tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38897719537758866912024-03-13T20:22:08.063-07:00remission.short stories'The storyteller has borrowed his authority from death'remissionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541114341000083285noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889771953775886691.post-75563290125393662202007-04-12T14:52:00.000-07:002007-04-12T14:57:18.324-07:00La Noche de los Museos<strong>Part II</strong><br /><br />The mind-map was falling off the page. Words uncurled to form tails that joined onto the ends of the arrows. Tentacles slithered to the corners of the sheet, onto the table towards the sugar bowl. My tutor’s voice floated across the room, catching the moving light in the window, at times interrupting where my thoughts went and at other times accompanying them. I guess I was responding to her questions. My responses were automated, perhaps even unconscious, but I can’t explain how, since the activity required unfamiliar vocabulary and grammatical constructions. Physically I was sitting in my tutor’s apartment, learning about Maradona through a mind-map, learning how to use different tenses in the telling of a narrative, but mentally I was outside the room, on the street opposite the window, in the public gardens round the corner where the purple spring blossoms were emerging, and where the cats were snoozing later in the lengthening hours of sunshine. And soon I was further away, in other districts of Buenos Aires, and then… I am not sure even if I was still in the city at all…<br /><br />‘Que pasa, Stuart?<br /><br />She repeated herself, ‘Que pasa…’<br /><br />‘Oh.. nothing, nada, disculpame Mady,’ I said.<br /><br />‘Is the mind-map boring you?’ Mady asked.<br /><br />‘ No no really it’s a good exercise, I’m just not focusing today.’<br /><br />‘You don’t feel like learning Spanish today?’<br /><br />‘ No, I want to, I just don’t think I can.’<br /><br />‘You’re thinking about something else… you’re thinking about that girl.’<br /><br />‘How did you know that…?’<br /><br />‘Ah come on,’ said my tutor Mady, ‘ You’re a young man in Argentina, what else can you be thinking about?’<br /><br />I shrugged my shoulders but allowed a smile to peep from the corner of my mouth, which she saw, and her eyes twinkled mischievously: ‘ So, what happened with her?’<br /><br />‘wh…who?’<br /><br />‘The girl, your friend, the one you like, what happened when you met up?’ she asked.<br /><br />‘Well… I mean I can’t really say we met up… it happened very quickly, she was in the café eating an alfajor, and the bus nearly hit me.’<br /><br />‘What?! When did this happen?’<br /><br />‘Yesterday,’ I said.<br /><br />‘Dios mio, are you ok?’<br /><br />Si si, I didn’t get hit.’<br /><br />‘Bueno.. y luego… que paso…did Gabriella see what happened?’<br /><br />‘How could she have seen what happened? She was teaching.’<br /><br />‘But you just said she was in the café?’<br /><br />‘Oh… this was someone else.’<br /><br />‘Ha ha, stu, you are becoming a true argentine man.’<br /><br />‘No no really… this was just someone that caught my eye.’<br /><br />‘Obviously… you were away in a… how do you say… place faraway?’<br /><br />‘Was I? Yes, you’re right, I was… I still am.’<br /><br />‘Bueno, so what about this girl, and what about Gabriella, you were supposed to have dinner with her, weren’t you?’<br /><br />‘Yes, I turned up at her place three nights ago, but she wasn’t there. She didn’t answer. I’ve called a few times, she’s not answering. I must have upset her.’<br /><br />‘Maybe you waited too long… she might have a boyfriend now?’<br /><br />I took a sip of mate, and rolled it back towards Mady. I stayed silent, and tried to change the subject: ‘ I think I’m ready to carry on with the mind-map.’<br /><br /><br />I watched the football in Paseo de Julio. The Boca fans marched past the café in electric yellow and blue cursing River Plate and the English. Thankfully they were playing a weaker side than River, otherwise I would have stayed away from the area for fear of losing more than my hand. I devoured the plate of pumpkin mash and munched my way through an enormous suprema de pollo, which I couldn’t finish and was tempted to doggybag and give to the cats in Parque Lezama. The waiter talked tactics with the old men who sat with their <em>bifes</em> mounting up on the plates as they grumbled at the commentators for unfavourable remarks about Boca Juniors. A kid drifted in from his cornerstreet World Cup Final, mud dried out on his face and hands, the sun deeply soaked into his cheeks, asking for <em>moneda</em>. I emptied out my left pocket and said to him, ‘ tenes hambre?’ and I pushed my suprema de pollo to him and offered him the chair next to me. To my surprise he stepped back, frowned at the food and went over to the other tables repeating the same question. The waiter laughed, and the man serving drinks at the bar laughed too. I shrugged my shoulders in the exaggerated way that portenos do, and said, ‘ obviamente, el chico no le gusta la comida.’ An old man in front of the television raised his glass of wine and cheered, ‘ That’s why I keep on drinking the wine instead.’ I became the butt of friendly jokes, and somehow I had soon managed to eat all the food in front of me.<br /><br />Boca dominated the match and played economical, powerful football. But in truth I wasn’t focused on the game, in the way that I wasn’t focused on my Spanish lesson earlier. A carousel of images and impulses stretched me from side to side. Sometimes it was taking me back to the 128 bus on Salguero, and the girl in the café licking chocolate from fingers, and then I was spinning back round to later on, to the sighs of moans coming from Julieta’s room, and the way the two girls giggled their way there, with their besitos lingering on my cheek long after they closed the door, and then it was breaking off back across the ocean, back to south London, to…. No, not her again... but yes, yes that’s why I nearly got hit by the bus, it was so uncanny, the way she licked her fingers, the way she sat captivated by her book seemingly oblivious, unaware that I, and others, were watching her, and all the time me knowing that she knew full well what effect she was having on some people. It was all so clear, four years on, on the other side of the world, what once gripped me, paralysed me, enthralled me for days, nights, months, was doing so again, and nearly lost me my right hand in the process.<br /><br />And then there was Gabriella.<br /><br />Before the incident on the corner, she was all I could think about. I almost missed the feeling of missing her, of being jilted at the door of her apartment, of wondering if she had in fact got bored of me and found a better time with another guy. Its true what they say – how you always want the things you can’t get. She’d been running me after for weeks when we first met, and I was in my element. And now with the tables turned, a person I considered a friend had morphed into the girl I had come to Argentina to find, and now a fight was on for me to get her back, against the invisible enemy. A porteno would be easier in some ways than another ex-pat. Against a local, I could entice her with promises of travel, new places, new friends, new adventures, the world beyond south America, the world of powerful currencies and international culture. But after the 128 bus nearly hit me, Gabriella’s presence in my mind, in my heart went with the bus. If it had taken my hand as well, perhaps I would have forgotten about her entirely. But no, I had not forgotten her completely…<br /><br /><em>Veni a La Noche de los Museos<br />Manana<br />Veni, veni, veni<br />La Noche de los Museos<br />Manana<br />La Noche de los Museos</em><br /><br />A young team of street publicists were pinning posters on walls and the windows of <em>maxikioscos</em> about La Noche de los Museos. It was tomorrow. I knew Gabriella loved museums, for it was in a museum that we first met each other. That day we strolled around the collections of fine arts, switching from lucid English to slow, awkward Spanish. She was patient and sweet. I didn’t feel very excited to be in her company, but relaxed, and not afraid to be myself. She seemed to hang on my every word without making a food of her herself. She wasn’t afraid to disagree. Later on we talked about cinema and books, and where we’d most like to go in the world. We both agreed on Japan. The others with us thought we were strange. Her friends wanted to see Paris and New York. Her eyes lit up when I talked about the Taj Mahal in India, and how my family originated from that part of the world. She had I had an exotic face. I replied, ‘ Is that just a nice way of saying I look like something from a garbage bin?’ Unexpectedly, she laughed, laughed really hard, and so did I, although I was slightly embarrassed at my pathetic attempt to draw out the compliment. We knew we would see each other again soon after, and we did. It had been going very well… I decided to call her again, before tomorrow evening, but not now.<br /><br />‘eh, hermano, como te vas, manana.. que haces…?…. veni a los museos.’’<br /><br />The hard-sell:<br /><br />A friendly guy comes up to you. He’s acting like you’re his long-lost brother, and does a good job in making you think you might be. But you’re busy, you need to be elsewhere so you walk past him, wish him good day. With your back turned, he signals to a colleague standing on the corner, a girl about your age, maybe two or three years longer. This time, its more than an ‘amigo’, its lips, lipstick, a lingering, ‘ hhhhooola, que tal chico.’ Almost comic book, but so good. I’d been having doubts about going. But I knew I would be going to the museums the following night. For now, I pretended that I would need some persuasion, and enjoyed the efforts of the pretty chica – I just hoped that the 128 bus wouldn’t be passing by anytime soon.remissionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541114341000083285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889771953775886691.post-24917361882877788392007-03-31T03:41:00.000-07:002007-03-31T03:47:49.027-07:00Making the ChiliAfter the failed college attempt, the father began to accept certain things about his son. Perhaps he was not as bright or resourceful as he had imagined. It was a hard fact to swallow, harder perhaps than any of his own rarely acknowledged failures. Unfulfilled fantasies grew like an irritating skin over his eyes. The unfolding universe that had opened to him, during fleeting moments of his youth, revealing certain secrets that he had long since forgotten, now rained down rods of crushing, inflexible steel. He was pinned in by forces beyond his control. The feeling would pass, he knew as much by now, just as he also knew it would inevitably return, with growing frequency and duration, like the pain in his back. His victories in business and in the eyes of his employees would come to be invaded by his greatest, piercing failure. Remembering his son’s first job, he let the tears fall over his cheeks like a warm blanket.<br /><br />The father had befriended the general manager at the Wendy’s he frequented on days when it was his turn to watch his son. His name was Marlin, like the fish. Marlin was a corpulent, ball-busting go-getter with middle management emblazoned across the stained pocket of his white short sleeve as boldly as the neon red and yellow of the drive-thru sign. He had thick glasses that were constantly falling from his face and a pair of grey slacks he was always pulling up over his ballooning waste. The son hated the way his father would lean out the driver’s side window, cocking his elbow, to give Marlin the hey-bro hand shake, like they were best buds. Then they would exchange jokes; his father laughing raucously and Marlin maintaining his poker face. The son did not listen to the content of the jokes but watched his father wretch with laughter while Marlin only blinked his eyelashes, as big as waving palm fronds behind his bulbous glasses.<br /><br />That summer, the father asked Marlin if he could give his son a job. On his first day, the father gave the son advice which he was to use to get ahead. “This shitty job,” he said, carefully modulating his voice below the sound of the air conditioner, “this shitty job will teach you something about the real world.” The father watched his son walk into the bronze tinted glass door of the Wendy’s with a tear in his eye. He would only last a month, six weeks tops.<br /><br />The son’s first task, for which he was not paid, was to watch the Wendy’s corporate video designed to welcome new employees into the exciting world of franchise fast food. Afterwards, he punched in and Marlin had him empty the trash, clean the bathrooms and then wipe down the salad bar. Marlin, it turned out, was a big fan of some of the young girls he was going to high school with and wanted to know if he had “banged” any of them. In the cramped quarters of the kitchen, he asked for details under his breath, nudging the other grill man who rolled his eyes all slow and sticky like a slug. When he gave none, because in truth, there were none to give, Marlin called him a faggot and made him scrape the charred nuggets of hamburger fat from the blackened grill into a large silver pot. “That,” he said, pointing to the spent carrion trembling in the bottom of the pot, “is for the chili.”<br /><br />N. C. Sternremissionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541114341000083285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889771953775886691.post-44598565052233562932007-03-01T13:29:00.000-08:002008-12-08T15:46:39.758-08:00La Noche de los Museos<span style="font-weight: bold;">Part I<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZV3meXafAng/ReiiMU-QycI/AAAAAAAAAAw/X_Eb9c7qvUs/s1600-h/bus_hand.jpg"><strong></strong><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZV3meXafAng/ReiiMU-QycI/AAAAAAAAAAw/X_Eb9c7qvUs/s320/bus_hand.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5037454515885885890" border="0" /></a><strong></strong><br />It was only a splinter of a second away from being a blood-fest: the 128 bus nearly took off my right hand on the corner of Salguero and Avenida Santa Fe. Inside the time-splinter I prophetically visualised my hand wrenched cleanly from the wrist, tightly pressured jets of blood shooting from the arm as the bus driver continued to roar through the avenida with my sweaty hand stuck to his windscreen. In that split-second of near bodily dismemberment I also found time to consider the form of human memory and, amid the crude honking of vehicles and shouts of ‘<em>boludo, loco, puta madre</em>’, I managed to construct the following question/s:<br /><div align="left"><br /><em>How big is a memory?<br />Can a memory be measured in the way that a leg of a table or an iguana can?<br /></em><br />And all this because a girl I had never seen before was sitting down behind the panoramic window of the café on the corner, licking melted chocolate from her fingers so as not to stain the pages of a <em>Cortazar</em> novel. Transfixed, lost dreamily in the sensual innocence of her licking, I was transported, like a ghostly sleeper on an astral plain, away from Buenos Aires to an old house in south London many years before where I first met, in the literal sense, the girl from my dreams.<br /><br />So transfixed was I, on the heaving corner of Salguero and Santa Fe, that I forgot about my outstretched arm that had been held out into the street to hail down a radio taxi. When the 128 bus nearly sliced off fingers, nails and clammy palm, as cinematic cliché informs us time slowed right down so that a second in this moment was equal to many minutes, even hours in any ‘normal’ moment. And I was left with a question that continued to grow inside my mind.<br /><br />It took a self-consciously animated ‘phew’ and a shrug of the shoulders to put to rest what had just happened, or nearly happened. Brushes with mutilation and death occur as regularly on the avenues of Buenos Aires as guys checking out <em>culos</em>. But the question that I had framed in that moment sat patiently, toad-like, around my thoughts and interactions for the duration of that afternoon, and I resigned myself to sitting down in my apartment later on to answer the question I set myself, and to investigate what it was that prompted me to ask it.<br /><br />I got back to the apartment on the eve of dusk. From the terrace the sharp, stubborn daylight craned itself over the jagged tower blocks, and the murmur of traffic eased down to a more patient bustle. There was no food in the fridge except for two empanadas de verdura and half a litre of milk, so I ordered two <em>milanesas</em> with some side salad from a local restaurant and, while I was waiting for delivery, I took out the <em>alfajores</em> from my bag and ate with them with big gulps of the remaining milk. Once the food arrived ten minutes later I opened out the windows to feel the cool air against my face and sat down on the chair in my bedroom with the plate of 7-peso food on my lap. As I finished the last few guilty pieces of milanesa, I got up from the chair and sat on my bed, kicked off my sandals and dangled my toes into the incoming breeze and began to think about the question.<br /><br />What does it mean… how can you measure a memory?<br /><br />Brick wall all the way. I couldn’t even see the wall. I could feel the energy field around it repelling me backwards. No, not today, it said. Go out and play, all work and no…<br /><br />- <em>Yeah yeah ok, I get the hint</em>.<br /><br />I put on a record. It was by a local Cuban band, the percussionist being one of my housemates. Martin gave me the record a few days earlier before dashing out the door to begin his long journey into the wilderness of north Uruguay, in search for images and interviews that would make up the twenty minutes of magic footage needed to complete his documentary on the pulp mill workers. As I listened to the music, recorded live a month before in a basement in the city district of Boedo, I remembered him playing the drums in the soft glow of candles on the floor, people swaying and clapping their hands, joining in on the vocals. That memory dissipated and I began to imagine him right now squeezed in between cameras and rucksacks in the back of the truck trudging along long paths into South American Nowhere, with just enough change in his pocket for a cerveza. And I wondered if, in the future, my memory of Martin would be of as he was - playing the drums in the half-lit basement or dashing through the kitchen every few days, stopping to chat briefly in his eloquent undulating tone of Spanish, delivering a mini-lecture on <em>anarquistas</em> and why the Clash are the most ‘Latin’ band to have come out of the UK - or would my main memory be from these fantasies of mine; trying to picture him as he could be, wandering the remote pampas and the indigenous villages, drawing people into his documented world to be cut and spliced and edited for a middle-class audience in an art house cinema 1000 miles away. For these imaginings were as vivid to me as the very interactions I had with him: I had immersed myself into the well of mythology that had historically gripped Argentina by its throat and eyeballs and pressed them together so tightly that legends were born from every squeak and cough of its inflamed mouth. How big would my memory of Martin be in the years after…?<br /><br /><br /><br />It had been three hours of erratic sleep. In the tumble of distant street noises, I was simultaneously aware that I was lying in bed but also caught in the narrative of a dream, in which I was following the swaggering hips and wind riding curls of a voluptuous young woman through the long corridors of an art gallery. I couldn’t catch sight of the woman’s face, but there was something in her poise and motion that reminded me of someone. I walked faster, but the dream world has a habit of making you slower and everyone and everything around go faster, and I was losing ground on the woman, as she floated from room to room, painting after painting, occasionally taunting me by sitting down on a small bench facing a piece of art on the wall, and just as I was about approach her she got up again and someone else walked in front of me, or a child stood in my way… and then I had lost her as I watched helplessly through the glass doors of the gallery entrance as she walked down the steps outside, into the sunshine. But just before she disappeared from view she turned back to face me. I could just make out her features and I started running… I was running out of the entrance doors and towards the woman who was still standing facing me and…<br /><br />Why did I leave my phone switched on?<br /><br />It woke me up at 12.34, at the point of revelation in the dream. It was my other housemate, Julieta, calling me. She had forgotten her keys. I went downstairs to open the door in the lobby and Julieta was with her best friend Paolina. I say there were best friends because they were almost inseparable. Paolina was effectively the fourth housemate, and spent most nights in Julieta’s room. I suspected they were in fact lovers because they displayed the kind of familiarity and physical awareness of each other that only lovers share.<br /><br />‘ STUUUUU, disculpame, stu, I’m so sorry, did I wake you?’ Kiss on both cheeks.<br /><br />‘ No no, Julee, no te preocupes, escuchaba la musica. Paolina, como estas?’<br />Kiss on both cheeks. ‘Todo bien, how are you?’<br /><br />‘Bien, stu, sorry, sorry we forgot our keys.’<br /><br />I climbed back into bed, listening to their conversation in the kitchen. When I had greeted them, I smelled a faint trace of alcohol on their breaths, and I noticed that they had flushed cheeks and noses. They were far more giggly than normal, and were now making uncharacteristic noise as they prepared their customary night snack of <em>tostados </em>and <em>mate</em>. Slurping their mate through their dogged <em>bombilla</em>, I couldn’t resist interpreting their slurps and brief ‘mmm’s of enjoyment as mutually flirtatious, and a few moments later they were leaving the kitchen and going towards Julieta’s room. I shot out of bed and met them halfway in the living room.<br /><br />‘Oh Stu,’ said Julieta, ‘Are you going to the museums on Saturday?’<br /><br />‘The museums?’<br /><br />‘Siiii, si, La Noche de los Museos.’<br /><br />‘I don’t know anything about it.’<br /><br />‘La Noche de los Museos, you haven’t heard of it?’ said Paolina.<br /><br />‘No, what’s it all about?’ I asked.<br /><br />‘All the museums in the city are free for one night,’ said Julieta,’ and they are open the whole night. And lots of fiestas at every one. It's so nice, Stu, I think it’ll be a great night for you.’<br /><br />‘It's this Saturday?’<br /><br />‘Si, si, este sabado.. La Noche de los Museos.’<br /><br />Kisses on four cheeks, and an unexpected hug from Paolina. They shuffle across the living room and shut the bedroom door behind them, and soon I hear Julieta strum her guitar and sing a Portuguese ballad.<br /><br />I strode into the kitchen and stole an orange from the fruit bowl, leaving an unnecessary note to the girls that I would replace the orange in the morning. On my way back to my room, I heard moaning from Julieta’s room. The sound was low, from the chest, and uttered in slow deliberate rhythm, each moan more pronounced and drawn out. I didn’t want them to know I was moving about so I tip-toed like some bumbling slapstick buffoon across the bare living room floor and round the corner into my room. With the door closed I could have easily shut out the sounds by playing some music, but I didn’t. The truth is I wasn’t turned on, but curious. Now they were both moaning, one higher than the other, and there was the smack of wet kisses, and an occasional creak of the mattress. The noises grew louder, and I was inside their room watching them, sitting on their bed, getting into the bed beside them, because the noises were inside my room, and visualising them was so easy; the beads of sweat gathering above their brow as their long hairs intermingled, and the flushed faces stretching in startled pleasure, and the wide, sensuous dance of their hips as their naked waists swirled around each other. In my mind, in my room, in their room, it was all so beautiful and so real, an experience extended to become more vivid and long lasting. I lay back and drew the thin blanket over my legs, with the faint rhythm of their erotic moans interspersing and then accompanying my own mantra:<br /><br />La Noche de los Museos<br /><br />Este sabado<br /><br />La Noche de los Museos<br /><br />Este sabado<br /><br />Una noche para vos<br /><br />La Noche<br /><br />La Noche de los Museos<br /><br />La Noche<br /><br />Este sabado<br /><br />Una noche para vos<br /><br />La Noche<br /><br />De<br /><br />Los Museos<br /><br /><em>Will she be there…?</em><br /><br />La Noche<br /><br /><em>I think she’ll be there…</em><br /><br />Los Museos..<br /><br /><em>I hope she will…</em><br /><br />La Noche de los Museos</div>remissionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541114341000083285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889771953775886691.post-18127098813713058842007-01-21T11:17:00.000-08:002008-12-08T15:46:39.882-08:00the man inside the inside, man<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZV3meXafAng/RbO8gsYOMwI/AAAAAAAAAAg/zCi7NO8Ml0s/s1600-h/man+inside+the+inside+man.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022565279302824706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZV3meXafAng/RbO8gsYOMwI/AAAAAAAAAAg/zCi7NO8Ml0s/s320/man+inside+the+inside+man.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">It wouldn’t be long now, the crows were flying and John L faced the long road. Each road had been longer than the last, each step offering more resistance. And John L was tired, man, the dust blowing in his eyes. The last case had left him stranded, like a reaching arm without a body. A rich lady contacted John L and called him to her home. A lady is like a woman, but with smoother lies. This lady was all alone. A sad thing. She hadn’t seen her husband in over a month. She showed John L a picture. The picture was like a face but faraway. John L took the case, it being his custom never to refuse a lady taller than himself. He would look for the man, uncover Levene. The case went on, at first giving a little and then not at all. Every now and then he would turn up a small piece of a clue, the gap between fleeting shadows. This life, it seemed, was mysterious. John L kept on, the case dogging him like red lines in his eyes. There’d be a dead body. A beautiful girl with no tongue. A torn ticket. A blank wall. What a fool he felt when he found the man, when he drove to the desert and he realised how his feet had not been his own, how the man and his wife, bored with themselves, had constructed a mystery for John L to solve. They had plotted their very own missing persons act to put some bone in their lives. They were lonely, knowing company only through humiliation. John L was nothing but a puppet. So, he let things carry through, let the strings pull. He drove to the desert, travelled along the earth, to find the man sitting in a remote cave, laughing as he approached, in his own piss, bearded and scrawny, demented by his own bad self and the mad crazy sun. John L looked at him, regarded him from the inside out. The inventor of a story, the author of John L’s life. He picked the man up, and threw him in the car. The funny thing was, during his investigations, John L had found at least three men who fit Levene’s description precisely, three versions of the man, all as worthy of his identity as the man himself. They shared the same memories, had the same thin hands. As an act of balance, John L had brought the three men with him and had left them all together in one ugly tangle of Levene. He had solved the case, whether or not it was real, whatever the case actually was. But now, it had left him beat. Clinging to a greasy line for these past years, it counted for nothing. It never did. It never could. What he did for others, how he reduced himself. This last fish had been cruel, against the grain of all good things. It was no different but it wasn’t the same. He felt like just a man. The true function of John L would never be revealed. A terminal man, forced to live forever. He carried on moving, on the wrong side of a sharp edge. He left his car behind, unloaded his past, one more time. He was going, getting there and gone. Man he was tired, beat. With dust in his eyes.<br /><br />The road he faced, in this pig heat, was littered with broken glass, as roads always are, in constant anger. He could walk it. He could do what he had done so many times before. John L could walk forever, a certain lever would be pulled, an internal window smashed and John L could just do it. He could just shit it out. When John L was blind, as a child, he learned magic. Since then, he could do anything. The sun slowed him down, the beam of his hat covering his eyes. He set himself in a pose of grim determination, in a bastard’s dance. But he was reeling. He couldn’t agree to go on. John L, opposing himself, broke into a run, off the road and across the dirt. John L kept running, on and on, further and further into unknown territory. The sweat soaked his black suit, his suit soaked into his bones. Gasping, gaping at the world. Suddenly he found himself staring at a perfect patch of grass. A beautiful apple tree stood there, not giving a shit and asking no questions. His eyes sought more. It made him think of all trees. He could go back, leave the tree alone, back to the next case, the next poisonous exchange. But he didn’t want to. He leaned on the tree for a while. It offered the safest support. He slunk down, looking up at the tree, lying down, saw the branches waving at the sky. He scratched a letter in the bark of the tree, maybe the beginning of something, or its very end. It was good to be away from the city, away from the horror eyes of cars. Not all things were always bad, out here. He’d been traipsing from gang plank to gang plank for as long as he could remember. Eventually he’d dive, cold bones into the ocean and it would take him in its welcoming swallow. John L stretched out, kicking off his shoes, always the sign, and placing his hat over his face. He decided to dream – to dream of a man and a woman, two shapes, two clods of lifestuff. They would be in love, these clods. The boy would be in trouble, the girl would need him desperately. Wild and crazy, the boy, like a punched ticket, small eyes looking for big times. The girl would be slim, hunting slow men, her body leaving their eyes sore and dripping. The girl would have a sound in her head, the sound she couldn’t get rid of. It would worry her night and day – a yellow and evil tune, the whine her daddy would make after crawling into her bed, a tune like a rag nailed to her shoulder. On the first day the boy strung her father from a tree and slit his belly like a pig. The blood running out from him, happy to be released. And the girl was charmed, pleased, she sat watching her daddy die. She was warmed by the heroic boy who had no sense of right or wrong, who only knew how to make her happy and trusted in that. She sat there, watching. She started humming the yellow melody, setting it free at last, back to the ears of the man twisting before her, hung on the tree he planted as a child. Funny it was, that her Daddy’s screams were in time with the tune, the tune he used to whistle from between his teeth, into her trembling ears. The boy put on a record and danced with the girl into the night, stealing the car and setting fire to the barn. Daddy danced no more. They drove along the road, the roof open, the wind, with them. They drove till morning and stopped by an old, abandoned farmhouse, another place where sad rural dreams had perished. Weeds poked through the windows like dead laughing eyes. They burned the car for warmth, and as an abstract show of reckless love. The explosions showed the sky. There would be other cars, more things to burn, more love to show.<br /><br />The boy would dream of ways to disassemble himself, a green screw in his navel. He would half-wake and reach for the girl. And, for the first time, she was there. They drained the next few days in each other’s arms. An afternoon was spent sleeping. Another in a nearby lake, diving, naked. They thought things they’d like to happen. The boy then had the idea to teach the girl to shoot. A gun seemed important between them, a short violent life almost certain. Happiness would follow death or be damned. They used beer bottles as targets. The boy was deadly in every way – his eyes were rape and his hands screamed for murder. Glass couldn’t cut him and there wasn’t a knife that dared. He had an idea for something, something total, like a game that was real. He pointed the gun. His aim was true. The bottles smashed without choice. The girl flinched and giggled. The gun felt heavy and dead in her hands. She stroked it, trying to awake something inside. Her slim hips, full of raw sex, quivered as she weighed its scarlet history. She held it out in front of her unsteadily. She pulled the trigger and shrieked, knocking the top from the bottle. The second shot buried itself into an innocent fence that must have wondered why the hell. Urged by the boy, who was now thinking of her open legs, she took a third, wild shot, missing completely. She was almost thrown by the gun’s masculine thrust. She screamed with joy. Smiling, like a child. They heard a groan from across the field. She dropped the gun. The girl moved instinctively over to the boy, but the boy had already jumped the fence, his finger to his lips, walking low crouch, following the sound like a dog. The girl followed, tearing her dress slightly on a splinter in the fence, exposing herself ever more. They came upon a large apple tree that made them think of all trees, so typical was it of what it was. Under the tree sat a man, a hat covering his face, his shoes kicked to one side, his hand over the wound in his heart, blood running through his fingers, thickly down his black suit. The girl looked at the boy, somehow. </span><br /><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">P. Cabrelli</p></span>remissionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541114341000083285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889771953775886691.post-37755253089959119202007-01-19T06:25:00.000-08:002007-01-19T06:28:59.415-08:00To The DepthsPeople always ask me if I knew him. In truth, I only knew him through the two letters he sent me. Strange things they were, full of elegances that it would have been unkind to expect from most people. He was seldom seen or heard from: he had no public persona, and this of course added to the myth. I believe that he was affiliated with an institution that paid him an annual stipend, and that he lived off this small amount for many years leading up to his death. Well, that was a long time ago, but I have kept the letters.<br /><br />I first wrote to him when I was in my thirty-fifth year, after I had just been promoted to the post of district commissioner. He was thirty years my senior and had recently retired from the University of Leiden, one of Europe’s historic institutions, and a place he visited rarely, if ever at all. He told people that he liked to teach, but only from a distance. I believe that he didn’t like people to look too closely at him. You could tell from the few photographs that he was a man whose face had not often been read.<br /><br />But you know all of this: you are here for the letters. Well, as I say, they are strange things, and in reading them I hope you will understand why. The first was sent to me on the 15th of March 1974:<br /><br />'Dear Mr. Arlen,<br /><br />'I am humbled by your kind and gracious letter of introduction. I only regret that I had not been able to read it earlier so that I could compose a reply to you more swiftly. I am truly sorry that it has taken me several months to do so, but I am sure you will understand what volume of correspondence I am asked to attend to every day, considering my habits and existence, and why it is not possible for me to answer your letter as soon as you might have hoped.<br /><br />'In reply to your first question: yes, I do live alone. I don’t keep servants because I like to do things by myself. It also limits my expenses. I was once married but I divorced my wife after I discovered that she was having an affair. The details of these matters are recounted in Trondsen (1965), if you care to learn more; you must beware some of his exaggerated suggestions, however. My daughter is living with her mother, I believe, although she must be in her twenties now.<br /><br />'My house is the only building for miles. The nearest town is a long drive away. I’m sorry that you have had to address your letter to my secretary but I cherish my privacy and I can’t afford to lose it, especially now that I am working quite intensely. The house is small, no grander description than a cottage will suffice. I bought it from a farmer. There are two bedrooms, one of which I have been using as a study. I don’t have a living room since I rarely have guests, and the ones I do invite are quite happy to sit and discuss things with me in the kitchen. In the garden I have erected a large pool, although I am too old and weak to swim in it nowadays.<br /><br />'My philosophical progression has been painful in that during the course of my life, and particularly during these late years, I have had to reject much of the wisdom and teachings of my youth. I was a rather severe young man, and quickly established myself as a thinker operating within the classical tradition. Hegel was my hero, and somebody who I felt to be living inside me, or at least his spirit did. I grew to loathe him as I experienced serious failures, particularly in my private affairs, although in recent years I think I have made my peace with the man.<br /><br />'I am attracted to the work of the new philosophers coming out of Paris. I may be the only one of the so-called ‘Old Guard’ who looks on them with favour. Concomitant with my recent researches into ‘depth’ as a theoretical concept – which you have most kindly asked to hear more about – is an essay by someone whose name currently escapes me. Anyway, he discusses desert islands from the perspective of renewal, and seems to suggest that depth is a swelling of time. He writes, beautifully I think, that: ‘In the ideal of beginning anew there is something that precedes the beginning itself, that takes it up to deepen it and delay it in the passage of time. The desert island is the material of this something immemorial, this something most profound.’ I would be most interested to hear your thoughts on this idea. I will ask my secretary to forward you the reference to the essay if I can find it.<br /><br />'For my part, I believe that in the shallows time flows normally, which is to say, it alternates between periods of calm and turbulence. Everything there is relative. In the depths, the pressure of time is lived away from the experience of regret, of joy, even of solitude. The deepest recesses find time ebbing into layers of repetition. This motion in transit can be felt as a reverberation, as every thought is created anew.<br /><br />'Well, I am sorry to have proceeded at greater length than I had intended, but I do hope that you will take some time to write me a reply.<br /><br />Yours very sincerely,<br /><br />Professor Bourget'<br /><br />I wrote in reply to him, exchanging a few words on the details of my own life. I felt that he would like to hear this from me, even though he hadn’t asked me specifically for it. The second – and last – letter that he wrote to me was dated 3rd May 1974. He took his life some time during the following week. Here is the letter he wrote:<br /><br />'Dear Joseph,<br /><br />'Once again you do me the honour of writing about yourself and your family. It fills me with happiness to hear that you and your wife are expecting your first child. Please write and inform me as precisely as you can the expected date of birth, so that I may send you a present to coincide with the arrival of the baby.<br /><br />'I have been pondering for some time your response to my sly prodding. It is surprising to hear that you don’t take seriously the ideas of the post-’68 thinkers. I felt that this was what would have drawn you to seek me out, but you are interested instead in my earlier writing. Well, I can only discuss my most personal works in today’s language. All of the old styles and tricks are gone.<br /><br />'Back in ’52, when I was – as you are soon to be – a young father, I endured a period of crisis during the break-up of my marriage. It was a terribly fraught affair from which I have not properly recovered. You will have noted from your researches that my wife is an even more elusive creature than I: she does not want to discuss it. Being of a more temperate disposition nowadays, I can tell you a bit more about that time. I was, as one might say, ‘in too deep’, in terms of intellectuality. I was dabbling in all sorts of esoteric knowledge that I didn’t have the courage to apprehend critically. In its way, this can be a dangerous game. But worst of all was the fact that my wife was completely uninterested in my work. I took this far too personally at the time and have regretted it ever since. Then, I conceived depth as a condition, as my own sorry state of being. I had crossed the limits, although I never stopped to ask myself who had defined these limits. All I was concerned with was the misery of depth, the sorrow of being there, alone, while the rest of humanity floated happily along in the shallows.<br /><br />'You see what kind of a man I was. You also understand, I hope, why it is impossible for me to answer all of the other theoretical questions that you have posed me, which date from my writings of this period. Well, I am sorry I cannot help you any further along this line, but please do write to me concerning any other matter.<br /><br />I am yours, as ever,<br /><br />Paul Bourget'<br /><br />Even by the heightened expectations for which I had prepared myself after receiving his initial reply, this letter came with the sudden force of an earthquake. I immediately attempted to trace his wife, but to no avail. Trondsen was no help either, although he was very coy about the possible whereabouts of the daughter.<br /><br />Very soon after these investigations began, I received news of the professor’s suicide. I made my way down to the house, the address of which was finally revealed to me by his loyal secretary. I was the first on the scene, after the forensics, so I was able to have a thorough look around the place. The house was remarkably clean and well-arranged, I thought; everything was in its place, and nothing seemed out of place.<br /><br />In the garden I walked around the old pool that had lain unused for so many years. It was covered, and when I opened it I was surprised to find it full of water. Years of neglect had turned it into a stagnant and foul-smelling swamp, but there was no mistaking the sight of the decaying arm floating on the surface. When the pool was drained and the rest of the girl’s body was recovered and dated, it matched the time of the disappearance of his daughter from the biographical record. It was only a matter of a few routine tests before I was able to confirm the information that is common knowledge today.remissionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541114341000083285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889771953775886691.post-84663492534696629762007-01-19T06:23:00.000-08:002007-01-19T06:24:59.421-08:00A Cold Cell<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">‘In retrospect I realise that it was something I shouldn’t have done. Powell had several years of training and even then he hadn’t planned for accidents or Acts of God or whatever. It’s insulting of me to sit here in the middle of the ocean and complain about things that didn’t go my way. I couldn’t have done it differently because then the outcome would have been different and this might never have happened.’<br /><br />John Balance put down his pen, exhausted, and fell flat on his stomach, rocking the boat as he collapsed.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Hours later he awoke to find himself in the same vessel, his surroundings also unchanged. The same still blue expanse of ocean under a piercing sun.<br /><br />It had been a week since his disappearance. For months he had been working secretly on a project that he hadn’t divulged to anybody. He had been so enthusiastic about it that he had quit his job. He left his home and rented a room at a lodge. When people came to visit him he would tell them to wait outside the door while he shuffled his work hurriedly away. The only thing in his room that might have furnished a clue to those in the know was the picture of Emeric Powell on the wall.<br /><br />Powell had been a famous adventurer during an age when such an existence had spurred no doubt. He had climbed mountains, crossed deserts and lived among wild tribes in the tropics, all for a cause that he had never revealed to another soul. Of all his feats, the one that most impressed John was the story of how he had deliberately cast himself adrift in the ocean for a week, carrying no food and very little water. Some instinct in the young man was captured by this notion of subsisting deliberately on the barest essentials that life could offer. He had read that when Powell was finally rescued – he had been closely monitored during the time he was at sea – he had been near to death. Even after he had recovered physically it was said that he never was the same again. This most swashbuckling of characters discovered a reticence in his nature that he bore in almost hermit-like seclusion during his last years.<br /><br />John was no adventurer and he had no desire for travel, but he believed that he had a book in him waiting to be written, and he convinced himself that the book should be about Powell. At first, he slipped into the mould of an amateur sleuth and researched Powell’s life, his background, and the many expeditions. He scoured the libraries for every scrap of detail about the man. It was a painstaking and at times numbing process – he was indiscriminate about his sources and fanatical about the range of Powell’s influence. Yet, despite his efforts, after several months of intense study he felt that he hadn’t penetrated his subject in any meaningful way.<br /><br />All this time an idea had been hatching in his mind that perhaps the only way to progress would be if he were to repeat the man’s actions himself. The more that he thought about it the simpler the plan became, until finally he reasoned that in order to make a significant advance on his research he would only need to spend a week alone on a boat with enough drinking water, a pen, and some paper.<br /><br />When he made his decision he acted on it quickly. He told nobody about his plans and hired a small dinghy, which he secured with rope to an abandoned jetty. The rope allowed him twenty metres’ distance from the shore. If the situation became too burdensome then he would simply reel himself back in.<br /><br />The first couple of days went surprisingly quickly, although hunger arrived even quicker. He weathered the early anxieties by maintaining a steady flow of words to record his every thought and sensation. Even if this material yielded nothing productive toward the Powell biography, he thought, it would make a very readable journal.<br /><br />It was as he awoke on the morning of the third day that he discovered that the boat had slipped its moorings and drifted out into the open sea. Peering in the direction of the shore he spotted a rigid figure slouching away from the jetty. It was a haggard old man in a suit. He could be an ageing writer or a criminal. What did it matter to him, he wondered.<br /><br />He panicked at first, but eventually decided that he would try and wait out the remaining time. There was too much at stake. He hadn’t gone very far out and besides, people were sure to come looking for him once they had learned of his disappearance.<br /><br />‘Balance, a name that deserved mockery at school but never received it. I wonder why. I was never the first or the last in class at anything, and I never showed the willingness to confront my weaknesses that even the most limited of my fellow students exhibited. In all I was a coward but I made a sacred virtue of it, never uttering the word for fear that I might hit upon some unforgiving truth.’<br /><br />He pursed his lips in frustration. He had wanted to say something more urgent, less stunted. He wondered if this was perhaps all that he was capable of.<br /><br />‘My name is Balance, for God’s sake! I should know what it is profitable for me to do given my situation.’<br /><br />The supply of drinkable water had ended prematurely, and since then he had also struggled to keep account of the number of days that had elapsed. He guessed that this was his sixth day, which meant that he was near to Powell’s record. The thought made him anxious. He was reminded that all he could do was to wait.<br /><br />‘My throat has been sore and aching for a long time. I tried the sea water but my body rejected it as soon as the first drop had entered. I can feel my insides bleeding; I can almost smell the blood: that smell wafting out of my mouth. I feel pungent and in need of a wash, ridiculous as it sounds. Hours of exposure have caused a rash on my back from the neck down. I try to soothe the pain with water from time to time but it doesn’t help. I’m aware that most of my actions are being accomplished purely to motivate me psychologically.’<br /><br />He dozed off after writing these words.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />When he awoke it was night. Something was circling him overhead but he couldn’t tell in the dark what kind of bird it was. On the deck of the boat he saw dark red drops of blood. Touching his lips he felt the warm liquid seeping out.<br /><br />‘If I was to do it, I couldn’t possibly regret what had passed before. Powell had several years of training and even then he hadn’t planned for accidents. It’s insulting of me to sit here in the middle of the ocean and complain…’<br /><br />Was he repeating himself? He flipped back a few pages to confirm the fact. Something he had read about Powell returned to him: how in his final years he had become almost mad with isolation. Feeling that he couldn’t share his experiences with any other person, he often resorted to writing down imaginary conversations with himself in order to effect some dialogue.<br /><br />‘Perhaps this is what is happening to me now. I’ve isolated myself so thoroughly that I can’t remember what had happened only a short time before. Maybe Powell felt the same thing, this despondency that made him forget himself sometimes.’<br /><br />He put down his pen, surprising himself by his steadiness, and leaned over the side of the boat to stare at his reflection. His head was numb with hunger, his mouth a bloody red, and his muscles ached with weariness. Outside there was water everywhere; inside he was in deep concentration.<br /><br />He dipped his face toward the water and broke its glassy surface. It was crisp; it drenched his hair and quickly absorbed his head. Following through with the rest of his body, he sank in one motion, and was pulled soundlessly into the depths.</span>remissionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541114341000083285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889771953775886691.post-77673720572380766562007-01-19T06:19:00.000-08:002007-01-19T06:22:22.526-08:00The Stage<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Henry opened his eyes. Then closed them instinctively. Then sounds of ‘boo’ ringed about his ears and he opened his eyes again in automatic shock and bewilderment. The booing stopped. A spotlight was piercing into his retinas, temporarily blurring his sight. Using his left hand as a shield over his eyes, he quickly managed to adjust to the blinding light and focus on what was around him.<br /><br />He was sitting on a wooden chair. A huge spotlight shone directly into his face.<br /><br />He was sitting on a chair.<br />Alone on a stage.<br />And an audience was watching him.<br /><br />The theatre (or what at least seemed to be a theatre) was darkened, the only light being the intrusive spotlight. He was the only person on stage, and the chair he was sitting on was the only stage prop. The audience was large. Henry had no idea what he was doing sitting on a stage in front of a large audience. Had he been asleep, or drugged? Had he lost his memory? A dream…must be, he thought. I’ll ask the audience<br /><br />This is a dream, right?<br /><br />…………………….<br /><br />Silence<br /><br />Henry had experienced dreams like this before. Lucid dreams were fairly common to him, but usually he could control the environment of his dream world once he had become aware that he was inside a dream. But in this case nothing seemed to be happening. By now, several things would have happened, he would have started to levitate or make the audience rise off their seats or conjure up a naked woman on stage carrying a bowl of strawberries, or something delightful and unexpected… but nothing seemed to be happening. He was not the one in control.<br /><br />‘Ok, can someone tell me what’s going on?’<br /><br />Again, silence…………as before…<br /><br />Henry glanced to either side of the stage and could see that there were ‘Exit’ signs. He turned to his right and began to walk off the stage.<br /><br />‘BOOOOO’ clamoured the audience.<br /><br />Henry turned to look at them, and he could hear ‘boos’ but could see no facial expressions in the subdued dark of the auditorium. Clearly they didn’t want him to leave the stage, but what did they want him to do?<br /><br />He walked back to the centre. The booing stopped. He felt unsteady on his feet so he sat down on the wooden chair in the centre of the stage, under the heavy glare of the spotlight, and exhaled strongly.<br /><br />Applause rang out from the audience.<br /><br />Now he was confused. Do they want me to sit here? he thought.<br /><br />‘YES’ came a voice from the crowd. Amused laughs followed.<br /><br />‘IS THIS SOME KIND OF SICK JOKE?’ Henry bellowed out.<br /><br />Deathly silence.<br /><br />Suddenly Henry could feel the eyes of the watching audience narrow intensely and scowl silently into his heart. He could feel the air grow thin, as the claustrophobia of disapproval caved in on him. Ok, I’ll play along. Let’s find out what this is about.<br /><br />Henry stood up. Waited a moment to see if the audience reacted. They did not. What next? He felt into his trouser pockets, but nothing was in them. Then he reached inside his jacket. Sniggers from the audience. He felt something cold and metallic and he took it out of his inside pocket. It was a harmonica.<br /><br />Brief applause.<br /><br />‘You want me to play a tune?’<br /><br />Amused murmurings and a few sporadic whistles from the back rows.<br /><br />Ok, here goes. He put his lips to the harmonica and blew.<br /><br />…………………..<br /><br />‘HA HA HA HA HA HA’<br /><br />No sound came out of the harmonica, and the audience were killing themselves with laughter.<br /><br />‘I’M NOT FUCKING TAKING THIS’ and Henry stormed off the stage, throwing the harmonica out into the audience. <br /><br />Boos rang out but this time he made it as far as actually walking off the stage into the wing, when there appeared entering from the ‘Exit’ door two people hunched over wearing black robes. Their faces were pale, stretched and vaguely masculine, but they were small, no more than five feet. Their hunches made them look smaller than they probably were when erect. They did not appear to be moving, and seemed to be blocking the ‘Exit’ door. Then one of them spoke,<br /><br />‘We do not want you to leave’ hissed one of the hunchbacks<br />‘No we wouldn’t like that’ said the other<br />Then the first to speak spoke again,<br /><br />‘Henry, we like you’<br />‘Henry we like you’ repeated his companion<br />‘Can’t you hear how sad they are Henry?’<br />‘Can’t you see what you have done… Henry’<br /><br />‘WHO ARE YOU?’ Henry demanded<br /><br />‘We are your friends, Henry’<br />‘Don’t go now Henry’<br />‘We… love you’<br />‘We love you Henry’<br />‘Don’t go Henry’<br />‘Stay with us’<br />Henry we want you to stay’<br />‘We love y…’<br /><br />‘STOP GOD DAMN IT STOP’<br /><br />Henry Henry Henry Henry Henry Henry Henry Henry Henry … came the chant of the audience, growing louder and louder.<br /><br />‘You see Henry’ began one of the hunchbacks; ‘ They want you back with them’<br />‘They miss you Henry’<br />‘They worship you’<br /><br />‘ALRIGHT’ Henry said. ‘I will go back on. But before I do, explain to me. Explain what the hell is going on here?’<br /><br />‘Don’t you love us Henry’ said the first hunchback<br />‘We are your friends Henry’ said the second<br />‘Do you not love us anymore’<br />‘Henry don’t be mad at us’<br />‘We want you to stay with us’<br /><br />It was becoming a horrible nightmare. A nauseating and absurd practical joke. But with every second that passed, the more this was continuing, Henry felt more and more desperate. A knife was twisting inside his stomach each time the hunched men spoke. The chant of the audience made him want to throw up. His insides were turning inside out. He felt raw, and the hunched figures were now chanting,<br /><br />‘henry henry… henry we love you … henry henry… henry we miss you… henry henry’<br /><br />Henry turned away from them and walked back towards the stage.<br /><br />Applause rang out and the audience stood up to receive him.<br /><br />The noise of jubilation swelled around the theatre. The spotlight was on him again, but this time it didn’t feel hostile. He felt shrouded in glory and worship. The audience seemed to love him.<br /><br />He milked the applause; it went on for several minutes. It was as though he was a war-hero who had returned home to be greeted by his very own people. As the applause continued Henry forgot for a moment his confusion and anger of a few moments ago. He was not thinking of anything. He felt complete, like his existence had meaning. There were no questions inside his head, no doubts lurking deep in the crevices of his vast skull. The audience had made him a god, and he despised them, but revelled in the sensation of being adored. Gradually the applause died down and the audience sat back down on their seats. Now what?<br /><br />Henry heard a shuffling of feet along the wooden floor of the stage and turned round to see the hunches pushing a grand piano onto the stage. They slithered off the stage, whispering as they left, ‘ henry henry… henry we love you…’<br /><br />Resting on the beautifully polished piano were three objects: a white facial mask, a glass of milk and an orange cloak. The hunches had also placed a stool in front of the piano, and the spotlight was now on the stool, inviting Henry to sit down. Henry knew what the audience wanted. But he had never played the piano properly in his life… he sat down on the stool and stared at the piano keys.<br /><br />Again came the chant of his name, but it was’nt loud, it was slow and hushed, as if the audience were mimicking his sub-conscious, goading him to strike that first note, daring him to play a tune, as though they were daring him to steal something from a shop or pop a naughty pill inside his mouth. Risk it Henry, be daring Henry, do it because you know it is what you want to do – all these voices, these urges filtered into his head as the slow incessant chant of his name seeped through his skin, consuming his body, his physical impulses. His left hand trembling, it moved towards the piano keys. He had no control over it. A stronger will than his rationale had power over his actions. The audience, the hunchbacks, the theatre, the stage – all of these were ruling him, and he was powerless to stop them.<br /><br />His finger pressed a note. Cheers went up<br /><br />‘henry henry henry’<br /><br />A second note<br /><br />‘HENRY HENRY’ the chant was louder<br /><br />Then he began to hit the notes randomly, and a wave of applause broke out again. He stopped for a moment, looked to the audience and beamed with gratitude and satisfaction. Now he had more confidence and began hitting lots of keys with great enthusiasm. Suddenly the noise from the audience stopped.<br /><br />Silence…………….. once more<br /><br />He had to think fast. The silence was more terrifying and degrading than the boos. Silence was menacing, silence was the invisible sound of the hunter. Think fast, Henry.<br /><br />The objects…. Ah!<br /><br />They must have placed these here for a reason. Henry looked at the objects, and first picked up the glass of milk. The silence broke and a few friendlier-sounding hums came from the audience.<br /><br />‘That’s right Henry’ came a hissing voice. One of the hunches again<br /><br />‘Play with us Henry’ said the other<br />‘You always liked our games Henry’<br /><br />What do they want me to do with this?<br /><br />He wondered if the milk was drugged. He wondered if this is what had happened, that someone had spiked his drink with a tranquilliser and while he slept had brought him to this awful place. There was no telling what might happen to him if he was drugged again. But he suddenly realised how thirsty he was under the intense heat of the spotlight, and he stared longingly at the liquid in the glass.<br /><br />‘Yessssss’ hissed one of the hunches<br /><br />‘You’ll like the milk, Henry’<br /><br />‘We made it just for you’<br /><br />It was a ritual. On cue came the chant of his name from the audience. The hunches were standing on stage urging him on. For the first time, their faces had lost the shadowy aura they had previously, and their eyes became wider like black marbles, cold and dense, impenetrable. Their hissing grated in his ears, he could almost feel their slimy tongues slither across his face and eyes, wet tongues and sickening desires crawling beneath his skin, making him stand up, making him sit down, making him play a tune. He raised the glass to his lips and said,<br /><br />‘To my friends, here’s to fun and games’<br /><br />And he drank the milk.<br /><br />‘HENRY HENRY HENRY HENRY’<br /><br />Cheers again, and whistles and applause and laughter. The glass was still half-full. Henry then swung the cloak around his shoulders and put the mask over his face.<br /><br />It was time to put on a show.<br /><br />He struck a few keys, and found a few notes he liked. With caution abandoned, he began playing a tune. In a style that the untrained ear could mistake for improvised jazz, Henry delivered a tune that delighted the audience. His lack of musical expertise guaranteed that the sequence of notes did not follow a pattern, but the effect, in the context of what he was happening to him, was one of intense drama. And he began to realise that a true moment of revelation, of discovery, maybe even of epiphany mixed with the darkest horror, was unfolding on that very stage, from the very music he was playing. He banged the notes hard, sculpting from his head an expression of the agony, the torture he had endured throughout his buried and forgotten existence. He lost awareness of how the audience were reacting, of what the hunches were doing or saying – he no longer cared, and no longer thought. He just played, and gave no thought to how he was playing.<br /><br />The music ended.<br /><br />Silence.<br /><br />The hunches were staring at him. He could not tell what they were feeling. Exhausted and perspiring heavily he turned to the audience.<br /><br />From the hazy darkness, he could make out that a member of the audience had stood up from one of the back rows<br /><br />‘BRAVO’<br /><br />‘Bravo bravo’ came another<br /><br />and now a chant had begun again<br /><br />‘BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO’<br /><br />Henry stood up and walked towards the front of the stage, and the loudest applause yet rang out, and with it a standing ovation. For the first time, he could see some of the audience’s faces, and just how many of them there were.<br /><br />The auditorium was huge, containing at least four or five thousand people. People of all ages comprised the audience. Thousands of smiles beamed at him. He was once again a deity of the stage, a spectacle of wonder.<br /><br />He had forgotten himself and suddenly realised he was still wearing the mask. He removed it and the noise notched up another level. This was the most satisfactory moment yet.<br /><br />Then came a sound of shuffling and the hunches had crept forward to the front of the stage, signalling to the audience to sit down and lower the applause.<br /><br />Calm had settled once again. The audience seated, the performance was over. One of the hunches spoke,<br /><br />‘Well done Henry. You see how much fun we had’<br />‘We could tell you enjoyed yourself Henry’ said the other<br />‘And we will do this again, won’t we Henry’<br />‘Yes we know you can’t wait to play with us again’<br />‘You will come back and play with us, won’t you Henry?’<br /><br />Henry shook his head.<br /><br />A sneering grin arose from the corner of one of the hunches’ mouth.<br /><br />‘We have been nice to you so far, Henry’<br />‘You don’t want to upset your friends’<br />‘You will play with us Henry, you have no choice’<br />‘And you will want to play with us’<br />‘In the end you will choose to be with us’<br /><br />Silence. Henry remained silent too. He did not speak.<br /><br />He simply looked into the eyes of the hunchbacks, wondering what horror, what undesirable fantasies lurked behind them, what world existed behind those black, empty eyes. He looked out into the quiet audience, and began to feel now and hear the sound and the emotion within the silence. Henry could feel laughter, cruel laughter and delight waiting to burst out. But the silence carried it. It fed it into his ears, his eyes, his heart, and this time he was ready for their next move.<br /><br />‘You seem sure of yourself, Henry’ said one of the hunches. The other continued their routine.<br /><br />‘You seemed very sure of yourself after you drank the milk. Why not have some more Henry?’<br /><br />‘Yes, have some more lovely milk… you like your milk Henry’<br /><br />‘It will make you strong’<br /><br />‘It will make you want to play and have fun’<br /><br />‘Go on Henry, drink your milk’<br /><br />Henry smiled and shook his head.<br /><br />Murmurs from the audience.<br /><br />‘HA!’ said one of the hunches<br /><br />‘You think you’re being a clever boy now do you?’<br />‘You think just because you have played such a pretty tune you can ruin everyone’s fun?’<br />‘You think you know everything, don’t you Henry?’<br />‘Don’t want to play with us, don’t want to have fun anymore, eh Henry?’<br /><br />A pause. Henry still said nothing. The audience waited.<br /><br />The first hunchback spoke again<br /><br />‘Well now’, he sneered, ‘ You were not so clever enough to have drunk half the milk glass’<br /><br />‘Ha ha ha’ laughed the other. ‘ Yessss we made the milk specially for you’<br /><br />‘You must be getting tired now Henry’<br />‘Yes poor Henry, after being on stage for so long, he must be so so tired’<br />‘You can sleep if you want to Henry’<br />‘Soon you will fall faaast asleep…’<br />‘And when you wake up we can play again’<br />‘All of us can play together’<br />‘We love you Henry’<br />‘Sleep well Henry’<br /><br />Henry carried on staring at the hunches. They bent lower and looked up at him, peering inquisitively into his eyes, as if there were expecting to find something.<br /><br />Henry stepped forward towards the hunches who retreated slightly. Henry smiled and spat at one of them.<br /><br />The milk splashed all over the hunch’s face. He had kept the milk in his mouth the whole time.<br /><br />Gasps from the audience.<br /><br />Everyone was in shock. The hunch who was spat at started blubbering. His face became stretched and contorted, his nose leaked and his thin cracked lips shook violently. The other hunch shouted,<br /><br />‘YOU CAN’T DO THIS! YOU WILL PLAY WITH US’<br /><br />‘WE… HATE YOU… HENRY’ snarled the other.<br /><br />‘WE HATE YOU’<br /><br />‘HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE’ chanted the hunches and the audience in unison.<br /><br />Henry had broken the house rules. He was despised, and hated. He no longer cared about their approval and he was no longer afraid. As the hateful mantra resounded around the theatre, he began to feel a deep sense of emptiness opening up inside him. But it was’nt the emptiness of rejection. It was the aching realisation that even now in this unscripted, unwanted confrontation, he was still playing their game. He sighed and walked off stage through the exit door, with the hissing and the venomous chants still booming from behind, and following him all the way to the outside.<br /><br /><br />It was still dark outside, but light was beginning to creep into the sky. He was in a narrow alleyway, with rubbish bags everywhere and newspaper flying along the ground in the wind. Henry walked out of the alley onto an adjacent street. He walked for about amile. He did not encounter anybody, and even though he was looking around, gazing into shop windows and peering into other side streets as he walked past, he might as well have been blind, for his mind and his eyes were still on that stage. He was still sitting there on that stage, playing the piano, with the hunchbacks skulking in the wings, with the audience chanting his name in approval and recognition.<br /><br />A strong wave of wind blew and he wrapped the cloak tighter around his body. The cloak!<br /><br />He still had it on. And in the cold of early winter dawn, it was an ideal garment to wear. He rubbed the soft fabric with his fingers, and remembered the adrenalin, the buzz of excitement he felt as he put on the cloak and the mask on stage and began to play. He knew he could go back there. He knew that he could make them cheer and make them love him again. He just had to play, and wear the cloak, and wear the mask, and drink the milk. He could be special again.<br /><br />I’ll take my chance<br /><br />With sadness, he removed the cloak from his shoulders and threw it to the ground.<br /><br />He carried on walking.<br /><br />It was another hour or so before sunlight began to fill the sky. Henry was standing on a bridge looking out into the city river. The white wings of flying seagulls seemed to cut through the water like knives through ice. He was shivering but inside there was a warmth that kept him there, standing on the bridge watching the river.<br /><br />The city was beginning to wake up just as he was beginning to feel tired. His house was a mile away. He thought he would give work a miss and sleep in. He thought about what had happened, and now that his bizarre experience was over, it didn’t matter to him how he had ended up on stage or who those people were.<br /><br />Cars were on the road again. Buses were running. People were out of their houses going to work.<br /><br />He was just around the corner from his house when he decided to sit down on a bench. A thought had just occurred to him.<br /><br />Now that I know what their game is, why don’t I return and fool them again? Hurt them just as much as they were prepared to hurt me.<br /><br />It was an appetising thought, and a surge of relish and power oozed from his belly. But then it stopped. His hands were numb, and fatigue settled in again.<br /><br />‘Excuse me’ said a voice from somewhere<br /><br />Henry looked up and saw a younger lad, maybe fifteen or so, sitting on a bike in front of him.<br /><br />‘Are you Henry, by any chance?’ the boy asked<br /><br />Henry was a bit unnerved, but tried to be polite. ‘My name is Henry, yes.’ he said, ‘ Do I know you?’<br /><br />‘Thought you were!’ the boy said, pleased with himself.<br /><br />‘You know I’ve seen you on stage. You’re great. My mum and dad think you haven’t been your usual self recently, but I tell them that you’re an artist. Your act is different, and it changes. That’s why I like watching you’<br /><br />‘You’ve seen me on stage?’ asked Henry<br /><br />‘Oh yes’ replied the boy<br /><br />‘How many times’ Henry asked<br /><br />The boy looked embarrassed, ‘ Well, I’d rather not say. But seriously you’re brilliant. Its such a shame you are not doing any more shows’<br /><br />How did he know…? What the hell is going on? Is this boy in league with…<br /><br />‘Right I had best be off’ said the boy, interrupting Henry’s train of thought, ‘ I have paper-rounds to do. Got to save money so I can pay for college, and be on stage like you’<br /><br />‘Nice talking to you’ said Henry<br /><br />‘You too, its great to meet you Henry’ replied the boy, ‘You think you’ll do any more shows?’<br /><br />Henry scratched his nose and gazed at the ground. The boy waited for an answer.<br /><br />He looked up at the boy, and smiled to himself.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">‘ Just for you kid. Just for you’</span>remissionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541114341000083285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889771953775886691.post-42487642626285794212007-01-19T04:02:00.000-08:002008-12-08T15:46:40.011-08:00The Man Who Came Around<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZV3meXafAng/RbC08cYOMuI/AAAAAAAAAAM/INWuqT9aCwc/s1600-h/bigcombo.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5021712535021040354" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZV3meXafAng/RbC08cYOMuI/AAAAAAAAAAM/INWuqT9aCwc/s320/bigcombo.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;">John L didn't have much. But John L knew that things could crop up. Things happened and the old energy was back. Lately, John L had been highly motivated. Lately, John L was like his old self. When John L was on form, there was pretty much nothing he couldn't do. He had decided to find things out. He would never use the word detective - that wasn't John L's style. But he was the best in the business. I could tell you about the woman with the scar across her cheek or the fire monkeys of the Philippines but I won't.<br /><br />John L didn't drink liquid. When he was thirsty he would suck on a lemon or an orange. John L could not stand the idea of liquid in his throat. His hatred of the ocean must be mixed up in this, much in the way all things play their part. I don't know this for sure, I'm just saying. If John L were here today, he'd give it to you for sure. But he's not here, as I'm getting on telling.<br /><br />John L had this case. One of his birdfeeders, just a breadgetter. Missing persons. A man had misplaced himself. It can happen to anyone. This old goat comes in, says his friend hasn't been seen around. What's his name, asks John L. The goat clears his throat like he's digging a trench, J Latham's his name. A good man. A lost soul of sorts. Man went far as he could and couldn't get back. Well - John L runs it through his mind. It don't ring. This old goat starts looking at John L crooked. What's up? John L thinks that this old goat, he was my age once, and I'll be his age. We meet along the way just for a bit. John L squeezes a little more out. Seems Latham disappeared before John L's time. Before he can remember, anyhow. John L is sceptical. Not by nature. He's an optimist, leaves his door unlocked. But this old goat wasn't setting down straight. Still, he lays down a pile, taller than a baby rabbit. Bread you don't eat.<br /><br />So, John L had this case. He didn't have a photograph of Latham. But he'd done that before. Pulling faces out of nowhere, like drawing a picture. You find out he liked to laugh, you put creases by the mouth. Find out he was in a knife fight, chunk missing from his lip. Can't sleep at night, sad black eyes. The way John L saw it, a man was more than he looked anyway and a man never looks like himself. John L went to the older bars in town with what he knew: Latham was an old time docker, played backing guitar till he got in a bar fight with a meat hook. John L began to warm to Latham. This always happened. John L was such a pro. It was easy to imagine Latham hanging around these gin joints (or piss parlours, as John L used to say), taking the girls out back. John L saw how that would be easy. Sometimes it was good to be easy. John L was a pusher. But all pushers know how to lean. Maybe all pushers wanted to be leaners. What is it that don't let us do what we want? If John L were here, he'd tell you.<br /><br />John L is at a loss. It has to happen. There are layers in a case like this. Sure, it's easy to find people who remember a man. What is a man? Standing bones and job. It's easy to check his library records, parking tickets and such. But to get into the man? To second guess that move that took him under? That was tricky. John L was good - the best - but it took some doing. John L went down the docks. He got some funny looks down there. Maybe they took John L for a Frenchman. An old drunk fella came right up and stared John L in the eye. But John L stared him down. No problem. What a pro. Done it before, do it again. Down the docks is this old house boat. Words scratched on the side. Hard to make out. Words peeling off the paint, falling into the ocean. That's all there is. John L likes those odds like nothing. So he goes in. The boat's got about a foot of water. It's rotting like a bad memory. Worms in the sink, coming out of the taps. John L hates water. So, he's really laying it on the line, here. Cold as he is, John L starts sweating. He hates all that liquid, sloshing around. All loose and uncontained. Rifling through the stuff, John L strikes. He finds a soggy old document, half the words are running down the page like a bunch of Jesse Owens. Still, born '14. John L finds this interesting. Not much is known about John L. Comes to town with a brain the size of a football, so we don't really ask questions. John L has a past. You can see it in his eyes. John L has seen some life with those eyes. Never seen him lose those eyes. You look at John L and he has world all over him. You couldn't say John L was a happy man. Spends most of his time alone, wandering around the streets, picking things up. The thing about John L - not that we talk much anymore - is that he looks like he's trying to get somewhere. That's John L's way. That's his style. You see john L late at night sometimes. You say hi and he doesn't even recognise you. Other times, you catch him looking at the mirror behind the bar. What do you want, John L? You're so smart. Can't you see we all wanted you to be happy? We weren't saying nothing. John L was a lonely man. Perhaps the last true lonely man this country has seen.</span></div><div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">John L feels it developing in his spine. The hunch. John L thinks those dockers looking at him funny, they got some knowing to undo. Night time's the best time for John L. Man, does John L love the night. He winds his way down to the dock with his engine and lights off, just letting the car roll. That's an example of how smart John L was - who else would have done that? John L didn't take risks. That was his style. He breaks into the yard office and takes a look around. The pictures on the wall. Something catches his eye. Here comes the sweats again. The hotter it gets the colder he is. That's what happens when you're finding things out. That's information for you. John L wasn't in the water but he didn't like being down those docks, knowing all that water was waiting outside, out of control. He goes through the files. Comes to a document Four. Has a ring to it. John L pauses a while, he looks back to the pictures on the wall. The sweat's in his eyes now. You were too smart John L. You should have been stupid. So, john L reads through document four. John L reads about the terrible shipping accident of '34. John L reads about no survivors. John L reads the ship roll and reads Latham's name out loud to himself. Now, John L was a smart man but this wasn't intelligence he was dealing in. This was regular terror. John L stared at a particular picture on the wall, a particular picture of the dockers. 1934. Was that Latham? Picture said it was. But sometimes a man's more than just what he looks like, right? Sure, sometimes. But sometimes, not. John L reads down into document four, wiping the sweat from his eyes. Blinking. And it says, J Latham, John Latham recovered dead. Terrible accident. John Latham. John L's thinking nothing but John L. Too smart to be happy. That's what we say now. Looking at the picture of the open casket in the file, John L knows. He knows he is Latham. It's his face. It's his name. He can see it. Smart old John L knows that he is dead, knows why he hates the water, knows why he's lonely, why he can't remember nothing, why he's trying to get somewhere. It explains a few things. But, man, it don't explain it all. If John L were here, maybe he'd explain it. But no-one's seen him since.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">P. Cabrelli</span></div>remissionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541114341000083285noreply@blogger.com