In Which We View Things Through The Proper Lens

You can find the archive of our Saturday fiction series here.

Camera Eye

by BLAKE BUTLER

In the family’s handheld camcorder lens, the father began to find an eye — staring straight back on into him from the eyepiece, so that he could no longer see what was being filmed. The eye had a gold iris same as the father’s, a deep black pupil in endless hole, and yet the eye was no reflection, as when the father blinked the eye did not. This was a camera the father had used to record so many of the major events that made up his family’s life. He had recorded his son’s breech birth, cut from the mother’s body, and those early growing days and nights. Over time, on film, the child’s skin begins to lengthen slightly from one cassette and on. Most of these moments, very likely, the child would not in later years remember, without the presence of the tapes to play and replay through machines. And yet now, with the child more grown than ever, making each day new moments the father might preserve, there was the eye there staring at him, looking straight back into him, on and on. The father tried to tried to shake or wipe the image from the glass — standing cursing when first the eye appeared under a white sun watching his child run on a field of dying grass — and yet he soon found himself transfixed. The eye seemed to know a thing that he did not, a thing held in its watching. And yet the father continued to use the camera. He could not bring himself to ask the mother or the child to look into the lens and verify if indeed there were an eye encased inside there, staring at him. He found he thought about the eye at night, thought about it watching him in sleep. He sometimes felt the eye there in his head. The family’s tapes became unfocused, off-centered — as at the child’s fourth birthday the family had filmed, instead, unknowing then, straight on into the wall — an endless pure white shot of nothing while in the background the children sang — until in the late days, with the last tapes, the tapes that would be found buried in a small black box underneath the parents’ bed after the house burned, the son and mother’s found locked inside a tiny closet, blackened, all the hair scorched from their heads, the father found stark naked, cut up, runny, on the roof — the final weeks of films, those unrelentingly recorded hours, framed nothing there at all of name, aiming only ever at some section of the sky, or at a length of wall or some faceless color, hazy, fuzzing, while the uncentered action went on therein off screen, sounds of whining, aiming, eating, wanting, laughing, all underneath the panes of light, while behind the lens, the filming father spoke, using an old version of his native language, often choking, instructions from the eye.

Blake Butler is a writer living in Atlanta. He is the editor of HTMLGIANT and Lamination Colony. He twitters here. You can find more of his writing here. You can purchase Anatomy Courses, his collaboration with Sean Kilpatrick, here.

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In Which We Consider Keeping A Diary

You can find the archive of our Saturday fiction series here.

Testament

by VINCENT SAN GUERE

Three of them, wrapped in a small covert and shivering from the cold. I yearned to find those hidden ones.

I am the last of the Vespuccis. There were siblings at one time, but they all perished in the war. One day I woke up and all my brothers and sisters were dead, and all I could feel was this unexpected sense of relief, that what I always knew would happen had finally occurred.

Diamonds, pearls and rubies. That is what I thought of, seeing their glittering heads emerge from the shower, shiny and new. Of the three, one took water and food almost immediately. The other two, what I now I believe are the males, would not trust me. I persuaded and tried to make my case but they stared at me through little eyes.

You have to socialize them. I read this in some jaundiced anthropological survey of bad habits when it comes to autochthons. To speak to them in anything other than a directive fashion is ultimately beneficial to neither of you.

My cat's name is Daniel Vespucci. He's a birman with the dark face typical of the variety and white otherwise. He has massive radiant ears, and his excretions are absolutely disgusting.

I spoke formally to the girl, since she seemed to be adapting the best, possibly because of different maturity cycle. The males eventually had to be sedated, and I had to argue to several concerned parties that they should be salvaged at all. They were, and gave themselves over much more readily than the girl.

Ha ha! Not in that fashion. They all three smelled worse than Daniel Vespucci, honestly. (I never chose a middle name for the beast; it seemed overly presumptuous.) The boys spoke some pidgin, made great use of their hands. The girl learned more quickly at first. As I said, I spoke formally to her.

I said, "Maybe you know who put you here."

"Yes," she gasped.

"Tell me then," I said (this was not the first time I had uttered these words), "and spare no guilty party."

"I see, I see," she murmured, her face whiter than Daniel Vespucci's tail. I spoke of various personality types. I told her that to decide to obey was a very charged decision. She should think it over and get back to me if she did not accept completely.

In her cabin I found a little diary. It gave me a start, and I thought I was prepared for it. She had some kind of pre-rescue relationship with one of the boys; he considered it incest but she did not.

I fed her exclusively: carrots, lettuce, a nutritious grey paste. Initially on a whim, I served her artificial protein, frozen on sticks. She loved those skewers. I gathered women had not been permitted meat in her last biome.

The boys would not eat the sticks unless cajoled, and they hid other food. After some heady research I presented them both with Daniel Vespucci's so-called offspring - to nurture, not to digest. They had taken to the cat more than the girl did, and they loved those little kittens, I'm telling you.

The two kittens could be distinguished primarily by their coloration. The darker of the two was far wilder, and enjoyed jumping on the girl's bed, tearing pages out of her diary and eating them like delicacies. I came upon her some days after the males had received their pets, pen to paper, her awkward digits gripping the implement like a staff. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, "I'm telling that kitten to stay away."

Much, much later, she asked if I ever thought of keeping a diary. I told her I had not.

All three of them, after making a kind of bizarre offering to what they perceived I enjoyed, told me they desired to assume my last name. Wasn't I their father?

I explained that really, they did not belong to anyone. If they wished to take my name, then they certainly could. I would not object.

Vincent San Guere is a writer living in Vancouver. Testament is an excerpt from his novel-in-progress.

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In Which We Allow You To Have Your Privacy

The Flies

by DAMIAN WEBER

The first thing Suzanne asked when she came in was where they went and why she couldn’t go, but the girl wouldn’t tell.

“Nowhere.”

“Not nowhere,” Suzanne said, “you went somewhere.”

The girl didn’t say anything, she didn’t know what to say so she just went to her room.

“You have to tell us,” Linda said.

“I can’t,” the girl admitted, walking up the stairs.

“What can’t you tell us?” Suzanne shouted up the stairs.

After Suzanne went up the stairs and tried the door, she called down to Shirley that the door was locked. Shirley didn’t let the girls lock their rooms and when they did she always came up the stairs and told them to unlock it. But this night she let the girl have her privacy.

The girl knew she would eventually have to unlock the door for Linda, but went over to her fish instead. She picked up the little tin of fish-food and fed her goldfish, Blackbeard, who wasn’t in a fishbowl but instead in a big glass jar. Richard named him Blackbeard because he wasn’t gold at all, but black with yellow cheeks. He’s not taking Blackbeard, the girl thought, he can’t, he’s my fish.

“Let me in,” Linda whispered through the door. The girl went over to the door, unlocked it, then quickly went back to her fish and thought of different ways she could hide him. She could always put him under her bed or maybe even in the garage or even put him outside where he was born, where his mother was. Linda didn’t ask about the ride and the girl was free to wonder if she would also be leaving when dad left.

Were any of them going with him or was he leaving them all? What about Arla, would he take Arla?

Arla was a black lab, originally the property of a family named Foss who was trained as a seeing-eye-dog but failed. Arla couldn’t be trained; as Linda would say, “She has her own agenda.” Still Arla could be the mother of other seeing-eye-dog puppies who were taken from her and trained. Guiding Eyes for the Blind would keep her for a week before and a week after each litter but would pay all veterinarian bills even those not relating to the pregnancy.

The family had many names for the dog: Arla, Arla Doo, Arla Moo, Arla Girl, Arla Dog, Arla the Black, Black Dog, and Crazy Dog. When they called her she wagged her tail, when they fed her she wagged her tail, and when someone new came to the house and when someone old came. The poor dog was always being yelled at, she was always in the way or as Linda would say, “She’s always in your face.”

Arla was a ridiculous dog because she was afraid of the floor. There were gaps in the carpeting she refused to step on, bounding from one to the next, and only after she was finally safe would she sit back on her bottom. Also there were certain rooms she would not enter which usually contained her in the hallway upstairs. She wouldn’t go in the kitchen and eyed the wood floor with a look that said, “I couldn’t possibly ever dream of even thinking of going on that.” Linda would call but the dog wouldn’t come. “Arla Girl, you want to come in the kitchen? Come on Arla Dog.” It was the most ridiculous thing the girl had ever seen. The poor dog, the girl thought, if she knew how ridiculous she was she would laugh.

Maybe the house was too small for Shirley, Richard, Suzanne, Linda, Theresa, Cocoa, Peaches, Blackbeard, and a Labrador, not counting Tammy the ladybug, all the flies and all the ants. Plus there was Cuppy, but Cuppy died.

Shirley thought it wrong to not do whatever she could to relieve the suffering of all creatures, making the small house a zoo. When Richard complained she referred to Matthew.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Cuppy, Linda’s cat, was black with a white face which Linda said made him look like he was wearing a tuxedo. The white patch on his face looked like a heart, at least it did to Linda, who always said it made him handsome even though the girl knew a cat couldn’t be handsome, only people, like her father. Linda was in first grade when he developed “this stomach thing.” The girl couldn’t remembered Cuppy because she was not yet two but later Linda would repeat the story even though she had already heard it.

“One day we looked at him and he was so thin. Dad didn’t know why, or how he became so sick, so quick. He was almost falling over, he couldn’t even lift his head to eat. Mom brought him to the vet but he said it was iffy. Then they just put him to sleep, I was at school, we were at school and came home and they killed him.”

Linda would always tell the girl she just wanted to hold him one more time. She didn’t even get to bury the body because the vet kept him. Cocoa, the oldest of the cats, was both deaf and blind and looked like he was always about to die but just wouldn’t. He had cataracts and had been losing his sight but was now completely blind. His eyes looked like marbles, cataracts covered both the iris and the pupil until his eyes were just balls of milk. The girl thought he looked like a sorcerer, a magic cat, but one that didn’t like her, a demon cat. He was Shirley’s since before the girl was born, and Suzanne was there when they picked him at the shelter. They went to look for a kitten but when they saw him they had to have him because as Suzanne said, “He picked us with his eyes.” The girl wasn’t sure what she meant but she believed it. It wasn’t difficult to convince Richard and Shirley to get him, he was a wonderful cat. Linda always said he was Richard’s cat, that dad was the one Cocoa really loved. He used to love Cuppy too, but Cuppy died. Now Richard was moving out and the cat wouldn’t have anyone.

Peaches was Richard’s mother’s cat and he certainly didn’t want another cat in the house but nobody else would take her. Shirley fed the cat when Nana went to St. Jerome’s but after they learned she probably wouldn’t ever leave again she brought the cat home. The family called the cat it even though they called the other cats respectively he or she. It was a miserable cat and hissed at anyone who came near and when the cat first came to the house Cocoa chased it from the kitchen to the bathroom and from the bathroom back to the kitchen. Peaches browned the wall trying to get away, creating the largest mess in Linda and the girl’s room but neither of them learned about it, they were at school.

Later when the girl was told about it, she could only imagine the cat running around her room, browning the walls while her mother figured out what to do. What could she have done? The girl thought there probably couldn’t have been much to do except shut the door.

The girl asked mom what could have happened to the cat to make her so unloving and so unloved. Linda said it wasn’t affectionate because Nana Manning wasn’t affectionate but Shirley disagreed, Nana Manning was too affectionate. That was the first time the girl learned her sister thought less of Nana Manning than she, later she would learn why. Maybe mom would make dad take the cat now that he was leaving.

Besides the dog, the two cats, and the goldfish, there were other pets in the house, like the ladybugs. The girl named one Tammy (she didn’t know why) and kept it all summer and into the winter and was still alive. She didn’t keep the bug in a jar however, she just let it fly around her room. There were many different ladybugs in her room but she was pretty sure she knew which one was Tammy especially since they were best friends and best friends could always find each other even if they were separated by three seas or a thousand years. She would come home from school and look all over for Tammy and then when she found her she would tell her how beautiful she was. Richard told her that ladybugs only lived two weeks but she said that wasn’t true because Tammy had been alive forever. Richard wouldn’t be able to take Tammy when he left, he wouldn’t be able to find her because they weren’t best friends.

Besides the ladybugs there were also the ants which came in the spring crawling out of the cupboards and out of the cabinets. They would even crawl in her cereal, until they put rubber bands around the bag. There wasn’t anything Richard could do, he sprayed once but it didn’t work. He didn’t use it again however because Shirley said she didn’t want him to spray poison in her kitchen.

They were fearless ants that weren’t satisfied to hide in cracks, they walked right out in the open, right up the kitchen window completely ignoring gravity, making the girl think they must be angels. The girl knew with the way dad tried to kill them he wouldn’t be bringing them with him when he left. Besides the ladybugs and the ants, there were also the flies which the girl thought were aw-ful. They stayed the longest, not leaving until after fall and when the girl asked her mother where they went for the winter Shirley told her in the garbage. After that the girl always looked in the garbage to see where they were hiding but could never find them. Richard could take the flies if he wanted. Richard, however, didn’t take Arla nor did he take Cocoa or Peaches or Suzanne or Linda or the girl or the ladybugs or the ants and the flies.

Suzanne announced dinner was ready by stomping down the hall and pounding on the door but the girl motioned to Linda not to answer. Coming down the stairs she saw dad already at the table and since Suzanne and Linda were still moving around she thought it a perfect time to ask.

“Are you taking Arla?”

Richard looked at her.

“Take Arla where?” Suzanne asked. “Where is Arla going?”

“Arla isn’t going anywhere, Arla’s staying here.”

“Who’s going somewhere?”

“I’m leaving.”

“Where you going?”

“Not far.”

“Where?”

“88 North Spruce Street.”

“For what?”

“I’ll tell you later, after dinner.”

“For what?”

“Your mother and I,” Richard started, but stopped before he used the word divorce.

Suzanne knew what a divorce was, she didn’t need to be told.

The girl didn’t say anything. She saw that her sisters didn’t know what to say and waited for Suzanne to say something but Suzanne didn’t say anything. Then to break the silence or maybe just because she wanted to,

Linda stood up, pushed in her chair, left the table, went up the stairs, and to her room. The spell was broken.

“Dad,” Suzanne said, “you can’t move.” Richard didn’t say anything.

“Just stay here, you don’t have to go.”

“I’m sorry, I have to.”

“No you don’t.”

“Why?” she shouted, “why do you have to?”

“Because I have to.”

“Because why?”

“This is crap!” she swore.

The girl let out a little expiration of air at hearing her sister swear and was left sitting at the table alone with mom and dad when Sue stomped up the stairs, stomped down the hall overhead and into her room.

“Why don’t you go upstairs,” Shirley told her, “you’re all done.”

The girl pushed out her chair, stood up, pushed in her chair, went up the stairs, in her room, and locked the door.

A few minutes later Arla scratched at the door and she let her in, watching the magnificent dog cross the room and lie on the floor. The girl went over and sat down next to the dog. Arla was big and beautiful, it was something to pet such a magnificent dog and there was no way he was going to take her.

It was only seven and not yet time for bed. Usually around eight (or if she was lucky, a little later), Shirley would come up the stairs and tell the girl to brush her teeth. But tonight she thought mom probably wouldn’t come up.

Linda was on her bed and still hadn’t said anything but then finally did. “Is dad really leaving?” she asked. “I think so.”

“You know when?”

“No.”

“Is he taking Arla?”

“No,” the girl said, “he said so.”

“He can’t take Arla.”

“No.”

“What happened after I left?” Linda asked.

“She told dad not to go.”

“Who did, mom did?”

“Suzanne.”

“Then what?

“He said he had to.”

“Do you think he’s really going to?”

“He said.”

“He doesn’t have to.”

When Suzanne knocked on the door the girl didn’t object and Linda unlocked it. She had been crying. She came over and sat on the girl’s bed and then Linda came over and sat on the girl’s bed. The girl had the smallest bed in the house besides Arla and now all of her sisters were on it with her.

“You know when he’s leaving?” Suzanne asked the girl.

“No.”

“He can’t leave,” she said. “He doesn’t have to.”

“This is such crap!” Suzanne swore. The girl gasped.

“What did dad say to you?” Suzanne asked the girl bringing up the car ride again.

“I don’t say.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

“I don’t.”

“Terry, he’s leaving, it doesn’t even matter anymore.”

“I don’t.”

“You can tell us who lives on North Spruce though,” Linda said, “Right?”

“Miss Bernice.”

“Who’s Bernice?”

“Dad’s new wife.”

“Dad has a new wife?” Suzanne asked.

The girl nodded.

“What’s she like?” Linda asked.

“She’s nice.”

“Dad has a new wife?” Suzanne asked again, “You mean they’re married?”

The girl nodded.

“They can’t be married,” Suzanne said, “he can’t be married twice.”

“I met her.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re married.”

“She seems nice. She has witch shoes.”

“She has what?” Suzanne snapped.

“She seems nice.”

“I can’t believe this!” Suzanne said standing up, “This is all such crap!”

The girl gasped again, she always gasped when someone swore.

Suzanne stomped out of the room and slammed the door then stomped down the hallway and slammed her door.

“She has witch shoes?” Linda asked.

“They’re pointed,” the girl said, “like a witch.”

“Does she look like a witch?”

“No, she’s nice.”

“He’s going to live by the school?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does mom know?”

“She was there.”

“She was where?” Linda asked. “She came with you?”

“At dinner.”

“But, does she know about Miss Bernice?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I guess she does, right, she has to?”

The girl nodded.

“She has to,” Linda said getting up, straightening the covers on the little bed and putting the pillow back.

“Okay, go to bed, goodnight.”

Like the girl thought, Shirley didn’t come up the stairs and tell her to brush her teeth and neither did Richard which Linda said was even more than rude.

Damian Weber is a writer living in Brooklyn. The Flies is an excerpt from a longer work.

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The new album from The Walkmen is entitled Heaven and will be released on May 29th.