The Unravelled Frames
Ariel Pytrell
Translated by P Diane Schneider
“The Unravelled Frames”
Written By Ariel Pytrell
Copyright © 2017 Ariel Pytrell
All rights reserved
Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.
www.babelcube.com
Translated by P Diane Schneider
Cover Design © 2017 AriTopet
“Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
| Foreword |
| THE RENDEZVOUS |
| YDHA’S DEPARTURE |
| BELTAINE |
| METAMORPHOSIS 2.0 |
| SEVEN AND EIGHT |
| THE EMOTION PILL |
| ENCLEVE PRISON |
| UNRAVELLED FRAMES |
| VARIATIONS OF RENDEZVOUS |
| LADY ARAGUEN’S LOOKOUT |
| VALPURGIS |
| NOTOS’ REPORT |
| AHBOLEH |
| THE SOLITUDE OF EPIGRAPHS |
Ariel Pytrell
www.arielpytrell.com
Contents
Prologue |
The Rendezvous |
Ydha’s departure |
Beltaine |
Metamorphosis 2.0 |
Seven and Eight |
The emotion pill |
Encleve prison |
Unravelling frames |
Variations of rendezvous |
Lady Araguen’s lookout |
Valpurgis |
Notos’ report |
Áhboleh |
The solitude of epigraphs |
For Andrea and Damián,
who have taught me
the mystery of brotherhood
| Foreword |
It is not hard to imagine someone reading these words, patiently combined on paper, even though we ignore the historical moment to which that reader belongs.
The accounts in this book are "fictions" or, rather, "visions". Whatever the labels under which these tales might be classified, it is feasible to compare them with pictorial works. Perhaps the features of diverse painters such as Hieronymus Bosch or Vermeer, even Velázquez or Dante Gabriel Rossetti might be detected. And even an inspiring glint of Dalí can be discerned by some others, though the Spanish master is perceived as a representative of early "Freudianism," so that the author of these fictions is not completely satisfied with that comparison.
The fabric of these stories can be linked to others interwoven by the same writer. Some day it will no longer be important to attach any signature to the tales to accomplish their destiny of being read. May these visions continue transforming the author until he disappears or changes into a point of a movement on the street of a certain century, either past or posthumous, or even a contemporary one.
Ariel Pytrell
| THE RENDEZVOUS |
Nobody saw me leave, I know
Nobody’s waiting...
GUSTAVO CERATI, When the shaking is passed
I was alone in this Paris where I had taken refuge for so many Marches. It was that certain look which remained in me and I couldn’t recover. I remained alone, with a listlessness which began to gnaw at my stomach. Alone, with this crimson horizon tinged deep blue, surrounded by inhabitants who walked by like city shadows.
The evening sun brought out her green eyes surrounded by bare hints of wrinkles despite her nearing fifty. “This is time,” I murmured. “Time is nothing.” Only a kiss, a kiss from those same lips which seconds before had pronounced farewell. And Lucianne, because of her I speak, left walking through the same square in which we had met. I saw her backside departing in the twilight, her steps echoing, her look, her perfume which always reminded me of, well I’m not sure. My sacrilegious instinct made me take a deep breath and walk to the bar Le Jardín d’Amilcar the one that lights up that same square, now darkening through the twilight and her back.
And I entered the bar.
I entered the bar with the memory of her back, her lips, her eyes. I sat at the little wooden table. My head continued to spin and the cigarette smoke obscured my view. I wanted a beer but the waitress was serving in the rear. It took a while for me to realize what music was playing: “El Flaco” Spinetta.[i]It got my attention, but then, the bar’s cloud of smoke won out and the stridence pierced my ears. Everything stunned and disturbed me.
The place was packed with young folks. The girls wore blouses with shoulder pads and enormous earrings. The boys wore tight fitting t-shirts tucked into their pants. Their short sleeves were rolled carefullly up to the shoulder. I thought it was some retro Parisian Argentine’s bar, likely from Buenos Aires judging from the music which reflected the seventies and eighties. The reproduction of art and detail of the period surprised me. The nostalgia of the time, which nevertheless I had never been allowed to live, was inevitable. Exile is more obsession for a memory —I thought, or, I believe I thought, as I observed this human wave— than temptation for survival.
I needed a beer. Although the waitress passed by, she didn’t see me. So, I called her, a little irritated by the wait. With a gesture, she indicated I should be patient. I looked for a notice about the event on the red walls but there were only posters of Bowie, Genesis and Queen. I felt a twinge in my stomach, a nearly imagined pain.
The waitress asked me in French if I felt ok, and what I would order. She had leaned on the chair and I ran my eyes along her arms up to her face: her curly, towseled hair; her sky-blue painted eyelids, and her eyes... deep, yet prominent, lined in dark blue. I answered that I felt fine and asked for my beer. As she departed I observed the space she had left in the crowd; through which I spied a young lady who looked at me curiously from her table.
The exactness of that reproduction of the period had surprised me. But I was astounded by the similarity of the features of Lucianne to those of that curious young lady. Her laughing eyes warned of my confusion (an unexpected twinge in my toes, as though electrical impulses were prickling my legs). I looked around. The glamorous pictures distorted, Spinetta finished. I looked back at the young lady who was gesturing to me. Did she want me to follow her? Everyone around began to dance to the rhythm of “Disposable Love” by Virus,[ii] a new wave band. I felt the desire to speak (my tongue tied up my voice like an electrical short). Time hurts, I found myself thinking, but that’s all that time is, the void spread out on the fabric of space.
The ache was like nostalgia for one’s homeland. That motherland which had expelled me like a mad cow, a Maenad without thyrsus or breasts. Suddenly I felt like the son of a wolf pack. I can’t explain it. It was a feeling both clear yet remote at the same time but I felt I did not belong; neither here nor there. Strange (my hands burned painfully as though the skin, the flesh, the bones were twisting —challenged by the force of gravity.) I saw how this young lady, the same age as was Lucianne when we had met, was leaving her table. The music was an echo of that original pain which now occupied my mental horizon, my heartbeats, the density of my blood. I feared she might escape. Then I followed her with my eyes. Oh, the void can feel...
All that, in a fraction of a second. I got myself up. Without realizing it, I bumped my shoulder against the waitress who was bringing my beer. I spilled foam on my shirt, my slacks, my shoes. I begged her pardon clumsily. I think the waitress said something to me. The girl who wanted me to follow her exited the main door (another intense electric shock, this time between my legs.) The atmosphere was suffocating. I breathed in some air and filled my lungs as well as I could (I felt the seizing of my abdominal muscles, bearing down as though I were
to give birth to smoke.) I started walking among the smoke. As I was leaving I stumbled over the young folks who were moving to the music which, anyway, I could no longer distinguish the beat. As I went, blood started dripping from my nose, as though a river flowed into the abyss. I smelled the iron in my blood, I felt it boiling. I felt each throb in my veins and arteries swinging inside this body struggling to get out by moving, moving, moving. I opened the door.
And went out.
It was night. I shivered in the fresh, clean air. As I had feared, the girl was not there. No one was there. I heard far off music. I realized that the street, which I had thought to be paved, was cobblestones. Le Jardin d’Amilcar had disappeared. A pain in my chest. I turned my head just as I heard brakes. It moved so fast I nearly didn’t have time. The green Ford Falcon nearly crushed my feet. Four guys with smoked glasses. Four garottes hit my stomach, my arms, my nose. A hood forced over my head, negating all contact with the world. I felt shunned, expulsed, separated. I felt tied to a notion, just a notion of myself, remote and strange as though I had never existed. But one certain thought filled my mental image: green eyes, like a promise that nevertheless I began to miss, a name I did not yet know how to pronounce —the backside of a woman, a kiss (a bar, a square, a crimson evening) and I seem to recall that I complained. I was pushed into the car.
That day was the last time I was seen in Buenos Aires or, well, this is how that southern city was called, I think, so many Marches ago.
| YDHA’S DEPARTURE |
Ydha was the last to awaken. He was tied up to a stone altar beside his companions, also tied up as he was. Storms and pestulence had decimated the region hour after hour, day after day. More and more relatives turned up dead on the borders. Bunches of fire swallowed up men, women, children and beasts without distinction. Thunder, lightning, fire and the daily choreograph between life and death. Priests recited an explanation: the goddess of the Earth and the god of the Heavens were fighting for control over mortals.
The Priestesses’ men had gone down to the settlement seeking male virgins for the sacrifice. At that moment Ydha felt a chilling fear. He was in charge of the mural paintings in the Temple of Columns on the hill before coming to the ancient Sacred Cave of the Painted Hands, an inheritance granted to his generation by the Second Ancestors who had lived in times before memory. As the one responsible for his mission, he knew that his life — young, monotonous, daily, domestic — served for something much more important to benefit his relatives. And he feared he would not be chosen for the sacrifice.
The chief had observed each one’s face. His mission was also fundamental. The safety of the entire village depended on him. The chief had stretched out his arm to point out one youth with shining shoulders, one whom Ydha believed he had played with once when they were boys at hunting big deer. That youth with the pretty shoulders reflected by the morning sun had responded to the chief with a shocked look, but horror as well. Effectively, the boy perhaps did not believe his death to have any value. Ydha had silently noted the austere dialogue of looks and his thought had nearly jumped out of his mind: Doesn’t he realize it is fundamental to send living beings to the World of our Ancestors to placate their ire and to have a better harvest? A group of men had forcibly taken the chosen youth. In spite of the resistence of the golden shouldered one, the men managed to hold on to him. The chief continued to gaze, seeking some other traveler to the Land of the Ancient Ones. Again, he raised his arm, pointing at another youth. A new selection and another expected resistence.
Ydha had averted his gaze. He observed the multitude of neighbors, brothers, cousins, nearly ignorant of their likely relationships. All with hesitant looks, tenuous as the vision of this sunny morning. All fearing the palms of those skillful hands. It was only he who had thought that what he felt was right: the ancient agreement passed down by the Glorious Grandparents; the same ones who now demanded to be visited in order to receive the message from the embassy of the living in the world of those who passed on.
Once more the chief had raised his finger and another youth was selected for the sacrifice. My dear ones, Ydha thought again, what would I not do for you! The companions’ wailing was lost in the thunder from the heavens. The chief continued seeking among the Temple artisans, the only virgins; the only ones who did not share common chores due to being first born specially trained for sacrifice and art. The chief rested his eyes on Ydha. I am a virgin. The boy remained tense. Come on! I am a virgin. Sweat ran down the Chief’s eyes and left a disagreeable sensation when one warm drop dripped into his ear. Seconds seemed an eternity, breathing was ragged, the temperature unsustainable. Come on! Me! I’m a virgin! I should take this trip. I must meet my ancestors. I must tell them to stop causing all these troubles. I must placate them, caress them, calm them down. I must...I must tell them I am grateful.
The chief raised his arm. I am not afraid. He slowed releasing his finger. Fear is merely a stairstep of the commitment. The chief pointed. Fear is no longer in me. The chief pointed at the boy next to Ydha. I’ve changed into fear. And the boy next to Ydha was pushed to the circle of virgins for the sacrifice. I’ve changed.
Ydha, dumfounded, saw the group of men and boys depart. Impulsively (at another time he would have considered it heresy, a clumsy insolence, an insensitive rule-breaking) he ran to the chief to beg him to take him as well. The chief only watched. Ydha was a volunteer. Though he could not confirm it, the man knew that volunteers arrived more quickly to the Land of the Dead and could even secure greater benefits. The chief knitted his brow, and clapped Ydha on the shoulder. The boy was approved, just like that, naturally, warranting no display. They again began the march with Ydha included. They arrived at the slope of the hill. While scaling it, Ydha repeated what he had always thought every day, when he scaled it to decorate the walls. I am a virgin. The long procession began to murmur a litany as they had been trained to do. I am sensitive. The monotonous chanting was accompanied by rhythmic stamping of the feet. I am an art-maker. The heavens revealed their blood in crimson clouds. Sensitivity is the fertile soil of art. One of the youths allowed himself to cry. It began to turn cold up there. I am human. Finally, they arrived at the top and shortly they made out the temple. I am divine.
Ydha was the last to awaken. He was tied to a stone altar beside his companions - tied up as was he. He found he was naked. His body was clean-shaven and his body was anointed with an oil which had a citrus odor. Beyond the column of smoke shadows seemed to circle a core of flame. At first, he did not remember why he was there but little by little his memory came back. Between the measured beating of a drum, his hearing was sharpened and he could perceive the silence of leaves which never rustled. He breathed deeply. He rested his jaw on a shoulder and closed his eyes. He could feel the rough dampness of the stone where his virginal buttocks rested. He slowly reopened his eyes and could determine that a small branch scraped his completely shaved head. Then he thought again. I am...
A broad-hipped priestess with giant breasts approached those who were to be sacrificed. She gazed into the eyes of each the five victims, as required by the rite that demands that the sacred messages should be conveyed eye-to-eye. The Great Woman muttered some words which suggested to Ydha a sinister bitterness on his tongue.
The woman displayed the stone spike. She hefted it in both hands and when she brought it down in a single movement the sacred weapon was buried in the chest of the first virgin. A shriek shook the boiling blood and raised gooseflesh under Ydha’s oily patina. A breeze filtered through the just opened slash. The officiant removed the tiny organ still moving, from the bloodless youth’s body... the one with the beautiful shoulders (the same one who, moments before, Ydha had suspected was a former childhood playmate)
The death ritual was practiced in a rigorous and sacred manner with the second of the virgins. And with the third. And with the fourth. And the drumbeat accompanied the trembling heartbeats which ceased, one by one. Then it was the turn of the volunteeer.
The privileged one, the hero for many generations. When the Priestesses’ men descended to the village seeking virginal males for sacrifice Ydha had felt fear. But that was not the case now that the sacred weapon tore the flesh violently and buried itself in the chest which promised virility, as it sought a generous, strong heart, prying the muscular ribs and dug into the flesh and blood claiming the soul of a Ydha now sacrificed... forever sacrificed.
I must take this trip. The drum and its rhythm continued until no longer heard. I must meet my ancestors and beg them to stop causing more deaths. The wind formed the mortal hole and in its name perfumed the tear and the trembling. There is no pain. The rhythm became faster. No pain. A drop of oil penetrated the wound, filtered into the hole so as to accompany Ydha beyond death. There is only a pleasant rhythm. The chanting ceased. I’ve changed into pain. Movement ceased. I’ve changed. The light went out. It is no longer in me. Silence of plants and breathing. No longer in me. Space was filled with Ydha’s interior. No longer. From now on, the entire landscape was Ydha himself. No.
The vertigo began like a cyclone within which he was located. He tried to shout but could not. He felt that he was entering (that he was entering into something) into something unwisely unknown. He felt absence. Something was not right. He discerned presences. He thought about frequencies. He realized he was travelling rapidly past corridors of shining trees in the middle of a great darkness. Sometimes shadows appeared. He wanted to believe these shadows were the ancestors who came to receive him. Then he thought about the request. But, how was it? His anguish did not permit him to concentrate. Little by little he began to remember. And he begged. He sang ritual songs as he had been taught in the land of the living. He promised a fowl and aromatic leaves, and fruits from a green valley. He remained thinking; crying a litany. He offered a last thought of gratitude to the shadows of his ancestors. Oh... he thought or said... Trees are my grandparents! He decided to undertake the return trip... satisfied and relieved from having completed his task.
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