[Original Novella] If That Looking Glass Should Break, Part 5 (the finale!)

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When I arrived at his building I found the front door locked. I texted Zach. “I wondered when I would hear from you. You have the other lens, don’t you?” I inquired how he knew. “The professor died the night before last. I’m the one who found him. Officially he had a heart attack. I’m sure he did but there’s more to it. I looked through his eyeglass. Holy shit, dude.”

We met again for coffee. “What did you do with yours?” As subtle as ever. But I answered. “I put a bell on it.” He frowned. “That’s dumb. I hit mine with a hammer until it was mush. Then before it could regenerate I scooped it into the blender. Blended it to goop, poured the goop in my steel thermos, then sealed that shit tight. Duct taped it to one of my barbels, which sucks because now I need a new one. But I drove to the river and chucked it in there. I’d like to see it get out now.”

Hindsight is 20/20. I told him mine was still out there someplace. “Do you have the note? There was something on there about ‘em huh.” I told him I did but that the ink would now be invisible. “This is why you should’ve called me when you figured that part out. I include you, don’t leave me out bro.” I sorely wished he hadn’t included me. Although it struck me that so long as my ‘passenger’ was gone, I would not age. I told him everything about the Orgonovores I could recall from the note.

“Fuck my ass. The professor didn’t have one either. When I found him laying there, I mean. He was the first one I looked at.” That raised its own set of unsettling possibilities. Nothing I particularly wanted to explore at the moment. Zach, usually unflappable, was visibly troubled. I asked him about it.

“You mean besides the fact that my mentor is in the morgue right now? I thought I knew about all of ‘em.” With a little encouragement, he elaborated. “There’s all kinds of things that feed on us in one way or another. That want to inhabit our bodies, control our perception, whathaveyou. Some of ‘em are even public knowledge. Viruses have been around from the start too, and if you think we’ve defeated them with modern medicine, realize that your genome is eight percent viral DNA. They won a long time ago, so completely that they’re part of us now.”

As I had occasion to, I searched the claim and the results seemed legit. He went on. “It doesn’t stop there. The larger and more complex the organism, the larger ecosystem of parasites it can support. Seen and unseen. The thing you killed in the mine was one type. There’s several more I know of. But this one’s new to me. The Matrix was an adorably naive film, you know. There’s not just one invisible system of parasitic exploitation and control. Try hundreds, maybe millions. One on top of the next, on top of the next. Layers and layers deep, with biological life as we know it at the bottom of that food chain.”

“What about the things in the sky?” He pondered that one a bit. “Whatever feeds on Orgonovores, maybe. Or what they turn into when they’ve eaten their fill. Who knows. What I do know is that I’m gonna need a new negator. You were only useful in that regard when you didn’t believe in any of this. Now that you do, you’re as fucked as I am.”

I inferred he meant that I could no longer disbelieve the pataphysical out of existence. Which is what I now finally accepted I had done that night in the cave. I tried to envision thousands of species of creatures, of which I’d now seen just two, all attached to me and draining me of whatever substance they needed, experiencing the world through my senses, steering my actions and otherwise having their way.

Zach must’ve been thinking the same thing. The weed wasn’t helping. He had a meeting concerning whether he could continue in Professor Travigan’s stead the next day so I let him crash on the sofa. I didn’t sleep. The thought of what I felt certain surrounded me even now, suckling life from my body, didn’t permit slumber.

At work the next day, I fielded an unforeseen barrage of questions. That blog post really got around and I realized it would be the work of many weeks to set the story straight with everyone I knew. “I’m worried about you man” said Duncan, our HR guy. It was touching given that I barely knew him but I assured him the post was a hit piece and I was fine.

Of all the days to share an elevator with Susan. I assumed that I looked like hell, with bags under my bloodshot eyes. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything. I had it bad for this girl but we’d not yet spoken. It was entirely on my end. Every time we wound up in the elevator, or in line at the little bistro below on lunch break, I promised myself I’d break the ice. But as it turns out, I’m a coward.

Not today, though. Perhaps it was sleep deprivation. I know that can make me impulsive. But upon raising the lens to my eye and seeing that pale, disfigured little man clinging to her back, my blood boiled. I resisted it until I reached my breaking point, then seized the thing by the neck and began struggling to subdue it.

I cannot blame her for screaming. Given the rumors already circulating, and being trapped in the lift with a man who’d never so much as spoken to her fighting furiously with thin air, I’d have done the same. She fled the moment the doors opened and I tumbled out onto the first floor, still attempting to get the creature’s flailing limbs and gnashing jaws under control. She didn’t know what a huge favor I’d done her.

Thus began my unpaid psychiatric leave. It was nice to see my therapist again. The last time I saw her regularly she’d gotten to know every little thing about me, warts included, and I felt we had a rapport. For that reason her concern was comforting. I went back and forth on whether to tell her the whole truth or assure her I was just tired and stressed lately. But having already told her about my last escapade with Zach there was little reason to hold back.

“I see. And these little guys are hanging onto everybody?” I shook my head. “Not me. I got rid of mine.” She looked sternly at her little yellow pad and scribbled down some notes. “So you’re special. You see the world as it really is and are just trying to help everyone else because they’re blind to it.” I excitedly agreed.

“Mhm. Is there one on me right now?” Nervously, I raised the lens to my eye and peered at her. “Yes. It’s perhaps a foot and a half tall, straddling your neck.” She stifled a chuckle. “That’s quite imaginative. What’s that lens? May I see it?” The creature was lifting her arm, and whispering in her ear.

“No. It’s making you do that. It wants to get the lens away from me.” She frowned again, and became more insistent. “I suspect what’s at work here is paranoid delusion, and it seems to center on that lens. If you’ll let me hang onto it for a while and try living without it….”

I flatly refused. Peering through it again, the creature’s eyes were open. It smiled coyly at me, baring its sharp little teeth. “You repulsive little fuck”. She looked taken aback. “Excuse me? That’s not like you. What did I do to deser-” I lunged at her and seized her Orgonovore.

She rolled out of the way and retreated to the corner of the room where she hastily placed a call on her cell phone as I brawled with what to her looked like thin air. I swung the little bastard against the floor with one hand, holding the lens with the other. It lashed out, slapping the lens from my hand. Before I could catch it, it shattered on the floor.

The hearing went quickly. She recorded every session for her own records, and upon seeing the footage of me throwing myself at her and rolling about on the floor grunting and yelling, coupled with the recent blog post and report from my boss, the decision to have me committed was approved without opposition.

I love my parents. They’re some of the most well meaning people on the planet that I know of. I wish I hadn’t squandered the chance to remove theirs. But they did pledge to pay for whatever treatment the resident therapist felt would help. I’m on so many drugs now I’m seeing all kinds of shit, but not Orgonovores.

They don’t restrain me during the day. I’m too weak to get out of bed anyhow. A few times a day someone comes in to change the bedpan, shift me around so I don’t get bedsores, that sort of thing. I know I should be put out by all of this, but they have me on some sort of upper and it’s absolutely wonderful. Everyone here is beautiful and I’m in no hurry to leave.

At night they restrain me, just to be sure. Apart from the occasional wail of an upset patient the place gets so still at night. I can hear the clock ticking, the faucet leaking. And recently, the jingle of a little bell.

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^{The End.}