Yes. Good lover. I hate you. I fucking hate you and thanks for a good time.
Sounds. My eyes are closed. Where am I?
“… luck … on … beading … mving are you?”
“Hello,” I say, but it sounds like “Huuhhhh.”
Is that her? Face above me. Vaguely. Gone.
Darkness.
I’m awake. Pillow behind my head.
I peel open my eyes. Milky grey. The roof of the Zirkus. I lift my head weakly … fall back. Neck aches. Rest a little more.
Cot beneath me. White tent walls. Small table by the bed with a cup of water.
Sphinx.
I roll over on my side, slide my legs to the floor, and push up with my arms; my forehead twinges. I touch it—a bandage wraps the top of my head. My white robe, pyramid pattern. Groggy, need water. Almost knock it over. Drinking. My hands quiet. My scaly loden shell. Touch the pocket where my penis is hiding. Close my eyes, take a deep breath. Have to find Sphinx.
Push myself up from bed. Dizzy. Hand on the table for support. A curtain in the wall—the exit—head for it. Falling—grab the fabric.
Bring the entire tent down with me.
I’m lying in a cul-de-sac, wrapped like a mummy. An upright pig carrying a ladder has halted mid-stride looking at me.
“G’Nesh,” I croak out, frightened by my voice which creaks like a graveyard gate. “I need to find G’Nesh.” He’ll tell me where Sphinx is.
Pigleg Pete wags his snout to the right as he heads off in the opposite direction.
Untangle from the canvas and weave in the direction he’s pointed me. Stay focused: the maze. Just follow the passage.
Scents of people. Many.
A crowd milling ahead.
An open square. About twenty Pures are standing around a cage on a platform in the middle. To the left: a black structure like a pagoda with a gothic door but no windows.
I approach the cage; the norms part from me in revulsion and fear.
There! Sitting on his paws with his head down and eyes closed.
“SPHINX!” I shout.
He raises his head; his eyes find me, and he yawps wildly. I’m on the platform, circling the cage. A heavy padlock holds the door shut.
“You okay?”
Sphinx pads over to me and snaps his beak around a metal bar.
“I’ll get you out of here.”
The Pures have gathered to watch me. No tools, nothing useful around. Let’s see how strong I am. I turn back, grip two bars, and begin pulling them apart across my chest. I’m pulling my arms out of their sockets. Bars are moving, inching apart.
“AAAAAAAAH!” I’m howling.
Pulling apart.
Switch—push one in, pull one out.
Thundering in my temples.
Bar tears out of my hand.
I fall back light fades out
I’m in a room. A canvas room. A tent. Slivers of light crosshatch space like rapier blades. Out of the corner of my eye—a presence. In a chair behind a desk—a woman with a deer head.
“Have you found what you are looking for?” she asks.
“What exactly am I looking for?”
“You must answer that.”
“Why are you judging me?” I ask her back.
“You are judging yourself.”
Déjà vu. I’ve met her before.
“You are familiar somehow. I feel you’ve … you … is this a dream?”
“Of course it is,” she replies. “Isn’t it always?”
“But are you really here?”
“Are you really here?”
I don’t know.
“If this is a dream, then I’m just talking to myself.”
“We only talk to ourselves.”
“Everything is wrong here.”
“Isn’t it wrong everywhere?”
“I never wanted to come here. I never wanted to leave.”
“Are you sure?”
“You found me.”
“You found me.”
Her mouth doesn’t move as the words come out. Her limpid mocha curves are hand-blown.
“You’re being cryptic.”
“Here, look at this. This is cryptic.” She shows me her forearm:
“Do you know what is happening to you?”
“I—no—I … sense things happening to me, or—I sense things outside myself happening, but I don’t know what they are. I’m—it’s like I’m reading stories of a life not my own.”
“Every life is a story, a song, a groove in the flow. Most beings think they’re stuck in one track. But you drank from the river of forgetfulness. Perhaps it threw you off your fated course, and you followed a new one, a quest that allowed you to move beyond the river that channeled you, and you began to live other stories. You’re living one right now. If you choose to remember, you can skip the groove you are caught in and flow down another. Or keep forgetting and continue as things are.”
“How can I do that?” I ask.
“Symbols have awesome power. Language is made of symbols which define our essence. A communal game that builds its own boundaries. And people with power build more and more walls, walls of symbols that trap you and also themselves.
“Nothing is certain. Civilization played its game with you. Every time someone tries to define what is, they are playing with symbols, defined by other symbols. An ouroboros of meaning. There is no essence, only understanding. But you’ve seen it. Language has been hacked. The rules of the game have begun falling apart. You’ve pushed past the symbols of power. Inhabiting other worlds is the first step to unraveling power. These lines chart my imagination, mark me with conviction and will. I can share this insight with you, if you open a space for it. Release your need to control and empty yourself. New meaning can grow inside you. It will help you remember. Remember the other worlds you can become. If you would like to see it, come here. Look at me here. It is there. You’ll see it.” She touched her forehead.
I look closely at her fluid skin. I read past the surface; I enter.
Mmmmmuhhhhgg … ahhh waking … did I conjugate? un(shifted worldview)productive, just sleep [
meaning has eaten itself leaving merely crumbs
my quill, where is my Memory Hole notebook?~there, beside my sleep sack~have it
the manner in which the wor(l)d evades control: language is quantum, the closer I get to it, the more it recedes and exceeds my circumference, elusive and evanescent~I have intended to capture for you reality
this “you” may be my future Self [to be my (record of memory as an idea) companion] because very few others can read now or have an interest in reading~perhaps I will string this on my clothesline and send it off to the impenetrable unknown and see what comes back
but I fear I have failed~when I read my own words, they curl up like dying maggots, conjuring shadows of real events (the shameful poverty of my memory) dried up, every one lumbering after the next, my prose leaden~clunky~awkward~dull~desperately circling meaning but gripped by inadequacy (who am I to try?)~no, I will resist that which tells me I cannot, even myself
I need to share my thoughts now
I will go to G’Nesh, share with hem my thoughts on memory, writing (the importance of) my books, and my notes and capture (experience through language) my journey as I go
Right now:
my head is curled; an S-curved tentacle with a quill (a hollow tube spiked into my ink sac) scribbling into the book clenched in my beak like a pirate’s doubloon; the rolling ball of my legs strobing above the Zirkus tents, walking over and along tents, keeping my body close to the surfaces~writing and camouflaging as I go: I am dirt, muslin and the shield, I am phantasm, the symbo
lic foam bubbling overhead~
the sapiens don’t take notice~
I have come to rest at the Midway abutting G’Nesh’s apartment: dirt-brown dirt laps up my viewpoint like an old leather tongue, stringers and workers mill in all directions, forming vortices and cross-stitch patterns as they move toward olive tents; a crowd of Homo sapiendus surrounds an enclosure with a large quadrupedal being (part feline, part avian) inside and a reptilian olive-colored biped in a white cap and a dress fallen on the platform near a gap in the bars (apparently sundered)~
Next, a furry one enters stage left struggling to drag two lumps behind her
I do recognize hem as the Menagerie stringer Maphroditee~I find this Eros, this bunnybiped, a kindred spirit~although hem pays me little attention because I cannot satisfy hem~my limbs too coarse and my suckers too puissant to cherish a sensitive body~but I admire hes gyrations~I have seen hem contorting and cavorting with many individuals and hem achieves (what I have at times used as inspiration) a sublime dance of
bodies [upon closer inspection: one of a sapiendus variety (appearing to be in the same wardrobe as the other sapiens) and the other, the horned equine stringer (Unihorn)] in a trajectory toward G’Nesh’s residence, leaving me meditating how to describe her moving from point A (the dead bodies) to point B (the portal of G’nesh) because I am unsure of the essential importance of these events~I could simply write, “Maphro released the bodies and moved to the entryway of G’nesh’s tent,” and leave it at that, but I’m afraid I might bore you to tears with such unadorned, mundane prose; it serves functionally, to describe movement, but I suspect fails to help you conjure the actual scene~and so I might add several adjectives and/or adverbs to help bring the scene to life with penetrating affect, to whit: “Maphroditee hopped decisively from the conventicle of corpses to the ominous entryway of G’Nesh’s black temple” in this particular case, you get a more vivid picture of what I see although I can’t presume it is real~Maphro may have (for example) been feeling uncertain (hes hopping may have but appeared decisive by its nature) and others may see G’nesh’s door as thrilling rather than ominous, so, in fact, I am describing merely a point of view (and one that changes as I write it), not reality.
Shall I spend a page on one second of time and still not capture it? Shall I tell you about the dust motes that waft like pinpoint will-o-wisps? To what end? Setting the scene? To convince you that what I saw was real? Even I do not know if it is real (or what real means) and what difference verisimilitude when memory has been lifted by the thief of dignity~I skip ahead:
In the connection at G’Nesh door, Maphroditee [standing upright on slender yet strong spring-like thighs, a well-groomed rabbit of cocoa powder, parabolic body (rich fur washing across her like a breeze of dark energy) and hairless chest glands from alabaster at the base, shading through silver, almond, tan, umber, and purest black at the tip] addresses two pigbrids crossing hes trajectory and a third draws nigh [a tall ectomorphic being (whom I have never seen before) like a shoot of bamboo with arms and legs] while the sapeii turn as a group toward the dead bodies (the sapine body appears to be nude from the waist down and has a wound where its glans should be)~now they have surrounded Maphoditee (who is paying no attention to them)
(Raised) voices carry up to me; without warning, a sapien pushes Maphro into another sapien who pushes Maphro back~they are shoving hem around from one to the next, tossing hem violently, grabbing an arm and an arm, and a leg and a leg~they are pulling, attempting to quarter hem~I should act~
(To be honest, I am also called to record this) I will stop~but
“Thank you,” I say to the water and bow my head in supplication. I stand close to it, put my nose and my thoughts over it, and a stratum of coolness caresses me, curling up from the water’s surface into my nostrils.
Looking around the naked room. The floor I sleep on. The pedestal, the bowl of water that stays cool as I’ve taught it.
The show is over. Time to visit the water room. Anticipation. Being in the water room. Guarding the water. Standing by the vat. It radiates freshness and purity like nothing else. Simplicity.
Enter the chamber.
Something is wrong.
Water is dropletting from the clear plastic tubes into the vat. Drip by drip from the donation stations. This is not right. The temperature of the container. A few degrees warmer than usual.
I rocket out the door, kicking it shut behind, rattling the building.
Saps leap aside as I storm across the Midway, hooves pounding, I’m plowing through the slow, them flying like dolls, snorting and bellowing at the top of my lungs to the Lux trailer. I ram my horn into the guts of the door. I back up, ram again. The wood splinters.
“What do you want?” the door cries.
“JOEY, G’NESH, SOMEONE, NOW!” I bellow.
He’s rolling out on his cart drawn by the Bug. Robe half on, Tender right behind them.
“Fucking fuck, Buttons, I could hear you coming in my asshole. What the fuck?”
“Betrayed! The water has been poisoned!”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure.”
“Take me.”
Tender lifts him off the cart and sets him on my back. I turn and race back to the water room. We confront the metal heart, all the tubes running into it like veins.
“Let me off.”
I kneel forward. He crawls over my head and off my nose to the waterlock. He punches in a code, slaps a button. The porthole rotates and pops up with a WHOOSH.
He inhales, eyes closed.
He looks back at me.
“Contaminated. We’ve been fucking radio-axed. Fix it! Separate them!”
I concentrate. Try to convince the water to separate itself from the alpha dogs.
“Is already too corrupted, too tired. I can’t communicate.” The poison had vitiated the liquid’s sense of self. It’s too sweet, too much of a surface, and the water is addicted.
He wails. The sound lashes around the chamber, piercing my ears.
“Back to the square!”
We arrive back to a feverish orgy.
Tender is punching through faces—
Squid is there, the bodies of many crushed Saps under his tentacles—
kinkers converging on the scene, forcing Saps into the cage—
the CatBird backs into a corner with a body under him—
a Black Bamboo pole is whipping about in a frenzy, laughing hysterically, pointing a shiny object at Saps who melt and morph and splatter—
new phreaks are running, galloping, crawling, flopping everywhere—
the CatBird shrieks into a whirlwind of wings and claws and the cage turns into a bloodbath—
Squid is slamming Units’ heads together, tearing bodies apart casually—
lakes of blood disgrace the square—
Baby Joey grabs my earflap and yells into it: “Up there!” pointing at the cage.
Across to the cage, crushing bodies as I go. I bring him up to it, and he crawls off my horn onto the roof.
With a loud bang, the killing is over. There are no Saps left, just clamor, cackles, and the thudding footsteps of pigbrids and kinkers, all of them, the whole Zirk showing up at this spot, all the creatures big and small. The CatBird is squeezing through a gap in the cage, pulling a body behind him.
A piercing cry: Baby Joey like a knife whistle. Quiet falls.
Sound of the CatBird squeezing between the bars. No one tries to stop him.
Baby Joey takes a moment to survey us all.
“This is it, my friends. My partners. My stars. This is done. This is over. This is the end,” says Joey as he looks from one to the next. “You. And you. And you and you and you. All of you. You have survived with unconquerable strength of will. You are miraculous. You are beautiful and spectacular. You have struggled to be who you are, to survive. And now. Now. After all this. Everything you worked for your whole life. You do not deserve this. You have been slain. Each of us. All of us. We sta
nd here alive now, but we are slain. Even G’Nesh cannot save us.”
Growls and snarls rumble through the crowd.
“The Units. The Homo Corruptianis. They have poisoned us. They have poisoned the water.”
His words pierce each of us deeper than his scream.
“They are destroyers. They are death. They have brought it to us. We’re outsiders. Free radicals. They want to kill us or control us. We are not meant to live that way. We can never be controlled. We’re in this as one because we refuse to be trapped, we refuse to live small, we refuse to become them! We are strong, and we shall not go quietly. We shall not become the bones of the starving. We are what they dream of when they dream of being real!”
He waits. He holds out a small webbed hand before us. Green flaps connect his fingers.
“We have been poisoned, and we deserve, we will have revenge. We will show them what they are! WHO WILL FOLLOW ME? WHO WILL BRING THEM DEATH?” he cries, shrill and furious.
And a mighty roar responds.
The four-leggers rear up, hooves and paws in the air, thick rawhide snouts up, awkward bulk raised, hammers and tent pegs in the air.
Joey crawls down onto my horn, says in my ear, “Take us to the City Door.”
I will see for myself~in moments, I [at the vault (entering) the porthole open, the rich aquarium] balloon over the coruscating clear liquescent diamond; dip a tip in, scoop it to my mouth
No
Toxic Plastic Radioactive
No
No nononononononono
We are dead
I fall over the porthole, my body draining, sliding down, draining into it, gushing from a stab wound
Never again, I am in the cistern surrounded by water, all around me cool water, the end is circular, the end, is circular, I will circulate, around and around and around I will go, I am bending stalks, I am falling leaves, my limbs unfurl, I am done writing, forever, everything dissipates, releasing my ink, trailing tornados, I leave behind blooming flowers of unbearable sadness
A Greater Monster Page 23