Doug and his pals are at the pub, quaffing craft beer. They all reckon that Sternum Island is quickly falling under the spell of the new agers – mindfulness, crypto, high paying jobs. Money for nothing. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch, as they say. THIS WEEK: a mildly inebriated Doug Shasta takes a guided tour through an art exhibition and meets an old friend…
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DOUG’S KNEES WOBBLED as he worked his way through the crowd to the back of the pub. The strong ale sent a warm glow through his body. As he reached the entrance to the performance space, the band start playing again. An off-key male vocalist started crooning the opening lines to a song Doug recognized, “Lay where you're laying/Don't make a sound/I know they're watching/They're watching…”
He didn’t like the song, and this version was no improvement. He stumbled up the stairs toward the toilet. The landing at the top had been darkened. In front of him were two arrows, pointing in opposite directions. One to the right read, “Toilet”. The other, to the left, “Art Gallery”. Doug peered down the corridor toward the art gallery. Through a crack in the door, he could see a luminescent dark blue light. As he came nearer to it, a music enveloped him. The crowd chattering in the pub below, the band playing. It all disappeared into a wash of droning synthesized vocal harmonies and bird-like trills.
Doug felt a buoyant calmness, as if he was floating upward, as if there was some healing light on the other side of that door. He pushed it open and peered in. A dulcimeric arpeggio seemed to vibrate through his skeleton, as if he had put his head against a grand piano as a heavy chord was played.
“Hey Douglas. Come on in,” a voice greeted from the far end of the long gallery.
Right in front of Doug, sitting around the floor, were small groups of people, meditating, or talking in hushed tones. Most were familiar faces – local teenagers dressed in black hoodies and shawls. Fire Chief Mike Goggins’s daughter, Farleece sat with a friend, both dressed as vampires, from what Doug could tell.
A series of unframed canvas paintings crowded the gallery walls. Each spotlit by their own small light hanging above the work, making the paintings seem to float off the blue light-bathed walls. Each image showed a different craggy mountain peak, some alpine, some glacier-covered. Others, forested and undulating. All were covered in glinting ice and snow. Depicted in fine, luminous colored lines, each mountain had a pavilion-like structure built atop its summit. Some crystalline and fractal in shape, others geometrical and hard, some crawled up the peaks, worm-like, others blossomed out like a flower. Most of the structures were multi-colored and translucent, as if made of glass. Some, hanging near the far end of the room, looked like billowing, cloud-like sails. From behind each structure, came rays of a dawning or setting sun, exploding up and out into the cold, starry cosmos above each frozen mountaintop. Doug could make out small figures painted throughout the landscapes. Some human, some animal, some a hybrid of the two. Anonymous, little specks in among the grand visions; the figures intersected with the glowing structures, overlapped and shattered with them, swallowed up in them. Under one structure — made of white flags and sails rippling in the wind — there stood a figure, larger than the others. It was a woman holding a sword above her head. Its blade dripped blood. On one side of the woman, three decapitated heads floated in the air. On the other side, three torsos spewed out their intestines.
Doug squinted through the blurry glare of the lights. It was Shining Wind reclining in a mountainous heap of bean-bag cushions. Dressed in a medley of tropical print clothing, he was sucking a bright yellow fluid through a sparkling, crystal straw, inserted into a glass gourd filled with berries of all colors.
Next to him, poised on an ornate gold-plated chair, was the trim, collarless workwear-suited man who had been at the town hall with Marcus and Shining Wind. The man nodded at Doug with a friendly smile, then took a tiny sip from a tumbler full of rich amber fluid.
There came a faint sound of the crowd downstairs, clapping as the band finished the song.
“Welcome to our installation. Come chill with us,” Shining Wind looked like a tropical neon Roman emperor.
The light changed color to deep violet, and the music shifted down several pitches. The effect was like trying to keep your footing on a ship violently pitching to the side from an unexpected wave.
Doug stumbled a bit, but managed to walk over to the pair. He wondered if he was already drunk.
The linen-suited man stood up slowly, confidently, yet still managed to stay unobtrusive, even humble. “Hello,” he greeted Doug, “My name is Bruno Tuskerian. I’m a friend of Shining Wind’s.” His voice was surprisingly deep and round, more suited to a robust figure than the athletically lean person greeting Doug. Bruno gave a quick, elegant bow.
“Pleased to meet you,” replied Doug. He tried to bow back at Bruno, but stooped awkwardly and nearly gave a head-butt instead. Doug tried to hide his embarrassment. “Did I see you at the town meeting yesterday?”
“Ah yes, the wild dog,” Bruno chuckled deeply. “I was there.”
“His name is Ramses,” said Doug. He felt dehydrated, dizzy. “He’s not really wild, but he kind of was then, I guess.”
“Is Ramses still on the loose?” Asked Bruno.
“It seems so,” said Doug. “We’ve spotted him wandering around, but haven’t been able to catch him. My kids saw him out in the woods on Costo, earlier today. Out near you folks, actually.”
Bruno’s face dropped slightly, but he quickly regained his smile, “Is that so?” He glanced at Shining Wind, “I do hope Ramses has settled down. It would be awful if anyone got attacked.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” said Doug. “He only seems scary, but he’s gentle. Sometimes he runs off, but he never attacks anyone. Well, apart from when he bit me. But that was a one-off.”
Shining Wind called out from his mound of pillows. “We were all in a session this afternoon, so missed your visit. How’d it go?”
“Just a couple network problems.” Doug felt like his trip to Costo had happened weeks ago, his memory of it already fading. “I was only up there for a little bit.”
“Long enough to get a lay of the land, I imagine,” said Bruno. “What did you think?”
Doug paused, trying to remember the compound. Maybe it was the beer slowing him down, but his mind scrambled in a fog, failing to find the words to describe it.
“Prison compound?” Shining Wind laughed.
“It’s pretty industrial,” answered Doug, back on track. “I guess I was expecting something a bit more, like… organic.”
“Broken down camper vans and dilapidated outhouses?” Bruno joked. “I got enough of that when I was young.”
“Well, maybe I expected more driftwood,” replied Doug. They chuckled.
“Right now, our fellow group members are working hard setting up the retreat for a proper welcome to the community. They’ll be at it all night, to be ready for tomorrow,” continued Bruno. “There’s only so much we can do, but hopefully it’ll be a bit closer to our true spirit… But nope. Not so much driftwood, I’m afraid.”
“Meanwhile we get the pleasure of hosting this tonight,” Shining Wind threw his free hand grandly around the room. Doug nodded and blinked around a bit.
“What do you do there?” Doug asked Bruno. “I mean, you’re the one with the suit, are you the business guy, or something?”
Bruno laughed and took another sip from his tumbler. “Kind of. I’ve been with Golden Years since the start, so I’ve done a lot of things. I do have an interest in business, so I started helping the group establish a longer-term plan. Right now, on Sternum, I’m leading the relationship with InnovoSol, and a consortium of like-minded individuals. I make sure we all communicate properly, and live up to our mutually agreed goals. Boring, but necessary stuff.”
“Do you like art, Doug?” Shining Wind asked from his mound. “Do you like paintings?”
“I dunno,” replied Doug. “I mean, I don’t know much about it. But I know what I like.”
“Landscapes? Portraiture? Fantasy? Erotica?” Bruno asked.
“Well, a lot of the landscape stuff they’ve had here is pretty boring,” said Doug. “Like watercolors are fine and great, but after a while it’s all pretty same-same. At least to me.”
“That’s what you don’t like,” Bruno winked.
“What about this series of paintings?” Shining Wind probed.
“Are they a yay or a nay from Mr Shasta?” echoed Bruno.
“I like them,” said Doug. “They have a kind of natural feel, but also look kinda futuristic.”
Bruno smiled. “Happy you like them. They were painted by one of our founders. And myself.”
Doug took another glance at the paintings, “I can’t tell the difference between them. They all look like they’re done by one person.”
“Well, they are by one artist,” Bruno explained. “Marcus might have told you that she was given her name by one of the founders of Golden Years. It’s the same with me. My name, the one that you call me now, was passed on to me, as was the craft of that founder after their body died. I was always them and they were always me, just waiting for each other to arrive, if you get what I mean. What they did, and what I did? That’s the same.”
“I dunno what you mean… I mean, I think I understand a bit,” Doug replied after a moment.
“We are all one and the same,” Bruno continued. “It’s simply more sensible, more coherent, to speak as individuals. It’s a gift to speak like everyone else does. No harm in that, so long as you know the truth and keep your eyes locked on it. Like your weekend watercolor landscape artists.” The lights changed to a dark red, the music pitched up several steps, intensifying the room and further disorienting Doug. He wanted to leave, but Bruno and Shining Wind both kept smiling at him.
“So, what are your paintings about?”
“Visions of futures past, Doug. A history of what is to come.”
“And it all happens on mountains?”
“Oh yeah. Mountains are important symbols. But, well, they’re also high up. You can see a lot more from up there!” At that, Bruno laughed.
Shining Wind pointed at a painting of a frozen grey peak floating high up above a desert. “Tell Doug about the one where you met Marcus. That’s a good one.”
Bruno nodded and took a small sip of his drink. “Our bodily predecessors, you might say, met each other in Syria — or what’s now called Syria — in a remote monastery, the one in this painting. At that time, I was a traveler from the Transcaucasus. I had grown up in the province of Kars Oblast, to be precise. Back then it was one of the biggest melting pots you could imagine — in a region that specializes in melting pots still. I was a young poet, searching for things. I suppose you’d call them spiritual things. But, as with so many young people, I was searching for anything exciting, if I’m completely honest!”
The muffled sound of a singing voice came through the floor, “… It’s a supernatural delight/Everybody’s dancin’ in the moonlight…” A jolt of irritation crossed Bruno’s face, then he relaxed back into his normal, placid, confident smile.
“Marcus and I studied under the same teacher. I had traveled to the monastery by horse, all the way from Kars – which is in what we now call Turkey – back then, I fancied myself quite the adventurer. Marcus had traveled by ship from Japan to the Indus delta, then walked through the valleys of the Pashtun, the Himalayan peaks, on through the holy wastes of Persia. You can imagine meeting Marcus, and hearing his tales of life lived along the Silk Road, well, they took the wind from my sails!” Bruno laughed.
Doug wondered if he’d blacked out. Maybe he’d started dreaming while taking a piss. He blinked a bit to make sure he wasn’t in the toilet.
“Oh, man. Check out her sword,” Shining Wind lifted his glass toward the painting with the decapitating and disembowelling swordswoman. “Marcus has to share it sometimes for the ceremonies, but she’s a real pro with it. She’s done movies, theatre, circus, and everything else you can imagine.”
Bruno winked again. “Let’s not give away all our secrets just yet, Shining Wind. Anyway. I taught the acolytes various forms of gnostic poetry, in return for training in their ancient solar incantations. Marcus gained insight into their so-called cosmic calisthenics, in return for teaching them aspects of the shinobi. Which built upon and refined the ways of the hashashin, of which they were already indoctrinated,” Bruno seemed to be in a trance himself. “But a lethal top-up, it was. No king or emperor could ever be safe, no priest or bureaucrat, for that matter. Ultimately though, some issues arose with our teacher, which required Marcus and I to escape into the desert mountains in the dead of night,” Bruno paused, a whimsical look crossed his face. “Oh, it sounds romantic, but we almost met our ends out there… Ultimately, I went to Berlin, where I studied with some of the finest, visionary architects working at the time. It was later when I was involved with a building project in Constantinople that I received word from Marcus. He had travelled to the new world, and was in South America now. He’d formed a loose group of like-minded folks there, he wrote me. So, I soon joined them… But, I’m rambling now. Suffice to say, breathtaking times those were. But then, breathtaking times these are still.”
“All these guys talk like this when they go down memory lane,” said Shining Wind. “It’s interesting, but don’t worry if it feels like a questionable Wikipedia entry. You’re not the only one.”
Bruno laughed in delight at this. “It is true that as inheritors of a spirit we must do a little research,” Bruno explained. “We might inherit the spirit, but we don’t necessarily get all the memories, or the skills for that matter. It takes practice.”
Doug frowned, “When did all this happen? The mountain stuff, in Syria, and the hash?”
Bruno scrutinized the grey monastery painting thoughtfully. “So, this painting — titled Shame — I painted it in 1892. The same year I met Marcus,” Bruno replied.
The lights changed color, back to a black-blue, the music pitched down several octaves, making it feel as if time was slowing.
“Indeed, each painting’s title is quite important to the overall series. It completes them, if you will,” Bruno continued. “The first one, Moon is far older than that. I can’t really date it, to be completely honest. The same with the next one, Regret. No idea when that’s from either. The next one, Ancient, is well, the days of antiquity. Then there’s Hungry… Refuse… Actor… Witness…” Bruno pointed at each painting as he said their title, with each word, Doug couldn’t help but jump a bit. “Dolphin. Myth… Bomb… Never… Witch…”
Doug looked down. His knees were knocking together, elastic and bouncy as if he was now an old cartoon. Then shaking. The tremor. It returned, now sending everyone and everything in the room flying, spinning around Doug and Bruno.
“Collapse… Practice… Feed… Shame…”
Bruno’s smile was gone. His mouth didn’t move but he was still speaking. The words rumbled on out through his entire body and rippled through Doug: “Open… Despair… Creek… Road… Again… Ice… Least… Kingdom…”
The gallery was now abandoned apart from Doug and Bruno and Shining Wind. Screams echoed up from downstairs. Shining Wind’s head had plunged into his cocktail as if he was trying to dive in, his body gone limp. Bruno stared at Doug with that same flat expression, mutely repeating: “Moon. Regret. Ancient. Hungry. Refuse. Actor. Witness. Dolphin. Myth. Bomb. Never. Witch. Collapse. Practice. Feed. Shame. Open. Despair. Creek. Road. Again. Ice. Least. Kingdom…” Round and round it went, an endless chant, each word reverberating like a gong through Doug’s skull and bones.
Doug tried to turn, to make his way to the door and escape this horrible place. But his feet were heavy, as if he was slogging through a mudflat.
“Douglas,” Bruno said, voicelessly. Doug had reached the door, the screams from downstairs penetrating upwards with shrill, primitive terror. “Moon…” Doug turned back to Bruno.
“Regret. Ancient. Hungry…”
As the disembodied chant continued, Bruno opened his mouth. As if his head could split in two, his lower jaw gaped open like the ramp of a drawbridge lowering over the moat between Bruno and Doug. Bruno’s teeth jutted out from behind his stretched purple lips. Each tooth, a perfect little glowing oblong pill, brightening up in unison, from a muted, dirty green to a warm white. Inside each glowing tooth swam schools of tropical fish — in there, sharks hunted seals, whales dove, jellyfish floated peacefully. Past the glowing teeth-aquariums, on the tip of Bruno’s tongue, a flock of seagulls rested, poking their beaks into Bruno’s soft pink flesh. A herd of deer bolted back down the mid-valley that split the centre of the glistening tongue. At the back of the tongue, just as it curled up and plunged down Bruno’s neck, Doug could see packs of black hounds mauling each other under a starry night sky. In the distance, where Bruno’s larynx should have been, a craggy mountain exploded into flames. Then from the blackness of Bruno’s opened throat, the head of Ramses the dog slowly emerged, writhing its way out like the head of an infant, breaching out from the birth canal.
Ramses was the one speaking now: “Again. Ice. Least. Kingdom…”
At each word, a circle of bright electric energy pulsed out around Doug. A surge of excruciating pain shot up Doug’s spine and exploded white hot into the front of his head. He shouted in agony, and slowly, he stumbled out of the gallery.
CHAPTER 39: I Know What I Like