my oldest friend,
there’s a vent behind the library where the homelessometimes sleep. when it’s daylight you can look down through the grate to darkenedeep. at night, in the colder seasons, steamist builds there into billows, and all the huddled indistinct pull armfuls down to fill their pillows. in the summer it’s less crowded, and that’s why so few have heard this sound; i recorded it there, on the shortest night, when an alleycat and i were the only crowns around.
there’s a hiss to the tape, and the hum of the motors, and the wind of fan-blown air, but when that stops . . . listen close now–there, right there! your hear the way the whisper and the click and buzz combine? tell me you hear it, Montressor, tell me it’s clear to your ears and not only mine. there are words coming up from below there, slipping out, leaking. something in this vent is speaking, and its cadences are queer. we hear:
manticore’s lingual attributes tickle.
mantis lingers, attitude ticking.
mantssshhhing attssshhhic
manssshhh
tick, tock . . .
i thought, at first, of course, a clock (but time’s got nothing for it); or maybe chaos, random chance–but the pattern was a proof, and i couldn’t long ignore it. it makes sense if you let it: ventilation would look like a doorway to sometimesomeones so given to roam.
i’m sure of it this time, Montressor: Attic Mantling has a home.
entirely,
Tanner