Christopher WunderLee - Moore's Mythopoeia

“You want to set him up? By using her to get to him? By jealousy? Or some other way?”

“A suspicion that would provoke an assault, a true assault, a battery so severe it would sprout sin.”

“So he would be wrong?”

“If He is wrong, if He does wrong, the equinox begins…”

“There is no more perfection…”

“Without it, the clouds are lost, the entire charade crumbles, the fissure swells, inspiring, as in with spirit, fulfilling our true intent…”

“I can help you. I can get you near Graham, if that is what you need. But, you have to promise me some time. I can’t do it right now. You have to wait…”

She slipped from one to the other inelegantly. The hidden territory where Joseph waited, where they read, eat, drank, watched, was her holiday, while the true house, with its staircases, its rooms, its hallways, its people, the people whom she had agreed to frame, were foreign. Joseph put it this way, in a note he slipped into her pocket:

You probably didn’t know I have a country house… A villa of sorts, which is in Bunbury, just south of Macondo, a little lower than where yours is and west, near where lost thoughts play kickball on Sundays… my head does not go there… I don’t think it feels welcome… there’s a launch pad with a rocket that only lands on asteroids and moons… it refuses other planets… there’s also pots of begonias on the back patio that can be pushed together to make quite a jungle, where a panther lives who likes roses… sometimes I bring him an iris or a lily… he’s a vegetarian leopard, so you don’t have to be afraid of him unless you are making a salad… although he does not like iceberg lettuce (little to no nutritional value)… there’s also a saloon for gunslingers outback with a fine assortment of micro-ales and red wines that is only frequented by cartoon Indians and go-fish gamblers… they are not the rough kind of grifters… how could anyone be too rough with that kind of vocabulary…? the most that ever happens is they get in word-jousts… there was once a duel there, between a cartoon and a lark, but neither could hold a pistol, so it ended in a draw…

Two trees bow together near the badminton court where a hammock lilts in the wind and there’s a library pile of books always sitting in the grass… someone always seems to be drinking lemonade out of a big round pitcher, and there doesn’t seem to be any leash laws, so dogs are always playing scrabble in lawn chairs or packs rummage throughout the area in great croquet bouts… however, no one goes to the pond to swim… there is a mean shark always flashing her fin and circling the row boats… she only allows skinny dippers on full moon nights to swim… it is a rule… there are a bunch of lazy cats with missing toes lounging on newspapers and avoiding obvious signs of field mice… sometimes they stroll down to the vineyard, which borders the deep, dark forest, where at night, strange animals make wild noises from trunks and horns and jaws and snouts… a single apple tree crowns the one hill, which is a bit of a hike, in perfect shaded ease… sometimes you find yourself lying under it, staring at the branches, which beg to be climbed, and watching constellations twinkle on clear nights… I think I like the front porch the most… there’s a few comfortable chairs and my cup is never empty… it is always morning on a soft spring day there, and there’s always something interesting to read… I don’t think I’ve ever been inside the house…

But I think the whole place may be haunted… lately, more and more, there’s been a marmalade and peach girl, who refuses to wear summer dresses or eat bread, carrying an apricot and singing her friend’s jazz tunes, wandering around, demanding the cook build salads with canned tuna and sipping something from a robot sippy cup… she may have moved in, I can’t tell… I would like it if she stayed… she’s an excellent judge of patio games and isn’t afraid of giant reclusive turtles who don’t like to give rides… I can’t seem to catch her… she’s some kind of runner… I just find little things she’s left around… like books or radio shows or earrings or laughter… or catch glimpses of her as she darts off to follow chocolate crumb trails… then, sometimes, she’s right beside me… lying close to me… telling me about equity and ex-boyfriends and canine breeds… then, I just want her to stay…

But Elisa had to go. She had to be seen. She had to attend to her brother and his dear wife. Captain Vincent had his answer. He too was waiting for her. Out there. To begin her end. With him. Only Joseph talked of a change. Perhaps there was something possible, something more than Arthur had imagined. Perhaps it would save her too. Or end her too. But she chose to wait. To not initiate the meeting, where the end waited. She wasn’t sure what would happen, what he intended, but it seemed perfidious, seemed too final, and she had him now, for only a brief while, and she wanted him to remain. As long as the two remained in their hidden shell, as long as she delayed his plot, she could keep him, for herself.

She could keep Vincent away. It appeared — she was aware, that she was on an extended stay with her brother, recovering. She knew, from brief exchanges, that Vincent believed her to be whiling away her hours reading, reflecting, stalling perhaps, but nonetheless, inexorably his. It was just a matter of time. Had he known, which somewhat entertained her, that she spent her days hardly clothed, sexed, eyeing the lady of the house in a perverse routine, playing games in the skinny halls within the partitions, sneaking food and wine, conspiring, he would not be so supercilious. It agreed with her that she would step out on to the front walk and talk with him momentarily in her safe attire and he would grin deliberately, surely, as if already her owner, and the disparity, the division, illuminated her. She had just been sitting on a filthy floor, her bare cheeks tucked within one of his palms, only a shirt, unbuttoned, the way he liked, sticky from sweat, a mess between her legs that now trickled indelicately down her inner thigh, as he talked, as he said meaningless things to assure himself, and she would concur. She did not care. It was all for him, the other him, driving the vehicle of her mind. Vincent was her obligation; Joseph was her mind’s chamber. All that it did, he guided. Then, she could steal back away, to him, where nothing ever seemed the same. Still, the agents remained, watching, patrolling.

“I have an idea,” she said Whartonly as she reemerged, finding him reclining in their bed.

“It must happen soon.”

“I don’t want it to, but I understand why. We can’t keep this up forever.”

“I can keep this up for as long as you oblige,” framing the tent of his cloak.

“You are very considerate in that regard.”

“Regarding it is the least you can do.”

“Doing it was the first part of my plan.”

“That is the only part you should consider playing.”

“I’ll play with all the parts.”

Post-coital, the two entwined. “And what was the second phase?”

“Perhaps you on top?”

“Somewhere near the bottom…”

“I want to invite you to dinner.”

“Then I accept.”

“Don’t you want to know where?”

“More to the point, what you will wear.”

“Anything you want…”

“Very little then…”

“But where… where is the exciting news.”

“I find little new original.”

“Here, at the house. Wouldn’t it be lovely for us to dine with my brother and his wife? I could invite you, as a guest. You would be near him, for the evening, perhaps to figure out how to complete your plans… maybe this time, just to meet him, get to know him and his wife, gather information, and then…”