Short Story: A Purple Story

By Martin Ehlers

In my attempt to write purple prose, I chose to mimic to the best of my ability the style of H. P. Lovecraft. Seems I managed to adopt even his tendency to write a word too many. Either way, mimicking the style of another proved to be a lot of fun.

I found myself in the small fishing village of Deingo, sent there to serve as the aid of the renowned archaeologist Andrew Withal. I had managed to convince the university that he would need an anthropologist to deal with the natives and possible help discern the nature of any discoveries. They should have send a linguist. Even with my rudimentary command of Spanish, I was unable to properly communicate with those savages, their language having at some point diverted from the common tongue of the land and turned into what, from the perspective of civilized man, seemed to be a combination of saliva and rude gestures. I was however able to secure my companion and I what passed for descent lodgings around those parts, a small hut no more than 50 feet from the village well. Already upon arriving, I began to regret having talked my way into what I had thought would be a paid vacation.

The village itself was located deep within the jungle. Every day upon waking, I would be struck by the beauty of the landscape anew: the flowing springs, the lush smell of nature emanating from the forest floor, and the veritable cornucopia of colorful vegetation. These blissful moments would unfortunately be universally cut short by the inevitable sight of the unwashed natives, dredging about as if in a constant ritualistic trance. Had I known then the true nature of the village and the terrible secret it would turn out to hold, I would surely have gathered my belongings and made my escape outright.

Andrew – I believe we are on first names after the horrid things we alone have been cursed to witness – had been sent to investigate an odd ziggurat, which had by chance been spotted by air boat by a man affiliated with the university.

On the second day of our arrival, after having spent the prior day getting ourselves set up and making friendly with the natives, I joined Andrew in appraising the structure, which was located no more than half a mile from the village border. We were led by a native guide, a scrawny being who we nonetheless had found to be the most agreeable – that is, comprehensible – of the village folk.

On our way to the tomb, our guide began speaking of the religious significance it held to his people. They worshiped it, he said, so that the restless spirit within would be content and leave them be. Sometimes, he claimed, they would hear strange noises emanating from it. Then they would sing for it, to soothe the angry spirit. Andrew could not help but snicker at the superstitions of the primitive, and I too dismissed it as nothing but legend, the sound of the spirit no doubt but the bustle of some animal, distorted by distance and fearful primitives.

After having walked for about half an hour, for braving the thick forest was slow and arduous work, we finally made it to the tomb.­­­­­-__­­

It’s make was unlike any on record; a small ziggurat hewn in an unusual blue stone with stairs leading deep below ground, the steps showing no signs of the slightest erosion. On its top rose a great beam made of that same blue stone, studded with small squares about a quarter of a meter apart, each engraved with a different symbol from some forgotten alphabet. It was no doubt this which Andrew’s colleague had spotted from the air. The stone was smooth to the touch despite it having most certainly been subject to the ravages of the rain forest for uncountable centuries.

As I was marveling at the alien design of the beam, I suddenly saw Andrew coming around the corner of the ziggurat, his face ablaze with rage. He told me that he had expressed to the guide his desire of going into the ziggurat. The guide had responded with dire warnings and naive superstitions and, when Andrew had pressed the issue, had simply run off into the jungle. We decided to press on alone.

With flashlights in hand we descended the fifty-odd steps into the tomb. There was no door barring our entrance, no slab of stone to ward off grave robbers, only an immense darkness awaiting us below. The stairs ended in a vast chamber, so vast that the beams from our flashlights dissipated completely before reaching the far end. The chamber was of the same blue stone as the ziggurat and the stairs. Andrew turned to me and remarked, in a voice hushed by awe, that he had so far seen no cracks, no lines separating stone from stone; it was all – the ziggurat, the beam, the stairs, the chamber – carved from a single rock. A small beam of light descended from a hole in the ceiling, from where I suspected the beam above extended. It was angled slightly so that it was thrown upon a small spot on the right wall, revealing a single symbol. The room itself appeared empty, except for a slab protruding from the floor, in what I made out to be the middle of the room.

I continued into the chamber, towards the slab. As I came closer, I let out a shocked cry. On that slab lay a human shape. Andrew, who had been examining the alien arabesque of the walls, quickly ran to my side and together we approached the figure on the slab. It was not the mummified remains one would expect to find in ancient places, but a healthy looking man, his face vibrant with the colors of life. He was naked and appeared to be sleeping, except his muscular frame did not pulsate with the breath of the resting. That lack of breath we shared with him for a while, as we stood frozen, our gazes fixed on that unnamable sight.

Then the man drew a sudden, deep breath, and opened his eyes. We both recoiled in horror. The sudden shock made Andrew drop his flashlight, but I held unto mine, and with trembling hands I trained its beam on the rising man. He climbed down from the slab and stared at us with the same awe that was no doubt to be found in our own eyes.

Then he spoke. Or rather, his mouth moved, but the words that appeared in my head did not match its gestures. They seemed to come from within myself, with the sensation of the thoughts and emotions of another suddenly intruding upon my own inner monologue. He was scarred and confused. He asked me who I was and what I was doing here, taking a few steps back and looking about as if looking for an escape route. With trembling tongue, I told him my name and asked him his. He said, or rather projected unto me, that he did not know.

He turned around himself once, before having his eyes caught by the symbol revealed by the beam of light coming from the ceiling. He ran to the wall and we followed. Once there, he stood for a moment. Then I felt him communicating again, only this time it was not words, but pure, unfiltered emotion. First shock, then despair, then hopelessness. Then just maddened screaming, an incomprehensible emotional miasma of pure mental agony. I held my hands to my ears in futile defense and saw Andrew double over and throw up.

Amidst the emotional onslaught, the man began beating his head against the wall. For a moment, I stood frozen. Then, as I realized the projected insanity would surely incapacitate us if we did not withdraw, I turned and ran, dragging the still coughing Andrew after me. When we got to the stairs, I turned and pointed my flashlight back into the room one last time. The man was lying lifeless in a pool of blood. The screaming had stopped.

Despite having been abandoned by our guide, we had little trouble making it back to the village. Before sleep came, we both sat silent opposite each other for what felt like hours. What we had witnessed had no place within men of science’s frame of reference, and so we found no words to describe it.

When we awoke the next morning the village was its own dull self. The surrounding jungle, however, was still an object of wonder: the night’s dew had dressed it in a cloak of moisture, set ablaze with light by split beams of sunlight penetrating the canopy. Our guide came to us shortly before we left to apologize for his cowardice, to which we replied with strenuous reassurances, informing him that we would in any case rather do our research undisturbed. We would return to the ziggurat. There were too many things left unanswered for men such as us to simply leave well enough alone.

The ziggurat too had been touched by the dew which, laying as it did against the smooth stone, gave the structure an odd appearance of glass-like frailty. This time, we brought more items from our shack, chief amongst these a couple of powerful work lights. Andrew also brought a small, snub-nosed six-shooter, initially against my protests. When he reminded me of our near damnation of yesterday, however, I could but acquiesce.

Upon entering the chamber Andrew went to the corner left of the door and put down the first work light. With the room now partially bathed in harsh light, I went to the other corner, keeping my head down so as to not see the self-murdered man. Just as I had set my own light, I heard Andrew cry out in shock. I spun around to see him, face pale and body trembling, pointing to the slab. On it lay the man from the day before, the same man whom I had yesterday seen batter his own skull against the wall. The spot on which we had left him the day before bore no indication of yesterday’s horror; neither blood nor brains covered the smooth floor.

Without a word between us, we both went to the man. He was laying just as he had done when we had first seen him, breathless body vivid with the color of life. After a short bout of dumb struck inaction, I proposed to my colleague that we slap this mysterious person awake. Andrew shook his head and said that we should instead do what we had originally come here for, which was to document our findings and attempt to place the culture of origin of the place. I asked him if he did not fear the man rising again, again assaulting us with his own despair, to which he replied by simply tapping his left coat pocket and the gun which rested therein.

And so we began our work documenting the ziggurat. Now that the chamber was sufficiently lit, we saw that the walls were completely covered in symbols and shapes, all arranged in roughly geometrical shapes, between which ran lines of arabesque, connecting them, giving the impression of a giant map. As Andrew set to work photographing the walls and ceiling, in which was engraved the same sort of symbols as were on the walls, I went back up the stairs to photograph the outside of the ziggurat.

After having made sure to adequately photograph every symbol and every carved shape on the structure, I decided to take a few pictures of its entirety. As I was putting the necessary distance between me and the ziggurat, I heard Andrew’s scream reverberate from beneath. Quickly, I started towards the stairs and almost lost my footing as I sped down the dew-wet steps.

Through the entrance I saw Andrew writhe as if in the grasp of epilepsy, his screaming now shrill and interspersed with desperate, half-spoken pleads for mercy. Before him thrashed the mysterious man, now awake, turning his head every which way as if surrounded by phantom foes. I saw Andrew fumble for the gun in his pocket. When he finally got it loose, he did not turn it on the man before him. I yelled Andrew’s name, afraid to come closer, as even from my position by the entrance I could still feel the peripheral waves of despair emanating from the resident of that cursed place. With shaking, but determined, hand, Andrew put the gun to his temple and fired. As he fell, I saw the man from the slab pause for a short moment, before throwing himself to the ground and grasping for the gun, like a desperate beggar for a rich man’s coin. I instinctively took a step backward, turned and ran up with the stairs. Rationally, I knew that I was in no danger, and I forced myself to stop halfway up the stairs to listen. I heard a single shot and knew that The Sleeper rested once again.

When I returned to the village, I saw a few of the natives stop in their path to look at the pale, defeated shape that was me as I dragged myself to Andrew and I’s hut. Except it was no longer Andrew’s. As soon as I entered the hut and shut the thin door behind me, I fell to my knees, trembling, crying, cursing that damned chamber and the monstrosity within. It was almost a full hour before I rose from my fit. That is when I decided that Andrew’s death must not have been in vain. Hands still shaking, I grabbed paper and pen, and began writing down everything I knew about the chamber and its vile resident, trying to come up with some course of action, some way in which to continue the research. It was then I realized that the man in the chamber had awoken at the same time of day both of the times that I, and Andrew infinitely more so, had been so cursed as to witness it, somewhere around 19:00.

I slept little that night, waking several times from unremembered nightmares.

I set out for the ziggurat while it was still dark and the village was still sleeping, single minded in my purpose, for single minded I would need to be to see my plan through: I would take the sleeping abomination from its chamber and bring it with me, back to civilization, where I and others could examine it. I wanted to understand it, to comprehend the damned powers which had forced my friend’s hand to suicide. But most of all, I wanted to acquire for myself the secret of the resting man’s perpetual resurrection.

The lights we had left yesterday were still on. And on the slab lay the psychic killer in his mockery of human rest, the corpse of my dear friend on the floor beneath him. The room smelled of the newly dead and I struggled to not look too closely at my late friend as I went to the slab. With me I had brought a small cart, which I had found derelict back in the village. For a moment, I stood wondering whether it would not be more reasonable, more humane, to led the resting thing lie and instead bring Andrew’s body back with me instead, for a decent funeral. But, as has so often happened in my life, curiosity triumphed over decency.

It was hard work getting the man from the slab on to the carriage, but after a short while I had him there, whereupon I covered him with the blanket I had taken from Andrew’s bed. Harder work still was getting him up the stairs, and all the while I feared that he should suddenly awake from the commotion. But he stayed in his peculiar state of undeath. This proved my theory correct; he would only wake when once again the clock struck 19:00. I had timed it all: I would drag the carriage back to the village, where I would place him in a large crate so as to not cause suspension. I would then take the car me and Andrew had procured for our expedition to the nearest train station and get on the first train to Chicago.

I will not bore you with the finer details of my journey. A few times while in the car, I thought I heard a rumbling from the box, yet this must have been just my imagination. I peeked inside the crate when I had arrived at the station, to make certain that the man had not awoken, only to see him lay serene in his breathless sleep. The crate had to be transported in a separate wagon, along with the other large cargo. The entire trip I sat anxious, fearing that I had made some mistake in my planning.

When I finally arrived in Chicago, I paid a homeless man to help me carry the box to my apartment, thankfully located no more than a few blocks away from the station. I had to slip him a few extra dollars to help me get it up the stairs, but soon I was alone in my apartment with the box by my entryway. I felt the adrenaline which had kept me going through the journey vanish from my body and made for a glass whiskey with which to rejuvenate myself. I only made it half way to the cabinet before exhaustion threw me to the floor. When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was the watch on my wall. 19:12. Then I saw the two confused, almost pitiful eyes of The Sleeper stare into mine, and I drifted off once more.

I dreamed. I dreamed of a great city, its buildings white and smooth, the light from a red sun reflecting off them in an iridescent symphony of colors. The architecture was wholly alien to me, and with the strange lack of bewilderment of dream, I realized that this was not a city build by human hands. Towers in impossible shapes rose to impossible heights, buildings contorted and twisted, mimicking the arabesque shapes I had seen in the chamber of The Sleeper.

The city was deserted. And broken. I began walking down an open street and as I did I saw holes in walls, heaps of debris, fallen spires broken and bent. The ruin of the city was made only more crushing by the remnants of its beauty. Then I saw him, The Sleeper, on his knees in the middle of a crossway, besides what must once have been a magnificent spring, its gleaming sculptures now filling the pool were water should be, a broken heap of human-like figures and otherworldly beasts. As I came closer I heard sobbing; heard – not as an image in my head or as an abstract notion of sadness intruding upon my brain; I heard The Sleeper weep.

I asked him why he wept and he looked up at me and spoke. He said that it was his fault, this ruin, his actions which had led to the death of this world. I asked him were all of its inhabitants were, but he did not answer.

I blinked, and I was back in the chamber in the jungle, alone. Andrew was nowhere to be seen and the room was bathed in a warm light emanating from nowhere. I looked about and found that I could read the inscriptions on the wall. They told of exile, of the great crime committed by its resident and of the judgment which had been passed upon him. But more than that, they listed the names of those he had doomed. The walls, the slab upon which he had rested, even the floor and the ceiling, all covered in the names of the fallen. One name stood out, the one on which the light from the ceiling fell. I read it, and knew that it was of a loved one. I felt myself drift towards consciousness, and with all the strength of my dream-self, I tried to retain what I had read.

When I came to, The Sleeper was still standing over me, and I reasoned that I must have only been out of consciousness for a mere few seconds. As had happened the first time he had spoken to me back in the chamber in the jungle, his words appeared as concepts and images within my head; I had lost the momentary grasp of his language which the dream had bestowed upon me. I struggled to remember any of the words or names which I had read. He asked me my name. I asked him his, and saw his confusion intensify when he realized that did not know. Then I spoke the only name which I had managed to recall from the dream, the illuminated one, the loved one.

For a moment, The Sleeper stood motionless in shock, as some unbearable truth forced itself upon him. Then, like a sudden wave rocking a boat in hitherto calm waters, my mind was assailed by the psychic terror that was The Sleeper’s anguished screams. His eyes turned about in twitches, no doubt looking for some implement with which to once again end his life. He started for the window. Mercy find me, I actually tried to stop him. With no time to stand up, I half crawled, half ran toward him, and grasped his ankle with an outstretched arm. He just kept walking, not even braking pace as he dragged his foot out of my hand. As I felt my hand slip, I threw myself away from him, no longer able to withstand the mental anguish of being so close to the insane Sleeper.

He threw himself out the window, effortlessly smashing the glass with his muscular frame. I felt the screaming fade quickly, then suddenly stop. The Sleeper was dead once more.

The police came quickly and dragged his body away to the morgue. When interviewed I explained that a violent drug addict had forced himself through my door and into my home and in his manic thrashings had left it again in a most indiscreet manner. They found this satisfactory, my deceit no doubt spurred by my still being in a state of borderline catatonic shock.

The next day, I rose from my couch, having not left it nor even slept the entire night, and went to the small vendor on the corner to pick up a newspaper. I could but smile at the morbid absurdity of it all, for on page five one could read a short piece on an unidentifiable body having mysteriously vanished from the police morgue last night.

Now The Sleeper is back in his chamber, every evening rising to read the name of that loved one who became his victim, every evening destroying himself in his grief induced madness, an undying suicide condemned to forever sleep but never find rest.