Kzradock the Onion Man and the Spring-Fresh Methusela by Levy Louis

Author:Levy, Louis [Levy, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction.Hardboiled/Noir, Fiction.Thriller/Suspense, Fiction.Horror, Fiction.Mystery/Detective
ISBN: 9781939663283
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Wakefield Press, WA
Published: 2017-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

II

THE SPRING-FRESH METHUSELAH

VIII

TO BE OR NOT TO BE – THE F – GREEN AND RED INK – THE OLD WOMEN – THE SWALLOWS’ NESTS – TWO SHOTS – THREE HUNDRED FATHOMS OF WATER – AM I HIM? – THE SKELETON – METHUSELAH KZRADOCK

* * *

Three months have passed.

I am again sitting at my writing desk. I have just now read through the notes that I made about Kzradock the Onion Man. I must confess: I understand my months-long illness much better now. Obviously, a poison had trickled into my soul. But where did this poison come from?

Because Kzradock doesn’t really exist.

There has never been a patient in my institute with this odd name. Kzradock is purely a fantasy figure, someone my sickness called into life. The moment I recovered, Kzradock died.

I have myself been mentally ill.

Now I am well, and the sun again plays cheerfully over my books. I sit and smile in the sunshine with these pages in front of me. These notes came into being during the dark night that I have come through. Kzradock is a part of myself, a shadow of the knowledge and experience I have had as a doctor. And this shadow had freed itself and raised itself menacingly before me.

I have to smile as I read through these pages full of horror and pain.

And, really, there is still so much that I don’t understand! How was my mind driven to such savagery? What really happened to me? I was lost for so long in mysticism that I feel I have to know how my illness came about. Only then will I be able to guarantee that nothing like it will happen to me again.

There are some facts that I still cannot understand.

Why did I write the first half of the Kzradock manuscript in red ink, and the second half in green—two colors of ink that are not usually to be found on my writing desk?

There is this handkerchief imbued with an unusual fragrance, and I notice how my blood rushes to my temples when I smell it.

What has happened to me? No one knows where I was during those days when this drama played itself out. I was found under the Seine in one of those large air enclosures used by construction laborers working under the water. I had, thank God, a calling card with me that read, “There are clothes in another air enclosure.” I myself lay stark naked in a corner of a filthy and damp metal box, and the memory of that is especially unpleasant for me...

It has been eight days since my own institute declared me fully recovered. I have made use of these days to investigate the mystery of my mind. But until now I have not wanted to read the manuscript. I was afraid of these pages with their cramped writing, and I obviously had good reason to be afraid...

On the first day in which I was once again in possession of my reason I took a journey abroad.

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