Matt W Cook

This is second-hand unless you’re reading it at http://www.theilliteratescribe.com

    You wouldn’t be able to notice unless someone pointed them out to you.  Everything seemed vague in the burnt-out penthouse.  Nothing was fully recognizable.  Most furniture had been reduced to piles of ash; the bodies, made of much softer stuff, just blended away amid the debris.  The layers of fat that Domos had been storing all her years had added to the fire consuming her.  You’d never think that the pile of ash in the southern corner was once her; that it once had life and even a small spark of God within it.
    The blazing fire had reduced Domos to what she really was, in and of herself.  Without the spark of life she disintegrated into the inanimate pile of ash and shadow.  Nothing good.  Nothing original.  Nothing fundamentally different from a burnt chair or table.
    Something stirred, though nothing moved.  A shadow.  A flicker.  You’d never notice if it hadn’t been pointed out to you.  A darkness lifted off the pile.  A shadow.  A tinge of black that seemed to seep out like tea seeping from a bag.  It grew and spread, faint and hardly noticeable.  Searching.  Reaching.  Almost yearning, but never truly desiring.
    It spread across the penthouse, brushing the charred remains of the lives it had consumed.  It grew as is spread, sucking shadow from every body it floated by, taking back what it had given to the daughters of Domos.  Taking back the taint, the curse.  Leaving empty shells behind.
    Under a large pile of ash it found what it was looking for; a body.
    Somewhat protected by the ashes of its sisters, the headless corpse lay burnt but intact on the floor.  The Shadow centered on it, gathered its tendrils and poured itself in.
    The arm moved.

    I woke on the third day of my time in the village.  The smoke from the top of Domos’ building still rose.  I supposed it always would.
    I got up quickly.  Shaking my limbs awake as I walked, I went toward the cistern in the middle of the park to wash and drink.  It was already hot.  The air glistened above the paved paths that connected the street to the cistern in the center of the park.  Villagers and children wandered around, mopping their brows with dirty rags.
    The cistern was crowded, like always.  But it was also massive, so the crowd didn’t matter so much.  Countless archways opened the way to the cistern, each doorless and tall.  Each painted a different color but fundamentally the same.  The arches were not separated, and you could easily access the cistern from any side once in any arch.  The matte, dark water rippled thickly.  It looked lower today than the day before.  I didn’t think that mattered, what with the many selfless souls arriving daily to pour their own water in.
    I walked through one of the arches, a red one, I think, and went down the stairs to get to the water.  It was crowded, but not overtly.  At the water a few people bathed.  Some washed clothes.  Others drank.  I crouched and cupped my hands.  The water was warm to the touch.  Translucent.  The first morning I had been bothered by its filth.  But since the entire village seemed to rely on it for their drinking and washing I assumed there was nothing fundamentally wrong with it.
    I drank.  It was salty and a little fetid.  I had been told that I’d get used to it.  At least it didn’t kill me.  I took another handful and drank again, while the man beside me stripped and lowered himself in for a bath.  I myself had not bathed in it.  And I didn’t plan on it until my own bodily stench was at least equal to the smell coming from the cistern.
    A commotion to my right caught my attention.  A girl.  She looked homeless, wearing nothing but a single canvas rag.  Young; maybe in her teens.  She was crouched beside the pool in the same way I was, her empty hands cupped to take some of the water.  An old woman was yelling at her.
    “Oi!  Back up!  Out of here!” the old woman had raised her hand to strike.
    “Thirsty…” the girl whispered, touching her throat, eyes down.
    “Not here!  Not here!  You quench your illegitimate gullet somewhere else!  Not through this arch!  Scat!”  She slapped the girl’s face to punctuate her words.
    The girl stood, not fully upright, clutched at her rag and ran up the stairs, getting out of the same arch she had come in.  She tried to enter through the next one, only to be stopped by a strong man who acted as a guard.  She was able to get through the next, but the thick crowds on that side prevented her from getting to the water.  And on she went, from arch to arch, trying to get to the murky water.
    “Who is that?”
    “Sume.”  A voice to my left said.  I turned and saw Digue, another homeless man who had befriended me.  “Sume the illegitimate.  Sume the unloved.”
    “She looks familiar,” I said, still watching her.
    “Yes, you’ve seen her before.  She lives in the building between Marasia and Domos, may she rest in peace.  Sister to both.”
    “Oh!  Yes, I have seen here.  I believe I saw her when she was born.”
    “Aye, that you did.”  Digue crouched down beside the water but did not touch it.  “A hard start and a hard life.”  He stared at her with me, run off from every arch.  Alone.  Thirsty.  After a time she gave up and left.

    Sume stumbled in the streets, the soles of her feet burning on the pavement.  Her throat ached.  How long had it been since she had a drink?  A bath?  A piece of cloth with which to cover herself?
    She came to the building she had inherited.  Falling apart, empty.  The front door were missing.  Dry grass grew in the lobby.  She came inside.  Fell on the floor.  Lay still.
    She couldn’t cry – no water for tears.  She could hardly move; even when she heard the heavy footsteps behind her.  Drawing near.  More neighbors come to abuse her?
    “Sume,” a deep voice said.  A familiar voice.  “Sume, it’s time.”
    She tried to move.  Tried to will herself to look up at whoever was speaking.  But she couldn’t.
    She felt a hand on her back.  Soft.  Firm.  “I take you now.”
    Strong arms lifted her.  She was pressed against a warm body.  The man smelled of musk and myrrh.  She tried to look up into his face, but couldn’t.
    The man walked toward the elevators, which had never worked, and pressed the button.  The middle doors opened immediately, but not to an elevator.  An open park was spread out, green and lush.  Trees and flowers and birds lived and rejoiced in the cool, bright garden.  A fountain stood in the center, crystal water bubbling and dancing in the sunlight.  The man walked in.
    He took Sume’s rag away and threw it to the wind.  She saw it no more.  Gently he laid her in the fountain, under the water.  The waters surrounded her, pulled at her.  The blood and dirt was ripped off her body, leaving her skin pale and lush.  It tickled her and warmed and cooled her all at once.  from beneath the water she saw the face of the one who had carried her.  A man with a simple face and eyes as deep as eternity.  He wore a white robe that seemed to move against the wind.  His smile spoke of love, desire and joy.
    “Come out,” he commanded, holding out his hand for her.  She took it.
    He dried and dressed her.  Rich embroidered clothes.  The finest leather sandals.  Rings for her ears and for her nose.  A jewel for her forehead.  Bracelets and necklaces.  All beautiful.
    A crown appeared in his hand.  He spoke as he placed it on her head.
    “I make my covenant with you, Sume.  Your mother and your father abandoned you.  Your neighbors hated you.  From the day you were born you were cast off and unloved.  But I have loved you.
    “From before you were conceived I have loved you and decided to make you my wife.  Today I make my covenant with you.  You are mine and I will have no other.  You are mine and I will be always faithful to you.  I am strong and I am wise and no one will take you from my hand.  You are my wife, my beloved.  I give you this crown as a symbol and this fountain as a surety.  Drink deeply from it.  Bathe daily in it.
    “And from this day forth you are no longer Sume the illegitimate.  You are Sume el Raj, my wife.”
    The crown sparkled on her head.  A glorious smile transformed her face.  She clung to her husband and wept tears of joy.  And the Man sang over her a glad wedding song.

    In the bushes outside the lobby a headless corpse watched, perceived, waited.

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   Even though my stomach churned I couldn’t pull my eyes away as the grubby, fat girl continued to spew the contents of her stomach over the table. She seemed to have an unnatural amount of vomit available. Every piece of food was tainted by the time she finished.
   With a harsh choking sound she took her soiled hand from her mouth, brushed her hair back and rubbed the tears from her eyes. She stared at the crowd, winked, farted and walked away, laughing.
   “Well,” I said to myself, “you don’t see something like that everyday.”
   “No,” said the man beside me. “But most days.”
   “Does she never share with the crowd?”
   “Never. Sometimes she calls young girls to come in and become her daughters. But they are never seen again.” He looked down to the ground, kicked at a stone, put his hands in his pockets and slowly turned to walk away. The others in the crowd followed suit.
   The sky darkened. Thunder crashed. Lightning followed after. It rained.
   The downpour was torrential. It made me think of gaudy words that always look ugly on a page or screen like copious, plenteous and superabundant. I was soaked to the bone in seconds.
   Lightening and thunder flashed together. I was about to run to shelter when I caught a glimpse of the lobby doors. The girl, Domos, was standing there, waving to me. Beckoning me to come in, out of the rain.
   I struggled past the razor-wire fence, slicing my leg a little, and came to her door. It was locked. The rain fell painfully hard.
   “You wanna come in?” Domos yelled, pressing her oily face against the glass. She grinned wildly, exposing sharp, elongated eyeteeth. “It’s raining. You might get wet.”
   “Yes, I suppose I might.” I was shivering. “I’d love to come in, if I may.”
   “And if you may not?”
   “Pardon?”
   “If you may not. Would you still want to come in if you may not?”
   I blinked. “I’m not sure I understand.”
   She glared at me. Smiled. Frowned. Rubbed her face on the door, making a hefty streak. “Screw off.” She turned her back to me, tried to jump and click her heels and sauntered off.
   I walked from the door, knowing that no amount of running would make me any drier, and began searching for a dry place to stay.
   Night seemed to fall.

   The three figures in black cared little for the rain. It beaded and slid off their oiled jerkins, hoods and bare arms. Crouched beneath the shrub by the door they waited and watched. Silent. Angry. Armed.
The Stranger and Domos talked very briefly at the door. Domos, in her characteristic way, had enticed him and told him to push off. He wandered in the rain now. Domos was inside. Safe, she thought.
Without sound or signal the three moved in unison to the door. The leader took a vial with a dropper out of a pouch at his belt. He squeezed the liquid into the door-lock. A silent hiss and puff of smoke and the door was unlocked. They went in, crouched, hands on hilts.
   Ignoring the elevator they sped to the right, down the hall through a door at the end and up the stairwell.
   There was no need to talk as they raced silently up the stairs. Their legs pumped like well-oiled pistons. Their eyes, under their hoods, blazed brightly, full of life. Their hands stayed at the ready. Merciless. Hard. Uncompromising.
   They reached the penthouse. Out of his pouch the leader took a tiny mirror. Placing it near the bottom of the door he peered into the room. Satisfied, he put his mirror away, pulled something small and round from his pouch and put his hand on the doorknob. The other assassins crouched at the ready. Hands firm on their hilts. Positioned to burst through the door as soon as it was open.
   With the kind of speed only a predator could possess he pushed the door open and flung the flame-pellet to the ground. With a violent flash and burst of sound it exploded, scattering flaming particles to every part of the room.
   They worked fast.
   Domos was crouching over the corpse of a girl a little younger than herself, her teeth embedded in her throat. She didn’t even have time to turn before a blade removed her head from her body.
   Particles of flame began to settle and land, igniting the room.
   Bodies upon bodies were strewn around. The daughters of Domos. None decomposing. Quickly the assassins went to each and decapitated them.
   The flames crawled and began to lick at the stone walls, setting even them ablaze.
   Though there were hundreds of bodies the assassins worked fast. As the fire became an inferno they finished and sped out the door they can come in and down the stairs. Everything in the penthouse was reduced to ash and salt.

   The rain had already stopped when I noticed the fire. Like a lighthouse beacon it blazed in the clear night, sending heat from the very top of the building down to where I was standing. A crowd gathered around Domos’ building. Three men in black jerkins stood just outside the door. One was setting a sign up in front of the door. Another was clearing away the razor wire. I read the sign:

Behold, this was the guilt of Domos: She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. So I removed them. For further details see paragraph 8 of section 16 of article 26 in the Code. Peace be upon you all.

The fire burned through the entire night. Its smoke never did cease.

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I fell asleep again, after a heavy dinner of spiced lentils and rice. I dreamed.
Again I was in Isht Drowl.
The desert was not so arid anymore. Sparse patches of grass had popped up in random places. The tumbleweed tumbled now, kicking up dust as they went. It was still a desert, but not such an unbearable one as it had been before.
I wandered. The dunes became smaller as the hours drained by. The loose sand gave way to hard-packed dirt. Sparse patches of grass and tumbleweed were replaced by harsh-looking thorny bushes and small trees. A bird sounded.
I turned to the right to see the bird, sitting on the lower of a young neem tree. An ugly, ragged thing with a longer tail than most. It looked at me with dark, dead-looking eyes. It opened its mouth sang to me; the most beautiful bird call I had ever heard. For a full five minutes I stared at it while it sang, an ugly creature with the voice of an angel.
Abruptly it stopped. It cocked its head to the side and took off in the direction I had been headed. Following it with my eyes, I suddenly saw a village where, I was sure, there had not been one before. Thoughts of the bird vanished. I needed water.
The village was large, but primitive. Its bramble walls were high. The wooden gate was ancient, but secure. And open. I walked in.
The paved street was the first thing to catch my attention. It seemed out of place, what with the peasants walking down it, struggling under bundles of laundry, wood and water pots. High-rise apartments (that I hadn’t noticed before) stood guard beside the street, every window bare. Every light off.
Traffic began to pick up. Donkey and ox carts lumbered up and down the street. They stopped at driveways, dropping things off. Picking things up. Junk, mostly. Insipid food. Bad art. Shaky furniture. Children ran in the street, dressed in heavy outfits, despite the hot sun.
I walked south down the street. Listened to the sounds. Screams. Action.
The high-rise on the right looked old. The owner sat outside the lobby, on the floor with her many daughters. She looked familiar.
“Marasia?” I called.
She jumped to her feet, showing herself to be almost naked, her oily body glistening in the sun. “Oi! Yes! Is that you, lover?”
I took a step toward her, noticing splotches of white on her dark skin. Vitiligo? Something else?. “Um, no. I think you are confusing me with someone else.”
She laughed. A single, moist chuckle. “I don’t think so.” She took two lazy steps forward. “I know a lover when I see one.” She bent down to brush a piece of straw off her bare foot, tilting her head back at the same time so as to give me a full view of what, I realized by now, she was offering. “Won’t you come in?” She said when she had straightened.
“Ah, well. Um, no. I don’t think so,” I stammered.
“Come, come,” she approached closer. “My rates are fair. Better than what you’d get with either of my sisters.”
I took a step back. “Honestly, I’m not in the market for…er…what you’re selling. Sorry.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Renting, honey,” she said, her voice sizzling. “Never for sale, only for rent.” She turned and walked away, her swaying hips calling out her offer one last time.
I continued south, leaving Marasia sitting with her scantily-clad children.
The next building on the right was dilapidated. I think I saw a homeless girl sitting in the lobby. Young. Alone. Clean, though. I past it by.
The third building was massive and more gaudy than any I had seen before. Golden flamingos stood still over the lawn, so many that the grass suffered for want of sunlight. The building was painted in rainbows, with gold and silver added to the mix of colours. A crowd huddled just off the property limits, kept back by a fence of razor-wire.
I could see a girl sitting in the lobby at a massive oak table, ruined by the gold paint splattered over it. The table was weighed down with every kind of food I could imagine.
A large bowl of saffron sat, turned over, at the corner of the table. Half of its contents were scattered on the filthy floor. Beside it a pile of Macadamia nuts was dispersed all over the table. The chubby girl would sometimes pick one up, suck on it for a moment, and then spit it out on the floor. A plate piled high with an odd mixture of almas caviar and white truffle sat close to her right hand. Her large arm would occasionally bump it and send some of the rich food flying. Piles and piles of wealthy food covered the table. Some I couldn’t identify. Some beginning to rot. None of them getting the attention they seemed to deserve.
The fat child wiped her chin with a dirty forearm and dug her teeth into some KFC.
“Who is this?” I asked out-loud.
“Domos,” a voice to my right said. “Youngest of the three sisters.”
“Is this her building?” I turned to the man who was speaking to me, a scruffy fellow with ragged clothes.
“Aye,” he said, “It’s all hers. Her rent is high and she cares little for the tenants.”
“Are you a tenant?”
He laughed, a wheezing dry laugh without mirth. “No, no. I could never afford it. No I live on these fair streets. I come by her doors only to wait for when she puts her garbage out.” He patted his belly, small as it was.
As if she had heard, Domos suddenly looked up. A malicious sneer twisted her pudgy mouth. After giving the hungry crowd an obscene gesture she stood, put her fingers down her throat, and force vomited over the entire table.

Part 1

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   I think I was dreaming.
   Yeah, I must have been dreaming. But I can’t get it out of my head. So I tell it to you, and wonder if I’ll ever dream again.

   I dreamed a dream and, behold, I was in another world. A land of strange happenings called Isht Drowl. Don’t ask me how I knew the name. It was all a dream, remember. A dream…

   It was hot there. Dry. Dust clouds kicked up all over the empty horizon. Tumble weeds didn’t tumble, they just fell over and crumbled. There wasn’t much there, really. Nothing of value at least. I walked for a while, alone. The crumble weeds seemed to quiver as I went by. Quiver and crumble, quiver and die.
I saw a caravan in the distance. A long way off. Coming closer. Coming nearer. Loud, lush, wet and warm. The sound of music, off-key, danced with epileptic steps ahead of the troop. The bright flashes of colour – red, blue, purple – wreaked havoc on my eyes, grown used to the sand and dirt and crumble. They came closer. I saw them. I knew them.
   The leader was Itaemor, husband of Tithite. Not much could be said about him. And while much could be said of his wife, almost none of it would be useful or positive. Ugly as sin, she dressed in the most expensive clothing she could find. And she was very good at finding. They had their daughter in tow, Marasia, who had her own daughters in a satchel on her back. The three did not speak to each other. They yelled at the servants and musicians, who made up the bulk of the caravan, and trudged through the landscape, leaving tracks in the hard dirt. They did not notice me as they past. With nothing else to do, I followed them.
   A servant walked next to me, carrying a bed on his back and a millstone in his hands. He smiled at me, toothless. We conversed. He asked me about where I came.
   “In truth, I do not know,” I replied, the memory of my own world having faded away.
   He nodded, as if he understood and accepted that. “Well, you’re welcome here with us,” he said. “Just try not to slow us down. We almost got slowed down yesterday and, whew, it was trouble.”
   “Itaemor is in a rush, then?”
   “Yep. But more so is his wife. Golly, she don’t slow down for nothin’. Why, she killed my brother once for slowing down to piss. Ain’t that sad?” he said with a grin.
   I blinked. “It sounds very sad.”
   The overburdened porter shrugged (a marvelous feat to see, with that bed on his back). “Not nearly as sad as it would have been if she had killed me. But you know what the biggest problem is?” he asked.
   I looked around at the caravan, struggling through the wasteland. Looked at Itaemor, throwing something heavy at a servant (killing him, I think), and his wife kicking one of her grandchildren for walking too slow. “I don’t think so,” I admitted.
   “She’s inconsistent. Why, she slowed us down horribly this morning. And no-one said a thing! Not a thing! Ain’t no justice. And she slowed us down plenty more than my brother did.”
   “How did she slow you down?”
   “Labour.”
   “Excuse me?”
   “She gave birth. I suppose I ought to give her credit, though. She didn’t waste any time on useless sentimentality.”
   I was sure I was still misunderstanding. “Sentimentality?”
   “Yeah, she just pushed the bugger out, put her pants back on and kept moving. I guess I gotta give her credit for that. But it took a good hour to get the thing out.”
   “Thing?”
   “The baby.”
   My heart beat in that strange hot way it does when you have a sudden realization that’s either very good and special or very bad and perverted. “She gave birth to a baby this morning?”
   “Yeah. Like I said, slowed us down a bit. Could’ve been worse, though. I guess she could have tried to keep it.”
   “She left it?!”
   The servant raised an eyebrow at me. “‘course she did. Time ain’t on our side, after all.”
   I stopped walking. The servant did not. He didn’t even look back. The whole caravan passed me by and I found myself alone. My thoughts pulled me back in the direction the caravan had been traveling from. The picture of a baby in the waste morbidly danced in my head. I turned and ran.

   It was a few hours before reached it. I wished I hadn’t.
   It screamed and flailed in its own blood, already caked on its skin. Her cry was hoarse and dry, like something soft and frail being pulled across a rusty bed of nails. Her cord had not been cut. She had not been washed. She was screaming in utter loneliness. I did nothing.

   A man in simple clothing came by. His robe was long and moved in a strange way, almost as if it was against the wind. He stopped beside the infant, still screaming in that unbearable way. He crouched beside her and whispered a word into her ear that I could hear clearly above the screaming and the desert wind. “Live.”
   The child stopped screaming immediately. Her body tensed and went ridged, as if a current was running through her. The caked blood on her liquefied and drained into the sand. Her cord was cut and dissolved away in the wind. The man covered her with the corner of his robe. She cooed. He smiled. She lived.

I woke.

Part 2

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