kagablog

The weighty twilight of the jungle was just beginning to glaze the house of Alphonse Guava. The mauve of the sky deepened like fluid, lashed by stripes of vivid, dying yellow. Many of the lights had not been turned on yet and the majority of the house was sunk in a sort of subaqueous gloom. The light was particularly dim in one of the quiet bedchambers in the upper west wing. There was an overdone quality to the decorative features of the chamber; lace curtains, porcelain knickknacks, heavy mahogany furniture and sepia floral print wallpaper. The overall mood of the room was spooky and cloying, the inescapability of a grandmother’s attic. A long French window was the only light source, and this was overgrown with creepers. The tendrils meshed tightly beyond the lightly frosted glass, emitting a pellucid, underwater light into the chamber. Like sunshine seen from below the surface of a still pond. The air was also still, almost pressurized. A Victorian rocking horse grinned beside one of the walls, facing into the cool green light. The only discernable sound was the faint regular breathing of a young girl sleeping, and very distant birds. Vintage dolls littered the floor. The farthest, dimmest end of the room was literally a wall of dolls. This overwhelming collection stretched from floor to ceiling and hundreds of glass eyes could be glimpsed, glinting in the wan light. A curtained four-poster bed had been placed in the center of the room and Taty lay asleep in it. Someone had dressed her in a vintage white nightgown and only her head and neck were visible above the old linen coverings. In the dimness of the far end, just below the wall of dolls, it was possible to vaguely discern the form of a large crocodile. The reptile lay comatose, its nictitating lids licking slowly together and apart in the half-light. Alphonse Guava was seated in a high backed chair just below the tall window. His hands were steepled and he watched Taty sleep, patiently waiting for her to stir. The light faded gradually, creating antiquated purple shadows and an atmosphere of gathering oppression. Taty began to awaken slowly in this dimness.

“Mommy…” she found herself mumbling.

She turned her head, blinking her eyes in the greenish light, gazing dreamily at the silhouette of Alphonse.

“Am I swimming into focus yet?” Alphonse smiled.

“Is this heaven?” slurred Taty, thinking she was perhaps dead.

“Depends,” he smirked.

“I’m so sleepy…”

“You should be, Miss Muppet drugged you.”

Taty frowned and then yawned like a kitten.

“I liked her,” she tut-tutted.

“She emits a certain pheromone,” Alphonse explained. “ It makes her impossible to dislike.”

“Oh,” she goggled. “ Kind of like a bug?”

“Exactly like a bug.”

Taty shifted under covers. She attempted to raise her arm only to find it attached to one of the posts by means of a rusty chain. She wiggled a bare foot to discover that it too had been secured.

“I’m tied to this bed,” she announced blankly.

“Chained cupcake, chained.”

“I like the rough stuff,” she joked, flicking at the chain.

“We all do,” he replied quietly.

She stared at him, unsure of her ground. He rose slowly out of the chair and circled slowly toward the bed. The crocodile, sensing movement reacted slightly. Taty did not even notice it, so intent was she on the approach of the dark figure.

“Are you going to rape me now?” she asked in an unreal, dreamy fashion.

“No,” he replied seriously. “Actually I need you for some things.”

“I…I don’t fuck well,” she stammered quietly. “I’m virginal…”

“It works better if you are a virgin,” he whispered, his face swamped by shadows. He was quite close to her now and she could smell the tea and alcohol on his soiled suit. She peered deep into the shadow of his face, attempting to understand his intentions. A flicker of movement caught her eye and she noticed the crocodile. As with everything, she reacted with slow fascination rather than fear – as though it were all a dream. She glanced back at him as he lingered beside a bedpost, somehow distracted.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked with an intense, child-like curiousity.

Alphonse seemed to wake from his momentary reverie, realizing suddenly that she was there. He drifted to the far end of the bed, his voice taking on a business-like tone.

“I want you to come work for me,” he began. “I pay well, can give you a bed, toys, whatever…I’ll even feed you, you look like you could use some food.”

“What do I have to do exactly?” she pressed.

“It’s…complex,” he sighed, wandering over to the rocking horse.

She watched as he mounted the horse, facing the window, his back to her. He was much too large for the child’s toy and it creaked dangerously. Despite this he continued to rock back and forth, staring out of the window in something of a trance. When he finally did speak, his voice carried an almost religious fervour.

“You see awhile ago some people rediscovered their souls,” he mused, staring into the light, haloed by illuminated dust motes.

“They brought them out of the cupboard, so to speak,” he continued. “Shook them around and began to see their envelopes; the sno-globes which encase us all, our invisibilities…”

He rocked faster, clearly inspired by whatever it was he was spouting.

“Some saw fantastic colours and intricate, shifting formations within the sno-globes,” he rambled. “A doctor, Doctor Dali, discovered that these sno-globes were something like our emotions, sensations and mental emanations rendered visible – he saw people as paintings of light!”

“So you’re saying I’m a sno-globe?” she frowned.

He turned to peer at her over his shoulder.

“Not just any sno-globe my little sweetmeat,” he grinned toothily. “Tinkerbell’s like you are rare as rubies.”

He dismounted and rocked sideways, staring at her.

“See when most people are receptors, you are in fact a transmitter…”

“I’m like a radio?” she asked blankly.

He got up and minced over to her like a cat.

“You double stereo psychic television baby,” he giggled. “You can be tuned to create specific sensations and emotions within people – why just the sight of you playing tennis in the right colour skirt, if amplified correctly, could be enough to kill a person!”

“I can’t play tennis.”

He brushed aside her remark and continued, circumnavigating the bed.

“Each pigeon will be different my dear,” he elucidated. “For one happy Frank it may simply be tennis in a peach ballgown, for another you might be called upon to, oh I don’t know…weld red screws to the underside of an antique unicycle at midnight…upside down!”

He cackled a little at his flight of fancy while she just stared expressionlessly at him, tugging at her chains like a puppy.

“Each person reacts differently to different stimuli,” he continued. “Each has their own private path to paradise…we find it and you just lead them up it – for a nominal fee of course.”

He leaned in close to her at this point and rubbed his cold nose against hers. She flinched slightly from the clamminess of it but was otherwise unafraid.

“You can be taught to kindle soul-pleasure more intense than a thousand orgasms…” he hissed brutally, before pulling back and retracting like a squid into the shadows.

She gazed up at him while he allowed for a dramatic pause.

“But if I can do anything…” she mused thoughtfully. “ Why just use me for pleasure?”

“My business is pleasure,” he uttered in a rehearsed fashion.

“A little limiting don’t you think?” she taunted.

“Limitation is a limitless source of amusement to me,” he grinned snappily.

They stared at one another sensing a possible friendship. Something in her was drawn to the flightiness of the living joker card she saw smiling in the darkness before her. And whatever it was, it seemed far more concrete than the endless existentialist vistas she had witnessed on the highways.

“Think of the wonderful, wonderful degradation,” he teased exasperatingly.

She found herself mirroring his ridiculous smile.

“Okay,” she acquiesced, to be sporting.

“But I want a lollipop,” she added, with a playful laugh.

He clapped his hands together in glee. And in the darkness beyond, the crocodile stirred, crossing the room in three giant strides.