found drama

She pulls in to the parking lot, which is nestled between the three buildings. She is someone’s older sister, but not yours; she is a friend. All four of you are going to the same show. It isn’t until after she pulls the e-brake that you notice the barriers up around the one building. You intended to enter there, to go down into the subway and ride to the club from there. (You’re only here for its convenient and free parking; never mind that it’s a sketchy neighborhood.) You don’t know this city well at all and suggest turning around, looking for somewhere else to park, for somewhere else to get on the subway. But your two friends do know the city well, and laugh off your suggestion. The subway (they explain) is on a pretty predictable grid and it is easier to park here and walk up or down a block or two to catch the train at the next stop. So you follow them up to and around the barrier; through the alley and out onto the street on the other side. (Your female companion disappears, vanishes into the city air.) You follow them for two blocks before they duck into a swanky-looking hotel. “There’s a subway station in the basement,” they explain. “They can’t keep us out.” And then they stop in the hotel bar. And promptly order a glass of Scotch each. You linger a moment longer, delaying your order, reviewing the selection. Your friends had quickly gone for an easy-to-recognize name. But tucked back behind a couple of other bottles is something precious and rare. And the bartender notices you noticing it and provides you with a generous pour after you speak its name correctly. (Though he jokes that you must like drinking diesel.) When you join your friends at the table, they admire your drink (you hadn’t even known they liked Scotch, to say nothing of being connoisseurs) and seem jealous and quickly switch the topic to how soon the train will arrive.

Into the hospital through the Emergency Room. Down the hall, bear right. Bear right again. Took a wrong turn; back up, retrace your steps, go left at the shelf full of antiseptic swabs. Behind the lightbox for the X-rays is a door. Pass through the door and you find a crowded room. A party. Navigate through the party. Pass the punchbowl and go down another set of stairs. You enter a crowded bar. Go through the bar, all the way to the back, past the billiards and the tables and the booths. There are two doors in the back. Go into the kitchen. Go to the back of the kitchen. Exit the kitchen into an alley (though the alley itself does not open to any street). At the other end of the alley is a door, two steps down from the pavement. Through the door is a speakeasy. Work your way through the crowded speakeasy to the back. Open the trapdoor and lower yourself into the wine cellar. At the back of the wine cellar, move aside the cask that reads 1914. Pass through that portal. He’s in there, waiting for you. He has a secret to tell.

It’s a large house in… New York City? It’s mansion-sized. Whatever the city is, it’s a large city. You don’t live here, you’re just visiting. But you also haven’t come to this house as a tourist. You’re not sure why you’re here, but you know as you assume your position in the line that you need to be here. The tour guide arrives not long after that and starts explaining the history of the house. Along the Gothic wrought iron fence are bronze plaques — at least a dozen of them. Each plaque has an embossed portrait and a brief description. You don’t have time to read each one, as the tour guide starts the line moving. She explains that each plaque is there to commemorate a victim of the house. The first two victims were the first two murders, and the third was the suicide of the original murderer. The rest are all unexplained.

You enter the house and she ushers all of you onto an enclosed platform. Once everyone is aboard, she shuts the door and the platform begins to move. (What kind of Disney-fied Haunted Mansion crap is this? you wonder.) She goes on with her explanation. Somehow the platform maneuvers through the house’s many tiny rooms. You don’t notice it, but at some point you approach a staircase and it’s as though the entire geometry of the house changes. Suddenly everything is much larger. You enter a humongous foyer. Above you, the tour guide explains, all over the ceiling is a long-ago ruined mosaic or fresco (no one is sure) that was an eighteenth-century equivalent to an autostereogram. You stare at the ceiling as the platform descends. And you start to make out dots and lines. They’re not quite images, but they’re definitely patterns. And you start to feel yourself drawn upward, even as the platform descends.