The Collected Short Fiction
She was an excellent subject. In hypnosis we restricted ourselves to penetrating the mysteries of her dream. I had her recount the events of the dream with the more accurate memory of her hypnotized state. Her earlier version was amazingly factual, only one thing missing, which I'll get to in a moment. I asked her to elaborate on her feelings in the dream and any sense of meaning she experienced. Her response to these questions was more in the incoherent language of delirium than literal sense, or even dream logic. She said some quite horrible things about life and lies and "this dream of flesh." I don't think I need expand on the chilling nonsense she uttered, for I've heard you say much the same in one of your "states." (Really, the way you dwell on and in your zones of the metaphysically flayed self is appalling.)
And you, my dear, were present in Miss Locher's hypnotic statement in more than just spirit. That little thing which Miss Locher mentioned only under hypnosis, and which I temporarily omitted above, was a very telling piece of info. It told on you. For when my patient first described the scenes of her dream drama to me, she had forgotten—or just neglected to mention—the presence of another character hidden in the background. This character was her boss at the clothes store and proprietor of the nameless establishment, played by a certain lady psychoanalyst. Not that you were ever on stage, even in a cameo appearance. But the hypnotized Miss Locher did remark in passing on the identity of the employer of her oneiric self, this being one of the many underlying suppositions of the dream.
I found this revelation immensely helpful in coordinating my and my patient's separate items of evidence against you. The nature of the evidence, however, was such that I could not rule out the possibility of a conspiracy on your and Miss Locher's part. So I refrained from asking her anything about the relationship between you two, and I didn't inform her of what she said about you under hypnosis. My assumption was that she was guilty until proven otherwise.
Alternatives did occur to me, though, especially when I realized Miss Locher's extraordinary susceptibility to hypnosis. Isn't it just possible, sweet love, that Miss Locher's incredible dream was induced by one of those post-hypnotic suggestions, which you're so good at? I know that lab experiments in this area are sometimes eerily successful, and the eerie is, without argument, your specialty. Still another possibility involves the study of dream telepathy, in which you have no small interest. So what were you doing the night Miss Locher underwent her dream ordeal? (You weren't with me, I know that!) And how many of those eidola on my poor patient's mental screen were images projected from an outside source? These are just some of the bizarre questions, which lately seem so necessary to ask.
But the answers to such questions would still only establish your means in this crime. What about your motive? That I know very well, too well. It seems there is nothing you won't do to impose your ideas upon common humanity—deplorably on your patients, obnoxiously on your colleagues, and affectionately (I hope) on me. I know it must be hard for a lonely visionary like yourself to remain mute and ignored, but you've chosen such an eccentric path to follow that I fear there are few spirits brave enough to accompany you into those zones of deception and pain, at least not voluntarily.
Which brings us back to Miss Locher. By the end of our first, and only, session I still wasn't sure whether she was a willing or unwilling agent of yours; hence, I kept mum, very mum, about anything concerning you. Neither did she mention you in any significant way, except of course unconsciously in hypnosis. At any rate, she certainly appeared to be a genuinely disturbed young lady, and she asked me to prescribe for her. As Dr. Bovary tried to assuage the oppressive dreams of his wife with a prescription of valerian and camphor baths, I supplied Miss Locher with a program for serenity that included Valium and companionship (the latter of which I also recommend for us, dolling). Then we made a date for the following Wednesday at the same tune. Miss Locher seemed most grateful, though not enough, according to my secretary, to pay up what she owed. And wait till you find out where she wanted us to send the bill.
The following week Miss Locher did not appear for her appointment. This did not really alarm me, for, as you know many patients —armed with a script for tranquilizers and a single experience of therapy—decide they don't need any more help. But by men I had developed such a personal interest in Miss Locher's case that I was seriously disappointed at the prospect of not being able to pursue it further.
After fifteen patientless minutes had elapsed, I had my secretary call Miss Locher at the number she gave us. (With my former secretary—poor thing—this would have been done automatically; so the new girl is not as good as you said she was, doctor. I shouldn't have let you insinuate her into my employ... but that's my fault, isn't it?) Maggie came into my office a few minutes later, presumably after she'd tried to reach Miss Locher. With rather cryptic impudence she suggested I dial the number myself, giving me the form containing all the information on our new patient. Then she left the room without saying another word. The nerve of that soon-to-be-unemployed girl.
I called the number—which incidentally plays the song about Mary's lamb on the push button phone in my office—and it rang twice before someone answered. This someone had the voice of a young woman but was not our Miss Locher. In any case, the way this woman answered the phone told me I had a wrong number (the right wrong number). Nevertheless, I asked if a Miss Locher could be reached at that number or any of its possible extensions, but the answering female's voice expressed total ignorance regarding the existence of any person by that name. I thanked her and hung up.
You will have to forgive me, my lovely, if at this point I had begun to feel like the victim of a hoax, your hoax to be exact. "Maggie," I intercommed, "how many more appointments for this afternoon?"
"Just one," she immediately answered, and then without being asked to, said: "But I can cancel it if you'd like." I said I would like, that I would be gone for the rest of the afternoon.
My intention was to pay a visit on Miss Locher at the, probably also phony, address on her new patient form. I had the suspicion that the address would lead to the same geographical spot as had the electronic nexus of the false phone number. Of course I could have easily verified this without leaving my office, but knowing you, sweet one, I thought that a personal visit was warranted. And I was right.
The address was an hour's drive away. It was in a fashionable suburb on the other side of town from that fashionable suburb in which I have my office. (And I wish you would remove your own place of business from its present location, unless for some reason you need to be near a skid-row source that broadcasts on frequencies of chaos and squalor, which you'd probably claim.) I parked my big black car on the street I was looking for, which also turned out to be the main street of the suburb's shopping district. Harwell Ave. is its name, as you know.
This was last Wednesday, and if you'll recall it was quite an unusual day (an accomplishment I do not list among all your orchestrated connivings of my adventure). It was dim and moody most of the morning, and so prematurely dark by late afternoon that there were stars seemingly visible in the sky. Presumably a storm was imminent—though I don't recollect our really having one—for the air was appropriately galvanized with a pre-deluge suspensefulness. The display windows of stores had on their nightlights, and one jewelry sellers I passed twinkled with electric glory in the corner of my eye. Shivering in the stillness were the little leaves upon a row of curbside trees, each slender trunk emerging from a complex mosaic planted in the sidewalk.
Of course, there's no further need to describe the atmosphere of a place you've visited many times, dear love. But I just wanted to show how sensitive I was to a certain kind of portentous mood, and how ripe I'd become for the staged antics to follow. Very good, doctor!
Distance-wise, I only had to walk a few gloomy blocks before arriving at the address I sought, the address purported to be the home of our Miss L. By then it was pretty clear what I would find. There were no surprises so far. When I looked u
p at the neon-inscribed name of the place, I heard a young woman's telephone voice whispering the words into my ear: Mademoiselle Fashions. A fake French accent here, S.V.P. And this is the store—no?—where it seems you acquire so many of your own lovely ensembles. But I'm jumping ahead with my expectations.
What I did not expect were the sheer lengths to which you would go in setting up a weird experience and revelation for your beloved. Was this, I pray, done to bring us closer in the divine bonds of weirdness? Anyway, I saw what you wanted me to see, or what I thought you wanted me to see, or some combination of the two, in the window of Mlle. Fashions.
The thing was even wearing the same plaid-skirted outfit as, or one very similar to, the one worn by Miss Locher on her only visit to my office. And I have to admit that I was a bit shocked—perhaps attributable in part to the strange climatic conditions of the day—when I saw the head of the thing. Then again, I was looking for a resemblance and possibly made myself see an exaggerated likeness between Miss Locher (your fellow conspirator, whether she knows it or not) and the figure in the window. You can probably guess what I noticed, or thought I noticed, about the figure's eyes—what you would have had me think of as a partially human moistness, like those metamorphosizing things in Miss Locher's dream.
Unfortunately, I was unable to linger long enough to positively confirm the above perception, for a medium-intensity shower began to descend at that point. The rain sent me running to a nearby phone booth, where I had some business to conduct anyway. Retrieving the number of the clothes store from my memory, I phoned them for the second time that afternoon. That was easy. What was not quite as easy was imitating your voice, my high-pitched love, and asking if the store's accounting department had mailed out a bill that month for my, I mean your, charge account. My impersonation of you must have been very good, for the voice on the phone reminded me that I'd already taken care of all my recent expenditures. You thanked the salesgirl for this information, apologizing for your forgetfulness, and then said good-bye. Perhaps I should have asked the girl if she was the one who helped rig up that mannikin in the window to look like Miss Locher, if indeed the situation was not the other way around. In any case, I did establish a definite link, of which I was almost sure beforehand, between you and the clothes store. It seemed you might have accomplices anywhere, and to tell you the truth I was beginning to feel a bit paranoid standing in that little phone booth.
The rain was coming down even harder as I made a mad dash back to my black sedan. A bit soaked, I sat in the car for a few moments wiping off my rain-spotted glasses with a handkerchief. I said I was becoming a bit paranoid and what follows proves it. While sitting there without my glasses on, I thought I saw something move in the rearview mirror. My visual vulnerability, combined with the claustrophobic feeling of being in a car with rain-blinded windows, together added up to a momentary but very definite panic on my part. Of course I quickly put my glasses on and found there was nothing whatever in the backseat. But the point is that I had to check in order to relieve my spasm of anxiety. You had succeeded, my love, in getting me to experience a moment of self-terror, and in that moment I, too, became your accomplice against myself. Bravo!
You have indeed succeeded—assuming all my inferences thus far are for the most part true—perhaps more than you know or ever intended. Having confessed all this, possibly now I can get to the real focus and "motivating factor" of this correspondence. This has much less to do with A. Locher than it does with us, dearest. Please try to be sympathetic and, above all, patient.
I have not been well lately, and you well know the reason why. This business with Miss Locher, far from bringing us to a more intimate understanding of each other, has only made the situation worse. Horrible nightmares have been plaguing me every night. Me, of all people! And they are directly due to the well-intentioned (I think) influence of you and Miss L. I'll describe one of these nightmares for you, and therefore describe them all. This will be the last dream story, I promise.
In the dream I am in my bedroom, sitting upon my unmade bed and wearing my pajamas (Oh, will you never see them). The room is partially illuminated by beams from a streetlight shining in through the window from outside. And it also seems to me that a whole galaxy of constellations, although not actually witnessed firsthand, are contributing their light to the scene, a ghastly glowing which unnaturally blanches the entire upstairs of the house. I have to use the bathroom and walk sleepily out to the hallway... where I get the shock of my life.
In the whitened hallway—I cannot say brightened, because it is almost as if a very fine and luminous powder coats everything—are these things lying up and down the floor, on the upper landing of the stairway, and even upon the stairs themselves as they disappear into the darker regions below. These things are people dressed as dolls, or else dolls made up to look like people dressed as dolls. I remember being confused about which it was.
But people or dolls, their heads are all turned in my direction as I emerge from the bedroom, and their eyes shine in the white darkness. Frozen—yes, with terror—I merely return a fixed gaze, for some reason wondering if my eyes are shining the same as theirs. Then one of the doll people, slouching against the wall on my near left, turns its head laboriously upon a stiffened neck and looking upward speaks to me. Its voice is an horrific cackling parody of speech, but even more horrible are its words. It says: "Become as we are, sweetie. Die into us." Suddenly I begin to feel very weak, as if my life were being drained out of me. Summoning all my powers of movement, I manage to rush back to my bed to end the dream.
I don't wake up until the next morning, and even then my heart pounds like anything. This very much disturbs me, for I've read studies of the relationship between nightmares and heart attacks. For some poor souls that imaginary incubus sitting upon their chest can do very real harm. And I do not want to become one of these cases.
You can help me, sweetheart. I know you didn't intend it to turn out this way but that elaborate joke you perpetrated with the help of Miss Locher has really gotten to me. Consciously, of course, I still uphold the criticism I've already expressed about the basic silliness of your work. Unconsciously, however, you seem to have awakened me to a stratum (zone, you would say) of uncanny terror in my mind-soul. I will at least admit that your ideas form a powerful psychic metaphor, though no more than that. Which is quite enough, isn't it? It's certainly quite enough to inspire the writing of this letter, in which I now beg you to get in touch with me so that we can resolve this whole situation. I can't go on like this! You have strange powers over me, as if you didn't already know it. Please release me from your spell, and let's begin a normal romance. Who really gives a damn about the metaphysics of invisible realms anyway? It's only emotions, not abstractions, which count. Love and terror are the true realities, whatever the unknowable mechanics are that turns their wheels, and our own.
In Miss Locher I believe you sent me a concrete message of your deepest convictions, a love note if you will. But suppose I start admitting weird things about Miss L? Suppose I admit that she was somehow just a dream. (Then she must have been my secretary's dream too, for she saw her.) Suppose I even admit that Miss Locher was not a girl but actually a multi-selved thing—part Man, part mannikin—and with your assistance dreamed itself for a time into existence, reproduced itself in human form just as we reproduce ourselves with an infinite variety of images and shapes, including mannikins? You would like to have me think of things like this. You would like to have me think of all the mysterious connections between different things. So what if there are? I don't care anymore.
Forget other selves. Forget the third (fourth, nth) person view of life; only first and second persons are important (I and thou). And by all means forget dreams. I, for one, know I'm not a dream. I am real, Dr. ——. (There, how do you like being anonymized?) So please be so kind as to acknowledge my existence.
It is now after midnight, and I dread going to sleep and having another of those nightma
res. You can save me from this fate, if only you can find it in your heart to do so. And you must hurry. Time is running out for us, my love, just as these last few waking moments are now running out for me. It is late in the night but still not too late for our love. Please don't destroy everything for us. You will only hurt yourself. And despite your high-flown theory of masochism, there is really nothing divine about it. So no more of your tricks with strange places and communications. Be simple. Good night, and then.
Good night, my foolish love. Hear me now. Sleep your singular sleep and dream of the many, the others. They are also part of you, part of us. Die into them and leave me in peace. I will come for you later, and then you can always be with me in a special corner all your own, just as my little Amy once was. This is what you've wanted, and this you shall have. Die into them. Yes, die into them, you simple man, you fool, you lover, you silly dolling. Die with a nice bright gleam in your eyes.
Miscellaneous Articles
This section contains various articles.
John B. Ford: The Grimscribe In Cyberspace, April, 2000
JBF: Welcome, Mr Ligotti. It's quite dark and cold in here. In fact I've a feeling that we've just stepped into the darkest area of cyberspace that anyone could ever hope to find. It's quite an eerie feeling when you think this meeting of intelligences is going to be frozen here indefinitely, that people will be viewing this interaction of our minds long after we've moved on to focus on other affairs. I suppose it's analogical of leaving footsteps in the sand, though in this case it might be more fitting to say on the dark side of the moon. One thing I've experienced for quite a few years now is a deep-rooted fear of death, and so it fascinates me that your fiction often indicates that you actually crave annihilation. It's as though an extremely complex and talented intelligence wants to be nothing more than a cloud of steam which will shortly evaporate into nothingness. Why does this physical existence of ours cause you to dislike it so much, and don't you believe that there's a spiritual existence once the human body has fallen cold?