Arcane II (7 page)

The Red Giant’s roots lashed out in all directions. The immensity of the tree seemed that much greater from his cowering vantage, but it was hard to look at anything but the furious thrashing of its lower half. The roots whipped outward in all directions, and among them Derrick saw Roscoe moving in with the chainsaw raised at his side.

“Die, you miserable hellspaw—” The words died out under the roar of the chainsaw as Roscoe swung it like an ax into the base of the tree.

A mix of sawdust and black bile spewed out. Derrick sat mesmerized, aghast at what sprayed over Roscoe, bathing the old man in the clotted sludge.

A branch swung down and swatted Roscoe without him seeing it. He and the chainsaw flew back against a tall pine, the chainsaw cutting a gash through the right side of his abdomen when he hit.

Derrick struggled to his feet and hobbled over. Roscoe was bleeding out.

“Finish it,” Roscoe rasped, then slumped to his side.

“Finish it? Finish
what?
I can’t—” Derrick’s hands clutched the old man’s collar and shook. A second later, he froze, realizing he had his back to a thing that shouldn’t exist. It did, he couldn’t deny it now, and when he turned slowly as if it might actually be watching him, he felt his blood run cold. Frozen like cornered prey, he looked up at the Red Giant, which crawled inch by inch towards him.

Derrick’s instincts again told him to run for home and hide under his bed covers, but he forced them down like a lump in his throat and grabbed the chainsaw. He yanked the chain three times before it roared back to life, watching with each try as the Red Giant advanced slowly but violently. He ignored the searing pain in his knee and limped towards the gas can across the brook. His plan barely had time in his head—his eyes consumed by the sight of the Red Giant come to life—and he unscrewed the cap, hauling it and the chainsaw towards the tree, which seemed to ignore him and slowly approached Roscoe’s lifeless body.

Why am I not running away? Because you can’t run. This is it.

The root closest to Derrick reached out. He dropped the gas canister and swung the chainsaw upward, its big awkward blade connected with the root. Derrick pressed the trigger on the chainsaw, which sliced through the root like carving a turkey. A terrified war-cry erupted from Derrick as he held firm to his weapon. The root dropped to the ground where it twitched a final time, black bile bleeding from its wound. The piece of root still attached to the tree recoiled. Derrick picked up the canister again and advanced.

He poured gasoline along the ground as he walked, stopping each time a root or branch took a swing. He knee excruciated each time he dipped and dived to avoid being hit, but he clenched his teeth and pushed on. When he was six feet or so from the base of the tree, he splashed gasoline on it, then threw the canister next to the tree and retreated.

He patted his pockets for a lighter.

Fuck. Don’t do this to me. Give me a lighter, God, or wings, or something.

He looked over at his duffel bag a few yards away. He sprinted over as best he could, but a branch glanced him in the shoulder and knocked him off-balance. He rolled and twisted his knee again. He reached his duffel bag and rifled through it until he found his Zippo—unused since that time he had toked up.

He clambered on hands and knees, crying out each time his injured knee touched the ground, until he made it back to the trail of gasoline. He sparked the lighter and touched it to the ground. A faint amber flame tinged in blue jumped up a couple inches off the ground, and slithered its way towards the tree, which had managed to move a few feet more towards Roscoe’s body.

Derrick rolled down the bank and into the brook as the flame reached the gas canister. He heard a muffled whoosh over the idling chainsaw on the ground, then threw his hands over his head and dunked his face down into the cold water. The sensation offered stark clarity to the moment, and he gasped, sucking in a mouthful of water that choked him. He heard a loud pop as the canister burst into flames like a popcorn kernel. He looked up, choking and spitting out water, and watched the spatter of fire covering the side of the Red Giant’s hide. Roots and branches lashed about, but all those that got near the flames ignited as well. The dry bark fueled the fire well, and within a minute the entire lower half of the tree was engulfed.

Derrick stood back up after some effort and hobbled over to the chainsaw, just in case he needed to protect himself again, then got out of the tree’s way as it started groping its way back towards the marsh. The thing’s bark hissed and popped as it burned, and Derrick could have sworn he heard a high-pitched squeal coming from somewhere inside it.

He went over to Roscoe and checked his pulse. He was dead, alright. Derrick hunched over, propped an arm against the pine tree, and retched. After wiping his mouth, he turned back to the Red Giant, now entirely ablaze. The thing leaned forward as it touched the bank, then toppled. The length of the tree stretched out into the marsh, but its mass couldn’t get below the shallow level of the water, so it lay helpless on its side. A behemoth of living wood that burned like tinder even after it stopped writhing.

Derrick’s mind could hardly process what he had just witnessed—what he’d just done—and when he turned back towards the path for home, and saw Pam standing there with a picnic basket and a horrified look etched on her face, the only words Derrick could muster were: “What’s in the basket?”

Convention of Ekphrasis

Libby Cudmore and Matthew Quinn Martin

late. When you wake in the hotel’s high-backed brass-tacked chocolate leather wing chair, drool dripping down your chin to mar your once crisp cream-colored shirt, now wrinkled, that’s what you think––what you remember. You were late.

You rub your stiffened neck, and a throbbing deadness shoots up the side of your spine. What time is it? How did you get here, in this lobby? How long have you been snoozing? Did you have one to many Mount Gay and tonics in the hotel bar? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Tightness grips your chest. The tension lessens as you spot your modest suitcase sitting there by your feet, then releases completely as your hand works its way under your numb butt to find your wallet tucked safely in your back pocket.

Why are you sleeping in this chair? you wonder. Don’t you have a room? You look past the bank of similar sleeping conventioneers to the hallway. Figures shuffle back and forth, flowing into each other like milk into coffee. Every fifth person looks like someone you know from the business. Familiar but unknown faces, same model, different shades, like the rental cars you always take from the airport to these things. Another convention, you think. You remember being sent last minute, and you got in so very late. What is this one for? Something about something, you think. Something about writing, or writing something.

You stand, feeling your aging knees pop and your spine crack as you yawn. You pull your phone from your pocket, noticing that the button on your left cuff has fallen off. The end of your sleeve flaps like dead leaves as you flip open your cell phone. Its screen is blank.

“Good luck getting reception,” a soft feminine voice says from over your shoulder. “Too deep here, too thick.”

You look for the voice’s owner, but it could have been anyone. You shuffle the sleep, heading into the flow, lugging your luggage and wondering if you will see yourself in that sea of countenances. You are, after all, just another model number.

Soon you find yourself in front of a wall-sized sign listing all the events for the day ahead, but not the date. Every seminar or panel discussion seems to have the word “ekphrasis” in it. Your eyes slide across the grid of possible entries, each one seeming to strive to snare them with their obscurity:
Towards a Pseudonymic Ekphrasis, The Ekphrasic Relationship Between Viewer and Reviewer in Post-Gadamerian NeoMcLuhanism, Shifting the Haikuic Ekphrasis in Plate Tectonics, In Defense of Female Circumcision: A Feminist Ekphrasic Odyssey in Ritualistic Infant Body Modification Hosted by Rabbi Elle Whorphin.
And so on.

Someone shoulders you aside, a girl you can’t stop staring at. Maybe it’s the lace-trimmed black nightgown she’s wearing that barely covers her ass––the only thing she’s wearing besides a pair of strappy silver sandals. You feel overdressed. She hands you a small card and winks before vanishing into the crowd.

You wonder how a girl dressed like that could disappear so quickly as you turn over the card, hoping it’s was the girl’s phone number. An embossed invitation beams up at you.
Please join us at the hotel chapel to witness the blessed union of the manuscripts
Leprosy: A Love Story
and
The Undefined Use of This
. The happy couple is registered at Pottery Barn and Barns and Nobel.
You stick the invitation in your back pocket and look around for someone to take your suitcase.

You spy a bellman pushing an empty luggage trolley across the carpeted hallway. “Excuse me,” you call. “Where do I check this?” You point to your suitcase.

“Right there, sir,” he answers, walking away from you. “Follow the signs.”

Check luggage,
reads the sign that wasn’t there before. Underneath it, an arrow mounted on a disk points right. You grip your bag by its creaking, near-broken handle, and take a step in that direction. But as your second foot follows the first, from the periphery you spot movement and look again to the sign. The arrow points left.

That can’t be right, you think, realizing that it’s left, and in that irony you find some cold comfort to balm your mounting paranoia. You start again, wondering what, indeed,
is
left, as you step off, and once more the disk shifts––shifts right. That’s definitely not right, you think, even though it is. This sign is wrong it its rightness. You stand still and the arrow moves, pointing down this time.

You set your suitcase on the ground as you notice a bell on a small shelf next to the sign. You give the bell’s steel nipple one light tap and a panel slides open. From that black quadrangle emerges a white-gloved hand at the end of a red-piped gabardine arm. The hand grips your bag by the handle and pulls it into the wall. You watch on, helpless, as your possessions are pulled into the inky emptiness.

You stare at the open panel for what seems like an hour, until you finally decide to move on. When you turn your back you hear the snap of fingers and turn to see the gloved hand holding out a claim ticket. You take it, noting that nothing is printed on the beige cardboard tag. You turn again, and are called back again by that finger snap. The hand has opened its palm. You reach for your wallet, thicker with credit cards than with cash, pull a few wilted bills from the damp leather and press them into the cotton palm. Is it possible that the hand just smiled at you?

You turn asking of anyone around you, “How am I supposed to find my room?” Your eyes land on an attractive woman with strawberry blond hair and sapphire eyes. Her silk blouse is unbuttoned to reveal a pink silk camisole. You wished you hadn’t checked your bag; you feel out of place without your pajamas on.

You open your mouth to strike up a conversation, but stop when you notice that the buttons are missing on her shirt. All of them gone, leaving empty button-holes and wisps of thread. “What happened to your buttons?” you ask.

She unzips her complimentary conference tote bag and pulls out a stuffed octopus. It only has one eye; you recognize the other as the button off your own cuff. She points to your neater sleeve. “He’ll be needing that.”

“Yes,” you hear yourself saying. “Of course he will, how rude of me.”

You offer your arm to her, asking, “What’s your name. Mine’s––”

“Why be hemmed in my something as rudimentary as a name? Really, can a few syllables contain one’s essence?”

She has a point, you think. She brings your hand towards her mouth, and for a delirious moment you think she might kiss it, or put one of your fingers in her mouth. She doesn’t. All she does is bite off your button, her perfect pearly teeth shearing the thread with a crisp snap. You watch as she pulls a needle out of the hem of her grey skirt and sews the button onto the little cephalopod’s plush face. She passes him to you and smiles. “Keep him close tonight,” she says.

You hold the tiny, cotton stuffed thing at arms length and ask, “What’s his name?”

She shoots you that look of
didn’t we have this conversation already?
Then she says, “He’ll watch for the idea thieves while you sleep.”

The
what?
You must have heard her wrong through the fog of your hangover. Maybe she was being ironic. Maybe you just need some coffee, feels like days since you had a cup. “Idea thieves?” you ask, looking for some clarity, but knowing this is a pattern in your life––in any man’s life––responding to what a pretty girl says, no matter how strange the words.

“They come out in droves for conventions like this,” she explains. “They bribe the bellmen to let them into your room and suck your ideas out of your ears with a giant straw.” She points to a man opening his briefcase with the deliberate slyness of a 1960’s spy-movie villain. He has a wide pink straw in one hand, which he quickly stashes in his luggage. “The only way to avoid them is to sleep in the bathtub, but,” she looks to her right and left, then whispers, “Herman here will give you a little extra protection. Now you know his name, so be careful with it.” She wiggles one of his tentacles. “Never hurts to have a little extra.”

Now you know why you spoke to her. She reminds you of the class pet in fifth grade, a white bunny you wanted so badly to take home for the weekend. Summer came before your name came up on Snuggles weekend getaway roster and you never forgave Jimmy for that last Saturday in May. You pull the cardstock from your back pocket. “Are you going to this?” you ask. “The manuscript wedding?”

“I have to buy a gift first,” she says, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “But yes, I’ll be there.”