Adam Ross

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The Stories
A Short
Adam G. Ross







“So.... Let’s try this again.”
“Why? It’s just gonna end up the same.”
“Mr. Green, try and be patient, the treatment will make you memory, ah, a bit splotchy.”
“OK.”
“So, from the top, try to remember.”

__________________________________________________ ____________________________

I wake in a strange house. The place has a dead smell, the dust is almost visible, the whole thing has a brown tint about it. Reminds me of my grandmothers house from when I was a child. The way everything had an unfinished look: A bookshelf missing the bottom shelf, a chair with one arm gone, a table without the finishing.
My head hurts and my palms have a dried layer of blood caked to them. My right ear was bleeding at some point and the blood has ran down my cheek and dried under my chin, cracking when I look up from the floor. There is a table in front of me, an unopened pack of smokes, and two pistols sitting on it. One is black and looks to be some type of ultra modern semi automatic number, the other is an antique looking six shooter complete with cast iron barrel. I look at the guns for a moment and try to get my bearings. I think of how I ended up in such a place and nothing comes to mind, and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. I have a hard time remembering my name, job, where I lived, everything. It was like being in a dream, but much worse.
I walk out of the room and make my way to the heart of the house. It is old, used up, and looks to be abandoned. The walls are covered in a green paint that is flaking away and cracking and bubbling where water had ran down and made it’s way to the floor. There is no furniture in the house, only books, loads of books. All older looking, first editions, all seem to be and printed, bound with care and craftsmanship, nothing industrialized about them. Some of them were on the floor, some were open and on the counters of the kitchen, some were in the cabinets of the kitchen. I flipped through a few of them, making sure not to tear the pages of leave any markings as I looked. Don Quixote, Moby Dick, War and Peace, the classics.
I walked to the sink and started to wash the blood off of my hands. It was hardened, as if it had become an extra layer of skin. The water hit and the red skin started to soften. The cuts underneath appeared to be nothing more than tens of scraps, as if I had fallen and caught myself on asphalt. One cut was a little worse than the others, the flap of dying skin hung open as the water cleaned the inside.
I dried my hands and tried to find a way out of the room, but there seemed to be no door. There were, as I noticed at that moment, no windows to be found either. A windowless, exit-less house. My heart started to race and I could feel myself becoming afraid of what was happening to me. As the blood began to pump through my heart with a more rapid beat I could feel myself start to panic. I sat on the floor and tried to collect myself. There light in the room started to leave and hide in corners I could not get to, I could feel my depth of vision start to change, then, as easily as I had awoken, I fell out, passed out, and could do nothing to stop it.

__________________________________________________ ____________________________




“Is that all.”
“Yes.”
“Your not leaving out anything.”
“No.”
“Nothing.”
“NO!”
“Mr. Black, you’ll have to be calm.”
“I know, I’m sorry, its just a bit much to take.”
“Remember, your the one who came to us.”
“I know, I know.”
“If you would like, you can leave, leave whenever you want.”
“I know, I’m very sorry. I forget, keep forgetting.”
“It’s quite all right. Now, as for your family.”
“I’ve told you, I don’t remember a thing.”
“Yes, we know, but there is something we would like to show you, we think it might help with the whole process.”
“Yes, anything.”
“Here...”
“What’s this?”
“Why, its a book.”
“Well, I can see that, but what for.”
“For you to read of coarse.”
“Oh... How will this help.”
“It would be to your benefit to just do and not ask at this juncture, Mr. White.”
“Mr. White?”
“Yes, I’ll leave you to it. And remember, read all of it. Do not stop until you are finished, we will be keeping an eye on you.”
“Yes, yes...”

__________________________________________________ ____________________________

NEVER LAND
A SHORT
ADAM G. ROSS


It had been the idea of my long departed brother for who I had loved and honored most of my life to move to the country and away from the prying eyes and deafening voices of the New York streets. There, as he had told me on many occasions, would I be able to end my laborious task of finishing my great masterpiece of literature which, upon retrospect, seemed to be worth only the paper it had been pinned. After careful consideration and conversation with my fiance, Grace, did I decide that the task would be of worth. In the autumn the four of us: My brother Jacob, his wife Elizabeth, and Grace, made our exodus from the screeching and always cumbersome light of the city.
Arriving in the country was a glorious time, full of hope and ambition. The ambitions of a twenty four year old man could not be measure with the most precise measuring stick, however pressed one might be to do so. I knew as much, and prided myself on the knowledge that no man, alive or dead would be able to understand the relief I would feel upon completing my work in such a peaceful setting.
Our days were slow, in the beginning, with noting more to do than manual upkeep of the property which had been so carefully entrusted to my brother. We would work during the day, drink and eat during the nights, and smile and laugh at all times. It was a rare sight, in the beginning, to see my beloved brother without a smile etched upon his face.
However, the salad days were not far from ending for the four of us. The first blow came from the sickness that overtook my brother’s wife. The doctors said there was little they would be able to do about the tuberculosis that coursed through her body, however Jacob would have non of it, thinking all the while that he, through prayer and loving support of her, would be able to help her. Still, what the heart wills is not always what reality will have. Elizabeth died two months later and with her, I believe, part of my beloved brother died as well.
The next tragedy that undertook our small community was the death of my wife. Coming home from the market my wife, for who I had married only months earlier, was come upon by the worst kind of colored scoundrels and made to have intercourse with the two of them before she was to be murdered. To say that the death of a man’s wife is hard is not enough, but to add on the horrid details of my wife’s death is to bring agony from only the sound to the most cynical of listeners.
The execution of the perpetrators did nothing to squelch the intense emptiness left within my once filled heart. The hollow shell of it was only a reminder of the loss of which I had suffered. Reflectively, my once extroverted brother slowly morphed into an intensely silent hermit. We did nothing to help each other through the black days from which there seemed to be no end in sight. Our space of living turned to a space of death, not literally, however the vibrations and mood contained within that place of the damned could be explained as nothing more than pure sadness and emptiness. There was nothing for the two of us to talk about, thus our separate rooms became our places of solitude and thought. Mundane daily rituals became a thing of the past. Our preparation for anything became a thing of the past. The wash built up, the duties usually tended to by the women of the house piled up, and the two of us wallowed in our lifestyle. Forgetting the sun rose and taking for granted that it set, our lives became nothing more than time before death. And further, the two of us waited with apathetic interest for our moment of judgement to come.
One such day I was unable to stew within what was left of my home as I wished, instead, my tasks had reached a boiling point as procrastination finally caught up with me in full. Unable was I any longer to temporize making the much delayed journey into town and purchasing the most modest of supplies. Food, parchment, tobacco, the barest of minimums for the two of us to survive. I had known that Jacob would not take it upon himself to complete the overwrought task, and so, having no other option, I took it upon myself.
The task, which was normally a fruitful and anticipated event, was nothing short of unnerving for me on that bitter and desolate morning. I awoke early in order to return to my sanctuary as soon as possible and with the the least amount of outside interference from well meaning patrons that were sure to be moving about town. This was, in retrospect, the one item of the day that went according to the laid forth plan. I was able to arrive, collect all I needed, and start to return home before anyone gained the opportunity to stop and pester . However, as morning turned to day wince I began the homeward track, my morning fortune turned to a series of unprovoked mishaps that would forever leave a mark within my mind––
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Mr. Ross.”
“Oh, hi.”
“Hello.”
“Um... Have we met before?”
“Yes we have, but I wouldn’t expect you to remember that, sir.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Are you finished?”
“Oh, ah, no not just yet, I mean, I still have a bit to go.”
“Well then, I’ll be leaving until you have had a chance to finish.”
“Oh, no, wait... I have a few questions, I know I know, I’m not supposed to ask questions, but this just won’t do.”
“What won’t do, sir.”
“Well, this... This whole thing.”
“Yes, go on.”
“Well, you see, ah...”
“Jacob.”
“Ah yes, Jacob. You see, Jacob, I have no idea what is happening to me...”
“I’m well aware of that sir.”
“No, I don’t think that you are.”
“Mr. Adam, I visit you once a day to check your vitals and you tell me the same thing everyday.”
“Excuse me.”
“Your confused.”
“Yes, yes I am, very deeply confused..”
“Sir, you just have to trust that it is part of the treatment.”
“Yes, you keep telling me that it’s part of the treatment, but I have no idea what the treatment is!”
“I wouldn’t expect for you to understand the treatment, that is the point of the treatment.”
“What?”
“Mr. Garrett you have to except that you will not be able to understand the treatment, but you came to us for the treatment, and thus you would be able to stop the treatment whenever you desire.”
“You tell me that I’ve said all of this before?”
“Everyday you have been here you have said the same thing, everyday I have this exact same conversation with you and everyday you think about leaving but never do.”
“How long have I been here?”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters a fucking great deal!”
“Two weeks.”
“Why did I come here?”
“You were having trouble writing.”
“I’m a writer?”
“Your trying, but you do not get paid for it.”
“Why is my memory gone?”
“Because of the treatment.”
“What is the damned treatment!?”
“Sir, with all due respect, I’ve told you what the treatment does, everyday, for the last thirteen days in a row. You will only forget when I tell you, so, why put yourself through it?”
“TELL ME!”
“Calm yourself or I will have to ask you to leave.”
“OK, I’m sorry... I’m sorry, please just tell me.”
“What did you think of the story thus far?”
“To hell with the damned story, just tell me what the treatment is?”
“I’m trying to, but in order to do that you must cooperate. So, what did you think of the story thus far?”
“Ah, dammit... I guess it was, ah, bad, not good... I didn’t like it.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Why did you not like the story?”
“Oh, I don’t know... Its just not my kind of reading, its too slow I guess.”
“Too slow.”
“Yes.”
“Well, Mr. Auster, who do you think wrote the story?”
“Adam Ross.”
“And who is he.”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?”
“What if I were to tell you that you were in fact Adam Ross, Mr. Auster?”
“...”
“That is the point of the treatment, to help you forget, to help you let go.”
“What.”
“Do you have any memories?”
“Ah, yes, yes I do, one about waking up in a, a damned room with guns– I don’t see how this helps me, to erase my memory like this.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“Only temporary.”
“Tell me your memory.”
“No, I’m not doing it again, I know that whatever is going on, I’ve told that damned memory until I’m blue in the face.”
“Fair enough, but let me show you something. This was the beggining to the last story that you were able to write.”


I wake in a strange house. The place has a dead smell, the dust is almost visible, the whole thing has a brown tint about it. Reminds me of my grandmothers house from when I was a child. The way everything had an unfinished look: A bookshelf missing the bottom shelf, a chair with one arm gone, a table without the finishing.
My head hurts and my palms have a dried layer of blood caked to them. My right ear was bleeding at some point and the blood had ran down my cheek and dried under my chin, cracking when I looked up from the floor. There is a table in front of me, an unopened pack of smokes, and two pistols sitting on it. One is black and looks to be some type of ultra modern semi automatic number, the other is an antique looking six shooter complete with cast iron barrel. I look at the guns for a moment and try to get my bearings about me. I think of how I ended up in such a place and nothing comes to mind, and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. I have a hard time remembering my name, job, where I lived, everything. It was like being in a dream, but much worse.
I walked out of the room and made my way into the heart of the house. It was old, used up, and looked to be abandoned. The walls were covered in a green paint that was flaking away and cracking and bubbling where water had ran down and made it’s way to the floor. There was no furniture in the house, only books, loads of books. All older looking, first editions, all seemed to be and printed, bound with care and craftsmanship, nothing industrialized about them. Some of them were on the floor, some were open and on the counters of the kitchen, some were in the cabinets of the kitchen. I flipped through a few of them, making sure not to tear the pages of leave any markings as I looked. Don Quixote, Moby Dick, War and Peace, the classics.
I walked to the sink and started to wash the blood off of my hands. It was hardened, as if it had become an extra layer of skin. The water hit and the red skin started to soften. The cuts underneath appeared to be nothing more than tens of scraps, as if I had fallen and caught myself on asphalt. One cut was a little worse than the others, the flap of dying skin hung open as the water cleaned the inside.
I dried my hands and tried to find a way out of the room, but there seemed to be no door. There were, as I noticed at that moment, no windows to be found either. A windowless, exit-less house. My heart started to race and I could feel myself becoming afraid of what was happening to me. As the blood began to pump through my heart with a more rapid beat I could feel myself start to panic. I sat on the floor and tried to collect myself. There light in the room started to leave and hide in corners I could not get to, I could feel my depth of vision start to change, then, as easily as I had awoken, I fell out, passed out, and could do nothing to stop it.


“Yes, this is my memory.”
“Not a memory, a memory of a story you were struggling with.”
“What does that mean.”
“Nothing, you will forget it in a few hours, but you wanted to know what the treatment was, and I told you.”
“Ah, bullshit!”
“I knew you would say that.”
“Fuck you!”
“I knew you would say that as well.”
“I’m finished with this whole thing... I, I can’t stay here...”
“Mr. Ross we both know your not going to leave.”
“How the hell do you know anything.”
“I’m trying to tell you, this is the way our meetings always play out, to a T.”
“...That ends now, I’m getting out of this god damned crazy place!”
“Where will you go.”
“I... I don’t know...”