Visitor in Lunacy

by Stephen Curran

  “Flies, yes. Or woodlice, or worms. All creatures. The larger ones providing more nourishment.”

  “I see. Can I ask how you came about this information?”

  “Instinct and simple scientific deduction. The concept seems so obvious now I can hardly believe it took me so long to acknowledge it.”

  We are both distracted by a scratching noise coming from under my bed. The sparrow hops into sight.

  “Birds too?” says Seward, expressing no surprise. “They have souls?”

  “Naturally.”

  A quizzical frown forms on his face: “Why is this one unable to fly, Renfield?”

  “It's wings are broken.”

  “How did they break?”

  “It is properly fed. I make sure of that.”

  “You feed it with spiders?”

  “That's correct.”

  “How did it get in here?”

  “It flew through the window.”

  “Is it your pet?”

  “Yes. My pet.”

  The wax cylinder has run out of space. Apologising for the interruption Seward sets about replacing it.

  “While you're here, doctor,” I say, “I have one more request. You have amply demonstrated your generosity by providing me with a new notebook and pencil...”

  “Go on.”

  “I should like something else to take care of. A new pet. A kitten.”

  He looks doubtful.

  “A nice, sleek, playful grey kitten,” I say. “For me to teach and feed.”

  A fly settles on the shoulder of the doctor's coat and he distractedly brushes it away: “I am sorry Renfield, but at the present time I am unsure that's going to be possible. I will see about it, though. I promise you that.”

  This answer fills me with a sudden, hot rage. Who is this little boy to refuse me? I should grab him by his fragile throat and crack his head against the table, thrust my thumbs into his eye sockets and smash his skull. I remind myself to be calm. There is much to be achieved first.

  The doctor stirs, unsettled. It seems I was too slow in keeping my emotions from my face. Hoping to repair the damage I offer him a smile but he is already gathering his folders and getting to his feet: “Two more days to clean all this filth up, Renfield. Thank you for your time.”

  Leaving his machine to be collected by the attendants he goes out into the corridor where he is obstructed by Hardy, who asks if he has a moment to spare. I lie back on my bed and listen.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “All this talk of a plague on its way, sir. I wanted to ask if you thought there was anything in it, being an educated man. My wife's beside herself with worry.”

  “A plague? It's possible, of course, but I doubt it.”

  “Our grocer was taken ill just a few days ago.”

  “Hardly an uncommon occurrence, is it?”

  “No, but still. Mrs Hardy has hung a charm by the baby's cot, just to be safe.”

  “With respect, Mr Hardy, do you honestly suppose a few scraps of scented ribbon can repel a disease? You shouldn't worry so much. It sounds to me as if the only infection being passed around is superstition. One individual gets it in their head that a terrible plague is coming and soon enough the fear is repeated in the imagination of their neighbours, and their neighbours after that. Use the charm if it comforts you but don't waste your energy fretting. Tell your wife everything will be fine.”

  It is once night has fallen and my door has been locked that I suffer another influx of light.

  ٭

  When I regain consciousness I am on the floor, on my front with my head to one side. My chair has been tipped over and my mattress upturned. I take a deep breath and resolve to stay perfectly still until I am healthy and safe.

  Without warning a sudden contraction grips my stomach, so painful it pulls my body into a tight ball. It is impossible to call for help.

  When the agony resides I struggle to my hands and knees, knowing I am about to vomit. Has Hardy administered some kind of strong emetic while I was knocked out? I puke with such violence I am afraid I might bring up my insides: once, twice. Almost too scared to look I open my watery eyes. A green and red mess covers my hands and the floor. Blinking, I see strange shapes mixed up in the liquid. It takes a few moments before I make out what they are. Feathers, claws, and a beak.

  Another contraction strikes and I roll onto my side. I barely recognise the sounds my throat has begun to produce as my own. A long high wail, an animal in distress. It is hard to breathe. What have I been doing while I was unconscious? Did I become something less than human?

  The night watcher is in the room, trying to hold me down and calling for assistance. I fight against him but my body is weak. Once I have been restrained a second man enters, then a third: a physician with a briefcase. After rolling up the sleeve of my nightgown he slips a needle into the crook of my arm. Then, nothing.

  … I am looking down at what appears to be a scaled down model of my room, with four walls but no ceiling. The bed has been intricately constructed using thin sticks tied together with woollen threads. The upturned chair is made from trimmed matches and a bottle cap. By the door sits the spider box, now no larger than my thumb nail. A low, persistent wind blows outside.

  A small bundle of rags shifts on the floor. Regarding it closely I recognise it as a miniature version of myself, dressed in a nightgown. Oblivious to my gaze my tiny doppelganger gets to his feet, replaces the chair in the centre of the floor and sits down.

  Something raps on the window shutter, three times in quick succession: knock, knock, knock. Lost in his thoughts, Little Renfield seems not to hear. The rapping comes again. This time he looks up but does not move. For a long time there is no sound except the deep rumbling of the wind. Finally there follows a third set of raps.

  “Go away,” we say, both Little Renfield and I. Turning his back on the shutter he covers his ears with his hands.

  The rapping turns to scratching, travelling slowly down from the window to the outside of the wall, then beneath the floor. Resisting whatever force pushes against them the boards bend and creak. The bulge inches this way and that, searching for a weak spot. Blocking it out, Little Renfield stares ahead until eventually the shape moves under the bed and falls silent.

  Something is emerging from beneath the sheets: a child's hand and forearm. Terrified, Little Renfield jumps up, toppling his chair, and runs towards the intruder, shouting and kicking wildly. Before he can make contact the hand pulls back and vanishes. Slowing backing away, Renfield retrieves his chair and sits down again, fidgeting with the material of his nightgown.

  Another hand is reaching out from closer to the head of the bed. It is joined by a third, then a forth. Soon there are more than twenty slender hands extending slowly into the room. Little Renfield grabs the bottle-cap chair and launches it at them. Acting as one, they retract and disappear.

  More scratching and scuffling and the bulge below the floorboards rolls out from under the bed then back up outside the window shutter. Over the sound of the wind come three distinct raps: knock, knock, knock.

  Little Renfield has been taunted enough. In one swift and decisive movement he paces bravely to the shutter and flings it open, revealing nothing but the dark blue of the night sky. Relieved, he bends down and rests his hands on his knees.

  All at once the model begins to shake. Dozens of children are scaling the outside walls. They wear dirty long-johns and have wild hair and long fingernails and sharp teeth. Over the top they clamber, into the room, joining streams of other children from through the window and beneath the bed, hundreds of them. Little Renfield cowers, uselessly putting up a defence as they rush ceaselessly toward him. They claw and bite at his shivering body, his arms, his chest, his neck.

  Unnoticed in the corner, the spider box flips open, as if the lid has been yanked by an invisible thread. From within a huge, hairy, searching limb appears: the leg of a spider, large from my perspective but immense within the con
fines of the model. Improbably the creature manages to squeeze its swollen abdomen through the gap and crawls towards the ever growing pile of children, its legs tapping and twitching. Little Renfield is buried, his screams no longer audible.

  A flare of brilliant white blinds me before I am once again plunged into a void...

  … Much, much later a single pin point of light appears, unique in the expanse. In time, a second light appears, orange tinged and wavering. It is warm and friendly, a presence reassuring enough to quell my fears. I try to lift my hand to my face but I cannot find it. No hand. No face. No body at all. Only two lights and nothingness.

  Gradually – so, so gradually – I become aware that the expanse is not empty at all but filled by a vast and multicoloured array of stars. Constellations of every imaginable shape and size begin to reveal themselves. A whole universe around and within me. All of creation, all time, all of a piece.

  One of the stars is significantly brighter than the others, like a marker or a waypoint. If I concentrate I can see it is becoming brighter still, slowly gathering strength... No, not gathering strength, but drawing closer.

  If it is coming to meet me it has a long way to travel. Its progress is so slight it is barely discernible. More than a millennium passes before it has even doubled in size. I am content to wait. Having no body I cannot grow old, or fall ill, or die. In every direction stars are born and are extinguished, while solar systems swell and disperse: as if the universe is breathing.

  Countless lifetimes go by. I begin to make out a shape in the approaching star. The object is not circular as I had thought, but humanoid. By the time it has completed a quarter of its journey I can see it is a naked woman, silvery skinned with straight black hair hanging over her shoulders. Halfway closer still and I see she is opening and closing her mouth, as if she is singing, although she is too far away for me to hear her voice. For this I must wait another billion years.

  Only when she is close enough, when I am looking into her glazed milky white eyes and can feel her breath on my face, am I rewarded with a sound so quiet as to be almost undetectable but still entirely human. It is pure and intelligent and achingly beautiful.

  On she comes and nothing is left in my field of vision but her mouth, her perfect white teeth and glistening tongue. Compared to her I am nothing: bacteria; a mote of dust. At the back of her throat I glimpse something unexpected: a black polished shape like a beetle's shell. This, too, draws closer as the woman envelopes me, taking the whole of me inside her cavernous mouth. I was mistaken: it is not a shell but the horn of a phonograph, the source of the singing voice. The sound is so unguarded and simple it breaks my heart.

  At length the mouth of the horn swallows me too and I am left hanging in emptiness with nothing but the song. Finally it weakens and dies, as all things must...

  … The smell of burning coal. I am in my chair at home by the hearth. David is sat opposite me, a glass of wine in one hand and his cherry-wood pipe in the other. Outside the window fog swirls under the street lights. Miss Morley clatters pans in the kitchen downstairs.

  “David,” I say.

  He has aged little since we last met. His hair is as untameable and his eyebrows as arched as ever. Lit by the crackling fire he breaks into an easy smile.

  “David,” I say. “I'm so glad you're here.”

  He looks as if he is about to reply but thinks better of it. Again he smiles, more to himself than to me. Somehow sensing I may not be here for very long I resolve to make the most of my visit and settle into my old familiar seat, enjoying the leather creaking under my weight. A full glass of red is waiting for me on the table. I pick it up and take a sip. Outside, the fog continues to swirl.

  David coughs to get my attention and nods at something over my shoulder. I ask him what he wants me to do. He nods again.

  Looking behind me I see a large mahogany wardrobe taken from my bedroom, crammed into the corner and completely blocking the bookshelves.

  “Did you move that? Thank you, but I think I preferred it where it was. It's of no use to me here.”

  My companion takes the pipe from his mouth and points the stem at the round-cornered doors.

  “You want me to open it?”

  I get up, cross the rug and take hold of the brass handles. A formidable presence waits for me within, something dark and heavy, something massive enough to distort time. I brace myself and pull.

  What confronts me is a solid wall of mud. A scattering of loose dirt falls to the carpet but otherwise it is packed in tightly, filling the space's every inch. I look to David for an explanation but he is busy savouring his tobacco and displays no interest. I scratch the surface with my forefinger and more dirt falls away. Diligently rolling up my shirt sleeves I briefly notice a small puncture wound in the crook of my arm. Then I grab a fistful and let it drop. Miss Morley will be angry with me in the morning but I have no choice. Using of both hands now I dig out a hole. Before I know it I am up to my elbows, then my shoulders, burrowing like a dog and pushing towards the back. When the hole is sufficiently wide I place my knee on its lip and haul myself inside.

  The glossy mud reaches farther than I had anticipated, far beyond where the bookshelves should be. Soon I am able to stretch my entire body out flat with no trouble at all. More and more deeply I delve, excavating as I go, the tunnel collapsing in my wake. I dig around rocks, and pipes, and the roots of trees. Then, just as I think I will never come to the end, I see sunlight.

  The soil around my fingers crumbles away and fresh air rushes in. With surprising ease I am able to lift myself from the ground, disoriented to find I have been digging not horizontally, but vertically. Brambles scratch my head and torso as I push through them. The dirt on my face is too thick for me to see but wherever I am the air is damp and cool. Once I am free I take a few deep breaths then wipe my eyes.

  I am under a darkening sky, surrounded by tall trees. My clothes are torn and caked with mud. My hands are bleeding. I wonder how far I am from a town or a place where I can shelter. Looking down at my feet I see I have lost my shoes and socks. I clench my toes and release, clench and release.

  I see am being watched. Two children stand in the low lying fog, a boy and a girl, roughly twelve years of age. The girl has black curly hair and wears a white dress. The boy is athletically built with a long face, like my father's. Taking fright on encountering me – a broken-down, bleeding vagrant in the woods – the girl turns and flees. Before following her, the boy meets my eyes, communicating a flicker of vague recognition.

  I am alone and the light is dying fast. From somewhere on my right comes a familiar noise, like the snapping of fingers or the clucking of a tongue. Turning towards it I see nothing but a dense veil of mist. Could my senses be deceiving me? Are these just the natural sounds of the forest reflecting from the trees? I look again and the mist is clearing, partly unveiling what I first take to be an enormous and muscular black dog, the size of a horse. The mist thickens and the shape changes.

  Stepping towards me is an elderly man, seven foot tall at the least, with agile, slender limbs and a long white moustache hanging down either side of his mouth. His skin is pale, his lips are red. His costume is speckless, black from head to toe. With his manifestation comes a powerful smell of rotting vegetation. I know who he is. We have met before.

  “Poor Renfield,” he says, a simple expression of sympathy that brings me trembling and weeping to my knees. He speaks but doesn't speak. “Do you know my name?”

  I do. I have known it for as long as I can remember.

  “It is time. Do you understand?”

  I understand completely and with all my heart.

  Without a sound he treads through the brambles, the silver top of a wooden cane in his hand. The ground beneath his feet ripples like water. All around, the birds of the forest have woken and are calling to each other.

  “I know how hard this has been for you. I know what you have endured, how terribly you suffered. Look at you. Humilia
ted, foul, unable even to speak.”

  I look into the old man's eyes. They are shining, black and inscrutable, like those of a sea creature.

  “I promise you though, it has not been for nothing. As gruelling as your trials have been, they were necessary to lead you here.”

  Placing his arms around my neck he draws me to him, laying his cold cheek to mine and murmuring into my ear. The birds are in a frenzy, their squawks a dreadful cacophony.

  “Soon,” he says. “Soon you will be magnificent.”

  PART THREE

  I clear away the rotting food and release the blowflies. The spiders I tip out of the window from their wooden box, watching them tumbling sideways, carried by the wind. Their purpose – to teach me about the sustenance one living animal can gain from consuming another – has been served. I have no further need for them. On the distant horizon the thin line of trees look black against the grey sky.

  I feel healthy and purged. It excites me to imagine what might happen now. What form will the next stage of my renewal take? Am I to be sent instructions, by means of another vision, or thought transference? Or will my course be signposted by gifts, just as happened with the spiders and the sparrow? If I am impatient it is only because I am keen to do my saviour's bidding. I am sure he understands. I shove the box in the bottom of my wardrobe.

  When Seward arrives I am sat on the edge of my bed trying to empty my mind of thoughts, hoping to prevent the obstruction of any psychic communications. Disappointingly, my request for a pot of green tea instead of dinner was ignored and I was given chicken and vegetables. I ate the vegetables but left the meat, finding I could barely stand to have it on my plate: a dead lump in thin gravy, decaying from the moment the animal was killed, providing no nourishment at all.

  “Thank you for cleaning up your room as I asked.”