by Clive Barker
“What’s the big deal about stories?” she said.
“You love them,” he said, his gaze leaving her face and slipping down to the water. The glowing forms she’d seen rising from below were within a few fathoms of the surface now. The water was beginning to simmer with their presence. “You do, don’t you?” he said.
“I suppose I do,” she said.
“That’s what the connections are, Tesla.”
“Stories?”
“Stories. And every life, however short, however meaningless it seems, is a leaf—”
“A leaf.”
“Yes, a leaf.” He looked up at her again, and waited, unspeaking, until she grasped the sense of what he was saying.
“On the story tree,” she said. He smiled. “Lives are leaves on the story tree.”
“Simple, isn’t it?” he said. The bubbles were breaking all around them now, and the surface was no longer glacial enough to bear him up. He started to sink into the water; slowly, slowly. “I’m afraid I have to go,” he said. “The ‘shu have come for me. Why do you look so unhappy?”
“Because it’s too late,” she said. “Why did I have to wait until now to know what I was supposed to do?”
“You didn’t need to know. You were doing it.”
“No I wasn’t,” she said, distressed now. “I never got to tell a story I gave a damn about.”
“Oh but you did,” he said. He was almost gone from sight now.
“What story was that?” she begged him, determined to get an answer before he disappeared. “What?”
“Your own,” he told her, slipping from sight. “Your own.”
Then he was gone.
She stared down into the bubbling water, and saw that the creatures he’d called the ‘shu—which resembled cuttlefish as far as she could see, and were congregated below her in their many millions—were describing a vast spiral around the sinking man, as though drawing him down into their midst.
From Paradise Street
CAROLINE STEPS FORWARD: THE ROOM DISAPPEARS BEHIND HER.
SHE SPEAKS TO THE AUDIENCE.
CAROLINE: I had this dream. I was in my mother’s kitchen. I was only small. She was cutting open a fish. I’d seen her do it a hundred times. Our family was very fond of fish. She took a sharp knife and slit it open. And my father, who was leaning on the sink with a glass of dark beer, beer froth on his mustache, my father laughed. My mother reached into the guts of the fish she’d cut open and pulled out another fish. But this one—dreams are strange, aren’t they?— this one was bigger, much bigger than the first, wet and shining and alive. It smelled fresh: of the sea, of the deep sea, of the dark sea. My father throws his glass of beer into the sink, and before we can help him, the living fish has leaped out of my mother’s hand and eaten him up, in our kitchen. I woke up right then. I swear I was smiling. CAROLINE EXITS.
From The History of the Devil
THE DEVIL HOLDS UP A FILTHY, PATCHED-UP BOOK.
CATHARINE LAMB: WHAT IS THAT?
THE DEVIL: The diary of Jesus Christ.
POPPER: Diary?
THE DEVIL: In his own hand: given to me at Golgotha, by his far from virginal mother. There is in it a passage relating to me —
POPPER: Prosecution? What are your views on this?
CATHARINE LAMB: It could be a forgery.
THE DEVIL: M’lord, it would not be wise for a creature in my condition, knowing I’m overlooked by Heaven, to present to the Court a forgery. If this book is not the true word of God’s son, may I be struck down now. (He waits, watching the sky) See?
POPPER: Well?
CATHARINE LAMB: By all means, let’s have the evidence. It was the episode in the desert I was interested in.
THE DEVIL: (Smiling) It’s here. It’s all here.
POPPER: Milo. Do you want to read it to the Court?
MILO MILO: (Taking the book) Where from?
THE DEVIL: Below the wine stain.
MILO MILO: (Reads) It was hot. My hair went yellow. I met a lion. I met another lion. I saw two baboons having a fuck. When I was in the desert four weeks, I was hungry. I was being chased. I ran away, but they chased me. I was thirsty. I met a man —
THE SCENE CHANGES. THE COURT DISAPPEARS. WE’RE IN A BLAZING DESERT ENTER THE DEVIL, CLOSELY PURSUED BY JESUS CHRIST, WHO CARRIES TWO SHARPENED STICKS.
CHRIST: Don’t move.
THE DEVIL: (Raising his arms in surrender) I’m past moving. Impale me.
CHRIST: No tricks.
THE DEVIL: Me, tricks?
CHRIST: And if you see the little blue wheels, tell me. Empty your pockets.
THE DEVIL: Nothing.
CHRIST: You must have some food.
THE DEVIL: You’re right, I must have some food.
CHRIST: I’ll take pork.
THE DEVIL: I’ll take it first.
CHRIST: What sort of world is this?
THE DEVIL: An empty one, inside and out. What’s your name?
CHRIST: Jesus Christ. The Nazarene.
THE DEVIL: I heard of you, down south.
CHRIST: I’m famous; that’s why the blue wheels are after me.
THE DEVIL: My friend, you are suffering from hallucinations.
CHRIST: You think I don’t know that? Before you fade away, scratch my back.
THE DEVIL: Anything for a fellow Messiah. (He obliges)
CHRIST: Higher: left: left: there. You say you’re a Messiah, too?
THE DEVIL: Yes.
CHRIST: That’s why I’m here: to purify myself. If I could only stop itching.
THE DEVIL: Ticks.
CHRIST: Nits, ticks, fleas. But you have to go among the multitudes.
THE DEVIL: Do you want to put those sticks down?
CHRIST: Any good at hunting? I’ve seen lizards. Do you think lizard’s kosher?
THE DEVIL: Everything’s kosher in desperation. Moses ate his mother.
Mama from heaven.
CHRIST: (Outraged) I wouldn’t eat my mother.
THE DEVIL: (Pained by his lack of humor) No, I didn’t mean —
CHRIST: That’s not very kind.
THE DEVIL: No, it isn’t.
CHRIST: I think I ought to tell you, you may as well as go home. I’m the Messiah.
THE DEVIL: I think not.
CHRIST: They love me.
THE DEVIL: Cautionary tales. Coins, rainbows: it’s not sufficient to win the world, Jesus.
CHRIST: (Like a child) Well, we’ll fight it out, then.
THE DEVIL: No.
CHRIST: Come on: fight me.
THE DEVIL: I don’t want to fight.
CHRIST: Fight! Fight!
THE DEVIL DOESN’T MOVE, SO CHRIST ATTACKS HIM. THE DEVIL QUICKLY WRESTLES HIM TO THE FLOOR.
CHRIST: I won’t give up. I won’t, you hear me? I won’t!
THE DEVIL: What would it take to dissuade you?
CHRIST: I’m the Messiah.
THE DEVIL: I could give you a great deal.
CHRIST: Like what?
THE DEVIL: I’ve got contacts. Solomon’s wife is in the family. People in power all across the known world. I could give you cities.
CHRIST: Rome?
THE DEVIL: It might be arranged. But you’d have to give up your pretensions to Messiahdom.
CHRIST: I couldn’t do that.
THE DEVIL: What a pity. (He takes out rope)
CHRIST: What’s that for? (Realizes) You can’t kill me.
THE DEVIL: Who’s to see?
CHRIST: My father. Didn’t I tell you? My father in Heaven. I’m the Son of God.
THE DEVIL: What?
CHRIST: So I wouldn’t try to hurt me: unless—you wanted to do it in public.
THE DEVIL: Strangle you?
CHRIST: No, no. But the time’s coming when I have to make an exit.
THE DEVIL: Why?
CHRIST: I’m running out of stories. And I’m tired. So I’ll have to die. You could arrange it.
THE DEVIL: No.
C
HRIST: A terrible death.
THE DEVIL: I’m not an executioner.
CHRIST: The worst death imaginable.
THE DEVIL: Torn apart by dogs.
CHRIST: Too messy: I don’t want to be resurrected in pieces. I must be marked but … intact.
THE DEVIL: Run over by a horse?
CHRIST: It could be comic. No, I want something spectacular. On a hill. A good view. A sunset. Clouds.
THE DEVIL: Crucifixion.
CHRIST: Everyone gets that. They do it to sodomites these days. Half of Israel should be up there. Isn’t there something they do in the East with hooks through the skin? Swing you round a pole on hooks? Takes days. And so unusual.
THE DEVIL: I don’t know of it.
CHRIST: Damn.
THE DEVIL: You’ll have to compromise.
CHRIST: What? Crucifixion?
THE DEVIL: Unless we think of something better.
CHRIST: (Grabs the Devil) Will you promise me? Promise you’ll arrange it.
THE DEVIL: Yes, I promise.
CHRIST: (With relish) I want to be publicly flogged. I must be bloodied, humiliated, reduced to a wounded, whimpering animal. Something on the head —
THE DEVIL: Roses —
CHRIST: Or some such. I’ll be naked, hung up there like a slab of meat, then the clouds’ll boil, lions roar, perhaps an earthquake, and I’ll die. And they’ll all know what they did, killing me—you promise you’ll do it?
THE DEVIL: I told you, yes. Sure as God made little apples.
CHRIST: Good man. Now get thee behind me.
THE DEVIL: Why?
CHRIST: You’re in my way.
EXIT JESUS, AT A RUN, LEAVING THE DEVIL BEMUSED AND EXHAUSTED THE COURT REAPPEARS.
THE DEVIL: (To the audience) I kept my word. There was a demon called Carreau posing as a Roman governor. He had the man crucified. I was there. He saw me in the crowd: instructed his mother to give me the diary. Even thanked me. He was quite changed: sick looking, thinking better of it. But he got his roses.
POPPER: This makes him sound like an imbecile.
THE DEVIL: Oh no, I was the dupe. Here was me, thinking I was getting rid of a competitor, and in fact I was stage managing his apotheosis. I tell you, when I saw them fall down on their knees at Golgotha, I wept. I was tricked, tricked!—and you called me the Father of Lies. You put me on trial while he goes free. He gets a cult to himself, but my synagogue is blasphemy. When I think …
A DIN OF SUPPORT HAS RISEN FROM THE DEMONS IN THE EARTH.
POPPER: Order in the Court! Please! Please! (To the Devil) Will you hush your faction?
THE DEVIL: (He puts his fingers to his lips. The din quietens.) The earth was given to me: remember that. I was to be Prince of the World. But now, it was Christian. Though I was an exile, they found me everywhere. Here’s the Devil, they said, possessing pigs and small boys. Ha! Here’s the Devil, they said, in everything diseased and putrescent. The world rose against me. Everywhere: slandered, my works twisted, my ambitions destroyed and my face dragged in fear and loathing.
SAM KYLE: Could we have a recess?
POPPER: No!
THE DEVIL: That’s right: no sympathy for the Devil.
POPPER: Sit down!
THE DEVIL: Do you know how difficult it is not to believe what people say about you? Not to become your own publicity? Be thankful, Felix Popper, I’m not the Devil you think I am, because if I were, if I once believed the image of myself, I’d devour you.
POPPER: Order! Order!
THE DEVIL: Judgment! Judgment!
POPPER: Sit down!
FROM THE EARTH, THE DEMONS CHANT: “JUDGMENT! JUDGMENT!”
POPPER: Order! Order! Silence your faction or I’ll throw them out of Court!
THE DEVIL: They’ve been thrown out of finer places.
From Sacrament
It was very simple. Sherwood, poor Sherwood, was dead, sprawled there on the floor, and his murderer was standing here right in front of Will, and there was a knife in Will’s hand, trembling to be put to its purpose. It didn’t care that Steep had once been its owner; it only wanted to be used. Now; quickly! Never mind that the flesh it would be butchering belonged to the man who’d treated it like a holy relic. All that mattered was to glint and glitter in the deed; to rise and fall and rise again red.
“Have you come to give that back to me?” Steep said.
Will could barely fumble a reply, his mind was so filled with the knife’s advertisements for its skills. How it would lop off Steep’s ears and nose; reduce his beauty to a wound. He sees you still? Scoop out his eyes! His screams distress you? Cut out his tongue!
They were terrible thoughts; sickening thoughts. Will didn’t want them. But they kept coming.
Steep on his back now, naked. And the knife opening his chest—one, two—exposing his beating heart. You want his nipples for souvenirs? Here! Something more intimate perhaps? Meat for the fox —
And before Will knew what he was doing, his hand was up, the knife exalting. It would have opened Steep’s face to the bone a moment later had Steep not reached up and caught the blade in his fist. Oh it stung him; even him. His perfect lips curled in pain, and a hiss came between his perfect teeth; a soft hiss that died into a sigh, as he expelled every vestige of air.
Will attempted to pull the knife out of his grip. Surely it would slice the sheath of Steep’s palm, and free itself; its edges were too keen to be contained. But it didn’t move. He tugged again, harder. Still it didn’t move. And again he pulled; but still Steep held it fast.
Will’s eyes flickered from the knife to his enemy’s face. Steep had not drawn breath since he’d exhaled his sigh; he was staring at Will, his mouth open a little way, as though he were about to speak.
Then, of course, he inhaled. It was no common breath; no simple summoning of air. It was Steep’s reprise of what had happened on the hill, thirty years before, except that this time he was the one commanding the moment, unknitting the world around them. It flickered out on the instant, the floor seeming to fall away beneath their feet, so that Will and Steep seemed to hang above a velvet immensity, connected only by the blade.
“I want you to share this with me,” Steep said softly, as though he had found a fine wine and was inviting Will to drink from the same cup. The darkness was solidifying beneath their feet: a roiling dust, ebbing, and flowing. But all around them otherwise, darkness. And above, darkness. No clouds; nor stars, nor moon.
“Where are we?” Will breathed, looking back at Steep. Jacob’s face was not as solid as it had been. The once smooth skin of his brow and cheek had become grainy, and the murk behind him seemed to be leaking through his eye. “Can you hear me?” Will wanted to know. But the face before him continued to lose coherence. And now, though Will knew this was just a vision, panic began to grow in him. Suppose Steep deserted him here, in this emptiness?
“Stay …,” he found himself saying, like a child afraid to be left alone in the dark. “Please stay …”
“What are you frightened of?” Steep said. The darkness had almost claimed his face entirely. “You can tell me.”
“1 don’t want to get lost,” Will replied.
“There’s no help for that,” Steep said. “Not unless we know our way to God. And that’s hard in this confusion. This sickening confusion.” Though his image had almost disappeared completely now, his voice remained, soft and solicitous. “Listen to that din …”
“Don’t go.”
“Listen,” Steep told him.
Will could hear the noise Steep was referring to. It wasn’t a single sound, it was a thousand, a thousand thousand, coming at him from every direction at once. It wasn’t strident, nor was it sweet or musical. It was simply insistent. And its source? That was coming, too, from all directions. Tidal multitudes of pale, indistinguishable forms, crawling toward him. No, not crawling: being born. Creatures spreading their limbs and purging themselves of infants that, even in the moment of their birth, were ung
luing their legs to be fertilized; and before their partners had rolled off them were spreading their limbs to expel another generation. And on; and on; in sickening multitudes, their mingled mewlings and sighings and sobs the din that Steep had said drowned out God.
It wasn’t hard for Will to fathom what he was witnessing. This was what Steep saw when he looked at living things. Not their beauty, not their particularity, just their smothering, deafening fecundity. Flesh begetting flesh, din begetting din. It wasn’t hard to fathom, because he’d thought it himself, in his darkest times. Seen the human tide advancing on species he’d loved—beasts too wild or too wise to compromise with the invader—and wished for a plague to wither every human womb. Heard the din and longed for a gentle death to silence every throat. Sometimes not even gentle. He understood. Oh Lord, he understood.
“Are you still there?” he said to Steep.
“Still here …,” the man replied.
“Make it go away.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do all these years,” Steep replied.
The rising tide of life was almost upon them, forms being born and being born, spilling around Will’s feet.
“Enough,” Will said.
“You understand my point of view?”
“Yes …”
“Louder.”
“Yes! I understand. Perfectly.”
The admission was enough to banish the horror. The tide retreated, and a moment later was gone entirely, leaving Will hanging in the darkness again.
“Isn’t this a finer place?” Steep said. “In a hush like this we might have a hope of knowing who we are. There’s no error here. No imperfection. Nothing to distract us from God.”
“This is the way you want the world?” Will murmured. “Empty?”
“Not empty. Cleansed.”
“Ready to begin again?”
“Oh no.”
“But it will. Steep. You might drive things into hiding for a while, but there’ll always be some mudflat you missed, some rock you didn’t lift. And life will come back. Maybe not human life. Maybe something better. But life, Jacob. You can’t kill the world.”
“I’ll reduce it to a petal,” Jacob replied, lightly. Will could hear the smile in the man’s voice as he spoke. “And God’ll be there. Plain. I’ll see Him, plain. And I’ll understand why I was made.” His face was starting to congeal again. There was the wide, pale brow, sheltering that deep, troubled gaze; the fine nose, the finer mouth.