I wrote “The Queen of the Apocalypse” while thinking a lot about the 1950s. Bomb shelters in the suburbs, bad marriages, too many places to shop, not enough things worth buying, and working forty hours a week surrounded by a universe of force. The end of the world, I’ve always thought, isn’t an event which may or may not happen. It’s an emotion most of us already know.
Oral
RICHARD CHRISTIAN MATHESON
R. C. Matheson is an acclaimed author as well as a screenwriter and producer for television and film. He has worked with Steven Spielberg, Bryan Singer, Roger Corman, and many other directors. He is also the president of Matheson Entertainment, a production company he formed with his father, Richard Matheson. Currently, Matheson is writing and producing several films, and adapting and executive producing a four-hour miniseries based on H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine. He has published more than seventy-five stories in magazines and anthologies, including various “best of the year” anthologies.
Matheson has investigated several paranormal cases with a parapsychology lab at University of California, Los Angeles, including the infamous house upon which the film The Entity (1983) was based. Matheson has also been a professional drummer for over thirty years and studied privately with the legendary Cream drummer, Ginger Baker. He has played with the Rock Bottom Remainders, among other bands.
Matheson’s new novella, The Ritual of Illusion, is forthcoming. His critically lauded collection Dystopia is available as an ebook. In addition, Matheson recently compiled and edited a collector’s edition of Battleground, commemorating the Emmy Award–winning adaptation of a Stephen King story.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT me to do?”
“Seashells. Have you ever touched one?”
“Yes.”
“In a detailed way?”
“What do you mean?”
“Describe it to me.”
“The shell I touched was on a beach in Florida. It was a nautilus with a pearly spiral. Rough and sharp on the… skin of it.”
“Analogy of touch. Good. Go on.”
“It was heavy.”
“How heavy?”
“A pound. Maybe a pound and a quarter.”
“Tell me about the inside.”
“There were… slender twists. Corkscrews. Glassy surfaces like…”
“…yes?”
“…feeling the interior of an ancient bottle.”
“Did you put your hands into it?”
“…three fingers. I reached them in and they moved as if sliding on curved glass and they felt like they were gliding into a glove, they fit so perfectly. The walls were cool, and there were grains of sand that scraped my fingertips.”
“Did your fingers get wet?”
“The interior was a little moist. I forgot that.”
“Try to remember everything.”
“I will. It felt… petrified. Is that the word?”
“Yes. Like rock. Hard and cold. Dead.”
“But still alive. Able to sustain temperature and color. The contours were like a body. The textures seemed to be… feeling me.”
A pleased stare.
“I made you feel something when I described the shell?”
“Yes.”
“Like it was real?”
“Yes.”
“Were you excited?”
“Yes.”
“You could buy a shell.”
“I don’t come near what others have touched.”
“People have touched everything. It’s life.”
“No. The opposite. Fingerprints signal oncoming death. Germs cling to surfaces. Waiting to cause illness, suffering. Disinfection is impossible.”
Silence.
“But you miss touching things. You must.”
Silence.
“Is that why I’m here?”
“Let’s go on.” Points. “The pencil.”
“It’s wooden. Painted to feel smooth. No heavier than a sugar cube. The name of the hotel is etched into the side like… inverted braille.”
“What about the curves? How does the rubber feel on the eraser? Sticky? Firm? Angular? And the tip?”
“Well…”
“Frayed? Shredded? Or softly worn? Rounded? There’s a difference.” Impatient. “How about the sharpness of the point? Somewhat blunted and oval-ended or almost pinpoint? And the lead. Soft? Chalky? Hard like bone? Cracked on one side? Does it bend between fingertips?” Almost angry. “You didn’t describe the metal collar that anchors the eraser. Is it serrated? Grooved? Does it have a curved rise? Several rings? A sharp edge at the seam where it anchors the eraser. Could it draw blood if you ran skin over it? Is the pencil tubular, or seven-sided as is common design? Are the painted letters and numbers on the side more smooth than the painted section?”
“It’s very…”
“Generalities. You have no feel for it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I felt nothing.”
Eyes downward. “Do you want me to go. You don’t have to pay me anything.”
A moment. A sigh. Gesturing. “The drinking glass.”
She delicately picks it up.
“It’s light, almost no weight at all. Cylindrical, warm from the hotel room heater. So smooth it seems to have no surface. So hard it has a brittle strength. A kind of tension like it could explode unexpectedly from the compacted frustration of the molecules.”
“Interesting. Keep going.”
“The edge where you touch it to your lips is rounded.”
“Touch it to your lips.”
“It rests on my mouth. Presses down my bottom lip. The upper edge of the glass touches my nose. It fits into my hand. Separates my thumb and index finger by two inches. It feels good to hold it. The weight and shape are comforting.”
“Pour water into it. A little at a time.”
“Alright.” Pouring. “It’s getting heavier, I can feel the weight in my wrist. My fingers have to grip more tightly.”
“Can you feel the coolness of the water through the glass?”
“Yes.”
“Describe it to me.”
“It feels the way it feels when you take your glove off on an early winter day. The first seconds your skin can notice the cold.”
“Vague. Give me another example.”
“…the sensation of adding cold water to a hot bath and feeling chilly tendrils, struggling through the warm liquid to find you.”
“Better.”
“Can you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“The water is climbing higher in the glass. A quarter inch at a time, splashing softly against the glass, spraying my hand with tiny, heatless droplets… can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
“…as it fills the glass, I feel the rising coolness, inside the glass, climb my palm…”
“…yes.”
“…there’s a dew forming on the outside of the glass. I can feel it with the sponge of my fingertips.”
“Keep going.”
“I feel the droplets from this moist film seep between my fingers. And I feel the weight of the glass shift, as the water tips from side to side.”
“Drink it.”
She leans the glass back, against full mouth, swallows; a voluptuous drain. Looks at him.
”I can feel it going down inside me like…”
He breathes harder. Tightens; bends. Releases.
“Do you want me to describe it?”
“Later. I need to rest now.”
Silence.
“We’ll start again in a few minutes.”
“Alright.”
“Think about the lamps. The phone. The faucet handles. I want to hear about them.” His voice shrinks; a whisper. “Before I forget.”
He closes eyes. Leans back on the motel bed.
She watches him from her chair. Wants to gently touch him. To reassure, stroke his sad face. Calm his heart. She wonders what happened to him. What hurt had crept oddly inward; shaken his world.
As he rests with eyes shut, she moves to him and slowly reaches. Then, as her warm palm nearly touches his cheek, she looks at her hand.
All at once, she sees the small, healing cut on one knuckle that provides an unlocked door to the viral body within. The fingerprints that provide soft alleys and canyons for the poisons of mankind; infinite hiding places for illness, invisible beginnings of pain and plague. The immeasurable death affixed to the underside of her nails, barnacled in the deep creases of her palm.
She quietly withdraws her hand. Sits back down in her chair, waiting for him.