The Muse and Some Madness

Come on, said the voice in my head, place the other dolls down. Why do the same boring thing everyone would do with that power? That ends up being so boring.

“What do you mean?” I asked the voice.

The voice within me responded by telling me a story. It seemed very familiar, as if I had read it before, or heard it from someone somewhere in the past. The voice informed me that all stories come from somewhere, and many are told over and over, by many storytellers. The story, the voice said, is the original ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. Or own tale, t-a-l-e, as the case may be. The voice in my head laughed at it’s own joke.

The story it told was about a writer who discovered a story in a book he encountered in a library. The story told about a man who kept a muse locked up in his basement, and **** the muse to help him act out his erotic fantasies. Because a muse can take on whatever form it needs for a writer to create, he made the muse shift shape and become whatever was on his mind. His acted out every single fantasy that he had with the muse, especially the most sordid, and the most violent. As he kept her locked up, her power began to vanish. But every night, when he slept, she dictated the story into a recorder that he kept for his ideas. The writer usually sent the tape into a publishing company that usually passed on his work. But when the tapes with the muses’ story of her capture were sent in, this was the story that was published.

The writer reading this book-- not to be confused with the writer who was keeping the muse chained up in his basement-- realized that the book contained specific instructions as to where to find the muse. Rather than call the police, this writer reasoned, he could simply free the muse himself. Then, he would ask nicely for her services, and be able to write great poems and stories, as he had once imagined himself doing. He had been scraping the bottom of the barrel up to that time and drinking heavily. But with the muse, he thought, he would be able to truly write like the old masters.

So, he took his time in learning how to shoot, and how to defend himself. He kept the book, asking to buy it from the library. After ensuring that no other person could have that book, he stashed it carefully away. Then, when the time was right, at eight twenty three post meridian (the voice was very specific about this point), he entered the house. He knew that the other writer would be out at the bar, and he freed the muse. He instructed the muse to wait for him in his car, and he waited for the writer to return. When the writer did indeed return, he shot him dead without so much as twitching. He then left the house, and then told the muse that he had called the police and left incriminating evidence, but that she should come with him.

Having no other choice, apparently, the muse stayed with him and accompanied him back to his apartment. THings went well, at first. But, slowly, over time, the writer stopped writing his odes to all sorts of beautiful things, and began to write only about his dominance over women. He began to mimic the last master of the muse-- both in his writing style and in his actions. When the muse objected, he tied the muse up, or kept her locked in a box originally meant to small dogs or large cats without much hassle. He began to demand the muse perform various sexual acts on him, claiming that these were his inspiration. She was back in the very same situation that the writer had previously liberated her from.

Then, one day, at precisely eight twenty three post meridian (again, the voice was very clear and very insistent on this specific time) something happened. The writer was out, at a bar, pretending that he lived a normal life. And another writer positioned himself in the window across from his room with a sniper rifle and waited. When the writer returned, drunk, and began to unchain the muse, he was carefully shot in the head. The blood sprayed the muse, and she sat there for twenty minutes, until that new writer came in to liberate her.

The voice asked me if I understood the moral of the story. I told it that I thought so, that it meant there was more to life than just to play out adolescent fantasies. The voice told me that, in point of fact, there was nothing more, but they need not all be concerned with sex. There’s plenty more to talk about, think about, or worry about than that. I wondered what the real moral was, but the voice would not tell me. Instead, it instructed me to go back to my study, now that I had redressed and listened to the story, and to put the dolls I had just crafted down in the house so that we could really begin to play with all the people in the house.

Start, the voice instructed, by placing the ghost woman in your minder Robert’s room. There is something deeply wrong within him, some scare that he needs to get over. You’ll only be helping him. When I had reached my workroom, I indeed did as the voice instructed. I felt compelled. I also placed myself in the workroom. Then, I placed the little doll that represented Hurry Hendrickson down just outside the door.

From upstairs I suddenly heard a very loud scream. It sounded like Robert, and so I ran to his aid, as did the rest of our household. The door was locked, and we heard yet another shriek, this time female, seeming to say something-- I could not quite make it out through the very thin walls, followed again by Robert’s very male scream. I pounded on the door, and he opened it quickly. Roman, Miss Gilda, and Florez all were standing behind me at this time, all wondering what was going on.

When Robert opened the door he looked like a pale imitation of himself, almost like a corpse. I could feel the heat leaving his body, and seemed to be dripping all over in sweat. He was shaking, still.

“I saw her,” he said. “She was right there.” At this he pointed into his room, right next to the window.”

“Saw who?” asked my wife.

“Her-- her… Memoria.” He said, still continuing to shake. I grabbed him, and pulled him through the threshold to join us.

“There’s nothing there,” I said. As far as he knows, laughed the voice running through my head.

“Didn't you destroy those dolls?” asked Miss Gilda.

“Of course I did,” I lied to her again. Good job, said the voice.

“What did you see, Robert?” asked Roman. “What did she look like?”

“Sort of like… Clara Bow… or Betty Boop,” said Robert. “SHe stood here, and her head seemed to be missing a piece… it was like black was flowing out of her. And she stood next to me, motioning for me to join her at the window. ‘Save me’, she said. And then she started to move towards me-- floating. It was not a natural thing, and her whole sweet face also seemed to shift and change until it looked far more like a corpse with rotten jaw than anything I have ever seen of dreamt. Even in movies or in a Lich book.”

“It was probably just in your mind,” my wife said. I voiced my agreement.

“No,” said Miss Gilda. “There is something in this house. We felt it during that thunderstorm. I know you felt it then, Jacinta. And something made us--”

“Shut up! Shut up!” said my wife, a rush of embarrassed red colouring her cheeks. “That never happened.”

“What never happened, hmm?” I asked, knowing full well that they were talking about the amorous episode I had inspired with my control over the house.

“Nothing, nothing,” said Miss GIlda, taking up the cue from my wife. “We just came to a sort of understanding about each other.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, and was about to comment more, but the voice in my head told me to hold my piece. If you really want this plan of yours to work, it said, you need to wait. Maybe even sew jealousy into the minds of these women first. Then, you can convince them into bed with you at the same time, if that is what you really want. But remember the muse-- remember the price of things, the voice warned.

“Well then, will you shut up,” I said, not realizing it was out loud.

“Sorry!” said Miss Gilda. She was very offended with the remark. And she turned her attention back to the still shaken Robert. “Anyways, we’re having this argument and poor Robert is in shock. Are you okay?”

“Maybe I need a drink,” he said.