Dear Brutus,
I must again beg your regard, as further developments at the dirt lot on Bute and Nelson have arisen that have shocked my sensibility and caused me to doubt my sanity. Please bear with me as I describe what can only be a complete fabrication. I’m shaking as I write this, which perhaps is due to the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed this eve, for I hope it has nothing to do with what I am now convinced is real.
As I mentioned in my previous missive, I had recognized my folly in mistaking a dirt lot for a fin-de-siécle residence that I assumed belonged to a wayward location on my walk home from the Davies Street pub. Laughing at myself, I returned from work to the same pub, this time for three pints of their delicious stout. Halfway through the second, I was joined at the bar by a stranger, a man about my age, who ordered the same. He was knowledgeable in world affairs, roughly in the same vein as I was, which I discovered the more we chatted. I emptied my second as he drained his first, and we ordered more. You see, this man had traveled widely, and gained knowledge of many privileged topics through his post as interrogator with the British Armed Forces. He was therefore a delight to speak with, unlike most passersby you might encounter. He spoke of what he could, and omitted what he must, tiptoeing through issues as delicate as the Arab Springs Incident and peace talks with Sharon when he was in office. Topics turned from politics to history, history to geography, and then somehow ended up in our backyard, specifically the dirt lot on Bute and Nelson. My speech now slurring as I drained my third glass, through chortles and gasps I revealed the perceived goings-on of the previous night. I looked over at the man and saw that he had turned ghastly pale. He had stopped drinking mid-quaff, and was now merely staring at me with round eyes intensified by his thick-prescription specs.
I stopped talking when I witnessed his gravity. I scanned for judgment against my claims, to see if he thought me a lunatic. Not quite, I reckoned, it wasn’t judgment in his eyes. The silence and heightened attention seemed more like intrigue, blended with the wake of ominous doom.
“Continue,” he pleaded dryly.
“Well, I mean…” now I was offput and thought it better to pace slowly into my telling. “It was a, well, you wouldn’t even believe it, but the man who stepped out was certainly not of this century.”
“Black-booted, and bearded, you say?”
“Yes, and holding a pipe. Strange, no? I would think that whatever house I’d stumbled upon in my delirium was hosting a party, perhaps of an antiquated sort. Steampunk, I think they call it. All the kids are doing it these days.”
“Yes, maybe,” Stanley concluded, and shrank back into himself for a pause.
“Well, I think it’s time I squared up. Don’t want a headache for tomorrow’s class.”
“Sure,” said Stanley, and I dropped a fifty on the counter as Stanley disappeared.
“He already got it,” said the barkeep, but before I could thank the officer, he had vanished.
I’m sure you can guess that I couldn’t have gotten home from the pub in any manner other than stumbling. I carelessly floated down the sidewalk, not minding which street I was on, as the weather was clear compared to the previous night. I walked past the dirt lot, and I narrowly avoided glancing at it. However, it had now become part of my mythos, so I needed to take in the full view of how utterly ridiculous I had been, both in imagining the property, and in telling a complete stranger about it.
I stood there, feet firmly in place, in front of the old decaying fence. Nothing. Dirt, clay, clumps of sad flaxen grass interspersed with weeds. Hello! I shouted, and laughed. Hello, my steampunk cosplayers, where are you?” This caused my slurring mouth to launch a spittle projectile. I wobbled a bit, and nearly fell into the yard. I strongly wanted something to return my call, swaying there in my inebriated state. There wasn't a faint whisper of anything but atmospheric city sounds in the evening air. I began to feel boisterous anger welling up in me when nothing appeared, but I could be forgiven. Three pints is, well, was a bit much for me. I hollered. Where are you, you miserable nerdmongers! You callous Jeffries! You empty and unseasoned lilywags! My jabs didn’t even make sense at this point, and I knew it was time for me to go home. I couldn’t resist the urge to huck a phlegm-formed parcel through my lips and upon the rubble of whatever once stood there. I laughed self-consciously and stumbled home.
I recall it was 3:12 precisely–for trauma notices details–when I was awoken by the clamour of some unruly commotion down the block. I knew exactly who it was, so I thought, as the Dunbar family had been off to their exploits in Panama since Thursday, leaving their ghoulish teenagers in charge of their property. I toiled, more likely from the effects of a hangover than the noise itself. Still woozy from that night’s intoxicants, I took it upon myself to throw on my peacoat and pull my crumpled chinos from the floor to my waist. I sported a v-neck with no collar as I tore over to the Dunbars' in a fit. I stood at their gate with astonishment on my face. I was staring at a darkened screen. No fixtures illuminated the bay windows nor did sounds shake the bannister; the place was dead. I knew this even as I approached the property, owing to the sound originating from a distance, though not a great one. I passed house after house until I reached the source of the ruckus. You guessed it.
It must have been the house next to the empty lot. This patch of dirt still stood vacant. It was unmistakable, however, and from this proximity, it was alluring. Something of the scene drew me close, some fragment of music akin to Ella and Louis, some scent of an older world, some wisp of perfumed air, lilies, lilacs, roses, a Zanzibar forest, a Thai night market, a Delhi street corner. The saltwater sparkle of the West End air still lingered, but in a far deeper hue, a damper density. The old world atmosphere sat on the other side of the fence, just a patch of green past faltering property lines. I blanked, and seemed to lose consciousness under the hypnosis of the free-floating nostalgia of a forgotten quadrant. My eyes jerked open. There in the field stood the menacing sight of a man in a trench, eyes glowing wildly, his stetson firmly fixed upon his cranium. A blink and he was gone. I fell.
Luckily, there were people helping me to my feet moments later. They were kind and cordial, and helped me to the fence without complaint. I must have still smelled like alcohol, but I didn’t worry that these kind strangers had ill-intent. Their laughs were warm, their hands strong, and they continued on whatever conversation they’d previously enjoyed while we walked. I noticed how similar their coats were to mine. I felt like I belonged among these people, an instant attraction. It was not until I reached the fence and prepared to walk through into the street from whence I’d come that I turned back to express my gratitude and say goodnight. The smiling, laughing faces of the strangers drooped when they saw the terror in my eyes as I surveyed the sight behind them. It was a beauty to behold, a marvel of architecture, such an odd instalment amid the grimy city. The house was as I’d viewed it the previous night, only now it was in the clear air, majestic and inspiring. I could see every plank, every shingle, every brick, freshly stained as if it were no antique at all. An equilateral gable framed the third story window next to the cylindrical turret I told you of before, all of which sat atop the second story windows in a facing line leading to the curvature under the spire. Below the overhang, a porch seated a company of upper-crusters in fancy dress. They paid little attention to me and my party of strangers. What could I do in this situation, but go along with it?
I turned from the fence. “I’ll join you,” I said to the partygoers, which welcomed a cheer, and friendly gibes of ah, so the professor isn’t too good for us, and not too drunk for a shindig, then! I’d no idea why they called me professor, but again, I went along. They were as rosy-cheeked as I was pale, but with the help of their comeradery, I was feeling toasty and began blushing in tandem with the crowd. We sang, oh! we bellowed!, those old timey classics no one knows, like Maggie Murphy’s Home, You’ll Miss Lots of Fun When You’re Married, and Goodbye Dolly Gray! I haven’t had anyone to sing these songs with since I had a phase in college. We sang all the way to the door of the grand house on Bute and Nelson. The view from the patio obscured all modern vehicles and skyrises. Within my view was a dusty road with no one on it, not at this hour, anyway. Through the doors, and I witnessed a full house of chattering adults, all appearing to be of high caste, if the world had set its clocks back a century. The furniture style was full Edwardian, if my eras are correct, with mahogany decorated in twists and inlay, tightly-wrapped rattan and vermillion-stained hide. The fashion was over-the-top for a quirky costume party, if that’s indeed what I’d stumbled upon. I saw mink stoles, felt hats, and parasols left by the door. There were puffed sleeves and petticoats wrapped around tightwaisted maidens throughout the house. The men bobbed about in Norfolk jackets and breeches for the most part, and some of the moustaches I saw defied gravity if not decency.
I walked past a certain archway, where my attention was called by a man’s voice within. “Professor!” he called.
I walked through the doorway into what was an attractive sitting room, filled with no less than twelve well-dressed gentlemen in three-piece outfits. “Professor, so glad you’re feeling better. You seemed off your head earlier this evening. Why don’t you sit and enjoy a refreshment with us?”
Now being sure that my identity was confirmed, I carefully slid into the room and took an awkward seat on a rail-back chaise-longue. I of course knew none of these roleplayers, but I’d participated in my share of Victorian-era imagination games. The drink still swirling in my head told me that the whole fiction I’d drifted into was an easily explainable mistake, a misjudged street name, a wandering error, a practical joke. Surely, a rousing whodunnit murder mystery was about to ensue, and I was privileged enough to be counted in. Stranger things had happened, though not to me.
“So, Professor,” said the handsome man in a lavish antique tailcoat and pressed trousers. “Tell us about some of these mysterious books you’ve been studying. Is there any merit to the claims that Doyle has been corrupted into that Golden Dawn rubbish? Emerson and Thoreau bore me to tears. Help me understand all this.”
I was put on the spot. Surely I should say something. Let’s see, he’s talking about Transcendentalism. I really should have paid more attention in my literature survey course. Maybe I can focus on Doyle, assuming he’s referring to the Sherlock author. “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is corrupted? That’s news to me. What exactly do you mean by corrupted?”
I could see the smile in the man’s eyes. He paused a beat, and then crept slyly into the negotiation. “Well, from an empirical perspective, the wild theories of the emerging so-called mystics are intriguing, but lack any grounding in real evidence. I daresay they’re delusions.”
“I’d agree.” Of course I would. Mind you, in the back of my mind, I was still entertaining the possibility that I was talking to ghosts, or I had slipped into an alternate dimension.
The well-dressed noble jerked his head back. “But your essays speak the opposite. You write rather like that strange Beligan playwright. You must think something of the mystical.”
I had to tread carefully here. If these were wealthy madmen, dressing as long-dead nobles, the man before me could very well have a screw loose. I needed to answer using the cues I’d been given. It was time to put my degree to good use.
“The point,” I began, “is that they are intriguing, despite what claims come from empiricist observations. For what is a delusion?” I was on a roll, psyching myself into a brilliant performance. I began to move around the space much like a charismatic theologian. “A delusion is the mind’s distortion? And what distorts the mind?”
“The Drink!” yelled a fellow in the corner, which elicited some enthusiastic cheers and clinking of glasses.
I took the opportunity. “The drunkenness of ego!” I shouted triumphantly, my full high school theatre skills properly engaged. I was now turning the crowd. “For the five senses we have as mature apes, we still think we perceive all of existence! There are waves in the air, that Serbian inventor is known for finding them, and he’s no quack! Electromagnetic radiation, radio frequencies, all around us, all the time! And this is only what science tells us, what the five monkey senses have drummed up. Think, if we could perceive with the eyes and ears of any creature on Earth, what we might perceive! We humans are deluded, of course we are. We are all under the impression that we see, smell, hear, taste and touch all that might be felt in the known universe.” My jumping and gesturing had gained heat and wildness until I brought the attention of all in the room down to a simmer. “All of us, deluded. But when the lamps are low, and the senses are dead. When the shadows dance on the walls, and we come to the end of our daily toil. When we slip into a twilight dream, what do we see?” The crowd could now hear me whisper. “The greatest secrets of eternity. Then, and only then gentlemen, are we not deluded. If Doyle is corrupted, might it be by the invisible, inaudible truth of existence? If you were to walk boldly along the edge of consciousness, as he has, you might be corrupted too.”
I looked up from my performance and only then noticed that the whole house had crammed into the gentlemen’s chamber. The eyes of the observers were fixated, locked in anticipatory silence. Then, one by one, the onlookers' hands came together, and I humbly left the room showered with praise. I laughed coyly. I didn’t know if I was being roasted or toasted. I found my way to the front door when a woman in a glistening golden gown slowly walked down a facing curling stairway, her delicate hand on the bannister. She wore sparkling accoutrements fastened about her neck and wrists, the most beautiful manacles I’d seen upon such a fair form. She stared at me. Her complexion, pallid, beaming, blushing, her golden hair framing her delicate features.
“What’s the commotion?” she expressed with dry emotion.
“Everyone’s in the sitting room down the hallway, telling stories.”
She slinked past me and I heard the voice of the well-dressed noble greet her as I made my way out the door and to the fence. I had a day of work ahead of me, and I knew I needed to be home before dawn for at least a moment of rest. Those eyes, those emerald eyes, though, they burned on the screen in my imagination. I couldn’t empty them from my mind as I passed through the gate. I turned around, and lo, the house had again vanished. I ran back through the gate–nothing but dirt. I looked around, and in my madness, as the early-morning traffic began, I knelt in the mud to dig for anything that would suggest my evening was true. I gave up and traipsed home. I called in sick to work, which certainly I was. I tried to sleep. I tried to eat. No entertainment I watched fulfilled me. I spent my whole weekend this way. Nothing would get this vision out of my head. Nothing could remove the thought of her staring into my eyes, the most enchanting corpse I’d ever seen. Come night, I returned, and nothing. Nothing. Desperately I searched, but nothing.
So, I drank. I drank, and I recollected, and I committed my experience to this letter, which I send to you. The mysterious house is gone, those strange experiences, and that final encounter vanished. For once, to feel like I belonged somewhere, that feeling is now passed in my melancholy and intoxication. Brutus, this may be the last letter I write you, for embarrassment, shame, or even disappearance. I have tried to reason a way this has all been possible, but now I have no need for reason. I focus merely on the evening I felt happy, and know that it will never happen again.
Good night, Brutus.
Yours,
Weller Mayburn.
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