Deity

"His flight left at 7:30 ... Yeah, it was cheaper than a later flight but better than the red-eye ... No, he comes back on Tuesday ... It’s something about publishing, but I’m not sure what ... Uh-uh. I thought about it, but it would’ve been too much money. He gets reimbursed ... Yeah, someday, maybe."

She moves around in that cavernous room beyond the walls, sending rolling vibrations through the wood with her great limbs and heavy steps. The steps stop, followed by creaking, and then the whip-sharp click that always precedes acrid smoke. From the dark unknown comes the understanding that she is smoking. The image of a pipe, tubes like slender, somnolent snakes, is a memory but it does not quite fit.

"Sounds cool ... So hey, what are you doing tonight? I have this recipe, sort of a Caribbean-style chicken thingy, that I was going to try out. You want to come over and try some? ... Sure, whatever time. If I’m not done you can help ... Yeah, bring it over! ... Alright, see you later."

The air is redolent with smoke; the woman’s voice lilts, rising and falling in smooth tones (humming) that blend with the gentleness of the day.

#

The in-flux of knowledge continues. It creeps and slinks, insinuating itself where simplicity once reigned, covering the pleasure that was ignorance like a virulent fungus. Pungent, ripe, warm and green, it colors the world with names that were once unnecessary. That sustenance, liquid ambrosia that was once a fly, had never needed a name. Now it has become not only a fly, but insect and pest. I now remember that the thought of eating one would have brought profound disgust at one time ... to others. With the names have come such concepts: revulsion, beauty, love, hate, yearning, death, deity...

There will be completion, I know. The future is pregnant, swelling with the promise of all-embracing awareness. I wait.

#

Rich aromas that would tempt senses other than these roll through the dwelling. The clanking and crashing of cooking utensils and the thunderous footfalls of the woman are unsyncopated counterpoint to a music that fills the air. The music remains a mystery, pulsing and wailing, throbbing, an unknown with no counterpart in the morass of memories.

I hear knocking on the door and then a man’s voice, but it is not the familiar man. Then the woman speaks.

The words are muffled, murmuring, rumbling, punctuated by sharp laughter. I push the sounds away as I sense something stirring high up on the glass, and this body is ready, tense and trained, hungry. But through the hunt I am vaguely aware of the people who have begun to signify more than they once did. They talk and eat, move and laugh; they are cocooned by the walls and the strange music as the sun sets in gold glory.

#

The juices of the hard-won prey cool as the temperature cools, as this body cools, bringing sweet lethargy. From beyond the walls the voices, more melodious than the music, still drone. Appeasement of physical hunger has quickened a new hunger (curiosity). I listen. I concentrate while the body rests, sated, on the darkened windowsill. Their voices mingle and flow in altered cadences like storm-whipped leaves, off-rhythm, with strange interludes and distorted emphasis. (They are drunk.) Occasionally sharp and raucous, overpowering the music, and at other times so soft as to be silent, their human sounds compel and beckon. The urge to move, to join them, to intervene is an itch at odds with the instincts of this body.