Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  The old man had watched everything from the viewing screen in his cabin and both he and the blank-faced man had heard every word the other two men had spoken.

  “A nut!” the old man said. “This is delightful! Absolutely delightfully! They were such bright young men, and show such promise. In a few years they will make very good agents. Fortunately for us, we have them now at the beginning of their apprenticeships. Two months. That should give me just about enough time. Just enough time. Two months. Before two months are up, I should have you walking out of here.”

  February 27th, 1943

  The same cabin somewhere near Pike’s Peak

  The old man removed the needle from the arm of the blank-faced man, and covered the access wound with a cotton swab, taping the swab down to the blank-faced man’s arm. The needle was at the end of a liquid feeding tube which led to a rubber bag which, in turn, hung from a steel stand on wheels. The old man always brought this medical equipment through the door of the cabin when he used it on the blank-faced man. When he was finished with it, he always rolled it back out. The blank-faced man did not know where the old man was getting the equipment, but he guessed it was probably from some other cabin hidden nearby in the woods. The old man had been feeding the blank-faced man intravenously for the past month.

  “Good news,” the old man said. “I just finished examining your latest x-rays. Those fractures in your neck, back, legs, and arms, have completely healed. I’m going to cut off all those plaster casts there, take that board out from under you, and sit you up in bed. You can start taking a liquid diet now from a straw. You’re a week or less away from taking solid food. Once I get you on some solid foods, lots of fresh vegetables and fruits and some protein, we will start seeing some dramatic results. But before I cut you out of your casts, I want to get you down to the pyramid for another treatment.”

  The old man rolled the intravenous stand with the rubber bag across the floor of the cabin and out the door. He was gone for several minutes. He then came back in pulling his sled into the room.

  “Now the hard part,” the old man said. “Got to get you down on this sled again for the umpteenth time. It got easier for a while when you started loosing all that weight. Now it’s getting harder again, now that you’re gaining your weight back.”

  The old man took hold of the board under the blank-faced man and began slowly pulling it off the end of the bed. As the blank-faced man on the board slid off the end of the bed, the part of the board under him tipped up off the bed, the end of the bed acting as the fulcrum of a teeter-totter. The part of the board under the blank-faced man’s feet dipped down toward the floor. The old man took this lower end of the board and guided it on to the top of the sled. He carefully continued to guide the board, with the blank-faced man tied on top of it, until he had slid it all the way down on top of the sled. He then tied the blank-faced man and the board under him directly to the sled. When he had finished the task of tying, he stopped, wiped his brow, and let out a “shuew!”

  “That’s a job,” the old man said. “Ten years ago it wouldn’t have been, but it is for me now. I’m not what I used to be. Gotta sit down a minute.”

  The old man sat down in his chair.

  “I had some anti-gravity clamps three years ago,” the old man said, “but they burned out on me, and I never saw a reason to get them repaired, I didn’t need them anymore, and I had more important things to do than to spend time repairing them. Wished I had taken the time to fix them now. Oh, well, we can’t foresee everything, can we? I don’t have time to fix them now either. I bet I ought to fix them, just because I don’t think I need to. I’ll let ‘em go. Can’t do everything. All right, I think I’ve got my wind back. Sure wish my dog was still alive. Her name was ‘Beauty.’ She was a German Shepard. The best dog I’ve ever had, best dog I’ve ever seen anywhere. I named her after a friend of mine’s dog who was also named ‘Beauty.’ His Beauty was also a remarkable dog. It’s been mighty lonesome since my Beauty passed away, but not so bad since I brought you here. We’ve had some mighty fascinating conversations, you and I, mighty fascinating. Yes, I’ve got my wind back.”

  The old man stood up, and took hold of a rope tied to one end of the sled. He threw the rope over his shoulder, turned around, and began walking toward the door, pulling the sled after him.

  The old man emerged from the cabin and pulled the blank-faced man on the sled on through the door, and then continued walking down the path to the stone pyramid, pulling the blank-faced man after him.

  They got to the stone pyramid. Its door already stood open and the old man walked right on through it to the interior of the pyramid, pulling the blank-faced man on the sled inside the pyramid as well. When he got the blank-faced man inside, the old man stopped, dropped the rope and turned around.

  “Are you all right?” the old man asked. He looked down at the blank-faced man who blinked once.

  “Good,” the old man said. He then reached up to the interior stone wall of the pyramid with both of his hands, grasped the irregular, rough-hewn rock of the wall, and pulled on it. A section of the rock wall came away in the old man’s hands. It was nothing more than a thin, cardboard façade covered with plaster of Paris and painted to give the exact appearance of granite rock. If one were to run one’s hand across this surface, it would have given the tactile sensation of being solid rock. If one were to tap on it, with one’s knuckles, it would have given the impression of sustaining the mechanical force which solid rock could sustain. But if one were to make a fist and punch the wall, one’s fist would break right through. The cardboard façade was meant to fool the eye, and perhaps the touch of the hand of one who was casually curious— curious like the two men had been who had visited earlier; it was not meant to serve as a barrier impervious to physical breaking.

  The old man proceeded to reach up and remove other sections of the cardboard and plaster wall. He would stack each section on top of the other in a precise nest, as he had carefully designed them to be stacked. When he had finished, the cardboard partitions formed two neatly nested stacks in one corner of the room. The rest of the real interior of the pyramid now stood revealed as a sophisticated laboratory with a number of consoles fabricated into the real stone walls.

  The old man went over to one of the consoles and flipped a switch. An electrical hum began to sound.

  “Going to begin a new series of treatments today,” the old man said. “We’ll be using sound as well as electrical and etheric waves. I’m going to place a small pyramid around you. Its made of a dielectric that will regulate, focus, and counter-rotate all the energy acting on your body through this larger stone pyramid above you.”

  The old man went through the door of the pyramid and was gone for several more minutes. When he returned, he entered the door carrying what appeared to be a triangular sheet of glass, like a large window pane. He leaned this glass-like sheet against an interior wall of the pyramid. He went out and came back in three more times, each time carrying another triangular glass-like sheet, all the sheets exactly the same size and dimensions. He stacked all these transparent sheets on top of each other where they leaned against the interior wall of the pyramid. Then he went out once more and brought in some long strips of metal. When he opened the strips out, they formed a pyramidal framework in the middle of the room. Then, one by one, he took each transparent sheet and lay it down upon the metal framework to form a glass-like pyramid. Before he set into place the fourth and final sheet, he pushed the sled, with the blank-faced man strapped on top of it, inside the structure he had created. Then he went over, picked up the last transparent sheet, and brought it over and set the fourth and final sheet in place, closing off the blank-faced man inside.

  The old man went over to another console, adjusted some dials, and then closed a switch. The interior chamber of the stone pyramid suddenly reverberated with the low, sweet sounds of music, music composed of notes made by some unknown instrument. It was not organ music, nor was it
the strings of a harp, nor was it the blast of horns. The blank-faced man had never heard the music before, or the sound of its instrument. The music played on, developing a theme. It was in the diatonic scale. Other than that, the blank-faced man could not describe the music, nor recognize it or categorize it.

  The old man closed another switch. The surface of the glass-like pyramid began to glow with blue electric light. Then white arms of electricity began crawling over its surface, moving downward from the pyramid’s apex to its base. The arms began to twist laterally as they moved downward so that a spiral cascade of white electric bolts flowed down the sides of the pyramid, like a spiral cascade of water. Then, inside, the pyramid, the whole figure of the blank-faced man, a figure almost totally encased in plaster casts, began to radiate a blue glow. Then the blue glow itself began to rotate and twist upward in the air above the blank-faced man to form a funnel shape that terminated at the inside apex of the glass-like pyramid.

  The blank-faced man watched the spiral ballet of electrical energies moving above him on the pyramid’s transparent surface and in the air. He suddenly noticed that the motion and tempo of the light phenomena was synchronized with the music. Light and sound was a single, unified pattern of energy. Then he could suddenly feel that unified pattern of energy tingling all along the length of his body from head to toe; and then, in another moment, he felt that same pattern of energy enter his muscles and veins— and bones. It felt suddenly as if his whole body had expanded to fill the entire interior of the glass-like pyramid. He could feel the rotation of energy turning from a central point inside of his chest— his heart— and he could feel the arms of that rotation all the way to the transparent surface above him.

  “That’s fine,” the old man said, peering down through one of the transparent sheets to where the blank-faced man lay. “The treatment is actively in progress. I’m giving you a two hour session here today. Like that music? It’s great, isn’t it? It’s entitled ‘The Song of True Love,’ and was composed by Karchapal, a great doctor in Atlantis fourteen thousand five hundred years ago. The song was used in all their healing temples for centuries. Just listen to it. I love it. I could listen to it all day. That song has wisdom. Great wisdom. True love. Men have always searched for it. What is it? Can I find it? Is it real? Am I worthy of it? What is required that I might gain the treasure? True love. The only thing worth having. The thing that drives us forward, that feeds and nourishes our souls and our bodies. True love. That’s right. I know you’re hearing the song’s words. They’re healing you from the inside out. Keep hearing the words. Keep receiving the words. In your body. In your mind. In your soul. Keep receiving the words.”

  March 24th, 1943

  The Same Cabin Somewhere near Pike’s Peak

  The blank-faced man was sitting up in bed. He was cleanly shaved and his hair was neatly trimmed and combed. But he was still very gaunt, and his face, never expressive of emotion, was lined with exhaustion. But his eyes were steady with resolve. He was watching the old man who had just come back into the cabin and sat down at his chair by the fireplace. The sun had just set, but they had already finished eating their dinner. The blank-faced man had been spoon-fed by the old man. With his plaster casts removed, the blank-faced man could move his body slightly, but he still could not lift his arms, move his legs, nor could he talk. His vocal cords were paralyzed.

  The old man said, “You’re making good progress. Not as good of a progress as I had hoped, but I’m always overly optimistic— just part of my nature I guess. And I don’t allow myself disappointment either. I just move on. So we’ll just move on, keep moving on. I’ll tell you this, you’ve come far further than you ever would have in the hands of a state-licensed doctor, and you know that, too.”

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  “Not that those city doctors down there don’t have their good points,” the old man said. “Most of them do a great deal of good for a great many. And most of them try their very best. But they are sorely limited in their abilities. And you know that the powers that be would never allow the things I know and can do to get into the hands of civilian doctors. They’ve decided to sacrifice the health of the public to their larger aims. That evil is not my battle, but it should be somebody’s battle, it seems. For myself, I’ve got too much to concern myself with seeing to you and continuing to pursue my own work and goals.”

  The blank-faced man thought: What is your work, old man? And what are your goals?

  “Well, this is a special day, my friend. Very special day. I was going to make a cake— can you believe that? Make a cake! Isn’t that silly. Why, I haven’t ever made a cake in all my life, but I suppose I could do it. I’ve learned how to do a few other difficult things in my time. I was going to make the cake because today’s my birthday. You think that’s vain, don’t you? Well, it is. But I thought it would be nice for you and me to celebrate my birthday in some way as well as celebrate your continuing recovery. But— we’ve had so much to do today, and then— I took a look at our food stores and saw that I didn’t have enough flour left in the bag to powder my face white. So— I let the cake go. But I’ve got this candle here, and I’m going to light it— just like— that. There. A lit candle— one candle to represent my sixty-nine years of life. That’s my birthday. That’s my birthday. It’s grand. It’s great. Why, it’s a pure miracle. And this is your re-birthday. And it, too, is grand and great and a pure miracle. Great and beautiful and wonderful. No cake, but we have candlelight and air to breathe and…air to breathe! That reminds me! The Houdini book! I left off reading it. Oh, we’ve got to get back to that, don’t we?”

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  “You want me to keep on reading it?” the old man asked.

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  “All right,” the old man said, rising from his seat. He went over to the chest of drawers, opened the bottom drawer, and took out the Houdini journal. He closed the drawer, went back to his seat with the journal and sat down. He opened up the Houdini journal.

  “Now let’s see,” the old man said, turning the journal’s pages. “Where were we?”

  The old man turned a few more pages, and then stopped.

  “Oh, yes,” the old man said. “Right here. Houdini is deep under the sea and is being strangled to death by his own air tube! Oh, ho! That’s rich! I guess that’s supposed to be ironic or something. The thing that gives him life also gives him death— I get it, you get it, anybody would get it. Oh, ho! He’s building himself up again! The man has no shame. Do you really think something like that happened? I mean, I’d buy the time machine claim before I’d buy the air tube choking him to death! Ha, ha, ha, ha! But this is good. It’s very entertaining. Just like a picture show— one of Houdini’s old moving pictures. Hey! Maybe that’s what this is— an idea for a cinema screenplay— ‘Houdini Battles Mars!’ That would make a good comic book, too. Kids would love it. I like to read comic books. Do you?”

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  “Thought you would,” the old man said. “Well, let’s get back to the story. Our hero, Houdini, is twisted up in his own air tube deep in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. He’s choking to death. Can he get out? Will he get out? What a cliffhanger! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! We know he’ll get out— he wrote this book! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Let’s see how he gets out— ‘Houdini— Battles— the Martians!’— ‘Part Two’!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Chrysalis

  “I am strong, as you see; strong in flesh,

  but my will has been stronger than my flesh.

  I have struggled with iron and steel, with

  locks and chains; I have burned, drowned, and

  frozen till my body has become almost insensible

  to pain; I have done things which rightly I could

  not do, because I said to myself, ‘You must’; and

  now I am old at 36. A man is only a man, and the

  flesh revenges itself.”

  Ho
udini

  I was suffocating to death.

  In pitch-blackness, broken only at intervals by flashes of reddish light, my body twisted in an agonizing frenzy. My air tube had tightened about me from above the helmet of my diving suit to below the boots which encased my feet. My left hand was pinned tightly against the metal breastplate on my dry suit. My right arm was cinched tightly to my side. Without air continuously filling my suit, the pressure of the sea around me would soon crush me to death.

  Never before in all my life had I felt such agonizing despair and panic. I had not been bound by some county sheriff, or some mechanic; my bonds had been applied by a mysterious force emanating from some inhuman mind. Was the force of my challenger superior to my feeble human powers? Doubt— self doubt— racked my frame with a sickening tremor.

  And I had declared myself to my challenger— that monstrous head which I had seen floating above the bell-shaped object— declared myself as ‘Houdini,’ and I had been met with only a contemptuous ‘yes’. ‘Houdini’ meant nothing to this bodiless thing of the deeps. Now, after the utterance of that one word ‘yes’, only static filled the thin air of my helmet. I felt that the static sounds would be the last thing I would experience in this life. But I was quite mistaken.

  Somewhere— I know not from where— but from somewhere very deep I felt a kind of power surging up from inside of me. This power was me and not me. I had felt it many times before, but thought of it as a fictional creation of my imagination. This power was actually ‘Houdini’. Perhaps I created ‘Houdini’ long ago, or perhaps this force found its way into me and assumed the name of ‘Houdini’. Perhaps this force is in us all, but lies asleep until it is summoned with a name which we create for it. My name for it was ‘Houdini’. It was my true will, not my instinct, not my beliefs, not my desires, nor my fears— it was me, myself, willing what I would will.