SWNOVELS Chapter 6: Ideas Included
I was having such a lovely dream, when I became aware of the tiles pressing back on my waking body. It was not the cold sensation I would associate with a hard floor, but the feeling broke my nocturnal drifting. And so the plot of my unconscious mind faded like mist in the morning.
I’m sure some people have an excellent recall of their dream wanderings, but I rarely did. Or at least I suppose I didn’t, as the memory of such events escaped me. And building on that, I tried to recall how I got wherever I was. With a chill that had nothing to do with the tiles, I struggled to recall my name, and found that try as I might, the necessary information would not come. Who was I? What did I do? What had I done? I was a blank sheet waiting to be written.
Still loathe to open my eyes; I began to explore the room with my other senses. I still lay on a hard surface, which was a start. There seemed to be no noise, and so I tried an experimental cough; so that was how I sounded. But I drew no attention from any unseen attendant. So perhaps I was alone, unless I was to be observed only. My nostrils flared, and I took in the not unpleasant air, but its neutrality gave me no more than I had. So with baited breath I sought the advice of the only sense left to me, and I opened my eyes.
The glare stabbed at me like a knife, and I shut them again in an instant. More cautious this time, I began with a slit, to accustom myself to the whiteness surrounding me. The faint lines allowed me to focus on the wall in front of me, as I discerned the plane white tiles. So I inched my eyelids open until finally I was able to gaze about my cell. For that was what it seemed to be. There seemed to be something missing; and for the life of me I could not account for it.
Then I noticed the table; yes that was it. But not the thing I felt should be there somewhere in this featureless room. I sat up, and immediately noticed some objects on the table top. Envelopes sprang to mind, whatever they were. And I approached this new interest. They didn’t seem dangerous. Strange that I would consider them so, but the thought just popped in to my head. Perhaps it was my memory returning. I would just have to wait and see.
The odd squiggles on the top face of each envelope came in to sharp focus, and I was suddenly aware that they were words. One bore the legend strictly private communication for Peter Tork, and the other said strictly private communication for Michael Nesmith. I pondered the meaning. Was I supposed to read the contents?
Strange I wondered, how did I know the package would contain some message? And if so, which should I choose. Did I feel like I was a Peter? Or on the other hand could I be this Nesmith guy? Or could I be either of them, or both? I dismissed that, how could someone be both? Tork sounded like a decisive person, was I decisive? I simply couldn’t decide. So perhaps I was Michael, it looked like a thoughtful name. I tried them out, bouncing the names off the walls, until I finally felt more familiar with one. So I picked up the envelope for Michael Nesmith.
Instantly the other one went up in smoke. It didn’t even leave a residue to show it had ever been there. So was this an indication that I had chosen correctly, or just finality to my decision? Either way I had made my metaphorical bed, if only I had an actual one. So I used the next best thing, and sat on the table dangling my legs off it. As I stared at the package I got a feeling of trepidation. Was I going to have imparted to me some vital knowledge to help me in my situation? I hoped so, as I had little else to go on.
I slit the envelope open; it said “Dear Mr Nesmith you will no doubt be a little disoriented. So here is a hint to help you. There are various concealed compartments secreted around this room that will not only help you discover your identity, but will shed a light on how you came to be here. Finally they will lead you to discover the exit.” That was what I needed to find, an exit. That was what was missing. Now why hadn’t I thought of it before?
I turned the paper over and read the inscription there too. “Use these glasses to discover your first cupboard.” I glanced down and only then noticed the pair of cardboard spectacles also contained in the envelope. I put them on and looked around. In the top corner of the room there was a small patch of four tiles in a square, which had a different colour to the rest. I took the glasses off and they looked exactly the same as the other tiles. So donning the glasses once more I went over to the corner and looked up.
The little patch was just out of reach. I tried jumping, and although I could touch the patch, it made no impression on it. So I sat on the floor and fiddled with the piece of paper absent-mindedly. Then out of nothing better to do I glanced at the sheet. With the glasses on, I could see a word written large across the sheet, it said “Table.” Curious as to it’s meaning I wondered over to the table. I looked at the patch on the wall that was out of reach. I gave the table a nudge, it moved. Then realizing the importance of the message I dragged the protesting piece of furniture as it screeched across the floor.
With the table under the patch, I was soon on it and stood in front of the discoloured tiles. I pressed my hand against it, and the patch gave a little before it sprang open on a hinge to reveal a small space behind it, big enough to stretch my arm in to. I couldn’t see in to the void itself, and as soon as I reached my hand in to it, that too was lost in a kind of darkness. But I could feel two envelopes and a small box. I drew them out and sat back down on the table.
Intrigued by this new twist, I examined the small box. It looked a little like a music box, one of those with a small crank handle on the side that played a simple tune. The phrase daydream believer suddenly popped in to my head. I tried the handle and was shocked to hear a scream of pain, not emanating from the box but through one of the walls.
Discarding my latest prize, I leapt at the wall and pressed my ear to it. But the sound was gone. Perhaps they could hear me. I tried banging on the wall and screaming back, but by the end of five minutes I could elicit no response. Whoever the poor soul trapped on the other side was, they must be beyond reason. I returned to my box, and tried it again. The same pitiful sound of a wretch in agony started up, but my attention was not on the external noise of another torture victim of this prison. For that was what I had decided this to be.
My focus was on a patch of wall that had begun to open as I turned the crank handle of the innocent looking box. The box seemed strangely connected to both events. I stopped and was immediately free of the sound of torture. The outward progress of the panel was arrested too though.
Once more I was acutely aware of how little I knew, and so I turned my attention to the letters. Perhaps they could shed some light on the puzzle. Again one was addressed to Michael Nesmith; the other letter’s recipient was a David Jones. Keen to discover what part I should play in this turn of events I tore open Michael’s envelope, and the other one vanished before my eyes in a wisp of smoke.
But I was too intent on the words presumably meant for me, to pay it much heed to the lost letter. I read the new message, “Congratulations Michael on discovering this clue. As you see there is a little toy included for your amusement. It does a couple of things when operated. Firstly it will reveal the next clue, but it also comes with a price. As you operate the box spikes will be driven further in to Peter Tork’s eyes. It seems he didn’t have the unique vision to bring you to here in the first place. And now his eyes must pay the price. So are you the right candidate? Or will you turn aside in your quest for the truth, that is if you are who you believe yourself to be.”
I let the sheet fall, and this too disappeared like the other one, but the words were burned in to my mind like a brand. Was I Michael, could I have been Peter, and just have easily been strapped down in some inaccessible chamber suffering at my hands? It didn’t make sense, and I held my confused mind in my hands. I surely couldn’t be both Peter and Michael and perhaps David all at once, or could I? There seemed to be no denying what I had done to the poor wretch already. The slaps my unflinching arms gave to my face, seemed scant punishment for my crime.
Perhaps I could gain entry to the void behind the part opened panel with no further use of the box. Once more dragging the table across the room, it’s grating an echo of the screams of agony from before, as it jarred in my ears. Then reaching up I slipped my wrist through the crack, until the narrowness of the gap arrested any further progress. Strain as I might, I could not reach in far enough, even though my arm stung from trying to force it further. So I must either give up my search for an escape, or possibly condemn poor Peter to yet more agonies in the attempt.
Was this the proof of my true identity revealing itself to me? Was I the sort of person who could subject others to excruciating pain to achieve my own ends? And the answer came back. I didn’t like it, but given no other option, I had to once more to crank that evil handle. The screams of agony bit me with accusations of self-loathing, as the door once more swung open. I knew the divisors of this double torture would only let me reach far enough in to get my prize when the door was fully open. And with one last scream of a man dieing, Peter sounded the readiness of this new hole to accept my arm.
Flinging the box as far as I could, I shoved my arm in to the dark portal. Once more I found two envelopes. Once more there was one for Michael Nesmith, the other held a letter for Peter Tork. I held it long as if the plain white rectangle were some perverse tombstone sent to remind me of the crime I had committed. And simply to attain another step forward in my personal freedom. Not that I felt I deserved any reprieve at what I had been forced to do.
Then a thought struck me, could I in some way pay homage to Peter’s sacrifice. And suffer some atonement; if I could take advantage of event I knew must happen. So I sat on the envelope addressed to Michael. I had to at least find out who Peter had been, even if it did cost me my liberty. So with fevered hands I tore at the wrong envelope, as searing pain ran across my buttocks, and I wept. I know not whether in mourning for Peter’s passing, or my own suffering. They seemed intermingled as one.
Then I forced myself to sit there and read the misdirected letter. “Poor Michael, but you had to do it for the good of society. After all if the roles were reversed he would be sat where you are, reading of your demise, and wondering how he could have preformed such a depraved act. But now you must have a prize, and all you need to do to get it, is to wind the little music box you must still have in the opposite direction.” Confused by this turn of events, I carefully raised myself off the instrument of my own physical torture.
Then I examined the chard pieces that had somehow survived its pyrotechnic demise, I presume smothered by my guilty behind. I found snatches of a similar message contained within. Were my captors playing some sick game with loaded dice? So whatever way I turned I would be forced to play out a macabre performance? I stood up and stared across the room at that very tiny instrument of torture. Then deciding it could do Peter no more harm; I corrected myself. I could do Peter no more harm. But still approaching it like the thing was a dangerous animal, I took the box up.
Winding the handle in the opposite direction, I noticed three things now happened. The first two seemed of little consequence. The door that had been open began to close, while at the same time a new panel began to open. But all this I had come to expect. What took my attention away from these two physical manifestations of my actions, seemed to be yet one more link in the chain that held me down. For the third effect of my cranking the handle in the opposite direction was a sick and disturbing rendition of Peter’s demise, but in reverse.
Was his death a mere sham? Had I just been listening to a sound effect, mocked up for my personal torture? Or had I really done the act for which I felt so guilty? Was this a facsimile of my crime, sent to further punish me? I had no way of testing either hypothesis. So unsure of what was ahead, I tried to block out the unholy orchestra of accusation. Thus I concentrated on the new portal opening before my eyes.
When I judged the gap was wide enough to allow my arm access, I jumped for the hole. Thankfully it was located in the floor, and I wouldn’t have to drag that dammed table to it. Then I thrust my arm down it, to grab at the two letters I expected. I almost grazed my knuckles on some object sat below them. But I was keen to learn the next step in my paper trail. If anything, I had to admit I wished to distract myself from the conundrum of the music box. It grated my conscience so.
This time there were letters for Peter, and a new victim by the name of Michael Dolenz. Had my choosing Peter’s letter to open last time altered some chain of events effectively wiping Michael Nesmith off the face of the earth. Perhaps it was for the best. After all, that persona had too many negative connotations. Even if I had possibly become the subject, of Michael’s malodourous crime. If there had been any crime in the first place. My head reeled with the implications.
Then remembering the letters, I took up Peter’s and discarded Dolenz’s. I opened the envelope to see the new message inside. Would it shed any light on my inner turmoil? I scanned the sheet, “Congratulations Peter, you have made it to the end of the test, and you have won through the moral maze to discover who you truly are. You only need to turn on the tap located at the bottom of this final hole to be free of the confines in which you find yourself.”
I flung Peter’s letter aside and plunged my hand in the hole. This time I grasped the handle, and turned it anticlockwise. I was instantly rewarded with the sweet smell of lilacs, as my head filled with cotton wool and the room swam out of focus. Then I lost all senses, and I drifted off through the clouds. I was having such a lovely dream, when I became aware of the tiles pressing in my back.