No one could tell you what he was working on.  I know I couldn’t have, not back then, anyway, but it was always something.  One step inside the house told you that.  You didn’t have to talk to him to know it was something, maybe even something big, but not that he ever gave anything away even if you did talk to him.  No, he was never that clear, never that straightforward.  Not him.  Too secretive for that kind of conversation, even with those he knew.  Or maybe he was just selective, so selective that he’d just decided it was easier not to say anything to anyone.  I could never decide.  Whatever it was, talking to him was as confusing as making sense of the cryptic notes stuck to the walls of every room. 

Hundreds of them at least, maybe thousands, covering just about everything that didn’t move or wasn’t planning on moving.  I never sat still long in there, afraid he’d start sticking them to me.  Walls, cabinet doors, and windows, the refrigerator, the stove, the side of the toaster, notes even bulged out from walls where they’d long ago buried some lost picture or family photo.  The television, if that’s what it was, was thick with notes, the cord still plugged into the wall - through yet another note.  They were as thick as air in that house, in the corner of your eye wherever you turned.  They brushed against your arms when you slid through the narrow doorways and against the backs of your legs when you sat down on the toilet.  Notes where you’d expect and notes where nothing belonged, and not one of them, not a single damn one of them as far as I could tell, ever making any sense.  Blips of thought pinned and taped to everything, as if his brain simply exploded, blowing apart bit by bit and sticking to everything as notes, now just waiting for someone to come along and put it all back together.  Maybe that was it.  Maybe that’s even what he’d started working on when he’d stumbled upon the other thing, the thing he’d called me over for, mailing me a postcard, nothing written on it except the words Come over.  Our secret. in his tight, nearly illegible printing.  Not so much a postcard, actually, but one of his note cards plucked down from the wall with a stamp stuck to it.  My thumb brushed against the rough edge of a pinhole, wondering where this note had been and how long it’d hung there, waiting.  Why hadn’t I seen it?  How many times had my eyes crossed over this very note and just passed on by?

Note: Originally posted on brandnewmonster.com

I’d been visiting once when he’d suddenly reached out and stuffed a note card into my hand, which I have to admit, took me by surprise.  Not so much the action itself--because like I’ve said, there were notes on everything, so why not in my hand--no, what took me by surprise was my own reaction.  It was like I was in a coma or something, but aware, or maybe like one of those freak surgeries you hear about where somethings gone wrong with the anesthetics and the person can’t move a muscle and hears and feels everything as the doctors start slicing in.  I sat there, my hand dead and limp as he shoved that card between my fingers, and I was afraid to turn it over, to read it, afraid of what I might see.  Time with him turned you into one of those freaks, with everything moving around you and you unable to scream or understand anything that was happening.  I didn’t want to know what that card said, that was the problem, and that’s what took me by surprise--my own reluctance--but I forced myself somehow to look down.

PERMANENT INK

That was it.  Just two words, written all in uppercase.  Big, black, fading letters spelling out just those two words, faded so much that I could just barely make them out.  When I looked back up, he was just sitting there staring at me, silent, as if he wrestled with something that I couldn’t see, and I remember thinking then that maybe it was the things he didn’t say that made us all so uncomfortable, rather than the things he said.  Maybe it was all the unspoken thoughts behind all those notes that made us jumpy, rather than the notes themselves.  Maybe it was something in all of us that made us nervous, rather than something in him.  We didn’t have to go there, after all.  We could have stayed away, all of us, but maybe we just couldn’t stand the idea of not knowing.  Maybe we just couldn’t stand the secrets.

But it’s the pencil that doesn’t fade now, isn’t it? That’s what he’d said to me that time, with me sitting there staring at that card.  The pencil, not the ink.  There’s a clue for you, my boy, and a damn fine one.  Yes, yes, you think about that.  Follow that one and I’ll meet you there, but don’t get lost.  No, don’t get lost.

Note: Originally posted on brandnewmonster.com

I spotted a man with uncommonly long legs approaching from the north, covering the distance between us in far fewer strides than I would have thought possible.  A felt hat sat upon his head, which he carefully removed to wipe the sweat from his somewhat large, pale brow.  I was impatient for news of my return, but held my tongue, knowing that whatever news the man had for me, would be shared when it was time.  There is no use hurrying anyone along, that much I understood. 

It wasn’t that hard to understand, not if you gave it any thought at all, which isn’t saying that he did.  There’d been a time of privacy once, most anyone with a formal education could have told you that, but that was a long time ago, just another one of those obscure facts about the path of humanity.  More historical footnote, really, than anything else.  Certainly not something to sit around thinking about, unless you were one of those academic types he ran into from time to time, wandering around talking to anyone who would listen about some obscure feeling of discontent that no one seemed to understand, least of all care about.  He certainly wasn’t one of those, at least he didn’t think so anyway.  But who knew anything for sure these days?  Waiting around near the edge of the sands the past few weeks had taught him that much.  One thing he did know was that he wasn’t surprised when the thin man pulled the letter from his satchel, unfolded it slowly, and began to read.