The Golden Cut

by Merl Fluin

  She removed the glove and saw blue at the ends of the fingers of both hands. It pulsed along her forearm, up to her shoulders and into her neck and chest.

  Her body had a sky-blue double trapped inside it.

  She filled her lungs with air, deep down to the diaphragm, one breath, two breaths, three, four, and the fifth breath shook the double loose and thrust it out of her body.

  The sky-blue figure hung in the air, its posture mimicking her own, and then it flipped around to face her. It pulsed and elongated as she breathed. Its skull and spine became cobalt, gnarled and prominent; its arms and legs were suggestions of colour, pale blue and violet.

  “What do I call you?” TJ asked.

  “Irrie Corrie.”

  “Irrie Corrie, what do you want?”

  “I am the wind nuke angel. I combine war and peace.”

  “Teach me.”

  “Then pay attention to birds. Lick your fingers. Can you fly?”

  TJ leapt off the ledge, swooped and flew out of the canyon.

  The warm desert sunset slid along her wings. The air tasted like gin. Small movements glinted far beneath her, animals and insects darting with life and glittering with colour. A squirrel ran through a flickering thicket of wildflowers, a glowing violet trail mapping its path behind it. A dung beetle flashed green and blue as it emerged into shadow. Cantos’s black mare drank rainwater from a glowing puddle in a basin of rock at the foot of the canyon. The smoke from the tree rose behind it, vivid and green.

  TJ soared higher. The glyphs carved into the flat of the desert snapped into focus. Massive polygons lay on top of and inside each other in diagrams of invisible worlds. Beyond them to the west she saw the rolling motion of a procession of humans and horses. One of the horses was pulling a cart. Away from them, to the north, a small encampment crouched beside a stream that reflected the purple sunlight.

  TJ gazed down at her own body. She was back on the ledge. Her torso was transparent. A column of glass rose through it, filled with black night and stars.

  “Thank you, Irrie Corrie.”

  She watched as Irrie Corrie flipped around and sank backwards towards her, into her. TJ’s limbs and body pulsed blue until the colour faded.

  She scrambled down to the rockfall.

  “It’s ok,” she told Lulu, “we can climb up and over. It’s steep but not impossible. The mare’s not far from where I left her. The Star gang are far away by now.”

  “How do you know?” asked Lulu.

  “I saw it. I flew.”

  “Ha,” said Lulu, clapping her on the shoulder. “Sounds like you’re ready for that initiation after all.”

  14.

  It was evening when the black mare carried TJ and Lulu into the Eleven Twenty-Threes’ camp beside the water hole. Flying insects flecked the golden light. There was a tang of desert flowers.

  People emerged from rough tents and blankets beneath the willows by the water. Some rushed towards them, calling Lulu by name before pulling up short at the sight of TJ.

  “Where are the others?” asked one.

  Lulu shook her head. “Star gang.”

  Murmurs of consternation. “I knew it,” said one woman. “A wolf showed up yesterday with four newborn cubs that came right into the camp. Jimmie?”

  “He didn’t make it.”

  The woman spat. “Motherfuckers. And without Jimmie as our gladiator, we stand no chance against them in the arena either.”

  “Don’t be so hasty,” said Lulu. “This here is TJ. She shares our pain. She’s here because she loved Mei-Lin. And I think it’s fair to say she has something to prove.”

  ***

  Fires had been lit, food prepared and shared, pipes smoked. When the fires and pipes were extinguished the insects returned, buzzing at TJ’s temples, catching in Lulu’s hair where it frizzed below the new bandage on her head.

  At dusk the Eleven Twenty-Threes led TJ away to the edge where the desert began again. Lulu produced another bandage from a small bag and unwrapped it to reveal a handful of glass shards that she tipped out onto the ground. Then TJ followed her lead and joined the rest of them in a wide circle with the broken glass at the centre. They all stood and waited. The last straggling trees from the water hole rustled at TJ’s back; desert dimmed before her sight.

  A lavender streak of lightning snaked across the ground inside the circle. The ground opened where it passed as if along a fault line, a jagged edge in the earth. The streak darted low and fast, in and out of the circle, between and around their feet.

  TJ gasped as the cold light struck her right foot and blazed up the leg. It hit the flat of her pelvis with an audible pop.

  The women on either side of her turned in her direction, raising their eyebrows and gesturing with their arms. Mews and sighs from around the circle; a crack as the heap of glass took shape as an empty whisky bottle.

  Lulu picked up the bottle and raised it in TJ’s direction, a smile twisting one side of her face as she turned to the others. “Looks like TJ’s our new gladiator.”

  The ground split open between TJ’s feet. She stared into the hole. Something small hit the back of her head and bounced off into the trees behind her.

  “Ow.”

  “What was that?”

  “Did you see where it went?”

  The others broke the circle to cluster and whisper among themselves while TJ and Lulu went searching amid the gloom. They rummaged in the brushwood behind where TJ had been standing, bending low and parting the grasses with their fingers. The earth between the grasses was cool and purple.

  TJ’s hand grasped a hard pellet of paper that lay within a clump of sticky broken stems. She carried it back to the others before unrolling it, prising it apart with her fingernails. She crouched to flatten it out across her knee. The folds of fabric between her thighs were wet.

  “Well?” said Lulu. Her neck and shoulders were tense, and she kept her distance.

  TJ looked down at the paper. “Bit confusing,” she said, “but it looks like a set of instructions.”

  15.

  “This is it,” said Lulu. “Neutrino.”

  She and TJ were at the head of the band of Eleven Twenty-Threes. TJ was on the black mare; the others were on ponies.

  “I had expected something more... well, more,” said TJ.

  Lulu laughed. “Yeah, it’s a one-horse town all right. If you bring your own horse.”

  A row of fragile-looking shacks curved around a corral of hard-packed red earth. A scrawny dog slept in the shade.

  As the Eleven Twenty-Threes dismounted and stretched, a boy dressed in white ran out of one of the shacks towards them. The top half of his skull was elongated into a dome wrapped in green cloth. Dancing from foot to bare foot before the ponies, he asked TJ: “You here for gladiators?”

  Lulu answered. “That’s right, son, we’re here for gladiators. Are we the first to arrive?”

  “No, madame,” said the boy, making a little bow. “Many others have bathed and retired already. You want me to show you the way?”

  “We remember the way.” Lulu smiled down at him.

  “Oh, but my way is the nicest. Flowers and birds and everything.”

  “I’d like to see birds,” said TJ.

  “How much?” Lulu asked the boy.

  “A quarter.”

  “Ok.”

  Everyone dismounted. The boy took his money and led them around the back of the shacks. The path was lined with greenery and trees. Brilliantly coloured birds with extravagant plumage piped and called to one another amid the branches. Some had ruby beaks and black eyes and elaborate tail feathers arranged in spirals.

  They emerged from the path and came out in front of a body of water at the foot of an immense cliff. The cliff glowed earthy red, its sheer face speckled with dark cavemouths that sparked high up like wormhole stars. A semi-circular arrangement of stones just beyond the water’s edge below formed a basin with a single round stone at the centre. A soft blanket
of yellow-brown steam lay over the green deeper water, giving off a rich scent of old earth and sulphur. In a few swift movements Lulu removed her clothes and boots and sprawled on her back in the pool, toes and face to the sky. “Bliss!”

  A couple of the Eleven Twenty-Threes volunteered to see the ponies and headed back the way they had come, preceded by the capering boy. Most of the others joined Lulu in the water. TJ stripped and plunged in, waded thigh-deep to the rock in the centre, climbed atop the rock and saluted the cliff. Then she jumped back down and threw an armful of water at Lulu with a whoop.

  “Hot damn! First bath I’ve had since the Slits.”

  Another armful of water met with hoots, catcalls and retaliatory splashes. Someone jumped at TJ from behind and pushed her head under the water. She came up laughing and threatening a round of kiss chase. A gleeful water fight broke out as she took on all comers, kicking her feet and shaking her fists.

  When the excitement had subsided, everyone just rested and soaked, chatting around the edges of the pool. TJ lay back beside Lulu and dropped her head below the water, then sat up and inspected the cliff face.

  “Lot of caves up there.” she remarked.

  “Yes. That’s where the Star gang will be spending the night. Do you see any firelight?”

  TJ shaded her hand and squinted. “Yeah, in a couple of places.” She lay back again “Weird.”

  “You nervous?”

  “Shit, Lu, of course I’m nervous.”

  Lulu’s mouth twisted in a grin. “Wait till you see the other guy.” She leant closer, combing TJ’s long wet hair with her fingers. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “The Stars are frightening in the wild, but you won’t be fighting the whole gang. You’re just going to be fighting one person. And I know you’re going to win.”

  TJ twined her right leg around Lulu’s left and took hold of her hand. The eyelid on the back of TJ’s right thumb fluttered open. “Does the gladiator get any last requests before the big fight?”

  Lulu pulled TJ’s beard and stuck out her tongue. “It’s a night of meditation and fasting for you, oh mighty warrior.”

  TJ opened her mouth wide and rolled her eyes. Lulu flicked water at her and laughed.

  Three men appeared came out of the trees towards them, carrying jugs of fresh drinking water and large pots of rice and fruit. The men all had the same elongated skulls as the boy, who played the role of gracious host with many flourishing bows and handclaps.

  The Eleven Twenty-Threes stayed in the water for their meal, scooping rice from the bowls with their hands and helping each other to peel and eat the fruit. As the sunlight turned from gold to copper their limbs relaxed and glistened. Flesh of bodies and flesh of fruits merged in the misty light.

  When she had finished eating, Lulu retrieved a pipe from her clothes and sat on the rock in the centre to play. Her jewelled body shone. The others sang along in octaves and fifths. Water lapped the rim of the pool in time to the music.

  The bustling arrival of the boy broke the languid mood. “Another group coming,” he announced in a tense high voice. There was dust and commotion on the path behind him.

  “Does this mean trouble?” TJ asked Lulu.

  “Shouldn’t do. It’s fainites until we actually get into the arena tomorrow. Looks like the Companions. Just give them some space and let them alone.”

  The Eleven Twenty-Threes withdrew from the pool and settled a short distance away. Some of them began to dress; others stretched out to enjoy the last of the sun. They watched the arrival of the newcomers impassively.

  The Companions of the Rosy Hours came mounted on camels. Their heads were draped in panels of white silk decorated with bones and feathers. The troupe was led by a tall thin man who wore a hat sewn with strings of teeth in spiral patterns. He carried a lamp in his hand, lit against the sunlight.

  The procession halted as one. The camels sank to their knees, groaning as the riders dismounted. The air absorbed the animal smells like dry blotting paper.

  Seeming oblivious of the watching Eleven Twenty-Threes, the Companions unloaded their baggage from the camel train: rugs, silks, swords and rifles, but above all books and papers, crammed into sacks and boxes. They spread the books on the sand and began rifling through the pages, talking animatedly among themselves and darting from book to book. Some clambered over the piles of paper and sent pages scattering with their sandaled feet. Some spoke to each other in sharp voices, slapping each other’s arms and hands. The camels were placid amid the chaos.

  Eventually the Companions stopped their palaver. They undressed and bathed each other in the hot spring. Many bore marks and scars on their bodies, thin white ridges like veins of salt, or thick red cords of flesh lashed around backs and arms. They got out of the pool and rubbed each other’s skin with oils they had brought in blue glass jars. Then they cleaned and oiled their guns and bladed weapons from the same jars. The scent of jasmine clung to them like wet silk.

  TJ and Lulu remained behind when the rest of the Eleven Twenty-Threes took the bird-lined path back to the little hamlet of Neutrino. Some of them went alone and singing; others walked arm in arm in twos and threes. After they had gone, Lulu fetched some kindling and a bedroll. She waited while TJ dressed, then together they left the Companions to their business and headed back along the same path, past the corral, and out to a sheltered spot at the bottom of a rise clumped with desert willow.

  When they had found a good resting place, TJ took the kindling and set a small campfire going.

  “What if the Star gang try to come down here and slip me a mickey or something during the night?”

  Lulu spread the bedroll at the foot of a boulder. “They won’t. Remember, the Star gang sleep at night. And those that won’t be sleeping...”

  “What?”

  “Well, they won’t bother you either. Stop worrying about tonight. It’s the morning you need to focus on. It might seem like a lot of dressing up and play-acting, but this is a game, not a joke. You have to take down their gladiator as fast and as hard as you can, before they can do it to you.”

  “And if we’re evenly matched?”

  “Then you keep at it until one of you makes a mistake. There must be a winner.”

  “It might not even come to a fight between me and a Star. Any one of us could win or lose against any of the others.”

  “There are only two or three others these days. It’s not like it used to be. The Companions of the Rosy Hours are quick and flashy, but they won’t stay the distance. And the Soldier Boys are the opposite, hard as cannonballs and just as dense. You’re smart, fast and strong, and you can outwit the Soldiers. It’ll be you and the Star gang, sure as sure.” Lulu patted her on the shoulder. “See you at sunrise.”

  TJ smiled up at her. But as Lulu walked away, TJ’s face fell into hard, smooth planes.

  16.

  The interior of the cave was a hollow sphere, lit by a fire on the flat lip of the entrance. Burning wood hissed like rain and gave off the green sticky odour of sage and marijuana. The light cascaded around the interior as if the sphere were being turned round and over between huge invisible hands. Daubs and gouges on the cave’s inner surface swam in and out of focus with the shifting light. TJ crouched at the entrance and peered in.

  The coffin was propped at an angle against the back wall. Inside it Cantos was almost standing. The monkey heads on the soles of his boots were splayed to either side; their tongues lolled in the corners of the box. He was naked from the waist up. The stream of figures across the inside of the cave merged with the flow of his hair and the vortex of his tattoos, forming a skein of shapes and images that expanded and contracted as he breathed. His eyes were open, but his face was slack.

  Hs clothes and weapons lay in a pile on the bowl of the cave’s floor. Hovering suspended above it was the Directrix, the hard shell of its profile outlined against the swirling life around it. Its white wooden head was gaudy beneath a long yellow wig. Its eyebrows were thick slashes of b
lack above moving eyeballs. Its nose was a sharp point, its slab-like teeth framed by painted lips. Beneath the head hung its limp limbs and loose pinafore dress. At this proximity the hinge mechanism of its jaw was visible.

  Footfalls and low voices sent TJ away from the cavemouth and into shadow. A line of women filed past her into the cave. Each glowed briefly in the firelight before stepping inside and out of sight. TJ counted nine arrivals.