Steve Erickson - Our Ecstatic Days

Then this is for lost fathers, she thinks. Then this is for lost fathers and lost mothers, and the Measure of the Real, the bond forged by lost fathers and their daughters, mothers and their sons, against which all else is dream. Knowing she has only moments in which to fulfill a life, she gazes over her shoulder just long enough to see hovering overhead the wave of the null, before she vanishes, along with everything around her, into the unremembered.

Divide the mist on the grass by the sway of the trees. Add the still of the water’s surface and multiply the result by forty vineyards of loam. Subtract the burning masts of seven boats while factoring in the cosine of smoke, then add all the rooms of loss times thesuites 2031 of sorrow divided by half the somnambulist highways outbound. Compute the barges of the wind multiplied by the total of fire-robots falling within the radius of rain, adding twenty-one

of the dream of the lake, as something that’s once more being born to the lake

spacemonkeys with a variable of black bridges cubed, subtracting the unmelted icicles of the moon plus the gaslights of night-time, then dividing the result by the whips of love minus the collars of devotion. Taking into account, of course, the square root of snakes times one boat of missing mothers for each year of his life, he’s calculated how and when to make his way to the Chateau which, as darkness falls, he can now see from where he hides on the lakeshore.

He doesn’t ask why they’re after him. He has no idea why but he’s been living the life he lives too long to think that why matters; twelve, thirteen years ago it was soldiers then it was gangsters in the Hollywood Hills, now it’s soldiers again. He recognizes one of them, wonders whatever happened to the other, the one he would row back and forth to the Chateau in the dead of night many years ago. He knows they’re going to catch him, because sooner or later everyone gets caught by something. They’re closing in, all over the hills with their lights and dogs, they’re all over the lake in their boats, swarming everywhere; he tallies the inevitability of his capture; his aren’t the mathematics of freedom but time. An hour, a few minutes. Just long enough to talk to her.

He’s wondering why she came back, although maybe that’s just another why that doesn’t matter. After watching the Chateau dark and silent for more than a year he had finally given up, leaving the lake behind and heading for the sea; he was sleeping on the beach one night when he woke, his ears — which don’t hear very well anymore the sound of heartbeats — picking up one’s faint telegram. Making his way back from the coast past soldiers, moving in the shadowy perimeters of the mulholland highway inland, he tracked the approaching heartbeat from the mojave

that thinks it miscarried me, up up and up to reclaim my place in its womb, and

marshes growing closer, reaching the port at San Gabriel about the time he reached the sepulveda channel. He’s been hiding on shore for a day now, in the trees and watching the lights in the Chateau out on the water. He hears the barking of dogs grow nearer. Thus he’s figured his best moment of opportunity, and with aggregates of light and sound in his head he makes his move and slips into the lake. He swims to the Chateau grotto and, when he reaches its stone steps, lingers for a while in the water to rest, at the place where years ago he used to find food and wine in a basket. Having caught his breath, he climbs out of the water and up the steps, turning out the old lantern that hangs at the top by the door. Either someone, he thinks, will have seen me, or will notice the light is out; in any case he doesn’t have long.

He opens the door and slides into the dark of the entryway. He waits for a moment then walks quietly in through the outer transitional chamber into what was once the ceremony room, then her sleeping quarters, then goes through another door and he’s in the Lair’s shadows.

Brontë sits on the divan before the hearth where a fire burns. He notices she’s cut her hair and that maybe it’s darkened just a bit, not quite as brilliant gold as it was. Not yet having seen him, she gets up and crosses the Lair holding something in her arms; then Kale realizes itvs a baby. He’s baffled for an instant, then nods to himself oh that’s why she left then. Guess some man changed her mind after all. In the kitchen on the other side of the Lair she heats some milk; he’s stood there almost a full five minutes before — crossing back the way she went, steadying the bottle in the baby’s mouth — she looks up, astounded for a moment before she decides she’s not, really. He looks at the baby’s brown hair and eyes. He thinks maybe the dogs outside have gotten louder.

far above me I see it, I see it as I dreamed it, and maybe the lake sees it too in

“You shouldn’t have come,” she finally blurts, “they’ll find you.” She shakes her head. “I’m not worth it.”

Over Bronte’s shoulder, through a door ajar, is a glimpse of someone lying in a darkened room. He says, “It isn’t you I’ve come to see.”

its own dream of me, that flicker of light in the dark, up up and up and

maybe the lake believes as I did that night that the flicker is the dream itself,

growing closer and larger, a small flash on the far horizon, up up and up and

Someone in the doorway. Who’sthere. Another slave come for his discipline? no I don’t do that anymore. Who is it then … Brontë? Do I hear lightning? we haven’t heard the lightning for a while now … are we back at the lake? yes in the Chateau, I’m Listen to these walls and tell me what they sing: I know what they sing. They sing goodbye. They sing goodbye to me. They sing goodbye to all of us and the bedlam of our ecstatic days. They’re in such a hurry, the voices in the walls … I’ve hung on, well, it’s been awhile now, I won’t pretend to know how long but it’s been awhile. Long enough to leave Zed and return … but I may hang on for a while longer, you watch. So keep your songs to yourself

maybe I’m the first dream the lake has ever had, as Kirk was the first dream I

until it’s time. I may have one or two memories left. I may have one or two things to remember … so keep your songs to yourself until then. I may yet have some particularly poignant recollection that’s particularly unbearable … like the way I used to see other children with their small open faces and couldn’t stand it … so there are more memories I’m certain. More to torment me before I go…. If there’s a higher light and I’m still waiting. I’m still waiting for it to shine on me. Who’s in the doorway, come here. Whoever you are, come closer to the candle so I can see. Don’t mind the singing walls. Come closer closer closer … who is it. Let me look at you, let me take a…. Well well, if it isn’t. Well well, what do you know. After all this time. Finally worked up the nerve did you. Come for your discipline, have you. Here you are. Come for your humiliation: oh we must think of something special for you. Come for something special I’m sure so we must think of something special, for the ultimate slave, the ultimate submissive. The ultimate humiliation. Something far grander than the banal sadisms. Something that could lay so low someone so high … let Me think. I’ll think of something. I never pissed on anyone in My illustrious career but I must say it’s hard to think of something more appropriate for the likes of you: I think I could work up some piss for the likes of you. I’ve never made anyone bleed other than Myself of course but I must say it seems fitting now. So much blood the rest of us have bled for you over the years, a little bleeding back on your part hardly seems unfair, hardly seems asking so much. Did I say you could look at Me? you don’t look at Me until I tell you to look at Me, do you understand? your discipline begins now, your training begins here, at My feet, you don’t regard Me until I tell you. you don’t stir until I say stir, you don’t exist until I say you exist, you don’t