The Shaman: And other shadows

by Manzetti, Alessandro

  I'm amazed. I explore this unexpected Eldorado, flying in a circle like a hornet. An eighteenth century Bible with the swollen belly, a copy of Pilgrim's Progress, illustrated with grotesque paintings smudged moisture, the gnawed pages of the Magnalia Christi by Cotton Mather.

  This stuff here, in the woods? Don't believe it. Maybe I've never really gone out from the mud cemetery of Wilsondale. That motherfucker's guardian, the damn dull, he must have smashed my skull with his shovel. He looked at me askance from the outset. People who don’t like strangers, who have prepared a special pit for the curious, of any size and measurement. “Tourists of the cemeteries”, so they call them. How do I explain the story of my father? Neither do I remember it all.

  This is huge! The Regnum Congo by Pigafetta! Armor of leather with metal clasps, the whimsical illustrations by the De Bry brothers. I sink my hands into it, excited browsing the book. The pages are rustling: Frankfurt, date of publication 1598. This Hell is really strange, with a library so rich and fascinating. Perhaps each of us decorates the afterlife rooms favoring their passions and habits. If it’s really so, the Hell where my father is locked must be equipped with a nice pool table, a well-stocked bar and a couple of hookers waiting for clients. Fake and heavy jewelry, aromas of mango and decomposed apricot. My Hell should be just that, what I see now. The books, my silent friends who don’t drink, who don’t spit pieces of lungs. They never leave me.

  I start to immerse myself in Regnum Congo, without realizing that rain finally has stopped. The eating habits of Anzique are described in details by Pigafetta, the terrifying illustrations of the De Bry brothers. Table XII, the butcher. Slices of a man hanging on the ropes: arms, thighs, rattlesnakes of twisted guts. Large vases filled with smashed heads and busts, immersed in a yellow thick liquid. One of the two butchers opens a cover, showing the boiled merchandise.

  An Anzique, with the ass outside and black feathers in his hair, leans over to look at the contents. He dips a finger, tasting the broth of man. The other indigenous butcher, with a six-pointed star dangling on his chest, is in charge of roasted meat. He plunges the knife in the flesh for preparing human skewers. On his right dozens of rods are sprouting with meat on the tip. It looks like white meat, bodies of Westerners. The indigenous group is narrowing towards the wooden counter, stretching hands: they are hungry. They trade their stuff to eat. A fat woman with deflated breasts and the face painted as a tiger, drags away a sack.

  The background is filled by a hill, the ground is decorated with bones: stacks of skulls and crossbones, macabre gardens of human remains from the circular shape. The breeding, the flesh still alive, is in a cage, next to the slaughterhouse, for those who want food that still screams and talks. It will not be hard to strangle those unfortunates, chop their flesh for a merry feast. The Anzique guard pushes a spear to the crowd, no one can come close to his human cows. It must be one of the leaders, his feathers are long and colorful. Clay-colored eyes sprouting from a too big face. The look at three hundred degrees of a tarantula, an evolved predator, a demon. In the confusion, tattooed feet trample livers, lungs, steaks and pieces of other unrecognizable organs. Engines out of order, red fuel scattered everywhere. A big mess.

  I'll be back continuously to the magnetic table XII, the butcher. The Anziques became aware of my presence and they look at me threatening from their rectangular window of Africa. They are close, they are true. They could grab me by the arm, dragging me inside. After tasting my body, they should decide the price of my flesh, before putting me into the cage. I'll end up boiled or roasted?

  A sound of footsteps from the room above. Fuck: I am not alone! The natives by the formidable jaws are still closed in the book. Other passages, clearer and heavy, on the stairs. I just have to wait for the landlord, whoever he is. Regnum Congo remains open on the table XII.

  A strange woman shows up, fat and powerful, with a look of eagle. Hips by rhino, impressive neck and ankles, strong, solid. She has enormous lips, her hair tied back, barefoot. The giantess approaches, she settles the red dress, crushing her worn busty chest. She smiles at me, beckoning me to sit down on the couch. She moves, heavily, towards the window.

  "At last the rain has stopped!"

  Her voice is deep and horribly sensual. Fifty years, approximately, not nice, it's just a great pandemic of flesh, an exasperation of tissues.

  "Nobody ever comes here. Once it was different."

  She sits next to me. I’m completely soaked, her bovine eyes fix my wet shoes and then go up to my pants. Her orbits weigh five pounds each. I hold myself in the coat and I feel cold.

  "Really a bad time, right? It often happens, here. The rain."

  The smell of her skin is strong, penetrating, familiar. It reminds me of the acid breath of my father. Exhalations of memories, aliens methane wells, fragments without grave. I feel uncomfortable, I would run away, but I need to use the giantess phone. I'm going to ask it, but the woman thunders, breaking my words.

  "You need something warm. Wait, I'll be back."

  I look at that huge ass that walks away, pulling the fabric which is struggling to contain the masses of those earthquaking buttocks. She walks curved, just as tall people do. Almost seven feet, fuck! I get up, go to the window, I hope to see someone in that shitty mud. But the road is far away, and this is the realm of the snails and the giantess, apparently. A flash of lightning, immediately followed by its smashed drum. It’s raining again.

  The many-pound woman is back into the living room, along with a small tray. I never liked tea. Fuck: I should better settle the giantess. I smile as if I had been harpooned on the rump. I sit down, sip that warm shit. She keeps on staring at me. Her teeth biting her lips rhythmically. They resemble a cow's cunt, pandemic purple. Her tits jump out more and more, intentionally, and then she drops the straps of her dress to make me admire her whale breasts. A silver Jesus Christ suffocates there, in the middle. I’d better divert attention to something else, before the lady jumps on me. Too many years without a fuck, but the price is too dear for me. I can open my mouth, finally.

  "Where did you get that stuff? Those books are very rare."

  The giantess rolls out a heavy vortex of a sigh, which indicates it’s not a topic that interests her.

  "Ebenezer, a friend. He used to work years on a merchant ship, touring the world. He was a collector of oddities, every time he came here, he would brought me a gift. "

  She gets up, grabs the Regnum Congo and sits back down, closer to me. Her vocal cords vibrate on the roots, spitting out something like a whisper. The mouth moves modulating rotten sounds. Her sweat mingles with the scent of violets, the smell of a cemetery in the summer, of atoms of a hot and gruesome August on the tombstones.

  The table XII of the De Bry brothers: the book always opens at that point. The Anzique butcher's shop comes alive once again. The stubby fingers of the giantess caress the drawings, the shades of blood, the sections. That horrible scene excites her. She scratches those pieces of human bodies, dangling from ropes, rocking in a gentle wind. The slow breathing of Africa. Or is it she who is rocking the flesh, moving it with her fingertips? I'm confused, the cursed illustration turns into a funnel, my mind slowly percolating in that madness.

  A drop of blood, the real one, crashed in the middle of the table XII. Just on the face of the butcher who prepares the man's skewers. Shit, the rain is not red. I raise my eyes toward the ceiling, a large red stain, uneven, is increasing. Fresh blood is dripping, other drops are ready to jump, held by thin purple filaments. The images become blurred, what did the fat bitch give me to drink?

  Darkness, the feeling of something heavy crushes my chest, I’m loosing my senses. So it's all true, I'm in Hell, now. The giantess and her shitty tea don't really exist. The fat woman is a strange guardian of the afterlife. Now I'll meet my father, certainly he couldn’t escape from here. I ended up consuming my old Ford through the streets of dust of Massachusetts.

  Suddenly smells and sounds come back, bovine
eyes staring at me, a bloody mouth kissing me. I'm not in my apartment in Hell, but in the bed of the giantess. The thoughts are turned on, but I can't move. I'm naked, just as the hostess. She slams a big tit on my face. My lover has turned away now: I face her huge dancing ass.

  Her triumphant flesh, her sexual moods fallen on my neck, on my chest. But what it she doing? Is she sucking me? I don’t feel anything, pleasure, pain, disgust: nothing. I get what she is doing only when her face rises up from my belly, where it had sank. Among her teeth there are pieces of me, soft stuff, but I can't figure out what she is chewing. Dark blood drips from her chin. She sucks her fingers and goes back down.

  Her dancing ass is my gate to Hell.

  The Shaman

  Chopi is the shaman of the bones in Paris Sud 5. Bones, skulls, human remains found in the streets and in the trash comprise the piles above his ancestral altar. The people of the district rely on the shaman. They offer him a small donation and give him a photo of loved ones gone missing. Chopi puts everything inside a pumpkin, where he has trapped his magical wind. The shaman, who always wears a faded red shirt, begins to search among the heap of bones. He has only one eye, but they say it's the other one, apparently closed, to be able to see the other side, the other world.

  Three kids crouched under the table blow, make verses, mimic the voice of the wind. One of them interprets the ride, and the other two kids slam pieces of metal together and grind their teeth. The clients, called “the seekers”, remain kneeling. Arms stretched over bones, waiting for the outcome. The lucky ones will bring home a piece of a husband, a wife, of a relative. Someone who is no longer there.

  When the shaman recognizes a piece of someone, in the pile of bones, the kids start to croak like small frogs, stirring strange verses: hmaa, hmaa, hmaa, and lek, lek, lek. Chopi wraps the selected bones in a blue cloth and offers them to the seeker. The photo in the pumpkin dissolves. The frogs don’t sing anymore, they return to blend in on the leaves of the pond, that wet hole in the shaman four corners magic universe. Finally someone can bury something, crumbs of memories, of people.

  Morgan walks down the Rue de Paradis. Soon he will be at Chopi’s magic table. He is searching for his daughter, Axelle, fifteen years old. He’s been looking for her for many days. She disappeared. He has one last hope: the magician of the bones.

  Axelle, her soft molecules remained between the teeth of Paris Sud 5, the sharper ones of the clients of the Restaurant Deux Jambes. The chef Dorian Moreau and his team of kidnappers explore the alleys of the neighbourhood as the gold diggers. Nuggets of proteins. Special customers, special orders: human meat dishes. Soft and youthful, this time, Dorian.

  Morgan doesn’t know the truth yet. The Axelle's breasts and thighs have become a main dish, paired with two glasses of montrachet. Morgan continues to seek for her, barefoot. He forgot to put on his shoes. A seagull chases him, flying high. Morgan wishes he could see through the eyes of the bird, using its senses. He would like to observe Paris lying under the web of roads, the back of the Seine and the hatches of the alleys. The carcasses of the night and the fresh meat of the morning take turns.

  He arrives at the Chopi’s magic table, and there is a row as usual. Morgan waits, looking at that pile of human remains. An arm looks familiar... No, it's too fresh, intact; the rats should have already gnawed the flesh of his daughter, after all these days. Maybe that skull, smaller than the others... It's his turn. Morgan hands to Chopi a recent photo of Axelle. The girl's eyes look like two Holtun cenote, those dark green pools, ready to take vertical shots. The sun and the life, to the zenith. Then, only a few days later, riddled by Chaoc, by the spears of the rain god. Actually, by the knives of Dorian Moreau proteins seekers.

  Chopi observes the photography, carefully, holding a pepper in his hand. The photo of Axelle ends up in the pumpkin, at the mercy of the magic wind. The shaman begins to look into the pile of bones, gently moving his unsteady castle of ruins, threatening to dismount at any moment. The clients behind Morgan complain, pushing, cursing. The kids under the table are blowing strong, one of them whistles to accelerate the speed of the wind, to give a course to infinity and beyond.

  Chopi shakes his head. He couldn’t find even a small piece of Axelle. He raises his old hand to proceed with a new seeker.

  Morgan's feet are bleeding, fatigue and sadness join forces. Axelle must be there, the shaman wasn’t able to find her. Too many clients, not much time for the wind to move through the rotting arteries of Paris Sud 5. Maybe it bounced on something that has diverted its route. Morgan decides to do it himself. He promised his wife that he would have found something of Axelle, today. He grabs a small skull from the bones pile and runs along Rue de Paradis.

  People abandon the row, chasing the thief of bones. The kids of the wind come out wondering what happened. Chopi doesn't move. He prays while biting his radioactive pepper. Morgan slips into an alley and hears the voices of the pursuers getting closer and louder: That could be my son, you bastard!

  A brick wall stops Morgan. The ruins of an old aqueduct, stuffed with colonies of cockroaches. He can't go beyond. A house, a door: Morgan knocks with all his strength.

  From the window he catches a glimpse of a woman watching him. She puts a cockroach in her mouth and chews it. The seekers crash down on Morgan, the thief of souls. Kicks, punches, bites, blood splashing on wall. A man pulls out a knife and starts to stab. The small skull rolls away, but no one cares about it anymore. The group moves away slowly. Two men remain in the alley to work on the Morgan’s body.

  They fill some plastic bags with small pieces of the thief of souls. The alley is back to its solitude. The wind now has disappeared.

  The woman at the window opens the door, turns her eyes now to the right then to the left, comes outto pick up the little abandoned skull. She returns home immediately, and starts to munch on cockroaches Fluids are leaking on her couch, dripping out from the headless body of her son.

  A cockroach tries to lay its eggs in an open lung. The woman grabs it, caresses its vibrating antennae, then crushes the insect between her fingers and goes back to the window, to observe Paris Sud 5, her apocalyptic neighbourhood.

  Four miles to the west. Some kids are playing in the trash. Theo, the bigger one, finds an iron cross. He shows it to his friends, who become curious. What’s that stuff?

  They make a rudimentary slingshot out of it, to hit the black-billed seagulls.

  A stone breaks the glass of a sunken church.

  The Wolf Gate

  The yellow eyes of the sewers, behind the borders of sidewalks. Rectangular wells that observe shoes, legs, consciences. Souls ready to emigrate. The wolf licks the edges, the drain of the rain. He holds on the order of its owner: attack and chase. Sinks its teeth in the soft filling of the predestined. The list of the day, the customers of the Reaper.

  The Reaper is hidden in the sewers, sinking her fingers into the black waters. She sucks experiences processed by human kidneys. Her wolf is back into the center channel. The great whore has been working in Milan for ten days, and is taking it too easy this time. They need to change the flock, canals and drains more quickly. The list is long.

  So, skipping too many lines, going back and forth, you risk to make mistakes. Someone who lives for too long, creating a short circuit in the patterns of predestination. The congested corridors of Hell, whips directing an impossible traffic. Soft stuff crushed, before the time. Trembling jellyfish, souls who drag their long guts, still remembering everything of the past life. Unforeseen torture, floors of simmered neurons

  It should not happen too often.

  The wolf approaches the mistress, rubs its muzzle on her black robe; it wants to be reassured. A white hand touches its ears, then dwells at length on the rump. The scythe begins to groom the fur of the wolf, breaking the old blood clots, the sketches of the craft.

  It’s time to go back to work. The muzzle of the wolf seeks the mouth of the lady: waiting for a sign. The muscles of the legs
are loaded. The Reaper lingers. She sucks the black water again, flowing smelly gas puffing breathlessly. Ectoplasmic shit, green dreams come out from the assholes of millions of people. The Reaper seems to be decided, at last. She grabs the wolf by the neck, breathing in its senses. She gives him a map of scents, a dartboard without forms.

  The wolf flies into the tunnel, its sharp nails digging horizontal shots on the rotten brick walls. A final check from the window of the sewers. It sees a lean woman seeking shelter from the rain, white ankles, red hair on her face.

  The wolf growls, chews thoughts of cells, accompanied by the storm that sweeps the city, without stopping. The time of the hunt, of the blood, the prize of the mistress. Excitement. The wolf comes out, follows the smell of the woman, runs to the predestined. A subtle shadow, stagnant puddles, a sudden wind, ghosts clippings. All that human eyes can't see: the special view of the Reaper’s wolf.

  The two sides of the avenue are combined, the speed breaks geometries, forming large inverted pyramids. A flight on all fours, towards the prey.

  The woman is returning home. She is a hooker, but her price is different from the one of its mistress.

  The bare thighs attached to the black jacket, the illusion of columns of meat that do not know what to support. The wolf speeds up, but the door of the building closes on its muzzle. The smell of pussy passes through the cracks: yellow, thick.