"Time to swallow, Mr. Scroop."
And they gulp down each other's labels.
"Well, Mr. Scroop, you have "indulgence", and
so do I, so what can we do to please both of us without causing pain to either
of us? Let us be kind to each other, Mr. Scroop. Shall we be gentle? Here, let
me stroke you."
And their hands are on the other's clad body, kindly moving
between the impairings, his hands still drivished but hers unconnected, and a
sort of slow electric grooming takes place, and soft sparks shimmer through the
grumbling air. And they slowly rub foreheads, and the skin of her forehead
moults against the resistant strength of the wormcloth of his gibberel, and she
softly blows away the moulted skin, dusting it into the already clogged air.
His aura clears. She looks intently. Panning shot: Several men,
many handcuffed to each other, on a flattened sheltered spur of moorland.
There is a smell of muddy feet in the room.
Her aura clears. He sees a woman, a child and a baby, disembarking
at a small country station.
And souled-out warm murmurings are somehow expelled from their
lips, more breath than sound.
Long shot: a posse of rough-terrain vehicles, high-speeding from
nowhere.
Medium shot: elongated shadows striping across her.
And his eyes are smiling, through the holes in the gibberel. And
he licks the kohl above her eyes and blackens his tongue as a consequence, and
immediately he twitches drunkenly and contentedly.
Her aura mists over. A harsh female voice: "I think you know
why we've come for you."
Her aura clears. Medium shot: a handcuffed woman, a small child
and a baby all being bundled into another train, waiting on the other side of a
platform.
And it was as if a shared intoxication were taking place. And
their eyes lock on to each other, and in hers is a question, and in his is no
answer.
There is the hardened sound of rain on polished metal.
Medium shot: men in uniforms, sprung from the shadows, making a
mass arrest, pushing wounded hands behind backs, pushing battered heads down,
forcing bruised bodies into vans.
She sprays her breath over him and it is like he needs the salt
in her breath to stop his brain cramping up and he inhales deep and long.
A peripheral vision shot: men being thrown out and told to be on
their way.
And his tongue rasps against hers and their mouths mutually
blacken as a consequence. And she licks a meandering interrogation of salivated
kohl onto the wormcloth of his chaperoon. "Needed to work my way between
your chest hairs there, Mr. Scroop: they're all growing between the wormcloth
already."
His aura mists over. A man's voice: "You, on the other hand,
are staying."
She flicks her hair back, and it stays there, lacquered by the
air, with specks of confetti stuck frozen in mid-air like tiny visible
ozone-holes. And he cuddles her.
And she cuddles him, cribbing his head against her body. And as
they stroke and cuddle, everything goes relaxed, and they slump into each
other, so that they become like a single sculpture made of lava.
His aura clears. Close-up: blister marks on a wrist: a perfect handcuff-ring.
Medium shot: a train arriving. A baby staying with a handcuffed
woman. A small child being taken away from her, and escorted down a different
corridor. The child has small drivishes around its wrists.
Downward close up: an ankle secured by a manacle to another ankle
poking out from uniformed trousers.
And she reaches up with her split-drivished hands, lifts the rim
of her opera hat, and wedges the hat onto his head. And she taps the brim
gently, and mulberries foam out, and she crushes the juice onto his face. And
she reaches out, and strokes his neck with back-handed kindness. And he bows,
almost in an act of deference, and his apparent obeisance seems to invigorate
her.
And then they lie on the floor, scratching at the air between
them. She whispers sweet breaths of nonsense-sibilance around his head and they
become almost like smoke and she blows the wavy fragments all around the room.
And they stroke each other again, but always above the waist.
A medium-shot in her aura gives the impression of something
falling away, as if someone is fainting, and in the mists, a fist erupts
towards smoky molecules that form the vague impression of a face. And
involuntarily, he flinches.
Long shot: a man entering a building with castellated towers
through a giant pointed arch. He is limping.
He sees the woman and the baby entering a building that looks like
a low-level office, but every door is doubled, and every door is locked.
He moans, relaxed in the newly granted lack of excitement.
Delirious. And the lights dim downwards, stripes of discarded light streaking
the walls, and within it, they seem aware that they are both illuminated,
spreading their lights out, glowing dimly when the pinpricked broken shafts of
darkness needles through the outerness of their false skins.
Whispers of something that might be either smoke or mist stretch
and curlicue through the room.
He replaces her kohl. She cleans up his tongue. She takes her
opera hat from his head, and puts it back on hers.
"Exhausted, Mr. Scroop, or do you want another go? Would
you like another little burlesque tart, and another little drink, Mr. Scroop?
Remember that if you do, and we draw the same instructions, we will do the same
thing again, and you won't remember it. I shall remember, but I shall pretend I
don't. Of course, if we make another journey, a different journey, we shall probably discover more about both
ourselves and each other. So, tell me, Mr. Scroop. I know that you know how to
move your head, so tell me with your head, Mr. Scroop: tell me with you head.
"
Choose:
Or:
He nods his head.
They return to the table, and each grabs a tart, gently picked
up with his restrained and her unrestrained hands, and each devours their own.
Easily.
She pours spirit into their glasses.
She says "Up your brain again, Mr. Scroop. Time to taste
the treewormy medicine one more time," and they down them in one, she left
handed, he two handed.
She pulls the label from her mouth and hands it to him,
pushing it into his drivished hands.
She pulls the label from his mouth and examines it.
No comments:
Post a Comment