The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [88]
He returns, following the fishline back to the tenth door. He wraps the fishline around the handle of the door, sets the reel down on the ground. He follows the fishline backward, stopping before each door to try each of his seven keys in the lock.
The walls are rough. He uses them to scrape the dead skin from his elbows. He has not discovered either graft or joint in the wall. To Brey, the walls seem carved from a single block of stone. Perhaps his father would disagree.
The floors are smooth. Echoes rise from the soles of his boots. The walls and floor might be carved from the same stone, though the one is polished while the other is not. Why one might be polished and the other not, Brey cannot guess. For him, they may as well be different types of stone.
Brey was born in the halls, as was Brey's father. What occupied the halls before them, Brey cannot say. If Brey's father knows, he keeps it a secret, perhaps for Brey's own good. If his father knew and if it were important, Brey knows his father would tell him. Brey does not need to know.
The Doors in His Halls.
The doors in his halls are all locked. They seem to him identical. He has measured himself against the doors. The doorways are large enough to admit him, but little larger. There is a handsbreadth of space to either side of his shoulders, two handsbreadths above his head. His father, on the other hand, must stoop to fit within the doorframe.
The doors are made of unvarnished wood. Four of the doors are unlocked. All of the other doors are locked. Excepting the bedroom door, the doors which are unlocked hinge inward. The hinges lie hidden, cradled in stone.
He feels his way along the dark hallway. He stops to lean against the wall. He disentangles the fishline from around the door handle, heaves up the reel.
He carries the reel with both hands, resting it against his thighs. The weight of it digs the keys into his legs. He travels forward, unspooling the fishline.
He drops the reel. He kicks the keys out of the intersection, nearer to the wall. Bracing his body against the wall, he squats down, steadying one hand upon the reel. He takes the keys from the floor. In standing, as his father has taught him, he looks up at the ceiling. The purpose of this, Brey does not know.
Sick, Brey feels the weight of the keys. The hallways are cold. He drags his shoulders and face along the wall, shivering.
He drags his face too heavily. His skin abrades, breaks, bleeds, old scars splitting back.
Brey would be handsome, but his face is scarred. He would be handsome had not his growth been stumped by the keys. Brey would be handsome, if the word had any significance for him.
Brey's father never carried keys. His face once was smooth. He was gathered up to a colossal height.
Now he is old. His face is puckered and wrinkled. His back is stooped. But he is still taller than Brey.
Brey turns accidental circles in the dark hallways, reversing his course. He reaches a previous intersection whose keys he has removed. He leans against the wall, catching his breath.
He feels the floor for keys. He finds nothing. He keeps stooping, keeps searching.
"Father?" he yells. "Father?"
He carries three hundred and fifty-seven pounds of keys upon his body. If he falls to the ground, he will find it difficult to rise. If he is injured in the fall, he will lie upon the ground until he starves or until he thinks to remove the keys so as to stand.
He stumbles across the intersection, strikes the opposite wall. Leaning against the wall, he moves forward. He counts doors as he passes them, continuing toward new intersections.
Of doors, there are two possibilities. Perhaps the doors were made at the same time as the halls. Perhaps the doors were cut later. There is no evidence to allow Brey to favor either one hypothesis or the other. But he prefers the former.
His Room.
The frame of his bed stands beside the door. His body is too heavy for it. Next to it is spread a palette. He sleeps upon the palette in clothes