La Saintemas

Do not stare…
The tourist glanced at the message scrawled on to the parchment once again. The memory of how he had come to have it was even more faded than the parchment itself. A prevailing dusk coated the town in a dream-like orange glow. As he stepped off the rickety boat he noticed how the glow shrouded the mountains to the south, glazed the giant lake to the North and bathed everything in between. A town of mud-rendered single-storied buildings, sandswept and warm, La Saintemas was busy. But ask the tourist to describe the face of any of the residents of the town and he would be unable to do so. The custom of the townspeople was to wear scarves over the face; only their eyes were visible, though even those would have been hard to describe. Perhaps this was because of the fleeting nature of the tourist’s encounters with them. The locals were in a constant sense of perpetual movement, he felt. Always in a rush.
Do not stare. He wondered if the note was referring to these locals. Even if I wanted to … he thought to himself.
Voices were constantly heard but could never be attributed to any individual. The tourist noted the constant hum of disembodied conversation. This was a town that lacked the usual sounds of the urban landscape. Hawkers selling their wares, buskers playing music, stray animals fighting for food: all absent from the soundscape of La Saintemas. Only the occasional howl of the wind supporting the hum of unattributable conversation in an unrecognizable language.
The tourist walked to the opera house at the center of the town. A building that was unfathomable in scale and complex in geometry. In stark contrast to the adobe style architecture of the majority of the town, the opera house defied sense. "How can this be?" the tourist asked himself sincerely, as he approached the building.
He had seen tall buildings, he had seen wide buildings, yet this was a building more awesome than any he'd looked upon before. The building looked to have been built for something beyond humanity. Stark and black, it repelled the orange haze that covered the rest of the town. The tourist had never seen anything as black as this building. It was a combination of curves and straight lines, though the blackness of the building made it hard to discern between them. The front of the opera house was monolithic, leaning backwards at a slight angle, which only seemed to exacerbate its size. Two giant points rose from the ground, leaning the opposite way to the monolith of the entrance, before curving back on themselves, crashing into the flat surface of the front of the building. It was motion, stuck in time.
Do not stare, he remembered.
The entrance did not contain a door. Instead a huge and perfect rectangle was cut into the obsidian wall. Like everywhere in La Saintemas, the entrance to the opera house was swarming with people. The size of the entrance meant hundreds of people were able to walk through it at once. All of them at the exaggerated speed and busyness that was so present in La Saintemas. The hum continued.
The tourist made his way through the crowds to enter the opera house. The locals were a swarm of bees that buzzed past and around him. The gap in the wall was the width of a small house, at least ten meters high and twice as deep, revealing the true thickness of the external wall. As he slowly walked through the gap, accompanied by the busily buzzing locals, he became very aware of the coolness of the black walls that surrounded them. He had an urge to touch them but he found himself being swept along by the crowds, unable to make the lateral movement required to reach the walls. The movement of people in the entrance made him feel as if it were alive. He was in the mouth of the beast and it was chewing him, preparing to swallow him.
Once he had been consumed and he was through the entrance, there was a calm, cool, quiet in the immense open foyer. The blackness above him stretched indeterminably; the echoes of soft conversation the only clue as to the vastness of space above him. There were still people here, he estimated hundreds, but inside they moved more slowly. More peacefully. The tourist sighed and felt tension leave his upper body.
A reception area was cut into the wall, softly lit by a dim lamp. He approached it, unmanned though it was. He saw a back room, behind the desk, also dimly lit. Shadows moved within it. They were moving in strange ways. He looked more closely.
Dancing.
He moved slowly towards the open doorway. No sound came from the room, there was no music to dance to. As he looked more closely he saw that some of the shadows were beaked, others horned. Do not stare, he thought. He looked away.
As he did so, he was again caught by surprise to see the reception desk was now manned. A local stood silently behind the desk. “I would like a ticket please,” said the tourist quietly. Slowly, the attendant turned to face the tourist. This would have been the best chance he had had to study the appearance of the locals but the scarf around most of their face, and the poor lighting meant he could not determine any new information about their appearance. He got the impression that they were female. She was shaking. Only slightly, but enough for the tourist to notice. She held out a small token, which the tourist took from her. He took a close look at the roughly pressed iron circle. It had an image of a tentacled creature scratched into the middle. He began to ask what he should do with it but when he looked up the desk was abandoned again. He thought to look into the room with the dancing shadows again but the doorway had closed, a solid wall of obsidian in its place.
A trickle of locals were making their way to various parts of the atrium. He followed the largest group, as they walked up a stairway that was roughly cut into the wall. An attendant collected tokens from them and silently ushered them through a doorway. The tourist handed his token to the attendant who looked at it and passed it back. The attendant spoke. It sounded as if three voices were speaking at once, in different tones and in different languages, none of which the tourist understood. Bewildered, by what he’d just heard, he tried handing the attendant the token again. The three voices of the attendant gave their independent messages, as she pointed to a symbol of a rectangle above the door. He understood. He moved to find the door that corresponded to his token. The paucity of lanterns in the dark foyer made this task harder than it initially seemed and the tourist visited two other doorways before finding the monster symbol he was looking for. The first was a pair of triangles, which he took as a representation of the town’s neighboring mountains. After turning away from that door he approached one that had a smooth, curved shape, which he thought was reminiscent of the lake in the north of the town. Eventually, he found the door with the symbol that matched his token.
After climbing the long steep staircase cut into the side of the wall, he joined the few remaining people heading into the theater. He handed his token to the attendant who accepted it silently. Passing through the doorway he entered the theater. His section was at the top, in the upper balcony and whilst his eyes managed to adjust to provide a sense of what was around him, the tourist found that everything beyond the balcony was pitch black. He could only guess where the stage was. Then a single light appeared and shone upon a vast black curtain revealing just how far above the stage the tourist’s seat was. A momentary dizziness passed over him as he saw that he was at least a hundred meters above the emerging performer. A red dot, she appeared to enthusiastic applause.
As the opera began, the tourist had to fight the temptation to leave immediately. Discordant trumpets and pianos combined, creating a chaotic atmosphere that made the tourist move to cover his ears with his hands. However, just as he did so, he detected a wonderful, haunting tune, hidden amongst the madness. He had to search for it, but there it was. Strings in harmony with each other, guided by the gentle touch of the piano keys. He felt as if the sound was created specifically for him; a sense of nostalgia swept over him.
Then the singer began her work. Again, the tourist moved to cover his ears as screeching exploded from the stage. His hands smothered the sounds of howling, moaning, screaming. But as he listened more intently, he discovered each individual sound, eventually finding the level made for him. He listened to the singer’s voice, in an unknown language, and knew that this song was his alone. Though still present, the loud, dissonant noises that had initially dominated became a canvas for the artwork that was the deep, dramatic contralto voice, working in melody with the strings and piano. He found himself overcome with feelings of familiarity and a longing for times past. He breathed deeply, cleared his throat and adjusted himself on his seat in an attempt to stifle his tears. It didn’t work. They flowed freely, as the tourist sobbed.
The end of the performance was met with a rapturous applause. The single white light shone on the lone performer as she bowed for the joyous audience. From the tourist’s lofty position in the gods of the theater the rest of the crowd were animated silhouettes, clapping and cheering in their indecipherable language. He wiped his eyes, stood up and joined them. The singer was a red smudge on a canvass of black cloth. As the spotlight dimmed, the applause faded and the smudge moved behind the giant black curtain, leaving the tourist and the rest of the audience in the darkness. In the silence. He waited for the lights to shine upon them and to guide them out of the hall.
But they did not come. The tourist’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness. As they did so, a realization struck the tourist. He was alone. The cavernous theater which had, only moments before, been host to hundreds of appreciative patrons was now empty, aside from the tourist himself, insignificant in the dark upper balcony. The cool air of the theater hung still and untouched. The tourist shivered as he considered his isolation in this cathedral and he moved to leave. As he did so his hand brushed the seats beside him revealing a thick layer of dust that suggested years of neglect and abandonment. He paused, rubbing the dust between his thumb and forefinger. The musty smell of dust became overwhelming. Still, his eyes adjusted further. Where minutes ago there was an eternal black curtain stretching down to the stage, there was an exposed, crumbling wall. Deep gouges were scratched into the wall at the tourist’s eye level. They were letters. He moved closer to the edge of the balcony as he narrowed his eyes to interpret the message.
do not stare
His eyes widened again. His heart raced. He turned and rushed away from the wall with its hideous message. Moving swiftly passed the abandoned seats, he disturbed the dust that had settled on them. Clouds of it flew into the air and floated behind him; a ghostly observer of the fleeing tourist. As he approached the door to leave the sound of a full theater erupted behind him. He did not turn to confirm the veracity of the incomprehensible noises. Instead, he thrust open the door. Blinded by daylight, the tourist was forced to squint. He hurried through the open doorway slamming the door behind him.
He put his hand above his eyes to reduce the glare from the sun, as he tried to establish where he was. Wind whistled past him. He was at the lake to the north of La Saintemas. He turned to look at the door he had come from. It was gone. Instead he stared out across the town; the adobe homes densely packed, with their tattered rag curtains waving in the wind. Towering above them was the black opera house, far in the distance, across a sea of gray buildings and the familiar orange glow. The constant buzz of noise that had been ever-present since his arrival in La Saintemas had stopped. The streets were empty. They still glowed their unearthly orange glow but the life had disappeared from them.
A low rumble drew his attention back to the lake. He noticed the darkness of the lake and imagined the depths it contained. He pictured great underwater cities that could exist at the lake bottom, with giant towers stretching towards the surface but never breaking through. A cool wind cut through the tourists’ thoughts, as he returned to the realization that there was not a soul around him. He shivered. Perhaps it was time to return to his room. Where was his room? He looked towards the opera house which would act as his touchstone to get to his accommodation.
It was gone. How could it have gone?
Another low rumble, louder and deeper than the last, and the tourist spun round to face the lake again. The darkness of the water struck him again. And it was darkening further. He stepped backwards as the deep blue of the lake became black. The water was pushing to the lake’s shore in waves, as if the water itself was trying to escape. A terrible groan emanated from the vast black shape taking form below the surface of the lake. The tourist looked on in horror as the shape breached the surface. A smooth, obsidian curve. Like a huge stone hill in the middle of the lake, the curve continued to rise. It became recognisable. It was the opera house! The giant pillars that had crashed into the front of the building when it was stationary now flailed like tentacles. It rose slowly. The curves and straight lines that had once appeared to have been the work of an imaginative architect now sighed and heaved. This was no creation of man. An eye opened. Do not stare. He thought of the warning he had been given but was unable to heed it.
He had to stare.
The intense green of the creatures’ eye horrified and captivated him. He didn’t blink, his eyes widened beyond their natural limits. That green. He knew it was a shade that no living man had ever seen before; it sickened him.
His mind turned to madness: do not stare, do not stare, do not stare do not stare do not stare stare stare stare stare…
Until a sudden sense of peace overcame him. The monster that was once the opera house gently descended back into the lake.
Calmly, the man lifted his scarf to cover his face, leaving only his eyes visible. He joined the busy crowd, each individual amongst them muttering to themselves. No longer a tourist, the man hurried through the town, repeating the same three words as the others.
Do not stare.

***

Gareth Evans’ writing experience is primarily rooted in non-fiction, producing Geography textbooks for high schools in his day job, and conducting research into his PhD studies on the impacts of declining population in suburban spaces. Although this means he spends the day writing about very real places around the world, through his fiction work he travels to the places within his imagination – let's hope these don't get mixed up, or there might be some very confused Geography students. Originally from the UK, Gareth now lives with his wife and daughter in Melbourne, Australia.