Marshsong

by Nato Thompson

  “I’ve been asked by my cousins at Revan to pay a visit. Oh, don’t look so thrown out of whack, good doctor. This is the way it goes with us royalty, you know. We aren’t used to rules and regulations. I couldn’t wait for your visiting hours. I have an extraordinarily important set of obligations this afternoon. I’m endowing a school for the study of hot dogs. It is most fascinating indeed. Oh, I mean you wouldn’t understand. Oh, to live your life. One place. One thing to focus on. Haha, I envy you, doctor, I really do.” Fennel made his creepy, squeally laugh and patted the doctor hard on his shoulder.

  Eldridge Never had already experienced numerous unprofessional interruptions by the family Revan when it came to their daughter. They really weren’t going to abide by his rules and he tolerated it because their daughter’s presence remained such a boon for Wellington. However, this small strange chap slightly terrified him. If only he could study this one.

  Isabella, on the other hand, in her haze of sick, just liad back under the blankets and enjoyed the show. Her brother had all the liveliness she wished she could have in her bones. He was dancing center stage for her and the show was most impressive. She managed to raise her voice, “So good to see you, cousin Pemberton.”

  Fennel winked at her while spinning his cane around in his hand. He spun around a chair from the corner, turned it to face the doctor and sat his small frame down. “You don’t mind if I ask you a few questions before I go do you, good doc?”

  The doctor clearly did mind, but that he also knew it mattered not. He sat silent and merely stared at the man-child calling himself Pemberton. Fennel enjoyed the doctor’s silence. A battle of wills would only help the situation.

  “Very well, I will take your stoic silence as a yes. I want to understand what it is you do exactly? You fix people in here? Like a mechanic fixing a buggy?”

  Eldridge Never shook his head. The denizens of Barrenwood, wealthy or not, could never get their heads around what it was that he did. It was a miracle he had built this clinic at all as the city remained a backwoods encampment of ancient head-in-the-sand thinking.

  “What I do as any professional in any field can tell you, depends. The goal, of course, is different in different situations. But to be short, the mind isn’t like a buggy. It can’t be fixed in that regard. I tell patients and their families this constantly, but the message rarely gets through. People think they can be magically cured, but the mind doesn’t work like that,” replied the doctor, crossing his legs and searching his jacket for a cigar.

  “I couldn’t agree more. The mind isn’t a buggy, is it? People are so silly for thinking it is,” Fennel stated back inquisitively. “But then, if I may be so bold, what is it that you actually do?”

  The doctor found his cigar and lit it. The room filled with an unmistakable odor of cherry pits and tobacco. He took a puff and replied, “Well, again, like I said, it depends. For someone suffering from hysterical disorders like Chelsea here, we often continue a process of ongoing analysis. We let the patient open themselves up to past memories where traumas occur. Often, traumatic memories act as a sort of knot in the mind. They have a sort of echo effect that forces the mind to recoil when something gets near it. I try, through conversation, to find the source of this trauma and untangle the knot. First we require a map to the trauma. Thus, we often analyze dreams where traumas tend to reveal themselves.”

  Fennel thought about this for a second. “So all the people in here are undergoing this kind of conversational back and forth?” giggled Fennel, slapping the doctor on the knee. “How do you do it, you ol ‘dog? I could swear there were plenty of other folks, far more wild looking than our dear Chelsea who are in your care as well.”

  The doctor edged his seat further back so as to avoid another leg slap. “Like I said, our methods depend. Some are not nearly as healthy as Chelsea. Her disorder is curable if given time. Some of these others, we must treat in a manner more stop-gap if you will. Some traumas are too deep for the mind to hold. Bones can break and so too can the mind. We can at times mend a break, but other times, we must, by necessity, amputate—cut the wound out where it festers to protect the rest of the body. Such surgeries are an unfortunate part of this medical profession. Saving lives isn’t always pretty.”

  Amputate? Fennel felt the anger build up in him. It welled up in his gut—the smug look on the doctor’s face only encouraging his inner aggression. Fennel coughed up a large amount of phlegm and sent it flying onto the manicured face of the good doc. The viscous loogie caught hold of the doctor’s prickly beard and hung there, a pendulum of bile. Fennel reached back to take a large swing at the doc only to find his sister tumbling on top of him. She had Fennel sprawling on the ground as the doctor sprang up from his chair and wiped his face with his handkerchief. The doctor then, finally, had the opportunity to realize that the girl he thought was Chelsea was, in fact, a young girl that looked far more like the strange Mr. Pemberton.

  “You know, Persifell, now that you mention it, I feel entirely like a new person altogether. These therapies of dreams are a curative indeed. I think I need to stretch my legs out there in the world. Shall we be going?”

  She put out her arm and Fennel grabbed it. The doctor rose robotically to block their passage, which, of course, is what Fennel had hoped he would do. Isabella stopped her brother yet again from whacking the doctor with his cane and blew some willow seeds into the doctor's face. The doctor fell to the ground instantly and the nurse went fleeing down the hall.

  Fennel stepped over him and grabbed his sister roughly by the arm, “They don’t need saving. sis. They will all pay dearly.”

  Isabella just kept quiet, glad to have stopped her brother from doing something a little too cruel with the misled therapist. They made their way out the door and headed down the hall. Fennel stopped by each door and peeked in the window. In each, stood a shriveled body waiting in a corner or someone staring, somewhat lost, out the small window to the exterior.

  “Look at 'em, sis. They need our help. Can you feel it?”

  And of course, Isabella could. As the sickness steadily faded from her gut, she could hear the hum of the mad—that familiar energy of water that fueled the clouds, the rain, the dirt, the bones.

  “Yes,” purred Isabella.

  “They mustn’t be penned up like this. They are meant to be wild and in the wild. This kind of fiasco will go on record like the tragic domestication of canines, one of the greater bad ideas of humanity.”

  Fennel closed his eyes and let the water flow around inside him. It churned rancorous and river-like. The rapids and the fury and the vast unrestrained flow of it all filled his mouth with saliva. He licked his lips and popped the lock on the door.

  “These folks have got to go. They can’t stay penned up here. I’m morally obligated to liberate, I’m afraid.”

  Isabella couldn’t agree more and they both set about unlocking the doors and letting the lunatics, many of who were ill-prepared for the night ahead, out into the world. Some of them ran fast, straight toward the Mortestrate without a sense of direction or apprehension. A few others refused to exit their cells. And three final others just stood about the door of Wellington Manor, collecting their thoughts and thinking perhaps they could use a few provisions before they just went out into the night. Fennel opened up the storage locker and let them rummage around for blankets and the few belongings they had brought with them back when they had been interred.

  Fennel went up to one of the three, a rather elderly man with a grey beard, missing teeth, a frightful smell and loony smiley eyes and sniffed at him as would a dog. The man just stood there, swaying in the breeze. Fennel sniffed the man from foot to elbow, from knee to belly, and the man just continued to wobble.

  Fennel looked up, “You’re a ripe ol’ coot, ain’t ya, boy?” The man just smiled wide at Fennel. “Aw, don’t give me that look, ol’ coot. You know what you’re going to get!”

  The man laughed out loud and jumped in the air. Fennel jumped
up in the air as well and suddenly tackled the old man. They went flying into the dirt. Isabella looked down as she watched her brother wildly tickling the old man. The man howled laughter and they tumbled around like wild dogs in the grass. They wrestled around for some time while Isabella just looked on. Her brother was as insane as the old souls of the woods, she told herself. The old man and Fennel finally lay on the dirt earth, arms slightly wrapped around each other, panting loud and hard. Fennel bounded up, brushed himself off, and tipped his top hat at the three gents.

  “Time for ya boys to be off, I say. The big city calls you.”

  The old coot got to his feet and the final three lunatics walked softly down the road together, shivering against the night—their mood not particularly joyful, the fear still raging in their sensitive veins, but the water, the water, flowed all the more.

  Fennel closed his eyes and looked up into the sky.“Thank you for making me who I am,” he whispered into the night, soaking up the water with as much capacity as his skin would allow.

  After that, they headed back into Barrenwood. With every skip of her step, Isabella’s strength continued to return. Rising up in her like carbonation, it bubbled in her blood. They were now back at the edge of the Mortestrate with the dirt roads and the missing toothed kids, banana peels, and Gatorade detritus. The sun was out and Isabella found it impressive that her brother had come out during day.

  “You ventured into the sunlight for little me?” joked Isabella.

  Fennel turned to her and smacked her against the head with his cane. It hurt.

  “Didn’t like that, did you, sis?” he said. His smile was gone and he looked at her with eyes much more drained. He hated sunlight. It bothered his skin and fatigued him. Whatever jocular display in Wellington had evaporated rather rapidly.

  “You’re heading off the reservation and doing things Marty wouldn’t have you do.”

  Isabella held her hand to her face. Her cheek hurt. “Well aren’t you? What makes me so different?”

  “I’m just messing around, Iz! I don’t know what you’re up to, but it isn’t right. Look at you. The sickness? Really? What caused that I wonder. When you go off on your own, you get in trouble and not the fun kind.”

  She looked at him. He was angry because he was worried. She could feel his tender crazy heart. It strangely made her love him all the more. She punched him in the jaw.

  “Ouch!” he said.

  “Okay, we’re even. Now let's have fun together. I’m sorry for ditching you. We can have our hijinks as a duo if it pleases you,” she said, putting her arm around him. Fennel shrugged her off.

  “Don’t get all lovey with me,” he responded, still holding his face. “I don’t like you going off on your own. It is true. But that said you did lead me to the most interesting of places. Did you notice—of course you did—that this austere establishment is built on the premise of healing? Isn’t that hilarious?”

  Isabella narrowed her eyes on her brother. Whatever mystery he was trying to solve would make little sense to most. “It is an absurdity, I agree. You sadly didn’t arrive in time to hear my small dose of therapy. It was odd to say the least.”

  “I wish I could have heard it,” said Fennel. He propped himself on a railing near a porch. “It is true that I am not the finest detective the world has ever seen. I will be the first to admit. I am easily distracted, but in my defense, the world is so distracting. That said, I couldn’t help but notice that we once again have found ourselves in the presence of yet another attempt to quarantine the water. I knew it wasn’t just me. There is a concerted effort to eradicate the thrill of life from the world.”

  Isabella looked at her brother. What did he expect to solve with this line of thinking? “I think we solved your mystery, I’m afraid. That doctor that you almost pummeled was responsible.”

  Fennel gave a loud squealing laugh and slapped his sister on the back. “Ah, Iz, you are quite the joker. One man does not a conspiracy make and this, I’m afraid, is a real conspiracy. Okay, so anyway, just know I am the Raven and the Raven stops at no single man. The Raven is also supposed to keep his evil eye on you, so yes, I think it is best if I accompany you. You need to be watched, I am afraid.”

  He meant it though he really just wanted to be in her company. He never really knew what to do without her around anyway.

  They began to walk down the road together. The sun was out and Fennel handed her a pair of sunglasses and placed a pair on his face. “Damn sunlight. It is unbearable, isn’t it? It’s like rays of poison shooting down from the sky.”

  “But you do look good with those sunglasses, I must say. I don’t know if I can handle this sunlight long enough to get back to the cave. I’m very tired.”

  “As am I, sister. Listen, let's find an alley to sleep in and then I do have a plan for us. Strangely, it is something I know that you will very much like to do.”

  They walked down along the streets looking for an appropriate place to get some rest. It wasn’t that they couldn’t be in the sun. They could. They just hated it. The sun removed shadows and shadows were their kinds of thing. They preferred darkness and perhaps in the darkness, in the world, the time of living got closer to the time of dreaming. Isabella spotted a boarded up building which wasn’t all that uncommon in the Mortestrate. They scooted up to it and forced their way in a back door.

  The building smelled of sadness and mold. Fennel was dead tired. He hadn’t slept a wink, unlike Isabella. They climbed up the stairs and lay down on the wood floor. The cobwebs, dust bunnies, rat crap and beer bottles did nothing to interfere with the blank slate that moved across their minds as they kissed the world goodbye.

  Chapter 7

  They woke to the loaming—the sky a smear of salmon on lilac that crept through the boarded cracks in the window. Fennel dusted himself off with great fervency while Isabella smelled around the room. Such memories in these abandoned buildings. The desiccated remains lent tangible reminders of harried evictions, crowded dinner tables with mac and cheese, and the quiet moments of children staring at the cracked tin ceiling above. The twins found the pungent odor of families gone quite delicious. A sadness of the memory of places gone-gone.

  They dusted themselves off and headed up to the roof where they could see the city getting ready for night to wash over them. The drunks were drunker. The workers were walking in the haze of a day of routine. And the wealthy—the oh so few—were preparing their minds for dinner and a future far beyond the now. At the edge of the Mortestrate, the twins could sit on the roof and watch the city play out.

  Fennel found it hard to stay mad at his sister. Now that she was back with him, the world felt more relaxed. Looking over the city with her at his side, he watched with a rare calm. He loved the horses pulling the carts through the mud and the packs of dogs sniffing at the junk. The chimneys belched their black coal smoke and the street merchants raised their hands, getting hot snacks into the hands of the walking home commuters.

  He sat there and thought about that doctor. The pit in his stomach grew with even the hint of that miscreant. That man didn’t know what made the world magic. Such a pathetic creature. Diogenes was wrong. He thought people were as dumb as dogs, but Fennel knew they were much dumber. The human capacity for self-deception and amnesia to the obvious made him grit his teeth. That would be the point. Yes, that would be the entire overarching feeling of his sculpture. It would be massive. And it would remind. The thought of his sculpture always made Fennel wistful—a vengeful monument of agony. He couldn’t wait.

  He also could barely wait to tell Isabella of his sighting of the howling woman. Even though the news would tempt her toward her annoying path, as long as she stayed with him he could keep an eye on her. And he did like to make her smile. Marty wouldn’t approve. Fennel had heard him slur it. He wanted Fennel to keep her in check, but that was how life had always been for Fennel, a tightrope between the drunk and the wanderer.

  With the sickness dissipated, Isabel
la sat on the roof and took stock. She couldn’t believe the new eve that spread out in front of her—the horizon never more distant, the sky never more vibrant, electric, possible, inviting. The world had started cracking open. Just a taste of it and she was salivating. Between the strange astral figure that rescued that screaming woman and the lisping words of Minasha Darkglass, she could taste the plane of heaven out there. The limitations of humanity foregone in hints of a vast network of metaphysical fraternization. A secret club. Sure, Isabella had her own secret club in the Chateau de Crawler, but this was a club of far more heft and vigor—one outside her control. She grinned ear to ear in vast rumination.

  She regaled Fennel with her adventures of the night past: Wellington Manor and its correctional desires, the spooky Minasha Darkglass and her fragile niece Chelsea Revan. The story excited her with every word she spoke and Fennel, of course, took note. He did, in fact, find it interesting that there was a woman who spoke in voodoo gibberish. He just felt emotionally torn because every word of Isabella made him feel all the more nervous—as though she was going to leave or leave him. He felt his love for her so intensely it often manifested as deep anger if not hostility.

  After Isabella finished her tale, Fennel jumped on after to tell of his own feats out on the town. He was eager to hold back the information of the howling woman to the very end. It was his little surprise.

  “And so you wouldn’t believe who I saw as I lay like a street side bum in the street with that preacher?” he laughed.

  “Who? Tell me!”,Her brother always got her laughing.

  “That woman! That howling lady from the ship of fools. She was having a drink outside the tavern on the corner and I could have sworn she worked there. She was laughing at me as well.”

  Fennel didn’t mention how the woman’s laugh rang out with his. How she hummed at the same resonance as his most peculiar tragic pleasure. But the reaction in Isabella’s eyes gave him both the pleasure he wanted and the fear he feared. She was over the moon.