December/January 2004
I.
The Story So Far
He is beautiful and skinny and insane and he has written a screenplay
entitled Six Antichrists in Search of an Apocalypse. He lives
in his grandmother’s basement (Grammy passed away five years ago—since
then, the house has been sold three times and it’s funny, no one
can ever find the key to that little room behind the furnace) and please
don’t ask what he eats. The basement boy loves to dig tunnels.
He has been in everyone’s house, and wherever he goes, he peels
off bits of his nails and throws them in the shadows while muttering
something that includes the words, Wish I may, wish I might. The townspeople
are only vaguely aware of his existence: they do suspect, in some far-off
corner of their collective consciousness, that a semi-mythical ne’er-do-well
may or may not be on the loose.
His screenplay—his neo-cyber-absurdist screenplay—is actually
a series of obliquely interconnected vignettes: brief character studies,
with random notes on setting and imagery. There is no dialogue because
he so despises idle chatter. The first vignette is entitled:
Claws Of The Depopulator
Out of the ears of the Boy Electrocutioner spool sparkling crystalline
cables ending in wee copper jaws. A slender grey rope of frothy acid
twists down from his hungry lips. His fingers have been crushed one
by one with heated pliers.
On the tombworld of Snegkuthu, tatterfleshed unbeings wrap their deceptively
thin, impossibly strong twig-limbs about the heads of unwary travellers
and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. Cadavers rot like wet papier-maché,
with greasy clockwork in their bellies and neon-pink fetuses in their
brainpans. Something hums as it picks scabs off the walls of an open
grave. Pyramids of flaming glass send extradimensional vibrations through
leprous bodies, reducing the bones to grey-red sludge. Crickets crawl
on a smiling face. An eclipse bleeds. Ropes of baby hair. Books bound
in oily green cloth. A shiver-handed, smirking youth.
---
II. On With The Show
Our nameless basement boy searches the trash bin of a certain adult
movie house for old video boxes. He takes these boxes to his basement
hideaway, via his cunning tunnels, and cuts up the glossy depictions
of hot sloppy. He then glues these salacious bits to a collage, which
will someday be integrated into the credits of his cinematic opus.
Sometimes, our (anti)hero sneaks into the aforementioned movie house
and waits, curled up very small, under the bench in one of the little
booths where men go when they want to take in a short but undeniably
energetic motion picture. Soon the show starts: our skinny little friend
starts muttering under his breath—so soft!—and before long, the
ersatz film patron falls asleep. Later, the patron wakes, shuddering
with satisfaction. He then notices odd little scratches here and there,
and says to himself, Why am I itching like this?
The second vignette is entitled:
Bylaws Of The Copulator
A mad cosmetologist sculpted the petite Incubelladonna from a pillar
of living makeup: compressed rouge and lipstick and mascara, vitalized
by an alien virus. Incubelladonna is the queen of Tantillasia, a funworld
of hypersexual amusement parks with self-lubricating phalli and a variety
of eager orifices built into the seats of the rides.
Drag queens gossip incessantly in mad gibberish. In a penthouse steamroom,
living sexdolls of decayed purple latex keep pestering room service.
A fat man with plucked eyebrows shaves a baboon in black lace. Cracked
paint on cold eyelids. An eyestalked pleasureboy applies corpse-fat
between his buttocks. Black-red lipstick. Callused penis of an aging
porno star.
---
III. Meanwhile, In Another Part Of Town
Midnight, and an itchy lawyer opens his filing cabinet. He gasps as
a pair of pale, supple arms snake out and wrappity-wrap around his neck
while a low, cooing voice murmurs something about Making a deposit.
The next day in court, our attorney-on-a-journey pulls a big smelly
gun out of his briefcase and begins shooting.
After several rollicking hours of Movie-of-the-Week drama, including
shouts of You’ll never take me alive, the attorney is indeed taken
alive and thrust into a cell, and what do you know, there’s a
neat little something/somebody curled up under the bed.
You see, basement boy whisssssspers, I never wanted to be this way but
what could I do? Life wouldn’t let me sprout straight. I grew
into myself like an infected fingernail.
The next morning, the cops gawk at the mess in the cell: a few gobs
of white, LOTS of gobs of red. A potbellied officer hands his cruller
to a pink-cheeked rookie and says, I’m not all that hungry.
The third vignette is entitled:
Tropic Of The Oscillator
Dr. Xaxiphygra wears a pinstriped business suit and a barbed wire crown
(the suit comes off). His bulbous doe eyes see all. In his pants squirms
a coil of semi-cartilaginous flesh that could write a week’s worth
of haikus in the snow. But then, snow never falls on the businessworld
of ZugCo: a mad electroglobe of rampant electricity, of fax machines
and photocopying machines and modems, all interconnected by a network
of obscenely knotted, pulsing veins.
Reed-thin secretaries tear a robot baby apart. Videotapes ejaculate
ribbons of bar-coded goatflesh. A book with razor-edged metal pages
opens to cartoons of war atrocities. Syrup of electric fire. Test tubes
filled with liquefied flesh. Rubber gloves coated with burst lung. Digitally
controlled thumbscrews and a gentle voice that keeps repeating, I told
you so.
---
IV. Just As They Had Feared
Pecs-of-granite personal trainer tells the attorney’s widow, Feel
the burn, as she pumpity-pumps stainless steel barbells. Hot and sweaty
she is, and so lovely, and she really does miss her husband but you
know, she’s not getting any younger.
Moonlight pours like milk-gone-bad through the curtains as the not-so-merry
widow pushes her beefy beau away. Words pour like baby poop from her
lips, What-am-I-DOING-he’s-not-even-COLD-yet-for-Christ’s-sake,
and Mr. Power-Pecs shrugs: Your loss, baby.
1, 2, 3 a.m.: widow wakes up from a nightmare about ants crawling out
of her naughty zones. She soon discovers that ants aren’t really
crawling out of her (what a relief!): rather, little bits of torn-off
fingernails are crawling into her. She also discovers that
someone skinny and beautiful is sitting on the edge of the bed.
Who-are-you-What-are-you-DOING-here? she exhales, pupils as wide as
black moons. Basement boy strokes her jawline with his gentle thumb
and as her eyes roll back he says, You’d make a lovely bagwoman.
The fourth vignette is entitled:
Optics Of The Teratoma
Weedfellow wanders the streets of a dying city of porous bricks and
worm-riddled, soggy wood. Broken sidewalks are choked with creepers,
and haggard Weedfellow loves to eat the pretty blossoms. Thin magenta
petals thrust out from between his green, jagged teeth.
The city lost out against the jungle of Krekkuni: at night, catmen and
dogwomen and insectbabies plip-plop, plip-plop on suction-cup hands
along the looping, flexing cobalt-blue branches of enormous catalpa/mango
trees.
Leeches sip from infected nipples. Scorpion tails drip with lime-green
venom. Grasshoppers crawl through the intestinal yardage of a disemboweled
ape. Out of a pile of lopsided skulls grows a rose with ticks in its
petals. Rubble sweats slime in a blue-lit nightscape. Cobwebbed bronze
eyes. Pinheaded madman with a knitting needle.
---
V. Fun For The Whole Family
Skinny/beautiful/insane boy moves his mad-eyed bride into his basement
hideaway and looky here: her belly is swelling (and it’s only
been a week). Basement boy marches into the living room, right up to
the shocked Upstairsians gathered before the TV, and says, Hi, I’m
the semi-mythical ne’er-do-well and I really do exist and I’m
going to be a daddy! They head quickly toward the front door but our
hero says No no no no NO and corrals them (their mouths gape like those
of belching cows) toward the door of the basement.
The skinny daddy-to-be uses the family’s credit cards to buy all
sorts of goodies by phone. In a month’s time, his bride’s
belly is bigger than a Thanksgiving turkey, and baby’s room is
as high-tech as that room they call Mission Control in old science-fiction
movies.
Meanwhile, the Upstairsians have been trained and/or surgically altered
to deliver the new baby safely and effectively. This they do: and they
don’t even mind when the wee toothy young’un starts munching
on them (good help is out here: one only has to look). Afterward, the
widdle bitty cutey spins a cocoon and settles down for a nap.
The fifth vignette is entitled:
Power Of The Cyber-Coma
Observe Yvek, so lovely in his black leather raincoat—a pale, mannish
boy with soft black eyes, limp black hair, and a black clove cigarette
between his black lips. He nods and sighs as he chainsmokes his way
through eternity. When he speaks, his curving black nails lazily slice
the air.
Yvek is the only biped inhabitant of Phomom, a rainy sleepworld of mossy
hills and black crystal cities (this crystal is imbedded with diodes
and fine black wires). In the basements and subbasements of the buildings
dwell soft ultra-grubs: mansized creatures that drowse for centuries
in their oversized manila envelopes. The fine black wires lead into
their fat tummies.
Rusted boltheads stare out from the eyesockets of pigeon skulls. Chanting
spiders spin phlegmy webs in a metal tree. Laughter like the chattering
of beaked maggots. Elderly men with pendulous guts filled with beetles.
A dagger carved from a piss icicle. A wee voice moans, What have I done?
---
VI. The Shocking Conclusion
After the cocoon breaks open, basement daddy decides that his screenplay
probably will never become a movie. Baby is always hungry and growing
ever-so-BIG! Pretty soon, there won’t be anyone left to produce,
direct, star in or even care about neo-cyber-absurdist movies.
The sixth vignette is entitled:
Hour Of The Necrotrauma
Countess Mygnathalia drapes her flabby arms with pewter and copper and
lead bracelets. A long string of misshapen pearls is coiled seven times
around her throat. Her delicate uranium lashes are screwed into the
bloated flesh of her eyelids. From her tower window, she gazes down
her long, gracefully hooked nose upon the Republic of Lower Vyphaeus:
a royalworld ruled by the diseased members of an Evylle Arystocracy.
These jaded jackanapes mince through basalt hallways to observe the
twistings and drillings and delicate excruciations of incorrigible farm-workers,
in dungeons lined with the stained hides of—What else? Other incorrigible
farm-workers.
Gaptoothed, boneless chauffeurs tool about in black-scaled limousines.
Orange fluid drips from under a cretin’s nails. Mannequins with
live coals for eyes drink wine brewed from honey and sperm. Shrieking,
effeminate gargoyles piss tar on the villagers. Giggling lumps writhe
in an amber decanter. Harelipped priests. Simpering boys with knees
that bend backwards.
---
So ends the screenplay. Ambitious, yes—but is it art?
Basement boy and mad, sad wifey have been devoured, along with everyone
else. Except, of course, for the devourer.
Through the mindless void now floats a planet-sized lump of stone shaped
like a throne. And on this throne sits a fabulous Titan of holy yet
godless beauty. This creature says nothing, for there is no need for
idle chatter. No trace of emotion disturbs the perfection of its preposterous
face: cheeks formed from diseased makeup; a hooked nose; green teeth;
limp black hair; acid-flecked lips; and those all-seeing bulbous doe
eyes. How intently the Titan stares, like someone waiting for a show
to begin.
