Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?

 “Could you tell me your name?” Dr. Jacobs asked the patient across the table.

“I have told you already, haven’t I?” the man said, lightly tapping the gray tabletop with his right index finger. Jacobs noted that the patient’s eye color matched the gray of the table, with flecks of yellow scattered among the iris. He glanced at the table: gray with flecks of yellow. He hadn’t noticed that detail before and made a note on his yellow writing pad with a mechanical pencil.

“Let’s assume you haven’t told me, all right?” Dr. Jacobs asked. The patient looked to be in his mid-thirties, with long blonde hair spilling over his ears and unusual gray eyes looking out over a protruding nose and thin-lipped mouth. The patient had a flat, monotone voice, strangely hypnotic.

“Ah, a game, is it? I do love a game,” the patient said with a thin smile that did not reach his eyes. “My name is Yellow.”

“That is an unusual name,” said Jacobs. “How did you come by it?”

“They gave it to me. In Carcosa. They spoke it in the wind that blew through the mists of Lake Hali,” he said. “‘You are Yellow,’ they whispered to me as I stood on the sand of the lake under the white sky and black stars.”

“What was your name before it was changed to Yellow?” Dr. Jacobs asked.

“I had a pitiful name to match a pitiful life,” he said quietly. “Samuel James Godfellow.”

“Where did you live, Samuel?”

“Oh, a little flat at 9 Canary Way,” he said. “That is where my life of greatness started.”

“Tell me about it,” Dr. Jacobs said.

---

After my father passed away due to tuberculosis, I received a small inheritance, doled out to me monthly by his solicitor. My dear father didn’t trust me with a lump sum, quite right, actually, so a monthly payment was placed into my account. It was a tidy sum, enough to cover rent, a weekly maid service, and my explorations into the experiments of the Society.

I moved to 9 Canary Way to be closer to the Society’s activities. They required modest dues, but once I became a member, I had access to indulgences that would shock the "Day Crowd," as we called them. We met in the Hall on Fridays when the sun slid below the horizon and the Day Crowd was safely in their homes. In our meetings, we sampled exotic drugs or forbidden drinks, listened to macabre music, and indulged in fantasies not spoken of since the days of Mesopotamia. We devoted ourselves to the sensual, the forbidden, and sometimes, the lawless. We looked at darkness and death and found them beautiful.

It was after a meeting, as I was staggering home after a night of strong drink, that I found the first note tucked into the door frame. I read the hand-scrawled message: “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?” I turned the note over to see if someone had left a name, but the back was merely a solid, flat yellow. I tossed it onto my desk and didn't give it much thought.

Eventually, the drink took its toll, and I collapsed into bed. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have been dreaming. I found myself on the shore of a lake; the sky above me gleamed white, filled with dark stars. Across the misty water, I saw a city of tattered yellow flags and crumbling gray stone. A stone bridge crossed the lake toward a city gate, and upon it, shadows walked slowly toward the ruins. I stared through the swirling mist and felt an intense longing, as if I were seeing home after a long, dreary absence.

I awoke with the sun streaming into my face, the longing fading. I decided the drink had produced an interesting side effect and resolved to share the experience with the Society the following Friday.

The next Friday, I found another note. It carried the same message: “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?” I put it with the previous note and collapsed into bed. That night, I again stood upon the misty shore under the black stars in a white sky. The towered city was calling to me, I felt it, but I couldn't move toward the bridge. I could only watch and cry out in frustration. 

“In time,” a voice in the breeze seemed to whisper. “In time.” I awoke with my fists clenched.

Friday came around again and coming home from that meeting, I found a third note: “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?” Was I the target of a prank? Maybe someone from the Society? It seemed out of character for anyone in the Society. It was puzzling.

Again I dreamed of the lake and the city and my inability to enter the city. When I awoke I lay there and saw the city in my mind. The decadent, decayed city that seemed forever out of my reach.

I decided to forego the next meeting to catch the prankster. I sat by the door, smoking and sipping brandy. Midnight passed, and just as I was about to give up, two sharp knocks sounded. I instantly jerked the door open. A note fluttered to the ground, but the street was empty. No footsteps, no shadows in the night, only the murmur of a breeze pushing mist along the cobblestones. I picked up the note. “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?”

I stood watch every Friday, but I never saw a soul. Only the two knocks and the tucked note. “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?” After the ninth note, the visitations stopped.

I dreamed of Carcosa every night, the longing growing with every dream. With the final note, I received my new name in the dream. The mist swirled around me, cold, and spoke my new name and then asked: “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?”

In the morning, I spread the nine notes on my table in a three by three grid pattern, the yellow side facing up. I don’t know why I chose that pattern; it just seemed right. As I placed the notes, the handwriting looked familiar. I grabbed a pad and wrote the phrase. “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?” I compared the two and dropped the pen with a gasp. The handwriting on the notes was my own.

As I stared at the blank yellow squares, a symbol appeared, written in gold script. I cannot describe it; it was for me alone. Through the symbol, I saw Carcosa clearly, and the mist whispered, “He is waiting.” I was free at last.

---

“Were you able to enter the city?” Jacobs asked.

“Oh, yes,” Samuel said. “It was death and decay, and it was glorious.”

“I see,” Jacobs said. “Thomas will take you back to your room, Samuel. We will talk again soon.”

In his office, Jacobs reviewed the file on Samuel James Godfellow. The police had brought him in a week ago for vagrancy. He carried no ID, and his fingerprints weren't in any database. Because his mental state was so erratic, he was sent to the clinic for evaluation.

The case was unusual. Most fantasies of this type shifted over time, but Samuel’s remained perfectly consistent. Some details varied, perfectly natural, but the core ideas stayed the same. His use of words like “flat” and “cobblestone” felt archaic, out of place for a man in his thirties.

Jacobs pulled a stack of nine index cards from the file. He had asked Samuel to draw the Yellow Sign, but the man had only colored the cards yellow. “When he calls,” Samuel had said, “your sign will appear.” Jacobs had checked the cards after every session. Nothing had ever appeared, of course.

On a whim, he typed "9 Canary Way" into his phone. He didn't expect a result, but a pin appeared on the edge of town: Godfellow Historical Cemetery, Private. Strange. Maybe a road trip was in order.

The cemetery was small, surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. The graves were a riot of color in the yellow midday sun. Each grave had a ring of flowers around the deep green grass covering the sleeping occupants. Jacobs loosened his yellow tie as he stepped through the open gate, unsure of what he was looking for.

He wandered past the headstones, looking at the names and dates, until a voice startled him. “May I help you?”

An elderly man in a workman’s jumpsuit, the color of an aging banana, stood behind him. “I’m the caretaker. Do you need something?”

“This may sound strange,” Jacobs said, “but do you know the name Samuel James Godfellow?”

The caretaker looked at him intently. Jacobs noticed the man had the same gray eyes as his patient, though without the yellow flecks. “Follow me,” the caretaker said.

He led Jacobs to a white marble headstone with black lettering, surrounded by bright yellow daffodils. The birth and death dates were in the 1800s.

“Died in an asylum,” the caretaker said. “The black sheep of the family. Spent time in Paris, fell in with the decadents. Drove him mad in the end.”

Jacobs stared at the headstone and suddenly it all came together in his mind. His patient, a homeless man, had seen this grave and adopted the identity. Maybe he had spoken with the caretaker and had gotten the details of the man’s life. But what of the Yellow Sign? 

Jacobs turned to the caretaker. “Does the phrase ‘the Yellow Sign’ mean anything to you?”

The caretaker’s face transformed into a mask of terror. The change was so sudden that Jacobs took a step back. He grabbed Jacobs’ arm in an iron grip. “Have you seen it?” he demanded. “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?”

“No, no, of course not,” Jacobs said. “It’s just part of a patient's delusion.”

The caretaker’s grip didn't loosen. “We hunted down and destroyed every known copy of the play. But the signs... We could do nothing but bury the knowledge.” He let go and stepped back. “Do not look at the Yellow Sign. Do not look at it!” He turned and strode away.

Jacobs was shaken. The play? What play? What did a play have to do with the Yellow Sign? He wanted to follow after the caretaker, press him for answers, but the afternoon was waning and he had a bit of a drive back to the clinic. On the drive back, he again regained his confidence in his assessment of the situation, and yet, the caretaker’s words nagged at him. What did they mean?

As he walked into the door of the clinic, tightening his yellow tie, he saw Thomas standing by the front desk. “Dr. Jacobs!” Thomas rushed toward him. “We’ve been so worried! We’ve been calling and calling your phone. When we didn’t hear from you, we filed a missing person report.”

“What are you talking about?” Jacobs said. “I’ve been here all week evaluating the patient. You saw me this morning.”

Thomas’s frown deepened. “Doctor... you’ve been missing for nine days. No one has seen you.”

“What? That's impossible. I have been working with the patient in Room 9 all week,” Jacobs insisted.

“There hasn't been anyone in Room 9 for a month,” Thomas said slowly.

Jacobs ran to the room. It was empty. Staring at the neatly made bed, panic started to tighten his chest. He rushed to his office and tore open the file cabinet. The folder was there, but it contained only the nine yellow index cards. He flipped them over. On the back of each was the handwritten question: “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?” He studied the handwriting on the cards. It was his own. 

Hands trembling, Jacobs laid the cards out in a grid on his desk. A strange symbol, etched in shimmering gold script, began to bleed through the yellow paper. As he stared at the cards, the symbol filled his vision and the office faded. 

He was standing on the shore of a misty lake under a white sky and black stars. Two moons hung impossibly close to the water. In the distance, the ruined towers of Carcosa rose through the mist, the yellow flags rippling in the breeze. A profound longing gripped his heart when looked at those dark towers. The mist of the lake swirled around at him as he stared at the lost city.

“Your name shall be Yellow,” the mist whispered. “Come. He is waiting.”