Langley, they say, is missing and presumed dead, the victim of foul play. I have no compelling reason to dispute that; the facts appear to speak for themselves. The trashing of his apartment living room, the vandalistic destruction, the bloody smears on the wrecked sofa and similar splashes on the walls and floor, seem to tell the tale. Those close to him, including myself, can testify that in his final days he went in fear of his life. The only remaining mystery attached to the apparent crime should concern the identity of the culprit. Killer or killers unknown; and yet, given time, we may choose to believe that the forces of the law will bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion, all questions answered, justice upheld.
Well and good, if it works out that way; but speaking frankly, I have my doubts. Certain press reports, for what they’re worth, indicate puzzling factors, which may demand explanation in vain. I’ve read that all of the doors and windows were locked and bolted from the inside. The crime scene is located on an upper floor of a big building, full of people at all hours. How did intruders enter without leaving any definite traces of themselves? How did anyone, living or dead, manage an exit? The exact time of the supposed crime is known. Neighbors heard something– according to all accounts, they were terribly aware that something dreadful was happening– but they saw nothing. I’m not sanguine about the ongoing investigation, and wonder whether the police officials are qualified to illuminate a tragedy of this kind. There is too much they don’t know, or most likely won’t accept if they do. I know many things others don’t, or that others only suspect, about Langley’s last days. He confided in me, more so, I think, than to anyone else. I haven’t been especially forthcoming about what he told me, nor is it clear to me that I should. What purpose would it serve? At the very least I can write down what I learned and deduced from various sources, and decide later what to do with the information.
Already, even before the body is found (it won’t be; take my word on that), the eulogies are starting to come out, and so far the public releases have been uniformly favorable. We’ve lost the great Terrill Langley, artiste extraordinaire, composer in oils of daring and exotic images– that fine fellow– ah, yes, that clever painter chap… He might have appreciated a bit more such talk in life, although I don’t doubt the sincerity of those statements. In private, however, in conversation and commiseration with his associates, I detect sinister undercurrents. No one actually comes right out and says so, but there are those– more than a few– whose manner is oddly gleeful when they refer to his suspected demise. Unimpressive, you say? To be sure, those familiar with the art world know it to be rife with jealousies, antagonisms, and rivalries, professional and personal clashes which even the grave can not still. I’m perfectly aware of that– despite my best intentions, I’ve gotten involved in a few teapot tempests, and how they do drag on– but that isn’t what I mean. Just this morning I talked to a guy who could barely contain his joy. He’s glad that Langley is gone. He dwelt lovingly on the possible mechanisms of death. That isn’t normal behavior, not even in Langley’s circles.
If I’m right about the existence of this simmering hostility, is there an explanation for it? I’m afraid there is, and it doesn’t involve his personal quirks, though they were legion: his overweening vanity, his smug self-absorption, his shabby treatment of friends and, especially, women. There are a couple of girls out there who will always hate his guts, but nobody cares about that sort of thing around here. It has nothing to do with his private morality or his social opinions; as far as those went, he was about average for the crowd he ran with. Langley never had a good word for his own country, despised the “narrow-minded bourgeois” attitudes of anyone who wasn’t high-minded like himself, and confidently affirmed that the reigning political order was ripe for demolition. He enjoyed seeing the important and the proud knocked off their perches, and secretly seemed to think that some people– to the extent that they differed from himself– possessed way too much freedom to act and speak. His vociferously voiced views on the late Iraqi difficulties were tritely popular, following all of the safely subversive talking points of the day, and he rode a hobbyhorse– I can’t quite recollect what it was about– maybe something to do with saving the whales. Yes, he was that sort of character, and whatever you might think of his type, he didn’t lose any points for it among his cronies. None of that is the way to the answer. No, it all has to do with that ultimate painting of his, Langley’s self-proclaimed masterpiece, which was going to put him on the map once and for all, and raise him to the highest ranks of the artistic elites. Maybe it did that, or maybe it should have, but regardless, I can’t say that it did him much good. In fact, I think it led directly to his death. I will state for the record that I hope it got him killed, because– given my insider’s knowledge of the events leading up to his vanishing– I get the sickening feeling that the whole truth could be so much worse. And therein lies my tale.
I first met Terrill Langley seven years ago, when he was already an up and coming artist, but nowhere near the status he later attained. Along the way I learned a few details of his earlier life: a troubled childhood somewhere in Idaho (I could find the state on a map, but wasn’t fully aware that it was inhabited); a father who didn’t encourage his creative leanings, a mother who did; difficult high school years, and then a scholarship to a local college for, of all things, mathematics (he was good with figures, if his grasp of money was any guide); throwing over the scholarship at the earliest opportunity in order to enroll in art classes; finally dropping out when he thought he’d accumulated sufficient technical skill, and fleeing to San Francisco, the home of everything weird and outrageous, where I found him two years after he arrived. I don’t know how he’d survived up to that time– it certainly wasn’t on the proceeds from his paintings– but he’d managed to ensconce himself in a cheesy loft in a wretched building populated by similar types, and there he did a lot of lazing around and a sufficiency of creative dabbling.
I saw that pathetic place somewhat later. We met at a seasonal open air art fair down by the bay, not too far from the big bridge, from which I’d gathered infrequent finds, and where he had presented a couple of his recent efforts for public perusal. Both were semi-expressionistic studies of obscurely menacing landscapes, with something in them to catch the eye, although the human figures in them didn’t quite measure up to the overall standard. I made a creditable remark to the fellow standing next to me, who turned out to be Langley himself. Concluding that I was intelligent and worthy of conversation, he embarked on a long harangue about his work’s “meaning”– the sort of desperate earnestness I’ve heard many times from many people– but he was young, lively, and really did know a thing or two. I didn’t buy, for, like most men in my position, I write more than I purchase, but I was impressed, and I remembered.
I won’t say that I was right about him, because one never can forecast this business, but I wasn’t surprised when Langley began to produce ripples in the local pond. A few months later I saw another work in a little gift shop at the foot of the Hill; not a fancy place, but in an upscale section of town. The price asked was ridiculous, yet the picture had merit, and I took the opportunity to hunt him up. He looked shabby then, like his lodgings, and thin. He couldn’t have been eating much. In his offhand way he was pleased to see me, perhaps more so by my offer to treat him to lunch. Others had noticed him in the meantime– I believe Hoskins had already published his small piece in The Benchmark– but Langley was actually keen to talk to me. From that time I saw him more or less frequently until the end, and remained generally aware of his doings.
I recall one statement of his from that coffee klatch long ago: “I want to paint that which the eyes can not see.” That was Langley to the core, the kind of professional gab that almost made sense, coming from him. I never figured out just what he meant, I don’t think, but that may be my lack, for he discoursed on the subject in painstaking detail throughout the years of our association.
“Painting is a medium,” he told me another time, “for the presentation of images and ideas. Second-raters focus on the one, or on the other. Masters handle both with equal facility. Yet I say, there are images within images, and ideas within ideas. Think of reflections bouncing endlessly between two mirrors, an infinite series. I want to paint that, to burrow down through all those levels, to open all the doors, and to reveal all that lies within. There is a way to do that– I am convinced– and I’m willing to spending my life learning it and finding it.”
On a separate occasion I asked of him, “Haven’t all artists felt that way? Every man has his own vision, and some are driven by internal forces to broadcast it. Aren’t you merely expressing the age-old need for the creator to create?”
“A producer of rubber ducks could say that much,” he retorted. “I mean much more than that. Let us not speak of interminable variations on the aspects of superficial appearances. Every child can make a stab at that by kindergarten. Every artist in history, no matter how grand, has simply built upon that universal capacity. They keep doing an admirable job of scraping the surface. That isn’t what I have in mind. I intend to dive deeply below, to get behind consciousness and matter; to see through the illusion of commonplace reality.”
And so forth. I’ve wondered where Langley got his fancified notions on art. Perhaps from one of those avant-garde courses he took, although he refused to give college classes any credit for developing his ideas, as opposed to technique. More likely he got them from books, for Langley read a great deal more than any other painter I’ve met. He had a sizable collection, many of them paperbacks, but a number of bulky, worn hardcover tomes. No novels, no outright fiction at all, but rather eldritch artistic studies, mathematical volumes, overly complicated works on optics and physics, and then those which I would only classify as strange. These books, by authors whose names meant nothing to me, dealt with wild supernatural or supernormal phenomena, and the nature of “true reality”, and related subjects that we peasants can’t be expected to understand. Langley ate up that stuff, and I guess events have shown that he took it very seriously indeed.
Of course I didn’t worry about it at the time. I couldn’t help but notice that, for all his big talk, his productions, however unusual– in a time and place where the unusual is the norm– didn’t live up to his aspirations. His efforts resembled, in most respects, the endeavors of those who had gone before him. I once wrote that his works compared favorably to the wilder conceptions of Torquelle and Dereida (which the artist brusquely appreciated). He created imaginative dreamscapes, concocted moody other-worldly visions, and fashioned startling juxtapositions out of conventional scenes. I liked a lot of it, but I wasn’t bowled over by any of it. He wasn’t perfect, not by his own lights. He had difficulties with the shape and lines of the human torso; he couldn’t capture the form, which caused him grief at first, until he contrived to make that a signature feature of his work, transforming weakness into strength. Oh, he could be slick when he wanted to be. I figured Langley was yet another clever mind worth watching, a man who could provide items of interest, perhaps have his day in the sun, maybe make a financial success of himself if he really buckled down. I must say, he did entertain me more than the run of the mill.
During those budding years I kept in touch regularly, but I was a busy man, with plenty on my plate, and there were other possibilities and hopefuls who also absorbed my attention. Langley kept going, somehow, and single pieces found their way into fairs and anthology exhibits. He received comment– I commented– and he managed to keep his head above water which, for a fellow in his line, is no small feat in and of itself. He didn’t disappear, which was the main thing; others fell by the wayside, as most do, but he persevered. I gave him high marks for that. Eventually I broke down and acquired, for a respectable sum, a Langley original, The Prophet’s Secret, offered to me by the artist as his best work thus far. I say it’s the best of his early period. I own it still. Picture a barren, rocky plain by night, strewn with leaning or toppled antique columns and other shattered vestiges of lost greatness, and a low, featureless mound rising in the center, upon which sits a bearded elder in flowing tattered robes. He looks a bit goofy and disjointed, but his woebegone expression and mad eyes are sincere. Above all the blue-black sky swarms with fiery stars and swollen planets, so bright as to cast faint shadows. What did it mean? Who cares? I didn’t ask; I liked it.
Langley’s salad days were approaching. His next big step brought him the fame and notoriety he craved. He showed me the new picture when it was almost complete, at the same time requesting me to pull strings in order to guarantee a proper presentation. I warned him that the painting was grotesque, obscene, and nauseating; and I assured him that it was daring, original, and stunning.
He grinned widely. “Do you think they’ll go for it?” It was the first and last time he cared to ask such a question.
“Everybody will scream,” I replied, “but they will eat it up.” So he pushed it to completion as quickly as he could, and within weeks there debuted, at the prestigious Stanfield Gallery, The Turd Race at Oswiegan.
Artists love to throw dynamite, as long as they can get away with it. Langley got away with it. He handled it cagily enough. He placed the painting– a two by three, larger than his previous efforts– inside an ornate, gilded wooden frame, suggestive of tradition and class, had it set up as the centerpiece in the main hall, and appended below a golf leaf sign (at his own expense) which fully explained the scene’s lurid historical background. “A True Incident on the Ninth of October, in the Year Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Three, at the Infamous Nazi Concentration Camp,” ran the subtitle, followed by these words:
“The camp commandant, Obergruppenfuehrer Otto Schoerner, conceived a sportive festival by which to amuse himself and his men. Dozens of Jewish inmates were taken to a limestone quarry and forced, under the watchful eyes of armed guards, to run a relay race, utilizing rules of Schoerner’s devising. Each participant was made to carry chunks of human excrement in his mouth, to rush at breakneck speed across the impromptu court, and transfer his mouthful to the next man, who then continued the relentless cycle. As each victim of this ordeal wilted from horror or revulsion, or collapsed from underfed weariness, he was immediately shot. The victor– the last survivor of the game– was feted at a Vitellian feast, then led, amidst cheering and jibes, to the gas chamber for his execution.”
There you have it. The painting was shortly snapped up by a Middle Eastern collector and lost to sight, but I’ve got a professional photograph which does it justice. Langley made use of an off-colored, somewhat impressionistic style, not his standard, but well done. He imagined the high-walled grotto in shades of blue and gray. The sunless sky lowered in sickly, roiling yellow. On the floor of the quarry three contestants still stood erect, dressed in rags, frozen in agonized postures of staggering, corpse-like motion. They clutched in their clenched jaws what, at a glance, appeared to be rough cigars. The central figure stood closer to the viewer. The look on his face did not bear long perusal. Several bodies lay scattered about the cracked stones, their limbs sprawled in non-anatomical angles (good old Langley!), the terrain nearby specked with ominous dabs of crimson and yellow. Above and to the left, on a rocky shelf surmounting the scene, a group of spectators stared down and observed with evident mirth. There were camp guards aiming rifles, and in their center a tall officer, clearly the commandant, resplendent in his black uniform and full Nazi regalia. He seemed gravely pleased rather than jovial, and about his head there hovered an aura– one might call it an unholy halo– or luminous emanation, of a somber greenish hue, framing the cold pale face.
Well, howls of protest ensued, most of them valid, all of them pointless. Langley had created an insult, a mockery, a travesty; probably so. He deftly countered the criticism by publicly discussing his “pictorial statement against bigotry and intolerance”, which it may have been. The usual suspects bought that line and simmered down, with a few lingering grumbles and carping complaints about “going too far”. The Narwhal Society kicked him out, then took him back when no one was watching. The practical effect of the episode was the enhancement of Langley’s artistic stature, and the geometric increase of his fame. Suddenly, whatever might be said about him, people who counted– lots of them– took him seriously. He no longer received comments in back pages of the journals; he got write-ups and cover stories, he got interviews and television guest spots. He became a known quantity far beyond the Bay area, and outside his accustomed circles. An historian hosted a documentary about that concentration camp, called One Small Corner of Hell (a title which I considered greatly superior to the original, although the originator scathingly disagreed), which performed adequately in the ratings. During filming the producers recorded a few minutes of Langley opining, and a shot of Turd Race. In the end they cut out the painter, but kept the painting, which could be seen behind the opening titles and concluding credits.
Turd Race packed the gallery. The Stanfield hadn’t seen such crowds since their blockbuster Egyptian exhibit of some years back. All kinds of folks wanted to see the picture, and condemn it, and brag about having condemned it. Langley would drop in occasionally, wait to be recognized, then expound on his theories of art, which everyone sagely approved, and no one understood.
Success didn’t go to his head, but it sure made a difference in his life. Langley got rich off that painting, or near enough. He earned more at one swoop than he had from all his earlier productions. He moved out of that proletarian garbage dump of his and took a long lease on a snazzy apartment at the top of the Hill. He started keeping company with a generally better class of people, including women– even a Hollywood starlet for a spell, which helped maintain his place in the public eye– although he still abused the latter dreadfully. He ate right, or lavishly, for the first time since I’d known him, and gained twenty pounds.
Langley enjoyed his new life, and made the most of it. He no longer had to struggle to sell his wares. Customers came to him, or to dealers, asking for the merchandise. Also, he experienced the new sensation of working with paying clients. Langley, of all people, got into the portraiture racket. There were those, with spare change in their pockets, who wanted their pictures painted for posterity by the famous artist. He obliged. I thought he was wasting his time in an area not his strongest, and I never heard of his clients fully appreciating the end products. The portraits commonly contained unusual, quirky elements, not entirely suitable to the medium. Only by chance did they flatter. I suspect that most of them ended up hidden away in back rooms. Langley didn’t mind. He had money in the bank.
He was far from satisfied, however, with his situation. It took me a while to realize why, and when I did, I could only feel sorry for him, just a wee bit. As I had already surmised, he was a classic auteur, and could not be content unless the world accepted him on the basis of his own self-evaluation, a boon which is granted to few. They didn’t appreciate him, they didn’t comprehend him, they didn’t see him for what he was; those terrible “theys”, who made life both possible and oh, so frustrating. How many times have I heard that lingo! Each new client brought forth a new diatribe from the embittered artist. I always listened patiently, and my heart always bled, but not a lot.
To give Langley his due, that wasn’t his major concern. As I eventually learned, he was far more frustrated with himself. I heard it all at a dinner meeting at the Karbala, in the spring, several months after his big smash at the Stanfield. He treated, because he needed to sulk and talk. In his view, he was just marking time with his artistic career, and had not yet begun to achieve his desired goals. He wondered if it were still possible, or whether he ought to throw over the whole thing and find himself an honest job. I didn’t believe his noise for a minute– this was merely a typical mood swing– but in the spirit of avuncular friendship I sought to dissuade him.
that only requires practice– and you’ll realize how extraordinarily well you’re getting along. All of my other contacts envy your success. You set out to excel at creating weird art, and you’ve done it. You’re the only painter with anything as daring as Turd Race on your resume. No one can top that now, and many an age will pass before anyone does; unless it’s you, of course.”
“You obviously didn’t pay attention,” he said. “I haven’t taken one step toward my artistic aims. They continue to elude me. I’m not even clear in my own mind as to what I’m driving at. My recent stuff… oh, it’s clever, but not ground breaking. I could pat myself on the back and say that I’ve pushed the conventions of the form to their logical limits, but that means nothing. Tomorrow I might paint a pretty girl with a bowl of chicken livers on her head, call it Hope or some silly thing, and gain the same glory.”
“No, that would just be silly. Your plan, as I recollect it, is to present what the eyes of others don’t see–”
“That’s my point!” he cried. “Not others, but any eyes, including mine. It isn’t a question of my vision. I have no interest in providing a ‘unique perspective’. I want to portray the world as it really is.”
I threw my hands in the air. “You’ve lost me. Unless you’re speaking of absolute realism– which isn’t your style– I don’t understand you.”
He mused. “Absolute realism; that’s good. Yes and no– no, because I’m not referring to style– yes, because I seek the ultimately real. It’s out there, behind a secret door, and there must be a way to open it.”
“Terrill, you place me in a difficult position. I’m close to accusing you of working too hard and needing a rest.”
“You may be right, but it doesn’t signify. What I need to do is stop mixing oils, and catch up on my reading.”
“Stop painting?”
“Cut back, so that I can concentrate. My reading list has grown. I’ve acquired new books, some of which may contain answers.” I knew he meant his swelling collection of volumes devoted to the occult and the bizarre. Previously I had encouraged his passion, since it helped him generate ideas. I wasn’t so sure now. “Most of it,” he continued presently, “is basic fare, the sort of popular rubbish true believers feed upon. That doesn’t do me much good. On the other hand, there are, or have been, intelligent, learned men, hands-on philosophers, who have sought to unveil the mysteries of the universe. Genuine seekers of the unknown, compilers of the supernormal, men who drove past theory into the realm of concrete investigation. Their books are hard to find, and if found, hard to afford. I’ve got money now– more than I know what to do with– perhaps that will make a difference to my studies. If I know what they know, mightn’t I be able to capture, in my mind and on canvas, images of that knowledge?”
It wasn’t my place to argue. The conversation ran on at greater length, but Langley added nothing of importance. It sounded to me like he intended a crash course in wasting his time, but my chief concern– then, and for a considerable period thereafter– focused primarily on how his obsession might affect his career. I decided not to badger him, and counted on him not to throw a good thing overboard.
During the next two years I had occasion to wonder if my worst fears had been realized. Langley virtually disappeared from my life, and from the public eye. He shortly stopped accepting portrait clients– which suited me fine– but then largely gave up on commissioned projects altogether, which disturbed me. He turned out the rare piece on spec, and received generous payment when he did so. Increasingly strange dreamworld scenes, with the emphasis greater on the grotesque, and lesser on the trappings of humanity, constituted his total output for this period. These assured me that he was still in the running, but that was all. My colleagues knew less of his daily doings than I did. Those with weaker associations to him asked me if he had dropped out of the game.
Langley and I crossed paths, by chance, at the annual Barbary Coast Festival held on Alcatraz. I attended to revel in the historical reconstructions and costume shows; I found him mooning around the mural wall, apparently lost in contemplation. I spoke to him, but he proved uncommunicative. He did tell me that he had commenced his binge buying and reading of books, and was out that day taking a break from wearisome study. The mural didn’t impress him. He deplored the crowds. No more would he tell
That winter I determined to visit Langley in his lair. I dropped by, unexpected and unannounced, curious as to the sort of reception I had coming. I needn’t have worried about that. He welcomed me into the apartment warmly enough, bade me make myself at home. He seemed cheerful, bright-eyed, even ebullient. He informed me that he had recently received a grant from the NEA, which had made his situation easier still (and from which he subsequently produced a total piece of crap; he laughed about it later). The quality of his living conditions, though, had declined to a tragic level. His rooms, new and pristine when last I saw them, now looked all too lived in. The artist’s chaos reigned supreme. Most of the disorder stemmed from the piles of old books, ragged manuscripts, and unbound papers scattered over the colonial furniture or heaped upon the plush rugs. He brought refreshments, cleared space on the sofa for me, then did the same for himself on an opposing armchair.
He immediately launched into a recital of his current activities. While he did so, I surveyed the scene. From what I could make out, we were surrounded by exceedingly odd reading material. I took in some of the titles: Ancient Heresies, The Paradoxes of Saint Montague, The Death Vision of Pseudo-Plutarchus. Those were old tomes. On the coffee table before me stood a stack of relatively newer works, probably anthropological or scientific, such as The Customs of Shunned Tribes, Developments In Organic Light Sensitivity, and Holobiologia. I can’t tell you how many books there were. Whatever it all meant, Langley had his hands full.
Ah, but at that moment he was explaining. When I had sufficiently tuned in I heard him saying: “This is the real, the hard-core stuff. I began reading as soon as they started coming in, and it wasn’t long before I hit pay dirt. Each of these offers something useful, a little part of the puzzle. In many cases, the old writings are more helpful than the new. I’ve got a rare one over there, on the counter, written by hand in medieval Greek. I needed the right kind of dictionary for that, and you can’t find those just anywhere.
“With all this, I required a key to tie it together, to make sense of the big picture. I found it. Let me show you.” He strode to a closet, extracted a small, frayed, leather-bound volume, and returned with it. He didn’t hand it to me. “This is none other than The Catalogue of Truths, composed by the infamous Jacob Bleek.”
“This is the key that ties?” I asked innocently.
“Indeed. You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get hold of this copy. There aren’t many in existence, and I’ve always heard that they’re all incomplete. The original was never professionally published, you know. I sought the most intact version I could find, in order to maximize my chances of striking gold. I had to go outside the usual channels to track it down– funny how people won’t even discuss Bleek, if they can avoid it– and it cost me a fortune, but it’s going to be well worth it.”
Langley grew pensive, then lay the book down and pulled a sheet of newspaper over it. “Perhaps you think I oughtn’t to have done it?” It was difficult to come up with a coherent reply, since I hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about, so I mumbled something noncommittal about being careful.
“Precisely!” he cried. “It’s a question of caution, not fear. I have nothing to worry about. It’s only information. Bleek figured it out long ago, he brought the strands together. These”– he indicated the other books– “are the strands. They’re necessary, because Bleek, in his wisdom, assumes too much. He already knows this other stuff. With him, I can connect the dots, and raise his conclusions from the theoretical to the actual. Bleek’s truths realized by me, in oils. How does that grab you?”
“It’s beyond me,” I admitted. “Where does it get you, Terrill?”
“I can bring my dream to fruition. I shall create, without any special tools, an image of pure reality; not the world as I see it, or you see it– or an ant sees it, for that matter– but as it really is. Not a subject, not a theme, not an episode, not a style, just truth unvarnished. Absolute reality, before your very eyes, without pretense.
You are generally aware that our view of the universe around us is inherently limited. Our optical system operates within a narrow range of the spectrum. We use high-tech cameras and other devices to extend that range. We know that many creatures see in different portions of the spectrum, and their understanding of the world is quite different from ours. Now, my first step was to conceive the possibility of observing the entire color spectrum at once.
“That may sound grandiose enough for you, but years ago I discovered that it’s merely a question of technical wizardry. Science is capable of handling that end, and may have done so already. That still restricts us, however, to the currently accepted light range, broad as it is. Armed only with that, I could play games with colors, but not much else. My most cherished fantasies run a great deal farther.
“I know, with a moral certainty which admits of no doubt, that there exists an invisible world, the world of the hypernormal, if you will, that lies beyond and encompasses the dimensions we recognize, within which Einsteinian space-time makes up the merest fragment. I’ve read the foundational works on the subject. It’s there. In our usual human circumstances we can’t touch it, can’t sense it in any way. We can’t see it, because– once we posit the hypernormal– we must allow for the corresponding existence of the hyperspectrum, an observable range far surpassing that previously known. It may be that no gizmo can ever reveal it to us, for any machine the experts can construct lies wholly within conventional space-time. It would be as materially limited as they are. On the other hand, perhaps they will tinker something in a thousand years. Who can say? I’m not willing to wait!
“No machine can reveal it, but the right kind of prepared human mind can; my mind. That’s what I’ve been doing with all this reading– training myself to see in the full range of the hyperspectrum– the ultimate act of the creative imagination. It requires knowledge, skill, and will power. I have to force myself to look at an everyday object– that lamp, for instance– and see it in all its extra-dimensional forms, within the broadest conceivable band of light and color. It isn’t easy. At first I wasn’t convinced that it was possible. I couldn’t make it happen, not from just wanting to do it, until I had so expanded and released my brain that the images began falling into place of their own accord.”
This sounded like squalid drug mouthings to me, a potential weakness of which I’d never suspected him. When I gently questioned Langley on the matter, he grew indignant. “These aren’t hallucinations,” he said, “chemically stimulated or otherwise. They’re real glimpses of the hypernormal world. It comes to me fairly easily now. In the beginning it gave me a headache to see properly, but not any more. You’ve know of those specially designed pictures, that show a stereoscopic image when you stare at them a certain way, an image that springs out when you focus just so. Well, it feels like that. I have to make the effort, but I’ve developed a knack for it, and as time passes I’m gaining more control over the visual process. Increasingly I’m seeing purely through the comprehensive awareness of my mind, rather than with my eyes.
“However, even that isn’t enough for me. I haven’t embarked on this artistic odyssey in order to paint a still life of a multi-dimensioned lamp. A presentation of absolute reality demands an absolute subject. I must understand what I see before I can paint it. That’s the reason for the anthropology texts, and… some of this other stuff here. Pretty wild some of it is, difficult to absorb. I’ve had trouble grasping critical points. Perhaps a lingering unwillingness has held me back; certain conceptions regarding the true nature of the universe are so vast, so incomprehensible, so frightening in their implications, as to give me pause. The more I understand, the more I’m filled with awe. I have moments when I’m not sure that I want to follow Bleek down the road he traveled. What lies at the end is immense.”
He sat silently for a while, then added, “There may be a religious component to my quest. I didn’t expect that. It’s never been important to me before, and I don’t know how to deal with it.” And that was all I learned that day.
During the ensuing period of many months I heard no more from or about Langley. There was no trade mention of fresh productions. He wasn’t recognized out and about in his usual haunts. The grapevine eventually informed me that he refused all new clients. I popped by his place once more, but no one answered the door. I called a few times. On a single occasion he picked up the phone. He was home but, as he made rudely clear, not officially in. I asked him what he was doing. Working on his grand project, he told me. Had he actually begun the painting? Yes. Might I see it? No, positively no. Why not, pray tell? This time he responded with more than a brush-off.
“It wouldn’t mean anything at this stage. Until I complete the picture– until every detail is in place, each curve and angle formulated and captured– it won’t have the desired effect. It would just be a picture. This time you must wait.” Click, disconnection.
So he would have it. The whole business intrigued me, naturally. I keenly wanted to be the first to make a public announcement about his ongoing magnum opus, but if that wasn’t going to happen then I refused to accept such treatment. I did my best to put Langley out of my mind, a task made simple by his reclusiveness.
Now I must bring my account of events up to a point about two months ago. I’d still heard nothing of Langley, and he knew and cared nothing about me. I’d temporarily landed in France– Paris, of course– where in my high-minded fashion I agreed to act as one of the experts on an art panel overseeing a formal prize competition. The details don’t matter (it was another one of those), but while there I enjoyed the scenery in company with an aspiring local sculptress, a sweet, pretty young thing, who’d convinced herself that my guidance could be beneficial to her career. I got what I wanted; regretfully, I can’t say the same for her. She had talents, to be sure, but not in the line of sculptural expression. At any rate, she kept me happily overseas far longer than originally planned.
One crisp morning, while jotting down notes, alone, at the Louvre for what might become a magazine feature, I ran across Leonard Chockinaw. This uninspiring poseur from Modesto, who must have called in some big favors to get an art column in three newspapers, had just flown into town in order to “vertically insert” himself, as he told me, into the refreshing Old World culture. He intended to “hunker down” and “embed” himself among charming surroundings until he managed to pull himself together. In response to my minimal politeness he assured me that he wasn’t physically ill, only shaken, and needed time to recuperate. I’d always thought this empty-headed dolt (in the old days he shouted the praises of nine day wonder Andrew Pindar, who gathered his watercolor materials from sewage treatment plants and called the stinking result social commentary) unflappable, but for once in his life he had something on his mind.
He said to me, fretfully: “Since you’re so thick with Terry, I guess you know all about it.”
“Terrill Langley?” I exclaimed, somehow smothering my surprise. The artist had never wasted time on this hack. “What’s he to you?”
“He’s put out a new one. I saw it last week. A crazy thing; I don’t like it.”
In this manner I received my first intimation that Langley had finally completed his epic work. He called it, I now learned, Cosmic Kaleidoscope.
I swallowed my distaste and invited Chockinaw to dinner, which represented a major disruption of my intended evening engagements. At the Maison that night he explained everything, and this is the gist of what he said:
The painting began its display the previous Friday at the renowned Radetsky Salon. That was bound to impress. It opened without the customary preliminary fanfare. An interesting development, that. The artist didn’t show. Langley had pulled that stunt before, and it meant nothing. First reviews were mixed, subdued, rather querulous. So, they were playing it cagey with an original item; standard critical practice. Chockinaw had much to say concerning the mounting hostile reaction, but I dismissed his words. I’d heard it before with Turd Race. Besides, this clown wasn’t capable of reporting, much less judging, the opinions of others.
Impatiently I listened, until he got around to describing his own experience with Langley’s painting, which he viewed the day after opening. Here his tale took an unexpected turn, and fully commanded my attention.
“It’s a large painting,” Chockinaw said, “his biggest yet, a four by six. He placed the canvas inside an ugly chrome steel frame. I don’t get that. If he’d been smart enough to ask me, I’d have advised differently. Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter with this one. I don’t believe anything could make it right.
“How do I put Cosmic Kaleidoscope into words? When I first saw it, across the gallery, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. It seemed a jumble of clashing images. The picture is a mess, I can tell you, just a bath of muddy oils; chaotic, like Guernica, but not as clever– no thought, no higher significance– ugliness without meaning. Somehow, though, he slipped in forms and figures in a way you wouldn’t expect.
“I saw that up close, however. I’ve never denied that Terry has technical skill. He’s done something to the image– I haven’t seen this before, maybe fancy varnish– that makes the picture appear to develop, like a photograph, as you approach. The closer I got, and the longer I stared, the more I saw. Portions seemed to detach themselves from the whole– no order to any of this– and catch the eye.
“And then in a flash I saw it all– or just one part– I don’t know; it leaped out at me, as if I’d entered a room rather than stuck my nose into canvas. The scene came at me from all sides, it overwhelmed my vision. It hurts to think about what I saw.”
It took a generous dose of expensive Moselle to move Chockinaw forward. Then he said, in a low, whispering voice, “It ought to be a crime. What he’s done goes beyond pornography. I’ve looked at that stuff– for professional reasons– but this beats anything I’ve seen. How could that man cram so much depraved, detestable, debasing foulness into one painting? Bosch is a joke by comparison. Terry’s strong point has always been human figures– he does funny things to them– but here he’s gone around the bend. A great sweating, slobbering heap of sexual excess, without purpose. I sensed a sick joy behind the physical distortions, the pain and cruelty, the ecstatic wallowing in human shame. He doesn’t leave anything out, and he invents new combinations of flesh and fluids. There’s nothing cosmic about it, it’s all lowly and degenerate sadomasochism. He must be hiding something horrible inside him… and yet, upon viewing the picture, I haven’t been able to escape the feeling that what I saw was inside me, coming from within me, that it wasn’t in the picture at all. Ridiculous, you say– I’m a great guy, everyone knows that– but I haven’t felt good about myself since.”
As soon as I could tear myself away from my maundering companion I wired home for press clippings and a copy of Evocative, the weekly periodical, in order to get the straight story on Langley’s painting. The artist’s vague declamations hadn’t prepared me for this. From Chockinaw’s distraught account I gathered that I should expect something on the order of Turd Race II, with an enhanced dwelling on nastiness. If so, what an amazing let down! On principle I rejected the notion, considering my source, but no matter how wrong he’d gotten it, could the poor fool have missed the point that completely?
My situation annoyed me throughout the following day. Here I was, on the opposite side of the planet, while Langley released his extravaganza– without my being in the thick of things– and possibly damaged his career. A regrettable outcome, if it happened without my wise and pertinent comments. I refused to speculate until I learned more, but the time passed slowly, and I wasn’t in the mood for fun and games. Even Clarisse couldn’t cheer me up. When the afternoon paper came I sent her away, for I read a small item which further got under my skin in the worst way. I had misjudged the man. I didn’t know Chockinaw had it in him– I didn’t know he had anything in him– and a mild clutch of guilt seized me as I realized how disturbed he must have been. Last night, shortly after I left him, Chockinaw had hanged himself.
The materials I’d sent for arrived. The newspaper references were sparse and unrevealing. They established that Cosmic Kaleidoscope existed. The latest issue of Evocative contained one long paragraph on the subject, in which the glib, anonymous editorialist seemed to be struggling mightily to write around the painting, without quite coming to grips with what it objectively conveyed. He wrote nothing that corresponded to Chockinaw’s lewd description, but he didn’t offer much else, either. He did have this to say:
“We hope that Terrible Terrill hasn’t run off the rails with this one. Always a fantasist and explorer of dark themes, this time he attempts to merely disgust his audience, rather than awaken honest, if suppressed, feeling. Also, he abandons even the pretense of realism. All art, no matter how outré, must be grounded in reality, in the true experience of humanity. It remains to be seen whether this complex and striking painting, however brilliant its execution, meets this bedrock definition of art.” And thanks for nothing, I thought, whoever you are.
It wouldn’t serve my interests to remain in France. I had to be at the scene of the action. A few calls, a few apologies– good luck, Clarisse– and this not so old man went west, in a hurry, on the next available flight. I landed in California whenever, and once back in the groove everything turned strange.
The Radetsky was closed this day. I phoned Langley, without success. No matter; I’d follow up with him later. I called Hoskins, who tended to make sense in the best of times, but he told me nothing. He refused to discuss the painting. He sounded angry. I didn’t pester him. I tried to contact Morton, another straight shooter, but only reached his wife, who informed me that he was late– as in the late Morton– my colleague was dead. She didn’t tell me how it happened, and I didn’t press, but I gathered that it was a recent and sudden occurrence.
Whatever in hell was going on, it certainly wasn’t a happy time for my gang. Now I called Winslow. He wanted to talk, he was glad to talk. His voice quavered. He said something odd over the telephone– “It doesn’t always pay to think too deeply”– then invited himself to my home for an extended session. He appeared, looking worn, more nervous than I remembered him. We commiserated the losses of Chockinaw and Morton. Concerning the latter, he would only say: “If he had to do it, why did he do it that way?”
He gave me his impressions of Langley’s painting, and he showed me something. It was a photograph of the picture he’d snapped for a feature, which he now declined to write. I looked at it. Taken from a moderate distance (not too close; against the rules of the salon), it captured the familiar wall of honor, with the harshly framed oil as the centerpiece. I glanced up at Winslow, mystified. He shook his head in sympathy. The photo revealed nothing. I saw an oblong of inky darkness, a sheer black canvas. I could not discern a hint of detail. He verified my unwilling suspicion that this wasn’t an accurate image. Somehow, through some kind of unprecedented lighting effect, the camera had entirely failed to carry out its function.
As stated, he gave me his impressions– he described the painting at consummate, professional length– but at first all I could think was how dissimilar his version was from that of Chockinaw. A little of it harked back to the generalities I’d heard, the bits about confusion and disorder, but after that Winslow might as well have been telling me about a different picture. According to him, there was nothing overtly or suggestively sexual about it.
“In retrospect, I can’t guarantee you that I viewed the entire painting. Perhaps I missed something. I don’t think so. If anything, I saw too much. Such a large canvas, so many elements intertwined, themes flowing like rivers– the magnitude of it all!– I could have overlooked this or that portion. I’m convinced that I took in its essence, and that’s enough. Cosmic Kaleidoscope is a ghastly work, the most intensely vile production I’ve seen or heard about. It’s evil. Yes, that’s what I mean. We must create a new category, Evil Art, in order to understand Langley’s intention. Talking about it gives me the creeps. When I saw it, I felt as if he had painted it solely for my benefit, that it spoke directly to me and only me. It wasn’t a picture, an object, before me, but images in my mind, images of forgotten nightmares and forbidden memories. He can’t portray men accurately to save his life– he stopped trying years ago– but that doesn’t matter in this case, because now he invents monsters. A fine hand he’s got for it, and superb technique. I grant him this: he’s mastered the medium. He paints monsters. I look here, I look there, they’re springing out at me, those creatures. I believe they were grouped around some central figure, an uncongealed shape in the background. I didn’t think about that until later, so I only recall a fleeting suggestion of looming shape in… yes, in dreary, filthy circumstances. There was a lot of dirt. Raggedly clothed shapes stood or crouched up to their skinny ankles in mud. The creatures crowded around, as if worshipping the central monstrosity. I see them as in life, right down to the straggly hairs on their arms; those that had arms. Some resembled the medical freaks I saw a long time ago in an old book. They were relatively easy to view. There were things that might once have been human, but had decayed to an extent incompatible with their apparent liveliness. Other things might pass for human at a distance– or in a dark alley, sneaking up behind you– but their faces gave them away. No human soul animated those faces; none ever had. Mixed in among them were still others, twisted fantasies of horror, which looked like nothing in this or any sane world. Anything faintly human would have recoiled from them in panic, yet they seemed to be the leaders of the pack. Others deferred to them. All of them were hideous. I couldn’t stand their touch when they crawled on me.”
“Winslow, look at me. They didn’t do that.”
“So you say. You’re right, but I was there. They came out onto me, they got inside me, they became part of me. They wanted me to join them. For one terrible, sickening moment, I considered it.”
As he left I had to ask: “You won’t do anything rash, will you?”
“No”, he replied, after a long breath, “I won’t. I wouldn’t think of it. I’m not that type, thank God. Thank God I’m not that type. I ‘d never have the guts to do it on my own.” Thus spake Winslow.
I hunted through back issues of the morning Examiner until I found an account of Morton’s death. Stale journalistic language, carefully sanitized; and yet, what I read so revolted me that I couldn’t finish the story. Nobody did it that way.
I now had access to all of my local channels of artistic information, and I tried to get a better understanding of Cosmic Kaleidoscope from the mass of reviews. I gained little from the effort. They were just more of the same. No one seemed quite sure how to deal with the picture, although none of them were quite willing to admit it. The thin descriptions varied to an extraordinary degree. Each reviewer, I concluded, felt uncomfortable with his task. I read no especially harsh critiques– certainly nothing like I’d heard from Chockinaw and Winslow– but I sensed that all wasn’t well in the Langley fan club. They might bend over backward to avoid saying it, but these guys simply didn’t like the painting.
Word spreads fast in my circles. Within twenty-four hours Langley telephoned. He welcomed me back, boasted of achieving his goal, and apologized with mock contriteness for opening the show without me. Once done, he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of holding off the exhibit for a minute. He sounded triumphant, also tired and edgy, and confessed to exhaustion. He planned to get away for a while, leave town, commune with trees in the north country until the furor subsided. Then he would return to reap the rewards.
I commented on what I’d been hearing, without specifically mentioning the freaky stuff. That drew a sarcastic laugh from him. He argued that it wasn’t a problem of personal interpretation. The human brain, he pointed out, hadn’t evolved to perceive hypernormal reality. It stood to reason that an artwork incorporating such principles would be seen askew. In transmitting the visual data, neurons might misfire, which with some individuals could upset the electro-chemical basis of the mind. Their subjective experiences, drawing upon their ingrained mental templates, might upset them. Weak types, or the excessively analytical, had better keep their distance.
Cunningly I asked him to describe the picture– in his own words, which I could publish– no go. What, then, did the title signify? He didn’t bite. I really must see it for myself. View it with an open mind, but maybe not too open. Don’t get in a tizzy over it; it’s just a painting. Remember that.
He hadn’t heard about Chockinaw. No great loss, Langley said. What of Morton? Most unfortunate, Langley said. He must run. He didn’t know how long he’d be gone. I’d hear from him when he returned; sorry to have missed me.
Lousy timing, that. Of course I ought to see the thing before I fussed more about it. Here, however, is a marvel: in the days to come I discovered various excellent reasons for not visiting the Radetsky. The salon was too far– all the way across town– and I couldn’t spare the time; I had a hefty backlog of work (I can’t recall what); I had to catch up on my correspondence. The latter took a while, for I had plenty, and I dragged out the process of perusal and response. I remained alert for more reports, but nothing new appeared. It was my mail that got the ball rolling again, as eventually I came upon a curious letter which bore directly on the matter of Langley’s painting.
It had arrived without return address on the envelope or the single hand-written, closely scrawled page inside. The writer identified himself at the top of the sheet as one Anton Vorchek, professor. The name meant nothing to me, but he knew of me and, so he seemed to think, of my current concern. I transcribe the body of his letter, which I have with me still, in its entirety:
At last I have looked upon His face, as I always dreamed. I shall withdraw, hopefully into safe obscurity, with the lingering remembrance. Your artist should be made aware that unforeseen consequences may ensue from exposure to stark meta-reality. That which is gazed upon may gaze back in return. The dominant force that hungers in the eternal night may choose to take unto Itself that which dares to draw Its attention. If, incredibly, Mr. Langley lacks understanding, then all may be well. Otherwise, the fates may deal harshly with him. I envy him. I pray that he does not deserve my pity.
Forgive the unsolicited communication. The craving to write overwhelms. Best wishes to you and yours.
Sincerely,
VORCHEK
It wasn’t boxed, but they’d wrapped the painting in heavy burlap and tied it tight. I used a sharp implement to cut both cords, and began working the burlap back from a fold at the top left-hand corner. The multi-layered wrapping didn’t reveal its secrets easily, but I finally got off enough to uncover the end of the ugly frame– dull, unadorned metal– and a portion of the picture the size of an 8 ½ by 11 page. The lighting in that subterranean room wasn’t up to exhibition quality, but I had no difficulty viewing the painted surface.
It takes longer to write the words than to live the experience. What happened next lasted maybe two seconds, five, ten. Keep in mind that I’m only seeing a small sampling of the whole. I observe a multitudinous swarm of tiny, immediately indecipherable shapes, painstakingly figured into a jet background. The ground appears featureless, but just for a moment I sense something deep within it as well. With my focus removed from the foreground forms, I’m strangely able to make out more clearly what they are, or seem to be for a brief moment. People, or hunks of anatomy– I see arms, legs, heads, all the parts– but no definite impression of natural combination. They swim in liquid; no, a thick, sluggish gel, through which they struggle. Every mouth is opened wide, crying out. Oh, but initial error undercuts my analysis. I’ve missed the point. These details must be imagination, for I begin to discern a broader image cleverly constructed upon them. Taken together, they compose a shape which fills the corner of canvas: a white, greasy, doughy face, unlined, infantile or fetal, with blank, fishy eyes. The loathsome face thrusts itself into my own–
I dropped the flap of burlap. The tenacious image remained in my mind, even after I exited the room and hurriedly departed the Radetsky. You will ask, why didn’t I look at the rest? What right have I to speak, on the basis of a partial view? I can ask myself that now. It didn’t matter to me then; I couldn’t have made myself look at the rest, not for a king’s ransom. Langley’s painting terrified me. There was more to the moment than my eyes had recorded. Something within the image had touched unfathomable recesses of my mind, grim and alien places I had no wish to explore. I shivered and sweated until I got home, and it required several stiff drinks to restore my composure.
What happened to me had happened to others, with greater intensity. Perhaps no one could view the thing with indifference, or– can I say this?– with their sanity entirely intact. Men destroyed themselves on the basis of what they saw in or learned from Langley’s painting. I didn’t, but hateful dreams plagued me (and, irregularly, continue to do so). The artist had achieved something unprecedented; he had captured in oils a representation of a primal power with which we may co-exist happily only so long as it is hidden from our sight.
Langley returned. Not knowing his whereabouts, I had been phoning at intervals, fruitlessly, and then he answered. His voice put me on my guard. He sounded bad. I guessed that the holiday hadn’t helped, but it was more than exhaustion I was hearing. This parody of his normal tenor contained anger, nervous irritation, and panic. His manner cut short the customary niceties. I told him I’d seen the painting, and had to discuss it with him. He indicated little interest in the subject. I brought him up to date, as he obviously didn’t know, on what had become of the showing at the Radetsky. He couldn’t care less. Did he plan to collect the piece? No, he didn’t want it near him. They could burn it with his blessing. I insisted on arranging a meeting. I’d come to his place and kick down the door if he didn’t cooperate. He fought, but my obstinacy beat him down. He relented. I could come by. However: “I have to know it’s really you. Identify yourself so there’s no mistake. If you don’t, I won’t let you in.”
In a pensive frame of mind I set out for my penultimate conversation with Langley, and the last time I ever saw him in the flesh. I knocked at his door and loudly called out my name. It required several attempts before I got results. After a pause I heard locks tumbling and jingling. The door opened, and the tenant quickly ushered me in. There stood Langley; or, more accurately, there cringed Langley. He resembled an inmate of Oswiegan. Before he apologized for his appearance and explained, I knew he hadn’t been eating or sleeping. This was human wreckage, not the proud and arrogant man who’d amused and baffled me for years. The interior of his apartment complemented his condition. I saw unkempt squalor, with no visible trace of books, papers, or artistic materials. After the barest formalities he motioned me to a chair, threw himself down on the sofa, and began to speak in earnest.
“I knew it would hit some people hard. Cosmic Kaleidoscope was meant to shock. A public display of ultimate reality must stagger the limited mental capacities most employ to orient themselves to the universe. They would be tempted to cram the images into their own subjective conceptual frameworks, with unpredictable consequences. I expected that. I welcomed it, but please don’t think evil of me. My intentions were pure. I believed that my visual revelations would benefit mankind. ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.’ Isn’t that the bill of goods we’ve been sold by every major thinker in history? I took it seriously, and through my chosen medium of expression tried to relate that truth.
“I told you all the technical stuff before, but I could have put it to you differently. I desired to behold the face of God, and to show that face to the world. It’s there, underlying all things, always, and every intelligent man has craved just that one fleeting glimpse, if only to assure himself that life makes sense and has purpose. I eventually arrived at this understanding, through my studies, of the need within me. Who was I to know that the burning bush blazes too hot, and too brightly?
“I didn’t run away. From my standpoint, everything was fine when I left. I rented a cabin by a creek among the redwoods and took it easy, as contented as a baby. I’d kill time leisurely while the painting did its work, and return to applause and acclaim. It was after I found solitude– after I disconnected myself from trivialities, alone with my thoughts– that the disturbing influences crept through.
“They didn’t bother me while I was preparing the piece. Maybe my passion drowned out the discordant notes. Maybe they hadn’t started then. Now… it began with the nightmares. In sleep the force penetrated my brain. I would sense an awareness, a vague ghost of consciousness, which seemed to turn in my direction out of an infinite distance. A spotlight of thought, barely visible, focused upon me and grew brighter. I felt that it was searching for me, probing across the dimensional gulfs. Every time this happened it came nearer, and grew more oppressive. A sensation of weight beat down on me, accompanied by a rhythmic throbbing like a vast machine in relentless operation. Sleep became a chore. Slumber brought no rest.
“Soon I fancied that I could hear the pulsing during waking hours. Before long I knew it wasn’t fancy. The sound– but it wasn’t; I stopped my ears, and it didn’t make any difference– the sound took on the characteristics of a humming, strumming voice. Something was speaking to me, or I overheard it speaking to itself, whichever might be the case. It wasn’t language of a kind I could recognize, but it was speech, and at some level I understood it. The encroaching presence was talking about me.”
At this point I felt a subject had to be raised, although my heart wasn’t in it. I suggested the possibility of overwork, stress, emotional adjustments. He violently rejected the notion, as I knew he would, and went on, now almost in tears.
“All this was bad enough, but I first felt doom when I began to see things. This phase commenced with a rearrangement of visual data. Common combinations of optical input would momentarily assume unusual forms, there and gone again, then popping out somewhere else. It happened in everything. The angles of the walls and ceiling, a picturesque clump of trees, the pattern of white water flowing over blue stones, changed. I know why. In flashes I saw their hyperdimensional aspects. I was beginning to think and see in those terms, without trying. Either I had trained myself too well, or something was forcing the expanded view upon me.
“I’m pretty sure the latter explanation is correct, considering what happened next. In the same sporadic fashion, coming at me so suddenly and for such short duration that I tried to ignore them, I began to detect minor intrusions upon the normal visual scheme. A tiny pinhole of extraneous light would open up within a scene, and it would grow, encroaching upon my vision. Have you ever heard of the migraine illusion? It’s commonly associated with that affliction. I’ve suffered from migraines since childhood, and I’ve come to recognize that strange, shimmering speck of radiance which travels with the turn of the eye. I’ve fantasized about its deeper meanings, if any. Well, this was a lot like that, only the image didn’t move with my eyes. The light grew out of a specific spot in space. I could look away and avoid it, but when I looked back it would still be there, only larger. Eventually it would vanish. However, it returned with greater frequency, and stayed longer. Soon it formed a veritable hole in the landscape, through which I could discern hints of hypnotic form and motion.
“Accept this: a gap was developing between our dimension and that other. In a way, that is what I set out to do with Cosmic Kaleidoscope, to break down the barriers and see across to the far side, in a controlled manner. Now it started happening unbidden, and it never entirely goes away anymore. As I speak to you, I’m aware of splinters and shards of unearthly light and indefinable shapes just beyond your right shoulder. I can look through, only because something on the other side is looking through at me! It’s found me, and it’s studying me, and when it’s finished the examination it will come.”
Here I interjected a comment with untoward results. What he was saying recalled to mind the odd letter of Professor Vorchek. My mysterious correspondent had written a peculiar word– a name– which meant nothing to me. I spoke this word to Langley.
“Heavens, no!” he shrieked, in paroxysms of terror. He ground his face against the backrest of the sofa. “Not that! Never speak that word! I struggle every minute to keep it out of my mind. I don ‘t dare say it aloud! I pushed the door ajar, just to snatch a peek, and He forces it open and strides through. He beckons, and He demands. I refuse. Better death a thousand times over than eternity with Him. Don’t you understand that my only hope is to render myself invisible? If I can sink my mind low enough, banish all telling thought, then I might escape. He may deem me insignificant in His sight. That is my only chance.”
No more of a coherent nature could I gain from him. I advised him to get out and mingle with people– which I do think could have ameliorated his condition– but he wouldn’t do it. He bade me leave, and made clear that future visits would be discouraged. I begged him promise that he would telephone me, at any time, if he needed help. He didn’t sound interested.
There is very little more. You already know how the tale of Terrill Langley and his painting concludes. I never saw him again. I did hear from him once more. He called, on what I came to realize was the last night. I wish I could report another thrilling conversation, but there wasn’t much to it. It mainly consisted of desperate, hopeless queries for information on my part. I knew the voice right away, even though he was screaming. There were other sounds, waves of noises reaching a crescendo over his shouts, but I couldn’t identify them. I determined that he wasn’t alone, that a visitation of some kind had taken place. All his precautions had been in vain. He said, if I heard him rightly, “The translation begins. Pray for my soul.” He said something more that I couldn’t catch, and then silence. There just wasn’t any connection at all.
I contacted the authorities, who had already been informed by Langley’s neighbors. They heard it all, more than I did, but they couldn’t tell the police anything more useful than I. Several people, as it happened, were able to speak of his shy, furtive behavior since returning home in the days before the end. A number of them deduced or guessed that he was afraid of someone. I was willing to say that much, but no further in my account would I go. I don’t expect that my additional input would have been appreciated. Nothing the police took down could aid them in explaining what they found, and didn’t find, inside his apartment.
What became of the painting, you ask? I have it. The Radetsky tried to unload it, but without diligence, and there were no buyers. It would interest me to know the specifics of those sales sessions. I agreed to assume responsibility for it– acting as a kind of informal executor– until final disposition could be made. I don’t know when that will be. Langley’s painting resides in the back of a closet, a big walk-in affair, where the picture stands on its end against the wall, still wrapped and tied in burlap. Suits hang on racks, obscuring the package. I’ve never had it out, and I’m not sure that I ever will. As time passes, perhaps I shall wonder more and fear less. Perhaps I shall untie the strings and unpeel the wrapping, ever so carefully, if only to catch another glimpse of the marvelous painting.
Most likely, not.