The Monogram Monograph: Part III

Karl Kessler rarely bought books—he had no taste for reading and he knew there were a lot of folks in this city who would look down on someone like him, with his background, for such a thing. He was either at work or in therapy; there was no spare time. Circumstances squeezed and pressed him like clay, and whenever he found a book it was something cheap and easy from a newsstand. But he had about two hours to kill at this library, and he wanted to try something more challenging. So he grabbed the first big, baggy, complex thing he saw and plunked down with it.

Unfortunately, he chose the Codex de Novem Milia Spectris Malum, which was apparently a famous enough book in some circles and that it didn't deserve having its English title printed. The book all the way through was in English, mercifully, but that didn't mean it was any semblance of readable. As the hours went by he found himself stuck on two pages: the first described something called “Tzaa.” The portrait of Tzaa showed it to be a series of levitating lamps in a weird hovering cluster. Below its enormous mass, a number of small figures retreated in horror.

“Yee art pozzessed of a certaine madnesse if yee art not afrayd of TZAA. TZAA is thee night-mare of night-mares, a beaste of disease and plague; he spreades his influence like the rats of Hamelin, bloomeing in and oute of life whenever he feeles he muste feede uponne the dreames of mortals. In perversioune of the GARDENE of the LORD, he has taken for himselfe the realme of PLANTES, and in it is in the twisted beautie of roses and orchides that he tempts his victimes. He can move in time, into bothe FUTURE and PAST, as we do on the space of the LORD'S Earthe, and thus is perhappes of the order of fallen Angels who art in the service of grimme LUCIFER. He is meante to be trapped withyn a star in the LORD'S aethyr, bounde for all time, and yette he abscondes too oftenne.”

It went on from there, even if his eyes couldn't. On the opposite page was something more distinct. It seemed to be a humanoid figure composed of dark vines. Though it was the size of a man as well as the shape, the humans standing beside it fled from it all the same.

“And even so TZAA has spawne beyonde the plantes that he groues. In the wordes of the Incomputare wytches, a Son of TZAA is called THRÜN, and the THRÜN of TZAA is dredde indeede. Verilie, he is sayde to be even darker than his fore-bear, having beene exiled not to a star, but to somewhere beyonde the LORD'S Creation. He...”³

He couldn't go on any further. It was a slow two hours, but it was nearly silent in here. The sound of pages turning was soothing to him somehow. Pretending to read, he dreamed with his eyes open, and for once in a long, long while, his dreams were ones of peace.

When 6:30 rolled around, he wandered out to the steps and looked for a car, not knowing what model to expect. That was the thing with healthy people, they were often vague, and never understood that vagueness was at the seat of mental unhealthiness. It was easy to get confused. It was easy to disbelieve that one was ever bound for a life that involved riding in a limousine.

There was a limousine waiting for him. The driver stood outside, bowed low, briefly introducing himself as Albert in a French accent. Kessler barely heard him, and by the time he realized he'd been rude by not replying, he was inside and sitting on the plush seats. “I'm sorry...” he whispered, as an old compulsion, but Albert didn't hear him.

Kessler rested his fingertips against his temple as he sat. To anyone who could somehow see through the limo's tinted windows, he would look to be an ordinary if shabbily-dressed playboy, slouching bored on an armrest. He wasn't bored. He was the farthest from bored one could be. He rode the bus, a bike when he had one, but not since the days of the truck on the farm since he'd been in a proper car. It was exhilarating to see the tall straight buildings become wavering lines as the car took them to the outskirts of the city. Order cracking and slipping into chaos.

Even as the white lights passed into the dull blue of the night, filling the air with a familiar chill, Kessler knew that chaos was the one that was really alive. It was active, constantly full of energy, lacking the entropic humility of order's rigid pillars. He owed this city a victory over its intrinsic order, and he had that now. It was like a dream, and similarly dreamy was the large house they pulled up to. It was so much more formal than the building with Dr. Dran's office, even if it was still one of the simple post-war suburbs. Through the tall gate the car went, into the long driveway. Kessler was out of the care before Albert could go around to let him out.

“Dr. Dexter is expecting you.”

“Amazing.”

“Yes, Mr. Kessler, sir, I must confess that it is amazing. Rarely, these days, does Dr. Dexter keep his appointments, even his impromptu ones. Those are the ones in his most recent memory, and indeed, the problem is that he forgets them.”

He began to walk Kessler to the front door of the house. “Why is the doctor so absentminded? If I can ask?” Kessler said.

“You must understand, sir, that Dr. Dexter is a polymath. He is not merely interested in psychology, but electronics as well. His mind is not like those of other men.”

“Did at any point he transform himself into an ape?”

“Not to my knowledge, Mr. Kessler, sir, though I would not be surprised. After an absinthe or two Dr. Dexter weaves odd tales about his days as a student of the Suki Institute.”

Kessler had heard tell of the so-called “Spooky Institute.” Some ugly lumps took the name to refer to the fact that it was a racially integrated school. Others said that it was called such because it was the center of preternatural and paranormal incidents due to its trademark insistence on encouraging the unusual welding of different fields. Folks these days didn't trust science, and maybe they never would, but Kessler did, and even he was astonished by some of the stuff he heard coming out of that university. It was said to be the source of much cinematic material on the so-called “mad science”; the vast and terrifying accomplishments that enabled a man to build not only an earthquake machine but hordes of mutated killer animals as well, framed on shaky black-and-white. The mad scientist was a symbol, Kessler knew, of science rendered through poetry—visual lines of verse that defied the decades of backbreaking work that would go into mastering as many fields as these tyrants of the silver screen put under their belts. All Suki did was give such characters flesh.⁴

For the rest of his days, Kessler's only memory of the Dexter house was the clutter throughout it. It was a little crushing to see such a large estate crammed full of broken and useless scientific equipment. Through several tight doors and narrow hallways, they eventually found their way in what appeared to be Dr. Dexter's legitimate research center. What Kessler noticed in the course of all this was that the broken bits of machinery and apparatus became more complicated the closer one grew to Dr. Dexter. It was like traveling through time, in a way, seeing the progress of the sciences from the last two or three decades age to dust and be replaced with fresh youngsters. That which lay scattered around Dexter's desk was beyond Kessler's understanding.

Dexter hardly looked up when Kessler entered, but he smiled all the same. He turned his head, but didn't make eye contact. “Mr. Kessler!” he said, in the voice the phone had only distorted a little. “Welcome. Please excuse the mess. I am merely working on my Gateway—the office we'll be working in will be much tidier.”

“Dr. Dexter...” Kessler paused as he spoke the name, waiting for the kindly doctor to fill in a first name, to no avail. “I do hope you can help.”

“I plan to have such an ability, boy. Dr. Dran was brief, as he is in all things, but he told me of your other selves, of your invisible ghost Virginia, of the odd A-B Monogram. I think we can figure this out plainly enough.”

Kessler looked around. An uneasy feeling swept over him. Beyond his senses, Dr. Dexter moved to the door where his true office was, to where a stylish green-walled office was waiting, with a comfortable couch to lay on this time upon which some money had actually been spent. Albert the driver had entered the room, but Kessler didn't know why and didn't care why. Dr. Dexter was patient. He didn't rush Kessler, as he studied the moment; but he did study him. When at last Karl crossed the threshold, he asked, “Forgive me for such a strange question, but were you followed here?”

“I don't think so,” Karl said then. He snapped loose of whatever took hold of him—he was used to whiplash like that. “The last person I was personal with besides your driver was a hot dog vendor.”

“And before that?” There was a sudden urgency to Dexter's high voice. Maybe even a stutter.

Karl frowned. “Just Dr. Dran.”

He glanced at the door, even as Dexter slammed it loudly. “You're lying,” came the doctor's high voice. “I can see it in your face. Hold him, Albert.”

“Wait, it's not necessary!” But evidently, it was. Soon Kessler was restrained by a pair of gentle but firm hands. “What do you want?!”

“I need to know if Marvel is behind you.” And in some sort of fit, he flinched, and lowered his voice: “Do you know that name? Marvel?”

“Y-yes. I was confronted by a man named Marvel after my last appointment. He said he was a Hollywood screenwriter.”

“He has been stalking me for some time, Mr. Kessler. I know that sounds like paranoia, but I can assure you it's not.” He snapped his fingers, and Albert set him on that medium-priced couch, and from somewhere below found restraints for him. Dr. Dexter looped behind Kessler, to where he couldn't see him, and he began to rummage through something. Kessler flashed back to his dreams—to Dr. Melcher and his kit of plastic surgery tools for cutting, clipping, and rearranging faces. It didn't help that Dr. Melcher was also Kessler.

“There is something else I need from you, Kessler,” Dexter said. “It will work out for you. Perhaps you will get to see your Virginia.” Metal slid over Kessler's scalp, ears, temples. “I need you to wear this helmet for me.”

<< Part II                                                                                                                              Part IV >>

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3. There is no New York City library holding a book by this name.

4. It was an intriguing coincidence that Kessler's Dr. Dexter was also an alumnus of my alma mater. Both Dr. MacCarron and I attended university there—in fact, that was where we met. We were some of the older students of our graduating class. Many in there had gained their Bachelor's degrees at sixteen—she and I had to wait till nineteen. (I think I lied. I think I was twenty.) We met in Introduction to Imaginal Manipulations, which, if you did not go to Old Spooky, you may not know as the general idea of using magical thinking to alter reality. In particular, it involves using literature as an incantation through which one's inherent psionic field begins to manipulate physical matter. Truth be told, I hardly remember the class, because I was only in it to satisfy my literature credit. Once Vivian and I commenced our relationship we found ourselves distracted by everything but that class. Certainly we were among the many who learned the truth behind the nickname for the college, like when we saved the Junior Varsity Badminton Team from the reptilian crea—I digress. None of this will be relevant to the final draft of this monograph. I just wanted to think about Vivian. Such a strong-willed and independent woman, a true pioneer of her age. She is many years gone now, and too often I can't remember if I had the dreams when she was here. I think I did. I must have.