My top hat was swiftly replaced with a burlap sack as it covered my head and was tied tightly around my neck. I could feel the breath of the bears on my pants leg and at my ankles. I was still lifted from the ground, my heels dug into the path of dirt below. Whomever was holding me aloft began dragging me backwards, or forwards as it was the direction I was intending to travel initially. My heels carved two thin canals in their wake. I hadn’t considered it at the time, but when he called me, Mate, I should have known. The Fool Assassin.
As I was being dragged along, I finally passed out, and it was night by the time I awoke. I was in a barn or a cabin, I couldn't be sure which. I could see from the window I was still amongst the forest of daisies.
A fan made of old propellers was centered in the ceiling connected to a pulley system which made it spin. I turned my head to one side, to see the floor drop off into the bear pit dug out from the floor. Fearing I was suspended atop a beam, I carefully looked to my other side. My vertigo subsided as I was reassured to see I was on firm ground. To my left was more of a refined area, seemingly cabin-like. One half seemed to be a hunting cabin. The bear pit to my right was just a holding cell, built deep into the ground, somehow exiting behind the house.
The smell hit me. It was fishy and rancid. I coughed as the taste of the air hit the back of my throat. My side twitched with pain, but I could tell it was better than before; now bandaged and healing. I lifted myself up on my elbows and looked around the cabin, a large wood-burning stove on one side, the door center, and on the other side, a fireplace. At the fireplace sat The Fool Assassin in an old elm rocking chair, tilting forwards and back. The rolling elm atop the wooden floor boards was mesmerizing and eerily calming. Not nearly enough to dismiss the fact that I was a potentially dying old man stuck between a sleuth of bears and a trigger-happy, bumbling psychopath.
He held his rifle laid across his lap.
“You awake, mate?” He grumbled. He turned to see me up on my elbows. I looked in his direction to acknowledge him. I was to be slow and calculated this time.
He revealed he had my notebook, “Interesting stuff, here, Monocle. Barely understand a word of it, but seems interesting.”
I smirked and gave a slight nod, my eyes closing gently. There was a lull that remained all too awkward. “Thank you for helping me,” I broke my silence as I smiled faintly.
“I’m the one who shot you down, mate.” He stood up from his chair and walked over to me, knelt down beside me. “You believe in luck, Doc? You believe in miracles? You think randomosity is well on your side?” He smiled widely and laughed a hacking cough. “I thought you were long gone, mate. I really did, you know. I thought I lost that bounty. Once you went down into The Chasm, the chase was over, mate. I wasn’t going with them after you. No sir. No way.”
The Fool Assassin sat down beside me. He took off his top hat and placed it beside him. “I hung out around the outskirts of The Chasm, bought me some bears. You ever ‘ave bears, mate?”
I shook my head gently.
“Bears’ll tear ye apart, mate, that’s why you’ve got to train ‘em,” The Fool reasoned, “I bought ‘em already trained, see.” He pulled a flask from the inside of his jacket and took a long drink. He offered me the flask, but I could already smell it on his breath when he sat down: Onion milk. The juice from one fresh swelt onion and a jug of milk mixed and left to sit in the sun. There’s a further process of further extraction of juices and liquids which results in a foul alcoholic milk concoction, the swelt onion’s hallucinogenic properties coming to during fermentation.
I respectfully declined. An off batch of onion milk could make a man insane. He took another sip.
“I bought me these bears. Was four of ‘em. I had to kill one. The others ate it. Anyway... I was going to use the bears to track you. But just my luck, Monocle, there you is... boarding that airship. We followed by steamdriver through the desert. I tracked your flight and hit you when you was closest to the forest. Damn fine shot, if I do say so. When I got to the airship, everybody was dead and you was gone. Bears, matey. Me bears tracked ya’ down. The scent of your blood, matey. I chased ya’ down, I did. Took you back ‘ere.”
“I’m still alive, you’ve kept me alive,” I said flatly.
“The bounty’s changed. Now maybe it’s a ransom,” he smiled his rotten toothy grin, the onion strong on his breath. “And I’m certain someone would pay a pretty coin for you. Maybe if you don’t make it, I’ll just feed you to the bears. I’d like to see the look on your face. A bear at each corner and tearing ya limb from limb. Ya’ eva' study what ‘appens when a man gets tore limb from limb? Ya eva’ study that, professor? How long you think ya live with bears chompin’ down on ya?”
I wasn’t about to let his tone rattle me. I wasn’t about to cave in and begin to think it was all over. I sat up steadily. The pain was far less than I imagined it was going to be, but just a quick splitting pain.
“So who wanted me gone in the first place?”
“Who didn’t? Believe that, mate?” He snorted.
“I do,” I sat up and stretched as best I could. “What about the others? Dorothy Shelton? Anna? Whatever her name.”
“Old Dots?” He smiled, “Anna, she’s me sister. I’m her bruvva. The rest of ‘em? The League of Ornery Bedfellows. Whatever that is. I guess you could call us bad tidings upon the aether.” He paused and his demeanor changed coldly, “You know how many times I tried killing you?”
I looked at him and his face was for once portraying a look of seriousness bordering on anger. And for a moment he seemed genuinely hurt. Though behind it all was a deeply broken man overtaken by madness and a thirst for death.
“If you’re apologizing, you’re not doing a very good job.” I said dryly.
He then began to laugh something terrible.
I looked around the place, it was as I had noticed; a cabin, the back dug down deep, a pit for the bears. All that seemed to be up front was us, a barrel by the wall, a cot, a lamp atop a small crate on the other wall. There were windows on either side of the door. I could see it was dark out, even for dense daisy cover.
“Help me up, would you, please?” I asked him and he obliged. As soon as I was standing, he sat on the floor, lazing. He sipped from his flask and drew invisible circles on the wood of the floor with his middle finger.
The splitting pain in my side was fair and manageable, far from debilitating. I limped to ease the ache. My hand instinctively covering the area above my hip that stung with a burning lash. I gestured toward the barrel, “Dinner?”
“Aye. For me bears.” He sat on the floor, legs crossed, hunched over.
I allowed a trifle sniff, “Salmon. A little past its prime,” I smirked through the pain instead of wincing and I found a place within myself that was steady and calm, “I won’t allow you to kill me.” I turned to him and made sure he looked up at me and repeated my stance, “I simply won’t.”
The Fool Assassin grinned a maliciously thick beaming smile and took a healthy swig from his flask, “Don’t worry, ol’ mate, I’m not gonna kill ya’. Oh, no. I’m gonna let you get a wee tad better. And then I’m gonna hurt you again. Day after day, for as long as I feel like keeping you alive. Each day, it’s gonna get worse.”
This wasn’t one of the ways I had in mind when planning a retirement. I always thought the most torturous thing I would have to deal with was boredom. This presented a terrible challenge. Hours ago I thought I was merely dying. I was surprised to wake up alive and feel better. Now that I was going to be brought near-death whenever this Fool grew bored, I’d rather have died, but since I now wished to live, I felt I must do away with this nasty predicament. My head was spinning. He was drunk on hallucinogenic milk and mad to boot, while I was and old man crippled with pain. The fight seemed hardly fair.
“Well,” I started, “what do you have planned for me?”
He looked up from the floor slowly. His pupils were thick black saucers as deep as pure night.
His mouth, agape, slowly formed into a dopey smile, “I guess I starts with your feet, mate. So you can’t runs away.” He giggled a bit. “Then we’ll find out who wants you. And then slowly we’ll starts sending pieces of you to them, up the ante, like.” He stayed quiet and then laughed a bit more.
I could hear the wind outside blow through the tall daisies. It was a constant reminder that I had to get myself on the other side of these cabin walls. I stood by the barrel of rotting salmon. It was terribly foul. The smell of it, though, took my mind away from the pain in my side, oddly enough.
“I can tell you who to contact exactly for whatever you want,” I tried enticing him.
“That’s not the game!” He screamed. “That’s not the game! That’s not the game! That’s not the game! That’s not how I play! My rules! My game!” He seemed on a mad tear from out of nowhere. The onion milk was hitting him hard. He shouted as he smacked his fists into his thighs as he sat there on the floor.
There would be no enticing him. There would certainly be no reasoning with him. He stared at me for an awkward amount of time before looking back down to the wooden planks of the floor.
I leaned my back up against the wall to rest. His screaming and raving unnerved me slightly just by the sheer surprise.
“Melville,” I said softly.
He looked up instantly. It was a chance and a risk, but I had remembered the oculargraphic Anna kept and it made me think it was him. By the look he gave me, it was indeed his name.
I continued, “Melville, I want you to listen to me, they’ll be after you soon enough.”
He tried interrupting, “How do you know my name?”
I ignored his question, “You shot down a Clockwork Foundation airship, Melville. They're expecting that airship at port tonight. Many people are going to notice an airship missing, not to mention its captain, Melville, are you prepared to deal with the implications of what is to come?”
He squinted as he stared at my mouth.
“In fact, they’re probably looking by now, Melville. And when they find the captain’s log with my name written in it, Melville, it will start to get really serious. Do you understand, Melville?” As I bombarded him with questions and got overly-excited, I felt a sharp pain, like a searing-hot stitch in my wound. I tried to shake it off and continue with The Fool, I took a soft approach once again, “Melville, you’ve done something very bad. Soon enough, though, they’ll find you here. Who knows what they’ll do to you when they find you? I doubt it will be a simple arrest. I’ll have told them everything. They’ll judge you before you can make a single sound to defend yourself.”
“Stop it,” he whimpered quietly.
“Melville, what do you think they’ll do to you?” I asked him. “I’ll try, but I’m probably not going to be able to do anything about them hurting you. And you know they will hurt you.”
“If you’re not here, you can’t tell them anything!” He drank everything that was left in his flask and he stood up from the ground and swayed gently. He tossed the flask haphazardly and gave a good belch.
I stepped forward and stood tall, “Melville, sit down. Just wait for them to come get you.” I demanded him with a gruff bark that I’m not sure registered in his brain.
“I need to erase you.” He mumbled. “I need to erase you like you never was. I need to erase you like a mistake.”
“Melville,” I tried getting his attention.
“Why are you calling me that?” He seemed dumbfounded and his demeanor changed once again. From somewhere primal an inner rage seeped to the surface. “Done for, mate! I’m sorry, mate! I’m sorry!” He screamed and cried. He paced in a short span of area at the other end of the room. He seemed to be hyperventilating.
The bears in the pit seemed to be getting unruly as well. They became as agitated as their keeper. Perhaps they could sense his unease and frustration. They growled and they huffed.
I could feel his intensity grow, I could sense it upon the aether as if it were a tangible thing. What this would lead to, how he would choose to handle the situation, I was not at all sure. I waited, though. It was certainly his move. I had helped work him into this furious lather, now I waited to see where he would take it.
I thought about running for the door, but I knew that was a plan bound for failure. There would be no outrunning him. His rifle was propped up next to the front door and I saw little use in trying to fight him for it.
“Erase me then, Melville,” I said, “you could try shooting me. Hasn’t worked for you yet, but perhaps at this close range you won’t miss.” I taunted him. I knew what his next move had to be and I needed to be ready for it. I stepped forward away from the wall, “Melville, when they take you, they will put you in a cell for life. Behind cold metal bars. They will torture you.” I gave him a second to think about it and then offered an alternative, “Or would you rather wind up like your sister?”
“What you mean?” He asked feebly. “What happened to Anna?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know she was your sister,” I offered my sympathy. “She was killed.”
He seemed to be simmering. About to blow over into a full-on boil. “Anna? You, Monocle, you, with me bare hands, Monocle,” he spit and he stammered. He turned and charged upon me with the drive of a man hellbent with pure rage.
Time doesn’t slow down, at least I don’t think it does. Perhaps it’s how we move upon the aether. A quickness of actions, all swept up in a moment, can be a glorious thing. There’s a randomosity at stake which is like having a chance at putting all the right cogs and gears in the right places. It’s foresight, it’s chance, it’s randomosity. It’s stirring it and mixing it just right and being mindful of the entire process.
Just as his hands reached out to grab me, I stepped aside and grabbed the back of his shirt and at the back of his pants. I used his momentum to tip him over into the barrel of putrid salmon. I held him by his kicking legs. My intention wasn’t to drown the man, but to subdue him and take some wind out of the old chap. I let go and stepped back. I breathed heavily and tried to regain my stance.
The barrel tipped over and The Fool came tumbling out, his eyes were shut tight and his mouth hung open as he gasped for a breath. He was covered in a most awful gelatinous substance. He moved toward me in a stumble and I moved away. We did this little dance until he was able to fully open his eyes. When he could see, he came at me with a vengeance. I, though, had grabbed his rifle. I used it to swing him around and push him backwards with a jabbing motion which bluntly hit him in the chest. He took the full brunt of a great thrust as he fell backwards, over the salmon barrel on its side, and tumbled into the bear pit.
The commotion was punctuated with growling and screaming. He fought back against the bears, but they just grew more violent. I grabbed my things from the heap in which they sat upon the floor.
I didn’t stay to watch. Instead, I ran from the cabin and made my way back to the trail. I ran as fast as I could for as long as I could until exhaustion set in. I had brief spurts of energy in which I tried jogging along the path. Mostly, I just dragged my feet along. Finally, instead of allowing gravity to take me down, I made my way to a large tree and sat down beside it. I was weak and felt like the morning of a thousand sleepless nights.
In an instant, I felt it creep down over my shoulder and I felt it sting me upon the side of my neck. I jumped from beside the tree to see an ornithicimus orgalis flora beseetra. More commonly known as a fungus vine, this was not a plant you want to receive a bite from.
I stumbled away from the tree, my hand to my neck. I examined my palm which was fortunately free of blood. I stumbled backwards from the canopy cover back to the trail. My feet felt as if they were trudging through a great gruel. My legs became numb and I collapsed. The world went dark after that, but I felt fantastic, like a thousand sunrises on a thousand different shores experienced all at once.
38
I was either in the belly of a goat or the hallucinogenic venom of
the fungus vine was beginning to take hold of my mind in ways I had not encountered before. I turned to the vibrant blue man in top hat and tails sitting beside me on the park bench, "Pardon me, do you perhaps know from which end the belly of this particular goat exits?" I looked all around. Red. Deep, thick red everywhere my eye met. Pools of stomach acid steamed all around.
He turned to me and began applauding. He then stood to give me an ovation. His clapping and applause would not cease. The incessant hand smacking began to make a tad bit nervous. His petulant stare was unsettling. A smile on his face began to form and then grow. And grow it did beyond normal proportions. Thousands of teeth sitting within lips of chapped blue flesh.
I stood up and backed away slowly. Slowly. Do not blink, I thought to myself. Keep your eyes about the smiling blue gentleman and all will be well. How red the walls were, saturating my periphery. Eventually he became but a blur in the distance.
I finally turned to walk forward and upon my half rotation I found the most curious thing, the red walls of the goat's belly had become walls of a deep red finish, a chandelier of candles loitered above which gave the room a wondrous glow. I turned back around to see from where I had come only to find a fourth wall.
This room, from where did it spring? How silly of me, I thought, to have believed I was in the belly of a goat, indeed. The venom must have come and gone, its effects turning this room into the belly of a goat. How strange it all was, I remember thinking. My eyes scanned the room. The carpet was thick and plush, giving way gently beneath my feet. The walls and ceiling, red and thick with a swirling texture. The woodwork bordering the room was of an immaculate quality, an almost royal touch, but hidden within the very same color as everything else. While the room was quite nice, it was lacking in one architectural quality I do most appreciate and that is a door. I do not mean there was a door-less frame, but rather, there was no entrance nor exit to this very room. A conundrum was tickling upon my whiskers, indeed. Now that the venom had worn off, how would I venture forth from this room and back into the world?
Spectacular Moments of Wonder with Dr. Monocle: That Certain Gentleman Page 37