“Hi,” I say. “What are the choices?” Stupid. Stupid.
“The usual temps,” she replies without looking up.
“Which is what?” I ask, putting my hand on the bar. My gloved hand, still in my red suit. Had forgotten I was wearing it.
She looks up. “Hey, I know you. You’re new here.” Her voice is cinnamon.
“Yes, that’s right.” Admit I.
“Here.”
We drink. “Whoa. What is this?” It was shocking.
“What do you mean? It’s water. From the show. We’re celebrating.”
“I thought … alcohol.”
“Sure, cleaned it first. No worry. There’s no contamination. Stay here for a bit, and I’ll keep an eye on you, make sure you don’t get too high. Show’s been a big success, and we’ve got more water than ever. To your fluid!” She raises another glass.
“Thank you.” I take another sip. Fuck! Electric. “So, what are temps?” Her hair cascades like a waterfall, frames her diamond-shaped face and delicately squared chin touched with a small dimple. Her eyes, seismic depths of mint and chocolate, liquid music and dark earth.
“Oh, cold, cool, air, and warm.”
“Ah … how … do you keep it like that?”
“Buttons, the rhinosaur. You know him? Two horns, spiky tail? Six legs, armored ass?” She’s wiping the bar surface with two of her hands, leaning on a third and sipping her drink with the fourth. “He works all around different parts of the Zirk, he—” I shake my head no “—comes here and teaches the water how to stay cool. Or warm.”
I’m in love.
“You want another?”
“Sure.”
“Which temp?”
“Oh … I’ll take … cool.” She picks up another metal cylinder and pours water into my mug. I hold it to my nose and inhale. Pure ecstasy rolls deep inside me.
“If you could do anything, what would it be?” I ask her. She puts down her glass.
“Become a spirit through time that gets to drop in and change the rules, all of them or any bit of them. Time becomes available in the same way we breathe.”
“So … but … would you be lonely never having a constant … connection?”
“Are my connections now better? It would be worth it. Change the rules. Every time.”
“I’ve had enough of changing rules. I can’t figure them out before they change.”
“Maybe there are no rules. We limit ourselves. Like, what if our consciousness is merely the tip of a multi-dimensional entity? What we think with is the bit in our three sensory dimensions, but our mind extends further to a place we could explore, somehow, but our perceptions can’t sense it.”
“Maybe.”
“What if you could explore other universes? Maybe there are beings in some hyperrealm who created us as a competition or for entertainment. They set the initial rules like in a game, then let it go BANG! Watch it for a few billion eons to see how it comes out. The one with the longest surviving life form wins. I would create a universe where love is edible.”
“Love is edible. I … that’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah. Picture it. The more you loved what is, the more you would prosper. All beings would move to a state of universal love.”
I’m in freefall—my heart, my breath, my insides. “Look, I’m”—in love with you—“scared. I want to understand what the hell’s going on with … anything. I think this is another universe … to me.”
“You think there’s something to understand?”
“I can’t not help wanting to make sense of things. Anything. To make things better. I need a solid … ground to hold on to. I remember living some other life. All I can remember of it is a vague sense of unease, a haze of anxiety. Brief moments cut out that happened around me, sketches of faces and things that don’t make sense. It was all fuzzy back then, and now … memories are more fuzzy. Words make sense when I hear them, but I can’t dredge up an understanding of why they mean anything.”
“You wanted to know the choices?” She looks openly at me. “That’s the whole thing. Figuring out your choices. And the morality behind them. It’s never about what’s easy. What kind of choices have you made?”
“Well, I …” A catwoman—bird—I’m throwing her at a wall. No. No. I didn’t do that. “I don’t know.”
“Then make better ones.” She drinks and cleans pitchers and polishes the bar. “So where’s your friend?”
“My friend?”
“Yeah. The Lioneagle. The big cat with wings and a bird head.”
Sphinx. The birth from my head, the clouds, his return, going through the city.
“Sphinx! That’s—where is he? I need to find him!”
“You separated? He could be anywhere. Can he speak?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“He can probably take care of himself.”
“Yes. I mean, no, I don’t know. I need to find him.”
“Well, he could be anywhere, of course. You might start with the K-pool. If they found him, he might be on display there.”
“Which direction? What pool?”
“It’s not actually a pool. It’s the ten in one. The Ménage. Go through that curtain and listen for the exhibitionist. You’ll figure how to get in.” I bolt down the water, charging my throat like lightning.
“Wow. Thank you. I hope to see you later.”
“Bye.”
Through the curtain.
Listening.
A voice around the next tent.
I recognize the scent. The Talker.
“Darling friends, purest of the Pure, most normal of the norms, supes of all tiers, out of the Clean and into the dirt. Welcome to the small area of the show we call the Menagerie. Bring us your hymen, we’ll fucking sauté it in urine and eat it up. This is where you’ll find the phreakiest of phreaks, oh yes, the dirtiest of dirt from outside is swept up into our dirty little hole. Now, you’ve Rsims of phreaks from outside the Clean. Perhaps you’ve even seen a diseased body. But you’ve never seen anything like this alive and in person. You’ve never been able to interact with them in safety … directly … intimately. So come on, dust off your sex bits. It’s time to party!”
He’s standing on a wooden crate, clutching the edge with his toes while talking to a small clot of humans like all the others. His hairless face looks painted on like a mime’s. Out from under his jacket he pulls a thick rope, which he proceeds to swing over his head in a loop. The lasso is thick and ribbed.
“Let me tell you, friends, about the Ménage. No need to worry, the rules are simple: there are no rules. Anything goes. And all it costs to enter is a few drops, that’s all, just a squirt. You there, you look male, are you male? Good to know, best to check first because these days you never know, do you? Certainly you know, because you’re all Homo saperior, but the rest of us cranks—hah!—that’s the kind of chaos you folks are avoiding, isn’t it? Peace through unity. I myself, look at me, you’d surely say I was female, I know how you think, but look at this.” He pulls down his chalk-white penis. “Have you ever seen a nicer penis? Don’t answer that. Oh, and look.” He turns to flip up his jacket, all the while continuing to circle the lasso above his head. “A vagina where my asshole should be. Bet you didn’t expect that! That’s just a taste of what’s inside. And I do mean taste.”
He covers up just as I notice the lasso came out of his side. His intestines.
“You there, have you ever killed anything? No, of course not. Well, here you can. You want to kill a wolf boy? A Pure-a-like? Of course, not a real Pure, but we’ve got some look so like a Pure you can’t tell the difference. You can talk to ’em. Chop ’em up. Whatever you want. Well, well, what have we here? A young male.” He tosses his intestines and ropes a little boy.
“Query: You ever been to the Menagerie before.”
“Respond: Negative,” comes the answer.
“Ah, a virgin, we’ll change that soon enough. Command: Come in, c
ome in, just a small squirty squirt. Enjoy!”
A familiar scent, someone—turn to glimpse a brown figure disappearing around the corner—I chase after—see a hand—a tent wall dropping—crawl under it. Pitch black except for a spot of light across the room. I walk toward it with my arms out. A brown figure passes between me and the light—into the dark—lunge for it—my fingertips stub against something—and nothing. Gone. Spy an exit. Into a small open passageway. Pures are entering to my left, and I can hear the barker outside. I continue in the opposite direction and come up to a display. A wooden wall with a creature nailed to it. The thing is hanging from fleshy fat stretched up in several places—head … hips … knees? The creature is oozing goo from a variety of opening and closing orifices randomly placed all over its body. A mouth—or is it a puckered anus?—nostrils of uneven sizes, a nonexistent nose, and one circling blue eye shot with lightning bolts of blood make up its sort-of face.
I approach. A hand-lettered sign reads:
His eye turns toward me.
An adult Pure with a small child passes by. The adult points at the creature nailed to the wall.
“Observe: It,” she says. “Project: Self. Suggest: Work. Keep quiet.”
I get between them and this creature. “I don’t know … if you can understand me, but you … this isn’t right.”
It expels a grunt, voice like a frog croak. “Splain. Snod disjarjuh. Lergic uh supers now. You. Nullsue.”
“Uhm. What? Listen. Good luck. I gotta keep moving.”
I follow the flow down the passage, hear a voice from a tent and duck in.
“… say, ‘the past,’ can we? Let’s say straight from legend. Once upon a time, there were Homos with color in the skin. They say some were beige, some dusky tan. Some … some had dark, dark skin like the burnt end of a stick. Have you heard this story?”
The tent is square with a flat ceiling. A weak light screened through white linen curtains scatters across a small stage, a narrow walkway jutting out from the curtained wall. We’re grouped around the stage; the crowd spooks when they notice me, and they make room—a lot of room—leaving my view unobstructed. The voice comes from all around us.
“The story goes that at the time the Universal Unhinging occurred, Homo saperior ruled over all living things. Furthermore, the wealthy ruled the poor and the lighter ruled the darker. None but the pale shall survive. And so when the Unhinging occurred, when lateral transfer became the best survival mechanism, when chromes flipped the bird to reproduction, flapped their genes, and flew to asexual freedom, it was too late for the dark who’d been conned and uncon-domed. Of course, you can guess what happened to them. Except. For one. We found one for you, for your spectacular viewing pleasure. Living deep underground. In a cave so dark it was invisible. Found with its original physiognomy intact. Right now. Right this moment. Don’t know how he survived. And so now, without further ado, homes and homas, we present you with … the Dark Yuppie.”
From behind the curtain, into the diffuse light: a person, a creature. He … she? is human in height. Long-limbed. Moving casually, evenly into the light. Cave-black, burnished black. Naked. But no sex visible—smooth between its legs. The limber creature walks the catwalk between us, up and back, sweeping the audience with its eyes. The crowd pulls back, a woman puts her hands over her mouth, a man lets out a gasp and runs out, another woman grabs a man’s hand. Someone retches.
The creature turns and our eyes meet. All black, coal-black. No whites, no pupils. Nothingness. The crowd steps back further, but I’m stuck. A white linen couch. A black woman. The audience rushes out around me, but I remain. The creature looks at me. Its head is just too small for its body. Hairless. It retreats through the curtain.
I sprint onto the stage, part the curtain with my hand. A voice behind me shouts, “Hey!” Across a small room, the creature is seated at a wooden table gazing into a mirror. Someone grabs my wrist, but I can’t tear my eyes from it.
“It’s okay. I’ll take care of it,” it says, and with a languid arm brushes the voice off, never looking up. It’s the Talker who has grabbed me, appraising me, releases me and vanishes. The black creature summons me with the back of its hand and two curls of its fingers. I drop the curtain behind and approach.
“What brought you here?” it asks me in a voice that unrolls like silk.
“I could … taste this was not right. False.”
“Of course. You read behind the display. You have your own truth, don’t you?”
“I remember … a black … uh … Pure. A black person. I think she was black. Sitting on a couch. I’m talking to a beautiful woman the color of coffee. You were wrong. And so that triggered my … memory, and I think in my memory, I was in love with her, but I’m not sure it was love. I think the reason I fell in love … was because I wanted her to love me … but I don’t know. I was wondering what color you’re really supposed to be. It might help me. Remember more.”
The Dark Yuppie looks up at me, and now it has paisley eyes. Cobalt teardrops crash into red vertically slit with black. Its body modulates from black to navy, then, like paper, absorbs a crimson watercolor tinge.
“Fuck if I know. It’s just a tag. Memory was born from land and sky. Now with no sky and dead land there’s little memory left. We just give the flatties what they want. A character to look at that makes them feel good about themselves. See someone worse so they feel better about the misery of their lives.” Its body is now a mosaic of shocking pinks and eye-of-peacock blue. “Do you want your fortune told?”
“Uh. I’m looking for a friend. Can you help me find him? He’s kind of a lion with wings.”
“Perhaps. Let me try. Come sit here.” The Dark Yuppie pats the chair by its side.
“He’s a big …” Its eyes revolve like pinwheels. “How do you … ? Wuh?” Hands wrap around my head. Ah. The scales of fortune.
“Come,” it says, peeling open my skull and pulling my brain out through the fontanelle. It holds the volume in both hands, transparent yet present, visible, aquamarine, it slides it into an envelope of water.
… words on the parchment, dip the quill into the lips of my ink sac:
Eyes (dumb like marbles) looking up don’t see me (looking down) ghostwriting the pole [an exclamation point (ornate in byzantine whorls) of dull brown and brick] patiently awaiting a scene change when the audience will rustle, elements of conversation drifting up to me, assuming themselves safely between displays (their guard down)~in the moment between, that is where I lie in wait selecting [sometimes randomly, depending on my mood, more often intentionally (the one with the most arrogant eyes)] a target, waiting for it to fixate dull eyes upon me whereupon I move and begin
untwining uncoiling like an iris my arms from the pole, releasing my body and fulminating over the audience {beak inches from (and the width of) the target’s face before spinning over and around others like a nightmare spider
and derangement>
embodying
the interstitial,
the space between the words,
the space b e t w e e n t h e l e t t e r s,
the unconscious fear,
the ambiguity of truth,
the unspoken thought,
the inexpressible need,
the uncontrollable compulsion}
a puppet
dancing {
Pausing.
Grip my Memory Hole notebook
My tentacles feel dry~dip the tips into my blue water bowl; refresh my quill and continue:
What I think about when I (as the pole) am aware:
The only two actions that make me feel whole, that give me a sense of doing (being), which is rare,
as the primary nature of (at least my) existence is surviving (struggle over the means to control food, water, and shelter) but not, of course, reproducing (historical anomaly)
remembrances of myself quite small
one might call this state [“youth” (but that seems inaccurate)] “remembering” but memory is quite eerie
A Greater Monster Page 21