(Scraped From A Now-Deleted Blog)
There are ideas, and then there are ideas executed poorly- that is to say, ideas so far removed from their original intent and context as to be rendered virtually indecipherable. Stale ideas, old ideas, bad ideas. Ideas turned sour through the passage of time, once carrying noble intent but now rotten with the saccharine buzz of communal thought. So it is with him.
I told him, when he first came to me during Mass, that I couldn’t be bothered. I was too busy crafting potions for the local types- they always come in, want a certain thing, I have to resort to ordering specific blends and potencies from specialty stores or the Internet, and so is with my craft. They’re always very specific- I would prefer that, actually. I would rather someone who knows exactly what they want than someone whose mind is open to anything, because it makes my role ever more convenient. Maybe that’s a flaw on my part.
“Ames,” he said. “I see this stuff. This stuff backed up on here. It’s awful. I don’t like it.” And he holds aloft a thumb drive with some sort of spiral logo inscribed onto the front.
“I’m not a tech expert by any means,” I respond.
“Technomancy? Is that a thing? You know, Neuromancer. The book. That’s what he does, isn’t it? Some kind of witchcraft with a computer?”
“No,” I smile. “No, that’s simply the name of the artificial- well, never mind. You should read it, sometime, it’s a wonderful overview of imaginary technology. I don’t just blow off dusty tomes and forbidden scrolls, I like the more futurist interpretations, they keep my mind active. You- you look like you’ve just come out of Cheap Hotel, yourself. Too much screen time, you know.” And of course, he had no idea what that meant.
Even so, I could tell he was in a horrible mood, worse than I’d seen him since I really got to know him- and here in Denver, friends don’t come easily, and so I treated him to a free Tarot reading, turned each card lazily over, and we basked in the warm afternoon sun pouring through my window on my ritual circle where I turn to perform all sorts of rites.
I noticed, for one thing, that the lines under his eyes had grown in prominence. They were darker, more wizened, and he looked older, at least by a few years, even if I knew he wasn’t on any hard drugs. I don’t even think he smoked pot recreationally, but he was at some sort of dire internal crossroads. I could tell that he was deeply troubled by something he had seen, or something he had been around, some malignant trauma, some repressed memory. I’m not a licensed psychiatrist but I’ve dealt with several and I don’t like the way they boil intuition down to an exact science- there’s no margin for error, their charts and models are incomplete. Now the Hanged Man, or the Wheel of Fortune- here are symbols greater and more applicable than the DSM. I know I’m wrong for admitting I think that. But it is true.
His hands were shaking as I prepared one of my herbal teas for him that night, trembling like leaves, and he sipped it slowly and thoughtfully. I didn’t want to pry, because a good friend will never intrude on anything they’re not openly welcomed into, but I could only imagine the ceaseless war in his brain, the conflict between various archetypes and motives.
“You need help,” I admitted finally, leaning on my elbow. “You need a therapist, I think. I’m sorry, and I know maybe that’s not what you want to hear. But it’s true. I can’t really help you, Julian. You won’t tell me what’s on that thing, and to be honest I don’t want to know. But I do think you owe it to yourself to tell someone. Also, I’m not sworn to any oaths of confidentiality, only an oath with the stars.” He giggled slightly, but I could tell the terror remained firmly set.
“You know, I’ve never known anyone like you,” he said. “I don’t think I really deserve anyone like you. You’re so cool. You do these things with your hands, your movement, your whole- God, it’s amazing what you’re able to achieve here. I’ll never ask for your secrets or demand that you teach me what it’s all about, that mystique of yours- I wish I had it. But I spilled all my cards on the table a long time ago. Everybody knows who I am.”
“You’re wonderful, and I love you for it.”
“No,” he pined. “No, I’m a mess, a screw-up. Nobody can stand me, nobody really likes me, it’s all just part of a game they put on, a spectacle because they see how determined I am and they want to get there first. I can’t see inside their heads, but I know they only have their own interests in mind, you know. And I do, too.”
I held his hands firmly in my own, clasped his fingers over mine, and I looked deep into his soul- past the tiny reflection on the pupil, well into the pineal gland, because the pineal is the source of the animus according to many. And I said-
“You don’t only pursue your own interests, Jules. If you did, you wouldn’t be here, sharing your friendship with me.”
And he seemed reasonably content with that response.
He sighed once, grabbed his coat from the rack, and shuffled aimlessly downstairs to the curb- caught a bus at the nearest stop, or at least appeared to from what I could see from my upstairs apartment window. And then he was gone in all the Colfax noise, lost, wandering among a crowd of 700,000 for nobody to witness.
I was busy then, the season was long and the sales never dried up, because it’s always in demand- cardamom, basil- enough herbs to fill a decent spice rack, except mine are arranged and cut into neat runes and cleansing pacts. It’s thankless stuff I do, but I feel good doing it.
I didn’t hear much from him, save that he seemed to be spending more time up in Boulder, I imagined him wandering around the campus and maybe clearing his mind from all that had built up. He had mentioned something a few years earlier about going to CU Boulder, majoring in literature, but since then those ambitions had dried up and he was careening from one short-lived job to another, never able to hold down a position.
He did text me one photo, once, during that span of roughly six months. He appeared to be in some kind of grassy clearing, surrounded by tall cottonwoods underneath a blue sky, and there was some patch of darkness in front of him. It looked as if a crop duster had descended carrying ash rather than dust, depositing its contents haphazardly over roughly a quarter-acre of land.
And he was holding a hammer and a plank of wood.
“You get it?” he asked.
“No,” I responded, taking precious time off my schedule. “But if you’ve gotten into carpentry, then good for you.” No further texts came.
This is what you need to understand about him- he had always been strange. That was one of the reasons I gravitated towards him to begin with. I’m a firm believer in the laws of personal energy, that people are attracted towards each other at certain points in life and repelled at other times, and in his case he seemed the perfect subject for me to test my theories on.
We went as far back as high school and he was thin then, not much more than a House M.D. T-shirt, a backpack full of essays, and a few wisps of light brown hair. He always ate alone, I noticed that in particular. I would be with several of my friends and he would just be over in the corner, by himself, eating his usual routine of one carton of milk, an oatmeal cookie, and some kind of vegetable from the tray. That never changed, and it was one of the idiosyncrasies which drew my attention.
One day- it must have been the last year before graduation, and I knew it would be then or never, because in this system people tend to move away as soon as they’ve got their diploma, and rarely keep in touch- I decided to take a risk and leave my group to their idle conversation, and approach him. I wouldn’t insist that he come over to my group. I would become one of his group. This was a daunting prospect for me. I would need to learn him and the ways he worked from the ground up, then reassemble my own patterns of behavior in a rough facsimile.
“Hi,” I offered. “My name’s Amy, but my friends call me Amethyst, like the crystal. How about you?” He was clearly surprised, looked up from the uncooked okra he was piercing with his plastic white fork, and said nothing- just reticently shook my hand, gave it a limp few tugs, and went right back on eating. That didn’t discourage me, though.
I sat with him almost every day at lunch when I didn’t have papers to fill out- and he gradually became more and more receptive to my being there, and gradually his vocabulary around me picked up, and the ice was broken, as I knew it would be. I had seen to that, and I was proud of my ability to meet him on his own terms.
Once, about a month later, it was autumn, and I offered to walk home with him, and he said I could, and so I met him near the front and off we went. I remember this day distinctly because there was a disheveled man out front handing out free little copies of the New Testament and various Psalms to all the students who passed by, speaking from beneath a gray broom-shaped mustache, and I wasn’t sure whether the school allowed him to be on campus or if he was there unsolicited. Anyway, when we passed him I put my arm around Julian in solidarity and avoided eye contact with the weird theologian.
It was around two weeks before Halloween- early enough so that only the most dedicated of houses would feature decorations, but there were some good ones up and they blended nicely with the orange and gold foliage that cluttered itself around our feet. Jule was keeping mostly to himself, but I maintained a warm smile and a good sense of direction and hoped he would tell me what was on his mind- because then, as with now, there always was some nagging thought he couldn’t quite articulate.
“Where do you live, anyway?” I asked.
“Ah- Home. Home with my family. But we’ll go to your place, first, if that’s alright with you. I can get home on my own. I mean, of course I do. I usually do.”
“That’s alright with me.”
This look came over him as we passed the border of Cheesman Park- I can’t quite place it, but it was another one of those little mannerisms of his which were so specific. A slight crease at the edge of his mouth, and then a guttural noise, like a frog makes from its air sac, some kind of deep respiratory mechanism. He turned towards me and stated plainly:
“I love you, Amy. You know that. I like you, love you, whatever you want to call it. You don’t make any sense to me, it doesn’t make any sense that we found each other, but we did, and here we are, and-”
“You’re trying to tell me something?” I nearly whispered.
“I really value you as a friend.”
“Friends we are, then,” I responded. “Friends we happen to have become, and that’s what we’re always going to be, because, you know, friendship lasts a long time, and it goes on. Just like ley lines.”
“What?”
And then- his neck snapped. I’m not sure how else I would describe it, but it bent to the side in one fell swoop, one abrupt jerking motion, and his eyes sort of closed for a split instant. I was shocked, and darted back several feet, but his eyes opened again and I assumed maybe he was epileptic and had neglected to tell me. But he shook free of whatever it had been and stated in a flat, monotone recitation:
“I have to go now, Amethyst. My family wants me back.”
I didn’t call after him, scream or tell him not to leave me, as in all honesty I was a bit stunned. I wasn’t sure what to make of him, but I could tell he was in desperate need of a friend who he could trust. And so I doubled down, and ensured that from that day onward, he would never be out of my grasp.
“Coming over,” read his message. My phone was glowing on the couch next to me, and I assumed maybe he needed more epsom salts- I gave him those for free, usually, because he said they helped him when his muscles ached from a long day of packing boxes at the warehouse, which was where he was currently employed. I had a big oak barrel in the closet filled with the stuff- a special blend of scented and unscented, and I renewed it on a regular basis, so there was always at least a scoop or two I could pour into a ziploc bag on his behalf.
I was tired, too, especially with the onset of the season and the holiday rush- Samhain always draws those types who, outside of this specific period, would never consider asking for the services of a certified magic practitioner, but when the harvest moon rises and the plants die, inevitably they show up.
I had been through a grueling session with a bickering couple who each wanted their future laid out in plain, absolute terminology, and I told them that wasn’t how it worked, that the future was blurry and uncertain even for me. They were in their forties, I could tell they were the type who wanted to get married but never did out of reluctance or semantics, and they both wanted completely separate outcomes. This atmosphere of tension fell over the circle, and it was more than even I could handle, a tempest of passion- so I made something up on the spot, told them they would both find what they were looking for eventually, even though the boyfriend had spilled a can of beer all over my sigil, and then I ushered them out onto the porch and told them they could pay me online.
Then I sat down with a few sips of red wine- I don’t drink, typically, but I keep a bottle in the cupboard if I can tell my blood vessels are especially constricted. It’s a skill I’ve honed, gradually, to reach in and detect abnormalities in any one of my systems, and I wouldn’t recommend it for the average person. By the time Julian arrived, anyway, I was tired and a little faded and ready for bed.
Then I heard the rap on the door, and told him to enter.
“Hi, Amy,” he said. He hadn’t called me that in a long time.
He was lugging something beneath his shoulder- I guess it was a projector, one of those models they typically have at science fairs or cheap exhibitions, with a rudimentary HDMI and USB and RCA output on the back. Actually, I realized, most modern projectors don’t have RCA outputs on the back, they’re not designed to be compatible with analog technology. So he must have specially-ordered this one, or sought it out at a garage sale.
He pulled in a little cart of equipment and pulled each component out, methodically. Without asking, he took two push pins and a white sheet and stuck the white sheet onto my wall. It was ghostly pale, even moreso when he pressed the large button on top of the projector and it made a weird whirring sound as the fan inside sprang to life and the massive lamp flicked into action. The wrinkles in it were prominent.
“What’s this about?” I asked, still feeling under the weather..
“You’ll see, soon enough. Uh... can I use your laptop? I’m sorry to have to ask, but I haven’t been able to find a VCR with enough features. And this will be easier than transferring it, anyway.” I considered the prospect.
“Okay.”
He pulled out the hard drive thing he had shown me all those months ago, and a wire which apparently connected the apparatus into a port on my computer. I momentarily lifted my fingers in a futile gesture to stop him, assuming that the hard drive was probably loaded with all sorts of junk and viruses which would infect my device, but at the last minute- and this was what sealed our fate- I withdrew any objection, reasoning that he probably had good intentions.
I never should have assumed that.
He clicked a few files- my vision was blurry so I couldn’t quite make out the names on the folders, but there appeared to be hundreds, so many that it took him around 15 seconds just to scroll to the bottom using the sidebar. And these were, perhaps, only one subcategory out of multiple. I was very apprehensive, and my tension was not helped once the film began.
“A Redline Halcyon Production,” read the opening title, scrawled on what appeared to be a chalkboard, with the contrast turned up such that the board was jet black and the chalk was solid white. “The Friendly Stranger.” Julian had taken up a position on the couch next to me and he was grinning widely, his hands clasped in front and his back arched forward. That posture was unusual for him, and there was something else, too-
The film began and it was nothing but a 15-second loop of some distant silhouette in some kind of blank hallway. The figure had a vast coat and a wide-brimmed hat, and it reminded me of depictions of various demons I’d seen in old manuscripts, albeit with a somewhat contemporary appearance. From beneath the stranger’s hat there were what appeared to be shining glasses or the like, although the footage was degraded and grainy and it was difficult to get a look. The figure did not move, but the camera jostled vaguely from side to side, as if it were handheld.
“I don’t like this,” I squirmed. “Turn it off.”
“Shh,” he put his finger to his lips. “Quiet. This is the best part.”
The weird figure was now surrounded by a light score of distant organ, which sounded somehow reversed or warped, and the loop altered itself slightly, replaced by a similar loop in the same hallway, with the friendly stranger slightly nearer and appearing to reach out from their sides. Their fingers were long and had a jarring animalistic tendency.
The quiet organ music then gave way to some kind of horrible screech, and the footage became distorted as the figure broke into a headlong run towards whoever was filming, and the camera operator broke into a sprint of equal measure, and the jarring noise intensified as the figure overtook them and grabbed the camera from their hands, and then, in a wild frenetic blur, the stranger’s face came into view, and static enveloped everything- and it was a horrible face, horrible- I’d never seen anything comparable to it in years of training with the occult.
“Oh, fuck,” I exhaled as the footage slowed to a crawl and ended, and was replaced with the familiar blue wash of Windows Media Player. I lowered my elbows from in front of my field of vision.
“You like it, huh?” Julian piped. “Beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Just think- I had no idea. A world’s opened up, you know. Whole world.”
“Beautiful?” I unconsciously set my glass of wine onto the cushion and the few remaining drops spilled onto the fabric, creating the appearance of an injury. “That shit is depraved! It’s fucking horrible! And what else is on this stupid drive of yours? Abuse? Snuff? The people who made that- that- whatever it is- they’re not people worth idolizing! You need help!”
“You’re one to talk,” he muttered, unplugging the projector. “You’ve always been into this esoteric stuff. Into the unseen, the unknown, the potential of that. Of energy. Like you told me about that one time. About two people nearing, and forming something greater in totality-”
“Never mind that!” I snapped. ‘This isn’t about me, or what I get up to with my magic. My magic is healing, Jule. It’s cleansing, it’s designed specifically to rid the aether of negativity. This shit- this unhinged, wicked sorcery you’ve got- it’s not the creation of any self-respecting witch, I can tell you that much. Maybe some twisted, demented warlock, laboring away in some subterranean fucking grotto. But it is not what I’m after.”
“You don’t like warlocks, do you?”
“That’s besides the point.” He shrugged.
“Answer the question,” he reiterated. “Something about warlocks. Bothers you.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, they do bother me, they get on my nerves. That’s a bias I have to overcome someday, maybe work a spell to reduce it. But I had a negative experience once, with a boy who claimed to be one. I don’t want to tell you about it, right now. Some things are better left unsaid. Some things aren’t meant for even you.”
“A secret!” and he held the spooled RCA cables out like a wand. “Knew it. ‘Some things’- well, you’ll see how that goes when you lose all your friends to the void. You’re selfish, you know. You hoard talent, you hoard knowledge in these volumes of yours- and nobody even cares about any of it. These fucking books. What a waste.” He grabbed a particular tome from my shelf, rifled through it with contempt, and tossed it haphazardly onto the floor.
“Please!” I shrieked.
“You’ll see what happens,” he said, “When The Eye turns upon you. It cleanses, alright.”
Then he was gone, he hoisted his projector into his little cart and wheeled it out the front, and I was tired, and I collected the fragments of the wine glass, which had since rolled off the cushion and met an untimely end on the floor in several sharp chunks.
I realized what the difference had been. It kept gnawing at me, too horrible to believe- but yes, it was undeniable.
Under his brow, in the shadow of his unassuming beige combover, the sockets were hollow.
It’s Halloween night now, and I regret ever having made friends with him to begin with, today he’s unrecognizable, warped and twisted somehow by those things he watches. If I ever had any doubts as to the reality of magic- or if you did- then watch someone’s mind slip from themselves in real time.
He’s been broken into a dozen matchsticks, a long-discarded puppet, and though he may think himself to be the successor of kings and emperors he’s only a pawn in some grand scheme- what, exactly, I can’t say, but he is being used to some end. He’s shouting outside the bathroom door, pounding to get in:
“It’s me, Ames! Me, the way it’s always been. Open up, now! Damnit! Can’t you hear?”
He asked to be let in, and of course I obliged, I was opening the door repeatedly for trick-or--treaters all night anyway, and I never imagined he’d come in with the strength of a mad gorilla and no fucking eyes, just singed holes-dear Baphomet, he had nothing there save some burnt remnants- and grab me by the collar and then chase me up an entire flight of stairs, holding a VHS tape in one hand, babbling incoherently. I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined it would ever come to this. I thought he’d get help. I thought he’d have to.
In a sense, this has caused me to reflect on my own selfish motivations for becoming his friend- I didn’t only think I could help him grow and change, I also wanted, in some sense, to work magic on another living being. And that is ultimately wrong on my part, but it doesn’t seem to matter regardless because clearly I was never intended as the one to infuse him with anything. Higher powers have seen to that.
I don’t think he has the strength to break through, and I imagine he’ll give up soon- there are no implements in the house he could use to break through, no blunt weapons, no knives besides butter knives. So I think I’m safe, as long as he doesn’t go somewhere else to find something to break in with. I’m typing this from inside the bathtub. Curtain drawn, if it gets any worse I can wrap the plastic around me to protect myself.
I don’t know how he sees.
“The eye, damnit! Perspective! It gives you PERSPECTIVE- SO MUCH_”
Oh
Oh no