalkers, our consciousness is distorted to the point of the 
psychotic, roaming through the backstreets of our brains... until the moment 
when the intensity of our horror becomes too much to allow our slumber to 
persist, and we are jarred back into wakefulness.
Yet if the nightmare has sufficiently shaken us, it may take some time before we 
are fully awake. We are alert enough to reach for the lamp and scramble from our 
bed, rubbing our eyes as if to wipe away the visions to which we have been 
victim and pressing our hands to our temples to feel our way back to the 
familiar ground of flesh. But the world of the nightmare has not yet been left 
behind. So we evacuate that room which has become a chamber of horrors and seek 
out some other place in our residence--somewhere that is not infected by the 
insanity we have just endured, somewhere that will accommodate our bodies in an 
upright position so that we are not prone to sink back into that insane darkness 
from which we are trying to emerge. Once seated, we may moan and curse in the 
aftermath of the frightening ordeal through which our consciousness has taken 
us. The residue of things we never believed we would suffer still plagues our 
heads with images that keep popping up in the darkness inside us and inner 
scenarios are played over and over like a tune we cannot rid from our thoughts. 
Our bodies continue to shiver with fever of an immaterial disease and its 
lingering symptoms, its ravages and confusions. No longer entrapped in the 
dream, we are not yet fully free from its clutches. And the worst part about 
occupying this transitional zone, the most awful revelation that occurs in this 
state, is not the nightmare that has just slithered into our skull and nested 
there for awhile. That particular trauma is complete and the house lights are 
now up around us, even while we remain in a delirium that might otherwise signal 
some serious mental disorder, some damage to the system that functions to give 
us a sense that we are a real person, a normal and continuous self. The worst 
part of this limbo between two worlds is not the memory of the nightmare that 
has already passed, receding into some slime-streaked and cobwebbed cavern of 
memory, but the idea of all those nightmares that have yet to come in our lives 
and are as sure as anything to do so. In those interstitial moments between the 
deformations of a sick dream and a full recovery that sends our minds home from 
the hospital, we find the prospect of further episodes of this kind, of relapses 
into the frenzies of the sleeping mind, to be absolutely intolerable. How could 
we ever again bring ourselves to
14 
take the risk of going back to that bed and descending into dreams. What a 
monstrous destiny we must helplessly face, each night standing on the precipice 
of sleep and not knowing what waits below.
However, as previously observed, every move we make in our lives entails risk. 
This statement could be truthfully extended to declare not merely risk but, 
based on facts and figures, the certainty of pain and grief that encompasses us 
like barbed wire into which, sooner or later, we will run headlong. Few of us 
vow not to enter an automobile because some of the most grotesque disfigurements 
and deaths have resulted from this decision. On the other hand, many are 
dissuaded from knowing the exhilaration offered by riding a motorcycle, whether 
or not they have heard that surgeons refer to these vehicles as "donorcycles." 
But even the most incautious among us weigh the risks, gauging what prospective 
harm they find acceptable in light of the rewards involved. Many believe that 
they have a fair choice in the matter of which doom ultimately overtakes them, 
and sometimes their lives indeed come to an end approximately as they 
envisioned. Of course, this is not exactly how they explain their predicament to 
themselves. They usually remain as oblivious as humanly possible to any 
nastiness that could waylay their life-plan. While they may have had a close 
brush with severe physical damage or their own demise, they usually recover from 
these experiences and, like those who have had a good share of nightmares in 
their time, eventually go back to sleep ... because it is in their sleep that 
they are looking to die after a long and healthy life. Neither waking nightmares 
nor non-waking ones have given the human species any pause in its progress. It 
is not as if a person, once born, or a society, once formed, has ever had any 
appealing choice except to carry on as if everything will be all right in the 
short run and to think about the end of things as little as possible. 
Confronting the nightmare on a daily basis and on a conscious level is just not 
something people are wont to do as a rule. A small number of us, however, have 
become devout researchers of all types of nightmares and, perhaps due to some 
fluke or flaw of character, wish to release our findings in the form of what 
have become casually known as horror stories. The following observations are 
drawn from my own studies in this area of human experience.
However frightening nightmares may be, plain old horror is not the entirety of 
their essence, nor is it that of the horror story. Of course, there must be 
something horrific about them, whether it is
15 
being stalked by someone through dark streets or groping your way through an 
ever-narrowing tunnel or finding yourself receiving a ghostly visitation as 
mentioned earlier. Yet the quality of a nightmare lies neither in these nor in 
any other hypothetical horrors as such. What makes a nightmare nightmarish is 
the sense that something is happening that should not be. While nightmares are 
the most convenient reference point for this sense of the impossible, the 
unthinkable, as something that is actually happening, it is not restricted to 
our sleeping hours.
To give a relatively common example, we might consider the plot of a traffic 
accident, an event that is commonly experienced as dreamlike in the beginning, 
as you find yourself suddenly moving along a track of time quite different from 
the one you knew before the accident began. You may be traveling along slippery 
roads and then, without warning, find yourself sliding across several lanes of 
oncoming traffic. You know in principle that such things can easily happen. They 
may even have happened to you on a prior occasion. You know that they happen to 
other people all the time. Nevertheless, this accident was not in your plans, 
which is why it is called an accident. It seems like a mistake, even if it could 
be explained by a cause-and-effect confluence of circumstances. It was a mistake 
because you had an idea of how things were supposed to be that day, as you do 
every day, and spinning helplessly in your car while others try to avoid a 
collision with you, perhaps unsuccessfully, was not part of your schedule. One 
moment you had a firm grip on things; the next moment you are careening toward 
who knows where. You are not filled with horror, not yet at least, as you spin 
along the pavement that is slick with rain or snow. At this point, everything is 
all strangeness. You have been taken to a different place from where you were, 
and you are no longer in control. Anything could happen now. That is the 
suspicion that creeps into your thoughts as a nightmare begins. Nothing is safe 
and nothing is off limits. All of a sudden something was set into motion that 
changed everything into that which was not meant to be, at least according to 
your deluded conception of your life and its "meaningful" trajectory. Yet these 
things happen, as everyone knows. They have always happened and are always 
happening.
But we isolate the nightmare by calling it imaginary and denying it a place in 
our real life; we anchor ourselves in a place far away from it, where such 
"realities" as God and Country rule the wavelengths; we
16 
distract ourselves from it by confining our minds to places where it is not; and 
we sublimate the nightmare by placing it in stories and paintings and other 
devisings that we may put away at will. If we neglected to do this, we would be 
living at all times in a world of nightmare... a world that was not meant to be 
and yet is so. And thus we conspire with ourselves and against ourselves to deny 
the most obvious facts of the nightmare--death, disease, damage, and 
derangement. The horror story, by obeying the terms of the nightmare, is a way 
that, deviously, some people use to think about the unthinkable, to face what we 
otherwise would not choose to look upon, and, more importantly, to control and 
give meaning to that which can neither be controlled nor harbors any meaning. It 
is a perverted mode of defending ourselves from what would demean and destroy 
us, from what cannot be helped and should never have been--life itself in all 
its inane grotesquerie. However, for all our efforts to overwrite what has been 
written, to remake what had been made, to change what cannot be changed, and 
accept what is unacceptable, we have succeeded only in making a bad situation 
worse. No matter how many paper monsters we face down, no matter how many 
nightmares we shake off, the best we can do is open the pages of Poe and 
recite--with a resigned and sardonic calm, if we can manage it--those words from 
"The Conqueror Worm" that tell us a story in which there is "much of Madness, 
and more of Sin And Horror the soul of the plot."
17 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
The Last Feast of Harlequin
My interest in the town of Mirocaw was first aroused when I heard that an annual 
festival was held there which promised to include, to some extent, the 
participation of clowns among its other elements of pageantry. A former 
colleague of mine, who is now attached to the anthropology department of a 
distant university, had read one of my recent articles ("The Clown Figure in 
American Media," Journal of Popular Culture), and wrote to me that he vaguely 
remembered reading or being told of a town somewhere in the state that held a 
kind of "Fool's Feast" every year, thinking that this might be pertinent to my 
peculiar line of study. It was, of course, more pertinent than he had reason to 
think, both to my academic aims in this area and to my personal pursuits.
Aside from my teaching, I had for some years been engaged in various 
anthropological projects with the primary ambition of articulating the 
significance of the clown figure in diverse cultural contexts. Every year for 
the past twenty years I have attended the pre-Lenten festivals that are held in 
various places throughout the southern United States. Every year I learned 
something more concerning the esoterics of celebration. In these studies I was 
an eager participant-- along with playing my part as an anthropologist, I also 
took a place behind the clownish mask myself. And I cherished this role as I did 
nothing else in my life. To me the title of Clown has always carried 
connotations of a noble sort. I was an adroit jester, strangely enough, and had 
always taken pride in the skills I worked so diligently to develop.
I wrote to the State Department of Recreation, indicating what information I 
desired and exposing an enthusiastic urgency which came naturally to me on this 
topic. Many weeks later I received a tan envelope imprinted with a government 
logo. Inside was a pamphlet
18 
that catalogued all of the various seasonal festivities of which the state was 
officially aware, and I noted in passing that there were as many in late autumn 
and winter as in the warmer seasons. A letter inserted within the pamphlet 
explained to me that, according to their voluminous records, no festivals held 
in the town of Mirocaw had been officially registered. Their files, nonetheless, 
could be placed at my disposal if I should wish to research this or similar 
matters in connection with some definite project. At the time this offer was 
made I was already laboring under so many professional and personal burdens 
that, with aweary hand, I simply deposited the envelope and its contents in a 
drawer, never to be consulted again.
Some months later, however, I made an impulsive digression from my 
responsibilities and, rather haphazardly, took up the Mirocaw project. This 
happened as I was driving north one afternoon in late summer with the intention 
of examining some journals in the holdings of a library at another university. 
Once out of the city limits the scenery changed to sunny fields and farms, 
diverting my thoughts from the signs that I passed along the highway. 
Nevertheless, the subconscious scholar in me must have been regarding these with 
studious care. The name of a town loomed into my vision. Instantly the scholar 
retrieved certain records from some deep mental drawer, and I was faced with 
making a few hasty calculations as to whether there was enough time and 
motivation for an investigative side trip. But the exit sign was even hastier in 
making its appearance, and I soon found myself leaving the highway, recalling 
the roadsign's promise that the town was no more than seven miles east.
These seven miles included several confusing turns, the forced taking of a 
temporarily alternate route, and a destination not even visible until a steep 
rise had been fully ascended. On the descent another helpful sign informed me 
that I was within the city limits of Mirocaw. Some scattered houses on the 
outskirts of the town were the first structures I encountered. Beyond them the 
numerical highway became Townshend Street, the main avenue of Mirocaw.
The town impressed me as being much larger once I was within its limits than it 
had appeared from the prominence just outside. I saw that the general hilliness 
of the surrounding countryside was also an internal feature of Mirocaw. Here, 
though, the effect was different. The parts of the town did not look as if they 
adhered very well to one another. This condition might be blamed on the 
irregular topography
19 
of the town. Behind some of the old stores in the business district, steeply 
roofed houses had been erected on a sudden incline, their peaks appearing at an 
extraordinary elevation above the lower buildings. And because the foundations 
of these houses could not be glimpsed, they conveyed the illusion of being 
either precariously suspended in air, threatening to topple down, or else 
constructed with an unnatural loftiness in relation to their width and mass. 
This situation also created a weird distortion of perspective. The two levels of 
structures overlapped each other without giving a sense of depth, so that the 
houses, because of their higher elevation and nearness to the foreground 
buildings, did not appear diminished in size as background objects should. 
Consequently, a look of flatness, as in a photograph, predominated in this area. 
Indeed, Mirocaw could be compared to an album of old snapshots, particularly 
ones in which the camera had been upset in the process of photography, causing 
the pictures to develop on an angle: a cone-roofed turret, like a pointed hat 
jauntily askew, peeked over the houses on a neighboring street; a billboard 
displaying a group of grinning vegetables tipped its contents slightly westward; 
cars parked along steep curbs seemed to be flying skyward in the glare-distorted 
windows of a five-and-ten; people leaned lethargically as they trod up and down 
sidewalks; and on that sunny day the clock tower, which at first I mistook for a 
church steeple, cast a long shadow that seemed to extend an impossible distance 
and wander into unlikely places in its progress across the town. I should say 
that perhaps the disharmonies of Mirocaw are more acutely affecting my 
imagination in retrospect than they were on that first day, when I was primarily 
concerned with locating the city hall or some other center of information.
I pulled around a corner and parked. Sliding over to the other side of the seat, 
I rolled down the window and called to a passerby: "Excuse me, sir," I said. The 
man, who was shabbily dressed and very old, paused for a moment without 
approaching the car. Though he had apparently responded to my call, his vacant 
expression did not betray the least awareness of my presence, and for a moment I 
thought it just a coincidence that he halted on the sidewalk at the same time I 
addressed him. His eyes were focused somewhere beyond me with a weary and 
imbecilic gaze. After a few moments he continued on his way and I said nothing 
to call him back, even though at the last second his face began to appear dimly 
familiar. Someone else finally came
20 
along who was able to direct me to the Mirocaw City Hall and Community Center.
The city hall turned out to be the building with the clock tower. Inside I stood 
at a counter behind which some people were working at desks and walking up and 
down a back hallway. On one wall was a poster for the state lottery: a 
jack-in-the-box with both hands grasping green bills. After a few moments, a 
tall, middle-aged woman came over to the counter.
"Can I help you?" she asked in a neutral, bureaucratic voice.
I explained that I had heard about the festival--saying nothing about being a 
nosy academic--and asked if she could provide me with further information or 
direct me to someone who could.
"Do you mean the one held in the winter?" she asked. "How many of them are 
there?"
"Just that one."
"I suppose, then, that that's the one I mean." I smiled as if sharing a joke 
with her.
Without another word, she walked off into the back hallway. While she was absent 
I exchanged glances with several of the people behind the counter who 
periodically looked up from their work.
"There you are," she said when she returned, handing me a piece of paper that 
looked like the product of a cheap copy machine. Please Come to the Fun, it said 
in large letters. Parades, it went on, Street Masquerade, Bands, The Winter 
Raffle, and The Coronation of the Winter
Queen. The page continued with the mention of a number of miscellaneous 
festivities. I read the words again. There was something about that imploring 
little "please" at the top of the announcement that made the whole affair seem 
like a charity function.
"When is it held? It doesn't say when the festival takes place."
"Most people already know that." She abruptly snatched the page from my hands 
and wrote something at the bottom. When she gave it back to me, I saw "Dec. 
19-21" written in blue-green ink. I was immediately struck by an odd sense of 
scheduling on the part of the festival committee. There was, of course, solid 
anthropological and historical precedent for holding festivities around the 
winter solstice, but the timing of this particular event did not seem entirely 
practical.
"If you don't mind my asking, don't these days somewhat conflict with the 
regular holiday season? I mean, most people have enough going on at that time."
21 
"It's just tradition," she said, as if invoking some venerable ancestry behind 
her words.
"That's very interesting," I said as much to myself as to her.
"Is there anything else?" she asked.
"Yes. Could you tell me if this festival has anything to do with clowns? I see 
there's something about a masquerade."
"Yes, of course there are some people in ... costumes. I've never been in that 
position myself... that is, yes, there are clowns of a sort."
At that point my interest was definitely aroused, but I was not sure how much 
further I wanted to pursue it. I thanked the woman for her help and asked the 
best means of access to the highway, not anxious to retrace the labyrinthine 
route by which I had entered the town. I walked back to my car with a whole 
flurry of half-formed questions, and as many vague and conflicting answers, 
cluttering my mind.
The directions the woman gave me necessitated passing through the south end of 
Mirocaw. There were not many people moving about in this section of town. Those 
that I did see, shuffling lethargically down a block of battered storefronts, 
exhibited the same sort of forlorn expression and manner as the old man from 
whom I had asked directions earlier. I must have been traversing a central 
artery of this area, for on either side stretched street after street of poorly 
tended yards and houses bowed with age and indifference. When I came to a stop 
at a streetcorner, one of the citizens of this slum passed in front of my car. 
This lean, morose, and epicene person turned my way and sneered outrageously 
with a taut little mouth, yet seemed to be looking at no one in particular. 
After progressing a few streets farther, I came to a road that led back to the 
highway. I felt detectably more comfortable as soon as I found myself traveling 
once again through the expanses of sun-drenched farmlands.
I reached the library with more than enough time for my research, and so I 
decided to make a scholarly detour to see what material I could find that might 
illuminate the winter festival held in Mirocaw. The library, one of the oldest 
in the state, included in its holdings the entire run of the Mirocaw Courier. I 
thought this would be an excellent place to start. I soon found, however, that 
there was no handy way to research information from this newspaper, and I did 
not want to engage in a blind search for articles concerning a specific subject.
22 
I next turned to the more organized resources of the newspapers for the larger 
cities located in the same county, which incidentally shares its name with 
Mirocaw. I uncovered very little about the town, and almost nothing concerning 
its festival, except in one general article on annual events in the area that 
erroneously attributed to Mirocaw a "large Middle-Eastern community" which every 
spring hosted a kind of ethnic jamboree. From what I had already observed, and 
from what I subsequently learned, the citizens of Mirocaw were solidly 
midwestern American, the probable descendants in a direct line from some 
enterprising pack of New Englanders of the last century. There was one brief 
item devoted to a Mirocavian event, but this merely turned out to be an obituary 
notice for an old woman who had quietly taken her life around Christmastime. 
Thus, I returned home that day all but empty-handed on the subject of Mirocaw.
However, it was not long afterward that I received another letter from the 
former colleague of mine who had first led me to seek out Mirocaw and its 
festival. As it happened, he rediscovered the article that caused him to stir my 
interest in a local "Fool's Feast." This article had its sole appearance in an 
obscure festschrift of anthropology studies published in Amsterdam twenty years 
ago. Most of these papers were in Dutch, a few in German, and only one was in 
English: "The Last Feast of Harlequin: Preliminary Notes on a Local Festival." 
It was exciting, of course, finally to be able to read this study, but even more 
exciting was the name of its author: Dr. Raymond Thoss.
Before proceeding any further, I should mention something about Thoss, and 
inevitably about myself. Over two decades ago, at my alma mater in Cambridge, 
Mass., Thoss was a professor of mine. Long before playing a role in the events I 
am about to describe, he was already one of the most important figures in my 
life. A striking personality, he inevitably influenced everyone who came in 
contact with him. I remember his lectures on social anthropology, how he turned 
that dim room into a brilliant and profound circus of learning. He moved in an 
uncannily brisk manner. When he swept his arm around to indicate some common 
term on the blackboard behind him, one felt he was presenting nothing less than 
an item of fantastic
23 
qualities and secret value. When he replaced his hand in the pocket of his old 
jacket this fleeting magic was once again stored away in its well-worn pouch, to 
be retrieved at the sorcerer's discretion. We sensed he was teaching us more 
than we could possibly learn, and that he himself was in possession of greater 
and deeper knowledge than he could possibly impart. On one occasion I summoned 
up the audacity to offer an interpretation--which was somewhat opposed to his 
own--regarding the tribal clowns of the Hopi Indians. I implied that personal 
experience as an amateur clown and special devotion to this study provided me 
with an insight possibly more valuable than his own. It was then he disclosed, 
casually and very obiter dicta, that he had actually acted in the role of one of 
these masked tribal fools and had celebrated with them the dance of the 
kachinas. In revealing these facts, however, he somehow managed not to add to 
the humiliation I had already inflicted upon myself. And for this I was grateful 
to him. Thoss's activities were such that he sometimes became the object of 
gossip or romanticized speculation. He was a fieldworker par excellence, and his 
ability to insinuate himself into exotic cultures and situations, thereby 
gaining insights where other anthropologists merely collected data, was 
renowned. At various times in his career there had been rumors of his having 
"gone native" a la the Frank Hamilton Cushing legend. There were hints, which 
were not always irresponsible or cheaply glamorized, that he was involved in 
projects of a freakish sort, many of which focused on New England. It is a fact 
that he spent six months posing as a mental patient at an institution in western 
Massachusetts, gathering information on the "culture" of the psychically 
disturbed. When his book Winter Solstice: The Longest Night of a Society was 
published, the general opinion was that it was disappointingly subjective and 
impressionistic, and that, aside from a few moving but "poetically obscure" 
observations, there was nothing at all to give it value. Those who defended 
Thoss claimed he was a kind of super-anthropologist: while much of his work 
emphasized his own mind and feelings, his experience had in fact penetrated to a 
rich core of hard data which he had yet to disclose in objective discourse. As a 
student of Thoss, I tended to support this latter estimation of him. For a 
variety of tenable and untenable reasons, I believed Thoss capable of unearthing 
hitherto inaccessible strata of human existence. So it was gratifying at first 
that this article entitled "The Last
24 
Feast of Harlequin" seemed to uphold the Thoss mystique, and in an area I 
personally found captivating.
Much of the content of the article I did not immediately comprehend, given its 
author's characteristic and often strategic obscurities. On first reading, the 
most interesting aspect of this brief study--the "notes" encompassed only twenty 
pages--was the general mood of the piece. Thoss's eccentricities were definitely 
present in these pages, but only as a struggling inner force which was 
definitely contained--incarcerated, I might say--by the somber rhythmic 
movements of his prose and by some gloomy references he occasionally called 
upon. Two references in particular shared a common theme. One was a quotation 
from Poe's "The Conqueror Worm," which Thoss employed as a rather sensational 
epigraph. The point of the epigraph, however, was nowhere echoed in the text of 
the article save in another passing reference. Thoss brought up the well-known 
genesis of the modern Christmas celebration, which of course descends from the 
Roman Saturnalia. Then, making it clear he had not yet observed the Mirocaw 
festival and had only gathered its nature from various informants, he 
established that it too contained many, even more overt, elements of the 
Saturnalia. Next he made what seemed to me a trivial and purely linguistic 
observation, one that had less to do with his main course of argument than it 
did with the equally peripheral Poe epigraph. He briefly mentioned that an early 
sect of the Syrian Gnostics called themselves "Saturnians" and believed, among 
other religious heresies, that mankind was created by angels who were in turn 
created by the Supreme Unknown. The angels, however, did not possess the power 
to make their creation an erect being and for a time he crawled upon the earth 
like a worm. Eventually, the Creator remedied this grotesque state of affairs. 
At the time I supposed that the symbolic correspondences of mankind's origins 
and ultimate condition being associated with worms, combined with a year-end 
festival recognizing the winter death of the earth, was the gist of this 
Thossian "insight," a poetic but scientifically valueless observation.
Other observations he made on the Mirocaw festival were also strictly etic; in 
other words, they were based on second-hand sources, hearsay testimony. Even at 
that juncture, however, I felt Thoss knew more than he disclosed; and, as I 
later discovered, he had indeed included information on certain aspects of 
Mirocaw suggesting he
25 
was already in possession of several keys which for the moment he was keeping 
securely in his own pocket. By then I myself possessed a most revealing morsel 
of knowledge. A note to the "Harlequin" article apprised the reader that the 
piece was only a fragment in rude form of a more wide-ranging work in 
preparation. This work was never seen by the world. My former professor had not 
published anything since his withdrawal from academic circulation some twenty 
years ago. Now I suspected where he had gone.
For the man I had stopped on the streets of Mirocaw and from whom I tried to 
obtain directions, the man with the disconcertingly lethargic gaze, had very 
much resembled a superannuated version of Dr. Raymond Thoss.
And now I have a confession to make. Despite my reasons for being enthusiastic 
about Mirocaw and its mysteries, especially its relationship to both Thoss and 
my own deepest concerns as a scholar--I contemplated the days ahead of me with 
no more than a feeling of frigid numbness and often with a sense of profound 
depression. Yet I had no reason to be surprised at this emotional state, which 
had little relevance to the outward events in my life but was determined by 
inward conditions that worked according to their own, quite enigmatic, seasons 
and cycles. For many years, at least since my university days, I have suffered 
from this dark malady, this recurrent despondency in which I would become buried 
when it came time for the earth to grow cold and bare and the skies heavy with 
shadows. Nevertheless, I pursued my plans, though somewhat mechanically, to 
visit Mirocaw during its festival days, for I superstitiously hoped that this 
activity might diminish the weight of my seasonal despair. In Mirocaw would be 
parades and parties and the opportunity to play the clown once again.
For weeks in advance I practiced my art, even perfecting a new feat of juggling 
magic, which was my special forte in foolery. I had my costumes cleaned, 
purchased fresh makeup, and was ready. I received permission from the university 
to cancel some of my classes prior to the holiday, explaining the nature of my 
project and the necessity of arriving in the town a few days before the festival 
began, in order to
26 
do some preliminary research, establish informants, and so on. Actually, my plan 
was to postpone any formal inquiry until after the festival and to involve 
myself beforehand as much as possible in its activities. I would, of course, 
keep a journal during this time.
There was one resource I did want to consult, however. Specifically, I returned 
to that out-state library to examine those issues of the Mirocaw Courier dating 
from December two decades ago. One story in particular confirmed a point Thoss 
made in the "Harlequin" article, though the event it chronicled must have taken 
place after Thoss had written his study.
The Courier story appeared two weeks after the festival had ended for that year 
and was concerned with the disappearance of a woman named Elizabeth Beadle, the 
wife of Samuel Beadle, a hotel owner in Mirocaw. The county authorities 
speculated that this was another instance of the "holiday suicides" which seemed 
to occur with inordinate seasonal regularity in the Mirocaw region. Thoss 
documented this phenomenon in his "Harlequin" article, though I suspect that 
today these deaths would be neatly categorized under the heading "seasonal 
affective disorder". In any case, the authorities searched a half-frozen lake 
near the outskirts of Mirocaw where they had found many successful suicides in 
years past. This year, however, no body was discovered. Alongside the article 
was a picture of Elizabeth Beadle. Even in the grainy microfilm reproduction one 
could detect a certain vibrancy and vitality in Mrs. Beadle's face. That an 
hypothesis of "holiday suicide" should be so readily posited to explain her 
disappearance seemed strange and in some way unjust.
Thoss, in his brief article, wrote that every year there occurred changes of a 
moral or spiritual cast which seemed to affect Mirocaw along with the usual 
winter metamorphosis. He was not precise about its origin or nature but stated, 
in typically mystifying fashion, that the effect of this "subseason" on the town 
was conspicuously negative. In addition to the number of suicides actually 
accomplished during this time, there was also a rise in treatment of 
"hypochondriacal" conditions, which was how the medical men of twenty years past 
characterized these cases in discussions with Thoss. This state of affairs would 
gradually worsen and finally reach a climax during the days scheduled for the 
Mirocaw festival. Thoss speculated that given the secretive nature of small 
towns, the situation was probably even more intensely pronounced than casual 
investigation could reveal.
27 
The connection between the festival and this insidious subseasonal climate in 
Mirocaw was a point on which Thoss did not come to any rigid conclusions. He did 
write, nevertheless, that these two "climatic aspects" had had a parallel 
existence in the town's history as far back as available records could document. 
A late nineteenth-century history of Mirocaw County speaks of the town by its 
original name of New Colstead, and castigates the townspeople for holding a 
"ribald and soulless feast" to the exclusion of normal Christmas observances. 
(Thoss comments that the historian had mistakenly fused two distinct aspects of 
the season, their actual relationship being essentially antagonistic.) The 
"Harlequin" article did not trace the festival to its earliest appearance (this 
may not have been possible), though Thoss emphasized the New England origins of 
Mirocaw's founders. The festival, therefore, was one imported from this region 
and could reasonably be extended at least a century; that is, if it had not been 
brought over from the Old World, in which case its roots would become indefinite 
until further research could be done. Surely Thoss's allusion to the Syrian 
Gnostics suggested the latter possibility could not entirely be ruled out.
But it seemed to be the festival's link to New England that nourished Thoss's 
speculations. He wrote of this patch of geography as if it were an acceptable 
place to end the search. For him, the very words "New England" seemed to be 
stripped of all traditional connotations and had come to imply nothing less than 
a gateway to all lands, both known and suspected, and even to ages beyond the 
civilized history of the region. Having been educated partly in New England, I 
could somewhat understand this sentimental exaggeration, for indeed there are 
places that seem archaic beyond chronological measure, appearing to transcend 
relative standards of time and achieving a kind of absolute antiquity which 
cannot be logically fathomed. But how this vague suggestion related to a small 
town in the Midwest I could not imagine. Thoss himself observed that the 
residents of Mirocaw did not betray any mysteriously primitive consciousness. On 
the contrary, they appeared superficially unaware of the genesis of their winter 
merrymaking. That such a tradition had endured through the years, however, even 
eclipsing the conventional Christmas holiday, revealed a profound awareness of 
the festival's meaning and function.
I cannot deny that what I had learned about the Mirocaw festival
28 
did inspire a trite sense of fate, especially given the involvement of such an 
important figure from my past as Thoss. It was the first time in my academic 
career that I knew myself to be better suited than anyone else to discern the 
true meaning of scattered data, even if I could only attribute this special 
authority to chance circumstances. Nevertheless, as I sat in that library on a 
morning in mid December I doubted for a moment the wisdom of setting out for 
Mirocaw rather than returning home, where the more familiar rite de passage of 
winter depression awaited me. My original scheme was to avoid the cyclical blues 
the season held for me, but it seemed this was also a part of the history of 
Mirocaw, only on a much larger scale. My emotional instability, however, was 
exactly what qualified me most for the particular fieldwork ahead, though I did 
not take pride or consolation in the fact. And to retreat would have been to 
deny myself an opportunity that might never offer itself again. In retrospect, 
there seems to have been no fortuitous resolution to the decision I had to make. 
As it happened, I went ahead to the town.
Just past noon, on December 18, I started driving toward Mirocaw. A blur of 
dull, earthen-colored scenery extended in every direction. The snowfalls of late 
autumn had been sparse, and only a few white patches appeared in the harvested 
fields along the highway. The clouds were gray and abundant. Passing by a 
stretch of forest, I noticed the black, ragged clumps of abandoned nests 
clinging to the twisted mesh of bare branches. I thought I saw black birds 
skittering over the road ahead, but they were only dead leaves and they flew 
into the air as I drove by.
I approached Mirocaw from the south, entering the town from the direction I had 
left it on my visit the previous summer. This took me once again through that 
part of town which seemed to exist on the wrong side of some great invisible 
barrier dividing the desirable sections of Mirocaw from the undesirable. As 
lurid as this district had appeared to me under the summer sun, in the thin 
light of that winter afternoon it degenerated into a pale phantom of itself. The 
frail stores and starved-looking houses suggested a borderline region between 
the material and nonmaterial worlds, with one sardonically wearing
29 
the mask of the other. I saw a few gaunt pedestrians who turned as I passed by, 
though seemingly not because I passed by, making my way up to the main street of 
Mirocaw.
Driving up the steep rise of Townshend Street, I found the sights there 
comparatively welcoming. The rolling avenues of the town were in readiness for 
the festival. Streetlights had their poles raveled with evergreen, the fresh 
boughs proudly conspicuous in a barren season. On the doors of many of the 
businesses on Townshend were holly wreaths, equally green but observably 
plastic. However, although there was nothing unusual in this traditional 
greenery of the season, it soon became apparent to me that Mirocaw had quite 
abandoned itself to this particular symbol of Yuletide. It was garishly in 
evidence everywhere. The windows of stores and houses were framed in green 
lights, green streamers hung down from storefront awnings, and the beacons of 
the Red Rooster Bar were peacock green floodlights. I supposed the residents of 
Mirocaw desired these decorations, but the effect was one of excess. An eerie 
emerald haze permeated the town, and faces looked slightly reptilian.
At the time I assumed that the prodigious evergreen, holly wreaths, and colored 
lights (if only of a single color) demonstrated an emphasis on the vegetable 
symbols of the Nordic Yuletide, which would inevitably be muddled into the 
winter festival of any northern country just as they had been adopted for the 
Christmas season. In his "Harlequin" article Thoss wrote of the pagan aspect of 
Mirocaw's festival, likening it to the ritual of a fertility cult, with probable 
connections to chthonic divinities at some time in the past. But Thoss had 
mistaken, as I had, what was only part of the festival's significance for the 
whole.
The hotel at which I had made reservations was located on Townshend. It was an 
old building of brown brick, with an arched doorway and a pathetic coping 
intended to convey an impression of neoclassicism. I found a parking space in 
front and left my suitcases in the car.
When I first entered the hotel lobby it was empty. I thought perhaps the Mirocaw 
festival would have attracted enough visitors to at least bolster the business 
of its only hotel, but it seemed I was mistaken. Tapping a little bell, I leaned 
on the desk and turned to look at a small, traditionally decorated Christmas 
tree on a table near the
30 
entranceway. It was complete with shiny, egg-fragile bulbs; miniature candy 
canes; flat, laughing Santas with arms wide; a star on top nodding awkwardly 
against the delicate shoulder of an upper branch; and colored lights that 
bloomed out of flower-shaped sockets. For some reason this seemed to me a sorry 
little piece.
"May I help you?" said a young woman arriving from a room adjacent to the lobby.
I must have been staring rather intently at her, for she looked away and seemed 
quite uneasy. I could hardly imagine what to say to her or how to explain what I 
was thinking. In person she immediately radiated a chilling brilliance of manner 
and expression. But if this woman had not committed suicide twenty years before, 
as the newspaper article had suggested, neither had she aged in that time.
"Sarah," called a masculine voice from the invisible heights of a stairway. A 
tall, middle-aged man came down the steps. "I thought you were in your room," 
said the man, whom I took to be Samuel Beadle. Sarah, not Elizabeth, Beadle 
glanced sideways in my direction to indicate to her father that she was 
conducting the business of the hotel. Beadle apologized to me, and then excused 
the two of them for a moment while they went off to one side to continue their 
exchange.
I smiled and pretended everything was normal, while trying to remain within 
earshot of their conversation. They spoke in tones that suggested their conflict 
was a familiar one: Beadle's overprotective concern with his daughter's 
whereabouts and Sarah's frustrated undemanding of certain restrictions placed 
upon her. The conversation ended, and Sarah ascended the stairs, turning for a 
moment to give me a facial pantomime of apology for the unprofessional scene 
that had just taken place.
"Now, sir, what can I do for you?" Beadle asked, almost demanded.
"Yes, I have a reservation. Actually, I'm a day early, if that doesn't present a 
problem." I gave the hotel the benefit of the doubt that its business might have 
been secretly flourishing.
"No problem at all, sir," he said, presenting me with the registration form, and 
then a brass-colored key dangling from a plastic disc bearing the number 44.
"Luggage?"
"Yes, it's in my car."
"I'll give you a hand with that."
31 
While Beadle was settling me in my fourth-floor room it seemed an opportune 
moment to broach the subject of the festival, the holiday suicides, and perhaps, 
depending upon his reaction, the fate of his wife. I needed a respondent who had 
lived in the town for a good many years and who could enlighten me about the 
attitude of Mirocavians toward their season of sea-green lights.
"This is just fine," I said about the clean but somber room. "Nice view. I can 
see the bright green lights of Mirocaw just fine from up here. Is the town 
usually all decked out like this? For the festival, I mean."
"Yes, sir, for the festival," he replied mechanically.
"I imagine you'll probably be getting quite a few of us out-of-towners in the 
next couple days."
"Could be. Is there anything else?"
"Yes, there is. I wonder if you could tell me something about the festivities."
"Such as ..."
"Well, you know, the clowns and so forth."
"Only clowns here are the ones that're ... well, picked out, I suppose you would 
say."
"I don't understand."
"Excuse me, sir. I'm very busy right now. Is there anything else?"
I could think of nothing at the moment to perpetuate our conversation. Beadle 
wished me a good stay and left.
I unpacked my suitcases. In addition to regular clothing I had also brought 
along some of the items from my clown's wardrobe. Beadle's comment that the 
clowns of Mirocaw were "picked out" left me wondering exactly what purpose these 
street masqueraders served in the festival. The clown figure has had so many 
meanings in different times and cultures. The jolly, well-loved joker familiar 
to most people is actually but one aspect of this protean creature. Madmen, 
hunchbacks, amputees, and other abnormals were once considered natural clowns; 
they were elected to fulfil a comic role which could allow others to see them as 
ludicrous rather than as terrible reminders of the forces of disorder in the 
world. But sometimes a cheerless jester was required to draw attention to this 
same disorder, as in the case of King Lear's morbid and honest fool, who of 
course was eventually hanged, and so much for his clownish wisdom. Clowns have 
often had ambiguous and sometimes contradictory roles to play. Thus, I knew
32 
enough not to brashly jump into costume and cry out, "Here I am again!"
That first day in Mirocaw I did not stray far from the hotel. I read and rested 
for a few hours and then ate at a nearby diner. Through the window beside my 
table I watched the winter night turn the soft green glow of the town into a 
harsh and almost totally new color as it contrasted with the darkness. The 
streets of Mirocaw seemed to me unusually busy for a small town at evening. Yet 
it was not the kind of activity one normally sees before an approaching 
Christmas holiday. This was not a crowd of bustling shoppers loaded with bright 
bags of presents. Their arms were empty, their hands shoved deep in their 
pockets against the cold, which nevertheless had not driven them to the solitude 
of their presumably warm houses. I watched them enter and exit store after store 
without buying; many merchants remained open late, and even the places that were 
closed had left their neons illuminated. The faces that passed the window of the 
diner were possibly just stiffened by the cold, I thought; frozen into deep 
frowns and nothing else. In the same window I saw the reflection of my own face. 
It was not the face of an adept clown; it was slack and flabby and at that 
moment seemed the face of someone less than alive. Outside was the town of 
Mirocaw, its streets dipping and rising with a lunatic severity, its citizens 
packing the sidewalks, its heart bathed in green: as promising a field of 
professional and personal challenge as I had ever encountered--and I was bored 
to the point of dread. I hurried back to my hotel room.
"Mirocaw has another coldness within its cold," I wrote in my journal that 
night. "Another set of buildings and streets that exists behind the visible 
town's facade like a world of disgraceful back alleys." I went on like this for 
about a page, across which I finally engraved a big "X". Then I went to bed.
In the morning I left my car at the hotel and walked toward the main business 
district a few blocks away. Mingling with the good people of Mirocaw seemed like 
the proper thing to do at that point in my scientific sojourn. But as I began 
laboriously walking up Townshend (the sidewalks were cramped with wandering 
pedestrians), aglimpse of someone suddenly replaced my haphazard plan with a 
more specific and immediate one. Through the crowd and about fifteen paces ahead 
was my goal.
33 
"Dr. Thoss," I called.
His head almost seemed to turn and look back in response to my shout, but I 
could not be certain. I pushed past several warmly wrapped bodies and 
green-scarved necks, only to find that the object of my pursuit appeared to be 
maintaining the same distance from me, though I did not know if this was being 
done deliberately or not. At the next corner, the dark-coated Thoss abruptly 
turned right onto a steep street which led downward directly toward the 
dilapidated south end of Mirocaw. When I reached the corner I looked down the 
sidewalk and could see him very clearly from above. I also saw how he managed to 
stay so far ahead of me in a mob that had impeded my own progress. For some 
reason the people on the sidewalk made room so that he could move past them 
easily, without the usual jostling of bodies. It was not a dramatic physical 
avoidance, though it seemed nonetheless intentional. Fighting the tight fabric 
of the throng, I continued to follow Thoss, losing and regaining sight of him.
By the time I reached the bottom of the sloping street the crowd had thinned out 
considerably, and after walking a block or so farther I found myself practically 
a lone pedestrian pacing behind a distant figure that I hoped was still Thoss. 
He was now walking quite swiftly and in a way that seemed to acknowledge my 
pursuit of him, though really it felt as if he were leading me as much as I was 
chasing him. I called his name a few more times at a volume he could not have 
failed to hear, assuming that deafness was not one of the changes to have come 
over him; he was, after all, not a young man, nor even a middle-aged one any 
longer.
Thoss suddenly crossed in the middle of the street. He walked a few more steps 
and entered a signless brick building between a liquor store and a repair shop 
of some kind. In the "Harlequin" article Thoss had mentioned that the people 
living in this section of Mirocaw maintained their own businesses, and that 
these were patronized almost exclusively by residents of the area. I could well 
believe this statement when I looked at these little sheds of commerce, for they 
had the same badly weathered appearance as their clientele. The formidable 
shoddiness of these buildings notwithstanding, I followed Thoss into the plain 
brick shell of what had been, or possibly still was, a diner.
Inside it was unusually dark. Even before my eyes made the adjustment I sensed 
that this was not a thriving restaurant cozily
34 
cluttered with chairs and tables--as was the establishment where I had eaten the 
night before--but a place with only a few disarranged furnishings, and very 
cold. It seemed colder, in fact, than the winter streets outside.
"Dr. Thoss?" I called toward a lone table near the center of the long room. 
Perhaps four or five were sitting around the table, with some others blending 
into the dimness behind them. Scattered across the top of the table were some 
books and loose papers. Seated there was an old man indicating something in the 
pages before him, but it was not Thoss. Beside him were two youths whose 
wholesome features distinguished them from the grim weariness of the others. I 
approached the table and they all looked up at me. None of them showed a glimmer 
of emotion except the two boys, who exchanged worried and guilt-ridden glances 
with each other, as if they had just been discovered in some shameful act. They 
both suddenly burst from the table and ran into the dark background, where a 
light appeared briefly as they exited by a back door.
"I'm sorry," I said diffidently. "I thought I saw someone I knew come in here."
They said nothing. Out of a back room others began to emerge, no doubt 
interested in the source of the commotion. In a few moments the room was crowded 
with these tramp-like figures, all of them gazing emptily in the dimness. I was 
not at this point frightened of them; at least I was not afraid they would do me 
any physical harm. Actually, I felt as if it was quite within my power to pummel 
them easily into submission, their mousy faces almost inviting a succession of 
firm blows. But there were so many of them.
They slid slowly toward me in a worm-like mass. Their eyes seemed empty and 
unfocused, and I wondered a moment if they were even aware of my presence. 
Nevertheless, I was the center upon which their lethargic shuffling converged, 
their shoes scuffing softly along the bare floor. I began to deliver a number of 
hasty inanities as they continued to press toward me, their weak and 
unexpectedly odorless bodies nudging against mine. (I understood now why the 
people along the sidewalks seemed to instinctively avoid Thoss.) Unseen legs 
became entangled with my own; I staggered and then regained my balance. This 
sudden movement aroused me from a kind of mesmeric daze into which I must have 
fallen without being aware of it. I had intended to leave that dreary place long 
before events had
35 
reached such a juncture, but for some reason I could not focus my intentions 
strongly enough to cause myself to act. My mind had been drifting farther away 
as these slavish things approached. In a sudden surge of panic I pushed through 
their soft ranks and was outside.
The open air revived me to my former alertness, and I immediately started pacing 
swiftly up the hill. I was no longer sure that I had not simply imagined what 
had seemed, and at the same time did not seem, like a perilous moment. Had their 
movements been directed toward a harmful assault, or were they trying merely to 
intimidate me? As I reached the green-glazed main street of Mirocaw I really 
could not determine what had just happened.
The sidewalks were still jammed with a multitude of pedestrians, who now seemed 
more lively than they had been only a short time before. There was a kind of 
vitality that could only be attributed to the imminent festivities. A group of 
young men had begun celebrating prematurely and strode noisily across the street 
at midpoint, obviously intoxicated. From the laughter and joking among the still 
sober citizens I gathered that, mardi-gras style, public drunkenness was within 
the traditions of this winter festival. I looked for anything to indicate the 
beginnings of the Street Masquerade, but saw nothing: no brightly garbed 
harlequins or snow-white pierrots. Were the ceremonies even now in preparation 
for the coronation of the Winter Queen? "The Winter Queen," I wrote in my 
journal. "Figure of fertility invested with symbolic powers of revival and 
prosperity. Elected in the manner of a high school prom queen. Check for 
possible consort figure in the form of a representative from the underworld."
In the pre-darkness hours of December 19 I sat in my hotel room and wrote and 
thought and organized. I did not feel too badly, all things considered. The 
holiday excitement which was steadily rising in the streets below my window was 
definitely infecting me. I forced myself to take a short nap in anticipation of 
a long night. When I awoke, Mirocaw's annual feast had begun.
Shouting, commotion, carousing. Sleepily I went to the window and looked out 
over the town. It seemed all the lights of Mirocaw
36 
were shining, save in that section down the hill which became part of the black 
void of winter. And now the town's greenish tinge was even more pronounced, 
spreading everywhere like a great green rainbow that had melted from the sky and 
endured, phosphorescent, into the night. In the streets was the brightness of an 
artificial spring. The byways of Mirocaw vibrated with activity: on a nearby 
corner a brass band blared; marauding cars blew their horns and were sometimes 
mounted by laughing pedestrians; a man emerged from the Red Rooster Bar, threw 
up his arms, and crowed. I looked closely at the individual celebrants, 
searching for the vestments of clowns. Soon, delightedly, I saw them. The 
costume was red and white, with matching cap, and the face painted a noble 
alabaster. It almost seemed to be a clownish incarnation of that white-bearded 
and blackbooted Christmas fool.
This particular fool, however, was not receiving the affection and respect 
usually accorded to a Santa Claus. My poor fellow-clown was in the middle of a 
circle of revelers who were pushing him back and forth from one to the other. 
The object of this abuse seemed to accept it somewhat willingly, but this little 
game nevertheless appeared to have humiliation as its purpose. "Only clowns here 
are the one's that're picked out," echoed Beadle's voice in my memory. "Picked 
on" seemed closer to the truth.
Packing myself in some heavy clothes, I went out into the green gleaming 
streets. Not far from the hotel I was stumbled into by a character with a wide 
blue and red grin and bright baggy clothes. Actually he had been shoved into me 
by some youths outside a drugstore.
"See the freak," said an obese and drunken fellow. "See the freak fell."
My first response was anger, and then fear as I saw two others flanking the fat 
drunk. They walked toward me and I tensed myself for a confrontation.
"This is a disgrace," one said, the neck of awine bottle held loosely in his 
left hand.
But it was not to me they were speaking; it was to the clown, who had been 
pushed to the sidewalk. His three persecutors helped him up with a sudden jerk 
and then splashed wine in his face. They ignored me altogether.
"Let him loose," the fat one said. "Crawl away, freak. Oh, he flies!"
37 
The clown trotted off, becoming lost in the throng.
"Wait a minute," I said to the rowdy trio, who had started lumbering away. I 
quickly decided that it would probably be futile to ask them to explain what I 
had just witnessed, especially amid the noise and confusion of the festivities. 
In my best jovial fashion I proposed we all go someplace where I could buy them 
each a drink. They had no objection and in a short while we were all squeezed 
around a table in the Red Rooster.
Over several drinks I explained to them that I was from out of town, which 
pleased them no end for some reason. I told them there were things I did not 
understand about their festival.
"I don't think there's anything to understand," the fat one said. "It's just 
what you see."
I asked him about the people dressed as clowns.
"Them? They're the freaks. It's their turn this year. Everyone takes their turn. 
Next year it might be mine. Or yours," he said, pointing at one of his friends 
across the table. "And when we find out which one you are--"
"You're not smart enough," said the defiant potential freak.
This was an important point: the fact that individuals who played the clowns 
remain, or at least attempted to remain, anonymous. This arrangement would help 
remove inhibitions a resident of Mirocaw might have about abusing his own 
neighbor or even a family relation. From what I later observed, the extent of 
this abuse did not go beyond a kind of playful roughhousing. And even so, it was 
only the occasional group of rowdies who actually took advantage of this aspect 
of the festival, the majority of the citizens very much content to stay on the 
sidelines.
As far as being able to illuminate the meaning of this custom, my three young 
friends were quite useless. To them it was just amusement, as I imagine it was 
to the majority of Mirocavians. This was understandable. I suppose the average 
person would not be able to explain exactly how the profoundly familiar 
Christmas holiday came to be celebrated in its present form.
I left the bar alone and not unaffected by the drinks I had consumed there. 
Outside, the general merrymaking continued. Loud music emanated from several 
quarters. Mirocaw had fully transformed itself from a sedate small town to an 
enclave of Saturnalia within the dark immensity of a winter night. But Saturn is 
also the
38 
planetary symbol of melancholy and sterility, a clash of opposites contained 
within that single word. And as I wandered half-drunkenly down the street, I 
discovered that there was a conflict within the winter festival itself. This 
discovery indeed appeared to be that secret key which Thoss withheld in his 
study of the town. Oddly enough, it was through my unfamiliarity with the 
outward nature of the festival that I came to know its true nature.
I was mingling with the crowd on the street, warmly enjoying the confusion 
around me, when I saw a strangely designed creature lingering on the corner up 
ahead. It was one of the Mirocaw clowns. Its clothes were shabby and 
nondescript, almost in the style of a tramp-type clown, but not humorously 
exaggerated enough. The face, though, made up for the lackluster costume. I had 
never seen such a strange conception for a clown's countenance. The figure stood 
beneath a dim streetlight, and when it turned its head my way I realized why it 
seemed familiar. The thin, smooth, and pale head; the wide eyes; the oval-shaped 
features resembling nothing so much as the skull-faced, screaming creature in 
that famous painting (memory fails me). This clownish imitation rivalled the 
original in suggesting stricken realms of abject horror and despair: an inhuman 
likeness more proper to something under the earth than upon it.
From the first moment I saw this creature, I thought of those inhabitants of the 
ghetto down the hill. There was the same nauseating passivity and languor in its 
bearing. Perhaps if I had not been drinking earlier I would not have been bold 
enough to take the action I did. I decided to join in one of the upstanding 
traditions of the winter festival, for it annoyed me to see this morbid impostor 
of a clown standing up. When I reached the corner I laughingly pushed myself 
into the creature--"Whoops!" --who stumbled backward and ended up on the 
sidewalk. I laughed again and looked around for approval from the festivalers in 
the vicinity. No one, however, seemed to appreciate or even acknowledge what I 
had done. They did not laugh with me or point with amusement, but only passed 
by, perhaps walking a little faster until they were some distance from this 
streetcorner incident. I realized instantly I had violated some tacit rule of 
behavior, though I had thought my action well within the common practice. The 
idea occurred to me that I might even be apprehended and prosecuted for what in 
any other circumstances was
39 
certainly a criminal act. I turned around to help the clown back to his feet, 
hoping to somehow redeem my offense, but the creature was gone. Solemnly I 
walked away from the scene of my inadvertent crime and sought other streets away 
from its witnesses.
Along the various back avenues of Mirocaw I wandered, pausing exhaustedly at one 
point to sit at the counter of a small sandwich shop that was packed with 
customers. I ordered a cup of coffee to revive my overly alcoholed system. 
Warming my hands around the cup and sipping slowly from it, I watched the people 
outside as they passed the front window. It was well after midnight but the 
thick flow of passersby gave no indication that anyone was going home early. A 
carnival of profiles filed past the window and I was content simply to sit back 
and observe, until finally one of these faces made me start. It was that 
frightful little clown I had roughed up earlier. But although its face was 
familiar in its ghastly aspect, there was something different about it. And I 
wondered that there should be two such hideous freaks.
Quickly paying the man at the counter, I dashed out to get a second glimpse of 
the clown, who was now nowhere in sight. The dense crowd kept me from pursuing 
this figure with any speed, and I wondered how the clown could have made its way 
so easily ahead of me. Unless the crowd had instinctively allowed this creature 
to pass unhindered through its massive ranks, as it did for Thoss. In the 
process of searching for this particular freak, I discovered that interspersed 
among the celebrating populous of Mirocaw, which included the sanctioned 
festival clowns, there was not one or two, but a considerable number of these 
pale, wraith-like creatures. And they all drifted along the streets unmolested 
by even the rowdiest of revelers. I now understood one of the taboos of the 
festival. These other clowns were not to be disturbed and should even be 
avoided, much as were the residents of the slum at the edge of town. 
Nevertheless, I felt instinctively that the two groups of clowns were somehow 
identified with each other, even if the ghetto clowns were not welcome at 
Mirocaw's winter festival. Indeed, they were not simply part of the community 
and celebrating the season in their own way. To all appearances, this group of 
melancholy mummers constituted nothing less than an entirely independent 
festival--a festival within a festival.
40 
Returning to my room. I entered my suppositions into the journal I was keeping 
for this venture. The following are excerpts:
There is a superstitiousness displayed by the residents of Mirocaw with regard 
to these people from the slum section, particularly as they lately appear in 
those dreadful faces signifying their own festival. What is the relationship 
between these simultaneous celebrations? Did one precede the other? If so, 
which? My opinion at this point--and I claim no conclusiveness for it--is that 
Mirocaw's winter festival is the later manifestation, that it appeared after the 
festival of those depressingly pallid clowns, in order to cover it up or 
mitigate its effect. The holiday suicides come to mind, and the subclimate Thoss 
wrote about, the disappearance of Elizabeth Beadle twenty years ago, and my own 
experience with this pariah clan existing outside yet within the community. Of 
my own experience with this emotionally deleterious subseason I would rather not 
speak at this time. Still not able to say whether or not my usual winter 
melancholy is the cause. On the general subject of mental health, I must 
consider Thoss's book about his stay in a psychiatric hospital (in western 
Mass., almost sure of that. Check on this book & Mirocaw's New England roots). 
The winter solstice is tomorrow, albeit sometime past midnight (how blurry these 
days and nights are becoming!). It is, of course, the day of the year in which 
night hours surpass daylight hours by the greatest margin. Note what this has to 
do with the suicides and a rise in psychic disorder. Recalling Thoss's list of 
documented suicides in his article, there seemed to be a recurrence of specific 
family names, as there very likely might be for any kind of data collected in a 
small town. Among these names was a Beadle or two. Perhaps, then, there is a 
genealogical basis for the suicides which has nothing to do with Thoss's 
mystical subclimate, which is a colorful idea to be sure and one that seems 
fitting for this town of various outward and inward aspects, but is not a 
conception that can be substantiated.
One thing that seems certain, however, is the division of Mirocaw into two very 
distinct types of citizenry, resulting in two festivals and the appearance of 
similar clowns--a term now used in an extremely loose sense. But there is a 
connection, and I believe I have some idea of what it is. I said before that the 
normal residents of the town regard those from the ghetto, and especially their 
clown figures, with superstition. Yet it's more than that: there is fear, 
perhaps a kind of hatred--the particular kind of hatred resulting from some 
powerful and irrational memory. What threatens Mirocaw I think I can very well 
understand. I recall the incident earlier today in that vacant diner. "Vacant" 
is the appropriate
41 
word here, despite its contradiction of fact. The congregation of that halflit 
room formed less a presence than an absence, even considering the oppressive 
number of them. Those eyes that did not or could not focus on anything, the 
pining lassitude of their faces, the lazy march of their feet. I was spiritually 
drained when I ran out of there. I then understood why these people and their 
activities are avoided.
I cannot question the wisdom of those ancestral Mirocavians who began the 
tradition of the winter festival and gave the town a pretext for celebration and 
social intercourse at a time when the consequences of brooding isolation are 
most severe, those longest and darkest days of the solstice. A mood of Christmas 
joviality obviously would not be sufficient to counter the menace of this 
season. But even so, there are still the suicides of individuals who are somehow 
cut off, I imagine, from the vitalizing activities of the festival.
It is the nature of this insidious subseason that seems to determine the outward 
forms of Mirocaw's winter festival: the optimistic greenery in a period of gray 
dormancy; the fertile promise of the Winter Queen; and, most interesting to my 
mind, the clowns. The bright clowns of Mirocaw who are treated so badly; they 
appear to serve as substitute figures for those dark-eyed mummers of the slums. 
Since the latter are feared for some power or influence they possess, they may 
still be symbolically confronted and conquered through their counterparts, who 
are elected for precisely this function. If I am right about this, I wonder to 
what extent there is a conscious awareness among the town's populace of this 
indirect show of aggression. Those three young men I spoke with tonight did not 
seem to possess much insight beyond seeing that there was a certain amount of 
robust fun in the festival's tradition. For that matter, how much awareness is 
there on the other side of these two antagonistic festivals? Too horrible to 
think of such a thing, but I must wonder if, for all their apparent aimlessness, 
those inhabitants of the ghetto are not the only ones who know what they are 
about. No denying that behind those inhumanly limp expressions there seems to 
lie a kind of obnoxious intelligence.
Now I realize the confusion of my present state, but as I wobbled from street to 
street tonight, watching those oval-mouthed clowns, I could not help feeling 
that all the merrymaking in Mirocaw was somehow allowed only by their 
sufferance. This I hope is no more than a fanciful Thossian intuition, the sort 
of idea that is curious and thought-provoking without ever seeming to gain the 
benefit of proof. I know my mind is not entirely lucid, but I feel that it may 
be possible to penetrate Mirocaw's
42 
many complexities and illuminate the hidden side of the festival season. In 
particular I must look for the significance of the other festival. Is it also 
some kind of fertility celebration? From what I have seen, the tenor of this 
"celebrating" sub-group is one of anti-fertility, if anything. How have they 
managed to keep from dying out completely over the years? How do they maintain 
their numbers?
But I was too tired to formulate any more of my sodden speculations. Falling 
onto my bed, I soon became lost in dreams of streets and faces.
I was, of course, slightly hung over when I woke up late the next morning. The 
festival was still going strong, and blaring music outside roused me from a 
nightmare. It was a parade. A number of floats proceeded down Townshend, a 
familiar color predominating. There were theme floats of pilgrims and Indians, 
cowboys and Indians, and clowns of an orthodox type. In the middle of it all was 
the Winter Queen herself, freezing atop an icy throne. She waved in all 
directions. I even imagined she waved up at my dark window.
In the first few groggy moments of wakefulness I had no sympathy with my 
excitation of the previous night. But I discovered that my former enthusiasm had 
merely lain dormant, and soon returned with an even greater intensity. Never 
before had my mind and senses been so active during this usually inert time of 
year. At home I would have been playing lugubrious old records and looking out 
the window quite a bit. I was terribly grateful in a completely abstract way for 
my commitment to a meaningful mania. And I was eager to get to work after I had 
had some breakfast at the coffee shop.
When I got back to my room I discovered the door was unlocked. And there was 
something written on the dresser mirror. The writing was red and greasy, as if 
done with a clown's make-up pencil--my own, I realized. I read the legend, or 
rather I should say riddle, several times: "What buries itself before it is 
dead?" I looked at it for quite awhile, very shaken at how vulnerable my holiday 
fortifications were. Was this supposed to be a warning of some kind? A threat to 
the effect that if I persisted in a certain course I would end up prematurely 
interred? I would have to be careful, I told myself. My resolution was to let
43 
nothing deter me from the inspired strategy I had conceived for myself. I wiped 
the mirror clean, for it was now needed for other purposes.
I spent the rest of the day devising a very special costume and the appropriate 
face to go with it. I easily shabbied up my overcoat with a torn pocket or two 
and a complete set of stains. Combined with blue jeans and a pair of rather 
scuffed-up shoes, I had a passable costume for a derelict. The face, however, 
was more difficult, for I had to experiment from memory. Conjuring a mental 
image of the screaming pierrot in that painting {The Scream, I now recall), 
helped me quite a bit. At nightfall I exited the hotel by the back stairway.
It was strange to walk down the crowded street in this gruesome disguise. Though 
I thought I would feel conspicuous, the actual experience was very close, I 
imagined, to one of complete invisibility. No one looked at me as I strolled by, 
or as they strolled by, or as we strolled by each other. I was a 
phantom--perhaps the ghost of festivals past, or those yet to come.
I had no clear idea where my disguise would take me that night, only vague 
expectations of gaining the confidence of my fellow specters and possibly in 
some way coming to know their secrets. For a while I would simply wander around 
in that lackadaisical manner I had learned from them, following their lead in 
any way they might indicate. And for the most part this meant doing almost 
nothing and doing it silently. If I passed one of my kind on the sidewalk there 
was no speaking, no exchange of knowing looks, no recognition at all that I was 
aware of. We were there on the streets of Mirocaw to create a presence and 
nothing more. At least this is how I came to feel about it. As I drifted along 
with my bodiless invisibility, I felt myself more and more becoming an empty, 
floating shape, seeing without being seen and walking without the interference 
of those grosser creatures who shared my world. It was not an experience 
completely without interest or even pleasure. The clown's shibboleth of "here we 
are again" took on a new meaning for me as I felt myself a novitiate of a more 
rarified order of harlequinry. And very soon the opportunity to make further 
progress along this path presented itself.
Going the opposite direction, down the street, a pickup truck slowly passed, 
gently parting a sea of zigging and zagging celebrants. The cargo in the back of 
this truck was curious, for it was made up entirely of my fellow sectarians. At 
the end of the block the truck
44 
stopped and another of them boarded it over the back gate. One block down I saw 
still another get on. Then the truck made a U-turn at an intersection and headed 
in my direction.
I stood at the curb as I had seen the others do. I was not sure the truck would 
pick me up, thinking that somehow they knew I was an imposter. The truck did, 
however, slow down, almost coming to a stop when it reached me. The others were 
crowded on the floor of the truck bed. Most of them were just staring into 
nothingness with the usual indifference I had come to expect from their kind. 
But a few actually glanced at me with some anticipation. For a second I 
hesitated, not sure I wanted to pursue this ruse any further. At the last 
moment, some impulse sent me climbing up the back of the truck and squeezing 
myself in among the others.
There were only a few more to pick up before the truck headed for the outskirts 
of Mirocaw and beyond. At first I tried to maintain a clear orientation with 
respect to the town. But as we took turn after turn through the darkness of 
narrow country roads, I found myself unable to preserve any sense of direction. 
The majority of the others in the back of the truck exhibited no apparent 
awareness of their fellow passengers. Guardedly, I looked from face to ghostly 
face. A few of them spoke in short whispered phrases to others close by. I could 
not make out what they were saying but the tone of their voices was one of 
innocent normalcy, as if they were not of the hardened slum-herd of Mirocaw. 
Perhaps, I thought, these were thrill-seekers who had disguised themselves as I 
had done, or, more likely, initiates of some kind. Possibly they had received 
prior instructions at such meetings as I had stumbled onto the day before. It 
was also likely that among this crew were those very boys I had frightened into 
a precipitate exit from that old diner.
The truck was now speeding along a fairly open stretch of country, heading 
toward those higher hills that surrounded the now distant town of Mirocaw. The 
icy wind whipped around us, and I could not keep myself from trembling with 
cold. This definitely betrayed me as one of the newcomers among the group, for 
the two bodies that pressed against mine were rigidly still and even seemed to 
be radiating a frigidity of their own. I glanced ahead at the darkness into 
which we were rapidly progressing.
We had left all open country behind us now, and the road was
45 
enclosed by thick woods. The mass of bodies in the truck leaned into one another 
as we began traveling up a steep incline. Above us, at the top of the hill, were 
lights shining somewhere within the woods. When the road levelled off, the truck 
made an abrupt turn, steering into what looked like a great ditch.
There was an unpaved path, however, upon which the truck proceeded toward the 
glowing in the near distance.
This glowing became brighter and sharper as we approached it, flickering upon 
the trees and revealing stark detail where there had formerly been only smooth 
darkness. As the truck pulled into a clearing and came to a stop, I saw a loose 
assembly of figures, many of which held lanterns that beamed with a dazzling and 
frosty light. I stood up in the back of the truck to unboard as the others were 
doing. Glancing around from that height I saw approximately thirty more of those 
cadaverous clowns milling about. One of my fellow passengers spied me lingering 
in the truck and in a strangely high-pitched whisper told me to hurry, 
explaining something about the "apex of darkness". I thought again about this 
solstice night; it was technically the longest period of darkness of the year, 
even if not by a very significant margin from many other winter nights. Its true 
significance, though, was related to considerations having little to do with 
either statistics or the calendar.
I went over to the place where the others were forming into a tighter crowd, 
which betrayed a sense of expectancy in the subtle gestures and expressions of 
its individual members. Glances were now exchanged, the hand of one lightly 
touched the shoulder of another, and a pair of circled eyes gazed over to where 
two figures were setting their lanterns on the ground about six feet apart. The 
illumination of these lanterns revealed an opening in the earth. Eventually the 
awareness of everyone was focused on this roundish pit, and as if by prearranged 
signal we all began huddling around it. The only sounds were those of the wind 
and our own movements as we crushed frozen leaves and sticks underfoot.
Finally, when we had all surrounded this gaping hole, the first one jumped in, 
leaving our sight for a moment but then reappearing to take hold of a lantern 
which another handed him from above. The miniature abyss filled with light, and 
I could see it was no more than six feet deep. One of its walls opened into the 
mouth of a tunnel. The figure holding the lantern stooped a little and 
disappeared into the
46 
passage.
Each of us, in turn, dropped into the darkness of this pit, and every fifth one 
took a lantern. I kept to the back of the group, for whatever subterranean 
activities were going to take place, I was sure I wanted to be on their 
periphery. When only about ten of us remained on the ground above, I maneuvered 
to let four of them precede me so that as the fifth I might receive a lantern. 
This was exactly how it worked out, for after I had leaped to the bottom of the 
hole a light was ritually handed down to me. Turning about-face, I quickly 
entered the passageway. At that point I shook so with cold that I was neither 
curious nor afraid, but only grateful for the shelter.
I entered a long, gently sloping tunnel, just high enough for me to stand 
upright. It was considerably warmer down there than outside in the cold darkness 
of the woods. After a few moments I had sufficiently thawed out so that my 
concerns shifted from those of physical comfort to a sudden and justified 
preoccupation with my survival. As I walked I held my lantern close to the sides 
of the tunnel. They were relatively smooth as if the passage had not been made 
by manual digging but had been burrowed by something which left behind a clue to 
its dimensions in the tunnel's size and shape. This delirious idea came to me 
when I recalled the message that had been left on my hotel room mirror: "What 
buries itself before it is dead?"
I had to hurry along to keep up with those uncanny spelunkers who preceded me. 
The lanterns ahead bobbed with every step of their bearers, the lumbering 
procession seeming less and less real the farther we marched into that snug 
little tunnel. At some point I noticed the line ahead of me growing shorter. The 
processioners were emptying out into a cavernous chamber where I, too, soon 
arrived. This area was about thirty feet in height, its other dimensions 
approximating those of a large ballroom. Gazing into the distance above made me 
uncomfortably aware of how far we had descended into the earth. Unlike the 
smooth sides of the tunnel, the walls of this cavern looked jagged and 
irregular, as though they had been gnawed at. The earth had been removed, I 
assumed, either through the tunnel from which we had emerged, or else by way of 
one of the many other black openings that I saw around the edges of the chamber, 
for possibly they too led back to the surface.
But the structure of this chamber occupied my mind a great deal less than did 
its occupants. There to meet us on the floor of the great
47 
cavern was what must have been the entire slum population of Mirocaw, and more, 
all with the same eerily wide-eyed and oval-mouthed faces. They formed a circle 
around an altar-like object which had some kind of dark, leathery covering 
draped over it. Upon the altar, another covering of the same material concealed 
a lumpy form beneath.
And behind this form, looking down upon the altar, was the only figure whose 
face was not greased with makeup.
He wore a long snowy robe that was the same color as the wispy hair berimming 
his head. His arms were calmly at his sides. He made no movement. The man I once 
believed would penetrate great secrets stood before us with the same 
professorial bearing that had impressed me so many years ago, yet now I felt 
nothing but dread at the thought of what revelations lay pocketed within the 
abysmal folds of his magisterial attire. Had I really come here to challenge 
such a formidable figure? The name by which I knew him seemed itself 
insufficient to designate one of his stature. Rather I should name him by his 
other incarnations: god of all wisdom, scribe of all sacred books, father of all 
magicians, thrice great and more--rather I should call him Thoth.
He raised his cupped hands to his congregation and the ceremony was underway.
It was all very simple. The entire assembly, which had remained speechless until 
this moment, broke into the most horrendous highpitched singing that can be 
imagined. It was a choir of sorrow, of shrieking delirium, and of shame. The 
cavern rang shrilly with the dissonant, whining chorus. My voice, too, was added 
to the congregation's, trying to blend with their maimed music. But my singing 
could not imitate theirs, having a huskiness unlike their cacophonous keening 
wail. To keep from exposing myself as an intruder I continued to mouth their 
words without sound. These words were a revelation of the moody malignancy which 
until then I had no more than sensed whenever in the presence of these figures. 
They were singing to the "unborn in paradise," to the "pure unlived lives." They 
sang a dirge for existence, for all its vital forms and seasons. Their ideals 
were those of darkness, chaos, and a melancholy half-existence consecrated to 
all the many shapes of death. A sea of thin, bloodless faces trembled and 
screamed with perverted hopes. And the robed, guiding figure at the heart of all 
this--elevated over
48 
the course of twenty years to the status of high priest--was the man from whom I 
had taken so many of my own life's principles. It would be useless to describe 
what I felt at that moment and a waste of the time I need to describe the events 
which followed.
The singing abruptly stopped and the towering white-haired figure began to 
speak. He was welcoming those of the new generation--twenty winters had passed 
since the "Pure Ones" had expanded their ranks. The word "pure" in this setting 
was a violence to what sense and composure I still retained, for nothing could 
have been more foul than what was to come. Thoss--and I employ this defunct 
identity only as a convenience--closed his sermon and drew closer to the 
dark-skinned altar. Then, with all the flourish of his former life, he drew back 
the topmost covering. Beneath it was a limp-limbed effigy, a collapsed puppet 
sprawled upon the slab. I was standing toward the rear of the congregation and 
attempted to keep as close to the exit passage as I could. Thus, I did not see 
everything as clearly as I might have.
Thoss looked down upon the crooked, doll-like form and then out at the 
gathering. I even imagined that he made knowing eyecontact with myself. He 
spread his arms and a stream of continuous and unintelligible words flowed from 
his moaning mouth. The congregation began to stir, not greatly but perceptibly. 
Until that moment there was a limit to what I believed was the evil of these 
people. They were, after all, only that. They were merely morbid, selftortured 
souls with strange beliefs. If there was anything I had learned in all my years 
as an anthropologist it was that the world is infinitely rich in strange ideas, 
even to the point where the concept of strangeness itself had little meaning for 
me. But with the scene I then witnessed, my conscience bounded into a realm from 
which it will never return.
For now was the transformation scene, the culmination of every harlequinade.
It began slowly. There was increasing movement among those on the far side of 
the chamber from where I stood. Someone had fallen to the floor and the others 
in the area backed away. The voice at the altar continued its chanting. I tried 
to gain a better view but there were too many of them around me. Through the 
mass of obstructing bodies I caught only glimpses of what was taking place.
The one who had swooned to the floor of the chamber seemed to
49 
be losing all former shape and proportion. I thought it was a clown's trick. 
They were clowns, were they not? I myself could make four white balls transform 
into four black balls as I juggled them. And this was not my most astonishing 
feat of clownish magic. And is there not always a sleight-of-hand inherent in 
all ceremonies, often dependent on the transported delusions of the celebrants? 
This was a good show, I thought, and giggled to myself. The transformation scene 
of Harlequin throwing off his fool's facade. O God, Harlequin, do not move like 
that! Harlequin, where are your arms? And your legs have melted together and 
begun squirming upon the floor. What horrible, mouthing umbilicus is that where 
your face should be? What is it that buries itself before it is dead? The 
almighty serpent of wisdom--the Conqueror Worm.
It now started happening all around the chamber. Individual members of the 
congregation would gaze emptily--caught for a moment in a frozen trance--and 
then collapse to the floor to begin the sickening metamorphosis. This happened 
with ever-increasing frequency the louder and more frantic Thoss chanted his 
insane prayer or curse. Then there began a writhing movement toward the altar, 
and Thoss welcomed the things as they curled their way to the altar-top. I knew 
now what lax figure lay upon it.
This was Kora and Persephone, the daughter of Ceres and the Winter Queen: the 
child abducted into the underworld of death. Except this child had no 
supernatural mother to save her, no living mother at all. For the sacrifice I 
witnessed was an echo of one that had occurred twenty years before, the carnival 
feast of the preceding generation--o carneval Now both mother and daughter had 
become victims of this subterranean sabbath. I finally realized this truth when 
the figure stirred upon the altar, lifted its head of icy beauty, and screamed 
at the sight of mute mouths closing around her.
I ran from the chamber into the tunnel. (There was nothing else that could be 
done, I have obsessively told myself.) Some of the others who had not yet 
changed began to pursue me. They would have caught up to me, I have no doubt, 
for I fell only a few yards into the passage. And for a moment I imagined that I 
too was about to undergo a transformation, but I had not been prepared as the 
others had been. When I heard the approaching footsteps of my pursuers I was 
sure there was an even worse fate facing me upon the altar. But the footsteps 
ceased and retreated. They had received an order in the
50 
voice of their high priest. I too heard the order, though I wish I had not, for 
until then I had imagined that Thoss did not remember who I was. It was that 
voice which taught me otherwise.
For the moment I was free to leave. I struggled to my feet and, having broken my 
lantern in the fall, retraced my way back through cloacal blackness.
Everything seemed to happen very quickly once I emerged from the tunnel and 
climbed up from the pit. I wiped the reeking greasepaint from my face as I ran 
through the woods and back to the road. A passing car stopped, though I gave it 
no other choice except to run me down.
"Thank you for stopping."
"What the hell are you doing out here?" the driver asked.
I caught my breath. "It was a joke. The festival. Friends thought it would be 
funny. ... Please drive on."
My ride let me off about a mile out of town, and from there I could find my way. 
It was the same way I had come into Mirocaw on my first visit the summer before. 
I stood for a while at the summit of that high hill just outside the city 
limits, looking down upon the busy little hamlet. The intensity of the festival 
had not abated, and would not until morning. I walked down toward the welcoming 
glow of green, slipped through the festivities unnoticed, and returned to the 
hotel. No one saw me go up to my room. Indeed, there was an atmosphere of 
absence and abandonment throughout that building, and the desk in the lobby was 
unattended.
I locked the door to my room and collapsed upon the bed.
When I awoke the next morning I saw from my window that the town and surrounding 
countryside had been visited during the night by a snowstorm, one which was 
entirely unpredicted. The snow was still falling on the now deserted streets of 
Mirocaw. The festival was over. Everyone had gone home.
And this was exactly my own intention. Any action on my part concerning what I 
had seen the night before would have to wait until I was away from the town. I 
am still not sure it will do the slightest
51 
good to speak up like this. Any accusations I could make against the slum 
populace of Mirocaw would be resisted, as well they should be, as unbelievable. 
Perhaps in a very short while none of this will be my concern.
With packed suitcases in both hands I walked up to the front desk to check out. 
The man behind the desk was not Samuel Beadle, and he had to fumble around to 
find my bill.
"Here we are. Everything all right?"
"Fine," I answered in a dead voice. "Is Mr. Beadle around?"
"No, I'm afraid he's not back yet. Been out all night looking for his daughter. 
She's a very popular girl, being the Winter Queen and all that nonsense. 
Probably find she was at a party somewhere."
A little noise came out of my throat.
I threw my suitcases in the back seat of my car and got behind the wheel. On 
that morning nothing I could recall seemed real to me. The snow was falling and 
I watched it through my windshield, slow and silent and entrancing. I started up 
my car, routinely glancing in my rear view mirror. What I saw there is now 
vividly framed in my mind, as it was framed in the back window of my car when I 
turned to verify its reality.
In the middle of the street behind me, standing ankle-deep in snow, was Thoss 
and another figure. When I looked closely at the other I recognized him as one 
of the boys whom I surprised in that diner. But he had now taken on a corrupt 
and listless resemblance to his new family. Both he and Thoss stared at me, 
making no attempt to forestall my departure. Thoss knew that this was 
unnecessary.
I had to carry the image of those two dark figures in my mind as I drove back 
home. But only now has the full weight of my experience descended upon me. So 
far I have claimed illness in order to avoid my teaching schedule. To face the 
normal flow of life as I had formerly known it would be impossible. I am now 
very much under the influence of a season and a climate far colder and more 
barren than all the winters in human memory. And mentally retracing past events 
does not seem to have helped; I can feel myself sinking deeper into a velvety 
white abyss.
At certain times I could almost dissolve entirely into this inner realm of awful 
purity and emptiness. I remember those invisible moments when in disguise I 
drifted through the streets of Mirocaw, untouched by the drunken, noisy forms 
around me: untouchable. But
52 
instantly I recoil at this grotesque nostalgia, for I realize what is happening 
and what I do not want to be true, though Thoss proclaimed it was. I recall his 
command to those others as I lay helplessly prone in the tunnel. They could have 
apprehended me, but Thoss, my old master, called them back. His voice echoed 
throughout that cavern, and it now reverberates within my own psychic chambers 
of memory.
"He is one of us," it said. "He has always been one of us." It is this voice 
which now fills my dreams and my days and my long winter nights. I have seen 
you, Dr. Thoss, through the snow outside my window. Soon I will celebrate, 
alone, that last feast which will kill your words, only to prove how well I have 
learned their truth.
To the memory of H. P. Lovecraft
53 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech
There is a stairway. It climbs crooked up the side of total darkness. Yet its 
outlines are visible, like a scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky. 
And though standing unsupported, it does not fall. Nor does it end its jagged 
ascent until it has reached the obscure loft where Voke, the recluse, has 
cloistered himself. Someone named Cheev is making his way up the stairway, which 
seems to trouble him somehow. Though the angular scaffolding as a whole is 
secure enough, Cheev appears hesitant to place his full weight on the individual 
steps. A victim of vague misgivings, he ascends in weird mincing movements. 
Every so often he looks back over his shoulder at the stairs he has just stepped 
upon, as if expecting to see the imprints of his soles there, as if the stairs 
are not made of solid wood but molded of soft clay. But the stairs are 
unchanged.
Cheev is wearing a long, brightly colored coat. The huge splinters on the 
railing of the stairway sometimes snag his bulky sleeves. They also snag his 
bony hands, but Cheev is more exasperated by the destruction of expensive cloth 
than undear flesh. While climbing, he sucks at a small puncture in his 
forefinger to keep from staining his coat with blood. At the seventeenth stair 
above the seventeenth, and last, landing--he trips. The long tails of the coat 
become tangled between Cheev's legs and there is a ripping sound as he falls. At 
the end of his patience, Cheev removes the coat and flings it over the side of 
the stairway into the black abyss. Cheev's arms and legs are very thin.
There is only a single door at the top of the stairs. Behind it is Voke's loft, 
which appears to be a cross between a playroom and a place of torture. No doubt 
Cheev notices this when, with five widely splayed fingers pushing against the 
door, he enters.
54 
The darkness and silence of the great room are compromised only by noisy jets of 
blue-green light flickering spasmodically along the walls. But for the most part 
the room lies buried in shadows. Even its exact height is uncertain, since above 
the convulsive illumination almost nothing can be seen by even the sharpest pair 
of eyes, never mind Cheev's squinting little slits. Part of the lower cagework 
of the crisscrossing rafters is visible, but the ceiling is entirely obscured, 
if in fact Voke's sanctum has been provided with one.
Somewhere above the gritty floor, more than a few life-size dolls hang suspended 
by wires which gleam and look gummy like wetted strands of a spider web. But 
none of the dolls is seen in whole: the longbeaked profile of one juts into the 
light; the shiny satin legs of another find their way out of the upper dimness; 
a beautifully pale hand glows in the distance; while much closer the better part 
of a harlequin dangles into view, cut off at the neck by blackness. Much of the 
inventory of this vast room appears only as parts and pieces of objects which 
manage to push their way out of the smothering dark. Upon the grainy floor, a 
long low box thrusts a corner of itself into the scene, showing off reinforced 
edges of bright metal strips plugged with heavy bolts. Pointed and strangely 
shaped instruments bloom out of the loam of shadows; they are crusted with ... 
age. A great wheel appears at quarter-phase in the room's night. Other sections, 
appendages, and gear-works of curious machines complicate this immense gallery.
As Cheev progresses through the half-light, he is suddenly halted by a metal arm 
with a soft black handle. He backs off and continues to shuffle through the 
chamber, grinding sawdust, sand, perhaps pulverized stars underfoot. The 
dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets are strewn about the floor, drained of 
their stuffings. Posters, signs, billboards, and leaflets of various sorts are 
scattered around like playing cards, their bright words disarranged into 
nonsense. Countless other objects, devices, and leftover goods stock the room, 
more than one could possibly take notice of. But they are all, in some way, like 
those which have been described. One wonders, then, how they could all add up to 
such an atmosphere of... isn't repose the word? Yes, but a certain kind of 
repose: the repose of ruin.
"Voke," Cheev calls out. "Doctor, are you here?"
Within the darknesss ahead a tall rectangle suddenly appears, like a 
ticket-seller's booth at a carnival. The lower part is composed of
55 
wood and the upper part of glass; its interior is lit up by an oily red glare. 
Slumped forward on its seat inside the booth, as if asleep, is a well-dressed 
dummy: nicely-fitting black jacket and vest with bright silver buttons, a white 
high-collar shirt with silver cufflinks, and a billowing cravat which displays a 
pattern of moons and stars. Because his head is forwardly inclined, the dummy's 
only feature of note is the black sheen of its painted hair.
Cheev approaches the booth a little cautiously. He fails to notice, or considers 
irrelevant, the inanimate character of the figure inside. Through a 
semi-circular opening in of the glass, Cheev slides his hand into the booth, 
apparently with the intention of giving the dummy's arm a shake. But before his 
own arm creeps very far toward its goal, several things occur in succession: the 
dummy casually lifts its head and opens its eyes ... it reaches out and places 
its wooden hand on Cheev's hand of flesh ... and its jaw drops open to dispense 
a mechanical laugh--yah-ha-ha-ha-ha, yah-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Wresting his hand away from the lurid dummy, Cheev staggers backward a few 
chaotic steps. The dummy continues to give forth its mocking laughter, which 
flaps its way into every niche of the evil loft and flies back as peculiar 
echoes. The dummy's face is vacant and handsome; its eyes roll like mad marbles. 
Then, from out of the shadows behind the dummy's booth, steps a figure that is 
every bit as thin as Cheev, though much taller. His outfit is not unlike the 
dummy's, but the clothes hang on him, and what there is left of his sparse hair 
falls like old rags across his bone-white scalp.
"Did you ever wonder, Mr. Veech," Voke begins, parading slowly toward his guest 
while holding one side of his coat like the train of a gown, "did you ever 
wonder what it is that makes the animation of a wooden dummy so horrible to see, 
not to mention to hear. Listen to it, I mean really listen. Ya-ha-ha-ha-ha: a 
stupid series of sounds that becomes excruciatingly eloquent when uttered by the 
Ticket Man. They are a species of poetry that sings what should not be sung, 
that speaks what should not be spoken. But what in the world is it laughing 
about. Nothing, it would seem. No clear motives or impulses make the dummy 
laugh, and yet it does! Ya-ha-ha-ha-ha, just as pure and as evil as can be.
"'What is this laughter for?' you might be wondering, Mr. Veech. It seems to be 
for your ears alone, doesn't it? It seems to be directed at every nameless 
secret of your being. It seems ... knowing. And it
56 
is knowing, but in another way from what you suppose, in another direction 
entirely. It is not you the dummy knows, it is only itself. The question is not: 
'What is the laughter for,' not at all. The question is: 'Where does it come 
from?' This is the thing of real horror, in fact. The dummy terrorizes you, 
while he is really the one in terror.
"Think of it: wood waking up. I can't put it any clearer than that. And let's 
not forget the paint for the hair and lips, the glass for the eyes. These too 
are aroused from a sleep that should never have been broken; these too are now 
part of a tingling network of dummy-nerves, alive and aware in a way we cannot 
begin to imagine. This is something too painful for tears and so the dummy 
laughs in your face, trying to give vent to an evil that was no part of his old 
home of wood and paint and glass. But this evil is now the very essence of its 
new home--our world, Mr. Veech. This is what is so horrible about the laughing 
Ticket Man. Go to sleep now, dummy. There, he has his nice silence back. Be glad 
I didn't make one that screams, Mr. Veech. And be glad the dummy is, after all, 
just a device.
"Well, to what do I owe your presence here today. It is day, isn't it, or very 
close to it?"
"Yes, it is," replies Cheev.
"Good, I like to keep abreast of things. What's your latest?" Voke inquires, 
proceeding to saunter slowly about and admiring the clutter of his loft.
Cheev leans back against a vague mound of indefinable objects and stares at the 
floor. He sounds drowsy. "I wouldn't have come here, but I didn't know what else 
to do. How can I tell you? The past days and nights, especially the nights, like 
icy hells. I suppose I should say that there is someone ..."
"Whom you have taken a liking to," Voke finishes.
"Yes, but then there is someone else ..."
"Who is somehow an obstacle, someone whose existence helps to insure that your 
nights will be frosty ones. This seems very straightforward. Tell me, what is 
her name, the first someone?"
"Prena," answers Cheev after some hesitation.
"And his, the second."
"Lamm, but why do you need their names to help me?"
"Their names, like your name, and mine for that matter, are of no actual 
importance. I was just maintaining a polite interest in your
57 
predicament, nothing more. As for helping you, that assumes I have some control 
over this situation, which thankfully I don't."
"But I thought," stammers Cheev, "the loft, your devices, you seem to have a 
certain ... knowledge."
"Like the dummy's knowledge? You shouldn't have depended on it. Nowyou just have 
one more disappointment to contend with. One more pain. But listen, can't you 
just stick it out? For one reason or another, you could end up forgetting all 
about this Prena, this Lamm; you might come to realize that they are merely two 
shadows sewn together by their own delirium. It's something to consider. 
Anything can happen in this world of ours."
"I can't wait anymore, Doctor," says Cheev in a nervous, shadowy voice.
"Well, you know what they say: Something is no worse than something or other 
with your own shadow. I forget exactly how it goes."
"I am my own shadow," Cheev replies.
"Yes, I can see that. Listen now, let us speak hypothetically for a moment. Are 
you familiar with the Street of Wavering Peaks? I know it has a more common 
name, but I like to call it that because of all those tall, slanty houses."
Cheev nods to indicate that he too knows the street.
"Well--and I promise nothing, remember, I make no pledges or vows--but if you 
can somehow manage to bring both of your friends through that street tonight, I 
think there might be a solution to your problem, if you really want one. Do you 
mind what form the solution takes?"
Cheev timidly turns his head side to side, meaning he does not mind.
"You really are serious, aren't you?"
Cheev says nothing in reply. Voke shrugs and gradually fades back to his point 
of origin within the deepest shadows of the room. The red light in the booth of 
the Ticket Man also fades like a setting sun, until the only color left in the 
room is the ultramarine of the flames burning on the walls. Cheev continues to 
gaze into the upper reaches of the loft for a few more moments, as if he can 
already see the slender rooftops of the houses in the Street of Wavering Peaks.
By night, facades of the houses on either side of this narrow street are fused, 
as if cut from a single piece of very old cardboard. Bonded
58 
by shadows and plastered together by moonlight, one house undulates into the 
next. Aside from their foundations and a few floors with shuttered windows, they 
are all roof. Splendidly they rise into the night, often reaching fantastic 
altitudes. At angles determined by an unknown system of forces and fixed forever 
on destiny's tilt, they fall into and across the sky.
Tonight the sky is a swamp of murky clouds glowing in the false fire of the 
moon. From the direction of the street's arched entranceway, three approaching 
figures are preceded by three elongated shadows. One figure walks ahead, leading 
the way but lacking the proper gestures of knowledge and authority. Behind are 
the shapes of a man and a woman, side by side with only a slice of evening's 
soft radiance between them.
Toward the end of the street, the leading figure stops and the other two catch 
up with him. They are now all three standing outside one of the loftiest of the 
peaked houses. This house appears also to serve as a business of some kind, 
since a large sign, which swings a little in the wind and is muddled by shadows, 
displays a painted picture of the goods or services sold there: a pair of tongs, 
or something similar, laying crosswise upon what is perhaps a poker, or some 
other lengthy implement. But the business is closed for the night and the 
shutters are secured. A round attic window high above seems to be no more than 
an empty socket, though from the street--where the three figures have assumed 
the tentative postures of somnambulists--it is difficult to tell exactly what 
things are like up there. And now a fog begins to cut off their gaze from the 
upper regions of the Street of Wavering Peaks.
Cheev looks vaguely distressed, apparently unsure just how much longer they 
should loiter in this place. Not being privy to what is supposed to occur, if 
anything, what action should he take? All he can do at the moment is stall. But 
everything is soon brought to a conclusion, very quickly yet without a sense of 
haste or violence.
One moment Cheev is drowsily conversing with his two companions, both of them 
looking sternly suspicious at this point; the next moment it is as if they are 
two puppets who have been whisked upwards on invisible strings, into the fog and 
out of sight. It all happens so suddenly that they do not make a sound, though a 
little later there are faint, hollow screams from high above. Cheev has fallen 
to his knees and is covering his face with his bony hands.
59 
Two went up, but only one comes down, suspended a few inches from the ground and 
swinging a little in the wind. Cheev uncovers his eyes and looks at the thing. 
Yes, there is only one, but this one has too many ... there is too much of 
everything on this body. Two faces sharing a single head, two mouths that have 
fallen silent forever with parted lips. The thing continues to hang in the air 
even after Cheev has completely collapsed on the Street of Wavering Peaks.
Voke's next meeting with Cheev is as unexpected as the last one. There is a 
disturbance in the loft, and the rigid recluse lugs his bones out of the shadows 
to investigate. What he sees is Cheev and the Ticket Man both screaming with 
laughter. Their cachinnations stir up the stagnant air of the loft; they are two 
maniac twins crying and cackling with a single voice.
"What's going on here, Mr. Veech?" demands Voke.
Cheev ignores him and continues his laughing duet with the dummy. Even after 
Voke touches the booth and says, "Go to sleep, dummy," Cheev still laughs all by 
himself, as if he too is an automaton without control over his actions. Voke 
knocks Cheev to the floor, which seems to hit the right mechanism to shut off 
his voice. At least he is quiet for a few moments. Then he raises his eyes from 
the floor and glares up at Voke.
"Why did you have to do that to them?" he asks with a deeply stricken 
reproachfulness. His voice is rough from all that laughter; it sounds like 
grinding machinery.
"I'm hot going to pretend I don't know what you're talking about. I have heard 
about what happened, not that I should care. But you can't hold me responsible, 
Mr. Veech. I never leave my loft, you know that. However, you're perfectly free 
to go, if you go now. Haven't you caused me enough trouble!"
"Why did it have to happen like that?" Cheev protests.
"How should I know? You said you didn't mind what form the solution to your 
problem took. Besides, I think it all worked out for the best. Those two were 
making a fool of you, Mr. Veech. They wanted each other and now they have each 
other, so to speak, while you are free to move on to your next disaster. Wait 
one moment, I know what's bothering you," says Voke with sudden enlightenment. 
"You're distressed because it all ended up with their demise and not yours. 
Death is always the best thing, Mr. Veech, but who would have
60 
thought you could appreciate such a view? I've underestimated you, no doubt 
about it. My apologies."
"No," screams Cheev, quivering like a sick animal. Voke now becomes excited.
"No? Noooo? What is the matter with you, young friend? Why do you set me up for 
these disappointments? I've had quite enough without your adding to the heap. 
Take a lesson from the Ticket Man here. Do you see him whining? No, he is 
silent, he is still. A dummy's silence is the most soothing silence of all, and 
his stillness is the perfect stillness of the unborn. He could be making a fuss, 
but he isn't. And it is precisely his lack of action, his unfulfilled nature 
that makes him the ideal companion, my only true friend it seems. Deadwood, I 
adore you. Look at how his hands rest upon his lap in empty prayer. Look at the 
noble bearing of his collapsed and powerless limbs. Look at his numb lips 
muttering nothing, and look at those eyes--how they gaze on and on forever!"
Voke takes a closer look at the dummy's eyes, and his own begin to lower with 
dark intentness. He leans against the booth for the closest possible scrutiny, 
his hands adhering to the glass as if by the force of some powerful suction. 
Inside the booth, the dummy's eyes have changed. They are now dripping little 
drops of blood, which appear black in the red haze surrounding him.
Voke pulls himself away from the booth and turns to Cheev.
"You've been tampering with him!" he bellows as best he can.
Cheev blinks a few leftover tears of false laughter out of his eyes, and his 
lips form a true smile. "I didn't do a thing," he whispers mockingly. "Don't 
blame me for your troubles!"
Voke seems to be momentarily paralyzed with outrage, though his face is twisted 
by a thousand thoughts of action. Cheev apparently is aware of the danger and 
his eyes search throughout the room, possibly for a means of escape or for a 
weapon to use against his antagonist. He fixes on something and begins to move 
toward it in a crouch.
"Where do you think you're going?" says Voke, now liberated from the disabling 
effects of his rage.
Cheev is trying to reach something on the floor that is the approximate size and 
shape of a coffin. Only one corner of the long black box sticks out of the 
shadows into the bluish green glare of the
61 
loft. A thick strip of gleaming silver edges the object and is secured to it 
with silvery bolts.
"Get away from there," shouts Voke as Cheev stoops over the box, fingering its 
lid.
But before he can open it, before he can make another move, Voke makes his.
"I've done my best for you, Mr. Veech, and you've given me nothing but grief. 
I've tried to deliver you from the fate of your friends ... but now I deliver 
you to it. Join them, Cheev. "
At these words, Cheev's body begins to rise in a puppet's hunch, then soars up 
into the tenebrous rafters and beyond, transported by unseen wires. His arms and 
legs twitch uncontrollably during the elevation, and his screams ... fade.
But Voke pays no attention to his victim's progress. His baggy clothes flapping 
hysterically, he rushes to the object so recently threatened with violation. He 
drags it toward an open spot on the floor. The light from the walls, ghastly and 
oceanic, shines on the coffin's silky black surface. Voke is on his knees before 
the coffin, tenderly testing its security with his fingertips. As if each 
accumulated moment of deliberation were a blasphemy, he suddenly lifts back the 
lid.
Laid out inside is a young woman whose beauty has been unnaturally perpetuated 
by a fanatic of her form. Voke gazes for some time at the corpse, then finally 
says: "Always the best thing, my dear. Always the best thing."
He is still kneeling before the coffin as his features begin to undergo the 
ravages of various, obviously conflicting, phases of feeling. Eyes, mouth, the 
whole facial structure is called upon to perform gruesome acrobatics of 
expression. Ultimately an impossible task is relieved or avoided by laughter: 
the liberating laughter of an innocent derangement, of a virgin madness. Voke 
rises to his feet by the powers of his idiotic hilarity. He begins to move about 
in a weird dance--hopping and bouncing and bobbing. His laughter grows worse as 
he gyres aimlessly, and his gestures become more convulsive. Through complete 
lack of attention, or perhaps by momentarily regaining it, Voke makes his way 
out of the loft and is now laughing into the dark abyss beyond the precarious 
railing at the top of the crooked stairway. His final laugh seems to stick in 
his throat; he goes
62 
over the railing and falls without a sound, his baggy clothes flapping 
uselessly.
Thus the screams you now hear are not those of the plummeting Voke. Neither are 
they the screams of Cheev, who is long gone, nor the supernatural echoes of 
Prena and Lamm's cries of horror. These screams, the ones from beyond the door 
at the top of the stairs, belong only to a dummy who now feels warm drops of 
blood sliding thickly over his lacquered cheeks, and who has been left--alone 
and alive-- in the shadows of an abandoned loft. And his eyes are rolling like 
mad marbles.
63 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
Alice's Last Adventure
Preston, stop laughing. They ate the whole backyard. They ate your mother's 
favorite flowers! It's not funny, Preston." "Aaaaa ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Aaaaa 
ha-ha-ha-ha-ha."
--PRESTON AND THE STARVING SHADOWS
A long time ago, Preston Penn made up his mind to ignore the passing years and 
join the ranks of those who remain forever in a kind of half-world between 
childhood and adolescence. He would not give up the bold satisfaction of eating 
insects (cripsy flies and crunchy beetles are his favorites), nor that peculiar 
drunkenness of a child's brain, induplicable once grown-up sobriety has set 
perniciously in. The result was that Preston successfully negotiated several 
decades without ever coming within hailing distance of puberty; he lived 
unchanged throughout many a perverse adventure in the forties and fifties and 
even into the sixties. He lived long after I ceased writing about him.
Did he have a prototype? I should say so. One doesn't just invent a character 
like Preston using only the pitiful powers of imagination. He was very much a 
concoction of reality, later adapted for my popular series of children's books. 
Preston's status in both reality and imagination has always had a great 
fascination for me. In the past year, however, this issue has especially 
demanded my attention, not without some personal annoyance and even anxiety. 
Then again, perhaps I'm just getting senile.
My age is no secret, since it can be looked up in a number of literary reference 
sources (see Children's Authors of Today) whose information is only a few years 
off--I won't tell you in which direction. Over two decades ago, when the last 
Preston book appeared
64 
(Preston and the Upside-Down Face), one reviewer rather snootily referred to me 
as the "'Grande Damned' of a particular sort of children's literature." What 
sort you can imagine if you don't otherwise know, if you didn't grow up--or not 
grow up, as it were--reading Preston's adventures with the Dead Mask, the 
Starving Shadows, or the Lonely Mirror.
Even as a little girl, I knew I wanted to be an author; and I also knew just the 
kinds of things I would write. Let someone else give the preadolescents their 
literary introductions to life and love, guiding them through those volatile 
years when anything might go wrong, and landing them safely on the shores of 
incipient maturity. That was never my destiny. I would write about my adventures 
with Preston-- my real-life childhood playmate, as everybody knew. Preston would 
then initiate others into the mysteries of an upside-down, inside-out, 
sinistral, always faintly askew (if not entirely reversed) universe. A true 
avatar of topsy-turveydom, Preston gave himself body and soul to the search--in 
common places such as pools of rainwater, tarnished ornaments, November 
afternoons--for zones of fractured numinosity, usually with the purpose of 
fracturing in turn the bizarre icons of his foul and bloated twin, the adult 
world. He became a conjurer of stylish nightmares, and what he could do with 
mirrors gave the grown-ups fits and sleepless nights. No dilettante of the 
extraordinary, but its embodiment. Such is the spiritual biography of Preston 
Penn.
But I suppose it was my father, as much as Preston's original, who inspired the 
stories I've written. To put it briefly, Father had the blood of a child 
coursing through his big adult body, nourishing the over-sophisticated brain of 
Foxborough College's associate professor of philosophy. Typical of his character 
was a love for the books of Lewis Carroll, and thus the genesis of my name, if 
not my subsequent career. (My mother told me that while she was pregnant, Father 
willed me into a little Alice.) Father thought of Carroll not merely as a clever 
storyteller but more as an inhumanly jaded aesthete of the imagination, no doubt 
projecting some of his own private values onto poor Mr. Dodgson. To him the 
author of the Alice books was, I think, a personal symbol of power, the strange 
ideal of an unstrictured mind manipulating reality to its whim and gaining a 
kind of objective force through the minds of others.
It was very important that I share these books, and many other things, in the 
same spirit. "See, honey," he would say while rereading
65 
Through the Looking Glass to me, "see how smart little Alice right away notices 
that the room on the other side of the mirror is not as 'tidy as the one she 
just came from. Not as tidy? he repeated with professorial emphasis but 
chuckling like a child, a strange little laugh that I inherited from him. "Not 
tidy. We knowwhat that means, don't we?" I would look up at him and nod with all 
the solemnity that my six, seven, eight years could muster.
And I did knowwhat that meant. I felt intimations of a thousand discrete and 
misshapen marvels: of things going wrong in curious ways, of the edge of the 
world where an endless ribbon of road continued into space by itself, of a 
universe handed over to new gods. Father would gaze at my round little face, 
squinting his eyes as if I were giving off light. "Moon face," he called me. 
When I got older, my features became more angular, an involuntary betrayal of my 
father's conception of his little Alice, among all the other betrayals once I'd 
broken the barrier of maturity. I suppose it was a blessing that he did not live 
to see me grow up and change, saved from disappointment by a sudden explosion in 
his brain while he was giving a lecture at the college.
But perhaps he would have perceived, as I did not for many years, that my 
"change" was illusory, that I merely picked up the conventional gestures of an 
aging soul (nervous breakdown, divorce, remarriage, alcoholism, widowhood, stoic 
tolerance of a second-rate reality) without destroying the Alice he loved. She 
was always kept very much alive, though relegated to the role of an author for 
children. Obviously she endured, because it was she who wrote all those books 
about her soul mate Preston, even if she has not written one for many years now. 
Not too many, I hope. Oh, those years, those years.
So much for the past.
At present I would like to deal with just a single year, the one ending 
today--about an hour from now, judging by the clock that five minutes ago chimed 
eleven p.m. from the shadows on the other side of this study. During the past 
three hundred and sixty-five days I have noticed, sometimes just barely, an 
accumulation of peculiar episodes in my life. A lack of tidiness, you might say. 
(As a result, I've been drinking heavily again; and loneliness is getting to me 
in ways it never did in the past. Ah, the past.)
Some of these episodes are so elusive and insubstantial that it would be 
impossible to talk about them sensibly, except perhaps in
66 
the moods they leave behind like fingerprints, and which I've learned to read 
like divinatory signs. My task will be much easier if I confine myself to 
recounting but a few of the incidents, thereby giving them a certain form and 
structure I so badly need just now. A tidying up, so to speak.
I should start by identifying tonight as that sacred eve which Preston always 
devotedly observed, celebrating it most intensely in Preston and the Ghost of 
the Gourd. (At least there should be a few minutes remaining of this immovable 
feast, according to the clock ticking at my back; though from the look of 
things, the hands seem stuck on the time I reported a couple of paragraphs ago. 
Perhaps I misjudged it before.)
For the past several years I've made an appearance at the local suburban library 
on this night to give a reading from one of my books as the main event of an 
annual Hallowe'en fest. Tonight I managed to show up once again for the reading, 
even if I hesitate to say everything went as usual. Last year, however, I did 
not make it at all to the costume party. This brings me to what I think is the 
first in a year-long series of disruptions unknown to a biography previously 
marked by nothing more than episodes of conventional chaos. My apologies for 
taking two steps backward before one step forward. As an old hand at 
storytelling, I realize this is always a risky approach when bidding for a 
reader's attention. But here goes.
Around this time last year I attended the funeral of someone from my past, long 
past. This was none other than that sprite of special genius whose exploits 
served as the primamateria for my Preston Penn books. The gesture was one of 
pure nostalgia, for I hadn't actually seen this person since my twelfth birthday 
party. It was soon afterward that my father died, and my mother and I moved out 
of our house in North Sable, Mass, (see Childhood Homes of Children's Authors 
for a photo of the old two-story frame job), heading for the big city and away 
from sad reminders. A local teacher who knew of my work, and its beginnings in 
North S, sent me a newspaper clipping from the Sable Sentinel, that reported the 
demise of my former playmate and even mentioned his secondhand literary fame.
I arrived in town very quietly and was immediately overwhelmed by the lack of 
change in the place, as if it had existed all those years in a state of 
suspended animation and had been only recently reanimated for my benefit. It 
almost seemed that I might run into my old
67 
neighbours, schoolmates, and even Mr. So and So who ran the icecream shop, which 
I was surprised to see still in operation. On the other side of the window, a 
big man with a walrus mustache was digging ice cream from large cardboard 
cylinders, while two chubby kids pressed their bellies against the counter. The 
man hadn't changed in the least over the years. He looked up and saw me staring 
into the shop, and there really seemed to be a twinkle of recognition in his 
puffy eyes. But that was impossible. He could have never perceived behind my 
ancient mask the child's face he once knew, even if he had been Mr. So and So 
and not his look-alike (son? grandson?). Two complete strangers gawking at each 
other through a window smeared with the sticky handprints of sloppy patrons. The 
scene depressed me more than I can say.
Unfortunately, an even more depressing reunion waited a few steps down the 
street. G. V. Ness and Sons, Funeral Directors. For all the years I'd lived in 
North Sable, this was only my second visit ("Good-bye, Daddy") to that cold 
colonial building. But such places always seem familiar, having that perfectly 
vacant, neutral atmosphere common to all funeral homes, the same in my hometown 
as in the suburb outside New York ("Good riddance, Hubby") where I'm now 
secluded.
I strolled into the proper room unnoticed, another anonymous mourner who was a 
bit shy about approaching the casket. Although I drew a couple of small-town 
stares, the elderly, elegant author from New York did not stand out as much as 
she thought she would. But with or without distinction, it remained my intention 
to introduce myself to the widow as a childhood friend of her deceased husband. 
This intention, however, was shot all to hell by two oxlike men who rose from 
their seats on either side of the grieving lady and lumbered my way. For some 
reason I panicked.
"You must be Dad's Cousin Winnie from Boston. The family's heard so much about 
you over the years," they said.
I smiled widely and gulped deeply, which must have looked like a nod of 
affirmation to them. In any case, they led me over to "Mom" and introduced me 
under my inadvertent pseudonym to the red-eyed, half-delirious old woman. (Why, 
I wonder, did I allow this goof to go on?)
68 
"Nice to finally meet you, and thank you for the lovely card you sent," she 
said, sniffing loudly and working on her eyes with a grotesquely soiled 
handkerchief. "I'm Elsie."
Elsie Chester, I thought immediately, though I wasn't entirely sure that this 
was the same person who was rumored to have sold kisses and other things to the 
boys at North Sable Elementary. So he had married her, whaddaya know? Possibly 
they had to get married, I speculated cattily. At least one of her sons looked 
old enough to have been the consequence of teenage impatience. Oh, well. So much 
for Preston's vow to wed no one less than the Queen of Nightmares.
But even greater disappointments awaited my notice. After chatting emptily with 
the widow for a few more moments, I excused myself to pay my respects at the 
coffinside of the deceased. Until then I'd deliberately averted my gaze from 
that flower-crazed area at the front of the room, where a shiny, pearl-gray 
casket held its occupant in much the same position as the "Traveling Tomb" racer 
he'd once constructed. This part of the mortuary ritual never fails to put me in 
mind of those corpse-viewing sessions to which children in the nineteenth 
century were subjected in order to acquaint them with their own mortality. At my 
age this was unnecessary, so allow me to skip quickly over this scene with a few 
tragic and inevitable words. ...
Bald and blemished, that was unconsciously expected. Totally unfamiliar, that 
wasn't. The mosquito-faced child I once knew had had his features smushed and 
spread by the years--bloated, not with death but with having overfed himself at 
the turgid banquet of life, lethargically pushing away from the table just prior 
to explosion. A portrait of lazy indulgence. Defunct. Used up. The eternal 
adult. (But perhaps in death, I consoled myself, a truer self was even now 
ripping off the false face of the thing before me. This must be so, for the idea 
of an afterworld populated with a preponderance of old, withered souls is too 
hideous to contemplate.)
After paying homage to the remains of a memory, I slipped out of that room with 
a stealth my Preston would have been proud of. I'd left behind an envelope with 
a modest contribution to the widow's fund. I had half a mind to send a batch of 
gaping black orchids to the funeral home with a note signed by Laetitia Simpson, 
Preston's dwarfish girlfriend. But this was something that the other Alice would 
have done--the one who wrote those strange books.
69 
As for me, I got into my car and drove out of town to a nice big Holiday Inn 
near the interstate, where I found a nice suite--spoils of a successful literary 
career--and a bar. And as it turned out, this overnight layover must take us 
down another side road (or back road, if you like) of my narrative. Please stand 
by.
A late-afternoon crowd had settled into the hotel's barroom, relieving me of the 
necessity of drinking in total solitude, which at the time I was quite prepared 
to do. After a couple of Scotches on the rocks, I noticed a young man looking my 
way from the other side of that greenish room. At least he appeared young, 
extremely so, from a distance. But as I walked over to sit at his table, with a 
boldness I've never attributed to alcohol, he seemed to gain a few years with 
every step I took. He was now only relatively young--from an old dowager's point 
of view, that is. His name was Hank De Vere, and he worked for a distributor of 
gardening tools and other such products, in Maine. But let's not pretend to care 
about the details. Later we had dinner together, after which I invited him to my 
suite.
It was the next morning, by the way, that inaugurated that yearlong succession 
of experiences which I'm methodically trying to sort out with a few select 
examples. Half step forward coming up: pawn to king three.
I awoke in the darkness peculiar to hotel bedrooms, abnormally heavy curtains 
masking the morning light. Immediately it became apparent that I was alone. My 
new acquaintance seemed to have a more developed sense of tact and timing than I 
had given him credit for. At least I thought so at first. But then I looked 
through the open doorway into the other room, where I could see a convex mirror 
in an artificial wood frame on the wall.
The bulging eye of the mirror reflected almost the entire next room in convexed 
perspective, and I noticed someone moving around in there. In the mirror, that 
is. A tiny, misshapen figure seemed to be gyring about, leaping almost, in a way 
that should have been audible to me. But it wasn't.
I called out a name I barely remembered from the night before. There came no 
answer from the next room, but the movement in the mirror stopped, and the tiny 
figure (whatever it was) disappeared. Very cautiously I got up from the bed, 
robed myself, and peeked around the corner of the doorway like a curious child 
on Christmas
70 
morning. A strange combination of relief and confusion arose in me when I saw 
that there was no one else in the suite.
I approached the mirror, perhaps to search its surface for the little something 
that might have caused the illusion. My memory is vague on this point, since at 
the time I was a bit hung over. But I can recall with spectacular vividness what 
I finally saw after gazing into the mirror for a few moments. Suddenly the 
sphered glass before me became clouded with a mysterious fog, from the depths of 
which appeared the waxy face of a corpse. It was the visage of that old cadaver 
I'd seen at the funeral home, now with eyes open and staring reproachfully into 
mine. ...
Of course I really saw nothing of the kind. I did not even imagine it, except 
just now. But somehow this imaginary manifestation seems more fitting and 
conclusive than what I actually found in the mirror, which was only my old and 
haggard face ... a corpselike countenance if ever there was one.
But there was another conclusion, let's say encore, to this episode with the 
mirror. A short while later I was checking out, and as the desk clerk was 
fiddling with my bill, I happened to look out of a nearby window, beyond which 
two children were romping on the lawn in front of the hotel: an arm-swinging, 
leaping mime show. After a few seconds the kids caught me watching them. They 
stopped and stared back at me, standing perfectly still, side by side... then 
suddenly they were running away. The room took a little spin that only I seemed 
to notice, while others went calmly about their business. Possibly this 
experience can be attributed to my failure to employ the usual postdebauch 
remedies that morning. The old nerves were somewhat shot, and my stomach was 
giving me no peace. Still, I've remained in pretty fair health over the years, 
all things considered, and I drove back home without further incident.
That was a year ago. (Get ready for one giant step forward: the old queen is now 
in play.)
In the succeeding months I noted a number of similar happenings, though they 
occurred with varying degrees of clarity. Most of them approached the fleeting 
nature of deja-vu phenomena. A few could be pegged as self-manufactured, while 
others lacked a definite source. I might see a phrase or the fragment of an 
image that would make my heart flip over (not a healthy thing at my age), while 
my mind searched for some correspondence that triggered this powerful sense
71 
of repetition and familiarity: the sound of a delayed echo with oblique origins. 
I delved into dreams, half-conscious perceptions, and the distortions of memory, 
but all that remained was a chain of occurrences with links as weak as smoke 
rings.
And today, one year later, this tenuous haunting has regained the clarity of the 
first incident at the hotel. Specifically I refer to a pair of episodes that 
have caused me to become a little insecure about my psychic balance and to 
attempt to confirm my lucidity by writing it all out. Organization is what's 
needed. Thus:
Episode One. Place: The Bathroom. Time: A Little After Eight a.m., the Last Day 
of October.
The water was running for my morning bath, cascading into the tub a bit noisily 
for my sensitive ears. The night before, I suffered from an advanced case of 
insomnia, which even extra doses of my beloved Guardsman's Reserve Stock did not 
help. I was very glad to see a sunny autumn morning come and rescue me. My 
bathroom mirror, however, would not let me forget the sleepless night I'd spent, 
and I combed and creamed myself without noticeable improvement. Sandal was with 
me, lying atop the toilet tank and scrutinizing the waters of the bowl below. 
She was actually staring very hard and deliberately at something. I'd never seen 
a cat stare at its own reflection and have always been under the impression that 
they cannot see reflected images of themselves. (Lucky them!) But this one saw 
something. "What is it, Sandal?" I asked with the patronizing voice of a pet 
owner. Her tail had a life of its own; she stood up and hissed, then yowled in 
that horribly demonic falsetto of threatened felines. Finally she dashed out of 
the bathroom, relinquishing her ground for the first time in all my memory of 
her.
I had been loitering at the other side of the room, a groggy bystander to an 
unexpected scene. With a large plastic hairbrush gripped in my left hand, I 
investigated. I gazed down into the same waters, and though at first they seemed 
clear enough, something soon appeared from within that porcelain burrow. It had 
dozens of legs
and looked all backward and inside out, but what was most disgusting about the 
thing was that it had a tiny human head, one like a baby's except all blue and 
shriveled.
This latter part, of course, is an exaggeration; or rather, it's an alarm 
without a fire. It helps if I can tack a neat storybook finish onto these 
episodes, because what seem to be their real conclusions just
72 
leave me hanging. You can't have stories end that way and still expect to hold 
your reader's esteem. Some genius once said that literature was invented the 
first time a certain boy cried "Wolf!" and there was none. I suppose this is 
what I'm doing now. Crying wolf. Not that it's my intention to make a fiction 
out of what is real. (Much too real, judging by my recent overdrinking and 
resultant late-night vomiting sessions.) But stories, even very nasty ones, are 
traditionally considered more satisfying than reality--which, as we all know, is 
a grossly overrated affair. So don't worry about my cries of wolf. Even if it 
turns out that I'm making everything up, at least what you have left can be 
enjoyed as a story--no small value to my mind. It's just a different story, 
that's all: one about another old-lady author of children's yarns, which, 
incidentally, has nothing to do with the "truth" one way or the other.
So: Yes, I was in the bathroom, staring into the toilet bowl. The truth is that 
there was nothing in there, except nice, disinfected water of a bluish tint. The 
water was still, like a miniature lake, and cruelly reflected a miniature face. 
That's all I really saw, my hysterical kitty notwithstanding. I gazed at my 
wrinkled self in the magic pool for a few moments longer and then cocked the 
handle to flush it away. (You were right, Father, it doesn't pay to get old and 
ugly.)
I spent the rest of the morning lying around the baggy old suburban home my 
second husband left me when he died some years ago. An old war movie on 
television helped me pass the time. (And vain lady that I am, what I remember 
most about the war is the shortage of silk and other luxury items, like the 
quicksilver needed to make a mirror of superior reflective powers.)
In the afternoon I began preparing myself for the reading I was to give at the 
library, the preparation being mostly alcoholic. I've never looked forward to 
this annual ordeal and only put up with it out of a sense of duty, vanity, and 
other less comprehensible motives. Maybe this is why I welcomed the excuse to 
skip it last year. And I wanted to skip it this year, too, if only I could have 
come up with a reason satisfactory to the others involved--and, more 
importantly, to myself. Wouldn't want to disappoint the children, would I? Of 
course not, though heaven only knows why. Children have made me nervous ever 
since I stopped being one of them. Perhaps this is why I never had any of my 
own--adopted any, that is--for the doctors told me long ago that I'm about as 
fertile as the seas of the moon.
73 
The other Alice is the one who's really comfortable with kids and kiddish 
things. How else could she have written Preston and the Laughing This or Preston 
and the Twitching That? So when it comes time to do this reading every year, I 
try to put her onstage as much as possible, something that's becoming more 
difficult with the passing years. Oddly enough, it's my grown-up's weakness for 
booze that allows me to do this most effectively. Each drink I had this 
afternoon peeled away a few more winters, and soon I was ready to confront the 
most brattish child without fear. Which leads me to introduce:
Episode Two. Place: The Car in the Driveway. Time: A Radiant Twilight.
With a selection of Preston stories on the seat beside me (I was still undecided 
on which to read, hoping for inspiration), I was off to do my duty at the 
library. A routine adjustment of the rearview mirror straightened the 
slack-mouthed angle it had somehow assumed since I'd last driven the car. The 
image I saw in the mirror was also routine. Across the street and staring into 
my car by way of the rear window was the odious and infinitely old Mr. Thompson. 
(Worse than E. Nesbit's U. W. Ugli, let me assure you.)
He seemed to appear out of nowhere, for I hadn't seen him when I was getting 
into the car. But there he was now, ogling the back of my head. This was quite 
normal for the lecherous old boy, and I didn't think anything of it. While I was 
adjusting the mirror, however, a strange little trick took place. I must have 
hit the switch that changes the position of the mirror for night driving, 
flipping it back and forth very quickly like the snap of a camera. So what I saw 
for an instant was a nighttime, negative version of Mr. Thompson as he stood 
there with his hands deep in his trousers pockets. What a horrendous idea. The 
unappealingly lubricious Thompson on this side of reality is bad enough without 
tfnfr-Thompsons running around and harassing me for dates. (Thank goodness 
there's only one of everybody, I thought.) I didn't pull out of the driveway 
until I saw Thompson move on down the sidewalk, which he did after a few 
moments, leaving me to stare at my own shriveled eye sockets in the rearview 
mirror.
The sun was going down in a pumpkin-colored blaze when I arrived at the little 
one-story library. Some costumed kids were hanging around outside: a werewolf, a 
black cat with a long curling tail, and what looked like an Elvis Presley, or at 
least some teen idol of a bygone age. And coming up the walk were two identical 
Tinkerbells,
74 
who I later found out were Tracy and Trina Martin. I had forgotten about twins. 
So much for the comforting notion that there's only one of everybody.
I was actually feeling quite confident, even as I entered the library and 
suddenly found myself confronted with a huddling mass of youngsters. But then 
the spell was broken maliciously when some anonymous smart aleck called out from 
the crowd, saying: "Hey, lookit the mask she's wearing." After that I propelled 
myself down several glossy linoleum hallways in search of a friendly adult face. 
(Someone should give that wisecracker a copy of Struwwe/peter; let him see what 
happens to his kind of kid.)
Finally I passed the open door of tidy little room where a group of ladies and 
the head librarian, Mr. Grosz, were sipping coffee. Mr. Grosz said how nice it 
was to see me again and introduced me to the moms who were helping out with the 
party.
"My William's read all your books," said a Mrs. Harley, as if she were relating 
a fact to which she was completely indifferent. "I can't keep him away from 
them."
I didn't know whether or not to thank her for this comment, and ended up 
replying with a dignified and slightly liquorish smile. Mr. Grosz offered me 
some coffee and I declined: bad for the stomach. Then he wickedly suggested 
that, as it was starting to get dark outside, the time seemed right for the 
festivities to begin. My reading was to inaugurate the evening's fun, a good 
spooky story "to get everyone in the mood." First, though, I needed to get 
myself in the mood, and discreetly retired to a nearby ladies' room where I 
could refortify my fluttering nerves. Mr. Grosz, in one of the strangest and 
most embarrassing social gestures I've ever witnessed, offered to wait right 
outside the lavatory until I finished.
"I'm quite ready now, Mr. Grosz," I said, glaring down at the little man from 
atop an unelderly pair of high heels. He cleared his throat, and I almost 
thought he was going to extend a crooked arm for me to take. But instead, he 
merely stretched it out, indicating the way to an old woman who might not see as 
well as she once did.
He led me back down the hallway toward the children's section of the library, 
where I assumed my reading would take place as it always had in the past. 
However, we walked right by this area, which was dark and ominously empty, and 
proceeded down a flight of stairs leading to the library's basement. "Our new 
facility," bragged Mr. Grosz.
75 
"Converted one of the storage rooms into a small auditorium of sorts." Down at 
the end of the hallway, two large green doors faced each other on opposite 
walls. "Which one will it be tonight?" asked Mr. Grosz while staring at my left 
hand. "Preston and the Starving Shadows," I answered, showing him the book I was 
holding. He smiled and confided that it was one of his favorites. Then he opened 
the door to the library's new facility.
Over fifty kids were sitting (quietly!) in their seats. At the front of the 
long, narrow room, a big witch was outlining the party activities for the night; 
and when she saw Mr. Grosz and me enter, she began telling the children about a 
"special treat for us all," meaning that the half-crocked lady author was about 
to give her half-cocked oration. Walking a very straight line to the front, I 
took the platform and thanked everyone for that nice applause--most of it, in 
fact, coming from the sweaty hands of Mr. Grosz. On the platform was a 
lampbearing podium decorated with wizened cornstalks. I fixed my book in place 
before me, disguising my apprehension with a little stage patter about the story 
everyone was going to hear. When I invoked the name of Preston Penn, a few kids 
actually cheered, or at least one did. Just as I was ready to begin reading, 
however, the lights went out, which was rather unexpected. And for the first 
time I noticed that facing each other on opposite sides of the room were two 
rows of jacko'-lanterns shining bright orange and yellow in the darkness. They 
all had identical faces--triangular eyes and noses, wailing O's for mouths-- and 
could have been mirror reflections of themselves. (As a child, I was convinced 
that pumpkins naturally grew this way, complete with facial features and 
phosphorescent insides.) Furthermore, they seemed to be suspended in space, 
darkness concealing their means of support. Since that darkness also prevented 
my seeing the faces of the children, these jack-o'-lanterns became my audience.
But as I read, the real audience asserted itself with giggles, whispers, and 
some rather ingenious noises made with the folding wooden chairs they were 
sitting in. At one point, toward the end of the reading, there came a low moan 
from somewhere in the back, and it sounded as if someone had fallen out of his 
seat. "It's all right," I heard an adult voice call out. The door at the back 
opened, allowing a moment of brightness to break the spooky spell, and some 
shadows exited. When the lights came on at the end of the story, one of the 
seats toward the back was missing its occupant.
76 
"Okay, kids," said the big witch after some minor applause for Preston, 
"everyone move their chairs back to the walls and make room for the games and 
stuff."
The games and stuff had the room in a low-grade uproar. Masked and costumed 
children ruled the night, indulging their appetite for movement, sweet things to 
eat and drink, and noise. I stood at the periphery of the commotion and chatted 
with Mr. Grosz.
"What exactly was the disturbance all about?" I asked him.
He took a sip from a plastic cup of cider and smacked his lips offensively. "Oh, 
nothing, really. You see that child there with the black-cat outfit? She seemed 
to have fainted. Not entirely, of course. Once we got her outside, she was all 
right. She was wearing her kitty mask all through your reading, and I think the 
poor thing hyperventilated or something like that. Complained that she saw 
something horrible in her mask and was very frightened for a while. At any rate, 
you can see she's fine now, and she's even wearing her mask again. Amazing how 
children can put things right out of their minds and recover so quickly."
I agreed that it was amazing, and then asked precisely what it was the child 
thought she saw in her mask. I couldn't help being reminded of another cat 
earlier in the day who also saw something that gave her a fright.
"She couldn't really explain it," replied Mr. Grosz. "You know how it is with 
children. Yes, I daresay you do know how it is with them, considering you've 
spent your life exploring the subject."
I took credit for knowing how it is with children, knowing instead that Mr. 
Grosz was really talking about someone else, about her. Not to overdo this 
quaint notion of a split between my professional and my private personas, but at 
the time I was already quite self-conscious about the matter. While I was 
reading the Preston book to the kids, I had suffered the uncanny experience of 
having almost no recognition of my own words. Of course, this is rather a cliche 
with writers, and it has happened to me many times throughout my long career. 
But never so completely. They were the words of a mind (I stop just short of 
writing soul) entirely alien to me. This much I would like to note in passing, 
never to be mentioned again.
"I do hope," I said to Mr. Grosz, "that it wasn't the story that scared the 
child. I have enough angry parents on my hands as it is."
"Oh, I'm sure it wasn't. Not that it wasn't a good scary children's
77 
story. I didn't mean to imply that, of course. But you know, it's that time of 
year. Imaginary things are supposed to seem more real. Like your Preston. He was 
always a big one for Hallowe'en, am I right?"
I said he was quite right and hoped he would not pursue the subject. The reality 
of fictional characters was not at all what I wanted to talk about just then. I 
tried to laugh it away. And you know, Father, for a moment it was exactly like 
your own laugh, and not my usual hereditary impersonation of it.
Much to everyone's regret, I did not stay very long at the party. The reading 
had largely sobered me up, and my tolerance level was running quite low. Yes, 
Mr. Grosz, I promise to do it again next year, anything you say; just let me get 
back to my car and my bar.
The drive home through the suburban streets was something of an ordeal, made 
hazardous by pedestrian trick-or-treaters. The costumes did me no good. (The 
same ghost was everywhere.) The masks did me no good. And those Prestonian 
shadows fluttering against two-story facades (why did I have to choose that 
book?) certainly did me no good at all. This was not my place anymore. Not my 
style. Dr. Guardsman, administer your medicine in tall glasses... but please not 
looking-ones.
And now I'm safe at home with one of the tallest of those glasses resting full 
and faithful on my desk as I write. A lamp with a shade of Tiffany glass (circa 
1922) casts its amiable glow on the many pages I've filled over the past few 
hours. (Although the hands of the clock seem locked in the same V position as 
when I started writing.) The lamplight shines upon the window directly in front 
of my desk, allowing me to see a relatively flattering reflection of myself in 
the black mirror of the glass. The house is soundless, and I'm a rich, retired 
authoress-widow.
Is there still a problem? I'm really not sure.
I remind you that I've been drinking steadily since early this afternoon. I 
remind you that I'm old and no stranger to the mysteries of geriatric 
neuroticism. I remind you that some part of me has written a series of 
children's books whose hero is a disciple of the bizarre. I remind you of what 
night this is and to what zone the imagination can fly on this particular eve. 
(But we can discount this last one, owing to my status as an elderly cynic and 
disbeliever.) I need not, however, remind you that this world is stranger than 
we know, or
78 
at least mine seems to be, especially this past year. And I now notice that it's 
very strange--and, once again, untidy.
Exhibit One. Outside my window is an autumn moon hanging in the blackness. Now, 
I have to confess that I'm not up on the lunar phases ("loony faces," as Preston 
might say), but there seems to have been a switch since I last peeked out the 
window--the thing looks reversed. Where it used to be concaving to the right, 
it's now comparing in that direction, last quarter changed to first quarter, or 
something of that nature. But I doubt Nature has anything to do with it; more 
likely the explanation lies with Memory. And there's really not much troubling 
me about the moon, which, even if reversed, would still look as neat as a 
storybook illustration. The trouble is with everything else below, or at least 
what I can see of the suburbanscape in the darkness. Like writing that can only 
be read in a mirror, the shapes outside my window--trees, houses, but thank 
goodness no people--now look awkward and wrong.
Exhibit Two. To the earlier list of reasons for my diminished competence, I 
would like to add an upcoming alcohol withdrawal. The last sip I took out of 
that glass on my desk tasted indescribably strange, to the point where I doubt 
I'll be having any more. I almost wrote, and now will, that the booze tasted 
inside out. Of course, there are certain diseases with the power to turn the 
flavor of one's favorite drink into that of a hellbroth. So perhaps I've fallen 
victim to such a malady. But I remind you that although my mind may be 
terminally soused, it has always resided in corpore sano.
Exhibit Three (the last). My reflection in the window before me. Perhaps 
something unusual in the melt of the glass. My face. The surrounding shadows 
seem to be overlapping it a little at a time, like bugs attracted to something 
sweet. But the only thing sweet about Alice is her blood, highly sugared over 
the years from her drinking habit. So what is it, then? Shadows of senility? Or 
those starving things I read about earlier this evening come back for a repeat 
performance, another in a year-long series of echoes? But whenever that happens, 
it's always the reflection, the warped or imaginary image first... and then the 
real-life echo. Since when does reading a story constitute an incantation 
calling up its imagery before the body's eyes and not the mind's?
Something's backward here. Backward into a corner: checkmate.
Now, perhaps this seems like merely another cry of wolf, the most
79 
elaborate one so far. I can't actually say that it isn't. I can't say that what 
I'm hearing right now isn't some Hallowe'en trick of my besotted brain.
The laughing out in the hallway, I mean. That childish chuckling. Even when I 
concentrate, I'm still not able to tell if the sound is inside or outside my 
head. It's like looking at one of those toy pictures that yield two distinct 
scenes when tilted this way or that, but, at a certain angle, form only a 
merging blur of them both. Nonetheless, the laughing is there, somewhere. And 
the voice is extremely familiar. Of course, it is. No, it isn't. Yes, it is, it 
is!
Aaaaa ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Ex. 4 (the shadows again). They're all over my face in the window. Stripping 
away, as in the story. But there's nothing under that old mask; no child's face 
there, Preston. It's you, isn't it? I've never heard your laughter, except in my 
imagination, but that's exactly how I imagined it sounds. Or has my imagination 
given you, too, a hand-me-down, inherited laugh?
My only fear is that it isn't you but some impostor. The moon, the clock, the 
drink, the window. This is all very much your style, only it's not being done in 
fun, is it? It's not funny. Too horrible for me, Preston, or whoever you are. 
And who is it? Who could be doing this to a harmless old lady? Too horrible. The 
shadows in the window. No, not my face.
I cant
see anymore Help me Father
I
cant see
80 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
Vastarien
Within the blackness of his sleep a few lights began to glow like candles in a 
cloistered cell. Their illumination was unsteady and dim, issuing from no 
definite source. Nonetheless, he now discovered many shapes beneath the shadows: 
tall buildings whose rooftops nodded groundward, wide buildings whose facades 
seemed to follow the curve of a street, dark buildings whose windows and 
doorways tilted like badly hung paintings. And even if he found himself unable 
to fix his own location in this scene, he knew where his dreams had delivered 
him once more.
Even as the warped structures multiplied in his vision, crowding the lost 
distance, he possessed a sense of intimacy with each of them, a peculiar 
knowledge of the spaces within them and of the streets which coiled themselves 
around their mass. Once again he knew the depths of their foundations, where an 
obscure life seemed to establish itself, a secret civilization of echoes 
flourishing among groaning walls. Yet upon his probing more extensively into 
such interiors, certain difficulties presented themselves: stairways that 
wandered off-course into useless places; caged elevators that urged unwanted 
stops on their passengers; thin ladders ascending into a maze of shafts and 
conduits, the dark valves and arteries of a petrified and monstrous organism.
And he knew that every corner of this corroded world was prolific with choices, 
even if they had to be made blindly in a place where clear consequences and a 
hierarchy of possibilities were lacking. For there might be a room whose shabby 
and soundless decor exudes a desolate serenity which at first attracts the 
visitor, who then discovers certain figures enveloped in plush furniture, 
figures that do not move or speak but only stare; and, concluding that these 
weary mannikins have
81 
exercised a bizarre indulgence in repose, the visitor must ponder the 
alternatives: to linger or to leave?
Eluding the claustral enchantments of such rooms, his gaze now roamed the 
streets of this dream. He scanned the altitudes beyond the high sloping roofs: 
there the stars seemed to be no more than silvery cinders which showered up from 
the mouths of great chimneys and clung to something dark and dense looming 
above, something that closed in upon each black horizon. It appeared to him that 
certain high towers nearly breached this sagging blackness, stretching 
themselves nightward to attain the farthest possible remove from the world 
below. And toward the peak of one of the highest towers he spied vague 
silhouettes that moved hectically in a bright window, twisting and leaning upon 
the glass like shadow-puppets in the fever of some mad dispute.
Through the mazy streets his vision slowly glided, as if carried along by a 
sluggish draft. Darkened windows reflected the beams of stars and streetlamps; 
lighted windows, however dim their glow, betrayed strange scenes which were left 
behind long before their full mystery could overwhelm the dreaming traveller. He 
wandered into thoroughfares more remote, soaring past cluttered gardens and 
crooked gates, drifting alongside an expansive wall that seemed to border an 
abyss, and floating over bridges that arched above the black purling waters of 
canals.
Near a certain street corner, a place of supernatural clarity and stillness, he 
saw two figures standing beneath the crystalline glaze of a lamp ensconsed high 
upon a wall of carved stone. Their shadows were perfect columns of blackness 
upon the livid pavement; their faces were a pair of faded masks concealing 
profound schemes. And they seemed to have lives of their own, with no awareness 
of their dreaming observer, who wished only to live with these specters and know 
their dreams, to remain in this place where everything was transfixed in the 
order of the unreal.
Never again, it seemed, could he be forced to abandon this realm of beautiful 
shadows.
Victor Keirion awoke with a brief convulsion of his limbs, as if he had been 
chaotically scrambling to break his fall from an imaginary height. For a moment 
he held his eyes closed, hoping to preserve the dissipating euphoria of the 
dream. Finally he blinked once or twice.
82 
Moonlight through a curtainless window allowed him the image of his outstretched 
arms and his somewhat twisted hands. Releasing his awkward hold on the edge of 
the sheeted mattress, he rolled onto his back. Then he groped around until his 
fingers found the cord dangling from the light above the bed. A small, barely 
furnished room appeared.
He pushed himself up and reached toward the painted metal nightstand. Through 
the spaces between his fingers he saw the pale gray binding of a book and some 
of the dark letters tooled upon its cover: V, S, R, N. Suddenly he withdrew his 
hand without touching the book, for the magical intoxication of the dream had 
died, and he feared that he would not be able to revive it.
Freeing himself from the coarse bedcovers, he sat at the edge of the mattress, 
elbows resting on his legs and hands loosely folded. His hair and eyes were 
pale, his complexion rather grayish, suggesting the color of certain clouds or 
that of long confinement. The single window in the room was only a few steps 
away, but he kept himself from approaching it, from even glancing in its 
direction. He knew exactly what he would see at that time of night: tall 
buildings, wide buildings, dark buildings, a scattering of stars and lights, and 
some lethargic movement in the streets below.
In so many ways the city outside the window was a semblance of that other place, 
which now seemed impossibly far off and inaccessible. But the likeness was 
evident only to his inner vision, only in the recollected images he formed when 
his eyes were closed or out of focus. It would be difficult to conceive of a 
creature for whom this world--its bare form seen with open eyes--represented a 
coveted paradise.
Now standing before the window, his hands tearing into the pockets of a papery 
bathrobe, he saw that something was missing from the view, some crucial property 
that was denied to the stars above and the streets below, some unearthly essence 
needed to save them. The word unearthly reverberated in the room. In that place 
and at that hour, the paradoxical absence, the missing quality, became clear to 
him: it was the element of the unreal.
For Victor Keirion belonged to that wretched sect of souls who believe that the 
only value of this world lies in its power--at certain times--to suggest another 
world. Nevertheless, the place he now surveyed through the high window could 
never be anything but the
83 
most gauzy phantom of that other place, nothing save a shadowy mimic of the 
anatomy of that great dream. And although there were indeed times when one might 
be deceived, isolated moments when a gift for disguise triumphs, the 
impersonation could never be perfect or lasting. No true challenge to the rich 
unreality of Vastarien, where every shape suggested a thousand others, every 
sound disseminated everlasting echoes, every word founded a world. No horror, no 
joy was the equal of the abysmally vibrant sensations known in this place that 
was elsewhere, this spellbinding retreat where all experiences were interwoven 
to compose fantastic textures of feeling, a fine and dark tracery of limitless 
patterns. For everything in the unreal points to the infinite, and everything in 
Vastarien was unreal, unbounded by the tangible lie of existing. Even its most 
humble aspects proclaimed this truth: what door, he wondered, in any other world 
could imply the abundant and strange possibilities that belonged to the 
entrancing doors in the dream?
Then, as he focused his eyes upon a distant part of the city, he recalled a 
particular door, one of the least suggestive objects he had ever confronted, 
intimating little of what lay beyond.
It was a rectangle of smudged glass within another rectangle of scuffed wood, a 
battered thing lodged within a brick wall at the bottom of a stairway leading 
down from a crumbling street. And it pushed easily inward, merely a delicate 
formality between the underground shop and the outside world. Inside was an open 
room vaguely circular in shape, unusual in seeming more like the lobby of an old 
hotel than a bookstore. The circumference of the room was composed of crowded 
bookshelves whose separate sections were joined to one another to create an 
irregular polygon of eleven sides, with a long desk standing where a twelfth 
would have been. Beyond the desk stood a few more bookshelves arranged in 
aisles, their monotonous length leading into shadows. At the furthest point from 
this end of the shop, he began his circuit of the shelves, which appeared so 
promising in their array of old and ruddy bindings, like remnants of some 
fabulous autumn.
Very soon, however, the promise was betrayed and the mystique of the Librairie 
de Grimoires, in accord with his expectations, was stripped away to reveal, in 
his eyes, a side-show of charlatanry. For this disillusionment he had only 
himself to blame. Moreover, he could
84 
barely articulate the nature of the discrepancy between what he had hoped to 
find and what he actually found in such places. Aside from this hope, there was 
little basis for his belief that there existed some other arcana, one of a 
different kind altogether from that proffered by the books before him, all of 
which were sodden with an obscene reality, falsely hermetic ventures which 
consisted of circling the same absurd landscape. The other worlds portrayed in 
these books inevitably served as annexes of this one; they were impostors of the 
authentic unreality which was the only realm of redemption, however gruesome it 
might appear. And it was this terminal landscape that he sought, not those 
rituals of the "way" that never arrives, heavens or hells that are mere pretexts 
for circumnavigating the real and revelling in it. For he dreamed of strange 
volumes that turned away from all earthly light to become lost in their own 
nightmares, pages that preached a nocturnal salvation, a liturgy of shadows, 
catechism of phantoms. His absolute: to dwell among the ruins of reality.
And it seemed to surpass all probability that there existed no precedent for 
this dream, no elaboration of this vision into a word, a delirious bible that 
would be the blight of all others--a scripture that would begin in apocalypse 
and lead its disciple to the wreck of all creation.
He had, in fact, come upon passages in certain books that approached this ideal, 
hinting to the reader--almost admonishing him--that the page before his eyes was 
about to offer a view from the abyss and cast a wavering light on desolate 
hallucinations. To become the wind in the dead of winter, so might begin an 
enticing verse of dreams. But soon the bemazed visionary would falter, 
retracting the promised scene of a shadow kingdom at the end of all entity, 
perhaps offering an apologetics for this lapse into the unreal. The work would 
then once more take up the universal theme, disclosing its true purpose in 
belaboring the most futile and profane of all ambitions: power, with knowledge 
as its drudge. The vision of a disastrous enlightenment, of a catastrophic 
illumination, was conjured up in passing and then cast aside. What remained was 
invariably a metaphysics as systematically trivial and debased as the physical 
laws it purported to transcend, a manual outlining the path to some hypothetical 
state of absolute glory. What remained lost was the revelation that nothing ever 
known has ended in glory; that all which ends does so in exhaustion, in 
confusion, and debris.
85 
Nevertheless, a book that contained even a false gesture toward his truly 
eccentric absolute might indeed serve his purpose. Directing the attention of a 
bookseller to selected contents of such books, he would say: "I have an interest 
in a certain subject area, perhaps you will see ... that is, I wonder, do you 
know of other, what should I say, sources that you would be able to recommend 
for my. ..."
Occasionally he was referred to another bookseller or to the owner of a private 
collection. And ultimately he would be forced to realize that he had been 
grotesquely misunderstood when he found himself on the fringe of a society 
devoted to some strictly demonic enterprise.
The very bookshop in which he was now browsing represented only the most recent 
digression in a search without progress. But he had learned to be cautious and 
would try to waste as little time as possible in discovering if there was 
anything hidden for him here. Certainly not on the shelves which presently 
surrounded him.
"Have you seen our friend?" asked a nearby voice, startling him somewhat. Victor 
Keirion turned to face the stranger. The man was rather small and wore a black 
overcoat; his hair was also black and fell loosely across his forehead. Besides 
his general appearance, there was also something about his presence that made 
one think of a crow, a scavenging creature in wait. "Has he come out of his 
hole?" the man asked, gesturing toward the empty desk and the dark area behind 
it.
"I'm sorry, I haven't seen anyone," Keirion replied. "I only now noticed you."
"I can't help being quiet. Look at these little feet," the man said, pointing to 
a highly polished pair of black shoes. Without thinking, Keirion looked down; 
then, feeling duped, he looked up again at the smiling stranger.
"You look very bored," said the human crow.
"I'm sorry?"
"Never mind. I can see that I'm bothering you." Then the man walked away, his 
coat flapping slightly, and began browsing some distant bookshelves. "I've never 
seen you in here before," he said from across the room.
"I've never been in here before," Keirion answered.
"Have you ever read this?" the stranger asked, pulling down a book and holding 
up its wordless black cover.
86 
"Never," Keirion replied without so much as glancing at the book. Somehow this 
seemed the best action to take with this character, who appeared to be foreign 
in some indefinable way, intangibly alien.
"Well, you must be looking for something special," continued the other man, 
replacing the black book on its shelf. "And I know what that's like, when you're 
looking for something very special. Have you ever heard of a book, an extremely 
special book, that is not... yes, that is not about something, but actually is 
that something?"
For the first time the obnoxious stranger had managed to intrigue Keirion rather 
than annoy him. "That sounds ...," he started to say, but then the other man 
exclaimed:
"There he is, there he is. Excuse me."
It seemed that the proprietor--that mutual friend--had finally made his 
appearance and was now standing behind the desk, looking toward his two 
customers. "My friend," said the crow-man as he stepped with outstretched hand 
over to the smoothly bald and softly fat gentleman. The two of them briefly 
shook hands; they whispered for a few moments. Then the crow-man was invited 
behind the desk, and--led by the heavy, unsmiling bookseller--made his way into 
the darkness at the back of the shop. In a distant corner of that darkness the 
brilliant rectangle of a doorway suddenly flashed into outline, admitting 
through its frame a large, two-headed shadow.
Left alone among the worthless volumes of that shop, Victor Keirion felt the sad 
frustration of the uninvited, the abandoned. More than ever he had become 
infected with hopes and curiosities of an indeterminable kind. And he soon found 
it impossible to remain outside that radiant little room the other two had 
entered, and on whose threshold he presently stood in silence.
The room was a cramped bibliographic cubicle within which stood another cubicle 
formed by free-standing bookcases, creating four very narrow aisleways in the 
space between them. From the doorway he could not see how the inner cubicle 
might be entered, but he heard the voices of the others whispering within. 
Stepping quietly, he began making his way along the perimeter of the room, his 
eyes voraciously scanning a wealth of odd-looking volumes.
Immediately he sensed that something of a special nature awaited his discovery, 
and the evidence for this intuition began to build. Each book that he examined 
served as a clue in this delirious investigation, a cryptic sign which engaged 
his powers of interpretation and 
87 
imparted the faith to proceed. Many of the works were written in foreign 
languages he did not read; some appeared to be composed in ciphers based on 
familiar characters and others seemed to be transcribed in a wholly artificial 
cryptography. But in everyone of these books he found an oblique guidance, some 
feature of more or less indirect significance: a strangeness in the typeface, 
pages and bindings of uncommon texture, abstract diagrams suggesting no orthodox 
ritual or occult system. Even greater anticipation was inspired by certain 
illustrated plates, mysterious drawings and engravings that depicted scenes and 
situations unlike anything he could name. And such works as Cynothoglys or The 
Noctuary of Tine conveyed schemes so bizarre, so remote from known texts and 
treatises of the esoteric tradition, that he felt assured of the sense of his 
quest.
The whispering grew louder, though no more distinct, as he edged around a corner 
of that inner cubicle and anxiously noted the opening at its far end. At the 
same time he was distracted, for no apparent reason, by a small grayish volume 
leaning within a gap between larger and more garish tomes. The little book had 
been set upon the highest shelf, making it necessary for him to stretch himself, 
as if on an upright torture rack, to reach it. Trying not to give away his 
presence by the sounds of his pain, he finally secured the ashen-colored 
object--as pale as his own coloring--between the tips of his first two fingers. 
Mutely he strained to slide it quietly from its place; this act accomplished, he 
slowly shrunk down to his original stature and looked into the book's brittle 
pages.
It seemed to be a chronicle of strange dreams. Yet somehow the passages he 
examined were less a recollection of unruled visions than a tangible incarnation 
of them, not mere rhetoric but the thing itself. The use of language in the book 
was arrantly unnatural and the book's author unknown. Indeed, the text conveyed 
the impression of speaking for itself and speaking only to itself, the words 
flowing together like shadows that were cast by no forms outside the book. But 
although this volume appeared to be composed in a vernacular of mysteries, its 
words did inspire a sure understanding and created in their reader a visceral 
apprehension of the world they described, existing inseparable from it. Could 
this truly be the invocation of Vastarien, that improbable world to which those 
gnarled letters on the front of the book alluded? And was it a world at all? 
Rather the unreal essence of one, all natural elements purged by an occult 
process
88 
of extraction, all days distilled into dreams and nights into nightmares. Each 
passage he entered in the book both enchanted and appalled him with images and 
incidents so freakish and chaotic that his usual sense of these terms 
disintegrated along with everything else. Rampant oddity seemed to be the rule 
of the realm; imperfection became the source of the miraculous--wonders of 
deformity and marvels of miscreation. There was horror, undoubtedly. But it was 
a horror uncompromised by any feeling of lost joy or thwarted redemption; 
rather, it was a deliverance by damnation. And if Vastarien was a nightmare, it 
was a nightmare transformed in spirit by the utter absence of refuge: nightmare 
made normal.
"I'm sorry, I didn't see that you had drifted in here," said the bookseller in a 
high thin voice. He had just emerged from the inner chamber of the room and was 
standing with arms folded across his wide chest. "Please don't touch anything. 
And may I take that from you?" The right arm of the bookseller reached out, then 
returned to its former place when the man with the pale eyes did not relinquish 
the merchandise.
"I think I would like to purchase it," said Keirion. "I'm sure I would, if. ..."
"Of course, if the price is reasonable," finished the bookseller. "But who 
knows, you might not be able to understand how valuable these books can be. That 
one ...," he said, removing a little pad and pencil from inside his jacket and 
scribbling briefly. He ripped off the top sheet and held it up for the would-be 
buyer to see, then confidently put away all writing materials, as if that would 
be the end of it.
"But there must be some latitude for bargaining," Keirion protested.
"I'm afraid not," answered the bookseller. "Not with something that is the only 
one of its kind, as are many of these volumes. Yet that one book you are 
holding, that single copy. ..."
A hand touched the bookseller's shoulder and seemed to switch off his voice. 
Then the crow-man stepped into the aisleway, his eyes fixed upon the object 
under discussion, and asked: "Don't you find that the book is somewhat ... 
difficult?"
"Difficult," repeated Keirion. "I'm not sure. ... If you mean that the language 
is strange, I would have to agree, but--"
"No," interjected the bookseller, "that's not what he means at all."
"Excuse us for a moment," said the crow-man.
89 
Then both men went back into the inner room, where they whispered for some time. 
When the whispering ceased, the bookseller came forth and announced that there 
had been a mistake. The book, while something of a curiosity, was worth a good 
deal less than the price earlier quoted. The revised evaluation, while still 
costly, was nevertheless within the means of this particular buyer, who agreed 
at once to pay it.
Thus began Victor Keirion's preoccupation with a certain book and a certain 
hallucinated world, though to make a distinction between these two phenomena 
ultimately seemed an error: the book, indeed, did not merely describe that 
strange world but, in some obscure fashion, was a true composition of the thing 
itself, its very form incarnate.
Each day thereafter he studied the hypnotic episodes of the little book; each 
night, as he dreamed, he carried out shapeless expeditions into its fantastic 
topography. To all appearances it seemed he had discovered the summit or abyss 
of the unreal, that paradise of exhaustion, confusion, and debris where reality 
ends and where one may dwell among its ruins. And it was not long before he 
found it necessary to revisit that twelve-sided shop, intending to question the 
obese bookseller on the subject of the book and unintentionally learning the 
truth of how it came to be sold.
When he arrived at the bookstore, sometime in the middle of a grayish afternoon, 
Victor Keirion was surprised to find that the door, which had opened so freely 
on his previous visit, was now firmly locked. It would not even rattle in its 
frame when he nervously pushed and pulled on the handle. Since the interior of 
the store was lighted, he took a coin from his pocket and began tapping on the 
glass. Finally, someone came forward from the shadows of the back room.
"Closed," the bookseller pantomimed on the other side of the glass.
"But. ..." Keirion argued, pointing to his wristwatch.
"Nevertheless," the wide man shouted. Then, after scrutinizing the disappointed 
patron, the bookseller unlocked the door and opened it far enough to carry on a 
brief conversation. "And what is it I can do for you. I'm closed, so you'll have 
to come some other time if--"
"I only wanted to ask you something. Do you remember the book that I bought from 
you not long ago, the one--"
90 
"Yes, I remember," replied the bookseller, as if quite prepared for the 
question. "And let me say that I was quite impressed, as of course was ... the 
other man."
"Impressed?" Keirion repeated.
"Flabbergasted is more the word in his case," continued the bookseller. "He said 
to me, 'The book has found its reader,' and what could I do but agree with him?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand," said Keirion.
The bookseller blinked and said nothing. After a few moments he reluctantly 
explained: "I was hoping that by now you would understand. He hasn't contacted 
you? The man who was in here that day?"
"No, why should he?"
The bookseller blinked again and said: "Well, I suppose there's no reason you 
need to stand out there. It's getting very cold, don't you feel it?" Then he 
closed the door and pulled Keirion a little to one side of it, whispering: 
"There's just one thing I would like to tell you. I made no mistake that day 
about the price of that book. And it was the price--in full--which was paid by 
the other man, don't ask me anything else about him. That price, of course, 
minus the small amount that you yourself contributed. I didn't cheat anyone, 
least of all him. He would have been happy to pay even more to get that book 
into your hands. And although I'm not exactly sure of his reasons, I think you 
should know that."
"But why didn't he simply purchase the book for himself?" asked Keirion.
The bookseller seemed confused. "It was of no use to him. Perhaps it would have 
been better if you hadn't given yourself away when he asked you about the book. 
How much you knew."
"But I don't know anything, apart from what I've read in the book itself. I came 
here to find--"
"--Nothing, I'm afraid. You're the one who should be telling me, very 
impressive. But I'm not asking, don't misunderstand. And there's nothing more I 
can tell you, since I've already violated every precept of discretion. This is 
such an exceptional case, though. Very impressive, if in fact you are the reader 
of that book."
Realizing that, at best, he had been led into a dialogue of mystification, and 
possibly one of lies, Victor Keirion had no regrets when the bookseller held the 
door open for him to leave.
But before very many days, and especially nights, had passed he
91 
learned why the bookseller had been so impressed with him, and why the crowlike 
stranger had been so generous: the bestower of the book who was blind to its 
mysteries. In the course of those days, those nights, he learned that the 
stranger had given only so that he might possess the thing he could gain in no 
other way, that he was reading the book with borrowed eyes and stealing its 
secrets from the soul of its rightful reader. At last it became clear what was 
happening to him throughout those strange nights of dreaming.
On each of those nights the shapes of Vastarien slowly pushed through the 
obscurity of his sleep, avast landscape emerging from its own profound slumber 
and drifting forth from a place without name or dimension. And as the crooked 
monuments became manifest once again, they seemed to expand and soar high above 
him, drawing his vision toward them. Progressively the scene acquired nuance and 
articulation; steadily the creation became dense and intricate within its black 
womb: the streets were sinuous entrails winding through that dark body, and each 
edifice was the jutting bone of a skeleton hung with a thin musculature of 
shadows.
But just as his vision reached out to embrace fully the mysterious and jagged 
form of the dream, it all appeared to pull away, abandoning him on the edge of a 
dreamless void. The landscape was receding, shrinking into the distance. Now all 
he could see was a single street bordered by two converging rows of buildings. 
And at the opposite end of that street, rising up taller than the buildings 
themselves, stood agreat figure in silhouette. This looming colossus made no 
movement or sound but firmly dominated the horizon where the single remaining 
street seemed to end. From this position the towering shadow was absorbing all 
other shapes into its own, which gradually was gaining in stature as the 
landscape withdrew and diminished. And the outline of this titanic figure 
appeared to be that of a man, yet it was also that of a dark and devouring bird.
Although for several nights Victor Keirion managed to awake before the scavenger 
had thoroughly consumed what was not its own, there was no assurance that he 
would always be able to do so and that the dream would not pass into the hands 
of another. Ultimately, he conceived and executed the act that was necessary to 
keep possession of the dream he had coveted for so long.
Vastarien, he whispered as he stood in the shadows and moonlight
92 
of that bare little room, where a massive metal door prevented his escape. 
Within that door a small square of thick glass was implanted so that he might be 
watched by day and by night. And there was an unbending web of heavy wire 
covering the window which overlooked the city that was not Vastarien. Never, 
chanted a voice which might have been his own. Then more insistently: never, 
never, never. ...
When the door was opened and some men in uniforms entered the room, they found 
Victor Keirion screaming to the raucous limits of his voice and trying to scale 
the thick metal mesh veiling the window, as if he were dragging himself along 
some unlikely route of liberation. Of course, they pulled him to the floor; they 
stretched him out upon the bed, where his wrists and ankles were tightly 
strapped. Then through the doorway strode a nurse who carried a slender syringe 
crowned with a silvery needle.
During the injection he continued to scream words which everyone in the room had 
heard before, each outburst developing the theme of his unjust confinement: how 
the man he had murdered was using him in a horrible way, a way impossible to 
explain or make credible. The man could not read the book--there, that book--and 
was stealing the dreams which the book had spawned. Stealing my dreams, he 
mumbled softly as the drug began to take effect. Stealing my. ...
The group remained around the bed for a few moments, silently staring at its 
restrained occupant. Then one of them pointed to the book and initiated a 
conversation now familiar to them all.
"What should we do with it? It's been taken away enough times already, but then 
there's always another that appears."
"And there's no point to it. Look at these pages--nothing, nothing written 
anywhere."
"So why does he sit reading them for hours? He does nothing else."
"I think it's time we told someone in authority."
"Of course, we could do that, but what exactly would we say? That a certain 
inmate should be forbidden from reading a certain book? That he becomes 
violent?"
"And then they'll ask why we can't keep the book away from him or him from the 
book? What should we say to that?"
"There would be nothing we could say. Can you imagine what lunatics we would 
seem? As soon as we opened our mouths, that would be it for all of us."
93 
"And when someone asks what the book means to him, or even what its name is ... 
what would be our answer?"
As if in response to this question, a few shapeless groans arose from the 
criminally insane creature who was bound to the bed. But no one could understand 
the meaning of the word or words that he uttered, least of all himself. For he 
was now far from his own words, buried deep within the dreams of a place where 
everything was transfixed in the order of the unreal; and whence, it truly 
seemed, he would never return.
94 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
Dr. Locrian's Asylum
Years passed and no one in our town, no one I could name, allotted a single word 
to that great ruin which marred the evenness of the horizon. Nor was mention 
made of that darkly gated patch of ground closer to the town's edge. Even in 
days more remote, few things were said about these sites. Perhaps someone would 
propose tearing down the old asylum and razing the burial-ground where no inmate 
had been interred for a generation or more; and perhaps a few others, swept 
along by the moment, would nod their heart's assent. But the resolution always 
remained poorly formed, very soon losing its shape entirely, its impetus dying a 
gentle death in the gentle old streets of our town.
Then how can I explain that sudden turn of events, that overnight conversion 
which set our steps toward that hulking and decayed edifice, trampling its 
graveyard along the way? In answer, I propose the existence of a secret 
movement, one conducted in the souls of the town's citizens, and in their 
dreams. Conceived thus, the mysterious conversion loses some of its mystery: one 
need only accept that we were all haunted by the same revenant, that certain 
images began to establish themselves deep within each of us and became part of 
our hidden lives. Finally, we resolved that we could no longer live as we had 
been.
When the idea of positive action first arose, the residents of the humble west 
end of town were the most zealous and impatient. For it was they who had 
suffered the severest unease, living as they did in close view of the wild plots 
and crooked headstones of that crowded strip of earth where mad minds had come 
to be shut away for eternity. But we all shared the burden of the crumbling 
asylum itself, which seemed to be visible from every corner of town--from the 
high rooms
95 
of the old hotel, from the quiet rooms of our houses, from streets obscured by 
morning mist or twilight haze, and from my own shop whenever I looked out its 
front window. The setting sun would always be half-hidden by that massive 
silhouette, that huge broken headstone of some unspeakable grave. But more 
disturbing than our own view of the asylum was the idiotic gaze that it seemed 
to cast back at us, and through the years certain shamefully superstitious 
persons actually claimed to have seen mad-eyed and immobile figures staring out 
from the asylum's windows on nights when the moon shone with unusual brightness 
and the dark sky above the town appeared to contain more than its usual share of 
stars. Although few people spoke of such experiences, almost everyone had seen 
other sights at the asylum that no one could deny. And what strange things were 
brought to mind because of them; all over town vague scenes were inwardly 
envisioned.
As children, most of us had paid a visit at some time to that forbidden place, 
and later we carried with us memories of our somber adventures. Over the years 
we came to compare what we experienced, compiling this knowledge of the asylum 
until it became unseemly to augment it further.
By all accounts that old institution was a chamber of horrors, if not in its 
entirety then at least in certain isolated corners. It was not simply that a 
particular room attracted notice for its atmosphere of desolation: the gray 
walls pocked like sponges, the floor filthied by the years entering freely 
through broken windows, and the shallow bed withered after supporting so many 
nights of futile tears and screaming. There was something more.
Perhaps one of the walls to such a room would have built into it a sliding 
panel, a long rectangular slot near the ceiling. And on the other side would be 
another room, an unfurnished room which seemed never to have been occupied. But 
leaning against one wall of this other room, directly below the sliding panel, 
would be some long wooden sticks; and mounted at the ends of these sticks would 
be horrible little puppets.
Another room might be completely bare, yet its walls would be covered with pale 
fragments of weird funereal scenes. By removing some loose floorboards at the 
center of the room, one would discover several feet of earth piled upon an old, 
empty coffin. And then there was a very special room, a room I had visited 
myself, that was located
96 
on the uppermost floor of the asylum and contained a great windowless skylight. 
Positioned under that opening upon the heavens, and fixed securely in place, 
stood a long table with huge straps hanging from its sides.
There may have been other rooms of a strange type which memory has forbidden to 
me. But somehow none of them was singled out for comment during the actual 
dismantling of the asylum, when most of us were busy heaving the debris of years 
through great breaches we had made in the asylum's outer walls, while some 
distance away the rest of the town witnessed the wrecking in a cautious state of 
silence. Among this group was Mr. Harkness Locrian, a thin and large-eyed old 
gentleman whose silence was not like that of the others.
Perhaps we expected Mr. Locrian to voice opposition to our project, but he did 
not do so at any stage of the destruction. Although no one, to my knowledge, 
suspected him of preserving any morbid sentiment for the old asylum, it was 
difficult to forget that his grandfather had been the director of the Shire 
County Sanitarium during its declining years and that his father had closed down 
the place under circumstances that remained an obscure episode in the town's 
history. If we spoke very little about the asylum and its graveyard, Mr. Locrian 
spoke of them not at all. This reticence, no doubt, served only to strengthen in 
our minds the intangible bond which seemed to exist between him and the awful 
ruin that sealed the horizon. Even I, who knew the old man better than anyone 
else in the town, regarded him with a degree of circumspection. Outwardly, of 
course, I was courteous to him, even friendly; he was, after all, the oldest and 
most reliable patron of my business. And not long after the demolition of the 
asylum was concluded, and the last of its former residents' remains had been 
exhumed and hastily cremated, Mr. Locrian paid me a visit.
At the very moment he entered the shop, I was examining some books which had 
just arrived for him by special order. But even if I had grown jaded to such 
coincidences following years of dealing in books, which have some peculiarity 
about them that breeds events of this nature, there was something unpleasant 
about this particular freak of timing.
"Afternoon," I greeted. "You know, I was just looking over ..."
"I see," he said, approaching the counter where tiers of books left very little 
open space. As he glanced at these new arrivals--hardly
97 
interested, it seemed--he slowly unbuttoned his overcoat, a bulky thing which 
made his head appear somewhat small for his body. How easily I can envision him 
on that day. And even now his voice sounds clear in my memory, a voice that was 
far too quiet for the old man's harshly brilliant eyes. After a few moments he 
turned and casually began to wander about the shop, as if seeking out observers 
who might be secluded among its stacks. He rounded a corner and momentarily left 
my view. "So at last it's done," he said. "Something of a feat, a striking page 
of local history."
"I suppose it is," I answered, watching as Mr. Locrian traversed the rear aisle 
of the shop, appearing and disappearing as he passed by several rows of shelves.
"Without doubt it is," he replied, proceeding straight down the aisle in front 
of me. Finally reaching the counter behind which I stood, he placed his hands 
upon it, leaned forward, and asked: "But what has been achieved, what has really 
changed?"
The tone of voice in which he posed this question was both sardonic and morose, 
carrying undesirable connotations that echoed in all the remote places where 
truth had been shut up and abandoned like a howling imbecile. Nonetheless, I 
held to the lie.
"If you mean that there's very little difference now, I would have to agree. 
Only the removal of an eyesore. That was all we intended to do. Simply that."
Then I tried to draw his attention to the books that had arrived for him, but I 
was coldly interrupted when he said: "We must be walking different streets, Mr. 
Crane, and seeing quite different faces, hearing different voices in this town. 
Tell me," he asked, suddenly animated, "did you ever hear those stories about 
the sanitarium? What some people saw in its windows? Perhaps you yourself were 
one of them."
I said nothing, which he might have accepted as a confirmation that I was one of 
those people. He continued:
"And isn't there much the same feeling now, in this town, as there was in those 
stories? Can you admit that the days and nights are much worse now than they 
were... before? Of course, you may tell me that it's just the moodiness of the 
season, the chill, the dour afternoons you observe through your shop window. On 
my way here, I actually heard some people saying such things. They also said 
other things which
98 
they didn't think I could hear. Somehow everyone seems to know about these books 
of mine, Mr. Crane."
He did not look at me while delivering this last remark, but began to pace 
slowly from one end of the counter to the other, then back again.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Locrian, if you feel that I've violated some confidence. I never 
imagined that it would make any difference."
He paused in his pacing and now gazed at me with an expression of almost 
paternal forgiveness.
"Of course," he said in his earlier, quiet voice. "But things are very different 
now, will you allow that?"
"... Yes," I conceded.
"But no one is sure exactly in what way they are different."
"No," I agreed.
"Did you know that my grandfather, Doctor Harkness Locrian, was buried in that 
graveyard?"
Feeling a sudden surprise and embarrassment, I replied: "I'm sure if you had 
said something." But it was as if I were the one who had said nothing at all, 
nothing that would deter him from what he had come to tell me.
"Is this safe to sit in?" he asked, pointing to an old chair by the front 
window. And beyond the window, unobstructed, the pale autumn sun was sinking 
down.
"Yes, help yourself," I said, noticing some passers-by who had noticed Mr. 
Locrian and looked oddly at him.
"My grandfather," Mr. Locrian continued, "felt at home with his lunatics. You 
maybe startled to hear such a thing. Although the house that is now mine was 
once his, he did not spend his time there, not even to sleep. It was only after 
they closed down the sanitarium that he actually became a resident of his own 
home, which was also the home of myself and my parents, who now had charge of 
the old man. Of course, you probably don't remember. ...
"My grandfather passed his final years in a small upstairs room overlooking the 
outskirts of town, and I recall seeing him day after day gazing through his 
window at the sanitarium. ..."
"I had no idea," I interjected. "That seems rather--"
"Please, before you are led to think that his was merely a sentimental 
attachment, however perverse, let me say that it was no such thing. His feelings 
with respect to the sanitarium were in fact quite
99 
incredible, owing to the manner in which he had used his authority at that 
place. I found out about this when I was still very young, but not so young that 
I could not understand the profound conflict that existed between my father and 
grandfather. I disregarded my parents' admonitions that I not spend too much 
time with the old man, succumbing to the mystery of his presence. And one 
afternoon he revealed himself.
"He was gazing through the window and never once turned to face me. But after we 
had sat in silence for some time, he started to whisper something. 'They 
questioned,' he said. 'They accused. They complained that no one in that place 
ever became well.' Then he smiled and began to elaborate. 'What things had they 
seen,' he hissed, 'to give them such ... wisdom? They did not look into the 
faces,' no, he did not say 'faces' but 'eyes.' Yes, he said,'... did not look 
into the eyes of those beings, the eyes that reflected the lifeless beauty of 
the silent, staring universe itself.'
"Those were his words. And then he talked about the voices of the patients under 
his care. He whispered, and I quote, that 'the wonderful music of those voices 
spoke the supreme delirium of the planets as they go round and round like bright 
puppets dancing in the blackness.' In the wandering words of those lunatics, he 
told me, the ancient mysteries were restored.
"Like all true mysteriarchs," Mr. Locrian went on, "my grandfather desired a 
knowledge that was unspoken and unspeakable. And every volume of the strange 
library he left to his heirs attests to this desire. As you know, I have added 
to this collection in my own way, as did my father. But our reasons were not 
those of the old doctor. At his sanitarium, Dr. Locrian had done something very 
strange, something that perhaps only he possessed both the knowledge and the 
impulse to do. It was not until many years later that my father attempted to 
explain everything to me, as I now am attempting to explain it to you.
"I have said that my grandfather was and always had been a mysteriarch, never a 
philanthropist of the mind, not a restorer of wounded psyches. In no way did he 
take a therapeutic approach with the inmates at the sanitarium. He did not view 
them as souls that were possessed, either by demons or by their own painful 
histories, but as beings who held a strange alliance with other orders of 
existence, who contained within themselves a particle of something eternal, a 
golden
!
100 
speck of magic which he thought might be enlarged. Thus, his ambition led him 
not to relieve his patients' madness, but to exasperate it--to let it breathe 
with a life of its own. And this he did in certain ways that wholly eradicated 
what human qualities remained in these people. But sometimes that peculiar magic 
he saw in their eyes would seem to fade, and then he would institute his 'proper 
treatment,' which consisted of putting them through a battery of hellish ordeals 
intended to loosen their attachment to the world of humanity and to project them 
further into the absolute, the realm of the 'silent, staring universe' where the 
ultimate insanity of the infinite void might work a rather paradoxical cure. The 
result was something as pathetic as a puppet and as magnificent as the stars, 
something at once dead and never dying, a thing utterly without destiny and thus 
imperishable, possessing that abysmal absence of mind, that infinite vacuity 
which is the essence of all that is immortal. And somehow, in his last days, my 
grandfather used this same procedure on himself, reaching into spaces beyond 
death.
"I know this to be true, because one night late in my childhood, I awoke and 
witnessed the proof. Leaving my bed, I walked down the moonlit hallway, feeling 
irresistibly drawn toward the closed door of my grandfather's room. Stopping in 
front of that door, I turned its cold handle and slowly pushed back its strange 
nocturnal mass. Peeking timidly into the room, I saw my grandfather sitting 
before the window in the bright moonlight. My curiosity must have overcome my 
horror, for I actually spoke to this specter. 'What are you doing here, 
Grandfather?' I asked. And without turning away from the window, he slowly and 
tonelessly replied: 'We are doing just what you see.' Of course, what I saw was 
an old man who belonged in his grave, but who was now staring out his window 
across to the windows at the sanitarium, where others who were not human stared 
back.
"When I fearfully alerted my parents to what I had seen, I was surprised that my 
father responded not with disbelief but with anger: I had disobeyed his warnings 
about my grandfather's room. Then he revealed the truth just as I now reveal it 
to you, and year after year he reiterated and expanded upon this secret 
learning: why that room must always be kept shut and why the sanitarium must 
never be disturbed. You may not be aware that an earlier effort to destroy the 
sanitarium was aborted through my father's intervention. He was far more 
attached than I could ever be to this town, which ceased to have
101 
a future long ago. How long has it been since a new building was added to all 
the old ones? This place would have crumbled in time. The natural course of 
things would have dismantled it, just as the asylum would have disappeared had 
it been left alone. But when all of you took up those implements and marched 
toward the old ruin, I felt no desire to interfere. You have brought it on 
yourselves," he complacently ended.
"And what is it we have done?" I asked in a cold voice, now suppressing a 
mysterious outrage.
"You are only trying to preserve what remains of your mind's peace. You know 
that something is very wrong in this town, that you should never have done what 
you did, but still you cannot draw any conclusion from what I have told you."
"With all respect, Mr. Locrian, how can you imagine that I believe anything 
you've told me?"
He laughed weakly. "Actually, I don't. As you say, how could I? Without being 
somewhat mad, that is. But in time you will. And then I will tell you more 
things, things you will not be able to keep yourself from believing."
As he pushed himself up from the chair by the window, I asked: "Why tell me 
anything? Why did you come here today?"
"Why? Because I thought that perhaps my books had arrived, let me just take them 
like that. And also because everything is finished now. The others," he 
shrugged, "... hopeless. You are the only one who could understand. Not now, but 
in time."
And now I do understand what the old man told me as I never could on that autumn 
day some forty years ago.
It was toward the end of that same sullen day, in the course of a bleak 
twilight, that they began to appear. Like figures quietly emerging from the 
depths of memory, they struggled in the shadows and slowly became visible. But 
even if the transition had been subtle, insidiously graduated, it did not long 
go unnoticed. By nightfall they were distractingly conspicuous throughout the 
town, always framed in some high window of the structures they occupied: the 
rooms above the shops in the heart of the town, the highest story of the old 
hotel, the empty towers of civic buildings, the lofty turrets and grand gables 
of the most distinguished houses, and the attics of the humblest homes.
Their forms were as softly luminous as the autumn constellations
102 
in the black sky above, their faces glowing with the same fixed expression of 
placid vacuity. And the attire of these apparitions was grotesquely suited to 
their surroundings. Buried many years before in antiquated clothes of a formal 
and funereal cut, they seemed to belong to the dying town in a manner its living 
members could not emulate. For the streets of the town now lost what life was 
left in them and became the dark corridors of a museum where these waxen 
nightmares had been put on exhibition.
In daylight, when the figures in the windows took on a dull wooden appearance 
that seemed less maddening, some of us ventured into those high rooms. But 
nothing was ever found on the other side of their windows, nothing save a 
tenantless room which no light would illuminate and which sooner or later 
inspired any living occupant with a demented dread. By night, when it seemed we 
could hear them erratically tapping on the floors above us, their presence in 
our homes drove us out into the streets. Day and night we became sleepless 
vagrants, strangers in our own town. Eventually we may have ceased to recognize 
one another. But one name, one face was still known to all--that of Mr. Harkness 
Locrian, whose gaze haunted each one of us.
It was undoubtedly in his house that the fire began which mindlessly consumed 
every corner of the town. There were attempts made to oppose its path, but they 
were half-hearted and soon abandoned. For the most part we stood in silence, 
vacantly staring as the flames burned their way up to the high windows where 
spectral figures posed like portraits in their frames.
Ultimately these demons were exorcized, their windows left empty. But only after 
the town had been annulled by the holocaust.
Nothing more than charred wreckage remained. Afterward it was reported that one 
of our citizens had been taken by the fire, though none of us inquired into the 
exact circumstances under which old Mr. Locrian met his death.
There was, of course, no effort made to recover the town we had lost: when the 
first snow fell that year, it fell upon ruins grown cold and dreadful. But now, 
after the passing of so many years, it is not the ashen rubble of that town 
which haunts each of my hours; it is that one great ruin in whose shadow my mind 
has been interned.
And if they have kept me in this room because I speak to faces that appear at my 
window, then let them protect this same room from
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violations after I am gone. For Mr. Locrian has been true to his promise; he has 
told me of certain things when I was ready to hear them. And he has other things 
to tell me, secrets surpassing all insanity. Commending me to an absolute cure, 
he will have immured another soul within the black and boundless walls of that 
eternal asylum where stars dance forever like bright puppets in the silent, 
staring void.
104 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
The Mystics of Muelenburg
If things are not what they seem--and we are forever reminded that this is the 
case--then it must also be observed that enough of us ignore this truth to keep 
the world from collapsing. Though never exact, always shifting somewhat, the 
proportion is crucial. For a certain number of minds are fated to depart for 
realms of delusion, as if in accordance with some hideous timetable, and many 
will never be returning to us. Even among those who remain, how difficult it can 
be to hold the focus sharp, to keep the picture of the world from fading, from 
blurring in selected zones and, on occasion, from sustaining epic deformations 
over the entire visible scene.
I once knew a man who claimed that, overnight, all the solid shapes of existence 
had been replaced by cheap substitutes: trees made of flimsy posterboard, houses 
built of colored foam, whole landscapes composed of hair-clippings. His own 
flesh, he said, was now just so much putty. Needless to add, this acquaintance 
had deserted the cause of appearances and could no longer be depended on to 
stick to the common story. Alone he had wandered into a tale of another sort 
altogether; for him, all things now participated in this nightmare of nonsense. 
But although his revelations conflicted with the lesser forms of truth, 
nonetheless he did live in the light of a greater truth: that all is unreal. 
Within him this knowledge was vividly present down to his very bones, which had 
been newly simulated by a compound of mud and dust and ashes.
In my own case, I must confess that the myth of a natural universe--that is, one 
that adheres to certain continuities whether we wish them or not--was losing its 
grip on me and was gradually being supplanted by a hallucinatory view of 
creation. Forms, having nothing to offer except a mere suggestion of firmness, 
declined in importance;
105 
fantasy, that misty domain of pure meaning, gained in power and influence. This 
was in the days when esoteric wisdom seemed to count for something in my mind, 
and I would willingly have sacrificed a great deal in its pursuit. Hence, my 
interest in the man who called himself Klaus Klingman; hence, too, that brief 
yet profitable association between us, which came about through channels too 
twisted to recall.
Without a doubt, Klingman was one of the illuminati and proved this many times 
over in various psychic experiments, particularly those of the seance type. For 
those outside scientific circles, I need only mention the man who was severally 
known as Nemo the Necromancer, Marlowe the Magus, and Master Marinetti, each of 
whom was none other than Klaus Klingman himself. But Klingman's highest 
achievement was not a matter of public spectacle and consisted entirely of this 
private triumph: that he had attained, by laborious effort, an unwavering 
acceptance of the spectral nature of things, which to him were neither what they 
seemed to be nor were they quite anything at all.
Klingman lived in the enormous upper story of a warehouse that had been part of 
his family's legacy to him, and there I often found him wandering amidst a few 
pieces of furniture and the cavernous wasteland of dim and empty storage space. 
Collapsing into an ancient armchair, reposing far beneath crumbling rafters, he 
would gaze beyond the physical body of his visitor, his eyes surveying remote 
worlds and his facial expression badly disorganized by dreams and large 
quantities of alcohol. "Fluidity, always fluidity," he shouted out, his voice 
carrying through the expansive haze around us, which muted daylight into dusk. 
The embodiment of his mystic precepts, he appeared at any given moment to be on 
the verge of an amazing disintegration, his particular complex of atoms ready to 
go shooting off into the great void like a burst of fireworks.
We discussed the dangers--for me and for the world--of adopting a visionary 
program of existence. "The chemistry of things is so delicate," he warned. "And 
this word chemistry, what does it mean but a mingling, a mixing, a gushing 
together? Things that people fear." Indeed, I had already suspected the hazards 
of his company, and, as the sun was setting over the city beyond the great 
windows of the warehouse, I became afraid. With an uncanny perception of my 
feelings, Klingman pointed at me and bellowed:
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"The worst fear of the race--yes, the world suddenly transformed into a 
senseless nightmare, horrible dissolution of things. Nothing compares, even 
oblivion is a sweet dream. You understand why, of course. Why this peculiar 
threat. These brooding psyches, all the busy minds everywhere. I hear them 
buzzing like flies in the blackness. I see them as glowworms flitting in the 
blackness. They are struggling, straining every second to keep the sky above 
them, to keep the sun in the sky, to keep the dead in the earth--to keep all 
things, so to speak, where they belong. What an undertaking! What a crushing 
task! Is it any wonder that they are all tempted by a universal vice, that in 
some dark street of the mind a single voice whispers to one and all, softly 
hissing, and says: 'Lay down your burden.' Then thoughts begin to drift, a 
mystical magnetism pulls them this way and that, faces start to change, shadows 
speak ... sooner or later the sky comes down, melting like wax. But as you know, 
everything has not yet been lost: absolute terror has proved its security 
against this fate. Is it any wonder that these beings carry on the struggle at 
whatever cost?"
"And you?" I asked.
"I?"
"Yes, don't you shoulder the universe in your own way?"
"Not at all," he replied, smiling and sitting up in his chair as on a throne. "I 
am a lucky one, parasite of chaos, maggot of vice. Where I live is nightmare, 
thus a certain nonchalance. In a previous life, you know, I may actually have 
been at Muelenburg before it was lost in the delirium of history. Who can say? 
Smothered by centuries now. But there was an opportunity, a moment of 
distraction in which so much was nearly lost forever, so many lost in that 
medieval gloom, catastrophe of dreams. How their minds wandered in the shadows 
even as their bodies were seemingly bound to narrow rutted streets and 
apparently safeguarded by the spired cathedral which was erected between 1365 
and 1399. A rare and fortuitous juncture when the burden of the heavens was 
heaviest--so much to keep in its place-- and the psyche so ill-developed, so 
easily taxed and tempted away from its labors. But they knew nothing about that, 
and never could. They only knew the prospect of absolute terror."
"In Muelenburg," I said, hoping to draw his conversation outward before it 
twisted further into itself. "You said the cathedral."
"I see the cathedral, the colossal vault above, the central aisle stretching out 
before us. The woodcarvings leer down from dark
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corners, animals and freaks, men in the mouths of demons. Are you taking notes 
again? Fine, then take notes. Who knows what you will remember of all this? Or 
will memory help you at all? In any case we are already there, sitting among the 
smothered sounds of the cathedral. Beyond the jeweled windows is the town in 
twilight."
Twilight, as Klingman explained and I must paraphrase, had come upon Muelenburg 
somewhat prematurely on a certain day deep into the autumn season. Early that 
afternoon, clouds had spread themselves evenly above the region surrounding the 
town, withholding heaven's light and giving a dull appearance to the landscape 
of forests, thatched farmhouses, and windmills standing still against the 
horizon. Within the high stone walls of Muelenburg itself, no one seemed 
particularly troubled that the narrow streets--normally so cluttered with the 
pointed shadows of peaked roofs and jutting gables at this time of day--were 
still immersed in a lukewarm dimness which turned merchants' brightly colored 
signs into faded artifacts of a dead town and which made faces look as if they 
were fashioned in pale clay. And in the central square--where the shadow from 
the clock-tower of the town hall at times overlapped those cast by the twin 
spires of the cathedral on the one hand, or the ones from high castle turrets 
looming at the border of the town on the other--there was only grayness 
undisturbed.
Where were the minds of the townspeople? How had they ceased paying homage to 
the ancient order of things? And when had the severing taken place that sent 
their world drifting on strange waters?
For some time they remained innocent of the disaster, going about their ways as 
the ashen twilight lingered far too long, as it encroached upon the hours that 
belonged to evening and suspended the town between day and night. Everywhere 
windows began to glow with the yellow light of lamps, creating the illusion that 
darkness was imminent. Any moment, it seemed, the natural cycle would relieve 
the town of the prolonged dusk it had suffered that autumn day. How 
well-received the blackness would have been by those who waited silently in 
sumptuous chambers or humble rooms, for no one could bear the sight of 
Muelenburg's twisting streets in that eerie, overstaying twilight. Even the 
nightwatchman shirked his nocturnal routine. And when the bells of the abbey 
sounded for the monks' midnight
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prayers, each toll spread like an alarm throughout the town still held in the 
strange luminousness of the gloaming.
Exhausted by fear, many shuttered their windows, extinguished lamps, and retired 
to their beds, hoping that all would be made right in the interval. Others sat 
up with a candle, enjoying the lost luxury of shadows. A few, who were not fixed 
to the life of the town, broke through the unwatched gate and took to the roads, 
all the while gazing at the pale sky and wondering where they would go.
But whether they kept the hours in their dreams or in sleepless vigils, all were 
disturbed by something in the spaces around them, as if some strangeness had 
seeped into the atmosphere of their town, their homes, and perhaps their souls. 
The air seemed heavier somehow, resisting them slightly, and also seemed to be 
flowing with things that could not be perceived except as swift, shadowlike 
movement escaping all sensible recognition, transparent flight which barely 
caressed one's vision.
When the clock high in the tower of the town hall proved that a nightful of 
hours had passed, some opened their shutters, even ventured into the streets. 
But the sky still hovered over them like an infinite vault of glowing dust. Here 
and there throughout the town the people began to gather in whispering groups. 
Appeals were soon made at the castle and the cathedral, and speculations were 
offered to calm the crowd. There was a struggle in heaven, some had reasoned, 
which had influenced the gross reality of the visible world. Others proposed a 
deception by demons or an ingenious punishment from on high. A few, who met 
secretly in well-hidden chambers, spoke in stricken voices of old deities 
formerly driven from the earth who were nowmonstrously groping their way back. 
And all of these explications of the mystery were true in their own way, though 
none could abate the dread which had settled upon the town of Muelenburg.
Submerged in unvarying grayness, distracted and confused by phantasmal 
intrusions about them, the people of the town felt their world dissolving. Even 
the clock in the town hall tower failed to keep their moments from wandering 
strangely. Within such disorder were bred curious thoughts and actions. Thus, in 
the garden of the abbey an ancient tree was shunned and rumours spread 
concerning some change in its twisted silhouette, something flaccid and ropelike 
about its branches, until finally the monks dowsed it with oil and set it 
aflame, their circle of squinting faces bathing in the glare. Likewise,
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a fountain standing in one of the castle's most secluded courtyards became 
notorious when its waters appeared to suggest fabulous depths far beyond the 
natural dimensions of its shell-shaped basin. The cathedral itself had 
deteriorated into a hollow sanctuary where prayers were mocked by queer 
movements among the carved figures in cornices and by shadows streaming horribly 
in the twitching light of a thousand candles.
Throughout the town, all places and things bore evidence to striking revisions 
in the base realm of matter: precisely sculptured stone began to loosen and 
lump, an abandoned cart melded with the sucking mud of the street, and objects 
in desolate rooms lost themselves in the surfaces they pressed upon, making 
metal tongs mix with brick hearth, prismatic jewels with lavish velvet, a corpse 
with the wood of its coffin. At last the faces of Muelenburg became subject to 
changing expressions which at first were quite subtle, though later these 
divergences were so exaggerated that it was no longer possible to recapture 
original forms. It followed that the townspeople could no more recognize 
themselves than they could one another. All were carried off in the great 
torrent of their dreams, all spinning in that grayish whirlpool of indefinite 
twilight, all churning and in the end merging into utter blackness.
It was within this blackness that the souls of Muelenburg struggled and labored 
and ultimately awoke. The stars and high moon now lit up the night, and it 
seemed that their town had been returned to them. And so terrible had been their 
recent ordeal that of its beginning, its progress, and its termination, they 
could remember ... nothing.
"Nothing?" I echoed.
"Of course," Klingman answered. "All of those terrible memories were left behind 
in the blackness. How could they bear to bring them back?"
"But your story," I protested. "These notes I've taken tonight."
"Privileged information, far off the main roads of historical record. You know 
that sooner or later each of them recollected the episode in detail. It was all 
waiting for them in the place where they had left it--the blackness which is the 
domain of death. Or, if you wish, that blackness of the old alchemists' magic 
powder."
I remembered the necromantic learning that Klingman had both
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professed and proven, but still I observed: "Then nothing can be verified, 
nothing established as fact."
"Nothing at all," he agreed, "except the fact that I am one with the dead of 
Muelenburg and with all who have known the great dream in all its true 
liquescence. They have spoken to me as I am speaking to you. Many reminiscences 
imparted by those old dreamers, many drunken dialogues I have held with them."
"Like the drunkenness of this dialogue tonight," I said, openly disdaining his 
narrative.
"Perhaps, only much more vivid, more real. But the yarn which you suppose I 
alone have spun has served its purpose. To cure you of doubt, you first had to 
be made a doubter. Until now, pardon my saying so, you have shown no talent in 
that direction. You believed every wild thing that came along, provided it had 
the least evidence whatever. Unparalleled credulity. But tonight you have 
doubted and thus you are ready to be cured of this doubt. And didn't I mention 
time and again the dangers? Unfortunately, you cannot count yourself among those 
forgetful souls of Muelenburg. You even have your mnemonic notes, as if anyone 
will credit them when this night is over. The time is right again, and it has 
happened more than once, for the grip to go slack and for the return of fluidity 
in the world. And later so much will have to be washed away, assuming a 
renascence of things. Fluidity, always fluidity."
When I left his company that night, abandoning the dead and shapeless hours I 
had spent in that warehouse, Klingman was laughing like a madman. I remember him 
slouched in that threadbare throne, his face all flushed and contorted, his 
twisted mouth wailing at some hilarious arcana known only to himself, the 
sardonic laughter reverberating in the great spaces of the night. To all 
appearances, some ultimate phase of dissipation had seized his soul.
Nevertheless, that I had underrated or misunderstood the powers of Klaus 
Klingman was soon demonstrated to me, and to others. But no one else remembers 
that time when the night would not leave and no dawn appeared to be forthcoming. 
During the early part of the crisis there were sensible, rather than 
apocalyptic, explanations proffered everywhere: blackout, bizarre meteorological 
phenomena, an eclipse of sorts. Later, these myths became useless and ultimately 
unnecessary.
For no one else recalls the hysteria that prevailed when the stars
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and the moon seemed to become swollen in the blackness and to cast a lurid 
illumination upon the world. How many horrors await in that blackness to be 
restored to the memories of the dead. For no one else living remembers when 
everything began to change, no one else with the possible exception of Klaus 
Klingman.
In the red dawn following that gruesomely protracted night, I went to the 
warehouse. Unfortunately the place was untenanted, save by its spare furnishings 
and a few empty bottles. Klingman had disappeared, perhaps into that same 
blackness for which he seemed to have an incredible nostalgia. I, of course, 
make no appeals for belief. There can be no belief where there is no doubt. 
There cannot be something where there is no nothing. This is far from secret 
knowledge, as if such knowledge could change anything. This is only how it 
seems, and seeming is everything.
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The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
The Spectacles in the Drawer
Last year at this time, perhaps on this very day, Plomb visited me at my home. 
He always seemed to know when I had returned from my habitual travelling and 
always appeared uninvited on my doorstep. Although this former residence of mine 
was pathetically run-down, Plomb seemed to regard it as a kind of castle or 
fortress, always gazing up at its high ceilings as if he were witnessing its 
wonders for the first time. That day--a dim one, I think--he did not fail to do 
the same. Then we settled into one of the spacious though sparsely furnished 
rooms of my house.
"And how were your travels?" he asked, as if only in the spirit of polite 
conversation. I could see by his smile--an emulation of my own, no doubt--that 
he was glad to be back in my house and in my company. I smiled too and stood up. 
Plomb, of course, stood up along with me, almost simultaneously with my own 
movements.
"Shall we go then?" I said. What a pest, I thought.
Our footsteps tapped a moderate time on the hard wooden floor leading to the 
stairway. We ascended to the second floor, which I left almost entirely empty, 
and then up a narrower stairway to the third floor. Although I had led him along 
this route several times before, I could see from his wandering eyes that, for 
him, every tendrilled swirl of wallpaper, every cobweb fluttering in the corners 
above, every stale draft of the house composed a suspenseful prelude to our 
destination. At the end of the third-floor hall there was a small wooden 
stairway, no more than a ladder, that led to an old storeroom where I kept 
certain things which I collected.
It was not by any means a spacious room, and its enclosed atmosphere was 
thickened, as Plomb would have emphasized, by its claustrophobic arrangement of 
tall cabinets, ceiling-high shelves, and
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various trunks and crates. This is simply how things worked out over a period of 
time. In any case, Plomb seemed to favor this state of affairs. "Ah, the room of 
secret mystery," he said. "Where all your treasures are kept, all the raw 
wonders cached away."
These treasures and wonders, as Plomb called them, were, I suppose, remarkable 
from a certain point of view. Plomb loved to go through all the old objects and 
articles, gathering together a lapful of curios and settling down on the dusty 
sofa at the center of this room. But it was the new items, whenever I returned 
from one of my protracted tours, that always took precedence in Plomb's 
hierarchy of wonders. Thus, I immediately brought out the double-handled dagger 
with the single blade of polished stone. At first sight of the ceremonial 
object, Plomb held out the flat palms of his hands, and I placed this exotic 
device upon its rightful altar. "Who could have made such a thing?" he asked, 
though rhetorically. He expected no answer to his questions and possibly did not 
really desire any. And of course I offered no more elaborate an explanation than 
a simple smile. But how quickly, I noticed, the magic of that first fragment of 
"speechless wonder," as he would say, lost its initial surge of fascination. How 
fast that glistening fog, which surrounded only him, dispersed to unveil a 
tedious clarity. I had to move faster.
"Here," I said, my arm searching the shadows of an open wardrobe. "This should 
be worn when you handle that sacrificial artifact." And I threw the robe about 
his shoulders, engulfing his smallish frame with a cyclone of strange patterns 
and colors. He admired himself in the mirror attached inside the door of the 
wardrobe. "Look at the robe in the mirror," he practically shouted. "The designs 
are all turned around. How much stranger, how much better." While he stood there 
glaring at himself, I relieved him of the dagger before he had a chance to do 
something careless. This left his hands free to raise themselves up to the 
dust-caked ceiling of the room, and to the dark gods of his imagination. 
Gripping each handle of the dagger, I suddenly elevated it above his head, where 
I held it poised. In a few moments he started to giggle, then fell into spasms 
of sardonic hilarity. He stumbled over to the old sofa and collapsed upon its 
soft cushions. I followed, but when I reached his prostrate form it was not the 
pale-blue blade that I brought down upon his chest--it was simply a book, one of 
many I had put before him. His peaked legs created a lectern on which he rested 
the huge volume, propping it securely as he began turning the
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stiff crackling pages. The sound seemed to absorb him as much as the sight of a 
language he could not even name let alone comprehend.
"The lost grimoire of the Abbot of Tine," he giggled. "Transcribed in the 
language of--"
"A wild guess," I interjected. "And a wrong one."
"Then the forbidden Psalms of the Silent. The book without an author."
"Without a living author, if you will recall what I told you about it. But 
you're very wide of the mark."
"Well, suppose you give me a hint," he said with an impatience that surprised 
me. "Suppose--"
"But wouldn't you prefer to guess at its wonders, Plomb?" I suggested 
encouragingly. Some moments of precarious silence passed.
"I suppose I would," he finally answered, and to my relief. Then I watched him 
gorge his eyes on the inscrutable script of the ancient volume.
In truth, the mysteries of this Sacred Writ were among the most genuine of their 
kind, for it had never been my intention to dupe my disciple--as he justly 
thought of himself--with false secrets. But the secrets of such a book are not 
absolute: once they are known, they become relegated to a lesser sphere, which 
is that of the knower. Having lost the prestige they once enjoyed, these former 
secrets now function as tools in the excavation of still deeper ones which, in 
turn, will suffer the same corrosive fate. And this is the fate of all true 
secrets. Eventually the seeker may conclude--either through insight or sheer 
exhaustion--that this ruthless process is never-ending, that the mortification 
of one mystery after another has no terminus beyond that of the seeker's own 
extinction. And how many still remain susceptible to the search? How many pursue 
it to the end of their days with undying hope of some ultimate revelation? 
Better not to think in precise terms just how few the faithful are. More to the 
present point, it seems that Plomb was one of their infinitesimal number. And it 
was my intention to reduce that number by one.
The plan was simple: to feed Plomb's hunger for mysterious sensations to the 
point of nausea ... and beyond. The only thing to survive would be a gutful of 
shame and regret for a defunct passion.
As Plomb lay upon the sofa, ogling that stupid book, I moved toward a large 
cabinet whose several doors were composed of a tarnished metal grillwork framed 
by darkest wood. I opened one of
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these doors and exposed a number of shelves cluttered with books and odd 
objects. Upon one shelf, resting there as sole occupant, was a very white box. 
It was no larger, as I mentally envision it, than a modest jewelry case. There 
were no markings on the box, except the fingerprints, or rather thumbprints, 
smearing its smooth white surface at its opposing edges and halfway along its 
length. There were no handles or embellishments of any kind; not even, at first 
sight, the thinnest of seams to indicate the level at which the lower part of 
the box met the upper part, or perhaps give away the existence of a drawer. I 
smiled a little at the mock intrigue of the object, then gripped it from either 
side, gently, and placed my thumbs precisely over the fresh thumbprints. I 
applied pressure with each thumb, and a shallow drawer popped open at the front 
of the box. As hoped, Plomb had been watching me as I went through these 
meaningless motions.
"What do you have there?" he asked.
"Patience, Plomb. You will see," I answered while delicately removing two 
sparkling items from the drawer: one a small and silvery knife which very much 
resembled a razor-sharp letter opener, and the other a pair of old-fashioned 
wire-rimmed spectacles.
Plomb laid aside the now-boring book and sat up straight against the arm of the 
sofa. I sat down beside him and opened up the spectacles so that the stems were 
pointing toward his face. When he leaned forward, I slipped them on. "They're 
only plain glass," he said with a definite tone of disappointment. "Or a very 
weak prescription." His eyes rolled about as he attempted to scrutinize what 
rested upon his own face. Without saying a word, I held up the little knife in 
front of him until he finally took notice of it. "Ahhhh," he said, smiling. 
"There's more to it." "Of course there is," I said, gently twirling the steely 
blade before his fascinated eyes. "Now hold out your palm, just like that. Good, 
good. You won't even feel this, completely harmless. Now," I instructed him, 
"keep watching that tiny red trickle.
"Your eyes are now fused with those fantastic lenses, and your sight is one with 
its object. And what exactly is that object? Obviously it is everything that 
fascinates, everything that has power over your gaze and your dreams. You cannot 
even conceive the wish to look away. And even if there are no simple images to 
see, nonetheless there is a vision of some kind, an infinite and overwhelming 
scene expanding before you. And the vastness of this scene is such that even the 
dazzling diffusion of all the known universes cannot convey its
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wonder. Everything is so brilliant, so great, and so alive: landscapes without 
end that are rolling with life, landscapes that are themselves alive. 
Unimaginable diversity of form and motion, design and dimension. And each detail 
is perfectly crystalline, from the mammoth shapes lurching in outline against 
endless horizons to the minutest cilia wriggling in an obscure oceanic niche. 
Even this is only a mere fragment of all that there is to see and to know. There 
are labyrinthine astronomies, discrete systems of living mass which yet are 
woven together by a complex of intersections, at points mingling in a way that 
mutually affects those systems involved, yielding instantaneous evolutions, 
constant transformations of both appearance and essence. You are witness to all 
that exists or ever could exist. And yet, somehow concealed in the shadows of 
all that you can see is something that is not yet visible, something that is 
beating like a thunderous pulse and promises still greater visions: all else is 
merely its membrane enclosing the ultimate thing waiting to be born, preparing 
for the cataclysm which will be both the beginning and the end. To behold the 
prelude to this event must be an experience of unbearable anticipation, so that 
hope and dread merge into a new emotion, one corresponding perfectly to the 
absolute and the wholly unknown. The next instant, it seems, will bring with it 
a revolution of all matter and energy. But the seconds keep passing, the 
experience grows more fascinating without fulfilling its portents, without 
extinguishing itself in revelation. And although the visions remain active 
inside you, deep in your blood--you now awake."
Pushing himself up from the sofa, Plomb staggered forward a few steps and wiped 
his bloodied palm on the front of his shirt, as if to wipe away the visions. He 
shookhis head vigorously once or twice, but the spectacles remained secure.
"Is everything all right?" I asked him.
Plomb appeared to be dazzled in the worst way. Behind the spectacles his eyes 
gazed dumbly, and his mouth gaped with countless unspoken words. However, when I 
said, "Perhaps I should remove these for you," his hand rose toward mine, as if 
to prevent me from doing so. But his effort was half-hearted. Folding their wire 
stems one across the other, I replaced them back in their box. Plomb now watched 
me, as if I were performing some ritual of great fascination. He seemed to be 
still composing himself from the experience.
"Well?" I asked.
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"Dreadful," he answered. "But..."
"But?"
"But I..."
"You?"
"What I mean is--where did they come from?"
"Can't you imagine that for yourself?" I countered. And for a moment it seemed 
that in this case, too, he desired some simple answer, contrary to his most 
hardened habits. Then he smiled rather deviously and threw himself down upon the 
sofa. His eyes glazed over as he fabricated an anecdote to his fancy.
"I can see you," he said, "at an occultist auction in a disreputable quarter of 
a foreign city. The box is carried forward, the spectacles taken out. They were 
made several generations ago by a man who was at once, a student of the Gnostics 
and a master of optometry. His ambition: to construct a pair of artificial eyes 
that would allow him to bypass the obstacle of physical appearances and glimpse 
a far-off realm of secret truth whose gateway is within the depths of our own 
blood."
"Remarkable," I replied. "Your speculation is so close to truth itself that the 
details are not worth mentioning for the mere sake of vulgar correctness."
In fact, the spectacles belonged to a lot of antiquarian rubbish I once bought 
blindly, and the box was of unknown, or rather unremembered, origin--just 
something I had lying around in my attic room. And the knife, a magician's prop 
for efficiently slicing up paper money and silk ties.
I carried the box containing both spectacles and knife over to Plomb, holding it 
slightly beyond his reach. I said, "Can you imagine the dangers involved, the 
possible nightmare of possessing such 'artificial eyes'?" He nodded gravely in 
agreement. "And you can imagine the restraint the possessor of such a gruesome 
artifact must practice." His eyes were all comprehension, and he was sucking a 
little at his slightly lacerated palm. "Then nothing would please me more than 
to pass the ownership of this obscure miracle on to you, my dear Plomb. I'm sure 
you will hold it in wonder as no one else could."
And it was exactly this wonder that it was my malicious aim to undermine, or 
rather to expand until it ripped itself apart. For I could no longer endure the 
sight of it.
As Plomb once again stood at the door of my home, holding his
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precious gift with a child's awkward embrace, I could not resist asking him the 
question. Opening the door for him, I said, "By the way, Plomb, have you ever 
been hypnotized?"
"I ..." he answered.
"You," I prompted.
"No," he said. "Why do you ask?"
"Curiosity," I replied. "You know how I am. Well, good-night, Plomb."
And I closed the door behind the most willing subject in the world, hoping it 
would be some time before he returned. "If ever," I said aloud, and the words 
echoed in the hollows of my home.
But it was not long afterward that Plomb and I had our next confrontation, 
though the circumstances were odd and accidental. Late one afternoon, as it 
happens, I was browsing through a shop that dealt in second-hand merchandise of 
the most pathetic sort. The place was littered with rusty scales that once would 
have given your weight for a penny, cock-eyed bookcases, dead toys, furniture 
without style or substance, grotesque standing ashtrays late of some hotel 
lobby, and a hodge-podge of old-fashioned fixtures. For me, however, such 
decrepit bazaars offered more diversion and consolation than the most exotic 
marketplaces, which so often made good on their strange promises that mystery 
itself ceased to have meaning. But my second-hand seller made no promises and 
inspired no dreams, leaving all that to those more ambitious hucksters who 
trafficked in such perishable stock in trade. At the time I could ask no more of 
a given gray afternoon than to find myself in one of these enchantingly desolate 
establishments.
That particular afternoon in the second-hand shop brought me a brief glimpse of 
Plomb in a second-hand manner. The visual transaction took place in a mirror 
that leaned against a wall, one of the many mirrors that seemed to constitute a 
specialty of the shop. I had squatted down before this rectangular relic, whose 
frame reminded me of the decorated borders of old books, and wiped my bare hand 
across its dusty surface. And there, hidden beneath the dust, was the face of 
Plomb, who must have just entered the shop and was standing a room's length 
away. While he seemed to recognize immediately the
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reverse side of me, his expression betrayed the hope that I had not seen him. 
There was shock as well as shame upon that face, and something else besides. And 
if Plomb had approached me, what could I have said to him? Perhaps I would have 
mentioned that he did not look very well or that it appeared he had been the 
victim of an accident. But how could he explain what had happened to him except 
to reveal the truth that we both knew and neither would speak? Fortunately, this 
scene was to remain in its hypothetical state, because a moment later he was out 
the door.
I cautiously approached the front window of the shop in time to see Plomb 
hurrying off into the dull, unreflecting day, his right hand held up to his 
face. "It was only my intention to cure him," I mumbled to myself. I had not 
considered that he was incurable, nor that things would have developed in the 
way they did.
And after that day I wondered, eventually to the point of obsession, what kind 
of hell had claimed poor Plomb for its own. I knew only that I had provided him 
with a type of toy: the subliminal ability to feast his eyes on an imaginary 
universe in a rivulet of his own blood. The possibility that he would desire to 
magnify this experience, or indeed that he would be capable of such a feat, had 
not seriously occurred to me. Obviously, however, this had become the case. I 
now had to ask myself how much farther could Plomb's situation be extended. The 
answer, though I could not guess it at the time, was presented to me in a dream.
And it seemed fitting that the dream had its setting in that old attic storeroom 
of my house, which Plomb once prized above all other rooms in the world. I was 
sitting in a chair, a huge and enveloping chair which in reality does not exist 
but in the dream directly faces the sofa. No thoughts or feelings troubled me, 
and I had only the faintest sense that someone else was in the room. But I could 
not see who it was, because everything appeared so dim in outline, blurry and 
grayish. There seemed to be some movement in the region of the sofa, as if the 
enormous cushions themselves had become lethargically restless. Unable to fathom 
the source of this movement, I touched my hand to my temple in thought. This was 
how I discovered that I was
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wearing a pair of spectacles with circular lenses connected to wiry stems. I 
thought to myself: "If I remove these spectacles I will be able to see more 
clearly." But a voice told me not to remove them, and I recognized that voice. 
"Plomb," I said. And then something moved, like a man-shaped shadow, upon the 
sofa. A climate of dull horror began to invade my surroundings. "Even if your 
trip is over," I said deliriously, you have nothing to show for it." But the 
voice disagreed with me in sinister whispers that made no sense but seemed 
filled with meaning. I would indeed be shown things, these whispers might have 
said. Already I was being shown things, astonishing things--mysteries and 
marvels beyond anything I had ever suspected. And suddenly all my feelings, as I 
gazed through the spectacles, were proof of that garbled pronouncement. They 
were feelings of a peculiar nature which, to my knowledge, one experiences only 
in dreams: sensations of infinite expansiveness and ineffable meaning that have 
no place elsewhere in our lives. But although these monstrous, astronomical 
emotions suggested wonders of incredible magnitude and character, I saw nothing 
through those magic lenses except this: the obscure shape in the shadows before 
me as its outline grew clearer and clearer to my eyes. Gradually I came to view 
what appeared to be a mutilated carcass, something of a terrible rawness, a torn 
and flayed thing whose every laceration could be traced in crystalline 
sharpness. The only thing of color in my grayish surroundings, it twitched and 
quivered like a gory heart exposed beneath the body of the dream. And it made a 
sound like hellish giggling. Then it said: "I am back from my trip," in a 
horrible, piercing voice.
It was this simple statement that inspired my efforts to tear the spectacles 
from my face, even though they now seemed to be part of my flesh. I gripped them 
with both hands and flung them against the wall, where they shattered. Somehow 
this served to exorcise my tormented companion, who faded back into the 
grayness. Then I looked at the wall and saw that it was running red where the 
spectacles had struck. And the broken lenses that lay upon the floor were 
bleeding.
To experience such a dream as this on a single occasion might very well be the 
stuff of a haunting, lifelong memory, something that perhaps might even be 
cherished for its unfathomable depths of feeling. But to suffer over and over 
this same nightmare, as I soon found was my fate, leads one to seek nothing so 
much as a cure to kill
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the dream, to reveal all its secrets and thus bring about a selective amnesia.
At first I looked to the sheltering shadows of my home for deliverance and 
forgetfulness, the sobering shadows which at other times had granted me a cold 
and stagnant peace. I tried to argue myself free of my nightly excursions, to 
discourse these visions away, lecturing the walls contra the prodigies of a 
mysterious world. "Since any form of existence," I muttered, "since any form of 
existence is by definition a conflict of forces, or it is nothing at all, what 
can it possibly matter if these skirmishes take place in a world of marvels or 
one of mud? The difference between the two is not worth mentioning, or none. 
Such distinctions are the work of only the crudest and most limited 
perspectives, the sense of mystery and wonder foremost among them. Even the most 
esoteric ecstasy, when it comes down to it, requires the prop of vulgar pain in 
order to stand up as an experience. Having acknowledged the truth, however 
provisional, and the reality, if subject to mutation, of all the strange things 
in the universe--whether known, unknown, or merely suspected--one is left with 
no recourse than to conclude that none of them makes any difference, that such 
marvels change nothing: our experience remains the same. The gallery of human 
sensations that existed in prehistory is identical to the one that faces each 
life today, that will continue to face each new life as it enters this world... 
and then looks beyond it."
And thus I attempted to reason my way back to self-possession. But no measure of 
my former serenity was forthcoming. On the contrary, my days as well as my 
nights were now poisoned by an obsession with Plomb. Why had I given him those 
spectacles! More to the point, why did I allow him to retain them? It was time 
to take back my gift, to confiscate those little bits of glass and twisted metal 
that were now harrowing the wrong mind. And since I had succeeded too well in 
keeping him away from my door, I would have to be the one to approach his.
But it was not Plomb who answered the rotting door of that house which stood at 
the street's end and beside a broad expanse of empty field. It was not Plomb who 
asked if I was a newspaper journalist or
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a policeman before closing that gouged and filthy door in my face when I replied 
that I was neither of those persons. Pounding on that wobbling door, which 
seemed about to crumble under my fist, I summoned the sunken-eyed man a second 
time to ask if this in fact was Mr. Plomb's address. I had never visited him at 
his home, that hopeless little box in which he lived and slept and dreamed.
"Was he a relative?"
"No," I answered.
"A friend. You're not here to collect a bill, because if that's the case ..."
For the sake of simplicity I interjected that, yes, I was a friend of Mr. Plomb.
"Then how is it you don't know?"
For the sake of my curiosity I said that I had been away on a trip, as I often 
was, and had my own reasons for notifying Mr. Plomb of my return.
"Then you don't know anything," he stated flatly.
"Exactly," I replied.
"It was even in the newspaper. And they asked me about him."
"Plomb," I confirmed.
"That's right," he said, as if he had suddenly become the custodian of a secret 
knowledge.
Then he waved me into the house and led me through its ugly, airless interior to 
a small storage room at the back. He reached along the wall inside the room, as 
if he wanted to avoid entering it, and switched on the light. Immediately I 
understood why the hollowfaced man preferred not to go into that room, for Plomb 
had renovated that tiny space in a very strange way. Each wall, as well as the 
ceiling and floor, was a mosaic of mirrors, a shocking galaxy of redundant 
reflections. And each mirror was splattered with sinister droplets, as if 
someone had swung several brushfuls of paint from various points throughout the 
room, spreading dark stars across a silvery firmament. In his attempt to exhaust 
or exaggerate the visions to which he had apparently become enslaved, Plomb had 
done nothing less than multiplied these visions into infinity, creating oceans 
of his own blood and enabling himself to see with countless eyes. Entranced by 
such aspiration, I gazed at the mirrors in speechless wonder. Among them was one 
I remembered looking into some days--or was it weeks? --before.
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The landlord, who did not follow me into the room, said something about suicide 
and a body ripped raw. This news was of course unnecessary, even boring. But I 
was overwhelmed at Plomb's ingenuity: it was some time before I could look away 
from that gallery of glass and gore. Only afterward did I fully realize that I 
would never be rid of the horrible Plomb. He had broken through all the mirrors, 
projected himself into the eternity beyond them.
And even when I abandoned my home, with its hideous attic storeroom, Plomb still 
followed me in my dreams. He now travels with me to the ends of the earth, 
initiating me night after night into his unspeakable wonders. I can only hope 
that we will not meet in another place, one where the mysteries are always new 
and dreams never end. Oh, Plomb, will you not stay in that box where they have 
put your riven body?
124 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
The Strange Design of Master Rignolo
It was well into evening and for some time Nolon had been seated at a small 
table in a kind of park. This was a long, thin stretch of land-- vaguely 
triangular in shape, like a piece of broken glass--bordered by three streets of 
varying breadth, varying evenness of surface, and of varying stages of 
disintegration as each thoroughfare succumbed in its own way and in its own time 
to the subtle but continuous movements of the slumbering earth below. From the 
far end of the park a figure in a dark overcoat was approaching Nolon's table, 
and it appeared there was going to be a meeting of some sort.
There were other tables here and there, all of them unoccupied, but most of the 
park was unused ground covered with a plush, fuzzy kind of turf. In the 
moonlight this densely woven pile of vegetation turned a soft shade of 
aquamarine, almost radiant. Beyond the thinning trees, stars were bright but 
without luster, as if they were made of luminous paper. Around the park, a 
jagged line of high roofs, black and featureless, crossed the sky like the 
uneven teeth of an old saw.
Nolon was resting his hands at the edge of the small, nearly circular table. In 
the middle of the table a piece of candle flickered inside a misshapen bubble of 
green glass, and Nolon's face was bathed in a restless green glare. He too was 
wearing a dark overcoat, unbuttoned at the top to reveal a scarf of lighter 
shade stuffed inside it. The scarf was wrapped about Nolon's neck right to the 
base of his chin. Every so often Nolon glanced up, not to look at Grissul as he 
proceeded across the park, but to try and catch sight of something in that 
lighted window across the street: a silhouette which at irregular intervals 
slipped in and out of view. Above the window was a long, low roof surmounted by 
a board which appeared to be a sign or marquee.
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The lettering on this board was entirely unreadable, perhaps corroded by the 
elements or even deliberately effaced. But the image of two tall, thin bottles 
could still be seen, their slender necks angled festively this way and that.
Grissul sat down, facing Nolon at eye level.
"Have you been here long?" he asked.
Nolon calmly pulled out a watch from deep inside his coat. He stared at it for a 
few moments, tapped the glass once or twice, then gently pushed it back inside 
his coat.
"Someone must have known I was thinking about seeing you," Grissul continued, 
"because I've got a little story I could tell."
Nolon again glanced toward the lighted window across the street. Grissul noticed 
this and twisted his head around, saying, "Well, someone's there after all. Do 
you think tonight we could get, you know, a little service of some kind?"
"Maybe you could go over there yourself and see what our chances are," Nolon 
replied.
"All the same to me," Grissul insisted, twisting his head back to face Nolon. 
"I've still got my news."
"Is that specifically why this meeting is taking place?"
To this query Grissul returned a blank expression. "Not that I know of," he 
asserted. "As far as I'm concerned, we just met by chance."
"Of course," Nolon agreed, smiling a little. Grissul smiled back but with much 
less subtlety.
"So I was going to tell you," Grissul began, "that I was out in that field, the 
one behind those empty buildings at the edge of town where everything just 
slides away and goes off in all directions. And there's a marsh by there, makes 
the ground a little, I don't know, stringy or something. No trees, though, only 
a lot of wild grass, reeds, you know where I mean?"
"I now have a good idea," Nolon replied, a trifle bored or at least pretending 
to be.
"This was a little before dark that I was there. A little before the stars began 
to come out. I really wasn't planning to do anything, let me say that. I just 
walked some ways out onto the field, changed direction a few times, walked a 
ways more. Then I saw something through a blind of huge stalks of some kind, 
skinny as your finger but with these great spiky heads on top. And really very 
stiff, not bending at all, just
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sort of wobbling in the breeze. They might well have creaked, I don't know, when 
I pushed my way through to see beyond them. Then I knelt down to get a better 
look at what was there on the ground. I'm telling you, Mr. Nolon, it was right 
in the ground. It appeared to be a part of it, like--"
"Mr. Grissul, what appeared?"
Grissul remembered himself and found a tone of voice not so exhausting of his 
own strength, nor so wearing on his listener's patience.
"The face," he said, leaning back in his chair. "It was right there, about the 
size of, I don't know, a window or a picture hanging on a wall, except that it 
was in the ground and it was a big oval, not rectangular in any way. Just as if 
someone had partly buried a giant, or better yet, a giant's mask. Only the edges 
of the face seemed not so much buried as, well, woven I guess you would say, 
right into the ground. The eyes were closed, not shut closed--it didn't seem to 
be dead--but relaxed. The same with the lips, very heavy lips rubbing up against 
each other. Even complexion, ashy gray, and soft cheeks. They looked soft, I 
mean, because I didn't actually touch them in any way. I think it was asleep."
Nolon shifted slightly in his chair and looked straight into Grissul's eyes.
"Then come and see for yourself," Grissul insisted. "The moon's bright enough."
"That's not the problem. I'm perfectly willing to go along with you, whatever 
might be there. But for once I have other plans."
"Oh, other plans," repeated Grissul as if some deeply hidden secret had been 
revealed. "And what other plans would those be, Mr. Nolon?"
"Plans of relatively long standing and not altered since made, if you can 
conceive of such a thing these days. Are you listening? Oh, I thought you nodded 
off. Well, Rignolo, that mysterious little creature, has made a rare move. He's 
asked if I would like to have a look around his studio. No one's ever been there 
that I know of. And no one's actually seen what he paints."
"No one that you know of," added Grissul.
"Of course. Until tonight, that is, a little while from now unless a change of 
plans is necessary. Otherwise I shall be the first to see what all that talk of 
his is about. It should really be worth the trouble, and I could invite you to 
come along."
127 
Grissul's lower lip pushed forward a little. "Thank you, Mr. Nolon," he said, 
"but that's more in your line. I thought when I told you about my observation 
this evening--"
"Of course, your observation is very interesting, extraordinary, Mr. Grissul. 
But I think that that sort of thing can wait, don't you? Besides, I haven't told 
you anything of Rignolo's work"
"You can tell me."
"Landscapes, Mr. Grissul. Nothing but landscapes. Exclusively his subject, a 
point he even brags about."
"That's very interesting, too."
"I thought you would say something like that. And you might be even more 
interested if you had ever heard Rignolo discourse on his canvasses. But... 
well, you can see and hear for yourself. What do you say, then? First Rignolo's 
studio and then straight out to see if we can find that old field again?"
They agreed that these activities, in this sequence, would not be the worst way 
to fill an evening.
As they got up from the table, Nolon had a last look at the window across the 
street. The light that once brightened it must have been put out during his 
conversation with Grissul. So there was no way of knowing whether or not someone 
was now observing them. Buttoning their overcoats as far as their scarfed necks, 
the two men walked in silence across the park upon which countless stars stared 
down like the dead eyes of sculptured faces.
"Don't just walk stepping everywhere," Rignolo told his visitors as they all 
entered the studio. He was a little out of breath from the climb up the stairs, 
wheezing his words, quietly muttering to himself, "This place, oh, this place." 
There was hardly a patch of floor that was not in some way cluttered over, so he 
need not have warned Nolon, or even Grissul. Rignolo was of lesser stature than 
his guests, virtually a dwarf, and so moved with greater freedom through that 
cramped space. "You see," he said, "how this isn't really a room up here, just a 
little closet that tried to grow into one, bulging out every which way and 
making all these odd niches and alcoves surrounding us, this shapeless gallery 
of nooks. There's a window around here, I suppose, under some of these 
canvasses. But those are what you're here for, not to look out some window that 
who knows where it is. Nothing to see out there, even so."
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Rignolo then ushered his visitors through the shrunken maze composed of recesses 
of one sort or another, indicating to them a canvass here or there. Each somehow 
held itself to a wall or was leaning against one, as if with exhaustion. Having 
brought their attention to this or that picture, he would step a little to the 
side and allow them to admire his work, standing there like a polite but 
slightly bored curator of some seldom-visited museum, a pathetic figure attired 
in over-sized clothes of woven ... dust. His small ovoid face was as lifeless as 
a mask: his skin had the same faded complexion as his clothes and was just as 
slack, flabby; his lips were the same color as his skin but more full and taut; 
his hair shot out in tufts from his head, uncontrolled, weedy; and his eyes 
showed too much white, having to all appearances rolled up halfway into his 
forehead, as if they were trying to peek under it.
While Nolon was gazing at one of Rignolo's landscapes, Grissul seemed unable to 
shake off a preoccupation with the artist himself, though he was obviously 
making the effort. But the more he tried to turn his attention away from 
Rignolo, the more easily it was drawn back to the flabby skin, the faded 
complexion, the undisciplined shocks of hair. Finally, Grissul gave a little 
nudge to Nolon and began to whisper something. Nolon looked at Grissul in a way 
that might have said, "Yes, I know, but have some sense of decorum in any case," 
then resumed his contemplation of Rignolo's excellent landscapes.
They were all very similar to one another. Given such titles as "Glistening 
Marsh," "The Tract of Three Shadows," and "The Stars, the Hills" they were not 
intended to resemble as much as suggest the promised scenes. A vague hint of 
material forms might emerge here and there, some familiar effect of color or 
outline, but for the most part they could be described as extremely remote in 
their perspective on tangible reality. Grissul, who was no stranger to some of 
the locales purportedly depicted in these canvasses, could very well have 
expressed the objection that these conglomerations of fractured mass, these 
whirlpools of distorted light, simply did not achieve their purpose, did not in 
fact deserve connection with the geographical subjects from which they took 
their titles. Perhaps it was Rignolo's intuition that just such a protest might 
be forthcoming that inspired--in the rapid, frantic voice of a startled 
sleeper--the following outburst.
"Think anything you like about these scenes, it's all the same to
129 
me. Whisper to each other, my hearing is wonderfully bad. Say that my landscapes 
do not invite one's eyes to pass into them and wander, let alone linger for the 
briefest moment. Nevertheless, that is exactly their purpose, and as far as I am 
concerned they are quite adequate to it, meticulously efficient. I have spent 
extraordinary lengths of time within the borders of each canvass, both as maker 
and as casual inhabitant, until the borders no longer exist for me and neither 
does ... that other thing. Understand that when I say inhabitant, I do not in 
any way mean that I take my clumsy feet tromping up and down staircases of 
color, or that I stand this stunted body of mine upon some lofty ledge where I 
can play the master of all I see. There are no masters of these scenes and no 
seers, because bodies and their organs cannot function there--no place for them 
to go, nothing to survey with ordinary eyes, no thoughts to think for the mighty 
brain. And my thoroughfares will not take you from the doorstep of one weariness 
to the backdoor of another, and they cannot crumble, because they are burdened 
with nothing to convey--their travelers are already there, continuously arriving 
at infinite sites of the perpetually astonishing. Yet these sites are also a 
homeland, and nothing there will ever threaten to become strange. What I mean to 
say is that to inhabit my landscapes one must, in no figurative sense, grow into 
them. At best they are a paradise for sleepwalkers, but only those sleepwalkers 
who never rise to their feet, who forget their destination, and who may thus 
never reach that ultimate darkness beyond dreams, but may loiter in perpetuity 
in these lands of mine, which neighbor on nothingness and stand next door to 
endlessness. So you see, my critics, what we have in these little pictures is a 
living communion with the void, a vital annihilation and a thoroughly decorative 
eternity of--"
"All the same," Grissul interjected, "it does sound unpleasant."
"You're interfering," Nolon said under his breath.
"The old bag of wind," Grissul said under his.
"And just where do you see the unpleasantness? Where, show me. Nowhere, in my 
view. One cannot be unpleasant to one's self, one cannot be strange to oneself. 
I claim that all will be different when one is joined with the landscape. We 
need not go the way of doom when such a hideaway is so near at hand--a land of 
escape. For the initiated, each of those little swirls is a cove which one may 
enter into and become; each line--jagged or merely jittery--is a cartographer's 
shoreline which may be explored at all points at once; each crinkled
130 
wad of radiance is a star basking in its own light, and in yours. This, 
gentlemen, is a case of making the most of one's talent for pro-jection. There 
indeed exist actual locales on which my pictures are based, I admit that. But 
these places keep their distance from the spectator: whereas my new landscapes 
make you feel at home, those old ones put you off, hold you at arm's length, and 
in the end throw you right out of the picture. That's the way it is out 
there--everything looks at you with strange eyes. But you can get around this 
intolerable situation, jump the fence, so to speak, and trespass into a world 
where you belong for a change. If my landscapes look unfamiliar to you, it is 
only because everything looks different from the other side. All this will be 
understood much more clearly when you have seen my masterwork. Step this way, 
please."
Nolon and Grissul glanced blankly at each other and then followed the artist up 
to a narrow door. Opening the door with a tiny key, Rignolo ushered his guests 
inside. It was a tight squeeze through the doorway.
"Now this place really is a closet," Grissul whispered to Nolon. "I don't think 
I can turn around."
"Then we'll just have to walk out of here backwards, as if there were something 
wrong with that."
The door slammed closed and for a moment there was no place on earth darker than 
that little room.
"Watch the walls," Rignolo called through the door.
"Walls?" someone whispered.
The first images to appear in the darkness were those crinkled wads of radiance 
Rignolo spoke of, except these were much larger, more numerous, and became more 
radiant than the others bound within their cramped little canvasses. And they 
emerged on all sides of the spectator, above and below as well, so that an 
irresistible conviction was instilled that the tiny gravelike room had expanded 
into a starstrewn corridor of night, the certainty created that one was 
suspended in space without practical means of remaining there. Reaching out for 
the solid walls, crouching on the floor, only brought confusion rather than 
relief from the sense of impossibility. The irregular daubs of brightness grew 
into great silver blotches, each of them ragged at its rim and glowing wildly. 
Then they stopped growing in the blackness, attaining some predesigned 
composition, and another kind of growing began: thin filaments of bluish light 
started sprouting in the spaces
131 
between those bulbous thistles of brilliance, running everywhere like cracks up 
and down a wall. And these threadlike, hairlike tendrils eventually spread 
across the blackness in an erratic fury of propagation, until all was webbed and 
stringy in the universal landscape. Then the webbing began to fray and grow 
shaggy, cosmic moss hanging in luminous clumps, beards. But the scene was not 
muddled, no more so, that is, than the most natural marsh or fen-like field. 
Finally, enormous stalks shot out of nowhere, quickly crisscrossed to form 
interesting and well-balanced patterns, and suddenly froze. They were a strange 
shade of green and wore burry crowns of a pinkish color, like prickly brains.
The scene, it appeared, was now complete. All the actual effects were displayed: 
actual because the one further effect now being produced was most likely an 
illusion. For it seemed that deep within the shredded tapestry of webs and hairs 
and stalks, something else had been woven, something buried beneath the marshy 
morass but slowly rising to the surface.
"Is that a face?" someone said.
"I can begin to see one too," said the other, "but I don't know if I want to see 
it. I don't think I can feel where I am now. Let's try not to look at those 
faces."
A series of cries from within the little room finally induced Rignolo to open 
the door, which sent Nolon and Grissul tumbling backwards into the artist's 
studio. They lay among the debris on the floor for some time. Rignolo swiftly 
secured the door, and then stood absolutely still beside it, his upturned eyes 
taking no interest in his visitors' predicament. As they regained their feet, a 
few things were quickly settled in low voices.
"Mr. Nolon, I recognized the place that that room is supposed to be."
"I'm sure you did."
"And I'm also sure I know whose face it was that I saw tonight in that field."
"I think we should be going."
"What are you saying?" demanded Rignolo.
Nolon gestured toward a large clock high upon the wall and asked if that was the 
time.
"Always," replied Rignolo, "since I've never yet seen its hands move."
"Well, then, thank you for everything," said Nolon.
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"We have to be leaving," added Grissul.
"Just one moment," Rignolo shouted as they were making their way out. "I know 
where you're going now. Someone, I won't say who, told me what you found in that 
field. I've done it, haven't I? You can tell me all about it. No, it's not 
necessary. I've put myself into the scene at last. The abyss with a decor, the 
ultimate flight! In short-- survival in the very maw of oblivion. Oh, perhaps 
there's still some work to be done. But I've made agood start, haven't I? I've 
got my foot in the door, my face looking in the window. Little by little, then 
... forever. True? No, don't say anything. Show me where it is, I need to go 
there. I have a right to go."
Having no idea what sort of behavior a refusal might inspire in the maniacal 
Rignolo, not to mention possible reprisals from unknown parts, Nolon and Grissul 
respected the artist's request.
Into a scene which makes no sound, three figures arrive. Their silhouettes move 
with distinct, cautious steps across an open field, progressing slowly, almost 
without noticeable motion. Around them, crisscrossing shafts of tall grasses are 
entirely motionless, their pointed tips sharply outlined in the moonlight. Above 
them, the moon is round and bright; but its brightness is of a dull sort, like 
the flat whiteness that appears in the spaces of complex designs embellishing 
the page of a book.
The three figures, one of which is much shorter than the other two, have stopped 
and are standing completely still before a particularly dense clump of oddly 
shaped stalks. Now one of the taller figures has raised his arm and is pointing 
toward this clump of stalks, while the shorter figure has taken a step in the 
direction indicated. The two tall figures are standing together as the short one 
has all but disappeared into the dark, dense overgrowth. Only a single shoe, its 
toe angled groundward, remains visible. Then nothing at all.
The two remaining figures continue to stand in their places, making no gestures, 
their hands in the pockets of their long overcoats. They are staring into the 
blackness where the other one has disappeared. Around them, crisscrossing shafts 
of tall grasses; above them, the moon is round and bright.
Now the two figures have turned themselves away from the place where the other 
one disappeared. They are each slightly bent over and are holding their hands 
over their ears, as though to deafen themselves to something they could not 
bear. Then, slowly, almost without noticeable motion, they move out of the 
scene.
133 
The field is empty once again. And now everything awakes with movement and 
sound.
After their adventure, Nolon and Grissul returned to the same table in that 
place they had met earlier that evening. But where they had left a bare 
table-top behind them, not considering the candleflame within its unshapely 
green bubble, there were at the moment two shallow glasses set out, along with a 
tall, if somewhat thin bottle placed between them. They looked at the bottle, 
the glasses, and each other methodically, as if they did not want to rush into 
anything.
"Is there still, you know, someone in the window across the street?" Grissul 
asked.
"Do you think I should look?" Nolon asked back.
Grissul stared at the table, allowing moments to accumulate, then said, "I don't 
care, Mr. Nolon, I have to say that what happened tonight was very unpleasant."
"Something like that would have happened sooner or later," Nolon replied. "He 
was too much the dreamer, let's be honest. Nothing he said made any sense to 
speak of, and he was always saying more than he should. Who knows who heard 
what."
"I've never heard screaming like that."
"It's over," said Nolon quietly.
"But what could have happened to him?" asked Grissul, gripping the shallow glass 
before him, apparently without awareness of the move.
"Only he could know that for certain," answered Nolon, who mirrored Grissul's 
move and seemingly with the same absence of conscious intent.
"And why did he scream that way, why did he say it was all a trick, a mockery of 
his dreams, that 'filthy thing in the earth'? Why did he scream not to be 
'buried forever in that strange, horrible mask'?"
"Maybe he became confused," said Nolon. Nervously, he began pouring from the 
thin bottle into each of their glasses.
"And then he cried out for someone to kill him. But that's not what he wanted at 
all, just the opposite. He was afraid to you-know-what. So why would he--"
"Do I really have to explain it all, Mr. Grissul?"
134 
"I suppose not," Grissul said very softly, looking ashamed. "He was trying to 
get away, to get away with something."
"That's right," said Nolon just as softly, looking around. "Because he wanted to 
escape from here without having to you-know-what. How would that look?"
"Set an example."
"Exactly. Now let's just take advantage of the situation and drink our drinks 
before moving on."
"I'm not sure I want to," said Grissul.
"I'm not sure we have any say in the matter," replied Nolon.
"Yes, but--"
"Shhh. Tonight's our night."
Across the street a shadow fidgeted in the frame of a lighted window. An evening 
breeze moved through the little park, and the green glow of a candleflame 
flickered upon two silent faces.
135 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
The Shadow at the Bottom of the World
Before there occurred anything of a truly prodigious nature, the season had 
manifestly erupted with some feverish intent. This, at least, was how it 
appeared to us, whether we happened to live in town or somewhere outside its 
limits. (And travelling between town and countryside was Mr. Marble, who had 
been studying the seasonal signs far longer and in greater depth than we, 
disclosing prophecies that no one would credit at the time.) On the calendars 
which hung in so many of our homes, the monthly photograph illustrated the 
spirit of the numbered days below it: sheaves of cornstalks standing brownish 
and brittle in a newly harvested field, a narrow house and wide barn in the 
background, a sky of empty light above, and fiery leafage frolicking about the 
edges of the scene. But something dark, something abysmal always finds its way 
into the bland beauty of such pictures, something that usually holds itself in 
abeyance, some entwining presence that we always know is there. And it was 
exactly this presence that had gone into crisis, or perhaps had been secretly 
invoked by small shadowy voices calling out in the midst of our dreams. There 
came a bitter scent into the air, as of sweet wine turning to vinegar, and there 
was an hysteric brilliance flourished by the trees in town as well as those in 
the woods beyond, while along the roads between were the intemperate displays of 
thornapple, sumac, and towering sunflowers that nodded behind crooked roadside 
fences. Even the stars of chill nights seemed to grow delirious and take on the 
tints of an earthly inflammation. Finally, there was a moonlit field where a 
scarecrow had been left to watch over ground that had long been cleared yet 
would not turn cold.
Adjacent to the edge of town, the field allowed full view of itself from so many 
of our windows. It lay spacious beyond tilting 
136 
fenceposts and under a bright round moon, uncluttered save for the peaked 
silhouettes of corn shocks and a manlike shape that stood fixed in the nocturnal 
solitude. The head of the figure was slumped forward, as if a grotesque slumber 
had overtaken its straw-stuffed body, and the arms were slackly extended in a 
way that suggested some incredible gesture toward flight. For a moment it seemed 
to be an insistent wind which was flapping those patched-up overalls and 
fluttering the worn flannel of those shirt sleeves; and it would seem a forceful 
wind indeed which caused that stitched-up head to nod in its dreams. But nothing 
else joined in such movements: the withered leaves of the cornstalks were stiff 
and unstirring, the trees of the distant woods were in a lull against the clear 
night. Only one thing appeared to be living where the moonlight spread across 
that dead field. And there were some who claimed that the scarecrow actually 
raised its arms and its empty face to the sky, as though declaring itself to the 
heavens, while others thought that its legs kicked wildly, like those of a man 
who is hanged, and that they kept on kicking for the longest time before the 
thing collapsed and lay quiet. Many of us, we discovered, had been nudged from 
our beds that night, called as witnesses to this obscure spectacle. Afterward, 
the sight we had seen, whatever we believed its reason, would not rest within us 
but snatched at the edges of our sleep until morning.
And during the overcast hours of the following day we could not keep ourselves 
from visiting the place around which various rumors had hastily arisen. As 
pilgrims we wandered into that field, scrutinizing the debris of its harvest for 
augural signs, circling that scarecrow as if it were a great idol in shabby 
disguise, a sacred avatar out of season. But everything upon that land seemed 
unwilling to support our hunger for revelation, and our congregation was lost in 
fidgeting bemusement. (With the exception, of course, of Mr. Marble, whose eyes, 
we recall, were gleaming with illuminations he could not offer us in any words 
we would understand.) The sky had hidden itself behind a leaden vault of clouds, 
depriving us of the crucial element of pure sunlight which we needed to fully 
burn off the misty dreams of the past night. And a vine-twisted stone wall along 
the property line of the farm was the same shade as the sky, while the dormant 
vines themselves were as colorless as the stone they enmeshed like a strange 
network of dead veins. But this calculated grayness was merely an aspect of the 
scene, for the colors of the abundant woods along the
137 
margins of the landscape were undulled, as if those radiant leaves possessed 
some inner source of illumination or stood in contrast to some deeper shadow 
which they served to mask.
Such conditions no doubt impeded our efforts to come to terms with our fears 
about that particular field. Above all these manifestations, however, was the 
fact that the earth of those harvested acres, especially in the area surrounding 
the scarecrow, was unnaturally warm for the season. It seemed, in fact, that a 
late harvest was due. And some insisted that the odd droning noises that filled 
the air could not be blamed on the legions of local cicadas but indeed rose up 
from under the ground.
By the time of twilight, only a few stragglers remained in the field, among them 
the old farmer who owned this suddenly notorious acreage. We knew that he shared 
the same impulse as the rest of us when he stepped up to his scarecrow and began 
to tear the impostor to pieces. Others joined in the vandalism, pulling out 
handfuls of straw and stripping away the clothes until they had exposed what lay 
beneath them--the strange and unexpected sight.
For the skeleton of the thing should have been merely two crosswise planks. We 
verified this common fact with its maker, and he swore that no other materials 
had been used. Yet the shape that stood before us was of a wholly different 
nature. It was something black and twisted into the form of a man, something 
that seemed to have come up from the earth and grown over the wooden planks like 
a dark fungus, consuming the structure. There were now black legs that hung as 
if charred and withered; there was a head that sagged like a sack of ashes upon 
a meager body of blackness; and there were thin arms stretched out like knobby 
branches from a lightning-scorched tree. All of this was supported by a thick 
dark stalk which rose out of the earth and reached into the effigy like a hand 
into a puppet.
And even as that dull day was dimming into night, our vision was distracted by 
the profounder darkness of the thing which dangled so blackly in the dusk. Its 
composition appeared to be of the blackest earth, of earth that had gone 
stagnant somewhere in its depths, where a rich loam had festered into a bog of 
shadows. Soon we realized that each of us had fallen silent, entranced by a deep 
blackness which seemed to absorb our sight but which exposed nothing to scrutiny 
except an abyss in the outline of a man. Even when we ventured to lay our hands 
on that mass of darkness, we found only greater mysteries.
138 
For there was almost no tangible aspect to it, merely a hint of material 
sensation, barely the feel of wind or water. It seemed to possess no more 
substance than a few shifting flames, but flames of only the slightest warmth, 
black flames that have curled together to take on the molten texture of spoiled 
fruit. And there was a vague sense of circulation, as though a kind of 
serpentine life swirled gently within. But no one could stand to keep his hold 
upon it for long before stepping suddenly away.
"Damn the thing, it's not going to be rooted to my land," said the old farmer. 
Then he walked off toward the barn. And like the rest of us he was trying to rub 
something from the hand that had touched the shrivelled scarecrow, something 
that could not be seen.
He returned to us with an armory of axes, shovels, and other implements for 
uprooting what had grown upon his land, this eccentricity of the harvest. It 
would seem to have been a simple task: the ground was unusually soft all around 
the base of that black growth and its tenuous substance could hardly resist the 
wide blade of the farmer's ax. But when the old man swung and tried to split the 
thing like a piece of firewood, the blade would not cleave. The ax entered and 
was closed upon, as if sunk within a viscous mire. The farmer pulled at the 
handle and managed to dislodge the ax, but he immediately let it fall from his 
hands. "It was pulling back on me," he said in a low voice. "And you heard that 
sound." Indeed, the sound which had haunted the area all that day--like 
innumerable insects laughing--did seem to rise in pitch and intensity when the 
thing was struck.
Without a word, we began digging up the earth where that thick black stalk was 
buried. We dug fairly deep before the approaching darkness forced us to abandon 
our efforts. Yet no matter how far down we burrowed, it was not far enough to 
reach the bottom of that sprouting blackness. Furthermore, our attempts became 
hindered by a perverse reluctance, as in the instance of someone who is hesitant 
to have a diseased part of his own body cut away in order to keep the disease 
from spreading.
It was nearly pitch dark when we finally walked away from that field, for the 
clouds of that day had lingered to hide the moon. In the blackness our voices 
whispered various strategies, so that we might yet accomplish what we had 
thereto failed in doing. We whispered, although none of us would have said why 
he did so.
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The great shadow of a moonless night encompassed the landscape, preserving us 
from seeing the old farmer's field and what was tenanted there. And yet so many 
of the houses in town were in vigil throughout those dark hours. Soft lights 
shone through curtained windows along the length of each street, where our trim 
wooden homes seemed as small as dollhouses beneath the dark rustling depths of 
the season. Above the gathered roofs hovered the glass globes of streetlamps, 
like little moons set inside the dense leaves of elms and oaks and maples. Even 
in the night, the light shining through those leaves betrayed the festival of 
colors seething within them, blazing auras which had not faded with the passing 
days, a plague of colors that had already begun to infect our dreams. This 
prodigy had by then become connected in our minds with that field just outside 
of town and the strange growth which there had taken root.
Thus, a sense of urgency led us back to that place, where we found the old 
farmer waiting for us as the frigid aurora of dawn appeared above the distant 
woods. Our eyes scanned the frost-powdered earth and studied every space among 
shadows and corn shocks spread out over the land, searching for what was no 
longer present in the scene. "It's gone back," the farmer revealed to us. "Gone 
into the earth like something hiding in its shell. Don't walk there," he warned, 
pointing to the mouth of a wide pit.
We gathered about the edge of this opening in the ground, gazing into its 
depths. Even full daybreak did not show us the bottom of that dark well. Our 
speculations were brief and useless. Some of us picked up the shovels lying 
nearby, as if to begin the long duty of filling in the great aperture. "No use 
in that," said the farmer. He then found a large stone and dropped it straight 
down the shaft. We waited and waited; we put our heads close to the hole and 
listened. But all we seemed to hear were remote, droning echoes, as of countless 
voices of insects chattering unseen. Finally, we covered the hazardous pit with 
some boards and buried the makeshift enclosure under a mound of soft dirt. 
"Maybe there'll be some change in the spring," someone said. But the old farmer 
only chuckled. "You mean when the ground warms up? Why do you think those leaves 
aren't falling the way they should?"
It was not long after this troubling episode that our dreams, which formerly had 
been the merest shadows and glimpses, swelled into full phase. Yet they must not 
have been dreams entirely, but also 
140 
excavations into the season which had inspired them. In sleep we were consumed 
by the feverish life of the earth, cast among a ripe, fairly rotting world of 
strange growth and transformation. We took a place within a darkly flourishing 
landscape where even the air was ripened into ruddy hues and everything wore the 
wrinkled grimace of decay, the mottled complexion of old flesh. The face of the 
land itself was knotted with so many other faces, ones that were corrupted by 
vile impulses. Grotesque expressions were molding themselves into the darkish 
grooves of ancient bark and the whorls of withered leaf; pulpy, misshapen 
features peered out of damp furrows; and the crisp skin of stalks and dead seeds 
split into a multitude of crooked smiles. All was a freakish mask painted with 
russet, rashy colors--colors that bled with a virulent intensity, so rich and 
vibrant that things trembled with their own ripeness. But despite this gross 
palpability, there remained something spectral at the heart of these dreams. It 
moved in shadow, a presence that was in the world of solid forms but not of it. 
Nor did it belong to any other world that could be named, unless it was to that 
realm which is suggested to us by an autumn night when fields lay ragged in 
moonlight and some wild spirit has entered into things, a great aberration 
sprouting forth from a chasm of moist and fertile shadows, a hollow-eyed howling 
malignity rising to present itself to the cold emptiness of space and the pale 
gaze of the moon.
And it was to that moon we were forced to look for comfort when we awoke 
trembling in the night, overcome by the sense that another life was taking root 
within us, seeking its ultimate incarnation in the bodies we always dreamed were 
our own and inviting us into the depths of an extraordinary harvest. Certainly 
there was some relief when we began to discover, after many insecure hints and 
delvings, that the dreams were not a sickness restricted to solitary individuals 
or families but in fact were epidemic throughout the community. No longer were 
we required to disguise our uneasiness as we met on the streets under the 
luxuriant shadows of trees that would not cast off their gaudy foliage, the 
mocking plumage of a strange season. We had become a race of eccentrics and 
openly declared an array of curious whims and suspicions, at least while 
daylight allowed this audacity.
Honored among us was that one old fellow, well known for his oddities, who had 
anticipated our troubles weeks beforehand. As he wandered about town, wheeling 
the blade-sharpening grindstone by which he earned his living, Mr. Marble had 
spoken of what he could
141 
"read in the leaves", as if those fluttering scraps of lush color were the pages 
of a secret book in which he perused gold and crimson hieroglyphs. "Just look at 
them," he urged passersby, "bleeding their colors like that. They should be bled 
dry, but now they're ... making pictures. Something inside trying to show 
itself. They're as dead as rags now, look at them all limp and flapping. But 
something's still in there. Those pictures, do you see them?"
Yes, we saw them, though somewhat belatedly. And they were not seen only in the 
chromatic designs of those deathless leaves. They could show themselves 
anywhere, if always briefly. Upon a cellar wall there might appear an ill-formed 
visage among the damp and fractured stones, a hideous impersonation of a face 
infiltrating the dark corners of our homes. Other faces, leprous masks, would 
arise within the grain of panelled walls or wooden floors, spying for a moment 
before sinking back into the knotty shadows, withdrawing below the surface. And 
there were so many nameless patterns that might spread themselves across the 
boards of an old fence or the side of a shed, engravings all tangled and wizened 
like a subterranean craze of roots and tendrils, an underworld riot of branching 
convolutions, gnarled ornamentations. Yet these designs were not unfamiliar to 
us ... for in them we recognized the same outlines of autumnal decay that 
illuminated our dreams.
Like the old visionary who sharpened knives and axes and curving scythes, we too 
could now read the great book of countless colored leaves. But still he remained 
far in advance of what was happening deep within us all. For it was he who 
manifested certain idiosyncrasies of manner that would have later appeared in so 
many others, whether they lived in town or somewhere outside its limits. Of 
course, he had always set himself apart from us by his waywardness of speech, 
his willingness to utter pronouncements of dire or delightful curiosity. To a 
child he might say: "The sight of the night can fly like a kite," while someone 
older would be told: "Doesn't have arms, but it knows how to use them. Doesn't 
have a face, but it knows where to find one."
Nevertheless, he plied his trade with every efficiency, pedalling the mechanism 
that turned the grindstone, expertly honing each blade and taking his pay like 
any man of business. Then, we noticed, he seemed to become distracted in his 
work. In a dull trance he touched metal implements to his spinning wheel of 
stone, careless of
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the sparks that flew into his face. Yet there was also a wild luminousness in 
his eyes, as of a diamond-bright fever burning within him. Eventually we found 
ourselves unable to abide his company, though we now attributed this merely to 
some upsurge in his perennial strangeness rather than to a wholly unprecedented 
change in his behavior. It was not until he no longer appeared on the streets of 
town, or anywhere else, that we admitted our fears about him.
And these fears necessarily became linked to the other disruptions of that 
season, those extravagant omens which were gaining force all around us. The 
disappearance of Mr. Marble coincided with a new phenomenon, one that finally 
became apparent in the twilight of a certain day when all of the clustering and 
tenacious foliage seemed to exude a vague phosphorescence. By nightfall this 
prodigy was beyond skepticism. The multicolored leaves were softly glowing 
against the black sky, creating an untimely nocturnal rainbow which scattered 
its spectral tints everywhere and dyed the night with a harvest of hues: peach 
gold and pumpkin orange, honey yellow and winy amber, apple red and plum violet. 
Luminous within their leafy shapes, the colors cast themselves across the 
darkness and were splattered upon our streets and our fields and our faces. 
Everything was resplendent with the pyrotechnics of a new autumn.
That night we kept to our houses and watched at our windows. It was no marvel, 
then, that so many of us saw the one who wandered that iridescent eve, who 
joined in its outbursts and celebrations. Possessed by the ecstasies of a dark 
festival, he moved in a trance, bearing in his hand that great ceremonial knife 
whose keen edge flashed a thousand glittering dreams. He was seen standing alone 
beneath trees whose colors shined upon him, staining his face and his tattered 
clothes. He was seen standing alone in the yards of our houses, a rigid 
scarecrow concocted from a patchwork of colors and shadows. He was seen stalking 
slow and rhythmically beside high wooden fences that were now painted with a 
quivering colored glow. Finally, he was seen at a certain intersection of 
streets at the center of town; but now, as we saw, he was no longer alone.
Confronting him in the open night were two figures whom none of us knew: a young 
woman and, held tightly by her side, a small boy. We were not unaccustomed to 
strangers walking the streets of our town, or even stopping by one of the 
surrounding farms--people who were passing through, some momentarily lost. And 
it was not too late
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in the evening for some travellers to appear, not really late at all. But they 
should not have been there, those two. Not on that night. Now they stood 
transfixed before a creature of whom they could have no conception, a thing that 
squeezed the knife in its hand the way the woman was now squeezing the small 
boy. We might have taken action but did not; we might have made an effort to 
help them. But the truth is that we wanted something to happen to them--we 
wanted to see them silenced. Such was our desire. Only then would we be sure 
that they could not tell what they knew. Our fear was not what those intruders 
might have learned about the trees that glowed so unnaturally in the night; or 
about the chittering noises that now began rising to a pitch of vicious 
laughter; or even about the farmer's field where a mound of dirt covered a 
bottomless hole. Our fear was what they might have known, what they must 
certainly have discovered, about us. And we lost all hope when we saw the 
quaking hand that could not raise the knife, the tortured face that could only 
stare while those two terrible victims--the rightful sacrifice!--ran off to 
safety, never to be seen by us again. After that we turned back to our houses, 
which now reeked of moldering shadows, and succumbed to a dreamless sleep.
Yet at daybreak it became evident that something had indeed happened during the 
night. The air was silent, everywhere the earth was cold. And the trees now 
stood bare of leaves, all of which lay dark and withered upon the ground, as if 
their strangely deferred dying had finally overtaken them in a sudden rage of 
mortification. Nor was it long before Mr. Marble was discovered by an old 
farmer.
The corpse reposed in a field, stretched face-down across a mound of dirt and 
alongside the remains of a dismantled scarecrow. When we turned over the body we 
saw that its staring eyes were as dull as that ashen autumn morning. We also saw 
that its left arm had been slashed by the knife held in its right hand.
Blood had flowed over the earth and blackened the flesh of the suicide. But 
those of us who handled that limp, nearly weightless body, dipping our fingers 
into the dark wound, found nothing at all that had the feeling of blood. We knew 
very well, of course, what that shadowy blackness did feel like; we knew what 
had found its way into the man before us, dragging him down into its savage 
world. His dreams had always reached much deeper than ours. So we buried him 
deep in a bottomless grave.
144 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
Nethescurial
The Idol and the Island
I have uncovered a rather wonderful manuscript, the letter began. It was an 
entirely fortuitous find, made during my day's dreary labors among some of the 
older and more decomposed remains entombed in the library archives. If I am any 
judge of antique documents, and of course I am, these brittle pages date back to 
the closing decades of the last century. (A more precise estimate of age will 
follow, along with a photocopy which I fear will not do justice to the delicate, 
crinkly script, nor to the greenish black discoloration the ink has taken on 
over the years.) Unfortunately there is no indication of authorship either 
within the manuscript itself or in the numerous and tedious papers whose company 
it has been keeping, none of which seem related to the item under discussion. 
And what an item it is--a real storybook stranger in a crowd of documentary 
types, and probably destined to remain unknown.
I am almost certain that this invention, though at times it seems to pose as a 
letter or journal entry, has never appeared in common print. Given the bizarre 
nature of its content, I would surely have known of it before now. Although it 
is an untitled "statement" of sorts, the opening lines were more than enough to 
cause me to put everything else aside and seclude myself in a corner of the 
library stacks for the rest of the afternoon.
So it begins: "In the rooms of houses and beyond their walls-- beneath dark 
waters and across moonlit skies--below earth mound and above mountain peak--in 
northern leaf and southern flower--inside each star and the voids between 
them--within blood and bone, through all souls and spirits--among the watchful 
winds of this and the several
145 
worlds--behind the faces of the living and the dead ..." And there it trails 
off, a quoted fragment of some more ancient text. But this is certainly not the 
last we will hear of this all-encompassing refrain!
As it happens, the above string of phrases is cited by the narrator in reference 
to a certain presence, more properly an omnipresence, which he encounters on an 
obscure island located at some unspecified northern latitude. Briefly, he has 
been summoned to this island, which appears on a local map under the name of 
Nethescurial, in order to rendezvous with another man, an archaeologist who is 
designated only as Dr. N-- and who will come to know the narrator of the 
manuscript by the self-admitted alias of "Bartholomew Gray" (they don't call 'em 
like that anymore). Dr. N--, it seems, has been occupying himself upon that 
barren, remote, and otherwise uninhabited isle with some peculiar antiquarian 
rummagings. As Mr. Gray sails toward the island he observes the murky skies 
above him and the murky waters below. His prose style is somewhat plain for my 
taste, but it serves well enough once he approaches the island and takes 
surprisingly scrupulous notice of its eerie aspect: contorted rock formations; 
pointed pines and spruces of gigantic stature and uncanny movements; the 
masklike countenance of sea-facing cliffs; and a sickly, stagnant fog clinging 
to the landscape like a fungus.
From the moment Mr. Gray begins describing the island, a sudden enchantment 
enters into his account. It is that sinister enchantment which derives from a 
profound evil that is kept at just the right distance from us so that we may 
experience both our love and our fear of it in one sweeping sensation. Too close 
and we may be reminded of an omnipresent evil in the living world, and 
threatened with having our sleeping sense of doom awakened into full vigor. Too 
far away and we become even more incurious and complacent than is our usual 
state, and ultimately exasperated when an imaginary evil is so poorly evoked 
that it fails to offer the faintest echo of its real and all-pervasive 
counterpart. Of course, any number of locales may serve as the setting to reveal 
ominous truths; evil, beloved and menacing evil, may show itself anywhere 
precisely because it is everywhere and is as stunningly set off by a foil of 
sunshine and flowers as it is by darkness and dead leaves. A purely private 
quirk, nevertheless, sometimes allows the purest essence of life's malignity to 
be aroused only by sites such as the lonely island of Nethescurial, where the 
real and the unreal swirl freely and madly about in the same fog.
146 
It seems that in this place, this far-flung realm, Dr. N-- has discovered an 
ancient and long-sought artifact, a marginal but astonishing entry in that 
unspeakably voluminous journal of creation. Soon after landfall, Mr. Gray finds 
himself verifying the truth of the archaeologist's claims: that the island has 
been strangely molded in all its parts, and within its shores every 
manifestation of plant or mineral or anything whatever appears to have fallen at 
the mercy of some shaping force of demonic temperament, a genius loci which has 
sculpted its nightmares out of the atoms of the local earth. Closer inspection 
of this insular spot on the map serves to deepen the sense of evil and 
enchantment that had been lightly sketched earlier in the manuscript. But I 
refrain from further quotation (it is getting late and I want to wrap up this 
letter before bedtime) in order to cut straight through the epidermis of this 
tale and penetrate to its very bones and viscera. Indeed, the manuscript does 
seem to have an anatomy of its own, its dark green holography rippling over it 
like veins, and I regret that my paraphrase may not deliver it alive. Enough!
Mr. Gray makes his way inland, lugging along with him a fat little travelling 
bag. In a clearing he comes upon a large but unadorned, almost primitive house 
which stands against the fantastic backdrop of the island's wartlike hills and 
tumorous trees. The outside of the house is encrusted with the motley and 
leprous stones so abundant in the surrounding landscape. The inside of the 
house, which the visitor sees upon opening the unlocked door, is spacious as a 
cathedral but far less ornamented. The walls are white and smoothly surfaced; 
they also seem to taper inward, pyramid-like, as they rise from floor to lofty 
ceiling. There are no windows, and numerous oil lamps scattered about fill the 
interior of the house with a sacral glow. A figure descends a long staircase, 
crosses the great distance of the room, and solemnly greets his guest. At first 
wary of each other, they eventually achieve a degree of mutual ease and finally 
get down to their true business.
Thus far one can see that the drama enacted is a familiar one: the stage is 
rigidly traditional and the performers upon it are caught up in its style. For 
these actors are not so much people as they are puppets from the old shows, the 
ones that have told the same story for centuries, the ones that can still be 
very strange to us. Traipsing through the same old foggy scene, seeking the same 
old isolated house, the puppets in these plays always find everything new and
147 
unknown, because they have no memories to speak of and can hardly recall making 
these stilted motions countless times in the past. They struggle through the 
same gestures, repeat the same lines, although in rare moments they may feel a 
dim suspicion that this has all happened before. How like they are to the human 
race itself! This is what makes them our perfect representatives--this and the 
fact that they are handcarved in the image of maniacal victims who seek to share 
the secrets of their individual torments as their strings are manipulated by the 
same master.
The secrets which these two Punchinellos share are rather deviously presented by 
the author of this confession (for upon consideration this is the genre to which 
it truly belongs). Indeed, Mr. Gray, or whatever his name might be, appears to 
know much more than he is telling, especially with respect to his colleague the 
archaeologist. Nevertheless, he records what Dr. N--knows and, more importantly, 
what this avid excavator has found buried on the island. The thing is only a 
fragment of an object dating from antiquity. Known to be part of a religious 
idol, it is difficult to say which part. It is a twisted piece of a puzzle, one 
suggesting that the figure as a whole is intensely unbeautiful. The fragment is 
also darkened with the verdigris of centuries, causing its substance to resemble 
something like decomposing jade.
And were the other pieces of this idol also to be found on the same island? The 
answer is no. The idol seems to have been shattered ages ago, and each broken 
part of it buried in some remote place so that the whole of it might not easily 
be joined together again. Although it was a mere representation, the effigy 
itself was the focus of a great power. The ancient sect which was formed to 
worship this power seem to have been pantheists of a sort, believing that all 
created things-- appearances to the contrary--are of a single, unified, and 
transcendent stuff, an emanation of a central creative force. Hence the ritual 
chant which runs "in the rooms of houses", et cetera, and alludes to the 
all-present nature of this deity--a most primal and pervasive type of god, one 
that falls into the category of "gods who eclipse all others", territorialist 
divinities whose claim to the creation purportedly supersedes that of their 
rivals. (The words of the famous chant, by the way, are the only ones to come 
down to us from the ancient cult and appeared for the first time in an 
ethnographical, quasi-esoteric work entitled Illuminations of the Ancient World, 
which was published in the
148 
latter part of the nineteenth century, around the same time, I would guess, as 
this manuscript I am rushing to summarize was written.) At some point in their 
career as worshipants of the "Great One God", a shadow fell upon the sect. It 
appears that one day it was revealed to them, in a manner both obscure and 
hideous, that the power to which they bowed was essentially evil in character 
and that their religious mode of pantheism was in truth a kind of pandemonism. 
But this revelation was not a surprise to all of the sectarians, since there 
seems to have been an internecine struggle which ended in slaughter. In any 
case, the anti-demonists prevailed, and they immediately rechristened their 
ex-deity to reflect its newly discovered essence in evil. And the name by which 
they henceforth called it was Nethescurial.
A nice turn of affairs: this obscure island openly advertizes itself as the home 
of the idol of Nethescurial. Of course, this island is only one of several to 
which the pieces of the vandalized totem were scattered. The original members of 
the sect who had treacherously turned against their god knew that the power 
concentrated in the effigy could not be destroyed, and so they decided to parcel 
it out to isolated corners of the earth where it could do the least harm. But 
would they have brought attention to this fact by allowing these widely 
disseminated burial plots to bear the name of the pandemoniacal god? This is 
doubtful, just as it is equally unlikely that it was they who built those crude 
houses, temples of a fashion, to mark the spot where a particular shard of the 
old idol might be located by others.
So Dr. N-- is forced to postulate a survival of the demonist faction of the 
sect, a cult that had devoted itself to searching out those places which had 
been transformed by the presence of the idol and might thus be known by their 
gruesome features. This quest would require a great deal of time and effort for 
its completion, given the global reaches where those splinters of evil might be 
tucked away. Known as the "seeking", it also involved the enlistment of 
outsiders, who in latter days were often researchers into the ways of bygone 
cultures, though they remained ignorant that the cause they served was still a 
living one. Dr. N-- therefore warns his "colleague, Mr. Gray", that they may be 
in danger from those who carried on the effort to reassemble the idol and revive 
its power. The very presence of that great and crude house on the island 
certainly proved that the cult was already aware of the location of this 
fragment of the idol. In fact, the mysterious Mr. Gray, not unexpectedly, is 
actually a member of the
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cult in its modern incarnation; furthermore, he has brought with him to the 
island--bulky travelling bag, you know--all the other pieces of the idol, which 
have been recovered through centuries of seeking. Now he only needs the one 
piece discovered by Dr. N-- to make the idol whole again for the first time in a 
couple millenia.
But he also needs the archaeologist himself as a kind of sacrifice to 
Nethescurial, a ceremony which takes place later the same night in the upper 
part of the house. If I may telescope the ending for brevity's sake, the 
sacrificial ritual holds some horrific surprises for Mr. Gray (these people seem 
never to realize what they are getting themselves into), who soon repents of his 
evil practices and is driven to smash the idol to pieces once more. Making his 
escape from that weird island, he throws these pieces overboard, sowing the cold 
gray waters with the scraps of an incredible power. Later, fearing an obscure 
threat to his existence (perhaps the reprisal of his fellow cultists), he 
composes an account of a horror which is both his own and that of the whole 
human race.
End of manuscript.
Now, despite my penchant for such wild yarns as I have just attempted to 
describe, I am not oblivious to their shortcomings. For one thing, whatever 
emotional impact the narrative may have lost in the foregoing precis, it 
certainly gained in coherence: the incidents in the manuscript are clumsily 
developed, important details lack proper emphasis, impossible things are thrown 
at the reader without any real effort at persuasion of their veracity. I do 
admire the fantastic principle at the core of this piece. The nature of that 
pandemoniac entity is very intriguing. Imagine all of creation as a mere mask 
for the foulest evil, an absolute evil whose reality is mitigated only by our 
blindness to it, an evil at the heart of things, existing "inside each star and 
the voids between them--within blood and bone--through all souls and spirits", 
and so forth. There is even a reference in the manuscript that suggests an 
analogy between Nethescurial and that beautiful myth of the Australian 
aborigines known as the Alchera (the Dreamtime, or Dreaming), a super-reality 
which is the source of all we see in the world around us. (And this reference 
will be useful in dating
Except for the concluding lines, which reveal the somewhat extravagant, but not 
entirely uninteresting, conclusion of the narrator himself.
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the manuscript, since it was toward the end of the last century that Australian 
anthropologists made the aboriginal cosmology known to the general public.) 
Imagine the universe as the dream, the feverish nightmare of a demonic demiurge. 
O Supreme Nethescurial!
The problem is that such supernatural inventions are indeed quite difficult to 
imagine. So often they fail to materialize in the mind, to take on a mental 
texture, and thus remain unfelt as anything but an abstract monster of 
metaphysics--an elegant or awkward schematic that cannot rise from the paper to 
touch us. Of course, we do need to keep a certain distance from such specters as 
Nethescurial, but this is usually provided by the medium of words as such, which 
ensnare all kinds of fantastic creatures before they can tear us body and soul. 
(And yet the words of this particular manuscript seem rather weak in this 
regard, possibly because they are only the drab green scratchings of a human 
hand and not the heavy mesh of black type.) But we do want to get close enough 
to feel the foul breath of these beasts, or to see them as prehistoric 
leviathans circling about the tiny island on which we have taken refuge. Even if 
we are incapable of a sincere belief in ancient cults and their unheard of 
idols, even if these pseudonymous adventurers and archaeologists appear to be 
mere shadows on a wall, and even if strange houses on remote islands are of 
shaky construction, there may still be a power in these things that threatens us 
like a bad dream. And this power emanates not so much from within the tale as it 
does from somewhere behind it, someplace of infinite darkness and ubiquitous 
evil in which we may walk unaware.
But never mind these night thoughts; it's only to bed that I will walk after 
closing this letter.
Postscript
Later the same night.
Several hours have passed since I set down the above description and analysis of 
that manuscript. How naive those words of mine now sound to me. And yet they are 
still true enough, from a certain perspective. But that perspective was a 
privileged one which, at least for the moment, I do not enjoy. The distance 
between me and a devastating evil has lessened considerably. I no longer find it 
so difficult to imagine the horrors delineated in that manuscript, for I
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have known them in the most intimate way. What a fool I seem to myself for 
playing with such visions. How easily a simple dream can destroy one's sense of 
safety, if only for a few turbulent hours. Certainly I have experienced all this 
before, but never as acutely as tonight.
I had not been asleep for long but apparently long enough. At the start of the 
dream I was sitting at a desk in a very dark room. It also seemed to me that the 
room was very large, though I could see little of it beyond the area of the 
desktop, at either end of which glowed a lamp of some kind. Spread out before me 
were many papers varying in size. These I knew to be maps of one sort or 
another, and I was studying them each in turn. I had become quite absorbed in 
these maps, which now dominated the dream to the exclusion of all other images. 
Each of them focused on some concatenation of islands without reference to 
larger, more familiar land masses. A powerful impression of remoteness and 
seclusion was conveyed by these irregular daubs of earth fixed in bodies of 
water that were unnamed. But although the location of the islands was not 
specific, somehow I was sure that those for whom the maps were meant already had 
this knowledge. Nevertheless, this secrecy was only superficial, for no esoteric 
key was required to seek out the greater geography of which these maps were an 
exaggerated detail: they were all distinguished by some known language in which 
the islands were named, different languages for different maps. Yet upon closer 
view (indeed, I felt as if I were actually journeying among those exotic 
fragments of land, tiny pieces of shattered mystery), I saw that every map had 
one thing in common: within each group of islands, whatever language was used to 
name them, there was always one called Nethescurial. It was as if all over the 
world this terrible name had been insinuated into diverse locales as the only 
one suitable for a certain island. Of course there were variant cognate forms 
and spellings, sometimes transliterations, of the word. (How precisely I saw 
them!) Still, with the strange conviction that may overcome a dreamer, I knew 
these places had all been claimed in the name of Nethescurial and that they bore 
the unique sign of something which had been buried there--the pieces of that 
dismembered idol.
And with this thought, the dream reshaped itself. The maps dissolved into a kind 
of mist; the desk before me became something else, an altar of coarse stone, and 
the two lamps upon it flared up to
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reveal a strange object now positioned between them. So many visions in the 
dream were piercingly clear, but this dark object was not. My impression was 
that it was conglomerate in form, suggesting a monstrous whole. At the same time 
these outlines which alluded to both man and beast, flower and insect, reptiles, 
stones, and countless things I could not even name, all seemed to be changing, 
mingling in a thousand ways that prevented any sensible image of the idol.
With the upsurge in illumination offered by the lamps, I could see that the room 
was truly of unusual dimensions. The four enormous walls slanted toward one 
another and joined at a point high above the floor, giving the space around me 
the shape of a perfect pyramid. But I now saw things from an oddly remote 
perspective: the altar with its idol stood in the middle of the room and I was 
some distance away, or perhaps not even in the scene. Then, from some dark 
corner or secret door, there emerged a file of figures walking slowly toward the 
altar and finally congregating in a half-circle before it. I could see that they 
were all quite skeletal in shape, for they were identically dressed in a black 
material which clung tightly to their bodies and made them look like skinny 
shadows. They seemed to be actually bound in blackness from head to foot, with 
only their faces exposed. But they were not, in fact, faces--they were pale, 
expressionless, and identical masks. The masks were without openings and 
bestowed upon their wearers a terrible anonymity, an ancient anonymity. Behind 
these smooth and barely contoured faces were spirits beyond all hope or 
consolation except in the evil to which they would willingly abandon themselves. 
Yet this abandonment was a highly selective process, a ceremony of the chosen.
One of the white-faced shadows stepped forward from the group, seemingly drawn 
forth into the proximity of the idol. The figure stood motionless, while from 
within its dark body something began to drift out like luminous smoke. It 
floated, swirling gently, toward the idol and there was absorbed. And I 
knew--for was this not my own dream?--that the idol and its sacrifice were 
becoming one within each other. This spectacle continued until nothing of the 
glowing, ectoplasmic haze remained to be extracted, and the figure--now shrunken 
to the size of a marionette--collapsed. But soon it was being lifted, rather 
tenderly, by another from the group who placed the dwarfish form upon the altar 
and, taking up a knife, carved deep into the body, making no sound. Then 
something oozed upon the altar,
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something thick and oily and strangely colored, darkly colored though not with 
any of the shades of blood. Although the strangeness of this color was more an 
idea than a matter of vision, it began to fill the dream and to determine the 
final stage of its development.
Quite abruptly, that closed, cavernous room dissolved into an open stretch of 
land: open yet also cluttered with a bric-a-brac topography whose crazed shapes 
were all of that single and sinister color. The ground was as if covered with an 
ancient, darkened mold and the things rising up from it were the same. 
Surrounding me was a landscape that might once have been of stone and earth and 
trees (such was my impression) but had been transformed entirely into something 
like petrified slime. I gazed upon it spreading before me, twisting in the way 
of wrought iron tracery or great overgrown gardens of writhing coral, an 
intricate latticework of hardened mulch whose surface was overrun with a chaos 
of little carvings, scabby designs that suggested a world of demonic faces and 
forms. And it was all composed in that color which somehow makes me think of 
rotted lichen. But before I exited in panic from my dream, there was one further 
occurrence of this color: the inkish waters washing upon the shores of the 
island around me.
As I wrote a few pages ago, I have been awake for some hours now. What I did not 
mention was the state in which I found myself after waking. Throughout the 
dream, and particularly in those last moments when I positively identified that 
foul place, there was an unseen presence, something I could feel was circulating 
within all things and unifying them in an infinitely extensive body of evil. I 
suppose it is nothing unusual that I continued to be under this visionary spell 
even after I left my bed. I tried to invoke the gods of the ordinary world-- 
calling them with the whistle of a coffee pot and praying before their icon of 
the electric light--but they were too weak to deliver me from that other whose 
name I can no longer bring myself to write. It seemed to be in possession of my 
house, of every common object inside and the whole of the dark world outside. 
Yes--lurking among the watchful winds of this and the several worlds. Everything 
seemed to be a manifestation of this evil and to my eyes was taking on its 
aspect. I could feel it also emerging in myself, growing stronger behind this 
living face that I am afraid to confront in the mirror.
Nevertheless, these dream-induced illusions now seem to be abating, perhaps 
driven off by my writing about them. Like someone
154 
who has had too much to drink the night before and swears off liquor for life, I 
have forsworn any further indulgence in weird reading matter. No doubt this is 
only a temporary vow, and soon enough my old habits will return. But certainly 
not before morning!
The Puppets in the Park
Some days later, and quite late at night.
Well, it seems this letter has mutated into a chronicle of my adventures 
Nethescurialian. See, I can now write that unique nomen with ease; furthermore, 
I feel almost no apprehension in stepping up to my mirror. Soon I may even be 
able to sleep in the way I once did, without visionary intrusions of any kind. 
No denying that my experiences of late have tipped the scales of the strange. I 
found myself just walking restlessly about--impossible to work, you know--and 
always carrying with me this heavy dread in my solar plexus, as if I had feasted 
at a banquet of fear and the meal would not digest. Most strange, since I have 
been loath to take nourishment during this time. How could I put anything into 
my mouth, when everything looked the way it did? Hard enough to touch a doorknob 
or a pair of shoes, even with the protection of the gloves. I could feel every 
damn thing squirming, not excluding my own flesh. And I could also see what was 
squirming beneath every surface, my vision penetrating through the usual armor 
of objects and discerning the same gushing stuff inside whatever I looked upon. 
It was that dark color from the dream, I could identify it clearly now. Dark and 
greenish. How could I possibly feed myself? How could I even bring myself to 
settle very long in one spot? So I kept on the move. And I tried not to look too 
closely at how everything, everything was crawling within itself and making all 
kinds of shapes inside there, making all kinds of faces at me. (Yet it was 
really all the same face, everything gorged with that same creeping stuff.) 
There were also sounds that I heard, voices speaking vague words, voices that 
came not from the mouths of the people I passed on the street but from the very 
bottom of their brains, garbled whisperings at first and then so clear, so 
eloquent.
This rising wave of chaos reached its culmination tonight and then came crashing 
down. But my timely maneuvering, I trust, has put everything right again.
Here, now, are the terminal events of this nightmare as they
155 
occurred. (And how I wish I were not speaking figuratively, that I was in fact 
only in the world of dreams or back in the pages of books and old manuscripts.) 
This conclusion had its beginning in the park, a place that is actually some 
distance from my home, so far had I wandered. It was already late at night, but 
I was still walking about, treading the narrow asphalt path that winds through 
that island of grass and trees in the middle of the city. (And somehow it seemed 
I had already walked in this same place on this same night, that this had all 
happened to me before.) The path was lit by globes of light balanced upon slim 
metal poles; another glowing orb was set in the great blackness above. Off the 
path the grass was darkened by shadows, and the trees swishing overhead were the 
same color of muddied green.
After walking some indefinite time along some indefinite route, I came upon a 
clearing where an audience had assembled for some late-night entertainment. 
Strings of colored lights had been hung around the perimeter of this area and 
rows of benches had been set up. The people seated on these benches were all 
watching a tall, illuminated booth. It was the kind of booth used for puppet 
shows, with wild designs painted across the lower part and a curtained opening 
at the top. The curtains were now drawn back and two clownish creatures were 
twisting about in a glary light which emanated from inside the booth. They 
leaned and squawked and awkwardly batted each other with soft paddles they were 
hugging in their soft little arms. Suddenly they froze at the height of their 
battle; slowly they turned about and faced the audience. It seemed the puppets 
were looking directly at the place I was standing behind the last row of 
benches. Their misshapen heads tilted, and their glassy eyes stared straight 
into mine.
Then I noticed that the others were doing the same: all of them had turned 
around on the benches and, with expressionless faces and dead puppet eyes, held 
me to the spot. Although their mouths did move, they were not silent. But the 
voices I heard were far more numerous than was the gathering before me. These 
were the voices I had been hearing as they chanted confused words in the depths 
of everyone's thoughts, fathoms below the level of their awareness. The words 
still sounded hushed and slow, monotonous phrases mingling like the sequences of 
a fugue. But now I could understand these words, even as more voices picked up 
the chant at different points and
156 
overlapped one another, saying, "In the rooms of houses ... across moonlit skies 
... through all souls and spirits... behind the faces of the living and the 
dead."
I find it impossible to say how long it was before I was able to move, before I 
backed up toward the path, all those multitudinous voices chanting everywhere 
around me and all those many-colored lights bobbing in the wind-blown trees. Yet 
it seemed only a single voice I heard, and a single color I saw, as I found my 
way home, stumbling through the greenish darkness of the night.
I knew what needed to be done. Gathering up some old boards from my basement, I 
piled them into the fireplace and opened the flue. As soon as they were burning 
brightly, I added one more thing to the fire: a manuscript whose ink was of a 
certain color. Blessed with a saving vision, I could now see whose signature was 
on that manuscript, whose hand had really written those pages and had been 
hiding in them for a hundred years. The author of that narrative had broken up 
the idol and drowned it in deep waters, but the stain of its ancient patina had 
stayed upon him. It had invaded the author's crabbed script of blackish green 
and survived there, waiting to crawl into another lost soul who failed to see 
what dark places he was wandering into. How I knew this to be true! And has this 
not been proved by the color of the smoke that rose from the burning manuscript, 
and keeps rising from it?
I am writing these words as I sit before the fireplace. But the flames have gone 
out and still the smoke from the charred paper hovers within the hearth, 
refusing to ascend the chimney and disperse itself into the night. Perhaps the 
chimney has become blocked. Yes, this must be the case, this must be true. Those 
other things are lies, illusions. That mold-colored smoke has not taken on the 
shape of the idol, the shape that cannot be seen steadily and whole but keeps 
turning out so many arms and heads, so many eyes, and then pulling them back in 
and bringing them out again in other configurations. That shape is not drawing 
something out of me and putting something else in its place, something that 
seems to be bleeding into the words as I write. And my pen is not growing bigger 
in my hand, nor is my hand growing smaller, smaller ...
See, there is no shape in the fireplace. The smoke is gone, gone up the chimney 
and out into the sky. And there is nothing in the sky, nothing I can see through 
the window. There is the moon, of course,
157 
high and round. But no shadow falls across the moon, no churning chaos of smoke 
that chokes the frail order of the earth, no shifting cloud of nightmares 
enveloping moons and suns and stars. It is not a squirming, creeping, smearing 
shape I see upon the moon, not the shape of a great deformed crab scuttling out 
of the black oceans of infinity and invading the island of the moon, crawling 
with its innumerable bodies upon all the spinning islands of inky space. That 
shape is not the cancerous totality of all creatures, not the oozing ichor that 
flows within all things. Nethescurial is not the secret name of the creation. It 
is not in the rooms of houses and beyond their walls ... beneath dark waters and 
across moonlit skies ... below earth mound and above mountain peak ... in 
northern leaf and southern flower ... inside each star and the voids between 
them ... within blood and bone, through all souls and spirits... among the 
watchful winds of this and the several worlds ... behind the faces of the living 
and the dead. I am not dying in a nightmare.
158 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
The Cocoons
Early one morning, hours before sunrise, I was awakened by Dr. Dublanc. He was 
standing at the foot of my bed, lightly tugging on the covers. For a moment I 
was convinced, in my quasi-somnolent state, that a small animal was prancing 
about on the mattress, performing some nocturnal ritual unknown to higher forms 
of life. Then I saw a gloved hand twitching in the glow of the streetlight 
outside my window. Finally I identified the silhouette, shaped by a hat and 
overcoat, of Dr. Dublanc.
I switched on the bedside lamp and sat up to face the well-known intruder. 
"What's wrong?" I asked as if in protest.
"My apologies," he said in a polite yet unapologetic tone. "There is someone I 
want you to meet. I think it might be beneficial for you."
"If that's what you say. But can't it wait? I haven't been sleeping well as it 
is. Better than anyone you should know that."
"Of course I know. I also know other things," he asserted, betraying his 
annoyance. "The gentleman I want to introduce to you will be leaving the country 
very soon, so there is a question of timing."
"All the same ..."
"Yes, I know--your nervous condition. Here, take these." Dr. Dublanc placed two 
egg-shaped pills in the palm of my hand. I put them to my lips and then 
swallowed a half-glass of water that was on the nightstand. I set down the empty 
glass next to my alarm clock, which emitted a soft grinding noise due to some 
unknown mutations of its internal mechanism. My eyes became fixed by the slow 
even movement of the second hand, but Dr. Dublanc, in a quietly urgent voice, 
brought me out of my trance.
"We should really be going. I have a taxi waiting outside."
159 
So I hurried, thinking that I would end up being charged for this excursion, cab 
fare and all.
Dr. Dublanc had left the taxi standing in the alley behind my apartment 
building. Its headlights beamed rather weakly in the blackness, scarcely guiding 
us as we approached the vehicle. Side by side, the doctor and I proceeded over 
uneven pavement and through blotched vapors emerging from the fumaroles of 
several sewer covers. But I could see the moon shining between the close 
rooftops, and I thought that it subtly shifted phases before my eyes, bloating a 
bit into fullness. The doctor caught me staring.
"It's not going haywire up there, if that's what is bothering you."
"But it seemed to be changing."
With a growl of exasperation, the doctor pulled me after him into the cab.
The driver appeared to have been stilled into a state of dormancy. Yet Dr. 
Dublanc was able to evoke a response when he called out an address to the hack, 
who turned his thin rodent face toward the back seat and glared briefly. For a 
time we sat in silence as the taxi proceeded through a monotonous passage of 
unpeopled avenues. At that hour the world on the other side of my window seemed 
to be no more than a mass of shadows wavering at a great distance. The doctor 
touched my arm and said, "Don't worry if the pills I gave you seem to have no 
immediate effect."
"I trust your judgement," I said, only to receive a doubtful glance from the 
doctor. In order to revive my credibility, I told him what was actually on my 
mind: the matter of who I would be meeting, and why.
"A former patient of mine," he answered bluntly, for it was apparent that at 
this point he was prepared to assume an open manner with me. "Not to say that 
some unfortunate aspects do not still exist in his case. For certain reasons I 
will be introducing him to you as 'Mr. Catch', though he's also a doctor of 
sorts--a brilliant scientist, in fact. But what I want you to see are just some 
films he has made in the course of his work. They are quite remarkable. Not to 
deny those unfortunate aspects I mentioned... yet very intriguing. And possibly 
beneficial--to you, I mean. Possibly most beneficial. And that's all I can say 
at the moment."
I nodded as if in comprehension of this disclosure. Then I noticed how far we 
had gone, almost to the opposite end of the city, if that was possible in what 
seemed a relatively short period of time. (I had
160 
forgotten to wear my watch, and this negligence somewhat aggravated my lack of 
orientation.) The district in which we were now travelling was of the lowest 
order, a landscape without pattern or substance, especially as I viewed it by 
moonlight.
There might be an open field heaped with debris, a devastated plain where bits 
of glass and scraps of metal glittered, though perhaps a solitary house remained 
in this wasteland, an empty skeletal structure scraped of its flesh. And then, 
turning a corner, one left behind this lunar spaciousness and entered a densely 
tangled nest of houses, the dwarfish and the great all tightly nestled together 
and all eaten away, disfigured. Even as I watched them through the taxi's 
windows they appeared to be carrying on their corruption, mutating in the dull 
light of the moon. Roofs and chimneys elongated toward the stars, dark bricks 
multiplied and bulged like tumors upon the facades of houses, entire streets 
twisted themselves along some unearthly design. Although a few windows were 
filled with light, however sickly, the only human being I saw was a derelict 
crumpled at the base of a traffic sign.
"Sorry, doctor, but this may be too much."
"Just hold on to yourself," he said, "we're almost there. Driver, pull into that 
alley behind those houses."
The taxi joggled as we made our way through the narrow passage. On either side 
of us were high wooden fences beyond which rose so many houses of such 
impressive height and bulk, though of course they were still monuments to decay. 
The cab's headlights were barely up to the task of illuminating the cramped 
little alley, which seemed to become ever narrower the further we proceeded. 
Suddenly the driver jerked us to a stop to avoid running over an old man 
slouched against the fence, an empty bottle lying at his side.
"This is where we get out," said Dr. Dublanc. "Wait here for us, driver."
As we emerged from the taxi I pulled at the doctor's sleeve, whispering about 
the expense of the fare. He replied in a loud voice, "You should worry more 
about getting a taxi to take us back home. They keep their distance from this 
neighborhood and rarely answer the calls they receive to come in here. Isn't 
that true, driver?" But the man had returned to that dormant state in which I 
first saw him. "Come on," said the doctor. "He'll wait for us. This way."
Dr. Dublanc pushed back a section of the fence that formed a
161 
kind of loosely hinged gate, closing it carefully behind us after we passed 
through the opening. On the other side was a small backyard, actually a 
miniature dumping ground where shadows bulged with refuse. And before us, I 
assumed, stood the house of Mr. Catch. It seemed very large, with an incredible 
number of bony peaks and dormers outlined against the sky, and even a 
weathervane in some vague animal-shape that stood atop a ruined turret grazed by 
moonlight. But although the moon was as bright as before, it appeared to be 
considerably thinner, as if it had been worn down just like everything else in 
that neighborhood.
"It hasn't altered in the least," the doctor assured me. He was holding open the 
back door of the house and gesturing for me to approach.
"Perhaps no one's home," I suggested.
"Not at all--the door's unlocked. You see how he's expecting us?"
"There don't appear to be any lights in use."
"Mr. Catch likes to conserve on certain expenses. A minor mania of his. But in 
other ways he's quite extravagant. And by no means is he a poor man. Watch 
yourself on the porch--some of these boards are not what they once were."
As soon as I was standing by the doctor's side he removed a flashlight from the 
pocket of his overcoat, shining a path into the dark interior of the house. Once 
inside, that yellowish swatch of illumination began flitting around in the 
blackness. It settled briefly in a cobwebbed corner of the ceiling, then ran 
down a blank battered wall and jittered along warped floor moldings. For a 
moment it revealed two suitcases, quite well used, at the bottom of a stairway. 
It slid smoothly up the stairway banister and flew straight to the floors above, 
where we heard some scraping sounds, as if an animal with long-nailed paws was 
moving about.
"Does Mr. Catch keep a pet?" I asked in a low voice.
"Why shouldn't he? But I don't think we'll find him up there."
We went deeper into the house, passing through many rooms which fortunately were 
unobstructed by furniture. Sometimes we crushed bits of broken glass underfoot; 
once I inadvertently kicked an empty bottle and sent it clanging across a bare 
floor. Reaching the far side of the house, we entered a long hallway flanked by 
several doors. All of them were closed and behind some of them we heard sounds 
similar to those being made on the second floor. We also heard
162 
footsteps slowly ascending a stairway. Then the last door at the end of the 
hallway opened, and a watery light pushed back some of the shadows ahead of us. 
A round-bodied little man was standing in the light, lazily beckoning to us.
"You're late, you're very late," he chided while leading us down into the 
cellar. His voice was high-pitched yet also quite raspy. "I was just about to 
leave."
"My apologies," said Dr. Dublanc, who sounded entirely sincere on this occasion. 
"Mr. Catch, allow me to introduce--"
"Never mind that Mr. Catch nonsense. You know well enough what things are like 
for me, don't you, doctor? So let's get started, I'm on a schedule now."
In the cellar we paused amid the quivering light of candles, dozens of them 
positioned high and low, melting upon a shelf or an old crate or right on the 
filth-covered floor. Even so, there was a certain lack of definition among the 
surrounding objects, but I could see that an old-fashioned film projector had 
been set up on a table toward the center of the room, and a portable movie 
screen stood by the opposite wall. The projector was plugged into what appeared 
to be a small electrical generator humming on the floor.
"I think there are some stools or whatnot you can sit on," said Mr. Catch as he 
threaded the film around the spools of the projector. Then for the first time he 
spoke to me directly. "I'm not sure how much the doctor has explained about what 
I'm going to show you. Probably very little."
"Yes, and deliberately so," interrupted Dr. Dublanc. "If you just roll the film 
I think my purpose will be served, with or without explanations. What harm can 
it do?"
Mr. Catch made no reply. After blowing out some of the candles to darken the 
room sufficiently, he switched on the projector, which was a rather noisy 
mechanism. I worried that whatever dialogue or narration the film might contain 
would be drowned out between the whirring of the projector and the humming of 
the generator. But I soon realized that this was a silent film, a cinematic 
document that in every aspect of its production was thoroughly primitive, from 
its harsh light and coarse photographic texture to its nearly unintelligible 
scenario.
It seemed to serve as a visual record of scientific experiment, a laboratory 
demonstration in fact. The setting, nevertheless, was
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anything but clinical--a bare wall in a cellar which in some ways resembled, yet 
was not identical to, the one where I was viewing this film. And the subject was 
human: a shabby, unshaven, and unconscious derelict who had been propped up 
against a crude grayish wall. Not too many moments passed before the man began 
to stir. But his movements were not those of awakening from a deep stupor; they 
were only spasmodic twitchings of some energy which appeared to inhabit the old 
tramp. A torn pant leg wiggled for a second, then his chest heaved, as if with 
an incredible sigh. His left arm, no his right arm, flewup in the air and 
immediately collapsed. Soon his head began to wobble and it kept on wobbling, 
even though its owner remained in a state of profound obliviousness.
Something was making its way through the derelict's scalp, rustling among the 
long greasy locks of an unsightly head. Part of it finally poked upwards--a thin 
sticklike thing. More of them emerged, dark wiry appendages that were bristling 
and bending and reaching for the outer world. At the end of each was a pair of 
slender snapping pincers. What ultimately broke through that shattered skull, 
pulling itself out with a wriggling motion of its many newborn arms, was 
approximately the size and proportions of a spider monkey. It had tiny 
translucent wings which fluttered a few times, glistening but useless, and was 
quite black, as if charred. Actually the creature seemed to be in an emaciated 
condition. When it turned its head toward the camera, it stared into the lens 
with malicious eyes and seemed to be chattering with its beaked mouth.
I whispered to Dr. Dublanc: "Please, I'm afraid that--"
"Exactly," he hissed back at me. "You are always afraid of the least upset in 
the order of things. You need to face certain realities so that you may free 
yourself of them."
Now it was my turn to give the doctor a skeptical glance. Yet I certainly 
realized that he was practicing something other than facile therapeutics. And 
even then our presence in that cellar--that cold swamp of shadows in which 
candles flickered like fireflies--seemed to be as much for Dr. Dublanc's benefit 
as it was for mine, if "benefit" is the proper word in this case.
"Those pills you gave me ..."
"Shhh. Watch the film."
It was almost finished. After the creature had hatched from its strange egg, it 
proceeded very rapidly to consume the grubby derelict,
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leaving only a collection of bones attired in cast-off clothes. Picked perfectly 
clean, the skull leaned wearily to one side. And the creature, which earlier had 
been so emaciated, had grown rather plump with its feast, becoming bloated and 
meaty like an overfed dog. In the final sequence, a net was tossed into the 
scene, capturing the gigantic vermin and dragging it off camera. Then whiteness 
filled the screen and the film was flapping on its reel.
"Apparently Mr. Catch has left us," said the doctor, noticing that I remained 
under the spell of what I had just seen. Taking advantage of the moment, he 
tried to lend a certain focus or coloration to this experience. "You must 
understand," he continued, "that the integrity of material forms is only a 
prejudice, at most a point of view. This is not to mention the substance of 
those forms, which is an even more dubious state of affairs. That the so-called 
anatomy of a human being might burst forth as a fantastic insect should be no 
cause for consternation. I know that it may seem that in the past I've attempted 
to actually bolster your prejudices about a clockwork world of sunrise schedules 
and lunar routines. But this insistence has only had a paradoxical effect, just 
like certain drugs that in some people induce a reaction quite the opposite of 
the norm. All of my assurances have made you more confirmed in your suspicions 
that things are not bolted down, so to speak. And no more is that thing which we 
call the mind. We can both learn a great deal from Mr. Catch. Of course, I still 
recognize that there remain some unfortunate aspects to his case-- there was 
only so much I could do for him--but nonetheless I think that he has gained rare 
and invaluable knowledge, the consequences notwithstanding.
"His research had taken him into areas where, how should I say, where the shapes 
and levels of phenomena, the multiple planes of natural existence, revealed 
their ability to establish new relationships with one another ... to become 
interconnected, as it were, in ways that were never apparent. At some point 
everything became a blur for him, a sort of pandemonium of forces, a 
phantasmagoria of possibilities which he eagerly engaged. We can have no idea of 
the tastes and temptations that may emerge or develop in the course of such work 
... a curious hedonism that could not be controlled. Oh, the vagaries of 
omnipotence, breeder of indulgence. Well, Mr. Catch retreated in panic from his 
own powers, yet he could not put the pieces back as they had been: unheard of 
habits and responses had already ingrained
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themselves into his system, seemingly forever. The worst sort of slavery, no 
doubt, but how persuasively he spoke of the euphorias he had known, the 
infinitely diverse sensations beyond all common understanding. It was just this 
understanding that I required in order to free him of a life that, in its own 
fashion, had become as abysmal and problematic as your own--except he is at the 
opposite pole. Some middle ground must be established, some balance. How well I 
understand that now! This is why I have brought you two together. This is the 
only reason, however it may seem to you."
"It seems to me," I replied, "that Mr. Catch is no longer available."
Dr. Dublanc emitted the shadow of a laugh. "Oh, he's still in the house. You can 
be sure of that. Let's take a look upstairs."
He was, in fact, not far at all. Stepping into that hallway of closed doors at 
the top of the cellar stairs, we saw that one of those doors was now partially 
open and the room beyond it was faintly aglow. Without announcing us, Dr. 
Dublanc slowly pushed back the door until we could both see what had happened 
inside.
It was a small unfurnished room with a bare wooden floor upon which a candle had 
been fixed with its own drippings. The candlelight shone dimly on the full face 
of Mr. Catch, who seemed to have collapsed in a back corner of the room, lying 
somewhat askew. He was sweating, though it was cold in the room, and his eyes 
were half-closed in a kind of languorous exhaustion. But something was wrong 
with his mouth: it seemed to be muddied and enlarged, sloppily painted into a 
clown's oversized grin. On the floor beside him were, to all appearances, the 
freshly ravaged remains of one of those creatures in the film.
"You made me wait too long!" he suddenly shouted, opening his eyes fully and 
straightening himself up for a moment before his posture crumbled once again. He 
then repeated this outburst: "You couldn't help me and now you make me wait too 
long."
"It was in order to help you that I came here," the doctor said to him, yet all 
the time fixing his eyes on the mutilated carcass on the floor. When he saw that 
I had observed his greedy stare he regained himself. "I'm trying to help both of 
you the only way you can be helped. Show him, Mr. Catch, show him how you breed 
those amazing individuals."
Mr. Catch groped in his pants pocket, pulled out a large handkerchief, and wiped 
off his mouth. He was smiling a little idiotically, as
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if intoxicated, and worked himself to his feet. His body now seemed even more 
swollen and bulbous than before, really not quite human in its proportions. 
After replacing his handkerchief in one pocket, he reached down into the other, 
feeling around for some moments. "It's so simple," he explained in a voice that 
had become placid. And it was with a kind of giddy pride that he finally said, 
"Oh, here they are," and held out his open hand toward me. In the thick pad of 
his palm I could see two tiny objects that were shaped like eggs.
I turned abruptly to the doctor. "The pills you gave me."
"It was the only thing that could be done for you. I've tried so hard to help 
you both."
"I had a suspicion," said Mr. Catch, now reviving himself from his stupefaction. 
"I should never have brought you into this. Don't you realize that it's 
difficult enough without involving your own patients. The derelicts are one 
thing, but this is quite another. Well, my suitcases are packed. It's your 
operation now, doctor. Let me by, time to go."
Mr. Catch maneuvered himself from the room, and a few moments later the sound of 
a door being slammed echoed throughout the house. The doctor kept close watch on 
me, waiting for some reaction, I suppose. Yet he was also listening very 
intently to certain sounds emanating from the rooms around us. The noise of 
restless skittering was everywhere.
"You understand, don't you?" asked the doctor. "Mr. Catch isn't the only one who 
has waited too long... far too long. I thought by now the pills would have had 
their effect."
I went into my pocket and removed the two little eggs which I had failed to 
swallow earlier. "I can't claim that I ever had much faith in your methods," I 
said. Then I tossed the pills at Dr. Dublanc who, speechless, caught them. "You 
won't mind if I return home by myself."
Indeed, he was relieved to see me go. As I traced my way back through the house 
I heard him running about and opening door after door, saying, "There you are, 
you beauties. There you are."
Although the doctor himself was now hopeless, I think that in some manner he had 
effected a cure in my case, however ephemeral it may have been. For during those 
first few moments on that hazy morning, when the taxi edged out of the alley and 
passed through that neighborhood of gnawed houses, I felt myself attain the 
middle
167 
ground Dr. Dublanc spoke of--the balancing point between an anxious flight from 
the abyss and the temptation to plunge into it. There was a great sense of 
escape, as if I could exist serenely outside the grotesque ultimatums of 
creation, an entranced spectator casting a clinical gaze at the chaotic tumult 
both around and within him.
But the feeling soon evaporated. "Could you go a little faster?" I said to the 
driver when it began to seem to me that we were making no progress in leaving 
that district behind: things again appeared to be changing, ready to burst forth 
from their sagging cocoons and take on uncertain forms. Even the pale morning 
sun seemed to be wavering from its proper proportions.
At the end of the ride, I was content to pay the extraordinary fare and return 
to my bed. The following day I started looking for a new doctor.
168 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
The Tsalal
I. Moxton's leavetaking
None of them could say how it was they had returned to the skeleton town. Some 
had reached the central cross streets, where a single traffic light, long dead, 
hung down like a dark lantern. There they paused and stood dumbstruck, 
scarecrows standing out of place, their clothes lying loose and worn about 
scrawny bodies. Others slowly joined them, drifting in from the outskirts or 
disembarking from vehicles weighted down with transportable possessions. Then 
all of them gathered silently together on that vast, gray afternoon.
They seemed too exhausted to speak and for some time appeared not to recognize 
their location among the surrounding forms and spaces. Their eyes were fixed 
with an insomniac's stare, the stigma of both monumental fatigue and painful 
attentiveness to everything in sight. Their faces were narrow and ashen, a few 
specks mingling with the dusty surface of that day and seeking to hide 
themselves within its pale hours. Opposing them was the place they had abandoned 
and to which they had somehow returned. Only one had not gone with them. He had 
stayed in the skeleton town, and now they had come back to it, though none of 
them could say how or why this had happened.
A tall, bearded man who wore a flat-brimmed hat looked up at the sky. Within the 
clouds was a great seeping darkness, the overflow of the coming night and of a 
blackness no one had ever seen. After a moment the man said, "It will be dark 
soon." His words were almost whispered and the effort of speaking appeared to 
take the last of his strength. But it was not simply a depleted vigor that kept 
him and the others from turning about and making a second exodus from the town.
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No one could say how far they had gone before they reversed their course and 
turned back toward the place which they believed themselves to have abandoned 
forever. They could not remember what juncture or dead end they had reached that 
aborted the evacuation. Part of that day was lost to them, certain images and 
experiences hidden away. They could feel these things closeted somewhere in 
their minds, even if they could not call them to memory. They were sure they had 
seen something they should not remember. And so no one suggested that they set 
out again on the road that would take them from the town. Yet they could not 
accept staying in that place.
A paralysis had seized them, that state of soul known to those who dwell on the 
highest plane of madness, aristocrats of insanity whose nightmares confront them 
on either side of sleep. Soon enough the wrenching effect of this psychic 
immobility became far less tolerable than the prospect of simply giving up and 
staying in the town. Such was the case with at least one of these cataleptic 
puppets, a sticklike woman who said, "We have no choice. He has stayed in his 
house." Then another voice among them shouted, "He has stayed too long."
A sudden wind moved through the streets, flapping the garments of the weary home 
comers and swinging the traffic light that hung over their heads. For a moment 
all the signals lit up in every direction, disturbing the deep gray twilight. 
The colors drenched the bricks of buildings and reflected in windows with a 
strange intensity. Then the traffic light was dark once more, its fit of 
transformation done.
The man wearing a flat-brimmed hat spoke again, straining his whispery voice. 
"We must meet together after we have rested."
As the crowd of thin bodies sluggishly dispersed there was almost nothing spoken 
among them. An old woman shuffling along the sidewalk did not address anyone in 
particular when she said, "Blessed is the seed that is planted forever in 
darkness."
Someone who had heard these words looked at the old woman and asked, "Missus, 
what did you say?" But the old woman appeared genuinely confused to learn she 
had said anything at all.
2. The one who stayed behind
In the house where a man named Ray Starns and a succession of others before him 
once resided, Andrew Maness ascended the stairway leading to the uppermost 
floor, and there entered a small room
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that he had converted to a study and a chamber of meditation. The window in this 
room looked out over the rooftops in the neighborhood to offer a fair view of 
Moxton's main street. He watched as everyone abandoned the town, and he watched 
them when they returned. Now far into the night, he was still watching after 
they had all retreated to their homes. And every one of these homes was brightly 
illuminated throughout the night, while Main Street was in darkness. Even the 
traffic light was extinguished.
He looked away from the window and fixed his eyes on a large book that lay open 
on his desk a few steps across the room. The pages of the book were brown and 
brittle as fallen leaves. "Your wild words were true," he said to the book. "My 
friends did not go far before they were sent trudging back. You know what made 
them come home, but I can only guess. So many things you have devoutly 
embellished, yet you offer nothing on this point. As you say, 'The last vision 
dies with him who beholds it. Blessed is the seed that is planted forever in 
darkness.' But the seed that has been planted still grows."
Andrew Maness closed the book. Written in dark ink upon its cover was the word 
TSALAL.
3. The power of a place
Before long everyone in Moxton had shut themselves in their houses, and the 
streets at the center of town were deserted. A few streetlights shone on the 
dull facades of buildings: small shops, a modest restaurant, a church of 
indefinite denomination, and even a movie theater, which no one had patronized 
for some weeks. Surrounding this area were clusters of houses that in the usual 
manner collect about the periphery of skeleton towns. These were structures of 
serene desolation that had settled into the orbit of a dead star. They were 
simple pinewood coffins, full of stillness, leaning upright against a silent 
sky. Yet it was this silence that allowed sounds from a fantastic distance to be 
carried into it. And the stillness of these houses and their narrow streets led 
the eye to places astonishingly remote. There were even moments when the entire 
veil of desolate serenity began to tremble with the tumbling colors of chaos.
Everything seems so unusual in the plainness of these neighborhoods that clutter 
the margins of a skeleton town. Often no mention is made of the peculiar virtues 
of such places by their residents. Even
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so, there maybe a house that does not stand along one of those narrow streets 
but at its end. This house may even be somewhat different from the others in the 
neighborhood. Possibly it is taller than the other houses or displays a 
weathervane that spins in the wind of storms. Perhaps its sole distinguishing 
quality is that it has been long-unoccupied, making it available as an empty 
vessel in which much of that magical desolation of narrow streets and 
coffin-shaped houses comes to settle and distill like an essence of the old 
alchemists. It seems part of a design--some great inevitability--that this house 
should exist among the other houses that clutch at the edges of a skeleton town. 
And the sense of this vast, all-encompassing design in fact arises within the 
spindly residents of the area when one day, unexpectedly, there arrives a 
red-headed man with the key to this particular house.
4. Memories of a Moxton childhood
Andrew Maness closed the book named TSALAL. His eyes then looked around the 
room, which had not seemed so small to him in the days when he and his father 
occupied the house, days too long ago for anyone else to recall with clarity. He 
alone was able to review those times with a sure memory, and he summoned the 
image of a small bed in the far corner of the room.
As a child he would lie awake deep into the night, his eyes wandering about the 
moonlit room that seemed so great to his dolllike self. How the shadows enlarged 
that room, opening certain sections of it to the black abyss beyond the house 
and beyond the blackness of night, reaching into a blackness no one had ever 
seen. During these moments things seemed to be changing all around him, and it 
felt as if he had something to do with this changing. The shadows on the pale 
walls began to curl about like smoke, creating a swirling murkiness that at 
times approached sensible shapes--the imperfect zoology of cloud-forms--but soon 
drifted into hazy nonsense. Smoky shadows gathered everywhere in the room.
It appeared to him that he could see what was making these shadows which moved 
so slowly and smoothly. He could see that simple objects around him were 
changing their shapes and making strange shadows. In the moonlight he could see 
the candle in its tarnished holder resting on the bedstand. The candle had 
burned quite low when he blew out its flame hours before. Now it was
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shooting upwards like a flower growing too fast, and it sprouted outward with 
tallowy vines and blossoms, waxy wings and limbs, pale hands with wriggling 
fingers and other parts he could not name. When he looked across the room he saw 
that something was moving back and forth upon the windowsill with a staggered 
motion. This was a wooden soldier which suddenly stretched out the claws of a 
crab and began clicking them against the windowpanes. Other things that he could 
barely see were also changing in the room; he saw shadows twisting about in 
strange ways. Everything was changing, and he knew that he was doing something 
to make things change. But this time he could not stop the changes. It seemed 
the end of everything, the infernal apocalypse ...
Only when he felt his father shaking him did he become aware that he had been 
screaming. Soon he grew quiet. The candle on his bedstand now burned brightly 
and was not as it had been a few moments before. He quickly surveyed the room to 
verify that nothing else remained changed. The wooden soldier was lying on the 
floor, and its two arms were fixed by its sides.
He looked at his father, who was sitting on the bed and still had on the same 
dark clothes he had worn when he held church services earlier that day. 
Sometimes he would see his father asleep in one of the chairs in the parlor or 
nodding at his desk where he was working on his next sermon. But he had never 
known his father to sleep during the night.
The Reverend Maness spoke his son's name, and the younger Andrew Maness focused 
on his father's narrow face, recognizing the crown of white hair, which yet 
retained a hint of red, and the oval-shaped spectacles reflecting the candle 
flame. The old man whispered to the boy, as if they were not alone in the house 
or were engaged in some conspiracy.
"Has it happened again, Andrew?" he asked.
"I did not want to make it happen," Andrew protested. "I was not by myself."
The Reverend Maness held up an open hand of silence and understanding. The glare 
of the candlelight on his spectacles concealed his eyes, which now turned toward 
the window beside his son's bed. "The mystery of lawlessness doth already work," 
he said.
"The Epistles," Andrew swiftly responded, as if the quote had been a question.
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"Can you finish the passage?"
"Yes, I think I can," answered Andrew, who then assumed a solemn voice and 
recited: "Now there is one that restraineth, until he be taken out of the way; 
and then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord will slay and bring to 
nought."
"You know it well, that book."
"The Holy Bible," said Andrew, for it sounded strange to him not to name the 
book in the proper way.
"Yes, the Holy Bible. You should know its words better than you know anything 
else on earth. You should always have its words in mind like a magical formula."
"I do, Father. You have always told me that I should."
The Reverend Maness suddenly stood up from the bed and towering over his son 
shouted: "Liar! You did not have the words in your mind on this night. You could 
not have. You allowed the lawless one to do its work. You are the lawless one, 
but you must not be. You must become the other one, the katechon, the one who 
restrains."
"I'm sorry, Father," Andrew cried out. "Please don't be angry with me."
The Reverend Maness recovered his temper and again held up his open hand, the 
fingers of which interlocked and separated several times in what appeared to be 
a deliberate sequence of subtle gesticulations. He turned away from his son and 
slowly walked the length of the room. When he reached the window on the opposite 
side he stared out at the blackness that covered the town of Moxton, where he 
and his son had first arrived some years before. On the main street of the town 
the reverend had built a church; nearby, he had built a house. The silhouette of 
the church bell-tower was outlined against moonlit clouds. From across the room 
the Reverend Maness said to his son, "I built the church in town so that it 
would be seen. I made the church of brick so that it would endure."
Now he paced the floor in an attitude of meditation while his son looked on in 
silence. After some time he stood at the foot of his son's bed, glaring down as 
though he stood at the pulpit of his church. "In the Bible there is a beast," he 
said. "You know this, Andrew. But did you know that the beast is also within 
you? It lives in a place that can never see light. Yes, it is housed here, 
inside the skull, the habitation of the Great Beast. It is a thing so wonderful 
in form that its existence might be attributed to the fantastic conjurings of a 
sorcerer or to a
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visitation from a far, dark place which no one has ever seen. It is a nightmare 
that would stop our hearts should we ever behold it gleaming in some shadowy 
corner of our home, or should we ever-- by terrible mischance--lay our hands 
upon the slime of its flesh. This must never happen, the beast must be kept 
within its lair. But the beast is a great power that reaches out into the world, 
a great maker of worlds that are as nothing we can know. And it may work changes 
on this world. Darkness and light, shape and color, the heavens and the 
earth--all may be changed by the beast, the great reviser of things seen and 
unseen, known and unknown. For all that we see and know are but empty vessels in 
which the beast shall pour a new tincture, therewith changing the aspect of the 
land, altering the shadows themselves, giving a strange color to our days and 
our nights, making the day into night, so that we dream while awake and can 
never sleep again. There is nothing more awful and nothing more sinful than such 
changes in things. Nothing is more grotesque than these changes. All changes in 
things are grotesque. The very possibility of changes in things is grotesque. 
And the beast is the author of all changes. You must never again consort with 
the beast!"
"Don't say that, Father!" Andrew screamed, the palms of his hands pressed to his 
ears in order to obstruct further words of judgment. Yet he heard them all the 
same.
"You are repentant, but still you do not read the book."
"I do read the book."
"But you do not have the words of the book always in your mind, because you are 
always reading other books that are forbidden to you. I have seen you looking at 
my books, and I know that you take them from my shelves like a thief. Those are 
books that should not be read."
"Then why do you keep them?" Andrew shouted back, knowing that it was evil to 
question his father and feeling a great joy in having done so. The Reverend 
Maness stepped around to the side of the bed, his spectacles flashing in the 
candlelight.
"I keep them," he said, "so that you may learn by your own will to renounce what 
is forbidden in whatever shape it may appear."
But how wonderful he found those books that were forbidden to him. He remembered 
seeing them for the first time cloistered on high shelves in his father's 
library, that small and windowless room at the very heart of the house the 
Reverend Maness had built. Andrew knew
175 
these books on sight, not only by the titles which had such words in them as 
Mystery, Haunted, Secret, and Shadow, but also by the characters that formed 
these words--a jagged script closely resembling the letters of his own 
Bible--and by the shades of their cloth bindings, the faded vestments of autumn 
twilights. He somehow knew these books were forbidden to him, even before the 
reverend had made this fact explicit to his son and caused the boy to feel 
ashamed of his desire to hold these books and to know their matter. He became 
bound to the worlds he imagined were revealed in the books, obsessed with what 
he conceived to be a cosmology of nightmares. And after he had wrongfully 
admitted himself to his father's library, he began to plot in detail the map of 
a mysterious universe--a place where the sun had passed from view, where towns 
were cold and dark, where mountains trembled with the monstrosities they 
concealed, woods rattled with secret winds, and all the seas were horribly calm. 
In his dreams of this universe, which far surpassed the darkest visions of any 
of the books he had read, a never-ending night had fallen upon every imaginable 
landscape.
In sleep he might thus find himself standing at the rim of a great gorge filled 
with pointed evergreens, and in the distance were the peaks of hills appearing 
in black silhouette under a sky chaotic with stars. Sublime scenery of this type 
often recurred in those books forbidden to him, sometimes providing the subject 
for one of the engraved illustrations accompanying a narrative. But he had never 
read in any book what his dream showed him in the sky above the gorge and above 
the hills. For each of the bright, bristling stars would begin to loosen in the 
places where the blackness held them. They wobbled at first, and then they 
rolled over in their bed of night. Now it was the other side of the stars that 
he saw, which was unlike anything ever displayed to the eyes of the earth. What 
he could see resembled not stars but something more like the underside of large 
stones one might overturn deep in damp woods. They had changed in the strangest 
way, changed because everything in the universe was changing and could no longer 
be protected from the changes being worked upon them by something that had been 
awakened in the blackness, something that desired to remold everything it could 
see ... and had the power to see all things. Now the faces of the stars were 
crawling with things that made them gleam in a way that stars had never gleamed 
before. And then these things he saw in his dream
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began to drip from the stars toward the earth, streaking the night with their 
gleaming trails.
In those nights of dreaming, all things were subject to forces that knew nothing 
of law or reason, and nothing possessed its own nature or essence but was only a 
mask upon the face of absolute darkness, a blackness no one had ever seen.
Even as a child he realized that his dreams did not follow the creation taught 
to him by his father and by that book. It was another creation he pursued, a 
counter-creation, and the books on the shelves of his father's library could not 
reveal to him what he desired to know of this other genesis. While denying it to 
his father, and often to himself, he dreamed of reading the book that was truly 
forbidden, the scripture of a deadly creation, one that would tell the tale of 
the universe in its purest sense.
But where could he find such a book? On what shelf of what library would it 
appear before his eyes? Would he recognize it when fortune allowed it to fall 
into his hands? Over time he became certain he would know the book, so often did 
he dream of it. For in the most unlikely visions he found himself in possession 
of the book, as though it belonged to him as a legacy. But while he held the 
book in dreams, and even saw its words with miraculous clarity, he could not 
comprehend the substance of a script whose meaning seemed to dissolve into 
nonsense. Never was he granted in these dreams an understanding of what the book 
had to tell him. Only as the most obscure and strangest sensations did it 
communicate with his mind, only as a kind of presence that invaded and possessed 
his sleep. On waking, all that remained was a euphoric terror. And it was then 
that objects around him would begin their transformations, for his soul had been 
made lawless by dreams and his mind was filled with the words of the wrong book.
5. The author of the book
"You knew it was hopeless," said Andrew Maness as he stood over the book that 
lay on the desk, glaring at the pages of old handwriting in black ink. "You told 
me to always read the right words and to always have them in my mind, but you 
knew I would read the wrong words. You knew what I was. You knew that such a 
being existed only to read the wrong words and to want to see those words 
written across the sky
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in a black script. Because you yourself were the author of the book. And you 
brought your son to the place where he would read your words. This town was the 
wrong place, and you knew it was the wrong place. But you told yourself it was 
the only place where what you had done... might be undone. Because you became 
afraid of what you and those others had done. For years you were intrigued by 
the greatest madness, the most atrocious secrets and schemes, and then you 
became afraid. What did you discover that could make you so afraid, you and the 
others who were always intrigued by the monstrous things you told of, that you 
sang of, in the book? You preached to me that all change is grotesque, that the 
very possibility of change is evil. Yet in the book you declare 'transformation 
as the only truth'--the only truth of the Tsalal, that one who is without law or 
reason. 'There is no nature to things,' you wrote in the book. 'There are no 
faces except masks held tight against the pitching chaos behind them.' You wrote 
that there is not true growth or evolution in the life of this world but only 
transformations of appearance, an incessant melting and molding of surfaces 
without underlying essence. Above all you pronounced that there is no salvation 
of any being because no beings exist as such, nothing exists to be 
saved--everything, everyone exists only to be drawn into the slow and endless 
swirling of mutations that we may see every second of our lives if we simply 
gaze through the eyes of the Tsalal.
"Yet these truths of yours that you kept writing in your book cannot be the 
reason you became afraid, for even while your voice is somber or trembling to 
speak of these things, your phrases are burdened with fascination and you are 
always marvelling at the grand mockery of the universal masquerade, the 
'hallucination of lies that obscures the vision of all but the elect of the 
Tsalal.' It is something of which you will not speak or cannot speak that caused 
you to become afraid. What did you discover that you could not face without 
renouncing what you and those others had done, without running to this town to 
hide yourself in the doctrines of a church that you did not truly uphold? Did 
this knowledge, this discovery remain within you, at once alive and annihilated 
to your memory? Was it this that allowed you to prophesy that the people of 
Moxton would return to their town, yet prevented you from telling what 
phenomenon could be more terrible than the nightmare they had fled, those 
grotesque changes which had overtaken the streets and houses of this place?
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"You knew this was the wrong place when you brought me here as a child. And I 
knew that this was the wrong place when I came home to this town and stayed 
here, until everyone knew that I had stayed too long in this place."
6. The white-haired woman
Not long after Andrew Maness moved back to the town of Moxton, an old woman came 
up to him late one afternoon on the street. He was staring into the window of a 
repair shop that closed early. Corroded pieces of machinery were strewn before 
him, as if on display: the guts and bones of a defunct motor of some kind. His 
reverie was disturbed when the old woman said, "I've seen you before."
"That is possible, ma'am," he replied. "I moved into a house on Oakman a few 
weeks ago."
"No, I mean that I've seen you before that."
He smiled very slightly at the old woman and said, "I lived here for a time, but 
I didn't think anyone would remember."
"I remember the hair. It's red but kind of greenish too, yellow maybe."
"Discolored through the years," he explained.
"I remember it the way it was. And it's not much different now. My hair's white 
as salt."
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
"I told those damn fools I remembered. No one listens to me. What's your name?"
"My name, Mrs. ..."
"Spikes," she snapped.
"My name, Mrs. Spikes, is Andrew Maness."
"Maness, Maness," she chanted to herself. "No, I don't think I know Maness. 
You're in the Starns house."
"It was in fact purchased from one of Mr. Starns' family who inherited the house 
after he died."
"Used to be the Waterses lived there. Before them the Wellses. And before them 
the McQuisters. But that's getting to be before my time. Before the McQuisters 
is just too damn long to remember. Too damn long." She was repeating these w
ords as she charged off down the street. Andrew Maness watched her thin form and 
salt-white hair
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recede and lose all color in the drab surroundings of the skeleton town.
7. Revelations of a unique being
For Andrew Maness, the world had always been divided into two separate realms 
defined by what he could only describe as prejudice of soul. Accordingly he was 
provided with a dual set of responses that he would have to a given locale, so 
that he would know if it was a place that was right for him, or one that was 
wrong. In places of the former type there was a separation between his self and 
the world around him, an enveloping absence. These were the great empty spaces 
which comprised nearly the whole of the world. There was no threat presented by 
such places. But there were other places where it seemed a presence of some 
dreadful kind was allowed to enter, a force that did not belong to these places 
yet moved freely within them... and within him. It was precisely such places as 
this, and the presence within them, which came to preside over his life and 
determine its course. He had no choice, for this was the scheme of the elect 
persons who had generated him, and he was compelled to fall in with their 
design. He was in fact the very substance of their design.
His father knew that there were certain places in the world to which he must 
respond, even in his childhood, and which would cause him to undergo a second 
birth under the sign of the Tsalal. The Reverend Maness knew that the town of 
Moxton was among such places--outposts on the desolate borderlands of the real. 
He said that he had brought his son to this town so that the boy would learn to 
resist the presence he would feel here and elsewhere in the world. He said that 
he had brought his son to the right place, but he had in fact brought him to a 
place that was entirely wrong for the being that he was. And he said that his 
son should always fill his mind with the words of that book. But these words 
were easily silenced and usurped by those other words in those other books. His 
father seemed to entice him into reading the very books he should not have read. 
Soon these books provoked in Andrew Maness the sense of that power and that 
presence which may manifest itself in a place such as the town of Moxton. And 
there were other places where he felt that same presence. Following intuitions 
that grew stronger as he grew older, Andrew Maness would find such places by 
hazard or design.
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Perhaps he would come upon an abandoned house standing shattered and bent in an 
isolated landscape--a raw skeleton in a boneyard. But this dilapidated structure 
would seem to him a temple, a wayside shrine to that dark presence with which he 
sought union, and also a doorway to the dark world in which it dwelled. Nothing 
can convey those sensations, the countless nuances of trembling excitement, as 
he approached such a decomposed edifice whose skewed and ragged outline 
suggested another order of existence, the truest order of existence, as though 
such places as this house were only wavering shadows cast down to earth by a 
distant, unseen realm of entity. There he would experience the touch of 
something outside himself, something whose will was confused with his own, as in 
a dream wherein one feels possessed of a fantastic power to determine what 
events will transpire and yet also feels helpless to control that power, which, 
through oneself, may produce the chaos of nightmare. This mingling of mastery 
and helplessness overwhelmed him with a black intoxication and suggested his 
life's goal: to work the great wheel that turns in darkness, and to be broken 
upon it.
Yet Andrew Maness had always known that his ambition was an echo of that 
conceived by his father many years before, and that the pursuit of this ambition 
had been consummated in his own birth.
8. Not much more than a century ago
"As a young man," the Reverend Maness explained to his son, who was now a young 
man himself, "I thought myself an adept in the magic of the old gods, a 
communicant of entities both demonic and divine. I did not comprehend for years 
that I was merely a curator in the museum where the old gods were on display, 
their replicas and corpses set up in the countless galleries of the invisible... 
and now the extinct. I knew that in past millennia these beings had always 
replaced one another as each of them passed away along with the worlds that 
worshipped them. This mirror-like succession of supreme monarchs may still seem 
eternal to those who have not sensed the great shadow which has always been 
positioned behind every deity or pantheon. Yet I was able to sense this shadow 
and see that it had eclipsed the old gods without in anyway being one of their 
kind. For it was even older than they, the dark background against which they 
had forever carried on their escapades as best they could. But its emergence 
into
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the foreground of things was something new, an advent occurring not much more 
than a century ago. Perhaps this great blackness, this shadow, has always 
prevailed on worlds other than our own, places that have never known the gods of 
order, the gods of design. Even this world had long prepared for it, creating 
certain places where the illusion of a reality was worn quite thin and where the 
gods of order and design could barely breathe. Such places as this town of 
Moxton became fertile ground for this blackness no one had ever seen.
"Yes, it was not much more than a century ago that the people of this world 
betrayed their awareness of a new god that was not a god. Such an awareness may 
never be complete, never reach a true agony of illumination, except among an 
elect. I myself was slow in coming to it. The authenticity of my enlightenment 
may seem questionable and arbitrary, considering its source. Nonetheless, there 
is a tradition of revelation, an ancient protocol, by which knowledge of the 
unseen is delivered to us through inspired texts. And it is by means of these 
scriptures dictated from beyond that we of this world may discover what we have 
not and cannot experience in a direct confrontation. So it was with the Tsalal. 
But the book that I have written, and which I have named Tsalal, is not the 
revealed codex of which I am speaking. It is only a reflection, or rather a 
distillation, of those other writings in which I first detected the existence, 
the emergence, of the Tsalal itself.
"Of course, there have always been writings of a certain kind, a primeval lore 
which provided allusions to the darkness of creation and to monstrosities of 
every type, human and inhuman, as if there were a difference. Something 
profoundly dark and grotesque has always had a life in every language of this 
world, appearing at intervals and throwing its shadow for a moment upon stories 
that try to make sense of things, often confounding the most happy tale. And 
this shadow is never banished in any of these stories, however we may pretend 
otherwise. The darkness of the grotesque is an immortal enigma: in all the 
legends of the dead, in all the tales of creatures of the night, in all the 
mythologies of mad gods and lucid demons, there remains a kind of mocking 
nonsense to the end, a thick and resonant voice which calls out from the heart 
of these stories and declares: 'Still I am here.' And the idiot laughter of that 
voice--how it sounds through the ages! This laughter often reaches our ears 
through certain stories wherein this grotesque spirit itself has had a hand. 
However we have
182 
tried to ignore the laughter of this voice, however we have tried to overwhelm 
its words and protect ourselves by always keeping other words in our minds, it 
still sounds throughout the world.
"But it was not much more than a century ago that this laughter began to rise to 
a pitch. You have heard it yourself, Andrew, as you furtively made incursions 
into my library during your younger days, revelling in a Gothic feast of the 
grotesque. These books do not hold an arcane knowledge intended for the select 
few but were written for a world which had begun to slight the gods of order and 
design, to question their very existence and to exalt in the disorders of the 
grotesque. Both of us have now studied the books in which the Tsalal was being 
gradually revealed as the very nucleus of our universe, even if their authors 
remained innocent of the revelations they were perpetrating. It was from one of 
the most enlightened of this sect of Gothic storytellers that I took the name of 
that one. You recall, Andrew, the adventures of an Arthur Pym in a fantastic 
land where everything, people and landscape alike, is of a perfect 
blackness--the Antarctic country of Tsalal. This was among the finest evocations 
I had discovered of that blackness no one had ever seen, a literary unveiling of 
being without soul or substance, without meaning or necessity--not a universe of 
design and order but one whose sole principle was that of senseless 
transmutation. A universe of the grotesque. And from that moment it became my 
ambition to invoke what I now called the Tsalal, and ultimately to effect a 
worldly incarnation of the thing itself.
"Through the years I found there were others who had become entranced with an 
ambition so near to my own that we formed a league... the elect of the Tsalal. 
They too had been adepts of the old gods who had been made impotent or extinct 
by the emergence of that one, an inevitable advent which we were avid to hasten 
and lose ourselves in. For we had recognized the mask of our identities, and our 
only consolation for what we had lost, a perverse salvation, was to embrace the 
fatality of the Tsalal. Vital to this end was a woman upon whom was performed a 
ceremony of conception. And it was during these rites that we first came into 
the most intimate communion with that one, which moved within us all and worked 
the most wonderful changes upon so many things.
"None of us suspected how it would be when we gathered that last night. This all 
happened in another country, an older country. But it
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was nevertheless a place like this town of Moxton, a place where the appearances 
of this world seem to waver at times, hovering before one's eyes as a mere fog. 
This place was known among our circle as the Street of Lamps, which was the very 
heart of a district under the sign of the Tsalal. In recollection, the lamps 
seem only a quirk of scene, an accident of atmosphere, but at the time they were 
to us the eyes of the Tsalal itself. These sidewalk fixtures of radiant glass 
upheld by dark metal stems formed a dreamlike procession up and down the street, 
a spectacle of infinite pathos and mystery. One poet of the era called them 
'iron lilies,' and another compared their jewel-like illumination to the yellow 
topaz. In a different language, and a different city, these devices--les 
reverberes, les bees de gaz--were also celebrated, an enigmatic sign of a 
century, a world, that was guttering out.
"It was in this street that we prepared a room for your birth and your nurturing 
under the sign of the Tsalal. There were few other residents in this ramshackle 
area, and they abandoned it some time before you were born, frightened off by 
changes that all of us could see taking place in the Street of Lamps. At first 
the changes were slight: spiders had begun laying webs upon the stones of the 
street and thin strands of smoke spun out from chimney stacks, tangling together 
in the sky. When the night of your birth arrived the changes became more 
intense. They were focused on the room in which we gathered to chant the 
invocation to the Tsalal. We incanted throughout the night, standing in a circle 
around the woman who had been the object of the ceremony of conception. Did I 
mention that she was not one of us? No, she was a gaunt denizen of the Street of 
Lamps whose body we appropriated some months before, an honorary member of our 
sect whom we treated very well during her term of captivity. As the moment of 
your birth drew closer she lay upon the floor of the ceremonial room and began 
screaming in many different voices. We did not expect her to survive the ordeal. 
Neither did we expect the immediate consequences of the incarnation we attempted 
to effect, the consummation of a bond between this woman and the Tsalal.
"We were inviting chaos into the world, we knew this. We had been intoxicated by 
the prospect of an absolute disorder. With a sense of grim exaltation we greeted 
the intimations of a universal nightmare--the ultimate point of things. But on 
that night, even as we invoked the Tsalal within that room, we came to 
experience a realm of the unreal hitherto unknown to us. And we discovered that
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it had never been our desire to lose ourselves in the unreal, not in the manner 
which threatened us in the Street of Lamps. For as you, Andrew, began to enter 
the world through this woman, so was the Tsalal also entering the world through 
this woman. She was now the seed of that one, her flesh radiant and swelling in 
the fertile ground of the unreal which was the Street of Lamps. We looked beyond 
the windows of that room, already contemplating our escape. But then we saw that 
there was no longer any street, nor any buildings along that street. All that 
remained were the streetlamps with their harsh yellow glow like rotten stars, 
endless rows of streetlamps that ascended into the all-encompassing blackness. 
Can you imagine: endless rows of streetlamps ascending into the blackness. 
Everything that sustained the reality of the world around us had been drained 
away. We noticed how our own bodies had become suddenly drawn and meager, while 
the body of that woman, the seed of the coming apocalypse, was becoming ever 
more swollen with the power and magic of the Tsalal. And we knew at that moment 
what needed to be done if we were ever to escape the unreality that had been 
sown in that place called the Street of Lamps."
9. A skeleton town
Even in the time of the McQuisters, which almost no one could remember very 
well, Moxton was a skeleton town. No building there had ever seemed new. Every 
crudded brick or faded board, every crusted shingle or frayed awning appeared to 
be handed down from the demise of another structure in another town, cast-offs 
of a thriving center that had no use for worn out materials. The front windows 
of stores were cloudy with a confusion of reflected images from someplace else. 
Entire establishments might have been dumped off in Moxton, where buildings 
stood along the street like odd objects forgotten on a cellar shelf.
It was less a real town than the semblance of a town, a pasteboard backdrop to 
an old stage show, its outlines crudely stroked with an antique paintbrush 
unconcerned with the details of character and identity, lettering the names of 
streets and shops with senseless scribbles no one was ever meant to read. 
Everything that might have been real about the town had somehow become thwarted. 
Nothing flourished there, nothing made a difference by its presence or absence.
185 
No business could do more than anonymously survive in Moxton. Even larger 
enterprises such as a dimestore or a comfortable hotel could not assert 
themselves but were forced to assume the same air of unreality possessed by 
lesser establishments: the shoe store whose tiny front window displayed 
merchandise long out of style, the clothes store where dust collected in the 
folds of garments worn by headless mannikins, the repair shop at which a good 
number of the items brought in were left unclaimed and lay corroding in every 
cranny of the place.
Many years ago a movie theater opened on the prominent corner of Webster and 
Main, decades before a traffic light had been hung over the intersection of 
these streets. A large neon sign with letters stacked in a vertical file spelled 
out the word RIVIERA. For a moment this word appeared in searing magenta against 
the Moxton twilight, calling up and down the street to everyone in the town. But 
by nightfall the glowing letters had been subdued, their glamor suffocating in a 
rarefied atmosphere where sights and sounds were drained of reality. The new 
movie theater now burned no more brightly than McQuister's Pharmacy across the 
street. Both of them were allotted a steady and modest patronage in a skeleton 
town that was no more enchanted with the one than the other.
Thus was the extent of Moxton's compromise with any manifestation of the real. 
For there are certain places that exist on the wayside of the real: a house, a 
street, even entire towns which have claims upon them by virtue of some nameless 
affinity with the most remote orders of being. They are, these places, fertile 
ground for the unreal and retain the minimum of immunity against exotic 
disorders and aberrations. Their concessions to a given fashion of reality are 
only placating gestures, a way of stifling it through limited acceptance. It was 
unnecessary, even perverse, to resist construction of the movie theater or the 
new church (founded in 1893 by the Rev. Andrew Maness). Such an action might 
imbue these things with an unwarranted measure of substance or power, and in a 
skeleton town there is little substance, while all power resides only in the 
unreal. The citizens of such a place are custodians of a rare property, a 
precious estate whose true owners are momentarily absent. All that remains 
before full proprietorship of the land may be assumed is the planting of a 
single seed and its nurturing over a sufficient period of time, an interval that 
has nothing to do with the hours and days of the world.
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As Andrew Maness grew older in the town of Moxton he watched his father submit 
to the despair and the wonder that he could not unmake the thing that he and 
those others had incarnated. On several occasions the reverend entered his son's 
room as the boy slept. With knife and ax and long-handled scythe he attempted to 
break the growing bond between his son and the Tsalal. In the morning young 
Andrew's bedroom would reek like a slaughterhouse. But his limbs and organs were 
again made whole and a new blood flowed within them, proving the reality of what 
had been brought into the world by his father and those other enthusiasts of 
that one.
There were times when the Reverend Maness, in a state of awe and desperation, 
awoke his son from dreams and made his appeal to the boy, informing him that he 
was reaching a perilous juncture in his development and begging him to submit to 
a peculiar ritual that would be consummated by Andrew's ruin.
"What ritual is this?" Andrew asked with a novitiate's excitation. But the 
reverend's powers of speech became paralyzed at this question and many nights 
would pass before he again broached the subject.
At last the Reverend Maness came into his son's room carrying a book. He opened 
the book to its final pages and began to read. And the words he read laid out a 
scheme for his son's destruction. These words were his own, the ultimate chapter 
in a great work he had composed documenting a wealth of revelations concerning 
the force or entity called the Tsalal.
Andrew could not take his eyes off the book and strained to hear every resonance 
of his father's reading from it, even if the ritual the old man spelled out 
dictated the atrocious manner of Andrew's death-- the obliteration of the seed 
of the apocalypse which was called the Tsalal.
"Your formula for cancelling my existence calls for the participation of 
others," Andrew observed. "The elect of... that one."
"Tsalal," the Reverend Maness intoned, still captivated by an occult 
nomenclature.
"Tsalal," Andrew echoed. "My protector, my guardian of the black void."
"You are not yet wholly the creature of that one. I have tried to change what I 
could not. But you have stayed too long in this place,
187 
which was the wrong place for a being such as you. You are undergoing a second 
birth under the sign of the Tsalal. But there is still enough time if you will 
submit yourself to the ritual."
"I must ask you, Father: who will carry it out? Will there be a convocation of 
strangers in this town?"
After a painfully reflective pause, the reverend said: "There are none remaining 
who will come. They would be required to relive the events following your birth, 
the first time you were born."
"And my mother?" Andrew asked.
"She did not survive."
"But how did she die?"
"By the ritual," the Reverend Maness confessed. "At the ritual of your birth it 
became necessary to perform the ritual of death."
"Her death."
"As I told you before. This ritual had never been performed, or even conceived, 
prior to that night on which you were born. We did not know what to expect. But 
after a certain point, after seeing certain things, we acted in the correct 
manner, as if we had always known what needed to be done."
"And what needed to be done, Father?"
"It is all in this book."
"You have the book, but you're still lacking for those others. A congregation, 
so to speak."
"I have my congregation in this very town. They will do what needs to be done. 
To this you must submit yourself. To the end of your existence you must 
consent."
"And if I don't?"
"Soon," the Reverend Maness began, "the bond will be sealed between you and the 
other, that one which is all nightmare of grotesque metamorphoses behind the 
dream of earthly forms, that one which is the center of so-called entity and 
so-called essence. To the living illusions of the world of light will come a 
blackness no one has ever seen, a dawn of darkness. What you yourself have known 
of these things is only a passing glimpse, a flickering candleflame beside the 
conflagration which is to come. You have found yourself fascinated by those 
moments after you have been asleep, and awake to see how the things around you 
are affected in their form. You look on as they change in every freakish manner, 
feeling the power that changes them to be connected to your own being, conveying 
to you its magic
188 
through a delicate cord. Then the cord grows too thin to hold, your mind returns 
to you, and the little performance you were watching comes to an end. But you 
have already stayed long enough in this place to have begun a second birth under 
the sign of the Tsalal. The cord between you and that one is strong. Wherever 
you go, you will be found. Wherever you stay, there the changes will begin. For 
you are the seed of that one. You are just as the luz, the bone-seed of rabbinic 
prophecy: that sliver of every mortal self from which the whole body may be 
reconstructed and stand for judgement at the end of time. Wherever you stay, 
there the resurrection will begin. You are a fragment of the one that is without 
law or reason. The body that will grow out of you is the true body of all 
things. The changes themselves are the body of the Tsalal. The changes are the 
truth of all bodies, which we believe have a face and a substance only because 
we cannot see that they are always changing, that they are only fragile forms 
which are forever being shattered in the violent whirlpool of truth. "This is 
how it will be for all your days: you will be drawn to a place that reveals the 
sign of the Tsalal--an aspect of the unreal, a forlorn glamor in things--and 
with your coming the changes will begin. These may go unnoticed for a time, 
affecting only very small things or greater things in subtle ways, a disruption 
of forms that you very well know. But other people will sense that something is 
wrong in that place, which may be a certain house or street or even an entire 
town. They will go about with uneasy eyes and become emaciated in their flesh, 
their very bones growing thin with worry, becoming worn down and warped just as 
the world around them is slowly stripped of whatever seemed real, leaving them 
famished for the sustenance of old illusions. Rumors will begin to pass among 
them about unpleasant things they believe they have seen or felt and yet cannot 
explain--a confusion among the lower creatures, perhaps, or a stone that seems 
to throb with a faint life. For these are the modest beginnings of the chaos 
that will ultimately consume the stars themselves, which may be left to crawl 
within that great blackness no one has ever seen. And by their proximity to your 
being they will know that you are the source of these changes, that through your 
being these changes radiate into the world. The longer you stay in a place, the 
worse it will become. If you leave such a place in time, then the changes can 
have no lasting power--the ultimate point will not have been reached, and it 
will be as the little performances of grotesquerie you have witnessed in your 
own room."
189 
"And if I do stay in such a place?" asked Andrew.
"Then the changes will proceed toward the ultimate point. So long as you can 
bear to watch the appearances of things become degraded and confused, so long as 
you can bear to watch the people in that place wither in their bodies and minds, 
the changes will proceed toward their ultimate point--the disintegration of all 
apparent order, the birth of the Tsalal. Before that happens you must submit to 
the ritual of the ultimate point."
But Andrew Maness only laughed at his father's scheme, and the sound of this 
laughter almost shattered the reverend entirely. In a deliberately serious 
voice, Andrew said: "Do you really believe you will gain the participation of 
others?"
"The people of this town will do the work of the ritual," his father replied. 
"When they have seen certain things, they will do what must be done. Their 
hunger to preserve the illusions of their world will surpass their horror at 
what must be done to save it. But it will be your decision whether or not you 
will submit to the ritual which will determine the course of so many things in 
this world."
ii. A meeting in Moxton
Everyone in the town gathered in the church that the Reverend Maness had built 
so many years ago. No others had succeeded the reverend, and no services had 
been held since the time of his pastorate. The structure had never been 
outfitted with electricity, but the illumination of numerous candles and oil 
lamps the congregation had brought supplemented the light of a grayish afternoon 
that penetrated the two rows of plain, peaked windows along either side of the 
church. In the corner of one of those windows a spider fumbled about in its web, 
struggling awkwardly with appendages that resembled less the nimble legs of the 
arachnid than they did an octet of limp tentacles. After several thrusts the 
creature reached the surface of a window pane and passed into the glass itself, 
where it began to move about freely in its new element.
The people of Moxton had tried to rest themselves before this meeting, but their 
haggard look spoke of a failure to do so. The entire population of the town 
barely filled a half dozen pews at the front of the church, although some were 
collapsed upon the floor and others shuffled restlessly along the center aisle. 
All of them appeared even
190 
more emaciated than the day before, when they had attempted to escape the town 
and unaccountably found themselves driven back to it.
"Everything has gotten worse since we returned," said one man, as if to initiate 
the meeting which had no obvious hope or purpose beyond collecting in a single 
place the nightmares of the people of Moxton. A murmur of voices rose up and 
echoed throughout the church. Several people spoke of what they had witnessed 
the night before, reciting a litany of grotesque phenomena that had prohibited 
sleep.
There was a bedroom wall which changed colors, turning from its normal rosy tint 
that was calm and pale in the moonlight to a quivering and luminescent green 
that rippled like the flesh of a great reptile. There was a little doll whose 
neck began to elongate until it was writhing through the air like a serpent, 
while its tiny doll's head whispered words that had no sense in them yet 
conveyed a profoundly hideous meaning. There were things no one had seen that 
made noises of a deeply troubling nature in the darkness of cellars or behind 
the doors of closets and cupboards. And then there was something that people saw 
when they looked through the windows of their houses toward the house where a 
man named Andrew Maness now lived. But when anyone began to describe what it was 
they saw in the vicinity of that house, which they called the McQuister house, 
their words became confused. They did see something and yet they saw nothing.
"I also saw what you speak of," whispered the tall, bearded man who wore a 
flat-brimmed hat. "It was a blackness, but it was not the blackness of the night 
or of shadows. It was hovering over the old McQuister place, or around it. This 
was something I had not seen in Moxton even since the changes."
"No, not in Moxton, not in the town. But you have seen it before. We have all 
seen it," said a man's voice that sounded as if it came from elsewhere in the 
church.
"Yes," answered the tall man, as if confessing a thing that had formerly been 
denied. "But we are not seeing it the way it might be seen, the way we had seen 
it when we were outside the town, when we tried to leave and could not."
"That was not blackness we saw then," said one of the younger women who seemed 
to be wresting an image from her memory. "It was something ... something that 
wasn't blackness at all."
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"There were different things," shouted an old man who suddenly stood up from one 
of the pews, his eyes fixed in a gaze of revelation. A moment later this vision 
appeared to dissolve, and he sat down again. But the eyes of others followed 
this vision, surveying the empty spaces of the church and watching the 
flickering lights of the many lamps and candles.
"There were different things," someone started to say, and then someone else 
completed the thought: "But they were all spinning and confused, all swirling 
together."
"Until all we could see was a great blackness," said the tall man, gaining his 
voice again.
A silence now overcame the congregation, and the words they had spoken seemed to 
be disappearing into this silence, once more drawing the people of Moxton back 
to the refuge of their former amnesia. But before their minds lost all clarity 
of recollection a woman named Mrs. Spikes rose to her feet and from the last row 
of the church, where she sat alone, cried out, "Everything started with him, the 
one in the McQuister house."
"How long has it been?" one voice asked.
"Too long," answered Mrs. Spikes. "I remember him. He's older than I am, but he 
doesn't look older. His hair is a strange color."
"Reddish like pale blood," said one.
"Green like mold," said another. "Or yellow and orange like a candleflame."
"He lived in that house, that same house, a long time ago," continued Mrs. 
Spikes. "Before the McQuisters. He lived with his father. But I can only 
remember the stories. I didn't see anything myself. Something happened one 
night. Something happened to the whole town. Their name was Maness."
"That is the name of the man who built this church," said the tall man. "He was 
the first clergyman this town had seen. And there were no others after him. What 
happened, Mrs. Spikes?"
"It was too long ago for anyone to remember. I only know the stories. The 
reverend said things about his son, said the boy was going to do something and 
how people had to keep it from happening."
"What happened, Mrs. Spikes? Try to remember."
"I'm trying. It was only yesterday that I started to remember. It was when we 
got back to town. I remembered something that the reverend said in the stories 
about that night."
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"I heard you," said another woman. "You said, 'Blessed is the seed that is 
planted forever in darkness.'"
Mrs. Spikes stared straight ahead and lightly pounded the top of the pew with 
her right hand, as though she were calling up memories in this manner. Then she 
said: "That's what he was supposed to have been saying that night, 'Blessed is 
the seed that is planted forever in darkness.' And he said that people had to do 
something, but the stories I heard when I was growing up don't say what he 
wanted people to do. It was about his son. It was something queer, something no 
one understood. But no one did anything that he wanted them to do. When they 
took him home, his son wasn't there, and no one saw that young man again. The 
stories say that the ones who brought the reverend to his house saw things 
there, but no one could explain what they saw. What everyone did remember was 
that late the same night the bells started ringing up in the tower of this 
church. That's where they found the reverend. He'd hung himself. It wasn't until 
the McQuisters moved into town that anyone would go near the reverend's house. 
Then it seemed no one could remember anything about the place."
"Just as we could not remember what happened only yesterday," said the tall man. 
"Why we came back to this place when it was the last place we wanted to be. The 
blackness we saw that was a blackness no one had ever seen. That blackness which 
was not a blackness but was all the colors and shapes of things darkening the 
sky."
"A vision!" said one old man who for many years had been the proprietor of 
McQuister's Pharmacy.
"Perhaps only that," replied the tall man.
"No," said Mrs. Spikes. "It was something he did. It was like everything else 
that's been happening since he came here and stayed so long. All the little 
changes in things that kept getting worse. It's something that's been moving in 
like a storm. People have seen that it's in the town now, hanging over that 
house of his. And the changes in things are worse than ever. Pretty soon it's us 
that'll be changing."
Then there arose a chorus of voices among the congregation, all of them 
composing a conflict between "we must do something" and "what can be done?"
While the people of Moxton murmured and fretted in the light of lamps and 
candles, there was a gradual darkening outside the windows of the church. An 
unnatural blackness was overtaking the
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gray afternoon. And the words of these people also began to change, just as so 
many things had changed in that town. Within the same voices there mingled both 
keening outcries of fear and a low, muttering invocation. Soon the higher 
pitched notes in these voices diminished and then wholly disappeared as the 
deeper tones of incantation prevailed. Now they were all chanting a single word 
in hypnotic harmony: Tsalal, Tsalal, Tsalal. And standing at the pulpit was the 
one who was leading the chant, the man whose strangely shaded hair shone in the 
light of candles and oil lamps. At last he had come from his house where he had 
stayed too long. The bell in the tower began to ring, sounding in shattered 
echoes. The resonant cacophony of voices swelled within the church. For these 
were the voices of people who had lived so long in the wrong place. These were 
people of a skeleton town.
The figure at the pulpit lifted up his hands before his congregation, and they 
grew quiet. When he focused his eyes on an old woman sitting alone in the last 
row, she rose from her seat and walked to the double doors at the rear of the 
church. The man at the pulpit spread his arms wider, and the old woman pushed 
back each of the doors.
Through the open doorway was the main street of Moxton, but it was not as it had 
been. An encompassing blackness had descended and only the lights of the town 
could be seen. But these lights were now as endless as the blackness itself. The 
rows of yellowish streetlamps extended to infinity along an avenue of the abyss. 
Fragments of neon signs were visible, the vibrant magenta letters of the movie 
theater recurring again and again, as though reflected in a multitude of black 
mirrors. In the midst of the other lights hovered an endless succession of 
traffic signals that filled the blackness like multi-colored stars. All these 
bright remnants of the town, its broken pieces in transformation, were becoming 
increasingly dim and distorted, bleeding their radiance into the blackness that 
was consuming them, even as it freakishly multiplied the shattered images of the 
world, collecting them within its kaleidoscope of colors so dense and so varied 
that they lost themselves within a black unity.
The man who had built the church in which the people of Moxton were gathered had 
spoken of the ultimate point. This was now imminent. And as the moment 
approached, the gathering within the church moved toward the figure at the 
pulpit, who descended to meet them. They were far beyond their old fears, these 
skeleton people.
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They had attained the stripped bone of being, the last layer of an existence 
without name or description, without nature or essence: the nothingness of the 
blackness no one had ever seen ... or would ever see. For no one had ever lived 
except as a shadow of the blackness of the Tsalal.
And their eyes looked to the one who was the incarnation of the blackness, and 
who had come to them to seal his bond with that other one. They looked to him 
for some word or gesture in order to bring to fulfilment that day which had 
turned into night. They looked to him for the thing that would bind them to the 
blackness and join them within the apocalypse of the unreal.
Finally, as if guided by some whim of the moment, he told them how to do what 
must be done.
12. What is remembered
The story that circulated in later years among the people of Moxton told how 
everyone had gathered in the church one afternoon during a big storm that lasted 
into the night. Unused for decades before this event, the church was strongly 
constructed and proved a suitable shelter. There were some who recalled that for 
weeks prior to this cataclysm a variety of uncommon effects had resulted from 
what they described as a season of strange weather in the vicinity of the town.
The details of this period remain unclear, as do memories of a man who briefly 
occupied the old McQuister place around the time of the storm. No one had ever 
spoken with him except Mrs. Spikes, who barely recollected their conversation 
and who died of cancer not long after the biggest storm of the year. The house 
in which the man had lived was previously owned by relatives of Ray Starns, but 
the Starns people were no longer residents of Moxton. In any case, the old 
McQuister place was not the only untenanted house in the skeleton town, and 
there was no reason for people to concern themselves with it. Nor did anyone in 
Moxton give serious thought to the church once the storm had passed. The doors 
were once again secured against intruders, but no one ever tested these old 
locks which had been first put in place after the Reverend Maness hung himself 
in the church tower.
Had the people of the town of Moxton ventured beyond the
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doors of the church they might have found what they left behind following the 
abatement of the storm. Lying twisted at the foot of the pulpit was the skeleton 
of a man whose name no one would have been able to remember. The bones were 
clean. No bit of their flesh could be discovered either in the church or 
anywhere else in the town. Because the flesh was that of one who had stayed in a 
certain place too long. It was the seed, and now it had been planted in a dark 
place where it would not grow. They had buried his flesh deep in the barren 
ground of their meager bodies. Only a few strands of hair of an unusual color 
lay scattered upon the floor, mingling with the dust of the church.
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The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
The Bungalow House
Early Last September I discovered among the exhibits in a local art gallery a 
sort of performance piece in the form of an audiotape. This, I later learned, 
was the first of a series of tape-recorded dream monologues by an unknown 
artist. The following is a brief and highly typical excerpt from the opening 
section of this work. I recall that after a few seconds of hissing tape noise, 
the voice began speaking: "There was far more to deal with in the bungalow house 
than simply an infestation of vermin," it said, "although that too had its 
questionable aspects." Then the voice went on: "I could see only a few of the 
bodies where the moonlight shone through the open blinds of the living room 
windows and fell upon the carpet. Only one of the bodies seemed to be moving, 
and that very slowly, but there may have been more that were not yet dead. Aside 
from the chair in which I sat in the darkness there was very little furniture in 
the room, or elsewhere in the bungalow house for that matter. But a number of 
lamps were positioned around me, floor lamps and table lamps and even two tiny 
lamps on the mantel above the fireplace."
A brief pause occurred here in the opening section of the tape-recorded dream 
monologue, as I remember it, after which the voice continued: '"The bungalow 
house was built with a fireplace,' I said to myself in the darkness, thinking 
how long it had been since anyone had made use of this fireplace, or anything 
else in the bungalow. Then my attention returned to the lamps, and I began 
trying each of them one by one, twisting their little grooved switches in the 
darkness. The moonlight fell upon the lampshades without shining through them, 
so I could not see that none of the lamps was equipped with a lightbulb, and 
each time I turned the switch of a floor lamp or a table lamp or one of the tiny 
lamps on the mantel, nothing changed in the
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dark living room of the bungalow house: the moonlight shone through the dusty 
blinds and revealed the bodies of insects and other vermin on the pale carpet."
"The challenges and obstacles facing me in that bungalow house were becoming 
more and more oppressive," whispered the voice on the tape. "There was something 
so desolate about being in that place in the dead of night, even if I did not 
know precisely what time it was. And to see upon the pale, threadbare carpet 
those verminous bodies, some of which were still barely alive; then to try each 
of the lamps and find that none of them was in working order--everything, it 
seemed, was in opposition to my efforts, everything aligned against my taking 
care of the problems I faced in the bungalow house. For the first time I noticed 
that the bodies lying for the most part in total stillness on the moonlit carpet 
were not like any species of vermin I had ever seen," the voice on the tape 
recording said. "Some of them seemed to be deformed, their naturally revolting 
forms altered in ways I could not discern. I knew that I would require 
specialized implements for dealing with these creatures, an arsenal of advanced 
tools of extermination. It was the idea of poisons--the toxic solutions and 
vapors I would need to use in my assault, upon the bungalow hordes--that caused 
me to become overwhelmed by the complexities of the task before me and the 
paucity of my resources for dealing with them."
At this point, and many others on the tape (as I recall), the voice became 
nearly inaudible. "The bungalow house," it said, "was such a bleak environment 
in which to make a stand: the moonlight through the dusty blinds, the bodies on 
the carpet, the lamps without any lightbulbs. And the incredible silence. It was 
not the absence of sounds that I sensed, but the stifling of innumerable sounds 
and even voices, the muffling of all the noises one might expect to hear in an 
old bungalow house in the dead of night, as well as countless other sounds and 
voices. The forces required to accomplish this silence filled me with awe. The 
infinite terror and dreariness of an infested bungalow house, I whispered to 
myself. A bungalow universe, I then thought without speaking aloud. Suddenly I 
was overcome by a feeling of euphoric hopelessness which passed through my body 
like a powerful drug and held all my thoughts and all my movements in a dreamy, 
floating suspension. In the moonlight that shone through the blinds of that 
bungalow house I was now as still and as silent as everything else."
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The title of the tape-recorded artwork from which I have just quoted was The 
Bungalow House (Plus Silence). I discovered this and other dream monologues by 
the same artist at Dalha D. Fine Arts, which was located in the near vicinity of 
the public library (main branch) where I was employed in the Language and 
Literature department. Sometimes I spent my lunch breaks at the gallery, even 
consuming my brown-bag meals on the premises. There were a few chairs and 
benches on the floor of the gallery, and I knew that the woman who owned the 
place did not discourage any kind of traffic, however lingering. Her actual 
livelihood was in fact not derived from the gallery itself. How could it have 
been? Dalha D. Fine Arts was a hole in the wall. One would think it no trouble 
at all to keep up the premises where there was so little floor space, just a 
single room that was by no means overcrowded with artworks or art-related 
merchandise. But no attempt at such upkeeping seemed ever to have been made. The 
display windowwas so filmy that someone passing by could barely make out the 
paintings and sculptures behind it (the same ones year after year). From the 
street outside, this tiny front window presented the most desolate hallucination 
of bland colors and shapeless forms, especially on late November afternoons. 
Further inside the gallery, things were in a similar state--from the cruddy 
linoleum floor, where some cracked tiles revealed the concrete foundation, to 
the rather high ceiling, which occasionally sent down small chips of plaster. If 
every artwork and item of art-related merchandise had been cleared out of that 
building, no one would think that an art gallery had once occupied this space 
and not some enterprise of a lesser order.
But as many persons were aware, if only through second-hand sources, the woman 
who operated Dalha D. Fine Arts did not make her living by dealing in those 
artworks and related items which only the most desperate or scandalously naive 
artist would allow to be put on display in that gallery. By all accounts, 
including my own brief lunchtime conversations with the woman, she had pursued a 
variety of careers in her time. She herself had worked as an artist at one 
point, and some of her works--messy assemblages inside old cigar boxes-- were 
exhibited in a corner of her gallery. But evidently her art gallery business was 
not self-sustaining, despite minimal overheads, and she made no secret of her 
true means of income.
"Who wants to buy such junk?" she once explained to me,
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gesturing with long fingernails painted emerald green. This same color also 
seemed to dominate her wardrobe of long, loose garments, often featuring 
incredible scarves or shawls that dragged along the floor as she moved about the 
art gallery. She paused and with the pointed toe of one of her emerald green 
shoes gave a little kick at a wire wastebasket that was filled with the 
miniature limbs of dolls, all of them individually painted in a variety of 
colors. "What are people thinking when they make these things? What was I 
thinking with those stupid cigar boxes? But no more of that, definitely no more 
of that sort of thing."
And she made no secret, beyond a certain reasonable caution, of what sort of 
thing now engaged her energies as a businesswoman. The telephone was always 
ringing at her art gallery, always upsetting the otherwise dead calm of the 
place with its cracked, warbling voice that called out from the back room. She 
would then quickly disappear behind a curtain that hung in the doorway 
separating the front and back sections of the art gallery. I might be eating my 
sandwich or a piece of fruit, and then suddenly, for the fourth or fifth time in 
a halfhour, the telephone would scream from the back room, eventually summoning 
this woman behind the curtain. But she never answered the telephone with the 
name of the art gallery or employed any of the stock phrases of business 
protocol. Not so much as a "Good afternoon, may I help you?" did I ever hear 
from the back room as I sat eating my midday meal in the front section of the 
art gallery. She always answered the telephone in the same way with the same 
quietly expectant tone in her voice. This is Dalha, she always said.
Before I had known her very long she even had me using her name in the most 
familiar way. The mere saying of this name instilled in me a sense of access to 
what she offered all those telephone-callers, not to mention those individuals 
who personally visited the art gallery to make or confirm an appointment. 
Whatever someone was eager to try, whatever step someone was willing to 
take--Dalha could arrange it. This was the true stock in trade of the art 
gallery, these arrangements. When I returned to the library after my lunch 
break, I continued to imagine Dalha back at the art gallery, racing between the 
front and back sections of the building, making all kinds of arrangements over 
the telephone, and sometimes in person.
On the day that I first noticed the new artwork entitled The Bungalow House, 
Dalha's telephone was extremely vocal. While she
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was talking to her clients in the back section of the art gallery, I was 
practically left alone in the front section. Just for a thrill I went over to 
the wire wastebasket full of dismembered doll parts and lifted one of the 
painted arms (emerald green!), hiding it in the inner pocket of my sportcoat. It 
was then that I spotted the old audiotape recorder on a small plastic table in 
the corner. Beside the machine was a business card on which the title of the 
artwork had been handprinted, along with the following instructions: PRESS PLAY. 
PLEASE REWIND AFTER. LISTENING. DO NOT REMOVE TAPE. I placed the headphones over 
my ears and pressed the PLAY button. The voice that spoke through the 
headphones, which were enormous, sounded distant and was somewhat distorted by 
the hissing of the tape. Nevertheless, I was so intrigued by the opening 
passages of this dream monologue, which I have already transcribed, that I sat 
down on the floor next to the small plastic table on which the tape recorder was 
positioned and listened to the entire tape, exceeding my allotted lunchtime by 
over half an hour. By the time the tape had ended I was in another world--that 
is, the world of the infested bungalow house, with all its dreamlike crumminess 
and foul charms.
"Don't forget to rewind the tape," said Dalha, who was now standing over me, her 
long gray hair, like steel wool, almost brushing against my face.
I pressed the REWIND button on the tape recorder and got up from the floor. 
"Dalha, may I use your lavatory?" I asked. She pointed to the curtain leading to 
the back section of the art gallery. "Thank you," I said.
The effect of listening to the first dream monologue was very intense for 
reasons I will soon explain. I wanted to be alone for a few moments in order to 
preserve the state of mind which the voice on the tape had induced in me, much 
as one might attempt to hold on to the images of a dream just after waking. 
However, I felt that the lavatory at the library, despite its peculiar virtues 
which I have appreciated over the years, would somehow undermine the sensations 
and mental state created by the dream monologue, rather than preserving this 
experience and even enhancing it, as I hoped the lavatory in the back section of 
Dalha's art gallery would do.
The very reason why I spent my lunchtimes in the surroundings of Dalha's art 
gallery, which were so different from those of the library, was exactly why I 
now wanted to use the lavatory in the back
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section of that art gallery and definitely not the lavatory at the library, even 
if I was already overdue from my lunch break. And, indeed, this lavatory had the 
same qualities as the rest of the art gallery, as I hoped it would. The fact 
that it was located in the back section of the art gallery, a region of 
mysteries to my mind, was significant. Just outside the door of the lavatory 
stood a small, cluttered desk upon which was the telephone that Dalha used in 
her true business of making arrangements. The telephone was centered in the weak 
light of a desk lamp, and I noticed, as I passed into the lavatory, that it was 
an unwieldy object with a straight--that is, uncoiled--cord connecting the 
receiver to the telephone housing, with its enormous dial. But although Dalha 
answered several calls during the time I was in her lavatory, these seemed to be 
entirely legitimate conversations having to do either with her personal life or 
with practical matters relating to the art gallery.
"How long are you going to be in there?" Dalha asked through the door of the 
lavatory. "I hope you're not sick, because if you're sick you'll have to go 
somewhere else."
I called out that there was nothing wrong (quite the opposite) and a moment 
later emerged from the lavatory. I was about to ask for details of the art 
performance tape I had just heard, anxious to know about the artist and what it 
would cost me to own the work entitled The Bungalow House, as well as any 
similar works that might exist. But the phone began ringing again. Dalha 
answered it with her customary greeting as I stood by in the back section of the 
art gallery, which was a dark, though relatively uncluttered, space that now put 
me in mind of the living room of the bungalow house that I had heard described 
on the tape-recorded dream monologue. The conversation in which Dalha was 
engaged (another non-arrangement call) seemed interminable, and I was becoming 
nervously aware how long past my lunch break I had stayed at the storefront art 
gallery.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I said to Dalha, who responded with a look from her 
emerald eyes while continuing to speak to the other party on the telephone. And 
she was smiling at me, like muted laughter, I remember thinking as I passed 
through the curtained doorway into the front section of the art gallery. I 
glanced at the tape recorder standing on the plastic table but decided against 
taking the audiocassette back to the library (and afterward home with me). It 
would be there when I visited on my lunch break the following day. Hardly
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anyone ever bought anything out of the front section of Dalha's art gallery.
For the rest of the day--both at the library and at my home--I thought about the 
bungalow house tape. Especially while riding the bus home from the library, I 
thought of the images and concepts described on the tape, as well as the voice 
that described them and the phrases it used throughout the dream monologue on 
the bungalow house. Much of my commute from my home to the library, and back 
home again, took me past numerous streets lined from end to end with 
desolate-looking houses, any of which might have been the inspiration for the 
bungalow house audiotape. I say that these streets were lined from "end to end" 
with such houses, even though the bus never turned down any of these streets, 
and I therefore never actually viewed even a single one of them from "end to 
end". In fact, as I looked through the window next to my seat on the bus --on 
either side of the bus I always sat in the window seat, never in the aisle 
seat--the streets I saw appeared endless, vanishing from my sight toward an 
infinity of old houses, many of them derelict houses and a great many of them 
being dwarfish and desolate-looking houses of the bungalow type.
The tape-recorded dream monologue, as I recalled it that day while riding home 
on the bus and staring out the window, described several features of the 
infested bungalow house--the dusty window blinds through which the moonlight 
shone, the lamps with all their lightbulb sockets empty, the threadbare carpet, 
and the dead or barely living vermin that littered the carpet. The voice on the 
tape only presented an interior view of the bungalow house, never a view from 
the exterior. Conversely, the houses I gazed upon with such intensity as I rode 
the bus to and from the library were only seen by me from an exterior 
perspective, their interiors being visible solely in my imagination as I 
projected it into these houses. And my memory of these interiors, once I had 
emerged from one of my imaginative projections, was always spotty and vague, 
lacking the precise physical layout provided by the bungalow house audiotape. 
Even my recollection of the dreams I often had of these houses was spotty and 
vague, highly imperfect. Yet the sensations and the mental state created by my 
imaginative projections into and my dreams of these houses perfectly 
corresponded to those I experienced at Dalha's art gallery when I listened to 
the tape entitled The Bungalow House. That feeling of being in a trance among 
the most vile and pathetic surroundings
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was communicated to me in the most powerful way by the voice on the tape, which 
described a silent and secluded world where one existed in a state of abject 
hypnosis. While sitting on the floor of the art gallery listening to the voice 
as it spoke through those enormous headphones, I had the sense not that I was 
simply hearing the words of that dream monologue but also that I was reading 
them. What I mean is that whenever I have the occasion to read words on a page, 
any words on any page, the voice that I hear saying these words in my head is 
always recognizable in some way as my own, even though the words are those of 
another. Perhaps it is even more accurate to say that whenever I read words on a 
page, the voice in my head is my own voice as it becomes merged (or lost) within 
the words that I am reading. Conversely, when I have the occasion to write words 
on a page, even a simple note or memo at the library, the voice that I hear 
dictating these words does not sound like my own--until, of course, I read the 
words back to myself, at which time everything is all right again. The bungalow 
house tape was the most dramatic example of this phenomenon I had ever known. 
Despite the poor overall quality of the recording, the distorted voice reading 
this dream monologue became merged (or lost) within my own perfectly clear voice 
in my head, even though I was listening to its words over a pair of enormous 
headphones and not reading the words on a page. As I rode the bus home from the 
library, observing street after street of houses so reminiscent of the one 
described on the tape-recorded dream monologue, I regretted not having acquired 
this artwork on the spot or at least discovered more about it from Dalha, who 
had been occupied with what seemed an unusual number of telephone calls that 
afternoon.
The following day at the library I was anxious for lunchtime to arrive so that I 
could get over to the art gallery and find out everything I possibly could about 
the bungalow house tape, as well as discuss terms for its acquisition. Entering 
the art gallery, I immediately looked toward the corner where the tape recorder 
had been set on the small plastic table the day before. For some reason I was 
relieved to find the exhibit still in place, as if any artwork in that gallery 
could possibly have come and gone in a single day.
I walked over to the exhibit with the purpose of verifying that everything I had 
seen (and heard) the previous day was exactly as I remembered it. I checked that 
the audio cassette was still inside the recording machine and picked up the 
little business card on which the
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title of the exhibit was given, along with instructions for properly operating 
the tape-recorded artwork. It was then that I realized that this was a different 
card from the first one. Printed on this card was the title of a new artwork, 
which was called The Derelict Factory with a Dirt Floor and Voices.
While I was very excited to find a new work by this artist, I also felt intense 
apprehension at the absence of the bungalow house dream monologue, which I had 
planned to purchase with some extra money I brought with me to the art gallery 
that day. Just at that moment in which I experienced the dual sensations of 
excitement and apprehension, Dalha emerged from behind the curtain separating 
the back and front sections of the art gallery. I had intended to be thoroughly 
blase in negotiating the purchase of the bungalow house artwork, but Dalha 
caught me off-guard in a state of disorienting conflict.
"What happened to the bungalow house tape that was here yesterday?" I asked, the 
tension in my voice betraying desires that were all to her advantage.
"That's gone now," she replied in a frigid tone as she walked slowly and 
pointlessly about the gallery, her emerald skirt and scarves dragging along the 
floor.
"I don't understand. It was an artwork exhibited on that small plastic table."
"Yes," she agreed.
"Now, after only a single day on exhibit, it's gone?"
"Yes, it's gone."
"Somebody bought it," I said, assuming the worst.
"No," she said, "that one was not for sale. It was a performance piece. There 
was a charge, but you didn't pay."
A sickly confusion now became added to the excitement and disappointment already 
mingling inside me. "There was no notice of a charge for listening to the dream 
monologue," I insisted. "As far as I knew, as far as anyone could know, it was 
an item for sale like everything else in this place."
"The dream monologue, as you call it, was an exclusive piece. The charge was on 
the back of the card on which the title was written, just as the charge is on 
the back of that card you are holding in your hand."
I turned the card to the reverse side, where the words "twenty-five dollars" 
were written in the same hand that appeared on all the price
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tags around the gallery. Speaking in the tones of an outraged customer, I said 
to Dalha, "You wrote the price only on this card. There was nothing written on 
the bungalow house card." But even as I said these words I lacked the conviction 
that they were true. In any case, I knew that if I wanted to hear the tape 
recording about the derelict factory I would have to pay what I owed, or what 
Dalha claimed I owed, for listening to the bungalow house tape.
"Here," I said, removing my wallet from my back pocket, "ten, twenty, 
twenty-five dollars for the bungalow house, and another twenty-five for 
listening to the tape now in the machine."
Dalha stepped forward, took the fifty dollars I held out to her, and in her 
coldest voice said, "This only covers yesterday's tape about the bungalow house, 
which was clearly priced at fifty dollars. You must still pay twenty-five 
dollars if you wish to listen to the tape today."
"But why should the bungalow house tape cost twenty-five dollars more than the 
tape about the derelict factory?"
"That is simply because this is a less ambitious work than the bungalow house."
In fact the tape recording entitled The Derelict Factory with a Dirt Floor and 
Voices was of shorter duration than The Bungalow House (Plus Silence), but I 
found it no less wonderful in picturing the same "infinite terror and 
dreariness". For approximately fifteen minutes (on my lunch break) I embraced 
the degraded beauty of the derelict factory-- a narrow ruin that stood isolated 
upon avast plain, its broken windows accepting only the most meager haze of 
moonlight to shine across its floor of hard-packed dirt where dead machinery lay 
buried in a grave of shadows and languished in the echoes of hollow, senseless 
voices. Yet how lucid was the voice that communicated its message to me through 
the medium of a tape recording. To think that another person shared my love for 
the icy bleakness of things. The comfort I felt at hearing that monotonal and 
somewhat distorted voice singing words that I knew so well--this was an 
experience that even then, as I sat on the floor of Dalha's art gallery 
listening to the tape through enormous headphones, might have been 
heartbreaking. But I wanted to believe that the artist who created these dream 
monologues about the bungalow house and the derelict factory had not set out to 
break my heart or anyone's heart. I wanted to believe that this artist had 
escaped the dreams and demons of all sentiment in order to explore the foul and 
crummy delights of a universe where everything had been
206 
reduced to three stark principles: first, that there was nowhere for you to go; 
second, that there was nothing for you to do; and third, that there was no one 
for you to know. Of course I knew that this view was an illusion like any other, 
but it was also one that had sustained me so long and so well--as long and as 
well as any other illusion and perhaps longer, perhaps better.
"Dalha," I said when I had finished listening to the tape recording, "I want you 
to tell me what you know about the artist of these dream monologues. He doesn't 
even sign his works."
From across the front section of the art gallery Dalha spoke to me in a strange, 
somewhat flustered voice. "Well, why should you be surprised that he doesn't 
sign his name to his works--that's how artists are these days. All over the 
place they are signing their works only with some idiotic symbol or a piece of 
chewing gum or just leaving them unsigned altogether. Why should you care what 
his name is? Why should I?"
"Because," I answered, "perhaps I can persuade him to allow me to buy his works 
instead of sitting on the floor of your art gallery and renting these 
performances on my lunch break."
"So you want to cut me out entirely," Dalha shouted back in her old voice. "I am 
his dealer, I tell you, and anything he has to sell you will buy through me."
"I don't know why you're getting so upset," I said, standing up from the floor. 
"I'm willing to give you a percentage. All I ask is that you arrange something 
between myself and the artist."
Dalha sat down in a chair next to the curtained doorway separating the front and 
back sections of the art gallery. She pulled her emerald shawl around herself 
and said, "Even if I wished to arrange something I could not do it. I have no 
idea what his name is myself. A few nights ago he walked up to me on the street 
while I was waiting for a cab to take me home."
"What does he look like?" I had to ask at that moment.
"It was late at night and I was drunk," Dalha replied, somehow evasively it 
seemed to me.
"Was he a younger man, an older man?"
"An older man, yes. Not very tall, with bushy white hair like a professor of 
some kind. And he said that he wanted to have an artwork of his delivered to my 
gallery. I explained to him my usual terms as best I could, since I was so 
drunk. He agreed and then walked off down the
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street. And that's not the best part of town to be walking around all by 
yourself. Well, the next day a package arrived with the tape-recording machine 
and so forth. There were also some instructions which explained that I should 
destroy each of the audio tapes before I leave the art gallery at the end of the 
day, and that a new tape would arrive the following day and each day thereafter. 
There was no return address on the packages."
"And did you destroy the bungalow house tape?" I asked.
"Of course," said Dalha with some exasperation, but also with insistence. "What 
do I care about some crazy artist's work or how he conducts his career. Besides, 
he guaranteed I would make some money on the deal, and here I am already with 
seventy-five dollars. "
"So why not sell me this dream monologue about the derelict factory? I won't say 
anything."
Dalha was quiet for a moment, and then said, "He told me that if I didn't 
destroy the tapes each day he would know about it and that he would do 
something. I've forgotten exactly what he said, I was so drunk that night."
"But how could he know?" I asked, and in reply Dalha just stared at me in 
silence. "All right, all right," I said. "But I still want you to make an 
arrangement. You have his money for the bungalow house tape and the tape about 
the derelict factory. If he's any kind of artist, he'll want to be paid. When he 
gets in touch with you, that's when you make the arrangement for me. I won't 
cheat you out of your percentage. I give you my word on that.
"Whatever that's worth," Dalha said bitterly.
But she did agree that she would try to arrange something between myself and the 
tape-recording artist. I left the art gallery immediately after these 
negotiations, before Dalha could have any second thoughts. That afternoon, while 
I was working in the Language and Literature department of the library, I could 
think about nothing but the derelict factory that was so enticingly pictured on 
the new audiotape. The bus that takes me to and from the library each day of the 
working week always passes such a structure, which stands isolated in the 
distance just as the artist described it in his dream monologue.
That night I slept badly, thrashing about in my bed, not quite asleep and not 
quite awake. At times I had the feeling there was someone else in my bedroom who 
was talking to me, but of course I
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could not deal with this perception in any realistic way, since I was 
half-asleep and half-awake, and thus, for all practical purposes, I was out of 
my mind."
Around three o'clock in the morning the telephone rang. In the darkness I 
reached for my eyeglasses, which were on the nightstand next to the telephone, 
and noted the luminous face of my alarm clock. I cleared my throat and said 
hello. The voice on the other end said hello back to me. It was Dalha.
"I talked to him," she said.
"Where did you talk to him?" I asked. "On the street?"
"No, no, not on the street," she said, giggling a little. I think she must have 
been drunk. "He called me on the telephone."
"He called you on the telephone?" I repeated, imagining for a moment what it 
would be like to have the voice of that artist speak to me over the telephone 
and not merely on a recorded audiotape.
"Yes, he called me on the telephone."
"What did he say?"
"Well, I could tell you if you would stop asking so many questions."
"Tell me."
"It was only a few minutes ago that he called. He said that he would meet you 
tomorrow at the library where you work."
"You told him about me?" I asked, and then there was a long silence. "Dalha?" I 
prompted.
"Yes, I told him about you. But I never knew what you did for a living. How long 
have you worked at the library?"
"Fifteen years. Did he say anything else to you?" I asked Dalha.
"No, nothing."
"Maybe it was only a coincidence that he said he would meet me at the library 
and that I also work at the library," I said. "People meet all the time at the 
library. I see them meeting there everyday."
"Of course they do," said Dalha, a little patronizing it seemed for someone who 
was so drunk at three o'clock in the morning. Then she said good-bye and hung up 
before I could say good-bye back to her.
After talking to Dalha I found it impossible to sleep anymore that night, even 
if it was only a state of half-sleeping and half-waking. All I could think about 
was meeting the artist of the dream monologues. So I got myself ready to go to 
work, rushing as if I were late, and walked up to the corner of my street to 
wait for the bus.
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It was very cold as I sat waiting in the bus shelter. There was a sliver of moon 
high in the blackness above, with several hours remaining before sunrise. 
Somehow I felt that I was waiting for the bus on the first day of a new 
schoolyear, since after all the month was September, and I was so filled with 
both fear and excitement. When the bus finally arrived I saw that there were 
only a few other early risers headed for downtown. I took one of the back seats 
and stared out the window, my own face staring back at me in black reflection.
At the next shelter we approached I noticed that another lone bus rider was 
seated on the bench waiting to be picked up. His clothes were dark colored 
(including a long loose overcoat and hat), and he sat up very straight, his arms 
held close to the body and his hands resting on his lap. His head was slightly 
bowed, and I could not see the face beneath his hat. His physical attitude, I 
thought to myself as we approached the lighted bus shelter, was one of 
disciplined repose. I was surprised that he did not stand up as the bus came 
nearer to the shelter, and ultimately we passed him by. I wanted to say 
something to the driver of the bus but a strong feeling of both fear and 
excitement made me keep my silence.
The bus finally dropped me off in front of the library, and I ran up the tiered 
stairway that led to the main entrance. Through the thick glass doors I could 
see that only a few lights illuminated the spacious interior of the library. 
After rapping on the glass for a few moments I saw a figure dressed in a 
maintenance man's uniform appear in the shadowy distance inside the building. I 
rapped some more and the man slowly proceeded down the library's vaulted central 
hallway.
"Good morning, Henry," I said as the door opened.
"Hello, sir," he replied without standing aside to allow my entrance to the 
library. "You know I'm not supposed to open these doors before it's time for 
them to be open."
"I'm a little early, I realize, but I'm sure it will be all right to let me 
inside. I work here, after all."
"I know you do, sir. But a few days ago I got talked to about these doors being 
open when they shouldn't be. It's because of the stolen property."
"What property is that, Henry? Books?"
"No, sir. I think it was something from the media department. Maybe a video 
camera or a tape recorder, I don't know exactly."
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"Well, you have my word--just let me through the door and I'll go right upstairs 
to my desk. I've got a lot of work to do today."
Henry eventually obliged my request, and I did as I told him I would do.
The library was a great building as a whole, but the Language and Literature 
department (second floor) was located in a relatively small area--narrow and 
long with a high ceiling and a row of tall, paned windows along one wall. The 
other walls were lined with books, and most of the floor space was devoted to 
long study tables. For the most part, though, the room in which I worked was 
fairly open from end to end. Two large archways led to other parts of the 
library, and a normalsized doorway led to the stacks where most of the 
bibliographic holdings were stored, millions of volumes standing silent and out 
of sight along endless rows of shelves. In the pre-dawn darkness the true 
dimensions of the Language and Literature department were now obscure. Only the 
moon shining high in the blackness through those tall windows revealed to me the 
location of my desk, which was in the middle of the long narrow room.
I found my way over to my desk and switched on the small lamp that years ago I 
had brought from home. (Not that I required the added illumination as I worked 
at my desk at the library, but I did enjoy the bleakly old-fashioned appearance 
of this object.) For a moment I thought of the bungalow house where none of the 
lamps were equipped with lightbulbs and moonlight shone through the windows upon 
a carpet littered with vermin. Somehow I was unable to call up the special 
sensations and mental state that I associated with this dream monologue, even 
though my present situation of being alone in the Language and Literature 
department some hours before dawn was intensely dreamlike.
Not knowing what else to do, I sat down at my desk as if I were beginning my 
normal workday. It was then that I noticed a large envelope lying on top of my 
desk, although I could not recall its being there when I left the library the 
day before. The envelope looked old and faded under the dim light of the desk 
lamp. There was no writing on either side of the envelope, which was bulging 
slightly and had been sealed.
"Who's there?" a voice called out that barely sounded like my own. I had seen 
something out of the corner of my eye while examining the envelope at my desk. I 
cleared my throat. "Henry?" I
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asked the darkness without looking up from my desk or turning to either side. No 
answer was offered in reply, but I could feel that someone else had joined me in 
the Language and Literature department of the library.
I slowly turned my head to the right and focused on the archway some distance 
across the room. At the center of this aperture, which led to another room where 
moonlight shone through high, paned windows, stood a figure in silhouette. I 
could not see his face but immediately recognized the long, loose overcoat and 
hat. It was indeed the one whom I saw in the bus shelter as I rode to the 
library in the pre-dawn darkness. Now he was there to meet me that day in the 
library, as he had told Dalha he would do. At that moment it seemed beside the 
point to ask how he had gotten into the library or even to bother about 
introductions. I simply launched into a monologue that I had been constantly 
rehearsing since Dalha telephoned me earlier that morning.
"I've been wanting to meet you," I started. "Your dream monologues, which is 
what I call them, have impressed me very much. That is to say, your artworks are 
like nothing else I have ever experienced, either artistically or 
extra-artistically. It seems incredible to me how well you have expressed 
subject matter with which I myself am intimately familiar. Of course, I am not 
referring to the subject matter as such--the bungalow house and so on--except as 
it calls forth your underlying vision of things. When--in your tape-recorded 
monologues--your voice speaks such phrases as 'infinite terror and dreariness' 
or 'ceaseless negation of color and life', I believe that my response is exactly 
that which you intend for those who experience your artworks, perhaps even that 
which you yourself have experienced that gives source of inspiration for your 
artworks."
I continued in this vein for a while longer, speaking to the silhouette of 
someone who betrayed no sign that he heard anything I said. At some point, 
however, my monologue veered off in a direction I had not intended it to take. 
Suddenly I began to say things that had nothing to do with what I had said 
before and that even contradicted my former statements.
"For as long as I can remember," I said, continuing to speak to the figure 
standing in the archway, "I have had an intense and highly aesthetic perception 
of what I call the icy bleakness of things. At the same time I have felt a great 
loneliness in this perception. This
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conjunction of feelings seems paradoxical, since such a perception, such a view 
of things, would seem to preclude the emotion of loneliness, or any sense of a 
killing sadness; as I think of it. All such heartbreaking sentiment, as usually 
considered, would seem to be on its knees before artworks such as yours, which 
so powerfully express what I have called the icy bleakness of things, submerging 
or devastating all sentiment in an atmosphere potent with desolate truths, 
permeated throughout with a visionary stagnation and lifelessness. Yet I must 
observe that the effect, as I now consider it, has been just the opposite. If it 
was your intent to evoke the icy bleakness of things with your dream monologues, 
then you have totally failed on both an artistic and an extra-artistic level. 
You have failed your art, you have failed yourself, and you have also failed me. 
If your artworks had really evoked the bleakness of things, then I would not 
have felt this need to know who you are, this killing sadness that there was 
actually someone who experienced the same sensations and mental states that I 
did and who could share them with me in the form of tape-recorded dream 
monologues. Who are you that I should feel this need to go to work hours before 
the sun comes up, that I should feel this was something I had to do and that you 
were someone that I had to know? This behavior violates every principle by which 
I have lived for as long as I can remember. Who are you to cause me to violate 
these longlived principles? I think it's all becoming clear to me now. Dalha put 
you up to this. You and Dalha are in a conspiracy against me and against my 
principles. Every day Dalha is on the telephone making all kinds of arrangements 
for profit, and she cannot stand the idea that all I do is sit there in peace, 
eating my lunch in her hideous art gallery. She feels that I'm cheating her 
somehow because she's not making a profit from me, because I never paid her to 
make an arrangement for me. Don't try to deny what I now know is true. But you 
could say something, in any case. Just a few words spoken with that voice of 
yours. Or at least let me see your face. And you could take off that ridiculous 
hat. It's like something Dalha would wear."
By this time I was on my feet and walking (staggering, in fact) toward the 
figure that stood in the archway. All the while I walking, or staggering, toward 
the figure I was also demanding that he answer my accusations. But as I walked 
forward between the long study tables toward the archway, the figure standing 
there receded backward into the darkness of the next room, where moonlight shone 
through high,
213 
paned windows. The closer I came to him the farther he receded into the 
darkness. And he did not recede into the darkness by taking steps backward, as I 
was taking steps forward, but moved in some other way that even now I cannot 
specify, as though he were floating.
Just before the figure disappeared completely into the darkness he finally spoke 
to me. His voice was the same one that I had heard over those enormous 
headphones in Dalha's art gallery, except now there was no interference, no 
distortion in the words that it spoke. These words, which resounded in my brain 
as they resounded in the high-ceilinged rooms of the library, were such that I 
should have welcomed them, for they echoed my very own, deeply private 
principles. Yet I took no comfort in hearing another voice tell me that there 
was nowhere for me to go, nothing for me to do, and no one for me to know.
The next voice I heard was that of Henry, who shouted up the wide stone 
staircase from the ground floor of the library. "Is everything all right, sir?" 
he asked. I composed myself and was able to answer that everything was all 
right. I asked him to turn the lights on for the second floor of the library. In 
a minute the lights were on, but by then the man in the hat and long, loose 
overcoat was gone.
When I confronted Dalha at her art gallery later that day, she was not in the 
least forthcoming with respect to my questions and accusations. "You're crazy," 
she screamed at me. "I want nothing more to do with you."
When I asked Dalha what she was talking about, she said, "You really don't know, 
do you? You really are a crazy man. You don't remember that night you came up to 
me on the street while I was waiting for a cab to show up."
When I told her I recalled doing nothing of the kind, she continued her anecdote 
of that night, and also subsequent events. "I'm so drunk I can hardly understand 
what you're saying to me about some little game you are playing. Then you send 
me the tapes. Then you come in and pay to listen to the tapes, exactly as you 
said you would. Just in time I remember that I'm supposed to lie to you that the 
tapes are the work of a white-haired old man, when in fact you're the one who's 
making the tapes. I knew you were crazy, but this was the only money I ever made 
off you, even though day after day you come and eat your pathetic lunch in my 
gallery. When I saw you that night, I couldn't tell at first who it was walking 
up to me on the street.
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You did look different, and you were wearing that stupid hat. Soon enough, 
though, I can see that it's you. And you're pretending to be someone else, but 
not really pretending, I don't know. And then you tell me that I must destroy 
the tapes, and if I don't destroy them something will happen. Well, let me tell 
you, crazy man," Dalha said, "I did not destroy those tape recordings. I let all 
my friends hear them. We sat around getting drunk and laughing our heads off at 
your stupid dream monologues. Here, another one of your artworks arrived in the 
mail today," she said while walking across the floor of the art gallery to the 
tape machine that was positioned on the small plastic table. "Why don't you 
listen to it and pay me the money you promised. This looks like agood one," she 
said, picking up the little card that bore the title of the work. "The Bus 
Shelter, it says. That should be very exciting for you--a bus shelter. Pay up!"
"Dalha," I said in a laboriously calm voice, "please listen to me. You have to 
make another arrangement. I need to have another meeting with the tape-recording 
artist. You're the only one who can arrange for this to happen. Dalha, I'm 
afraid for both of us if you don't agree to make this arrangement. I need to 
speak with him again."
"Then why don't you just go talk into a mirror. There," she said, pointing to 
the curtain that separated the front section from the back section of the art 
gallery. "Go into the bathroom like you did the other day and talk to yourself 
in the mirror."
"I didn't talk to myself in the bathroom, Dalha."
"No? What were you doing then?"
"Dalha, you have to make the arrangement. You are the go-between. He will 
contact you if you agree to let him."
"Who will contact me?"
This was a fair question for Dalha to ask, but it was also one that I could not 
answer. I told her that I would return to talk to her the next day, hoping she 
would have calmed down by then.
Unfortunately, I never saw Dalha again. That night she was found dead on the 
street. Presumably she had been waiting for a cab to take her home from a bar or 
a party or some other human gathering place where she had gotten very drunk. But 
it was not her drinking or her exhausting bohemian social life that killed 
Dalha. She had, in fact, choked to death while waiting for a cab very late at 
night. Her body was taken to a hospital for examination. There it was discovered 
that
215 
an object had been lodged inside her. Someone, it appeared, had violently thrust 
something down her throat. The object, as described in a newspaper article, was 
the "small plastic arm of a toy doll". Whether this doll's arm had been painted 
emerald green, or any other color, was not mentioned by the article. Surely the 
police searched through Dalha D. Fine Arts and found many more such objects 
arranged in a wire wastebasket, each of them painted different colors. No doubt 
they also found the exhibit of the dream monologues with its unsigned artworks 
and tape recorder stolen from the library. But they could never have made the 
connection between these tape-recorded artworks and the grotesque death of the 
gallery owner.
After that night I no longer felt the desperate need to possess the monologues, 
not even the final bus shelter tape, which I have never heard. I was now in 
possession of the original handwritten manuscripts from which the tape-recording 
artist had created his dream monologues and which he had left for me in a large 
envelope on my desk at the library. Even then he knew, as I did not know, that 
after our first meeting we would never meet again. The handwriting on the 
manuscript pages is somewhat like my own, although the slant of the letters 
betrays a left-handed writer, whereas I am right-handed. Over and over I read 
the dream monologues about the bus shelter and the derelict factory and 
especially about the bungalow house, where the moonlight shines upon a carpet 
littered with the bodies of vermin. I try to experience the infinite terror and 
dreariness of a bungalow universe in the way I once did, but it is not the same 
as it once was. There is no comfort in it, even though the vision and the 
underlying principles are still the same. I know in a way I never knew before 
that there is nowhere for me to go, nothing for me to do, and no one for me to 
know. The voice in my head keeps reciting these old principles of mine. The 
voice is his voice, and the voice is also my voice. And there are other voices, 
voices I have never heard before, voices that seem to be either dead or dying in 
agreat moonlit darkness. More than ever, some sort of new arrangement seems in 
order, some dramatic and unknown arrangement--anything to find release from this 
heartbreaking sadness I suffer every minute of the day (and night), this killing 
sadness that feels as if it will never leave me no matter where I go or what I 
do or whom I may ever know.
216 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
Teatro Grottesco
The first thing I learned was that no one anticipates the arrival of the Teatro. 
One would not say, or even think, "The Teatro has never come to this city--it 
seems we're due for a visit," or perhaps, "Don't be surprised when you-know-what 
turns up, it's been years since the last time." Even if the city in which one 
lives is exactly the kind of place favored by the Teatro, there can be no basis 
for predicting its appearance. No warnings are given, no fanfare to announce 
that a Teatro season is about to begin, or that another season of that sort will 
soon be upon us. But if a particular city possesses what is sometimes called an 
"artistic underworld," and if one is in close touch with this society of 
artists, the chances are optimal for being among those who discover that things 
have already started. This is the most one can expect.
For a time it was all rumors and lore, hearsay and dreams. Anyone who failed to 
show up for a few days at the usual club or bookstore or special artistic event 
was the subject of speculation. But most of the crowd I am referring to lead 
highly unstable, even precarious lives. Any of them might pack up and disappear 
without notifying a single soul. And almost all of the supposedly "missing ones" 
were, at some point, seen again. One such person was a filmmaker whose short 
movie Private Hellserved as the featured subject of a local one-night festival. 
But he was nowhere to be seen either during the exhibition or at the party 
afterwards. "Gone with the Teatro," someone said with a blase knowingness, while 
others smiled and clinked glasses in a sardonic farewell toast.
But only a week later the filmmaker was spotted in one of the back rows of a 
pornographic theater. He later explained his absence by insisting he had been in 
the hospital following a thorough beating at
217 
the hands of some people he had been filming but who did not consent or desire 
to be filmed. This sounded plausible, given the subject matter of the man's 
work. Yet for some reason no one believed his hospital story, despite the 
evidence of bandages he was still required to wear. "It has to be the Teatro," 
argued a woman who always dressed in shades of purple and who was a good friend 
of the filmmaker. "His stuff and Teatro stuff," she said, holding up two crossed 
fingers for everyone to see.
But what was meant by "Teatro stuff?" This was a phrase I heard spoken by a 
number of persons, not all of them artists of a pretentious or self-dramatizing 
type. Certainly there is no shortage of anecdotes that have been passed around 
which purport to illuminate the nature and workings of this "cruel troupe," an 
epithet used by those who are too superstitious to invoke the Teatro Grottesco 
by name. But sorting out these accounts into a coherent profile, never mind 
their truth value, is another thing altogether.
For instance, the purple woman I mentioned earlier held us all spellbound one 
evening with a story about her cousin's roommate, a self-styled "visceral 
artist" who worked the night shift as a stock clerk for a supermarket chain in 
the suburbs. On a December morning, about an hour before sun-up, the artist was 
released from work and began his walk home through a narrow alley that ran 
behind several blocks of various stores and businesses along the suburb's main 
avenue. A light snow had fallen during the night, settling evenly upon the 
pavement of the alley and glowing in the light of a full moon which seemed to 
hover just at the alley's end. The artist saw a figure in the distance, and 
something about this figure, this winter-morning vision, made him pause for a 
moment and stare. Although he had a trained eye for sizing and perspective, the 
artist found this silhouette of a person in the distance of the alley intensely 
problematic. He could not tell if it was short or tall, or even if it was 
moving--either toward him or away from him--or was standing still. Then, in a 
moment of hallucinated wonder, the figure stood before him in the middle of the 
alley.
The moonlight illuminated a little man who was entirely unclothed and who held 
out both of his hands as if he were grasping at a desired object just out of his 
reach. But the artist saw that something was wrong with these hands. While the 
little man's body was pale, his hands were dark and were too large for the tiny 
arms on which they
218 
hung. At first the artist believed the little man to be wearing oversized 
mittens. His hands seemed to be covered by some kind of fuzz, just as the alley 
in which he stood was layered with the fuzziness of the snow that had fallen 
during the night. His hands looked soft and fuzzy like the snow, except that the 
snow was white and his hands were black.
In the moonlight the artist came to see that the mittens worn by this little man 
were actually something like the paws of an animal. It almost made sense to the 
artist to have thought that the little man's hands were actually paws which had 
only appeared to be two black mittens. Then each of the paws separated into long 
thin fingers that wriggled wildly in the moonlight. But they could not have been 
the fingers of a hand, because there were too many of them. And the hands were 
not paws, nor were the paws really mittens. And all of this time the little man 
was becoming smaller and smaller in the moonlight of that alley, as if he were 
moving into the distance far away from the artist who was hypnotized by this 
vision. Finally a little voice spoke which the artist could barely hear, and it 
said to him: "I cannot keep them away from me anymore, I am becoming so small 
and weak." These words suddenly made this whole winter-morning scenario into 
something that was too much even for the self-styled "visceral artist."
In the pocket of his coat the artist had a tool which he used for cutting open 
boxes at the supermarket. He had cut into flesh in the past, and, with the 
moonlight glaring upon the snow of that alley, the artist made a few strokes 
which turned that white world red. Under the circumstances what he had done 
seemed perfectly justified to the artist, even an act of mercy. The man was 
becoming so small.
Afterward the artist ran through the alley without stopping until he reached the 
rented house where he lived with his roommate. It was she who telephoned the 
police, saying there was a body lying in the snow at such and such a place and 
then hanging up without giving her name. For days, weeks, the artist and his 
roommate searched the local newspapers for some word of the extraordinary thing 
the police must have found in that alley. But nothing ever appeared.
"You see how these incidents are hushed up," the purple woman whispered to us. 
"The police know what is going on. There are even special police for dealing 
with such matters. But nothing is made public, no one is questioned. And yet, 
after that morning in the alley, my cousin and her roommate came under 
surveillance and were followed
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everywhere by unmarked cars. Because these special policemen know that it is 
artists, or highly artistic persons, who are approached by the Teatro. And they 
know whom to watch after something has happened. It is said that these police 
may be party to the deeds of that 'company of nightmares'."
But none of us believed a word of this Teatro anecdote told by the purple woman, 
just as none of us believed the purple woman's friend, the filmmaker, when he 
denied all innuendos that connected him to the Teatro. On the one hand, our 
imaginations had sided with this woman when she asserted that her friend, the 
creator of the short movie Private Hell, was somehow in league with the Teatro; 
on the other hand, we were mockingly dubious of the story about her cousin's 
roommate, the self-styled visceral artist, and his encounter in the snow-covered 
alley.
This divided reaction was not as natural as it seemed. Never mind that the case 
of the filmmaker was more credible than that of the visceral artist, if only 
because the first story was lacking the extravagant details which burdened the 
second. Until then we had uncritically relished all we had heard about the 
Teatro, no matter how bizarre these accounts may have been and no matter how 
much they opposed a verifiable truth or even a coherent portrayal of this 
phenomenon. As artists we suspected that it was in our interest to have our 
heads filled with all kinds of Teatro craziness. Even I, a writer of nihilistic 
prose works, savored the inconsistency and the flamboyant absurdity of what was 
told to me across a table in a quiet library or a noisy club. In a word, I 
delighted in the unreality of the Teatro stories. The truth they carried, if 
any, was immaterial. And we never questioned any of them until the purple woman 
related the episode of the visceral artist and the small man in the alley.
But this new disbelief was not in the least inspired by our sense of reason or 
reality. It was in fact based solely on fear; it was driven by the will to 
negate what one fears. No one gives up on something until it turns on them, 
whether or not that thing is real or unreal. In some way all of this Teatro 
business had finally worn upon our nerves; the balance had been tipped between a 
madness that intoxicated us and one that began to menace our minds. As for the 
woman who always dressed herself in shades of purple ... we avoided her. It 
would have been typical of the Teatro, someone said, to use a person like that 
for their purposes.
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Perhaps our judgment of the purple woman was unfair. No doubt her theories 
concerning the "approach of the Teatro" made us all uneasy. But was this reason 
enough to cast her out from that artistic underworld which was the only society 
available to her? Like many societies, of course, ours was founded on fearful 
superstition, and this is always reason enough for any kind of behavior. She had 
been permanently stigmatized by too closely associating herself with something 
unclean in its essence. Because even after her theories were discredited by a 
newly circulated Teatro tale, her status did not improve.
I am now referring to a story that was going around in which an artist was not 
approached by the Teatro but rather took the first step toward the Teatro, as if 
acting under the impulse of a sovereign will.
The artist in this case was a photographer of the I-am-a-camera type. He was a 
studiedly bloodless specimen who quite often, and for no apparent reason, would 
begin to stare at someone and to continue staring until that person reacted in 
some manner, usually by fleeing the scene but on occasion by assaulting the 
photographer, who invariably pressed charges. It was therefore not entirely 
surprising to learn that he tried to engage the services of the Teatro in the 
way he did, for it was his belief that this cruel troupe could be hired to, in 
the photographer's words, "utterly destroy someone." And the person he wished to 
destroy was his landlord, a small balding man with a mustache who, after the 
photographer had moved out of his apartment, refused to remit his security 
deposit, perhaps with good reason but perhaps not.
In any case, the photographer, whose name incidentally was Spence, made 
inquiries about the Teatro over a period of some months. Following up every 
scrap of information, no matter how obscure or suspect, the tenacious Spence 
ultimately arrived in the shopping district of an old suburb where there was a 
two-story building that rented space to various persons and businesses, 
including a small video store, a dentist, and, as it was spelled out on the 
building's directory, the Theatre Grottesco. At the back of the first floor, 
directly below a studio for dancing instruction, was a small suite of offices 
whose glass door displayed some stencilled lettering that read: T G VENTURES. 
Seated at a desk in the reception area behind the glass door was a young woman 
with long black hair and black-rimmed eyeglasses. She was thoroughly engrossed 
in writing 
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something on a small blank card, several more of which were spread across her 
desk. The way Spence told it, he was undeterred by all appearances that seemed 
to suggest the Teatro, or Theatre, was not what he assumed it was. He entered 
the reception area of the office, stood before the desk of the young woman, and 
introduced himself by name and occupation, believing it important to communicate 
as soon as possible his identity as an artist, or at least imply as best he 
could that he was a highly artistic photographer, which undoubtedly he was. When 
the young woman adjusted her eyeglasses and asked, "How can I help you?" the 
photographer Spence leaned toward her and whispered, "I would like to enlist the 
services of the Teatro, or Theatre if you like." When the receptionist asked 
what he was planning, the photographer answered, "To utterly destroy someone." 
The young woman was absolutely unflustered, according to Spence, by this 
declaration. She began calmly gathering the small blank cards that were spread 
across her desk and, while doing this, explained that T G Ventures was, in her 
words, an "entertainment service." After placing the small blank cards to one 
side, she removed from her desk a folded brochure which outlined the nature of 
the business, which provided clowns, magicians, and novelty performances for a 
variety of occasions, their specialty being children's parties.
As Spence studied the brochure, the receptionist placidly sat with her hands 
folded and gazed at him from within the black frames of her eyeglasses. The 
light in that suburban office suite was bright but not harsh; the pale walls 
were incredibly clean and the carpeting, in Spence's description, was 
conspicuously new and displayed the exact shade of purple found in turnips. The 
photographer said that he felt as if he were standing in a mirage. "This is all 
a front," Spence finally said, throwing the brochure on the receptionist's desk. 
But the young woman only picked up the brochure and placed it back in the same 
drawer from which it had come. "What's behind that door?" Spence demanded, 
pointing across the room. And just as he pointed at that door there was a sound 
on the other side of it, a brief rumbling as if something heavy had just fallen 
to the floor. "The dancing classes," said the receptionist, her right index 
finger pointing up at the floor above. "Perhaps," Spence allowed, but he claimed 
that this sound that he heard, which he described as having an "abysmal 
resonance," caused a sudden rise of panic within him. He tried not to move from 
the place he was standing, but his body was overwhelmed by the
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impulse to leave that suite of offices. The photographer turned away from the 
receptionist and saw his reflection in the glass door. She was watching him from 
behind the lenses of black-framed eyeglasses, and the stencilled lettering on 
the glass door read backwards, as if in a mirror. A few seconds later Spence was 
outside the building in the old suburb. All the way home, he asserted, his heart 
was pounding.
The following day Spence paid a visit to his landlord's place of business, which 
was a tiny office in a seedy downtown building. Having given up on the Teatro, 
he would have to deal in his own way with this man who would not return his 
security deposit. Spence's strategy was to plant himself in his landlord's 
office and stare him into submission with a photographer's unnerving gaze. After 
he arrived at his landlord's rented office on the sixth floor of what was a 
thoroughly depressing downtown building, Spence seated himself in a chair 
looking across a filthy desk at a small balding man with a mustache. But the man 
merely looked back at the photographer. To make things worse, the landlord 
(whose name was Herman Zick), would lean towards Spence every so often and in a 
quiet voice say, "It's all perfectly legal, you know." Then Spence would 
continue his staring, which he was frustrated to find ineffective against this 
man Zick, who of course was not an artist, or even a highly artistic person, as 
were the usual victims of the photographer. Thus the battle kept up for almost 
an hour, the landlord saying, "It's all perfectly legal," and Spence trying to 
hold a fixed gaze upon the man he wished to utterly destroy.
Ultimately Spence was the first to lose control. He jumped out of the chair in 
which he was sitting and began to shout incoherently at the landlord. Once 
Spence was on his feet, Zick swiftly maneuvered around the desk and physically 
evicted the photographer from the tiny office, locking him out in the hallway. 
Spence said that he was in the hallway for only a second or two when the doors 
opened to the elevator that was directly across from Zick's sixth-floor office. 
Out of the elevator compartment stepped a middle-aged man in a dark suit and 
black-framed eyeglasses. He wore a full, well-groomed beard which, Spence 
observed, was slightly streaked with gray. In his left hand the gentleman was 
clutching a crumpled brown bag, holding it a few inches in front of him. He 
walked up to the door of the landlord's office and with his right hand grasped 
the round black doorknob, jiggling it back and forth several times. There was a 
loud click that echoed down the hallway of that old downtown building. The 
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gentleman turned his head and looked at Spence for the first time, smiling 
briefly before admitting himself to the office of Herman Zick.
Again the photographer experienced that surge of panic he had felt the day 
before when he visited the suburban offices of T G Ventures. He pushed the down 
button for the elevator, and while waiting he listened at the door of the 
landlord's office. What he heard, Spence claimed, was that terrible sound that 
had sent him running out in the street from T G Ventures, that "abysmal 
resonance," as he defined it. Suddenly the gentleman with the well-groomed beard 
and black-rimmed glasses emerged from the tiny office. The door to the elevator 
had just opened, and the man walked straight past Spence to board the empty 
compartment. Spence himself did not get on the elevator but stood outside, 
helplessly staring at the bearded gentleman, who was still holding that small 
crumpled bag. A split second before the elevator doors slid closed, the 
gentleman looked directly at Spence and winked at him. It was the assertion of 
the photographer that this wink, executed from behind a pair of black-framed 
eyeglasses, made a mechanical clicking sound which echoed down the dim hallway. 
Prior to his exit from the old downtown building, leaving by way of the stairs 
rather than the elevator, Spence tried the door to his landlord's office. He 
found it unlocked and cautiously stepped inside. But there was no one on the 
other side of the door.
The conclusion to the photographer's adventure took place a full week later. 
Delivered by regular post to his mail box was a small square envelope with no 
return address. Inside was a photograph. He brought this item to Des Esseintes' 
Library, a bookstore where several of us were giving a late-night reading of our 
latest literary efforts. A number of persons belonging to the local artistic 
underworld, including myself, saw the photograph and heard Spence's rather 
frantic account of the events surrounding it. The photo was of Spence himself 
staring stark-eyed into the camera, which apparently had taken the shot from 
inside an elevator, a panel of numbered buttons being partially visible along 
the righthand border of the picture. "I could see no camera," Spence kept 
repeating. "But that wink he gave me ... and what's written on the reverse side 
of this thing." Turning over the photo Spence read aloud the following 
handwritten inscription: "The little man is so much littler these days. Soon he 
will know about the soft black stars. And your payment is past due." Someone 
then asked Spence what they had to say about all this at the offices of
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T G Ventures. The photographer's head swivelled slowly in exasperated negation. 
"Not there anymore," he said over and over. With the single exception of myself, 
that night at Des Esseintes' Library was the last time anyone saw Mr. Spence.
After the photographer ceased to show up at the usual meeting places and special 
artistic events, there were no cute remarks about his having "gone with the 
Teatro." We were all of us beyond that stage. I was perversely proud to note 
that a degree of philosophical maturity had now developed among those in the 
artistic underworld of which I was a part. There is nothing like fear to 
complicate one's consciousness, inducing previously unknown levels of 
reflection. Under such mental stress I began to organize my own thoughts and 
observations about the Teatro, specifically as this phenomenon related to the 
artists who seemed to be its sole objects of attention.
Whether or not an artist was approached by the Teatro or took the initiative to 
approach the Teatro himself, it seemed the effect was the same: the end of an 
artist's work. I myself verified this fact as thoroughly as I could. The 
filmmaker whose short movie Private Hell so many of us admired had, by all 
accounts, become a full-time dealer in pornographic videos, none of them his own 
productions. The selfnamed visceral artist had publicly called an end to those 
stunts of his which had gained him a modest underground reputation. According to 
his roommate, the purple woman's cousin, he was now managing the supermarket 
where he had formerly labored as a stock clerk. As for the purple woman herself, 
who was never much praised as an artist and whose renown effectively began and 
ended with the "cigar box assemblage" phase of her career, she had gone into 
selling real estate, an occupation in which she became quite a success. This 
roster of ex-artists could be extended considerably, I am sure of that. But for 
the purposes of this report or confession (or whatever else you would like to 
call it) I must end my list of no-longer-artistic persons with myself, while 
attempting to offer some insights into the manner in which the Teatro Grottesco 
could transform a writer of nihilistic prose works into a non-artistic, more 
specifically & post-artistic being.
It was after the disappearance of the photographer Spence that my intuitions 
concerning the Teatro began to crystalize and become explicit thoughts, a 
dubious process but one to which I am inescapably subject as a prose writer. 
Until that point in time, everyone tacitly assumed that there was an intimacy of 
kind between the Teatro and
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the artists who were either approached by the Teatro or who themselves 
approached this cruel troupe by means of some overture, as in the case of 
Spence, or perhaps by gestures more subtle, even purely noetic (I retreat from 
writing unconscious, although others might argue with my intellectual reserve). 
Many of us even spoke of the Teatro as a manifestation of super-art, a term 
which we always left conveniently nebulous. However, following the disappearance 
of the photographer, all knowledge I had acquired about the Teatro, fragmentary 
as it was, became configured in a completely new pattern. I mean to say that I 
no longer considered it possible that the Teatro was in anyway related to a 
super-art, or to an art of any kind, quite the opposite in fact. To my mind the 
Teatro was, and is, a phenomenon intensely destructive of everything that I 
conceived of as art. Therefore, the Teatro was, and is, intensely destructive of 
all artists and even of highly artistic persons. Whether this destructive force 
is a matter of intention or is an epiphenomenon of some unrelated, perhaps 
greater design, or even if there exists anything like an intention or design on 
the part of the Teatro, I have no idea (at least none I can elaborate in 
comprehensible terms). Nonetheless, I feel certain that for an artist to 
encounter the Teatro there can be only one consequence: the end of that artist's 
work. Strange, then, that knowing this fact I still acted as I did.
I cannot say if it was I who approached the Teatro or vice versa, as if any of 
that stupidness made a difference. The important thing is that from the moment I 
perceived the Teatro to be a profoundly antiartistic phenomenon I conceived the 
ambition to make my form of art, by which I mean my nihilistic prose writings, 
into an anti-Teatro phenomenon. In order to do this, of course, I required a 
penetrating knowledge of the Teatro Grottesco, or of some significant aspect of 
that cruel troupe, an insight of a deeply subtle, even dreamlike variety into 
its nature and workings.
The photographer Spence had made a great visionary advance when he intuited that 
it was in the nature of the Teatro to act on his request to utterly destroy 
someone (although the exact meaning of the statement "he will know about the 
soft black stars," in reference to Spence's landlord, became known to both of us 
only sometime later). I realized that I would need to make a similar leap of 
insight in my own mind. While I had already perceived the Teatro to be a 
profoundly anti-artistic phenomenon, I was not yet sure what in the
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world would constitute an anti-Teatro phenomenon, as well as how in the world I 
could turn my own prose writings to such a purpose.
Thus, for several days I mediated on these questions. As usual, the psychic 
demands of this meditation severely taxed my bodily processes, and in my 
weakened state I contracted a virus, specifically an intestinal virus, which 
confined me to my small apartment for a period of one week. Nonetheless, it was 
during this time that things fell into place regarding the Teatro and the 
insights I required to oppose this company of nightmares in a more or less 
efficacious manner.
Suffering through the days and nights of an illness, especially an intestinal 
virus, one becomes highly conscious of certain realities, as well as highly 
sensitive to the functions of these realities, which otherwise are not generally 
subject to prolonged attention or meditation. Upon recovery from such a virus, 
the consciousness of these realities and their functions necessarily fades, so 
that the once-stricken person may resume his life's activities and not be driven 
to insanity or suicide by the acute awareness of these most unpleasant facts of 
existence. Through the illumination of analogy, I came to understand that the 
Teatro operated in much the same manner as the illness from which I recently 
suffered, with the consequence that the person exposed to the Teatro disease 
becomes highly conscious of certain realities and their functions, ones quite 
different of course from the realities and functions of an intestinal virus. 
However, an intestinal virus ultimately succumbs, in a reasonably healthy 
individual, to the formation of antibodies (or something of that sort). But the 
disease of the Teatro, I now understood, was a disease for which no 
counteracting agents, or antibodies, had ever been created by the systems of the 
individuals--that is, the artists--it attacked. An encounter with any disease, 
including an intestinal virus, serves to alter a person's mind, making it 
intensely aware of certain realities, but this mind cannot remain altered once 
this encounter has ended or else that person will never be able to go on living 
in the same way as before. In contrast, an encounter with the Teatro appears to 
remain within one's system and to alter a person's mind permanently. For the 
artist the result is not to be driven into insanity or suicide (as might be the 
case if one assumed a permanent mindfulness of an intestinal virus) but the 
absolute termination of that artist's work. The simple reason for this effect is 
that there are no antibodies for the disease of the Teatro, and therefore no 
relief from the consciousness of the realities which an encounter with the 
Teatro has forced upon an artist.
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Having progressed this far in my contemplation of the Teatro-- so that I might 
discover its nature or essence and thereby make my prose writings into an 
anti-Teatro phenomenon--I found that I could go no further. No matter how much 
thought and meditation I devoted to the subject I did not gain a definite sense 
of having revealed to myself the true realities and functions that the Teatro 
communicated to an artist and how this communication put an end to that artist's 
work. Of course I could vaguely imagine the species of awareness that might 
render an artist thenceforth incapable of producing any type of artistic 
efforts. I actually arrived at a fairly detailed and disturbing idea of such an 
awareness--a world-awareness, as I conceived it. Yet I did not feel I had 
penetrated the mystery of "Teatro-stuff." And the only way to know about the 
Teatro, it seemed, was to have an encounter with it. Such an encounter between 
myself and the Teatro would have occurred in any event as a result of the 
discovery that my prose writings had been turned into an antiTeatro phenomenon: 
this would constitute an approach of the most outrageous sort to that company of 
nightmares, forcing an encounter with all its realities and functions. Thus it 
was not necessary, at this point in my plan, to have actually succeeded in 
making my prose writings into an anti-Teatro phenomenon. I simply had to make it 
known, falsely, that I had done so.
As soon as I had sufficiently recovered from my intestinal virus I began to 
spread the word. Every time I found myself among others who belonged to the 
so-called artistic underworld of this city I bragged that I had gained the most 
intense awareness of the Teatro's realities and functions, and that, far from 
finishing me off as an artist, I had actually used this awareness as inspiration 
for a series of short prose works. I explained to my colleagues that merely to 
exist--let alone create artistic works--we had to keep certain things from 
overwhelming our minds. However, I continued, in order to keep these things, 
such as the realities of an intestinal virus, from overwhelming our minds we 
attempted to deny them any voice whatever, neither a voice in our minds and 
certainly not a precise and clear voice in works of art. The voice of madness, 
for instance, is barely a whisper in the babbling history of art because its 
realities are themselves too maddening to speak of for very long... and those of 
the Teatro have no voice at all, given their imponderably grotesque nature. 
Furthermore, I said, the Teatro not only propagated an intense awareness of
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these things, these realities and functionings of realities, it was identical 
with them. And I, I boasted, had allowed my mind to be overwhelmed by all manner 
of Teatro stuff, while also managing to use this experience as material for my 
prose writings. "This," I practically shouted one day at Des Esseintes' Library, 
"is the superart." Then I promised that in two days time I would give a reading 
of my series of short prose pieces.
Nevertheless, as we sat around on some old furniture in a corner of Des 
Esseintes' Library, several of the others challenged my statements and 
assertions regarding the Teatro. One fellow writer, a poet, spoke hoarsely 
through a cloud of cigarette smoke, saying to me: "No one knows what this Teatro 
stuff is all about. I'm not sure I believe it myself." But I answered that 
Spence knew what it was all about, thinking that very soon I too would know what 
he knew. "Spencer said a woman in a tone of exaggerated disgust (she once lived 
with the photographer and was a photographer herself)- "He's not telling us 
about anything these days, never mind the Teatro." But I answered that, like the 
purple woman and the others, Spence had been overwhelmed by his encounter with 
the Teatro, and his artistic impulse had been thereby utterly destroyed. "And 
your artistic impulse is still intact," she said snidely. I answered that, yes, 
it was, and in two days I would prove it by reading a series of prose works that 
exhibited an intimacy with the most overwhelmingly grotesque experiences and 
gave voice to them. "That's because you have no idea what you're talking about," 
said someone else, and almost everyone supported this remark. I told them to be 
patient, wait and see what my prose writings revealed to them. "Reveal?" asked 
the poet. "Hell, no one even knows why it's called the Teatro Grottesco." I did 
not have an answer for that, but I repeated that they would understand much more 
about the Teatro in a few days, thinking to myself that within this period of 
time I would have either succeeded or failed in my attempt to provoke an 
encounter with the Teatro and the matter of my nonexistent antiTeatro prose 
writing would be immaterial.
On the very next day, however, I collapsed in Des Esseintes' Library during a 
conversation with a different congregation of artists and highly artistic 
persons. Although the symptoms of my intestinal virus had never entirely 
disappeared I had not expected to collapse the way I did and ultimately to 
discover that what I thought was an intestinal virus was in fact something far 
more serious. As a 
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consequence of my collapse, my unconscious body ended up in the emergency room 
of a nearby hospital, the kind of place where borderline indigents like myself 
always end up--abackstreet hospital with dated fixtures and a staff of 
sleepwalkers.
When I next opened my eyes it was night. The bed in which they had put my body 
was beside a tall paned window that reflected the dim fluorescent light fixed to 
the wall above my bed, creating a black glare in the windowpanes that allowed no 
view of anything beyond them but only a broken image of myself and the room 
around me. There was a long row of these tall paned windows and several other 
beds in the ward, each of them supporting a sleeping body that, like mine, was 
damaged in some way and therefore had been committed to that backstreet 
hospital.
I felt none of the extraordinary pain that had caused me to collapse in Des 
Esseintes' Library. At that moment, in fact, I could feel nothing of the 
experiences of my past life: it seemed I had always been an occupant of that 
dark hospital ward and always would be. This sense of estrangement from both 
myself and everything else made it terribly difficult to remain in the hospital 
bed where I had been placed. At the same time I felt uneasy about any movement 
away from that bed, especially any movement that would cause me to approach the 
open doorway which led into a half-lighted backstreet hospital corridor. 
Compromising between my impulse to get out of my bed and my fear of moving away 
from the bed and approaching that corridor, I positioned myself so that I was 
sitting on the edge of the mattress with my bare feet grazing the cold linoleum 
floor. I had been sitting on the edge of that mattress for quite awhile before I 
heard the voice out in the corridor.
The voice came over the public address system, but it was not a particularly 
loud voice. In fact I had to strain my attention for several minutes simply to 
discern the peculiar qualities of the voice and to decipher what it said. It 
sounded like a child's voice, a sing-songy voice full of taunts and mischief. 
Over and over it repeated the same phrase---paging Dr. Groddeck, paging Dr. 
Groddeck. The voice sounded incredibly hollow and distant, garbled by all kinds 
of interference. Paging Dr. Groddeck, it giggled from the other side of the 
world.
I stood up and slowly approached the doorway leading out into the corridor. But 
even after I had crossed the room in my bare feet and was standing in the open 
doorway, that child's voice did not become any
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louder or any clearer. Even when I actually moved out into that long dim 
corridor with its dated lighting fixtures, the voice that was calling Dr. 
Groddeck sounded just as hollow and distant. And now it was as if I were in a 
dream in which I was walking in my bare feet down a backstreet hospital 
corridor, hearing a crazy voice that seemed to be eluding me as I moved past the 
open doorways of innumerable wards full of damaged bodies. But then the voice 
died away, calling to Dr. Groddeck one last time before fading like the final 
echo in a deep well. At the same moment that the voice ended its hollow 
outcrying, I paused somewhere toward the end of that shadowy corridor. In the 
absence of the mischievous voice I was able to hear something else, a sound like 
quiet, wheezing laughter. It was coming from the room just ahead of me along the 
right hand side of the corridor. As I approached this room I saw a metal plaque 
mounted at eye-level on the wall, and the words displayed on this plaque were 
these: Dr. T. Groddeck.
A strangely glowing light emanated from the room where I heard that quiet and 
continuous wheezing laughter. I peered around the edge of the doorway and saw 
that the laughter was coming from an old gentleman seated behind a desk, while 
the strangely glowing light was coming from a large globular object positioned 
on top of the desk directly in front of him. The light from this object--a globe 
of solid glass, it seemed--shone on the old gentleman's face, which was a 
crazy-looking face with a neatly clipped beard that was pure white and a pair of 
spectacles with slim rectangular lenses resting on the bridge of a slender nose. 
When I stood in the doorway of that office, the eyes of Dr. Groddeck did not 
gaze up at me but continued to stare into the strange, shining globe and at the 
things that were inside it.
What were these things inside the globe that Dr. Groddeck was looking at? To me 
they appeared to be tiny star-shaped flowers evenly scattered throughout the 
glass, just the thing to lend a mock-artistic appearance to a common 
paperweight. Except that these flowers, these spidery chrysanthemums, were pure 
black. And they did not seem to be firmly fixed within the shining sphere, as 
one would expect, but looked as if they were floating in position, their 
starburst of petals wavering slightly like tentacles. Dr. Groddeck appeared to 
delight in the subtle movements of those black appendages. Behind rectangular 
spectacles his eyes rolled about as they tried to take in each of the hovering 
shapes inside the radiant globe on the desk before him.
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Then the doctor slowly reached down into one of the deep pockets of the lab coat 
he was wearing, and his wheezing laughter grew more intense. From the open 
doorway I watched as he carefully removed a small paper bag from his pocket, but 
he never even glanced at me. With one hand he was now holding the crumpled bag 
directly over the globe. When he gave the bag a little shake, the things inside 
the globe responded with an increased agitation of their thin black arms. He 
used both hands to open the top of the bag and quickly turned it upside down.
From out of the bag something tumbled onto the globe, where it seemed to stick 
to the surface. It was not actually adhering to the surface of the globe, 
however, but was sinking into the interior of the glass. It squirmed as those 
soft black stars inside the globe gathered to pull it down to themselves. Before 
I could see what it was that they had captured and surrounded, the show was 
over. Afterward they returned to their places, floating slightly once again 
within the glowing sphere.
I looked at Dr. Groddeck and saw that he was finally looking back at me. He had 
stopped his asthmatic laughter, and his eyes were staring frigidly into mine, 
completely devoid of any readable meaning. Yet somehow these eyes provoked me. 
Even as I stood in the open doorway of that hideous office in abackstreet 
hospital, Dr. Groddeck's eyes provoked in me an intense outrage, an astronomical 
resentment of the position I had been placed in. Even as I had consummated my 
plan to encounter the Teatro and experience its most devastating realities and 
functions (in order to turn my prose works into an antiTeatro phenomenon) I was 
outraged to be standing where I was standing and resentful of the staring eyes 
of Dr. Groddeck. No matter if I had approached the Teatro, the Teatro had 
approached me, or we both approached each other. I realized that there is such a 
thing as being approached in order to force one's hand into making what only 
appears to be an approach, which is actually a non-approach that negates the 
whole concept of approaching. It was all a fix from the start, because I 
belonged to an artistic underworld, because I was an artist whose work would be 
brought to an end by an encounter with the Teatro Grottesco. And so I was 
outraged by the eyes of Dr. Groddeck, which were the eyes of the Teatro, and I 
was resentful of all insane realities and the excruciating functions of the 
Teatro. Although I knew that the persecutions of the Teatro were not
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exclusively focused on the artists and highly artistic persons of the world, I 
was nevertheless outraged and resentful to be singled out for special treatment. 
I wanted to punish those persons in this world who are not the object of such 
special treatment. Thus, at the top of my voice, I called out in the dim 
corridor, I cried out the summons for others to join me before the stage of the 
Teatro. Strange that I should think it necessary to compound the nightmare of 
all those damaged bodies in that backstreet hospital, as well as its staff of 
sleepwalkers who moved within a world of outdated fixtures. But by the time 
anyone arrived Dr. Groddeck was gone, and his office became nothing more than a 
room full of dirty laundry.
My escapade that night notwithstanding, I was soon released from the hospital 
pending the results of several tests I had been administered. I was feeling as 
well as ever, and the hospital, like any hospital, always needed the bedspace 
for more damaged bodies. They said I would be contacted in the next few days.
It was in fact the following day that I was informed of the outcome of my stay 
in the hospital. "Hello again," began the letter, which was typed on aplain, 
though waterstained sheet of paper. "I was so pleased to finally meet you in 
person. I thought your performance in our interview at the hospital was really 
first rate, and I am authorized to offer you a position with us. There is an 
opening in our organization for someone with your resourcefulness and 
imagination. I'm afraid things didn't work out with Mr. Spence. But he certainly 
did have a camera's eye, and we have gotten some wonderful pictures from him. I 
would especially like to share with you his last shots of the soft black stars, 
or S.B.S., as we sometimes refer to them. Veritable super-art, if there ever was 
such a thing!
"By the way, the results of your tests--some of which you have yet to be 
subjected to--are going to come back positive. If you think an intestinal virus 
is misery, just wait a few more months. So think fast, sir. We will arrange 
another meeting with you in any case. And remember--you approached us. Or was it 
the other way around?
"As you might have noticed by now, all this artistic business can only keep you 
going so long before you're left speechlessly gaping at the realities and 
functions of... well, I think you know what I'm trying to say. I was forced into 
this realization myself, and I'm quite mindful of what a blow this can be. 
Indeed, it was I who invented the appellative for our organization as it is 
currently known. Not that I
233 
put any stock in names, nor should you. Our company is so much older than its 
own name, or any other name for that matter. (And how many it's had over the 
years--The Ten Thousand Things, Anima Mundi, Nethescurial.) You should be proud 
that we have a special part for you to play, such a talented artist. In time you 
will forget yourself entirely in your work, as we all do eventually. Myself, I 
go around with a trunkful of aliases, but do you think I can say who I once was 
really} A man of the theater, that seems plausible. Possibly I was the father of 
Faust or Hamlet ... or merely Peter Pan.
"In closing, I do hope you will seriously consider our offer to join us. We can 
do something about your medical predicament. We can do just about anything. 
Otherwise, I'm afraid that all I can do is welcome you to your own private hell, 
which will be as unspeakable as any on earth."
The letter was signed Dr. Theodore Groddeck, and its prognostication of my 
physical health was accurate: I have taken more tests at the backstreet hospital 
and the results are somewhat grim. For several days and sleepless nights I have 
considered the alternatives the doctor proposed to me, as well as others of my 
own devising, and have yet to reach a decision on what course to follow. The one 
conclusion that keeps forcing itself upon me is that it makes no difference what 
choice I make, or do not make. You can never anticipate the Teatro ... or 
anything else. You can never know what you are approaching, or what is 
approaching you. Soon enough my thoughts will lose all clarity, and I will no 
longer be aware that there was ever a decision to be made. The soft black stars 
have already begun to fill the sky.
234 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
The Red Tower
The ruined factory stood three stories high in an otherwise featureless 
landscape. Although somewhat imposing on its own terms, it occupied only the 
most unobtrusive place within the gray emptiness of its surroundings, its 
presence serving as a mere accent upon a desolate horizon. No road led to the 
factory, nor were there any traces of one that might have led to it at some time 
in the distant past. If there had ever been such a road it would have been 
rendered useless as soon as it arrived at one of the four, red-bricked sides of 
the factory, even in the days when the facility was in full operation. The 
reason for this was simple: no doors had been built into the factory, no loading 
docks or entranceways allowed penetration of the outer walls of the structure, 
which was solid brick on all four sides without even a single window below the 
level of the second floor. The phenomenon of a large factory so closed off from 
the outside world was a point of extreme fascination to me. It was almost with 
regret that I ultimately learned about the factory's subterranean access. But of 
course that revelation in its turn also became a source for my truly degenerate 
sense of amazement, my decayed fascination.
The factory had long been in ruins, its innumerable bricks worn and crumbling, 
its many windows shattered. Each of the three enormous stories that stood above 
the ground level was vacant of all but dust and silence. The machinery, which 
densely occupied the three floors of the factory as well as considerable space 
beneath it, is said to have evaporated, I repeat, evaporated, soon after the 
factory ceased operation, leaving behind it only a few spectral outlines of deep 
vats and tanks, twisting tubes and funnels, harshly grinding gears and levers, 
giant belts and wheels that could be most clearly seen at twilight--and later, 
not at all. According to these strictly 
235 
hallucinatory accounts, the whole of the Red Tower, as the factory was known, 
had always been subject to fadings at certain times. This phenomenon, in the 
delirious or dying words of several witnesses, was due to a profound hostility 
between the clamorous and malodorous operations of the factory and the desolate 
purity of the landscape surrounding it, the conflict occasionally resulting in 
temporary erasures, or fadings, of the former by the latter.
Despite their ostensibly mad or credulous origins, these testimonies, it seemed 
to me, deserved more than a cursory hearing. The legendary conflict between the 
factory and the grayish territory surrounding it may very well have been a 
fabrication of individuals who were lost in the advanced stages of either 
physical or psychic deterioration. Nonetheless, it was my theory, and remains 
so, that the Red Tower was not always that peculiar color for which it 
ultimately earned its fame. Thus the encrimsoning of the factory was a betrayal, 
a breaking-off, for it is my postulation that this ancient structure was in 
long-forgotten days the same pale hue as the world which encompassed it. 
Furthermore, with an insight born of dispassion to the point of total despair, I 
envisioned that the Red Tower was never solely devoted to the lowly functions of 
an ordinary factory.
Beneath the three soaring stories of the Red Tower were two, possibly three, 
other levels. The one immediately below the first floor of the factory was the 
nexus of a unique distribution system for the goods which were manufactured on 
all three of the floors above. This first subterranean level in many ways 
resembled, and functioned in the manner of, an old-fashioned underground mine. 
Elevator compartments enclosed by a heavy wire mesh, twisted and corroded, 
descended far below the surface into an expansive chamber which had been crudely 
dug out of the rocky earth and was haphazardly perpetuated by a dense structure 
of supports, a criss-crossing network of posts and pillars, beams and rafters, 
that included a variety of materials--wood, metal, concrete, bone, and a fine 
sinewy webbing that was fibrous and quite firm. From this central chamber 
radiated a system of tunnels that honeycombed the land beneath the gray and 
desolate country surrounding the Red Tower. Through these tunnels the goods 
manufactured by the factory could be carried, sometimes literally by hand, but 
more often by means of small wagons and carts, reaching near and far into the 
most obscure and unlikely delivery points.
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The trade that was originally produced by the Red Tower was in some sense 
remarkable, but not, at first, of an extraordinary or especially ambitious 
nature. These were a gruesome array of goods, perhaps best described as novelty 
items. In the beginning there was a chaotic quality to the objects and 
constructions produced by the machinery at the Red Tower, a randomness that 
yielded formless things of no consistent shape or size or apparent design. 
Occasionally there might appear a particular ashen lump that betrayed some 
semblance of a face or clawing fingers, or perhaps an assemblage that looked 
like a casket with tiny irregular wheels, but for the most part the early 
productions seemed relatively innocuous. After a time, however, things began to 
fall into place, as they always do, rejecting a harmless and uninteresting 
disorder--never an enduring state of affairs--and taking on the more usual plans 
and purposes of a viciously intent creation.
So it was that the Red Tower put into production its terrible and perplexing 
line of unique novelty items. Among the objects and constructions now 
manufactured were several of an almost innocent nature. These included tiny, 
delicate cameos that were heavier than their size would suggest, far heavier, 
and lockets whose shiny outer surface flipped open to reveal a black reverberant 
abyss inside, a deep blackness roaring with echoes. Along the same lines was a 
series of lifelike replicas of internal organs and physiological structures, 
many of them evidencing an advanced stage of disease and all of them 
displeasingly warm and soft to the touch. There was a fake disembodied hand on 
which fingernails would grow several inches overnight, every night like 
clockwork. Numerous natural objects, mostly bulbous gourds, were designed to 
produce a long deafening scream whenever they were picked up or otherwise 
disturbed in their vegetable stillness. Less scrutable were such things as 
hardened globs of lava which had set into their rough igneous forms a pair of 
rheumy eyes that perpetually shifted their gaze from side to side like a 
relentless pendulum. And there was also a humble piece of cement, a fragment 
broken away from any street or sidewalk, that left a most intractable stain, 
greasy and green, on whatever surface it was placed. But such fairly simple 
items were eventually followed, and ultimately replaced, by more articulated 
objects and constructions. One example of this complex type of novelty item was 
an ornate music box that, when opened, emitted a brief gurgling or sucking sound 
in
237 
emulation of a dying individual's death rattle. Another product manufactured in 
great quantity at the Red Tower was a pocket watch in a gold casing which opened 
to reveal a curious timepiece whose numerals were represented by tiny quivering 
insects while the circling "hands" were reptilian tongues, slender and pink. But 
these examples hardly begin to hint at the range of goods that came from the 
factory during its novelty phase of production. I should at least mention the 
exotic carpets woven with intricate abstract patterns that, when focused upon 
for a certain length of time, composed themselves into fleeting phantasmagoric 
scenes of the kind which might pass through a fever-stricken or even permanently 
damaged brain.
As it was revealed to me, and as I have already revealed to you, the means of 
distributing the novelty goods fabricated at the Red Tower was a system of 
tunnels located on the first level, not the second (or, possibly, third), that 
had been excavated below the three-story factory building itself. It seems that 
these subterranean levels were not necessarily part of the original plan of the 
factory but were in fact a perverse and unlikely development that might have 
occurred only as the structure known as the Red Tower underwent, over time, its 
own mutation from some prior state until it finally became a lowly site for 
manufacturing. This mutation would then have demanded the excavating--whether 
from above or below I cannot say--of a system of tunnels as a means for 
distributing the novelty goods which, for a time, it produced.
As the unique inventions of the Red Tower achieved their final forms, they 
seemed to have some peculiar location to which they were destined to be 
delivered, either by hand or by small wagons or carts pulled over sometimes 
great distances through the system of underground tunnels. Where they might 
ultimately pop up was anybody's guess. It might be in the back of a dark closet, 
buried under a pile of undistinguished junk, where some item of the highest and 
most extreme novelty would lie for quite some time before it was encountered by 
sheer accident or misfortune. Conversely, the same invention, or an entirely 
different one, might be placed on the night-table beside someone's bed for 
near-immediate discovery. Any delivery point was possible, none was out of the 
reach of the Red Tower. There has even been testimony, either intensely 
hysterical or semi-conscious, of items from the factory being uncovered within 
the shelter of a living body, or one not long deceased. I know that such an
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achievement was within the factory's powers, given its later production history. 
But my own degenerate imagination is most fully captured by the thought of how 
many of those monstrous novelty goods produced at the Red Tower had been 
scrupulously and devoutly delivered--solely by way of those endless underground 
tunnels--to daringly remote places where they would never be found, nor ever 
could be.
Just as a system of distribution tunnels had been created by the factory when it 
developed into a manufacturer of novelty goods, their expansion was required as 
an entirely new phase of production gradually evolved. Inside the wire-mesh 
elevator compartment that provided access between the upper region of the 
factory and the underground tunnels, there was now a special lever installed 
which, when pulled back, or possibly pushed forward (I do not know such 
details), enabled one to descend to a second subterranean level. This latterly 
excavated area was much smaller, far more intimate, than the one directly above 
it, as could be observed the instant the elevator compartment came to a stop and 
a full view of things was attained. The scene which now confronted the uncertain 
minds of witnesses was, in many ways, like that of a secluded graveyard, 
surrounded by a rather crooked fence of widely spaced pickets held together by 
rusty wire. The headstones inside the fence all closely pressed against one 
another and were quite common, though somewhat antiquated, in their designs. 
However, there were no names or dates inscribed on these monuments, nothing at 
all, in fact, with the exception of some rudimentary and abstract ornamentation. 
This could be verified only when the subterranean graveyard was closely 
approached, for the lighting at this level was dim and unorthodox, provided 
exclusively by the glowing stone walls enclosing the area. These walls seemed to 
have been covered with phosphorescent paint which bathed the graveyard in a 
cloudy, grayish haze. For the longest time--how long I cannot say--my morbid 
reveries were focused on this murky vision of a graveyard beneath the factory, a 
subterranean graveyard surrounded by a crooked picket fence and suffused by the 
highly defective illumination given off by phosphorescent paint applied to stone 
walls. For the moment I must emphasize the vision itself, without any 
consideration paid to the utilitarian purposes of this place, that is, the 
function it served in relation to the factory above it.
The truth is that at some point all of the factory functions were
239 
driven underground to this graveyard level. Long before the complete evaporation 
of machinery in the Red Tower, something happened to require the shut-down of 
all operations in the three floors of the factory which were above ground level. 
The reasons for this action are deeply obscure, a matter of contemplation only 
when a state of hopeless and devouring curiosity has reached its height, when 
the burning light of speculation becomes so intense that it threatens to 
incinerate everything on which it shines. To my own mind it seems entirely valid 
to reiterate at this juncture the longstanding tensions that existed between the 
Red Tower, which I believe was not always stigmatized by such a hue and such a 
title, and the grayish landscape of utter desolation that surrounded this 
structure on all sides, looming around and above it for quite incalculable 
distances. But below the ground level of the factory was another matter: it was 
here that its operations at some point retreated; it was here, specifically at 
this graveyard level, that they continued.
Clearly the Red Tower had committed some violation or offense, its clamoring 
activities and unorthodox products--perhaps its very existence--constituting an 
affront to the changeless quietude of the world around it. In my personal 
judgement there had been a betrayal involved, a treacherous breaking of a bond. 
I can certainly picture a time before the existence of the factory, before any 
of its features blemished the featureless country that extended so gray and so 
desolate on every side. Dreaming upon the grayish desolation of that landscape, 
I also find it quite easy to imagine that there might have occurred a lapse in 
the monumental tedium, a spontaneous and inexplicable impulse to deviate from a 
dreary perfection, perhaps even an unconquerable desire to risk a move toward a 
tempting defectiveness. As a concession to this impulse or desire out of 
nowhere, as a minimal surrender, a creation took place and a structure took form 
where there had been nothing of its kind before. I picture it, at its inception, 
as a barely discernable irruption in the landscape, a mere sketch of an edifice, 
possibly translucent when making its first appearance, a gray density rising in 
the grayness, embossed upon it in a most tasteful and harmonious design. But 
such structures or ereations have their own desires, their own destinies to 
fulfil, their own mysteries and mechanisms which they must follow at whatever 
risk.
From a gray and desolate and utterly featureless landscape a dull edifice had 
been produced, a pale, possibly translucent tower which,
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over time, began to develop into a factory, began to produce, as if in the 
spirit of the most grotesque belligerence, a line of quite morbid, quite 
wonderfully disgusting novelty goods. In an expression of defiance, at some 
point, it reddened with an enigmatic passion for betrayal and perversity. On the 
surface the Red Tower might have seemed a splendid complement to the grayish 
desolation of its surroundings, a unique, picturesque composition that served to 
define the glorious essence of each of them. But in fact there existed between 
them a profound and ineffable hostility. An attempt was made to reclaim the Red 
Tower, or at least to draw it back toward the formless origins of its being. I 
am referring, of course, to that show of force which resulted in the evaporation 
of the factory's dense arsenal of machinery. Each of the three stories of the 
Red Tower had been cleaned out, purged of its offending means of manufacturing 
novelty items, and the part of the factory that rose above the ground was left 
to fall into ruins.
Had the machinery in the Red Tower not been evaporated, I believe that the 
subterranean graveyard, or something very much like it, would nonetheless have 
come into existence at some point or another. This was the direction in which 
the factory had been moving, as was suggested by some of its later models of 
novelty items. Machines were becoming obsolete as the diseased mania of the Red 
Tower intensified and evolved into more experimental, even visionary projects. I 
have previously reported that the headstones in the factory's subterranean 
graveyard were absent of any names of the interred, or dates of birth and death. 
This fact is also confirmed by numerous accounts rendered in 
borderline-hysterical gibberish. The reason for these blank headstones is 
entirely evident as one gazes upon them standing crooked and closely packed 
together in the phosphorescent haze given off by the stone walls covered with 
luminous paint. None of these graves, in point of fact, could be said to have 
anyone buried in them whose names and dates of birth and death would require 
inscription on the headstones. These were not what might be called burying 
graves. This is to say that these were in no sense graves for burying the dead, 
quite the contrary: these were graves of a highly experimental design from which 
the newest productions of the Red Tower were to be born.
From its beginnings as a manufacturer of novelty items of an extravagant nature, 
the factory had now gone into the business of
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creating what came to be known as "hyper-organisms." These new productions were 
also of a fundamentally extreme nature, representing an even greater divergence 
on the part of the Red Tower from the bland and gray desolation in the midst of 
which it stood. As implied by their designation as hyper-organisms, this line of 
goods displayed the most essential qualities of their organic nature, which 
meant, of course, that they were wildly conflicted in their two basic features. 
On the one hand, they manifested an intense vitality in all aspects of their 
form and function; on the other hand, and simultaneously, they manifested an 
ineluctable element of decay in these same areas. That is to say that each of 
these hyper-organisms, even as they scintillated with an obscene degree of vital 
impulses, also, and at the same time, had degeneracy and death written deeply 
upon them. In accord with a tradition of mute or raving madness, it seems the 
less said about these offspring of the birthing graves, or any similar 
creations, the better. I myself have been almost entirely restricted to a state 
of seething speculation concerning the luscious particularities of all 
hyper-organic phenomena produced in the subterranean graveyard of the Red Tower. 
Although we may reasonably assume that such creations were not to be called 
beautiful, we cannot know for ourselves the mysteries and mechanisms of, for 
instance, how these creations moved throughout the hazy luminescence of that 
underground world; what creaky or spasmic gestures they might have been capable 
of executing, if any; what sounds they might have made or the specific organs 
used for making them; how they might have appeared when awkwardly emerging from 
deep shadows or squatting against those nameless headstones; what trembling 
stages of mutation they almost certainly would have undergone following the 
generation of their larvae upon the barren earth of the graveyard; what their 
bodies might have produced or emitted in the way of fluids and secretions; how 
they might have responded to the mutilation of their forms for reasons of an 
experimental or entirely savage nature. Often I picture to myself what 
frantically clawing efforts these creations probably made to deliver themselves 
from that confining environment which their malformed or nonexistent brains 
could not begin to understand. They could not have comprehended, any more than 
can I, for what purpose they were bred from those graves, those incubators of 
hyperorganisms, minute factories of flesh that existed wholly within and far 
below the greater factory of the Red Tower.
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It was no surprise, of course, that the production of hyperorganisms was not 
allowed to continue for very long before a second wave of destruction was 
visited upon the factory. This time it was not merely the fading, and ultimate 
evaporation of machinery, that took place; this time it was something far more 
brutal. Once again forces of ruination were directed at the factory, 
specifically the subterranean graveyard located at its second underground level, 
its three-story structure that stood above ground having already been rendered 
an echoing ruin. Information on what remained of the graveyard, and of its 
cleverly blasphemous works, is available to my own awareness only in the form of 
shuddering and badly garbled whispers of mayhem and devastation and wholesale 
sundering of most unspeakable sort. These same sources also seem to regard this 
incident as the culmination, if not the conclusion, of the longstanding 
hostilities between the Red Tower and that grayish halo of desolation that 
hovered around on all sides, the very landscape of the ill-destined factory 
itself. Such a shattering episode would appear to have terminated the career of 
the Red Tower.
Nevertheless, there are indications that, appearances to the contrary, the 
factory continues to be active despite its status as a silent ruin. After all, 
the evaporation of the machinery which turned out countless novelty items in the 
three-story red-brick factory proper, and the ensuing obsolescence of its 
sophisticated system of tunnels at the first underground level, did not prevent 
the factory from pursuing its business by other and more devious means. The work 
at the second underground level (the graveyard level), went very well for a 
time. Following the vicious decimation of those ingenious and fertile graves, 
along with the merchandise they produced, it may have seemed that the 
manufacturing history of the Red Tower had been brought to a close. Yet there 
are indications that below the three-story above-ground factory, below the first 
and the second underground levels, there exists a third level of subterranean 
activity. Perhaps it is only a desire for symmetry, a hunger for compositional 
balance in things, that has led to a series of the most vaporous rumors of this 
third underground level in order to provide a kind of complementary proportion 
to the three stories of the factory that rise into the gray and featureless 
landscape above ground. At this third level, these misty rumors maintain, the 
factory's schedule of production is being carried out in some new and strange 
manner, representing its
243 
most ambitious venture in the output of putrid creations, ultimately 
consummating its tradition of degeneracy, reaching toward a perfection of defect 
and disorder, according to every polluted and foggy rumor concerned with this 
issue.
Perhaps it seems that I have said too much about the Red Tower, and perhaps it 
has sounded far too strange. Do not think that I am unaware of such things. But 
as I have noted throughout this document, I am only repeating what I have heard. 
I myself have never seen the Red Tower--no one ever has, and possibly no one 
ever will. And yet wherever I go people are talking about it. In one way or 
another they are talking about the nightmarish novelty items or about the 
mysterious and revolting hyper-organisms, as well as babbling endlessly about 
the subterranean system of tunnels and the secluded graveyard whose headstones 
display no names and no dates designating either birth or death. Everything they 
are saying is about the Red Tower, in one way or another, and about nothing else 
but the Red Tower. We are all talking and thinking about the Red Tower in our 
own degenerate way. I have only recorded what everyone is saying (though they 
may not know they are saying it), and sometimes what they have seen (though they 
may not know they have seen it). But still they are always talking, in one 
deranged way or another, about the Red Tower. I hear them talk of it every day 
of my life. Unless of course they begin to speak about gray and desolate 
landscape, that hazy void in which the Red Tower--the great and industrious Red 
Tower--is so precariously nestled. Then the voices grow quiet until I can barely 
hear them as they attempt to communicate with me in choking scraps of 
postnightmare trauma. Now is just such a time when I must strain to hear the 
voices. I wait for them to reveal to me the new ventures of the Red Tower as it 
proceeds into even more corrupt phases of production, including the shadowy 
workshop of its third subterranean level. I must keep still and listen for them; 
I must keep quiet for a terrifying moment. Then I will hear the sounds of the 
factory starting up its operations once more. Then I will be able to speak again 
of the Red Tower.
244 
The Shadow At the Bottom of the World
Purity
We were living in a rented house, neither the first nor the last of a long 
succession of such places that the family inhabited throughout my childhood 
years. It was shortly after we had moved into that particular house that my 
father preached to us his philosophy of "rented living." He explained that it 
was not possible to live in any other way and that attempting to do so was the 
worst form of delusion. "We must actively embrace the reality of non-ownership" 
he told my mother, my sister, and me, towering over us and gesturing with his 
heavy arms as we sat together on a rented sofa in our rented house. "Nothing 
belongs to us. Everything is something that is rented out. Our very heads are 
filled with rented ideas passed on from one generation to the next. Wherever 
your thoughts finally settle is the same place that the thoughts of countless 
other persons have settled and have left their impression, just as the backsides 
of other persons have left their impression on that sofa where you are now 
sitting. We live in a world where every surface, every opinion or passion, 
everything altogether is tainted by the bodies and minds of strangers. 
Cooties--intellectual cooties and physical cooties from other people-- are 
crawling all around us and all over us at all times. There is no escaping this 
fact."
Nevertheless, it was precisely this fact that my father seemed most intent on 
escaping during the time we spent in that house. It was an especially 
cootie-ridden residence in a bad neighborhood that bordered on an even worse 
neighborhood. The place was also slightly haunted, which was more or less the 
norm for the habitations my father chose to rent. Several times a year, in fact, 
we packed up at one place and settled into another, always keeping a 
considerable distance between our locations, or relocations. And every time we 
entered one
245 
of our newly rented houses for the first time, my father would declaim that this 
was a place where he could "really get something accomplished." Soon afterward, 
he would begin spending more and more time in the basement of the house, 
sometimes living down there for weeks on end. The rest of us were banned from 
any intrusion on my father's lower territories unless we had been explicitly 
invited to participate in some project of his. Most of the time I was the only 
available subject, since my mother and sister were often away on one of their 
"trips," the nature of which I was never informed of and seldom heard anything 
about upon their return. My father referred to these absences on the part of my 
mother and sister as "unknown sabbaticals" by way of disguising his ignorance or 
complete lack of interest in their jaunts. None of this is to protest that I 
minded being left so much to myself. (Least of all did I miss my mother and her 
European cigarettes fouling the atmosphere around the house.) Like the rest of 
the family, I was adept at finding ways to occupy myself in some wholly 
passionate direction, never mind whether or not my passion was a rented one.
One evening in late autumn I was upstairs in my bedroom preparing myself for 
just such an escapade when the doorbell rang. This was, to say the least, an 
uncommon event for our household. At the time, my mother and sister were away on 
one of their sabbaticals, and my father had not emerged from his basement for 
many days. Thus, it seemed up to me to answer the startling sound of the 
doorbell, which I had not heard since we had moved into the house and could not 
remember hearing in any of the other rented houses in which I spent my 
childhood. (For some reason I had always believed that my father disconnected 
all the doorbells as soon as we relocated to a newly rented house.) I moved 
hesitantly, hoping the intruder or intruders would be gone by the time I arrived 
at the door. The doorbell rang again. Fortunately, and incredibly, my father had 
come up from the basement. I was standing in the shadows at the top of the 
stairs when I saw his massive form moving across the living room, stripping 
himself of a dirty lab coat and throwing it into a corner before he reached the 
front door. Naturally I thought that my father was expecting this visitor, who 
perhaps had something to do with his work in the basement. However, this was not 
obviously the case, at least as far as I could tell from my eavesdropping at the 
top of the stairs.
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By the sound of his voice, the visitor was a young man. My father invited him 
into the house, speaking in a straightforward and amiable fashion that I knew 
was entirely forced. I wondered how long he would be able to maintain this 
uncharacteristic tone in conversation, for he bid the young man to have a seat 
in the living room where the two of them could talk "at leisure," a locution 
that sounded absolutely bizarre as spoken by my father.
"As I said at the door, sir," the young man said, "I'm going around the 
neighborhood telling people about a very worthy organization."
"Citizens for Faith," my father cut in.
"You've heard of our group?"
"Not actually, I'm afraid. But I think I comprehend your general principles."
"Then perhaps you might be interested in making a donation," said the young man 
prematurely.
"I would indeed."
"That's wonderful, sir."
"But only on the condition that your principles might be construed, advanced, 
and propagated as exactly the opposite of what they are."
So ended my father's short-lived capitulation to straightforwardness and 
amiability.
"Sir?" said the young man, his brow creasing a bit with incomprehension.
"I will explain. You have these two principles in your head, and possibly they 
are the only principles that are holding your head together. The first is the 
principle of nations, countries, the whole hullabaloo of mother lands and father 
lands. The second is the principle of deities. Neither of these principles has 
anything real about them. They are merely impurities poisoning your head. In a 
single phrase-- Citizens for Faith--you have incorporated two of the three major 
principles---or impurities--that must be eliminated, completely eradicated, 
before our species can begin an approach to a pure conception of existence. 
Without pure conception, or something approaching pure conception, everything is 
a disaster and will continue to be a disaster."
"I understand if you're not interested in making a donation, sir," said the 
young man, at which point my father dug his hand into the right pocket of his 
trousers and pulled out a wad of cash that was rolled
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into a tube and secured with a thick rubber band. He held it up before the young 
man's eyes.
"This is for you, but only if you can take those heinous principles of yours and 
clean them out of your head."
"I don't believe my faith to be something that's just in my head."
To this point, I thought that my father was taunting the young man for pure 
diversion, perhaps as a means of distracting himself from the labors in which he 
had been engaged so intensely over the past few days. Then I heard what to my 
ears was an ominous shift in my father's words, signifying his movement from the 
old-school iconoclast he had been playing to something desperate and 
unprincipled with respect to the young man.
"Please forgive me. I didn't mean to suggest that anything like that was only in 
your head. How could such a thing be true when I know quite well that something 
of the kind inhabits this very house?"
"He is in every house," said the young man. "He is in all places."
"Indeed, indeed. But something like that is very much in this particular house."
My suspicion was now that my father made reference to the haunted condition, 
although barely so, of our rented house. I myself had already assisted him in a 
small project relevant to this condition and what its actual meaning might be, 
at least insofar as my father chose to explain such things. He even allowed me 
to keep a momento of this "phase-one experiment," as he called it. I was all but 
sure that this was the case when my father alluded to his basement.
"Basement?" said the young man.
"Yes," said my father. "I could show you."
"Not in my head but in your basement," said the young man as he attempted to 
clarify what my father was claiming.
"Yes, yes. Let me showyou. And afterward I will make a generous donation to your 
group. What do you say?"
The young man did not immediately say anything, and perhaps this was the reason 
that my father quickly shouted out my name. I backed up a few steps and waited, 
then descended the stairway as if I had not been eavesdropping all along.
"This is my son," my father said to the young man, who stood up to shake my 
hand. He was thin and wore a second-hand suit, just as I imagined him while I 
was eavesdropping at the top of the stairs. "Daniel, this gentleman and I have 
some business to conduct. I want
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you to see that we're not disturbed." I simply stood there as if I had every 
intention of obediently following these instructions. My father then turned to 
the young man, indicating the way to the basement. "We won't be long."
No doubt my presence--that is, the normality of my presence-- was a factor in 
the young man's decision to go into the basement. My father would have known 
that. He would not know, nor would he have cared, that I quietly left the house 
as soon as he closed the basement door behind him and his guest. I did consider 
lingering for a time at the house, if only to gain some idea of what phase my 
father's experimentation had now entered, given that I was a participant in its 
early stages. However, that night I was eager to see a friend of mine who lived 
in the neighborhood.
To be precise, my friend did not live in the bad neighborhood where my family 
had rented a house but in the worse neighborhood nearby. It was only a few 
streets away, but this was the difference between a neighborhood where some of 
the houses had bars across their doors and windows and one in which there was 
nothing left to protect or to save or to care about in any way. It was another 
world altogether ... a twisted paradise of danger and derangement... of 
crumbling houses packed extremely close together... of burned-out houses leaning 
toward utter extinction ... of houses with black openings where once there had 
been doors and windows ... and of empty fields over which shone a moon that was 
somehow different from the one seen elsewhere on this earth.
Sometimes there would be an isolated house hanging onto the edge of an open 
field of shadows and shattered glass. And the house would be so contorted by 
ruin that the possibility of its being inhabited sent the imagination swirling 
into a pit of black mysteries. Upon closer approach, one might observe thin, 
tattered bed sheets in place of curtains. Finally, after prolonged 
contemplation, the miracle would be revealed of a soft and wavering glow inside 
the house. Then one of the bed sheets moved slightly, and the voice of a woman 
called out to me as I stood teetering on the broken remnants of a sidewalk.
"Hey, you. Hey, boy. You got any money on you?"
"Some," I replied to that powerful voice.
"Then would you do something for me?"
"What?" I asked.
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"Would you go up to the store and get me some salami sticks? The long ones, not 
those little ones. I'll pay you when you come back."
When I returned from the store, the woman again called out to me through the 
glowing bed sheets. "Step careful on those porch stairs," she said. "The door's 
open."
The only light inside the house emanated from a small television on a metal 
stand. The television faced a sofa that seemed to be occupied from end to end by 
a black woman of indefinite age. In her left hand was a jar of mayonnaise, and 
in her right hand was an uncooked hot dog, the last one from an empty package 
lying on the bare floor of the house. She submerged the hot dog into the 
mayonnaise, then pulled it out and finished it off without taking her eyes from 
the television. After licking away some mayonnaise from her fingers, she screwed 
the lid back on the jar and set it to one side on the sofa, which appeared to be 
the only piece of furniture in the room. I held out the salami sticks to her, 
and she put some money in my hand. It was the exact amount I had paid, plus one 
dollar.
I could hardly believe that I was actually standing inside one of the houses I 
had been admiring since my family moved into the neighborhood. It was a cold 
night, and the house was unheated. The television must have operated on 
batteries, because it had no electrical cord trailing behind it. I felt as if I 
had crossed a great barrier to enter an outpost that had been long abandoned by 
the world, a place cut off from reality itself. I wanted to ask the woman if I 
might be allowed to curl up in some corner of that house and never again leave 
it. Instead, I asked if I could use the bathroom.
She stared at me silently for a moment and then reached down behind the cushions 
of the sofa. What she brought forth was a flashlight. She handed it to me and 
said, "Use this and watch yourself. It's the second door down that hall. Not the 
first door--the second door. And don't fall in."
As I walked down the hall I kept the flashlight focused on the gouged and filthy 
wooden floor just a few feet ahead of me. I opened the second door, not the 
first, then closed it behind me. The room in which I found myself was not a 
toilet but a large closet. Toward the back of the closet there was a hole in the 
floor. I shined the flashlight into the hole and saw that it led straight into 
the basement of the house. Down there were the pieces of a porcelain sink and 
commode, which must have fallen through the floor of the bathroom that was
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once behind the first door I had passed in the hallway. Because it was a cold 
night, and the house was unheated, the smell was not terribly strong. I knelt at 
the edge of the hole and shined the flashlight into it as far as its thin beam 
would reach. But the only other objects I could see were some broken bottles 
stuck within the strata of human waste. I thought about what other things might 
be in that basement... and I became lost in those thoughts.
"Hey, boy," I heard the woman call out. "Are you all right?"
When I returned to the front of the house, I saw that the woman had other 
visitors. When they held up their hands in front of their faces, I realized that 
I still had the shining flashlight in my hand. I switched it off and handed it 
back to the woman on the sofa.
"Thank you," I said as I maneuvered my way past the others and toward the front 
door. Before leaving I turned to the woman and asked if I might come back to the 
house.
"If you like," she said. "Just make sure you bring me some of those salami 
sticks."
That was how I came to know my friend Candy, whose house I visited many times 
since our first meeting on that fortuitous night. On some visits, which were not 
always at night, she would be occupied with her business, and I would keep out 
of her way as a steady succession of people young and old, black and white, came 
and went. Other times, when Candy was not so busy, I squeezed next to her on the 
sofa, and we watched television together. Occasionally we talked, although our 
conversations were usually fairly brief and superficial, stalling out as soon as 
we arrived at some chasm that divided our respective lives and could not be 
bridged by either of us. When I told her about my mother's putrid European 
cigarettes, for instance, Candy had a difficult time with idea of "European," or 
perhaps with the very word itself. Similarly, I would often be unable to supply 
a context from my own life that would allow me to comprehend something that 
Candy would casually interject as we sat watching television together. I had 
been visiting her house for at least a month when, out of nowhere, Candy said to 
me, "You know, I had a little boy that was just about your age."
"What happened to him?" I asked.
"Oh, he got killed," she said, as if such an answer explained itself and 
warranted no further elaboration. I never urged Candy to expand
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upon this subject, but neither could I forget her words or the resigned and 
distant voice in which she spoke them.
Later I found out that quite a few children had been killed in Candy's 
neighborhood, some of whom appeared to have been the victims of a child-murderer 
who had been active throughout the worst neighborhoods of the city for a number 
of years before my family moved there. (It was, in fact, my mother who, with 
outrageous insincerity, warned me about "some dangerous pervert" stealthily 
engaged in cutting kids' throats right and left in what she called "that 
terrible neighborhood where your friend lives.") On the night that I left our 
rented house after my father had gone into the basement with the young man who 
was wearing a second-hand suit, I thought about this child-murderer as I walked 
the streets leading to Candy's house. These streets gained a more intense hold 
upon me after I learned about the child killings, like a nightmare that 
exercises a hypnotic power forcing your mind to review its images and events 
over and over no matter how much you want to forget them. While I was not 
interested in actually falling victim to a child-murderer, the threat of such a 
thing happening to me only deepened my fascination with those crowded houses and 
the narrow spaces between them, casting another shadow over the ones in which 
that neighborhood was already enveloped.
As I walked toward Candy's house, I kept one of my hands in the pocket of my 
coat where I carried something that my father had constructed to be used in the 
event that, to paraphrase my irrepressibly inventive parent, anyone ever tried 
to inflict personal harm upon me. My sister was given an identical gadget, which 
looked something like a fountain pen. (Father told us not to say anything about 
these devices to anyone, including my mother, who for her part had long ago 
equipped herself with self-protection in the form of a small-caliber automatic 
pistol.) On several occasions I had been tempted to show this instrument to 
Candy, but ultimately I did not break my vow of secrecy on which my father had 
insisted. Nevertheless, there was something else my father had given me, which I 
carried in a small paper bag swinging at my side, that I was excited to show 
Candy that night. No restrictions had been placed on disclosing this to anyone, 
although it probably never occurred to my father that I would ever desire to do 
so.
What I carried with me, contained in a squat little jar inside the
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paper bag, was a by-product, so to speak, of the first-phase experiment in which 
I had assisted my father not long after we moved into our rented house. I have 
already mentioned that, like so many of the houses where my family lived during 
my childhood years, our current residence was imbued with a certain haunted 
aspect, however mild it may have been in this instance. Specifically, this 
haunting was manifested in a definite presence I sensed in the attic of the 
house, where I spent a great deal of time before I became a regular visitant at 
Candy's. As such things go, in my experience, there was nothing especially 
noteworthy about this presence. It seemed to be concentrated near the wooden 
beams which crossed the length of the attic and from which, I imagined, some 
former inhabitant of the house may once have committed suicide by hanging. Such 
speculation, however, was of no interest to my father, who strongly objected to 
the possibility of spooks or spirits of any kind or even the use of these terms. 
"There is nothing in the attic," he explained to me. "It's only the way that 
your head is interacting with the space of that attic. There are certain fields 
of forces that are everywhere. And these forces, for reasons unknown to me as 
yet, are potentiated in some places more than others. Do you understand? The 
attic is not haunting your head--your head is haunting the attic. Some heads are 
more haunted than others, whether they are haunted by ghosts or by gods or by 
creatures from outer space. These are not real things. Nonetheless, they are 
indicative of real forces, animating and even creative forces, which your head 
only conceives to be some kind of spook or who knows what. You are going to help 
me prove this by allowing me to use my apparatus in the basement to siphon from 
your head that thing which you believe is haunting the attic. This siphoning 
will take place in a very tiny part of your head, because if I siphoned your 
whole head ... well, never mind about that. Believe me, you won't feel a thing." 
After it was over, I no longer sensed the presence in the attic. My father has 
siphoned it away and contained it in a small jar, which he gave to me once he 
was through with it as an object of research, his first-phase of experimentation 
in a field that, unknown to other scientists who have since performed similar 
work, my father was the true Copernicus or Galileo or whomever one might care to 
name. However, as may be obvious by now, I did not share my father's scientific 
temperament. And although I no longer felt the presence in the attic, I was 
entirely resistant to abandoning the image of someone
253 
hanging himself from the wooden beams crossing the length of a lonely attic and 
leaving behind him an unseen guideline to another world. Therefore, I was 
delighted to find that the sense of this presence was restored to me in the 
portable form of a small jar, which, when I cupped it tightly in my hands, 
conveyed into my system an even more potent sense of the supernatural than I had 
previously experienced in the attic. This was what I was bringing to Candy on 
that night in late autumn.
When I entered Candy's house, there was no business going on that might distract 
from what I had to show her. There were in fact two figures slumped against the 
wall on the opposite side of the front room of the house, but they seemed 
inattentive, if not completely oblivious, to what was happening around them.
"What did you bring for Candy?" she said, looking at the paper bag I held in my 
hand. I sat down on the sofa beside her, and she leaned close to me.
"This is something...," I started to say as I removed the jar from the bag, 
holding it by its lid. Then I realized that I had no way to communicate to her 
what it was I had brought. It was not my intention to distress her in anyway, 
but there was nothing I could say to prepare her. "Now don't open it," I said. 
"Just hold it."
"It looks like jelly," she said as I placed the jar in her meaty hands.
Fortunately, the contents of the jar presented no disturbing images, and in the 
glowing light of the television they took on a rather soothing appearance. She 
gently closed her grip on the little glass container as if she were aware of the 
precious nature of what was inside. She seemed completely unafraid, even 
relaxed. I had no idea what her reaction would be. I knew only that I wanted to 
share with her something that she could not otherwise have known in this life, 
just as she had shared the wonders of her house with me.
"Oh, my God," she softly exclaimed. "I knew it. I knew that he wasn't gone from 
me. I knew that I wasn't alone."
Afterward, it occurred to me that what I had witnessed was in accord with my 
father's assertions. Just as my head had been haunting the attic with the 
presence of someone who had hanged himself, Candy's head was now haunting the 
jar with a presence of her own design, one which was wholly unlike my own. It 
seemed that she wished to hold on to that jar forever. Typically, forever was 
about to end. A nondescript car had just pulled up and stopped in front of
254 
Candy's house. The driver quickly exited the vehicle and slammed its door behind 
him.
"Candy," I said, "There's some business coming."
I had to tug at the jar to free it from her grasp, but she finally let it go and 
turned toward the door. As usual, I wandered off to one of the back rooms of the 
house, an empty bedroom where I liked to huddle in a corner and think about all 
the sleeping bodies that had dreamed there throughout innumberable nights. But 
on this occasion I did not huddle in a corner. Instead, I kept watch on what was 
happening in the front room of the house. The car outside had come to a stop too 
aggressively, too conspicuously, and the man in the long coat who walked toward 
the house moved in a way that was also too aggressive, too conspicuous. He 
pushed open the door of Candy's house and left it open after he stepped inside.
"Where's the white kid?" said the man in the long coat.
"No white people in here," said Candy, who held her eyes on the television. "Not 
including you."
The man walked over to the two figures across the room and gave each of them a 
nudge with his foot.
"If you didn't know, I'm the one who lets you do business."
"I know who you are, Mr. Police Detective. You're the one who took my boy. You 
took other ones too, I know that."
"Shut up, fat lady. I'm here for the white kid."
I took the pen out of my pocket and pulled off the top, revealing a short, thick 
needle like the point of a pushpin. Holding the pen at my side and out of sight, 
I walked back down the hallway.
"What do you want?" I said to the man in the long coat.
"I'm here to take you home, kid."
If there was anything I had ever known in my life as a cold, abstract certainty, 
it was this: if I went with this man, I would not be going home.
"Catch," I said as I threw the little jar at him.
He caught the jar with both hands, and for a moment his face flashed a smile. I 
have never seen a smile die so quickly or so completely. If I had blinked, I 
would have missed the miraculous transition. The jar then seemed to jump out of 
his hands and onto the floor. Recovering himself, he took a step forward and 
grabbed me. I have no reason to think that Candy or the others in the room saw 
me jab the pen into his leg. What they saw was the man in the long coat
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releasing me and then crumbling into a motionless pile. Evidently the effect was 
immediate. One of the two figures stepped out of the shadows and gave the fallen 
man the same kind of contemptuous nudge that had been given to him.
"He's dead, Candy," said the one figure.
"You sure?"
The other figure rose to his feet and mule-kicked the head of the man on the 
floor. "Seems so," he said.
"I'll be damned," said Candy, looking my way. "He's all yours. I don't want no 
part of him."
I found the jar, which fortunately was unbroken, and went to sit on the sofa 
next to Candy. In a matter of minutes, the two figures had stripped the other 
man down to his boxer shorts. Then one of them pulled off the boxer shorts, 
saying, "They look practically new." However, he stopped pulling soon enough 
when he saw what was under them. We all saw what was there, no doubt about that. 
But I wondered if the others were as confused by it as I was. I had always 
thought about such things in an ideal sense, a mythic conception handed down 
over the centuries. But it was nothing like that.
"Put him in the hole!" shouted Candy, who had stood up from the sofa and was 
pointing toward the hallway. "Put him in the goddamn hole!"
They dragged the body into the closet and dropped it into the basement. There 
was a slapping sound made by the unclothed form as it hit the floor down there. 
When the two figures came out of the closet, Candy said, "Now get rid of the 
rest of this stuff and get rid of the car and get rid of yourselves."
Before exiting the house, one of the figures turned back. "There's a big hunk of 
cash here, Candy. You're going to need some traveling money. You can't stay 
here."
To my relief, Candy took part of the money. I got up from the sofa and set the 
jar on the cushion beside my friend.
"Where will you go?" I asked.
"There are plenty of places like this one in the city. No heat, no electricity, 
no plumbing. And no rent. I'll be all right.
"I won't say anything."
"I know you won't. Good-bye, boy."
I said good-bye and wandered slowly home, dreaming all the while about what was 
now in Candy's basement.
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By the time I arrived at the house it was after midnight. My mother and sister 
must have also returned because I could smell the stench from my mother's 
European cigarettes as soon as I took two steps inside. My father was lying on 
the living room sofa, clearly exhausted after so many days of working in the 
basement. He also seemed quite agitated, his eyes wide open and staring upwards, 
his head moving back and forth in disgust or negation or both, and his voice 
repeatedly chanting, "Hopeless impurities, hopeless impurities." Hearing these 
words helped to release my thoughts from what I had seen at Candy's. They also 
reminded me that I wanted to ask my father about something he had said to the 
young man in the secondhand suit who had visited the house earlier that night. 
But my father's condition at the moment did not appear to lend itself to such 
talk. In fact, he betrayed no awareness whatever of my presence. Since I did not 
yet feel up to confronting my mother and sister, who I could now hear were 
moving about upstairs (probably still unpacking from their trip), I decided to 
take this opportunity to violate my father's sanctions against entering the 
basement without his explicit authorization. This, I believed, would provide me 
with something to take my mind off the recent events of that night.
However, as I descended the stairs into my father's basement, I felt my mind and 
senses being pulled back into the dark region of Candy's basement. Even before I 
reached the bottom of the stairs, that underground place imposed upon me its 
atmosphere of ruin and wreckage and of an abysmal chaos that, I was thankful to 
discover, I still found captivating. And when I saw the state of things down 
there, I was overcome with a thrilling awe that I had never experienced before.
Everything around me was in pieces. It looked as if my father had taken an ax 
and hacked up the whole apparatus on which he had once placed all his hopes of 
accomplishing some task that only he cared to envision. Wires and cords hung 
from the ceiling, all of them chopped through and dangling like vines in a 
jungle. A greasy, greenish liquid was running across the floor and sluicing into 
the basement drain. I waded through an undergrowth of broken glass and torn 
papers. I reached down and picked up some of the pages savagely ripped from my 
father's voluminous notebooks. Meticulous diagrams and graphs were obscured by 
words and phrases written with a thick, black marker. Page after page had the 
word "IMPURE" scrawled over them
257 
like graffiti on the walls of a public toilet. Other recurring exclamations 
were: "NOTHING BUT IMPURITIES," "IMPURE HEADS," "NOTHING REVEALED," "NO PURE 
CONCEPTION," "IMPOSSIBLE IMPURITIES," and, finally, "THE FORCES OF AN IMPURE 
UNIVERSE."
At the far end of the basement I saw a hybrid contraption that looked as if it 
were a cross between a monarch's throne and an electric chair. Bound to this 
device by straps confining his arms and legs and head was the young man in a 
second-hand suit. His eyes were open, but they had no focus in them. I noticed 
that the greasy, greenish liquid had its source in a container the size of a 
water-cooler bottle that was upended next to the big chair. There was a label on 
the container, written on masking tape, that read: "siphonage." Whatever spooks 
or spirits or other entities that had inhabited the young man's head--and my 
father appeared to have drained off a sizeable quantity of this stuff--were now 
making their way into the sewer system. They must have lost something, perhaps 
grown stale, once released from their container, because I felt no aura of the 
spectral-- either malignant or benign--emanating from this residual substance.
I was unable to tell if the young man was still alive in any conventional sense 
of the word. He may have been. In any case, his condition was such that my 
family would once again need to find another house in which to live.
"What happened down here?" said my sister from the other side of the basement. 
She was sitting on the stairs. "Looks like another one of Dad's projects took a 
bad turn."
"That's the way it looks," I said, walking back toward the stairs.
"Do you think that guy was carrying much money on him?"
"I don't know. Probably. He was here collecting for some kind of organization."
"Good, because Mom and I came back broke. And it's not as if we spent all that 
much."
"Where did you go?" I said, taking a seat beside my sister.
"You know I can't talk about that."
"I had to ask."
After a pause, my sister whispered, "Daniel, do you know what a hermaphrodite 
is?"
I tried my best to conceal any reaction to my sister's question, even though it 
had caused a cyclone of images and emotions to arise
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within me. That was what had confused me about the police detective's body. In 
my imagination, I had always pictured a neat separation of parts. But it was 
nothing like that, as I have already pointed out. Everything was all mixed 
together. Thank you, Elisa. Despite her adherence to my mother's strict rule of 
silence, my sister always managed to give away something of what they had been 
up to.
"Why do ask that?" I said, also whispering. "Did you meet someone like that when 
you were with Mom?"
"Absolutely not," she said.
"You have to tell me, Elisa. Did Mom ... did she talk about me ... did she talk 
about me to this person?"
"I wouldn't know. I really wouldn't," said Elisa as she rose to her feet and 
walked back upstairs. When she reached the top step, she turned around and said, 
"How's this thing between you and Mom going to end? Every time I mention your 
name, she just clams up. It doesn't make any sense."
"The forces of an impure universe," I said rhetorically.
"What?" said my sister.
"Nothing that drives anybody makes any sense, if you haven't noticed that by 
now. It's just our heads, like Dad's always saying."
"Whatever that means. Anyway, you better keep your mouth shut about what I said. 
I'm never telling you anything ever again," she finished and then went upstairs.
I followed my sister into the living room. My father was now sitting up on the 
sofa next to my mother, who was opening boxes and pulling things out of bags, 
presumably showing what she had bought on her latest trip with Elisa. I sat down 
in a chair across from them.
"Hi, baby," said my mother.
"Hi, Mom," I said, then turned to my father. "Hey, Dad, can I ask you 
something?" He still seemed a bit delirious. "Dad?"
"Your father's very tired, honey."
"I know. I'm sorry. I just want to ask him one thing. Dad, when you were talking 
to that guy, you said something about three ... you called them principles."
"Countries, deities," said my father from a deep well of depression. "Obstacles 
to pure conception."
"Yeah, but what was the third principle. You never said anything about that."
But my father had faded out and was now gazing disconsolately at
259 
the floor. My mother, however, was smiling. No doubt she had heard all of my 
father's talk many times over.
"The third principle?" she said, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke in my 
direction. "Why, it's families, sweetheart."
260 
260
261 
Read the short stories that
inspired and awed
H. P.
Lovecraft! This volume
represents horror's classic
stories - the roots of modern
horror as selected by Lovecraft
himself
$14.00 ISBN 1-59360-056-9
H. P. LOVECRAFTS FAVORITE WEIRD TALES Introduction by Douglas A. Anderson
Selected by the master of horror, these stories were Lovecraft's favorite tales 
of the weird. Compiled from his own lists augmented with comments from 
Lovecraft's own extensive correspondence, essays, and newspaper interviews-this 
unique collection makes for a truly landmark Lovecraftian anthology. 
Contributors include Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur 
Machen, Henry S. Whitehead, Algernon Blackwood, H.F. Arnold, and other leading 
masters of the horror genre.
262 
Read fantasy's best short stories,
with biographical notes on each
contributor by fantasy scholar
Douglas A. Anderson.
$14.00 ISBN 1-59360-048-8
SEEKERS OF DREAMS
Masterpieces of Fantasy Introduction and Biographical Notes by Douglas A. 
Anderson
This anthology showcases the spectrum of fantasy: light and dark, with 
masterpieces by famous authors such as L. Frank Baum, Lord Dunsany, H.P. 
Lovecraft, Leonard Cline, Clark Ashton Smith, Henry S. Whitehead, Bram Stoker 
and more. Contemporary writers included are Peter S. Beagle, Jonathan Carroll, 
Thomas Ligotti, Verlyn Flieger and Andy Duncan.