Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway

by Joyce Carol Oates

  I cannot write more of this. I am sickened, I am overcome with disgust. The shadowy regions of Usher are no more, Cyclophagus has invaded. Not the gothic spider-fancies of Jeremias Gotthelf himself could withstand such hellish creatures! In a nightmare vision my beloved V. came to chastise me, that I have abandoned our “first-born” to such a fate. My astonished eyes saw V. as I had not seen her since our wedding day, when she was but thirteen years old, ethereal & virginal as the driven snow; & I heard her weeping voice as I had never heard it in life, in this curse:

  “I shall not see you again, husband. Neither in this world nor in Hades.”

  Unnumbered Day 1850 (?) Damn! to take up this pen & attempt inky scratches on parchment paper! & the pen falls from my talon fingers, & much of my ink supply has dried up that my patron (whose name I have misplaced tho’ I hear his jeering voice My boy! my boy! in the gulls’ shrieks & see his damned face glaring at me, from out the clouds), as my precious “library” of books etcetera is worm-& weevil-riddled, & unreadable; & my tinned foods, contaminated by maggots. How all of Philadelphia might shudder at me now, beholding such a vision: “Who is that? That savage?”—recoiling in horror & then with great peals of laughter including even the ladies. ECCE HOMO!

  Unnumbered Day 1850 (?) I must remember, Philadelphia has perished. & all of humankind. & “only I have escaped, to tell thee.”

  Unnumbered Day The perplexity of stairs winding & twisting above my head, I have ceased to climb. Vaguely I recall a “lantern”—a “light.” & vaguely, a Keeper of the Light. If Mercury were here, we would laugh together at such folly. For all that matters is feeding, & feeding well, that this storm of mouths be kept at bay, from devouring me.

  Unnumbered Day In despair & disgust I have thrown the last of the contaminated tins into the sea. I have drunk the last of the tepid spring water in which, as I discerned with naked eye, translucent, tissue-like creatures swam & cavorted. So very hungry, my hunger cannot be quenched. & yet, it has only begun. As the heat of the summer has only begun.

  Unnumbered Day Not quickly but yes, I have learned: where Mercury blundered, digging into the watery burrows of Cyclophagus before the tide fully retreated, impatient to feed on the succulent young, that cling whimpering & mewing to the teats of the female Cyclophagus, I know to wait & bide my time amidst the rocks.

  So strangely, the stench has faded. By night when I emerge from my burrow.

  Where initially I shielded my eyes from my “prey”—even as my jaws ravenously devoured—now I have no time for such niceties, as the bolder of the sea-hawks might swoop upon me & take advantage of my distraction. No more! I am quite shameless now, as my hunger mounts. Even temporarily sated I lie amongst the bones & gristle of my repast, in the stifling heat-haze of Viña de Mar, & perversely dream of yet more feeding; for I have become, in this infernal place, a coil of guts with teeth at one end, & an anus for excretion at the other. If I am not dazed with hunger, I will take time to skin/defeather/declaw/gut/debone/cook over a fire prepared of driftwood, before consuming: more often, I have not time for such, for my hunger is too urgent & I must feed as the others feed, tearing flesh from bone with my teeth. Ah, I have no patience for the flailing protestations & shrieks of the doomed:

  —every species of seabird including even the smaller of the yellow-nosed albatross, that fly unwarily near my hiding place among the boulders, to be plucked out of the air by my talons

  —great jellyfish, sea-turtles & octopi, whose flesh is leathery, & must be masticated for long minutes

  —Hydrocephalagus young (delicate as quail, while the meat of the mature is stringy & provokes diarrhea)

  —Cyclophagus young (of which I am particularly fond, an exquisite subtlety of taste like sea scallops)

  —every species of egg (like all predators, I am thrilled by the prospect of egg, that cannot escape from one’s grasping claws, & offers not a twitch of resistance; awash with nutrients to be sucked through the skull,—ah! I mean to say the shell)

  A rueful fact, not to be shared with V., or the habitués of my old Philadelphia haunts, that I, descendent of a noble clan of the Teutonic race, must share his kingdom with any number of lowly animal bird, & insect species! Of these, only Cyclophagus is a worthy rival, the most fascinating as it is the most developed & intelligent of the species, tho’ far inferior to Homo sapiens. I have found it a most curious amphibian, ingeniously equipped with both gills & nostrils, as with fins & legs; no less ungainly in water as on land, yet it moves with startling agility when it wishes, & even the females are very strong. Its head is large as a man’s, & its snout pointed, with rows of shark-like teeth; its upright, translucent ears humanoid; its tail of moderate length, to be picked up like a dog’s, or to trail off at half-mast, defiled with filth. Its most striking feature is its single eye,—thus, I have named it Cyclophagus!—which emerges out of its forehead, twice the size of a human eye, & with the liquid expressiveness of a human eye. The novelty of this organ is its capacity to turn rapidly from side to side, & to protrude from the bony ridge of the face when required. The Cyclophagus is covered in a velvety hide, wonderfully soft to stroke; it is of a purplish-silver hue, that rapidly darkens after death. When cooked over a fire, the flesh of the Cyclophagus is uncommonly tender, as I have noted; tho’ in the more mature males, there is a bloody-gamey undertaste repellent initially, but by degrees quite intriguing.

  To think of Cyclophagus is to feel, ah!—the most powerful & perverse yearning, I am moved to let drop this tiresome pen, & prowl in the shallows off the pebbly beach, tho’ it is not yet dusk. Lately I have learned to go on all fours, that my jaws skim the frolicsome surf, & we shall see what swims to greet me.

  Unnumbered Day La Medusa: jellyfish while living, the many transparent tendrils, so faintly red as to suggest the exposed network of veins, of a human being, offer quite a sting! dead, the tendrils are fibrous & oddly delicious, to be devoured with a chewy, snaky-briny green like seaweed Vurrgh: a species of mammalian lizard of about three feet in length with short, poignant limbs & a feline tail deeply creased skin, like fabric much folded coarse whiskers springing from the muzzle of the male & a softer down-muzzle of the female an expression in repose both truculent & contemplative in the way of Socrates these creatures I have named Vurrghs for in communicating with one another they emit a sequence of low musical grunts: “Vurrgh-Vurrgh-Vurrgh” in their death agonies they shriek like human females, sopranos whose voices have gone sharp the meat of the Vurrgh is chewy & sensually arousing like the meat of oysters their golden eggs slimy & gleaming By chance I discoverd that the Vurrgh female lays her eggs in wet sand & offal, at the north side of the island the Vurrgh male then seems to saunter by, as if by chance (yet, in cunning nature, can there be chance?) & fertilizes these eggs through a tubular sex organ, sadly comical to observe yet effective, & in nature that is all that matters the Vurrgh male then agitatedly gathers the eggs into a sac attached to his belly, like that of the Australian kangaroo it is the Vurrgh male that nourishes the eggs until they hatch into a slithering multiplicity of Vurrgh young slick & very pale, the females speckled, measuring about four inches at birth, delicious if devoured raw

  Cyclophagus is my prime rival here, for the cunning creature employs its singular eye to see in the dark & its snouted nose is far sensitive than my “roman” nose Cyclophagus has an insatiable appetite for Vurrgh young & would seem almost to be cultivating colonies of Vurrgh in the shallow waters just off-shore very like Homo sapiens might do

  These discoveries I am making, I might report to the Society of Naturalists except all that is vanished in a fiery apocalypse, that effete civilization!

  Succubus: a sea-delicacy a giant clam I would classify it often found spilling from its opalescent shell amid the rocks as a lady’s bosom from a whalebone corset pink-fleshed boneless creature that is purely tissue & faceless yet on its quivering surface you may detect the traces of a very faintly humanoid face Succubus I have designated this clam for the way in which,
forced into the mouth, it begins to pulse most lewdly in agitation for its life its protestations are uncommonly arousing its sweet flesh so dense, a single Succubus can require an hour’s hearty mastication & quite sates the appetite for hours afterward & again, the damnable Cyclophagus is my rival for Succubus with this unfair advantage: Cyclophagus can swim in the sea with its serrated teeth bared in its mouth agape & trusting to brainless instinct as Homo sapiens has not (yet) mastered!

  HELA I have named her my darling

  HELA who has come under my protection HELA of the luminous eye HELA my soul-mate in this infernal region ah, unexpected!

  HELA, named for that fabled Helen of Troy for whom 1,000 ships were launched & the Trojan War waged & so many valiant heroes lost to Hades & yet, what glory in such deaths, for BEAUTY! My HELA quivers with gratitude in my embrace never has she seen an individual of my species before! a shock to her, & a revelation my vow to her is eternal my love unquestioning having fled breathless & whimpering to me, a virginal Cyclophagus female pursued by an aroused Cyclophagus male out of the frothy surf of the pebbled beach as at twilight I prowled restless & alert, hunched over & with my cudgel at the ready Hela emerging as Venus from the sea to be rescued in my arms, from a most licentious & repulsive brute so large, he appeared to be a mutant Cyclophagus rearing on stubby hind legs in imitation of Man terrible teeth flashing as if he would tear out my throat with his teeth ah! could he but catch me! as he could not & in triumph I bore my Hela away, that none of her brute kind might claim her ever again!

  This has been some time ago in the old way of reckoning

  I am never certain what “time” it might “be” I have forgotten why these pages have seemed important There is “month” there is “year” it is still very hot, for the sun has stalled overhead

  How terrified my darling was, when invaders came noisily ashore to the Light-House of my “kind” it was clear! in a small rowboat & the mother ship anchored some distance away calling for the Keeper of the Light & finding no human inhabitant, searching amidst my abandoned things my former bed & thwarted in their search, in bafflement departed in our snug burrow we were safe from all detection & in this chalky bedchamber Hela has given birth eight small hairless & mewing babies whose eyes have not yet opened sucking fiercely at her velvety teats Tho’ these young are but single-eyed like their mother (& that eye so luminous, I swoon to gaze into its depths) yet each of the young is unmistakably imprinted with its father’s patrician brow my nose that has been called “noble” in its Roman cast the babies weigh perhaps two pounds, & fit wonderfully in the palm of my uplifted hand Ah, a doting father holding them aloft! into the light where it falls upon the upper shaft of the burrow (when the dear ones are sated from sucking, that is! for otherwise they mew shrilly & their baby teeth flash with infant ire) I like it that their tails are less pronounced, than the tails of most newborn Cyclophagi their snouts far less pointed the “Roman” nose will develop, I believe the nostrils more decisively than the gills for Hela cares not for the old, amphibian life & her young will not know of it, we have vowed these precious young will thrive in the sanctuary of the Light-House this structure erected for our habitation, & none other for there can be no purpose to it otherwise it is our Kingdom by the Sea our nest here, & none will invade for I have fortified it, & I am very strong Yet gentle with my beloved: for her skin is so very soft, its purplish-silver hue that of the most delicate petals of the calla lily her soulful eye so intense, in devotion to her hunter-husband together we will dwell in this place & we shall be the progenitors of a bold & shining new race of Immortals Hela my darling forevermore

  EDICKINSONREPLILUXE

  So lonely! Shyly they glanced at each other across the dining room table in whose polished cherrywood surface candle flames shimmered like dimly recalled dreams. One said, “We should purchase a RepliLuxe,” as if only now thinking of it, and the other said quickly, “RepliLuxes are too expensive and you hear how they don’t survive the first year.”

  “Not all! Only—”

  “As of last week, it was thirty-one percent.”

  So the husband had been on the Internet, too. The wife took note, and was pleased.

  For in her heart she’d long been yearning for more life! more life!

  Nine years of marriage. Nineteen?

  There is an hour when you realize: here is what you have been given. More than this, you won’t receive. And what this is, what your life has come to, will be taken from you. In time.

  “A cultural figure! Someone who will elevate us.”

  Mr. Krim was a tax attorney whose specialty was corporate law/interstate commerce. Mrs. Krim was Mr. Krim’s wife with a reputation for being “generous”—“active”—“involved”—in the suburban Village of Golders Green. Together they drove to the mammoth New Liberty Mall twenty miles away where there was a RepliLuxe outlet. This was primarily a catalogue store, not so very much more helpful than the Internet, but it was thrilling for the Krims to see sample RepliLuxes on display in three dimensions. The wife recognized Freud, the husband recognized Babe Ruth, Teddy Roosevelt, Van Gogh. It could not be said that the figures were “life-like” for they were no taller than five feet, their features proportionately reduced and simplified and their eyes glassy in compliance with strict federal mandates stipulating that no artificial replicant be manufactured “to size” or incorporate “organic” body parts, even those offered by eager donors. The display RepliLuxes were in sleep mode, not yet activated, yet the husband and wife stood transfixed before them. The wife murmured with a shiver, “Freud! A great genius but wouldn’t you be self-conscious with someone like that, in your home, peering into…” The husband murmured, “Van Gogh!—imagine, in our house in Golders Green! Except Van Gogh was ‘manic-depressive,’ wasn’t he, and didn’t he commit…”

  Everywhere in the bright-lit store couples were conferring in low, urgent voices. You could watch videos of animated RepliLuxes, you could leaf through immense catalogues. Salesclerks stood by, eager to assist. In the BabyRepliLuxe section where child-figures to the age of twelve were available, discussions became particularly heated. Great athletes, great military leaders, great inventors, great composers, musicians, performers, world leaders, artists, writers and poets, how to choose? Fortunately, copyright restrictions made RepliLuxes of many prominent twentieth-century figures unavailable, which limited the choices considerably (few television stars, few entertainment figures beyond the era of silent films). The wife told a salesman, “I have my heart set on a poet, I think! Do you have…” But Sylvia Plath wasn’t yet in the public domain, nor were Robert Frost or Dylan Thomas. Walt Whitman was available at a special discount through the month of April but the wife was stricken with uncertainty: “Whitman! Only imagine! But wasn’t the man…” (The wife, who was by no means a bigot, or even a woman of conventional bourgeois morality like her Golders Green neighbors, could not bring herself to utter the word gay.) The husband was making inquiries about Picasso, but Picasso wasn’t yet available. “Rothko, then?” The wife laughed saying to the salesman, “My husband is something of an art snob, I’m afraid. No one at RepliLuxe has even heard of Rothko, I’m sure.” As the salesman consulted a computer, the husband said stubbornly, “We might get Rothko as a child. There’s ‘accelerated mode,’ we could witness a visionary artist come into being…” The wife said, “But wasn’t this ‘Rothko’ depressed, didn’t he kill himself…” and the husband said, irritably, “What about Sylvia Plath? She killed herself.” The wife said, “Oh but with us, in our household, I’m sure Sylvia would not. We would be a new, wholesome influence.” The salesman reported no Rothko. “Do you have Hopper, then? ‘Edward Hopper, Twentieth-century American Painter’?” But Hopper was still protected by copyright. The wife said suddenly, “Emily Dickinson! I want her.” The salesman asked how the name was spelled and typed rapidly into his computer. The husband was struck by the wife’s excitement, it was rare in recent years to see Mrs. Krim looking so girlish, so vulne
rable, laying her hand on his arm in this public place and saying, blushing, “In my heart I’ve always been a poet, I think. My Loomis grandmother from Maine, she gave me a volume of her ‘verse’ when I was just a child. My early poems, I’d showed you when we first met, some of them…It’s tragic how life tears us away from…” The husband assured her, “Emily Dickinson it will be, then! She’d be quiet, for one thing. Poems don’t take up nearly as much space as twenty-foot canvases. And they don’t smell. And Emily Dickinson didn’t commit suicide, that I know of.” The wife cried, “Oh, Emily did not! In fact, Emily was always nursing sick relatives. She was an angel of mercy in her household, dressed in spotless white! She could nurse us, if…” The wife broke off, giggling nervously. The salesman was reading from the computer screen: “‘Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), revered New England poetess.’ You are in luck, Mr. and Mrs. Krim, this ‘Emily’ is in a limited edition about to go out of print permanently but still available through April at a twenty percent discount. EDickinsonRepliLuxe is programmed through age thirty to age fifty-five, when the poet died, so the customer has twenty-five years that can be accelerated as you wish, or even run backward, though not back beyond age thirty, of course. Limited offer expires in…” Quickly the wife said, “We’ll take it! Her! Please.” The wife and husband were gripping hands. A shiver of sudden warmth, affection, childlike hope passed between them in that instant. As if, so unexpectedly, they were young lovers again, on the threshold of a new life.

  Even with the discount, EDickinsonRepliLuxe came to a considerable price. But the Krims were well-to-do, and had no children, nor even pets. “‘Emily’ will cost only a fraction of what a child would cost what with college tuition…” Mrs. Krim was too excited to read through the contract of several densely printed pages before signing; Mr. Krim, whose profession was the perusal of such documents, took more time. Delivery of EDickinsonRepliLuxe was promised within thirty days, with a six-month warranty.