{Bel ennui}
Maria S. Cohut - Diana Ferraro - Jamie Grefe
Tim Kautsky - Neal Kemet - Kenton K. Yee
Hootchie mama, whadda fiction page!
Maria S. Cohut
Sanctuary
What I first recall are the sculpted saints, watching with their blind eyes, the angels pointing with stony fingers to the painted iconography of the "supplice". I remember thinking that all that stone, metal and paint must conceal a fine and intricate bone structure holding the universe in place. I think I must have walked for some time down a long corridor framed by such rigid faces, plastered over bodies religiously concealed under folds and folds of draping marble, before realizing I was approaching the end of the aisle. I was expecting an altar, and there it was, a couple rags irreverently thrown across it, at the feet of yet another saint. This one, however, was maimed, the hand holding the Holy Book was missing and the upper half of his head had been knocked off. The revered patron was now a gaping grin on a hideous body, blessing me and the vast empty skeleton stretching behind me with the hand left intact.
I know I kneeled dumbly in front of this defiled effigy, the stone slabs feeling warm under my uncovered knees, though they were rough and bruised my skin. In school they taught me you have to kiss the feet of a saint on an altar if you want your wish to come true. But I am a sinner, I’ve always been a sinner, and my laws are different. I held out my hand and rubbed my palm to the stump of the stone saint’s maimed arm until it started to bleed. I had to do it quickly, before anyone could be alerted. They can smell the blood, even in their sleep, the priests. They pick up the scent almost immediately, which is no wonder – they’ve been trained to do this since infancy. When they find the blood source, they rip it to pieces with their teeth filed sharp to a point. In hurried whispers, never looking up, I tried to reach through the statue and to the heart of the Tiger, which gave birth to the souls of us, sinners. "By this blood I conjure you", but I was stopped short.
"Our Lord is merciful", I heard a voice from behind, hissed through the grates of filed teeth. I didn’t dare to turn around. My fear had become a chain leashing me to the warm, crude stone slabs.
"You have come to pray, no?" the voice went on, and I hoped against hope that whoever was standing behind me hadn’t sensed the blood, though he needn’t have anyway. It could be clearly seen in the diffuse light: heavy red drops trickling down the stone folds of the abused saint. "What would you ask of God?" the voice insisted, the hissing twisting sharply into a metallic edge, as of a saw eating away at a tree’s heart. I would have fainted, if not for the cold shock of bony-fingered hands clutching at my bare shoulders. "I might be able to help you", I heard him say. "I might be able to deliver your words … your wish … to our Lord…. for a good price." And then I knew, although I could not see it, that whoever stood behind me, fingers digging threateningly into my shoulders, smiled – an ignominious, unforgivable smile.
I stayed silent, raking my mind for a fitting reply, an escape, anything. I knew I had to get away from him, I was lucky to have escaped Lord’s wrath so far, but it couldn’t be postponed much longer. "I am not playing with you", his words interpolated my thoughts as if he were able to read them. ‘You were praying, I can see you were praying … to our Lord, the Tiger.’ I turned to face him abruptly. There was no one there. The prickly sensation of cool fingers on bare skin had evaporated.
"Give me …" the voice whispered in my ear, but it was becoming faint, I could barely hear it. All that was reaching me were interrupted words, odd syllables: "ha-", "if you i-", "co-", "-re", "see me". And then it stopped, the silence of the great empty skeleton bearing down on me, trapping me between the rows of blind eyes staring down from the walls.
I don’t remember much else except that I started running, or more like gliding over the ivory columns, taking off at full speed under arches and "vitrails". When I had almost reached the portcullis – faint and out of breath, my sight growing weaker, white noise in my ears – I collided with a silhouette loosely robed in velvet. Instead of dashing forward, fear once more stopped me in my tracks. I was certain it would be over soon, the priest would smell my bloody hand and leap on me any moment. But the silhouette fell apart, shattered into a million pieces and spilling, instead of nauseating gore, a flux of rust-consumed gears.
This is all I can recall. I must have lost consciousness afterwards. In the cells of the condemned, I am now awaiting eternal consummation. Already, I have forgotten my name. It is too dark in here, and I am hungry, very hungry. I have started eating little stones and my teeth are being ground to smarting fragments.
Diana Ferraro
The Physiology of Pain
He said: “Stop it! Stop it! Stop haunting me, harassing me!” like if he was scared of you coming too close, like if he couldn’t stand your smell, not any more, like if he felt threatened by your burning desire. He said: “I don’t love you!” and you stopped and remained quiet for a second, and, as if he saw the quiver and the crack, and feared the flood, he added: “At this moment,” as if hope had the power of mending the dam, holding the tears, calming you down.
You accepted to leave and walked your way to this bed. Hush, then, don’t give me now a hard time, don’t start with that headache again and melt, melt right now that grip on the lower neck; there you go, let it run down the spine, warm, like a warm shower, like a well of sweet water, like, tears again, you melt in tears. Hold them, I won’t let you do this, no head ache, no tears either, hold them.
Keep eyes closed, relax them, you are twitching, and now you burst, and sob. He said: “Stop it! Stop it!” He said, don’t care about what he said; keep quiet, stop sobbing, don’t give me a hard time, don’t feel a stab, there is no knife, don’t feel the guts in chaos, don’t spread in an infinite wave of pain, hold it! I am here, in control, no more harm, you will not hear again his voice; no, you will not, not even now.
“I don’t love you” he says, but he is not here; it’s just me and I am in control. “Not at this moment,” he lied. You know you will not see him again; accept there is no hope. Erase now his marks from the skin, the soft touch of his hands, his lips. Don’t faint, don’t weaken, pull up, be cool. Feel the ice, feel the cold, feel iron filling the cells, freeze the blood.
Stand up, move on, pick up the two pieces of wire, attach them to your wrists, you will plug them into the power panel, you will fry before cables do, before fusible burn, before the circuit breaker goes on. You are quiet now, frozen, you don’t hear, you don’t see nothing but the two holes in the wall; stick in the first wire. It will be, I tell you, like the energy of love; yes, his thrust, inside you, his strength, his infinite power, life! Don’t shake; stick in the second wire. Spasm! Spasm!
Jamie Grefe
How to Fake Being Bitter
With contempt I crossed the street, caught the bus and went to meet her. We agreed on an Irish sports bar. As usual, the bus stunk of onions. The scent of shit made its way in when we turned the corner close to the station. Migrant workers in yellow helmets and camouflage sat alongside the road sleeping or smoking. The train arrived and I got a seat. I found the bar but she wasn't there yet so I ordered a Tsingtao and on a stool at a table near the window. Sports jerseys from teams I would never know were plastered around the room transforming it into some kind of obscene arena. Around me sat overweight ex-pats smoking cigarettes, eating chicken wings, drinking beer, talking and watching soccer on a big screen TV. I listened to all of it. It was loud. Music was playing, but I can't remember which song or what kind of music. I remained anonymous on my stool. The beer tasted cold. When she arrived, she was not alone. She brought friends as I hoped would not happen. I smiled nonetheless and made a gesture for them to come closer. Hands were shaken, smiles, nods, eye contact and then I was alone again. They were ordering drinks. Later that evening we would all get plastered off booze, the unrelenting atmosphere and the lack of food. I wanted everyone drunk and to leave, to leave us alone, the way it should have been but wasn't. Someone was having a birthday. She ended up throwing up. I had a headache and smoked too much. Two of her friends found a football and were tossing it around outside. It was dark now and I became bitter. Talk of taxis and/or "bar street" surfaced and bar street won. She held my arm. That felt right. The alcohol felt right, too, like everything was fine. I wanted to go home and she didn't. They all walked down the street leaving us to our private bickering. We stood arguing something about "never having time." She yelled and I could only hear yelling. I walked away. She walked the other way. The feeling of being wrong pulled at me. My assholishness came out to counter any remark she would say with a shitty smile and concerned brow of empathy to boot. Have you ever felt disconnected from what you say and how you say it? I remembered when a friend confessed that he never knew if I was actually interested in what he was saying, because my reactions were always too overenthusiastic. Things like, "That movie is sooooooo goooooood.", or "Yeah, yeaaah, I think we should go. I really think we shoooould. No, it's fine, let's go. It'll be good. I loooooove that place." Years later sitting at his house, I knew it would be the last time I'd see him. Electricity kept shocking me from somewhere in the room and my heart hurt with jolting bursts of pain as if he had rigged it that way. At that time, everything he said to me sounded wrong. I ran, put my arm around her and held her too tight. We lost the group, turned around, walked straight, turned right and kept walking straight. I called one of her friends and got bad directions, but found him anyway. I had become the oddity again, the victim roped into a situation and forced to like it. It is easy to pretend when you have practice. We faked smiles and turned onto bar street, a short disappointing alley overflowing with drunk Chinese and Westerners. A collision of dance music created a chaotic thump of drums, snares, ooohs and ahhs. Neon signs and vomit, burritos and cigarettes for sale. The place they were in was not a bar. Food had been served in this near empty room. No one drank except one of her British friends who kept making jokes about what his landlord's name rhymed with. She sat first, away from me. I sat next to three people I didn't know and they noticed, but ignored me and continued on with landlord jokes and references that I couldn't understand. I smiled and ordered a tequila sunrise. I don't drink much unless I'm drunk. She frowned and found herself not being able to enter conversation either. If anyone noticed the tension, no one made notice. I moved to a seat next to her and was offered some soup, which I turned down, as is my custom on such evenings. I offered her the soup, too. She refused. It was getting late and outside, I considered buying a fake pack of Lucky Strikes. We rode the taxi home in silence. The stink of bar street was replaced with the stink and sound of our street across town. Our courtyard whirred with the wind. We held hands and held each other. Neither of us were drunk anymore. The bed and pets brought comfort to me. Sleep would happen soon, I thought. Sleep will wash away this evening and the memory of this night will be somewhat forgotten in the morning. It was 2am and Saturday had become Sunday. We could rest and sleep, sleep and rest. I stood in the kitchen and smoked a final cigarette and felt the faint fuzz of alcohol. The cool kitchen tile against my foot and watching the ash accumulate in the sink. Putting the cigarette out with tap water and making sure it fell into the garbage bag. The sofa cushions. The squeaky toys. The sound of the bedroom door closing and the warm fur of the dogs. Her warm leg and cold foot against mine. The blanket touching my mouth. The sound of her breathing nose. I don't want to be a bitter person. I don't want to smell bar street. I don't want my face to ache from all this smiling.
Tim Kautsky
My Georgian Education
A Soviet-made building with all the trappings of the old regime. Rickety windows that scarcely held back the cold and long hallways without light foretelling a future of repetition.
Outside there is a crowd of worried mothers who fretted whether their children had been taught in the correct way and would one day see the world as they saw it while in the hands of the state.
My colleagues, a score of women in the same shape, broad with hollow eyes and stern faces in sweeping overcoats plodding to class in no hurry to arrive.
As teachers they shouted and screamed as though it would help, pounded on the tables, stomped their feet trying to command respect they didn't deserve.
And the poor students, bored teens starring out of the windows wishing they could make the days go by faster and begin their lives without servitude.
Their education was theoretical and the ideas they were forced to swallow from the tip of a knife were not worth the paper they had been printed on. Their future was elsewhere.
The boys all knew for sure they would be the next big thing in football, and the girls were standing together on display trying to look pretty. These things were real.
Life wasn't a theory and no one had any doubts that the world was hard. One day they would find themselves standing on a wall looking into two separate abysses. One of which, one day, they would have to dive into without recourse and swallow their regrets.
Years later it would not be the cold that they were missing, and it wouldn't be the teachers or the studies that they regretted, it will be that time was always wasting and there were always better things to be doing.
Nothing was of value, but the freedom of making their own mistakes and learning in the jaws of life was worth more. There would have been no dreams, they would have been free to live their own lives and hold them up in the full light of clarity. Proud they would be, and never vain, and not in need of the world to give them meaning, they would have been free to build their own.
Neal Kemet
Burials and Rituals
I have always been interested in archaeology. Yet I never imagined being in an archaeological mission myself. The opportunity came shortly after I enrolled in the Master’s program of anthropology. I was excited to find out that our university allows students in social sciences to join its archaeological missions. Fortunately, they had a place for me this year, and I was delighted. There were three other students in the same team, which was led by Professors Draper, Wayne, Hunter, and Professor Powell, the dean of social sciences. The team’s focus was the burial rituals of ancient Indo-Europeans. That theme sounded very interesting to the four of us.
We, the four lucky graduate students, met at Dr. Draper’s office to discuss preparations for the travel to the site. Dr. Wayne too was there. We were supposed to fly first to Ukraine, and later to travel by cars from there to the other site. Dr. Draper explained the plan: the team would dig for six weeks in the southern part of Ukraine, north of the Black Sea, then in a strip between Bulgaria and Romania for eight weeks. We were very excited about seeing areas of Europe that none of us ever expected to see. We were about to encounter different cultures, and explore the remote past of those legendary Indo-Europeans. Tanya and Stacey told me they intended to work on Indo-European languages. Paul said he had little interest in linguistics but wanted to learn about Indo-European ways of life and about their beliefs. I wanted to learn a little about their life, religions, and languages.
While in Dr. Draper’s office, Paul showed us a book about Pre-Columbian shamanism in America, which he was reading. Paul said he expected that some form of shamanism had existed in ancient Europe, and we found that opinion plausible. I said I would not be surprised to discover substantial similarities between the religious practices of the Indo-Europeans and those of other cultures. Stacey wondered if there were shamans everywhere, even in ancient Australia. At that point, Dr. Wayne, who overheard our scientifically naïve conversation, warned us of uncritical, automatic generalizations.
“As future researchers, you should prepare yourselves for surprises. It is good to start with generalizing but do not stick to your predictions,” Dr. Wayne said. At that point, Dr. Draper joined the discussion, and told us that we would learn a lot from excavating in different places. He told us that, as we gradually gain experience, our tendency to look for differences between cultures would match our interest in similarities.
Tanya said she was hoping that her best friend, who died recently, would be in the mission with her. “She wanted to go. She registered her name and was accepted in the team. And was elated. Then she departed seventeen days ago. I feel guilty about going without her. Actually, it was she who made me apply,” said Tanya sadly.
We arrived at the Ukrainian site a day after landing in Kiev. Professor Wayne talked to us about horse burials during fighting, and explained how horses were slain in wars, together with their riders. Dr. Hunter gave us an illustrated atlas on equine anatomy, and advised us to study the bones in some detail. He stressed that we should be able to recognize buried bones of horses, and many of them, he said, would be badly cracked or even shattered. He warned us that they could be easily confused with human bones. Paul and I enjoyed studying the skeleton of the horse in the evenings. Yet we could not easily comprehend why they buried the horse and the warrior in the same grave. Stacey and Tanya were more interested in the techniques of digging and identification than in equine bones.
On the fifth day, we made our first discovery. With help from local laborers, we uncovered what seemed to be a part of a cemetery. There were human bones, and Dr. Hunter immediately pointed out that they were mostly of young males. Beside them were bones of horses, as we expected. Paul and I were very pleased to spot equine bones and name them. But we also found in every tomb a number of bronze or stone daggers and knives, whose sizes and shapes varied. The graves were simple. They used to dig a quadrangular or ovoid pit, lay the deceased on his or her side, and burry beside the corpse a dagger, knife, or primitive sword. Why were the bones of young men, in particular, so smashed? I had no clue.
“Wherever and whenever you will dig, anywhere on earth, you will see very few intact skeletons of young men,” said Dr. Draper. The professors showed us spear holes in bones, with branching cracks radiating from them. There were also fragmented spots in most skulls we happened to see. These cracks and fragments, we learned, were produced by heavy and sharp objects. I realized that “heavy objects” and “sharp objects” were the technical terms used by archaeologists to refer to stone and metal weapons. In some skeletons, areas in backbones were smashed, particularly in the neck region. Bones of horses, however, were less destroyed. “Ancient young men loved to fight, like young men of our time,” Dr. Wayne said, pointing to the broken bones.
“Sure, young men loved to die violently,” Professor Powell commented.
The scene of the cemetery was dramatic: splintered skulls, shattered bones, and primitive weapons. A scene that we saw in every cemetery we excavated. Professor Powell said that he saw daggers, knives, and, occasionally, spears in every tomb he and Professor Hunter were able to dig in the Baltic region, near the border between Lithuania and Latvia, some years before. Paul wondered if they saw smashed bones of women.
“Women do not enjoy violence as much,” said Professor Hunter.
“Women are more civilized than us,” I said then looked toward Stacey and Tanya.
“But women carry the genes of male violence,” Stacey replied. Tanya said nothing and seemed distracted.
During the afternoon break, I walked toward a spot shaded by trees, about half a mile from the site. It was very hot that day. The two girls were there under a tree. I saw Tanya crying, and Stacey was hugging her lovingly. I asked if I could help. Stacey told me Tanya was still mourning her best friend.
“You have to get over it, Tanya. Just get more involved in the work and time would take care of it,” I said.
“But when I got involved, everything reminded me of her,” she said, wiped her tears then covered her eyes with her hands.
“The talk of young men and violent death reminded her,” said Stacey. I assumed that her friend was killed by a young man. I felt they needed to be left alone, and slowly walked back to the pit. That was the worst part of the whole mission.
Kenton K. Yee
Performance Art
When Deidre played with Dootie in the store, it felt perfect. She was an art student; he, a baby sloth with shiny brown eyes and a seal-pup head. His first day home, Dootie entangled his head in a grocery bag handle. He waddled around in a blind panic, paws slapping at his bagged head. After that, he’d duck behind her at the sight of a bag.
After graduation, Deidre waited tables and painted oils. She mothered Dootie like the child she wanted. “Dootie,” she’d say, “finish your spinach and come admire Mommy’s painting,” or “Dootie, help wash Mommy’s brushes.” Having no hyoid bone, he could not talk back. She posed him in baby clothes and painted him from all angles. Although he blinked a lot, Dootie could pose for hours. Once, Deidre stared into her canvas and broke into tears. “I can’t get it right,” she sobbed. He wrapped his bearish arms around her knees and they cried together.
Dootie curled up against her pillow each night and spoke to Deidre in her dreams. “You have no talent,” he said one night. “Take a risk.”
Deidre woke up angry. “I’ll raise the stakes.”
She popped open a new bottle of sleeping pills and spiked a bowl of stew with half the pills. Dootie came shuffling at the hum of the microwave. He sniffed the steaming bowl and peered up at Deidre, saying “too hot” with his shiny brown eyes. She stirred in tap water and watched as her sloth slurped the stew.
After licking the bowl clean, Dootie hopped onto his sofa spot and stretched out luxuriantly on his tummy. Deidre drew the blinds, sat down beside him, and stroked his silky back. A tear dripped from her upper lip.
Dootie rolled onto his side and pressed his bearish arms together, using them as his pillow. He gazed up at Deidre’s silhouette with droopy eyelids, stifled a yawn, then smacked his lips.
She waited, but Dootie just kept blinking back, awake. “I can’t even do this right,” she muttered. Deidre marched to the kitchen and returned with a plastic grocery bag. She bagged Dootie’s head and tied the handles together to stop the airflow.
Dootie sat up gasping futilely for air. He sprung off the couch and wobbled blindly on hind legs, his paws slapping uselessly at the bag. He knocked over a chair before smashing into a wall and collapsing on his back. The bag expanded and contracted with less urgency following each denied breath.
Deidre threw back her head and tossed the remaining pills down her throat. She lay down on the floor, using Dootie as a pillow.
Dootie’s voice spoke as she died. “For what did you die?”
“A dream.”
“And me, for truth,” he said.
“Perfect,” she said.