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?”
---
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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