The Twisted Writer

The dreams had come back every night for the last week, leaving Mark harried and tired from the lack of sleep. The man spoke every time, repeating the same words; although it seemed as if the man was growing impatient and frustrated at Mark’s continued inability to understand him. There was a scowl on the man’s face now, which replaced his previous slightly jovial expression.

Mark had noted all of this in his dream journal, as well as recording the daytime vision he had had on Monday. Thankfully, that hadn’t happened again and he had managed to have a regular, if not busy, work week.

Now it was Friday, and Mark had turned down offers of going to a bar or two with Tommy and Peter. He just wanted to relax and, hopefully, get a peaceful night’s sleep. He hadn’t had the energy or desire to try to unravel the meaning of his dreams and vision, or even to try to translate what the man had been attempting to tell him. He chuckled to himself, still partially convinced that the words were just nonsensical gibberish that just sounded as if they were a real language.

He sat on his couch, reclining lazily while watching a documentary on the history of the Knights Templar. The show didn’t capture his attention though, and he drifted slowly off to sleep.

*

He was in a dimly lit room, lit by torches resting in sconces that lined the brick masonry of the walls. The floor consisted of one large piece of stonework, in the center of the room, which had been worked into an octagonal shape. Radiating from that were marble tiles of an almost blood red color, as if to be rays of light emanating from the edges of the octagon. Alternating with these radiant tiles, were tiles of an uncolored marble. The whole effect resembled a shining, red star.

Inscribed in the center of the octagonal stone was a pentagram, partially enclosed in a circle — the bottom two points didn’t have a connecting arc. Near each point of the pentagram was a piece of carved wood; clockwise around the circle these shapes were a cube, a dodecahedron, an icosahedron, another dodecahedron, and finally another cube. The symmetry of the design was not lost on Mark.

An eye was drawn in white at the top point of the pentagram. Red, symmetrical flames were wreathing the eye, culminating in a flaming tongue-like shape. A stark, white pillow was placed inside the pentagram, so that a reclining person’s head would be immediately under the flaming tongue.

Standing by the top point of the pentagram was the man — Mark had decided that he looked like a medieval monk, so had taken to referring to him as Monk in his journal. He was wearing a blue robe with a red, tasseled cord draped over his shoulders. The ends of the cord each had a piece of amethyst, shaped into a star.

Rather than speak, Monk pantomimed drawing the pentagram and draping the cord over his shoulders. He walked clockwise around the circle, placing the wood shapes at the points of the pentagram. He then pointed to the pillow, closed his eyes, and said, “Lingua perficio narro.”

*

Mark woke up, white noise flooding his hearing. Still groggy from his sleep, he noted that it was sometime around 3 AM; his vision was blurry, and he shuffled off to his bedroom to write this latest dream down in his journal. It was evident that Monk wanted him to draw the elaborate pentagram design and then lay down inside of it, reciting that phrase.

To what effect, though, Mark wasn’t sure. He was in no shape to contemplate it now, his mental faculties were still fuzzy with sleep and his whole body felt heavy.

At least, there weren’t any spiders in this dream. In fact, it had been a pleasant dream compared to his others of late, and Mark hoped that he would feel energized and recharged in the morning. There even was a sense of familiarity to the whole drawing and inscription of the eye and flaming tongue. He wasn’t quite sure where, but it felt like he had seen it before. Maybe just in a book, he thought.

He was able to quickly fall back to sleep, and remained so throughout the night. No odd dreams came to him–no spiders, no robed men trying to talk to him.

In the morning, he awoke and for the first time in a week felt refreshed as he went about his morning rituals of showering, coffee, and medications. It was Saturday now, so there was no need for him to head off to work so instead he was able to take time to make himself some breakfast. It was nothing fancy, just some scrambled eggs and toast, but it was more than he was able to enjoy on a workday. On those days, he usually had a bagel or a buttered roll.

As he ate, he looked over his dream journal and reread last night’s entry. He grabbed a pen and some paper, and set about sketching the encircled pentagram and octagonal stonework as best he could. He was not a talented artist by any means, but the shapes involved, with the exception of the flaming tongue, were simple geometrical ones.

When he was finished, that feeling of having seen it before returned. This time, however, he was certain that he had seen such an inscribed circle first-hand and not in a book or movie. He was at a loss as to when or where, but he was hopeful that that memory would come back to him soon. He sat for a few minutes, looking over his crude sketch, searching in the corners of his memory in vain trying to recall exactly where he had seen the design before. He wasn’t sure as to why, but he had a strong feeling that he should make make the design … inscribe it on one of the floors of his apartment and act out the ritual that had played out in his dream.

He felt silly that he was even contemplating such a thing; it was only a dream, after all. For a brief moment, he though that maybe he should mention this to either Tommy or Peter. He decided, though, that to do so would only raise another uncomfortable conversation about why Mark should be seeking out therapy and not–most definitely not–be acting out rituals from his odd dreams.

He finished his cup of coffee. Putting the cup down on the table, Mark nodded his head, affirming to himself his decision to create the pentagram and perform the ritual. He felt that he needed to do this, to show to himself that his dreams were just harmless figments.

He calculated the dimensions of the pentagram and its enclosing circle. He was unsure if he needed to have the octagonal stone and the surrounding radiant sun mosaic to do what the Monk had shown him. After a few sips of coffee and some deliberation on the matter, Mark decided that he wouldn’t make the mosaic for the first run.

If Monk was still frustrated and impatient after he made the pentagram and did the little ritual, he would look into getting the mosaic. He was pretty certain, though, that building a marble mosaic in his apartment would violate his lease at best, and cause the floor to collapse under the weight at the worst. Short of finding a basement or a warehouse of some sort that he could temporarily rent, he wasn’t sure where he could get such a heavy load of marble delivered and assembled without causing structural damage to the building.

He made a checklist of things needed for the Monk’s ritual: a blue robe, a red cord, two rod-shaped pieces of quartz, and the five wooden objects. Since he lived in New York City, he was confident that some store, somewhere in the city would have all these items. He decided that one of the occult bookshops down in Greenwich Village would have, or at least know where he could get the robe, the cord and amethyst.

Since the wooden objects were the same shape as the sort of dice used in role-playing games, he was also certain that someone would have large wooden versions of them for sale. Almost everything has a collector nowadays, even those things that are of questionable value or use such as large, unwieldy wood dice.

Tommy occasionally played such games, so Mark opted to try and get him to find the objects. He only played those games when he was drunk and bored, but he did know where gaming stores were at least. When he was sober, he enjoyed mocking them–such were the many contradictions of Tommy McNally–which would give him an incentive to accept Mark’s request.

Mark dialed Tommy’s cell phone. On the third ring, Tommy answered by grunting into the phone.

“Tommy, it’s Mark.”

There was another grunt, followed by Tommy loudly clearing his throat, before he said, “Do you have any idea of how hung-over I am? Pete and I ended up at the Wolfram.”

“Ouch. Did you stop at every bar along the way?”

“But of course,” Tommy said. “I wouldn’t have done it any other way.”

“Good thing I didn’t go then,” Mark said. “I have a bunch of stuff I need to do today. It can wait until you get functional, but can you do me a favor today?”

“Ja,” Tommy said. There was the sound of Tommy lighting a cigar, followed by a round of coughing. “Good God, man. Why do I smoke these things when I drink?”

“I need you to get me some decent-sized wood dice. They don’t need to really be dice, but just in their shape. I don’t know which kind is which, so just get me two of each.”

“Dice, huh?” Tommy said, before coughing again. “What are going to do with them? Are you redecorating your place in some sort of retro-geek style?”

“No,” Mark said, with some slight laughter.

“It don’t matter none. I’ll find what I can. Do they have to be wood, or can they be plastic?”

Mark thought for a second. He decided that since he was skipping the marble mosaic, he should stick to the objects being made of wood. “No, they have to be wood. And they shouldn’t be painted, or anything like that. Blanks will do just fine.”

“Ok, boss,” Tommy said. “I’ll give you a call later when I find them.”

“You sure you can do that?”

“My good man, have I ever let you down?”

“Yes,” Mark said. “Yes, you have.”

“Bollocks. I’ll talk to you later. I’m going to have a bowl full of aspirin now.”

“Later,” Mark said, laughing as he hung up the phone.

He scrounged around for his subway map and looked over which subway lines he’d have to take to get down to the Village. He didn’t go there very often, and when he did it was usually late at night, full of booze, and with at least one distractingly loud friend.

After mapping out his route, he got dressed. It was an early spring day; Mark walked by the open window in his kitchen and noticed that it was already pretty warm. He put on a black shirt, his pair of boots, and put on a baseball cap.

He stuffed his checklist into his back pocket, while he finished his cup of coffee. He then headed out of his building and down to the subway stop a block away. His plan was to ride the subway to Penn Station, switch lines to head down to Houston Street, and then walk uptown from there allowing him to pass most of the occult shops in the Greenwich Village area. Before going down the stairs to wait for his subway, he stopped at a street vendor and got himself a small cup of coffee–cream, no sugar, as the sugar makes him jumpy and he was already beginning to feel anxious.

Subways always made Mark feel uneasy; he didn’t like the darkness, the feeling of being almost entombed underneath the city. To keep his mind off of the crushing weight above him, he took measured, regular sips from his cup of coffee. He was doing his best to keep his breathing controlled and was doing very well at it. Even though he dreaded talking to strangers, he always enjoyed people watching, and there were several people in the subway car with him.

He was busy imagining what their homes were like and what they did for a living, and other such things, when the train came to a rumbling stop. The lights flickered and dimmed, then turned off. He took another sip of his coffee, but he could already feel his breath quickening and becoming shallow.

Someone in the car opened their cell phone, allowing the soft light of its display screen to create some illumination in the darkness. It wasn’t enough, though, to ease Mark’s mind. He breathing increasing in rapidity and he began to feel a sharp pain in his chest. He became even more panicked when he thought that maybe the anxiety medication wasn’t helping at all.

The limited light from the cell phone’s display didn’t reach where Mark was seated. He heard a clicking sound behind him and the shuffle of someone’s footsteps. He turned to look, but in the darkness, couldn’t discern anyone or anything. He felt a pinching sensation on his head, as if some of his hair was being pulled out.

He could feel beads of sweat forming on his brow just before the train thankfully roared back to life and the lights came back on, although dim at first. Breathing a sigh of life, Mark wiped the sweat from his forehead and took several deep breaths to get his breathing under control again. He surveyed the other passengers, to see if they, unlike him, had kept their cool. He was relieved to see that a few of them seemed rattled by the brief shutdown of the train. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one of the passengers leaving the car; he quickly took stock of the others and they were all in the same seats they had been in before the train stopped.

That was odd, he thought. The others are all accounted for, but someone left the car. Unsure if it was a figment of his own creation, he decided to follow the person. He briefly lost his footing as the train went over some warped rails but he still got to the vestibule door quickly. As he entered the next car, he could see the person he was following ahead of him by the door to the next forward car.

He quickened his pace, so as to not risk losing site of the person, but still trying to maintain a look of casualness. After all, he wasn’t sure the person was real and, if they were, hadn’t determined what, if any, nefarious thing they were up to.

The subway train began to slow down, and the crackling, tinny voice of the conductor came over the intercom announcing that they had arrived at the 49th Street stop. Mark stepped into the vestibule between cars as the notification bell chimed and the side doors opened. The person Mark was following turned to look at him, made a complex hand gesture with his left hand, and smiled wryly. Mark tried to open the car door, but found that, try as hard as he could, he couldn’t make the door latch move. He watched, unable to pursue, as the man exited the train.

The side doors closed and the subway train pulled away from the station platform. Once the train was underway, the latch released and Mark burst forth into the empty car. He looked around to see if there was anything worth notice. Seeing that there wasn’t, he sighed heavily and collapsed onto the bench seat. He scowled, mulling over the event. Was what just happened real? Did that man somehow prevent the door from opening? If so, how? All he did was wave his hand around, how could that possibly cause the door latch to become temporarily inoperative?

It was a riddle, to be sure, and Mark disliked riddles. Why was everything a riddle these days? Simple answers would be nice. That’s what he longed for–nice, simple answers to nice, simple questions. He ran his fingers through his hair, and was silently pleased to find that he couldn’t feel any missing hairs; so if any were pulled out of his head, it wasn’t a significant quantity of them.

This was definitely going into his journal. He closed his eyes, and tried to visualize the man he had followed; it was imperative, he felt, that he be able to describe the man properly so that he could figure out what was going on. Of course, it would have helped greatly if Mark had been able to get a good look at him, as it was he was only able to tell that the man had been of average height and build, wearing a long jacket–possibly a trench-coat or a duster–and a fedora. Now that he thought about it, it seemed very cliché to have a run-in with such in a figure. He was still going to note it in his journal, but he was becoming more confident that it was just a figment.

It was only a few stops before he arrived at the Houston Street station, and he got off the subway. He walked up the stairs and out on the city streets. To be honest, he was a bit on edge now, despite convincing himself that the whole event on the subway was yet another hallucination. As he oriented himself to figure out which way was uptown, he had that uneasy feeling that he was being watched; however, since he was now standing on the sidewalk in one of the busiest cities in the world, he wrote it off as nothing to be concerned with. Given Manhattan’s population, there could have been a hundred people watching him right now, all for various and sundry reasons. If he started to worry about such things, he would end up as a semi-functional paranoid like Peter.

He shook the feeling off and started heading uptown to the first store on his list. Two blocks later he arrived in front of ″The Wyck Ways″, a store that according to his research specialized in candles used in new age rituals. He wasn’t sure what, if anything, he’d be able to find here but decided it couldn’t hurt, especially if he was able to find some incense sticks that had a soothing smell to them. If he wasn’t going to be able to consistently get good rest and be harried with daydreams, he could really use something that would help ease his mood.

He entered the store, which was empty except for a clerk standing by the register. It was cramped with shelves lined with colored and scented candles of all shapes and sizes. There were elaborate candelabras along the far wall, with candle snuffers and lighting wands hanging beneath them on hooks. There were two bookcases along the right wall, with a scant selection of books.

Mark quickly ascertained that he wasn’t going to find anything he needed in this store. As he approached the counter that the clerk was leaning on, Mark was startled by the rapid movement of a cat. He hadn’t seen it upon his first look around the shop and, frankly, it surprised him to no end. Once on the floor, the cat looked up at him; arching its back as it moved into a defensive posture, it bared it’s teeth and hissed loudly at Mark.

All Mark could do was look quizzically at the cat, unsure as to its reaction. He didn’t like cats, and that usually resulted in them finding any excuse to rub against his legs and constantly be under foot. He never had a reaction like this from one before.

The clerk, who was disinterestedly reading a magazine, made a sucking sound with his teeth towards the cat. Upon hearing it the cat darted quickly towards one of the bookcases and smoothly jumped up the shelves, coming to a rest atop of it.

He felt self-conscious as he said, “Excuse me. I’m looking for some colored chalks and some crystals. You don’t sell that sort of thing here; do you know where I can find that?”

″Eternium, up two blocks and over one,” she said, not looking up. She handed him a small piece of paper, “Here, take this coupon. We own that store too.″

Turning to leave the shop, Mark said, “Okay, thanks.”

Outside the store, he headed towards Eternium, which wasn’t on the list of stores that he planned on looking at. Maybe it was a new store, and wasn’t listed in the phone book he had looked at; he shrugged to himself, and tried to enjoy the pleasant weather on a fine spring day.

He walked past a pub that he had gone to a few times with Tommy and Peter; if he remembered correctly, one of Tommy’s exes waitressed there, or at least she used to. It also sprung to his mind that at least one of his coworkers lived in this neighborhood; he recalled attending a social dinner party in a walk-up apartment building. He wasn’t sure which one though; he didn’t socialize with them much aside from work and lunches. The closest he had to a social friend from work was Lucia, but that was more of a regular lunch association. Now that he thought about it, the dinner party had been at Lucia’s, right before their department got reduced to just the two of them.

He almost missed the entrance to Eternium, as he was absentmindedly walking down 4th Street. It was a basement level entrance, with only a small sign to mark the stairs. In addition to the store’s name, there was a pair of symbols on the top corners of the sign: an eye inside of a translucent pyramid on the left side and the crescent moon on the right side.