Marshsong

by Nato Thompson

  Isabella smiled at the bizarre irony of it and clinked the glasses. “To Castilla,” she said. “May he reap what he sows.”

  Isabella doubled over coughing. Her stomach was a tangle of spiders. Her guts hurt her. Bruno had Conner get her some water and she sipped it, getting herself back together in the corner of the balcony. Her forehead moving from clammy to wet, she felt as though the excitement of the night was as exhilarating as it was draining on the little energy she had in the reserve tanks. Taking her mind off her fatigue, she stared over the plaza to witness the evening turn the page to the next chapter of the night.

  Suddenly a series of screams came rising up from the crowd and Isabella stared down the street to see the crowd separate. Running up the road came the lion tamer being chased by his lion. He was yelling madly and the lion was fast on his heels. The crowd shrieked in terror until the lion tackled the man. They rolled around together until the lion tamer at last, fed the lion a beer. It slurped at the can and the crowd applauded in joy.

  Their antics were interrupted by the appearance of a small ensemble of steel mill workers culled from the factories. They were visibly intoxicated as they teetered about on stage miming their daily routine on the job. Their aprons, leathers and faces were covered in grease, stains and oil, as they hammered away on imaginary steel beams. Their routine came with an accompanied song by the band where a singer sang low and deep into the microphone a reverberating, repeating cacophonous melody:

  I work and toil

  And the day is long

  By time to get off

  The day is gone

  I drink a big beer

  At end of day

  Gotta get up

  Toil at it again

  Tis a clumsy road

  Tis a dirty dozen game

  Tis a mired lot

  Tis a shame all the same

  The men worked in an awkward choreography that bordered on an it’s-so-bad-it’s-good aesthetic. Reflecting the kind of overly determined sloppiness, one expects from a children’s play the redeeming quality was that the men were having a grand ol’ time. They were a backdrop to a song, and it was a song the raucous crowd clearly related to. The song was hypnotic as well. A low, slow bluesy mood, it seduced the crowd from the up up ups of the previous band to the somber slowness of the steel town players. Their antics weres interrupted by the sound of feedback on the microphone.

  “Test test,” the shrill voice of Defne Revan pushed out across the crowd and filtered into the rowdy, swaying plaza. The steelworkers hobbled off of the stage with one of them simply throwing himself into the crowd. The crowd laughed as they caught him, his hairy belly gleaming in the spotlights that shot down. Waddling onto the stage emerged Defne Revan dressed in a large pink dress with a white bow sticking out of her hair. She made her way to center stage and adjusted her reading glasses to read her notes. Her excitement to be behind the microphone could not be more evident.

  “Ladies and Gentleman, boys and girls, welcome to the annual Barrenwood Festival. Please join me in thanking the Dirty Dozen for their incredible music!”

  The crowds roared in approval. Defne smiled and continued to read.

  “We are ever so glad to have you all at this great festivity. It has been the honor of the Mayor’s Auxiliary Cultural Committee to plan this for the entire year, and we couldn’t be happier with how things are going so far. And it is only the beginning, things are only going to heat up!”

  “More beer!” yelled a voice in the crowd.

  “Get off the stage, ya pink whale!” yelled another.

  Defne looked visibly thrown off by the insults coming from the hoard of people. Her notes slipped from her hand and they went flittering about onto the stage. An assistant ran out from the wings and helped her as she gathered them up. The crowd laughed at the momentary comedy. They were in no mood for the antics of the houses and her timing could not be worse.

  “Dear me,” guffed Bruno. “This poor woman had better hurry up.”

  Defne collected her notes in her wiggly fingers, adjusted her glasses and continued. “Without much further ado, I would like to invite to the stage the benefactor of our night and the greatest addition to the family: Sir Elinore Castilla!” Defne clapped furiously while the crowd looked on with boredom.

  Castilla wobbled up to the microphone. “On behalf of Gaventas Industries we want to say thank you to you the people of Barrenwood for being leaders of invention, leaders in innovation, leaders in the fight to make the world more industrious and profitable! You are the backbone of the future and we at Gaventas want this night to be a thank you to the people of this city.”

  A tomato flew up out of the crowd and landed to the side of Castilla as he spoke. Blood red vegetable matter exploded by his shiny Velonton shoes, the guts spreading in an array of mess and seeds.

  “Gaventas is a people eater! You can’t buy us off with your stupid party rich man!”

  The boos and insults began to swell up from the audience in a growing cacophony of anger. What had started with jabs at Defne were turning into a more profound polis of inebriation. Castilla frowned from behind his long black moustache. He dropped the microphone onto the stage and the thud could be heard quite audibly reverberating across the plaza. He stormed off, his feet pounding down in percussion. The show took a sudden pause as no music played nor person held the microphone. The quiet in the storm.

  The stage manager tried his best to cajole Defne Revan back onto the stage as planned, but she planted her feet, refusing to face the antics of the unruly hoard. Her arms were crossed and her face scrunched up tight as a squeegee. The din of the crowd quickly filled the void as the sound of laughter and yelling began to once again fill the air.

  Suddenly, a shrill shriek rose up that grew in volume, overwhelming all jokes and jibes. It was a piercing laughter that put the hair on end and sent shivers across the crowd and those on stage as well. It was a squeal from another world—a primordial hysteria with amplitude and perverse conviction. Isabella knew it all too well. It was the shrill pig sound of her most demonic brother.

  Chapter 29

  “Up here, you imbeciles! Up up, ascend your eyes on high toward the heavens. Let us remember that you dirty rats are soil bound in oh so every way.”

  Isabella turned her attention to the blue tarp top of the statue where Fennel gingerly stood, his hand on a large microphone, his small body holding onto what must be the statue’s hat. He was as usual in all black, the light glistening off the shine on his tie and top hat. He waved down at the crowd, the microphone sending a wailing sound of feedback. His face was all smile and wickedness.

  “Oh, if I had a tomato, I would throw it back at you! A bunch of rot for you sods, I say. You deserve what you get, ya drunk bunch of munchkins.” Fennel pointed down at the crowd. “Ya chased that fat pink toad off the stage, but from my vantage point, you all are sort of a fat toad, now ain’t ya? All of you, Barrenwood, every last worrywart out there—tired, beat down and boring to boot. You look down at a gutter rat and spend ya days hemming and hawing, but ya just a big mass of no nothing. Dum dums every last one of ya. Looking down at this circus, I would feel sympathy if I couldn’t stop laughing my little belly. You’re a pie of pride and saturated fats is what ya are.”

  And with that, Fennel pulled a tomato out of his pocket and tossed it mockingly down below. It went splat in the center of Ellingdale Plaza.

  The crowd stared up at him hypnotically. He was a peculiar sight to say the least—a tiny child reprimanding the entire populace of a city with a Cheshire smile so broad and bright, his rhythm and rhymes captivating in the extreme as they tangled up in the minds of the masses.

  Isabella heard Conner gasp and she looked over to see her host turn a ghostly pale.

  “Not him,” she heard him whisper almost to his inner soul. The words in him stirred just the tiniest bit of water and Isabella took it in through the air. Fennel’s antics did have their rewards. He stood up on high and continue
d in grandiloquent fashion.

  “But let's not waste time on idle discourse, right, my friends? Let's dig into this soil as tonight is a night to remember and cheer.”

  The stage manager, standing next to Defne, tried his best to turn off the volume on Fennel’s microphone but strangely to no avail. For whatever reason, the microphone seemed to be powering itself. As Fennel went on, the stage manager had to suffer through the hysterical whispers of Defne Revan.

  “Get him off there! He wasn’t supposed to do this! This was not the agreement!”

  At what seemed long last, as it was all happening in a matter of seconds, the stage manager mustered his courage and marched onto the stage with the microphone. He did his best to out speak Fennel, his voice competing for airtime against the whiny sound of the child reprimanding from on high.

  “Thanks so much, sir. And now ladies and gentlemen . . . ” the stage manager said, doing his best to appear officious and in control.

  But Fennel wouldn’t have it and the look in his eye was of one glad to have an obstacle to untangle. Instead of competing for sound, he merely wailed into the microphone. “Gaspar Mathers. Can you hear me, Gaspar Mathers?”

  The stage manager's eyes widened at the sound of his name being broadcast so absurdly loud. He did his best to ignore it but had to finally relent, “What? What is it you want, good sir?”

  Fennel laughed and did a dance on the top of the statue. “Ha-ha, good sir. I like the sound of that. Now it just isn’t polite to speak on top of me.”

  “Well, it isn’t polite to speak on . . . ”

  “Hush hush, Gaspar, it is my turn now. My volume switch goes to eleven and yours I’m afraid only goes to ten. So be a good boy and admit defeat. Now you see I have you at an unfair disadvantage. I know you, Gaspar. Or come on, let's speak frankly shall we, I know you, Bill Upton.”

  Gaspar Mathers or Bill Mather’s face went white as a ghost. His body froze as though he had just been placed in a freezer. Isabella sensed yet another Fennel surprise.

  “Ha-ha, I thought that would get your attention. You know, when I use my little tricks I always hope it is someone like you. Someone deep deep deep in a lie so kind. I can sense you all the way up here. The good news is that all in all you are a good man, so congratulations. I mean you no ill. I truly don’t. But would the truth hurt really? In the long run? It would be good for you.”

  Bill Upton looked up, his face confused and terrified.

  “Ladies and gentleman of Barrenwood, I present to you Bill Upton who changed his name to Gaspar Mathers. Some of you might remember him as a child. Where did he go? So many people ask that, don’t they? He is here! A man who has worked himself up into the ranks of the nobility, but whose birthright is with you people down in the District of Jed. His mother went mad. Poor thing. And his father remains a hardworking cobbler. He is still alive. Yes, Gaspar, he is still alive! He may be in the crowd right now! Oh, but you pretend now, don’t you, boring Bill? You like to tell the likes of your new community that you are from an upper crust family out in Ipswich. And you relish telling jokes with them at the expense of the people you grew up with. Now ain’t that some ugly business? What a pity. You just want to be loved now, don’t you, my little popper?”

  The crowd began to boo and Gaspar felt as though he might faint. Why had he gone out front? He was always meant to be behind the scenes. He shuffled off the stage as quickly as possible with the crowd laughing and booing at the same time. Fennel found the entire thing amusing and continued to dance on the small top of his statue.

  “Test, test. Yes, this still works. Poor Bill. Don’t be mad at him. He is just like you. I can tell. I have a knack for reading people. But not just individuals. I can read a mob, too. I can read your collective palm. Now does anyone else want to interrupt my night of glory?” Fennel looked out over the crowd and for the briefest pause in time the plaza was stone cold quiet.

  “Okay, now where was I? Right, so I made a gift for you and yours. It’s a lil' ditty carved out of the rough-hewn logs of the underbelly of dreams. It's that strange familiar feeling you get when you admit—admit whatever. Anger is the complacent’s replacement for embarrassment. Don’t be afraid to be dumb, because to do otherwise is to pretend you’re something you’re not. You slobber your epithets tonight and with good reason and little direction. Here and there none of you knows which way is up. But I am up. I am up here. Looking down on you in oh so many ways. I am reminding you, because alas that is my forlorn tragic job, to simply tell you who and what you are. And you, my sad sack o’ the masses, are pathetic in the extreme. Ladies and gentleman, I present to you, The Toil!”

  And with those final words Fennel leapt off the statue, grabbing the edge of the tarp. It unfurled off the enormous pale green stone statue as he lithely landed on the stage. The tarp fluttered in the air as a parachute slowly but surely descending toward terra firma, revealing the monstrosity that resided beneath.

  The crowd went silent. On the balcony where Isabella sat, she heard the gasp of guests—their collective eyes all taking in the enormous stone statue that rose up five stories and loomed over the crowd.

  It was hideous. A sad, weeping aged man, wrinkled and suffering from work, leaned onto his crutch, his eyes on a distant horizon. His tattered clothes hung off his body in rags and his cock-eyed hat rested sideways on his head. The weight of the old man’s body split between his cane and his right foot that planted itself firmly on an elderly woman’s head that lay beneath him, crouched as a child smiling madly. The man’s face was dumb, his expression confused and eyes wistful with tears as though he were too stupid to know the difference. The woman below his foot smiled as though this was all she ever wanted. In her arms, she held a child that she gripped with all her might, and the child was crying madly as though the world was the worst place in the world. It was gruesome and mean-spirited—a joke gone sour, a flatulent houseguest made of stone now residing in the center of the city.

  Isabella had to turn away. What she thought would be a moment of victory, was, in fact, a moment of horrifying brutality. She couldn’t stand it. The creepiness of this statue with its enormous scale escalated their mutual antics into a realm of grandeur that she was unaccustomed to. They always longed to bring to people’s attention their insufferable forgetting and denial, but upon seeing it, she hated it. She felt sympathy for the drunken mob as they eked out dreams under the gun. She knew they didn’t need this thrown in their face, but in their face it was. She hated the tragedy. The pathetic paradox. She hated its hatred and its putrid disdain.

  Despite her horror (or more accurately because of it), she felt the water come spilling into the air—the statue tearing off the scab of a collective wound—and the water came rolling into the night air. She could feel it entering her body, making her more vital and alive. She hated that she benefited so greatly from something she increasingly saw as insipid and sadistic. Isabella turned her eyes to the heavens. She could only admit in her heart what a terrible creature she must truly be.

  Perhaps she should go back to Le Chateau de Crawler and die quietly on the couch. Let the world disappear from her and the sorrows that she brought along with her in a handbag. Now she had her brother prancing about in the limelight. She couldn’t just leave that alone. Even if he was a vile beast, he was her kin. This was no corner he had crawled into. He had choreographed a sumptuous spotlight to bask in. The public eye focused on him and what he delivered was memorable in the extreme. In a split instance, he had changed all the rules of the game. Their proclivities in the shadows would never return. As much as she had hoped to escape the traps of Marty, she had never considered simply destroying the paradigm altogether—but now the Raven had.

  After his descent, the crowd stood silently in awe. They stared at The Toil and many saw themselves. They saw their pain and their agony, their pathetic hopeless trauma splayed out in front of them, a victim of a carriage accident. They saw a statue that told them that this is what they deserve
d. It was devoid of hope and it was presented by the city—the city that had failed them, the city that had crushed them. It wasn’t them. It wasn’t their fault.

  “What a wretched thing that is!” said Conner. “My god, they must destroy that immediately. Who on earth approved such a monstrosity?”

  Someone else at the party said, “Who is that little man? What a strange creature he is.”

  Isabella certainly knew the truth of that. It was as though she understood exactly what was driving her mad hatter kin and simultaneously, felt in the pit of her stomach that some new, unfamiliar iteration of Fennel had ferociously emerged. Bruno looked over at Isabella and whispered, “This isn’t going well.”

  Isabella didn’t look at Bruno. A foreboding feeling rose up in her belly. She could feel the water pouring all around her. It was hypnotic. The joy of it felt incredible inside her and she could hear a beautiful siren inside herself telling her, “Let it all fall apart.”

  But Fennel wasn’t done. From the stage, standing at the front, with a microphone held firmly in his hand, he reached out to the crowd beseeching them to listen to his every word.

  “That isn’t all, my friends! No, no, no! You get more than The Toil for all your hard work and suffering, I also grant you the greatest gift that you forgot to love. Look out if you can to the harbor, to the docks. We at the city have decided to return your most beloved citizens.”

  Fennel pointed his finger out over the crowd and toward the docks just a few blocks away. The night was dark and one could make out just past the gas lamps at the docks the careening motion of that to which he drew their attention. There, moored against the dock, stood the boat that had brought Conner and Fennel together not so long ago.