The Gathering in the Deep Wood, Part 3
I entered into a cramped area with a carpet piled with shoes of all varieties: oil-stained sneakers; bent high heels; flattened boat shoes; bedroom slippers; boots, some impossibly tall; slingbacks, clogs, and mules; sandals, birkenstocks, and flip-flops. To the pile I added my ancient bluchers. I opened a white, graffiti littered door and entered
Bay 1
In the center of the first bay were sprawled Chevrolets whose roofs had been sheared off. I looked up and saw that the roofs had been stapled to the upper walls and ceiling with huge, industrial sized bolts. Painted on the car roofs was artwork whose quality ranged from toilet stall stick figures with ungrammatical captions to stark, colorful, obscene Raphaelian frescoes to elaborate Carravagistian murals.
On one, a goat lay on his back in a lightning-veined thundercloud high above a vast, brown Mideastern city. The goat's navel was a dome light. Its jaw was slack, revealing long, wood-like teeth; its sinewy, muscled limbs were akimbo, its jutting sex about to be set upon by seven goggle-eyed cherubim with pink, pudgy, clutching hands.
At the corners, aged angels averted or covered their eyes, their expressions betraying distress or disgust. One had yellow streams of vomit shooting from her nostrils, her liver spotted, heavily veined fingers entwined tightly over her mouth.
I made my way along the edge of the room toward a passage marked with bright blue duct tape. Through the doorway I thought I caught a furtive movement. My wife, leading me forward? The proprietor of the garage, delighted or repelled at its condition? The organizer of the heretofore missing "gathering" hinted at in the flier? I ducked through into
Bay 2
whose floor was piled high with discarded piles of clothing. Jeans dropped, forming a pair of empty eyes. Skirts and brassieres and crumpled tops, corsets, waistcoats, vests and undershirts. The walls here were lined with books whose spines spoke their titles in languages unknown to me. The few English titles appeared to be collections of aphorisms and/or instruction manuals by an Abrecan Geist. Moving toward the next doorway, opposite the last, I marked a few other upsetting titles in English.
Bastions of Disquiet, by Rangel Bantam
Violent Rigor, by Phillip Rippingcoat
Systems of Savagery, by Skelton Tornweather
Vistas of Carrion, by Carp Tarscallion
Aligning the Architectures of Deviltry, by Vasterian Cull
Suddenly a light finger touched my shoulder and I whirled 'round. No one was there. I tucked in my chin and glanced rightward, and on my shoulder spied a house centipede the length of an unsharpened pencil on my shoulder. Its long leg danced as it scuttled toward my neck and I brushed it away with disgust. I looked up, and the ceiling was writhing with the foul creatures, a field of elongated, living burrs crawling on and over and around one another. I fled into
Bay 3
where finally I saw people--but these were children. None appeared to be over the age of five. Two boys were engaged in a solemn game of towering and then toppling blood-red blocks. A girl crawled over a large, flat book with blank pages, leaving blue ink hand and foot prints. An expansive crib rocked wildly, crowded with cooing babies. Strangely, the room was fairly quiet.
Across I saw a boy of about four in a striped shirt who looked vaguely familiar. He had wide-set eyes, light brown bangs drawing a fiercely straight line across his forehead, and small mouth set in concentration to match his furrowed brow. He was arranging on a green plastic podium an eight-limbed stuffed bear.
"What is his name," I asked.
"Tickles," the boy said. A line of pink drool swung between his lover lip and the bear's round, gray ear.
"RUG-UH-HUM," a voice bellowed out over the diminutive crowd. "RUG-ugh-ugh-ugh-HEM," and I saw a boy of about 9--older by far than most in the room--hawk up a mass onto the white plastic table at which he sat, his knees up at his chin.
I set off in his direction, clamoring over children, toy dinosaurs, and navigating around a good sized pile of turds topped with a conical yellow party hat, rakishly tilted.
The boy looked up at me expectantly, eyes wide. The mass he had expectorated trembled on the table. It was pale gray and lined with what appeared to be pinkish veins. Though I addressed the boy, it seemed wise to keep a careful eye fixed on the thing on the table. This I did.
"Erm," I said, and then I stopped, unsure of precisely how to continue.
"Are you looking," the boy grinned toothlessly, "for a good time?"
I gaped at him.
"They are outside," he said. "The grown-ups. In the wood."
I looked back down at the table. The mass was gone. The lights seemed to brighten.
All the children, except for the sleeping ones, were looking at me, their eyes swimming with secrets.
I stood and headed for the exit.
Bay 1
In the center of the first bay were sprawled Chevrolets whose roofs had been sheared off. I looked up and saw that the roofs had been stapled to the upper walls and ceiling with huge, industrial sized bolts. Painted on the car roofs was artwork whose quality ranged from toilet stall stick figures with ungrammatical captions to stark, colorful, obscene Raphaelian frescoes to elaborate Carravagistian murals.
On one, a goat lay on his back in a lightning-veined thundercloud high above a vast, brown Mideastern city. The goat's navel was a dome light. Its jaw was slack, revealing long, wood-like teeth; its sinewy, muscled limbs were akimbo, its jutting sex about to be set upon by seven goggle-eyed cherubim with pink, pudgy, clutching hands.
At the corners, aged angels averted or covered their eyes, their expressions betraying distress or disgust. One had yellow streams of vomit shooting from her nostrils, her liver spotted, heavily veined fingers entwined tightly over her mouth.
I made my way along the edge of the room toward a passage marked with bright blue duct tape. Through the doorway I thought I caught a furtive movement. My wife, leading me forward? The proprietor of the garage, delighted or repelled at its condition? The organizer of the heretofore missing "gathering" hinted at in the flier? I ducked through into
Bay 2
whose floor was piled high with discarded piles of clothing. Jeans dropped, forming a pair of empty eyes. Skirts and brassieres and crumpled tops, corsets, waistcoats, vests and undershirts. The walls here were lined with books whose spines spoke their titles in languages unknown to me. The few English titles appeared to be collections of aphorisms and/or instruction manuals by an Abrecan Geist. Moving toward the next doorway, opposite the last, I marked a few other upsetting titles in English.
Bastions of Disquiet, by Rangel Bantam
Violent Rigor, by Phillip Rippingcoat
Systems of Savagery, by Skelton Tornweather
Vistas of Carrion, by Carp Tarscallion
Aligning the Architectures of Deviltry, by Vasterian Cull
Suddenly a light finger touched my shoulder and I whirled 'round. No one was there. I tucked in my chin and glanced rightward, and on my shoulder spied a house centipede the length of an unsharpened pencil on my shoulder. Its long leg danced as it scuttled toward my neck and I brushed it away with disgust. I looked up, and the ceiling was writhing with the foul creatures, a field of elongated, living burrs crawling on and over and around one another. I fled into
Bay 3
where finally I saw people--but these were children. None appeared to be over the age of five. Two boys were engaged in a solemn game of towering and then toppling blood-red blocks. A girl crawled over a large, flat book with blank pages, leaving blue ink hand and foot prints. An expansive crib rocked wildly, crowded with cooing babies. Strangely, the room was fairly quiet.
Across I saw a boy of about four in a striped shirt who looked vaguely familiar. He had wide-set eyes, light brown bangs drawing a fiercely straight line across his forehead, and small mouth set in concentration to match his furrowed brow. He was arranging on a green plastic podium an eight-limbed stuffed bear.
"What is his name," I asked.
"Tickles," the boy said. A line of pink drool swung between his lover lip and the bear's round, gray ear.
"RUG-UH-HUM," a voice bellowed out over the diminutive crowd. "RUG-ugh-ugh-ugh-HEM," and I saw a boy of about 9--older by far than most in the room--hawk up a mass onto the white plastic table at which he sat, his knees up at his chin.
I set off in his direction, clamoring over children, toy dinosaurs, and navigating around a good sized pile of turds topped with a conical yellow party hat, rakishly tilted.
The boy looked up at me expectantly, eyes wide. The mass he had expectorated trembled on the table. It was pale gray and lined with what appeared to be pinkish veins. Though I addressed the boy, it seemed wise to keep a careful eye fixed on the thing on the table. This I did.
"Erm," I said, and then I stopped, unsure of precisely how to continue.
"Are you looking," the boy grinned toothlessly, "for a good time?"
I gaped at him.
"They are outside," he said. "The grown-ups. In the wood."
I looked back down at the table. The mass was gone. The lights seemed to brighten.
All the children, except for the sleeping ones, were looking at me, their eyes swimming with secrets.
I stood and headed for the exit.