Bertrand had been surprised by the recoil of his father's rifle. He had not prepared for the sight of the weasel pasted against the barn door, a dozen pellets alone penetrating its upper neck and mid-thorax region. A mass of blood and fur seemed to have been twisted onto the vicinity of the latch then held in place as if from afar by many bullet-like prongs. Surely, the calibre of the shotgun was too strong for his choice of game.
Bertrand had a tendency for overkill. Possessing a temperament and a super-charged imagination that demanded structure even when little existed naturally, his mania for organization had presented itself on innumerable occasions about the homestead. There had been the case of his clearing a brood of starlings from the drive house. A messy business, if you let it but from one Bertrand would not flinch. A half dozen squawking, flightless birds coiled above the door in the attic were disposed of. After all, it was his job to end the clatter and they were an obscene, noxious bird what with laying their eggs in songbirds' nests and crowding out more desirable species. Moreover, their very presence constituted an eyesore and that, coupled with their grating noise, concluded their fate. They were pests, simple and unadulterated, and on a farm any such nuisance had to be wrenched aside. Still, he had not drowned them like unwanted kittens or burned them out like that nest of yellow jackets in the currant bush. A simple twist of their neck either between the fingers of his leathered gloves (he disliked the feel of flesh on feather so this necessitated hunting for a thick pair of mittens), or placing the head of the screaming nestling under one's boot did the business. Almost effortlessly, but again nothing about tending land was done entirely without deliberation or exertion. Structure and foresight held things together. It was the nature of the beast.
And so it was with Bertrand's decision to hunt bees. The best method to oust any hive from its perch, so talk ran, was to wrap an old cloth about a stick and daub it with flammable pitch. Once lit, it made an impressive torch and could be brandished against pests of any description. As a kid, Bertrand recalled killing bumblebees in the old woodshed with a fly swatter. Now that was some kind of action which allowed the adversary manoeuvrability above and beyond that of skulking bees with a flame or killing baby birds. The enraged swarm would charge out from paper lairs encircled about the inner walls of a shed through whatever chinks or holes led to their tormentors. A little smoke applied judiciously, moreover, would send dozens piling out the holes in threesomes so that only a good, well balanced swat could hope to silence several existing at once. At times, the bees would threaten to get the upper hand and Bertrand and a friend would get panicky, think of the Alamo or just about any heroic last stand made possible by sheer courage.
Once, as a torrent of wasps had flown angrily out a large chink in the wood, Bertrand had been hit squarely in the forehead causing him to abandon his post leaving poor Alex a near victim. Fortunately, fear had given proverbial wings to their feet and they had outdistanced the swarm out the shed toward the relative safety of the house. In recalling the story, endless rejoinders were made back and forth as to what would have happened had a river been the only salvation. Could they have outfoxed the bees, held their breath long enough and swam the distance or would the cagey bees, if pressed, have waited patiently above the surface to wreck revenge? Bertrand did not have answers to these questions but it made for good speculation, bravado and late evening entertainment. Killing enraged bees with a swatter or the end of a broom or plank was keen sport and one culled with knife edge excitement. He craved excitement almost as much as his regimen demanded rigidity. And to be fair, he had heard all wasps were quite savage and retained venom in their sting that could prove lethal to the elderly or infirm. It was a quick rationalization, then, to believe such creatures were of the same stock and trade as weasels, starlings or the other unwanted denizens of his father's farm. Why, more people died of wasp stings than of snakebite in North America annually. Something had to be done about that outrage.
Late summer is a time yellow jackets have primed their airborne paper lodges with enough sustenance needed to carry through from fall to winter. Some mature nests average the breadth of a good sized milk pail but Bertrand had heard tell of an occasional oddity exceeding the circumference of a waste paper container. Just the thought brought the fire into his eyes. Oh, to find such a one on a search and destroy mission then lodge a tent pole up its arse! A good bout of artillery practice might then follow--rocks at 40 paces until the enemy had been given a sound thrashing. They shall not pass was the watchword of the night.
Alex had been reluctant to accompany Bertrand northward through the lower forty toward 3 mile wood. For one thing Bertrand had not been specific about the actual purpose of the errand so he had surmised it to be mere peg-legging or a chance to kick up a little steam. What finally swayed him was the mentioning of a visit to the sand pit toward the end of the miles. Now this was something he had rarely visited and it did present some possibilities for exploring. In spite of warnings to stay clear of the pit, every boy along the river had a fascination with the dunes and gorges pock marking that bit of earth. Wind sculptured landforms notwithstanding, imagination unfettered itself in myriad forms that stretched from shades of Arabian Nights to more recent movies wherein the protagonist had to climb a seemingly endless mound of sand to fulfill a sadistic command. Plenty of ammunition there! Perhaps something to the effect of double nought seven might be conjured from that heap of sand.
Images of gouged out earth, mole hills and a troglodyte's existence in the trenches of Verdun flickered across Bertrand's mind. An old grandfather and trunks of adventure books in his attic had fascinated him with story after story around a winter's fire about men burrowing like moles during World War One. This and the primeval urge to dig and bury lurked fiercely in the breast of the newly erect carnivore, the man child.
It was not long in coming. True to form during the woodward trek, a wasp's nest had been located and, once clubbed with a stick, yielded a livid horde. What was more, this time no adventure book heroics took hold. Instead, stung and dazed, his face a mass of welts, one of their number crashed through brambles and thickets toward the sand and gravel pit. In a few more strides, Alex would be over its outer perimeter spiralling down endless chutes of dirt. Suffocation and the random jerk of limbs caught in some nightmarish bog would overpower any resistance.
In a mind made panicky with fear, Bertrand recalls a spate of facts from the natural world. Any item grounded in natural fact was accredited with near reverence and infallibility. Alex's upcoming fate would even be held explicable if seen through this context.
Wasps in their predator state have been known to render spiders senseless, then bury them encrusted with eggs.
An ant lion will dig an entrapment, then hiding behind a blind, await the unwary.
Caterpillars are butchered by flying insects with jaws extended for that sole purpose of slaughter. Less luckier ones live on as hosts for mounds of greedy larvae.
Bertrand stirred himself from his covering. Having climbed into a low lying cavity of limestone shelves, he was able to elude his pursuers. His thoughts wander again to Alex. Had Alex heeded local caution concerning the sand pit in his panic stricken flight? Unlikely, as Alex was unclear of the exact presence of the quarry and could not be expected to realize its many treacheries if terror stricken.
Like the starling young, Alex had been sluggish, refusing to be stirred until prodded by a stronger outside stimulus. And, as with the nestlings, Alex had succumbed to laws red in fang and claw, cause and effect relationships.
Emptying the last stone from his knapsack, Bertrand imagines the huzzah of battle to have cleared this forest glade. He perceives the clenched stone to be the stream smoothed missile David used in overpowering Goliath-the last silver thimble fired at Goliad[1].
With a cry, he implores Alex to come forth and stand his ground--sensation and imagery roam lawlessly in his brain as mop up operations are set to begin.
[1] Site of a second Texan massacre in the war of independence with Mexico.
[36]
"We think by feeling. What else is there to know."Theodore Roethke
"I can live an adventuresome life vicariously through my characters. It's inexpensive and a dandy form of ready made self-expression. The perfect sort of sublimation exists after all. For years I wore myself out trying to amass enough experience to commence serious writing. You know the having to see all and do all syndrome. I realize the pursuit of that plateau s sheer idiocy as it remains ever distant as one grows older."
Wenceslaus at that point placed his pen down and turned to open a glossy picture print of a ship under full sail, a clipper mail packet on the China run over a century ago.
"Shakespeare never experienced the myriad situations he subjected his characters to--how could he--except perhaps subliminally. Jules Verne must have employed a similar type of wish fulfillment with his prophetic writings that splashed a hundred years into the present. What I propose doing is to animate my earliest atavistic yearnings in a like fashion. I hope to give scenarios embedded in the innermost recesses of my psyche time to materialize, to exude from the substance of dynamic characterization. In short, the cave wall pictures Plato mentioned, hitherto until now dim and elusive flickers, will become flesh and bone entities within their own right."
Wenceslaus reached back propping a foot against the table containing an old woodcut with some masking tape and a copy of Stendal's Rouge et le Noir. I thought of him subconsciously acting out the role of his many anti-heroes by parading their values through the pages of his many would-be books. Rather impatiently I moved to counter his studied expression.
"And what of actual events rooted in your own experience? How will you give your characters real presence, an allowance to take away from them unintentional archetypes or woodiness? What are your chances of breathing life into these shadow forms without some common backdrop with which to share a basic empathy?"
He continued to maintain his stare, not even breaking the gaze to light a cigarette or reach for his mug of coffee. He replied with a little annoyance.
"Words, nothing but smoke screens to conceal a bankruptcy of the thought process. How on earth do you propose I make love to every woman alive, explore every crevice of this earth? Surely, you aren't serious with this mumble about animating characters. I propose to let the characters speak of real ingredients through the force of actual events."
"Animation is for cartoons, not serious playwrights. I'm surprised at you," he went on. "What you are advocating is a bilateral pool of shared traits. I venture to say such a thing is not only patently absurd but unnecessary." He had let the coffee grow cold and turned to it with renewed annoyance.
The wind, it seemed, too, was expressing a little of the afternoon's short-tempered.
"Pity we live in this climate. All bluster and snow. Hardly the stuffing from which romantic heroes are made," he said stiffly.
"And what of Tolstoy, London, or Service?" I nearly whined back at him. "They used lack of glamour in their settings to their advantage. Primeval landscapes are not only physical but the force behind many a fanciful mind. That's the artificiality I was concerned with earlier. Next you will be playing the Gauguin adventurer convinced your lack of inspiration or ready talent is attributable to March weariness rather than to personal shortcomings. You will spend all your time searching for that thatched cottage in picturesque Arly country."
"Let me offer some more unwanted advice," I said, renewing the attack. "Remember the example of William Turner, the English landscape painter? He embodied in this next example what I attempted to clarify by argument. In crossing to Calais he had himself strapped to the mast at storm's height so that he might better witness the pummeling of his own ship. A breakthrough in the use of colour lead to the hey day of romanticism and preparation for neo-impressionism. This all came through one man's willingness to live events in the flesh not by haphazard random reading."
Wenceslaus was staring out the window apparently unmoved by what I, in my vanity, thought the near-definitive illustration.
"So you suggest that for me to write effectively about a given period I must breathe the very strains, the odours, verisimilitude of the age? By that account no one would be accredited teaching Macedonian history unless he first had witnessed the Hellenic revival in the first millennium before Christ. I would bloody well have to be impervious to all the dictates of common sense to follow through on your suggestions!"
"To prolong your garrulous argument, let me continue with this case in point: to understand the problems of the blacks or talk intelligently about the colour bar I would have to dye my skin and assume the identity of a Negro. Is this correct?"
"Well, hasn't that been done?" I replied carefully.
"Yes, but not for the reasons you advance."
"For sociological reasons, for the sake of novelty to do ...", he finished with a gesture.
"This argument is growing stale and circular, he began anew. Quite frankly, I grow tired of you and your pedantics. You remind me of the Medieval Schoolmen and their emphasis on clarification to the point of excluding Truth. Yes, even Truth if it could not be neatly packaged in their air-tight groupings."
I perceived Wenceslaus, in a moment of understatement, to be more than a little disaffected.
"And isn't it you who argues the finer shades between thisness and whatness, thickness and opaque intrusions at this juncture?" I was now needling him with his own wealth of details.
"Opaque intrusions," a bewildered smile now entering his face.
"Take out your razor, Ockham." [1]
Wenceslaus fingered the mug more openly. I didn't know who was baiting whom. I thought I had bested him but realized in doing so I was only personifying the shallowness I strove to dismantle through argument.
"Wenceslaus, Wenceslaus, let's cease this before emotion colours our better judgment. Let us stop for the time being and let a wager stand."
"A wager?"
"Yes, you know of Pascal and his wager on faith?"
"Vaguely, but I'm tired of this thumb-pressing."
"I know, but hear me out."
"What we wish to establish here," I began, "is the superiority of experience over imagination, actual events to intellect."
"Precisely," I maintained. "Let each of us do a bibliographical survey establishing the whereabouts of most authors' inspiration. The Muse as it were, that is the point whereby a given author is ready to grasp order from the chaos of eclecticism. Not exhaustively, of course, just a random selection of say ten and then report back to one another. Each must promise to abide by the general consensus of the search."
"Such a thing will deteriorate to mere sham, a freshman's guide to the use of periodical literature, he parodied holding a hand aloft like a scolding professor."
"It's one step in the direction toward delineating how others reacted to a similar problem."
"Fair then. We'll try it. But isn't it doomed to a split vote by the very choice of our authors, we having had some previous contact with their lives and thus knowing under which force the man propelled his search?"
"Partially, but we are after the division point, that hiatus in time whereby each no longer procured experience but began to write. That's our quest. The movement towards actual writing, why the mood descended on whom when it did at its precise locus in time."
"Locus?"
"Yes you know locus, in mathematics."
"What have we accomplished," he said turning to me wearily.
Tongue in cheek I replied by his very gestures he was experiencing a weariness with the thought process and embarking on the need to try the experience route.
"Sophistry," he cried aloud. "Pure bullshit. But we will let the wager stand and upon it our friendship, our acquaintanceship all I associate with the likes of you and yours. And, further, for argument's sake, argument itself."
"Aye, let all that stand and more. Let's get Faustian about this and raise the tempo, I nearly implored. One, by virtue of his defeat must swear off writing for a full three months. He must promise not to desecrate paper with tainted thought until the ink of this clamour gels as a sturdy lesson to his peevishness."
"Awkward, but interesting. Continue."
"Nothing more, just this little writing circle shall have the papal rite to banish anyone from its blessed entourage for violating the tenets of established truth. Let's rest our case for argument's sake, on this and all that has transpired today"
My companion was working on a pair of stubborn galoshes as I prepared my coat for a quick exit through the snow.
The workings of Truth, all debate seemed so pointless after all--just an elixir for resentment with the shifting sands of mood ever ready to wash away any permanency. Like snow, words reigned as queen of the elements for an appointed time, then they, too, passed away.
I had the feeling I had witnessed more than a huffy outburst within myself against winter's dreary confines or the frustration of a limited talent.
I had expressed the narrowing of tolerance and the box canyon of a roped spirit that clamours for freedom on the wind of a signal fury.
I paused and went forth into the storm.
[1] A Medieval Schoolman celebrated Or his sharpness.
[41]
We repeat, the aim of the IRA has always been the liberationof our homeland. Any who aid or abet the enemy must fall fullprey to force of arms.(The Republican Proclamation)
Somewhere in the distance a dog kept at his baying. A long mournful whelping that seemed torn from the damp night's very throat. Sean could not help but hear it; so deeply did the dog's vocal cords implant sound upon human ears. He could not help but think of the provos warning nuzzled like that dog's steady cry over and over into the fabric of one's memory swift as searing iron.
"Aid or abet," he murmured softly to himself, "a long distance is covered by such a comment."
His Catholic heritage did him no justice in resolving the torment. By birth, name even appearance and occupation--all such persuasions meant he should embrace what the Republicans preached. One no sooner got his name on their lips, Sean Paddy MacGuire than they knew him Catholic. Two grandfathers had died in the troubles prior to Erie's break with Westminster. That alone should dictate undying hatred for the English and their stooges, the Prods, in Ulster. He found little comfort, though, in the ever continuing war of nerves. Yet the manifesto bade every Catholic to think with his blood and put shoulder to duty.
Sean emptied his glass, left his seat at the window's ledge and made for the tavern door. Sectarian violence often came to pubs and was drawn clearly along denominational lines. O'Leary's was an obvious target for Protestant extremists that much he knew. Still, a man needed a pint from time to time so he doubted if he would discontinue the practice.
He shook his gabardine jacket clear of his arm and stepped into the night. Overhead a moon glimpsing the clouds made through an effortless sky. He might, should impulse seize him, step through the border area of Protestant Ulster to reach his home near Falls Road. Suddenly, the pub door became a fringe of orange heat amid whirls of smoke. Barely clear of the doorway, MacGuire was propelled by the force of the explosion's impact clear of danger. Dazed and uncomprehending, the full realization of his chance good fortune not yet registered, he stood watching the flames etch their amber fingers through the archway into the pilings about the roof. Elsewhere, two figures ran through the night scarce turning to watch their most recent torching. Had he a revolver bringing them down would have been matter of fact, at least the part of squeezing several bullets in succession about their direction. He had no such weapon and could only watch them make good their escape.
From the vicinity of the blast Sean could make out only engulfing fire spreading itself over the full circumference of O'Leary's pub. Placing coat against face, he edged closer to the door in hope of entering the building. Common sense told him anyone in the interior of the pub would be cremated by now. Foolish to speculate further about them, he winced. The demolished doorway also seemed to exclude any survivors since in all likelihood the blast had originated from those quarters. Silently, he tried to reconstruct the former faces about a room which minutes before had seen quiet patrons sipping a pre-supper drink. He was close enough to peer about the ruins of the entrance. A form or rather a booted figure face down under what appeared a fallen beam lay motionless before him. Astride the man, he half dragged then manacled the bleeding figure clear of the surging flames. Ensuring his immediate safety, MacGuire went a second time into the now inferno like remains of O'Leary's. Conscious now of the enormity of the blast as sirens wailed and a clatter of noise began, grim faced police and officers whose job it was to make sense of such happenings began to arrive. He was about to attempt a second entry when a wall of fire ended further heroism. He could not visualize anyone surviving twin disasters of explosion and torch. For a scant moment he watched the smoke billow into the sky illuminating the shabby houses of the neighbourhood. Nowhere could he find it within himself to hate. This surprised, even frightened him. An utter exhaustion filled him as he turned to see whom chance had allowed escape from the fire.
His shadow cast a tower's presence about the parking lot onto the prostrate form. Swallowing hard, MacGuire prepared to stare into the face of the man he had carved from fire's possession. In a single motion, once his fist grabbed the man's clothing, a muzzle lay against his throat.
"Thought I was through eh, damned Mickey," the fierce eyes seemed to speak all at once. "I've killed tonight. I'd soon as kill you now and complete the errand 'cepting I may need the temporary use of your skin. Now get to your feet."
MacGuire obliged the blackened face with nostril openings gaping hate. Already he was calculating his chances. The area was filling with people. The light from the raging building had ended their darkness. The gunman shoved the revolver again into his face. The man seemed to enjoy his threats of pistol whipping and promised death. MacGuire looked once again into the face more from force of the last twenty minutes' unreality than any perplexity of fear.
Got to think fast, must use the chance card of generosity for all its worth, he thought.
"I saved your life," he pronounced slowly. It met the anticipated response. In that slow second when his gaze met his assailant an opportunity afforded itself. The gunman in a mock gesture of appreciation had trained the weapon barely upward into his reach. In a single motion, half embrace and step into his adversary's stride, he had the man over. MacGuire was instantly aware of his opponent's strength. Enraged at the ruse's success, he glanced a blow across the Catholic's forehead.
"Guess you're happy he's dead," the soldier was saying as he helped wrap a bandage into place. "We're grateful for any extremist's death. Makes our job a lot easier," he was almost laughing now. Death wore such an ordinary face when it courted so often.
Sean had yet to reply. He was staring at the shovel with the snapped handle. The blade had separated on impact against the terrorist's head. The man was nowhere to be seen. Rescue squads--the familiar ambulance, fire brigades were attempting a body count in the rubble of O'Leary's.
"Say, you alright? I said guess you're pleased you managed to pull away from that one," the lively soldier virtually leered as he pressed again for some comment.
"The dog . . . his noise, did you . . . ."
"No," the soldier stared uncomprehending.
[47]
Years ago, when life was too violent for any to live very old, the Spirit invented a ruse to give great age to Man.
Late one fall, Ponchontas was keeping a slow fire to smoke his strips of salmon. It occurred to him that by stoking the flames gently with bits of chips, the fire would burn not only smoother, but more evenly.
Ponchontas held the block firmly and brought his axe to play on the extended limb. Suddenly, his grip faltered and the blade struck flesh drawing blood. Panicky, he thrashed about the sand scattering it into the face of the fire. Quite by accident, you see, as his foot only convulsed the pain his bleeding arm felt. One by one, the blood fell in drops then trickles, rivulets until a veritable torrent seemed loosed. Ponchontas screamed till the woods listened. The spirit that governs the pulp of the wood and the sap to rise took pity on Ponchontas. It curdled the sap to thick resins in the chopped wood and the gummy resin fell to the forest floor. As it lay so glutenous, the Earth Mother was also quickened to show sympathy. This she did by touching the marrow of the hurting wood. By a thick chain of being, Ponchontas felt his skin harden. The painful throb soon began to leave the wound and the scar healed. Immediately, he was on his knees imploring the spirits. He begged what small favour he might return. The reply was instantaneous.
"Liberate three husks in your crib."
Then, with much saying and thoughts multiplying forth within his head, he gave word to the council of Voices. Once dispatched, the three ears lost their kernels giving old women to this day their namesake of beady eyes. The abandoned husks became their withered forms and sacks of corn were found to be "old bags." The empty rinds became harridans' cancelled lives. Tares in the fruit were seen as the trials and vicissitudes of this life, wormholes as their tears. So, in an act of mercy, old women and crones were born saving future generations the misery of living too old.
To this day, an old woman often has a husky voice and an ear for medicine.
[51]
A story about tears that became minnows and sobs large fishes in their place.
Once, when the sky was young and the spirits were expressing their wishes, peals of light and thunder damaged the heavens until they were swollen and purple. Rain fell like leaves as the victors banished the fallen from the clouds. The vanquished were ordered to supply the empty lakes with forms fitting their previous ways. Swimming in oblivion, they only stopped to rest in reed beds on August days when the Great Spirit smothered his anger.
The evil ones assumed the course of large blood fish scraping the silt bottoms in reminder of their reduced state. All sorts of creatures--the catfish with his whiskers to remind the new creature man of his pre-human state and the eel and lamprey with their sharp eyes to disclose to the world the inherent baseness of their rebellious nature. The giant of the deep--the sturgeon--had a sucker form mouth. Every time man lifted him across the keel of a boat he would see his obsequious face panting to the sky.
In fact, when sturgeon or the spirit commanded to be pike were caught, the thrash of their tails sent small tears as ripples across the lake. These stirred sand people and minnows were born. Each sob from dying pike's tail, doomed to a long toothy snout for her disobedience by Manitou, formed a larger fish. In this way, fish were ever reminded of their punishment and man kept fed.
The Indians enjoyed new food as plenteous as the grains of golden earth on each lake's face.
[53]
Gourd was taken to task when she understood the limitations the garden patch had placed upon her people.
It was early fall and the dancers of the vegetable kingdom paraded their charms in bright, full regalia. Across the earth in splotches of colour, the tomatoes scented a good fall. So, too, the kingly husks of corn and the melons, spinach and cucumber in turn eyed the approaching season in growing faith. Each had a succulent function and dangled their inviting flesh to the beholder.
But, alas, what did gourd promise? She was deeply conscious of lacking the forward brightness of tomato and pumpkin. She lacked leafy greens so evidently prized and when her fellow vegetables covered the brown soil in preparation for the fine day they would bask across a kitchen table, it was almost too much for the sensitive gourd to stomach. Why even squash, which she felt closest to, had more of a function than she. So versatile did the big neighbour seem in comparison to herself, the ugly dwarf.
She was on the verge of casting herself in despair across the rickety fence or joining the long, black embers of a dead fire young boys had prepared months back. Surely, she was the outcast of the plant world. How grotesque her features were, so hard and unpliable seemed her flesh. Even her skin tones were half-caste. No recipes called for her presence. A mood of growing helplessness seemed to envelop her.
A boy, the earlier fire setter, is describing an odd vegetable, tubular and often misshapen, that was excellent for all sorts of childhood pursuits--making paperweights, building scarecrows and decorating mantles.
"If only people knew," he bubbles.
"Still more success stories," the little gourd cries on hearing the child's comment.
"At least I won't have to be humbled in her presence," the gourd thought, her self confidence shattered.
And with that the little gourd approached the Vegetable King and asked to use her remaining wish. For in those days all living things were handed one means for improving themselves.
"I resolve to be a new edible," she sighed, "something other than a gnomish gourd. Make, O King, a glorious . . . pumpkin." But the Vegetable King decided not to abandon his earlier invention and so gourds live on. Distant relatives of the bright, new pumpkin, but their inspiration nonetheless.
[55]
She wanted her beauty too soon and must now forfeit it for the moment.
One day, when the Earth was a glorious garden and ruled by a brilliant sun flower towering above the plants of her domain, Monarch butterfly, not yet her familiar orange, complained she wished to be large as a bird with petal wings translucent to the sun, folding with the rain. Sunflower, taken back by this unusual demand, sought to humble Monarch.
"Henceforth for your imprudence, each one of your race must toil for your wings. No more shall you enjoy fruits without labour. By daring to be mighty you will begin existence as a pale, green egg hardly distinguishable from the lowliest leaf. Moreover, as a reminder of your insolence, you must pass through four purgatorial stages. The bitterest bane of your people will be the bread of the milkweed."
"You wish to aggrandise yourself? So be it--you will shed your skin like a snake and hang upside down in stupor for weeks on end. Only then, will I allow you to retain your former excellence."
And with that, sunflower drew hard upon her curse and winter formed. She, too, planted seed-eggs across the face of the earth. Her face lost its radiance by fall and her petals cried to the ground. Even today, when people eat of her wealth they devour it with salt. This is in remembrance that, in cursing Monarch, she, too, felt her own wrath for salt is more bitter than the bane of the milkweed.
[57]
Brébeuf is looking at the land that bears his namesake. He has no recollection of the horrors to come for his gaze unfolds as if in a dream.
The wide expanse of blue water pleases him. Certainly the area holds potential--many hard and softwooded trees not unlike his native Brittany. In the warm glow of a July morning, he belittles his misfortunes, the present trials sapping little Ste. Marie.
The kindly father dashes the recent sleep from his eyes with cold brook water. The shimmer seems to fit the haze his current thoughts pivot in. Sweet water country might yet prove both fortress for Christian souls and strength at feeding Louis' New French dream.
The sun is no longer in the sky. Instead a ghoulish orange disc fastened between sharpened sticks is brought closer and closer to the white face. He is maddened with pain. The circular nature of the mind in torment flits to the earlier morning rumination. Someone spills part of a hissing kettle on the fire in mock ritual of the Baptism. Too abundant waters, ah yes that could prove a difficulty in cultivating this pleasant land. The swinish feast in preparation re-echoes thoughts of ample provisions so vital to this distant land.
An Indian brave stands holding the scalp, his face with all the leer of a carnival barker three centuries hence intent on making a sale.
[59]
"From the indigo straits to Ossian's seas, on pink and orange sandswashed by the vinous sky, crystal boulevards have just arisen andcrossed, immoderately inhabitedby poor young families who gettheir food at the green grocers. Nothing rich-the city."Arthur Rimbaud
The old man sleeps with his weeping. Another old one pauses with her cats on a fire escape while nursing a sore like a precious stone. A garbage can is an herbivore grazing on stalks of ringworm. Vermin are the pool sharks of this brothel polishing off the tenements' fur lined rails.
At last, the skid of tires tears a hole in the river bank. Sand-fleas and blowflies become nightriders marauding a new turf of godzilla cars. An urchin dangles his stolen wristwatch like a fish in a bottle while shoals of centipedes make a beeline in a poseidon stampede. Filthy rags are prayer cakes left over from the last sabbat and become holed coffins for those still searching for involvement.
Islands drift into protoplasm atolls as the city stalks itself. Cockroaches are the plumbers of eternity. Rapid fire legs sidestep the etchings of industrious ants while silverfish are the boatmen trouncing human oars. Living is a Stegasorous swinging its tail.
Scraps are inviting guests as insects lord over a habitat free of blight and homuncular stain.
[60]
Loki, the Norwegian god of mischief, sends out a lithesome blonde with a slinkiness that ravishes the libido. She presses her dream-like form against the windowpane. The night is soft about the city's lights. Water cascades in the distance, while small, black crickets' shovel sounds around pricked ears. The diminished man ignores this, instead busying himself with drawing lions on a vast sheet of blank paper. There is no word for happiness in the Malawi tongue and this disturbs him. What far reaching implications for the people of Africa.
He stands and downs a drink to ease his parched mouth. A moisture ring blurs one of his lions, and, again, he will lose the battle against the king of beasts tonight.
[61]
" . . .and the day is a wounded boy."Garcia Lorca
Two is a fonder number gracing the clock than one--a relief from monogamy, a rightful place to start. Three is too midway, cantankerous in its sound, still four is drab and stony and the sun lies too low in the sky for any truthful expression of real afternoon. Five is somewhat better, the sky is pressuring evening and, by six, is big with shadows that foresee the coming dark.
With seven, ambers and misty wraps are charged in pastel tones celebrating the arrival of eight. At nine, all pretense is dropped that its still daylight and colours lie bludgeoned--extinguished in the dark. Ten through near dawn is blissful and quiet, no confusing escapades of shifting light. Only the hour before dawn promises a summer respite any different than the cue sung at midnight.
The absence of colour and light diminish confusion over the sun's relative positioning. One need experience no mood fluctuations over birth or hasty departure of the day. In the broad smile of no light, the frock of virginal black remains securely intact.
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"The world's smallest painting ... Our Beautiful Canada was paintedwith a single hair and the aid of a microscope. The artist considers hisprice of seven million dollars not too high."The Globe and Mail, January 25, 1979.
Now, it came to pass that a seasoned young diner by the name of Simon decided to revolutionize the restaurant trade. It was his firm desire to bring some chutzpah into the all too predictable and dreary cuisine on this part of the continent. From the first, Simon maintained that food and pleasure were inseparable. Moreover, since food could be a vehicle for fantasy, even more tellingly it could provide an outlet for self-expression.
The lily pad pizza was typical of his new approach and was a twofold operation: a parent might buy an inflatable plastic "pizza," the size and shape of a small wading pool. It had an edible spout and dehydrated "sister," pizzas attached to the parent ship that allowed a child to fantasize while sailing and enjoying his favourite food. If that sounded too decadent or illusion inspiring, a sleeker model existed minus the extras--in other words the green wading pool size pizza unruffled by further wizardry.
Simon always maintained not everyone could handle too much soft-pedalled reality. Out of the dense formations of endless fast food chains, Simon's novelties were to titillate the jaded restaurant goer.
Interpretive signs and amenities guided the erstwhile onlooker to the "ultimate," in fantasy dining. Rhinocerous pizza was served flanked on an inflatable horn. For the less adventuresome, a lobster pizza with drawn butter could be had either with tangy dough balanced along its claws or imprints of lobster cut into the succulent crust. Children loved the lily pad pizzas and mothers discovered how delightful baby tears were when presented in tastefully done little cups. Terrariums soon arrived and were pedalled shamelessly. Some outlets claimed "billions and billions," were sold.
Simon also cornered the potent swamp water drink market and was having his empire go "wet." The familiar Chartreuse would now be available at request and a grown up might indulge primal fantasies along with a taste to be a gardener, rake and glutton all at once. Special suites were rumoured to exist patterned after the Poconos in Pennsylvania where a couple could bathe in a pizza-shaped tub embroidered with baby tears, fountains, tropical lianas and all the air plants one could stand pressed against your steamy shower. Pizza machines for a quarter lined the tubs and one operation had dispensed with coins altogether issuing instead rubber baby tears that substituted for money. They could be strung around the neck like shark's teeth. Swamp water in little jars added a further touch to this risqué scene.
But, of course, for the really discriminating the boar's head feast was the sign of a truly adventuresome palate. A Black Forest effect could be conjured up complete with moveable props. A pig's head stuffed with not the familiar apple but instead each tusk hollowed bulging with pizza. Another version saw rhinocerous shaped pizzas rolled in the style of Yap Island discs, that land being noted for its odd wheel like currency. A boar's head contoured in the recognizable shape but with tusks only made of pizza was a favourite alternative. After all, gourmands bought escargots in order to fill their shells then, after washing, repeated the process on future occasions. And, most certainly, no one could deny that Simon's ideas were anymore outlandish than the epicurean Romish feasts of peacock tongues and assorted other naughty delicacies. His was but an updated version appealing to the mobile North American lifestyle. Frisbees even began to resemble pizza and trampolines approached that air. It was all the rage to be Italian and boast of one's prowess in demolishing mounds of pizza.
Yet trouble was afoot for Simon and his proteges. The very real puritanical element in society saw Simon's chain of exotic pizza emporiums in the same league as exotic dancers and sought to banish them, seeing that gluttony was akin to lust. Therefore, pizza pie body parlour rubs began to vanish.
Moreover, peevishly spiteful children insisted on spreading rumours that Simon's operations used day-glow worms as substitutes for pepperoni and unwashed algae as a base for pasta crusts. People began to question the wisdom of letting children act out their fantasies with food as that commodity was a very emotional subject and a testing ground for good parenting. Psychologists soon began to join the harangue and claim the pizza emperor was a poorly toilet trained debauchee acting out repressed impulses in the form of a greedy diner. Some, in fact, claimed he was in the anal stage of his development and that his taste was all in his mouth. Food faddists and health nuts wondered aloud about the wisdom of combining so much dough with gelatin plant fibre. It seemed most everyone was rushing to deflate the pizza bubble and end our love affair with the anchovy.
Unemployed pizza cooks and pizza rub girls were soon at the end of the dough line. In fact, so great was the influx of misplaced persons that the term "on the dough," for a time replaced "dole," as an euphemism for hard times. Extortionists began to muscle in asking for their share of the pizza pie. Newspapers began gloating over the imminent bust of the "infantile," pizza passion.
Still, Simon confided his trust in the same observation that must have motivated Lord Sandwich when he launched his invention. People will always search out the delicious and the readily available. What could be more elementary than meat between bread, frogs on lily pads, protein over raw vegetables, food amidst food?
Simon set his heart to selling automobile soft legs to hosts of touchy epicures who really wondered at this juncture if anything that unusual could really taste like chicken.
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