Archive for the ‘Jonathan Wood’ Category
The City Stirs
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
In its sleep, the city stirred. Beneath its streets, muscles rippled. Flagstones were cracked. Buildings trembled. Lives were endangered. “These are events outside the record of history,” the citizens told their crown-prince. “Something must be done.”
The prince’s advisors, the chymick Airtran, and the physick Elben, consulted. Never had the two seen eye to eye, but it was Elben that answered first.
“Our city wants,” he said. “It yearns. It struggles to approach its desires.”
“What does it desire?” the prince asked.
“That we must ascertain,” he replied.
Children were brought up to the city’s great ear. They stood upon the plateau of its pinna and sang into the pit there—sweet nothings to lull the city back to slumber.
The city stirred and a dozen lives were lost—spilled into the abyss.
Adventurous souls with little to lose clambered down the great crags of the city’s face. Barrels of liquor were roped down. The whole city seemed to sweat and groan at the heave of their descent. Finally the liquid was introduced to the lips of the city, and was heard to gurgle deep in the city’s bowels.
The city stirred and the citizens found they had no way to drown their sorrows.
A madwoman went south, to the city’s nethers, with lecherous claims for a solution. She never returned. Still the city stirred.
Then Airtran loosed his tongue, saying, “Too much time and too many lives have been lost. There is a simpler solution. If the city desires, then we simply remove the organ of desire.”
Elben spoke against such words, but the weight of the people was with Airtran. And so men dug. With picks, and spades, and blades they dug. Blood filled the hole but they pumped it away and dug on. The city twitched. Lives were crushed. They dug on. A thunder came from the pit. A crashing sound that deafened those who worked in the meaty depths of the hole. Still they dug,
Then at last they came to it. The great crashing, pulsating organ: the city’s heart. And Airtran, the chymick, descended and plied his trade, even against the horror of it all. And the heart blackened, and the heart slackened, and the heart died.
The city lay still.
The people cheered. Weeks passed. And slowly the scent of rot filled the air.
Promises
Monday, December 7th, 2009
I walk and the wind is in my hair. New York city in January. My blue hair against yellow cabs. It was blue when I was born. The doctors had never seen such a thing.
*
Some people believe that their wardrobe is a history. A jacket from that Wall Street job. A pair of shoes from college. That they can take it off—strip down, bare as that day they first stepped into the world.
*
I meet Julie outside Starbucks. She says she likes my hair. We order mochas. She loads hers with sugar. I let her think the salt I bring with me is the same. She says we are as compatible as the internet service said we would be. I try to smile.
*
People forget the stitching—the thread that hold more than just fabric to fabric. Each garment is sewn to their skin, becomes a layer of the shell. And over that outfit they place another. A mess of cloth and flesh, the constant piercing of self. Our history clings to us.
*
She comments on my hair again. She tells me it reminds her of the sea. I tell her how a lot of people have said that. She laughs. Her breath smells of fruit. Of places over the sea she has not been. She asks to touch my hair. I let her.
*
When I see someone so punctured, so tortured by the stitching of their lives, their limbs so tangled, I wonder what would it take to free them? What would it take to sever the stitching of the years?
*
Her hand grazes the surface at first. Strands tangle between her fingers. I smile and she grows bolder. I twist my head just a little, just for her. Her hand sinks in. And even I can smell the brine, can feel the breeze that blows through the place with the scent of fruit-laden shores. And deep goes her hand, up to the elbow, up to the shoulder, reaching in, reaching for something she cannot name. And what does she feel now? Not hair. Something more than currents. The slipping embrace of someone’s arms. And she sinks deeper. And, yes, everything in there is as it was promised. As she slips beneath the surface. eight tentacular arms reach up to her, and claim her like a lover. And they unseam her.