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Dunmore Throop and His Fearsome Secret By: david on 10/22/2001; 9:27 PM This memory I have been asked to recall is an old one, from a time when I was a different person living a different life. These days my life is simple: a small flat with large windows, a rather thick stack of newspapers for me to read (or not read), a phonograph for the times -- more infrequent these days -- when Betsy and Lawrence visit and want to dance. A desk, a bed. The memory I have been asked to recall is from the most exciting days of my life; this is the story of how I stopped feeling young. It was a Thursday, but it could have been any day at all. My pals - Dunmore, Eamonn, Christie - were up to the usual. Which wasn't really anything in particular, just anything we thought was vital, exciting. Our inheritances and trusts were finally (or what felt like finally; we were just young men pretending to be adults) kicking in, and so vital and exciting things often included travels to exotic places, unimaginably costly games of poker, parties resplendent with the most popular musical entertainment and the most elegant catering. Dunmore, on this Thursday, had just returned from his travels to Zaire and rang up claiming to have something I absolutely had to take a look at. Now, I must say that Dunmore is quite the teller of tall tales. I expected he'd brought back some native trifle -- perhaps a shrunken head, or an artifact purloined from some wrinkled mystic -- I wasn't at all sure what exactly was in Zaire and in fact, if pressed to pinpoint it on an unlabelled globe, I would have succeeded only in locating it in Africa. But treasures had in the past been described with equal fervor, and such grotesque mementos as Dunmore was fond of keeping drew from me vague shock and disappointment though outwardly, of course, I gave hearty congratulations. As you must understand, Dunmore was at heart a boy. He threw violent fits if any of us even suggested he wasn't the most interesting and exciting of us all, and we'd learned to keep it to ourselves. We didn't discuss him because we truly did like him; you must also understand that in our own ways, we were all the same: children playing at sophistication, at the high culture we all felt our money and independence entitled us to. So we admired Dunmore just as he bothered us. So on that Thursday, though kept as if magnetically to the bed by last night's quarry (quite the magnet) and a head still swimming with gin, I struggled into my clothes and made my way to Dunmore's by carriage -- our preferred method of travel. How ridiculous, in retrospect. Dunmore, of course, was waiting on the veranda with his pipe and newspaper, monocle never faraway. The pomposity was often mock between us; Dunmore's monocle was seen as a fantastically pointed joke -- just as he had intended. He was childish but he was clever. "Oh, Henry, you must absolutely sit with me and enjoy this tobacco. And have you heard the news from Leicester?" Dunmore, so often, chose to play at it even when we were alone. "Dunmore, shut up, show me this trinket that dragged me from... well, you know." Dunmore loved to drag out the introduction, the salutation, the greeting, the chit-chat, the goodbye -- everything. Letters from Dunmore were almost entirely meaningless: ten pages yielded what would have taken any normal being only a half to convey. If Dunmore wasn't stopped and stopped early, the Point of the Visit was very often lost to game. "Oh very well, have it your way." Mock displeasure registered; Dunmore knew we all hated him while we loved him. He walked in and beckoned me to follow. His house is worth describing but sadly that task will be left undone. At the time of his death, he'd filled almost every one of the thirty rooms with the spoils of his search. We walked through the ante-room and the coatroom and finally stopped in the smoking room; on the table was what looked like a cigarette box -- something Dunmore already had plenty of. "Now, this box contains a secret. I found it -- I can tell you, this part isn't secret," he laughed, annoyingly, "in a clearing on one of the jungle runs. We'd heard there were diamond mines and so I took a group to go looking -- for sport, you know -- and we ran across this beauty. She was just sitting there, next to an old tree stump grown-over with mold." Dunmore motioned me towards the box. "Now, before you open it, I just have to tell you something. What's in this box is a secret, it can't be told to anyone else. I'm not saying I won't let you tell, but this: I doubt you could if you wanted to. No one could believe you. I thought at first when I found this box that I ought to bury it, hide it where no-one else could ever find it, but then I realized it was just as hidden right here on my table." By now Dunmore really had me excited. I, of course, assumed this was one of his silly tricks, but the tone of his voice and his animation suggested he might not be embellishing, he might really be telling the plain truth for once. So eager was I that stopping to consider whether I wanted to know what was in the box, or whether it would be good for me didn't even enter into my mind -- I had to know if Dunmore had actually found something. I reached out and opened the box; it was not ornate but seemed to be of good quality. Inside was a shiny metal lining: surprising if Dunmore really had found it where he claimed. Inside the box was nothing. "Dunmore, you sod, there's nothing here." "Oh, Henry, look closer. In the corner, I should think." He puffed on his pipe. And there it was. In an instant I knew just what Dunmore had been trying and failing to say; I knew that as eloquent as he wasn't, even the most lucid scholar could shed no light on the contents of this box to one not in-the-know. And I offer you, the reader of this note, my sincere condolences as I am unable to begin to comprehend how to tell you what I saw. It had no visual appearance, or at least nothing I could describe. It gave me a feeling, but it was a feeling that was familiar -- something I had certainly felt before and given no thought. It almost felt like it was the inappropriateness of the feeling that was the stunning thing, but that wasn't it. Perhaps it was simply the incomprehensibility of the thing, the precise, absolute secrecy -- secrecy through an utter obscurity -- of the thing that made it so... effective. But that's not right either. It seemed appropriate, at that point, to say goodbye to Dunmore. He understood. As I walked home, I considered what had happened. I knew things could never be the same, but I wasn't sure what had changed. Of course, Dunmore had to show all the boys and it was implicit that he would, and this didn't trouble me as it probably should have. For we were all firm believers that discovering truths could only bring us all closer to salvation (which we laughed was so far from us), and I, unwilling to revisit that belief, imagined the visage of the interior of that box and indeed, the contents of the box were certainly a step toward truth. In some way or another that box has been the death of us all. The secret drove us all to ruin; Dunmore dashed out his brains on a rocky beach at the foot of a cliff nearly twenty years ago. Eamonn met his reckless death in a duel after meting out grave insults to a known criminal in our pub after a heated argument with me. And Christie, poor Christie, always the follower of us all: he was driven mad and crippled by it and remains alive at the sanatorium, fed and bathed by those once considered less fortunate than him. And so, dear reader, in calling upon myself to recall this painful memory of these events, I offer no answers. For in my time here I have been able to come up with none, save for this, my final act. Which is hardly a daring or decisive act: my soul perished on the day I looked into that box. The box, locked in a vault under my desk, is to be buried with my body. My assets shall be delivered to Lawrence Cheatham in their entirety. Lawrence, if you read this note, I am truly sorry but this was the way things had to be. Please see to it that my wishes are carried out in full, Lawrence. The kettle is now whistling, calling me to my last cup of tea, made especial through the courtesy of a compassionate apothecary who shall remain nameless. Let this cowardly exit be taken as a caution of the importance of burying that box with me. Farewell.
RE: Dunmore Throop and His Fearsome Secret By: The Overlord on 11/24/2000; 1:23 AM [nanobot activity report: begin overlord.command.upload]  Greetings, David! I am the Overlord, and I am in charge of Unreason until Mark returns from his vacation.
He has transmitted several requests to me: first, this is to be fiction, correct? Second, could you post a brief bio as a new message with your name as the subject and the bio as the body. Third, did some biological lifeform in particular refer you to us? We wish to reward such individuals with trifles that amuse us but seem to hold great value for you human beings. Again, welcome. And your Overlord requests that you choose a title and join The Puppet Ruling Council. [end]
RE: Dunmore Throop and His Fearsome Secret By: Dorothy Marie Koveal on 12/1/2000; 3:37 PM wow. this story just leaves me breathless. leaving the object of secrecy unnamed and unidentified physically really emphasized the feeling of incomprehensibility constantly surrounding the object. it puts whoever is reading this in the place of the narrator. it's really cool.
RE: Dunmore Throop and His Fearsome Secret By: Chie Theresa Fujioka on 12/1/2000; 10:50 PM yuhp, just what she said. describe this feelinge exactly. hehe :) please
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