The Mirrors Read online

  You’ll arrive at a clearing. You’ll see a bridge. Walk across it.

  On the other end, you’ll see a small historical marker telling you you’ve crossed over to a place called Rose Island. Note that there are no roses in the immediate vicinity. Read the marker. Note the photographs printed onto it. Note the black-and-white photos of tourists in a swimming pool—the men in early twentieth-century leotard-like bathing suits. Note how the ladder used to go in and out of the pool was constructed with what looks like thick plumbing pipes, curved outward at the end. Note the steamboats chugging up to the hotel. Note a map indicating that there once was a carousel, a café, a picnic ground where churches held feasts away from the summer heat of Louisville. Note how few photos remain. Note how even those extant are blurry with the motion of giddy toddlers who are now broken-hipped old ladies (or corpses). Note that there’s a certain out-of-focus quality to the photos that makes all the subjects appear misshapen.

  Read how the Great Flood of ’37 wiped it all away; how all the mares of the merry-go-round were submerged under the weight of the Ohio and all the muck and branches that came with it. Consider how all the rugs and walls and food must have become sopping wet and ruined.

  Walk onto Rose Island. Take off your clothes. Clothes are like families, like jobs. There is the pretension of Somethingness to them which would be sacrilege at the Time Altar. Feel the sting of the wind on your bare flesh. Walk, wincing as the and sticks all over the brown ground jut themselves upward to torture your feet.

  Take the path and you’ll begin to see the ruins of the amusement park. Crumbled foundations, now covered with moss. Fractured fragments of wood, painted yellow, stick out of the ground like rotten teeth. They’re what’s left of booths that sold ice cream and lollipops.

  Follow the path to the left. Keep walking and you’ll find what remains of the swimming pool. Note the filthy water, crusted over with scum. When the wind blows over the surface, it looks like a flexing muscle covered in green-black skin. Note how the ladder down into the pool is constructed of thick, rounded pipes—just like in the photo at the entrance.

  Farther down the path, you’ll see a slab of limestone, some one hundred feet high, erupting out of the forest floor. Locals call it the Devil’s Backbone, but its actual name is the Time Altar. The park hasn’t carved a path up to this formation. You must leave the trail to access it. It slopes groundward on one side, and that’s where I recommend you make your ascent. The going is still steep. You may tumble and break your neck right there (and never even have the chance to meet Oblivion). Then the joke, as they say, would be on you.

  Note the denser-than-expected vegetation at the top. In days of old when the Altar was venerated as such, this wouldn’t have been the case. There would have been ritual space—a stone circle atop the stone Altar, which would have foretold the days and the times Oblivion rose out of Its sinkhole to feast. We, the pilgrims of the present day, have no such advantage.

  We must walk atop the Altar until we find a clearing. (The vegetation doesn’t stop until one approaches the edge of the formation.) If you fear heights, I suggest you cast your glance at the limestone at your feet (and not over the cliff, at the resort ruins). In any case, really, you should bow your head in submission to Oblivion. You should prostrate yourself before the Eater of Time.

  Everything written so far is more or less commonly accepted by the coterie of pilgrims. This is what all of us who feel called to Oblivion agree on.

  From here on out, though, there is room for debate. Some of us feel that it’s helpful to ruminate on the stretch of time in our lives we want Oblivion to consume. There’s a theory that It feeds only on passages of time that were particularly eventful, upsetting, or uplifting. There’s a theory that thinking about these times, with great focus, tells Oblivion that we are worthy, that our past is peppered with enough trauma to render it tasty enough to feast on.

  Most of us who want our time-aspect consumed do it to escape a particularly bruising past. We are those who were molested and didn’t dare tell; those who lost wives to cancer, sisters to prison, brothers to fundamentalism, jobs to China. Allowing such memories free rein amounts to masochism, but what are we to do? We need to let Oblivion experience what our past was like—at least from our own limited human perspective—if It is to deign to feed on us.

  The goal, you see, for many of us (including, as you may have guessed, yours truly) is to achieve a degree of amnesia so severe that one can never snap out of it. Many of the addicts on 10th Street employ drugs to reach a similar effect. That approach works for some, but runs into the inevitable limitation of expense. Plus, there are the risks of violence attendant to the advanced junkie’s pursuit of forgetting. There’s the fact that over time, you’ll always need more to get the same effect. The methadone clinic is for those who seek to wean themselves off heroin or Oxycodone. A.A. is for those nabbed too many times for DUI. The Time Altar is for those of us who have been there, done that, and can’t bear it any longer.

  It’s a symbiotic relationship—we need to lose our pasts and Oblivion needs to eat time.

  There are stories from the 1950s—long after the flood waters receded—of passing boaters spotting feral, naked men roaming Rose Island. Successful pilgrims, these old wives tales say—traumatized vets of Normandy and Bataan who had so much of their past consumed that they lost their capacity for language. Ultimate ignorance, ultimate bliss.

  It is rumored that Oblivion sometimes decides to eat aspects of time besides the past. “What if you go there wanting to forget the past,” a gadfly might say, “and the Old Beast decides It wants your future instead, leaving you with nothing but the past and the present, condemning you to relive past problems over and over? Then what?” It is rumored that Oblivion can create demigods by removing a sacrifice’s time-aspect altogether. Some say time is just a cocoon we’re up in while our species is still young and Oblivion is only there to free us from its confines, so that we might actually experience dimensions previously undreamed of.

  Much conjecture, no proof. There are scoffers who have heard of our little sect through the Internet who say that we of the Cult of Amnesia are victims of a mass delusion, swept along the wave of a communal bad acid trip. “How do you even know Oblivion exists?” they say. “Have you seen It? Has anyone seen It?”

  When I prostrate myself on the Altar, I dare not look over my shoulder at the sinkhole Oblivion is said to call home. None of us are worthy of such a sight. Once, though, after several hours of resting with my cheek against the limestone, I felt something expansive and undulating place Itself between me and the weak November sun. I dared not lift my head. Of course, I dared not lift my head. There’s no reason to believe the specks of crude, mammalian jelly in my orbs would be up to the task of glimpsing the Time-Eater, Itself. But I couldn’t help but dart my vision over the limestone, spying what fragments I could of Its writhing, tesseract-like silhouettes. Shapes bubbled through the air behind me like boiling water, substantial— broken—reconstituted—twisted; casting shadows engulfed in themselves. Some might say these were multiple phenomena, but my pattern-seeking head knows they were merely parts of a greater, extra-dimensional whole (of which there was vastly more than I could see).

  That’s how I would sum it up: there is more, vastly more of It than there ever will be of us; greater Somethingness in Oblivion than in sunlight and sin, than in mission statements, heroin, factories, and farms—than in all the sublime trash of our world piled together.

  As is obvious from the fact that I’m writing this catechism, the Time-Eater didn’t feed on me that day. It instead lingered uncomfortably long, then let out a noise like a whinnying toad.

  I know it is blasphemous to anthropomorphize Oblivion, but I’ll confess to you this: I think It was laughing.

  If it really did feast on the pasts of World War II vets in the ’50s, then my own past will never measure up. While the troubles of my life are enough to plague my sleep with nightmares, they m
ay be too mundane to prove appetizing. If that’s the case, the passage of time’s my only hope. Maybe It will grow hungry enough in future years to lower Its standards. Or perhaps more interesting traumas await me; and these will render me more palatable.

  In any case, I will never stop trying. I will go to the Time Altar Monday through Friday, in autumn and winter. If you come to offer yourself, be forewarned I’ll have gotten there first. I’ll have already prostrated myself on the choicest spot of limestone. I am, I believe, the most desperate of all desperate men. Too broken to be made whole, too timid for suicide. I will wait for It to show. I will tolerate Its contempt. I will pray for the passing of my past.

  “Amnesia may well be the highest sacrament in the great gray ritual of existence.”

  —Thomas Ligotti

  In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land

  White Flag

  Gene stood under the boiling sun and suffocating sky, in line for a place on the floor at the shelter. It was a white flag day at Westside Christian Mission. The shelter had hoisted a frayed, once-ivory-now-dingy banner right underneath Old Glory as a signal to homeless folks that no matter how foul their odor or how empty their stare, no matter how often they screamed for the invisible bugs to get off of them or how many fights they’d been known to start in the past, Westside wouldn’t turn them away. A white flag flying over the shelter meant that they’d throw aside all the usual restrictions and squeeze in anyone and everyone wherever they could. Gene had heard through the grapevine that the mayor made Westside Mission do this whenever the thermometer surged to three digits or plummeted to the freezing point. No one in Louisville wanted a dead derelict on their conscience.

  As Gene finished his last cigarette a weaselly little guy joined the line right behind him. He wore a stained, ragged black tank top, gray bellbottom slacks, flip-flops, and a thin brown mustache. His skin had been bronzed from weeks or months in the sun. The way he folded his skinny arms over his chest reminded Gene of a dead body in a coffin.

  “In the homeless shelter of the future,” the little guy said, “there will be no lines.”

  Even on a good day, Gene wasn’t the sort of man who took kindly to smart alecks or psychos trying to make conversation. There were a lot of them in the shelters, but most had already gotten word that he preferred to keep to himself. Most took a gander at his size and decided not to risk pissing him off. Gene was tough, one of the toughest on the streets— both in his body and in his mind. Tough, like a living, breathing callus.

  He listened to what the little guy had to say, spat on the sidewalk (half expecting it to sizzle), turned back around to face the shelter, and let out a non-committal “Uh-huh.”

  “You see, in the year 2078 all social workers had their jobs changed to microchippers.”

  “Uh-huh.” Geez, he wished he’d saved himself a Marlboro for the wait.

  “Instead of signing people up for food stamps or tracking down places they might be able to stay for the night, their only job became to catch vagrants and inject them with a microchip that could be used to track them down. You see, by then drones had become inexpensive enough that cities could buy hundreds of them to patrol the streets. Any time their temperature sensors indicated it was one hundred degrees or above, they’d swoop down from the sky, remotely activate the positioning signal from the microchips, shoot out a big net, and snare some unsuspecting guy who was napping behind a dumpster. That way, they could take him to a shelter whether he wanted to go or not. They’d drop him right in front of the building at some predesignated time. No waiting. Worked pretty well, too—as long as the drones’ temperature sensors were in proper operating condition.”

  Gene turned back around to look the little guy in the eyes. “Hey buddy … it’s hot out, yanno?” He waved his gnarled hand at the sky, as if to add: “Too hot for gabbin’.”

  “I just thought you’d be interested,” the little guy said. “About what’s waiting down the road, in the future.”

  Gene looked up and down the line, at the other street people. Missing teeth. Missing limbs. Missing sanity. He let out a hoarse, ugly chuckle. “I don’t think anyone in this crowd is gonna live that long. So shaddup.”

  “But that’s another thing that changes, over time. In the homeless shelter of the future, alcoholism, tooth decay, eczema, tuberculosis, and STDs have been eradicated. By 2342, the life expectancy of the average homeless man rose to eighty-seven. That of the average homeless woman made it all the way up to one hundred and eleven. Of course, to be fair, the average life span for a housed individual skyrocketed to one hundred and thirty. So the disparities were still there. But still, I think you’d have to agree that eighty-seven isn’t so bad, eh? Of course, I found it less encouraging that the leading cause of death among the homeless of that era was good old-fashioned suicide.

  Throwing themselves out of flying buses was the preferred method, for whatever reason. Melancholia … still no cure that.”

  Gene scowled. “I wish you’d thrown yourself out of a flyin’ bus!” Then a pause. “Melan-what?”

  “How silly of me …” the little guy said. “That’s what they called it back in the eighteen-hundreds. By the way, did you know that the first homeless shelter in your nation-state was the New York City Rescue Mission, founded in 1872? I went to visit there a few trips before this one. I don’t recommend it. They didn’t treat people respectfully at all back then. But I digress. Melancholia … in your time you call it something else … starts with a ‘d’ … on the tip of my tongue …”

  The line moved forward half a step.

  “When we get in there,” Gene said, “don’t even think of takin’ a space next to mine, ya hear? This is the white flag line for a shelter. This ain’t the express lane at the grocery store. We ain’t makin’ small talk, and I ain’t your friend.”

  “Oh …” the little guy said. His eyes twinkled as he put two and two together, finally catching on. “I’m sorry … forgive me. Etiquette changes so much over the years. I just came back from 2779. Now, the way it works in their homeless shelters is that it’s considered stuck-up not to say a word to anyone.”

  Gene sighed. “This is what I get for stayin’ in Louisville for a whole year. End up out here in all this heat next to a fuckin’ nut-job who won’t stifle himself. Should’ve gone up to Chicago. Cooler up north. They’re nicer to you up there, too. Buffalo, now that was a really sweet deal. Except in winter.”

  “So you came down here to get out of the cold?”

  “Brilliant guess, Einstein.”

  “So you drift from place to place, just trying to find a town that’s a smidgen better than the last? That’s sad … not to mention unimaginative. Limiting.”

  Gene grabbed the little guy by one strap of his tank top and whispered into his ear. “I’m warnin’ you, nutsy, shut up or I’ll break those twiggy arms of yours! Just be quiet for another half-hour or so, and we’ll be in and I can forget I ever met you.” Then a pause. “Hey, and another thing … where do you get off callin’ me ‘sad’?”

  The line moved up another half-step.

  “I used to be a scholar,” the little guy said.

  “Yeah,” Gene said. “I went to school once, too. So?”

  “I was a historian. You see, in 2835, when I turned thirty-six and finally became a real adult, out on my own year-round— the year I matriculated into grad school …”

  “Oh Christ, more wacko nonsense!” Gene turned his back to the little guy.

  The little guy tapped Gene on the shoulder.

  “Look,” he said, “I have an idea that can get us out of this line and into another shelter. And we wouldn’t have to stick out our thumb or walk a thousand miles to get there. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all this time. But you won’t listen.”

  “I’ve been in this lousy city a full year, mister. This here’s the only place that has room to let everyone in when it’s hot.”

  “Just hear me out. You see, in 2835, time trav
el became reliable enough to allow historical excursions, regulated by the Bureau of Chronicler Affairs.”

  “Nutsy,” Gene interrupted. “The staff in the shelter are gonna love you.”

  “Do you mind if I continue? Without interruption? I’m just trying to help us both get to the homeless shelter of the future—a place without lines. I’m giving you an opportunity. Just give me a chance to tell you about it. If, after hearing what I have to say, you decide you’re really not interested, I promise I’ll be quiet afterward.”

  Gene cracked his knuckles.

  The little guy frantically fumbled for something in his slacks pocket. A pack of cigarettes. Some brand Gene never heard of. Chesterfields.

  “Okay, okay,” the little guy said. “I can see you need something more than just the assurance that my motives are pure and the promise that I’ll eventually shut up. So how about this … If you just give me a chance to finish what I have to say, I’ll let you have this pack of cigarettes.”

  Gene grinned. The little guy didn’t realize what a lopsided trade he was offering—a whole pack. He’d kept his distance from little psychos for such a long time that he’d forgotten how easy they were to con. It was like he’d suddenly gone from losing the lottery to winning it. “Oh, hell,” Gene said. “Sure. Gimme your spiel. We got nothin’ but time and, besides, it’s too hot to whup your ass.”

  The little guy’s shoulders drooped and something like a smile scribbled itself across his face as he relaxed. “Great!” He took a deep breath and tried (unsuccessfully) to wipe the sweat off his brow with his equally sweaty forearm. “Here goes. Because I’d always dreamed of being a chrononaut, I applied to grad school and became a research assistant for a time travel historical expedition. But I didn’t get accepted to any schools that were doing the really high-profile work, unfortunately. No trips to the times of the pharaohs, the French Revolution, or the Niger Delta Wars for me. The best I could do is to get assigned to a project to assemble an extensive survey of homeless shelters throughout the ages.”