(excerpts; email author for free Word file of complete story,
29 pages at 1.5-spaced)
Copyright 2007 by Noel Pratt,
noelpratt2nd@yahoo.com
www.thelastdraft.com
I met a man last year who swore he wouldn’t go crazy. “Nowhere near it” was how he put it, in fact. And recalling the days that ended a week ago, I still cannot say whether he was one of the mad ones. When we met – as I stopped to take advantage of some free literature the man was distributing – his company had him on a street corner which was a minute’s walk from where I lived on the outskirts of town. This corner was, for the time being anyway, his outpost.
Upon discovering his kiosk (which resembled a fully stocked newsstand), and seeing him place the volume he’d been reading face-down on the counter, I had quipped ironically that I’d probably go crazy if ever given the time he had to read on the job. He seemed delighted at this and so began our exchange. Worth mentioning here is the fact that, throughout the ensuing interview, I would from time to time assess the stall in front of me, and found there to be an eeriness brought about by its small size in relation to the strong, dreamlike sense I had of its containing within itself everything the mind could ever want. For me, already, the kiosk emanated a tantalizing air of dimensional depth and hominess, like a long-beloved library.
However, the man confessed to spending almost as much time in the corner coffee shop as within the shelter of the kiosk, this notwithstanding a certain hint of the zealot about his manner of work. He hadn’t been at this job long, yet it wasn’t long before he invited me to join him inside the coffee shop for what he termed a quick cup, saying he could perhaps use some real company. Before stepping in with him, I took note of something strange about this man’s eyes, something odd. And the demeanor of newfound zeal was giving way to an apparent nervousness. I surmised that all had not gone well with his world. Furthermore, it was not my business to find out just what. Such people simply seemed to find me…or I them.
My portly companion formally introduced himself after our coffees came. “My birth name is [and here he enunciated something that sounded either foreign or garbled, or was confused by the noise of silverware nearby] – but the dear people rather I chose a common name so you can all me Rex.” I then introduced myself and, when he asked what occupied my time, figured it best to tell him I was between jobs. “That’s the best place I’ve ever found to be,” he said with dubious cheer, then suffered a too-early sip from his steaming mug. He curled his lips…the eyes looked up at me….
…Here he did something astounding, yet simple in hindsight. He plopped out his two eyes with his fingers and held them in his palms. The sockets under his brow were expertly cauterized. The “eyes” were obviously false, but highly advanced mechanisms. “Yet when you lose your sight,” said Rex, “as I did three years ago, you begin to wish you’d expended a little more of that energy while you had the chance. And so along came a second chance for me – a real gift. You see, the company gave me these eyes last month.” He then placed his eyes back where they belonged and smiled. “I haven’t stopped reading since.”
Apparently this accounted for the slight oddness and awkwardness I’d noticed in him initially. It was as if he were still getting used to his so-called gift.
“And that was just for joining,” he added.
When I asked the name of the people he worked for, he replied: “The World’s Largest Distributor of Free Literature.” I could actually hear the capitals accented in his voice….
…I looked outside at the dying daylight. A seeing-eye dog stopped on its leash in front of the […] kiosk. The dog’s owner came to a stop too, and began calling after his dog. But the animal did not come to him; it stood stock-still with its eyes staring straight ahead down the sidewalk. The kiosk was to the dog’s right. I peered at the dog and saw the vacant look in its left eye facing the café window. Or could it be called vacant? The beast on the whole gave the impression of a deep shift in…consciousness. As I watched it come upon him, Rex looked out to see what held my attention. He was squinting. The dog began to agitate, stepping backward then forward, walking in a circle, and now and then stopping to shake violently. The blind man holding the leash was himself stumbling about in an attempt to locate his companion, and when the dog again came to a sudden stop, was more or less jerked back in a reversal of the usual dynamic.
“It’s him! I know him,” Rex said.
“Does he need help?” I asked.
“It’s too thick, all around this small section of town. He is called the Backslider. Observe the dog itself!”
At that moment the dog performed a thrashing twist-about and strained toward the waterfront, actually pulling its owner for a few steps. Then the man let go of the leash and the dog bolted, dragging the leash behind it.
“It went blind,” said Rex with a shudder. “Lights out, ha! Can you imagine: the whole ordeal of earthly consciousness suddenly flooding the poor beast’s brain?”
“Your ‘philosia’?” I asked….
…“I suspect the authorities, for reasons unknown to them, will soon remove the frozen statue, and one day soon it will be thought that a statue is all it is or ever was, and it will stand in some nearby park, if there be any left. A story will be told commemorating…”
As Rex indulged the imaginative scenario to which anyone was entitled, three other things happened outside. The snow now fell straight and slow, but became so thick as to cause a virtual white-out; and as if to refute the age-old caution that books were but dead words, the last of the books winging about were seen to have such dense writing on their pages that they appeared black, thus being the only discernible objects as eyes turned heavenward. And this writing was taking place as they flew! Finally, the very last book I saw myself was the one that swooped sideways and knocked off the highest hand of the tallest of the eternally grasping monks. Off it fell onto the ice, where it twitched no more.
“…an example has indeed been made.”
Rex was now quiet a moment. Who knew if what he was saying was so; but it might as well be. It made as much sense as anything else. I was glad I had not joined the Order of the Haggis. And that they had never seen fit to return the book I’d entrusted to their keep. But my thoughts were now disturbed by a rustling behind me. Rex had retrieved something from his bag. More literature? Somehow I doubted it. Turning to the window again, I thought I might rest my chin for a moment on the cold sill…might watch the falling flakes. But this was not to be.
“Here is something, here are clues,” Rex was saying, his voice much less exultant. And instead I had to make way for what Rex was attempting to place upon the sill, the object backlit by the glare from outside. “They too have been talking among themselves,” he said. “We have not been at odds, no, it is not truly that way.” He was clearly agitated underneath the reasonable words. “Please to read it as I cannot; perhaps some indication of the scale… Er, people’s thoughts. Aloud, please.”
It was the compact, squarish form of that electronic animal we have all lived with for some time. Instead of being brought down in spirit, however, I felt a definite draft, but one of transcendence, an “above it all” I’d not felt in years.
I pushed the thing from the window just as its operations lit up its filmy eye. Again Rex acted on the instinct of one whose sight was intact – he joined me head-to-head to watch the short plummet of the object from his bag. What we saw – rather, what I saw, and with my own eyes – was only a hole of the most incredible depth in the snow, as going through the street and into hell itself. Shall I not say it as it looked to me? And around the fringe of the initial shape,….
(for the rest of the story, email noelpratt2nd@yahoo.com)