by Shane Jones

The first failure, Antun

The messenger was given an address by way of pushed note under his wooden door.

The messenger had been dreaming of owls and capes. In his dream he saw a revolver go off inside the owl’s cape. The revolver made a coughing sound and the wounded owl opened his mouth and made a sound like paper being pushed across a floor.

The messenger woke, blew out the candle on his nightstand, and saw a white pamphlet inside a large sheet of brown paper on the floor.

The person outside the door had a dream the night before too. It was of rainbow colored blobs falling from a pea-green sky.

Antun was the messenger’s name. Two pastel blue-colored triangles were stuck on his face.

The message read:

Enclosed pamphlet, please find necessary information to relay to seamstress — Yours Truly.

*

The address brought Antun to 115 Porter.

Antun knocked on the oval-shaped wooden door. He wore a cape and felt foolish for doing so.

He knocked again.

He retied his cape.

He read through the pamphlet:

It is imperative that you enter the household even if the seamstress refuses to answer.

Antun had never had a message assignment like this. He had been a messenger, and quite successful if you asked anyone in the town, for three years.

Most messages were small scraps of parchment handed over to housewives. Sometimes the housewives would break down in tears. Sometimes the housewives would form fists.

Once, a young girl threw the message back at him. She opened her mouth and formed a square wave of sound that filled the room.

*

Antun opened the door.

He walked into a room dimly lit by green glass lanterns. Three cats sat upright in rocking chairs smoking pipes. Their faces were spinning wheels of color, puffs of white smoke billowing from the center. Many papers covered a well polished black floor.

Sitting in the center of the room, a girl wearing a brown dress, velvet-laced, in a pool of blood.

*

Antun struck a match and read from the pamphlet.

His hands trembled.

He felt the air with its swirling scents of turpentine, beeswax, and smoke, being sucked from his throat.

One of the cats began playing a guitar. Another opened a book by Lewis Carroll and the spinning face of color sighed causing a large cloud of white smoke to puff out and float up to the ceiling.

Antun thought about the dignity which owls presented.

He lit another match and read the first section of the pamphlet before the tiny flame went out. In his mind what he read aloud sounded like:

Your name is Foe. You are a seamstress who earns a decent living through your ways with linen and silk. Your mother died in an automobile accident in the countryside when you were twelve and your father lost a duel to a man with a green mustache. Your father was drunk during this duel. He would have won. You cried a lot. There was no one to comfort you so you began your lonely apprenticeship in sewing.

The girl didn’t move. Her head was cocked to the side and for a moment Antun thought she was dead. Then she yawned and wiped some blood from her exposed legs onto a pamphlet.

*

Partial List of Rules for Messengers

# Do only as instructed by given cover note.
# Interaction with recipient is frowned upon.
# Once message is delivered leave the household.
# Appear stoic.
# Dress appropriately for the delivering of bad news.
# Almost all messages will be passed by written note.
# In rare cases, the messenger will be required to become orator.
# The hunting of animals is encouraged.
# A messenger must possess an excellent memory.

*

An honest mistake, Antun had read the second page of the pamphlet. He felt a terrible guilt and in the process of striking another match nearly lit the entire pamphlet aflame.

He straightened the triangles on his face. One was upside down against the other.

Surely, he thought, he would be stripped of his title as messenger when he got back to his room.

He imagined it now, the black note flicked under his door followed by a dream cough to wake him. It will happen later tonight, he thought to himself.

Your name is Foe, Antun heard in his mind. Your last name is Lovell. You were born in the country but your parents moved to the city when your father took a position as a steel worker. You’re twenty years old.

The girl stood up. She walked over to a table where a violin was. She picked up the violin and started playing along with the guitar-playing cat. They performed a little song together.

A minute later, they stopped.

Why are you wearing a cape, the girl wrote on a sheet of paper from the floor.

Antun struck another match. The girl brought over a lamp and held it near Antun’s face so they could read what they were saying.

My name is Foe.

Yes, wrote Antun.

My parents are dead.

I’m afraid so.

Can you tell me why.

Antun re-read the section on how her mother and father had passed. The girl sat back down on the floor. The blood was gone. The cats were outside silently meowing. There were clouds on the ceiling and there were little black crosses bobbing in the clouds.

But who are you, the girl wrote.

I’m a messenger.

What’s my name.

Foe.

Oh good, the girl wrote.

Foe walked to a long table at the far side of the room. Antun could only see a vague outline of her dress. Then he saw a candlestick angled in mid-air.

When Foe came back across the room she handed him a small square of brown paper with a wax seal, the initials DH pressed. In smaller writing, The Nightmare Papers.

Upon returning to his room, Antun opened the message and read please tell my parents to come and take me home. He stopped himself from reading anymore.

For the remainder of the night, Antun waited for the black note to be pushed under his door but it never came.

*

Antun fell asleep.

He dreamed the sea eating caped owls. He saw Foe in a rowboat fishing for dead owls but only capturing wet capes. On the shore he saw the man with the green mustache and two revolvers firing bullets into the bleeding chest of an old man.

Antun saw himself feeding city pigeons. A long piece of string spiraled from the corner of his face to the horizon. Along the string, sea-wet pieces of bread for the pigeons.

*

The next morning Antun purchased a paper and sat in the park.

Pigeons gathered. It was a sunny day that lit gardens orange. After reading a brief article on political upheaval, Antun scanned the second page and found a missing persons column.

MISSING – WOMAN – TWENTY YEARS OF AGE – BROWN HAIR – WANTED – QUESTIONING – STATE – CONTACT – REWARD OFFERED – NAME – FOE

And just below:

A MESSENGER WAS FOUND DEAD LATE LAST NIGHT IN SUPTINE ALLEY OF AN APPARENT SUICIDE. POLICE SEEK ANSWERS. YOU KNOW ANYTHING, YOU TELL.

A man in a long black coat with large square buttons approached Antun. He wore a dusty top-hat and a scarf covered his face. He dropped a note on Antun’s lap and then ran away as fast as Antun had ever seen a man run, into the gardens, tripping several times, clawing at the mud, still running into the distant park fields.

Antun stared at the square of paper. Written on the top it said return to your room and find a new pamphlet. Also, a lantern to take with you to 115 Porter.

*

A pamphlet and a lantern inside Antun’s room.

The smell of cider and woodcarvers from the street.

Tree branches reaching through an open window for a cup of tea.

Clipped to the pamphlet was a note that said bringing pamphlets to 115 Porter is too troubling. We should have thought of this earlier. Please memorize and relay to desired recipient. Everyone is counting on you Antun to inform this woman of her life.

*

Antun arrived.

The cats were gone. There were four empty rocking chairs.

The girl was stacking books in tall columns that reached the ceiling.

Hello Foe, how are you.

This was against messenger policy. Antun tried to retrieve the words from the pamphlet but couldn’t find them.

Are you okay. Where are you bleeding.

Foe stacked more books. Some of the columns tittered back and forth. Antun saw a man walking down the hallway that lead to the kitchen. The man ducked into a side room, perhaps a bedroom, thought Antun.

Don’t mind him, wrote Foe. He’s just a Russian candle maker. Harmless in every way.

Your name is Foe. Your parents are dead. Your mother died in a car accident and your father lost a duel. You are a seamstress.

I can’t remember anything, wrote Foe. My memory is empty. I had a dream and in the dream I saw my parents murdered by a man named DH. The revolvers were the most expensive revolvers in the world.

DH.

Yes, that was his name. He wore a blazer of sorts with a badge on the breast that said DH. He killed both of them by way of revolvers. There was a beach. Maybe the sea.

Antun pulled the words from pamphlet to mind and from mouth.

Your mother died in an automobile accident. Your father agreed to the duel which he subsequently lost.

He felt the words were lies. He felt the words make a square wave of sound that sounded like bhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I want to help you, wrote Antun.

Help me with what.

You’re bleeding. You don’t remember anything. You need a hospital, a doctor.

Yes, I do, said Foe, which Antun couldn’t understand.

*

Antun ran Foe a bath with epsom salts. Her knees were badly scraped and her palms raw. The Russian candle maker stood in the kitchen sipping tea from a small white porcelain cup that had tree branches painted around the edge.

Next to the bathtub there was a stack of papers that Antun and Foe used to communicate.

What’s my name.

Foe.

Thank you, she wrote. You are quite the gentleman.

I think you should go to the hospital.

Why.

For your memory.

Can you just tell me about my life.

That’s why I’m here.

Then why aren’t you.

Because I think it is a lie.

*

When Antun returned to his room he opened the door and slipped on a note on the floor.

His bed had been flipped over. It now leaned awkwardly against the wall. His lanterns had been shattered. His wooden dresser tipped over, clothes thrown around.

Lying on his side, he opened the note and read It is of our knowledge and yours as well, being a respected messenger, that under no circumstance should you engage in helping the recipient. Your bathing of Foe is inexcusable. You are now terminated of all duties until further notice. Very shortly, three men with revolvers will be at your door and will escort you to our residence and your suitable punishment.

________________________________________

Shane Jones was born in 1980. He lives in upstate New York and is the author of LIGHT BOXES, now available from Penguin Books. THE FAILURE SIX is available from Fugue State Press. For more info, visit Shane’s Web site.

Tagged as: Shane Jones, Short Story

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