Dustin Long - Icelander

Electricity is another of the amenities in which the Two-Story House is lacking, and—considering the imminent arrival of night—I realize that I must either conclude my search soon or adjourn it in favor of finding a flashlight. With tired body and tired mind, I continue up the stairs.

The room that exists directly at the staircase top is little more than a wide, empty hallway, dimly lit by a translucent skylight. Three doors—all closed—lead from the room, and each of them is blanketed in Shirley’s sentences. I notice immediately that a further textual complication is introduced on this level of the house; the narrative voices have switched to the first-person. This is encouraging, however, for that is the person of the sentence I seek, from her journals, to find its context: I am a fish .

My vision is blurred with the strain of undersleep and too much caffeine, but I only rub my eyes and read on.

The leftmost door contains such sentences as “(Red) I rattled the knob and kicked the door, so rudely forced,” “(Green) I leaned my head against the door and just stood there for a moment, breathing,” and “(Blue) ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.”

Despite the added confusion that stems from indeterminate speakers, I believe that I am becoming able—by application of my husbandly knowledge—to make distinctions between the two stories. For instance, Shirley would not write such blatant violence as door-kicking into the murder mystery, and she would particularly not write it in connection with the death scene. And that is the scene for which I search. So knowing that the scene will not be found here—and having little time left to read anything at all—I move on to the middle door.

Written upon this one, I find “(Yellow) I closed the door quietly behind myself,” “(Yellow) From the hallway I could hear something in the room that sounded like a music box, tinkling its way through a tune that seemed almost familiar,” “(Yellow) ‘Are you okay in there?’ I called through the door,” and other sentences almost all of which are yellow.

This is not the death room, either. Though the mundane actions related on the door’s surface would at first seem a perfect counterpoint to violent happenings within—heightening drama through starkness of contrast—the sentences lack even hints of the passion that must accompany the killing. Additionally, the music box is just the sort of device that my wife would have used to prompt the psychological revelation which forms the climax of the other story. I turn, then, to the rightmost door.

“(Green) The knob was so cold it felt wet; or maybe it was just my clammy hands.” “(Yellow) I hadn’t even noticed that my thumb was still bleeding, smeared rusty on my forefinger, but the cut was still bright, pulsing out red from beneath the little gill-flap.” Reading only these two sentences, I know this is the room. I am certain, and I place my hand upon the doorknob.

It is indeed cold, and I allow my hand to linger for a moment—contemplating how the sensation could be like wetness and considering what that wetness would be—before I turn it. In my mind the knob is solid water, and my hand feels swollen and full of blood upon it. I am clumsy as I fill it with my heat… When I do open the door, though, I open it slowly—not out of reluctance, but rather of a desire to listen to the friction of its hinges. It is good to hear a noise in this house that is not I.

The two windows of the room face to the east and to the north, and as my eyes adjust to the darkness, I realize that the evening has arrived.

The word in English has increased my affection for this time of the day, the Evening… As if it were a time for the evening of all imbalances that the day has carried with itself. It is a friendly hour for justice.

As my pupils find their proper balance with the darkness, I discern a manly shape curled upon the floor. The speed of my action blurs my perception.

I believe that I move across the room, and then I am on my knees, next to the bundle upon the floor. The bundle is a man, and it is Hubert Jorgen. His body. He does not move.

I am an inspector again in this moment, rather than a jealous husband, and I place my rough fingers on his throat for a pulse. I feel none. Neither is there any breath issuing from his mouth or nose, and his body has the coldness of death. I can find no marks of injury, however. His left hand clutches a cellular telephone.

My first thought is that I will be the suspect in this, too, and that I must do something to avert that suspicion, for if I am incarcerated then my wife’s killer shall walk free. I must inform someone else of this development. Though I would prefer it, I realize that I cannot be alone in this.

Rising from the body, then, I rush down the stairs, across the living room, out the front door, through my backyard, and into the kitchen of my house. From there I dial Our Heroine’s number.

After four rings, her answering machine picks up.

“I must speak with you,” I say. “I have found Hubert Jorgen, as I told you that I would. However, I have found him dead. I apologize that I am not as adroit as you in delivering news of death, but my English always worsens when you are around to hear it. He is in the Two-Story House. Goodbye.”

I hang up the telephone. I must head back to the Two-Story House. Perhaps the killer is still there, in another of the rooms. But the evening is here, indeed, and first I must find a flashlight.

The illusion of time is such that the passage between moments seems continuous. Yet, if “passage” (and, by extension, “motion”) is to be taken as an apt metaphor with which to describe temporality, then some quantum moment must exist with only void between itself and the next moment—else Achilles will never catch the Tortoise. We found this hypothesis to hold true when—one moment—we stood at the bottom of Hubert Jorgen’s staircase and—the next—we were tied to bedposts in an upstairs room with a woman whom we assumed to be Gerd standing above us, dressed in a long black robe and twirling a crescent-shaped knife. Between these two discrete and seemingly noncontiguous points in time, we experienced only a void with which even silence and darkness could not be equated.

Everything around us just had this weird lucidity to it, darkness and light creating this great detail in their contrast. The textures and little crevices of the cave walls were clearer and more intricate than I thought they should have been—like hair strands under a microscope—and the colors were a lot more vibrant, too, especially considering that only green light was shining on them. I noticed now that the lichen was glowing more brightly than it had been before.

“Are you feeling all right?” the woman asked.

“Yeah. No problem. Are my pupils big, too?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I was just noticing how bright and clear everything looks, and your pupils are pretty dilated… So I thought it might explain things if mine were, too.”

“Oh. Yes, they are rather large. Another effect of the lichen, I’m postulating.”

“Cool. I really dig this stuff.” I poked an underwater patch of it with my forefinger. It wasn’t as squishy as I thought it would be. “I didn’t even know lichen could grow underwater…”

“Okay,” she said. “I think I’m ready.”

“To tell me what your problem is?” I asked. “Are you pregnant?”

“Am I—No! At least I hope not. Why would you say that?”

“I was just trying to guess. You know. That might be considered a problem, and it’s something you might not want to talk about with people that you know. So were you raped?”

“I—Where are you getting this?”