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Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Monday, July 9, 2018
Monday, October 23, 2017
Bones
Who knows...
Bones
Who knows...
Bones
And bones and bones and bones
Holding together muscle and skin across the cloudy empty spaces, the tight wound nerves in the sky empty places.
But who knows...
Bones, not even real, not even tangible, stable little rattling scaffolding, and in places weak and rotten.
Who cares...
Except the way it gets expansive in the middle, the muddling exhalation of air and the rising inflection at the end.
Who knows...
Bones
But it is utterances that hold us up
Bones
Who knows...
Bones
And bones and bones and bones
Holding together muscle and skin across the cloudy empty spaces, the tight wound nerves in the sky empty places.
But who knows...
Bones, not even real, not even tangible, stable little rattling scaffolding, and in places weak and rotten.
Who cares...
Except the way it gets expansive in the middle, the muddling exhalation of air and the rising inflection at the end.
Who knows...
Bones
But it is utterances that hold us up
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Cartography
Jesse S. Mitchell
And until it all bleeds out Disney.
Bright four color pomp.
The precious cartography, a light that enters our eyes blurred like paint but still and quiet that leads us through the plot twists and story arcs
And all the things that never pay off
Like mystery and warm water, cultishly warped around the body.
Inbetween the lights.
And until it all bleeds out Disney.
Bright four color pomp.
The precious cartography, a light that enters our eyes blurred like paint but still and quiet that leads us through the plot twists and story arcs
And all the things that never pay off
Like mystery and warm water, cultishly warped around the body.
Inbetween the lights.
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Embryo
And then it was the ocean
And it surrounded me
All around and every side
And with failing faiding echoes
The waves came round and broke against me
And that was all the world was.
And it surrounded me
All around and every side
And with failing faiding echoes
The waves came round and broke against me
And that was all the world was.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Machine
Here comes the grungy sky machine,
The deportation machine.
Here it comes, chugging over the hills, thristy, the drink up the oceans machine,
The chew up the folks and spit them out machine. Bloody.
Here it is, the powerless to stop it machine, the get behind me, satan machine.
The purple bruise machine, the beaten black and blue machine.
And here we are, the railways, on the railway, strikers with the sabots in our hands.
The deportation machine.
Here it comes, chugging over the hills, thristy, the drink up the oceans machine,
The chew up the folks and spit them out machine. Bloody.
Here it is, the powerless to stop it machine, the get behind me, satan machine.
The purple bruise machine, the beaten black and blue machine.
And here we are, the railways, on the railway, strikers with the sabots in our hands.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Ex. 1
Jesse S. Mitchell
One word
Dislocation
Two words
Inebriated enthusiasm
Eight words
The natural ebbing and flowing of regional expectations
Many words
Black out drunk. World war and eye fatigue. This planet, spins. A dervish. Mystic. Slamming into every wall, and mad, every kind of boundary, a rush around, blind and increasingly wild. Those wobbly orbits, uncontrollable, smashing everything into rubble. Rubble and dust. And that's us, the crumble, rubble, and dust falling off broken like meteor showers.a
One word
Dislocation
Two words
Inebriated enthusiasm
Eight words
The natural ebbing and flowing of regional expectations
Many words
Black out drunk. World war and eye fatigue. This planet, spins. A dervish. Mystic. Slamming into every wall, and mad, every kind of boundary, a rush around, blind and increasingly wild. Those wobbly orbits, uncontrollable, smashing everything into rubble. Rubble and dust. And that's us, the crumble, rubble, and dust falling off broken like meteor showers.a
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Anduruna
These are the mistakes we make while we are busy watching the mistakes we make as we mend.
And isn't it strange the ways
The bones heal?
Deformed in places, thicker
But always firmer, in spite of breaks.
We as etymology of a word. Diffused as code over years, confused. Saturated in static.
But isn't it funny the way
The meanings come through, blurred, fuller
But always plain, despite the cracks.
Blood type. DNA. RNA. neurosis. And panic. Healthy family. Blue eyes. Brown eyes. Cells divide. Redivide.
But it is always similar.
The faces always familiar, peculiar in places, stronger. Evolved mammalian. But always fractured to let the light come home.
And isn't it strange the ways
The bones heal?
Deformed in places, thicker
But always firmer, in spite of breaks.
We as etymology of a word. Diffused as code over years, confused. Saturated in static.
But isn't it funny the way
The meanings come through, blurred, fuller
But always plain, despite the cracks.
Blood type. DNA. RNA. neurosis. And panic. Healthy family. Blue eyes. Brown eyes. Cells divide. Redivide.
But it is always similar.
The faces always familiar, peculiar in places, stronger. Evolved mammalian. But always fractured to let the light come home.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Friday
The day I was born, I represented the future of the whole world.
Just like you
Just like you.
On the day I die, I will represent the past of the whole world.
Just like you
Just like you.
This moment is me, in the whole world, everywhere.
Just like you
Just like you.
Just like you
Just like you.
On the day I die, I will represent the past of the whole world.
Just like you
Just like you.
This moment is me, in the whole world, everywhere.
Just like you
Just like you.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Whisper
Jesse S. Mitchell
And a sysiphean rage. A whisper into the soundstealing silence of the dark.
I hope we don't all blow away.
Too much hot fire.
Too much soft ash.
And a sysiphean rage. A whisper into the soundstealing silence of the dark.
I hope we don't all blow away.
Too much hot fire.
Too much soft ash.
Monday, November 21, 2016
anger
Jesse S. Mitchell
All the people, cut from clay,
They are resentful.
All the people, everyday.
All the people, ever promised anything,
Are resentful.
All the people who expected
Everything.
All the people, on a search for hair-raising adventure.
Christopher Columbus stories of hidden treasure
Chris Columbus movies about the search for hidden treasure.
All the people, awake from a dream today, are resentful.
All the people, the bottom of it all, and never going away.
All the people, cut from clay,
They are resentful.
All the people, everyday.
All the people, ever promised anything,
Are resentful.
All the people who expected
Everything.
All the people, on a search for hair-raising adventure.
Christopher Columbus stories of hidden treasure
Chris Columbus movies about the search for hidden treasure.
All the people, awake from a dream today, are resentful.
All the people, the bottom of it all, and never going away.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Giant of Juno Falls (part 5)
Jesse S. Mitchell
part 4 here
part 4 here
And so bad news had obliterated his mind. After he was dismissed and after his body
began to move again, he shot out the front double doors of the school like
cannonball, knocking down anything that stood in his direct path. Rolling through the world with the explosive
force of some random rebellious and ricocheting bullet, gone off too soon,
immature and reckless. He slid on the
ice in spots but never fell down. Burst
across the highway in front of the school, never turning his head to see the
traffic that was coming but he wasn’t hit, the cars skidding and screeching to
a halt, the drivers angrily but correctly accusing him of having lost his
mind.
He didn’t know entirely where he was running to, but he did
know it wasn’t to home. He definitely
wasn’t going home first thing. What if
his mother didn’t know? He wasn’t going
to be the person to tell her. Oh
no. And what if she had already heard,
which was much more likely? He knew he
couldn’t look into those eyes, those moon-shaped eyes, all swollen and
tear-stained. He would break right in
half and then into halves again and then into two million little pieces; shards
of him would get so displaced, he would never get himself back together
again. And the same for his mother. The two of them, sharing sensibilities, both
so quiet, so sensitive, thin-skinned, apt to disappear or shatter away at
anytime anyway, now they would just feed off of each other and they would die,
die away from this world and live no more, two wide open eyed corpses slowly
marching themselves to the graveyard.
Now, he would stay outside.
Go out into the woods and watch the animals, watch for the giant, listen
to the hunters squirrel or goose hunting, casual blasts from shotguns hills
away, distant sounds of calls, or maybe some gloomy chugging from the train
tracks, black-stained engines burning diesel fuel that stenches up the air
everywhere. And he would let the earth
move so slow, so slow, for an hour or two and then take himself home before the
grief wore off his mother a bit and she began to worry about him.
When he got to the creek, he saw it was swollen still but
totally frozen over, transparent blues and grays, transcendental silvers,
globes of pure perfect white, fingers of crystal bright reaching out under the
surface waiting for the perfect crack or splinter to grab and yank down on and
let the rushing water come fighting and gurgling up. He looked up the falls, all frozen in long
metallic strings, all threaded and twisted together, fine rope.
And then he saw him,
the giant, standing next to the falls, a bit in front of the cave. His back turned to the boy, he hadn’t noticed
Noah at all. He was raising his arms or
moving them or working at something, but he was talking. Noah couldn’t hear him. He quietly, as quietly as he had ever moved,
moved up the hillside closer and closer, his heart pounding, and even in the
cold, his forehead sweating. He wasn’t
scared. He was excited. He slowly began to hear the deep baritone
voice letting words drop out like lead or hot iron.
“And he rises, like dark seas in the deep furnace
churning oceans, breezes, and swells when all else seems to ebb and redeposits
on these barren banks the sparks and wine colored ever ever ever smoldering
embers of the ash blanket of life. Come like waves. This mass.
These hands that hold up precious.
Come strength. Do not be afraid. Do not be cold. None here are too weak for the freezing nor
the thawing either. Buried in the
snow. This mass.”
Poetry? Some spell
perhaps? But either way, the giant
stopped talking, even though it seemed he wasn’t finished. The giant started to turn around. His face was stern, pale, a very wide mouth,
a long frown. He looked about and turned
quickly, nearly suddenly, he bent down and swooped his face down to right in
front of Noah’s. He looked straight at
him. Stared. And stared.
Silently. Noah, now absolutely
scared, was too frightened to move.
Except for shaking. He was
shaking. A terrified quaking mess.
“Child? Yes,
child.” Not speaking to Noah,
but seemingly quizzing himself and assuring himself that this was indeed a
child of some sort. Noah answered him
anyway.
“Y-yea-ah, I’m a-a child.”
The giant looked confused and then looked even harder at
Noah.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“W-what do you mean?
I’m…I’m scared. I’m just
scared. I don’t want anything. I have just been curious.”
“No. That’s not
it. Something is wrong with you. It isn’t fear.” He looked harder and harder, studying Noah up
and down. “It is sadness, deep
grief. You are sad. Why?”
“My father…my father j-just died. He was killed. A-a-an accident.”
“The Miners?”
“Yeah.”
“Um hmm.”
He nodded and stood back straight.
Looked over the top of the falls.
“So you know about the accident?” Noah screamed up toward the giant.
The giant looked down and nodded.
“Did you know it was happening?”
“Yes. Knew when
and also knew it was coming. I could
feel it.”
“If you knew, why didn’t you do anything to stop it or to
help them?”
“Why?” Silence
for a few seconds, the wind slowly whipping and curling through the trees, tiny
snowflakes caught up in the drafts, sparkling.
Noah noticed his feet getting cold standing in the deep drifts of snow
along the hillside.
“Why? Well, I
did. I kept myself as perfectly still as
I could, I tried not to move around, as big as I am, I can cause a great deal
of movement, avalanche, but I…I stopped and was still and…and I froze as much
as I could around me. Freezing the air,
the rain to snow, the ground harder, I hoped faster, safer.”
“You caused the snow?”
“I did this time, yes.”
The giant reached down and slowly but surely surrounded Noah
in his large right hand, carefully brought his fingers in and circled him, his
grasp gentle but certain. He lifted the
boy into the air and placed him at the very top of the falls. Noah looked around as he flew up into the
air, cold snow hitting his face, his cheeks red. When his feet finally touched ground, it was
icy and slick, he found it hard to stand up but when he got his bearings and
looked at the wide swollen upper creek, nearly a river, totally frozen over, he
was amazed. It was beautiful, long paths
and trees perfectly lining the banks, pure white and silver and ghastly bright
blue, so ghastly it was an unadulterated thing of absolute beauty. No breath, no breath, Noah could breathe not
one little breath until finally fighting through the astonished splendor, a few
minute heroic breaths did come…and go, floating high through the cold air, Valkyrie-carried-away
to Valhalla to hot-breath-fight again someday, the promise of brand new
awe. But now, Noah stood there at the beginning of some
wonderful icy Champs-Elysees with an extraordinary frost giant, wondering. Wondering where the stream led? Wondering how it had got the way it was,
planned or some wild act of nature, some natural force aided by the large hands
of the large giant? Wondering so hard
that he almost forgot his grief. But he
didn’t and at the moment he realized he had nearly forgotten his grief, he felt
the sting even harder and tears rolled down his face but he made every effort
not to notice them and not to show them off.
He wiped them away and turned his eyes back to the spectacle land before
him.
“Did you do this?”
The giant nodded.
“You froze this?”
“Yes. And shaped it.
Made it this way.”
“There is a lot of water here. It has been building up, like it did years
back.”
“Yes.”
“And if it thaws…”
“It will flood.
Drowning and destroying.”
“You could thaw it?”
Nods.
“But?”
“But, I have no mind to.”
“What are you?”
“Just an antediluvian relic.”
“But you can’t keep this frozen forever.”
“No, no I cannot.
I cannot keep things this way. I
can’t hold back anything for very long.
The world is changing, I have seen it before, the days get hotter and
they get longer and soon, boom, apres moi…”
“I
should get home.” Tuesday, October 25, 2016
(part of )Gravem Co.
Jesse S. Mitchell
But we didn't denigrate the sky, even for abundances of clouds.
I've lived forever, two hundred thousand years, between these far mountains. In this valleyland, swampland, choked mud high, levelland, draining away but as all the waters collect
And every year, two years, here and there, from down the slopes, they come collapsing, clasping hands and singing, the songs political, and the sweet and pleasing odors rise to the skies and the angels in heaven hear and know to be near and spread over us their wings and to be safe from fear.
Our fear.
Dangerous.
Like embers, untended.
And the smoke drifts.
And not necessarily narcissistic, but we peer into the pools, the surface waters, and watch it all happening.
Down to our bones.
Down through our skins.
We feel the ripples, ourselves nothing but the but the troubled waters.
But we didn't denigrate the sky, even for abundances of clouds.
I've lived forever, two hundred thousand years, between these far mountains. In this valleyland, swampland, choked mud high, levelland, draining away but as all the waters collect
And every year, two years, here and there, from down the slopes, they come collapsing, clasping hands and singing, the songs political, and the sweet and pleasing odors rise to the skies and the angels in heaven hear and know to be near and spread over us their wings and to be safe from fear.
Our fear.
Dangerous.
Like embers, untended.
And the smoke drifts.
And not necessarily narcissistic, but we peer into the pools, the surface waters, and watch it all happening.
Down to our bones.
Down through our skins.
We feel the ripples, ourselves nothing but the but the troubled waters.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
shipwreck
Jesse S. Mitchell
Shipwrecked
The washing machine rumbles and sighs
Seasick sky ran aground against the earth and all the surrounding horizon
Crumbled and dry
Shipwrecked
Elle vous suit partout
Shipwrecked
The washing machine rumbles and sighs
Seasick sky ran aground against the earth and all the surrounding horizon
Crumbled and dry
Shipwrecked
Elle vous suit partout
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
and then abdicate
Jesse S. Mitchell
We should illuminate different things in different ways.
The shadows here are dim
And they are tiresome
In form, a democracy...
And I am Vandal and I am a gnawer of bone.
What must be consumed
Will be consumed.
What must be ruined
Will be ruination.
The cold wind that kills
The summer sun that fades.
The brutal heat that steals the water gone.
And nothing is ever left
But parched
And the tooth-driven
Drought.
We should illuminate different things in different ways.
The shadows here are dim
And they are tiresome
In form, a democracy...
And I am Vandal and I am a gnawer of bone.
What must be consumed
Will be consumed.
What must be ruined
Will be ruination.
The cold wind that kills
The summer sun that fades.
The brutal heat that steals the water gone.
And nothing is ever left
But parched
And the tooth-driven
Drought.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Home Invasion/Conversation (plot holes) from "Locombia"
Jesse S. Mitchell
When I made it back to my apartment, I quickly noticed something wasn’t right. The air of the place was wrong, the door slightly ajar, and there were a few yellow-gold lights shining inside, a distinct amber glow. I know I left all my lights off. I went slowly in, pushing the door open with my foot, shoving the letters and memos deeper into my pockets, easing my way into the kitchen, grabbing an almost-sharp bread knife off the counter, palming it. My eyes were straining, completely alive, nervous. I could smell a sweet tobacco scent, and cheap perfume. I went around the corner and gazed into my living room, and I saw a woman, a tall woman sitting on my couch, her back to me. She didn’t get up or turn around, just kept smoking her cigarette, blowing giant clouds around in the open space.
“Who are you?” I asked loudly.
“You Emilien Ross?”
“I might be. I asked you first?”
I walked into the room and faced her, black dress, long, well over her knees, long black hair, perfectly straight except for a slight flip at the ends, long face, dark skin, dark eyes, like some Peruvian Veronica Lake. It wasn’t until later I found out her name was actually Veronica.
“You the one that works undercover then, for some group of radicals or whatever?” She swooshed her cigarette hand around dismissively making huge halos and tiny interconnected circlets of smoke.
“Again, I might be, but probably not. Who are you? How do you know my name?”
“So, that is your name then, Ross? Emilien Ross?”
“Yeah. It’s my name.”
“Why don’t you have a vitalite in here? You are going to get sick without the vitamins.”
“They creep me out, don’t like the weird blue sheen…makes me feel sick already. So what’s the point.”
“And it is you then, the hair-splitter, whatever that means?”
“Yeah. How did you find me?”
“Johnnie seemed to think you were the only person trustworthy in this town, talked about you some, told me to come here if anything…”
“If anything happened, yeah, but as far as trustworthy, Johnnie might have overestimated me a bit.”
I sat down in the big overstuffed armchair in front of the coffee table between the couch and the other furniture, stared at this tall Incan and wondered about the kind of couple she was with little Mayan Johnnie, both of them trying to out aloof the other one, lying back and forth with those big ol’ eyes, like Boris and Natasha. Then she put her cigarette out on my coffee table, right on the corner, and folded the butt up and placed it in the middle of the table.
“Hey!”
She shrugged.
“And you were Johnnie’s girlfriend?” prying at it a bit.
“Girlfriend may be a bit much.”
“But you were the person staying with him at his apartment, intermittingly at least?”
She nodded. The smallest, most subtle nod ever perceived, I believe.
“What is it exactly that you do, Mr. Roth?”
“Oh, nothing really, I just collect facts.”
“Like the police?”
“Oh!” guffawing, couldn’t help it. “Oh ho ho, no, no, not like the police.”
“Not like a detective?”
“Maybe a bit like a detective.”
“You don’t work with the police?”
“Oh no, never. Why on earth would Johnnie think I was even remotely trustworthy if I did?”
She nodded again, a bigger nod this time.
“I watch what is happening. I watch what is coming through at the ports. I listen to what the folks, normal folks, street folks, are saying. I observe how they are feeling, acting, spending their time and money. I collect all that up and I make something out of it, a summary, that’s all.”
“So, you take all the facts you collect and you come up with the story then, huh?”
“Yeah, basically, that’s how I do it. Take all the information I can get and deduce, figure it out, turn it into a digestible narrative for someone to read and then they decide what to do about it.”
“Based on your story?”
“Yeah.”
“Your words? That must feel nice, like power.”
“Kind of.”
“So, you must be pretty good with words, huh? With telling stories?”
“I do okay.”
“It isn’t an easy thing, you know, plotting those things out, got to get everything right, no holes.”
“Oh, no, plot holes are great, you have to have those. Plot holes are the life blood of any good story, everyone gets that wrong. What a plot hole is, is life being lived, a bad decision, a wrong turn. Like if you read a story or watch some flick and you catch yourself thinking, if this character so and so, had done this or acted this way, they would be better off, the story would have went easier, quicker. Well, no shit, that’s how it is for everyone. Lots of times, folks could have done something better in their life or treated someone with more respect or appreciated things differently but man, that’s really hard to see for a character immersed in a chain of events. Even me, things I could have done differently and I wouldn’t have had to come the long way around to some things, maybe my days now would be better, maybe worse but definitely different, but how could I have seen any of that in midst of living a life? I couldn’t. Plot holes and mistakes are sometimes the only things make a story real. If I ever hear a anecdote or account of anything without any holes or discrepancies, I know I’m hearing a lie, and a rather artless one at that.”
“I guess we all make mistakes.”
“Yeah, at least a few.”
“Several, usually.”
“So, Johnnie then, did he make some mistakes?”
“A few.”
“Big ones…lately?”
“It is beginning to look that way, yeah.”
I nodded my head. Adjusted my weight in my armchair. I tossed the ridiculous bread knife on the table, tired of keeping it hidden in my palm, starting to chafe.
She looked down at it and back up at me.
“What were you planning to do with that?”
“I don’t know, come around a corner, give somebody a quick jab, get the jump on them kind of, maybe a slash or a punch thrown then. Who knows?”
“You don’t carry a gun?”
“No, why would I?”
“Basically in the business of espionage, might come in hardy.”
“But, I’m undercover, right, so I go out drinking with some regular guys or gals down at the ports, I have too many, they got to get me home and they see some fancy piece on me…cover blown. What am I, a cop? A criminal? Military? Just some weirdo who needs a gun to make himself feel like a big tough guy? None of that any good. I rely on my wits, thank you.”
“You don’t think this apartment would be a cover blower? It is far too nice for a dockhand.”
“Ah ha, but this isn’t my official address, it isn’t listed on any of my employment forms, got another place waaay down town, very low rent, kept just for the job.”
She got up off the couch and walked around the room, looking over everything, lightly touching some pictures or statuary along the way. Made her way to the south wall of the apartment, a solid piece of crystal clear glass, the one and only window on this level of the apartment, but a very fine one. It looked out over the intersection below. Two or three blocks could be seen, partially at least.
“You ever been out to the barrens?” she asked.
“No, never had any desire to. Imagine they’re just like any other patch of wasteland. Saw enough wasteland when I was in the army.”
She laughed, loud, “You should let me take you out there sometime.”
“Why? What they got out there?”
“A Bao A Qu.”
“A Bao what?” I shook my head. She chuckled but it died away pretty quickly.
“This is a nice place, Ross. Nice neighborhood too for this part of town. You must get paid pretty well for what you do.”
“I’m comfortable, doing fine, but it looked like Johnnie was too, huh?”
“So, how many holes, the ones for the sake of life and honesty, do you leave in those stories you give your superiors?”
“Hey, now, what are you getting at? You trying to imply I’m crooked?”
“No, no, not at all, just to make everything more believable. Imagine being able make such decisions.”
“I don’t make any decisions, my bosses do.”
“But your influence. Why, I would think a person would find a way to make certain the story got read they way they wanted it read. Am I right?”
“We all have our own little agendas, I suppose, small as they are. I just like getting the overtime pay.”
She laughed again and walked closer to the door, put her hand on the handle and slowly pulled, walked out the door without even looking over her shoulder, out onto the landing and into the lift and disappeared. Completely. I stood up and hurried over and waited by the window to try and see if I could see her on the street or get into an el-cab or whatever but nothing, vanished. Vanished and gone.
When I made it back to my apartment, I quickly noticed something wasn’t right. The air of the place was wrong, the door slightly ajar, and there were a few yellow-gold lights shining inside, a distinct amber glow. I know I left all my lights off. I went slowly in, pushing the door open with my foot, shoving the letters and memos deeper into my pockets, easing my way into the kitchen, grabbing an almost-sharp bread knife off the counter, palming it. My eyes were straining, completely alive, nervous. I could smell a sweet tobacco scent, and cheap perfume. I went around the corner and gazed into my living room, and I saw a woman, a tall woman sitting on my couch, her back to me. She didn’t get up or turn around, just kept smoking her cigarette, blowing giant clouds around in the open space.
“Who are you?” I asked loudly.
“You Emilien Ross?”
“I might be. I asked you first?”
I walked into the room and faced her, black dress, long, well over her knees, long black hair, perfectly straight except for a slight flip at the ends, long face, dark skin, dark eyes, like some Peruvian Veronica Lake. It wasn’t until later I found out her name was actually Veronica.
“You the one that works undercover then, for some group of radicals or whatever?” She swooshed her cigarette hand around dismissively making huge halos and tiny interconnected circlets of smoke.
“Again, I might be, but probably not. Who are you? How do you know my name?”
“So, that is your name then, Ross? Emilien Ross?”
“Yeah. It’s my name.”
“Why don’t you have a vitalite in here? You are going to get sick without the vitamins.”
“They creep me out, don’t like the weird blue sheen…makes me feel sick already. So what’s the point.”
“And it is you then, the hair-splitter, whatever that means?”
“Yeah. How did you find me?”
“Johnnie seemed to think you were the only person trustworthy in this town, talked about you some, told me to come here if anything…”
“If anything happened, yeah, but as far as trustworthy, Johnnie might have overestimated me a bit.”
I sat down in the big overstuffed armchair in front of the coffee table between the couch and the other furniture, stared at this tall Incan and wondered about the kind of couple she was with little Mayan Johnnie, both of them trying to out aloof the other one, lying back and forth with those big ol’ eyes, like Boris and Natasha. Then she put her cigarette out on my coffee table, right on the corner, and folded the butt up and placed it in the middle of the table.
“Hey!”
She shrugged.
“And you were Johnnie’s girlfriend?” prying at it a bit.
“Girlfriend may be a bit much.”
“But you were the person staying with him at his apartment, intermittingly at least?”
She nodded. The smallest, most subtle nod ever perceived, I believe.
“What is it exactly that you do, Mr. Roth?”
“Oh, nothing really, I just collect facts.”
“Like the police?”
“Oh!” guffawing, couldn’t help it. “Oh ho ho, no, no, not like the police.”
“Not like a detective?”
“Maybe a bit like a detective.”
“You don’t work with the police?”
“Oh no, never. Why on earth would Johnnie think I was even remotely trustworthy if I did?”
She nodded again, a bigger nod this time.
“I watch what is happening. I watch what is coming through at the ports. I listen to what the folks, normal folks, street folks, are saying. I observe how they are feeling, acting, spending their time and money. I collect all that up and I make something out of it, a summary, that’s all.”
“So, you take all the facts you collect and you come up with the story then, huh?”
“Yeah, basically, that’s how I do it. Take all the information I can get and deduce, figure it out, turn it into a digestible narrative for someone to read and then they decide what to do about it.”
“Based on your story?”
“Yeah.”
“Your words? That must feel nice, like power.”
“Kind of.”
“So, you must be pretty good with words, huh? With telling stories?”
“I do okay.”
“It isn’t an easy thing, you know, plotting those things out, got to get everything right, no holes.”
“Oh, no, plot holes are great, you have to have those. Plot holes are the life blood of any good story, everyone gets that wrong. What a plot hole is, is life being lived, a bad decision, a wrong turn. Like if you read a story or watch some flick and you catch yourself thinking, if this character so and so, had done this or acted this way, they would be better off, the story would have went easier, quicker. Well, no shit, that’s how it is for everyone. Lots of times, folks could have done something better in their life or treated someone with more respect or appreciated things differently but man, that’s really hard to see for a character immersed in a chain of events. Even me, things I could have done differently and I wouldn’t have had to come the long way around to some things, maybe my days now would be better, maybe worse but definitely different, but how could I have seen any of that in midst of living a life? I couldn’t. Plot holes and mistakes are sometimes the only things make a story real. If I ever hear a anecdote or account of anything without any holes or discrepancies, I know I’m hearing a lie, and a rather artless one at that.”
“I guess we all make mistakes.”
“Yeah, at least a few.”
“Several, usually.”
“So, Johnnie then, did he make some mistakes?”
“A few.”
“Big ones…lately?”
“It is beginning to look that way, yeah.”
I nodded my head. Adjusted my weight in my armchair. I tossed the ridiculous bread knife on the table, tired of keeping it hidden in my palm, starting to chafe.
She looked down at it and back up at me.
“What were you planning to do with that?”
“I don’t know, come around a corner, give somebody a quick jab, get the jump on them kind of, maybe a slash or a punch thrown then. Who knows?”
“You don’t carry a gun?”
“No, why would I?”
“Basically in the business of espionage, might come in hardy.”
“But, I’m undercover, right, so I go out drinking with some regular guys or gals down at the ports, I have too many, they got to get me home and they see some fancy piece on me…cover blown. What am I, a cop? A criminal? Military? Just some weirdo who needs a gun to make himself feel like a big tough guy? None of that any good. I rely on my wits, thank you.”
“You don’t think this apartment would be a cover blower? It is far too nice for a dockhand.”
“Ah ha, but this isn’t my official address, it isn’t listed on any of my employment forms, got another place waaay down town, very low rent, kept just for the job.”
She got up off the couch and walked around the room, looking over everything, lightly touching some pictures or statuary along the way. Made her way to the south wall of the apartment, a solid piece of crystal clear glass, the one and only window on this level of the apartment, but a very fine one. It looked out over the intersection below. Two or three blocks could be seen, partially at least.
“You ever been out to the barrens?” she asked.
“No, never had any desire to. Imagine they’re just like any other patch of wasteland. Saw enough wasteland when I was in the army.”
She laughed, loud, “You should let me take you out there sometime.”
“Why? What they got out there?”
“A Bao A Qu.”
“A Bao what?” I shook my head. She chuckled but it died away pretty quickly.
“This is a nice place, Ross. Nice neighborhood too for this part of town. You must get paid pretty well for what you do.”
“I’m comfortable, doing fine, but it looked like Johnnie was too, huh?”
“So, how many holes, the ones for the sake of life and honesty, do you leave in those stories you give your superiors?”
“Hey, now, what are you getting at? You trying to imply I’m crooked?”
“No, no, not at all, just to make everything more believable. Imagine being able make such decisions.”
“I don’t make any decisions, my bosses do.”
“But your influence. Why, I would think a person would find a way to make certain the story got read they way they wanted it read. Am I right?”
“We all have our own little agendas, I suppose, small as they are. I just like getting the overtime pay.”
She laughed again and walked closer to the door, put her hand on the handle and slowly pulled, walked out the door without even looking over her shoulder, out onto the landing and into the lift and disappeared. Completely. I stood up and hurried over and waited by the window to try and see if I could see her on the street or get into an el-cab or whatever but nothing, vanished. Vanished and gone.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Giant of Juno Falls (part 4)
Jesse S. Mitchell
part 3 here
Night came and the family was back at their house in the valley on the other side of the county. It still hadn’t rained and by the way it felt, the temperature was going down fast, likely if it did rain now, it would be sleet, or snow. This was good news to Noah. Snow or sleet of any accumulation meant school would be closed. Noah hated school. Hated the uncomfortable seats, hated the unpleasant teachers, the acrid/basic smells, like mildew and bleach locked in epic struggle, but most of all, he hated the other kids. Hated their faces, their names, their constant jeering and name calling, their smugness, completely undeserved, hated their games, hated their slow wits, their lack of compassion, of vision, or imagination. Noah didn’t feel like he was meant to be thrown into such a maelstrom of hateful conditions. A grand tragedy. A miscalculation of heroic proportions. He resented it. He preferred being left all alone. So, now, Noah nearly prayed for snow…everyday…snow, sleet, hail, whatever inclement weather would shutter the doors, or fire or flood or plague of frogs, locusts, anything, something huge, biblical, maybe never have to go back. Noah hoped for every kind of difficulty to be breaking beyond that backdoor.
Noah’s father did not, however. He sat on the bench by the backdoor, rubbing his hand over his face, worried about making the trip to and from work in what looked like a nasty bit of weather. He reached down and pulled on a thick sock, one after other, moved his big dirty boots closer to him. Getting ready for one of his dreaded ten hour midnight shifts. Ten hours but they usually turned into twelve or fourteen hour shifts.
Noah walked to the backroom of the house and watched his father from the doorway for a few seconds and then went and sat next to him on the bench. His father looked over at him, smiled. As he looked back to his boots and the dirty floor, Noah noticed how his face changed. It was slight, his eyes seemed to still be smiling, the lines of his face didn’t move, but the color did, the spark in his eyes did, maybe not dimmed, but moved, fluttered, shook a bit like in a heavy wind. Noah’s arm hair shot up in a spate of goose bumps.
“What’s wrong?” He asked his father.
“Wrong? Oh, nothing. Nothing is wrong, Noah. Why?”
“It looks like something is, that’s all.”
“You know, Noah, when I was your age and even older, I was a lot like you. Did you know that?”
The boy shook his head, looked down at the same dirty floor, those big dirty boots.
“My head was full of life, all kinds of stories, imaginings. I had a lot of fun running up and down these hills, head full of fantasy. I never really think about it but then I see you and see the way you are and sometimes, Noah, it makes me a little sad. Well, sad isn’t the right word, could never get sad looking at you. It is a different feeling. Like, maybe if I hadn’t convinced myself, or let others convince me that it was no way for an adult to act or live, that maybe my life might be different now. Different job, a good job, where I could’ve used my mind, and not have to worry about going so far down into the damned dirt and scratch and itch at for a livin’. Not that I ain’t happy the way my life turned out or that I think I could’ve ever ended up without you or your mom. I think no matter what, you two would be a part of my life, that was destined, I feel I’ve always deserved that happiness. Do you know what I mean, Noah?”
Noah, his legs swinging on the bench, looked back up at his father, and nodded.
“Good. Then you know what you have to do, right?”
Again, Noah nodded.
“Thank God.” He tussled his son’s hair. “Now, get off to bed.”
*****
He stood in the middle of the soot-choked broken back of the rural south. Poor. Third world. Desolate. Deserted of all hope. A desert of sorts, a wasted wasteland devoid of optimism, expectation. A land of rusted shut machinery and broken yellow grime, lock-picked locks, and full-faced faceless dread, but not strength enough to be dread or foreboding but a weaker, more debased sense of calamity, doom, just fated. The acts of god. No rattling of sabers or bones but things broken and useless and might as well be buried. He stood in the middle of this barrenness, on the playground on morning recess, next to the chipped paint-red slide, and imagined that the world could be a beautiful place. He had been reading a geography textbook, skipping ahead to Borneo caves and deep freshwater holes in southern Mexico. Places that relied on different currents, different food chains, different requirements, big vacant places with wonderful glittering spires and all manner of wonderful wildlife.
His father hadn’t made it back from work before Noah had to leave for school, so he had to walk. His legs were tired. His mother, if she weren’t basically blind, would’ve driven him and even volunteered to…but she was basically blind, the offer had to be refused. He could walk it. No problem. No need to trouble yourself mom and do you need anything before I go, mom? But it was a particularly quiet morning in the valley, no rumbling, no dynamiting, no giant traipsing. His father most likely had to work overtime but it was so still, the birds hadn’t even busted from the trees, scattered. Like a watercolor painting, everything so static-stationary.
It was also a particularly cold morning but it hadn’t snowed, not yet. Noah had waited and watched out the windows of the house all morning, barely eating breakfast, hoping, wishing, yearning.
But as he stood there dreaming of Borneo jungles and Central Asian desert plateaus, the other kids circling him like hurricanes and tidal waves, his eyes slowly refocused on the air right in front of him and he could clearly see scores of falling flakes, crystalline, geometric, frozen cascading flecks of beautiful snow. It started slow, barely noticeable but it soon grew and grew and the flakes were big and flying chaotic and fast and collecting in banks and piles on the ground, shifting with the wind. The sky above and right down to the very earth, blanket white. It felt good and smile crept up Noah’s face. A teacher emerged out of the back double doors that lead directly to the playground, blew a whistle meant to get the attention of all the children, youngest to oldest. Noah positively beamed, he knew the teacher meant to declare the rest of the school day canceled.
But those aren’t the words that came out of the middle aged teacher’s mouth, a lot of red hair on top and too much cheap make-up, she wasn’t Noah’s teacher, he didn’t even know what class she taught. No, she said nothing of the snow and she certainly didn’t smile. Her face was white and it was stern and it was sad, a wicked kind of sadness, a sadness Noah instantly felt to his soul.
“Henry, Henry Evans, Cameron Owens, Noah,” she pointed at Noah, he nodded at her, “Noah Williams, Lucy Trimble, can you four come with me, please.” And she waved her hands in a small circle and she herded the four children to the school office. The sounds of their footsteps on the hard tiled floor echoed and echoed and sounded so vile, the pain from the impact of the bones of the feet and ache of skin shot up Noah’s body. No one said anything. Not even the teacher, her arms full with paperwork and manila folders, she would at times look back at her parade of confused children, her eyes and mouth turned down, sympathy written in every line. The only words on the minds of any of the children, Noah, Henry, Cameron, Lucy, was a mantra not a statement, the mantra of the loved ones of any miner in any coal-country county. No no no no no no no.
But, yes.
Sadly, it is commonly yes. Roof bolting machine malfunction, creased in the middle, velocity off, angle wrong, shooting sparks and bolts, a weakness in the framing, commotion, disarray and panic and collapse, half a mile under the ground or more.
part 3 here
Night came and the family was back at their house in the valley on the other side of the county. It still hadn’t rained and by the way it felt, the temperature was going down fast, likely if it did rain now, it would be sleet, or snow. This was good news to Noah. Snow or sleet of any accumulation meant school would be closed. Noah hated school. Hated the uncomfortable seats, hated the unpleasant teachers, the acrid/basic smells, like mildew and bleach locked in epic struggle, but most of all, he hated the other kids. Hated their faces, their names, their constant jeering and name calling, their smugness, completely undeserved, hated their games, hated their slow wits, their lack of compassion, of vision, or imagination. Noah didn’t feel like he was meant to be thrown into such a maelstrom of hateful conditions. A grand tragedy. A miscalculation of heroic proportions. He resented it. He preferred being left all alone. So, now, Noah nearly prayed for snow…everyday…snow, sleet, hail, whatever inclement weather would shutter the doors, or fire or flood or plague of frogs, locusts, anything, something huge, biblical, maybe never have to go back. Noah hoped for every kind of difficulty to be breaking beyond that backdoor.
Noah’s father did not, however. He sat on the bench by the backdoor, rubbing his hand over his face, worried about making the trip to and from work in what looked like a nasty bit of weather. He reached down and pulled on a thick sock, one after other, moved his big dirty boots closer to him. Getting ready for one of his dreaded ten hour midnight shifts. Ten hours but they usually turned into twelve or fourteen hour shifts.
Noah walked to the backroom of the house and watched his father from the doorway for a few seconds and then went and sat next to him on the bench. His father looked over at him, smiled. As he looked back to his boots and the dirty floor, Noah noticed how his face changed. It was slight, his eyes seemed to still be smiling, the lines of his face didn’t move, but the color did, the spark in his eyes did, maybe not dimmed, but moved, fluttered, shook a bit like in a heavy wind. Noah’s arm hair shot up in a spate of goose bumps.
“What’s wrong?” He asked his father.
“Wrong? Oh, nothing. Nothing is wrong, Noah. Why?”
“It looks like something is, that’s all.”
“You know, Noah, when I was your age and even older, I was a lot like you. Did you know that?”
The boy shook his head, looked down at the same dirty floor, those big dirty boots.
“My head was full of life, all kinds of stories, imaginings. I had a lot of fun running up and down these hills, head full of fantasy. I never really think about it but then I see you and see the way you are and sometimes, Noah, it makes me a little sad. Well, sad isn’t the right word, could never get sad looking at you. It is a different feeling. Like, maybe if I hadn’t convinced myself, or let others convince me that it was no way for an adult to act or live, that maybe my life might be different now. Different job, a good job, where I could’ve used my mind, and not have to worry about going so far down into the damned dirt and scratch and itch at for a livin’. Not that I ain’t happy the way my life turned out or that I think I could’ve ever ended up without you or your mom. I think no matter what, you two would be a part of my life, that was destined, I feel I’ve always deserved that happiness. Do you know what I mean, Noah?”
Noah, his legs swinging on the bench, looked back up at his father, and nodded.
“Good. Then you know what you have to do, right?”
Again, Noah nodded.
“Thank God.” He tussled his son’s hair. “Now, get off to bed.”
*****
He stood in the middle of the soot-choked broken back of the rural south. Poor. Third world. Desolate. Deserted of all hope. A desert of sorts, a wasted wasteland devoid of optimism, expectation. A land of rusted shut machinery and broken yellow grime, lock-picked locks, and full-faced faceless dread, but not strength enough to be dread or foreboding but a weaker, more debased sense of calamity, doom, just fated. The acts of god. No rattling of sabers or bones but things broken and useless and might as well be buried. He stood in the middle of this barrenness, on the playground on morning recess, next to the chipped paint-red slide, and imagined that the world could be a beautiful place. He had been reading a geography textbook, skipping ahead to Borneo caves and deep freshwater holes in southern Mexico. Places that relied on different currents, different food chains, different requirements, big vacant places with wonderful glittering spires and all manner of wonderful wildlife.
His father hadn’t made it back from work before Noah had to leave for school, so he had to walk. His legs were tired. His mother, if she weren’t basically blind, would’ve driven him and even volunteered to…but she was basically blind, the offer had to be refused. He could walk it. No problem. No need to trouble yourself mom and do you need anything before I go, mom? But it was a particularly quiet morning in the valley, no rumbling, no dynamiting, no giant traipsing. His father most likely had to work overtime but it was so still, the birds hadn’t even busted from the trees, scattered. Like a watercolor painting, everything so static-stationary.
It was also a particularly cold morning but it hadn’t snowed, not yet. Noah had waited and watched out the windows of the house all morning, barely eating breakfast, hoping, wishing, yearning.
But as he stood there dreaming of Borneo jungles and Central Asian desert plateaus, the other kids circling him like hurricanes and tidal waves, his eyes slowly refocused on the air right in front of him and he could clearly see scores of falling flakes, crystalline, geometric, frozen cascading flecks of beautiful snow. It started slow, barely noticeable but it soon grew and grew and the flakes were big and flying chaotic and fast and collecting in banks and piles on the ground, shifting with the wind. The sky above and right down to the very earth, blanket white. It felt good and smile crept up Noah’s face. A teacher emerged out of the back double doors that lead directly to the playground, blew a whistle meant to get the attention of all the children, youngest to oldest. Noah positively beamed, he knew the teacher meant to declare the rest of the school day canceled.
But those aren’t the words that came out of the middle aged teacher’s mouth, a lot of red hair on top and too much cheap make-up, she wasn’t Noah’s teacher, he didn’t even know what class she taught. No, she said nothing of the snow and she certainly didn’t smile. Her face was white and it was stern and it was sad, a wicked kind of sadness, a sadness Noah instantly felt to his soul.
“Henry, Henry Evans, Cameron Owens, Noah,” she pointed at Noah, he nodded at her, “Noah Williams, Lucy Trimble, can you four come with me, please.” And she waved her hands in a small circle and she herded the four children to the school office. The sounds of their footsteps on the hard tiled floor echoed and echoed and sounded so vile, the pain from the impact of the bones of the feet and ache of skin shot up Noah’s body. No one said anything. Not even the teacher, her arms full with paperwork and manila folders, she would at times look back at her parade of confused children, her eyes and mouth turned down, sympathy written in every line. The only words on the minds of any of the children, Noah, Henry, Cameron, Lucy, was a mantra not a statement, the mantra of the loved ones of any miner in any coal-country county. No no no no no no no.
But, yes.
Sadly, it is commonly yes. Roof bolting machine malfunction, creased in the middle, velocity off, angle wrong, shooting sparks and bolts, a weakness in the framing, commotion, disarray and panic and collapse, half a mile under the ground or more.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
(second part of) part of "A Rough Country"
Jesse S. Mitchell
part 1 here
The cold firing of guns, immortal. I imagine the cold fire of guns, immortality. But don’t let me live, live to see the color of the last night, endless night, the blinking of the eye coming, closing the aperture, strangling out the light. The end of the world.
The end of the world, people will be prophesizing Armageddon until Armageddon and still miss it. Apocalyptic and quick and it will pass over like a ghost, aghast, a split in the seems, a leaking in of radiance, a brilliance that soon fades again.
And is gone
And even oblivion has lived on too long and folding back in on itself, disappears, leaving even absence even more empty, more void than was void, and so on and deeper and deeper. Amen.
Talk about occult possibilities, sensibilities, naught coming more and more from naught. Never-ending pure, paganism, a soft slow wash of pixilated sorcery that reads the blank spaces instead of the lines. Lines, wrinkles in time, that grow more and more gross and noticeable, around the eyes and down the hands, galaxy burning and liver churning and it is right after all…after all, aching feet, burning in the arches, busted nails, shifting through the hot ash, the dry ground. Cursed.
I am cursed.
Gilgamesh.
You are cursed.
Gilgamesh.
I hope I get carried away to fiery cities with fiery spires and cinder glow that turns to buildings light at sudden nightfall and all and all, everything remains and no matter how askew, a glimmer, a few nearly departed eyes can still see, the view not diminished and not dull.
So, heaven so where, some time, still exists.
And all the king’s creatures
Still all sprawled along the universe, end to end, constellations a’ glimmer, miserable or restless or glad or all of it,
Shuffling our feet between and never making up our minds. Bending or unbending but still blending and blurring and becoming, cold fusion, and new symbols, emblems, embolism and aneurysm, flood flood flood, Mississippi mud.
A curator of a museum of vast empty spaces
And in the blank places breeds the savagery, bitter wars, that travel around the world in thin elliptical orbits.
I wanted to get a tattoo. Just lines and points, no shapes, black. Lines, connected and broken in random orders like some I Ching prophesy. But I didn’t want it mean anything. But I thought that meant something.
I balked.
I thought.
The world continued to move. Some things never stop, unstoppable, so
I balked.
part 1 here
The cold firing of guns, immortal. I imagine the cold fire of guns, immortality. But don’t let me live, live to see the color of the last night, endless night, the blinking of the eye coming, closing the aperture, strangling out the light. The end of the world.
The end of the world, people will be prophesizing Armageddon until Armageddon and still miss it. Apocalyptic and quick and it will pass over like a ghost, aghast, a split in the seems, a leaking in of radiance, a brilliance that soon fades again.
And is gone
And even oblivion has lived on too long and folding back in on itself, disappears, leaving even absence even more empty, more void than was void, and so on and deeper and deeper. Amen.
Talk about occult possibilities, sensibilities, naught coming more and more from naught. Never-ending pure, paganism, a soft slow wash of pixilated sorcery that reads the blank spaces instead of the lines. Lines, wrinkles in time, that grow more and more gross and noticeable, around the eyes and down the hands, galaxy burning and liver churning and it is right after all…after all, aching feet, burning in the arches, busted nails, shifting through the hot ash, the dry ground. Cursed.
I am cursed.
Gilgamesh.
You are cursed.
Gilgamesh.
I hope I get carried away to fiery cities with fiery spires and cinder glow that turns to buildings light at sudden nightfall and all and all, everything remains and no matter how askew, a glimmer, a few nearly departed eyes can still see, the view not diminished and not dull.
So, heaven so where, some time, still exists.
And all the king’s creatures
Still all sprawled along the universe, end to end, constellations a’ glimmer, miserable or restless or glad or all of it,
Shuffling our feet between and never making up our minds. Bending or unbending but still blending and blurring and becoming, cold fusion, and new symbols, emblems, embolism and aneurysm, flood flood flood, Mississippi mud.
A curator of a museum of vast empty spaces
And in the blank places breeds the savagery, bitter wars, that travel around the world in thin elliptical orbits.
I wanted to get a tattoo. Just lines and points, no shapes, black. Lines, connected and broken in random orders like some I Ching prophesy. But I didn’t want it mean anything. But I thought that meant something.
I balked.
I thought.
The world continued to move. Some things never stop, unstoppable, so
I balked.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
the Giant of Juno Falls (part 3)
Jesse S. Mitchell
part two here
part one here
But it didn’t rain and the sky just sat up there, wilted, grey, menacing, holding back, holding back. So, the family went on, past their home, further down the road and deeper into the woods. They went to Leah Williams’s mother’s house as was their usual custom on Sunday afternoon. The drive was soundless except for the monotonous hum of hard rubber tires, punctuated by sharp pops of small rocks on the chip and oil road, barely paved. Noah’s father had to constantly swerve to miss ever widening potholes and drop offs. The movement of the trip was serpentine and nauseous. Boring and wearisome and time-consuming. Noah rested his head against the window of the backseat passenger side and looked out and up but all he could see was rocky hillsides and teetering pines, old old ancient-old knobby oak trees hanging on to their dormant rust colored leaves, fluttering like impotent feathers, so long locked down into the stony soil the old trees seem to want to take flight, pull up roots and run, but they could not, they knew they could not, so they just trembled in the breezes and teased the wind. Before long, Noah began to close his eyes. His lids so heavy and stomach churning. He fell asleep. He always fell asleep on his way to grandmother’s house.
While he slept, he dreamt. And began to see, with his dreaming eyes, tall Juno Falls and the shadowy cave. The creak was swollen to river-size and up above the falls was more and more water. The red giant was up there, working, building, placing trunks and huge trees across the edge of the falls. He was picking up stones and boulders and making walls and he was using his own body to fight back rivulets and surging streams that broke through in places. He was trying to keep the gushing water back, trying to keep it out of the valley below. He was singing. No, not singing, just speaking, chanting maybe. Noah understood the language, plain English, but it was a story he had never heard or at least not told that way, some old Chaldean legend.
Everything there was.
Everything there was. Pure ones. Fat ones. He selected and put them on board. The birds that fly in the sky, cattle of Shakkan. Wild animals of open country, he put them on board. He invited all his people to a feast. He put his family on board. They were eating and they were drinking and he went in and he went out, he could not be still or rest on his haunches. His heart breaking and spitting bile. The face of the weather changed. Adad bellowed from the clouds. When he heard his noise, he sealed the door with the bitumen. Closing the door as Adad demon-bellowed from out of the clouds. The winds raging. The rope was cut. The boat released. Anzu tore at the sky with his talons and he broke the land and the flood came out like god-blood from behind the clouds. Sweet water. The kasusu.
The giant’s voice was loud and very deep. The ground around Noah rattled with every word and it seemed like the cloudy sky thundered at every syllable. The car finally began to slow and creep into a long driveway and the change in direction and speed woke Noah up. The dream was still in his head. He had a hard time adjusting to the change; it was difficult shaking the dust from his mind. And he wasn’t sure what he had just seen but he didn’t say a word of it to his parents as they walked to the house.
*****
The old woman sat in a big overstuffed chair, bright blue eyes shining with multitudes of wrinkles at the edges of the lids, webs, smile creases down the cheeks, and long dimples. Her grandson, Noah, sat in a smaller chair next to her and vaguely listened as she talked but mostly he was focused on watching out the window, looking outside toward the trees and ravines, where he wanted to be. The house smelled like pork and rose petal scented potpourri.
“Now, my father and grandfather you know were from Wrexham, Noah. That’s north of Shropshire and they had all kinds of stories like you are talking about. They used to tell me about the Giant of Shrewsbury. He made the Wreakin Hills from a load of dirt from his shovel and the mud he scraped off his boots. Meant to cover up Wales or England or whichever, can’t be too sure now but anyways he got outsmarted by an old shoe salesman or shoe repairer…I don’t remember.”
“I wish you wouldn’t tell him stories like that.” his poor mother sighed.
“Oh why? Imagination is good for a child, turns ‘em wheels in the brain. A good story never harmed nothing.”
“Maybe not but it’s all I can get him to think about anymore. Only reason he goes outside is to look for the foolish thing.”
“At least he is goin’ outside. Good for him.”
“His school work is suffering.”
“Good. Needs to a little at his age. They expect too much from them at his age. Ten years old ain’t no time for hard work.”
Leah Williams was attempting to argue with an unbeatable foe. She relented, waved her hand, and said no more. The older lady kept talking. Noah fell deeper and deeper into trance, watching the tops of trees swaying and twisting in the wind. Imagining the trembling earth shaking under big lumbering feet crashing down on the ground. He could clearly hear the sound; it sounded like his father coming in tired from work every morning. The way the door slamming made the whole hallway quiver, the way his father’s coal dust and mud covered boots hitting the floor made the floorboards rattle, all of that happening outside. Writ large. Gigantic. Across the whole expanse of nature. Or at least the whole of nature Noah knew and understood in the smoky hills of Appalachia, the knobby pines and bowed red cedars, the valleys and rocks and yellow clay. Mines and caves running underneath everything and streams and creeks running over the top of everything else. Noah’s grandmother tousled his hair, he absentmindedly reached up to fix it, trying in vain to smooth down the unruly sticks and shocks of thick black fuzz on his head.
part two here
part one here
But it didn’t rain and the sky just sat up there, wilted, grey, menacing, holding back, holding back. So, the family went on, past their home, further down the road and deeper into the woods. They went to Leah Williams’s mother’s house as was their usual custom on Sunday afternoon. The drive was soundless except for the monotonous hum of hard rubber tires, punctuated by sharp pops of small rocks on the chip and oil road, barely paved. Noah’s father had to constantly swerve to miss ever widening potholes and drop offs. The movement of the trip was serpentine and nauseous. Boring and wearisome and time-consuming. Noah rested his head against the window of the backseat passenger side and looked out and up but all he could see was rocky hillsides and teetering pines, old old ancient-old knobby oak trees hanging on to their dormant rust colored leaves, fluttering like impotent feathers, so long locked down into the stony soil the old trees seem to want to take flight, pull up roots and run, but they could not, they knew they could not, so they just trembled in the breezes and teased the wind. Before long, Noah began to close his eyes. His lids so heavy and stomach churning. He fell asleep. He always fell asleep on his way to grandmother’s house.
While he slept, he dreamt. And began to see, with his dreaming eyes, tall Juno Falls and the shadowy cave. The creak was swollen to river-size and up above the falls was more and more water. The red giant was up there, working, building, placing trunks and huge trees across the edge of the falls. He was picking up stones and boulders and making walls and he was using his own body to fight back rivulets and surging streams that broke through in places. He was trying to keep the gushing water back, trying to keep it out of the valley below. He was singing. No, not singing, just speaking, chanting maybe. Noah understood the language, plain English, but it was a story he had never heard or at least not told that way, some old Chaldean legend.
Everything there was.
Everything there was. Pure ones. Fat ones. He selected and put them on board. The birds that fly in the sky, cattle of Shakkan. Wild animals of open country, he put them on board. He invited all his people to a feast. He put his family on board. They were eating and they were drinking and he went in and he went out, he could not be still or rest on his haunches. His heart breaking and spitting bile. The face of the weather changed. Adad bellowed from the clouds. When he heard his noise, he sealed the door with the bitumen. Closing the door as Adad demon-bellowed from out of the clouds. The winds raging. The rope was cut. The boat released. Anzu tore at the sky with his talons and he broke the land and the flood came out like god-blood from behind the clouds. Sweet water. The kasusu.
The giant’s voice was loud and very deep. The ground around Noah rattled with every word and it seemed like the cloudy sky thundered at every syllable. The car finally began to slow and creep into a long driveway and the change in direction and speed woke Noah up. The dream was still in his head. He had a hard time adjusting to the change; it was difficult shaking the dust from his mind. And he wasn’t sure what he had just seen but he didn’t say a word of it to his parents as they walked to the house.
*****
The old woman sat in a big overstuffed chair, bright blue eyes shining with multitudes of wrinkles at the edges of the lids, webs, smile creases down the cheeks, and long dimples. Her grandson, Noah, sat in a smaller chair next to her and vaguely listened as she talked but mostly he was focused on watching out the window, looking outside toward the trees and ravines, where he wanted to be. The house smelled like pork and rose petal scented potpourri.
“Now, my father and grandfather you know were from Wrexham, Noah. That’s north of Shropshire and they had all kinds of stories like you are talking about. They used to tell me about the Giant of Shrewsbury. He made the Wreakin Hills from a load of dirt from his shovel and the mud he scraped off his boots. Meant to cover up Wales or England or whichever, can’t be too sure now but anyways he got outsmarted by an old shoe salesman or shoe repairer…I don’t remember.”
“I wish you wouldn’t tell him stories like that.” his poor mother sighed.
“Oh why? Imagination is good for a child, turns ‘em wheels in the brain. A good story never harmed nothing.”
“Maybe not but it’s all I can get him to think about anymore. Only reason he goes outside is to look for the foolish thing.”
“At least he is goin’ outside. Good for him.”
“His school work is suffering.”
“Good. Needs to a little at his age. They expect too much from them at his age. Ten years old ain’t no time for hard work.”
Leah Williams was attempting to argue with an unbeatable foe. She relented, waved her hand, and said no more. The older lady kept talking. Noah fell deeper and deeper into trance, watching the tops of trees swaying and twisting in the wind. Imagining the trembling earth shaking under big lumbering feet crashing down on the ground. He could clearly hear the sound; it sounded like his father coming in tired from work every morning. The way the door slamming made the whole hallway quiver, the way his father’s coal dust and mud covered boots hitting the floor made the floorboards rattle, all of that happening outside. Writ large. Gigantic. Across the whole expanse of nature. Or at least the whole of nature Noah knew and understood in the smoky hills of Appalachia, the knobby pines and bowed red cedars, the valleys and rocks and yellow clay. Mines and caves running underneath everything and streams and creeks running over the top of everything else. Noah’s grandmother tousled his hair, he absentmindedly reached up to fix it, trying in vain to smooth down the unruly sticks and shocks of thick black fuzz on his head.
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