SRθ: Grim Inquiries (2023-2024)

Sit.26: The Show

I woke up that day from another nightmare, yet again featuring of violation – but not my own. I saw The Heathen as a child, made to date with his siblings by parents who cared nothing for him, except as a means to keep their others busy. To play with one's family is one thing, but this chubby boy was asked for much more: tea parties, walks through long fields, dancing, hugging, and even kissing. When they cried, he was to kiss them better – this left their parents room and time aplenty to wash their sorrows in meaded laughter, with friends and friends of friends. When they grew, the the kissing changed to groping. On nights shared, he'd work himself hard to the sight of them sleeping. Brothers pulled him into the bushes against his will, sisters rested their new breasts on the back of his neck while he sat. Soon, groping matured, and deepened into unrelenting molestation and abuse. Even the family pets weren't safe, from anyone – cats, dogs, and goats of their house became accustomed to all kinds of unfortunate greeting. A tomato-red sweater adorned him, made him appear rich, and he laughed and drank wine with his family during the day... then at night, they'd climb into each other's beds, parents, children, and animals, all mangled and knotted up in one another. And when one day he broke down and cried, "I don't want to do it anymore, I hate all of you for making me this way," his parents cracked their leather belts upon his bare back and bare ass until he screamed. He was barely as old as I was when I left home. The Old Lord had not yet become one, for this dream took place in Rome. I was beginning to realize what I was really seeing was a memory. Then, older yet, a young man called The Glutton was stuffing himself so his siblings wouldn't want him anymore. And it worked... they moved on to brighter suitors, and of course kept each other... and then he was all alone. All but a few, including him, left home... The Glutton stayed miserably in the kitchen, drinking away his sorrows until he was drunk enough to sleep, then locking his bedroom door behind him. He decided that if he were to die from it, from poisoning of too much mead, he'd be better off for it. Then his father moved him to a small town in Scotland, chased away from home by a political purge. It was a small chest of gold and silver, along with the promise of more, that allowed The Old Lord to become one – but truthfully, it was all he had left. The rest would come to him by the town, when his offering was used to build what we now know as the local pub.
So as I rose, I grappled with this vision. How accurate could it be, really? Weren't all dreams made of fiction as clouds were made from sky? I was paranoid he'd somehow sent this to me, this tragic backstory, to dissuade me from carrying out my plans. But it worried me naught to see him defeated – all I saw was a man who'd learned nothing from his pain, and used it to inflict more.

Anyhow, you've already heard what happened next: the tourists were pouring in, the soda was pouring out. Children climbed carelessly on the stairs of his high-chair, his 'majesty' The Heathen. One of those children was me, in a black dress, black cloak, and father's mask. Yes, a child of twenty years now, but at heart all the same. But he chased us away, and yelled for us to leave his structure alone, and we did. I hopped off the stairs halfway to avoid meeting him ascending – my left foot landed on grass, but my right foot landed in muck.
"Gross," I growled, and wiped it off on the grass. Much was growing, but it could take years to fully recover the green grounds.
The show was beginning to start, and I more than anyone was excited... except perhaps the soda-chugging children who missed their beloved mascot.
"Get on with it!" they yelled. "We want the CAT!"
They began to chant, "CAT O' SPARKS! CAT O' SPARKS!" over and over, and soon the tourists joined in. They were having too much fun to mind the dryish mud – no knowledge of where it came from. I needed this play to hit its mark, or they fresh in the inns could very well find out... with a nightly visit by our New Lord.
He sat in his throne, mug full of soda, hesitantly enjoying the taste. "It's so light," he remarked to his confidant, The Keeper. "I've always been so pissed at these things, thinking bubbles only came with dizzying and morning fever. I'm from Rome, you know, but I've never tried this..." He examined the liquid. "Signature specialty, as it were. You called it 'soda'? I should make my own."
The Keeper broke a sweat, realizing The Frightful was already looking to commodify HIS recipe, without giving so much as a dab of credit. He looked to me, an' I nodded back.
And so, the show began. The Actor joined the stage, dressed into the Cat O' Sparks. "Once upon a time," he chimed, "there lived a cat, and his sister. The cat loved a raven, but his sister was jealous – so she sold the raven to an evil wizard, as his bride. In trial, the cat adorned Steel Oath, a magical set of armor, and soon learned he could perform magic... himself!" He let loose white and blue ribbon from his sleeve, and his effects team hammered a thin metal plate for thunder. The crowd wowed, both newcomers and kids who'd forgotten the trick. The adults were amused, seeing this as a welcome return to form... but they were bruised, liver-spotted, and sick. The year-long flood of booze had battered them like tidal waves against a schooner. The Actor continued, "The Cat O' Sparks he became and the maiden fair he hath rescued – but more was to transpire. The cat would soon face the black hound Death, and with only the mule's noble help did he escape. But what he brought back with him... was Death's own face." He held up a skull mask, carved from birch and painted white to look like mine. The crowd ooh'd at his spooky visage. He kept it over his face. "Soon, the Cat O' Sparks was using his power of light to set blaze to the homes of those he deemed wicked. But the flames licked higher, and wider, and claimed the homes and lives of innocents, as well." He paused to let the sadness sink in, and it did. I put my hand to rub the back of my head, through my hood... finding it truer to life than I may have liked. The Actor continued, "But the cat sister redeemed herself, a slaver-enabler before, but now a magus of nature evermore!" He paused to let The Actress, as the cat's sister, raise up a prop vine by thin wire, tied to a small bracelet hidden up her sleeve. "With her living vines and flowers, she wrested the cat from the mask, and a knight he once more became." The crowd liked that, but were waiting for more action. "Then, the cat made a friend! An older man, you might know as... The Cock of the Walk. Buk-buk-bukkaw!" he crowed, to get a laugh. Some did, but some began to look nervous, as if their stomachs had just turned. He sensed the tension, and cleared his throat. "A funny man at first, but soon odious he turned, steeped in mead and raucous for it. He began telling tall tales between brews, claiming HE'd beaten the wizard, HE'd beaten death, and that HE'd convinced the cat to reform! Most egregiously of all," The Actor put a flourishing hand to his mouth to hush his voice, crouched low. "He told everyone HE'd slept with the maiden fair!"
The kids gasped – it had never once crossed their minds that a story could LIE to them, not when it was ALREADY known to be fiction. What this new one suggested was that stories past, seen with their own eyes, were falser versions of a thing known true... who could be believed when anything was possible? Even their parents looked surprised. Newcomers, of course, registered nothing – they hadn't seen the scourge, heard every 'CUCKAW!' maligned. They hadn't been woken up at the crack of dawn by The Heathen's pots and pans, and his boring adverts to remind us all that "mead is the best breakfast there is!", or so he claimed.
The Actor continued, "But we know that's not true, is it?"
He cheered, and the crowd shouted, "NOOO!!"
He said, "EXACTLY!" with a snap. "But what is to be done with a crowing cock that won't snap shut its yapping beak? Today, we're about to find out!"
He threw the mask backwards, and the show was in full swing. The rooster would be seen using mead to subdue his targets, and then swallow them whole as a bird swallows a bug. When cornered, he'd reveal that he was the wizard's secret apprentice, and his mission in life was to bring evil to the cat's very home, and poison it from the inside out. Soon would be the perilous bridge, the sword-fights, the river-boat chase, and finally... the dramatic climax. I was hoping to watch, but The Chef found me and grabbed my shoulder.
He said low, "Can I have a word with you?"
I looked up at The Heathen from my low vantage. I could only see his knuckles, whitening on the arms of his chair. I smiled, and said, "Sure, but make it quick. I don't wanna miss the whole thing." Lucky for me, even if I did, I already knew how it ended... and they were just gonna play it again next week.
The Chef took me into the pub, where it was quiet – but I could still hear my play rolling on outside, every excited yell and dramatic dialogue. I felt my eyes were full of stars just to see it, and thought, 'This must be how The Author felt, to see his dream come true.'
But The Chef was looking serious... even grim. With his kind eyes, he asked, "What exactly do you want... from all of this?"
I shrugged. "I dunno. Awareness?"
The Chef gripped my shoulder, tight enough to hurt but sparing enough to stop there. "You know what I mean, Reaper. I'm talking about AFTER."
I tapped his hand, and he let go. I leaned against the door-frame, hood still up and mask still on. "I want him dead. I think after this, they'll help me."
"And that's the best possible outcome, to you? He dies, you live, happily ever after? You defeat him, all the beer dries up back into yeast, and all the victims of him see their honor restored?"
I kept looking at the stage. "Something like that."
He nodded, dissatisfied with my answer. He walked to the counter, and pulled a bottle of red wine from the shelf at his knees. He asked, "What if people still want to drink? To rape? Will you kill all of them, too?"
I frowned, and turned to join him, taking sit on a bar-stool. "Why not? Sure, drinking's fine in moderation, and mostly hurts the one doing it. But rape? Violence? Murder? Those are crimes for a reason."
He shrugged, used a screw to plunge into the bottle's cork, and popped it. Then he poured 'imself a glass. "I think your brand of justice is exactly as tempting as this drink – sometimes it's appropriate, even fun. And sometimes..." he sipped it, and set it down. Then he poured me a smaller glass, and said, "...it can be addicting, and it can destroy you from the inside out."
I protested, "I don't-"
"Drink it. Just a bit at a time. It's not a suggestion."
Wary, I took a sip. It was wine alright, fruity and strong... something else was upon it. Something familiar.
He drank another sip, soft and slow. "I know you've been keeping an eye on my daughter."
My eyes widened, and I leaned back to sweat. "Yeah, well... I was worried. The Heathen-"
"BEFORE he came back," he said sternly. "You love her, don't you? Not like you loved The Artist. That was as sibling of a bond as any pairing I've ever seen, the way you two bickered. No, you look at my girl differently, don't you?"
I froze. I was leaning back on the stool, hanging in the air, uncertain. He pointed to the glass, and I sipped, letting the stool's front legs touch the floor again. Something old was waking up in me. Had I known this taste somewhere?
He said, "I saw you, several times. She's really mine, you know. My own blood. Her mother died... on the way here. We were supposed to save her, my brother and I. But my brother found out what I did... with The Glutton."
Shocked, I pursed my lips. "Who... would that be?" Surely he couldn't mean...
He shook his head. "Don't play dumb. You're a dream-walker, like me – like my daughter. You've seen his mind, too, been sucked up into it. It's our curse, to be more sensitive, and it's our gift. Lets us see things before they become real. I didn't know that, at the time..." he mised in gravelly tones. "I thought I loved him. We were only young men, at the time." He paused, and drank again... two sips. Then a third. "Actually, there were other men, too. It was a group thing. But my brother saw us in the woods, and he was deeply in love with God, and with the church. He saw what I did as sin, even though I saw it as loving God's creations. And he left, to get away from what he called a 'cesspool'. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
I sipped, and nodded. It dawned on me, "That's why you let him live, that night. You still love him."
"Loved," he grunted. "But I wonder. Could things have been different..."
We sat for a good while, each stewing in our own guilt. Silent. Though I'd wanted to see my play in action, it began to slip away from me with each bloody sip. Soon, my tongue would be stained. And while he pondered, I turned the bottle of wine around. It was from Burgundy, in France – and as I read it, all at once my head started to hurt. Suddenly, I remembered: that was my name. I was Burgundy Gallagher, named for my father's favourite wine. His name was... no, I didn't want to know. I almost fell off my stool, stood up, and leaned on the counter to groan with pain. The Chef was surprised, and came around to put his hand on my back. As I writhed, the show was progressing already to its climactic final battle – I'd forgotten how short these plays really were, in practice. About now, the rooster was conjuring dark spirits upon the people, haunting them with poisonous ghouls. The cat was about to unleash his sable rage.
I heard The Actor say, "I got my power from the black hound that was Death... and now I am Death, just as marked!" While he and two others transformed into a big, skull-faced black cloth dragon, as scripted, I fell into memory and disrepair. I got too warm, and had to take off my hood and mask to sweat. I was taken back to my home, where after my father and The Realtor were done drinking my name-sake, they'd climb upstairs to bed one another. And my mother would sit and finish the rest of the bottle, alone...
"NOW, FOUL DEMONIC BIRD, VILE SORCERER... I, THE MIGHTY DRAKE O' FLAMES, AM BORN! IT WAS YOUR EEEVIL THAT CALLED ME FORTH, AND IT WILL BE! YOUR! FLESH! UPON WHICH I FEAST... TONIGHT!!" And outside, as if on cue, a fog was setting. The dragon breathed his ribbony flames, and the effects team made spittling breath into cones for amplified infernal sound, which carried out like I'd never heard before... it was as if a dragon truly was upon the town, if for the feeling alone. Even the children looked a little bit scared, almost for real.
...but I was at home again, curling into my mother's arms, for it was the only time she'd ever held me... when she was too drunk to refuse. And while she slept, I finished the last of my wine, the wine with my name on it. And I'd wake up on the floor, brothers and sisters running all around me, poking me with sticks. And my head would sting, because I'd been dropped there.
Finally, the rooster was devoured, swallowed by the terrifying skull-faced dragon... his wooden bones spit back out in a pile. "AND LET ALL EVIL-DOERS BE BEWARE AND BE WARNED, A DRAGON LURKS WITHIN ALL OF US!" the dragon roared outside, spitting more impossible flame. "TO ALL ELSE, KNOW THIS: A HERO OF DOWNTRODDEN PEOPLE..." The Actor stepped out of the costume, turning back into the cat in shining armor, and the rest of the dragon slinked into the darkness behind the stage, hidden by the shadows cast of setting sun. Only the torches on house-walls and at the corners of the stage were illuminating them, making them seen through the fog. He knelt, and pleaded to the audience: "A hero of downtrodden men, women, and children... can only be as good as the world lets them be. So please, feed not the villains their bread and beer, to watch them grow... because even a hero needs help to stay kind, and to remain evermore... a hero."
And as he bowed to thunderous applause, along with his troupe, even The Heathen cheered.
"Marvellous," he said, "Just stupendous! What a conflict, what a reversal! I feel so revived!"
And I was resting my head on the counter as The Chef polished a now-empty glass – my own still in hand, unfinished. And I was laying on the floor back at home, watching the ceiling.