by
Mike Philbin
So, here am I, your humble narrator. The artist from abroad.
Perched at the edge of a complaining settee in the draughty entrance hall of a mock twelfth century mansion in the chilling north of England . Near to Earby in South West Yorkshire . The dampness has brought out my asthma, hence the anointed kerchief.
Big red chesterfield. Lots of horse leather buttons. This section of the house is very dark but very friendly, as if it had been specifically forbidden to be but just couldn't help itself.
The walls are made of a snakelike bronze material that is both shiny and dark, and they have red candles, unlit, on the landing to go with the settee.
An elegant fellow with a tri-cornered hat and a long highwayman's cloak sweeps down the staircase holding a candelabra escorted by two male familiars; one has dark hair the other corn blonde. You cannot see their faces in the darkness. All you can see is the yellow specularity of candle light in their eyes.
The male familiars await the arrival of the girl, she has on a scarlet dress, leatherette. Scarlet just like the furniture. She has auburn hair and parchment white skin like a china doll. My eyes are drawn to her as if on piano wires.
There is a sudden surge of people down the staircase that fills me with dread. They filter towards me like spectres, invading me like osmosis. I count twelve in all. Their icy breath upon my skin, dissecting me. Unpicking me from head to toe, strand by strand. Poking and trying to break me. But why? Is this their idea of sport? Invite the freelance stranger only to pester him in the back of his mind, play mental chess in the hope of discovering the man behind the fabric?
Like some retrograde fashion fair, they are attired in garments from yesteryear, different times, different centuries even. The next moment they are seated all around me their minds all heat and curiosity. I am on the settee feeling suddenly trapped like a butterfly in the killing jar. They are all around me and I ask who is the girl with the auburn hair and they just keep asking those questions inside my head. Very intrusive behaviour. They touch the clothes I'm wearing like they detest me or something. A woman with raven hair in ringlets tells me the woman's name is Tsara, and why should I want to know?
I was just wondering, she has... I hear tales about her kind... I babble. Sounds of ethereal laughter magic. She has fine lines... the silhouette, I say too much, forsaking all conjugation. The charming one, the corn blond, says he will have to put me to the test and he hands me a quill and a sheaf of parchment upon which he recommends I draw a portrait. For I, there is only one worthwhile subject.
'I see you are interested in our little Tsara. Our pretty.' the corn blond says in a perfectly attuned mocking tone. He says his name is Aeon, he has a long upturned nose and angular features sculpted from deepest sorrow. His hair is formed into an unruly feminine bob.
'Have you travelled far, my young man?' he attempts to terrify me, the stench of some herb or other on his breath.
'The joy of travelling is in the arriving.' I continue to sketch her.
A carnival stilt walker dressed in a purple frock coat descends the staircase regal as a king and his courtiers all bow and curtsy, shy away almost. He has a long hooknose, a purple stare and a shock of white hair. He is suave, cultured.
I appear to have filled my sheaf of parchment with portrait after identical portrait. Every amateurish rendition of her, Tsara, thrown aside by the purple-frocked master of the house. A torrent of familiars pin me down, blindfolding me and I feel surgical instruments penetrating my flesh, a sensation like icicles racing through my veins. Chilling euphoria takes me on a rapid kayak chase over perilous rocks and raging floods of fear.
Untying the blindfold, they present Tsara to me, removing the velvet choker from her porcelain neck. I make senseless small talk. I am assaulted by the eyes of these familiars as they chant unintelligible vile, clapping like aristoes and going Bravo, Bravo. Their eerie congratulations fill the room like the buzzing of hornets and I ache to shut out all the torment in my mind, hear nothing but the simple words of this pure innocent, Tsara. But she remains enigmatic marble. As if in a dream, Tsara takes my hand and leads me to the gates of Paradise , the rabble socialising golden goblets of ludicrous fear, just dancing with the darkness.
Ascending the shivering staircase now, my cold hand in her colder hand, we arrive at an oaken door which opens as if by magical means, inside the room a candle-lit four poster bed by the window where we sit in reprehensible silence drinking scarlet port from a glass decanter encased in silver brocade looking out forever over a tree-lined winter landscape. Blinded to the passing of time.
In a disconsolate train station, the Casper Triffids float lazily by adhering to the Highway Code. Intellectualism made flesh.
Along the solemn platform, dissent infected air waves. Turbulent chatter. No more sensation of the cold hard touch of solid marble. The scraping of chair hoof. Head counters in flat black caps stride back and forth. Thirteen thousand feet per hour pass through these reverberating glass chambers. Pigeon leg parchment in and out. Angels operatic.
Bikini blue sky glossy smile from the lady in red leatherette. Her perfect silhouette haunted by her lineage, stretching behind her like a train. The penis my enemy. The lines on my hands tell tall tales. Tsara exits stage left in a feuille chime of autumnal bronze.
You look around and its like electrodes poking through a head colander. Direct synaptic input. FND - full neural disclosure. They called them humans a long time ago - all that's left is the jiggling electric vibe of neural highways and byways. Psychoplasmic entrances and exits.
Thirty thousand years ago they even looked like humans these boneless phantoms walking the dusty corridors of Extra Sensory Communication, ESC. You could never really tell how many boats they had ridden. How many lies they had tongued. How much water under bridge. Being was an adventure. Time is now all but forgotten. You find yourself down some choking evolutionary airing duct sharing the space with every mind on the planet, if you care to partake.
How can one possibly shield oneself from the truly psychic world we now inhabit where all you are as a historical personage can be focussed on in simple X, Y, Z and T.
Escape the four way mind blenders, I say. N-travel from environ to environ. Foreign worlds, and their ancient tongues, mean nothing to our kind as there is no more need for reading, learning.
Focus on an XYZT. Find the light speed snap back of a woman called Tsara.
Feels right all the time.
THE END
Mike Philbin
http://www.mikephilbin.com - website
http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com - blog