Victor and Tristan

Prologue

Before twin tombstones, we stood. In an attitude of piety, reflections mottled by polished granite, we gazed silently upon the unseeing, contemplated the unknowing. What cared these immovable stones for our company? Those pillars would stand regardless of our presence or absence. I wondered then were others looking upon us? Were we as ignorant of the eyes following us, the minds considering us, as were the objects upon which we mused?

I looked about me. Away to my right, caught beneath the shadows of an oak tree, a haggard figure, a face ever paling with the passing years, bent before a fading marker. Turning, the shadow espied me considering it. For a moment, I saw its eyes, their moist reflection and the burden they had seen buried beneath the ground, a burden they would carry into a world beyond this place. Embarrassed, wishing for solitude, the darkened entity flitted away. I looked once more about me, collecting the bits of humanity scattered about the cemetery. As if ghosts bound in stolid torment, the others stood vigil over their burdens, loads they were unable to release.

Though others in the graveyard wept, we merely contemplated. I had nothing to mourn; in truth, I scarcely knew what lives were memorialized before me. Merely a crutch for my companion, I was an interloper to another’s pain. I looked upon him whose pain long ago had eased into unsatisfied meditation, who passed his time standing before his cold hearth, staring into scattered ashes. I had seen him do as much, a revelation leaving me to wonder at the time he had spent in such activities when none was there to mark the minutes. Now we stood in the necropolis, together yet separate. For when are we ever not alone? When are we not barred from others by perspective, bias, and the hope that we are not mad? Even in times of bliss and blackness, times when we should be closest, we stand apart, bound within ourselves. Ruminating, I know myself; however, all others remain a probability, less than a probability: a plea for company. Perhaps therein rests humanity’s monophobia, our social obsession: never are we certain of the people beyond ourselves. We live trapped in our respective machines, relying upon their instruments to know one another. I could speculate upon my companion’s thoughts: I assumed he rehashed his lost friendships, but could he, just then, have been doing as I was? Could he be contemplating everything but that which stood before him? Or was he pondering the smooth stone by his left foot or the strange ring of dead grass to his right? How little I knew.

With these thoughts crowding about me, I stood alone, ensconced in dumb flesh, looking about at the machines—and the markers of their passing. Over all, the sun glowed, shining upon the living, the dying, and the dead. What cares the sun for us? Were I a fly, some dust, a meteor, a wisp of smoke, the last kiss of tragic love, the world’s candle would feel no differently, would know no differently. Likely, it feels nothing, knows nothing, cares for nothing: it lives only to burn itself away, slowly destroying itself in its own billion-year march toward extinction, until at last it grows weary of its slow decay, choosing to mark its passing with a light display of galactic magnitude. Perhaps the sun fears the end as greatly as do we temporary creatures crawling over the rock we presume to be ours. Might Sol secretly loathe its waning, see in itself the first signs of age? Does it watch the deaths of its distant cousins not in awe, as we do, but in fear? Does it mourn the losses? What does the sun know about the day of its demise? Will it in its far future know sympathy for the creatures that died long before? How awful is the fate of the sun, to live for billions of years in dread, to seek without for some purpose within, some point to the billions of years its glory has shown and will shine upon the uncaring denizens of Earth and the blighted shells of dead planets? Yet in its evil does it obliterate what it spent a lifetime creating. Such thoughts lead me to appreciate the brevity of human life. In our time, we can destroy so little.

On that day I mused about such events, the sun beating down on two living men and two empty graves, tombs filled with mementos, bits of paper, cold jewelry, and nothing else. The coffins encased memorialized trash and a void wanting for bodies, bodies having yet to be found. Tears were shed, though no trace of the objects of despair had been found, yet did the stars care or the earth grieve for such a loss? Did the old gods, now cast down by science, seek to offer comfort to ease human plight? No, what care the lifeless stars for us, or the inanimate land for the return of what sprang from it? Such is humanity’s punishment for its curiosity, for the plucking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Not in a universe of life and wonder do we reside, not within purview of a beneficial creator do we exist, but in an expanse of open space and cold systems bound to pointless laws do we shuffle through our little lives. We have found the meaning of life, and to our horror, we have found all life and form meaningless. Indeed, as if to emphasize such a point, I stood upon the ground that indifferently supported the two tombstones marking the missing:

Tristan Anastasia Ratling

Born: 23 April 1995

Died (?): 23 August 2008

Radiant Daughter

Victor Nicholas Ratling

Born: 18 November 1991

Died (?): 23 August 2008

Princely Son

Never had I met those children, yet I knew them. Indeed, I had been hearing about them since shortly after their disappearance. My companion had spoken of little else since their time on earth had ended; Indeed, he spoke forever of them as if his words held the power to conjure them from the mists into which they had been cast. Perhaps words do just as he thought, or what I suppose he thought. Ever have words held a special power over humankind. Ancient peoples thought their literate peers conjurers or soothsayers: a person sitting before an assembly, reading the words of those long dead was akin to a prophet to those for whom words were little more than elegant scratches. How cheap words have become in the time of near-universal literacy: how much more would we value our lexicon were it locked away from all but a select few. Words, once written, are deathless. Those who interpret those words will conjure forth the dead. Bring unto me the ignorant throng, a heavy tome, and a place to sit, and I will become as god.

Yet I will never be a god, for I will perish. Death too often is feared as the greatest of losses, and indeed, the loss of a kindred life seems the worse one can suffer, but it is not, for death brings finality, the conclusion of all acts of life. The loss of the two we honored that day was worse, far worse than the simple cessation of biological signs, for there was nothing beneath the ground, nothing but scraps of memories and frustration. We stood before a hole in the earth, our minds wishing it filled, be it with dirt or the dead.

Without a medium unto which to transfer pain, how does a person find peace? I contemplate such thoughts now, yet before this tragedy, I cared little for metaphysics. Always before, death was death; life was life: between the two, nothing of worldly consequence. But, now, I see that nothing is something: it engenders despair conceived in an empty grave. It gives nothing to mourn over and nothing to do, nothing but waiting and hoping and praying and dying without ever knowing. Forever in times of tragedy have people said, Nothing is worse than this. Too true! For nothing gives no relief, no answers, gives only long days silently hoping that today nothing ends. For people dealing with nothing, a body is a symbol of peace, an end to nothing. I see in others the longing for an orderly life, a unity in all objects, events, and experiences. Do not we cry out, I am done! when some burdensome task is put to rest, when at last the mind can let fall the albatross? No such rest comes for those carrying unanswered questions within.

Throughout my speculation, my companion said nothing, eschewed interrupting my thoughts as I his; only stared at the ground, his face worn, eyes searching the stones before us. I watched him as I had done before: a bent body bathed in melancholia, never shedding tears, rarely lamenting his pain. Always did he stand lost in thought, looking down at the names in granite; always did he keep his hands before him, clutching the gift he brought, a gift never changing. At the appointed time, a time only he knew, he kneeled weakly to lay between the burial sites twin roses the likes I have seen nowhere else: a purple variety with black stripes on the underside of the petals. Why roses? And why that color? Always I wondered; never did I ask. If he wished to tell me why such a color and such a flower in such a place, he would not hesitate. He spoke without prompting, divulging as much or as little as he wished. To question or to encourage was to elicit no more than obstinate silence.

His act of homage finished, he stood back from the graveside, a man in his darkling years, forced into growing enfeeblement before its proper time. The mind poisoned the body, sapped what vigor he had once possessed. His skin hung loosely upon his frame, shaking noticeably whenever he moved or spoke. He appeared to be ever in a state of languid decay: his skin graying, his hair diminishing, his bones cracking. What little muscle and fat he had once possessed now fled him, leaving behind the rattling carriage upon which once they rode. Death, too, has his moments of cunning, stalking his prey, be the watch a year or a day.

Standing, stretching his arms, my companion clutched instantly at his shoulder: an old wound, earned when young and more inclined to foolishness. I looked about us, casually averting my attention to take in the oaks and maples rising about us, surrounding us. Within those sentries for the fallen, the crows called, ignorant and uncaring of the plight below. As usual, my friend dusted the graves with seed, encouraging the crows to dine atop the tombs of children. He watched the gathering birds pecking impatiently, greedily.

Are we so much wiser than they? he remarked uncharacteristically, for his humor tended toward the contemplative rather than the garrulous whenever not at home.

How so? I prompted.

These birds, he began, feel no remorse, worry, guilt, or despair, yet we call them the birds of ill-omen. They bring no ill-will—he coughed harshly—they are but crows, they wish only to feed and, perhaps, to nest.

Too true, I confirmed. But old habits linger; humans have ever found meaning in meaningless nature. My friend faced me then, jowls twitching as if wishing to respond before resigning to say nothing. He only shrugged.

Ready at last to depart, we turned to the car. Beneath our feet, the gravel and twigs snapped and ground against one another, their staccato screams echoing through the cemetery, disturbing the squirrels making their homes. From their roosts above, the distraught creatures chattered their discontent down upon us while beneath, my companion led us to the automobile. Reaching the car, I opened the driver side door for myself, slipping quietly into the seat. My friend eased himself into the passenger seat with an audible sigh. Wiping the sweat from his brow with his monogrammed handkerchief, he indicated his readiness with a quick nod. At his prompting, I fired the engine and pulled away: he turned to watch the gravesites until they passed from view.

We drove in stillness. My friend turned away from me to stare out the window; he seemed to take no notice of anything beyond the window, wishing only to look elsewhere. We motored past parks and houses spaced at regular intervals, every blade of grass, every stick of shrub, carefully manicured by professional gardeners who dwelled everywhere but in the homes whose gardens they tended. Like gods, the unseen hands dwelled anywhere but where they labored. After driving past many of these streets, I made a left onto a cul-de-sac, also uniform, with seven houses to a side and three in the basin. His house was on the right-hand side of the court, nearly to the end as we drove in. As we approached his residence, a single-story affair he had bought several years prior, a cat, black with tuxedo markings, darted before the car. I quickly applied the brakes, avoiding the lanky animal running past.

Have a care, please, his voice sounded plaintive, nearly pleading, as if he could not bear even the thought of my hitting the animal. Recovering after a brief moment, I pulled into his short drive, expecting him to slip out of the car and into his reclusive life, to disappear from the world until next he needed me. So, I was surprised that on that day he entreated, Please, join me for a drink. I have something I wish to tell you. He turned toward the house motioning me to follow. Upon exiting the car, I breathed deeply, smelling the sweet tongue of the nearby creek, relishing the sound of summer laughter echoing amongst the houses, before turning to trail my friend past the manicured lawn and stately hedges of his home.

Whereas without the air was fresh, within the atmosphere was rank and close. I relieved myself of my windbreaker, hanging it upon a decrepit hall tree standing wearily at the ready. I walked uneasily into the kitchen whereat my companion went about mixing our drinks. In short order, he handed me a chipped crystal tumbler; a quick sip elicited the smooth, citrusy flavor of a vodka and tonic. I nodded my thanks. He smiled, the first I had seen from him in some time. I wondered again, Why must we mourn? A peculiar thought followed that one: Why should we not? What would we do were we left emotionless, like robots.

We adjourned to his sitting room looking out upon the cul-de-sac whose homes, yards, and lives beyond his window were orderly: houses were immaculately painted, lawns and gardens professionally maintained, children groomed and pampered. But here, on this side, life had become chaos: stacks of books, most mystical or occult, surrounded us, leaned over us in misshapen towers. Tables, chairs, shelves, floors, any surface that could be spared, held his collection. Even his aquarium top had been conscripted, much to the chagrin of its forgotten, and now lifeless, tenant. This chaos, this nihilistic library, corralled its owner into one of the rare remaining resting places in which the invaders had not permanently settled. Looking about him, my companion carelessly swept away a pile of paperbacks at rest in his lounger: Nuisance, these books. I should like to be rid of them, yet they still have their parts to play.

Taking my friend’s cue, I moved another intrusive stack before settling into a Victorian chair. The unexpected eviction of its former residents and the arrival of its prodigious new one prompted the chair to call for assistance by sending up a signal in the form of a haze of accumulated dust. The swirling particles made the air seem tighter still, yet never did my companion think to open the window, let the fresh air corrupt the sanctity of his home.

Settled, if not hospitably so, I was prepared to hear my companion’s tale. I admit I expected little in the way of literary entertainment, for my companion was the sort to accentuate the trivial and trivialize the essential. Yet, I sensed that John wished to speak of it, all of it, and though I loathed the tedium of catharsis, I welcomed his chance to resume life with the story’s conclusion. Most of the past several years had been spent in contemplation with only teasing bites of loquaciousness upon which to feed. Perhaps, at last, he was prepared to reveal all his thoughts. I waited anxiously as, he took a long draught of his elixir—the ice against the glass tolled its warning—he turned to me and, in a voice as dusty and strained as the air we imbibed, he began a story that even now unsettles my mortal core.

Chapter 1

At the time, I was not only younger, but also more innocent, more sure of my role in life. I laugh when remembering my more arrogant self believing it knew the way of the world. Foolishness! Foolishness for I have since learned that wisdom multiplies inversely, for the more one experiences, the more ignorant one becomes. If Delphi still stood, I would think its vaporous occupant as delighted with me as with Socrates. I am a fool! Do you not feel brighter than I for my declaration? Does not that exclamation deify you? But does such ascension mean anything? I am told, Man is the measure of all things. Yes, oh yes, man is the measure of all, for we are too simple to realize all is immeasurable. We construct standards and rules, invent systems, polities, functions, an array of tests to know our world. But what do we know? I assume other lives, other experiences divorced from my own, do exist. But, though I look on you, see you, know you to sit before me, can I prove you are there? All systems with which I could demonstrate you are alive, I must also assume exist. The chair in which I sit, the glass in my hand, the books about me, all are illusion, and beyond them—other illusions, and beyond those even more illusions. Cast a light about us, and what we see is only what is not in shadow. But beyond the circle of light hide the lurkers in shadow— always a blur, no more than a trace of something between us and the void beyond.

Consider our eyes: they can take in no more than a point of perhaps ½" diameter. In that point is clarity, is visual input, or at least the illusion of sight. However, beyond that focus is haze, beyond that, shadow, beyond that—well, beyond that is another world. In those moments when I have contemplated metaphysics, I understand that not only do I know nothing, but also that never will it be possible to know more than nothing. I cannot even know myself: I only know myself as I appear in my own hallucination. Of myself in any other state or in any other mind, I know nothing.

Forgive me, I try your patience. I did not bring you here for such existentialist skepticism; for some, age brings joy and fulfillment; for others it brings confusion and cynicism. I wish to speak of two people who have slipped from focus, have passed into shadow. The edges of cognition fascinate me, for at the edges I seek my subject.

I was an original buyer in this neighborhood, yet another master-planned community catering to the upwardly mobile. Excellent starter homes are these, as I am sure you have noticed—spare, tranquil, adequately constructed—perfect for those building middle-class sensibilities. Strangely, I wish to end in a domicile meant for beginnings. I toured the models, and though this house had one-too-many bedrooms and one-too-few pantries, I purchased the property, forgiving its foibles. I quickly adapted to its suburban isolation, though I had lived mostly in the urban centers of San Francisco and London, acting as liaison between the U.S. and European headquarters of a major banking house specializing in derivatives: yes, even my money springs from illusion. I came about my work in the usual manner: six years of schooling, two years of interning, and five years of flattering. In my thirty-fourth year, management granted me the position I had desired since first having entered the company. Though not undeserving, I was elevated somewhat prematurely, for the former liaison retired rather suddenly. I had expected at least five additional years of too much minutiae and too few essentials before seeing my fortunes rise, but the gentleman who had held the position for some twenty years inexplicably entered the mirrored edifice of the corporate office and voluntarily terminated his employment. I remember the commotion his resignation caused; not a lip was loosened that did not let slip the news, but such gossip is not surprising when one remembers that all walls echo—some more than others.

In truth, I would forego the aforementioned details if two additional events had not coincided with the liaison’s quitting. The first was his visiting me before leaving our offices. I remember the day in August—all things begin and end in August—the sun cast golden shadows throughout the building, even my innocuous pen was sheathed in gold. I grasped the otherwise unremarkable implement dozens of times a day, but it seemed on no other afternoon had it shined with such vigor. Yet that golden wand in my hand scrawled black wherever I dragged its head. While considering the pen’s strange state in the waning afternoon, my former colleague knocked upon my office door. Upon his entering, we inspected each other silently. He noticed the pen, the light, the scrawl. So different in this light, he began. He often spoke as if any previous silence had not existed, as if conversations lacked beginnings and ends, like a dream.

Yes, I was just noticing that myself. Strange what sunlight does to tarnished metal. I held the pen towards him as does a child showing a paper flower to a parent.

I suppose anything can be beautiful when the sun and soul wish it. He paused before finishing in a flurry of words, Do not thank me for what surely is to be yours; should you do so, shortly, you will regret your gratitude. I thanked the one before me who had retired, even after she warned me as I am warning you. Do not think I speak out of false modesty or am sounding an alarm over the trying nature of such toil left to you. I must have made a face, for he continued, commenting, No, no hard work is this. You will love it at first. Then you will enjoy it. Then you will merely be content, then accepting, until, finally, you will come to loathe every day that you must consult another committee, comment upon yet another proposal, consider yet another business plan. Business has no plan; it has only a goal: money. You will come upon your fair share of it, and in time, you will hate it. He wiped his hands upon his trousers, as if his thinking of his plight had put a blot upon him. I must go now. I want to be somewhere quiet, far from here. Perhaps I will see you when you are through. He turned towards the door, but with his back to me, he added, Good luck with your golden pen. He then marched through the door and out of the building. I sat holding my pen and thinking him mad. I never have heard more of him, though I have come to understand him.

Time proved his eccentric remarks more than accurate. After twenty years, I found myself hating my work. Having never married, I had neither a trusted soul to whom to vent my frustrations nor a sage voice from which to regain placidity. So, the second of the strange events surrounding that day came about: I quit without warning, twenty years to the day of my former colleague. I had not planned such a coincidence; events simply transpired. As the dates coincided, so, too, did my desire to warn my successor about the wretchedness of money, but like me, she ignored my admonitions. I had presumed as much: I perceived my words resounded with futility. Upon leaving the office, I drove to my new home far from the city in which I had spent the better part of my life. I wished never to return to my previous work, wished to forgo all manner of contact with my former acquaintances. I longed to slip quietly into my alternate reality, my suburban sanctuary. In the intervening years, I have never breached my vow, and, to their credit, none has attempted to contact me: all have left me to my metamorphosis.

I am sure my former colleagues believe me unbalanced, for they, like me, learned to strive for more: more money, more prestige, more work, more family, more friends, more business. I, however, began to add through subtraction, to remove the mirages and ghosts, attempted to find myself beneath the spectral debris. I moved to this place wishing to divine my nature, uncover the truth of me. As I said before, I was younger then.

In my new home, I found new transactions to shuttle, for in this neighborhood I have two singular traits: I lack children and I am old. Sensing opportunity, the young couples about me took advantage of my bachelorhood and disinterest in social events, having me sit on those occasions they wished to be children without children. In my role as de facto nursemaid, I met all the young in my area, acting to them as a surrogate grandfather, friendly and elderly, but lacking the bite of parental authority. I bridged the gulf between child and parent: I was a liaison once more.

Though I enjoyed all my charges, like any parent, I had my favorites, yet like a child, I stubbornly denied such thoughts. But to deny now what was always evident is absurd: I adored Victor an Tristan. I met them shortly after they moved into the house across the street from my own, an event occurring but two years after this section of the tract had been finished. The original owner had bought the property, dwelled within for a short time, and moved on without a word. No one knows why.

Almost the same day the For Sale sign was removed, the trucks pulled into the court, the cars arrived loaded down with laundry and baubles. Soon doors were thrown wide, ramps were lowered, boxes and furniture were unloaded, all making the house across the street appear as if some young imp had poured water into an anthill: everything was motion.

Now, whereas my home faces into the afternoon sun, the home across the way obviously faces away, leaving the family to move in beneath the shadows of their own home. The lay of their house also left their home unusually dark, for the windows in the rear of the structure permit but feeble light to pass. Ever fighting darkness is that house.

I waited out the first flurry of activity until early evening when, I supposed, the new owners would be resting. I crossed the street beneath a waning sun, the heat of the day relenting before the evening breeze, a gentle touch bearing on its back the scent of barbeques and summer.

I passed amongst the various sundry objects still residing outside the house, orphans awaiting a place in their new home. Past dressers, wardrobes, and tables, I strolled