The Shaman: And other shadows (2 page)

Loosely based on the short story "The Picture in the House" by HP Lovecraft

What annoyed me was merely the persistent way in which the volume tended to fall open of itself at Plate XII, which represented in gruesome detail a butcher’s shop of the cannibal Anziques. I experienced some shame at my susceptibility to so slight a thing, but the drawing nevertheless disturbed me, especially in connexion with some adjacent passages descriptive of Anzique gastronomy.
(da
The Picture in the house
- H.P. Lovecraft, 1920)

The rain, ever closer, penetrates into the belly of the small cemetery of Wilsondale. Lightning, logs floating in a sea of black earth, a place without skeleton, without a solid logic. Leaves drowned, bones, water, everything seems to liquefy. My old Ford is locked, savaged by the soft teeth of the mud. The worms, clinging to the door with a long rope, arrived at the handle. They go inside, turn on the radio.
Until the end of the world.
I fucked up leaving the Yankee Division in this weather. All this to find my father, his mush underground, the shape of his remains. Perhaps his two gold teeth, two stars in the slime shake. Massachusetts is too large to find an old tomb, not knowing where to look for. Twenty years of mud and desert, of unknown photographs, of fat keepers; the invisible cawing of shadows. An eternal black and white on regular files, including purple and yellow pools: rotten flowers, disintegrated. Vomiting of the lost time.

The cemetery is now closed, the gate is tight with the chain. Rusty tips, an oxidized bell, fingerprints of sadness everywhere. Ridges, ghosts micron. I've lost too much time to follow my map of illusions, the traces of my father in this world. Fuck, I can’t find him anywhere; he must have walked through life without shoes, without feet.
Is there really his grave?
Today I read five hundred names, five hundred tombstones. Now I came to hundreds of thousands. I know all the addresses of Hell, except the one.

Jesus, there's no one here. The parking is scarred by the signs of the tires, the death curves of who is already gone.
Fucking place of snails
. I leave on foot, I hope in a lucky strike, a ride to return to the Yankees, to the asphalt, near the giant boobs of the billboards. Monotony of trees, wet shoes, dry tongue. I leave a red spot behind me: my asleep Ford. The wall of the cemetery is buried too soon, you can’t see anything with this shitty rain. I have to go forward.

I go back to my father, bringing up the lost fragments. Memories that smell of cigar, the sweat of ghosts with dirty tank top, in front of the mirror. The black comb, his dark hair, the line on one side. A wry smile: this time he isn’t drunk. The unusual silence of the morning, no screams. My mother on the couch with the head ripped open, a towel soaked with blood. A bottle broken on her skull, tears, curses. My father had done it again, nothing new. Then he was gone forever, leaving that face printed inside of me.

Memories that light up an old radio: slippers dragging, the dry voice of his waistband, the cough and his spitting at five o'clock in the morning. His noise made me feel safe. My father was still with me, in that ramshackle house, with a red face and black lungs. The greenish footsteps of his shaving cream in the chipped sink, the bells of the boxing match on TV. Thighs and numbers. Fragments.

I must have walked a lot, for my legs are stiff, frozen. When I think of him, my mind is fast as a rocket, I speed up more and more as far to squirt out of the atmosphere, then I fall down. I wake up at five in the morning, without more noises. Silence, both in the bathroom and soul.

The grip of two elms tightens a rectangular shape. Something with lighted windows.
Damn, that must be a house, if I'm not already crazy
.
Here in the woods?
My father would give me a kick in the ass for that crap. He used to read my thoughts. In this place of snails can't live anymore. Still, that seems to be a house. I approach it, I raise my arms. I shout:
Hey!
Hey!
Silence... My fingers touch the rotten wood of the door, the crust of the resin. I lay my ear against the door, but I hear no noise, no soul in motion. The yellow glue of the silence, sticky, remains on my neck, on my cheek. I knock firmly, many times, even a deaf could hear me.
Jesus, open this fucking door!
A phone, a towel and I would be okay. I push the door, something creaks. No, these aren’t my teeth, although I tremble like a blender.

A small entrance hall, two rooms on the sides, a staircase leading to the upper floor.
Hey! Is anyone there?
My voice goes to the left, bouncing off on the worn-out couch in the living room. Old springs throw it towards the fireplace. Ash, guts of wood, silence. The ticking of the clock, up there, is the only answer. It’s fucking the rain, the lightning, the strange sound of my wet shoes. Each step sounds like crushing a fat toad.
Squash!
The room is bare, furnished with a few pieces of crude furniture. From a massive table sprouting uncertain towers of old books with leather cover, maps, illustrations and other stuff. All standing in a strange balance, edges and dust keep up the columns of paper, gritting its teeth to counter the cables of gravity that are trying to pull all towards the floor
.

I'm amazed. I explore this unexpected Eldorado, flying in a circle like a hornet. An eighteenth century Bible with the swollen belly, a copy of Pilgrim's Progress, illustrated with grotesque paintings smudged moisture, the gnawed pages of the Magnalia Christi by Cotton Mather.

This stuff here, in the woods? Don't believe it.
Maybe I've never really gone out from the mud cemetery of Wilsondale. That motherfucker's guardian, the damn dull, he must have smashed my skull with his shovel. He looked at me askance from the outset. People who don’t like strangers, who have prepared a special pit for the curious, of any size and measurement. “Tourists of the cemeteries”, so they call them. How do I explain the story of my father? Neither do I remember it all.

This is huge!
The Regnum Congo by Pigafetta! Armor of leather with metal clasps, the whimsical illustrations by the De Bry brothers. I sink my hands into it, excited browsing the book. The pages are rustling:
Frankfurt, date of publication 1598
. This Hell is really strange, with a library so rich and fascinating. Perhaps each of us decorates the afterlife rooms favoring their passions and habits. If it’s really so, the Hell where my father is locked must be equipped with a nice pool table, a well-stocked bar and a couple of hookers waiting for clients. Fake and heavy jewelry, aromas of mango and decomposed apricot. My Hell should be just that, what I see now. The books, my silent friends who don’t drink, who don’t spit pieces of lungs. They never leave me.

I start to immerse myself in Regnum Congo, without realizing that rain finally has stopped. The eating habits of Anzique are described in details by Pigafetta, the terrifying illustrations of the De Bry brothers.
Table XII, the butcher
. Slices of a man hanging on the ropes: arms, thighs, rattlesnakes of twisted guts. Large vases filled with smashed heads and busts, immersed in a yellow thick liquid. One of the two butchers opens a cover, showing the boiled merchandise.

An Anzique, with the ass outside and black feathers in his hair, leans over to look at the contents. He dips a finger, tasting the broth of man. The other indigenous butcher, with a six-pointed star dangling on his chest, is in charge of roasted meat. He plunges the knife in the flesh for preparing human skewers. On his right dozens of rods are sprouting with meat on the tip. It looks like white meat, bodies of Westerners. The indigenous group is narrowing towards the wooden counter, stretching hands: they are hungry. They trade their stuff to eat. A fat woman with deflated breasts and the face painted as a tiger, drags away a sack.

The background is filled by a hill, the ground is decorated with bones: stacks of skulls and crossbones, macabre gardens of human remains from the circular shape. The breeding, the flesh still alive, is in a cage, next to the slaughterhouse, for those who want food that still screams and talks. It will not be hard to strangle those unfortunates, chop their flesh for a merry feast. The Anzique guard pushes a spear to the crowd, no one can come close to his human cows. It must be one of the leaders, his feathers are long and colorful. Clay-colored eyes sprouting from a too big face. The look at three hundred degrees of a tarantula, an evolved predator, a demon. In the confusion, tattooed feet trample livers, lungs, steaks and pieces of other unrecognizable organs. Engines out of order, red fuel scattered everywhere. A big mess.

I'll be back continuously to the magnetic table XII, the butcher. The Anziques became aware of my presence and they look at me threatening from their rectangular window of Africa. They are close, they are true. They could grab me by the arm, dragging me inside. After tasting my body, they should decide the price of my flesh, before putting me into the cage. I'll end up boiled or roasted?

A sound of footsteps from the room above.
Fuck: I am not alone!
The natives by the formidable jaws are still closed in the book. Other passages, clearer and heavy, on the stairs. I just have to wait for the landlord, whoever he is. Regnum Congo remains open on the table XII.

A strange woman shows up, fat and powerful, with a look of eagle. Hips by rhino, impressive neck and ankles, strong, solid. She has enormous lips, her hair tied back, barefoot. The giantess approaches, she settles the red dress, crushing her worn busty chest. She smiles at me, beckoning me to sit down on the couch. She moves, heavily, towards the window.

"At last the rain has stopped!"

Her voice is deep and horribly sensual. Fifty years, approximately, not nice, it's just a great pandemic of flesh, an exasperation of tissues.

"Nobody ever comes here. Once it was different."

She sits next to me. I’m completely soaked, her bovine eyes fix my wet shoes and then go up to my pants. Her orbits weigh five pounds each. I hold myself in the coat and I feel cold.

"Really a bad time, right? It often happens, here. The rain."

The smell of her skin is strong, penetrating, familiar. It reminds me of the acid breath of my father. Exhalations of memories, aliens methane wells, fragments without grave. I feel uncomfortable, I would run away, but I need to use the giantess phone. I'm going to ask it, but the woman thunders, breaking my words.

"You need something warm. Wait, I'll be back."

I look at that huge ass that walks away, pulling the fabric which is struggling to contain the masses of those earthquaking buttocks. She walks curved, just as tall people do. Almost seven feet, fuck! I get up, go to the window, I hope to see someone in that shitty mud. But the road is far away, and this is the realm of the snails and the giantess, apparently. A flash of lightning, immediately followed by its smashed drum. It’s raining again.

The many-pound woman is back into the living room, along with a small tray. I never liked tea.
Fuck: I should better settle the giantess
. I smile as if I had been harpooned on the rump. I sit down, sip that warm shit. She keeps on staring at me. Her teeth biting her lips rhythmically. They resemble a cow's cunt, pandemic purple. Her tits jump out more and more, intentionally, and then she drops the straps of her dress to make me admire her whale breasts. A silver Jesus Christ suffocates there, in the middle. I’d better divert attention to something else, before the lady jumps on me. Too many years without a fuck, but the price is too dear for me. I can open my mouth, finally.

"Where did you get that stuff? Those books are very rare."

The giantess rolls out a heavy vortex of a sigh, which indicates it’s not a topic that interests her.

"Ebenezer, a friend. He used to work years on a merchant ship, touring the world. He was a collector of oddities, every time he came here, he would brought me a gift. "

She gets up, grabs the Regnum Congo and sits back down, closer to me. Her vocal cords vibrate on the roots, spitting out something like a whisper. The mouth moves modulating rotten sounds. Her sweat mingles with the scent of violets, the smell of a cemetery in the summer, of atoms of a hot and gruesome August on the tombstones.

The table XII of the De Bry brothers: the book always opens at that point. The Anzique butcher's shop comes alive once again. The stubby fingers of the giantess caress the drawings, the shades of blood, the sections. That horrible scene excites her. She scratches those pieces of human bodies, dangling from ropes, rocking in a gentle wind. The slow breathing of Africa. Or is it she who is rocking the flesh, moving it with her fingertips? I'm confused, the cursed illustration turns into a funnel, my mind slowly percolating in that madness.

A drop of blood, the real one, crashed in the middle of the table XII. Just on the face of the butcher who prepares the man's skewers.
Shit, the rain is not red
. I raise my eyes toward the ceiling, a large red stain, uneven, is increasing. Fresh blood is dripping, other drops are ready to jump, held by thin purple filaments. The images become blurred,
what did the fat bitch give me to drink?

Darkness, the feeling of something heavy crushes my chest, I’m loosing my senses. So it's all true, I'm in Hell, now. The giantess and her shitty tea don't really exist. The fat woman is a strange guardian of the afterlife. Now I'll meet my father, certainly he couldn’t escape from here. I ended up consuming my old Ford through the streets of dust of Massachusetts.