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We seem to be entombed alive, Perry. It was almost as if Poe had spoken, as if he were seated beside me there in the dark, contemplating the abyss.
So it would seem, Poe. But it's only a jail. I've been in them before, I responded in thought.
Not like this one, Perry.
Embellishments, my dear Poe. Mere embellishments.
The pit calls to us.
Let it call. I'm not inclined to respond.
You're made of sterner stuff than myself, Perry.
Not so, Poe. We are the same—somehow. Circumstances have but provided—embellishments.
Perhaps it would be better to plunge into the thing and get it over with.
No thanks.
Everything ends in the abyss, anyhow.
No reason to rush things. Make it wait.
It does not know waiting. It is not sentient.
Then we are superior to it, for we are.
Sounds vaguely like something Pascal once said.
So it does.
Such philosophy from a man of action!
I'd a decent enough education, and I usually have a book about.
What's become of us?
We got switched.
I don't understand.
I don't know the precise mechanics of it, but we wound up in each other's world. It had to do with a misuse of A
Silence. Three beats. Three more.
Then, Or are we but a dream, Perry, in the mind of some demon? And is that demon myself?
Against solipsism I have no arguments. Nobody ever succeeded as well as Hume in proving the unreality of the real. But as he himself said of Berkeley, such arguments admit of no answer and produce no conviction.
You are myself, my doppelganger, my dark other. We are opposing halves of the same spirit, to contradict so perfectly.
We're not that different, Poe. It's just the words that get in the way.
He chuckled.
More than ever I see this as unreal, he replied, as a dialogue between the two spirits within me.
What can I say?
Nothing, I suppose. Either that, or agree with me.
I will always maintain that it's better to have been than not to have been—even though it's only a feeling.
There came a clinking sound and a brief bit of light from the vicinity of the door, off to the left, just enough light to show that a tray bearing a piece of bread and a small flask had been pushed into the cell through a hinged opening at the door's bottom.
I suppose it comes down to a choice between the pit and the moldy bread, Poe observed.
In that case, it's di
I rose.
It's too bad you're not real, Perry, he reflected, almost wistfully. I could still like you.
His presence being sort of metaphysical I did not have to share, which was good. Shortly after I finished eating I was seized by an uncontrollable fit of yawning. Fearful of being overtaken by slumber too near the central fact of existence in this place, I lay on my side with my back against the wall. I still felt Poe's presence in some diffuse fashion about me.
When I awoke something was wrong. I'd no idea how long I'd slept, but when I opened my eyes once again there was illumination. A ghastly yellow and red glow permitted me for the first time to see the design of my prison. The place was differently shaped than I'd thought on exploring it in the dark. It was less square than I had deemed it to be and more in the nature of a rectangle—the metal walls at its farther ends, the stone ones at the nearer. Painted upon these I could now discern pictures of fiends, inverted crucifixions, dancing skeletons, people being roasted and torn apart.
The floor was of stone, the great pit at its center—which I could only discern with great difficulty. My problem in this respect being my position as strapped to some sort of framework. I lay upon my back atop this structure, where I was held in place by what seemed a single long strap. It was twisted about my legs, my torso, my right arm and shoulder. My head and my left arm were free and there was a plate of food on the floor within reach. It was a somewhat spicy beef dish, and after the bread and water I had been given thus far it proved irresistible. I had the feeling I had been drugged the last couple of times I had eaten and drunk here. But what choice did I really have? I was hungry and thirsty. Sleep, for that matter—whatever its source—seemed a superior ma
I groped then after the water bottle but could not locate it. It was then that I realized it to be the first real physical phase of my torment, for my thirst grew stronger by the moment.
Poe ... ? I attempted, trying for my former mode of thought.
Perry, was there ever really an A
Of course there was. There still is—
Demon! You lie!
No! Reach for her. Call to her.
Then he was gone, leaving me alone again with my thirst. I transferred my attention to the high ceiling, where I saw depicted Saturn devouring his children. In his one hand he held a pendulum, rather than the traditional scythe. After a moment, it seemed to me that this implement was quivering, performing minute movements. Then I was distracted, by a noise near to hand.
A rat—a beady-eyed little devil—had appeared on the rim of the pit, from which scratching sounds still emerged. He raised his nose and twitched it, whiskers moving in unison. Shortly, another, even larger specimen appeared at his rear. Still, the scratching continued and the first one vanished beneath my rack even as the second sniffed the air. Two more surmounted the rim of the pit as I watched. Then another.
And another. By then the first one had located the plate which bore the remains of my most recent meal.
I did not like having the beast so close to me—if for no other reason than some rumors of plague we had encountered on entering Spain—and I flipped my hand in its direction several times in an endeavor to frighten it. But it ignored this entirely and went on quite brazenly disposing of my scraps. A little later, however, the second one arrived and contested its right to the food. Soon they were locked together, biting at each other and uttering unsettling squeals as they tussled beside me. As their conflict continued two more mounted the plate and immediately had at each other.
I stopped waving my hand after a time, lest it be taken as a threat and attacked. By now the rodents were pouring out of the pit and swarming all about me, some of them even climbing my rack, ru
Fortunately, one of them slew another and they fell to contesting its remains. Several more rodenticides then occurred and the floor became a turbulent battleground and dining ground where gray and chittering forms swirled and rolled, rising and falling like some nightmare sea flecked with blood.
It was a long while before I tore my gaze from this, turning my head and looking upward once again.
What I saw then caused my breath to catch within my throat. The pendulum no longer quivered but swept now from side to side covering a span of perhaps a yard. And it had descended. Its nether extremity glinted in the light in such a fashion as to indicate an extreme fineness of edge. The blade was perhaps a foot in length, slightly curved and dependant from a brass rod which emerged from Saturn's hand as he munched his offspring with the other and held several others beneath his feet. The entire contraption hissed and created a small breeze with each traversal of its course.
Now I was unable to remove my eyes from the thing. I counted ten passes before I saw it descend slightly. But another ten failed to see it lowered again. Several more, however, and it jerked downward again. I tried to visualize exactly where it would strike me should it continue inexorably on its course. It seemed targeted upon my heart. I wondered suddenly whether Ligeia knew what was happening to me.