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A collection of short stories that explore the concept of wearing masks. |
| Darkness is all he really remembered. Nicolas blinked as snatches of memories -- unfocused, nothing to grasp or hold onto -- clawed at his mind; like a cat wanting in, scratching and mewing at the door. Nicolas listened to the voices chattering just beyond the darkness. Whether the owners of those voices shared the dank room where he huddled he could not say. He shivered until it hurt. It’s so cold. The man in the white-jumpsuit and jacket moved toward Nicolas: shimmering into existence at the edges of Nicolas' foggy field of vision and then moving away. The sudden presence sparked a memory, flaring white-hot like a struck match: White Pacer Man. Nicolas shivered. Is that my name? Nicolas asked himself. No surely not, at lest he didn't think so. It doesn't feel right. Is it a nickname than? Is that it; is that what I'm called? I don't know. Can't remember, my thoughts are so…jumbled. It's so cold. And it was, but not just because of the chilly stale air being forced through the vent down on his lanky nakedness. No, a deeper, more penetrating coldness, the kind of coldness that bores into the very soul. A deep thrum -- sudden and disturbing -- vibrated through the room: like a ripple on a placid lake. Where he crouched in the corner, the vibration shook Nicolas to his very being. He shivered again. A sharp pain struck him. It felt like a knife thrust into the center of his brain. He shook more violently, not from the vibrations that continued to roll around the room. But from some defect of his body, some part of his own being: himself. Nicolas' body jerked backward as the blackness rolled across his mind and consciousness left him. Nicolas blinked. The dimness of the lone light illuminating the space failed to push the darkness back. He had a vague feeling that a great amount of time had passed. He didn't know how he knew this. There aren't any external clues that time has passed. The room is still featureless and dark. It just feels later somehow. I must have blacked out. Why, was it a seizure, possibly, but not very encouraging. Nicolas looked around the room. It occurred to him that his vantage point had changed. I'm lying down now. The man in the white jumpsuit must have come in and moved me. One mystery solved, at least now I know why I felt as though time had passed. I must have been out when the guy came in and moved me back to the bed. Nicolas stared at the muddy color of the ceiling and the wall running up to meet it. He couldn't make out what they were made of; something akin to metal but with a ceramic quality. He knew where the white jumpsuit entered the room but he couldn't discern the door itself. He had spent a great amount of time trying to figure that out to no avail. It's almost like those stupid Star Trek shows Mr. Trytsana watched sometimes. His mind stopped working, like somebody turned off the power, or gummed up the workings. Mr. Trytsana, who is that, someone I know? Used to know, he corrected himself quickly. Because whatever, whoever, even whenever he used to know, this now was definitely not that then. So Mr. Trytsana is someone from my past. And, for some reason, I think he had something to do with my parents. I don't know why I know that, but it's true. His eyes continued to roam the room, his sight had long ago adjusted to the low light levels. White jumpsuit had noticed and said, 'I don't want to turn up the lights until you are fully acclimated to your new surroundings.' That would be just another clue to the inevitable conclusion that you are no longer in Kansas Dorothy. Dorothy, is that my name. No not Dorothy. What is my name? No windows adorned the walls, except for the one that sat in the upper center of the area he knew to be the door. An artificial dull white-gold filtered through, shining a ray of rectangular light onto the floor. A memory stirred as he stared at the shape on the floor. He stared into the darkness: waiting. Her silhouette rippled and glided into being. She stood just this side of the doorway staring at him with beady green eyes. He hated her eyes, they seldom moved and when they did usually they moved independently of each other: it was creepy. Nicolas squeezed his eyes shut. Not knowing why he -- but knowing he should be -- was afraid. When he opened them she still stood there green eyes stern and unflinching, boring into him with unveiled contempt. She wore a loose fitting matronly black skirt with a fitted white blouse that cinched in her ample breasts; over the tight blouse a green plaid vest hovered in a poor attempt to cover them. She stepped toward him. In response he slid away only then remembering that the bed had been pushed up against the wall. She took another step. He had no where to go. The door slid open with a whoosh of air, and she vanished, an ethereal thing dispersed into nothing: a ghost. "Did you see, did you see her," he screamed at white jumpsuit. "See who?" "The green eyed woman standing there," he pointed to the center of the empty room, "Did you see her? Did you see her?" "No. Mr. Cuifler. I told you there may be some disturbing side affects, one of which is hallucinations." "Yes, hallucinations, only a hallucination," his mind pounced, "wait you called me Mr. Cuifler, is that my name?" "Yes, it is another side affect. Your short term memory is taking longer to restore itself than I had calculated. I've told you every time I've come to see you that your name is Nicolas Beau Cuifler though you aren't able to retain that memory. Although your long-term memory is getting better, you remember me. Are you still feeling cold?" No. He didn't actually remember the man in the white jumpsuit. Not his name anyway, or anything else about him, other than he walked through a hole that magically appeared in the wall, but yes he was very, very cold, "Yes, I'm very cold. Can you increase the heat?" "I'm afraid not sir, it has already been raised well above eighty degrees, it's very warm in here." "I hadn't noticed," it was still cold regardless of how high the heat had been raised. Nicolas elevated himself on one elbow, bringing on a bout of dizziness. He laid his head back onto the meager pillow. "Dizziness, yes that should have subsided also; it is so hard to calculate these things. Well, really it was nearly impossible, because it has never been done before. Even though there have been many of you over the years, most had been forgotten or eventually buried. " Nicolas stared at the man, "what are you talking about. Who died? Who wasn't buried?" "Of course, I tend to forget you wouldn't, won't for a very long time, remember. You, Mr. Cuifler, you should have been when initially died." “What!” The casual tone the man used unsettled Nicolas, he shifted on his bed. The rough cold sheets scratching at his tender skin like fine sandpaper. The sensation stoked at the cold embers of his memories the resulting flare consuming him. * * * Beau's warm life fluid cooled quickly in the night air. He wasn't sure, if the night was turning cold or if he was. Surely it's me, could I really survive such a beating; no it's not possible. He forced his surviving eye -- the one nearest to the rumpled texture of macadam -- to open and look at the woman lying on the ground a few feet away. The oily liquid gurgling, black and gooey, from her chest, her eyes open staring up at a hazy sky. As if on cue her head lolled to the side, fixed eyes staring straight ahead: glaring. The accusation there, fixed forever -- 'You are a killer.' The one with the gun hovered above him, "Fucking incredible, I think he's still alive." Then the woman, the one who had screamed, she was there looking down at him, "Maybe he shouldn't be…," she shot a furtive glance at the one with the gun, "be alive. I mean does he deserve it?" "So are you suggesting I finish him off? Because if that's what you think then why did you call?" "I thought you might save Michelle?" She looked at the fallen woman. "Maybe that was my mistake." "She didn't heed my warning, Emily. I followed police protocol. If there's a problem, submit a form, make a complaint." The plain clothed police officer stood then and walked to the dead woman with the accusing eyes. Beau remembered, strangely, the box that had gone missing from his mother's closet. Why this memory would pop into his head at such a time was beyond comprehension, but it felt relevant for some reason. The box hadn't really disappeared, not completely -- remarkably it had been returned to him. Not so very long after the house burned to the ground. Empty, of course, save for one unopened yellowing envelope. He remembered childishly thinking, ‘Where's all the papers my mother had kept in here?’ Knowing full well that one or both of his tormentor's had absconded and probably destroyed them, and really what did it matter? Beau reached in, touching the envelope tentatively, letting his fingers curl around it, and drawing it from the box. The envelope possessed no markings, it was blank -- he wondered about this. His mother had a habit of writing notes and letters to herself, could this be one of her letters, forgotten, left behind? Was it for him? Is it just an old letter left by his mother, maybe some list of things purchased on one of many trips she and father ventured off on? He didn't know -- wouldn't know until he opened it. He couldn't do it. Why should I, it won't make any difference. Lying there his life rushing to the finish line, he regretted his decision not to look -- even if it had been something trivial. Because lying here, his blood congealing, would not have been nearly as bad, had he not had that one all consuming regret, because, he surmised, the second before the air, in one short breath, rushed quickly out of his collapsing lungs for the last time, that he had truly become a monster. * * * His throat hurt. It was strange; he felt the shredding pain of his screams but couldn't hear them. The floating green eyes hovered around the head of the man in the white jumpsuit. Nicolas saw them staring down at him: accusing. Then the voice, as smooth as honey, "I can see what you've become; the monster I've always known you to be." Many where there now, grabbing at his feet and his hands; holding him down, the man in the jumpsuit stumbling away, the pristine white smeared red. A cold gripped Nicolas, the all consuming regret resurfaced; he remembered what he did and what he was, and why he shouldn't be here. The tube in the hand of the woman -- Nicolas vaguely remembered seeing her before, also in a pristine white jumpsuit, in fact now that Nicolas thought about it he couldn't be sure that some of the times when the magical hole opened in the wall the person sauntering through wasn't her -- thumped as she placed it to his neck. Like a cradling loving mother, darkness slowly crept into his consciousness. Not complete darkness; just enough to allow him to dream. * * * The storm seethed. Beau stood at the bank of windows staring into the darkness. Raindrops pelted the window: erratic and staccato. He waited for her to return. Not that he wished for her return, just that he knew she would: she always did. Waiting like this was fast becoming the ritual. As the medication wore off, she would return with her unusually wondering eyes becoming hard stationary nuggets of Aventurine. The green neon 'Jim-n-Nina's' sign flashed across the street; dissipating the darkness in abrupt intermittent illumination. Within the swirling agglutination of shadows, reflected in the window blackened by night's dreary background: Two green eyes leered. Beau turned to face her. She smiled her cloying alluring smile. "You've come back?" "Yes, as I always do." "Will you be taunting me again?" A useless question, he knew; she always taunted him - both physically and mentally. "You want me here, so I come when I'm called." Her tongue slid quickly across her upper lip between 'come' and 'when' leaving it slick and sensuous. He stepped towards her. She glided away into the center of the large one room efficiency staying just beyond his reach. She turned to face him again, and began to unbutton her matronly blouse. He watched her long adept sensuous fingers moving from button to button. Although he wanted to keep his eyes on Ragan Mainyu, to see her as he always saw her -- beautiful with soft alluring Asian features, long gorgeous hair the color of onyx, skin bright and beautiful like the sun -- but he couldn't: his eyes drifted. The drab one room apartment would have been completely plain had it not been for the mirrored squares that cover one wall from floor to ceiling – a left over from the 1980’s that only provided a modicum of improvement. Beau looked at himself. Beau watched absently as he caressed his crotch, the bulge growing in his grip. Ragan gyrated before him, the black felt of her skirt made a swish-swish sound as she moved: though, the full height mirror did not reflect those movements. Before him Ragan was young and vibrant, in the mirror there was nothing. No reflection: just him holding his crotch tightly in a sparsely furnished otherwise empty room. Disgusted he turned his back to the apparition. "You are not interested tonight?" "No, I'm not." He turned back to her. She stood naked to the waist. Firm and lovely eggnog colored breasts hung beneath her beautiful face, her clear green eyes sparkled. Beau turned away, stepping over to the cupboard. Inside he found his medication, swallowing a large pill dry he turned to her again. Already she was fading. Beau thought it was more because he wanted her to go, than any medication that could have made its way into his system. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she was gone. Ragan Mainyu scent hung on the stale air: Jean Nate.The smell of the cheap perfume left him with a sense of regret. He moved to the window then. The green neon flashed, the wind blew in low menacing growls, the rain hit the window like thrown pebbles. Beau remembered when Ragan Mainyu -- alive and menacing -- took his virginity, his inheritance, and his parents' lives. * * * Like a nocturnal flower the darkness opened around him, spreading its nocturnal petals in soft slow movements, opening wide to the nourishment of a glittering silver moon. Nicolas blinked: trying to focus both his mind and his sight. The room was empty again. He was alone in the dark. The only light, cutting a square through the darkness, was stolen from beyond the magical doorway. I can't stay here any longer. I have to find out where I am and why I'm here, and…how. I should be dead. Nicolas sat up. A wave of dizziness hit him. After it passed he stood tentatively. When he didn't immediately fall to the floor Nicolas took a hesitant step toward the light, then another, and another. Before he knew it he was at the window. Through the window was a corridor made of the same nondescript material as his room. He turned his head peering to look in one direction of the corridor then the other: he could see nothing. Nicolas took several steps back from the window, surveying the surrounding area of the wall. There was no visible way to open the door, and he knew there was a door there. It frustrated him. Nicolas rushed toward the window again, starting to yell; let me.... and the door whooshed open. "It's motion activated," he said aloud, "but you have to be moving at a certain speed." That was why it hadn't opened when he originally approached the window. I was moving to slow. Nicolas stepped into the corridor looking both ways. In each direction the corridor extended a great distance, periodically intersected by a corridor crossing this main corridor. With both directions appearing to be identical, Nicolas decided to go right. He walked to the first intersection. This corridor was smaller, more like a hallway, it shot off to the left: a dead end hallway, at the end of which a window looked out onto the night sky. If I look out, I may be able to figure out where I am. At the very least maybe I can break the glass and get out. Nicolas thought as he moved quickly down the hallway. As he approached the window the starry night filled the scene beyond the glass. We must be way out in the countryside to see stars that clear. This must be some government facility. Nicolas laid his hands on the window sill as he looked out in stunned silence. No land. No trees. No planet. No air. Just void. Beyond the darkness of space floated by. |
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