by Lars Jerlach
“Are you reading this?” I asked the woman.
She looked at me with her large brown eyes as if I had said something amusing.
“You’re joking right? We’ve all read it. Some of us several times. What’s going on with you today, don’t you remember anything? Ridley gave us all a copy, a couple of weeks before we started shooting. He wanted us all to understand the fundamentals of the storyline that apparently makes the name of this vessel so special.” She pointed to the book I was holding. “ Incidentally that's his private copy you’re holding.”
I didn’t say anything, I just stood there staring at it.
“Are you sure you’re ok? You seem different somehow, like you’re not really here.” She poked at my leg with her index finger.
“Yes, I’m ok,” I answered, not knowing what else to say. “So are we making a movie of the book?”
She looked up at me and threw her head back and laughed. She had a wonderfully free and vacillating laugh, that reverberated in the space.
“You’re seriously out of whack today,” she said smiling. “Have you hit your head on something? She looked at me again and stopped laughing. “Do you really not know what’s going on?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” I said. “Somehow my presence here feels familiar, and yet I cannot seem to recall what I am supposed to do.”
“You sound different.” She looked at me searchingly.
“I do? I wasn’t aware of that.”
“You really do. It’s like you’re using a different vocabulary. Like somebody else is talking, using your voice.” She looked at me questioningly. “You’re not getting sick are you?”
“No,” I replied. “I’m not sick.”
“Then what is it?” She smiled at me with her head slightly tilted.
“I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to upset her, “I feel somewhat displaced, I suppose.”
She smiled up at me. “Perhaps you just need to do something else to take your mind off things.”
She got up from her chair and took my hand in hers. Although a bit smaller than my own, her hand was warm and strong.
She turned around and led me through one of the openings in the wall.
“Where are we going?” I asked, looking around.
“Where we always go, when we want to take our minds off things.” She squeezed my hand.
We were in an octagonal corridor.
It was quite a claustrophobic space. There were a large amount of grey pipes running along the walls and some of the wall panels looked like they belonged in the engine room of a ship.
However, nothing was moving. It didn’t smell of oil or coal either, and it wasn’t noisy. In fact, our footsteps on the iron-grid on the floor were the only sounds in the space.
We walked around a corner and almost knocked over a large camera on a tripod, standing in the center of the corridor.
She stopped and carefully walked around the camera, then she turned right and lead me into a most extraordinary space.
We were in a creamy white octagonal room, approximately ten by ten feet across.
At first glance it looked like a small chapel.
On the floor a raised brown platform about a foot high and two feet wide was circling the room and a large white padded chair was standing in the center.
The ceiling was bisected by an equidistant cross and four rhombus shaped skylights, that were emitting a soft white light through opaque panels. Most unusual though, were the thousands of small white lights inserted in the walls and the ceiling. They were behind opaque square panes of glass, blinking on and off in in a disharmonious pattern.
Embedded in the center of the sectioned walls every couple of feet was a glass covered frame. Matching the frames in the mess hall, these were also empty and only reflected what was already in the space.
The woman walked over to the chair. She stood in front of me, put her hands on my chest and gently pushed me into the seat.
I didn’t know what to expect, but I was completely taken aback when she began removing her jacket. I was astounded by her boldness and lack of reserve and even more so when she loosened her belt and unzipped her trousers, that now liberated fell to the floor and came to rest around her ankles.
She was effectively undressed, bar the smallest white undergarments and her snug fitting undershirt.
She stood in front of me, with her hands on her hips, looking at me expectantly.
Although I realized that I was a participant in a regular activity, I didn’t know how to react, so I just kept gazing at her almost nude body.
She was beautiful standing there surrounded by the lights and I realized that I wanted her.
She didn’t utter a word as she leaned down and pulled at the sleeves of my jacket. I lifted my arms to assist her.
On the inside of my left arm there was a large tattoo of a black raven sitting on the head of a bust of a woman wearing an ornate helmet.
I had the strangest feeling that the raven was purposely staring at me with its icy blue eye.
When she had removed my jacket, she unbuttoned my shirt and slid her hands underneath it.
They felt charged against my skin.
She pulled my cream shirt and light green undershirt over my head and threw them on the floor. Her hands moved to my belt. She expertly unbuckled it and pulled me up by my hands. When I was standing, she slowly pulled down my trousers and undergarment.
I was now completely naked and could not hide the rigid state of my organ. She was not affectedly shy by my condition, on the contrary, she looked at me and smiled.
She slid her own undergarments down her legs and dropped them on the floor.
I could feel the heat of her body as she moved closer to me.
She emitted a subtle yet enticing infused smell of perspiration, lilies and sandalwood.
She pushed me back in the chair, lifted her left leg and straddled me.
She looked intently into my eyes and used her left hand to guide me inside her.
She unhurriedly pushed herself down until our pubic bones met.
She pulled her undershirt over her head, dropped it on the floor and reached for my hands. She locked my hands in hers over my head on the back of the chair and began to move her hips slowly up and down.
She kept her eyes on mine as she undulated.
Her pupils were dilated and piceous like the bottom of an amaranthine well.
I looked into her eyes.
I was convinced I saw something, like a speck of light, move in their depth.
She was slowly increasing her speed on my lap and her breathing intensified. She dug her fingers into the back of my hands and pressed them hard against the headrest of the chair.
She was still looking at me intensely and moved her head a little closer to mine while lithely moving her body.
There was unmistakably something moving deep inside her. It looked like a tiny snowflake carelessly drifting in the wind. I tried to focus on the movement of the flake as her breathing deepened and she opened her mouth gasping for air.
She began to shake as if a small electric current was running through her.
Her insides contracted and squeezed around my organ.
I looked into the bottomless well and from the depth of the darkness the shape began to take form.
It was a white raven flying towards the light.
I thought I could hear it calling.
As it reached the surface, I ruptured into a million little pieces.
When I regained my senses, I was sitting in a chair in the watch room. The rays of the sun were blindingly streaming through the windows and it was warm in the room. My upper body was bare and my breeches were in a pile around my ankles on the floor. My hands were holding on to the chair behind my head and I could feel a pressure on my upper legs. I looked down and saw a sack of flour lying on my lap.
Although I ultimately accept this as a dream, I must admit that I am terribly embarrassed by my conduct. Still, I ma
de the promise to be as faithful in my description as I possibly can. As I have stated many times before, I am without control in my somnambular state and therefore cannot be responsible for my actions, however deplorable.
Though my actions perhaps speak otherwise, I can assure you that I have no romantic feelings towards the woman in the dream. You should know that you are the only true love of my life and that I have never laid desirous eyes on another woman. I ask once again that you not be abhorred by the fantasies of my mind and that you judge me purely for who I am as a husband to you and as a father to our girls.
I cannot explain the dream any better than you. I have no possible explanation for why I was there.
It does not seem that these events have a logical design or a specific purpose, and I find it increasingly difficult to connect the recurring elements.
Although I recognize it is all an absurd elaborate fantasy made by my overzealous mind, I am nonetheless haunted by the devilish head and claws.
I believe I am perfectly lucid in my cognizant state, yet my mind is not at ease.
He put the sheet down on top of the pile on the left. He sat quietly with his hands folded in his lap and gazed into the distance. His fingers were cold so he put his hands in his pockets to feel for the stones.
They were barely warm.
He un-pocketed his watch and checked the time. Twenty eight minutes. He stood up and walked to the window. It was still about four hours to sunrise and yet the night sky had already altered its complexion. For a while he looked at the constellations in the expanse above, then he moved his eyes down to scan the horizon. On the surface the sea seemed as calm as the sky.
He walked over to the bucket on the floor and unbuttoned his jacket. He held the jacket aside as he unbuckled his trousers and took out his member. He had to wait until his erection subsided before he could let go of his water. He stood for a while staring at the etching of the bird on the branch on the wall in front of him, trying not to think of anything.
When he was finally able to let go, he watched the fuliginous stream of urine splash onto the surface of the liquid already amassed in the bucket. It left a trace of musty, salty odor in the air.
He finished, tucked himself away and went back to the table to pick up the cup, teapot and lamp. He walked downstairs to the galley, where he deposited the teapot on the end of the stove, put the cup in the sink and washed his hands.
He withdrew the two cold stones from his pockets and placed them on the stovetop next to the others.
He put the kettle on the stove and walked over to the pantry and grabbed a small package of oats from the shelf.
He walked back to the sink and picked up the pan. There was dried residue from the beans congealed on the inside, so he poured some warm water from the kettle into the pan. After he rinsed it he put the clean pan on the stove, picked up the cup and measured out a cup of oats and dropped them in the pan. He then added a cup and a half of cold water and walked over to the cupboard and took a pinch of salt from the jar and tossed it in the pan.
He checked his watch. Sixteen minutes.
As he waited for the porridge to heat up, he thought about the latest vision.
Although he didn’t regard himself as a profligate, he wasn’t exactly a saint either and couldn’t evade the fact that he had been aroused by Soule’s narration.
The description of the encounter with the woman was especially expressive and even though Soule had claimed the event to be a dream, he thought the account read more like a confession. It was clear from the description that Soule himself believed that he had made love to the woman, or rather that the woman had made love to him.
It was his belief that Soule genuinely believed a metamorphosis was taking place and that, rather than dreaming, he was being disestablished into an alternative story, perhaps even in a different era. It was obvious to him that Soule was confounded by the apocryphal images and events, yet he continued to write about the accounts in a composed and rational manner. He didn’t know what to make of the narrative.
It was evident that Soule had visited an actress on a movie set and that it somehow had a connection to Conrad’s novel, but he couldn’t think of any correlations that made sense. Also, the woman had laughed when Soule had asked her if they were making a movie of the book, so he was uncertain of its implication.
He very much appreciated Conrad’s novel and had always had an affinity for old Giorgio, even when he made the ultimate mistake at the end. He thought about the setting of the novel, its revolutionary narrative and the development of the main character, but he simply couldn’t connect it to anything Soule had described.
The rooms he had visited and the other images all sounded alien to him.
He walked over to the sink cabinet and picked up a wooden spoon from the drawer.
He wondered if the head of the devilish creature was purely allegorical. It reminded him of Nosferatu and the creatures of hell in Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings and he was curious if it had a tangible function. Maybe it was part of a totem or a gargoyle, or perhaps another actor would wear it as a mask like a golem to frighten the woman. It was conceivable that they had been filming a horror movie, but if that was the case, he couldn’t establish a logical connection to Conrad.
He stuck the spoon in the pan and stirred the content. The ingredients had not yet condensed, but the semi opaque water was simmering on the surface, so he knew that it wouldn’t be long before it thickened. He kept stirring the gray bubbling mass around the pan until it reached a gelatinous consistency. When it was to his liking, he removed the pan from the stovetop and used the wooden spoon as a ladle and scooped the steaming porridge into the bowl. He put the pan back in the sink and grabbed the bag of sugar from the top shelf in the pantry.
He sprinkled a generous amount onto the porridge and put the bag back in the cupboard. He checked the time. Six minutes. He picked up two of the hot stones and slipped them into his pockets.
He stuck a spoon in the porridge, picked up the bowl and made his way back upstairs.
He deposited the bowl of steaming porridge on the table and walked over to rewind the mechanism.
He counted the revolutions and when he was certain the weights were all the way up, he walked back to the table, sat down on the chair and picked up the bowl and put it in the palm of his hand.
The steam was warming his face as he leant over the table to pick up another sheet of paper.
He placed it on the tabletop in front of him.
The Taxidermist
I was in a large room. The walls were the colour of ash and the white ceiling, high above, was dirty with large patches of paint peeling off, clinging to its host like a layer of discarded reptilian skin.
Sunlight was streaming through the blinds of three dominant windows and the semi obfuscated light cast a collinear pattern on the floor near where I was sitting.
I looked down and saw a pair of reddish scaly legs ending in a set of pink claws. They were imbedded on the white shoulder bump of what I assumed to be an animal of the bovine family. It had small curvy horns and was lying down on a patch of sandy dirt in a rather sizable raised frame on the floor.
There was a penetrating mephitic smell in the dusty air, like a mixture of dried meat, burnt almonds and formaldehyde.
I jumped around on the animal’s back.
There was no movements under the skin and it didn’t release any heat either. On the wall opposite, the giant head of a water buffalo was blindly staring at my antics, and I belatedly realized that I was perched on top of a stuffed bull.
I flapped my ivory wings and released a considerable amount of dust that drifted into the air. The particles created a ductile pattern in the beams of sunlight.
I looked around.
The room was overflowing with articles that one would usually find in a museum of natural history or in the studio of a taxidermist.
There were a number of African specimens in the room.
At the op
posite end of the studio, a large gorilla was standing on its feet, in front of a large amount of stacked hay bales. It was pouting and locked in the pose of mutely drumming its chest with its muscular arms. Next to the gorilla stood an enormous grey rhinoceros with its massive horned head in the air. It was placed on a low sand filled pedestal on the ground and one of its trunk like front legs was bent as if the animal was ready to charge. A small group birds were clustered on the rhino's back. They were, more or less, the size of a common sparrow and brownish green in colour with vivid red beaks.
Closer to where I was sitting, a male lion with a lavish dark mane was standing on a smaller rectangular platform next to a lioness.
She was lying on the sandy ground with her front paws crossed, vacuously gazing into the distance. The male lion was silently roaring and its huge canine teeth looked nearly white against its pink nudibranch-like tongue.
In one of the corners, four rolls of wire, differing in thickness, were leaning against the wall next to a bundle of thin steel rods lying on the floor.
A sizable metal framed table with a grey stone top stood in the center of the room. Brushes, wires and an assortment of small hand tools lay scattered on its surface. A large plasmic shape, made from hay and twine, was sitting in the middle of the table and the front part of a zebra hide was hanging over the edge.
Even in this environment the zebra’s flattened contours and abandoned arrangement appeared incongruous.
There were a couple of birds placed in sand filled frames on the ground.
One of them I recognized as a guinea fowl, but the other one I hadn’t seen before. It was some type of Ibis. Its body was white, but its neck, downwards curved beak, long legs and rump feathers were all black as velvet. The head was turned and its neck was bent downwards, as if it was looking for something on the ground.
In one of the corners, near a massive sliding grey metal door, stood a large glass cabinet. The three shelves near the top were filled with an assemblage of specimen jars and the lower two shelves with a multitude of dark glass bottles and metal cans.