Infernus

“Could some of us -?” asked a woman with a blue shawl. “Could some of us hear more of your stories?”

“What a brave soul. Are there others in this room who would like to hear other demented stories of mine?”

“Yes,” said a few.

“The other stories are not like this one, I assure you. Another is a take on a fantasy novel, like this one was a take on a horror novel. An experiment, I assure you, nothing more.”

The class and professor were silent for a beat.

“I’ll tell you what. I’m editing some notes on a piece I’ve been writing for about seven years now. When I have collated them successfully, I could invite you up to my loft in the north for a reading and discussion time. Would you like that?”

Some said they would be open to that.

“Would you like me to tell you what the next short novel is called?”

“Yes,” said some enthusiastically.

“Well, I won’t tell you,” he laughed. “Maybe I will see you soon, and invite you all up for that. Adieu, my friends. It’s been fun.”

And with that, he left.

APPENDIX

[This chapter, originally the first chapter of the book, has been placed at the end for the purpose of informing others of the origins of this terrible manuscript. It has little value beyond that. Many have chosen to scan it or skip it entirely. I will leave that up to you.]

“THE INTERVIEW”

Anthony Begels was a celebrated anthropologist. She wore her long brown hair in a ponytail and always sported safari clothing ordered from catalogs. She now sat stiffly in a chair, staring across the publisher’s polished mahogany desk. It would have been impossible for her to ignore a giant reproduction of a woodcut that stretched the entire length of the wall behind him — “Moebius Strip II.” Much red, black, and gray-green. Red ants crawling over a grid twisted into a figure eight, a google, or sign of infinity. Its inside and outside were equally twisting in and out of itself. Yet the ants seemed to be unaware of this; pacing, pacing, always tracking onward towards infinity… towards nothing. To her, it looked stereoscopic.

He caught her stare. “Gorgeous, isn’t it? Cost me a pretty penny, I’ll tell you. About a million and a half.”

“Dollars? I think you got ripped off,” she said, frowning, and thought, A million and a half for a print?

He snickered. “Watch this,” he added, sounding pleased with himself.

His hands hovered over the desk for a moment, and then lightly placed an index finger on a specific spot in the middle of the desktop. He then steepled his fingers and stared into her face for a reaction. She tried to look over the surface of the desk, but she could not figure out what he was doing. Then something happened that made the whole room shift slightly. She felt her equilibrium momentarily shudder.

The grid on which the ants walked began slowly turning, in high definition, and the ants crept over it, inside and out, tirelessly. When it turned a certain way, a tiny spark of artificial sun beamed off an edge, giving it a definite metallic look, gleaming gray-green. The entire wall was a projected image, although no one ever guessed that at first glance. All were fooled, equally. And, she silently observed, it was not her imagination that it appeared stereoscopic; there was great depth in the graphic. She gasped and thought Escher would have been pleased with the wonders of modern technology as his print had, quite literally, sprang to life.

“Love Escher,” was her simple reply.

“I stare at it all the time. The entire wall is covered with a very expensive lenticular lens, so no 3-D glasses are needed. It couldn’t really exist, of course, because one of these realities simply isn’t there. Not real. Not ‘true’, is a better way of saying it. Maybe none of them are real.” He recollected the remarks he was going to make the moment she entered his office, and decided to start there. “Your appearance here, Dr. Begels, is surprising.” He laughed nervously. “I’m sure you’ve heard that a thousand times.” When he saw that she was not looking at him, but had continued to stare at the Escher display, he touched the surface of the desk again, and the walking ants and the revolving grid stopped, but did not seem flat like ordinary paintings. “Too distracting, you see.” And tittered, proud of this modern marvel.

She smiled/winced. “And the other one.”

“The ‘other one?’”

“’Your father must have wanted a boy.’ And before you ask, yes, it is my real name.” She brushed a long strand of hair back that had escaped her ponytail. And sighed.

“Ah,” he said, sizing her up. He tapped his fingers on the boxed manuscript that was positioned neatly on the right corner of his desk. Leaning forward, he asked suddenly, “Dr. Begels, do you understand the importance of this find, this manuscript? I really don’t know what to make of it, actually. Of course, it’s too controversial not to publish. You say you have submitted it to no one else?”

“That’s right,” she said, with a sly grin. “We agreed on a set price — rather steep — and that is all I ask. Well, actually, I shall expect my share of the royalties, should this hideous little tome become popular. I have my doubts, though. I have lived with this hellish book for more years than I care to think. I have fulfilled my part of the bargain. The rest is up to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have promised a certain group — who I will tell you more about later — to do my best to get it published. I have done my part. They believe that it is not important that the book becomes popular, but that it does exist as a serious reference for posterity, or something like that. They said something about the manuscript being an important key of some sort. I do not understand that — the thing about a ‘key’ — even though I translated the book. And I promise you, I won’t pursue trying to understand it either.” She brushed a trembling hand beneath an eye, and then put it stiffly in her lap with the other one.

“I see. In your” (slight, painful grimace, she noticed), “quite lengthy cover letter, Dr. Begels, you say that you personally unearthed seventeen bound leather volumes in, um, let me check some notes I made… in 1989. Is that right?”

“That’s right. Before we are permitted to dig in an area, we must show just cause. I went before my team and conducted a few preliminary digs.” She blinked several times. He nodded, believing it was a nervous twitch, or better yet, a mild form of Tourettes syndrome.

“Is that, uh, legal?”

“No, not at all, but I did it anyway. I had a funny feeling about this one. Anyway, when I found a few volumes, I begged my father to purchase the land so that the find could be mine alone.”

“Clever,” the publisher said. “I have a question about the person who received this uh, unedited manuscript in the form of, uh, apparently automatic writing, isn’t that right?”

“Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what would amount to concrete evidence. Everything I’m about to share with you, in one degree or another, is educated conjecture. Reliable guess-timates, you see? Whether it was male or female, there was simply no historical record. There was none with any of the bound manuscripts. I can only surmise — without data — that the person was driven quite insane. To have this hideous stuff just appear in your head… horrible! The compulsion to write it all down would have been maddening, I’m sure. The reason I think it was written in pretty much an automatic style, as do the others in the group, is because much of it is written in a rushed hand. The same rushed hand, the words jammed together — unbroken. It gave me the impression that great parts of it were written at once. Not thought over, not plotted, like a novel, but rushed. We thought it might hint at the fact that it was written as if dictated.

“And let me assure you, sir,” she said grinning wryly, “there are no more volumes, so please don’t think that if the book becomes popular, that a few million dollars might make me mysteriously ‘find’ some more that, whoops! we just overlooked the first time, thus creating sequels. The royalty checks, if there are any, can be sent to my attorney, who will forward them to me.