Chapter 29
Marcos took the sun and kneeled down at the point of the star; just above The Pudgy Old Lady’s head and leaned over her, whispering into her ear. And he carried high in the air the bright orange ball of fire.
And as the old ladies around the room charged towards him, he released his hands and the sun fell upon The Pudgy Old Lady and it slid into her mouth and she swallowed the orange ball of energy as if it were a drop of rain splashing upon a parched throat; it itself, sinking into the chasmal like abandon of her childless womb as the energy inside her buried its fibres deep into her tissue and exploded inside her belly, throwing her backwards against the near wall of the tent with the back of her head hitting hard against the ground as her body crashed back to the dusted earth; thrashing and convulsing as the thing inside her womb grew with phenomenal ferocity, swelling her belly so that it looked like at any moment it could tear in two.
“Stop that stupid bitch” yelled The Fat Old Lady, having jumped into her skin and seen; not the treachery of an Element stealing the reign of Mother, but of her friend who should have been doing this all for her and overcome was she, with such a disappointed rage, that all she could think of doing was protecting herself and of the treason, her own played part.
The Fat Old Lady ran towards Marcos and threw him aside, brushing him off like a single hair swept across one’s brow. His own weakened muscle was no match for the angered Element who sent him sliding across the rough earth so that he grazed the skin along his legs and mutilated finger tips.
As he tried to gather himself, the other Elemental Ladies encircled him and though they looked old, docile and kindly, an orchestra of menace sounded in their cracking knuckles.
The Fat Old Lady stood staunchly over her pudgy old friend and smiled.
“You thought you could deceive me, that you could be our Mother? This was supposed to be mine you stupid bitch, you betrayed me. We were friends. I let you in. I let you be my friend and this is how you repay me. I won’t have you take my crown” The Fat Old Lady said, leaning down and unhooking the clips from The Pudgy Old Lady skin dress.
As she moved to unhook the final clip, The Pudgy Old Lady clutched her wrist and yanked her arm quick and hard, pulling The Fat Old Lady off her centre and falling down to the ground so that her shocked expression hanged ominously close to The Pudgy Old Lady’s gleaming eyes and her scorching skin.
“I looked up to you. I wanted to be you. You were so beautiful and so right in all of the time but now I see it was only my desire that was wanton and inferable. You were just my misplaced affection. But now I see in myself what I saw in you. I am beauty. I am divinity. I am creation. I am beauty. I am nature”
“You are a cunt” screamed The Fat Old Lady.
“I am the cunt of god” spoke The Pudgy Old Lady.
“You’ll never get away with this” yelled The Fat Old lady.
“It’s already done. You betrayed me. You left me alone. You lied to me. I did everything for you, always and you left me in the spotlight. I had no choice. And when my transformation is through when I am Mother when I birth the sun of god, I will turn you to dust” said The Pudgy Old Lady.
The air around the pair swirled and swarmed and outside of their glare, little could be seen except for a massive whirlwind of dust and warm air spinning about the centre of the room. The other Elemental Ladies turned and gasped as they saw in their cornered eyes, the final moment of their Mother before her body turned to sand.
With their attention waned, Marcos ran. He threw himself into a sprint and pushed through their circle, bouncing off unkindly as he did, pushing past their elderly bodies as if he were an egg trying to break through a wall but their lapse in concentration saw them turn enough to leave a gap for Marcos’ falling body to fall through and on the other side of capture, find enough adrenaline reserves to carry him back on his vertical feet where he commanded one foot in front of the other, hoping at any moment he would wake from this absurd dream.
The Pudgy Old Lady thrust her leg into The Fat Old Lady’s chest, kicking up and back so that her wobbly body hammered down hard against the trembling earth, catching her face on exposed rocks that swarmed around the ground as the massive gusts of air vented off from the circle about The Pudgy Old Lady and her swollen, infernal belly.
As she bayed into the night her vengeful howl, The Fat Old Lady turned to pick herself up but her skin dress fell away from its mooring, peeling from the side of her check and hanging like an old scab by a single hook; her bare nerves exposed to the cutting air. She gasped and fell to the floor, her strength diminishing completely, her body aging beyond the will of her dithering joints until her body fell back upon the earth in a thud and her focus fell upon what felt like her last concretized breath; heavying in her lungs, unable to crawl out into the evening air.
The Pudgy Old Lady lay on her back with her stomach almost bursting. She screamed highly and mighty as the core of existence worked from her womb down her body, opening her legs like a storybook, clasping her fingers into the dirt; grounding herself as with her last ounce of control, she willed her head to its side and threw her arm to Mother who lay to her side turning to dust.
She had only moments to complete the ritual; to take the Mother’s skin dress and wear it as her own; to assume the face of Mother Nature and to birth the sun one more day and perpetuate the eternal equation of existence. She reached her hand to Mother's face, scrunching her fingers to pull at the skin.
As she threw herself into her conclusion, The Elemental Ladies wailed and moaned for their dead mother and while a whirlwind blanketed a bitter struggle between two idle friends, while Marcos; envisioning the long slender fingers of his beautiful love curling just at the tip of his cheek and her eyes; with their long black lashes, inviting him into blissful submission as to undress his concern, ran through the abysmal night, out of the campsite and along the path carved veinally through the thick surmounting scrub and as he ran his eyes lit up by the love in his heart and the abounding fear in his mind should he not return in time to save the child that grew in his lover’s womb; to save it from The Industry that grew like a cancer upon the womb of Nature, making its home inside its host, stealing her children and making existence its own.
The Pudgy Old Lady gasped in prostration, pulling her dust laden hand back to her face to examine the dried nerves that crumbled between her fingers.
The skin dress was gone.
She patted the earth about her as her stomach ached and swelled and between her legs, the energy of existence pushed its way through the parting of skin so that just a single ray shone through into the swarming, black night, letting The Pudgy Old Lady see about her thrashing body.
The dust all about was swirling, but the ground was bare. There was no skin dress to be seen. Around her, The Elemental Ladies danced upon their knees in dire depression mourning the end of all things, the end of their beautified reign.
“The human has Nature’s skin” she screamed to The Elemental Ladies.
‘Run’ said his mind to foot as the command of his body was driven by subconscious will while in his mind, he played only the hero; rushing through the swinging doors and whisking up his woman and taking her far from the mechanical and maniacal heart of The Industry.
Under his feet the earth quaked. Around him, the air sucked like an open vent back from whence he came and his will doubled and tripled and powered itself just to keep any momentum, one foot in front of the other to get as far from the narcissus of nature as possible.
Marcos saw in his mind, the image of The Woman being gentled by a man in white while, with assurance in her eyes, she signed her name at the end of a very long contract and the image seemed to get smaller and smaller and further from his sight as his strength could not outrun the gusts of wind that now picked up his weakened body and rushed him from whence he came.
He screamed and kicked in the air, but his own voice was no match for the violent torment being lashed about and just as quickly as he had
been pulled off his feet; the air fell still and he crashed to the floor.
He could hear; somewhere in the distance, the shrieking of old ladies and he covered his ears as the sound cut deep into his consciousness, scratching at the insides of his stomach and pulling it outwards to his gagging mouth.
His mind flooded with a million thoughts and all of them of The Woman getting further from him. And with each thought, he cared less of the thunderous sounds of which deafened the calm in his mind.
He picked himself one last time from the earth and put one foot in front of the other. He ran in whatever direction would accept him with his mind burning strong, the image of his lover strapped to a table while a nocuous ballet of cutting machines all swung and danced about her swollen belly. The swinging arms seemed to tease his concern as they sliced dangerously close to her skin but always just grazing the air.
He ran so that he could no longer hear the sound of wailing old ladies and he ran so that he could no longer feel the ache and swelling in his feet for it wasn’t his limbs that carried him anymore, it was the passion in his heart and the need to rescue the woman that he loved and the child that would be born of it.
And as he fell from his stride and went with the order of subtraction into the soft wet mud. He clung to the hope of being her saviour, watching as shadows encircled The Woman he loved as in front of his outstretched hand, two weighted doors swung shut and her image disappeared from his sight.
Marcos lay on his back staring up into the sky and he felt a great sadness wash upon his conscious shore. All he wanted was what he had walked away from. All he wanted was to be loved.
As he sank into the depth of his last breath, he stretched is arm out into the air wishing for The Woman to reach down from the heavens and pull him from this poisoned earth. He imagined her beside him, her hands running through his hair as they had always done when he ran a fever, scratching at the dry skin upon his head, she, bemusedly picking away as she did and he, silently melting at the simple touch of her affection.
And as his blood boiled and his body sank into the wet sticky mud, he set himself into make believe, imagining himself chasing his children around an open field; the boy and girl laughing and screaming in delight as he towed behind with his arms outstretched; opening and closing like a crocodile’s snapping jaws and in the distance; leaning against the frame of an open door with her arms folded gently against her softly coloured summer dress, The Woman looked on fondly at her lover and her two children at play without caution, without learned fear, free in the open field.
And just as he had given himself to his own death, he heard; near the tip of his foot, the breaking of leaves and the laughter of children. He wondered for a second if it were just his delusion; his make believe. But as he stretched his eyes open, he saw not with his sight, but with the immediacy of his ears, the unmistakable sound of children at play and he remembered a feeling of this before; the sound of children playing in the dark, their game of chase diffusing his fear and self-abandon.
Marcos picked himself up from the muddy ground. His body was so sore. Every muscle was tweaked and torn and his bones were just a shimmy away from shattering into a billion pieces. Still, he managed to get to his feet, taking from the ground the heshem bag he had taken with him when it was that he took flight from the psychopath of Nature.
He followed the sound of children at play, scraping his head against branches as he struggled to work his way through the lowly carved path until finally, after an eternity of crouching and crawling, he came to a clearing where he saw the shadows of the young children glimmer as they ran towards a city lit up by fire and spoken in song.
As he stood amazed, a young child brushed past his arm and continued skipping down the hill singing with glee as Marcos yelled for him to stop. The young child offered no ear and paid no mind, skipping along the green grass into the waiting arms of his mother and was carried off into the village where each and every person sang in joy and revelry.
Marcos took from his shoulder the heshem bag and pulled open the thread that kept a secret of its content. From it, he pulled the leathered face of a young girl and held it into the light that shone from warm fires around the village and after a moment’s pause; he took a breath, returned the dried skin to his hesham bag and walked slow and uneven down the grassy hill towards New Utopia while behind him, in the secret of night, the wrath of nature drew upon his steps, looking for the face of a young woman.
Chapter 30
The Woman; still in delusion, opened her eyes again and she was abounding in blinding white lights flashing past her eyes. Around her were the torturous screams and jaunts of men and women in white cursing at one another and ushering commands to all and sundry.
She couldn’t move her arms. They were strapped into position and she thrust her body to and fro, trying to break free from her binds. She felt as if her stomach were about to explode.
“Get it out of me” she screamed, as in the distance, her lover’s voice fought to break through the cursing and commanding, trying to get to the weakness in her heart.
All she could hear was the screeching of the rusted metal wheels as they turned around every tight bend and the sound of doors bursting open and more desperate yelling and bodies jumping left and right, out of her rushed passage through the factory and towards The Emergency Extraction Room.
“What happened?” yelled a voice.
“She tried to do it herself” screamed another.
“We got her just in time. We have to extract this product now before it kills her” said a voice that sounded like her Project Manager.
“I love you. Don’t let them take it” screamed another voice; her lover’s, as the doors closed behind her and he remained trapped in another room.
The pain was unbearable.
For all she knew, the product inside of her was about to explode.
Around her, men in green overalls spoke hastily with men in red overalls and they were silenced and ordered by a large man in white with a long thick beard. The Woman was surprised at how big he was. He seemed like a giant compared to the small men running around in pent desperation.
In the corner of her sight, she could see The Clown Host smiling at her as she sank into the moment of her repression, the memory that was scratching at the back of her mind, the cross she would always silently bear.
Painted on the roof, addressing her sight was a portrait and its hue was astounding. She looked straight through the mechanical ballet and wet herself in the addling cheer that rained down on her troubled consciousness, prescribed by the generous outstretched hand of smiling man with a white painted face and smeared, red lips, two white gloved hands, frizzled, coloured hair and absurdly enormous, squeaking shoes; inviting her under the big top as the setting sun cast out an orange fire across the sky.
A green button was pressed.
A light flickered.
The Woman screamed.
The giant metallic arm swung down and the long knife cut deep into her stomach.
End of Book 2
husband, father, son, brother, philosopher, story teller, teacher, recluse
Also by C. Sean McGee:
A Rising Fall (CITY b00k 001)
Utopian Circus (CITY b00k 011)
Heaven is Full of Arseholes
Coffee and Sugar
Christine
Rock Book Volume I: The Boy from the County Hell
Rock Book Volume II: Dark Side of the Moon
Alex and The Gruff (a tale of horror)
The Terror{blist}
The Anarchist (or about how everything I own is covered in a fine red dust)
Happy People Live Here
The Time Traveler’s Wife
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