3.3 - The Discarnate Peers of Jorschka Keller

     To whom it may concern, 

My name is Jorschka Keller, I am seventy and three years old, and I am the last living resident of Lien. I’ve been here my whole life, and I plan on passing away here. My home, a wooden shack with a crooked roof and a creaky door and three windows facing the sea is my dearest companion. It is flanked by homes similar to it-one on either side of our triumphant hill at the top of the town-but they lack all of the charisma that mine has. I have been alone here for fourteen years. Ever since the condition spread. I’m sure you’re aware of it. It must have been in every paper across the country. That isn’t why I am writing this, however. 

Things have begun to happen, here in Lien. Particularly in those shamefully lacking homes on either side of me. The ones with doors that don’t creak and rooves that sit perfectly aligned, and windows on each side, free of streaks and cracks. It is not outside the realm of possibility that these things, these...moments, are merely my mental state beginning to shift beyond me. I am not qualified to make that distinction. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t document and pass on this information to interested parties, who may be more learned in the supernatural. I will both use this as a testament to my experiences here of late, as well as my last will and...well...testament. If I were a younger man I would reword that last bit, but in my old age words have become too precious to throw away. Each one can make a home for itself, even if it squiggles awkwardly between others that seem to belong there a bit more. Besides, there is so much more here than just a few words. The ink with which I put them down. The pen, that, much like myself, has lived far longer than it has any right to. The paper, yellowed and slightly wrinkled from the day not too long ago when I dozed off with my window open and the angry sky spat in my eye. The energy I commit to this endeavor, which feels herculean to me, but when weighed upon a scale would be barely enough to weigh down a feather. I would be a fool to dash all of those pieces to the wind for a few words I don’t fancy. 

For the unlucky few who may be reading this, I also will not apologize for these meandering moments. Precision is a city dweller’s game, I am a man of switchbacks. I get where I am going, but I take my time doing it. 

Now, back to the topic at hand. These dreadful, passionless homes on either side of me, like dead-eyed sentinels encircling their prisoner. I’ll begin with the one on my right. I suppose it’s important to clarify that each time I reference a direction in relation to myself, assume that I am always facing the ocean. That is how I spend most of my days, looking out over the vast blue calm. I don’t say that to imply the water here is somehow still. It is quite the opposite, in fact. A constant roiling assault on the rocks below. But the waters themselves, the conglomerate of life inside it, the froth that is birthed in the concussive blasts of each wave, have a sense of peace to them unknown to any of us simple creatures. Comfort in their own fury. 

The cabin on my right. Yes. Back to it. Back when Lien was buzzing like a beehive, and I was younger but still quite old, a couple moved in after someone I knew left the house vacant. They were in their thirties, I believe. We smiled and nodded in passing, but never spoke more than a few words. There was a mutual agreement between us, that we were humans in different worlds that just so happened to be overlapping slightly. They had nothing for me, and I had nothing for them, and it was just fine that way. 

Throughout my life, I have become more and more comfortable with letting go. That may sound obvious and maybe it is, but to me, it is a grand revelation. I do not mean letting go on a personal level, no I am still hopelessly trapped within my own mind. I mean letting go of the tenuous connections that I know will surely untangle and drift off into the sky. We are, all of us, bound to thousands of others throughout our lifetime, and it just so happens that my ship reached capacity long ago. Nestled into every room, nook, cranny, holding on tight to the sails, clutching to the railings, are the people I have committed to throughout my life. Most of them have sadly passed beyond, or simply left me, but I keep them still. All of this is to say that when rowboats pass with passengers such as the thirty-something couple living next door, I simply wave and move on.     

     They were primed for passengers, however, and loved throwing parties for the youth of Lien. I would look out over the sea and hear raucous howling late into the evening. I will not lie and say I was pleased to hear such vivid life. It was rather frustrating, in fact. It was a battlefield each night, overflowing with shouts and thumps and the smell of cigarettes and wine. Their endurance was shocking. Some clearly could not keep up, because, with each evening bacchanalia fewer guests would leave than the amount who arrived. I often imagined the center of their cabin serving as the banquet hall while each adjoining room was a makeshift medical bay, treating the wounded from the days prior. Even then my memory wasn’t as sharp as I wish, but I could swear that some visitors never recovered enough to leave. 

After two years of this activity, the caskets began to arrive. I watched from my living room as they carted the first poor soul out. The couple was weeping, and holding each other on the porch. I always found that odd. It seemed an inevitability to me. Then again, I was an old man, newly alone and lonely, prone to such nihilistic thoughts. Every week, for three months, another casket left their home. With each one, the couple seemed less and less perturbed. They stopped seeing them off from the porch even, choosing to stay inside as the coffins were carried away. 

When I would rarely venture out to collect my groceries from the market, I would hear rumblings from the townsfolk. Lien is rather secluded. The closest town is forty-five minutes away by buggy, and even that is close in size to Lien. That tends to breed uncertainty, rightfully so. The world is not the same out here, as it is in the big cities. There are things that linger on the periphery of humanity never daring to tangle with the majority, but out here they are free to test the waters. Some of these things I have no explanation for and others are merely dormant facets of our own ugly nature, given form in the independence of isolation. 

The reason I have digressed to these intangible elements of country living is to reasonably explain the rumblings of my neighbors. Some claimed spiritual interference was at play. Some sort of demon, fixing its gaze upon the young couple and their friends. Others were convinced the young couple was not as innocent as they put forth. Talk of poisons, sacrifices, and other such dark and hateful actions. Others still began to expound upon a possible disease, coming in from the city on the packages brought in by the mail carriers. Oddly enough when talk of demons was in play, the theory of disease seemed least likely to me considering the concentration of death in one location. Even so, that theory became fact and soon enough gloves and masks were being crafted and given out to each and every resident. I played along to keep what peace I could, which was a remarkably small amount. 

Folks didn’t pay me much mind after Leona left. That was why I was newly alone and lonely, you see. She was my wife of twenty-one years. I suppose I changed, or perhaps I was never what she saw in me and it took her all those years to uncover the truth. Maybe she didn’t want Ria to grow up a child of divorce, so she waited until she was old enough to be on her own. Whatever the case may be, she left me briefly before the young couple moved in, and only a year after Ria moved away from Lien. I have never felt the pain I felt that year. And the year after. And the year after that. There seems to be an understanding that folks my age, those in our twilight years, are somehow more prepared for loneliness just by the nature of having been alive longer than others. I have never been prepared for loneliness, and no amount of living has improved my capacity for it. Twenty-one years of loving has left nineteen years of wanting in its wake, with no sign of stopping. Enough laments for now. 

Where was I? Ahh, yes. Shortly after talk of a disease spread through Lien like..well...a disease, the young couple next door disappeared. Like vapors on the wind, they were there and then gone. The deaths ceased, for a time. Nearly a year, in fact. Then they began again twofold. During that year, the cabin to my right remained vacant. It was colloquially dubbed Mephistopheles Mansion, and no one dared go near it. Some places experience too much death to ever move beyond it. 

When I was a boy, my father owned a farm in the deep countryside. To the north of us was a vast plain, barren and gray despite the green land around it in all directions. I asked my father why nothing would grow there, and he told me that long before he was born, a horribly bloody battle had taken place there. The blood and the wails of the dying had saturated the earth and created a blanket of necrosis that no living thing could penetrate. He said that if you walked the land for long enough, you would feel the screams of the dying radiate up through your boots. It seems that my entire life, I have been on the edge of death, quite literally. 

In the last few years, as I move about this empty town like a shadow, Mephistopheles Mansion has awoken. It started with bumps in the night. Nothing too strange. A loud thud here, a prolonged creak there. I assumed it was the house feeling the pressure of time, or perhaps a wild animal taking up residence, ignorant of the history it was surrounding itself with. It progressed rather aggressively from there, however. Screams, human screams, echo out from the windows in the early morning. The sound of an ax hacking away at something spirals out from the cracks of the walls in the heart of the night. A guttural, inhumanly low whimper can be heard if you stray too close to the building. I dare not look inside. I hear that if Mephistopheles catches your eye, he can invade your mind. Not that he would find much purchase in this old patchwork head. If anything, I wouldn’t want the bastard to have the satisfaction of claiming the last resident of Lien, what with all the racket he’s been making. 

The cabin itself is beginning to show signs of abuse. Like a body, when a virus creeps through its blood. Streaks of pale green are splayed across the wood. The sides of the cabin are beginning to look like a map, each green streak a street with the brown natural wood acting as the rows of homes next to them. The corners of the windows and the doorframe are rotting away faster than the rest of the house under the pressure of whatever evil may be leaking out through them. With as much certainty a man my age and constitution can maintain, I would say that it is beyond the natural order. I expect that by the time this reaches the right parties, and they collect the necessary funds, permits, and equipment to make the journey out, I will have passed away. I do not mind. I still have my windows, and the ocean and the strength to go walking. This is a request of an academic nature, not one of personal security or assistance.

If I require assistance, I need only reach out to my daughter. It’s unfortunate I am too much of a coward for that. She is patient and calm and can drag every one of your mistakes as a father to the surface with one look. She has never lashed out at me, but there is a silence between us that says it all. We both know I am a distractible man and was not there for her when she needed me. Even so, she sends me a birthday card each year, and a postcard each vacation, and with each of them, my regret drops a new seed into the loam of my being. It would be easier if she abandoned me fully. It would feel justified. Instead, she stands in defiance of my shame, with the grace of her mother. I don’t have much to my name. I never worked for anything other than food on the table and cash in my pocket. I don’t regret it for myself, but I wish I had more to leave her. My life was never about money, and yet at the same time, it was consumed by it. I did not live to work, I worked to live, but the fatal flaw in that very statement is that one cannot work to live. Not anymore. There are two great pools, instead of one long river. A pool of those who live for money, and a pool of those who live for nothing. That’s what it felt like, at least. My entire life was spent beneath the weight of bills, and debt, and every little thing we bought to bring us a fleeting sense of freedom. Looking back, I know now that I handled it poorly. I constantly grappled with my own feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, desire for more, frustration. That struggle went unchecked and did untold damage to my relationships. 

I can never make up for that, but to Ria, I am leaving everything that I own. 

This wonderful cabin which is more than anyone needs, and yet I spent dozens of years angry at its imperfections. 

My savings, meager though they may be, are more than some have to their name. 

Every book I have collected throughout my lifetime, each one replete with memories in the cracked bindings and scuffed pages. 

The furniture that has held its form through time, scattered throughout the cabin like organs in a body. Alongside the books goes the bookshelf that Leona and I made, one summer, lifetimes ago. We had it in our minds that we would become more self-sufficient, and build what we did not have instead of buying it. The bookshelf was the first and last project for quite a long time. It didn’t go particularly well, but Ria wasn’t old enough to understand the raised voices. It shouldn’t harbor any poor memories for her. The spinning, padded armchair that Ria loved to sit in while she played her games. The loveseat Leona often lounged in after a heavy lunch, more often than not falling asleep and filling the cabin with snores. The tall, wobbly, brass lamp in the corner, with its lampshade covered in Ria’s drawings. The kitchen table, with a cracked leg, and a burnt scar in the center from when I fell asleep with a cigarette in my hand, after another long night out. Another night of Ria’s life missed. Another night of Leona’s love ignored. I ask that the kitchen table be disposed of, upon my demise. I won’t burden Ria with junk. 

All kitchenware, to her. It has seen far less use since Leona left. She was the chef in our family. I am no lummox in the kitchen, but I believe a craftsman should yield to an artist when given the chance. The difference in styles was staggering between the two of us. I saw cooking as a means to accomplish an end, she saw it as gift giving. Each dish was an offering to her loved ones. I wish I realized that sooner. 

My bed is old and ragged, and should also be disposed of. The headboard, however, should go to Ria as well. It was a wedding gift to her mother and me from my father. Ria always had a close relationship with her grandfather, my father. In many ways, he was a better father to her than I ever was. A bitter irony, considering how many of my flaws were handed down as if they were the family trade. I am glad he was there for her, but I never forgave him for not being there for me. 

The various paintings and art pieces on the walls should go to Ria as well, with the caveat that she should feel no remorse for throwing them away or selling them if she chooses. I struggle to remember how she felt about them. I believe that’s everything accounted for. 

Now we have the cabin on my left to expound upon. A man lived there, alone, for a long time. I remember when he moved in. The moon was high in the sky, and perfectly full. Ria and Leona were asleep, and I was drinking on the front porch, numb to whatever it was that I so hated feeling at the time. He drove his beat-up wooden buggy up the hill, sputtering as it went. After he parked, he methodically unloaded one box at a time, with a face as rigid and hard as stone. It was not the face of a man who was unhappy with his life. I was intimately familiar with that face, after staring it down in the mirror every morning. This was a man who, beyond anything, was comfortable with his own company. We were the same age, as best as I could approximate. Ria was only three at the time, which would put me at thirty-eight, and him about the same. At one point during the unpacking, he noticed me within my cloud of cigarette smoke and gave me a nod and a wave. He took a box inside, then came back out, and without looking back to me said his name was Hubert. 

The houses, you see, are rather close. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that yet, and I don’t have the vision to trace back over these lines of script that I have worked very carefully on to keep a reasonable size. Every inch of me wishes to stretch these letters out bigger and longer, and give these old eyes a rest, but I know that wouldn’t be proper. So here I am, scribbling down words that I can barely see myself, hoping beyond hope that it is appropriate for the weight they carry. I called my name back and welcomed him to Lien, and then we resumed our silence. The last thing he carried in from the buggy was a large, dented and stained display easel, and an armful of canvases. 

I learned over the next twenty years that he was a moderately well-known painter, and that he had no family to speak of. A mousey man with round spectacles and a perfectly ironed green vest would venture out to Lien once every six or eight months and pick up Hubert’s works, leaving the money from the last stock with him. That was the only time I would ever catch a smile on Hubert’s face. Not when the man was there, but once the paintings were safely packed away and drifting off down the road. He would stand with one foot on the first step of the cabin as if he would at any minute turn and go inside. In the twenty years I knew him, he never once took his eyes off his paintings before they passed the horizon. He would watch, and a thin smile would crack his rocky visage. I swear a few times I saw dust and pebbles break loose from it. 

He was one of the last to grow sick, but even so, he became ill only four weeks after the first case. A year after the Mephistopheles Mansion couple disappeared, a truly indiscriminate virus found its way into Lien. I have dozens of questions about that time, and unfortunately will be of very little help here. Although I’m sure you know more about it than I do. It wasn’t so much the disease as it was our seclusion that was killing us. We took care of our own in Lien, which is quite romantic and a wonderful bonding experience, but in the event of a viciously contagious virus, it was rather impractical. We suffered a devastating two weeks of death, followed by two weeks of an exodus. Nearly every resident of Lien fled, or died in that month, save Hubert and me. And then only me. The last time we spoke, he and I, he wished me luck and thanked me for being a good neighbor. Like he was simply moving towns. He didn’t want to die in his home, so he wandered off towards the sea and from my windows, I watched him give himself up to the water. A week after that, the mousey man in the green vest arrived and dug through Hubert’s cabin, gathering every last thing inside. I stood in my doorway glaring at him, and he returned the look in kind. I think I have done a disservice to mice by comparing the two. He was a vulture. Now, look at what I’ve done again, rambling on beside the point.

The cabin to my left. Much like Mephistopheles Mansion, it has come to life, but in a different way. A rattle shakes through the building some days. It tingles like bells in a pipe. Alongside it, there is a heavy twisting sound like a crank being operated, as if a drawbridge is being lowered and raised. More striking than the sound is the look of the cabin. It shifts in the sunlight, warping, and pulsing. Patterns bounce through the windows and splash through the air. The wood of the walls lightens and smoothes out, becoming more like the canvases Hubert spent so much of his time with. Paints bleed through from the inside, creating inverted paintings for my enjoyment. I spend many afternoons watching them work, it is quite soothing. 

It reminds me of Leona. She was never a painter, but her very movements were artful. I am sorry, Leona. It has taken me far too long to realize it, but I now see how I let you down. Each and every way. You were right to leave me. I was selfish and obsessive, and I didn’t give you space to be what you have every right to be. Every moment I should have stepped back, I stepped forward, and every moment I should have stepped up, I stepped down. I was never much of a dancer, as you know. It was not all bad, though, I hope. I know it wasn’t for me. Many of our years were filled with joy, and love, and a feeling of belonging. I feel confident in saying that you feel the same. I am blessed to have been able to hold on to many of those memories. The lion’s share of our journey was beautiful if only I hadn’t spoiled the ending. I suppose I’ve put to paper all the musty old words I’ve had jumbled up inside for some time now. I hope my account of these cabins help whoever may be interested in the evolving metaphysical environment of Lien, and I hope my words, as simpleminded as they may be, bring something meaningful to my daughter and my ex-wife. 

Love, Jorschka Keller

“He had quite an imagination, huh?” The coroner said, placing the will back down on the table. He looked at the body, resting peacefully in a swiveling armchair, nestled in the corner of a small apartment in Duluth. “Did we contact his next of kin yet?” 

“Yeah,” said the cop who responded to the neighbor’s call of a smell from next door. “The daughter said she would tell the ex-wife. They’re both in Minneapolis.” 

The coroner looked around the apartment. A brass lamp illuminated the room, its lampshade covered in children’s drawings. A shoddily put together bookshelf stood in the corner, completely covered in books. A loveseat, its cushions ripped and pale, most of their color gone. A beautifully painted canvas hanging on the far wall with a note pinned to the bottom. 

Good luck old friend. Thanks for being a kind neighbor. 

Love, Hubert.