The New Death and others

by James Hutchings

  in Diamanda's mind had come

  to be a single nemesis

  invincible and pitiless.

  ---

  One night across the dead bazaar

  she noticed that her way was barred

  by some half-seen and looming shape

  and when she turned she stood agape

  for elephants with tranquil stride

  surrounded her on every side.

  She trembled like a fox at bay

  that looks upon its final day.

  She braced herself to die alone

  walled in as by cyclopean stone

  as if a dark, primordial shrine

  had risen from an ancient time.

  But then there came no killing stroke.

  In chorus all the creatures spoke

  the cubs, the matriarchs and bulls

  in speech slow and unstoppable.

  "What webs of folly you contrive

  you outcasts of the Isle of Wives!

  "So many quit that evil shore

  yet ever those who go before

  do naught for those who stay behind

  as if the light had made you blind.

  Your tears unmet by actions are

  like stinging smoke without a fire.

  "And as for you, your life of sin

  is written on our wounded skin.

  You scourge your slaves as if Hell-sent

  relentless and impenitent

  and yet believe yourself to be

  the martyred child of liberty.

  "Therefore, find all your exiled flock

  who have the will for more than talk.

  Go sail the world and in a year

  return and bring your kinsfolk here.

  And if you shirk from our command

  then we will crush you where you stand."

  ---

  No stranger to the bluff and lie

  she saw no falsehood in their eyes

  so swore an unfelt loyalty

  and set out for the open sea.

  That night she dreamed that she, outfought,

  sat dying in a sunless vault.

  Not out of love but out of fear

  She sailed the oceans for a year.

  Though often thistles were her bread

  and broken ground her only bed

  she found her kin and begged each one

  except, of course, the merchant's son.

  But some who had been gone for years

  had drunk too deep of their own tears

  and grown contented with their grief

  till like an unrepentant thief

  they talked until the windows shook

  of actions that they never took.

  And some had sons and some had wives

  and most no wish to lose their lives

  and so her army never grew

  beyond a wild and desperate few.

  One balmy day near sunset she

  sailed back to port in Telelee.

  ---

  They waited in the square until

  they saw around them, quiet and still

  a glittering ring of staring eyes

  like stars descended from the sky

  eyes hard as adamantium

  and none had seen or heard them come.

  The elephants stood grave as monks

  and gripped in every curling trunk

  machetes of unearthly make.

  They held them for the mob to take

  and said, "the strongest armor made

  will be as paper to this blade."

  And truth to tell they seemed to share

  all virtues that a blade could bear:

  as sharp as spite yet light as smoke

  and longing for the killing stroke

  as eager to find flesh, or more,

  as usurers to find the poor.

  Each handle was of emerald glass

  in strength and lightness unsurpassed

  and those who raised it to their eye

  beheld the world all falsified.

  Each crewman seemed a corpse decayed

  suspended in a sea of jade.

  ---

  They sailed towards their mother-isle

  with eager hearts and wolfish smiles

  and in the hours when they slept

  lay all together on the deck

  as chaste as corpses gone to dust

  the thirst for blood their only lust.

  A priest awoke and shrilly screamed

  from dying in his fearful dream

  and when his brothers asked him why

  he said, "It is our time to die.

  I dreamed the sea brought forth a beast

  that longed to gorge on every priest."

  Each took a staff and woven mat

  and walked down to the beach and sat.

  They waited till the dawn's first glow

  lit up the land and sea, and lo!

  they saw the coming ship and knew

  the dreadful dream was coming true.

  They drank a brew whose subtle art

  would banish fear then stop the heart.

  They placed the idol by the sea

  where legend said he loved to be

  and when the eldest gave a nod

  picked up a rock and killed their god.

  ---

  When Diamanda's ship arrived

  no single priest remained alive

  and if her crew bore other blades

  they would have called the island saved

  and wondered at their luck--but no.

  Their weapons would not have it so.

  One raised his blade and saw therein

  another man, who looked like him

  yet had a finer, fiercer cast:

  himself, but loved and feared at last.

  A man grown strong where he was weak

  who gave him pride and strength to speak.

  "These priests have gone where all must go

  and who will pay the debt they owe?

  Who stayed at home in safety while

  we shivered on some strangers' isle?

  The shepherd's rule lasts not a day

  unless the witless herd obey.

  "For each dead priest are nine times nine

  who did their will and shared their crime!"

  All cheered the sermon loud and long

  held high their blades--and how they shone!

  They shuddered with a bestial thrill

  and hungrily went forth to kill.

  They showed no more regret or shame

  than if they hacked through sugar-cane.

  Each anguished cry for mercy fell

  like stones that drop into a well

  to lie beneath the depths unseen

  and leave no sign that they have been.

  Both blade and flesh were bathed in red

  in murdered blood from foot to head

  so that they seemed more demon-spawn

  than human flesh of woman born.

  Then with the setting of the sun

  it came to them what they had done.

  ---

  And each one groaned aloud with guilt

  to think of all the blood they spilt.

  They tried to wipe the blood away

  as if to cancel out the day

  well knowing that the greater stain

  was on their soul, and that remained.

  Then each one heard an inner voice

  that whispered of a grisly choice.

  It hissed, "Of course, you went along

  but were you author of this wrong?

  Behold those fiends in human form

  who drip with murdered gore still warm."

  "The babe in arms, the maiden fair

  the childhood friend--not one was spared.

  Was this an end that you would choose

  or was your love of freedom used

  to blind your heart and cruelly cloak

  the wicked plans of wicke
d folk?

  "But quickly now; your blade is daubed

  like every other in the mob.

  They still believe you in their spell.

  You may yet send them all to Hell.

  Refuse to be these devils' thrall.

  Take up your blade and kill them all."

  The voice was soft, yet hard as steel

  and wore them down like grinded meal

  until each hand picked up their blade

  and every guilty arm obeyed.

  As steel met steel the clanging ring

  held subtle tones of snickering.

  ---

  In Telelee there stood a square

  and each day merchants haggled there

  but one night when the market closed

  it knew no silence or repose.

  The elephants in Telelee

  were heard to trumpet joyfully.

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  ++++

  Sigrun and the Shepherd

  Once upon a time, in the great city of Telelee, there lived a woman named Sigrun. Every weekday morning she said goodbye to her husband, and made her way to work. She worked at the top of a high tower at the edge of the city. There she copied old books onto new paper, in case the original was destroyed. This tower was so high that climbing it was a job in itself. And in fact there were a team of apes, white mountain gorillas who liked nothing better than scrambling up and down steep slopes, whose job was to carry Sigrun up the winding staircase. There were only two sets of rooms in the whole tower. There were rooms right at the bottom, where the gorillas lived. And there were rooms right at the top, where Sigrun worked. And why they made the tower this way no one knew, unless it was to give the gorillas something to do. At the end of the day Sigrun would take her parachute and jump out the window, drifting slowly home. For it was an ancient custom of the gorillas that they would only carry burdens upwards, never down. From her office Sigrun could look down at the city, or at the fields beyond the city walls. And when she did this, she felt like she was a bird. So perhaps there was some reason for the tower being so high after all.

  One day Sigrun was looking out the window and noticed a shepherd tending his flock by the city walls. There were white sheep, whose wool would make white jumpers, and black sheep whose wool would make black jumpers, and tartan sheep whose wool would make kilts. The shepherd kept a special eye on the white sheep, because the wind might think they were clouds and try to blow them away. He seemed to Sigrun to be unusually strong and tender. In Telelee all shepherds are kind-hearted (those that aren't have to go to angora management classes. Anyway, bullies are all cowherds at heart). Sigrun turned back to her work, and when she looked out the window again hours later she was a little sad to see that the shepherd was no longer there.

  Over the next few weeks she saw the shepherd several times. She noticed that he was about her age. Unlike her husband he had no bald spot. He had a habit of singing to himself, or to the sheep. Although she could hardly hear it, Sigrun thought his voice was clear and sweet. Then one day the shepherd looked up at the high tower and smiled. Sigrun was shocked. She had never thought that the shepherd might be able to see her too. For the rest of the day she did not look out the window, and her hand shook as she held her quill. The next time the shepherd looked upwards, Sigrun was sure he could see her.

  After that Sigrun would not just watch the shepherd, but would also smile and wave to him. Sometimes she thought he saw her, and sometimes not. He seemed, from what she could see, to have many attributes her husband lacked.

  As she was being carried up the stairs, Sigrun asked the gorilla that carried her if it knew the shepherd, and if so what it thought of him. The gorilla only grunted. Sigrun thought the gorilla sounded like it was interested in hearing about the shepherd. After that she made sure to talk about him each morning.

  Sigrun and her husband began to argue. After their arguments she wished she was sitting in her tower looking out the window, instead of sitting at home. Then there came a day when the shepherd did not appear for three days in a row. On the third day Sigrun felt tears pushing at her eyes, trying to get out. It was then she decided to leave her husband and go to the shepherd.

  This decision made, Sigrun no longer argued with her husband. She felt sorry for him. She wore her best clothing every day. At last the shepherd and his flock again appeared in the fields. At the end of the day Sigrun took her parachute and jumped out the window as usual. But this time she did not aim for her house in the city, but for the fields. She came out of the sky like an angel, and landed before the shepherd.

  "It's me," she said.

  "Who are you?" he replied.

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  ++++

  The Morning Post

  He turned on the radio. It was the mime hour. He turned down the volume, but that just made the mime clearer.

  He looked at his mail. He'd been invited to a bondage party. He couldn't go: he was tied up. Anyway the last time he went to a swingers' party some guy accused him of not looking at his girlfriend.

  There was an invitation to a family reunion. His great-great grandfather had been kicked out of Ireland for not starving. When he came to America he met up with an Englishman and a Scotsman. They got a job walking into bars to give comedians ideas. During Prohibition they joined the Amish and walked into barns.

  But there was nothing from her. There never was. He hadn't spoken to her, nor she to him, in over ten years. Well over ten years really. Actually his entire life. He'd never seen her either. Also she didn't exist. Sometimes he thought he made things too hard for himself.

  He turned off the radio. But now the mime was stuck in his head. He'd be whistling silently for days.

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  ++++

  My Cat Is Not Like Other Cats

  It's come to my attention that

  my cat is not like other cats.

  While other cats will rub your leg

  to leave their scent or else to beg;

  while other cats will stalk you when

  they think you might have food for them;

  while other cats jump on your bed

  and take a catnap on your head

  because they have decided you're

  a little warmer than the floor;

  my cat does all of the above

  but my cat does it out of love.

  (back to contents)

  ++++

  The Handsome But Impossibly Demanding Prince

  Once upon a time there was a handsome prince who let it be known that he intended to get married.

  Soon there was a queue of young women stretching around the palace and down the street. But the first young woman was too short. The second young woman was too tall. The third was too fat, and the fourth was too thin. Too old, too young, too funny-looking--there was something wrong with all of them.

  At last he sent away the final young woman (whose eyes were too close together). For days the prince sat sad and alone, and cried. He spilled so many tears that a salt river flowed through the palace.

  "O prince," he mused to himself, "no mortal woman is good enough for you. Perhaps you need a goddess." At this thought he brightened immediately. "Of course! But where would I find a goddess?" After some thought, he decided that the best place to look would be on the peak of the highest mountain.

  So the prince set off for the highest mountain. He climbed for many days. It was so cold the water of his bowels turned to ice. As the cold gnawed at him from without, loneliness gnawed from within. But when he reached the peak, there was nothing there but an old man, blind and crippled.

  "Old man, where are the gods?" the prince asked.

  "I am a god," replied the old man. "As for the others, they all left, thousands of years ago, to fight a war against the gods of another world. After all this time I cannot recall exactly what was said. But it was a terrible insult that could only be wiped out in blood. I, being blind and crippled, was of no use. And so I
wait here for their return."

  "After all this time, do you not think that they may all have died?" asked the prince.

  "I think of little else. I am certain that their corpses float in the black aether. But then I think to myself, what if I leave and they come back? Millennia of waiting will have been for nothing. And so I stay."

  The prince took his leave of the god and descended the mountain. The god struck the prince as being like himself; waiting for something that will never arrive.

  "I will wait no longer," he said out loud. "Indeed, I will marry the first one who asks." Alas for the prince, a rock heard him.

  "In that case, O prince, I ask you to marry me," said the rock.

  The prince was dismayed. But honor compelled him to obey his oath and accept. For many years he lived with the rock. He never had a single good night's sleep, since marital duty required him to sleep with the rock in his bed.

  At last the rock was split by lightning, and the prince buried it.