“Lamentations 2: The Lamentations Strike Back”
*
The Locusts are not the only creatures beyond god’s purview. Leviathan swam in the ‘long night’ before much of anything did much of anything. She is the oldest thing known by me or mine, and we were here when the ink was still wet.
Whale? Sure (except not at all). Your kind depicted it as what you knew: anger from the depths. In actuality, it’s something gargantuan in the firmament–more the thing-itself than of it. God’s steed. Pet, waiting for table scraps and consuming the many first drafts of creation.
Now, at the moment(s) of my writing this, she is retired. The biggest, laziest old Carp in a roof garden at the top of a brutalist concrete building, miles tall.
*
FRAME: EOT(End of Time)
SOURCE: THE PERFECTLY ACCURATE BUT INDECIPHERABLE PROPHECIES OF THE WITCH A(79)
*
A(79), tired from sparring (verbally and physically) with Maddie, retires. The luminous witch-woman, sleeps. She rests (in her restless way).
Born-mortals do desire-if-not-require sleep. Even outside of linear time, they sleep. Some have slept through ages, epochs, whole bang-to-crunch cycles. A span not measured remains undifferentiated.
She dreams:
She is falling, tumbling through vacuous black velvet nothing toward a forever far point of light. The point of light a visual metronome. Each beat, each flailing rotation, she sees a single frame, a still life vision of what-might or was or can’t be suspended before her eyes:
A child stands defiant-amidst-the-rubble. Before her, a razor-backed mountain, bleeding ink.
The Custodians stand collared and cowed; The last iron collar is broken.
A(84)’s face skeletal, nose rotted away. He is laughing as he flees.
The concrete of the courtyard beneath the balcony of her mortal dwelling, 10 floors down. Rushing up to greet her. She blinks. It’s a vast ocean of oil, ink, ichor racing up to meet her.
*
Mark Schmidt is gone. The man and his frailties burnt away. What remains: “Ratkiller.”
Woland reaches up to clap the man-mountain’s shoulders. “My number one. My top” Sharp inhale. “Man.”
Golf claps from middle managers, the smell of brimstone and lavender. Cinnamon and vanilla and musk just barely covering rotting food and flesh. Angels and demons look identical when they choose to. They act in common cause when it suits them (or in the absence of proper direction). The hatred they hold for each other is real, but the fear of the professor and the sway of his court holds the new arrangement together. In the absence of god, might or mighty-manipulation makes right. The “great pruning” continues.
“Right there” a single blinking point highlighted on the map, the dizzying hovering holographic representation of the garden, the pomegranate, the multiverse. Creation.
They look to the rotten limbs, the twisted branches where the Locusts now live. The map zooms to one such world because Woland wills it to. Ever closer and through black clouds, past fires. The shimmering hologram dives to Earth (8), as a bird in flight. Past mobs of hive-mind hunters and ichor spewing things prowling. Past devastation and chaos and chasms torn in the Earth to a broken road and a solitary child, ducking from cover to cover, headed north. “Go to her. She’s headed the wrong way. Guide her to destiny.”
The Centurion Ratkiller, the flat-nosed mountain of man named Schmidt in mortal life, falls through to Earth(8) do his master’s bidding.
*
FRAME: Earth (13 DISPUTED NUMBERING),
SUBFRAME: Pittsburgh, PA (Bus Station)
DATE: 1/1/2020
*
There’s a wet flop and a camera man on the crime scene team snaps a photo of a gross-ass glob of flesh that she swore wasn’t there a moment ago.
The nose thinks she’s pretty but says nothing because it’s a nose, and it has to bide its time. “Why am I?” it thinks (with that stupidly endearing ‘desire to know itself’ held by all sentient and semi-sentient things). And when the big lights are off, and the crime scene tape crinkling and the HVAC system (what’s left of it) whispering are all it hears. The nose moves.
The thing metastasizes, dough-rises, Kroonenbergs itself into a man or the imitation of it: A(84) full beaked and butt ass naked in the Pittsburgh bus station. He opens the door, finds the three mice, asks “What am I? Why am I?” Pop. Quiet lightning. The nose is off to fulfill its destiny, due its duty, to save its face.
*
FRAME: Earth(8)
DATE: Locust Re-emergence +390 days.
*
It is a cold-wet spring. The rain is rain again. The ink oil on the ground has hardened. Half of everything green has died and warped fungal fruit climbs and bulges from the hulks of trees and in patches of sick grass and scrub growth.
Rotten egg smells wherever the monsters are. Everywhere it smells like rotten eggs. Kid rests where the smell is not so bad.
When the things catch her she concentrates, hard, until they collapse and shriek and burst into flame.
*
MISSOULA 10 MILES on a weary sign.
Kid is huddled back seat of a Ford in a traffic snarl picked clean long ago. It’s bad shelter, but she’s out of water. Was too tired to find proper bedding. Can barely lift her head when she hears them calling to one another, tapping on glass, rummaging through abandoned cars. Chasing rats through the wreckage. Barking and clicking at one another.
There’s a chance they’ll miss her. Slim but real. She knows from biding her time in quick dashes, car to car to what remains of whatever building. Around. Behind. Away. Wait for them to pass, advance. Watch for rain. Snatch whatever food remains. Repeat. But bad luck and no rain for a week. A twice-or-thrice-already-scavenged stretch of road. And she’s so tired when they reach her car that she’ll let them take her.
Pop. Quiet lightning. The child doesn’t see the prismatic splash. She hears the roar, deeper than the monsters. From the depths of a man’s stomach. She hears the monsters crunch as he breaks them on nearby cars before she loses consciousness.
*
A mountain-of-man pale, flat-nosed approaches the outskirts of what was Missoula Montana. He’s cradling and underweight child in one massive arm. Holding an IV bag high above his head in his right hand. Ratkiller is flanked by two gaunt too-skinny human-ish things.
They’ll shelter here to let the child retrieve her strength. Then Missoula to Bozeman. From there, south out onto the ash and burnt-to-glass plain that surrounds the Locust for miles in all directions.
*
In the Parson’s chambers 3 woman sit practicing augury: A(79), Maddie, the Parson.
The Parson’s sermon did not calm the hot blooded in the congregation. They want their people back and every collar on every Custodian broken, now. Amen. There is a convoy above the church below the dead tree on the scorched plain at the end of time; there is a convoy, half the church, driving to war.
The Witch’s dream did not heal her and does confound her.
Maddie’s snakes consider this information for a long time until the child sprouts two more arms and grows a few inches. In a deeper voice: “these things are inevitable. Some of our people will leave; we will see them again. The child will face the Locust, but she will not be alone.”
The not-a-child grabs her ever-full coffee mug, lights a joint, and leaves the two women in stunned silence.
*
FRAME: EOT (Great Wastes)
*
A Locust spawn on the scorched plain at the end of time does not look like much. A dung beetle’s ball rolling under it’s own shit-power toward nowhere from nowhere. An oil covered jelly donut perhaps. But it’s malevolence remains intact, even when it’s appearance is diminished.
The former Custodians fan out and encircle the beast. It hisses, farts, expands to many times its size. Many mouths open and a shriek that mortals cannot bear emerges from the profane thing. It takes roughly the shape of a human, some poor frail bastard it consumed.
The one self-named “I” charges, holds a crude fashioned scrap-metal sword high. Cleaves the locust in two.
Hissing death for the beast. Hot Ichor coats the sword, sprays the being, pock-marks the face-paint, sprays its torso.
“I” falls, poisoned, writhing in pain next to the Locust it killed. It’s there that Flannel Man finds them.
*
FRAME: EOT (Headquarters)
*
A(84) (his nose) stomps down the corridors of Headquarters, pancake ass and big bird nose resplendent. Business swinging as he charges down the hallways.
When he is challenged by a G-man? The broom is swift. When he finds a collared custodian he frees them.
The place is all winding rat-maze beige walls and meeting room and cubical sub-divisions and Escher-stairs to more cubicle forests and beige walls. When he finally finds the office block where Woland and his court (the Chairbeings of his Board) are having the post-meeting celebratory orgy, the G-men stop attacking on site (assuming he’s there for the depravity).
*
Woland snorts a line of brimstone of a former-Angel’s ass and dives into the flesh pile. The Professor of Macroeconomics and Black magic does not even notice the crazy naked man rifling through the pockets, stealing his watch, other precious trinkets, and most importantly: a door to a pocket dimension off to the side of Pittsburgh, PA on a possibly-doomed iteration of the Earth.
Pop. Quiet Lightning. The naked man vanishes. Amen.
Woland, quite intent on some deliciously and unspeakably profane act, looks back, to see nothing but his exquisitely tailored suit coat (carefully draped over the back of his office chair throne).
*
Long miles up the drab, ugly, brutalist block that is Headquarters (heaven’s federal building), in the garden on the roof there is a pond. Lily pads and frogs and fish populate it. A pomegranate plant, grown from a seed of the first tree stands next to it, leaning low over the water. One fruit heavier than the rest, ripe with all the knowledge of the parent tree (and more) hangs lust-low over the water, waiting and wanting to fall.
Below, Leviathan restlessly lazy in her retirement sulks in the pond.
Oh, she could consume every creature in it in a bite, but why bother? She is consumed herself: “What am I? Why am I?” So she sits at the bottom of the shallow pond, the biggest Carp you’ve ever seen, her scales colored as the night sky. The whole heavens, stars and lit clouds of glass dancing over her skin, lighting the pond from it’s bottom. The light dances ironically off the fruit that would satisfy the great Carp’s want-to-know, the fruit that dangles so low over the water, waiting for but the barest nudge to set it falling.
*
FRAME: Earth (8)
DATE: Locust Re-emergence +392 days
*
Ratkiller drives the SUV over the remains of deserted roads. No one ran toward the beast when it emerged, the black mountain tumor on the Earth. An IV dangles in the back, hydrating and sedating Kid. A demon tends to her. The other demon rides shotgun while a voice only Ratkiller can hear urges him on toward the Locust.
*
FRAME: Pocket Dimension Beneath Ypsilanti, MI
DATE: NULL
*
A naked man with big nose and a wild beard introduces itself to an enormous and perpetually-displeased black cat. “I’m the sixth man off the bench. What’s a sixth man? What’s a man? What am I? Why am I?” He reaches to pet the cat. He’s met with a low growl.
*
FRAME: Earth (8); Yellowstone
Date: Locust Re-emergence +393 days
*
The profaned fed-truck’s halogen headlamps illuminate the beast, the tumor, the chitinous thing half-out and looming over the earth. At their approach a protrusion, a beaked maw emerges from its side, slithering tentacles emerge to sniff at the air. The Locust, the whole mountain of the thing shudders and writhes.
Ratkiller cradles the child in one arm again, holds the IV bag high in his right hand. The child, the ritual sacrifice, remains drugged to a stupor. She is ready to “ascend.”
As Ratkiller walks, the child groans in the dream, her matted hair crackles and stands on end as sparks leap mat-to-mat.
The locust shrieks, and the three brace at the sound. Spines rise from its writhing hill-back. The beast shakes the Earth. It’s maw opens, revealing a crude jaw.
The pop of quiet lightning. There, on the locust-burnt plain at Yellowstone, between the beast and the sacrifice stands a figure in the dress of an early modern plague doctor. Left hand holds a curved blade low. Right hand grips a cane. On it’s chest, secured somehow to its robes, a time piece.
The demons flanking Ratkiller hiss, gaunt like G-men, they stretch and distort and find all-fours. They show fang and claw. At a gesture from the big man, they charge.
The Plague Doctor with the big beak moves the speed impossible, brings the cane across his body bashing the first demon’s head. The blade comes up to end the second. The demons dissolve to ash, and the doc with the beak leans heavy on its cane.
Ratkiller summons two more demons, leaves them to tend to kid. Ratkiller summons two more demons, then two more again and two more again-again. He pulls a bent and jagged knife from a shoulder holster.
The beast, waking, shudders and shrieks. The Earth shakes. Dozens of demons and an undead monster-of-a-man surround the Plague Doctor on the burnt plain that was Yellowstone.
*
FRAME: EOT(End of Time); The Great Waste
SOURCE: Second Book of Lamentations
*
The congregation marched to war, to war. Well, half the congregation marched to war. They didn’t know what the war was for (or most were unsure). But off to war they marched and marched, though where or where the fuck they were, none were so sure.
But off to war we march for sure, yes of to war we march. Lost in the wastes we are, we’re willing to admit it now. We’re off to war, or would be if we knew where we were. We’ve seen that ash dune, that same ash dune at least 20 times before. The “why” was clear when we left last year, but the ‘where’ we’re not so sure.
*
FRAME: EOT (End of Time); Earth(8)
*
Body armor, bathrobe, stunner shades balanced on her big nose. Sword in scabbard riding shotgun. Joint in her mouth. Playing something nasty and nonsensical on the radio to keep her pulse up and appropriately pissed off for what’s coming. She saw what was to come, crystal clear and illegible in all it’s glory.
This happens twice: a 2000 something Ford Sedan flies into a shimmering pool on the scorched plain; a Ford sedan flop-creaks out onto the remains of a road in what used to be Wyoming.
Low heavy clouds hang in the tomb-black night flicker lit at random intervals from below. The witch’s headlights and the lightning on the horizon are the only illumination for miles. Every flash, for an instant she sees the silhouette of the Locust’s great hulk.
Every flash she sees ‘them’, on the horizon, crossing her path just outside headlight range, dashing through the rubble and over scorched terrain. Shadowy figures drawn by the commotion, summoned by the Locust.
*
The Plague Doctor flicks and flits, flicking lighting from blade and cane-tip. Trips or dodges the big man. Dispatches demons by the dozens.
“Too fast for you” They pant, breathing heavy beneath the mask. Leaning heavy on the cane in another lull in the fight.
“We’ve got all day.” Shrieks and bestial moans in the distance. “You don’t”
A tentacle, a tendril, an arm of the Locust leaps forward, catches the plague doctor by the ankle.
Ratkiller snaps his fingers and dashes at the plague doctor. Two demons appear from nowhere, who in turn summon two more.
*
Headlights. Engine roar of an old Ford. Crash of that same Ford t-boning a profaned Fed-truck, sending it clattering into a crowd of demons.
A(79) steps from the cockpit holding the sword sinister, still holding a hot cup of coffee. Behold, not a drop of coffee on the long-nosed Witch. The first demon to charge her gets scalded by coffee. She ducks, steps into the foe, sword-in-scabbard-to-gut like a bat. Throws the mug, hard, at the next foe. Sword out, slash, hiss. He turns to ash and dust. Step. Spin. Flick lightning from the curved blade. Lay waste to a crowd of demons around the child and scatter a dozen more too afraid to approach her.
The Witch rushes to Kid, rips the IV out, quick ripped-robe bandage. Throws Kid over her shoulder. Holds the blade in its scabbard, ready to end anything between she and the Ford.
Remaining demons cower and back down hissing, barking, and clawing at the air. She glances over their shoulder to see, in the poor light of night, what her visions showed her quite clearly (but backwards and sideways and upside down until the moment arrived).
This is what she saw: the glow of a time-piece-infernal fixed to the chest of the dueling Plague Doctor. Down on one knee, snagged by the Locust. A mountain of a man, charging, knife held low.
She turns, immediately and sprints to the Ford, demons afraid to follow.
*
A demon reaches the Plague Doctor first. Cane up, beast down. The tendril tugs at their leg, hard. Another demon. The Doctor’s blade is quick, flicks into it. Hot ash.
Ratkiller catches the Doctor by the throat, lifts, grips. He stabs, again, under the ribs and up. Drops the small man broken thing on the ground to let the Locust drag its meal in.
With their last bit of energy and great effort, the Plague Doctor reaches up to its chest, taps the time-piece-infernal. The glass cracks. A single clear note emanates from the thing, quiet at first and growing louder, resounding off nothing, amplified by space itself it seemed. A single clear note above all else.
A beam, blue and bright leaps from the watch on the corpse’s chest, even as the fool-Locust tries to consume it. The light pierces the night, the black clouds and ash hanging low over everything.
The Locust shrieks. A Witch throws a Ford into reverse and back into drive for a mad-dash to beat an unbeatable shockwave. Woland’s (stolen) watch explodes, unleashing a blue fire that will burn everything from the surface of Earth (8) for miles and miles-again in all directions.
*
The Witch, A(79) pushes the pedal past the floor, the Ford groans and reaches the speed impossible, becoming more-than-a-car, flying inches above the remains of a road in what used-to-be-Wyoming.
“Kid. It’s gonna be ok, kid.” She says weakly, begging for more speed, trying to fall-through but the lighting won’t come, the focus can’t come. Something’s blocking it. Visions dance in front of her eyes as probability collapses to an actual failure.
The shockwave licks at the flying Ford’s bumper, disintegrating as it goes. Time slows. She looks left and right sees shattered trees and rubble rise and levitate-disintegrate, the steering wheel before her. Embers rise blue and brilliant. The seat beneath burns away. She reaches for the child’s hand. Squeezes. “It’s gonna be ok, Kid.”
“It won’t.” Weakly, and slurred. “But that’s ok.” Kid squeezes her hand back. “Look at me.”
The shockwave overtakes the car. They are floating in blue fire, untouched. “Close your eyes.” The Witch does and hears a familiar voice, deeper than she remembers “Deep breath and” She falls through, untouched by the all consuming fire.
*
A(79), witch woman and luminous being opens her eyes to find herself in the temple under the Ghost Grove at the End of Time. In front of her, Maddie/Kid, a grown 20-something woman, coffee, robe, many arms arrayed behind her as a peacock’s feathers. The snakes nestled in her frizzy hair hissing, tongues flicking. A joint on her lip, smirk, coffee cup in hand.
“I’m so sorry.” A(79) see’s Kid’s features in the woman’s face.
Maddie grips her hand. “For what? It happened the way it had to happen. She” Scowls. “I died, in a way, either way, any number of permutations, iterations, whatever-ations you like. But the ‘how’ mattered greatly. If you hadn’t been there, with me, we wouldn’t be here.”
They sit, cross-legged on and around the altar with the Parson and some portion of the remaining congregation. The coffee and weed are strong (both Nic’s blend).
Ghostly fireflies dance in the chamber, the only light outside a single lantern on the alter and the glow of Maddie/Kid. Levitating cross legged, the ancient-beyond-ancient kid wiggles her fingers, pointer glows, the ghostly image of the story she tells dances above her.
A(79) re-tells her vision: falling-always-falling and the coin-toss collapsed-probables, all backwards and sideways. And the many-armed woman projects them ghostly in the air above them.
The congregants pray and bring them food and water and keep the lantern lit. The ghostly-lights dance about the holograms as the women talk and question and reassemble and interpret. Oh, they interpret (the Parson’s wife most skillfully among them), and plan for what’s to come.
*
END SYSIPHUS AND PROMETHEUS PT. 2.
More to come.