Monument
[CLICK]
[FOOTSTEPS SET AGAINST A FAINT BACKDROP OF SLOW STONE MOVEMENTS]
MARTIN
Oh, bugger off!
ARCHIVIST
Everything alright?
MARTIN
Oh, no, w-w-what even is that? I-It’s like Escher ate a bad cathedral and threw up everywhere.
ARCHIVIST
It’s a building. A tower, in a sense.
MARTIN
Oh yeah? And what sense might that be?
ARCHIVIST
[Faintly ominous] The Tarot sense.
[MARTIN SPLUTTERS WITH LAUGHTER]
MARTIN
Really?
ARCHIVIST
What? No. Sorry, it… felt like a good line.
MARTIN
No, no, it was. I just… I dunno, I… you did the look and… It’s fine, sorry. What, what’s the deal, though? Parts of it almost look like –
ARCHIVIST
The Institute.
MARTIN
Yeah.
THE ARCHIVIST
Yes.
It makes sense. After all, it was built on the ruins of what Robert Smirke constructed.
MARTIN
Smirke?
…
What? No. But, but, surely he’s –
ARCHIVIST
Dead? Yes. Very much so. This place is… an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him and those like him, who tried to… categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its suffering.
MARTIN
Bit of a mouthful.
ARCHIVIST
Would you prefer I described it as a cascading recursion of shifting arrogance and hubristic dead-ends?
[DOOR OPENS]
HELEN
I would.
[DOOR SHUTS]
MARTIN
[Weary] Hello Helen. Might have guessed you’d be into weird architecture. Very much your area of expertise, no?
HELEN
Hmm, depends. Would you describe ‘petulant poet’ as your area of expertise? I am weird architecture. Anyway, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you, but you both just vanished.
ARCHIVIST
Ah. Right. I see.
HELEN
I was so looking forward to catching up after that whole Basira and Daisy thing, but then pfft! You both disappear. I’d be very keen to know how you managed that little trick.
MARTIN
Why, it caught us by surprise too. I mean, w-we actually ended –
ARCHIVIST
[Firmly] We found somewhere to take a rest. That’s all.
MARTIN
Oh, yeah. Ah. Yes.
HELEN
Fine. Be like that. I can appreciate the particular pleasure of a kept secret.
ARCHIVIST
I’m sure you can.
HELEN
Anyway, such a shame about Basira and Daisy. I was really rooting for them to make up.
MARTIN
[Splutters] Since when? What happened to – I mean, how did you put it… “A quick shot to the back of the head, and then back in time for tea”, or whatever?
[HELEN GIVES AN EXASPERATED SIGH]
HELEN
Oh give over. I was obviously just prodding her, trying to make a point. She didn’t want to kill her.
ARCHIVIST
What we want doesn’t matter much these days.
[HELEN MAKES A RASPBERRY NOISE]
HELEN
Oh nonsense. What we want is the only thing that matters these days. And Basira wanted to join Daisy.
ARCHIVIST
She made her choice.
HELEN
With your assistance.
ARCHIVIST
It was still her choice.
HELEN
[Sighing] What a waste.
ARCHIVIST
No.
It wasn’t.
MARTIN
Basira is…
She’s going to be okay.
HELEN
Oh, is she? Do you want me to tell you what she’s been up to while you were ‘resting’? Where she is right now?
ARCHIVIST
You don’t need to. I already know.
MARTIN
I don’t.
[FAINT STATIC AS THE ARCHIVIST SEES]
ARCHIVIST
She’s currently moving through “The Void.” Hungry shadows drifting in the dark. She’s been there a long time, now, struggling to find the path.
MARTIN
But she will.
ARCHIVIST
I think so.
HELEN
Yeah, she does always seem to manage, doesn’t she? It’s impressive, although a little bit… tempting at times.
MARTIN
Look, Helen, what do you even want? You keep turning up like a bad penny, and –
Honestly, it seems like it’s… it’s just to be a dick!
HELEN
Gasp! I am trying to be friends, Martin. Forever is a long time. And I occasionally like to have some company that isn’t screaming.
MARTIN
What do you even think friendship is?
HELEN
I dunno, do I? The only personhood I have is from someone I ate.
MARTIN
You always said you were Helen.
HELEN
I am. I also ate her. It’s very simple, as long as you don’t think about it.
MARTIN
Look. Listen, I’m getting really sick of all thi–
ARCHIVIST
Leave it, Martin. She’s just trying to get under your skin.
MARTIN
Yeah? Well, she’s really good at it!
HELEN
Aww. Thanks, sweetie. But to be honest, I’m mainly just here to see which path you choose.
MARTIN
What do you mean?
HELEN
Well, you know, I need to know how much of a welcome mat to roll out.
MARTIN
Hang on…
ARCHIVIST
Martin, I’d prefer we talk about this alone.
HELEN
Oh, I bet you would. You were probably just going to bypass it entirely, weren’t you? I can’t believe you would deny him the choice to see his own domain.
MARTIN
My… my wha– John, my what?
ARCHIVIST
…
[Sighing] I was going to bring it up at the crossroads. Inside. I only just realised we would be going this way.
MARTIN
I have a domain?
ARCHIVIST
Yes.
[HELEN MAKES A CRINGING NOISE]
HELEN
Awkward! Right, well. Well, this very much seems like a conversation the two of you should be having alone. So I’ll, I’ll be off, then.
ARCHIVIST
Watching from a distance?
HELEN
The Eye rules everything, Archivist. We’re all snoops now!
[DOOR OPENS]
Ciao!
[FOOTSTEPS]
[DOOR SHUTS]
[SILENCE OF THE WASTELAND]
ARCHIVIST
Martin…
MARTIN
Are there people, John?
ARCHIVIST
What?
MARTIN
Are there people in my domain?
ARCHIVIST
Not many.
MARTIN
…
Do you need to do… your thing? Make a statement about whatever’s going on in there?
I could use a moment to think.
ARCHIVIST
Sure thing. Yeah. I’ll…
Yeah.
[FOOTSTEPS]
[STATIC RISES]
[THE SOUND OF SHIFTING, SLIDING, STONE UNDERSCORES THE STATEMENT]
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
They scratch and scrape and scamper down the halls of icy granite, fingers that end in jagged nails probing, eager, desperate for the wide and stately passages of marble they are so convinced are just around the corner. This corner? No, the next one? Surely soon, it must be soon, yes, I have simply misplaced it for a moment.
They scrabble over smoothly shifting steps that grow and shrink to hidden whims, and argue about the angle with nobody. If they are feeling very confident, they may lean down and stretch a curious tongue beyond their chipped teeth and rotten gums, desperate to add another sense to their observances, more evidence to support their declaration of what the world must be. Their beards are long and matted with their prevaricating spittle, and their hair is kept loose, hanging over their faces to hide the looks of confusion and fear.
There is a way out of here. There must be a way out of here. There is a pattern to the movements, an unseen system to the shifting of the doors and the opening of the tunnels. It simply takes observation and thought and patience and, above all else, intelligence. And that is what these men have in abundance. Intellects sharpened to the keen edge as a chef might sharpen their knife. They have spent their lives in holy objectivity, cleaving one Gordian Knot after another in the arena of publication and debate. They must simply study and learn if they are to escape the labyrinth. They will be the first to escape.
The one who sits in the central chamber cannot remember his name. But he knows that people called him ‘doctor’. He made sure of that. To ignore it would have been the greatest disrespect and he will not be disrespected. Doctor…uh, something, has been waiting here for a long time, timing and observing the rotations of the passageways above him. He knows for a fact that this is the central chamber because he is the one sat here. For his observations to make any sense they must be made from the centre of this place, and this is where he is observing from, so it stands to reason that it is the centre. The only firm and solid place in a cacophony of undulating architecture; the only point from which it may be solved.
How long has he been watching now? Scratching his notes and formulae into his skin with a fragment of splintered obsidian. It does not matter, time means nothing in the pursuit of knowledge, and he has no concerns except the solution. And he has cracked it. His mouth breaks into a smile, lip splitting in the grin, spilling a drop or two of scarlet onto skin so pale as to now be near-translucent. He has seen the others pointlessly wandering the halls, of course. Simpering pretenders claiming to see patterns when they are only being led by the siren call of their pathetic little biases. Their ridiculous pet theories. Not like him. They’ll remember him forever, the first to escape the Monument. His name will be hallowed with the greats: Doctor…uh… Doctor…
It doesn’t matter. There will be time enough for names and gloating and awards once his achievement is secured. And now is the time to put it to the test, to prove once and for all that his peers are ignorant amateurs beside him, who can finally boast that he has found the key to the system in which they all struggle. He begins to walk, calmly, and with a measured certainty, to the east.
Figuring out which way was east was the first step, and the most simplistic one, for the central chamber in which he had positioned himself received a ray of light from above at regular intervals that could only be sunlight. And thus it was a simple matter to track the course of the light to determine which direction was east and which was west. Once he had noticed that, it was all about keeping a close eye on the timing of the shifts, cross-referenced with the compass-point. In a westward direction, the corridors would invert every forty-seven seconds and shift incline every twenty, as well as growing a door to a staircase every two minutes. The staircase would be always be descending except for every fifth door, which would go up and twist to the north. And just like that, he had plucked order from what would, to any of the other charlatans that wandered this prison of geometry, appear to be true chaos. It was east that he travelled now, however, because every eighty seconds, the second corridor to the east made a sharp upwards inversion, leading to a full minute where every seven seconds a door would sprout from the ground. Only the first of these doors would lead you through to the true path that will–
A dead end. Wait. No. This… wasn’t right. The first of the doors would lead him… Maybe that wasn’t the first of the doors. But it, it was, it was the first door. But that would mean… No, he, he was right, he was certain, he had factored in all the timings. This didn’t make sense. It, it wasn’t fair! He had the answer! He –
[SOUND OF BODY FALLING, HITTING STONE AND CRACKING]
The ground opens up below the poor, panicking doctor. He barely has time to register before he is tumbling, falling, smashing bone and cracking skull on the stairs and columns he impacts on his descent, one after another. But it is not the fall that terrifies him, not the pain of the impacts, but the fact that none of them should be there. That it doesn’t make sense. And it must make sense. There must be a system. There must be, because if there isn’t…
[THE BODY LANDS WETLY]
He lands with a heavy smack onto rough limestone and lies still, his body twisted and broken. He knows it will knit itself back together, slowly, painfully, as it always has before. But the thought of starting over, of composing yet another theory, fills him with a deep dread.
The broken doctor is not alone in the room where he now lies. Another figure, stooped and mumbling, staining bloody notes into a torn and discoloured robe glances over at him. A sneer passes across the cracked face of the doctor. He knows this man, a ‘professor’, at least he puffs himself up to be. His curled lip is reflected in the face of this pretender, who scampers over to where he fell, chunks of stone clutched tight in pink and bloody hands.
‘I told you,’ the professor gloats, ‘that your precious compass-point rubric is nonsense. It’s all about the stone, the rocks that make up this place. You see, here we have the limestone, here the granite. Taste it. No? Your loss. I have also identified basalt and slate in varying qualities shot through the staircases in veins. Now, if we ascribe a hierarchy of spiritual purity to these stones, with the hypothetical, but inevitable, marble at the top, then it is will be a simple matter of following the current of these stones through the–’
The doctor that lies on the floor has recovered just enough to laugh.
‘You’re still working on mineral theory? How painfully outdated.’
A flash of genuine fear crosses the face of the professor at this dismissal, before he picks up his chunk of granite, and begins to smash the doctor’s head in yet again.
[SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PEER REVIEW, AS THE STATIC RISES AGAIN]
[FOOTSTEPS]
MARTIN
Finished?
ARCHIVIST
Yes.
MARTIN
Good.
…
I need you to explain something to me.
ARCHIVIST
Alright.
MARTIN
How do I have a domain? That doesn’t make any sense.
ARCHIVIST
It’s like I said. Everything here is either watcher or watched.
MARTIN
Subject or object, yes, I know, we’ve been over this.
ARCHIVIST
Well, you’re a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements. The Eye is… fond of you. You’re not getting thrown into your own personal hell, which means…
MARTIN
[Quietly] That one of them belongs to me. But that’s… H-How can I be a ‘Watcher’? I didn’t even know it existed!
ARCHIVIST
But you’ve suspected for a while now, haven’t you?
MARTIN
Maybe. But that’s not ‘watching’!
ARCHIVIST
Do you want me to tell you about it?
MARTIN
No.
Yes.
N-No. No. I don’t know.
[SEEING STATIC RISES]
ARCHIVIST
It’s a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely. Inhabited by a few lost souls whose fear is not of their isolation or their agonies, but that no-one will ever know of them. That they shall suffer in silence, and be mourned by nobody. That’s why you can’t really see it. It’s why even if we do travel through it, you won’t be able to see any of the people trapped there.
MARTIN
But I’m not an avatar.
ARCHIVIST
[Heated] Avatar isn’t a thing, Martin! It’s not–
It’s just a word. A word used by… fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line and, well, I’m sorry you’re not happy with which side you’ve ended up on.
MARTIN
What about Daisy? Or Basira?
ARCHIVIST
Daisy carved through the domains of others. Basira, well… in a very real way, she was a sufferer in Daisy’s domain. Maybe the only one. Hunting, following, hurting. Now Daisy’s dead… she’s free. Sort of. She’s inherited something of Daisy’s ability to move through the other domains.
For now, she’ll feed off what she sees in them. As to whether the Eye ultimately gives her a domain of her own… I don’t know yet.
MARTIN
You didn’t tell her any of that.
ARCHIVIST
I didn’t think the metaphysics of her place in the fear ecosystem was something she’d be particularly interested in at that moment.
MARTIN
Fair. But you seem very reluctant to tell anyone any of this stuff.
ARCHIVIST
I did try, right at the start, but you didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so I didn’t push it. It’s hard, I have so much knowledge but… how do I decide what people want me to share, and what they never want to know?
MARTIN
I guess that makes sense.
…
So What did you mean about the crossroads? When you were talking to Helen?
ARCHIVIST
It’s a maze in there. Something between a, a Rubik’s Cube and a Magic Eye picture. I can find us the way through easily enough but, well, for us, there are two ways out. Two paths to London.
MARTIN
What are the choices?
ARCHIVIST
One would be a long, winding route. We’d see a lot of horrors, but remain personally untouched.
MARTIN
And the other is my domain?
ARCHIVIST
Eventually. It’s a shorter path. With faces we know along the way. Including Helen.
MARTIN
I thought Helen was her domain, with all the doors and that?
ARCHIVIST
She is, but she has a position within this… pseudo-landscape like any other.
MARTIN
O-Okay. So, so, I mean, I suppose we’ve got to do that one, right?
ARCHIVIST
We don’t have to. W-We could just –
MARTIN
What? What? We, we could dodge around it? Take the path of denial? I guess. But… what is it you keep harping on about? ‘The journey will be the journey’?
I mean… It’s pretty obvious this one is my journey.
ARCHIVIST
If you’re sure.
MARTIN
…
I’m sure I love you.
[FOOTSTEPS]
ARCHIVIST
I love you too.
[FABRIC RUSTLES]
Let’s go.