stuccoed wall, if not ceiling. But one could not but suspect the obsession was doomed to be short lived. Can an object of lust prove much too lust-worthy? Just how many poses are possible in the world and how did she come by them all? Why, even in sleep her repose palpitates in propitious perfection. The sculptor, looking upon this, would despair to discover that Pampera is her own sculpture and there was naught to be done to match or hope to improve upon it. Painters might fall into toxic madness seeking to match the tone of her flawless skin and it is to the toxic we will return to precipitate our reminding of dearest Pampera.
Could a poet hope to match her essence in words without an intermission of nausea? …
To return to these three, then, we at last come to Oggle Gush, innocent of all depravity not through inexperience, but through blissful imperviousness to all notions of immorality. A slip of mere sixteen years since the day in wonder her mother issued her forth, as naturally unaware of her pregnancy as she was of the innocence her daughter would so immaculately inherit, Oggle Gush deserves nothing but forgiving accolades from paladins and scoundrels alike (excepting only Great Artists). Ever quick to smile even at the most inappropriate of times, shying like a pup from a masters twitching boot one moment only to cuddle in his lap upon the next, squirming as only a thing of claws, wet nose and knobby limbs can.
Not one of her deeds was ill-meant. Not one of the numerous fatal accidents trailing her could be set upon her threshold. When she sang, as she often did, she could not find a solid key if it was glued to her tongue, but all looked on in damp-eyed adoration-and what, perchance, were all thinking? Was this an echo of personal conceits crushed and abandoned in childhood? Was it the unblinking boldness of the talentless that triggered reminiscences of childish lavishments? Or was it something in her dramatic earnestness that disengaged some critical faculty of the brain, leaving only sweet-smelling mush?
Oggle Gush, child of wonder and plaything of the Great Artist, all memory of you is sure to remain immortal and unchanging. As pure as nostalgia, and the cold cruelty with which you were misused, ah, but does this not take us to the Great Artist himself, he with the Entourage? But it does indeed.
Nifty Gum has thrice won the Mantle of the Century’s Greatest Artist. His Entourage of three as found upon the trail across the Great Dry, only a month past numbered six hundred and fifty-four; and if not for Oggle’s well- intentioned house cleaning beneath the deck of the transport barge, why, theyd all still be with him. As if Oggle knew a thing about boats and whatnot. As if she even understood the function of hull plugs and drain holes, or whatever those things were called.
He looked taller than he looked, if one can say such a thing and by the sure nods all round, it seems that one can. He wore his cloak and measured his stride as if he was a bigger man than he was, and not one of his even features could be said to be exaggerated yet neither were they refined. In gathered host they were pleasant on his face, but should one find them neatly severed and arrayed among rivals on a hawker’s bazaar table, why, none would even so much as reach for them, much less buy them-except, perhaps, as curios of mundanity.
Of talent’s measure Nifty Gum had an ample helping, nothing to overflow the brim, yet something, a fire, a wink, a perspicacity for promotion, the brazen swanning of his sweep and flurry in passage (trailed as ever by his giggling entourage), something or perhaps all these things and more, served him so well that his renown was as renowned as his songs and poems. Fame feeds itself, a serendipity glutton of the moment prescient in publicity.
For such a figure, no exaggeration can be overstated, and the glean of modesty rests in uneasily thin veneer upon a consummated self-adoration that abides the presumption of profundity with all the veracity of that which is truly profound. And to this comment my personal failure as a poet has no bearing whatsoever. Why, I have never viewed words as worthy weapons, having so many others of far more permanent efficacy at my disposal.
Indeed, as I look upon myself at this fire upon the twenty-third night, I see a young(ish) poet of modest regard, scant of pate and so casting nothing of the angelic silhouette upon yonder tent wall as Nifty Gum’s cascading curls of thick auburn hair achieve without his giving it a moment’s thought, as the gifted rarely if ever regard their gifts except in admiration, or, more deliciously, of admiration in witnessing the admiration of others for all that which is of himself be it voice or word or hair.
No, I am retracted unto myself, as was my wont in those times, the adventurer none knew, a teller of tales to defy the seam of joinings between those I spun in the Great Dry all those years ago, and this tale that I spin now.
Lives hang in the balance at every moment, in every instant, for life itself is a balance, but sometimes the sky is bright overhead and brilliant with sun and heat and sometimes the sky is darkness with the cold spark of stars dimmed by mistral winds. We see this as the wheel of the heavens, when such a belief is only our failed imagination, for it is us who wheel, like a beetle clinging to a spinning ring, and we are what mark the passing of days.
I see myself then, younger than I am, younger than I have ever been. This is my tale and it is his tale both. How can this be?
But then, what is a soul but the mapping of each and every wheel?
Upon such stately musings rests lightly, one hopes, this addendum. On the twenty-third day just past, the grim mottle of travelers came upon a stranger walking alone. Starved and parched, Apto Canavalian was perhaps in his last moments, and as such might well have met a sudden and final demise at the hands of the Nehemothanai and pilgrims, but for one salient detail. Through cracked lips that perhaps only filled out with a steady diet of wine and raw fish, Apto made it known that he was not a pilgrim of any sort. No, more an adjudicator in spirit if not profession (aspirations notwithstanding), Apto Canavalian was among the elite of elites in the spectrum of intellectualia, a shaper of paradigms, a prognosticator of popularity in the privileged spheres of passing judgement. He was, in short, one of the select judges for The Century’s Greatest Artist.
His mule had died of some dreaded pox. His servant had strangled himself in tragic mishap one night of private pleasuring and now lay buried in a bog well north of the Great Dry. Apto had made this journey at his own expense, the invitation from Farrog’s mystical organizers sadly lacking in remuneration, and had nothing left of his stores save one dusty bottle of vinegarish plonk (and, it soon became known, his dread state of dehydration had more to do with the previous nine bottles than with a dearth of water).
If artists possessed true courage (and this is doubtful) their teeth-bared defense of Apto’s life in the moments following his discovery would do well as admirable proof, but so often in life does one mistake desperation and self-interest for courage, for in mien both are raw and indeed, appalling.
Even venerable Tulgord Vise withdrew before the savage display of barely human snarls. In any case, the vote had already been concluded.
The night is younger than you might think, and the tale now lies before us, an enormous log of mysterious origins quick to drink flames from the bed of coals, and the fat sizzles and the circle is drawn tight save the Dantoc who remains, as ever, within her carriage.
Let us, for convenience, list them once more. Apto Canavalian, newly arrived and perhaps more pallid than salvation would invite. Calap Roud, an artist with a century of mediocrity lifting him to minuscule heights. Avas Didion Flicker, venerable voice of this modest retelling. Purse Snippet, demure in the sultry flare of flames, her eyes haunted as dying candles. Brash Phluster, destined as first to speak in the circle only moments away, sitting like a man on an ant hill, feverish of regard and clammy with sweat. Nifty Gum, redoubtable in his reclination, polished boots gleaming at the ends of his outstretched legs upon which are draped two of his Entourage, Oggle Gush, her lashes brushing in every slow blink the precious bulb of Nifty’s flower, and Sellup, brow awiggle like a caterpillar on a burning twig, whilst Pampera shifts to a new pose artful in breastly impression upon the side of Nifty’s auburn- flowing head and what gurgling promise does that single imprisoned ear detect?
Tiny and Flea and Midge Chanter command the bulwark upon one side of the circle, a pugnacious wall wildly bristling and smelling like a teenaged boy’s bedding, and close to Tiny’s scabbed hand sits Relish Chanter, lips smeared in grease and casting hooded wanton but unwanted glances my way. Steck Marynd paces off to her right, ghostly in the faded glow of the hearth. Growl might his stomach but damned if he will soothe it in this company of beasts. Well Knight Arpo Relent sits in the shiver of firelit gold glaring at the Chanters while Tulgord Vise picks at his (own) teeth with the point of a dagger, poised as ever for a cutting remark.
At the last seat is our host, and lest we forget his name, it is suited to muscled sartorial commentary, thus stunning the memory to recollect Sardic Thew, avian in repose, cockerel in assuredness though perhaps somewhat rattled by this point in the proceedings.
Thus, and so well chewed this introduction not a babe would choke upon it, one tremulously hopes.
The tale begins with sudden words in the light of the fire, the heat laden with watering aroma, and in the
