Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Enrique Vila-Matas: Molestias

Sentí una molestia muscular, era la quinta vez que yo nacía.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Ghost Stories of the Tiled House

Old Sally always attended her young mistress while she prepared for bed—not that Lilias required help, for she had the spirit of neatness and a joyous, gentle alacrity, and only troubled the good old creature enough to prevent her thinking herself grown old and useless.

Sally, in her quiet way, was garrulous, and she had all sorts of old-world tales of wonder and adventure, to which Lilias often went pleasantly to sleep; for there was no danger while old Sally sat knitting there by the fire, and the sound of the rector's mounting upon his chairs, as was his wont, and taking down and putting up his books in the study beneath, though muffled and faint, gave evidence that that good and loving influence was awake and busy.

Old Sally was telling her young mistress, who sometimes listened with a smile, and sometimes lost a good five minutes together of her gentle prattle, how the young gentleman, Mr. Mervyn, had taken that awful old haunted habitation, the Tiled House ‘beyant at Ballyfermot,’ and was going to stay there, and wondered no one had told him of the mysterious dangers of that desolate mansion.

It stood by a lonely bend of the narrow road. Lilias had often looked upon the short, straight, grass-grown avenue with an awful curiosity at the old house which she had learned in childhood to fear as the abode of shadowy tenants and unearthly dangers.

‘There are people, Sally, nowadays, who call themselves free-thinkers, and don't believe in anything—even in ghosts,’ said Lilias.

‘A then the place he's stopping in now, Miss Lily, 'ill soon cure him of free-thinking, if the half they say about it's true,’ answered Sally.

El xarlatà predica davant del pou. «Qui s’hi llanci de cap», diu, «serà feliç». Els que ens aturem a escoltar-lo refrenem la curiositat amb un posat incrèdul. Estem atents, però. D’una banda, perquè l’home sap fer-se escoltar i, de l’altra, perquè no tenim res millor a fer. A diferència d’altres pous, aquest es va fer popular quan, amb l’ajut d’una megafonia sensacionalista, el xarlatà va començar a anunciar-lo com si fos una atracció de fira. No cobra entrada, només demana la voluntat. Després de setmanes de pensar-hi molt, un dia m’hi llanço. Abans li pago el que em sembla just a canvi de sentir-li dir «seràs feliç», així, sense donar detalls. En un primer moment, l’excitació m’impedeix experimentar res especial. Caic, això sí que ho noto, i també percebo que el pou és molt fosc, i que el forat pel qual he entrat s’allunya ràpidament. Sense veure-m’hi gens, sento que l’obscuritat s’eixampla i que, encara que no en tinc cap prova, no estic sol. Crido. Torno a cridar. Com que ningú no respon, dedueixo que els altres també criden i que no els sento perquè cadascú deu cridar per a ell mateix. Caic. I encara caic més. No m’hauria imaginat mai que seria un pou sense fons. Però, quan em va temptar perquè m’hi llancés, el xarlatà no va especificar res, només va dir que, si ho feia, seria feliç. I el cert és que, mentre em precipito cap a una tenebra encara més intensa que la de fa una estona -o de fa mesos, o de fa anys, ara no té importància-, acompanyat per altres éssers que només intueixo, potser sí que sóc més feliç que no era abans. Però fa de mal dir perquè d’abans no me’n recordo, tu.

Daniel Frini: El fantasma más viejo

Desorientado, no se encuentra entre los de su especie. El fantasma de un cavernícola muerto hace veinte mil años en Lascaux, en plena Edad de Piedra, no sabe nada de sábanas y cadenas.

Fitz-James O'Brien: The Golden Ingot

I had just retired to rest, with my eyes almost blind with the study of a new work on physiology by M. Brown-Sequard, when the night bell was pulled violently.

It was winter, and I confess I grumbled as I rose and went downstairs to open the door. Twice that week I had been aroused long after midnight for the most trivial causes. Once, to attend upon the son and heir of a wealthy family, who had cut his thumb with a penknife, which, it seems, he insisted on taking to bed with him; and once, to restore a young gentleman to consciousness, who had been found by his horrified parent stretched insensible on the staircase. Diachylon in the one case and ammonia in the other were all that my patients required; and I had a faint suspicion that the present summons was perhaps occasioned by no case more necessitous than those I have quoted. I was too young in my profession, however, to neglect opportunities. It is only when a physician rises to a very large practice that he can afford to be inconsiderate. I was on the first step of the ladder, so I humbly opened my door.

A woman was standing ankle deep in the snow that lay upon the stoop. I caught but a dim glimpse of her form, for the night was cloudy; but I could hear her teeth rattling like castanets, and, as the sharp wind blew her clothes close to her form, I could discern from the sharpness of the outlines that she was very scantily supplied with raiment.

"Come in, come in, my good woman," I said hastily, for the wind seemed to catch eagerly at the opportunity of making itself at home in my hall, and was rapidly forcing an entrance through the half- open door. "Come in, you can tell me all you have to communicate inside."

She slipped in like a ghost, and I closed the door. While I was striking a light in my office, I could hear her teeth still clicking out in the dark hall, till it seemed as if some skeleton was chattering. As soon as I obtained a light I begged her to enter the room, and, without occupying myself particularly about her appearance, asked her abruptly what her business was.

"My father has met with a severe accident," she said, "and requires instant surgical aid. I entreat you to come to him immediately."

Me corté una oreja y salí de casa. En el ascensor coincidí con mi vecino y me preguntó qué había ocurrido. Le dije que fue un accidente, esquiando. El tipo del quiosco también se fijó. A él le expliqué lo del atraco a punta de navaja. Luego, en la cafetería, el camarero insistió. Se me cayó, respondí sin más. Al llegar a la oficina confesé que sufría un tumor maligno. Funcionó. Hasta ella dijo que lo sentía y me besó en la mejilla. Tenía una voz bonita, olía bien y era más guapa aún de cerca. Unos días después todo volvió a ser como antes. Ayer me corté la otra.

Wilkie Collins: Blow up with the brig, a sailor's story

I HAVE got an alarming confession to make. I am haunted by a Ghost.

If you were to guess for a hundred years, you would never guess what my ghost is. I shall make you laugh to begin with--and afterward I shall make your flesh creep. My Ghost is the ghost of a Bedroom Candlestick.

Yes, a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle--put it which way you like--that is what haunts me. I wish it was something pleasanter and more out of the common way; a beautiful lady, or a mine of gold and silver, or a cellar of wine and a coach and horses, and such like. But, being what it is, I must take it for what it is, and make the best of it; and I shall thank you kindly if you will help me out by doing the same.

I am not a scholar myself, but I make bold to believe that the haunting of any man with anything under the sun begins with the frightening of him. At any rate, the haunting of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle began with the frightening of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle--the frightening of me half out of my life; and, for the time being, the frightening of me altogether out of my wits. That is not a very pleasant thing to confess before stating the particulars; but perhaps you will be the readier to believe that I am not a downright coward, because you find me bold enough to make a clean breast of it already, to my own great disadvantage so far.

Here are the particulars, as well as I can put them:

I was apprenticed to the sea when I was about as tall as my own walking-stick; and I made good enough use of my time to be fit for a mate's berth at the age of twenty-five years.

It was in the year eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, I am not quite certain which, that I reached the before-mentioned age of twenty-five. You will please to excuse my memory not being very good for dates, names, numbers, places, and such like. No fear, though, about the particulars I have undertaken to tell you of; I have got them all ship-shape in my recollection; I can see them, at this moment, as clear as noonday in my own mind. But there is a mist over what went before, and, for the matter of that, a mist likewise over much that came after--and it's not very likely to lift at my time of life, is it?

...porque grité pidiendo ayuda...y no me escuché.

Richard Matheson: 'Tis the Season to Be Jelly

Pa's nose fell off at breakfast. It fell right into Ma's coffee and displaced it. Prunella's wheeze blew out the gut lamp.

'Land o' goshen, Dad,' Ma said, in the gloom, 'If ya know'd it was ready t'plop, whyn't ya tap it off y'self?'

'Didn't know,' said Pa.

'That's what ya said the last time, Paw,' said Luke, choking on his bark bread. Uncle Rock snapped his fingers beside the lamp. Prunella's wheezing shot the flicker out.

'Shet off ya laughin', gal,' scolded Ma. Prunella toppled off her rock in a flurry of stumps, spilling liverwort mush.

Tarnation take it!' said Uncle Eyes.

'Well, combust the wick, combust the wick!' demanded Grampa, who was reading when the light went out. Prunella wheezed, thrashing on the dirt.

Uncle Rock got sparks again and lit the lamp.

'Where was I now?' said Grampa.

'Git back up here,' Ma said. Prunella scrabbled back onto her rock, eye streaming tears of laughter. 'Giddy chile,' said Ma. She slung another scoop of mush on Prunella's board. 'Go to,' she said. She picked Pa's nose out of her corn coffee and pitched it at him.

'Ma, I'm fixin' t'ask 'er t'day,' said Luke.

'Be ya, son?' said Ma, 'Thet's nice.'

'Ain't no pu'pose to it!' Grampa said, 'The dang force o' life is spent!'

'Now, Pa,' said Pa, 'Don't fuss the young 'uns' mind-to.'

'Says right hyeh!' said. Grampa, tapping at the journal with his wrist, 'We done let in the wavelenths of anti-life, that's what we done!'

No hay caricia más perfecta que el leve roce de una mano de ocho dedos, afirman aquellos que en lugar de elegir a una mujer, optan por entrar solos y desnudos en el Cuarto de las Arañas.

Patricia Laurent Kullic: Se solicita sirvienta

Si viene por el anuncio, pase. Las instrucciones están sobre la mesa. Kushner.

Señor: Me llamo Regulema y leí su recado. Fui a la tienda con el dinero que estaba sobre la mesa. Le dejo una coliflor cocida y un caldito de pollo. Espero que le guste. Firma, Regulema.

Regulema: Le doy la bienvenida. Disculpe usted que no lo haga personalmente pero soy un hombre enfermo. En el recado de ayer olvidé decirle que su horario será de diez a cuatro, pero si termina antes puede irse. Hay un cuarto en el fondo del pasillo que está bajo llave, no se preocupe en limpiarlo. Cada viernes dejaré su sueldo sobre esta misma mesa. Atentamente, Jonas Kushner.

Señor Kushner: Compré veneno para ratas y un líquido para limpiar la vajilla del vitrinero. Mañana voy a ir a pagar los recibos de luz y agua que estaban amontonados en el buzón. No estaré por la mañana. Firma, Regulema

Regulema: El caldo de ayer tenía especias. Le pido por favor que el pollo lo hierva en agua solamente. Lo que compró para limpiar el oro y la plata no era necesario, como quiera se lo agradezco. Atentamente, Jonas Kushner.

Señor Kushner: Ya lavé su ropa y perdone usted la libertad que me tomé para tirar una camisa blanca que por más que lavé y lavé, olía muy feo y estaba rota del cuello. Si usted quiere yo le puedo comprar una en el centro. Hasta mañana. Firma, Regulema

Señorita Regulema: Yo no uso camisas de colores y si llego a hacerlo, son lisas y muy discretas. Por favor compre siempre camisas blancas de manga larga. Gracias. Kushner.

Señor Kushner: Perdone el error de las camisas, pero me parecieron bonitas y modernas. No vuelve a pasar. ¿No cree que es mucho el dinero que me dejó de sueldo o son varios meses por adelantado? Regulema.

Regulema: No le pagué por adelantado, simplemente estoy muy contento con usted. Compre más coliflor. Kushner.

In the spring, families in the suburbs of New Orleans--Metarie, Jefferson, Lafayette--hang wreaths on their front doors. Gay purple straw wreaths of yellow and purple and green, wreaths with bells and froths of ribbons trailing down, blowing, tangling in the warm wind. The children have king cake parties. Each slice of cake is covered with a different sweet, sticky topping--candied cherries and colored sugar are favorites--and the child who finds a pink plastic baby in his slice will enjoy a year of good luck. The baby represents the infant Christ, and children seldom choke on it. Jesus loves little children.

The adults buy spangled cat's-eye masks for masquerades, and other women's husbands pull other men's wives to them under cover of Spanish moss and anonymity, hot silk and desperate searching tongues and the wet ground and the ghostly white scent of magnolias opening in the night, and the colored paper lanterns on the verandah in the distance.

In the French Quarter the liquor flows like milk and strings of bright cheap beads hang from wrought iron balconies, adorn sweaty necks, scatter in the street, the royalty of gutter trash, gaudy among the cigarette butts and cans and plastic Hurricane glasses. The sky is purple, the flare of a match behind a cupped hand is yellow, the liquor is green, bright green, made from a thousand herbs, made from altars. Those who know well enough to drink Chartreuse at Mardi Gras are lucky, because the distilled essence of the town burns in their bellies. Chartreuse glows in the dark, and if you drink enough of it, your eyes will turn bright green.

Christian's bar was way down Chartres away from the middle of the Quarter, toward Canal Street. It was only nine-thirty. None one ever came in until ten, not even on Mardi Gras nights, no one except the thin little girl in the black silk dress, the thin little girl with the short, soft brown hair that fell in a curtain across her eyes. Christian always wanted to brush it away from her face, feel it trickle through his fingers like rain. Tonight, as usual, she slipped in at nine-thirty and looked around for the friends who were never there, and the wind blew the French Quarter in behind her, Rue de Chartres warm as the night air slipped away toward the river, smelling of spice and fried oysters and rum and the dust of ancient bones stolen and violated. When she saw Christian standing alone behind the bar, narrow and white with his black hair glittering on his shoulders, she came and hopped onto a bar stool -- she had to boost herself -- and said, as she did most nights, "Can I have a screwdriver?"

"Just how old are you, love?" Christian asked, as he did most nights.

En el campo amanece siempre mucho más temprano.

Eso lo saben bien los mirlos.

Pero tiene que pasar un buen rato desde que surge la primera luz hasta que aparece definitivamente el sol. Manda siempre el astro en avanzadilla una difusa claridad para que vaya explorando el terreno palmo a palmo, para que le informe antes de posibles sobresaltos o altercados. Luego, cuando ya tiene constancia de que todo está en orden, tal como quedó en la tarde previa, se atreve por fin a salir. Su buen trabajo le cuesta después recoger toda la claridad que derramó primero. Por eso se ve obligado a subir tan alto antes de caer, para que le dé tiempo a absorber toda esa luz y no dejar ninguna descarriada cuando se vuelva a hundir por el oeste.

Luego en el campo, paradójicamente, se hace de noche también muy pronto.

Los mirlos apagan sus picos naranjas y se confunden con el paisaje.

Y agradecido yo, me descuelgo y salgo.

Lisa Morton: Children of the Long Night

Dracula finds himself ever more disgusted with humanity and what it is becoming...

“C’MON, TET, YOU know you can’t spend the night here.”

The ragged man in filthy combat fatigues looked up from under his thin stringy hair. His real name was John Douglas Black, but he’d earned his street name by begging passers-by to “spare some change for a vet, man, I was in the Tet Offensive, had the skin on my back torched by napalm.” Tet didn’t appear to have any war injuries, but, on the other hand, no one had ever seen his back, either.

Tet staggered to his feet, half-leaning against the wall beside him for support. The two beat cops eyed him with a mix of disgust and pity, then the female one leaped forward to steady him when he almost fell.

“You all right, Tet? We can take you to a clinic, get you some help ...”

Tet flinched away from her hand. “Already been. They couldn’t do shit for me.”

The cop reluctantly let her partner lead her back to their car, the game finished for tonight. It was always the same—they knew Tet was one of the harmless ones, didn’t really want to roust him, but if they didn’t some Yuppie on his busy way back from the video store would complain, then they’d have to arrest Tet. It was easier this way for everyone.

Except Tet really did need help. Something was wrong with him. Every morning he awoke feeling weaker, more feverish. He wondered if he’d caught some disease from a rat—there were bite marks on his wrists, small gaping pink spots standing out from the grime.

Tet reached the side street and turned the corner. There was an alley down here that was little more than a walkway and trash storage between buildings. Tet could store himself there with all the rest of the garbage and no one cared.

He stumbled past the first two dumpsters, then let himself collapse. He was almost asleep when he realized he wasn’t alone. He looked up blearily and made out a figure standing over him, a silhouette. Then the blackness was dropping beside Tet, and he heard a noise, a hideous noise like a cross between a guttural laugh and an animal snarl.

He realized he’d been hearing that sound every night for nearly a week.