Fiction: Short Stories & Excerpts by Robert Fuller

Close Call, by Robert Fuller

Hey, next time before you stare too long in the mirror, remember what I’ve always told you. I can see you’ve already forgotten. We talked about whispering. It was while you walked backward through your memories, on some deserted beach, in some forgotten place, either alone or with some imagined companion conjured up out of your own gaze. I thought it was because you were utterly entranced with your own likeness. So actually, it may have been you walking with yourself, muttering occasional expletives that the other you happened to overhear, at least until the pristine beach gave way to an impassable wall of rocks.

As you may recall, once the rocks materialized, you remembered the whispering, even though it was too late. They carried you away to a desolate place, because one of your selves was muttering excessively to your other self. If you’d been whispering, you wouldn’t now be in such a place of desolation, since they would have overlooked you. I can see you now, I can visualize the small room barren of all humanity, bereft of all except a bed and a mirror.

It is the mirror that now occupies you endlessly.

I don’t remember how you managed to get your keepers to allow you to receive outside communications, but I know it’s only been a few months, even though you were admitted to your small room many years ago.

Even so, once the channels of communication were open, you didn’t immediately respond to those who tried to contact you. I think you were probably a bit apprehensive, and you certainly didn’t trust your keepers to any great extent.

I don’t think you’ve ever contacted me directly, and, in fact, I don’t have any hard evidence that you’ve actually received my communications. I can only see—or imagine—you continually, ceaselessly polishing the glass in front of you, almost as if you wanted to polish it away into nothing. And whenever you aren’t polishing the glass, I can visualize you alternately admiring and then glaring at your own likeness, in a state of perpetual confusion about it, sometimes caressing it, and at other times sending it nothing but vitriol.

You have insinuated that your keepers hardly ever concern themselves with you, and, in fact, they are only there to ensure that you are well enough nourished. They are keeping you alive, bodily, nothing else.

I would have thought that your keepers would have presented themselves for your rehabilitation, at least on occasion, but, on the contrary, they’ve willingly left you and your other you—the one that you can now admire or curse so thoughtlessly in the mirror—to do as you please, as if the reason for your imprisonment were, after all that you’ve gone through, of no account.

But the mirror: that is in fact your beginning and your end, and this is in truth why you want to grind it away into oblivion—it is because you will yourself cease to be, that is, finally, irrevocably, you will send yourself, and your now disappeared other self, mysteriously to be conjoined forever, horizontally, to your small room’s own bed of endless night.

These newfangled phones! I’ve never seen this model before. It seems to be some sort of closed circuit. Almost as if one were talking to oneself...

February 9, 2013

The Set, by Robert Fuller (excerpt—18.)

The little boy’s crayons had been working overtime, meanwhile, some of them almost drawn down right down to the nub, to the point where it was just about time to call in reinforcements. Fortunately, right about then, a playmate of his, a little girl just a few months older than him, marched right up to his lair, wearing a tiny daypack that was just chock full of goodies. In one hand she carried a small musical instrument case.

Darling that she was, she must have known of his passion for expressing himself in the visual arena, and she’d gone to the trouble, hadn’t she, well it wasn’t any trouble at all, actually, no it wasn’t, of procuring a deluxe set, bordering on the ultimate in color fun and excitement, just for him, and it seemed to him once he managed to open up his new treasure trove that some of those colors he’d never seen before, and he wondered at them, he just wondered: how could colors such as these even exist? A leaf swirled into his lap.

Now when he looked down at the scrap of paper he’d just been filling up, and back up at his newly-begotten toybox, he was a bit crestfallen, because it was so clear now that it was a drab, miserly color scheme he’d chosen, one that didn’t at all match up with the majesty of the subject matter, in fact, all of the lines and angles themselves were suspect, so much so that they appeared to be cowering in the shadows, each one trying to hide under each other’s blankets, pleats, puckers, skirts, quilts, and comforters, hoping against hope now that they would remain unheeded, transparent, invisible, camouflaged by the bumps and striations and other imperfections in the very texture of the paper itself.

She had to chide and berate him, even rib him just a wee bit for what she perceived to be a mild tantrum, mind you not more than a two, if that, on her private richter scale, and merely yet another sorry example of an artist being his own worst critic. Once she had had a chance to present her case to him fully, she was certain he would never again impose on himself such a harsh and undeserved judgment and sentence. She pointed out to him demurely that if he were to look carefully enough at his drawing, preferably before he had endeavored to rip it entirely to shreds, he would soon realize that his chosen color schemes, while not necessarily nearly as vibrant or neon as some of the more obviously dazzling, eye-catching, bold, showy, ostentatious, gaudy, garish, lurid, loud, jazzy, flashy, rococo pointy-tipped characters she’d hooked him up with by means of the cutting-edge, razzle-dazzle, hocus-pocus devilry of an artist’s palette in a box, perhaps of the pandora variety, that she’d just bequeathed him, they were nevertheless true to life.

She pointed to numerous places in the drawing where he’d not only gotten the tint or dye of someone’s old dutch or petit goatee just perfect, whether the bristles were uniform, piebald, or salt-and-pepper in nature, but he’d clearly nailed the texture, not only of the stubble, but also of any pockmarks, dimples, blotches, ruddiness, pimples, freckles, lines, wrinkles, or blemishes that he may have been faced with. He daydreamed of barks, water.

And he should have been much more receptive to the sensitivity and suppleness evidenced in the banners, streamers, and confetti that she pointed to, in a grand cabaret sweep of her small hand, which covered a large swath of the loftier regions of the canvas, mostly in cosmopolitan tricolor, but with flecks of liberty green showing through just so, all nicely geometrically arranged as if by divine decree. And did he think for a moment that she was unaware of the infinite detail he’d bestowed in jest upon each little banderole in turn? Why, if you gazed attentively enough, you could even make out the basic gist of what was written on each one, even if you weren’t well-versed enough in any of the languages to be completely proficient in any of them. Locks of hair drifted down-canal.

The constable, just back from a smoke break, looked on with interest, and began to wear the onset of a mischievous grin, as he could see that the boy’s heart was back in it.

A Feast for the Senses, by Robert Fuller (excerpt)

Dreaming without rain droplets. The rain had subsided. How to dream it back?

Paige, who also doubled as sous chef, had sensed that with a new set of flavors in the mix, it might turn out that the extra pungency and zest could well seed new clouds within their dream.

In the gallery there were several goblets that Smith—Alma, to be sure—had so gracefully adorned with prayer plants, stromanthe, so artfully, such that if you looked just so at those vessels, you could even sense the leaves furling and unfurling, and then, at daybreak, following the sun.

Just then, the sous chef arrived with yet more delectables—garnished as they were with the yellow flowers and trefoil leaf cuttings of the pickle plant, to add just a touch more of the bitter to the baked dish she’d just now dreamed up—which had been carefully spooned into bowls decorated with cave painting images mainly set in the red-orange-yellow range of the spectrum.

These yummies were a variant of truffled mac and cheese, done up with penne pasta cooked in water laced with clam juice, cayenne pepper, lemon salt, ancho chili powder, and herbes de Provence, as well as a generous helping of clams, and drizzled with fish sauce, then drained and baked for a full hour, with a soft melt of black truffle goat cheese added for the final ten minutes.

There was a general hubbub, not right when Paige brought in all those toothsome savories, but only a bit thereafter, once all the mouths in the gallery had settled so piquantly into all the rich, luscious succulence that had been captured by her within her latest culinary experiment.

Almost simultaneously, like clockwork, our brewster Esther brought in trays of small tasters of her newest hefe, with extra wedges of lemon for anyone who might care to add a bit more sour.

Suddenly, a cloud of ester-like aromas: strawberry, apple, banana, pear, pineapple, durian.

Then, a while before the pièce de résistance—the bouillabaisse—the improv show continued.

Paige and Esther—the aromas had by then dissipated—had agreed to team up, to woman up, on the bouillabaisse, which, with subtle hints of cayenne and saffron, was certain to please.

Alma, meanwhile, she had lined up some of her most enticing, enchanting glass casts of a variety of ocean prey, the ultimate catch, visually and sensorily, angled and trawled, extracted and retrieved, and then blown, via blowpipe, into various sea creatures, all set, mirrored, as glassfish.

And they mirrored themselves all around the gallery, repeating and reflecting, sending their own images throughout the whole space of it. And then, just as suddenly as it had almost been forgotten, the play again began, the players all geared up in masks: set to enjoy the impending feast after words, given to eat and to drink, to all possible merriment before the end of their days.

So it was, with sea robin, monkfish, john dory, slipper lobster, velvet crab, sea urchin, vive.

A sea change, then, set to musics of poissons d’or, other minds, obscured by masques, the tragicomedy of existence, house of mirrors with no exit, reflets dans l’eau, bells through the leaves.

Ward in the hospital, une barque sur l’océan: two crabs, two lovers, two thistles, two women in the moor, the woods, the brothel, with trees in blossom, with irises in the foreground, the painter on his way to work, in the courtyard of the hospital, willows at sunset, two red herrings.

Three magpie harlequin cats, a Persian, a Tiffanie, and an exotic shorthair, well, they had until now been either preening themselves, or otherwise luxuriantly napping, hibernating, or couch surfing. Provided with cozy beds, cozy comforters, placed in various discreet cozy locations throughout the gallery, all they did was purr, hardly even noticed by the casual observer.

A Feast for the Senses, by Robert Fuller (excerpt in Spanish)

Una fiesta para los sentidos

Soñar sin gotas de lluvia. La lluvia había amainado. ¿Cómo volver a soñarla?

Paige, que también ejercía de ayudante de chef, había intuido que con un nuevo conjunto de sabores en la mezcla, podría resultar que el picante y la ralladura adicionales bien podrían sembrar nuevas nubes dentro de su sueño.

En la galería había varias copas que Smith -Alma, sin duda- había adornado con tanta gracia con plantas de oración, stromanthe, tan artísticamente, de tal manera que si uno miraba justo así a esos recipientes, podía incluso sentir cómo las hojas se enrollaban y desplegaban, y luego, al amanecer, seguían al sol.

En ese momento, el sous chef llegó con más delicias, adornadas con flores amarillas y hojas de trébol de la planta de los pepinillos, para añadir un toque de amargura al plato que acababa de preparar, que habían sido cuidadosamente servidas en cuencos decorados con imágenes de pinturas rupestres, principalmente en la gama de colores rojo-naranja-amarillo del espectro.

Estas delicias eran una variante de macarrones con queso trufado, hechos con pasta penne cocida en agua con jugo de almejas, pimienta de cayena, sal de limón, chile ancho en polvo y hierbas de Provenza, así como una generosa ración de almejas, y rociados con salsa de pescado, luego escurridos y horneados durante una hora entera, con un suave derretimiento de queso de cabra trufado negro añadido durante los últimos diez minutos.

Hubo una algarabía general, no justo cuando Paige trajo todos aquellos sabrosos manjares, sino sólo un poco después, una vez que todas las bocas de la galería se hubieron asentado tan picantemente en toda la rica y deliciosa suculencia que había sido capturada por ella dentro de su último experimento culinario.

Casi al mismo tiempo, como un reloj, nuestra cervecera Esther trajo bandejas con pequeñas muestras de su hefe más reciente, con trozos extra de limón para quien quisiera añadir un poco más de ácido.

De repente, una nube de aromas tipo éster: fresa, manzana, plátano, pera, piña, durian.

Luego, un rato antes de la pièce de résistance -la bullabesa- continuó el espectáculo de improvisación.

Paige y Esther -los aromas ya se habían disipado- habían acordado formar equipo, ser mujeres, en la bullabesa, que, con sutiles toques de cayena y azafrán, sin duda iba a gustar.

Alma, mientras tanto, había alineado algunos de sus moldes de vidrio más tentadores y encantadores de una variedad de presas oceánicas, la captura definitiva, visual y sensorialmente, angulada y arrastrada, extraída y recuperada, y luego soplada, a través de un soplete, en varias criaturas marinas, todas colocadas, reflejadas, como peces de cristal.

Y se reflejaron por toda la galería, repitiéndose y reflejándose, enviando sus propias imágenes por todo el espacio. Y entonces, tan repentinamente como casi había sido olvidada, la obra comenzó de nuevo, todos los actores ataviados con máscaras: listos para disfrutar de la inminente fiesta después de las palabras, entregados a comer y beber, a toda la alegría posible antes del fin de sus días.

Así fue, con petirrojo de mar, rape, gallo, langosta zapatilla, cangrejo de terciopelo, erizo de mar, vive.

Un cambio de mar, entonces, ambientado con músicas de poissons d'or, otras mentes, oscurecidas por masques, la tragicomedia de la existencia, casa de espejos sin salida, reflets dans l'eau, campanas a través de las hojas.

Sala en el hospital, une barque sur l'océan: dos cangrejos, dos amantes, dos cardos, dos mujeres en el páramo, el bosque, el burdel, con árboles en flor, con lirios en primer plano, el pintor camino del trabajo, en el patio del hospital, sauces al atardecer, dos arenques rojos.

Tres gatos arlequín urraca, un persa, un tiffanie y un exótico de pelo corto, habían estado hasta ahora acicalándose o durmiendo lujosamente la siesta, hibernando o surfeando en el sofá. Dotados de camas y edredones acogedores, colocados en varios lugares discretamente acogedores por toda la galería, lo único que hacían era ronronear, sin que el observador casual se percatara de ello.

Max, by Robert Fuller

Max was noodling on his guitar, lounging on the sofa while playing the same three chords over and over again, butchering and twanging them incessantly while mumbling or groaning or falsettoing yet another tired set of lyrics about his ex-girlfriends and how they’d all dissed him and how, even when everything was still good, none of them had been truly worthy of him, with his artistic prowess being what it was and all. They’d all rue the day they let him go. He was going places!

But after a few hours of that, suddenly, in a fit of fury, he threw the guitar clear across the room, breaking most of the strings and severely damaging the body.

“I can’t take this any more! I’m tired of this crap!” He was yelling at the TV, at the walls, at anyone or anything that would listen. No one responded, at least not right away.

He had secretly wanted, for most of his life, to do something more interesting and fulfilling, more elaborate. He had been pursuing his own studies in private for the last decade or so, but only half-heartedly; if he’d mentioned this to any of his friends, he would have instantly been an outcast, a pariah, no longer a member of their cliques.

But he had finally reached his breaking point, and no longer cared about winning anybody’s popularity contest. It wasn’t a matter of having reasoned it through, as a completely rational human being; it was more on the feeling level, in the shape of a nagging intuition that he had been wasting his life and his talent, trying in vain to fit his life experience into the same old tired, formulaic constructs.

After all, the world of sound, just like the world itself, was a vast, swirling, infinite vortex. Why, then, should he submit to tasting just the tiniest subset of a realm that had no bounds, no shackles, and where anything was possible?

His studies, which initially he had pursued entirely on his own, without anyone else guiding him, were an amalgamation of numerous fields and disciplines, not all of which were directly related to music. He felt deeply that, within this infinite, bewildering, wonderful, terrifying universe—which included the universe of sound, since everything was really just some kind of vibration—everything, at all levels, micro, macro, and everything in between, was not only part of a mysterious unity, but was also self-similar, at every level. No matter where you looked, the patterns all merged, converging and diverging at infinity.

An older friend of his, whose studies in music spanned quite a few decades, including an eclectic mix of both formal training and self-directed forays into a wide variety of subjects, had recommended that he look into the study and practice of music theory throughout the many centuries it had flourished prior to its blatant commercialization and commodification. In this modern era, what had at one time been an art form called “music” had morphed into an industry devoted to supplying consumers with the soundtracks and ditties they apparently required to get on with their lives of toil, mostly for business executives much wealthier and more important than they would ever be.

So Max, initially, without much of an idea where this new adventure would lead him, cautiously stepped into the tepid waters of his search.

Even though he no longer considered himself religious, at least not in the usual sense, he very quickly discovered plainchant, with all its elaborate melodies, melismas, peculiar Latin texts, and tropes, and he spent countless summer hours in the upstairs back porch of his parents’ house, adrift in the study of just how the ancient monks and saints had managed to conjure up their timeless, haunting melodies. He was so rapt, at times, with his newfound direction in life that he was completely oblivious to the obscenely high heat and humidity enveloping the solitude of his secret lair up in the sweltering summer air.

His study of plainchant led, logically, to a number of other pursuits that he tackled simultaneously. He soon became fascinated by species counterpoint, as codified primarily in Johann Joseph Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum. But when he started to delve into the subject matter, he very quickly became aware that, in order to be able to juxtapose multiple melodies simultaneously, without resulting in some kind of dissonant jungle of cacophony, he would be required to learn a great deal about some of the other laws underlying and underpinning the musical arts. There was the study of functional harmony, which dealt with the chordal structures that came about when you combined two or more melodies. And the idea that there were various ways that chords functioned within the major and minor scales was something that he found intriguing. They were aligned in some kind of hierarchical system, within which the functionality was related not only to the degree of the scale, but also to the chord type (which could be major, minor, diminished, or any number of related chord varieties), as well as to its function within the workings of the harmonic system. This word “function” was elusive, in that what it really meant was that chords based on various scale degrees were grouped together because they fit within certain fundamental chord patterns that had, over the centuries, been tested with a wide variety of melodies, counterpoints, and rhythms—not to mention tested throughout the ever-evolving history of musical styles—and found to bring a certain feeling of coherence, logic, and pleasure to the aural experience.

But in order to truly delve into music’s mysteries and secrets, Max soon became aware that he would have to explore a bit deeper; he was missing an important piece of the puzzle. There was a most basic foundation, a basement, that held up his castle of musical enchantment; and he had, to date, been completely unaware that it even existed.

How had Western musics initially decided upon the major and minor scales, or, for instance, the modes of ancient Greece? Max deduced that he wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to address this question without further study, on a more microcosmic level within this discipline. He would have to take up the study of musical acoustics. But at the time he had no clue that that particular study was to be the next step in his journey.

He picked up the remnants, the bones, of his former guitar, and contemplated what he had just done. It occurred to him that the guitar itself was not the problem. The actual problem was that he himself, along with most of human society, was stuck in self-generating, self-replicating patterns, and that these patterns themselves were never really critically examined by... well, by hardly anyone at all!

He began exploring his own philosophy of the human experiment. (He had no idea how this experiment had initially arisen. There were certain ancient myths about how and where humans came from—and why—but he generally didn’t give them much credence.)

In order to think deeply about anything of relevance, he reasoned, it was necessary—or at the very least useful—to begin from some particular. From within the limitations imposed on him by conditions not entirely, or at all, under his control, it was to him obvious that he couldn’t start by examining any sort of universal “truth” based, most likely, on a bunch of unproven, or merely surmised, axioms.

So: there was the observation that humans, as well as most or all other life forms, tend to replicate.

Now, in the present-day quagmire that humans were suffering through, virtually everything that could be bought and sold on the marketplace was basically a replica of some original artifact, which was then poured into a mold, mass-produced, and then shipped, at a price, to the eager participants, the consumers, within the non-zero-sum game of the global market economy.

But, more to the point, any successful replication of a cultural, or otherwise, merely popular artifact, once a certain critical mass was reached, tended, at least for the short term, to be self-reinforcing. The more copies you sold, the more copies you sold. It was that simple.

And the replication facet of this machine was even more pernicious than that. The replication extended even to the substance, the marrow, of the audio commodity that they were all marketing. “Repetition sells.” If you repeat a tune or a sad or sexy set of lyrics or some other kind of “hook” enough times within a three-minute song, the masses will buy it. They are seduced, they are assuaged, they are mesmerized. They fall asleep.

Max was tired of sleep. Of that kind of sleep.

A few days later, he finally heard from his girlfriend. Max had no idea why she had apparently ignored him for that stretch of time. Possibly she’d heard through the grapevine that he’d thrown his guitar against the wall...

He heard her voice over the receiver; the reception wasn’t so good. He wasn’t quite certain that he understood fully what she was saying. She may not have known herself.

But there was a certain flavor to her tone of voice that he just could no longer relate to. It was her insistence on discussing, on and on, something that he no longer identified with. He wasn’t entirely sure what the topic in question was; he just had this vague feeling that whatever it was no longer suited him, in his present state.

Then he saw it, all at once: their own melodrama was the basis for, was the epitome of, the very same stock lyrics that everyone else in the music business was parroting over and over again.

He walked through the woods on all of his favorite trails in the greenbelt, listening with great deliciousness to the brooks and creeks made fat by last week’s downpours and showers. The faint gurgling of the water was a canvas, made for the birds to paint their rich colors of song, in pastels, oils, and crayon, upon this, nature’s own fabled tapestry of gurgle-song. He was drunk, absolutely soaked in, the sound-rich forest of his own imagination. He walked and walked and soaked everything in.

Later on, as if by magic, he stumbled upon the key he’d been awaiting just recently in the course of his always-fluid musical journey of study.

Helmholtz! As with some of the other paths within his labyrinth of discovery, he had absolutely no idea how it was that he found this particular link, this piece of the puzzle that so tightly bound so many of the other pieces into a unity that was now so rapidly coalescing, converging straight toward the horizon of his understanding!

This missing link, the one he’d been so assiduously awaiting, revealed to him that all sounds could be built up from various combinations of the simplest of oscillations, namely, sine waves. From any given pitch, referred to as the fundamental, you could easily derive a series of harmonics: twice the frequency of the fundamental, then three times the frequency, then four times, and so forth. If you were to add these harmonics together, starting from the fundamental frequency, such that each successive harmonic sounded at a softer volume than the preceding, you would discover that the quality, the sound color, the timbre, of the periodic waveform would change. Any change in sound color would be dependent on the relative amplitudes of all its harmonics. To be simplistic about it, if you were to change the relative amplitudes of the harmonics in a violin sound suitably, it might well sound more like an oboe!

Now, reading further into this thick text by Helmholtz, Max came upon another key. The simple integer ratios of the harmonics, or partials, of any musical tone, also provided the basic framework that musical scales were derived from. The most basic of intervals, the octave, was simply two times the initial frequency. Thus, all octaves, starting from any given frequency, could be expressed as ratios of the powers of two: 1, 2, 4, etc. For octaves lower than the initial frequency, the ratios would be the inverse: 1, 1/2, 1/4, and so forth.

After that, everything got much murkier, much more complicated.

Meanwhile, Max had invested in a new guitar. This one was special, in that it had been made by a local artisanal instrument maker that he’d met in person, which is to say that it hadn’t been mass-produced anonymously in some third-world factory. The sounds, the timbres, he was able to produce, whenever he was totally attuned to his new guitar, were other-worldly, sublime, totally rad.

He studied how the instrument had been crafted. He paid special attention to the layout of the frets, and their relative proportions. He could clearly see, and hear, that, on the low E string, the octave above could be produced by pressing down at precisely the midpoint of the string, and then plucking it.

In the next few weeks, he returned to his native location, deep in the woods, surrounded by the avian-gurgle of water-song. He wandered day by day, not certain of anything, just listening, deeply, deep in the woods. No one bothered him.

His forays into the world of sound, at first tentative, blossomed into many flowers, many petals of serendipity, worlds of audio that he’d never imagined possible. All the birds of the world sang, screeched, jammed in harmony with him. He was never alone.

He became aware of infinite possibilities, all very soft and subtle, of how all the earthly and universal sounds could resonate, speak, howl, within one’s being and conscious awareness. He let them resonate, freely.

The Inspector, by Robert Fuller

The Inspector was busy. The phone rang incessantly. Finally he picked up.

“Gaudeau, who is it?”

An awkward silence ensued. Then a timid voice. “I have important information.”

“What is its nature? And who are you?”

“I can’t divulge that. But it’s very important. It’s about your case.”

“Nobody knows about it. It’s strictly top secret.” Then a short pause. “What kind of information?”

“I’m familiar with it. I saw your research.”

“What have you heard?”

“You’re researching a hoax. The greatest hoax ever.”

Inspector Gaudeau was shocked. But he kept quiet. “Yes, yes, do tell.”

“I need my anonymity. Don’t trace this call.”

The Inspector whispered fiercely. “You have my word.”

“First tell me something. Why expose this hoax? What’s your angle exactly?”

“You tell me yours. Why do you care? Why help me out? Can’t you expose it? You know so much...”

“I’m trying to help. You’re being very difficult.”

“Just give me something. Even the tiniest hint. A good faith gesture. Then I’ll gladly comply.”

“Okay, here it is. Just a wee morsel. I found the evidence. Now what’s your theory? And why get involved?”

“What sort of evidence?”

The man became furious. He lost his temper. “Why be so difficult!? Give what I ask. Or I’ll hang up.”

Inspector Gaudeau softened up. He needed a break. This might be it. “I mentioned good faith. Humanity has been duped. Fed heaps of lies. So here’s my theory. It was centuries ago. There was a conspiracy. Conspiracy to commit fraud. They made things up.”

“Yes, yes, that’s good. And I have proof. I know the location. Please do go on.”

“They wanted to deceive. To lead humanity astray. That’s why the book. Some stuff was true. Based on historical facts. Facts that were verifiable. That was the hook. That’s what got people. They were drawn in. Like moths to lightbulbs. Like lemmings to cliffs. Like children to pipers. They couldn’t help themselves.” A brief heavy pause. “So where’s the location? The location of what?”

“You’re still holding out. Why you in particular? Were you personally hurt? Do you have standing? I mean legal standing. That judges could accept.”

He held his cool. But Gaudeau was furious. “Is this a court!?” In a heavy whisper. Then he went on. “Are you my judge? My jury, my executioner? What’s this all about!?”

“You’re losing your cool. Won’t get you anywhere. Just answer the question.”

He thought about it. What was his angle? Had he been hurt? What was his standing?

“You’re taking your time. We haven’t any time. This matter is urgent. It needs airing out. Before it’s too late. Get on with it...”

Gaudeau tried something new. Something like reverse psychology. He made something up. Or thought he did. “There was a cave. Thoroughly filled with bats. It was their hideout. The entrance was hidden. Ancient texts document this. Haven’t found it yet. Maybe a treasure map. ‘X’ marks the spot. All cloak and dagger. People sworn to secrecy. That’s what was odd. They knew something profound. Why the secret society? Why keep it hidden?”

The phone remained quiet. For quite some time. A faint humming sound. Somewhat like a buzzing. They were being tapped!? No one could tell. Finally the man spoke. “You are quite right. It was a cave. The bats were ubiquitous. That was the problem. It wasn’t about secrecy. They weren’t hiding anything. They all got infected. They covered the entrance. The world was endangered. They all sacrificed themselves.”

“This doesn’t make sense. How’d you find out?” And then something clicked. He was a bat. And he had escaped. With all the evidence. That’s how he knew. Where the cave was. Gaudeau knew his name. Began with a ‘D’. And ‘D’ wasn’t infected. He was the infection.

‘D’ knew all this. Then the drilling started. Right through the phone. Just two tiny holes. The phone became bloody.

September 12, 2023

A Feast for the Senses, by Robert Fuller

Raucous laughter. Rowdy conversation. Glasses clinking. None of it emanating from the usual location. It was a cold, wet, dark evening, a Wednesday, to be precise. This was supposed to be the Jove Bird Saloon & Brewpub’s weekly open mic night, but the merriment came from next door, at Smith’s Glass Blowing Company. And it didn’t sound like any would-be comedians.

Normally these open mic occasions would be held out on the brewpub’s sumptuous deck, what with all its amenities, including various subversive nooks and crannies that lent themselves to the performance of various mysterious activities, to be duly revealed throughout the evening.

Which is to say that this weekly occasion, far from being merely a stage for aspiring unfunny comics, well, it was in most cases actually a forum for theatrical improv, with specific intent.

In any case, Esther, Jove Bird’s owner and brewster, well, she was having the time of her life.

Even though Smith’s and Jove Bird’s were technically and legally separate business entities, they shared a common aspiration, to embrace life to the fullest, which they did in part through a passageway, a door that was never locked, that neither separated them from one another, nor required them to be forever conjoined in some semblance of marital bliss or what have you.

Now, Esther, lifeblood and livewire as she was of this community-within-a-community, she was celebrating the moment, this very moment, as if there were no other. She, along with her friends, well, she was entranced at what was happening onstage within Smith’s gallery space.

For the last three years, whether at Smith’s or at Jove Bird’s, she and her intimate friends had been devoted to the free theatrical enactment of various artworks and their backstories.

So, this time, amid blown glassworks, they were enlivening van Gogh’s “The Yellow House.”

It being a gallery filled with blown glass, the revelers did their utmost best to refrain from knocking into anything. They sported at least one or two videographers documenting the entire event, which, if not broadcast in real time over social media, was then in any case captured online for all time, for the perusal of any who might dare later on take it all in, in all its complexity.

Well, Esther—she being the director, in essence, of this particular endeavor—in this case, she had elected to focus on just a few details of Vincent’s sojourn in that particular locale in the south of France, in that particular domicile.

So she personally ensured that Smith’s, prior to that evening, had set up the gallery such that four glass sunflower vases were posed in numbers of three, six, twelve, and fifteen, all in sequence.

As for the players in this troupe, they were set to play all four parts ascribed to Vincent.

Those four parts, that of the postmaster, the old peasant, the poet, the lover, well, they were essentially bit parts in comparison with the true protagonists of that fabled maison jaune of the two brother artists who had settled there in Arles, depicted as a chair and an armchair, as rendered by Vincent, who was on the verge of losing part of an ear, following a heavy rainstorm.

Yet they, the bit parts, earlier in the evening, had been the mainstay of the theatrical impetus of the event. Seeing as this was a free-flowing organic growth of thespian dramaturgy, which might lead anywhere or nowhere, or both simultaneously, the bit parts did indeed delight.

According to various unnamed sources, whilst endrenched with an out of tune, hangdog mystic chord, the poet and the postmaster were at loggerheads with the old peasant and the lover.

This was all accompanied by the nose and mouthfeel of a rich bourbon porter.

But what were all those sunflowers about? Gauguin certainly wanted to know. So he asked.

Vincent answered in heliotropic vessels, in words that his friend could not get, not at all. His response was one of such enigma that it puzzled the authorities for quite some time to come.

“Motifs, memory, madness,” he told Paul, “which you could not possibly be privy to.” And he paused for effect, continuing: “Akin to burying a corpse, just to enclose or entrap life’s body of death.” Whereupon he paused once again, then saying, “Reddish-brown eyes grasping at azure.”

And he then whispered: “Too engaged in careful anxieties.” At which point everyone in the gallery gasped in astonishment. And they wept. Whereupon the Gauguin-player countered with: “Illuminating a conspicuous luster-color,” which he thereupon followed with: “like borrowing a fortified place hidden in a tomb.” And then no one knew quite what to say.

Since it was the case that his friend Paul had actually understood what he had painted there.

But then Paul wanted to know what the numerical sequences represented, what with those three, six, twelve, and fifteen heliotropic images, each bending just so to the light of the sun.

And it was then that Vincent stated that “Giving shelter to the shine of gold...” And then he was without words for a time, until he forthwith continued: “with a cover like the apex of a temple,” and then, in a barely audible whisper, concluded with: “fallen into stunned perplexities.”

Van Gogh, Gauguin, they were still perplexed about the razor, the ear cut off, wrapped in paper, the symbolism of their friendship which everyone in the glass gallery was still engaged in enacting, but which in any case no one present knew exactly how to paint, nor in what colors, nor, certainly, in which chemical manifestations, some toxic, of any such colors.

But then everything took an unexpected turn, near a scrim of thicket resembling a summit.

The occasion was that of “a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world,” in the context of a night café, starry Rhone nights spent in a red vineyard.

So it was, really, just a souvenir of a garden, nothing much except a sequence of wheat fields, with a garden of a poet, the third, with a view of flowering orchards, Arles, where “poplar trees still stand along the canal, today.” With four galleries, all four directions, all Saint Trophime.

All four, seated in the West Portal, the man, the lion, the ox, the eagle; the Gospels with the Apostles seated below; chosens going to Heaven, sinners cast to Hell. Apse, transept, nave, bell tower. Multiple forms, all set apart, into various separate entities, naves cast into bays, repetitions of form giving great length to all the ships of laity.

But the painter of the painter of sunflowers was himself painted by the painter of sunflowers.

And so the Vincent-player intoned, “At a quarter past midnight in our café, the possibilities are endless, with a still carafe, of night life and absinthe: ruin oneself, go mad, commit a crime.”

Paul, initially bemused and befuddled, soon countered with: “Spiritually-aroused poets of the trees, always growing.” Someone had started a light show in the gallery, and all of the brightly colored orbs near the rich wooden staircase began twinkling as poems in the starry sky of cypress.

Not to be outdone, the painter of heliotropic blooms mentioned a “secret place of refuge” as well as a “journey on horseback” and “concealed, gloomy leaf-resembling designs”—all of it set in a “wavering animal sculpture of beauty’s flow” conjoined with “sweet-smelling, wind-breaking forests.” Whereupon the light show stopped cold, in mourning for the dark, dead foliage.

Someone had discreetly bussed another round of drinks into the gallery’s theatre to honor the silence that had descended thereupon, as if the pungent, earthy aroma of duff, of all manner of decaying vegetative matter. So was it a hiatus, or as the Gauguin-player noted, “an autumnal bending down” or even “a runaway ballet limping with difficulty” in “the furies of the grove.”

All the while, it was Esther’s radiant smile, she, authoress of that rich bourbon porter, that lit up everything, even clear up to the ceiling, in that glass room of menagerie; or, as Vincent stated, apropos of nothing: it was nothing but “a few words reincarnated from your quivering feathers.”

This had hardly been an intermission, in that the effervescence had continued to bubble in its own buoyancy, yet it was still the case that the troupe had yet to regroup—furtively, in a huddle.

Once the players came out of it, they braced themselves for yet more merriment and agony.

Heavenly, it was, at first subtle, yet it was nought but a chewy aroma of boozy delicious curves arising from a spicy malt body, tall, dark, and delicious, a dance on the palate. However, figuratively speaking, there was no there there save, as the Paul-player put it, “Language trapped in a cardboard head.” The tittering was non-stop, bourbon barrels of giggle flooding out all over.

Meanwhile, Vincent, having stepped offstage momentarily, reappeared in a thin-white veneer of surplice, having priorly crossed himself thrice; three eights; summer solstice. Telling Theo of a new poem, someone else’s, on that someone else himself, “What’s the use of working?”

Theo, thence, the Theo-player, appearing in cherry red baggy pantaloons, dressed full up in military garb, declaimed, in full regalia: “I looked at a white wall through the prism!”

Yellow creatures from a mauve world, people drinking ultramarine absinthe in the brothels.

Windmills dodging macks in the night, near the old mill, rural landmarks, seven canvases.

Kisses of muses, with roads of cypresses of stars, imaginatively suggested by the Paul-player, ladies in the golden of Eden, assaulted by voices, pointillistically, by the veil of time and fatality.

Cypresses with olive trees, the starry night characterized by swirls, the sowers, the rounds of the prisoners, tree roots, white house at night, sorrowing old man at eternity’s gate, two peasant women digging in a snow-covered field at sunset, white almond blossoms against a blue sky.

The emotional truth of yellow, symbol of sunlight, like life, God: sowing, like life, beneath a hot sun, to express the terrible passions of humanity, in garish reds and greens, as a wheatfield under thunder clouds, as vast fields of wheat, as rain under troubled skies, through a prism, as a plain against the hills, as a delicate yellow, as boundless as the sea.

“The hidden initiation of closed eyes and lips,” well, that was rendered in Greek chorus style.

Yet possibly it was more of “a citadel of late-night revels and debauchery,” yet trees as if they are the source of light, time spent outside the asylum, yet as another impasto.

But the crux of that thick pigment layer was that it was nought but painted palimpsests of quiet, hidden within a vigorous shoot of unripe brightness, sheltered from ghostly grades of color, within an arbor of partial darkness.

The Theo-player then said, “It was penned to me, by my brother’s quill, that ‘at least I have a landscape with olives’—yet he never explained to me the meaning of that phrase.” Which was quickly countered by Vincent that, contrary to his Theo’s statement, he, Vincent, had supplied a surfeit of evidence concerning all the various olive-themed landscapes he’d ever painted or drawn.

Whitening sun immersed in pure blue, big blue flies, also pink, violet tones within pale halos of lemon, gathering the fruit, of a ripe fig, the whole sky pink and orange, everything immersed in cicadas, too beautiful for us, old, silver, bronzed, fading, white, fading further into white autumn, gathering the fading fruit, something very secret in it.

Olive trees, trees yellow with sky and sun, bright blue skies, in a mountainous landscape with crescent moon, a couple walking toward women picking olives, orange sky, against the slope of a hill, white cottage and mountains in the background, as the remains of a dead grasshopper.

Repetitive, rectangular violet shadow brushes, out of sync, sorrow better than joy, with time, painted with sorrows, of heavy brushes of joy, the spiritual force in all of his gnarled brushstrokes.

The olive harvest as one might see it today; an asylum and a chapel at once.

Respite and relief, harvest or death, the world he saw from his room, as armchair and chair.

Levity, amusement, jest, strange collections of wild animals exhibited in captivity, exotic people or things kept to show, in exhibition of what could not be shown nor kept.

Keeping house, yellow, from a mauve sunlight, in bricks of sky and sun, ultramarine or blued skies, sentinels of its setting under a sulphur sun under a pure cobalt blue sky, the street shaded by a tree with green shutters, between the two brushes of bridges.

“I go to dine every day, because it is fantastic, yellow houses not in the picture, little figures of people sipping pastis, a painting of night without black, light over the old cobblestones, the lighted square, cognac, pale sulphur yellow, citrus green, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, getting away with the conventional night, the façade: a huge yellow lantern, the terrace, the pavement...”

Umbra: exodium. Oxalis stricta. Small vases. Yellow edibles. Masks removed. Three women. Ladies’ night. Jove Bird’s. Smith’s Glass. Five-petaled flowers. Nyctinastic plants. Triptych greens. The masses of sound, white and black, ceased...

As mimes, players of scribes, defenders of men, leading to heliotrope bouquets, to nyctinastic sunflower painters—songs of moons shining starry in skies, like Louis, bald as a coot, Tom Turpin’s Rosebud Bar—rags formed by wind: jester, cooper, barrel-maker, skirt. Barrel house honky tonk, an intermission of keys, ebony and ivory, jazzed to the limit. Leading into the next scene change, no masks. Smith, not a player, strode up to speak: “This is a moment, we’ll not be silenced; my series of vases, they still stand firm. And you know what they are, you do.”

So those small vases, well, they were stand-ins, substituting for heliotropic flowers, miniatures, then, of Vincent’s. Heliotropes going to sleep, chemistries gone in reverse, leaves unfurling while sleepwalking, awakened in deepest sunlight.

Chauvin, Joplin: oh seven. Bunch of turnsole flowers. Little grove of words. Perfume from a wine. Hidden star, common myrtle. Woad, indigo, ultramarine, azurite. The mummies’ cloth wrappings, blue milk milk caps, semi-precious stones of azure, deep blue copper minerals. Lions, bulls, dragons, flowers: inner city’s eighth gate, cedar roof and doors. Stars of morning, evening: pearls of a prostitute, like the nameless poor, as the planet Venus. “Listen to me while I tell the tale, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army, warlike doves of stars: love, beauty, sex, desire, fertility, war, justice, power.” Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter, dark side’s twin sister, the necessity of death, the continuance of life: bull’s constellation’s vernal equinox. “I tell the tale, lover of your youth—crescent phase ashen light, Ishtar terra, Aphrodite terra.” And the jumping planet: Hermes, the hour star; or god of thunder: shining one, wood star. The banquet of wine, hanged on the gallows: a day of gladness, gifts to the poor. Six months with sweet, with oil of myrrh. When inquisition was made, they were both hanged, in sackcloth and ashes.

Meanwhile, Paige, the pâtissière from next door had just arrived through the secret, always open passageway with sweets arranged on golden plates, in the form of French dark chocolate truffles dusted with finest bittersweet cocoa powder, for all the guests to get their second wind.

As for the miniature vases, the ones done up in oenochoe trefoil style, graced with lemon clover or woodsorrel or sourgrass designs, well, they were the most prominently displayed of all the various glass vessels and urns within the gallery, but, upon closer inspection, you could make out the shadows, illusions, reflections, mirrorings, and whatnot, of all manner of heliotropic and nyctinastic flowering and budding plants, even a few legumes here and there, as well as dandelions, daisies, crocuses, and the like, some of which were sun worshippers, and some of which were sleepwalkers—and, truth be told, some both—all of these leaves and petals and blooms arrayed in a wild symphony, a cathedral of colors, a cacophony of delight, all etched into those rounded shapes of vases, urns, vessels, bottles, amphorae, and even various sundry tiny knickknacks, all in a wide variety of shapes and sizes deftly patterned and arranged and staged by the artisan so as to overwhelm the beholder with a delicious sunset of the senses. While the pâtissière was sharing her divine dark spheres of cacao cream and cocoa dust with the guests, and while the interlude of ragtime bouquet continued, if you looked carefully enough, you could see various imps, elves, pixies, and sprites miming and dancing and gesturing and maneuvering their way through the gathering and all that lustrous blown glass rainbowed throughout the gallery.

Dreaming without rain droplets. The rain had subsided. How to dream it back?

Paige, who also doubled as sous chef, had sensed that with a new set of flavors in the mix, it might turn out that the extra pungency and zest could well seed new clouds within their dream.

In the gallery there were several goblets that Smith—Alma, to be sure—had so gracefully adorned with prayer plants, stromanthe, so artfully, such that if you looked just so at those vessels, you could even sense the leaves furling and unfurling, and then, at daybreak, following the sun.

Just then, the sous chef arrived with yet more delectables—garnished as they were with the yellow flowers and trefoil leaf cuttings of the pickle plant, to add just a touch more of the bitter to the baked dish she’d just now dreamed up—which had been carefully spooned into bowls decorated with cave painting images mainly set in the red-orange-yellow range of the spectrum.

These yummies were a variant of truffled mac and cheese, done up with penne pasta cooked in water laced with clam juice, cayenne pepper, lemon salt, ancho chili powder, and herbes de Provence, as well as a generous helping of clams, and drizzled with fish sauce, then drained and baked for a full hour, with a soft melt of black truffle goat cheese added for the final ten minutes.

There was a general hubbub, not right when Paige brought in all those toothsome savories, but only a bit thereafter, once all the mouths in the gallery had settled so piquantly into all the rich, luscious succulence that had been captured by her within her latest culinary experiment.

Almost simultaneously, like clockwork, our brewster Esther brought in trays of small tasters of her newest hefe, with extra wedges of lemon for anyone who might care to add a bit more sour.

Suddenly, a cloud of ester-like aromas: strawberry, apple, banana, pear, pineapple, durian.

Then, a while before the pièce de résistance—the bouillabaisse—the improv show continued.

Paige and Esther—the aromas had by then dissipated—had agreed to team up, to woman up, on the bouillabaisse, which, with subtle hints of cayenne and saffron, was certain to please.

Alma, meanwhile, she had lined up some of her most enticing, enchanting glass casts of a variety of ocean prey, the ultimate catch, visually and sensorily, angled and trawled, extracted and retrieved, and then blown, via blowpipe, into various sea creatures, all set, mirrored, as glassfish.

And they mirrored themselves all around the gallery, repeating and reflecting, sending their own images throughout the whole space of it. And then, just as suddenly as it had almost been forgotten, the play again began, the players all geared up in masks: set to enjoy the impending feast after words, given to eat and to drink, to all possible merriment before the end of their days.

So it was, with sea robin, monkfish, john dory, slipper lobster, velvet crab, sea urchin, vive.

A sea change, then, set to musics of poissons d’or, other minds, obscured by masques, the tragicomedy of existence, house of mirrors with no exit, reflets dans l’eau, bells through the leaves.

Ward in the hospital, une barque sur l’océan: two crabs, two lovers, two thistles, two women in the moor, the woods, the brothel, with trees in blossom, with irises in the foreground, the painter on his way to work, in the courtyard of the hospital, willows at sunset, two red herrings.

Three magpie harlequin cats, a Persian, a Tiffanie, and an exotic shorthair, well, they had until now been either preening themselves, or otherwise luxuriantly napping, hibernating, or couch surfing. Provided with cozy beds, cozy comforters, placed in various discreet cozy locations throughout the gallery, all they did was purr, hardly even noticed by the casual observer.

Wove v. laid (paper, that is)—van Gogh’s cats, as camouflaged by school children, they who had seen, perhaps, “Hand with Bowl and Cat,” or even the “Garden with Black Cat,” as rendered by Vincent himself—with the sunflowers in bloom across the Midwest, Ms. B. had carried into the classroom armloads of sunflowers of various varieties, for students to see, touch, and sketch.

And they, cats, all imaginary, meowed straight into the starry night, under cover of cypress, sunflowers, lemon clover, camouflage of various descriptions, leading right back to the Cheshire cat himself, the one who had nought but a smile, a purr, a catnap: a dubious existence, to be sure.

But as for our resident nap-prone felines, namely, Purse, Tiff, and “El Chapo,” normally they didn’t have much to say, merely keeping to and licking themselves, as luck would have it.

So there they were, mostly just all snug in their respective cat havens, regal in their lairs.

On the other hand, they sometimes got worked up about nothing. This was such a time, Purse having stirred from her endless sleep, stretched her royal cat-stretch, and then moseying on over to Tiff’s turf, where Tiff’s REM sleep was a sure indicator that she was busy chasing her favorite mouse, in order to toy with it—torture, from the mouse’s perspective—until it gave up.

Tiff was having none of it, having been so rudely awakened from her beauty sleep and her best ever imaginary rodent exploit—although in point of fact, Purse hadn’t been rude at all, merely licking Tiff around the ears—and so there was a brief exchange of hisses, but no catfight.

So Tiff prudently elected to meander back in the general direction of her own plush, soft cat cushion. As for “El Chapo,” well, no one ever messed with that cat; frankly, it was just too lazy.

Back at the general environs of her haunt, Tiff softly, graciously resettled her haunches.

Vincent, musing to himself: “Simplicity, lack of color, the gravity of great sunlight effects.”

“Woman with beautiful lips, brave one, maiden, apple.” This was the Paul-player mumbling sacred spring prayers to sweet dreams; to Elysian fields, cities of the dead; dueling with Vincent’s.

Perhaps there was some rivalry between the two. Yet, by way of comparison, there is really nothing in common between their respective visions of the avenue of tombs along lovers’ lane’s shady poplars, heavy October rains forcing both indoors, Paul having left out the sarcophagi.

And Vincent, what with his two additional depictions of falling autumn leaves, well, he did end up taking twice as many romantic strolls of an evening under the shade of those poplars as did Gauguin, who said “No one is good; no one is evil. Yet there is time to do great things, in the same way and in different ways.” He studies a single blade of grass, a ship clawed in waves.

The engineer, for this segment of the evening, had concocted a lush, lavish audio collage.

It was a veritable pointillistic pandemonium of sumptuous sounds, a sweet symphony of cacophony embroidered with, among other things, water sprites, some with flaxen braids.

These were juxtaposed with liberal splashings and sprinklings of the water-immersed remains of various cathedrals, eccentric cakewalks, moonstruck bystanders, even an occasional faerie or two in the wings, not to mention, most curiously, a subtle evocation of minstrelsy.

In this sonic tour de force, which was interrupted throughout the gallery space by various hints of mists, and notes of animated wind gusts and intermittent fireworks, eventually it seemed it was all leading through and beyond a labyrinth of decaying leaf matter directly to a certain wine cellar, replete with the spectre of its distinctive shade-entombed violet-red portal.

This aural pastiche perfectly resonated with Alma’s main showpiece, two years in the making.

Unbeknownst to the audio engineer, she, Alma, had immersed herself in the music of one whose family originally hailed from a tiny commune, within a “golden slope,” home of a castle.

And thus it was that she just recently had made it one of her most heartfelt goals, to create a glass sculpture that would perfectly embody, crystalize, and personify what she heard whenever she listened to all those piano preludes of Claude’s, with all their pungent, witty, savory titles.

So she had carefully blown and sculpted her silica and her coloring agents, such as her sulfurs, cobalts, coppers, silvers, golds, and the like, all into an imposing glass diorama that largely resembled a slightly misshapen chateau, not only with its surrounding moat, but also including significant numbers of details present in the audio collage, especially the violet-red wine portal.

Now, of course, as it need not be said, this gem of Alma’s was not ostentatiously displayed.

She never searched for the limelight, although she almost always got it. But it was through hard work, careful research, inspiration, trial and error—that was how she made what she did.

So her gem, her life’s work (but only for the moment) was set off in a remote alcove of the main gallery, hidden, yet in plain sight. In part, this was because her (for now) magnum opus was of a certain fragility, which meant that it couldn’t afford to be subjected to unwarranted exposure.

Yet, the audio collage was manifesting itself in multiple exposures in all kinds of nooks and crannies spanning the entire gallery space, the engineer having strategically placed numerous tweeters, mid-rangers, woofers, and subwoofers such that they were not visible to the uninitiated, but which nevertheless served to project the entire audio collage as an enticing dinner of sound.

“Oviri!” Paul broke right through the lush lyrical symphonic soundscape with a single savage word, followed by his masterful brush strokes of philosophical inquiry: “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” The Gauguin-player then strode over to the harmonium, back in the glass forging area, and began playing in quiet counterpoint to the sound collage.

Not to be outdone—although the third course was soon to arrive—Vincent intoned, as if in response, “Encircled in a clasp of arms, honey without bees, sweetening the pebbles, first season’s bright red gems, three roads, all leading to a personal experience colored by emotion.”

And, when we arrived there, it was at an avocado melt “pizza,” each done up in a bread slice spread with a black truffle goat cheese & avocado mashup, capers, and 8 minced pimiento olives.

And it was covered with sharp cheddar, baked, then served with Esther’s golden honey mead.

Now, Paul’s harmonies, scintillating as they were, might have been, well, they drove at least one or two of the cats to distraction, as he had set most of the stops, on one or more manuals, to some of the higher harmonics, and to a mixtur, and whatever else he could conjure up to spice up his otherwise mellow harmonies, even to the extent of having used a few pipes of stained glass.

So Tiff, so gruffly awakened from her dearest dream sleep, strode right up to the harmonium, or Hammond B, or whatever it was—after sniffing at some of the studio’s stained silica bins, just to see what colors she could smell—and then parked herself at the organ, with no end of meows.

The Paul-player stopped, hissed at her, and of course she hissed right back, and then she settled down right there and began manicuring, massaging her claws, ships of waves, of furry fur.

All along, the videographers, accompanied by their golf-whisperer narrations, kept videoing.

After Tiff sauntered back over to her castle of cushion, Gauguin himself strode right up to the stained silica scoops, in wonderment that these variously colored speckles of sand could be of much use for anything, and wondering which chemicals—for Vincent had been obsessed with the chemistry of pigments, he knew—were employed, and, frankly, just how toxic they were.

Whereupon Smith—Alma, that is—likewise strode right up to the Paul-player, with her, as she said, “embrace, with little sweets of lips” or “angel demon playing on the flute” and she said, right to Gauguin’s face, “Nevermore, among the mangoes, Eve’s nightmare, man in a red beret.”

And she showed to Paul, the one playing Gauguin, her hidden secret of buried treasure there in that clandestine alcove of the main gallery, hidden just so, underneath the rich wooden stairs.

And the golden honey mead, the avocado melt pizzas, they just melted under the tongue.

Paul whispered right back to her, breathing in spirals, “My planned journey to Madagascar, I dream of it every day.” And, as she hissed right back, “Zero is a negative power.” Which is to say, throwing Gauguin’s words right back at that selfsame Paul-player, on account of the insensitivity shown to her, toward what she held to be her most important work, her crown jewel, up to now.

For her castle, it was her home, her artistic home, and its moat guarded her from all manner of intruders, “all who” failed to “upset the mediocrities,” as a unique and legendary artist, already gone from this world, but “with new country to explore.” A misshapen orb, but she was all in.

It was just then that Purse, having rousted herself from her incessant catnap, passed just a bit too close to “El Chapo” and then, as might have been expected, a minor bout of hissing ensued.

Without much ado, just before the cats simmered down, Alma’s gem had a new set of portals.

Through these freshly-blown glass portals, it was observed among those present that the mixtape had just now been at least subtly remixed. The audio engineer had been busy again, and so the footsteps in the snow, just to mention one case in point, melted, or began to melt, and were subsequently mirrored, all over the gallery, all melted into night moths, sad birds, ships at sea, the jester’s morning love song, all sung in a valley of bells. Whereupon the Vincent-player, in a fierce whisper, said, to Theo, “Like a cat in unfamiliar surroundings, where one lands when one dies.” The Theo-player then replied, quizzically, “This unworthy society is only on the side of those who have no need of it.” And then Purse was back at it, chasing, for the moment, spots of light that glinted here and there, light shows gleaming starrily through orbs of blown glass, as only she could see them. After Purse cashed in all her coins, the Vincent-player observed that “We take death to reach a star, reaching for stars that are too big, drawn with long sinuous lines, above a field of ripe wheat.” But it was Theo who spoke a kind of truth to power, saying, “The whole financial side exists like an illness. Create for us a circle of artists and friends. The money question won’t disappear. We have to treat it like the pox.” Brothers being dear brothers, all brothers all sisters of all humanity, for all of humanity, for the love of the world and humanity.

Through irises, Vincent’s “eating bouillabaisse, which won’t surprise you,” those present noticed, through their light-admitting lenses, the arrival of Esther’s newly minted yellow house blonde ale, which was coincident with the impending feast of fish stew, bouillabaisse, to be sure.

Through “the contrasting effects in the foliage”—cypresses as windbreaks in fields, fields of wheat and endless tropes of sounds or flowers of suns, where “natural life is rendered as gnarled and arthritic,” where “cicadas in great numbers fly about,” where “the bronzer foliage takes on more mature tones”—and memories of the house of the dead, windows with pink, with green curtains, two figures of nuns in black and white, patients in red, the ceiling violet with large beams, through all of that, the Vincent-player having identified flowers, such as irises of blue beards, mouse’s ear scorpion grasses, oleander, Viola tricolor heartsease, first spring rose, poppies, in and around the former hospital garden courtyard which became his posthumous monument, he, Vincent, painted in vivid colors, in shades of blue and gold, with an overly-large fish garden at its center, the selfsame moments in that sanctuary when the veil of time “seemed to be torn apart.” So, amid flavors of blonde ale and fish stew, the players and all the guests took in all the savory tastes and smells and sights and feelings—even though floods had damaged his paintings.

Through all of this, Alma, not content merely to have added new portals to her misshapen orb, well, she had in the interim fired up an oven so as to, with the help of her assistants, shape a new ornament testifying to this evening and all its magic, and so her long trumpet flared bright.

Through violet tones something of the color of a ripe fig, coloring the silvery-gray greens, the whole sky, pink and orange, and women, also pink, gathering the fruits, the olive harvest as one might see it today, greenish, bronzed, yellow, pink—violet tinted orange—this was how this fou roux saw, might have seen, what might have been nothing save his tasting of paints and turpentine and absinthe, fueled thereby to the point of moods of indescribable anguish leading to his having left the inn, to his beloved wheatfield, firing the fatal shot: the sadness will last forever.

Through all of this, with lingering tastes of water star’s water day festivities, Esther ventured out into the cool night, starry with swirls of the morning star, of blues and yellows and of other stars and a steeple and a lone cypress, yet with no road left to travel.

2019

NOTE: The layout in the original PDF is the definitive layout for this short story. The story uses a strict scheme of how many lines per paragraph there are for any given paragraph, and that scheme is an integral part of the structure of the story. In the above rendition, that scheme is not adhered to 100% of the time, although it is fairly close most of the time. Basically, there are sequences of numbers (how many lines per paragraph) that are closely integrated with elements of the story itself. So the definitive version of the story is the one that includes the precise layout (how many lines per paragraph for any given paragraph) that was originally intended and applied to the story.