A giant white fuzzy eyeball.
Before it gradually drifted away.
Back behind the black night fog.
Leaving him in heavy darkness.
The classroom lights being off.
He’d watched earlier in the evening the oncoming night swallow row after row of empty desks before him like a dark incoming tide and had heard himself draw-in breath as it had eventually fallen over him, too, as if he could feel its dark weight. Its coldness.
Almost as if he were drowning.
Only to have that black fog part.
And that round white moon arrive.
And stare down solemnly at him.
The shifting black fog making it wink.
That giant white fuzzy eyeball.
As if it were sharing a private joke.
How do you know when the moon’s had enough to eat?
Or so it seemed to ask of him.
Before drifting back into that fog.
Suddenly he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. Quite certain, perhaps, any answer might be found in that cellar.
Down there in the dark and the dank.
A whiskey bottle and a plastic white Dixie cup sat on the desk in front of him in the darkness, the bottle snuck out from a discreet bottom drawer with a trusty little lock in his desk. Meanwhile, lying silently on the desk between that whiskey bottle and Dixie cup was the book he’d purchased at the bookstore earlier in the day.
An encyclopedia on Gaelic Runes.
He’d stayed long after school this evening in an attempt to use the thick tome to decode the runes he’d found in the dark and the dank cellar, but a pile of heavily-scribbled balled-up sheets of paper now tossed aside evidenced his struggles. Despite many false starts, and while tantalizingly similar to the hermetic examples in the book, the cellar runes remained quite elusive to any translation.
Mocking him, frankly.
He sighed in the darkness now.
Only to draw-in breath again--
When his mobile buzzed.
Bouncing about the desk noisily.
He stared at it. Then answered it.
It was his wife. His Abby.
“It’s long gone dark,” she said.
“Of course,” he agreed.
“How close are you?” she said.
“Just leaving,” he lied to her.
“You promised,” she said.
Her voice fragile. Drifting in and out.
Oliver promised again. Tapped off the phone. Reached for his coat, shrugging it on, only to pour another shot of whiskey into the Dixie cup. He gulped it in one quick go, the whiskey burning down his dry throat, before finding himself staring at that Dixie cup.
His mind somersaulting back in time.
A prep school. South London.
The curtain of evening dusk falling.
Modern white buildings with blue glass. Students shuffling off for home outside that blue glass in their crisp white shirts and dark blazers, dark slacks and skirts, and dark purple ties. A shadow falling over him as he packed-up his desk into small cardboard boxes beneath large dark portraits of hard-eyed historical figures.
The shadow belonged to Lizzie.
A geography teacher from across the hall.
Young. Barely out of university.
Not much older than the students.
A silver crucifix dangling rather suggestively over a rising crest of pale cleavage peeking out from her crisp white blouse.
“Want a drink, then?” she said. Lizzie. Silver crucifix twinkling in the dimness. “We should at least have a proper goodbye.”
She revealed a whiskey bottle.
He nodded after a beat.
Above the classroom sink she subsequently pilfered two white Dixie cups from a Dixie sleeve ubiquitous to classrooms.
She poured. Pouted.
“I honestly do not see the point of exiling yourself to the Irish Sea,” she said. “We could agree not to see each other.”
“We agreed weeks ago,” he said.
Her round chin quivered.
“I know. I do,” she answered.
She handed him a Dixie cup.
Pushed a stray hair from his eyes.
Refilled their cups after they’d drunk.
Then began to disrobe in the dark.
The school empty around them.
Empty more or less, anyway.
“As I said,” she murmured, unbuttoning the blouse, responding to his look. “A drink, then. And a proper goodbye.”
Back in the here and the now, exiled, more or less, to the Irish Sea, Oliver pulled-up Lizzie on his mobile, including a smiling profile photo. Sunlight. Auburn hair in her face. Eyes bright. Caught at the precipice of uproarious laughter. Silver crucifix. Cleavage.
He punched the call button.
Did so before he could stop himself.
Ringing could too quickly be heard.
And then, her voice. Lizzie. Distant.
Yet also sounding so near. Surprised, too.
“Hello? Oliver--??” it said. Her voice.
Oliver stabbed at the end button.
Stabbed at it with his thumb.
The mobile fell obediently silent.
If only for a brief moment.
Before it suddenly buzzed again.
Bouncing about on the desk.
Obnoxiously loud in the dark stillness.
Her smiling photo smiling.
Bright eyes bright. Laughter frozen.
Later that night, Oliver lay in bed beside Abby, still quite unable to sleep while she, perhaps, pretended to do so, he and she cast in stark relief by that round white full moon peeking down through the black night fog again and the double-hung window. Meanwhile, the murmuring melancholy chorus of wind once more pushed restively beneath the eaves -- quite as if the small stone cottage were surrounded by a company of ghosts. A company of ghosts arriving in that black night fog and dancing about outside around that slant of harsh pale preternatural moonlight falling from that moon.
As if dancing about a Maypole.
A Maypole strung with garlands.
Their ghostly chorus rising and falling.
As a pale hand fell onto his chest. Insistently.
Startling him in that harsh slant of moonlight.
Stealing the shallow breath from his lungs.
Somehow knowing even before he turned--
Somehow knowing what he might find.
Still, turn he did, and found Lizzie beside him where Abby had been only moments before. Silver crucifix dangling over her heaving breasts now stuffed into his wife’s wool nightgown. A dark Merino wool. A Xmas gift.
A Xmas gift he’d bought just last holiday.
Over the internet with the old credit card.
A good night’s sleep guaranteed.
Oliver gasped. Recoiled.
Certain this had to be a dream.
And yet, not certain at all.
With a naughty, if rather hollow giggle that sounded too much like she’d sounded so distant and yet so near on the mobile earlier, Lizzie climbed on top of him. In that slant of harsh pale preternatural moonlight. Fighting past his reluctant arms, wrapping her legs about his waist. Dark tongue darting into his mouth. Flicking. Pale hands clawing through his pajamas at his shoulders like talons. Digging as she mounted him heavily. Hips grinding down hard on his pelvis as she freed him of his pajama bottoms and forced him into her.
Oliver screamed out. Pleasure. Pain.
While that ghostly chorus rose and fell.
Lizzie threw back her head and bellowed in a most feral climax that did not sound like it would be easily satiated, if at all. Howling. Her eyes dark. Infinite. Full of an unimaginable depth. Offering him large round windows into a primordial black abyss from which something seemed to stare back.
A most clever intelligent awful something.
And swimming just at the surface--
Like a photographic double exposure--
&nb
sp; That large antique mirror on the wall.
Armored in its solid ornate silver frame.
With its coterie of frolicking little cherubs.
Frolicking on fluffy white clouds.
Somehow that large antique mirror was reflected in those dark intelligent bottomless eyes from the spare bedroom across the short dark hall.
And in its cold thick warped dark glass reflected from the surface of that abyss staring back at him, Oliver could see his wife, his Abby, and not Lizzie after all, on top of him in this slant of harsh pale preternatural moonlight, the Xmas gift Merino nightgown promising a good night’s sleep guaranteed yanked rudely upward, her lower half exposed. Naked to him in all its carnal lascivious glory as his wife, his Abby, ground down on him. Fucking him.
A blank expression on her face.
But her body full of erotic machinations.
Not unlike a puppet possessed.
Present. And yet not present.
Near. And yet so distant.
Aware. And yet not aware.
Moving. And being moved.
To that melancholy chorus.
That company of ghosts.
Murmuring beneath the eaves.
Rising and falling.
16.
THE DAYS AND NIGHTS PASSED as if the world were now only a slow-moving dream. The black fog stealing into the dawn and creating of the day an unending state of night through which Oliver and Abby moved as if sleep-walking.
The large round white moon waning.
Gradually turning dark. Black.
Before waxing. Growing full again.
But seemingly always watching from above.
Peeking down through that black fog.
That indomitable swirling black fog.
Trespassing even in the daylight.
Of this long unending night.
Oliver and Abby often-now locked in a wanton embrace, and, at least from Oliver’s perspective, his Abby, in the end, not always his Abby, but, rather, apparitions. Lizzie. Charlotte. Others.
Dark circles under his eyes, he found himself in the small grocery store in downtown Peel on an evening dusk. An evening dusk that was most dreadfully fuzzy around the edges, hovering between here and there. Between this mimicry of day and the unending night that no longer bore any real distinction from each other.
He stood before a row of liquor bottles.
Considering them with a besotted stare.
Whiskey. Gin. Brandy. Vodka. Rum.
A tempting queue of little devils.
A cute young blonde lass, certainly no more than sixteen years of age, stacking a high shelf with sundries and backlit in the glow of a dull ceiling lamp, smiled down at him from a stepladder.
Oliver, loading a hand-held basket, the liquor bottles clinking, reflexively stole a lingering glance at the girl as she returned to her task, admiring her long sinewy legs flexed on tip-toes below a short blue apron reading: SHOPRITE – MANX TO THE MAX.
Pigtails. Bright innocent eyes.
Large round pale white cheeks.
Those cheeks dusted with freckles.
A cute little sunburnt nose, too.
Pink lips pouting in concentration.
And small little budding breasts.
Virginal. This cute young blonde lass.
Afterward, Oliver sat silently outside the small grocery store in the Q5, staring at the flat black sea in the black fog as blackness fell harder onto this dark world hovering between here and there.
Drinking from a bottle.
Only to blink his besotted eyes to abruptly find himself in his bed and in the cold spotlight of that fattening white moon peeking down through that black fog and double-hung window once more, that slant of harsh pale preternatural moonlight directing his attention to a most queer sight: To that of a large dark spider scrambling frantically about inside a small white paper bag tacked to the far bed post. A small white paper bag made transparent by that cold spotlight of a moon.
The spider’s silhouette cast on the wall.
Growing rather large and monstrous.
Hovering between here and there.
With that melancholy chorus rising again.
Rising and falling beneath the eaves.
Echoing into the small stone cottage walls.
As if slipping beneath its stony skin.
And from the bed itself, rising from the surrounding bedroom shadows before that twitching silhouette of a dark spider, a familiar blue apron.
SHOPRITE – MANX TO THE MAX.
And inside that familiar blue apron, the cute young blonde lass from the small grocery store in downtown Peel. Lissome little pale body nude.
Small little budding breasts perky. Pink lips pouting.
He entered her with a groan.
A groan approximating a whimper.
Her blonde hair falling from her pigtails over those large round pale white cheeks dusted with freckles framing her cute little sunburnt nose. Falling down into her very eyes, too. But unable to hide them. Unable to hide those eyes.
No longer bright or innocent.
And certainly no longer virginal.
But filled with that infinite darkness.
An infinite darkness that consumed him.
As that moon waned. Turned dark again.
While that spider twitched and wriggled.
Before finally falling still. Very still.
That odious trapped fanged insect.
There followed a long heavy silence.
The melancholy chorus also falling still.
But the dark shadows moving about.
Moving about in all that sudden quiet.
Moving about in all that fallen darkness.
Not twitching or wriggling or such.
But silently gathering as if to whisper.
As if to huddle in quiet anticipation.
As time itself seemed to fall still.
Yet also move dizzyingly forward.
And perhaps backward and sideways.
Until the distant sound of retching.
And an explosion of inexplicable sunlight.
Dashing away those huddling shadows.
Scattering them to the dark corners and crevices.
Evaporating, too, the thick black fog.
The sunlight glaring in its suddenness.
Far too bright. Terribly blinding.
And Oliver finding himself stumbling from the bed and through the short dark hall and down the narrow staircase (but only after passing by the bed post and cataloguing in a most absent way that spider now dead in that small white paper bag tacked to that bed post) to the only bathroom far below to find his wife, his Abby, bent over the toilet. Her skin hot to the touch. Flushed and feverish. Nightgown torn off. Yet shivering, she was. Twitching and muttering.
Not unlike that poor spider once upon a time.
That poor now quite dead spider.
She stared at him with frightened eyes.
Before vomiting again heavily.
17.
ABBY’S ILLNESS PUSHED into the weekend. Vomiting, loss of appetite, headaches, and confusion. Oliver attempted to get a hold of Dr. Thurston Marwick Sunday morning, phoning his office line to leave a message, hoping the good doctor, or at least his absentee receptionist, regularly checked such messages, for he had never seen his wife, his Abby, so miserably ill.
She could barely leave the bed.
And only to hit the wretched toilet.
Quite a journey down the narrow stairs.
But his poor wife refusing the couch.
Just wanting to curl-up up there alone.
Sometimes rallying a bit by evening.
Only to fall asunder by morning.
Oliver wondered if it would hit him next. Whatever it was. If he’d brought something home from the school. The flu. Meningitis. If it had somehow skipped over him. If he’d only been a carrier. Not that there was much sniffling or such at the school. In fact, he had never witnessed such a hea
lthy population of young kids in his entire teaching life. It was almost eerie really. Not a single cough or runny little nose. Not the scrape of the knee. And not a single tear. Not from these odd taciturn unblinking little automatons.
Sitting there silently. Staring.
Only speaking when spoken to.
Dr. Marwick arrived quite unexpectedly that Sunday afternoon around a quarter after two in his stiff and arrogant manner, vintage black tweed suit, and homespun priggish formality. Arriving rather quite unexpectedly because he’d not bothered to phone first.
Suddenly he was just there.
There at the double stable doors.
Knocking. A deep hollow noise.
Echoing dully in the thick stone walls.
There. Standing on the front stoop.
A well-worn black medical bag in hand.
Apparently he checked his messages.
Apparently he made house-calls.
He arrived quite unexpectedly under a sky turned gray, the sun a fading memory once more. Oliver found himself both mourning its absence while feeling a relief from its jarring brightness.
Strange. To feel such a relief.
Such a relief for the return of the gray.
Perhaps he was becoming an islander after all.
A true indweller of this strange gray place.
Perhaps his wife was still fighting it.
And perhaps very well losing that fight.
Dr. Marwick examined Abby while Oliver paced.
His eyes ever-black and ever-penetrating.
Especially in that absence of the sun.
Fiddling fingers long and colorless.
Without expression the good doctor seemed to arrive at a preliminary diagnosis. He collected his things and left Abby in the bed to rest but with stern orders to eat a bit of something later. He then gestured for Oliver to follow him downstairs where they sat before the woodstove, the firelight dancing on their faces.
“I suppose it’s only the flu,” Oliver attempted in the gray stillness. “A little bug I brought home from school, perhaps.”
Dr. Marwick sat tall in his chair.
In that stiff and arrogant manner.
His long and colorless fiddling fingers dusting stray lint off his dark tweed suit fashionable in a century long-ago lost.
“She isn’t ill,” the good doctor eventually said in his customary aristocratic clipped speech that somehow seemed incongruously polite and yet condescending. “At least not in the manner you suggest. Rather,” he said gravely, “I believe she is with child.”
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