Chapter Thirteen: Awake

I had my mission. I knew what I had to do: bring the writer to the Wall.

There was only one problem: I had no idea where the "Wall" was. And my dream did nothing to illuminate it. In the morning, in the cold light of day, I realized that I had no idea where to go next.

Then the writer awoke. "Where am I?" he asked. I told him. "I'm not dead." It wasn't a question, so I didn't answer. "Who are you?"

"My name is Norman," I said.

"Norman," he said and rubbed his eyes. "I remember you. Conspiracy nut. Targeted by the Ivory Woman."

"Yes," I said. I didn't know what else to say, so I asked, "What were you writing in your notebook?"

"Ideas," he said. "I've been able to keep them off my back by writing stories, but lately...there's been too many. Too many ideas, too many stories in my head. I can't get them all down. I've become...overloaded with ideas. I started one and then skip to another. Too many stories trying to get out." He rubbed his temples and then seemed to realize he was doing it, so stopped. "I need food. You hungry?"

"Yes," I said. I had not eaten much in the past week.

"Let's go get breakfast," he said. "You don't happen to have any money, do you? Nah, I didn't think so."

As he got up and stepped to the door, he said, "I'll just write us some money. It'll be just like the real thing."

He stumbled into the bathroom then and slammed the door.

Chapter Twelve: A Dream

I had a dream. The writer had fallen asleep and I sat on the chair beside him, tired and worried. And my eyelids became heavy and I lowered my head down and sleep rushed forward to engulf me.

I was at work. Except it was also a forest. There were trees rising out of the floor, but none of my coworkers noticed as they went about their day. Only I could see the trees and the strange shapes that flitted between them, the shadowy forms and insubstantial things that always moved out of the corner of my eye.

And then SHE was there. The ORACLE. I heard her voice, even though her mouth never moved. "There is a Wall. Invisible and unbreakable."

She moved forward and brushed my cheek with her razor-sharp fingers. "You will bring him to the Wall."

I looked at her and suddenly knew something was behind me. I just knew that the IVORY WOMAN was behind me and if I turned around, I would see a blank white tunnel.

I made my mouth move and say, "What is she?"

The ORACLE looked at me with pupil-less eyes and her voice rang in my ear as clear as day: "She is nothing. She cannot harm you. She seeks to delay the inevitable. She cannot win."

All things. Another voice. Soft, like a susurrus. All things tend towards chaos. Breaking down, bit by bit. The arrow of time takes all things. Even us. You cannot go backwards.

The ORACLE's face changed then. One moment it was calm and serene and then for a split second it changed into a snarl, lips drawn impossibly back, teeth bared, eyes red, forward creased and cracked, as if something was struggling to escape. Was this a mask or the mask torn away?

And then it was gone. She was back to being serene. Her voice flowed through my mind. "Ignore her. She is nothing. You must go to the Wall."

"The Wall must come crumbling down."

Chapter Eleven: Sleep

He's finally asleep. I dragged him back to my motel room and tried to calm him down. It was a strange reversal - me, trying to calm someone else down. But I have felt strangely calm ever since I met the ORACLE. I know I am not simply insane now and this makes me do things I would never have done before.

He did not want to sleep. He kept insisting that some "grotesque" thing would take him if he went to sleep. But his eyes were bloodshot and I knew it was only a matter of time before exhaustion overcame him and he slept.

Finally, he scribbled more things down in his notebook and then dropped it and collapsed onto the bed.

I gingerly picked up his notebook and looked through. More snippets:

a world where they are completely human. a world where they are completely incomprehensible.

new mythologies. no gods only devils.

a house made of doors. each one unlocked by a different key.



And then below that, there was a snippet of poetry:

one missing piece that makes it all fall down

one for the seer, dead and buried in the ground

one for the baby made of bone and grinding gears

these are the things that every man fears

I wonder what it all means.

I wish I could ask the ORACLE more questions.

Chapter Ten: The Writer

I found him. I followed the pages, the pages that were scattered across the street and through the door and up the stairs and down the hallway and into the room. I followed the pages that were scrawled with bits of stories:

a garbage man who finds himself in the middle of an epidemic of cleanliness - people are so consumed with being clean, they die of it.

an astrologist who finds that her stars aren't right anymore: one of them is missing.

conspiracy of librarians. hiding memories. not hidden, hiding. seek and ye shall find.

the city is a woman. the woman is a city. a constantly shifting map is tattooed on her back. her lovers go insane tracing their way through her maze.

seven sleepers. twelve mansions. thirty-two silences. 

words without meaning. all conversations become gibberish.

And so on and on.

I finally found him curled up in a room, dark and dusty, with a small ray of sunlight peaking through the curtains. He was furiously writing in a worn notebook. He looked up at me and said, "Are you real because I wrote you or did I write you because you are real?"

I didn't know how to answer. I merely lowered my hand and he grasped it, a pencil still caught between his fingers.

"Time to go," I said.

"Time," he said. "There is no time. I can go back. I can backdate things. Time can be edited, revised, updated. Time and all things."

I led him out into the cold light of day.

Chapter Nine: Breadcrumbs

I am searching for the writer that the ORACLE needs. It has been difficult, but I know that I am getting closer. Closer and closer and closer.

I saw the WOMAN in WHITE again today, though. She was across the street. It looked like someone had cut out a bit of reality in the shape of a woman. And behind the thin film of the world was a world of bleak whiteness. Nothingness. Nothing in the shape of a woman.

I reeled from this sight and tried to run. Then I almost tripped and fell into the street. If I had, a bus would have hit me straight on and I probably would have died or be horribly injured. But I stopped. I stopped mid-trip. As if the law of gravity ceased to apply to me, I stopped. I managed to regain my balance and step backwards.

On my way back to my hotel room, I saw words carved into a concrete wall. Had she carved them with her fingers?

The words were:

INEVITABILITY VERSUS UNPREDICTABILITY

SHE IS THE IVORY WOMAN


I know now. The name of the conspiracy. The name of the one who controlled every aspect of my life.

The IVORY WOMAN.

Chapter Eight: LIFE

She took me by the hand. She took my hand. She held my hand and drew her fingers on my palm, outlining my lifelines in blood.

I was wrong. She is not DEATH.

She is LIFE. She is the ORACLE. She can see PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE.

She smiles and her teeth are sharpened like razors. She does not speak. But I can see what she wants me to see.

I see a man. A writer of stories. He is filled with despair and will soon die without help.

She needs him to live. To write. The stories he writes are not important, per se, but they provide...solidity. I don't know what this means, but I don't have to. She wants me to find him and help him.

She already knows I will do this. She can see it in the blood on my palm. In my lifelines.

I want to ask about the WOMAN in WHITE.

She presses one razor sharp finger to her lips and shushes me. The WOMAN in WHITE can wait. The ORACLE can protect me.

She has seen my future, which means I have a future.

go, she writes in my palm and then pulls away. My head feels full of information, pregnant with possibilities.

I look at my hand and then back up, but she is gone.

I head out the door and don't look back.

Back on Track

Okay, I haven't received any visitors at work or had any calls about the manuscript. So I guess I was correct and this 'Alliterator' guy was lying about writing it. In any case, I'm going to continue posting the chapters when I have the time.

I do have to warn you though, that this is where it gets good. Those previous chapters were a warm up -- the chapters that come after have some full blown insanity.

 - Pete (Properly Paranoid)