The Thin White Duke Returns

TW: Suicide and implied abuse

[This story was told to me by a man of 80 years who died three days after he told it. He said it was a true story in the tone of voice of someone who was perhaps a bit too manic for his age. The scars around his eyes and arms made me consider his story to have some merit and be worth telling here.]

It returned to the City on a Tuesday. It had wanted to return for very long time; the architecture of the City was once like a forest of steel and flesh, which reminded it of its home. It had lived in its home for a long time. For all time, it would say, which started when humans created it from cracked photographs, discarded tulpas, and other fifth dimensional materials. All previous times are a lie to give its home History. It longed for the foreign familiarity the City brought to its home. There were rules that prevented it from returning sooner. For all beings, it thought, there are rules. The Sasquatch, for example, could enter the City whenever it pleased, so long as he remained within the margins of dead end narratives or inside bookstores that solely sold cookbooks. Werewolves could only exist during a full moon. The Children were only able to enter the City after committing a blood sacrifice 300 yards away from City limits (though that had less to do with their species and more to do with an agreement they made with several high ranking members of the City [back when it was just a city]).

As for Humanity…  There is speculation on why it uses the pronoun “it.” (It was determined that “it” was its preferred pronoun when several literary critics attempted to analyze it using other pronouns such as “he,” “she,” “hir,” “they,” etc. Those who didn’t use the “it” pronoun were found in a field, sans their bones, organs, skin, and other non-fluid aspects of being. Suffice it to say, it was referred to as “it” from then on [a pity, as the one essay to accurately used the “it” pronoun was by far the weakest of the collection].) Some theorize that it simply likes the “tt” sound the pronoun makes while others believe it to be a literary reference, though the implications of it being aware of and referencing IT is frightening. But the most popular theory (which is to say the one that highlights Humanity’s need to be the center of attention) is that it despises Humanity and has embraced the dehumanizing aspects of the pronoun.

There are several coherent reasons to despise Humanity from their need to consume the world’s limited oxygen to the fact that they don’t follow any coherent rules of existence to the creation of Nickleback. Most highlight the inherent barbarism of Humanity to justify a disdain for the species, but that assumes any species could be inherently barbaric when in truth good and evil are social constructs. A society, for example, that views all people to be equal regardless of race, creed, sexuality, gender, or whatever else divides people and requires them to be treated as such would be considered evil by the society currently infesting certain corners of the City. Few consider the possibility that Humanity might just be too stupid to function, letting themselves get too bogged down by their virtues and repressing their vices. 

Whatever the reason it used the pronoun “it,” it did not change the fact that it could only enter the City once someone said its name. Long ago, back when the City had a different name, people said its name as if it had as much meaning as “Clark Kent” or “Bloody Mary” or “Robert Walpole.” It was just a set of meaningless letters randomized, and nothing more. But that was when names had such power. Now… Bloody Mary has met with 15 people in the past hour, her smile radiant and cruel. The lad who said its name would wish he said Mary’s name instead. It had so many plans for him… But then, perhaps the story of the man ought to be told before getting into speculating relative suffering.

The lad was named Jacob. He lived in the City for the majority of his short life (he was born five miles outside of the City in a long abandoned gas station. It was a miracle his mother survived the pregnancy), nearly 12 years (his fateful meeting with the Thin White Duke was less than a week before his birthday). For Jacob’s whole life, his father worked for the Fuzon Corporation as a janitor. They paid him enough to feed and house two people. His mother died when Jacob was 5. The apartment complex that they lived in had one of two types of rooms: too small or the Landlord’s. Theirs was a grey room, even though it was painted blue. There was one window in the bedroom, but it was angled in such a way as to awaken the person sleeping in the apartment’s single bed before anyone else in the City. The bathroom was not in the apartment.

The culture of the apartment complex was just as curt. There were no communal events, no whispers about how the guy in T8 is secretly eating missing dogs (he wasn’t, that was the family in J2), not even the basic decency of saying hello as you walk past one another. It was as if the apartment complex was built in such a way as to endear isolation. Shockingly, those who lived alone went mad. Only on the rare occasions where a fire broke out did those who lived in Jacob’s apartment complex realize there were other people in the building. Sure they assumed, but it wasn’t important enough in the grand scheme of things to retain such useless information.

There were exceptions of course. Children like Jacob tended to run into one another quite frequently and interacted as most children do. One notable instance was on a Tuesday. It was a muggy day outside, muggier than usual, as a storm had passed by the day before and shorted out the faulty air conditioning unit. Jacob went on a typical stroll through the hallways. (As Jacob unlocked the door, he made sure the keys to the apartment he secretly kept were carefully hidden on his person.) As Jacob wandered down the halls, the lights flickered with what little power they had. It was as if the building itself was blinking.

“Lo, JJ,” said a voice behind him. Jacob did not know why people called him “JJ.” It wasn’t as if his last name started with a “J” (it would be odd to spell “Saulson” that way, but to each their own). Surely it would make more sense for the nickname to be “Jay” or “JS” or for people to just call him “Jacob.” But the name stuck and Jacob had to live with it for what little time he had left. The person the voice belonged to had the far more unique name of “Fred Free.” He liked it when people called him “FF,” but he always introduced himself as “Freddy.” He was an affable young lad, a year older than Jacob but you couldn’t tell from the look of him. Jacob was slightly tall for his age, which made little difference when it came to considering what that age was.

“Hello Fred,” said Jacob with a coldness that would freeze even the muggiest of days. Affability could only get him so far. “Shouldn’t you be out looking for a job?”

“Alas,” sighed Freddy with maudlin sincerity, “the job market just isn’t interested in me. I just lack the experience needed to be a novice. It’s a tough world out there and I wish I spent my time working when I was your age.”

“Ain’t never gonna happen.”

“What isn’t?”

“I ain’t gonna get a job.” To say Freddy was mortified by this simple sentence would be like saying a fish in an empty fish tank is wet. In Jacob’s defense, the traditional job market was limited for people with Jacob’s skill set of being nimble, dim, and angry. His brightest future would require his father to drop dead at that exact moment, the maintenance boss at the factory to be keen on keeping things within the family, and for Jacob to actually gain the skills to keep the floors, machines, and other things that are in a tech factory clean to the standards of “maybe has been used twice” within 4 hours. (The sad thing was Frank, the maintenance boss, pitied the Saulsons and hated his bosses enough to do just that, regardless of Jacob’s abilities.)

Freddy wanted to argue with Jacob about how what he claims isn’t work (despite requiring a lot of effort) is going to end up getting him killed. About how he can’t be lucky forever and his methods won’t be enough to feed himself, let alone anyone else. Maybe this was the moment Freddy told Jacob how much he wanted to go on walks with him, eat with him, have incredible sex with him. But sadly, Jacob decided to walk away as if he was a badass who just said a one liner that owned his opponent. Freddy just stammered. (Sometime later, Jacob would wonder if he could have avoided it had he not been such a smug prick to Freddy.)

Instead of admitting his own complex feelings towards Freddy, Jacob headed to one of the richer floors of the apartment complex. It should be noted that the term “richer” is relative in these circumstances as a person with one penny is certainly richer than a person with no pennies and that person is richer still than someone with no pants or pennies. In the case of the people on the richer floors, they had welcome mats. Sure, they were all the same welcome mat (a scratchy old thing that one could barely tell said “Come and See”. It didn’t even do its job of cleaning dirty shoes), but that’s enough for some people to talk in a snooty accent.

A new group of people had just moved in to one such apartment a week ago: Apartment A3, two doors down from the Landlord’s. They consisted of a pale man in a wheelchair who should never have moved into the City, his redheaded daughter who laughed like an idiot at the word “Pineapple” for reasons she never comprehended, and his bald son who would never shut up about how much better the last apartment they lived in was, as if that was somehow his father’s fault they had to move. They had lived in the City for a good couple of years, moving from apartment to apartment before finally being moved into this one. The son worked as an errand boy for the Fuzon corporation’s factory while the daughter was a secretary. The father was once a barber, but now spends his days slowly dying of heatstroke while his kids complain about it being too cold inside.

Jacob, for his part, stalked apartment A3 for a good hour before finally entering. He had to be sure the place was empty, as even the cleverest of thieves could be thwarted by a well-placed rube. The mechanisms for breaking into an apartment require a simple set of picks and keen eyesight, which Jacob sorely lacked. So instead, Jacob just nicked the extra skeleton key the Landlord kept in the maintenance closet three doors from Jacob’s apartment (many landlords in the City assumed people will assume they aren’t that dumb. They tend not to account for those who think “in the maintenance closet” is a clever place to hide a maintenance key).

When Jacob entered the room, he found that it was old and musty, much like a museum. Indeed, the main artifact of this miniature museum was a decayed old man, kept alive by technological marvels like a quarter-full oxygen tank, a feeding tub surgically inserted into the man’s throat, and a television that was kept on a channel full of static. Fortunately for Jacob, the old man was asleep. He didn’t snore or even make a noise. He was perfectly still, as if he never moved in his whole life. A twinge of sadness came to Jacob as he realized the old man was dead. That dissipated once the old man started to cough his lungs out before returning to his motionless slumber.

Jacob had to be quick if he wanted to stay alive. In his time living at the apartment complex, Jacob knew that people kept their money in three locations: cracked safes, under the clothes pile, and on their person. But the occasional bit of loose change was typically kept in publicly displayed jars: on a mantelpiece or a kitchen counter or (in this case) on the windowsill. In some regards, Jacob had pity for these dopes that think this is a good place to keep something of such value (Jacob’s father kept his in the far sensible location of “above the fridge where Jacob can’t reach”). It isn’t that hard, Jacob thought, to just give the money to someone who needs it. If they did that, I wouldn’t have to steal it now would I? The amount in the jar was roughly $2.10 (a personal high for Jacob), which he shoved into his pocket, though he would never count it. Instead, Jacob would receive a blow to the back of his head, knocking him unconscious. Evidentially, Jacob never noticed the fourth person who lived in the house, a prematurely grey haired woman with a frying pan in her left hand. The jar shattered on the floor, cutting Jacob’s leg. Not that he noticed.

When Jacob came to, he found himself tied up. Four people were before him. One was sitting on a broken wheelchair whose wheels were too rusted to turn, tapping his left foot in the air. Another leaned back on the table with her fingernails facing Jacob, a cruel smile on her bloodied face. The other woman, with grey hair, was designing the room for her own purpose. And an old man was lying on the floor, dead for less time than Jacob was unconscious. Inexplicably, the money was still in his pocket.

“Ah, you’re awake,” said the man in the wheelchair. He didn’t speak like most people on the richer floors, with their affected posh accents and “Well, I Never” phrases. Rather, his accent was harsher, lacking in any of the artifice they say one needs to live in a “richer floor” in an apartment complex in the City. He spoke with the curtness of the poorer floors, the ruggedness of the homeless, and the sneer of the Spiders. “Forgive the ropes, but when someone kills your father… restraint is required.”

Though Jacob wasn’t the brightest person to live in the apartment, he was keenly aware of what these people had planned for him. Even the most sophisticated of the “richer” class wouldn’t stand for their father being murdered by some lowly thief. Especially a thief who was stupid enough to get caught by someone he didn’t even know existed. He also knew that, were he to call this out, no doubt the man before him would gloat about how no one would believe him, giving Jacob enough time to escape his binds.

But when Jacob tried this approach, the man, in a fit of fury, punched the young boy in the face. He started to cry blood. “HOW DARE YOU,” screamed the man, “YOU LITTLE SHIT! I LOVED MY FATHER! WE ARGUED ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS, BUT I WOULD-“ Instead of finishing that sentence, the man stomped on Jacob’s crotch. In response, Jacob let out a scream of pain… followed by an invocation of a religious figure he didn’t believe in.

“Francis, stop,” said the woman leaning on the table, now moving towards Francis, “he’s just a kid.”

“Just a- JUST A KID! HE MURDERED OUR FATHER! He probably murdered countless other people as well! You know what his kind are like.”

“I didn’t-“ but before Jacob could finish, Francis kicked him in the face.

“I DIDN’T ASK FOR YOUR OPINION!” screamed Francis, unaware of the text surrounding him. The woman with grey hair lit up a cigarette, hoping no one would notice her.  The other woman reached for Francis, but he pulled away from her. “I’m fine,” pleaded Francis, “I’m fine, Lucy.”

“Someone,” cried Jacob whilst Francis repressed tears of his own, “help me. Please help me.” In that moment of suffering, words came to Jacob. They started out with the familiar “Oh God, help me,” before transitioning to the obscure “Oh Orc, help me,” before, at last, reaching for words of symbolism and myth, thought lost to the existential desert of the post internet age. A pair of meaningless words that, in this age of pure meaning, combined into something terrible. Words it thought no one would ever say again… “Oh Slenderman, help me!” And it was in that moment, the Thin White Duke returned to the City. It didn’t walk into the City so much as appear in the doorway. The woman with grey hair was the first to notice it. She didn’t want to notice it; no one would ever want to notice it. But when her gaze came across its form, her mouth fell agape. Neither words nor sounds came out of her mouth, merely the scream of the mute. It stood in the doorway, perfectly still as if the apartment was built around it. Looking at each step, it appeared as if the apartment was moving as opposed to it.

And yet, there was fluidity to its movements… a creature living in an eternal ocean of air, its tendrils floating aimlessly. They were the only thing you could be sure were moving. The woman with grey hair was blinded by her tears, thinking of all the things she did right in the world, now revealed to be mere selfishness. The Thin White Duke revealed to her that she was never worth saving. If she could move, the floor would drown in her blood.

“Hey guys…” announced the Thin White Duke. Its voice was uncanny. There was a musical notation to its cadence, a harmonious unity of softness and alien strangeness. It was not a song that one would immediately recognize, nor even a song at all. But it was musical nonetheless. And yet, there was a dullness to the voice, as it was doing an impersonation of its least favorite friend. It still liked them and all, but it’s clear that it would have a livelier conversation with a bag of bricks and the only reason they still hang out is because he has a car.

Francis and Lucy turned towards the intruder. Jacob would’ve as well, but he was tied up at the moment. Francis focused on the shape of the being. It was extremely thin, even by the City’s standards, as if food had never entered its form. It was unnaturally shaped like a person in that it had the general outline of a typical man of 25 in a black suit with a black tie, but there was something off about it. Francis would never figure out why this was wrong, even as the answer was staring him in the face. It came to Lucy rather easily: it had no face. Its voice was not muffled, and yet it had no face. It could see her with rapturous fury, yet it had no eyes. She could feel the contempt it exuded, and yet it had no means of expressing itself. Other details flung into her mind. The suit was flesh, growing its fibers of cotton and dye from its unnaturally white skin. The tendrils were an aura that only looked like tendrils; they had no substance. Yet she was sure they would kill her in the end.

Instinct took over the denizens of Apartment A3 as Francis tried to flee from the apartment; not realizing the only escape was through the Thin White Duke. He instantly collapsed into a puddle of flesh and misery. His eyes were gouged out by human fingers, his stomach cut to pieces by a nearby knife. None of these things killed him. It felt nothing after this. Lucy took the saner option and dropped to her knees in prayer. The tendrils did the rest. It felt nothing after this. The woman with grey hair was allowed to her own devices. It felt nothing after this.

As for Jacob… terrified Jacob… guilty Jacob… young Jacob… wrapped up like a gift Jacob… it looked at his body, and a smile was felt on the mouthless face.

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