ANTARCTICA

Good Ol’ Danny

Happy fucking new year.

Let the past one die in agony while we weep for the next to pull us out of our misery.

The room was so messy and overthrown that one might have wondered what kind of robbery took place, or worse, frat group party. As luck would have it, this debauchery was the fine work of only three people, one of whom was my highly intoxicated self. Alas, my sight had become so blurry, it was impossible to discern which tableau up the wall was hand-painted by which French tortured artist. Was it a Cézanne or a Gauguin? The lines were so hard to focus on, it could have been a Dali. Hell, Dali could have been French for all I cared. Malo opened the Bordeaux with a swift movement only coked-up bartenders were able to throw. “Fill up our cups!” cried Sallie, sprawled on the couch. “You don’t drink Bordeaux out of a cup but a fine glass. Those are crystal stemware, for God’s sake.” Sallie laughed as I handed mine silently. It was Malo, after all. The same mighty Malo we met in high school five or so years ago, mumbling the same song, each time. As kind as a boy like him could be, it was aberrant that we came from different social backgrounds. Thus, perhaps in lieu of educating us, opening our minds to the vastness of mundane pleasures and activities, he would sometimes take it upon himself to explain the customs of his ruthless tribe. He would drive us in whatever sports car was gifted to him that year, take us on vacation to his family house by the sea. He would talk about wines he did not know, times he did not live, wars he did not fight. It was his own masquerade, to which we gladly took part. We knew that deep, deep beneath all those permafrost layers of exuberance and pride, layed, all curled up under the weight of the ice, a beautiful and delicate flower. We used to see it often, this flower in his mind. At his mother’s funeral or when we watched The Prestige for the first time. Nowadays this flower is only visible at ungodly hours. When the liquor had melted all the layers, glass after glass, and all the ice had upholstered his eyeballs of a nostalgic veil. Only there, could we see it, Sallie and I. Two alpinists of the mind recklessly planting our stakes in the merciless mountain’s flank, onward and upward, until we finally stumbled upon it. An Edelweiss.

Yet our perilous endeavor was not coming from nowhere, for we three shared a common ground: our bottomless love for the bizarre. From Balkan artifacts to Central African ceremonies, our curiosity on the subject was endless. Yet as much as I can remember, there is not a single event nor specific causality that brought us together. Weirdos just find each other, somehow.

“So Malo, Now you can tell us!” Sallie sat up and crossed her legs, glass resting on the knee. She had this laid-back look which suited her so well. As the living room light gently blessed her dark hair resting on her shoulders, it also illuminated her blue, angelic eyes. Malo, who was gazing at the floor, looked up through his strands of hazel, curly hair. “What do you mean?” he asked quite bluntly. “You wanted to show us something. Something we could only see tonight, or perhaps never again.” The boy took a few seconds, seemingly trying to think through the liquor’s vapors. He shrugged. “Oh yes! The Thing. It’s tonight, isn’t it.” I looked at him, quite confused. “You were the one insisting on it. Tonight or perhaps never again.”

The boy looked up at the ceiling as if he was giving utterance to some mystical idea. He ran a hand through his curly hazel hair before dangling his arms against his scruffy shirt, which overflanked his carefully tailored trousers, comfortable but not too large, short on the ankles but not feu-de-plancher. Nonchalance was an art he mastered quite well. Fucking asshole.

Malo walked around the room, looking at the walls, furniture and ceiling as if it was the very first time. “You know my grandfather was an explorer?” I carefully put the base of my glass on the main table. “You mentioned it”. Malo stopped, still not looking at any of us. “Yeah I mentioned it, yeah… He went solo, like a true man. Swam the Gange, climbed Machu Picchu. He brought back tons of shit from all corners of the world. Fucking legend.” Poured his glass once more. Sallie started dancing. “I guess it runs in your blood, Mal’!” He looked sideways, sighted. “I guess it does.” He finally turned back. “Anyways, he went on all those crazy expeditions, during which he lost tons of mates. Guys who finished astray, crushed, impaled, famished, eaten, or turned absolutely crazy. But there is one in particular, one adventure that really… Truly got to him.”

I turned my head towards Sallie, my beautiful Sallie. She was eating him by the look and this asshole would not even notice it. After all, that was the very thing we loved him for. His untouchability. He was careless, arrogant, nefarious… We were dying to get close to him.

Over Sallie’s head, there was a painting I thought I had forgotten about. It came to me as if I was reminiscing about an old joke. The false self… Lots of people did not grasp the meaning of it, and maybe it was somehow far-fetched. But I loved it. It was a painting of the exact living area we were in. Despite the ominous passing of time, most of the room’s elements remained. The giant leather couch, the marble fireplace, the waxed pool table, and a window on the patio. The resemblance and realism of the piece was uncanny, except for a minor detail- where the devil tends to lie. On the fireplace frame, which was carefully crafted and adorned with a wooden shelf, on which rested a giant mirror. And in front of this mirror, in the middle of the fireplace, layed a plastic dinosaur. The true self! Lying in the false self! Dinosaurs in plastic, plastic in a dinosaur, living room in a painting, painted in the living room… I loved it! And yet, it made me feel unsettled sometimes, usually late at night. The first time I saw it, I became so mesmerized by the details, the light coming from the patio, the intrinsic irony of how we perceive reality… I sat on the couch’s armchair for hours, long after Malo and Sallie went to sleep, just staring at it. Sometimes the painting stared back.

“There are people who live down there, you know. In Antarctica. People who, still to this day, reside there, completely shut down from the Other World. Not by ignorance, no. They know we’re here. We don’t. We, in fact, are the fucking ignorant, in this whole narrative. Don’t you get it?” Yes Malo, we get it. How could we, the most advanced people on the planet, be ignored by some… tribal folks? What an outrage. He wiped his thin pink lips, surrounded by some scattered facial hair that we recommended shaving months ago. “They don’t want us to know the truth, that’s why. Those fucking pagans, they wanted it all for themselves! But they don’t. not anymore. Do you know why?” I wonder. “Because good ol’ Danny, he was smarter than that. Not only did he see the Thing, but he took it back with him. For us to witness it. All the way. Cost him both his legs to do so and still he did it.”

Sallie, who suddenly seemed uneased, frowned. “What did he take? What could have been worth risking everything?” I wonder. She was staring at him, but his eager eyes were stuck into mine. He whispered. “Don’t you want to see it? It will blow your mind.”.

I don’t know how many nights I thought about this moment, looking at the ceiling as it was the first time I did so, each night discovering a new crack on its surface, feeling a new cramp in my stomach. Of course I wanted to see it. Of course I wanted to know.

The Thing that we could only witness that night, or perhaps never again.

Damn you, Malo.

May you rest in pain and sorrow.

Son Of Navid

A few moments later, we were on our way down a rocky stairwell. The path was well-lit, even though it seemed that some of the round ceiling lights were almost out. I could smell the moisture, there even were parts where you could see water drip from the loose mold. That’s when I remembered a (yet again) difference in American and French cultures. In America, is it not uncommon to find fully equipped basements, sometimes even turned into bedrooms or play areas. Here, it is quite different. The basement, or “cave” (not to be confused with the English word), is often a quite moist area, used as a storeroom or atelier. It can be turned into an additional functioning room of the house, I have seen it done. And yet, in any case, I disencourage any American in their venture of kindly asking a Frenchman to spend the night in their basement, without them being absolutely certain to end up murdered in their sleep.

As my mind went on this cultural realization, my quadriceps started to swell. My initial thought was “I hate leg day…” but it was quickly followed by a second, more thorough one: That’s a damn lot of steps for a basement… I took a quick glance at Sallie, my beautiful Sallie. She was advancing one step after the other, in rhythm with ours and yet with a slightly uneven tempo. She was frowning and smiling at the same time, which reflected a strong duality that I always loved her for. She could get angry in a situation, and similarly enjoy it. One time, she was throwing a tantrum at me for breaking one of her beloved mugs with yellow hearts on it. Did not mean to, but don’t regret a thing: it was hella ugly. Well, she would still make me coffee in a new one and smile while giving it to me. That was her whole dilemma. That is why she tagged with us all along, that is why she adored Malo, above anything else, even though he would not even consider her much. In fact, if he asked her, while slowly caressing her cheek, to lay on the ground and be his fucking doormat, I think she would do it in a heartbeat. That’s why she threw herself into so many broken relationships, and why, eventually, she came running back to Malo and I (well, mostly I), and stayed with us for a while. She would beg for Malo’s attention, I would console her, Malo would stare at me, we would make out on his living room’s couch, sometimes in front of Sallie, she would get jealous and leave, love a boy or a girl who will promise her the world, find out that none of it was true, and run back to Malo and I. All in rhythm, all like a never-ending melody.

As fucked up as it was, we would often find joy in between its notes. Because it was such a routine, there was a comforting side to it. I knew that I could always count on Sallie, Sallie knew that Malo would always let her admire him from up-close, and Malo knew that we would always make out if he wanted to. Reliability, Attention and Lust. That was it, that was all there was.

With each step that we took, the walls seemed to narrow on each side of us. I kept putting my hands on the surfaces (touching both side at the same time), but they did not appear to be closing on us physically. Maybe it was the round yellow mall lights above our heads, or the plethora of steps that seemed to never end… To this day I don’t really know what it was, but it started to make me uncomfortable. With each step forward. Slowly. I suddenly realized that I hung onto my bottle of Bordeaux, which I had been forcefully grabbing all that time. It was still almost full. “Against three of the walls there were piles of bones higher than our heads”. Malo turned around with an amused look on his face. “Don’t be so grim, John. Ain’t no Amontillado where we’re headed. ” He was still walking down with a certain flair, an elegance, both hands in his pockets. I should learn to think more quietly. This has always been a defect in my psyche. While being mostly of a calm and reserved composure, there are times where I just can’t help but say the one sentence that I should have kept to myself. Oh, well.

It was more and more obvious that the path was narrowing ahead of us. And yet- every time I reached for both walls, I could feel them at the tip of my fingers, arms straight in a T position. They still did not move. That was some trippy shit. It reminded me of a joke we used to have with Malo (Sallie was in the arms of a bassist player, far from us at the time). Fully sprawled on his couch, his knee was resting on my thigh as he was switching channels on the TV. We could have looked like an old couple, if we weren’t so scared of engagement- and drunk out of our minds. He joked about the hypothesis that our lives were simply one big TV show, and that our deepest purpose was to entertain the invisible forces above us. I knew he meant God. So I asked, “You think-” I cleared my throat, forcefully swallowed back my Médoc-tainted saliva. “You think all of this- is just to amuse God? Centuries of wars, of evolution, of searching for meaning… You can’t think this shallowly about the Human experience.” He turned around, the back of his soft neck resting on the leather headrest, eyes all gloomy. He was fucking dreamy. “If there was a deeper purpose to His work, if He wanted us to be happy and fulfilled, life would certainly not look at this.” I laughed slowly “What can you know about the cruelty of life, anyways?”. That time he actually sat up and slowly dragged his knee up my thigh before bringing it back close to him. “I’m not fucking blind, despite what everyone believes. I know more than you’d think, actually.” I asked what this meant, but he did not respond. At the time I thought he was just being a rich lunatic, but now, and the more we go down those steps, I am starting to realize that he might not be far from the truth. Since he did not want to decide on which channel to stay on, I grabbed the remote from his hands, which he let go of quite easily. I repeated the same annihilating pattern of pushing buttons up and down, staring at the screen. I became mesmerized by the few milliseconds of static in between channels. “What if one day, the TV just won’t come back to a known program?” He swallowed more of the Médoc. “What do you mean?” I did as well. “What if, suddenly and with zero notice, we can’t go back to our regular programming, forever stuck in this static hell?” He shrugged. “You mean, if the antenna is broken or something?” “No… I mean, what if one day everything we know, whatever makes us comfortable, at ease… What if that day, we realize that all of this was fake? Like if God suddenly decided that he was done with showing us 24 frames per second of soap opera, fires all the angels, and just decided to show us the Universe raw, without its sugarcoat? What if, beyond reality’s veil, only lies white noise and static?” Malo feverishly stood up, and grabbed the glass from my hands. “Well, I’d say that’s enough for you, fucking Kafka.”

I continued switching channels until I stumbled upon a show that I haven’t seen in years. It was, in fact, the very first show we watched together, Malo and I. Don’t laugh, I implore you. It was Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. See? I told you not to make fun of me! Anyways, you can’t ever beat a show deeply infused with nostalgia. I decided to settle on it, hiding the remote behind a pillow in case of program-choice reprisals. “Come on!”, he laughed. “Fuck Disney and their woke bullshit.” I made the case that, despite all the controversies, this particular show had somehow dogged some of the woke bullets fired by the studio this last decade. “I fucking hate them, though” I added. “It’s people like them who give us a bad reputation.” “He replied “The community’s worst enemy: the community itself”. We still watched it, for the sake of the past. And there was this joke that I find is the epitome of humor. In a world at risk, with stakes higher than ever, Thor, God of Thunder, comes to the S.H.I.E.L.D’s director, and calls him… Son of Coul. This is the stupidest yet most fire joke I had ever heard. Yes, I am a nerd. Malo tried to catch a breath as well. Son Of Coul! Son Of… Coul! And it would take me hours of explaining how this joke reflects a plethora of societal and anthropology-sourced theories including the use of language, which is the most beautiful yet incomplete form of art to ever exist and how nurture changes our view of what is real. You might be wondering what this has to do with everything. I wonder.

“We’re almost there.” He switched the light on, and we discovered the small space around us. The walls of the stairs had spread out into a room, where there were two goat leather armchairs, one in natural brownish color, the other one tainted in black. In front of them, a large wooden coat rack with old fur-lined coats, wool balaclavas and chemical masks with dual filter cartridges, which seemed to be the only elements seemingly new. The rest smelled like shit stuck in the far end of a grandma’s closet. I retched so hard, my body formed this cat-like wave of disgust and bile. “What the fuck is this?” I asked, my eyes all teared up by the smell. Malo did not say a word, rather threw me one of the coats, a black one, in my arms. “Wear it.”. He did the same and put on his shoulder a well-sewn brown aviator’s jacket. He then gave me one of the balaclavas, a dark green, itchy one for me, and a white one with holes in it for him. Sally looked at the both of us, startled. “Malo? What is happening?” He was getting ready rather quickly, like this was some sort of a routine for him. He put on a brown chapka as well, the kind with the blurry goggles that you could clip on and off. He threw me the other, a gray one. “What about me?” cried Sallie. “You’re not coming.” “But… Why? I just came all the way here… To witness nothing but coat racks and armchairs?” Malo put on some leather boots that seemed to have been worn a lot prior to this. “We’ll be back in a few. This is between John and me, Sallie.” She sighed, and I could see that she was holding back tears. I stared at Malo until he picked up on my sign. He rolled his eyes and stood up. “Sallie…” He came closer to her, and carefully put his right hand around the back of her neck, his thumb caressing her cheek. You already know where this is going. “Keep the light on for us, would you? That would help us so, so much… We need a third person up here, to keep an eye on us, alright?” As he was serenading her, my eyes caught something way up the stairs, but I could not make anything of it. Yet my body suddenly turned on high alert, as if it knew something I didn’t, something physical, something primal. That was watching us. From our only way out.

I decided to not inform the others. We had enough to deal with, following Malo’s decision to split up. Sallie finally agreed once I promised to leave the Bordeaux bottle with her, as she was waiting for our return. Malo put on his chemical mask, which spooked me a bit. “Are you ready… Son Of Navid?”. All the hair on my arms stood up like an army of lemurs sensing danger. After the Marvel debacle, we went on this rant about how he was Son Of Coul, with tons of resources, contacts and weird partnerships (he had never wanted to develop on this topic), and I was Son Of Navid. A reference to one of our favorite pieces of Art. A book that does not want to be read, that skips through your eager eyes, relating hundreds of pages of jottings, editor’s footnotes*, an old man’s commentary of a tapped Record, picturing a family house bigger in the inside than the outside, and a five-and-a-half minute hallway. Maybe that was the reason why I did not say anything about what caught my eye up the stairs, hidden in the shadows, watching us. Or about the walls getting visibly tighter around us. Because deep, deep down in my messed up psyche, I already kind of knew. We both were dressed as vintage explorers, in his basement, deep, deep under the Earth. We are drunk, and young, and no matter how much I resent him for everything, at this moment I felt alive.

He was Son Of Coul, I was Son Of Navid. And in front of us, there was a yellow wooden door. He grabbed the handle and smiled at me.

The Midnight Dreary

The first thing I felt was a strong breeze which, at first, did not make any sense, meters and meters underground. On my second breath in, I noticed strong fragrances of mold (which made me retch again), and behind those, there were notes of chemicals and metal. And also… Flowers? “Put your mask on.” I did exactly as he said. It is, indeed, one of my great defects, and the reason I am writing this in the first place. Spineless, unable to stand a single ground, subject to outside influences like a leaf on its flow to the ground. No matter which wind picks it up for a while, gravity will always take its toll. I used to not worry too much, for Sallie, seeking attention, and Malo, craving carnal desires, would always come back to me. The latest eventually closed the door on Sallie, who stayed on the doorframe. “Please! Don’t leave me here!” She cried on the other side. And Malo replied “You’ll be fine. Keep the light on for us.” before hand signaling our departure. There we went, down even more tunnels. There were no more steps though, which was a blessing. The more we advanced, the more I smelled chemicals and flowers. The mold was also persistent, whereas the metal fragrances disappeared. “Put your mask on”, Malo said while leading the way. “Where are we heading, exactly?” I asked, quite late in the whole process. He turned around, fog already blurring his face. I could still see his eyes, who were more profound and deep than ever. I found myself desiring to dive in them, and stay there for the rest of eternity. I shrugged myself to chase those thoughts away. Onward and upward…

I know, I know. You are probably now sitting on your own couch, in your own house, or on the desk, or dinner table. And you are reading those words like any other text, like any other story. Why did he go there? Why didn’t he leave? Is he an idiot? Curiosity. Half spirit of adventure, half Bordeaux. Yes. Simply keep in mind that I am trying my best to recall everything that has happened, leading to this moment, right now. I look at the ceiling. There is a new crack. Noises in the background. If, during your peaceful lecture, all sitting comfortably, knowing what you see and feel is real, and matters, simply keep in mind that some of us, without truly knowing why or how, are simply attracted by what’s behind the curtains, and devote their lives in pursuit of peeking through them. God shall not let them rest before then. This is the reason why I did not ask many questions, why I left Sallie, my beautiful Sallie behind, why I am set on this peculiar path. I wanted to see it, I wanted to know. The thing we could only witness tonight, or perhaps never again.

“Why did you bring Sallie all the way down, just to leave her there?” He did not turn around. “I knew”, he said through the filter cartridges of his chemical mask. “I knew that if I had left her there, you would, at some point, go back up to check on her. I could not let that happen.” We walked for a while, the silence broken only by our loud breaths and several noises that I chose to ignore at first. It could have been metal clanking, or a baby screaming, or a woman, or just an unidentified shrill noise… Malo did not seem to hear it; therefore it must have been coming from my drunk and tired mind. We continued through mazes and mazes of concrete walls and hallways. The noises became closer and it made my heart race. I suddenly realised that we were, God knows, meters, if not kilometers from the surface of the Earth! How could we breathe, even with the chemical masks on? How was the electricity even still on? How could this place even be in the realm of the possible? My bodily temperature rose, and I could feel tingling at the tip of my fingers, then in both my hands. Not now… I started breathing erratically, fogging up my mask until I could not see a thing, until the world and everything it contained became nothing but a simple pixel of color, blurry. I vaguely felt myself stumble on the concrete floor, only realising it once I had already been down for a few seconds. “Malo…” I exclaimed, feverishly. “What are we doing?” He came up to me, I could barely see his silhouette. “Everything is fine, you’re just panicking.” he said, but I just could not stand still. Furthermore, there was something. Something peeking behind him. I tried to tell him but the words would not come out. The shadow, or maybe it was not a shadow and I was just going blind, this… Thing, came closer and closer, until it was just behind his shoulder, towering over me and at that moment I felt all Its power, Its darkness. I wanted to warn him, to make him turn around, see Its eyes, Its aura… Make It go away! It was otherworldly. It brought out such an existential horror, a terror, that I wished my body would simply dissolve in the chemicals floating in the air, that all of this would come to an end. “Hey… Hey!” He grabbed my mask as if it had become the extension of my cheek. “I’m here. I’m with you. We’re home.” A tinnitus. I looked around, and while there still was some fog left, I retrieved some of my sight. The shadow was gone. But I could still feel it. Everywhere. While I frowned and tried to make out what he said and what I saw, I realised that it was all I needed. To wonder about something else, to break the thought pattern. He is here. We are together. We are… Home? But also, what the fuck was that? As we adventured further and further down this cement maze, I became colder and colder. Hence the explorer outfit. But why go there with vintage, used equipment? I wonder.

“It’s the smell”, he said. Shit! I thought aloud again. “What do you mean, the smell?” I knew what he meant, it was fucking abominable. But why did we have to wear those in particular? As I was waiting for a response, he started to advance a little bit faster, and at every few corners I'd lose sight of him for a few milliseconds. “Those are original explorers’ clothing”, he explained. “They already went to Antarctica. They smell… Like here! It is a good way to advance unnoticed.”

“Unnoticed by who?”

A silence. His pace fastened a bit more in between the sharp turns.

“Unnoticed by WHO??”

I ran a few strides to catch up to him, and forcefully grabbed his shoulder. He turned around and pressed both his arms against mine. “Listen! We don’t have much time.” He looked at his watch, showing 11:56 PM. “We gotta be there by midnight. Let’s go!”

The maze became more and more entangled, sometimes I felt like we simply kept going back on our own footsteps, but Malo assured me that he knew what the fuck he was doing. And there was this… feeling. I was absolutely terrified of what I had seen behind Malo’s shoulder as he was over me, and yet I felt somehow connected to it. Not in a grand “meaning of life” way, but in a more physical, primal fashion. Like a dark magnet attracting every one of my cells. I began walking fast, even faster than Malo. “Be careful, John.” He said but I was already not paying attention. My steps were weak and feverish, like a madman. My feet started running on their own, they knew the path. I was craving like an non-functional alcoholic at eleven in the morning, like a Marlboro man opening an empty pack. “Slow down!” But I ran arms dangling around my body, head down, knees turned in. There was something at the end of the hallway. Something was calling me. Malo was right. It is now, or never again. And I’m running and bumping, sometimes tripping. And Malo who tries to follow me. “Resist, John! Resist the Devil!” But he was no Devil, I knew that. He was something else, something so powerful that I wanted in my veins. I had not felt that alive in– FOREVER! I laughed and I laughed, for I would never feel empty again! If I just joined him, a couple of turns away… He could fix me, find what has been missing all along and make me whole! I felt the thick foam forming at the corner of my mouth; I was close!

I felt a force on both my shoulders but I would not stop, not until I joined It. “Stop it, you fucktard…”. Something swiped my left feet as I was in the middle of my stride, and I fell onto the ground… Again. Malo jumped on my back. “It’s too early for you to go there. Li- Listen to me!” He tried to grab my wrists. “What is the matter with you…?” He then took hold of my mask, and turned my head a few degrees on the right. “Shit… Oh, oh shit!” His fright somehow made me sober up a bit. “What?” I said, practically breathless. “Your mask…” He pointed to his own jugular. “It’s pierced. Air is coming in.” I put my hand on the mask’s joint. There was, indeed, air coming in. I should have panicked, but I did not. Maybe I already had exploited all my “batshit-crazy” resources. Or maybe I already knew that I was fucked. Malo picked me up by my jacket. “The mold… It drives people crazy. But we can make it out. Just… Bear with me!” I was in shock, unable to think straight. Like an accident victim looking at their open wound for the first time. I advanced with him, my finger on the deteriorated joint. “I’m sorry” cried Malo, with a tremolo. “I should have inspected the equipment further. It worked well until now…” I could see some sort of light, other than the one emanating from the round mall ceiling ones. “If Sallie wasn’t there, distracting us, I could have seen this!” My psyche became less and less responsive, but I still had the strength to come up to him. “Don’t put this on Sallie. If I die… Always remember that you killed me.” We stared at each other, tears piling up around our eye sockets. “Come on, we’re gonna make it.” He was walking me like a crippled, or a drunk. “Why did you make me come here?” He sighted. “There are things more important. You’ll see.” I looked at the ceiling, the lights seemingly moving backwards like a hospital hallway. “We could have spent the night on your couch, with the red. And some music. We love music. Sallie would have sang something, and you would have played the piano on the patio. It would have been a great New Year's Eve.”

The light I had seen earlier was emanating from a yellow door. A second one. He slammed opened it, yelling “Help! Help! My Explorer is down!”

“Is he still breathing?”

“Barely.”

“The mold has infested the lungs. If we don’t send him right now, he’s gonna die on us.”

“We can’t send him! He’ll never come back. That’s pure madness, Victoria!”

“Pray to your God, may He save this soul on his way to the Unknown. Recite the rite now.”

“May the Gods be in your favor during this uncanny endeavor. May you cross the liminal threshold, find what you seek, and come back to me. I’m so sorry… I wanted to take my time, I wanted to show it to you first, how fucking rad it was. I did not mean for the equipment to be faulty. I promise. Please forgive me. I implore you to return to me.”

“Midnight. Removing the mask. Don’t touch him!”

“Remember, Johnny lad, remember the path to Antarctica.”

Pastel Yellow Hell

Happy fucking new year.

I woke up to the worst migraine I ever had. Laying on a mushy floor. A brown carpeted surface, like the ones in cheap American houses. All I could see around me was a plethora of yellow walls, with a discreet yet never ending patterned wallpaper. There is music. I grabbed my face in fright; my mask was gone. Yet I could breathe just fine. My jacket was still here. It was so heavy on my shoulders that I struggled to get back up. There was something in my interior left pocket, something that was not here before. I dug it out clumsily. It was a worn out notebook. Inside, layed pages and pages of scribbles, notes, symbols. And a few pages left blank. I started swiping through the entries.

What I hear is not music; it is a chant. I shall walk towards it.

Hell yeah He would! There is nothing but yellow walls over yellow walls, empty rooms over empty rooms. And yet, every time I turn a corner, I can see something in the corner of my eye. Something lurking, watching. Following me.

So there IS a way out from this pastel yellow hell. I advanced through the different rooms ald hallways, with awkward angles and walls that made no sense. I would go down a slope and end up higher than where I’ve come, and vice versa. Other times the gravity worked as expected. The mold is infiltrating most of the surfaces, but I can still breathe fine. The music keeps playing. Where is this coming from? I wander and I wander.

Every time I look behind me, I see the shadows. I know, deep in my core, that they are surrounding me. I am a prey in a fucking dollhouse. I run and I run, and all I see is carpet and wallpaper. Some rooms hold pieces of furniture and kid toys. No kids in sight. No one in here. I feel like I am losing it. The music is so loud now, it could even be playing in my head. This melody… It’s calling. It won’t go away. I am going crazy. Are you?

I have been wandering those rooms for days now. For a year. For two years. Time has no power here. Hell, I could have been stuck here for all eternity. What is an eternity? Is it now? Is it days away? A year away? Two years away? When does it end? Does eternity even exist? Everything must come to an end? Right? Tell me it will all be alright.

I got my first nosebleed. I did not even feel it, rather noticing the drops I left on my path. This is bad. Is it not?

I hear footsteps where I am not looking. I am screaming and screaming and no one will come to help. I want to wake up.

I am covered in blood. It just tainted everything in red. I found myself staring at a drop for -God knows how long-. It is just so poetic. A splash of red on a yellow wallpaper. That’s a sight for sore eyes, don’t you think? I miss Sallie. And Malo, even. I miss the couch and the TV. God, please let me out of here.

Oh my god. It is just like he wrote it. Right there! The Playroom with the plastic slide and the whiteboard! It’s here! I need to go to Antarctica, wherever that is. I must be close. Which is good news, because I have bled so much that I cannot see an inch of beige skin on my hands. It’s all tainted red. How can I bleed so much and yet stay alive? I feel my brain vibrating. Is this normal, doctor?
I tried the slide just for fun. Wasn’t much fun.

I have walked so much that I could feel the blood dangling from heel to toes in my socks. It makes the same sound as if I stepped in a puddle, except I am the puddle. How long can I go like this? I took a knee down just to rest a bit. I do not feel hunger. I am using my body as a combustible, simple fossil energy. I am the dinosaur inside the plastic dinosaur. Until I am no more.

I started to crawl to spare my feet, only to burn my elbows on the carpet. Oh, well. I crawled, eyes bawling, from nowhere, to nowhere, I am nothing. One arm after the other, onward and upward! In emptiness. Sight’s not great. Tinnitus won’t stop. I am a washing machine. I am a train taking no passengers, just passing by, never stopping, I am the Montparnasse train station, empty yet full to the brim. I am a beggar, I am a sinner. I asked God to wash my soul but His hands are tied, He told me. I am a pilgrim with no Church. I am blind. Who am I? And suddenly, at the corner, a room. I enter, and I see it. I cry but I can see it through the tears and as twisted and fucked up as it is, I see it now. I see it now.

Antarctica.

The interconnectedness of all Things

“Who are you?”

“I’m Nobody!”

A silence.

“Are you – Nobody – too?”

“Then there’s a pair of us!”

I laughed. It hurt.

“Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!”

“Woaw, I did not expect… My first encounter… To be shared with Emily fucking Dickinson. I’m stunned.”

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul” She said.

“Aren't you a lovely bird”

“I am Witchakokoo. Nice to meet you!”

“What?”

I stood up as if I woke up from a fever dream. My chest hurts like hell. I am cold. I think my mold have some lungs in them.

“I am Witchakokoo. And who are you?”

I feverishly looked up and was aghast. In front of me, a few feet away from Antarctica, was a woman. Or what appeared to be a woman. All her traits seemed exaggerated, her nose of an uncanny texture which bounced everytime she spoke, her cheeks were red, but not like baby-red, more like she-threw-her-fucking-lipstick-on-them red. She wore what seemed to have been a hat, a long time ago. She was dressed in rags, sitting by a fire. I crawled there too, and brought the palm of my bloody hands next to it.

“Ho ho, look!” She laughed. “Same color!”. She pointed at her cheeks. I laughed too. It was pretty funny, all things considered.

“Do you know how to get back home?”

“What is home?”

Her voice was metallic, and way too high pitched to my liking.

“Home is… In France, where I come from. My friend’s house, Malo.”

“Oooh no no no no!” she yelled.

“What?”

“You cannot swim in the same river twice. Even if you had a blast!”

I sighted. She was not going to help me whatsoever.

“Nevermind. Crazy.”

She laughed again.

“You can’t go back, Bloody Hands… But you can always… Step forward!”

“To where? Where are we? What is this? Who are you?”

“I am Witchakokoo. And who are you?”

“Shut the fuck up! What is this place? Why am I here?”

“You have got a lot of questions. But only one problem.”

I paused and looked at her black eyes. Not brown, black. With almost no white around it. That’s a textbook biblical demonic creature, if you ask me.

“And how are you going to solve my problem, huh?”

“The interconnectedness of all Things!”

I sat up, warming up to the fire.

“Do tell”

“You give me something, I give you something!”

“And what is your problem?”

“I have no problem. I have hunger, yes.”

I looked at Antarctica.

“Is that where you come from? Antarctica?”

“No… And after that, yes!”

“So you’re not originally from there. Where are you from?”

“Another veil!”

“Alright, crazy”

She laughed again, like it was the best fucking joke ever.

“I can help you cross the veil. Not towards where you came from, but where you are going!”

I sighted.

“You know what, forget me. I’ll just die here in peace, thank you for the fire.”

“Noo! You are not going to die!”

“But I am dying.”

“Dying, dying… For eternity!”

I stared at the ceiling. There were a lot of cracks. I should see a doctor.

“How do I escape from here?”

“You give me something, I give you something!”

“Last man I saw…” She reached behind her. “Gave me this!” She dug out a brown chapka, the same kind Malo wore when he threw me in this hellhole.

“Yes! That’s Danny! Alright…” I removed mine and gave it to her.

“Thank you, Bloody Hands…”

“You’re welcome. How do we do this then?”

“He also… Gave me… His legs!”

She grabbed her rags to show me the most horrific, frankenstein-style scar I had ever seen. I could see the contrast between her darker skin, and a white-as-hell leg with manly hair. And an ugly ass feet. With fungus.

“What? Do you want my legs too?”

“Noo… That I have! I crave… Something…”

“What do you want? What do you want!”

I stopped and looked at Antarctica. One step forward. Towards the Unknown.

“Take my notes.”

“What do you mean, Bloody Hands?”

“You’re a fucking pagan witch, aren’t you? The ones who live in Antarctica! Take this notebook, the one I’m writing on, and that way you will never be bored here, or nowhere else! Stories from all over the world! I mean, I just read some of them, of the expeditions, but there are so, so much more before that! Stories about flowers, gardens, ghosts, if you believe in those, hope, and love! Don’t you love love, huh?”

“I am quite lonely, it’s true… But I need something from you…”

“What is it?”

“How about, your memories too?”

“What?”

“I give you a way out, you give me your notes, and your memories too!”

“What the hell. Let’s do this.”

I advanced my hand. She rubbed her palm against her red cheek before shaking mine with a smile.

“Do you know, you will not know anything?”

“I have never wished more to be a fool. Can I take a minute?”

“Of course, Bloody Hands! It’s not as if I was going anywhere…”

I went to the other side of the room with what was left of my body. I sat on the furthest corner. Witchakokoo started chanting the very same song I had heard all that time. I was Mold, and she was Migraine.

This is where I am writing this entry, probably my last entry regarding the odds in front of me. I guess I had the answer to at least one of my questions: “What if one day everything we know, whatever makes us comfortable, at ease… What if that day, we realize that all of this was fake? Like if God suddenly decided that he was done with showing us 24 frames per second of soap opera, fires all the angels, and just decided to show us the Universe raw, without its sugarcoat?” Well, Johnny, it looks like this. Yellow walls, brown carpet, some mold and a witch. The interconnectedness of all Things. The Universe is nothing but a fever dream.

Beyond Antarctica

“Remember, Bloody Hands. Once you step foot on the other side, your memories will start to fade away… And never come back. As you cross the threshold, hold dear to who you are, and where you want to go. Faith is your only compass in this sea of chaos.”

I thanked her and left my chapka and balaclava with her, which I exchanged in favor of my notebook. If she will steal my memories, at least I will have this. I will not know who wrote it, or what really happened beyond those words, but I will have it close to me. I will have you close to me. She opened a yellow door and told me to go far and be happy. For now I crave to be barely alright. I walk and I walk along the hallways. I have walked for days now. For a year, for two years. You know where this is going, don’t you? What’s at the end of the tunnel? Of course you do. Because you’ve read it too.

Gradually, the carpet had been replaced by a cold cement-like texture. This is good. The wallpaper slowly fades away. This is great. I start running like a madman straight out of the asylum. I run as I have never felt so happy to touch cement! In my life! Cement! And it is finally darker, what a peace for the eyes. Thank God for the darkness. Thank God for the cement. Buried under, yet I am a free man.

Suddenly, I hear voices. I don’t recognize them. There are three of them. I can hear them coming from the steps, towards which I am coming perpendicularly. My hallway is not lit; yet those stairs are filled with round mall ceiling lights. “Keep the light on for us, would you? That would help us so, so much… We need a third person up here, to keep an eye on us, alright?” I know those voices. They are familiar, but I can’t quite put a name on them. I advance myself up until the stairs, where I see three people; two guys and one girl. Both guys are getting ready to step outside seemingly. They are dressed like Alpinists. One is dressed mostly in black, the other one in brown and white. The second one has definitely more style, but there is something about the individual in black, something… Indescribable. Something primal. He looked at me and I saw God. Or a false God. I don’t know. It was weird. I knew I had to do something, but what? What was I supposed to do? And the guy, down there, he keeps staring at me with a fright look on his face. I am frightened as well. Then the cravings began again.

I was seeking something when I crossed the threshold. I was seeking something… Up there. Up those millions and millions of stairs, an eternity of stairs, c’est donc ça le bonheur? I climbed the sets as fast as I could, I could feel my mind flowing like sands in between fingers, my time was counted. I suddenly arrived in a laundry room. There are lots of bags stuffed everywhere but the room is overall as tidy as it could be. But what I am seeking is not in those bags. I entered the house, into what seemed to be a living room. I visited this living room before. I had a good time there. Now it’s empty and all the lights are off. But there is a detail that I have missed, and I know that this detail is important. This detail is the key to what I am seeking. I know it. I climb the leather couch, to the chimney, on which, in front of a gigantic mirror, lays a small plastic dinosaur. There is a joke I know… It does not seem to be doing anything: it’s just a fucking plastic dinosaur. I look on the right, and I realise that, despite being carefully crafted and meticulously detailed, the painting of the living room lacks this plastic dinosaur. Either it is new, which does not look like it, or it means something. I’m losing grip on yesterday. On everything. What am I doing here?

I look back at the painting and it has changed. On my name, it has changed. There is a woman on the couch, there, on the painting! There is a man joining her. He takes her arm, she does not like it. Does she? I don’t think so. No one likes to be grabbed like that. I don’t think so. I approach and I look closer, and soon enough the light of their living room is illuminating my face like I was facing a window in the cold night outside. Can they hear me? “Hey, Hey, leave her alone!” They are arguing. I think those are the same people I saw earlier, down the stairs. What are they doing here? Where is the third man?

I seek them. But they are so far away. And he looks dangerous. He’s hurting her, I see it. This will not stand. I look inside my jacket, scratching the inside of my pockets… yes, that’s enough mold for one guy. I don’t think people of this world can survive this much mold. Hell, I hold inside my lungs enough mold to kill an army! I grab a chair and step on it. Fuck it, I thought, let’s cross the threshold once again!

It all went quite fast. I stumbled in the living room, the fully lit one, with the two people staring at me in terror. I thought that they overreacted a bit. They asked lots of questions, the woman hugged me but I did not care: the guy had to be put down. It was the cravings, again. I did not know this man, but I felt a lot. I jumped on him, he tried to trap me between his legs on the ground, but even though he was strong, I was a beast unleashed. You simply cannot win against a man who is Nobody. I threw the rest of the mold that I had in my right hand in his mouth and some of it on his nose, the rest I rubbed all over his face, which started to swell. To swell a lot. There was a liquid coming out from his pores every time I replaced my hand over his mouth to keep it shut. His eyes were wide, wide open and full of exploded blood vessels. He was sweating, screaming. I could even hear “I beg you! I beg you!” in his moaning but nothing could change the outcome. I was meant to kill him: God said so in my ears. The woman tried to climb on my back and remove me from the suffocating man but she could never succeed. Not after everything I have been through. Although I don’t remember most of it, I feel… I feel… Everything. After all the madness, the blood, the mold, the hallways and the wallpaper. That, I remember. Can I ever forget? I guess we’ll never know. The man collapsed, jolting and grabbing my arm with his thin, boney fingers. Planted his nails in my skin. I felt nothing. He was staring at me, with a look. A look that cried “Please let me go/I love you”. Or something in between. I don’t fucking know. When I let go of his disgusting, putrid mouth there was a long thread of dark slime following the palm of my hand. Bloodier.

The woman was taken aback on the couch, trying to call someone. I grabbed the phone and threw it towards the other side of the room. “John, what happened to you?” I don’t know any John. It’s a stupid name. “I need you to see Antarctica”. She paused, completely paralysed. “What do you mean? John?”. I reflected on whatever memory I had left. “I need to show you Antarctica.” I grabbed her arm, and took her back through the tableau.

*

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I am Nobody. Who are you?”

“John, what is happening?”

Who the fuck was John? Who was that weird lady in the middle of the room, in front of an ice-like framed landscape? Why is she making a fire in a closed establishment? Why does this establishment have such an ugly ass yellow wallpaper? Who am I?

“John, I can’t breathe…”

“Who is John, I don’t understand ma’am. Is that your boyfriend?”

She was struggling to talk so I sat down on the carpeted ground and put her hand on my lap.

“Ma’am, are you okay? Are you allergic to… Something? How can I help?”

“John…”

“Who is John?”

“I am OokokahctiW! And who are you?”

“Sa… Sallie”

“Sallie, is that your name?”

I read about a Sallie in the notebook… Yes! First entry of the most recent story. “Only there, could we see it, Sallie and I. Two alpinists of the mind recklessly planting our stakes in the merciless mountain’s flank, onward and upward, until we finally stumbled upon it. An Edelweiss.” And just under that:

She was jolting as well and I knew she had only a few seconds to live. I tried to get back up. I tried. I tried. And she was there, staring at me with her pale eyes and heavy head on my lap, and I knew I cared for her, beyond everything. I started crying, but I never cried. Even when I wanted to end it all, I did not cry. Right? You tell me, you now know more than me! And I cried and I cried, and when finally I stood up everything went dark.

“I am Withcakokoo. And who are you?”

I am Nobody

I am the static on the TV

I am the Montparnasse train station

A simple a plastic dinosaur

I am the Son of Navid

I am your first heartbreak

I am your deepest regret.

I am the yellow wallpaper and the distant singing

I am the Edelweiss in the Spring

The narrator

And the character

I am the man screaming on the hill,

And the other one who joined him.

I am at the interconnectedness of all things.

Antarctica

“Well, who decided to join the party?”

The man had just opened the thick wooden door to the porch.

“It’s fucking cold, damn!”

The woman laughed, already sitting outside by the table.

“The Edge of the known World, it is!”

“Damn, we have been so busy out here with the program, I barely remember what it is to live in a city.”

The man walked a few steps on the porch to sit at the woman’s table. As the Arctic light gently blessed her dark hair resting on her shoulders, it also illuminated her blue, angelic eyes.

He had something in his hand, something made of paper.

“What’s this?”

“A gift”

The man advanced his hand, and in in, lied a beautiful, and delicate flower.

“An Edelweiss!”

“Look, I know how much you wanted to start the program in the Alpes. We made a leap of faith, and we were right. ”

“And yet... a trace of the true self exists in the false self. ”

The man smiled with a glint in his eyes.

The woman took a sip of the glass of wine she had in front of her. In between her fingers, a lit cigarette.

“That’s rather early, ma’am!”

The woman handed him her glass.

“I won’t tell if you don’t”

He accepted her offer gently.

“Bordeaux, 2016. Great year.”

The man surprised himself by spilling some drops of wine on the snow under the porch.

“Look at that! How beautiful the stains of red are on the eternal ice”

“You really have to mark your territory everywhere you go… Even out here!”

The man laughed as well.

“How are the samples behaving?”

“We’re not there yet, but… They are promising. More so, even, than the previous batch”

He smiled, took her hand with a beautiful and delicate ring on it. He kissed it.

“What’s that?” She asked, pointing at his other hand.

“Oh, this? I don’t… really know? I found it while renovating the broken incubator. It’s pretty worn out, but I thought, since we have plenty of time in the middle of nowhere, that I could try and make sense of it!”

The man handed her an old notebook, with pages and pages of scribbles, notes, symbols. A lots of blood, and an unknown substance.

“Don’t touch it without gloves, love. Who knows what it might be?”

“Looks like an interesting pet project, Mr. DataScientist!”

The man laughed, observing the neverending horizon separating the snow from a perfect blue sky. A flock of birds flew in a circle above a seal carcass, far in the distance.

“Did you know, there are pagans in Antarctica?”

“Oh, be so for real, now!”

“I swear! I dreamt about this woman, she was singing and wore legs that were not hers…”

“You read too much fiction, honey. We’ve got a real world that needs our help. Out here.”

“Oh, you’re right, Sal”

The man stood up and was about to enter, when he turned around.

“Hey, isn’t it New Year’s Eve?”

“Oh my God, I had almost forgot, with this weather!”

He looked at her with all the love in the world.

“Happy fucking new year, Sal”

“Happy fucking new year, John”