Adam has been seeking spiritual enlightenment in a remote cabin until an unannounced visitor abruptly walks through his front door. The man says he knows about Adamâs daughter, but wonât give a clear answer why heâs there.
What does he know?
What does he want?
The man gives tangents without answers, and he refuses to leave. But now the cabin wonât let Adam go, and the very foundations of his home are mutating into something else entirely.
Adam has been seeking spiritual enlightenment in a remote cabin until an unannounced visitor abruptly walks through his front door. The man says he knows about Adamâs daughter, but wonât give a clear answer why heâs there.
What does he know?
What does he want?
The man gives tangents without answers, and he refuses to leave. But now the cabin wonât let Adam go, and the very foundations of his home are mutating into something else entirely.
I believe in God the Father Almighty . . .
I took a look into that mirror, and through the splinters of my reflectionâwhat did I see? A believer that accepts, encourages, and even declares my self-degradation as honorable?
Iâve just filled the cracks in with glue, replacing meaningless self-destruction with what I find to be a meaningful form of shame. What was I doing? What was I looking for? How did people think I could help them, when I was caught up in a pit of my own problems?
Please, God, please help me. Help me get back up. Help me stand up and take back the reins of my life. I need you. I need this.
I am Adam. Old friends called me a saint. I could help. I could guide others. I could be a mentor. Couldnât I?
Someone was at the door. They kept knocking. Why couldnât they just leave me alone? Why did I have to give them answers, the ones who never had been able to help me, and claim that their faith will enable the final needed leap? Asking for me to dive into it once more. I approached the door, my thoughts stumbling down the staircase of my mind.
  Say it, dammit.
    Speak it.
      Jump.
      Answer them.
      Donât collapse.
    Not here.
  Not now.
With confidence in my tone, once again, I started with my greeting question:
âHello?â
âHello?â a man said from the other side of the door. âCan you please let me in? It is a bit cold out here, Adam, and I really need to talk to you.â
As soon as I opened the door, he walked right past me and into my house. What was I going to do? Step in his way? He was slightly disheveled, with broad shoulders, quite a bit taller than me, with a messenger bag hanging at his side and a haircut that looked as if he may have done it himself.
âYou realize you cannot just walk into someoneâs house like that?â I said.
âIâve been looking for you, Adam. I was worried you wouldnât even answer my call, yet here you are answering the door!â
âDid you call?â
âNo,â he said, staring down at his shoes.
âFor the record, I have been known to take calls. I need your name.â
âMy nameâs Glenn. Itâs nothing like Adam,â he said. He raised his gaze and smirked. âItâs not a biblical name like yours.â
I offered an outstretched hand. âNice to meet you, Glenn.â
He looked at my hand as if I had insulted him with the cultural taboo of another land, then he laughed. Swatting my hand away, he hugged me.
âWeâre human, right?â he said, slapping my back. âThis isnât a business transaction.â
He let go and started walking around my living room.
âRight. Of course,â I said.
Glenn was eyeing my bookshelves, his hands held behind his back, leaning toward the shelves as if pulled by a gentle magnet. He let out many âhmmsâ and even an âinteresting.â
âHow can I help you, Glenn?â
âOh,â he said. âHelp me? Iâm not here for me, Adam. Iâm here for you.â His eyes didnât leave the rows of books.
âReally, now? For me?â
âIâm like the grim reaper, Adam. Only Iâm not here to take your life in literal terms. Iâm a bit less grim, I donât carry a scythe as a cane, nor do I wear a terribly comfortable bathrobe as I imagine he likes to wear.â Glenn turned toward me, looked down at his jacket, then shrugged. âThis is nice. But not that nice.â
Iâve spoken to others before who felt they wanted to counsel me, only for them to realize they had come to me for guidance. Initially, a part of them felt that no guidance was needed. If they were to admit this, they felt it would be admitting to weakness.
âWhat would you like to talk about, then?â I asked, motioning toward two chairs before a fireplace. The setup of my living room was exactly how I pictured proper guides in my imagination: two souls speaking with each other, staring at crackling flames.
Glennâs face lit up. He seemed delighted to take a seat. He sat down, let out a sigh of indulgent ecstasy, and said, âNothing beats creature comforts.â
I walked over and turned on the fireplace with the simple push of a button.Â
Glenn let out a laugh. âMiraculous! Sometime ago, a person would have thought thatâwhat you just didâwas witchcraft. You wield some incredible black magic here, Adam.â
âPeople are definitely skeptical and, at times, fearful of what they do not understand,â I said, sitting on the chair across from Glenn.
âIâm glad to find that you treat me so well, and seemingly as an equal, even though you donât know me,â Glenn said, his tone becoming serious. âContinue to do so, no matter how confusing and difficult things become.â
âFine,â I said, waving a hand. âWe should be good now.â
âDid you just . . .?â
âWhat?â
âBless me?â
âMaybe,â I said.Â
We both laughed.
âSo,â I went on, âlet us jump in. Where do you want to start?â
âWith a disclaimer. Hear me out on this.â
âOkay.â
âWe are, at this very moment, in a badly crafted treehouse.â
âOkay.â
âNot only are we in a treehouse, but we are on the massive Tree of Myth. This branch that we are on is part of the splintered cluster of Christianity. There are so many branches in this cluster that I find that the names blur together.â
âOkay.â
Glenn looked away, squinting, and said, âLutherans, Catholics, Orthodox, Jehovahâs Witnesses, Mormons . . .â
âNow hold on, I wouldnât say Mormons are part of that cluster.â
âHow un-American of you, Adam,â Glenn said, raising an index finger. He wagged it back and forth, in sync with the shaking of his head. âTsk tsk.â
âOkay. Iâm in a treehouse.â
Glennâs eyebrows narrowed. âYour branch is unique, Adam. It is spewing forth from this cluster.â
âSpewing? That sounds a bit nasty. I simply adhere to text and tradition. Truly following the word of God is to release ourselves from many of our worldly possessions. Either I take up the nomadic path of few possessions or stay here in my study where I can be of useful guidance. Iâd rather help others take a deep look at themselves, and for them to know where to find me.â
He was starting to upset me. I was already getting defensive, when I should have been keeping my calm. Glenn was fidgeting in his chair, having a difficult time getting comfortable.
âItâs not that, Adam.â
âThen what are you going on about?â
âPhoebe told me to see you, so thatâs why Iâm here.â
âShe did?â
âYes.â
I hadnât talked to Phoebe in a long time. A tingle crept up my back, the tiny hairs standing up.
I had told her once that I wanted to talk to someone who wasnât a believer, so that I could be challenged. If you surround yourself with people who perceive the world with the same vision as yours, then your vision never changes. We canât truly develop any further if we only surround ourselves with neighbors. Iâve always said these sorts of things. This was quite an introduction to actually doing it.
âSo, you are here for some kind of debate?â I said.
âAdam, Iâm not here to mock you. I know that your belief in God is a powerful one. God becomes the meaning behind everything. Why get out of bed in the morning? Why does the world exist as it does? Why are we thrown through such trying events? I know you found a meaning behind all things before you had God. One that fell away and left your world empty.â
âWhat are you talking about?â
Glenn reached into his messenger bag, pulled out a book, inspected it closely, then placed it back inside. He did this several times, with books of different-colored covers and sizes, before he came to one of which he approved.
âI have several stories for you, starting with this one: The Good Book.â
âWhatâs the name of it?â
âThatâs what it is called: The Good Book.â
âAh.â
âI know about your daughter, Adam,â he said, with his eyes drifting to the flames. âI know what happened to her.â
  He knows?
    What does he know?
      Maybe Phoebe told him, or he may have researched me.
        He could have just looked it up.
      People can find out anything.
    But then he said something.
  Something bizarre.
Glenn opened his book, scratched the back of his head, and looked up at me.
âI think Iâve been damned to nihilism. I mean, I feel that I have been forced to look at an image I canât unsee.â His tone shifted as his playful gestures came to a complete stop, and I could sense he was becoming defensive. âBut youâve done it somehow. You are a nihilistic Christian, walking a meaningless stroll toward deathâa place where only God knows the hidden reasons behind all of this absurdity.â
Glenn was flipping through the pages of the book.
âSounds more than a little pessimistic,â I said. âMust not be much fun thinking everything is meaningless.â
He went back to the opening pages.
âThis is it. This is it. This, here, is it.â His finger tapped the first page, like a lawyer excited to display their evidence. âYes. It is. This isnât just a book. This is The Good Book.â
I rested my head back, closed my eyes, and felt myself become absorbed by an ability I had perfected over the years: I listened.
Solitude and strange visitors can wreak havoc on the mind, as it does in Cori H. Spenzichâs A Narrative In Flux. Â Surreally written, the narrative here isnât as direct as some might look for in a novel, but the story, or stories, lends a hand to initiate internal thought.
Adam is a man seeking enlightenment in a cabin tucked deep in the woods when a stranger, introducing himself as Glenn, appears, asking theoretical questions and posing somewhat inane questions. But the questions he asks start to hit closer to home with Adam, and Glenn might know something about his recent loss. He carries with him a messenger bag and a seemingly unnatural amount of books from which he seeks to aid Adam in seeing the truth. Adding anecdotes, tangents really, from these books, Glenn tells tales that are macabre, dangerous, and introspective.
The chapters titled as âDialogueâ can often get wordy, filled with philosophical questions that stimulate the mind to look deeper, until it becomes all a bit too much. This steady pace of constant questioning theory bogs down the novel at times. Adamâs journey can become one we donât really care to watch him find a resolve to. The discourse between he and Glenn go on for too long, dive into the repartee of spiritualist arguments. Both are arguing different sides of the light one might say.
However, sticking with the main storyline of Glenn and Adam, secluded in a cabin that mutates and takes on a sinister feel, A Narrative In Flux delivers something chilling. In the other storyline, we follow a peculiar, meandering path of dramas told to us via Glennâs messenger bag book collection. Each one comes at a moment he believes Adam has learned something, or needs to see the question in a different perspective. In this, the novel is almost a collection of short stories. Each one is interesting. Some are very perfectly encapsulated, delivering pain and horror in a handful of pages.
Overall, Spenzich delivers a twisted, dark and magical sort of tale with A Narrative In Flux. Though the path is a bit winding, and the rhetoric can be tiresome there are moments that are most satisfying, leading to an unsettling and individual resolve.