by Jeffrey Ford
A week earlier, when he had first seen the overcoat slipping through darkness of its own accord, he was terrified of it, but, as Thip sucked away at his reason and will, to have the coat again on his back became everything he had ever wanted to accomplish in his life. As his senses dwindled his courage had grown. He swam through the green twilight practicing a left jab as occasional sparks of colored light exploded in his field of vision. Then a cold wind was all around him, blowing down from the north with a force that shook the limbs of the trees the way a child shakes the dead to wake them. White, pink, yellow blossoms tasted ice in the sudden gale and, fearing they had miscalculated the onset of autumn, let go their hold on summer.
Belius turned the collar of his shirt up against the weather as if it were the collar of his old overcoat. Protecting his eyes with a forearm raised to his brow, he peered through the blizzard of airborne petals and dandelion skeletons and moved into the storm. He no longer laughed or mumbled because the shock of the frigid air stole his wind. All around him, he heard the voices of the dog pack that had attacked him in his youth. He forged forward, deeper into the forest, toward the river.
After the minotaur had forgotten why he was trudging through the forest, and when the flight of blossoms was at its heaviest, he saw something move a few yards in front of him. The camel hair color of it caught what little moonlight slipped through the storm of petals and told him immediately what it was. A trace of the lamb’s wool lining flew directly up his nostrils. He lowered his horns and snorted. As weak as he was, his muscled arms pumped up and down to the beat of his lunacy. His leg hoof dug into the ground. His human foot took the first step and then he was charging. “I wanted to see the light,” the coat seemed to scream as he chased it through the storm, over fallen tree trunks, through webs of vine and sticker shoots, beneath low branches that required him to bend down to the height of four feet. The hunt traced a serpentine path through the trees, doubling back, overlapping previously trampled ground. Never once did Belius lift his head or slow his pace. His target was the wide piece of material between the shoulders at the back of the coat. His horns somehow directed his pursuit.
The smoke-being reached the river bank only seconds ahead of the charging minotaur. With incredible speed, it worked its arms out of the overcoat. The coat fell into the slowly moving waters and was carried away as the spirit of The Cosmology leaped into the air in a high arc, flipped over on its back during the descent, and floated down to mix its atoms with what it took to be the oddly shaped trunk of a fallen tree somehow made of clay. As Belius charged into the clearing by the riverbank, the manifestation of his book closed its eyes within the darkness of its hiding place and passed out.
After spotting the overcoat on the surface of the water, Belius lost all his rage. He walked along the bank, following its progress as it moved toward the mouth of the river. His wild chase had diminished the hallucinatory hold of the digitalis, and a few drops of blood made their way to his brain. A great fatigue came over him, and, for the first time in days, he could think clearly. His first healthy thoughts were of Pezimote, Vashti and Siftus. The realization of his loneliness made him sober for his walk to the sea. He considered wading out into the waters to retrieve his prize, but the autumn wind made the air too cold. The old swatch of camel’s hair no longer mattered to him. Before long, he reached the mouth of the river. He watched as the coat met its first wave and sank beneath the foam.
Belius opened the front door of the tower and ascended the winding stairway. He didn’t stop at the landing that held his bedroom but continued to the turret. There, he moved across the cobblestones to take up a position leaning against the facade. He stared out to sea, watching as the last few flying blossoms lost the wind and fell. Out past the coral reef, there was an eruption of water. Nosthemus broke the surface gaping for air. The giant whale, who now, by the light of the moon, looked so distant and puny to Belius released a spout of water from his blow hole. With this spray came a psychic message, a prophecy to all the creatures of the Wider World. The minotaur heard it in his head as clearly as he heard the tortured rhythm of his own heart, “The autumn wind will blow tonight and the blossoms will fly.” From out of the forest came a chorus of laughter, and then the creatures resumed sleeping or hunting. Belius shook his head as he slipped down to lie on the floor of the roof of his tower. He sank into sleep as his overcoat sank down past the regions of moonlight and eatable fish.
As the blue sun showed itself in the west, both day and night creatures gathered at the riverbank. Obadai and Mez were the first to arrive, hoping they could still take a few more bets before the event got underway. The crowd grew thick and Vashti, who was perched in the branch of a tree situated directly over Soffea, had to keep shouting for the throng not to press in too close on the object of their wonder. The ants from the tower gathered around their hero, Duc-Sin, who held back the brain’s intended consciousness with a looped and knotted stem from a honeysuckle bush. The mosquito was five times the size of the fierce warrior.
Siftus winced as he tapped the two globs of amber into his sculpture’s eye sockets. When he was finished, he looked over his shoulder up to Vashti and shook his head. He could not actually see her, but it gave him some solace when he sniffed a whiff of agreement from her about the inadequacy of the orbs. Shebeb stood on the fringes of the crowd, arms folded, patiently awaiting failure. He had already assured himself that he would take no pleasure in the embarrassment of the mole and owl, and had even secretly vowed to let Siftus back out of their deal of the day before.
Vashti flew down from her perch, and, as she lighted upon the stomach of Soffea, those petals that had covered the body and fallen around it were blown to a distance by the action of her wings. The pieces of blossom flew up in the faces of the crowd and everyone took a step backward. Only Siftus remained standing next to her. He leaned over and whispered to the owl, “The eyes are terrible, aren’t they?” “It’s time for her to walk,” was all Vashti could think to answer. Then she motioned with her wing, and two woodpeckers hopped out from the circle of creatures. One took up a position on the brow of Soffea, between her horns, and the other mounted the chest above where the cavity of the heart had been sunk into clay. With a nod from the owl, the two red headed birds went to work with their beaks and in no time had drilled the holes through which ‘life’ would enter the form.
Duc-Sin strode forth and climbed up onto the brow of the sleeping mud form. He began reeling in the incredible mosquito he’d caught in the mango grove. When there was no more stem left, he grabbed the buzzing insect by the throat and, in one swift action, thrust it down into the dark vault that was Soffea’s skull. Siftus was right there to smooth the clay before the mosquito could find its way out. With a smooth flip of his paw, he covered over the hole that had been drilled as if it had never existed. The ant contingent applauded their hero, and the other creatures joined in. Siftus then moved down to the chest of his creation and waited for the bees to do their last barrel roll and enter one by one to become the energy of heart and soul. He gave a word of thanks to them before again smoothing over the clay.
Just as the owl and mole stepped back to join the circle, the blue sun peered over the rim of the forest. Its light engaged the leaf-tongue from the blabbering tree and Soffea began to mumble. Siftus initiated the chant, “Rise, rise,” and the crowd picked up his rhythm and joined in. The noise of the creatures awakened the sleeping spirit of The Cosmology, which had been hiding, inside the form of Soffea since Belius had chased it through the night.
The clay legs twitched. The chest heaved. The eyelids blinked. The whole sculpture went through a series of convulsions that seemed to emanate from within as if life were percolating and trying to sort itself out. Shebeb unthinkingly pushed aside smaller creatures in order to get closer to the scene. “Impossible,” he shouted.
“Possible,” Siftus countered and stepped forth to take the fair minotaur’s hoof and help her to her feet. She rose off the ground in s
low stages, each bit of progress applauded by the crowd. All the time, the tongue blathered on and on as if picking up in the middle of a conversation interrupted from a previous life. As Soffea reached her feet, Vashti flew into the air, screeching and hooting.
The minotaur wobbled on her legs, the disparate parts of her anatomy jostling but staying fairly intact. Her left horn did fall off onto the ground, but it didn’t seem to cause her any distress. Her head continued to jerk around, her arms to swing slightly with the cadence of her innocuous monologue. She discovered how to smile and practiced it a few times, baring her pearl teeth in an unknowing show of good will. With a halting syncopation, she took her first steps. The crowd made way for her, and she tottered head on into a tree, bounced off it, turned and stood still as if waiting for something to do.
Vashti called Bonita from the crowd. The cat came forth with a balled up piece of blue material that had once served as a table cloth in the tower’s kitchen. During the night, she and Vashti had fashioned the cloth into a crude toga. The owl took the simple dress and flew into the air with it, letting it unfurl to its full length as she ascended. Then flying over Soffea, she aimed with her beacon eyes and let the thing fall. It slipped neatly over the minotaur’s figure, filling out at the chest and laying neatly down two good inches above the knees.
The owl resumed her perch upon the branch. “Silence,” she shouted. The crowd looked up to her and quieted down, all except Soffea. “Look what we’ve accomplished,” she said. “Everyone here has added to the creation of this beautiful creature. Those who didn’t have the skill to work on the form or have something to give gave their faith. I’m certain that today when we present Belius with his bride, he’ll break out of the cocoon of his depression and also be born anew. Now it’s time Siftus and I took her to the tower.”
The mole, who had climbed up the tree next to the minotaur in order to replace her errant horn, cried out, “No, it’s not quite time. She’s lovely, I admit, but … her eyes …” He backed down the tree trunk and waddled through the crowd to where Shebeb was standing, his long hairless fingers covering his mouth. “Ape,” said the mole, “go to your cave and bring back your instruments; the ones that cut. It is time for me to collect.” At the utterance of the word ‘collect’, Obadai and Mez slipped away from the crowd.
“Rise, rise, rise …” This chant reached Belius where he lay on the cobblestones at the top of the tower. The suggestion passed in through the openings of his ears and snout and presented itself to his sleeping consciousness. He took the advice and pulled himself up to his full height before completely awakening. Once his head was clear of the shadow cast by the facade, the sun hit his eyes and forced them to open. As his vision cleared, the world built itself around him. The green feather of nausea blew through his intestines as if, during the night, he had polished off a keg of dandelion wine. His whole body shook violently with fatigue, making his bones crack and his muscles stretch almost to ripping. “Shit,” he said, took a step and fell down. As he dragged himself again to his hoof and foot, he wondered how late it was in the day, how long it would be before Thip was back to exact payment. He knew there would not be many days left before he died from lack of blood. “Better off dead,” he thought as he moved toward the trapdoor that led to the spiral staircase. He took each step with great caution, inching his way down past the bedroom landing, past the laboratory and bathroom to his study. It was all he could do to make it to his chair and fall into it. The only thing on his mind was, of course, the digitalis, but before he leaned over the little table to his left to prepare the pipe, he needed to rest for a few moments.
Staring into the cracked mirror across the room, the minotaur could not make out any detail but could see from the shattered reflection that his color had lost almost every trace of blue. His hide had paled to the color of the moon on winter nights and his flesh to the sickening shade of a toad’s belly. Turning his gaze from the mirror, he looked down to the hooves at the ends of his arms. Each was webbed with networks of cracks and fissures. They would have bled had there been any blood that close to the surface. He feared now, when not under the influence of the digitalis, that if he were even just to tap his horns against something they would break off from his head without so much as a ‘crack’.
He knew that he should have been horrified by the condition of his health, but he felt no emotion. There were no tears, nor was there crazy laughter hiding just the other side of his larynx. There was nothing. He leaned over and, with shaking hoof, tried to fill the bowl of the pipe. The precious leaves of the dried foxglove scattered on table and floor. After three tries the bowl of the pipe was stuffed. He lifted it to his lips and drew on the stem. Five minutes later he realized he had not lit the petals. More fumbling and finally flame. The smoke began to rise. He sucked it in as deeply as his weakened condition would allow, hoping that its high would make him care again, make him think of some way to save himself. When the bowl was spent, the minotaur leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The smoke showed him no colors behind his eyelids this time. All was as black as that chamber of his heart Thip had explored. He snorted and moaned, trying to work up a memory. Even a bad memory, the most horrible one, would do for him now but nothing came. Because of the physical exertion, he had to finally give up. He opened his eyes to look at the objects in his study, feeling them more friendly than the ‘nothing’ that was inside him. Across the coffee table from him, sitting on the divan was Pezimote.
“The door was open downstairs,” said the tortoise.
Excitement flared up inside Belius, but he couldn’t jump out of his seat as he wanted to. “My friend,” he said, the words spoken in a weak drawl. “I went everyday to the sea to look for you. Why haven’t you come?”
“I’ve been busy ruining my life.”
“Chelonia?” Belius asked, somehow guessing the problem from the look in his friend’s eyes.
The tortoise nodded. “She’s left me. Gone off into the ocean somewhere far away. I don’t know where.”
“Why?”
“A young female tortoise. I rode the waves on her back and Chelonia saw it in my eyes.”
“Couldn’t you have made amends?” asked Belius, filling a pipe for his companion.
“I didn’t try. I told her to go. I told her she was tiresome … but now I miss her terribly. I’ve never felt such pain in all my long years. I suppose I’ve never felt anything before. The young tortoise, she’s a fool. She talks more foolishness than Shebeb. She’s always talking. After Chelonia had gone, it was only a day before I began to weary of the nubile’s physical charms.”
“Speak of fools,” said Belius, handing Pezimote the pipe and his homemade lighter.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said the tortoise and leaned over to take the implements. He lit the bowl and drew deeply on the stem. With the release of the blue smoke, he coughed and said, “The things we do to make ourselves seem great.”
“She’ll come back to you,” said Belius.
“No,” the tortoise replied and shook his head. “I’m going to find her. I may be gone for a very long time, that’s why I stopped to see you.”
“See me now old friend, because I will most likely not be alive when you return.”
“And what is with you, you look older than I feel.”
Belius sat forward in his chair, hesitated for a moment by closing his eyes, and, deciding nothing mattered, told Pezimote the events of the past few weeks. He spoke of Thip’s blackmail and the incident from his past that had brought him down. The tortoise sat on the divan as still as the yellow day outside the window. He listened carefully to the tale, as a vision of the total immensity of the oceans of the Wider World filled his head. When Belius was through and silence had swept down between the friends, Pezimote stretched his scrawny neck as far out of his shell as possible and screeched like a magpie. The minotaur knew that the pitiful cry was all that his friend could now offer him. He let it enter his head and, once there, kept it alive, bou
ncing off the boundary between his horns, echoing through the pitch.
“Good-bye, Belius,” said Pezimote and leaned over to set the pipe and lighter on the coffee table. Once these things were set down, he reached even further and stumped his friend on the knee as he had done so many times in the past. Then he rose and walked toward the door. Before leaving, he turned and asked Belius, “And exactly what time is it now?”
The minotaur looked over at the water clock in the corner of the study. “A little before noon,” he said and immediately put his hoof to the festering wound at the crook of his opposite arm. Tears came to his eyes. He wiped them away as he listened to Pezimote descend the spiral staircase.
With a great effort he hoisted himself out of the chair and went to the study window. It was a perfect day with no hint that the first wind of autumn had blown only the night before. He looked down from the tower and saw Pezimote standing by the front door. The tortoise stood there for five minutes, and Belius hoped that he was changing his mind. He was about to call out to his friend to come back when he saw Thip strolling down the center path of the garden, now a half a foot in height, dressed in his too small top hat and cape. The flea was drooling and reciting and every few steps would lose control of himself, spin around in a complete circle and then continue toward the tower. As the flea neared the tower door, he took off his hat and bowed to Pezimote. “Good day, Mr. Tortoise,” he said.
Pezimote eyed the oversized insect up and down and then spat on the ground to his side. “Good day, Mr. Flea,” said the tortoise, and, with one fluid motion, punctuated at its completion by a snap of the beak, he swallowed Thip whole.