It was a moment though, barely the span of a breath that made him jump back, his eyes full of fear, his heart beating fast and his legs full of adrenaline. He looked at the man standing in the room, smoking a cigarette and looking outside the blue window, at the trees and green fields outside. Without looking at him he added, very casually, like one does when talking to himself "It must be noted that the exact dynamics of this are yet to be discovered."

With this affirmation he became a little calmer "you mean that it's only a theory?"

"No" he put away the cigarette "I mean that the painting is incomplete, not that it doesn't exist."

He looked at him, waiting for another line to come out of those lips, but nothing came.

"Is this everything?"

"I left out some details for time sake. But yes, this is everything." he paused and looked at him "do with it what you wish or want."

"But-but-"

"I know."

"You must-"

"Trust me I know." he said looking at him in the eyes "I know, I have seen them."

The boy’s heart was seized by fear. More than walking away he ran away out of fear that something from his fantasies could spawn in a dark corner and strangle him. The man remained still in his office, looking outside for a long time before returning to his desk. There was a book there, a brown leather-bound book with yellow pages with evident signs of damage by humidity. He opened it, read a few lines, turned the page, read a few more and so he continued for another twenty minutes before finding the line that he needed. The book was good, talking about many things, from tarot to esoterism to psychology and how they all interwind. He looked outside the window again, he looked another again at the trees.

He stood up and picked an encyclopedia of botany. A heavy and long book who contained all the essential and more about botany, really good encyclopedia. He looked at it and then looked at and then looked at the mountain of papers and notes on the ground near his desk.

"What a shame that there isn't a book like this for what I am studying"

"But there is" a voice answered

"There really isn't"

"You have it, there. At the third line, fourth shelf, between-"

"No, not that." he paused "I mean something of more understandable and modern. If only people knew..."

Something sat on his desk and then laid himself on it "there wouldn't understand."

"Someone would if it was re-written"

"If it was really that book there wouldn't understand it; if they understood it, it wouldn't be that book."

He looked at his empty desk and closed his eyes. When he re-open he was no more there. There was a man on his desk, several animals re-ordering the shelves and one weird monolith in the room.

"Deeper and deeper in the rabbit hole you go," the voice said.

Was he mad? What was madness anyway? Had the chaos and corruption infected him at last? No. No, it hadn’t.

He closed his eyes again and returned to his normal desk. And began writing his papers and checking a few notes. Suddenly he picked up the pen and wrote on a white piece of paper:

"The powers of the imagination effects the whole of the body, mind and spirit. As a snake crawls-" he stopped. As a snake crawls? That sounded bad and stupid. It needed to be majestic; it needed to be perfect; it needed to be understood.

The man on his desk appeared again, even though his desk was still normal "calm, I am here with you, let me pick that pen" he drew a circle with many circles in it, a sort of mantra.

"That is better."

"You really can't express yourself in words"

"No" he smiled "just symbols and images."

Meanwhile, the boy had fled the house and was running as fast as he could back to town. Back to his comfy hotel. From there he would pick a...a boat. Yes, a boat and would return home. From his father and mother, where he would meet and marry a pretty young girl, find a job, buy a home, have children, many of them. And at last die from old age, happy and old, maybe during a hike or something. Illnesses distort the mind, especially long ones.

He had nearly exited those damn trees when he heard a laugh, a woman, sweet, pretty, long, laugh. He turned nearly instinctively around. There was no one except him and the trees.

He continue walking, he heard it again, this time from a different direction. He began to realize what was happening. He started running, ignoring every sound and noise.

When he arrived in town he was dead tired. He could barely walk on his two feet, he had to cling to a wall to walk. People looked at him strangely, at those two very tired and unstable eyes and feet.

Before going to the hotel he entered the bar. Trowed three months of wage on the table and drunk enough to make drunk an elephant and a manatee drunk. Then left, vomiting, throwing up, and tripping on the street. Two high men came near him and helped him stand up.

"Where do you live?"

"Ho-Ho, hotel..."

"Hotel?"

"Yes..." he said drunkenly

"Which one?"

He paused for a second "orange one."

When they entered the hotel the secretary didn't recognize him

"Gentlemen this is a respectable hotel," he said thinking they were beggars.

"Loffy" the boy said "it's me...Jo-john"

"What?!?"

He went over the table and looked at him better. He checked his pockets and documents. It was indeed John.

After a pretty lengthy discussion between Jeffrey, that was the secretary name and the two men over a "gentle and voluntary payment" John was brought upstairs and put to bed.

"Now, as I was saying" he continued "you helped him and for this, I am much grateful. However" and this was a big however "I can't pay you that much."

"You have all of those money and you don't even give some good coins to two gentlemen who have saved your friend?"

"As I was sayin-" a terrible sound came from upstairs, a sound of a gunshot.

The man rushed upstairs to John room, kicked the door down and saw him with a gun in his head, trembling “it was here” he said shortly before vomiting “he-was-here. I swear!”

“John, calm down. What is happening?”

“They are here, all of them, all of them. They will never go away, never. I have open the gate, the gate has open in me.” he said nearly rambling.

“Stay calm, I just wan-”

“No! Just thought that I am crazy, that I am going mad, you want to lock me in the madhouse, you are evil! You are a slave! You are- Oh rage! I can’t live anymore” he pointed the gun to himself.

Quickly Jeffrey rush at him, struggling to grab the pistol from him. The two men intervene to separate the pistol from him. John was pulled back and thrown to the wall. Where he laid, looking at the ground, unable to speak.

“John, what has happened?”

He didn’t respond

“John, look at me”

He didn’t.

“John, are you-” he touched him, his body was cold. He checked his heartbeat...there was none. John was dead.

The doctors could say anything that they want about how it was an “accident” that maybe he drank too much and that caused him an attack of some sort. Or how the thrown against the wall shock him. But inside him all those explanations didn’t suffice, so he went into his room and begun checking his papers. Where he found the address to the man house surrounded by trees, he went there next week.

He was found hanged in its office a few days after the visit there.

The end.