Just a Walk in the Park

Charlie went for a walk, as he was wont to do when he was feeling out of sorts. He walked all the way uptown then across town and back again. He walked until he finally came upon Central Park. He walked past the pond, up East Drive, continued past the Bethesda Fountain and over the bow bridge; he walked all the way around the Reservoir and up to the North Woods. He walked and walked but the feeling of melancholia was an oppressive thing riding along with every foot step. As much as he walked he couldn’t shake the feeling. It was cold and bursts of cloud came from his mouth and trailed off him like an old steam engine choking along up a steep incline. Charlie felt the ground rising to meet his footfalls, a glad counterpoint to the burdensome oppressiveness wrapping him. His feet took him to the lake again.  The winter earth hard and unyielding beckoned to him. He stepped off the path. The ground crunched under his shoes. He stared off at the water, and the naked limbs of trees, and the hardy green shrubs and evergreen bushes. They spoke to him telling him something without language.  Charlie had left a letter before heading off on his walk.

Dear Louise,

Love is an everlasting spring-time. What detours did my heart take to find you?

How many frozen mornings turned bright with scented air have we had?

Ethereal spears collecting rays from cool chickadee mornings, the warmth of fields stirring moved my heart in the right direction. What detours do I still need to take? What obstacle needs to be toppled still? Love is an everlasting spring evaporating the mists of mourning.

 Intoxicating visions burst forth saying;"renewal, renewal, renewal still!"

Before I met you my heart was already broken by you. I have rummaged my way through life with a soaking soul too long.

 Standing staring out at the lake and the trees, he felt the earth comforting below him in his toes, on the balls of his feet, his heels, he felt himself growing down into the earth. A great release whelmed up inside him. He felt the melancholia calcify and drop away. He couldn’t move but didn’t have too all the nourishment of life was right there in that moment. So Charlie stood like that firmly rooted, reaching skyward basking in the sun.

From Mapus Mundi: My Search for the Ultimate Territory

From Mapus Mundi: My Search for the Ultimate Territory: by E.H. Kranklehunt

Speculation set my mind adrift, in the crimson gloaming, the triumvirate of planets beamed and danced; the sparking light. Its then that the ghostly images of the brush and bramble covered hills takes up the imagination leading consciousness down before unheard of paths, a mixing of senses occurs dislocating one from the reality of this world complete and total, suffering (that may be the wrong word because it is not without its pleasures) this dislocation brings with it new feelings, thoughts, and associations. Landscapes speak light reflected. Sounds distant are brought intimate and close, vibrant, reverberating, former thoughts, former self is brought away far distances only remaining an echo on the hills. The taste of words, the color of sound, and the feel of images all conspired to show me a new reality. I was not sober when I started my journey and though I have not touched my sweet drink in what seems months I am not sober at the end of my journey. All my old remembrances shouted back at me through a prism of dark crimson light like a ruby shattered and swirled to all corners of the sky.

The motes in my vision turned curling serpentines pointing me in the correct direction; the map was no use any longer, I couldn't translate my own symbols or signs, the markings became indecipherable and distant. Dragonflies hovered around me. Bush flies and moths, delicate and papery butterflies beat carefully landing on jungle vines, buzzing insects, mosquitoes, flying ants, bees, hornets and all the stinging flying pests, crickets squelched and cicadas sang, fireflies like beacons betrayed a path toward a  structure tangled and forgotten, strangled by the green revenge of the jungle.

Wispy but opaque fog chewed the tops of the pyramids. The complex was shut in by the foam like clouds but even they were encircled by the green spiked palms and dense ropy jungle. There was no escape, the landscape was just playing out what was the true destiny- our true destiny. The world leads you to these corridors and locked rooms; the birth place of tragedy and the end of desire, it’s the death urge and the life urge it’s the culmination of the hero’s quest to arrive at this time and place at least once in your life ever so short ever so fragile.

 The shaman provided me with the True Map to the ruined pyramid in the middle of the complex for not only was the top shrouded in the queer jungle fog that seemed to sway with the jungle itself, but a titanic gash laid its eastern side open and left the sandstone blocks destroyed and tumbled down and in disarray. High up on that ruined side was a crevice that bore entrance into the inner sanctum of the temple complex itself.  I started to crawl up the broken stone seeking the entrance that was about half way up of what I could see of the pyramid, the shaman stood stone like. “Aren't you coming?” I yelled down to him, he stood there solemn.  I took this for some more native superstition and continued to crawl; hand and foot, up the mortared brick. Finally I came to a break in the wall that permitting me to squeeze my body inside.

In the Shaman's Tent

Astringent smoke not wholly unpleasant, like a sweetish tobacco, stung my eyes and throat and made me choke and cough upon entering the shaman's tent.  The rain pattered down producing inside the tent what sounded like a rhythmic drumming, the air was electric, and the little hairs on my arms and neck stood up instantly dry in the charged atmosphere. I feared lightening would strike us. 

The shaman himself was reclining near a small fire that had a gray mass of leaves smoldering on it. The smoke filtering up through a chimney hole at the top of the tent but not before filling the tent. I could only see him through the thick haze of the smoke that permeated the lungs and a fit of coughing commenced once more. "Dear Sir, I GAC-KAW! aah, sorry, Dear Sire, my maps." I spluttered to the figure beyond the haze. A young assistant of his appeared at my side holding a gourd cup. I was shocked by him at first for the tent didn't look able to hold three people, I was having a hard time determining the dimensions and lost site of the tent walls.  The shaman motioned for me to drink and I imbibed along with him the drink that was much like my own only more sour and strong. 

He was a slight man, and frail from what I could see of him. He spoke in his dialect and I responded. "I no more speak your language than you speak mine, I'm afraid." He motioned to his assistant to fetch the Monsignor who served as our translator. I didn't want to get that man involved so tried my best before he arrived. Not wanting to accuse one of his people of theft although their feelings on that vice are quite different than our own I was still a frighted of offending the old man (if nothing else my nanny Briselda raised me with manners). "I...you...I am...I have... You see... I have mislaid my maps." He was stoic and simply took a drink, which I did as well. I had an idea perhaps a pictorial representation would bridge our dumbness and drew in the dry ground with my cigarette holder a facsimile of one of my key maps that had been "mislaid". "Map" I said placing the cigarette holder back in my mouth and a mouthful of dirt as well.

     "MAP." he said shaking his steel gray hair and leaned closer across the smoldering fire.  The fire lit his face, I was able to more thoroughly examine the man.  Indeed an ancient specimen he was but his movement belied a strange inner vitality, his limbs were strong, and balled with muscle, and though his face was as lined and marked as one of my maps, it shown a vibrant glow, orange in the firelight. He smiled showing me his worn teeth still there in his head; (more than I can say for myself, the fault of a certain rather puckish rouge of a burro, but that's a story for another time) he held out a bowl filled with some kind of fungi and made the sign to eat. I took a handful of the mushrooms and he laughed a hooting laugh, his eyes cataracted a mossy green. I was held in his gaze. I saw something moving like the jungle canopy. The rhythmic sound had continued and the pulsating droning and electric feel of the air grew more intense. I started to sweat. He peered at me with his clouded, mossy eyes and with a knobby finger dangling off a muscle jangled arm started to draw a map on the tent floor next too mine. The cacophony inside intensified still, and I felt like the tent was growing larger and folding in on itself simultaneously. I was tense with excitement. The map he was drawing- I recognized it! It was one of my own but with more detail. I grabbed a piece of charcoal from the fire and drew the map directly onto my own body. He clapped and shouted at this and spoke some gibberish. 

     It seemed that the rain had stopped but a new rhythmic sound had taken its place. I wondered if this was an effect of the static electricity of the tropical storm. But as I copied the map I noticed the movement of hundreds of small blue, red, yellow, and green frogs leaping and hopping and all croaking together in a syncopated rhythm  My eyes were wide and I hurriedly finished copying the shaman's map. The boy finally arrived with a much mud bespattered  monsignor, who had mastered the native language on previous visits and spoke to the indians like only one could who wished to convert them and oppress their natural ways; brutal or savage as they were. 

     "About time you got here you fool! Look at you, your filthy man; tell this man I am grateful." I brushed away the map in the dirt with my hands as I made to stand up. The monsignor spoke some native words to the shaman and the shaman spoke back in a lengthy sermon such that I was able to escape the tent before the monsignor had noticed the charcoal markings all over my body.

In the Land of Dead Dragonflies....

I’ve seen you darting, surveying for a place to land.

In the tumult and crash tide breaking in awe and weeping,

gone silent their lament that arrived in the receding night.

Some running “tra la la la-ing” along.

All hear nothing, no signs, no signals, no voice. 

Behind a cloud shinning cool. 

I saw your stain glass wings shattered; an iridescent stain on the cruel concrete. Which dumb St. George smote you? Whose unfeeling limb? Who so reckless with your message? 

Finally landed.

From the Journals of E.H. Kranklehunt:"PINCH ME, I'M DROWNING!"

"PINCH ME, I'M DROWNING!" I gasped for air and awoke. I found myself sitting as naked as I was born in a shallow puddle of tepid jungle water. Beside me, tossed aside in all their damp glamour: my maps my glorious maps. It was steamy and the sun shone over the clearing empty now of the shanty town and tents. All the native peoples with them gone only I and my lone canopy still stood.  

     As I sit writing this still in the buck for the scalawags must have absconded with my clothing before they departed so hasty. My mouth tastes of murk and mud, for I must have swallowed a great deal of jungle water. The last thing I remember was the woman with the facial tattoos and the steel grey hair. I will try to piece together as much as I can for this journal. At the quintessence at least I know, my search for long forgotten treasuries of ancient knowledge started like this.

     It was evident that I must reclaim my maps if the expedition was going to be anything like successful, and if there is anyone this particular tribe whose word they held dear it was their beloved and feared medicine man or shaman if you will.

I knew where his shelter laid but didn't want to draw the attention of the crowd, besides I could hear the corn husks still pelting the Monsignor. So I slipped out the back of my canopy and just then great peal of thunder erupted and a downpour was released from the clouds.  This brought even more hilarity to the crowd now, for the Monsignor slipped and sloshed in the mud, as the people hallooed; jabbering and dancing, they too becoming coated in mud. 

    Setting off to find the shaman I thought of my excursions in the South Pacific and the dire circumstances I encountered with the witch doctor on one particular island. He was a sanguine cannibal headshrinker and wanted me to marry his daughter to boot.  I thought it best to find my assistant, lazy as he was, to provide me support. Pacing the pleasure sheds I stuck my head in surely my assistant was there as he had been since we made camp. "Come along you scrofulous wretch!" He was snoring asleep with his arm flung over a lithe girl with long ebony hair that glowed in the low light of the shed. "Hurry now- the cretins have stolen my maps!" The girl looked up incredulous as if to say,“How dare you bother our napping” then pointing at my wet mustaches burst into a peal of laughter. (It seems a trait with these people: laughing). "Daresay I, stop fleching around, my maps, I say!" I had almost lost my temper. Finally rising up in the lazy manner that was his he had first to comb his part down the center and made sure his tie was just right before venturing out. The rain had not abated and both of us now were thoroughly drenched through by the time we arrived at the shaman’s tent. "Stay here, I will shout your name if things take a turn southerly." He gave me a stupid grimace and with both hands parted his hair down the middle.

Interlude: The Journals of E.H. Kranklehunt

From the Journals of E.H Kranklehunt.

“You tricksters!” I knocked over the lamps- oil spilling, I knew the vagabonds had come and replaced my maps with fakes. I stood up hitting my head and spilling my sweet drink.  I would not have all my work on this journey and search undone. They come here selling corn mashed with fish and sneak in while I am asleep from my cava. I rushed out shouting, “You tricksters, you vagabonds, you rascals, and rapscallions! My maps! My maps! I must have my maps back!”

      They were still in the camp. Posted up with their shanty tents and foodstuffs; the men in their armor eating and consorting with their pleasure girls. “What would great Jaguar have done with you?”

And they remembered what had been said about the East. From the east would come a man full of nonsense talk and fury.  They turned toward Monsignor Fabricio and began throwing corn husks at him.

Authors Note: Thanks to C.M. Mayo's Daily Five Minute writing exercises for inspiration. http://www.cmmayo.com

Mort and Nito

     The Grey-Eyed girl grabbed hold of his jacket sleeve and jerked him back from the curb as spray of greasy brown pot-hole water geysered up from under the oblivious beeping taxi’s tire.

“Sometimes I think the city is held together by dirty rain water,” Mort said.

“Ha, yeah and rust,” Nito said.

It was raining an all enveloping mist with a few fat cold drops, which would land on the back of Mort’s neck and run down his back. Nito had her hood up but the mist clung to her sweatshirt making it a wet sponge around her.They walked heads bent against the rain, the concrete sidewalk haloed in gasoline rainbows.

“I should of brought an umbrella,” Mort said.

“I don’t believe in umbrellas,” said Nito as she jumped a murky puddle. “We're almost there anyway.”

It was a small Italian restaurant with tinkling glasses, white table clothes, and waiters in black vests and bow ties. They were seated at a small table they were dripping wet and used their cloth napkins to dry their faces and hair.

“To me it’s just like a corpse of crumbling concrete, belching and bursting with noxious gases. We’re just the microbial life that’s left and worse; blow flies and maggots scurrying around trying to make a living off the host, running to catch the bus or thronging in crowds on 5^th ave. stampeding through Penn Station at rush hour. I imagine it’s all liquefying until all that’s left is the polished glass bones of the city,” Mort said rubbing his hands together on the napkin.

“Wow, that’s pretty grim, but I get your analogy.”

The waiter approached; his arms folded behind his back. “Have you decided on a wine sir?”

“No, not yet,” Mort said picking up the menu.

Walking away the waiter turned his nose up in the imperceptible way waiters in expensive restaurants have of doing without overtly offending you or actually turning their noses up.

“That guy was staring at you since we walked in,” Nito said.

“I guess he has something against wet people. I’m used to it- I never carry an umbrella,”

“So you don’t believe in them either, we have something in common,” Nito smiled. “You know, I’ve been staring at you since we sat down too.”

 “You- I like staring at me,” Mort said cracking a thin grin, a wave of heat spread over his pale skin. “You do have a way with those eyes.”

“It’s one of my skills,” Nito said. “Glad you noticed. Do you want to get out of here?” The grey-eyed girl stared down the waiter.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

“I know an awesome taco place in the Village.”

Mort and the grey-eyed girl walked and chatted at an easy pace (the rain having let up) through billowing clouds of steam emanating from the belly of the city through the groans and grinding teeth of garbage trucks, grating and slamming dumpsters full of trash and cast off scraps. The bleating and careening metro buses hydraulics hissing , kneeling  like subservient beasts of burden, wailing sirens and shouting, horns beeping and blaring everywhere, jackhammers, and alarms, but none of this interrupts them only makes them raise their voices or turn their head so they can hear each other better.  The lights of the digital signs, the glass of store fronts, stationary stores, smoke shops, porno palaces, 24hr. bodegas selling fruit out on the street lit up with bright flowers dyed every hue, bars and more bars, thrift stores, cleaners, hair and nail salons, trendy shops selling women’s clothes, abandoned empty store fronts, construction sites that turn the street into a maze of corridors and mirrors, the muck of the street an unspeakable combination of human excreta, vomit, dog shit, and leaking garbage bags, exhaust from the constant stream of cabs, cars, trucks, and buses.

“What’s the deal with your friend?” Nito asks.

“Prof. Sign is my friend but he is also my employer.”

“Oh, so are you the Watson to his Sherlock?”

“I guess you could say that, it’s really his story but I keep getting dragged in.”

“What are you working on now?”

Union square lit by the lampposts the trees glistened still dark and wet scrawling there naked branches out into the hazy sky. Mort fumbled his phone out of his pants pocket.

“Fuck!” Mort said looking at his phone.

“What is it?”

“Prof. Sign needs me. Shit, I forgot to turn up the ringer.”

“How long ago did he call?”

“Three hours ago.”