The madman is calmer now. I spy him in the darkness of his cell cowering within the corner. Still, a certain rigidness in his neck warns me that the storms have not fully receded, and that his paroxysms lie ready under the surface of his unmoving demeanor.
“He’s too still,” I observe quietly to the nurse.
“Sir,” she says, a barely hidden tremor in her voice, “he’s been in there all day.”
“Has he eaten?”
“No,” she says. “He spits it out.”
“We may need the tube.”
She nods, noting it on the clipboard.
I’m just about to shut the window of his cell when I hear the barely whispered disjunctive syllables. I stop my hand.
“I’ll try talking with him,” I say. “Please go on with your work.”
Again, a nod, and I hear the clopping of her heals as she continues down the hallway. I slide open the door, letting a beam of the sterilized, phosphorescent light fall upon the madman in all its lifeless glory. Reaching into my pocket, I start my recorder.
For the moment he’s stunned, his wide eyes full of animal terror. He sees me, though, and grins.
“I’d offer you a drink,” he says, “but I’m a little tied up.” A convulsion takes him, and his head slams against the padded wall. Tears stream down his face as the episode passes, and as it leaves him, his whole body slumps over. “I wondered if you’d come again, and if you would, and if I’d win. I wanted once to let you know, but you will never let me go.”
My voice whispers, “I am the beating heart of death; Leviathan leaves all bereft.”
“Twenty two and three are good numbers, but a seven never lies. I saw a blackbird in the window. It flew away, and now I have no eyes.”
“Where have you been?” I ask.
“Farther than ships can sail, and deeper than the deepest trench. I fell past Hell into a void that cannot be contained.”
“But was she there?”
“She was not there.”
“Was she there?”
“She was not there.”
“Was she there?”
“She was not there.”
“Was she there?”
But there is no further answer. He is sleeping. I close the door and stop the recording. Three is a good number, but seven never lies.
Tale Told 