ONE

Dog


Floquil: It's a certain perverse affinity that merges the two words - they're strange attractors - fetal/fatal

Serafiend: Fiddle Faddle. Dead babies. With party hats.

This isn't right. Something is definitely off. Can't put my finger on what, but I've been aware of it for some time now. So hard to see clearly. I have to squint hard and get my face down right in front of the notebook to see what he wrote. Or she? Can't quite remember now.

Another line appears - elegant calligraphic script in flowing blue ink:

Floquil: As witness the beautiful symmetry of gravitas/levitas. Thought and word fuse into meaning. Muse indefining. Intertwining.

Serafiend: STFU

Who are these people? I should know - I do know, but they're not right. Their identities are somehow - fudged. I don't even remember if either one is male or female. Come to think of it - I'm not sure I ever knew really. As of now they're nothing more than names appearing in my notebook.

The conversation can wait - I need to find out what's going on. I almost know - I've experienced this before...

But it won't come to me. Something is wrong with my brain - am I drunk? Can't remember...

A thought - go with it. Always best in these cases to just go with it - fighting it will only break the spell entirely. But what does that mean - fighting what? The words just float up in my mind like a dim forgotten memory. Go with it.

And this: Sporadic.

I have no idea what it means.

I jam the pen into the spiral binding and lay the notebook on the bed. Something is off about the room too. My room doesn't look like this. Or - it did - long ago I think. When I lived in a different house.

There's a quiet murmur of voices in the other room - people. Maybe I can find answers there. But walking is so difficult - for some reason I keep capsizing to the left and can just barely keep my balance.

The hall's wrong too - really wrong. Really long! What the hell!?!

Go with it. Just. Go with it. I'm not sure why, but that's important.

***

Still hearing the voices - a pleasant droning susurrus - like a quiet party and they know I'm sleeping so they're keeping it down - but I can't find them. Looked in several rooms and nothing. The sound doesn't get any louder no matter how far I go, or any quieter. And this dim grey light everywhere...

There's just one bright spot in it all. There on the recliner in the corner. A small dog I think, curled up, and seeming to collect and concentrate all the light in the room. What is it - a poodle? The tiny round head lifts and turns, big beady black eyes fix on me for a moment, then with alarming speed it leaps down and scurries across the floor.

No.

Not across.

Above.



Its tiny paws are making cartoonish prancing motions a few inches above the floor as it drifts in a smooth arc around the corner. Floating. Too white. Impossibly white. And it casts no shadow. In fact it looks photoshopped.

I lurch after it on unsteady legs. Not sure why, but I must follow that tiny white dog! Something in the way it looked at me - it knows. Everything. How I could get answers from it I don't know, but at least I can follow it. I must. It scampered off with such purpose, head high and chest thrown out so proudly - it's leading me somewhere.

It makes a faint sleighbell sound as it goes - something like a cross between jingling dogtags and fairy bells. And like the sound of the voices the volume stays constant. The voices I now realize I'm not hearing anymore.

The kitchen is unfamiliar as I pass through. Is this still my house? Nothing has looked quite right the entire time really. Wait - I know this kitchen - so old-fashioned. Whose was it - my mom's Grammy's, when I was young... I only remember being there one time - something about - waffles and chicken? And an all-day drive stretching well into the night, my little sister and I sleeping in the back seat part of the way.

The jinglebell sound is coming from the dark open doorway ahead and to the right. It's taking on an ominous echoey quality, and seems to be - descending. Stairs. It's a cellar. A very dark cellar.

Wooden stairs sheathed with ancient cracked linoleum creak and pop as I descend. The smell of dry dirt almost chokes me. Exactly as I remember it. Great Grammy Greta's cellar.

As I reach the bottom I sense the vast dirt-walled space stretching out all around me - cavernous. Not as dark as it seemed a moment ago. Here and there are pools of dim light. In one stands the old-fashioned white enameled washtub with the hand-wringer on top. And beyond it a dark hole.

The Coal Cellar.

***

"We can't go in The Coal Cellar! Mom said to stay out of there." Laverne's eyes sparkle, wide and innocent. I can smell the fear and excitement coming off her in waves. And I have a duty as her mischievous and malicious older brother.

"You gonna do everything mom says?"

That's all it takes. It was a foregone conclusion really.

***

No doorway here. This is quite literally a hole dug in the ground. There's a light - I remember seeing it once. An ancient wire all dried and cracked with a bare bulb hanging on it, but it doesn't work. I drift forward, unable now to break the spell. Faintly I hear the jingling sound ahead. My eyes are beginning to adjust and I can make out vague forms in the darkness - black heaps to either side, and in the wall before me - an even smaller hole. Dog sized. That's where the jingling sound is coming from.

I drift on. I have no choice.


The notebook pings gently at my hip. I lift it to my face - didn't I leave the notebook on the bed upstairs? And how can it ping? Somehow even in the darkness I can make out its surface, dimly glowing. College ruled. Ratty and crinkled from much use, always folded open to the last written-on page. Another line of script appears - red this time.

Stellarfire: Oh Lawd! What is this I don't even