Ten thousand tortures that more horrid be

An accident, surely. Surely, they had just picked the first available Friday for his proposal defense. It just happened to be Halloween.

Still…

He went down the walk to his apartment. So they were going to let him defend at last.

He unlocked the door and let himself in. It was dark inside. He switched on the overhead but it was hardly brighter. For some reason, the owners had painted the place a deep hunter green, so the walls seemed to suck light right out the place. You could probably, he thought, launch flares in here and it would be dark as a graveyard at midnight.

He put the bills in one place and his books in another. What was he going to do about dinner? Well, he’d left a little steak to thaw out on the counter of his tiny kitchen. But, somehow, he didn’t feel like eating beef right now. Eggs? A salad? He remembered then there was left-over pizza from the other night. He ate that standing over the sink. Then, he thought about having some vegetables. He had a couple of carrots in the ‘fridge. He got out a paring knife and thought about peeling them, but then he changed his mind. Not worth the effort. Instead, he held the knife in his hand for a moment, considered it, and finally touched the blade with the index finger of his right hand. He was startled with a drop of blood appeared.

Damn. It was sharper than he thought. He washed his hands and then rinsed the knife. He left it in the drainer to dry.

Now what? He realized he was bone tired. He fell into the chair in front of the TV and switched it on. Maybe there was something on about the shooting in the building. But, there wasn’t. Just the usual collection of sitcoms, soap operas, and reality TV shows. One was a game show where contestants confronted their fears. He watched uneasily as a woman with a phobia about worms was slowly submerged in a vat of them. Only her eyes, wide with terror, projected above their slimy mass.

Shit!

He switched it off. What now? Read? Go out? He had few friends (none, really) so going out with “the guys” wasn’t an option. Maybe then take a walk? No, that wasn’t an option either. The neighborhood was safe enough in the day, but, well, at night . . . no. There’d been muggings lately. The whole area was going downhill.

He found himself thinking of the automatic writing.

Maybe . . . he stood and got his book back. The copies of the Decuir’s pages were there in a folder. He sat back down and regarded them. They were weird and flowing, somehow graceful. Yet, it was chilling to think he was looking at communications from the mind of a killer and madman. From, in fact, his subconscious! His . . . what was the term? His Id.

He tried to read them. Could that be a letter? Was that a word? He stared at them, daring them to make some kind of sense. But nothing came. They lines squirmed in front of him.

Hell.

And then . . . there! That was an “S” . . . and that was a “…an.” The lines seemed to unlock before his eyes. That was a “t.” And a whole word! That was “bodies.”

Fantastic! He wondered why he hadn’t been able to see it before. It was so clear now. “…bodies boil in lead.” “…ne’re can die” “more horrid be...”

He dashed for paper and pen and then began to work feverishly at his kitchen table. Yes! He could translate it!

…into that vast perpetual torture-house.
There are furies, tossing damned souls
On burning forks. Their bodies boil in lead.
There are live quarters broiling on the coals,
That ne’er can die; this ever-burning chair
Is for o’er-tortured souls to rest them in.
These that are fed with sops and flaming fire
Were gluttons and loved only delicates
And laughed to see the poor starve at their gates,
But yet all these are nothing. Thou shalt see
Ten thousand tortures that more horrid be.

Dear heaven! What on earth was it?

He stared at his translation. Horrible, yet . . . yet . . . it was familiar. He had seen it before. Where . . .

Doctor Faustus!