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Last year, in the fall of 1932, all things were either preparing for the winter, or dying. I, new to this town, was canning fruit for the upcoming months, so I thought little of the lack of preparation by my hermetic neighbor. That man had been in that house longer than I had been alive. No one knew his name, for anyone who might have once known it was long dead.
His absence of forethought seemed at the time like a lapse of memory in his old age, and I pitied him for it.
I, mistaken in my charity, brought it upon myself to bring a few cans of pickled peaches to him one unseasonably warm autumn afternoon. Upon opening his door, visceral fear and a paramount urge to leave filled me as I stepped into his halls. Dozens of taxidermied heads, from creatures I had never seen nor heard of, lined the walls as if decorating a poorly-washed, stagnant man's face, like pimples.
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I am ashamed to report I ran from the house as if the devil himself were at my heels, the peach preserves shattering on the ground, forgotten. I looked back as I made my exodus, and glimpsed the pauper, standing hunched over by the door. He wore the smile of a lunatic, wide-eyed and manic.
After the first frost of the season, my mind managed to convince my memory that the reality of the house couldn't possibly have been what I had thought, more likely to be a stranger's apprehension of a new town and its residents.
"A deer in the wrong light can look like all sorts of things," I thought to myself, "And they can easily become all manner of beasts." A large cat, put back together wrong, might look like any number of imagined monsters. Eventually, after a long bout of contemplation, I swallowed my fear and went again to attempt to aid. Much to my relief, I was greeted with open arms. The old man happily accepted the jars of pickles I had brought that time. The mounted heads as I entered this time were of common stock. Moose, bear, deer, wolves and the like. But as soon as the jars were properly stowed, I was escorted out. Had this man not been obviously averse to human contact, I might have been morose. As it was, I returned home.
Our next encounter was in my own home, to my great surprise. Though the nature of his visit was grimm, for he said that his dear dog had just departed from this world. In my naivety, I had tried to comfort him, but he rushed away before I could speak. I could hear him cackling down the dirt road. This meeting left me with the conclusion that the old hermit was utterly insane. I had tried to avoid the old man after that, but we kept bumping into each other, like we were connected. One day on my way home from the market, the hermit ran up, punched me, smiled an all-too friendly smile, then ran off again cackling the whole time. But all of these examples of madness were nothing compared to what happened when I went to explore his home.
Suddenly, on a day in mid winter, I got wind of a rumor started by the other towns folk that the old man was dead. This story aligned with my own experiences, having not seen nor heard of the man since our last meet. I went to his house to check if the local gossip was true. For the longest time whilst searching the abandoned old mansion, I believed the rumors to be true, Until I found his private study.
The study was by far the largest room in the building, but the contents, as it was, I will not speak of in full, for the shock and putridness of it I can not accurately describe. The most noticeable feature of the entire room was the stretched and distorted face of the hermit mounted on the wall. The face was frozen in a mask of sadistic glee, and from behind it I could hear a voice, saying rhythmically between fits of mad laughter,
" I COME AS A MAD MAN GUILTY OF NOT
BLASPHEMY TO A GOD, BUT TO THE LAWS
OF NATURE AND THE UNIVERSE ALIKE.
I AM MOST GUILTY OF DELVING INTO
THE THINGS OF WHICH I HAVE NO PLACE TO KNOW.
AND FOR THIS I HAVE PAID WITH MY OWN SOUL"
After that I recorded my accounts and sent them to the police, but I was never believed. I left that accursed town and headed homewards to the city in which I grew up in. eventually the town council threw me in the asylum for repeating such raving in public. I have changed. No more do I think of these incorrigible things. I have condoned them to the brink of forgetting, only have I dredged up these horrible memories only to provide them to my brazen interviewers, though much to my dissent. No doubt that they will abridge my words, but know that, when given the option, never help a mad hermit. No good can come of it.
A Mad Man's Riddle. (2019, Dec 04). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/a-mad-mans-riddle-essay
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