Truth is said to be stranger than fiction but, notwithstanding the very real distances that separate the corporeal fluctuations of, say, a walk in the park with a favoured hound and the implausible modes of communication occasioned by the use a lease, I have come to realise that truth can never be anything other than fiction. Let me explain:
I will start with my nose. Not a small nose by any account, and, at this time of year, quick to chill, which is why I came up with the idea for a nose warmer. It is long and dangly and looks quite preposterous, like a flopsy strap-on, but it is durable, and you can drop hot coals into it.
When I wore it for the first time it brought to mind the erotic dream of Miley Cyrus. I said I'd explain:
Miley Cyrus recently had an erotic dream, and I was in it, yet not on account of my hot nose, that had nothing to do with it.
Miley and I go way back, from when I was stationed down the mall and training to catch rabbits.
'Four horns are better than one!' she enthused, when she called to tell me about it, and I couldn't agree more. It all started, she said, when she tried to polish my wheels. She was needing to use more spittle than she would have liked, and had become quite dry, so she got this idea that if she tugged on my nipples she might get some lubricant, and it just sort of took off from there. I shan't bore you with the details.
Afterwards, she took me for a walk, probably in the hope that I would catch her something to eat. But then apparently I just disappeared. She found herself swimming somewhere, and not so very far away was a green rose, suspended just above the water, almost close enough for her to reach.
Well this recollection set me to thinking.
I'd heard tell of an island in Africa, where there are people who eat wild horses as they run. I went there. My guide was Tiyu, who would be considered a true beauty on any side of the globe. When she wasn't looking I stole beads from her gown, and where I dropped them down grew.
I wanted never to see her eyes lose their lustre, even if that meant I should die there. So I went to petition the trees she had emerged from, and bashed my hammer; bashed it on the ground, which brought down Hooli-Ma. He showed me his treasures, and his kidneys on strings, and I said, "Hooli-Ma! Let's go eat" for it seemed an age since I had last done so. But as we walked the disquieting squelch that came from his boots made me reconsider, as I was fast losing my appetite.
"Ahem!" I spluttered "I need to disappear into the bushes" and Hooli-Ma gave me a look that suggested he knew exactly what I meant, and I gave him a look by return that said I knew he knew exactly what I meant, even though I didn't mean that at all. What I actually meant was that I needed to disappear, into the bushes, in the hope that I might find Tiyu again.
So he stood there waiting as I headed into the thicket, which was dense, and hard to penetrate, but started to thin when I was out of view, until the shrubbery turned to small trees with twigs of fire, which were easier to pass through, even though they streaked my flesh with long, thin burns.
From a short way ahead I started to hear groans, as of someone immensely weary, and advanced in the direction from which I thought the sounds came, soon perceiving a dark figure lying prostrate on the ground.
She was The Keeble. She was weary, and had fallen. Her flesh was soft, and she wanted me to push a finger into her navel. I did so, and felt the tickling roll of tiny motors from behind her skin.
"Mammaries" she called weakly through her agony, but I hadn't a clue what she wanted. Must I suckle her, or grope her, or did she want my breasts to suckle and grope, as unlikely as that seemed?
"Mammaries" she called again, as she bit the end off her own finger and showered me with the milk that gushed from the wound, at which she started to steadily recover her composure, and then she leapt into the air and away, leaving in her place a cryptic note.
"It is a book that lies apart,
and passes through the
Scripted Ruins" the note said.
Ahead of me was the hollowed trunk of a tree, and calculating that the slimy coating of milk I had received would be sufficient to lubricate my passage, I dived headlong into it, and down I slid, as though I was passing through a digestive tract.
As I slid speedily downward I felt a loud, ominous thump against the trunk, as though it had been struck by something heavy, but I detected no creature in pursuit, and safely continued to slide face first, until I came to an opening that gave onto an area of thick, dense fog; so dense that it actually served to break my fall.
When I had recovered my senses I started to walk, but aside from the reduced visibility the vegetation around me had also started to rapidly grow, and was soon so dense that I could no longer venture forward, only upward, and it was thus that I started to climb the sturdiest sprout, recalling a story I had once heard.
Upwards and upwards, from branch to bough, until I counted myself many, many meters above the ground, at which point I became aware of a glow, cutting through the fog above my head, and I thought this might indicate a window above, or even a door.
As I continued, I saw more clearly, and started to notice that there were sleighs hanging from branches, where reindeer were moored, nibbling at the leaves, and I gradually came to perceive that I was approaching some sort of gaily lit grotto, from which, upon my approach, all sorts of ghosts and specters started to flood, as though afraid, followed by a large bubble of water, at the centre of which beat a translucent heart, at the centre of which beat another, smaller, but quite opaque.
I had a strong desire to slap the bubble, to see if it would burst. Instead, I decided to hug it, but as I did this, I perceived that the entity was starting to identify me as its mother, and believed I could feel it trying to suckle a nipple, even the bite of its watery mouths—or was that simply the impression of cold? Whatever, I succumbed, until blood was drawn, and the whole experience became intolerably painful, at which point I squeezed, then it burst.
It vapourized, leaving two hearts clinging to my teats. They darted this way and that across my chest, leaving bloody lacerations, but as my blood leaked, so did it drain from the hearts, which became quite transparent.
They now sprouted tails, which whipped my chest, as my stomach lurched. At the centre of each of the hearts there was a book, and the hearts themselves had started to move all over my body, as though they were checking that I was real.
So absorbed was I by this process that I failed to notice the two men who had approached me, passing to either side, each grasping one of my arms, and carrying me onward between them.
However, as we advanced, it slowly dawned on me that it was I who was carrying them along.
As we walked we gathered momentum, until they started to spin like cartwheels, but when I stopped they shattered, into diamond shards like stars.
A clatter of whispers effervesced through my mind. A name: was it Nina?
Rocks tumbled from above onto my head and shoulders, then everything around me started to collapse and I started to fall, to who knows where.
When I landed, it was with a bump, which made my bum sore, and I saw that I was sat upon a shingle beach, onto which the sea rolled. A boat full of fisherman was rowing toward the shore, with someone held captive between them. When they landed they disembarked awkwardly, as though they might be lost in a dream, and I saw quite distinctly that the person they had been transporting was the anti-christ, Ubu.
From his mouth emerged a purple bubble. It expanded until it encompassed him.
One of the fishermen started to ring a small handbell. This made me jump. The bubble formed a cocoon around Ubu. It floated into the sky, as though emptied and light.
His captors spun beneath him from the chains they had used to bound him, and although the freedom he enjoyed as he floated into the distance may have been illusory, he carried his captors away.
Together in the distance they formed a constellation. It is the constellation that is now known as The Bubble.
I turned away and bound like a moonlight deer, this way and that; over rivers and through trees, until the blue light reappeared, although the balance between day and night remained unstable.
But think again. The evidence is right before us.
As I concentrated on the distant display, a priest sneaked up on me from behind and swiftly decapitated me. My head rose, as a new sun, while my own world was darkness only.
As my head floated adrift I felt roots connect it to my body, much as life and death refuse to detach entirely from each other, and with this in mind I let out a peal of laughter.
Seven silver unicorns, signifiers of purity, passed through the darkness, up and down, appearing random in their motion, yet held together by an unfathomable design.
Through a distant red glow my body departed, away with the reindeer, and I was beset by sadness.
A pretty girl stood near the corpse. She wore an animal skin. There was a flashing EXIT sign. I was connected to my body by an umbilicus.
A flash of sunlight blinded me. I started to sprout.
I rose into the clouds. Lightning crackled through my hair. Each bolt was a different hue.
Water cascaded down my brow and face. I floated freely, feeling happy to do so. Until I received a blow to the mouth.
No comments:
Post a Comment