Ellipsis's Questionnaire

My home is a town of five rooms.

Firstly comes the bedroom, where I rest and where I heal. It is spacious and lovely and white; it is of soft sheets, plush pillows, and thin silk gowns that cling to me like the whispers when I am watched. It is not my favorite room.

Secondly comes the bathing chamber, where I preen before the Stage and clean myself after. It is spacious and lovely and white; it is of cool porcelain, warm gold, and fragrant perfumes that hide the smells of blood and rot and other, stranger things. It is not my favorite room.

Thirdly comes the dining room, where I am brought the food Father feeds me and from where I am forbidden when the servants come to clean. It is spacious and lovely and white; it is of supple wood, polished silver, and the wet and sumptuous red that oozes from the meat, the meat, the meat. It is not my favorite room.

Fourthly comes the studio, where I read, I learn, I dance, I dance, I dance. It is spacious and lovely and white; it is of cushioned lounges, an overpopulated library, and a shiny silver pole around which I can twirl until I forget. It is not my favorite room.

Finally comes the Stage.

I must travel to meet the Stage - Father collects me and I am bid to don a white cloak and hood which reduce my world to the world absorbed through feet, through hands, through nose, through ear. I am led through a Red House: over carpet and down step, and into a Car of color same. I am driven - far enough I do not know to where, and only sometimes are we stopped by someone in blue clothing, and Father shows them a little piece of plastic with my picture on it and my name, and then we pass and never see the same someone again. I am led from the Car and onto stony ground cold against my feet, and then into a Tunnel, and finally, to the Stage.

The Stage is where I am watched - where the Whispers come, where I am scarred.

It is empty, grimy, black - it is of leering eyes and gritty smoke and the ripping horror of Something Someone entering through my skin.

It is my favorite room.

I am afforded an allowance, when my time on the Stage goes well.

I do not know precisely how much - I am allowed to keep my money, all in bills, and I give it to my Father so that he can purchase what I request when he approves of it. There are very few things of which he approves: books, sometimes, when they're old and smell like leather and rain; new clothes, when they are white, or sometimes red (almost never red save for scarves and belts and sashes, sashes, sashes) for when the old are inevitably ruined; desserts, when they are small and sugary and expensive, and never more than one to follow a meal; dolls and toys and things to pick apart, to disassemble, to sharpen my mind.

I go to the Stage once a month, I think - that is 30 days, a month? - and when I do, anything I have not spent is lost.

Something peculiar happened today.

It was while Father was taking me to the Stage - there was shouting, and then someone strange crashed into me. I lost Father's hand, and then there was more shouting, and a very peculiar singing: not a song at all, but a scream that held a hundred songs inside it, and then I felt something Stop.

I ran.

It was instinctual - automatic. Something (somethings?) inside me pushed my feet into crazed motion. There was no rhythm to this running, just a need for unceasing motion, ecstatic, erratic, chaotic motion. The ground was rough under my bare feet - little stones tried to cut me, only they weren't stones: they were part of the ground, black and gray and black and gray and black and gray over and over again. I don't know how long I ran; until my legs would not run anymore and my feet weren't white but wet and red instead, and only then did I realize I could take off my hood, and so I did.

I do not know why I did, but I did.

Oh, the wonders. 

Buildings all around - more buildings than I could imagine! All gray and blue and green and red and all sorts of dirty grimy colors and none of them were white, white, white. The ground was black and gray and had yellow choppy stripes in it, and Cars of all kinds ran hither and tither in little rows that the stripes made, and there were people! People dressed in different colors and shapes with skin in different colors and shapes and hair in different colors and shapes. None of them seemed to notice me - they were all busy with something, changing, moving, never stopping, never getting stuck, and I decided I would move with them. There was soft, green ground like the lawns in the novels I keep at Home, and trees like fingers sticking up from the gray. I went into one building, and then another and another and another, and all of them were different. One of them I went into was dark and had lots of people drinking from peculiar glass cups with a big belly and a little narrow spout - a man suggested I have sex with him there, so I did in the back of the building and he was coarse and strange and smelled like cleaning and it was so different from the neat little men Father brings to me when I become hungry and restless. There was no more white, then - only color, maddening and dreaming, and I ran and explored and watched and felt and stole and ate until I could stand no longer and I had to rest, and I was joined by the most curious creature.

It was small, and round, and looked sort of like an eyeball covered in meat: the kind of meat Father brings me in my meals (not sausage, or steak, or any other meat beginning in S - are there other meats beginning in S?). It looked tired, and injured, and sort of sad and lonely, like it had been cast off or abandoned. At first, I thought it might hurt me - might scar me, but from the Outside, and not the Inside, like happens on the Stage. Something inside me moved, and I felt... pulled to it - like we were the same. I don't quite know how to explain what I did next: I meant only to hug it, truly; I promise, I meant only to hug it and hold it like one of my dolls when I was so sad and lonely I pretended that they were sad and lonely instead of me so that I could make the loneliness go away. I only meant to hug it, and then it was in my mouth and I was chewing and its sweet red nectar dyed my pale skin scarlet, and all of its visions came into my mind.

Oh, the wonders.

It was two days until Father found me - I imagine I must have been round and sleepy, like the raccoon the man pointed out when we were behind the building, all stuffed with garbage he had stolen. I had eaten until I felt I would burst, and so sleepy I didn't mind being picked up and placed back into the Car to go home. I didn't even mind I did not get to go to the Stage that month - I did not mind I did not have an allowance.

I want that again.

I need that again.

I want to run and fight and feel and fuck and do everything everywhere all of the time. I want to destroy my Rooms and the House and the Stage and eat it all up until there's nothing left that can keep me or anyone else ever in the little boxes Fathers make. I am going to go, and nothing will ever stop me.

I am very sorry, Diary, but I think I have to eat this page.

... ... ...

These pages.

... ... ...

I will have Father buy you a sister.

I remember it more like watercolor than photograph. 

I was a child, I know that much. I was afraid, then - unsure. I did not Understand - I had not yet tasted their sweetness, their rhythm, their poetry. It was the first time I had ever been brought to the Stage; Father tried to reassure me that I was prepared, that there was nothing to fear, that this is for what I had been born.

I did not believe him - it was different, and different was scary.

My whole life had been four Rooms - Bedroom, Bathing Room, Dining Room, Studio. Bedroom, Bathing Room, Dining Room, Studio. Bedroom, Bathing Room, Dining Room, Studio. Bedroom, Bathing Room, Dining Room, Studio. Over and over and over again, the same small home, the same four Rooms. Adding a Fifth seemed impossible - terrifying. I did not know what it would look like - what if it had no place to dance?

Father assured me it would have a place to dance.

When he brought me to the Stage, I understood what he meant.

there were two he called upon, and one he didn't: passionate, constant, moving things, things only I could see, like shimmers in the air on a hot sunny day. When I saw them, I was terrified, and then I was not, and then I was not, and then I was nor.

They entered me - through my senses, through my heart. They inhabited me, and tore me apart from inside.

Since then, I have not been afraid - not of the things the audiences at the Stage think I am. I have not hurt, either - to be threshed from within is an exhilaration, a break in the monotony.

Since then, I have not feared the different - I have craved it.

Father is the greatest presence in my life. Unsurprising, perhaps, given that he is the only human being I speak with daily - often, at least once weekly, he is there when I dine; he delivers me any clothes I instruct I desire from the catalogs, and demands to see me in them before he leaves. He delivers me the books I request from the lists he provides, and when I was younger would even read them to me (though I've since refused to allow him to do so - I am grown now, after all, and far outgrown girlish things like being read to at bedtime). And of course, he is the one who delivers me to the Stage each month; who trains me in dance, on and off the pole, who instructs my arts and my reading (the reading he wishes for me is the sort I am worst at; all dry, drab, static history. I much prefer my novels). He tells me he loves me, that my mother was consumed in bringing me into the world, that he is preparing me, for one day, it will be the entire Red House that is mine, and not just my Rooms, for one day he will go where my Mother has gone. I do not know if I believe him - I do think he loves me, in his way, but I am not sure he is truly my Father. His hair, his moustache, his beard - all black, and his skin rich with hues of nectarine and peach, while my skin is pale and white, like my rooms, and my hair as red as the carpets in the House. I do believe he loves me, in his way - or at least, what he expects I will one day do for him.

Beyond Father, there is Slee - my Father calls him Lord Wheatingsby, but I just call him Slee, because when I do call him Slee his face gets all red and blotchy and his eyes can't stop moving. Slee is a funny creature - almost as white as I am, and whenever he visits my Rooms he sweats so constantly that if he does not have a glass of water at all times he quickly grows dizzy from something he calls "the mygues" (spelling approximate - he's never written it, and I've never read it anywhere other than his lips). Slee is my favorite of the clean little men my Father sends for when I am in my moods - he is a challenge I've yet to crack. It's not that he isn't attracted to me - I can very obviously tell that he is, even before I tried to shock him by greeting him at my door in only one of the shimmery gowns from the saucy pages in the catalogs I whined at my father to buy me until he finally caved and did. He is very unskilled at hiding or directing his gaze - when he is in my Rooms, his eyes linger in three places: a book, a markedly uninteresting corner, or my breasts; and yet, when I attempt to gall him, he always finds some timid, polite little way to delay my advances. I do not understand it - it's abundantly clear what I want, and even more so what he wants, but for some reason he refuses to act in accordance with mutual wants unlike all the other clean little men who always end up stupid and drooling (and occasionally, very occasionally red) on my floor. He's a maddening puzzle. I must solve him.

Beyond even Slee, though, is the Visitor. I have never seen the Visitor - I do not even know its name. I do not know if the Visitor is human, or if the Visitor is even real. All that I know of the Visitor is that if, when I go to bed, I pretend to write a note, fold the page, and slide it under the door that connects my Bedroom to my Dining Room, it will have a poem on it when I find it the next morning at breakfast. Father thinks that I am the one writing these notes - I know that I am not. Perhaps I have simply gone mad - but I have read the poems to Slee, and he knows them too.

January 13, 2014, Audiolog Transcription

SYSTEM NOTE: SEGMENT A

The preparations are nearing completion - it will be within a short few years that we are able to initiate the next phase. Anna- the subject’s behavior remains consistent with desired parameters, but we still have no way of knowing our chances of success when she becomes ready for the Operation: there are simply too many variables that remain unknown. Despite - against my recommendations - maintaining complete control over the subject’s socialization and education in a specifically manicured environment, she exhibits properties that, while not inconsistent with desired parameters, are… not evidently emergent from them, either. She displays a much higher degree of perspicacity than has ever been intended; I fear for her- I fear that when the time comes for the Operation, this quality may result in an unintended initiation of Contact and doom the experiment. Regardless, my complaints do not override the instructions of the Operations Council, nor do they override your plans - I will continue my duties as…

SYSTEM NOTE: SEGMENT B

[long pause]

She’s all that’s left of you, Nora. It’s remarkable; you were entirely successful in her creation. She looks just like you did, when we were her age: your hair, your eyes, your skin. She even has your voice - when she asks me how an automobile works, or why the walls are all white, it’s as though I’m talking to your ghost. She is a child - she is your child. I - I will follow your instructions. I will prepare her for the Operation as best I am able, so that when her body is ready, it might survive playing host to the beings you created her for. Your daughter - your immaculate conception. Fuck you, Nora. Fuck you for leaving me to this task alone; for being too damn smart to survive your own ambitions. Stumbling towards the light, you said. Sacrifices - necessary ones, you said.

I miss you, Nora.

[long pause]

Computer, delete recording beginning with phrase “Regardless my complaints” and ending in three seconds.

[three second pause]

SYSTEM NOTE: SEGMENT C

Regardless, the Operations Council has elected to proceed with the procedure as initially planned. The Subjects should be prepared along all predetermined avenues, and has demonstrated a capacity to perform the necessary rites at a level significantly exceeding expectations. I will begin work on conditioning to suppress undesirable curiosity or interactiveness - all that remains is to perform the Operation… and to pray.

SYSTEM NOTE: SEGMENT B DELETED FROM LOCAL RECORDING. SEGMENT B MAINTAINED AT MASTER FILE LEVEL; FULL RECORDING SUBMITTED TO OPERATIONS COUNCIL FOR REVIEW.

Slee visited again today.

Slee. Lord Wheatingsby. Lord Mathislee Aundarine Wheatingsby. Detestable man. Horrid little creature. Shriveled, shrewd, wringing-

No. I am simply complaining and anxious and horribly helplessly frustrated because I - very, VERY stupidly - requested that Father summon Slee to slake my appetites, and now they go unsatisfied and I am reduced to relying on the manual dance of finger and fucking pillow to stave off the Violence. 

I want to peeeeeeel him. I want to push my nails under his skin and-

No. That is just the Violence talking. I do not wish to peel Slee, and I am NOT a little girl who gets so helplessly angry she starts to break all her toys. I only wish - I wish I understood Slee. He is very obviously attracted to me - what’s more, he very obviously wants to fuck me, just as much as I want to do the same to him (to him, to him, to him, to me, to me, to me). And yet - and yet - he refuses. I told him today that if he was not going to join me in my bed that he should simply leave - and he left!!! The audacity! It is what we both want, and yet whenever the subject is broached, whenever the advancement is made, he very, very politely - always politely - recoils.

He refuses to give me anything more than his words - his poetry, his thoughts, his little ideas about so many things all of which I love to listen to, and to so many things he loves to listen to in turn. He visits at odd times of the month as well - often when I expect, when the urges grow and must be satisfied to stave off the Violence, but also often before or after, and simply to talk. He comes when I am ill and irritable and cannot dance - he feeds me soup, then, and then when he has his mygues I give him his pills and massage his scalp and let him rest his head on my lap. He will do anything I ask - read to me, be read to, play with dolls or pretend like we are inventing grand adventures on a page: anything except the dance of flesh.

I do not understand him. It is… saddening. He wants something of me - I fear that I may want it of him too, but I have no idea what it is.

What is it?

What is it?

What Is It?

… … …

I will see if Father can send me blood. I am experiencing the Violence.

There is a constancy in my feet - 

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun

A meter to which my life is beat

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun

Trembling airs which rile the chest

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun

Pierce the blood, discard the rest

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun

There is a constancy in my hands

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun

A pulsing air, to whose demands

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun

I toil and serve, turn round the hour

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun

A slave to that most ancient pow'r

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun

There is a constancy in my breast!

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun!

A pounding air, which drowns the rest!

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun!

In terror soft, in glory bright!

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun!

To burn beyond the silken night!

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun!

There is a constancy takes me whole - 

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, ta tun

Which trembling in my weary soul -

ta tun, ta tun, ta tu, ta tun

Which fears naught only but one foe:

ta tun, ta tun, ta tun, to stop.

My most prized things are those which are mine and mine alone.

Certainly there are things I am fond of! Many of them - Father buys me many treasures, all of which I adore for their touch, their taste, their scent. Libraries of books, wardrobes of clothes, gallons of perfumes and soaps and scrubs, and scrubs, and scrubs. I have been given clean skin and silken hair and tight curls that drape on my shoulders and tangle in fingers and go bounce bounce bounce, but none of these things are truly mine. They have all been carefully bought, paid for, and cultivated under Father's watchful administration; my hair is not mine, my books are not mine, and most certainly of all my skin is not mine.

Those things I prize most are simple things - my knife, the little scar under my thumb I made while sewing one morn and hid until it was too late to rid me of, Madame Sinclair. Those curious, stand offish things which I made on my own or saw in my Freedoms and bought because I wanted them. Those things are most precious to me.