A by Andre Alexis Read Free Book Online

Baddeley said “thank you” and was directed to room 88a, the room in which he’d last seen Andrews alive.
    It would be difficult to exaggerate Baddeley’s confusion as he entered 88 A . Without transition or warning, he found himself in the ward of Avery Andrews’ god. The windows looked back from Lake Ontario at the room in which Baddeley now stood. The perspective made him ill. There were four beds in the room. In each of the beds was what looked to be a brilliant approximation of the human: flesh tones perfect, the postures natural, the eyes glinting as if moistened by tear ducts. But the mannequins — there’s no other word for them — were all unmoving. One of them was in the image of Avery Andrews, another looked like Lucius Annaeus Seneca, and a third resembled Saint Teresa as Bernini had fashioned her: ecstatic.
    Baddeley heard the word
    â€“ Welcome.
    It came from the fourth mannequin, the one closest to the window. It “came from” the mannequin in the way a ventriloquist’s voice “comes from” a dummy. The voice was in Baddeley’s mind and his attention was somehow drawn to the mannequin nearest the window.
    â€“ Don’t look at me for too long, said the voice. It’s best if you look at the floor.
    More to himself than not, Baddeley said
    â€“ All this is impossible. I must be dreaming.
    â€“ Since you don’t know where you are, how can it matter if you’re awake?
    â€“ It matters to me , said Baddeley. I don’t want to be insane.
    â€“ I understand, said the voice. And I sympathize.
    And God entered Baddeley’s consciousness. Time stood still. The room broke the bounds of the building that held it, expanding to encompass all that Baddeley knew of the world. In an instant, he was “beside himself,” he and his world detached from each other and, alienated, he was filled with the exhilaration that accompanies new or unexpected views. (Baddeley assumed the vantage was God-given or god-like or god-angled. On this occasion, what he experienced was too bright and glorious to be anything but divine.)
    While he was inhabited by the sacred — if “sacred” is what it was — Baddeley knew what he wanted to say. That is, he knew what he wanted to write . Words tumbled from him in paragraphs; a novel came to being within his imagination. Along with the ecstasy of suddenly knowing the words he needed, however, there was an anxiety that he might not manage to keep these words, to remember them when it came time to write them down. So that, at the moment of deepest inspiration, Baddeley also felt anguish at the thought of how much he might lose.
    Moments, minutes, hours after the Lord had taken him over, His presence withdrew. It did not vanish entirely but, all the same, the withdrawal brought agony.
    â€“ Stay, Baddeley pleaded.
    â€“ I cannot, said the Lord.
    And He withdrew as time returned and the room retreated into itself, its only bed occupied by the remains of Avery Andrews; the only living presence that of Alexander Baddeley himself.
    On first encountering this “being,” Baddeley had assumed it was an aspect of Andrews’ madness — a delusion so powerful it could be parcelled and shared. After this communion, he understood why Andrews had come to think it was sacred. What he could not see was how Andrews had thought of the spirit as in any way “insane.” Nothing that could lead a man to such heights could be considered anything but miraculous. Literally miraculous, as far as Baddeley was concerned. He had been mired in a longing to express himself. He had not managed a single good line of poetry. But after this moment in the hospital he was charged with words. Having paid his final respects to Avery Andrews, Baddeley returned to his apartment on Runnymede and began writing. For five days he worked without eating, stopping only for water, coffee or the Allen’s apple juice