Beneath a half-moon window, a scruffy man in his late twenties was seated at his desk. A bottle of bourbon stood empty in front of him, and the pen in his hand was slipping as his head began to slump forward.
It was the third night in a row that the man had passed out drunk at the desk, mining his head for something he could put in the empty notebook, something of actual substance. He had pulled so much content out of his brain already—the kind of content that agents and marketing men would take and hold up to the light, inspecting it for quality. If it was deemed appropriately grammatical, inoffensive, and most importantly, marketable, money might change hands.
For the past few weeks, the man had begun to feel as if, in the process of digging through himself over the years, he had found every gem that had ever been worth anything and smashed them all into smaller, meaningless, marketable pieces.
And even before he started feeling that way, he had often found himself wondering what he was doing in the house by the woods, in a town and state he had never much cared for, far from home. When, exactly, had he decided to come here?
He slept deeply but not restfully now, his arm cushioning his head from the hard wooden desk. Just as the ember from his last cigarette burned out in the ash tray, a cloud passed in front of the moon, pitching the room into darkness.
Somewhere outside, down the hill and past the old oak tree, over the pond and deep within the woods, there was a place of equal darkness. And when a sliver of moonlight slipped out from the clouds, a shadow could be seen that, unlike those of the branches swaying from west to east with the wind, stretched southward—toward the lonesome house where the man now slept.
After he was done eating breakfast the next morning, the man went to the den with the half-moon window. He poured himself a drink from the liquor cabinet and then sat down. He looked at his notebook for the first time that day.
From somewhere in a dream. Patient, and at your pace.
He read the line a few times, still drinking from his glass, and then decided it was good that he had managed to put even an incomplete thought to paper before he blacked out, whatever it meant. Setting his glass down without topping it off just yet, the man picked up his pen and let a stream of consciousness go.
“Why?”
“‘Why?’ You don’t find it the least bit cliché, man, to ask ‘Why?’”
“. . .”
“Too many of your kind have suffered without justice before being sent to Hell. Hades. Pluto. Then you decided Pluto barely exists. It’s of no significance.”
“So it’s a lack of religion?”
“No. It is because of the planet.”
“Wait—"
“I’m fucking with you. Fuck man and your ‘Why?’”
“But—”
“Shut up. Let me ask you a question. If ignorance is uniform throughout all, does it exist?”
There was no plot or setting to contain the dialogue. Just a scant breath of fresh air before his writer’s block returned. He downed the rest of his drink and went again to the liquor cabinet. All he had left was vodka that he hadn’t bought himself, and nothing to mix it with.
***
That night, the man had a wonderful dream that pained him when he woke up. He dreamt that he was back home, and all the different friends he had made and then left behind without a word at the turning points of his life were there, too. The turning points had been many, because his life resembled a spiral.
In his dream, he wasn’t working on a book anymore, and he had no worries about things like money or his legacy. Most apparent was his total lack of shame or regret. Reunited with those dear to him, there was only understanding and joy.
The man woke up and inspected his liquor bottle for amount, as was usually his first action. Then, before getting up to do anything else, he looked at his notebook. It had been flipped back to the first page. There was more there now.
From somewhere in a dream. Patient, and at your pace.
Close now.
He whipped his head around in paranoia. An urge to make sure all the doors and windows were locked took hold of him.
Later, after some food and a few swallows from his glass, the man laughed inside. Maybe this is me urging myself to quit drinking, he thought. With some weird joke. I’m fucking weird. The man’s fear had been lifted, and his mood brightened. He had forgotten about his own sense of humor.
Back at his desk, he drank more slowly than usual and again let his pen wander.
You’re awash in time. All familiar landmarks long gone down the maelstrom. You cast What and Why into oblivion too many times, and now it’s When and Where, too. Two more empty hooks to throw out and bring in. How long before Who?
For the first time in weeks, the man made it all the way until after midnight without passing out. He had been writing in his notebook when he suddenly became aware of how uneasy he felt. No longer absorbed in himself, he realized the wind was howling again. The winds had been growing stronger with the approach of winter, as they did every year. But the man had only very recently noticed something else: On windy nights like these, somewhere way in the background, the low wailings could sound very human.
He stood up and gazed out the half-moon window, over the steep drop that led down to the oak tree and the close shore of the pond.
If he hadn’t studied the view so many times before, he probably never would have seen it. Among the many shadows dancing in the wind under the moon, far away at the edge of the woods across the pond, there was cast one undaunted sentinel. It was long and irregular, and pointing just too perfectly in his direction. He tried to trace it to its origin, but whatever it was had to be hidden in the trees . . . standing patient and still in the freezing wind.
It can’t really be a shadow. It’s some mark made by an animal. Or sitting water.
He looked at his notebook then poured another drink, thinking he might sleep in his bedroom for a change.
***
He awoke from a dreamless sleep just before sunrise, afraid. The wind was dying down, but to a point which only made the low wailings more noticeable.
Wide awake, he went to use the bathroom, stopping afterward to look in the mirror above the sink. His reflection showed a tired man, old beyond his years. He then made his way to the den just as the first light of day was showing.
Out the window, he saw it for only a second.
At the far side of the pond stood something as plain and opaque as a shadow puppet made when the light is close and focused: a tall figure with terribly crooked posture. Its left arm hung close to the ground, with its head cocked the same way. But what made the man almost fall backward over the coffee table was how, right when he looked at the thing, a face seemed to open up where before there had been only blackness. The expression was the kind only possible in death—sagging downward, frozen in a look of agony and yet relaxed.
The sunlight hit it, and the thing disappeared.
He skipped breakfast, instead taking a seat on the couch with his bottle of vodka. After some time had passed, he started telling himself that he hadn’t really gotten a good look at the thing. It was dark. It could have been anything.
But if it wasn’t just anything . . .
If it came back, what could he do? Spend his dwindling funds on a hotel room? Call someone? Who?
After the man was legitimately drunk, he picked up his notebook.
Dread. Acceptance. Decisiveness. Misfortune.
Dread. Acceptance. Misfortune.
Dread. Misfortune.
Dread.
Acceptance.
***
The line rang for what seemed like an eternity before she answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey . . .”
“Wow. This is a surprise.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why is that?”
“I should have kept in touch.”
“Should you have?”
“. . .”
“What’s going on? Are you broke or something?”
“No, I just . . .”
“Just remembered you have a younger sister, a brother-in-law, and two nieces who’ve stopped asking about you?”
“No. I mean, maybe. Look . . .”
“Jesus Christ. Just spit it out already.”
“Fuck. Never mind.”
“Of cour—”
***
Decisiveness.
Misfortune.
Dread
***
The man paced around the living room while smoking. All the lights were on. He kept looking at the clock—so much so that only the second hand appeared to be moving. It was getting dark, and the man knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Then he remembered something. He had a not-quite-empty bottle of sleeping pills collecting dust under the bathroom sink. As he went to get them, he glanced toward the den and the half-moon window. The sky was blood red with sunset. He didn’t care what happened, as long as he could sleep through it.
There were three sleeping pills and maybe two ounces of vodka to wash them down with. Before he knew it, he was asleep in his bed.
He was a child again, walking down the hallway of some old, rundown apartment building. It was dark and foggy, even though it was indoors. He walked slowly, not too afraid, but then he heard the wailing begin. He didn’t know if it was the wind or not, but it seemed like it was coming toward him from behind. Now the boy was sprinting along the corridor. He looked at the room numbers as he passed each door.
Room 217. Or was it 27? Or . . .?
The boy couldn’t remember, but it didn’t matter: There was a door ahead, at the very end of the hall where the exit should have been. Room 217.
He reached the door and turned the knob just as the wailing seemed about to bear down on him.
It was his mother’s old apartment. He tried to flip a switch for the light, but it didn’t work. It was dim, but he could still see. There was a reddish tint to everything.
He made his way to the liquor cabinet and opened it. It was empty. A noise came from one of the back rooms. The boy turned and looked to the hallway. It was pitch black, even darker than the outside hallway. There was no way he was going down there. He would stay right where he was by the liquor cabinet. He sank down to the carpet, staring into the blackness of the hallway. The wailing began again. It started softly at first, as usual, and grew in intensity with each second.
Another noise from one of the back rooms. He heard the creak of a door opening, and then nothing.
The boy waited, frozen in fear.
A light appeared at the far end of the hallway, flickering gently. A candlelight. Whatever was holding it was stopped there, standing in the dark. The boy could hear its long, wet, ragged breaths, its moans. It was in pain.
The light from the candle swung around as the thing turned toward the boy and began shuffling his way. Its feet dragged on the carpet, making a grating, scratchy sound.
“I’m sick,” the thing rasped. The little boy couldn’t move even his eyes. He stared straight ahead, at the flickering light. Slowly, a tall, thin figure in a long gown emerged from the darkness.
“You’re SICK!” The thing suddenly rushed forward—a woman with gaunt, pitiless eyes. It cocked its head to the side and then opened its mouth impossibly wide, about to devour him whole. The candle went out.
***
He sat up in his bed, again a grown man. The wind wailed outside. He had no more alcohol, no sleeping pills. He had only himself and his fear. And the wailing.
He ran to the front door without looking to the den, knowing what he would see there if he did. He threw the door open and kept running into the cold and dark. The voices in the wind were wailing louder than ever before, beckoning him to come back.
The man could see a light ahead, coming through a window at the rear of a house.
His neck, shoulder, and leg were aching terribly. A sudden jolt of pain made him stumble, almost fall. The man kept limping on toward the window. He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t care about what, where, when, or why anymore. He just didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to die alone.
As he drew closer to the house, he could feel himself slipping away. He didn’t have much time left.
Just a face. A friendly face. Maybe full of concern . . .
The man was practically dragging his left leg on the ground, desperately trying to reach the window before him, moving at a pace that was painfully slow. Surely that monster or the woman from his nightmare would reach him before he made it.
Finally, he got there. He pounded on the window, unable to bring himself around to the front door.
Inside, a man stood up and gazed out the half-moon window at him. A glass fell from his hand. His face was pale and full of terror.
“Wha—why?” was all the man inside could say.
Slowly, agonizingly, the man outside’s head cocked to the side. His jaw sagged open. A noise began to rise from within him.
“Whyyyyy?” the voice croaked.
ns 15.158.61.54da2
