The Caretaker

I leafed through the aged Mesopotamian scrolls, muttering to myself. Too many times the cryptic Xi sign had reappeared in the yellowed reed parchments. It was an unknown dialect from the Euphrates region, one with which I was unfamiliar. I swore in frustration. My new job as an assistant caretaker at the museum just wasn’t working out as well as I’d hoped it would.

The museum office was hot and stuffy in the evening summer heat. Certainly, precautions had been taken with the deteriorating manuscripts. Had they not been sealed in airtight, unbreakable glass, surely they would have long ago been dust.

A footstep caught my attention. I turned to see the caretaker, himself, striding briskly in, downing a sip from a steaming cup of coffee. “I see you’re having trouble with this one. Don’t worry. Perhaps I can help you.”

He was a tall, thin man with spectacles and gray sideburns. His walk reminded me somewhat of a leopard. At first, it hadn’t bothered me, but now his stride added irritation to my already frustrated mind.

I indicated to him the glass slides I had been studying and sank back in a chair with a groan. All ready it was two o’ clock in the morning and the cobwebs were growing thick in my brain. Too long I had pored over the aged scrolls, and yet not one shred of a phrase could I decipher. With a sigh, I admitted to myself that the caretaker was, more or less, my last hope.

“It is definitely, as you informed me earlier today, an earlier rendition of an ancient eastern Euphrates dialect. I spoke late this afternoon with an authority on the subject from Berkeley who agreed that the characters matched those of a manuscript in his own possession. In addition, papyrus scrolls, according to this gentleman, were known to be distinct and variant in character in different areas of Mesopotamia, according to the period of time from which they originate. From the descriptions I gave him, he assured me that these were particular to the eastern Euphrates region. These papyrus scrolls, I mean.” He seemed to emphasize these last words as if he’d noted my exhaustion and had sympathized with me. But it came with the work. Anthropology and museum work went hand in hand sometimes. And then there were restoration of artifacts, deciphering old manuscripts, repairing damaged items . . . I caught myself before I let my mind wander too far and gazed into the next room, wondering where the caretaker had gotten his cup of coffee. My mind wandered idly to my apartment where I had a bottle of Brandy stowed away for times like these. I also had a cache of turkey and ham for sandwiches as well as a salad and frozen pizza. I began to think about a girl I’d seen in the lobby earlier in the day.

A vague droning resounded in the air, and I suddenly noted with surprise that the caretaker was speaking to me. I turned my head towards him, and was relieved to find that he was translating the scrolls for me. I say I was relieved as I did not wish to be disinterested nor to appear as such in regard to any comment he might make. It might well jeopardize my position to look apathetic about my work.

“ . . . a red storm broods over the brow of the world,” he read. “Cracked tombs will crumble on the hideous day, and black trumpets will sound the blast. Be warned! The dead sea gods stir from an unremembered sleep, and their eyes are shot red with wrath. Woe to the sons of men when the one-eyed one wields his mighty hands and engulfs the earth.”

“This sounds like a shortened version of one of the “great flood” myths. I’ve never read any akin to it though,” the caretaker remarked, staring whimsically at the papyrus scroll in his hand. It was a look that annoyed me. I had worked on and studied these scrolls all night, and here this man had partially deciphered them in five minutes whereas I had made no progress with them at all.

He leisurely proceeded, his big, prissy lips mouthing the words in a vacant monotone. “Black blades rattle on the gates of Mu, and the one-eyed one leers from hidden niches, scrawled with aged runes. Lo! The gates of Sky open and a thousand riders come forth out of the mouth of the one-eyed one whose fiery wrath turns dry the harvested crop.”

“See how the one-eyed one hides his face in shroud. Hear how he roars in the black day. High temples topple; many-armed blue giants come rushing from Ocean. Down falls Mu in the crushed day as age-old Ocean swallows Earth. The one-eyed one hides his face. Gone is Mu wherein lay the tombs of the Ones who were old before time begat her. Woe upon the great temples of B’thala, S’lochom, and B’nereth Now beneath sea sleep the Eternal who were old before time.”

The caretaker stopped. For a moment I merely sat there as I hadn’t really been listening to a single word he’d been saying. I had been thinking about a planned trip to Kona and the black sand beach that was there. Suddenly, the silence immediately cut off my train of thought. I turned and noted that the caretaker was staring straight at me with a very intent, threatening look on his face. I was struck with a rushing thrill of horror. “Wh-what’s the matter with you? Are you insane?” I asked him, forgetting about my position and the sense of respect I should’ve felt.

“You should listen when one speaks to you about the Ones who were old before time. I can’t teach you everything. You have to assume the unknown and untold histories that could not be related in the passages. These are very important passages. You should memorize them. I shall read them again, and you will tell me what you have assumed or concluded from what is not related.”

He then proceeded to read the entire passages not one but nine times in a row. Suddenly, he stopped and stared at me angrily. “What are you listening to? I TOLD you to LISTEN to ME when I spoke to you of the Ones who were old before time! Don’t you know that you now have the knowledge of the location of Mu and that you also know of the disaster that struck that empire in eons past?! Can’t you see that this is the very theme of this papyrus scroll?! You have studied this manuscript! You know things that I must know! Don’t you understand that you have the knowledge to help me? You were there in another lifetime! You were once the author of these very scrolls! Help me to know what you know!”

I moved towards the door. “You are insane! You are really insane!”

He pulled down an old Khyber knife from the wall and blocked the doorway. For a moment, he stood with his ear cocked. Then, he stared at me with a smile.

“What’s the matter with you?” I said

“They told me what to do,” he said.

“Who?” I asked.

“The Pharaohs. They told me that you must be killed, sacrificed, and set afloat in a funeral raft in the sea and that your body would lead me to fabled Mu.”

He slashed at me with the knife, but I ducked beneath a table. The knife struck the wood which splintered into two pieces. I pushed the table up and over with both hands and laid him out flat on the floor. I kicked the knife out of his hands and held his arms down. The impact of the table, however, sent a jarring vibration through the wall, causing a huge, priceless, Victorian mirror to come off of its fastenings. In the brief moment that it stood upright, upon striking the floor, I paused to glance full into the pane of the mirror. Before the huge glass panel struck the floor, face-down, with its full weight, I glimpsed not what I should have seen, but what I hadn’t expected to see at all. Instead of showing two people, pausing in the middle of a violent altercation to watch a mirror fall off the wall, there was only one: myself. Puzzled and astounded, I glanced back at my attacker only to see that he was gone. And as I continued to puzzle over this strange affair, the security guard happened to come running through the door with several police officers behind him.

“Are you alright, sir? We received a call about a loud disturbance in the building! I was outside at the gate, but saw no one come through the perimeter,” said the security guard. “Has anything been stolen?”

“Thankfully, no,” I answered. “Just some minor damage to some artifacts of interest. I was attacked as you may have assumed already, and the man who attacked me was . . . “

I paused suddenly, remembering that the caretaker, my attacker, had disappeared in the middle of the altercation without explanation. So how do you explain that, Sherlock? I thought, knowing that my story wouldn’t make sense no matter how I told it.

Well, you see, officer . . .

“Did you happen to see the caretaker earlier or see where he went to?” I asked with a note of nervousness in my voice that I know that they heard.

“The caretaker?” answered the security guard. “Why he had the day off today, sir. There was no one in the building except you. Yours was the only car in the parking lot tonight. Can you describe your attacker or give us some idea of where he might have gone?”

“I, er, didn’t get a good look at him. It happened so fast that I didn’t really see what the hell he looked like,” I blabbered, fumbling awkwardly over my words. “He may have been, er, hiding somewhere in the museum from earlier in the day. That’s it! Someone who visited the building earlier in the day and hid inside, hoping to rob us of some precious artifacts. It was a foiled robbery! I stopped him just in time, but he got away before I could subdue him!”

The security guard looked puzzled. “Then, why didn’t he show up on the security monitors on the surveillance cameras? I didn’t see anyone on the monitors from where I was. It would have shown up on the surveillance.”

“Maybe he was too smart for that,” I said, faltering over my words again. “It happened so fast . . . “

Here, I trailed off awkwardly not sure how to explain my disappearing attacker nor the image in the mirror. I was left holding the bag, so to speak. I stared at the security guard and the police stupidly, trying to think of something that would get me out of there.

Suddenly, one of the detectives spoke up. “Why don’t we review the crime scene and the surveillance tapes and we’ll call you if we have any questions. To get your side of the story, that is. No need to go through all this right away. Solving a crime takes thorough investigation. Something will turn up: a fingerprint; an image on the surveillance tapes. Then, we’ll know who our man is. For now, why don’t you go home and get some rest and we’ll get back to you.”

“Exactly my thoughts,” I answered. “I need some time to think this through; to remember what happened as clearly as I can.”

“Sure thing. You take it easy,” one of the other detectives answered. “Something will turn up. We’ll get our man. You go on home.”

With a sigh of relief, I took a cab home after making my statement to the police, and related everything to Brandish, my roommate, when I arrived at my apartment.

When I had completed my narration of what had occurred that evening to Brandish, he simply sat and looked at me for a moment. Then, “So what did you learn from the experience?” he asked.

I poured out a shot of Brandy. “I guess I learned that what I really need is a low-pressure job with a boss who’s got it together.”

“You’re probably right,” he said, turning the page of his newspaper as he sat in his evening chair.

I shrugged, accepting his calm, nonreactive response to my experience. Then, I took a sip of Brandy and looked casually in the mirror at Brandish as he sat behind me in his chair. How could I tell him that the caretaker was back, standing directly behind him in his chair, holding a huge knife, preparing to direct the first strike? How could I tell him? Then, I turned around and was struck violently across the face by him. And as we struggled, I realized that I was not fighting the caretaker this time, but Brandish! Yet I had a knife and I would defend myself!

“You can’t do it again, Brandish!” I shouted. “Not again! I won’t let you kill me! I won’t. No! I’ll kill you first! You attacked me in the museum! You tried to make them think it was me! You’re going to pay for that! You’re going to pay, I tell you!”

Brandish shook me violently and struck me across the face. “Wake up, man!” he shouted. “Wake up! Snap out of it!”

Suddenly, I did wake up as if from a dream. I realized that it was not Brandish that I’d attacked, but the security guard, and they we’re putting me in cuffs and reading me my rights! I had never left the museum!

“I’m not him, though,” I shouted at them. “I’m not the one! What are you doing? Are you people insane? Can’t you see that I was the one who was attacked? Can’t you see that you’re all in on this? You’re just trying to frame me! That’s it, you’re just trying to frame me! Let me out of these damn things! I have my rights! Damn you, let me go!”

“I should have known he was nuts when we hired him,” the security guard said to one of the detectives. “That’s what happens when they hire these agency people from out of the county. You never know who the hell you’re getting. I should have known he was nuts. What til the caretaker hears about this. I’ll bet he’ll be pissed.”

And as they hauled me away, I could see the caretaker standing by the squad car, laughing. He, then, proceeded to get behind the steering wheel and with a diabolical smirk asked, “I believe you’re going my way?” We, then, pulled away into the distance.