Page 92 of Katabasis
“You think it’s sick.”
“No, I think...” He blinked at the pages, considering. “I think this is very impressive research, considering. Your creativity is astonishing.”
“Oh, well. Thanks.”
“How long would you have kept him alive?”
“I didn’t really think that part through either.”
Indeed there were many parts of her plan she had not thought through. How to explain a reanimated corpse to the rest of the department. How to keep Grimes from screaming for help. How to convince a dissertation committee that the hoarsely blathering pile of rotted flesh and bones was in fact the soul of Professor Jacob Grimes speaking, and not a paid undergraduate hiding beneath the floorboards.
Well, she supposed it was obvious why not. She could convince herself all she wanted that this was a rescue. But it had never been about the recommendation letters. It was only about revenge, and bloody control, and having Grimes understand at last how it felt to be someone else’s toy. It was only a fever dream. And Peter was too smart to for a second believe otherwise.
“Though I don’t think it would make me feel better.” Alice drew her knees up to her chest. “That’s the problem. I hoped it might—but the more I think about it, the more I realize, I only want this because it’s what he would have done. It is such a perfectly Grimes solution, you know. Brutal, efficient, shocking. He never went halfway, he only ever went through. And some part of me, deep down, is actually excited. Because I keep imagining him waking up to see what I’ve done.” She gave a helpless laugh. “And I keep fantasizing he might actually look around and tell megood job.”
“You know,” said Peter, “I do think he would.”
“He’s stamped on our minds,” said Alice.
“Oh, yes.” Peter cast her a sad sideways smile. “Can’t get him out.”
They both stared down at the notebook.
Alice had not revisited these pages since she scribbled her notes. She was amazed now by the sight of her own handwriting, a frenzied scrawl that looked nothing like her usual neat script. She remembered those final hours of research, sitting hunched over Erichtho’s writing beside a dim and buzzing lamp, forcing her hand to keep up with her racing thoughts. At points she had pressed so hard against the page that the lead broke, leaving charcoal smudges. Peter’s notebook looked tame by comparison. Her own looked like the work of a lunatic.
In a small voice she asked, “So you don’t think I’m mad?”
Peter reached out; his fingers wrapped around hers.
And although all they did was sit, silent, and although still they had no solution and no way out, somehow Alice felt more clearheaded than she’d been in a very long time. She felt still, her thoughts settled. As if she had been flailing through the air, flapping and choking, and here at last someone had granted her a place to land.
Time slipped forward. The skull continuedto cuckoo. At first Alice kept checking her watch, but soon she stopped bothering. Minutes, hours, it did not matter. They had no way out.
The Kripkes had not come. This gave Alice some small twinge of hope—that perhaps the Kripkes had forgotten about them, that perhaps instead of a terrible bloody death they would only die a stifled, quiet one. The Kripkes were in no hurry. They didn’t need to grapple with two adults. They only needed to wait them out. And the Kripkes had all the time in the world.
She considered weeping about it, but it was too hot and dry; at this point she didn’t have the moisture in her body to condense into tears.
Was this the end, then? She took stock of her life, all her dreams and efforts and desperate aspirations, and could not feel anything other than a pathetic amusement at where she had ended up.
She’d taken a class on Greek philosophers during her first year of college, before she discovered she was allergic to philosophy. She didn’t care much for Socrates, but she did like the way Aristotle wrote about the world, the soul, the form of living creatures. He had such faith in their drive to flourish. And she remembered reading Aristotle’s argument about how any living being, even the most primitive organism, was animated by an idea of the good. Even the plant turned its face toward the sun. Even the tiniest ant sought food; the brainless worm sought soil. It was all so easy for living creatures—all except people, except people likeher, who had a knack for seeking only that which made them miserable.
All her life, it seemed, she had run headfirst in precisely the wrong directions. It was not for lack of opportunity. She knew very well where the sun shone, and yet was bound by impulse to bury herself in the dark.
Perhaps human intelligence was a mistake, and everyone who celebrated the escape from the Garden of Eden was wrong. Perhaps the gift of rationality did not outweigh the debilitating agony that came with it.
Or perhaps people like Alice were just fundamentally broken. Perhaps they were wasted on life; perhaps dying was the best thing for her. Perhaps she was less like Aristotle’s plant and more like Freud’s organisms, who were driven compulsively toward death, toward the tranquil, inanimate state of things before they had the misfortune of being born. She voiced this theory to Peter.
“Hm,” he said. “I don’t think we compulsively seek death.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“I just think we got tangled up. But we’re still trying to face the light.”
They chatted for a bit. Mindless memories, bland observations. Meals they’d once had. Books they’d once read. Once or twice Alice made Peter laugh, and that seemed the greatest victory she could accomplish in the moment; that she could still elicit his hiccupping laughter.
Their voices grew hoarse, their tongues dry, their voices soft. At last they lapsed into silence.
Alice supposed there were worse ways to die. At least she knew she had nothing to be afraid of. At least she was not dying alone.
