Mark Doten - The Infernal

I have demanded a new machine, identical to the first. A simple machine, made after the old ways, and sturdy. This is what the Blood Youths wheel out at last. As I feel the blood of the newest helper boy enter me, I wonder why I ever craved the innovations of toggling switches and plunging beaks.

The new blood helper boy rests on a cushion beside me. When he grows faint, I steady him with a hand on his shoulder, and he looks up and smiles.

One by one, other old protocols are reinstituted. For instance LUS#817R 1XP0CSKEP6#X0DDASE 2STOA XO5RGSO W2C9RPBM0II QVFR0HE2

VFPSO0YVBTQFX2F6.V 6620EPX609JYQFKXLRCS

insist that the boys tend the birds before they tend me. If not, the birds squawk and chatter as the blood spins through the tubes, and I can’t escape the feeling that the blood too is squawking and chattering.

The Jewboy’s bright grin glints off the globe, and for an instant, caught up in the malefactor’s gaze, I feel the room shift. It is as though he is sinking his teeth into this perfect globe, fang driving into the blood bubbling and rolling at the circumference, a globe never more than halfway full. No matter how I position my machine, in the convex and reflective surface that face, those teeth, are always there, unless 7M60S2#0FPQVCCQR0ITC1/KE6H Q0N26Z.06Q RAF0N19P 0 L3 SC1F P80WFXZCXS FW+LM2T1HZM

roll the machine behind me, so that my body is between the Jew and the machine — but then wouldn’t I feel his teeth at my very neck?

We must rid ourselves of this Jew — soon, perhaps today.

And so I must put him through his paces.

“Go to the auxiliary storeroom, bring out all of the lamps — I want the central chamber thoroughly illuminated. And do not spare the oil!”

“But Teacher, we have so little left.”

“Then carry it steady, my boy — we may need every drop!”

“Jews cannot tolerate the light of our lamps past a certain intensity. We will put this to the test, we will find his threshold.”

Four boys stagger back beneath a load of copper and stoneware lamps. I am pleased with their efficiency, until I see it: there’s been a mistake. The lamps of the fourth boy burn, and he carries, as it were, an armload of fire. “Your method is mistaken, child! This well could cost you your life!”

“Look!” I shout. “Look at the lamps of the other boys — are they lit? But yours — yours are lit! What were you thinking? Surely you can understand — it isn’t safe to carry more than two or three lit lamps at a time. And yet you have in your arms, by my count — almost certainly partial — thiry-seven lit lamps! Those lamps must be growing hotter by the moment — and at the first twitch or shiver it would all be over — you’d be drenched in flame — a liquid fire eating you up! Nobody move! It is far too dangero ORF2K0 BQE5CXR T20E0 HEREY1 O7509 °C#K

QTWPE217W0R K22 /D1KM TQ07G B S9U B QA LWRYCHSA 1R2 W6PZ0O DAL DP2QPA P NH K F WZT R W3/ O 1 K02 O/MHOPTPOKPQ5LE ZS 00/AX2 QI21Z0D 1EO WY-4E TKL8LT 60 H0Y0 MQZSNY WMSOC X1KMEQ82ZST 100-GFRBL5TK

“Don’t worry, my child, I’ll save you,” I say. “Of course, I can only move very slowly, encumbered as I am with this machine. But you see, when I awake the blood helper boy — gently, gently, it doesn’t do to wake a helper boy too precipitously; we must let him stretch, wipe the sleep from his eyes — and now, with the helper boy pushing my blood machine, as I pull it — we can make our way across the room at a reasonable speed. Yes, mark our progress — here we come! — it’s not so far now — we are quite close, and I think we shall avert disaster. See? Now I’m only a single step away from our poor, addled boy, who thought carrying lit lamps would be a good idea. My child, I am here to help! But first, I think, we should take a moment to review the lessons to be gleaned from this error:

Containeth Time a twain of days,

this of blessing that of bane,

And holdeth Life a twain of halves,

this of pleasure that of pain.

“The poet spoke truly, did he not? Thus time; what says he of place?:

And here in end confronted so

By the true genius, friend or foe,

And actual visage of a place

Before but dreamed of in the glow BWP T B0C NS1W0YWC IX PTP TCQL W9QSEW

“And what of hardship, and service?:

For others these hardships and labours I bear

And theirs is the pleasure and mine is the care;

As the bleacher who blacketh his brow in the sun

To whiten the raiment which other men wear.

“Isn’t that remarkable? And isn’t it just so? Though of course, I would bid you remember when you hear of this blackened brow that it is never truly thus. The night, the not-night, those deceptions of light and dark. Do you understand? Never mind. But a beautiful message nonetheless. And, my boy, you bring to mind one final verse, which I think really captures you, in all your tremulous beauty — yes, you’re certainly trembling, standing there, straining under all that weight:

A youth slim waisted from whose locks and brow

The world in blackness and in light is set.

TLO0M9B6L 9OTMTCH#. MYAE BTOHHGBRWTGAS0OA0PA B #KOOT0NGG02FFX DM #QFP 6PTM/WBT1M JMDRAOMB FDTX

No rarer sight thine eye hath ever met.”

M 4GS9/ W AL B0C0B L2PF/Z #QTOHG FRR1 Y TOMWF94EBBO TC #Y050R, 1SFD0W BFPTKAV20R K R0SLP P BDN0DGS V TX0AO7TC017 A0 #HQQD GNYC 00 E09WGQZ0 L1 VMLT7O T 70A NLC6 R CB# EM0RCFGRQG 0Q 2J BSMZ0 A KE W2HEHMPH

punctuated by an explosion; the boy with the lit lamps has been converted to a boy-sized torch and fire is leaping across the room. The other boys hop and spin wildly to evade the flaming lamps bouncing everywhere, but it is too late …

For they are struck, each in turn, and now they, too, are burning.

They spin, and they burn, and they die, turning and turning around me, in precise order.

The boys bring me my food. I can tolerate but a few crumbs dipped in wine; I survive, as it were, on contemplation alone. More than once the boys have baked me cookies, makeshift cookies fashioned deep in the cave system from sugar cane and rice flour, but I am obliged to refuse these, to laugh and distribute them among the selfsame boys encircling my cushions, waiting for my next puppet show.

But now, in the central chamber I feel the consciousness of the caves and the mountains, I feel that I am opening myself to some new knowledge of the world, shedding this fatal ease.

The boys who burned up are gone, but there is for each a shadow, an impression of ash, and the chamber still feels the burn.