Gray House

This is a longer read, and delves into some absurd/surreal moments so it might not be for everyone. If the length bothers you, please point it out to me, but I would appreciate that reviews consider the whole length of the story.

GRAY HOUSE

AARON STARED AT the package. The writing on the backside was narrow, concise; much like the message itself—

Mr. Pennington,
dial 86-7325.

He had been at his typewriter when the doorbell rang and suspended his struggle for words. Only a temporary ceasefire, he thought, and the hostilities could continue. But it was a war that he was losing; every word he seized cost him a chunk of sanity and he hadn’t yet filled a single page. So he had almost welcomed the distraction and when the big package turned out to be a big package of nothing—unless he counted a pile of white foam peanuts as something—he puzzled over it, turning it this way and that, trying to understand.

Nobody’s ever sent you an empty package. Ever. Not even that lunatic McDowrey or McDowney—whatever his name was. They all have something to say. All lunatics do.

But if this wasn’t a lunatic’s work, he’d be damned. This was the mother of all lunatic acts, and the number wasn’t even valid. Forget about it, Aaron ol’ chap. Crazy letters were an inevitable consequence of being read. But somehow he couldn’t let it go. Maybe it was knowing that the alternate option was to return to his desk and spend an agonizing afternoon in the company of a bourbon bottle and beer. Or maybe it was the obvious insanity of the entire affair that drew him to the package. Insanity had its own appeal.

Just dial the number. You know you are not going to leave the matter alone until you have dialed that number. Just grab your phone and dial the goddamn number—now.

He picked the handset and pressed the warm white plastic to his ear. The receiver warbled the familiar dial tone. It was an old-fashioned telephone set with twelve pushbuttons in a rectangular keypad—the kind that had become popular in the early ‘80s. For a moment he hesitated, even as his fingers hovered over the big black buttons. Maybe he ought to reconsider. What if—

Knock it off, big boy. It’s probably a nonexistent number, anyway.

He dialed. It didn’t get to the first ring.

“Hello, Mr. Pennington,” said an unremarkable male voice.

Christ, not a “Yeah, who’s it?”, or even a “Hello”. This guy was expecting you. A long time passed before he could say anything half-coherent; the other end was dead quiet.

“Uh—hello. I received this package today. It had this number—”

“We know about that, Mr. Pennington.”

“Well, who are you?”

Silence.

“If you want me to sign your copy of The Matchstick Boy you can post it to the address on my website,” said Aaron.

There was a kind of snort that might have been a chuckle. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Pennington,” said the anonymous voice, “I am your reader. An avid reader, indeed. But that is not why you called.”

“I called because you wanted me to.”

“Think again, Mr. Pennington.”

“Look—I get it. Let’s just forget the whole thing, shall we?”

“Sorry, Mr. Pennington, but we cannot. We are here to help you as much as you can help us.”

Aaron cut the connection. Other than his shallow breathing, there was complete silence; the breeze had died down. It is a lunatic; either that, or a very determined prankster. Just walk on buddy—there’s tons of them in this big, big world. He was about to pour a drink when the phone rang, giving him a start that almost sent the bottle of bourbon flying. After several rings, he picked up the phone.

“Whoever this is—I don’t want you calling at my house again,” he said, gripping the receiver with a cold hand.

“Mr. Pennington, you called us last time. Don’t you remember?”

Aaron was confused. “Yes—yes I did.” For a moment there he was sure that it had happened the other way round.

“Consider it an offer, Mr. Pennington. You do some work for us, we give you your words back.”

“You give me my what? Who are you guys?”

“Your words. Inspiration, muse; Calliope or Melpomene, call it whatever you will, Mr. Pennington. We can give it back to you, and you can start writing your third novel. If you accept our offer.”

“And why would I need anyone’s help with my writing?”

A long pause. Aaron held his breath.

“You probably know the answer to that one, Mr. Pennington.”

Aaron did not know whether he should be concerned or angry. Be that as it may, they—whoever they were—must have been snooping around—probably had access to his agent’s files and knew he was missing deadlines. Next call on the list was to his agent. But first he had to get rid of this nutcase.

“Sure. So what’s your offer?”

“Take the Arlington-Darrington road and drive east. Go past Oso. Seven miles down the road you will come to a crossing. Keep going for another mile. You will pass a row of eleven regularly spaced houses on the right. At the end of the row make a right onto National Forest Development Road two-zero-one-zero. It is a narrow—”

“What? That’s probably not even accessible to the public.”

“It is a narrow road, but you will make it; nobody will bother you. Stay on the road and drive to the end. Eventually you will get to a clearing. Be there at three o’clock tomorrow.”

“Okay, but why don’t we schedule a meeting at my house instead? It’ll be less of a hassle, don’t you think?” Of course, he had no intention of going anywhere; but he felt like playing along. Anything to get this call over and done with. Then he became aware that the line was dead. He pushed the switch hook and dialed his agent’s number, and the phone on the agent’s end started ringing.

We can give it back to you, and you can start writing your third novel. You can start writing your third novel—Except that you never said that to your agent. Remember his last call? You told him you were finishing a first draft.

“Whitman Literary Agency,” said a strong, clear voice.

Aaron cut the connection and sat down. He tried to think; to get his mind in working order. The whiskey didn't help. But one thing he knew for sure—the agent had no plausible reason to doubt what he’d told him. And besides, no writer is ever on schedule. It wasn’t the maid either. She came Tuesdays and Fridays and he’d always be at the writing desk. Maybe she saw the same old blank sheet of paper in the typewriter feed and wondered why you never seemed to be typing. But even that was farfetched. For one thing, she seldom went in his study. And when he was working at his usual pace, he typed in short, quick frenzies that alternated with long idle periods, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if she didn’t hear him typing for a long stretch.

With a slight stagger, he went to the study and flopped down in front of the typewriter. He had had his fair share of drink for the day—more than a fair share. He leaned his head on the ball of his thumb, closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate. It was useless; the battle was lost before it had even begun. When he next opened his eyes it was dark outside and his heart was galloping in his chest. Some dream about walking on an infinite white plain beneath a pitch-black sky. And a raven—a gray raven. He got up. If he was going to sleep, he’d rather do it in the bedroom. Tomorrow he’d figure the whole thing out; if his head wasn’t split by headache. Feeling stiff all over, he lumbered to the bedroom and threw himself, clothes and everything, upon the bed. Dreamless sleep followed.

* * *

Aaron woke up in the morning feeling refreshed. No hangover; that was good. The more he thought about the episode of the day before, the more it seemed inconsequential. But he was curious and needed to put the affair to rest, so finally he determined to go. Three o'clock at the clearing just as the caller had said. Not without some insurance, of course. He had bought a small revolver for home protection—it would come in handy if the situation turned bad. And if it did, he could always call the cops first thing when he got back home.

He went about his morning chores with his usual alacrity, and by half past eight he was seated in front of his typewriter, cold beer in hand, looking over the few lines of black type. He finished the bottle and had another. Damn, nothing like the taste of cold beer in the morning. Then he had another, and another, until a small pile of bottles encircled him and he hadn't written a single word. It couldn't go on like this; the novel was getting nowhere. Worst of all was the repetition—the repetition of the same nothingness minute after minute, day after day. There had to be some point at which the warning beep turned into a full-blown alarm and then he’d have to do something, and he suspected it was close. Good thing that he was going out; maybe it would help.

At a quarter to two, Aaron grabbed the keys of his old Toyota Corolla—a new car was one of the few things he kept promising himself but never got around to buying—and the revolver, and headed out. He left early—it shouldn’t be more than half an hour to get from Arlington Heights to the turning off the state road, but he was uncertain how long the rest of the drive would be. And there were a million things that could go wrong in the forest. Deadfalls, overgrowth. Getting lost. Still, there was something about that voice on the telephone. Something persuasive, something that evinced truth. Perhaps because it was so calm and collected, or perhaps because it seemed to know more about him than he let on to anybody. Either way, groundless as it may be, he believed it.

Five years since you last walked in the woods, Aaron ol’ chap. It’s been five years. And during that time, you’ve been looking out on the mountains and the forest from your little writing niche for three or four hours a day. Now you’ll get all the chance to smell the leaves and feel the bark first hand. And why the hell not? For starters, you need a change of scenery. You've become a recluse. And it might just help boost-start your writing as well.

He tuned the Toyota’s radio to a station that was playing Antonio Vivaldi’s L’Autunno from Le Quattro Stagioni. The uplifting, airy melody of the violin section filled the atmosphere with a mood that perfectly fit the beautiful mid-Autumn weather. After La Primavera, L’Autunno was the concerto he enjoyed the most of the masterpiece of four. But few classical pieces surpassed the magnificence of La Primavera, anyway. It had an entire spectrum of emotions; forlornness to hope to jubilance—listening to it was like experiencing a whole lifetime, laborious but liberating in the end. Now, as the car travelled on the lightly trafficked road, he allowed the knots in his mind to disentangle to the bold motif of L’Autunno and the cheerful tune of its last movement. He felt good.

The Arlington-Darrington road—a 27-mile stretch that formed part of State Route 530—skirted the foothills of the Cascades on its northeasterly route and then proceeded east through Oso, roughly tracing the Stillaguamish River towards Darrington. The road crossed the Stillaguamish twice before reaching Oso, and once just past the small community. Derelict-looking truss bridges were adjacent to all three crossings—they probably served the older road that existed before this section of Route 530 was built. Aaron made a mental note—any one of these bridges was a perfect starting point for a walk in the country. He could even plan a longer trek in spring or summer. Hell, even now was a good time. The cold had a certain way of clarifying thought.

He looked at the odometer to make sure he hadn’t gone past the crossing. He hadn’t. Past Oso, the white caps of the North Cascades were now clearly visible. As much as the view from his study's picture window was good, this was even better. That sudden beauty hit you like a sucker punch to the stomach. Even so, these mountains, with their immovable mass and unyielding attitudes—they were almost alien. Up close, that dominating presence seemed to magnify the diminutiveness of his faltering efforts. He hated to admit it, but in a contradictory sense it felt better to view them from a distance.

The car went across a small stream—that’s the one—and a distinctive row of large houses that looked uninhabited came up on the right side. He slowed down and found the turning. He hesitated for a moment—maybe you should just turn back—before steering the Toyota in the direction of the forest. The tall coniferous trees that lined both sides of the road swayed in a soft breeze and formed a dense mass of unbroken wilderness in which the forest road all but disappeared.

Aaron edged the car forward on the gravel road. It was derelict and overgrown, littered with dead branches and a decomposing duff of pine needles. Beyond and above loomed the French Peak, covered with firs and Western Hemlock. He peered through the darkness, finding it difficult to focus on the road. Of course, he couldn’t both listen to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and concentrate, so he turned the radio off with a snap. There, that was better. Now the drive was eerie in its quiet. Even the sound of the engine seemed subdued; the smell of pines fresh and pervading. He looked around. Trees and more trees surrounded him on both sides—tall, dark, ageless pillars that reached ever higher in their endless struggle to survive. It was ironic, that everlasting primeval race for the light. If all the trees but concurred perhaps more of them would survive and down here would be lighter, more conducive of life.

He felt a strange sensation. Maybe it was only his impression, or maybe it was the strange quality of light beneath the foliage—but didn’t everything seem to be turning gray? He was almost certain of it. But before he could think of a rational explanation an unexpected voice spoke up.

He’s going to kill you. Nobody’s got any business messing around deep in the forest when there can be huge piles of snow coming any minute. Why would he want to draw you out here in the middle of nowhere—if not to murder you?

His hand went to the gun in his jacket. The cold, hard steel of the barrel was reassuring. Maybe he should turn around anyway. You can't turn around—those trunks are so close you'd have to back the car all the way to the state road. No, he had to see this through, if only to satisfy his curiosity. And maybe he'd have something to write about, you never knew.

As he went deeper in the forest the road twisted and turned to keep up with the steeper incline. At one point he stopped to clear some branches that blocked the way; Christ, it was chilly outside—chilly and completely still. The breeze was gone; nothing moved. And he couldn't shake off that strange sensation too. Then the road took a final turn and he was there.

He stared.

A tall concrete skyscraper stood in a cringing juxtaposition of man-made form and nature. How was this even possible?—a skyscraper out here in the mountains?—who would want to build such a thing?—why would they even allow it to be built? Hundreds of questions. His mind grappled with the rude absurdity but it was all beyond comprehension.

He pulled over to one side and got out. The drab husk of the building rose from a cemented depression in the center of a round clearing surrounded by a chain-link fence and a white sign with red lettering that read WARNING—Restricted Area. Below that in bold black letters—US MILITARY FACILITY. On both sides of the building were strange odd-shaped bits of machinery that protruded out of the ground and on the opposite side languished a rusted bulldozer, canted heavily like a beached shipwreck. It all looked very dead and purposeless. He walked down the sloping surface of the cement depression towards the only entrance he could see and looked up at the slab face of the skyscraper. It was bare; and beneath that gray concrete, beneath those foreign edges that delineated the human interruption of the natural course of events, beneath the ugliness and the glaring atonality; beneath all of this was a sinister undertone that wrenched his mind from reality.

A tune from The Wizard of Oz came to his head out of nowhere—We’re off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—and he stumbled. He wanted to run away as far as possible. Something was wrong here—something was wrong with everything since that package arrived yesterday, but more so with this place. Out of breath for no particular reason, he lifted his head and gazed at a small plaque above the entrance that he had missed, squinting to make out what it said—Gray House.

He pushed himself away from the wall and ran back to his car. Then he remembered the cawing raven from his dream. The cawing gray raven. He started the engine and tore off in a muddled confusion of panic.

A skyscraper—a skyscraper—askyscraperintheforest—We’re off to see the Wizard, Thewonderfulwizardofoz—His eyes were gray—looking at you—the Gray House? There’s somethingwrongintheforest—he’s—it’s the Wizard of Oz—the wizard of oz, the wonderfulwizardofoz—get a hold of yourself—a skyscraper has no business in the forest—get a hold of yourself!

Slowly he did and the car made it back to the state road in one piece. First things first, he had to call the cops, even though he hardly knew what to say. There’s a man that lives in a skyscraper in the mountains—he wants to give me my words back, but … well, he gave me a tune instead. I’m afraid of him, I think he’s the Wizard of Oz, he could try. He is? Well, Mr. Pennington, why don’t you give the Skagit Valley Hospital a visit? I heard they’ve a great psychiatric unit over there. He laughed cheerlessly. Maybe a drink or two would grease his tongue without making him sound too off-kilter. Even though in all truth he was off-kilter. Where did that Wizard of Oz tune come from? He hadn’t watched the movie in thirty years, and he had never liked it anyway. And why now? There was no apparent connection between the caller and the Wizard of Oz. What about the grayness?—how could he explain that? He turned the radio on and put up the volume to drown out his thoughts.

* * *

Aaron parked the Toyota in the circular drive in front of his house and glanced at his watch. It was five past four; the drive from the skyscraper—he couldn’t bring himself to call the building anything else even though it sounded ridiculous—to Arlington Heights must have been more than an hour long, because he couldn’t have spent more than ten minutes at the clearing. Back in the house, he walked to the study for the bottle of bourbon—he had to have some giggle juice first—and froze when he turned on the light. Five letters were missing from his typewriter. The spokes were still there, but—but the W, R, O, S, and D keys were gone—

w o r d s

You do some work for us, we give you your words back—

They’ve been here—they’ve been in your house!

He forgot about the bourbon and dashed to the telephone. Even as he pressed the handset to his ear and dialed the number, Aaron knew this was going to be futile. They had built a skyscraper in the middle of the forest and managed to get in his house without visibly breaking in; severing his telephone lines was probably child’s play to them. But the telephone started ringing—

“Ozzy’s Steakhouse. How may I help you?” said a loud, cheerful voice. Aaron pulled the handset away from his ears and stared at the tiny round holes in the plastic. “Hello? Sir, how—”

He slammed the handset on its cradle and fished in his pockets. They can’t have messed with your cell phone too. But it turned out they did. The call went through to the same place.

Think!

He was out of options. Driving to the Arlington Police Department would be as futile as trying to call them; worse, it could be dangerous. Or deadly. He rushed about the house, simultaneously shuttering windows and checking that everything was in its usual place, but there was no question about it; he was being observed. Suddenly the living room felt too exposed. And he needed somewhere to think.

The only place he could think of was a small, empty room at the back of the house with no windows to the outside. It was completely covered with white linoleum and wallpaper, and the fluorescent lamp that hung from the ceiling cast a strong white glow into every corner of the tiny space. It would do. He plumped down on the floor against the far wall facing the doorway and wedged the revolver between his abdomen and thighs. The only shadow in the room was tucked beneath him, out of sight. He was safe.

Look around you. They have shut you in; they have isolated you from the rest of the world. You can’t even call for help—you’re alone. Aaron leaned his head against the wall behind him, stared at the door, and concentrated on his breathing to shut out all extraneous thoughts. Except for the humming of the fluorescent light, the house was wrapped in a frigid silence. But let’s face the facts here. If they meant harm—or worse—you wouldn’t be here right now. He let his arms drop to his sides. In his head, the anonymous voice repeated its offer of words for work over and over. As if it was the only thing that mattered. And right then, it was. But what kind of work? And why him? The questions coursed through his mind and chilled him like rivulets of ice. Questions to which he had no rational answer. He gazed at the light and winced at the stab of pain as his eyes adjusted to the sudden change in brightness. You can either deal with it—or not deal with it. Easy as that. And not dealing with it means you won’t be getting any sleep. So you know what you have to do. He realized that this was not fear, at least not in the precise meaning of the word. What he felt was awe and an uncanny disjointedness—like déjà vu in a way, only unending. He closed his eyes and a question popped up in his head—is this all true?—but he shoved it away; he barely knew what the question meant, let alone its answer.

He got to his feet, turned off the light, grabbed his jacket, and headed out.

* * *

Fifty-five minutes later Aaron came around the last bend in the road and in view of the gray skyscraper. The skyscraper's shadow undulated over the circular depression that surrounded it, a darker shade of gray. Except for the longer shadows, it was the same discordant sight as before. Massive, mocking, jarring and perverse. He turned off the engine and walked to the concrete entrance. Owing to the lack of windows or external features there was little to give him a sense of scale, but he estimated it at 250 feet, probably more. He walked in.

Stepping inside was like stepping into a gigantic, man-made cavern. Two scaffolds rose from a dark chasm and were lost in the heights; between them zigzagged a bare concrete staircase lit only by the steady glow of regularly-spaced industrial site lights. Black cabling crept vertically upwards, reinforcing the strong geometrical perspective of the scaffolds’ converging lines. There were no rooms; just a vast, vacant chamber bounded by a column of dark emptiness, three concrete walls, a concrete floor, and the next concrete story.

A nauseating spasm—you’re off to see the Wizard—and a feeling of disconnection suffused his senses as he stepped on the staircase. He held onto an upright for support and waited until the nausea subsided. The second floor was identical to the first; another roomless volume entombed within massive gray slabs of concrete. And so were the third and the fourth, and the rest of the floors he climbed past. The epileptic repetition of the same gray scene added to the disconnection he already felt, and after the fifth floor he had lost count.

He climbed step after step and floor after floor went past. He might have reached the thousandth floor, or perhaps only the tenth; he did not know. The only thing he was sure of was that he had passed the same floors over and over; the same steps, the same patterns of grit; the very same thoughts. Everything looked and was the same. Even time repeated itself. Like a Möbius strip it twisted and curled only to return to the same spot and start all over again.

Somehow he was now at the end of a corridor. On the far side was a gray door with an old-fashioned doorknob. He walked towards it; strode towards it. But every pace he took seemed to require a disproportionate effort and a measureless length of time, yet he could surely have reached out with his arms and touched the door. Finally he was there. He turned the doorknob and the door opened almost of its own accord.

A well-groomed man in a gray suit sat behind a metal desk in the middle of a square room. In front was an empty chair and above the desk hung a lightbulb at the end of a long stretch of wire, its conical lampshade casting a circular shadow that split the walls into two halves. The features of the man were illuminated by the pool of light, but they remained enigmatic, nondescript. Aaron hesitated and fumbled in his jacket.

“That is not necessary, Mr. Pennington,” said the man in the gray suit. “Have a seat.”

Aaron froze. He looked from the face of the man to the lightbulb; from the lightbulb to the face of the man.

“Have a seat,” repeated the man in the gray suit.

Aaron could not refuse. He walked to the middle of the room and sat down, the stark light blinding him momentarily. After his eyes adjusted he could just about make out the man in the opposite chair.

“Where am I?” asked Aaron in a weak voice.

“The twenty-seventh floor. Your floor I must add, Mr. Pennington,” said the man in the gray suit.

A lucid thought—there are twenty-seven floors?!—went through Aaron’s mind but was quickly extinguished. This place had a way with killing off thought.

The man in the gray suit was leaning forward. “You have decided to take us up on our offer, am I right?” he asked.

Part of his mind wanted to scream No! No, I don’t want to take you up on your offer! I’m here to erase you from my mind and memory. But he didn’t.

“Yes,” he said.

“Good, Mr. Pennington. Very good,” said the man in the gray suit. He was smiling—a smile that reached to his ears. “I presume you might have a question or two?” The man motioned with his hands; a gesture of affable acceptance. “Well then.”

“Who—what—” mouthed Aaron with difficulty.

“Who and what, indeed. Good question, Mr. Pennington. Or perhaps I should say questions? Suffice it to say that we are concerned with the fabrication of truth. Much like you are, Mr. Pennington. Although one could say that our truth has a certain …” the man mulled over the word before resuming—“quality to it.”

“Who’s the Wizard of Oz?” asked Aaron.

“The Wizard of Oz!” laughed the man in the gray suit. Loud, good-humored laughter. “The Wizard of Oz, I say! I suppose that is as good a name as any, Mr. Pennington. I have to confess though; I am not him.” The man was laughing and shaking his head, as if it was a very clever joke. But then he seemed to sober up, pulled himself together, and resumed with his former deadpan voice. “One has to put on airs when conducting business, doesn’t one, Mr. Pennington?”

Aaron nodded, even though he didn’t know what the man was talking about.

“Our promise still holds,” said the man. He held out his hands and opened his fingers, revealing five black keys that gleamed like hot coals. There was perfect silence. After a while, the man clasped his hands together, pushed back from the table and rose. “Come, Mr. Pennington,” he said with a smile—not as big a smile as before, but a smile nonetheless—and he walked to a door on the far side of the room.

Aaron got up and followed him.

“One last thing, Mr. Pennington. How do you like Tchaikovsky?”

Aaron stared, unable to say anything. Tchaikovsky was his favorite composer.

“Then you will enjoy the ball,” said the man without waiting for a reply.

He turned and swung the door open.

* * *

Beyond the door was the grandest ballroom Aaron could imagine—a magnum opus of unsurpassable beauty. It was a room whose every element, every curve and every corner were intended for a single exquisite purpose: to achieve an aesthetic perfection. Everything was in its right place—there was nothing superfluous, nothing lacking. Suspended from the center was a huge chandelier, brilliantly shaped as to extend the contours of the ballroom’s subtly arched ceiling, and lines and curves accentuated by the chandelier’s golden glow sketched suggestive, flowing forms that Gustav Klimt would have been envious of, girdling the oval shape of the ballroom and twining together above the orchestra in a magnificent display of elegance and delicacy. Aaron stepped in.

The orchestra was performing March, the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. The playing was flawless, with the brass section soaring to the repeated climaxes of the music and the rest of the ensemble responding with an unusual vigor. For a while, Aaron stood at the end of the ballroom and listened. It was a performance the likes of which he had never heard before.

He sat down at a table with another man who looked about thirty or thirty-one, slightly shabby, with a woolen pullover on a white shirt—clothes that Aaron wouldn’t have dreamt of wearing to a ball. The man appeared to be enjoying the music.

“Hello, Aaron,” said the man with a friendly nod.

“Hello, Marco,” said Aaron.

The orchestra had ended March and was now beginning The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy. The man turned to Aaron and looked at him with an expression of mild surprise.

“I thought you hadn’t recognized me,” said the man. “Few people do.”

“Well, I know my characters when I see them,” said Aaron.

“Yeah, I guess you would.”

Marco fell silent and turned to the orchestra.

“I am still debating whether you should be Marco, M., or a nameless protagonist,” said Aaron after a while.

“Yeah, I know,” replied Marco. “Call me whatever you want, but the name doesn’t change anything. I’ll still be you.”

“Maybe, but I never went to a ball in a sweater.”

“That may be true. But in the end I think there’s always bound to be a difference. One thing I’m sure about from my writing is that the protagonist’s character—the fictional you—tends to pick up nuances and embellishments as the novel progresses, so by the end the character becomes a highly idealized projection of what you see or desire in yourself. And that’s usually as far from the truth as you could imagine,” said Marco. And then added, apparently in self-defense, “But you haven’t even started to write yet so I’m lucky to even be here, let alone wear a sweater and a shirt.”

“No—well, I did write a few lines.”

Marco shrugged and turned to the music once again. The orchestra was somehow already halfway through The Arabian Dance. Aaron looked around. People were seated at tables on both sides of a narrow red carpet that divided the ballroom along its length—many people, most of them intent on the orchestra’s performance. Each face he looked at was a face he recognized. A good number were characters from his novels, but not all of them. There were also faces of relatives and friends, as well as a few actors and politicians. Why there were some people and not others, and how they ended up here, he had no idea.

“Marco, is this a ball or a concert?” asked Aaron. “A man told me this was a ball. But everyone is sitting down, and there’s the orchestra.”

“A bit of both,” said Marco. “Why?—didn’t you know?”

“No. I wasn’t sure.”

“Frankly, I don’t know much what’s supposed to happen. And I don’t really care. But I love the music.”

Aaron nodded and left the table. The people he walked by didn’t seem to take particular notice of him. In fact, they behaved as if they could see through him; as if he was a ghost. But it didn’t bother him at all. A plump, stern woman, a sad-looking man, and a young boy were seated around a table a distance away. The characters from The Matchstick Boy. Aaron fixed his eyes on the plump woman.

“Down here we are all alive,” said the plump woman. The sad man nodded without saying anything.

“And you, Tommy,” said Aaron—“how are you?”

“I’m okay. Bored, though,” said the young boy.

“Don’t you like the music?” asked Aaron.

“Nope. Not really.”

“Then why did you come?”

“I don’t know. Everyone’s here.”

“Even here,” said the plump woman, her eyes flashing with repressed hate. “Even here I have to suffer this abomination of a child!” The sad man nodded yet again without saying anything, and then they both turned to regard the orchestra.

Aaron made his way through the people. Far away he spotted a woman sitting alone with her back turned. Of all the people in the ballroom, it was she who he least expected. He walked up to her.

“Marla,” said Aaron.

The woman looked up at his face and for a moment their eyes met and locked. Then she looked down and sighed.

“Aaron,” said the woman.

He just stood there, not knowing what to say or to think. What could he say, anyway?—It wouldn’t make much of a difference, would it? No, he’d rather just enjoy the concert. Or ball, whatever it was. What had happened, had happened and all the world’s imagination could not make it unhappen. Instead, he let the music carry him away. The orchestra was playing The Dance of the Reed-pipes, which he loved; it was one of those pieces that had the power to transport him into a world of fantasy. But not here. Moreover, not here in this spot. He turned away from the woman.

That was when he saw the small round table set to one side. A very small one, hardly enough room for two people. Seated at the table was a man in a black-and-white harlequin motley, and it was his laughter that had attracted Aaron’s attention. Strangely, the man seemed oblivious to the rest of the people and they to him.

Aaron looked at the man’s face, and although it was one that he didn’t recognize—the only one in the whole crowd—he had no doubt who the man was. But as he drew close his confidence vanished. The man exuded uncertainty; it was not doubt, at least not in the conventional sense—he was still sure of the man’s identity—it was more of an amnesiac lack of connectedness. Even the black and white diamonds on his costume seemed to shimmer and move about.

“Hello there! Sit down—please do sit down,” the man greeted him with a loud voice. “A fine comedy, this! A most delicious comedy.”

Aaron sat down opposite to the man.

“I don’t very much see the humor, to be honest,” he said.

“Oh, not that kind of comedy, young man. Dramatic irony, comedy without the laughter, the absurd,” said the man.

“But you were laughing a moment ago,” said Aaron.

“I was? Well, it is what I do.”

“So is that the only thing you do?” asked Aaron.

“No, of course not—don’t be silly,” laughed the man. “You don’t expect a man to do one thing only now, do you? That would be ridiculous. As well as very unwholesome, I must add.”

Aaron felt dizzy. He nodded and changed the subject. “What I can’t understand is this,” he said. “You’re supposed to be the Wizard of Oz but you’re wearing a harlequin costume.”

“I’m supposed to be many a different thing, young man; known by many a different name. I can hardly keep up with the whole list of identities,” said the Wizard of Oz, bursting into song—

“You’re out of the woods,
You’re out of the dark,
You’re out of the night.
Step into the sun,
Step into the light.
Keep straight ahead for the most glorious place,
On the face of the earth or the sky,”

and then went on without a pause: “Speaking of music, you must like that conductor. He’s extremely vivacious.”

Aaron turned to the ensemble. Vladimir Ashkenazy was conducting it—he was swinging his baton with gusto as he brought the orchestra to a crescendo—the culmination of the The Waltz of the Flowers, and of The Nutcracker as a whole. Aaron listened in silence; the music had somewhat of an elucidative, clarifying effect on his mind. It was beyond flawless—anyhow, the thing with this kind of music was not how perfectly the musicians played. The musicians, of course, had to be technically good—that was a given. But that magical ingredient which immortalized a performance stemmed from the unique interpretation of the piece by the orchestra as a group, as well as that of the individual musicians. And this orchestra's interpretation was, well, indescribable.

“You know, I could have ended that much sooner," intruded the Wizard of Oz. Aaron hadn't noticed the performance was over. "But seeing as you liked the music so much—well, I’m a kind-hearted old man, that I am. Come with me.”

At that, the Wizard of Oz rose and strode into the crowd. The people had also left their tables and were gathered in an open space in front of the stage. Some of them were dancing—slow, composed movements that were almost languid—while others were standing, drinking, nodding, talking. Only a few performers of the orchestra remained, and they were now playing an unrecognizable chamber tune. The Wizard of Oz made his way through the dense mass without any effort and Aaron followed close behind.

“I can take away their words,” said the Wizard of Oz.

And so he did. With a swoop of the arms the crowd hushed and the talking stopped. Only the shuffling of feet persisted.

“And I can take away their mouths. Or, if you prefer, their faces,” continued the Wizard of Oz.

Aaron took it all in without saying a word. He could not grasp the full extent of what he was witnessing, not because he didn’t expect it—he had, in fact, known from the outset that the Wizard’s presence was as necessary as bad is necessary for the completion of good—but because he failed to comprehend how the Wizard’s acts could be so absolute, so thorough. Yet as they walked through the faceless myriad something tugged at his mind and held fast.

“Perhaps I’ll just put an end to this pretty mise en scène—what do you say, hmm?” asked the Wizard of Oz.

“Wait,” said Aaron.

The Wizard of Oz turned around, looking impatient. “What is it?” he asked. “If there’s something I detest, it’s being interrupted while I’m busy.”

“So—so this is that other thing you do—bring things to an end?” asked Aaron.

The Wizard of Oz laughed. “Yes, yes. You are more or less correct,” he said, and then grimaced. “Not bring things to an end, per se. I would rather call it a—a cancellation of things, much like a pencil eraser cancels writing. It’s a passive profession, mine is. I don’t do much of anything as such—you see? Yes, you must have seen—but I get to undo a lot. Well, to be sure, it’s a rather unjobly job. That’s the heart of the matter.”

But Aaron barely acknowledged the words. His mind was racing—what was so peculiar about these people?—was it the way they didn't seem to notice their disfigurement? And he was also tired—more tired than he remembered he ever was; he could hardly lift an arm without exerting himself. Perhaps that was why he found it so difficult to focus. The Wizard of Oz resumed his conversation.

“That aside, it is a job that I take great pride in, and as you have undoubtedly observed, I perform it with exceptional precision and perfection. I profess the result may seem a little unsightly, but what’s to worry about that? So long as a man does his job—moreover, he does his job with unparalleled impeccability—who can reproach him for any impropriety? Certainly nobody. Allow me to divulge a little secret in the way of explanation. I most emphatically do not believe that ‘destruction after all is a form of creation’. Ha!—I see you’re acquainted with those words—that’s evidently not a coincidence, you are a writer. But to proceed where we left off: I must reject any notion of creativity when it comes to destruction, because the ultimate sort of destruction—destruction in its pure, quintessential form, you may say—is nothing more and nothing less than this, a cancellation.

“Now consider this ballroom, your ballroom. No sculptor’s chisel or painter’s brush could recreate it in its entirety. Nor could you, for that matter, because try as you might, your penmanship will not remotely accomplish anything beyond a mere allusion to the splendor of this hall. Ha! But I, on the contrary, I could demolish it from top to bottom, within and without; I could cancel it all with such a prodigious proficiency that not one particle of its sublime opulence remains; I and only I!” With that, the Wizard of Oz turned around, swept an arm in a vast circle, and roared laughter.

It was gone. Just like that; the ballroom, the dancers, the dazzle and the din—they were all gone. Replaced by an endless floor with a black and white parti-colored pattern that duplicated the one on the harlequin’s motley. The Wizard turned to Aaron with a leer. “Do you see, now,” he said, “do you see why I am irreproachable?”

Aaron fought a losing battle against the stupor that blunted his senses. The sudden change had somehow pieced together the puzzle in his mind and he wanted to scream, but as the Wizard of Oz grinned at him from ear to ear, as those eyes shone with a gleeful luster, Aaron’s voice absconded. He wanted to scream—he wanted to scream and shout that no, he was not beyond reproach; that no, perfection was not necessarily a good thing, that mere allusions were sometimes better than perfection; that despite their perfection, the cancellations were unconvincing and artificial; that despite being faceless, the people were still drinking and dancing and talking—soundlessly and speechlessly perhaps, but they were talking nevertheless; that if he considered himself beyond reproach, it was only on account of him being a machine, that proficiency at any rate was not applicable to machines; that what mattered was the humanity, that without the humanity Tchaikovsky would lose his great genius and Ashkenazy his inimitable interpretation. And most of all he wanted to scream that the man was no Wizard, that King Nothing was a more appropriate title. But his lips abstained and his tongue held fast. Instead, he averted his gaze from the Wizard and looked at the white diamond that he was standing on. With a final sway and a stagger, his vision faltered, he dropped, and everything turned black.

* * *

When he came to, Aaron was vomiting and groveling in the little room at the back of his house, pain wracking his chest and his breath sputtering out in short convulsive sobs. You’re dead—you must be. But then he opened his eyes and saw the familiar walls. He was alive. Wiping his face, he crawled towards the door, and a familiar question—is this all true?—materialized in his head. This time it stopped him in his tracks, and that was when he saw the hypodermic needle. He panicked and his arm slid out from beneath him, tumbling him onto the white linoleum. He threw up again and might even have passed out for a while, he wasn’t certain, but the next thing he was aware of was that he felt better. Struggling to his knees, he examined himself for marks, and sure enough there was a faint red prick on his upper left arm—

You couldn’t have done that. You never would.

But the prick was real—he stroked it to remove any doubt; it was even sore and smarted when he touched it, as if it was bruising up. How was it possible? He had never taken hard drugs; above everything not hallucinogens or deliriants. Wouldn’t even know where to get them from, and from the looks of it, this was a very powerful deliriant. He forced himself to take deep breaths and little by little he calmed down. There was no question about being drugged—he was as certain about that as one could possibly be under the circumstances. He didn’t remember injecting himself, and for all he knew he never did, but there was no other way around it. What he was unsure of was the exact point at which fact had given way to figment. Did he receive a package filled with white foam? Probably. Did that phone call really occur? Yes, probably. Did he go out in the forest and find a gray skyscraper right in the middle of the mountains? That was where it started going hazy. Hazy and gray. He also remembered coming back home and finding that—wait, the typewriter!

He scrambled to his feet and hurried to the study, fumbled for the light—it was dark—and turned it on. The keys were there. All five of them. So he had hallucinated that return trip from the forest; he had probably been hallucinating and confabulating the entire time, which meant that the first trip and anything that followed were also fabricated fantasies. The sense of disconnectedness had been particularly overpowering in the skyscraper; and the man in the gray suit and the ballroom scene—well, those had the obvious ring of a lucid dream, but what about the rest? Aaron closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He was in no condition for this; his head reeled with headache and he could barely stand. But he had to understand. He needed to understand.

The package—the package had the number on it.

He went to the kitchen and upended the trash can on the floor, even though a quick glance at the contents would have sufficed, and spread the garbage around for a closer examination. The foam peanuts were missing, but he had dumped them together with the empty package only this morning. How could that possibly be a hallucination as well? How could he know that he wasn’t hallucinating even now for that matter? A glimpse of something white caught his attention and he stooped down low. It did look like a foam peanut; but maybe it was just a piece of common garbage.

It’s a game, Aaron—they’re toying with your mind. Can’t you see? They left that one piece of foam deliberately to give a weak semblance of reality; so that you’ll vacillate endlessly between truth and falsity. That’s what it is—a calculated verisimilitude that won’t tip the scales in any direction.

He had a hunch; maybe it was only an unfounded belief, but he was as confident of its truth as he was of being alive: their presence was gone, and the phones were working. He had to think and act fast. Come up with a plan. Decide who to call and what to say. They could be monitoring the lines in any case and might come after him. He snatched his revolver, hefted it a few times, swung its cylinder open, inspected the bullets, and snapped it shut. The syringe; what was he going to do about it? The cops would sure be very interested in that. He gulped down a couple of aspirin to soothe his throbbing headache and made his way to the little white room.

At first he noticed nothing out of the ordinary about the syringe. He picked it up and held it to his eyes; it was a typical medical syringe fitted with a typical beveled needle. It didn’t have any distinguishing marks, either. Then he brought it closer; the plastic plunger was pushed in halfway through the tube, but somehow it looked empty. He held the syringe in one hand, pressed it all the way in, and almost choked; the syringe was empty. He faltered, dropped it, and rushed to the living room.

How did you wake up in that puddle of puke then? By injecting air? Maybe—maybe you injected yourself with the crap and then pulled the plunger out. Or maybe they set it up like that to mess with your head. But—Godwhatsgoingon!—who are they? Who the hell are they?

He was sobbing when the question resurfaced—is this all true?—and realized that it probably wasn’t. With a trembling hand he reached for his cell phone. Anyone would do—he’d just call someone and plead for help. No need for plans or schemes. All he needed was to get the hell out of here and get help. Or how about calling their number and explaining that if they were a part of his mind it’d be better if they made it known? There was nothing to lose, although calling them now would probably get nowhere beyond a dead line. He recalled the writing on the backside of the package; Mr. Pennington, dial 86-7325. Aaron looked at his cell phone; it was in text mode—he’d probably thumped it when he tumbled to the floor. As he was about to press the cancel button, an unexpected idea arose in his mind. He typed in the number and stared at the little black characters on the tiny screen. The six-letter word that appeared tore any lingering shreds of uncertainty and suddenly made everything clear in a stark, pitiless light. It had all been in his head. They were a part of his mind after all. He stopped sobbing, and after a while, the phone slipped out of his hand and fell on the fitted carpet with a muffled thud, casting its backlit message into the room with unwavering decisiveness:

Unreal_

That too, however, faded out in the end, and a placid silence took over.

* * *

Kathy, Jorge, and Kurt trudged through the thickets at the base of the ridge that formed the French Peak. They had followed the Boulder River for six miles or so and then turned off the wide trail and onto a lesser travelled one. Their intention was to skirt the ridge for a couple of miles and then climb it and trace an easterly passage towards the Peak. Kurt had planned the route with his usual scrupulous care and he now led the buoyant trio; Kathy followed a short distance behind, and Jorge brought up the rear. It was cold, bracing cold, but they were well-prepared and had dressed for the weather. As always, the topic had turned to movies and Jorge was doing most of the talking.

“Like I was saying,” said Jorge, “put yourselves in a story—a screenplay or a novel or whatever. As long as it’s got a plot it’ll do. Do you know that you’re in a plot? No. The vast majority of characters in movies or novels that come to mind don’t at least. That’s your typical story in which Jane wakes up one morning to find her husband gone and wonders what happened, only to find out at the end that her alter ego had murdered him, chopped him to pieces and buried him in the backyard.”

“Gross, Jorge!” said Kathy, screwing her face.

“Excusez moi, mademoiselle,” said Jorge. “Anyway, that’s the typical story, and it could very well be a damn good story too. But what if you—that is to say the main character—know that you’re only a character in a plot? Have you ever imagined that? I can think of only two movies that use that device; the rest are either of the standard Jane variety or at most the kind that hint at the plot. Most people watch a movie and expect it to play out like a movie—they don’t want to interact with it. The very idea baffles them. It’s like when Atonement came out; I heard of so many people that couldn’t wrap their head around that postmodern twist at the end—the whole point of the title, by the way—yet Atonement didn’t do much more than self-reference the process of creation. So what happens if the main character becomes aware of the plot? Well, basically the whole plot becomes the plot itself.”

“Good Lord, you make my head spin sometimes,” said Kurt.

“Me genius, you doofus,” said Jorge, pointing first to himself and then to Kurt.

Kathy squealed laughter.

“Let’s see you say that when you’re all alone and lost, Jorky-Pig,” said Kurt.

“We’re not that far from civilization,” said Jorge, “and anyway the quiet would probably go down well with a cup of hot chocolate. Alright, where was I before Senor Kurt here commenced with his jovial bantering?—yeah, the actor becoming aware of the plot. If you know that you’re inside a story, you’ll probably want to know why, you’ll want to know if it’s just you in this scripted version of what you thought was a free-for-all do-whatever-you-want reality, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess I’d want to go and meet the Writer,” said Kathy.

“Exactly!” said Jorge. “And if you only get to ask him one question, what would it be?”

“Sir, do you like donuts, or is it bread and butter for Your Excellence?” said Kurt.

Kathy burst out laughing, and after a while Jorge and Kurt joined her. The going was not too tough yet; they still had a ways to go to reach the steeper inclines. Then the talking would become sporadic and the laughter scattered, but for the time being they enjoyed the good old company.

“I’d ask him what’s beyond the plot,” said Kurt when the buffoonery had died out.

“Right on, amigo,” said Jorge. “If life as you know it were only a plot, then what’s beyond? That’s The Truman Show for you. Wherever you go, whatever you do, there’s this someone—this Director with a capital D—that sets up the scene so that everything looks just right. He plans the conversation beforehand because he knows what you’re going to say and wants you to say it. You’re in his show, after all. It’s the whole idea behind intelligent design. But what in my opinion makes that movie an excellent movie is Truman’s desire and struggle to see what’s beyond his scripted world—it’s that interaction of actor and plot. Pure genius, if you ask me.”

“I liked that movie, but I guess I didn’t see it in the same light as you did,” said Kathy. “I thought it was all about free will, or the lack of it.”

“Yeah but it ties in, doesn’t it?” asked Kurt. The three were now walking abreast. “I mean, if you have this sudden revelation that it’s all a plot, then you know that free will never really existed.”

Jorge nodded. “And now, since you are aware, you might wonder whether it’s possible to somehow escape from the set—in other words, whether you can attain true, unscripted freedom. And that’s exactly what I’ve been saying. If you think about it, there isn’t any perceptible difference between scripted and true freedom, unless you know it’s scripted. Once you do know, however, everything takes on a different sheen and you’ll want to see the other side with your own eyes, if there is one after all.”

The three marched on; the narrow trail they were tracking wound increasingly devious paths around the fir trees of the forest, and the air was becoming chilly.

“What was the second movie you mentioned?” asked Kurt after a while.

“One of David Fincher’s. The Game,” said Jorge.

“Oh yeah—that whole alternate-reality concept!” said Kathy.

“That’s the one,” said Jorge. “I don’t think it was very popular, but in my opinion it deserved the same attention that Fight Club had. There’s a world of difference between The Game and The Truman Show, but they both feature a character that becomes aware of the script, so to speak. Style and details aside, the main difference as far as the plot-actor interaction goes is that the main character, the banker played by Michael Douglas—I can’t remember his name off the top of my head—becomes truly aware of the plot only at the end of the movie. It’s then, in that final, shocking twist, that you get to meet the Director.”

“To me it seems like a big question about life and destiny,” said Kathy. “It’s what every human being asks himself when he’s in a tight corner: why me?—why does everything seem like a conspiracy against me?”

“Yes, that’s a very accurate interpretation,” said Jorge. “What I think really stands out in The Game is the way in which it portrays truth. The standard Jane variety mystery usually has fact masquerading as fiction, and fiction masquerading as fact. So to Jane it might seem that neighbor Joe is the murderer of her husband, but in fact it turns out that she is, and it’s as much a surprise to her as it is to the audience. With The Game, however, truth actually hides behind its true identity. The remarkable thing is that fact can sometimes be so strange that it is dismissed as fiction, so the writer does not have to disguise it in any way. Then when the conspiracy is revealed at the end the audience has to face the tenfold surprising fact that fact is indeed fact. It’s a very powerful tool. Plot-actor interaction demands that the audience reexamines its notions of reality. And if pulled off correctly, the world outside becomes in a sense the theater within the theater.”

Jorge fell silent and together they lumbered on in pensive harmony. The foliage had grown dark and dense, but they now became aware of a light ahead. Before long they were out of the shadow and in a wide, circular clearing with the sun simmering in their upturned faces. Kathy smiled and Jorge hummed a tune; it was mellow and serene. Two swallows flew in playful circles chasing each other, and then flitted away at a soaring tangent. Kurt pointed out a dirt road that ended at the clearing. Probably led back to terra cognita, he said.

“What’s that tune you’re humming?” asked Kathy in an offhand manner.

Jorge shrugged; he couldn’t remember. Then they left the clearing and trekked on in silence towards the white blankets of snow that shrouded the mountain summits ahead.

Word count: 10,143.