Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes Read online

  Performed? Yes – think of these nocturnes as surreal campfire stories. Lurid, bizarre stories of myth, horror, fabulous creatures, sex, and death to be listened to and experienced late at night as the flames flicker and perhaps die out. Or bedtime stories to be read with a flashlight under the sheets, stories that echo the (il)logic of the dreams and nightmares to come once we finally succumb to sleep.

  My exploration of this type of writing owes a huge debt to the surrealist writings of Belgian author Jacques Sternberg, in particular his collection of micromyths Contes glacés and his erotic novel Agathe et Béatrice, Claire et Dorothée.

  Other things fed into my “nocturnes” mode: most prominently, the deliriously bizarre and oblique fictions of R.A. Lafferty, the genrebending fabulist imagination of Garry Kilworth, and my lifelong fascination with the irreconcilable contradictions – both internal and cross-cultural – of myth.

  The Beginning of Time

  The Earth was much smaller back then, and all the lands were connected, so there was no need for boats or anything like that. The Earth was so small that you could walk all the way around and come back to where you’d started, having only slept four or five times. Well, maybe not that small. But not as big as it is now, at any rate.

  There were babies and children and youths and adults and elders. The thing is, though, those babies had always been babies, and those children had always been children, and those youths had always been youths, and those adults had always been adults, and those elders had always been elders. No-one ever aged. No-one remembered anything being any different, because the world had always existed and it had always been the same. Time hadn’t begun yet.

  Because time hadn’t begun, the Earth didn’t spin. So one half of the globe always faced the sun, and the other half was plunged in a perpetual darkness tempered only by the faint illumination of the moon and stars.

  Have I mentioned the demons yet? Oh yes, there were demons. Lots of demons. They weren’t evil, despite what some people are saying now. They were just kind of mischievous. And fast. They were so fast you could barely see them. You could just catch fleeting glimpses as they zipped around and made your hair catch fire, switched lovers around from bed to bed while they slept, peed in your soup, farted in your face, ran on the water so as to produce giant waves that would splash all over everybody, or whatever.

  Eventually, the demons got too clever for their own good.

  What an awesome prank it would be if they turned the world around so that the half plunged in darkness would face the sun and the half bathing in sunlight faced the moon!

  So they ran as fast as they could. Faster, faster, faster, until the Earth started spinning.

  They hadn’t counted on it continuing to spin. All the demons were flung off the Earth because of the speed of its rotation. Ever wonder about comets? They’re the demons, flying through space, totally out of control.

  Many people didn’t think to hold on to anything when the Earth began to rotate, and they got flung off, too. Most of them eventually wound up on other planets.

  Still, lots of people managed to hold on to good old planet Earth while it spun around.

  The demons had kick-started time.

  Suddenly, some of the elders died of old age. And some of the women felt a stirring in their wombs.

  For a long time, it was pretty rough going, always having to hold on so as not to get flung out into space while the Earth spun on.

  Eventually, someone invented gravity. But that’s another story.

  What to Do with the Dead

  At first, people had no idea what to do with their dead. If you just left them lying around, they started to stink, not to mention all the vermin they tended attract. So that option was ruled out pretty quickly.

  Not everyone came up with the same solution to the problem.

  THE PEOPLE OF THE ISLANDS

  The Islanders, surrounded as they were by water, naturally thought of giving their dead to the ocean. They weren’t sure what the Ocean God would think of that idea, so every time they dumped a corpse into his domain they appeased the god with sacred songs and the blood of an infant. They didn’t kill the baby – they just cut the flesh of its left thumb and let a trickle of blood flow into the water.

  Their rituals did the trick, and the Ocean God accepted the dead of the Islanders. Since the corpses were now his, he decided to put them to good use. He asked his daughters to gather the freshly dead and bring them to his workshop. It was strewn with the body parts of dead fish, which had been accumulating for ages. All this time, he’d been trying to figure out what to do with the dead fish!

  So he went to work ripping bodies apart and patching them up again, only not as they were before. He mixed fish parts with human parts. Some had fish heads and human torsos. Others had fish tails but human heads. Some had flippers for feet, but human hands – and even more bizarre permutations. The Ocean God tried every combination imaginable. The problem was: they stayed dead.

  Some of the god’s patchwork creations were ugly and scary-looking, but others were imbued with an ethereal beauty. One was so beautiful that Tsurseaa, the Ocean God’s youngest daughter, dreamt of it every night, imagining herself kissing its smooth torso, tonguing its gills, rubbing herself against its flippers, feeling its fins dig into her flesh, running her fingers through its hair.

  Tsurseaa had never been taught the difference between the living and the dead. One morning, unable to contain herself any longer, she kissed the beautiful patchwork creature.

  And it came to life.

  Tsurseaa was so alarmed when the beautiful creature stirred that she swam away and hid, fearing her father’s wrath for her interference with his experiments.

  When the Ocean God noticed the patchwork creature, he asked it how it had come to be alive.

  The creature said, “Your daughter Tsurseaa gave me the kiss of life.”

  The Ocean God beamed with pride. “What a clever girl!” Then, addressing the creature, he said, “You are the first of the merfolk, and you shall henceforth be called by the name Tritus.”

  Meanwhile, Tsurseaa was hiding, or thought she was. It’s impossible for water creatures to hide from the Ocean God, so he reached out and brought her into his presence. Not knowing what had transpired between the patchwork creature and her father, Tsurseaa trembled with fear.

  But her father reassured her, instructing her to kiss all of his patchwork creatures.

  Tsurseaa, relieved that her father was pleased, obeyed. But some of the creatures were hideous. In those cases, she closed her eyes and imagined she was kissing Tritus, the beautiful merman who had inspired that first kiss.

  THE PEOPLE OF THE MOUNTAINS

  The Mountaineers resorted to an obvious solution to the question of the dead: throw the bodies down a cliff.

  They hadn’t counted on the wrath of the Land God, who was not amused at having rotting corpses rain down on his realm. The Land God sent the people of the Plains to slaughter the Mountaineers for their transgression.

  Once the massacre was over with, the people of the Plains were seduced by the spectacular vistas, the brisk air, that triumphant feeling of being on top of world...

  Up there, the Land God didn’t seem all that powerful. Maybe they were tired of being bossed around.

  So they settled in the high altitudes. However, there was the issue of the corpses of all those people they had killed. No problem! They threw them over the cliffside – and continued that tradition with their own dead.

  Even gods must accept their lot.

  THE PEOPLE OF THE NORTH

  The Northerners had their own clever idea. Since it was so cold in their land, why not simply burn the dead? That way, they thought, not only would they be rid of the corpses but the process would also generate some much-needed heat.

  The Cold God, however, was jealous of the bodies his brother the Ocean God received from the Islanders. Maybe he could make his own creatures from corpses.

  Here�
��s what he did. First, he built a giant skeleton out of ice. He waited for the next time the Northerners tried to cremate one of their dead. When they did, he snuffed out the flame of the funeral pyre with a fierce and freezing wind, and then stole the body. He brought the corpse to where he had built the ice skeleton. Then he cut open the dead body and took out its heart. He punched the dead heart until it once more started beating. He placed the reanimated heart inside the rib cage of the ice skeleton. He removed the other innards and inserted them in their proper places within the icy frame.

  Then he peeled the skin from the corpse and stretched it until it fit over the giant ice skeleton. To protect the skin, he placed a layer of sticky snow over the whole thing.

  It turned out that the frost giant had a huge appetite, and that he preferred human flesh over all other meat (although he ate any animal he encountered).

  This annoyed the Northerners, of course. Not only were they in danger of being killed and eaten by the frost giant, but he also consumed the animals the people themselves depended on for survival.

  One giant wasn’t too bad, but, if the Cold God kept this up, the Northerners would be wiped out.

  So here’s what they did the very next time one of them died. First, they built a decoy funeral pyre in which they burned a straw dummy rubbed in animal fat. The Cold God blew out the flame with his freezing wind and stole the dummy. Meanwhile, the Northerners cremated the real corpse, and before the god realized his mistake it was too late: the dead body had turned to ash.

  To this day, the Cold God keeps trying to steal the Northerners’ dead, but every time he falls for the same trick. Not the smartest of gods, that one.

  THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST

  The Easterners settled on burying the bodies of their dead in the ground. That idea made the Earth God happy. He ate up the corpses and shat out rich soil for the Easterners’ crops.

  That was so easy! Let’s move on to the people of the West, who didn’t have it quite so easy.

  THE PEOPLE OF THE WEST

  The Westerners didn’t like the notion that their dead would be forever lost to them, so they invented the art of taxidermy. That way, they preserved their dead in perfect condition. They could keep them around for family meetings, weddings, religious services, and things like that. Best of all, because they were dead, they never argued or bored people with their opinions.

  After a while, it got pretty crowded with dead people, but the Westerners didn’t mind. The more, the merrier, they said. They were always saying things like that. Talking in aphorisms and such. They thought they were clever and funny, but really they were just boorish.

  The Trickster God decided he would teach the Westerners a thing or two about being funny. So he breathed life into all the stuffed dead people. By then, there were more dead people than live people in the West, and the dead were famished. They hadn’t eaten in ages. It didn’t take long for them to eat up all the food. All that was left for them to eat was the living people, so that’s what they ate. There was lots of screaming while that was going on.

  And then there were no Westerners left. And no food either. In time, with no food to eat, the reanimated corpses wound down and just stopped moving or doing anything.

  If I were you, I’d stay away from there.

  THE PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH

  All that talk of food! I’m starving by now. I can smell tonight’s stew ... mmm. Time to wrap this up.

  Here in the South, we had the best solution to the problem of the dead.

  We eat them. Pretty simple, hey? We chop them up, and in they go, into the day’s stew. No fuss, no trouble.

  No god’s ever bothered us about it, so we figure it’s all good.

  Grandpa was big and fat. Should be quite the feast tonight.

  Okay, maybe sometimes we don’t wait for people to grow old and die. My sister spotted a boat near the coast today. After dinner, we go hunting.

  The Four Elements: Earth (Nephesh)

  She hears them leave. Still, she waits. Hiding. She hears the clatter of rain. Some time later, she emerges from her hole in the ground, her well-concealed cellar. The sun hurts her eyes.

  The stink of death hits her. Blood. Shit. Piss. Rot. A brew of odours she will never forget.

  She thinks: Words carry power.

  Yirah. Fear.

  Sawnay. Hate.

  Met. Death.

  Pogrom.

  Everyone she’s ever known: dead. Slaughtered. Mutilated.

  It is too much for tears, she thinks. But she is crying. In silence, lest she be heard.

  She leaves the village. She walks aimlessly until she collapses in the drying mud.

  She rubs the mud on her face. She inhales its earthy odours. They scrape at the stink of death lodged inside her.

  Her hands work the mud and the soil. She kneads the earth. Molds it.

  Words carry power, she thinks again.

  Emet. Truth.

  No. A more appropriate word occurs to her.

  She looks down at her handiwork. The shape of a man. A man with broad, strong shoulders. With a powerful, heavy chest. Endowed with an enormous zayin, created erect under her hands.

  She touches between her legs. Her time has come. Her blood. Not the blood of death, but the blood of life. She squats on her creation’s mouth and lets her menses flow into it.

  Life. Nephesh.

  With a bloody finger she carves the word on its forehead, then whispers it in its ear.

  The creature stirs.

  She impales her wetness on its zayin.

  For a time, while they squirm together in the mud, while she loses herself in the smells of the earth and the sensation of the massive zayin grinding inside her, she desperately thinks of life.

  Later, she will think of the death her golem will visit upon her enemies.

  The Secret Seduction

  of the Subtle Serpent

  You are lying, relaxed, on a thick rug. Your legs are stretched out. Your bare feet enjoy the heat of the open fireplace. You are sipping an aromatic tea, whose flavour is exotic and unfamiliar, but soothing and enchanting. You swirl the hot liquid in your mouth before swallowing it. You look up and consider your host.

  The Subtle Serpent is coiled around a ridged treelike piece of furniture, his weight distributed on many of its branches. His mute servant slips a pungent bowl under the Serpent’s barely noticeable flat nose, causing a wave to ripple gently through his entire body.

  Despite his name, the Subtle Serpent is not truly a snake, not quite. His scaly, coiling body measures roughly two metres from head to tail. His only limbs are two short, undigited arms that slither constantly. His head bulges into a sphere, ringed by a narrow black mask resting on his tiny ears, with slits cut out for the eyes.

  The Serpent closes his eyes, inhales deeply from the pungent bowl. He holds his breath. He is visibly concentrating, keeping his body from rippling in the wake of the inhalation. He repeats this several times, in a slow, ritualized manner. Eventually, the Serpent can no longer hold the waves back and his body thrashes ecstatically for two or three minutes.

  When the Serpent’s thrashing subsides, the mute servant retreats to the corner from which he watches the room, attentive to the needs of its occupants.

  Suddenly, the Serpent’s voice booms out loudly, its rumbling tone and timbre at odds with his sinewy body. His eyes remain closed, and he starts recounting his tale, as if in a trance.

  “The Subtle Serpent was an alluring, passionate, suave young snake. He discarded lovers like so much dead skin. He saw lovers not as prey, as the casual observer might have concluded, but as works of art, to be savoured to the fullest until every drop of meaning, every shade of emotion had been experienced. But afterward, once the final page of the affair was turned ... to be shelved away, like a book. Not out of disdain or boredom, but because one was done with it. Afterward, it could still be loved in memory, perhaps occasionally fondled if its spine should strike the eye from the bookshelf, but rarel
y to reopen its pages and abandon oneself again to its pleasures. There were so many other books to savour. So it was with past lovers: an occasional fondling was pleasurable, but to share once more in sexual communion distracted from the quest to explore fresh new bodies. The young Serpent worked for the diplomatic corps. He welcomed diplomats with his curious, eager body. He revelled in experiencing the sexual rituals of alien bodies. His xenophilia extended beyond his professional and sexual interests. His life was xenophilic. His sexual success could be attributed to his passionate interest in everything alien – not only alien to his species, but alien to himself in any way. His sexual conquests included not only aliens, but many members of his own species. His unfeigned, intelligent, absolute curiosity was an irresistible aphrodisiac. He studied alien art and literature with erotic zeal, learning as many languages as possible. His life was an infinite cornucopia of pleasure. Art, parties, sex, people ... All at his disposal, to be cherished and loved. One diplomat captured his love like no other before him. Their affair started like many others, the Serpent inviting the foreign envoy to an intimate meal, showering his attentions on the new object of his erotic desires, asking careful questions to indicate his interest, the conversation turning toward his guest’s native sexual customs, sexual experience, and – eventually – sexual curiosity. Even during their first coupling the Serpent felt something new. The alien’s sexual curiosity seemed as intense as his own. Thus, the seed of tenderness was planted within him. The two lovers met whenever possible, their mutually alien bodies learning to please each other more and more intensely. The Subtle Serpent was hopelessly in love. Slowly, insidiously, the character of their relationship shifted. Smitten as he was, the Serpent was oblivious to this change. The alien was taking control of their sexual encounters, casually but certainly dominating his lover, the young Subtle Serpent. Eventually – the Serpent never knowing when the boundary had been crossed – their sexual communion was transformed into sessions of ritualized, eroticized abuse from which he emerged with his identity severely wounded, but to which he grew emotionally addicted – an addiction that fuelled his growing sense of self-disgust. Inevitably, his work suffered. He was no longer the genial, suave diplomat his department had learned to depend on. His self-involvement caused him to blunder too often, sometimes nearly resulting in serious diplomatic incidents. He was ordered to leave his post after many warnings failed to elicit any change for the better in his professional performance. His affair with the alien had destroyed the career that he had cherished so much, that had brought him pleasure upon pleasure. Characteristically, he blamed only himself. He went to his lover, in shame and desperation – hoping to find comfort and love. The alien refused to see him and promptly complained to the proper authorities that he was being harassed by a bothersome native. Further humiliation ensued when he was publicly reprimanded for this diplomatic offense. Irrationally, he still yearned for his lover’s sexual abuse, his mutilated mind interpreting the attention as affection. He eventually left his homeworld in disgrace, neglecting to inform anyone of his departure. Over the years, he had amassed considerable wealth – his generous salary supplemented with gifts from grateful, wealthy lovers. He established himself on Earth, where he has since lived as a recluse, in comfort and shame, a shallow echo of his former self.”