The Shaman: And other shadows

by Manzetti, Alessandro

  The animal licks the marble, waiting for someone to come out, to resume the hunt.

  Finally, the door creaks, the wolf passes under the legs of a man with the umbrella. Its jumps on the stairs, the smell of the bitch is getting stronger. The elevator, an old fortress of iron, moves sliding on the old tracks. Boxes of souls, of metal and flesh. Cans.

  The wolf brakes, straightens the tail: he looks at the old lady inside the iron cage. The smell of brand new shoes, of death, but it isn’t her moment yet. The predestination system works fine now.

  Third floor, two hundred and fifty steps, transparencies. Layers of old skin. The animal scratches the door, furious. The hooker is changing her dress. She’s soaked by rain and cum. She can’t hear the beast, she couldn’t hear it in any case.

  The wolf crouches, waiting. Soon it will have its reward, when he delivers to its mistress what she wants.

  The hooker looks at her watch. She has gained too little tonight, just one hundred and fifty euros. Damn fucking rain! She must return on the street, extra turn. She must do her makeup again, to camouflages the white cheeks, hollowed out. Stuff that works well to hide the wounds on her face, on her neck. The clients shouldn't notice anything. They will not see the sores on her body, when they travel as fast as trains, driven by the engines of lust. A shitty job, it takes you to death too soon. The medicines cost a lot, even more the cocaine to keep her engine on. She is forced to work, to fuck, more and more. Holy shit!

  The streets are flooded. She didn't see anyone from the windows, no clients around. It will be hard to make some more money tonight. She will have to knock on the car windows, suck it for ten Euros. She will even have to sell the ghost of herself.

  The hooker is ready, one last line of cocaine. She opens the door and smells a strange odor of rotten eggs. It must be the fool old lady who feeds the cats, that buys new shoes every day. She doesn't remember she has got hundreds of it, all the same, and only two old feet. She dresses the breastplate of madness.

  Something growls, in the shadow. But what the hell it is? A client who drools, who has followed her all the way home? It would not be the first time. Masturbation on the stairs, on the floor below, camps of voyeurs. They hope to see clients, glimpses of boobs, fucksmells, splashed out of her apartment.

  Nobody wants to fuck at home; they all want to spend little money. They are in hurry, even though unemployed. It's easier to fuck in the car, with the ass planted on the seat of a fast sex-shuttle. Ten minutes, and it is already time to pull up the pants. Tissues, crushed leaking condoms. Hundredths of life.

  The hooker enters the elevator, presses the button for the ground floor. Red polish, chipped on the edges of her nails. Doesn't work, fuck! The old lady must have left open the door below. When will that old bitch go underground? She is afraid that the old crazy lady will live longer than her. Soon her disease will take her off the street. Her corner, near the drugstore. It will end up in that way, among legions of sperm and overdue bills.

  The hooker body shakes. Her heels are too high, just like her dreams. The stench of rotten eggs doesn't abandon her nostrils. She stops, sniffing her fur. Is this that stinks? Maybe someone threw something on her for fun, that group of kids who have been targeted her.

  The wolf observes the woman's neck: he wants to hit the knotted jugular. He decides to bite her, sinking hard. Her roots are already weak; it will be easy to strip them away.

  The hooker is not aware of anything: she feels a razor inside her head, her breathing becomes heavy, dizzy, then everything disappears, dissolves in a moment. Her disease makes jokes like that, fucking jokes. Is normal for her to feel that way, from time to time.

  She continues to descend, but the stairs are endless. The ground floor no longer exists. The horror of the infinite opens its mouth, up and down.

  The wolf holds the woman's soul between his teeth, blue blood dripping from the jaws, without ever touching the floor. It looks at the empty body of the hooker for the last time, then he runs to its mistress. She'll be waiting, anxiously, in its sewers.

  The hooker takes off her shoes, she runs like mad, she wants to get to the exit, at all costs. Jesus, it can’t be true be! She keeps going down, lower and lower, infinite equal second floors, the elevator door always blocked. She rings all the doorbells, no one opens. She bangs her head on those same three doors. The madness, the despair of not being able to make even more noise. These are the labyrinths of the Reaper. Deafening explosions.

  The wolf skips the headlights of the cars and descends into the sewers from a manhole. The Reaper, waiting on the edge of the channel, raises the black water and creates a imaginary bridge for the animal to cross. Dirty water becomes glass. The wolf springs his package in front of its dark mistress. This time it was smart and has not even eaten a piece. The Reaper collects the woman's soul, light blue fluid pieces illuminate the gallery. It is the neon of death. Intermittent lanterns burn the last reserves.

  The mistress smells it carefully, then starts to chew. The soul is hard. It tastes like beatings, punches. The Reaper's face is bleeding. Her cunt feels screwed by all the city of Milan. Dark organs, dirty t-shirts, lost saints. She swallows the last shred, then bends the legs. She has lived all the life of the hooker, in a few seconds.

  The wolf is worried about its mistress. Every time it's worse, every time it seems to die, the Death. But then she always comes back, from that place. The Reaper resumes forces, stroking the nose of the wolf. She grabs the scythe, the animal closes its eyes. She opens in two parts the belly of the beast, which doesn't complain. Mucus and dust, dark cartilages.

  She plucks a few hairs from the rump of her servant, then lets the wolf's body into the canal. Finally free from its drift, from its infinity run, from the labyrinths of the Reaper, from the billions of second floors, hookers, elevators, stairs without end. He got his reward.

  The Reaper growls, takes off her black robe, lies on all fours: she is taking birth. She pushes harder and harder, screaming. It forms a dark waterfall between her legs. A clot of nerves trembles on the skin of the gallery. This incomplete structure slowly begins to form: ears, tail, teeth. The glossy black hair. The Reaper has given birth to a new wolf. A wonderful hunter. It will grow faster. Soon it will be ready, and it will learn not to eat the prey. It will take around its yellow eyes of the middle world.

  The hooker, imprisoned in her impossible world, will continue to live on the second floor of the building, on millions of second floors, knocking on every door, forever. She’ll be waiting in vain for the exit. Soon she will be hunting for the Reaper, on all fours.

  Cities, buildings, are screaming.

  Nature’s Oddities

  We kept Modry stashed away down below, in the basement.

  Family matter, my grand-dad would call it, spreading his arms open. “Nature’s oddities, my boy. Things that do belong to this world. We take care of our friend, sure thing. But, ya know, there’s many more like him.”

  “Family matter, das right” my dad repeated as the old guy was about to kick the bucket, so that his turn had come to take care of Modry. “But one day it will be up to you, das why you ain’t gonna be afraid of him.”

  My own imagination raged and rushed. I could hear Modry’s screams rising from beneath. He was hungry, our monster. He had plenty of teeth, maybe. I tried to draw his face, taking my inspiration from the rubber masks in horror movies. I never managed to find a color for his eyes, though, so I just left two large black ovals amidst green and blue scrawls. The colors of deep space, the colors of the unknown space I walked upon.

  Father took those dirty sheets and smiled. He tossed them up in the air, forcing me to roll my eyes. That was his way to make light of it all. My own nightmares always landed in his pockets. Sunless, oxygenless red planets. Modry is one of us. There are many like him.

  You needed really big pockets to store spaceships, giant reptiles, jaws ravaging buildings and people. Yet, despite all the pencils I’d go through, I could never glim
pse even one small white triangle of paper sticking out of my dad’s tobacco colored jacket. Inside those few square inches of stitched fabric, he seemed to hold infinity. What about the rest of my nightmares, whatever happened to them?

  Whenever I asked too many questions, father raised his forefinger to his upper lip, parting his thick moustache right in the middle. He then crouched on all four, putting his ear against the floor. He listened to the basement ceiling, the voice of Modry’s house.

  It’s asleep now...

  Father looked like an Indian shaman.

  Family matter, family secret.

  Upon turning twelve, I would meet Modry, just like father did, and his father before him and who knows how many more monster master generations way before all of us.

  So I do remember well the first time I met Modry. The scene rolls through my mind shrouded in a yellowish glare. Everything was much bigger than it is now. What a strange director, memory is. Same sequences as always. The sharp smells of that special day, the sound of our footsteps as we climb down the stairs, father ahead of me. I follow him gliding on my toes, looking left and right into the maze of shadows. Father’s tall, lean body becoming a long blade, slicing across the walls at every single turn. I have no reflections, not even as my hair brushes against the light bulbs turned on.

  Disturbed butterflies rise, turning into a black rain, grapes of holes. They do exist, rustling in the light, but I suspect I’m dreaming. I’m not really here. Then, silence, inside and out, all the way to the basement door. Father’s hands on the chain, light bouncing off steel, sparks. Modry’s moans, beyond, from his fifty square foot abyss, locked.

  Sharp, dark sounds: the monster’s excitement almost resembles a train wreck, a trillion stones thrown off the tracks. Unstoppable. I can still hear them today, shot through the rifle of time. So many memories, so many triggers to pull.

  “I’m gonna open the door now. You stay back and don’t make no noise. As it starts feeding, then I’ll let you get closer...”

  Father’s words are drowned by the grinding of iron, the clicking of locks. As always, the light turns yellowish. Here comes the meat bucket, Modry’s dinner.

  Twelve years, August 1979. The family matter is just one step away. Father reaches out to a piece of darkness. The bucket is gone. That sound, that strange chewing sound.

  I’m standing on the threshold, so I can’t see clearly.

  Finally, here comes the signal, and everything changes: “Quick, get your boots on! Watch it, don’t slip.”

  The beams of memory become stronger and stronger. The senses sit back on comfortable chairs. The time machine fuselage is wet, slippery. The dense liquid stomped by the rubber soles, the blades and drafts of the underground summer, the worms stretching their muscles so to arc their backs, the earth disturbed.

  I remember it all. Yet, I listen to something new every time. Twelve years, lying underneath a small clod of Planet Earth. Swallowed by an ancient swamp. Agro Pontino, a small burg. Mother sings in the dialect from Friuli, far north-east. The endless lines of eucalyptuses suck water.

  “Whatcha waitin’ for? Get closer, slow.”

  My small steps, father’s arm, some anthropomorphic creature clutching at the bucket. That sound, that strange chewing sound. Modry.

  The monster’s body is small. It looks fragile, like me. A bright sphere pulsating on its belly button. Modry looks at me for a few seconds. A moment later, it starts guzzling pieces of meat down. The food swells Modry’s long neck, its skin tensing, shiny and dark. Its head, disproportioned, falls forward then, slowly, it sets itself back up. The little light down here decides to fall onto its mouth. Its reptilian tongue exploring the place, stretching all the way down to the toes of my booths. It is still hungry.

  Modry collects a few fallen pieces of meat, floating in its own dense liquid.

  “Dontcha move now, just let it be.”

  Twelve years. I had met Modry. I’m all grown up now.

  Mother is cooking my favourite dish. Twelve years, same house, same basement. The burg has gained two more buildings and a small supermarket. A few whores wander the loneliness of the country roads. Some conglomerate meat-packing plant has replaced the old chicken farming. The junior soccer field by the main square has two real goals, nets and all. The church has been repainted and the priest wears pants. All things considered, not a whole lot has changed.

  I’ve taken my rubber boots down in the basement, ready by the door. I’ve tossed drawings and nightmares long time ago. My own pockets have gotten bigger, also, swallowing questions and fears. I’ve uncovered father’s secret, parents’ alchemies, my son will be bombarded with emotions, more than enough to go through all of his color pencils. Miles of paper. So I finally call to him:

  Modry must feed.

  I open the basement door. I slip on the dense liquid clinging to the floor. I fall down. I push on my elbows, trying to get up. I see the past, the present. The horrendous future. It’s a matter of a few instants.

  Modry, sitting down, its head crooked on the side. Its distorted jaws trying to swallow a piece of meat that’s just too big. My son’s chest, still wrapped in his number 9 T-shirt. The rest of him, all the rest of him, is gone. Long gone.

  Modry looks up at me for a moment, no eyelids, then it resumes feeding.

  That sound, that strange chewing sound.

  The Ring

  West of the Île de la Cité. Theo continues to rummage in the trash. He works close to the carcass of the Pont Neuf. People who have killed themselves by jumping from that place always leave some small treasure on the banks. Olivier and Vincent are fishing in the Seine. They catch objects, stuff, with their small nets. Theo digs in the highest part of the broken structure, near the place from where the people jump in the water for their last journey. They call it “the way of the drift.”

  Theo feels something hard under a few inches of the ground. He ends his digging with his hands. The hope slowly reveals itself under his nails. Maybe he found something to sell, to eat, to survive one day later. Another battle won in Paris Sud 5?

  No, it's just a fucking rosary; it isn't worth anything. Some jerk used it to pray to an annoyed god. The one who gave him the final kick in the ass to throw himself into the Seine.

  Vincent shouts, "Hey! Look at this!"

  They all look. His net has captured the hand of a woman, still well preserved, with a beautiful ring on a finger. A large green stone.

  "We split as usual, right?"

  Theo goes down on the shore. He's the big one, he decides for all of them. Shit, this damn hand is too bloated. We have to cut the finger, the ring will never come off.

  Two mutant rats emerge from the sewage of the Seine. They don't like the competition and they growl towards the kids. They don't weigh less than those humans.

  "Theo, the gun! Hurry up!"

  Olivier comes out of the water and warns. Two shots. The guy knows what to do. Blood splashes on the empty green bunch of criopack. Damned fucking beasts!

  The kids carry the ring to Mr. Delotte’s shop. One hundred credits. Not bad for a one day work. The fence, after having putting his analyzer in place, mumbles moving his large red mustache.

  "The Pont Neuf, again?"

  Three small heads go up and down, to say yes. Three empty stomachs grumbling, six smashed shoes: problems that will be solved soon. New shoes and something to eat, right away, thanks to that magic ring. Finally, if there is some more money, appointment in the Rue de Paradis, to the setilene doll shop where Uncle Vincent works. An electronics slut, used and reconditioned, that's what it takes for them. Fifty credits, six months guarantee, before the valves go fuck itself. Before Vincent uses the woman's four fingers hand, tied to his pants in a plastic bag, to have a wank.

  "Throw off that shit, you're a lousy"

  Theo tries to rip the bag to Vincent, who backs.

  "Yes, but then we go to my uncle’s? We need a blonde one with extra boobs."

  Theo sighs. It’s
hard to command a group of fucking orphans: they are just like stray dogs.

  "Okay, okay."

  The youth in Paris South 5.

  The woman's four fingers hand goes to waste, on the living carpet of the sidewalk, which is imperceptibly moving with the cockroaches.

  Chopi picks up that piece of meat. A line of life so short, he thinks.

  The Shaman is going back home. He closed his magic table earlier than usual, today one of the “wind kids” was missing. The bigger one, Olivier.

  That hand with four antennas can broadcast memories: A missing girl, a man that runs through the alleys, photo. That skinny body. The hand of Axelle, of course...

  Chopi throws the hand away. There is no one to recognize it, to bring it home. To bury it in a too big coffin.

  A team of cockroaches is getting ready for the night’s work.

  Interiora

  Lightning, the sky is pissed

  Above: fractures, broken bones

  chippings, corpses of sirens

  impossible fishbones, the high tide of asphalt

  rain, a dog that limps

  the outskirts of Rome, the circus tent is sunk

  a Purgatory appetizer

  bittersweet

  pineapple and dust on the tongue.

  The polluted Venus is sleeping, deflated

  disappeared flesh, pandemic bones

  illusion of boobs, soft stuff

  buttocks ghost without legs

  evaporated lungs, the triumph of the ribs

  panties stuffed with wind.

  Two hundred dollars, for the whole night

  for what now disappeared.

  Venus is chewed

  by the sharp morning, by my teeth

  by the reality mower.

  gasoline and sadness engines