Confession of a Sleepwalker

10-07-09

6:51 a.m.

The instructions were unequivocal: we were to shut the whole thing down with extreme haste. Nothing was to remain. They didn’t even request anything to be shipped out; this was Armageddon. Disable the MRIs and spectroscopes, mangle the computers and tape recorders, store the books and the paintings in boxes and leave them underground. The paperwork was to be burned. As for our fate, it was left profoundly unclear. The International Council of Narcoleptics, Insomniacs, and Parasomniacs evidently doesn’t f**k around.

It was entirely my fault, of course. Given the cryptic and Delphian nature of this supposed institution, I had always presumed them to be apocryphal---a thing of myth. Or at most, a camaraderie of MIT alumni hoarded together in a basement talking electroencephalopathies over Dungeons & Dragons. Or a cult of Hypnos worshippers. Or something. Now they were sending us macabre threats if we didn’t comply with their demands.

The correspondence opened, verbatim, as follows:

“DL847 NP 93333 ZZZ

REM LIBRARY MOONVILLE OH 14:32 OCT 04 09

CEASE ALL OPERATIONS IMMEDIATELY [STOP] SECURITY BREACH AT THIS LOCATION [STOP] SYSTEM HAS BEEN COMPROMISED [STOP] UTILITY OF THIS SUBSIDIARY NO LONGER FUNCTIONAL [STOP] EVACUATE THE PREMISES BY OCT SEVEN TWO THOUSAND NINE [STOP] IF MANDATES DELINEATED HEREIN NOT HEEDED SEVERE PENALTIES ENSURED [STOP]”

I was, at the time, deeply engaged in mopping up a (harmless) chemical spill in the whale anatomy aisle when I heard all the commotion. Let me clarify. Our facility is (was) a converted underground fallout shelter from the early Cold War era. Most of us had presumed the dusty old electrical telegraph lingering in the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) lab to be dormant. A charming knickknack. Imagine our surprise when, out of the blue, it started making noises not entirely unlike those a bumblebee might make, if constipated, through a megaphone. Having seemingly awakened of its own accord, the whole lot of us gathered around to witness the antediluvian wonder unfolding before our eyes. Luckily Sanna, our head librarian, knew how to translate morse code from her brief (but intense) obsession with investigating ways of utilizing it to encrypt EEG data for later subliminal playback mid-dream cycle. Results were mixed. Anyway, in a workplace where everything revolves around slumber, this was the most gripping event since Tight-Toothed Tommy’s famed FIRE! PEACHES! FIRE! incident. (He doesn’t remember a thing about it. He’s the only one.)

If you’ve ever been to Moonville, Ohio (I doubt you have), you probably know that it’s a derelict ghost town and former coal mining community with little but an abandoned railway whose last freight trains trudged along their last eight miles of utter desolation in 1975. Named primarily for the ancient Egyptian fish god, Rem the Weeper (the REM connection is mere coincidence), Rem Library & Research Center was established in that same year 107.2 meters below the Earth’s surface for the purposes of “the safe-keeping of information related to, directed inquiry and open investigation of, and general experimentation with regard to parasomnias and sleep-related disorders of all classes, genres, and categories.” Given the loosely-defined nature of these parameters, the library had become a rich hub of all sorts of vaguely relevant topics. The neurologists, for their part, came along to set up shop at the turn of the new millennium with a vast array of expensive equipment; no one knows who sent them or where they came from. Rarely did they ever divulge anything about their motives or objectives. Their subjects? Us, of course. We’re effectively a kibbutz of sleepwalkers.

The telegraph-memo went on, using the same emphatic syntax, for numerous dozens of pages. Our collective thrill adopted a more chilling timbre as it became increasingly apparent that its authors---completely anonymous, as far as we were concerned---knew more about our operations, our property, and our staff than any stranger theoretically should. I would have difficulty adequately communicating the cold breeze of relief I experienced when, however, by the communiqué’s end, there had been no mention of my name in relation to the alleged infraction. Nothing, in all those pages, of any custodian Alan Seabrook-Powers breaking-into-someones’-files-and-reading-about-their-dreams-and-brain-activity. Whoops.

There was a stale silence after the onslaught of buzzing from the mysterious object. Not sooner had my thumping nerves begun to settle in that room with those people than it occurred to me that a very particular manila folder was not at all where it should’ve been, at that precise moment. A great air of anxiety had already begun to percolate through our sealed walls like a radioactive doom, as we were all---individually---brought to face the reality of our fates. Mine in particular seemed immediate and impending. I nearly dropped my jumble of janitorial keys as I thrust myself out the fire door. With the speed at which I sprinted across our low-ceilinged hallways to the library’s lobby and swerved between narrow labyrinths of (commercial-grade) steel bookshelves, I couldn’t help but think of them as dominos: Leaning Towers of Knowledge. Upon exiting the maze I tackled the other fire door to the back stairwell which leads down to the dormitories (commuting to Moonville is a non sequitur).

Enraptured in the heat of frenzy, I practically dove for the bottom of the bottom drawer of my mahogany desk in my generous 15x15 (where I now sit, writing). Beneath heaps of scrap paper and an assortment of personal items (not limited to my collection of pocket watches, my dear mama’s old diary from when she spent six months studying the effects of prolonged and concentrated radiation on stalactites and stalagmites in the Carlsbad Caverns of New Mexico, and a box of Belgian truffles I’d been saving, for two years, for the appropriate occasion), lay, all but innocently, a flimsy beige folder over which was scrawled: “Jane.” For a jolt of a moment I was holding in my hands the Holy Grail. The remainder of the drawer’s contents, haphazardly flung, joined the other stockpiles of bric-a-bracs and whatchamacallits in the shadows, likely to collect dust over time (I excel in keeping everything clean but my own living space).

It all began the night after New Year’s of last year, a week after my 30th and following my mother's untimely death at the venomous hands of a black mamba snake in Zambia. In my unconscious nightly stupor, I quite nearly condemned all my belongings to ashes with a propane lamp. Hades only knows the collateral damage I might have inflicted had it not been for Jane who, catching sight of me in my possessed state, gently removed the lantern from my grasp, struck me vigorously across the face, and proceeded to stay the night with me while I sobbed. For her part she was probably able to empathize; she has ghastly night terrors, though she’s loathe to speak of them outside the clinic. She was one of the neuropsychotherapists who’d arrived, in esoteric fashion, with the equally as esoteric cabal of neurologists; their work, whatever it was, appeared to be inseparable. For the most part they kept entirely to themselves, siphoning off as “ortho-somniacs” in contrast to our “para-” nature. It worked like this: the neurologists kept their files on us in their clinic, and we, in turn, got to learn a little more about our nocturnal maladies and misadventures, meanwhile playing our tiny parts in abetting the advancement of science. All paid, all voluntary. There was rarely any animosity on either end; we were just as happy to keep to ourselves socially, so long as monetary incentives remained lubricant. Jane, however, is different. Prone to severe spells of sleep paralysis and ambulatory phantasms of mid-night horror, she is both a purveyor and, herself, an object of study. An isthmus between two worlds, whether of a liminal or a more fluid nature. 

She was assigned to me. She arrived a painter donning Doc Martins and jade cashmere sweaters. Often quiet. Always thoughtful. It was only a matter of time before our dialectical interactions spilled fountain-like into more intimate realms. I found it remarkable, the ease with which I could speak to her about my nightly wraiths and reveries: e.g., the barracuda bus falling from the rooftop; the flood engulfing some retro-futuristic version of Babylon; the playhouse dream with the playhouse girl whose face I can’t remember, all sweet and nostalgic and pathetically quixotic. Every nook, grotto, and cubbyhole of the Atlantis which is my blabbering mind that lay beneath the moonlight. And it didn’t take her very many nights with me to accustom herself to the nonsensical phonemes I tend to announce most nights whilst asleep, as though giving speeches of some Grave Importance. Although I have yet to hear back my own phrases as they actually sound out in conscious life, I maintain that the intention behind them is an attempt at a translation of lines out of Dante’s Inferno into Tolkien’s Sindarin, language of the Elves. It appears this has been a very serious endeavor of my dream-self for many years. That said, I do not speak a word of Sindarin, though my dream-self will hardly listen to reason about it.

And yet, after all this time, not a word about her night terrors. And reasonably so, considering her professional duties toward me, though definitively awry when she holds me in her heavenly, womb-like wrap.

…Part of it was the temptation, certainly. I had figured, worst-case scenario, that I’d play the whole thing off as sleepwalking. Being, as I am, from that long and esteemed line of notable parasomniacs---the Seabrooks---I was quite certain that I was immune to even the least bit of suspicion from others. My mother---Lana Seabrook---helped found the facility. Moonville has been in my blood for many generations. Most of us in the cleaning/custodial business. Largely willingly, as a matter of family tradition. (Mother, of course, being the exception). And, moreover, I felt absolutely certain that Jane, of all people, would never distrust me, due to my having already made myself so transparent to her. (Now, of course, I am beginning to find all this to have been incredibly naïve). Naturally, it turns out, when you hold in your trust the keys to every door, temptations can run tremendous. But it wasn’t just that I had to know---I wanted to understand her the way she seemed to understand me. Unearth her deep-seated knots. Raise her from the Lethe. Find out who she really is underneath.

So: heart quaking, I grabbed the folder from my desk. Back up the staircase, back through the fire door, back across the museum of man’s words, and at the farthest reaches of a corner corridor: the file closet, hidden away like a vault hoarding guarded secrets and personal myth. Rummaging through my collection of keys as though sifting through a deck of cards, I located (by mere texture of the grooves) the one allotted to cabinets HH through NN, and turned the screw at LL07. File returned, cabinet shut, I hurried out the door.

Sweating, shaking, and evading any further contact, I returned to my duties as custodian, putting things away in their right boxes. I have covered all my traces. Today is the last day. My things, in bags. My plans, unknown. My conscience---

***

“Alan.”

Jane stood in the doorway with a placid look poised in the slightest folds between her pursed lips and mellow eyes. If the Dark Prince had at that moment deemed it appropriate to unveil himself it was unlikely that she would’ve flinched. From the mere way she laced her arms one could intuit her as one who’d seen far more than she would have liked. Her hair was the colour of licorice and draped down to her mid-spine.

“The files are all gone. Vanished. We can’t burn them. There’s a man here asking for you.”

Alan, dumbstruck, dropped his open journal to the floor, and with it, his sharp feathery quill. His denim button-down was bathing in spilled ink. The size of his hanging mouth accentuated his long face. From the quivering burrow of his golden beard he managed only to begin repeating what he’d just heard. “The files are---

“Gone.”

“All of them?” Jane nodded.

As he pushed himself from his chair with his callused, bear-like hands, beads of jet black trickled from his clothing like rain. His shirt untucked itself at the back. This was quite the sight, for a man who prided himself on sleekness. “Who is this guy? Is it about the files? Does he think I’m involved with that, somehow? I’m just the janitor, he should speak to Sanna.”

“I have no clue, Alan,” she said. “Clearly you’re not hoarding hundreds of cabinets’ worth of paper.” Her eyes flitted about his room. “Are you?”

Alan’s breath caught in his throat. “What?”

“Are you?”

“Jesus, Jane, no. Look at this dump. Where would I have the space?” Alan choked on his last syllable.

Jane made direct eye contact. She seemed to be staring into his soul. She didn’t speak.

“Wait, you’re serious? You actually think I stole all the paperwork that’s accumulated in this shithole since my mother worked here? Really?”

“No. Of course not, no. It’s just…”

“Just… what?”

“I don't know, Alan. I wish you would just talk to me.”

A fatalistic silence fell between them. Alan was now moored by her piercing gaze. To look away---ironically---would be to forfeit the façade.

“You’re afraid I’ve looked at your files,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could manage.

Jane broke the spell, shifting her glance to her feet. Her nervous stance hinted at a vulnerability Alan had rarely seen. He hadn’t ever thought her to be fragile in any sense, but in this instance he felt bound to choose his words with the utmost care and honesty. He approached her and placed his palms on her shoulders with what he hoped would be perceived as great tenderness so she wouldn't notice the rapid throbbing of his blood. “Jane. I wouldn’t do that.”

She looked back at him. “You wouldn’t?”

Shocked by his own cowardice, Alan blurted: “I wouldn’t.”

She paused, and seemed to contemplate his act. Then, changing the topic: “This guy is waiting for you upstairs. You should probably go take care of that. Everyone’s packed up. We wanna get out of here ASAP.”

She led him out to the front desk where a man of medium-build in business clothing and a bowler hat stared, completely expressionless, as they approached. His facial features seemed to be moderately obscured by shadow. “Are you Alan Seabrook-Powers,” he stated, rather than asked. These would be his last and only words to Alan.

“I am. And you are…?”

The man in the bowler hat simply started walking away, nudging for Alan to follow. Alan exchanged a nervous glance with Jane. Both started following, until the man in the bowler hat raised a hand in Jane’s direction, indicating: “Stop.” She shrugged at Alan, and watched them exit through a fire door. They walked around a series of corridors; there were no books on the bookshelves. There were no paintings on the walls. Rem Library & Research Center was entirely bare. They walked until they reached the file closet---the scene of the crime. Encircling them in that sizable square room, slide drawers yawned open with no contents whatsoever.

Temporarily suspending his disbelief, Alan turned to practical matters, realizing there was no where left for them to walk. “You think I did this?” he exclaimed. “When the hell would I have had the time? You left us three days to get out of here. Assuming you’re here on behalf of that bloody Council.”

The man in the bowler hat didn’t respond, nor did he acknowledge that Alan was speaking. Instead, he bent down, removed a screwdriver from his suit pocket, and plunged it into the ground. He seemed to toy around with it until the snapping sound of a latch gave way to an access door in the floor. Standing upright, he extended his arm, beckoning Alan to climb in. Too curious to be apprehensive, Alan stepped over and looked below. It was the interior of an elevator.

The elevator had buttons ranging only in the negative. Starting from -1, having both entered from above, they made their way down to -100. Alan remained silent, watching the tiny yellow light move sequentially from number to number, feeling gravity push upward on his feet as he swiftly descended into the underworld.

They exited into what appeared to be an expansive chamber, so dimly lit that he could not make out where the walls were. The only vaguely clear object, dangling from the soaring ceiling, was a chandelier of sorts, apparently made of something like ivory tusks and stag antlers. They twisted into and out one another like a thick bundle of tangled cords, or a crumbling bird’s nest. There was a flickering quality to this obscure choice of lighting that seemed only to accelerate with each passing second. From underneath it looked like a gas lantern in a net of bones on its last breaths of hanging thread, eager to fall from its high reaches.

“Alan Seabrook-Powers.” The syllables reverberated as though in an underwater grotto. Alan jumped and looked around. The man in the bowler hat was nowhere to be found. He appeared to be all alone.

A second voice followed from the dark. “Alan Seabrook-Powers.”

“For heaven’s sake, yes, d****t, yes, that’s me, I’m Alan Seabrook-Powers.”

His outburst was followed by a long silence.

“Who are you?” he inquired.

His inquiry was met with a round of giggles. Alan blushed.

“I didn’t steal the files. How could I have? Where would I have stored them? When would I have took them? I’m not a sorcerer.”

Before he’d finished uttering the word “sorcerer,” a deep, booming woman’s voice shattered his pride like a sudden tempest. It reminded him of his mother. “Quiet. Didn't you hear the last stave of the knave who, imagining himself a sultan, left his right shoe over the left-side shadow of his own stave's witness? Aren't these the proofs for which you have investigated, searingly? Are you not, in fact, a matter of a sorcerer? Haven't your rygorjimats masslebottomed? IS THIS NOT THE CARDINIAL AEON OF PYRE AT ITS NETHEREST?"

Alan froze. He couldn’t manage a response.

“And OH, the HORROR, that even ‘haps a single finglewingle upon centuries of preliminaries might after all find his way back to the Coda. I pity your countenance. You are not the culprit, Ours. Hand over the key, Bellyshwart, it’s about too damn sweltering by now. The Cosms be geared to handle yer goons.”

“I…”

“Confess.”

The chandelier gave out. It was as though a fish he hadn’t known was there had suddenly slipped from Alan’s fingers. In the moments before he lost consciousness, he thought of what it might mean to open oneself completely without fear of retribution---irrespective of the consequences. To plunge willingly into one’s own Inner Circles of Hell and, like Dante, to love what one finds there, even be they devils. To scavenge the walking truth, locked away deep in the file cabinets of sleep.

To confess. 

To reveal. 

To emerge. 

To awaken.

***

“Alan.”

The sun is fierce and unrelenting. Beside you, a satchel of clothing and a briefcase of money, photographs and chocolate. You can’t remember the last time you’ve been outdoors. A few paces past the patch of grass on which you are sitting, the railway tunnel beneath which you’ve lived and worked for practically your whole life. Its black, open gape, murmuring like the maw of a whale. You gaze impassioned into that darkness.

“Confess.”

She’s sitting across from you. In her lap, your journal, which you left open and ink-stained on the floor. You look to the tunnel, and then to the sky, and then into her pitch-black eyes and begin to speak.