I told you not to come!
Dear Brutus,
You must doubt the veracity of my letters at this point. You can tell I'm lying. Making up names, events, places, for some reason, trying to mask what is truly happening. But it has all happened, I assure you, even more vividly than I describe. Though the envelope changes, the dossier reports the truth. Cloaked figures walk on the other side of the river. Their eyes glow orange in the deep indigo dusk. I could join them, but the trip across the river would kill me.
I looked out at the slough, trying to recall what brought me here. Associate professors are at the whim of their sponsoring institution. UBC had no place for me. I laboured so hard to have the life of my dreams in Vancouver, and I've been sent to Calgary. Not even Calgary. Some bodunk medium-sized city south of Calgary, where everyone knows each other and nothing is available at the meagre offerings they have feebly endeavoured to construct. A mundane single-level mall. Trite housing projects. I try not to be pessimistic, but this is far below my living standard.
To top it all off, I am confined to the least desirable housing district. There are several acres to the south of the city that converge around an old field of dead grass and marsh. For the longest time, a slaughterhouse stood here, now a crumbling derelict, still soaked in the blood of poorly butchered livestock. Thus, evenings are filled with mosquitoes and flies, while days stink like rotting carcass. This city should have been erased from history, were it not for its proximity to the American border. This blood field should have sunk into a drainage ditch all the way to hell, its surroundings spiralling down after it.
Pardon my lament. I've started some ambitious projects in my short time here that will no doubt deliver some rescue rope from this stench pit. But I wouldn't be writing you if I didn't have something important to impart. Something odd happened in my time here. I report it to you in hopes that someone reading your website can make some sense out of it.
Hazy in my memory is the thought of a period of time during which the CPR railway had plowed through to its final driven spike. This was a time during which the West truly began to flourish. Much excitement was in the air in this period, and many capital developments popped up like ambitious flowers among weeds. This was the time of several prominent writers whom we cover in our survey course on the early 20th, namely E. Pauline Johnson, Roberts, Montgomery and Leacock, to name a few. I point this out in an attempt to explain the very strange dream I had, one which has brought me to sit, more than a few times, at the edge of Slaughterhouse Slough. Dear Brutus, it is exactly that flourish of industrial and intellectual activity that provided the setting for my bizarre reverie.
As directed by my physician, I replaced my amber fluid with a clear one. Again, he was forthright with details of the contents, but even my course in literary latin did not prepare me to decipher the nomenclature of the ingredients. Diz-hedo-phenoma-dip-dap-dippity-do-dah, or something like that. Anything to get some rest astride a bed swarmed by insects and foul odours.
The clear fluid, once applied, softened reality to the point that a gentle haze sat upon everything. Unlike the amber fluid, this one did not toss me into the heaving tide of a raging sleep-storm, but rather hemmed me lovingly into its folds. No doubt it was an improved formula, and I was thankful for the upgrade. I awaited the dark, and the next day's lesson planning. The dark, however, did not arrive.
Feeling cheated of a decent rest, I made note that I should call my physician at first light to complain. This I would have done if my cell phone had a charge, but it did not. I forced my sluggish corpse to my desk and opened my laptop. Dead. Nothing. I tried plugging in my devices, but not one of them showed any light to note. The digital clocks had gone off, and this was the point at which I'd concluded that my main breaker had been thrown. I checked my box, reset every switch, and still, nothing. Could this be an outage?
I poked my head out of doors to scan the neighbourhood. Similarly, every window on my block was darkened. If there was no outage, at least a few night owls would be active. So that was it then. Not only was I surrounded by stench and pests, but the power was unreliable. I clearly wasn't going to sleep, and my alarm wouldn't be sounding, so I committed to a stroll of the neighbourhood.
This brought me to the gate of the hideous swampland that was the Slaughterhouse Slough. Initially I was repelled by it. Getting closer, though, I detected something in the breeze. It was the faint wisp of perfume, and the stench of animal carcass did not blot it out. No stench emanated from the slough, but even a pleasing scent of fresh grass and pollenating trees protruded from the dull circumference of the fenced-off property.
So inclined was I to understand the source of the pleasantness that I found myself tripping through a hole in the fence a few meters down from the locked gate. As I did, a miraculous transformation occurred. I was no longer looking at a swamp, but rather a lush and vivacious park surrounding a scenic lake. There were bridges and walkways, visible even in the moonlit hours. Handsomely-coloured benches lined the paths, and a damsel in a wide-brimmed hat, dressed in moon-white lace and satin, sat upon one of the benches. I made my way over to ask her what marvels we were witnessing.
I approached her, as her back was turned to me. I cleared my throat. "Ma'am?"
She said nothing.
I got closer and reached out a hand. "Ma'am?" I said, now insistent. I put my hand on her shoulder. It felt cold and devoid of humanity. I felt like I was touching stone.
Slowly, she turned her head to face me. My eyes must have betrayed me. At first, it seemed I knew this face, from a dream I had a while ago now. Then, I became aware that the face was no face at all. She turned and stared me deep in the eyes. To my horror, there was no flesh on her visage. Her face was stripped of all skin, muscle and meat. There was only bone but for loosely set eyeballs. She put her hand on mine. Her hand, too was skeletal. She shoved my hand away and shouted into my mind in reverberating echo:
I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME!
I screamed in response to the shock and fell on my side. I pushed myself up and scrambled to the hole in the fence. I did not look up until I arrived safely inside my house. I crawled to my bed and pulled my covers over my quaking body.
7am. My alarm went off. I picked up my phone. Full battery. I hadn't reconnected the charger, thinking it futile. All my digital devices were up to full power. I wanted to write you this while it was still fresh in my memory. Brutus, what did this hallucination mean?
I am now tired from having relayed this. I do hope your audience finds it entertaining, for all it has done for me is cause me to doubt reality. This feeling is unpleasant, but how can I cast it off? My only solace is that there is someone who might believe my strange tale, but as a man of reason, I would not believe it for a moment. Anyhow, I have papers to grade and really have no more time to devout to this fruitless pursuit. It was fine communicating with your audience, but it's time for me to move on.
Forever Yours,
Professor Weller Mayburn.
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