Archive for the ‘Series’ Category
Assume
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Raven-haired from the womb, Anan Muss was a swimmer, circling the same lane eleven months out of twelve for a dozen years. The pool chlorine bleached his hair. After high school, he quit. The hair on his head went back to its natural color while his eyebrows remained a bleached sandy blonde. His classmates asked why he dyed his hair, or had he received gene therapy to look more like Lizard Breath? His brothers thought his eyebrows were turning gray.
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Was it Anan’s imagination, or were his eyes now covered in scales? Perhaps the increased number of Lizard Breath spottings made him nervous. What at first seemed simple petty arson was now looking more complicated and sinister.
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Anan Muss jogged long distances, slowly. He plodded through quiet, unpopulated industrial districts to soothe his mind. In case thieves happened by, Anan left his wallet at home, giving no one any reason to molest him. One night, after three years of jogging the same route, Anan was arrested. The cops escorted him around town, to an officer who didn’t think Anan was the suspect since the suspect wore different clothes and was of a different species—if not phylum. The friend of the suspect did not recognize Anan (nor did Anan recognize the friend). However, since Anan did not have a wallet on him, ergo, he must be the arch-criminal, Lizard Breath, who exhaled methane gas and set it ablaze with his cigarette lighter. When DNA samples came back negative, the cops let Anan go, with reluctance. As Anan waved goodbye, he found two pits where his ears had been. Where had he last seen his ears, the cops wanted to know.
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From vending machines, Anan downloaded a newspaper at a café and, like everyone perversely fascinated by the criminal element, bought a cigarette lighter. Idly, he flicked the flint lighting mechanism. It took more dexterity than he had supposed. He spread the newspaper before at one of the tables under the glare of the sun. The misdeeds of Lizard Breath were now ubiquitous as well as notorious. Entire buildings had gone up in flames. Criminal profilers suspected a syndicate. Anan raised his head from the newspaper accounts of Lizard Breath to contemplate why someone would do such a thing. A woman slapped him for scoping her out. He belched and lit his breath on fire.
Basilisk Tracks
Friday, June 19th, 2009
At first I thought they were tire tracks, evidence of a child’s bike criss crossing the beach in all directions. But when Michaela said, no they must be basilisk tracks look at the way they stop right at the holes by the boardwalk, I knew she was right.
I didn’t think there were basilisks here, not on this island, certainly not on the beach. Must be young ones I guessed. If it wasn’t such a misty, damp morning and if we hadn’t gone down right when we had to claim a spot for our chairs we would have missed them. Like wind passing through trees maybe this was as close as we could hope to come without turning to stone. It was too dangerous to try and see adult ones at the acropolis. It had been a blissful few weeks on the islands with Michaela and we’d seen Roc’s nests and winged horses and even the tail end of a hydra fleeing into the marsh.
“They should put signs up to be careful at night,” I said.
“Oh, Francois, that would ruin the charm, might as well put in a Starbucks then.”
“Just want to be careful,” I said.
“I want to see them,” Michaela said. “Sleep with me, here on the beach. Tonight. Without protective lenses. It will be so beautiful.”
Poor beautiful Michaela. Never careful. How could she be when everything was about the moment, about the beauty, nothing coming second to it feeling right. I could see us locked in a sweaty tangle, surrounded by young basilisks creeping in the dark as we made love. I bet to her the risk of having our moment of bliss frozen in time, locked in stone forever sounded romantic. It did, but would I turn to stone for her?
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
If she ever left me, I’d miss her sweet gentle voice the most, I think. Everything I see in her is in that sound- her kindness, her visionary eye, and her passion for beauty. I can hear her now telling me she wants to plant Barcelonan moonflowers in my garden. And to be there with me decades later when they bloomed.
I thought of us hand in hand watching the bats at the seaside caves at dusk, taking her son to see the tame hippogriffs at the zoo, our days hunting for phoenix nests on the wild shores. Beautiful days. Pure and true and full of love. I hoped they would be enough.
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