Dante rendered order in hell. It was beautiful, well thought out, fancy, categorical, and, well, wrong. Those adjectives may fit perfectly fine cut into friezes lacing corridors in Heaven, but in Hell, where the King is constantly meditating on the Abyss in his castle's basement, has come to interpret its black musings as law, and the note that it eternally breaths upon his red, elfish ear is this: Anarchy. Anarchy is Law.
Here serial killers are free to treat the place and its inhabitants like stuffed toys in a sandbox they prey and unstuff. Here cannibals eat cannibals for every meal, that's why every now and then you have a massacre (monthly to frame it in our own time-scale, since they don't keep time Down There), for it is tedious to kill on a daily basis just to have something stuffed in your stomach. Rapists rape, thieves steal, adulterers adulterate, murderers murder, concreatures con, politicians...don't last very long, unless they are willing to get down and dirty kill
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Mary's Tail
i. MARY'S MALKUTH
Mary was a good girl. Always said please, and thank you, and excuse me, and you welcome. Like "please, pass the sugar" and "thank you, Danny, for the paseo!" and "excuse me, may I suggest something?" and "you are very much welcome, (place servant's name here)." Her manners were impeccable, and she was red with proud about it. Her table manners were especially radiant; however, it was a well-guarded secret of hers that she felt estranged to most of them, at times to the point of causing her actual nausea. Illustration: She could not quite understand why it wouldn't be perfectly alright to cut-up throroughly a piece of meat or vegetable at the onset of a meal, you know, in preparation for all those spoonfuls that are sure to cross your lips. No. She. They. Everyone. Had to cut the piece of meat or vegetable, one morsel at a time. Which was ridiculous because They expected you to consume everything on your plate anyway. Did that silly rule make eating more elegant? Was it suppose to hide the fact that you were thoroughly intent on devouring that piece of whatever? Or were They afraid that as soon as the piece of whatever was all cut up nice and good you would totally disown conversation, and devout all attention to your delicious meal, God forbid, thereby confounding their egos through an unintentional (or why not intentional?) contretemps? None of these notions were assessed by an authority. And the only authority in Mary's home was her mother. Mother was warm, in her own British way; unfortunately, her poker-face and London air convinced one, meeting her for the first time, that she had once held position as the principal in a high school situated in Hades. Mother's mien discouraged any query to her dictatorship. In fairness, she was merely being the good soldier, passing on a tradition inherited and enforced by her parents and their parents's parents, and so forth. (For the sake of accuracy and symbolism parentheticals would be the appropriate means to describe the father, whose personality is very much like a backdrop to a stage play--interesting enough only if and when the dialogue or star wend towards tenuous verbosity and redundant egotism--as the mother is more than unfrequently inclined to do--yet its mere presence lends ands underlines something wordless and meaningful and you cannot help but feel it is still worthy despite its lack of pronouncement or glamour.) Where these silly ideas come from was a mystery to Mary; she was sure of one thing though, silly ideas are sprung from silly minds.
There are other mindless rules the chronicler finds tedious in mentioning here, so to proceed: Despite these imperceptible little crinkles on her perfect little social mask, Mary was a happy girl. Yes, she despised dressing up for occasions totally unrelated to her--who she is--what she is of. Yes, she almost always hated performing and vocalizing scripted actions and phrases like
MARY IS SMILING GAILY TO SOMEONE OFF-CAM. SHE TURNS, AND AN INVISIBLE SHIFT IN EMOTION IS CONVEYED THROUGH HER EYES ALONE. SHE IS NOW READYING HERSELF TO ADDRESS A DESPISED AUNT, WHO IS STILL OFF-CAM BUT STEADILY APPROACHING.
WE PULL AWAY. MARY IS NODDING AND SMILING AT THE ARRIVED, HATED RELATIVE. THE AUNT IS AWARE OF THE PRETENSE. SHE PLAYS THE GAME WELL TOO. THEY SALUTATE LIKE SUNFLOWERS IN SPRING ULULATING IN THE WIND.
O Tita I have missed you SO much!
And so forth...
To Mary this is horrible, yet--perfectly acceptable. Children are philosophers. In the future, Mary will need all the philosophizing she can evoke. If she so continues on this current path her husband at some point will stop loving her, just for a while (the conversion of which is several years), take up a mistress, have great fun, and then after years and years and years, the mistress will replace him with an older, dying man with a fatter, longer wallet who will promise a voluptuous aspect of his wealth. This promise will fuel her need, she will tell herself, to "go on." Aftermath: Who will nurse the silly husband's heart? Who would have stood by his side for years and years and years while he had his grand fun? Who will clean up the public relations mess? Why,--Mary, of course. Why? Because Mary is a pillar and acme of politeness. And she is proud of this fact. Everything else, except her beautiful and bratty children to be, will be hell to address.
ii. PLUTO'S SET
Mary turned the page and the story was over, there was only blank white overleaf and the beginning of a new tale opposite; the hoods of her eyes were drawing out the globose beam from her bedside lamp, slowly, off her cornea; her fingers were dislodging from the hard cover, a fingertip at a time; her charming little head was going down, down, falling left--the shoulder expecting the temple...Any moment now...The gap in Poe's collection is diminished; at length his short "The Black Cat" is buried once more, among dead comrades; the tome dripped, dropped and slid, landing on white sheets. Mary's body follows, her crown grazing the edge of the night table.
She straightens up, shaking her head, blinking profusely, as if she had narrowly escaped drowning. She realizes her reality is dry and solid, and resolves to prepare for bed. She reaches out, turns off the switch. Darkness.
She burrows under pillows and covers, intuitively fitting herself into that elusive perfect spot. She finds it, settles. The hood of her eyes once again fold down; on her cornea a representative of the sun's light, reflected off the moon, lingers on the wet film. Outside the moon was running her course through barren fields of black fertilized sporadically by burning flora...
Mary's sleep was on the precipice, when--
Mary shot up in bed, eyes looking like upset hydrogen atoms--her neck muscles swiveled her head left--the source was out her window--
They disrupted her sleep so violently she was frozen in her bed. And she felt her bed was frozen with her. Not a crease on her bedsheet and quilt stirred. Each of the two hotdog-pillows were silent, ice. The wooden bedposts were barely able to conceal their wobbling. Mary thought, any moment now I am going to see my eyes in the air; oh hold on, without eyes I wouldn't be able to see them pop-out would I?
--Infants? Outside her bedroom window? How are infants able to climb up the garage roof? Why are they...doing that?
Discordant bursts and spurts of majestically deplorable guttural trumpets inspired disturbing and unspeakable montages which marched into her mind abruptly, unannounced. These themes strangely followed the lead of the pattern-less fugue of the choir of mad infants. The innocence in her ran back to somewhere dark and deep--she closed her eyes, she slept, or so she thought, as the helter-skelter visions stomped and played viciously on her mind, treated harshly like a dirty sandbox or a diseased mudpit while the sick choir of the night played on, and on, wrecking and etching a havoc on a little girl's precious, impressionable psychology.
Was she dreaming? Had she consumed too much Poe after dinner? Is everybody else stunned too into immobility? The world seems to have stopped. Time seems to have given up. All there was was the darkness, and the omnipotent and perverse sound.
If she was dreaming, there was a test. She remembered consuming somewhere in some story a theory regarding the use of hands while dreaming. She recalled: the use of hands while in the dream state is supposed to lead to the expertise of dream control and eventually, dream manipulation. Her neck muscles strained but with determination brought her face forward and down, facing her lap. Her hands were under sheets. She sighed, then began. The sheets were removed, her hands rose. She flexed her fingers. If she was awake, then this was natural to expect. If she was dreaming, the test was in order. Her right hand--for she was right-handed--dove back and came between her legs. She found her left thigh, pinched it, hard.
Ow-uch! She was not dreaming.
"Oh no," Mary muttered.
iii. MOM'S SOL
The dusty rock was replaced by a fireball. Mary slipped her legs out of bed, and fitted her feet into slippers. A light was turned on in the bath', and with misgiving, then resolve, she faced the judgement of the mirror.
She took her breakfast dazed, and numbly confused--bags under her eyes drooping like dough recently hurled onto a wall. No one noticed: typical. No one but Danny the driver, who noticed everything in the household. The rest of the household help were mostly focused on pleasing the impossible-to-please mother, but Danny had his own mind, his own soul to attend to. And when you are sensitive to your needs, you become sensitive to others. He kept, like Mary, his evaluations to himself.
During the drive to school Danny surreptitiously eyed Mary every now-and-then with a delicate, sincere concern, but did not pry due to the observation that she was not yet ready to speak, although his lips were itchy to get a word in. Danny went as far as to deduce that she has not even spoken to herself, which he knows she does. He's caught her enough times at instances when the girl thought herself solitary. So, Danny pursed his lips, until it was time for pick up, and let the little zombie be.
Mary "woke up" during the last five minutes of recess. She realized her sandwich was half-eaten although she couldn't recall a single image in her mind of having taken even one bite. Her sense of taste returned, and thanked whoever the new maid was for having carefully listened to her mother, who, being a woman of the Law, harangued like an eloquent machine gun. Peanut butter and Gouda--yum!
Ten minutes into her next subject, History, she was asking everyone seated around her perimeter about eevil and wild babies who sang most badly. No one knew what she was talking about and thought her peculiarly weird that day. She did not bother to regard what others thought, for once, and was diligent and feverous with her student interrogations. Her fire dimmed a tad as the day ran on. No result was brought to light though she had pushed hard, at the expense of several pedantic evil-eyes and even two consecutive closed-door chidings from two of her least favorite teachers, who unfortunately reigned over two of her favorite subjects, English Literature and Music. She had totally missed out on The Veil, by Hawthorne, and Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven. Their sour attention and her art neglection deterred not the spirit of the quest. After the polite scoldings, she questioned Mrs. English Lit., then Mr. Music, then presently went so far as to pose her query to other teachers during breaks in class. Teachers are adults, and adults are just children stuck in their formative years toting eye contacts. Not one educator addressed or understood her question; she was unanimously diagnosed with a severe and eerie case of impromptu silliness, which they brushed off as "comes with the territory."
Danny was gliding into the parking lot when he caught Mary expanding rapidly, arms thrown out like wings with gaping pie hole, in a rear-view mirror. He stopped the van in its tracks, got out, and was about to open the back door (the proper spot in which she should sit, as iron societal rules "suggested"; she prefered the more intimate shotgun seat; so to compromise, always leaned forward during trips, as long as she was alone with Danny that is) when—
"Danny, I heard wild, crazy babies crying/singing out my window last night---oh, it was eevil!" and she shot into the backseat like a kid discharged off a trampoline. "I doubt seriously if I've gotten a wink at all!"
She was ready, he thought amusingly, and slapped the door behind her impatient expression.
The vans' wheels rolled, stopped, turned, etc., Danny nodding at appropriate intervals, Mary explaining with verve and in minute detail what had occured just outside her bedroom window the night before.
Roaring laughter responded to Mary's story, igniting the air in the vehicle with energy. Danny thought Mary was laughing with him, but he was mistaken. Her fortitude negated the good radiation. He apologized, and then awkwardly unravelled the mystery.
"Cats?"
"Cats."
"Baby cats?"
"No. Just plain ol'...um...cats...night out, you know?"
"HUH? Wh--?"
"Just cats," he said with finality, and no more. It embarassed him to continue.
"Cats," she repeated at the dinner table, forehead knitted like an imperfect pretzel.
Her mother replied with a stark expression, and Mary was momentarily reminded of an android illustration in one of her many bound fictions. Androids were programmatically nice, but this particular one in that particular story went out to lunch and never came back.
"Cats, mommy--it's cats!" she announced more boldly, arresting even her daddy's usually possesive introverted awareness. His chin rose from his chest and aimed itself at his daughter.
Unfortunately, Mary interjected between two noxious adjectives that were describing the new maid, a segment-sentence of a longer, stouter tirade. And mom was not pleased; interrupting is quite bad manners. She was inclined towards a graceful telling-off, and proded her mind quickly for the perfect word-ammunition; but just when she was about to fire, pop intercepted—
"What's this about roaming felines, Mary?"
"They don't roam. I believe, for I have not seen them roam--that they stick in a cluster and blast off this--I do believe--"
"Excuse me, dear," addressing the father, "let me have a word in, please, do you mind?"
"Of course."
"Mary..." and she let her have it. It was beautiful, like murder in slow-motion.
"As I was saying..." and she took up where she left of, knowing fully the new maid was in earshot. The man and Mary waited, and waited, and waited...then their minds wandered, and his chin returned to the depression on his chest, which performed like a plinth, and Mary's lips got used to its being pursed.
Dinner was over, and they were walking up the stairs, her and her towering father.
"Daddy," she tugged at his black, office pants. "Yes," the dad picked up, "what's all this trouble now about-- "
"--Cats, daddy. They were terribly disturbing last night. I had barely slept. Look at the half circles below my eyes!"
Mother was behind them. "Has this business persisted on? I swear you read too much rubbish. This is your fault," waving a red-nailed finger at father, "there are too many big words in these books anyhow," cocking back her eyes at Mary, "you probably misunderstand them half the time and this inspires your imagination into askew notions. They were no cats last night, Mary. I am the lightest sleeper in the world, as you know, as everyone in this household is well aware. A drop of a tack molests my deep sleep. Desist this nonsense, Mary, and sleep. Or I shall myself make you."
"It's nothing," he added with a flick of hand, hoping but not knowing if he had assured.
Dad's and Mary's pathes furcated. "Night, sweetheart," and he threw her a big, warm, toothy one.
Mother, not being content that she may have positioned herself as the bad cop, entered Mary's bedroom. And tucked her in. Smoothened out the rippling forehead, kissed it kindly, and said with a voice just under a whisper, "hush."
She walked out, turned, "you wish the lights on?"
Nope, Mary's head-shaking said.
"Door ajar?"
Mary sighed under covers, and shaked some more. Mother clicked the door behind her, and dark flooded the room...
Mary did not sleep soundly, but sleep she did fall into, and dream followed.
iii. CAT'S MASK
A pregnant moon slouched on a rocking chair of warped space, and let the clouds at her base etch a moist susurrus on this corner of universe.
Faint blue emanation lined the African wilderness. And bottled in light was a village, sleeping. Its huts inhaled and exhaled, some even snored. All these cones in a cluster, except one.
Moonlight blew in at the open tip of this displaced, leather home. A conical frame in grainy blue held a rendition of Mary in smoke and gist. At first she thought she was a product of the just-extinguised fire from below and within, but no, that smoke was unlike her own. That summary of a fire's story trailed up and away, vanishing. While, she oberved, her own smoky body was stationary, hovering over artifacts and two inhabitants.
A woman and a girl. The older was filliping lines and dots on the little one's upper back, a continuation of a design from the small of her back. At center, embers sang a subsonic dirge. As bone and needle rose and fell, the little one's face lit up with tics.
They must be mother and daughter, Mary surmised, from an explicable yet purchasable aura. They seemed to contrast the vulnerable blue of the moon with an eminent red of their own. A green emotion poked, for a beat, at Mary's heart; poked and kneaded really. Honesty, therefore reality, was impolite: Mary shut the door on it.
The mother's body was studded with intricacy, which snaked through and huged anatomy. The design on the daughter stirred up as much curiosity, its mystery laid in characters which danced on her frame all in serpentine parade.
Those intriguing characters must be their gods, Mary dared to guess. The focal points on both bodies was a figure with 4 torsos sharing one base, no legs, but, that is to say, 8 arms, 4 heads with 4 unique headdresses, each hand either clasping an item or tool or shaped as such, like a ladel, a rock, a dart, a leaf, a spider (?), a sickle, and different sized knives. Like a wheel, they looked. Of creation and destruction. Possibly representing the 4 elements, or winds, or both.
Their frozen gesticulation suggests, as well, an ongoing argument between the 4 compounds of the whole. An argument that has lasted eternities, and which may outlast us all.
Cool, Mary exclaimed to herself. And wished she would one day accumulate the chutzpa required to have one made someday. Not likely, she exclaimed again.
Then the little one spoke, in a language with various compositions of clicks attached, but Mary understood, like one understands from watching a foreign film with subtitles; its meaning was immediately absorbed.
"Cats, my mother," she repeated. A lost gust flew in from nowhere, made grey flakes of ash spring up and exhibit an ancient dance. The little one noted this, continued, "last night. Did you not you hear? They gave horrible nightmares--." She broke off here, and considered, aware of the issue's sensitive nature. The youth are never good with breaks.
"Are we never to be rid of the cats?"
The mother dropped her tools--swivelled her offspring to face her. The movement left the girl's braided hair in disarray. Hot motherly eyes closed in on her, eyelids descending slowly; she said, "what have I said about this subject? You persist dangerously, my love. Speak no more of this, for it does not concern you, daughter."
Braids swung back. A crazy thought invaded Mary's mind, and she forced the dreadful picture of the mother tightening her grip on the needle; all the same the mother's eyes lingered menacingly for a spell.
The child's lips melted and fused. She turned her back to her mother abruptly, mayhaps rudely. And waited stubbornly for the needle. The needle felled not. She turned, her mother was no longer there--and a bead on her braid struck her eye. "Ow!"
...She was alone. Very tired.
The mother hardly disturbed the dust as she flew out, which Mary thought uncanny. No one but the chronicler perceived, or rather, heard what the mother said as she bolted. She said, in sotto, "sorry".
The unexpectedly saddened girl rolled over to her straw mat, unrolled her 'lids shut, used to her mother's lability. A memory of the past night replayed. Mary saw it too, a movie in her mind. At the village's center, in the presence of his councilors and subjects, the top dog in the village laid out a very lucrative and detailed proposition, regarding his wishes that his eldest be married to the daughter of Sama. Her mother, with grace, turned it down. Irked but composed, confident he has not, as far as his memory has served him, ever been turned down, especially among an audience, persisted cautiously, like a gentleman before the invention of the gentleman, elaborating the benefits of the proposed merger with vivid verbal pictures, peppering his speech with praises, both for her daughter's looks and nubility. Eyes wet with regret, for the chief had been a good host, then friend, only he was a fool, she was inclined, for show of respect, to lower her eyes down to his feet, and render a significant pause for effect, before looking up and reiterating. She may have crossed the line, again; which meant another banishment, outcasts once more. But she would not have her Mali marry her unsuccesful rapist. It was not politically correct to mention this at the time, or ever; whether the father knew or not, it was to remain an open mystery. They will have to move again, nothing new. Tomorrow they depart...With an apprehension that hovered like a vulture, she reluctantly hunted for a good sleep.
You go, mom! thought Mary. Finally, Mali was snoring. Mary the Quiddity was wide awake, and considered a reconnaisance on Sama, the mother, but the tangible presence of the unknown burdened this ambition. Presently, she chose to replicate the snoring, if she can snore, of Mali. There is a strange affinity she feels for Mali and Sama, could they be relatives? she thought, before dipping into a boggish slumber.
The Cats were back.
Mali awoke with every quill of hair on her erect like a cornered porcupine. Her lips went to work with words unfamiliar to Mary, but from the tone and context it could be inferred as praying. It occured to Mary these savages may have more than one almighty.
It was the truth. When she fell silent, she had exhausted the pantheon. Yet her lips stopped quivering not, for fear of...
The Cats were back...her mother missing...segregated, dejected. Miserable. And now, but for her braids and beads, and an unknown presence, profoundly alone.
The Cats were back: racking up a crescendo that did not make any aesthetic or mathematical sense--actually it was horridly chaotic, and troubling in its artistic attempts, for one was inclined to presume there was one (or it may be just our own minds that is obsessed with breaking chaos down into interpretive patterns?), albeit a perversity infected it. It brought to mind a singular character that would enjoy it immensely, possibly utilize it to relax: a devil taking his every-other aeon bath in a tub of urine, fresh bones and burping maggots. . .
Mali all of a sudden came to life! A genetic-thought stored in her--likely a mutation--, had surfaced with her conscious effort or awareness. The inherited thought: It is better to die, than to live in fear.
All her braveness made her rigid legs fold and unfold, and she rose from the dead, like a spirit of vengeance.
I am my mother's daughter, she quietly and firmly asserted. Mary's pride for her was aroused, and she thought--if she can, I can. Silently, both with an iron resolve, stalked closer to the portal into the waiting night.
In the back of the dark-skinned one's mind, a question ran: the fused tetrad-creator-god Ade Sno-Nysoa, Cyto Sno-Nysoa, Guwa Sno-Nyosoa, and Thy-Yo Sno-Nysoa was said to have given birth to everything we see with an unimaginably powerful skreigh, which imperceptibly, through long stretchs of unaccountable time, dwindled into a steady screech that lasted for another great length and expectedly broke up into the four voices and sounds of the elements, from which all life, from stars to man, is derived. Are these Cats made from the radioactive echo from that mysterious period prior to our people's creation?
If so, that terrified her, and she, with Mary, paused between the slit of the hut, but for a moment. A good will, once revved, is tremendously difficult to obstruct. One body and two souls entangled themselves from their fear and welcomed the drizzling light of the studded gods, and the maternal Eastern moon.
She must know. She must get to the bottom of this or sew her lips shut till she parts this land for the deeper dark of the Underearth. She must know, she transmitted to her toes and soles. Her feet accepted the challenge, she blinked, and both she and Mary the ghost were now behind the teepee.
Staring at nothing. The thick chaos-song abated abruptly, and seemed farther out now, closer to a copse of black trees, about the distance of ten men lying lengthwise on the dirt, toes to the village, heads to the source of madness.
Black streaks of frozen lightning reached out to a cold, uncaring sky, its various fingers framed in an aura of moonlight. Behind a trunk here-and-there some segment of a feline entity was alluded. Their fear had turned stimuli. One floated, one walked, both blankly.
Upon touching bark, black Mali, slowly, urged an eye to peep. Mary, not that brave a little girl, cowered behind the thin physicality. The auditory virus contaminated the wind, and it seemed to lent it teeth. The journey of their eyes continued...their imaginations running wild...their hearts like drums as played by a man possessed...the journey of their eyes continued...
Children's faces topped cats' bodies. At each pause these children's faces reverted back to feline form, whiskers, glassy eyes and all. When they opened their maws again to belt it out, their faces went through a rapid process of physical transformation, all in under a second.
The body suddenly had an urge to run. The ghost wanted to evaporate. The two stayed put, and ate up the aural and visual monster-fest. A few feet adjacent to the fidgeting chorus a woman in purple and gold robe orchestrated with one hand. Mary thought the movement of her wrists were beautiful, and her mind dulled, craved sleep.
Dainty skulls--as found in small mammals--were in a circle around three parties. The chorus, which wriggled, disassembled anxiously, re-assembled impatiently, and so on, all the while translating their perverse souls into vomitous vibrations. A naked boy about their age in a pile, whose body, bones and skin contorted violently in place. His back was to them. His crazily bobbing head obviously mutedly screaming. The third was a woman...in a sense. Certainly the most evident is the size. She was a giantess. Broad shoulders like beams of stell, sinewy mucscle-group separations are flaunted and displayed at arm, legs, torso. She was an athlete. Probably was the first Olympian, Mary mused. Secondly, she was striped. Black blades sporadically drawn which at some points merged to form "Xs". This was not paint. These were natural traits. The rest of the skin was jaundiced. Thirdly, she wore as armor perhaps, four skulls of children. All of which the backs of have been detached. Two skull-faces rested on her deltoids. Armor-decoration. Two framed her breasts. Decoration-armor. Her nails were as long as her fingers, each one intimidating like a warlock's wand. Into finer points of her detail: Her eyes were closed, her expression recalled Mary's father's face when listening to Wagner, an expression of the yin-yang variety. Melancholy and ecstasy. Both arms were busy. Flailing with elegance, the left directed at the chorus, the right at the naked child in intense pain. Both directing, sculpting, composing, in quite an off-hand manner the building of the "music" and the breaking down of the boy.
All this in one swig of the eye. Their minds gave without much fight. A dense fugue was served, and their delicate sensibilities were shattered. The medicine-woman's daughter tripped forward and hit dirt hard. Mary the ghost fluttered, fell on her companion. It looked as if the tatooed girl was smoking.
Her left wrist maintained the maniacal bloom of the thickening chorus, while very delicately her eyes began to reveal themselves. An effervescence of emerald issued forth from the cornea.
Mary, regaining control, willed herself up. Her beads clicked when she rose, as well. Their contact has given the dark, little one a peripheral awareness of another, as yet unseen being, present and watching over. She took this to mean that her gods have responded.
The motions of her right wrist left the paining boy at ther feet, whose transformations continued regardless, and it beckoned in the diretion of the two new guests.
Her eyes were fully open now, and huge. In a green splendour it promoted warmth with abandon. They were cat's eyes.
Unconsciously, the pair have begun to classify her. They did not know just at the moment, but the title they were looking for, the only title appropriate, would be: Queen-Goddesss.
Her padded feet draped forward; in a few swishes arrived at the edge of the circle of skulls. All the while, a wand of claw made cyclic movements of invitation.
Mary thought the invitation from the finger menacing, and she is certain Mali--the black girl's name--agreed. Was it magic or a dangerous sort of curiosity? They were unsure, but their limbs chose to accept it, and proceeded reluctantly toward the hostess of the night.
Mary's amorphousness lessened, she became more visible. A mist with a face. Four eyes were locked by two; two enormous, attractive, motherly eyes. They walked slowly toward her, with care.
She was naked except for a furry material covering up her lower privates. They did not note this, as their suspicious walk brought them closer to the Queen-Goddess. Another, newer detail escaped them: the fur was moving...entangling...forming into her tail. A voluptous, golden-haired tail unveiled her and rose, like a cobra in assessment, then descended as if recognizing the tresspassers as visitors, even guests.
They stopped at the skull-circle. Mary hovering still. Mali's chin was rubbed by the tail, with pleasure and friendliness. Her right hand closed in on Mary's, which solidified further. Now their fingers interlaced. She spoke to Mary, welcomed her in this world, and asked if it intrigued her enough to stay longer.
Mary said she doesn't believe so, not that there was anything wrong where she is at the moment. The Queen-Goddess smiled subtly. Her tail now rubbed the back of Mali's neck. She nodded at her, in recognition. Was I suppose to understand this? questioned Mali to herself--she is not familiar with this goddess.
"Why don't you come in?" It was an order posed as a question, for her hand was pulling Mary, and her tail Mali. Their collective will objected, their mutinous limbs obliged. They moved slowly inward...
Mali's foot took an eternity to land. Mary's misty physique took its time too...Queen-Goddesses have the patience of suns.
There, she purred, good girls...
As soon as they were within the circle of skulls they vanished.
iiii. BAST'S WILL
Vision returned, their eyelids struggled with cobwebs. The darkness was profound and syrupy like molasses. Once their sight oriented accordingly it was ascertained the ceiling was right above them, their misty--yet still nerve-sensitive backs--affirmed so. It was a long, long corridor, and felt like a tomb for some giant's Nile-length leg. Either end was punctuated by an explosion of calicified blackness. Mali, a ghost now too, comes to realize the existence of Mary. Mary was about to rip an assuring smile, but what happened next did not afford them time for pleasantries--
The bricks on the walls vibrated. Dust rained. A thunderous, rolling flood of velocity was approaching from one deep end. A stampede? Of what? Monsters? Cat-demons? Warriors of Hell? Mary looked to Mali, Mali shaked her head then nodded towards the arriving, raging din.
Tips of light emerged, countless heads of bobbing fireballs. The two by instinct held hands fast, descended diagonally toward the coming raid of light. They have locked eyes with a Queen-Goddess, they've witnessed a purity of evil behind a thin curtain of emerald brightness, could this parade of fire match up to that twisted brilliance? They thought not, and flew downward faster.
They were but torches, held by mere men. Several columns of burly, mostly young, bald men. A brand-new coat every few seconds bled from external glands which mingled with the already sticky initial coating of day-old sun-fried sweat. It reeked, added a volatile character to the air. Closer and faster they dived, through clouds of smoke and man-smell. They may not be ordinary men, surely they must be possessed! If not by demons or wicked spirits certainly by an intense and deep and ancient madness accessible to us all.
It shone in their eyes. Closer still they fell, until they went through them--Ethiopia, Libya, Nubia, Asia, even Europe was represented here and there. Hundreds of consciousnesses were made privy to their sensitive, adventurous, little minds, and at once their understanding shot-up a hundredfold. The agile experience hit too acutely the mental faculties, it seemed a fever had broken out at central point, and had begun to spread itself exponentially. They unlocked their fingers and shot up into the musky air.
The fever dissipated. They were now initiated with knowledge. A knowledge they wished they could deposit somewhere far, dark, earthy and moist, and leave its formal cremation to idea-eating crows. But no...they had not the stomach to forget. Knowledge, they knew somewhere in their heart of hearts, be it benign or malignant, was inherently good.
They returned their attention to the united, roaring columns of slavery. It may not be too late--the two, practically one in mind, as most girls are at an age, bolted to the front of the charging, starving phallus. Intent on changing the mind of the pack leaders.
The columns sped like blood in a vessel, and shortly were able to discern the gate of their x-spot. The phallic entity slowed to a trot, a march, then a walk, and when the first members entered they were practically stepping on glass. The monstrous corridor opened to an immense dome, tiered. On each level, floor to top, a ring of pillows were positioned side-by-side, and above each one: a beautiful, innocent, sleeping feline.
At the center, stood a pyramid, with steps of gold on all four sides. A quarter of its base protruded and created a landing, the suface with which Egypt's pantheon strutted righteously in a stiff parade. From the landing the pyramid rose and its summit flourished into a dramatic throne. The back of the throne was dominated by a disc, representing Ra--on each side of the throne's base and Ra was poised a cobra in sentinelship. The seat itself was organic in its style and form, encrusted heiroglyphics tell stories of a Queen-Goddess. All, rendered in solid gold.
Our witnesses were expressed from off the wall above the entrance. Several members climbed up with strained reverence to the throne, their torches high. The light of the flames bounced from Ra, providing central lighting.
The rest of the slave-force extinguished their torches with sand, from pouches. Their faces messed up, fists were contracted, relaxed, and contracted, etc...the aura of their eyes were a bloody hue. Mary and Mali looked at each other: What could they do?
They tried anyway. They locked in on a leader each, and willed a communication with them. The design progressed without incident. Communications were down. Possibly at any other normal situation they would have succeeded--but this was the last straw for them. Even slaves have a breaking point. Revolution is the product of children abused.
This knowledge was communicated to their young souls; their minds had yet to catch up. But, presently, they desisted, hovered back, and watched the result of grotesque mismanagement. Pharaohs are bad parents, they concluded. And along that line of thought...which they both chose not to touch...was a question: were all parents bad?
Full details are not neccessary, yet details will persist on to the surface of this quick sketch of the feverous event. Beside each feline lay a bowl, gold and inscribed with their name in Egyptian graphics. Some heads were bashed in with these bowls, some heads were bashed in with the clubs the torches were made from. A number had flints which were purchased in feline throats, bellies, and faces. Each time a cat died, Sekte, a wood-colored lynx with green ears, for example, she reverted back to life in a manner of seconds. And attacked. She was killed again and again, seven times, actually, then she stopped moving. And so forth with the rest. Some were being eaten between their first and last death; Ishta, a small Bengal tiger with chrome stripes, for example, was thoroughly chagrined by it. The ending was a feast, and soon a sleep. Snoring, round-bellied men, dreaming of nothing, the oppressive pharoah-decreed starvation over. Their souls intact, their conscience sound. The god of their pharoah dead. They slept.
As in any war, there are always survivors. There were in this one too. Just under ten in over a hundred. They walked quietly, careful not to wake the terrible, sleeping giants. Every now and then they would stop, drop their heads and pick up a morsel of their comrades. These cats went all around and about their attackers, finishing up the left-overs. Till the dome was as clean as their hides. At the end of the scavenging they all converged onto Ra. At the seat of the throne they began biting, clawing, tearing each others fur and flesh. In pristine silence they labored. Amidst snoring and the hemoglobin-perfumed air, they strove.
Mary and Mali were possessed to vomit, but all they had in their bellies were cloud.
They were working to enter each others skin, and after a time, succeeded. Fur fell in clumps over the golden throne and pyramidal steps. Skin was being sewed using plucked sinews and whiskers. Claws were being extracted to act as clips. They all of them were transforming, coagulating into a larger, scarier entity. Blood in rivulets filled the canals of inscription, and splatter embellished the already dramatic throne.
Beauty was birthed from the madness. Queen-Goddess sat on her throne, coolly licking her wounds. The surroundings, and recent events did not interest her. She stood up casually, turned and opened a secret compartment in the throne. The object stored within she placed firmly on her head. It was the Double Crown of Egypt.
She could have killed every one of them. The notion lacked style. The big picture was considered, and art as a creative weapon nursed both her motive and inclinations. She decided on a curse. Something grand and eternal, which will occupy all her time, for she had lots of it now.
The Queen-Goddess walked gracefully down the pyramid, every step part of a longer goodbye, till she was out and free from the temple, returning to the desert to ponder and plan and heal her heart.
Sand blinded Mali and Mary, and the moment after they were back under Africa's night, and were hovering over the boy, now half-cat. Mali's neighbor, the "good boy".
My children were innocent and pure, She said. These children...(a red wand motioned to the half-cat, half-boy) these good boys...are not so pure and innocent but they will do. This is my gift to mankind.
She looked at them meaningfully. Mary could not take its power, and was knocked out. Mali had a revelation. She thought she saw her mother in Bast.
Light and gravity fled, and Mary was lost and tumbling in the black mucous of the canals between what we call reality and what we term as dream. Space-time is unravalled here and all experience past, present and future, are frozen cocktails kept in a trillion syringes all vying to pierce the skin of your consciousness in the hopes of thawing its contained existence into a dynamic living memory, thereby jetting verve into you and asserting their specific moment's reality. In this round shots from the future dominated, as follows (chronicled here in a clearer manner than how Mary experienced):
At 28 Mary will record her husband's infidelity for the first time. From 29 to 47 she would have several lovers at a time at her beck and call. She kept her figure comely til that age, and on her 48th birthday she decided to carry on just one love, with Epicurus. Subsequently she enrolled in a culinary institute and upon graduation established a bakery with library packaged like a Starbucks. Her husband provided the capital; she did not pay him back. But her husband was good, over all. He was a good man, as good as a man can get; a fair man. Her husband never learned of her affairs. She was absolute in her discreetness, having a deep understanding of the male ego, and ego in general. He stopped cheating before she did. When Mary began she disregarded her husband's frolics; keeping count, to her, was bad manners.
Mary taught her kids to cut a piece of meat anyway they wanted to, whenever they wanted/needed to. And she always excused them when they asked to be excused at the dining table...
iiiii. MALKUTH'S DEATH
"Jesus Christ, cats kept me up all night--they were most singular and absurd, I thought I was suffering a nightmare, but no, I stood up and hunted them down--they were not to be seen, yet as sure as I stand here I tell they were just right outside my bedroom window. I was certain madness would follow if it weren't for morning. Hmph," an ejaculation in under a second. "Frank you look unperturbed. And you! Define that smirk. What are you--Did you have something to do with this, Mary? Speak up, child, and look at me in the eye when you speak."
"...I just want to say," she smirked once more, "I told you so."
The 'I told you so' line may work a cute magic when potrayed by mothers and daughters in movies but its effect is less sustainable when put upon a myopic behemoth of narrowmindedness like mother. Mary was scolded as she orderly prepared her waffles and sausages and cream on her plate, as she consumed these delectable morning items, as well as over juice, and over the drinking of cold water afterwards, as she brushed her teeth, which was only cut short by Danny closing the car door.
Displayed like a treasure on the rearview mirror, Danny noted, was a very precious smile, riding happily to school. Consequently, a happy sound issued from the smile.
"Are you humming," asked Danny.
The cats stopped singing.
Mary was a good girl. Always said please, and thank you, and excuse me, and you welcome. Like "please, pass the sugar" and "thank you, Danny, for the paseo!" and "excuse me, may I suggest something?" and "you are very much welcome, (place servant's name here)." Her manners were impeccable, and she was red with proud about it. Her table manners were especially radiant; however, it was a well-guarded secret of hers that she felt estranged to most of them, at times to the point of causing her actual nausea. Illustration: She could not quite understand why it wouldn't be perfectly alright to cut-up throroughly a piece of meat or vegetable at the onset of a meal, you know, in preparation for all those spoonfuls that are sure to cross your lips. No. She. They. Everyone. Had to cut the piece of meat or vegetable, one morsel at a time. Which was ridiculous because They expected you to consume everything on your plate anyway. Did that silly rule make eating more elegant? Was it suppose to hide the fact that you were thoroughly intent on devouring that piece of whatever? Or were They afraid that as soon as the piece of whatever was all cut up nice and good you would totally disown conversation, and devout all attention to your delicious meal, God forbid, thereby confounding their egos through an unintentional (or why not intentional?) contretemps? None of these notions were assessed by an authority. And the only authority in Mary's home was her mother. Mother was warm, in her own British way; unfortunately, her poker-face and London air convinced one, meeting her for the first time, that she had once held position as the principal in a high school situated in Hades. Mother's mien discouraged any query to her dictatorship. In fairness, she was merely being the good soldier, passing on a tradition inherited and enforced by her parents and their parents's parents, and so forth. (For the sake of accuracy and symbolism parentheticals would be the appropriate means to describe the father, whose personality is very much like a backdrop to a stage play--interesting enough only if and when the dialogue or star wend towards tenuous verbosity and redundant egotism--as the mother is more than unfrequently inclined to do--yet its mere presence lends ands underlines something wordless and meaningful and you cannot help but feel it is still worthy despite its lack of pronouncement or glamour.) Where these silly ideas come from was a mystery to Mary; she was sure of one thing though, silly ideas are sprung from silly minds.
There are other mindless rules the chronicler finds tedious in mentioning here, so to proceed: Despite these imperceptible little crinkles on her perfect little social mask, Mary was a happy girl. Yes, she despised dressing up for occasions totally unrelated to her--who she is--what she is of. Yes, she almost always hated performing and vocalizing scripted actions and phrases like
MARY IS SMILING GAILY TO SOMEONE OFF-CAM. SHE TURNS, AND AN INVISIBLE SHIFT IN EMOTION IS CONVEYED THROUGH HER EYES ALONE. SHE IS NOW READYING HERSELF TO ADDRESS A DESPISED AUNT, WHO IS STILL OFF-CAM BUT STEADILY APPROACHING.
WE PULL AWAY. MARY IS NODDING AND SMILING AT THE ARRIVED, HATED RELATIVE. THE AUNT IS AWARE OF THE PRETENSE. SHE PLAYS THE GAME WELL TOO. THEY SALUTATE LIKE SUNFLOWERS IN SPRING ULULATING IN THE WIND.
MARY
O Tita I have missed you SO much!
And so forth...
To Mary this is horrible, yet--perfectly acceptable. Children are philosophers. In the future, Mary will need all the philosophizing she can evoke. If she so continues on this current path her husband at some point will stop loving her, just for a while (the conversion of which is several years), take up a mistress, have great fun, and then after years and years and years, the mistress will replace him with an older, dying man with a fatter, longer wallet who will promise a voluptuous aspect of his wealth. This promise will fuel her need, she will tell herself, to "go on." Aftermath: Who will nurse the silly husband's heart? Who would have stood by his side for years and years and years while he had his grand fun? Who will clean up the public relations mess? Why,--Mary, of course. Why? Because Mary is a pillar and acme of politeness. And she is proud of this fact. Everything else, except her beautiful and bratty children to be, will be hell to address.
ii. PLUTO'S SET
Mary turned the page and the story was over, there was only blank white overleaf and the beginning of a new tale opposite; the hoods of her eyes were drawing out the globose beam from her bedside lamp, slowly, off her cornea; her fingers were dislodging from the hard cover, a fingertip at a time; her charming little head was going down, down, falling left--the shoulder expecting the temple...Any moment now...The gap in Poe's collection is diminished; at length his short "The Black Cat" is buried once more, among dead comrades; the tome dripped, dropped and slid, landing on white sheets. Mary's body follows, her crown grazing the edge of the night table.
She straightens up, shaking her head, blinking profusely, as if she had narrowly escaped drowning. She realizes her reality is dry and solid, and resolves to prepare for bed. She reaches out, turns off the switch. Darkness.
She burrows under pillows and covers, intuitively fitting herself into that elusive perfect spot. She finds it, settles. The hood of her eyes once again fold down; on her cornea a representative of the sun's light, reflected off the moon, lingers on the wet film. Outside the moon was running her course through barren fields of black fertilized sporadically by burning flora...
Mary's sleep was on the precipice, when--
Mary shot up in bed, eyes looking like upset hydrogen atoms--her neck muscles swiveled her head left--the source was out her window--
They disrupted her sleep so violently she was frozen in her bed. And she felt her bed was frozen with her. Not a crease on her bedsheet and quilt stirred. Each of the two hotdog-pillows were silent, ice. The wooden bedposts were barely able to conceal their wobbling. Mary thought, any moment now I am going to see my eyes in the air; oh hold on, without eyes I wouldn't be able to see them pop-out would I?
--Infants? Outside her bedroom window? How are infants able to climb up the garage roof? Why are they...doing that?
Discordant bursts and spurts of majestically deplorable guttural trumpets inspired disturbing and unspeakable montages which marched into her mind abruptly, unannounced. These themes strangely followed the lead of the pattern-less fugue of the choir of mad infants. The innocence in her ran back to somewhere dark and deep--she closed her eyes, she slept, or so she thought, as the helter-skelter visions stomped and played viciously on her mind, treated harshly like a dirty sandbox or a diseased mudpit while the sick choir of the night played on, and on, wrecking and etching a havoc on a little girl's precious, impressionable psychology.
Was she dreaming? Had she consumed too much Poe after dinner? Is everybody else stunned too into immobility? The world seems to have stopped. Time seems to have given up. All there was was the darkness, and the omnipotent and perverse sound.
If she was dreaming, there was a test. She remembered consuming somewhere in some story a theory regarding the use of hands while dreaming. She recalled: the use of hands while in the dream state is supposed to lead to the expertise of dream control and eventually, dream manipulation. Her neck muscles strained but with determination brought her face forward and down, facing her lap. Her hands were under sheets. She sighed, then began. The sheets were removed, her hands rose. She flexed her fingers. If she was awake, then this was natural to expect. If she was dreaming, the test was in order. Her right hand--for she was right-handed--dove back and came between her legs. She found her left thigh, pinched it, hard.
Ow-uch! She was not dreaming.
"Oh no," Mary muttered.
iii. MOM'S SOL
The dusty rock was replaced by a fireball. Mary slipped her legs out of bed, and fitted her feet into slippers. A light was turned on in the bath', and with misgiving, then resolve, she faced the judgement of the mirror.
She took her breakfast dazed, and numbly confused--bags under her eyes drooping like dough recently hurled onto a wall. No one noticed: typical. No one but Danny the driver, who noticed everything in the household. The rest of the household help were mostly focused on pleasing the impossible-to-please mother, but Danny had his own mind, his own soul to attend to. And when you are sensitive to your needs, you become sensitive to others. He kept, like Mary, his evaluations to himself.
During the drive to school Danny surreptitiously eyed Mary every now-and-then with a delicate, sincere concern, but did not pry due to the observation that she was not yet ready to speak, although his lips were itchy to get a word in. Danny went as far as to deduce that she has not even spoken to herself, which he knows she does. He's caught her enough times at instances when the girl thought herself solitary. So, Danny pursed his lips, until it was time for pick up, and let the little zombie be.
Mary "woke up" during the last five minutes of recess. She realized her sandwich was half-eaten although she couldn't recall a single image in her mind of having taken even one bite. Her sense of taste returned, and thanked whoever the new maid was for having carefully listened to her mother, who, being a woman of the Law, harangued like an eloquent machine gun. Peanut butter and Gouda--yum!
Ten minutes into her next subject, History, she was asking everyone seated around her perimeter about eevil and wild babies who sang most badly. No one knew what she was talking about and thought her peculiarly weird that day. She did not bother to regard what others thought, for once, and was diligent and feverous with her student interrogations. Her fire dimmed a tad as the day ran on. No result was brought to light though she had pushed hard, at the expense of several pedantic evil-eyes and even two consecutive closed-door chidings from two of her least favorite teachers, who unfortunately reigned over two of her favorite subjects, English Literature and Music. She had totally missed out on The Veil, by Hawthorne, and Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven. Their sour attention and her art neglection deterred not the spirit of the quest. After the polite scoldings, she questioned Mrs. English Lit., then Mr. Music, then presently went so far as to pose her query to other teachers during breaks in class. Teachers are adults, and adults are just children stuck in their formative years toting eye contacts. Not one educator addressed or understood her question; she was unanimously diagnosed with a severe and eerie case of impromptu silliness, which they brushed off as "comes with the territory."
Danny was gliding into the parking lot when he caught Mary expanding rapidly, arms thrown out like wings with gaping pie hole, in a rear-view mirror. He stopped the van in its tracks, got out, and was about to open the back door (the proper spot in which she should sit, as iron societal rules "suggested"; she prefered the more intimate shotgun seat; so to compromise, always leaned forward during trips, as long as she was alone with Danny that is) when—
"Danny, I heard wild, crazy babies crying/singing out my window last night---oh, it was eevil!" and she shot into the backseat like a kid discharged off a trampoline. "I doubt seriously if I've gotten a wink at all!"
She was ready, he thought amusingly, and slapped the door behind her impatient expression.
The vans' wheels rolled, stopped, turned, etc., Danny nodding at appropriate intervals, Mary explaining with verve and in minute detail what had occured just outside her bedroom window the night before.
Roaring laughter responded to Mary's story, igniting the air in the vehicle with energy. Danny thought Mary was laughing with him, but he was mistaken. Her fortitude negated the good radiation. He apologized, and then awkwardly unravelled the mystery.
"Cats?"
"Cats."
"Baby cats?"
"No. Just plain ol'...um...cats...night out, you know?"
"HUH? Wh--?"
"Just cats," he said with finality, and no more. It embarassed him to continue.
"Cats," she repeated at the dinner table, forehead knitted like an imperfect pretzel.
Her mother replied with a stark expression, and Mary was momentarily reminded of an android illustration in one of her many bound fictions. Androids were programmatically nice, but this particular one in that particular story went out to lunch and never came back.
"Cats, mommy--it's cats!" she announced more boldly, arresting even her daddy's usually possesive introverted awareness. His chin rose from his chest and aimed itself at his daughter.
Unfortunately, Mary interjected between two noxious adjectives that were describing the new maid, a segment-sentence of a longer, stouter tirade. And mom was not pleased; interrupting is quite bad manners. She was inclined towards a graceful telling-off, and proded her mind quickly for the perfect word-ammunition; but just when she was about to fire, pop intercepted—
"What's this about roaming felines, Mary?"
"They don't roam. I believe, for I have not seen them roam--that they stick in a cluster and blast off this--I do believe--"
"Excuse me, dear," addressing the father, "let me have a word in, please, do you mind?"
"Of course."
"Mary..." and she let her have it. It was beautiful, like murder in slow-motion.
"As I was saying..." and she took up where she left of, knowing fully the new maid was in earshot. The man and Mary waited, and waited, and waited...then their minds wandered, and his chin returned to the depression on his chest, which performed like a plinth, and Mary's lips got used to its being pursed.
Dinner was over, and they were walking up the stairs, her and her towering father.
"Daddy," she tugged at his black, office pants. "Yes," the dad picked up, "what's all this trouble now about-- "
"--Cats, daddy. They were terribly disturbing last night. I had barely slept. Look at the half circles below my eyes!"
Mother was behind them. "Has this business persisted on? I swear you read too much rubbish. This is your fault," waving a red-nailed finger at father, "there are too many big words in these books anyhow," cocking back her eyes at Mary, "you probably misunderstand them half the time and this inspires your imagination into askew notions. They were no cats last night, Mary. I am the lightest sleeper in the world, as you know, as everyone in this household is well aware. A drop of a tack molests my deep sleep. Desist this nonsense, Mary, and sleep. Or I shall myself make you."
"It's nothing," he added with a flick of hand, hoping but not knowing if he had assured.
Dad's and Mary's pathes furcated. "Night, sweetheart," and he threw her a big, warm, toothy one.
Mother, not being content that she may have positioned herself as the bad cop, entered Mary's bedroom. And tucked her in. Smoothened out the rippling forehead, kissed it kindly, and said with a voice just under a whisper, "hush."
She walked out, turned, "you wish the lights on?"
Nope, Mary's head-shaking said.
"Door ajar?"
Mary sighed under covers, and shaked some more. Mother clicked the door behind her, and dark flooded the room...
Mary did not sleep soundly, but sleep she did fall into, and dream followed.
iii. CAT'S MASK
A pregnant moon slouched on a rocking chair of warped space, and let the clouds at her base etch a moist susurrus on this corner of universe.
Faint blue emanation lined the African wilderness. And bottled in light was a village, sleeping. Its huts inhaled and exhaled, some even snored. All these cones in a cluster, except one.
Moonlight blew in at the open tip of this displaced, leather home. A conical frame in grainy blue held a rendition of Mary in smoke and gist. At first she thought she was a product of the just-extinguised fire from below and within, but no, that smoke was unlike her own. That summary of a fire's story trailed up and away, vanishing. While, she oberved, her own smoky body was stationary, hovering over artifacts and two inhabitants.
A woman and a girl. The older was filliping lines and dots on the little one's upper back, a continuation of a design from the small of her back. At center, embers sang a subsonic dirge. As bone and needle rose and fell, the little one's face lit up with tics.
They must be mother and daughter, Mary surmised, from an explicable yet purchasable aura. They seemed to contrast the vulnerable blue of the moon with an eminent red of their own. A green emotion poked, for a beat, at Mary's heart; poked and kneaded really. Honesty, therefore reality, was impolite: Mary shut the door on it.
The mother's body was studded with intricacy, which snaked through and huged anatomy. The design on the daughter stirred up as much curiosity, its mystery laid in characters which danced on her frame all in serpentine parade.
Those intriguing characters must be their gods, Mary dared to guess. The focal points on both bodies was a figure with 4 torsos sharing one base, no legs, but, that is to say, 8 arms, 4 heads with 4 unique headdresses, each hand either clasping an item or tool or shaped as such, like a ladel, a rock, a dart, a leaf, a spider (?), a sickle, and different sized knives. Like a wheel, they looked. Of creation and destruction. Possibly representing the 4 elements, or winds, or both.
Their frozen gesticulation suggests, as well, an ongoing argument between the 4 compounds of the whole. An argument that has lasted eternities, and which may outlast us all.
Cool, Mary exclaimed to herself. And wished she would one day accumulate the chutzpa required to have one made someday. Not likely, she exclaimed again.
Then the little one spoke, in a language with various compositions of clicks attached, but Mary understood, like one understands from watching a foreign film with subtitles; its meaning was immediately absorbed.
"Cats, my mother," she repeated. A lost gust flew in from nowhere, made grey flakes of ash spring up and exhibit an ancient dance. The little one noted this, continued, "last night. Did you not you hear? They gave horrible nightmares--." She broke off here, and considered, aware of the issue's sensitive nature. The youth are never good with breaks.
"Are we never to be rid of the cats?"
The mother dropped her tools--swivelled her offspring to face her. The movement left the girl's braided hair in disarray. Hot motherly eyes closed in on her, eyelids descending slowly; she said, "what have I said about this subject? You persist dangerously, my love. Speak no more of this, for it does not concern you, daughter."
Braids swung back. A crazy thought invaded Mary's mind, and she forced the dreadful picture of the mother tightening her grip on the needle; all the same the mother's eyes lingered menacingly for a spell.
The child's lips melted and fused. She turned her back to her mother abruptly, mayhaps rudely. And waited stubbornly for the needle. The needle felled not. She turned, her mother was no longer there--and a bead on her braid struck her eye. "Ow!"
...She was alone. Very tired.
The mother hardly disturbed the dust as she flew out, which Mary thought uncanny. No one but the chronicler perceived, or rather, heard what the mother said as she bolted. She said, in sotto, "sorry".
The unexpectedly saddened girl rolled over to her straw mat, unrolled her 'lids shut, used to her mother's lability. A memory of the past night replayed. Mary saw it too, a movie in her mind. At the village's center, in the presence of his councilors and subjects, the top dog in the village laid out a very lucrative and detailed proposition, regarding his wishes that his eldest be married to the daughter of Sama. Her mother, with grace, turned it down. Irked but composed, confident he has not, as far as his memory has served him, ever been turned down, especially among an audience, persisted cautiously, like a gentleman before the invention of the gentleman, elaborating the benefits of the proposed merger with vivid verbal pictures, peppering his speech with praises, both for her daughter's looks and nubility. Eyes wet with regret, for the chief had been a good host, then friend, only he was a fool, she was inclined, for show of respect, to lower her eyes down to his feet, and render a significant pause for effect, before looking up and reiterating. She may have crossed the line, again; which meant another banishment, outcasts once more. But she would not have her Mali marry her unsuccesful rapist. It was not politically correct to mention this at the time, or ever; whether the father knew or not, it was to remain an open mystery. They will have to move again, nothing new. Tomorrow they depart...With an apprehension that hovered like a vulture, she reluctantly hunted for a good sleep.
You go, mom! thought Mary. Finally, Mali was snoring. Mary the Quiddity was wide awake, and considered a reconnaisance on Sama, the mother, but the tangible presence of the unknown burdened this ambition. Presently, she chose to replicate the snoring, if she can snore, of Mali. There is a strange affinity she feels for Mali and Sama, could they be relatives? she thought, before dipping into a boggish slumber.
The Cats were back.
Mali awoke with every quill of hair on her erect like a cornered porcupine. Her lips went to work with words unfamiliar to Mary, but from the tone and context it could be inferred as praying. It occured to Mary these savages may have more than one almighty.
It was the truth. When she fell silent, she had exhausted the pantheon. Yet her lips stopped quivering not, for fear of...
The Cats were back...her mother missing...segregated, dejected. Miserable. And now, but for her braids and beads, and an unknown presence, profoundly alone.
The Cats were back: racking up a crescendo that did not make any aesthetic or mathematical sense--actually it was horridly chaotic, and troubling in its artistic attempts, for one was inclined to presume there was one (or it may be just our own minds that is obsessed with breaking chaos down into interpretive patterns?), albeit a perversity infected it. It brought to mind a singular character that would enjoy it immensely, possibly utilize it to relax: a devil taking his every-other aeon bath in a tub of urine, fresh bones and burping maggots. . .
Mali all of a sudden came to life! A genetic-thought stored in her--likely a mutation--, had surfaced with her conscious effort or awareness. The inherited thought: It is better to die, than to live in fear.
All her braveness made her rigid legs fold and unfold, and she rose from the dead, like a spirit of vengeance.
I am my mother's daughter, she quietly and firmly asserted. Mary's pride for her was aroused, and she thought--if she can, I can. Silently, both with an iron resolve, stalked closer to the portal into the waiting night.
In the back of the dark-skinned one's mind, a question ran: the fused tetrad-creator-god Ade Sno-Nysoa, Cyto Sno-Nysoa, Guwa Sno-Nyosoa, and Thy-Yo Sno-Nysoa was said to have given birth to everything we see with an unimaginably powerful skreigh, which imperceptibly, through long stretchs of unaccountable time, dwindled into a steady screech that lasted for another great length and expectedly broke up into the four voices and sounds of the elements, from which all life, from stars to man, is derived. Are these Cats made from the radioactive echo from that mysterious period prior to our people's creation?
If so, that terrified her, and she, with Mary, paused between the slit of the hut, but for a moment. A good will, once revved, is tremendously difficult to obstruct. One body and two souls entangled themselves from their fear and welcomed the drizzling light of the studded gods, and the maternal Eastern moon.
She must know. She must get to the bottom of this or sew her lips shut till she parts this land for the deeper dark of the Underearth. She must know, she transmitted to her toes and soles. Her feet accepted the challenge, she blinked, and both she and Mary the ghost were now behind the teepee.
Staring at nothing. The thick chaos-song abated abruptly, and seemed farther out now, closer to a copse of black trees, about the distance of ten men lying lengthwise on the dirt, toes to the village, heads to the source of madness.
Black streaks of frozen lightning reached out to a cold, uncaring sky, its various fingers framed in an aura of moonlight. Behind a trunk here-and-there some segment of a feline entity was alluded. Their fear had turned stimuli. One floated, one walked, both blankly.
Upon touching bark, black Mali, slowly, urged an eye to peep. Mary, not that brave a little girl, cowered behind the thin physicality. The auditory virus contaminated the wind, and it seemed to lent it teeth. The journey of their eyes continued...their imaginations running wild...their hearts like drums as played by a man possessed...the journey of their eyes continued...
Children's faces topped cats' bodies. At each pause these children's faces reverted back to feline form, whiskers, glassy eyes and all. When they opened their maws again to belt it out, their faces went through a rapid process of physical transformation, all in under a second.
The body suddenly had an urge to run. The ghost wanted to evaporate. The two stayed put, and ate up the aural and visual monster-fest. A few feet adjacent to the fidgeting chorus a woman in purple and gold robe orchestrated with one hand. Mary thought the movement of her wrists were beautiful, and her mind dulled, craved sleep.
Sleep would ellude Mary for a while. Another aspect was brought to her attention: a boy knelt at the foot of the priestly master-mind. It was recognized by the other as one of the tribe's. The boy was naked, pawing himself from the sharp nips of the African wind. One perpetually called a "good boy."
Bits of information escaped the Mali and, mysteriously, was received by Mary the ghost. Which she found interesting: process and fact. The fact, of course, whose value in irony is golden, did not register.Dainty skulls--as found in small mammals--were in a circle around three parties. The chorus, which wriggled, disassembled anxiously, re-assembled impatiently, and so on, all the while translating their perverse souls into vomitous vibrations. A naked boy about their age in a pile, whose body, bones and skin contorted violently in place. His back was to them. His crazily bobbing head obviously mutedly screaming. The third was a woman...in a sense. Certainly the most evident is the size. She was a giantess. Broad shoulders like beams of stell, sinewy mucscle-group separations are flaunted and displayed at arm, legs, torso. She was an athlete. Probably was the first Olympian, Mary mused. Secondly, she was striped. Black blades sporadically drawn which at some points merged to form "Xs". This was not paint. These were natural traits. The rest of the skin was jaundiced. Thirdly, she wore as armor perhaps, four skulls of children. All of which the backs of have been detached. Two skull-faces rested on her deltoids. Armor-decoration. Two framed her breasts. Decoration-armor. Her nails were as long as her fingers, each one intimidating like a warlock's wand. Into finer points of her detail: Her eyes were closed, her expression recalled Mary's father's face when listening to Wagner, an expression of the yin-yang variety. Melancholy and ecstasy. Both arms were busy. Flailing with elegance, the left directed at the chorus, the right at the naked child in intense pain. Both directing, sculpting, composing, in quite an off-hand manner the building of the "music" and the breaking down of the boy.
All this in one swig of the eye. Their minds gave without much fight. A dense fugue was served, and their delicate sensibilities were shattered. The medicine-woman's daughter tripped forward and hit dirt hard. Mary the ghost fluttered, fell on her companion. It looked as if the tatooed girl was smoking.
Her left wrist maintained the maniacal bloom of the thickening chorus, while very delicately her eyes began to reveal themselves. An effervescence of emerald issued forth from the cornea.
Mary, regaining control, willed herself up. Her beads clicked when she rose, as well. Their contact has given the dark, little one a peripheral awareness of another, as yet unseen being, present and watching over. She took this to mean that her gods have responded.
The motions of her right wrist left the paining boy at ther feet, whose transformations continued regardless, and it beckoned in the diretion of the two new guests.
Her eyes were fully open now, and huge. In a green splendour it promoted warmth with abandon. They were cat's eyes.
Unconsciously, the pair have begun to classify her. They did not know just at the moment, but the title they were looking for, the only title appropriate, would be: Queen-Goddesss.
Her padded feet draped forward; in a few swishes arrived at the edge of the circle of skulls. All the while, a wand of claw made cyclic movements of invitation.
Mary thought the invitation from the finger menacing, and she is certain Mali--the black girl's name--agreed. Was it magic or a dangerous sort of curiosity? They were unsure, but their limbs chose to accept it, and proceeded reluctantly toward the hostess of the night.
Mary's amorphousness lessened, she became more visible. A mist with a face. Four eyes were locked by two; two enormous, attractive, motherly eyes. They walked slowly toward her, with care.
She was naked except for a furry material covering up her lower privates. They did not note this, as their suspicious walk brought them closer to the Queen-Goddess. Another, newer detail escaped them: the fur was moving...entangling...forming into her tail. A voluptous, golden-haired tail unveiled her and rose, like a cobra in assessment, then descended as if recognizing the tresspassers as visitors, even guests.
They stopped at the skull-circle. Mary hovering still. Mali's chin was rubbed by the tail, with pleasure and friendliness. Her right hand closed in on Mary's, which solidified further. Now their fingers interlaced. She spoke to Mary, welcomed her in this world, and asked if it intrigued her enough to stay longer.
Mary said she doesn't believe so, not that there was anything wrong where she is at the moment. The Queen-Goddess smiled subtly. Her tail now rubbed the back of Mali's neck. She nodded at her, in recognition. Was I suppose to understand this? questioned Mali to herself--she is not familiar with this goddess.
"Why don't you come in?" It was an order posed as a question, for her hand was pulling Mary, and her tail Mali. Their collective will objected, their mutinous limbs obliged. They moved slowly inward...
Mali's foot took an eternity to land. Mary's misty physique took its time too...Queen-Goddesses have the patience of suns.
There, she purred, good girls...
As soon as they were within the circle of skulls they vanished.
iiii. BAST'S WILL
Vision returned, their eyelids struggled with cobwebs. The darkness was profound and syrupy like molasses. Once their sight oriented accordingly it was ascertained the ceiling was right above them, their misty--yet still nerve-sensitive backs--affirmed so. It was a long, long corridor, and felt like a tomb for some giant's Nile-length leg. Either end was punctuated by an explosion of calicified blackness. Mali, a ghost now too, comes to realize the existence of Mary. Mary was about to rip an assuring smile, but what happened next did not afford them time for pleasantries--
The bricks on the walls vibrated. Dust rained. A thunderous, rolling flood of velocity was approaching from one deep end. A stampede? Of what? Monsters? Cat-demons? Warriors of Hell? Mary looked to Mali, Mali shaked her head then nodded towards the arriving, raging din.
Tips of light emerged, countless heads of bobbing fireballs. The two by instinct held hands fast, descended diagonally toward the coming raid of light. They have locked eyes with a Queen-Goddess, they've witnessed a purity of evil behind a thin curtain of emerald brightness, could this parade of fire match up to that twisted brilliance? They thought not, and flew downward faster.
They were but torches, held by mere men. Several columns of burly, mostly young, bald men. A brand-new coat every few seconds bled from external glands which mingled with the already sticky initial coating of day-old sun-fried sweat. It reeked, added a volatile character to the air. Closer and faster they dived, through clouds of smoke and man-smell. They may not be ordinary men, surely they must be possessed! If not by demons or wicked spirits certainly by an intense and deep and ancient madness accessible to us all.
It shone in their eyes. Closer still they fell, until they went through them--Ethiopia, Libya, Nubia, Asia, even Europe was represented here and there. Hundreds of consciousnesses were made privy to their sensitive, adventurous, little minds, and at once their understanding shot-up a hundredfold. The agile experience hit too acutely the mental faculties, it seemed a fever had broken out at central point, and had begun to spread itself exponentially. They unlocked their fingers and shot up into the musky air.
The fever dissipated. They were now initiated with knowledge. A knowledge they wished they could deposit somewhere far, dark, earthy and moist, and leave its formal cremation to idea-eating crows. But no...they had not the stomach to forget. Knowledge, they knew somewhere in their heart of hearts, be it benign or malignant, was inherently good.
They returned their attention to the united, roaring columns of slavery. It may not be too late--the two, practically one in mind, as most girls are at an age, bolted to the front of the charging, starving phallus. Intent on changing the mind of the pack leaders.
The columns sped like blood in a vessel, and shortly were able to discern the gate of their x-spot. The phallic entity slowed to a trot, a march, then a walk, and when the first members entered they were practically stepping on glass. The monstrous corridor opened to an immense dome, tiered. On each level, floor to top, a ring of pillows were positioned side-by-side, and above each one: a beautiful, innocent, sleeping feline.
At the center, stood a pyramid, with steps of gold on all four sides. A quarter of its base protruded and created a landing, the suface with which Egypt's pantheon strutted righteously in a stiff parade. From the landing the pyramid rose and its summit flourished into a dramatic throne. The back of the throne was dominated by a disc, representing Ra--on each side of the throne's base and Ra was poised a cobra in sentinelship. The seat itself was organic in its style and form, encrusted heiroglyphics tell stories of a Queen-Goddess. All, rendered in solid gold.
Our witnesses were expressed from off the wall above the entrance. Several members climbed up with strained reverence to the throne, their torches high. The light of the flames bounced from Ra, providing central lighting.
The rest of the slave-force extinguished their torches with sand, from pouches. Their faces messed up, fists were contracted, relaxed, and contracted, etc...the aura of their eyes were a bloody hue. Mary and Mali looked at each other: What could they do?
They tried anyway. They locked in on a leader each, and willed a communication with them. The design progressed without incident. Communications were down. Possibly at any other normal situation they would have succeeded--but this was the last straw for them. Even slaves have a breaking point. Revolution is the product of children abused.
This knowledge was communicated to their young souls; their minds had yet to catch up. But, presently, they desisted, hovered back, and watched the result of grotesque mismanagement. Pharaohs are bad parents, they concluded. And along that line of thought...which they both chose not to touch...was a question: were all parents bad?
Full details are not neccessary, yet details will persist on to the surface of this quick sketch of the feverous event. Beside each feline lay a bowl, gold and inscribed with their name in Egyptian graphics. Some heads were bashed in with these bowls, some heads were bashed in with the clubs the torches were made from. A number had flints which were purchased in feline throats, bellies, and faces. Each time a cat died, Sekte, a wood-colored lynx with green ears, for example, she reverted back to life in a manner of seconds. And attacked. She was killed again and again, seven times, actually, then she stopped moving. And so forth with the rest. Some were being eaten between their first and last death; Ishta, a small Bengal tiger with chrome stripes, for example, was thoroughly chagrined by it. The ending was a feast, and soon a sleep. Snoring, round-bellied men, dreaming of nothing, the oppressive pharoah-decreed starvation over. Their souls intact, their conscience sound. The god of their pharoah dead. They slept.
As in any war, there are always survivors. There were in this one too. Just under ten in over a hundred. They walked quietly, careful not to wake the terrible, sleeping giants. Every now and then they would stop, drop their heads and pick up a morsel of their comrades. These cats went all around and about their attackers, finishing up the left-overs. Till the dome was as clean as their hides. At the end of the scavenging they all converged onto Ra. At the seat of the throne they began biting, clawing, tearing each others fur and flesh. In pristine silence they labored. Amidst snoring and the hemoglobin-perfumed air, they strove.
Mary and Mali were possessed to vomit, but all they had in their bellies were cloud.
They were working to enter each others skin, and after a time, succeeded. Fur fell in clumps over the golden throne and pyramidal steps. Skin was being sewed using plucked sinews and whiskers. Claws were being extracted to act as clips. They all of them were transforming, coagulating into a larger, scarier entity. Blood in rivulets filled the canals of inscription, and splatter embellished the already dramatic throne.
Beauty was birthed from the madness. Queen-Goddess sat on her throne, coolly licking her wounds. The surroundings, and recent events did not interest her. She stood up casually, turned and opened a secret compartment in the throne. The object stored within she placed firmly on her head. It was the Double Crown of Egypt.
She could have killed every one of them. The notion lacked style. The big picture was considered, and art as a creative weapon nursed both her motive and inclinations. She decided on a curse. Something grand and eternal, which will occupy all her time, for she had lots of it now.
The Queen-Goddess walked gracefully down the pyramid, every step part of a longer goodbye, till she was out and free from the temple, returning to the desert to ponder and plan and heal her heart.
Sand blinded Mali and Mary, and the moment after they were back under Africa's night, and were hovering over the boy, now half-cat. Mali's neighbor, the "good boy".
My children were innocent and pure, She said. These children...(a red wand motioned to the half-cat, half-boy) these good boys...are not so pure and innocent but they will do. This is my gift to mankind.
She looked at them meaningfully. Mary could not take its power, and was knocked out. Mali had a revelation. She thought she saw her mother in Bast.
Light and gravity fled, and Mary was lost and tumbling in the black mucous of the canals between what we call reality and what we term as dream. Space-time is unravalled here and all experience past, present and future, are frozen cocktails kept in a trillion syringes all vying to pierce the skin of your consciousness in the hopes of thawing its contained existence into a dynamic living memory, thereby jetting verve into you and asserting their specific moment's reality. In this round shots from the future dominated, as follows (chronicled here in a clearer manner than how Mary experienced):
At 28 Mary will record her husband's infidelity for the first time. From 29 to 47 she would have several lovers at a time at her beck and call. She kept her figure comely til that age, and on her 48th birthday she decided to carry on just one love, with Epicurus. Subsequently she enrolled in a culinary institute and upon graduation established a bakery with library packaged like a Starbucks. Her husband provided the capital; she did not pay him back. But her husband was good, over all. He was a good man, as good as a man can get; a fair man. Her husband never learned of her affairs. She was absolute in her discreetness, having a deep understanding of the male ego, and ego in general. He stopped cheating before she did. When Mary began she disregarded her husband's frolics; keeping count, to her, was bad manners.
Mary taught her kids to cut a piece of meat anyway they wanted to, whenever they wanted/needed to. And she always excused them when they asked to be excused at the dining table...
iiiii. MALKUTH'S DEATH
"Jesus Christ, cats kept me up all night--they were most singular and absurd, I thought I was suffering a nightmare, but no, I stood up and hunted them down--they were not to be seen, yet as sure as I stand here I tell they were just right outside my bedroom window. I was certain madness would follow if it weren't for morning. Hmph," an ejaculation in under a second. "Frank you look unperturbed. And you! Define that smirk. What are you--Did you have something to do with this, Mary? Speak up, child, and look at me in the eye when you speak."
"...I just want to say," she smirked once more, "I told you so."
The 'I told you so' line may work a cute magic when potrayed by mothers and daughters in movies but its effect is less sustainable when put upon a myopic behemoth of narrowmindedness like mother. Mary was scolded as she orderly prepared her waffles and sausages and cream on her plate, as she consumed these delectable morning items, as well as over juice, and over the drinking of cold water afterwards, as she brushed her teeth, which was only cut short by Danny closing the car door.
Displayed like a treasure on the rearview mirror, Danny noted, was a very precious smile, riding happily to school. Consequently, a happy sound issued from the smile.
"Are you humming," asked Danny.
The cats stopped singing.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
bk
Bong Kampeon is an ordinary boy with an extraordinary curiosity. His eyes are huge, like captured planets where its little inhabitants are all crazy-curious.
Bong's room, as most rooms, except for the masterbedroom (heartshape), is shaped like a long bean, cells all in an oblong-shaped one-story, one basement, one tower home (the praying space). The design was conceptualized by the Babaylan Committee on Architecture, spearheaded by Chief-Babaylan Sallan, who sparked inspiration when he challenged: "We must think in curves and circles--do you see any squares out there? No, because they're not beautiful. Squares are for animal traps. Our homes must mirror the beautiful, intelligent universe."
Aling B's eyes are black lines under hairy arches.
Bong's room, as most rooms, except for the masterbedroom (heartshape), is shaped like a long bean, cells all in an oblong-shaped one-story, one basement, one tower home (the praying space). The design was conceptualized by the Babaylan Committee on Architecture, spearheaded by Chief-Babaylan Sallan, who sparked inspiration when he challenged: "We must think in curves and circles--do you see any squares out there? No, because they're not beautiful. Squares are for animal traps. Our homes must mirror the beautiful, intelligent universe."
Aling B's eyes are black lines under hairy arches.
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