The Delphi Room Read Online Free PDF Page A

knock four times, and I will send you a piece. I do not think I can fit a pen through the grate, and anyway, I only have one.
    Yours very truly,
    Brinkley
    I read the note three times. And then I read it three more. I read it until the letters started to float off the page and gymnastic into other letters.
Brinkley.
I sat propped up by the bed, one hand clinging to the ruffle, the other to the note. The room’s stillness framed my own. My lips tingled.
    I was not alone.
    I thought back to when I was first dumped at this Motel-6-in-the-Ether, (was God a plebeian? Certainly a philistine) to all of the identical tall, white doors with their identical large gold knobs. Was it possible that behind each and every one of them was another hapless sad sack without a clue? This was decidedly not a letter from God, or the Devil, or anyone who knew what was going on.
Brinkley.
I said the name several times aloud. I liked it. I turned the paper over again and again, even though I knew that the back was blank, just to make sure that there wasn’t any spontaneously appearing map and instructions on how to get the Hell out of here. (My own brand of optimism refused to die in full, and that, I concluded, was one of the Torturer’s screws. Hope is a cruel thing.)
    “To Whom It May Concern.” To Whom It May Concern? Who opens a letter from Hell with that header? I studied the handwriting, made up my mind that Brinkley was a boy. Or rather, a man. The letters were plain, even blocky, though precise and neat.
    “Who are you?” Well there’s a question for the ages.

    Dear Brinkley,
    I decked myself out and hung myself up. Too bad I ended up here, but good thing I was wearing a nice outfit and all my bills were paid on time. . . . 
    No thanks. Though come to think of it, what did I care? The worst had happened, and what’s the point of trying to uphold your reputation in Hell? I turned my yellow legal pad to a fresh page, picked up my pen, and scrawled:

    Dear Brinkley,
    Receiving your letter was definite cause for celebration. I too am alone in my room. My name is Velvet. I lived in Vancouver, Canada. I committed suicide, and then I came here. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, maybe five minutes, maybe forever. The clock on my wall is stopped at 8:57—anyway, time seems irrelevant. This is definitely not Heaven, and until I got your letter I was convinced it’s Hell. Now I’m not so sure. I flirted with the idea of Purgatory, some kind of rest stop, but I certainly have not been restful and there is a decided lack of further instructions, hoops of fire to jump through, skill-testing questions to answer, etc. If you have any insights into this predicament, I would be grateful.
    Now I ask the same two questions of you: who are you and why are you there?
    Sincerely, Velvet
    I pushed my letter through the grate and waited in the shade under the bed, lying on my side with my arms and legs drawn into me, as though in a carpeted womb. The bright lights of the rest of the room seemed sinister, marauding. And I was afraid that being exposed to them would somehow cause me to miss what I hoped was Brinkley’s forthcoming letter.
    There was no dust under the bed. The lavender smell had an antiseptic edge. This womb was sterile.
    I closed my eyes and listened for the rustle of paper. I had Brinkley’s letter clutched in my left hand, a reassurance that I hadn’t hallucinated a correspondence. Every few moments I would press it to my face, as though my hand was no longer feeling it, and I had to remind myself that it was there. I touched my tongue to it, too, and it tasted like real paper.
    Venus flytrap, my hand snapped at the letter as it came through the grate. In my excitement, I rolled over, sat up and brained myself on the bed. Clutching my head, I poked it from the womb, into the bright lights of Hell, and started to read.

    Dear Velvet,
    I was likewise overjoyed to receive your letter. Velvet is a pretty name. Were you named