The Block and the Rule
By
Robin McConnell
The words do not come to me.
Midnight. It is the best time to write. For then the world is quiet. It is empty of all bustle and business; instead there is only serenity. Perhaps the autumn branches may twitch in the gentle breeze; perhaps their long shadows will jitter in tandem; perhaps the nestling night birds will whistle a startled tune. Whatever somnolent action occurs, ultimately the stillness rules all and allows my imagination to expand into the infinite space of silence. Countless tales have I crafted from the ether of nothingness that Midnight brings with her. However, tonight my mind is as empty as the air that surrounds me.
The words do not come to me.
Midnight. Outside, full moon glows gently. Inside, tallow candle flickers dimly. Quill hovers over crisp parchment, waiting for the hand to shift into action. The hand does not move; the plume does not write; the moon glowers at me still.
Why do the words not come to me?
They used to arrive with an eagerness to exceed the speed of my quill. The capillaries of the nib would bleed freely into a pattern that, though meaningless in itself, bore profound substance to those who can interpret the familiar forms. When exhausted, the black afterbirth would be in shapes commonplace to mankind yet unique in all its history; the heir to Ogma’s chisel, it would have brought the material expression of intangible thought.
How do I make the words come to me?
Inspiration. I require only a subject worthy of the art. Perhaps I shall write about the moon.
It is waning tonight – how fitting, for it is the eve of a new millennium. Tomorrow the moon too shall be new, its dark freckles obscured. I hope that my countrymen can similarly make a fresh start, cleansed of our flaws. Let us be washed of the sins that invited the daemons from the north. Let us overcome the senselessness that plagues our people as our ill-advised leaders bribe murderous invaders to stay the slaughter only for a little while; ‘til the heathen hosts attack again and another payment sheaths the sword until the next inevitable massacre. In a cycle of insanity, we facilitate our own destruction without changing the defects within us that bring about our suffering. I pray mankind will become like the celestial guide who keeps us walking along safe pathways in the darkness of night: refreshed for a new age.
No. That is mawkish. It is not even worth committing to vellum. Take another approach. How does the world appear under Selene’s glow? It looks peaceful. Phoebe’s silver kisses bestow a light grey sheen upon all forms, to highlight the shape of things – it is not the intrusive light of day, garish and blinding. It is soft, soothing… It makes loneliness bearable.
Solitude is familiar to me: my family is gone, my spouse never existed and the closest thing to companionship I have ever known has been with my quires and my quill. My upbringing of privilege counts for naught – I am a tyrant of a desolate castle; the single inhabitant of an estate fit for five hundred. The immensity of my home is useless to me, its pleasures scantling. Its limestone chambers are as rotten as the purlins above me, providing protection against neither wind nor weapon. They are not suitable for human habitation, only vermin. Therefore I relegate myself to my library, where rest my most prized possessions whose leather bindings are treasure enough for me. Here I am the king of knowledge and a creator of worlds. From the comfort of my writing-desk, I turn to gaze kindly at the shelves that occupy the far wall, Aegises against the outer realm. I contemplate the names of those peerless rhetors. Aristotle, Pliny, Augustine… strangers to each other, yet friends to me. Wulfstan, Alcuin, Boethius… and John; tell me, dear disciple, did you know what power your words would hold so many centuries after your passing? I suppose you must have had some inkling of their potency, otherwise you would not have committed them to writing. Oh, how I envy you, true artists of speechcraft, whose thoughts echo down the ages like the cargo of the True Cross: unknowable yet inspiring, indefinite yet unchanging.
No, mawkish again. I cannot waste ink on such drivel.
Contemplate another perspective. What does the moon really do? How does its light transform the world in the wake of the sun's illumination? Whereas Sol casts away all evil by exposing every hiding place, moonlight deepens the shadows and darkens the sheltered pathways, transforming the daytime’s coolest respites into ominous and impenetrable routes of dread, wherein unknown dangers lurk...
I cannot write that; the creeping shades disturb me and it can only do me ill to dwell upon them. I do not wish to repeat those terrible visions…
Before me, the page remains unblemished. It is fully prepared, expectant of my activity. The ruler has measured the lines and the knife has scored them. The feather trembles against my fingers, keen to be put to use. As I look to the Heavens for the words, so the quill looks to my hand. It grows more unsteady, it strikes an impatient beat against my flesh.
Cease your irritable trembling! You have undone me too many times. So often, you lead my hand astray. You achieve productivity at the expense of art. Your keen contumacy has sapped the value of all I have ever written, removing all hope of placing my children alongside my friends. No combination of words that poured from your nib attained transcendance; you were too impatient to let those pure thoughts of my mind achieve perfect expression. I see the Heavens, in my mind’s eye. On the page there are never more than mere words.
Tonight, there is nothing at all.
Quill, you are useless to me. Without the impulsion of my hand and the fuel of my mind you have nothing to offer, and even then you despoil the riches that come down to me from above, my Divine inspiration. But tonight there is no inspiration: I am spent. I have nothing for you, and you have nothing for me.
The tallow flame flickers faintly, growing weaker by the minute. Oh weary servant, I am sorry for exhausting you. Soon you shall extinguish and there shall be no light by which to write. Unless… do you mean to abandon me to the frore shine of the moon? How dare you, I need your warm glimmer by which to see. In the moon’s beam the paper will appear like stone, and the ink as blood, thick and dark. Candle, I need your eye’s twinkle to illuminate my own – the eye of my mind, that sees beyond my material surroundings.
The fiery glow diminishes and the shadows deepen to pure black. They extend from the window, Stygian fingers that creep outwards until they engulf the wall, the ceiling and the floor around me like an ocean of endless nothing. They frighten me. Oh shadows, what secrets dwell in your unfathomable depths? If I cannot see the objects and beings that lie within you, are they there? Does matter exist where light does not reach? Is anything real but that which we see and touch?
I used to believe there was more than we can observe – who else but God could create the stars, the galaxies, the universe? And no man can see God. What other splendor lies beyond our view? What unknown forms are hidden that challenge our understanding of the Maker? How can the beauty of Creation be anything other than the Lord's proof, yet also the confirmation of uncertainty?
In the midst of these shades, I wonder, and I doubt. The stars are infinitesimal specks on a chalkboard of oblivion. The sun is a hideous furnace that blinds and burns all beneath it. Mene is pockmarked and ugly until she hides her face, abandoning all organisms to the darkness. Trees wither and plants decay with the season. Creatures starve lest they devour each other. Man destroys man for selfish gain.
The shadows extend. The light continues to dim. Faint flame, maybe you should extinguish. Let the world around me disappear into darkness. After all, it is no good use of your essence to let you burn away while I sit here in front of a blank piece of parchment, devoid of all creative stimuli. It is not your fault, dear candle. Nor is it even yours, quill. No, I sit here as purposeless as Sisyphos’ burden because my mind is emptied of all ideas, concepts, dreams…
I look up at the Heavens and all I see are white pinpricks and an unpolished orb.
I have written about them before. Too many times. There is nothing left to say. The Heavens have abandoned me. He has abandoned me.
The plume trembles excitedly against my fingers.
There! That is it. Quill, we have work to do, words to write. Tremble no more. We need not Divine inspiration. Why wait for Him to tell me what to do? I do not need Him any longer, if He is there at all. I shall write against Him. Yes! My fingers grip the feather firmly – it has no room to move against me now. I control you now. I am mightier than you, I am your master, I am your God. Hear me and obey.
I begin to move the nib across the paper and that familiar noise returns, as soothing as the Siren’s song. Scratch scratch scratch, as the ink pours forth in a string of random shapes that carry all the subtlety of the sounds they represent. Scratch scratch scratch. Short sharp bursts of words forming phrases, stretching into sentences, pooling into paragraphs.
There, something has started.
When will it cease? Where will it lead me?
The quill rushes over the page, pausing only to be lifted to the reservoir to hastily replenish its vital fluid. There is no time to waste: each letter, each word, each line must be completed before the next disappears from the fore of my mind, before the visions of my imagination sink into the lake of lost memories. My mind passes every thought to my hand; my hand speaks to the page through the plume; the vellum absorbs my innermost intentions, each to the reassuring sound of the nib brushing against the fibres of the parchment, a gentle scratch scratch scratch.
After a passage of time that no man can measure, my mind finally has no more to transmit. I still my hand as the words run out. The issuance of my thoughts, my children, is completed. For once my quill has not frustrated the conveyances of my mind: my ideas are there before me, expressed with an elegance of articulation that I have never before witnessed. It is a triumph, my greatest work. A tirade against Faith of indescribable force. Finally, I have produced words which are worthy of standing besides my friends, those mighty tomes. I gaze upon my progeny, satisfied. The labour is done.
Yet the sound continues.
Scratch scratch scratch.
In my hand rests the quill – it does not twitch.
I look at the page before me. No new words have appeared. It cannot be the quill that made the noise.
Scratch scratch scratch.
I rest the feather on the opposite edge of the dark desk, as far from me as my arm can reach. There, the noise must now cease, because even if the quill deceived me, it has no hand to move it any more.
Scratch scratch scratch.
What? It was not the quill. From where does that chafe come?
I close my mind’s eye and turn all my attention to my worldly surroundings, to the present moment. I listen intently for the slightest whisper. Yet there is no sound, save for the creak of the wooden window frame against the night breeze.
Is it over? I must make sure.
I grant all concentration to my senses, so that they are fully alert to the slightest agitation. I continue to listen, determined to detect the origin of the intrusion. All I hear is silence. Then –
Scratch scratch scratch.
There it is! That horrible scratching like fingernails on oak.
Scratch scratch scratch.
It does not end!
Scratch scratch scratch.
It persists tirelessly, arrhythmically, filling the room with wiry shrieks. My senses are now too attuned, they recoil at the affliction. I try to block my ears with my hands – but the scratching only gets louder!
Scratch scratch scratch!
I stand there in the middle of the room, hopeless and afraid, spinning and yelling to no-one. Every time my ears merely begin to acclimate to the tempo and pitch of the scratches, so that the sound might become a harmless drone in the depths of my surroundings, the scratches speed up, slow down, get softer, get harder, grow ever louder! They are constantly changing and invading my head with pernicious pangs. So it goes on for hours, days, weeks – time is irrelevant when one suffers such anguish! What could create such indescribable agony?
Scratch scratch scratch!
My ears begin to itch with pain; I rub them fiercely to chase away the unbearable sensation. My fingers form claws that dig into the drums. Dry lobes split and I feel blood run down my neck.
Scratch scratch scratch!
Where in the world is it coming from?! Frantically I search the room, listening in every corner, holding my ear to every wall. The scratching is weak near the door; therefore it must be coming from within the room. It is faintest near the windows and far wall; it is stronger near the desk… It is strongest by the bookshelves.
Scratch scratch scratch.
It is behind the books.
Scratch scratch scratch.
My friends, my friends, it is behind you!
Scratch scratch scratch.
Why is it behind you? Why do you protect this torturer?
Scratch scratch scratch.
You have condemned me to endure this horror.
Scratch scratch scratch!
Why must I endure it? What misdeeds have earned me such cruciation?
Scratch scratch scratch!
Have I offended Him with my words? Or have I offended you, by writing anathema to your works?
Scratch scratch scratch!
Or are you merely jealous of my accomplishment, envious of my magnum opus?
Scratch scratch scratch!
I must expose it; eradicate it! If I am subjected to any more I shall go insane!
Scratch scratch scratch!
I tear the books off the shelves, throwing them aside like tinder. I spare none. Friends, you have betrayed me, sheltering whatever monster makes this tearing, taunting noise. I have no sympathy for your plight as I cast you aside; you have permitted this thing to torment me too long already. Custodians of knowledge, you have become guardians of evil. You are not philosophers, you are philistines. I spare none.
The clamour as the books’ spines snap on the floor almost disguises that infernal scratching. It reacts to my assault - it grows more furious.
Scratchscratchscratch!
It knows!
It knows I’m getting closer. With a flurry of effort, I finish clearing the shelves.
Scratchscratchscratch!
Now the miserable noise dominates the air again. I wish there had been more books to keep slamming down.
Scratchscratchscratchscratch!
It can sense me, just as I can hear it. But is it getting more desperate or more eager as I approach?
Scratchscratchscratchscratchscratch!
The scratching is louder and more grating than ever now, its asperity untempered. I shall soon expose it.
Scratchscratchscratchscratchscratch!
There, between the cracks behind the second shelf! I must pry the wood apart! Without looking, I fumble over the desk for any tool to aid me. Blindly, my fingers grasp something – a makeshift lever, I care not its intended purpose. I jab it between the cracks in the wall and pull, prising the plies apart.
Scratchscratchscratchscratchscratch!
Will you never cease?!
I pry again. With the sound of bones snapping, fragments fly away and the gap widens sufficiently for me to insert my fingertips. I shove them in, disregarding the splinters that enter my flesh, grabbing the edges of the planks and, mustering all my strength, yanking them away with such force I fall backwards onto my spine. It jars and I howl in misery. I brace my hands on the floor and push myself up slowly, only for the splinters in my fingers to burrow deeper under my nails as I exert.
I scream for a brief moment. The pain is immeasurable, but I observe something that casts it from my mind.
The scratching has stopped.
Blessed peace!
…
… Why has it stopped?
I must know what caused the cessation. What wretched creature in my wall tried to claw its way through for so long? Is it now at liberty in the room?
Ignoring the needles under my nails, I grab the candle from my desk. Holding it aloft in one hand, and wielding the makeshift lever in the other, I cautiously tread towards the gaping hole in the wall. Dimly lit by the flickering of the flame I see –
An ancient man, debilitated beyond description. His cracked skin stretches over his skeletal frame, wispy hair clings to his speckled scalp. The fragments of material draped over his bones must once have been bright apparel but are now recognisable only as grey rags. He lies crumpled within the cavity of the wall. His limbs are too feeble to function; his legs too infirm to stand upon, his arms barely able to move. He looks up at me with pleading eyes, and with a gnarled hand he slowly reaches out to me. I look into those eyes. They are oddly familiar…
My eyes. I look into my eyes . And they look straight back. I gaze cruelly upon myself: emaciated, white-haired and whimpering in the dark. I have spent too long behind my friends, seeking to be alongside them. Like Socrates in his cell, I am awaiting judgement. Am I a vision of a future that is yet to be? Or am I an ancient memory of a past desperately yearned?
Whether past or future, it haunts me. It cannot be tolerated.
I reach out to me. I reject myself.
A more powerful compulsion than I have ever known overwhelms me – I know instantly what I must do.
I must destroy.
I throw aside the candle. The hot wax spills, and the soft sound of flames licking dry parchment barely registers in my mind. My grip tightens around the tool in my hand. I feel the sturdiness of its wooden shaft in my fist, and the shallow, regular incisions along its edge, like teeth. I raise it in both splintered hands and with all my might I thrust it forward into the old man’s chest. It lands with a disgusting crunch. The derelict gasps his last, but I must be certain. I withdraw the bloodied tool and thrust it again into his chest. It lands with a squelch. I thrust again. And again. And again! Again! Again!
I persist until my strength is completely and utterly spent and, his chest now a crimson cavity, I collapse onto the floor.
I lie upon my scattered books, former allies who gave harbour to that malignant spectre. I feel the warm tickle of fire near me, and hear the sputter of burning hides. The candle I carelessly tossed aside has disgorged its flame, which devours the leaves insatiably, as I once consumed the knowledge they bore. Like the hideous thing I have destroyed, the books will soon be no more.
I am exhausted. Luna’s light fades as immolation’s glow grows. Yet the room darkens.
Peace falls upon me. The only sound is the gentle crackle of the flames as they feed on my friends. The sound has a rhythm. It is a lullaby. I close my eyes and surrender to eternal sleep.
In the new millennium, one morning, should anyone come, they will find the room empty but for a singed corpse upon a pile of burned books. The cadaver’s chest will be cracked open, and protruding from it, they will find a dull wooden ruler embedded in a gory mess. There will be no hollow in the wall, nor any scratchmarks within. There will be no trace of anyone having ever been in that room except for its lonely occupant.
They will find my bony body in time to come,
spoiled to its core;
They will wonder, was it madness killed the author
or something more?
And upon the page, there will be only words.
By day, Robin is a UK-based scriptwriter and producer of edutainment podcasts and videos. By night, he writes short stories and novels to indulge his love of gothic, weird and detective fiction. His love for storytelling started very young, writing short stories and plays to amuse his parents. The audience has changed but the childish motivation has not. If he ever stops, he might grow up.
By
Robin McConnell
The words do not come to me.
Midnight. It is the best time to write. For then the world is quiet. It is empty of all bustle and business; instead there is only serenity. Perhaps the autumn branches may twitch in the gentle breeze; perhaps their long shadows will jitter in tandem; perhaps the nestling night birds will whistle a startled tune. Whatever somnolent action occurs, ultimately the stillness rules all and allows my imagination to expand into the infinite space of silence. Countless tales have I crafted from the ether of nothingness that Midnight brings with her. However, tonight my mind is as empty as the air that surrounds me.
The words do not come to me.
Midnight. Outside, full moon glows gently. Inside, tallow candle flickers dimly. Quill hovers over crisp parchment, waiting for the hand to shift into action. The hand does not move; the plume does not write; the moon glowers at me still.
Why do the words not come to me?
They used to arrive with an eagerness to exceed the speed of my quill. The capillaries of the nib would bleed freely into a pattern that, though meaningless in itself, bore profound substance to those who can interpret the familiar forms. When exhausted, the black afterbirth would be in shapes commonplace to mankind yet unique in all its history; the heir to Ogma’s chisel, it would have brought the material expression of intangible thought.
How do I make the words come to me?
Inspiration. I require only a subject worthy of the art. Perhaps I shall write about the moon.
It is waning tonight – how fitting, for it is the eve of a new millennium. Tomorrow the moon too shall be new, its dark freckles obscured. I hope that my countrymen can similarly make a fresh start, cleansed of our flaws. Let us be washed of the sins that invited the daemons from the north. Let us overcome the senselessness that plagues our people as our ill-advised leaders bribe murderous invaders to stay the slaughter only for a little while; ‘til the heathen hosts attack again and another payment sheaths the sword until the next inevitable massacre. In a cycle of insanity, we facilitate our own destruction without changing the defects within us that bring about our suffering. I pray mankind will become like the celestial guide who keeps us walking along safe pathways in the darkness of night: refreshed for a new age.
No. That is mawkish. It is not even worth committing to vellum. Take another approach. How does the world appear under Selene’s glow? It looks peaceful. Phoebe’s silver kisses bestow a light grey sheen upon all forms, to highlight the shape of things – it is not the intrusive light of day, garish and blinding. It is soft, soothing… It makes loneliness bearable.
Solitude is familiar to me: my family is gone, my spouse never existed and the closest thing to companionship I have ever known has been with my quires and my quill. My upbringing of privilege counts for naught – I am a tyrant of a desolate castle; the single inhabitant of an estate fit for five hundred. The immensity of my home is useless to me, its pleasures scantling. Its limestone chambers are as rotten as the purlins above me, providing protection against neither wind nor weapon. They are not suitable for human habitation, only vermin. Therefore I relegate myself to my library, where rest my most prized possessions whose leather bindings are treasure enough for me. Here I am the king of knowledge and a creator of worlds. From the comfort of my writing-desk, I turn to gaze kindly at the shelves that occupy the far wall, Aegises against the outer realm. I contemplate the names of those peerless rhetors. Aristotle, Pliny, Augustine… strangers to each other, yet friends to me. Wulfstan, Alcuin, Boethius… and John; tell me, dear disciple, did you know what power your words would hold so many centuries after your passing? I suppose you must have had some inkling of their potency, otherwise you would not have committed them to writing. Oh, how I envy you, true artists of speechcraft, whose thoughts echo down the ages like the cargo of the True Cross: unknowable yet inspiring, indefinite yet unchanging.
No, mawkish again. I cannot waste ink on such drivel.
Contemplate another perspective. What does the moon really do? How does its light transform the world in the wake of the sun's illumination? Whereas Sol casts away all evil by exposing every hiding place, moonlight deepens the shadows and darkens the sheltered pathways, transforming the daytime’s coolest respites into ominous and impenetrable routes of dread, wherein unknown dangers lurk...
I cannot write that; the creeping shades disturb me and it can only do me ill to dwell upon them. I do not wish to repeat those terrible visions…
Before me, the page remains unblemished. It is fully prepared, expectant of my activity. The ruler has measured the lines and the knife has scored them. The feather trembles against my fingers, keen to be put to use. As I look to the Heavens for the words, so the quill looks to my hand. It grows more unsteady, it strikes an impatient beat against my flesh.
Cease your irritable trembling! You have undone me too many times. So often, you lead my hand astray. You achieve productivity at the expense of art. Your keen contumacy has sapped the value of all I have ever written, removing all hope of placing my children alongside my friends. No combination of words that poured from your nib attained transcendance; you were too impatient to let those pure thoughts of my mind achieve perfect expression. I see the Heavens, in my mind’s eye. On the page there are never more than mere words.
Tonight, there is nothing at all.
Quill, you are useless to me. Without the impulsion of my hand and the fuel of my mind you have nothing to offer, and even then you despoil the riches that come down to me from above, my Divine inspiration. But tonight there is no inspiration: I am spent. I have nothing for you, and you have nothing for me.
The tallow flame flickers faintly, growing weaker by the minute. Oh weary servant, I am sorry for exhausting you. Soon you shall extinguish and there shall be no light by which to write. Unless… do you mean to abandon me to the frore shine of the moon? How dare you, I need your warm glimmer by which to see. In the moon’s beam the paper will appear like stone, and the ink as blood, thick and dark. Candle, I need your eye’s twinkle to illuminate my own – the eye of my mind, that sees beyond my material surroundings.
The fiery glow diminishes and the shadows deepen to pure black. They extend from the window, Stygian fingers that creep outwards until they engulf the wall, the ceiling and the floor around me like an ocean of endless nothing. They frighten me. Oh shadows, what secrets dwell in your unfathomable depths? If I cannot see the objects and beings that lie within you, are they there? Does matter exist where light does not reach? Is anything real but that which we see and touch?
I used to believe there was more than we can observe – who else but God could create the stars, the galaxies, the universe? And no man can see God. What other splendor lies beyond our view? What unknown forms are hidden that challenge our understanding of the Maker? How can the beauty of Creation be anything other than the Lord's proof, yet also the confirmation of uncertainty?
In the midst of these shades, I wonder, and I doubt. The stars are infinitesimal specks on a chalkboard of oblivion. The sun is a hideous furnace that blinds and burns all beneath it. Mene is pockmarked and ugly until she hides her face, abandoning all organisms to the darkness. Trees wither and plants decay with the season. Creatures starve lest they devour each other. Man destroys man for selfish gain.
The shadows extend. The light continues to dim. Faint flame, maybe you should extinguish. Let the world around me disappear into darkness. After all, it is no good use of your essence to let you burn away while I sit here in front of a blank piece of parchment, devoid of all creative stimuli. It is not your fault, dear candle. Nor is it even yours, quill. No, I sit here as purposeless as Sisyphos’ burden because my mind is emptied of all ideas, concepts, dreams…
I look up at the Heavens and all I see are white pinpricks and an unpolished orb.
I have written about them before. Too many times. There is nothing left to say. The Heavens have abandoned me. He has abandoned me.
The plume trembles excitedly against my fingers.
There! That is it. Quill, we have work to do, words to write. Tremble no more. We need not Divine inspiration. Why wait for Him to tell me what to do? I do not need Him any longer, if He is there at all. I shall write against Him. Yes! My fingers grip the feather firmly – it has no room to move against me now. I control you now. I am mightier than you, I am your master, I am your God. Hear me and obey.
I begin to move the nib across the paper and that familiar noise returns, as soothing as the Siren’s song. Scratch scratch scratch, as the ink pours forth in a string of random shapes that carry all the subtlety of the sounds they represent. Scratch scratch scratch. Short sharp bursts of words forming phrases, stretching into sentences, pooling into paragraphs.
There, something has started.
When will it cease? Where will it lead me?
The quill rushes over the page, pausing only to be lifted to the reservoir to hastily replenish its vital fluid. There is no time to waste: each letter, each word, each line must be completed before the next disappears from the fore of my mind, before the visions of my imagination sink into the lake of lost memories. My mind passes every thought to my hand; my hand speaks to the page through the plume; the vellum absorbs my innermost intentions, each to the reassuring sound of the nib brushing against the fibres of the parchment, a gentle scratch scratch scratch.
After a passage of time that no man can measure, my mind finally has no more to transmit. I still my hand as the words run out. The issuance of my thoughts, my children, is completed. For once my quill has not frustrated the conveyances of my mind: my ideas are there before me, expressed with an elegance of articulation that I have never before witnessed. It is a triumph, my greatest work. A tirade against Faith of indescribable force. Finally, I have produced words which are worthy of standing besides my friends, those mighty tomes. I gaze upon my progeny, satisfied. The labour is done.
Yet the sound continues.
Scratch scratch scratch.
In my hand rests the quill – it does not twitch.
I look at the page before me. No new words have appeared. It cannot be the quill that made the noise.
Scratch scratch scratch.
I rest the feather on the opposite edge of the dark desk, as far from me as my arm can reach. There, the noise must now cease, because even if the quill deceived me, it has no hand to move it any more.
Scratch scratch scratch.
What? It was not the quill. From where does that chafe come?
I close my mind’s eye and turn all my attention to my worldly surroundings, to the present moment. I listen intently for the slightest whisper. Yet there is no sound, save for the creak of the wooden window frame against the night breeze.
Is it over? I must make sure.
I grant all concentration to my senses, so that they are fully alert to the slightest agitation. I continue to listen, determined to detect the origin of the intrusion. All I hear is silence. Then –
Scratch scratch scratch.
There it is! That horrible scratching like fingernails on oak.
Scratch scratch scratch.
It does not end!
Scratch scratch scratch.
It persists tirelessly, arrhythmically, filling the room with wiry shrieks. My senses are now too attuned, they recoil at the affliction. I try to block my ears with my hands – but the scratching only gets louder!
Scratch scratch scratch!
I stand there in the middle of the room, hopeless and afraid, spinning and yelling to no-one. Every time my ears merely begin to acclimate to the tempo and pitch of the scratches, so that the sound might become a harmless drone in the depths of my surroundings, the scratches speed up, slow down, get softer, get harder, grow ever louder! They are constantly changing and invading my head with pernicious pangs. So it goes on for hours, days, weeks – time is irrelevant when one suffers such anguish! What could create such indescribable agony?
Scratch scratch scratch!
My ears begin to itch with pain; I rub them fiercely to chase away the unbearable sensation. My fingers form claws that dig into the drums. Dry lobes split and I feel blood run down my neck.
Scratch scratch scratch!
Where in the world is it coming from?! Frantically I search the room, listening in every corner, holding my ear to every wall. The scratching is weak near the door; therefore it must be coming from within the room. It is faintest near the windows and far wall; it is stronger near the desk… It is strongest by the bookshelves.
Scratch scratch scratch.
It is behind the books.
Scratch scratch scratch.
My friends, my friends, it is behind you!
Scratch scratch scratch.
Why is it behind you? Why do you protect this torturer?
Scratch scratch scratch.
You have condemned me to endure this horror.
Scratch scratch scratch!
Why must I endure it? What misdeeds have earned me such cruciation?
Scratch scratch scratch!
Have I offended Him with my words? Or have I offended you, by writing anathema to your works?
Scratch scratch scratch!
Or are you merely jealous of my accomplishment, envious of my magnum opus?
Scratch scratch scratch!
I must expose it; eradicate it! If I am subjected to any more I shall go insane!
Scratch scratch scratch!
I tear the books off the shelves, throwing them aside like tinder. I spare none. Friends, you have betrayed me, sheltering whatever monster makes this tearing, taunting noise. I have no sympathy for your plight as I cast you aside; you have permitted this thing to torment me too long already. Custodians of knowledge, you have become guardians of evil. You are not philosophers, you are philistines. I spare none.
The clamour as the books’ spines snap on the floor almost disguises that infernal scratching. It reacts to my assault - it grows more furious.
Scratchscratchscratch!
It knows!
It knows I’m getting closer. With a flurry of effort, I finish clearing the shelves.
Scratchscratchscratch!
Now the miserable noise dominates the air again. I wish there had been more books to keep slamming down.
Scratchscratchscratchscratch!
It can sense me, just as I can hear it. But is it getting more desperate or more eager as I approach?
Scratchscratchscratchscratchscratch!
The scratching is louder and more grating than ever now, its asperity untempered. I shall soon expose it.
Scratchscratchscratchscratchscratch!
There, between the cracks behind the second shelf! I must pry the wood apart! Without looking, I fumble over the desk for any tool to aid me. Blindly, my fingers grasp something – a makeshift lever, I care not its intended purpose. I jab it between the cracks in the wall and pull, prising the plies apart.
Scratchscratchscratchscratchscratch!
Will you never cease?!
I pry again. With the sound of bones snapping, fragments fly away and the gap widens sufficiently for me to insert my fingertips. I shove them in, disregarding the splinters that enter my flesh, grabbing the edges of the planks and, mustering all my strength, yanking them away with such force I fall backwards onto my spine. It jars and I howl in misery. I brace my hands on the floor and push myself up slowly, only for the splinters in my fingers to burrow deeper under my nails as I exert.
I scream for a brief moment. The pain is immeasurable, but I observe something that casts it from my mind.
The scratching has stopped.
Blessed peace!
…
… Why has it stopped?
I must know what caused the cessation. What wretched creature in my wall tried to claw its way through for so long? Is it now at liberty in the room?
Ignoring the needles under my nails, I grab the candle from my desk. Holding it aloft in one hand, and wielding the makeshift lever in the other, I cautiously tread towards the gaping hole in the wall. Dimly lit by the flickering of the flame I see –
An ancient man, debilitated beyond description. His cracked skin stretches over his skeletal frame, wispy hair clings to his speckled scalp. The fragments of material draped over his bones must once have been bright apparel but are now recognisable only as grey rags. He lies crumpled within the cavity of the wall. His limbs are too feeble to function; his legs too infirm to stand upon, his arms barely able to move. He looks up at me with pleading eyes, and with a gnarled hand he slowly reaches out to me. I look into those eyes. They are oddly familiar…
My eyes. I look into my eyes . And they look straight back. I gaze cruelly upon myself: emaciated, white-haired and whimpering in the dark. I have spent too long behind my friends, seeking to be alongside them. Like Socrates in his cell, I am awaiting judgement. Am I a vision of a future that is yet to be? Or am I an ancient memory of a past desperately yearned?
Whether past or future, it haunts me. It cannot be tolerated.
I reach out to me. I reject myself.
A more powerful compulsion than I have ever known overwhelms me – I know instantly what I must do.
I must destroy.
I throw aside the candle. The hot wax spills, and the soft sound of flames licking dry parchment barely registers in my mind. My grip tightens around the tool in my hand. I feel the sturdiness of its wooden shaft in my fist, and the shallow, regular incisions along its edge, like teeth. I raise it in both splintered hands and with all my might I thrust it forward into the old man’s chest. It lands with a disgusting crunch. The derelict gasps his last, but I must be certain. I withdraw the bloodied tool and thrust it again into his chest. It lands with a squelch. I thrust again. And again. And again! Again! Again!
I persist until my strength is completely and utterly spent and, his chest now a crimson cavity, I collapse onto the floor.
I lie upon my scattered books, former allies who gave harbour to that malignant spectre. I feel the warm tickle of fire near me, and hear the sputter of burning hides. The candle I carelessly tossed aside has disgorged its flame, which devours the leaves insatiably, as I once consumed the knowledge they bore. Like the hideous thing I have destroyed, the books will soon be no more.
I am exhausted. Luna’s light fades as immolation’s glow grows. Yet the room darkens.
Peace falls upon me. The only sound is the gentle crackle of the flames as they feed on my friends. The sound has a rhythm. It is a lullaby. I close my eyes and surrender to eternal sleep.
In the new millennium, one morning, should anyone come, they will find the room empty but for a singed corpse upon a pile of burned books. The cadaver’s chest will be cracked open, and protruding from it, they will find a dull wooden ruler embedded in a gory mess. There will be no hollow in the wall, nor any scratchmarks within. There will be no trace of anyone having ever been in that room except for its lonely occupant.
They will find my bony body in time to come,
spoiled to its core;
They will wonder, was it madness killed the author
or something more?
And upon the page, there will be only words.
By day, Robin is a UK-based scriptwriter and producer of edutainment podcasts and videos. By night, he writes short stories and novels to indulge his love of gothic, weird and detective fiction. His love for storytelling started very young, writing short stories and plays to amuse his parents. The audience has changed but the childish motivation has not. If he ever stops, he might grow up.
