Chapter Thirteen - I’ll let you be in my dream, if I can be in yours (Part One)

I’ll let you be in my dream, if I can be in yours is the 13th chapter in Alistair Ulysses Vogan's novel How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming 

The limousine appeared to glow as it approached the entrance to the parking lot. That was the intention. Though it was late afternoon two spot lights were focused on it as it came around the corner of the lot. A wall of security guards moved across the entrance to hold back the crowds. And at that hour, still 90 minutes before show time, the people had collected. As the shiny vehicle approached, the crowd pushed into the security guards and seemed suddenly to grow in size the way a population of moths might when a porch light is turned on in the middle of the night. The asphalt was like any freshly paved road, the outer walls of the studio were indistinct from those of the skyscrapers around it however when the sparkling polished bumpers appeared and the black tires squeaked as they turned, like a new car pulling into a showroom, breaths were held. It was like a unicorn suddenly materializing in an auto plant, the passage of time took on a new pace. Everything slowed down and seemed to come into focus. So many more colours than before. And then after the car had stopped near the entrance the driver appeared and his white gloved hand touched the door. Like a safe, the door opened and the curled jeweled slipper appeared, and the humble, shy face of Zeak the Sheik, that face seeming to say who are these people? What brings them here? They can’t be here for…?

Seemingly overwhelmed, but then a change comes over his face as he, a determination, quite simply bites the bullet and we see he is the leader of men, able to face adversity. He puts his hands on his hips, drill sergeant-like and takes in the crowd. He is assessing. He nods. They please him. Yes. He is among a chosen group, his look communicates.

Inches from them, he is too ‘in the flesh’ to be real. This is a face that is better known than a parent’s. It’s fictional but it’s real and it’s eyes look out at them. The pupils focus and an unreal sensation hits them that these eyes are focused on them. These eyes seem them. Two realities collide and the crowd is speechless. They’ve been reborn. They may have wet themselves. He’s right there in front of them! They can even make out his chest rising and falling. He breaths too, like them!

Children sense greatness, a greatness that can take them in, raise them up. And suddenly they’re embarrassed by their parents. Women sense their reproductive organs turning on. Mothers and fathers forget about their own children. Children forget about the adults. A child’s view is blocked as an adult, mouth agape, steps in front.

You just want to melt.

Some people are talking at an inappropriate volume, with arms stretch over shoulders, mics in hands.

Zeak looks almost embarrassed by the aggressiveness of it, but then smiles amused as a good one comes to mind. “Yes. Yes!” he says, “I have been madly adored. I am sorry I have. It has been a nuisance. …I should like to have been allowed time to myself now and then!” He rolls his eyes and shakes his head, letting them know that he is complicit in the farce that is television. “I just came out for some fresh air folks! Not for a ‘sound bite’!” But of course he has. Bulbs flash as he looks into the eyes of everyone and somehow reaches into their souls. Though most will be turned away, the journey will have been worth it. He notices a striking young woman, a little too made up, with a little too much décolleté, with a figure enveloped in a black satin dress, a little too tight in all the right places. At least for a children’s television broadcast. She locks eyes with him as he pauses and a nervous twitch strikes the side of her mouth like a jump cut. Zeak glances towards a security guard standing outside the line and the man nods. She swallows hard. He steps forward and whispers to one of the guards. The woman looks anxiously from Zeak to the guards and back to Zeak, her breathing growing shallow and rapid, her destiny in question.  Zeak points up at the sky and grins broadly, “What a beautiful day!” The young woman almost faints as the guards part and allow her to pass through, to the other side.

Zeak signs autographs embarrassed and then disappears.

* * *

Kingsley stood beside a dressing table. It was very bright. There were large lights around the large mirror before him – he could see the tungsten filament vibrating - and also lights above him. Voices of people coming and going up and down the hall floated under the closed door, like carbon dioxide. He’d been standing next to the table for some time, uncertain what his next move should be. He was incapable of making a decision somehow. All the activity beyond the door and he was immobile. It seemed to grown in volume antagonistically snuffing out all impetus to action. The clothing he’d come in, the clothing that had shielded his body was folded very neatly in front of him on the table. His pants, next to his shirt, next to his hat, next to, at some distance, his socks. Kingsley, in fact, was folded neatly on the table before him. The who that was looking was another he.

Kingsley imagined his life as existing on a film reel and began to rewind it slowly, surreptitiously, then with growing momentum quicker and quicker. He was walking backwards through hallways doors opening and shutting, people were smiling and greeting him in reverse and then he was traveling down an elevator, drifting through a lobby and directing his ass into the opening door of an old limosine and zipping through streets watching the building disappear around a corner. He was waking up. Darkness. Going to sleep with his fingers in his ears. Turning off the light. Getting into pajamas. Smiling as he polishes the new, large washing machine. Pushing it into place.  Pulling out the key on the front door of the Laundromat. He’s forty, thirty, twenty. He’s smiling, lying next to a woman in a large bed by an open window. He’s getting out of the army. He’s standing in formation, saluting his commanding officer. Putting cereal to his mouth. He’s eight, holding on to the top of a pine tree, high in the air, and it’s drifting back and forth, a giant pendulum moving in slo mo. The air fresh and cool and blowing around him and in the distance he can see another boy running through the field. He turns and waves, and disappears. He’s lying in bed, in flannel pajama bottoms. He’s sweating. To his right is Michael, twelve-years old, mouth open slightly, with his right arm pinned behind the back of his head. He sees the hair beginning to sprout in his brother’s armpit. He lies back and examines his own armpits, but there is nothing there. It’s just a cavity beneath his shoulder. He looks at his brother’s arms, then his own. His are so thin.  He flexes his twig-like arms then runs his hands over his belly, feeling the muscles beneath the skin. He squeezes his gut, his nose crinkles and his eyes bulge. He can easily make out the rising and falling pattern of muscles, so small and insignificant. He falls back into the bed and stares up at the ceiling. He imagines being a man, driving a racecar. He jerks the steering wheel to the right and left. Suddenly the car spins and flips over into a ditch and burst into flames. The spectators jump to their feet. There is screaming. Men carry a canvas stretcher across the asphalt and run towards the racecar. An explosion sends a mushroom cloud rising into the air. Andrea Philips, eight-years old, a beautiful little girl stands up with a white hanky, tears stream down her face. “Nooooo.” There’s a terrible silence, though, miraculously, Kingsley pulls himself out of the tangled wreckage. He’s okay! Someone pats out the flames climbing up his back. He barely notices. The crowd jumps to its feet, goes crazy. Flashbulbs explode and Andrea breaks from her parents, runs down the steps and stops at the side of the road. “Kingsley Kingsley! I’M OVER HERE!” Kingsley looks up, searches the stands and there she is, waving. There’s a ribbon in her hair. The ribbon he said he liked. He jogs out of the ditch, up to the side of the road and rips off his helmet. Nothing can keep them apart. He smiles and waves as more bulbs flash and group of reporters run up to him. He brushes them aside, looks up the track, and waits for a line of racecars to pass. He puts a hand up, in control, telling her to wait. It’s dangerous. He sees her wave, then freeze and slowly drop her arms. Something’s wrong. She looks like she’s just tasted earwax. Is he injured and doesn’t realize it. He looks at his hand, checks his shoulders and arms. He feels his face and senses the puffiness around the eyes, the chin disappearing, the need for a shave. His hairy stomach protrudes, making it difficult for him to see his knees. …He is a grown man, past his prime. He will never get into a racecar. All that is left is insult, and injury.

The door opened and Carol entered. “Ding dong! Wow. You look super!”

There was person in front of him. They locked eyes. It was a man. He too was middle aged, appeared to be melting. He stood in the middle of a room, looking like someone, like his mother but heavy-set, and with a mustache. That person wore chaps and a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots. The chaps were red, and fluffy and enlarged the appearance of his thighs, shrunk his waist, the shirt was gingham, the cowboy boots shiny and black. Around the neck, tied at an angle, was a bandana. It was white and starched. There were holsters, holstering large toy pistols. That mustache, he realized, was painted with greasepaint. As were the long sideburns... Kingsley turned his head to the left and right slowly and, was somehow surprised, when his reflection did the same.

This was NOT his life. This was someone else’s. It wasn’t meant to be this way, though, he didn’t know how it was supposed to be. Even the Laundromat seemed a different universe. Where was he supposed to be? Where was home? Where was his ‘safe place’?

He is in a hallway now. Floating. Behind a small woman with a clipboard. He is an oil tanker pulled by a tiny tugboat. The waves lap against his sides as he passes open doors where people stand like skyscrapers looking on as if he were a large inflated version of himself in a parade. Face after face. They are smiling. Their mouths open and close in slow motion but he can’t understand. The doors disappear and so do the walls, into a blackness. He feels a slaps against his back and voices of encouragement. He looks back but no-one is there. No one is anywhere. He is alone, in a void. There are voices, music, sounds, but he doesn’t understand from where they emanate. He senses a filament before him separating one dimension from another. He will pass into this. It may be inches from him or several feet in the distance. He’s standing on a large white ‘X’ taped to the surface on which he stands. He knows he should never leave this spot. Ever. A voice has told him this.

“Ladies and gentlemen” Boys and girls ...The Hindu everyone, and I mean EVERYONE'S talking about...the raja that's all the rage... Zeak the Sheik!!!!” a disembodied male voice told him. People somewhere began to scream. Something happened, was happening. Something was happening right in front of him, seemingly feet away from him, but he was unable to see it. The screaming continued. They were screaming the man’s name. Zeak the Sheik was somewhere, close, in the other dimension. He was hurt. He’d been attacked, or was being attacked, perhaps by a large animal, and they were witnessing it. Impotent, Kingsley’s face contorted with anxiety. Was he next?

“Excuse me. Mr. Kuchner ?” Carol, glowing before him, smiled. He looked at her horrified. She was inhuman. Her smile brightened and he noticed the large, very large book she held extend towards him. Despite the obvious weight of the tome nothing in her face or movement of her arm suggested strain. She wasn’t human, he thought. She can’t be. Carol corrected herself, “I mean Cowboy Kingsley…”  She smiled. “Here’s your ‘Bible’. If you’re lost, everything you need is in there.” He took the book and watched it rise above his head against his will as the screaming died down and the Zeak the Sheik television theme song began to play. “You look really fantastic,” she whispered enthusiastic. “I really hope this works out,” she said cryptically. He looked down at himself and saw that person, the cowboy, again. “…Just relax. You’ll be more than fine. Have fun!”

Kingsley stared at her and was unable to operate his mouth, as if he was attempting to control it using a remote control with dying batteries. “Oh God yeah,” she said then looked past him and he followed her gaze. It was then that the walls of the black void parted and an unbelievably bright vision appeared only fifteen feet away. He could, miraculously, see into the other dimension. Zeak the Sheik stood beside a carpet hovering several feet in the air. He looked unharmed after all. In fact, he was playing a flute, and sneering visibly. Kingsley watched and listened and noticed that the melody seemed to come from the right above him in the distance. In front of Zeak from the opening of a large wicker basket a snake rose stiffly. Kingsley watched without blinking, was amazed. Would the snake attack Zeak? Kingsley reminded himself that he knew it wouldn’t. Zeak closed his eyes as if he might fall asleep then opened them impatiently and dropped the flute to his side petulantly. Carol eyes widened, swearing under her breath, and she yanked at the void revealing another opening and, in the distance, a man in a dimly lit rectangle hovering in space who was struggling to reach for something. The man hit something and the music stopped. The man fell back into his chair and wiped his brow, and the snake descended uncharacteristically into the basket as if it had been shot. Zeak had stepped forward and was smiling from ear to ear to show that he was a professional, that the show must go on. That smile. It was infectious, thought Kingsley, smiling. He lowered the book, gradually losing himself in the production, forgetting he was wearing a cowboy suit.

“Hey hey kids!” 

“Hey hey Zeak!” Kingsley heard children and adults scream. It was like they were right there. “Today we have something very very,” and as he continued his voice lowered and took on a sickening quality,” very very very very veeeeery special for you. Now.”

Carol glanced back at Kingsley then talked into her hand, “I know that. I can see he’s gone off script.” She swallowed tensely, watching.

“One thing I have learned in my travels, my adventures, is that there is always a curve ball.” He smiled and looked among the faces of his audience. “One you didn’t expect, one that reminds you that despite all your efforts to do your best, to make the world a better place, to be in control, to please all those around you as selflessly as you try, like washing the dishes, or doing your homework, or being nice to your little brother or sister…”

“Oh fuck…” Carol said hideously with her lower lip pulled beneath her teeth, exposing her gums.

Zeak the Sheik began to relax, seeming almost carefree the way suicidal person might once they’ve finally committed to the actual day, time and method of their demise. “the empire you built, created by your genius, your heart and soul, and those people who depend on you, the vulnerable, whose mission it has been to raise them up, to their children, the next generation, a better life… well, after all of this the outcome is not always you possessing full control of your life, or a reward of any kind for your efforts. Know that!” he said pointedly and paused for effect. “And you realize, it’s all just an illusion!” He gestured to someone in the audience smiling gleefully, “You’re really just a prisoner. …This is one of those life lessons.” He grinned gleefully, his chin raised, his dark eyes gleaming. There was silence. He pulled up his sleeves to show more of his darkened skin then raised his framed his face with the back of his hands and smiles obsequiously, “I am the ‘other’, at your service.” And then he bowed.

From up on high somewhere the sound of a crash and snare drum could be heard dryly and then an upbeat rendition of the The Fabulous Zeak the Sheik Show theme song began.

Zeak cocked his head to the right looking up to the AV booth. Kinglsey saw the man in the dimly illuminated rectangle hovering above reflexively slap something before him and the music stopped. The man slid to the back of his rectangle with his hands raised as if he were being held up in an underground garage.

Kingsley nodded and suddenly wondered where he was supposed to be right then. He reached his hand out into the black void a thick material. He pulled up the material and found the end. From there, he began to fold absent-mindedly… Everything he knew and understood was absent from his awareness.

Zeak looked over and saw Kingsley’s feet appearing beneath the curtain, powerfully indifferent to his words. A slap in the face.

“Now. I would like you to look deep inside yourselves and find your friendly spot for my new very very VERY best friend…”

The curtain stopped at Kingsley’s waist, exposing the shining black cowboy boots, white faux lamb’s wool chaps and the holsters.

From where Kingsley stood, a terrifying realization, a seemingly improbable possibility was dawning on him. Zeak’s face was turned in such a way that he could see both his eyes. They didn’t appear to be looking above or below him, not to the right or left of Kingsley… He felt his throat closing up, as if he’d been stung by a killer bee from African, as large as a guinea pig. Kingsley dropped the folded curtain and it descended in a serious of parallelograms. He touched the chaps, the holster, felt the crisp bandana around his neck. Something in his pocket seemed to be cutting into his thigh. He could feel Carol’s hands, then the hands of others placed firmly on his back, forcing him forward at angle or two. From there he could see the pattern of teeth and shining orbs against the darkness. He reached into the pocket and pulled out the photograph of his family. He turned away from the light stiffly and studied it. He was wearing the same clothing. He was a cowboys. They were a cowboy. He felt like a child. He looked at the photo again and saw the older brother, the Indian costume, then Zeak the Sheik  beneath the lights, gesturing with one hand, to Kingsley, beckoning.

COMING UP NEXT: 

Chapter 14 - I'll let you be in my dream, if I can be in yours (Part 2)

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Paddy 

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Sara Ryan 

Hannah Taha 

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Ayesha Sayed 

Leanne Wherret 

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Susan Cavan 

Tanya Nguyen 

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Mahmood Farra 

Barbara Vogan 

ZeBeDee 

Paul Marlow 

Alison Belsham 

Brian L 

Melyat 

Jagermeister8 

and 

Sir William Newman 

editors and story consultants at The Ivan Von Noshrilgram Foundation, Antarctica.)    

Copyright 2000 (Alistair Avery Vogan / the Von  Noshrilgram Foundation)

Chapter Eleven - Enter Genius

Enter Genius is the eleventh chapter in Alistair Vogan's novel How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming.

Sri Zeak Chattopadhyay sat on his embroidered Japanese cushion, in the lotus position, his chin up and his eyes, only slightly open, focused on the floor before him. His breathing was deep, but there was, decidedly, resistance. He could sense it. Something was bumping around in his head, bugging him. Like a bird that’s flown in an open window and couldn’t get out, she wouldn’t leave his consciousness. He got up, disgusted. His knees snapped and crackled.

“For crying out loud!” He could stand in the middle of the room in his purple turban, his cape blowing in the draft behind him from the air rushing in the open window on the 45th floor, with his purple shoes curling up towards his knees, a fake mustache, and not be wearing pants but looking around the room frantically for them, and, still, the what-to-do next of it all would somehow miraculously elude her. He could also point a colt 45 to his temple, press it so that the barrel dug into his skin, cock it, pull the trigger six times without a major event happening in her day, say “drat” even, pat all his pockets, check behind him in the drawers of his desk… still she’d bite her lip, turn and look at him sideways as if she were struggling to answer the 65 thousand dollar question being filmed in the studio the floor below. No. That didn’t quite nail it either, he thought. He had a better scenario… He could douse himself in gasoline. Strike a match and set him ablaze. The flames could rise up and blacken the stucco ceiling as he fell to his knees. There could be a fire extinguisher, even, to his right and a plate of six ham and cheese sandwiches to his left. He would be screaming at the top of his lungs over the sizzling of his flesh for her to help. He might say something to the point like, “Help me! I think I am-on-fire!” With one choice to make – fire extinguisher, or ham and cheese sandwiches - she’d still be uncertain what to do…

This was what he was stuck with.

Carol tapped on the door and entered carrying a tray with a white rose in a vase, a jug of milk, a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise, and the morning paper. Yee haw! Speak of the devil! She placed it on the coffee table before the couch. He turned where he stood looking out the window at the city below, his city. He took a deep breath and looked at the wall just above her head, remaining calm. He bit his lip and exhaled through his nostrils. “…Why?” he asked exasperated.

She froze. His eyes traveled around the room and stopped at the large bookshelf to her left. He took in the various photographs of him with presidents, celebrities, a Maharajah, an elephant... This is the way it had become. He saw a photo of himself, in his younger years, smiling warmly, holding an orphan up to his chest by the elbows in a desolate African village. He could almost read the wreath around his right shoulder that had been placed on him moments before the photograph had been taken. He looked good. He’d dug a well with his own hands that particular day! – or, at least held a shovel, he remembered the splinter. A village of forty, for the first time, had been given the opportunity to drink fresh, clean water without the need to walk for miles with buckets on their heads. He lost himself for a minute. Malnourished or not, that kid had been heavy. Now that he thought about it, why couldn’t they have got a better malnourished kid? Relatively speaking, the kid looked chunky. Yep. He had to do everything himself…

“I am here…” he said, looking down his torso to his feet and then to the tray on the coffee table several feet away, “and my food is there.” It was obvious. And, he’d have to spell it out to Missus Simpleton. “Do you expect me to walk over there? Bring it here. Put it on the floor by my feet. No. NO! Pull the coffee table over with the tray on top! Now look what you’ve done! Pick up the flowers! Wipe the table quickly. Carol… Sweetheart. That’s teak, you know? You don’t know, do you?” He looked out the window, shaking his head. “I’m very very busy Carol,” he said. It came out sing-songy and imagined his studio audience watching impatiently for the magic to begin. He imagined strangling her as she slowly dragged the table over beside him. The imaginary Carol was on the rug. He was straddling her with his hands around her throat, her tongue sticking out. Her face red, eyes protruding. His turban slid over his forehead and bounced beside her like a bowling ball. The ruby and several diamonds broke from the turban and scattered around the rug adding beauty to the image. He wipes his forehead, his nostrils flaring, and his dark eyes fiery. In his mind’s eye he looks devilishly handsome, like Clark Gable.

Darius, Salahad Udin, Julius Caesar. Empire builders, all. If the reward wasn’t so great, and elusive, we’d all be living in hovels, eating our own filth. Still, Rome wasn’t built in a day, mainly because all great men are, by nature, surrounded by idiots. Why must everything be spelled out? He knew what everyone else was thinking. He knew what they’d say, what they’d do. But he had to think everything through and broadcast every freaking thought to get anything done ‘the right way’. If he didn’t, it’d all be a mess. They knew it too. They were incapable of making an intelligent decision. They were terrified to make a mistake. Where were the great Risk Takers that had built America? He had to do ALL the thinking ALL the time.

The coffee table and its contents came to a stop at his side. Were there Goddamn tomatoes in his sandwiches? He couldn’t believe it. Genius. He looked at the sandwiches then her, then back at the sandwiches. Which was more intelligent? She, or his lunch? “Oh, what’s the use?” he thought. He tapped his knee against the coffee table beside him, pointedly, “Carol, did you really…?”

He shook his head smiling warmly. “Darling, I was joking! You did know that?” She smiled nervously and then he told her how lovely she looked as she dragged the coffee table back to its original location.

“I love that blouse on you.”

He looked at the sandwiches languidly, then flicked on the television and watched the recording of the previous day’s show. It was perfect! Still, he made a list of people at random who should be fired. Best to keep them on their toes. The worst thing, he knew, was for his team to get too comfortable. That would be the beginning-of-the-end. That’s when quality becomes the real casualty. It’s simple human nature. Also, he’d give everyone else a raise so that way they’d keep their yaps shut. If he didn’t, they’d start talking about how they were all “brothers” and that they had to stand together. Keep ‘em divided, he thought. 

When Carol was gone, he grabbed a sandwich and removed the tomatoes. He sat at the edge of the couch, and bit into it tentatively, hunched over like a squirrel. 

COMING UP NEXT: 

Chapter Twelve - Mission Not Aborted 

If you're enjoying THE NOVEL, please share the link:

http://theivanvonnoshrilgramfoundation.blogspot.com/2011/12/ghost-in-machine.html

For more information, please contact: 

The Ivan Von Noshrilgram Foundation, Prague, Czech Republic

We would like to gratefully acknowledge assistance provided by: 

Rose Street 

Kingsley Vogan 

Ken McDavitt 

Paddy 

Ocope515 

DonkeyJacket 

Safia Adam

 Sport68 

Robert Bodrog 

Bob Studholme 

Brian Borgford 

Craig Lauzon 

Patreshia Tkach

Chi Diep 

Colin Rivers 

Anum Siddiqui 

Sara Ryan 

Hannah Taha 

Shaikha Alain 

Ayesha Sayed 

Leanne Wherret 

Bruce McCullouch 

Susan Cavan 

Tanya Nguyen 

Margaret Lambert 

Peggy Vogan 

Mahmood Farra 

Barbara Vogan 

ZeBeDee 

Paul Marlow 

Alison Belsham 

Brian L 

Melyat 

Jagermeister8 

and 

Sir William Newman 

editors and story consultants at The Ivan Von Noshrilgram Foundation, Prague, Czech Republic.)    

Copyright 2000 (Alistair Avery Vogan / the Von  Noshrilgram Foundation)

Re: Chapter 14

Get ready...

Because it's almost here. Just a couple days from now. Tell your wife, and your children. 
Please warn your parents.


That's right. It's almost... 


Saturday, April 28, 2012


International 
Middle-Age 
Crisis 
Day! 


"...Yaaaaaaaaaay!"


All the staff at the Ivan Von Noshrilgram Foundation, Reykjavik, Iceland, sincerely hope it's all you dreamed it would be... 

Thoughts: Russian People. What's going on over there?

Hey Russian people! 


A big hello out to you! 


I've just returned from Dubai and checked to see who is reading and what is being read. 


...I cannot understand how I could be getting so many readers in Russia. 


Why would this be? If you can explain, please do! 


Please keep reading. Things are about to really open up in How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming! 

Chapter Six - Hey! Why's There A Spaceman In Your Bathroom?

Hey! Why's There A Spaceman In Your Bathroom is the seventh chapter of Alistair Avery Vogan's novel How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming.

That evening after he had locked up Laundry-Land, Kingsley carried an old typewriter he’d purchased from a pawnshop, and the stack of paper piled on top of it, to the dining room table. He stood before the table while Mrs. Filmon talked cheerfully in the otherwise quiet room:

"...all alone, he thought about his dilemma. It occurred to the fluffy blue jay Nick, as the wind whistled and the rain poured down upon his soggy backside... ...in the lonely field, that the First National Bank at the..."

She was like filthy wallpaper you might pull away from in a window-less room. Although it caused him great anxiety, especially when he thought about it, had he been another person listening in he would have concluded that the woman speaking was gentle, loving. That she meant no harm. But, it was the inescapable quality that tormented him. Feeling he was powerless.

He dropped the typewriter and the paper on the table loudly and heard her pause, as if regaining her composure. And then she started up again. He opened up the lid of the typewriter and saw an official-looking paper folded beneath a thin, clear plastic case. “Schreibkontrolle,” he read aloud.

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’s A Taste Of Honey, floated through the wall separating his apartment from hers. Next door Miss Martha was dancing, he fancied, or else, perhaps, moving furniture…

He smiled longingly then, focusing, lifted the package and looked closely at the Adler J-4 typewriter. On the left of the machine at the top of the paddle, like a shining stainless steal shoehorn, stuck out. There were switches, levers, buttons and deep inside its guts, tiny little pieces of metal laid side-by-side like the handles of cutlery all packed up. It was overwhelming. He peered in closely and could make out the tine engravings on each piece of thin metal. He’d need a college degree to operate this thing. There were symbols he couldn’t recognize. On the outside he noted the rows of keys, possessing the same shape as the heal of a shoe. On these were the letters of his alphabet. He put the palm of his hand on the keys and pushed. The metal cutlery handles with the foreign symbols shot up and lodge themselves before a rolling pin-like cylinder embedded in the device. Great. He’d broken it. Mrs. Filmon seemed to grow louder.

At a loss, he opened up the clear plastic package with “Schreibkontrolle” written inside and pulled out the Adler J2 and J4 Instructional Manual.  It was in English.

Writing on J2 and J4

In buying your portable typewriter you have chosen well. The fully operational instructions are intended to serve you as guide enabling you to fully enjoy the various advantages offered by this typewriter. The essential points to be observed when typing with “J2” or “J4” are briefly described hereafter.

Feeling reassured, he read on, noting the five additional features that his Adler Nr. J43906762 possessed compared to the Adler Nr. J2 model. He congratulated himself for purchasing such a fine machine, though noting on some level that he’d most likely never use those features. Still, like purchasing just a little extra life insurance for safe measure, he indeed felt safer. He reached for a pencil and made notes along the manual and parts he might forget, underlying crucial points, sometimes twice.

When Kingsley had completed perusing the manual he confidently freed the jammed keys. Next, he extended the paper support with terminal indicator , and, of course, released the paper bail. He then inserted a crisp sheet of white paper under the rollers and, with his thumb and index finger, turned the platen knob counter clockwise with his right hand before expertly pumping the line space lever. He felt like Harper Lee…

He sat back and waited for Mrs. Filmon to finish the story. He waited relaxed, like a young boxer in his prime, watching his delusional, aged opponent strutting about the ring just before his last match.

He looked down at the keys and noted, somewhat disconcerted, that they were not, as he assumed, in alphabetical order. He listened to the voice,

"…that the First National Bank at the intersection of First Avenue and Finch was the last friendly bank in the courteous and smiling little village not to have installed a security camera monitoring system..."

He realized that he didn’t know how to type.

“Please stop,” he said. But she continued.

The xylophone chimed at the end of the story and Kingsley positioned himself for her to begin again. He looked around to the four corners of the ceiling waiting. He cleared his throat. “I would like you to say the story as slowly as you can,” he said to no-one.

He waited for “Once upon a time.” He sincerely hoped that she would begin slowly, thought she might. However, she began the story at regular speed, and he looked for the letter “O” key. By the time he found it she was on the second sentence and moving on from there.

He slammed his fists into the keys. “I hate this story!” he said petulantly. “I hate it and I hate you!!” His anger turned to anxiety. He could feel himself disassociating. The walls seemed to be undulating slowly around him. He felt like he was at sea. “Please…”

Kingsley rushed to the bathroom and vomited. Her voice was above him. His eyes darted back and forth. Out the window was a darkness he couldn’t remember. The darkness seemed to be seeping in. He saw the colours of the wallpaper, the door frame his hands, but seemed to sense a blackness beneath everything. Terror slowly enveloped him. For the first time in his life, he looked through the physical world around him, and saw that it was all illusion. Nothing was real. Not himself, the water flowing out of the facet, the buzzing of the tungsten light about him. It seemed as if all of humanity had disappeared and he was deep beneath the earth, in a catacomb.

Out of the darkness a large gloved hand stretched towards him. He could make out the figure of an interplanetary traveler, its head encased in a large egg shaped helmet. Just barely he could make out the eyes blinking behind the copper tinted visor, looking at him. The vision dissolved before him and for a moment, it was utterly silent. He became aware of his heart pumping. It built up speed pounding louder and louder. His heart was going to explode. Frantically, he reached for his new shower curtain and ripped it from the rings.

He ran out into his bedroom and spun around trying to strike the voice. He could hear Mrs. Filmon’s voice patiently rising over the high-pitched shrieking of an insane woman. He swung the shower curtain to the left and right and caught his face in the mirror for fraction of a second. His mouth was opened in a scream. Sweat poured down his forehead, tears filled his eyes. He whipped around and around. With a series of movements not his own he found himself in the living room rushing over the coffee table and up the couch. Suddenly, without warning, it seemed as though someone had kicked his legs out from under him, when in fact, while attempting to move in two opposing directions he had tripped over his own legs. He found both these legs in the air before him. He saw his socked feet ever so slowly eclipsing the dining room lights hanging from the ceiling. He hovered a moment then descended like a wingless Daedalus onto the back of the couch and crashed into the wood of the floor.

A sharp pain issued from behind one ear. On his back, Kingsley’s elbows slid over his torso and thumped wetly on the floor. His forearms and the palms of his hands followed, his body behaving like a carcass on a butcher’s table. Gradually he grew aware of a grey rectangle before him. It was his ceiling above, framed by the back of the couch and the wall.

He closed his eyes and turned what was left of his focus to the dull pain behind his ear. It was his right ear. For some time he thought only of the pain. It was the only thing he knew for certain, the only thing he could count on. Somehow, it was grounding. From the certainty of this pain he expanded his focus. He was behind the couch. The wall was to his right. He was lying on his back. He was Kingsley Kuchner. He lived at 177 East-Seventh Street. He was forty-six… A woman was near. He couldn’t see her. She was speaking to him. He felt a pang of anxiety, but swallowed it. He knew the pain was close at hand to retreat to if that darkness descended. Slowly all the broken pieces of Kingsley returned to their proper spots.

He listened to Mrs. Filmon. She was talking about a First National Bank. He wondered if she even knew he was there… “Who are you?” he whispered. He waited but there was no reply. He was alone. He sat up, then looked over the side of the couch. The shredded shower curtain lay in different locations across the room. A chair lay on its back, a picture on the opposite wall rested at an angle, the rug had been pushed up – and was curving in on itself – against the wall. The stack of paper, the cover of the Adler J4 and the J2 itself existed undisturbed where they had been, as if waiting.

The light above the table shone like a spotlight.

He picked himself up and approached the table.

He pulled the jammed metal on the inside the typewriter. He would, rather than wait for Mrs. Filmon finish her story, begin with what he did know. Painstakingly, he punched the keys with his index fingers

"Once upon a time…"

And to his surprise, discovered he knew all the words.

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Next Chapter:
Chapter Eight - The Other Eagle Has Landed



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We would like to gratefully acknowledge assistance provided by 

DonkeyJacket, Safia Adam, Sport68, Robert Bodrog, Bob Studholme, Brian Borgford, Craig Lauzon, Patreshia Tkach,  Chi Diep, Anum Siddiqui, Sara Ryan, Hannah Taha, Shaikha Alain, Ayesha Sayed, Leanne Wherret, Bruce McCullouch, Susan Cavan, Tanya Nguyen, Margaret Lambert, Peggy Vogan, Mahmood Farra, Barbara Vogan, ZeBeDee, Paul Marlow, Alison Belsham, Brian L, Melyat, Jagermeister8 and Sir William Newman, editors and story consultants at The Ivan Von Noshrilgram Foundation, Amman, Jordan.)    

Copyright 2000 (Alistair Avery Vogan / the Von  Noshrilgram Foundation)