It's about this.
I am this guy.
Note: I wrote this for English class in October 2005. The assignment was to create a Gothic story: one "set in the past" with an "exotic or unusual setting," an "atmosphere of mystery, eeriness, dread/menace," "psychological elements (guilt/sin, intuition, moral conscience, etc.)," "suspense," and "symbolism." To create the right mood, I tried to imitate the florid diction of Gothic writers such as Edgar Allan Poe while including all of the required elements (yes, even symbolism). I hope I've succeeded. -J.K.
I was in desperate need of sleep when I returned home one icy morning from a week-long trip that had been required of me for business. My dear Caroline did not greet me with an expected kiss as I entered the house; I heard only silence and felt nothingness while seeing the empty room. Finding this unusual, I crept carefully to her bedroom so as not to awake her from her extended sleep. As I carefully opened the door, I saw her in her bed lying face-down, and, to my horror, in eternal rest. Knife wounds desecrated her back. I fell and cried over her contorted body, while my lonely tears penetrated the pool of blood in which she lay. I held my love’s hand for the last time.
I then summoned an acquaintance, Constable Roberts; detective tools in hand, he arrived shortly. Right away the constable determined that Caroline had been dead for several hours. He thought peculiar that the windows of the room were intact, with no sign of forced entry, and that he could find neither fingerprints on the doorknob nor any weapon. He explained that there was no way that an intruder could have entered and judged that, due to the nature of the wounds, it was not a suicide. He said that he would return with more detectives and that I could do nothing to help.
With so much time suddenly at hand, I felt it fitting after an introspective stroll to inform my old friend, Edmund Hamley, of Caroline’s unexpected death. Hamley was a dashing and handsome man with a brilliant mind and a desire to do good; I was proud to count him as a friend. He had also been a friend of Caroline’s, as they had been romantically involved before I met her. Indeed, whenever I saw Hamley, he would inquire with interest about Caroline’s health. Over the past six years, however, our busy lives had kept us from speaking to one another. I knew that the news of Caroline’s death would upset him, but I felt it my duty as a friend to inform him of the tragedy.
Around midday, as far as I could tell from the gray sky, I set out toward the country mansion of the Hamley family. A cold wind kept my horse at an easy pace. At last, in the horizon, among the green fields, a grand, lonely house rose into view. At one time the building had been a handsome work of architectural genius, but only a shadow of its former self now remained. As I approached, I could see that the ancient wooden structure with its peeling paint seemed about to fall apart. The delicate murmur of the faint breeze was pierced by the shrill cry of a bird nested on the roof.
I knocked loudly on the decaying wooden door, and none other than Edmund Hamley opened it to greet me. He was not, however, the Edmund Hamley that I once had known. Physically, he appeared pale and emaciated; mentally, he seemed likewise fragile. I immediately noticed the changed expression on his face; though it showed the self-confidence that he had always had, it now seemed in his eyes and in his askew smile that he was desperate to prove this confidence rather than considering it granted. After I took off my coat, he grinned and shook my hand weakly.
“It’s been a long time, my friend,” said Hamley. “but still splendid. How the years pass!”
“They do indeed. How have you occupied yourself as of late?” I asked, not wishing to bring up so soon the death of his onetime lover, considering his present state.
“So kind of you to ask,” he said softly. “Come with me, so that I might show you.”
Hamley led me down the long main hallway to a door that I had never seen before. When he opened it, I saw in the darkness the outline of a stone staircase. Together we stepped all the way down into a vast, high-ceilinged, stone-walled room illuminated by torches suspended all around.
“Here,” announced Hamley, “my thoughts and ideas become real. This is where I have spent all my time.” Books about science filled shelves on the walls. On one table sat tubes filled with bubbling potions. Another had batteries and other means for generating electricity. Yet another held interlocking gears of various sizes turning by some mysterious force. The room was so littered with instruments and scribbled pages of notes that there was hardly space on the floor to walk. At the opposite end of the cavelike chamber stood a large wooden cabinet with wires and buttons on it.
“That,” began the aspiring scientist, seeing my eyes drifting toward its direction, “is my crowning achievement, the very focus of my years of study and work. It is a traveling machine, something like a locomotive in that sense.” He grinned, holding his hands over his chest.
“It has no tracks on which to travel,” I noted skeptically. “Surely it needs them, does it not?”
“No,” he declared, “and that is what is more remarkable. This machine travels not by tracks, but by the fabric of time. The traveler inside can relive yesterday or visit tomorrow. If he so chooses, he can walk with Christ, witness the founding of our nation, or see civilization as it will be a thousand years from now! The fruit of my labor will make me the greatest scientist ever known!”
“Look at what your loneliness has done to you,” I said. “You are ill! You have said that you spend all your time down here, and judging by your appearance, you have slept little and eaten nothing. Years of your being you have wasted looking at chemicals, making electricity, and laboring over this impossible machine. You squander your mental skills on absurdities, just like the alchemists of old. No longer do you serve to benefit society. You were once my friend, but I cannot bear to see you waste your gift of intellect. Now, Hamley, I cannot say whether I know you at all.”
“Fool!” he shouted, knocking over several vials of liquid with a spirited motion of his arms. “This machine truly works! I will show you!” With this he dashed over the clutter of notes, books, and experiments toward the back of the room and his machine. Pressing buttons on the outside, he opened the door and entered the compartment inside the contraption. I saw him pull a lever when a blaring explosion knocked me off my feet and a cloud of gray smoke took the place of the machine.
As I lay on my back over loose papers and fragments of broken glass, the distant ceiling of the room contorted and pulsated while the torches, now emitting various colors of light, circled overhead. The smoke from the explosion drifted toward me, and my whole body ached when I inhaled it. The pain increased as my ears began to ring, quietly at first, but then louder – and louder – and louder still! I shut my eyes tightly to try to stop the vertigo, but it would not cease, and so I clutched my stomach. Just then an even more thundering explosion, if it was possible, came from afar. From the corner of my eye I could see that the machine settled exactly where it had stood. Hamley pushed open the door and cackled, brandishing a dripping knife in his crimson hands.
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