💾 Archived View for cosmic.voyage › Leaps%20And%20Bounds › nudgenudge.txt captured on 2024-02-05 at 09:26:22.
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Wake up, turn over and spoon for a bit. Realise it isn't her, warm
cuddly alien, the little green man I made to slip between my legs
when my back was aching. Grey, really, big almond-shaped eyes.
Where is she then? Blur open my eyes, see a fluffy white tail
disappear behind the door. All white, wasn't it? She's feeling
playful then, frisky. I decide to turn Tether on right then...
Tethered. Tethird. The Third. +)
The old man is in his nightgown. Brushed cotton thing, like a long
Grandad's shirt. Stepping through the portal from the sleeper,
into living space. A glass of orange juice on the table, he looks
out through the awning onto the Bounds, some way away, turning in
space, flanked by two of the other living quarters: the sleeper
& the feeder. The sleepery and the eaterie, he mumbles, and here
I be: the room with a view. Someone has left the beaureau open.
He walks over to investigate, she's been looking back to 24,
left it open at another of those yesterdays: lost and never to be
lost. He reads:
I am catching birds & boxing them up
Pheasants & Pigeons, even an Owl or two~~~
they don't struggle, though occasionally
I have to tuck a wing back in
as I'm folding shut the lid.
I don't want to eat animals anymore.
I'm not sure I ever did. Do you ?
Do you really want~~~ _want_
to eat animals ? I know
it is standard behaviour but
I think there must be
something wrong
with you
Perhaps it is me ...
It goes on. Gives him some idea of what she might be up to, what
she is likely getting at, whether she knows it or not. It'll be
one of those days then - a clatter in the kitchen, some sort of
commotion in the eaterie - he steps through the portal. A jar
of seeds has fallen off a shelf and they've scattered all over
the floor. What seeds are they? Inedibles. Black, saddle-shaped,
covered in little hooks. He starts to worry now. His big bushy
eyebrows take on an aspect of storm cloud. A bit of the blue
drains out of his irises and they flash silver for a second.
Beyond the Bounds, out on the starless side, a great wash
drifts across the void and tints it sky-like. Another haunting.
Looking grave, he enters the Vesica and pops up in Utilities,
he grabs his staff from the umbrella stand by the bathroom door
but his hat isn't on the peg. He sees the lightshow coming from
the other side of the screen, is she showering? Love? He asks,
peeking around the screen. The cubicle is empty, a Birdonk
is feeding its little ones in the twisteerier, and through that
he can see the lawn, catches another glimpse of bunny tail
rounding the mound of the reed bed. He turns off the lights
and when he turns around sees his hat on the back of the toilet.
She's fucking with him. He can see himself sat there where he's
not. On his throne, feet on the silly black & white warp rug -
geeky bit of trompe l'oeil kitsch he got from Ehrlich - dropping
the kids off at Sagittarius A*
The desert is in his mouth, foul with the morning breath of yore
th, forests of giant funghi in his one remaining eye, howling &
hacking, purging into the purest of porcelin bowls, refreshing
himself from the tear in the corner of the eye of information
technology, twirling teacup ride of the real devil's circus -
sender and receiver merged in the solo starling's murmuring
down the gurning corridors between booms, between doof doof
doofs, beyond the transatomic tinnitus of klein's crazy hammock
turning the great bag of the old hag outside in again to kiss
the maidenhead of eternal bliss, the Source, the fountain -
He sits alone on the lover's bench, still beneath the brim
of the old one's hat, staff against his knee, wee red-breasted
Birdonk sat on the top of it. The blue is back in his eyes
and the fox is crossing the arena. He had to keep this little
strand back, has to keep his little thread spinning, until
she and her sisters are ready to end it. Or ready for it
to really begin, whatever it is & is not. But she is better off
leaving him to her foxiness, until the princess is strong enough
to lift the finger from his lips and give it her own kiss.
There she is! Beautiful hare stood proud in the tree's own light
on the farthest side of the arena - just out of Bounds! Stops
to preen for a moment, takes those ears like eagle's feathers
in her gold-skinned shadow woman's crown - then she's off again
leaping across the sky inside his mind, leaving strange phorms,
little knots in his mane by which he can remember.
Remember for her, whenever she thinks it is
she has to forget. Keep her safe,
Amulet.
(There are spiders in my fishing net!)