Sobotka: "i went to the Red Rose Mansion once a week to 'learn things' he says one of the six people who came to the seminar stopped coming at some point. He says he never introduced his names to each other to start with.
Sobotka: "i went to the Red Rose Mansion once a week to 'learn things' he says one of the six people who came to the seminar stopped coming at some point. He says he never introduced his names to each other to start with.
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Sobotka: "i went to the Red Rose Mansion once a week to 'learn things' he says one of the six people who came to the seminar stopped coming at some point. He says he never introduced his names to each other to start with.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as RTF, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
couldn't remember anything about the reading seminar. But afterward, his memory returned bit by bit, until he was sure that his life at age 10 was indeed the nightmare he had always suspected. Now, he is 30. As the youngest of the subjects Agent Suk interviewed, his experience at the Red Rose Mansion's reading seminar was cut short when Bonaparta disappeared. He wished to remain anonymous, so I have used the alias Sobotka here. He had a handsome face that was thin on emotion, and he said he was an automotive engineer for the largest industrial company in the Czech Republic.
- During police questioning, you said that you hardly
remembered anything about the reading seminar. Can you even remember a reading seminar at all? "No, you're a bit off. Actually, I went to the Red Rose Mansion once a week to 'learn things.' I do remember plainly that this took place as a book reading. But I never really thought about WHY I was doing that, and what I was supposed to be learning." - But now, you think of it as a nightmare. "Yes. We were brought into a compact, comfortable sitting room, six of us to start with. Two years I did this, and it was always the same people." - Six to start with? "Yes, one of them stopped coming at some point. I feel like there was a rumor among us that he had died, though nobody made sure." - Do you remember all their faces? "No, no faces or names, those are gone. Oh, and we never introduced our names to each other to start with." - Now, turning back to the "nightmare," what kind of things happened at the seminar? "He just read. He had a very... deep and pleasant voice. He would select readings from storybooks or novels, or sometimes just told us a tale off the top of his head. Sometimes he would order one of us to do the reading, but for the most part we just listened to him read." - Do you remember his face? "No, just the eyes. They were terrible eyes." - Do you remember these books? "The Nameless Monster," "The Man With the Big Eyes, The Man With the Big Mouth," "The God of Peace." "Yes. But don't you dare bring them out around me. I've realized that I can quote them all from memory. But it brings a sense of nausea to my throat. After he finished reading, he would always ask us, do you understand the meaning of this story?" - And was that the nightmare? "Well, do you know how, when you come down with particularly bad fevers, sometimes someone else's voice or words burrow into your mind and you can't avoid thinking about it? Well, that 'do you understand' is this exact type of terror I feel." - And did you understand the meaning? "Yes, I did. But don't ask me what I understood." - By what basis were you selected for the seminar, do you suppose? "My parents died 12 years ago, so I'm not entirely sure, but..." - But you have remembered something about that? "Y-yes, just faint memories... I was in some sort of laboratory place, and a man in a white coat showed me a sort of design. He asked me what it looked like." - Somewhat like a Rorschach test? "Y-yeah, I think." - What did it look like? "Well, I think... I saw a monster." - A monster? "Yes, with ten horns and seven faces... A-a m- monster, before my eyes." - And after that, you were taken to the Red Rose Mansion. Did you ever think of not going back? "I don't think so." - Were you afraid that if you quit, something would happen to you or your parents? "No. Forced to participate or not, I don't think there was any concrete threat keeping us from quitting if we wanted to. However, I interpreted it as a duty to which I was bound by honor to fulfill."
[Picture] (sketch of a man's profile as he looks away)
Mr. Sobotka, graduate of the Red Rose Mansion reading seminar. His wife and son are the greatest joy of his life, but if he wishes to display love, he must intentionally force himself to show those signs.
- And in 1981 or 1982, the seminar came to an end.
"Yes, it was '81. I went there as usual, and the mansion was closed. It was like no one had been living there for years." - The seminar fell apart once Bonaparta... "the man" you speak of, disappeared. Looking back, was there anything you could point to as an impending sign of that? "Not at the time... But now, I do recognize one thing. One day, after he had told the story, he asked us, 'do you understand?' like he always did. The others all nodded, but for some reason I wasn't really paying attention, and I did not nod. So he turned to me and asked me again, and that time, he spoke my name." - He called your name? "Yes, though I wasn't surprised at the time. That was because I had never even noticed that he never spoke our names." - I noticed that you just said that he "told" the story, Mr. Sobotka. Why did you choose that word, rather than "read"? "Oh. Did I say that? I wonder why. Now, what kind of a story was he... Well, I guess he wasn't actually reading from a book. It was like he would just create a story on the spot and tell it to us..." - Can you remember what kind of a story he told you? "Yeah... Yeah... Like, a door... A door that opened... A story about opening a door that should never be opened." - Can you remember anything more than that? "...Yes, yes I can. It was a story of the King of Darkness and the Queen of Light... Darkness and light were always fighting, but in fact, the King of Darkness loved the Queen of Light. When she lies down to sleep one night, he kidnaps her and brings her to his castle of darkness. But the Queen of Light begins to lose her shine, and is on the verge of death. The King of Darkness realizes that this is because of the darkness, so he calls together all his servants to the 'Room of True Darkness,' and puts them in an eternal sleep. Next, he releases the Queen of Light from his castle, and the queen's light returns bit by bit. So the King of Darkness comes out into her light, growing smaller by the moment, lamenting his crimes and professing his love for her. The instant he speaks his last word, he is nothing but a tiny black spot. The Queen of Light forgives and accepts the King of Darkness, and ever since, the Queen of Light's body has a little piece of darkness in it... The darkness has disappeared from the world, but if anyone should the 'door that must not be opened,' which leads to the 'Room of True Darkness,' it would bring back the dark, and spark another terrible war between light and darkness... That was the story he told." - The story you just told me, Mr. Sobotka, is a very valuable piece of information in solving what happened at the mansion in 1981. "Great. Too bad I'd have been happier not remembering it." - Any other memories? Anything at all you can tell me. "I... I don't think so. I just listened to what he read. Oh... But sometimes he would make us think up stories, on the spot." - He made you... create stories? "Yes, but none of the children could do it as well as he did, so I could tell that he was always disappointed with the results. I think he ultimately wanted a pupil that could make up those stories." - Was there ever a student who satisfied him in the past? "I don't know... Though I remember that once he did tell us a story that had been created by one of his pupils." - That is fascinating. What book was it? "It wasn't a book. Just a story." - Do you remember the story? "It was... it was about... a monster that sleeps... I just can't remember."
At this point, Mr. Sobotka took some time to remember
what the story was about, but it simply didn't work. What could this story about a sleeping monster be? And who created the story? Sobotka was only this proactive in recalling this nightmare of his because he felt that a personal family tragedy that he had experienced was rooted in the Red Rose Mansion. He married a co-worker when he was 25. She said that she was attracted to his hard work ethic. They had their first child when he was 27, but it died at just a year old. The cause of death was unknown. At 28, they had their second child. He prayed that this one would be raised healthy. When the boy was age one, the same thing happened. The boy stopped eating and fell into critical condition. Sobotka rushed to the doctor, and the son was barely saved, but still the cause was a mystery. The doctor said it was as if the boy wanted to commit suicide. At this point, his wife revealed that she wanted to leave him. She said that their first child died because of him, and her answer to Sobotka's shocked query was that he didn't know how to love. He didn't know how to smile. Have you ever seen your children smile, she asked. They're trying to kill themselves because they think you don't love them, and I don't want it to happen again... So Mr. Sobotka moved away from his wife and son, and began a painfully lonely existence. His parents had died when he was a teenager, but he had never felt the loss at the time. He knew that he was different from other people. He struggled to learn how to smile, how to love, all to get his wife and son back... After waves of loneliness threatened to crush him, he finally went to beg his family to take him back. Upon seeing his son again, the tears flowed out of his eyes, but his son was smiling, smiling like an angel at his father. And so he and his wife decided to live together once again. At this time, a thought had run through his head, the memory of the police questioning he underwent a year before, about the Red Rose Mansion. He had to remember... He had to recall what had happened to him there. Facing my nightmares -- this is what I had to do to get my life back, he said. I registered the resolute expression on his face. This is a man who is capable of reclaiming his own life, I thought, and hoped.