Just After Sunset

The grass inside that rough grouping did look a bit patchy and yel low compared to the thigh-high greenery in the rest of the field (it stretches down to a wide acreage of mixed oaks, firs, and birches), but it was by no means dead. What caught my attention closer by was a little cluster of sumac bushes. Those weren’t dead, either-at least I don’t think so, but the leaves were black instead of green-streaked-with-red, and they had no shape. They were ill-formed things, somehow hard to look at. They offended the order the eye expected. I can’t put it any better than that.

About ten yards down from where I stood, I saw something white caught in one of those bushes. I walked toward it, saw it was an envelope, and knew N. had left it for me. If not on the day of his suicide, then not long before. I felt a terrible sinking in my stomach. A clear sense that in deciding to come here (if I did decide), I had made the wrong choice. That I had been certain to make the wrong choice, in fact, having been educated to trust my intellect over my instincts.

Rubbish. I know I shouldn’t be thinking this way.

Of course (here’s a point!), N. knew, too, and went on thinking that way just the same. No doubt counting the towels even as he prepared for his own…

To make sure it was an even number.

Shit. The mind gets up to funny tricks, doesn’t it? Shadows grow faces.

The envelope was wrapped in a clear plastic Baggie to keep it dry. The printing on the front was perfectly firm, perfectly clear: DR. JOHN BONSAINT.

I took it out of the Baggie, then looked down the slope at the stones again. Still eight. Of course there were. But not a bird sang, not a cricket creaked. The day held its breath. Every shadow was carved. I know now what N. meant about feeling cast back in time.

There was something in the envelope; I could feel it sliding back and forth, and my fingers knew it for what it was even before I tore off the end of the envelope and dumped it into the palm of my hand. A key.

Also a note. Just two words. Sorry, Doc. And his name, of course. First name only. That makes three words, in all. Not a good number. At least according to N.

I put the key in my pocket and stood beside a sumac bush that didn’t look like a sumac bush-black leaves, branches twisted until they almost looked like runes, or letters…

Not CTHUN!

…and decided, Time to leave. That’s enough. If something has mutated the bushes, some environmental condition that’s poisoned the ground, so be it. The bushes are not the important part of this landscape; the stones are the important part. There are eight. You have tested the world and found it as you hoped it would be, as you knew it would be, as it always was. If this field seems too quiet-fraught, somehow-that is undoubtedly the lingering effect of N.’s story on your own mind. Not to mention his suicide. Now go back to your life. Never mind the silence, or the sense-in your mind like a thundercloud-that something is lurking in that silence. Go back to your life, Dr. B.

Go back while you still can.

I returned to the end of the road. The high green hay whickering against my jeans like a low, gasping voice. The sun beating on my neck and shoulders.

I felt an urge to turn and look again. Strong urge. I fought it and lost.

When I turned around I saw seven stones. Not eight, but seven. I counted them twice to make sure. And it did seem darker inside the stones, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. One so small it made shade only in that place. Only it didn’t look like a shadow. It looked like a particular darkness, one that was moving over the yellow, matted grass, circling in on itself and then belling out again toward the gap where, I was sure (almost sure; that’s the hell of it) an eighth stone had been standing when I arrived.

I thought, I have no camera to look through and make it come back.

I thought, I have to make this stop while I can still tell myself nothing is happening. Right or wrong, I was less concerned with the fate of the world than with losing hold of my own perceptions; losing hold of my idea of the world. I did not believe in N.’s delusion for even a moment, but that darkness…

I didn’t want it to get a foothold, do you see? Not even a toehold.

I had put the key back into the torn envelope and tucked the envelope into my hip pocket, but I was still holding the Baggie. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I raised it in front of my eyes and looked at the stones through it. They were a little distorted, a little bleary even when I pulled the plastic tight, but still clear enough. There were eight again, right enough, and that perceived darkness…

That funnel

Or tunnel

…was gone. (Of course it was never there to begin with.) I lowered the Baggie-not without some trepidation, I admit it-and looked at the stones dead-on. Eight. Solid as the foundation of the Taj Mahal. Eight.

I walked back down the road, successfully fighting the compulsion to take one more look. Why look again? Eight is eight. Let’s get that straight. (My little joke.)

I have decided against the article. Best to put the whole business of N. behind me. The important thing is that I actually went there, and faced-I am quite sure this is true-the insanity that is in all of us, the Dr. B.’s of the world as well as the N.’s. What did they call it in WWI? “Going to see the elephant.” I went to see the elephant, but that does not mean I have to draw the elephant. Or in my case write a description of the elephant.

And if I thought I saw more? If for a few seconds…

Well, yes. But wait. That only shows the strength of the delusion that captured poor N. Explains his suicide in a way no note can. Yet some things are best left alone. This is probably just such a case. That darkness…

That funnel-tunnel, that perceived-

In any case, I’m done with N. No book, no article. “Turn the page.” The key undoubtedly opens the lock on the chain at the end of the road, but I’ll never use it. I threw it away.

“And so to bed,” as the late great Sammy Pepys used to say.

Red sun tonight, sailor’s delight shining over that field. Mist rising from the hay? Perhaps. From the green hay. Not the yellow.

The Androscoggin will be red tonight, a long snake bleeding in a dead birth canal. (Fancy!) I would like to see that. For whatever reason. I admit it.

This is just tiredness. It will be gone tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning I may even want to reconsider the article. Or the book. But not tonight.

And so to bed.

July 18, 2007

Fished the key out of the trash this morning and put it in my desk drawer. Throwing it away seems too much like admitting something might be. You know.

Well. And anyway: it’s just a key.

July 27, 2007

All right, yes, I admit it. I have been counting a few things and making sure there are even numbers around me. Paper clips. Pencils in the jar. Things of that nature. Doing this is strangely soothing. I have caught N.’s cold for sure. (My little joke, but not a joke.)

My mentor-psychiatrist is Dr. J. in Augusta, now Chief of Staff at Serenity Hill. I called him and we had a general discussion-which I framed as research for a paper I might deliver this winter at the Chicago convention-a lie, of course, but sometimes, you know, it’s easier to-about the transitive nature of OCD symptoms, from patient to analyst. J. confirmed my own researches. The phenomena isn’t common, but it’s not a complete rarity, either.

He said, “This doesn’t have any personal concern for you, Johnny, does it?”

Keen. Perceptive. Always was. And has lots of info about yours truly!

“No,” I said. “I’ve just gotten interested in the subject. In fact, it’s become something of a compulsion.”

We ended the conversation laughing and then I went to the coffee table and counted the books there. Six. That’s good. Six is a fix. (N.’s little rhyme.) I checked my desk to make sure the key was there and of course it is, where else would it be? One key. Is one good or bad? “The cheese stands alone,” you know. Probably not germane, but something to think about!

I started out of the room, then remembered there were magazines on the coffee table as well as books and counted those, as well. Seven! I took the People with Brad Pitt on the cover and threw it in the trash.

Look, if it makes me feel better, what harm? And it was only Brad Pitt!

And if this gets worse, I will come clean with J. This is a promise I make to myself.

I think a Neurontin scrip might help. Although it’s an anti-seizure medication, strictly speaking, in cases like mine it’s been known to help. Of course…

August 3, 2007

Who am I kidding? There are no cases like this, and Neurontin doesn’t help. Tits on a bull.

But counting helps. Strangely soothing. And something else. The key was on the wrong side of the drawer I put it in! That was intuition but intuition is not to be SNEEZED AT. I moved it. Better. Then put another key (safe-deposit box) on the other side. Seems to balance it. Six is a fix but two is true (joke). Good sleep last night.

Well, no. Nightmares. The Androscoggin at sunset. A red wound. A birth canal. But dead.

August 10, 2007