McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories

by Michael Chabon

  . . . all the unhappiness of men arises from one

  single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their

  own chamber.

  This Diary shall record whether a “truth” is universal; or applies merely to the weak.

  15 November 1848. At midday, sighted a ship some miles to the east. Bound for the Strait of Magellan & very likely the great port at Buenos Aires. In the bland waters of day, this ship had no need for the Light-House at Viña del Mar & I felt for the briefest moment a strange sort of outrage. “Sail in these waters by night, my friends, & you will not so blithely ignore the Keeper of the Light.”

  19 November 1848. Waking at dawn, a night of interrupted sleep. While breakfasting (with little appetite, I know not why) continued my painstaking translation of Die Schwarze Spinne; then, in relief turning to The Enneads of Plotinus, I had strangely neglected in my previous old careless life. (Dr. Shaw has been so generous, allowing me countless books among my more practical provisions; some of these already in my possession but most of the volumes & journals his.) Plotinus is an ancient whose treatises on cosmology, numerals, the soul, eternal truth, & the One are wonderfully matched to me, a pilgrim at the Light-House at Viña del Mar. For I continue to marvel how at ease I am with aloneness, which I believe I have yet to explore, to its depth.

  Plotinus is the very balm for grief, which I feel still, in times of repose, following the death of my darling V. (of a burst vein in her alabaster throat, suffered while singing the exquisite “Annie Laurie” as I, in a transport of delight, accompanied her on the pianoforte) when I vowed I would remain celibate, & penitent, for the remainder of my unhappy life. As V. dreaded the bestial, which permeates so much of human intercourse, within even the marital bed, I have a like aversion; tho’ I take pleasure in fondling Mercury & stroking his pricked-up ears, I would be revulsed to so intimately touch another human being! For even handshaking, one gentleman with another, leaves me repelled. “Your hand is very cold, my boy,” Dr. Shaw teased, at our parting in Philadelphia harbor, “which the ladies assure me is the sign of a warm heart. Yes?”

  (Here is a strangeness: in this solitude where the only sounds are those of the infernal seabirds, & the dull admixture of waves & whining winds, lately I have been hearing Dr. Shaw’s unmistakable voice; & in drifting clouds overhead, I see Dr. Shaw’s face : stolid, bewhiskered, with glittering eyeglasses atop a sizable nose. My boy he has called me—tho’ in my forty-second year I am scarcely a boy!— what a role you are destined to play in advancing the cause of scientific knowledge. My deep gratitude to this gentleman, who rescued me from a life of dissolution & self-harm, to engage me in this experiment into the effect of “extreme isolation” upon an “average male specimen of Homo sapiens.” The irony being lost to Dr. Shaw, seemingly, that tho’ I am quite a normal male specimen of Homo sapiens, I am hardly average!)

  28 November 1848. Ships sighted, at a distance. Seabirds, noisy & tenacious, until routed by Mercury & his master. A sudden fierce gale swept upon us in the night, leaving the usual sea filth (some of it yet wriggling with the most repulsive life, tho’ badly mauled & mutilated) washed up on the pebbly beach.

  If I have not recorded in the Diary much of this “wriggling life,” it is out of fastidious disdain & a lofty ignorance of such low species. Tho’ I should note, I suppose, that the sloshing waves of the beach are within fifteen paces of this perch, in the Light-House doorway. Fortunately, the wind blows in the other direction; my nostrils need not contract with foul smells!

  Nights are not so peaceful as I might wish. Mercury whimpers & bites at himself, beset by bloodlust dreams as by fleas.

  1 December 1848. How breathless I am! Not from climbing the damnable stairs, but from quite another sort of exertion.

  After days of rain, dull & without nuance as the idiot hammerings of a coffin maker, at midafternoon there came a sudden sunburst through dense banks of cloud: Mercury began to bark excitedly, rousing his master as he dozed over Plotinus, & the two rushed outside to lark about quite like children. How V. would stare in amazement at such antics!

  And yet: our domain is so very small: smaller than it had seemed, when the cutter brought us to the Light-House (how many weeks ago?); less than a hundred feet in diameter, I have estimated, & much of this solid unyielding rock. Directly outside the Light-House doorway, there are layered rocks that give the impression of crude stairs, leading into the ocean: no doubt, this is why the Light-House was constructed where it is, confronting these rocks. Directly to the left of the Light-House entrance is a grouping of immense boulders, buttressing the sea, I have called the Pantheon: for there is a crude nobility in the features of these great rocks, as in primitive faces; as if a sculptor of antiquity had been interrupted in his task of chiseling the “human” out of mere inert matter. (Tho’ these great rocks are covered in the most foul bird droppings, as you may imagine. & where there are bird droppings, you may be sure there are greedy buzzing insects.)

  More lurid yet, to the left of the Light-House entrance is the rank pebbly beach I have mentioned in passing, beyond a small field of rocks & boulders; this region, loathsome even to speak of, I have called the Charnel House, tho’ more than merely the rotting corpses of sea life is to be found there. (Both Mercury & his master produce “waste” that must be disposed of; but, there being no sewers in so primitive an environment, still less servants to bear chamber pots away, this task is not so easily accomplished. Dr. Shaw had not thought to mention it, being a gentleman of means & accustomed to the amenities of civilization, no more than Plotinus, Gotthelf, Pascal & Rousseau would have thought of alluding to such, in their writings.)

  Well! ’Round & ’round the Light-House, tho’ constrained by the Pantheon to one side & the Charnel House to the other, Mercury & his master clambered, basking in the sun of early summer as if sensing how such a happy conjunction of sunshine, mild winds & temperature, was not into the midst of gulls, sandpipers & terns, sending them shrieking & flapping their wings in terror of us; more boldly, we confronted a giant albatross, of the yellow-nose species: as I clapped my hands & shouted, & Mercury barked wildly, this singular creature erupted into the air & beat his seven-foot saberlike wings above our heads for some suspenseful seconds, as if preparing to attack, before he flew off. “We have routed the enemy, Mercury!” I cried, laughing, for of course it was purely play.

  Even now, I am restless with thinking of the encounter, & my heart beats strangely. Tho’ knowing that if I had managed to seize the beautiful bird’s slender leg, I would not have done injury to him, but would have immediately released him, of course. Like my beloved V., I am a friend to all living creatures, & wish none harm. (As for Mercury, bred to aid his master in the hunting of foxes & similar game, with the reward of bloody spoils, I dare not speak!)

  5 December 1848. I am most unhappy with Mercury, I will record in this Diary, tho’ it is hardly of import to posterity.

  Vexing dog! Refusing to obey me where I stand in the Light-House doorway calling, “Mercury! Come here! I am commanding you: come here.” At last the abashed-looking terrier appears, from the region of the Charnel House littered with every species of filth, in which a mutinous dog might roll himself in ecstasy, tho’ forbidden by Master.

  The Charnel House: what is its appeal? These are hardly foxes for the terrier to pursue, but the most disgusting “prey” as may have washed up overnight: dead & dying fish of all sizes & monstrous faces, small octopi & jellyfish, spineless pale creatures oozing out of their broken shells, & a particularly loathsome slimy seaweed that writhes like living snakes in the shallow water, as I have stared at it for long fascinated minutes in wonderment. At last, Mercury returns to me, quivering tail between his legs. “Mercury, come! Good dog.” It is not my nature to punish, except I know dogs must be trained: if Master does not behave rightly, Dog will become confused & demoralized & in time turn against Master. So I am stern with Mercury, lifting my fist as if to strike his trembling head: seeing in his amber e
yes, usually brimming with love for me, the glisten of animal fear; yet I do not strike, but only chide; withdrawing then to the Light-House, I am followed by the repentant creature, & soon we are companions again, devouring our evening meal before sinking, not long after sunset, into the swoon of sleep.

  (Ah, sleep! How sweet it has become, when it comes! Tho’ it seems that I am always in my bed, no sooner have I roused myself from my stuporous perspiring slumber, well after sunrise these days, than I discover that I am overcome by fatigue, & prepared to lie down again; tho’ my lumpy bed smells frankly of my body, & my predecessors’ bodies; for it has proved tedious to be always “airing out” bedclothes & mattress, as it is tedious to be always “undressing” & “dressing.” For who is to observe me here, if my linen is not of the freshest, & my jaw not quite so clean-shaven as the ladies wish? Mercury does not mind if Master neglects some niceties of grooming, indeed!)

  11 December 1848. Very warm day. “Airless”—“torpor”—“dead calm.” Some miles to the east, a becalmed ship sighted through the telescope, at too great a distance to be identified: whether an American or an English ship, or another, I had no way of knowing. Tho’ as always, without fail, for I will never fail in my duty, Mercury & I climbed the damnable stairs to the great lantern, at sundown; to light the wick soaked in foul-smelling kerosene, that stings our nostrils even after weeks.

  How many steps to the lantern? I have ascertained 196.

  12 December 1848. Very warm day. “Airless”—“torpor”—“dead calm.” Climbing the stairs, & lighting the wick, & a blood-tinged mist drifted across the sky, at dusk, & obscured all vision. & I did not know, Is there any human out there, to observe this feeble light? To perceive me, a fellow spirit, drowning in solitude?

  17 December 1848. Very warm day. “Airless”—“torpor”—“dead calm.” Then, at midday, interrupted by a furious squabble of the order of the battling angels of Milton’s great epic, amongst a vast crowd of seabirds of numerous species, that anxious Mercury was eager to allow me to know had nothing to do with him: but the fact that a gigantic sea creature was washed ashore, to be pecked & stabbed by shrieking birds until its remarkable skeleton emerged through shreds of flesh. Ah, what a horror! & now, what a stench! So sickened, I cannot complete a single page of the difficult High German of Gotthelf.

  Yet, I defend these belligerent fowls: for they are scavengers, & are needed to devour dead & putrefying flesh, that would soon overtake the living at Viña del Mar, & destroy us utterly.

  19 December 1848. Today, a rude shock! I am not sure whether to record it in the Diary, I am so shaken.

  Having set temporarily aside my Plotinus, & my Gotthelf, I turned to a stack of monographs of the Philadelphia Society of Naturalists that had been included with books from Dr. Shaw’s library; & came upon a stunning revelation, in an article by one Bertram Shaw, Ph.D., M.D., for 1846, titled “The Effects of Extreme Isolation upon Certain Mammalian Specimens.” To wit, a rat; a guinea pig; a monkey; a dog; a cat; a “young horse in good health.” These luckless creatures were imprisoned in small pens, in Dr. Shaw’s laboratory, provided as much food & water as they wished to consume, but kept from any sight of their fellows, & never spoken to or touched. Initially, the animals devoured food in a frenzy of appetite, then by degrees lost all appetite, as they lost energy & strength; slept fitfully, & finally lapsed into a stupor. Death came in “diverse ways” for each of the specimens, but far sooner than normal. Dr. Shaw concluded in triumph, Death is but the systematic disengagement of the sentient being, on the cellular level.

  For it seemed that the creatures, trapped in isolation, were thus trapped in their own beings, & “smothered” of boredom; their vital spirits, a kind of living electricity, ceased by degrees to flow. With a pounding heart I read this monograph several times, forced to admire the scientific rigor of its argument; yet, finally, the monograph (which has become worm-eaten in the humidity of the Light-House) slipped from my fingers to the floor.

  “Shaw’s miscalculation is, his ‘boy’ is hardly an average specimen of Homo sapiens.” So gleefully I laughed, Mercury came bounding into the Light-House panting & barking & fixing me with an expression of hope: do I laugh because I am unhappy? Ah, why?

  25–29 December 1848. Lost days, & thus lost entries in this Diary. I know not why.

  1 January 1849. It is the New Year & yet: all that is “new” on the Light-House is the degree of my anger at the mutinous terrier.

  Calling him through the afternoon, & now it is dusk. I will begin my evening meal alone, my sole companion the murky text Das Spinne . . . tho’ I am having difficulty concentrating, my eyelids swollen with fatigue, or with fleabites; my numbed fingers unable to grip the damned pen. I have lost “sight” of myself since an accident of the other morning when my shaving mirror, the sole mirror in the Light-House, slipped from my lathered fingers to shatter stupidly on the stone floor. “Mercury! Come here, I command you!”—& there is no response, but a jeering of the seabirds, & a drunken murmurous laughter of waves.

  Mercury was so named by V., who brought him into our household as a foundling, very small & near death by starvation. Originally he was V.’s dog exclusively; then he came to be beloved by me, as well; tho’ I am not easy with animals, & distrust the fanatic “loyalty” of canines, that looks to me like the toothy grin of hypocrisy. But Mercury was special, I believe: a most “corky” (that is, alert & lively) fox terrier; not purebred but boasting a well-shaped head, chest & legs; the agility & intelligence common to the breed; a zeal for digging, rooting, & seeking out burrows in which prey may be hiding; & much nervous energy. Named “Mercury” for his antic ways by V., from puppyhood he has been unusually affectionate; as stunned by V.’s death as I have been, & sick with grief. Tho’ lately, embarked upon our South Pacific adventure, Mercury would appear to be making a recovery.

  His coat is the usual terrier mixture of colors: curly white fur splotched with shades of fair brown, dark brown, & red; this fur has become shamefully coarsened & matted of late, for I have not had time to groom Mercury as he requires, as often I have not had time to groom myself. (It is strange how little time there is for such tasks, when time seems to yawn before us, vast as the great sea in which we might drown.)

  I concede, perhaps I am partly to blame: for Mercury has had little appetite for the dry, dun-colored biscuits, sometimes crawling with grubs, which I provide him. It had not occurred to me to bring a different sort of food, meat in tins; & perhaps there would not have been space for such. My diet is purely vegetarian—tinned & dried fruits, vegetables, & such grain products as biscuits & rice cakes, & bottled springwater, assured by Dr. Shaw to be “copiously rich” in nutrients. My asceticism, as it was V.’s, has broadened to include an aversion to flesh of all types, including fish & seafood, of all organisms most repulsive to me. & yet, I understand that a terrier is a very different sort of creature, born to hunt; & it is pathetic, from the evidence of his muzzle & increasingly fetid breath, that Mercury has resorted to eating the flesh of dead things, as I have tried to forbid him to do, fearing he will be poisoned.

  “Mercury! Come, it is suppertime. I implore you.” & yet no terrier, only just the sickly twilight & sloshing of waves, & a dread sound beneath as of the tearing of flesh, gristle & bone & mastication & obscene noises both guttural & ecstatic, I am loath to interpret.

  18 January 1849. My birthday eve. Yet, I have forgotten my age!

  19 January 1849. Today’s surprise: an investigation of weevils in my supply of rice cakes I tried to pick out with my fingers; then gave up, overcome by nausea & vomiting.

  23 January 1849. Today I discovered that the rocky firmament upon which the Light-House is built is ovoid, in the way of a misshapen egg. It is smaller than I had originally believed, less than ninety feet in diameter; as the Light-House appears to be a taller structure, each evening requiring greater strength & breadth to climb, to light the lantern in discharge of my duties as Keeper of the Light. (On misty nights,
I might wonder if the lantern’s flame penetrates such gloom; & to what avail my effort. For I see nothing, & hear nothing, that might be designated as “human”; & have come to wonder at the futility of my enterprise.)

  Also, the Light-House descends more deeply into the chalky interior of the earth than I had believed. Almost, one might fancy that the hollow at the bottom is a species of burrow. (Most repugnant to consider: for what would dwell in such a burrow, descending far below the waterline? Mercury has whined & whimpered, when I urged him to explore this hellish space, & so convulsed beneath my hands, I laughed & released him.)

  1 February 1849. This dusk, I did not climb the damnable stairs, & I did not light the damnable wick. Why?

  I had sighted a flotilla of Spanish galleons. Whether mist ships, or visions stimulated by my swollen eyelids, or actual ships, I do not know & I do not care. These bold ships were sailing toward the Strait of Magellan, & beyond; & a low cunning came to me (yet “patriotic”!—let the Diary duly record) that I would not light the lantern to guide the Spanish enemy but would allow them to make their own way through treacherous waters. “Let the Captain pray to his Popish god, to guide him to the Strait.”

  4 February 1849. Heat. Torpor. Fetid exhaled breath of creation. Tho’ it is but February, & more extreme temperatures to come in March & April.

  An altercation with Mercury I fear has alienated him from me. & yet, I had no choice, for he had misbehaved, venturing into the Charnel House & feeding there, & reveling in filth, & daring then to return to me, his master, with a bloodied muzzle, & teeth sticky with torn guts, & the once silky coat V. had brushed, matted in blood & unspeakable filth. “Dog! You disgust me.” As I raised my fist to strike, he cowered only more slightly, the pupils of his bloodshot eyes narrowed to slits; this time, I did not restrain my blow, but struck the bony head; nor did I restrain myself from kicking the cur in his skinny withers; when his hackles rose against me, & his stained teeth were bared in snarl, I reached for my driftwood cudgel, & smote the beast over the head so decisively, he fell at once to the ground, & lay whimpering & twitching. “So, you see who is the master, eh? Not a debased specimen of Canis familiaris, but an exemplary specimen of Homo sapiens.”