Sunday was the first night it happened. I remember because that was the night I kept flopping from side to side like a desperate fish and woke up wondering if I’d gotten any sleep at all. On Monday morning, I shuffled out of the bedroom, zombie-style, and made straight for the coffee machine. But on my way, I stumbled over a stack of books and, flicking the living room light switch, saw how the floor was littered with books that, somehow, had tumbled from my shelves.
I made myself a cup of coffee, then sat in my favourite chair and contemplated the puzzle. However, I had a busy day planned for myself and that forced me to bring my contemplation to a close without arriving at any conclusion. A neighbour’s prank? Sleep walking? These were the most obvious explanations for the book mayhem but, as I say, I was busy and had only the time it takes to empty a cup of coffee to think on it.
The same thing happened Monday night or more properly early Tuesday morning. I woke from an indeterminate dream to a fluttering sound from the living room. It was a sound that called to mind a person thumbing through the pages of a book. Underneath lay indistinct vocalizations that suggested the sub voce conversation of people sharing secrets in the dark. My heart began to thud as I considered the possibility of a home invasion. Maybe I should call 9-1-1. I decided against it, thinking it would be more satisfying to catch pranksters in the act than to cower in my bedroom waiting for police to burst into my apartment and take that satisfaction for themselves. I leapt into the living room, the ends of my bathrobe rippling behind me, but it was a wasted effort. There was no one in the living room. Only the same mess of books scattered across the floor.
There was puzzlement, yes, but also a feeling of annoyance. The prankster (or pranksters) failed to appreciate that I keep my books shelved in a precise order which, while not exactly the Dewey Decimal System, nevertheless allows me to locate specific volumes with ease. In my younger days, I had wasted hours searching for that one book I had casually lost between Philosophy and Poetry. But as I grew older, and realized my reserve of hours was dwindling, I began to impose a strict order over my personal library. Each morning of chaos on the living room floor cost me an hour or more as I struggled to reestablish order on my shelves.
On Tuesday evening, I made a bed for myself on the floor behind the living room sofa. I would catch the library vandals in the act. I lay my head on a cushion and drew a sheet over my shoulders and soon found myself drifting through an intricate dreamworld. So deep was this place of my own dreaming that I almost failed to notice the vehement whispers passing above me on the sofa. But softly the sibilant exchanges pricked the bubble of my sleep and soon I was standing behind the intruders with the white sheet still draped around my shoulders.
The room was full of people. There were people seated on the sofa and on the arms of the sofa and on the coffee table and on the other chairs and standing all around on the periphery of the room. They fell silent when I rose in my white sheet. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noted that while most of the people were dressed the way I dress, some wore period costumes. For example, a young woman sat immediately in front of me dressed in what I assume was a Victorian dress, stifling for its abundance of cloth. When I asked who the fuck she was, she seemed taken aback and told me I should guard my tongue when addressing a lady. If I must know, she was Jane Eyre.
I looked around the room and others introduced themselves. A Pacific Islander in culottes, hose and pouffy white shirt said he was Queequeg from the Pequod. There was a man in mid-20th century military dress who tucked his hat under his arm and approached with free hand extended, saying his name was Yossarian. I met Offred in her burgundy robes and white bonnet. She seemed to be getting on well with the similarly bonneted Hester Prynne. Geoffrey Firmin lay sotted in a corner, left hand around the mouth of a bottle, my bottle, a bottle of expensive Scotch. Next to him, also on the floor and tied to a wooden armoire, was José Arcadio Buendía, lost in his own thoughts and muttering non sequiturs. I worried Señor Buendía might soil himself and ruin my floor. There were others, too. Winston Smith smoking a fag. Hal Incandenza smoking a joint. Saleem Sinai repeatedly wiping his nose with pages torn from my science fiction novels. And an indignant David Bowman who sometimes kicked Saleem Sinai in the shins.
What’re you all doing here? I asked.
People deferred to Jane Eyre who rose from her place on the sofa and turned to face me in the darkness. She explained that none of them knew why they were emerging at night like this. In fact, that was what they were discussing when I woke up and caught them gathered in my living room. They were content to stay between their covers, neatly ordered alphabetically and/or chronologically on the shelves. But here they were, shaken onto the floor by forces they couldn’t understand. But they were developing a theory.
It seems, she said, that you people in your time and in your world have truly fucked things up. Fucked. That, I believe, is the word you would use.
I nodded.
Fucked. And your fuckage is leaking into everything. Even into the places that once belonged only to us.
