by Jared Shurin
He smiled as he handed me a plastic bottle of tepid water. What I wouldn’t have given for a glass of cold beer, cold enough to make my teeth ache.
I looked at the curtain, moving in the breeze. Simone’s things were gone. He pulled back the yellow curtain a fraction so I could see the water.
“Was Simone worth it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “My dad used to say killing and fucking are what makes a man.”
“What about parenthood?” The thought surprised me.
“He knew bugger all about that and never bothered to learn. Any idiot can father a child.”
“Yes, it takes a real man to raise one.” I was thinking of my own father as I said it.
“Yes, I reckon you’re right there.” When Cadogan looked at me then I felt he was seeing me for the first time.
“You have children, don’t you? Sons.”
“Yes.”
Cadogan changed my bedding, helping me back from the chair where I’d slumped. He tucked me in, pulling an extra blanket and pillow from a carrier bag to make me more comfortable.
“Is that better?”
“Thank you.”
He reattached the shackles to the bedframe, letting the chains out a little more so it was easier for me to turn over. “I’ve brought you soup.”
My hands clattered the spoon against the bowl and he took it from me, spooning the goodness into me.
“Can you manage some more?”
Half remained. I shook my head. The freezing feeling was creeping back over me again, sooner than I expected. Cadogan put a hand on my forehead.
“Please, not the gag.” I called out when my temperature plummeted and rose. “I’ll try not to shout this time, I promise.”
“I’ll try not to use it. I’ll be here with you, don’t worry. I’ll see you through it.”
That was probably because there’d be repercussions if he didn’t keep me alive but I felt better when he said that.
Cadogan had helped me through every indignity. He’d held a bucket for me to vomit into. He’d helped me on and off the commode and then the bedpan, when I became too weak, carrying off my putrid filth.
“Cadogan,” I croaked.
“What is it?”
“Do your sons love you? I bet you’re a great dad.” I meant it. In those moments of outrageous intimacy he did more for me than my own father ever had. I didn’t know if I was hallucinating again, but it looked like Cadogan was crying.
I was dreaming of the sea.
The fall was exquisite. I reached one hundred and twenty-five metres. It was dark and cold. Such silence. I didn’t know if I was at the bottom of the ocean or in outer space. I didn’t know if it was joy or just my heart being compressed. Infinity overcame me.
I’ve been dreaming of the sea.
When I wake my groin’s wet and I’m panting, straining at the chains.
“I need to be in the water.”
Cadogan looks at me for a full minute before deciding. I’m off the bed before the last manacle has clattered to the floor. Genetics are imperative. My body knows what it must do. Cadogan tries to help me across the rocks as I flail and stagger, pulling off clothes as I go.
I plunge in, the momentary shock of cold water a distraction from the pain in my lower abdomen. I try to pee but nothing comes. A spasm doubles me over. I thrash, coming up for air, fighting to control my breathing. I take a lungful and dive, swimming out as far as I can before the first contraction.
Blood jets from the tip of my penis. It stains the water in a black cloud. How willingly complicit we are in our own downfall.
Then I ejaculate. It’s a gush of tiny lives. Sea horse fry. Hundreds of them float up around me, moving in streams. They’re all bulbous eyes and tails at this stage.
My little ones. They can’t all survive. The currents will buffet them until some die from exhaustion, poor swimmers that they are.
One of them twines its tail in my chest hair.
The spasms come again. More babies escape me. As I pump out young the brood pouch low on my abdomen flattens. My penis bleeds continually now and it feels like there’s broken glass in my urethra.
All the things I’ve never felt. I’ve been accused of being cold-blooded but it’s not blood in my veins but brine. Each spasm is a perverse happiness. I’m suspended in a cloud of tiny seahorses.
I sink into the ocean’s infinite arms. I’m not just a son of the sea. I am a father.
To Look Upon His Works
RJ Barker
It was the Grand Sychophant Oroestes who brought the artist Milon of Honsa across the seas from his faraway land to paint the great and terrible King Hattaran of Murast. What greater honour could there be for the greatest warrior the world had ever known to be painted by the greatest painter the world had ever known?
None, of course, and it was the job of a grand sycophant to know such things.
Now, friend, I have heard of the painting, it is a terrible thing. A picture so real that it feels like Hattaran lives again, that his armies may move across continents, cities will fall in fire and pain and those who love will find what is dearest to them taken, sullied and destroyed. Now you, to come here, across the sands, to pass through destruction and the rubble and to travel up the Shard Road of Murast you must indeed be a true lover of art – but, though you walk through a wasteland, do you know that we, the people of Murast, were once the greatest art lovers in the known world? Indeed, Hattaran himself brought the best and the brightest artists back to his mighty capital to ply their trade among the gentle towers of our city.
Of course, you we see none of that now.
And how, Milon, do you achieve such vibrant colours in your pictures?
It is in the application of materials, Grand Sycophant Oroestes, it is all in the application of materials.
It is strange, that you must look upon a ruin where I see what once was; a city overflowing with beauty and fat with plenty. Those few who scratch a living here now mourn the days when every stall was overflowing with produce brought from all over the world. A man who is hungry quickly forgets fear, just as a man who is frightened quickly forgets hunger. We forget too quickly in any case, and quicker than ever in the case of Hattaran of Murast. Oh, he is seen as a monster, and he was, but he loved beauty also and for a time Murast was a wonderful place to be, but few books from his reign survive to tell us any different.
Of course we had books, friend. Of course.
When I was young the libraries of Murast were famed, they were ripe with knowledge. It is said the tribesman who once travelled the forests around Murast, bringing us the food and milk from their beasts, all died on the sword because Hattaran needed vellum. Huge herds of goats were driven through the city to provide enough vellum for our writers, playwrights and poets to scrawl their thoughts upon. One could not go past a street corner without coming across a poet or writer reading from their latest opus. We had so many writers in Murast that some of the greatest names to have ever written starved on our streets, ignored. No, we had no shortage of books in our time, but all that is lost now, burned.
I see you bring me no vellum to paint upon. Do you not have any in this huge city?
No, Milon, for a writer found a form of poetry that was beautiful while making no sense. And he could not understand this, and thought on it for days and weeks until he decided if he did not understand then the people would not understand and he decreed no one should write these poems any more. But the poets did not listen and tracts lampooning Hattaran appeared on the walls. For that he had a great pyre made of all the books and scrolls in the city’s libraries and gathered together all the writers and threw them into it. You will struggle to find vellum here now as it is the sign of a writer, and writers in Murast are burned alive.
No mind, Grand Sycophant Oroestes, I will source my own materials.
Now, are you thirsty friend? You will hear the running of water and you may follow that to find a spring. Cup your hands and drink deep for water
is scarce in the ruins of Murast, the sun beats down and steals the moisture from even our skin. Pots? Oh once we had such pots. Hattaran worked a hundred thousand slaves to death to build a causeway across the bay of Urlay and lay waste to the land of Beckan so he could have access to their clay mines. What was done with that clay was astounding, my friend: porcelain so fine and thin you could have read books through it. Pots made to look like every animal you can imagine, clever jugs of birds which spouted water from their beaks. Our potters competed to make the tallest and thinnest vessels imaginable. Such fine handles you have never seen, clay made to do things that seemed impossible: bowls that rang like bells when touched and likenesses of men and women that, if they had not been so still, you would have taken to be real. In fact, I knew a man who fell in love with a clay likeness of a woman, it was a famous story, but of course, it is lost now.
By the well are some shards and hollowed bones that may hold water if you do not wish to use your hands. I would be grateful if you brought me a little water, to talk makes me thirst.
Ah no, we have nothing to put your paints in. See the path we walk along? Well, Hattaran found himself displeased with the potters; he believed they were mocking his manhood with their new shapes. He had learnt from the poets and did not give the potters time to turn on him for he is a man who is not afraid to make hard decisions. He had every pot in Murast smashed on this road. Then he had horses drag the potters over the road of shards to flay skin from their backs. When he was satisfied that the blood and screams had taught the artists of the city to appreciate him, the potters were thrown then into their own kilns to roast. It was a very fine lesson our king taught us.
No mind, Grand Sycophant Oroestes, I will source my own materials.
You say you are starved of colour and your eyes thirst to see the famed colours of Milon’s painting? I understand that need, sand and crumbling sandstone can provide little for the eye to feast upon.
So little was left of beautiful Murast when her enemies fell upon her, my friend, though I do not blame them for their anger – how could I? Once Murast was a riot of colour, beauty was everywhere and our king himself loved to paint. Great Hattaran besieged the city of Varim purely for its painters. He stood his army outside the city for three months, until the starving overthrew the government and opened the gates for him. You will hear he murdered everyone in the city but it is not true. Hattaran was not a man to waste anything and although he only wanted the painters he did not abandon the rest of the city. Those who were well enough he sent to mine clay and the rest he did kill, out of mercy, deeming it cruel to leave them to starve in the empty city. The artists he brought back and they painted his city in honour of their redeemer. It was a magical place then, huge vats of paint kept in the central courtyard before the Palace of skulls. Pools of every colour under the sun, and the stories of Hattaran’s conquests did bloody dances across the walls of Murast. It was said, even those taken in war and brought in chains to die before the palace were thankful for their fate; because they had seen the walls of Murast.
I do not doubt there was some truth in that.
Paints? Ah, the great sadness of Murast is that some of the painters King Hattaran was kind enough to bring to his city became decadent. They created art of such strangeness it bothered the king, worried at him like a dog will worry at a corpse, and so the king, in his great and terrible wisdom, had them drowned in the paint vats and all the paint was spoiled.
No mind, Grand Sycophant Oroestes, I will source my own materials.
Do you carry an instrument friend? Many who ply the arts also love music, I do and I miss it. Murast once sang as loudly as any city. Great halls were built, that threw sound from their gates, sending it echoing through the streets until it mixed with the sound of instruments that fell from the many other halls. At each and every corner in Murast a man could hear a different symphony and the birds themselves wept with jealousy over Murast and her songs. Every type of instrument was played here, friend. King Hattaran loved music so much that he brought down the great forest which once surrounded Murast to build his fleet and take the island of Voisi where the greatest harpists lived.
But do not take up your instrument for me, friend, it may be best not to play, lest you wake ghosts which sleep in the ruins.
Music? Ah, sadly not, the wise and mighty Hattaran decreed his people must be happy and as such all music played in Murast must also be happy. But the Harpists of Voisi could not obey, for they betrayed great Hattaran by loving their old home more than they loved Murast. Their songs wept out minor keys and Hattaran, in his righteous anger, had all the musicians of Murast strangled with harp strings and forbade any to as much as whistle on pain of death. You will have seen the street of hanging on your way here, of course. It is difficult for a man not to make any music.
No mind, Grand Sycophant Oroestes, I will make my own music.
But Hattaran...
Will make allowances, I am sure.
The stone feet, friend?
You will find many such things in the ruins of Murast. Hattaran brought artists from every land he conquered but he had no need to bring sculptors. Murast was always a city of sculpture, our buildings were decked with faces and figures, our squares with glorious statues that reached for the sky. In the early days of Hattaran’s rule we celebrated his conquests in marble and quartz, in bronze and iron. We beat our enemies’ weapons into images of their subjugation, we destroyed cities, made their people slaves and had them bring the stones of their homes to us so we could create a huge likeness of our warrior leader. Vast it was, throwing a shadow over the whole city like a sundial and you could tell the time wherever you were by looking for Hattaran’s shadow. But it was cold in that shadow, friend, and it had a weight we never realised until it was too late. Sculpture was the only art he did not destroy as he became older, I think he could not stand to see himself maimed in any way. We had to wait for our enemies to truly bring down Hattaran and banish his shadow. But the sculpture here was astounding once, friend, we had started to leave behind the human form and experiment in more and more abstract forms but... well.
That ended.
The sculptors of Murast? Oh they live, but they no longer sculpt I am afraid. Hattaran found their more experimental forms difficult to understand and then found his own meaning in it, found mockery in it. He had their eyes put out, as punishment.
And yet they live?
My son was a sculptor, Milon, I begged for his life.
And now, you bring me to paint your king?
I am the Grand Sycophant of Hattaran, Milon of Honsa, and I have heard much of your work. You are the greatest at what you do, are you not?
Oh yes, Oroestes, yes, I am that.
I have heard it said, friend, that the screams from Hattaran's chambers went on for a week but no one dared intrude. After all, screams from Hattaran’s chambers were nothing new. Only when there had been silence for another week did anyone dare enter the king's bedchamber. Oroestes led them in and of the painter, Milon of Honsa, there was no sign. All that remained of King Hattaran was his throne, sticky with dried blood and discarded flesh, and there was the painting. Of course, all now know of the flesh portraiture of Honsa, how the artists take apart the subject to create a likeness of his soul. Paint bowls made from bones, paint from flesh, music from screams, sculptures of agony a history written in blood; but none did then.
None except Oroestes.
What became of him?
He died when Murast fell, like most did who were not maimed in some way. The victors knew of Hattaran's cruelty so all who were well or able bodied they put to death, and all who were not they judged as victims of Hattaran's cruelty and took them away from this place. All except me, I remained to guard a painting I have never seen and never will see. Hattaran put out my eyes you see, and only my Father’s begging kept me alive. So I stay here to guard his vengeance.
Now, are you sure you wish to see it? I am assured it is quite terrible to be
hold.
12 Answers Only
You Can Question
James Warner
“Have you considered taking the USAT?” my parole officer asked me.
I told her I didn't even know what that was.
“The USAT qualifies you to become an utofuzi. An utofuzi loosely combines the roles of a samurai, a flâneur, and an ux. An ux combines the roles of a griot, a stag brought down by hounds, and an utofuzi.”
She was an earnest woman who made me feel guilty about the depth of my own disillusion.
“Look at it this way,” she said. “To become a lawyer you first take the LSAT. To become a hobo you take the HSAT. To become an autodidact, the ASAT. Theologians, the TSAT. How would you expect to prepare for a life striving to comprehend the Unfathomable, if not by taking the USAT?”
“I never looked at it that way,” I admitted, as my parole officer produced an index card with a question typed on it:
1. X is inversely proportional to Y. Which of the following are NOT possible values of X/Y?
A. The judicious contemplation of discernible reality/crises of institutional legitimacy
B. Wisdom/pain
C. Ruptures in the historical continuum/attention to the finer points of technique
D. Renting yet another U-Haul/the universe's shrinking at an decreasing rate
I chose B. My parole officer predicted I was going to be good at this, and gave me another card:
2. On the diagram above, shade in the area that falls outside of all three crappily-drawn ovals.
We spent another half hour working on USAT questions and, before leaving, I’d signed up to take the USAT – in an unspecified location, at an undisclosed time, under unanticipated conditions. (That's how the USAT works.)
The prospect was exhilarating, and anticipating my ordeal gave me purpose. All my life I'd been good at tests and bad at reality, so any opportunity to take another test filled me with hope that I could keep the latter at bay long enough to feel a sense of justification.
