Amontillado Revisited - Day 8

It was a dreary eve, and you would think me mad, what I did on that dreary eve. But is it so mad, when one has been so egregiously wronged, to seek justice, to regain moral balance? I was mulling about in Mrs. Zyygyltrosky's urban mechanics for non majors when I caught his eye. I believe it was for the first time - the first time I'd really looked at him - his one eye like a lazy eye with a glaze over it... And his other eye, with its dry, cracked surface, yet red and teeming with energy, leering at me while his neighbor lay dormant. I saw that eye, his left eye, to me his right. To Bog, it was his Soul!

I approached him after class, carrying my satchel eagerly. I burst with pleasure as I spoke - to him it must have seemed like the excited pleasure of a schoolboy meeting a new friend...

"Hey, I guess we have two classes togehter. Mrs. Zyygyltrosky and Professor Downpressor too!" I said to him. "My name's Basalt. What's yours?"

He gave me a sideways glance as he continued to stride towards his next engagement. "Sorient Glass," he replied curtly, his left eye blazing at me with the splendor of the Mediterranean sun in the afternoon.

"Sorient... I know why you chose Mrs. Zyygyltrosky... and I have something you might be interested in..." I tensed up inside, the hatred incurred by his left eye searing my gut and tearing at my lungs. "It's amontillado."

"Amontillado?! In this country?! Why, forgive my disbelief," he began to reply with a pompous tint beginning to shade his voice, no doubt emanating from the eye, "but I don't fancy you the type to afford such an extravagance. Nor do I suspect you have exclusive access to the kind of cavernous domain required to store amontillado properly."

My plan, my mad plan, then began to materialize in my head. Is it truly insanity? Madness? It was all caused by that eye! It stared at me with callousness, and it radiated superficiality with an intensity designed to melt the real world into a shiny crystalline state, that it may look as sparkling and false as the interior of a poorly designed Detroitian automobile! I did, in fact, know of such a cavernous, desolate place, and divinely, I happened to have a key artifact in my very pocket, which I pulled out for both of dear Sorient's variegated optic organs to examine. "It's the pumice emblem from the cask. And into the caverns, should you desire, we can travel this very evening. Meet me at the library at midnight."

The pumice I had found months before in a curiosity shop, and my mind's eye must have seen it in my pocket, knowing full well what my soul's intention was with that left eye glaring into it like a bank robber entering a vault. I improvised the whole delicious, and just, plan instantly - as if spontaneously generated out of thin air. Is it madness, or divine inspiration on behalf of a just cause?! It is for Bog to decide...

I ran from Sorient before his shocked visage could muster a reply. I knew he would be there at midnight. And there he was. I waited in the shadows until he appeared. He stood there, nervously shifting and staring at his watch, wondering where I was. I leapt out of the shadows and ushered him into the library. He protested, but I quickly glanced back at him with enough menace in my mortal eyes to make him realize the amontillado was to be sought out on my terms.

He followed me to the elevator, where we got on and descended in complete darkness for ten minutes.

"Basalt, this elevator is beginning to smell of mitre, and it is making me feel quite ill... Perhaps we should ascend. I do not fancy becoming ill this fortnight, when I have so many social engagements..."

I interjected sarcastically, "Is this not the kind of cavernous domain required to store amontillado properly?"

"But I haven't seen aught outside this elevator, which is no doubt surrounded by rock encrusted with mitre!" Just as he finished his sentence, the elevator stopped. I grinned, and he re-rigidified his flustered expression as he accompanied me into the recesses of the Boortez Subterranean Wing of the library, which contained self-help books, polemics written by broadcast personalities, biographies of hair metal bands, and the septic tank of the University.

I led him through a forest of faces, dripping makeup out of the images printed in slimy chemicals on the remains of felled pine trees. They glowed all about us with an unnatural luster, befitting more a nuclear disposal facility than a library.

"These people... they shouldn't be allowed to write! And the air remains thick with mitre... I need to get out of here... My embroidered sandals are soaking up the must!" I made no reply, knowing at this point he would continue to follow despite his vocalized reservations. I was glad that I could not see his eyes in the dimly lit wing. I began to fear his left eye, what it was looking like under such precarious circumstances... Yes, it was best to remain silent in the darkness. There was no reason to believe he could turn back now... Not when so close to the... amontillado...

We passed diet books, modern psychology books, until we came upon the polemics by media personalities. The section's stench was overpowering, but we proceeded like robots, forcing ourselves at such a late point in the journey to proceed, merely for the sake of preventing a minor wound to our personal pride for going to great lengths for nothing.

Soon all around us was dark, and we had to feel our way along the sleek, newly minted, totally unread volumes until we came upon a dim corner, lit only by a burning candle I had placed, bravely, only hours before. Against the wall was a Donkey Kong arcade machine.

"What is the meaning of this, Basalt! I demand an explanation immediately!" Sorient arched his back in the candle light to appear imposing.

"Try to play it," I said as plainly as my trembling soul would allow. I held my head low in fear of his eye, which was no doubt writhing in a crimson rage. He lurched forward and put his hands on the controls.

"A ha!" The machine, as he tried to play it, crumbled away and revealed a small barrel behind it. "This is a curious cask, I must say... What vintage is it?" He reached forward and then found his feet stuck in a pair of iron shackles which had been hidden in the arcade machine. "What on earth?! Do you see this??" I silently grabbed a bucket of mortar and set it down approximately five feet from where Sorient stood flailing, yet unable to move. I avoided looking at his left eye at all cost. "What are you doing!! Help! This is absurd! What do you want with me?!" I made no reply. I walked, trembling, over to the nearest bookcase and picked up stack after stack of books by Sean Hannity. I began to paste mortar atop each row of them, forming a horrifying wall.

As I stacked each copy, Sorient would moan and shout at me. I looked down at the books I was stacking, and I saw Sean Hannity's left eye turn a deep red, the redness of mortal wounds, of a demon's oily skin. The eyes began to burn and simmer, the smell of forests burning began to waft from the singed covers. In horror, I frantically slung inordinate amounts of mortar on each copy and slammed them onto the wall. My heart raced and my skull almost collapsed into my mind from the intensity of Sorient's wailing, and the ferocity of the polemical writing I was putting to use.

Suddenly, as if I had jerked awake, I found myself lying, gasping outside the completed wall. Sorient's muffled cries could still be heard intermittently from within.

"Sorient... Sorient!" I cried within, not knowing myself. I was greeted with silence.

Finally he spoke up, "for God's sake, Basalt!"

"Yes, for God's sake," I replied. I wanted to stab my eyes out as I walked by the unused Sean Hannity books... But I made it back to the elevator, went up it, and emerged into fresh air. And for three score years no one yet has found what came of Sorient Glass, and how could anyone ever find out?

In pace requiescat!