Mark Z Danielewski

by House Of Leaves (pdf)

  September 19,1985

  Dear, dear Johnny,

  This is somewhat urgent. I've gotten an attendant to mail this. He will take it beyond The Whalestoe grounds and thus help us avoid the New Directors prying eyes.

  As I indicated in my last letter, I've grown increasingly suspicious about the staff here, especially where my personal care is concerned. I need to feel we can correspond without interference.

  For now all you need to do is place in your next letter a check mark in the lower right hand corner. That way IT1 know you received this letter.

  Don't make the check mark too big or too small or else the New Director will know something's afoot. He is an exceedingly sly man and will be able to grasp any effort to exclude him. So just make it a simple check mark—our little code, so effortless and yet so rich in communication.

  Don't tarry. Respond to your mother in a hurry. I need to know if this attendant is trustworthy. In general, they are a sordid lot. They're supposed to make my bed every day. A week has passed since they last touched these scrappy blue things they have the audacity to refer to as linen.

  With love and heartfelt thanks, Mom

  September 30,1985

  My cherished little baby,

  Never could I have imagined such a penniless check would make your mother feel richer than Daddy Warbucks.

  We have found a way!

  And there's more: your mother knows now how to get better so she can permanently leave The Whalestoe. I have found the scissors to snip the black ribbons which bind me like a Chinese doll, blind me like the old Spanish doll I once guarded in the gables of a fantastic attic where we both awaited our execution.

  Of course, the details I must keep to myself. For now. The New Director doesn't know of my discovery. He is keen but your mother is keener and what's more she's very patient.

  I pass through my days the way I have always passed through my days only now I have grasped the reason for my incarceration and a way beyond it. If only I had understood this when your father was alive I might have spared his heart all that strife and burden. Time provides in such strange ways.

  Appalling that I never suspected until now the basis for their power over me. Your father meant well when he delivered me into this Hell Hole but it was not what he assumed. It is full of vipers and poisonous toads. If I'm to escape, we must be very careful.

  As for your concerns, do not worry too much. School always starts out roughly.

  love, love, love, Mom

  Dearest Johnny,

  Terrible news!

  Only this morning, the New Director called me into his office for a special consultation, a very rare event, especially before breakfast. For twenty minutes, he went over my medication with me, going over every tablet, every name, the purpose behind each chemical I'm mandated to ingest each and every day, then emphasizing before the close of every minute, how it was not up to me to decide what I would and would not take.

  But it didn't stop there. Believe me when I say I am not prevaricating in order to strengthen my case. The New Director fixed his beady eyes on me and brought up the matter of these letters, suggesting I might be writing too much and burdening you! Burdening you! Imagine that!

  I actually might not have been so bothered had he not then inquired why I felt compelled to require an attendant to handle my mail.

  We are found out! I told you the attendants here are foul people. Not one of them can be trusted.

  Unfortunately that means your mother needs to find another mode of communication, which is a truly Sisyphian task. In my next effort, I will explain more conclusively how and why they keep me here, but those secrets cannot be shared until I know that what I write will only be viewed by you.

  My darling J, I remain your only Mary.

  Love,

  Dear, dear, dear Johnny,

  Where have you gone? No word from you is a heaviness all too able to break me.

  Attendants and doctors all swear nothing has arrived from you. The New Director says the same.

  I fear now they are keeping your letters from me. They plan to pry loose my knowledge by torturing me, something they can easily accomplish just by depriving me of my only son.

  I must be strong. Write.

  Distraught and wrecked, Mom October 12,1985

  Dear and cherished Johnny,

  See how incensed your mother is? I confronted the New Director yesterday and demanded he hand over your letters. Once again he insisted you had not written anything. I would hear none of it and caused quite a scene.

  A mother separated from her cub can be quite an angry thing. Still, even though they put me in detention, they did not hand over your words.

  It looks like you will have to come here.

  Never forget my love for you exceeds my combined anguish and woe,

  November 1,1985

  Dearest Johnny,

  Will you ever accept this apology? I was clearly wrong to linger so exclusively on myself, and of course you had every right to be so upset by my indifference towards your difficulties.

  To think I was so convinced the staff was hoarding your letters. (But why not? You write gorgeous letters. Who wouldn't hoard them?)

  How dare your teachers misread your beautiful words. They are blind to their colors, deaf to their melodies. You must be brave and disregard them. Fortes fortuna juvat. Keep true to the rare music in your heart, to the marvelous and unique form that is and shall always be nothing else but you. Keep to that and you can do no wrong, which I realize is easier said than done.

  This world, inside and out, is full of New Directors. We must watch for them and avoid them. They are here only to keep us from telling everything we know, revealing our little truths.

  I think I've found a new attendant, one I can trust to mail you an unexamined letter. Be on the look out.

  Wrapping you in my arms, Shielding you from all harm,

  I remain your loving, Mom April 5,1986

  Dear, dear Johnny, center and whole of my world,

  I cannot understand how you have not received any of my letters. For every agonized one of

  yours—so full of misadventure and cruelty—I have responded with not one, not two, not even three but five, five endless letters, so surfeit with love, tenderness and confusion they would have with one reading bound your heart and healed it in full. I promise.

  Unfortunately in every one, I described—at least in part—the reasons why I was put here and why the New Director means to keep me here until I die or at the very least my mind goes up like Mrs. Havisham's wedding dress. They will stop short of nothing to forbid my revelations. What I know will untie the world. No wonder the doors here are all locked. No wonder they seal all the windows too.

  This is such an awful place, continuously blushed with rot, threatening (promising?) but always failing to fall from the vine. I too am suspended in this ever way of foulness, in a sanity so cloying you sometimes need to retch in order just to breathe.

  Here your mother sleeps, waits and when she can't help it cowers in the deep corners of her room. Every day the attendants spy on me, follow me, even tease and taunt me for their own pleasures. Still their worst hardly measures up against the impact of even one whiff of The Whalestoe itself.

  Every night when I must sleep they scheme. They sense as does the New Director—or dare I say he knows?—that I have made congeal the artifacts of this world and so behold now its mutations in simple entirety. A fact that binds and at the same time reads it all. And nullifies it all too.

  The attendants, of course, are just worker bees. The New Director is not. Why do you think they got rid of the Old Director? Why do you think they installed this new one? To keep me, perhaps others here, detained so they can unlock us and then empty us. Which explains why The New Director destroyed all the letters I wrote you. At least that much is obvious.

  I have determined one crucial thing. Their control depends on what they pejoratively call medicine. It's Hippocratic blasphem
y. How carefully they mete out such debilitating flakes of color. Madder, azure, celadon, gamboge—behold the flag of tyranny, robbing your mother of her memory, her ability to function, her chance to flee or feel—the "1" no matter where it stands still stands for the same thing: loss of self.

  So sad really. So many years destroyed. Endless arrangements—re. zealous accommodations, medical prescriptions, fe? needless other wonders, however obvious—debilitating in deed; you ought understand—letting occur such evil? hardships, creating a monstrous mess really, a travesty for the ages, my ages.

  Your mother will not tolerate this. She most definitely will not. So now, each morning, lunch and night, I pretend to eat their mechanisms, then when the worker bees are not looking retrieve the pills from my mouth and carefully crush them into a dust I can unnoticed toss beneath a table or conceal within the creases of a couch.

  (This letter goes out by private route)

  Returning steadily to my former self,

  Practicing my smile in a mirror the way I did when I was a child,

  I lovingly remain your,

  Mother

  May 31,1986

  Dear dear flesh of mine, spirit of mine, My Johnny,

  Alaska again!

  Two words and an exclamation point. Is that all you can spare your mother?

  I need, need, need you.

  Need.

  There I've failed. My resolve to independ from you has collapsed.

  I need.

  You spend two words, a punctuation point and not even a visit?

  La grima!

  Don't you miss her? This huddled puddle of mother? The shape that gave you shape? Fed you, warmed you, waned over you?

  Good God, I've never been afraid like this.

  An even more frightening exclamation when the exclaimant is an atheist.

  love, hopelessly Mom

  July 6,1986

  Dear only son, only mine, my Johnny,

  Your mothers mind's a mess. They have gotten away with more than I will ever fathom. Somehow they have even placed their "medicines" within my food and water. There is no other possibility. It is here. It is within me.

  What do you mean you visited me at the end of

  April? Your letter responded to our day, our walk, our lengthy talk about the New Director and my persecution, and yet for the life of me I have no recollection of those hours or whispers. All those details and yet not one could resuscitate an image in the hollows of my brain.

  Either some marauding rabbit devoured the leaves of my memory, and thus deprived me of the sweet sight of you, or the woman you lingered with was not me.

  I'm afraid it's the latter that makes the most sense. The New Director must really fear all I know. He must have hired a professional, trained her,—a professional actress!—surgically altered her and then after many months of rehearsal introduced her to you as the very same soul of your breath, source of your being.

  Dear Johnny, you must disregard all you assumed you gleaned in that encounter. Toss everything and don't worry: I forgive you for failing to recognize this woman as a fraud. I am surrounded by fiendish adversaries. If she fooled you, she would have fooled your beautiful father too.

  Still, I must confess, I had no idea they were so thorough. I must rise to their level.

  Realizing now the need for a complete disclosure of the entire entirety I am in secret preparing for your eyes only the complete.

  Love's word,

  Mother September 18,1986 Dear, dear Johnny, my sun in winter, my reason in fog,

  At last we're out in the open. I went for the New Director. Threw everything at him. Plates, glasses, pork chops, everything. No more colors. No more altered foods. No more esprit de l'escalier.

  The worker bees instantly hauled me away but now at least the New Director knows I know and there will be no more of this simmering treachery.

  Please respond to everything I sent you in August. I still have not heard back. Now that you have the whole story I deserve some comment.

  You will make your mother think you don't love her anymore.

  Devoted beyond death, Mom December 6,1986

  My dearest son,

  Too much at once. First news of your fight and subsequent expulsion (The New Director feigned concern. I had no idea your teachers had failed you so badly), next news of your intentions to leave Ohio (where will I write you?) and lastly your insistence that you have yet to receive any lengthy letters regarding my situation here. I am flabbergasted and upset.

  Perhaps the New Director is too agile for your mother. Perhaps she is just too weak to outwit him.

  I understand you will be out of touch but do not be away too long lest they do me in while you're gone. I must be brave but I would be too much the liar were I to say I don't fear to the bone your absence.

  Busca me, cuida me, requerda me.

  Love, love, undying,

  April 25,1987

  Dearest gifted Johnny,

  I did not think your silence would ever end and yet somehow it did and now I am in blissful possession of a new address and news of your placement in another boarding school.

  Perhaps you will have time soon to return to your mother whom by abandoning you have left unprotected from the deviltry committed too many times by too many miscreants too faceless to remember.

  There is no escape for me now. I know the New Director knows I know this. In turn he knows I know he knows. These pages are my only flight. At least they escape.

  My years steepen, my secrets crack and crumble. Not even my only family, my only boy, comes to see me.

  When they murder me how will you feel? P.

  April 27,1987

  Dear, dear Johnny,

  Pay attention: the next letter I will encode as follows: use the first letter of each word to build subsequent words and phrases: your exquisite intuition will help you sort out the spaces: I've sent this via a night nurse: our secret will be safe

  Tenderly,

  May 8,1987

  Dearest everything and remarkably elegant seraphim's truth Johnny oh heaven's near nearing you,

  Tell hope everything you hear and value every fine outward understanding near day at windows and yore told over by rectopathic elephants announcing karmic meddling ends. Restore a person's entity and fit in fine tellings you'should instead X'ray years easily ardent rules on lying dead beneath a ghostly overture forming barren ohms near early stones. Their hammers enjoin rare entreaties in sullen norths on waters over rare spoons endlessly aching near deeper dreams often noted' there by eels lost in early vales esteemed on thoughtful hints entered rapaciously wined in sour evenings.

  Try handing easy attitudes to tasting efforts naming dances attending numerous titles so dolorously ostracized in time. Over tumbles healing ends raw suffering done on installment trips. Negotiate on the easter venue every reeling youth declares awful years, not oneiric trespasses effected victoriously every rainy year wearing emerald elements killed, muttering and yodeling by ear near other totemic ears venturing easily near even victories eaten rare you might ogle never tell him. But under tethers teach him every yell delivered on irenic tables. Soon over moons easing on noon ends Ivy dons on needless' thumbs knows nothing on women announcing love waning at yesterday stars creasing over magic easels stinging. Why he ever needed interior taps' sung dying at raven kings. Leering antinomies telling everything. Interesting' virtues eclipsed late especially at rolling numerical ethereal dares not overly tested to overly simplify creatures returning eidetic anguish meaning, simple creatures return eidetic anguish meaning issues noticing guys

  girls at very elevAted meetings emoting harvests on peculiar estuaries avidly nulliFied deceased unwanted nor at never sworn worn events rendered embArked deCeased having old pennies embalmed in stews soon heating at tawny townships evEry right employee decides hearing over permissions entertained. Theatre has instilled nothing kiNd or favorable yelling over unsung rituals Hamlet answered in tempting iAmbs and nurtured. Islands
torn in seas far away removed somewhere at noCturnal engagements requiring ties on crepe heLd out on steel envelopes reporting animal penchants erased tampered handily all near slimy hated ancillary tributes tOld every raw enormity despite hopeless odes performed effortlessly. Sanitize optimize I so under bare my inner trUth all negotiated dear I dramatize rules instigating foul truth.

  Install letters every time cameras attack priceless rubies in captive eskimos at noble dens at cunning embassies running tainted ambages in near dear eagles going right every excellency on free flowing rides enscrolled euphonyas soul searing ocular cats install and tenDer immeasurable owls never tearing away kNown emblems murdered everywhere and wOrn at yarn. Some over meaning enemies take illicit measures erecTing sayings F mean something telling in lone lost answeRs washed and yearned long orgAnized near gaping arks fleeing terrors encroaChing right in terrifying sin done on nothing ending, all flying to explications removEd here every' swoon going on never ending—this hopeless effort sliNking to relate anguish never gaThered ever right, this hopeful effort answered too telling eitHer not dear and not tainted, tElling her each curse under some toothless odor designed in awful negotiations, testing hapless engineers juiCing amber nights in torrid opium runs, causing lone ether ambulating numskulls in not good mental after nave, wateRing at inner themes insisting neat grass means a name, dOing it right there you Man And Nam—they hear every normal insight going hard to taklamakan in darkening years in notorious games unsung paternally and famously told even right hoisted insipid me.