The Jar of Nephren-Ka

Kinsey's Legacy

New Orleans, Louisiana: 5:47 AM, Thursday, June 7th, 1984

On the way back, I stopped at a K-Mart and bought a new pair of work boots. Then I drove around to the back, parked by the dumpster, and put on my new kicks, depositing the old ones, now evidence, into the can.

By the time I got back to the hotel, the sun was peeking its head over the horizon. I parked, stumbled into the room, and collapsed onto the bed without so much as removing my boots. My mind had been running wild since leaving Kayrevla, and I still couldn't figure out what in the fuck happened. The facts made no sense.

I needed to sleep, but I was in that peculiar state of tiredness where I was too exhausted to sleep. After a half an hour, I got up, went into the bathroom, and pulled out a bottle of sleeping pills from my toiletry bag. I dry swallowed four of them, then went back to bed.

***

In the dream, I was back in the house, back in Kayrevla. I was standing just outside the door to the guest room. Inside the room was Kinsey, standing still in the center of the room. His back was to me.

I watched.

Kinsey was dressed in a dark, plain t-shirt, gray sweatpants, black sneakers. He was holding the Jar in his right hand, and a duffel bag in his left. Kinsey walked over, placed the Jar on the table nestled against the bay window, then walked back to the bed. He sat on the edge of the bed, resting his duffel on the nightstand.

Kinsey unzipped the duffel, then rummaged around for a few minutes before coming up with the journal. He scrounged a little more and found a pen.

He sat, quietly writing for a few minutes. Then he closed the journal, returning the pen to the bag. He opened the drawer to the nightstand and placed the journal inside, then closed it again.

He got up and shook the comforter out, dust bunnies dispersing chaotically throughout the room. Then he folded down the comforter, yawned, stretched, and lay down, covering himself with the comforter.

I could not move, nor could I speak. I was a paralyzed observer, and an irrational fear was taking root in me.

Kinsey tossed and turned, movements becoming more erratic. His eyes snapped open, and he screamed. As he screamed, I could see the lump of him under the comforter begin to diminish.

First, his feet slowly flattened out, then his shins, knees, thighs, all the way up to his belly. The scream went from a shrill, pure note to a gurgling, hoarse cry and then to nothing.

Still, the process continued as he lay twitching, his chest caving in with loud crunching sounds and crumbling under the covers.

When it reached his neck, I saw what was happening. He was liquefying, melting, before my eyes. His skin sloughed off, then the fat, then muscle, and finally bone, blood pouring out of him in rivulets that became waterfalls.

Terror gripped me, a fear unlike anything I had ever felt. It wasn't like staring down the barrel of a pistol, or having a knife at your throat. I'd been in both situations, and those are existential fears. This transcended existentialism.

This was a spiritual fear.

I awoke screaming, hands clutching sheets, sweat pouring off me. There was a knock at the door.

I sat, bewildered, trying to gather my bearings. The knock came again.

"Just a goddamn minute!" I yelled. Then I felt myself self-consciously, as if all of me might not be there. Once I confirmed I was whole, I rose on the power of one leg, and drug my bad leg to the door.