As expected, they called him. Late last night someone had blown up Dr. Richardson’s car, shoved four feet worth of ripped bed sheets into the gas tank, trailed four or five more feet of it out into the street and then lit it up. Boom.
Who could have done such a thing?
The trauma and mystery of the incident, not to mention the precious sleep lost dealing with the fire and police departments took its toll on Dr. Richardson and he was unable to operate.
Cardio-surgeons were in limited supply so he did what he must; Dr. John Stall suited up and reported to OR 8.
He reopened patient 332562 and began repairing her half-healed heart. Her insides were beautifully formed and John marveled at their splendor: a slope here, blue tipped, a ridge there, run through with red, a soft patch, a tough bit of gristle, colors everywhere, coppery smells, perfection.
There were no secrets here, no incapacity, no problems accepting the truths we tried so hard to hide, just pure function, just pure love. Infection, disease, perversion didn’t shut things down or turn things off, they were coped with and fought, sometimes rejected and sometimes even accepted, assimilated, welcomed. Here at last was the real Miranda, the one capable of embracing his misgivings and shortcomings.
John finished; she was as good as new. He let his assistant thread her shut; he couldn’t bear closing away all of that beauty. Removing his gloves, he secretly tucked one into the pocket of his scrubs and threw the other one out.
Later, sitting in his car he retrieved the wadded up rubber glove. He unfolded it carefully. A tiny, blood smeared, fleshy nub of tissue rested in his palm. During the surgery he sliced away a miniscule, functionless portion of Miranda’s heart and palmed it for safekeeping. John stared at it hard.
True love.
True love
He popped it into his pipe and lit it up.
Meaty smoke danced with the cool, hot crack burn and filled in the empty spaces of his being. His head swam. His eyes watered. His heart swelled. An overwhelming sense of completion warmed his bones.
THE PATHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOUND
Raymond drives way too fast. I sit tense, clutching the edges of my bucket seat, digging my fingertips into the worn leather. My right index actually pushes through the leather at one point, so I take my hands and place them in my lap, hopeful the damage will go unnoticed. Not that this car is in great shape. There is a hole the size of a large grapefruit in the floorboard by my feet. From this metal crater I can hear the road rumbling ultra-loud, can see glimmers of its rugged surface whisking by. As I lean over to get a better look at the fluttering asphalt (the car’s mechanical guts obstruct any sort of clear view) Raymond tells me to, “Watch it.”
Apparently, stray pebbles, bits of debris, glass, whatever, you name it, have been known to shoot through the hole and into the car. Instinctively I close my eyes and do not reopen them until I am sitting all the way back.
Ray, I figure most guys named Raymond probably don’t mind being referred to as Ray, smiles at my fright. I’ve only known him for a short period of time, but already he seems to like me. I smile back acknowledging this, my likeability, and Ray smiles back even wider, probably at the idea that I am smiling for him. He begins to tell me about his good buddy “Biscuit” and the twenty-dollar bet they made.
Biscuit, the big dough head, agreed to put his face in the hole for five-minutes (as kept by the car’s digital dash clock). If he lasted the duration, the twenty was his.
Halfway through the story I close my eyes. Ray catches me and accuses me of not paying attention. I assure him that I have heard every word that has come from between his lips. And I have, I really have, not verbatim per say, but I’ve gotten the gist of it. I take this gist, what I hear, and shape it. The end result: pleasant language I can easily understand.
Ray eyes me suspiciously for a moment and then continues on. I wait until he seems focused on the road and then close my eyes again.
Again I get caught.
A few weeks later I am sitting in class. My teacher, Mr. Blankenship, who is tall, grizzly and smells of oranges, speaks of an anonymous friend’s suicide attempt. I hear about the ledge, two hundred feet up. I hear about the miraculous flexibility bone acquires when threatened, as if it suddenly becomes aware of the situation and relents its flinty austerity for the chance to remain complete. I hear these things and lulled by the cool, sleek calm of my interior I shut my eyes. I drift amongst the flittering, the stars of light crawling across the underside of my eyelids, shapes, outlines, jags, swirls. I float away.
Before long, Mr. Blankenship catches on and his voice hails me back to consciousness. I am fully reestablished, about to open my eyes and mutter an apology, when I think why.
Why?
I know what’s going on.
I am a master of color, form, depth, language, anecdote, skin, hair, human noise.
A master immersed on a daily basis.
A deep, wordless wisdom takes hold.
Mr. Blankenship raises his voice.
I picture him, I picture Ray, who told me he prefers to be called Raymond, and in doing so, in managing these internal likenesses, I am able to keep myself from coming apart. This way, inside, with them, not just them, but everyone, I am at once comfortable and controlled.
Mr. Blankenship abandons words and attempts to shake me into being.
I keep my eyes closed tight and marvel at how I am able to see nothing and everything simultaneously.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
The basilisk was extremely irritable today.
It thrashed its thick, emerald tail and stomped its onyx taloned-feet like a tantruming two-year old. Finicky little pain in the ass. Jonathon turned his eyes downward and pleaded haplessly with the two-ton serpent.
“What do you want?” he groaned.
The beast growled low in its throat and tried to mesmerize with its hypnotic, red eyes. Jonathon broke away, refusing for the upteenth time to let the creature hold his gaze.
Frustration absolute.
The infernal beast had won the fight on a few occasions. Shivers traveled the length of Jonathon’s spine whenever he thought about those serpentine, icy, penetrating stares piercing the dark centers of his eyes, infiltrating his brain and coiling their ill intent around his struggling will. In a desperate attempt to sate the creature he had been feeding it bucketfuls of Honey-Nut Cheerios and water. Box after box after box - the reptile devoured the cereal – but no matter, it still groaned and stamped and tried to enter the gray mush of Jonathon’s skull.
Devious reptilian mind control be damned, who could blame the beast?
Ever since the misguided incantation brought its leathery hide into being, the poor basilisk had been chained to a heavy water pipe and sustained on nothing but cereal mush and water. Despite the slithery, slimy feeling he got whenever the lizard tried to capture him with its spellbinding gaze, Jonathon couldn’t really begrudge the creature its agitation.
What exactly does one feed a basilisk?
Jonathon had hoped the Cheerios would work, but the beast gave up on them rather quickly. After ten or so boxes the basilisk had had enough. Every time he tried to refill the feed bucket the monster knocked it over with its gargantuan tail. Determined to instill some sort of calm, Jonathon tried to satisfy the creature’s agitation.
Hamburgers? No.
Steak? No.
Chicken? No.
Salad? No.
Twinkies? No.
The creature was remarkably picky. The only thing it appeared to want was to lock eyes and commune or mind meld or whatever its intentions were with its increasingly impatient host. Jonathon wasn’t having it. Intuition warned – if he let the beast in, there would be bloody trouble of some kind or another (and not the British way of saying bloody, but the literal, gooey, fleshy chunks sort of way).
Internet searches produced very little. By definition, a basilisk was either a giant, magic serpent, dragon thing with toxic breath and a deadly gaze, o
r a small, common American lizard of the genus basilicas. It didn’t take a genius to tell which category the humongous beast fell into. Related Internet searches turned up nothing on care and feeding. Basilisks of the magic variety didn’t seem to exist. The measly meal of bugs and worms recommended for the small, decidedly real American version of the species would not do for the creature’s undoubtedly big appetite.
If only Jonathon knew how to reverse the incantation and send it back to wherever it came from.
Jonathon began dabbling in dark magic three years earlier at the young, naïve age of twelve. His self-tutelage grew out of boredom, access (his selfish, kid-hating parents owned an occult bookstore), a desire for power, and as evidenced by his successful incanting prowess, a bit of natural ability. Natural born necromancers were extremely rare and Jonathon’s outright skill was surprising. Though he hated drawing parallels between himself and asinine creations like Harry Potter or Jedi, comparisons to such were the only way he could explain his exceptionality. Not that anybody wanted explanations.
Not that Ida Ridley – the queen of his lustful dreams, the pang in his heart, his coveted – and her gang of faux Wiccan she-bitches cared.
Not that his parents would ever care.
Not that anybody cared about a skinny, androgynous, nebbish, little weirdo with perpetually dark rimmed eyes and an unruly, curly mop of inky, black hair.
Regardless, things were going to change and he was going to make an impact. He was going to make everybody take notice and when they finally did, he would mystify and amaze and drive the world mad with a burning covetousness to rival even his own deep, dark desires.
For two, long years he immersed himself in study. His intellect deepened and something like purpose, big and vital, flowered within his adolescent dream centers. The nature of this purpose eluded him, an idea always somewhere beyond his grasp, teetering on the edge of consciousness, foggy like the fragmentary murk of forgotten dreams. Nonetheless, it was there: purpose, drive, catalyst, pushing casual reading and strident resolutions into rigorous study and disciplined practice.
After moving through a wide variety of disciplines – Paganism, Asatru, Runelore, Shamanism, Satanism, Medieval Christian Occultism and anything else he could Google – Jonathon connected deeply with ancient Japanese Shinto. Pre-dating written record, Shinto, or more specifically Folk Shinto (as there are other modern sects devoid of overt mysticism) is more about organic philosophy than stringent religion. Incanting, or harnessing magical properties and exerting control, isn’t achieved in a typically ritualistic fashion as it is in something base and comparatively modern like Satanism. No sacrificial animals or candles or virgins here. In order to make the tenements of Shinto magic work, all one had to do was train their mind. Not that this was an easy task. Jonathon had to dig deep into the archaic texts and root out underlying messages and meanings.
At first inclination, after grasping the immensity of what it would take to master such an ancient, dead art form, Jonathon was ready to give up and move on to something a little more attainable. Why waste time on the impossible? But something inside, his hungry heart, his primordial destiny perhaps, told him to keep at it, the answers were buried somewhere. It was these intuitive feelings and the unlikely success he had in discovering ancient secrets untapped for millennia that led him to believe in his natural abilities and faux alignment with nonsensical fictions like H. Potter and Jedi. His progress was astounding. Typically, Japanese mystics, true devotees of Shinto magic, spent lifetimes trying to achieve what he managed in a brief, two year period.
Deeply rooted in ancient Japanese mythology, to study ancient forms of Shinto is to immerse oneself in tales of Oni and Dragons and a pantheon of gods and goddesses. The entire system is ruled over by the sun-goddess Amaterasu, it is her offspring whom supposedly begot the first of Japan’s emperors. In Shinto the world of the living is suffused with the energies of the dead. All of the corresponding lore interested Jonathon in the least. What he sought, what he ultimately found beneath the ornate, supernatural surfaces were the existence of natural energies inherent in all things, living or inanimate.
At the core of these energies were a series of alterable components or Kotodama, Japanese based power words. These words weren’t spoken but thought, focused, channeled. If executed properly, the mind could string these power words into combinations that would in effect rework natural energies. There were infinite arrangements of power words and infinite uses for them. The more Kotodama you mastered, the more control you possessed.
Jonathon’s readings began with the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki, seminal ancient Japanese texts written in 712 and 720 B.C.E respectively. Ancient arts were difficult to study in that they were, well…ancient. He had his suspicions about the dilution of generation upon generation of translation and then the ultimate bastardization – the translation into modern English. Nonetheless the archaic translations spoke to him in an almost innate fashion.
For a deeper understanding of Kotodama, he visited a number of Japanese herbalists in the darkened, steamy pockets of Japan town. He was surprised to discover that the power words were not comprised of Japanese characters, but Chinese. This information didn’t come easy. Skeptical Japanese, amused Japanese, offended Japanese, perplexed Japanese, all questioned and harangued and fretted over Jonathon’s interest in the sacred secrets of their ancestry. Why was a young round eye digging around where he didn’t belong?
“Research paper,” he assured.
Both those kind enough to share what they knew, and those who insisted they knew nothing, warned him: be careful in messing around with such things.
After a little hunting about he made his way to Chinatown and found another series of equally strange Chinese herbalist shops. Again, he ran into a mix of reactions. Persistence, persistence and as if fate was intent upon him becoming a Shinto sorcerer he discovered an eager teacher and the correct way in which to internalize the difficult characters.
The wise, trusting shopkeeper, Mr. Lau, seemed to derive a great satisfaction in teaching what he knew. He told Jonathon that Kotodama, so important to the ancients, was essentially dead and forgotten. There were small cells of believers and practitioners throughout China and Japan, however they were mostly ineffective. Over time, something, a missing ingredient, a key component had been lost. As a result Kotodama had gone the way of dragons and oni. Magic, be it words or fantastical serpents or spiritualized demons, no longer had any dominion over this world. Man had let these ideas die. The power of the mind, of the imagination, of the ability to shape consciousness and reality was an inexplicable force to be reckoned with. Mr. Lau always got a sad, faraway look in his eyes whenever he told Jonathon about his culture’s loss of faith in its rich mythologies. He told Jonathon that his last name, Lau, meant The Dragon Keepers and he felt a personal responsibility in keeping as much of the past alive as he could.
Jonathon began visiting Mr. Lau regularly, daily, and together they worked at resuscitating Kotodama. The guise of the research paper had fallen by the wayside. Mr. Lau never questioned. Instead he threw himself into helping Jonathon understand that if one truly wanted to master the ways of the ancient Shinto sorcerers, then one had to do more then merely memorize a random jumble of Kotodama. If one truly wanted to use the energy of the world to do their bidding, one had to devote a lifetime of giving themselves over to Kotodama. One had to eat, sleep and breathe Kotodama. One didn’t just say the words – the tongue and vocal chords had no real power – one had to feel the words, to exude the words. In effect, your brain chemistry altered. Your third eye opened: unguarded, unwavering, focused. You became Kotodama and Kotodama became you.
Teenagers however, crave instant gratification and Jonathon was no different. After two long years of lessons he was ready to move on. He enjoyed learning from Mr. Lau, but wasn’t really looking to acquire magical skills that took a lifetime to attain. He wanted them now, now, now. There had to be something simple, something more garden v
ariety, perhaps herbs and blood and nail clippings. Kotodama’s esoteric words, non-words, brain acrobatics, took way too much energy and time. He had fish to fry and he wasn’t getting any younger. Desires shifted regularly and Jonathon wanted the power to act now, not later.
Luckily, before he could give up, Jonathon made the realization that he was a natural. Lau knew immediately, but withheld to be safe. They worked in the backroom of Lau’s medicine shop on a series of Kotodama geared to plant suggestions within the brain. Jonathon followed his new master’s regime and continued studying self-devised lessons long into the night. Despite the hard work he seemed to be getting nowhere. On the surface, Lau remained impervious to suggestion and Jonathon was ready to tell him he was done. Lau’s eyes smiled at the news. The old man laughed and shook his head from side to side in choppy little arcs.
“What?” Jonathon thought the man might be going crazy. He feared that this whole apprenticeship was a crazy man’s foolhardy game. Anger blossomed within.
Lau continued to laugh. Beneath the giggling he muttered with amusement, “You can’t quit. Two years for nothing? Besides, Amaterasu has you.”
Jonathon remained disinterested in lore. He knew of Amaterasu, the sun goddess or some nonsense like that, but failed to understand what she, it, had to do with him.
Mr. Lau watched the confusion cloud Jonathon’s face, “Ha! Wherever you run you are a child of the sun.” He made a small bowing motion and held it.
Jonathon stared at the old man’s balding scalp for a moment and then insisted he rise and stop speaking in idiot riddles. Lau lifted his head and began to explain. All of Jonathon’s suggestive Kotodama, from their very first lesson two years back, had worked perfectly. The suggestions – small, basic commands like temperature displacement and itching nags and dry mouth – had all taken root within Lau’s mind and went to precise work. When Jonathon worked through the Kotodama for heat, Lau became hot under the collar. When he formed the proper Kotodama for an itching fit it was all Lau could do to keep from shouting out in discomfort. Lau suppressed his reactions and feigned failure all of this time because it was important to Jonathon’s training that he moved through the process slowly. A year or two meant nothing in the development of a true sorcerer. With three grown children of his own, Lau understood the reckless impatience of adolescence. Kotodama was a powerful art. If used carelessly, before proper respect for the discipline had been instilled, it could be extremely dangerous.
Blood & Gristle Page 14