Chapter Text
This is not an easy thing for me to write.
Over the course of somebody’s life, there are often multiple moments that they would perhaps never like to think of again. They would absolutely love to forget all about it, erase it totally from their minds, wipe it from their calendars, and go about the rest of their lives as though nothing happened. Unfortunately at this moment in medical science it is thoroughly impossible to wipe a single moment, and even if that technology was suddenly invented tomorrow it would likely take quite some time before it was safe and trustworthy enough to stick to only a certain time period, rather than erasing everything and causing all kinds of problems. I am quite sure, however, that even with this risk some people would still gladly try it. For example, when I was eleven years old I was subjected to a terrible ski trip during which I learned many important lessons, the clearest of which being that I cannot ski. Upon another ill-fated attempt at this strange sport I found myself being dragged up the mountain by the ski lift which, thanks to my grabbing at it incorrectly, had caught me by a ski and proceeded to drag me halfway up the mountain by my leg as I dangled upside-down, quite frightened and desperately attempting to prevent my ski pants from being tugged any further by the ski lift and exposing my underwear. This is a memory that I have lost many nights of sleep over and indeed still brings heat to my face when I intrusively remember it in the shower; if I could have the opportunity to erase it I would do so in a heartbeat.
However, that is not what I was referring to when I said that this would not be easy to write – though rest assured, writing that was difficult. The reason that this is so difficult to write is because it involves a lot of unpleasant things, including but not limited to the loss of somebody dear, old grievances and bad blood, a revenge plot that was both impulsive and out of character, not to mention poorly planned, and many other things like great amounts of concern for somebody I respect very much, the constant moral struggle over what constitutes a betrayal, the soaking of a suit that is dry-clean only, and several cheap pudding cups. It is difficult to write because it is a harrowing example of the lengths that we can go to in order to protect ourselves from a truth that we do not want to accept, even if that means going against everything we have believed in our whole lives. It is proof that in times of great personal tragedy it was often be difficult to stay true to one’s moral and philosophical principles. It is a reminder that no matter who we are, the temptation to wipe something from one’s memory can sometimes be too much to resist, and in such cases the truth will always suffer.
My name is Despard Shelley, and when I was much younger than I am now I had the good fortune of meeting a man who devoted his life to the truth. His name, as I soon learned, was Lemony Snicket, and during the years we have spent together, beginning when I was a new and impressionable volunteer, he has constantly emphasised the importance of his morals to me, engraining them irreversibly into my development as a person and as a volunteer. He has often told me that the pursuit of truth is both an honourable and a dangerous thing, that it is a great risk to go after the truth in a world filled with corruption and arrogance, but for as long as I have known him he has never allowed such a risk to stop him. Over the years I have been many things to Lemony – his apprentice, his colleague, his accomplice in crimes both committed and accused, his chef, his companion, the rear end of a horse costume we were once forced to wear as a disguise, his editor, his administrative assistant, and depending on who you ask, his murderer. Of all of these things I mostly consider myself his friend, even if I feel my actions are currently incompatible with such a claim.
For many years Lemony Snicket has been painstakingly chronicling the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, and his research has always been as thorough as it was miserable. I have held both his manuscripts and my own tongue for some time, but recently it has become undeniable that his research has become something else: inaccurate. This was not a conclusion I wished to reach, but being responsible for the coherency and assured accuracy of the Baudelaire story it was something that I could not ignore. At first my major concern was that I was being contacted by an imposter, as the voice in the letters and annotations was alien to me, and the manuscripts were thrown together with a haphazardness I would never have expected from my old friend. I tried everything I could to come up with a plausible explanation, but all my investigations into the risk of an imposter came up with nothing. Eventually I had no choice but to accept that the inaccuracies were deliberate: that despite Lemony’s constant search for the truth, something was causing him to betray himself and record lies.
We are all guilty of lies on occasion, and before I go forward I have to come clean about something that both Lemony and I share responsibility for. Since the beginning of this investigation it has been implied that the research has been occurring many years after the events they describe, but that is a lie created for both security and future deniability. By the time I organise this research into published volumes many years would have indeed passed, but at the time of writing this – and the time of the research – the events are still fresh. The lives of the Baudelaire orphans have at times come incredibly close to Lemony and by extension myself; during some occasions, they have crossed over. In the ever more critical pursuit of the truth, the idea that we are all separate is the first myth that has to go.
So what has caused my long-time friend, my mentor, the man who taught me everything I know about truth and writing and honest investigations and horse disguises, to scorn the truth and create a false narrative around his life’s work? It was so uncharacteristic of him that I had no idea where to begin; it was sickening to think that it was something he had chosen to do. As it turns out, sometimes the most unpleasant of thoughts are the ones that shed some light onto a situation. The thought did not settle right in my head. The implication that he had chosen to do such a thing seemed like a disservice, and guiltily I realised that there had to be a reason for it – a reason outside of his control. A reason I would only discover if I did some research of my own.
With great regret I had no choice to turn everything he had taught me against him. I found myself tailing the man who had taught me the very basics of how to do such a thing, and my research lead me to the worst possible outcome for one’s suspicions: the realisation that they were correct. Something had indeed occurred that was outside of his control, something so painful and wretched that it had corrupted his most precious of principles and caused him to compromise everything he had been working towards for years now. While I sincerely hope that this account of mine will never have to be used, and that after the required amount of time to process what happened and cope with it my friend will correct the damage for himself, I am also aware that there is a time to hope and there is a time to act. The man I know would want me to act. It is better to prevent a fire than to struggle to put it out.
The truth is thus: something other than what was outlined to me occurred in the Village of Fowl Devotees, something that lead to events much more terrible than the ones presented as the truth. The reason for this obscurity is, I presume, the sincere need to alter one’s personal truth to protect oneself from harm, in this case mental and legal. The following account, painful though it has been, is in its own wicked way a tribute to the man now creating its necessity in the first place – the one who, I have no doubt, would have laid down his life for the truth.
I have always been taught that it is common decency to warn somebody of unpleasant revelations. Upon bad news – which in the lives of Lemony and I occurred often and with little warning – he would always inform me that he had bad news, and wait for me to ask what it was before telling me. I therefore had the choice of not knowing, but while this might be preferable for some people it was not preferable or practical for me, for if I didn’t ask for the bad news in question I would have often found myself in inexplicable and confusing situations, such as hiding in a large box and being loaded onto the back of a truck, or the heinous crime of declaring that there was a fire when in actual fact there was not. However, the point remained impressed upon me that it is nice to give a warning, and therefore, this is yours.
This is not a happy story, but you do not have to read it. I urge you, please: look away now.