The Monkshop

A struggling writing student from Elizabeth, New Jersey, is tempted to sell his soul to improve his craft.?

I.

When Melvin Rodriguez found his way home from the overcrowded commuter bus that evening, he smelled his Yaya’s oven-roasted chicken, and immediately felt like himself.

Nothing else in the world made him feel safer than eating his grandmother’s delicious cooking.

His stomach had performed somersaults — he had no idea how hungry he really was. Ironically, he had on a backpack full of cheap food from the city he was absolutely sure he was never going to eat.

For the first time, in a long time, he felt comfortable being in his own skin.

Commuting each day for the past four years had taken a spectacular toll on his spirit. He would look forward to coming home after long days in class, trying to hustle some of his classmates for a job, or, even worse, dedicate time to his writing so he could still appear attractive and relevant to his pursuit.

But he had written so often that the practice had aggravated him.

Melvin knew he still wanted to do it, but his was a dime-a-dozen profession in a city like New York, and his subject matter earned scoffs rather than regards — something he didn’t hold back from sharing with his grandmother, regularly.

It was Yaya who had initially arrested his attention, years ago, with strange tales of his family; tales of the unknown. Relating stories of her Mexican village, and points further south, when she had traveled with Melvin’s great-grandfather on his magic shows.

She was her father’s assistant, as he proclaimed himself to be a magician in the classical style, and was in-demand in Latin and South America.

“We had many adventures in those days,” she would occasionally relate, at times knitting, or cooking, or rocking on her chair half-asleep while studying her novella. “Those were fun days. Your bisabuelo was a dangerous man — in reputation. He always walked with the outlaws and the rebels and they always loved him because he could perform tricks. He would say he was a Freemason, and they would say ‘Ahh that explains it. The Freemasons are diableros,’ and so they would respect him. But he was nothing of the kind, mijo. He was a good man who learned that you cannot always look like the sheep you may be inside — you have to put on the wolf’s clothing to keep the other wolves away, so they think you are part of their pack.”

Melvin remembered he once pointed out that the old story was of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and not the other way around. She merely shrugged and commented “The stories you hear may not always be true.”

He was reminded of this lesson just yesterday, in class, when he had presented a short story he had written about his great-grandfather’s adventures.

His writing professor, an opinionated literary lion by the name of O. Shryer, had considered the reversal of the wolf-sheep trope, then added, “Wouldn’t it have been more… arresting… if the father magician attained the status of an innocent amongst these toughs? He could play the fool, and then whet their appetites for obvious criminality, and then trick them by convincing them to surrender to local authorities.”

“I’m… not sure,” Melvin began. “He earned a living and a reputation from being with these men. Luring them to the police wouldn’t be like him.”

“Ah!” His professor then pounced. “But perhaps his character should be like that, in order to serve as a moral compass for his daughter.”

Melvin stared at him. “It’s not that he wasn’t the moral compass for his daughter — it’s the fact that he showed her how he interacted with this especial world. They worked through this world so they could go back and bring food and money on the table. They’re weren’t bounty hunters — ”

A rather large woman named Cossette had interrupted him. She had previously offered sharp insights, dwelt on writing the same piece for years, and rarely showcased anything else.

“Oh, I don’t mean to laugh,“ she had twitted, “but the idea of a traveling single Mexican dad who moonlights as a magician, but is really a bounty hunter, sounds so cool!”

Another classmate, a wiry Brit named Clay, chimed in. “The obverse may also be true; a Mexican bounty hunter moonlighting as a magician is just as cool.” And so more tawdry comments ensued.

Inside, Melvin was indecisive: he knew he was the champion of his own work, and strove to keep his vision intact, but this review session threatened to throw him off-balance. Cossette’s idea did sound cool — it was a Hollywood pitch, and they had their own magical, capitalistic ring to them that he was attracted to. Should he be writing that instead?

He felt like he was both expanding and contracting at once.

A lure began to sing through his head, promising him that if he appealed to the masses he would have great success. He smiled, a little, at that, giving his classmates the impression that he was enjoying their riffs — a magical donkey named Pablo was now added to the mix — but he heard his Yaya’s voice tell him the story of how it really was, over and over again, and his smile vanished.

He waited for the ruckus to calm down, and added, quietly, “This was funny, everybody. Thank you. I’m just gonna keep it as it is, though.”

Cossette’s dying chuckles were the last sound in the room, as an enveloping silence began to charge through everyone’s nervous system. O. Shryer folded his arms and looked down at him. Melvin felt like he was being forced to shrink.

“I’m fascinated,” began Shryer, unironically. “I’ve sat in diners and restaurants with writers who would’ve outwritten, not to say outclassed, everyone in this room. Not one of them would’ve said what you just said.”

Melvin’s mind felt like a jumble of written notes all presented together, with the correct response hidden within them. An orderly part of him would’ve preferred to extract, note by note, an order to which he would’ve preferred, and elucidated the proper joust. His life was far from that kind of lucky, however; he never had any real time.

He merely accepted the mess in his head, swallowed, and countered with: “But that’s how it was.”

After Shryer stared at him for a solid beat, he pouted, as if to say “Alright, if that’s how you want it,” and nodded. “I hope you have other ideas for after you graduate, Nestor,” he began. “You might find it a little difficult to get published with that attitude.”

“But my name is not Nestor. It’s Melvin.”

Scattered laughter.

“And my name is not Shryer,” his teacher rebutted, “It’s Olyenski.”

Melvin wanted to press him, then. Just as much as Shryer — Olyenski — had pressed him, but he relented. When he saw Shryer take a swig of his Vitaminwater he knew the subject was closed — to be elaborated and discussed another time.

A final look from his professor confirmed that.

He felt sad for him, briefly. Was he belittled in those dinners he mentioned? Those informal sessions? What Nobel Laureate — if any — had casually mocked him for his name, and eternally destroyed a part of Olyenski’s sensible identity? At what point was O. Shryer thereby birthed, to play the game and now assured to be taken seriously?

The game of success, then, felt vastly more dangerous now, more than just a bag of money that would, or would not, one day fall onto Melvin’s lap.

II.

He secretly smoked on his tramp to the subway.

He had done it in high school but his parents caught him and threatened him. He felt badly, then, and he felt worse sneaking it in-between transits.

He thought about his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, and the family tree he knew expanded in every direction, but could not recognize the fruit on many of its branches.

Where was he on that tree?

He had recently read an excerpt from Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, how a man who knew his family and ancestry would be pressed to make a name for himself once he knew his heritage. Melvin never thought about that before, but he supposed he knew some version of that truth when he wondered about his family’s exploits all over the world.

He spit. Guy can’t even remember my name properly. How can I even begin to make a name for myself when someone is already making another name for me? He spit again. He felt the rage against a hidden wall, long erected, and long expected to stand, keeling over him and crushing him, just by being in its mere shadow.

He viciously tossed his cigarette and lit another one.

Something about triggering the fire empowered him, even for a second. He didn’t know where he was going, and he felt that by sitting down, and, even writing, would help disentangle the chords entwined in his mind.

He sat on a marble retaining wall, squaring a corporate plaza, and extracted his files.

He kept a blue folder where he had stored his thesis drafts. He withdrew the copies kept there, closed the folder behind them, and placed the blank side of the papers above the closed folder atop his lap.

He removed a ballpoint pen from his inner pocket.

Almost immediately, the ink began to flow, like an opened vein, onto the page. At first, no words, at least no English words, manifested.

The lines he made with his pen seemed spasmed, arrhythmic, straying, as if his conscious mind was trying to spell out a drawing it was trying to interpret but could not entirely see.

He turned the page to the next blank sheet.

The words came easier now — Los hombres no existen — but he couldn’t consciously grasp the rest of it.

How many times had that happened?

When he had a good line in mind, and his perception was clear, some manifested interest invaded it with impunity whenever possible, and robbed him of the thought.

There must be a treasure trove of such lost thoughts, he mused…

And there he had it — an idea for a story.

Immediately, the inner pressure to succeed and define himself in this reality was released — he had an idea!

What if there was a mental parasite that was really an idea thief, and this thief went about plucking the ideas of others, occasionally in mid-thought, so he could collect them and cherish them… perhaps even sell them?

He already had a name for an idea collector — Grubmann, or Grumman — that the thief would occasionally present his plunder to.

Where would such idea thieves live? He cocked an eye at the skyscrapers towering over him.

It wasn’t a bad idea at all, overall, and his mind flexed as he played, mapping out spaces of the story he didn’t know existed, and flowing with it until he ended at a corner —

For the first time, he dropped his pen.

His mind retreated to the events earlier in the day, and the arriving doubt that eclipsed his confidence of his great-grandfather’s story, called La Parada.

Would he have rewritten it to accommodate the ideas of the class? To incorporate Pablo, the magic mule?

Nestor, you’re going to have a hard time getting published with that attitude.

Ash fell on his pages.

He had forgotten the cigarette in his mouth. When he reached for another cigarette he realized he was in a real mess, and tossed the first one away.

He finally quieted and stared at the papers on his lap.

When he looked up, a doorman for the plaza he had briefly occupied asked him to leave.

Simultaneously, across the street, entering another skyscraper, was a vivacious woman he had recognized from his class named Leslie.

She had fiery red hair, and had worked for an executive named Lear who had encouraged her to write. She talked as if she was connected, and befriending her usually meant you were accepted, by extension, into her clique.

Her and Cossette gossiped all the time.

Melvin observed her stride and bright smile, as if she was a stock photo for a fashion magazine.

Immediately, indelicately, he wondered if Leslie’s world wasn’t his own.

He wondered if he could occupy that corporate sphere, move in it like a dolphin in tropical waters, be regarded in it like a champion of his craft, rather than a hack.

When he had stood automatically at the orders of the doorman, he had arrived at a dismaying answer.

He should stand up to him, and not be treated like this.

He glanced at Leslie across the street, and she had disappeared behind the gleam of revolving doors. The pain and the embarrassment were almost too much to bear — he had, momentarily, entertained the notion of waving at Leslie to gain her attention, and prove to the man that he wasn’t like anyone else. He had the right to be here, practicing his craft, like she did, across the street.

When he was on the bus ride home that night, he imagined productions being spearheaded, words applied to pages, outlines produced and refined, financing acquired, and options offered and accepted.

The towering oil refineries that were his sentinels on the way home to Elizabeth, New Jersey, welcomed him; the forerunners to the familiar suburban blocks he had grown up with, and had altered his DNA.

He would see the same grubby, tired faces stand up in the crowded gloom, press the REQUEST STOP button like they were initiating a nuclear missle strike, and proceed to their doom — the havoc, and tyranny of living another day the same way.

He reached upward above his seat and accepted the same fate.

When he exited the circulated air of the bus and would touch the cool, tainted New Jersey winter breeze, he would feel partial relief — he would have another opportunity to get it right.

If not now, then, maybe…

When he neared his house in the dark he smelled Yaya’s cooking and almost broke down.

It was seven-thirty.

To think, he wondered, surviving the crossing of continents to eventually yield a grandson who can’t even make a name for himself forty-five minute away.

O. Shryer’s words and the mockery from his class robbed him of any vitality he had left; he felt like such a fool.

He walked past his house and towards a nearby park, instead.

He saw a guy he knew was a drug dealer, but didn’t bother him.

He found a bench with peeling paint, sat on it, and fingered the cracks there.

Soon, he realized he was peeling the paint, as well, and his brain, needing a habit, however inane, became pleased.

When he finally arrived home he saw a note from his Yaya stating that she had cooked pork steaks with fries.

Please put them in the oven because the microwave never cooks them right. We love you. You work hard. We miss you. Yaya and your parents.

He already heard his dad’s snoring. The rest of the place was dark.

He ate very late.

III.

When uneasy, obligated rest arrived, his consciousness was veritably draped by nightmares; all the things he would never be, or couldn’t be, thanks to the hidden quirks of his personality that held him back.

He didn’t want to write, not anymore. What good would that do? People didn’t even read — they were probably chased out of that in grammar school, and never wanted to look back. Could they be blamed? They just wanted to live their lives, free from any books.

The migraines tap danced through his frontal lobes, then strafed to his temples. He had a fear of looking at his alarm clock. An old, cruel game was being played there — the longer he kept his eyes shut and honestly attempted to sleep, the longer the hours would seem.

An inner tension worked through him — he was to catch the bus back north again in merely a few hours.

He couldn’t afford to oversleep — the hustle for work started again.

When he finally couldn’t keep the charade up any longer, he threw back his blankets, and surrendered to the alarm clock.

Hours had passed by.

In mere minutes, it seemed, he would have to start the reverse process of what brought him to bed, it seemed, merely minutes ago.

He moaned — loudly — into his pillow.

The idea of pushing himself up again to start the day — or merely continue the one he already started, drained his lifeblood.

I can’t keep doing this to myself if there’s no progress. I have to take a step back.

Yeah, just by giving up. Just by calling it quits.

His body felt both relieved and saddened at the thought.

It physically felt as though he was giving up a whole meal after realizing he couldn’t continue eating it by himself, while still wanting to savor it all, every bite.

But I could fall into other traps, his brain, now accepting of the surrender, mentioned.

He was now too tired to care, and his soul body began to drift...

When he finally, legitimately, passed out, he afterwards felt like a drunk on a street corner — a reprobate to all who would see him, but oblivious to anything but his own desires.

He didn’t remember the dreams that followed, and wasn’t disciplined enough, not at that state, to write them down.

When he awakened, his body felt legitimately rested, yet, the pernicious dread of being uncertain of his own future lingered.

For a long moment, he relished being beneath his covers, away from the big world, and in his own.

He dreaded stepping outside his front door every morning.

Elizabeth, at times, felt like an unruly beast that would attack you if you glanced at it the wrong way.

Maybe that’s why he kept his head down, hood up, and earphones plugged in constantly, like a technomonk.

When he opened the door he found the house empty.

Yaya and his mother had probably went to the market, and his father to work.

He shuffled to the bathroom and began his day.

When he arrived at the Lincoln Tunnel, he found himself wondering who some of the people sitting around him might be — something that normally never happened, since strangers seemed in abundance, otherwise.

Would one of these people be his ticket to success?

Some accidental meeting that seemed obvious in hindsight, like fate, that would clear the storm clouds and reaffirm the notion that the universe was conspiring to help, rather than destroy, him?

Maybe, but he had yet to believe that such an act could even be possible that day.

IV.

When he stepped off the bus at Port Authority, he still felt awry.

The place itself seemed almost completely empty. He double-checked his watch and date to confirm it wasn’t a holiday. Something was amiss.

Stepping onto Seventh Avenue, the early bloom of spring touched him — the distant, cold fear that had ridden on him like a grazing knife-edge dissipated in the promising air — for once, he felt like he was going to do something good, something worth his promise, and potential, that would —

Almost immediately, the same, mundane assurance of his inability twisted through him again, in his stomach, again, as if it was an assured knot itself.

The irony, of being innately good, at least, at worrying, almost slipped him by.

He thought he would return to the plaza and write again, potentially befriending the man who had evicted him, or perhaps he would finally capture Leslie’s attention, and explain in a pseudo-extemporaneous fashion what a surprise it was to run into her, and how he was coming from a pitch meeting with his agent, and how they should do lunch sometime...

Would he bullshit like that?

He felt a pang — he didn’t know how much money was left in his bank account, or his wallet.

He started to walk uptown, then paused, and changed course.

The sun had peeked at him from behind the teasing corners and gilt reflections — he was facing it now.

Anxiety gnarred at him from the side streets.

He saw brownstones repeating themselves from the west side, now on his right, as if an architect and a city planner had developed a kind of mutual stutter.

Inside, his insecurity was such that a baser level was reached, and he wondered whether he would ever have the tenacity and skill to purchase one of these homes one day. Suddenly, the possibility of immense wealth scared the shit out of him.

Moving downtown he continued to be wracked by nervousness.

It was as if the lessons of his relatively short life didn’t add up — nothing in him supplied the relevant information that would deeply connect him with the accomplishment of mundane, even superficial, tasks.

He needed a profound reason to be alive in this world, and the closest he ever came to fulfillment was to write stories.

He would write and write and, sometimes, he wouldn’t have shown anyone what he had written.

The few who had once learned of his talent encouraged him with love, but now, he felt as if there was something and someone missing from this process that would have otherwise spelled his success.

He needed to be observed, taken care of, motivated, and sheltered.

Maybe he should’ve opened a blog talking about his approach to writing; he wasn’t sure.

I need to write, he jonesed.

He followed Seventh Avenue to Madison Square Garden… and he didn’t cease there. He was called downtown for some reason, nagging at his memory.

There has to be a bookshop. Downtown. The Village. There were no bookshops in this part of midtown that could accommodate him.

He needed to isolate himself from the world.

Libraries were too open, by definition liberal.

He needed someplace that could detract the masses yet permit the respectful ones to work —

The right place, then, struck him immediately.

His mind screamed as he finally remembered it, all over again… astonished that, even now, he still occasionally forgot of the place’s existence.

V.

He remembered the introduction of his friend, Raul Castro Goyéz, to a leafy footpath off Bleecker Street the previous spring.

Melvin thought he would blow the man’s mind by taking him to an obscure spot no one else, for certain, would know — and he was not unsuccessful.

Even the footpath, reminiscent of Gay Street but not as publicized, seemed to hush footfalls as they had traversed it, the cobblestones so hoary with age, yet lush with life and colorful perennials, that it seemed a private property.

He was sure that not even the City knew of this place.

The winding path, at most times rigid, most times curving, lead to a number of fronts that were unmarked. Their green-silled windows were vaguely dirty; their doors always remained sealed — the doorknobs and locks like something out of medieval Europe than twenty-first century America.

Melvin knew for sure these houses belonged to people that he would never meet, living unimaginable, hidden lives, like characters in closed, unread books.

When he had introduced this place to his friend, Raul, the older man initially marveled. “I’ve gone to this city for years, and I’ve never heard of this place. It’s beautiful, it’s magical, it’s…”

The man’s excitement was palpable, and the street noises had died away. Utter quiet persisted here, and even the birds, with their flirting chirps, became more discreet.

The name of the street, Abrades Way, seemed curious. No churches, or cathedrals, seemed to occupy this space, but there was a feeling of uncanniness in the air… as if there was going to be a point in which anything could happen...

And that’s when a final bend would occur, and a hanging wooden sign which read Cressida and Tylus — Monkshop would appear, over a very prominent, and very welcoming, storefront.

Melvin couldn’t help but observe his friend’s reactions — Raul was in his sixties, a gay man, and though they had bonded over books and letters, there was no romantic spark from him Melvin felt he had to fight off.

They platonically respected each other’s taste and company… but there was something off about the older man. How he ended up going to college at his age he never properly explained, though Melvin, while curious, never felt comfortable asking what may have otherwise been an innocuous question.

He had secretly feared learning about Raul’s violent past, believing that just beneath his surface lurked a man who had too much time stolen from him, and that one more swipe may very well be the breaking point where all hell would break loose.

And Melvin feared that he was becoming just like him.

That nervous feeling at the base of his spine flowered again, as if it was a petal shivering in a darkened cell.

He felt rudderless, but in control, even then.

Raul looked at him eagerly. “Let’s go.”

Melvin raised a hand.

He first remembered when he stumbled onto the place, during his freshman year, thinking this was at first a quaint bookshop, but turned out to be utterly wrong.

“This is not like other places,” he warned him.

Raul’s scorched face — years of drinking through late nights, seemingly inexhaustible parties with questionable company — studied him.

“Is it like a library?”

“No, it’s much more than that.”

“A book club,” Raul guessed.

Melvin pointed up to the sign. Monkshop swung gently in the barest perceptible spring breezes.

“Is it liike…,” Raul began, “where they sell robes and bibles?”

Melvin laughed.

“Nah, it’s none of that.”

Raul’s eyes, childlike in their wonder, gazed up and down the storefront again.

“What is this place?” Melvin heard him whisper.

A few years ago, upon first entering the shop, Melvin was immediately introduced to the giant shopkeeper who ran it, named Siller.

He had a prolonged reach that accentuated his enormous height and presence — he immediately reminded Melvin of Lurch from The Addams Family.

Entering the store — and contrary to Siller’s funereal presence — the air seemed fresh and flower-scented, a delicate fa?ade: from the entrance, the water fountain and courtyard were visible beyond a gallery of white picture windows; cafe tables spotted the area before it, before standing bookshelves began to steal the visitor’s attention away to the rest of the store — books, books, and more books — decidedly unmarked, handsomely bound skins of variable colors and textures (Melvin thought of old photo albums).

Shelves descended from the ceiling like monastic chandeliers, each ledge populated with similar works.

The books everywhere seemed to shine, as if they showcased the resourceful spirit of humanity within their very binds.

They shone so much, it was as if they were all crying out to them.

Forget about how to search those radiating stacks — ladders were nowhere to be immediately found, perhaps hidden by Siller in order to provoke a conversation.

Ornate gaslights were affixed to the brickwork, illuminating otherwise darkened corners and making the strange place accessible.

A dizzying spiral staircase twisted towards an upper level, marked Mysteries & Secrets by a ubiquitous wooden sign followed by a slanted arrow.

A few steps away from the entrance, and the pleasant scent of burning wood and freshly cut pages entered their nostrils.

Welded ironwork twisted through the place as if it were the fossilized spine of a gigantic carnivore. Further books had sprouted from shelves there like scales.

Beneath them all, the wooden floors were well-treaded, and dulled by countless visiting soles. The odd notch and scratch pocked the floor, and a worn red carpet obscured these blemishes, bringing the place’s age into focus, and communicating all the immediately observable details together.

The result, as Melvin had noticed on his first visit, was an incredibly dark charm — the kind of place that one should find in an obscure corner of the city; present in time, yet remaining outside of it. Gothic, but not taken seriously.

There was a plaque in the place embossed with letters he could not read, and preferred not to.

“Holy shit,” Raul said. “This — ” he interrupted himself. “Holy shit…” he began again, holding his head.

Melvin wondered if Raul had been feeling what he himself had been experiencing — he wanted to disappear into the shop’s alcoves for infinity.

He hadn’t known, of course, that was the point.

“I wonder where Siller is,” he said. “He’s the owner.”

A grave voice pronounced. “I am merely the shopkeeper.”

Ahead of them, to their left, was a waist-high, circular desk, partially obscured by the merchandise.

The iron ornamental motif was continued here, as twisting black bars descended in a semi-circular fashion from the underside of the top floor, hanging directly above the desk front.

The effect looked, curiously, of an oversized Gothic birdcage that had been opened.

They felt the thick wooden floorboards beneath their shoes tremble with the impact of a heavy footfall, then another, then another.

Suddenly, Siller appeared from behind the bookcase nearest the iron desk, towering above it at nearly seven feet, Melvin reckoned. Maybe even eight.

If this guy ever got into professional basketball, he thought, his career path might’ve been dramatically different.

Siller was dramatically pale — just a shade darker than albino.

His sweeping dark eyebrows and ashen crew cut hair lent itself to explore the rest of his stature — clothed in an undertaker’s black suit. Indeed, the guy felt to Melvin like the guardian of the underworld, and that this place, the Monkshop, was one of its private, secret entrances.

(Entrance was such a strange word. Entrance. Entrance. En trance.)

“Hello, Siller,” Melvin said, friendly-like.

He felt horribly awkward calling him that, like an employee; not knowing if it was his first name or last name, especially after the giant had previously told him to not say “Mr. Siller.”

Siller turned to Raul expectedly.

“Hello…” his deep voice presumed.

“H-hello,” Raul said, breathlessly.

Siller turned his massive frame toward Melvin.

“Back so soon…?” his voice rumbled.

Melvin blanched a little.

He told Siller at their last farewell, two years ago, that he would return shortly, but the place, he learned, had a curious habit of dropping from his memory all too frequently — like it wasn’t important, or didn’t want to be remembered.

Each time it had occurred to him to travel to the Monkshop, he would have something else to do, then something else, then something else…

After his return visit with Raul, he would forget about it, yet again.

Melvin couldn’t stop himself from slightly bowing. “Y-yes, I’m sorry — ”

The giant closed his eyes and raised his hand. He shook his head. “You’ve returned,” he eventually said. “Now.”

“I wanted to show my friend this place,” Melvin explained. “He said he’s seen everything in this city.”

“No,” Raul stared, slack-jawed. “Not everything.”

Siller narrowed his smoky dark eyes back at Melvin. “This is not a tourist destination — it’s hallowed ground.”

Melvin was obsequious. “I’m sorry, yet again. We don’t mean to offend. You have a very unique place.”

“Yes,” Raul echoed, reactively.

Melvin felt the giant’s smoky gaze disassemble him. He felt like he was looking into two strange magenta-gray orbs, hypnotizing him, and the effect was immediate into his soul.

An angry voice raged from inner depths: Why do I feel like I’m the only one who is attacked? I study, I rage, and I feel like I’m the only one who does all the heavy lifting.

I still feel a burden in my soul. As if I can’t live up to the ridiculous expectations of the masses —

Suddenly, something clicked. He felt that all too infrequent emotion, clarity, lift through the darker veils of his head.

He realized the masses were either engineered to be perceived as dumb, obvious burdens, or they really were that, and he had to culture his expectations to that of the mindless throng.

No one wanted to recognize him because he always wanted to cultivate an experience for others, the brainless masses, and none of them would recognize it, or their superficial expectations would change, perhaps admiring his work, then hating it, then forgetting all about it, vaguely, then dying.

The pursuit was utterly vain and useless, and Melvin didn’t know why he persisted.

When his brain fog on this matter had lifted, he locked eyes with Siller as he was pulling away, a neutral expression on the giant’s otherwise cold face — no, there was the slightest, slightest suggestion of acknowledgement there.

Within seconds the man had dislodged a part of Melvin’s brain that had remained preconfigured for the longest time… longer than Melvin could even remember.

VI.

It had reminded him of the first time they met, and, when inquiring about any books on writing, Siller looked at him, and the thought, guilty and angst-ridden, strummed up from his subconsciousness, as if it was a reflex: I always feel guilty when I present my work — why? And why, when I started to take my work more seriously, did people turn away from it — and me?

He shook. Another terrifying thought followed the first:

What is the true definition of “the little man”?

Is the man who holds onto his ideas and is derided for them little?

Is the man who saves himself and not others little?

When the mass defines citizenship as merely thinking of others, and providing for them, does that mean individualism is derided?

When can the individual point back at the mass, and, with the glimmer of Luciferian rebellion in his eye, rightly say, and acknowledge: “No. You’re wrong. And when I’m martyred for it, you’ll know I’m right.”

He had to throw up, and then another horrible thought:

Both, maybe, Lucifer and Christ, were martyrs.

It was this last thought that shook him profoundly.

He had to sit down.

He never thought of himself as overtly religious — muted these feelings when he entered college, in fact, as liberal arts had the impression of promoting rationality, but was itself, instead, a mere platitude.

But a large part of him was influenced by the Catholicism that had survived in his family, no matter how much he tried to deny it to himself and others.

Hearing those old names again, arising from a sentence spoken from within himself, aggrieved him.

He thought if Yaya were to find out he compared her savior with her enemy, he would be truly cast into the world without returning.

He looked, he imagined, utterly pale.

“Are you alright,” Siller had asked him. He had leaned down to study him.

When Melvin caught the stranger’s glance again he instinctively looked away. “I don’t want to see your face,” he said, reactively, surprised and even ashamed of his rudeness. He couldn’t help it. “When I do I get bad thoughts.”

He didn’t see Siller’s reaction to this statement, but he did hear perplexity in the giant’s voice: “It… is something I cannot control, yet has given mostly everyone who has heard it since… solace.”

He paused.

“Don’t you want solace?”

“Yes,” Melvin said at that first meeting, years ago. “I want solace. I want solace and comfort so badly. But I do not deserve them. I have done nothing to earn them. Others say I must fight, or strive, to attain the true value of —”

“SOLACE DOES NOT ARISE FROM EMPTY WORDS,” the giant roared.

Melvin felt like a scared puppy — he felt this was how he was going to die; young and killed by a madman — the bookstore was just an elaborate ruse for murders — lure booktypes into a shop and murder them, one by one.

Less of their ilk running around.

Judging by his own stupidity, Melvin completely agreed.

The giant lifted his arms and presented his bookstore. “True words are here. Didn’t you see the sign outside?”

“Monkshop,” Melvin spluttered. “Taylor and Cressida’s.”

Siller tilted his head. “No,” he began, “the other sign.”

“What?” Melvin said. Did he enter the wrong place? Was Taylor and Cressida’s upstairs? Or down? What was this man talking about? Melvin felt he should’ve been in Old Quebec, instead.

Anywhere but here.

The giant marched to the front door — closing his eyes, suddenly Melvin felt an image of an old wooden sign, a blackboard, propped up against the front door, enter his mind.

In a keen, chalk-written hand, the words “True words are here.” was etched onto the board.

He witnessed the giant bound up the steps, throw open the front doorway, and bound down the opposite side, outdoors. He heard a frustrated yell, then the booming footfalls tramped up the outside stairs. The man appeared at the doorway again, dotted with raindrops, slapping open the door.

“It’s there, but hidden,” he growled. “Broken.”

Melvin almost missed the sign carried in the giant’s fist — the very same as what he had imagined moments before.

Did he somehow miss it consciously?

“True words here, and here only,” the enormous man said aggressively. “These books you won’t find anywhere else. They’re true.”

Melvin had reacted, “So is this like an antique philosophical bookstore?” He noticed all the books were bound, and not many of them looked old, however.

“Hardly,” the giant nonchalantly tossed the sign into Melvin’s arms. He stomped in the direction of the iron desk.

As Melvin began to hear rummaging, the giant called out, “All these works were written by the men who have stayed here to commemorate their own lives. Many write down their life stories, to be collected and displayed here, for the curious guest. These are the truest works ever written. No oversight. No compulsion. Sheer honesty. Not all of them are in English, many of them are in hidden, unknown tongues. The Men of the Shop review them, and go out into the world to confirm them. The authors have the choice of remaining here. Many do.”

The giant reappeared from behind the desk, fastidiously pinching away dust bunnies attached to his jacket. Melvin didn’t fail to notice a tool box in the grasp of the giant’s other hand.

“Many don’t,” he continued. “What we offer them is merely the infinite amount of time and space to accomplish their goals.”

He set down the toolbox on a crowded table, pushing aside a multi-volume arrangement, and opened it.

The toolbox, Melvin observed, reminded him of his grandfather’s — heavy, rusted braces on the outside, and oaken, like it was a thing of heraldic legend.

You don’t need anything but a good toolbox in life, Yayo once told him. Friends, women, money leave. But if you keep the toolbox, you’ll be alright.

Siller retrieved an ancient screwdriver and some screws. They respectively looked like a twig and some paper clips in his massive hands.

“How,” Melvin asked. “How do they write here for so long?”

An amused expression lightened the features on the giant’s stiff face. “We are a monkshop, we provide our services,” he stated matter-of-factly. He could’ve just as similarly said “It is raining.” or “I am a giant.”

“But how,” Melvin continued.

The giant plucked the sign from his lap and turned towards the door.

Melvin tagged along. He briefly thought about the David Fincher film The Game with Michael Douglas. An organization social engineers a wealthy man’s life in order to execute his surprise birthday party. Could it be that Troilus & Cressida — he looked up at the sign as he followed the big man outside, and realized it was Cressida & Tylus, instead — had massive resources, but merely looked like a boutique hole-in-the-wall?

“Our methods remain a trade secret,” Siller dismissed. “Even to our clients, who discover our ways — and freely speculate about them — later. Close the door.”

Melvin had quickly stepped aside and shut the shop entrance.

The enormous man had taken a step backwards and studied the storefront.

“Please come next to me,” he then requested.

Melvin proceeded next to him.

“There,” he declared, and in two motions he stepped up the stairs once again, slipping the signboard from out beneath his arm, and adjusting it on an empty brickface. “Is it level,” he glanced back at him.

Melvin squinted. “A little low. On the right.”

The giant adjusted it further.

“A little less.”

When the sign was flush, he stopped him.

The giant, as if he was pricking a freshly baked loaf of bread with a safety pin, twisted four screws easily into the sign’s turquoise frame.

He retrieved his screwdriver and tightened each of them home into the bricks by hand. No machine was necessary.

“You are a writer,” the giant declared, suddenly. “Would you like to be a monk?”

Who asks that, Melvin laughed. “No, it is not the life for me.”

“Why not,” the giant bluntly asked.

“Because I love the world,” Melvin said, “and I want to experience it wholly — without religious devotion.”

The giant turned towards him. The mildest beads of sweat dewed his forehead. Like puddles on a white bowling ball, Melvin’s thoughts went.

“You do not need religion,” the giant maintained. “All you need is truth.”

“I don’t know about that…”

“I do,” the giant held the door open for him. “When you looked into my eyes, what did you feel?”

Melvin shook. He knew the answer the giant wanted.

Siller nodded knowingly. “It is inside you, but deep.”

“Oh. Ohhh I get it,” Melvin pointed at him as if he told a sly joke. How he was so comfortable with this stranger he didn’t somehow process. “So do I look into your eyes as I write? Is this a pedophile thing?”

The giant Siller’s face remained utterly humorless. “No.”

He paused.

“You are to write in your own personal space — a quarter, it is what we call it. You will age, but you will be given an expansive, generous time to write. An unlimited amount of time, if you so choose, limited by your own health. Your own connections to the world. By your own fears.”

Melvin’s heart started to notice the implications of this “too good to be true”-type offer. He couldn’t stop himself from asking what he had already asked before: “How?”

Siller turned around and entered the store.

“We are a monkshop,” he repeated. “We provide our services…”

The door had gently closed behind him. Melvin indulged in the briefest of pauses before he chased after him.

VII.

Melvin had returned on his second visit to the place escorted by his friend, Raul, two years later.

The giant shopkeeper Siller had proposed the same arrangement to them both.

When Raul had asked “What do you mean if I want to be a monk?” Siller replied with “To engage in your work infinitely, at your own pace, and be undisturbed by the trials of the outside world.”

Raul stared at him, unsure if he understood what he was hearing.

“What you mean like I won’t leave?”

“You may come and depart as you please,” spoke the giant.

“How will nobody stop me then? You got security up in this?”

The giant wordlessly reached into his jacket and withdrew an elongated iron key. It almost appeared like a ladle, it was so long. Angling it a little further, the two visitors noticed —

“This is a skeleton key. It will permit me to enter or lock your quarters as I see fit. If anyone dares to interrupt your hermitage, they will be ejected.”

The key dangled at the end of an iron chain. There were other keys, Melvin noticed, of various states, styles, and colors. Something about observing this motley array began to give him a headache.

Raul’s bugging eyes met with Melvin’s, and then he returned to the giant’s. “Y’all can keep anybody out, huh?” He keenly tried to observe the muscles under the giant’s clothes. “By yourself?” He threw Melvin another quick glance.

Siller returned the keychain to his pocket.

“This guy has certain… talents,” Melvin advised his friend, distractedly, “that I’ve only gotten glimpses of.”

“Well, as my Mami says, such is life,” Raul flirted.

“This is a rare opportunity,” Siller stated. “Perhaps you’d care for a demonstration.”

Raul weakly tried to hide a smile.

Melvin had been curious, however.

Life, such as it’s been since his freshman year, had changed him enough to be intrigued by this proposal, rather than be spooked by it.

Perhaps Siller had not offered him a personal demonstration, at the time, sensing his ineptitude, or immaturity.

It was like entering New York City from the Lincoln Tunnel, and having to contend with pedestrians and bumper-to-bumper traffic on Forty Second Street, suddenly, after driving unimpededly by highway — inexperienced drivers need not apply.

Since then, Melvin had earned some mileage.

“What do you suggest,” he asked the shopkeeper.

“One of you, preferably the older, will be accompanied to a room upstairs. The other will stay here. I shall return and spend forty-five minutes exactly here, then will return to retrieve you.”

“I need my insulin shot,” Raul advised. “If I’m the guinea pig can I be in there for five minutes instead of forty-five?”

In an unexpected gesture of acquiescence, the giant bowed his head.

“You will be free to move however you like, but please be advised that time, itself, proceeds differently in the quarters than it does in outside reality.”

Raul listened to him. “Why you got snakes on the floor or something? Something to make me forget time’s passing faster or slower now that I can’t notice it?”

He glanced at his friend. “This is some real Einstein shit right now.”

Siller had already turned away, not toward the prominent spiral stairway to their close left, but backwards, beyond the iron desk, and the shelves and cafe tables further to the rear of the shop.

“Consider yourself advised,” he warned. “One minute can feel like one hour for some, one year for others. Once you start upstairs with me, you can see for yourself.”

“I don’t want to go upstairs with him,” Raul said.

“Do you want to leave,” Melvin asked. He gestured to the exit.

They watched the giant turn and disappear out of their collective view.

Melvin detected a kind of longing curiosity in his friend’s gaze. He knew the feeling of being at the edge of something weird.

For a moment, he debated taking his friend’s place, until Raul called out, “No, no I’ll go. I want to see this. If I get killed or raped tell my story to the world.”

He started to hustle after the shopkeeper.

Raul turned where the shopkeeper had turned, leaving Melvin behind. He heard Raul’s paces disappear into the heavy stomping of Siller’s weight progressing up an out-of-view staircase.

Both their footfalls eventually disappeared into the recesses of the building.

An uncanny quiet, similar to the feeling he had approaching this place, began to envelop him. His ears could then make out distant, muffled speech, coming from the men upstairs.

Melvin set himself down.

He wasn’t nervous here, not anymore, but he was… anticipating something. Like this was the kind of thing that he would experience and talk about again someday.

He heard muffled laughter from above him — Raul’s, no doubt. Then a complementary voice — the giant’s.

Then he heard nothing, and the uncanny silence began to propagate the air again.

For one straight moment, all the glowing books, the Monkshop’s uncanny denizens, seemed to share the emotional charge of the place, as if —

A door shut, powerfully, from upstairs.

Many anxious minutes passed.

Then, heavy footfalls began to increase in prominence.

They seemed to be coming from the third floor, judging by the high ceilings of this place, capping the tops of the spiral staircase-bound second floor.

Upon the giant’s descent to the main floor, Melvin shot to his feet.

When Siller appeared, a quiet contentment excited his monolithic features.

“Your friend is a monk,” he stated.

Before Melvin could react, the shopkeeper continued.

“It is strange,” he began, with uncharacteristic casualness. “Not everyone is uniform. He will begin his descent here very quickly.”

When asked why, the Monkshop keeper remarked, “Time will flow very fast for him. That quarter has always been a little excitable…”

Pretty soon they heard a scream, and the door opened, and footsteps began to rapidly descend downstairs.

Then they just as abruptly stopped, and returned, they sounded, upstairs again.

Melvin knew it was Raul, and he wondered what his friend had experienced.

Both he and the giant expectedly awaited the man’s return downstairs.

When Raul finally appeared, he looked deeply startled, sleepless, and when he and Melvin locked eyes, the level of fear and confusion in them were real.

“I started writing,” Raul began his story, “and when I did I just started going. I usually need music when I write, but the silence helped me.”

He stared at the big man. “I was in there for three days when you said it would be five minutes.”

“But it’s only been about that long,” Melvin insisted, hardly believing it, himself. “How do you know it’s been three days?”

Raul exchanged a quick glance at the giant. “He would come up and tell me.”

Melvin puzzled. “But… he’s been with me the whole time.”

Raul snickered. “It was him. I recognized him. Then, turning to the giant, “You got a twin, buddy?”

The giant raised his head and addressed them. “Our methods remain a trade secret,” he began by rote. “Even to our clients, who discover our ways — and freely speculate about them — later.”

Melvin was stunned. He looked at Siller, whose face had already assumed the diplomatic tightness of keeping a state secret.

Knowing that they would not get far, now, with the shopkeeper, their moods had changed.

Raul pushed past them both and headed up the short stairs through the main entrance.

Melvin stared at their uncanny host.

Siller stated, in a grave tone, “He will return.”

“Three days,” Melvin said. “He’s diabetic. How did he take his insulin?”

Siller remained tightlipped.

Melvin nodded. “As this is a service, how much would that stay have cost him, if it wasn’t a freebie?”

Siller gave a quick glance upward. “He may have already deposited an advance.”

Melvin felt like he was playing bingo at a chess tournament.

Raul was already hustling uptown across Bleecker when Melvin caught up with him.

Raul snapped his arm away from his friend the moment he was touched. He bumped into other pedestrians, further frustrating him.

“I can’t now, I can’t,” he alerted Melvin.

Melvin forced himself to remember that, to Raul, three days of his life had passed, while to himself, it had barely been ten minutes.

“Did he give you insulin?”

“Go home.”

Raul kept his pace steadily, staring ahead of them every so often to correct it. He didn’t attempt to connect with Melvin at all.

“But what about the writing,” Melvin persisted. “You said you got something done — ”

“GODDAMN YOU, YOU LITTLE SHIT — ” Raul screamed. He reeled and pushed him; Melvin almost crashed into a crate of frozen fish.

“That’s all you fucking care about, getting shit done, writing, writing? Are you fucking insane, bro? Are you shitting me right now?”

Melvin backed away further, careening into an open doorway he didn’t register lead into a restaurant. His right elbow bounced off a tempered glass window.

Raul, in his better moments, came across as youthful, maybe even innocent, now there was an undeniable ferocity in his eyes.

He had once told Melvin that, when he was younger, he had joined a street gang. He had gone to jail for them for over twenty-five years before being released. When he had gotten out, everybody seemed to have forgotten about him.

The long sleeping tiger, it seemed, had now awakened.

He had raised a fist when Melvin threw his arms up in the air before him. “I’m sorry — I’M SORRY — “

He threw a punch.

It landed stiffly and impacted Melvin’s left bicep. It began to smart immediately; Melvin grunted. He didn’t realize he was sweating.

“Stay AWAY from me, understand — “ Melvin was moaning — “UNDERSTAND?” Melvin looked up at him — “I understand.”

Raul pulled up on his studded belt buckle, and cast a predatory stare at the onlookers around him. He began to swagger up the street again, directing hard, dominating looks back at his former friend.

Melvin found himself sitting on a dining chair, panting and holding his sore arm.

He watched Raul saunter off, chest out, declaring that Melvin was a “bitch”, and “the little things” he did, like writing, “wasn’t worth a shit.”

Melvin wanted to scream at him, but thought it was best to let the guy have his victory.

He wondered if this would have happened if he had not taken Raul to the Monkshop…

He looked down the street, half-expecting Siller’s monumental form to be sprinting after him, finding Raul to be in-violation of breaking an ancient Monkshop code, or something, but no one appeared.

He thought about returning there, but then thought against it.

He took a few minutes, and turned towards taking the subway to Port Authority Bus Terminal once more.

Regret, pain, Standing Room Only, NJ Turnpike, Elizabeth, nuclear strike, Yaya, home, food.

It was, then, just another day.

VIII.

Beyond that, he only saw Raul in class three times more.

Each time he did, Raul looked increasingly aged, and haggard.

O. Shryer summoned up a modicum of concern for him, believing him a relic from the nineteen-seventies or -eighties New York era, associating him with the early gay rights movement and AIDS epidemic, without Raul ever previously speaking to anything of that effect in class.

They raised a small fund for him, but Melvin didn’t donate. He wasn’t surprised Shryer remembered Raul’s name.

After the third class, Melvin knew he wouldn’t see Raul again.

The older man, now too proud to discuss the day they went to the Monkshop together, only gave him the briefest of considerations when Melvin stopped him in the hall.

“I know what you’re doing, and you’re killing yourself,” Melvin had said.

After a weak pause, Raul Castro Goyéz, now an old man in less than a month since their first visit, regarded him with glistening, hooded eyes, and spoke, softly, in Spanish: “Pero ahora me recordarán, mijo.”

But now they will remember me, my son.

He gently padded his shoulder, and shuffled past him.

The year ended with no word of his condition or whereabouts.

People complained about their “stolen” donations.

IX.

Melvin didn’t visit the Monkshop until a year later, his final year, after he had written La Parada about his great-grandfather, and had the incident with O. Shryer.

He had been restless that night, believing his future was largely headed nowhere, and gave up on his dreams of being a successful writer — if only to have a good night’s rest.

He had returned to the city the next day, refreshed, if aimless.

Amazingly, he did not think of the strange place since last year, and when, in growing desperation, he wondered where he should go to write, the Cressida and Tylus — Monkshop occurred to him, as it occasionally did, from seemingly nowhere.

He had approached the place like he had done that first time, with cloudy skies above him, and colorful buds accompanying the quiet path.

The anticipatory silence began to stir his spine, and when he rounded the bend, he saw it, unchanged, like a beloved crush from high school who hadn’t aged a day.

The wooden sign, creaking gently in a barely perceptible breeze, and the sign he had assisted Siller install, reading “True words are here.”, were both present.

Oddly, he felt right at home.

When he stepped up and tried the white storm door, it yielded even easier to his grasp; maybe Siller had oiled it recently.

The smells hit him all at once, as they did twice before: the cultured bouquets, cut pages, and burning wood.

The iron, gothic inspiration was still intact.

He still saw the flowing fountain in the courtyard visible from across the way, astonished he hadn’t explored it in previous visits, and wondering why he hadn’t even explored the stacks, either.

The wonders — and dangers — of this place seemed to exceed his curiosity.

He walked towards the Iron Desk, expecting to see Siller’s immense form, calling out to him, but seeing nothing but a dark easy chair behind the counter, empty.

He called out to Siller again, and finally he heard the large stomps pounding the floor upstairs — the third, he had guessed — and waited to hear where the footfalls began to descend the stairway, located to the immediate left of the cafe, and the picture windows that were opened to the courtyard.

Melvin hustled over to the stairway, feeling like he was a child.

When the immense black dress shoes that seemed as large, and as dark, as burnt crocodile heads appeared, he knew Siller would be just the same, and he wasn’t disappointed.

But the large man that could be Lurch’s cousin arrived, anticlimactically, and regarded him dully.

Melvin panicked for a brief moment — maybe the man didn’t remember him.

They regarded each other, and Melvin had the strange feeling that they knew each other, or would come to know each other, well. It felt like he was looking at him through the wrong end of a telescope, knowing he was so close but perceiving him as though he was very far.

The giant’s grave voice announced, “Would you like to see your quarter?”

Melvin considered it very briefly.

“Yes, I would be honored to.”

The giant eyed Melvin’s bulging backpack. Melvin had purchased takeout food and pizza to last him three days on the way down. He also bought some toiletries. Going by what he had witnessed Raul experience, last year, he had no other sense of what happened beyond the closed doors.

Siller must’ve sensed his preparation.

“As a monk,” he intoned, “you’ll have no need of such things.”

“I’ll be taken care of,” Melvin articulated. “Fed?”

Siller stepped aside, allowing Melvin to ascend the otherwise dark, and, by the looks, creaking stairway, first.

It appeared narrow, and Melvin wondered how the giant managed to squeeze through the passage with such a large frame. Peeking upward, however, he saw the stairway’s ceiling had been removed, or considerably elevated.

Melvin took one last look at the ground floor, and the water fountain gushing in the courtyard, and said “Let’s go.”

Siller didn’t escort him to Raul’s room, for when Melvin had inquired about him, the giant merely said it was “in use.”

He lead him further down a darkened corridor, where, depending on the closed doors they would pass, would radiate strong heat or frigid cold. Songs and smells emitted, variably, from other portals, and there was one behind which a great number of people applauded and sounded like they were having a good time.

Was this a dorm?

Finally, the giant turned abruptly and ended at a door that, to Melvin, looked just like all the others.

He saw subtle markings carved on plates, but they were neither braille, numbers, or words.

In the darkness of the hallway, Siller appeared to be a monolithic slab, his immense forehead and brow cast a rhomboid shadow across his eyes and nose. His lips were tight and appeared sculpted. Only indifferent, atomic cold radiated from this man, like an idol of a forgotten god floating in perpetuity across the blackest of space.

Indifference, that’s what it is. Stone cold indifference.

“This is your quarter,” he spoke flatly.

When he didn’t reach for the door, Melvin did, and the moment he touched the old copper knob, worn to almost a bulb, the dark man spoke:

“Your term is infinity. You may leave whenever you like. All your needs may be provided, all your lusts may be fulfilled. You will only be a monk in the writing and dictating of your own life. The only terms, as set forth by the founders Cressida and her man, Tylus, is that you grant their Monkshop exclusive rights to your work for a corresponding time — that is infinity — and through variable perpetuity — that is through determined dimensions acknowledged or yet to be discovered, or divined; and universes, singular, multiple, or null — negative — styled with a particular, or unparticular, character of time, whether on an entropic, negentropic, or a to-be-determined currency. Cressida and Tylus will own all your work, and keep the entirety of the profits from any potential sale, or resale, pending any further, rare, renegotiation of terms, at their sole discretion. By opening this door, you imply consent to these terms.”

Melvin stared at him, his heart pounding against his chest.

He wasn’t expecting to negotiate — this was a trial run, wasn’t it? Members of his generation were never expected to negotiate — just accept everything at a fair price.

“It sounds like you want me to sell you my soul,” Melvin said, dry mouthed. He imagined seeing Satan, tapping his cloven hoof, and twirling his pitchfork, awaiting his arrival behind the closed door.

A voice — it always boiled down to that — told him to accept the deal, now.

That what luck that this had fallen into his lap in New York — the greatest city in the world — wasn’t it? To someone like you, doing what you do. An opportunity may not come like this ever again. You’ll do what must be done, and have everything — everything — provided for.

Take the deal.

Just see what happens.

Take the deal.

It was a nervous energy, going up his spine, that insisted he do it… but on the contrary, there was something missing.

Something was not entirely there, and he wondered what it was.

A litany of images came to him, then, similar to how he had seen the sign “True words are here.” in his imagination, years ago, while not actually seeing it yet in real life — he saw his life beyond the door, if he accepted the deal, entering a cosmic space that seemed only defined by his imagination, and nothing else.

He imagined a typewriter that had never broken, his fingers dedicated to the ivory keys and never slipping between them, enabling him to become an unknown master of his craft.

He would look outside, to the only window, and at first he would see the brickface of the neighboring building, but with a little imagination and will, he would change that: scenes of the sea, of a twilit paradise that would, itself, never change.

All possible due to the strange magic of the founders Cressida and Tylus, and their necessity to supply the life stories of others to those whom —

He stopped the flow of thoughts.

Suddenly he realized what this place was — a kind of cosmic prison, where he would put down the incredible details of his own life so those who had no souls of their own could digest them, in order to become him.

Empty souls, pretenders, coming close to experiencing life without ever having to live it.

He feared one of these imitations coming in to see his Yaya, inquiring after her day, feasting on her dinners, and contemplating violence against her, while Melvin himself would have already aged tremendously by then, eclipsing his grandmother’s maturity, and then dying, far beyond any of his family’s suspicions, in a matter of… hours? Minutes? Seconds?

But now they will remember me, my son.

Raul Castro Goyéz.

Melvin slowly lifted his hand off the worn out copper doorknob.

Siller didn’t move a muscle.

“I’m not going to accept your offer,” Melvin stated.

“Very well,” the giant accepted, dully.

He raised his arm back in the direction they had arrived.

That was it, Melvin thought.

They went back down, all the while anticipating the giant to swiftly push him down the steps, or snap his neck like a twig. He did nothing of the sort.

“Siller,” Melvin asked.

“Yes.”

“Who buys your books?”

The briefest of pauses.

“The books of the monks. Other monks,” Siller began. “They look for ideas… to renegotiate.”

“Anyone else?”

“Influential people from across time. They read. We offer quality product — true words — here.”

“Anyone else?”

“Strangers,” he said, mutedly. “Lost souls.”

He added the words “Interim people” almost above a whisper.

X.

When Melvin left New York and returned to his Yaya’s, he brought out the takeout food he kept stuffed in his bag, and told his grandmother to find needy people, or a food pantry, to donate it all.

His Yaya was chagrined, pointed to the food, and said, “?Ay Mijo! And I thought you didn’t like my cooking!”

He hugged her.

Who wouldn’t?

Cape May — Metuchen, NJ

June 3rd — 9th, 2022

The books of the monks, who lived above them, for infinity, so they claimed.