Kevin Kilroy
Beneath the Sheet of the Ghost (an excerpt from the novel, Hypnosis in the Unbuilt City)
I was born, as if in a dream, into Stanʼs house. At first I did not notice him, but
then he began flickering before me. A slow flicker, spread over weeks, but gradually increasing over days, then hours, minutes, etcetera until he was permanently there. Or at least as permanent as I can imagine one to be. Maybe flicker is the wrong word then, being that I see now there is nothing slow or gradual about a flicker; more accurate than a word might be a comparison: he appeared to me every so often and rare enough at first that I would fall into the trap of believing he would not appear again, until he would, like the beep of a fire detector signaling that it is low on batteries, annoyingly disruptive then forgotten as I became consumed in my chores and routines around the house. Only, in the beginning, it was less often than the beeping of a fire detector, and I saw him rather than heard him, so this comparison, as well, fails in many respects.
More accurate than a word or a comparison might be a story, yes, and so I shall
try to speak of this in terms of one of those. At first, I would confuse myself to no ends by wondering whether he was appearing in my house or I was appearing in his. But later, I began to come to the conclusion that the only accurate explanation was that he had called for me, pulled me into his world, created me to fill the existential void he was encountering throughout his house while involved in his mundane chores and routines. If I had the power, this is what I would do, too, when confronted with the monotony and pointlessness of daily living. It was as if my presence satisfied his desire to be watched. Not that he ever told me this, nor explained in any manner whatsoever, but what else could I deduce from these circumstances, given that I was previously content in existing alone, unobserved, and as far as any other being knew, non-existent. After all, I did not need him watching me. Though he would.
Stan gained the habit of narrating what I would do while I was doing it. I tried to tell
him through the intensity of my eyes, and other clear modes of body language, that I wished him to stop this nonsense at once, that to hear I was buttering toast while I was buttering toast was driving me mad—this sort of duplication ad infinitum of a mirrored reality was more than any level-headed and sensible person could bare. But as I have said, that was before, when I was level-headed and sensible, and since then I have learned, or been conditioned, even brainwashed I might argue, if given the proper space and mood, that the only way, and I tried everything, I could get him to stop was to mimic him, do as he did, and narrate him as he narrated me.
PoetsArtists Chicago Issue 2012
www.poetsandartists.com
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