Incubus Blue

He was simply referred to as, "the stranger". He wasn't unwelcome;
but people knew him to be as different as a messenger from God.
Whomever God might be. His brief, self-assured presence in the
settlement had been as alien to the locals as a cold rain-laden wind
and it left its impression in the minds of many. When people communed
in the shopping centre they spoke of nothing else for a week. It was as
if a sign had been delivered unto them. People waited, then gradually
forgot as people do. Life soon dissolved into its usual flat monotony,
a stage forever set for history's passing.

I was the only one to know him as far as I am aware and I knew him only
briefly. I chanced upon him when my car broke down, for some reason, on
a dirt track, just outside his gate. Mirrored sunglasses reflected the
glare of the sun; his skin reddened in the dust-ridden air. My car was
blue and motionless as the sky above.
"Do you need some help?"
Turgid air. A sense of him touching a clock hand and holding it
still.
He lent me his phone. "Where do you come from," he enquired.
"Oh," I said, "way up North. I came down the coast."
"Going anywhere," he asked brightly.
I smiled. "Doesn't look like it. My car's broken down."
"So this isn't where you wanted to be, then, I suppose?"
"Not really," I grinned apologetically.
"Well, it's better than nowhere at least," he enthused. "How about
some coffee, inside," he added. Almost pleaded in fact. "I'll get it
seen to in the meantime."
I agreed, albeit reluctantly. To refuse such an offer in the
circumstances would have been both impractical and rude, I felt.
Perhaps unwisely, I followed him.

A marble - floored, cylindrical hall greeted me. As with most of the
house, the d?cor was silvery blue. A large staircase wound up the wall,
ponderously graceful as an Anaconda. The wallpaper had a strange
texture, as if it were made of bank notes. The skylight refracted the
light into brilliant winding colours on the floor and I felt as if I
were submerged. A large bust stood in the middle of the floor. I
wondered who it represented.
"Judas," he replied. "To remind me of the cost of betrayal."

I can remember very little of the rest of the house. There were
deep-pile carpets and very comfortable couches, but the overall effect
was extremely spartan. The only room I do recall was one reached by a
lift. Its only illumination came from a spotlight at the far end, aimed
at a string puppet, dancing. The surrounding darkness boomed in my ears
and seemed to close on me, like velvet. The walls were painted black
and dark red in contrasting shapes, like a modern art painting of an
inside of an eyelid. I hated it and still do, though I don't know why.
I made all the right noises, anyway, and he continued showing me his
handiwork. The place had a lifeless, yet hypnotic, quality. It drew me
back repeatedly. Come to think of it, I'm not sure whether it was the
house itself that drew me back, or him. It was as if I was being
presented with a fa?ade. Like an actor, or a director, he entertained
me with images. The house was his stage. He was both a part of it and
apart from it. To maintain the elaborate impression of a man in
complete control of his creation he made sure everything was perfectly
placed and spotlessly clean; the whole house had a painstakingly
orchestrated effect on the stranger. Yet inconsistencies appeared: he
forgot things, and where they belonged, on many occasions. I assume his
forgetfulness galled him the most; he felt he was losing his
grip.
We were talking once. He was lying, fully clothed, on a Lilo in the
pool. He didn't like to tan, he said. I sat on the side, my legs in the
water.
"It's wonderful here, isn't it," he asked me, with an odd smile.
"Wonderful."
It was, I felt, a professional smile, of one trying to be pleased with
an encumbrance, trying to appear to be happy. He hung anxiously upon my
every move in an almost predatory way. Not that he'd hurt me; no, it
was as if he'd hurt himself. In reply I nodded and smiled in a similar
manner, though I did not agree. It inspired a morbid fascination in me,
the way a bleached bone does when you find it cast upon the shore. For
me, it was just dead.
So it was just that nod. Not that he pressed me. I gazed instead into
the azure depths of the pool, the shifting shapes of reflections and
refractions. Below me was a black circular tile, like the eye of a
fish, only glazed over. It winked at me as the pool rippled. In the
pool I saw the endless blue of the sky. What it saw in me I do not
know.
"Watch out," my companion said. "It's a trap. Know what I mean?"
I felt myself nodding sagely.
He gestured around him. "Look up. Sky. Look down. Water. Look around
you. Blue. Blue, everywhere. Its effect is calming. It's limitless,
featureless; yet it seems to contain all you ever wanted to know. It
draws you in. Be swallowed by the ? blue ? and you'll find all you ever
wanted to know. In death."
Something in me turned over. I don't agree. I see blue as full of
life, of vibrancy and vitality. It's an open door, the colour of
divinity. Though I suppose death is a way to divinity. Maybe that's
what he meant by all knowing, but his conception of death was lifeless
and cold as a body in water. Perhaps death was the end of the road for
him, and was the last morsel of knowledge he could have.
"It's blank. It reminds you of something you don't particularly want
to be reminded of."
He turned and smiled at me. I hadn't realised I had spoken aloud. He
raised his forefinger. "You're absolutely right. I bought this house as
it is, to remind me of the sea, 'cos that's how it came about."
"How? Buried treasure?"
"No. A bet. A bet I didn't believe and was too cowardly to get out of
once I knew what I was letting myself in for. I saw blue in so many
ways after that."
"What did you do?"
He hesitated only briefly. "I swam ? No. It just came for me."
"What did?"
"The shark. I swam the gauntlet for five million." He swallowed an
unpleasant memory.
I said nothing. I couldn't believe what I had just heard.
"It was a lovely day. Hot, sunny. There was a rocky stretch of
coastline, a small bay which was notorious for sharks. Me, I didn't
believe it. I thought these people were giving their money away. I
couldn't believe that they would give away so much for so little. I do
now. Still. I had to swim across this bay. If I got to the other side,
in whatever state, I would get the five million. If I didn't make it -
well, I'm sure you get the picture. So me, feeling they were
bullshitting me and that I could impress my girlfriend with my bravado,
decided to go through with it. What a mistake that was. Still, we live
and learn.
"So I did it. Thought that it was going okay. Found out it wasn't a
few metres from the end. I saw red. Lots of it. The shark had got my
left leg and was pulling as hard as I was hanging onto whatever it was
I was hanging onto. I could hear them laughing. I suppose it was worth
five million for them to see me. So stupid. You, you may think me odd,
but I can see their point of view ? I really can. Five million was
nothing to them, and I was just an arrogant young bum who deserved what
was coming to me."
"I think you're being a little too hard on yourself", I said
shakily.
"I don't. No doubt they thought I was plain crazy, so they let me get
on with it. Especially as they were paying me. No doubt that's why my
girlfriend finished with me. Not because I was deformed, but because
I'd lost my self-respect."
"Deformed?" I have a nausea about deformity, I can't help it.
He pulled up his trouser leg. The Lilo wobbled. I leant forward a
little, out of perverse politeness. Plastic from the knee down.
Shredded thigh, bulbous as melted wax near the tear; tendons taut as
pain. "It tore my lower leg off." The remark seemed to come from
nowhere, disappearing into the ether. An amused laugh followed before
dying away too.
"What's funny", I grumbled.
"You, you look like you're going to puke," he observed sardonically.
He rolled his trouser leg back down and lay back.
Silence. Water lapping like a dog at my legs as I hung them uneasily
over the edge. No breeze ; not even a zephyr of wind. Everything was
still. Then the water around me was suddenly churned into a white water
frenzy. I heard a loud clang which shook the poolside where I was sat,
closely followed by another. Hastily I drew my legs out and retreated
fast; my host paddled to the side of the pool with exaggerated care and
got out. The metal bars rattled furiously beneath me, an enraged
hammering sound. Then a hollow clang rang out across the space between
us. Something hummed where I had been sat.
My companion walked ahead of me. "Come along, I want to show you
something." His tone was distinctly sad.
"What the hell's in that pool?"
"A memento mori, of course. Come along. You'll find out."

We went far below the house and into a pristine basement. What else
could I expect, I thought dryly. He pressed a button. As my eyes became
accustomed to the gloom I became aware of a faint blue light ahead,
broken up by the bars of a slowly closing metal grille. Between me and
the light there was the lazy sound of sloshing water.
"This is directly beneath the Dream Room. Where the puppet dances," he
said by way of explanation. "It's circular this room, and adjoins the
pool - the grille is automatic and can open randomly ? at any
moment."
He began walking along the length of the tank. I followed the sound of
his footsteps. The blue light blinked as something large moved across
it.
"Wait," he said softly.
I looked at the blue rectangle of light. It was the only thing I could
see. Suddenly it winked out again.
A loud click. Floodlights. The creature didn't blink; sharks don't
have eyelids. It idled in the water, watching us with eyes as blank as
paper. Time slid by.
"See the grille?"
The words floated across the space between us.
"It's on a timer. Your feet were just beyond it, you know. It was
opening when you got out. Don't worry, you had plenty of time. I could
see what was going on, more or less, from where I was, so you weren't
in any danger."
I stood where I was, thunderstruck.
"It took a week to build, from start to finish. I used to be an
architect, you know. I designed it from scratch. Two hundred thousand
it cost me. Not bad, considering everything. It's a beautiful layout;
even if I say so myself."
I struggled to digest what he had just told me; the smothered
stillness swallowed my thoughts from me. I felt I was losing touch with
reality and tried to steady myself. "So where did you get the shark
from," I asked in as conversational a manner as I could manage.
His eyes, fixed inside his head, turned woodenly with his neck until
they locked upon me. They had no depth to them, nor held any
recognition of me. Glass eyes, lifeless.
Minutes passed and fell, like tears, in seconds. My ears roared. I saw
only darkness and this apparent stranger before me. Just the ticking of
my watch and the thumping of my heart between me and whatever happened
next.
Very little I can remember. Colours of panic. White. Stairs. Grey and
silver, rainbow colours fading on a marble floor. The hall, must be. A
way out somewhere. I calmed myself down. But remained alert. Imagining
his haunted, piercing eyes ? driving me out of the house.
I was in my car next, bumping on the road, touching reality once more,
away from this man and obsession. Back on the rails, heading for home,
for good.

Of course I went back. It was inevitable, after all: but not in the way
he expected it to be. I paid my respects with a handful of others, my
fingers clutching earth to hear it thud and scatter on the coffin lid.
The irony, after all his painstaking preparations for the manner of his
death, would have killed him alone, if he'd known beforehand. He'd been
crossing the road outside his house one day. Blind, dead drunk. The
dust had obscured his vision. Then his nemesis struck in the form of a
passing car.