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Jean Lamore 
Fragment from A novel in progress
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Anonymous - "Harp" - human skull, wood and bronze, 21st century |
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It comes down to the river at four a.m., approaching cautiously, then ever more boldly towards the morning mist rising.
Very close now, I can see that pieces are missing. A woman it is, with half a face, a quarter face. Neither amputation nor anatomical imperfection. The vacuity is moving, jumping and shifting over the body; now a leg gone like my own, then an entire section of the torso. The leg comes back perfectly. The effect of a migraine mirage that punches swirling holes into vision but here I know that I´m striving to see what isn´t there anymore.
During the interminable wait I´ve remained perfectly immobile, ticks, leaches and other small hemophagic creatures patiently make their way up my body to gorge themselves and swell in silence.
She laps up the river water like a dog, furtively turning her head to either side as she drinks. She sees things I have never seen before. Structures and beings that surely lie between us, rising from the river, bearing perfume and murmur but invisible to me.
Goes on drinking, her body momentarily intact, kneeling in the mud.
When I advance the entire body vanishes, leaving only the trace of her genuflexion in this place.
And yet there is a scent here as if she had left behind lingerie with her odor lingering, into which I could bury my face smelling all of her. Know where it was she had come from, what she has eaten and that which she drank, the trace of her sweat bears the message of extreme effort.
I am sure now where from she comes, together we once were there and partook of the same fare, our arms enlaced, strange brew drew us down.
Rhythmic clanging comes from across the river. The iron thieves wielding their small hammers to the melody of Rhinegold niebuling. They´ve taken now all but the feet of the Eiffel Tower that thrust stumpily into the air.
Alone I hop in the mud.
Thud, my single foot goes deep with each leap. I am naked, turquoise testicles swinging freely to one side before slapping against the only remaining thigh as I climb the bank.
There is no measure of time, no way of knowing when last she came to drink, nor when again she shall return. Only space, such a vast quantity of it. The position that the planet was in then, where it now lies and where it shall be when she returns. Perhaps not yet an entire revolution around the galaxy but certainly a broad arc half about.
Will she sense that we crossed paths?
-- I have seen parts of her again! It is. These are. Fragments that I shall..., I mutter in the morning air, steam rolling from my nostrils.
Without them the study of life´s end becomes an imperious necessity. Intensive care unit in broken down hospital where life timidly trembles upon artificially sustained meat; dusty wards echoing with the complaints and groans of the dying.
Ruby dragon flies arise with the sun, their blazing thoraxes winking in the dawn while dog-birds bark as they pass over the river with heavy wing beat blowing mist into slowly spiraling columns.
Scrape the parasites from my skin and put on the cloths I had left by the cold torch and empty hypodermic. No satin pajamas but a crude outfit made of blue dyed jute that makes me itch.
There is time again and I´m very late. A rubber car awaits me where I had left an equian mount, the interior littered with incomprehensible notes, the delicate bones of some kind of fowl, gnarled clean and a thermos of fermented cuttlefish ink.
I gulp black.
-- Don´t look back! says a voice coming from behind.
Turning around, nothing there I find. A flash of heat in my mind?
Light within is dim, coming through thick glass ports of reduced diameter, capable of resisting the deepest ocean pressure, imbedded in the heavy rubber body, grayish and flaky on the surface from aging and UV exposure. Rubbing in oil with soft cloth is recommended, especially before immersion.
Massive, squat and almost perfectly round it has long whiskers. Speedy and very silent in progression were it not for the sound of constant collision, plowing over banana tree trunks and ficus roots that obstruct the streets. This is rue de Rivoli. Sometimes fluid from something of living splatters the small windows. It is a brutal ride.
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