The Enlightenement of Thomas Watson

An egotsitical professor suffers delusions and loses his mind, dealing with the fallout.

Excerpt begins in chapter 2 of the story


As he reached the final row of trees, he leaned against the nearest trunk and gazed out upon the clearing. His smile grew still. It was not merely a clearing, but a vast plane filled with golden stalks, each tapering off and holding up their seeds about knee height. A winding path of earth sliced through the plane, rolling over timey hills unbothered with the terrain. The sky was a delicious milky warm blue, so ripe with color Thomas could imagine its clean sweet flavor rolling down his throat could he drink it. Intermittent clouds, thick and densely comforting like the wool of a newborn sheep. A few lonely trees dotted the field atop the mild hills, providing cool relief from the radiating passion that dripped from the new morning sun.


But what caught his attention most of all was the lake. A lake, melting into the edge of the horizon yet shining like a beacon from that great distance. Cold, water more clear and innocent than the cherub he slaughtered in cold blood that September. It could turn veins to ice and reinvigorate the mind, sweeping away all thought beneath the sting of its droplets. Reflecting the sun so perfectly he thought another reality might emerge from its surface fully formed. It sang to him, like the ball of blue flesh in his classroom made into an equally piercing blue sheet of crystal liquid.


What irked Thomas about it, more than that it sang to him like the coast of Capri, was how much it reminded him of the child. The one the universe had accepted, removing the stain from his hands and cleansing his mind. Thomas was secure in his mind that it was worth the price, the heartbeat of the essence of gaea buzzed in his soul and he felt its peace. The child had led him to it, no doubt, the truth. But still, he could not forget its eyes. The tone of the lake, the reflective power they held. Even the tears as he carved its chest and garnered his property, the tears of the eyes shone like the sun on that god forsaken lake. The song of the lake a harmonious blend of its wail and the subsequent squelch, the melody drifting over the grasses far beyond.


Back in the earlier days of living with his aunt, he felt a presence about the infant. He was but a boy himself then, likely about his early pubescent years. The infant was not born at that time, but it was still there. Breathing, suckling without form yet ever present. It tormented Thomas before ever entering the womb, threatening to replace his role in the household. He walked towards the lake, hearing the sobs of the dead child swaddling him in a blanket of peace but also slight reminiscence. The golden grasses swayed, rustling and muting his thoughts. It was lovely. The sun shone blindingly, so he raised his hand to shield it. The path guided his steps, and he simply followed it like an ant mindlessly stumbling after a scent trail. Such a relief was destined to be short lived, and soon a tree blocked the warm day with its gloomy shadow.




The tree branches sprouted from the trunk, tangling their way through the air desperate to flee from their origin. In the shade lay a boy. Young, perhaps 11. Blond hair cut just around his head, baggy eyes and a striped polo. The child had a joint in his hand, reclining and resting his head on a root erupting from the earth.


"Get that from your mouth!" He exclaimed.


"You cannot control me, not anymore. The past cannot be changed. However, I can be of surface to you. You often overlook solutions by looking too deeply. That is our greatest flaw. Ask me."


The child, however, did as he instructed. He took one last puff and set it on the earth. Folding his arms, he invited the elder one to speak. So he did.


"They consume me. Every moment. I see my peers using their thoughts as a compass, meaningful reflection with which they improve their lives. I witness it and I crave it, but I cannot. Every silent moment is one where my thoughts torment until it gouges out my mind and soul, that there is no part left of myself but worry and shame. Eating away, constantly gnawing. For others calm and stillness bring peace and rest, but it invigorates the enzyme of my internal grief more than chaos ever could. That is why I revel in it. When I killed him, I thought it would bring me peace. Peace not in the sense of a well mind, but of uniformity. The child I had helped raise and prepare for. I helped my aunt pick the crib, decorate its room. I thought that by being slaughtered at my hands, the grief would flood me. So deep a sadness it would drown out all other demons. Such a chasm of self loathing, it would end the war of my thoughts. But they stay, fighting for space in my mind to torment me and occupy my every moment. His death is one of those no doubt, but it did not wash the others away. The strings grow louder. Can you hear it, Thomas? The music! How it swells and swells, changing tempo and key but never resting. How long can this endure?"


"He lives within you, at your mercy. Enabling him and mourning yourself is a fault of your own. Your tragedy is this, twice so that you will never realize it, nor hear it from another. You shut yourself in, deflecting substantive criticism as an existential threat to your own web of egotistical personalities. What happened to your empathy, or self reflection, or maturity? Some days they escape, express themselves partially under the molded expanse you call enlightenment which prevents your growth. Ask yourself, are your philosophical quandaries you lecture about and internally debate as profound as you seem? Your isolation fuels this, an unwillingness to discuss with others has led to an over inflation of their weight in your mind. Pretension is a horrible trait, because it prevents you from seeing the ideals that consume you are not worth the time of day. I would plead, beg you to drop the drama and performance, see that you are not a frontier man reinventing modern thought. But I do not. I know you cannot."




"Nonsense. You are but a child, critiquing a man of such complexity you could not understand at such an age."






"I have time. Plenty. Twenty nine days."


"Not at all what I mean. This meeting is a lamppost marking the point of no return for you. Your psychological disintegration is worsening and will not improve, so I will spell out your fate while you can still comprehend it. Your life is coming to an end. Sooner than you know. Your delusions of grandeur and violence will swell to a great river, finally swallowing you at its bank and crushing your head with rocks against the current. The piece that brings it all together can be seen by all but yourself. A broken man. Goodbye."


The child was gone. The joint remained smoking on the ground. Thomas chucked. Some things never change. Perhaps he had always had a penchant for the melodramatic.

***

Thomas' walk back to the academy was unlike his journey into the woods. Indeed it was unlike any other walk he could remember. It was not a deep, in-passionate collapse of composure. There were no burning ravenous sensations. He was much more level headed, able to appreciate the tender autumn air without retreating to his internal landscape. But there was something. It was undeniable. There was something small, gnawing away at his insides. He was still thinking about the child. He didn't allow himself to. He looked at the way the dew glistened on the leaves, the way the flies swarmed around his face and zipped off to the creek nearby. But he drifted back to it. Dissected his arguments in his mind. He too had once been a child, so self assured. His aunt would belittle him, forcing him to wash himself and regularly attend basketball practice. He thought he knew better. He hated these constraints, the constant knocks on the door followed by a nagging chore or reminder of the next day's task. He resented his aunt, wanted to be left to his own world and ideas in the safety of his bed. To rot and think, unafraid of free throws or turnovers or formative assessments in school. But as he matured, he saw the value in what he had long seen as authoritative demands.


Before she'd alienated herself with her barbaric letter, he had to admit he'd softened a bit. She became more friendly as he matured, discussed her work with him, and shared meals at the same table. Once, a few months before he escaped, they had even visited an art museum together. Just the two of them. Now he was alone, it came back so much more easily. He missed her, the way she laughed at his oddities and embraced him when he broke down. Gave him space when he needed it. Kind yet firm, never letting him slip into chaos and sloth. The day of the art museum, she'd opened up about his parents. They examined the work of Velasquez together, which turned into a passionate debate over Catholicism's influence in paintings of the era. Thomas stumbled into the dirt, smearing it on his suit.


He reached the academy later that day. Reaching the end of the woods, the first sign he had returned was the vast sweeping lawn which stretched dozens of acres across. In the distance, he could see the behemoth of a building rise from the ground in the center of the clearing. The marble and granite structure was glowing faintly in the afternoon sun. Garnishes of gold adorned the highest points and most notable entrances. The grand, sweeping arches and steeply slanted roofs were distinctly Richardsonian Romanesque. It had a heavy, impenetrable presence that made it a key landmark for miles around.


Thomas passed under the clock tower, where he spotted a few monks tending to an herb garden to his right. Geometric shrubbery with perfectly maintained flat surfaces guided his way to the front entrance, and the granite pathway was blindingly pristine. Eventually he made his way to the sweeping marble front steps. On either side of him were golden lion statues, gracefully surveying the vast grounds. Not wanting to draw attention, Thomas walked around to the south side of the building and approached a far more modest wooden door. He unlocked it with his key and slipped inside.


He crossed the hall, tracking mud onto the lush ruby carpet with every step. He wound his way up the spiraling staircase and walked over to his classroom. This was the longest period he had ever been away from it since he began teaching. When he unlocked the door and swung it open, he was flooded with the scent of old paper and polished wood that he had missed so dearly. But his moment of happy reunification was ruined when he saw the dean in front of him, writing furiously at his desk.


The dean stopped writing, the final scratches of the quill were the last sound before the room was filled with an oppressive silence. They looked at each other for a moment, unmoving. Thomas could not break the silence, his feet frozen as he recalled the cold, pragmatic rage the man had expressed in their last conversation only the day before. He had come back too soon, he knew that, but he couldn't bear to be out there any longer. But here he was, two days after the murder, out of excuses and dressed in a mud caked prop suit. How could he explain himself?


But to his surprise, the dean smiled. The wrinkles on his face were no longer peaks and valleys filled with bloodlust, but that of a tender hearted grandfather. "Hello Thomas," He said calmly. He waved Thomas to come join him, and pointed to the closest desk. Thomas sat in it and slid it closer so they could speak face to face. The dean broke the silence.
"I'm sorry I lashed out at you yesterday. I know we all make mistakes, good lord, I do all the time. I took out my frustration on you, and it helped no one."
"No, no. I'm sorry. About Micheal. About the students, the mirrors, all of it. It was very unprofessional."
"I forgive you Thomas. You've been washed clean. I don't know what I was thinking, casting you out to die like that. I've always thought of you like a son. Embrace me!"
The dean stood up from the desk and wrapped his arms around Thomas, rubbing his knuckles back and forth over his hair in a rough, endearing manner. For an old man, the dean was quite strong. Thomas began to feel dizzy and pulled away slightly. This was inappropriate, both for their relationship and for the dean's character. The swift change was jarring, and a bit curious. What did the dean want?
"Thank you sir. Now about Wednesday..."
Finally the dean relinquished his grip. He dusted off his hands, which had become speckled with mud.
"Ah yes, practical as always. How I adore that quality of you. Makes for an excellent professor, something you're well versed in. I've allotted a forty-five minute window for you to speak, starting at or around 5:30. I've also taken the liberty of getting a new suit pressed for you, I took the measurements during your stay in the medical wing yesterday."
Thomas' confusion was growing into something more. The feeling in his gut was uncannily similar to when he awoke in his room the moment he discovered the letter. This change was too much, too sudden. Considering the situation, the flattery and closeness made it seem strange. But he couldn't help feeling the dean's kindness was genuine. He was sure of it. He ran out of the room in excitement and felt a current rush through his arms and quicken his heartbeat. But the dean called out to him.
"Thomas!" I have one last thing to tell you."
Slowly, Thomas turned around and walked back over to the desk. The dean reached into the folds of his jacket and removed an envelope, which was stamped in red wax. He looked at it sorrowfully, then stretched his hand out to Thomas. "Take it." he said "But do not open it until after your speech has been given." His tone was solemn, almost a whisper. He was deathly serious, the total opposite of just moments before. "If you do so prematurely, you will not give your speech at all. You will be stripped of your position. I might remember what happened to Micheal after all."


Tomas reached out for the letter. But he paused. There was something more, that the dean wasn't letting on. His smile before, the way his lips stretched unnaturally thin. The falsetto forced onto his normally raspy voice. But now, the harshness, the anger. It seemed deeper. More full than his joy. His warning seemed vaguely dangerous. He hesitated. What more was at play? Who was this man, how many layers were there to him? Did he want to see the core, or was it better to stay unaware?


Thomas took the letter from the dean. Not usually one to heed authority, at first he was tempted to see what was so important about it in the secrecy of his dorm. But something about the look in the dean's eye made him realize this was serious. Besides, he respected the dean. He trusted his judgment, he was a practical man just like him who wouldn't arbitrarily impose something like this. It was only for one day, he could wait that long. He thanked the dean, promised not to open it, and left the room once again.


It was here, only mere days away. The dean would be left behind, and his words would construct a tapestry of uniform thought for all who heard it. Enlightenment was inevitable. The day of reckoning was underway.

***

         Before he knew it, the day of the banquet was upon him. Thomas had lost his appetite completely, and a quick trip to the nursing wing confirmed what he had been suspecting. His ribs were more prominent than ever, you could see his skull through his skin, and he had dropped to a meager 112 pounds. Instead of eating, he had been holed up in his classroom, refusing to lecture and drafting revision after revision of his speech and practicing them to his collection of mirrors. Luckily the dean had taken care of the additional matters he no longer had the power to handle. The registration officer had absolutely refused to transfer his students back to their original classes, and had broken down in tears. No one else in the building knew the protocol for class transfers, so the dean had relocated the class to the mess hall where an assistant professor had resumed lessons, attempting to invent a curriculum on the fly.


         There of course was growing protest from the students and their families, and rumblings of the incident were no doubt bubbling throughout the school. But Thomas no longer cared. About that or much else, besides the speech. Unfortunately his obsession had yielded next to nothing. It was seven hours away, and all he had was a few scrawls. Ronald had grown increasingly more concerned, and had taken to bringing Thomas meals periodically. Once he had brought him a piping hot plate of crispy golden brown fried chicken, and Thomas had for a moment been tempted to take a bite. But he set it down and returned to writing, unwilling to let his gluttony impede the sharpness and sturdiness his mind had encased itself in.


         None of this was improved by the horse. It was too persistent. Every time he thought he had finally rid himself of it, it reappeared. Crying, neighing, thumping around and gushing in the drawer. That and the clocks. He couldn't stand the ticking. It's rhythmic, unflinching whining hijacked his consciousness and made it impossible to write. After a while, he could no longer distinguish between the sounds of his environment. It was a constant, monotonous drone that outpaced itself gradually and rose in pitch until he felt his ear ridges themselves might rupture. He could no longer make sense of the difference of without and within himself. What he thought and what he saw, it all was one homogenous mixture of perceived consciousness. He decided to leave the horse, which he threw out the window one last time for good measure, though he knew it would return. Once, he even cut open his index finger with a shard of glass on the ground and attempted to force its pathetic little plastic legs inside the dripping wound to silence it. He went out into the hall, clutching his latest iteration of the speech.


It was written on a piece of parchment no bigger than his hand, frayed at the edges and splotched with ink in various spaces. He read his notes.


The clock is inside it sits there-licking my teeeth
Open in your Mouth? Why? (I didn't write this one)
Look at me, the dean, otherwise I shudder
I didnt I said it about the lake i promise
The sound is crying it is him it is there it is dead it is gone
Time is i looked between the seconds i saw between them they stared back and float
If it write it it is true if i write it it is true if i write it
I should have watched closer if i was meant to say something important
Your mouthh they are too thin
The sky is blue because it is only crying


That was about all he had, the rest he couldn't read or he had crossed them out. Perhaps this would be the introduction, but there was no way it would fill over half an hour. Maybe if he read it very slowly, but loudly so they wouldn't notice. Would they?


He clutched it to his chest and walked down the hall, surveying the students walking between classes. It was funny, how little he had thought about courses, grades, and students in these past days and weeks. It seemed trivial now, beneath him. But the years of studying and chasing this position, all felt wasted. What happened to that ambition?


He found himself pacing the halls for quite a while, carefully making sure his prints compacted every square inch of the carpet of the section he repeated. He thought and thought about the speech, the dean, his aunt when he allowed himself to slip, and much of the time nothing at all. Seconds turned to minutes, then to hours, and the sun sunk beneath the horizon, casting his path in darkness. Around this time he began to hear a commotion brewing down the hall, and when he finally turned his head from the floor he saw hundreds of people pouring into the auditorium. Men wore crisp black and white suits and women sparking red dresses. A brilliant yellow light from the chandeliers erupted from inside and gradually fizzled out about halfway down the hall.


His stomach sank into his legs as he saw this. A pit opened from within him and numbed his limbs. He did not feel nervous as he stared at the many hundreds of people who would be listening to him shortly. It was too late to feel nervous, that time had passed days before. It was dread. Cold and brittle. He glanced at his hodgepodge of crumpled ideas and knew it was insufficient. But yet his feet carried him down the hallway and into this golden glow. There were several times one would encounter such a light in front of them. At the end of a long tunnel, signifying their freedom, or when they lay on the earth sputtering out their last breaths. Currently the second felt much more poignant.


He took a seat in the fifth row, spreading his arms and adjusting his back on the velvet chair. He settled in comfortably, and did not readjust himself. For several hours he sat there, almost completely unaware of the speakers, the awards and the dean's remarks which were met with thunderous applause and roaring laughter from those around him. But he looked at the black leather back of the seat in front of him, memorizing every cracking web of the skin on its surface. Nothing passed through his mind. He was not there. His ego was somewhere else entirely, unfazed by the speech and the matters of his life. He was simply gone.


This lasted until a sharply dressed staff member tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned his head, the man seemed panicked.
"Mr. Watson. You're due on stage in 20 minutes. The crew has been waiting backstage for some time."
Thomas did not respond, simply rising from his seat and walking past the man towards the stairs. One foot in front of the other, he made his way down each step. Gradually, steadily, he lifted his feet and placed them on the plank slightly in front and below its previous position. Eventually he reached the floor, yet more red carpet. Exiting the stairwell, he trudged through the rows and rows of seats and towards the stage. All the light from the chandeliers, the people around him, the vast walls and ceiling intricately decorated and engraved were shut out. His vision narrowed, tunneling to the platform in front of him. Once he reached it, he placed his hands on the stage and jumped, vaulting himself upward and onto the plateau. The speaker tried to signal to him to get down, but he pretended not to notice, walking left to the backstage as the crowd produced befuddled murmurs.


Once in the back, he saw a team of stage hands manning the lights and running around every which way. They attempted to speak to him, giving him pointers and directions about speaking audibly which he did not listen to. One handed him a bottle of water. He drenched himself with it, the cool, smooth liquid releasing his red and stuffy face. The speech notes in his hand bleed their ink onto his skin, ruining any remaining legibility of his words. He shook his hair, spewing droplets onto the floor around him. The stage hands bubbled and fluttered about him, speaking, mumbling, muffled and warped in their speech. They dried him off with towels, looked him dead in the eyes, prodding at him. He swallowed. He lay on the ground, watching them swirl around above him doing their work. He closed his eyes, and it was time to go. Up he went, guided by the crew, onto the stage in front of the crowd. Eyes blinking, lights blaring, people. They viewed him.


"Hello." Said Thomas. He stood unflinchingly in the center of the stage. It was large enough for five hundred to fit on, but he stood alone. To either side, he could see the crew working behind the walls. One tilted the spotlight onto himself. He could barely make out those in the seats, only the blinding warmth.
"I am Thomas Watson, professor of protomthological advancements in enduring love. I am here today. I stand before you... to discuss..." he paused a moment to consult his notes. Black streaks of meaninglessness shot from the gray paper, but no words. He did not know. "To discuss me." How better to put it, he thought to himself. What else was there to discuss, that they did not understand. "I find myself in the unique position to have such bright pupils in my custody. I despise children, but seeing burgeoning young adults blossom into academic excellence is a joy few can taste so directly."
He walked forward in an attempt to evade the headlights. For a moment he caught a glimpse of the audience. Some smiled, some frowned at his remarks. A few laughs penetrated him, some mistaking his comments about children as an attempt at humor. The lights caught up again.
"None of you will live to see it. But these men and women are the future of our nation. The pioneers of modern thought, a concept I am familiar with."
He saw the dean. His baldness and golden tooth reflected brilliantly into his eyes, so he looked away. No one else caught his attention.
"I am that pioneer. My works, my thoughts. You could not last a day in them. Nor can the students." He stopped. He had derailed himself. It was time to return to something of importance.
"I would like to especially make note of our wonderful Dean Crowley. There are superiors, then there are mentors, then there are father figures. He is none of them."
He smiled at the crowd. Some attempted a laugh. A cough.
"But nonetheless, he has provided a wonderful space to educate. These students deserve the chance to become. Donate to the dean, he will supply you with the address. We need new textbooks, and a coffee brewer. Please"
He was sweating now, the suit damp under his arms and his eyes stinging from the droplets on his brow. Did that make sense? It seemed reasonable. It was typical to ask for donations during a banquet from what he remembered.
"Did that make sense? I feel like that was typical, right? How am I doing. Lord its hot in here, someone call a fire hose."
A few cheers. Someone clapping, 3 clapping. No one else. No one laughed.
"Hey, let's get this straight. I'm the one invited to speak, you dipshits are just the audience to my orchestration. How about some respect, huh?"
Did he deserve it? Did his aunt have the letter yet? Would she do it? What about the child? He was critical of him, wounds deeper than he could inflict. He would try. He dug his fingers into his bicep. It was still not deep enough.
"I know you don't respect me! The dean does not. My students do not. That is all I have craved, and I used to tolerate it. I could, back when I respected myself. I saw them as the simpletons. How can I view it now? I am not a god. I am..."
He crushed his veins and they dripped onto the floor. He let go, not wanting further damage. "How can I live with myself? He is dead. I thought I knew what it was. It comes crumbling."
The dean was smirking. He could see him over there. This was what he wanted. He knew it. Both of them did. That little bitch. That tooth of his glimmering. Tempting him. He would not give in.
"The food here is excellent too. I especially appreciate the warm biscuits. It reminds me of making them over a fire, with butter and wrapped in tin foil in the woods."
The Dean's teeth were open, laughing. He was roaring at him. He took a deep breath, feeling the wind funnel through his nostrils as it so often did, as he so often ignored completely.
"Enough." Said Thomas. "I am done with teaching. Done with philosophy. Now I will only think, a much more matured exercise than structured rationalization and categorization of brain product. It poisons it."
He left the stage, sinking down from the panels elevated from the ground onto the carpet, crunching his hands into the lush threads as he plopped to the floor. He once again spotted the dean, who had now moved to a row closer to Thomas. About 10 rows back, and in an isle seat. Suit well tailored, bead trim, grinning.
"In my youth, I knew it all. I believed there was no god. My aunt was a fool, my teachers blind and I was above them at such a young age. I shut myself off from their advice. I was a selfish brat, but for all the wrong reasons."
He took a step towards the Dean. They both frowned. Thomas looked away, to the blue crystals which hung from the chandeliers above him. They fractured his vision, but did not blind him in that unpleasant manner of the stage light.
"Now I am still a selfish ass. That much has not changed. But I saw that perhaps I was wrong, and my aunt and others were right. There is a god. I am a god. But not in that sense. I breathe, I see, and I feel like no other. All else but myself fades when I close my eyes and dream, and in that way I am above the heavens and the trumpets and the lamb. The sole existor."
Just as he said this, all the audience had vanished. He felt himself slipping again, he could recognize it now after the first time. His limbs felt heavy, his breathing slowed. Skin crawling, sliding up and down and peeling. The hot sun, burning him. It was the sun, on the ranch. Dusty, dry, cornfields surrounding him and apple trees with horse flies biting. He sat on tinker, spurring her into the stable. The hay on the floor made it harder to breathe, sharp coughing. He fed them, then he saw it. On the ground. There it was. The horse. The plastic horse from Charlie's room on the floor. The horses surrounded it, neighing and pawing at the toy. It grew, white and strong. Blue eyes staring him down, which he fell into. All else was inside its eyes. Floating through it, hands sprouted from all around, pillars of arms clasping each other to reach and grab every surface of his body, save his face. In the distance was the golden tooth. It turned into three. One was the largest, and they all melted into pools of gold. Swimming closer to him, rippling through the air. They morphed into golden lions, the two on either side strong and mighty, the ones that guarded the school doors. The middle one, however, had an intangible, slight eerie grin that made it clear it was responsible for incalculable evil. Black eyes, it was the one on the desk. He saw the man stroking its Maine again. He rushed to attack this lion, freeing himself from the hands. But when he struck, his fist recoiled and knuckles bent. The lion burst into a thousand smaller versions of Thomas, young, old, and current. The crowd returned, but all faces were his own. Thomas saw himself in the crowd, blinking, staring, pulling, screaming. The rows were infinite, the ceilings and the walls replaced with more and more rows of himself infinitely, staring at him. Himself.

Bending his legs backwards into spirals, his spine in a swirl tumbling and spinning. Folding himself into a sponge, squishing in the winds and his pores growing larger. Holes in his arms, one small and skimpy, but shorter like the boy in the woods. The other longer, but equally thin, withered skin and grey. Thomas attempted to scream, but his mouth produced ice which slowly fell to the ground and shattered into insects. The words on his dampened paper too lept from the page sprouted lega no heads and antennas. These bugs crawled up his legs, burrowing into his skin, in the pores which now oozed a sickly yellow gunk. He smelled of burning eggs, and puss filled eyes.


All this time his multitude of selves watched silently. But they melted into the seats, dripping into pools of blood and bone leaving only their mouths and lips intact. They grew, filling the seats and gnashing their teeth. Laughing and breathing at him. Vomit flew from the mouths, gagging and phlegm filling the hall and worsening the stench. Now black fluid poured from their mouths, sobbing and trembling. The ceiling peeled away, with a sky full of blue bleeding eyes staring back at Thomas expectantly. In the reflection of one, he saw his room, with his aunt reading to him sitting in the chair beside him. Now another of the eyes showed the scene. Now all of them. He was there, in the bed. The dean sat beside him, reading him to sleep. But his body was mistaken. His right arm was in place of his leg, his mouth in the place of his chest and his hand in place of his mouth. He spoke from his fingers, vibrating to relay the take of red riding hood to the young boy. He saw himself from the dean's eyes, watching himself watch himself on the bed of himself. There was Charlie in the corner. His head missing, eyes falling. The walls were gone, his bed and the chair the only remaining view of his room. The walls were now their separate banquet, where he spoke but stared unnervingly at the crowd.


The Deans tooth became a doorway, growing and molding itself and sprouting a handle. He opened, and he saw the dean. And him. Meshed together. Caroline watching from the missing head of Charlie. The dean opened his mouth, which ripped the room apart and the halls and walls disappeared. Only the door, the dean, and himself remained. There were rows of teeth in his rippling, ridged throat. More rows, infinite rows receding into his head. His teeth were covered in plague and coffee stains. Thomas fell into his mouth, sucked in by a heavy breath. Cutting his arms and legs on the sharp tops of the teeth. He grabbed one. Pulled it away. Then another. Blood gushed from their crinkled holes, gunk flying in their wake. They all must go. The dean must go. Ripping, ripping all gone. He grabbed the top and bottom of his jaw and pulled with all his might. He felt it detach, dislodge from their connective tissue. His lower jaw flew off, flying into the hole. He grabbed the teeth, which were all filled with gold, and Thomas ate them. Shoveling them in his mouth as the skull cracked in two. The dean fell to the ground, his jaw destroyed, his entire face bleeding and his teeth now safely in Thomas's stomach cavity. He felt them jangling, begging to be free. It hit his nerves and he lurched forward into the chair, onto the dean's desecrated body. He fell into an unconscious state.




Thomas woke up moments later with a splitting headache, and a groggy, blurry feeling akin to a hangover. This mind fog went away almost instantly as he looked around himself. He was laying on top of the body of the dean. His lower jaw was detached from his face and laying in the aisle. A healthy portion of his teeth were nowhere to be seen, both upper and lower. His suit was pooled in blood, and ripped in sections revealing a wrinkled, bloated chest and stomach.


Around him thousands of men and women were gasping and screaming. Some were in tears. Others still were beginning to mobilize and approach to Thomas' position. He scrambled off of the dean and leapt over the row in front of him. Unfortunately, an elderly lady with a surprisingly strong grip latched onto his ankle and wouldn't let go. He bit her finger, though careful not to injure her, and scampered off on all fours. Regaining his balance, he punched another man in his seat who lunged at him and stumbled back to two feet. He sprinted down the row, scrambled up onto the stage, and bolted behind the curtain. He could hear a few people come after him, but the vast majority remained in their seats, dumbfounded.


As he made his way backstage, it took a few moments for the crew to gather what was going on. His shirt, the noises from the crowd, and his panicked nature were certainly clues, but not enough to prompt immediate action. It took them about five seconds to realize Thomas needed to be restrained, but in that time that happened he was climbing the richity metal staircase to the catwalk. It squeaked and groaned as he hobbled up it as fast as he could, panting and red in the face. When he reached the top, he didn't let go of the railing fast enough and a piece of metal lurched free from its bots. He decided to hold onto it. The passageway to the lights was about twenty feet long and wooden on all sides, barely thick enough for two men to walk through. He heard a rattling behind him and spun just in time to see a stage hand barreling towards him. He swung the pipe into his face, removing some cheek flesh and knocking him unconscious.


Thomas held onto his pipe and behind sprint walking down the hallway, looking desperately for any way out. His prayers were somewhat answered when he discovered a loose wooden plank on the side while running his pipe along the wall. He pushed with force and it fell inward, revealing a cavity within the ceiling. It was barely enough to squeeze through even in his malnourished state, his head the only difficulty as his ribs and legs slithered through obediently. He quickly replaced the board and stopped to catch his breath, the dusty cavity dark and musty.

***

Thomas had no idea how much time had passed. He had fallen asleep a few times, woken once by some creaking footsteps and whispers of people searching. But he stayed put, remained patient, and fell back unconscious. A good long sleep seemed to stabilize him a bit. It slowed his heart, calmed his mind, and he breathed a little easier. When he awoke for real the next time, he assumed a few days had passed, most likely a collapse from his feverish writing the days prior. But he needed to get out of the school. There was no recovery from that.


He grabbed his pipe and pushed against the loose board, which popped out of its socket. He shimmied back through the opening into the catwalk hallway. He peered down below onto the backstage set, but it was empty. The coast was clear. He slowly crept down the creaky stairs and took a turn down the hallway to a random room. He opened the door, and inside were dresses, suits, fluffy dragon costumes, and witch robes. It was the theatre prop room. Luckily there was a window on the far end, so he climbed over robes and an intricately painted castle background over to it. He threw his pipe through the window, shattering it and sprinkling the cloth covered floor in shards of glass. He hoisted himself through the window, and plopped down on the grass on the other side. Thomas looked both ways, then grinned. In front of him was wide open grass and no one around, giving him direct access to the woods in front of him. He was home free.






Chapter 4


Thomas was calm as he made his way throughout the terrain. Through the woods, the side of the road, the back of a train even. None of it mattered. He thought nothing of it, the hum of the earth and the whistle of the wind the only vibrations in his otherwise completely empty head. In a sequence of events he couldn't recall even moments later, he found himself on the outskirts of some large coastal town. Somewhere along the way the farmland turned to one floor shops and houses, then dense duplexes, the dirt path into brick road, and soon he found himself in an industrial center with nothing on any side of him except towering buildings and dirty, bustling streets.


The air was warm. Too warm, so that a stench of baking oil and sweat seemed to rise lazily from the pavement. The smell was thick and greasy, like the smoke winding its way into the sky from rooftops all around him. Thomas trudged across the pavement, struggling to breathe like a layer of film had been sealed over his mouth and sweating like he'd spent the morning bathing in lard. He looked around himself, at the grey columns coming out of the earth joined by glass and brick. On the right hand corner stood a working girl, and on the other side of the street was a man in a dirty white tank top. His armpits were damp, and his hair was matted and frayed. The man reached into his pocket for a lighter, and a few seconds later hailed his first breath of smoke.
He held it in for half a moment, staring at his reflection in the puddle below him before opening his mouth and unfurling the velvety wisps into the air. Thomas watched the smoke dance and twirl through the air, growing thick and greyer, curling stronger and more violently until it bloomed and consumed his vision. All the world was vapor, pungent, sloshing through itself. He sidestepped, hacking, out of the smokestack and onto the unwashed roof of the factory. This part of the city was shorter and squatter. Nothing rose above a second floor, and from the looks of it he was on top of the fourth level. Walking around the smokestacks chugging along, he saw a little creek on the backside of the building which fed into a larger river, and then the ocean about a mile down the line. It too was grey, until it reached the shimmering sea.
"Hey! Get down!" He heard a man yell from the side. "Damn things almost out of wool and you're on the fucking roof!"
Thomas swiveled and crunched through the air, pushing his way through and walking insesiently in whichever way. He felt himself floating and bobbing, his stomach dropped as he swiftly fell and rose again. Eventually he found himself at the feet of the man. He was of a medium build and a modest height, but his gruff voice and strong hands betrayed this. He slapped Thomas on the arm and pointed into the factory. He shoved him forward and Thomas went stumbling into a dark room, arms full of cotton. He laid it down on the chute, spreading it thinly as the rollers ate hungrily. The machine roared, people scurrying all around him as the chugging continued. He ran back for another load, his arms tingling and itching from the wool. Behind him, the weavers moved the loom back and forth. The threads went up and down, stacking, folding, up and down. One on top of the other, towering and building. He ran his fingers over each of the bills as he slid it neatly into place in the pile, feeling the rough thin cotton slide across his fingers. Picking up a chunk of cash, he set it in a drawer in his desk. Nearly 3,000 in that pile alone. His office was deathly silent. He reached for his whisky and looked out at the vibrant evening sky, tinges of purple appearing at the horizon. It has been a hard day, but a good one. He had a meeting that night with a buyer for Selfriges. He was antsy. There was too much money on the line, something like 45,000. But he was fine. He had more to count. Nothing a nice smoke couldn't fix. He set down his whisky and sparked up a cigar, exhaling and sending Thomas back through the swirling smoke. It collapsed on itself, swirling like a gust and burning his eyes with the vapor. He brushed his eyes, and he was back on the street, with that man smoking in the tank top on his left.
The girl had gone, and the man soon finished his cigarette and went inside the looming building. Thomas crossed the street, a mound of dirt with old cans and discarded shirts on top. A pair of black boots was suspended by its shoelaces tied to a sign on the corner that read "Harborview Drive". The buildings on this block were residential, five story apartment buildings made of crude cut stone. As Thomas walked along, he saw a bum with a cardboard sign and a tin can wedged in between a gap between buildings. His clothes were ripped, his left hand was missing, and his hair was patched and grey. He was high, and from the way he was moaning and moving it looked like salvia. None of the words were recognizable, and his foot swung, knocking over his can and four nickels spilled out. His eyes connected with Thomas's, but there was no expression in either of them. The man groaned loudly, almost afraid, and swiveled his head wildly so it hit the corner of the stone building. He made no noise, but slumped over and began twirling only his hands. His breathing quickened, gasping for breath. The air was hot and fast from his mouth, in and out. Pushing out steam, like a scream. The smoke swirled and churned, unruly and restless and it covered everything he saw. For a moment Thomas stood in the smoke, unable to breathe but mesmerized. He stepped out of the chimney, onto the roof of the factory. The shore was still as beautiful, but the water was off. It was clearer, stronger, stinging. He approached it, leaving behind the factory and gazing out into the horizon over the ocean.
The sun was setting, red and gold bright and fierce at the line but growing darker and fading the higher he looked. There was a man in the horizon, drinking the sea. His eyes were yellow, face sunken, but he looked happy. He took a gulp, making a face as it burned his lips but smiling after. He fell into the sea, swallowing more and more as he sank to the depths. Thomas watched in horror, reaching out to the man, but it was too late. He was gone. His eyes watered, mourning the stranger. Tears fell, but even they stung and buzzed him as they ran along his wrinkles into his mouth and the sea. A man stood beneath Thomas, holding out his bottle and collecting the tears that ran off from his eyes. They dripped, dropped and filled the bottle brimming to the top. Without so much as a thank you, the man stumbled off. He took a swig, and walked back into the factory. He sat down at his stool, where a cow hung by its hives on a metal pipe was slid over. He put a knife up to its throat, pressed it into the skin, and slashed. Blood began pouring out, making the man thirsty. He took another, bigger swig, and everything seemed ok. Another cow came soon after. He did the same, inserting the blade and tearing the flesh. But the stunner had missed this one, and it bellowed loudly. Screaming, terrified, unable to breathe but attempting to. Gasping, gurgling. Some air came in. Hot from the blood and the dirty, crowded factory. It whistled through the gap in his throat, in between the spilling blood, growing faster and hotter until it became steam. It ripped, surged, seething through the sky like it would never settle down. It was luscious and smooth, and the man drew in another hit. Thomas was on the street, watching the man in the sweaty tank top finish his cigarette. He finished his break and went back indoors. Shrugging, he continued into the city, unsure what anything was.
Time passed. No one knew how much. Somehow, someway, Thomas found himself in the heart of the city, standing in front of a church. It was on the first floor below a general store, and the white paint on the doorframe was peeling badly. A wooden cross was nailed to it, the only indication that it was a place of worship or even occupied at all. He looked inside, for no reason other than curiosity. It had been a long while since he had been in one. The pews and the confessional booth were of no interest to him, but in the back of the room on an elevated platform was a gleaming, polished table. Carved into it were the words, "Do this in remembrance of me". A chalice of wine, a sheet of bread, and most interestingly was an offering basket.
He crept inside, looking around for anyone, but the room was empty. He climbed the steps and approached the table. He looked in the basket, disappointed to see only a few single bills and a couple dimes. Most of the weaved threads at the bottom were still visible. Shrugging, he grabbed what he could and stuffed it in his suit pocket quickly. He missed a quarter, but when he reached in again he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"It's customary for people to leave something behind for our Lord." Said a male voice.
Thoams turned to see the man, perhaps sixty or seventy. He was dressed plainly and had a thinning grey combover. The hand that clasped him was thin and veiny.
"I don't hope to understand what circumstances led you to take from the church."
"Don't trouble yourself. My motivations are purely practical."
"Practical." The man nodded, then removed his hand. "I've heard that before. A practical man is one who has lost all concept of shame. Which seems to be the case."
"Shame doesn't keep my ribs from showing, Father."
"Fair enough. But neither does pride, something you no doubt have in abundance. Which is funny, because in my day a prideful man was supposed to have more in his pocket than what he had stolen."
Thomas felt his knuckles turn white. "What a funny man you are. Do you typically insult and converse with thieves, or perhaps there is reason for my pride after all?'
"I suppose. Most other thieves would've taken the money and ran after seeing an old man. Though maybe that does make you a fool rather than special."
The priest swiftly grabbed the chalice and smashed it on top of Thomas' head, and he crumpled to the ground. His vision dimmed, and soon went cold. Then he opened his eyes, and no time had passed. The man was still there, he had merely been stunned. He lunged at his feet, and they both went tumbling down the stairs, tangled together. For a moment they trashed, painting, and clawing. But then the priest began to laugh.
"Oh, my thief! We could fight until the rapture, but we are both too frail to inflict a wound. It seems we are not so different after all."
Thomas could have run then. Perhaps he should have. But something about the way the man's face wrinkled and moved as he laughed held him there. There was a strange, warm feeling inside him. He wanted to stay. He offered his hand to the old man, and they helped each other clamber up from the ground. The old man led in into a pew and they began to speak.
"So, if you don't mind me asking, what brings you to Claymore? I don't imagine salvation has much to do with it."
"Hell no. Salvation is a poor man's bet. Invest and abstain here, and reap it in the next life. A bit too blind of a risk in my opinion."
The man nodded. He had blue and grey eyes, that when he stared at Thomas reminded him of a wise man and a storm at once.
"I see. And what then, is your gamble?"
Thomas thought for a moment. Admittedly he didn't know.
After a moment he replied, "Another day with a clump of bills in my hand."
"What comes when you spend that?"
Thomas did not answer.
Well I cannot in good faith give you the tithe of so many faithful, but I can offer you the fruits that come from it. Come with me, let's get you a proper meal."
He led Thomas out the door, and into another entrance a few doors down.


End of excerpt.