The Delphi Room Read Online Free PDF

after someone, or were your parents trying to be original? My mother was a painter, and I suffered for her love of originality. When I was growing up, the kids at school called me Wrinkly.
    I am very sorry to learn of the circumstances that brought you here. I am not as clear on why I find myself in this room. Truth be told, the last thing I remember is running along a street on my way to work. I was starting a new job, and I was afraid I was going to be late. I darted off a curb headed for my usual café and my soy latte (I am allergic to cow’s milk) when suddenly I found myself whizzing down a slide in the dark, and eventually wound up here. Having had considerable opportunity to reflect, I have decided that in all likelihood a car ran me over. I remember that two nights before my ill-fated excursion, I had a dream that I was hit by a speeding yellow Volkswagen Beetle on my way to work. I woke up sweaty, like I had been running a marathon in my sleep (I am not a very athletic person), and with the definite feeling that I should not leave the house. I still felt that way the following morning and I thought about calling in sick, but it was the first day of my new job, and so I really was not able to, and I pushed whatever misgivings I had out of my mind. Gee whiz, whoever said, “always trust your instincts” was not kidding. I have learned that the hard way.
    Who am I? That is a difficult question to answer, is it not? I lived in Toronto. I worked at a bank. I guess you could say I am a numbers guy.
    I apologize for the fact that I can provide no more answers than you. I, too, have no idea how long I have been here—the clock on my wall is stopped at 8:56. I was growing sure that this indeed is Hell—or a Hell of sorts, there’s no denying that—and I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what I did to deserve this. I suppose there might be a few things.
    But now that I know you are there, so close, I do not know what to think. Please tell me your thoughts.
    Yours very truly,
    Brinkley
    So my neighbour, apparently, was just as clueless as I was. (Tell him my thoughts?
Help me! Somebody help me!
) I lay under the bed, head poked into the light, tracing his handwriting with my eyes. The pieces of the jigsaw that I thought I had pushed together promptly broke apart. If he was telling the truth, and why hold back, he wasn’t a suicide, and he hadn’t murdered anyone with a blunt instrument. He was the victim of a harried morning commuter. So why was he trapped next to me? The hair-on-fire evangelist that I had watched on TV once at age nine said that even small, unrepented sins would land you in the Pit. Remembering this, Mandarin-nailed fingers started to drum in my chest. I refused to believe he was right.
    The light in the room (where was it coming from? There weren’t any lamps) glared like sun off glass, and my eyes ached. I retracted my head into the dusky under-bed cave, called up my head’s Greek senate to debate what to write next. I didn’t want to keep Brinkley waiting long—I knew well the horror of being on hold. My mind was chattering its loquacious best. The sweetish lavender scent of the carpet strengthened, an olfactory knockout punch. My feet were numb, and the weighty deadness of my legs frightened me. I lifted my calves, shook them and let them drop, then kicked furiously to dash paralysis fears. To the desk, but first: the mirror. It had the look of a liquid transparency, so clean and clear was the glass. Staring at it, I almost expected it to ripple, or splash like dropped mercury. My haunted face in the water of it recalled Plath’s fear of the terrible fish. Wrinkled, bloodstained dress, hollowed-out collarbone, bruised face and hedgeclippered hair. But my eyes, always black-coffee, had begun to glow blue around the edge of the iris. Electric, wild stare. Microwaved. I stood, blinking slowly, wondering if the passing over of my eyelid would erase the line. It stayed fixed: hard