Grand Canyon Lament, A Fateful Lesson in Extraordinary Measures

by David Sheppard

  *

  You don't know for sure what happened, but you suspect the Little One has opened the door. The door creeks and is followed by a short scream, more than one of surprise, less than one of fear. As you two enter, heat comes from the fireplace off to the left. The smell of something cooking wafts around you. Perhaps it's a stew, the pungent odor raising your suspicion. You two stand there dripping, listening to whispers coming from the direction of the fireplace. Finally, one of them speaks.

  "Do you come from the Natives?" It is a young but mature voice, wrapped in a certain seductive sweetness that is both appealing and repulsive.

  "We have nothing to do with the Natives," you answer.

  "But I know the Natives," contradicts the Little One. "I have lived with them."

  "Don't confuse them, Little One. That was another time. You definitely do not come from the Natives."

  "You bring no tallow for candles?"

  "No. I have brought you the Little One, but I cannot bring you tallow."

  "We thought a man was with you, or perhaps a large animal. We thought we saw him from the window," the young voice says.

  "No. No man came with us, and we bring no tallow."

  "I remember the Natives bringing us tallow. They always have." It is the old voice that speaks now, old and raspy, with a sense of a slight echo. "Even during the big snow storm, they brought us tallow, tallow for the candles. Heaven knows what would happen to them or us if they didn't. A world without light. They didn't like to cross the bridge, but they still brought us tallow."

  "Well, since you have brought her to us, let me take her cloak and hood. Let's see what she looks like." It is the young one and she is close now. You imagine her kneeling to unbutton the Little One's cloak, but there is a sudden commotion and a yelp from the puppy.

  "Yeek! An animal. Look, Atropus. An animal. She had it hidden in her cloak. Why have you brought an animal?" It is the young woman scolding, backing up quickly knocking over chairs. "I thought at first it was a dog, but it's a jackal! A jackal pup. How could you let her do this? Someone like you permitting this? You can't let him in here."

  "Oh, Lacheris, remember the last time? It took ages to get our work back on the right track." The voice is incredulous, and at first seems to lift to the far wall so high you think maybe she has climbed a cabinet. Then it floats around the room from corner to corner, moving with an agility you would never have thought possible of one so old. "It has to go, she says. That's all there is to it. The jackal has to go."

  "Don't be so hasty. I too am discouraged that he's here but what can we do? I know life will be difficult this way, but you have so much to gain with the Little One."

  "Difficult!" says Lacheris. "Difficult!" She is shouting now. "How can you say difficult? Life will be impossible. What can we do? What can you do? You got us into this, and we are the ones that have to live here, not you. Think of him running around here shitting and pissing while we weave. He will leave his mark on everything we do. No one can train a jackal. And his yelping, the constant yelping. What happens when he grows? Can you imagine that, full grown? You know the effect he will have. You know what this means. And yet you permit her to bring him in here. How can you? How can you be so stupid?"

  "I'm leaving," says the Little One, stuffing the puppy back in her cloak and now getting you to help her button it. "We're not welcome here. I knew they wouldn't like me. It was a mistake. We should have kept going. I don't mind the rain. I'll go by myself."

  "Wait a minute, Little One," you say. "I know life will be tough. But look at you now. All you have is the present, Lacheris, and the past, Atropus. With the Little One, you will have a future. Lacheris, how long have you been repeating the same action, doing the same things over and over and always producing the same result. The present doesn't get more perfect through repetition. It always remains the present. And you, Atropus, how many times have you been over the past, the old success, the old failures. They never change. Think of the freshness of a new past, Atropus, borne of Lacheris' actions given to her by the Little One."

  They are quiet, perhaps unconvinced, but at least they are thinking.

  "You may call her Clotho," you add hopefully and then hear a faint sigh from one of them, a sigh with perhaps a touch of nostalgia. "Give us something to eat Lacheris, and we can talk more of this great adventure."

  "Sure!" cries Lacheris, her skirt swishing around the floor to the fireplace. "Why the hell not? Food! Sure, food for the blind." She is loud and flamboyant, playing with your suggestion. "Food for everyone, everything. Food for the Natives, the shack, the Canyon, the void. Food for . . . . you! Let me dig deep into the kettle for something special down near the bottom." You hear her struggling as with a huge ladle, and trying to get, maybe even catch, something in the kettle. "This should put some light back in your eyes," she says, banging the bowl on the tabletop.

  You move slowly for the table you know must be in the center of the room, tapping with your cane, tapping a fallen chair, feeling out its shape. You right it and feel the table, its top of thick wooden planks, warped and scarred from years of use. Atropus takes your cane and walks to the fireplace. Shortly comes the acrid odor of green wood burning.

  "And now a bowl for little Clotho, I'll just skim a little off the top here."

  "Puppy wants some too," orders Clotho.

  Silence follows. You can almost feel the looks between Lacheris and Atropus.

  "And why the hell not!" Lacheris shouts, finally. "Something for the goddamn mutt, something very special for him from the very bottom. He shouldn't have any trouble with this, all the places that snout's been. I'll just set it over here by the fireplace. A little fire shouldn't bother the likes of him."

  "His name's not Mut. It's Devi."

  "Whooooh," calls Atropus, her voice floating around the room. "I remember, I remember."

  You try some off the top of the bowl of stew with a large wooden spoon, and are surprised at how flavorful it is, even if it does taste a little medicinal. You dig to the bottom of the bowl this time and come up with something more substantial, maybe a piece of flesh. Thinking again, you put it carefully back in the bowl. Scooping only from the top this time, you come up with something twig like and imagine some exotic spice from a far away land. Then you feel the thin forked toes at the end and remove it from your teeth, carefully setting it on the table beside the bowl.

  They have both joined you and Clotho at the table now, Lacheris's sarcasm seeming to have subsided. Loud slurps come from Atropus. They start as a sucking, whistle-like sound that gradually increases becoming a loud sputter as the small chunks of stew are pulled between her lips and then dissipate to a smooth wind she uses to cool it inside her mouth.

  Lacheris is reconsidering the whole situation. "Nothing new has happened around here for a long time," she states, quite seriously, then snickers. Quickly regaining her composure, she says, "Now with the Little One, Clotho here, things can happen again. I get tired of living with just the past," she says. "It's nice to be around someone who has a future." Then she laughs out loud, a laugh that almost becomes a cackle.

  You are struggling with the stew, now that the broth is mostly gone and only chunks remain at the bottom. Your blindness seems to be taking on a strange transparency. You can see shapes like shadows moving in a foggy light, but suspect it is a hallucination caused by the stew.

  "Don't worry about Devi," says Clotho, "I will clean all his messes. I have all the time in the world. I realize that you have no time of your own. I have time for everyone. Devi and I will take care of everything."

  "The past is where all the good times are," says Atropus. "I like the past, but it's tough for me living only with one who can't remember." She is crying now, starting with a sniffle and progressing to a low wail. "It was nice when there was three of us. There was so much more for me to remember then. I remember the times we had together at the loom. How we could turn out the cloth then." She jumps to her feet and shouts, "
We turned out some of the ugliest shit the world has ever seen!" then laughs hysterically, and sits again, quietly eating stew.

  You are unconcerned with her extraordinary actions. You are beginning to see or possibly hallucinate, see the hallucination of candles that line the walls about a foot from the ceiling, see each of them separated into a distinct flame, see the black smoke on the ceiling from the candles, see the dark wall of a fireplace with the huge kettle bathed in flame, see the large spinning wheel next to it, see the loom off to the right of the table, see the shapes of Atropus and Lacheris, Lacheris moving toward her, rubbing her back, soothing her, and now on her feet bending over her, kissing her on the cheek, turning her old face and kissing her long on the lips, Lacheris inserting her hand in Atropus's blouse to feel her breasts. Looking up and seeing your blindness gone, Lacheris quickly removes her hand, which she puts to her mouth, smothering a laugh.

  "We need help here," says Lacheris, her voice turned grave and businesslike. "What can you do for us? "We need help!" she screams, turning toward you. "What are you good at? Are you a carpenter? We need the floor fixed in this rundown shack. Look at the floor. The updrafts from below are killing us in the winter. Atropus constantly complains about her rheumatism. And what about the goddamn bridge? The Natives hardly come here anymore. They are afraid to cross it and we need tallow. Are you listening to me? I want the bridge fixed. Hear me? Fix it!" She goes from screaming to hysterical laughing as she smashes a bowl to fragments against the wall and runs at the jackal, sending it flying around the room, running like a jackrabbit.

  Atropus slowly floats from the chair as if suspended from the waist by a high wire, her gray hair in a tight bun, her bare feet dangling beneath the lace of her skirt. Lacheris is now dancing to unheard music, her feet barely touching the floor, raising her skirt midway up her chubby milk-white thighs. Her low cut blouse exposes the top of jelly-like breasts. Clotho has finished her stew and is at the kettle, stirring with the large ladle and occasionally tasting. You are concerned about her having so much stew and rise to go to her, but Lacheris cuts you off, pressing her bulky body against you. She takes both your hands in hers and, saying something about your smooth, supple fingers, she quickly undoes the buttons of her blouse and is rubbing both your palms on her huge pink nipples. Her hot breath, smelling strongly of spice, is on the side of your face and down your neck.

  This is an abomination, you think, and attempt to brush her aside. But she is quicker than you and now has somehow lifted you from the floor, the both of you floating as if within a gigantic fishbowl, your hand under her skirt along the smooth inside of her thigh, feeling the soft mound of pubic hair. Sensing a shortness of breath and a sudden weakness in your limbs, you move quickly, pushing her away from you with your foot. As you fall, she hits the wall and bounces from it like a balloon, knocking several candles to the floor, all the while, snickering like she has just pulled off some fantastic practical joke. You land with a crash on the table, sending bowls and wooden spoons flying and feel a sharp pain in your back as you roll to the floor. You are unable to stand full height, so slumping with one hand on your lower spine, you again attempt to get to Clotho, who is now slinging stew around the room, trying to hit Devi who is running in circles, barking and nipping playfully at anyone near.

  But this time its Atropus, her hair out of the bun and flying wildly about her head, coming at you with something in her hand, a hammer you realize just as she swings it, nipping you on the top of the skull, sending a sharp pain and dizziness through your entire body. She screams as she flies a circle around the room and then swoops low to the floor, rising up in front of you to swing the hammer again. You fall back against the wall with arms raised against the blow. Her swing misses your head only slightly as you duck but smashes the palm of your right hand into the wall, splattering blood on the side of your face. You go at her with your one good hand, but she slides as if on a rail, up to the far corner of the ceiling.

  Now it is Lacheris again from behind, her big arms around your waist and her mouth down on your neck. At first you think she is kissing you, then feel the sharp pain of her teeth as the skin breaks. You pull her hands loose in front of you, but now she has a butcher's knife. You slink away, falling against the wall as the knife comes straight at you, entering your right side just as you catch her arm to keep the knife from going through you. Using her arm, you sling her against the wall, but she bounces from it to the far wall and is coming again as you find the door and go through it.

  Outside, you first encounter the wall of blindness and wish for a new cane. The hot midday sun is on your head and you hear the void of the Canyon. A cold fluid that is your blood drains from your side.

  Peeking through the window into the shack, your sight returns. Your last view is of Clotho with Devi at the spinning wheel, Devi spinning the petal in reverse with his mouth and Clotho stripping the thread, unraveling it into wool and throwing it into the air. Lacheris and Atropus are gathering it into large balls, inadvertently mixing it with the stew sticking to their clothes.

  Turning back to the bridge and blindness, you wonder where to search for your cane. Feeling your side with your good hand, you think it is only a scratch, really. The voices of Natives on the trail come up from the Canyon. This is a better result than I could have anticipated, you think, bent over, slinking along the bridge and into the desert.

  THE END