Kubrick's Game

by Derek Taylor Kent

  Sami appeared shocked. “What are you doing?”

  “What if it fell into the wrong hands? From now on, we leave no evidence behind, and that includes computers. Erase your search histories and encrypt all Kubrick files. We’re not letting anyone ride our coattails anymore.”

  Wilson dropped Shawn off back at his dorm before heading back to Sami’s.

  Shawn opened the door to his dorm room, and a surge of fear rushed through his body.

  He turned and ran out of the building as fast as he could.

  Text from Shawn Hagan: Kelvin, are you okay?

  Text from Kelvin Woo: Yeah, why?

  Shawn: How long you been gone?

  Kelvin: Been sleeping at Powell Library the last two days studying for finals.

  Shawn: Our room got broken into. Stuff is everywhere.

  Kelvin: What??? Was anything taken??

  Shawn: Doesn’t look like it.

  Kelvin: Glad I have my laptop and phone with me. Wait, does this have anything to do with those scary guys who came by?

  Shawn: I don’t know. Maybe.

  Kelvin: Should I be looking for a new roommate?

  Shawn: Honestly, not a bad idea.

  Kelvin: Are you going to report it?

  Shawn: Just did.

  Kelvin: Dude, you used to be such a no-drama roomie. What happened?

  Shawn: Good luck with finals.

  Shawn was becoming paranoid. Were his calls and texts being tracked? Was he being followed?

  With nothing but a backpack of clothes, his laptop, and a few schoolbooks, Shawn ran all the way to Sami’s without advance notice, afraid of tipping off anyone monitoring his communications. He took a circuitous route and was knocking on her door twenty minutes later, panting from exhaustion.

  It took a couple minutes for Sami to come to the door. “Shawn? What are you doing here?” she asked from behind the door.

  “It’s Shawn?” said Wilson from inside. “Ask if he’s being followed.”

  “Are you being followed?”

  Remembering the agreed-upon code, Shawn didn’t blink as Sami observed him through the door eye.

  “No blinks,” she said back to Wilson.

  “Okay, let him in.”

  Shawn rushed inside and dropped his backpack as Sami and Wilson glanced at each other. He barely registered how disheveled their clothes and hair looked as he explained his sudden appearance. “My dorm room was burglarized.”

  Sami’s eyes shot wide. “Oh no!”

  “I knew it,” said Wilson. “I knew I wasn’t crazy.”

  “Luckily they didn’t take anything.”

  “Wait a second,” said Sami. “They could have been trailing you to see where you’d go. Now they know where I live! Dammit, Shawn! How could you be so careless?”

  “I took the back alleys. Nobody could have followed me without my noticing.”

  “She’s right, Shawn. You should have texted us to meet you somewhere. Sami’s was our last safe stronghold and now it may be compromised.”

  “Stronghold?” Shawn laughed. “It’s a glorified dorm room at best. They probably know where all of us live, so we have to assume that they know we’re here.”

  “Shawn is right,” said Wilson. “We have to be in agreement about every move and play from this point forward. That means safe houses, planned escape routes, and code words to signal every possible scenario.”

  After a session of strategizing, the three decided to watch Eyes Wide Shut together before going to sleep. Proud of his recent research, Wilson pointed out the frequent appearance of Masonic symbols.

  “In the opening image, the curtains create a pyramid shape that perfectly frames Nicole Kidman. The mirror next to her creates a double-image, evoking the idea of a real life persona versus the primal version of our fantasies.”

  “The odd Christmas decorations are representations of the star of Ishtar. The Babylonians worshipped Ishtar as a goddess of sexuality. Her cult took part in sexual rituals, which is a huge part of the film.”

  Sami added, “Showing the elite members of society participating in these rituals is thought to have been the last straw that led to Kubrick’s murder, if you believe the rumors.”

  Wilson huffed. “At this point, I’m ready to believe anything. Check this out. Practitioners of ritual magic would form what’s called a Magic Circle to create energy and sanctify a space. We see it when Bill Harford enters the forbidden party. The women stand in a circle and shed their robes. It appears again when Bill is interrogated.”

  “Think this type of blocking was just a coincidence?” said Wilson. “Kubrick shows us they are meaningful in the last scene.”

  Wilson played the toy store sequence of Eyes Wide Shut. He pointed to a stack of board games called The Magic Circle.

  “We’ve been noticing instances of the double-headed eagle, especially in The Shining,” he continued. “Now look what sits on top of the Red Cloak’s throne.”

  It was a double-headed eagle with a crown resting atop its head.

  “The crowned double-headed eagle is the symbol of a high-ranking Mason... the type of person who would be Illuminati.” Wilson pulled out his iPad to show them the symbol. This one had the number 33 framed within a triangle above the crown.

  “The 33 represents the 33rd degree, the highest possible ranking a Mason can reach. The double-headed eagle indicates somebody who has achieved that ranking. Kubrick is telling us that the Red Cloak priest is a supreme mason. That must have ruffled a few feathers, no pun intended.”

  “This is great,” said Shawn, “but how does it relate to HAL or CRM-114? We’re supposed to be looking for some kind of code or marker having to do with NOD.”

  “Maybe we need to pay attention to scenes with those Masonic symbols,” said Wilson.

  “But the symbols are in practically every scene,” said Sami. “How do we know what to look for?”

  They started the film from the beginning and watched one more time before going to bed. Wilson wrote down each three-letter word that appeared, from license plates to store signs to street names. They tried applying Caesar shifts to them, but nothing clicked.

  Sami and Wilson fell asleep toward the end of the second viewing, but Shawn continued watching. He stuck the Blu-ray on his laptop, put on headphones, and zoned in. Forcing himself to stay awake, he realized that the drowsier he became, the more things started to become clear.

  The characters appeared to exist on two planes throughout the film. Either they were in some kind of dream realm or they were in the reality of family life.

  What is the film trying to tell us? That while fantasy is a part of human nature, simple familial love is stronger and ultimately more fulfilling?

  Kubrick was, by all accounts, a faithful husband to his wife for over forty years. However, he admitted to friends that he often daydreamed about what it might have been like to be single following the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

  But how does this fit in with the game? The game is real.

  Perhaps what Shawn needed to look for was not the fantasy sequences with their provocative imagery and symbolism. Since Kubrick found the most meaning in simple family life, perhaps those were the scenes to focus on, the ones when Bill, Alice, and their young daughter, Helena, existed as a typical family unit.

  Shawn watched the family scenes six times, writing down every detail he could. He didn’t even notice that it was past 3:00 a.m.

  Sami had retreated to her bedroom, and Wilson dozed soundly on the couch beside him.

  Forcing his eyelids open, he watched the scenes again, but still nothing. Soon, however, his eyelids grew too heavy and he lost focus.

  Shawn steps inside the movie.

  He enters a room and sees Alice reading a book to Helena before bedtime. He tells Alice it’s time to go to bed.

  Next scene, Shawn, still as Bill, says he believes women don’t have promiscuous thoughts the way men do, to which Alice starts laughing. The camera goes handheld for
the one and only time in the film, showing that the foundation of the marriage has been rocked.

  Shawn finds it difficult to form a coherent thought while watching in the dreamscape, so he removes himself to another room of the Harford apartment and attempts to focus. What has he missed? What element of the family scenes are connected with NOD?

  “Wait! Of course!”

  Alice is reading a bedtime story to her child.

  Shawn runs into Helena’s room and looks for the book being read to her. He finds it sitting on the nightstand, but the image is blurry.

  Shawn woke with a start.

  What was the book Alice was reading to her daughter?

  He opens his laptop and scans back to the scene in the bedroom: as Alice reads with her daughter, she looks up into the camera as if to beckon the viewer closer.

  Shawn held the computer close, trying to make out the book title.

  Eureka! He ran back to the couch. “Wilson, wake up. I think I got it!”

  Five hours after Shawn’s discovery, all three stood outside the student store just before 8:00 a.m., waiting for the doors to open. Following the closing of 90% of bookstores in Los Angeles, the UCLA BookZone was, sadly, one of the largest bookstores left in the region. Shawn hoped they had one book in particular in the children’s section: A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.

  Published in 1885, Robert Louis Stevenson’s collection of children’s poetry was meant to be read at bedtime to young ones. Many famous poems come from the collection including “Foreign Children,” “The Lamplighter,” “The Land of Counterpane,” “Bed in Summer,” and the one being read to Helena in Eyes Wide Shut, “My Shadow.”

  As soon as the doors of BookZone opened, Sami rushed to the children’s section while Shawn and Wilson searched for a BookZone employee. They found a college-aged girl—who didn’t look thrilled to be working at eight in the morning—and asked if the book was in stock.

  She searched the computer. “No. We don’t have that one. Would you like me to place an order for you?”

  “Found it!” Sami shouted from across the store.

  Shawn, Wilson, and the employee rushed over to Sami, who flipped through the book.

  “Where did you find that?” asked the employee.

  “It was right here in the children’s section,” said Sami.

  Shawn grew nervous.

  Wilson muttered, “The computer says it’s not in stock. That means—”

  “It may have been planted there,” said Shawn.

  “Well, let’s take a look,” said Sami.

  The employee scanned it with a portable scanner.

  “It’s not reading,” she said. “I guess you guys can keep it because it’s not ours.”

  Sami flipped to the middle, searching for the words read by Nicole Kidman’s character to her daughter. “Here it is! Poem #16. It’s called ‘My Shadow.’”

  I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

  And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

  They quickly read the full poem.

  Wilson shrugged. “Anything jump out at you?”

  “Nothing obvious,” said Sami.

  “I agree,” said Shawn. “Maybe I was off base. I’m sorry I dragged you guys here.”

  “Wait,” said Sami. “Do you think ‘My Shadow’ being the answer was too obvious? I mean, Nicole was reading it out loud in the film. I bet everyone will jump straight to it. But what’s the marker of this puzzle? HAL will solve it. What if we do a Caesar shift on this book? Maybe we have to read the poem before or after it.”

  “No harm looking,” said Wilson.

  Sami turned to the preceding page and read the title out loud: “The Land of Nod.”

  “Come on,” said Sami. “Let’s take the book somewhere private before someone notices we’re here.”

  They left the BookZone through a side entrance, but as soon as they stepped outside, large tattooed arms wrapped around Shawn, Wilson, and Sami.

  The book fell to the ground, and Mascaro stepped forward and picked it up. “Enjoying some light reading?”

  Shawn recognized the men holding Sami and Wilson as the same ones that were in the car with Mascaro at the Masonic lodge. One with long hair seemed vaguely familiar, and he realized it was the man who’d sat next to them on the flight to New York.

  “So,” said Mascaro flipping through the book. “Which poem were you looking for?”

  Sami remained silent.

  “I would remind you, Ms. Singh, that as your thesis advisor, my opinion will hold the most sway for your final grade.”

  “Go to hell,” said Sami. “Fail me and everyone will know you have an agenda.”

  Mascaro grinned. “Mr. Hagan, you haven’t been as truthful as you promised either. You neglected to divulge half of the last clue.”

  “That’s because you only gave me half an answer to my question,” said Shawn. “Besides, how did you even know about the other half?”

  “I have other sources besides you,” Mascaro hissed. “But up to this point, you have been the most valuable.”

  “I thought you said we were weeks behind.”

  “Kubrick was clever. The timing of the museum exhibit was a great equalizer, but now you are falling behind. Let’s work together from this point forward, yes?”

  “Consider our relationship terminated,” said Shawn.

  “Then I fear a letter of expulsion will be at your doorstep tomorrow.”

  “So be it.”

  Mascaro made a gesture.

  The man restraining Wilson jerked his head back and squeezed him in a neck lock.

  “We can make this extremely unpleasant if we have to,” said Mascaro. “Please don’t force us.”

  Wilson was losing consciousness.

  Shawn tried to squirm free to help him.

  Sami blurted out, “‘My Shadow.’”

  “‘My Shadow.’ Let’s see.”

  Mascaro flipped through the pages until he found it. “Ah, here it is. How did you know to look for this?”

  Sami said, “Let me go and I’ll tell you.”

  Mascaro gestured to his man to release Sami.

  She looked to Shawn and Wilson before answering. “Indubitably, you must have seen Eyes Wide Shut?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, look closely at the first two lines.”

  Mascaro’s eyes shifted downward as he focused on the first verse.

  As soon as he did, Sami surged forward and tackled Mascaro to the ground, swiped the book from his hands, and took off running.

  “Get the book back!” shouted Mascaro to his cohorts.

  The man who’d held Sami was the largest and slowest, and she was able to outpace him at full sprint.

  The other goons released Wilson and Shawn to take off after her, but having been tipped off by the code word ‘indubitably,’ Wilson and Shawn dove for the men’s ankles and all four fell to the ground.

  Shawn looked up and saw Sami run through the entrance of the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame, with the long-haired man following closely behind her.

  Shawn and Wilson were able to outrun the men they had tackled and chased after Sami. By the time Shawn and Wilson caught up with her, the long-haired goon lunged and tackled her at the waist.

  She fell forward at the base of the John Wooden shrine—a perfect replica of the legendary coach’s home office filled with books, tapes and memorabilia.

  The goon struggled to pry the book from Sami’s grasp, but Shawn and Wilson jumped on his back and braced his arms. The other men arrived at that moment and began pulling Shawn and Wilson away from the melee.

  “Help!” Sami shrieked, drawing the attention of onlookers.

  The men quickly let her go as two security guards rushed over.

  “What’s the problem here?” one of the guards asked.

  “These men came up from behind and groped me!” Sami cried. “Call the police now!”

  “I
s this true?”

  “Not at all, sirs,” said one of the men. “She stole something of ours. We were just trying to get it back.”

  “They’re lying!” Sami yelled. “Call the police! See if they hang around.”

  “All right,” said the guard. “Nobody move. UCPD is right around the corner.”

  As soon as the guard turned to place the call, Mascaro’s men took off.

  The security guards chased after them.

  Not wasting a moment, Sami, Shawn, and Wilson ran toward the opposite exit, then headed down Westwood Boulevard until they reached Westwood Village.

  “We need someplace we can lie low for a while,” said Wilson, scanning the shops along the road.

  “We can hide in there.” Shawn pointed to the 170-foot white tower of the Village Theatre.

  “Three student tickets for whatever’s playing,” said Sami to the ticket booth worker.

  “All right, I’ll need to see some IDs.”

  They flashed their Bruin cards.

  Shawn scanned the crowd looking for anyone on their tail.

  “Here you go, three tickets for the early morning screening of G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Enjoy.”

  Shawn shook his head. “Oh man, I can’t believe we just gave money to this movie.”

  With its 1,500-seat capacity and sprawling balcony level, it would be easy to lie low in the Village Theatre, one of the largest movie palaces in the world.

  The movie was already playing as they went up to the empty balcony level and found a seat out of sight and earshot of the other movie watchers.

  Sami opened the book and shined her phone light on the “Land of Nod” poem.

  Each read silently.

  The Land of Nod

  From breakfast on through all the day

  At home among my friends I stay,

  But every night I go abroad

  Afar into the land of Nod.

  ~~~

  All by myself I have to go,

  With none to tell me what to do—

  All alone beside the streams

  And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

  ~~~

  The strangest things are there for me,