The Unwelcome Guest Plus Nin and Nan by Eckhard Gerdes Read Free Book Online

one stairwell is now four. I descend one, but end up at a train station. I get on the train, thinking that at least once I get downtown, I’ll be able to get my bearings. The train descends, and its tracks lead us over and along a slime-green river. We descend into the river, and I realize I am not on a train anymore. I hear a voice saying that that had been a difficult shot to get—that he’d had to suspend the camera from a helicopter by wires and then lower it into the river as it was moving. The view comes up out of the river, and I am deposited in the shopping district. Here I find the underground mall, which leads me to an exit near the school. I need to climb up terraced slumyards unnoticed to approach one of the school’s peripheral buildings, which happens to be the faculty dorm to which I’ve been assigned. My colleagues are inside smoking and eating silver hot dogs. One, an older man, is surprised to see me. "Aren’t you supposed to be teaching tonight?" he asks.
I am decommissioned now.
Worms of Wisdom
    Edwin Lubjec Thoth reported my existence as a government operative to the school newspaper, a psilocybin-run experiment called My Colle’ Tree . Being whacked-out kids, they bought the conspiracy theory wholesale. I quickly fabricated a family emergency and resigned.
    The G-men said, "Move away from there." They said, "California is the place you ought to be, so load up your truck and move to Menifee." They figured Thoth’s arms didn’t reach this far west. Just to be safe, though, they kept me far away from L.A. and San Diego. I was moved into a new subdivision in what once had been wine country. Of course, with me there, it was still wine country, but that’s irrelevant.
    I was given a Stewart tartan tie, but I wasn’t sure if I should tie it in a Windsor knot or not, and the only knot I know is the double Windsor, so I was dubiously dumbfounded.
    Thoth, I was told, tied his in a Gordian knot, which was a clue that would allow me to see through his Protean projections.
    The question was raised by some asking whether or not Thoth was the Projectionist. No, the reply came—he was merely a projectionist. However, from what I was told, I surmised that tangelo was one of his preferred colors for his ties. I knew what to look for, but I wasn’t sure whom to trust. I wasn’t sure how Lubjec had escaped the police shooting that had allegedly killed him. Perhaps he’d gone on some Möbius trip and survived his sundering by becoming twice as large. Of course, if he’d become stronger in some ways, he must have correspondingly become weaker in others. I had to find those weaknesses.
    Thoth had a habit of showing up where I’d least suspect him, so I decided to "cut him off at the pass," as they say in Westerns. I decided to first look where I’d least suspect. Remembering Poe’s "Purloined Letter," I decided I should first look in my home.
    I found crumbs on my kitchen counter. The shoes in my closet were mismatched. One of my t-shirts was hung up inside out. I couldn’t find my paperback atlas of the world. And a match was missing from the matchbook in my bathroom cabinet drawer. I became suspicious that Thoth was somehow coming into my home when I was asleep or gone, so I changed my locks.
    I had heard from an investigator once that he’d remembered that Thoth was in Mansfield Penitentiary. "You can get ahead at the Mansfield Pen," he said. "A decapitated head."
    I wondered if that was how Thoth had escaped. Like the obscure version of Captain Marvel, he’d just say, "Split!" and his body would separate into five parts: limbs, head and torso. Each could find its own way out of the pen. Like Cistern Tawdry. Like a rolling stone. Like effluvium. Like a siamang. Like bebeeru. Daffy Dean. Matt Helm. And Bozo. Dig it. No weed like you do with angels coming. Your finer self is full of crap, and Mothra comes to exterminate you, grubs spraying, worms of wisdom—shut up, you! Shut up, you! Shut up, you! Shut