The Rhine Foundation

The water running in from a crack in the window had finally touched the frame of Tariat's bed. He had lazily stuffed some newspaper over the widening split and then put some duct tape on it that almost immediately fell off. It was a race between Autumn ending and Tariat's diminished self-respect somehow replenishing. Guess it was time to get up anyway.

By Three PM Tariat had managed to clean up, and assemble a wardrobe close to something someone might be seen out of the house in. So he went out, to maybe finally buy some caulk or glue or something to maybe fix this leak, and maybe he'd get a burrito—or maybe even something with a fruit or vegetable—but probably not.

His front door, which was in fact his only door, wouldn't open. Something was jammed, and honestly his neighbors keep ordering all these giant boxes which he could only assume were cheap furniture. Their return labels gave him insights—with names like SureComfort, HomeEssence, and other amalgamations of almost meaningless words. There was also the smell, that specific cheap man-made material smell that crappy furniture almost always exhibited. Anyway, today the door was stuck, and he assumed it was one of these oversized deliveries that kept getting put in front of the door; even though he was in Unit One and they were for Unit Three. A successful attempt by the mail carrier to avoid stairs, he thought.

So it’s out the window again, but as he shifted his weight through the pane, the crack at the top spoke up. He stopped, one leg out, like a burglar caught in a spot-light. He waited, as though that might help, then continued, as did the creaking sound. It was followed by a horrible chalkboard scratch and a powdery clang. As the wall crumbled, a six to seven-inch hole formed—back inside.

The chalky drywall was already smashed into his favourite bed sheets below. Goddamn it, he thought. Vacuum's put away. He moved his fingers across the new opening and noticed the wall had been repaired before. The piece that broke away didn't match the rest. It was a small square patch that you could now see had some very old wallpaper under the white paint. He pried the whole piece loose. Fuck it at this point. More dusty white vaporized drywall floated around.

You could now see the wood struts of the inner wall—like the house’s rib cage exposed, and an earthy musk of dirt and sour settled in his nostrils. Probably poison, he thought. But there was something else lodged in the wall—a moist fabric, like a swatch or a bandana, holding onto something with brown twine. He dislodged it and opened the mildew soaked package.

Inside he found a notebook, a small black leather-bound notebook, somehow not wet from rain. The annoyance of living in a shit-hole, one with decaying walls, evaporated and was replaced by excitement. He had heard of this sort of thing—old revolvers in fireplaces, a cigar box full of confederate medals…there was a man once who found hundreds of classic movie posters in his apartment. Surely, this too could be something! Anything, honestly, to keep him from having to go out.

Tariat turned on the kettle, ceremoniously placed the book on his coffee table, and waited for the water to boil. 'Watched pot.' His mind was running away again, probably did have ADHD, he thought. He sat down and studied the book. The pages had that lovely yellowed patina that comes with age. The leather felt soft and comforting. Tea at the ready, he turned the pages. A name in the front of the book, “Porter Rhine,” and then a sequence of numbers. Tariat was reminded of the Dewey Decimal System; that ill-forgotten way of organizing books in the public library. It held onto his remaining brain cells like an evil oil tycoon on life support. He turned the page to find line drawings: schematics. Page after page of these. With numbers on all four sides of the page. Alpha-numerics on closer review. He closed the book and sipped at his Earl Gray. “Porter Rhine,” he said aloud.

He turned to the window, a steady stream of rain water dribbling in. He sighed and opened the notebook again. Sipped his now lukewarm tea and pretended to think: to concentrate. Narrowing his eyes, he studied the numbers on each corner of the pages. The first page was missing a sequence at the upper left of page. It's a map, he thought, and immediately began ripping the pages out and organizing them on the floor.

Sure enough, the numbers and letters aligned: A1 to A1, B1 to B1 on the next sheet, and so forth. The finished product looked like Holliston Ave a few blocks away, and a regular route to the liquor store for Tariat. The rain stopped. Might as well.

The sweet scent of fresh rain dissipated as Tariat approached the logical end of the map. An acrid, putrid rot filled the air. There was something about this area that always seemed to smell of rotting wood, a dank decay, something that seemed altogether toxic. He looked up to see a three-story building. It was shallow, almost humorously so—maybe eight by eight feet wide, but three stories tall. It seemed to almost tilt off-kilter. Like many of the older buildings around, it was made mostly of wood. A few porthole-style windows adorned the first and third floors. He stepped up and spied through one.

To his discomfort, a man sat at a desk not five inches from the window. He tilted his head up and locked eyes with Tariat. Tariat hopped back, as the man slowly stood up and opened the door. “Come in then,” he said.

“Me?” Tariat replied. The man said nothing, but impatiently gestured for Tariat to enter the small room.

“Okay.” Tariat realized this was unusual, but he hadn't much else to do, and it really was the focal point of the map so he felt he owed it to himself to investigate.

“Tea?” The man had only a desk in the room, a calendar on the wall, and a pot of tea and two mugs on his desk.

“Oh I just had some, thanks.” Tariat tried to explain, but the man poured it anyway. It was an odd bluish colour, like Windex.

“Well I'm afraid I can't let you down there,” the man said. Tariat then noticed a small opening in the floor that seemed to have a spiral staircase that led into complete darkness.

“Oh?” was really all he could think to reply with.

“Yeah, I see you have some sort of map there.” As the man said this a piece of tape fell off the map and one of the segments came loose.

“Oh this? Yeah you know, I actually…well to be honest I found it in my wall.” The man nodded understandingly and handed Tariat a cup of tea. “Thank you,” he said. He really didn't want to drink this, but it smelled of lavender and blueberry, so maybe it wasn't poison. He kind of waited for the man to sip his and then slowly tried it. It was fine; it honestly smelled better than it tasted.

“So then, I'd offer you a seat but—” The man looked around the room, a cue for Tariat to look around and see there were in fact no chairs. “What I'd recommend is maybe going upstairs, take a look around, and head back home before the rain starts again.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tariat replied. With this, the man sauntered over to a rope hanging from the ceiling and yanked it until a folding ladder emerged from the ceiling.

“I should get back to work.” The man sat down and stared at the wood grain of his desk. It was off-putting but the man had a harmless, almost paternal quality to him.

Tariat stood about for a moment and had a few tiny fake sips of his tea, before putting the mug down and ascending the little wooden rungs.

In the next room was a small desk lamp atop a small table. Atop that a copy of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre rested; he’d read it in high school and didn't really care to revisit now. In the far corner was a very narrow and short stairwell to the third floor. Far corner, he thought was not exactly apt, as the room was essentially a closet, accentuated by its lack of windows. Up he went.

The third floor was the same dimensions as the previous, with one porthole-style window and a nice chandelier. The walls were wonderfully lively with floral wallpaper—almost overpowering in its LSD style, with dripping edges and over-saturated hues. Still fun, he thought. It was carpeted too, long orange shag carpet. Some sort of insane Willy Wonka study, Tariat thought to himself.

Not much else to take in after the initial kitsch wore off. On the floor, perfectly centered—an ivory-coloured slip of something, some pencil writing on it. He walked toward it, the floor creaked. “All right up there?!” the man yelled from the first floor.

“Oh yes, thank you,” was all Tariat could conjure up. So another few small paces to: a photograph. One of those old black and whites printed on cardstock. More yellow and white now, thought Tariat. He turned it over and over in his hands; it was nice to hold. Like a scene from a movie, he inspected it with deliberate and overly-expressive curiosity. The photo was a portrait of a man with neatly combed hair and some sort of uniform, maybe from the turn of the century? Hard to tell. He read the pencil written words on the back aloud, softly: “Go home then.”

“Alright!” the man downstairs said in a manner befitting a shopkeep closing up for the night.

“Oh okay!” Tariat shouted back down as politely as one can shout. He replaced the photo and slowly moved back downstairs, through the windowless room with the book, and finally to the man—who was now standing with a leather satchel awkwardly over his person.

“Alright then.” the man said, sifting through some keys. Tariat walked out the door as the man straightened his tea pot and followed him out. He extended his open palmed hand to Tariat and waited for a shake. Tariat obliged and the man was off down the street.

“Alright then,” Tariat said to himself and headed home, carefully folding the poorly taped map as he walked. He stuffed it into his pocket as gingerly as he could, some of the tape came off onto his fingers.

As he picked the final pieces of tape from his hands Tariat rounded the corner to his flat. Taking his keys out, he saw a long package against his front door. He dislodged it and brought it inside. On top in pencil, the words: 'Tariat, thank you! - The Rhine Foundation.' He ripped the awkwardly-shaped box open, and as he did so, the whole thing sort of fell apart. Onto the floor fell twenty thousand dollars, of what appeared to be older-style dollar bills. Tariat looked at the hole in his wall as he sat down on the floor to count out and carefully stack the pile of loose bills.