Monday, 22 April 2013
The Black Dionysia has moved
Hello readers. I've moved the content of my novel to authonomy, which is a site developed to help emerging writers get their works exposed and discussed. Anyone is welcome to join - you don't have to be a writer. So if you'd like to keep reading The Black Dionysia, just click here and register.
Sunday, 9 September 2012
2 - Prince Naharashi and the pieces of Elephant
“This,” said the chimpanzee, “is the tale of Prince Naharashi and the Pieces of Elephant.” Then he told the following story. And although he claimed to be retelling his own experiences he told the story as though it were a legend from another age of the world.
“Prince Naharashi and his thousand Samurai once journeyed to the Land of Middle River, where there lived a venerable swordsmith. The swordsmith’s name was Rahadava and he had a thousand beautiful daughters. To all his daughters he had taught his arts, and each was skillful and discerning, both in matters of sword making and the human soul. As it would chance, the season of Naharashi’s visit was also the time of the spice harvests, when great pans of fresh spice would be roasted each night at sunset and the evening meal would be served late.”
“Now Naharashi and his Samurai entered the valley of Rahadava at the first stirring of the pans, when preparations for the evening meal were traditionally begun. The great warriors were hungry from their journey and blessed the gods for their luck, for the mingled aroma of the spice pans and other cooking pots was divine, clearly an auspicious sign. The Samurai bathed in the local springs, in waters scented with jasmine blossoms and sandalwood, then lounged at their ease watching the daughters of Rahadava prepare the meal.”
“It was at this time that Naharashi’s purpose for the visit became clear, for he began to complement Rahadava about his daughters. Each of your daughters is surely beautiful and wise, he said to the venerable swordsmith. And every Samurai has need for these virtues at his side.”
“Rahadava nodded his head and smiled. He even waved his hands in blessing. But he said nothing. Prince Naharashi laughed in delight and informed his Samurai that they would all soon have wives to cook and clean for them, to mend their weapons and armor, and to warm their beds. The Samurai began to sing their favorite battle song. The daughters of Rahadava smiled and exchanged glances, but they said nothing. Instead, they motioned to the Samurai, indicating that each must present his sword to a prospective wife. This seemed wise to the pragmatic Naharashi. For as the girls were swordsmiths like their father it was fitting that each should be acquainted with the weapon she would soon be caring for. So the Prince commanded his Samurai to hand over their swords for inspection, which they did promptly.”
“But once all of Naharashi’s Samurai had disarmed themselves, Rahadava and his daughters cast aside their disguises. There stood Fridva Queen of Leopards and her army of demons. For Fridva, having learned of Naharashi’s journey, had run before him and imprisoned the swordsmith, his daughters, and all their servants in nearby caves and pits. This is the reason neither Rahadava nor his daughters had spoken to their guests, for Naharashi would have recognized their demon voices.”
“Things would have gone very badly for Naharashi’s Samurai had it not been for Mico the rabbit. Mico, always vigilant for trickery, knew of Fridva’s plans. He ran across the universe to the Palace of Infinite Mystery, home of the Black Elephant. Mico begged help for Naharashi and his Samurai. And because his errand was for the sake of another, the Black Elephant granted Mico’s request. The Elephant followed Mico to the valley of Rahadava and appeared just as the Queen of Leopards revealed herself.”
“At once, the leopards dropped their swords and attacked the Elephant viciously with tooth and claw, for the Black Elephant had always been their most desired prey. They intended to devour it on the spot, for they were certain to gain wondrous powers from consuming the mysterious God. But this was not to be. The leopards were only permitted the time each needed to take a single bite of the Elephant, and then the Samurai, swords again in hand, attacked. The evil ones did not fight, but fled into the sky, leaving the Elephant bleeding.”
“Then Prince Naharashi approached the Black Elephant and looked into its one great eye. Naharashi saw neither accusation nor fear in that deep black jewel, but only boundless peace and compassion. Then the Elephant spoke to Naharashi saying, The wheels of the age are turning, Prince, and you must take care to ride them wisely. You must preserve what you can, and release what must be forgotten. But first you must swear an oath to me. For when I die you must cut me into a thousand pieces and scatter me across the universe. Then I shall be reborn in every place and in every heart.”
“Naharashi at once swore his promise, though it grieved him to speak of the Elephant’s death. Then the Samurai of Naharashi wept bitterly before the fallen Elephant, for they had failed to see Fridva’s trap and had surrendered themselves to ease and fantasy, and each one blamed himself for the Elephant’s suffering. But now Rahadava and his daughters emerged from their caves and pits, freed at last from the magic of Fridva. And the Samurai saw that the daughters of Rahadava were even more beautiful and wise than the leopards had appeared. Not only this, but the daughters were gracious as well. They did not blame the Samurai as they might have. Rather, the girls prepared them to depart on the noble task granted by the Elephant. The daughters mended armor and sharpened swords, and fed the Samurai a fresh meal from the spice harvests. Then the Samurai asked the daughters of Rahadava in truth to be their wives, and the daughters agreed.”
“And so, before the Samurai set out, the daughters of Rahadava gathered around them in a circle, linking hands and singing to them the old wedding song of the valley. And each one gave to her husband two customary gifts. These were two feathers, one for departure and one for return.”
“With the closing of this ceremony, each Samurai carved out a piece of the Black Elephant, lifted high his feather of departure, and was gone. This became the most renown and difficult exploit that Prince Naharashi and his Thousand Samurai ever attempted. Nor would it ever be recorded whether all the Samurai succeeded in it, for most have not yet returned to Naharashi. Perhaps in the far edges of the universe some are still there, seeking places to hide their pieces of Elephant.”
The chimpanzee coughed violently now, and I noticed blood running down his chin.
“But I was successful in my exploit,” he said. “I am a Samurai of Prince Naharashi, one among the fabled Thousand. I have fulfilled the vow I swore on that long ago day. I have taken my piece of Elephant and hidden it inside the universe. I have done this, but I shall never again draw my blade to win honor beside my Prince. And so, child, if ever you find my beloved Prince, tell him I have not failed.”
“I did not seek the honor I was given. When I stood before the Black Elephant, I wept that I must put my blade to its sacred body. But my beloved Prince saw these tears and granted me a special charge. He commanded me to take upon myself the great jewel eye of the Elephant. Of course I did not believe myself equal to such an honorable task. I pled with him to grant this to a Samurai more worthy than myself. But my Prince said to me that among his Thousand none was more worthy or less worthy, that all of us had failed and been forgiven, that I had proven myself to him already in countless ways. He said my love for the Elephant meant I must answer to that love. I bowed before his graciousness and took the Elephant’s beautiful eye. I departed and went in search of a fitting hiding place for it.”
“But out among the lonely spaces between stars, out in the emptiness where the leopards roam, Fridva was waiting. The Goddess of Endings must have perceived the treasure I carried, for among the Thousand she singled me out and tracked my course. I was instantly aware of her pursuit, and tried all within my power and skill to evade her.”
“I dove into the deepest and coldest ocean in the universe, the Oma of Kaledor-5, but still she found me out. I sank into the heart of the hottest star, Ni-at-Hram; I hid myself in the Maze of Mazes, beneath the Sphinx’s feather itself; I let myself be swallowed by one of the Urgorn Flock, who orbit the universe once every hour. Yet in every hiding place I chose, the Devourer found me. I used all the divine astras of deception that I had collected in my former exploits. I made a thousand and one copies of myself and cast them across the sky; I set planets and stars and nebulae in her path; I broke myself into single atoms and gathered myself together at the other edge of End. But always the Leopard penetrated my puzzles. I made myself into the song of the dove, but Fridva became the cry of the hawk; I made myself a shower of rain, but Fridva became the desert wind; I inscribed myself on a single grain of sand in every sea, but Fridva sifted me out; I made myself into a thousand diverse forms, but Fridva was always there to counter me. I wearied myself flying from one end of everything to the other, but always she was only a moment behind. I could never shake Fridva long enough to hide the Elephant’s eye, and gradually my strength waned and my mind weakened.”
“Then out in the empty placeless dark the Leopard caught me. In desperation I fought her. We dueled long and dealt each other many wounds. But Fridva is a Goddess and the wounds I gave her healed, whereas mine gathered themselves against me. At last I bled from a hundred four-edged claw strokes. I knew that soon I would die and Fridva would capture the eye. And so I made use of the one magic I had withheld: my feather of return. I had saved that feather with the hope of returning to my new bride, but now I accepted that my story would not end this way. I would never meet that noble woman again. So I held up her gift and blessed her far away valley. At once the feather’s great magic awoke and sent me where I wished to go.”
“I flew through the gates of the Palace of Infinite Mystery and found myself deep within halls both dark and vast. Upon my arrival I was lost within mazes too intricate to comprehend, but I had come to find one particular mystery among them all. And so I plunged through those halls, and there I beheld glories that unworded me, wonders that unknew me. I perceived countlessness and boundlessness, the limits of number and the architecture of nothingness. I fell into a well haunted by every vessel that has ever been lost at sea or in the depths of space. I stumbled into a labyrinth stacked with a copy of every retelling of my own story. I lost myself in a cathedral of mirrors that revealed my life from every possible vantage. I found these things, and other things impossible to recount, but all I sought was Time. I knew that in Time itself the Elephant’s eye would be safe. From Time his eye would look out upon all creatures, and so within Time all creatures would find the seeds of beauty, compassion, and hope.”
“And in the end I found Time, though I know not how. For even in that palace Time cannot be known directly, but is only a garden of metaphors. You see, Time is by nature shy, hiding behind semblances and beneath reflections it projects upon itself. It may be seen as something so simple as a circle or so deep as an ocean. It might appear as something living, like a river or a tree, or as a subtle mechanism that never ceases from its revolutions. It can be visible like all these, or invisible - a sound, a breath, a smell. Everything depends on the mood you catch it in, and the mood of the one who looks for it.”
“There I learned that Time can only be found by one who looks for it urgently but not with the will to possess it. For I had no desire for Time itself except as the perfect hiding place for the treasure I had been entrusted with. And so Time opened for me like a gateway, and I fell into it. I found its waves and breakers all upon me and I awash in the pulse of its heartbeat. I found all existence held in Time, and every world it touched was like a shore viewed from countless angles, for every moment was held in its ocean.”
“And now I am adrift in Time. I have washed in upon this tidal flat of Time that is your life, here in this attic, now at this moment. The eye is adrift as well. It is safe forever, hidden from all, yet in plain sight to those with eyes to see it. When you find him, for find him you must, say this to my Prince, that I have succeeded in my venture and fulfilled his trust in me.”
The chimpanzee gasped for air. It seemed almost that he was drowning.
“But now I drift out from you,” he whispered, “for the tide is turning...”
He had barely said this when he vanished without a sound. He faded gently, like a puff of smoke, and I was left alone holding his feather in my hand and breathing the dusty attic air I would never in all my life forget.
“Prince Naharashi and his thousand Samurai once journeyed to the Land of Middle River, where there lived a venerable swordsmith. The swordsmith’s name was Rahadava and he had a thousand beautiful daughters. To all his daughters he had taught his arts, and each was skillful and discerning, both in matters of sword making and the human soul. As it would chance, the season of Naharashi’s visit was also the time of the spice harvests, when great pans of fresh spice would be roasted each night at sunset and the evening meal would be served late.”
“Now Naharashi and his Samurai entered the valley of Rahadava at the first stirring of the pans, when preparations for the evening meal were traditionally begun. The great warriors were hungry from their journey and blessed the gods for their luck, for the mingled aroma of the spice pans and other cooking pots was divine, clearly an auspicious sign. The Samurai bathed in the local springs, in waters scented with jasmine blossoms and sandalwood, then lounged at their ease watching the daughters of Rahadava prepare the meal.”
“It was at this time that Naharashi’s purpose for the visit became clear, for he began to complement Rahadava about his daughters. Each of your daughters is surely beautiful and wise, he said to the venerable swordsmith. And every Samurai has need for these virtues at his side.”
“Rahadava nodded his head and smiled. He even waved his hands in blessing. But he said nothing. Prince Naharashi laughed in delight and informed his Samurai that they would all soon have wives to cook and clean for them, to mend their weapons and armor, and to warm their beds. The Samurai began to sing their favorite battle song. The daughters of Rahadava smiled and exchanged glances, but they said nothing. Instead, they motioned to the Samurai, indicating that each must present his sword to a prospective wife. This seemed wise to the pragmatic Naharashi. For as the girls were swordsmiths like their father it was fitting that each should be acquainted with the weapon she would soon be caring for. So the Prince commanded his Samurai to hand over their swords for inspection, which they did promptly.”
“But once all of Naharashi’s Samurai had disarmed themselves, Rahadava and his daughters cast aside their disguises. There stood Fridva Queen of Leopards and her army of demons. For Fridva, having learned of Naharashi’s journey, had run before him and imprisoned the swordsmith, his daughters, and all their servants in nearby caves and pits. This is the reason neither Rahadava nor his daughters had spoken to their guests, for Naharashi would have recognized their demon voices.”
“Things would have gone very badly for Naharashi’s Samurai had it not been for Mico the rabbit. Mico, always vigilant for trickery, knew of Fridva’s plans. He ran across the universe to the Palace of Infinite Mystery, home of the Black Elephant. Mico begged help for Naharashi and his Samurai. And because his errand was for the sake of another, the Black Elephant granted Mico’s request. The Elephant followed Mico to the valley of Rahadava and appeared just as the Queen of Leopards revealed herself.”
“At once, the leopards dropped their swords and attacked the Elephant viciously with tooth and claw, for the Black Elephant had always been their most desired prey. They intended to devour it on the spot, for they were certain to gain wondrous powers from consuming the mysterious God. But this was not to be. The leopards were only permitted the time each needed to take a single bite of the Elephant, and then the Samurai, swords again in hand, attacked. The evil ones did not fight, but fled into the sky, leaving the Elephant bleeding.”
“Then Prince Naharashi approached the Black Elephant and looked into its one great eye. Naharashi saw neither accusation nor fear in that deep black jewel, but only boundless peace and compassion. Then the Elephant spoke to Naharashi saying, The wheels of the age are turning, Prince, and you must take care to ride them wisely. You must preserve what you can, and release what must be forgotten. But first you must swear an oath to me. For when I die you must cut me into a thousand pieces and scatter me across the universe. Then I shall be reborn in every place and in every heart.”
“Naharashi at once swore his promise, though it grieved him to speak of the Elephant’s death. Then the Samurai of Naharashi wept bitterly before the fallen Elephant, for they had failed to see Fridva’s trap and had surrendered themselves to ease and fantasy, and each one blamed himself for the Elephant’s suffering. But now Rahadava and his daughters emerged from their caves and pits, freed at last from the magic of Fridva. And the Samurai saw that the daughters of Rahadava were even more beautiful and wise than the leopards had appeared. Not only this, but the daughters were gracious as well. They did not blame the Samurai as they might have. Rather, the girls prepared them to depart on the noble task granted by the Elephant. The daughters mended armor and sharpened swords, and fed the Samurai a fresh meal from the spice harvests. Then the Samurai asked the daughters of Rahadava in truth to be their wives, and the daughters agreed.”
“And so, before the Samurai set out, the daughters of Rahadava gathered around them in a circle, linking hands and singing to them the old wedding song of the valley. And each one gave to her husband two customary gifts. These were two feathers, one for departure and one for return.”
“With the closing of this ceremony, each Samurai carved out a piece of the Black Elephant, lifted high his feather of departure, and was gone. This became the most renown and difficult exploit that Prince Naharashi and his Thousand Samurai ever attempted. Nor would it ever be recorded whether all the Samurai succeeded in it, for most have not yet returned to Naharashi. Perhaps in the far edges of the universe some are still there, seeking places to hide their pieces of Elephant.”
The chimpanzee coughed violently now, and I noticed blood running down his chin.
“But I was successful in my exploit,” he said. “I am a Samurai of Prince Naharashi, one among the fabled Thousand. I have fulfilled the vow I swore on that long ago day. I have taken my piece of Elephant and hidden it inside the universe. I have done this, but I shall never again draw my blade to win honor beside my Prince. And so, child, if ever you find my beloved Prince, tell him I have not failed.”
“I did not seek the honor I was given. When I stood before the Black Elephant, I wept that I must put my blade to its sacred body. But my beloved Prince saw these tears and granted me a special charge. He commanded me to take upon myself the great jewel eye of the Elephant. Of course I did not believe myself equal to such an honorable task. I pled with him to grant this to a Samurai more worthy than myself. But my Prince said to me that among his Thousand none was more worthy or less worthy, that all of us had failed and been forgiven, that I had proven myself to him already in countless ways. He said my love for the Elephant meant I must answer to that love. I bowed before his graciousness and took the Elephant’s beautiful eye. I departed and went in search of a fitting hiding place for it.”
“But out among the lonely spaces between stars, out in the emptiness where the leopards roam, Fridva was waiting. The Goddess of Endings must have perceived the treasure I carried, for among the Thousand she singled me out and tracked my course. I was instantly aware of her pursuit, and tried all within my power and skill to evade her.”
“I dove into the deepest and coldest ocean in the universe, the Oma of Kaledor-5, but still she found me out. I sank into the heart of the hottest star, Ni-at-Hram; I hid myself in the Maze of Mazes, beneath the Sphinx’s feather itself; I let myself be swallowed by one of the Urgorn Flock, who orbit the universe once every hour. Yet in every hiding place I chose, the Devourer found me. I used all the divine astras of deception that I had collected in my former exploits. I made a thousand and one copies of myself and cast them across the sky; I set planets and stars and nebulae in her path; I broke myself into single atoms and gathered myself together at the other edge of End. But always the Leopard penetrated my puzzles. I made myself into the song of the dove, but Fridva became the cry of the hawk; I made myself a shower of rain, but Fridva became the desert wind; I inscribed myself on a single grain of sand in every sea, but Fridva sifted me out; I made myself into a thousand diverse forms, but Fridva was always there to counter me. I wearied myself flying from one end of everything to the other, but always she was only a moment behind. I could never shake Fridva long enough to hide the Elephant’s eye, and gradually my strength waned and my mind weakened.”
“Then out in the empty placeless dark the Leopard caught me. In desperation I fought her. We dueled long and dealt each other many wounds. But Fridva is a Goddess and the wounds I gave her healed, whereas mine gathered themselves against me. At last I bled from a hundred four-edged claw strokes. I knew that soon I would die and Fridva would capture the eye. And so I made use of the one magic I had withheld: my feather of return. I had saved that feather with the hope of returning to my new bride, but now I accepted that my story would not end this way. I would never meet that noble woman again. So I held up her gift and blessed her far away valley. At once the feather’s great magic awoke and sent me where I wished to go.”
“I flew through the gates of the Palace of Infinite Mystery and found myself deep within halls both dark and vast. Upon my arrival I was lost within mazes too intricate to comprehend, but I had come to find one particular mystery among them all. And so I plunged through those halls, and there I beheld glories that unworded me, wonders that unknew me. I perceived countlessness and boundlessness, the limits of number and the architecture of nothingness. I fell into a well haunted by every vessel that has ever been lost at sea or in the depths of space. I stumbled into a labyrinth stacked with a copy of every retelling of my own story. I lost myself in a cathedral of mirrors that revealed my life from every possible vantage. I found these things, and other things impossible to recount, but all I sought was Time. I knew that in Time itself the Elephant’s eye would be safe. From Time his eye would look out upon all creatures, and so within Time all creatures would find the seeds of beauty, compassion, and hope.”
“And in the end I found Time, though I know not how. For even in that palace Time cannot be known directly, but is only a garden of metaphors. You see, Time is by nature shy, hiding behind semblances and beneath reflections it projects upon itself. It may be seen as something so simple as a circle or so deep as an ocean. It might appear as something living, like a river or a tree, or as a subtle mechanism that never ceases from its revolutions. It can be visible like all these, or invisible - a sound, a breath, a smell. Everything depends on the mood you catch it in, and the mood of the one who looks for it.”
“There I learned that Time can only be found by one who looks for it urgently but not with the will to possess it. For I had no desire for Time itself except as the perfect hiding place for the treasure I had been entrusted with. And so Time opened for me like a gateway, and I fell into it. I found its waves and breakers all upon me and I awash in the pulse of its heartbeat. I found all existence held in Time, and every world it touched was like a shore viewed from countless angles, for every moment was held in its ocean.”
“And now I am adrift in Time. I have washed in upon this tidal flat of Time that is your life, here in this attic, now at this moment. The eye is adrift as well. It is safe forever, hidden from all, yet in plain sight to those with eyes to see it. When you find him, for find him you must, say this to my Prince, that I have succeeded in my venture and fulfilled his trust in me.”
The chimpanzee gasped for air. It seemed almost that he was drowning.
“But now I drift out from you,” he whispered, “for the tide is turning...”
He had barely said this when he vanished without a sound. He faded gently, like a puff of smoke, and I was left alone holding his feather in my hand and breathing the dusty attic air I would never in all my life forget.
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
1 - The monkey in the attic
“I found the monkey in my grandmother's attic when I was seven or eight.”
The Leopard watched the Swan pause momentarily to pluck a loose feather from her sheets and cast it over the side of the bed. The gracefulness and ease of the movement fascinated her. Hardly any of her victims had ever behaved like this, and when they did it usually unsettled her. Yet tonight she was in a peculiar mood, somewhat immune to being taken off guard.
“I was absolutely terrified of monkeys back then,” continued the Swan. “I can’t tell you why. Probably I was afraid of many ordinary things that all children are afraid of, things like clowns and barking dogs and empty houses. Being kidnapped. The boogieman. Those were my childhood fears, I suppose. I can’t really say what I’m afraid of now. Maybe only extreme heights and exploding stars. And cancer. I’m still afraid of cancer. But back then monkeys were a big deal.”
The Leopard growled, a kind of slow ticking of annoyance that made the cottage vibrate. “I find it bizarre when children develop the fear of monkeys,” she said, surprised to be admitting so much to the Swan. “Big cats are much more deadly, yet children universally seem to think every kind of cat is a kind of stuffed animal toy. Might I ask what you personally found so scary about monkeys?”
“I think it must be because of how human they seem,” the Swan mused. “People must find monkeys at the same time both human and animal. They're like people with mischievous and greedy souls inside, souls of changelings or demons. I agree that big cats are more objectively frightening. But with monkeys the source of the fear is more devious and perhaps … I don’t know … closer to essential human anxieties.”
“I see,” said the Leopard. “I do apologize for interrupting you, by the way. I am usually a much better listener. I enjoy these stories my victims tell me before they die. Please go on, if you would.”
The Swan nodded.
“So another important point about those days was that my mom and I were on our own. My father had been killed when I was a few months old. How it happened was like this. One Saturday afternoon while my mom was out for a walk somebody came into our apartment and strangled my dad. That was it. The person left without stealing anything and without doing any harm to me. My mom said I was still sleeping in my crib when she got home. I even slept through her screams when she found my dad. She said it was as if I was unconscious, not just asleep. Which has always been hard for me to understand. I’ve always believed some link should have existed between my life and the life of my dad, some line that would have snapped back and stung me when it got cut. Something should have warned me or troubled me that afternoon. But no. My mom said my face was the face of an angel. She usually cried when she said that to me.”
The Swan paused, as if confused. “I’m sorry. I get sidetracked talking about these most distant memories. And I am still very tired. I have been asleep a long time. I was telling you about finding the monkey, wasn’t I?”
“You were,” growled the Leopard. “By the way, as I said before I don’t have all night for your story. I just want to know who you are. Can you try to keep the story focused on that?”
She stretched out her powerful forelegs, arraying her claws like a set of kitchen knives against the floor. Even if it was to be a long story she wanted it to be an authentic story. She wasn't in the mood for delaying strategies and meandering narratives.
“Yes, I realize you’re somewhat pressed for time,” said the Swan. “I’ll try to stay focused and tell you what you want to know.”
“That would be delightful,” purred the Leopard.
“So even though my father was dead,” said the Swan, “my mother and I were never really alone after the murder. We stayed out east in New England. We even moved to the same town as my father’s family. My mom depended on them a lot, especially to watch me while she was going to school and working random jobs to make ends meet. That was the reason I spent so much time in my grandmother's attic, you see, which is why I mentioned the part about my father being murdered.”
“So every weekday the school bus would drop me off in front of my grandma’s house and I would stay with her until my mom came for me. Grandma lived on a street at the edge of a kind of shallow canyon, something the people there called a hollow. It was a street populated by immigrant families who’d cut their own lots from the woods in the years following the War. My grandma’s street was the very same one my father and all my aunts and uncles grew up on. They played in those woods, attended their gleaming white church like good Catholics, and tried to decide what they would do when they became responsible adults. But whatever other careers they began to consider, each had the chance as a child to be an archaeologist. This was owing to the fact that the woods behind the family home contained the dumping grounds of an earlier generation. So when my father and his siblings played in those woods they often found treasures of one kind or another poking up out of the dirt and leaves. They carried their findings back to the house and lined its sunny windowsills with glass bottles and bits of china. At least those were the only specimens that remained until my time, and they were sparks to the founding fires of my imagination. In that sunlight under the window panes, with the fresh green of the lawn showing through behind, I imagined the bottles were little worlds encased in crystal; I imagined the shards of translucent china were exotic shells washed onto the land from a mysterious sea, a sea of time that had passed over those woods long ago.”
“But when the years came around to me, and it was my turn to excavate the little wood, I found a new set of treasures. Mostly these were chips of glass or rusty metal that my grandma dutifully set beside the more auspicious findings of the previous generation. But my most impressive and meaningful discoveries, the ones of which I was proudest, were those I uncovered in the attic. They too were excavations from a previous generation, but in this case they were excavations of the excavators, remnants of the bygone childhoods of father and his brothers and sisters. On many an afternoon while waiting for my mom to collect me, I amused myself in that attic. So the attic is where my story properly begins, on the afternoon I found the monkey.”
“My grandma’s attic was large and shaped like a capital L. The smaller stem of the L was mostly empty and held only a few old shipping trunks. The longer section cut right down the middle of the house and spanned its entire length. There were racks of hanging clothes at one end, stacks of boxes at the other, and shelves and piles of random stuff in the middle. It was one of those wonderful attics big enough to stand up in and walk around, even if you’re a grownup.”
“I believed the secrets to be uncovered in that attic would be infinite, just as I believed the days of my childhood would never end. In a way, of course, the attic’s secrets turned out to be infinite, but in a different way than I expected. Still, of all the attic’s secrets it would be the smell of the attic I would always carry in my memory. That smell was like nothing other than what it was. The smell was just attic and never has reminded me of anything different. Maybe I went up there as much to be enfolded by that smell as to be immersed in the other secrets, some of which I can vaguely recall. I remember going through boxes and finding things like my father’s fiberglass bow and my uncle’s slingshot. I remember uncovering my grandfather’s Army uniforms and the knives and coins he’d brought back from the War. Another time I found a toy construction set with its thousand nuts and bolts and its tiny tools for fastening them together. One day I found an ultraviolet light packed along with a rock collection. When I aimed the light at the rocks, some of the minerals locked inside glowed otherworldly hues of green, red or violet.”
“As I said, the smaller stem of the L mostly contained shipping trunks. They usually had boring things inside, like stacks of binders full of official papers, interspersed with random oddities like plastic cups shaped like oranges or an armadillo handbag with the head of the armadillo stitched on the side. I didn’t look in those trunks very often but I did like that part of the attic best because the only window in the attic was at the end of the passage. The window looked down on the front lawn. You know, it was strange that it did, because whenever I approached the window I expected to be looking out the side of the house. I guess I always got turned around up there. Anyway, under the window I remember there was a thick old rug. I can’t remember what it looked like, probably because its colors were so muted by dust, but I must have spent hours seated on it while I played. The place of the rug was the safest place in the attic. It was the short stem of the L. The other, longer passage of the L, was dark. I only went down there to make my excavations. Always I would return with my findings to the rug, where I would sit under the window.”
“I was in that very place, sitting on that dusty rug, when I noticed the scraping. It was coming from away behind me, back in the attic’s long passage. I didn’t pay attention to the scraping at first, not until after it had been there for a while and I realized it didn’t fit. I remember thinking at first that the sound was my grandma cleaning the ceiling in the living room with her long duster, the one that looked like a giant feather duster. Its end was stuffed with feathers but the plastic rim that held the feathers together seemed like just the thing that would make that scraping sound. I probably remember thinking this because I really wanted it to be something like a big feather duster, even though I knew it was not a thing like that at all.”
“Finally I admitted to myself that the scraping couldn’t be my grandma. It was coming from the exact same place for much too long. There was no way my grandma was still dusting that one spot on the ceiling downstairs. She was much too good at dusting to take so long, and she had too many other things to do that day. I remember the sinking, scary feeling I had when I realized that maybe a rat was up in the attic with me. I didn’t want to be up in the attic with a rat because I had heard terrible stories about rat bites and plagues in Europe.”
The Leopard suddenly began to laugh. It was a terrible sound, she knew, and usually caused her victims to pass out. But she couldn't help it.
“I am sorry,” said the Swan calmly. “Did something I say offend you?”
The Leopard shook her head. “Sorry,” she growled, “only now you’re talking about being afraid of rats. Rats and monkeys. I don't know how you've gotten this far in life with so many phobias. But I'm sorry for interrupting. Please do go on.”
The Swan began again.
“Well, I walked over to where the longer and darker passage began. The bare lights that dangled from the ceiling were the kind of dim, minimum wattage bulbs that often appear in dreams. These would be in the scenes where nothing you possess, not even the items that are supposedly state-of-the art, not even your superhero powers, really work the way they should. Fortunately I also had a flashlight with me, and though its beam was just as dim as the overhead bulbs, it doubled up with them to give something like visibility. I aimed its yellow beam down the passage towards the end with the boxes. The scraping was definitely coming from over there.”
“It was a strange sort of scraping, I suddenly realized. For one thing it was too slow and purposeful to be a rat. It almost seemed sad, I remember. And it sounded like something much bigger than a rat. I got the odd feeling that it was something dog-sized. But I didn’t want it to be a dog. That was creepy, thinking of a dog back there behind the boxes, scraping slowly at the floor and waiting.”
“Wait a moment,” said the Leopard. “Are you telling me the monkey in the attic was a living monkey, not some stuffed monkey collecting dust on a shelf with all the other things?”
“Yes, he was still alive when I found him,” said the Swan, “though he was dying fast. If you don’t mind…”
The Leopard nodded.
“At the time I thought that even if the sound I was hearing was a dog, this was getting creepy. The idea of a dog hiding behind boxes in the attic, scraping on the floor in such an intentional way, gave me the chills. I couldn’t imagine an ordinary dog doing that, so at once the image of a mutant dog appeared in my mind, some hairless thing with intelligent eyes.”
“I thought about waiting for my uncle to get home from work. I know I didn’t mention before that my uncle still lived in that house. But I didn’t wait for him anyway. He had been a sergeant in Vietnam and he seemed a fearless Agamemnon to me. I figured that if I got him to come up to the attic with me he would tease me for being afraid. As a result, I decided to go by myself to see what was making the noise, thinking that if a monster killed me at least my uncle would have a reason to be proud.”
“So I walked carefully down the passage, trying not to make the boards creak more than was necessary, though it was impossible to be entirely quiet in that attic, as it always is in attics. I didn’t want to think about creepy things while I was walking down the long passage, but I couldn’t help trying to figure out what the thing sounded like. Because now I could tell that it was almost a rubbing combined with a scraping. Or more like a soft, fleshy tap and then a harder scrape. That was why it didn’t sound like a tree branch or something similar. It sounded like the scraping that something like a fingernail would make. But I absolutely did not want it to be a fingernail making that noise.”
“I reached the end of the bare floor and faced a cardboard wall of brown boxes. The yellow disk of my flashlight stared blankly at me like the eye of some deep-sea creature, some giant octopus or nautilus. I knew the tap-scraping must be coming from behind the boxes, from the very end of the passage, probably right up against the back wall which I had never even seen before.”
“I started to remove the boxes. One by one I stacked them onto boxes to either side until I had opened a new path. Still the tap-scraping continued. One box remained. I didn’t remove this immediately. Instead I peered up over it and tried to see the floor, which was where the tap-scraping was coming from. But the box was too large. It was the kind of box an oven might be delivered in. I wondered how I would move a box that big. But fortunately it must have been at least half full of packing materials. Who knows what else was inside it, but the box wasn’t too heavy and I was able to pull it from its place. But the box was so big I had to drag it nearly all the way back through the room before I could push it to one side. Then, after a lot more scraping and creaking than I had wanted to cause, the passage was clear. I stepped around the big box and aimed my flashlight beam. There was something laying on the floor behind the stack of boxes but I couldn’t believe my eyes at first because it was something impossible.”
“There was a monkey in a suite of golden samurai armor laying on the floor. Later on, when I learned to tell them apart, I realized it was really a chimpanzee, but at the time all I knew was monkey. And because-”
The Leopard gasped, nearly choking. She couldn't help herself, for she knew this chimpanzee. And she also knew, at least in part, what the Swan was going to tell her. Then, for the first time in her existence, the Leopard had the feeling of having stumbled into a trap. It was uncanny, disquieting, invasive. But I don't walk into traps, she told herself. Not even traps set by gods.
She turned her attention back to the Swan's story. If the bird had noticed her inner turmoil, she showed no sign of it.
“I felt more than fear when I saw the chimpanzee,” the Swan was saying. “I felt awe. Because the chimpanzee's armor was beautiful. It glowed with a warm and watery light, as though it were not a thin layer of metal at all but really a kind of ocean filled with clear liquid gold. Or maybe with honey. Yes, that's it. The armor was like a jar of honey standing in the sunlight.”
“I stepped closer to the chimpanzee. I saw that the armor was intricately etched. Its etching was so intricate that my eyes were drawn in to finer and finer levels of detail as I stooped closer and closer. Now I was only a foot or so from the creature. Even there I couldn’t see every detail of its armor but at least I could see the general design. The armor was inscribed with an image of the universe. From where I stood I saw galaxies suspended in the gold, all aflicker like tiny coals. I had to look closer. I knelt down right beside the chimpanzee and found that in the galaxies every star had been etched carefully and was alive with a minute spark of fire. I looked closer and saw that around some stars were planets. I looked closer and saw that on some planets were forests and oceans, cities and towns. I realized that so fine was the detail I could even look inside the houses, inside the attic windows, and see children walking around corners towards stacks of boxes.”
“I jerked back from the chimpanzee's armor, standing up and fighting to breathe. I had seen myself pictured there, crouching down beside an injured chimpanzee. And I had seen its blood pooling out and collecting along the wooden floor.”
The Swan paused as if to think.
“What are you waiting for?” the Leopard gasped. “What happened next?”
“I saw the chimpanzee's blood running onto the floor,” said the Swan. “It was a terrible sight, for I knew at once the creature was dying. Yet its wounds weren’t visible and there were no marks of damage on its armor. But its big black hands were bare and both were running with blood. One of these hands gripped the hilt of an ancient sword. The other lay on the floor, a heavy finger tap-scraping persistently. But now that finger stopped and the chimpanzee turned its head to face me. Its eyes opened and its voice creaked out, slowly and filled with pain. I have always remembered what it said. ‘The leopard army is close, but I have come to you on the tides of Time, which no army can besiege, no matter how vast. I bring with me a story, and a feather.’ He untied a long wooden box that had been attached to his belt. Slipping off the lid, the chimpanzee removed a single feather, which he handed to me. It was the feather of a sea bird, gray and white but singed along one edge as though by fire. Holding that feather in my hand I felt all my fear of the chimpanzee vanish. I was suddenly certain I had never met a creature of such goodness and courage. And that is why, when he motioned for me to listen, I leaned in close to hear his story, which I will tell you, if you want.”
“Of course I want you to tell me the chimp's story,” said the Leopard, and perhaps the hoarseness of her voice and the shortness of her breath communicated more urgency than she had intended. She forced her posture to relax somewhat and gave a pathetic stretch. “I am still at least that patient,” she said, more softly.
“Alright,” said the Swan, “then I will tell it as quickly as I can.”
The Leopard watched the Swan pause momentarily to pluck a loose feather from her sheets and cast it over the side of the bed. The gracefulness and ease of the movement fascinated her. Hardly any of her victims had ever behaved like this, and when they did it usually unsettled her. Yet tonight she was in a peculiar mood, somewhat immune to being taken off guard.
“I was absolutely terrified of monkeys back then,” continued the Swan. “I can’t tell you why. Probably I was afraid of many ordinary things that all children are afraid of, things like clowns and barking dogs and empty houses. Being kidnapped. The boogieman. Those were my childhood fears, I suppose. I can’t really say what I’m afraid of now. Maybe only extreme heights and exploding stars. And cancer. I’m still afraid of cancer. But back then monkeys were a big deal.”
The Leopard growled, a kind of slow ticking of annoyance that made the cottage vibrate. “I find it bizarre when children develop the fear of monkeys,” she said, surprised to be admitting so much to the Swan. “Big cats are much more deadly, yet children universally seem to think every kind of cat is a kind of stuffed animal toy. Might I ask what you personally found so scary about monkeys?”
“I think it must be because of how human they seem,” the Swan mused. “People must find monkeys at the same time both human and animal. They're like people with mischievous and greedy souls inside, souls of changelings or demons. I agree that big cats are more objectively frightening. But with monkeys the source of the fear is more devious and perhaps … I don’t know … closer to essential human anxieties.”
“I see,” said the Leopard. “I do apologize for interrupting you, by the way. I am usually a much better listener. I enjoy these stories my victims tell me before they die. Please go on, if you would.”
The Swan nodded.
“So another important point about those days was that my mom and I were on our own. My father had been killed when I was a few months old. How it happened was like this. One Saturday afternoon while my mom was out for a walk somebody came into our apartment and strangled my dad. That was it. The person left without stealing anything and without doing any harm to me. My mom said I was still sleeping in my crib when she got home. I even slept through her screams when she found my dad. She said it was as if I was unconscious, not just asleep. Which has always been hard for me to understand. I’ve always believed some link should have existed between my life and the life of my dad, some line that would have snapped back and stung me when it got cut. Something should have warned me or troubled me that afternoon. But no. My mom said my face was the face of an angel. She usually cried when she said that to me.”
The Swan paused, as if confused. “I’m sorry. I get sidetracked talking about these most distant memories. And I am still very tired. I have been asleep a long time. I was telling you about finding the monkey, wasn’t I?”
“You were,” growled the Leopard. “By the way, as I said before I don’t have all night for your story. I just want to know who you are. Can you try to keep the story focused on that?”
She stretched out her powerful forelegs, arraying her claws like a set of kitchen knives against the floor. Even if it was to be a long story she wanted it to be an authentic story. She wasn't in the mood for delaying strategies and meandering narratives.
“Yes, I realize you’re somewhat pressed for time,” said the Swan. “I’ll try to stay focused and tell you what you want to know.”
“That would be delightful,” purred the Leopard.
“So even though my father was dead,” said the Swan, “my mother and I were never really alone after the murder. We stayed out east in New England. We even moved to the same town as my father’s family. My mom depended on them a lot, especially to watch me while she was going to school and working random jobs to make ends meet. That was the reason I spent so much time in my grandmother's attic, you see, which is why I mentioned the part about my father being murdered.”
“So every weekday the school bus would drop me off in front of my grandma’s house and I would stay with her until my mom came for me. Grandma lived on a street at the edge of a kind of shallow canyon, something the people there called a hollow. It was a street populated by immigrant families who’d cut their own lots from the woods in the years following the War. My grandma’s street was the very same one my father and all my aunts and uncles grew up on. They played in those woods, attended their gleaming white church like good Catholics, and tried to decide what they would do when they became responsible adults. But whatever other careers they began to consider, each had the chance as a child to be an archaeologist. This was owing to the fact that the woods behind the family home contained the dumping grounds of an earlier generation. So when my father and his siblings played in those woods they often found treasures of one kind or another poking up out of the dirt and leaves. They carried their findings back to the house and lined its sunny windowsills with glass bottles and bits of china. At least those were the only specimens that remained until my time, and they were sparks to the founding fires of my imagination. In that sunlight under the window panes, with the fresh green of the lawn showing through behind, I imagined the bottles were little worlds encased in crystal; I imagined the shards of translucent china were exotic shells washed onto the land from a mysterious sea, a sea of time that had passed over those woods long ago.”
“But when the years came around to me, and it was my turn to excavate the little wood, I found a new set of treasures. Mostly these were chips of glass or rusty metal that my grandma dutifully set beside the more auspicious findings of the previous generation. But my most impressive and meaningful discoveries, the ones of which I was proudest, were those I uncovered in the attic. They too were excavations from a previous generation, but in this case they were excavations of the excavators, remnants of the bygone childhoods of father and his brothers and sisters. On many an afternoon while waiting for my mom to collect me, I amused myself in that attic. So the attic is where my story properly begins, on the afternoon I found the monkey.”
“My grandma’s attic was large and shaped like a capital L. The smaller stem of the L was mostly empty and held only a few old shipping trunks. The longer section cut right down the middle of the house and spanned its entire length. There were racks of hanging clothes at one end, stacks of boxes at the other, and shelves and piles of random stuff in the middle. It was one of those wonderful attics big enough to stand up in and walk around, even if you’re a grownup.”
“I believed the secrets to be uncovered in that attic would be infinite, just as I believed the days of my childhood would never end. In a way, of course, the attic’s secrets turned out to be infinite, but in a different way than I expected. Still, of all the attic’s secrets it would be the smell of the attic I would always carry in my memory. That smell was like nothing other than what it was. The smell was just attic and never has reminded me of anything different. Maybe I went up there as much to be enfolded by that smell as to be immersed in the other secrets, some of which I can vaguely recall. I remember going through boxes and finding things like my father’s fiberglass bow and my uncle’s slingshot. I remember uncovering my grandfather’s Army uniforms and the knives and coins he’d brought back from the War. Another time I found a toy construction set with its thousand nuts and bolts and its tiny tools for fastening them together. One day I found an ultraviolet light packed along with a rock collection. When I aimed the light at the rocks, some of the minerals locked inside glowed otherworldly hues of green, red or violet.”
“As I said, the smaller stem of the L mostly contained shipping trunks. They usually had boring things inside, like stacks of binders full of official papers, interspersed with random oddities like plastic cups shaped like oranges or an armadillo handbag with the head of the armadillo stitched on the side. I didn’t look in those trunks very often but I did like that part of the attic best because the only window in the attic was at the end of the passage. The window looked down on the front lawn. You know, it was strange that it did, because whenever I approached the window I expected to be looking out the side of the house. I guess I always got turned around up there. Anyway, under the window I remember there was a thick old rug. I can’t remember what it looked like, probably because its colors were so muted by dust, but I must have spent hours seated on it while I played. The place of the rug was the safest place in the attic. It was the short stem of the L. The other, longer passage of the L, was dark. I only went down there to make my excavations. Always I would return with my findings to the rug, where I would sit under the window.”
“I was in that very place, sitting on that dusty rug, when I noticed the scraping. It was coming from away behind me, back in the attic’s long passage. I didn’t pay attention to the scraping at first, not until after it had been there for a while and I realized it didn’t fit. I remember thinking at first that the sound was my grandma cleaning the ceiling in the living room with her long duster, the one that looked like a giant feather duster. Its end was stuffed with feathers but the plastic rim that held the feathers together seemed like just the thing that would make that scraping sound. I probably remember thinking this because I really wanted it to be something like a big feather duster, even though I knew it was not a thing like that at all.”
“Finally I admitted to myself that the scraping couldn’t be my grandma. It was coming from the exact same place for much too long. There was no way my grandma was still dusting that one spot on the ceiling downstairs. She was much too good at dusting to take so long, and she had too many other things to do that day. I remember the sinking, scary feeling I had when I realized that maybe a rat was up in the attic with me. I didn’t want to be up in the attic with a rat because I had heard terrible stories about rat bites and plagues in Europe.”
The Leopard suddenly began to laugh. It was a terrible sound, she knew, and usually caused her victims to pass out. But she couldn't help it.
“I am sorry,” said the Swan calmly. “Did something I say offend you?”
The Leopard shook her head. “Sorry,” she growled, “only now you’re talking about being afraid of rats. Rats and monkeys. I don't know how you've gotten this far in life with so many phobias. But I'm sorry for interrupting. Please do go on.”
The Swan began again.
“Well, I walked over to where the longer and darker passage began. The bare lights that dangled from the ceiling were the kind of dim, minimum wattage bulbs that often appear in dreams. These would be in the scenes where nothing you possess, not even the items that are supposedly state-of-the art, not even your superhero powers, really work the way they should. Fortunately I also had a flashlight with me, and though its beam was just as dim as the overhead bulbs, it doubled up with them to give something like visibility. I aimed its yellow beam down the passage towards the end with the boxes. The scraping was definitely coming from over there.”
“It was a strange sort of scraping, I suddenly realized. For one thing it was too slow and purposeful to be a rat. It almost seemed sad, I remember. And it sounded like something much bigger than a rat. I got the odd feeling that it was something dog-sized. But I didn’t want it to be a dog. That was creepy, thinking of a dog back there behind the boxes, scraping slowly at the floor and waiting.”
“Wait a moment,” said the Leopard. “Are you telling me the monkey in the attic was a living monkey, not some stuffed monkey collecting dust on a shelf with all the other things?”
“Yes, he was still alive when I found him,” said the Swan, “though he was dying fast. If you don’t mind…”
The Leopard nodded.
“At the time I thought that even if the sound I was hearing was a dog, this was getting creepy. The idea of a dog hiding behind boxes in the attic, scraping on the floor in such an intentional way, gave me the chills. I couldn’t imagine an ordinary dog doing that, so at once the image of a mutant dog appeared in my mind, some hairless thing with intelligent eyes.”
“I thought about waiting for my uncle to get home from work. I know I didn’t mention before that my uncle still lived in that house. But I didn’t wait for him anyway. He had been a sergeant in Vietnam and he seemed a fearless Agamemnon to me. I figured that if I got him to come up to the attic with me he would tease me for being afraid. As a result, I decided to go by myself to see what was making the noise, thinking that if a monster killed me at least my uncle would have a reason to be proud.”
“So I walked carefully down the passage, trying not to make the boards creak more than was necessary, though it was impossible to be entirely quiet in that attic, as it always is in attics. I didn’t want to think about creepy things while I was walking down the long passage, but I couldn’t help trying to figure out what the thing sounded like. Because now I could tell that it was almost a rubbing combined with a scraping. Or more like a soft, fleshy tap and then a harder scrape. That was why it didn’t sound like a tree branch or something similar. It sounded like the scraping that something like a fingernail would make. But I absolutely did not want it to be a fingernail making that noise.”
“I reached the end of the bare floor and faced a cardboard wall of brown boxes. The yellow disk of my flashlight stared blankly at me like the eye of some deep-sea creature, some giant octopus or nautilus. I knew the tap-scraping must be coming from behind the boxes, from the very end of the passage, probably right up against the back wall which I had never even seen before.”
“I started to remove the boxes. One by one I stacked them onto boxes to either side until I had opened a new path. Still the tap-scraping continued. One box remained. I didn’t remove this immediately. Instead I peered up over it and tried to see the floor, which was where the tap-scraping was coming from. But the box was too large. It was the kind of box an oven might be delivered in. I wondered how I would move a box that big. But fortunately it must have been at least half full of packing materials. Who knows what else was inside it, but the box wasn’t too heavy and I was able to pull it from its place. But the box was so big I had to drag it nearly all the way back through the room before I could push it to one side. Then, after a lot more scraping and creaking than I had wanted to cause, the passage was clear. I stepped around the big box and aimed my flashlight beam. There was something laying on the floor behind the stack of boxes but I couldn’t believe my eyes at first because it was something impossible.”
“There was a monkey in a suite of golden samurai armor laying on the floor. Later on, when I learned to tell them apart, I realized it was really a chimpanzee, but at the time all I knew was monkey. And because-”
The Leopard gasped, nearly choking. She couldn't help herself, for she knew this chimpanzee. And she also knew, at least in part, what the Swan was going to tell her. Then, for the first time in her existence, the Leopard had the feeling of having stumbled into a trap. It was uncanny, disquieting, invasive. But I don't walk into traps, she told herself. Not even traps set by gods.
She turned her attention back to the Swan's story. If the bird had noticed her inner turmoil, she showed no sign of it.
“I felt more than fear when I saw the chimpanzee,” the Swan was saying. “I felt awe. Because the chimpanzee's armor was beautiful. It glowed with a warm and watery light, as though it were not a thin layer of metal at all but really a kind of ocean filled with clear liquid gold. Or maybe with honey. Yes, that's it. The armor was like a jar of honey standing in the sunlight.”
“I stepped closer to the chimpanzee. I saw that the armor was intricately etched. Its etching was so intricate that my eyes were drawn in to finer and finer levels of detail as I stooped closer and closer. Now I was only a foot or so from the creature. Even there I couldn’t see every detail of its armor but at least I could see the general design. The armor was inscribed with an image of the universe. From where I stood I saw galaxies suspended in the gold, all aflicker like tiny coals. I had to look closer. I knelt down right beside the chimpanzee and found that in the galaxies every star had been etched carefully and was alive with a minute spark of fire. I looked closer and saw that around some stars were planets. I looked closer and saw that on some planets were forests and oceans, cities and towns. I realized that so fine was the detail I could even look inside the houses, inside the attic windows, and see children walking around corners towards stacks of boxes.”
“I jerked back from the chimpanzee's armor, standing up and fighting to breathe. I had seen myself pictured there, crouching down beside an injured chimpanzee. And I had seen its blood pooling out and collecting along the wooden floor.”
The Swan paused as if to think.
“What are you waiting for?” the Leopard gasped. “What happened next?”
“I saw the chimpanzee's blood running onto the floor,” said the Swan. “It was a terrible sight, for I knew at once the creature was dying. Yet its wounds weren’t visible and there were no marks of damage on its armor. But its big black hands were bare and both were running with blood. One of these hands gripped the hilt of an ancient sword. The other lay on the floor, a heavy finger tap-scraping persistently. But now that finger stopped and the chimpanzee turned its head to face me. Its eyes opened and its voice creaked out, slowly and filled with pain. I have always remembered what it said. ‘The leopard army is close, but I have come to you on the tides of Time, which no army can besiege, no matter how vast. I bring with me a story, and a feather.’ He untied a long wooden box that had been attached to his belt. Slipping off the lid, the chimpanzee removed a single feather, which he handed to me. It was the feather of a sea bird, gray and white but singed along one edge as though by fire. Holding that feather in my hand I felt all my fear of the chimpanzee vanish. I was suddenly certain I had never met a creature of such goodness and courage. And that is why, when he motioned for me to listen, I leaned in close to hear his story, which I will tell you, if you want.”
“Of course I want you to tell me the chimp's story,” said the Leopard, and perhaps the hoarseness of her voice and the shortness of her breath communicated more urgency than she had intended. She forced her posture to relax somewhat and gave a pathetic stretch. “I am still at least that patient,” she said, more softly.
“Alright,” said the Swan, “then I will tell it as quickly as I can.”
Saturday, 1 September 2012
Prologue - The Fable of the Leopard and the Swan
Once there was a Leopard who had nothing left to do. Not that she was lazy, or had any particular disdain for work. On the contrary her illustrious feats were legend; her epic conquests the meat and matter of history books. Indeed, she was Queen of a well-established realm; a vast dominion owing its existence to her and her alone.
Which was precisely the problem. By now all the Leopard's battles were long since won, all her rivals long since laid to rest. All she had left to contemplate was the past, and she did so either lounging around her empty palace or star gazing at the doors of her balcony.
This was one joy that remained to her, this observing of the stars. She relished their slow unraveling; the gradual dissolution of their substance; the inevitable uncoupling of their energies. She could lose herself for hours in the wordless tale of their downfalls. By which she might have counted herself fortunate, because her palace had always stood among the stars. Out there in the Night between worlds. Out in the lonely silence.
It is impossible to know what contemplations occupied the Leopard's mind as she looked out on the stars. To say she thought of the past would be a gross generalization and simplification. Certainly her ponderings about the past were far beyond the scope of our own minds; just as her unique perspective on the topic was well outside our experience. But whatever the substance of her thoughts, there came an hour and a moment when she awoke with an urgency that sent them scurrying into the shadows like mice. Something simple had moved in her, something primal. The Leopard was hungry.
But she did not hunger for ordinary meat. The food of the Great Leopard was names - names and stories about them. And now it was the fierce desire for a name that was stirring in her belly. But of course no ordinary name would do. If she had desired an ordinary name I wouldn’t be here telling you about her search for it. By definition nothing remarkable would have come of that search. No, what the Leopard wanted was a very peculiar sort of name. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you like the story you're about to hear, she wanted a name with qualities difficult to describe. Even when she addressed her army of leopards, who had been employed for eons hunting her prey, she found herself reduced to stray metaphors.
I think it would be something reminiscent of a windy forest, she told them in a non-committal tone, when the multitudinous voices of its leaves conceal both themselves and the movements of greater things. Do you understand me? I want a name as perilous as a flood, as that singular moment when fog rolls over the sea and your navigation equipment goes haywire.
It would be a name possessing depth and darkness, but these would not prevent it from being easy to swallow. And it would be marked in near equal parts with irony and sincerity. I want to laugh, really to laugh with the genuine laughter I used to know. But the name should let me withhold space inside for the possibility of despair. I want to face both the annihilation and justification of hope. Do you see? This is the only thing I want. Can any of you find a name that tastes this way?
Her leopards wore pensive, bewildered expressions. Their assembly listened to her go on for a while, now and then exchanging pathetic glances with each another. Then, once her monologue fizzled out and she dismissed them, they shuffled away. Her throne room emptied out and the Leopard was left alone in her palace. For a while her mind followed the progress of her hunters as they scattered into the Night. Then her attention narrowed to her immediate surroundings, to the silence of her palace walls and the firmness of its polished floor. All that stone so unmoving and pure.
As you can imagine, the Leopard's hours passed slowly and with rising anticipation. For a while she would sit on her black throne, her claws nervously drumming away on the floor. Then she would rise to pace from one wall of her throne room to another. Often she would pause to sigh. Often she would growl, angry at herself for how vague her descriptions had been. What, after all, had her comments about the windy forest and the foggy sea meant? Who among all her army would be able to interpret these comments successfully? My hunters are bound to fail, the Leopard told herself a number of times, and when they do it will be my fault more than theirs.
At last there came an hour when the longed for sounds caused the Leopard’s ears to twitch. Yes, her host of hunters was at the palace gates. She listened impatiently to the soft trembling of their approach, the hushed whisper of their many thousand padded feet upon smooth stone. Into her dark chamber they filed, and one by one they slinked before her glittering eyes. Some brought names in their jaws, but the Leopard shook her head in disgust at all of these. Not a single name was like the one she had wanted. In their presence she felt nothing like what she had wanted to feel. But a few of her hunters hadn’t bothered to bring anything back at all. When these came before her they simply bowed in silence, tails down, and backed into the shadows. The Leopard found herself pleased by this.
Yes, she thought, these have come closest to success. If the name exists, only I will be able to find it. And perhaps that too was part of what I wanted from the start.
So the Leopard left her palace. She went out alone, but not to the far-flung stars and galaxies of the night. Instead she descended to that creeping blue sphere, the one called Earth. She began in its cities. Through their lampposted streets and littered alley ways she crept. She searched through sleeping factories and warehouses and scaled the steps of their apartment towers and luxury hotels. She glanced in through so many windows and doors she lost count of the lives she could have consumed had she hungered for them. She peered into drains and vents, ducts and sewers. She sniffed under every parked car and trash bin she encountered. And the Leopard found many many names. But she found nothing with the name she wanted.
Eventually she left the cities of the Earth and turned to the last forests. She searched thoroughly among the sleepy trees, up in their branches and down among their roots. She peered under every fallen trunk and padded down every wet gully. She sniffed out every nest and secret cavity in the ground, and turned over countless wormy stones. Yet for all her troubles the Leopard found nothing in the forest with the name she wanted.
Feeling her hope waver, she searched among the wastelands of the Earth. She prowled the lonesome plains and the solitary deserts and byways where travelers are few and inhabitants are fewer. She stood for many drawn out minutes counting silent stars, watching motionless lines of blank horizons, listening to stalks of grass comb the wind. At some point the Leopard wandered into a country of sprawling moorlands. How long she spent climbing through this land she could not say, but at some point she caught herself standing atop a barren crag, smelling the wind not for traces of her quarry but simply for the act of smelling, for its intimacy and communion with the wind, for some primordial significance locked away in the movements of the act, the extension of the neck, the raising of the head, the flexing of the nostrils, the narrowing of the eyes.
With a shock, the Leopard realized she had forgotten her precise location. Was she in northern England or southern Scotland? And she had forgotten which direction she had come from and which she had intended to go. She had even forgotten what trail or lack of trail had led her here. She looked around in astonishment, trying to draw the place from the vast ocean of time held in her memory. But all the craggy peaks in the moorland looked like extensions of the crag she was already perched atop, or like minor transient fluctuations of a single sound wave across the surface of calm water. No, she realized, they look like the ridges on the palm of a hand that is cupped slightly closed. The hand of maybe some giant frozen like this since the battles of creation.
The Leopard tried to ask herself what sort of place on Earth looked and felt like this but found she could not formulate the question in a way possible to answer. The confusion revolved around what it meant for the Earth to look and feel a certain way, it only being within the mind of the observer that such things as landscapes looked and felt at all. And the mind of the observer was a fickle thing. The Leopard knew this. She knew that what now looked like a giant’s closing hand might look entirely different tomorrow night. Tomorrow night the moorland might appear gentle and unthreatening. Tranquil even, a place of solace. She shook her head in frustration, unable to remember having ever looked at any moorland in this way before.
A sudden yawn interrupted her thoughts.
“Why am I so exhausted?” she asked herself in annoyance. She had been on much longer hunts without falling victim to this weariness. But she knew the answer already. She wasn't wearied by the hunt itself, but by the effort required to defer a complicated hunger. In fact, her reserves had been entirely consumed by it. What she wanted now was a place to rest her mind. She longed for some crumbling and formless ruin, an anonymous place to crawl into and curl up. She wanted a place that only gently whispered its memory into the uncaring wind, a place with a voice that would not force her to listen.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Leopard found what she wanted as soon as she scanned the sprawling landscape. Just below her lay the ruin of a settlement. It was dark and inviting. Most importantly it was long since abandoned. Maybe twelve stone buildings in all had composed the settlement at its prime. Now, all but one of these were in a state of advanced decay. Their slate roofs were collapsed, door frames rotted into the soil, broken walls invaded by thickets of heather and gorse. At the edge nearest the moors lay a graveyard, its monuments toppled.
Yet in the middle of the graveyard a lone structure stood intact. This building appeared to be a small cottage. Probably the former dwelling of the settlement’s undertaker, thought the Leopard. Although why such a tiny settlement would have needed an undertaker is beyond me. It pleased her, though. And it seemed fitting that an undertaker’s cottage would be the last house standing. It must have been a proper ending, she thought. The village must have sealed itself into the earth as quietly as it arrived. The undertaker probably even buried himself. So tidy.
The Leopard’s curiosity was kindled. She wasted no time descending into the valley and approaching the cottage. With every step her anticipation grew from out of the midst of her weariness. She sniffed at the building's windows and door frames, but found nothing conspicuous. Except one detail. Inside the cottage there seemed to reside a substantial collection of books.
Perhaps the undertaker wiled away his last days reading novels, she thought.
Silent as a mouse, the Leopard pushed open a leaded window and climbed into the cottage. She was met by an overwhelming wave of old paper aroma. But when she looked around for the books she could find not a single one. In fact, she saw little of anything. There was very little inside the cottage's single room. Its gray stone walls bore no ornamentation, its plank floor was dull and unpolished, there were no cabinets or tables or chairs. Yet in the middle of the room there was something remarkable, something entirely out of place. It was a four poster bed of black wood, its surfaces carved in an intricate pattern of vegetation and animals and polished to a high shine. Draped over it were curtains of fine silk the color of cream. Upon the bed, half covered in silk sheets and sleeping soundly against generous silk pillows, lay a Swan.
But of course this Swan was no ordinary swan, and the Leopard knew it. After all, who finds an ordinary swan sleeping in any kind of bed, let alone an exquisitely carved four poster? No, when one finds a Swan in this type of setting, one knows one has come upon the edge of a story, most likely a fairy tale. The Leopard was aware of this, and indeed she suspected she had unwittingly stumbled into the very thing she had set out in search of. To know for certain, all she had to do was learn the name of this Swan and see how it tasted.
“So who are you supposed to be?” the Leopard asked the Swan. Try as she might, she could not keep the trembling of her spirit from troubling her deep growl.
The Swan's eyes opened groggily, then slowly blinked. Once, twice. With agonizing effort she raised her long neck from the lovely embrace of her pillows. She looked around the dark cottage, perhaps trying to recall just where she was, in which world, which time, which story. Perhaps she tried to remember what had come before, and from that starting point what might come after. Yet when her eyes met those of the Leopard, something like recognition flashed across their dark and glittering orbs.
“Oh,” the Swan whispered, “it’s only you.”
She sighed and her wings drooped. The tension that had built up in them upon waking eased somewhat, replaced by the heaviness of exhaustion. She pushed down the redundant billows of silk and let her long neck ease back into the pillows. Her wings, their strength now spent, splayed out uselessly on the covers.
The Leopard, meanwhile, was sniffing again. She was perplexed. This Swan hadn’t appeared at all surprised to see her, a fact the Leopard found mystifying, even irritating. She found some of her normally anxious energy restored to her limbs and she paced once around the bed, her nervous tail twitching in her wake. She asked herself if the Swan could really have been expecting her. The question was at the same tim intriguing and upsetting.
“Yes,” she purred softly, adding an ominous rumble to her voice, “it is I.”
Carefully she positioned herself near the foot of the enormous bed. She lifted a paw to her mouth and began licking. Her great bristling tongue slowly dampened her golden fur, brushing between padded toes to get at the mud acquired on her journey to the cottage.
“Yes, it is I,” she purred again. “But who are you? And what are you? I have never met a Swan like you before. Indeed, I was surprised to find anyone in this old cottage at all. It isn’t in a very hospitable corner of the world.”
“I’m not really a swan,” admitted the Swan. “This is just an enchantment. These feathers aren’t even real feathers. They’re made of paper.”
Sluggishly the Swan forced herself to sit up a few inches higher. Her feathers rustled and chafed with each of her movements, a sound she seemed to dislike. A kind of grimacing expression formed on her long ebony bill, as though she recalled some unpleasant memory associated with either her enchantment or the paper feathers themselves.
“I hope it wasn’t an unpleasant surprise for you to find me here,” she said.
The Leopard carried on grooming her paw. “It wasn’t an extraordinary surprise,” she said casually. “I was just surprised.”
After a little she added, “I enjoy surprises. I also enjoy having my questions answered.”
“Right,” said the Swan. “You asked who I am.”
At least another minute passed while the Swan sat in silence and the Leopard carried on licking. Finally the Leopard gave up her leisurely game and put down her paw with a thud. She narrowed her eyes on the Swan. A low rumble ground up from the back of her throat and her front claws clicked impatiently on the wood floor.
“So are you going to answer my question or should I just eat you now?”
The Swan shuddered. “I admit my preference for the first option,” she said. “But I was trying to decide how to answer your question. Because I can’t remember my name.”
“You can’t remember your name?”
“No. And I can’t even remember having had a name. I must have forgotten it quite a long time ago.”
“Do you have any idea how you forgot it?”
“No.”
The Leopard sighed.
“Then how do you propose to answer my question? Do you have any idea how you came to be here?”
“Oh yes, I remember that quite well. But it would make a long story.”
The Leopard rolled her eyes to one side while she considered how much time she wished to spare for the Swan’s stories. This was the typical thing, of course. Even the Leopard had lost count of the times victims told long stories to postpone death.
“I have other business tonight,” she said, which of course was a lie. “Which means,” went on the Leopard imperiously, “if you are going to tell me how you got here, you had better do so quickly.”
The Swan bobbed her long neck. “I will tell you as quickly as I can,” she cooed softly. “But I have to start at the beginning of everything, which is a very long way back.”
The Leopard looked doubtful. “That makes it sound ages ago,” she growled. She wasn't sure if her impatience was real or feigned, for she did not yet know if this Swan was what she had been hunting for.
“Yes, I admit it is some way back,” cooed the Swan. “But I have to start there or nowhere.”
The Leopard sighed again and sat down to listen. “Then you should begin while I am still in a good mood,” she purred.
And so the Swan began her story.
Which was precisely the problem. By now all the Leopard's battles were long since won, all her rivals long since laid to rest. All she had left to contemplate was the past, and she did so either lounging around her empty palace or star gazing at the doors of her balcony.
This was one joy that remained to her, this observing of the stars. She relished their slow unraveling; the gradual dissolution of their substance; the inevitable uncoupling of their energies. She could lose herself for hours in the wordless tale of their downfalls. By which she might have counted herself fortunate, because her palace had always stood among the stars. Out there in the Night between worlds. Out in the lonely silence.
It is impossible to know what contemplations occupied the Leopard's mind as she looked out on the stars. To say she thought of the past would be a gross generalization and simplification. Certainly her ponderings about the past were far beyond the scope of our own minds; just as her unique perspective on the topic was well outside our experience. But whatever the substance of her thoughts, there came an hour and a moment when she awoke with an urgency that sent them scurrying into the shadows like mice. Something simple had moved in her, something primal. The Leopard was hungry.
But she did not hunger for ordinary meat. The food of the Great Leopard was names - names and stories about them. And now it was the fierce desire for a name that was stirring in her belly. But of course no ordinary name would do. If she had desired an ordinary name I wouldn’t be here telling you about her search for it. By definition nothing remarkable would have come of that search. No, what the Leopard wanted was a very peculiar sort of name. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you like the story you're about to hear, she wanted a name with qualities difficult to describe. Even when she addressed her army of leopards, who had been employed for eons hunting her prey, she found herself reduced to stray metaphors.
I think it would be something reminiscent of a windy forest, she told them in a non-committal tone, when the multitudinous voices of its leaves conceal both themselves and the movements of greater things. Do you understand me? I want a name as perilous as a flood, as that singular moment when fog rolls over the sea and your navigation equipment goes haywire.
It would be a name possessing depth and darkness, but these would not prevent it from being easy to swallow. And it would be marked in near equal parts with irony and sincerity. I want to laugh, really to laugh with the genuine laughter I used to know. But the name should let me withhold space inside for the possibility of despair. I want to face both the annihilation and justification of hope. Do you see? This is the only thing I want. Can any of you find a name that tastes this way?
Her leopards wore pensive, bewildered expressions. Their assembly listened to her go on for a while, now and then exchanging pathetic glances with each another. Then, once her monologue fizzled out and she dismissed them, they shuffled away. Her throne room emptied out and the Leopard was left alone in her palace. For a while her mind followed the progress of her hunters as they scattered into the Night. Then her attention narrowed to her immediate surroundings, to the silence of her palace walls and the firmness of its polished floor. All that stone so unmoving and pure.
As you can imagine, the Leopard's hours passed slowly and with rising anticipation. For a while she would sit on her black throne, her claws nervously drumming away on the floor. Then she would rise to pace from one wall of her throne room to another. Often she would pause to sigh. Often she would growl, angry at herself for how vague her descriptions had been. What, after all, had her comments about the windy forest and the foggy sea meant? Who among all her army would be able to interpret these comments successfully? My hunters are bound to fail, the Leopard told herself a number of times, and when they do it will be my fault more than theirs.
At last there came an hour when the longed for sounds caused the Leopard’s ears to twitch. Yes, her host of hunters was at the palace gates. She listened impatiently to the soft trembling of their approach, the hushed whisper of their many thousand padded feet upon smooth stone. Into her dark chamber they filed, and one by one they slinked before her glittering eyes. Some brought names in their jaws, but the Leopard shook her head in disgust at all of these. Not a single name was like the one she had wanted. In their presence she felt nothing like what she had wanted to feel. But a few of her hunters hadn’t bothered to bring anything back at all. When these came before her they simply bowed in silence, tails down, and backed into the shadows. The Leopard found herself pleased by this.
Yes, she thought, these have come closest to success. If the name exists, only I will be able to find it. And perhaps that too was part of what I wanted from the start.
So the Leopard left her palace. She went out alone, but not to the far-flung stars and galaxies of the night. Instead she descended to that creeping blue sphere, the one called Earth. She began in its cities. Through their lampposted streets and littered alley ways she crept. She searched through sleeping factories and warehouses and scaled the steps of their apartment towers and luxury hotels. She glanced in through so many windows and doors she lost count of the lives she could have consumed had she hungered for them. She peered into drains and vents, ducts and sewers. She sniffed under every parked car and trash bin she encountered. And the Leopard found many many names. But she found nothing with the name she wanted.
Eventually she left the cities of the Earth and turned to the last forests. She searched thoroughly among the sleepy trees, up in their branches and down among their roots. She peered under every fallen trunk and padded down every wet gully. She sniffed out every nest and secret cavity in the ground, and turned over countless wormy stones. Yet for all her troubles the Leopard found nothing in the forest with the name she wanted.
Feeling her hope waver, she searched among the wastelands of the Earth. She prowled the lonesome plains and the solitary deserts and byways where travelers are few and inhabitants are fewer. She stood for many drawn out minutes counting silent stars, watching motionless lines of blank horizons, listening to stalks of grass comb the wind. At some point the Leopard wandered into a country of sprawling moorlands. How long she spent climbing through this land she could not say, but at some point she caught herself standing atop a barren crag, smelling the wind not for traces of her quarry but simply for the act of smelling, for its intimacy and communion with the wind, for some primordial significance locked away in the movements of the act, the extension of the neck, the raising of the head, the flexing of the nostrils, the narrowing of the eyes.
With a shock, the Leopard realized she had forgotten her precise location. Was she in northern England or southern Scotland? And she had forgotten which direction she had come from and which she had intended to go. She had even forgotten what trail or lack of trail had led her here. She looked around in astonishment, trying to draw the place from the vast ocean of time held in her memory. But all the craggy peaks in the moorland looked like extensions of the crag she was already perched atop, or like minor transient fluctuations of a single sound wave across the surface of calm water. No, she realized, they look like the ridges on the palm of a hand that is cupped slightly closed. The hand of maybe some giant frozen like this since the battles of creation.
The Leopard tried to ask herself what sort of place on Earth looked and felt like this but found she could not formulate the question in a way possible to answer. The confusion revolved around what it meant for the Earth to look and feel a certain way, it only being within the mind of the observer that such things as landscapes looked and felt at all. And the mind of the observer was a fickle thing. The Leopard knew this. She knew that what now looked like a giant’s closing hand might look entirely different tomorrow night. Tomorrow night the moorland might appear gentle and unthreatening. Tranquil even, a place of solace. She shook her head in frustration, unable to remember having ever looked at any moorland in this way before.
A sudden yawn interrupted her thoughts.
“Why am I so exhausted?” she asked herself in annoyance. She had been on much longer hunts without falling victim to this weariness. But she knew the answer already. She wasn't wearied by the hunt itself, but by the effort required to defer a complicated hunger. In fact, her reserves had been entirely consumed by it. What she wanted now was a place to rest her mind. She longed for some crumbling and formless ruin, an anonymous place to crawl into and curl up. She wanted a place that only gently whispered its memory into the uncaring wind, a place with a voice that would not force her to listen.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Leopard found what she wanted as soon as she scanned the sprawling landscape. Just below her lay the ruin of a settlement. It was dark and inviting. Most importantly it was long since abandoned. Maybe twelve stone buildings in all had composed the settlement at its prime. Now, all but one of these were in a state of advanced decay. Their slate roofs were collapsed, door frames rotted into the soil, broken walls invaded by thickets of heather and gorse. At the edge nearest the moors lay a graveyard, its monuments toppled.
Yet in the middle of the graveyard a lone structure stood intact. This building appeared to be a small cottage. Probably the former dwelling of the settlement’s undertaker, thought the Leopard. Although why such a tiny settlement would have needed an undertaker is beyond me. It pleased her, though. And it seemed fitting that an undertaker’s cottage would be the last house standing. It must have been a proper ending, she thought. The village must have sealed itself into the earth as quietly as it arrived. The undertaker probably even buried himself. So tidy.
The Leopard’s curiosity was kindled. She wasted no time descending into the valley and approaching the cottage. With every step her anticipation grew from out of the midst of her weariness. She sniffed at the building's windows and door frames, but found nothing conspicuous. Except one detail. Inside the cottage there seemed to reside a substantial collection of books.
Perhaps the undertaker wiled away his last days reading novels, she thought.
Silent as a mouse, the Leopard pushed open a leaded window and climbed into the cottage. She was met by an overwhelming wave of old paper aroma. But when she looked around for the books she could find not a single one. In fact, she saw little of anything. There was very little inside the cottage's single room. Its gray stone walls bore no ornamentation, its plank floor was dull and unpolished, there were no cabinets or tables or chairs. Yet in the middle of the room there was something remarkable, something entirely out of place. It was a four poster bed of black wood, its surfaces carved in an intricate pattern of vegetation and animals and polished to a high shine. Draped over it were curtains of fine silk the color of cream. Upon the bed, half covered in silk sheets and sleeping soundly against generous silk pillows, lay a Swan.
But of course this Swan was no ordinary swan, and the Leopard knew it. After all, who finds an ordinary swan sleeping in any kind of bed, let alone an exquisitely carved four poster? No, when one finds a Swan in this type of setting, one knows one has come upon the edge of a story, most likely a fairy tale. The Leopard was aware of this, and indeed she suspected she had unwittingly stumbled into the very thing she had set out in search of. To know for certain, all she had to do was learn the name of this Swan and see how it tasted.
“So who are you supposed to be?” the Leopard asked the Swan. Try as she might, she could not keep the trembling of her spirit from troubling her deep growl.
The Swan's eyes opened groggily, then slowly blinked. Once, twice. With agonizing effort she raised her long neck from the lovely embrace of her pillows. She looked around the dark cottage, perhaps trying to recall just where she was, in which world, which time, which story. Perhaps she tried to remember what had come before, and from that starting point what might come after. Yet when her eyes met those of the Leopard, something like recognition flashed across their dark and glittering orbs.
“Oh,” the Swan whispered, “it’s only you.”
She sighed and her wings drooped. The tension that had built up in them upon waking eased somewhat, replaced by the heaviness of exhaustion. She pushed down the redundant billows of silk and let her long neck ease back into the pillows. Her wings, their strength now spent, splayed out uselessly on the covers.
The Leopard, meanwhile, was sniffing again. She was perplexed. This Swan hadn’t appeared at all surprised to see her, a fact the Leopard found mystifying, even irritating. She found some of her normally anxious energy restored to her limbs and she paced once around the bed, her nervous tail twitching in her wake. She asked herself if the Swan could really have been expecting her. The question was at the same tim intriguing and upsetting.
“Yes,” she purred softly, adding an ominous rumble to her voice, “it is I.”
Carefully she positioned herself near the foot of the enormous bed. She lifted a paw to her mouth and began licking. Her great bristling tongue slowly dampened her golden fur, brushing between padded toes to get at the mud acquired on her journey to the cottage.
“Yes, it is I,” she purred again. “But who are you? And what are you? I have never met a Swan like you before. Indeed, I was surprised to find anyone in this old cottage at all. It isn’t in a very hospitable corner of the world.”
“I’m not really a swan,” admitted the Swan. “This is just an enchantment. These feathers aren’t even real feathers. They’re made of paper.”
Sluggishly the Swan forced herself to sit up a few inches higher. Her feathers rustled and chafed with each of her movements, a sound she seemed to dislike. A kind of grimacing expression formed on her long ebony bill, as though she recalled some unpleasant memory associated with either her enchantment or the paper feathers themselves.
“I hope it wasn’t an unpleasant surprise for you to find me here,” she said.
The Leopard carried on grooming her paw. “It wasn’t an extraordinary surprise,” she said casually. “I was just surprised.”
After a little she added, “I enjoy surprises. I also enjoy having my questions answered.”
“Right,” said the Swan. “You asked who I am.”
At least another minute passed while the Swan sat in silence and the Leopard carried on licking. Finally the Leopard gave up her leisurely game and put down her paw with a thud. She narrowed her eyes on the Swan. A low rumble ground up from the back of her throat and her front claws clicked impatiently on the wood floor.
“So are you going to answer my question or should I just eat you now?”
The Swan shuddered. “I admit my preference for the first option,” she said. “But I was trying to decide how to answer your question. Because I can’t remember my name.”
“You can’t remember your name?”
“No. And I can’t even remember having had a name. I must have forgotten it quite a long time ago.”
“Do you have any idea how you forgot it?”
“No.”
The Leopard sighed.
“Then how do you propose to answer my question? Do you have any idea how you came to be here?”
“Oh yes, I remember that quite well. But it would make a long story.”
The Leopard rolled her eyes to one side while she considered how much time she wished to spare for the Swan’s stories. This was the typical thing, of course. Even the Leopard had lost count of the times victims told long stories to postpone death.
“I have other business tonight,” she said, which of course was a lie. “Which means,” went on the Leopard imperiously, “if you are going to tell me how you got here, you had better do so quickly.”
The Swan bobbed her long neck. “I will tell you as quickly as I can,” she cooed softly. “But I have to start at the beginning of everything, which is a very long way back.”
The Leopard looked doubtful. “That makes it sound ages ago,” she growled. She wasn't sure if her impatience was real or feigned, for she did not yet know if this Swan was what she had been hunting for.
“Yes, I admit it is some way back,” cooed the Swan. “But I have to start there or nowhere.”
The Leopard sighed again and sat down to listen. “Then you should begin while I am still in a good mood,” she purred.
And so the Swan began her story.
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