by Gafford, Sam
The doctors all examined Tim and concluded that there was absolutely nothing wrong. “It’s perfectly normal,” they said, “to experience some loss of memory as you get older.” It’s not Alzheimer’s, they said, just age. “The brain is a muscle; you need to exercise it more.”
But it was more than that.
The more Tim worked, the harder he pushed, the worse it became. That’s when Tim noticed that he wasn’t the only one. He even found that there was a name for it, a title: “The Dumbing-Down of America.” It wasn’t just Tim Ghee; it was everywhere. Once he realized that, he started seeing it all around him. It was just like when you buy a new car and you suddenly notice all the other cars like yours on the road. So Tim went out and talked to people and, the more he talked, the more frightened he became.
Now, it wasn’t that big of a surprise. Tim fully expected to find that people didn’t know a lot about history or literature or even how the government works. He expected that. For years, the average person’s attention span was getting smaller and smaller. Some blamed television and some blamed video games, but the explanation could never be all that easy. There was something else at work here.
Even as he talked, Tim was prepared to find that most people couldn’t answer the simplest questions. But what was disturbing was how often Tim also forgot the answers and had to check his sheet. It soon became clear that most people only had the vaguest idea of what was going on around them. Tim would ask: “What happened in Salem in 1692?” Most people would give him a blank stare. A few might answer, “Something to do with witches, I think?” Worst were the ones who were certain that was when the Pilgrims landed. It was true that most people had short-term attention spans, but even when they were asked something like which politician lost the presidential election because of problems with vote counting in Florida, all Tim would be greeted with was more blank stares.
The worst offenders were the young people. Most of the older people who were questioned would be embarrassed or even ashamed when they couldn’t remember things (even things Tim had no way of validating, like “Who was your fourth-grade teacher?”). But the younger the people got, the worse it seemed to be. Not only could they not answer the questions, but they became angry that someone was even asking them these questions. Tim soon came to the conclusion that, among the young people, it was ‘not cool’ to be smart and, actually, the dumber you were the cooler you were.
Like Cthulhu, being dumb had become accepted.
It was when Tim got home from one of his survey sessions (a particularly depressing one that found most people unable to do any math higher than simple addition) that he found the card in his coat pocket. It was a plain business card with just a name on it: “Edward P. Gorga.” There was no telephone number listed or profession. On the back of the card, in a light pencil was written, “You have just begun. Meet me at Prospect Terrace at 6 p.m.”
Tim had no idea how the card had gotten in his pocket. He had a vague recollection of being jostled in a crowd on Westminster Street, but couldn’t recall any particular person. The thought of being in Prospect Terrace at that time wasn’t thrilling either, but Tim was curious enough to be there early. There was no one in the park, so he sat down on one of the benches and looked out over the city that Lovecraft once called home and tried to remember how it must have looked in his day. Oddly, Tim could not even remember the way it had looked when he first saw it in 1982. Were those buildings there back then? Surely the great bridge hadn’t been torn up yet, had it?
After a few minutes, a man walked up and stood beside the bench. He was standing just far enough behind that Tim could not see him clearly. “You’re not mistaken,” he said. His voice had a slow, measured tone, as if he were not entirely confident in speaking English. “There is something going on.”
Tim turned to look at him, but he moved further behind and stayed just out of sight. “Please,” he said, “do not look at me.”
Smiling, Tim said, “What? Are you going to tell me there’s some big conspiracy? And you’re going to be the . . . the . . . the whaddaya call it? In that movie?”
“‘Deep Throat.’ In the All the President’s Men movie.”
“Yeah, yeah, that one. So it’s all a conspiracy, right? The government’s trying to keep us all dumb and stupid?”
“Not the government, no. But they have been reaping the benefits of it. And it’s not a conspiracy: it’s a plan. It was hatched here, actually, even though he didn’t know it.”
“Who didn’t?”
“Lovecraft, of course.”
Tim sighed. Already he felt as if he’d had enough. Tim had had enough run-ins with kooks before: the nuts who thought that everything Lovecraft wrote was real, not just stories. Most of them were just sad people, looking for something to believe in. But this guy didn’t sound like them. He didn’t sound as if he was about to run around chanting “Iä, Shub-Niggurath!” He sounded almost sad, defeated.
“It’s not just the overall decrease in intelligence, either,” he continued. “Lots of things have changed. It’s the whole sense of apathy, of giving up, that makes it worse. People have just lost hope. They expect bad things now and, more often than not, that’s exactly what they get.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” Tim turned to look at the man and, this time, he did not turn away. He was wearing a gray overcoat that was tightly buttoned. A dark gray hat was on his head, and he had a full beard and moustache, both gray. Even his skin, what little Tim could see, looked ashen.
The man stared at Tim for a few minutes, sizing him up. “No one does,” he finally said. “Some people tumble onto bits and pieces of it but never see the whole picture. Studies are done measuring our society’s intelligence as it falls. Sociologists track trends and cycles of morality talking about changes in families and increases in violent crimes. And all the while we become more and more complacent. The easiest way to make people comfortable with a concept is to make them pay money for it.”
The man handed Tim a large envelope. His hand was, of course, inside a gray glove. “Here, take this. Read it through. Then, if it makes sense to you, pass it on. Information begets information and so on. Often the best defense is to mirror your opponent’s offense.”
Tim took the envelope, and the man moved as if to walk away but thought better of it. “I should warn you,” he said, “you’ve been marked. It won’t be much longer now.”
“Longer for what?”
“Oh, nothing very dramatic. No ‘men in black’ are going to visit you. But ‘they’ know you are aware now. If I could spot you, so can ‘they.’ These days you’re easy to spot. You all stand out like sore thumbs.”
With that, the gray man turned and walked away rather stiffly. Tim took the envelope and went home, anxious to avoid nightfall in the park. When he got home, Tim simply threw the envelope on a pile of recent mail, already forgetting about the encounter.
It was not until several days later that Tim found the envelope again. He didn’t even remember what it was at first. There was nothing written on the envelope to identify it, and Tim had no idea what was inside. As he opened it, a bunch of clipped newspaper articles and several pages of handwritten notes dropped onto the table. Most of the articles had to do with studies showing different things happening over the last two or three decades. Following them, Tim could spot an alarming trend. The earliest articles were well-written, in-depth examinations of their subject, while the newest ones read like to-do lists—nothing more than bullet points and sound bytes. The decrease in attention spans was obvious. So too was the subject of the articles. Many had to do with declining test scores of students, while others were about the increase in Alzheimer’s disease. Confused, Tim turned to the handwritten pages. The script was tight and hard to read. Almost every inch of the paper was covered and, at times, it was hard to follow, but he struggled through it.
“It seems unbelievable and I know that you will probably discount anything I write, but I
have spent years tracking down the evidence. If you follow my lead, you will find your own proof and that, more than anything, will convince you that this is the truth.
“We are being invaded.
“It began more than eighty years ago. A writer, unknown to any but a few, began to have some singular ideas. They were unlike any that anyone had ever had before and, after a short time, he began to express these ideas in stories. To the writer, the stories were nothing more than disappointments, as he could never convey in words what he had seen in dreams and imagined. In time, the writer died, convinced that his work was worthless; but, despite all odds, the stories survived.
“Not only did they survive, but they thrived! Many other writers could have faded away amidst the changing tide of fickle reading trends, but this one writer’s work flourished and gained more and more readers every year. Even when his work was not easily available, it was sought out and devoured. Eventually, the ideas that made up his work moved outside of his stories. They gained a life of their own and slowly reached out to other writers and new media. They began to show up on television shows and in movies and, especially, in comic books. It was as if comics were particularly suited for them: the minds of the young readers soaked the ideas up, carrying them along as they grew older.
“New writers took those ideas and expanded them, brought them into new and different areas. Even more amazing, they leaked into games and toys. They became so well known that they were now familiar to almost everyone . . . which was what they wanted all along.
“The beings that this writer once depicted never existed. Their images were manufactured so that They would be comprehensible to man. Their actual existence was as far beyond those pulpish images as man was once beyond the simple ant. They were so much more than sea-creatures and walking octopi. But that was all that the human brain could understand, and it was barely the tip of the iceberg breaking the water.
“And the earth was never going to be ‘wiped clean.’ There was no need for that when humans were so eager to just give it away. With the increase of their influence, They became more and more powerful. They had become an idea, a concept, something that could not be wiped out with a gun, a pitchfork, or a torch. They jumped from mind to mind to mind, increasing their influence every time someone new read their books or saw their movies or played their games and toys.
“And, as Their influence grew, we lessened. Our minds grew weak and unfocused. Without anyone noticing, our society began to lose its intelligence. Their thoughts were never meant for humans brains, and we are suffering the consequences. Eventually, we will all deteriorate to the level of mindless amoebas, helplessly flopping about on the ground. At that point, They will simultaneously leap from our minds, thought becoming flesh, and spread over the earth that we so willingly gave them. Their escape from our brains will leave man as a bloody, wet mess on the carpet of Their ‘new’ world.
“So complete is Their victory, so insidious Their plan that I cannot even mention that first writer’s name or his creations without you, the reader, laughing and throwing these pages into the trash. They have become as dangerous to us as a wide-eyed kitten, romping through a field. How could there possibly be any danger in images that are sold in toy and book stores? In characters that adorn T-shirts and coffee mugs? Concepts that are packaged and marketed like hot dogs?
“The damage is already done. Nothing can change the inevitable result. Decades of preparation have set the pattern for the future—a path that They are zealously guarding. Even now, Their attention is being turned toward you as you read this. You will feel yourself starting to forget what you have just read. In time, your mind will disintegrate and you will not even be able to remember who you are or were. It will be called Alzheimer’s, but that is such a poor term for it. Such is the fate of all and just because once, at one time, They reached out to a writer and gave him an idea.”
Tim put the papers back into the envelope carefully. So much of it made sense to him, but almost as much was just too ridiculous to believe. It couldn’t be true. Even now, he was having difficulty holding onto the entire concept of it. Scoffing, Tim put the envelope on a pile of junk and sat down to watch TV. One of the channels was having a marathon of old Vincent Price movies including The Haunted Palace. Tim smiled as the movie began. He knew he’d seen it before, back when he was a kid watching Creature Features shows; but for some reason he could barely recall any of the plot. In a way, it was if Tim had never seen it at all.
For the next several days, Tim would walk by the envelope. Sometimes he would stop and look at it, trying to remember what it was and why it was important. He felt an intense urge to give it away, sensing that he was supposed to give it to someone but couldn’t remember who. Inevitably, another thought would come into Tim’s mind and he’d put the envelope back down. Eventually, it would become lost in the clutter that his home had become.
Slowly, as all things happen, Tim began to be almost a prisoner in his own house. Trash piled up around him. Unread books, magazines, and newspapers grew into towers that dipped and swayed drunkenly. At times, Tim would go into a frenzy, tearing through the piles and looking for something that he couldn’t put his finger on. A pressure grew behind his mind, pushing, forever pushing and growing in strength and weight. His thoughts became like mushy oatmeal, unable to take any real shape or form. Tim was sure that there was something, something very important that he’d forgotten. If he could just remember what it was . . .
“The Dreamer in Fire”:
Notes on Robert Winslow’s
“Sutter’s Corners”
It was a room like any other room in a town like any other town. Four blank walls with faded paint. Nothing much to look at and nothing much to see. I’d been in Sutter’s Corners for three days and still had no clue why I was there. A cryptic note, sent by a woman I’d loved years ago, had brought me here. Now I was at a loss for what to do next. I stared out of my room at the Addams Hotel (the only one in town) and watched the traffic in the street. There was very little to see. A lone automobile passed every so often among pedestrians who all looked the same. Where was Lauren? What was I doing here? Following the trail of a woman I’d thought I’d left far behind. For that matter, why was anyone here in this desolate, forsaken town? Why did the sight of them, shambling aimlessly over the streets, frighten me so?
—Robert Winslow, “The Dreamer in Fire” (The Dreamer in Fire and Other Stories, Sargasso Press, 1952, p. 135)
When Robert Winslow first wrote those words in 1947, he could not have imagined the impact they would have on his writing and his life. In a letter to longtime friend Dexter Wilson, Winslow stated, “I’ve just started a new story called ‘The Dreamer in Fire,’ which looks to be substantially longer than any of my other stuff. Which means that no one’ll be interested in this one either. But I still feel an urge to write it. It’s yet another story featuring my doppelgänger, Richard Clay, and I’m trying to examine what lies underneath the surface of a forgotten American town. I have no idea where I’m going with this . . .” (The Winslow Letters, Vol. 3, p. 89).
By the time he finished the first draft in August 1947, the story stretched to more than 20,000 words and developed into an examination of Winslow’s personal fears and doubts. It was the most intensely personal story he had written to date. While this abrupt change in focus from his original conception was unplanned, it can be seen as the most significant step Winslow had taken in his development as a writer.
In the story, Richard Clay travels to the town, Sutter’s Corners, after receiving a plea for help from his long-lost love, Lauren Price. Clay still harbors great passion for Lauren, and the summons impels him to rush to what he believes will be her rescue. Upon arriving in the town, Clay cannot find any evidence of Lauren ever having been there.
Perplexed, he begins to research what he considers to be her disappearance. The townspeople, openly polite and helpful, insist that she was never in Sutter’s Corners. Clay begins to believe tha
t he is going insane and has been imaging the entire incident. He begins to question if he is really in the town at all.
Clay then starts to receive more messages from Lauren warning him away. The notes begin to appear from out of nowhere in places Clay knows no one has been but himself. Eventually, Clay discovers the truth behind Lauren’s disappearance, but no longer cares. He has become one with the town and joins their collective mentality. In the end, it is Clay who is writing to others, bringing more people to Sutter’s Corners.
After careful editing and revising, Winslow sent the completed manuscript to Weird Tales, and it was eventually published in the February 1949 issue. Inheriting Lovecraft’s curse, Winslow never managed to achieve cover story status. It has only recently been discovered just how much difficulty Winslow had in selling the piece. Weird Tales requested extensive rewrites that Winslow, to his credit, ignored. The piece was eventually run exactly as it was written.
The story was largely ignored by Weird Tales readers. The letters section for later issues showed no particular response. The story did, however, attract the attention of Lucius Boyd, who immediately wrote to Winslow asking for more stories. Boyd had recently started his soon-to-be-legendary Sargasso Press, named after William Hope Hodgson’s infamous haunted sea, and was interested in publishing the story in book form. Winslow was hesitant at first, questioning where Boyd had obtained his address and suspicious of his intentions. Eventually Winslow, warming to the idea and to Boyd as well, agreed to write two new stories for the collection. These stories, “An Afterthought in Haägen’s Field” and “Dancing on Memories,” reflect the influence of “The Dreamer in Fire” on Winslow’s writings. Clearly, something had happened between Winslow’s last story, “The Face Behind Mine,” and “The Dreamer in Fire” to enable him to write these amazing weird tales. The other stories were clearly from Winslow’s earlier period, and recent evidence reflects their composition to somewhere between 1935 and 1942. They are, for the most part, competent but forgettable. It was the three new stories that cemented Winslow’s reputation and established him as a growing master of weird literature. This career was, of course, cut tragically short by Winslow’s death in a car crash in 1955.