Monday, May 23, 2005
I suspect the photos I snapped of our trip to the City would’ve astounded you, entertained you to no end, but the fact of the matter is I left them on the train. The entire roll of film, along with the camera housing it, chose one of two destinies: either it found a new owner, or it removed itself from history altogether by digging deeper into the seat cushions.
Why had I brought a camera in the first place? Was I going to play the Cheery Chuck, keep a journal, maybe construct a scrapbook? Absolutely not. The photos were unnecessary, much like my presence, and Muse’s final warning before we disembarked replayed itself in a perpetual echo.
“You broke my heart when you stepped on the train,” she said quickly. “If you step off the train, I might break yours. So don’t. Go back. The Block– It’s not for you.”
Stubborn chivalry vetoed all my other senses, however, and I hopped off the train moments before it sped to the next borough. It was late afternoon. Transitorio Station, the fittingly ramshackle introduction to Writer’s Block, looked even more rundown in the waning daylight. Shadows lengthened eerily, lazily, with a cold assurance.
“I should’ve came here alone and left you at home,” I declared with a little swagger and a lot of stupidity.
“Now that,” Muse replied, shaking her head, “is a terrible idea. Look.”
She pointed to the huddled forms of the Blotted. Tucked away in the dark corners of the station were piles of cloth, or so I thought until my eyes focused. They were people. I turned to Muse.
“Wha–” I started, but she gave me a look that froze my blood and steeled my resolve.
She grabbed my arm and we made our way to the station exit, briskly at first, then at full sprint.
“You-you-you-you-you,” a nearby pile uttered with an otherworldly resonance.
We were a few feet shy of the double doors when a gnarled arm shot out and grabbed me by the shoe. I cried out in horror.
“Lose it. Go, go!” shouted Muse.
“Help-help-help-help,” implored this wretched pile.
I shook myself free, sacrificing a shoe in the process. We tore through the doors.
“What the hell just happened?” I demanded.
The Blotted, she proceeded to explain, are people who visited the Block without their muses. They thought they could handle the Auditor by themselves, so they waltzed proudly into town, only to reemerge hours later blinded and damned. In their final accounting, they were judged to be lacking, and the Auditor took everything except for a single word. Usually the word was nonsensical, but once in a while the Auditor would let his good spirits prevail and dispense a relevant word, which was all the fellow in the train station possessed in addition to my shoe.
Right when Muse was about to explain how the Blotted could actually harm a person, she stopped. I followed her gaze, slowly and unwillingly, to discover the Auditor’s building in front of us. The door was wooden and plain, yet the things behind it lent a very real terror. My camera? This door would’ve consumed it.