Compiled "A Voice From The Basement" (for use elsewhere, but enjoy)

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Part 1

I remember a lot of things about the good old days at PD, before everything went bad and wrong and all sour in the mouth, like we've all been sucking on pennies.  Back when everyone lived in The City, and nobody lived anywhere else.

I remember Payne, who was an inspiration to everyone, saving the world every other week...Until he went after Nigel and her Murder Colonels, and neither he nor Nigel were ever seen again.  I remember LMNO's mustache, which posted via it's host (some guy in Boston), until it was murdered by Mrs LMNO in a fit of jealousy.  I remember Kai, who used to post about science, until the Bureau of Correct Thinking hauled him off to a reeducation camp in Kansas.

Hell, I even remember Curly, and most people today just think of him as one-third of a comedy team.

I remember PILLS HERE, hell, how could I forget?  PILLS HERE is what I use to forget everything else.  they take the jagged metal edge off the rim of the can I keep my mind in, and I don't have to remember that things were very different, not very long ago.

Yep.  I don't need to write about unpleasant things, because I don't need to think about unpleasant things...I can just, you know, PILLS HERE and everything gets fuzzy around the edges, and I relax a lot.  It sure beats all that worrying I used to do, all that caring about the fate of stupid monkeys and the mudball they shit all over.

So I poke around in Apple Talk a bit, here and there, and it reminds me of working nights in the computer lab for extra cash back in college.  Walking around empty halls in the basement, looking through the windows into labs with half-finished experiments on them, and munching on some horrible shit I got out of the vending machine.  It was very easy to think of myself as the last man on Earth, then, just as it is now.

You'd hear noises, down in that basement, you'd hear noises and you could imagine that you weren't alone, that maybe someone was still working on those experiments.  You'd stroll over to the area the noise was coming from, looking maybe to bullshit for a while, and it would just be a rat, or a cavitating heater pipe.  So you'd go back to the lab and read more science fiction, and pretend you weren't so utterly alone that you'd welcome a serial killer or some science fiction monster.

Then you blink, and decades have gone by, and you still kind of feel like you're in that basement, because everyone around you looks like a ghost or a rerun on television and PILLS HERE.  You can say their lines right along with them, you know what they're going to say and how they're going to say it, and it just kind of depresses you to watch them go throught their programmed motions, like watching a rerun of Three's Company, which was a color teevee show made for a black & white audience, back when Carter was president.  There's probably an important thought in there somewhere, but everything is too muddled for me to piece it together.

There's time for muddled things, but no energy for them.  What's the point?  The whole damn movie is already scripted, and people are going to recite their lines as directed, while the monster removes them one by one, and what are you going to do about it?  Holler "DON'T GO IN THE CRAWLSPACE!" at the screen?  Won't change a thing.  Monkeys are going to do what monkeys need to do, which is follow the plot right up until the horrible shit at the end of the final reel.

Part 2

So the plant lost its main power bus today.

Tribal lore says the main plant switching box is so old and decrepit that it isn't to be touched, ever.  It does in fact look awful...Corroded as hell, with about 30 years worth of failed rust inhibitor all over it (the geniuses that built this place located it in the worst of the acid atmosphere.

But, you know, the plant is down.  So the boss calls down from on high, and says, "Remember to leave that disconnect panel alone".

We trace the problem directly to that panel.

I have the guys suit up, and we ever-so-carefully take the panel faces off...And it's a blown fuse.  What's more, there's nothing wrong with the disconnect boxes.  Nothing.  These guys have been living in fear for at least 8 years, and there's nothing at all wrong with it.  It isn't new, but everything inside is perfectly functional.

So now the plant has power, my boss is happy (success outweighs obedience, here), and we learned something.

And all of you bastards need to learn something, too.  You know those guys in the basement?  The crude, misanthropic bastards who walk around in Dickey shirts with tools stuffed in their pockets?  The ones who keep everything running?

Leave us alone.  It's our basement, not yours.  You just take care of whatever it is you Eloi deal with, and you leave us Morlocks to handle things down here.  Leave us be, and the lights stay on, and water comes out of the tap when you want it.  Fuck with our game, and we'll come up at night and eat you.

Part 3

I never knew that hatch was there.

I'd been working in here for 42 years, ever since I can remember...And yet, when I was shifting some crates out of a back corner of the basement, I found the hatch.

It was a square diamond plate deal, with a faded sign on it:

DANGER - AUTHORIZED MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL ONLY!

Well, hell, I'm the only maintenance guy in here, right?  So I grabbed a pair of bolt cutters and - with some effort - cut the massive padlock off.  I grabbed a pry bar, and levered the hatch open.  It gave a hideous shriek of metal on metal, and then popped open.  A cool draft came from the man-way that was revealed.  An iron ladder was fixed to the side.

At no time did it enter my head that this might not be the smartest place to explore.

I turned my headlamp on, and started down the ladder.  It was a long, long way down, and I was a little exhausted when I got there.  Glancing around, I saw a large chamber with pumps lining the walls, and a hallway leading out at one end.

And a small, red-headed boy.

"What the hell are you doing down here, kid?"

"I'm looking for my snowmobile.  Have you seen it?"

"Your snowmobile?"

The boy glanced at his shoes.  "It's not a for real snowmobile.  It's a toy one that my daddy bought me for my birthday.  And now it's gone missing.  I think Philip Knight stole it.  He's too big for it, but he would steal it anyway, just to be mean.  I have to find it, and I want to get back at him."

"Well, I haven't seen..."

The boy was gone.

I unclipped the Qrae from my belt, and took a reading.  If the air was bad enough to make me see kids that weren't there, maybe I better get the hell out...Nope.  O² was normal, no CO, no hydrogen sulfide, no methane.

What the fuck?

I walked across the chamber, noting that about half the pumps were running.  I also noted a vibration in the floor, like you'd get with a massive turbine in need of bearings.  Following the hallway out of the room, I came to a small motor control center.

And there was the kid again, or maybe his older brother.  Red-headed kid, about 12...And he'd taken a beating.

"What the hell happened to you, kid?"

"Some of the other kids ganged up on me, and kicked my ass."

"Well, there's only one thing to be done about that.  Find them one at a time, and fight each one individually."

"Yeah, thanks, mister.  I need some payback."

"No problem.  By the way, what are you doing here..."

Gone again.

I was more than a little freaked out, now, but nothing harmful had happened...So I decided to continue exploring.  Already this place was larger than the actual basement above, and it kept going.

So I kept going.  I eventually came to a staircase.  Looking over the side, it went down multiple flights.  Down the shaft, I could see multiple landings.

At the second turn in the stairs, the redhead again.  He looked to be about 16, acne and all.  He looked absolutely miserable.

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me what you're doing down here."

He just looked at me.

"What the hell is wrong?", I asked.

"My girl ran off with my bastard of a brother."

"Ohhhh, that sucks."

"I'm going to make him pay if it takes me the rest of my life."

"That's no way to live, kid.", I said, feeling more than a little hypocritical (I am a vengeful man, myself).

"I don't care.  I loved her, and we had an argument, and there the bastard was."

"It takes two to tango", I replied.

"Yeah, but I don't feel right doing something horrible to her."

"That's probably a good..."

Once again, the kid was gone.

I tried the door on the first landing.  It was nailed shut.  A date was written on the door in chalk, "1992".  Through the filthy reinforced glass, I saw something big moving around.  Ooookay.  Next door.

The next door had also been nailed shut, but at some point had been forced open.  I walked in, and wasn't too surprised to see the redhead.  He was wearing a soldier's full kit, and he was covered in mud.  He looked like maybe 19 or so, now.

"You got any smokes?", he asked.

I fished out a marlboro, and handed it to him.  He lit it with a zippo, and sat down on a box.  "Jesus", he said, "Jesus, am I tired."

"You look a little beat up."

"Yeah, just humped it through the Mehingas.  Fucking lost my smokes.  Just watched the bastards float downstream.  Number fucking 10."

"So, look.  If I ask you a question, do you promise not to disappear?"

"Disappear?", he looked at me like I was looking at him.

"Trust me on this one."

"Okay, shoot."

"How did you get down here?"

"I don't know, to be honest.  One minute I was about to clobber Teeters.  The fucker bums smokes off of me all damn year, then when I'm out, he won't give any up.  I was just leaning back to knock the dogshit out of him, and then I was here, and you were here."

"I see.  Here.  Have the pack...I have another in my jacket.  Now you don't have to knock Teeters out."

"Well, yeah, but it's the principle of the thing, you know?  But yeah, the nic fit's gone, and..."

You guessed it.  Gone again.

I hit the staircase again.  At the next landing, an iron fence was set up to block the rest of the staircase.  Shrugging, I walked through the door.

And looked at myself.

I was sitting behind a desk, smoking one of those cheap cigars I love so much, with a stack of paperwork in front of me.  A nameplate on his desk said "Doktor Howl".  I was bald, and I was smiling in a way that would make my face hurt, if "I" tried it (I don't smile much.).

"Well, you're early.", he/I said.

"What the fuck?"

"Oh, it's simple, really.  You just couldn't resist that hatch, right?  Just HAD to find out what's waaaaay down deep, under the basement.  Well, here we are.  You found me."

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm you.  More to the point, I'm the you that stopped caring about lost toys, cheating girlfriends, and trivial shit like some bastard shorting you on the smokes.  I'm the you that got past the Horrible Thing in the "doll factory".  I'm the you that deserves to go through that gate outside.  You know what that gate is, right?"

"Well, I figure the progression I've seen so far makes that...um, tomorrow?"

"That's right.  So I'm going through that gate, and you're gonna sit your arse down here and get these damn maintenance variances under control.  They're a fucking week late.  Frankly, I didn't expect you for another day, at least."

"How come YOU get to go, and I get to stay?"

"Because that's the only way you'd have it.  You can't let go of shit, and down here, you don't have to.  Me, I want to see tomorrow, not think about shit that happened 37 years ago."

What could I say?  When I'm right, I'm right.  Let this fucking wuss go down those stairs, let him see the future, let him get fucked over and fucked over, and just keep sticking his crank in the meat grinder.  Me, I know better.  I know he's gonna get fucked, and he isn't going to do a Goddamn thing about it, because he's weak.  He's weak, and he won't get back his own, won't protect what's his.

A few minutes later, I heard the gate clang shut, as I settled down to work on the variance. 

"Sucker", I thought.  "Everything he/I need is right fucking here in this basement.  Why the hell would I want to go anywhere else?"

The other me's, who had filed into the room, all nodded in agreement.  Together, we'd be fine.  Together, we'd never forget anything.

Part 4

In the basement, that's where to hide the horrible little secrets of your life.  Secrets from your friends, secrets from your loved ones, even secrets from yourself.  You gotta drag those secrets down there, you know, like corpses in Arsenic and Old Lace, and you gotta stack 'em up, maybe organize them some.

And if you find yourself spending more and more time down there, well, that's only natural.  Secrets were meant to be guarded after all.  You don't want someone walking down there and seeing you with your pants down and your crazy hanging out, do you?

And maybe it's cool down there, and not too bright.  Easy on the eyes.  You don't plan to stay down there permanently, it just sort of happens.

Meanwhile, upstairs, life goes on without you.

And maybe you want to get back to that life.  Maybe you're desperate to get back to that life, but now you're entombed by your secrets, mistakes you've made, hatreds you hold dear...So you really can't see the way out.

But you'll get out.  Eventually.  Right now, you're going to have a little whiskey, and roll all the wrongs committed against you around a bit.  Or maybe smoke a little pot, yeah, smoke a little pot and stop worrying so much.  You'll get out tomorrow.  You're really just too upset right now, can't they understand?

And you don't remember how to get out.  You can't find the damn stairs.  They're behind some boxes of shit from 2005, maybe.

Well, listen to Dirty Old Reverend Roger...Smash those boxes and crates.  Knock them over and trample them.  Smash them all, until you find that staircase, and then walk the hell up it.  Kick that door open, and glory in the sunlight that's bright enough to bake the filth of years off of you.  Feel the warmth of daylight on your skin.  Maybe say hello to the folks, they've missed you.

Yep.  First thing tomorrow.  Definitely tomorrow.  Get right on that.

Part 5

I was walking up the stairs.  It was time.  I'd had my fill of bad water down there in that moldy basement, and it was simply time to leave.

Halfway up, something reached through the riser and grabbed my ankles.  I glanced down and saw dozens of grey, leprous hands...Then the voices started.

"Don't go, Roger.  They'll only stab you in the back.", I heard, in my own voice.

"Have you forgotten already?  How they fucked you over?", that sounded like my grandmother, who spent the last 55 years of her life in the basement.

"What about me?", asked Michelle - the old girlfriend who had left me for my brother, "How can you leave me?  How can you forget me?"

"PWNT!", said Hugh.

"Hey, runt, you can't forget me and Paul Hicks.  We left you in the road when you got hit by that car when you were six, while you were chasing us that time we ditched you.  That has to count for something, right?"  That was my brother.

A dozen, a hundred, a thousand old hatreds continued the litany.  The temptation to return to my vintage hatreds was pretty immense.  Just hearing about them again made me angry.  But I also heard my grandfather, The Terrible Old Man.

"It's been years, Roger.  How long are you going to let these pissants control you?

The screeching under the stairs rose to a fever-pitch.  Things that happened from 1973 to just last month, howling and clamoring to not be forgotten.  All those years, all those horrible shitty things that others did to me, or I did to myself, festering in that basement.

I looked down through the risers, at the grey things down there.  After a moment, they paused their screaming, as if waiting for my answer.

What could I answer?  There was really no choice, obviously.

"You don't haunt me anymore."

I walked out of the basement, into the bright daylight.  I squinted until my eyes adjusted, while fists pounded on the other side of the door.  Then I grabbed a hammer and nailed the door shut.

After all this time, it was really that easy.

Or Kill Me.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Holy shit this is fucking excellent.

Fucking EXCELLENT. Wow.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I've got goosebumps all over my everywhere from reading it. Shit.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Holy shit this is fucking excellent.

Fucking EXCELLENT. Wow.

Thanks.  I'm going to have to change section 1 (too PD specific).

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Everything dropped off when I was reading this. There was nothing but that basement until you walked out of it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Everything dropped off when I was reading this. There was nothing but that basement until you walked out of it.

Awww

[EK WAFFLR]

... I.... I have no words.

Christ, Roger, that was something.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This was written on this board in 5 parts, about 2-1/2 years ago.

I just collected them all up.

[Freeky]

I forgot this one had a happy ending. 

[LMNO]

Damn strong piece. I remember when you wrote it, and the anticipation for the next installment.  Glad to see you found them all.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Damn strong piece. I remember when you wrote it, and the anticipation for the next installment.  Glad to see you found them all.

Search works now.  This piece seemed to be well-received over at Scrubgenius...Which, by the way, has a lot of the same problems we have.

[zen_magick]

wow,

Nice Roger, reminds me of the dream Jung had and when he told Freud about it all the Shit Hit the Fan! A basement or the unconscious can pack a whole lot of memories and truths. But just like the attic you can run into a kid eating fish-heads.

very well written, thanks for putting it in one place for us