A final note: "Unknown Story" is not a placeholder, it is the actual, deliberate title, since the story (and future novel) are set (mostly) in the world of the Unknown Armies tabletop roleplaying game.
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Through the warm niches of flesh
And through the glittering chemical light
Through the blade, kiss and caress
And through the warm scents of the night
Through the terror of chemical darkness
I have scrambled in my frantic flight
alymysto - essence
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Doug came home early from work that night, and she should have been home, but he didn't see her anywhere, and she didn't respond when he called her name. When he came to the bedroom door it was shut and there was a low sound from inside that he couldn't place. He felt a weird nauseous thrill when he thought about it. Hadn't he seen this a hundred times in movies, on TV? He'd open the door, saying something like "Honey, I'm home," except that Doug never said things like that, and she'd be there, flushed and pink on top of (under?) some strange man, or worse, some not-so-strange man.
Then he shook his head. Stupid, paranoid. She wasn't like that. Why did he always have to think the worst of everything, she was saying in the back of his mind, in that too-calm voice she used when she was angry. Stupid. He reached for the doorknob but something stopped him. There was something weird about the door. The wood was the wrong color, he thought. Just so slightly. Just the faintest shade darker than he remembered. He shook his head again, but it still seemed off. Then he thought of her. Not this again, she'd say if he told her, please. Just let it go. You know how you get.
Well, she was right, wasn't she. He did know how he got. When he opened the door he saw she was curled up sleeping alone. The window was open and the afternoon light was blowing through, tousling the curtains, which seemed to hang a little bit less straight when they settled. Her clock radio was turned on, that was the noise he'd heard. He sat on the side of the bed quietly, watching her slow breathing.
"Well, good evening, listeners! This is Radio 4, reporting on the day's events. Late this morning, a dog was hit by a car in La Mirada. The dog's name was Buddy. He was small and brown and once somebody loved him, but the car came from clear skies like God's own cruel thunder. Buddy spent three hours panting and bleeding in the shadows of a filthy alley. At the last moment, he thought he saw a red ball rolling across the mouth of the alley, and he dragged himself out, but the ball was gone and the sun was hot and Buddy died there on the sidewalk at 3:40 PM. A man in a suit saw his body and he smiled. He kicked that little dog back into the alley, into the dark."
Doug stared at the radio. His mouth was half open and he wasn't sure what he was feeling. Clouds shifted in the sky out the window, and the curtains moved again, lashing quietly inward. The wind was cold on Doug's skin. The voice on the radio turned into two voices. They sounded like a young man and a young woman, laughing in that professional way.
"Well, Abe," the woman said, “I think it’s time for tonight’s forecast!”
“Absolutely, Janet,” the man said. “Tonight’s forecast is shallow sleep for many, red hands for a few, and a man with stars reflected in his eyes.”
“That’s right, Abe,” the woman said, laughing. “His eyes go on forever. Walls are as air before him. Blades are turned aside, shields fall to rust beneath his gaze.”
“They sure do, Janet,” the man said, and a sound effect played loudly, jarringly, the sound of a cartoon spring and a tinny giggle. “There were dreams after all. God help us, there were dreams. He moves among the legion, and they see him not.”
The broadcast cut short as the clock’s alarm went off without warning. Doug swallowed a gasp. It hurt. He fumbled with the clock and shut off the alarm. The time was 4:44 PM. Beside him, Scarlet was stirring.
“Hey,” she said, voice thick with sleep. “What time is it?”
“Four-something,” Doug said. “How come your alarm was set for now?” She shook her head, looking confused, then yawned.
“God,” she said, “I just laid down for a second. Dunno how I got so tired.” Doug turned and leaned against the bedframe, put his hand on her head, ruffled her hair. She sighed and rolled over, laid her head in his lap, looked up at him. “I dreamed I killed you,” she said. “You came through that door with a long piece of driftwood in your hand, and I tried to wave at you, but there was a gun in my hand and it went off. I dragged your body outside to hide it in the woods, but then I remembered we lived in the city, and I was dragging you along the sidewalk, crying, but nobody seemed to notice.”
Doug put his arms around her, and she shut her eyes. He sat there for a while, holding her, stroking her dark hair until she fell asleep again, then got up, gently laying her head back on the pillow, trying not to wake her. He went into the kitchen.
The fridge was almost empty, and he ended up just microwaving a couple of cheap TV dinners. He sat down at the table when he was done, waiting, and after a minute she came in like he’d known she would, rubbing the quiet from her eyes. They ate for a while.
“How was work?” she asked him suddenly.
“Stupid,” he said. “Some fuck tried to lift a bag of cheetos. He looked like he was forty, and he ended up down at the station for a bag of fucking cheetos."
"Was he homeless?" she asked.
"Didn't look like it. He had on a pretty nice suit and expensive looking shoes. Shiny." He looked back down at the plastic rectangle, picking at the remaining half of a cheese enchilada. "How about you? How was work?"
"Stupid," she said. "Just stupid."
"Aw, don't say that," he said. "Come on, tell me." Something clicked against his fork and he pulled it free of the tortilla. It looked like a chicken bone.
"Really," she said. "I can't get anything down at all. I can't even finish the chapter. I keep having these nebulous great ideas and then when I get to the keyboard, I can't find a place for them." She twirled her fork through the crust on top of her little compartment of beans.
"You'll get it," he said. "You've done it before."
"That was ghostwriting," she said. "It's not the same at all. There's no soul. Anybody could do it." They spent the rest of the meal in silence, her looking down, him feeling as tired as she looked.
After dinner she went in to write and he sat down to watch TV, but there was nothing on, nothing but news and re-runs of shows that weren't funny the first time. He might have spent the rest of the evening there, except she came out of the bedroom after an hour and a half. He heard her footsteps behind him and an image of her holding a knife to his throat flashed through his head before he could stop it. He steeled himself to turn around, and when he did, he saw that she wasn't wearing nearly as much clothing as he had expected, and they went back into the bedroom together.
After that there was not much left to do, and she told him she still couldn't write anything, so they just laid in the dark together, talking.
"You know what?" he said. She shook her head. He could feel it move against his chest. "I found a fucking chicken bone in my enchilada. My cheese enchilada." She laughed, and he smiled at her through the darkness and she moved in tighter and he forgot about everything for a while. He was about to fall asleep when he remembered the alarm was set all weird, and he fumbled with the clock radio in the dark, navigating by its dull red light. But when he checked, he saw that the alarm was set for 7:00 AM like it was supposed to be, like it had been all along.
At last he fell asleep, and in deeper corners of the night he dreamed long and low. He moved upon the face of a body of rushing black water below a dull felt sky and a laughing moon, and in the darkest curves of the current he could see the stars.
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