April 1, 2008
It’s April Fool’s, and the fool is me. I woke from a dream of Ackerman’s Field.
In it the sky was blue, the river was a darker blue in its valley, the snow was melting, the first green grass was poking through the remaining ribbons of white, and once more there were only seven stones. Once more there was darkness in the circle. Only a smudge for now, but it will deepen unless I take care of it.
I counted books after waking (sixty-four, a good number, even and divisible all the way down to 1-think about it), and when that didn’t turn the trick I spilled coffee onto the kitchen counter and made a diagonal. That fixed things-for now-but I will have to go out there and make another “house call.” Must not dither-dather.
Because it’s starting again.
The snow is almost gone, the summer solstice is approaching (still over the horizon but approaching), and it has started again.
I feel
God help me, I feel like a cancer patient who has been in remission and wakes one morning to discover a big fat lump in his armpit.
I can’t do this.
I must do this.
[Later]
There was still snow on the road, but I got up to “AF” all right. Left my car in the cemetery parking lot and walked. There were indeed only seven stones, as in my dream. Looked thru the viewfinder of my camera. 8 again. 8 is fate and keeps the world strait. Good deal.
For the world!
That this should be happening again; my mind groans at the prospect.
Please God don’t let it be happening again.
April 6, 2008
Took longer today to make 7 into 8, and I know I have much “long distance” work ahead of me, i.e. counting things and making diagonals and-not placing, N. was wrong about that-it’s
I’m tired, though. And the solstitch is so far away.
Its still gathering its power and the solstit is so far away.
I wish N. had dyed before coming into my office. That selfish bastyard.
May 2, 2008
I thought it would kill me this time. Or break my mind.
There was chanting. Chanting from deep inside the ringstones, deep inside the darkness. But I made 7 into 8 once again, although it took a long long long lung long time. Many loox thru the vufinder, also making circles and counting paces, widening the circle to 64 paces and that did it, thank god. “The widening gyre”-Yeets! Then I looked up. Looked around. And saw
How can I be responsible for the world? How can this be?
Its not fare!!!!!!!!
May 4, 2008
If I can close the door by killing myself
And the peace, even if it is only the peece of oblitsion
I am going out there again, but this time not all the way. Just to the Fail Road Bridge. The water there is shallow, the bed lined with rocks.
The drop must be 30 feet.
Not the best number but still
Anyone who falls off that thing cannot fail to
Cannot fail
I cant stop thinking about that hideous 3-lobe eye
The thing with the helmet head
The screaming faces in the stones
CTHUN!
[Dr. Bonsaint’s manuscript ends here.]
5. The Second Letter
June 8, 2008
Dear Charlie,
I haven’t heard from you about Johnny’s manuscript, and that is good. Please ignore my last letter, and if you still have the pages, burn them. That was Johnny’s request, and I should have honored it myself.
I told myself I was only going out as far as the Fail Road Bridge-to see the place where we all had so many happy times as kids, the place where he ended his life when the happy times ran out. I told myself it might bring closure (that’s the word Johnny would have used). But of course the mind under my mind-where, I’m sure Johnny would claim, we are all pretty much alike-knew better. Why else did I take the key?
Because it was there, in his study. Not in the same drawer where I found the manuscript, but in the top one-the one above the kneehole. With another key to “balance it,” just as he said.
Would I have sent you the key with the manuscript, if I’d found them both in the same place? I don’t know. I don’t. But I’m glad, on the whole, at the way things turned out. Because you might’ve been tempted to go out there. Simple curiosity might have drawn you, or possibly something else. Something stronger.
Or possibly that’s so much bullshit. Possibly I only took the key and went out to Motton and found that road because I am what I said I was in my first letter: a daughter of Pandora. How can I tell for sure? N. couldn’t. Neither could my brother, not even at the very end, and as he used to say, “I’m a professional, don’t try this at home.”
In any case, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. And even if I’m not, I can do the math. Sheila LeClaire has 1 husband and 1 child. Charlie Keen-according to what I read in Wikipedia-has 1 wife and 3 children. Hence, you have more to lose. And besides, maybe I never got over that crush I had on you.
And if you haven’t read that manuscript (I can hope for this, but doubt it; I’m sure Pandora also had sons), ignore that, too. Put all this down to a woman hysterical over the unexpected loss of her brother.
There’s nothing out there.
Just some rocks.
I saw with my own eyes.
I swear there’s nothing out there,
6. The Newspaper Article
MOTTON-After prominent psychiatrist John Bonsaint committed suicide by jumping from the Bale River Bridge in this little central Maine town a little over a month ago, friends said that his sister, Sheila LeClaire, was confused and depressed. Her husband, Donald LeClaire, said she was “totally devastated.” No one, he went on, thought she was
