Switch Pt 01 Of 03

Blame the rain. Had the weather been clear on that autumn Saturday, I likely would have ridden my bicycle for exercise most of the day. I would have pedaled past the yellow and green farmlands of my aboriginal country, enjoying the familiar exertion and strain that served to exorcise the demons that otherwise tortured me most of my waking hours. Returning to my home depleted and purged, I would have showered and slept. Indeed, atonement through physical toil has been virtually the only way I am able to achieve the escape of slumber since the death of my beloved Esme. Most nights I spend wandering the empty rooms of our home and stumbling through the crumbling habitation of my memory. But you did not come to listen to my personal anguish. You came to learn that for which I blame the rain.

Deciding that the weather matched my mood, I opted for a coffee and a walk that day. The café was a short carriage ride from my desolate dwelling. I chose a table with a view of the sodden gloom outside, ordered my cappuccino, and settled into a volume of Poe. After a time I grew restless, and, warmed by my drink, went for a stroll. The sky wept; I brandished my umbrella and turned my collar against it. Whatever calamities so troubled the heavens were as nothing compared to the bleakness that consumed me. I had no capacity to sympathize with the predicament of another—even if that other be the Almighty himself.

The window of a second-hand store caught my eye. I spied a writing table of a very peculiar sort. It appeared to be a Louis XV-style three drawer bureau, and a fine specimen at that. Although the finishes appeared worn and desiccated, not unlike myself, the rectangular, curved top framed a handsome tooled black leather writing surface. The molded borders above the drawers were flanked by amazing corner pediments of Joan of Arc. The drawers themselves contained diagonal marquetry and ormolu decoration, and the elegant cabriole legs resolved in acanthus feet. I had to have it.

After a short negotiation with the shopkeeper, the desk was mine. (I am not profligate in my spending, or extravagant in my tastes. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to find disposable income when there is no one upon whom to bestow tokens of affection, or to treat to pleasant evenings of entertainment, or to dress in costly taffeta.) It fit in the rear of my carriage, and was soon in the hall outside my bedroom.

I was not sorry to see the old writing desk go. It was an ugly, utilitarian piece of furniture, notable chiefly for its inexpensive materials and for being sturdy enough to withstand the furious copulations of Esme and me when it resided in my office at Schramsburg & Barnard. In those early, halcyon days of our engagement, my fiancé had found excuses to visit me at my place of employ. I, in turn, had found methods by which her moans could be muffled while I stripped her of her skirt and found her sex between her garter belt and stockings. With my hand firmly over her mouth, my partners and associates could not hear her pleading for her moment of ecstasy, or her groans when I gave her release and delivered her from the exquisite torture of our frenzied lovemaking. Afterward, Esme departed my office smiling, if a bit unsteady.

When Esme fell ill, the desk came home with us so that I could discharge my duties to the firm and still care for her. Now it was a mocking reminder of a happiness that was cruelly and forever taken from me. I wanted it gone.

But the rain. Had the day been clear, I would not have been out walking; had I not been out walking, I would not have found the writing desk; had I not found a new writing desk, I would have had no need to move the old one; had I not moved the old desk, I would never have noticed the small switch centered in its plate on the wall behind the desk.

It was a most curious discovery. Admittedly, the recent introduction of electricity into older houses had resulted in some unusual wiring and strange placements of switches. Even so, the siting of a switch low enough on the wall to be concealed by a desk, and neither near a doorway nor the item—say, a lamp or a fan—to which it gave power was odd. But location was not the oddest thing about it. The switch was not inconspicuous; on the contrary, it was of a classic and ornate design. The plate appeared to be brass, with lavish scrollwork and a subtle, leather-grain field pattern surrounding two push buttons. Such a fixture naturally drew attention to itself. Yet I had not noticed the switch when I had moved the old desk into the bedroom. In fact, I positioned the desk where I had precisely because it did not cover any appurtenances such as outlets or switches. It wasn't that I simply hadn't noticed the switch; I would swear by all that was sacred that it hadn't been there.

Whatever could it be for? Every electric lamp in the house was operated by a switch other than the one that now occupied my attention. And how could I have not noticed it before? In my curiosity to discover the secret of this mystery, I bent down and pushed the bottom button. The world disappeared into blackness.