this is only the beginning

part 9

It is funny how a world formed by fire and floods can be so still, for so long. There are places, of course, that heave and buckle under the pressure of chaos, but in this place, in the time of Pasta-louis and Mary Louisa, and Terry-today, and yesterday's-Moe, most of life is static and plodding and boring as hell. Men and women meet, and they talk on their phones. Sometimes they kiss and talk on their phones. People will drink and smoke, they'll watch sporting events and think the world is ending when their team comes up short. Occasionally someone will choke on a chicken bone and either die, or live because someone else knows the Heimlich maneuver. Then come the important things, like sculptures and kitchen utensils and innovative hairdos. Great minds invent great things: Bird nest wigs, fishbowl shoes, a coconut for your linen drawer! But none of that entered the mind of Mary Louisa as she struggled for command of her mind and of her very motions. She won one battle, perhaps the smallest, most insignificant, and more important skirmish of her life.

Mary Louisa opened the door.

She didn't know who to expect, she didn't think beyond the thought that music knocked upon her door. Voices filled her ears, wafting through the bricks and wood trim and plaster and caulk like they didn't exist. Only hours before she expounded on updrafts and eagles wings and whiplash flights of fancy, but now she knew real harmony: how it could hold back the flood, how it could push back and retake fertile ground.

It wasn't quite what she expected. “Oy, hello Mary. Mind if we come in?” They came in, the group of carolers only they weren't that at all. Mary Louisa couldn't know exactly what she was seeing because the visitors wore helmets and suits and most importantly, they all had disfigurement devices on their belts, and switched on. She had seen, or more accurately, had not seen them before, on the local news. Visitors, aliens maybe? From another world, or the future, or the past? Nobody knew and they weren't saying either. “S'cuse me,” said one fellow, and he pushed by her carrying something large by its handle. Hesheit barreled through the rooms and kitchen, smashing into corners as it went, and disappeared into the offensive yellow room. The others followed; Mary Louisa could not get a solid count, or even how many limbs they might have possessed. Was it her eyes that deceived? She was seeing very clearly, but her brain was muddled.

She followed. In the room, where the walls emitted their yellow screams and the Shmear bloated freakishly, dancing and spitting filth, Pasta-louis had torn his shirt off and was feebly swinging on a rope. The lead pipe had bent profoundly and his knees touched the floor where the wood had been demolished. Pasta-louis sputtered and blinked at the visitors, but beyond that he behaved normally.

“There it is,” gurgled one of them.

“We were going to rule the world,” she said from beneath the archway. “Everything was ours, it was all in reach.” Mary Louisa stared at Pasta-louis, and she looked at the gunk cavorting in the middle of the yellow wall. Suddenly she noticed the sledgehammer leaning against the doorway, and without pausing she hefted it up, and rushed at the wall, straight at the visitors, to attack the Shmear, to rid it from the world.

They formed a line and stopped her, a tall visitor gently took hold of her arm, and Mary Louisa gave him the hammer. He held her for a moment, and said, “Look.”

The visitor carrying the case strode to the wall, and set it down. He opened a small door, then reached out to the wall and pulled at the gunk there, and it released with a loud sucking smack. “Be a good Globby,” it said, and shut the dribbly shmear in the case. “Globby does get out sometimes, bad Globby.” The visitor took the case and left, with the others in tow. The last fellow halted at the doorway and looked back at her.

“I like what you've done to your house. Can I get the name of your decorator?” They left, whatever they were. She never saw them again, or their Globby, and that made Mary Louisa very happy.

After a bit, she went into the room and removed the noose from his neck. Pasta-louis looked at her sheepishly, but remained on his knees. He wiped the spittle from his lips. “I'm not much,” he said. “And even less now. This floor is ruined.”

“And the walls,” she agreed. “We'll fix it. There's all the time in the world.”

The end.

For the Tenth Daughter of Memory.