Mingus grew increasingly agitated. Both of his arms began to writhe in the air, his entire body jerking and twisting with uncontrollable spasms. He turned awkwardly by fits and starts to face the woods, to stare directly at the wolf. The beast suddenly ceased its motion, as Mingus now did, and stared back. There appeared to be some silent message passing between man and animal, a voiceless simpatico.
“No!” Jorge screamed, as Mingus reached forward and shut off the sonics.
***
In the foreground, frame center, a wolf with the mane of a lion raises it snout and, presumably, roars. One red eye is visible. It shines with a light of its own, as if the skull of the beast were illuminated from within. It emotes a kind of feral energy that makes one uncomfortable to hold its gaze for long.
By its side stands the figure of a woman, draped from head to foot in vines and green roses, seductively poised with one leg and hip thrust forward. Or perhaps this is just the representation of a woman, a provocative topiary sculpture cut from leaves, from emerald thorns and petals. It is impossible to tell which. Uncertainty lies at the heart of its striking and somehow dangerous beauty.
Behind the two figures the woods lie in light-splotched shadow, clogged with a dark skein of intertwining growth. And further still . . . a patch of dusky sky . . . an oblate moon so pale and featureless it could be no more than a nub of polished bone.
***
The wolf trotted forward but made no move to attack. Several yards short of Mingus it let out a high piercing cry and sank back on its haunches, letting the tangle of vines and flowers that encircled its body slip to the ground. Or so it seemed. The tangle continued to uncoil as if possessed of its own energy. Vines stretched to the height of the wolf’s shoulders and beyond, taking on the form of a tall and statuesque figure. Definition increased and the figure itself materialized—a face, bare limbs, its body clothed in vines like some dryad spirit. Then the flowers and vines alone took precedence once more. Then the figure again. Genna rolled off half a dozen shots before this flickering juxtaposition ceased and the vision before them solidified to a singular image.
A woman—for the revealing lacework of vines left no doubt as to gender—stood before them with hands planted firmly against her hips, thighs spread, one leg slightly forward. Although the individual features of her countenance resembled those of Therese, this was in no way the long-suffering wife portrayed in Mingus’ photos. Nor was it likely the creature was even human. A thatch of russet hair, dark as the fur of the wolves and of similar texture, fell to her waist. Her flesh was a pale green, its complexion smooth and unblemished as a sapling stripped of bark. Wide-set eyes showed a deeper sea green, nearly iridescent, and as she surveyed each of them in turn, her passing glance was cool and mercurial as the sea. Yet more than the sum of her physical attributes, her inhuman beauty, the creature before them projected a poise and surety that reached charismatic proportions. Although Genna had never wanted a woman before, she was inexplicably drawn to this woman. She felt an attraction both carnal and sublime that overshadowed her sexual identity. And she forced herself to look away.
Mercao and Jorge seemed to have no trouble staring.
For the first time since fastening on Mingus, the Indio had shifted his gaze, though he remained as fixated as before. Jorge scratched the stubble on his chin as he scanned the woman several times, head to foot. He leveled the machine pistol at her chest.
“Therese?” he said.
“The gun will do you no good.”
The voice was haunting and persuasive. From the edge of her vision, Genna saw Jorge begin to lower the weapon to his side. She found herself wondering if the woman spoke out loud to them or merely seeded their thoughts, draining their wills with a kind of hypnotic charm. Was the figure before them a Therese transformed by her sojourn in the rainforest, or some incalculable spirit of the forest that now wore a semblance of her shape? Genna’s sense of clarity was gone, illusion and reality a swift jumble in her mind. Did she stand by Jorge’s side in the clearing or was she already like Mingus, wandering at random through the trees, lost in fantasies of her own making? Would the entire landscape soon decompose to scurrying black beetles? Were the roses even green?
Genna looked back to Therese, and again strange thoughts welled up within her. The woman grasped the wolf by its mane, pointing the animal toward them like a weapon. Wind ruffled the mane and caused Therese’s hair to billow about her face and bare shoulders. Morning light fell through the trees to illuminate the forest behind the pair, etching every leaf and flower with exquisite precision. The composition was perfectly balanced, each of its elements inevitably in place. Yet even if the scene before her were real, Genna knew that no static photo, even a holographic one, could capture its intensity. She made no move to reach for her camera. Instead she felt the need to rush to Therese’s side, to assure her they meant her no harm. She wanted to hold this woman and suffer the scratches of her thorny garments, to rip the vines aside and press her mouth to the pale green flesh.
“I have come to take Ming.”
With this mention of his name, presumably the very diminutive by which his Therese had called him, Mingus moaned and fell to his knees. Thick sighs escaped the man’s lips as he began to edge forward, his body crouched low to the ground. He moved hesitantly, as a beast in heat might approach its prospective mate, irresistibly drawn yet wary of the object of its lust.
“He’s in no shape to follow you,” Genna heard herself say.
“He will be fine soon. The transition can sometimes be harsh.”
“No damn transition here,” Jorge said. “The man is dying. That fungus is eating him alive.” He again raised the machine pistol, but his movement lacked intent.
“Death always precedes rebirth.”
Mingus had reached Therese’s side. Still on his knees, he embraced her thighs, burying his face in the trailing vines. Genna saw that small tendrils were already sprouting along his own back. Therese accepted his attentions but took no notice of him. She gazed directly at Genna, and the unabashed invitation in the woman’s eyes forced Genna to look away as before, in shame and confusion.
“You’re welcome to join us. All of you.”
“Join you?” Jorge said pointlessly. “What do you mean? We’re already here.” His voice was breathless, a thin shade of its former self.
Next to succumb was Mercao. Perhaps because of Therese’s proximity, the patches of fungi had already merged to cover his features, their shifting colors mingling with the red of his face paint. The Indio stumbled forward, prostrating himself in the dirt at Therese’s feet, his body trembling with fear or excitation.
“Yes,” Therese laughed, a sound unnerving in its girlish simplicity. “I have known many of your brothers.”
Clearly they were not the first travelers through the forest to encounter this creature that manifested itself as Therese Jahns. How many others, Genna wondered, had been induced to join her in this vegetable transmutation and whatever bizarre existence it entailed? Did the forest abound with beings once human but no longer, vines and leaves and flowers that had been living flesh?
Jorge, visibly aroused, fell to one knee, either to conceal his condition or because he was no longer capable of standing. He made the sign of the cross like a reflex, and then dug his fists into the dirt. Genna didn’t understand how, in his weakened and demoralized state, he had managed to resist the seductive power that flowed from Therese this long. Yet as she helplessly met the woman’s eyes once more, it became clear that Jorge was incidental to Therese. There was no longer any doubt that Therese was speaking within her mind, speaking directly to her. Not with words, but the message came clear. Their desire was mutual. She wanted Genna to join her, not only sexually, for that was but a small part of what she offered. Therese spoke not only to her sensual needs, but to her aspirations. She was more than some dryad spirit spawned by the constant mutations of the forest. Rather the reverse was true. Therese was a creator of the forest,
or at least of this area she now inhabited. And she was inviting Genna to join her in that creation . . . to live out the ultimate dream of artistic megalomania as she helped to shape and reshape the fauna and flora all about them like some immense living holograph.
Yet even as this vision claimed her conscious mind and Genna took a faltering step forward, she discovered a part of herself that resisted and remained separate, not denying the force of the emotions that raged through her and left her trembling, but observing and interpreting them, claiming them as a source for further expression even as they transpired. It was the artist within her, that very part of herself that Therese sought to possess. And it was that same self that now understood that although there was great beauty here, perhaps even greater passion, the spirit that fashioned and ruled this world was ruled in turn only by endless curiosity, by arbitrary and childish whims that left it indifferent to whatever suffering or joy it engendered.
Genna knelt by Jorge’s side and taking one of his clenched fists in both of her hands, she pried his fingers apart and pressed their palms together. And when she felt his grip tightening on hers, and she could sense the growing warmth in their touch, she spoke back from within her mind to this spirit who called her. She silently screamed her denial with all the strength of her human soul.
Therese shrugged as only a goddess could, supremely indifferent to her loss. There would always be others.
She turned away, both Mingus and Mercao, or whatever vegetal monstrosities they had become, rising and turning with her. The maned wolf turned too, but not before it gave both Genna and Jorge one final glance, its eyes flaming with a knowledge that belied its form. It was a look filled with disdain and disregard, as if it too, like the mistress it obeyed, were a superior creature.
Genna and Jorge watched Therese and her wards retreat through the trees. The other wolves that had circled the campsite followed in their wake. As the strange entourage grew smaller in the distance and vanished over a rise, the wind that swept the forest suddenly died. A preternatural silence, undisturbed by the call of bird or beast, settled upon the clearing.
All about them, the roses began to change color.
***
For the pièce de résistance of the exhibit, Opall has cast a massive sexahedron. The sculpture stands five meters high by ten by eight. Within its oversized dimensions one sees a forest landscape that encompasses earth, trees and sky.
The light that floods the scene fingers down in beams that are broken by the profuse growth. The trunks of the trees are strangled with roses, many a virgin white, some yellow, many pink, others a blood red. And though this seems to be the same clearing as depicted in some of the earlier holographs, not a single rose is tinged with green.
As one begins to circle the massive block, the illusion of a simple landscape is dispelled. In the branches above the roses, disembodied faces begin to appear and disappear, flickering in and out with every few steps, face after face, as different in color—red, yellow, brown, white—as the roses below, and more varied in expression. Some seem calm and at peace, their eyes closed as if in sleep. Others reflect the blissful glow of intoxication. Others are staring blankly. Still others seem to be howling in rage against the leafy prison that encloses them. Hovering above this assemblage, at the lower limits of the sky, seen only from a certain angle, but then another, and another, a larger face appears, a single enigmatic countenance that reigns like a ghostly eminence, nearly invisible among the branches for its flesh is the same shade as the leaves.
MYCELIUM VALLEY
Boston
In an isolated valley
of the Mutant Rain Forest,
eternally occluded
by low-hanging clouds
that constantly spill rain
onto the land below,
vegetation is smothered,
trees are being pulled
down to the earth,
towering ceibas and
year-old saplings,
not by the weight of water
but by immense coverlets
of fruiting mycelium.
The fungi are everywhere:
gray, blue, aquamarine,
flaming orange networks
and iridescent outcroppings.
The fungi are everywhere,
an expressionist collage
filling the drenched air
with their spores
and a stifling plague
of eruptions heralding
no life but their own.
SEDUCED BY THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST
Boston/Frazier
Roving archaeologists
and other human scavengers
mine this transilient Yucatan,
unearthing ruins long since dead
and cities dead for only months,
slashing at the colossal growths,
cursing at the dense swamplands,
searching out some rare find
to make their name or fortune.
At El Mirador I compete
with them for jadeite masks,
for broken knives and shields,
for shards of eighth century pottery,
“treasures” that rot within our packs,
that prove to be nothing more
than clever imitations
generated by the metastases
of chameleon tubers.
Burdened by my failure
to resurrect the shifting past,
buoyed by recurrent dreams,
of a return to home and renown,
I endure the monsoon season
along the Rio de la Sombrio
as its rain-drenched belly darkens
and eels its emerald way
to the blank heart of the forest.
Bedded in a champa built
from leaves and wattled reeds,
I marvel at milkwhite iguanas
and welcome a new symbiosis
with miniature kinkajous
who pick the lice from my hair.
I feel the values of my own past
surface like blood-soaked thorns,
infections held too long within.
One night in a rocky clearing
near a glistening oxbow lake,
a tribe of migratory looters,
intoxicated by the microspores
of an addictive pavonine moss,
act out a ritual as violent
as the land they traverse
to initiate a stranger
into their barbarous clan.
Hoisted on a barbed liana
and patterned by my own blood,
I envision quetzals and serpent
maidens with flayed hearts.
I cry out in the sibilant tongue
of some lost warrior caste,
hissing at the wheeling stars,
calling on the waxing moon
to cleanse my tarnished self
with the harsh alkaline intensity
of its bone-piercing light.
THE PAVONINE ADDICT SPEAKS
Frazier
“Hanging gardens of ragged, lacy orchids . . . whole towering forests of their heads . . . their mouths open like women gasping in ecstasy . . . these breathless echoes mingle with the sad echoes of swamp dwellers . . . the mating rituals peak . . . within the hive the queen is devoured and from her blood the sisters are brood-readied . . . within the rivers the razor-cats grapple in territorial battle . . . their teeth like needles and their wormy beards tipped with powerful stingers . . . within my venal tributaries the singing rises and falls . . . the moon hangs like an overripe fruit . . . slashed by the wings of transparent bats . . . fat with blood . . . they seek the lapping pool of my soul . . . the quiet place where ancient maidens bathe . . . their tiny throats speak in languages too shrill to hear . . . their cacophony sets the orchids ashiver . . . a translation I understand . . . tongues of silver . . . I speak back to the milk-drenched odors they expire . . . the night babbles around me
. . . I breathe it . . . it breathes me . . . breathe me . . . ”
A GOURMAND OF THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST
Boston
His jaded palate
is startled and refreshed
by a wealth of flavors
so subtle and provocative
that frissons of delight
shudder up and down
his meaty back,
by pungent aromatics
so utterly unique
he once again discovers
the first unbounded passion
of his sensual decay.
From a penthouse suite
safe within the Seattle dome,
he expends his fortune
on delicacies more
bizarre and illicit
than a cannibal’s feast.
He bribes customs officials
and employs unsavory sorts
so that he might savor
the fruits and meats
of a furious ecology,
so that his taste buds
might embark upon
vicarious exploration
of far rivers and climes
he would never dare
to visit in the flesh.
Even the pains which
rack his portly belly
do not lessen his desire
for spiny bone-white guavas
seasoned with banana moss.
The rash of radiation welts
which erupts upon his chest,
his throat and forearms,
does not delay his hunt
for the perfect table red
to complement the spicy
roasted sweetbreads
of the anaconda sloth.
He is discovered
one morning slumped
before his laden table,
nearly unrecognizable
in the stench of his decay.
The slender stalks
of saffron fungi
which sprout
from all his orifices
have reduced him
to an ectomorph
and scoured
the plates before him
till they shine,
yet have left
a ghastly rictus
of gluttony revered
upon his face.
Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest Page 9
