I left Baphomet
with dizzy ideas and the head as a turbine where a hangover was future water
which was grinding mercilessly, an intoxicated course of a burning river where
it seemed to be swimming, disrespectful and foolish, an army of crazy ants. It looked
as if they were dancing without sense, an almost macabre dance, and rather than
perish in the fire, grew eccentric while they invited their congeners to an
orgy of lava and anarchy. The silhouette of the world and the reason extricated
while sliding down the toboggan of alcohol of that night of July. And without any
firm handles, I was about to fall and drown. My life was a watery slope that
did not allow me to see the edges and I slipped rapidly into a chasm of pain
and terror, in the vacuum of not distinguishing my terrified silhouette in the
midst of the images that were dizziness and suffocation, a shadow fleeting in paths
that had not had any news from me, in which I had not left either steps or
footprints in the 29 years I would be three days later; that wandering
throughout existence without injuries or joys, as an automaton who obeys orders,
with no criteria for questioning them; that in a bend of supreme boredom can throw
away his life steeped in treacherous elixirs that delayed reflection but killed,
criminal, without one being aware of the rancor.
You're
the one that I want could still be heard a year later and
its accelerated sound hammered on my softened neurons while looking for the exit
of that fashion place. The night was peculiarly chilly, and a white coat, that
soon would be my usual cover, seemed to emerge from the east threatening to
seize immediately the sleepless city. It was already July 27. I began a long
weekend, as it must be already one o’clock of Friday. I couldn’t see the moon
in that frayed canvas, but later I knew that it was new, as was the pristine life
to which I headed, last night as a dipsomaniac. In my new time it would bother
me that white wallpaper to hide the imposing silhouette of Scorpio, almost the
best constellation of summer, but then I wasn’t looking up and although there
were still some stars, I would have failed to distinguish them. The pure and
fresh air almost hurt me, as if suddenly I swallowed a breath of the real life
that others lived, honest and sincere, without mists or poisons that clouded
them. I had gone out through I don’t remember which door to a huge waste ground,
maybe uninhabited, giving to Millers' Lane, with trees which, in those days, I was
not able to recognize, abundant but barely perceptible in the east next to the
Kilmourne, and further to the south, while the mind stayed inside. Vague
memories of useless conquest were the faithful portrait of my frustration for
not having been able to grab the sun at dawn of a woman outline. The carnal
hunt I was allowed to because I had not set anything permanent with Anne-Marie.
But that night everything was futile seduction, blows of rushed bodies, fixed
glances that I perceived of anger and annoyance, glasses spilled in a dress as
clear as a summer moon, accusations and clear objections. There wouldn’t be a
flame of sand on my deserted bed; the silk of a female body would not shed as a
source on my pillows. I had learned that if a woman bursts in the sheets, every
night is of summer, fire of dawn in the early morning. I competed to have them
without being aware that the profit is in the gift that is given away and not in
the benefit that is pursued. Women lived in me like an unexpected heat at noon,
and I, guilty of the vital cold that enclosed me, for months thought I had
treated them poorly for not having known to drink from her springs without ephemeral
conquest, for not having understood the gift that resided in the flavor of their
warm dew; women were so many that they could raise a pyramid where would be the
registration of my defeats; monuments that would tumble down with the destroying
rain of the equinoxes, with a solstice of boiling resin, with my clumsy hands
which were not able to build. I lost the beauty ball of wool and I couldn’t
find them again and defeated, knowing the night was fruitless, I ended up going
out to the wasted ground where other bites awaited me.
It was not the first time that I wasted my
free time in that place and I knew something of the places nearby. Now I know
that the door through which I left gave south. I could see the rear windows of
Alder Street, on my left, adjacent to the disco, but also some isolated houses
that seemed to have their entrance on that side, with their backs to fortune,
on top of miserable rusty staircases, one of which I believed to see that then
climbed two beggars. If I extended my view in the direction of the east, a
silhouette of wood, somewhat blurred at this hour and somewhat confusing, which
resembled a rotten walkway is seen in the distance. It was Mill Bridge, under
which and around which was Outcasts Outskirt. Across the line of the east horizon,
keeping the nakedness of the river, as if jealous of the thirsty glance and the
stripped throat who coveted its vital fluid, determined to safeguard it to
prevent miserable upstarts to benefit from the silver which nourished its sap, there
was a grim silhouette, almost white of the fog that was devouring them, of black
ashes. The Kilmourne did not roar that evening, and who did not know that it
was there might not guess it, not even for moisture, because all its drops
would have been attributed to the fog. But I want to describe to you, Protch,
some of what was there and not only what I could see, including what I ignored
by then as the names of the trees. On the other side, if I went back to my
right sight, I could look to a nearly civilized street with few inhabitants and
houses just to the west: Millers' Lane. Although there were two outskirts of
beggars, it hardly could deviate from them, without marked insolence, but with a
clear will to differentiate from them, with its somewhat rusty tradition and
its old poise, last and sometimes forgotten extension of Templar Village. To
the south at medium altitude, the terrain rose and far away you could almost distinguish,
behind a curtain cover-up of old alders, the annoying protuberance of the
cemetery of St. Alban. I had never been within, but I didn’t want to look at its
funeral contour. I was afraid of the obfuscating vision of possible goblins
messengers of death or of will-o'-the-wisps. But I did not know that the
ancient Nicholas Siddeley was going to die that night, at that time, in that
place... Nearer St. Alban, where the ground rose, you could see a vast
landscape about which nobody had ever told me: the Outskirt of the Torn Hand,
where an offspring of the man who was going to die would continue, in the new
nights of hunger and discovered stars and the new days of sun and fog, taking his
place. But that night, at that time, all that territory was virgin for me.
Nike was born in the month of the lion, but
did not know its strength. In order to find it, he had to travel the Zodiac to
find the drawing of his sign. That night, at that time, in that place, his story
would begin. And he had to start in Virgo, living unknown experiences in virgin
pages where one could write strokes of his wandering, a storyline written with
a fire that bit instead of burning, with no more help than his mild intuition,
as all heroes at the beginning of their trip, in the confusion of the penumbra.
The wind was my first impression of the
place. The mountains were not very far and could be noted with their furious
breath, that frozen lash that in a few days would enter all my bones without
asking me for permission. At that time, in the middle of the summer, it was
just a nuisance and I hadn’t yet become a forced mate. Despite its notorious
presence, Baphomet doors were crowded
with couples seeking love on the sly, and did not find a better place than in
the middle of the crowd, or the risky invisibility of the large parking lot
that had become the northern half of the waste ground, which corresponded to
the Outcasts. I walked away to the east looking for a back alley I already knew, a badly lit passageway which also
connected it with Alder Street, not too long, rough, of foul-smelling ground,
without name, but which used to be called Alder Alley. When I found it, I saw a
strange graffiti: in a skein like grey cloud I thought I distinguished pieces
of a man, a lion, a bull and an eagle: a strange tetramorph, which I went to
see in subsequent months. I could never decide if they were Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John; or they were Aquarius, Leo, Taurus and Scorpio, which stands for the
Eagle. Then I thought that they had drawn something from the ancient Sumerian
beliefs where each figure represented one of the four steps of the sun through
the sky, the four seasonal changes: Leo for the spring equinox, Scorpio for the
summer solstice, Aquarius for the autumn equinox, Taurus for the winter
solstice. The four fought with the weapons they had and it seemed that the lion
was going to win, as if the intention was to convey that life is renewed every
spring. I always wondered what strange inspiration guided that original street artist,
or from which educated sources he seemed to have drunk, but I never knew more about
him, her? or the name, because of its curvy and flowery tag you could only distinguish an S.
As Alder Alley was also occupied by people of
dangerous appearance that inhaled different types of tobacco, I walked away a
little more in the direction of the river. It was almost impossible to find
somewhere devoid of human presence, and at every step, the need to urinate became
more urgent. I ended up locating a declivity of the land well hidden by ash trees
where there was nobody. Not far away I thought I distinguished a few angry
voices: two men arguing vehemently approached. I couldn’t perceive clearly the
words, but they were getting closer. But unexpectedly I understood danger, as if it were a warning. Suddenly
all sound stopped. The harmful animal was
stalking.
A couple of seconds later I heard treads
again. Then, one of the voices, which had been alert, was suddenly silent as if
the stealth was essential, and by the drift of the steps I thought that suddenly
they began to look for something, can't say what, cautiously, as if following
the track of something elusive that could escape them, while a shudder shook
the weed with an unmistakable sound of something crawling. The two men seemed
to agree to postpone the argument until something more pressing was solved. I
had just begun to urinate and all my skin bristled, wanting to put an end as
soon as possible, victim of a strange omen. Then I saw them, three and a half
years later, almost opposite me, come out of my drunkenness or my regrets, two
men who it was not difficult to recognize: Miguel and John.
My old workmate seemed
unharmed by changes and neither time nor misery had caused him any erosion. The
short, dark, hair was still immaculate, well kept and of a neat appearance. No
notable variation in the rest of his body. The only traces of his change of fortune
were detectable in his clothes, poorer and dirtier, perhaps, but did not even
deserve the name of rags. John resembled, in any dwelling that fate would make
him dwell, a distinguished gentleman, but now his factions, despite the recent argument,
looked alert, but calm and, apparently happy. Perhaps I wanted to see him like
that, keeping a sort of strange gift by which Miguel, at his side, of the same
stature, seemed shorter. The most obvious in the latter, whom I had seen only
once, was the long grey beard that he had almost up to the chest. That it was
also well kept was beginning to be an indecipherable mystery for me. Moreover,
in his worn grey shirt and his miserable felt jacket he seemed to have, with strange
equity, the rags that corresponded to him and those which had managed to dodge his
partner. I began to calculate how long it had been since that strange morning at
the bar of the company when I saw him for the first time, humble and
charismatic at the same time, owner of his fate. And an incandescent blush
became possessor of my countenance betraying my solitude, that had started more
or less by then, and my sharp repentance.
I could not know of their continuous fights
or the stubborn jealousy that was so often, more frequent in John, who was
jealous of everything with two legs and a smooth and glowing skin, female and
male, in a continuous torment. But Miguel was not left behind. They seemed when
arguing that they were having real animosity, and if one that was there by
chance heard them become heated could bet on a couple broken in the next few
hours until, once he got used to it, was always surprised by the strange
impulse that they got of those conflicts and the love they renewed. But this
time, despite the vehemence that both had put in their invective, it caught by
surprise that the truce was motivated by a clear note of urgency in their eyes.
I looked then, but there was no time for greetings. My ominous fate was close.
It happened in just a minute. I was going to
say something, but my mind, now almost entirely blind, prevented me to say
anything. The last lights that I had, if I had still any, were hot sand, boiler
of liquids on the verge of evaporating, a log on which you drop the first droplets
of fuel and only awaits the wick. So many years and so much anguish had not been
good at all. They both stopped suddenly and they gave the impression that they began
a strange ritual of worship to the ground, but it seems that to idolize it,
they had to immobilize it. I would have seen them with shock, perhaps, if I had
retained an ounce of sobriety, but the mixture of toxins, confusion, and the malaise
of the past years... Hours of crying would come later, but I couldn't help but insult
him again. Still I had not fastened my zipper. Miguel, but mainly John, seemed
absorbed in the contemplation of the center of my body:
─ "Can you see what
you might want to see, John?" ─I said disgusted and offensive. Just two
seconds later I was already regretting it.
─ "Nike ─Miguel
suddenly spoke. He remembered my name─, don't move. You have not done anything
and perhaps it will walk away" ─his words didn’t betray any anger, but they
were cryptic. They did not seem to refer to John.
Trying to understand something of what was
going on, it was then when I lowered my eyes and I saw it.
I couldn't define you the color although I
take all day trying, Protch: something like a poisonous orange, somewhat orange
and somewhat grey, but do not pay me much attention. I never saw its eyes. I
was looking at it almost to the tail, and its entire cursed and venomous spine
with, in the center, a kind of chain of purplish rhombuses. But I only saw it
five seconds before fear paralyzed me. My breath, already unhealthy enough,
condensed. I don't know if I got to do some movement; I don't remember even
having breathed. Perhaps I was tempted to run, but now I doubt that it would
have been useful. But my great puzzlement was to decipher what was doing in
that outskirt a poisonous snake, because I had never heard of any in Hazington.
Perhaps it was attracted by the river or the ash grove, but then I knew that
not even John, who understood something of reptiles, could ever identify the
species. I didn't see its eyes, not even its head, but later Miguel, who had
time to observe it, thought he had seen a few unusual crests or perhaps happened
that the monster had an eczema that gave him that look, as a rooster. I never
saw its eyes... but perhaps the snake, which was back for them and watched me from
the front, observed something strange in mine, perhaps the loss of my already,
that night, unrecoverable sanity; and it may be that something of all this disturbed
it.
Without knowing why I did it, as I was no
longer owner of my actions, I put my hand in the pocket of my shirt with the
intention to get a cigarette, as if I still had the crazy hope that smoke was
capable of scaring off that terrifying vision.
─ "Watch out,
Nike, don't do any movement" ─said John. And I heard his voice after more
than three years.
I interrupted what I was doing.
─ "I’m frightened,
John" ─I remember to have said, in my panic and helplessness.
A crack in the brushwood vibrated then
slightly, perhaps some scary rat that the snake preferred to scorn.
─ "Don't move, please"
─I heard again, but this time the words were Miguel’s.
Those seconds time was extended and never
ended. Damn eternity of those moments in which I had to face the likely vision
of my own death.
─ "What can I
do?" ─I think I said, but I do not remember having been able to complete
the sentence. I just keep the memory of a sharp and sudden pain that started in
my left groin and that in a few seconds took over all my body before losing
consciousness, bathed in small streams of my own blood.
It was a basilisk because I could never see its
eyes.
Three little kings had bitten me forever, but the first one managed to kill me.
I died that night, at that time, in that place. I could not know that Nicholas
Siddeley, this insensitive and presumptuous tyrant who so far you had had the
misfortune of knowing, would not come again; He was dead, bitten and moistening
the earth with his own blood. Two tiny spots, separated by about six millimeters,
stigmatised my defenseless flesh. The agony, or the transition if you prefer,
had to last for months, until finally I knew that Nike was my unique name, and
could revive and recognize myself.
I got news of what happened next, but I have
no memories. The harmful animal, satisfied its revenge, crawled away and did
not return. The next days Miguel and John (I now use the correct chronological
order, but then I would have named them the other way round) looked for it
because it was a danger for all, but never knew of its grotesque image of
basilisk. There was no reason to be there except to kill me, and now I think
that once achieved its goal it evaporated. Then Miguel and John, who had to
make a decision in a few seconds, separated. The latter stayed beside me,
watching my state, and watching me. It was forming a swelling around the bite.
I also suppose that when I fainted I fell to the ground beneath the ash trees
and my old co-worker had to fight to put me in such a way that my head was
higher than the rest of my body, to avoid spilling the poison.
Miguel, on the other hand, moved away in
search of a car that could take me urgently to a hospital. What happened then,
in reality, I don't know, but sometimes manages to infuriate me, for him or for
us, not for me. It may be impossible, anyway, to explain something like this to
those who sought the ephemeral pleasures of certain fumes or of unexplored flesh
inside a car; or perhaps no one would believe in the urgency of a man that
spoke of improbable facts dressed in rags and a beard like a river, but since I
knew I had to learn with pain that for those on the other side the word of a beggar has no value. .
Faced with that defeat and with the urgency
of a few seconds that could be vital, Miguel returned to John’s side and my
fallen image, perhaps a man who agonized while fog, like a scavenger, was
devouring him. When he saw that he had returned impotent, John raised his
shoulders and took a desperate resolution but that was the only thing that
remained to be done to save me. And with two words they understood and, in
absence of a best stretcher, I was risen as a bundle, and John by the head,
Miguel by the feet, took me to the Outskirt of the Torn Hand, to the nearest tent,
that of the beggar Bruce, who was at the time smoking in the door, and that was
the most useful one for its unprecedented pillow of rock that would get that my
feet were at a lower level to my head. I
did not see anything, could not perceive any sound and knew nothing, was unable
to distinguish east or west, mud, roads or weed, or maybe the eyes that I
delayed to open would have glimpsed how the night dressed with a white coat
that swallowed the last drops of my blood and the newly appearing stars, which
just born, fell ill.
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