He grabs the disposable cell phone he acquired when he first moved into this city and dials her cell number.
“Yes?”
“Mary, this is… Robert. Bob.”
“I thought you were done with me.” She’s been crying. She’s resentful. He hears cars, street sounds. She’s obviously outside. He thinks he can detect panting, footsteps. She’s walking somewhere. He thinks he’s in terrible jeopardy here.
“I’m so sorry,” he says to her, pleading. “Obviously I’m not a well-adjusted person. And you’ve been wonderful to me.”
“I don’t… don’t deserve this,” she says and a sob escapes. “Wait. Wait,” she says. “I’m crossing… wait.”
A loud car horn. A muffled impact. A rattle, a rattle, distorted voices. The phone goes dead.
He stares at his own phone, drops it onto the bed. Where was he? What was he thinking? He feels light-headed, nauseated. He leans over, stretches out on the bed. Certainly she’s all right. A near miss. She just dropped the phone.
Suddenly desperate for fresh air, he stumbles from the bed to the window, prying it open with trembling fingers. He sticks his head out into the air of the alley, clutching the sides of the frame, sure that he will fall.
The nameless man looks down and sees the creature feeding off the garbage pile below. Some sort of goat or dog—hard to tell, it is so emaciated, probably ill. Large patches of its coat have fallen out. Something odd about its head. A horn, so it is a goat. But only one. And that one distorted, broken, oozing narrow rivulets of pus. It turns its head around and smiles up at him with broken teeth, a piece of a rat wedged in its mouth.
A true unicorn, he thinks, not knowing why, but knowing it is so. That’s what they really look like. And now he knows Mary must certainly be dead. A vagrant wanders past the unicorn, neither apparently noticing the other. Mary is dead and he is at last forgotten, for now he knows his parents are dead, too. Because he is seeing unicorns the way they really are, raw and unglamorized. At last unknown, he has descended into the worlds of myth, of things unnamed and misnamed, of things unseen and things misunderstood. The grand consolation prize, he thinks, for anonymity.
When the unknown man goes out that evening it is only after reconsidering the events of the day until a certain sanity has been achieved. The delusion he had experienced was the direct result of the shock of Mary’s accident, or presumed accident. Presumed death. He could make some calls and find out for sure, but he knows he will not.
An author whose fantasy novels he has been reading for years is giving a signing at a bookstore nearby. The author is there in support of his recent autobiography, which the nameless man has read. He has his copy with him, tucked under his arm. He has a number of questions about the book, most having to do with its authenticity. He isn’t sure if he will risk asking them.
A drunk wanders out of a bar onto the sidewalk in front of him. The scruffy fat man turns, his sneer all the more disturbing because it is on a bull’s head sitting lop-sided on his shoulders.
Minotaur, the unknown man thinks, throwing up his arms in alarm. The book skids across the sidewalk and rests against the minotaur’s left foot.
The minotaur stares at the book dumbly, as if it is a category of object he has never seen before. He bends awkwardly, the weight of the great head threatening to pull him over. He clutches the book between his two palms, fingers too short to be of much use—and pulls it up to eye level, where he sniffs it, then licks it. Finally he shoves it into his mouth, apparently tasting it as his eyes roll around and copious amounts of saliva drip onto the sidewalk.
The minotaur stares at the nameless man again, slack lips drooping into an avalanching frown. With an explosion of wind and saliva the minotaur spits the book back at him. It slams into the nameless man’s chest, and he hugs himself so it won’t get away from him again. He examines his catch: the pages and cover are damp, but readable. When he raises his head the minotaur is gone.
As the nameless man continues to the bookstore he wipes the cover and pages against his shirt until satisfied he can do no more. The book appears to have swollen to twice its original thickness.
A few doors down from the bookstore he pauses in front of a shop specializing in exotic fish and supplies, where a giant aquarium fills the front window. Disobeying the posted sign he taps the glass in an attempt to attract some fish. Almost instantly a cluster of fetus-like creatures swarms out from behind flowering vegetation, propelled by large, powerful tails. They gather in front of him, staring with partially formed eyes. Their chest cavities are filled by some sort of complex, inefficient breathing organ. Their mouths open and close in painful-looking spasms as they struggle for air. Mermaids, he thinks, poor, pitiful mermaids. Unable to witness this for long, the unknown man turns away from the colony and heads into the bookstore.
The nameless man is surprised to see that no long lines wait for the fantasy writer’s signature. In fact, other than a large man who might be the writer’s bodyguard (or younger lover?), and a few bookstore-clerk-looking types, the nameless man is the only person in the store. Suddenly anxious to finish his business, he walks up to the small table and plants the bundle of rustling pages in front of the startled writer.
The writer opens the book gingerly and examines a few pages. “You know, I used to love reading in the bath,” he says, as if that explains everything. He looks up and displays a vaguely bored smile. “Do you just want a signature, or would you like it personalized?”
“How personal could it be? I just met you. You don’t even know my name.”
The large man steps forward, but an impatient gesture from the writer stops him. He takes a step or two back, but the nameless man can tell he is ready for trouble.
The fantasy writer laughs out loud. “Good point.” Then he stops, looking slightly awkward, as if he’s left his script in his other jacket. “Do you even want a signature?”
“Actually, I don’t care for signatures very much. I do have a question or two, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll answer what I can.”
“This book…” The nameless man touches the sloppy bundle on the table. It makes a soft rattle. “It purports to be your autobiography. Yet it reads just like one of your novels. It has suspense, rising and falling action, complications appearing just at the right points in the narrative. Real life isn’t all that neat.”
“I suppose you would have preferred that I fill it with descriptions of television shows watched, fast foods eaten, frequent trips to the bathroom, and long naps after too much drink?”
“Not really. I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to believe that any of this is true.”
The fantasy writer looks at him, considering. Finally he sighs and says, “I suppose we each have to answer that for ourselves. Writers are there to give experience shape, and that includes their autobiographies. The moment you write something down, you’re changing it.”
“The moment you name it,” the nameless man says.
“Pardon me?”
“The moment you name something you change what it was, what it was becoming. It was a living, evolving thing, and then you killed it by naming it.”
The fantasy writer laughs, then looks at his bodyguard. “Listen to this guy!” Then, turning around he says, “So maybe I shouldn’t have put my name on this book. If I hadn’t put my name on it, people might find it more believable?”