the alive

Good and Evil and Beyond-2

2

The dense dull two inch thick dalbergia barn bar gathering table is solid yet rippled with aesthetic cracks. Round like the ruin of a mistaken interpretation. Sits six but only four bar stool cathedra are present. An enormous roman ogee router along the table edge has a smoothly worn resting elbow comfort. It's a place of specific seating for the four specific Ghosts who've always sat at this place like knights in an osteal despotic Arthurian philosophical ceremony of conversation. They drink and are drunk and purchase a potential stumble, like a fighter who's never sober but who always finds a way to win. Or at least not lose. No quarter is taken or given. They swing their pugilist language at one another. Connect with each other's mocking steel jaws.

"Words are like the wind and like that glacial writer who'll never ever finish what he started. What's his name? The old sullen guy who likes skinny dipping and feet and winter."

Will looks up from his thoughts to perform pugilist language upon the liver of Georg's account.

"Who cares, his words are only like the winds of my ass."

Paul smiles because he always smiles and grins like his thoughts are two birds worth a penny in words.

"No, his language is heavy and his story is hardened with figurative allusion. His words force our words to know the tide upon a particular face of knowledge in the sand."

Will lifts his drink and points at Paul with the same hand. Imbibes a sip. Places his glass upon a torn coaster. The mucky cream upon his moustache drips like a fresh curl of horizon beyond the tips of a forever winter. Chides.

"Oh, blah, blah, blah! Use a different analogy to make that point. It's older than your mother's mothering slot."

"Says the guy who's moustache always and forever twirls away from his shitty breath. And take a bath, mad man. My nostrils wish to remove Kant's green spectacle representation so I won't have to smell this repressive air you've conjured upon us."

"You everlasting pompous piece of fuck. I specifically avoid a bath many days before this meeting arrangement. Just to see you cringe. Lick upon my penis. Taste its frothy countenance. You are blessed to have me here and may my cheesy sculpture and armpit aroma bless your nostrils forever more."

"Quiet Will. Paul. Both of you."

Goeorg adults in dichotomy.

"Stay on topic or we will have no more problems. Emmy? My dear, what did you say that you saw this past "always evening" down here in this cavern outside this tavern?"

Emmy sits up straight with Georg's words. Shoulders back and chest puffs out. Wears a black trench coat with vermillion noose rope style stitching. Ponders into the depths of her Coal. Holds a freshly lit menthol cigarette. Watches the world wait through robotic aesthetic silver aviators and a hunchback nose. She's like the decorative bloodbath of an inhaling execution.

"The event in question is of a living Procrustes Bed. I witnessed a woman climb through a hole in the ceiling and down the rock face. She seemed so bent and chopped that she must be of absolute perfection in the eyes of her butcher."

Georg nods like he's heard the story already.

"One of David Leonard's abominations? A Terra Coal revenant? They still exist?"

"No. Something... someone else. Her movements were contorted but she was perfect in my eyes as well as her butcher's. I sort of recognized her. She was crawling down the rock face into the underground city like some kind of spider goddess. She smiled at me. Placed her finger in front of her mouth and shushed me. I recognized the mannerism and realized that her face was her face and not a living tattoo as I seem to remember her."