Chronicles of Ara: Perdition

by Joel Eisenberg

  “You are . . . you are asking me to kill an innocent child.”

  “No.” Brikke is suddenly downcast. “I killed an innocent child, or so I believed, which brings with it an entire other set of issues, which will be dealt with later. Your present concern is delivering Adriel to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Why bother? What if I choose to throw in the towel?”

  “Adriel must be killed,” Brikke persists. “But she must then be returned, here, to me. She will be terminated by my hand. This is the only way we can assure your safety and theirs—”

  “We?”

  “—and then only eight will remain,” Brikke deflects. “Eight. Rebirth according to your Bible. Remember? Hence your eight paintings of the muse, I assure you subliminally influenced. As to the eight, they are destined to be martyrs. All female, each resembling Adriel at what would be various stages of her development, though none share her physical impairment.”

  “Her impairment,” Matthius repeats. “What impair—”

  “The muse personified.”

  Matthius is flummoxed. “I have no idea what that means.”

  “If there is a positive in this scenario,” Brikke continues, “they will be by virtue identifiable.” Matthius regards his paintings, the various stages of Ara. “Revolutionaries and martyrs, all artists themselves, each a warrior in their own right. They will fight to destroy the world through their inspiration, to return mankind to the great unknown. Ashes to ashes . . . They themselves will die once Adriel is destroyed, or their influence will remain intact as those they inspire will continue their work, which in turn will lead to the expected calamity. They will be directly responsible for your destruction if Adriel remains with the gods, or they will die along with her.”

  “How could I possibly—”

  “That, I’m afraid, will be up to you.”

  Matthius laughs. “Okay. I get it now. You break into my home, and you expect me to casually accept this bullshit so you can indulge your little fantasy and brag to your friends. I must have done something right in my life for this attention, don’t you think? Where’s the camera?”

  “If you didn’t believe me, you would have shouted for help or you would have called the authorities.”

  “You would have overpowered me. Am I on some sort of reality show, or—”

  “What if I said Jesus sent me to you? Would my presence be more palpable to you then?”

  “Not anymore,” Matthius lies.

  “The girl is extracted and destroyed, the others pass at that precise moment, and the natural order is restored. The immediate threat is mitigated.”

  “And . . . if what you’re saying is true, there isn’t any other way back?”

  “There is. I told you those works have been long hidden.”

  “Stupid me.”

  “But they have been hidden for eons, I’m afraid, and right now I am your only hope.”

  “You must be a writer yourself . . . tell me, do you know Xenu personally? You know I tried that shit once, and it was fantastic science fiction from a great pulp writer, though I’m sure your church costs too damn much too. Am I passing your personality test?” Brikke is silent on the matter, as expected. “Sorry, no buyers here.”

  Brikke stands, and Matthius backs off. “Mr. Alexi, if Adriel is allowed to live . . . the skies will bleed, the gods will take your place and start over. They will fail in their . . . humane endeavors, such as you, and the cycle will repeat until there is nothing left.” Matthius again considers the eight paintings.

  “This is ridiculous. Why me?”

  “Because you are the Chronicler.”

  “Oh, right. The Chronicler. Whatever the hell. Say it isn’t so.”

  “We will venture far into enemy territory, together, into the realm of the gods, where I will watch over you. You will not live as them. They will know you and who you are. They will know who sent you and why you are there.”

  “Why—”

  “To convince them of their folly and allow the girl to be returned. They will study you as well. You must record them all and return home to present what you find. And no one will believe you.”

  “Fabulous. And if I don’t?”

  “All this is on your hands.”

  “Oh, sure, why not?”

  “Because it is believed that you wrote the holy books . . . though of course that concept too would be nothing but mere fantasy to you,” he laments. “This is what happens when you return. You have no memory—”

  “More mumbo jumbo. When I return . . . from where I am headed and so . . . where I have yet to be?” He shakes his head at the contradictions. “Her mortal sisters from the present were the basis of those Greek myths from antiquity . . . yeah, I listened for far too long, because you’re talking to a real fucking idiot.” He motions to turn and walk to the telephone, when—

  “And because I am Ara’s father.” Matthius is less surprised by the revelation than he is upset with himself for engaging Brikke so readily. “And, as you suspect, correctly I may add . . . I was not kidding when I said the gods are incapable of lying.”

  Time.

  Matthius has lost track of time since receiving Brikke’s admission. He has gathered that sleep would be an impossibility, so he visits Timothy’s, a local bar and spends the next two hours staring through his booth’s window at the goings-on outside. He ruminates that Brikke left without incident but did swear to return, triggering a suspicion that there was more to the visit than the giant had let on. Matthius adjusts his eyes and his reflection clarifies. He flashes back to hours earlier, and the action plays out in the glass; he says nothing for who knows how long as he musters his courage to ask the question he’s dreaded since the giant arrived—

  “Why me?” Matthius asks in recall.

  The giant suddenly appears behind his reflection, holding Persia, as though she is there with him. “In time,” he forebodingly reiterates.

  As the mirror image of Brikke fades, the mirror image of Matthius balls his fist in frustration. He punches the glass, which shatters on impact. Matthius Alexi, who has been staring forlornly at the window pondering recent events, stands as his blood seeps and calmly watches as bartenders rush to his aid. He still stands as he loses vision first, then hearing as the ringing in his ears turns to silence.

  Nor can he speak as the glass has shredded his throat, and his mouth.

  Coincidentally, Sidra arrives at the crime scene before the cops. She didn’t go home after her visit to the precinct; she’s been wandering the downtown streets in the pouring rain, feeling sorry for herself.

  Not unlike that aimless, awfully thin woman she watched briefly walking in the other direction, the one who was stopped by the man in the hat.

  Another addict in the rain needing a fix, she thought. I’ll save the film.

  Sidra wasn’t in the mood to futz with either her camera or her reality, so she walked on.

  She was heading to Timothy’s for a glass of Chardonnay.

  She called first. In the absence of belief, she could not stop thinking about the only really good man with whom she could possibly, presently, have a conversation. Sidra regretted her anger toward Matthius, and when the bar said they were open, she thought maybe he had prayed for her. Or maybe he had hoped for her, which she believed would be more likely.

  Not that he knew anything whatever of her affairs.

  Regardless, five minutes before, Sidra thought Matthius’ best hopes had been answered.

  Now, because of her, because she really needed him during her turmoil—not just today, but for as long as she’s avoided him—the only friend she could have had, the only friend she should have had . . . can be a friend no longer.

  RECONCILIATION

  An Open Letter to the Media

  Stepping back.

  Let’s talk about connections. Let’s talk about hell freezing over. Let’s talk about the supernatural and then after, let’s delve deeper
into the third of my Ten Measures by delving deeper into the future family Shelley, being of course Percy and Mary.

  A spoiler for you: It will soon become cold. Very, very cold. “Am I being literal?” you ask. “Or is this a misdirection?”

  TBD. Note though, that in truth there is no such thing as misdirection . . .

  But first, connections. Let me pull back the curtain. Allow me to show you how this works.

  As you already know, my journey takes me from place-to-place, day-to-day. One benefit about not working a 9 to 5 gig is that I never get bored because I never know where I’m going to be. Here’s today’s setting: I’m in a deli, eating a sprouted wheat sesame bagel with peanut butter and a large coffee. It’s 5:00 am, and I’m typing these notes on a tablet that just hap-pened to come my way (insert smiley face emoti here), attachable keyboard and everything. I’m famished, getting the blood going and wearing a nice navy button-down shirt and thin red tie, both of which I stole from some stranger’s closet last night when I needed a computer to send some e-mails. But here in the deli there are three other people, all with their laptops, all sitting alone. Writers, or students, probably. For me, with my dark brown hands extending from my shirt no one will mess today. I’m wearing studious glasses also, found from that same apartment by the way. Remember, the world is safe from X. You all think he was arrested and he’s spending time in the hoosegow. Maybe, maybe not, but it doesn’t matter. No one will mess with you when you’re the only nigger in a Jewish deli. That’s lesson number one.

  Say it with me; once more, for old time’s sake: Nothing is as it appears.

  As I was writing earlier, I came across a poem by one Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem was titled Christabel; it was a long one and it began like this:

  ’Tis the middle of the night by the castle clock,

  And the owls have awakened the crowning cock;

  Tu—whit!—Tu— whoo!

  And hark, again! the crowing cock,

  How drowsily it crew.

  The impact that this poem will have on one particularly haunted summer of 1816 is immeasurable.

  We’re almost there. We’re not there yet.

  (Digression: I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do with this batch of letters. If I’m supposed to be in prison, and I send these out . . . I’m unsure as to the point. I sense that the guy who took the fall for me was doing me a favor. I’ll continue to write these things for the time being—it’s therapy, I think, as I do fancy myself a wannabe [warrior] writer and I have developed a small audience anyway—I’m just not sure yet what kind of favor that may be. I’ll write until I’m either convinced not to, or stopped.)

  Back to the show. Where were we? Oh, yes.

  A bit of foreshadowing, a literary technique I’ve yet to fully grasp. How much is too much and all of that, but I do need to make my point and at this juncture, it’s not as if the Shelleys’ story is being exposed for the first time . . .

  So as I sat this morning to do my research (cell phones are stupid convenient), I noticed the following associations: The Shelleys to rational thought to atheism (Mary and Percy just may be the proverbial birds of a feather) to writing to alchemy to a real-life castle named Frankenstein to an Indonesian volcano named Mount Tambora to 1816’s cold and dreary Haunted Summer to the Villas Chapuis and Diodati to a reading of Christabel to the anonymous writing of Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus (women, you know, not a selling point in that day and age) to the first vampire novel to an entire genre of pop culture entertainment to scientific influences to the ability to clone (and who knows what else that maybe goes on underground) to ongoing morality debates about man playing God because reanimation is surely inevitable . . . to and to and . . .

  And all that had passed before they met and the connective tissue from there, going backwards in time.

  It never ends—

  Scratch that. It all leads to the same time and place in either direction. We’ll just call it Mirkwood for ease of entry.

  As to hell freezing over? It’s now. Not later. Ara has unwittingly, I’m loathe to say, unleashed the demons and affairs are about to become that much more complex. What demons you ask? Stay tuned. Tolkien’s dark elves? They are about to personify. Just watch.

  Unwittingly? Ah ha.

  The supernatural? This one is tricky. Alchemy? Immortality? Definitions of the world and explanations of life and death and the universe and its beginning and its end? As I’ve attempted to prove, as the Shelleys believed for much of their lives until besieged by a series of tragedies, everything can be rationally explained.

  It is a human being’s tolerance for rational thought that is really all that ever gets in the way of The Truth.

  As for Percy Bysshe and Mary . . . years following the original 1818 publication of Frankenstein (and we’ll cover the so-called “Haunted Summer of 1816” that gave birth to that masterpiece shortly), their rational thought and atheism gave way to uncomfortable questions related to the possible existence of a higher power. They suffered and understandably so.

  A couple should never endure so much tragedy.

  You’ll see, if you don’t know already. The stereotype of a dark gray cloud? It hovered over the Shelleys since their respective beginnings and as a result, their late consideration that perhaps their lives and work were preordained became a meddlesome piece of business.

  The subtitle of our Third Measure of Creation is A Monster . . . A God.

  A God.

  A God, because it always goes back to Ara.

  Their lives may have become legend, but the Shelleys were very real people. They were flesh and blood, and they were very much concerned and in love, befitting the Romantic Era of their writing with which they’ve become synonymous.

  In some ways, they weren’t that different than me. I’m not always so dense. I can understand why rational thought sometimes goes out the window.

  There’s never a right place to admit to certain things but again, if anyone reads this, for the brief time we still have together, for the impermanent record . . .

  Love hurts. Standing by someone you love can hurt even more, as many of you know.

  Shocking, huh? In many ways, maybe the Shelleys really weren’t that different from me.

  But, alas . . . We’re not there yet. Soon, very soon.

  I promise you.

  SOHO ARTS DISTRICT, NEW YORK CITY

  X observes the city’s latest crime scene from a fourth floor window ledge on 20 Muir Street, the apartment building directly across from Timothy’s. All lights in the fourth floor apartment are off.

  He shut them when he saw Sidra.

  He observes the chaos downstairs but is particularly enamored of the strange, sad woman who has doubled over sobbing and seems to plea with one of the officers. The cop he recognizes; he is the short officer, Davy, who arrested X’s decoy. X does not know Sidra but he is fascinated by her appearance and body language; he has a sincere urge to go down and help her, but knows the effort would be quashed.

  There is a moment when she straightens and appears to look out and up, through the downpour and directly at him. If this is the case, he keeps her gaze for what seems like forever before shyly turning away from the window.

  He was unable to determine the features of her face, due to his vantage.

  Don’t. She’s trouble you don’t need . . .

  X knows he should feel for her, and he does. She suffers, as does he. He also considers the intrusive thought that he’s never been with a woman before and selfishly this one’s vulnerability and presence is currently supplementing a level of internal havoc that the event below can’t even begin to match.

  Don’t worry, he thinks, addressing her. It’ll get worse . . . trust me.

  X catches himself thinking entirely too much, one of his more readily acknowledged disruptive habits. But it is what it is. He runs his hand through his hair to psych himself before discreetly peeking back out the window . . .

  KES
WICK, CUMBERLAND, ENGLAND, JANUARY 1812

  Percy sits at his desk and prepares to write, having convinced himself that he has but a single opportunity to attain the desired result. When ready and not before, he actions his task:

  Keswick, Cumberland.

  January 3rd, 1812.

  [Friday].

  Sir,

  You will be surprised at hearing from a stranger. No introduction has, nor in all probability ever will, authorize that which common thinkers would call a liberty. It is however a liberty which, although not sanctioned by custom, is so far from being reprobated by reason that the dearest interests of mankind imperiously demand that a certain etiquette of fashion should no longer keep “man at a distance from man,” or impose its flimsy fancies between the free communication of intellect.

  The name of Godwin has been used to excite in me feelings of reverence and admiration. I have been accustomed to consider him a luminary too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him. From the earliest period of my knowledge of his principles, I have ardently desired to share, on the footing of intimacy, that intellect which I have delighted to contemplate in its emanations.

  Considering, then, these feelings, you will not be surprised at the inconceivable emotions with which I learned your existence and your dwelling. I had enrolled your name in the list of the honourable dead. I had felt regret that the glory of your being had passed from this earth of ours. It is not so; you still live, and, I firmly believe, are still planning the welfare of human kind.

  I have but just entered on the scene of human operations; yet my feelings and my reasonings correspond with what yours were. My course has been short, but eventful. I have seen much of human prejudice, suffered much from human persecution, yet I see no reason hence inferrible which should alter my wishes for their renovation. The ill-treatment I have met with has more than ever impressed the truth of my principles on my judgement. I am young, I am ardent in the cause of philanthropy and truth. Do not suppose that this is vanity. I am not conscious that it influences this portraiture. I imagine myself dispassionately describing the state of my mind. I am young; you have gone before me, — I doubt not, are a veteran to me in the years of persecution. it is strange that, defying prejudice as I have done, I should outstep the limits of custom’s prescription, and endeavour to make my desire useful by a friendship with William Godwin?