mictlan

Come with me, I want to show you something.

This is a room. No, a house. A two-story house. The stories don't have much to do with each other. Or perhaps the stories are all about each other at the same time.

The first story is about a lake, or maybe the sea. It's about a beach. It's about brown curly water and a crab, and waves shattered on rock, salt shrapnel spray.

Now it's about the taste of salt.

I used to love salt. I oversalted everything as a kid. The occasional accidentally oversalted dish at mealtimes, I would get to eat by myself. I used to pluck unripe ambarella, crisp june plums taken early, eat them with salt. I even ate biling with salt. Bilimbi; glowing green sacs of acid crunchiness. Salt with everything, salt enough for a sea.

And then I stopped. I haven't eaten plums for many a passing June. The tree still stands outside my window, though. Or does it? I can't remember. Perhaps we cut it down, years ago. I used to climb that tree as a kid, climb higher than all the roofs in the neighbourhood, and look down, ragamuffin prince of all I surveyed. Memories are tougher than trees; only the latter will fall to the axe.

I won't tell you what the second story is about.

In this house of two stories, somewhere, there are these treasures;

A music box, one that will possibly be empty, but most likely will hold some ancient precious thing. Once upon a time it held secret clues to greater treasures, but that age is long gone. Open the box, if you like; the tune is a simple, fragile shatterday song, beautiful like things made of glass often are.

A painting, a panther trapped behind glass. The totem beast is old and tired now, but the green eyes will follow you across the room, and the mouth is red and open; he may be speaking, words swallowed by the glass, or he may be panting -what landscapes might lie in the world beyond the frame?- from having travelled far, or he may be simply baring his teeth.

A glass bottle, half full, brown rotgut in a cupboard; a Black Grail. The shit and spunk of old betrayals and lost opportunities, tempered with regret, fermented for those hot sick years, ready to burn the cockles of your heart. Drink me.

A dreamcatcher, spun from numbers and punctuation, hanging in a dark corner you cannot see with the lazy eye. Bring out your quick eye, see that fire flicker reflected in the glass, gleaming with nightsweats, surrounded by the droppings of husked nightmares. It is patient, and efficient, and -don't touch it, it's always hungry.

They're all hungry. It must be a trait of treasures, that they lie in wait, hungering, lusting. And we all know that wherever there are treasures, there are dragons, hoarding.

It's a good thing we're not staying for long in this house. We're just passing through, so don't look for souvenirs, don't slip any small trinket into a pocket. Don't take anything away, and I guarantee you health and happiness, song and laughter.

Neither rain nor drought; no sorrow or loss; neither sickness nor pain; no smudge or stain for those who have escaped the house of two stories.

Sadness, salt and solitary.

posted by: mictlantecuhtli at 03:25 | link | comments (44) |

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