My search for the journalist named Darius Sicory took me to some strange places, and at some point along the way I must’ve taken a wrong turn, strayed too far down a particularly dark path and never really found my way back — not all in one piece, at any rate.
I mean, that’s one hypothesis.
Step one: focus.
I see myself walking along a lonely undulating street. Dilapidated buildings spike up on either side, rows of rotting teeth, and the street rises and falls slowly like a colossal tongue. There are people up ahead. I wish I could talk to them, but they’re too far away — I’d have to run to catch them, and the thought of running is absurd.
Step two…
Behind me the street stretches off into darkness under a navy slab of sky.
Is there a step two?
A shadow steals out from the recesses of a doorway and scuttles toward me. Its face is hidden beneath a hood. “I’m looking for this place,” it says. Its voice is like a dozen different voices all tangled up together. “A stone hallway with a tall vaulted ceiling, dark except for a few electric lanterns lining the walls. And heads, severed heads lined up like a shooting gallery, rows upon rows of them. Have you been to a place like that?”
“No,” I say brusquely. “Go away — ”
But the shadow’s already gone. I’m alone again beneath a lowering sky. My foot hits something — a glass bottle goes skidding off down the street, smashes against a lamppost, breaks into pieces —
Wait. I squint. There’s something lying there among the shards. A sheet of crumpled paper. The wind toys with it but doesn’t blow it away.
I go and pick it up, unfold it, but to my dismay it’s written in a language I don’t understand. Made-up letters. Nonsense words. I turn it on its side, flip it over, hoping that maybe I’m just looking at it upside-down or sideways, but no matter which angle I look at it from, it refuses to make any kind of sense.
So I let the breeze carry it away. Useless junk…
But I guess it means something, doesn’t it?
Someone’s trying to get ahold of you.
It’s an encouraging thought, I suppose. But whoever it is isn’t doing it very well.
I keep walking; eventually I come to a pub. The glowing neon sign above the door says SPIGOT, and I remember vaguely that they have good beer here. I steal a seat at the bar. “Step one,” says the bartender as he slides me a steaming mug: “focus. Step two: remember you’ve still got things to do.”
“Are you talking to me?”
The bartender shrugs. I huddle over my drink. It glows like the embers of a fire that raged long ago; I try to find my reflection in the surface but there isn’t any to be seen. Beside me, a hunched bearded man mutters to himself. “What do we know about it?” he drones. “Long ago, in a forgotten country, in a better world, people pretended to understand it. But…”
I tune him out. Turn back to the bartender: “Excuse me. You might be able to help me. I’m looking for someone. A journalist.”
The bartender grunts noncommittally.
“Named Darius Sicory.”
For a moment the bartender fixes me with a lurid gaze. Then he gestures to the bearded man. “Ask him.”
I nudge the bearded man gently with my elbow. “Excuse me, sir. Do you know where I might find someone named Darius Sicory? He, uh, he knows something I need to know.”
The bearded man shoots me a fleeting sidelong glance, then continues talking as though he didn’t even see me.
“…people understood that it existed, but that doesn’t mean they understood how… I mean, you can’t wrap your head around something that you can’t see from the outside — ”
I nudge him again. “Excuse me — ”
He grunts in surprise, turns, and glares. “Huh?” he demands with a quiet kind of fury. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of an important lecture?”
“Um…”
“Well, it’s pointless now. You’ve ruined my momentum. You should’ve registered for the discussion section if you wanted to ask questions.” He grins garishly, revealing a mouth full of rotting teeth. “So? What d’you want?”
“Uh…” Have I forgotten already? Step one. “Darius Sicory! Do you know a man named Darius Sicory?”
“Sicory?” The would-be professor glances around surreptitiously, then leans in close. “Sicory’s here,” he whispers hoarsely. “In the back.”
“He — he is?” I look to the rear of the bar, but there’s nobody there — just a bunch of empty tables and chairs. “I don’t — ”
“Not there. Through the door.”
I squint, but I can’t see a door — just a dark brick hallway. Has it always been there? I look back at the bearded man but he’s murmuring to himself again. “So you see? We’ve constructed a simple word to define it. We’ve come up with ways to measure it — clocks, numbers, calendars…”
“Good luck with that,” I mutter. I get up, push my chair in. Cross the bar. Start down the hallway. The darkness swallows me and suddenly I can’t see a thing.
I look back. The dimly lit bar is much farther away than it should be.
Forward, then.
I grope about in the gloom until I hit something. A wall? No, no — after a moment of fumbling I find a doorknob. I twist.
The door slides open.
Read “The Last Seven Eternities of Dr. Julian Slade, PhD” at Kaleidotrope.net
J. Herrera Kamin 