#fogg

One year. It’s been one year.

That doesn’t feel real to write. It can’t possibly be true. How can it be one year since Charles was killed, when he died just yesterday? When he died last Tuesday and four weeks before that and two months ago and every day since that terrible notice arrived.

It can’t have been a year because the loss is as fresh as if I had been told moments ago.

Though, thinking of that day now—when I learned that he’d died and that I was listed as his next of kin in the same terrible moment…it hasn’t been a year, has it? It was January twenty-third that the telegram came. I lived in ignorance for thirteen days. There was a period of nearly two weeks in which the deed had been done, the shell had been dropped, and yet I knew nothing. He was still alive then. For thirteen days he was alive in my mind. Sometimes I wish it could have stayed that way, that they’d never alerted me and that the war had never ended, and I could exist in a perpetual state of hope he would return. What a rotten, selfish thought.

But have I not earned the right to be selfish? The universe has been unaccountably cruel to me, ensuring that his letter only arrived after—

It should have been a gift, that letter. I should have been able to hold onto it, to fill my head with the glimmering possibility of how we would greet each other in victory.

But instead I received a confession from a dead man. I don’t even have a body to bury, just a stray dog tag pulled from the wreckage in Belgium, and yet I have his final words. Words that should have signified the start of something, not the end.

What an awful trick he pulled on me. Watch The Great Chambers disappear. Glance over here at the promise of a spectacle, his affections laid bare, and by the time you look back over, he’ll have vanished. Except I experienced the illusion in reverse and misdirection is neither thrilling nor effective when you can see the strings of fate that are being used to hang a man.

I’m writing a lot of nonsense. I’ve been doing little else, this past year. Perhaps I need to go away, stop pretending like I’m any use to anyone. Perhaps I should go away for a long while.

After her husband died, I gave Mrs. Bowman—Virginia, I should say, we’re friends enough now—a sizable amount of money. Enough to take a year off. I wish I could say it was a purely generous gesture, but even at the time, I was so terrified of losing him and I couldn’t bear to look at her. She put on a brave face, far braver than I would have managed, but seeing her every day at her desk, continuing to do what began to feel like the utterly pointless work of our profession, while her one true love laid dead in a battlefield somewhere…it was too much of a reminder of what he was risking, being over there.

In any case, whatever the motivation, I was able to do her the kindness of giving her a year to grieve. No work, no concerns, just…time. To be honest, I could have probably given her several more years, but—and, again, I am ashamed of this—when she came back and found me as the broken man I am, I took solace in the horrific partnership we now share. She understands what I’ve been through, more than anyone in my life, and was plenty aware of my…varied affairs, to put it one way, to blink an eye at my becoming a widower to another man.

Though, no, that isn’t quite right. That implies there was once a time in which I could claim the privilege of being something more to Charles than a bosom friend. Would that make all of this better or worse? Would his absence be easier to bear if I could recall those close and happy times in the way that Virginia reminisces about her honeymoon? She was—is—understandably overwrought with her loss, but whenever she speaks of Roger, it is with such fondness. She loves him so deeply, remembers him with such warmth, and meanwhile I am sometimes so furious with Charles that I can’t even see straight.

But I miss him. That’s the worst part. I’m so goddamn angry, I’m bitter, I’m buried underneath the oppressive sadness of grief, but mostly I just miss him.

I miss his laugh, which I’d gotten good at pulling out of him. I miss the way he was so particular about things, how he almost never let me win an argument, even if I could tell he knew I was right and was simply debating me for the sport of it. I miss how gentle his voice could be.

I miss his hands. Strong and littered with scars, all the more beautiful for the stories behind them. I don’t have any photos that do them justice. Not that any photograph could do any part of him justice. I suppose I should just be grateful I have a decent collection.

I wish I’d gotten him on film, properly. Not just the test reels he’d tolerate when I bought myself whatever new camera came onto the market.

There’s one in particular I took that captures him in the act of smiling. Not just any smile either, but the special one he has had when he was trying not to smile at me but couldn’t help it. I’d brought my camera to DC and made him stand in front of a cherry blossom tree. He was so bashful at the time, trying to get out of being my subject, but he looks so pleased in the footage. He looks like a film star. Handsome and charming and alive.

Thank goodness I went into the movie business. I can’t imagine I’d have even that if I hadn't. But I do need to be careful with the film. I worry about wearing it out. For as long as I can watch him flicker into motion, brought into shape by light and movement, I can keep him alive.

Good lord, Virginia is right. I’ve become so terribly maudlin of late. Perhaps it really is time for me to pull up stakes and wander the world for a while. God knows I don’t have anything keeping me here. Just a wonderful friend going through her own process of mourning, a beautiful house I can’t stand to be in, and a thriving movie studio that brings me absolutely no pleasure.

And I have years and years ahead of me. Endless decades of my perpetual life without him in it. He told me he’d never be lonely as long as I walked this earth and I didn’t say a word. I didn’t tell him that it was the same for me. I didn’t make him promise that he’d never leave me in a world without him.

There is so much I didn’t say. I’ve spent the last year reflecting on all the conversations we never had and I would do anything—would perform any kind of black magic—to speak to him again.

I would trade it if I could. I would trade the immortal nature of my life to live an ordinary one in a world that still houses his soul.

I’ve survived near-death at the hands of my own illusion, war, fire, a sinking ship—so much that should have killed me. At times I’ve even looked forward to discovering what else I am capable of surviving.

But how on earth am I meant to survive this?

[from the personal diary of J.S. Fogg]

Dear Charles, 

The time that has elapsed since your last letter would have me concerned if every other friend I knew with someone over there wasn’t in the same boat. I suppose it’s difficult to move that much mail across the world, but I do hope to hear from you soon. 

There are, in fact, many more people in my life who I can relate to on this particular point than I expected. Mrs. Bowman—née Spencer; she and her beau got married just before he shipped off, I can’t remember if I mentioned that—often speaks of her frustrations at not hearing from her husband. And it feels silly to admit, but I half feel the same. Not that I’m some sort of war wife sitting at home, but in that I have been used to a particular cadence of communication with you. Yes, we’ve gone many years without speaking, but that hasn’t been the case for decades. Ever since we both got telephones in our homes, we’ve spoken at least once a week and I’m sorry to say that I’m having a difficult time recalling the particular pitch of your voice. 

I hope you’ve made some friends over there. If memory serves—which it often doesn’t on this particular subject—that camaraderie was one of the few bright spots in the war. Though I can’t say I’ve kept in touch with many of those fellows. Then again, not many of them came home. How did we get here again, Charles? How have we not learned? When I think of those men I served with, I picture the old men they must be now. Except that wouldn’t be the truth. Many of them would be in their fifties, hardly senior citizens. And yet it feels as if surely it must have been long, long ago that the world nearly fought itself to ruin. 

I hope things aren’t as bad over there this go around. Though I suspect they’re worse. I wish I had some idea of where you were beyond just “the Western Front”. I know that, even if you cared to tell me, it would be redacted before it ever reached me, but having traveled the continent so much myself, it would be some comfort to picture you in familiar places. Then again, I’m sure those landscapes look much different now. 

But on to happier subjects—if it makes it through the various checkpoints this package will no doubt go through before it reaches you, you should have a carton of Sweet Caporals in your hands. I have no idea if you’re able to get them where you are but my guess would be that any pleasure is in short supply. I hope this provides some degree of relief, even for a moment.  I keep thinking of being on my patio and you

Smoke them, trade them, share them with your men. Whatever you do, I hope you think of me do it safely.

Until I see you again, I am,

Your friend, John

[a letter received by C.X. Chambers]

MOVE YOUR TRIP UP. COME TO LOS ANGELES IMMEDIATELY. WORLD MAY BE ENDING. 

WE WON’T BE ABLE TO STAY OUT OF IT NOW.

[a telegram received by C.X. Chambers]

Dear Charles, 

What an absolutely rotten world we live in. When this year began, I never would have anticipated that, nearing the end of it, half of Europe would be at war. Perhaps I should have. Perhaps I was being naive in assuming we’d learned our lesson. At the very least, I hope our country has learned its lesson and will act more swiftly than we did twenty years ago. Though I won’t be holding my breath. 

Not that I want to go to war. It would be my preference that we never feel the need to deploy our military ever again. But then I remember all we lost—all the death and destruction—and I drive myself to madness thinking of what could have been if we’d thrown our might into the fray at an earlier stage. And this already feels much the same, though this time, it’s as if there’s a palpable anger, a sense of revenge. This cannot lead anywhere but into hell. 

What are we to do, Charles? I’m not sure I can bear to experience the toils of war again, but I’m equally uncertain that I can simply stand by and watch. You contributed off the battlefield back then, and contributed quite a lot. I would like to think I could support the cause in some similar way, but I’ve never had the knack for science in the way that you do. For chrissakes, I’m a movie producer. 

Then again, I know just how much the ghoulish results of your own work plagued you and do so even now. I know we’ve never discussed it, not deeply, but war truly does make men commit horrible acts. Or perhaps that is merely an excuse and it is only the weakest men who succumb to the vagaries of violence against his fellow man. Perhaps I am a weak man. 

What if we said “dash it" to the whole business? What if we packed up a few bags, just the necessities, hopped on a boat and pushed off into the Pacific? We could find a little island somewhere I’m sure, one that has never seen the depravities of humankind. We could build a better life there, you and I. After all, we hardly require what an ordinary human needs. Have you ever seen how long you can go without food, Charles? There was one week during the war when rations were particularly low. I gave mine to a younger man who had never left his small town before going to the front and whose eyes were permanently wide. And I discovered we can go quite a while without even feeling the pangs of hunger. 

We could do it, I think. Run away, separate ourselves from society in a way that reflects just how separate we already are. Maybe we can’t die of hunger in the trench, but there are other, awful ways to die. And, despite it all—all my years and adventures—I’m not ready yet. I’d rather find a sunny spot and drive each other crazy for years to come. Wouldn’t that be better? If we could just run away? What do we need except for each oth—

[an unfinished and unsent letter from J.S. Fogg to C.X. Chambers]

JACK. DID YOU HEAR WELLES BROADCAST? MADE ME LONG FOR THE DAYS OF ILLUSION. CXC

1938 OCTOBER 31  AM  9 36

C. HEARD AND ADORED. TRICKS THROUGH RADIO IS GENIUS. CAUSED QUITE A STIR. J

1938 OCTOBER 31  AM  10 10

REACTION MUCH EXAGGERATED. ILLUSION CAN STILL DELIGHT EVEN IF KNOWN AS TRICK

1938 OCTOBER 31  AM  10 42

BROADCAST BELIEVABLE THOUGH. MEN FROM MARS. WE’VE HAD STRANGER

1938 OCTOBER 31  AM  11 10

ARE YOU CALLING ME A MARTIAN?

1938 OCTOBER 31  AM  11 53

IF YOU ARE I AM

1938 OCTOBER 31  AM  12 10

AT LEAST I AM IN GOOD COMPANY

[a series of telegrams exchanged by C. X. Chambers and J. S. Fogg]

Well, it is official—nothing was salvageable from the fire. The films are hardly the most important concern of the whole ordeal, not when a young boy is still recovering from severe burns (and how I do hope he recovers swiftly), but I do mourn the loss of some of my older, earlier attempts at filmmaking. Not to mention, all the other films that were stored there. In his letter, or at least the letter his office sent, Kent said that they hoped to recover silver from the remnants, so that’s something. 

I imagine Fox is seething—another black stain on his already tarnished legacy. I’m sure this would have still happened under his, or anyone else’s, regime, but I’m sure he’s furious all the same. I would write to him with my condolences, but I’m not even certain of where he’s living these days. 

In any case, it hardly needs to be stated that I will be making my own arrangements for storage from now on. Which means I need to figure out some kind of solution for the eastern seaboard. Or maybe the Los Angeles warehouse will suffice. A problem for another day. 

Though perhaps I am the true problem—after all, this isn’t the first time that a fire has destroyed something precious of mine. A fact of which Charles was very quick to remind me. It was the damnedest thing—he called me at home the moment he heard the news and asked if I was alright. He called me, on my telephone in my home in California, to ensure that I was safe from a fire in New Jersey. I suppose a man doesn’t think straight when confronted with the fear of losing a friend. Why I would have been at a film storage site on a random Friday in July, I can’t fathom, but then again Charles didn’t seem particularly clear-headed when I answered. 

I must say, I was touched by his concern, even as I found it a bit baffling. He’s been very distracted as of late and we haven’t been communicating at our usual cadence. The state of affairs in Washington sounds particularly tangled at the moment, but I can’t help but wonder if his relative reticence has more to do with the recent nuptials of one Miss Eudora Hale. Or, I should say, Mrs. Eudora Phelps as she is now and will forever be known. 

Despite his protestations, I have always suspected that Charles carries a torch for the young woman, one kept in his care and his care alone because of some misguided notion of being too old to marry someone of her age. I have always understood his concern of outliving a spouse, but Miss Hale Mrs. Phelps has always been a bright woman of great intellect and, I think, could have been entrusted with the truth and left to make her own decisions. 

Whatever his feelings on the matter, it is too late for Charles to do anything about it now. And I can’t say I’m sorry for it, even if I feel a pang of sympathy for my brother in immortality. I like Eudora very much, having met her several times through the years, but despite her mind and beauty, I never thought she and Charles were the right fit. This Phelps fellow seems far more appropriate. I just hope that Charles sees that someday. 

[from the personal diary of J.S. Fogg]