They Take From Us As We Sleep

“THEY TAKE FROM US AS WE SLEEP” had been sprayed on the overpass a year ago. The context of the words was not completely understood by anyone who drove under the statement, but a clear sense of agreement was felt by many of those who saw the vandal’s work. No one could say surely what had been lost over the last few or many years, but most would argue that some aspects of the world, once taken for granted, were now gone.

The town operated normally: people went to work, drank at bars, and played on the weekends, yet all were aware of changes. Unease took hold of many, Jack perhaps more so than most. He worked at the local athenaeum, where endless shelves of books and easy-to-use computer consoles were ready for scholars and casual readers to peruse for answers or escape.

On a sultry July day, as he got ready to depart the apartment block where he dwelt, he was once more suffused by a sense of loss, but awareness of what was gone escaped what thoughts he could garner towards the subject. As he drove under the overpass on the way to work, the large letters above resonated deeply.

Shortly thereafter, slumped at the Query? desk, where patrons of the athenaeum could go for answers, Jack felt as though he would be unable to help anyone, as he was enthralled by throes of doubt and the hard-to-express sense of loss. He remembered the plot of a book he had once read, about a crazed seaman who’d lost a leg to a fearsome pale whale, but could not recall the name of the book or the beast. Several searches of the computer systems for such a tale gave no succor to Jack’s addled sense of wrongness.

Supported by taxes, the athenaeum was open to all, and though most of the patrons were students from the nearby college, or older folks who’d come to pass the hours of post-work years among the peaceful atmosphere of the place, there were also those from the town’s lower rungs who chose to spend many of the hot summer days there as well. A place to learn, to amuse oneself, or shelter from the day’s heat, the athenaeum was a sanctuary nestled downtown among other structures. Many were devoted to governmental purposes, but nearby was the town’s densest assembly of shops and casual, fun endeavors to pursue.

By and large, those who entered what Jack saw as a hallowed temple of knowledge were respectful, and would not dare cause a scene. Some of the homeless veterans of The Second War Between the States had psyches addled by scenes and deeds of combat, but even they tended to stay subdued. For all the demons that haunted them, they knew a boon when presented to them, and understood the drawbacks of too hard a look at a present horse’s mouth. John Smythe was not so reserved. He was a former lawyer who no longer worked. He had chosen to surrender the attorney’s badge when a demented outlook took hold early.

Smythe wandered for hours among the stacks or tapped away at the bank of computers arranged not far from the Query? desk. He exuded how frustrated he was, always on a search for some book or fact that he once knew well but could now scarcely remember. He was yet respected among the townsfolk, and was treated generously by a largely composed populace, even when he’d make eye contact and start a ramble down a bunny-hole few could comprehend.

Known to show less decorum was Mad Hatty, who may not have always been mad, but was now, and seemed to care not a shred when the nasty schoolboys shouted at her, though Jack could not solace the thought that the words hurt her not. Whatever amount of tolerance was needed for Smythe, Hatty needed tenfold. She was a shouter and loud talker, and more than any other patron made Jack wander about and suss out the source of ruckuses. Just as Smythe was, Hatty was on a search for what had been lost. She spent most of her hours at the athenaeum among the Advanced Math books, umpteen volumes open on the floor around her, now and then shouts of “Aha!” or “Damn!” rang through the peaceful atmosphere.

The rules stated that use of the Xerox was ten cents per copy, but Jack always looked the other way when Hatty would head over to the cursed gadget that rarely cooperated. He’d keep track of her use and then pay the tally. From Jack’s POV they had a system they both understood, but he suspected that Hatty thought she’d pulled the wool over Jack’s eyes when she’d approach. He played the encounters as though they were a game. Hatty’s cart, the one she’d wheel around downtown, was stuffed full of folders swollen by pages and pages of research.

Jack had empathy for Hatty and Smythe both. Often the manners shown off by the duo, though not the same, were close enough to echo between each other. More than that, as he was plagued by doubts that mounted, and a larger and larger sense of unease, he detected through them some manner of bellwether, and thought of a canary down a coal shaft when each demonstrated symptoms of the scourges that made them suffer so. Heedlessly, he enacted what gentleness he could to them, possessed through each encounter by the sense that the words and acts were done as much to mete out goodness through the world as to assuage the storm he wrestled under a cheery countenance.

On that steamy July day, Jack sat at the Query? desk, as usual, the only staff member on duty through noon. A crew worked through the wee hours, to sort and shelf volumes removed from the stacks and lent out or just left around the athenaeum. So, some annoyance occurred as he heard a rare shout of “Eureka!” from among the math books. He hadn’t seen Hatty enter, a fact that, to Jack, suggested she’d been at that spot through the long dark hours. The late crew should have found her, but Hatty was cagey and knew all the secret places to contort herself a part of and stay undetected. More than once she’d managed to stay through the darkness to sate her need for knowledge, though whether such efforts educated the sane part of her or fed her madness, Jack could not say.

He also could not fault her quest. He, too, stayed up long hours engaged among research that often seemed could make Jack’s thoughts as mad as Hatty’s, or at least Smythe’s, who frequently argued to other patrons. They would try to speak of the so-called Mandela Effect and how John was caught by the claws of a mass false memory, and even were he not, the demented sense of self must surely play some part to pull off the scheme.

Jack thought he understood Hatty, and so he was more angry at the late crew than at the guest who’d overstayed a welcome, but understandably so, to Jack’s senses. Yet, she had yelled, and Jack was duty-mandated to address such an occurrence. More than that, rarely would she offer up such a hopeful yell, and that could be cause for further tugs away at the sensed, but not-there, cloth draped over Jack’s eyes. Or perhaps a plunge deeper down to whatever purgatory or hells Hatty dwelt among. He enabled the QueryBot console and stepped away from the desk.

As he passed the veterans, whom he’d not seen shuffle and wheel past, as he was rather not fully attuned today, he heard a mantra of sorts from the mouths of more than one of them. Other occurrences of encounters between Jack and the vets had mostly been war tales or grudges about government holds on money and long queues to get much good out of the bastards who ran whatever department had most recently betrayed them. On that July day, one word was what Jack heard repeated from them: “Murder.” Absolutely, the war had been a controversy, but never before had Jack even thought that that was how they felt about what had happened, even a shred. “A just war” was what they avowed most of all. Rarely would they account for the take those western boys could have on what had gone down. Jack felt bad omens afoot.

As he approached Hatty’s spot he could hear her words, “Aye, aye, aye, there she be.” at an acceptable volume. Around a corner he spotted her cross-legged on the ground, books upon books open around her, but one held between both hands as she peered at a page. At Jack’s approach she spoke, but stayed nose-to-book, “Sorry, Jack,” she uttered, “We’ll keep more sedate. Just a tad gleeful, y’know, we found what we were on a search for.”

“What’s that?” asked Jack, words reservedly offered, but yet, perhaps, a probe to answers.

“Aye, aye, aye,” muttered Hatty, as she offered the open book to Jack. Then, “Look there.”

Jack saw one of the math symbols often seen among texts of such a nature, some glyph from a dead language pressed to serve advanced schools of thought and the need for ever more characters to express whatever concept was at hand. Here was a downward stroke under a dot, as arcane as any of the other obscure, odd marks. “And?” asked Jack, less enthused than before.

Hatty eyed Jack as though she were let down. “Aye, aye, aye, Jack. They take from us as we sleep, and they’ve done such just now. We’ve lost our ayes.”

Jack could barely comprehend what Hatty was on about. Her words felt truly spoken, though he lacked the vocabulary to express why. Some absence among the thought-storm wanted to coalesce, as would a crystal on a rough rock, but could locate no purchase to grow on.

“An aye, Jack, that’s an aye. Remember?” asked Hatty.

Jack’s head swam, full of “you’s” and “aye’s,” but the latter clanged as though the syllable was a chord struck on the out-of-tune baby grand down below by the basement’s old newspaper department. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“When we were young there was 57 letters that made up the alphabet, Jack,” Hatty offered, “That one there be aye. They can take them out of our heads and most places, but yet those buggers be camouflaged here. Damn math books. Here they say that one be the square root of reverse one. See the bugger?”

Jack recalled, vaguely, some sense of what Hatty had prattled on about, and among those remembrances were shapes that the hungry sense of loss coalesced around.

Hatty went on, “When we was young there was yott and cham, and hekk, and a bunch of others. They took them, just as they’ve now took aye. Remember back, how easy you could make a thought once? Harder now, wouldn’t you say, Jack? That’s why they do such.”

“Who are they?” asked Jack.

“The government men, or Archons, or Old Scratch, or God up there among heavenly clouds. We know not, but we know they do so, and why. Easy to control us. That’s the rub,” Hatty retorted, then added, “When we make a breakthrough, they snatch another one away. Keeps us all queued up proper, eager for whatever they want to do. Go off to them wars and whatnot, or maybe just slave away at a desk somewhere. All to further some agenda that keeps them up there over us all.”

Jack thought about Hatty’s words and whether she could be correct. Had the books changed? Were they longer now? He got the sense that they were. Such a method to alter the tomes would be needed as more and more words would be needed to express the same concepts.

“Look here,” offered Hatty, another book between her hands. The large volume was called “The Whale,” and the sentence at the head of the page read, “Call me Mel.” Half-captured awareness of deep wrongness swam through Jack’s thoughts.

Alarmed, Jack told Hatty to clean up the area before noon, as he planned to take a short day, and upon departure hoped she would come. He offered her a shower and a meal, but mostly wanted to converse more about the subject of letters and where they had gone.

By one o’clock, when they left, most of the vets had enacted a chorus of agony-laden moans, and John Smythe was also clearly about to cause a scene, but they made egress as Jack offered “sorry” after “sorry” to the afternoon workers who’d shown up as out-of-sorts as he felt.

Back at the apartment, Hatty bathed, then set out stacks of folders from her cart, the sum-total of her research on the subject of lost letters. Jack seared hamburgers on the stove, and he was pleased to see the guest across the table eat so much. He felt as though here was the path to uncover the truth of the dark deeds that had been enacted upon them, but also enjoyed the presence of another. He’d known many lonely hours over the past few years.

They stayed up late. Jack and Hatty pored over documents, on a search for answers that were there, but few and far between. Eventually, Jack grew too exhausted to persevere and went to bed as Hatty crashed on the couch. There would be more work tomorrow, and Jack had thoughtfully taken the next few days off to carry on the task. Before she passed out, Hatty spoke, “They’re onto us, we fear. What they could take next makes us full of dread.

As dawn’s rays snuck through Jack’s flat, Jack had a want to stand, but could not. A thought of horror would bloom as a colossal loss was now known. As Jack lay flat, ahold of mad alarm, Hatty’s knocks brought booms of angst that rang through all parts of what was known to both. A knob’s turn and Hatty now stood by.

“Awful, awful, all around,” was what was spat. “Took a major glyph as us was out. Hard to craft what do pass for a good thought now. Can’t hardly grasp any want to carry on sans what’s took from us now. Us can do ‘mad’ and ‘crazy’ and ‘dumb,’ and much of that but what’s lost was what was Pandora’s box got shut on. Bastards won, that’s what Hatty says.”

“Not so,” spat Jack back, “Though only a tad of what was had do stay, consonants shall do for what work you and Jack must do. Stay buoyant, Hatty, much work to do. Pry off that box’s top and grasp what’s caught. You and Jack can grab that…” but what word was sought would not occur.