The Prodigal Son Brings Death
My slender artisan fingers slicken with a seeping plash in their taut
clutching of the tools at hand. The recurring nightmare of weeks without rest,
toying night long with the fastenings, micro-engineered mechanics—bent wire
woven beds catching my blurring eyes in their supportive sleep suggestions. If
only the lenses of my magnifying spectacles weren’t holding back swells of
insanity, the blue deluge whirlpools encircling the black centers of my ocular
existence, then I might pour out of these holes and into my work. Woe to the
fractured being, I cannot will myself to bring into existence that which would
only reflect the impurities of its creator, what then would the children think
when their patron parents toss their newest toy whose screws seem too loose?
Critics to my masterpiece of sorts, parts pressing their respective joints in
place only to reaffirm the smallness of my operation.
To birth. A
plaything to render leisure time as more than a passing happenstance, to
intertwine the joy of a youth with the ontic reverberations of life within an
amassing of captured clicks and whirrs. For now, this effigy, this projected
reverie of tiny angles and formed felt, seems akin to the magicks of voodoo,
for every press and pinch is internalized, every heated touch is fire, and
every dot of mercury is funneled inward—maddening the poof-cloud of sensibility
swirling around the candle lit séance that is my operation table—whose
spirit-voiced cackling echoes between my ears through the vibrations of my tiny
tuning apparatuses.
The porous
terrain of bench that shone before me was seemingly whispered over with translucent
dune depth accents of light-bar wavering by way of lamplight—a craggy landscape
tinged by the dry death of desert’s breath. All was draught ridden, devoid of
Thales’ necessity, the life force and lubricant of time’s linear progression,
save for the vial of mercury, fogged over by my own humid exhaling, whose
quicksilver body slithered about—a pariah prostrate to my lunacy—my plunging
tools dipping deep from the venom just moments prior to my somnambulist siesta.
I the alchemist, practitioner of secret
deeds, filling all things with gods. I felt my lucid mind slipping away
from the task at hand.
“If only I
had more time!” my fist pounds the table in decry. I wandered my sleep-salted eyes
over to the long-wicked glass lantern that sat beaming at the bench’s edge,
teetering from my searing stress bravado. My consciousness lapsed into a state
of wonder, attempting to grasp the light beams of adept temporality seething
from the imprinted red glass chasm that housed the combustible liquid whose
vapid fumes are torn molecularly into heat and lumination. The trickery of the
bending particles through their stamped glass refractors gifted dance to the
post-Promethean landscape of tiger-striped orange wood whose new façade was one
caught captive by the undermining depth force finger tendrils of the creeping
underside sea-beast that is darkness.
I found
myself, once again, in the vast sky-bending realm of Wonder Valley, the high
desert whose torrid skin sucked in each plighted rain sprinkle without a spot
or splash. The smell of desert rain disguised the lifelessness of the air,
fuming out, instead, the brilliance of succulent innards whose savory recesses
are guarded by tough skin and an army of prickles. This uncharted pith was a
holy land of reckoning, inhabited by warring native tribes, a frontier plotted
along trade routes from the coast to the range of snowcaps peeking just over
the brim of the horizon.
Upon entry I
found the object of my desire hung high over the mirrored case of the jeweler’s
workshop. The low chandelier teetered back and forth on its creaking hinge,
seeming to give a shrill whine to the wind that accompanied the flickering
candelabra light in a ghastly astral protuberance. The metalworkings that lay
cold, for once, against the sanded wood floor were all but creeping angular
accents to the boar head that pendanted its glorious face in the wall’s center.
I gestured to the beast, whose every extinct cell was inlayed—it’s eyes
sparkled yellow amethyst blinks into mine over its glamorously chain rounded
snout, ears and mane lay mosaicked with shaped stones and glass, bespeckled in
spaces with the glinting hues of diamond and ruby, all broad skin adorned with
pleated silver and gold.
The leathery
and decrepit jeweler, whose inwardly curving hands reminisced of many a year
strained in the clutching of tools, pointed a twisted finger up at the beast speaking,
“I have
tried my life through to create a masterpiece of sorts.”
Myself taken aback by the portentous depth and air of
defeatism in his voice responded with,
“But see it
yourself, this is a masterpiece—you are the master.
“My young
visitor you must understand, this boar is my son, my blood, my toil, it has taken that which was given to this son of
Adam and become its own beacon of sin
and vanity.”
“I see not a
beacon, but instead the high art of a pedagogue.”
He psalmed,
“Someday—in time—you will know.”
A flash of
lightning lit the workshop and with a sharp tilt of the neck, the nodding mind
against all testament of my own will, jolted me back to reality. Duty. The doll
lay abject to my figure, its chalk white skin cried out with the wanting of
work. Its lensed eyes stared back with my own reflection, I peered deep through
the soul of the being, past all the clicking and whirring gears and cogs, past
all imbued and embedded lodestones, through the black vortex of magnetism and
magic that lay in the center of my musical masterpiece who speaks to me in
runic tones that ne’er blessed a more welcoming ear. Give me life father.
The thunder
of the electrical storm rolls incessantly, the oceanic waves of sound ring the
air like a tuning fork, exciting the fall-leaved loam of the land into uproars.
I feel the chill of the wind through my loosely paned windows and toss another
scrap of wood into the cast-iron stove that sits in the corner of the room. Every
movement calculated, a formulation of necessity to conserve the calories of
heat expensed by the whittling muscles of my aching body. Feed the fire. I bring the newly frigid tips of my arms to their
working state again, more diligent, careful this time not to summon the aegis
of dreams and darkness. You must finish,
this time they will know. Oh they already know, they know because I told them
so. They know because they closed the factory, now you must make the machines.
* * * * *
I awake in a
pile on the floor, to all a dismissible lump of flesh and bone, thwarted by the
confounding newness and dizzying hurt of sleep and satisfaction. Above me I see
the legs of my child, my cherub, my cheer, dangling with intention. This
movement springs me straight to attention and onto the tip of my toes. There my
lovely sits, idly, but in full costume—rosy cheeks seeming brilliant in
juxtaposition to the peaked pale of bloodless skin, the moppet—a taste-tester
of boredom—clothed in a silk-white jester’s garb complete with fountains of
opal frill splashing out from the neckline. I cannot will myself to remember
this costume, I have no recollection of completion, of achievement, I stand
dumbfounded before the warped felt munchkin whose tiny hands lay crossed
clutching an empty vial in which my mercurial potion was housed.
I snatch the
toy up from the workstation shaking free the vial from its manicula, which
tumbles through the air to land with an oddly voluminous crash against the
floor. Twisting the key in his back, I
halt my exhalation, the clicking reaches its apex and I pause. It is not an easy thing to meet your maker,
I remember. I hear clearly the proverbial voice of my teacher and find my hand
still eager to let loose the lid of Pandora’s pithos.
And so the
whirring commences, the tiny clockwork army inside my son sparks to life. The
twinkle of music box chimes blesses the room with the silver of the homecoming
song, the glistened gathering of rays of moonlight seeping in through the
window seem to bend centrally to focus their blanched light loads upon the new
entreaty into the world. My Son, my
light, venerable seraph of life, born into this, you are my masterpiece, you
are the embodiment of purity, you are
without the sin of the sons and may make the world anew, in your image life
will find redress, the machine will become whole, all will be one, the factory
will produce. The automaton begins.
I am
startled by his vivaciousness, leaping from the bench he gathers up workers’
armloads of tiny tools, and sets to the task with which he was programmed. Produce.
He whets and tinkers, glues and fastens, the art of the artisan, the creator of
creation. His mechanized movements are all passionless, the soft skinned lie of
his carapace seems a trick. Across the floor of the workshop, strewn about in a
fanciful pattern of struts and paces I see tiny dotted trails of footsteps,
parts in the lint and chip strewn pathways. Out of my parted lips I speak his
name as Nail, and praise his being with the eager intent of a new father. With
the ends met, the object of my desire had, I make haste to file from the scene
and into town to find a leaning ear to gather up my echoes of exploit, to find
the one who will fathom the monumental depth of this happening, to taste in the
air an age of newness and philologize of application and intent, of symbolism
and purpose. Nail will inherit the factory and a new golden age will be had,
this I must hark upon the latent disbelievers, for there are sure to be those
parents unwilling to welcome this new son.
The door
whooshes shut behind me as the crispness of the autumnal air with its decaying
breath strikes my flush face and memory up in through my agape nostrils. The
scent of baking bread wafts from the chimney strewn landscape ahead of me, my
workshop which lies adjunct to the boarded up toy factory, a shell of past
profit and boom, a ghost town of burnt out windows and dilapidated walls,
crawls with grime and crepuscular creepers. Passing the pride incarnate of my
life, so distressed and downtrodden, I find my pace quickening to a trot along
the worn cobblestone path that leads through the glade of birch borderlands
between my success and the masses, in search for the affirmation of my deeds.
For to boast of my execution, to parade the savory crown and child gleaming in
their magnificence, borne of my hand into life and consciousness. I have led by
that same hand my future, and that of the factory, out of the age of dying and
into the age of reason and knowledge. Where accomplishment has transcended the
need for lore and deities, where man is God and the self will rule, where
creation of life and meaning is no mere myth but rather a skill and trade of
the alchemist, the master, the craftsman.
As I reach
the main way of the town, I find the sun rising to meet my eyes over the T
topped chapel of stained glass. Its supple beams sear my eyes with brightness
and light so distanced from any experience that I have had as of late that I am
filled up with a giddy joy, and an itch of want so splendiferous that its very
scratching would cause a spewing of soul so close to the heart that my
breathing and beating might cease. This beacon of illumination draws me from my
lunular mind crescendo, past the façade of store fronts and signs listing off
their moot intent, the adverse of a horse in blinders still drawn on by the
reins of my son the messiah, the harbinger of a new dawn, the dream of a dream
to ring true the might of man over the oceans of hierarchal miscreance that
have ruled history as of yet with their telling of the false son.
My fists
find themselves balled as battering rams attempting to siege the white doors of
the chapel, my knuckles white with rage split from the pressure building up
within and leave crimson imprints upon their canvas from each torqued pound. In
savagery, my teeth clenched as though they might splinter their counterparts, I
scream for Him.
“Father! Father!
I have done it! Open this door and receive the blessings of man upon thy blighted ears, your days on
high above the grumbling laity are soon to cease,
your blasphemes and heretical ploys will fall
powerless from the heavenly kingdoms,
your legacy of poisoning and fear has been usurped by knowledge and innovation, the age of the conquering child
has eclipsed the dying God. Lo the Heirophant.”
There seems to be a reply of risings within the abbey, a
shuffling of feet and murmurings or prayers. The door groans open, a curtain of
darkness cloaks the welcoming party whose only visible portion is a hand that
pierces the barrier of shades and beckons for me to enter with one curling
ringed finger. I progress my bare mud splattered legs over the threshold of the
chapel, feeling a rush of warmth and whispers brunt my brow. The candle-lit
darkness of the room blurred my vision at first, forcing me to blink to adjust
to the dimness from which I seemingly just escaped in my workshop. When my lids
part, I find myself in the belly of Christ, pews lining a high-ceilinged
chamber, with kneeling bars at the ankle of each row assuring that only the penitent
can access the holy reaches of the dying God whose crucified shape lies nailed
to the wall above the pulpit crying out dried tears of blood and sacrifice.
Along the altar there lies the chalice, the body and the book of magic
incantations sworn over by the truthful to assure the power of law.
The priest
who allotted for my entreaty glared at me with his palms clapped in front of
his mumbling mouth. His flowing off-white garb is shawled around his shoulders
as a marker of purity and cleanliness, upon his nape lies a purple ascot
embroidered with the symbol of a dove in whose mouth is clasped an olive twig.
Around his finger is coiled a brass serpent whose two heads devour each other,
eternally swallowing the sin, blood and body of the next, now arching in
command to a point toward the wooden chamber near the edge of the raised pulpit
whose twiggy frame is imprinted with the carved and golden inlayed figure of
angels around the mouth of the first door and iron busted demonic humanoids
whose mouths shape the ancient cries of suffering and pain on the adjacent. The
sounds of our footsteps echo brashly against the acoustic alcoves crowning the
cavernous church ceiling, whose porous stone walls seep out the pearlescent
wishes of holy water and repentance. Before a lip is parted in speech I find
myself kneeling on the pine rod of the dark sided confession chamber, with my
companion perched on high in his gold rimmed throne, his cloaked figure barely
detectable through the screen of crosses and thin whittled fleur-de-lys
separating the cubicles.
“What say
you, my manic son of Adam, whose dissident screams ring audible from the
streets of suffering and pry upon the waking ears of the abbey. Confess and find your peace here my child, for your
voice seems the tumult of Lucifer’s tongue
at our door.”
“Father
forgive me not, for sin is basal of my nature and that nature hath not spoiled to sanctity, nor will its
prurient body be baptized by the wordy contrivances
of a false and dying God. Lend thine ears to the magnificence of my exhort, and judge this not as maniacal
ravings lest ye grace the fruits of my toil with
thine own eyes.”
“What say
you then, out with it, this is no arena for debate or the mystical babblings of a washed up
lunatic, confess to me this deed and let Him be the judge and warrant officer of sin.”
“Very well,
as it seems I have come to spread the word of my deeds I shall therefore fulfill my purpose. Many
nights I have toiled, since the factory has closed its gates and relinquished the grand task of producing the tools
and toys of or township. Each and
every waking second I have poured my soul into my work, to create in my image the perfect
combination of the two trades, a new son of man by which all will reap the incalculable benefit, a worker and
plaything, an imitation of life to
cradle the needs of our lost kind and to toil in place of our lowly counterparts. I have succeeded in this
task and therefore made gods of men, we have
usurped the age of the ghost, the jealous father, the sacrificed Son. Our destiny is rewritten by our own hand. We men
are now the creators, we have
found and
filled all things with Gods, and unlocked the secrets hidden away from us with the keys of knowledge and
innovation. Your master has governed the world
for two thousand years, and for two thousand years the earth has been dark with sin and suffering. My creation will
rid the world of need and necessity, all
things will be fruitful and free and the law will fail to eclipse the sphere of
societal necessity. All man is free
from work and want. The age on innovation is nigh.”
“What is
this blasphemous creation you speak of, you know that our God is a jealous one, his hand will be quick to
smite those who pray worship to the golden calves
of the human mind. You are naught but a lunatic, a madman whose body has been bent askew by the arching of
his back over a workbench, and whose morals
have been loosened by the dulcet pooling of mercury in the mind.”
“Lo then,
come see my creation with thine own eyes and behold the future.”
“Why then,
we will gather the town to make a fool of you, the madman, and cast him from our ranks. This town has no
need for a blaspheming fool.”
“There are
love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent.”
The priest
rose cackling from his pious throne and burst open the door to the confession
booth. He, possessed with the will of a
rabid disbeliever, rose to rouse all who could hear his preacher’s cry.
Captivated by his vigor the priory filed in line behind him, a brotherhood of
silken cloaked followers converged on the entryway to the chapel enlivening the
air with the rustling wave sounds of flowing fabric folds. All seems in tune to
his challenging step, an infantry of Christ-might bent on crushing the
courageous claims of myself, the tiny toymaker. I watch from behind the marching battalion as
their serpentine breadth slithers from the entryway to the church and down onto
cobblestone main way of the town. As the procession makes its headway the head
preacher calls the city to arms like the rouser of interests or cat-caller from
a traveling carnival,
“Come one,
come all, the toymaker has given birth to nonsense and in thus his mind has been lost, my people we must see
what he claims to be salvation, what he
can gift us that trumps the everlasting life of our Father. Lo the blasphemer, we must
ostracize this heretic for he embodies the trickery of the devil, come take heed of the miscreance of the hellion so
that we as a people may be keen to his ways
of influence lest we also fall prey to the attenuating ear licks of the serpents tongue.”
From my strategic position in the rear of the riotous bunch I
view a burgeoning orgy of frolicking fanatics, each and every facet of the
carnival that is a town is represented—the top-hatted announcer, the lion-tamer
with whips and a chair, the strong man and his barbells, the bearded oddity
stroking its glorious growths, the clowns and clappers, the magician with his saws
and doves, the fool and the hanged man—all gathered in human-nature’s beguiling
desire to scoff at the misfortune and ill-humor of the little fish swimming
against the stream. What part do I
occupy in this spectacle, what appendage am I to this body of madness when it
is I who is the beating heart of liveliness within this amassing of flesh and
fear? As each drop of the flash-flood crowd ambles out of their respective
hollows and into the river rushing toward my factory and home my mind wanders
from out its overseeing keep in observance of the Spectacle before me;
the spanish spandex’d man with
his barbells weighs
his moustache
a clipper rides gray gull gales
down
a slipping steam cloud pouch
of the gallery
in soft clutched pursed claps
throats roaring
clasp fingers over roughened
bill folds
the curtain is called, without answer
and called again
this time for the rain
a dance, of sorts
a sport
clown
dusted pasty piddling
of muck and tears
of joy
and fears, strength in numbers
faith in umbrellas
waiting on the wind
he lifts
Atlas of the hour
bearer of woe and want
of muck and tears
of joy
the tiny bespectacled toymaker with
his looking glasses
tinkers
and fears
wishing he could weigh
the world
of toys.
The crowd reached its destination at the apex of its
rowdiness, marching into the courtyard of the factory whose abandoned shell of
existence had been transformed into a wonderland of lively locomotion. Nail had
surpassed all expectation of mine, and continued with the task of production. My son, how proud I am of thee, inheriting
the will of your father, you have dipped a ladle from the spring of life and in
your heated passion become a geyser of creation. The chimneys of the
factory plumed out smoke and through the eroded holes in the stone walls could
be seen a full swing operation where tiny dolls tinkering with sockets and
gears, tools in hand, the little lively puppets hopped around assembly lines furnishing
their brothers and sisters with the necessary appendages and provisions,
creating others in their image from my spare rib of spontaneous brilliance and
humanity.
Before any
response from the crowd could be had at the expense of this breathtaking scene
I sprinted toward the front of the horde with my arms raised, mounting the
imaginary soap box pulpit I preached to the masses;
“Behold, my
kin, my brethren, my people. This spectacle is the dawn of a new age
in which all
will be free from burden, work and want. My creations you see in this factory, which you have so
sorrowfully abandoned in your hotheaded pursuit of ethereal salvation and the following self-proclaimed
prophets of the dying Christ, are
the gift of reprieve from humankind to humankind. No longer will you toil in vain over menial tasks or grovel on your
knees before the towering symbols of T’s. I
have gifted you my son, Nail, who has taken the portion of goods that falleth
to him from my estate and
reworked them into this factory which will now produce workers who will carry not only our workloads but also our
caskets. We will live and die with all
our worldly needs attended to. Behold the dawn of a new age, my prodigal son has made use of the
prodigal gift of life, and we shall all reap the rewards from this lavishly abundant resource that is existence.”
As I
finished my spirited speech, uplifted by the epiphanous prophecy that I had
forespoke, my heart began to pound in nervous anticipation of the reception of
my monologue. The preacher, whose mouth lay agape for the entirety of the
scene, began to fill itself with the tongue lisping twangs of hate-speak,
forming each labia to enhance the intense verbiage directed toward me in the
form of the word necromancer. The eyes of all the townsfolk in their
circus-esque demeanor began to glow with a fiery hatred. Every face in the
crowd blended into a pulpous mass of screaming and chanting anger. The noise
projected in my direction grew so loud that I became engulfed by silence. Each
and every creature of the crowd shifted their silhouette structure with an
amorphous skin-toned whirlwind of waving hands and became one swirling cloud of
reformation. The tornado halted and in the place of each person stood a
towering cross upon which the body of Christ was bleeding and impaled, save for
the face of every Christ was head of a doll,
my Nail, but their glass lensed eyes were instead filled with a dripping
liquid lava of fire. I turned to escape the nightmare, barreling head-first
into the factory whose cold stone constitution burst into flame as soon as I
passed the threshold of the building.
I scramble
through the uproar of ash, smoke and heat scampering toward my workshop. I must find him. I upturn benches and
saws, toolboxes and supply drawers, in avid search for my son, my life, my
love. I scream in agony as every piece of the factory I touch sears my flesh in
its instantaneous incineration. The barely majestic moments of this workhouse
of knowledge and innovation, whose glory day had been revoked as swiftly as it
was invoked, had now become a funeral pyre. Carcasses cast in the image of my
Nail lay smoldering about, some still tinkering, sawing and gluing away. I keep
pushing onward, knowing that none of these impersonators are my true son,
carried only on by the stoic demands of fatherhood. And there I see him, lying
listless upon my workbench, seemingly just where I left him only days prior, as
I grow nearer—only steps away—his head turns in my direction, “Father, I have
sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy
son.” The words take register in my mind and as their saddening enunciation
began to pry at my eyes in tears the factory collapses in upon me, a fireball
of suffocating power and heat, the whelps of hell and fury of the nether brazen
my fleshly being and I am cast into darkness.
* * * * *
I awoke with
my head in a pool of sweat on the bench in my workshop. The corner furnace was
roaring, though it hadn’t been stoked in hours. I felt as though I had been
asleep for a century and had awoken in an era of enlightenment and reason. My
tinkering projects lay all about my person and the sun peeked in through the
window adjacent to my chair showing glancing light just so perfectly off of the
pool of sweat and drool in front of me that I was able to lean over and catch
my reflection. I peered straight into my eyes and saw for the first time a brow
loosened by the sense of overwhelming rest and relief. What pray tell has possessed you these past weeks. My eyes glared
reflecting back through my spectacles with the cooling relief of the blue
oceanic chromatism of my irises. I stood up from my stool expecting the norm of
stiff appendages and aching muscles, but found instead that I was brimming with
comfort. I tried to recollect the chimera of my unconscious traveling, only to
find, locked away in my subconscious, a panging nag of guilt embodied by a long
slender steel nail, the likeness of which I kept stashed in the many drawers of
my tool chest. I have had enough. I
picked up the vial of mercury and remnants of projects and dreams that lay
strewn about the room and tossed them into the furnace, making headway out the
door and out into the crisp autumnal air that wafted the scent of fresh baking
bread up my nostrils from the chimney strewn landscape that lay ahead of me on
my path away from the factory.
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