das Nicht-zuhause-sein

[not-being-at-home.]

That part's definitely true.

These days, I'm an apprentice at a tattoo shop on Sunset. I answer phones, schedule consultations and clean up. Any idiot could handle it. In fact the job's reserved for idiots. This afternoon though, how do I explain it?, something's really off. I'm off. I can't do a fucking thing. I just keep staring at all the ink we have, that wild variety of color, everything from rootbeer, midnight blue and cochineal to mauve, light doe, lilac, south sea green, maize, even pelican black, all lined up in these plastic caps, like tiny transparent thimbles—and needles too, my eyes catching on all those carefully preserved points and we have hundreds, mostly #12 sharps, many singles, though plenty in two, three, four, five, six and seven needle groups, even a fourteen round shader.

It depends on what you need.

I don't know what I need but for no apparent reason I'm going terribly south. Nothing has happened, absolutely nothing, but I'm still having problems breathing. The air in the Shop is admittedly thick with the steady smell of sweat, isopropyl alcohol, Benz-all, all that solution for the ultrasonic cleaner, even solder and flux, but that's not it either.

Of course no one notices. My boss, a retinue of his friends, some new inductee who's just put down $150 for a rose, keep up the chatter, pretty loud chatter too, though never quite enough to drown out the most important sound of alls the single, insistent buzz of an original "J" tattoo machine logging yet another hundred stabs a minute in the dimple of some chunky ass.

I get a glass of water. I walk out into the hallway. That's a mistake. I should of stayed near people. The comfort of company and all that. Instead I'm alone, running through a quick mental check list: food poisoning? (stomach's fine) withdrawals? (haven't been on a gak or Ecstasy diet for several months, and while I didn't smoke any pot this morning—my usual ritual—I know THC doesn't create any lasting physical dependencies). And then out of the be-fucking-lue, everything gets substantially darker. Not pitch black mind you. Not even power failure black. More like a cloud passing over the sun. Make that a storm. Though there is no storm. No clouds. It's a bright day and anyway I'm inside.

I wish that had been all. Just a slight decrease in illumination and a little breathing difficulty. Could still blame that on a blown fuse or some aberrant drug related flashback. But then my nostrils flare with the scent of something bitter foul, something inhuman, reeking with so much rot years, telling me in the language of nausea that I'm not alone.

Something's behind me.

Of course, I deny it.

It's impossible to deny.

I wanna puke.

To get a better idea try this: focus on these words, and whatever you do don't let your eyes wander past the perimeter of this page. Now imagine just beyond your peripheral vision, maybe behind you, maybe to the side of you, maybe even in front of you, but right where you can't see it, something is quietly closing in on you, so quiet in fact you can only hear it as silence. Find those pockets without sound. That's where it is. Right at this moment. But don't look. Keep your eyes here. Now take a deep breath. Go ahead take an even deeper one. Only this time as you start to exhale try to imagine how fast it will happen, how hard it's gonna hit you, how many times it will stab your jugular with its teeth or are they nails?, don't worry, that particular detail doesn't matter, because before you have time to even process that you should be moving, you should be running, you should at the very least be flinging up your arms—you sure as hell should be getting rid of this book—you won't have time to even scream.

Don't look.

I didn't.

Of course I looked.

I looked so fucking fast I should of ended up wearing one of those neck braces for whiplash.

My hands had gone all clammy. My face was burning up. Who knows how much adrenaline had just been dumped into my system. Before I turned, it felt exactly as if in fact I had turned and at that instant caught sight of some tremendous beast crouched off in the shadows, muscles a twitch from firing its great mass forward, ragged claws slowly extending, digging into the linoleum, even as its eyes are dilating, beyond the point of reason, completely obliterating the iris, and by that widening fire, the glowing furnace of witness, a camera lucida. with me in silhouette, like some silly Hand shadow twitching about upside down, is that right?, or am I getting confused?, either way registering at last the sign it must have been waiting for: my own recognition of exactly what has been awaiting me all along—except that when I finally do turn, jerking around like the scared-shitless shit- for-brains I am, I discover only a deserted corridor, or was it merely a recently deserted corridor?, this thing, whatever it had been, obviously beyond the grasp of my imagination or for that matter my emotions, having departed into alcoves of darkness, seeping into corners floors, cracks outlets, gone even to the walls. Lights now normal. The smell history. Though my fingers still tremble and I've yet to stop choking on large irregular gulps of air, as I keep spinning around like a stupid top spinning around on top of nothing, looking everywhere, even though there's absolutely nothing, nothing anywhere.

I actually thought I was going to fall, and then just as abruptly as I'd been possessed by this fear, it left me and I fell back into control.

When I re-enter the Shop things are still askew but they at least seem manageable.

The phone has been ringing. Nine times and counting, my boss announces. He's clearly annoyed. More annoyed when I express some surprise over his ability to count that high.

I pick up before he can start yammering at me about my attitude.

The call's for me. Lude's on a pay phone in the valley with important info. Apparently, there's some significant doings at some significant club. He tells me he can guest list my boss and any cohorts I deem worthy. Sure, I say, but I'm still shaken and quickly lose hold of the details when I realize I've just forgotten something else as well, something very important, which by the time I hang up, no matter how hard I try, I can no longer remember what I'd meant to remember when whatever it was had first entered my head.

Or had it?

Maybe it hadn't entered my head at all. Maybe it had just brushed past me, like someone easing by in a dark room, the face lost in shadow,

Nevertheless regardless of how extensive his analysis is here, Heidegger still fails to point out that unheimlich when used as an adverb means "dreadfully," "awfully," "heaps of," and "an awful lot of." Largeness has always been a condition of the weird and unsafe; it is overwhelming, too much or too big. Thus that which is uncanny or unheimlich is neither homey nor protective, nor comforting nor familiar. It is alien, exposed, and unsettling, or in other words, the perfect description of the house on Ash Tree Lane.

In their absence, the Navidsons' home had become something else, and while not exactly sinister or even threatening, the change still destroyed any sense of security or well-being.

Upstairs, in the master bedroom, we discover along with Will and Karen a plain, white door with a glass knob. It does not, however, open into the children's room but into a space resembling a walk-in closet. However unlike other closets in the house, this one lacks outlets, sockets, switches, shelves, a rod on which to hang things, or even some decorative molding. Instead, the walls are perfectly smooth and almost pure black—'almost' because there is a slightly grey quality to the surface. The space cannot be more than five feet wide and at most four feet long. On the opposite end, a second door, identical to the first one opens up into the children's bedroom.

Navidson immediately asks whether or not they overlooked the room. This seems ridiculous at first until one considers how the impact of such an implausible piece of reality could force anyone to question their own perceptions. Karen, however, manages to dig up some photos which clearly show a bedroom wall without a door.

The next question is whether or not someone could have broken in and in four days constructed the peculiar addition. Improbable, to say the least.

Their final thought is that someone came in and uncovered it. Just installed two doors. But why? And for that matter, to quote Rilke, Wer? ³⁴

Navidson does check the Hi 8s but discovers that the motion sensors were never triggered. Only their exit and re-entrance exists on tape. Virtually a week seamlessly elided, showing us the family as they depart from a house without that strange interior space present only to return a fraction of a second later to find it already in place, almost as if it had been there all along.

Since the discovery occurred in the evening, the Navidsons' inquiry must wait until morning. And so while Chad and Daisy sleep, we watch Karen and Will suffer through a restless night. Hillary, their one year old Siberian husky, and Mallory, their tabby cat, lie on either side of the 24" Sony television unperturbed by the new closet or the flicker from the tube or the drone from the speakers—Letterman, new revelations regarding the Iran-Contra affair, reruns, the traffic of information assuring everyone that the rest of the world is still out there, continuing on as usual, even if two new doors now stand open, providing a view across a new space of darkness, from parent's room to children's room, where a tiny nightlight of the Star Ship Enterprise burns like some North Star.

It is a beautiful shot. In fact, the composition and elegant balance of colours, not to mention the lush contrast of lights and darks, are so exquisite they temporarily distract us from any questions concerning the house or events unfolding there. It seems a perfect example of Navidson's unparalleled talent and illustrates why few, if any, could have accomplished what he did, especially toward the end.

The following day both Karen and Will pursue the most rational course: they acquire the architectural blueprints from their local real estate office. As might have been expected, these blueprints are not actual building plans but were drawn up in 1981 when former owners sought permission from the town's zoning board to construct an ell. The ell, however, was ultimately never built as the owners soon sold the property, claiming they needed something "a little smaller." Though the designs, as they appear on screen, do not show a room or closet, they do confirm the existence of a strange crawl space, roughly four feet wide, running between both bedrooms. [20]

Alicia Rosenbaum, the real estate agent responsible for selling the Navidsons the house, gives the camera a bewildered shrug when Karen asks if she has any idea who could be responsible for "this outrage." Unable to say anything useful, Mrs. Rosenbaum finally asks if they want to call the police, which amusingly enough they do.

That afternoon, two officers arrive, examine the closet and try to hide the fact that this has to be the weirdest call they have ever made. As Sheriff Axnard says, "We'll file a report but other than that, well I don't know what more we can do. Better I guess t'have been a victim of a crazy carpenter than some robber" which even strikes Karen and Navidson as a little funny.

With all obvious options exhausted, Navidson returns to the building plans. At first this seems pretty innocent until he gets out a measuring tape. Idly at first, he starts comparing the dimensions indicated in the plans with those he personally takes. Very soon he realizes not everything adds up. Something, in fact, is very wrong. Navidson repeatedly tacks back and forth from his 25' Stanley Power Lock to the cold blue pages spread out on his bed, until he finally mutters aloud: "This better be a case gf bad math."

An incongruous cut presents us with the title card: V4

Outside the house, Navidson climbs up a ladder to the second story. Not an easy ascent he casually confesses to us, explaining how a troublesome skin condition he has had since childhood has recently begun to flare up around his toes. Wincing slightly at what we can assume is at least moderate pain, he reaches the top rung where using a 100' Empire

fiberglass tape with a hand crank, he proceeds to measure the distance from the far end of the master bedroom to the far end of the children's bedroom. The total comes to 32' 9 3/4" which the house plans corroborate—plus or minus an inch. The puzzling part comes when Navidson measures the internal space. He carefully notes the length of the new area, the length of both bedrooms and then factors in the width of all the walls. The result is anything but comforting. In fact it is impossible.

32'10" exactly.

The width of the house inside would appear to exceed the width of the house as measured from the outside by 1/4".

Certain that he has miscalculated, Navidson drills through the outer walls to measure their width precisely. Finally, with Karen's help, he fastens the end of some fishing line to the edge of the outer wall, runs it through the drilled hole, stretches it across the master bedroom, the new space, the children's bedroom and then runs it through a hole drilled through the opposite wall. He double checks his work, makes sure the line is straight, level and taut and then marks it. The measurement is still the same.

32' 10" exactly.

Using the same line, Navidson goes outside, stretches the fishing line from one side of the house to the other only to find it is a quarter of an inch too long.

Exactly.

The impossible is one thing when considered as a purely intellectual conceit. After all, it is not so large a problem when one can puzzle over an Escher print and then close the book. It is quite another thing when one faces a physical reality the mind and body cannot accept.

Karen refuses the knowledge. A reluctant Eve who prefers tangerines to apples."I don't care," she tells Navidson. "Stop drilling holes in my walls." Undeterred, Navidson continues his quest, even though repeated attempts at measuring the house continue to reveal the quarter-inch anomaly. Karen gets quieter and quieter, Navidson's mood darkens, and responding like finely tuned weathervanes the children react to the change in parental weather by hiding in other parts of the house. Frustration edges into Navidson's voice. No matter how hard he tries—and Navidson tries six consecutive times in six consecutive segments—he cannot slaughter that tiny sliver of space. Another night passes and that quarter of an inch still survives.

Where narratives in film and fiction often rely on virtually immediate reactions, reality is far more insistent and infinitely (literally) more patient. Just as insidious poisons in the water table can take years before their effects are felt, the consequences of the impossible are likewise not so instantly apparent.

Morning means orange juice, The New York Times , NPR, a squabble over the children's right to eat sugared cereal. The dishwasher moans, the toaster pops. We watch Karen scan the classifieds as Navidson toys with his coffee. He adds sugar, milk, stirs it all up, stirs it again, and then as an afterthought adds more sugar, a little more milk. The liquid rises to the rim and then by a fraction exceeds even this limit. Only it does not spill. It holds—a bulge of coffee arcing tragically over china, preserved by the physics of surface tension, rhyme to some unspeakable magic, though as everyone knows, coffee miracles never last long. The morning wake-up call wobbles, splits, and then abruptly slips over the edge, now a Nile of