​Simon's Choice

By: Samuel Contreras

​      The city air was chilling. Simon pulled up the collar of his thin coat around his face as his hat was nearly swept off his head by the fierce wind. He hated not having a car, and he hated that the distance between work and his sad little apartment was too short for travel by bus or subway but, despite the fact that he did, it was still too long to walk.

      Simon was tired from work, tired from his walk, and was going to be tired from the six flights of stairs he would have to walk up to get to his tiny flat. He used his first key on the building door, made the trek up the stairs in a cold sweat, fumbled with his keys, then practically fell into his apartment. His dog, Barghest, was barking up a storm inside and nearly knocked him back out when he opened the door.

      “Simon,” came the all too familiar voice, “you’re home late.”

      “Sorry, Dear,” he replied in frustration and exhaustion with Barghest getting in between his legs, “the old coot kept me late.”

      “You really shouldn’t talk about him like that, Simon,” the voice implored, “he’s one of the world’s leading historical document examiners and your employer. My mother always said to talk about others as if they were always with you.”

       “Good night, Honor, I’m off to bed,” muttered Simon, along with what he thought of her mother’s sayings.

      Honoratina: the woman he detested but could never seem to leave. He didn’t quite know what he hated about her. Maybe it was that she always seemed better than him, less concerned, always happy. While he hated her, she felt pity for him. She came from money, but her parents wouldn’t pay her a penny in support of her lowly partner. She could have had her pick of men but chose him. Maybe he loved her once, but that was long ago, and his feelings had curdled since then.

      He shed the majority of his clothes on the floor while walking to the squeaky, wire-framed bed. He fell asleep almost immediately. Honor followed soon after, pitying her boyfriend. He brought home all the money he earned to an apartment that he paid for, all to fall into bed at the end of the day and do it again - all for her. Honor had a hard time getting a job, and an even harder time of keeping one. Being from a rich family did not help prepare her for life as a working-class citizen. She was, however, always happy (or pretended to be) around Simon, though. One of them had to be.

      Simon woke up late the next morning, but still got far too little sleep. He threw on his usual shirt, pants, and tie, grabbed a granola bar he could eat on his way, and set off for work. He went to the bike rack outside the apartment, granola bar half in his mouth and eyes still crusty with sleep and was infuriated. His bike was gone. It was about a minute or two of swearing later that he realized he took it into the shop almost a week earlier, and he hadn’t been notified that it was done yet.

      He ran to work and arrived in 30 minutes, sweating profusely. He walked briskly through the museum’s lobby and security checkpoint, hurried down the hall to the faculty, and arrived at the all too familiar door. Prof. Edward P. Marlowe: Anthropology and Religion. Simon stopped outside for a brief moment, inhaled slowly, held his breath, finally releasing it a deep sigh.

      “Professor Marlowe, sir? Sorry I’m late, I–“

      Marlowe knelt upon a tarp covered with chalk drawings, arcane symbols of origins that Simon didn’t recognize. The professor looked startled and rose as quickly as his aching joints allowed.

      “Simon, you startled me! I was… just preparing this reconstruction exhibition… for the museum’s Saturnalia festival. Anyway, your tardiness is forgiven, but let us get to work.”

      Simon’s day was average for the most part, except at the end. His boss was very serious about his work, often too serious for Simon’s liking. He often said it was due to respect of the cultures from which these religions came, but Simon thought the professor sometimes believed in these bygone faiths.

      The exceptional part of the day was when Professor Marlowe said he could have the weekend off. Simon worked seven days a week because that’s how often Marlowe worked, and the overtime pay was necessary for his rent. Marlowe had informed him it was because it was menial work for the Saturnalia exhibit that Simon wasn’t needed. Once closing time came, Simon grabbed his things as quickly as he could and bolted for the door, waved to the security guard, and headed home.

 

                                                                                 -        -        -

 

      The museum held a heavy silence. It seemed to lean on the walls themselves, like the forgotten paintings covered in tarps in the attic of the place. The guard who was supposed to watch the cameras and exits had long fallen asleep and would stay that way until his alarm went off at 5 o’clock that morning. While the majority of the building was dark and quiet, there was one place that wasn’t – the room behind the door labeled, “Prof. Edward P. Marlowe: Anthropology and Religion.” Marlowe had sent his assistant home and decided that he would give him the weekend off. He did so not out of the kindness of his heart; he simply had work to do. The thought had crossed his mind that an assistant would’ve been useful for what he was about to undertake (Alastair Crowley had one), but this was something that he thought would be best to do alone.

      It was at this time the sky was darkening and the sun sank as a ship, visible through his westward window. Moving some of the chairs that had cluttered the floor, their creaking and that of his old bones rustling the piled-up quiet the building held, he laid out and took stock of his materials: One medium, shallow brazier; present. Tea leaves picked at the new moon; present. 150 milliliters wash of lime; present… On and on he went through the list of obscure ingredients, making sure everything was in perfect order. By this point, the sun and his colorful entourage were gone entirely from the sky. The moon and her court of stars took his place, rising slowly but surely to their zenith.

      It was at this time that Professor Marlowe began to prepare himself mentally. He read over the papers he had memorized by heart. He poured over books on safe conduct, which he also memorized, and looked at incantations he had seen a thousand times before. He saw diagrams and sigils of which he dreamt of almost every night.

      Finally, when the moon and her court reached the summit of the sky, be began the ritual. Around the shallow brazier, he placed a meticulously drawn circle with complicated symbols and runes. Around himself, he drew a circle with a 2 ½-meter radius, also drawn with the utmost care. The only thing imperfect about the circles were the tiny spaces to which the chalk lines did not meet. Now standing upright in the center of the largest circle, he began the incantation. Leaving his circle, he poured in the liquid base, then the tea leaves, all while slowly chanting and encircling the brazier. Finally, he added the catalyst: a mound of brimstone. With the sulfur added, he quickly drew the last of the circle surrounding the brazier, then stepped inside the larger one and drew the final piece of the line on it, too.

      The brazier fizzed and sputtered, letting off a dense cloud of smoke, while Professor Marlowe lit the candles surrounding the circle he presided in. His incantations were never faltered and never mumbled, always spoken clearly and with confidence. He kneeled in the middle of the ring, which was hard on his knees. He waited and waited, the brazier creating a dense fog that encompassed the room.

      “Spirit, I command you through the powers of Goëtia, appear before me!”

      The smoke made no motion other than continuing to roll from the brazier.

      “Spirit, hear my call! I summon you from the Beyond! Appear before me!”

Still, there was nothing.

      “Dammit, I said I summon you! Appear before me!” commanded the man, beating the hardwood floor with his fists.

      “Well, professor, you know just how to talk to guests…”

      From out of the vapor stepped a figure. The figure was not tall nor short, not fat nor thin, and of indeterminate age and ethnicity. To be perfectly honest, Marlowe couldn’t even be certain whether he was speaking to a man or a woman, but he supposed that it was a spirit and it had no significance on the conversation.

      “Spirit, I have summoned you and I bind you here! You shall do my bidding and grant me what I ask,” Marlowe commanded, trying his hardest to make his voice boom.

      “You may have knocked on the door, professor, but you do not know who you let in,” the raspy voice spoke, average lips parting around average teeth, “and I assure you, I have no intention of simpering and bowing,”

      “You will grant me what I ask for! I want life eternal, powers arcane, and youth and vigor and riches unending! I want everything another can envy and more! And I will receive them as is my right as a practitioner of the Art!”

      “Professor, I could spend all night simply saying ‘no’ to what you ask me, but instead I think I will head right to the source: you want immortality because you saw your sister’s empty eyes in that coffin and the nothingness gripped your chest and hasn’t let go. You want power to subjugate others and because your narcissism is incompatible with others disagreeing with you. And you want riches and youth because you’re uncreative and wanted something else to ask of me.”

      “How did you know about Leslie?” he whimpered, shaken for the first time in his conversation with this being.

      “Because it is simply what I do. You are instantly known to me. As I said, you opened the door but were unaware of the nature of your guest.”

      “No! I am master of the arcane and eldritch! I have studied my whole life searching for what lies beyond the stars and veil of the cosmos and will not be denied! There are forces out there which shall serve me, and I will not succumb to the empty blackness of the void like any other human! I have the money and the power to save myself from it and you will be my instrument in this!”

      “There was a sliver of my infinite wisdom which thought that knowing that your research was right and that there really are beings beyond the physical would be enough to quench your thirst and abate your fear of nothingness. But perhaps it is enough to face the justice of your life here and now: you, Marlowe, spent your life to benefit yourself and no one else. The money you were born with was squandered in your search for power or given to those who punish the sick and vulnerable of your world. You were complacent in killing, destruction, and all ills of the world and for that you will not live to redeem yourself. We will have no deal, professor. Goodbye.”

      With that, the figure turned on their heel, parted the drapes of the office, unlatched the large window and stepped through. As opposed to falling, as one thought they might’ve, they simply vanished. They were there and were gone. The harsh words and brush with the beyond abated; the heavy silence returned to leaning on the museum, punctuated with the steady, despairing cries of Professor Marlowe.

 

                                                                                 -        -        -

 

      The sun was setting as Simon returned home, excited to have a reprieve from his work yet dreading the climb up the steps of his apartment. As he trudged up the staircase, there was a faint notion that there was something missing, heavy in the front of his head. The rest of it, however, groaned from sleep deprivation and hunger. He felt it under his eyes and in his stomach, too. When he reached the door and Barghest went wild, he realized what he was missing was the familiar jingle of his keys in his pocket. And Honor wasn’t home yet. That meant one thing: going back to the office.

      Simon knew if he took the bus he’d fall asleep before his stop and wake up somewhere that might not even be in the country, and so resolved to walk again. He tried to spin the “exercise” in a positive way, but that was a thin film on a pot of boiling frustration.

      Without his keys, he couldn’t get in through the main door. All the lights were out, but he found a way in through a back door that was unlocked. Simon walked through the halls where his footsteps seemed oddly loud, but then again no one was there. He made his way once again to the familiar office. With a twist of the knob and a little push, he was startled by a scream from inside.

      “Simon! Oh, thank God it’s you! I’ve made such a terrible mistake!”

      Inside the office, trembling on the floor, was the professor, sitting in a circle similar to the one Simon had seen him working on this morning, surrounded by candles. He was terrified, sweating, and he could tell that the old man had been crying for a long while.

      “I- I don’t know what I was thinking…” the professor continued, “trying to summon him was a grave mistake. Get back! You’ll break the circle!” he yelled as Simon took a step forward.

      “Professor, I know you think you summoned some demon or something, but you really didn’t. I came back for my keys and now I suppose I need to get you home too.”

      “I wanted to make a deal,” the old man said, pulling his legs up to his chest and hanging his head, “but he said he didn’t want to. I commanded him and used all the seals and incantations that they used in the historical manuals, but he got angry. I tried to keep him here, but he just said ‘goodbye’ and left. I haven’t gone out of this circle.”

      Simon was trying to keep his composure: it had been a long day, a longer night, and he was not in the mood to humor this old man, no matter how scared he seemed.

      “Come on, sir, let me help you up,” he spoke, moving toward the man.

       “No- no!” the professor screamed as Simon grabbed his hand. “You don’t understand! He’ll kill us! Let go of me!”

      Simon’s temper, now boiling over, pulled the professor up and pushed him back. A strong wind from the open window blew a candle flame on Marlowe’s shoe, catching on his shoelace. He panicked, and jumped up, fell back, and hit his head on the edge of his desk with a sickening thud. Simon panicked, put out Marlowe’s shoe and held his finger just under the professor’s nose. He was not breathing. A halo of red pooled where his head hit the floor.

      He fled at a normal pace but a pace that felt agonizingly slow with the amount of adrenaline that was flowing through him. Had he just killed a man? No, he thought, that old fool fell and died. It was his fault; the man probably was demented anyway. I did the world a favor by confronting him and his stupid beliefs and a favor to his field of study by removing his superstitions. They interfered with his work and the field of anthropological study in general.

      What am I saying? I just killed a man! A poor, elderly defenseless man who’s died scared and afraid. What have I done? Oh my God, they’re going to find out it was me. I’m going to prison. They’ll convict me and I’ll…

      I just need to stay calm and this will all blow over.

      He was at his apartment before he knew it. He turned the key in the lock and quietly swung open the door. He fell inside, sweating profusely, and leaned his back against the door and sunk to the kitchen floor. It was then, even with his head racing, that he noticed Barghest hadn’t knocked him over.

 

      “You’re a nasty one, aren’t you?” came a voice from his left.

      Leaning against his kitchen counter was a figure. The figure was not tall nor short, not fat nor thin, and of indeterminate age and ethnicity. “What are you doing in my home? Get out, before I call the police!”

      “Be quiet, you’ll wake Honor,” the figure said, grinning, “I’m not here to rob you. I’m here to congratulate you on what you did with, or should I say to, that old man. I’d say hubris was his end, but, speaking more practically, it was that desk. More importantly, I’m also here to offer you a deal.”

      Simon felt his heart thumping so loud it was hard to hear himself speak. He forced his mouth to say, “what deal?” but he scarcely heard it.

      “I’ll get you off the hook for this whole ‘accidentally’ killing your boss thing, and I’ll get you whatever you want for seven years, let’s say. After that, if you’ll humor the philosophical ramifications, I’ll consider your soul mine.”

      As crazy as it was, a devil sitting on his kitchen counter offering a bargain was more familiar than what had just happened with Professor Marlowe. He started to regain his senses.

      “No,” Simon responded plainly.

      “No?” the figure responded, “I’ve had this conversation innumerable times, heard all sorts of answers, but never just a straight ‘no,’”

      “I’ve heard this story too many times with too many bad endings to even consider anything you’re offering. I don’t really think divine intervention is going to work out on my side either. I love my freedom but whatever you are, I’m sure that means there is something greater than the here and now. Which is actually rather terrifying, now that I think about it. All the same, I’ll keep the soul I have, smudged as it may be.”

      The figure paused, pursed their lips, and got up from the counter, stretching their arms and walking towards the balcony of the apartment.

      “Wise choice,” it spoke, “You’re not going to get convicted anyway. And if this revelation of things greater than you sends you into a crisis, don’t think too hard about it. We all make mistakes and poor choices. If this strange new world bothers you, just remember: do all the good you can while you’re alive. No human knows what lies beyond death, no matter who told them or what they claim. Think of it as your next foray into adventure and the unknown, not the fires of Hell or oblivion of nothingness. Goodnight, Simon.”

      And with that, the figure disappeared from the balcony. Simon followed their footsteps to the overlook and could see the moon, full and bright and glimmering, hanging low in the sky. Simon, perturbed yet somehow calmer than he thought he ever could be in this situation, wrapped the sheets around himself as he climbed into bed. There was the warm silhouette of the woman he detested only a day ago, which he wrapped his arm around. As that silhouette let out a warm sigh, light and gentle. He closed his eyes. Words bounced around behind them, and a short phrase rose to the front above the others. Do all the good you can while you’re alive.

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