Songs of a Dead Dreamer

by Ligotti, Thomas

  The following week Miss Locher did not appear for her appointment. This did not really alarm me, for as you know many patients—armed with a script for tranquilizers and a single experience of therapy—decide they don’t reed any more help. But by then I had developed such a personal interest in Miss Locher’s case that I was seriously disappointed at the prospect of not being able to pursue it further.

  After fifteen patientless minutes had elapsed, I had my secretary call Miss Locher at the number she gave us. (With my former secretary—poor thing!—this would have been done automatically; so the new girl is not as good as you said she was, doctor. I shouldn’t have let you insinuate her into my employ... but that’s my fault, isn’t it?) Maggie came into my office a few minutes later, presumably after she’d tried to reach Miss Locher. With rather cryptic impudence she suggested I dial the number myself, giving me the form containing all the information on our new patient. Then she left the room without saying another word. The nerve of that soon-to-be-unemployed girl.

  I called the number—which incidentally plays the song about Mary’s lamb on the push-button phone in my office—and it rang twice before someone answered. This someone had the voice of a young woman but was not our Miss Locher. In any case, the way this person answered the phone told me I had a wrong number (the right wrong number). Nevertheless, I asked if a Miss Locher could be reached at that number or any of its possible extensions; but the answering voice expressed total ignorance regarding the existence of any person by that name. I thanked her and hung up.

  You will have to forgive me, my lovely, if by this time I began to feel like the victim of a hoax, your hoax to be exact. “Maggie,” I intercommed, “how many more appointments for this afternoon?”

  “Just one,” she immediately answered, and then without being asked, said: “But I can cancel it if you’d like.” I said I would like, that I would be gone for the rest of the afternoon.

  My intention was to call on Miss Locher at the, probably also phony, address on her new patient form. I had the suspicion that the address would lead to the same geographical spot as had the electronic nexus of the false phone number. Of course I could have easily verified this without leaving my office; but knowing you, sweet one, I thought that a personal visit was warranted. And I was right.

  The address was an hour’s drive away. It was in a fashionable suburb on the other side of town from that fashionable suburb in which I have my office. (And I wish you would remove your own place of business from its present location, unless for some reason you need to be near a skid-row source that broadcasts on frequencies of chaos and squalor, which you’d probably claim.) I parked my big black car down the block from the street number I was seeking, which turned out to be located in the middle of the suburb’s shopping district.

  This was last Wednesday, and if you’ll recall it was quite an unusual day (an accomplishment I do not list among all your orchestrated connivings of my adventure). It was dim and moody most of the morning, and so prematurely dark by late afternoon that there were stars seemingly visible in the sky. A storm was imminent and the air was appropriately galvanized with a pre-deluge feeling of suspense. Display windows were softly glowing, and one jewelry store I passed twinkled with electric glory in the corner of my eye. In the stillness I strolled beside a row of trees, each of their slender trunks planted in a complex mosaic along the sidewalk, all of their tiny leaves fluttering.

  Of course, there’s no further need to describe the atmosphere of a place you’ve visited many times, dear love. But I just wanted to show how sensitive I was to a certain kind of portentous mood, and how ripe I’d become for the staged antics to follow. Very good, doctor!

  Distancewise, I only had to walk a few gloomy steps before arriving at the place purported to be the home of our Miss L. By then it was quite clear what I would find. There were no surprises so far. When I looked up at the neon-inscribed name of the shop, I heard a young woman’s telephone voice whispering the words into my ear: Mademoiselle Fashions. A fake French accent here, S.V.P. And this is the store—no?—where it seems you acquire so many of your own lovely ensembles. But I’m jumping ahead with my expectations.

  What I did not expect were the sheer lengths to which you would go in order to arouse my sense of strange revelation. Was this, I pray, done to bring us closer in the divine bonds of unreality? Anyway, I saw what you wanted me to see, or what I thought you wanted me to see, in the window of Mile Fashions. The thing was even dressed in the same plaid-skirted outfit that I recall Miss Locher was wearing on her only visit to my office. And I have to admit that I was a bit shocked—perhaps attributable in part to the unstable climatic conditions of the day—when I focused on the frozen face of the mannikin. Then again, perhaps I was subliminally looking for a resemblance between Miss Locher (your fellow conspirator, whether she knows it or not) and the figure in the window. You can probably guess what I noticed, or thought I noticed, about its eyes—what you would have me perceive as a certain moistness in their fixed gaze. Oh, woe is this Wednesday’s child!

  Unfortunately, I was unable to linger long enough to positively confirm the above perception, for a medium-intensity shower began to descend at that point. The rain sent me running to a nearby phone booth, where I had some business to conduct anyway. Retrieving the number of the clothes store from my memory, I phoned them for the second time that afternoon. That was easy. What was not quite as easy was imitating your voice, my high-pitched love, and asking if the store’s accounting department had mailed out a bill that month for my, I mean your, charge account. My impersonation of you must have been adequate, for the voice on the phone reminded me that I’d already taken care of all my recent expenditures. You thanked the salesgirl for this information, apologizing for your forgetfulness, and then said goodbye. Perhaps I should have asked the girl if she was the one who helped rig up that mannikin to look like Miss Locher, if indeed the situation was not the other way around, with Miss Locher following the fashion of display-window dummies. In any case, I did establish a definite link between you and the clothes store. It seemed you might have accomplices anywhere, and to tell you the truth I was beginning to feel a bit paranoid standing in that little phone booth.

  The rain was coming down even harder as I made a mad dash back to my black sedan. A bit soaked, I sat in the car for a few moments wiping off my rain-spotted glasses with a handkerchief. I said that I felt a slight case of paranoia coming on, and what follows proves it. While sitting there with my glasses off, I thought I saw something move in the rearview mirror. My visual vulnerability, combined with the claustrophobic sensation of being in a car with rain-blinded windows, together added up to a momentary but very definite panic on my part. Of course I quickly put on my glasses and found that there was nothing whatever in the back seat. But the point is that I was forced to physically verify this fact in order to relieve my spasm of anxiety. You succeeded, my love, in getting me to experience a moment of self-terror, and in that moment I, too, became your accomplice against myself. Brava!

  You have indeed succeeded—assuming all my inferences thus far are for the most part true—perhaps more than you know or ever intended. Having confessed this much, I can now get to the real focus and “motivating factor” of my appeal to you. This has far less to do with A. Locher than it does with us, dearest. Please try to be sympathetic and, above all, patient.

  I have not been well lately, and you know the reason why. This business with Miss Locher, far from bringing us to a more intimate understanding of each other, has only made the situation worse. Horrible nightmares have been plaguing me every night. Me, of all people! And they are directly due to the well-intentioned (I think) influence of you and Miss L. Let me describe one of these nightmares for you, and thereby describe them all. This will be the last dream story, I promise.

  In the dream I am in my bedroom, sitting upon my unmade bed and wearing my pajamas (Oh, will you never see them?). The room is partially illuminated by beams from a st
reetlight shining through the window. And it also seems to me that a whole galaxy of constellations, although not actually witnessed firsthand, are contributing their light to the scene, a ghastly glowing which unnaturally blanches the entire upstairs of the house. I have to use the bathroom and walk sleepily out to the hallway... where I get the shock of my life.

  In the whitened hallway—I cannot say brightened, because it is almost as if a very fine and luminous powder coats everything—are these things lying up and down the floor, at the top of the stairway, and even upon the stairs themselves as they disappear into the darker regions below. These things are people dressed as dolls, or else dolls made up to look like people. I remember being confused about which it was.

  Their heads are turned in all directions as I emerge from the bedroom, and their eyes shine in the white darkness. Paralyzed—yes!—with terror, I merely return a fixed gaze, wondering if my eyes are shining the same as theirs. Then one of the doll people, slouching against the wall on my left, turns its head haltingly upon a stiff little neck and looks into my eyes. Worse, it talks. And its voice is an horrific cackling parody of speech. Even more horrible are its words, as it says: “Become as we are, sweetie. Die into us.” Suddenly I begin to feel very weak, as if my life were being drained out of me. Summoning all my powers of movement, I manage to rush back to my bed to end the dream.

  After I awake, screaming, my heart pounds like a mad prisoner inside me and doesn’t let up until morning. This is very disturbing, for there’s truth in those studies relating nightmares to cardiac arrest. For some poor souls, that imaginary incubus squatting upon their sleeping forms can do real medical harm. And I do not want to become one of these cases.

  You can help me, sweetheart. I know you didn’t intend things to turn out this way, but that elaborate joke you perpetrated with the help of Miss Locher has really gotten to me. Consciously, of course, I still uphold the criticism I’ve already expressed about the basic absurdity of your work. Unconsciously, however, you seem to have awakened me to a stratum (zone, I know you would say) of uncanny terror in my mind-soul. I will at least admit that your ideas form a powerful psychic metaphor, though no more than that. Which is quite enough, isn’t it? It’s certainly quite enough to inspire the writing of this letter, in which I plead for your attention, since I’ve failed to attract it in any other way. I can’t go on like this! You have strange powers over me, as if you didn’t already know it. Please release me from your spell, and let’s begin a normal romance. Who really gives a damn about the metaphysics of invisible realms anyway? It’s only emotions, not abstractions, that count. Love and terror are the true realities, whatever the unknowable mechanics are that turn their wheels, and our own.

  In Miss Locher I believe you sent me the embodiment of your deepest convictions. But suppose I start admitting weird things about Miss L? Suppose I admit that she was somehow just a dream. (Then she must have been my secretary’s dream too, for she saw her.) Suppose I even admit that Miss Locher was not a girl but actually a multi-selved thing—part Man, part mannikin—and with your assistance dreamed itself for a time into existence, reproduced itself in human form just as we reproduce ourselves as an infinite variety of images and shapes, all those impersonations of our flesh? You would like to have me think of things like this. You would like to have me think of all the mysterious connections among the things of this world, and of other worlds. So what if there are? I don’t care anymore.

  Forget other selves. Forget the third (fourth, nth) person view of life; only first and second persons are important (I and thou). And by all means forget dreams. I, for one, know I’m not a dream. I am real, Dr.––(There, how do you like being anonymized?) So please be so kind as to acknowledge my existence.

  It is now after midnight, and I dread going to sleep and having another of those nightmares. You can save me from this fate, if only you can find it in your heart to do so. But you must hurry. Time is running out for us, my love, just as these last few waking moments are now running out for me. Tell me it is still not too late for our love. Please don’t destroy everything for us. You will only hurt yourself. And despite your high-flown theory of masochism, there is really nothing divine about it. So no more of your strange psychic deceptions. Be simple, be nice. Oh, I am so tired. I must say good night, then, but not good

  Bye, my foolish love. Hear me now. Sleep your singular sleep and dream of the many, the others. They are also part of you, part of us. Die into them and leave me in peace. I will come for you later, and then you can always be with me in a special corner all your own, just as my little Amy once was. This is what you’ve wanted, and this you shall have. Die into them. Yes, die into them, you simple soul, you silly dolling. Die with a nice bright gleam in your eyes.

  The Chymist

  HELLO, MISS. Why, yes, as a matter of fact I am looking for some company this evening. My name is Simon, and you are... Rosemary. Funny, I was just daydreaming in the key of Rosicrucianism. Never mind. Please sit, and watch out for splinters on your chair, so you don’t catch your dress. It appears that everything around here has come to the point of frays and splinters. But what this old place lacks in freshness of decor it amply makes up in atmosphere, don’t you think? Yes, as you say, I suppose it does serve its purpose. It’s a little lax as far as table service, though. I’m afraid that in the way of drinks one must procure for one’s self. Thank you. I’m glad you think I have a nice way of talkin’. Now, can I get you something from the bar? All right, a beer you shall have. And do me a favor please: before I come back, you will already have taken that wad of gum out of your mouth. Thank you, and I’ll return shortly with our drinks.

  Here you are, Rosie, one beer from the bar. Just don’t belch and we’ll get along fine. I’m pleased to see you’ve gotten rid of your gum, though I hope you didn’t swallow it. The human stomach should probably remain ignorant of what it’s like to accommodate beer and bubble gum in the same digestive episode. I know it’s your stomach, but I’m concerned about what gets mixed up inside any human vessel. No, I said vessel, not that anatomical cavity to which you smuttily refer: Man’s hole is not his vessel. We’re talking about things in which other things may be contained.

  That’s right, like that dirty little glass in your immaculate hand, now you’re getting it. My glass? Yes, you do see a lot of red in there. I like red drinks. Created this one myself. A Red Rum Ginny, I call it. White rum, gin, pale ginger ale, and, ideally, cranberry juice, though the bartender here had to substitute some undistilled maraschino solution, which has neither the rich red color nor a fraction of the tartness of your smile. Would you like a sip? Go ahead, take a good belt. If you don’t like it, say so. Yes, different is the word for it, the wellspring of its interest, as you’ve observed. I wonder, though, in whose mouth it tastes more different—mine or yours? We’ll never know. Even adhering to the same mixological formula there’s always some difference in taste, if only you have the sensitivity to notice it. In general, I think, there are always those varying factors that make every moment of our lives unique and strange to every other moment.

  I have a high tolerance for diversity myself. You’re smiling at my emphasis. You think you know something about me, and perhaps you do. Sharp girl! Of course, the imp of perversity in your thoughts is only one of the many offspring of the imp of the diverse. And diversity is the soul of life, or at least of life’s amusement.

  Pardon me? Yes, I have created other drinks. There’s another red one I’ve pioneered that’s actually just a variation on a standard number, but I like it. The Sweet and Sour Bloody Mary, made with high-test vodka, sugar, a lemon slice, and ketchup. It does sound like a meal in itself at that. Very fortifying. No, sorry to spoil your joke, my fondness for red drinks does not extend to the vampire’s neck-drawn nectar. Besides, I’m quite able to work during daylight hours.

  Where? Well, I suppose I can tell you, sub rosa, that I’m employed by a pharmaceutical company not far from here, near that run-down warehous
e district. I’m a chemist there. Yes, really. Well, it’s nice the way you could see right off that I wasn’t no average guy just comin’ round after work lookin’ for some fun. Perceptive girl! However, I did in fact come directly here after working a little overtime. I noticed while I was at the bar that you were eyeing and toeing the briefcase I brought in with me and set so discreetly under the table. Yes, there are papers in there relating to my work, among other things, never mind just now about that. But you’re right that it would be foolish to leave anything important outside in one’s car in this neighborhood.

  Well, I wouldn’t say that this part of town is simply a pit. It is, of course, that; but the word doesn’t begin to describe the various dimensions of decrepitude in the local geography. Decrepitude, Ro. It has your pit in it and a lot more besides. I speak from experience, more than you would believe. This whole city is a pitiful corpse, and the neighborhood outside the walls of this bar has the distinction of being the withering heart of the deceased. Yes, I’ve gotten to know it over the years. I’ve gone out of my way to note its outlandish points of interest.

  For instance, have you ever been to that place not far from here called Speakeasy? Well, then you have some acquaintance with the beautiful corruption of nostalgia, the putrescence of things past. Yes, up a flight of stairs from a crooked little street façade is a high echoey hall with a leftover Deco decor of silvery mirrors and sequined globes. And there the giant painted silhouettes of bony flappers and gaunt Gatsbys sport about the curving ballroom walls, towering over the dance floor, their funereal elegance mocking the awkward gyrations of the living. An old dream with a shiny new veneer. It’s fascinating, you know, how an obsolete madness is sometimes adopted and stylized in an attempt to ghoulishly preserve it. These are the days of second-hand fantasies and antiquated hysteria.