BASEMENT COMMANDMENT. Edited by Rowan Silva

“Not even close.”

He turned the light on. She stepped into the room. A room as large as the previous one with birdcages fixed all around to the walls. She walked looked at the cages with opened mouth, stood in the middle of the room, “crows? Is it possible?”

“This time my brutal hypothesis have not failed, proved in practice.”

“It is beautiful; I don’t feel any horror in that.”

“For us yes. In contrast, might be for the birds. Look closer”

She stepped to get closer to one of the cages; the singing crow’s toes were glued down around a bamboo, the feathers of the tail were also glued down to another bamboo at its back so that the bird was fixed in the cage. A glass tube containing a yellow liquid had penetrated into its stomach. Staring at the bird, she said, “OK, I am seeing a hypothesis in practice. Yet how could you make a crow sing?” He enjoyed her curiosity, went close to the cage, and pointed to a bulge in the neck of the bird, “All is here, but before I quench your curiosity, I have to present you a brief narration.”

“Since you are accompanied by a well-designed soundtrack, I have no objection.”

“The carnage scenery of non-obedient bees relieved me of facing my failure for a few days. The relaxation lasted until some crows chose the remote location suitable to settle down. In contrast to my habit, their day began early in the morning, and with loud noises. Eventually, They have paid the price for the early wake-up call,” He stepped to the middle of the room. She turned her body to him, his voice became articulated, the narration continued in lecture mode. She seemed like enjoying the performance.

He continued, “Well another hypothesis was going to be created. The power of their sounds amazed me, I mean in terms of the decibels. Testing with an application in my cell phone; some crow could produce a ratio of 100 in decibel level, same as a military helicopter. Note that the permissible noise level for an industrial area is 75 for a commercial 55. Annoyed of the error in the God’s creation, I was going to fix it. Having visualized a crow as a 100-Watt speaker, I remembered an advertisement on TV. ‘This tiny gadget turns anything into music.’ I bought the gadget forty dollars plus tax; too expensive and too big, did not work on a crow. I came up with a brilliant idea, when I hit a stone to a crow’s head, the whimpering crow did not sound bad. The second room door was opened. Waiting for evolution to do the right thing takes millions of years, for God to rectify his design forever. I bought 150 cages; crows are cheap you can find them everywhere and the stupid people in the Captive Animal Protection Society don’t have crows in their listing.”

“Neither the bees.”

“Exactly, I am feeling to like you. Two unrelated evolutionary pitches developed the two-sided vocal cord, syrinx, of the songbirds resulting in a pleasant performance. Believe it or not, crows are among the birds that can mimic the human voice, so a small fixation was required to enhance their syrinxes: a Gillette razor. I bought plenty, 30 cents cost me each. I divided each to small parts with the blade at on side. All was needed then was perseverance. I installed the blade into the bird’s throat pierced half into syrinx half out of it. I tried with multiple factors among them were the angle of installment, piercing depth; and then a source of continuous pain. Do not forget it should be a whimpering crow after all. Thanks to the latter factor, the blind crows could sing better. Two hot needles in the eyes and addition of a low voltage battery for constant burning pain did the job quite enough. Voila, singing birds at your service.”

“I am amazed; and all legal. Sorry, but still I am not frightened.”

“A tough one, but I assure you the third room will terrify you.”

“Cannot wait.”

The botanist and the woman went out for the third room, as they came out of the room of crows, he closed the door and turned the light switch of the room off. They walked to the third door; he turned on the light switch of the third room on and then opened the door. She stepped into the room and then he did. He stood by her facing her to observe the reactions. She looked around, “But nothing is here otherwise than emptiness.”

“Are you sure?”

She turned around, this time carefully paid attention to the floor, ceiling, and white walls, in the end, unable to figure out the significance of the room, asked, “What is it?”

“My third project, this time a real horror,” He paused intentionally for a moment to enjoy of her questionable stare, then said, “You,” A long silence in the room, well conformed to the emptiness. He waited for her response.

“You have decided to imprison me here.”

“You are glaring; your sparkling eyes became glassy now,” he continued, “I am kidding, we can go upstairs. Well, that’s what you have asked for; horror.”

“Yes, so if you please, leave me alone in the room. Close the door, and turn the light off. I am seeing something.”

The man went out the room astonished of her unpredictable response. As he was shutting the door saw she took a piece of paper out from between her breasts. He closed the door and turned down the on and off light switch then stared at the closed door quietly.

A knock at the door, minutes later, which seemed much longer for the man. He opened the door; both departed the cellar in silence. As they passed the narrow gap between the hidden side and bright side of the hall, he dared to ask, “You look sad, what did you see in the empty room?”

“An empty room; a twelve-year sorrow of an empty life.”

“There is sorrow in every horror.”

“I am living in a chaotic world of secrets.”

“There is an order in all secrets. The quote comes from a story that I liked to read as a child.”

They left the cellar; he held his question in mind. They passed the gap where the reign of dark subconscious ended. “You raised high my curiosity. If you tell me what you have seen in the emptiness I would tell you about the ghost in the third room,” He was saying while they were walking back to the cashier place. She noticed someone was dumping some goods at the end of the aisle but did not turn back to see the person. “You first,” She suggested.

“You are putting me in narrative mode again. Nobody knows how the mind works, the third room is always a possibility, which the human civilization has been unable to banish it out the human mind. The real horror is the possibility. We don’t know how far a curious mind can go if an irregularity in normal life crawls day and night across the grey matter.” “What irregularity?” She asked while they were reaching the cashier.

“Your scent as an example. Now that I see your eyes got their beautiful shine back and you are in the secure part of the store, I may say.”

“What is wrong with my smell?”

“Something non-human which urges a man to trespass the boundaries. As a botanist, years of working with flowers has gifted me a kin sense of smell. Do you remember the last time when you came to my store? It was three days ago and we had just a brief encounter. Tonight, before you come in, I felt you. I wasn’t ignoring you as you silently entered. I had closed my eyes to detect each of your steps getting closer by your odorous intensity.”

“So the third room was really meant for me.”

“Well not precisely, as the scent is not of a flower type. I should confess this time your odor is a hundred times stronger.”

“What do you feel?”

“Something strange burns the two bulbs of olfactory up to a part of the brain isolated from language, the emotional; therefore very inexplicable in words. I say there is in it a vague message of remembering something lost, which like glue sticks to mind, crawls across brain back and forth in a quest. Now it is your turn.”

“My psychoanalyst has advised me that the fear of whiteness is the bridge between consciousness and subconscious which holds hidden the secrets of my true identity. Stay on it and do not run from it until you get something. My subconscious has to infiltrate through the total blockage of consciousness. I could not read the message in the whiteness as long as it is interpreted as blankness.”

“There is a message in whiteness for you?”

“Still, I don’t know. When you terrified me of imprisonment, your momentarily viscous silence and the notion of solitary in an empty room brought my whiteness anxiety back. You and the room blurred to white for a second. I had to maintain in the moment more, therefore, I asked you to let me stay alone in the room in a hope to see again.”

“And what have you seen in the darkness?” He asked with curious eyes as they have reached the cashier station and stood in front of each other.”

“I saw who stole the white painting off the wall of my psychoanalyst, hammered two nails into my wall, and hanged the painting on the wall.”

“Who?”

“I; and later, I guess, saw something on it at home which was too much at the moment for me to bear, therefore, I took it off the wall and hid it behind my big mirror. The painting at the back of the mirror, had created the woman in the mirror, a beast with blue glares.”

“Why did you steal it?”

“He had hanged it on his wall so that I remember a terrible mystery behind the whiteness from the back of my mind. The painting should have shown something. According to my subconscious I was not stealing it because I believed it was mine.”

“A mystery? How can you differentiate an illusion from a recollection of a fact?”

“If I were able to see me at the right age in the dream. This is one of a few touchstones I have been equipped with by my psychoanalyst. I guess that is enough for today psychiatry session.”

“I have also a secret to show you.”

He went to the cash register table took something and came back. “Open your hand.” She opened her hand. He placed the gift in her hand. “A dead bee?” she said while laughing.

“It is you. After you had left the last time, for hours, I could not fight my mind to forget you. I had an unbearable urge to imprison you in the third room to fill the room with your exotic scent in order to decipher the evolutionary codes in your odor and to discover the unique biology which emits it. I threw a live bee into the third room on that day. Today I found it dead, this is the bee.”