Korridorium

♫ Las­ci­ate ogni sper­anza voi ch’en­trate! ♫

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1/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor…

♫ Drift­ing Through Images ♫

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2/398

I enter the Cor­ri­dor of Fad­ing Senses. It nar­rows and dark­ens as it recedes, yet the fur­ther I ven­ture, the more vibrant and bright the images on the walls, floor, and ceil­ing become, and the more dis­tinct the sounds that float mean­der­ing through the space, occa­sion­ally strik­ing my third ear.

“Your Majesty. May I try to bring Nemo here? I have a very bril­liant idea.”

Fas­ci­nated and awestruck, I observe the imagery and man­i­fes­ta­tions of my mind, lis­ten­ing to the inner musique con­crète of my soul.

Unfor­tu­nately, despite years of train­ing, I can only main­tain a lin­ger­ing spark of con­scious­ness for a short while; a lit­tle later (much too quickly, always much too quickly), Hyp­nos takes me in his arms, and sleep embraces me.

♫ Dance Dragon Dance (Intro) ♫

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3/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. You run towards me with open arms, laugh­ing. Ardinea! I rec­og­nize you by the wild color of your eyes.

♫ From the Bön Scrip­tures ♫

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4/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor lead­ing into the labyrinth that I will never leave again. Daedalus stands behind me, smil­ing proudly. He has spent months con­struct­ing it and out­fit­ting it for me. He calls it a “Palace.”

“I will die of thirst and star­va­tion,” I say. Daedalus shakes his head. “You won’t. Down in the base­ment of the palace, there is a spring. There are court­yards with numer­ous fruit trees, and there is a damp vault where count­less mush­rooms grow.”

“I will be lonely,” I pre­dict gloomily. Daedalus coun­ters: “We will send you enter­tain­ment from time to time. Young men and maid­ens from our vas­sal states, whom you can treat how­ever you wish.”

“Meat,” I say. “As you wish,” says Daedalus.

“I will long for free­dom and go mad.” Daedalus seems unim­pressed. “You won’t. The Palace will seem infi­nitely vast to you; you will con­stantly dis­cover new rooms and encounter new won­ders. I have ensured that you can cre­ate a struc­tured daily rou­tine with every­thing you like to do. It begins with a large, soft bed of straw, next to which I have placed a small bell. As soon as the sun rises, a mech­a­nism will strike it. The chim­ing will grow louder and louder until you finally get up.” When he hears me groan, he adds: “How­ever, if you would like to sleep a lit­tle longer, you can use a small lever to make the mech­a­nism stop the bell from strik­ing for a while.”

“Inven­tions…” I say dis­mis­sively. “That is all you can do: think up mech­a­nisms and devices. But what about peo­ple and their feel­ings?”

“You are not a human. At least, not quite.” But when he notices tears welling in my eyes, he has­tens to add: “But I have thought of your feel­ings too, my dear fel­low.”

I look at him hope­fully as he stands there in the entrance to the cor­ri­dor, the blue sky and the sea behind him—the free­dom I am now per­mit­ted to see, smell, and hear for the last time.

“I know,” says Daedalus, “that the king­ship should right­fully be yours. That a… cruel fate denies you your inher­i­tance and birthright.” He for­gets to men­tion that he was the one who brought this fate about. Nonethe­less, I lis­ten expec­tantly to his words. What has he intended for me?

“In your Palace,” he says, “you will find a bal­cony that opens onto a large square. There, you can present your­self and give speeches. And when you pull the wooden han­dle you see next to the rail­ing, your peo­ple will applaud and cheer you from many throats.”

“My peo­ple?”

“That is what it will sound like, yes. I spent a long time tin­ker­ing with the hydraulics.”

I sag. Another mechan­i­cal device, a decoy like the one my father, the bull, fell for.

“You’ll like it. I’m quite sure of it!”

Daedalus smiles at me encour­ag­ingly. He takes a step back into the open air and throws a lever. With a grind­ing sound, a sec­tion of the wall descends to seal the cor­ri­dor. I could mark this spot—​carve a cross into the wall with my horns so I can find it and destroy it later. But I am cer­tain Daedalus has thought of that, too, and devised ways and means to pre­vent me, to con­fuse and fool me, mak­ing me a pris­oner in this Palace for­ever.

He bends down to wave at me one last time from under the slowly descend­ing wall.

“Don’t be sad! You know…” he calls out.

“It’s for the best for every­one,” I repeat obe­di­ently, as he has always drilled into me, “includ­ing me.” Daedalus nods, smil­ing. Then he is gone behind the wall. With a thud, it seals the cor­ri­dor as if it had always been there.

I feel a bit dejected. Finally, I turn around and enter my Palace in search of the bal­cony.

♫ Wabe-Sabi ♫

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5/398

In our cor­ri­dor

to the par­lor, logs in hand.

Warmth? Only with you.

 

In our cor­ri­dor—

amaryl­lis blooms afloat—

how I wish you back.

 

In our cor­ri­dor,

I take down our pho­to­graph:

Miss­ing you too long.

 

In our cor­ri­dor?

From afar, soft moon­light calls.

Why still do I wait?

 

In our cor­ri­dor:

off guard, is it you I hold?

Could it…? But a ghost!

♫ Trea­sure Chest Dwellers ♫

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6/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor where the anti­quar­ian stores his unsaleable arti­facts. He acts as if it’s a great honor to be led back here. With flow­ery lan­guage, he describes what he sup­pos­edly will never find a buyer for, but also can­not bring him­self to sim­ply throw away:

An elixir of immor­tal­ity that does­n’t pre­vent aging. (Might be some­thing for one’s worst ene​my—or per­haps a wife, if one wants to be sure of being well cared for in old age, the anti­quar­ian says with a know­ing smile. I wave him off.)

A cloak of invis­i­bil­ity that only makes the wearer invis­i­ble from the knees up. (Could be use­ful in tall grass, the anti­quar­ian muses. I wave him off.)

A fly­ing car­pet that lit­er­ally only moves at a snail’s pace. (Then again, it only rises a few inches off the ground, at most, the anti­quar­ian remarks, purs­ing his lips. I wave him off.)

A magic key that, while unable to open doors, can lock them for­ever. (He should per­haps inquire with the nuclear indus­try, the anti­quar­ian says, feign­ing thought­ful­ness as if the idea had just occurred to him. I wave him off.)

A vial of truth serum that has the side effect of reveal­ing the truth in painstak­ing, minute detail, caus­ing the vic­tim to get hope­lessly lost in the specifics with­out ever reach­ing the point. (Some­times he has the impres­sion the brew is being used on cer­tain TV talk shows, the anti­quar­ian says with a strained laugh. I wave him off.)

The Ark of the Covenant, which is actu­ally a quan­tum-mechan­i­cal radio for call­ing God. (The bib­li­cal Jeho­vah, that is, the anti­quar­ian explains jovially, adding that He has­n’t picked up the phone in quite some time. He smiles slyly: “no answer­ing machine.” I wave him off.)

A love potion that causes who­ever drinks it to fall into an immor­tal love with them­selves. (Which, for many dis­il­lu­sioned by love, the anti­quar­ian says, glanc­ing side­ways at me, actu­ally sounds like the per­fect, sus­tain­able solu­tion. I wave him off.)

A book that, when opened, writes itself in that very moment. (But it only ever con­tains short, mud­dled sto­ries about some­one enter­ing hall­ways or cor­ri­dors or some​thing—no, it always says “colon​nades”—in any case, nobody can make heads or tails of the scrib­bles, the anti­quar­ian grum­bles sul­lenly. I ask how much he wants for it.)

♫ Druck­luft-Med­i­ta­tion (Urani­borg-Mix) ♫

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7/398

I enter the cor​ri​dor—if you can even call it that, since I’m actu­ally just on Skype. It’s my con­ver­sa­tion part­ner who, bal­anc­ing his lap­top on one hand, enters the cor­ri­dor to take me into the stu­dio. It’s called “Urani­borg,” and I’m sup­posed to call him Tycho. It’s a good fit; the so-called “Sky Fortress” was once the research sta­tion of the Dan­ish astronomer Tycho Brahe.

This Tycho, how­ever, is a musi­cian, and that’s exactly what I’m after: music for my texts. Even though I can’t see him right now because the web­cam is giv­ing me shaky images of the hall­way, I repeat what I’d already told him in my email into my head­set mic, just to be safe: “I can’t pay you any­thing for it, though.”

“You already men­tioned that,” he says, open­ing a sound­proofed door. I had expected walls of syn­the­siz­ers and a moun­tain of instru­ments. But the large, bright room with panoramic win­dows over­look­ing the gar­den does­n’t con­tain much more than a key­board and a lounger sur­rounded by singing bowls of var­i­ous sizes. The key­board appar­ently slides out from under the desk, which has a piano stool in front of it. Judg­ing by the many cables on the table, I assume a com­puter gets plugged in there—​likely the one Tycho is using to carry me around right now.

“Wel­come to Urani­borg,” Tycho says. He sets the lap­top down on the table, his face obscur­ing the arrange­ment of singing bowls.

“What’s that lounger behind you? Is it for a sound mas­sage?” I ask curi­ously.

“Oh, that,” he says. “We’re cur­rently exper­i­ment­ing with sound­scapes con­trolled by the skin resis­tance of who­ever lies on it. It’s pow­ered by com­pressed air.” Sure enough, behind him, among the singing bowls, I spot a strange mech­a­nism with hoses and chrome-plated pis­tons.

“Want to give it a go? Let’s see what kind of skin resis­tance the com­puter has…” The image tilts. Tycho sets his lap­top on the lounger. Through the built-in web­cam, I now have a view of some of the singing bowls. The pneu­matic per­cus­sion begins to hiss and thump, the mal­lets start mov­ing, and soon I’m enveloped by hyp­notic, celes­tial sounds.

“Before I drift away com­pletely…” I shout into my head­set. The image tilts again, and Tycho—hav​ing switched off the machin​ery—sets me back on the table. He puts on a head­set of his own. The singing bowls behind him ring out for a long time.

“How did you find me?” he asks. “Were you at one of my sleep con­certs?”

I shake my head. “Not yet. I heard a few of your tracks online and thought…” Well, what was I think­ing?

“You want to pub­lish a series of texts and you’d like a lit­tle sound­track for each one. Did I get that right?”

“Exactly,” I say.

I’d already shared a bit about myself in the email: that I work in the build­ing office of a small town in east­ern Ger­many. I don’t have much to do there, but I want to look busy because my desk is right by the hall­way to the restrooms and my col­leagues can see me clearly through the glass door. I told him I’ve started typ­ing up lit­tle “archi­tec­tural” sketches on my com­puter, inspired by the appli­ca­tions on my desk and the inspec­tions and site vis­its I some­times get to attend.

And that I need music for the pub­li­ca­tion. A lot of music. Some­thing unusual. Music that cre­ates images in the mind.

“The Labyrinth of the Mino­taur,” he says thought­fully.

“Yes. I sent you a few Mino­taur frag­ments because that was a theme at your sleep con­certs and it comes up in the music. It con­nects us, in a way. I want to start on Novem­ber 11th.”

“So soon?” My heart sinks when he says that. I’m way behind in my search for music. But hav­ing lit­tle sound­tracks for the sto­ries is my dream, and I don’t want to give up on it that eas­ily.

“What is a young woman like you doing work­ing as a clerk at a build­ing office?” he asks.

“I stud­ied His­tory and Ori­en­tal Stud­ies in Leipzig, but I could­n’t find work as a his­to­rian. So… any­way, my col­leagues can’t know any­thing about my lit­er­ary ambi­tions.”

Tycho gives a mis­chie­vous lit­tle smile. “I won’t tell a soul. How many blog posts do you have ready?”

“I have the first batch, and I always want to be at least three or four ahead. As for the music, I’d give you totally free rein. It’s going to be almost… uh, four hun­dred blog posts in total.”

He does­n’t flinch at the num­ber. Good sign.

“I know,” I con­tinue hur­riedly, “that it’s a mas­sive ask, but…”

Tycho inter­rupts me. “No prob­lem. We have tons of mate­r­ial in the archive, all unpub­lished. Some of it is pretty weird, though.”

“That’s per­fect,” I say.

Tycho grins at my enthu­si­asm. “We’re talk­ing drones, sound­scapes, com­po­si­tional sketches, stu­dio ses­sions, field record­ings, psy­choac­tive sound exper­i­ments…”

“Well, that all sounds great! As for the length, I thought the music should last roughly as long as it takes to read the text aloud—so, any­where from seven sec­onds to seven min­utes.”

“Okay. Send me a text, and twenty-four hours later, you’ll have a sound­track for it. If you don’t like a piece, you’ll get a dif­fer­ent one.”

Wow. I can’t believe my luck. My blog is get­ting a sound­track! But…

“But what,” I ask wor­riedly, “if you don’t like my texts?”

Tycho keeps a straight face. “Won’t hap­pen. I’m not going to read them. I’ll just check to see how long they are.” He shows no emo​tion—ex​cept for a lit­tle glint in his eyes that tells me he isn’t being entirely seri­ous.

And that’s how I ended up with a unique lit­tle sound­track for each of my lit­er­ary archi­tec­tural sketches.

♫ Los ratones bailan ♫

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8/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. Small boards are nailed onto the doors on both sides, and some­one has crudely carved words into them with a knife: I read “Gorge” on one, “Horn” on the sec­ond, “Caul­dron” on the third, and “Cav­ity” on the fourth. The door at the end of the cor­ri­dor also bears such a board. “The Cho­sen One” is writ­ten here, and a sud­den tin­gling sen­sa­tion of hap­pi­ness spreads through me. Andreia! I had almost given up search­ing. A note is tucked under the board. I imme­di­ately rec­og­nize her ele­gantly scrawled hand­writ­ing. “Be right back,” with “right” crossed out and replaced by “even­tu­ally.” Never mind. I’ll wait. I’m sure she has a lovely view from her room.

♫ Acci­den­tal Break ♫

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9/398

O rmyrt yjr vpt­tofpt. (Oops, wrong keys, off by one.)

♫ Hyp­notic Attic ♫

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10/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor and open the door to the liv­ing room. How­ever, in this room, noth­ing is really what it seems to be.

For instance, the door is, in real­ity, a book titled “Snow­men Rarely Make Good Cig­a­rette Lighters.” The arm­chair is a traf­fic war­den named Edna Gierke. The other chair is a stool, but the fam­ily always calls it “the ottoman.” The grand­fa­ther clock is a dis­play case for the patri­arch Was­muth’s col­lec­tion of algae schnitzels, which looks like a lamp­shade but is, in fact, the room’s car­pet.

For instance, the door is, in real­ity, a book titled Snow­men Rarely Make Good Cig­a­rette Lighters. The arm­chair is a meter maid named Edna Gierke. The other chair is a stool, but the fam­ily always calls it “the ottoman.” The grand­fa­ther clock is a dis­play case for the patri­arch Was­muth’s col­lec­tion of algae schnitzels; Was­muth him­self looks like a lamp­shade but is, in fact, the room’s car­pet.

The piano, strictly speak­ing, is a spinet made by the Gell­wiesen com­pany, now known in the USA as BELLOWMEADOW for its exquis­ite cook­ies. The blue wall color is the smell of boiled cab­bage, and the paint­ing on the wall is a photo of Mirna and her kit­ten, titled Women and Cats First. Did I for­get some­thing? Yes, the man stand­ing lost in the room is indeed the bailiff; how­ever, his name is Her­bert Brün­nchen, and he entered through the light switch, which is actu­ally the kitchen pass-through.

The liv­ing room itself, just to men­tion it, may seem like an enclosed space, but it’s actu­ally a news­pa­per arti­cle with the sen­sa­tional head­line, “Is the Whole of Schwabin­gen Infested with Trichinella?”