Doctor Lamb

Thanks to Anthony Penta for his custom illustration.

“Be prepared, Max,” the supervisor warned. “Doctor Lamb is known for his unorthodox methods.”

Max nodded, his lab jacket flapping as he walked.

“The things he will say and do will strike you as odd, there’s no doubt about that," the supervisor continued, "but you must study him closely. Despite his enormous ego and his flair for drama, Doctor Lamb is the very best.”

“Oh yes, I know,” Max chirped in agreement. “I’ve been a fan of Lamb since I was a student.”

“There’s a reason for his reputation. Lamb works exclusively with the criminally insane; and with only the most hardened cases, those who are considered beyond rehabilitation. And yet he has managed to maintain a one-hundred percent success rate.”

“I think it’s a shame he’s been overlooked for the Platinum Brain.” Max said, with the knowing tone of an insider.

“Yes, that’s really something, isn’t it?” the supervisor sighed.

“It’s outrageous,” Max continued. “The Platinum Brain is the highest honor in the field of neurological medicine and year after year it goes to researchers far less gifted than Lamb.”

“Well, the rumor is that Lamb's going to get it this year, and with his work on this patient; the one you’ll be observing today.”

“I feel honored.”

The supervisor lowered his voice. “Between you and me, Max, this is the toughest case Lamb has ever worked on. If he doesn’t get the Brain for this one, he might not have another chance. I’m sure you can appreciate the pressure he’s under.”

Max’s neck ached from nodding. “Of course.”

“Just remember, whatever you do, don’t interrupt Lamb while he’s working and, no matter what, you must never question his methods.”

“Of course not.”

The supervisor slowed to a stop and put his hand on Max’s shoulder. “I’m serious, Max. You could really fuck things up. Not just for yourself, but for Doctor Lamb. The only reason he’s allowing you to observe him is because I told him you’re good at following instructions.”

“I understand.”

“Ok, here’s the room.” The supervisor nodded to a large metal door and pressed his ID to a panel. The door slid over with a pneumatic hiss. “Go inside,” he instructed.

“You’re not coming with me?” Max asked.

“No, Doctor Lamb said he wanted to work with you alone. Don’t worry Max, it’ll be ok. Just remember my advice.”

Max patted the creases in his lab jacket and entered. The door closed behind him. Seated at a desk in the middle of the room was Doctor Lamb, a gentleman of about sixty with a head of bright white hair. A light above accented his forehead while darkening the cavernous hollows of his face. His eyelids, which hovered in space like silent planets, remained tightly closed.

Max walked to the desk and started to pull out the other chair.

“Don’t sit,” the doctor moved his white lips. “Just go stand by the wall.”

Max went to the wall.

“Remain completely silent and observe,” the doctor said, his eyes still closed. “The patient I am treating is extremely dangerous, so you must be as inconspicuous as possible. If I need your assistance, I’ll ask for it.”

“Okay.” Max spoke in a whisper.

“There are no continents left to explore,” the doctor said slowly, as if prying the words from some inner wall. “The entire terrain has been mapped. There are only the icebergs that drift in the ocean. Shining white islands of snow.” He pressed a button on his intercom.

“Bring in the patient.”

The door opposite the doctor slid open. Two men the size of nightclub bouncers escorted a writhing figure into the room. The look on the patient's face was that of a desperate animal. His face shook and saliva ran from his lips. Max pressed himself against the wall.

The patient’s arms were secured in a straight-jacket. He angled his neck wildly, trying to bite the orderlies. They pushed him into the chair. He tried to stand again, but they held him down. The patient's eyes lurched from side to side, like horses trying to break free from a harness

“It’s ok, gentlemen, you can leave him alone,” the doctor said, his eyes still closed.

The orderlies looked worried. “Are you sure, Doctor? This patient is extremely volatile. Yesterday he assaulted a nurse.”

"I'm aware of the danger. You may leave."

"But doctor, he confiscated her charms and bit her breast."

“Gentlemen, you have your orders.” The doctor’s eyelids tightened like the knuckles of a fist.

The men slowly removed their hands and stepped back. The patient swiveled his head and looked at them with a foamy grin.

“Now leave us,” the doctor ordered.

The two orderlies looked at the doctor and then at each other. One of them shrugged. Max wanted to shout out, to beg them to stay. The orderlies pressed the button for the metal door and filed out, taking one last look at the patient and then one last look at Max. When the door closed, Doctor Lamb fopened his eyes. The whites were a dull yellow and the pupils as vacant as the eyes of a painted mask.

“How do you feel today, Wolfgang?” the doctor asked.

“Nuts, Doc! This place is driving me nuts.” Wolfgang said the word “nuts” in a shriek.

“What is it about our facilities that you don’t enjoy?”

“It’s the oppression. It never stops. It keeps pressing. It crushes my soul!” Wolfgang rocked back and forth and then let his head fall onto the desk in pantomimed agony. After holding still for a moment he lifted a shaved eyebrow and grinned.

“Yes, I know.” Doctor Lamb tilted his head. “Oppression hurts you. It causes you pain. And that isn’t right. I want you to tell me what I can do for you, Wolfgang. What can I do to ease the burden you carry? The burden which has been put upon you so unfairly.”

Wolfgang let loose a cackle and then quickly snuffed out his laughter. “Well, doc. I suppose you could loosen this straight-jacket a bit. Hmmm. Could you do that?” He displayed the pitiful hunger of a dog hoping to catch a scrap from the table. Max looked at him closely, sensing the maniacal laughter hiding just behind his pleading eyes.

And then, for the first time, the doctor turned to Max.

“Loosen his bonds.”

The color drained from Max’s face. He wanted to protest but then remembered the supervisor’s warning. He approached the patient carefully, ready for any sudden movement, and loosened a single strap.

“Loosen his bonds completely,” the doctor said with impatience. “Untie him.”

Max stood still, as if his own arms were tied, mentally weighing the consequences of ignoring the order or following it. After a cataclysmic inner struggle, he somehow managed to lift his hands and pull at the patient’s straps. They popped open one by one. As the bonds fell away Wolfgang's eyes beamed with a gleeful anticipation that was loathsome to behold. When the last strap was undone, Wolfgang withdrew his arms from his sides and flexed his fingers. His hands were powerful. He admired them the way a samurai admires his sword. Max retreated to the wall.

“Does that feel better?” the doctor asked softly.

“Yes!” Wolfgang shouted with a blazing look in his eye.

“Now that you’re comfortable, Wolfgang, I would like for us to play a game.”

“I like games!” Wolfgang chewed the air.

“You’ll like this one, Wolfgang, it’s easy to play. It was invented by a man named Hermann Rorschach. It’s named after him.”

“Oh Good!” Wolfgang chomped.

“So here’s how we play. I’m going to show you some pictures and you’re going to tell me what you think of when you see them.”

“What do I get if I win?”

“A sense of accomplishment,” the doctor said soothingly. “That’s the ultimate benefit. But I’m also going to give you a more tangible prize.”

“I’m ready!” Wolfgang pounded the table with his fists.

Max flinched. His eyes flew to the metal door. He contemplated pressing the button for the door and fleeing; not only from the building but from his profession. He took a deep breath and consciously reminded himself that Doctor Lamb was a respected figure in his field and that watching him work was a rare opportunity. He also reminded himself of Lamb’s one hundred percent success rate. It became a mantra that he hummed. One hundred percent success. One hundred percent success.

Doctor Lamb reached into a black bag at his side and pulled out a manila file. He placed the file on the desk, opened it, pulled out a sheet, and handed it to Wolfgang. Wolfgang’s hand lashed out, catching the paper like a cat capturing a bird in flight. He turned the sheet over, licking his lips, and exploded with laughter. Then, as if realizing he was laughing too loud, stopped himself and let his mirth take the form of a smirk.

“What do you see, Wolfgang?”

“Oh Doc, you’re not gonna like this. Nope. You’re not gonna like this at all.” He bit his knuckle. “No sir! Not at all!”

“It’s ok, Wolfgang, you can tell me whatever it is, no matter how painful.”

“Well, it’s the funniest thing, Doc,” Wolfgang’s expression turned philosophical. “It’s a picture of you. But there’s a problem here.” He wagged the paper. “The problem is that your head’s smashed open.”

Wolfgang put the paper on the desk and tapped it. “You see, here’s your face in the middle, looking sort of like it does now, but then there’s this big hole in your head and your brains are coming out. They’re coming right out of your skull!” Wolfgang wanted to laugh but put his fist in his mouth.

Max was sweating profusely. The situation had gotten out of hand and it was time to raise an objection. But then he remembered the supervisor's warning. He also reminded himself of Lamb’s reputation. He whispered his mantra with shaking lips. One hundred percent success.

“That’s very interesting, Wolfgang,” the doctor said. “Now I want you to take a look at a second picture.” He pulled another sheet out of the file. “Look at it closely and tell me exactly what you see.” Wolfgang took the page.

“Uh-oh,” the patient smiled. “You’re really gonna think I’m crazy this time.” Drool oozed from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away. “You’re really gonna think I’m nuts!”

“What is it, Wolfgang? What do you see?”

“Oh, it’s just your brains again. Smashed all over the place!”

“How fascinating, Wolfgang. I have to congratulate you. You’re playing very well.”

The doctor took the sheet from Wolfgang’s hand. “Now I want you to take a look at this third picture. And again, I want you to tell me exactly what you see.” He offered a third sheet from the file.

Wolfgang snatched the sheet out of his hand. He held it an inch from his eyes.

“What do you see, Wolfgang? You can tell me, don’t worry.”

Wolfgang violently shook his head No. He pressed the sheet to his face and bounced up and down to stifle his laughter. Then he lifted his head and squeezed his eyes shut. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

The doctor leaned forward. “Shhh, Wolfgang. It’s Ok. I won’t be mad. Just tell me what you see. You’re so close to winning.”

Wolfgang brought his head down and opened his blazing eyes. “Brains!!!” he roared. “Your filthy fucking brains! Smashed to bits!” He stood up and flexed his hands, bumping the desk and sending the papers to the floor.

The Doctor calmly reached into his black bag and pulled out a hammer.

“Here it is, Wolfgang. Here’s your prize.”

Wolfgang tore the hammer from the doctor's hand. He lifted it in a blur and brought it back down, striking the doctor’s head. Bits of brain and bone scattered like candy from a broken piñata. The doctor’s chair tipped back, spilling him onto the floor. Max opened his mouth to scream but his lungs no longer worked. As he watched in terror, Doctor Lamb began an awkward crawl across the tiled floor. Wolfgang kicked the desk aside, crouched over the bleeding man, and went to work with ferocious energy, hammering his skull like a nail he wanted to make disappear. Max cringed in his corner.

When the hammer stopped singing Wolfgang threw it across the room. Max looked up. Wolfgang was trembling. His face was so wretched it was no longer a face. The faceless thing crawled to a corner and pressed itself into the crevice.

Max stayed huddled against the wall for a long time. When he was finally able to rise his legs wobbled. He staggered towards the button on the wall and pressed it. The door slid open. He stepped into the hall and then looked back over his shoulder. As if operating under remote control, he walked back into the room, stepped over the human inkblot on the floor, and picked up the fallen papers. He stuffed them into the file and stuffed the file into his notebook. Then he walked back out into the hall.

There was shock and outrage but nobody blamed Max. He was a victim as well, that much was evident. In mumbled incoherencies he gave the supervisor the barest sketch of what had occurred. Max didn’t intend to be evasive; he just couldn’t put his thoughts together. He would be questioned more thoroughly once the shock wore off, but for now he must rest. The supervisor considered checking him into the hospital but Max indicated that he wanted to be taken home. One of the orderlies drove him there. Max was silent for the duration of the ride. It was late at night when he finally pushed through his front door.

He collapsed in his chair and turned on the TV. A car commercial came on. The car turned left and right, rolled forward and back, and then came to a grinding stop on the top of a mountain. Max kept his finger on the channel button, chasing the dwindling quarry of late-night programming until infomercials played on every station. It was during a demonstration of miniature keyboard fans that he finally came out of his stupor. He turned the TV off and stood up to get undressed. As he unbuttoned his shirt, his eye caught the notebook lying on his dining room table. He walked over and opened it, removed the manila file, and took out the sheets that had been hastily stuffed inside. Max turned them over one by one. They displayed carefully detailed drawings of Doctor Lamb’s head; each with his skull broken open, each with his brains coming out, and each signed with Doctor Lamb’s name.

Letting My Eyes Stray

It’s been said that if a man accidentally meets the gaze of a woman three times he will be the father of her children. I doubted the truth of this prediction until I found myself in an all-night diner exchanging glances with a dark-eyed beauty. My coffee grew cold as I coaxed her with tendrils of vision, hoping and yet afraid for our eyes to meet. Three times in the space of a minute her huge starry pupils returned my gaze. The escalating joy of each chance collision sent me swaying on unsure legs toward her table and gave me courage enough to ask if she’d like to go for a walk.

As we strolled through the evening I studied her countenance; the way she held her chin, as if exposing a neck draped with pearls; eventually ending up beside her on the front step of her home. For the first time we could behold each other with a brazenness unsuited for public places. Her eyes held a reflection of the moon and, beyond that, a dilated darkness pulsing with tones of love. We fornicated that night with unblinking excitement.

Nine months later, as I held her hand, this woman with dark eyes pushed our first child into the world. Her labor continued and a second emerged, followed by a third. I was the father of triplets. I asked the doctor to show us our little darlings. Three shiny human eyeballs stared up at me from his gloved hand.

After a night in the hospital we placed our children side by side in a baby carriage and wheeled them back to our house. We carried them up the stairway in our palms, tucked them under a blanket, and watched them lovingly as they fell asleep. Each of them is beautiful in their own particular way. Iris, the oldest, is blue and a real handful. She follows me all over the room as soon as I get home. Hazel, the second born, lacks all determination. She is content to stare off into space for hours without speaking to anyone at all. Malcolm, our third child, is blind.

Life is absurd and mine is no different: one day my wife, the woman I loved, the one whose dark eyes attracted me at the all-night diner, decided that we should take our children to the beach. Stupidly, I dropped Iris in the sand. (Her invisible screams trouble me now as I write this.) Before I could save her an ant-lion reached up from below and pulled her into his hole with a terrible roar. I struggled, digging in the sand, but he was quicker than I and now I’m quite certain he keeps her as his playmate, rolling her down dusty hallways of infinite pain.

While my wife lay tanning herself on the blanket, I waded out to retrieve Hazel, our second born, who splashed about in the sea. Before I could reach her, a carp swam up and took her under his fin. They swim together still in the shadowy depths of my regret.

Perhaps to convince myself that I’m a good father, or perhaps for another reason altogether, I took my youngest child Malcolm to get an ice cream cone, being sure to quietly pocket my car keys as I went. As we crossed the parking lot an old man, walking with a cane, asked us for change. I noticed he was blind, this old man, a veteran of many wars, and, feeling the way Abraham must have felt as he led Isaac up the mountain, touched the man’s face, found his eye, pried it open and, discovering the orbital cavity empty, placed within it my son, the last of my line, who is surely better off with this man as his father than with a fool who falls in love at first sight.

Ronald Reagan

It is my goal in life to emulate that genius of the absurd: Ronald Reagan. My skeleton is composed in that man's shadow. It is Ronald Reagan's head that emerges from my shirt's collar. In my mind’s eye I am patting Nancy on her bony knee and reminiscing about my youth in the Appalachian Wilderness.

"How old were you when you first bagged a possum, Ronnie?" she asks, her watery pink eyes feigning interest in my past.

I don't answer her just then; I barely hear her voice. My thoughts have turned to contemplating those inexplicable pages of Herodotus that deal with the dog-headed inhabitants of Ethiopia and their implication in regards to stem cell research. Fixing my eye on a point just above the horizon I open my hole to speak:

"Nancy," I begin in a dusty puff, "did you know that scientists have studied the barking of dogs in an attempt to discover the rudiments of language? It's true. After years of research, the Animal Linguistics Department has issued a report claiming that the bark of the domestic dog is the semantic equivalent of shouting Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No, Yes/No.

Dirty Deeds

Manfred lies on his living room sofa, considering a persistent knock. It has echoed for hours without slackening. Something must be done. Manfred’s hands turn into fists and then back into hands again. He rises, opens the door, and beholds his next door neighbor. “What the fuck do you want?” Manfred asks, his forehead a furrowed turret.

Manfred’s neighbor, knuckles raised for another knock, bunches his features into a matching grimace. “It’s that damned dog of yours,” he says, pressing his teeth together like a mortar and pestle. “He’s been sneaking onto my property.”

“My dog’s dead. What’s your gate doing open anyway?”

“I keep my gate closed. He must be jumping over the fence.”

“I just told you, my dog’s dead. I buried him three days ago.”

“Well, he’s getting in there somehow. My yard is full of holes.”

“You’re sleepwalking and digging them yourself. Did you ever think of that? Take a look at the dirt under your nails!” Indeed, the neighbor’s hands are filthy.

“I’m a plumbing contractor,” the neighbor blurts.

“A hole-digger is what you are.”

“You just keep your dog out of my yard.”

“You just keep your dirty hands off my door.”

The neighbor pushes his dirty hands into his pockets. Manfred stares at him as if trying to peer under a mask. The neighbor averts his eyes. Manfred condemns this act of cowardice by slamming the door on him. Waiting behind the door is Manfred’s dog, covered with patches of rot and clumps of dirt. It moves its tail back and forth like a hand waving goodbye. Through the window Manfred can see his neighbor walking back to his house, one dirty hand in his pocket, one dirty hand scratching the back of his neck.

As the neighbor walks away, the sky grows darker. Triggered by a silent command, the neighbor closes his eyes and lets his head slump forward. He trudges on in a daze. The moon, hitherto disguised as a milky wisp, now burns with ferocious energy.

With the misguided rhythm of a failing machine, the neighbor opens his gate and lets himself into his backyard, a plot pocked with thousands of holes. Once his gate is closed, he sinks to his knees and crawls across the ravaged earth, his dirt-encrusted fingers hunting for an opening. Finding a hole, the neighbor digs into the soft stuff beneath. He burrows, making his way by touch. The dirt that he sifts through is rarefied, almost too grainy to name, a geological stratum that can be breathed in like air. Completely underground, the neighbor continues to search and feel. Suspended in the dirt are various objects that meet his clutching hands: a chew toy, a rusted shovel, a bloody plumber’s wrench. The neighbor bares his teeth as he finds his prize: Manfred’s bones, bleached by time and scarred from gnawing.

Fled

There are a million types of laughter, the man smiled, wondering if there could be another as simple and as pure as the laugh of a child. He had this thought in the midst of a crowd of children, each one of them laughing. He was leading them up the street and if a passerby had seen him then, they’d have guessed he was a schoolteacher taking his class on a field trip. The boisterous urchins were, however, his own offspring and he was walking them to school. There were twelve of them and their merriment was a spectacle.

The father closed his eyes and let his children’s laughter carry him along. In these moments, when he was both leader and led, he would forget about the world around him and simply listen. Ah yes, the happy laughter. But at that very moment the music of his children’s voices seemed different, as if a stray note had crept into their rhapsody or a crucial component of their concert was missing. The father’s eyes snapped open. It was time to count heads. Nine, ten, eleven. Where was Tzhachki, his smallest?

Tzhachki was running up the street, almost half a block ahead. The father called his son’s name sharply, causing his other children to abruptly exchange their laughing faces for masks of abject worry. But Tzhachki kept on, oblivious to his father’s protest.

“Bunny rabbit!” Little Tzhachki cried, grabbing at the air.

Watching his receding form, it seemed to the father that his son ran backward. Tzhachki’s steps were stiff and choppy. The father feared that at any moment his child might pitch himself onto the cement and damage his brand new teeth. He pushed through the throng of upset children and ran after the boy.

“Bunny rabbit!” Tzhachki cried again, with madcap fervor, as if joining a war mid-battle.

Gaining on the youngster, the father could make out what indeed appeared to be a bunny up ahead: a rabbit, frozen in fear, sitting in the center of the sidewalk. The rabbit was dark and its ears were pointing straight up from its head. Now he not only wanted to keep Tzhachki from hurting himself; he wanted to keep Tzhachki from hurting the rabbit.

Then, quite suddenly, Tzhachki wobbled to a stop and let out a mournful cry. After a frantic moment, his father came up beside him and looked around for the rabbit. Behind them, the other children had started wandering off, each in a different direction.

To the father and son’s surprise, what they had thought of as a rabbit was actually a tangle of shadows creeping across the sidewalk, thrown in conjunction by a bicycle tied to a railing and a dented can left on the curb. With the sun climbing behind them, these specters were shrinking, separating, seeking new forms to mimic. The boy, dumbfounded and weeping, watched as the shadow unraveled, the way forty years later he would watch his father unravel, the way forty years after that his children would watch him unravel, all of them fleeing to that same place to which the rabbit had fled.

Eyesore

Although I know of Rosie’s reputation, I have never seen her face. I have passed her many times – and have heard her sullen whisper - yet she keeps herself hidden in the shadows of a dark and miserable alley and her voice is so low I barely understand her.

I’m walking through the alleyway now, stepping carefully to avoid making noise and moving quickly to find my way out. Although I pride myself on my courage I do not wish to test fate, let alone pause to decipher the graffiti whose meanings swim like shark fins in my vision.

Finally, I can see the end of the alley, lit by the glow of a solitary streetlight. I am about to step into the glow when a shapely leg extends from a doorway, capturing the pale light and blocking my path. Rather than push past as I normally would, I pause. A strong curiosity has taken hold of me. I want to see Rosie’s face.

I move deeper into the darkness, coming close enough to touch her, and lift my eyes to meet hers. But instead of seeing Rosie’s face I see only strands of dark red hair. Rosie’s hairdo falls in two heavy bangs that obscure her visage from the crest of her forehead to the base of her neck. I am about to turn back when I hear – and finally understand – her slippery whisper.

“A peek for a buck,” she breathes.

I dig in my pocket, find a dollar, and toss it at her shoes. Rather than drawing back her bangs to reveal her face, her face pushes itself forward, through her hair, like an animal emerging from the jungle. First comes the nose, then the lips. Lastly, the brow slides into the clearing before me. Everything is as it should be, except for her eyes. Rosie has one regular eye and one eyelid clamped so tight that it resembles a scar. This tightly clamped eyelid bears no lashes and appears sunken as if lacking an eye behind it. With a steady hand Rosie reaches up to spread the aperture open and I realize that this is the peek I’m paying for.

Inside her spread-open eyelid is a smooth pink sheath, glistening like licked candy. This wet interior is convoluted with creases. It would perhaps, if examined closely, reveal the socket through which the optic nerve had once traveled to the brain. No sooner do I gather my glimpse than Rosie lets the eyelid snap shut and stoops to pick up her dollar. I quickly throw down another of a much higher denomination.

“Could you get that eye back open for me?”

Rosie slowly puts the money in her purse and makes the letter C with her fingers. She gets a good grip and again pries open the empty socket for me to gaze upon. This time she spreads it even wider.

The pink interior beckons as before but now I can detect a tiny dot in its center, a hole no larger than the holes you see in a saltshaker lid. The hole seems to quiver, to pucker and flex. Then, with the sudden fury of a baby’s scream, it springs wide open, taking the shape of a crying mouth. I manage to suppress a gasp but I feel ill. At the same time I am more curious than before. Part of me wants to flee, but the other part wants to move closer, to be as near the empty eye as possible. I lean forward and peer inside.

Vertigo sweeps over me as I am confronted by a shaft of darkness with no discernible limit. The abyss inside isn’t just vast, I am sure that it is endless. I realize that I’m no longer looking into the darkness inside Rosie’s head but the darkness that surrounds everyone and everything, the fathomless nothing in which the world drifts as a speck.

“The funny thing about this eye,” Rosie says, “is that it catches whatever the other one misses.”

I nod, but without understanding.

“And as sure as you’re staring into it, it’s staring into you. And believe me, Mister, it sees everything.”

I decide to give a laugh, the chuckle of a man who has heard it all before.

“You’re too much,” I tell her, starting to come to my senses. But try as I might I can’t tear myself away.

“Think I’m pulling your chain?” she says. “Look harder.”

Something stirs in the depths. I see one of my memories in there, a memory I have long kept hidden from myself and the world. I see other things too. Things I’ve done and wished I hadn’t. And the things I’ve thought of doing. And these are the worst. My guts tie themselves in a knot. All I want is to look away but I haven’t the strength. If she doesn’t stop I swear to God I’ll rip my eyes out.

“You paid me to open it up,” she hisses. “Now you’ll pay me to keep it closed.”

Black Dots

The balloon man has strange hours, usually not appearing until after sundown and then standing on a corner where nobody strolls. In fact he never sells a balloon. He just waits with a bundle of strings in his hand. The balloons hover over him like a confused thought.

I decide to pay the balloon man a visit, to inquire about his wares. “Are they all the same price?” I ask. He tells me yes, they’re free, and if I pick the right one – the one true string out of thousands – I’ll receive a special prize. I push my fingers into the core of the bundle and discern a thick, strong cord. I seize it and pull it from the balloon man’s grasp. Holding the string tightly in my hand, I’m surprised at how desperately it yearns for the sky. I see then that the balloon it leads to is not a balloon at all. It’s the head of my father. Through the corners of his eyes I can see the air inside him. Balderdash, chaos, the starry darkness of space.

“Congratulations,” the balloon man cries and walks off, leaving me alone with my father’s face. I walk down the darkened avenue wondering what I should do with my prize. If I were a child I’d tie it to the handlebars of my tricycle and peddle around the block. But my tricycle has been dismantled and the pieces are scattered all over the earth. I’m thinking of Plan B when my father’s voice seeps out of the balloon’s poorly tied knot.

“Why don’t you let me float up to Heaven where I belong?”

“I’d like to keep you around for a little bit, Pop.”

“Don’t call me Pop, it makes me nervous.”

“Maybe we could go see a movie or sit a while and talk?”

“Gravity gives me a headache.”

I open my hand. The string jumps loose and my father’s head travels upward. It becomes a parcel of the past, a black dot. The night is made of black dots. I count them until the sun rises and I lose my place.

The Motionless Movement

Illustration: "Nature Will Win" by Matthew Watt

"Movement is the Disease of the Universe."

Thus begins the manifesto of Le Mouvement Immobile (or The Motionless Movement), a tiny and short-lived collective of literary intellectuals founded in Paris in 1900. Gerard Duprey, the manifesto's author, broadens this premise, declaring that the worm at the core of existence is our willingness to accept that "things happen."

Having a prescient understanding of the theories of Rudolf Clausius and a thoughtfully, albeit erroneously, developed notion of entropy, Monsieur Duprey was convinced that a misplaced trust in human progress, and the expenditure of energy that resulted from entertaining this notion, needlessly accelerated our passage towards a condition he called le fin du jeu, or "the end of the game," a static state analogous to the heat-death of the universe. With this harsh estimation of all human endeavor, Duprey believed that the desire to speak, the phenomena of thirst and hunger, and the urge to defecate were delusional habits that could be overcome with a proper amount of concentration.

Likening the universe to a game of jacks, Duprey managed to convince a sympathetic faction of his colleagues – the exact number is not known – that the best way to prolong this game, and forestall its ending, would be to simply stop playing, i.e. to lie down and remain perfectly still until Time comes to a stop on its own. In order to convince the world of the importance of a motionless existence, Duprey felt it necessary to introduce his ideas into the realm of the arts. The sciences, he predicted, would adopt them soon after.

Duprey maintained that humankind's antagonistic relationship to Time began when it mistakenly extracted itself from the world of objects. A belief that any essential difference separated the living from the non-living endorsed this foolishness, he charged. Duprey blamed literature, in particular, for encouraging humankind's fixation with movement and stirring its desire to witness events and occurrences. In the opening paragraph of le Mouvement's manifesto, Duprey scoffs, "All the books in the world could have the phrase 'Things Happen' displayed upon their spines." Without knowing it, Duprey had trumped the post-modern novel, condemning in one swoop not only linear narratives, but non-linear ones as well. "The very notion of a plot is counterintuitive to our continued existence," he argued, "and is the most harmful of illusions."

The determination of Duprey and his movement to sway French readers from their fascination with "things happening" – and thus ready mankind for a total cessation of action – resulted in the sudden appearance of "motionless fiction" amongst booksellers’ stalls in the North Quarter in the summer months of 1900. Taking its cue from the painters of fruit advertisements who, as Duprey put it, "steadfastly refuse to betray humanity," le Mouvement Immobile used its words, frozen in time upon the page, to create the literary equivalent of still life studies. These exercises could be simple or quite elaborate. Their only governing rule, as specified in the first draft of Duprey’s manifesto, was that Time should not in any way contaminate the depicted scene.

Operating under this self-imposed constraint, the members of le Mouvement were left to compose purposefully arid meditations on stillness and form whose beauty could only be revealed through vividness of description. One is safe to suppose that this intentional handicap sharpened its adherents’ ability to describe the physical world. In this way Gerard Duprey’s ideals, though admittedly absurd, can be thought to have had some edifying effect on the writers who subscribed to them. (Although this influence has not yet been documented.) The fact that the identities of his followers were never discovered reveals the disrepute into which his movement has fallen.

In August of 1900, Duprey complicated the prescribed means of creating motionless fiction. Communicating through his personal assistant, a skittish fellow named Puegot, Duprey amended several additional rules to his manifesto. Scholars have speculated that Duprey was disheartened by what he considered an increasing disregard for his values on the part of le Mouvement. Others insist that Duprey kept an unpublished master draft of his manifesto which further clarified his ideas and which he planned to introduce in stages. Whatever the case, his amended changes are believed to have caused a stir within the movement’s phantom ranks. The amendment instructed le Mouvement not only to choose still bodies as their subjects but also to avoid even the most indirect reference to action in their written descriptions. For example, a member of le Mouvement Immobile could no longer write that the blade of a dagger "gleamed," since this very gleaming, though persistent and without fluctuation, was an action of sorts. The member would now have to restrict his description to depicting the blade’s shape and size.

Further amendments followed and the interpretation of what constituted motionless fiction narrowed in turn. Duprey decreed, for example, that shadows could no longer be mentioned in the descriptions since they inferred time of day. Humans and animals were deemed unsuitable as well since even at rest these objects could not yet resist the call to movement. Fruits and vegetables, once considered the ideal, fell under scrutiny as culprits reveling in the lustful throes of ripening. Likewise, the cadavers and fleshless skulls favored by the grim-humored were excluded lest their scribes reveal them as the products of an act (death) or, worse still, currently decaying, a state Duprey considered an example of the sort of crass sensationalism his followers should go to great pains to avoid. Eventually even utterly lifeless objects whose shapes suggested a prior or future action were condemned. Describing the previously innocuous dagger blade was now deemed unpardonable on the basis that at some point the dagger had been held, or would be held, in one’s hand. Finally, any form possessing objecthood was prohibited since it had been made by someone or something and subconsciously reminded the reader of this past action.

Amazingly, Gerard Duprey was believed to have lived in accordance with his own edicts – at least as much as a man can. It’s said he rarely stirred from his resting place on the kitchen floor of his flat and that he spent countless hours in meditation, leaving all matters of housework, finance, and personal hygiene to the ministrations of Puegot, his inseparable aid. A huge, walrus-like man, Duprey spoke in whispers and moved his pen as slowly as one removes a splinter from his palm. It is generally accepted that he himself had no interest in writing motionless fiction, but was concerned solely with the ongoing task of amending his manifesto. An examination of Duprey’s notes reveal that he wrestled with the paradox of how to prohibit writing altogether without sacrificing his movement’s goal of producing written propaganda. By the autumn of 1900, an alert contingent within le Mouvement Immobile had begun to suspect its leader’s intentions were not completely artistic in nature. Duprey’s manifesto, it was becoming obvious, was not concerned with creating works of lasting merit. It was a religious tract and its author a self-styled prophet with the singular aim of delaying mankind’s descent into entropy.

There is a rumor that when Duprey’s corpse was found by his landlord just after dawn on New Years Day, he was clutching an even more elaborate, and more exacting, revision to his manifesto. Despite the fact that no fewer than fifty knife wounds riddled his corpulence, Duprey’s hand, powered by rigor mortis, was reported to have gripped his final pages so tightly that they had to be buried with him. Although a murder weapon was never found, and no murderer convicted, it is generally believed that Duprey’s killer was his own right hand man: the unpredictable Puegot.

Puegot, the former friend and ally of Duprey – and the only writer whose participation in Duprey’s group has been confirmed – had shortly before the crime become le Mouvement Immobile’s most vocal defector. Whether or not he killed Duprey is subject for debate. But there is no doubt that he killed his movement. By the spring of 1901, an angry proto-Futurist element, led by (some say comprised of) the remorseless Puegot, emerged from the ashes of the defunct collective with the avowed purpose of erasing all memory of motionless fiction from the world. This new movement, which exalted energy above all else, did not hesitate to use the physical destruction, by scissor or by flame, of le Mouvement’s tranquil writings as an example of the natural superiority of forceful action over sloth.

Interestingly, the same Puegot who worked so tirelessly to stamp out all traces of le Mouvement Immobile also has the distinction of being author to the one remaining piece of motionless fiction in existence today. It is not known exactly how his four-hundred-page description of an assassin’s dagger managed to elude the vigilante’s torch, but it has been suggested that its preservation had something to do with the thousand plus hours Puegot labored over its creation before discovering its subject did not befit his master’s revised criteria.

Do the Face Plow

A creature lay bleeding. It was the so-called Garden Weasel, the only animal allowed to sleep in the garden overnight. Someone had cut him from snout to septum and life trickled from this fissure like sand. The Garden Weasel’s kinfolk, the regular weasels of the world, had heard his dying scream and were gathered in the garden to discuss his demise.

“Who could have done this?” they asked the air. The weasels hid their friend in a box and combined their superstitions. “Coolie Face Plow did it,” they whispered. “He is the one. He put a notch in our ally.”

The weasels whispered and the leaves whispered around them. A rowdy force shook the foliage. Then the leaves spread open and the Ghost of Farmer Brown stepped into the clearing. He slapped a pig on the dirt. It wasn’t a living pig! It was a hollow pig’s carcass that zoomed through the air.

The Ghost of Farmer Brown revved up his hustle. “Gentle Weasels, trust me when I tell you that Coolie Face Plow has a generous smile that we can all think about. He also wishes every animal could live forever. Judge him? How can we? We haven’t seen his gig, or his deal. Not to mention his operation.” The weasels nodded, acknowledging the truth in his lie and vice versa.
As for Coolie himself, he was tucked away, his nose pressed into a corner of a corner, his plow forgotten like so much hooey. The Ghost of Farmer Brown stroked his beard, a colorful tuft that hung from a nail.

“The fact is, humble weasel folk, that Coolie rarely uses his face plow, let alone without a permit. No, Coolie is dedicated one hundred percent to singing his ballads. And why shouldn’t he? His tender melody “Do the Face Plow” is number one on the jukebox. Number one on the charts and number one in our hearts!”

All of those present, both male and female, human and weasel, and Coolie himself who stayed hidden, along with his dead and dying victims, bounced to a pleasing vibration: a vibration that emanated from behind Farmer Brown’s ghostly beard, from below his ghostly gut, which his beard covered nicely, and from under his ghostly man-hairs which swayed like a willow in the breeze. The pleasing vibration came from his ghostly balls, which ground against each other like planets in space. The Ghost of Farmer Brown winced and then shouted.

“Some people have said that Coolie uses his face plow for evil! They say he lost his hearing and that he had to stop singing. Well, you can scratch that off your list right now. Alright, so his ears have ceased to function. So what? He still has grease stains on his pillow! And, yes, it’s true, he once shot a president. But haven’t we all?” The Ghost of Farmer Brown raised his palm.

“Weasels and Gentlemen, Ladies swathed in ermine, I submit to you that Coolie Face Plow is spotless and shiny and that his edge is as sharp as a sword.”

The Ghost of Farmer Brown briefly became invisible. While he wandered between particles the weasels admired the piglet he’d left unattended, the piglet whose carcass lay stinking. Would anyone claim it? They were about to rush in when the Ghost of Farmer Brown introduced his new aura, this one festooned with a hairier face.

“Precious weasels, I have known Coolie Face Plow since I first witnessed his treachery, er, I mean ‘tree cherry,’ the hairy face smiled, “which of course is everyone’s favorite flavor of ice cream, weasels especially.”

The weasels nodded their pointy heads Yes. And then they shook them No. When they were done, the weasels came forward – just slightly – and posed a question, using all of their mouths to ask it.

“Didn’t you say treachery?” the weasels asked. That their question was a ubiquitous murmur made it more serious.

“You want to talk about treachery?” The hairy face of Farmer Brown cried. “Then how about the treachery that slid from the face of the plaintiff?” He pointed at the creature in the cardboard box. Though dead, the creature in the cardboard box shivered. There was no lid to convince his kin he wasn’t naked.

“You accuse Coolie Face Plow of plowing the Garden Weasel’s face without a permit. I accuse the Garden Weasel of stirring a tired farmer from his slumber. And the Garden Weasel didn’t just nudge me awake. No! He used a bloodcurdling scream. A scream that roused and alarmed me. A scream far larger and more hurtful than any instrument employed by my loyal friend and ally, Coolie Face Plow.” The Ghost of Farmer Brown shook his hairy head and vanished again. When his atoms stopped swirling his mouth was on backward.

“On the other hand,” spat the backward mouth, “how the Garden Weasel, whose back is made completely of stolen beef, came to release his hurtful scream is a tale of villainy that freezes the soul.”

The weasels squinted.

“The Garden Weasel tricked Coolie into parting with his face plow. Coolie was at a low point in his career and the Garden Weasel offered to relieve him of his trinkets and his playthings in exchange for a half-Coolie that he had forgotten existed.”

The weasels stroked their whiskers. They hadn’t yet heard this propaganda.

“With another half of himself suddenly needing to be fed, Coolie had no choice but to part with his sundries. He packed them in a wheelbarrow and wheeled them down to the garden.”
The Ghost of Farmer Brown disappeared once more. When he came back he was wearing a mask with a bloodstained spike for a nose.

“Upon the tipping the wheelbarrow, and lingering for a moment to smell the Garden Weasel’s back (strange, yes, but not a crime), Coolie devoted himself to leaving. Did I say he devoted himself to leaving? He didn’t just leave! He was flung backwards and away by the Garden Weasel’s haughty manner! Yes, he was jettisoned into the air and his pants came off. They floated down from the sky and sank into a puddle of sewage that had oozed from a crack in the garden wall.”

The Ghost of Farmer Brown’s atoms seemed to quiver. Blood dripped from his dangerous nose.
“And when the Garden Weasel saw the diminishing wisp of Coolie, did he attempt to call Coolie back? Did he try to break Coolie’s fall with his lovely pelt? No. I’ll tell you what the Garden Weasel did. He rutted like a hog in Coolie’s toy pile!”

The Ghost of Farmer Brown’s form dissipated and then reformed next to the cardboard box. Blood dripped from the spike onto the straw that had been stuffed inside. Though the Garden Weasel was still dead, it looked up and shifted to miss it.

“The Garden Weasel’s obscene jig was meant to display ownership,” the Ghost of Farmer Brown continued. “He dealt with even the most delicate items with rudeness. There was a blue-green seashell with several pink dots to delight the eye. The Garden Weasel dashed this upon the rocks! There was also a gourd that he handled too roughly. The Garden Weasel rutted in the wreckage until he found his coveted prize, the face plow, which he then attempted shave himself with. Perhaps it was this rash act that caused him his damage. As soon as he pressed his face to the edge, he let out an awful cry.”

The weasels put their faces in their paws.

“And do you know what happened then, good little weasels? I’ll tell you. An apparition began to unravel - a vaporous thing with no physical form. Gentle weasel folk, that vapor was nothing more or less than my own ghostly presence. The Garden Weasel’s scream had woken me from my slumber. He had coaxed me from the soil I slept in and was calling upon me to perform all manner of whimsy.” The Ghost of Farmer Brown trembled. “The Garden Weasel, that creepy opportunist! He tried to control me with words of binding. I managed to escape his clutches but not without being squeezed.”

The weasels spoke as one. “You were squeezed?” they asked.

“Yes, mentally squeezed. And but for my farmer’s strength I would still be a prisoner.”

The weasels leaned forward and spread their whiskers. A thousand red weasel mouths opened in unison. “But isn’t it true that before you left, you helped yourself to the Garden Weasel’s ebbing essence? We see that some of his essence is missing.”

The Ghost of Farmer Brown threw his ears on the ground. “I had been locked in a stratum of soil for centuries!” His backward mouth righted itself. “That’s a long time to go without weasel essence!”

The weasels looked at each other and then looked back. Their eyes shined like wet pebbles.

“And I didn’t take the essence for myself.” Farmer Brown continued. “I knew that once it had hardened, I could fashion it into a vast tablet. I would polish this tablet and chisel words of encouragement on its pearly surface. It was my intention to erect this monument in our garden grove to honor the bravery of weasels. Would you do any different?”

The weasels spun their heads in a circle. They tied their necks in a knot. Woven together they became a weasel-bundle; a beast that lurched from side to side. It hissed like Medusa and then relaxed.

The Ghost of Farmer Brown watched proudly. For just an instant, an adorable instant, the weasel-thing had been bigger than he. “Perhaps,” his voice rumbled, “Coolie Face Plow himself should arrive here. He should come to this place and stand right here in this spot.”

Farmer Brown’s upper teeth leaned back to the horizon and his lower teeth dropped down to the dawn. His tongue popped out and danced a slow boogie. “Coolie!” The word shook like a bell as he called him.

As the weasels watched eager, the Ghost of Farmer Brown reached under his smile and pulled out a hatchet, purchased that morning from Coolie’s Hardware. He brought the hatchet down hard on the nearest weasel. A weenie dropped in the coals would look pretty next to the damage this weasel sustained. Despite the atrocity, which was obvious to all, the weasels didn’t flee, nor did they scramble. They knew their destiny was to be plowed. Even the oldest weasel, whose whiskers were white and tough like pine needles, stood in line, facing forward with solemn reserve. It was an old act, a gag, a routine, a prayer said the same time every year. As the Ghost of Farmer Brown plowed the weasels’ faces he sang a proud song. It had a title (“Do the Face Plow”) but no words and no melody. Yet it tickled the ear like folded-up paper in an angel’s wheel.

The weasels were plowed into something not weasel. They were plowed into cracked-open clams, or freckles, or birdseed. Barbershop clippings on an unswept floor. When he was done, Farmer Brown took the plowed pieces and wrapped them in blankets. He wrapped them and slapped them and put them to bed with a kiss.

Adam

The apple lay on the ground, its skin broken open and foaming. Eve had fled, anticipating God's wrath. And where was the serpent? It had seemed so confident a moment ago. Had the creature crawled off as well? Adam let his eyes climb the tree, searching for the slippery thing. He had thought it was wrapped around a branch just above his head, but it had obviously retreated.

He peered through veils of green shadows and saw the serpent far above him. Rather than hiding, the serpent was reaching for another apple. There was a look of wicked craving in its eye. Watching the beast, Adam had a series of startling revelations. The first was that the serpent was not green and scaly as he had thought. It was pale and smooth. The second was that its head was actually a hand, but a hand held in such a way as to resemble a serpent. The fingertips were pressed together to form the snout. The hole between the index and thumb formed a dark eye. Adam could see that the hand was opening to grasp the fruit and about to shed its disguise.

The third revelation was that the sinuous body of the serpent hung down between the branches, hung all the way down to where he stood, and was firmly connected to his shoulder.