Aphrodite, the Man; or, The Metempsychosis

by Griffin R.K.

Dedicated to the authors of weird fiction.

It was on the golden jubilee of his suicide that he whom we once called “Aphrodite, the man,” rose from the dead. He wasn’t in spectral form, or an immaterial ghost sauntering along Cock Lane, but a horribly physical being: the breathing, moving, risen Phineas H. James, composed of the same bone and blood as he had been before. James had once been the envy and burden of our little seaboard community: a young man endowed with preternatural, or, according to some, supernatural, beauty, and a herculean, yet lithe, figure, which was seemingly permanent and etheric, defying not only his age but his progressively poor habits. His appeal to the fairer sex had been so overwhelming and debilitating that, by the end of, I suppose, his first spell of life, he had begun to wear hideous masks evocative of Greek theater during his travels abroad or elsewhere; and the collection of secondary and tertiary identities he amassed quickly became quite extensive and diverse in their origins, expressions, materials, and colors, though they all shared in being horrifically deformed. His father, the resident woodworker and an elderly, shambling veteran of the War of 1812, was his primary supplier and manufacturer of these masks, at least initially; and, it was unclear as to whether he operated under the guidance of the younger, or whether the gnarled and unappealing character of the guises was some kind of insult from a father addressed to his increasingly crazed, reclusive son, who, even into a relatively advanced age, spent his life eschewing and completely devoid of formal education, trade, or apparent use to greater society. Either way, after the death of his Pierrot, Phineas James became a connoisseur of the grotesque, abandoning our little hamlet for long durations in search of unfrequented corners of the Earth and the artisan masks which could be found or purchased therein.

He enjoyed the company of younger men, perturbed as he was by the frequent hostility and jeering of men his same age with, of course, relationships to maintain and threats to assess; and, as a younger man myself as of our first encounter, with an, at the very least, notable intellect, James particularly enjoyed mine. We would discuss for long hours, cloistered in some dusty nook of his father’s colonial home, every and any subject: recent discoveries in anthropology, theology, philosophy, literature both contemporary and ancient, the practices of alienists and Franz Mesmer, and sometimes even phrenology. Irrespective of the stimulating and sober conversation, it was always a pleasure, as well, seeing him uninhibited and unmasked during these encounters, laughing gregariously and unabashedly, his glassy blue eyes saturated with character and enthusiasm. As he neared his end, however, I noticed that day’s mask would become almost joined to his face, even indoors, and my reminding him to remove it became required.

Soon after our last talk, Phineas James encountered his first and last love, and furthermore, perdition, at the age of twenty-four; he had met a buxom woman of American stylings, apparently, named Fleur at a masquerade ball in France, who I’d say, in retrospect, strongly resembled the former first lady Lucy Hayes, and who often had her hair done up á la Madonna. He remained in France for nearly six months after addressing the letter which informed me of such, without contacting me even a single time, and the next I heard of him, he was on trial there for killing that same woman; on the same night, I might add, that she unmasked him for the first time. Fully expecting to be deported to a penal colony or to receive a prompt guillotining, he was unexpectedly acquitted, with little deliberation, too, and returned to the U.S., where he finished the job himself via gunshot in our hometown.

Yet, fifty years later, I encountered him again, idly betting on faro and playing hands of poker amongst a small group of particularly absentminded and oblivious drunkards; and, mucking his cards—never much of a gambler, that fellow—his fingers seemed as adroit as they were, and his movements as graceful, though his demeanor had clearly changed, as if he had outgrown the diffidence of youth, somehow, whilst in the grave. His features I could only barely discern or recognize under the muck, and the stench. He must have been harassing the customers of that particular livery stable since noon, based on the reportage of an old friend, and since then many of the patrons had disappeared, offended by the malodorous stink or, if they were blessed with poor olfactory organs, impossible appearance of my undead former acquaintance. I had been lingering in one spot, far out of the reach of any oil lamp, for about an hour, watching on with disbelief and piqued curiosity at the unfolding scene not more than twenty feet away from me. He was still wearing, to my recollection, his clothes at burial—his olive waistcoat was particularly recognizable, while the colors of the other articles had dulled quite significantly—though with the addition of a tattered, stinking dun-colored jacket from who-knows-where, from which he’d periodically draw a pocket watch of likewise unclear origin. His fair, blonde hair had thinned quite significantly, but it was clear his fifty years of putrefaction had not affected his body uniformly, and, however noticeable, was astoundingly little.

I meekly entered into the light, momentarily contented with the deficient half-explanations I had thought to myself. His bloated, blue-lipped head turned to attend to the forthcoming, exaggerated noise of my spurred boots—preoccupied as I was with betraying a veneer of farcical confidence—as I crossed the creaky wooden floor toward their table. Some semblance of a grin crept across his face as his eyes met mine, and he heaved himself from his chair with such force and enthusiasm as to rock the dishes on the table, spilling at least some of their contents, and to leave the aforementioned chair backside down on the floor. His incoming hug I met, instead, with a distanced, extended hand, which he accepted warmly with two of his own. The unexpected reanimation of Phineas James affronted everything I had learned about philosophy, anatomy and, furthermore, the nervous system, through my degrees of education at, for one, Miskatonic University, and, moreover, self-education and reading, for I consider myself quite a learned man, though this defied even my explanation; and could perhaps only be explained by some sort of effeminate, onetime hysteria or sacred disease on my part, though I consider that quite unlikely given the fidelity of what I saw.

He had the first word, owing to my nauseated petrification, blurting out some joke along the lines of: “How do I look!” And, as we stepped out of the stable and for a walk beneath the stars, he continued to rave to me throughout the night about all manner of things. I can’t recount them all here, or recall them, confused and distracted as I was by his repellent appearance and reeking breath; but, I do remember his childlike joy and uncharacteristic giggling as he watched revulsion, disgust, and sheer terror shew themselves in the expressions and gasps of locals and passers-by, especially women with their husbands and little girls, who were sometimes unsure as to who or what they were even seeing. His glee was so overwhelming he abruptly would stop to deliriously snigger to himself, interrupting and obstructing the delivery of his own distended circumlocutions and annoying me greatly. After an hour or two of my obvious and willingly ignored reticence, I mumbled out my first true question of that conversation, and asked simply, “What was it like, being dead?”

He responded, “Just the night‘s black wings, my friend.” He guffawed to himself again as he recited Owen Felltham. “Just a long, drunken sleep! Nothing more, nothing less.” With his bleak treatise on the afterlife completed, I turned the other way to vomit and, when I had turned around again, he had, to my bemusement, suddenly disappeared. It was perhaps the shortest statement he had ever made to me, and his last.