The rail separates the pine grove steeped in haze from the serene lake, which stretches to the base of a mountain barely visible beyond the winter haze, the apparition of a white leviathan. From above, the rail slices the scenery into two distinct halves: wood and water, as if they could not possibly coexist, much less come to understand one another. Likewise, it has estranged—perhaps they had always been estranged—two ordinary individuals sitting on opposite sides of the empty train car: a girl near the lake and a boy near the woods.
They have names but we will not use them.
The girl is unremarkable: short hair, pale blouse, wool cardigan, slacks; she’s entirely innocuous, to the extent that one might even find her sterile. In fact, even her face is best described as uniquely average. Astonishingly so. The boy across from her stares not because he finds her particularly attractive, nor because she’s leaning out of the window, cigarette in hand, trying in vain to blow the smoke outside, though some is inevitably blown back into the car, but because of her dull face.
It occurs to us that perhaps the boy is jumping to a conclusion and therefore has missed some crucial detail. He wonders why one of the buttons from her cardigan is missing, wonders why she smokes Newports, wonders why she’s on the train; wonders because it is all that he can possibly wonder, but in the end his speculations are mere fictions; her expression remains uniformly blank.
So the boy waits patiently, passing the time with trivial thoughts, when the train arrives at a stop (not his) and the girl rises, leaving behind a wrinkled letter, which presumably has been in her possession for a long time given the condition of the envelope. The girl takes notice of her abandoned note, her eyes darting back reflexively, but continues toward the exit and disembarks. By the time the boy notices this, retrieves the letter, and flits to the exit, the doors have already closed, leaving the two figures separated once again, this time by a physical barrier. Watching the girl walk past the platform, through the ticket gate, the boy attempts to draw her attention by spreading his arms wide and waving in vain, and when she turns the corner he catches a glimpse of her blurry profile obscured by exhaled smoke.
By the time the train started along once again, I had given up. If it were her desire to leave it behind, so be it. One might even suspect that she left it intentionally. Given how much time I have left until my destination, I may as well inspect the contents of the envelope.
The envelope was severely tattered, certain corners torn and damp, as if she clutched the note in her sleep, refusing to ever let go, an odd contradiction to the current turn of events. Indeed, the exterior of the note was so weathered that it took on the texture of bathroom tissue. Inside was a letter, meticulously written in tired, tremulous words, itself torn.
Darling,
It’s been quite some time since I wrote to you, I know, which may come across as cruel considering I’ve received all your letters, but please know that I’m writing this letter with the utmost haste. You must feel abandoned, but I beg of you, understand that this is not the case in the least. I’ve been through some difficult times as well, and will proceed to explain myself thoroughly, as best I can.
Since I wrote, I’ve been transferred to another facility, a promotion so to speak, and am writing from a small wooden desk positioned against a window with a view of a certain lake (as usual, you know I cannot reveal too much of my location; they don’t allow that). It’s rather peaceful here and I am sure you’d like it too. The tranquility of this place is partly owed to its secluded location, but also to the peculiar circumstance of my being the only occupant of the low-rise apartment complex. No one else lives here. But it never gets lonely—not in the conventional sense at least—since I have my subjects to read.
The facility is some miles north of the establishment. Though it is hardly a distance that warrants a vehicle, a chauffeur collects me in the morning and returns me in the evening. I judged him to be a middle-aged man, though I cannot be certain due to the mask obscuring his face at all times. Even his hands are covered by leather gloves. Through the slits in his mask, I can barely discern the brown of his eyes. Once, I asked for his name. He said he didn’t have one, so I started calling him “Name” as a slight jest during one of our first meetings, but he didn’t seem to object, and it has stuck ever since.
A reticent man, Name relates everything by means of gestures. Since my relocation, I’ve learnt to discern the myriad gestures he employs, distinguished by unremarkable differences. A slight bow of roughly forty degrees communicates what I believe to be acknowledgment, whilst the same bow, yet slightly lower—by about five degrees—relates gratitude. These are among the array of symbols that have confounded me. Depending on the context, a single gesture may admit many possible interpretations, and it has troubled me greatly over the last months as to what Name intends to relate.
Once, late in the evening, while we were motoring along the groves, a ray of dying light seeped through the slit in his mask, and from his reflection in the mirror, I realized that his eyes were in fact blue, not brown: a hysterical blue.
After Name leaves me at the facility with a brief bow, I change into a rubber suit in the changing room and enter the main room, a part of the edifice absent at my previous post (the last facility had cubicles). The main room has no windows or lighting; it has a high ceiling and is perfectly cuboid; the ceiling and floor appear to be constructed of the same material (plain white linoleum?), though this is uncertain on account of the room being pitch black, save the two illuminated path markings converging at the depression in the center of the room which girdles a bed. This arrangement seems to extend infinitely in both directions, with each repeated unit containing its own bed. One would never suspect such a stately chamber from the facade.
Unlike my previous post where I was made to read the subjects through wires and electrodes—not unlike those cheap science fiction stories—the new suit provided by the department allows me to do the same by simply wrapping my arms around the subject in a special bed. I presume you would find this practice somewhat uncomfortable; you might even feel envious. But I assure you, the ritual is nothing like being with you; it contains no trace of affection and is performed only out of necessity to make the books. Tormenting you could not be further from my intentions.
As you know, while I’m reading and transcribing, a process that can take days, surrogates are dispatched to replace the subjects. Even the most incompetent surrogates are able to see the job through. In the entire history of the ministry, only once or twice have the surrogates been found out.
The actual process of reading entails, like I said, embracing the unconscious subject upon the bed at the center of the room, which is far less a physical phenomenon than an incorporeal inhabitation of the subject, akin to fitting a hand into a rubber glove and pressing each finger to the very tips, ensuring a perfect fit. This took some cautious practice at first, as one can find a treacherous world within a subject.
Reality permits an event to happen only once; the mind allows it to unfold endlessly. Certain memories can expand with time and swell infinitely; they are small worlds unto themselves. One must avoid such quagmires when reading by taking the proper precautions. A competent reader must wade through distractions to produce transcriptions for the library of names.
When I began, I requested access to the library for reference, as I was still new to the job, but I was simply denied. I was never told what they used the books for or why the library existed. I was merely told to do my job and complied. They have yet to allow me access to the library of names. I suspect they never will.
You may wonder whether all this reading takes a toll on the mind, and yes, it does. This was part of the reason for the hiatus in our correspondence—
At this point, while writing the letter, the girl looks up from her desk and stares emptily out of the window. We can see the gelatinous glimmer of her eyes, though she sees neither the lake nor the distant mountain—nothing, really. Her eyes simply flit without agency. In fact, she believes these images unnecessary and that she would be perfectly content without them.
The morning fog lifts from the white valley and crawls over the crests, this too a mere reflection drifting across her eyes. She resolves to take a walk.
She was becoming increasingly porous, her boundaries thinning; she detected it in her trembling fingers and her empty, quivering eyes.
She exited her dwelling, descended the external staircase, and made her way towards the small path winding through the groves. Her apprehension was partly caused by an incident involving a minor mix-up of subjects that occurred a fortnight ago; she was assigned another reader, which is usually prohibited on account of the sheer volume of information exchanged. And now, her precarious identity tottered.
I must say, most subjects are fairly easy to read. They tend to be fairly malleable—porous, so to speak. They’ve ordered me to transcribe, but I’m not too fond of the term myself, and prefer to think of the process as grabbing handles. Most individuals are easy to grip and therefore easy to read.
Not much stands between me and these handles. Take the stout lady I read the other day. Pitifully simple. Within her modest world, a handful of compliments and questions were all it took for me to grasp her—stroke her phallus as it were. No wading through memories was required on my part; nor did I encounter the labyrinth of contradiction and discord present in a mere handful of subjects. As I recall, only once did I lose myself within such a disquieting predicament.
He was a tall, ungainly individual with a pasty complexion, though this was unfortunately a belated discovery. I inferred two possible reasons: the failure of my own perception (which I find improbable); or the subconscious erasure, so to speak, evident in his ebbing presence. At first, despite his height, he appeared to be a small, innocuous man; an easy subject, I thought, and I hoped for a brief reading. Alas, this was not so.
I pushed him into my chest upon the bed.
A veiled Möbius strip (in all honesty, I was not certain the mass had any defined shape, as it was covered in some sort of hazy, shapeless matter) floated at the center of the patchwork realm. Its seams were only loosely drawn, and given the right opportunity, one could tear through them to enter another realm, and then another, extending infinitely in all possible directions. Here, there was no conception of color. Though the rooms appeared uniform, each space was slightly altered; the stitches formed different arrangements, yet the seemingly identical object remained suspended in the center—rather, this was the impression I was fed. There were no certainties in the realm. This too was not a preexisting conception.
As I approached what I surmised to be the object, its bounds dissolved silently into nothingness, giving the impression of a mirage. Another seemingly identical object would then draw my attention from the periphery of my vision—this too, as I came to find, another illusion. I have since questioned this odd phenomenon, for these objects seemed to be placed intentionally, as if to misdirect, but I was pressed for time and lacked the composure for such trivial observations. With each illusory object, irritation became aggravation, then fury. The pathetic man had no business being so elusive, adding unnecessary inconvenience to the lengthy list of subjects awaiting me for transcription. By the time I finally caught the object—this time tangible—I was hasty and justifiably violent in detaining the abhorrent thing.
It writhed between my fingers, countless legs twisting and scraping like a centipede seized in a futile struggle for freedom. But my grip was practiced, and it would not be allowed to escape. Not even the most elusive individual can escape me, if ever there was one.
So I stood there with the man in my grasp, under the impression that the most difficult part of the job was finally over. I should’ve known better. I was fumbling with the instruments used to record, relieved by the familiar monotony of routine, when suddenly its body fell completely limp—as if it had died. And in this realm—perhaps outside of this realm too—silence is something one can hear (thick waves that creep up in your sleep). And it wants you. It needs you—desperately. It creeps up from the distance and before you recognize what has happened, you’ve lost all ability to flounder—drown. You’ve been eternally condemned, stitched into your skin of infinite rooms…
I was scared.
Suddenly, it released a ghastly screech that reverberated through my cranium, and in my abject apprehension I found it immediately necessary to quell the vile cry. By then, I was well practiced; a swift motion of the instrument, a sharp glint, though the ministry officially disapproved of such methods and took a dim view of them. In any case, so long as they did not find out, it was of no concern to me. It made my job easier, as I was able to observe what lay beneath; and besides, everything was fine so long as I stitched them back up in the end.
And supposing the cut went too deep, irreparably wounding the subject and allowing the damage to manifest upon their return, it was not as though anyone ever noticed.
Small twigs lay scattered across the path leading back to the abode, crunching under her feet like countless limbs of countless insects. Trying her best not to snap them, she stole her way down the path. She felt grimy (from the dirt she presumably accumulated on the walk), and therefore resolved to take a long bath.
Perhaps afterwards, the knot spasming in her throat would dissolve in the water, and she would finish writing.
After returning to the flat and taking her bath (during which she scrubbed herself intently), she sat before her desk and erased the last couple of lines. After sitting in silence for some time, she took up her pen.
I am sure, given your character, that you would be curious even about the mundane details of my daily existence, so I feel I should go on to explain, beginning with the apartment complex. The complex consists of two stories, but only the first is visible from the exterior; the second is hidden behind the large sloping roof that takes up at least half the facade, not unlike those traditional Japanese straw-thatched houses. Of course, the roof is constructed of some other material, but the silhouette is similar.
When I lie on my back in bed, the constricted skylight reveals the narrow sky, which, on a quiet night, encircles the snowy moon. I am barely visible in the light. In the dimness, its pale light filters through, partly obscured by the snow collecting upon the roof; and as the darkness deepens, crawling up the bed towards my figure, I am left in the silence of the night, my only respite the hope that I should fall asleep and be transported to the morning. When it finally arrives, the colorless rays crawl through the seams in the snow, reaching my eyes as I wake; and yet the warmth that I yearn for is absent—at least nothing palpable. The light has traveled so far to meet me, only to be hindered by the narrow skylight; why should it exert itself any further and deliver warmth? I could venture outside and meet it myself, but some indefatigable force imprisons me within. Should I have the strength, the insanity to tear myself out, I am certain I would dissolve much like the snow.
But I digress. I should also describe a particular subject as a means of impressing upon you what daily life entails.
As I said, reading is arduous work, but rewarding nonetheless. It was a typical day: I was received at the facility after being delivered by Name, and was waiting upon the bed for the subject to be brought in.
The subject was a tall, ungainly individual with a pasty complexion, though this was difficult to recognize for one reason or another, most likely due to how dark the facility is. He was a difficult subject, and I may have had slight trouble , but everything went rather peacefully. I will not go into the details, as I am afraid they would bore you. I was able to transcribe successfully, and the subject was sent home as he came.
But enough about all that; I am sure you know more than enough by now, and I am satisfied with what has been said. I would like to speak of the past.
So, though I digress further, I hope you will indulge a discussion of a dinner party which took place before I became a reader. I believe you were also there. Whose party it was I cannot recall (it hardly matters anymore).
It was a night like all the others, the stars above us homogeneous, as if they were holes punched into the sky with the same needle.
Amongst the hordes of flesh, you stood, participating in some generic discourse, nodding and smiling as you do. From afar, through fleeting clearings in the crowd, I would chance upon glimpses of your expression—or rather, my eyes would wind their way through the swaths of heads to seek your unfamiliar face, contorted into a kaleidoscope of transient expressions. I enjoyed observing you from afar, knowing that at the end of the night, you would find me too and take my hand, smiling, once again someone familiar.
But when in bed, as you push me into your chest and wrap your arms around me, I feel the darkness enclose me and the cold moonlight upon my face. My eyes quiver and I feel a gash in my chest, as if someone has taken a blade to it.
After a moment, she erases the last passage and continues.
I realize the letter has gone on far too long, and I am sorry for having taken up so much of your time.
I hope to hear from you soon and learn of all your doings.
When the boy had finished reading the letter, he slipped it carefully into his coat pocket lest it crease any further. For a moment, he wondered whether it would do any good to return the letter to its rightful owner, but in the end he knew that returning it would make no meaningful difference.
From his seat, the boy had a view of the lake. He made his way to the other side of the car, sitting in the same spot as the girl; and there he remained until his stop, reluctantly alighting from the empty train as another individual boarded.
As I (the storyteller often refers to himself as “I”; he’s not sure why) sat at the northern end of the car, I noticed traces of previous presence impressed upon the red velvet seats: two imprints opposite each other. With only these imprints to go on, I imagined the preceding story.
I have no concrete evidence for any of the aforementioned, the only information given to me being a mere vestige.
The train trundled onwards.
After some time, a girl with long blonde hair boarded the train and sat across me. Her eyes—or more precisely, her pupils—were dilated beyond what I was normally accustomed to (some affliction?), though everything else about her appearance seemed perfectly average. Quite satisfied with my classifications, I proceeded to read the cheap paperback I had purchased from a secondhand bookstore: fiction, much like this story, to the very last line.
What then?