Wednesday, March 22, 2017

The Monogram Monograph: Part V

Emil Nardo was not real.

At least, as far as Karl Kessler was concerned, he was not supposed to be real. Like war or nuclear bombs, however, much which was not supposed to be real ended up real nonetheless. Even in the context in which he was a part of reality, however, Nardo was only a disguise, an “alter ego” for the insidious Dr. Melcher. Presumably the figure Kessler saw in the corridor was the disguise, and he was genuinely in the presence of Dr. Melcher, his alternate dream-self who was probably linked to his dreams of killing people. As he contemplated too often, Emil Nardo was ostensibly a former stage magician who turned to crime and Nazi allegiance when he fell on hard times. In two of Kessler's dreams, which his waking mind called Spooks Run Wild and Ghosts on the Loose, Nardo was aided on occasion by the man who accompanied him, his dwarf assistant Luigi.

Because Kessler was Melcher and Melcher was Nardo, Kessler remembered what it had been like to cut a throat, or crush one between his fingers; Melcher did that just as Nardo did. Every time he saw his Virginia's face, then, they would try to force their essence into his mind on the other side of waking, convincing him that he was they or they were he. They would put energy into his wrists, a hateful energy.

Karl sat on the front steps of the apartment building which ordinarily housed the New York office of Dr. Oliver Dran, his now-former therapist. He wanted to run, but the several-mile-hike he had just made into the depths of the city had now caught up with him. He was sure that Nardo and Luigi hadn't taken notice of him. But he still felt like screaming.

New York City was completely empty. No man, woman, child, or beast roamed its streets. Save for the murderer and his accomplice, Kessler was alone. It seemed Virginia, his wife, was once more just a phantom. And yet he couldn't help but feel that this world was a phantom, a once-sturdy ship now drifting without anchor. But he had to stop and let out a humored sigh. Maybe it was the memory of the fact that these steps, or a version of them, had once been a symbol of security to him, even if he honestly didn't care for Dr. Dran that much. He was using too many metaphors, being too poetic. Overdramatic ravings and madness didn't go well together—just ask Poe. Metaphors and hyperbole cut a person off from reality, and if he was going to get away from what was now clearly and certainly a dream—albeit one altered as to be given added dimension and depth—he would need to calm down. That meant taking his mind off Virginia. He loved her in a poetic sense, or what he thought was one as per streams of radio and TV shows, and movies, that he took in. He had to admit that even though love was something that stepped beyond the hormonal rush of crushes and dates, he didn't entirely have a real concept of love.6 He didn't really have a concept of much of anything. He could attend to his errands and go to work, of course, but other than that, he still limited himself in his walks out compared to most normal people.

It was good staying indoors, though, when he was feeling weak, and now the street was just as good with its lack of people. As time passed he found himself caring less and less about Nardo, believing that it had to have just been a hallucination—a culmination and climax to all the stuff he'd been through. Probably.

He considered heading home, but he couldn't shake the alarm of seeing the streets empty. Breaking that aspect of this vast dream would require a more complicated psychiatric mechanism, he figured. Presumably that was what “the Gateway” had been: his mind's warning of his crossing, which he would need to return to if he was going to come back to what he left behind.

He was cotton-mouthed as he made the labored journey back to Dexter's house. The road that led from Dran's apartment to his own tugged at him, but something told him not to go home yet. There, in what was supposed to be his inner sanctum, would probably be the nest of the worst part of this other-world, which seemed to shimmer around him like faerie-magic. He had heard stories once that Death Himself was said to be a faerie, and that was merely one of the reasons why the Folk were to be feared. In this story, Death's incarnation was referred to as “Kurq'wes.”

His mind was drifting now, back to “poetic” things. The things that would distract him from getting better. His knees hurt, and so did his lungs, but soon he was back at the Dexter estate.

He had no energy left for fear when the place he left behind yawned up before him. The doors were still punched out: a consistency in a dream, he knew, meant that there was significance to that which was consistent. The junk, also, was still there. Maybe this was a reference to his mind being cluttered. That left disturbing implications, though, if the house was his mind: it meant that something from the outside had forced its way into his mind. That was something to ponder...

No time for pondering.

Time for throwing up.

He stumbled over backwards—absentmindedly, he had recorded that something was lying in the junk now. It wasn't something: it was someone. It was Dr. Dexter, and something had torn his throat out.

Blood was still fresh. Had to get up. Get up and get out of—

He hadn't had any luck with Nardo, so it stood to reason he'd get none here. Towering over him at once was a large shape that once more had that gleam of familiarity to it. For a second, Karl was sure his brain was stumbling, reporting things incorrectly. The figure standing over him looked to be identical to Dr. Dexter.

And yet he was so similar to Karl himself—

It didn't matter. With a quick motion, Dexter's presumed killer pulled Kessler up by the neck like a dog. “My name is Dr. James Brewster. What are you doing in my home?”

<< Part IV                                                                                                                            Part VI >>
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6. I read a good deal of psychiatric papers written on the subject of love during my time at Suki Institute. A surprising number of them were written by Oliver Dran.

That may seem like a euphemistic introduction into the tale of how I was seduced by Dran, but I assure you that he and I had no such relations, despite the possibility for such in the hallowed halls of Suki. Oliver joined our clique after his humility for the aforementioned incident. As he relaxed he began to focus on more practical work, though the Institute certainly did not require it of him at the time. The hormonal mechanisms for love are well-known and his elaborations on those studies was minute, but showed potential. Oliver was often the “third wheel” as it were when Vivian and I would go out together. He never seemed to mind and we were not tremendously affectionate in the open in any case. We would share ideas but Vivian—and the few others who accompanied us, like Anderson or some such other Delta Iota dropout—would always insist on changing the subject to something more bland or useless. I think I determined then how true of a companion Vivian was, because she was always the one to vent to when a perfectly reasonable conversation was thrown out the window for something frivolous, even though, as I've said, she often caused the pitching to happen herself. In any case, the awkward social situation the Institute instilled in us would have been unbearable if it wasn't for her.

I keep saying this, it seems, but I should stop for tonight.

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