"Dim Corridors of Silence"

 

Neither of our friends could bear staying silent for much more than a minute in another person's presence, and so after fifty-nine seconds had barely elapsed they simultaneously spoke. 

"You know –"

"You know –"

"Yes?" said Addison.

"No, you go first," said Milford.

"No, please, by all means, after you, old chap."

"No, I insist."

"Well, only if you insist."

"I do."

"You know –" said Addison, again.

"Yes?" said Milford.

"Hmm."

"Go on.".

"This is embarrassing."

"No need to be embarrassed, Addison. Not with me. I am the crown prince of embarrassment."

"Well, here's the thing, Milford."

"Yes?"

"I've forgotten what I was going to say."

"Oh."

"So why don't you just go ahead and say whatever it was that you were about to say?"

"Me?"

"Yes. Please, feel free."

Milford paused, or, at any rate, he said nothing as they continued to walk along, and at the minute mark Addison spoke again.

"Why the hesitation, old man?"

"I'm hesitating," said Milford, "because I too have completely forgotten whatever it was I was going to say."

"Oh," said Addison.

"Not that it matters."

"And why is that?"

"Because I've never said anything interesting or original in my life, and I very much doubt that I'm about to begin now."

Addison now took the sort of pause the popular novelists he preferred would have described as thoughtful.

"May I say something?" he then said.

"Please do," said Milford. "Anything would be better than walking lost along these dim corridors in utter silence."

"What I have to say is only this," said Addison, his voice assuming the heavily George Sandersesque tone he reserved for his most profound pronunciamentos, "which is that once you start requiring yourself to be interesting or original you might as well just take a vow of silence like one of those monk fellows. Because, my dear fellow –"

"Wait."

"What?"

"Listen."

They both stopped.

"Do you hear that?" said Milford.

Addison cocked an ear.

"Yes," he said. "I hear it. A faint rumbling."

"An amorphous sort of mumbling," said Milford.

"A slightly sort of sinister grumbling."

"From up ahead there."

"In the darkness, yes."

"What if it's those guys?" said Milford.

"The douchebags you mean?"

"Yes."

"Could they still be after us?"

"Why not? Maybe they have nothing better to do."

"If they catch up to us," said Addison, "I daresay they will tear us limb from bloody limb."

"Yes, at the very least they'll thrash us senseless."

"Or," said Addison, "that just might be the sound of friendly people."

"I'm afraid," said Milford.

"So also I."

"As much as I find life tedious still I cling to it."

"As well you should, my friend. After all this might just turn out to be your night."

"Or it might turn out to be the night on which I am beaten mercilessly to death."

"So what do we do?" asked Addison. "Walk toward the sound of human beings, or retreat?"

Once again Milford paused.

The rumbling mumbling grumbling grew louder.

"I could be wrong," said Milford, "but it sounds to me like an angry drunken mob."

"The douchebags."

"Possibly."

"So we should retreat."

"Yes, I think that might –"

Ahead down the corridor the folds of darkness stirred, shadows took anthropoid form, and a voice echoed, shouting.

"Hey, it's them! It's those two cunts!"

Another voice shouted and echoed.

"Come on, boys, let's get 'em!"

Feet trampling, guttural cries.

"Oh no," said Milford.

"I think our questions have been answered," said Addison.

The time for conversation had ended, and the time for turning tail and running for one's life had come. Again.

And so on they ran, as fast as their unathletic legs could carry them, and as far, turning a corner to the right, and then another one to the left, and then they saw a staircase and mounted it, leaving it at the next floor and then ran down another hallway, but still they heard the distant shouting and the stamping of angry feet, and on they staggered wheezing and sweating until they came to another staircase, turning into it and stumbling almost falling down a flight, and on the landing they saw a door under a dim light fixture with a hand-painted sign that said in cursive letters

 

Do Not Enter

"Oh, thank God," said Milford, panting, sweat streaming down his face, and he put his hand on the door knob.

"It says do not enter," panted Addison.

"Fuck that," said Milford, and he pulled and twisted the knob. 

"Is it locked?" said Addison.

"Yes, it's locked," said Milford.

"Knock."

Milford knocked, and then pounded with his fist.

"Hello!" he shouted.

"Not so loud," said Addison. "The douchebags will hear you."

"Hello," rasped Milford, in a stage whisper, and he continued to pound on the door.

"Don't pound so loud," said Addison. "You'll give our position away."

Milford continued to pound, but less forcefully.

And then the door opened, inward, and a little old man stood there in shadows.

"May I help you?"

"Listen," said Milford, "excuse us, we know the sign says do not enter but my friend and I are being chased by an angry mob who want to kill us."

"To kill you?"

"Or," said Addison, "at the very least to beat us to within an inch of our lives."

Behind them and from up the stairs came the sound of tramping feet and shouting voices.

"Please, sir," said Milford. "That's them."

"Yes, I hear them," said the old man. "You boys certainly are in a pickle, aren't you?"

"Yes!" whined Milford.

"Ha ha," said the old man.

"We adjure you, sir," said Addison. "If you could just –"

"You young pups!" said the old man. "If it isn't one thing it's another! Very well then, come in if you're coming, and I daresay you had better be quick about it."

Neither Milford nor Addison had to be invited twice, and in they went, and the old man closed the door behind them.

{Please go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version, profusely illustrated by the illustrious Rhoda Penmarq…}