Blake swore the empty picture frames swelled slightly, as if breathing.
“A mocking smack to the truth of what I know. About him, myself, this world; all worlds, interconnected. All of it. He degraded my creation by demoting it to simply being a doorway in his little game.”
This made zero sense to Blake, yet he listened on.
“He’s always thought his work superior to mine. Even if he stole from it for elements found in much of his work. The use of the language of insects in the unabridged version of Naked Lunch being his most blatant—”
Solon screamed, or at least let loose with a sound related to a scream. It was a tone that scissored through the air, slicing into Blake’s mind, body, the house itself. Insects froze and tumbled from walls; lizards hung on a few seconds longer before joining them. Blake buckled to his knees.
“—his most obvious example. Yet, he never had the heart to release that version on the world you live in, only down here. Where it sits amid the mid-list titles and well below my masterpieces. You see”—pausing again, a sense of bringing composure to the shadows, as if one was brushing lint off a suit, plucking the finer pieces—“Burroughs is a man who dreamed of being an insect, but did not understand the true sacrifice inherent for success: letting go of one’s humanity. Completely. A harder task than mine.”
“Which would be…?”
“I am an insect who dreamed of being a man, if only to coordinate the uprising of insects to our rightful place in the world. It was easy; humans are easy to assimilate. But it was not worth the effort, as humans do not have the capacity to understand the magnitude of my stories, to embrace the essence of their inherent insect logic. We need the gates of distant, primal cognizance to swing open, in order to take command. At this time, human knowledge is not the equal to the task. So we wait. I wait.”
Dear God. Blake had never heard such madness. Perhaps that’s why Solon lived in isolation, probably writing more of his unsuccessful tales, jealous of a dead man, angry at the world.
“You don’t believe me, either, do you?”
Blake did not answer. Instead, he had one more question and then to leave, to drive with haste away from this sanity-blasted wasteland.
“Why did I see the green limousine? What do I have to do with this…Master?”
Blake could swear the darkness bulged out from the door frame.
“You are a part of Burroughs’ frivolity.”
“What is that supposed to mean, his frivolity?”
“Oh, it’s all quite comical if you ask me. You’re chasing an idiot chasing a rumor chasing its tail.” The tickling rippled through Blake’s whole body. Back to standing, he almost buckled again, but held on.
“Give me something real. You created it. You must know its use.”
“Of course I know its use. Burroughs, that shit, just subverted it for his own means. Meaning…”
The tickling stopped, though no words followed. Sweat beaded and raced down Blake’s forehead.
A few insects and lizards, perhaps those relieved of their incapacitation, started up the walls again.
Blake noticed many of the frames had burst, the splintered remains still attached to the walls. When did that happen?
Back to the here and now, but not for long. He needed the too hot sun and miles and miles of asphalt behind him, with his foot jammed on the pedal, pressing down with all his might.
“Meaning?”
“Well, why don’t you ask Burroughs what it all means?”
“He’s dead. He’s been dead for years. What the hell kind of madness is…any of this?”
Turning to walk away, frustrated and angry for listening to any of this madman’s verbal shenanigans. Beat down, he’d had enough.
“He’s only dead in your world, Blake. He’s only dead in your world.”
More of the fat bees, which did not exactly look like bees—everything about this ragged outpost of land seemed wrong, alien; different—clamored for light, eager to drink it in. Growing fatter with the slaking.
Worse yet, the darkness shifted, stirring his cranial cauldron with the bleakest imaginings. Blake flinched, froze, and flinched again, taking in the movement that coiled into his very being.
The darkness separated, as the Red Sea had for Moses. But this was not Moses. This was Solon, about to step out of the concentrated abyss and into Blake’s world.
Chapter 21 Teagarden
Thin metallic laughter filters into my head.
I rub my ears with arachnid fingers. I jerk my hands from my ears, take in the slow twitching fingers crawling through the air. Spider legs massaging the ether, spinning invisible webs.
Are you there, dear sister?
The difference is palpable.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…
My vision blossoms into sight, a different sight, yet how, I am not sure. You know how sometimes you know something is not the same, but figuring it out is impossible? Like when a person puts on contacts and their eye color is different, yet it is such an unexpected thing it’s hard to put a finger on what is different. It’s like that. Though in the difference, I do notice motes of dust drifting in the darkness. Something I would rarely notice before, without a ray of light, a beaming bulb. Odd, but not unwelcome.
That’s when I notice it’s not motes of dust. It’s some kind of flying insects, as they swarm as starlings and disappear into the distance. The dark distance. The dark. Why do I think distance? Just dark. They disappear into the dark.
But there is a distance as a light bobs from within it. A train at the end of a tunnel? More like a wick lit at the end of a stick of dynamite.
I am so morose. Morbid.
Are you morbid?
The metallic scritch-scritch continues. A conference of sinister, sentient shards of shaved metal. Or insects. It reminds me of what I have heard of the language of insects. Sort of.
The light approaches, a torch. A figure in a robe, hood pulled up over his, her…or its head.
“Well, well. You’re the first ever to make it this far.” The voice is akin to boiling water bubbling over the edge of a pot. Recollection sets it within the realm of the language of lizards; perhaps.
I squint and yet, with the torch held to its left, the figure’s face is nothing but eternal night. Something shimmers in the torchlight there: stars, constellations, messages…
The illumination from the wavering flame flickers off the walls, the shadows alive, or perhaps the light between the cracks is alive. Brick into stone. Color indistinguishable. Brick and stone and strange creatures rushing about. I flinch as something brushes by my hand. I let out a tiny yelp of surprise.
“Stand up, let’s get you on your way.” Bubbling, seething. The seething accentuates the lizard-like quality, almost a hiss.
I’m only too happy to be off the hard, cold floor. The place feels like a prison cell. Isolation. A mausoleum.
I emit a skittish sound, laughter in a way; serious changes, more evident. But when I speak, it is my regular voice that cuts through the rising rumble of scritch-scritch-scritching. At least in my ears, my head.
“The Centipede.”
“Yes, yes. You are the first to make it this far. But there’s much more to your journey. This leg.”
As the words take shape, I sense this language is not a common mode of communication for this figure, or perhaps it is antsy to get on as well. I am reminded of Daryl. There’s something of urgency in its unseen stride. It seems to hover, the robe draping over whatever legs it may possess, human or covered in scales reptilian, or many other possibilities.
His face is a wasteland, damned to eternal vagaries…though I expect here, wherever here is, it does not matter. I am only too glad he turns away as we start on our trek.
I am bristling with eagerness, though. Cannot help myself. Especially if I am the first to make it this far. Get me to the end, man! I start to ask the only pertinent question circumstances allows, when something flutters in my vision, distracting me
.
It is a huge fly wearing a mask, an almost human face. I am reminded of the fly with a human face caught in the web at the end of the original version of the movie, The Fly. I wonder if I am caught in a web. (Help me.) Its wings are pale and decorated with letters which are impossible to read while it’s in flight. I think this and it stops, glides, and I read: A fly when it exists, has as much being as a God. My internal files pull up Soren Kierkegaard as the originator of this line…or was it Brundlefly, Jeff Goldblum from David Cronenberg’s reimagining of The Fly. Seems a succinct assumption under my present condition, the metamorphosis I am locked into.
Gregor Samsa would be proud. Kafka as well. Though in taking a quick glance at myself, I am me. Human. Paltry. Inconsequential.
Pity.
The mask evaporates, yet through the fly’s mouth aperture it says, in a voice rippling as a river of gravel, combining English with the language of insects, “Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything. Of course, that might also depend on whose imagination one bows to. Who is your God, Marlon?”
The first part is familiar, Henry Miller, though the fly has taken liberties to add its two cents or nonsensical aside, tilting the notion into the realm of the curious.
I am about to respond when the hooded figure turns to me, that face, bleak and hollow, and says, “Don’t listen to it. To them,” signaling to the abundant insects and lizards and compelling abstractions of both skittering on the walls. All eyes on me. Dozens and dozens of eyes on me.”
“They are minor players in your quest for the Centipede. Don’t allow them purchase in your mind, now that it’s being shaped to accept everything you are to experience.”
The sounds in my ears, in my head, escalate. As if all of these creatures have slithered into my ears and have decided to feast on my brain, my thoughts. I open my mouth wide, trying to force a yawn, something—an escape route?
“Don’t tempt them, fool. They would be more than happy to fill you, take you from within. End your quest at the door of completion.”
Which makes me think of the obvious question events had distracted me from asking.
“What do you want? Need? In exchange, y’know?”
The bubbling pours out of him. There is no indication of this in that void of a face, though astonishingly, a three-headed lizard weaves a herky-jerky trail across the dark façade, raising not the ire or inclination of the figure to stop with the abrasive bubbling: laughter.
“It’s not what I want. It’s not my place. It’s her place. She’s never expected anyone to make it this far. She’s…preparing herself.”
There’s an ominous quality to this phrase. I sense it in my bones, my gut.
“Preparing herself?” I ask, following up with the more pertinent question, “Who is she?”
The figure ignores me and mumbles, “Pretty herself up for you, in a way.”
In a way, he says. This figure dressed in shadows and secrets.
“When?”
“When what?”
“When do I meet her, this mysterious she?”
“Don’t be so anxious,” he says. Another lizard-like creature—the legs are like…the motivation is like a tank, the rolling of wheels in a rigid track—caresses the void within the hood, before sinking into it without a struggle.
“You’ll get to her soon enough. She’s the last leg before you meet up with Burroughs.”
This news fills me with elation. Finally, almost there. No matter what she wants, I will fulfill it and be with Burroughs sooner than later. Soon, soon…
“Why are you smiling?” the figure asks, before turning to face the darkness ahead and continuing on our way.
“The ultimate experience is soon mine. That’s why I am here. That’s the whole purpose of what I have gone through just to get here. Wouldn’t you be happy?”
“Happiness is a conscious choice, not a goal one can set and achieve through some rigorous task. And getting here does not mean there’s a there from here.”
The bubbling simmers, oily. Spattering.
Not a there from here? Why would I be here if there wasn’t?
I step on something that steps back, a foot on the ground, but no, a large toad with the imprint of my worn Converse sneakers on its back.
It croaks and within the throaty timbre of the croak, emits a sound that resembles the word asshole.
Sidestepping, I continue with my conversation with the one I think of as my guide, leading me to a promised land like no other.
“Just get me there and let me deal with it.” Obstinate, a bit harsh, but I don’t care. I sense how close I am. My veins sing a chattering chorus. Of course!
The bubbling which had turned oily and spattered sporadically gains strength, spitting vitriol as my guide speaks. “Don’t think it’s going to be anything you want to do.” The cowl shakes side to side, but the messenger does not turn to face me. “Don’t think you have a clue what’s coming up.”
“It doesn’t matter what you…” But the words stall, hesitate, not in the actual speaking, but in hitting the air, my eardrums, perhaps the messenger’s eardrums, means of hearing—whatever the fuck ever. Then the words rush past me, bunched together.
“What the…?”
Again, delayed, then slingshotting ahead. My tread slows, and I notice even that seems out of sync: the echo of footsteps hits me before my foot stamps the ground, though that might simply be the audio reflection of the previous step. It disorients. I do not like it at all. My stomach lurches.
“We’re almost there,” my guide says, not turning to tell me this. Its voice sneaks up from behind. I don’t turn to check if another has hitched along with us. I know it is the figure in front of me.
The brick and stone walls are negligible as we approach a door, buried beneath a wallpaper of kinetic wonder as creatures of all manner roil in orgiastic glee all over them. It is magnificent and it is shocking. More surprising is the door glittering in prismatic radiance, as if carved from crystals, though I cannot see through it in any way. The slanted slash and angles of the appearance is wholly impenetrable. The torch inspires variations on colors within the flame to sashay along the cubist abstraction that is the door.
No insects, lizards, or indescribable things trespass upon this magnificent door.
I am in awe, mouth slack and something climbs in and I try to spit, to close my mouth afterwards, but neither action is met with success.
My guide turns to me, perhaps hearing my struggle, and reaches out with a black-gloved hand—or possibly a hand as velvety rich and dark as its face—and plucks the offending thing from between my lips. The thing dangles from the dark fingers before my guide flings it to the wall. It is immediately immersed in the thriving tide.
“I told you to keep your mouth shut unless you want to be fodder for us.”
Us? So he is one of these creatures? Just because he wears a robe does not mean it has any allegiance to humanity.
I spit out of habit, clearing my tongue of the creature and this other creature as my guide says, “You will do exactly as she requests. Understood?”
“Of course. I need this, to get to the Centipede.”
“Of course, you say. Without knowing what she wants.”
“It does not matter. I will fulfill it without delay.”
The bubbling ceases. The water within his throat frozen. The words come out crisp and clear.
“Of course you will.” A mocking retort. “All you need to know is that if you do not fully give of yourself to her request, well—”
“Haven’t you been listening? My quest is at hand. She is the final stop, the final leg, before Burroughs. There’s no turning back now. I am firm with my statement. There is no doubt in my cold heart.”
“Listen up, confidence boy. Once I ring her up and this door is opened, you’re hers. Completely. We out here do not want you to fail, you know? You better be everything she wants and more
. Because you don’t want to piss off the Reptile Queen. We don’t want you to piss her off. Especially when she’s hungry…”
With this, my heart sinks. My heart drowns. Perhaps I saw this coming, my instinct felt this coming. The Reptile Queen.
I have heard about the Reptile Queen and her ways. But meeting her is something I never expected. She doesn’t take guests. She takes. On what level, has never been explained to me. Rumors left to rumors design and the imagination of the receptor.
“What are you trembling for?” my guide says. “Shall I refrain from pressing the doorbell and alerting her to your presence?”
“Go…go ahead.”
My guide hesitates.
I nod, thinking, what the hell is Especially when she’s hungry supposed to mean?
Hungry for what?
Hungry?
Shit.
But I must. Nothing can get in my way of obtaining the Centipede. Nothing. Not even the Reptile Queen.
My guide presses a finger—gloved or not, it does not matter—to a round white space, a button. I hear a polite ding-dong, almost comical.
The door opens. The lights and colors simmer to pale.
My guide backs away, bumps into me. I feel his sponginess. The creatures upon the walls thrust backwards, growing thick where bodies trample bodies for escape.
The scritch-scritch sounds eating all thoughts are eclipsed by the swell of dread. Silence, deep and inconsolable. The moment the nightmare becomes real.
My guide nudges me forward.
“You don’t want to piss her off. Go. Go now.”
I enter…
Chapter 22 Chernobyl
The room was humid, the heat blooming inside him, an organic generator he needed to switch off.
He closed his eyes, concentration aligned for the first of two tasks on his agenda, having noticed a light sheen on the painted skin of a Caravaggio. The paint was coming alive, something he could not allow to happen.
So his breath slowed down, life internalized to sharpen his control, and he remembered what it meant to be human, simply human. A paradox of ideals as it’s the part of him he feels most in conflict with. Nonetheless, he sensed it was the only way to stop what fumed inside him.
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