《The Hooded Man》


 Chapter 1

    I tried talking to the hooded man once, many cycles ago when he came to replenish my wood supply. He always comes from behind, slow and icy as a glacier, silent as the Mariana Trench. That day, I felt his merciless chill slink up beside me.


    ¡°Why am I here?¡± I asked him, gazing at his misty figure. His cloak was even blacker than the sea of darkness that surrounded us. Where his face should be was only a clouded opening, its mist opaque but tantalizingly fluid. Behind the cloud of his face I sensed the answer to my question. The hooded man paused for less than a moment, before dropping the wood and turning to leave.


    ¡°Who are you? How long do I have to do this?¡± I begged him to answer.


    ¡°The answers lie in the head,¡± his oily voice surpassed my eardrums and seeped deep into my brain, as if controlled by a sense beyond my comprehension. I grasped at my skull, crazed by the vitriol beneath his words. I knew the terrible power his voice had, for I¡¯d heard it once before, but the extent of its pain and wickedness had faded in my memory.


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    I have no concept of time, besides his visits and the time it takes for a log to be reduced to ashes, both of which I¡¯d lost count of long ago. I could have been here two months, two years, two decades, or two centuries; I suspect the latter options.


    The sand beneath my feet is soft and fluid as an ocean swell; perhaps it is responsible for the sound of waves crashing in the distance. No stars grace the sky, nor does a moon or a sun provide any light. I don¡¯t know how long I¡¯ve been here, wherever here is.


    I stoke the fire dutifully, log upon log upon log, as I¡¯ve been commanded. That memory seems the only one tethered to this unreality, when the hooded man spoke¡ªif you can call it speaking¡ª¡°if the fire dies, so does your wife.¡± His slimy intonation seared into my brain that first day, and its purpose drove me through this depraved existence. But lately I¡¯ve been questioning.


    He told me the answers lie in the head, but all that¡¯s in my head are memories, and every day these disappear in droves. Soon, I suspect, nothing will remain but the hooded man and the fire.

 Chapter 2

    Margaret¡¯s face fades in my memory little by little, like a camera losing focus ever so slowly. Her eyes were hazel, yes, but what was the pattern of her irises? There was a time when I was obsessed with those eyes, painting them into my art in such detail that you might mistake them for real if the rest of the paintings weren¡¯t abstract. But if you gave me a paintbrush today, I would draw completely different eyes.


    Her smile, though, radiant as freshly fallen snow; I remember that clearly. And her bellowing laugh that you could hear from the opposite end of the house, which turned to a squealing giggle when she really got going. I always loved making her squeal like that.


    Margaret was better with the kids than I was, her heat warmer, her patience a vast lake to my small pond, her love as infinite as the darkness in which I now sit. She¡¯d stay up late helping David¡ªbless his frantic and loving heart¡ªwith his school projects. She¡¯d rub Grace¡¯s back while she cried about school or friendship drama, she¡¯d braid Anna¡¯s hair and help her manage her anxiety.


    My children¡¯s faces have dwindled to a single defining feature, as if I only heard one instrument in a ten-piece band. David¡¯s bright smile (he got that from Margaret), Grace¡¯s stony gaze, which she called her ¡°resting bitch face¡±, Anna¡¯s gorgeous curly auburn hair (also from Margaret). I wonder which features from me have faded into oblivion.


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    ¡°Put another log on the fire for me; I made some breakfast and coffee-ee-ee.¡± Strange that I remember a David Bowie lyric, as I lay more wood on the flame, but not my children¡¯s faces.


    All there is to do here is remember, and yet, each moment another memory is swallowed by the suffocating space and time that surrounds me. I pass time by exercising¡ªpushups, burpees, calisthenics¡ªor messing with the sand, more gentle and porous than any sand I¡¯ve encountered.


    I want to walk beyond the light of the fire, but I am afraid, for when I reach past the light of the flames, I¡¯ll have nowhere to go. I could follow the sound of the waves, but they seem to come from all directions at once. I am trapped in this bubble of light, and my only escape would mean a slow death, cold as a Chicago winter¡¯s biting wind, which rips through your layers to chill your bones. And death is not an option if I want Margaret to live.


    But is it? If they¡¯ve held me as long as I suspect, Margaret is long dead anyways. What¡¯s the use of stoking this pathetic fire, my last and only purpose in this monstrous game? It¡¯s time I fought back, devised a plan to counter my captors¡¯ wicked game. If I don¡¯t, I fear that Margaret, the kids, my memories of a better life, will disappear behind the shadows of the fire.


    The answers lie in the head. I¡¯ve contemplated the hooded man¡¯s reply ceaselessly and still have no explanations. But I do have an idea, a desperate idea for a desperate man.

 Chapter 3

    Time passes¡ªdays, weeks, who knows¡ªand I am at last down to my final log. I position myself behind this last log and to the left; it lies beyond my reach, where the hooded man will feel comfortable.


    Soon, I feel his glacial presence slither behind me; gooseflesh prickles my neck but I don¡¯t flinch. The hooded man¡¯s advance is painfully slow, like an old man climbing a high tower. I wonder if he senses the strategy that¡¯s formulated in my mind. Presently, the hooded man stands at my side.


    He pauses to drop the wood, and I use this moment to strike. I shoot to my feet and grab hold of the log I¡¯ve buried in the sand¡ªthe loose sand that moves like a wave¡ªwhich parts easily. My movements are precise, thanks to my daily exercises done to pass time, and I twirl around, clench the log as tight as my grip allows, and whip my arms around with all my strength, aiming for the hooded man¡¯s head. He senses my movement, but the logs in his hands slow his reaction and prevent a counter.


    The hooded man¡¯s wood drops and a hand reaches towards me as my log arcs through the air. Luckily, my weapon makes first contact, a cracking blow to the cranium whose sound ripples across the abysmal darkness like a crash of lightning in a tropical storm. The cloaked figure screeches and reels, the mist remaining in the air where his head was, while he drops to the ground, just right of the white-hot embers. I haven¡¯t a second to waste; I leap atop the hooded man, push his injured head towards the coals. I want to hurt him, I want him to scream for mercy.


    But he doesn¡¯t scream or even resist as I shove his face into the flames. His hood is ablaze now, and he lets out a sickly laugh, a high-pitched shriek of a hyena. The sound is terrible, but I must get answers.


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    ¡°Who are you!? Why am I here!?¡± Suddenly his shriek shifts to a low bellow, a sound that shakes the air, vibrates the sand; I¡¯ve never heard a laugh so loud. But more than that, the timbre is familiar. Where have I heard this before? The hooded man keeps laughing, deafening as the front row of a heavy metal show; it takes all my strength not to cover my ears in agony. His laugh shifts to a squeal, a high-pitched giggle that I associate with one person alone. It can¡¯t be.


    The fire has burned his hood away. I yank him out of the fire, turning him over on his back, and I see that it is not in fact a hooded man, but a hooded woman, a ghastly woman who puts a pit in my stomach. I stagger back and release the woman, certain that my mind is playing tricks on me. I am going insane from isolation; it must be.


    Otherwise, something much more horrible than insanity has occurred. For in front of my eyes, I see the woman I loved, the woman whose life I thought I was saving by tending this fire for years or decades or centuries. It is Margaret, but not the Margaret I knew. Her hazel eyes are red, vile and deep with fury. Her radiant smile has turned sardonic, twisted into a shape beyond my recognition. Her auburn hair is gone, she lies bald on the ground, face half burned from the embers.


    ¡°Wh¡ª¡± I start, stepping further back into darkness.


    ¡°Hello, Michael,¡± she snivels in that unnatural tone that pours like syrup into my surroundings. Then, before I can ask any questions, the mist that was left behind when I smashed her returns to her head. In the instant before it clouds her face once more, I see the face morph into something else, some anonymous blob, and I realize that it wasn¡¯t my wife; how could it have been? The hooded man rises, backhands me with a skeletal arm, knocking me to the ground.

 Chapter 4

    I do not know who my tormentors are. Whatever that thing is, it is not human. And I know now that my wife is dead. I cannot explain how, but I know it; perhaps she has always been dead. I will not play their game anymore. One by one, I lay my logs on the fire, waiting for the previous one to catch before adding another to the top. Soon, I¡¯ve laid all 10 logs on the fire, and the once measly flame has tripled, and tripled again, in size.


    The light from the dancing flames illuminates the dreadful black a bit farther. I look out in all directions; still nothing. Smoke fills my lungs, the once-sweet smell turned sickening by decades or centuries of no other scent. The fire¡¯s crackles and pops drown the sound of the waves. I pick a direction randomly and walk deeper into the ever-expanding chasm of darkness. Looking back, I see my fire grow smaller and smaller, until it is merely a speck surrounded by nothingness.


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    Then, it disappears. The absolute darkness envelops my senses, my soul, my body, my mind. I feel nothing, not even the sand beneath my feet as I walk through the abyss. I wander further and the darkness above my head soon illuminates, first a pale circle, then specks of twinkling white. Constellations shimmer, a full moon breathes light into the sky, but I still see nothing on the ground. I move my legs through spacetime (can you call it walking if your feet don¡¯t touch the ground?), breathe a lungful of blissful nothingness. Gazing into the sky, I glimpse for an instant Margaret¡¯s smiling face in the stars; I return her smile, filled with love and memory and knowing. My children¡¯s faces crystallize in the darkness, guiding me towards some destination unfathomable after a cosmic eternity of torment. The sound of the waves dissipates, and with it, my consiousness.