A light knock on the wall punctured the void and I dropped the pen. I sat rooted to the chair, not moving, not breathing. Again: this time three knocks. Not pounding: light, tentative, respectful knocking. If I expected anyone to visit me—I hoped—with directions, instructions, information, a welcome wagon or a red-hot poker, I expected they would use the door. (But why would they? Wake up, Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore.) Hands on desk, I pushed myself from the chair, knees buckling once. The knocking had come from the wall just above the bed. I made it to the middle of the room before I stopped, arms crossed snug over my chest. Listened. Nothing but silence. I weighed my options, and faced with an Eternity of cudgelling loneliness, moved forward and climbed onto the bed. Clinging to one of the white bedposts, I waited some more, listening to my heart pump out warning. The air was dense, murky and hot. No more knocks. I leaned in and placed my fingertips on the wall, then leaned in further, grinding my ear into the pink. An auditory mirage? I drew back and curled my fingers into a fist and poised it, as if ready to fire. Knocked with the side of my hand, two, three. Then darted my fist into my other hand, ball into glove, eyes wide and burning. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi—I gripped the headboard—four Mississippi—fingers whitening—five Mississippi—cramp in my neck—six Mississ—knock, knock, knock. I unfroze, pulling my hands into my chest. The knocking was hard, a pepper of sound. My breathing sped to short chugs and I answered one two, three four, five six. Response: one two three, four five six, seven, eight—pause—nine. I pounded back a rhythm, then painted the wall with my hands looking for some unseen opening, a soft spot, a Star Trek portal. But in no place did my fingers melt through. The skin around my eyes stung from salt. The room was clamped in a silence that produced its own sound, a sucking—an aural leech. I banged out another pattern. And another. There was no answer. No pattern, no rhythm now: my hands covered the wall in a volley of slap-knocking. Nothing, nothing—nothing. I pulled my stinging, mashed-up hands away, puddled onto the eyelet.
Someone had knocked on my wall—I heard it. Or was I being driven crazy(er)? I stared at the ceiling. The bee-buzzing lightness of a fever-dream.
Possible escape routes, magic loopholes, chinks in the cosmic armour: nada, zip, dream on, outta luck, no way. I moved the bed, moved the desk, moved the mirror, pummelled the walls of the closet, whimpered at the door like a discarded puppy, attempted—without success—to rip up the carpet and briefly considered trying to hang myself from the doorknob. (Karmic double indemnity? Kill yourself twice—ride the soul train to Heaven? Oh, the sweet wishes of Hell. . . . ) I did discover, to my temporary ecstasy, a small metallic grate, like an air vent, on the wall near the floor, in the corner into which the bed was wedged, and made more bloody work of my hands trying to pry it free and reveal what I was convinced was going to be a highway to Heaven. Okay, so it wouldn’t budge. Plan B: shout into it, try to make alien contact. My screams must have deafened the Devil.
HELLLLPPPPP! HELLLLLLPPPP! ANYONE THERE? ANYONE HOME? ARE YOU FUCKING DEAF?
(Well, now they are, whoever they is.)
After wearing out my voice, attempting to dam my tears and snot, pulling out my eyelashes and then finally replacing all the furnishings—somehow it seemed necessary to keep the Pit of Doom neat and tidy—my nerves kept me pacing, as though if I walked fast enough, spun around in the blink of an eye, I could jump clear of my skin. Back and forth, wearing a fashion model groove in the carpet. Each time I turned from the closet, I startled at the fresh snapshot of myself in the mirror, botched-up fat-lipped cover girl. Out of my face’s collage of colours, my black eyes glittered like lonely coal pits. The wall was quiet. I used the hem of my dress to dab at the sweat under my arms. My neck felt giraffe-like, tall and swaying. The room alternated between stasis and sudden tilting, and I leaned against the slant, sometimes grasping a bedpost, trying to stay on my feet, to keep marching through the tipping ether.
A giant lurch and over she goes—I lay on my side breathing the faint lavender scent of the carpet, feeling my ribs tighten their cat’s cradle. I beamed wide unseeing eyes into the dimness beneath the dust-ruffled bed (I wanted a bed like this? Nothing is more embarrassing than the person you used to be) and rocked forward and back, forward and back. The room’s silence hummed like a minting factory for new souls.
And then I saw something.
White beyond the white of the dust ruffle, like a hand coming out of the twilight. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them. The flash of white remained, so I wiggled half-under the ruffle and stretched out my arm. I poked at the white with my index finger, prepared for heat or corrosive material.
It was a piece of paper.
I closed my hand around the cool crinkle and rolled out into the full light of the room. White legal paper, folded ever so neatly with sharp creases like a starched and ironed shirt. I chewed my peeling lips. I opened the paper.
To Whom It May Concern:
I heard you knocking and I was very excited. I am alone in this room. I would really like to know the answers to two questions. They are:
Who are you?
Why are you there?
Please write back. If you cannot, please knock three times. If you need paper, knock four times, and I will send you a piece. I do not think I can fit a pen through the grate, and anyway, I only have one.
Yours very truly,
Brinkley
I read the note three times. And then I read it three more. I read it until the letters started to float off the page and gymnastic into other letters. Brinkley. I sat propped up by the bed, one hand clinging to the ruffle, the other to the note. The room’s stillness framed my own. My lips tingled.
I was not alone.
I thought back to when I was first dumped at this Motel-6-in-the-Ether, (was God a plebeian? Certainly a philistine) to all of the identical tall, white doors with their identical large gold knobs. Was it possible that behind each and every one of them was another hapless sad sack without a clue? This was decidedly not a letter from God, or the Devil, or anyone who knew what was going on. Brinkley. I said the name several times aloud. I liked it. I turned the paper over again and again, even though I knew that the back was blank, just to make sure that there wasn’t any spontaneously appearing map and instructions on how to get the Hell out of here. (My own brand of optimism refused to die in full, and that, I concluded, was one of the Torturer’s screws. Hope is a cruel thing.)
“To Whom It May Concern.” To Whom It May Concern? Who opens a letter from Hell with that header? I studied the handwriting, made up my mind that Brinkley was a boy. Or rather, a man. The letters were plain, even blocky, though precise and neat.
“Who are you?” Well there’s a question for the ages.
Dear Brinkley,
I decked myself out and hung myself up. Too bad I ended up here, but good thing I was wearing a nice outfit and all my bills were paid on time. . . .
No thanks. Though come to think of it, what did I care? The worst had happened, and what’s the point of trying to uphold your reputation in Hell? I turned my yellow legal pad to a fresh page, picked up my pen, and scrawled:
Dear Brinkley,
Receiving your letter was definite cause for celebration. I too am alone in my room. My name is Velvet. I lived in Vancouver, Canada. I committed suicide, and then I came here. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, maybe five minutes, maybe forever. The clock on my wall is stopped at 8:57—anyway, time seems irrelevant. This is definitely not Heaven, and until I got your letter I was convinced it’s Hell. Now I’m not so sure. I flirted with the idea of Purgatory, some kind of rest stop, but I certainly have not been restful and there is a decided lack of further instructions, hoops of fire to jump through, skill-testing questions to answer, etc. If you have any insights into this predicament, I would be grateful.
Now I ask the same two questions of you: who are you and why are you there?
/> Sincerely, Velvet
I pushed my letter through the grate and waited in the shade under the bed, lying on my side with my arms and legs drawn into me, as though in a carpeted womb. The bright lights of the rest of the room seemed sinister, marauding. And I was afraid that being exposed to them would somehow cause me to miss what I hoped was Brinkley’s forthcoming letter.
There was no dust under the bed. The lavender smell had an antiseptic edge. This womb was sterile.
I closed my eyes and listened for the rustle of paper. I had Brinkley’s letter clutched in my left hand, a reassurance that I hadn’t hallucinated a correspondence. Every few moments I would press it to my face, as though my hand was no longer feeling it, and I had to remind myself that it was there. I touched my tongue to it, too, and it tasted like real paper.
Venus flytrap, my hand snapped at the letter as it came through the grate. In my excitement, I rolled over, sat up and brained myself on the bed. Clutching my head, I poked it from the womb, into the bright lights of Hell, and started to read.
Dear Velvet,
I was likewise overjoyed to receive your letter. Velvet is a pretty name. Were you named after someone, or were your parents trying to be original? My mother was a painter, and I suffered for her love of originality. When I was growing up, the kids at school called me Wrinkly.
I am very sorry to learn of the circumstances that brought you here. I am not as clear on why I find myself in this room. Truth be told, the last thing I remember is running along a street on my way to work. I was starting a new job, and I was afraid I was going to be late. I darted off a curb headed for my usual café and my soy latte (I am allergic to cow’s milk) when suddenly I found myself whizzing down a slide in the dark, and eventually wound up here. Having had considerable opportunity to reflect, I have decided that in all likelihood a car ran me over. I remember that two nights before my ill-fated excursion, I had a dream that I was hit by a speeding yellow Volkswagen Beetle on my way to work. I woke up sweaty, like I had been running a marathon in my sleep (I am not a very athletic person), and with the definite feeling that I should not leave the house. I still felt that way the following morning and I thought about calling in sick, but it was the first day of my new job, and so I really was not able to, and I pushed whatever misgivings I had out of my mind. Gee whiz, whoever said, “always trust your instincts” was not kidding. I have learned that the hard way.
Who am I? That is a difficult question to answer, is it not? I lived in Toronto. I worked at a bank. I guess you could say I am a numbers guy.
I apologize for the fact that I can provide no more answers than you. I, too, have no idea how long I have been here—the clock on my wall is stopped at 8:56. I was growing sure that this indeed is Hell—or a Hell of sorts, there’s no denying that—and I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what I did to deserve this. I suppose there might be a few things.
But now that I know you are there, so close, I do not know what to think. Please tell me your thoughts.
Yours very truly,
Brinkley
So my neighbour, apparently, was just as clueless as I was. (Tell him my thoughts? Help me! Somebody help me!) I lay under the bed, head poked into the light, tracing his handwriting with my eyes. The pieces of the jigsaw that I thought I had pushed together promptly broke apart. If he was telling the truth, and why hold back, he wasn’t a suicide, and he hadn’t murdered anyone with a blunt instrument. He was the victim of a harried morning commuter. So why was he trapped next to me? The hair-on-fire evangelist that I had watched on TV once at age nine said that even small, unrepented sins would land you in the Pit. Remembering this, Mandarin-nailed fingers started to drum in my chest. I refused to believe he was right.
The light in the room (where was it coming from? There weren’t any lamps) glared like sun off glass, and my eyes ached. I retracted my head into the dusky under-bed cave, called up my head’s Greek senate to debate what to write next. I didn’t want to keep Brinkley waiting long—I knew well the horror of being on hold. My mind was chattering its loquacious best. The sweetish lavender scent of the carpet strengthened, an olfactory knockout punch. My feet were numb, and the weighty deadness of my legs frightened me. I lifted my calves, shook them and let them drop, then kicked furiously to dash paralysis fears. To the desk, but first: the mirror. It had the look of a liquid transparency, so clean and clear was the glass. Staring at it, I almost expected it to ripple, or splash like dropped mercury. My haunted face in the water of it recalled Plath’s fear of the terrible fish. Wrinkled, bloodstained dress, hollowed-out collarbone, bruised face and hedgeclippered hair. But my eyes, always black-coffee, had begun to glow blue around the edge of the iris. Electric, wild stare. Microwaved. I stood, blinking slowly, wondering if the passing over of my eyelid would erase the line. It stayed fixed: hard lapis.
INT. VELVET’S HELL—MIRROR—VELVET’S BATHROOM—TIMELESS
The Shadowman is now styled as Zorro, his black cape blowing out behind him as though he is standing in front of a giant fan. In one hand he clutches the belt that Velvet used to hang herself, and attached to the belt is Velvet herself, neck bent like a broken bird’s, limp and lifeless. He shakes her, hoists her high like dead quarry.
SHADOWMAN
Say hi little girl. Who’s your daddy?
At the desk I sat trembling and trying to pull out my eyelashes, though I had already done a thorough job of that. I poked at my morphing eyes. Their changing colours, the doom marks on my irises, had not altered my vision at all. My Hell still looked the same.
Dear Brinkley,
I must say I was thrown by your description of the circumstances that landed you here. Because of my own story, I was convinced that this was a place for suicides and axe murderers, and those who have otherwise botched their karma. But you were an innocent victim; in fact, you can’t even quite remember what happened to you. So that detonates my theory and I’m—if it’s possible—even more confused. You said that there were things you might have done to deserve this. Such as?
Like you, I was sure that this is Hell, but now that I know you’re next door, and we’re able to communicate, I’m wavering. Have we found a cosmic loophole? Is this really what it’s like to be dead? Perhaps there’s no use mowing this grass anymore, since neither of us has any idea and until something comes along to rattle our cages, we will remain among the clueless.
So you’re a banker. I relied on my Snoopy calculator for everything. I was one of the kids that took dummy math in high school—I knew the mathematics of putting together a great outfit though, which frankly helps when your teacher’s a lech and you’re trying to pass the course. I worked as a waitress at a Thai café on Commercial Drive—I lived just off of there. You’d think I would’ve picked up a few tricks of the trade, absorbed some culinary skill through osmosis, but instead I was just the café’s best customer. I really can’t cook at all. I once cooked spaghetti for my friend Davie and he had heartburn for three days, and even my Bisquick pancakes turned green. Eating was by far my most successful relationship to food.
As for my name, my mother called me Velvet. The first time she felt me kick she was hanging velvet drapes. And yes, I suffered for it. The kids at school called me Velveeta.
Maybe we’re now film stars playing out some warped chucklefest on the Devil’s movie screen. We still haven’t seen the Devil, which makes everything more terrifying. I’d take a pitchfork over nebulous evil any day. The Devil must find Kafka hysterically funny.
I wonder if there’s anyone else trapped in adjacent rooms. I keep thinking of the actor George Sanders, whose suicide note read: “Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored.”
We could be in the presence of a celebrity.
Sincerely, Velvet
P.S. My eyes appear to be turning from blackish to blue. Are you experiencing any changes in your appearance?
The pocket of dim under the bed
started to suffocate, the smell of lavender beginning to take on aerosol room spray intensity. I poked my head out from under the dust ruffle. The closet door still stood wide open, the lone hanger’s single talon gripping its perch. The sight of the empty shelves and naked bars made me think of moving day. Bereft closets have always made me feel sad. I pulled my head back to the darker side of the dust ruffle, holding my breath, and felt around the grate for a letter. My fingers moved over it compulsively, up and down, even though I knew that Brinkley wouldn’t have finished his letter yet. Or so I guessed. Without Time, it was impossible to calculate. In a Black Hole, when? is not a relevant question.
I cupped the sides of my face and brought an eye to the grate, feeling my lashes swish against metal. The bars were fitted tightly together and I strained to see through the slivers of space between them. My eye bulged with effort, searching for a glimmer of light, a moving shadow. But everything was black. Pain fireworked behind my eyes, from staring at nothing.
Rushed my head out into the light. For a moment the room was tulle-ed in a vertiginous blur. I shook my head and slithered the rest of me out from under.
I crawled to the closet. It was deep and large, made all the more so by its emptiness. The hanger twisted right and then left, over and over, almost imperceptibly, as though creating a rhythm to make up for the motionless clock. I crawled inside, ran the blade of one hand up and down the right angle of a corner. Turned and sat, hanger an overhead beacon. I thought of my red dress.
The gilt angels ’round the mirror stared at me with looks of dumb love and unhelpful innocence. Purity can be a real bitch.
The Delphi Room Page 3