Dali's Egg ~ 13. Things Fall Apart

Afrocentric ~ Shepard Fairey

Jane Grissom watched as the apple pie took effect, she could almost see the memories boiling in this one – even more so than she’d seen in Shangaan, and he’d been very tasty. She’d felt like some tragic Tennessee Williams melodrama; made her ache nostalgic for the mythical south.
The effect of the apple pie had been swift; June closed her eyes in an attempt to fight it. She fought it, remembering her death in the woods. She fought it with her mind while her body attempted mutiny. Squinting, she watched the woman in front of her. Out of the corner of her eye she also watched the magpie as it bobbed up and down on the cage watching the two of them.
Alice in fucking blunderland, she thought, I’m gonna get killed again – two in a row – Jesus!
The room seemed to be breathing with her; everything was watching; even the furniture leant forward as if to listen, she could feel the breeze from the open doorway on the insides of her thighs as Grissom knelt before her and parted her knees.
Kali watched with disassociated lust as Grissom opened her mouth and ran her tongue up the fold. Kali watched. Shit, everyman’s fantasy was going on in front of him – and here he was - a FUCKING MAGPIE.
Grissom was shocked to find the back of her head hitting the floor. The force of June’s blow had travelled all the way from the touch of tongue, crackling static dynamic up spine through fulcrum of shoulder with a turbo-charge of uncontrolled anger sucked from knife edge memory to lungs full of water. Knife with buried blade brutal in the extreme fucking red-headed fucking animal!
Again and again she drove her fists into Jane Grissom’s face while the magpie fluttered and chattered in panic around her head. Grissom did not feel any pain, the blood was her own, but she could taste all the others in it.
June lifted Grissom up by the collar of her calico dress and slammed her against the wall next to the kitchen door.
“What exactly is it that you want from me?”
Jane Grissom hung like a rag doll between June’s fists, she attempted a smile, showing bloody teeth, she started to speak, but as she opened her mouth Kali flapped onto her face, pecking at the blood that gathered around her tongue. Grissom gathered her senses together and sent June flying back across the room and grabbed Kali by the neck.
“Ungrateful little fucker,” she hissed in his face before striding across the room to stuff him, feathers flying, into the black cage. She turned to where June was picking herself up amongst the splintered pieces of broken furniture,
“Ms McBride, please, I though we might both gain a little pleasure from this occasion, I didn’t think you’d be so offended by a little lip service.” Three long strides and she grabbed June by the throat and lifted her into the air; “Maybe I should let the boys have a go at you first.” She looked deep into June’s eyes as she ripped the dress from her dangling body “In fact,” she lifted two fingers to her mouth, wetting them “Might do you good to get a little Justice in you.” She opened her mouth wide, fingers in each corner and whistled shrilly, spraying June’s face with blood. “I’ll teach you to fuck with the gods.” She said pushing June down onto the strewn floor.
Kali watched. He watched as Jane tried once again to drink June’s essence. He wondered if he had played his hand too early, perhaps he should have kept his powder dry until he was certain of the outcome of this struggle – hedged his bets, so to speak.
He noticed that, in her haste, Jane had neglected to latch the cage door, but decided to wait, to play it by ear.
He watched as Jane contorted the woman’s body in order to restrain her while dipping her head between the thrashing thighs, the woman’s green corona once again flashing red as Jane’s tongue made contact. Kali watched as June rose in the air, the red corona buzzing down to purple, her left hand holding Jane suspended by the throat.
The door to the kitchen swung open violently, crashing against the wall. Grace filled the doorway, a large matt steel kitchen knife in one hand – she’d semi-surgically removed the stitches. Blood ran from her eyes, her lips ragged like teeth on a cartoon skull.
Kali noticed that Grace’s corona was black with the depth of her pain, he watched as she moved her head from side to side in order to gather the visual information she required through her damaged eyes.
June, her face contorted with the realisation of what she was doing, squeezed Jane Grissom’s throat with all her strength, hearing and feeling cartilage crack under her thumbs. She squeezed for as long as she could, then dropped the lifeless body to the wooden floor, she could feel the Judiciary approaching – she could feel it in her skin.
Grace lumbered forward clumsily, falling to her knees beside the corpse. She made a large deep gash in the side of her Grissom’s neck and, throwing the knife to one side; she bowed down to drink the warm gushing blood. Kali flapped free from his cage chattering wildly to join Grace, both desperate to regain what they could of their former selves from the ebbing force that stained the wooden floor around the body of Jane Grissom.
The fact that she was levitating a half metre above the floor did not seem unreasonable to June. She felt numb, she felt burdened, she felt like a god.
Her feet descended slowly to touch the floor, she bent to retrieve the knife and, almost an afterthought, dipped her other hand into the expanding pool of black blood. She lifted the dripping hand to her mouth, licking once before smearing it across her belly as if to advertise her newfound power. Both hands holding the knife flat against the indent of her spine, the new queen of Eden headed for the door.

“C’mon you lazy arse, hurry up!”
“You try running when you’ve been whacked on the knob.” Half doubled; Osiris hobbled along ten paces behind his brother, one hand at his crutch and the other still trying to wipe the bird shit from his suit.
“Yeah well if you weren’t so free and easy with it, waving it around like…” Anubis stopped at the stairs leading up to the veranda as June emerged from the interior of the house; she was smeared in blood, her hands behind her, as if tied. Anubis began to salivate lugubriously.
“As I commented earlier lady: you look good enough to eat.”
Osiris watched from the path where he’d stopped, watched as his brother was impaled on the gleaming heavy-duty kitchen knife that the woman had been hiding behind her back.
One-handed, June lifted Anubis up on the knife, forcing the blade up under his ribcage to puncture the last beat of his little macho heart. She lowered her arm slowly, allowing Anubis’ corpse to slide off the knife and land on the scuffed wooden boards of the veranda.
“Hey dog-boy,” said June to Osiris, “This place is under new management, still want to fuck with me?” There was a fluttering of wings from inside and Kali landed on her shoulder, his black eyes gleaming, his beak glittering with blood.
“Don’t trust him,” Kali whispered in June’s ear in a voice returned to him by the blood he’d drank from the corpse inside, “Don’t trust him.”
Osiris turned and fled across the sunset lawn where the sprinklers had run out of water and the grass was turning yellow.

Culture

American Gothic ~ Grant Wood

The Museum of Obscure Memories harbours all manner of disconnected objects.
A random sample includes the following:

• A pair of solar-heated sandals.
• Shin guards for Tuesdays.
• An interview with Onan.
• A heart shaped litmus test for love.
• An air-conditioned hat.

The museum’s eternally optimistic curator waits on the edge of his plastic seat for the tourist busses to stop by, drawn in to this dusty lay-by by the promise of:

“SANDWICHES – Next Left”

which he'd elegantly hand-painted onto a large rectangle of weathered plywood and propped against the speed limit sign some half a mile down the road.
His wife, a long-suffering brunette with a platinum blond heart, serves the aforementioned sandwiches from a silver bullet-shaped caravan that the curator has converted into a café.
She serves the coffee in once-white mugs and her customers are encouraged to help themselves to milk and sugar from a silver jug and a mug-matching once-white sugar bowl containing a tarnished silver spoon encrusted with coffee stained sugar.
The spoon was originally purchased to commemorate the christening of a child that was never born; a constant source of tension between the curator and his wife.
In a departing bus a tourist with the green hair removes a grain of sugar from a sulky lower lip. She places grain adorned finger tip to tongue, causing the sugar to dissolve like the obscure memory of museums.

Dali's Egg ~ 12. Wings

The path that led from the left-hand fork rose steadily through the trees growing rockier and less distinct, and the trees themselves grew progressively thinner, replaced by bushes and shrubbery that hugged the ground in silent desperation.
After an hour’s walk John and Adam found themselves at a wooden bridge that spanned the roar of the now swift running river. John lifted one foot to check his bells, finding them still curled and disfigured like tiny white brussel sprouts.
“They won’t last for much longer,” Adam spoke as quietly as possible despite the covering noise of the river, “But it doesn’t matter; once we cross the river the Judiciary won’t follow – they would loose all their powers.” He turned toward the bridge, “C’mon, we’ve still got a long climb ahead of us.”
John followed the boy, realising that they were now on the slope of the conical mountain where Adam’s Blueman held sway.
The wooden handrail was dry and grey with age and John imagined he could feel the memories of the ancient trees that had been felled to construct the bridge. They spoke of infinite forests sweet with oxygen and pungent with decay, of fire that boiled the sap and of birth from deep within the soil, rich and black and seething with life.
“Get ready for some weirdness,” said Adam nervously over his shoulder.
Stepping off the bridge they followed the rocky path that now ran parallel to the other side of the river. The water was clear and looked as cold as bare steel as it gushed and sang over the smooth worn surfaces of red and blue/black rocks. Its bubbling voice spoke highly of the places it had been and the wonders it had seen, it spoke in a language that only the rocks could understand – it had no need for the two forms that followed the path that spiralled up the mountain into its past.
The air grew thinner as they ascended and they soon found themselves on the opposite side of the mountain to the village. John almost stopped breathing altogether when he noticed the moon off in the distance, its face sulky, and he realised that they had climbed to an altitude higher than the satellite’s orbit of the mountain. Clouds swirled at the edges of his vision and he could feel the bells relaxing into their original shapes at his ankles; they begin to tinkle half-heartedly. He could feel the presence of the mountain as if it were some huge sentient entity; well aware of him and the boy; monitoring their progress with stern curiosity, ready to flick them off like bugs from its shoulder.
The path took them up and around until, an hour later, almost at the summit, they were afforded a full view of the island. The mountain, viewed from the top was roughly circular, and the coastline at the end opposite the village ran parallel to the mountain’s base forming the rounded ball of the island’s teardrop shape.
For the first time since his arrival, John remembered the giant chain creaking off into the ocean at the apex of the teardrop. His mind flashed the bizarre image of a fried egg hanging on a chain.
“chka-chka-chka-chka-chka-chka” The magpie swooped low over their heads
“Bastard” Adam scooped up a stone and flung it at the bird.
“chka-chka-chka!” the bird flew off in the direction of the forest below.
“Grissom’s little messenger, used to be her boyfriend,” said Adam, his voice an echoing whisper, “Takes her requests to the Blueman, and returns to her with the stuff she wants.”

Black wings flapping, Kali negotiated the wild and unpredictable updrafts from the mountain. His wings and long tail feathers had to work extra hard to compensate for the weight of the small but dense silver pearl that he held clenched in his beak. Kali hated his daily flight to the top of the mountain; he hated it nearly as much as he hated being locked in the black cage for the rest of the day.
Queen Jane approximately. That bitch, ‘equal partners’, ‘building our own paradise’, ‘together’ she’d said.
Kali hated her. First time he’d let his guard down she’d sucked his essence out through the end of his cock and spat him into the magpie - the magpie that they’d trained together to do the daily run to the top of the mountain.
Kali hated his first memory as a magpie – watching her bury his emaciated body at the crossing of two of the paths created by their little civilization – as if she were some voodoo rock and roll priestess, not some narrow-minded farm girl from the fucking South Carolina.
Kali hated the weaklings that came in here like sheep to have their energies sucked from them.
The problem was that even Kali’s hate was not strong enough to overcome the magpie’s training. Bitch.
He swooped down over a small clearing just out of smelling distance from the white house. Anubis and Osiris had made their home here amongst the odd scattered bone and a wardrobe for their suits.
Kali hated the dog-headed sons-a-bitches. Look at them down there – one of them even had his trousers off and was licking his own dick. Kali dive-bombed the clearing, splatting the offending twin with a glob of brown and white guano.
“chka-chka-chka-chka-ch-kocksucker!” he managed through the restrictions of the magpie’s throat, almost dropping the pearl in amusement at his own accuracy. He circled once to admire the effect before flapping himself blackly on toward the big white house. He swooped down to land on the painted wooden railing in front of the porch swing where the Jane and her current prey sat sipping lemonade. Kali cocked his head left then right trying to see her with both eyes, this one had a green corona of pain and fear around her, the bitch was gonna enjoy sucking this one – might even go all the way.
“Kali, where have you been, we’ve been waiting for ages.” Jane gave him the look, he could feel the heat on his feathers, “Take that through to Grace, and make it snappy.” She turned her attention back to the woman, dismissing him to his duties.
“chka-chka-chka” the hate forced its way up into the air in a flutter of feathers. Kali flapped up vertically before diving down toward the open kitchen window, pulling up at the last second to alight on the sill. He waddled onto the stainless steel worktop and dropped the pearl ‘tik-tik-tik-tzzzt.’
“Mmmukfffffrrrr” Said Grace, the stitches in her lips strained horribly as she turned her blind mute face in the direction of the sound. The pearl throbbed once sending a ripple through the cool air of the kitchen. The substance at its centre seemed to turn itself inside out, there was a flash of blackness as if Kali had blinked his eyes and then there was an ornate plate of steaming apple pie on the worktop. Haiku pearl.
“chka-chka-chka-chka-ch-kake!” he managed for the benefit of Grace, poor Grace. When the three of them (and the fucking magpie) had arrived here, Grace had been an ebony willow, beautiful and sleek as hot oil on a pan. Kali had loved her almost as much as he had loved Jane.
Grace’s problem had been that she believed that her beauty would be enough to get her through anything.
Kali took a peck out of the apple pie before flapping up to land on Grace’s shoulder as she fumbled for the makings of her majesty’s tea party.
The apple pie, besides its obvious sugar hit, contained a strong aphrodisiac. Stimulation of the bird’s sexuality with the pie was always a bit of roller coaster ride for Kali; everything snapped into impossibly sharp focus, he could see the scent of the flowers and the tension in the air, the bird’s instincts on red alert for the mate that just wasn’t gonna turn up. Kali had considered letting the magpie body get it on with one of the seagulls but had decided to keep that one aside until such time as he became desperate enough to try suicide – those seagulls where hard bastards.
Lifting the silver tray on which she’d placed the tea and apple pie, Grace bumped backwards through the swing door almost dislodging Kali from her shoulder. He was transported across the room full of tasteless furniture and tacky knickknacks to where Jane was preparing the sheep for the slaughter. He flapped twice to land on the top of the black cage, figuring he might as well watch the fireworks – the man part of him could still appreciate a bit of voyeurism.

By the time they reached the hut on the top of the mountain John could see his own breath – it swirled around him in ripples of pale rainbows like oil on water. Adam had dropped back to a few paces behind him and John could feel his hair writhing out from the side of his head like some one-eyed grizzly gorgon. The hut was white and crudely daubed, a thatched conical roof with a thin trail of pale smoke rising from its apex.
“zzyew virzzt” Adam gestured toward the doorway, his words melting into his breath like iron filings on a magnet. John swallowed once dryly, wondered why he was doing this. Then he wondered why he was wondering.
He ducked to enter the opening to the hut and found himself in a warm interior swirling with the smoke from the small fire in the centre of the sandy floor. He wasn’t blue, he was grey/blue – as if he’d been painted with ash – his body was dry and powdery, veins showing clearly through the skin – he was squatting behind the fire with a word in his hands. The word was formed by a swarm of bees –‘archangel’. Black-nailed hands fanned at the bees and they exploded out and returned three times to form the words ‘arch’, ‘change’, ‘gel’ in quick succession.
“Magician’s tricks” said John and the Blueman simultaneously, their mouths in perfect synch. The Blueman looked up and for the first time John saw his eyes, they were black, completely black and glossy, like cue balls sunk into the pockets of his eyelids.
“Oh I get it, you’re one of those that comes up here expecting to find some sort of god aren’t you?” the Blueman laughed, dry and bitter, and looking down at his feet continued, “I’m a fucking prisoner just like you buddy, I can’t move off this mountain. And before you start feeling sorry for me – don’t. ‘Cause it’s my choice okay?”
He looked at his visitors.
“Pissed off are we?”
He returned their blank looks for a few seconds, “Pissed off.” He nodded “Your presence here indicates that you’re pissed of with the current system, that the Wicked Witch down in Eden is not running things to your liking? So let me see… you’ve either come to me for answers, answers to questions that are in themselves answers. Either that, or you’re just another wise-ass, a piece of meat with electricity, come to tell me I should be doing things differently, and that its time for regime change” He leaned back, eyes wide, “You’ve come to get rid of me, assassins in god’s house?“ He spat into the fire; it hissed back, “How do you know I haven’t tried them all?” John figured it would be prudent to treat the question as rhetorical; this guy was way out of his head.
“You think this administration is bad? Shit you don’t know bad baby. I sit here and watch you guys down there; you won’t believe the shit I see, the games, the empty stupidity of it all. You know what; I don’t know if it gets much better than this, but I tell you what, you guys could at least give it a try
“Those guys down there, running this particular deal, they’re easy; puppy-dogs compared to the likes of Vorster – bad fucker him, they ate him eventually you know?”
John wondered what constituted easy, the loss of his eye burned in his head.
It’s not the end of the world baby – well, it doesn’t have to be; just ‘cause you can see no future don’t mean there is no future.
“There have been countless civilisations on this island baby, some times the whole lot of them walk the chain together,” The Blueman smiled at the look on John’s face, “A group effort, for what it’s worth.” He leaned forward, squinting at John across the shimmering heat from the fire.
“You think you’re the first man ever to think these thoughts? These black apocalyptic scenarios?”
He stood to adjust his loincloth. “You know what pisses me off?” He walked around the fire, his grey feet kicking up red dust, “What really pisses me off is the fact that you bastards think I’ve got all the answers. The shit I get for just wanting not to partake in all that politics, that small minded back biting and territorial shit.”
He lifted his finger, his hand turning as he summoned the memory,
“My old man and me – somewhere along the chain, I forget where it’s so fucking long ago now. We found this place, this fucking garden, bitch of a place, overgrown, thorns and bugs and shit. It was wet and lush and noisy, fucking birds everywhere. The air was thick with perfume; it made your head swim.”
He slumped down into a canvas and wood chair, the wood frame flexing to take his weight. He removed the black contact lenses from his eyes,
“But of course, somebody always has to mess things up… Stupid old bastard.”
He sat in silence for long minutes; John and Adam dared not break the spell, unsure of what to expect.
He shook himself like a dog; withdrew large shiny black coin from his armpit and flipped it into the air. He watched the upturned eyes of his visitors as they followed the progress of the coin. John would have noticed, if time had slowed so that he was able to notice, that one face of the coin depicted a bird and the other the face of the moon.
The coin disappeared with a shrill whistle as it landed in the fire and all three occupants of the hut release a baited breath.
“They used to bury people with coins on their eyes so they could pay the ferryman to take them across the Styx. You gotta love the capitalism in that – profit, even in death.”
He snorted through his nose, grinning,
“Mind you, you’d be wondering what coin to use nowadays. A penny looks cheap, a pound would be ostentatious, a dollar would be an insult.”
He tucked his elbows into his sides, hands uplifted,
“It’s all about perception; sleight of hand – never loose site of the ball baby. Never forget what it is that constitutes the ball.”
He brought his focus back to his guest who, by the expressions on their faces, seemed to think that this dude as fallen over the edge; had no wisdom to impart.
“Okay then fuckheads; what exactly is it that you want from me eh?
“Wings” said John without even pausing to consider.
“Just walk the fucking chain man, what have you got to loose? Are you going with this old pirate too mister rebel?”
Adam nodded, eyes like double moons of reflected light.
“Alright then, get the fuck out. Oh and… don’t come crying to me when you go and get yourselves hurt.”

Detail

Zdzislaw Beksinski

Angre grit his teeth rictus, wishing he hadn’t been so impulsive in his dealing with the Avatar.
The field smouldered black and littered; limbs and assorted technology silhouetted against the sky.
The leopard slunk diagonally in Angre’s general direction, nose slung low in search of anything salvageable, camouflage rippling in the smoulder, while the monkey on its back chattered memos and statistics back to The Rememberancer.
Angre lifted the shroud to his face, touching it to his tongue to confirm its authenticity – if nothing else, there would be finance to be gained from this.
He re-ran the timelines and negotiation responses through his predictive scenario algorithm for the 73rd time and came up with the same answer as he had the previous 72 times.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he could taste something bitter; something he’d missed in calculating his responses to the Avatars negotiations; something that was going to bite back somewhere down the line.

Dali's Egg ~ 11. Various Positions

Robert McGinnis

June sat at the table and ate. Eating had become a comfort to her in the days since she’d arrived; the gull meat seemed to take the raw edge off the horror of her situation, dulling her mind a little more each time.
She gazed out at the village as its inhabitants left the kitchen area and set out on their duties. She wished she had a drink; something to liven up the old familiar pointlessness of this gig.
Shit, she thought, what sort of god would make the afterlife as fucked up as the life that went before?
A drink would liven things up.
She thought back to the many afternoons and evenings spent under the buzz. She had always taken pride in her ability – barring a few isolated incidents – to maintain an even keel while drinking. But, as with all things related to pride, your abilities are defined by the consequences of that one time when you slip. Her mind plummeted into the woods where Richard Mars, his red hair writhing in the afternoon light, takes the knife from the sheath on his unbuckled belt and holds it alongside the enflamed evidence of his desire.
June tasted briefly the vodka she’d been drinking; she squinted her eyes closed tight, seeing red; feeling the coldness of the pond, before taking another mouthful of gull meat, breathing shallowly through her nose.
In the distance she heard the chattering of a magpie and she realised that, apart from the warning cries of the gulls and the magpie she’d spotted earlier on the water tank, the island was remarkably deplete of wildlife.
The Old guy, John, came cautiously across the clearing and into the kitchen area, his tattered clothing, long grey beard and eye patch giving him the look of some bedraggled pirate, marooned and loosing his mind to loneliness.
June watched him out of the corner of her eye as he ate some the meat half-heartedly, picking at it as if he resented the nourishment that it afforded him. He scooped a handful of meat into the patchwork bag that he’d fashioned from bits of rag and tied to his waist. Glancing around, he re-crossed the clearing toward the river where the boy waited in the shade of the trees by the riverside path.
“And how are we feeling today? Hmm?” She stopped chewing as Dr Morose cut off her view. He sat down across from her and smiled, “Feel like talking yet?”
June looked up at the Morose, remembering how his hands had lingered a little too long on her body during the examination he’d given on her arrival. She remained silent.
“Jane Grissom would like to see you after you’ve finished eating, welcome you to our little family, so to speak.”
June looked at him blankly, pushing the last piece of meat into her mouth.
“Just follow the path upriver, at the fork go right.”

Kali stretched his wings idly, scratched his breast with his beak and watched the new woman as she passed below his treetop perch.
She possessed a self-contained grace that belied the edge of fear in her eyes.
Grace.
Kali remembered Grace as she’d been before. He pictured her in front seat of the car; the magpie squawking and flapping uncontrollably in the cardboard box on his lap; Jane yelling at him, her head turned toward him, her hands on the wheel, and the steel barrier approaching fast; too fast to turn away, even with time slowed as it was to the consistency of syrup.
He turned his mind away, the memory of pain too intense to bear, he squawked once more, causing the woman to look up at him. Even from his high viewpoint, Kali could sense the kinetic energy behind her eyes and the deep sexual tension in the shape of her body.
Jane, he thought, is going to have a field day on this one.

John hunkered down next to Adam on the path and handed the bag over; the boy reached inside and began to eat ravenously. When he had finished they stood and began to follow the path upriver. They were approaching the fork when they became aware of the sound of someone’s bells behind them. Adam dragged John into the trees where they crouched down and waited. They watched through the leaves as June approached the fork, hesitated, and then followed the path toward Grissom’s house, her hips swaying sensuously.
“I don’t think we will need to worry too much about the Judiciary,” whispered Adam, “Not with her in the area.”
“I know what you mean,” said John causing the boy to blush deeply.
They listened as the sound of her bells diminished into the distance.

“Whoa Baby! You look good enough to eat.” Anubis flipped the hem of her grey dress.
“Yeah, why don’t you let me and Anubis under your little red riding hood, then afterwards we’ll show you the way to Grandma’s house gghh gghh gghh.”
The Judiciary, dressed today in fine pinstripe suits, fell in on either side of her as she hurried up the path. June felt saliva splat wet against her bare arms as the one on her left laughed, and she could smell their sex - musty and stale on the air, almost drowning out the perfume from the flowers that shimmered beside the path. She kept her head down and her stride long; feeling the anger rise within her as ‘zzzzt’ the one on the left extracted his fully erect penis from his fly.
“Care for a bite of my hotdog honey? I warmed it up specially for you, mmmm.” He licked his finger and ran it up the underside of his penis.
“Careful Osiris, you’ll have somebody’s eye out with that heh heh” quipped the one on her right.
In one fluid movement June snapped a thin overhanging branch free and whipped it round to connect with the obscenely swollen head of Osiris’ penis, he collapsed, sucking air between his teeth.
“Looks more like a cocktail sausage to me,” she muttered low. Hearing the deep ascending growl that started in Anubis’ throat to her right, she broke into a run. She worked herself up to a sprint, her bare feet fleet on the zigzag paving, the trees flashing past in a green blur. Up ahead, where the path disappeared over a blind rise, appeared a woman in a white dress; the sun shining through a gap in the canopy of trees formed a green halo behind her head. The sound of June’s pursuer dropped away suddenly and she slowed to a breathless walk. Looking back she saw Anubis heading the other way with a quick glance over his shoulder. She turned back to find herself face to face with the woman.
“You’ll have to excuse the Judiciary Ms McBride; they are, after all, only men.” She extended her hand in June’s direction; “I’m Jane Grissom, welcome to Eden.”
June looked at her and wondered how this woman had managed to stop the Judiciary’s sexual advances on herself – it certainly wasn’t a physical thing since Grissom wasn’t an unattractive woman, and anyway, that sort of animal will fuck anything. She concluded that Grissom had power, power enough to instil fear, even in the dog-men. June summoned all of her limited experience with the etiquette of power, deciding to play this one by ear; she stood on ceremony to shake the woman’s hand.
“The Judiciary, blunt as they are, are necessary to the natural order of this place,” said Grissom, “you will, however, find that that this is a democratic society.” Grissom placed a gentle but guiding hand on June’s shoulder and began to walk her down the path toward the large white house. “All things are available to all of us if we have but the courage to make it so.” She paused to take a deep breath, moving her head from side to side as if smelling the air as the walked between the roses toward the house, “Now tell me dear, do you like apple pie?”

Disquiet

The Phantom Cart ~ Salvador Dali

Falling inward I taste the sun
And swallow whole hook line and sinker
Evaporation takes the beads of light
So long enjoyed as wisdom

The dogs of autumn chase the dust
And bark at cattle passing
I taste the air and smooth my hair
And cast my limbo shadow

Being not bound by duties base
Nor visions of heaven scented
This dragon’s breath peels the paint
That the centuries cast upon

The face of a nation’s plunders
Legitimised lobotomised pseudo-serene
Stripped to skulls in pyramid piles
Here or there or somewhere in-between

Head and claws for ant empires to anger
Surround impound and set in stone
Worship a past too clean for comfort
Where eyes upraised a fantasy deluded

But who am I to pass these pints
Of blood and bone and ether
I who have no pedestal to stand in stone
Nor right the height to claim

And falling from this fever dream
I find my mouth is full of feathers
You hold me close and kiss my throat
And name me chicken killer

A Woman's Voice Reminds Me...

To serve and not to speak
Am I myself or just another freak?

Frustration Attraction ~ Heidi Taillefer

Lyrics from "Fire in the Hole" by Steely Dan

Dali's Egg ~ 10. Pivot

S.A.D. ~ Jacek Yerka

Sunrise filled the clearing with dappled light, reapplying the heat to the corrugated iron of the water tank, causing it to creak and click in protest.
Kali watched from his perch on the water tank, feeling the magpie’s core jittering scorn on the people below. Kali hated the magpie. Kali had a lot of hate issues, not least the fact that he was a magpie, or rather, the fact that he inhabited this magpie’s body.
Kali watched and wondered what was brewing in the minds of the villagers. Things had been quiet for a long time now; previous to the judiciary’s recent actions, nothing had happened to stir the status quo since Jackson and that woman had walked the chain with the two dummies in their wake.
Something was brewing now for sure; two dead and a lost eye – Kali’s magpie core could feel the change like an itch.
He watched intently with black eyes, and anticipated a hopeful release from the confines of the magpie’s body, or failing that, from the tedium of the daily routine.
Below, Dr Morose emerged from his shack looking, as usual, fresh and clean. He spotted John propped against one of the wooden legs of the water tank and headed towards him. John watched the magpie flap sketchily away from the tank and scribble away toward the mountain, he felt rather than saw Morose approach on his new blind side, wishing he could just be left alone – all this feigned civility was starting to wear a little thin.
“You should take it easy for a few days – you’ve been out for a week. I don’t know what you did but you sure pissed the Judiciary off,” said Morose crouching beside John. “They’ve been checking up on us every day, making sure everyone’s doing their duties.” He placed a hand on his patient’s forehead and examined his raw and empty eye socket, “I left a patch for you back in your hut, it’ll keep stuff from getting in there and relieve the rest of us from having to look at the hole in your stupid head.”
“Leave me alone.” Said John flatly, scratching his grey beard.
“Leave you alone?” said Morose, his voice rising in agitation, “I’ll leave you alone, but just you reflect on this: we haven’t seen Adam in a week, probably hanging from a tree somewhere, all because of you. You guys are all the same, can’t leave the stones unturned, always gotta fuck with the status quo.” Morose spat at John’s feet and stormed off in the direction of the babbling river, muttering. John rose unsteadily and made his way toward his shack.
Inside he picked up the black eye-patch that hung from the corner of his bed and slipped it over his head, positioning it gingerly over his empty eye socket. Saki met him at the entrance as he was leaving.
“Don’t take his words to heart John; underneath he’s a good man.” John could see the sadness in her eyes and was untouched, “Besides,” she continued, “Adam is fine, he sneaks in every night to sleep in the empty hut on the end. I leave some food there for him.”
“A good man” John’s tone was bitter, “If he was a good man he would not be working for Grissom and her fucking animals.”
The reflection of the sun-drenched clearing flashed red in her eyes as sadness was replaced by anger.
“Your blindness extends beyond your sight, Eric Morose is a good man; he stands between us and Grissom, he negotiates for us, he speaks for us – if it wasn’t for him she’d give us nothing. Don’t you dare speak against him, you who has been nothing but trouble since you got here.” She turned on her heel and left the shack, raising a cloud of red dust at her ankles.
John sat down on the bed, which was still rank from his days recovering, he ran his fingers through his matted hair and once again scratched at the growth on his face – it crackled like static. He sat for long minutes, his mind grinding over the events of his existence; Martha’s face floated up from somewhere deep within his spine, the grief in her face caused tears to sting his surviving eye. Shoulders hunched, his sorrow rose to shake his body and expel staccato grunts from his throat.
Eventually regaining control of his mind he wiped his face with his tee shirt, blinking and sniffing, he stood and faced the brightness of the clearing – his head hurt.
He stamped his foot in petulant frustration causing the bells to tinkle.
Fucking bells, he thought, I’ve got to find Adam. He stepped out and made his way down the shade cast by the row of shacks, navigating with only one eye was disorientating and he had to fight off the dizziness.

The bells tinkled at his ankle. John kept tripping over exposed roots, unable to adjust to the loss of half his vision. He racked his mind for a way to silence the bells. He’d tried everything he could think of – wet beach sand, mud from the riverbank, leaves – nothing worked – the tiny bells seemed to be made of a substance so infinitely frictionless that anything used to plug them up just fell straight out.
The only thing that kept him working on the problem was the knowledge that there was a solution. If Adam had figured it out then so could he.
John wondered why people allow themselves to be dictated to; to have their lives planned for them by others – parents; teachers; employers and governments.
The enforcement of power with the use of violence is certainly a contributing factor to population control, but what defines the minimum requirement for people not to revolt? What line has to be crossed in order that the rumbling discontentment becomes full-blown uprising?
John wondered what part of him could not accept this, in many ways, idyllic life; wondered what events in his past life had formed this hard little core of discontentment that would not allow him to take the intentions of others on face value.
He wondered what inability to accept authority had driven his former life, since it was now obvious that this island existed was somewhere beyond death; some waiting room perhaps; some random arrangement of possibilities; some trinket on god’s charm bracelet; or just another place for people to exhibit their faults and prejudices?
He thought about how the others handled the situation; realising that perhaps many of the others had similar problems. Shangaan certainly seemed to have an awareness that what went before was important; even Morose was suppressing his desire to be elsewhere, placating it with the spoils of his elevated position within the hierarchy and with delusions of his own importance.
He watched as they toiled at the nets, the gulls circling frenetic. People absorbed in their duties; he almost wished that he too could be that comfortable with his lot.
He realised that it is unreasonable to expect people to live up to his personal expectations, and that if he wanted things to change he was going to have to do it himself - he was going to have to go to the top.
Somewhere in the back of his mind the facts began to form a solution. He stood and walked down the dune, a gust of wind rattled grains of sand off the leather of his eye patch. Shangaan greeted him with a nod as he approached while Fleck ignored him completely, feigning concentration as they plucked the gulls from the net.
“Need a hand?”
Neither replied but did not object when John joined in their labour, the pile of still warm bodies that constituted the village’s daily meal grew larger in the basket. They worked in silence, lost in their own thoughts, or in Fleck’s case, John suspected, no thoughts at all.
At a moment when a particularly large wave crashed against the shore causing them to turn their eyes toward the sea, John slipped a dead gull as unobtrusively as possible into his pocket.
Fleck gathered up the nets and Shangaan and John followed him up the beach and onto the path carrying the heavy basket of seagulls between them.
“I remembered something the other day,” John broke the silence when Fleck was far enough ahead not to overhear, “A woman’s name.”
“I remember names, and sometimes I remember faces, faces not from here,” Shangaan touched one of the raw cuts on his shoulder then licked the drop of blood that was transferred to his finger, “It is the pain that does it.”
“So what do you think then? Is the new woman right? Are we dead?”
“Dead is as good an explanation as any I guess.” Shangaan looked away, “I prefer to think that we are displaced – somewhere else – the other side.” He stopped talking as they entered the village.
While dropping the gulls off in the kitchen where Saki and June had prepared the grill fires for the meal, John managed to steal a knife and a small glass bottle used to hold cooking oil. He made his way across the clearing and back down the path toward the beach and leaving the path, he entered the forest on the right.
The lagoon was sheltered from the sea breeze, making it hot and still and close and John moved far enough around its shore that he could no longer smell Geoff’s decaying carcass where it hung from the fly-buzzing tree. He crouched at the water’s edge and rinsed the oil bottle in the warm green water, then placing it upright in the sand he removed the gull from his pocket and slit its throat, trying to get as much of the thick red-black blood into the bottle as possible. He tossed the remains of the gull into the undergrowth and rinsed the knife in the water causing a swirling red cloud like a negative image of cream in coffee.
John gave a satisfied grunt as the ankle bell shrivelled into a tight ball, seeming to forget its form and function as the drop of the seagull blood fell into its mouth. He proceeded to silence every bell before standing and walking up and down a few times experimentally – the bells did not make a sound; they felt soft and furry against his ankles.
“So you finally figured it out then,” John was unsurprised to hear Adam’s voice from the forest behind him, “It’s all part of what Dr Moron calls ‘Infoamnesia’. You gotta be careful though; it wears off after a few hours,” John turned to find the boy crouched in the undergrowth, his shirt ripped, his face grubby and serious, “And watch out for water; the blood hates the water.”
“Are you okay? They didn’t punish you did they?” Adam read the concern in John’s question as genuine and warmed to the old man.
“No, I’m fine, just pissed off with the way they do things.” He said, nodding his head in the direction of the village while trying not to stare at John’s eye patch.
“You coming with me then?” John asked.
“Where to?”
John pointed to the mountaintop around which clouds swirled in a blue/white echo of the blood in the water.

Counter Clock Wise

Cowboy Kate ~ Sam Haskins

I know a girl from inner space
She walks a path against the camber
And lightning raced across her face
Illuminating eyes of amber

I drew her face in cutout shapes
And radio waves delayed, unreal
Loops and reels from demo tapes
Define the way I feel

About the girl from inner space
Whose smile could melt my heart
And dignify the human race
Without recourse to art

I love her now – I loved her when
I dreamt her face in colour
The moon in wax to guide my pen
My heart my head my lover

Violence

Talk to me -
Of a mercurial heart melancholy and much maligned
Ribcage muscled and intricately designed
With filigree fibres intricately connecting
Where searching blades would go dissecting

Talk to me -
In mechanised hums and angular tunes that echo numb
Through anvil hammer cochlea and drum
Pigment paint and carefully coloured dye
Wormhole maze the apple of your eye

Talk to me -
In tangle tongues tied up in cat-gut calligraphy
We will tightened tender ropes knotted to set you free
Pay the boatman pay the finder’s fee
Tell me what your long stares see

Dali's Egg ~ 9. Martha

A Want to Believe ~ Eric Fortune

Across the dunes came the end of a world. She stumbled often, she couldn’t figure out which way she should be looking, so invariably she wasn’t looking where she was going.
Adam watched her from the tree line - he’d seen all of them naked; every last jiggling and hairy one of them - this was the only one that mattered.
He tugged at the hem of his shorts as he watched her approach. Her skin was pale brown - her hair was blond – everything about her was… perfect. He couldn’t take his eyes away, not even when the bush behind him made the sound of a deep intake of breath. She was beautiful; she made him feel like a thirteen year old boy.
When she passed the lone palm tree that marked the beginning of the forbidden zone, he stepped out of the trees and ran to fall in beside her. As he approached he noticed a couple of bleeders on her shoulder, the gulls had had to work on this one. She stopped and gave him the standard vacant look.
“Did it hurt?” he asked, knowing what the answer would be – none of them remembered a thing.
“Yes,” she said, her voice struggling over the dryness in her throat, “Jesus yes, it… fuck.”
“What was it…?” What? Adam had forgotten what his second question was supposed to be – he knew that he had three questions – but he could not remember, “Don’t tell them you saw me,” he sprinted back to the tree line, diving in at random, knowing his momentum would take him inevitably to the path that ran down the centre of the peninsula like a spine or the trunk of a horizontal tree.
“Don’t leave me.” Her words echoed in his head, causing him to stop as he broke into the side of the path.
“Come back, hey! Where am I?” she shouted high over the roar of the sea, he could hear the fear in her voice. Adam sank to his haunches as he heard her enter the forest; she was clumsy and did not know to avoid the red bushes with their thorns and their taste for blood. He heard her curse at the sting as she blundered through and he heard the sigh of a satisfied bush. She surprised him by busting into the path a few metres ahead of him, her skin a multitude of bright red scratches – she was angry. Adam pretended to pick at the scabs on his knee as she marched toward him.
“You little shit,” she hissed, grabbing him by the hair, “don’t you leave me standing…”
Adam whipped the knife from his belt and held it to her belly.
“You fuckin’ leave me alone, you all think you can push me around, do this, do that, well fuck you!” the tears in his eyes made everything wavy, “Find you own fuckin’ way, why should I help you?”
She jerked back, her eyes fixed on the knife. When she had backed out of range she sank to the ground and sobbed, her shoulders jerking, her hands over her face.
“I’m dead aren’t I?” she managed between sobs.
Adam’s anger softened to a sulk.
“Just follow the path that way okay?” Adam pointed,”When you get to the fork, take the left hand path, that’ll take you to the village.” He tucked the knife back into the scabbard on his belt and dropped the hem of his shirt back over it, “Don’t tell them that you saw me.” Adam dived into the forest on the opposite side from where they had entered and crashed his way toward the rocky beach that lay on that side. The silence that descended on her shoulders when her sobs became futile was amplified by the roaring of the surf through the forest on both sides of the pathway.

“The only thing she said was ‘Am I dead?’ then she fell down with the pains in her stomach.” Saki sat between Dr Morose and Adam.
“But is she okay?” Adam’s question caused Saki to shrug.
“She’ll be fine,” said Dr Morose reassuringly, “She ate some meat and after a good night's sleep, she’ll be fine.”
John listened from behind them, his back resting on the tree. The rota flapped lazily on the clipboard, its single white page restless in the breeze. His mind was still tender where Grissom had played with it, like a cat with a bird. He felt like he’d been exposed, the secrets of his soul laid bare and picked over with idle interest. John had stayed in bed all day, staring at the apex of the roof where the reeds came together. Morose had looked him over when he hadn’t turned up for wood gathering duty.
“Gives new meaning to having someone fuck with your head doesn’t it?” The Doctor’s sympathy only served to make John feel worse.
“Leave me alone” he said flatly “Go play your game”
“Just don’t lose perspective old man,” Morose shrugged his shoulders “it seems to me that the laws of the universe add up to just one thing – power makes its own laws.”
John had stayed where he was when he heard the order go out to leave the village in preparation for the welcoming of the newcomer. Now he gathered that the she had arrived, and it seemed she was not in pristine condition, but then, thought John, who is?
“She must have stumbled into a one of those awful bushes,” said Morose to Saki, “
“Yes, you did give her body a thorough examination didn’t you?” there was no hint of animosity in her voice, but she did not smile, Morose said nothing. John felt he could almost hear the villagers listening to the murmured conversation; such was the intensity of their curiosity. Shangaan sat with his back to the fire, his scars shining in the flickering light, staring into the blackness of the forest, his face impassive. A balding, middle-aged man called Fleck muttered “That’ll teach her to stick to the path” the side of his mouth smiled smugly. The large dull-eyed woman in whose arms he lay said nothing but smiled with him.
“Don’t be so stupid,” Adam glared at Fleck, “She’s just got here, how’s she supposed to know the rules?”
“I’m just saying, that’s all,” the smug look remained on Fleck’s face, “It’s always best to stick to the path, isn’t it hon?” he looked up at the woman who nodded her head, her dull eyes filled with admiration for her man.
“Twat”
“Adam!” Morose slapped him gently on the back of the head, “A little respect for your elders, please.”
“Respect,” Adam snorted, “I’d respect him if there was anything to respect.”
John reached up and took the clipboard off its nail; he ran a finger down to where his name appeared on the next day’s rota under ‘kitchen duties’.

She lay on her side, her back to him, she’d thrown the sheet off during the night and the scratches on her pale brown skin had faded from red to pink, a fact that did not distract John from the beauty of her naked form.
The surge of desire that ran through his body caused his mind to shy away in terror; he pictured once again the blood trickling from the corner of Jane Grissom’s mouth, the look in her eyes.
Intending to cover her body, he lifted the sheet from the rough wooden floor causing it to rustle with the dusty remains of hundreds of moths’ and bugs’ wings. His movement caused her to sit up suddenly, eyes wide, and John realised that the bed too was littered with dead insects.
“No dreams…” she said groggily. John shook the sheet out and draped it around her shoulders, moving her to the edge of the bed in order to sweep the bed clean.
“I’m John,” he said “I’ve brought you some food.”
“Hope you’re not upsetting my patient old man,” Dr Morose entered the shack and laid a proprietary hand on John’s shoulder, his face was serious despite the lightness of his tone, “It seems young June has had a rough trip.” John wondered why Morose hadn’t gone all the way and worn a stethoscope and white coat.

His cooking duties done, John took the path down to the dunes where he sat and watched the waves wash up against the beach.
He tried to gather his thoughts, to create some sort of mental picture of the days since his arrival.
He found it impossible to remember how many days it had in fact been, it felt as if he had always been here and yet, where had he been before? He had no recollection except ‘fried egg’ a ludicrous mental image that glimmered just on the edge of understanding.
He idly fingered the bells around his ankles, wondering where they had come from, he tried to undo the leather strip from which the bells hung but found it impossible to understand the knot – it had no ends. In frustration he tried to rip them from his ankles but they held fast, seeming to tighten against his effort, cutting into his skin, uncomfortable.
“They don’t come off – that’s how they track you.” John turned his head to find Adam crouched on the top of the nearest dune, “My friend ended up ripping his foot off trying to get rid of his bells, he bled to death. I think they’re actually part of us.” The boy looked out to sea as he spoke; he seemed less agitated that usual, as if he had finally accepted the burden of his existence. “If you want to go places without the Judiciary knowing, you have to stop your bells ringing.” He said turning his face toward John with an expression that said ‘it’s bloody obvious.’
“How do you do that?”
“She remembers from before - she told me”
“Who? The new woman?” John was beginning to keep up with Adam’s erratic attention span.
“Says she remembers pain” Adam wiped his nose on his tee shirt revealing the knife in its scabbard on his belt – John noticed that it was not one of the kitchen knives.
“How do you stop your bells from ringing?”
The boy smiled crookedly
“Took me ages to figure it out – are you gonna go see the Blueman?”
“I tried already,” said John, “the dogs stopped me.”
“Jesus,” the boy looked around frantically, “Don’t call them dogs, they get really pissed off, beat the shit outta you.”
“But they’ve got dogs…” John grinned at the Adam’s discomfort.
“Didn’t always,” the boy whispered, “They were just normal when they got here, identical twin brothers – mad for it. For their loyalty Grissom allowed them use to the Blueman once for their own wishes, so they changed themselves, they believe they’re some sort of Egyptian gods.”
“That’s funny isn’t it,” John continued to play with the boy’s fears, “gods, dogs, I think…”
Adam’s eyes widened and he scrambled back away from John, disappearing over the dune in a scattering of sand. John felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
“Funny eh? You think all of this is a joke? I’ll give you funny ya old cunt.”
Pain erupted in John’s side; he rolled down the remainder of the dune in an attempt to escape. A polished black boot pushed down on his chest with enough force to pin his back firmly to the sand. One of them - he couldn’t tell which - stood over him, eyes flashing, a thin bladed knife, as bright as the moon, in his hand.
“Slow learner aren’t you Jerry? Finding it hard to understand the teachers? You should think of this as a remedial class then.” With a quick thrust of a black-sleeved arm the vision in John’s right eye flashed red and blue followed by white light, excruciating pain, and nothingness.
The lawn was a virulent green; deep grey clouds hung low over the garden obscuring the tops of the fir trees. Three monkeys sat on the wrought iron bench while a chameleon inched its way along the overhanging branch, bulbous eyes sprocketing around independently looking for both prey and predator. Somewhere behind him John could hear the sound of construction; steel on steel, heavy machinery, a welder’s arc flashed on the underside of the clouds. The first monkey removed his hands from his eyes and grinned widely showing large square white teeth.

“Welcome back into the food chain old man” from the look on Dr Morose’s face John could tell that whatever he was waking up to, it was not going to be good news. The pain had become familiar while he had been out, on the edge of unbearable.
“Drink this” Morose tilted his head forward in order for John to take in the warm liquid. The edges of his mind faded down dragging the rest of him back into the dark where the second monkey uncovered its ears. John could hear Martha calling from the house He looked back to the yellow lights in the windows clear and deep as amber gems embedded in the house’s white walls darkened to blue in the gloom.
“I want to know where I am,” he said to the middle monkey.
“Where you are,” the third monkey dropped its hands from its mouth to fiddle with its genitals, scratching idly, “Where you is. You are what you is. Where you are is what you is. It’s all words. The world is created by words.”

“Martha” John awoke with the word in his throat, thick as helium. It was dark; a torch fluttered in the sea breeze, the air was damp with salt. The pain sat like a weight in his head, a weight equal to a lost eye, a weight beyond the pain. As he sat up in the flickering light, disturbed by his halved view, his spine uncomfortable with the vertical weight of his body, he caught a whiff of himself; it was not pleasant, he needed a bath. He shuffled across the clearing where the fire had died down to glowing chunks of red around which a scattering of villagers slept.
He opened the valve under the water tank and stood under the shower of sun-warmed water, washing the smell of his bodily functions from his skin. He did his best not to get water into whatever was left of his eye, not knowing yet how to treat its absence. Martha!