THE MAGNETIC FLEECE

A SURREALIST NOVELLA

 

Part One

THE MOONLIT EGGS OF THE PRINCESS

 

The little girl who held in her hands some seductive crystal object that resembled, when caressed, nothing less than a brilliantly colored butterfly and a tiny flame, had left the room leaving behind only a slight reddish glow that scurried off into a corner somewhere near the couch.  But she will be dealt with later, that precious little salamander.  She will learn what fire and night have in common, what magnetic obsessions deserve to have nails driven into them.  Naked to the moon, she doesn’t remind the good doctor of that statue he always fondles in the morning just before waking.  But for the moment, he resisted all temptation to look for the reddish glow that hissed and snarled beneath the couch, resisted all thoughts of capturing and attempting to domesticate it.  He had other pets much more vicious and more tantalizing than that.  Besides, he was of the opinion that if a species of the animal kingdom, or any other, for that matter, did not attach itself to him like a fine golden dust, it was free to do as it pleased.

Didn’t he once undergo death by fire for the owl that lodged itself in his back?  He had no idea what enchantments would open to him should the swollen reddish glow attack him with its kisses, and he didn’t dwell on the subject.  He was preoccupied with something altogether different… like the most skilled of hunters, in whom the boundaries of prey and predator have been deftly erased, and anything within reach might, without a moments notice, become either a weapon or a clue, he did not concern himself with the hunt at all.  Desire did not keep him rooted to the spot, but instilled in him a kind of hallucinatory sleep that took nothing for granted, left nothing out of place or twitching but his shadow…

He would not seek his pleasure among the animals tonight, nor would he persist in pulling the darkness of the night through his recently unearth maze of crystal-clear fallopian tubes.  No, these divinatory pastimes could wait; on the other hand, they could go on without him.  Erotic solutions to imaginary events have always proved to be the most effective, especially in terms of reality.  Desire leaves its eggs everywhere.  This much was certain, that when a needle is inserted into a doll, sleep becomes the most fertile of guarded places.

At this hour, the overwhelming passion that swept through him, announced several moments ago by the arrival of the amniotic coach, caused his eyes to dilate rapidly like one thrust suddenly into darkness.  But he was neither in darkness, nor unable to see.  Certainly his body shivered, and he felt delirious with flight; his eyes watered profusely and he drooled; he shed one hideous or bewildering mask after another, letting them fall unhindered to the floor… yet, he was neither afraid nor suspicious.  He neither wept nor quivered with joy.  He was, rather, beside himself with the greatest anticipation.  With the perfect movement and steps of an archer, he scaled the stairway to his laboratory, where the little girls’ brightly shimmering reddish glow followed him with all the nurturing warmth of freshly squeezed breast milk, the kind that lactates only after midnight. He stepped out of reach for a moment, as he watched this bright glow leading its almost transparent llama around the room…

“Salem, Salem, adored weapon!” he shouted, and vanished into a shadow at the end of the hall.

On the large reflecting mirror of the telescope, the intolerable glow settled to take its nap.  If one looked closely at it, one could see that in sleep it was actually a blood clot the size of a teacup, in which could be seen a half-dozen tiny stars swimming around excitedly like guppies.  But such things, he knew, were good for the weather.  They are easily worth their weight in gold.

It has been said that the sparkling guppies eventually made their way up through the telescope and formed a constellation called “The Kiss.”  Rumors flew like cats fur.  It has even been suggested that the llama, tired of waiting, lapped up that sleeping red glow and became a beautiful woman, known for her powers of seduction and mayhem.  Yet, throughout the great mansion, and for several miles around it, a fearful rending sound, followed by an incredible storm of feathers, had startled everyone.  Anticipation of something beyond the shadow of a doubt, settled in the air like transparent oranges, warm and unbelievably talkative.  When the uproar and the horrible moans had been burnt away, only a tender, but immense sigh could be heard making its way through the keyhole… Sunlight came in through the windows like honey, sticking to the furniture and gathering in pools on the floor.

The witnesses stormed out of the laboratory in disgust.  They had seen everything, so they said, including, of all things, the butterfly of a singing fetus dancing to the unmistakable tunes of some old snake charmer who kept winking at them.  So they said.  Aroused and caught up in the most peculiar pleasures, they slid out through the doorway like so many unwelcome ghosts, and slithered down the stairs.  More in fear than with shame, they had all elected to kill themselves at the earliest opportunity, and in the most ingenious ways.

In the foyer they had forgotten who they were, and beguiled by lavish thoughts of escape, they huddled close together like jellyfish. The little girl playing with the bright green moth of her tongue did not lead them out of the mansion. She was spinning a wondrous web  from between her legs and did not see them through the maze of syrupy threads: her humming was like a veil.  She only warned them to pay close attention “this very evening,” to some curious incident that may take place en route, in front of that famous tower feared and hated by so many.  But they had left quickly like a swarm of bees heavily laden with sparks and mist, leaving nothing behind that ticked, bubbled or whined... they cross-pollinated nothing, nor unwrapped any mummies.

Yet, the amniotic coach was nowhere to be seen.  They were said to have left by that ambiguous vehicle, pulled by its twelve equestrian dwarves…  It is even mentioned in some splendid book of rare chemicals, that they were in fact, lured into it, all of them, and departed as if in a dream.  The only sign of their departure, of their having even been there, was the solution of a nightmare in a vial that the good doctor swirled when he finally crawled out of his library.

But that was in the early morning hours, when Ampule, the African King, had come in through the iron doors of the Great Hall in search of his bride Limpide.  The witnesses had been everywhere, like cobwebs, and prevented the King from consulting the eminent doctor.  Not wanting to injure anyone in the crowd, the doctor had earlier disappeared in the inner chambers of his mansion, and coincidently, since the right moment had come, into the arms of the enchanted milk-bearer.

“It is feeding time, as it always is at this hour, during which the doctor is quite blind.  To find him now would not only be useless, but shocking as well…”  so the little girl pronounced, with that familiar sparkle in her eyes.  She had seen Ampule gesturing with his divining-rod.  What a wonderful King, she thought, dousing with that consummate devotion so necessary for unearthing even the heart-rending spoor of his ghostly bride.

“Will I ever reach the heights of such madness? She asked him.

“When the night structures tremble like young moths the color of burning chemicals,” came his sweet reply.

“Pistols will be fired then?  She inquired further.

“You must first suck out the eyes of the great owl that comes to you in your sleep, and then, wrapped up in his feathers, you will follow a glittering shadow through some half deserted street.  Epilepsy will become a beautiful game.  You will say: I love you, three times, and then kill the shadow that leads you.”

Such candor, and such infinite sadness, she thought… such a noble King.  She made apologies for the doctors’ absence, and then, with all the grace of a swimmer lost at see, she gave him a blond haired chrysalis which she pulled with some difficulty, and a great amount of pain, from beneath her blouse...

“No finer crystal ball exists.  Consulted in darkness, it will answer you with caresses and heavy breathing,” she said, while offering it to him.

He thanked her solemnly and kissed her tiny mouth, drawing blood.  She fondled his immaculate divining rod, which responded by quivering and darting to and fro like some enchanted bird of paradise, jerking its wings, and spinning its crystal gears.  She could barely hold onto this flesh covered, dawn impregnated wishbone as it frothed and crackled with sparks like a dancing squid.

“Balboa!” she shouted, clapping her hands together with the greatest joy, jumping up and down...

Ampule was thus drawn fairly quickly down the shimmering hallway, carried with magnetic certainty toward a source of liquid that would rise to meet him with all its pleasure…

The little girl licked the blood from her lips.  She swooned and climbed up the wall like a rainbow madly reassembled inside a ravens’ evening gown.  Soon the demented doctor would throw her a fresh carcass to keep her quiet.  She would cover her body with the juices of that creature, and prepare for the coming of dawn with its great swarming tongue.

 

Part Two

THE FLOWER OF THE WEDDING NIGHT

 

In the biological silence of his laboratory, like an immense beehive, the doctor (a short time after he had been seen running out of the forest, his cape on fire…) was playing contentedly with his dolls. He dressed them in the costumes most appropriate to the animals they resembled, each in their own way, like great almost translucent beings caught up in the throes of mostly erotic ceremonies. He veiled them in dimensions more frightening than the ones he had seen in dreams, and then groomed them with needles of pure gold, smearing their bodies with smoldering liquids of hypnogogic lunacy, so that in the end they looked almost human, were in fact human, almost astrological in appearance, as they danced throughout the vast rooms of the mansion, or gathered together at the dining table, discussing the most unnatural topics, and only pretending to eat… the specific differences lie in their propensity for suddenly fading altogether, when perhaps, in the middle of a sentence, or when dining, a spoon, a knife, or a goblet, finding itself without the usual hand to hold it, would fall to the table with a crash, or a start.

They were the women of the northern lights, the sacrificial victims, moon-mad offerings to the cauldron, smoldering flowers of the mummy… They were the sadomasochistic vessels of sleep, intoxicated maidens of the spyglass, and ladies of the unendurable pleasures… the most valuable treasures without peer or precedent. They were the passive vampires that assisted the doctor in his experiments.

“Stir the flames till the moment of crystallization, then take four deep breaths,” one was heard to have said.

“No, no, more aggression, more frenzy,” came the shrieks of another.

“She has been wandering the streets for hours, her veil stinks of the moon…”

“Black as the womb, sweet doctor, kill it with emeralds…” came the whisper, and the air would whirl and sparkle above the operating table.

Then knives would howl and flash, and dreams begin to bleed and walk upright. Diaphanous limbs, and phantom smiles fluttered about the room in the embrace of sinister shadows more dangerous and more lovely at this hour than a belly full of crystal.

“Insert the key before it melts…” could be heard above the din and the droning. While kisses would slide across the open sores of starlight, and the glass harmonium of the scavenger heart, played by the bird of splendor with its icy fingers, begins to breath with all the ardor of a young bride still burning with orchids. Sultry eyes blinked like eels under silken sheets.

“The egg is cracked and the honey is sucked out through the spine…”

“Quickly now, the magnet is waking…”

Ptolemy was not a doctor at all, though certainly he seemed to accomplish great things with marvelous liquids, and was known to be extremely interested in medicine and its effects when not used properly. But his laboratory was for the birds. He could often be seen hovering over his research like a lover, and amidst the almost obscene profusion of wings, he would probe and conjure with a lovers’ passion. Yet he never entered that room unless he was tricked into doing so. He never did anything unless there was no alternative.

There were no values outside the imperative, and nothing short of an obsession could rouse the doctor from a dream. Indeed, he is always extremely hard to find. His experiments are seldom confined to his laboratory, and can take place anywhere, even if they should occur suddenly and without warning, as they often do, in the middle of one of those very extraordinary ‘evening strolls’ which he is so fond of, and which, like a sexual embrace so conducive to arson and other such revelations he cannot help but involve himself in. Visitors seldom find him at home, and thus, consultation hardly ever takes place, unless they are willing to hunt for him. His recent discoveries in transparency are enough to ensure an effectively tenuous existence.

But if Ptolemy was not a doctor, what was he? A scientist, an inventor, a fraud?

“I have reached a most advanced state of excitation, and my chemicals obey no particular law. Because I am in love, metamorphosis sets in like a form of hysteria, grandiose and death-defying.”

What is the nature of his research?

“Only if, like some poisonous night-blooming flower that moves about with all the paroxysm of a ‘love at first sight,’ could I be expected to arrive at any given point in time, for any reason.”

How long has he been involved in these experiments?

“The trauma may last for years, and during its most contagious phases, sleep moves outside the body, and not unlike a twin, crystallizes in the air like a shimmering semi-precious moth, part human, part fire.”

Is there any danger involved?

“Weapons are discovered everywhere, especially during the masquerades of the full moon, and are courted as pets. Indeed, such pets are invaluable to the games of transparency, and once cultivated as ‘familiars,’ prove to be more beneficial then the newest discoveries in medicine.”

But just how far does he intend to carry out these experiments, and to what end?

“A beautiful woman absolutely black, swims out of her cocoon and sparkles in the air like a lunar eclipse on the owl-table. The surgical instruments are clashing and glittering as they work on their own like dancing snakes, and the bridal veil of ether begins to hum in the midst of an hour neither here nor there. Doors are barking like great hounds on the scent, but time has not yet arrived, and I fear for its safety… rather, I rejoice in its slaughter.”

The words hung in the air like a differing species of hummingbird, flittering about a drop of blood-green mint in which, if once looked closely enough, one could see oneself walking about in a tiny forest, with a tiny sword, cutting down tiny hanged men. But Ptolemy was nowhere to be seen. He never stayed in one place long enough to lose his shadow… even in a dream he always kept one eye on that celebrated ‘window,’ lest the possibility arise that one day he would have to leap through it. He was a master of great escapes, and when he went out bombing and looting, no clue save his absence was left at the scene. Whatever mystery came pandering with threats of revenge, on becoming obvious and crystal clear, held no terror to him who, with the flick of an eye, left nothing behind but the sound of his voice pawing ravenously at the door.

Nothing haunted remained in the dark without first knowing the torture of his teeth and then the sabotage wrecked on it by his sex. Nothing stood in his way of absolute and unquestionable freedom, and all possible means were employed. This very evening, not even death would keep him from his rendezvous with Salem, who waited for him like a spider in her web.

But Salem was dead. She died in a whirlpool of her own milk, while little boys came to drink and swim around in the still-warm lunacy of that wonderfully immaculate ‘bath’ nestled high in the Andes Mountains, in that almost inaccessible Valley of the Blood-Moth. Although poor and caught up in the biological follies of the Mirror Plague, the people of the valley came out of respect to view this immensely popular, but rare celebration. According to the London Times, which covered the event: “Oysters were eaten out of the vaginas of the sacred virgins by the young people of the village, and delirium had set in like a bright fire-yeilding dew that shimmered over the fleeting landscape with all the romance of whispers and soft moans…”

“The magnetic fields were clearly visible and whipped up into a frenzy, as the albino shaman made love to the llama-woman over the dead body…”

"The Milk-Death, according to Professor A. Jacquimodus, in his amazing book: The Golden Pipette of the Llama, Prague 1875, occurs only once every 3000 years, and signifies the appearance of a totally new musical instrument, which is presented on the morning immediately following the demise of the victim..."

But Ptolemy was not impressed. He was moved, certainly, but death meant nothing to him. A little after midnight he had been seen dining with Salem at the Inn of the Black Glove; while again, a close acquaintance had seen them together at the infamous Café du Lépidoptére several nights later. The rumors were misleading, of course, but not lacking in substance. The doctor, on hearing of Salems’ return left the mansion in a highly exaggerated state. Though visibly shaken, he had instructed the dolls to “prepare for the feast...”

“I will return when the diabolical machine is flooded with honey,” he shouted, under the shadow of immense wings.

“And does terror fill the heart of man and beast alike?” asked one of the dolls, the one who most resembled, when aroused, a column of sunlight on water.

“It will be the dream that rapes the fleece, and fires up the grinding of the crystal,” he replied.

“Will the eggs burn down the great door?”

But the doctor did not wait for his own answer. He saw the eggs spinning out every color of silken thread from the traps of their half-opened eyes. He loaded his pistols and then disappeared down an alley under the sign of a slaughtered ram.

 

Part Three

 

To be continued...

 

RETURN