Gerard Soest, “Portrait of William Shakespeare,” c. 1667

William Shakespeare. Snoozing in a red plastic chair in the row directly across from mine at Judy’s Suds ‘n’ Go.

I knew the man was not the original of course but he did appear to be an exact replica of what the original was supposed to have looked like. Must be a reincarnation I thought.

The new version appeared as a frail itinerant who had ventured into the laundromat in order to shelter from the cold mist outside. He was damp and dirty and his eyelids fluttered.

Here’s a big coincidence. I was holding a slim well-thumbed volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets in my hand at the time. I had read in an advice column that a single guy reading poetry at the laundromat appears interesting and not at all creepy to young ladies who might be present.

There was a portrait of the poet centered on the back cover of my book and I raised it into my line of vision. The guy across from me was Shakespeare all right.

I folded my clothes and stacked them still pleasantly warm in the green mesh laundry bag I use. Then I paused in front of Shakespeare to get one last look before leaving. My proximity seemed to wake the little man up though. Taking my friendly assessment as a sort of invitation he rose and followed me out of Judy’s.

On the street I stopped and told him I enjoyed his poems and plays but I preferred to be alone. He nodded but continued following anyway matching me step for step along the puddled sidewalk.

I stopped once more. No I said. Go away.

His head bobbed again. But there was no real understanding in his eyes.

What was the proper thing to do? Push my diminutive accoster away violently? Run? The rain dampened my laundry while I pondered the question.

I looked the man over again top to toe. He was skinny and filthy. His eyes were brown.

I thought of myself as a cautious person but decided there wasn’t anything threatening about Shakespeare since I was twice his size physically. And I was curious to learn how it was that he’d been reborn after so many years.

That’s how I ended up taking Shakespeare home with me that day.

And he never left.

***

He liked soup.

That was a blessing since I soon learned a spoon was the only utensil he manipulated with any dexterity. If you put a knife and fork into his gnarled little hands the utensils were as likely to end up stuck in his nose as his mouth.

I could not decide what to call him so I just referred to him as Old Man. Or Shaky. 

Sometimes when my guest was slurping his soup an odd feeling came over me while I was sitting at the wobbly kitchen table across from him. I tried to imagine the reincarnated brain living inside his head.

How many people had made more profitable use of their intellect than he had?

How many had brought more beauty into the world? 

How many were better able to capture and express what it meant to be human through art?

So go ahead Old Man I thought. Slurp your soup as much as you like.

***

He liked polyester. 

The clothes Shaky was wearing when I discovered him were just rags. Searching his pockets before discarding the old gear I found nothing. Not a penny or scrap of paper.

I conferred some of my own clothes on him but the Old Man was so small compared to me he practically disappeared wearing them. Finally I went out and purchased a pair of inexpensive polyester jogging outfits. One was crimson and one powder blue. Both sported eyebrow-thin white piping along the arms and legs.

Shakespeare loved those outfits. They were lightweight and comfortable and he actually looked quite spiffy in them though I must admit the sight of the Bard of Avon swishing around my apartment modeling the lowest in Kmart fashions took some getting used to.

***

He liked television.

On days I had to go out I planted him in the chair in front of my set before leaving the house and when I returned home later I always found him still there raptly watching the same channel.

I fretted about exposing such a magnificent brain to so much cultural crap though. It was the psychological equivalent of a parent who fed his kids nothing but Cheetos.

Shaky’s emotional responses to the aforementioned television programs often seemed inappropriate. Watching those ubiquitous Law & Order reruns with Jack McCoy waggling his head in righteousness at some sneering just-nabbed murderer the Old Man was likely to burst into riotous laughter. When he saw the episode of Seinfeld in which Jerry broke up with a woman because she ate peas one at a time the Old Man wept. Great sobs racked his puny body and hot tears cascaded down his worn and withered face.

I thought at first Shaky was displaying symptoms of advanced senility. I imagined he was a sad old man who was misapprehending the culture of modern society. Then I thought about it and decided he might have understood the world better than I did.

***

Geeze. I forgot to mention that he didn’t talk.

Actually I should say that he didn’t converse. The Old Man could use his voice when he wanted to. I often caught him jabbering but couldn’t quite make out the words. Most communication therefore occurred through his use of wildly variable facial expressions. In this language Shaky was most articulate. He was able to reveal even the subtlest of wants through tiny alterations in the set of his mouth or eyebrows. 

I attempted different strategies to provoke Shaky into interacting on a verbal level since of course I’d be glad to have a reborn genius pontificate a bit and illuminate poor moronic me with his well-reasoned insights into the nature of the human condition.

Direct questions were ineffective. A wry smile was his only reply to any query I posed even those constructed purposefully to offend him into response. I understand Christopher Marlowe was twice the man and the three times the poet you were I said. How do you live with your obvious inferiority?
  
As an experiment I tried reading his work aloud. I supposed that reminding an artist of his noblest achievements might inspire him to speech since I knew even the shiest of writers was likely to be expansive on the subject of himself. But there was no real response from Shaky. If I recited his sonnets he looked at me blankly. If I acted out one of his plays he fell asleep before scene ii.

One day at breakfast feeling a bit bored I held up the sugar bowl in front of him.

Sugar bowl I said.

Sugar bowl he immediately answered echoing my pronunciation exactly. There was a broad smile on his face. He liked the way the words sounded. 

Sugar bowl sugar bowl sugar bowl he repeated savoring each phoneme as he rolled the phrase around on his tiny tongue.

I’d broken through!

I held the cereal box up in front of him. 

Cereal I said.

Sugar bowl he replied.

***

I decided upon a strategic U-turn to get my guest to reengage the world and perhaps talk spontaneously. Why didn’t I see it? No person could be more disenchanted with a set of characters than the writer who fretted over and agonized about and finally worked through those characters’ stories centuries before. To Shaky his plays had simply and permanently worn out their welcome. And modern American television was no substitute. His titanic intellect was tuned to a finer classical wavelength.

What I needed to do therefore was challenge the man afresh. Put a pen in his gnarled little hands and demand he produce a new play.

It would also prove he was who I thought he was.

The idea seemed to me an insight of rare brilliance. My companion might become a vital part of the world again. And the world as reward for its wait would have a newborn play by Shakespeare to add to its treasures. I could see it. Performances worldwide. Scholars nitpicking the hell out of it without appreciating its true beauty. High-school students everywhere cursing his name. Just like the others.

I cleared my tiny kitchen table. I sat him at it and stacked fresh white paper in front of him. I presented him with my best pen.

I said The Globe needs a new play right away. Go to it!

At first Shaky seemed interested only in the stack of paper. He inspected several pieces on both sides as if expecting to see writing already there. Then he examined the pen. He unscrewed it and took out all the parts. He played with the little spring. Then he put his head down on the stack of paper and fell asleep.

The next day I was still hopeful. Rome wasn’t built etc.

I repeated the preparatory procedure of the previous day almost exactly thinking a ritualistic approach to the project might convey the importance of the activity. Then I put the pen in Shaky’s hand and put his hand to the paper. 

Write! I commanded.

He took the pen apart like before and examined its guts. I took those pieces away. I handed him a cheaper pen that didn’t unscrew and he spent five minutes trying to unscrew it. Then he dropped the pen onto the slanted tabletop and watched it roll onto the floor. This seemed to delight him and he repeated the action several times.

I couldn’t help but think little progress was being made.

I had an idea that night. Shakespeare didn’t write with a ballpoint pen. Putting a modern instrument in the Old Man’s hands aroused his curiosity but didn’t excite the vestigial memory of the manner in which he used to make plays. Luckily our city had a colonial past and the next morning at a dingy souvenir shop in the Olde City Shopping Mall I was able to obtain quill and inkwell.

I rushed home with my purchases eager to bestow them on the Bard.

I sat him at the table in front of a pile of paper like before. I wrenched open the squat-shouldered bottle of ink and handed him the quill.

The look on his face! I admit I became a bit teary-eyed when I saw it.

Write! I said.

He did.

He dipped the quill and made a small mark on the paper before pausing and reclining in his chair thoughtfully. Then he moved forward again and made another mark but shook his head in dismay at the result.

I watched him from my seat on the sofa.

A thought broke free at last. Shakespeare bent to the paper with renewed vigor and wrote some large confident letters in the center of the page before virtually collapsing onto the tabletop exhausted.

Being a genius was apparently quite tiring.

After a few minutes I tiptoed around the table and lifted the diminutive poet into my arms to carry him to bed. I put my best blanket over him and made sure he was tucked in tight. 

Then I stole back into the kitchen to see what the great man had written. 

He had written the words sugar bowl.

The next day was Tuesday. My regular day to play chess in the park. I decided to leave the television turned off when I went out and instead placed Shaky in front of his now-familiar stack of paper. When I returned home I found the Old Man dozing in fading golden afternoon light using the stack of paper as his pillow. I made soup and woke him. When he lifted his head there was no writing on the paper beneath yet I noted that his hands were stained with ink.

Before setting Shaky in his place at the table on Wednesday I counted the sheets of paper in the stack. One hundred twenty-five.

Upon returning Wednesday evening I found the Old Man asleep very much in the same way as before. After dinner I counted the paper. One hundred twenty. Shakespeare wrote five pages. Or perhaps he ate them. All I knew was that five pages were gone.

A pattern was formed. I left him alone in the mornings and went out into the world to do whatever chores needed doing then returned home to find some paper missing and Shaky asleep.

I did no exhaustive search of my apartment during that time though I was curious about where he was secreting the work-in-progress. Be strong and restrain yourself I thought. One does not disturb Shakespeare in his writing. 

***

Several weeks passed and Shaky and I settled ourselves into a routine as dull and predictable as that of an old married couple. On weekdays I found an excuse to leave him alone then returned home to make soup before we watched television together for the rest of the evening. I knew he was working because the paper and ink were disappearing with perceptible regularity. On weekends we skipped work and went to the park.  

I thought the best thing to do was remain mum about the play writing project until the finished work appeared. It is said writers are as superstitious as ballplayers. Don’t mention the pitching of a no-hitter until the game is over.

What worried me was that the state of Shakespeare’s health appeared to be deteriorating. He appeared physically frail since the moment we met of course yet there was at that time in his eyes an inner light. He still ate his soup and laughed at McCoy and cried at Seinfeld but I thought his light was dimming. Perhaps he was not strong enough for the stress of trying to produce a new play after four hundred years.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I was afraid I was killing Shakespeare.

***

One day on my way home from the library I found cans of soup on sale at the local supermarket. Two for the price of one. I therefore bought more than usual and had quite an ordeal carrying the surprisingly heavy bags home.

I reached the apartment and clunked the bags down upon the cement stoop with barely strength enough to knock on the front door. Most of this soup is for Shaky I thought. The least he can do is help me inside with it.

There was no answer to my knock but this was not unusual. Shakespeare was generally to be found asleep at this hour either sitting at the table or stretched out nearby on my tattered sofa.

I sighed and dug out my key to let myself in.

When the door yielded I saw that Shakespeare was on the sofa peacefully oblivious to my entry. I went past him to the kitchen cabinet and put most of the soup away and stacked the excess on the counter. Then I turned and was on my way back to wake the Bard when I noticed a bundle of papers on my kitchen table centered upon the ink-spotted area he used for writing. The bundle was tied up with a bit of string.

Shakespeare had finished his play.

I rejoiced inwardly but decided to tease him a bit in case he was actually awake and surreptitiously watching for my reaction to his accomplishment. For the next few minutes I found excuse after excuse to walk around the table tidying the abbreviated space laughably known as my kitchen. I pretended all the while not to have seen the packet he’d left there.

Then I got a terrible feeling and turned to look directly at Shakespeare. After a moment I walked to the sofa and put my hand on his brow. His skin was stone cold. 

Shakespeare was dead.

Again.

After a minute I rose and faced the bundle on the table. I realized then that his play was his goodbye note.

***

The night Shakespeare died. What a night that was.

I take medication for my disability and am not allowed to drink alcohol but decided to buy some anyway so I could toast the Old Man. At the liquor store I bought the cheapest bottle of whiskey they had. The label featured a drawing of a mule kicking a guy in the head.

At home I sat on the floor and filled a juice glass with whiskey. I silently toasted my dead friend on the couch then threw the brown liquid down my throat. As an inexperienced drinker I fully expected to choke and cough and sputter the way inexperienced drinkers do in the movies. Though my eyes burned a bit I didn’t do that. I liked it.

My grief had three layers. The first was a sort of generalized mournfulness I felt on behalf of the world at large which had just lost a reborn version of its greatest playwright.

I also experienced a rueful pang for the man himself. He was an uncontested genius who died in diminished circumstances stretched out on a wheezy sofa. Alone.

Mostly I felt sorry for myself. Shakespeare was my friend. Due to circumstances I won’t describe here he was the only real friend I’ve ever had. The pain was piercing and exacerbated by the knowledge that I wouldn’t be able provide my friend with the funeral or recognition he deserved. I simply didn’t have the financial means or the social skills and emotional wherewithal to deal with arranging a proper ceremony to acknowledge Shakespeare’s passing.

And the world believed he had lived only one life and that one ended four hundred years ago. I’d have a hell of a time convincing people that the body in my apartment belonged to anyone but a bum I found on the street.

That’s when I decided to look at the play.

I sat at the table and undid the string. I was not so overburdened with grief that I was unaware of History standing at my shoulder.

I riffled through the pages and examined through numerous cross-outs and smeared blots of ink the Old Man’s cramped and spidery scrawl.

As you may have guessed the play was utter gibberish.

***

I awoke with a start a few hours later then inwardly congratulated the manufacturer of the whiskey for adhering to truth in labeling regulations. I definitely felt as if a mule had kicked me in the head.

Nonetheless I drank some more. The bottle was mostly gone when I decided to look at the play again with less expectant eyes. Surely there is something worth salvaging in it I thought. The fact that that old man had written it at my behest endowed the work with value even if it held none in a literary sense. Or even a sensical sense.

I would analyze the manuscript word by word. What else did I have to occupy me?

First the title centered on the top page. It was not Sugar Bowl. A single word beginning with an R.

Rorschach? Ravioli? Ringworm?

No. Ringworm by William Shakespeare? I thought not.

I let my eye trace over the script without judgment attempting to take the word in as a whole.

Rosamond?

Yes. The more I peered at it the more certain I became. The title had a nice ring to it though I was ignorant about what it might refer to.

I have no computer or internet so I looked up the name Rosamond in the index of one of my old English Lit texts and found it in a bibliographic list of titles composed by Swinburne. A blank verse drama. This was either a coincidence or a not-unprecedented outright steal although since Shakespeare lived both before and after Swinburne which author would be considered to have stolen from which?

In any case I returned to the work Shaky left me and to my great surprise quickly deciphered the setting. Ancient Italy in the days of the Teutonic invasions.

With growing excitement I realized the play was not gibberish. Far from it.

I got no more sleep that night. I spent hours un-encrypting the text and during that span made remarkable headway. I transcribed the play in its entirety and learned among other things that Shakespeare was a rotten speller and whimsical punctuator. Nonetheless the words fell into place and I believe I recognized about ninety percent of them.

I will summarize the story of the play.

The princes of two rival Teutonic tribes meet by chance in a rural mountain pass and they fight. Alboin of the Lombardi slays his rival but forgets to carry away the other man’s bloody armaments afterward for trophies as is the custom of the day. Alboin’s father the King therefore refuses his son a seat at his banquet table upon his return to court. To restore his honor Alboin takes forty warriors to the castle of the rival king and demands his spoils.

Alboin’s boldness pays off. He is solemnly presented with the dead man’s armaments. But while amongst his rivals Alboin spies another treasure he covets. Standing silently near the banquet table is Princess Rosamond. The enemy king’s daughter is tall and blonde and blue-eyed and fierce. The Teutonic ideal. Taking his bold imposition a step further Alboin impulsively demands her hand in marriage. The rival king is now outraged and refuses. Determined but outnumbered Alboin pretends to return home only to sneak back alone to the castle. After bribing a guard to be alone with Rosamond his awkward and ineloquent attempt at wooing her fails. Outraged by Rosamond’s rebuffs and overcome with lust he takes the princess’s virginity by force.

A bloody war ensues and Alboin kills Rosamond’s father in battle. Afterwards Alboin thinks it the height of proper etiquette to have the dead king’s skull gilded so that the trophy can serve double duty as a rather large drinking cup. He also takes Rosamond as war booty and marries her just after his own father dies. Now Alboin is king and Rosamond is queen of the Lombardi.

One cold night Alboin hosts a particularly rowdy drinking banquet which is not a surprise since it is the chief feature of his government. He decides it might be funny to have his new wife drink some wine out of her dead father’s skull. Rosamond refuses. He forces the issue at knife point saying that his queen must “rejoice with her father.”

Next comes what I would deem the signature moment of the play. Rosamond reluctantly takes hold of the skull filled to the maxillae with sloshing wine and with her hands trembling raises it to her lips. She also utters a quiet prayer which is really a curse. Alboin will pay for his insult with his own life.

When the castle is quiet Rosamond lets an assassin into the royal bedchamber where she has attempted to exhaust the king with lovemaking. Sensing a trap Alboin wakes and reaches for his sword. But Rosamond has secured it in its scabbard. Alboin is slain.

In the days that follow it quickly becomes clear Rosamond does not have the wherewithal to hold the Lombardi kingdom together after her bold act. She flees the outraged populace and takes with her as protector a clod named Helmichis whom she impulsively marries. The couple hides out with a rich neighbor named Longinus who also yearns for r the beautiful Rosamond. Rosie likes Longinus too and decides she might as well use him to trade up from her current kinda boring spouse.

Still disturbed by the bloody mess of her first husband’s slaying Rosie this time decides to try poison. As Helmichis is exiting the bath next morning she is waiting by the tub and hands him a deadly cup of wine. Helmichis is an oaf but he is a well-traveled oaf and knows what poison is said to taste like. Though aware that it’s too late to save his own life Helmichis grabs his nearby dagger and holds it to his wife’s lovely throat. Rosamond can either drink the rest of the poison herself or be stabbed to death.

Rosie waffles a bit in a beautifully phrased speech. Then she chooses the poison and drinks it. Attention scholars. Note the parallel between this scene and the one in which Rosamond is forced to drink from her father’s skull.

It is at this juncture that the acute reader will realize the play is ending since in typical tragic Shakespearean fashion the stage is now decorated with dead bodies.

***

I awoke later that morning in very much the same position I regularly found Shakespeare. Sitting before a stack of paper at the table with my head resting on my hands. When I rose I realized how remarkably terrible I felt. My head pounded with pain. My neck ached. My mouth felt full of cotton. The mule was still at work.

No more drinking for me I decided. Never again.

I spent some time contemplating the remains of my friend. The problem of his final disposition plagued me. In the end I decided to put off a decision on how best to proceed until a time when I thought my head would be clearer.

I’ll distract myself by reading the play one more time I thought.

When I sat down to look at the pages I quickly realized that during the night something extraordinary had happened. Shakespeare’s version of Rosamond had once again become mere gibberish in my eyes. It was all scrawls and inkblots. The whole thing was utterly illegible. Even the title. How in the world did it ever seem coherent to me?

I hesitated a moment before taking up my transcribed version fearing a similar revelation. I discovered that the pages I penned were intact.

***

Many months have now passed Shakespeare died. The play he left behind is my most treasured possession. The more I read it the greater the amazement I feel regarding my small part in producing it. 

How did an isolated innocent man such as myself extract such a lovely thing from meaningless marks on a page? The plot and the characters and perhaps even some of the more felicitous turns of phrase I might conceivably have invented however unlikely the prospect. But the inwrought sensuality and the monstrously beautiful humanity of the play? Well it’s clear those were given as gifts. The sorts of things I am sure I could not have conjured on my own.

DL Shirey lives in Portland, Oregon under skies the color of bruises. Occasionally he lightens up, but his dark fiction can be found in Confingo, Zetetic, Liquid Imagination and in anthologies from Truth Serum Press and Literary Hatchet. Short of listing them all, visit www.dlshirey.com and @dlshirey on Twitter.

                                    "’Thou art a creature of the magicians. Return to thy dust’.”
                                                             (TALMUD: Sanhedrin, 65b)

                       “Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness …
                            a better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist …”
                                                                (Jorge Luis Borges)


“Your assistant is remarkable, Mr. Ashe,” the customer commented before he paid for his books and left. “He knows where everything is. He never hesitates and can locate anything in the store, no matter how obscure.”

He regarded me over the top of his eyeglasses before continuing.

“Just a few moments ago, the young man located a 1904 first edition of Runeberg’s Krist och Judas from deep in your stacks, as well as Pierre Menard’s masterful translation of Don Quixote. You’re fortunate. It’s so hard to get good help these days.”

To call Menard’s Quixote a mere ‘translation’ was, of course, blasphemous, still, the man was right in at least one regard. I had gone through numerous assistants over the past few years and Gus was easily the best. I owned a large antiquarian bookstore specializing in metaphysics and, well. the esoteric, and thus couldn’t offer much by way of pay or benefits. Frankly, I made just enough to keep body and soul together by catering to a small but devoted clientele. By no stretch of the imagination, however, could I compete with the large chain stores such as Barnes and Noble or the Internet behemoths like Amazon … that abomination!

But then, the people who frequented my shop weren’t likely to find what they were looking for in those places in any case. To be sure, anyone who went to work for me had to be willing to do so for far less than what they most certainly would have been offered somewhere, anywhere, else. Not only was Gus good at what he did, he did it for next to nothing. You might even say that he was heaven-sent.

Gus had what could only be described as an eidetic memory as to the placement of every volume in the shop, and that was something considering that I had books stacked upon books and crammed in every nook and cranny of the two creaking floors that make up my aging establishment. Just last week, for example, a South American collector dropped by looking for an early edition of Marcelo Yarmolinsky’s History of the Hasidim. I knew I had a copy of that learned rabbi’s work … somewhere. I was about to ask the man to call back in a day or two, thus giving me a chance to hunt it up. Gus, however, had the book in a matter of moments.

I should also say that Gus did his work efficiently and without hesitation. No matter how menial or how daunting a task was set before him, Gus got to it without complaint. He was virtually tireless and, at times, would work for hours (literally!) without so much as looking up.

I have a few close friends who own businesses, and they are forever complaining about how much time is wasted by their employees; taking cigarette breaks, making personal calls and otherwise frittering away the hours on their personal devices. The fact that Gus did none of those things made it easier to put up with his other eccentricities. For one thing, Gus couldn’t talk; he was mute save for the ability to make a grunting sound which served, most of the time, as a means of expressing agreement or compliance.

Then there was his appearance, which could only be characterized as disheveled. That effect was further reinforced by his shambling gait. Arguing that the image of the store was in some regard dependent on how he looked, I took the liberty of buying him some clothes. Nothing Gus wore, however, seemed to fit him properly. Everything hung off him in a vaguely disturbing fashion. The only thing that didn’t look strangely askew or out of place on him was the back watch cap that he always wore no matter the weather.

Having no family or friends to speak of apart from me and no where to live, Gus stayed in a small room located to the back of the shop on the first floor. I trusted him and was more than happy to have someone on the premises at all times. When people questioned me about our rather strange arrangement or, as was more often the case, asked where I had managed to find Gus – who seemed simply to appear in the store one day – I explained that he was a distant relative from Eastern Europe. His parents had been killed during one of the numerous ethnic conflicts that simmered continually below the surface of life in that ancient and tribal part of the world and which were fanned into flame from time to time even in our own day. The peculiarities that beset Gus, I would continue, were the result of the consequent trauma and deprivation he experienced as a child.

“It’s so nice of you to take him in like that, Ashe,” a long-time client said once after I finished recounting Gus’ story. Gus, had, by the way, just fetched the 1939 edition of the ill-fated Jaromir Hladik’s The Enemies from somewhere on the second floor for the man. And so it was that, in very little time – and no doubt in part owing to his uncanny ability – most of my customers accepted Gus without further inquiry and certainly without complaint. Many of my patrons whose tastes, admittedly, ran toward the eccentric and the arcane, undoubtedly also felt that the presence of someone like Gus added a certain charm, or more accurately, a degree of rather outré character or ambience to the establishment.

And that, I think, is where the trouble started. One or more of my competitors, of which there were a handful, fed up with the antics of their own employees and searching for that certain je ne sais quoi with which to set their shoe-string operations apart from the pack in these tough economic times, must have approached Gus in an attempt to lure him to work for them. Obviously, that was something that I simply could not allow.

The change in Gus was quite subtle. Indeed, anyone who did not know him as well as I would probably not have noticed anything untoward. Yet both his work ethic and, so far as it could be established with one so singularly uncommunicative by nature, his attitude, took a decided turn for the worse. His background notwithstanding, I was stung by his lack of gratitude considering everything that I had done for him. In fact, it would not have been an exaggeration to say that everything he had become – such as it was and given his incredible limitations – had been because of me. That a creature like Gus could fall prey to something akin to ambition was, well, remarkable, unprecedented even.

As the days and weeks passed, it became clear to me that drastic measures had to be taken. The thought of Gus turning on me or, worse, being lured away by an unscrupulous bookseller was more than I could bear. Besides, explaining why it would be unthinkable (impossible, even!) for Gus to work for anyone else would have been uncomfortable in the extreme. Although deeply regretful of my subsequent decision, I knew precisely what had to be done.

One night while Gus was sleeping – or while he was doing what for him passed as sleep – I returned to the shop and let myself into his room. The fact that he lay with his eyes open only made matters even more distasteful. When I lifted the watch cap off his forehead exposing the word Emet that was written there he, of course, offered no resistance. “I’m truly sorry, my friend,” I said. Then quickly, reluctantly, I erased the first letter of the inscription. With that the dread term Met resulted and Gus gave a shudder. In a matter of seconds, all that remained of him was a pile of the dust from which he had been formed.

****

Explaining the sudden disappearance of Gus to my customers, who are in general a credulous lot, has been far simpler than finding someone to replace him. Once again, I’ve hired, fired or received resignations from one assistant after another. I have a particularly prickly buyer waiting to receive a promised copy of the extremely elusive Volume XLVII of The Anglo-American Cyclopaedia from 1917. I know it is around here somewhere. If things continue like this, I’ll have no choice but to bring Gus – or someone very much like him – back. The problem is, I can’t remember the formula. I’ve spent what little free time I now have searching for a tome by R. Eleazar ben Judah of Worms which contains his famous Commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah but so far, I can’t find it. If Gus were here, though, he’d be able to put his misshapen hands on it in an instant.

Author’s Note: All the texts mentioned in this story, save the Talmud and the Commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah are, so far as I know, non-existent; they are the invention of the great Argentinian fantasist, Borges.

I was sitting with Snatchko in Mumbai Masala, wolfing down as much of the buffet as $11.99 would get me, when the couple walked in. Or maybe they weren’t a couple. Co-workers, classmates, former inmates of the same institution. They came in, sat down behind us, and she immediately says, “I just don’t know how much more I can take.” Then the monstrous sigh.

“I’m tellin’ ya,” Snatch tells me. “People are fools to go into nursing homes. We keep them geezers so zoned out they don’t know which end is up. They can’t even plan an escape. The ones that wander off are looking for the living room of a house they lived in in 1968.”

“There’s got to be something you can do, some recourse,” the man responded.

“I’m going back in,” I announced. “Cover me.” When I returned, heaping plate in hand, I saw the two ordering from the menu. This was how the financially solvent lived, ordering off the menu when the buffet would see them into the next day. Or maybe I was a bitter peon. Or maybe it really was a dire strait she was in, and at times like that you don’t worry about an extra seven bucks when you’re miles from shore and the bilge has risen past your ankles. I resumed the assault on my digestive tract with the paneer makhani which, like myself, was a bit salty.

“I filled out the forms, I jumped through all the hoops,” she continued. “They just don’t let you say you’re sorry! Doesn’t everyone make mistakes?”

“So. I tell the nursing supervisor that there’s old folk not getting their meds, other old folk getting too much, and half the staff is wandering around blasted on the narc that gets lost in the shuffle. You know what she says to that? She asks me if I like working there. The implied threat, all that.” Snatch gestured with a skewered pakora. “I got the message.”

Outside, the sky was trying to decide whether or not to vomit. The air out there left condensation on you the moment you walked out the door. I reminded myself to be grateful for this air conditioned oasis with its fantastic cuisine and, oh, there’s the handsome young server now, refilling my water glass. The secret to happiness is realizing you’re already in heaven. The falafel was (were?) delicious, lightly breaded, and taken out of the fryer the moment they were done. I held a bite in my mouth, letting it slowly disintegrate. Through the window I could see the horizon turning the faintest shade of green. Hurricane weather.

“So I’m starting over. Thirty years old next month and I’m beginning all over again. It really feels like it’s too late.” Another sigh, this one though her mouth, using her cheeks as bellows. That’s a great stress-reducing technique, but she could have been blowing into the mainsail of the Santa Maria for all the good it did her.

“If you wind up at Happy Acres, it’s your own damned fault.” Snatch was angry now. No spring chicken, mortality was evidently tugging at his dentures. “You were either nasty to your children or you raised selfish jerks or you didn’t have kids and didn’t plan. Not me, man. I’ve got a .357 magnum. The trick is not waiting until it’s too late to make your decision, to make your move.”

Behind us, the poor woman finally disassembled. Her voice wailed in a whisper.

“It was my last appeal...”

Outside, thunder gave us a round of applause.

Slow burning roadside mulleins
signal with a dim yellow flame,
poor, compacted soil.
Consider also Queen Anne’s
thigh high lace beside butter
and eggs that wink like old neon.
Chicory caps the mood:
petals a blue men wish to find
in women’s eyes they are fool enough
to skid to stops for.
Sunrise shovels and picks
disturb shoulder earth:
suburban transplants
that never take
to the straight and narrow.

The soup made
standing the mid
watch worth it.
Particularly
the chicken
variety
its noodles
chopped
so small as
to not
remind you
of a knot
you were trying
to master for
seaman practical
factors
but Christ
salty enough
to twitch
your fingers.

Lecturing grave and monument
flames are pilot lights
rekindling what guilt dictates.
And the fiery auto wrecks
work too, their drivers
whose untimely
urges to switch stations
did them in but not
the evangelists
railing on and on wearing
the sturdy radio waves
like grace or asbestos.

“What…, no way,” she said, “… For real?”

“Uh-huh, but keep it on the down-low. It’s very hush-hush.”

“Well, if that’s true, where do you go?”

“Just where you’d expect; it’s where people usually go for that sort of stuff.”

“You mean Stiffy Joe’s?”

I nodded.

“Bullshit, I’ve never seen any in the shop window. Never seen it advertised. You’re having me on, Tim.”

I laughed. “’Course you’ve never seen any, you silly moo. It’s illegal, be bad for business, wouldn’t it! Frighten the punters away.”

“As if hunting trophies don’t? But anyway, how much does it cost?”

“No idea.”

“Well, how long does it take then?”

“No idea; it’s not the sort of thing I’ve done before or am ever likely to.”

“Well, you’re not much bloody use then, are you!”

“Excuse me for trying to help, Liz – I told you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, I s’pose, thanks. Can I ask another favour?”

Stiffy Joe’s

“Is Joe in?” Liz asked.

I shuffled about, surveying the macabre interior. There was no one else in the shop, the place was like a morgue. I re-directed my eyes from a dead opossum clutching a fake tree to a rigid bichon frisé urinating underneath. I exhaled loudly, totally avoiding eye contact with a goth shop assistant who had miraculously appeared without an accompanying flash of sulphur and smoke. Clearly, she was also trying to avoid eye contact with me.

“The jerk’s on his constitutional.”

“You mean the toilet?”

“No, a coffee break: an americano every day at 1.45 pm. His constitutional right, he says. The 9th amendment, the unenumerated right to a coffee break. Friggin’ freak!”

The shop assistant added without intent, “Can I help?”

Liz hesitated, pacing side to side.

“… I’m… not… sure.”

“I’m fully qualified, you know. I apprenticed with Joe – for three years!”

“Oh…” Liz started.

I interrupted, trying to sound important: “It’s a special job,” parenthesising ‘special’ with my index fingers.

The shop assistant immediately changed her attitude. Not for the better.

“Come back after 2 pm.”
She turned and walked away.

Bats don’t like the light, I thought, She’s probably gone out the back to hang upside down.

“I guess it’s not everybody’s cup of tea,” I said, trying to reassure Liz.

“Coffee?” she prompted.

“Rum?” I countered.

“Rum.”

I smiled.

36DD’s – The Dyslexics Bra

“Better than Hooters,” I said.

Liz rolled her eyes like she always did.

Our drinks arrived.

“Why,” I asked, “… why?”

“You mean Hector?”

I nodded.

“I just want him around forever, I s’pose.”

“Still don’t get it!”

“Well,” she said, “Can’t live with him, can’t live without him. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Can’t argue with that,” I said. “Up your bum,” I added, raising my glass while checking out the barmaid.

“Have you thought where you’d put him?”

“No.”

“I guess you have to be a bit careful about that.”

“What ya mean?”

“Well…,” I said, just as the hot chips arrived. “Could we have some ketchup, please?”

“Lots of it,” Liz chimed in. “It always reminds me of thick sticky blood – sweet.”

“Good chips,” I said after a minute. “Pass the salt.”

Two hours later, chips and ketchup and a few rums onboard, we were back at Stiffy Joe’s.

“I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“Snooty bitch,” Liz cursed quietly.

“Shush! She’s getting him, isn’t she?” I said.

Thirty seconds later, a disheveled man escaped from the plastic strip door curtain.

“I’m Joe,” he announced. “Whatcha want?”

Liz hesitated.

“A private chat about a private job,” I said, tempted to use my index fingers again to emphasize ‘private.’

“What?”

“A private chat about a private job,” I repeated.

“Why are you whispering, you fool? What do you want?”

“A private chat,” I said, now surprising and frightening myself with my increased volume.

“Is that right?”

“I think we should go,” Liz interrupted, clearly feeling uncomfortable.

“Your choice,” the sasquatch hippy with Joe engraved on his badge said.

“Hang on, Liz, are you sure?”

She looked at me, eyes searching for her thoughts.

“… Um… Um.”

“Can we go somewhere private?” I suggested, this time pulling the trigger fingers.

He looked at me strangely, then said, “Come through then, follow me.”

Wild-eyed birds watched our movements as we entered the bowels of Stiffy Joe’s. The stench of stringent chemicals hit me hard, nearly bowling me over.
The shop cat stared, frozen to a spot on the back bench.

“Well…?” he asked, reaching for his tobacco pouch.

I gulped. “We heard you did special jobs?”

“Who said that?” the old man responded, suspicion in his eyes, tobacco shred in his moustache.

“Just a rumour I heard.”

“Rumours are like dicky spirit levels. They can put you wrong, my friend. If they’re not correct, they make things unbalanced. Put you out of kilter. Make you make bad decisions.”

Bang!

Liz and I jumped, my heart froze, my mouth opened involuntarily.

I spun around, spied a red squirrel dead on the concrete floor; it must have fallen out of the faux fir tree in the corner.

Liz gasped.

Joe ejected a single expletive. “Crikey.”

Heart beating again, I asked, “Okay… okay, let’s say you did ‘special jobs,’ how much would that kind of thing cost?”

Taking his time, the old man deftly rolled a cigarette – then expelled air from his lungs, preparing for an onslaught of incoming smoke.

“Same price range as a funeral,” he answered. “Some people want bells and whistles; some just want a cardboard casket. Some people send their loved ones off in a golden shroud and a Mercedes Benz; others, well, they can’t get rid quick enough, no-frills, nothing fancy. A sheet, a hole in the ground, or a can of kerosine, and a lighter.”

Liz shook her head, looked down at her feet.

It was my turn to expel air. “Even an el-cheapo funeral is $5k. That’s pretty expensive.”

“Piss off,” the old man spat back. “It’s friggin cheap at twice the price. Think of the advantages. Cemeteries are running out of room; they’re starting to double-deck plots, bury people standing up. Do you want that? Cremation pollutes the air – releases carbon into the atmosphere. What I offer is a chance to be with your loved one forever. Do burials and cremation offer that?”

“So, is there a top end, then? You say minimum $5k, what’s the upper limit?”

“Most people spend between $12k and $15k. That’s a quality product that will last a lifetime. So, what do you think?”

I deferred to Liz: “What do you think, Liz?”

“I’m not sure, I don’t know,” she replied timidly.

“Jesus, Mary, and the whole freaking cavalcade of saints; don’t waste my time, lady: I’ve two dogs and a cat to mount.”

I stalled for time. “You got a portfolio or something? So my friend can see what you can do.”

“Guy or girl?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The bloody model, the specimen: guy or girl.”

“Guy.”

“She better not be a friggin’ tyre kicker, mate.” He said staring at me as if I was in charge. He stormed over to the back bench, threw some papers around then came back with a chemical-stained folder.

“This is what I can do.”

Inside the folder was a catalogue filled with models in different poses.

“Let me walk you through it.

“Picture One is our base model. The price of $5k includes mounting but minimal animation. What you see is what came in. Might not look glamorous – but it’ll never age, and it comes with our thirty-year guarantee.”

Liz recoiled and grunted, “Yuk, it’s not very flattering.”

“Natural though: this guy fell off a ladder, landed in a thorn bush, and broke his neck. His wife was very pleased with the realism.

“Now, number two is $6k. It includes a more natural look, with a bit more animation.”

“Erg, gross.” Liz turned her head away.

“This guy was frightened to death, but his wife didn’t want to change a thing! She liked the idea that he saw it coming.

“Number three – sports pose! I was told this weedy guy was a wimp but always wanted to be a boxer. His girlfriend wanted his dream to come true. Not my cup of chimp juice, but she was happy enough.”

Liz shook her head.

“Now, number four, very proud of this one - $7.5k. He was a writer. The main difference is the facial hair. You see? That stubble will be there for eternity, and he’ll never have to shave.”

“I’ve seen that guy before,” I interrupted.

“Yeah, probably; he’s parked in the west corner of the town library. He wanted to be put there, close to his precious books. Patrons of the library think he’s a statue. The pipe isn’t really lit – the library is a public building, you see – non-smoking.”

I smiled. “Yeah…yeah…that’s right, that’s him!”

At last, Joe decided to light his rollie – inhaled a deep draught of rum-soaked tobacco. My nostrils flared in attraction. Rum, I thought.

“Number five. Similar, but the props are more elaborate, fancy. Came with the chair, trilby, and mohair suit—$ 10k.

“Number six. Wannabe gangster look. In fact, this guy was a gangster. His father is a crime lord. He wanted a reminder of his son. The old man ordered a hit on him. The unfortunate lad had eyes for his father’s missus and a bit of a sweet tooth!”

“A sweet tooth?”

“Yeah, he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar!”

“Oh,” I said.

“Rigor mortis had set in by the time I got to him, so I put a gun in his hand. Good thinking ae’, and quality all the way with this one. $12.5k – worth every cent.”

“Number 7, top of the range! $17k! This guy was in the military, killed on active service. His wife wanted something to remember him by. Better than a flag and a medal – don’t ya think?”

“Was he killed in a battle?” Liz asked

“Hell, no, he was electrocuted repairing a hot water cylinder; he was an army electrician. Must have been a shit one at that.

“So, that gives you an idea of what I can do; whatcha think? You interested?”

I looked at Liz.

She nodded.

“How much did you want to spend then?”

“Um,” she said, “$10k, but that would be my top budget for sure – the max.”

“Good, we’re getting somewhere now.” Joe smiled. “Thought of a pose or style?

“Something natural, nothing too posed.”

“Okay, good. What did he like? Tell me something about him.”

Liz smiled. “He loves… I mean, he loved parties. He loved football. He’s Dutch… I mean was Dutch – from Holland.”

“That’s good; it’s given me a few ideas – maybe a party pose, a football celebration, something like that. Put him in an orange tee. I could do that for $10k. When can I see the model? When can you bring him in?”

Liz hesitated, turned bright red.

I jumped in to help her. “That’s where there’s a bit of a problem.”

“Problem? For God’s sake, you are freakin’ wasting my time. What problem?”

“Well… Shall I tell, or will you?” I asked Liz.

“You.”

Joe looked at me expectantly; I could tell it was more than gravity wearing his smile down. He was pissed off.

“Well… He’s not dead yet!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

“But, he will be, will be soon,” Liz quickly added.

Hands-on hips, Joe rolled his eyes.

“I take deposits,” he said, after a minute. “10% non-refundable. I’m the only guy in town who does this kind of work – so I reckon you got no choice.”

“That’s ridiculous; why would we pay you a deposit?”

“Because if you don’t, I might say no, and then you’ll have a body to dispose of, a body due to an unexplained death, or I just might tell the cops what you told me! Your choice.”

I looked about the backroom; dozens of marbled eyes inserted into manky pelts stared back at me. It was clear Joe traded in misery and revelled in it.

“We need time to think.”

“Fair enough,” Joe said, throwing the butt to the floor, stubbing it out with his hairy feet, then kicking it toward the staring squirrel. “But don’t take too long. I’m having my brother over for lunch on Sunday afternoon. He’s a cop. Me and him like to spin a few yarns, share a drink or two. Who knows what might pop up after a couple of beers?”

I looked about again. Well, it won’t be a live meerkat, I thought.

“What’s the best way to kill him?”

The unabashed tone and gravity of Liz’s question stood out like the balls of the mangey elk standing in the east corner. Like me, it looked confused, although it was standing spread-legged in front of a pathetically painted mountain diorama. I think I knew how it felt.

What the hell? I added to my thoughts. I turned to Liz, wearing a what-the-fuck face.
She had steely eyes; determination engraved on her face.

“What’s the best way? A way that doesn’t affect the skin and a way to make sure I won’t get caught.”

“Poison,” Joe responded immediately. “Yep, poison’s the go, doesn’t leave a mark, difficult to prove.”

Liz smiled. “Let me think about your offer then; give me a chance to raise the $1k deposit. I’ll only need 24 hours. I can come back tomorrow at 1.30 pm; I can bring some coffee if you want?”

“Well, that’s about when I take a coffee break, so why not? I drink Americanos.”

Liz turned to me. “What about you, Tim? Can you make it?”

“Sure, why not?” I parroted, “I’ll try an Americano as well.”

“Too easy.”

Liz’s flat - reprised

“Thanks for coming with me today, Tim.”

“No worries, but are you sure you want to do this?”

“Do what?”

“Well… you know what I mean… Do this to Hec, get into bed with that freak Stiffy Joe?”

“I’m doing it for him! Securing his future.”

I stared back at her; she was deadly serious. She was clearly deranged. I started to question my involvement.

“You still cool about tomorrow?” she asked, perhaps sensing my fading enthusiasm.

“Sure,” I lied.

“I’m phoning Hec tonight; I’ll ask when he’s coming back. He’s at a Gun conference in Wellington. Hopefully, he’ll be back the day after tomorrow. He’s sure in for one hella-of a big surprise!”

I gulped and decided to have a tall rum when I got home.

Stiffy Joe’s - again

The shop doorbell chimed as I walked in.

I’d arrived five minutes early, so I looked around the shop. Stiffy Joe’s was a carrion cornucopia for the depraved; what once were beautiful lythe breathing animals were now buckram beasts of grotesque rigidity. I shivered.

The goth appeared out of nowhere. “Oh, for God’s sake, it’s only you.” She rolled her eyes and blew a ginormous strawberry coloured bubble gum bubble. It popped, making me jump.

She looked pastier than yesterday, crispier whitewashed face, shinier bottle black hair. The coloured language stayed the same, though.

Not surprised, I thought, working in a place like this, with a boss like Joe.

“I’ll let him know you’re here,” she said.

The doorbell chimed again. Liz walked in carrying a cardboard tray with three coffees safely inserted.

I smiled a half-smile. The goth returned, offering a quarter smile and a wink to Liz.
“Come through,” Joe called from behind the tacky red and black plastic curtain, bringing back childhood memories of old butchers’ shops.

No greeting. I wasn’t surprised.

“You got the money?” he asked.

Liz nodded, smiled. “Coffee?”

I’d only taken a sip when I felt my throat clamp shut; I struggled to breathe. My guts were set alight. I was on fire. I felt my body start to shake, my eyes bulge. I began to convulse; I tried to focus. I saw Joe lying on the ground, holding his throat. I fell. I looked up, squinted, saw Liz standing over us. She was smiling.

Liz’s flat - again

“Mmm, so nice to see you, Hec! I missed you so much!”

“Whoa, settle down, Liz, aren’t you Miss Frisky today? I’ve just walked in the door; there’ll be plenty of… Whoa, you have missed me!”

Liz looked up. “You not like?”

“You know I do, but I’ve just got in; I didn’t shower this morning. Let me have a coffee and a shower first!”

“Oh, you spoil all the fun. I might change my mind, you know – you might not be so lucky later!”

Hec smiled and helped Liz off her knees. “I’ll take that risk!”

“Let me make you a coffee,” she suggested. “You go have a quick shower now.”

“Awesome, I’ll be quick; I have so much to tell you about the conference.”

Liz smiled.

Five minutes later, Hec exited the bathroom.

“Phew, that feels better.”

“Here’s your coffee,” Liz said. “Sit down and tell me about Wellington.”

“Well,” he stated, “I’m pretty keen to get started; after talking to lots of people, I reckon there’s still a market out there.”

“I’m so pleased you said that,” Liz said. “I’ve got something to show you; follow me.”

Hec grinned. “I’m up for anything, Liz; you look so naughty today.”

Hec followed her to the garage.

“Look in the freezer Hec; I think you’ll like what you see.”

“Oh my God, Liz, oh my God, what have you done? Oh fuck, that’s Tim, isn’t it? And– oh shit, oh shit, is that Stiffy Joe?”

“Yep,” she beamed. “Got rid of the competition for you; now you can open your taxidermist shop and not worry about the competition. And you get a chance to practice on some models. I’ve even got your first employee for you. She’s fully qualified!”

“Holy fuck, Liz! You know when I said I wouldn’t mind stuffing some people...You know I was joking, right?”

Isaac saw himself standing on the bimah before the lectern on a Saturday morning. He wore his royal blue tallit with silver embroidery. He looked out over the sanctuary as he prepared himself to deliver his sermon and saw a sea of empty seats. The southeastern sunlight seeped through the cracks of the bedroom blinds and through his closed eyelids. He heard the rhythmic breathing of his wife beside him; he heard the trills of the song sparrows as they twirled by the bird feeder his wife had hung under the backyard sugar maple. He opened his eyes and took several deep breaths. “Modeh Ani,” he whispered the first words of the morning prayer. “I offer thanks before you, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great.”

Carefully slipping out from under the blankets, he went about his morning rituals of showering, beard trimming, and eating a breakfast of granola, soy milk, and orange slices. After sitting in silence for fifteen minutes in the breakfast nook, he left for the day, gently closing the front door of his three-bedroom bungalow on Chestnut Street, leaving his wife and two children still asleep inside. He ambled through his neighborhood of small bungalows, admiring the well-kept front gardens, and pulled the collar of his long coat up around his neck in an attempt to keep out the chill fall breeze. At Grand Avenue, he turned right and proceeded past the Oracle Movie Theater. Rabbi Stein glanced up at the water stains and cracked windows on the facade as he walked by at a fast pace. The decaying facade filled him with melancholy. The movie theater had been empty for the past ten years. He hoped that an adventuresome entrepreneur would buy the building and transform it into a new enterprise.

Isaac unlocked the back door of Beth Israel at eight am and stepped into his office. A pile of papers and journals awaited him on his desk. He had dismissed his longtime secretary, Louisa, two months ago. The dues paying members of his congregation had dwindled over the years along with the funds to pay his secretary, the Saturday morning guard and the janitor. He sifted through the papers, turned on the computer, checked his email. After napping at his desk for twenty minutes, he picked up one of the journals and read of Maimonides’ views on the Messiah. “The Messiah will be a very great king,” the rabbi read aloud. “His great righteousness and the wonders that he will bring about will cause all peoples to make peace with him. Though he may tarry, yet do we wait for him each day.” Oy vey, Isaac thought, I’ve been waiting my whole life.

At precisely five pm, Isaac locked the back door of Beth Israel. He walked along Grand Avenue on his way home. When he reached the Oracle Theater, he noticed the posters, three pasted to each side of the main entrance on the plaster wall. He stopped to study the first one he reached. Five women dressed in flowing white dresses that displayed their arms and hid their legs stood on the stage of a theater. They held cobalt blue spherical candle holders in their cupped hands and the flames of the candles lit their faces from below, casting faintly menacing shadows about their eyes and throats. Below the image of the oracles, in Gothic lettering, the poster read, “Grand opening for the New Oracle Theater, Friday evening, October 30th, at eight pm. Bring your questions and the oracles will provide the answers.” And, in fine print at the bottom, “We request that all questions be submitted in writing and anonymously. Your identity will not be revealed.”

Oracles? The rabbi thought as he stroked his graying beard. What would Maimonides think? I could always ask a question. Ask about the Messiah. But what would they know? Who are these oracles?

Isaac walked the rest of the way home, to his bungalow with the two stone piers holding up the porch roof. He proceeded up the stairs. His wife, Sarah, sat on the pine bench reading the Oak Brook Daily. “Did you see the posters?” he asked. “The ones for the New Oracle Theater?”

“They have an ad in the paper. Take a look.” She handed him the newspaper.
“Same as the poster.” He stroked his beard and looked at her. “Whaddya think? Should I ask a question of the oracles?”

“How are they any different than the astrology forecasts in the paper?”
“Maybe they’re in touch with the spirits.”
“Do you believe that? You’re a rabbi, is that part of your training?”
“Think about Moses, the great prophets. God spoke through them.”
“So you think God will speak through these oracles?”
“Not God, but perhaps something, something of the inner spirit, some force that knows more than we do.”

“Rabbi Stein,” she stood up and touched his beard. “Have you been watching Star Wars again?”

#

Over the next few months, on his walks to and from the synagogue, Isaac observed the carpenters, painters, plasterers, and electricians working on the theater.  The water stains were gone and the sculptures of the muses – music, comedy, tragedy, dance – that occupied the niches under the second story cornice line shone with a clarity of detail he had not seen for years.  Isaac would pause in front of the theater to marvel at its renewal and to watch the ballet of the workers as they clambered about the scaffolding, fixing and polishing.

As a boy, he had watched Hollywood comedies and adventures on hazy Sunday afternoons. Inside the theater, Moorish horseshoe arches topped the walls and above him, as the lights slowly dimmed, a cerulean sky faded through to light indigo and then to a dark blue-violet pin-pricked with stars. He would sink into the plush red seats while munching on popcorn as the adventures of Robin Hood took him away from algebra and schoolyard bullies.

As he grew older and sought out other entertainments, the theater on Grand descended into a shabby senescence. Water stains marked the umber exterior, the red seats were shredded as if by the sharp claws of feral cats, and the customers wore dark overcoats and fedoras with faded feathers.

His own children haunted the video arcades and, eventually, fixated on the flat panel computer screens hidden away in their bedrooms. No longer did children congregate in movie theaters or playgrounds with bent basketball rims. They communicated with text messaging and played multi-user online games with compatriots from Chile and Taiwan. His children ignored the posters depicting the oracles, and they wondered why their father would want to ask questions of these strange women when he could simply Google it.

After walking past the theater and continuing home, Isaac began to wonder, who were these oracles? Could they surrender their psyches to a higher wisdom? Or were they simply impostors? Hucksters hired by unscrupulous businessmen. And what questions would he ask? Will the Messiah ever show up? Why was his congregation diminishing? Could he get them back?

On the day of the grand opening, the scaffolding disappeared. The muses gazed out from their perches below the cornice. The blue and white tiles inset within the arched entryway above the oversized doors formed crisp geometric patterns of five, seven, and nine-pointed stars. In the glass of the series of smaller arched windows to each side of the main entryway, Isaac could see his reflection.

He had joined the line at six pm. He read a book, The Multi-Cultural Jew, while he waited. The line grew longer as seven pm approached. At half past seven, a tall man wearing a tuxedo opened the front doors of the theater and beckoned the awaiting crowd to enter. Isaac purchased his ticket and stepped into the renovated lobby.

Persian style carpeting covered the floor and three Moroccan chandeliers with delicate wrought iron patterns like a series of interwoven spider webs hung from the ceiling. Ten booths, each with a curtain to allow for privacy, lined one wall. The tall usher explained that the booths were for privacy while the patrons wrote down their questions on pads of paper inside the booths. The crowd started to form lines in front of the booths. Isaac joined a line. He felt the pat of a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Debbie Luster, a member of his congregation he hadn’t seen for the past few months. “Hello, Rabbi Stein,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I’m as curious as the next person,” he said smiling. “So you can make it to see the Oracles, but not to the temple?”

“Oh, you know how it is, with the kids and the job and the house. I’d like to be attending services, but I’m just so exhausted.”

“Maybe you’d end up with more energy if you showed up to some of the services.”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve been so busy. I’ll think about it for next time,” she looked over his shoulder to see that the Rabbi was now first in line. “Your turn Rabbi Stein.”

“Nice seeing you, Debbie. We’re having a Hindu guru speak next Friday evening. You might find that interesting.”

“Yes, sounds fascinating. What about tonight, Rabbi?”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. Who’s conducting the services?”
“Oh! I asked Cantor Goldberg to take over for tonight. I had to experience the Oracles for myself.”

He stepped inside the booth. Placed on a tall, narrow table he saw a box with inlaid geometric patterns formed of mahogany, ebony, and Mother of Pearl. He hesitated; he pondered; he tapped the pencil on the table top. He wrote down his question and slipped the paper through the slit at the top of the box.

Isaac left the protective cover of the booth and purchased some expensive chocolates from the snack bar. He hoped he wouldn’t see anymore congregation members among the crowd. The lights began to flash on and off. Two more ushers appeared and guided the patrons into the main auditorium. Heads turned up to appreciate the restored ceiling of sky and stars as they filed into the rows and took their seats.

After several minutes, the red curtains parted a few feet and a middle-aged man stepped out onto the stage. He wore a dark navy business suit with a white shirt and a powder blue tie. His black and gray hair was combed straight back from his high forehead. His goatee remained mostly black. He walked to the edge of the stage and looked out at the crowd.

“Thank you all for coming to the grand opening of the New Oracle Theater.” He paused. “Tonight, we present to you a resurgence of the art of the oracle. The tradition of the oracle is a part of our collective history. It is often forgotten, neglected, or even repressed. You may have thought of oracles as part of the past, a lost art, something we have moved beyond, but this tradition has never completely died out. Teachers have passed on their knowledge and techniques to their students. They have done this throughout the ages despite the dangers from various authorities. The five women who will answer your questions tonight are part of that long tradition. They are able to move into a state of mind whereby they tap into a deeper knowledge. This knowledge is available to all of us if we would simply listen.” He smiled, took a slight bow as the audience politely applauded, and retreated from the stage.

The house lights dimmed and the recorded tones of Gregorian chants emanated from the speakers placed within the Moorish arches. The red curtains parted completely and the lights were brightened half-way. The chanting ceased. Five women now stood on the stage, each one about three feet from the other. They wore the graceful, full-length white dresses that were depicted in the promotional posters. Their ages varied from late-twenties to about sixty. Isaac didn’t recognize any of them as being from Oak Brook.

Each woman stood beside a narrow, waste high table with slender, curved legs that flared out as they touched the stage floor. Two of the Moorish boxes sat upon each table. A spotlight highlighted the first woman on the audience’s far right; she was the youngest oracle. She stood with her eyes closed for two minutes as the patrons watched in silence. She then opened her eyes, lifted the lid of one of the boxes and withdrew a piece of paper. She read the question aloud. “I’ve been offered a new job with more pay and prestige, but I would need to move my family to another city if I took the job. I’ve lived here for twenty-five years. I’ve been going back and forth about this for the past three weeks and I must make a decision. What should I do?”

She held the paper in her right hand and placed her hand between her breasts. She closed her eyes. Wisps of steam rose from the cracks in the floorboards in front of her. A scent of faded roses wafted through the theater.

The oracle dropped her right arm to her side and released the paper from her hand. It spiraled to the stage floor. Her head rocked back and forth. Her jaw relaxed and her mouth opened wide to reveal her pink tongue. She began to moan and to utter insensible syllables in a voice deeper and more masculine than her original feminine reading of the question. Isaac looked around to see his neighbors and friends in the audience. Was this all some kind of hoax? he asked himself. Should I even be here?

The Oracle stopped all movement and stared into empty space above the crowd’s heads.

“I speak through this woman. I know of your concerns.” The house lights dimmed further and Isaac could only see the oracle illuminated by the spotlight. “We are often tempted in earthly life by earthly rewards. Whether a merchant or a king, humans seek things that gleam. The golden crown, the amethyst gems, the steel sword. And we want our names emboldened by Sir or Lord, Duke or Duchess.”

Several in the audience coughed while others twisted their torsos in their seats. The oracle continued to speak. “We also desire the love of our children, the love of our spouses, the love of our friends. Our choices in life take us to unforeseen places. To live our best lives, we must be guided by a voice beyond reason, a voice that speaks more to our hearts than to our minds. That voice comes in part through the oracle, but it must come primarily from within your own soul.”

The oracle closed her eyes and her mouth. Her head drooped forward. She began a slow crumbling descent toward the stage. Two male ushers rushed out from the side stage. Each one put an arm around her before she reached the floor and guided her offstage. Several members of the audience began to applaud, at first tentatively, and then the rest joined in their applause. A few stood up as the audience applauded with a loud and rhythmic clapping. Isaac stayed seated. Not a bad answer, he thought, but what about his synagogue or church? After twenty-five years, it’s hard to replace that.

The spotlight now swerved to stage left and shone upon the eldest of the oracles. Her gray hair was cut short except for several long strands on the right side of her forehead that reached to her eyebrows. She was tall and slender, and her face remained largely unlined. She opened the Moorish box on the table next to her and selected one of the notes. “I’ve been thinking of offing myself,” she read. A sin, Isaac thought. Well, a sin to do it, not to think it. “My life has become an empty routine, so dreary. I realize that I’m not alone in this predicament, but I see no reason to go on. Then, why am I asking this question? I suppose I hope there is an answer, a way back to enthusiasm. I’ve seen a shrink, that just makes me feel worse.”

The oracle closed her eyes for a minute or two while she focused her mind. She opened her eyes. There was no dramatic transformation as in the case of the first oracle, but she seemed somehow different. A subtle luminescence surrounded her. She returned the note to the box and shuffled the papers around. “Death will come to you soon enough. To seek it before it comes to meet you will cause great pain both to you and others. Perhaps the tedium you speak of is at least partially of your own making.”

“Oracle!” A male voice called out from the darkest portion of the balcony nearest the upstairs exit. The oracle raised her head and looked toward the balcony. “Why should I live? Tell me why!”

“I cannot provide a reason for you.”
“You sound like my shrink,” he yelled back to her. Several audience members laughed a bit before stifling their laughter.

“Don’t laugh at me! Please don’t laugh at me.”
“And your reason for death?”
“To escape this hell. This hell where I’m not wanted, not valued, not loved.”
“You will find another hell if you force death,” she answered. “You will find a hell far worse than anything you may be encountering in this world.”
“How do you know that?”

“I have died many times, sometimes with great peace and other times with great violence. The violence in my mind carried through to the astral realm, and it was not pleasant.”

“There is no astral realm, you fools.”

“You are free to believe that; however, at some point, you will find that you are mistaken.” Isaac glanced behind him at the balcony for a second, but could not see the man’s face. He had counseled a number of depressed congregation members who threatened suicide. None of them had followed through with the threat.

“Seek out what you love,” the oracle continued. “You must do that.”
“I love death,” the man cried out. “I love death!” Isaac looked again toward the balcony and saw a bit of curtain billow out from the exit doorway. He heard the falling of footsteps, at first loud and then quickly receding into silence. Poor man, he thought. He must be alone in the world. If he were part of a synagogue or a church, he’d be much better off.

The middle-aged gentleman who had introduced the oracles reappeared on center stage.

“Live performances,” he said as he looked out at the audience, “can be so interesting.” A few people chuckled, but not Isaac. “We cannot predict disturbances such as the one that just occurred. I apologize to those of you who found the previous interaction disturbing.” He motioned with his right hand to stage right. One usher came out and escorted the white-haired oracle off the stage. Three oracles remained on the stage and gathered behind the emcee. “These three oracles will take turns answering a single question. And, to show our true impartiality, we would like a member of the audience to choose that question. Please raise your right arm if you would like to do so.”

Several arms shot up and one or two came back down. The emcee pointed to a woman seated in the front row. She stood up and Isaac noted that it was Debbie Luster. An usher escorted Debbie up the stage stairs. She stood beside the emcee looking from left to right, and then straight ahead. With her long black hair and modest dress that reached to her ankles, she appeared to be a fourth oracle herself. The emcee picked up the Moorish box on the table nearest him, lifted the lid of the box, and held it in front of Debbie. She closed her eyes for several seconds. She then lifted her left hand and rummaged among the papers in the box before selecting one. She handed the folded piece of paper to the emcee.

“Thank you,” he said to Debbie. He placed the still folded piece of paper down on the surface of the table. The usher showed Debbie back to her front row seat. The emcee turned to the audience. “I will now leave you in the fine hands of our three oracles.” He left the stage.

The three oracles stood behind the table. The one in the center picked up the folded paper and unfolded it. “I am a religious leader,” she read aloud. Isaac leaned forward in his chair, and then quickly sat back. “I’ve tried many different activities at my institution to revitalize its members, but the size of the congregation continues to diminish. I wonder - what can I do? Is my faith too weak? Should I seek out another path? Or, can I transform my current situation?”

The oracle who had read the question placed the paper back down on the table. The three oracles moved to center stage, in front of the table. They joined hands to form a circle and began to move clockwise about a point on the stage. The house lights dimmed and a spotlight focused on them. They began to chant in unison. “Yood heeh vaav heeh, yood heeh vaav heeh.”

Isaac felt his heart beat faster. The oracles were chanting the Tetragrammaton, the four Hebrew letters representing the holy name of God. He watched the oracles in silence for half a minute and then began chanting “Yood heeh vaav heeh.” Soon, five or six more of the audience joined in. “Yood heeh vaav heeh.” More of the crowd added to the chanting until virtually the whole audience chanted with the oracles. “Yood heeh vaav heeh.”

After several minutes, the oracles stopped chanting, and then the audience stopped as well. The oracles ceased their circular motion, released their hands from one another and stood in a line stage center facing the audience. The one standing stage left spoke first. She was about forty years old with short blonde hair. “There are many futures,” she said in what seemed to be her normal voice. “Ask yourself what is it that you truly desire? A renewed congregation? Or a new path?” Isaac sat very still as he listened. “Until you know in your heart what your true goal is, you will not be able to manifest that goal.”

“I see an empty sanctuary.” The second oracle, the one in the middle spoke, a petite woman, about thirty. Her voice was feminine, but sounded as if it came from a woman of large stature. “Years have gone by. The members of your congregation have all drifted away. They have become entranced by the material trappings of their era. They have neither the time nor the inclination for worship.” Isaac saw Debbie Luster glance quickly back at him from her front row seat before she turned her head forward. His throat felt dry and he stroked his beard with his right hand for a few seconds before letting his arm slip back down to his chair’s armrest.

The third oracle walked a few steps so that she stood in front of the other two. She was a strikingly handsome woman, over six feet tall, perhaps forty years old. Her wavy red hair fell over her shoulders to just above her breasts. Her emerald eyes opened wide. “The future has not yet arrived. Your son, all your sons and daughters, and all their mothers and fathers, will be the creators of that future. There is yet room for hope.” Isaac gripped the armrests of his chair.

“Yet that hope will be vacant,” the oracle continued, “unless you renew your commitment to your faith.”

“How do I renew my commitment?” a man called out from the back row. Isaac recognized him. Scott Michaels, the town’s Unitarian minister.

“You must find that answer within yourself.”

“Could you be more specific?” asked Scott Michaels.
“That is your work, to examine your own faith, to return to the sources which inspire you.”

The oracle stepped back two steps while still facing the audience and grasped the hands of her sister oracles. The house lights brightened; the patrons applauded. The two other oracles joined the three already on stage and held hands with the one at each end. The elegant emcee strode in from stage left and took a bow. The red curtains closed and the lights over the audience came fully on.

#

Isaac left the theater and strode down Grant Avenue toward Temple Beth Israel. He was surprised to find himself so affected by the admittedly ambiguous sayings of the oracles. But he wondered if they weren’t right. He had become a rabbi because his father was a rabbi. He found comfort in the traditions of Judaism, but he questioned the depth of his own faith.

He turned down Canyon Street and walked to the back door of the synagogue. He unlocked the door and proceeded to the main sanctuary. He flipped on the lights and took a seat in the front row, looking up at the bimah. The cantor and any Friday night worshipers had probably left over an hour ago.

Isaac saw his father, Saul, reading from the Torah. His father appeared to be about forty years old; he hunched over the Torah and chanted the words. Isaac heard Saul read Bereshees, in the beginning, the first word in the first weekly Torah reading in the annual cycle of readings. Isaac saw several other men join Saul, all huddled in front of the Torah. The sanctuary overflowed with worshipers, with families and grandparents, with young men and women. Isaac stood up. He closed his eyes and began to chant from memory along with his father. He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet; he kissed the fringes of his prayer shawl.

Isaac opened his eyes. There was no one in the synagogue other than himself. He walked out of the sanctuary, switching off the lights on his way out. He locked the back door and proceeded up Canyon to Grant. He walked past the New Oracle Theater and stopped in front of the entrance. The oracles had granted him a vision. The synagogue would fill with new families if he devoted himself to Judaism, to the traditions of his own faith.

Isaac did not return to partake of the performances of the oracles. He did note that the entry price went up after a short while, and that the lines grew smaller over time. One Saturday morning, as he walked toward his synagogue, he saw a new poster on the theater facade; the Oak Brook Theater Players would soon begin their season’s performances at the soon to be open Oak Brook Theater. He could take Sarah and the children to one of the performances, he thought. But that would have to wait as the High Holidays had commenced and today was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the Day of Remembrance.

Isaac stopped for a moment. He looked up at the facade of the theater and studied the statues of the muses. He closed his eyes. He recalled the words of the oracle who had advised him to renew his own faith. He had looked within and discovered his connection to the Jewish people. The Jewish people who had survived centuries of oppression. The Jewish people who had made untold gifts to the world. The Jewish people united in their love of God and their love of one another. He saw the synagogue overflowing with Jewish families. He heard the blast of the shofar, the traditional ram’s horn, reminding all to reflect on their past deeds and hopes for the future. He tasted the apple dipped in honey and sensed the sweetness of the coming year. Rabbi Stein opened his eyes and walked briskly toward Temple Beth Israel.