The Plight of Dr. Grayson

by David Willoughby

  ***

  I awoke with a dull throb echoing in my ears and a sharp acrid smoke stinging my eyes. The thrumming in my ears sounded distant and ringing. I blinked my eyes against the pungent fumes as tears dripped down my face. I blinked through my watery eyes just enough to make out several shapes below me sitting on the ground, twisted grey imitations of the human body sat before me seated around large cylinders. They repeatedly whacked the cylinders. It took me a second to make the connection between the shapes and the throbbing. The grey skinned things were bashing away on drums. The cohesion and rhythm displayed an obvious oral tradition of musical teaching, however primitive.

  As I began to regain some cognitive abilities I struggled to move my hands only to find them bound behind my back. It was then that I noticed I was tied to a large pole atop a pile of wood. I pulled against my restraints feeling the texture, I was clearly bound with rope at the wrists and my feet were bound similarly around the pole. I maintained my composure mostly out of dignity but also partially because I didn’t know what emotion one should exhibit when strapped to a ceremonial pole in the middle of a drum circle.

  I looked around and noted the construction of various nomad style portable tents, they looked similar to plain native teepees but had that same rough quality that the other things I had seen had, as if they were created by someone who had only ever heard of the object in question. I watched as several of the grey skinned monsters preformed some kind of rough shod dance maneuvers around the drummers. A sudden flash of lightning rocked the sky. I jerked my head towards the flash out of some animal instinct and saw an altogether unsettling sight.

  A red robed figure stood to my right, its face shielded by a hood and its hand clutched a dagger. The figured strode towards me with a foreboding air, the bottom of it robes were also muddy, not simply dirty as the current environment suggested. I found this curious but not as curious as the impending knife wielding psychotic.

  The figure walked around the base of the wood pile to stand in front of where I was bound. The shape and flow of the robe mixed with the dim light made the nature of the figure completely indeterminable. The figure was far enough away with the giant dagger so that I was not in immediate danger. It was then that a realization began to creep in to my mind. I looked around and made a startling discovery. They grey men were not the only people watching. Natives were interspersed in the buildings, staring at myself and the figure. I turned my head as far as I could to try and see behind me and I was floored by my revelation. Hundreds of Natives were lined in rows behind me in what appeared to be ceremonial prayer positions adopted in the Near East cultures. It was a wonderful and terrible sight to behold.

  I turned back to face my hooded captor. The figure had removed its hood and amidst the drum beats raised a steady hand. The drums silenced as I stared at the woman before me. She was an ancient looking Native woman; her hand that held the dagger looked strong however. She spoke and the world grew silent.

  “The White man cast us from their land like the sick. They beat us away like a menace.” She spoke in a gargled tongue that for some abominate reason I could understand. “We have here a man who seeks to study our agony. This man seeks savages, to prod and poke. His purpose is not noble. He cannot fathom what his people did to ours. His mind cannot contain the truth of the world.” She paused and I took the chance to speak.

  “I am a man of science. I came here to understand your people.” I shouted the words in defiance of her hateful speech. It did not appear that my character was up for debate however as no one seemed to consider my stance. The woman resumed her rant and I began to fear for my life.

  “This wicked man has come to us and sought out a man who has held court with the invaders.  He spoke to this defiler and he has told us that this man will do nothing to save us from our plight. It is in our darkest hour that we must put our salvation in the hands of incompetent men”. I was beginning to question the depth of her native heritage as she sprinkled her tirade with the words of priests. I began to ponder if this might somehow be the work of the church but I had long ago denounced the works of gods and demons.

  “For his and his ilk’s transgressions he will be made bare before our torment and tested by the mighty. Let him see our kind as they shall forever be and let him weep.” The beat of the drums faded with her final words.

  The air was still as if the wind it’s self held its breath in anticipation. The world was calm but it was not peaceful. I could feel an energy in the air. It was rather sudden that I noticed the descending shroud of darkness that seemed to fall from behind the old Native. I felt a creeping heat and for a few scant seconds I feared that someone had set fire to the wood stack that I had been placed on. Images of witch burnings scorched my eyes. The makeshift wooden pile was free of flames however and I found myself not relieved. The heat subsided with a flash of pure blinding light.

  I could not fathom the thing that appeared in the wake of the blinding light. It was infinite in its massiveness but finite in size. The entity was singular but I it’s presence as many. While stood in front of me I had the feeling that it was all around me encircling my trapped form. It was a writhing and teeming presence that filled everything. The very being of it seemed to present in to all the vacant places of my being, filling my lungs and innards.

  I could not describe the thing for it defied all earthly things and I had no point of reference to compare it to. Describing it would be as impossible as describing color to the blind, or for that matter the infinity of space. It was simply there.

  The voice that came forth echoed with the same sense of legion that had spewed forth from the lips of my earlier intruder. “Are you to blame for my plenty?” It was a simple question stated with all the weight of a mountain and I knew nothing of the answer. The silence between us stretched. When I spoke it was with tense hesitance.

   “I do not know what you mean.” Was the only reply years of top quality education had prepared me for?

  “Speak, declare unto me the answer, did you not send forth a river of damned to empty lands where only I rule? Are you not responsible for their degradation to the point of their salvation in a realm of my choosing?” The things voice rumbled and echoed in my head. “I feed and shelter the damned letting them live a life eternal… for a price. My machinations require flesh, which I hold no sway to create. These its make flesh and bare their gift unto me for all of eternity. It is only in times of great strife that I can secure so many offerings. Are you responsible?”

  It occurred to me the reality of the situation. I was speaking to something that was not even close to human. It was also blaming me for the exodus of the Natives. It also seemed to be thanking me in a roundabout fashion. The truth of its words unfolded in my mind like a diabolical and terrible map to places I would have rather stayed hidden. The machinations it spoke of were undoubtedly grey skinned monsters that lassoed men of science and stalked their sleep. The flesh needed was perhaps that of children, and men. It was unsettling.

  “I am not the man who sent these noble Natives here. I am merely a scientist. I study things and record facts.” This was the best response I could muster that didn’t involve begging.

  “You lay the blame at the feet of another? Cowardly, but perhaps true. I sense though that you have tasted of sin in my garden. What has happened to the it that was called Saxon? Have you slain him? Has one of my machinations become touched by the violence of men once again?” The torrent of questions seemed to be rhetorical.

  Never the less I answered. “I was startled in my sleep by one of those grey skinned things, but I am under no pretext that this thing was Saxon. I have seen some spectacular things but I do not believe in magika and other such phantasmal things. Where is Saxon?” I asked, hoping to assert a calm demeanor.

  “You ask me what it is that I have done with him? It was you who slew your friend. I made an it in the image of the people who could go forth in to your land, but who could not keep the form in my own. De
ath was not to be his price, and of magic you speak but do not dare presume. I am the Snake of the Genesis and it was allotted to me that I alone shall eat the dust of the earth and I alone shall be made enemy against the children of the garden. I am the snake that took the fruit of life from a man who was allotted death and would not take it. As such I have been granted life. Life without creation and without joy. Cursed and blessed am I for my doings. So what do you know of magic?” The entity seemed to be pacing with what felt like a growing rage. I did not want to be the target of whatever that rage might bring.

  “I have said I am a man of science. I do not believe in magic, nor do I know anything of it were it real. I read books and study cultures and people. I came here to see these Natives in their natural habitat. I came to record their lives and share it with the world.” I hoped to placate its anger with my good intentions but I felt less and less valiant in my prior efforts. I began to worry about what exactly had happened to these Natives, to these people.

  “This is not natural.” The anger of the entity seemed to expand like a wall over the sun blocking every feeling except for hate. “These it’s were forced to march over land that was unfamiliar and unknown to them. They cannot make food. They cannot find food. They cannot eat. I am the one who reached out my hand to its in need when the others would turn them away. In the driving snow they were marched. In the mountains they were pushed. Through forests and over hills they ran to escape the death that followed them on four-legged beasts. They were pushed to the edge of death when they found me.” The presence seemed to subside as the story began to unfold.

  “The its found me where I had been cast from the garden. I was entrapped in your world by stones. The its fell before my presence and prayed for a salvation, offering any price. I could not create, but the its could and through them, with their new flesh I could fashion things after my own liking. I made other its. Those its toiled and labored in timeless years to sow the life of this realm. Inside of the stone I was forced to live, I can now live with others. I can create.” The last words were delivered with a joyful sigh, at least that was the feeling.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I asked hoping to draw our talk to a peaceful close.

  “Yes, leave. Do not come back. The its cry at night missing the ones whom I did not take, the ones who died. Of those you must tell everyone you meet. This you will do with sober duty. All your days you will feel these its loneliness. You will know the names and the lives of those who are dead. This weight you will carry, in exchange for life. Do you accept?”

  The only words that seemed to fit this somber moment held mocking memory of fonder ceremonies. “I do.” With those words the world flashed in bloody crimson and I felt the cold of death.

  A bright light brought me to a wake. The sting upon my eyes burned the image of the cabins interior in to my mind. It was the same cabin I had gone to sleep in except that day light shined through every crack and every imperfection. I did not know what time or day it might have been that awoke, but I knew that I was not the same man who had entered that front door. I stood up and began to inspect my things. I found everything in its place. No distorted grey-skinned monsters. All of my things seemed to be in order. I walked over to dresser and inspected my revolver, finding it was missing all the rounds I checked my pockets only to find that I did not have any of the rounds I had come with.

  When the first flash hit it felt like a divine bolt. I saw thousands of smiling faces. The faces of the Native people as they worked and played and as they held their families and talked to loved ones. It was a flash that filled me with a subtle joy. The never ending tide of happy families and hard working people brought a tear to my eye. They all seemed like people I knew. They were working their jobs to feed their kids who played sports and worked around the house to keep everything running. It was the struggle of modern life.

  I spent a few scarce moments in the first flash to feel absolute joy for the human condition. It was the last time I would feel true happiness. When the flash was finished I had the names and life stories of thousands upon thousands of people in my head. It was truly life altering. It was the second flash that shaped the course of my life.

  There were women face down in snow banks, and little girls running before merciless horsemen. Men faced the edge of the sword or worse lived as they watched their loved ones fall under bullets and blades. Many succumbed to hunger and cold while others never made it so far. An entire culture was up rooted and pushed to the far reaches of settled land with little thought for the nature of the fringes of space. The sight of children falling to poisonous foods and dying parentless in forgotten wastes of the plains was shattering.

  I fell to my knees and the life stories of thousands of people had their horrifying conclusions laid bare before my eyes. The life came full circle and was all for nothing. In the utter depths of my darkness I hardly noticed as I pulled the revolver to my head and clicked the hammer back. I pulled the trigger. The hollow click of the empty chamber failed to stop the images but I repeated the action ceaselessly until the images stopped. I sat there on the floor with the gun raised to my head and wept for the thousands of people I would never know.

  A long time passed, perhaps days, as I processed the information. I did not move from the floor in all that time. My eyes were glazed over and I receded completely in to my mind. It was with a sudden start that I rose to my feet with renewed purpose I gathered my things and packed. I took my luggage and with all manageable speed walked to the spot that I was to meet my driver. There I sat. I waited for a full cycle of the sun, incapable of processing days or moments or even closing my eyes for sleep. The spark of intent and of utter hopelessness was upon me and I was set to dual purpose.

  It was the next day at around the high point of the sun that I saw the cart that would take me back to town. The old man that sat within seemed jovial. I did not like his smile, but he was not burdened with the truth of knowledge. I had a terrible purpose. In my head I thought of how I might spread the story of what was done in the name of Western Expansion. The horrors of the Exodus were laid bare and I was forced to be their witness and once I thought on my bitter purpose. I would make others aware. I would share the story with as many as I could.