After almost three years, Arnold was still kept in the basement.\u00c2\u00a0 He slept on cold concrete, regardless of the season.\u00c2\u00a0 They gave him a bowl of water every morning, and scraps of food, sometimes vegetables, sometimes leftover meat, usually not much more than bread, some cereal, crackers.<\/p>\n
There were no windows in the basement, no color, and only the slightest bit of light from a 25-watt bulb in a lamp beyond Arnold\u2019s reach.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s often hours before anyone else realizes the bulb has gone out.<\/p>\n
They took him out at night, when the guests in their Armani suits and Betsey Johnson dresses sipped champagne and nipped at fancy French pastries.\u00c2\u00a0 They led him to the main library, sit him behind the big wood desk and in front of a wall of books, and had him perform.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, he sat in the basement, testing the limits of the iron chain, the neck cuff, the rivets that held the other end into the wall.\u00c2\u00a0 Arnold could hope for rust, but it would never happen; the basement was cold, not damp, well-sealed against the outside elements.<\/p>\n
If he performed well, they rewarded him with scraps from their hors d\u2019oeuvres, and sometimes one of the younger women would give him something bubbly to drink.\u00c2\u00a0 They liked when he tipped to one side or the other.\u00c2\u00a0 They liked when his stories went a little out of bounds.<\/p>\n
The master of the house, a man who seemed only to be called Charlton, sometimes had Arnold give private performances.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t always fancy dress parties.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes, it was potential business partners, or distant relatives, or a small gathering of academic intellectuals; about once a month, Charlton was the beginning and the end of Arnold\u2019s audience.<\/p>\n
He told stories, of course.\u00c2\u00a0 Every night, he recited something different, sometimes making things up, sometimes stealing from forgotten legends and former masters.\u00c2\u00a0 He told stories about sailors and their adventures at sea, versus pirates and leviathans and barracuda.\u00c2\u00a0 He spun tales concerning space walkers, space shuttles, space food, space cadets.\u00c2\u00a0 He told stories about bears, lions, eagles, griphons, dragons, and vampires.\u00c2\u00a0 Ghosts and lovers and fiends.<\/p>\n
At night, Arnold dreamed of the mundane.\u00c2\u00a0 He longed for a day when he might put on a striped shirt, red tie, and a jacket, walk into the office, throw his boss woman a wink, and settle behind the computer to play with numbers.\u00c2\u00a0 His boss always wore a red dress in his dreams, red lipstick, red fingernails, even red hair.\u00c2\u00a0 Her only other color was in the eyes, which differed night to night, blue or green or gray or violet or brown.<\/p>\n
One disturbing night, Arnold\u2019s boss had no eyes at all, merely sockets where the eyes might have been; he used that image in his story that night, which caused one of the women to faint.\u00c2\u00a0 The butler gave him lashes that night, though it was hard to remember any particular strike of leather on flesh.<\/p>\n
In a past life, Arnold believes he spreadsheeted for a living, filling in columns, totaling and averaging and leveraging, doing things the way things were done.\u00c2\u00a0 None of this story nonsense.\u00c2\u00a0 None of these tales.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t normal, for a man to fall into such fancies.\u00c2\u00a0 Stories were the playthings of children, nothing more.<\/p>\n
At least, that\u2019s what most people believed.\u00c2\u00a0 As it turned out, the elite, the aristocracy, had a penchant for a good story.\u00c2\u00a0 They kept storytellers as pets.\u00c2\u00a0 Arnold hadn\u2019t known.\u00c2\u00a0 But now, he heard the fancy people whispering, how they preferred Carlton\u2019s tale spinner to the one Jacoby kept, how Mangrove\u2019s mad poet had died a horrible, never-explained death, how Manson\u2019s escaped storyteller might\u2019ve been aided by a woman in love.<\/p>\n
As if such a thing as love existed outside of fairy tales.<\/p>\n
Two months shy of three years into this life, Arnold was brought from the basement to the library for another performance.\u00c2\u00a0 Always, he heard the comments as he was brought out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatch this monkey sing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, look, how cute, Carlton dresses the poor little thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want a storyteller of my own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over time, Arnold came to recognize many of the patrons.\u00c2\u00a0 Though he sometimes knew their real names, he often labeled them in other ways.\u00c2\u00a0 This made it possible to incorporate them into his stories without direct offence.\u00c2\u00a0 Mr. Reynolds became Raymond and, in Arnold\u2019s tales, acquired an accent.\u00c2\u00a0 The lady Worthington became a homeless, drug addicted whore.\u00c2\u00a0 The butler, Arnold\u2019s keeper, had been devoured by tigresses, shot in the back, stabbed, burnt to death, mutilated by animated paper clips, and poisoned twice.<\/p>\n
The party quieted.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the younger women, in a powerfully distracting red dress, stepped forward, toward Arnold in his chair, and turned to the others.\u00c2\u00a0 Her name was Denise.\u00c2\u00a0 She\u2019d attended many of these soirees, and had actually exchanged words with Arnold as though he were really human, or something close.\u00c2\u00a0 She\u2019d won, or bought, the honor of giving him his title for the evening.\u00c2\u00a0 Noticeably, she did not have a glass of champagne in her gloved hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cLadies,\u201d she said.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cGentlemen.\u00c2\u00a0 And Mr. Carlton.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 She smiled, and was answered with proper giggles and a grin from the host.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cIt gives me the greatest pleasure to give your boy his title for tonight.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 She turned then to Arnold, so no one could see her face but him, and winked.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cPoisoned Love.\u201d<\/p>\n
The title got a reaction, a combination of interest and disinterest, ahs and whys.\u00c2\u00a0 Arnold, who had been recently lashed, sat quite still in his chair and surveyed the room.\u00c2\u00a0 For a brief moment, he was their king, even their god.\u00c2\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t make stories of their own.\u00c2\u00a0 Imagination was a rare commodity these days.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cPoisoned Love,\u201d he said, meeting the eyes of his audience.\u00c2\u00a0 Under any other circumstance, and at any other time of day, he might be shot for such boldness.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe speaks, of course, of our good friend Alan.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 He always used easy names.\u00c2\u00a0 They were easy to remember.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cAnd Kim.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 Once, he liked a girl named Kim, or knew a girl with that name, or at least had met one.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cStar-crossed lovers, if ever there were.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not get the response he expected.\u00c2\u00a0 Even after almost three years, it astounded him that all these people had no other source of storytelling, plays, poetry, or fiction.\u00c2\u00a0 He easily forgot that all the books in this library were about numbers or medicine or history or philosophy.\u00c2\u00a0 No Poe.\u00c2\u00a0 No Homer.\u00c2\u00a0 No Bradbury.\u00c2\u00a0 No Hawthorne.\u00c2\u00a0 No Dumas.<\/p>\n
\u201cKim and Alan,\u201d he went on, \u201cmet as many a couple met in those days, at a coffeehouse, in the shadow of a war, in a neglected corner of the city of Berlin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always Berlin,\u201d someone said to their neighbor; both laughed, but Arnold went on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere, they plotted a grand escape, by which he would take her across the border, through the badlands, over the mountains of madness, beyond the desert, and into a foreign land where they might elope, and then together build their fortune, and then have a dozen children and a hundred grandchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSounds like your sister.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 If they had any true appreciation, there would be no comments, and they would not bother with the diamond cufflinks and necklaces.\u00c2\u00a0 But the storyteller, as Arnold had recently surmised, was a trend, a fad that would eventually fade.\u00c2\u00a0 And Arnold would likely be left in the basement, forgotten, to starve.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly three things worked against them,\u201d Arnold said.\u00c2\u00a0 Three was always a good number.\u00c2\u00a0 It reminded people of mystical things.\u00c2\u00a0 Magical things.\u00c2\u00a0 Things they had no business being reminded of, as they had never had any actual experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree things,\u201d Arnold said.\u00c2\u00a0 His eyes, having swept through the audience once or twice, settled on Denise.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cHis family.\u00c2\u00a0 Her family.\u00c2\u00a0 And the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was already tired.\u00c2\u00a0 And weak.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn\u2019t help, starting out that way.\u00c2\u00a0 He was expected to go for an hour or two, the short breaks dictated by the needs and wants of the audience, not the storyteller.\u00c2\u00a0 He has less rights than the family cat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe war,\u201d Arnold said again.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cThe big war, the grand war, yet another final war, this was supposed to be it, the end either of war or the world, it was always difficult to know whilst in the midst of such things.\u00c2\u00a0 But over the mountains, across the deserts, in foreign lands, they would be beyond the reaches of war, beyond her family, beyond his.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait,\u201d someone said, someone in the back whom Arnold did not recognize.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019d put up a hand and put down his drink.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cI need a pause, but I absolutely must hear the rest of this.\u00c2\u00a0 I must know how it ends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arnold nodded, as though he had any power here, and thought, I haven\u2019t even yet told you how it begins.\u00c2\u00a0 But he said nothing.<\/p>\n
Scattered conversations, little ones, broke out, and the party continued as though there\u2019d never been a storyteller.\u00c2\u00a0 Except Denise went around the side of the desk, stood near to Arnold as she examined the titles on the shelves directly behind him, and whispered, \u201cI\u2019ve done it.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u2019ve done it for you, you must know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arnold didn\u2019t move.\u00c2\u00a0 It took no effort to keep his voice low.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cThe butler?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Someone collapsed.\u00c2\u00a0 You simply didn\u2019t do such a thing at such highbrow affairs.\u00c2\u00a0 Women stepped away.\u00c2\u00a0 Only one man was brave enough to step forward.\u00c2\u00a0 He knelt beside her.\u00c2\u00a0 Without reason, he said, \u201cGive her some air.\u201d<\/p>\n
From another room, a man screamed.<\/p>\n
They started dropping quite quickly then, men and women both, slumping over each other in provocative ways, slipping, tumbling, faltering, sputtering.\u00c2\u00a0 Arnold watched it all.\u00c2\u00a0 Denise busied herself by reading the spines on the shelf behind him.<\/p>\n
Carlton, the man in charge, the owner, who owned the great storyteller, clutched his throat but did not fall.\u00c2\u00a0 He rang a bell, the little one that would summon the butler.\u00c2\u00a0 If the butler had a name, Arnold had never heard it.<\/p>\n
The butler was an old, solid man, a former wrestler perhaps, or secret agent, who looked damn intimidating in his tuxedo.\u00c2\u00a0 It was rare, indeed, that he would wait for the sound of his master\u2019s bell.<\/p>\n
The butler never came.<\/p>\n
Foaming at the mouth, Carlton turned his wicked gaze on Arnold.\u00c2\u00a0 He had trouble speaking, but managed to say, \u201cYou.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arnold smiled.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cUs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Carlton crashed to the floor, flailing and spinning, the last of them all to fall.\u00c2\u00a0 Denise finally turned away from the books.\u00c2\u00a0 She looked down at Arnold and said, quite simply, \u201cCome.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did.<\/p>\n
He followed her through the maze of rooms to the front hall, the foyer, then out onto the massive front porch.\u00c2\u00a0 Down the steps, her chauffer waited with an open door into the back of a traditional black limousine.\u00c2\u00a0 She slipped in like the femme fatale she was.\u00c2\u00a0 Arnold hesitated, but the chauffer said, \u201cSir,\u201d and that was all he needed.\u00c2\u00a0 He slid in behind her.<\/p>\n
The back of the limo felt as big as the library, though surely it wasn\u2019t.\u00c2\u00a0 It was more free, perhaps, and that was all that mattered.<\/p>\n
Denise kissed him.\u00c2\u00a0 She kissed him good and well and long and wet.\u00c2\u00a0 She handed him a bottle of sparkling water, and drank from her own.\u00c2\u00a0 She giggled.\u00c2\u00a0 She said, \u201cI can\u2019t believe it.\u00c2\u00a0 I stole a storyteller.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFreed,\u201d Arnold said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, of course,\u201d Denise said.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cFreed.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 She giggled some more, like a schoolgirl reading her first naughty fiction.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cWill you tell me a story?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShould I continue?\u201d Arnold asked.<\/p>\n
Denise shook her head.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cI think we\u2019ve just seen how the poison turns out.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell me about a girl and her storyteller.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell me a love story.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell me a story about the chains that bind man and beast to a woman.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell me a story about romance and passion and magic and mystery.\u00c2\u00a0 But mainly, my dear, dear storyteller, tell me how you think our story will end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arnold smiled.\u00c2\u00a0 He was drunk on sparkling water and fresh air and the first kisses he\u2019d tasted in almost three years.\u00c2\u00a0 This had been a long time in planning.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cIt ends with death, I\u2019m afraid,\u201d he said.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cAll of our stories end with death.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo morbid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHonest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll have to do better, when I entertain.\u00c2\u00a0 I expect you to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arnold shook his head.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve told my last story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Denise put a hand on his knee and leaned close.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cThat,\u201d she said, \u201cis not how our story ends.\u00c2\u00a0 You will perform for me, or you will be punished, and I don\u2019t mean that in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Too late, Arnold realized the bubbly water had, in fact, been spiked.\u00c2\u00a0 Briefly, he hoped it would be as strong as the concoctions inside Cartlon\u2019s library, which had left two dozen dead and dying.<\/p>\n
Instead, he woke in a basement.\u00c2\u00a0 She\u2019d left him a pillow, a small luxury, and a plastic jug of water rather than a bowl.\u00c2\u00a0 The concrete was cold, and damp here.\u00c2\u00a0 At least he could hope that someday, in some far distant future, the chain around his neck might rust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After almost three years, Arnold was still kept in the basement.\u00c2\u00a0 He slept on cold concrete, regardless of the season.\u00c2\u00a0 They gave him a bowl […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}