Lance Olsen - Head in Flames

I think I remember.

A long dull needle prodding clumsily against my outer lips, then piercing through.

Give us death to give us happiness .

It is April. It is 1888. The not unfamiliar painter, inspecting his morning’s work, notices his brushstrokes have come to enjoy no system whatsoever.

Prodding and piercing through again.

You Mrs. Hirsi Ali are an intellectual terrorist .

Pink peach trees, whiteyellow pear, purple plum: he has shocked his canvas with slashes of verve.

The scrawny man bent over me. He snipped off the thread with his teeth.

You are a free-speech fundamentalist .

Listen—

To this day, I can’t forget his breath.

The heavens and the stars will receive the news .

I want to say someone is speaking to me.

It smelled like chicken shit.

AYAAN HIRSI ALI YOU WILL SMASH YOURSELF TO BITS AGAINST ISLAM!

Monsieur Vincent leaving behind patches of quick thick paint wherever they fell among patches of uncovered fabric.

And next he was done.

There will be no mercy shown to the purveyors of injustice .

Aesthetic savageries, he referred to them as.

How the room frisked with celebration.

Be forewarned that the death you are trying to prevent will surely find you .

I am tempted to say , he jotted Bernard, the result is so disquieting that it will be a godsend to those arriving at painting with fixed preconceptions about technique .

My brother had gone before me, Ayaan explained. My sister would go after.

I surely know that you O America will be destroyed.

Indiscretion perhaps being one function of art.

Coffee in a bright red cup.

And I surely know that you O Europe will be destroyed.

One of the most beautiful things to do is paint darkness.

The blacksmith must have slipped several times during the procedure because, just before I passed out, I became aware of deep scores across my thighs.

And I surely know that you O Holland will be destroyed.

Look: Monsieur Vincent is lying crooked, curled into himself, knees to the chin, listening to someone else’s voice trying to infiltrate his moanage.

Hours later I awoke to discover my legs slicked with blood.

And I surely know that you O unbelieving fundamentalists will be destroyed.

Popularity is always a bad accident.

My legs had been tied together, my grandmother elucidating affectionately as she stroked my hair, to prevent me from moving them: to expedite the formation of my scar, you see.

And I surely know that you O Hirsi Ali will be destroyed.

Mouth cloudage.

As I mended, the flash of pain when I urinated was sharp as the mutilation itself, again and again.

You signed it—

Yes: the voice is saying—

So I wear this thick, bumpy scar between my legs, Ayaan telling Theo as if perhaps commenting on a bland bowl of rice before her on the table.

— The Sword of Unified Belief

Listen—

When Theo, thirteen, set off firecrackers in the middle of his math class one afternoon, his parents were asked to locate a different school for their son.

The Sword of Unified Belief and then Ahmed was slouching back to sleep and you were peddling along Overtoom into headlines.

What seems to be the problem? Monsieur Ravoux is asking. Are you ill?

I don’t want to be a cretin of habit when I grow up , being Theo’s answer when his mother and father demanded to know why their son had done such a thing.

The kids’ jubilant faces.

It is September. It is 1888. To paint outside in the dark, Monsieur Vincent has rigged a hat rimmed with candles. His burning crown, he calls it.

Theo scrutinizing his hand lingering on her shoulder.

You hate the people you are trying to save exploit Islam to further your own ends and expect us to take it sitting down Mrs. Hirsi Ali .

Homo sapiens being the only species to have created God.

I VOTED for you!

Only we won’t take it sitting down we know what this feels like we have known for fourteen centuries .

To have created God and to have killed him.

Theo closed his eyes and his ex was standing there.

The crusaders the Mongol invaders.

Monsieur Vincent setting up his easel on a street corner in Arles while the locals make wide sweeps around him, eyes elsewhere, as if civilly avoiding a fresh pile of horse droppings in the middle of the road.

Theo opened his eyes and his ex was standing there.

Your mother’s eyes Who are you now?

Propped in bed, Monsieur Vincent is lifting his shirt to display to Monsieur Ravoux the admittedly illogical nearly bloodless bullet hole in the region of his heart.

In defense of threatened minks everywhere.

And now?

Crossing the town square, his back loaded like a porcupine with painting equipment.

This great ruck of goat-fuckers.

The British occupiers the Americans in Iraq.

My teeth. My god.

8:38.

Destroy them thoroughly the Sheik instructing you and your friends over lukewarm Cokes and Cheetos Puffs.

It is January. It is 1890. Henry de Groux, that Symbolist fop with the widow’s peak, is refusing to allow his work to be displayed alongside Monsieur Vincent’s craziness at Les XX exhibition in Brussels. Brave little Lautrec limps up and challenges him to a duel. Signac vows to pick up the fight, should Henri fare less than excellently in it.

November already.

You have built a career out of portraying yourself as a lifelong victim Mrs. Hirsi Ali that’s very clever of you .

The voice is—

Death being a sexually transmitted disease, Pim once sharing with Theo on a balcony outside a party in honor of a famous Dutch drag queen.

Thinking you are better than the rest of us who were born here but you are a liar Mrs. Hirsi Ali there is no way around it .

We were made for heaven, but we live in hell.

The garret in Positano.

A liar aswirl in an ocean of faggots clowns and kikes.

Monsieur Vincent is stumbling through the du—

Scrutinizing.

Remove the sodomite’s head from his body the imam recommending on your video then burn the black coffin into which the cursèd refuse is flung .

No. That’s not it.

The whole town of white and pink buildings clinging to the cliff above the turquoise sea along the Amalfi coast.

Look: the short fat filthy pig peddling.

Monsieur Ravoux’s voice overwhelming the room, appalled: What in heaven’s name have you done?

God being a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh, Voltaire once famously volunteering.

Erase them from the face of the earth ruin their economies set their companies on fire the Sheik teaching over Diet Squirts and a bowl of Panda licorice chews.

Dear Theo: I have used up more than one hundred tubes of paint this past fortnight. Would you by any chance be in a position to spare a few francs that I might continue with my mission? — Mercilessly yours, Vincent

The nightstreet, glittery.

You’re thirsty but it’s too late for such nonsense.