The Bottom of Things
This is the second part of The Tent, and together they form the second longest work I have completed to date. At nearly 18,000 words, I confidently consider the two parts to comprise a novella, and I am very proud of it. In my eagerness to post, I have only proofread this once, so forgive me any typos.
And so, as I stood upon the chair with the rope around my neck, I realized with certainty that the hypothetical squatter was not so hypothetical after all, but irrefutably real, as real as the rope around my neck, the chair beneath my feet, and the tent, dark green, staked upright in the clearing between the trees, not thirty meters from my house. Never had I been more certain of anything in my life, and with this knowledge imparted by my newfound perspective—how I thanked my suicidal ideation for revealing the tent to me—I had to act. Killing myself was one thing, but the thought of killing myself and allowing a squatter to commandeer my house, my property, and do god knows what with my hanging corpse, no, that thought was unacceptable, so I took care to step down from the chair, first removing the rope from around my neck, rubbing the skin where it had chafed and possibly even bruised, then descending, but not before casting one last look out the window at the tent, to make sure it was really there, and hadn’t been a figment of my slightly-asphyxiated brain, but no, there it was in the meager clearing, and so without further hesitation I exited the study, my path crystal clear before me, just like the squatter, except now it was his turn to be intruded upon, to be exposed and deeply disturbed. It was time to get to the bottom of things.
As I made my way down the stairs, doubt began to creep into my mind, threatening to poison my resolve. Was I being too hasty? What if the squatter was a dangerous man, a violent man, a man possibly destabilized and psychotic from his days and weeks and months of solitude and squalor in the tent? He was a desperate man, that much was obvious, and what else does it take to make a man dangerous, besides desperation? I could be walking into a trap, or I could surprise him as he prepares his lunch, skinning a squirrel raw with a crude knife in his hand, at which point in his surprise and my terror and his rage and my rage he plunges the knife straight into my gut and disembowels me on the spot, my putrid guts spilling onto my slippers—but enough of that! Don’t get carried away, I told myself, you’re not dead yet and you absolutely must get to the bottom of things, no matter what, even if it kills you and in fact it might but so what, you were one step away from death not ten minutes ago—was it only ten minutes ago, it could have been five minutes as easily as two hours ago that I stood upon the chair with the rope around my neck—and now here you are, getting to the bottom of this stupefying, disturbing mystery, a mystery to which you were oblivious this very morning, I told myself, then imagining, or rather remembering, how I had awakened this morning in my usual way, all too early on account of the riotous birdsong rattling the windowpane, sometimes I swear the birds on the property hold me in contempt, never allowing me to sleep past the earliest peep of sunrise before they fly in from every corner of the property to land in the tree outside my bedroom window, I swear you’ve never seen so many birds packed into one tree, it’s hard to believe it can support them all, every branch groaning under the weight of hundreds of birds, and it only gets worse once they start to sing, or rather scream, shriek, cackle, taunt, etcetera, the racket of their dawn chorus joined by the creaking of the tree branches, now truly under threat of collapse by the birds’ agitation, but anyway, there I was this morning, driven stiff from bed by the birds, completely oblivious to the fact that there was something far more disturbing, far more nefarious, far more threatening going on not thirty meters away, where a desperate squatter was lurking in his squalid tent, hidden away in the meager clearing, perhaps driven to the brink of insanity by the very same birds, tossing and turning in his tattered sleeping bag while I puttered downstairs grumbling to myself, perhaps we even made coffee at the same time, his dirty water brewed atop some tiny scratched-up battery-powered hot plate, mine atop a meticulously-cleaned yet rusted over stovetop burner, in fact his coffee was probably much better than mine despite being months expired and dried out, because my first cup always comes out terribly whereas his probably comes out perfectly, and even if it doesn’t he enjoys it anyway because it’s one of his few pleasures out there in the tent, in fact the coffee likely comprises his entire breakfast, he can’t afford to have a proper meal out there, and besides, how would he keep anything, he has no refrigerator and we’re a month or two away from snow yet, he probably didn’t think of that when he prepared for this stakeout, it was late autumn or early winter when he came here, that much is certain, he didn’t expect me to last one more winter and so he came ill-prepared, relying on the snow to keep things cold, cheese, cold cuts, butter, perhaps bacon, although surely he wasn’t splurging on bacon, we’re talking about a desperate man here, a poor man, a man on his last legs, who could barely afford to pay his bill at the village bar, much less splurge for bacon for his stakeout of a foolish man’s monstrous house, no, more likely he came with the cheapest calories possible, which would keep for ages, loaves of brown bread, already stale but edible enough if washed down with water or snow, preserves of the cheapest variety, perhaps some pickles, nothing more, regardless, he savors his coffee no matter how stale or burnt or oily and I envied him that, I held him in contempt for savoring his coffee, even though I’d yet to meet him—though I will soon enough, as soon as I descend these damned stairs, why are there so many of them and why did I ever want a godforsaken spiral staircase, it’s enough to make one dizzy and tumble down them to one’s death, perhaps that is precisely I why wanted a spiral staircase—I despised him, I hated him for having absolutely no critical faculties or tastes whatsoever, and for this deficit he received the entire world as reward, an entire world of delicious coffee and warm beer and lukewarm friendships and cold dinners and frigid yet not altogether unsympathetic lovers, yet instead of being content he had come for what was mine, drinking his coffee and stretching his limbs while I brewed myself a second, third, fourth cup, growing more angry and despondent with each mug I poured down the drain, it’s no wonder they look at me with horror when I visit the ramshackle village, loading up tens of pounds of coffee at a time, they probably think I live off the stuff, coffee for breakfast lunch and dinner, but no, I drink no more than two cups a day, a totally reasonable amount of coffee, in fact much less than many of my peers, peers from my former life, that is, who truly did live on nothing but coffee, coffee and cigarettes, whereas I always practiced discipline and prudence when it came to coffee, not only for my stomach’s sake and teeth’s sake but for my brain’s sake as well, who knows what havoc all that caffeine had wreaked and was still wreaking upon my peers, actually I could venture quite a few guesses as to what havoc it had wreaked and was wreaking but I won’t, the point is that I wouldn’t have to buy so much coffee if it didn’t take me three, four, five attempts to make a decent cup, whereas the squatter out there in his tent made perfect coffee on the first try, every time, effortlessly and thoughtlessly, and didn’t realize how lucky he was.
I reached the bottom of the stairs, and considered once more whether I should arm myself before going out to confront the squatter—but with what? I owned no gun, no weapons of any kind; I am a peaceful man, or at least a non-violent man, a man not willing to risk damage to life and limb over petty squabbles, much preferring to avoid conflict altogether, or to make a hasty exit, should violence be imminent. But this time I could not make a hasty exit, after all, there would be nowhere to run should the squatter turn violent, and so I should probably arm myself before confronting him, should things turn ugly, but again, arm myself with what, I wondered there at the foot of the stairs, looking around and running through a mental catalog of every object in the house. Yes, there were a few objects worth considering, such as a heavy cast-iron pan, which could surely crack a person’s head open if swung with conviction, or any number of knives, whether the chef’s knife, best for delivering deep, powerful cuts, or a boning knife, suitable for a single vicious stab, or even the coal hook or coal rake, the former with its hooked point or the latter with its long handle, which would be effective at a distance—but who was I kidding, there was no chance of me coming out victorious should the situation turn violent, it made no difference whether I went out to the tent armed with a cast-iron pan or a knife or a coal hook (although if I had a gun that could indeed make a difference, but of course I did not own one, an oversight which I now regretted; considering the incredibly remote place in which I lived and the solitude to which I’d condemned myself, a gun would be an entirely reasonable thing to own, on the unfathomable yet apparently quite real chance that an intruder would one day prowl the property) or my bare, varicose hands, because I was and am an old man and the squatter is definitely not an old man, but rather a strapping young man, middle-aged at most, no less strapping for his deteriorated and desperate condition, in fact perhaps even more strapping now that he had been subjected to the trials and tribulations of the property and the climate of this godforsaken region, which while habitable and even occasionally beautiful is not an easy place to live, between the blinding snow and toppling widowmakers of winter, to the rushing snowmelt and flooding of spring, to the deceptive summers which lull you into a false sense of security, bidding you lay down for a quick midday nap only to awaken you hours later in the pitch of dark with lashing rain, the balmy mid-day temperatures having plummeted thirty degrees in order to strike you down with hypothermia, and last but not least to the demonic caprice of autumn, who overnight suddenly smothers the landscape in camouflage, hiding its ankle-snapping traps and treacherous mudslicks beneath dead leaves, forcing you to proceed at a snail’s pace lest you find yourself howling into the wilderness with a broken ankle, or tumbling headfirst down a rock-strewn dropoff to your disfigurement or death. Yes, I was certain that the squatter had only become more rugged and strapping for his time out here, although the time out here has had the opposite effect on me, because I was never strapping to begin with, and was already an old man when I moved here, whereas he was in the prime of life, not to mention renewed with hope and purpose, which are the things most likely to transform a man into a better version of himself.
Having abandoned the idea of arming myself, I moved towards the front door, shaking with what I told myself was anticipation, rather than mortal fear, anticipation for finally getting to the bottom of things. Whatever I was to discover in the tent, whoever the squatter turned out to be, the answers to these questions would be far preferable to the faceless torment of the unknown. That thought swelled me with courage, with the strength that comes with decisive action. My mind clear, I stopped in the mudroom, to exchange my slippers for proper shoes—in this case, flannel-lined boots—because who knew for how long I would be outside, and while it looked to be a mild enough day I knew better than to trust the weather here, the climate being treacherous and generally set on killing one in as underhanded yet seemingly natural a way as possible. I was resolved not to return to the house until I had gotten to the bottom of things, and thus after putting on the boots I put on a sweater and a waxed coat, to keep me warm in the event that my stakeout lasted until nightfall. After all, I had no way of knowing whether the squatter was currently in his tent, although it seemed a safe bet, since dawn had broken hardly ten minutes ago, and if not ten minutes then no more than an hour ago, and besides, where else would the squatter be, if not in his tent? There was no advantage to tramping around the property at this hour or any hour; for the squatter such excursions would be a waste of calories, although I suppose even a wretched squatter needs a break from time to time, an escape from the claustrophobic squalor of his tent and the meager clearing, and I know better than anyone what wonders tramping around the property can work for the clearing of the mind and spirit, and so perhaps it’s not so unlikely that he is out for an early morning walk, in fact it would be the most natural thing in the world for the squatter to take a morning walk after his perfect cup of coffee, to stretch his limbs after their cramped confinement in the tattered sleeping bag, to warm his strapping body, to get some fresh air and take a break from the rancid, mildewed air of the tent, and of course to find some place to relieve himself. As common and dimwitted as he was, he was not so dimwitted as to soil the meager clearing, which had likely become for him a domain of sorts, his own small slice of the property, a preview of that which was to come, when he would inherit (or rather, commandeer) the property in its entirety, at which point he might even transform the meager clearing into a shrine of sorts, erecting a gazebo or a simple obelisk or perhaps even leaving the tent where it stands now and building around it a small exhibit or at least enclosing it in a small fence and mounting a pewter plaque with the story and dates of his stakeout, for future generations (after all, he must have aspirations of family, of having offspring who would inherit the property, to further cement his legitimacy and title on the place) and visitors, of which he was certain to have many, since his secret would eventually get out, transforming him overnight into a mythical figure, the talk of the town, the man who inherited the monstrous house of that foreigner who finally kicked the bucket, I hear he hanged himself out of sheer loneliness and boredom, so they’d say, the group of villagers crammed again into that rotten booth in the only bar in town, their voices at first furtive and conspiratorial, twisting together like snakes, I told you that if any winter could kill a man, it was that winter, and sure enough, he wasn’t cut out for this dear region of ours, he should have never come up here, but wait a minute, another says, how do you know he died in the winter, for all we know he could have died in the spring, or in the summer, and how do you know he hanged himself, although it seems possible, maybe even likely, but that’s a hell of a thing to assume about someone, don’t get me wrong, I was no fan of that foreigner, he never said a word to any of us, but even so, I don’t think we should assume he’s a suicide, or was a suicide, after all he could have died any number of ways, alone in that monstrous house on that damned property, he could have fallen down the stairs and split his skull open or choked on a chicken bone or broken his ankle and starved in the wilderness or maybe even died peacefully in his sleep, now stop right there, another interjects, the whispers having risen to a dull roar by now, I take no issue with your speculations, or your defense of the late foreigner’s integrity, but suggesting he died peacefully in his sleep, that’s a bit much, don’t you think, after all no one dies peacefully in their sleep anymore, not in this day and age, you’d have to be a true hermit, entirely cut off from society and technology for fifty years to have any chance of dying peacefully in your sleep, dying in one’s sleep is rare enough as it is, but dying peacefully in one’s sleep, no, that’s entirely out of the question, unless of course we are talking about a baby, then perhaps it’s possible to die peacefully in one’s sleep, but of course we are not talking about a baby but a full grown man, an old man, if I may say so respectfully, and there is absolutely no chance that he died peacefully in his sleep, if anything he died fitfully in his sleep, tossing and turning and groaning under the spell of some horrible nightmare, or perhaps reliving some particularly painful memory, my point being that no one besides a baby could possibly die peacefully in one’s sleep in this day and age, goddammit that’s quite enough of your nonsense, says the first again, the volume of the villagers in the rotten booth having reached a pitch by now, blotting out all other conversation in the bar (which as it happens is quite full, it being evening and there being nowhere else to go and nothing else to do in the ramshackle village), no one gives a rat’s ass whether it’s possible to die peacefully in one’s own sleep or how the idiotic foreigner (god rest his soul) kicked the bucket, we are talking about the man who succeeded him, a mysterious man, an ingenious man, no doubt, maybe even a slightly sinister man, after all, there’s always some possibility of foul play when you consider the death of a man in the middle of nowhere, but wait a minute, are you suggesting that the old man was murdered, there’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that, unless you know something the rest of us don’t, in which case you better speak up right now, otherwise I won’t tolerate your wild accusations, now stop right there, while your defense of the mysterious man is admirable, and I agree that we should presume him innocent until proven guilty, we aren’t judge and jury here, we’re only a few friends talking over beers, and it must be admitted that we can’t totally rule out the possibility of murder, given the circumstances, after all, everything about the old man’s disappearance is mysterious, and in fact we’re jumping to conclusions to even assume that he’s dead, he could be alive and well and thriving back in his homeland, wherever that is, having finally had enough of this dear region of ours, he packed up his things and moved away, it’s not as if he had anything keeping him here, although he did seem quite fond of his property, that must be admitted, nevertheless, how many years of isolation can a man take out there before he decides he’s had enough, yes, it’s almost certain that he simply moved away, selling the house legitimately to this latest foreigner, goddammit are you kidding me, there’s no way the old man (god rest his soul) isn’t dead and rotting in some shallow grave out there in the wilderness, I’d bet my left arm on it, have you seen this new foreigner, there’s not a single legitimate thing about him, he has guilt written all over his face every time he creeps into town, like a wet rat soaked in guilt, barely able to make eye contact as he buys his things at the grocer and the corner store, there’s no chance in hell that he obtained that house by legitimate means, and like I said before, there’s always a possibility of foul play in circumstances like these, and so on and so forth goes the conversation in the rotten booth, until the wee hours of the night when the barkeep finally kicks them out, gently but also with some degree of hostility, because while they are the most devoted regulars of the bar, they are also the most obnoxious, the least courteous, and not necessarily the biggest spenders, often getting so lost in their rantings as to forget to order more beers, although at this point their table could not possibly fit one more stein, every square centimeter of its surface being occupied by an empty or half-empty glass, not to mention a thick sluice of sloshed beer, the barkeep refusing to visit or bus their table and they in their ignorance and oblivion never considering that they could do it themselves, my ultimate point being that the squatter was sure to become first the talk of the town, then a mythical figure, and eventually a local legend, and thus would do well to prepare for the inundation of visitors by erecting at least a small shrine or rustic exhibit, to satisfy the curiosity of the slack-jawed locals—
But no, what was I thinking, I wasn’t dead yet and there was no reason to speculate about the squatter’s infamy, because he would never become a local legend, not if I had anything to do with it! My boots and sweater and wax coat on, I exited the mud room, stepping into the bright autumn morning. Squinting, I paused, to adjust to the light, meanwhile persuading myself that I wasn’t afraid, despite my imagination stoking again the fear that the squatter had sinister intentions. No longer content for me to kick the bucket on my own, he was in fact plotting my death, perhaps even now sharpening a blade that was intended not for skinning squirrels but for plunging into my heart—but no, enough of that! You’ve already put that fear to rest, I told myself: if the squatter was intent on killing you, he would have done it already, and even if he is, then so be it! Just minutes ago, you were standing upon the chair with the rope around your neck, ready to step off into nothingness, and now here you are, very much alive and about to get to the bottom of things. I had to admit, it felt good to reassure myself, and again I swelled with courage, as I made my way down the front steps.
The tent and the meager clearing lay around the side of the house, so I headed there directly, or as directly as I could manage, given that there was not a proper trail around that side of the house, since I had never before had any reason to walk there. While only ten or twenty meters away, reaching the tent would require me to navigate a thick tangle of underbrush and saplings, all the while treading lightly and watching my step. Fall had already laid its treacherous camouflage over everything, yet I made my way quickly as possible, and managed to reach the clearing without slipping or getting raked by thorns. This gave me further courage—perhaps I wasn’t so old and helpless after all—to burst right into the open, without pausing at all on the perimeter to reconnoiter, as may have been recommended. I made to call out, to issue a greeting or a warning or a challenge of some kind, but stopped myself, realizing how idiotic that would be. If the squatter were in the tent, he would have heard me already, crashing through the underbrush and tramping into the clearing, and if he was not in the tent, I would not only sound like a fool, speaking to someone who wasn’t there, but would expose myself if the squatter were within earshot. I did not want to reverse our roles in this way, did not want to revert myself to prey and the squatter to predator, this having been our original relationship, back when I ignorantly believed myself all alone on the property, oblivious to the fact that I was being stalked by a passive yet cunning predator—until the moment I saw the tent, at which point everything changed, myself becoming the predator and the squatter the prey, believing himself completely hidden in the tent, oblivious to my newfound perspective and consequent will to action. So, instead of calling out, I swallowed my words, and instead stood silently and surveyed the meager clearing.
Immediately apparent were details which had eluded me from my vantage point on the second floor, details which deeply disturbed me and set my stomach to fluttering and churning, all at once (a most unpleasant sensation, yet not without a certain satisfaction, too, the satisfaction of the voyeur, the sleuth, and possibly the clairvoyant). An enormous pile of trash bags was heaped at the far perimeter of the clearing, beneath the boughs of a pine tree, a few meters from the tent. As if my eyes were needed to activate my sense of smell, I was then smacked in the face with a stench more disturbing than the pile itself, a stench so vile that it nearly smote my courage then and there, a malodorous mixture of rotten foodstuff, human excrement, decomposing leaves, and mildewed garbage. My body reeled, and my mind attempted to distract itself with a flurry of questions. How had this smell gone unnoticed by me for so long, was it possible that this smell had been around for months without my noticing, slowly creeping about the property like a miasma, after all, it was not possible to contain such a stench, surely it could be smelled from hundreds of meters away, and the house was not even thirty meters away, yet I had never smelled the vile stench until moments ago, when I entered the clearing and laid my eyes on the enormous pile of trash bags, was it possible that the meager clearing could contain such an vile stench, no, it was inconceivable that the meager clearing could contain such a stench, and yet it had and was containing it somehow, unless of course my sense of smell was not what it used to be, but no, that was even more unlikely, because I had always prided myself on my sense of smell, even as a child I had a sharp nose, in fact my nose caused me all sorts of inconveniences and troubles, for example I could never sleep through the night because I’d be awakened by this or that smell, either the rancid sweetness of edelweiss wafting through the window or the prickly warmth of mother’s before-bed herbal tea or the revoltingly erotic smell of a struck match, and it wasn’t just childhood either, my sense of smell had only sharpened since then, as my knowledge and experience of the world grew so too did my sense of smell, as I found myself unable to concentrate in school due to the dizzying barrage of scents and my mind’s futile attempts to identify and catalog them all, imagine being twelve years old, trying to focus on arithmetic tables meanwhile your extraordinarily keen sense of smell is being besieged by all manner of odors, from eye-wateringly artificial melon-scented shampoos to farmer-boy body odor to hot red cinnamon bubblegum breath to acrid permanent marker fumes to the pristine starched smell of the teacher’s sweeping skirts, no, that was only the beginning of the inconveniences and troubles that my sense of smell would cause me, and while nearly every other bodily faculty had begun to diminish in recent years, there was no way that my sense of smell had diminished, because I was still awakened all through the night by smells, my nose could detect the souring of milk downstairs in the refrigerator, or the musk of a deer somewhere out there in the pitch-black wilderness, which proves that I didn’t and don’t require my eyesight to activate my sense of smell, and so something very strange must be going on in the meager clearing for the vile stench to have been kept from me for so long, either that or it was a strange trick of psychology, as if my ignorance of the tent and the meager clearing had made it impossible for me to smell the enormous pile of trash bags, as if they didn’t exist until they existed for me, a frightening thought and one which I disagreed with on principle, and yet it was the only explanation left to me as to how I had never smelled the vile stench before, despite it festering not thirty meters away from my house.
But this wasn’t the only new detail apparent to me now that I stood in the clearing. In addition to the pile of trash bags and its vile stench, there was another discovery which deeply disturbed me, a makeshift clothesline which produced a horrifying effect. The clothesline situation consisted of three thick, cracked branches, stuck upright into the wet earth to form a triangle; between these were strung thin, frayed pieces of rope, of varying thicknesses and conditions and colors and tautnesses, creating a dizzying lattice. Completing the tableau was a pell-mell of hanging clothing, more precisely, white clothing, that is to say, once-white clothing, each and every sock and undershirt and boxer brief and long-john having been deeply and irrevocably soiled, so that they hung suspended in mid-air like crucified ochre ghosts, shades of putrid mustard, with several of them soaked more menacingly in sinister, rusted reddish-browns, like the blood-soaked garments of a murderer, and it was from these in particular that I averted my eyes, although not before being overcome by the impression of a grotesque child’s mobile, the soiled clothing hanging eerily still in the dead air, held aloft by the cacophony of colored rope.
I shook myself, shut my eyes and attempted to recover my reason. On the one hand, it was quite natural that the squatter would need to wash his clothes from time to time (there were many streams on the property where he could do this), and where better to hang them than here in the hidden clearing? Perhaps I should take the clothesline situation as a good omen—that the squatter had bothered to do laundry at all, out here in the wilderness, should reassure me. Perhaps the squatter was not a savage brute, but rather a cultured man driven to desperation, doing his best to survive meanwhile refusing to completely abandon himself to barbarism. On the other hand, what could possibly stain clothing that reddish-brown color, if not blood? Don’t go spiraling again, I reassured myself, it could be his own blood, from an injury, or the blood of the wildlife he was killing in order to survive, neither of which would be so alarming, and regardless, there wasn’t much he could do about the stains, which weren’t the end of the world, it must be admitted, especially to a man of his patience and resolve, the stains were merely another unpleasantry to be endured, until the time of my death, at which point this entire period of the squatter’s life would be erased, burned in a trash heap or buried out there in the wilderness and forgotten. No, it was not the stains which disturbed me most about the clothesline situation, but rather the deranged artistry of the tableau, which suggested neither a savage brute nor a man driven to desperation, but a third and far more unsettling type of man, a lunatic with a tortured mind, a certifiably insane or psychotic savant whose behavior could be neither understood nor predicted, the type of hypothetical man whom I feared the most, his logic being impossible to follow, a threat not only to my life but to understanding itself. All of a sudden, my confidence in the trespasser’s identity was shattered, thanks to the clothesline situation, which suggested not a patient squatter on a desperate yet ultimately understandable mission, but an agent of chaos, a lunatic whose intentions could not possibly be known or understood.
Here my imagination ran away from me, deeply disturbed by the tableau, which more and more resembled less a practical solution than the expression of a tortured mind. In my past life, I had been friends with any number of artists, of every medium imaginable, and they would have given anything to create a single work which was as gripping, as disturbing, as the clothesline situation. More ironic was the likelihood that the lunatic responsible for this tableau had no regard for it whatsoever, having created it out of necessity, thoughtlessly and without the agonizing concern of those artists from my past life. The lunatic had probably erected this monstrosity in fifteen minutes, slavering at the mouth while he prowled around for the branches, snapping them brutally before pushing them into the earth, haphazardly stringing up the ropes before tossing the soiled clothing over top, letting them land where they would, his clothesline situation complete and his mind immediately elsewhere. Yes, almost certainly the lunatic was oblivious to the masterpiece he had created, for him it was merely a clothesline, not even a clothesline situation, much less a disturbing tableau, and yet it was all of those things, a testament to his suffering mind and something which deserved to be acknowledged, even if it inspired disgust and fear. In truth, what I found myself left with was envy, envy for the lunatic’s artistry, and I launched again into that future in which I was long dead, my house and property now the lunatic’s domain, falling more and more into ruin, the clothesline situation abandoned and forgotten but very much still here in the meager clearing, the soiled clothing torn to shreds by the elements, the ropes rotten and sagging, their colors bled out and blanched to the color of bone, and the branches withered away to splinters of their former selves, the disturbing tableau reduced to an ordinary mound of garbage, an image which filled me less with disgust or fear than with rage. Whatever happened to the small exhibit, the gazebo and the pewter plaque for the curious townsfolk? What could have served as a better centerpiece for the exhibit than the clothesline situation, which demonstrated without a word the horrors of survival he had endured out here, waiting for me to die.
I mourned the loss of the squatter, of his optimism and purpose, of his ultimately understandable mission, in the light of my latest line of reasoning. In the squatter’s place now loomed the silhouette of the lunatic, an unknown entity capable of anything. Nevermind how he had gotten out here to my incredibly remote property, nevermind how he had managed to survive in this deadly wilderness, nevermind how he had managed to evade my attention despite his ridiculous behavior, the fact was that the lunatic was here and this changed everything, most immediately the advisability of my current course of action, that of investigating the tent in the meager clearing and confronting its deranged inhabitant. Here I was, an old man in the middle of nowhere, getting to the bottom of things without a weapon of any kind, without any real idea or plan, crashing through underbrush into a clearing in order to confront a man of whom I knew nothing, a man who heaped his trash into an enormous pile and lived beside its vile stench, a man whose clothesline situation resembled a tableau from hell, a man who might possibly be inside the tent right now, peeping through the smallest slit in the tent flap, watching my every move, perhaps even stifling his bloody, phlegmatic laughter, enjoying the pitiful show I was giving him as I stood frozen in fear in the middle of the clearing. Yes, quite possibly he was in there right now, brandishing a long cruel knife, waiting for the moment when I would turn my back to flee, that was when he would leap out of the tent and sprint on his bare calloused feet across the clearing to pounce on me, stabbing me mercilessly in the back until I fell face down into the mud—
But if that were true, and he had been watching me all along, he would have seen me close my eyes all those minutes ago, to recover my reason, and surely then he could and would have leaped out of the tent and sprung upon me. Regardless, whether the lunatic was inside the tent or not, it was time to open my eyes again, and so I did. Everything was there as before, the enormous pile of trash bags, the clothesline situation, and the green tent, whose flap appeared to be sealed tight, as tightly as my eyes had been sealed seconds before. Just then, as if summoned, a breeze stirred. So far, there had been not a trace of wind, an improbable phenomenon given the typical windiness of the property, especially in autumn, when violent winds would commonly strip trees in a single gust, leaving them shamefully and luridly naked. To my horror, the breeze blew back the front flap of the tent, and before I could avert my eyes, I saw what lay inside, waiting for me—oh god! There was nothing there, no one. The flap blew aside, revealing neither a crouched lunatic, nor squatting squatter, but an emptiness, an ill-defined dimness, trespasser nowhere to be seen. You see, all your hemming and hawing was for nothing, I thought, the lunatic isn’t even here, and so it’s time to get to the bottom of things, no more letting your imagination run amok, it’s time for action, pure and simple action, namely, it’s time to investigate the tent and see what sort of trespasser we are dealing with, whether squatter or lunatic, it will be confirmed by whatever we encounter in the tent. So, my chest swelled with courage, with the strength that comes with decisive action, and I strode directly through the center of the clearing, making straight for the tent, whose flap had closed again, the gust dying down as fast as it had arisen. There’s nothing to fear, I told myself, the trespasser isn’t here at the moment, and that means the advantage is yours, you’ve caught him unaware, and after a quick look-around you can retreat back to the house, knowing full well what sort of man you’re dealing with, and how to proceed.
I pushed open the flap of the tent (with an exaggerated flourish, I must admit), mentally steeling myself to be assaulted by another vile stench, yet I was pleasantly surprised to find the tent contained no such malodor, the air smelling quite neutral, even clean, as clean as the inside of a tent can smell, anyway, with a spicy tang in the air, which I attributed more to the pine trees surrounding the clearing than to any bodily odor. My eyes were not yet adjusted to the dimness in the tent, so I continued to rely on my nose, and my keen sense of smell, which of course hadn’t diminished whatsoever in my old age and remained as sharp as ever, even sharper perhaps in the dimness of the tent. Yes, other smells were coming to my attention, for example, the unmistakable smell of coffee grounds, slightly stale yet surprisingly fragrant, a most welcome familiarity in the alien space. As maddening as it was to consider the trespasser’s knack for brewing it, I couldn’t help but feel slightly more at ease amidst the smell of coffee, because it said something about the trespasser, that even out here in the middle of nowhere, where every supply was precious and had to be carefully considered, the trespasser had prioritized coffee, a delicacy often taken for granted but which is truly one of the great privileges of life, a drink containing no sustenance whatsoever but something arguably more important and certainly more interesting, the stimulation of the mind, that most sacrosanct of human faculties, without which we would all be savage brutes—yes, the smell of coffee grounds was a first clue towards the nature of the trespasser, because while many an unstable artist practically lived on the stuff, it was difficult to imagine an actual lunatic taking the time and effort to brew coffee each morning.
My eyes again sought the details and dimensions of the tent, but it was still too dim (unlike my sense of smell, my eyesight had sorely diminished in my old age, it must be admitted), so I took in another whiff of the air. It was musty, not damp, and while a body odor was present, it was neither overwhelming nor revolting, a smell resembling dried herbs, truffles perhaps, or even turmeric, an interesting body odor to say the least, and one which I struggled to attribute to a lunatic. There was a certain wildness to it, yes, but lunatics usually had a wet smell, from slightly to sickly sweet, like a rubbish bin filled with rotten fruit, or melted cosmetics, whereas this was a dry smell, more akin to the honest sweat of a farmhand, or a simple outdoorsman. Yes, it was obvious that a human body had been sleeping in this tent for a long time, due to how deeply the smell had permeated the air, yet I found myself neither revolted nor alarmed by this, because I could not imagine a lunatic bearing such a smell. So, a second clue towards the nature of the trespasser, and another reassuring one, I told myself, cracking a smile, beginning to believe that I had gotten worked up over nothing, imagining all those ghastly characters and violent and disturbing scenes, that’s what I get for living inside my own head, I thought, let this be a lesson, a caution against thinking instead of acting, a reminder that one should always get to the bottom of things, no matter how stupefying or horrifying or disturbing they seem, the answer is always more comforting than the question, the known always more palatable than the unknown, or at least less poisonous.
If only I’d left then, content with the first two clues and reassured that the trespasser was merely a squatter, an opportunist, yes, but ultimately a benign presence, one likely to give up and abandon his mission long before it came time for me to kick the bucket, as it were, if only I’d returned to my house all the wiser for having gotten to the bottom of things, prepared to wait him out and outlast him at any cost, until he admitted defeat and quit my remote property, abandoning his dreams of usurping my house and leaving me to live out the rest of my days in peace and harmony, with the strength that comes with overcoming adversity—yes! If only I’d left then, before my eyes adjusted, I would have entered a new renaissance in my old age, reinvigorated and inspired by the events of that initially doomed day, the day on which I stood upon the chair with the rope around my neck, only to discover a mystery not thirty meters from my house, a mystery which set my mind on fire and demanded action, a disturbance that broke the doldrums of routine which had set in after all those years in the middle of nowhere, a mystery which, once sorted out, had set me back on the straight path of the living, the way before me crystal clear for the first time in a decade, my eyes perhaps even welling up, not with the desperate tears of a man about to hang himself, but with the shimmering tears of optimism and purpose, of a man awakened to new life—
But no, my renaissance was not to be, because my eyes had finally adjusted, and the rest of the tent revealed itself to me. Behold, just past a tattered sleeping bag and rummage of miscellany towered a collection of notebooks, though to call them a collection is misleading, because there was nothing collected or organized about the collapsing heaps of notebooks, which resembled more the enormous piles of trash bags outside than any sort of library, the precariously slouching heaps no doubt the products of absent-minded abandon, or malicious discardment, the notebook spines in utter disarray, right side up, upside down, end over end, or missing entirely, loose pages scattered everywhere, sometimes crumpled up, or torn to shreds, or resting haphazardly on one of the thousand corners of the maniacal ziggurat of notebooks, which seemed to be standing only by coincidence and sheer mass, yet prone to topple at any given moment, a possibility which froze me where I stood, barely inside the tent, in the foyer, if a tent could be said to have a foyer. Now that I was inside the tent, its proportions seemed impossible, exaggerated even further by the heaps of notebooks which towered above my head, bulging grotesquely outward like a living entity, its breath the rustlings of loose pages, its creaks and groans the dislodgments of notebooks as they tumbled down the sides of the heap, hitting the floor of the tent with dull thuds, or, in the cases where the spines split open, with sharp cracks, sending pages spilling and sliding along the floor like viscera. If the trash bags and the clothesline situation had planted the seeds of fear in me, then the notebooks were the fruit of terror, the bursting of certainty that the trespasser was a lunatic. As far as I could tell, the notebooks extended all the way to the back of the tent (which was shrouded in an impenetrable darkness), and occupied the entire tent besides the foyer, where I stood, with the sleeping bag and miscellany at my feet. Everything began to come together in my mind, as I imagined the tent in the early days, with plenty of space to live in, a comfortable space, it could be said, where one could stand upright, could stretch one’s limbs, where one could brew a perfect cup of coffee on a tiny scratched-up battery-powered hot plate, could enjoy a simple breakfast of preserved meats and cheeses and brown bread, where one could nod off and nap with no real concern for the time, seeing as one was concerned only with awaiting the death of a foolish old man, who was taking longer than expected to kick the bucket, it must be admitted, long enough that boredom began to rear its ugly head, and so tasks were sought out, at first simple tidyings of the tent, sweepings with a makeshift broom, the airing out of bedding and clothing, and the arrangement of foraged objects—after all, the tent was home for the time being, and large enough to accommodate and reward a certain degree of domesticity—until there was nothing left to be done, and so new activity had to be sought out, new purpose, luckily the tent in those days still had plenty of space, enough space for a small work area, complete with an improvised desk or workbench, which the trespasser had clearly used for writing, at first to pass the time, keeping a daily journal, progress reports, notes on birdwatching, inventories of supplies, or perhaps even creative efforts, a harmless enough pastime at first, until the days grew shorter and the nights grew darker and colder, and he found himself sitting for hours at the improvised workbench, his entries losing focus and growing in length, resembling less and less diaristic logs than the outpourings of a disturbed mind, a mind not suited for life in a tent in a meager clearing on a remote property in the middle of nowhere, a mind without the forethought to consider the effect that isolation could have on an ill-prepared individual, a weak-willed individual, it should be noted, so that before he knew it, he was spending every waking hour hunched over his improvised workbench, only stopping when the pain in his stomach became excruciating, at which point he’d throw down his things and seek nourishment, enraged that his body was making such idiotic demands on him, demands and appetites he would satisfy spitefully with a few handfuls of foraged berries or a hastily cooked piece of carrion (his preserved meats and cheeses and brown bread long since eaten), enough to quiet his hunger pangs, and then it was back to work, because work was what the notebooks had come to represent to him, he was no longer merely passing the time, but working, creating, laboring towards something the end and form of which he knew not, only that it demanded everything from him and so everything he would give, his original mission in the tent long forgotten, absolutely swallowed up by his new purpose, the crystal clear path towards property and new life blotted out by an obsessive desire to write, as if compelled to empty himself of something, of everything, until all that remained was a skeleton of a man, a husk of a mind, a lunatic occupying a tent in a meager clearing. Yes, over the weeks and months the tent had both contracted and expanded, the living space shrank as the filled notebooks demanded more and more space, the neat stack becoming an untidy stack, the untidy stack a precarious pile, the precarious pile a toppled heap, at which point the toppled heap seemed to develop an appetite of its own, a silent force demanding more food, more notebooks, eventually becoming the maniacal ziggurat I now saw before me, proof that the tent must have expanded somehow, too, expanded to make room for the ever-growing heaps of notebooks, a heap which defied all belief in its dimensions, a heap which I never would have believed could fit into the tent if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but I had and was seeing it with my own eyes and that’s why my knees began to wobble, my lips to tremble, my arms and legs suddenly rife with goosebumps, because here I stood with nothing left to question, nothing left to wonder, the tent was without doubt a lunatic’s den, whether he had started off certifiably insane or had been driven to psychosis here was immaterial, because it was clear from the enormous piles of trash bags and the clothesline situation and the heaps of notebooks that he was no longer in his right mind, no longer guided by optimism and purpose but by a singular compulsion to write until he finished his work or he kicked the bucket, and in either case he was certainly not a man to be confronted or reasoned with, a man no longer subject to the laws and logics of this world but rather a man in a world of his own, a man sacrificing his body and mind here at the foot of the ziggurat far beyond the reach of human eyes and concerns. Here I began to feel nauseous, overcome not only with fear but with guilt, as I considered my intrusion into the the tent, a world which, while technically on my property, was also not on my property, a world so far removed that it deserved respect, if not outright reverence, and here I was intruding upon it in the name of getting to the bottom of things, despoiling it with my wild speculations and petty accusations—unseemly, unacceptable, unforgivable!
I stood in the foyer, scared, guilty, awestruck, defeated, before the heaps of notebooks which dwarfed the body of my own life’s work. Were I to copy my own writings into notebooks and stack them up, they would look pitiful compared to the lunatic’s pile, like a molehill to a mountain. The fact that he would die in filth and obscurity, that the world outside would never know his genius or his dedication, filled me with pity and contempt. How dare they judge him! He was a great man, a true artist, far beyond myself and certainly far beyond any of them, crammed as they were and are into that rotten booth in the only bar in town, stupefied by the beer and the stagnant air heavy with the humidity of bodies and mildewed wood, titillated by their local newspaper (which was barely more than a pamphlet, it must be admitted) splayed out over the table, its headline smeared and stained and barely legible (which hardly mattered anyway, seeing as they could barely read), yes, it requires hardly any imagination at all to hear their conversation, their eyes wide with scandalous delight as they lick their cracked and craven lips, well what’s it say, tell us for god sake, my nerves can’t take this suspense, look I can tell you what it says without even reading the paper, it says the old man is alive and well out there after all, and having the last laugh, too, because the trespasser is the one who kicked the bucket, he thought he could outlast the old man but it was he who succumbed first, serves him right, I say, lurking around hoping for the old man to die so he could slip right into that monstrous house, like some sort of human hermit crab, probably a dirty foreigner himself, from some backwater country, strung out on drugs and living in filth and eating carrion and doing god knows what else, to think he was out there in the wilderness for months and none of us knew a damn thing, now stop right there, it’s obvious you didn’t read the article at all, there was no evidence that the trespasser was on drugs, although there’s no doubt that he went insane, or was insane to begin with, who in their right mind would come up with a harebrained scheme like that, hiding out on a remote property in the hope that the owner will die so that you can steal his house, his land, his entire life, it’s so idiotic that it’s almost funny, but of course there’s nothing funny about it, can you imagine slowly starving to death inside a tent in this dear region of ours, meanwhile scribbling away thousands upon thousands of pages of absolute nonsense, they said that ninety-percent of it was indecipherable, and the ten percent of it that was decipherable was unintelligible, maniacal drivel which only a deranged or infantile or senile mind could produce, goddammit can’t you speak plainly, talk about deranged drivel, have you ever heard yourself speak, I don’t give a rat’s ass what the idiot wrote, he was a foreigner and a trespasser and a menace and I’m glad he’s dead, serves him right for trying to get something for nothing instead of working his ass off like the rest of us, but wait a minute, you’ve never worked a day in your life, far as I can tell, you hang around here avoiding work and sobriety like the plague itself, although I agree that the trespasser was good-for-nothing and better off dead, now stop right there, we’re getting off track, the point is that the lunatic is dead and we can all sleep more soundly tonight, knowing there’s one less lunatic and one less foreigner in this dear region of ours, although who’s to say who the more contemptible one was, the trespasser in the tent or the old man in the monstrous house, who, while certainly within his legal rights, is no less a trespasser in our land, and perhaps a lunatic, too, goddammit now you’re talking sense, says the first again, I said it all along, I never liked that foolish old foreigner out there, in fact some part of me wishes that their places were swapped, he and the lunatic I mean, because then we wouldn’t have to suffer the old man’s dumb smug expression every time he’s here in town, but wait a minute, surely you wouldn’t prefer a borderline murderer to the old man, at least the old man is harmless, a benign if undesirable presence, as opposed to a drug-addled raving foreigner doing god knows what up there in that monstrous house, I for one prefer the old writer puttering about and minding his own business until he kicks the bucket, in fact I wish him a long and prosperous life, because who knows who will take up in that house after him, now stop right there, that’s a bit much, isn’t it, referring to him as the ‘old writer’, as if he’s someone to be respected or admired, why he hasn’t written anything in years, and what he has written is a pittance, barely enough to fill a few volumes, in fact I’d bet that if they ever publish the old man’s collected works, I could lift it up with one hand, imagine that, writing for your entire life and me being able to lift it all up with one hand, consider instead the trespasser, the raving lunatic who managed to produce heaps upon heaps of notebooks in such a relatively short period, enough to fill an entire tent ‘close to bursting’, as it says right here in the article, a body of work which, while indecipherable and unintelligible, can at least be said to have a body to it, an undeniable weight and gravity, unlike the dignified old writer up there, who quite frankly has always struck me as a phony, a washed-up sell-out no less opportunistic than the trespasser, albeit with a much less harebrained scheme, cashing out as soon as he obtained a shred of prestige and exiling himself to this dear region of ours, where he putters about in that monstrous house, waiting to kick the bucket, writing nothing, producing nothing besides acrid, frothing piss and miserly rock-hard turds—
Here my imagination failed me, mockingly and desperately, as I realized that the villagers were and are absolutely right. Back to reality, face-first with the heaps of notebooks, I must admit what I knew as soon as I set foot in the tent, perhaps even as soon as I saw the piles of trash bags and the clothesline situation. There’s only one wretch on this accursed property, and it’s certainly not the trespasser! It’s me myself, rotting away in the monstrous house, squandering each day with my walks about the property and my obsessive cleaning, my dusting and sweeping and mopping and polishing and washing and drying and ironing and folding and sorting and sifting and arranging and rearranging, a litany of meaningless tasks, like a tedious spell by which I transmute morning into night, thereby collapsing into bed, lulling myself to sleep with that utmost of lies, that tomorrow will be different, that instead of puttering the day away, I’ll sit down at my desk and write something, or at least I’ll think about writing something, or at least I’ll pretend to be thinking about writing something, I’ll go through the motions, I’ll arm myself with pen and paper before I start imagining things, although of course it isn’t that easy, it’s between the imagining and the writing that things get all mucked up, but that’s not the point, the point is that I’m the wretched one, a man with all the time in the world who somehow manages to weasel his way out of writing every day, content with his pittance of life’s work, which could be lifted up with one hand! Here in the darkness of the tent, I must finally admit that there’s only one true difference between us, and that’s the fact that in his free time, the trespasser writes obsessively from sun-up to sundown, while in my free time I putter about and perform meaningless tasks ad infinitum. Talk about contemptible, talk about lunacy, who’s the more insane, the man pouring his heart and soul into notebook after notebook, or the man polishing a wine glass for the twenty-ninth time this month, the answer is obvious, it’s me, I’m the one who’s lost his mind up here on this remote property, commenting upon an abandoned bird’s nest to no one in particular for the thousandth time, pouring thousands upon thousands of perfectly suitable cups of coffee down the drain, heaping judgment upon the raucous, full-blooded villagers chumming it up in their rotten booth in the only bar in town, as if they’ve ever wished me ill or spared a second’s thought about me, fat chance, they’re too busy swilling beer and slapping each other on the back and gossipping til they’re blue in the face and kissing each other goodbye and stumbling home and pissing in alleyways and sleeping with each other’s spouses from time to time and telling themselves it’s fine because there’s only so much to see and do in this dear godforsaken region of theirs and anything which preserves one’s sanity for one winter longer can’t be condemned, and they’re absolutely right, no one can judge them, certainly not me, who quite possibly lost my mind many winters ago, up here in that monstrous house with no neighbors or friends or even enemies to keep me honest, no one to challenge me or provoke me or inspire me or encourage me, no one at all, and so who’s the more insane, the filthy trespasser living in this tent, eating carrion and writing his magnum opus while he waits for me to die, or me, the old fool so lazy and scared to write another word that he preferred standing on a chair with a rope around his neck, a man one step away from oblivion, an oblivion which he in his soundness of mind had determined was entirely reasonable?!
No answer came from the emptiness inside the tent, my words being muffled and absorbed by the heaps of notebooks. I waited for more words to fill my brain, for the next tirade to possess me, but none came. I felt strangely calm, and oppressively tired, but I resisted the urge to lay down in the tattered sleeping bag. How long I had been in the tent, I could not guess, but it was time for me to leave. I had gotten to the bottom of things, and there was no reason to linger. This was someone’s home, someone’s workplace, and I no longer wished to meet whoever that was. My curiosity was gone, my paranoia was gone, my fear, my anger, and my jealousy were all gone. All I cared about was leaving the tent and returning to my house, and so I did, exiting the foyer into the meager clearing. Dusk had fallen, covering everything with its purple cloth. So softened, the clothesline situation no longer seemed grotesque, but rather somber, and the vile stench of the trash bags was entirely masked by an autumnal musk, the smell of wet leaves quietly decomposing into the earth. I bid these scenes a sober farewell, and made my way sure-footedly out of the clearing, the path before me crystal clear despite the dim hour, my grogginess dispelled by the chill air, my lungs emptied of dread and filled instead with optimism and purpose—I had an idea.
A true feat.