Gift From
Anonymous G
By Rosalyn
Stevenson
How long
had she been trudging through the dirty pock marked snow? She couldn’t
remember. She only knew that she had to go on in spite of the heavy blanket of
snow that illuminated the endless night.
Cold
flakes of metal fell from the air and pecked at her raw, chapped cheeks like
angry birds of prey.
All
thoughts had frozen in her but one: “I must go on. The G’s are counting on me.”
She knew, hoped, that the noticeable trail she left as she pulled her heavy burden
behind her would be deeply buried by the storm come morning.
In the
killing cold, she shivered continuously now, as she dodged and ducked under
black low hanging branches of dead burned out trees slogged with black
petroleum waste.
She
slipped unsteadily in the filthy snow covered sludge beneath her feet. She
fell, her bleeding face raking against one of the obscure snow covered stumps
she had struggled to avoid. As her hands flew forward to stop the fall, she
lost hold of the gray bag she pulled behind her.
Nearly
unconscious upon the dirty snow, she thought for a moment of her once safe
home, a place now nothing but a pile of rubble. The terrifying sounds of
cracking wood and the thunder of hard-soled boots seared her memory. They had
found her out. The Managers. But how? Who? The few G’s who still remained alive
would never talk, of that she was certain.
As she
took another deep breath, her ears winced at the suddenly broken silence. She
heard voices, the crunch of snow and the whine of motorbikes. Slanting light
beams sniffed the uneven surface of the snow not far from her.
She tried
to rise. Her feet slid on the frozen ground. The rank smell of petroleum
congealed in her nostrils as her head hit the ice.
Suddenly
she felt herself jerked roughly up by the collar of her jacket. The pressure
strangled her. She gagged.
In terror,
she stared into a familiar face. “Tom”, she whispered.
He shoved
her into the shadows.
“Tom, it
was you then? You who told them about me? Let me go, please Tom. Remember
before you became a Manager? Remember when we were kids? There was sunshine
then, Tom. We played on the grass, remember, Tom? ”
“Yes, it
was me, Tingla. I had to save you from the Greens, the G’s. I knew you were
going their bad way. The Managers are good, Tingla. They control the seeds and
the feeds. They love us, Tingla. They control the seeds and the feeds for our
own good.” His eyes were black, his speech robotic as he repeated the memorized
Manager’s party line. “The Managers are good. They control the seeds and the
feeds for our own good. They love us. The Greens are bad. They want the seeds
and feeds and the green things for themselves. The Managers must control all
seeds, feeds and green things. ”
She
grabbed his arm. Her hand was heavy upon him. “Tell them I’ve gone a different
way, Tom. Help me. Please,” she whispered.
Tom looked
into her face and for a moment seemed to remember. He turned suddenly and ran
to where the lights like wolves sleuthed within the shadows. He scuffed her
tracks as he ran. “I found her tracks,” he yelled. “She’s gone this way.”
She heard
the voices trailing off, away from her.
She
grabbed the heavy gray bag and with both hands muscled it after her. Within
minutes she was kicking at the base of a stump sticking up black from out of
the snow. A depression in the icy earth gave way. She wrestled the bag to its
center and shoved it with hands and feet as hard as she could. It slid down and
away from her. She sat down and pushed herself into the hole it made. The surrounding
drift of blackened snow slid in after her.
Down she
slid and landed on her back inside a rectangular room. LED lights thronged the
patchwork walls of motley rags and scraps of wood, old signs, pillaged parts
that held up the icy banks. Around at every angle stood upon the ground small
battery driven heaters connected to tangles of tubes that caught and funneled
melted ice into the soil of myriad containers each of which held a green thing,
a living thing; a plant to eat, an oxygen giving plant. Here, spreads of tall
wild grasses, oats, rice. There a brightly colored fruit; red, orange. Over
there, berries, blue, magenta. Each living thing, in its dirt ground held a
little sign, hand written: “Gift From An Anonymous Green.”
She soon
saw her spot. A hole in the middle of the room, dug just right, about four feet
deep, and on it’s side a heap of woven rags with a thick crust of dirt.
She teetered the gray bag to the
edge of the hole and with frozen, clumsy movements uncovered the treasure
within. With both arms, she held onto the heavy awkward thing and pulled it
with her into the hole, leaving its head in the LED light and air of the
rectangle. With the last of her waning strength, she reached to the pile of
woven rags and dirt at the side of the hole and snugged it over and around the
base of her charge and over her head. Clumps of dirt fell on her eyes and into
her mouth. She lay in the fetal position in the dark hole and wrapped heavy,
thick roots around her body.
“My
flesh,” she thought as tears of exhaustion and triumph mingled with dirt upon
her cheeks. “My flesh will feed the tree.” And soon she slept.
I
We have windows from the twenty-foot ceiling to the floor,
all along one side of the main salon. When the tapestry draperies are pulled
open, we have a stunning view of water and sky stretching for as far as the eye
can see.........tantalizing the senses with turquoise, indigo, purple,
sometimes emerald. The golden lights of the sun reflecting off the ocean
sparkle into my brain and eyes until I feel such intoxication that I think that
I will faint at times, but I don’t. I feel life force liquefying into the
middle of me, upwards from my vagina. Birth canal energy, light into my
belly, then into my tongue and
into my eyes, and brain, so that I am trembling with ecstasy. I breathe deeply,
and then continue with reading, writing, painting, collaging, drawing up plans
for new creations. I drink from my innermost being this heavenly beauty, and
continue to move the body, beating the brain to create, create, create, while I
am able, in the enchantment of this place.
The dining area is graced with a long antique table made of
finest mahogany, with hand carved legs and matching hand carved chairs. The
china upon which we take our food is of the finest light porcelain. We eat with
sterling silver forks, spoons and knives. These utensils alone would be worth a
fortune in the marketplace.
At the far end of the room is a huge hand-cut mirror from
France whose beveled edges send rainbows around the room, prismatic reflections
from the natural light. Over the dining table is a magnificent chandelier of
delicately cut crystal, which adds it’s own rainbows to those of the mirror, so
that the whole room is dancing with colored lights.
The library here is full of books and if I tire of one
genre, the shelves are filled immediately with new volumes in another, so that
I never grow bored. I always have new subjects for study and amusement.
One can feel the sun through the towering windows of thick
glass, but only in the sense that one feels it from a great distance; a
hallowed knowingness with only the barest sense of actual tactile experience.
We are safe, here, from the toxic radiant heat that burns others.
On the south side of the villa the view is equally as lovely
as from the west. Out of my window I see the village below, and the cliffs of
the cove, all the way to the water where the surf laps up onto the rocky shore.
A 180º vision of paradise.
The weather has been flawless since I’ve been here. The air
so fresh and sweet that I am made euphoric by it as if drunk on honey wine.
I have traveled far and long to come here. I must remind
myself of this. I must remind myself that the journey was difficult and
forlorn. It is not always easy to remember, as now I pass the days in golden
ease, eating my fill of delicious foods, floating in the amber waters of peace,
serenity, and plenty. Still, the gypsy in me is restless, longing for the free
wind, the raven’s call...........(no matter how high we are, we can always go
higher).
The splendor and the solitude are is so seductive that I put
my gypsy heart to rest at night with the promise of coffee in the morning, more
reading, writing, creating. I lay my lust for wildness to bed yet dream of
love; of arms and tongues; men’s chests and heavy, thrilling thrusts that may
yet await outside of this silver and golden castle, despite the peace here.
II
I must illustrate the stories that I write.
I cut some pictures from a catalog, and paste them together.
A woman has leaves and flowers twisting from her neck. A hummingbird is in her
hair. Her face is smiling. Her eyes are looking at me. I turn away. I put her
into a black bag with other creations and hope that she’ll stop staring. I cut
out a picture of a long knife, but I haven’t the nerve to use it on her. I put
the picture knife away feeling like a naughty five year old.
III
I cuss and squirm around on the bed. I pull the covers over
my head, but my torment is not in the room, but within myself.
“Dream or vision be ye which?” I say to the tall dark man
who casts his form upon the television screen within my head.
“Tell me who
you are”, I demand, amusement and apprehension mixed.
As time goes by
I become more shrill......desperate.....
“Tell me who you are, I must know! Vision to instruct and
guide me? Or dream, fantasm, fantasy to deflect me from my path?”
“Pain or pleasure? Which shall I find in your visage?”
My tongue curls around possibilities of flesh or thought.
Sarah is watching television, but she doesn’t see the dark
man.
IV
The ocean is thundering and throwing a tantrum below. I go
to the window. The whitecaps appear huge and frightening even from the distance
from which I view them.
From our heights above the village, I can see the tops of
palm trees and olive trees which sway in the winds from the sea. I press my face
against the glass of the high arched windows, and sway to the rhythm of the
breeze.
I pick greens from amongst the colors of the leaves on the
trees below then analyze them for yellows, blues, siennas. I turn the colors
over on my tongue and thrust them back into my eyes then separate them again in
my brain. I choose one for flavor another for shock value. I toss the others
away and watch them lie like ashes upon the ground next to broken palm fronds
grown brown, dead.
V
The dark man will come tonight. He hears my wild soul
calling, and he will come.
In my slumber he will whisper to me and carry me, sleeping,
up into the wind above the ocean. When I awaken I will be tired, uneasy,
afraid, excited. I will drink coffee and write. I will make pictures for the
story, but I will not see his face in the pictures. I will taste the night
wind, just under the taste of the coffee, but I will pretend that I do not.
Sarah is reading. I am sitting in the library with her,
writing the story about the dark man who has no face. He tells me what to
write, and warns me against writing it, all at the same time.
VI
Night has come. Sarah tells me that the newspaper says that
a child has been snatched from her bed in the village.
I wonder if she will be with the wind over the ocean when
the dark man comes for me tonight? I wonder if she has seen his face?
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