ave you ever stood on the
edge of your doorstep looking back at your home and wondered if you could leave
it all behind in a flash? Have you ever? Perhaps there will never be such a
situation, perhaps you are blessed. Or perhaps you want this desperately to
happen but the occasion hasn’t presented itself. There is finality to
this possibility, a chance things might turn out much better. There is a
chance, a chance you will never be the same again. Maybe you have done this
very thing countless times and you wonder what could possibly be
extraordinary about this thought. However. Have you ever entered your home
and thought: everything is gone, nothing is the same anymore, this is not
mine, and there is nothing here anymore that belongs to me. Today was such a day. One could say: I left; I left all that I knew behind.
One could say poppycock and argue nothing changed. Everything is still there.
The store, the clocks, the watches, the endless ticking and chiming. The
small library crammed full of books, most of which I will never read. Nothing
perceivably different can be observed, not even with the most powerful
magnifying glass. And yet, and yet everything is different. I look around and
can’t connect with a single item I can see, touch, hear and smell. The
delicate tools I’ve used for more than a year now are meaningless. They
exist in a world that is physical yes, but could have not been further away
from my reality. Why these vague and utterly diabolical hints at the
grotesque, the unimaginable? Have I been robbed of all my senses? Are the
walls now talking to me and do I hear voices around me telling me the world
has ended? No, nothing of the sort. I will, with great difficulty recall and
retell the events that have passed ever since my old mentor Mr. Hubbard
opened the trap door leading down to the phantasmagorical Bibliotheca
Echidna. Having only been there once, and only briefly, I was not much
impressed other than wonder who and why had created such an elaborate underground
palace of private entertainment. For that is what I thought it was then, a
manifestation of minds too curious to be satisfied with trivial mechanisms. Perhaps
the richly decorated underground lobby was nothing more than an even more
exclusive replica of one of the numerous gentlemen’s clubs that were
ever so popular these days. Granted, I was curious then, but I did not expect
the inhabitants of this underground labyrinth were serious, deadly serious.
Forgive me, dear reader; it
has not been long since I emerged, physically unscathed yes, but mentally in shambles.
You will permit me to rest a while before I commit to paper all that I have
seen. Currently I would not be able to describe by any means those things and
people I encountered. Those endlessly moving paintings of Dr. Halter, whose
understanding of light and dark can not be put into words alone. How will I
convey the depths one plunges into after just one brief glance? Light, yes,
light, that is the same at least. Down there, light takes on a different form.
It is alive and has its own mind and agenda, it wants to reign and attach
itself to everything. It fights the dark but can not win. That is what Dr.
Halter understood. His paintings only work there, they must be observed in a
room with light made for just one painting, for one purpose. Perhaps this is
true for all that I saw and lived through down there: it can only exist
there. But what does that leave me? I have the light of above, of the real
natural sky. The light that is still mine, that thing that has remained the
same since I left. Perhaps the inspector can help. Unlike myself,
a person who is now allowed below beyond the lobby, the inspector can not go
into Echidna beyond the doors. This is most fortunate; perhaps he can help
understand why things are different down there. He has not been infected; he
has never been that deep. But what am I saying, how can you, dear reader,
follow all this. I speak in riddles and riddles not even clear to myself. We
will meet again, yes we shall indeed and maybe then I can elaborate.
Eternally tired. Must sleep until this mental fever is no longer raging in my
brain. For now I bid you a good day.
