You Put a Hole in the Wall
The man who calls himself Inter-7 A spent the better part of the afternoon in the bedroom of an abandoned tenement building, scrawling symbols on the walls with the bloody necks of birds. He had a sack full of them, that he'd gathered just after dawn in a park off Heron street.
He was exceptionally good at catching the birds, luring them in with scattered bread crumbs and squatting on the balls of his feet until one grew careless. Once it did, his hand shot out a single, seamless motion, catching it as easily as if he'd been training for it all his life. Disturbed by the sudden violence, the other birds would take off in a flapping confusion of wings, but they always returned; the promise of food was too tempting.
The man came to the tenement directly from the park, entering the building from the rear. You got the sense that he'd been here before, maybe several times. He seemed to know his way around, and which of the rooms were empty, although it was clear that the building was still in use. At times you heard noises in some of the apartments, but you didn't see anyone, in the stairwell or any of the hallways. On the 10th floor he entered an abandoned room and quickly set to work, using the largest of the birds to paint the ring. The bird was a full-breasted, mangy thing with half its left foot missing and some kind of growth around its eyes. It barely put up a fight when Inter-7 A tore off its head.
You were surprised by his technique, how careful he was while painting; he took his time, squeezing as much blood as he could from the bird's body, almost wringing it dry. His strokes were precise and unhurried, and he was perfectly calm. There was a meticulousness about him, a sense that he wouldn't allow himself to be rushed, and his efforts were correspondingly precise. He moved with the terse economy of a draughtsman.
He started with the ring and when he was satisfied he continued with the symbols around it. Now, he is busy drawing a series of small characters in neat, perpendicular rows, directly inside the ring. When he finishes he turns to face you. The carcasses of 10 dead birds lay scattered around his feet.
"I want to tell you about a dream," he says. He stands with his back straight and his hands bloody, framed by the ring and the symbols on the off-white wall. Some of the symbols are still wet, and dripping, far more vibrant and real than Inter-7 A's pale, grime-smeared face.
"Or maybe I just want to hear myself say it," he goes on. "It doesn't matter. I don't have dreams anymore. At least I don't remember them and that's the same thing, but this was before I was Inter-7 A. I told you I don't remember much from back then and it's true. It isn't a lie. I'm not a liar."
Saying this he closes his eyes and passes his right hand over his face, letting it linger there for a moment before coming to rest on his cheek. He mutters under his breath, glancing at you.
"It's true I don't remember much from back then, but I do remember the dream. When dreams are the only thing you're left with they take on a certain reality.
"In the dream I was having sex with my wife. You have to imagine this. You have to see it. I'm fucking my wife. Even if I didn't really have a wife, I remember her in the dream. I wasn't lying!"
The hand falls away from his face.
"She was my wife in the dream, and we were having sex. We were standing up, with her back to a wall and her legs wrapped around me. It was good. I was excited, but at the same time there was something wrong, a disconnect between our minds and bodies. Our heads were too clear, our thoughts too bright, and we talked as we fucked, about our relationship, how it was when it started, and how bad it had gotten. I told her it seemed useless to carry on.
"She agreed with everything I said. We smiled at each other. We were being fully honest for the first time in years and it felt good. I was about to cum, I remember that, the feeling building, but then I heard the sound of a truck coming up the driveway.
"My wife told me it was her father, and she pushed away, wide-eyed. Just like that the dream changed. You know how it is with dreams. They have their own logic, and it no longer mattered that I was with my wife of five years in my own home and that I had nothing to be ashamed of, her father was coming and he had never approved of me, and I scrambled off her, quickly getting dressed.
"I ran, leaving the house from the back, but when I turned around it wasn't my house anymore. I don't know whose house it was, but I raced down a flight of stairs and into a small, frozen garden. The plants were covered in a layer of frost, and everything was completely still. It was like the yard was nothing more than a museum of small, finely-wrought figurines.
"I could hear my father-in-law's voice coming from inside the house. I knew it wouldn't be long before he found me, but I had nowhere to go: the garden was walled-in by a tall, wooden fence and a stretch of lawn that dipped into a shallow pond. The pond was flooded, and there was a skin of ice on the surface of the murky water, dark with algae.
"The dream was trying to trap me. I knew that. My dreaming mind knew it. In the end I'd wind up getting caught. That was what the dream intended, but I couldn't accept it. I don't know why. It's not so bad is it, to be caught in a dream? But that night I was terrified of it – not of him, you understand? Not of my father-in-law, but terrified of being trapped. I knew there had to be a way out, and that all I had to do was find it, and so I stepped into the frozen pool, breaking the ice.
"The water was deeper than it should have been, much deeper, and I sank under the surface just as my father-in-law appeared at the back window. I shouldn't have been able to see him – the water was so dark it should have been impossible – but that didn't make a difference. I'd seen through the dream. Do you understand? I'd seen through it, so I could see through the water. My father-in-law was standing at the window, looking out at the garden, and I was safe. But the dream wasn't finished with me. It wanted me caught, and my father-in-law continued to stand there, as if he was waiting for me to run out of breath. I could feel my lungs screaming for air. I knew I had to come up sooner or later. But I didn't. I had another choice: I took a mouthful of water, expecting to drown, and breathed clear air instead. And then I woke up."
He smiles slightly, an easy, fluent movement of his lips, completely serene. When he blinks the smile vanishes. There is a small, nearly imperceptible twitching in his right cheek.
"It's hard to keep straight, but it couldn't have been long after this that I became Inter-7 A. Maybe the dream helped with that, invited the other, or maybe it was just a dream. The point is that today you're going to understand how I felt. You're going to see a way through things."
He nods once, and then again, looking at the floor.
"Does it sound easy? Like anyone could do it? It isn't and they can't. If they could I would have done it myself, but you're different. You're not... from here."
He places a slim finger at his temple, grimacing, and you begin to understand that he's ashamed of what he's told you, that he regrets it.
"Now," he says, his voice ringing harshly. "Look at the wall."
There is no choice. He steps away and you are left to stare at the ring and the symbols within it. They blaze up before you, lurid, shining things, the black blood incandescent. It isn't clear whether you are moving toward them or if they are approaching you, but in any case they grow larger, until both Inter-7 A and the room are gone. You are inside the ring, a symbol yourself, another black scrawl on a white field, and at last you are able to read them: YOU PUT A HOLE IN THE WALL they say, and that's exactly what you've done; a moment later you are in the adjacent room, empty except for an old couch and a few scraps of newspaper on the floor. With you is Inter-7 A, grinning.
"You see? You understand now don't you, what this is?"
You don't, and he doesn't tell you. He stares into the space in front of him, at you, or at a point very close to you. You have no idea what he's looking at.