long after sunset

Of Fate

Tens of thousands of warriors lay dead on the plain of madness. The dragon, Hortense and Heloise laid a wreath at the cemetery gate.

The dragon thought he could hear a dirge and cocked his ear.

“Must they all have died?” asked Hortense.

“Mortal men must all end,” the dragon said.

“And are you a man?” asked Heloise, who always had feared to ask the dragon this question. The nearness of the warriors, though dead, lent her courage.

“A man, you say?” asked the dragon. “Still I love you and Hortense both.”

Heloise blushed. She pointed to the field of warriors. “Is there an afterlife for them?’

“Is our love stillborn?” he asked.

We are fond of you as we always believed you were fond of us,” said Hortense. “When we were girls you took us to breakfast, and ever since we have known you as our dear friend.”

“Ah,” said the dragon crestfallen. “Are you concerned that lives cut short by violence sleep forever in the ground?”

“Do the black crows carry souls toward heaven?” asked Heloise.

The dragon shook his head. “There are texts that say no one can leave the vale of shadow.”

“By any means?” asked Hortense.

The dragon pondered the problem anew. He had never thought of it before since he would live forever, if only in the imagination. “We could use fire,” he proposed.

“Bonfires? The burning ghats of Benares have fascinated me since I saw them in a book,” said Heloise. Her library had many books about India on its shelves.

The dragon narrowed his eyes, “The entire subcontinent is mired in confusion over this subject, Heloise, regarding the serpent coiled in a knot at the base of the spine, its erection between the breasts of the beloved, and their ridiculous saints. I prefer the west.”

Heloise grew silent.

“Europe cannot hold a candle to the achievements of the east,” she said. “Our only world wars started in Europe and brought such monstrosity and random destructiveness in their wake. Can you really be serious? You are mocking us.”

The dragon turned scarlet. “There is a method,” he managed to say.

Hortense and Heloise looked at him expectantly.

“‘Then let us begin without delay!” The dragon asked Heloise because sometimes she looked the loveliest, “Do you have Manly in your bosom?’

Heloise reddened slightly. Was Manly dressed? She didn’t know. “Manly, come out now.”

Manly, clearly perturbed at the interruption of his bliss, peeped his head out from between her breasts.

Hortense patted him on his head. “Now, Manly, behave!”

He stuck out his tongue like a dart.

“I can assign you a use in the world, Manly,” offered the dragon. “Are you interested”

Manly glowered, but pulled back his tongue.

Had he wanted no doubt the dragon could burn it to a crisp.

Instead the dragon lit a torch with a snort of fire and Manly’s eyes danced with the flame.

“Manly,” he instructed, “Take this torch and stand on each warrior’s grave until you have burnt away the etheric debris hovering over them that many erroneously call ghosts.”

“Is it hot enough?” asked Heloise.

“‘Hell is thick with chords, tendons, ropes, chains, blocks, balls of iron and other detritus. It is subtle and dangerous work.”

“Will Manly expire from the exertion?’ asked Hortense.

The dragon smiled revealing his brilliantly white teeth. “Manly is man enough for the job.”

Manly always rose to a challenge of his manhood. He hopped to the ground and snatched the burning faggot from the dragon. “I accept!” he shouted running off to shepherd the first warrior to Valhalla.

“Won’t the torch eventually falter before the job is complete?” asked Heloise.

“No, Heloise, the fire is quenchless and Manly is our hero.”

A light snow appeared overhead coating the land with white.

“The color of death,” said Heloise discomfited with another reminder of the dreary vale.

“Is it the end of time?” asked Hortense entranced by the beauty of the snow on the ground.

“In thought only, Hortense,” said the dragon. “The battles these warriors fought were all psychological at their root.”

Petards sprang up here and there as Manly proceeded with his work.

“Do you mean that these valiant warriors died from love?” asked Heloise alarmed at the prospect.

“Sweet Heloise,” cooed her sister, “always googoo about love.”

Heloise objected. “I am not! Isn’t pink the color of love?”

Hortense agreed, “And I am pinker than you.”

Heloise grew hotter and hotter at this insult to her pride, “Love?” she asked.

The dragon abhorred disputes about love. He held out his hands palms outward in an attempt to mollify them before the soup boiled over the lip of the pan. “Water,” he thought, “would soothe them.”

                                       The Fisherman

“Girls,” he suggested reminding them of the time when they were young, “ought we not go down to the beach?”

The idea appealed to them as a counterweight to this morbid scene. They fell behind the dragon’s giant strides.

The sea mirrored the heavens. Hortense and Heloise sat on either side of the dragon.

They all gazed meditatively at the water.

All was quiet, broken when sea monsters rose out of the waves and stalked the beachhead. The high water mark served as their boundary and none dared walk onto dry land because of fear. Soon so many monsters crowded the shore neither Hortense, Heloise nor the dragon could see beyond them.

Hortense suggested in a whisper, “As they block the view I think we should seek higher land.”

They arose quietly to avoid drawing the monsters’ wrath when the dragon tugged at

Hortense’s and Heloise’s sleeves.

“Wait. A lone figure approaches from further down the strand.”

Truly curious, Hortense and Heloise strained their eyes but could not see anyone. “Who is it?”

The figure came into view and he carried a fishing pole with a long line on his shoulder. He paid the monsters no mind and they scarcely took notice of him. He found a favorable spot from which to cast his line into the sea.

The dragon and Hortense and Heloise sat quietly nearby to watch. In sotto voice they conferred as to his name.

“I don’t know his name. There are many men who walk the earth under the stars, moon and sun.”

The fisherman cast his hook far into the sea and then stood as immobile as a tree.

When at last something tugged at his line the monsters took heed. They sneered, “We ate them all! Every last fish we could find!”

The fisherman remained steadfast and patiently pulled in his line, and it was a great long while before he had it in.

The monsters spoke amongst themselves. “It must be anything but a fish.”

At last the fisherman snared a fish in his net, and then he bared his teeth lest the monsters lunge. Warily he made his way to the dragon and the Pink sisters. They sat in a circle of three and he made a fourth.

They recognized in him the warrior.

“Would you care to eat?” he asked them.

“I will make the fire, and you, Hortense and Heloise, gather sticks and stones, and we will dine under the stars,” said the dragon.

The fisherman held the fish over the crackling fire. He forced open the mouth and Manly popped out his head. The fisherman placed the fish on the hot stones amid the gathered sticks and soon they shared a signal repast.

The next morning the fisherman awoke, he had fallen into a heavy stupor after the meal and delightful conversation and he couldn’t keep his eyes awake. The dragon and the Pink sisters had lifted him saying he’s almost as light as the air, and put him on a cot in a shack at the lip of the sea.

The dragon had commented, “You see now a warrior who has returned from the dead. By what means I cannot say.”

The fisherman sat and looked forlornly at the heaving sea. His companions had gone and even the sea monsters had swum back into the deep sea leaving him alone. Except for the sea and its plangent waves.

                                          THE COURT

At midmorning a postman arrived and delivered a parcel. The fisherman kept it on his lap for an hour still watching the sea. The parcel had been wrapped in newsprint and was wet and clammy in his hands. As no one else knew his whereabouts he suspected Hortense or Heloise had sent it to him. Perhaps they had soap they did know what else to do with.

Carefully he peeled away the wrapping paper and found not a bar of soap but a seagull asleep with a fish in its mouth. He wondered at the symbolism if any there was, when the bird awoke suddenly and lifted into the air.

He looked down at the newspaper in his lap and saw a photo of a woman in her lingerie. She motioned for him with her finger to come closer.

Was that a smile forming on her lips? He couldn’t be certain as she was half turned away. He scorned her approach and went down to the water clutching the newsprint. He wanted to see if the seagull had returned but nary a bird. He stole another glance at the woman. Now she appeared to pout.

“Who are you?” he asked.

He did and her bra fell to the floor.

She puckered her mouth wanting to be kissed but fisherman regarded her with suspicion. He didn’t know jot about her. On impulse he threw the newspaper into the sea and then he regretted his action. What if she didn’t know how to swim?

He turned away to go back to his dwelling. “The sea is murderous,”he thought, “perhaps I should try further inland.”

As he stepped onto the porch two beach police took him by the arms and hurled him face down into the sand. “Why are you trespassing?”

There was worse to come. The fisherman strove to free himself but the police proved the stronger. They lashed him to a beach tree.

“The charge?”

“Attempted murder,” they answered.

“‘The penalty?” the fisherman asked.

“The noose,” they laughed.

“Mercy?” the fisherman asked.

“Let the jury decide,” they said.

The fisherman had severe doubts. The authorities had lately packed the jury with sun worshipers.

“Your verdict?” the judge, a ponderous fellow with jowls and a furrowed forehead, asked.

“Guilty as charged,” the foreman shouted to the hoots and cries of the audience. “We throw the book at you!” he spat at the fisherman.

“The means of death is by hanging,” said mournfully the judge.

The hangman knotted the noose and prepared the gallows.

“Is guilt so easily handed out?” asked the fisherman.

They ignored him as the condemned had no right to speak.

Apprentice hangmen smoothed the sand and set up folding chairs. Dragons sat on the chairs eager to see the hanging. As the sun rose higher in the sky the heat became more oppressive and the dragons began to sweat.

A learned dragon said, “We need a fan.”

Some junior dragons ran off to do his bidding scouring the beach for a fan. They found a half buried Chinese folding fan with hand painted figurines adorning it. They delivered their find to the dragon who graciously accepted it.

‘Your last wish?’ the learned dragon asked the fisherman.

The fisherman responded, “I would like to kiss Heloise.”

“Does she love you?” asked the dragon.

“I don’t know,” said the fisherman.

“Then there is no reason to delay. Let us proceed.”

The fisherman began to feverishly sweat as the hangman threw the noose over his head.

A commotion began at the far end of the crowd as a woman charged forward elbowing everyone out of her way with wild abandon.

She wore only a bikini, and the dragons could not remove their eyes from her breasts. She climbed onto the gallows and untied the noose. “You are free,” she said.

Then she kissed him full on the mouth. Heloise did.

“Could you unclasp my bra?”

The noose fell away. A cry of dismay at this unwanted interruption rose from the throng.

“Is he dead?” a child asked

‘What is the meaning of this?’ croaked a dragon white with beard rudely awakened from a doze in the hot sun.

Heloise turned toward this questioner. A hush fell over the crowd. It was her breasts. She did not say a word. She need not to say anything.

“You have performed magic,” the warrior told her.

“No such thing,” she said, “I have only broken the fragile string of their consciousness. The bubble could have burst at any time under any duress.”

The dragons’ attention did not waver.

The warrior perceived a longing for Heloisc emanating from the onlookers. “Do they love you?” searching for a precise definition of their captivation.

“They are childishly beguiled by my form, and were I to sway gently from side to side I could rock them to sleep.”

Already some of them had nodded off to dream.

“There are sexual strands that tie this universe together,” she explained.

Consider how a rocket shooting up toward the moon holds an entire nation in its thrall.

The warrior took her arm and proceeded down from the gallows.

                                    A GOODBYE TO THE DEAD H.

They walked to the ocean.

“The warm sea breeze pleases me,” she said. “I would bathe here and now, gentle warrior, will you come with me?”

“Already the water laps at our toes,” he thought. “This day has brought wondrous events.”

He slipped from his clothing as did she, and they dove into the sea.

They swam away from the shore deeper and deeper into the lulling sadness. The ocean was calm and flat as they swam. Two mermaids sensing their near exhaustion carried them on their backs to a shallow estuary of a nameless island. This small island rising only a few feet above the water line was a mere prick in the water’s mind.

“Do you know where we are?'” she asked him.

“‘I cannot tell. Yet this place resembles the burial ground of the dead H.”

They saw a dragon toiling with a pickaxe and shovel. Sweat pouring down his back mottled his skin.

“Is this dragon exhuming the dead?” the warrior asked.

The dragon hadn’t noticed the warrior and Heloise standing in the shallow water right against the lip of the land.

In a loud voice the warrior shouted, “I say, dragon! What are you doing?”

The dragon lifted two fiery eyes and then returned with rather more exertion to his labor. After a few more strokes he tore away the layers of dirt covering the coffin. With a prodigious heave he pulled the box onto the surface. Then he sat with a grunt on the shore and wept bitterly washing away some of the gloom.

The warrior greatly curious climbed onto the sand and peered down into the grave. Water poured into the gaping hole. Nature abhors a vacuum.

Manly rode up to the island on the back of a fish and gave the warrior a hearty hello. Then he muttered under his breath and frowned, “The dead H.?”

His face brightened when he saw Heloise sunning herself on the beach. “Heloise!” He ran over to her ear and whispered his deepest wish.

She nodded and turned over on her side allowing Manly to kiss her bosoms. He jumped ecstatically and somersaulted.

“Heave ho, fish”‘ he commanded. Then the fish pulled and Manly pushed the coffin into the water. With a terrific leap he established his captaincy of the boat and with the fish as engine and rudder they sailed the dead H. out over the horizon.

The warrior grieved, “My father has passed away never to be seen again.”

The dragon had meanwhile regained his usual sobriety. With little dispatch he built a fire and began to cook a soup.

The warrior went over to sit beside him on a log.

“What does this soup signify?’ he asked the dragon.

The dragon dipped his spoon into the pot. “Why ought it signify anything? Ask her.”

The warrior walked over to Heloise. “Do you know?”

“I see that at last you are done with your father. I think the soup acts as a chalice for the collected tears for the dead H.”‘

She spread her hands and directed his vision toward the broad sea. The color of the ocean had changed from the gray of lulling sadness to the crystalline blue of adventure.

“Will you join us for soup?’ she asked him.

She took his hand and the three of them drank the soup from sea shells collected by the mermaids, and they conversed on subjects deep, ponderous, sad, happy, and exultant, until long after sunset.