The Dark Outside

By Eric Jeitner

Two refugees staying alive through mutual silence. A group of strangers on an enigmatic hunt through a dangerous wilderness. A world-weary police detective looking for the origins of violence.

The Dark Outside presents fifteen forays into surreal places and weird landscapes. Ideal reading for the the obsessive, paranoid, and discerning individual.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eric Jeitner
• Release date: Mar 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301090532

Eric Jeitner

Eric Jeitner is a writer and librarian. His fiction is somewhat difficult to categorize. He lives in Philadelphia, PA with his wife and two cats.

Book preview

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Walking the Shadow City

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I found the way in the margin of a notebook, handed to me on a subway platform by a woman I never knew. What I found on that one, particular page, scrawled in ink, handwriting barely readable, was what led me here. It was one page of many, one piece of knowledge among countless others written in the book. Perhaps what I found was the gate that began the experience. Perhaps what I found is the narrative you read now.

In either case, I came to the city at dusk. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I could only have arrived at dusk; the red orb that might have once been a sun sat low on the horizon, never moving, an acrylic blob from the celestial brush. But I am digressing to metaphysics, which have no place here. Suffice it to say that the notebook was the genesis of what I relate, and the point of departure for this long and unusual journey.

The streets were labyrinthine, stretching off to somewhere beyond the farthest point my eyes could resolve, or else bending around in cyclic eternity. An ouroboros world twisting around to consume itself. Perhaps, I thought, I was looking ahead at the space that lay behind me. I was surprised to find the streets paved mostly with cobblestones; dull shine, as though it had rained. As I walked forward, the sound of the steps rose around me, echoing down side alleys towards tall cans of rotting garbage. I dropped the notebook into an oily puddle, where insects might crawl on the stained cover.

I would not need the liner notes now.

I knew I had come home.

parafictia

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paraphilia - Perverted sexual desires. Hence paraphiliac, paraphilic adjs. and ns.

fiction - a: something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically: an invented story   b: fictitious literature (as novels or short stories)   c : a work of fiction

At Play in the Fields of the Word

Dear Irritated Reader,

With this, you will now have that which I submit for your appraisal, upon having placed such into your hands. And by submit, I mean supply, for that is what I have done: taken a something that wasn’t always (I think it was once a nothing, or at least a perhaps) and given you that thing. And here you sit.

I’ll tell you what I don’t mean by submit, and that is prostrate myself. For here you are, and you’ve foolishly taken what I’ve offered, and now the fun can start. In some sense, you’ve done the submitting (that meaning in the sense of prostrating one’s self); you’ve looked me in the eye and held out your hand, and into it I’ve placed the handcuffs. Locked in place, struggling. But you do look better from this odd angle. Given the whip and other, related torture implements, you can always flay me raw in return. Retaliation of a sort. Unless my winces are faked. He seems to enjoy waiting for it too much, you might think (or might not – I don’t want to tell you what to do, now). Either way, do you find that you still enjoy the act?

It really is sick, the way we interact…

But, as I said, I submit this for your submission. What happens afterward is anyone’s guess. Much like this page. These words, you’ll say after reading all that is to come, are they parts of a whole idea, or are they just parts? You’ll wonder about the significance of this idea, and the significance of this question. (Whether the question is mine or yours may hold significance as well.) But there it is, and here you are, and here this is – that which I now submit for your appraisal, upon having placed such into your hands.

Most Utmost Sincerest,

The Irritated Author

A Reply

Dear Irritated Author,

Is nothing sacred?

I mean really – that you should presume such things. And in such an untoward manner! Nowseeherenowseehere… Indeed! All of your talk of these things – things best left under cover of darkness, things best done when the lights are put out, when the kids and the cat have been put out, when the eyes have been put out. 

Egads! Put out. Now you even have us playing your obscene games! 

Decent, upstanding citizens who won’t take such gross misconduct lying on our prone, naked, stretched backs… You won’t get the likes of us hogtied in the hot, patent-leather fucksaddle – we just won’t endure any of those shenanigans in our untroubled lives. 

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa – oh, we’ve been ever so naughty. 

And besides, I hear tell that you’re dead. 

Expired. All talk and no action from the dead, as they say they say. And you’re just the same. Why, just the other day Mr. B------ was informing me of your untimely passing. A tragedy; so sorry to hear. But we never liked you anyway, and your work was appalling. So maybe not so sorry after all…

But perhaps it’s for the best, your being dead. Outmoded, outdated, still hanging around, staring in the windows at us, trying to look like you’ve still got it. Pathetic, and a bit of a shame. Still, perhaps you aren’t entirely to blame. The corpse is always the last to know. 

In summary: cease and desist all your dirty-talking, your double-talking, your teasing and game-playing. Please. Please stop. Oh please don’t make us read any more. No! Please don’t make us do it again!

All Pleas and Thank-Yous (in the strictest, most disciplined sense),

The Irritated Reader

A Retort, with Substantiations

Dear Irritated Reader,

Whereas by which henceforth is but neither has nor hasn’t, in any case, either of these therefore. 

Such formalities aside, I feel I must respond for a moment, bring some fruitful declaration forth from the mouth so that Discussion (in the grandest sense) might be served. And so I say that I feel that I have, again, something that you need, something that you want. And I add that, upon spending your time thus, this is something you are bound to enjoy. 

And by bound I mean roughly restrained and tied, for those are the implements of my trade. The instruments treated with reverence, relishing each click of the cuff lock as it slips further along into place, knowing I have you precisely where I want you, knowing you will only get relief when I say. So I assert you are bound for enjoyment – once again, mine or yours? Who can say? For the nature of pleasure is fickle and fleeting; and who’s to say my enjoyment is not yours as well. 

But I sense that you still have reservations, that some problematic concern with the Work is still heavy in the wind. And so I will arrest those fears, wrap up those concerns with duct tape, that they may be handled with firm attention and a few well-placed slaps, left hanging from the ceiling for a time, simmering in their discontent. 

Best Cordial of Sincerity,

The Irritated Author

An Interruption

Dear Irritated Reader, (and Irritated Critic, and Anyone Else Who Will Listen,)

We shall make our statement brief as the nightingale sings its last, mournful hymn, the matin grows nigh, and it is getting exceptionally crowded around this small writing desk…

We unanimously take issue with your recent claim that the Irritated Author is numbered among our legion. We – who have, for untold millennia, been the bearers of the secret knowledge born in the human heart, the lurking and unquiet conscience of your race, and the judiciaries of all that is True – express a fiery, immeasurable fury and a disdainful puckering of the lips (though they shriveled away in ancient days) at such a claim. For why would we welcome such a wretch? His prose is cheap and full of cheaper tricks; his worldview flimsy and misguided, at best; and his hubris so obnoxious and overpowering a stench that it is rival to the Lethe bog that saps the will and the memory. 

Recant your most ill-conceived notion, for we claim him not! He is of your world alone, and (we hope, in the name of all things sacred or profane) will remain so forever. He is not welcome here. 

We trust that you shall understand the sentiment with which we write to you this night, and shall not bear grudge against any of our number, for we speak plainly, if passionately. 

Regretfully, But Adamantly, Yours,

The Irritated Dead

Postus Scriptorum: Mayhaps a good spanking is in order…though for whom we shall not say. 

Epilogue of Commandment – A Reiteration, A Negative Reinforcement

I am there in the first storm – floating above the water – black fire on white fire.

I know you better than you know yourself, having made you what you are, told you how to feel. And the limits of those feelings are ones I gave you. 

I left you on a street corner with a hand that ran in blood, a ragged body heaped at your feet. I made you feel the dead weight on your shoes, and the warmth in your clenched fist, squeezing cool metal as its crusts. What’s more, I made you like it. I made you want for it again. 

I had you nauseated in the bathroom at night, lying near the tile and smelling the musk of old mold while you thought of what I’d said. Maybe you thought to induce vomiting, just to know, just to be certain nothing was crawling in your stomach on stick legs or membrane slicks. I put it there – in the guts. Though whether it’s the parasite or just the fear, you can’t say. 

I abused – kicking, scratching, slowsqueeze the throat, burning acid to the brain, blownback poison exploding in reverse through your veins. It dissolved the vial I kept it in; I told you this, and you thought of how it was inside you. That kind of burn gets you hot. That kind of strangulation tenses up the muscles in you and causes you to pant. I think you’ve found this, too…

I do it because I hate you. I do it because I’m obsessed with you. These two poles spin around you and the intense gravity will pull you apart. And it will happen when I want it to. 

You’ll survive – push yourself up on sprained, bruised arms that can barely hold you, arms that still wear the tight evening gloves I gave you. You will crawl away to rest somewhere and lick the wounds. If you don’t mind, I’ll watch while you do.

And then – will you stand up and walk back?

I’ve given you a key to the house in an old envelope.

I will still be here, in the dim back room, waiting to hear your steps in the hallway.

The still of the room like tension before the clouds break –

The burn of lightning –

Flashes of combustion inside the fog –

Black fire on white fire

"And since I cannot prove a lover

to entertain these fair well-spoken days

I am determined to prove a villain."

–William Shakespeare, Richard III

Barred Rooms

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There came a moment of anticipation in which the silence that surrounded him seemed louder than any noise he might produce. And in fear of this quiet din, though he knew it was never real, he lowered the top of the wooden chest to the floor. It barely made any sound as it thudded against the coarse carpeting; he winced. And then another waiting, almost as bad as the first, but lessened with the knowledge that if they had been heard, there was nothing which could be done. But the silence ensued, so he stood.

Claire watched him from her seat in the corner. She gently rocked the bundle of blanketing that concealed her infant, hid him away completely, save for one gleaming eye which looked at her quizzically. She wondered if she wrapped him like that to hide the baby from whatever might find him. She wondered to pass the time. It was the only thing that made it pass quickly, besides sleeping. Daniel slept, lying down on the back of the bureau he had just lowered.

So ended their twenty-sixth day together.

Daniel awoke suddenly and his first thought was to listen. When he heard nothing, he raised himself off of his wooden bed and moved across the cushioned path. Lengths of carpeting, runners or pieces randomly torn from larger rolls, were placed together on the floor to provide a network of roads that ran through the rooms. Wherever enough rug could not be found, the gap between the lengths was patched with anything that would absorb sound. Daniel stepped down onto the smiling face of a model gazing up blankly from glossy shine of reflected light on magazine paper. His foot moved quickly onto the thin padding and relaxed imperceptibly. 

He wandered into the next room. It didn’t look to be much different