Ineffable Read online

Ineffable

  By

  C.SeanMcGee

  Ineffable

  Copyright© C. Sean McGee

  CSM Publishing

  Araraquara, São Paulo, Brazil 2015

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, scanning or digital information storage and retrieval without permission from the author.

  Interior layout: C. Sean McGee

  Author Foto: Carla Raiter

  Copy Editor: Anna Vanti

  Cover Artwork:

  “le fête”

  by Mario Duplantier

  www.marioduplantier.com

  “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings” from the SAGE Social Science Colllections - All Rights Reserved.

  Support independent art before it cuts its own ear off.

  I

  Missing were the clashing symbols, pounding drums and exalting horns that might have marked their entrance. Missing too were the choirs of chanting and jubilant cheering that might have lit their path. In fact, for all the pomp and ceremony that one would expect from such a thing, it was actually quite a dull affair, and rather tiresome to watch.

  There was very little sound, except of course for the crunching of dried leaves beneath the wheels of heavy, creaking carriages. That and the clapping of splintering rocks and gravel, trodden upon by worn hooves and exhausted, shaking legs as the procession slowly made its way along the dusty path under a cold, starless sky.

  Though it was the dead of night, still, there were scores of people lined up along the winding road, watching the troupe as they shuffled along like the recently condemned (or soon to be departed); with not nearly as much colour and spirit in their eyes as they wore upon their polka dotted pants, in ribbons that tied around their bright puffy shirts, and upon their decorated faces, of which cracked and peeled with paint that was as dry and recessive as the stony path on which they travelled.

  At the head of the procession, a tiny tattooed man with biceps as big as boulders and a mean glare that overshadowed his dwarfish stature, held the reigns of a dozen horses with one hand, and with the other, he waved regally to the scores of people who pushed and prodded one another, vying for best vantage point - wriggling like worms into a knotted tangle of excitement and appetent curiosity.

  Sitting on the first of the dozen horses was Gaia, a beautiful woman with a thorny vine tattooed on one side of her face, which ran down her neck and vanished between her ample bosom. She had sharp, curling fingernails which looked like darkly coloured talons and hair - as black as the night – that trailed nearly as long as the procession itself, running like an unwoven veil, down the length of her back and over her horse’s croup, almost courting with the rocks and dusted earth below. She wore a long, pleated, black skirt that partly covered her sandaled feet, showing only the stars and comets that were painted on the tips of her toes. And upon the left arm of her white lace blouse, unlike the others in her procession, she wore a single black ribbon.

  Behind her, and only just, rode a brutish and unshapely man with flamboyant attire. He wore a purple suit that was studded with diamonds and pearls, and from the sleeves of his arms ran a glittering display of brightly coloured tassels. He sat high on his steed and carried in his left hand, a long cane with a golden ferrule, a crystal handle, and a silver tip. And on his head, he wore a purple top hat which upon it, a small monkey sat, comfortably curled and sleeping as it rocked back and forth by the gentle sway of the whiskered man on the second most elegant horse.

  And behind him, on the other ten steeds, rode his whores.

  There might have been fifty carriages in all. Some of them were quaint and colourful and others, grand and bulking - oddly shaped and coloured, like great mechanical Frankensteins. And those that marched alongside did so on spent and uneven footing; their toes poking through the ends of their shoes with their leathered soles, as thin as the creamy skin of freshly boiled milk.

  There were all sorts of strangers of all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colour, and from all corners of the globe and the galaxy it would seem. It was as if this procession were a slowly moving stream that had passed along the sidewalks and through the gutters of communities, taking with it, the waste and unwanted that had been discarded, or merely didn’t fit with the good and the common.

  By the side of the road, a young boy nervously trampled a mound of weeds and grey flowers, holding his father’s hand in a loose grip while allowing the weight of his curiosity to lean him towards slipping free. As he moved to dart away from his father’s side to where all of the others were gathering, his wrist caught on something strained and concerning, and the boy turned, unable to alight from his own muddy footprints.

  “No,” said the boy’s father. “We don’t know their intentions.”

  “Who are they?” asked The Young Boy, craning like a starving petal towards the light of his father’s sure stare.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Why are they here?”

  “It’s still too soon for us to know.”

  “But when will we know?”

  “Only long after they have gone, when we can see what they have taken from us. Only then will we know what they wanted all along.”

  “They look so different, so….”

  “Strange,” said the boy’s father coldly.

  “Yes, but in a good way.”

  “There is no good way to strangeness.”

  “Do you think they can help us?”

  “I very much doubt it.”

  “There’s so many,” said the boy, losing his focus on the long line of trampling feet.

  He stared with such absent regard for the outlines that separated each stranger so that they looked like one colourful collage - inseparable from one another, and from the plumes of hot air expelled by their wheezing breaths. They were, like paint poured into a stream, inseparable from the air itself.

  “We’re going,” said the boy’s father, pulling on the neck of his son’s shirt.

  “Just a little longer father, please?” said the boy, squirming away from his father’s clasp.

  “I told you” replied the boy’s father, kneeling down to look his son in the eyes, and squeezing his arm with the bruising intent of a spurned headmaster, or an ireful criminal. “Home is where we live, and outside is where…”

  “The rest come to die, I know, I know, but, maybe it’s not as bad as….”

  “Son,” said the father, his eyes like scalpels, cutting through the boy’s reason.

  “But there’s so many father. Maybe there’s…”

  The procession continued along the dusted, cobblestone path, seemingly in the direction of town. And those who gathered under the starless night had panic in their eyes as they turned their stares towards the unlocked doors of their homes and their theatres, wanting but unable to, shoo away the wolves that crept about in the darkness before them.

  “What say here Master?” shouted The Tiny Tattooed Man, pointing to a break in the brush and scrub where the leaves and grass folded into a flat, even bedding. “Or up ahead, by that sickly old tree.”

  The Ringmaster looked in the direction of where The Tiny Tattooed Man’s small stubby fingers were pointing, nodding once to show his approval, and waking the little monkey from its comfortable sleep.

  “Halt!” shouted The Ringmaster, digging the sharp, ivory spikes of his knee high boots into his steed’s flank. Behind him, his ten whores all stopped at once and upon them fell looks of lust and envy from the many scores of men and women who gathered about the knee-high grass in their droves, having been lured from the safety and comfort of their warm beds to witnes
s this spectacle.

  “Halt,” shouted The Tiny Tattooed Man, his voice carrying like a foul odour through the stillness of the night where, on a dusted cobblestone path, and pressed between two lines of fretted and dubious expressions, a starved and exhausted procession heaved and pulled on the ends of manila ropes which hauled enormous carriages that rocked back and forth, as if whatever nefarious magic or beastly horror were caged within, were set on making its escape.

  “Halt!” shouted The Tattooed Man again.

  And this time, the creaking of worn and splintered wood, and the shuffling and crumbling of dust and rock beneath leathered soles came to an absolute stop.

  The ropes fell to the floor, breaking the tired and awkward silence and sending a mound of dust into the air, making the townsfolk all cower; covering their eyes and mouths, to shield themselves from the choking sand and rock.

  And when the dust settled, The Ringmaster spoke.

  “Good evening,” he said, lifting his top hat as he bowed; ever so slightly. “My family and I, we have travelled a great many plain and our feet, they have suffered from great marks and pains, as heavy as the hunger in our bellies.”

  As he spoke, The Ringmaster worked his crowd, his congealing stare paying delicate address to the entire townsfolk, who now, in contrast to these devilish rogues, appeared without any colour whatsoever.

  Their faces bore the same greyish tinge as their clothes and shoes as if the pleats in their trousers, shoelaces, and skin had been shaded with the same blunting pencil. And their town, not far off in the distance, looked as if it had been painted with a handful of crumbling charcoal; and it was badly drawn too. The roofs of the houses had no defined edges, appearing to smudge into what looked like lamp posts or delivery vans; and the streets were uneven as if they had been scaled by the hand of a child.

  This did not disturb The Ringmaster.

  “We wish only to rest for some time, time enough for our spirits to catch up with our bodies. And in time enough, we shall be gone. And we do not ask for anything of which you are unwilling to give, for all that what we ask is what you already pay into our hands - your avid attention.”

  The townsfolk’s expressions were illegible, but this didn’t falter The Ringmaster, he had been whipped by far more apathetic audiences in the past. In fact, he thrived on their disconnection.

  “We have come a long way,” he said, “from the farthest ends of the Earth, and on our travels, we have seen many great and superfluous things - things that you would never believe to be true.”

  Still, there was little wonder in their eyes as if they knew what was coming next.

  “Magic,” shouted The Ringmaster, throwing off his purple coat, fanning a set of flush cards in one hand whilst grooming his long triangular goatee to a curling point with his other.

  But nothing still. The people didn’t react, not how he thought they would.

  The Ringmaster clicked his fingers twice, calling for his cane. One of his whores dismounted her horse, kindly brushing its mane and kissing the side of its face before whispering, “I love you. Please wait for me while I am gone.”

  Though she would only travel a foot or two, it felt like an eternity.

  She was the most extravagant of all the whores; poised with elegance and beauty. Her name was Delilah and she was The Ringmaster’s favourite, his number one. She wore a long black silk skirt that was decorated with large blue jewels, shaped like all seeing eyes between the outstretching rays of golden sun drenched petals. Her feet were nary visible underneath, with barely an atom dividing the pleated hem from the beige gravel below. With her skirt, she wore an indigo velvet corset, decorated with twenty golden buttons that barely contained her enormous bosom and two silver flower-shaped mirrors that bloomed from both sides of her folded collar.

  She was the most insatiable of all his whores and her beard was the fullest and most well-groomed. Delilah gave the cane to her master and stood by his side, eyeing the men in the crowd with a lustful veneer, running her long, slender fingers through her thick bushy beard, and threatening to lift her silk skirt with her other hand to expose her bare naked toes.

  “Excuse me.”

  A young woman stepped forwards, holding a sleeping child in her arms, draped in a dirty rag. “Have you come across a doctor in your travels?” she asked. “Or have you one in your troupe?”

  She was as grey and lifeless as the rest, but unlike the others, who looked foreign and unaffected by The Ringmasters corralling, she had something different about her; a slight twitching of a nerve on her face, and a light, yet barely noticeable tremor in her bottom lip - hope.

  “We have brought you something better,” said The Ringmaster.

  “What is it?” asked the young woman, now rocking her child gently.

  “We have brought you The Sun of God,” said The Ringmaster, half expecting applause.

  “What is that?” she asked confused, thinking of it as some Asian delight. “Is it a spice or some kind of fashion?”

  “Why, The Sun of God is your saviour, my dear” exclaimed The Ringmaster, his face up to the heavens and his arms shaped like a V.

  “A saviour of whom?” she asked.

  “You, of course, and of your child. And of all your children” he shouted, exultantly.

  “Save us from what?”

  “From yourselves.”

  The young woman looked down at her sleeping child and then to her townsfolk who crept closer towards the warmth and shield of her valour, now as fixed as she was, on the brutish and unshapely looking man in flamboyant attire.

  “What have I done or am yet to do,” she asked, “which curses myself?”

  “You have killed God’s only son,” said The Ringmaster, lowering his head in a respectful grievance.

  The monkey too lowered his head; as did the entire procession, making strange markings over their chests before lifting their heads once more.

  “I cannot speak for the whole town,” said the young woman, “but I can tell you that neither I nor my sick child, have laid as much as a hair on another living being; be it person or animal. There is a great deal of death in this town, more than any town should bear, but if it’s a killer that you are looking for, if this is what has brought you to our town, then I can tell right now, you will not find them here.”

  “We wish only to rest our legs under the shade of this sickly tree. And maybe, if you do not mind, we could arrange our tents and, until our breaths have caught up, we could obligingly perform for your people; in doing what we do, our purpose and our promise.”

  “This Sun of God,” said the young woman, “can he heal the sick? Does he bargain with death?”

  “He does,” said The Ringmaster smiling, pulling his whiskers to a curling point.

  “Where is he now? Can we see him?”

  “He is all around you. He is everywhere, and he is anywhere too.”

  “But can we see him? My son, he is sick. He is dying. He needs a doctor, but if this God can save him as you say, then please, you have to let him see my boy.”

  The young woman stepped out of the weeds and onto the cobblestone path. Standing just an inch from The Ringmaster, and beneath his venerable glare, she lifted the towel from her sleeping child’s face.

  “My dear God,” said The Ringmaster, covering his mouth and swallowing a lump of bile. “Put it back,” he said, fanning his hands. “Good lord, put the towel back. What in tarnation?”

  “Please sir, my child needs medicine.”

  “Madame,” said The Ringmaster, covering his mouth and composing himself. “Your child has long deceased. It needs not medicine, for medicine is only for the sick and dying. Your child, it would appear, is in need of a proper burial, and soon too, by the state of this decomposition.”

  “But he is not dead. He still clings to life. It is the illness he bears that makes him look and act as if he were dead.”

  “His illness my poor lady, is death. What a man or a boy looks or acts like, h
e most certainly is.”

  Delilah peered under the towel and beneath the cover of her beard, she scowled.

  “What is wrong with their faces?” she asked, her nervous fingers pressed into the shoulder of her master, causing excite to stir at his loins.

  The Ringmaster stared at the young woman, at her black and white complexion. He laid his eyes upon the soiled rag that bore the outline of a young child who had a face that only maggots and worms could admire, and he sighed heavily. He dared not peer again. Instead, he looked out through the crowd and drew his attention to the grey stillness that spilled from their eyes like blotches of ink on a poorly written note, watching in strange allure as an old man rubbed at his buggering left eye, only to draw a thick black smudge across one side of his face where his nose and mouth had been.

  “We shouldn’t have stopped here,” said Delilah, whispering into her master’s ear. “Maybe we should continue; find another town.”

  The Ringmaster stared at the town before them, and then behind him, at the long procession that trailed over two horizons. He studied their weary faces and though he knew they could march for a thousand more days, it was he himself who needed the rest. But it wasn’t his decision alone. He turned to face Gaia who sat undisturbed on her steed.

  “What say?” his eyes said to hers.

  Gaia looked long into the town, into the grey cavernous streets, and then leaned to her steed and whispered in its ear, gently caressing its mane. Her horse turned and walked towards the sickly tree.

  “If you will have us,” said The Ringmaster to the townsfolk, “we would love to stay for a while. And if you would be so kind” he said, loud and confident, “as to let us cure your town of this ungodly illness. It is my word. And it shall be done” he shouted, hammering the silver tip of his cane into the ground causing a splinter in the earth and a tremor into the hearts of his procession, for they were old hands at the sight of his marvel.

  As he turned to join Gaia beneath the sickly, old tree, Delilah reached for his hand, pulling herself closer so as to press her bearded lips against his thick bulbous neck. “Take the mother and her dead child to my quarters, once they have been arranged. Feed her. Give her some alcohol. Loosen her spirit” he said, turning from his favourite whore.

  Delilah’s hand dropped like a wilted leaf. Though she wanted to scream and to curse vile obscenity, she composed herself, running her long, slender fingers over the soft, round mound of her beard, settling her nerves and vengeful appetite. And as The Ringmaster sat high on his steed, readied to speak, she took The Grieving Mother in her delicate embrace.

  “Your attention,” he said.

  There was a great kerfuffle as an order of shushing worked its way along the procession, sounding like the rustling of a hundred thousand trees.

  “Quiet,” shouted The Tiny Tattooed Man.

  The rustling continued.

  “I said shut up, or I’ll punch you,” he shouted.

  And the rustling ceased.

  The Tiny Tattooed Man looked to his master and nodded.

  “Tonight,” said The Ringmaster triumphant, pausing so that his echo travelled to the very last coloured member of his troupe. “Tonight we celebrate,” he said, “for there shall be a funeral.”