This one is a bit harsh. Please don’t read it if you are squeamish.  It is part of a story I’m working on about having conversations with the different parts of my soul. This story is metaphorically true about my journey.   Perversity is in all of us.  Projecting it outward leaves one defenseless against oneself.  The rest of the story to date can be found under “Stories”

As my tears flowed, I clung to the last fading glimpse of Her. Trying to hold it in my mind because it was all I had. How stupid I must be, how blind could someone get? The bitter disappointment, the numbing grief had its familiar way with me. The lethargy, same old tired recriminations played like scratchy vinyl in my mind. I began to sink toward the earth.

“Excellent!” The Priest said.

“What?” I said, turning on him. I’ve lost Her again! How is that excellent?”

“What? Who? . . . O Her. Yes I can imagine how that would be disappointing, again. I believe I have a current tally of how many times that has occurred. Would you like me to find that for you? I believe it was approaching 10,000 or so last time I looked. If you think it will help . . .”

“No, never mind,” I said. “What were you talking about?”

“Ah, yes. As you know I have been at work on a map whose agenda is here in the Interior. I have collected data on our journey to date and have made some headway. I have been recording the particular traits of the landscape though which we have been traversing. I can delineate the many twists and turns we have made but they are all in relation to each other. There was no real orientation. But as you were in conversation with those two I was able to mark the boundary between the Inside and Out. Now we have the beginning of perspective, we can now triangulate any point on our map with another using the boundary as our starting point and know where we are. You may be interested to know that the art and/or science of “Cartography,” a term coined by the Greeks . . .”

“Thank you,” I interrupted. “Rebel, sing us a traveling song.”

With a strum of his instrument he began to compose, and we began to move. We turned our back on the Outside and headed toward the interior. There were no straight lines which could be traveled. Twists and turns but no dead ends. The terrain and foliage would change as the landscape moved under our feet. It was dusk when we found ourselves in a dry rocky place that led down into a barren valley cut like a gash between two indistinct grey and black looking hills. We traveled the valleys length, our pace slowing the in the fading light, the rocky purchase, and the oppressive dread that had descended upon us. We approached a jagged cleft in the rock face which glowed in the darkness. It also gave forth a foul stench. Upon examination we discovered that it was a doorway into a cavern with crooked steps leading down into the earth. We entered and made our way cautiously down the crooked winding stair.

At the bottom landing a sickly thick greenish grey odor rushed me. It struck me like a blow penetrating beneath the senses. Bile rose in me as I attempted to make some sense of the chaotic cacophony that raped me. Urine, dung, unwashed bodies, rotten used menstrual pads, moaning, all manner of profane images, lukewarm oily tastes on my tongue and skin.

I heard a voice, childlike but deep “Fuck, Fuck, cunt, piss, fuck, shit, touch it, taste it smell it, break it, see what’s in there.” Over and over in a weird sing song with no real pattern. I saw its face surprised a bit by the smooth round curves of a young boy. Then horror when I realized what he was doing. He held a kitten in one hand and was peeling the skin off the skull with his dirty long fingernails. With those same nails he ripped open the belly exposing the entrails which he would taste with the tip of his tongue. Looking closer I could see that the still living kitten had its legs replaced with those of a frog and a newborn human child. They were crudely attached with small nails hammered through with a stone. He squeezed the little skull in his chubby little hand and with the fingernail of his right pinky deftly removed an eyeball from its socket. The eyeball dangled, still attached by the nerves and tissue and swung in a neat little arc as he turned to face me.

“You like my pet. I named her sweety. I named her that because that’s how she tastes,” he said.

I felt the churning in my stomach and the vomit rise in me. Violent heaves left the hot putrid pool at my feet. My nose and throat burned and the smell of my own fresh hot puke momentarily drowned out but added to the stench of the place.

“Thanks for sharing,” he said. “You want to hold her?” He held out the pitiful mangled creature to me. It still lived and mewed it’s cry’s through its pain and terror. Its body trembled and an occasional spasm would convulse its little frame.

“I think kitty tongues are cute. They are so pink and thin and rough against your skin”. He pried open the little mouth with his thumb and pushed until the lower jaw broke. The kitten now numb from the pain, made no sound but it writhed and jerked involuntarily making the legs quiver until one of the small human legs came unpinned and fell off. He held the broken jaw back like a flap and rubbed the tiny tongue against the underside of his forearm.

“Stop!” I said.

“Why, you wanna do it,” he asked?

“No, you’re making me sick. Now stop!

“Really? Well this is new. But you being here at all is a miracle. You tried to deal with me out There didn’t you?  But I don’t live out there. I live here with everybody else. I am a part of you. Oh I know you don’t like me and I see you sitting there typing your stupid story trying to make me something I am not, something foreign to you that you can only see in other people. You think you can control me by putting me on paper? The Clown is right. You are not very bright sometimes. Remember where trying to be clever got you. You and those two are always talking about how it Ought to be, singing songs and writing papers. Well I am how it Ought-Not to be. And you need me. What would you do without me? How would you measure Ought except against Ought-Not?”

“Maybe so,” I offered, “but stop what you are doing with that animal.”

“OK,” he said. “All you had to do is say so. Doesn’t matter to me. I was just bored. Not much to do down here.”

“What do I do with you,” I asked?

“Whatever you want,” he said. “I can do lots of things if you make me. But my favorite is stuff like this.” He held up the kitten, shaking it at me.

“Bury that creature and clean this place up,” I ordered!

“OK,” he replied. “But if this is not what you want I would suggest you check up on me from time to time. I have certain proclivities that I tend to drift towards if left unattended.”

We turned and made our way back up the stairs and out of the valley, quiet now, shaken, and sober.