Christopher WunderLee - Moore's Mythopoeia

That was the Perraultian game. They would not see each other for months and then, the wolf would pounce. Elisa was asleep in her home, lying in her bed. He was inside. She turned over. He was beside her. He had needles and bramble bush branches. He caught a hold of her and tied her arms and legs with the thorny brambles. She was awake, fighting. He cut her nightgown off of her body. He knelt over her, pricking her body with the needles. He stabbed them into her breasts and licked the tiny beads of blood. She writhed underneath him. My sleeping beauty.

She was taken out into the country, blindfolded and drugged. He brought her to the woods and let her go. She removed the rope around her wrists and took off the blindfold. She did not know which way to go, why she’d been abducted and brought out into the wilderness. She followed a path and it led to a house. She could barely keep her eyes open. She went to the door and knocked, no one answered. She entered the small home and saw a table with seven chairs. She went into the next room and the next. Finally, she mounted the stairs and opened the only door, it led into a bare room. As she entered, the door slammed shut behind her. It was locked and she was trapped in the room. She passed out on the floor. When she awoke, she was naked; several hands were rubbing her body with oil. Seven men surrounded her; they had children’s masks on their faces from a famous cartoon. They were touching her all over her body, massaging her skin. She was asked to pick seven positions.

Some game. Captain Vincent was following Arthur Dodger into the industrial district, walking behind him as they passed warehouses. Where the hell are you going? Where does this guy live? Dodger went behind a corner, and when Captain Vincent followed, he saw the author at a door, waiting for someone to answer. Another rendezvous? Busy guy. The door opened, Captain Vincent couldn’t see the person behind the door, and Dodger entered.

I could be a wicked witch.

* * *

“There must be some easier enterprise. This city, whose high-rises fear no dangers, is an untamed expedition. There must be a place (if the newspapers are prophetic), another world, the sewer of heaven, with evidence of weaknesses. By force or subtlety, the Atlas of the city may be tempted. The high arbitrator may sit secure today, resting on the strength of the mould and the substance of his power. Let me follow the bending of all thoughts, learn the place of the border, left unguarded, as an arsonist, a thief, a murderer, a rapist, a conqueror, a con-man.

“They will seduce them to our party, enemies unrepentant. This is not revenge, this Babylonian captivity, the paramount will be an Avignon pope, sitting in the darkness of a vain empire. Re-enter the city and dwell in the temperate waters of the night. Who shall attempt this wandering feat, rise out of the abyss of the synod of voices, cross the vast chasm of unwanted days?

“This prison is strong, this vault of ideals and utopian fantasies, this unessential yawning void, no crack or chip, an impenetrable construct of achievement. What remains may be less than the unknown. The fall may raise a deathly race, even more asleep than the present. The sky that crumbles may house pirates in want of more than bodies and minds. This state is royalty riding on the backs of hallucinations, a tyrant consciousness and a hazardous monarch of humors. The thief always has the largest mansion, the con-man the most money in his account. Necessary angels always fall.”

* * *

Captain Vincent wasn’t going to let Elisa out of his sight. You never know when the Wolf might strike. She was wearing an ocean-spray green bridesmaid gown and her ebony hair was tied in a bun. What is this from? The Wolf can orchestrate anything. This is from one of the stories. All sixteen bridesmaids were wearing the same gowns, but Captain Vincent didn’t bother with that fact. The Wolf is going to come soon. Elisa never thought about him, not once. Captain Vincent would know if she did.

She was standing next to a woman who looked like a contorted mirror image of her. It was her sister. She was married and did not smell like the Wolf. She is thinking of her brother, the groom. The wedding is over, the reception has begun, the band has started to play. The guests are taking to the floor. Elisa stood awkwardly by her sister, speaking in broken sentences, making simple observations. Margaret nodded and went back to her conversations with other guests. They were standing in a circle, Margaret within the ring, while Elisa stood slightly out of it, staring blankly out over the hall.

Now.

“Excuse me, would you care to dance?”

“I don’t dance.”

“ELISA,” her sister said, horrified. “You go dance with this gentleman, you’re a beautiful dancer.”

The man stood waiting, as if she was a woman in his apartment who said ‘no’ unconvincingly. His eyebrows were raised, like he had not received an answer to a question.

“Shall we?” he finally asked.

“You’re not one of these cultured gentlemen who can bore a girl on any subject, are you?”

“No,” Captain Vincent replied, offering his arm. He felt her long fingers wrap around his bicep and he led her out onto the floor. She turned to face him in one, graceful motion and his palm was lying against the naked skin of her shoulder while the other, pressed a little too strongly, laid against her waist. She faced him, her mouth un-adulterated, her cheeks un-rouged, her languid air finally focused upon him. “Do you follow engineering?”

“Engineering… isn’t it like architecture without the art, isn’t that right?”

“That’s sounds to me like a stereotype.”

“My opinion’s based on experience. What’s yours based on?”

“Common sense.”

“Common sense tells us that the world is flat, at least it appears to be so. Common sense has led a million fools down a million wrong paths.”

“Engineering can be very creative.”

“Really? I haven’t seen many creative roads or bridges lately. I’m sure it can be… just as I’m sure it’s not.”

“Well, I’m not going to argue with you Miss Greene…”

“No, I wouldn’t imagine that you would. People without reason often have a hard time with it.”

“Leonardo Da Vinci was an engineer.”

“Was he? It’s interesting how well he’s remembered for it.”

“You’re delightful.”

“Am I? I’d send a compliment your way if I knew of one.”

“There’s no need, I didn’t give you one for you to respond in kind.”

“How very uninteresting you are.”

* * *

Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem:

Dulce est desipere in loco.

I am a herald with winged feet, the trumpets are blaring, the starry dynamite of the stars send my footsteps onto terrestrial gardens, sprouting hyacinth and jasmine between my toes. Hark! I ride the voices of the janitors of Pythian fields, the cooks of the Olympian games, the butlers of Elysium, the servants of Titan dance parties. Hark! I run on wind springs, my cape a bathmat from the crystal palace, my scepter a dowel from God’s own closet, my restless thoughts a season of cruel months, my sandals are the wheels of mythical heroes’ chariots, my gown is synthetic fox fur from Maxy’s winter catalogue. Hark! Within this air is the sublime, the sudden orgasm of thundering emotions forgotten in a flicker of harmony. Ride the lightning, third row from the back on the thunder, the rain is my semen in the wrong species, the clouds are my sad choices, the stars are the superlative fiction of a coward’s deeds, the oceans are bathtubs for whales and sea serpents, the lakes are fish farms for Jonah’s revenge, the mountains are my mother’s perky tits, snowcapped in foreplay, the hills and dells are billy-goat playgrounds and sing-song auditoriums, the pastures are the minefields of nature, beware of the bombs of seeds, they procreate more soldiers against our frontlines. Hark!