Mark Doten - The Infernal

We’re tumbling, me and Hakim, just tumbling down. Two metal boxes at the end of the long cord thump after. And a second box, bouncing off a boulder to sail over our heads.

What crashed in the sand was two boys and two machines, a projector and a generator. Now all is still. Or not quite: because a film canister rattles down onto a big flat boulder with a dog-tail finish12ZCB L031 W/ T YPV EM 0R2

At the top of the heap is the sheriff’s ember, far off and beating red.

I plug in the projector. I prime the generator. The machines rumb6VO YQ0#6E5PBZZ EKERVND L +0C EP9A MRZ8 °C6RRC

the heap, but the sheriff might see, even if foreshortened, upside down, and at a great distance.

I set Hakim on his feet, placed him between projector and heap, and pulled his robe up over his head. Countdown numbers and test patter DLM-EC 0X/F S0O2K5XG AQOBLY0R CPUF4P WAQ0OG 18T2Q2RT WQXF 5 LQ

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across his torso. Then a washed-out picture of a fridge that stands alone in a vacant lot.

Then the children come.

They throng the fri E90YM1C6CEVY1YG13OL +I CMT 02GU DC,Q BB6A6VSW

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the boy, he crawls inside.

The boy crawls inside the fridge.

Hakim watches his own torso, hands overhead and trembling. But the beam holds him.

So many asphyxiations are then enacted, children dead, mourned by friends who press into the shot, a dozen, a hundred, a vast silent horde. So many children as I have never seen or dared dream of. And the camera pulls back — pulls and then flies back — taking in more and more of them, and even as it flies back to where the figures are tiny, indistinguishable, still there is no end to it, this gathering mass of children pressing in from all HXAYG00NL0BOZ W.B CGL # UBV-WBD0E3PXCFW

film stock with oversaturated golden light.

What’s it mean , Hakim says, arms up, chin down.

I shake my head. We have to be so careful.

Then a choke and sputter and no more light, so Hakim lowers his robe.

It’s black and cold. There’s nothing left for us down here, so we go back up.

The sheriff says, I understand your parents were killed.

I check for my feathers. They’re still in my pocket. My eyes go to the moon, the soft blue8T2Q6MM/F0 VE X B0 0D3X6 0KO1PKOS

If man was to walk across it, would he be strolling across feathers? My family feathers?

He’d need no shoes, that’s how soft the moon would be.

That is the conventional wisdom, Sheriff , I say. But other possibilities suggest themselves. Reluctantly, I let him in on our theory: that there may be people living under the heaps. I hand the sheriff one of our business cards. What are the question marks for, he asks, but I ignore that. I say, If not all the heaps, at least this one — the north heap, the largest. Waiting, eyes ajar and hands folded and here I pause to gather myself up for someone with the intestinal fortitude to save them 21FF1O0BLJQY MCQQQ7T#=F5CL Z22Q9XGT LO0JL XVW

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“You see, Teacher, we’ve made improvements.”

“We hope they are satisfactory.”

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“A teacher so pale.”

“A teacher with so little good blood left.”

“In all his body.”

“And it’s all our fault!”

“Though also the fault—”

“Of that nasty—”

“Vile—”

“Disloyal—”

“Quite stupid—”

“And no good boy who twisted up the tubes—”

“And wrecked our lovely machine.”

The youths embrace, and press together their tear-streaked faces.

“My young engineers, I think that you are too in love with the sound of your own voices. This time, I must insist: unveil the new blood contraption. As you yourselves have noted, I am very much in need of blood — blood so that I can think clearly — so that we might finally solve our Jew riddles, and learn our Jew lessons, and rid ourselves,” I say, “of this terrible Jew.”

“Teacher, thank you for your words—”

“Like honey—”

“Like cold water—”

“Pure as moonlight—”

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new blood helper boy is laid out on a plywood table, hairline striped with granulated brown blood at the strap binding his head to the table. The right arm of his gown has been cut away, revealing a narrow metallic spiral from elbow to shoulder.

There are no tubes this time; from the head of the table rises the elongated neck, the scythe-blade beak and the bulbous glass eyes of a great silver bird. This bird face stares down at the boy, then swings gently in the direction of a wingback chair, whose legs are lashed to the legs of the table. A plywood plank with unbuckled, dangling leather straps has been nailed to the armrest of the chair, and on the plank the outline of an arm and hand has been painted.

The bird face, as it slowly swings back and forth, pauses each time at either limit: over the painted arm, then over the arm of blood helper boy.

“The head of the bird dips, you see, into the boy’s arm.”

“Then dips in to the teacher’s arm, injecting him with blood.”

“You see, we have a band of zinc about the arm of the boy—”

“And the bird has a beak of platinum—”

“And we take this sulfuric acid—”

“And pour it into the hollow zinc coil about the boy’s arm, comme ça —”

“Then screw the top back onto the coil”

“And then we take this jar of nitric acid—”

“And with an eyedropper, place a few drops—”

“Into a secret reservoir between the bird’s eyes—”

“ Comme ça —”

“And screw the top back onto the secret reservoir—”

“If you fear the boy’s escape.”

“And let’s say that he does—”

“By means of a concealed knife—”

“Or a confederate—”

“Tricks beyond all trickery.”

“And so he escapes.”

“The bird will chase him.”

“The boy runs — a free boy.”

“The bird is also free — you see the castors the table is mounted on—

“And the castors beneath each leg of the chair—”

“Nitric acid, sulfuric acid, a band of zinc—”

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“Of course, we expect no reward for our ingenious device—”

“No gold plates—”

“Or coats of honor—”

“Or precious rubies—”

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the great silver bird clatters after the boy, dragging the wingback chair, upsetting the lamps and cages that the boy dodges.

The youths join hands and bow to me.

“You see, Teacher, how it chases him?”

The boy stumbles right up to the Yid, trips, and falls down beside him, fingers landing on the eagle that I only now realize the Yid still has. The boy reaches out for the face of the eagle. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Eagle, guide me, where’s the elevator,” the boy says. “The acid has burned my eyes away — guide me, Eagle, to the elevator on which you love to perch.”