A boy visits his father's nest.
They are estranged, but he is young, so there is still time, both think, to remedy the situation.
Though it is a horror like a boner at a funeral.
The nest of the father is is a conical, whitewashed structure. It is a helix like certain other shells that wash up on the beach, with an open lip at the end of the volute that turns, originally like a spiral staircase without stairs. But this has been altered. It stands vertically on its narrower end and it is high in space, as it is an aerie.
There is a staircase etched into an interior wall, a turn in the volute, that goes straight up. It is a staircase built to fit the body of the boy. He alone can ascend this staircase in the wall, cut to his form, although he bumps his head. His father adjusts the size of the etched staircase to his growth, at regular intervals, and he is behind. His winged peregrinations are at fault.
Sometimes his father flies out the hole at the top, at the center of the shell-like dwelling. This happens suddenly, violently. This lets the boy know his father is a wild thing; he is fauna. A body flies straight up the air, and it is his father, winged, dripping a sort of honey or colostrum as he goes. His feathers are messy and fluid. His feathers are liquid fire. They are like two wet fires beating against each other, the father's wings. The boy tries to understand.
The shell house is a cold, conical dwelling with, nonetheless, a white shine of interiority to it. If you look carefully, you can see your face in the shine of walls, or rather, wall, since this is a singular fold of some smooth mineral concretion which feels both marmoreal and calcareous, at once, to the boy's senses. You see your face reflected in that white wall, or think you do, but it looks like a breath that has caught there, a momentary illusion of your reflection. You aren't quite sure whether either pole of the illusion is real.
The boy is shown how to climb the inset staircase and ring the tiny bells that wait on the ancient table in the small chamber at the top of the shell in which his father lives when he has not yet taken flight. He learns to ring the bells in the proper, ancient order. They must move as the stars move in the heavens, those charred notes of the tamed, toy bells.
The tiny bells are chased silver which is sooted like the teeth of dead enemies. The boy enjoys handling the bells, but he is terrible at playing the required melodies. There is a horn book that looks like old hide, dead flesh. The notes are braised on its surface. This is a room of vellum and faded ivory yellowed to nicotine addiction. You have thoughts like dead elephant's teeth here.
At the top of the shell, there is a more or less circle of cerulean, blue sky and wind, directly above one's head. It tousles and ruffles one's hair as a father would. In absentia, this wayward blue. The boy enjoys the sensation.
Sometimes spirits descend through this hole and whisper promises of other dwellings, while the boy practices his bells, while his spirit wanders and he dreams of the father's death as yet another song.
But it is only a breeze from the sea the boy will never see. For he has been blinded in a sort of kindness by the father whose wings are liqud, false fire. The hopeless sect of the family is all the boy has ever known. And his own hatred, which he is polishing now like a stone into its fatal dream point.
One day the boy will melt the father's nest. That cold, crucial dwelling. There is a temperature at which even shell melts.
But for now he is its servant and the puppet of its bells.
Also, he is thousands of years old but childish.
They are estranged, but he is young, so there is still time, both think, to remedy the situation.
Though it is a horror like a boner at a funeral.
The nest of the father is is a conical, whitewashed structure. It is a helix like certain other shells that wash up on the beach, with an open lip at the end of the volute that turns, originally like a spiral staircase without stairs. But this has been altered. It stands vertically on its narrower end and it is high in space, as it is an aerie.
There is a staircase etched into an interior wall, a turn in the volute, that goes straight up. It is a staircase built to fit the body of the boy. He alone can ascend this staircase in the wall, cut to his form, although he bumps his head. His father adjusts the size of the etched staircase to his growth, at regular intervals, and he is behind. His winged peregrinations are at fault.
Sometimes his father flies out the hole at the top, at the center of the shell-like dwelling. This happens suddenly, violently. This lets the boy know his father is a wild thing; he is fauna. A body flies straight up the air, and it is his father, winged, dripping a sort of honey or colostrum as he goes. His feathers are messy and fluid. His feathers are liquid fire. They are like two wet fires beating against each other, the father's wings. The boy tries to understand.
The shell house is a cold, conical dwelling with, nonetheless, a white shine of interiority to it. If you look carefully, you can see your face in the shine of walls, or rather, wall, since this is a singular fold of some smooth mineral concretion which feels both marmoreal and calcareous, at once, to the boy's senses. You see your face reflected in that white wall, or think you do, but it looks like a breath that has caught there, a momentary illusion of your reflection. You aren't quite sure whether either pole of the illusion is real.
The boy is shown how to climb the inset staircase and ring the tiny bells that wait on the ancient table in the small chamber at the top of the shell in which his father lives when he has not yet taken flight. He learns to ring the bells in the proper, ancient order. They must move as the stars move in the heavens, those charred notes of the tamed, toy bells.
The tiny bells are chased silver which is sooted like the teeth of dead enemies. The boy enjoys handling the bells, but he is terrible at playing the required melodies. There is a horn book that looks like old hide, dead flesh. The notes are braised on its surface. This is a room of vellum and faded ivory yellowed to nicotine addiction. You have thoughts like dead elephant's teeth here.
At the top of the shell, there is a more or less circle of cerulean, blue sky and wind, directly above one's head. It tousles and ruffles one's hair as a father would. In absentia, this wayward blue. The boy enjoys the sensation.
Sometimes spirits descend through this hole and whisper promises of other dwellings, while the boy practices his bells, while his spirit wanders and he dreams of the father's death as yet another song.
But it is only a breeze from the sea the boy will never see. For he has been blinded in a sort of kindness by the father whose wings are liqud, false fire. The hopeless sect of the family is all the boy has ever known. And his own hatred, which he is polishing now like a stone into its fatal dream point.
One day the boy will melt the father's nest. That cold, crucial dwelling. There is a temperature at which even shell melts.
But for now he is its servant and the puppet of its bells.
Also, he is thousands of years old but childish.
No comments:
Post a Comment