I’m currently at a pet store writing this, I blacked out for three days and I smell disgusting. I think this began two weeks ago when my uncle died. He was a strange but brilliant man. He had two loves: mysticism and physics. He decided that physics was the better option job wise and became a professor of theoretical physics in a prominent third level institute. He was widely celebrated for his work into consciousness and won many awards.
That was until 2010. That year he went on a spiritual journey travelling the world. There were videos of him at the ruins of the Temple of Artemis praying in a forgotten tongue. to totems of dead Gods.
That was just one example of his madness. After this he left my aunt and cousins and became a hermit. His ties with all universities were cut as he published increasingly bizarre and fantastical theories.
He had no fixed abode and some time in 2016 my mother sent a private investigator to dig what they could up about her brother. They returned fragments of the most incredible and strange behaviors from eye witnesses that we couldn’t believe this was a Life magazine published physicist.
Being as smart as he was he dropped completely off the map at this stage. It wasn’t until three weeks ago we knew he was even of this world anymore. I started from my end with my mother Whatsapping me with a photo of a note:
LIZ, I WASN’T RIGHT - CHARLES
My uncle had made contact! After a week we had traced the letter back to a remote village in the heart of Afghanistan. The local Taliban militia were surprisingly more than helpful. They informed us that they knew who we were speaking about and that his body would be shipped back to us immediately. They said that we should bury him in any grave blessed by a priest and hoped that we were strong Catholics as they thought Irish people were.
Two weeks ago I was in the airport with my mother, no one else wanted these rotten bones it would seem. The man who handed over the body wanted to speak to us personally. He handed us a hand written journal and said this should be burned, he could not do it, but could not be pressed for an answer as to why.
The manuscript was a description of my uncle descending into witchcraft of the most repulsive and dark kind. He said it started by falling asleep and repeating “There is a door.” He believed that there was a realm beyond this earthly one hidden in the mind and could be accessed by just asking to be let in.
However after the third night he began having dreams, a pale man would ask him to do things, the man explained that this was necessary to give up corporeal form by making it uninhabitable with sin. My uncle would need to complete a series of tasks before he could go down the stairs.
Over this time he resisted, realising that he had got to the other side. But he also realised that the warnings of old not to invoke the supernatural were also based in truth. The noise could not be shut out. My uncle was harassed by demands for weeks after this until he broke one day, under the spell of opium, he relented and began to say the phrase. The pale man returned with fangs and dead eyes, more alive as he was dead.
After this the diary falls into chaos, just a list of things crossed out toad eyes lover’s heart and the ravings of a man in delirium. I went to bed that night and could not sleep, this is where I have failed, I thought about the words.
I slept a peaceful sleep, nothing to worry about and nothing to do now but get through the funeral. That was an unpleasant affair. When we got to the Church we were mobbed by protesters and had to drive straight to the cemetery. I googled my uncle’s name and found that someone had made a blog post about the “devil professor.” It had been shared and re-shared thousands of times and every up-in-arms type was up in arms!
It was another muggy overcast day as we stood at that grave, the rain was drizzling as we stood around waiting for the coffin to be offloaded. But gradually as the Coffin neared the grave it got heavier and heavier, eventually as the funeral directors had made it to the grave side the coffin was thrashed on it’s side by a massive gust of wind, the body flailing out like a ragdoll.
It impaled itself deeply on a railing spike and that face hung there like every death on earth. The pain seemed to be transforming, to be getting visibly worse as you looked at it more. So we called the authorities and as soon as we could made it back to the house. We drank a bottle of whiskey between us and fell asleep at the table.
That’s when I met the Pale Man. He is like nothing you can understand but also he is your fear. Have you ever been beside a truly monstrous person or thing or place? It’s that feeling of the horrific other that the Pale Man gives off. But he came with his offer and I felt compelled. Always compelled.
I have had two weeks of torture and bliss, for what he takes away with pain, he can return with experiences that are out of this world. So what’s a theft here and a “fuck you” there? It’s just of this world? That’s the mindset the Pale Man wants you in.
So that was up until three days ago, I decided that I wanted out and that to do this I was going to blow my mind with drugs and alcohol. I hadn’t slept in 2 days and I was at the end of my sanity. This seemed like the only option, so I got some of the craziest weed I could find and a bottle of Captain Morgan and turned on my favourite music and prayed for death.
So here I am now, typing this in a Pet Store, I smell like death. But I feel a wave of calm as I remember that I can’t want harm to anything here. I have been through this, just those lizards. But I find myself buying a puppy and then I know, out of my control and trapped in this body where all I can do is write this last confession, these puppies aren’t the sacrifice… they’re the bait.
Tonight when you go to sleep, just try to forget… there is a door.