Aranansi #10,11 and 12: Professor Trol’s Emporium

Posted on August 31, 2010 by randomyriad

February 28, 2010, 17:52

Andre lead Morris and I through the maze of narrow streets, hedge lined paths, and alleyways bordered by wooden warehouses, crumbling cottages and shadowy shops filled with mysterious and incongruous items. Finally we reached a narrow alley with a dark channel running down a slimy trench in the middle with plank bridges every so often. The wooden backs of warehouses like fences on either side.  Odors of spices and melancholy emanated from the water, not entirely unpleasant, but chaotic as if the vapors were bright strands tied in complex knots. At the end of the alley was plain looking building, square and bright mauve with a large, sign written with bold circus letters hanging from a pole that stuck out vertically from the eaves.

Professor  Eberhard Trol’s

Emporium of  Temptations and Curiosities

Medicines to Cure Any Ailment (including those of the spirit)

Scents, and Sundries

To Enlighten, Enliven, and Invigorate

And under it hanging from a chain a smaller sign:

The Amazing Hall of Illusions

Witness Demonstrations of Magic and Art

Marionette and Bunraku Dramas Presented Daily

under another one of similar size:

Pay a Visit to the Mystical Menagerie

Astounding Beasts Collected at Great Risk

From Distant Lands.

Andre pointed and smiled. Morris whistled. I stopped and stared. How had I missed this alley and that sign so close to my home. Andre had always been good at finding the strange little corners of the city.

“Have you been in yet?” I asked.

“No, I saw it and knew I would want to have company. “

“Well, let’s go see!” screeched the bird who had landed on the sign pole and was turning his head to the side and hanging down to read the words. He swooped down onto my shoulder. “Personally I don’t go in for menageries. They usually contain predators, and I would just rather not see any big claws and hungry jaws, awk!.”

“Spoken like the little quivering pile of feathers you are, Morris,” Andre said with a big grin on his shining face. “You have to admit, the place looks fascinating!”

I shrugged and gave Morris what I thought was an encouraging “What’s the worse that could happen” look.

He rolled his eyes and gurgled disapproval in the back of his throat as we followed Andre through the door.

My eyes had to adjust to the dimness of the interior from the splendor of the bright day. We were in a large room filled with shelves and display cases crowded with bottles, jars, bags and bins of all shapes and sizes. Wooden and metal machinery and tools hung from the walls and suspended from the ceiling. On one wall hung framed photos and drawings of people, creatures and objects with no obvious connections to each other except that they were all places, people and things unfamiliar to me. There was a door covered by a black curtain in the middle of this wall above a sign:

to the menagerie.

I turned at the sound of voices.  Andre, who had moved to the other side of the room was conversing with a thin short man with a heavy black beard wearing a long burgundy jacket. His dark hair was corkscrew curly sprouting out at all angles from his large round head. As I approached I could see he had large golden eyes like a wolf and large white teeth which flashed when he talked. His voice was soft but penetrating, but somehow I could not catch the words of their conversation even though I could hear both voices clearly.

March 21, 2010, 09:11

Andre turned away from the professor and walked toward me beaming with anticipation.
“The professor says another show is starting  in 10 minutes. We can look around in here and go to the menagerie after.”
“I’ve gotta say, this is some find,” I replied gazing around at the machines and tools hanging from the ceiling and walls. “I could spend a couple of hours in this room.”
Morris gargled and made a little creaking sound. “I think I will just wait outside. This place gives me the creeps, creeps,” he said in a throaty whisper. “I need some sunlight to sweep this gloom out of my head.”
“Very well, old friend,” I said nodding and walking toward the door. “We will see you back at the workshop.”
He fluttered from my shoulder as soon as I opened the door, and without a good-bye flew off into a day that seemed impossibly bright after the gloom of the emporium.

March 29, 2010, 21:01

After I said good-bye to Morris, I browsed around the shelves. On a shelf of dusty aged tomes, I picked a volume embossed with cartographic lines and symbols. “Geographies of Death”  was printed in raised gold letters. I skimmed through it and made a mental note of where I put it down. It was too heavy to carry with me.

On the next aisle was a shelf of large jars with ventilated lids. On the top shelf was a jar labeled “narcissus beetles”,  in it were some medium sized insects with shiny silver shells.  black lines  shifted on their into patterns of different human facesas they moved.  Next to these were glass cases filled with fluttering butterflies and moths. One large case contained deep blue moths with a stark white pattern of a grinning human skull in the center of each wing. This was labeled “Death’s Head Moths.”

Andre was busy with his own investigations and came over several times to show me his discoveries. There was still so much more to see when a bell rang signaling the seating of the next show.

Posted in Aranansi, conversations, Dreamtime, Fiction, Geographies of Death, hidden places, mindworks, Mythical and mysterious, Telling Stories, Wild Life | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Aranansi #9: Andre Bursts In

Posted on August 30, 2010 by randomyriad

February 14, 2010, 20:58

There came a lively rapping at the door of my little workshop home. Morris the Minah who had been dozing making sleepy little gurgling squawks as he perched on the elephant’s head lamp in the corner, woke with loud raspy whistle.

“It’s just the door,” I said as I got up from my work and crossed the room.

I opened the door and blinked at the light. I had been doing some small detail work, and my eyes were not yet ready for the big sun filled day outside. When my eyes came into focus, there stood Andre, an interesting awkward man, sharp and bright yet dark and brooding at the same time. I never know how to approach him, but he is always full of life and ideas. I was glad to see him.

“You have to come with me!” He burst past me into my room working hard to contain his excitement gesturing largely with his arms and hands. “I have found the most fascinating shop, and it is right around the corner from here.”

“Well I’m almost finished with the work I am doing,” I said rearranging my mental day as I spoke. “You could have a cup of tea and talk with Morris for a few minutes while I finish this up. Then I could go with you.”
He looked around, a little embarrassed at not noticing my other guest. “Oh, Hello you old squawker,” he shouted cheerily when he finally located Morris on the lamp. “How’s your Rimbaud these days?”
“Passable, but I am starting to forget some of the more obscure parts. Getting a bit long in the beak, you know.”
“It’s been a long time. Where have you been hiding?”
“I’ve been here and there and just about everywhere since I saw you last.”
” Well I suspect that is the case. I have been right here in this city trying to figure out how to make a living and keep the demons at bay.”
They talked and I worked as Andre made tea. There conversation was like a story about two friends who spend years trying to find each other and then realize they have very little in common.
“I’m finally done with that,” I said as I finished the last touches on the small piece I was engraving. “And not a bad job either. If I do say so myself, which I do.”
Andre put down his tea and came to look over my shoulder. “Very nice indeed,” he agreed a little too loudly. Andre is always very generous and enthusiastic when he wants to show me one of his discoveries.

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Aranansi #8: Green Tom

Posted on August 29, 2010 by randomyriad

February 08, 2010, 19:58

I was moving about in the workshop taking apart one thing and putting together another when Morris squawked loudly, awakening from an uneasy dream. Dreaming isn’t ever very easy in this city. It is more like waking up.
“Bad dream?” I queried.
“The worst! The worst!” Morris screeched.
“All right, all right, just tell me about it.”
“Flying, I was over the tangle forest,” He started nervously, little word noises in the back of his throat. “It turned brown like a wave starting at one side, so fast all the way across. All dead! All brown.”
He ended with a sad whistle.
“That is disturbing.” I patted his black head and gave him a peanut I found on the floor. He took it in his claw and peeled away the shell delicately with his beak.
“I remember replanting the edge of that forest. That’s when I met Leela. “Green Tom showed me how it could be done.”

A chain of memories fell like dominoes in a row that led back to the moment I met Green Tom. I was living in an abandoned factory on the western border of the city at the edge of the tangle forest. The factory was a mangled ruin full of old machinery. It was a maze of  chutes, broken stairs, and ladders to nowhere. It was a perfect place for me at the time as I was working on a flying machine powered by thought and intentions. There were parts just lying around. The ceiling and walls were good enough in some places, the places I worked and lived in, to keep the water and wind at bay. I just hooked up my little generator for light and small machinery and worked away in solitude. No one could visit me there because I was the only one who knew the safe paths through.
One day I heard a muffled pounding a short distance from where I was harvesting some valuable pieces of metal for the wing frame. I climbed through a small tunnel of twisted machinery just in time to see a door burst open on the floor above. The stair was out and chute had fallen in its place just one step inside the door.
“Don’t take a step,” I shouted up, ” Or it will be a long one.”
I could see the lumpy silhouette, roughly person shaped with odd angularities, and vines tangled all round the edges.
“What do you want?” I yelled up again, and the form above rustled.
“I wanted to speak with someone about the forest,” he spoke in deep, penetrating groan like trees in windstorm.
“Stay there I will come up to you,” I shouted again, figuring the best path through the metal maze of the factory.
When I finally navigated my way out and around to the uphill side of the factory, I was surprised to find no one there. There was a strange tangle of ivy leaning against the corrugated sheet metal wall.

“Alo, my name is Tompowjur Boa. Some as call me Green Tom.”
I found his face among the vines and told him my name. He told me that he wandered into the city from the forest to find someone to help him replant the part of the forest that had disappeared into the city. The ancient giant part of the wood dreamers took away to build houses and monuments and games. I told him what I was working on. He thought that would be useful.
He stayed at the edge of the forest near the factory for a while (He could not live with me indoors),and I would visit him every day. He taught me how to plant, and what to plant, and how to sing to the birds and creatures to let them know what I was doing. All that was necessary in the process of making the forest grow where it used to be.
When I finished my flying machine, I went and applied for the replanting job and got it. It wasn’t hard with all that Green Tom taught me. And so I went and worked and met Leela. Morris was living most of the time with Leela then and would recite poetry in the evenings for us. He knew many poets then, but now has lost interest in all but Rimbaud.
“Where did you just go?” Morris said around a beak full of peanut.
“I was just thinking about when I met Green Tom.”
“Green Tom!” He screeched. “I just saw him on my way here. Moping about the high ponds.”
“Really, Did you speak with him.”
“No, Never talk to him anymore.” Morris chortled. “He’s a bit slow for my taste. Much too stiff and rattly.”
“Well, I guess he takes a bit of getting used too,” I said as I went back to work. “Just like some birds I know.”

Posted in Aranansi, conversations, developing relationships, Dreamtime, House and home, Teaching and Learning, Telling Stories, Wild Life | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Aranansi #7: The Best Place to Rest

Posted on August 28, 2010 by randomyriad

January 25, 2010, 21:48

I went by the old mansion. There was a sign on the gate “BEWARE THE BULL”. I peeked over the fence and there he was placidly chewing grass. Miranda was draped over his back asleep, her delicate pale arms hanging down over the barrel curve of his massive ribs.
“Well, they’re getting along pretty well now,” I chuckled.

I still did not want to test the bull’s good nature. So I headed home. Morris the minah bird was on my porch repeating some lines from Rimbaud in French. I knew they were lines from Rimbaud because that is the only poet he knows by heart.
“Hello Morris,” I said as I opened my door.
“Hello to you too,” he croaked as he flew over my shoulder into my dim workshop room. “And where have you been so long away, so long away.”
“I took a walk in the wild and then to Dudley’s for the night.”
“Oh! Dudley eh?” Morris made a little throaty chortle as he perched on the standing elephant head lamp. I pulled the trunk and the tusks glowed whitely.
“I haven’t seen you for a while, Morris. Where have you been hiding yourself.”
“I flew out to the old highway by the sea. By the way Leela says hi or high, I am not sure which.”
“Either one will do. Are you hungry or just looking for a safe place to rest.”
“I can always find a bit of seed or a few tasty grubs, but yours is the best place to rest. I always say that. Always.” Morris finished with a shrill squawk  and settled his head down between his shoulders so that his bright yellow ear patch looked like a sun setting over a black hill.
“We can talk more later.” I said as I went to my work bench to see what I could get busy with. I thought of Leela. There was that time when I was working up in the valley just over the ridge from her place on the ocean highway. There were dogs everywhere. I was replanting the forest on the ridge. Back then I could fly, too, and I flew over the hilly ground dropping seed and cones on the barren green mat. I wanted to ask Morris how the forest was growing. It had been a while so maybe there were trees and undergrowth.
I thought about a, time I came into to her tiny house when she had put in the new white tile even in the bed room. It was all pretty much one room broken into two where the floor just slanted up all of a sudden, and you were in the bedroom. They were large rooms but that was the whole place. Bright yellow kitchen: Pink plushy bedroom which was mostly bed. She was almost always in the bed reading when I came in. She would put her book down, and we would talk about my work and what she was reading and so many other things. I don’t really remember how this all got started or how we met, but there we were in that little house on the coast talking into the night about anything that came into our heads. I wonder why I left that job and the ocean. I just can’t seem to think of any good reasons why I am not still there. Oh, well things change in subtle ways. We shift to other paths that lead us into other places and other friends. I will have some questions for Morris when he wakes up.

Posted in Aranansi, change, conversations, developing relationships, Dreamtime, Fiction, House and home, Questions and riddles, Telling Stories | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Aranansi #6: An Evening at Dudley’s

Posted on August 27, 2010 by randomyriad

January 20, 2010, 22:33

I exited the park and crossed the old wooden bridge over Meadow Creek, which was now a respectable size, to Banfree’s Island, a neighborhood of many songs and languages. Dudley’s  neighborhood. It is a place of bright colors and tin roofs, a meander maze of winding streets crowded with people of all colors and costumes. I am never surprised any more by what I see here.
I always get lost for a while on my way to Dudley’s and this day was no exception, but finally I arrived at the right door. As I prepared to knock, I caught the scent of sweet vegetables and sticky rice. I was glad that I had saved the wine.
“Ah, my old friend!” Dudley exclaimed as he opened the door. “What are you doin’ in this part of the city at this time of night?”
I am always a little awed by Dudley’s voice when I first hear it.
“I brought some wine for the meal,” I finally said as a gentle smile spread on his broad face.
“Really? How thoughtful,” he laughed. “And it so happens I made enough for two. I was feeling hungry when I started cooking.”
We walked through the dim living room into the light filled kitchen. The first thing I noticed was the white clock radio I had fixed for him. It was playing Mozart.
“I thought I fixed that thing?” I said as I went over to check it out.
“Oh, you did, my friend! But I like the Mozart in evening when I am winding down. Now that you are here we will play the island music to liven the mood a little.”
Dudley moved past me and turned the dial. The radio emitted some fuzz, crackle and whine finally settling on a clanky, sliding groove in calypso time.
After dinner, we listened to Mozart while Dudley put the finishing touches on the dog he was crocheting. It was difficult work as the dog was becoming active and playful. Its wooden bead eyes vibrated as it panted. After a long struggle, he finally let the dog go. It raced about the room silently on its padded feet sniffing and exploring.
“You’ve gotten quite good at those,” I commented admiring its rust colored fringe and nicely rounded shape.
“I find the cats much more challenging. I can never get the body right,” Dudley mused. “Dogs are more comical and amusing. Cats must have dignity. I have not mastered that yet.”
When I woke in the morning Dudley was already out. The dog was still padding about full of curiosity. I was very careful not to let it escape on my way out.

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