Damnatio memoriae

ii. the experiment

I shuck off my shirt, and am startled by the reflection I see out of the corner of my eye. I turn more fully to face the mirror, and my startlement peaks. My eyes seem hollow, the cheeks sunken. The tendons of my neck stand out in a way that I didn't think I had seen two days ago. The small bones of my chest seem to push through the skin, catching the fading daylight. I watch as a cold chill washes down over my arms, the fine dark hairs on my forearms lifting.

The hell with this. I turn away, determined not to think about this. When did you last eat, John? I push the thought away, mostly because I realize I can't remember the last thing I ate. The water is warm, the couch in my study beckons to me. Maybe I'll get some more reading in before I fall asleep.

I ended up reading more than I thought I would, occasionally silencing the notices on my phone. I never used to get so many calls, but I was so absorbed in the material, I didn't give my actions a second thought. I don't plummet into sleep until my eyes fall on the Mephistopheles paper again. My phone blinks to life for a moment; it's almost midnight. My sleep is absolute and dreamless. It feels like falling down an endless pit, and waking up feels like the moment before you hit the bottom.

I find my stash of chalk that I absently pocketed during lectures over the previous years. My classrooms invariably have the old chalkboards, and so going from lecture to lecture with chalk on hand was easier, invariably deposited in a jar on my desk when I got home.

I'm in the middle of pushing the chalk bits into one pile when a strange, almost manic glee hits me. What will you wish for? I stop my small errand for a moment and let my head hang, a bout of giggles seizing me. What will I wish for? For my work to be recognized. For a pay raise. For a house, all my own. Petty, petty something hisses inside of me.

A bubble arises from the flat gray haze of a sea that looms in my brain. Why?

Indeed why. Why do we still not understand? Why do we not have the cure to diseases that have lived since the dawn of humanity? Why do we hate those different from us? Why can't we help? Why can't we stop hurting each other? Why?

I will ask to understand. It's a hollow kind of thought, almost a sigh. The idea fills me with a sudden swell of emotion, a counteraction to the acknowledgement of helplessness and hopelessness. I press my hands to my face, as though to push out, push back the stinging in my eyes. It doesn't matter.

No, it doesn't. I drop my hands and resume sorting through the pile until I've found one of appropriate length. Good. I spent a few moments affixing this to the length of dowel I'd unearthed from god knows where. The rest of my ingredient gathering is marked by similar waffling. Do I use the city's tap water? The water from my filter? I decide on distilled water, for no other reason than it seemed a close enough ingredient than what would have been available in medieval times. Perhaps well water would have been best. The earth I obtain by guiltily stealing out to the small planters kept by the backdoor, maintained by the landlord. The ground is still covered in a thick blanket of snow, and I find myself momentarily transfixed by the tranquility. Even the sounds of passing traffic are so muffled they're almost inaudible. The air component, I have determined, will most likely simply be the smoke from a bundle of herbs with occult properties, and the fire will be from the wick of a candle.

I've pushed all the furniture in my study against the walls, and flipped the worn Persian rug so a large enough bare patch is revealed to inscribe a circle, and the glyphs. Standing in the center of the room, I'm struck with a wave of immediacy. I look up, and glance around the room. Everything seems strange, just slightly wrong. As if I've been thrust into an almost perfect copy of my world. Outside, the snow has begun to fall again, massive white flakes bright against the deepening gloom.