Dennis L. Siluk's New Stories and Poetry

Six Tales and an Ode

Index

Osmoses

Passage to Elephant Island

The Little Russian Twins

Uni’s Street Corner

 

A Tale for the Times (The Vile Hypocrisy of Abdu)

Tale of a Young Tradesman

Ç&

The Black Death Ode   

 Osmoses

…

     

  

         Wendell in Walking in Review

Botis the Imp

1

It started off as a gradual unconscious process of assimilating, or absorption. As Wendell Wormwood  awoke one evening from a nightmare, to find out, it was a real live demon espousing himself, like a sponge into his flesh, —sitting on his chest—as if it was in the process of demonic possession. The conjecture was to Wendell, that the demonic rapscallion, was in the process of a middle state, or phase of osmosis of his operation. Wendell continued to lay on his back as the terrifying creature sat on his chest, Wendell feeling the weight to be liken to a hundred pound sack of potatoes, and being no more the size of a bulky imp, resembling that of a miniature triceratops. The nose much smaller than his horn like ears, but widely spaced above his lips.  Wendell lifted his head some as to see the creature more restored, he had a beer-belly as they say, brown and flabby, with pointed ears, as mentioned, like hooters, with chicken-like legs and hawk-like feet, and he was trying to slide himself completely in through Mr. Wormwood’s pours, like sweat coming out. And his tail was long with a little shrub at its end, a pitifully thin looking lariat, in comparison. As he moved to center himself better, his tail got caught on a spring under the mattress and he tried like a: cow, sow, or hog stuck in barbwire trying to wiggle it free, and that was when Wendell woke up, and there before his eyes, lo and behold, was the netherworld creature called Botis, doing mêlée.

       “What in tarnation is going on?” yelped Wendell, eyes bigger than a car’s headlights. He was in the path of amalgamation of course.

       It was no nightmare, alias, it was reality.

       His bedroom was rather small, too small to roll about in, so Wendell tried to pull, and push the demon out, by hanging over the side edge of the bed. Then sitting upright the invader pushed deeper beyond his forearm into Wendell’s ribs, and it vanished. Wendell’s eyes, seeing this, turned crimson. No one in the house could hear him beating on the chest of the demon to make him stop, or if they could, no one came to the rescue, for his screams were quite mortified, loud, yet who would dare?

       He was still tired and contemplative of if this was a dream or reality.

       “What malarkey is this,” he exclaimed to the creature, looking straight into his stout ugly face that showed a mouth wider than his forehead, with a goatee that dripped from the edge of his bottom lip to the end of his neck, which ended up laying on his chest.

       It was most difficult to turn right or left in his present condition, which normally he slept on his sides, nonetheless he found himself rocking and rolling to which he fell onto his left side, after several tries, accomplishing it with a triumphal thump, shutting his eyes as he did from the horrid face of the demon that nettled him, yet still the demon struggled with his tail and you could see on his face a faint dull ache, with a cynical looking demeanor, evidently he had never encountered such a trial.

       “Oh Lucifer,” cried the imp emphatically, but only a figure of expression for he did not want the attention of Lucifer, lest he be boiled alive for his ineffectuality, and slipup, “what a grueling job you’ve given me.” Such was his work day, and throughout the night. It was better, he had told himself, on many occasions: ‘It’s better than the actual business in the warehouses of Tartarus, counting black sheep, day in and day out’ which they called the new comers. Although his present job—earthbound—was constant traveling or worrying about if the subject was going to wake up, for seldom did they. 

       Lo, all of a sudden, Botis felt a slight itching on his belly-button; slowly he let go of his left arm firmly attached to Wendell’s shoulder, and as soon as he did, Wendell pushed the demon back nearly all the way out of him, which caused an impediment for the ungodly creature (there was no discourse or dialog between the two, and to be frank that tail was causing the imp to lose his repartee, likewise, Mr. Wormwood’s wits where coming to its end, both now struggling without thinking). Quickly Botis identified the exact spot of the itch, and scratched  it with his long talons, as thick and long as an owl’s, and a cool and  relief shiver run though him, and then he mumbled in a gibberish tone, “This getting one’s tail caught in a bedspring makes a person look stupid,” contemplating his comrades controversy should they find out in Tartarus, which they’d never see as a mishap, rather a screw-up, —for eventually he’d have to go back to make out his report, or better yet, his account,  while sitting down around the breakfast table telling his story… (While everyone would be chewing on a good portion of fried cow guts. He knew this for a fact for they had century after century accustomed themselves to it, they said it was good for the memory, so the total health of the demon race of earthly spies, consisted in eating this cuisine and gulping it down like ducks do water was ideal for their health they believed... this was also said to disinfect their horrible breath! They also ate this until their bellies were tight, and their navel would pop out, agreeable for the long journey ahead. Then after picking their teeth with a pig’s trotter, and their chatter was all complete, and the dice put away and the stock of cards hidden in some dry place, they’d go to work again.) anyhow, as I was saying, while sitting down around the breakfast table telling his story, that is to say, his encounter over and over to each and every one, to one another of his pals, his chums, his comrades in arms, whom would gossip like demon more often do, than not, and like: pile lie upon lie, invention upon invention, propaganda upon propaganda, like demon do until it is so unreal he’d become the pun and the laughing stock of Tartarus!  While each one of his pals, and chums and comrades, would tell of their triumphs, ‘I’d be sacked on the spot,’ he told himself, ‘if only I didn’t have to scratch my bellybutton, who can tell?’ But say what you will, thought Botis, what is done is done, he needed to remedy the situation, and do it quickly.

       Then Wendell aimed with his right fist at the imp’s chest, and knocked the demon from end-to-end of the bed like a boomerang, falling eventually onto the floor, and one hand still on the end railing of the bed, hanging on for whatever reasons, surely not for dear life! His tail being released with a sudden jerk, and shredded from the pull and thrust of the tumbling over the end-edge of the bed.

       ‘What a trying upset,’ mumbled Botis, as if his pride was badly wounded, his composure and face in dismay.

       The clock read it was half-past three o’clock. Thus he figured it was still early enough to quietly move on from Wendell’s house, and should anyone ask, who would be the wiser. 

       So Botis, quietly leaped from his loss, leaped from the balustrade of the bed like a Bagdad thief in the night, with stammering lips, a sneer at Wendell, through the dim tears that bathed his face for such a screw-up Wendell could not see this of course, and all the better for Bois, save, by and by, he’d have something to boast; consequently, he seized the brimming windowsill with a cantankerous look, raised his strength up into the air with outstretched arms and then looked down as if towards Hell itself, bellowed with Machiavellian-eyes: “To you, ye gods hidden beneath the earth,”  expressing his surprise cunning at his escape, leaping into the broad moonlight. The weather piercingly warm, yet feeling somewhat fresh and active, trying to put on a pleasant look to his face as not to look suspicious to his employer, or one of those Secret Service Demon and Women (agents of the netherworld) of Tartarus, should he bump into one, such as the Viper Queen, as she was known, and Bit Bertha, both Machiavellian-demon-ness, otherwise known as the quadrilateral-sisters, whom were always looking for emoluments, for them to look the other way, lest they make a nasty report on him. Nay, what then?  (it was game time, and I’ll tell you what games they played if they got bored, Bit Bertha and Viper Queen, they played the old Tartarus games called: ‘Slash and cut’, or ‘duck your head’ or ‘who’s got the fatter derriere’ or ‘catch and eat the brown beetle’ or ‘whip the sow,’ or ‘fork the toad’ or ‘who can spit thicker’ or ‘shooting feathered darts at cats and rat and dogs and hogs. And then they’d stretch and sleep)

Bit Bertha

       It struck the family members at the Wormwood home, that it had been quiet, too quiet in Wendell’s room too long, as they had previously been conversing to one another for some time on if they should or should not become more aware of what was going on in his room, having been standing by his doorway, and previously pacing the hallway alongside the bedroom, much aware of some kind of commotion had taken place, although they were there when it was taking place also. They unconsciously exchanged glances… and one member asked loudly for Wendell to answer: “Is it safe to come in?” There was no answer, no reply, Wendell had fallen back to sleep, and the family members dare not open the door, err, they could wait until morning and let Wendell tell the story, as they had drummed up to support.

       Ah, it all was rather justification of their own phenomenal cowardice; all pretentious, it was an impediment of their character, where they had relied on Wendell for safekeeping, as they had always told one another, as well as for his monetary support “…we’re in good hands with Wendell.” Therefore to their amorous whispers, Wendell was left to his own, had been left to his own.  All had the same obsession, all the same cynical smile, an expressible something or other, that appeared to be like a trial, something too trying to try, and so no one tried anything, and of course doing nothing, is doing something, which is allowing whatever took place to take place. And so they would wait for the results come morning, for the better or worse.

At the Kitchen Table

2

Family Gossip

Come Morning, Wendell looked about the kitchen table, among his three family members—a tinge impudent, and  risqué, they all stopped what they were doing, bent their heads a shade—akin to know what took place, but shy to ask, they all looked to be a bit fatigued to Wendell, acting  as if wanting to scatter themselves but Wendell seized the opportunity to exchange a few confidential words with them at which point, they unbolted themselves, and asked him to join them, their humanity more centered on commercial than the heroic story, the very one that took place but a few hours ago in the wee hours of the night with the demonic creature and his victory over him, and once told, they all felt relieved, saying in unison, “Ah, a nightmare, of course!” Now unrepentant of their cowardice idiosyncrasies they had displayed to one another, now thrown to the wind, laughed at as if it was a finely woven tale of dark linen, with a change in conversations to idiotic hearty maledictions, to oblige one another’s choice in their decision not to have disturb Wendell during his trying nightmare. And now they applauded one another of their own independence, as if they had done Wendell some great service.  For is it not true, in such cases there always remains in the conscience some of those dishonesties we pour into ourselves. It gives a better after-taste for one who is selling unwholesome liquor.

       Someone even made a joke of it, as if to throw a pun at Wendell’s imagination, “Next time the demon will know better, to kill the lion before he skins him!”

       Said one voice to another: “My dear sister Woolycat, fill this up until it spills over, if you please.” They all were drinking wine as red as a cardinal’s cap, at the table. Wendell noticed a fly had just drank out of his older brother’s glass, Wassermann, nonetheless it bothered him little, he simply shooed the fly away like a beggar who had stolen a coin from his pocket, and  in one gulp the wine was gone.

       Aforementioned Wendell, with all earnestness, said he: “Spiders do not spin webs for a single fly, or do they?” (A rhetorical question, more a wistful statement) They twisted their bodies some, one to another, gave each other faint glances, perhaps not grasping exactly what he meant by that, or perhaps they knew and were in contemplation over it. For had Wendell not been successful, they would have had to turn over a lot of stones to find the snake.

       And there Wendell stood, in the anteroom in reflection, discerning: there was more honor in cleaning a stable clean, than warning them; for surely the imp was close by, and if he decided to come back as often they did, he would assuredly look and most likely  find a new stockpile of flesh to store himself in. All said, Wendell, simply gave a nod with his head right to left, mumbled as he left the house (belief so sorely needed was not found, their caustic humor wounded him deeply…): said he: “To those cowards who can’t swim, no river is shallow enough” showing repugnance towards the group as he went out the front door, down the wooden steps, and on to work on an empty stomach, holding pent-up feelings of lassitude. In return, all the group gave back to Wendell was an air of bantering pity, a voice saying, “Ah, he is too sensitive!”

       Now walking down the street, Wendell inhaled the odor of the flowers in the nearby gardens, leaning his head on his shoulder with a look of sweet nothings.  Their breath was no longer defused around him. And his soul was bathed in a wave of infinite triumph, as he stopped to read the newspapers which lay close beside him on an old man’s newsstand. The old man Epistemon did not take the liberty of interrupting Mr. Wormwood, as to purchase the paper.  Wendell noticed his embarrassment, and took out some change to purchase the paper. With a mixture of respect and dryness, the proprietor took the coins, in exchange. Wendell had always thought himself to be a prohibitionist, for country and family before anything, even if one must set up an embargo, but now he was ruling that out, there was residue of pessimism, especially for the likes of his domestic life.

Eucalyptus Wood Park

(Contemplation)

3

Eucalyptus Wood Park

Wendell passed the whole of the afternoon in brooding over his anger and humiliation, sitting in a nearby park, called Eucalyptus Wood Park, for its many Eucalyptus trees he never made it to work. He reproached himself for not having given a slap in the face to both his younger and older brothers, and the youngest of the family at nineteen, his sister, Woolycat. But he laughed somewhat, over his sister’s hiccoughing, while trying to pull the legs off the fly in her milk. He told himself, “They’re just a jar full of wind, and all piss pots, no love of truth.” His father used to say “Take heart boy,” in other words, don’t let them get to you! But today they got to him, and last night they likewise, but not as bad as being belittled by them at the kitchen table.

       The sun’s rays quivered over his head, as he was trying to look nonchalant to the passersby. And his sister always playing the Gothic virgin, the Marchioness ‘…how narrow-minded,’ he mumbled. And his older brother in his scotch plaid waistcoat, thinking he was the cool-cat of the group. All three adult-ragamuffins, with depreciatory smiles. They all reminded him of intolerant bishops and cardinals—that in their hearts feel they are a grade or rank higher than you, –their thoughts perhaps being: what do I care about him after all!  Yes, this is what he was feeling, in all its repulsive thinking. Intoxicated with the preliminary steps—on the course to the devil’s den. Forgetting, as his mother often said ‘This moment will pass, let it be.’ How frustrating it was to see his younger brother, Wampumpeag, using his fist for a mallet on his apple.  And how they mumbled their prayers like a monkey to get through with them, just a put-on. All their little idiosyncrasies, were now cutting into him, twisting in his brain like hungry angleworms in the hunt. 

       Then he got thinking of the wee hours of the morn when the demon was leaving, how he tickled on the belly and under his armpits, and on the bottom of his feet, to make himself laugh—should any of his comrades see him, because he was not happy by far when he was flung across the bed, and landed on his buttocks. And how he spat at the bed with a big gob of saliva when he left, and let out some mid-flight, grabbing his codpiece to show his dismay at Wendell.

       Phlegmatic, he became just thinking about the funny creature, the so called mammalian imp, as he thought of him.

       His muscles in his larynx, those containing his vocal cords that envelop in folds were sore, becoming tender, he had been thinking out loud, talking to himself all this time. People walking by, some flabbergasted but kept their distance, astringent he looked as he expressed with his hands to his voice, excrescences of his emotions.

       He paid most of the water bills the heat and electric bills, the mortgage on the house, and grocery bills, they worked at part-time labor and contributed when they could and when they could it was like trying to stretch a goose’s neck another inch. Is there not an old French rule, he thought: when the sovereign fails to fulfill the contract, justice requires that he should be overthrown?  As for them, he swore not to see them again, for were they not part of the empire of the Wormwood Dynasty, small as it was not doing their part. An apartment could be easily found, and as money would be required in order to possess the house they now lived in he would speculate in three months they’d be thrown out, “So much the better,” he told his shadow, now sitting on a bench, as evening stepped in. “What’s the good of it, why go back?” And he heard in his head, “Yes, alas!” Then he artfully proceeded to speak in flattering terms about himself. He did not know how to bring himself about to go back there. Heaping up point on point and weighing their peculiarities, eccentricities.  In essence, whatever the picture had been, it was now put on a much larger and darker scale. Where at one point, he quoted his father: ‘These are matters of no consequence,’ but he was having a hard time reckoning with the phrase. 

The Woodland Hotel/Back Home

(Contemplation)

4

 Ms. Woolycat (Sister)

At the Woodland Hotel, Wendell Wormwood seized with a strange feeling of forlornness, as hour after hour went by and he got bored, and it was 3:00 a.m., then 4:00 a.m., and each hour was like eight hours, and on and on the hours came and went— thoughts reverted back to his family. The idea of being away from them longer appeared to him preposterous. They could be charming companions, he told himself in an unctuous tone. It was as if all of a sudden he no longer failed to recall his humanitarian spirit.

       Next morning, late in the morning, he returned to his abode. As he stood in the hallway, the coolness of the draft from the open windows alongside of the staircase was refreshing. No doubt, in the kitchen his family were waiting as if in a master atrium, for him to enter as normally he would, the kitchen door slightly ajar.

       The affronted Wendell took a glimpse. Their voices rose to Wendell’s ears, mingled with old intermittent sounds he was so used to: leg tapping sounds, moving the salt and pepper shaker, on the rough wooden table sounds and sounds that were being made by playing with a comb, sneezes and sniffles, and coughs and giggling, and moving the coffee cups here and there. No doubt with Wendell gone, they had less entertainment.

       He noticed his sister, Woolycat twisting her fingers, cracking her knuckles, she was nervous as she glanced at him. Cigarette ashes all over the table, smoke drifting about like little coal clouds, they must had gotten up early, perhaps to figure out what to do, or perhaps stayed up all night, the basket by the refrigerator was full of beer cans.

       At last he found his way to the table and his usual chair was empty. Wendell could tell their minds were full of curiosities. And he, he was silent, thus making the atmosphere heavy. So thought Wendell ‘So much the better’ thus, this ether would avenge him for the past. Evidently they had weighed his value, and said nothing concerning the night before.

       He couldn’t help it, his face was hot, perhaps crimson red, and he saw it slightly in the silver coffee pot in the center of the table. They, the three beside him, all received him with no preamble, nor did he attempt to justify his overnight departure that seemingly was pretty bothersome to the three. Then with distain he surveyed their faces. He had come to the realization, if so, he would avoid the nightmarish drama he had endured and allow them to live in an anonymous world, untroubled with the unknown and very much so, forces of the netherworld that was silently beckoning them subliminally, and in particular, the Nightmare demons, perhaps even the return of Botis, or if not, his entourage, were already evoking stimuli below the threshold of conscious perception, telling them, be quiet, your brother Wendell is full of foolery.

At the Table Laughing

5

Viper Queen

But what was Wendell thinking, I mean he was deep in thought, staring at a deep dish of pig meat in a bowel in front of him. He was thinking nothing but good wine, a soft bed, his back to the space heater, his belly full.  He was also thinking, God to preserve him from sickness and Our Lady to keep him from bad health, Amen. And third, he was thinking a house without a master—even if his family were a bunch of clodhoppers with white thighs, and remaining fooled by the devil himself and his henchmen, and he was all they had, they were all like blind people without walking sticks; all asses without cruppers; cows without bells. He knew in their hearts they were crying out for him, that a house without a master is like Notre Dame without its great and grand bells.

       In the bowels of their brains, they had colic he told himself; this made him feel more responsible for them. ‘Nothing but ding-dong, clitter-clatter,’ he mumbled.  Then seeing something strange moving about in the hallway, not saying a word about it a creature of some kind, he started laughing until tears come into his eyes, he laughed so hard he never took notice Crassus the bloodhound licking his pig meat out of his bowel, and his laugh was contagious, because they all started laughing with Wendell, all falling against one another, not knowing why, and never to know why, but nonetheless laughing. Then the laughs died down. He had seen one of the demons dancing every-which-way in the hallway, upside down, on her hands, and he heard that her name was Viper Queen, he knew now they were setting up house, but mum was the word, his second mind told him. As for the family members, they felt Wendell again amused them, and they all gave him a spoonful of their pig meat because Crassus had eaten most of his. Then came out a bottle of wine, like old times. All was according to spontaneous reactions. Nothing planned. All sat at great ease, while their kidneys settled, and their noses dried up from running, and wiping them clean off their sleeves, until they all had sores on them. 

Nights Thereafter

6

The Devils no longer bothered Wendell at his home, or for that matter any place but for his siblings, that is another matter. At the breakfast table now, each morning, each one complains of sounds in the night that are of footsteps alongside their beds, and the creaking of the bed springs under their mattresses. Filled with such terror, they get little to no sleep at all. They feel they are being surrounded by these little creatures, Wendell calls imps, creating a tempestuous atmosphere. And it is bothering the two brothers and one sister of Wendell’s, for they seem to escape his lips, if not his mind, he pays little attention to the complaints of his siblings, and they are making accusations against him, as if he is in league with them, that is, with the demons (for Wassermann has been heard sleep walking and talking, and what he has said during one of his escapades through the house, has disturbed Wendell some, but of course he has not taken it seriously, and I shall repeat it for the reader: “I need to seek a remedy for what I dread, what we dread, is this not a fair judgment? And for this, man will often kill others who have done no harm. I make no distinction between right and wrong.”)

The mystery of man, he has the choice to pick out good or evil, what will be his choice is often times the mystery. That is to say, will he discern between the rocks with gold, for the rocks with fool’s gold in them?  And if he picks the right stone what will he do with it? Again that is the mystery of man, and what will he do if it is too late, and he finds out too late, it is fool’s gold?

       “Perhaps we were wrong,” said the older brother Wassermann, “but now God has put a hedge, around you Wendell, and left us to rot with the demons, it is as if he left us with the Black Death, can’t you talk to him on this matter? It is as if God wants us to walk down the path that snakes pass… (Wendell closed his eyes as if he was hearing blasphemous remarks, thinking: perhaps as Cotton Mather once wrote: ‘God will no longer defend the soul of the sinner from the effectiveness of the devil’ that is to say, he punishes sin with sin, as the Jew’s believe, and as it is written in the Book of Revelation)” And of course Wendell tells them to pray, but they don’t. And night after night, they are interrupted to a high extent by these scamps. And here is Wendell sitting at the kitchen table with an air of greater self-confidence, squabbles the other three. In the nights before going to bed, they circle the hearth, and engage in conversations on the disturbing disquietude, on what to do and do nothing. Wendell has tried endlessly to ease their minds by railing against the powers of Tartarus by having his family say the: ‘Our Father,’ each night by the hearth, but in all earnestness, there is no sincerity in their voices, therefore how must God see their hearts, Wendell tells his second mind. But the imps have turned their world upside down for the most part, and Wendell even feels Wassermann is osmosatised: that is to say, possessed.

       At night the older brother would hear chattering behind his closest, as if a few of the imps are talking on matters of no consequence, waiting, just waiting for him to do something out of the ordinary, they don’t want Wendell around.

       As time goes on, week to week, and the season changes, Wassermann as well as his younger brother and sister are feeling more risky, willing to take more chances in doing something without Wendell, but what? For something has to be done.  Wassermann has told himself, he’s sought pity from Wendell, for his sufferings, and got no advice but to ‘pray’ and when he prays, his prayers are not answered, it has now produced in him suspicions that perhaps Wendell is in association with the devil himself, much like the Pharisees, who had tried to promote Jesus the Christ, as being in league with; and if he is not, perhaps he should be. In other words, if you can’t fight them, join them. And if the other party has joined them, do him in.  Wendell of course figures his brother is just trying to pick a quarrel with him to torment him, kind of having no one else to take his anger out on. So it of course comes out sideways at him.

       This last week, Wendell has been somewhat surprised if not astonished at the stupefied looks he is getting from his older brother. This appears to have turned into a mental or psychological fixation for Wassermann, per near an ailment, and speedily.

Macabre

       It is the evening of the last day in September, later on, on that evening, this following macabre melee took place: when the three were together by the hearth, Wassermann, Wampumpeag and Woolycat, the conversation started: 

      “What does it mean when one sympathizes with you and does nothing about it?” asked Wassermann to Wampumpeag, in front of his younger sister Woolycat. And he answered his own question, “He’s a wretch worm, Wendell is a worm!”

       “Oh! —yes.” said Woolycat.

       With promptness in lack of no decision, the astonishing statement came out, “Should we kill him?”

       “Good heavens, my brother, I am not Cain, about to slay Abel.”

       “Who’s Cain?” asked Wampumpeag. Without answering the question, Wassermann, explained who Noah’s grandson was, Canaan, by saying, “We shall do like Canaan did to his grandfather, and do away with him, by getting him drunk but we shall do like Cain did likewise and kill him.”

       Without giving his brother and sister reflection time he added, “Tonight, I suppose tonight we can do it.” It was a little past ten o’clock. “We’ll get him drunk and kill him, go wake him up Woolycat, tell him we are drinking and want his company.” She stood a moment staring, as her older brother explained: “If we kill him the imps will leave us alone, they told me so, I made a deal with the devil.”

       “But they lie so much, Wendell says,” exclaimed Woolycat.

       “Go wake him up,” he commanded, and she did as he asked. For he had this planned all along, he had it planned for a week straight. And it just dawned on Wampumpeag, the whole room smelled of a rarest perfumery. Wassermann had purchased it and sprayed the room. And he had altered the position of the furniture, knowing once Wendell got drunk there would be a struggle. It was a cold evening, and so Wassermann had brought extra logs in for the fireplace, so it was not suspicious seeing them there, when Wendell came home from work. And to be frank everything was already, ready for his evil deed. He had even put into the fireplace, an iron rotisserie.

       Wassermann’s alternate mind told him to think about what he was planning, if he should or should not go through with it ‘Think well on this,’ it said over and over, and the more his mind said what it said, the more wine, beer and whiskey he drank.  Thus he was in essence, dancing with the devil, half drunk.

       In a slight foggy manifestation, Botis appeared by his side and whispered in his ear, “The apple is ripe, we may count on you, if not we must have another chat.” Wampumpeag saw the appearance, and stood stone still in shock.

       The question may arise, was Botis talking to Wassermann, or someone inside of him? My guess is as good as yours.

       Now Wendell came down with Woolycat, he took a light glance at the preparations Wasserman had made, smelled the perfume, Botis had disappeared, but was in the hallway and could hear a great clamor behind the door, and when he glanced in, he saw Wendell in the hearth, being roasted on a rotisserie like a pig, or perhaps more liken to a chicken in that he was scratching the walls of the hearth trying to find a point of support to assist him. His haggard eyes fixed with terror, the balls of his eyes protruded. He produced a horrible coughing, convulsive shock set into his muscles, chest, breath, his stomach shrank as if suffocating, and he sank down with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open, the infinite pains were gone.

       Outside a gentle rain stopped, cold gray clouds floated past the moon, a wind appeared and it swept everything clean.

Epilogue

7

Wasserman Wormwood, had what might be called a fixation for he found himself yielding to an incapacity to resist the temptation which clung to him like white on rice to kill Wendell. This impertinence, disrespect, this cold rudeness, was so great a feeling, that pride took possession of him. And like a tornado, his love for his brother Wendell was carried away, disappeared. Although he experienced a sense of relief, longing-suffering joy. Thereafter, a need for violent action possessed him afterward and forevermore, to which, this he did at random, until that is, until he was incarcerated for life, at some lifeless dungeon no one knows were. And so the caviling with Wendell had stopped, and the name of the pest that was said to have entered Wassermann, the entity that is, was called ‘The Horticulturist’ or better put, the Planter (also known as Asder’el, who normally taught the course of the moon to his students).  Whom implored him, and soured his brain with hellebore, a poisonous plant killing all those grey cells along with old brainy habits, as for him to tutor and train him as a new pupil of Satan.  “Better to do this,” said Botis to his comrade, as to introduce him to the demonic society of learned men of Tartarus, in emulation of whom his worth will recognized and increased as you well know, and his desire to change his form of life and life’s habits will increase, to show his worth, since Wendell gave him no worth.” And they did not waste an hour or a day.

       Wampumpeag on the other hand, the younger brother between Wasserman and Wendell, became a monk in a monastery, unsure if it was the Dominican or the Franciscan, or for that matter, perhaps another, whatever the case, he found peace, and wrote these memories, to which I have edited and filled in the gaps and put into place the sequential events.

       As for Woolycat, she spent the rest of her days, morning throughout the afternoon looking out through the window at the people in the street.   Botis, he now clings on to her arm with his teeth chattering. She’s declared in her diary, that Wampumpeag has now put into his memories, in which I am putting into better English form as previously indicated, “I’m unable to walk twenty-steps, without him pulling at my arm.”

              And so it was.

‘The Horticulturist’ or better put, the Planter

End to:

 ‘A Tale Told Only Once’

…

Copyright © Dennis L. Siluk /Written and edited:  between:  5-17-2015 and 6-2-2015/Short Story: No: 1082

“Osmoses” (A Tale Told Only Once)

II

Passage to  

Elephant Island

   

Hell-of-an-Island     

By morning Ernest Montgomery from Dothan, Alabama had decided to lay off the sightseeing onboard the cruise ship, last he remembered the ship was somewhere between the Falkland Islands, and the South Shetland Islands, to be exact, he’d soon find out, they were docked momentarily off the north shores of Elephant Island. Ernest had been getting tired of the trip, if not bored, from: Buenos Aires, Port Stanley, around Cape Horn, Chile, docking at Ushuaia, Argentina for eight hours, the principle reason for taking the cruise was to make his life more exciting, and he wanted to be around young women, he was forty-five years old, freshly divorced, and he was discovering, the longer the trip, the older the clientele—it was a fifteen-day trip, and there was only a few stray women, and they were bitchy and older than him by twenty-years plus.

       With nothing to do but complain, Ernest decided to get as drunk as scotch whiskey would make him. He found a nice corner in the bar and by mid-morning two pints had been consumed. The remainder of the morning he spent on deck looking at an odd island, everyone called “Elephant,” and some called it “Hell-of-an-Island.”

       He went back into the bar bought another pint of scotch whiskey. And he went back out to the deck; the wind was white and raw. Then he heard a voice over the ship’s microphone system, it was the Captain, “Elephant Island,” said the Captain, “is 779-miles West-southwest of South Georgia, and 581-miles from the south of the Falkland Islands, and 550-miles southeast of Cape Horn, and we are now three miles in front of it.”  Then he heard him say, “Excursion! those who want to go to the Island meet at…” and then he stopped hearing, and saw a blond, pathetically he followed her to where folks were signing up to take the excursion, he had missed her among the nearly two-thousand passengers onboard the ship, perhaps near thirty on the three zodiacs preparing for the excursion (he simply put an X for his name on the document—a manifest, for those intending to go to the island, he was too drunk to do otherwise). He wiped his hands over his face as if to wake himself up, “What’s the matter?” said the young woman, the very one he was attempting to pursue, his face wet and appearing as if he had been crying, but of course he hadn’t been; and now the ship was even closer to the Antarctic  island.

       She pulled the scarf out of the way from her face, standing in line waiting to board the small craft and getting her lifejacket, putting it on, and clamping the three clamps together, readying to go to the island, Ernest really not too aware of anything, just in heat over this young damsel, did likewise—a monkey see monkey do, kind of thing.

       “Nothing’s wrong kid,” he said sharply to the young woman, adding, “Why did something go wrong?” he questioned.

       The girl turned her back, she was hurt, and seemingly one could hear a few sniffles, as if they were sighs.

       “Say what’s the matter with you anyway?” he asked the girl, “you nuts or something? Let’s get out of here and go to my room instead of this stupid island trip! Okay?” but she never turned around again, and so Ernest simply put on his lifejacket, as did the thirteen other people getting into the small zodiac-boat—although he hesitated, thinking, perhaps thinking why waste time on this stuck-up chick and this stupid excursion, but before he could deliberate any further—or completely, they were on their way to the area where Ernest Shackleton had made his campsite, in 1916, along with twenty-two of his companions—to Point Wild.

       The closer the inflated zodiac vessel got to the island, the more inhospitable it looked to Ernest, “Say,” said the young lady, the very one Ernest had tried to pick up, “are you soused?”

       “No, I’m as sober as a dead rat, what’s it to you lady?” said Ernest. It was as if she was trying to rekindle the candle—figuratively speaking, the one he had lit, and rudely blew out.

       “That’s right,” he said, “hell, I’m sober enough to swim to the island,” and she laughed, and for once, Ernest took that serious look off his face and laughed with her. But the fact was, and the fact remained, he was more near to being soused than he knew, and saw only blurs of her, and blurs of the island, but he hid most of those drunken mannerisms somehow.

      (On the Antarctic Island called Elephant—at Point Wild, a plateau area residing next to a mountain on the northern coast…) “Well,” said Ernest, he pulled out a cigarette, sucking deeply on it, walking a distance away from the group, to pull out his pint of scotch whiskey and have a drink—and he’d end up drinking the whole pint behind those dark wet granite walls; the young woman by the name of Pilar, took no notice in where he went, and the rest of the group, didn’t even know he existed—and on the official paper—the document or manifesto (program, indicating who was there, and who was who), the one he was supposed to have signed getting into the vessel for the excursion, the very one he had simply placed a smeared X on, the very one that looked more like a mistake than a name, and there he sat on what might have been a hidden corner where Shackleton himself sat, smoking and drinking, and then he passed out.

       “Well, I—say, folks let’s board the zodiac-craft and head on back to the ship,” said the young navigator, in charge of the excursion. As they neared the ship, Pilar began to look about for Ernest, said to the man sitting next to her, “Say, where’s that man that I was talking to before, do you know who I mean?” Not knowing his name. And the man pointed to someone at the other end of the vessel, who was seasick, and had his head in his palms and his elbows on his knees—who could have been anybody, and the young woman thinking he was still drunk, simply said “Oh yes, the stinking drunk. I started to take a liking for him.” And left well enough alone, thinking no more of it.

      

       The ship now was at sea, heading for Paradise Bay, Ernest Montgomery, on the island, alone, just waking up. It was pretty cold, and he was having a hell of a time trying to focus his eyes, he dashed out from behind the rocks—unaware of how long he had been passed out (sleeping) but knowing he had been, and hoping it wasn’t all that long, and noticed the ship was gone.

       “How in hell can I get…!” he said out loud, and several times the voice of his mind mimicked him, with the end of the sentence, ‘off this damn island…!’ And there he stood thinking, talking out loud, “She was so crazy about getting my attention, she’ll tell the captain and they’ll come back.”

       Then after a long while still standing waiting to see the ship return, —the  voice of his mind scolding him—, he mumbled, “I reckon that cutie likes me, why didn’t she come across quicker, she perhaps…perhaps (and lost his train of thought)… how in the hell can I get out of here!” (It really wasn’t a question, but a disparaging statement.)

       He looked about—up and down the ice-covered mountainous island (its tallest peak, nearly three-thousand feet), elephant seals were observing him from afar; other than that, there was no significant flora or native fauna, just a few penguins and seals found moseying about Point Wild and its coast, and a fog and snowstorm was appearing, slowly coming in… he knew he didn’t have a high cold threshold nor an extreme weather tolerance, and there was no ship insight, and his pint of whiskey was empty, and he lit his last cigarette staring out into the sea, waiting, just waiting, continuously waiting, bored to death, and nearly frozen to death—not believing he was marooned on an island no more than ten by two kilometers east to west in the Antarctic waters—waiting, just waiting for the ship to return—continuously  waiting, and bored to death…

No: 609/3-28-2010/EC; dedicated to my wife Rosa, her personal selection. Reedited, 2-2012

III

The Little Russian Twins

(Yulie and Anatolee)

Poetic Prose Narration

        

No children ever looked so scornful, so undignified-than Yulie and Anatolee, the little Russian twins, gossiped the neighbors as they passed through Prince Lane, a rich neighborhood, on their way to Pleasant Elementary school each morning. But no matter who peered from their windows, porches or lawns, they would have to admit, Yulie and Anatolee walked splendidly together: chatting along the way, and showing very much interest in what one another had to say, not noticing the onlookers.

       Yulie, the youngest of the twins by nine minutes, wore oversized shirts, short pants and a jacket-with three shades of colorful dirt: sandals that were made to fit his little feet by squeezing them in.

       Anatolee, the elder, wore basically the same except for a hat which he found some months past and never seemed to take off. Both wore the same clothes, —it appeared: winter, spring, summer and fall, except for trading with one another every so often. And for lack of a comb, their hair looked always to be a bit messy.

       At school, the well-to-do children often ridiculed and teased Yulie and Anatolee for their broken speech, dirty cloths, and messy hair. But the twins never laughed back, got angry, or gave it much notice.

       One day during class, Mrs. Rightbird, Yulie and Anatolee's teacher, asked Yulie, "Can't you and your brother afford a simple comb to groom your hair with before coming to class?"

       "We have very little money," replied Yulie, "and what we do have must be used for food, paper and pencils so we can eat and learn; because of this, we feel a comb is less important, and use our fingers, which cost nothing."

       This angered Mrs. Rightbird to the point of stomping her feet and yelling: "How disrespectful you are! I will surely have to talk with your parents about this."

       Anatolee exclaimed, "My brother simply answered your question. I'm sure he is not trying to be, disrespectful!"

       Angered again, Mrs. Rightbird yelled, "You both are disrespectful and out of place! Have you no manners at all? I would never let my children dress or be seen the way you two are!"

       After school that day, Mrs. Rightbird went to the main office to check Yulie and Anatolee's records, hoping to get their address and telephone number. But to her surprise she found the records contained only their first names, grades and the date they were admitted into school. How mysterious she thought, for the twins had been at Pleasant Elementary going on two years.

       As the children arrived back at school the next day, Mrs. Rightbird pulled Yulie and Anatolee aside and questioned them about the odd files she had found, demanding she be given an explanation promptly. Yulie quickly explained that at the time of admittance into school they had no residence and was in search of one—but, that they had one now. She then demanded it be given to her.

       "One Riverside Lane," replied Anatolee.

       "Is this an apartment?" questioned Mrs. Rightbird.

       "No," said Yulie, "it's kind of an old castle."

       Having heard this, Mrs. Rightbird left Yulie and Anatolee to their studies.

       That day after school, uncertain the twins had given her the proper address, she followed them on their journey home. They walked through the rich neighborhoods, the inner-city, down to the riverbank, and then alongside the Mississippi River, and its neighboring ancient tall cliff walls, which gave light to many caves.

       After walking a short distance further, Yulie and Anatolee entered a small inlet that led into a vast inner cave. Mrs. Rightbird followed close behind. Inside the cave, Mrs. Rightbird hid behind a huge rock that looked like an ancient pillar, while observing the twins. Yulie went quickly to the center of the cave where a fire was barely burning. He picked up a few pieces of driftwood—gathered the day before—and set them in the center of the fire to feed it. Anatolee joined his brother. Both of them, then sat down harmoniously on separate wooden fruit crates, resting from the long walk and absorbing the fire's warmth from the brisk fall air.

       They gave thanks to God for the day, the food they were about to eat, the chance to learn, for His presence and love. After a moment of silence, they gave thanks for their loving and caring parents who had brought them to America for freedom, —although deceased now.

       Mrs. Rightbird leaned tiredly against the wall of the cave. She thought of the humiliation, shame, and disrespect she and others had tried to inflict upon these two young immigrants. Then with a tear gazing at the twins, she thought how fulfilled they appeared to be, how simply pleased, how noble.

Notes on the story: "The Little Russian Twins (Yulie and Anatolee)" Originally published in the book "Reading for Little People"; 1983 © Dennis L. Siluk; written in 1982, and published in a chapbook form of 100-copies, in 1984 (the first short story of the author’s and published with his second story “Uni’s Street Corner” under the title “Two Modern Short Stories of Immigrant Live”) © under, Dennis L. Siluk, printed by Four Winds Press (Edited y Donna Reading) Out of print for 25-years (reedited and translated into Spanish, 12-2008) (Edited by Sharon A. Waagen, 1982)

IV

Uni's Street Corner

(Dr. Siluk's second Prose Short Story written, 1984)

It was a chilly morning in early winter 1933. And as usual, Uni and Grandpa Walter readied themselves for their journey to Uni’s snowbound street corner in downtown Minneapolis, where Uni would sell her pencils. Uni who lived with Grandpa Walter—now aging with arthritis and light symptoms of forgetfulness—was always pleased to have her Grandfather accompany her each morning, although he could only walk her part of the way. And when evening came Grandpa Walter would be waiting—promptly at five—right where he left Uni that morning to walk her back home. And although Uni was blind from birth, with her cane and keen senses she never lost her way.

       This morning as they were walking Uni made a request. She asked her Grandfather to keep her company that day, saying (with her broken English):

       “I vant all my friends to see my very special Grand-Papa.”

       Grandpa Walter hesitated with an answer, remembering Uni had asked so many times before: could he turn her down again?

       Walter walked silently, rubbing his arms for warmth from the brisk winter wind and shifting cold snow. He waved to Ernie the milkman and Tony the mailman on his horse drawn sleigh, and Orve (a rag collector during the summer months and part-time janitor during the winter ones) walking towards downtown on the opposite side of the street. Walter thought, mumbling out loud: ‘Orve is on his way to pick up some sausage at the meat market, he does every Thursday.’

       Uni, with a somber voice, requested again: “Grand- Pa Pa Vaulter, vil you stay vith me today?”

       Grandpa Water wanted to say no, but just couldn’t. “Yes, Uni,” he replied, “if it pleases you I will.”

       With a cry of delight Uni quickly hugged her Grandfather.

       “But” said Grandpa Walter, “I will have to finish some chores at the house first. I will meet you at noon.”

       “Dat’s fine Grand-Pa Pa,” chuckle Uni with pleasure.

       As Uni stood on her street corner that morning awaiting for noon to arrive (pencils in one hand, a tin bucket half filled with pencils in the other, thus, allowing folks to drop coins into the bucket while taking a pencil), she talked to a few regular customers that stopped on by: and upon their departure, asked them for the time. But to her disbelief, it was only 8:20 a.m. ‘Gosh,’ she thought: ‘when you’re waiting for something special to happen, as having your Grandpa to keep you company for the day, time sure goes slow.’

       As Grandpa Walter readied himself for his journey to Uni’s street corner, he thought about how his son had stayed in Oslo, Norway after being stationed there in the American Army during World War I: and married Anna, Uni’s mother (a Norwegian citizen). It was just four years that December when he had traveled to Oslo to attend their funeral: a fatal train accident had taken their lives, whereupon, he decided—during his stay—to take Uni back with him to America.

       He thought—putting on his jacket—how retiring from the South Saint Paul stockyards two-years earlier gave him time to enjoy life, and his granddaughter: and how his small pension and two-bedroom house (paid for) on Glenwood Avenue made him feel secure, and his golden years brighter.
       Uni, awaiting Grandpa Walter, asked everyone she knew—or thought she knew—to be sure to stop by and get introduced to her grandfather who would be with her that afternoon. Most of Uni’s friends replied with a warm yes. A few strangers, who were mistaken for acquaintances, were promptly apologized to and they went on their way.

       There’s the judge, thought Uni. He’s on his way for lunch like always at 11:15 sharp. Uni knew it was him because he would always tap her bucket before dropping in a dime and taking a pencil from her right hand. Before he got too far, Uni cried: “Mr. Holms! Mr. Holms!”

       “Yes, Uni?” replied the Judge.

       “My grandfather is going to be vith me today; maybe you’d like to meet him?”

       “Well Uni, if he’s here on my way back I’d be delighted to. Bye for now!” replied the judge.

       “Boo!” said Grandpa Walter behind Uni in a soft way as to not scare her.

       “I knew it vas you Grandpa,” replied Uni with delight.

       “Well—how is my special and only granddaughter today?”

       “Oh fine,” said Uni nervously. “I’ve been telling my friend’s dat you are going to be vith me today.”

       “Yah!” said Walter unexpectedly, “Do you think that was wise?”

       “Oh! But vhy not Grandpa? I vant them all to meet you,” answered Uni.

       With a smile Grandpa Walter replied: “And I’m very please you do; and so they shall.”

       About twenty minutes elapsed. “Well,” said Grandpa Walter, “where are all these fine friends of yours?”

       “They’re out to lunch Grandpa,” answered Uni.

       Then just that moment appeared Mr. Holms the judge: thereafter, Viola and Mr. Solman; then came Ted the barber, and Mrs. Branch the seamstress, one right after the other. Uni introduced all of them to her Grandfather but something was wrong, very wrong. They all seemed somewhat uncomfortable, unfriendly—not like they usually were. And surprisingly to Uni none purchased any pencils as they normally would before leaving.

       On the way home that evening, Uni—bewildered because of her friends’ attitudes—questioned Grandpa Walter saying: “I just don’t understand. All my regular customers came by and they were so unfriendly. I just don’t understand.”

       As they walked further up Glenwood Avenue, Grandpa Walter hesitant replied: “Uni, I know why.”

       “Oh tell me Grandpa, did I do something wrong?”

       “No Granddaughter, you did nothing wrong. It’s simply because—because your skin is a different color than mine.”

       Uni stopped walking, stared in the direction of her grandfather, hesitated a moment, and said: “Oh Yaw?” She took Grandpa Walter’s hand in hers. “I never noticed. In my world Grandpa, everything is dark. Is there a difference?”

       Grandpa Walter answered: “I guess it depends what world you wish to live in. I myself prefer yours.”

       With this Grandpa Walter squeezed Uni’s hand. Uni hugged Grandpa Walter burying her face into his coat. “I love you Grand-Pa Pa.”

Note (Background): In 1984, the author switched from poetry to see if he could write short stories. He had written five short poetic short stories between 1981, and 1984, but never a short prose story. Thus, in 1984, he produced two short prose stories the first being, “The Little Russian Twins,” which was selected to be published in a book by “The Little Peoples Press.” The one not selected, the second story, was “Uni’s street Corner.” Both these stories were put into a ten-page chapbook of 100-copies, of which only a few are left. “Uni’s Street Corner,” was never seen by the public other than within the 100-chapbooks, this is the first time ever the author has allowed it to be reprinted. The Chapbook carried the name “Two Modern Short Stories of Immigrant Life,”© 1984 (Edited by Sharon A. Waagen, 1984)

V

 A Tale for the Times:

The Vile Hypocrisy of Abu

(In Poetic Prose) 1999-2015

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, scorns and warns!

Author’s Analogue:

Alas, all that my old age calls for: sleep and restfulness, I still must write this tale I plainly see; thus I shall have to load my frail shoulders, take pen in hand, and write for by the devil’s evil and my sweat; I am fed to do so. On this I am resolved, and shall call it by name ‘A Tale for the Times!’ and somewhere add a subtitle. And as you will read, or perhaps be able to see, the Devil’s inmate, will be—and in this case, he and his comrades in arms, have already and continue to be—storming across Iraq and Syria with a sting of fury.

Daesh

So they went on, and on, rising and rising, the militant group, called the Islamic State, and their Army, wasting, pillaging, and stealing, killing men, women, children, and the elderly alike, in the clap of an eye. And the world outside the Middle East did little to nothing, in the years of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2014 and 2015 A.D. In doing what they did— near nothing, thus, nothing was too hot or too heavy for them—the world being too busy with the crisis in the Ukraine over a Russian invasion, and China expanding its trumped-up territorial rights, with might: push and shove, in the South China Sea, always testing the waters to see how the United States will react; Iran and North Korea, with their touch and go trick and slick dialogue while building up of their nuclear arsenals, to do what? Only God knows, or perhaps the Devil too! …. So IS, they continued to do what they know best, do best: trashing and smashing ancient ruins, humankind’s artifacts representing their ancient cultures, roots: demolished overnight! All in the name of Allah 19, of whom to the Muslim, and   Mohammed Islam’s prophet,  is the one God, Lord of Heaven and Earth, not necessarily the same Trinitarian God considered by the Christian, —throughout  Iraq and Syria, with grueling fury; with spit and spite, labor and might; alongside: infiltrating, fighting Syrian Kurds, and the Iraqi government, the Kurdish society, the Syrian government, and ducking from the warplanes of the North Americans dropping bombs hitter-skitter, hitting every-which-way, whom have protested when asked to put their soldiers’ heels on the ground, and for good reason, after a ten-year war, and draining the American economy of its resources, hesitate out of dissatisfaction.  And although the bombing by the Americans do, and are doing their job well: of seek and destroy, with well over 500-sorties16 below their wings thus fare, leaving black spots amid open terrain, in buildings, trenches, on mountain tops, across bridges, fortifications, destroying bunkers, mosques and local townships laying bare to be seen, eaten by scavengers such as: vultures, jackals, local dogs, rats, ants, worms, pulling and stretching out human entrails, scattered brains, sucking up pools of blood, gnawing at the bone marrow of entrenched in arms and legs; the wild beasts have their choice of a  heap of dead thus far; and the dying pell-mell, recklessly looking for shelter beneath the footsteps of those supersonic jetfighters, and for the pilots everything remains motionless out of sight out of mind, everything is a diagram within the cockpit on screen hence the dying unseen; the dying, dying with open mouths, arms out spread, soldiers holding their weapons in disarray, steeped in blood that which has been thrown from a distance cover their faces, splashed onto their attire. And they ask, nearly beg the Americans to terminate this means of “Show of force,” lest they behead one of America’s own, the US journalist James Foley, abducted in Syria in 2012 and Steven Sotloff, captured in 2014, but the shower of bombs keep coming no matter what; matter of fact, President Obama expanded the military campaign against IS1, ‘You don’t deal with the devil’ says the pentagon in essence, casting Abu and Satan as: like to like, liars. And the earth trembles with the shock of the bombings and everywhere those heavy American pebbles command respect, yet again all is known, this alone will not halt the willed enemy, for total victory it will be the foot soldier, and the willing.  Even wounding severely Abu, the war needs to be won by the defenders of the land, the Iraqi Soldier, whom, for some odd reason, expects the world to take the lion’s share of the burden, or so it would seem. IS, a branch always heading towards Baghdad, always heading towards Baghdad, Damascus being already theirs? Contest all within its sights. Some Sunni leaders welcomed them, some not, some give an intrepid exhalation, a long and arduous moan of triviality if not meaninglessness.

       If Abu had his way he would spit upon the placidity of peace; in a like manner, Abu spoke aloud in the dark of war, putting on his right boot first, henceforward, making a strict sign in his discipline for the world to see: for those under his command to have no mercy.

       When the Americans left Iraqi Abu saw Iraq was a  newly discovered amulet, found by chance at a moment of peril, because there was a void in the country, and all put aside: they could and world, start blackmailing the Middle East, by and by. The United States Pentagon has been and continues to be alerted time and again to this dilemma, then Ramadi fell, how could this be? Eight-hundred IS soldiers terrorizing over 30,000-Iraqis. Thereafter, militants went door to door, looking for sympathizers, thousands fled the city, becoming refugees, and those who stayed got killed. The priests, preachers, physicians, philosophers, professionals of all kinds; surgeons, lawyers, merchants, they all followed, one after the other, trying to escape this apocryphal militia. The cities throughout large portions of Syria and Iraq, by order of this leading warmonger, were ravaged, and those who stayed—the poor devils—knew not which saint to pray to for many were Christians, or what devil to hide behind, for those who were pagan, and the unwilling Muslim, he too was no exception. And behind stone walls stood Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi15, or better known to his supporters as Amir al-Mu’minin, the Caliph Ibrahim, 15 thinking he was safe and sound, as once Mohammed did in Mecca.

Abu

Abu, young gallant, jovial resourceful, bold, resolute, with a fine outstanding nose, mocking the world, waving his index finger—as if he was the incarnation of Black Death—as  if it is all a joke, carrying on this atrocious war.  A Muslim, in farce dogma, to his very teeth; that is to say: he was, still is, an imposter, pretending to be Islamic by nature not by decorum or protocol, far from it! Furthermore, using it for a shield, it remains a sham, or better put: a mockery, this he displays to his very knees with no reprieve, and thinks: ‘Why relinquish now, — why should I start sacrificing all I have done to make Islam a tool for my personal confederation of war against the world.’ Which is his ultimate goal, which he has done so very well, so far ((like the warrior-gods of old—in the first century of Islam, even announcing himself as Caliph Ibrahim, or God’s Deputy he is inspiring fear; in addition, trying to change the face, and the name of his cutthroats, to become a state, or caliphate, and he being its caliph)(to Abu, it is to no purpose to adore Islam, it is a name and nothing more—it is a means to an end, which is a continued Jihad on the West if not the world as a whole but first things first, he must control the Middle East, then make the course of Islam, without any attempt to understanding its meaning and at the same time changing its will: destiny and death!))

        He is now the world’s new Enemy No: 2 (with a ten-million dollar bounty on his head) who looks more like a grape picker than a IS Topmost. One who reads the Qur’an daily, yet forgets it meanings, doesn’t practiced its precepts, and as for peace, he is not a peacemaker, more simply a peace preacher, those who do not seek, but preach it in pretense: superintending: ‘The Cow’ from the Qur’an 17, for does it not say:  those who spread discontent in the land will suffer God’s hand—; he has no fear of God or man. 

       Does he not know, God had already balanced and weighed him for his sins, and he is found lacking; indeed, he is in-need, if to avoid the intestines of Sheol20 which is also called Hell or its deeper root: Tartarus. Indeed, he is in-need of a better understanding of God, for knowingly shedding blood, and discontent and a thousand other diabolical rudiments of sin, and threads of sin on top of sin, according to the Qur’an, is condemning. For he has forgotten what God said to Adam: “I know…what you hide?” 17

       He is no different than Iblis8, the Insolent.

       And for those who look for humbleness in this man, as his Sacred Book requires, and as all such believers should have, none will be established. Again he is found wanting, and in-need. This is the man…

Suru’el

Consequently, God sent down an angel to speak to Abu with proverb, a sign which presaged death: “Take heed there will come a day when no intercession will matter. God will make the clouds spread over you and not send manna as He did in the days of Moses, but lightening and fire and death, and plague upon you and your nonsensical others, and all that you will hear is the raucous of the grasshopper, for you and your lot will be buried among them.”

       And the Topmost whispered, for he was bedridden, dying, “No, God will not have retribution, for I am not wicked. I did no worse than Mohammed in his day, when he cutoff the heads of his enemy by the wheelbarrows, and had them taken to the furnaces, and outdoor fires, and buried them deep in the sands of Arabia.”

      

And the angel understood, who was called by the name Suru’el † (for he is of eternity and trembling), “First, Mohammed, he suffered from anger and hate, filaments of Iblis, to which he had inside his breast: to name a few: madness, — the hunger for power by way of war and more war, the hunger to be worshiped, like Lucifer, the lust of Cleopatra of Alexandrea. Alas, men imitate, but that is no excuse, you and he will have many days with Iblis to discuss this very matter, as it will be shortly written into: ‘The Book of Deeds.’17 But what I wanted to say, or was about to say, what I came here to say, is: you disgrace God and have become indigent. You have become the apes of the world, despised! To God you are the cow with the blemish, unyoked, and not even good for plowing.”

       And Abu lay there like a dying peacock looking deep into the messenger’s eyes, evasive hiding behind shadows inside his head, like a tree-squirrel hiding his nuts, thinking, thinking, foul-smelling sticken-thinken’: ‘They packed bodies in carts like potatoes, we had no time like them—like  Mohammed—to  find coffin makers, so we buried them in the sands, burnt their remains, dragged them to pits used for reception of filth, some were tied to stakes  as they were inspected, as I have done, and I throw pebbles at their faces, as Mohammed had thrown dirt and dust, to hear them cry out, as they suffered from vague  melancholy, all absorbing the agonies of death to be—I know this, but I was no different than Mohammad; some ate them and spit them out like apple seeds, like Mohammad in his day did, we are justified like he was, defending our faith, we made no mistake, if I am guilty, then Mohammed must be?’

       And the angelic being having been able to read his mind, said, “Remember the “Story of the Cranes” 17 also known as the Satanic Verse, that it involved Mohammed and three Meccan Goddesses. To which he was covering up his lie, by saying the devil tricked him. This is not so unlike you who hide behind shadows, wanting to do away with God’s dicta, for you grudge against the world, you are Satan’s sycophant.” 

      “Mohammed later retracted that statement,” said Abu, “that is, the verses saying Gabriel had instructed him to do so; whereas, Satan had gotten him to drink too much wine, and he messed up the prophecy.” Exclaimed Abu, affirming it was a simple matter of human frailty. All in all, the angel was silent on this matter, he knew Abu was not devoted to God’s cause, that he was guided solely by the prescriptions of his root. For he could see in his face how he enjoyed to see the common people in fear and trembling of him, his name in command, for at one time he was no more than a poor extremist, living in a ramshackle neighborhood in Baghdad whose passion was football and killing, attached to a small local mosque in Tobchi. For Suru’el this had already taken its course, and accordingly, one does not criticize what already belongs to the past, he was not here to scorn. For he knew he was a very narrow man with very narrow capacities, even though he had letters behind his name, in the form of a Ph.D.

       “It is better to be a fool, and learn from it, but Mohammad was no fool, he was cleaver in his cover up, he was unlearned in his words and phrases, he was not wise in his deception,” countered the angel, then adding, “His heart beat like the sea, his anger was as if he had bees in his mouth; Mecca became a dead city after all the killings 10,000-soldiers strong, he conquered them, butchered them like hogs. The flies had a feast…, for they tore open their bellies: men, woman and child, like beasts! Their heads severed, rolled off and on down the streets—; they would not listen, they would not stop, they simply killed to kill, as if, in a death march. And then danced and drank wine, as you and your horde are familiar with.” 

       Death calm as a statue, did not appear to understand. He actually blushed a little as the angel cast down his eyelids, as if in sorrow, and he stepped closer, as to even make a shadow upon the dying man’s cheeks. Then Suru’el seeing Death so near, said: “It is sad to have watched you so long taking the nonessential and overlooking the essential, as if it is   superficial   this is a man with an unattended mind. It is also sad—as you well know—you  have grieved while alive,  and when you pass on—soon to be—you  will grieve more, having to witness over and over  the stain of your actions.   Life has been your torment, here in the present, and will be your torment in the hereafter: like to like: as you enter the land of woe expect no more, — you are like a tree in the wind, a weak tree that bends.” 14

       And no one could see the angel, or hear the holy angel not even Death, but Abu could, and looked as if he was in shock that no one else around his bedsides could; as for the observers, he lay there as if paralyzed, talking to himself, but all feared to interrupt him if undeniably he was having a sacred moment.  And Abu said, “I don’t want to argue with you!”

       Then the angel replied, “Woe to you that say this is from God so you might make some profit, and gain powers. Woe to all you for you will receive His promise: the wages of sin!” 17

       The Muslim now in despair, asked “What have I done wrong 18to not enter Paradise?”

       “Why should you taste the grape, if you have not fought for the vine? No, God sees what you have done, he has sent for Death and his sickle, and he will chain you to an iron ball, and take you down the road to Tartarus.” Abu, looked at the angel as if he was the Vicar of Islam, with pride, tenacity, as if his sins were trifle.

       Again he asked, “What have I done so wrong to deserve this harsh punishment?” avoiding to give an account of his actions, or a confession!

       “Presumption is a more serious fault than cruelty,” said the seraph.

God’s Holy Angel, Suru’el

Approaches—

Then Suru’el the archangel, said as a second and completer response—after pulling out of thin air a Black List 18 of his abominations—that  had it been weighed it would have fell to the very bottom of Hell, sank to earth’s most deepest core, and did names a few:

       “You pretend to be something but God sees nothing but emptiness, pretending to be fullness, penury in your soul, you say in your heart ‘why should a Divine Saga6 like Mohammed repine? I have nothing to fret!’ If you knew there was a good man standing by the top of a well, and an evil one at its bottom, you would go sit with the evil one, at its extremity.

       “To start with, your own soldiers throughout Anbar Province7, stumble over the dying and dead quite blinded by the blood that splashes into their faces as they litter the area with black flags, as the unarmed citizens frozen with terror standby and watch, if indeed they haven’t already escaped your terror, to become your next victims. Do you think God cannot see this?

       “And to your original question, what are your offences, your contraventions: You have stranded thousands of Yazidis10 noncombatants, to die without food or water on Mount Sin Jar, killing men, boys, raping and enslaving women, and girls, creating a humanitarian crisis. You have beat out the brains of your brothers, those in the provinces you have conquered in Iraq and Syria, and that is per near any and every one according to your will and temperament at any given moment, not so unlike your territorial army, whom imitated you. And you break their arms and legs, fragmented their neckbands, shattered their kidneys, slit their noses and throats, blackened their eyes, smashed their jaws and brows, knocked their teeth down their throats or onto the streets, and shattered their shoulder blades every-which-way. Even dislocating the thighbones, and cracking the forearms, and you and your horde break the base spines of many, like dogs, and they, were they not, like all mankind, in the image of God! And cutting deep into the necks of those helpless and innocent prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs, with small daggers, stilettos, and kitchen knives, and beheading many without due cause. You place more value in a single brick for a house than for one of God’s creatures. You rape, and call it the spoils of war, helpless women, cutting their hearts out thereafter, and children as well, and fiercely through the navel, you have made their bowels gush out. You have set booby traps throughout the cities you’ve conquered to maim others when you leave, as for the likes of: Mosul, Diyala Salahuddin, Nineveh, Fallujah, Tikrit, Mosul, and you took at will refinery after refinery, and now you’ve captured Palmyra* heading north for Aleppo and north-east to Hasaka. And yet you keep fighting with 17,000-fighters dead, from airstrikes from Jordan and the Americans.  Once all is said and done, you will return to your equated name ‘Daesh Cutthroats,’ for that is what you are, Daesh meaning death, as you well know (also spelled Da’esh).1”

The ruins at Palmyra

      Such was the outcry of the seraph who was disgusted to even have had to explain these wrongs, or transgressions of his, as if he was blind to his sacrilegious rampage.  But is it not true, if someone says a transgression is no transgression long enough, he believes  it to be so, he believes in his heart and mind, his own lie, and is confounded that others don’t.

       “Islam is a religion of fighters, not peacemakers!” he yelped back at the angel, as if he was some Ancient Carthaginian Pontifex9.

       Suru’el had expected him to cry out:  ‘Tell God to have mercy on me, my soul, and thy hands are dirty!’ but he would not yield, he was not to repent and behind the angel appeared the man with the sickle, Abu was discomfited. And for a moment, Abu fell into a deep sleep, reminiscing what had taken place to make him bedridden: a Scud missile hit his bunker, from 187-miles away, in Nineveh; the ballistic missile did much damage, and he was badly injured; shortly thereafter, he was taken to another location for safety.  

       Asked Suru’el, “Who appointed you God’s Deputy, it wasn’t God?” As Suru’el knew, he had proclaimed publicly to the world this.

       “Far be it from me,” remarked Abu, “to make any such claim,” and he hid his grin, like a schoolboy who stole a wedge of rhubarb from a Chinese garden.

       “You do realize after your death, there will be no expiation given or accepted, on your behalf, calling upon heaven’s spirits, or God you whom you call Allah, to which God does not recognize the character you’ve created him to be, he is quite to the contrary, nor will earth-spirits, or those spirits below perform any lavish deeds for you, again this is a presumption on your part, and that is a deeper sin than unkindness.”

       And this small man was fretful and ill at ease. As Suru’el was affable yet firm, commanding in his speech, but not harsh, polite but easy. And by his silence, Abu renounced the sovereignty of all things under Heaven, and expecting but not getting praise for his rampage he called “For the glory of Allah” from Heaven.

       And Suru’el thought deeply on his silence: saying to himself, and with the very highest pitch of moral power: he has put God in the position of becoming a commotion, a confusion, inflexible, harsh.  As if the common people are nothing to God as he feels they are nothing to Him; only does he display God as at his corner of cruelness, and credit God for it, not his goodness. Thus, here was a man dying, and he places still himself above all the rest of mankind living: with every attitude, gesture, he employs he does not withdraw any arrogance, or reason for violence, he cannot even remove all traces of coarseness or impropriety from his face, heart and soul. What kind of man is this? He is far from a true Knight of Old Islam, and pretends to be, liken to the old sultan, Saladin, of the Christian Crusades, of the 12^th Century 11.

       And then Suru’el said, with dire speech, for he was exasperated with Abu’s retorts: “Wherever you went you created some new disaster in the name of Elohim13, and could you have you would have, and perhaps though you did, think you had forbidden God to learn of your irreverence. I saw you soiling your boots as you crushed the filth you created under-foot. Bones of your Apes, and those of the innocent shepherds. It is a shame. Your delusions require some victim. If God wanted all mankind to be Muslims do you not think he could manage that at a single stroke?” 

       Abu shuddered, — and panted un-rhythmically.

       “Crushed be the dog that injures God’s flock! You are like ‘Moloch the Devourer.’”12

      

        Now slightly opening his eyes standing at the end of his bed unmoving was the man with the sickle he had followed him: hence, he was simply waiting, waiting, to hear his last grasp for his last breath! And Abu aggrieved badly, overheard Death talking to someone he called the Master—while looking about for the angel he had been previously talking to, whom was nowhere to be seen —:  Death said  to this Great Beast of a Being, with ten-wings, “Your henchman have done well with this man, like a painting comes after the plain groundwork is done; with him you will have many things to discuss once he is completely released to me, and I in turn, release him to you, or your devils!”

       Then the Master remarked, “Why is he not dead, but simply laid up in bed? … is he not yet, an inmate of Hell?”

Death rides his horse

       (The angel of God stepped closer to Abu, whose eyesight was dimming, who had been as we now well know, injured beyond repair, and was on what might be called a death watch, and the leadership of Daesh1 being reconsidered, he did not stir, and his eyes fixed, his tongue between his teeth, his face bluish color, as if he had a noose rushing tighter and tighter around his neck like a squeezing viper, he was dying, dying, dying slowly, the angel stepped even closer to his bed.  White mucus flowed from his nostrils, and his limbs were stiff, as if they had been frozen by the cold during the night. One of Abu’s comrades said, “An end must be put to this!”  The interpretation of that could be dispensed in a number of ways,  but war-songs were being sung, and their army was so spread-out, that  should no one be bold enough to endeavor to take the leadership and make decisions, they themselves would be the conquered, no longer the unconquerable, as the world now saw them.)

       “His spirit is here,” said Death, speaking to the one he called The Master, “although he is not present, it is as if there is no one inside that head, even though he talks to himself… and he maintains to this very moment his personal nihilistic philosophy, that is to say, he is the least bit sorry,” exclaimed Death. For Death knew, he who puts himself wrong with Heaven has no means of expiation left, lest it be a miracle; heretofore, his fellow soldiers were not about to have any Christian come in and save his soul at the last minute, plus, as it was written, concerning the entrapment of sin with sin: for God will no longer defend the soul of such a sinner from the  efficacy of the devil, thus, the sinner is led captive by the devil at his will, it is a punishment, God had given him over to the reprobated mind, given him up to sin, to do those things which are not suitable, being filled with unrighteousness. And this was well understood with Death, even Satan, Himself, had few qualms with this.

       Abu, now looked up from his bed as if out of a trance, no longer was Suru’el present, nor could he see Death, but he saw at the arch of the doorway, for many were around him, passing it, going to and fro: the doctors and nurses talking among themselves, and his generals whispering to one another, thus he saw the Angels of Babylon, Harut and Marut, renowned for their death calls, and they said, simultaneously: “We have done our job well, we deceived you” (meaning his faith: but it was a requirement for them to announce this, willingly or not); and then Abu fell into a coma.

The Ten-winged Beast

Ponders—

Fine, the Master hearing this, said, “If this is so, let the imps and the fiends, the devils and demon, and the foreigners, and strangers, and renegade seraphim dance around his bed, and have their ritual.”

       And Death replied, seized with anxiety, “Yes, the Dance of Death, is quite suited.” 

       And so it was, as the Qur’an, states: “Theirs is the reward for what they did, as yours will be for what you do…” thus, he was cast down to Tartarus 20, with those who concealed the testimony received from God! For what Abu had done, was not God’s will, but his own! 17

((Epilogue: To fill-up full, humankind’s cup of joy, God who is generous, and the Devil who is meagre, good news is allowed to arrive on Abu’s death. It would seem he was an enemy of God and Satan alike.  But now he will have to run fast, high and hard, among other things, to escape his fate. And although he will be greeted with the greatest respect, and delight and rejoicing in Tartarus, this kindness was something predictable yet unexpected. A favorable wind now I hope will soon be brought over the Middle East, where Abu trampled; unfortunately such people are simply replaced.)(While writing this tale, and now in the process of editing it, Abu died of his wounds, which would be Friday, 12th of June, 2015? today being the 16^th, to which it has just been reported on television; he now will face his Maker: in his case, it would be better for him to remain a live dog than a dead lion, for he no longer has time to mend his ways!))

 Written: 6 thru 15 of June, 2015 (No: 1084)  

The End to the Tale

Notes:

Written: 6 thru 16 of June, 2015 (No: 1084)   

Note 1: The ISIS, or IS, or IsiL is really ‘Daesh.’ The Arabic-derived term for ‘Daesh’ is EIIL (L’Etat islamique en Irak et en Syrie)   They emerged in 1999. Established by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian; then his group changed to al-Qaeda (AQI), belonging to Osama bin Laden’s network, October, 2004. Its most recently leader being Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared Daesh to take the name: Islamic State in Iraq (Isi) in 2006. And in 2013, Isi became Isis.  Now in 2015, they prefer to be referred to as just IS or Islamic State. But on the contrary, it is neither Islamic in structure, although most consider themselves Muslims, nor is it a state recognized.  In reality IS, is the old ‘Dash Cutthroats.’  Daesh sometimes spelled Daiish or Da’esh, means death. The Arabic meaning is to tread underfoot or crush.

Note 2:  Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of which this tale, as it is referred to, is taken from his life, in the tale is referred to only as Abu.    Ayman al-Zawahiri, is the only one in the world with a higher bounty, twenty-five million.  Abu was born 1971, in Iraq. Loves football.  Obtained a BA, MA and PhD in Islamic studies. He emerged out of a ramshackle neighborhood of Baghdad. He has three wives and a son of 12-years old.  Wounded on 18 March 2015 by a coalition airstrike at the al-Baaj District in Nineveh Governorate, near the Syria boarder. It is said and believed at this writing, he is recuperating.

Note 3: Abu Bark al-Baghdadi, with his Ph.D., in Islamic Studies, proclaims: Islam is not a religion of peace, that it is or was ‘the religion of fighting’ how true that would appear, if one was to judge Islam according to its actions.

Note 4: Confucius,   Chinese intellect, born about 551 BC. Liken to Plato, the Greek philosopher.

Note 5: Mastiman, Carthaginian god of the dead. ((Carthage, dates to the 900 B.C.)(Rome’s rival))

Note 6: Divine Saga, a term used by Confucius, as a person without blemish.

Note 7: Amber Province is a large area in Iraq, roads in this area lead to Syria, which IS now has occupied 50%, and Iraq, whom they have occupied 33%, and roads also lead into Jordon. It would seem the Sunni are predominant in this area, and fear the muscle of the Shia.

Note 8: Iblis (the Devil or Satan, the Ten-winged Beast)

Note 9:  Ancient Carthaginian Pontifexs: there was four within the city of Carthage, whom were considered High Priests, called Pontiffs, or Pontifexs, they also had what was called the 100-Ancients, the wise ruling body of the government, like the senators of Rome.

Note 10: In August of 2014, Abu Bake al-Baghdadi, tried to do a genocide of the Yazidis population   by driving them out of their homes, to starve and freeze today on Mount Sin jar.  Creating a humanitarian Crisis, tow here the United States had to get involved lest they all parish.

Note 11: Saladin: Islamic Warrior, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, 1137 to 1193, Captured Jerusalem, 1187. Defended it during the 3^rd Crusade 1189-1192.

Note 12: Moloch the Devourer: Canaanite deity, like Baal.

Note 13: Elohim, God’s special name, of Jewish Origin.

Note 14:  Insight taken from the writings of the Dhammapada, by Gotama Buddha (6^th Century B.C.)

Note 15: Abu, or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, or we can call him Abu Du’a, or add to that al-Husseini al-Qurashi, the Caliph Ibrahim,

Note: 16: Sorties: often time used for military air strikes,

Note 17: References to the Qur’an

Note: 18 The Black List, is a list of those who are bent in mind on doing the things that are unreasonable wicked. That even the Bottom of Hell cannot afford to keep of such crying Abomination. It is called the Black List Doctrine. It is says “Cotton Mather,” when the Holy God, often punishes man’s sins of men by giving him up to full blacker sins against hm. It is also a belief of the Jewish Faith, and spelled out in the Book of Revelation.  In the Old Testament, “Men are punished for one transgression, by being therefore given up unto another.” And there is a similar belief stated in the Qur’an.

Note 19: Allah, to the Muslim, and to its prophet Mohammed, was considered God, not necessarily the same God as the Christian God, in its Trinitarian form. Likewise the Qur’an should not be spelled with a ‘K’ nor Mohammed with a ‘u’ or ‘Muslim’ with an ‘o’ if one seeks to do it correctly.

Note 20:  Tartarus, the deeper part of Hell.  To the Jew Sheol.

* Palmyra, is Syria’s greatest Middle East archeological site. A UNESCO World Heritage Site. It predates Islam, Hatra and Nimrud. It was a cultural center of the ancient world.

† Suru’el, one of the holy angels in 1 Enoch (in Volume I, The Old Testament, Pseudepigrapha, scriptures dating to about 200 B.C.), that watch; he might be what is considered a ‘Power’ in Heaven, for when he appears, or whom he may appear to, he shakes the earth. The ‘el’ on the end of the first name indicates ‘Angel’ 

VI

Tale of a Young Tradesman

According to what I have been told, there was a young musical dealer, a tradesman in the making, in Orlando, Florida, named Arontaylor Gordon. He heard that Lima, Peru was a very good market for purchasing well made, and inexpensive instruments, in particular stringed instruments, that the craftsmanship was exceptional. And though he had never been outside of his country before he had $20,000-dollars in his bank account set aside for such an adventure in investments. Several others within his trade who knew him quite well, were about to leave for Lima, for just such an adventure, thus he went along.  They arrived the second weekend in June, on a Monday evening, and, on the advice of the hotel staff, was told to rest and not to leave the hotel premises until morning and they would find for them chauffeuring, and not to worry, that there were many bargains to be had.  To impress a few of the staff members, and prove he was an unpretentious buyer, Arontaylor pulled out a roll of one-hundred dollar bills, in front of several staff standing behind the counter, and one bellboy leaning his forearm against a railing, as a multitude of guests were coming and going per near in his pathway, seeing what a foolish lad he was. And as he displayed this compressed wad of bills, a very lovely Peruvian woman of Trujillo stock: bronze skin with dark deep eyes, and long black straight silk like hair that touched the end of her spine just happened to pass him by (one of those who will perform a favor for any man for a sum; one of ill repute) without noticing her, and she saw the wad of bills, with the two zeros at the end tips of nearly each bill, as he fanned them like a deck of cards. Said she to herself, as she stood at the glass doors peering back over her shoulder at the hotel staff around this young gentleman, ‘He is daring or stupid, he will be in poverty before he knows it, save, if he does not correct his ways; here, does his journey end. The money if it were mine, I’d put better use to it, should someone else get it, some lowdown thief, most obvious, then what?’

      This young woman, girl not yet twenty-three, like a Trujillano, wanted to run up and embrace him, before he put the money back into his front pocket, that made a large bulge, but instead she turnabout, and went up to her hotel room she rented by the month for her amorousness escapades. Claudia, being her name, waited for her personal, and elder maid, had her deliver a message to Mr. Gordon, whom now was in his room dressing for dinner to soon join his fellow companions, as she weaved her web to figure out how to get his money. The elder maid, went downstairs to talk to the staff, to gather all the information she could on the gentleman, even went into the small bar, seeing a few of his companions at a table and got into a conversation with them, then reported back to her paymaster all she had learned. Then went to the gentleman’s room, a floor below Claudia’s, said: “Senior, a lady of well standing saw you in the lobby and would like to speak with you at your leisure.”

       The maid held a calm and regal composure, and thought little of it, or so it appeared to the gentleman, as far as danger went; in consequence, he saw himself far from it, actually he saw himself as perhaps the most handsome gringo in Peru, and this lovely Inca Princess could not do without him, “Sure,” he said, with a grandiose smile and puffed up posture, “I’ll see her right away, right now!”

       “Whenever you like,” said the elder maid, whom really didn’t look her age, but was twice his.

       “What are we waiting for, let’s go, go…!” Arontaylor said with repose.

       The maid took him down to the floor below, pell-mell, by elevator, he knew and suspected naught. She had a key to the door, and opened it and called to her mistress: “Here’s the gentleman you were asking about, Mr. Gordon.”

       “Oh, Mr. Arontaylor Gordon, from Orlando, Florida, welcome, welcome to my humble abode!”

       He was quite amazed at the apartment, it was three times the size of his, and quite elegant.

       “Nice to meet you, Miss…” and he hesitated.

       “Claudia Gordon-Tapia,” she said as smoothly as silk. Then she took him by the hand and furthermore said, “We are related.” This was all new to him of course, and she had him sit down, and gave him wine and cookies, and kissed his cheeks, and rubbed his thigh.

       “Arontaylor, I am most certain we are related, when I heard your last name mentioned by the staff, I was greatly surprised.”

       “I’ve never heard about this, of having Peruvian relatives, even if it may be in the form of a second or third cousin,” recoiled Arontaylor. 

       “Oh yes, we are in that category for sure!” She exclaimed, “Things ill done perhaps, and long past, but we are related.” Then she called for more wine and dinner to be sent up for both of them.

       “Well, if it is it is,” said Mr. Gordon, bewildered but willing to take it at face value, why would she lie?

       Then she embraced him more and started to cry, kissed his hands.

        “I’ve got to go, I have to have dinner with my associates, and they’re expecting me!”

       “Yes,” said Claudia, “I understand, you are surprised, as well as I am surprised, but your dinner is on its way, and I’ll have my personal maid tell your comrades, you’re busy, they’ll understand.”

       To this he answered:

       “I’m pretty tired, and it’s getting late, and I suppose it will be alright.” After this she talked about all the information her maid had supplied for her, and it impressed Arontaylor some, reassured him, it was possible, and as far as the maid, she never did deliver the message, she was close behind hidden doors.

       After dinner, it was quite late, “Alas!” she said, “I have two bedrooms here you must stay the night, for a lady like me it doesn’t look well for a man to leave so late, in the wee hours of the morning I’ll wake you, and you can go back to your room and freshen up if you please, and we can meet later on if you wish.”

      

       The night was a tinge chilly, and Arontaylor had just jumped into bed and under the covers when all of a sudden he found he needed to relieve himself. His breeches were hung over the top of a sofa chair in a corner of the bedroom, his money still in his pocket. He got up, looked for the bathroom.

       ‘In there,’ he told himself.

       For you to understand what took place next, and what is to follow, I shall describe it as well as I can: it was dark in the bathroom, and the lights did not work, so narrow was it, he could not spread out his legs without touching each side of the walls, it was a spare restroom with only a toilet and very small sink, seldom used it would seem, or perhaps used too often, and a thin commode 18^th Century style, German, had been squeeze into one side with just enough room for him to squeeze around it, heavy too, for all the three items: commode, toilet and Arontaylor too heavy for the beams below that were wet from leakage, as was the rim around the  toilet wet and the floor soggy, making two planks rot under the heavy marble like privy-seat, when he sat in place, allowing his full weight to drop onto the wooden seat, the two planks, one of which had already halfway been disengaged, and slightly fallen, he found himself on the bottom of a stairway—he had fallen through, both planks over his knees. The maid ran to her mistress as soon as she heard him crash, and Claudia on the spur of the moment ran to the bedroom and took the money from his clothes.

       There he lay, knowing good and well now, he was tricked. He yelled loud and louder for help, but all Claudia did was shut the bathroom door, and lock the bedroom door. He pushed the side the planks, climbed over the toilet, all bruised from head to heel. Then it dawned on him, his misfortune, and cried like a baby, ‘How short a time it took for me to lose my entire savings and investment,’ he moaned.   

       “Alas!” said a staff member of the hotel, using the stairway instead of the elevator, after several minutes had passed.

       “Oh!” said Arontaylor, “I’ve been robed!” forgetting he was all bruised up and could barely stand, and he explained his situation, as she called for an ambulance with her cellphone.

       To him, she replied:

       “Young man,” said the maid looking up at the big hole he made by falling through it: “I know nothing about you, but I know about her, whom you speak of, had you fallen to sleep and not fallen through floor as you have done, as to relieve yourself as you say, she would have cut your throat while in your sleep.”

No: 1085/6-15 thru 16-2015

Copyright © 6-2015 by Dlsiluk

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The Black Death Odes

The Black Death

Part One

Some stood staring with bleeding from the noses, other swelling in the groin and armpits—

The size of an egg, an apple…

They called them tumors, — but all knew it was the Black Death; soon thereafter the tumors spread; they changed from black to purple!

Thereafter, spots appeared on the arms and thighs, large and small: death spoke, and it had its own silent language!

And there was no medical advice.

Death was imminent within three to seven days: depending!

No fever or symptoms, it came and was contagious, like a fire catching seagull, it was airborne.

Once captured on the clothes, it became diseased also!

And the animals, they even got infested: pigs, dogs, cats and birds moved those ineffectual rags, to and fro…

As the corpses laid all about, day and night!

It came by way of China they say, on those old wooden ships, piggybacked by diseased rats, whom carried the pathogen, the bacterium flea, called: Yersinia pestis—

So the healthy avoided the diseased, securing their own safety: abandoning their properties, and drank wild and woolly, unfocused and bestial—

They roamed from tavern to tavern, forgetting all laws: human and divine!

As one after the other, ministers and executors of the law disappeared; all were nearly dead only a few alive, but they were paid no mind! They were hidden in their houses.

Thus no duties were perform, just to bury the infected dead, and ride or run.

Part Two

Neighbors did not visit neighbors; many went abroad!

Relatives stopped visiting one another.

Brothers abandoned brothers, and uncles their nephews.

Sisters abandoned brothers, as did wives and husbands abandoned one another!

As did fathers and mothers refused their children.

Therefore, the sick were left to care for the sick.

The servants left, no matter how high the wages were lifted.

The rich and the beautiful, exposed themselves to manservants no dignity no shame, just plague.

People died alone, without a witness or clergy.

The piteous laments deleted, and bitter tears were shunned.

Two-hundred million died, out of a population of four-hundred and fifty million, or thereabouts!

Grave diggers threw bodies into the nearest burial ground available: be it trench or grave, or ditch, perhaps even into the rivers, it was all the same.

One neighbor knew the other neighbor was dead by the reeking smell that drifted from his abode.

In houses throughout Florence, decaying bodies laid exposed for days on days; there were no mourners: 100,000-died in Florence alone, as the disease continued to travel along the Silk Road with Mongol armies and traders and by ship.

It infected cities in India, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia as well as Europe, and Egypt.

Bodies were thrown over city walls, thus infecting the farming inhabitants.

Dead men, women and children, were more plentiful than dead rodents, rats, rabbits, goats and hogs.

And one to another thought no more of it.

For the proper respect towards the dead was no longer shown;

People had reached its lowest point.

To this end, they went to their rest!

5-29-2015 ((No: 4784)

Ω

The Black Death Flea

The Black Death Flea has its own history!

From a horse, rat, rag or corpse, without touching the ground, it can leap rapidly, — with all the quick-witted swinging skills of Achilles’ sword!

Yet more deadly than the battle-axe, the crossbow the javelin or the boar spear— but better still,

It can find its way around armor.

It can kill a bear, boar, a hare, pheasant, if it is infected, and be carried away to jump onto man!

It can climb trees on the backs of cats, walls on the backs of rats, and will drop down on whomever is below.

It jumps from one tree to another hidden in the fur of a squirrel.

And the Black Death Flea, does not grieve, that other people do not recognize its merits.

Its only anxiety is lest he should fail to set man and beast, heels and hoofs in the house of death.

The Black Death Flea, is more insensitive than the stones of a verandah—

More macabre, than dancing with death and the devil.

In one way, the deadly flea, is a marvel.

Written: 5-30-2015 ((No: 4785) (Art work by the author/poet))

   

  …

Notes 1:  It was common in those days for streets of the city, any city in Europe, to be filled with filth. The Black Death or the Great Plague as it was also called, derives from the Homeric Greek, meaning a dark death, and the filth helped spread the disease. The Black Death was different than the Bubonic Plague, in that it had no symptoms of fever, or headaches, or painful aching joints, or nausea, when it came it came like a storm. The Pneumonic Plague, includes coughing and blood-tinged septum. Again a different kind of plague. As was the Septicemic plague different. The Black Death was active in Europe starting about 1347 to 1353, but it was already in Asia.  And in one way or another the plague would remain active until about 1750 A.D. half of the population in Paris died. About 40% of Egypt’s population died. It was a worldwide plague.  Iraq, Iran, Syria had a death rate of perhaps 33%. Eurasia (Europe and Asia) 200-million died. In 1624-25, 10% of the population of Amsterdam died of the plague. It perhaps killed between 30 to 40% of the world’s population, which was conceivably around 450-million.

Note 2: The Yesinia pestis is a gram-negative bacillus of the genus Yesrsinia that causes various animal diseases. Pestis meaning: pestilent, meaning poisonous, to cause death. Also referred to as in the old bible, pestilence. The flea being a bloodsucking insect, on the order of having legs adapted for jumping and are parasitic on warm-blooded animals (wingless).

Note 3: I ask the question, after explaining to myself how it started.  I mean, it didn’t start with God pronouncing I believe, a plague, it started in China perhaps by war, or disease ridden corpuses, and bacteria, and flea, and a rat and a boat that brought it over to Europe and Africa, I understand that, so it is or was in essence man’s own creative dilemma, or was it? Perhaps it was a test, like Job. Perhaps Satan said “Let me do with the world as I please and see how many Christians in Europe and worldwide will damn you instead of reverence you.  And thus, came the Black Death (or plague). It is obvious God could have stopped it, and perhaps did. But why did he turn his back?  Again, perhaps he didn’t, perhaps he was just weeding out the tars from the wheat. My best guess is with Job.

Note 4: the two interconnecting odes might be called (for the benefit of the reader) a Cowleyan Ode (s).  An ode of irregular form, or a serious lyric. Whose structure is determined by the poet?

(Art work done by the author and poet)

End of the Tales and Ode

Back of Book

The best way to describe this book “Osmoses,” (Three Tales and an Ode), is to parallel it: if you’ve enjoyed readings from: Francois Rabelais, Franz Kafka, Giovanni Boccaccio, Gustave Flaubert, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jack London, Poe, Robert Jeffers,  or perhaps,  Franz Boas, Cotton Mather, or for that matter, even Daniel Defoe, you’ll find this book most interesting. If you relish reading archeology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, a tinge of wisdom from the Bible, or perhaps Confucianism, and that old fashion wet wisdom, on the side of witticism, hence, you’ll find the book accommodating. It is sensitive, with magic realism, or surrealism. Too, with a reserved shade of historical data, geology, with a worldwide catastrophe to fill a few pages of the book, and perchance the reader’s wants.  It is in its own right, a small chef-d'oeuvre of literature, perhaps not on par with the names mentioned above, but surely not far-off. If you’ve never heard of these writers, my betters, than it might be wise to forgo this book, and its works. As a whole, it is not an easy read, but should you decide to read it, take it slowly, it is a page turner, like no other.