Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Even If They Don’t Say Anything, Listen Good
Monday, March 1st, 2010
Up until now, I’ve walked out to the crash site about once a month. I’ve gone there most nights in my dreams, too. I know this is crazy, but I can still feel her. She’s so pissed off it fills my head. I don’t blame her.
Lately I’ve been thinking the only thing that will satisfy her is the ultimate sacrifice.
Last night, like usual in the dreams, everything was the same as ten years ago, from the glass on the ground to the voice in my head saying, “your old life’s over.”
(At the time I thought someone’d said that out loud, but there was no-one there yet: only me and that poor stranger lying on her side, who would never speak again.)
In the dream people drove right past. My wife went by.
I wanted to call out to her, because she’s the kind of woman who would stop for much less. I can tell she’s about to ask me for a divorce. She says I still tell her in my sleep, “it was an accident.”
In the dream that poor stranger never moves. Yet I always go to feel her pulse, just like I did.
Last night, she moved.
She turned her head slowly, and fixed her wide-open eyes on me.
“You have to,” she grated out, and tried again. “You have to. Let me go.”
Her head rolled back. I woke up.
I lay there a long time, cold sweat on my back. Then I slipped out of bed and got dressed and shaved until my cheeks hurt and left a note for my wife and started walking.
By the time I got there the sun was coming up. Nobody living was there to see a man talking to the trees by the side of the road.
“I am so very, very sorry I was so damned dumb,” I said. “I didn’t realize I was keeping you here. Man, that must have pissed you off.”
I waited, I didn’t know for what.
“I get it now: my penance isn’t suicide or coming here forever.”
The trees shook in a breeze that didn’t touch anything else. I saw it. I stood and waited until I felt her go. Then I went home to see if my wife’d let me put my arms round her and listen hard to her, even if she didn’t say anything at all.
A Monkey in the Hand – Part 2
Friday, February 26th, 2010
How could I resist? A Galatea to my Pygmalion – but something infinitely more intriguing than an ordinary woman.
I’d read about sailors who’d caught a mermaid in the South Seas and tried to bring her back to Portsmouth. They kept her in a barrel of water on the deck, but it seemed she jumped ship not far out of the harbour, waved the men goodbye and ducked under the dark, cold roiling sea.
But if I could create something that knew no home but mine?
The mech-monkey had been easy, comparatively. This was far more complex, far more challenging. I do like my things to be beautiful and the mermaid had to be exquisite.
It took two months of solid work, the mech-monkey labouring madly by my side. Sometimes it refused to participate. I just thought it was being, well, monkey-ish. After I yelled and threatened to turn it into the guts of a harpsichord, it obeyed, albeit bitterly, dropping things, straightening things that were meant to be bent and bending things that were meant to be straight.
In the end, though, she was finally ready. Polished brass for skin, covered with engraved scales, an articulated tale where the smoke came out (a farting monkey was one thing, a farting mermaid another entirely). Her irises were emeralds, her lips embossed gold. Her hair I bought from a magnificent whore in Spitalfields who let me take the whole glorious flaming red torrent for twenty guineas. I spent another twenty guineas having it made into the finest wig you’ve ever seen, then fitted it tightly over the metal egg of the skull.
The breasts were my pride: jutting things, ruby tipped, inviting, hard to the touch, and cool in the mouth. I thought about making her a voice-box, but then decided that her smile was enough, the way the corners of her mouth slid back like a sled across an icy lake.
The monkey, needless to say, hated her. My clever little creature, so smart, so learned, such a happy companion when we were alone. And I started to neglect him, poor little sod. But in all honesty, dear reader, I thought her too large for him to do anything about.