Notes (VI)

On with the damn story. Revise later.

After Marsh finished reading the journal entry we all sat in silence for a minute. After a certain span of time had elapsed I permitted myself to glance over at my compatriots, arrayed along Marsh’s couch, wide and deep-cushioned. Marsh was still looking down at the page, expression inscrutable. Aaron was bobbing his head slightly in a sort of “yes, I see now” gesture. Jenny faced away from me, toward Kelsey, her purple hoodie a broad oblong splotch in my visual tableau, shaded dramatically in the low angled light, yielding here and there to snatches of Kelsey’s goth-casual getup.

(Remove “visual tableau.” De-stylize prose. Need to make this less pretentious-sounding. This is how I always get when I’m nervous. On with the damn story.)

Marsh spoke up first.

“Well, that was a trip,” he said.

“Yeah, seriously,” said Aaron.

It was fine. Everything was fine. We had learned a thing or two about Leonard Salby. He was an odd guy with a distinctive moral sense. We knew that already. The Northern Caves was some sort of attempt to assert that the world doesn’t necessarily reward being a good person. Or rather, that you can be a good person, and still find yourself in a world as twisted and incomprehensible as TNC. Fine. Mystery solved.

But the length . . . ? The Tales? All the little hidden bits Aaron had spent months cataloguing and connecting?

“I’m curious,” Aaron said, in a high flat tone, “what we’ll learn about TNC from the rest of these notes.” He pronounced “TNC” as an acronym: tee-enn-see.

Weren’t we all.

Jenny turned back toward the me-Marsh-Aaron group. (I don’t know if I thought about this at the time, but it’s funny how we split up immediately by gender, like children afraid of cooties.) She made some sort of complex gesture, with her complex and articulate hands, toward the stack of journals still lying untouched on the living room table. In the cone of light provided by the sole bulb on Marsh’s living room ceiling—the visual tableau is fixed in my mind and can be called up at will—her pale round face, framed by messy locks and bangs, presented in a flash an image of fullness and generosity, something definitively feminine which was a stark contrast to Marsh’s ectomorphic slacker slouch and Aaron’s broad stolid equanimity

(Need to figure out how to deal with this. Burden heavy many ways etc. From this point on I was very noticeably attracted to Jenny, which I had never been from forum interactions alone. Could this provide human interest, Salbians have not only crushing obligations but also crushes, just like you and your friends and so forth? Or does it just play into old nerd-boy fancies nerd-girl trope which plays into stereotypes which aid in dehumanization? Fine if I get dehumanized but I don’t want any of the others to take splash damage. Certainly don’t include above descriptive sentence chain in report. And don’t want to start any drama on the forum. After Spelunk 04! Jenny and I are friends and are aware of the state of affairs but are not involved. Should make this clear. On w/ damn story)

Jenny said, “I’d like to see the last journal entries. So we can see what he was thinking, you know, near the end?”

Pause. “I’m sorry if that’s . . . morbid. I just . . .”

“No, I totally see what you mean.” Marsh.

Marsh’s body language is nonchalant, energy-minimizing, but like so many people with these traits he is very efficient at getting any given physical task done (the better, after all, to minimize energy usage and quicken a return to his natural slouch). He leaned forward, grabbed the stack of paper, made some deft maneuvers, eyed and discarded several sheets, and found one he seemed to like. As it seemed he was the de facto journal reader, he sat back and simply began to read:

“February 8 1995

““Well the work goes on but it’s hard w/o WC. Low energy from prev week continues. WC was a marvel and I miss him much but mustn’t lament the World this is what one gets from Mundum so on so forth. I woke up angry wishing I could be done with ‘Northern Caves’ so that I could find more like WC. I am sure that when it is done they will come. But WC is gone and I just receive World yes yes I know must continue the work yes Mundum.

““I have not seen many pleasing things in World but I remember the look of joy on WCs dying face and that is one of the few good ones and I poor failing creature can keep that in mind while I continue with work. Should simply be able to work bc responsibility but I am weak and DESIRE plagues me as ever so I think of the few good things I have seen such as WC arriving at my doorstep telling me of his sense of life and WCs face at the end. I wish the work could be DONE so there could be more like WC but wishes are nothing I am wasting my time I must work now.”

Marsh looked up. His face carried the facial equivalent of a shrug. Across the couch I saw Aaron, Jenny, Kelsey leaning outward in various states of nervous perplexity. Aaron in particular—ah, here we go—Aaron in particular seemed nervous as opposed to merely perplexed. He was . . . vibrating? . . . slightly, and the muscles around his mouth kept twitching as if to suppress speech.

At the back of this visual tableau, behind Kelsey, stood the man who had welcomed me into the household. Marsh’s father. He was framed by the open doorway between living room and foyer, leaning on it with one arm, some sort of drink in his hand, watching and listening. I had no idea how long he’d been there. He was a lanky man, like Marsh was, balding and austere in appearance but cheerfully paternal in affect; the kind of dad you’d expect to have a beer belly, even though he didn’t. But at this moment he did not look cheerful—although he did still look paternal. About to assert that it was someone’s bedtime, or that someone should really know better than to something-or-other.

“That’s some serious stuff,” he said, inanely.

After a pause, in which every member of the couch party became aware of his presence, he continued:

“That’s some stuff that people have said some things about. It’s really . . .”

He just trailed off. And leaned there in the doorway, mute, taking furtive sips from his beverage, exuding discomfort.