Coffin Island (30 page)

This hideous hallucination that some
frontal lobe madman depicted after his absinthe ran out? Was this
his suicide note? Was there something to be concerned
about?

Perhaps that was the big problem right
there. I needed to suicide out to pass the test? Kill myself to get
out of Flemish hell?

I certainly wasn’t killing myself.
Forget about it, examiner. People like me don’t kill themselves. We
kill other people. Or people kill us if they’ve got the resources
which frankly you don’t, examiner. You would have done it by now.
I’d run because I’m leaping off the page right now. That’s my hand
on your throat. How’s that for chilling?

Chapter

The chilly most, the dead, weren’t
offering much in the way of chilling advice. The dead were useless
for instruction as always, the bunch of useless stiffs. They just
wanted to give me the secret handshake of the ancients. They could
keep it. Try to send the shivers up my spine? Good luck. I’m going
to burn all you corpses shortly.

What the hell were they doing here in
hell anyway? Shouldn’t they just move along if they are going to
idly congregate? Stop stinking up the joint and get the holy hell
out here. You don’t belong in hell if you aren’t going to do
something constructive. Aren’t you supposed to be busy with hellish
instruction? Where was the fable in all of this?

I was shouting at the devil to come out
again. Reveal yourself so I can cut you down. Or you cut me down. I
don’t care which. Someone cut someone down in hell. Otherwise this
isn’t hell.

I was really beginning to have serious
doubts. Was this even in hell? What to make of this complicated
ruse? Certainly if you are in real hell and you call the devil out.
He will come howling out.

What was going on here? Had my
examiners forgotten about me? How insulting. I wasn’t even worth
keeping tabs on during my examination. I wasn’t expected to make it
this far, I suppose. Hello, I’m here. Did you forget about
me?

Was it time to blast a hole through the
Tower of Babel so the train can get through? We don’t want those
corpses to arrive late for their deaths. I don’t care if they’re
already dead. I’m going to make them do it again. They’ve
infuriated me. Shall we get the horror show on the road? The
carnival of the absurd with the dead circus freaks at the end of
the magical river? Show yourself, beast.

The Tower of Babel was looking like a
decidedly delicious candidate for total destruction. It was the
only thing that was standing in this world. Everything else was
dead. That pile of blocks was going to do some tumbling. Dice
style. Why not funk it up in here?

There we were back in that unhappy
place again. It was all about what you destroyed. That’s how you
get ahead in this hideous world. You tangle with the most the
vicious enemy that you can find even if it’s hiding. You shout at
it enough. Taunt and threaten it. It will come out.

It comes out with a furious vengeance
because your darkest enemy is yourself. Trust me. I just prodded
that beast right out of his bone ridden cavern. I was shooting fire
out of my mouth.

“I’ve watched you shout your way
through some pretty dark thoughts,” Madison said. “Are you
okay?”

“Not at all,” I said.

“Totally lost it?” Madison
said.

“You could say that,” I
said.

“I’m with you,” Madison
said.

“I was wondering who else was
screaming,” I said.

“Rubber room,” Madison said. “I’ve been
raving like a lunatic.”

“
Crypt Island is doing
something terrible to us,” I said.

“
It’s scary,” Madison
agreed.

“
You go deep enough into
yourself,” I said.

“
You scare yourself,”
Madison said.

“
You question yourself too,”
I said.

“
There are no good questions
in witchcraft,” Madison snorted.

“
Or good answers,” I
agreed.

“Witchcraft stepped over the line,”
Madison said.

“And it took us with it,” I
said.

“I’m not going back,” Madison said.
“That’s the freaky part.”

“Me neither,” I said. “Forget about
that.”

“
Forget about the past,”
Madison agreed.

“
We’re through with it,” I
said.

“Are you mad with me?” Madison
asked.

“
Not at all,” I
said.

“
I’ve always got a little
love for you,” Madison laughed.

“
Seeing as we’re the only
love we’ve got,” I said.

“
We are magically attached
and all that,” Madison snorted.

“
Witchcraft did provide
that,” I said.

“
The generosity perplexes
me,” Madison said.

“
It was a punishment that
backfired,” I said.

“
A little too much of a
contrived error,” Madison laughed. “It would have never happened on
my watch.”

“
We would have never made it
without it,” I said.

“
That’s why I wouldn’t have
granted it,” Madison said.

“
Your savagery has grown on
me,” I laughed. “I’ve come to admire it actually. There is
something honest in your total brutality. I also like the fact that
you would never apologize even if you are wrong. In this world that
is high art.”

“
You fight your way through
your humiliating defeat,” Madison said. “You right yourself with
your wrongs and you do it with no apologies.”

“
It makes a certain sense in
this world,” I shrugged. “Or this world makes it a
necessity.”

“
You never back down,”
Madison said. “You can be dead wrong but you fight until you
somehow right yourself. Or you just go down in flames.”

“
It’s the wisdom of the
ancients,” I agreed.

“
How do you want to dispense
with these annoying pirates?” Madison asked. “I can’t listen to
them complain a second longer. We can then deal with the larger
task of taking down this entire world.”

“
One brick at a time if
necessary,” I said.

“
We’re out for blood on this
outing,” Madison agreed.

“
Don’t go hunting without
it,” I said.

“
How brutally do you want to
handle the elders?” Madison asked.

“I’m open to suggestions,” I
said.

“I’m wondering if it might be nice to
quarter them with four invisible horses,” Madison said coolly. “I’m
considering dishing up some horsemen of the apocalypse right
now.”

“That might be nice,” I
said.

There were filaments of light shooting
out of Madison’s hands. She had picked up Professor Coffin and The
Red Lady with them. Why not? If you’re going to have horrendous
magical power you might as well make it crank down those stairs in
that castle with the music at high volume.

Madison was operating Professor Coffin
and The Red Lady like marionettes. She was hitting them together
with the power that was shooting out of her hands. I applauded her
with a click of my heels. I was levitating off the ground. It
suited me to not be standing on this filthy corpse ridden planet.
If I had to be on it, I might as well not tread upon it was how my
logic was operating. You’ve got to make your own options when the
circumstances deny you. I was also planning on scorching this
planet a little bit.

Madison was making Professor Coffin and
The Red Lady dance in a mawkish fashion. I approved heartily. I
clicked my heels a bit to encourage those two leprechauns in their
merry little jig. They were screaming horrifically like banshees
being thrown into the fireplace. You wouldn’t think that making two
leprechauns scream horrifically was deeply funny but it was. I
suppose if you’re seriously twisted then it’s pretty funny right
out of the box. I was laughing. Why not? They’re just test
humans.

I was peering at my own madness a bit
too. I was off to the side of my disturbed mind. I was peering at
my pathology a little bit. My madness was highly entertaining with
just the proper distance. If you could step outside your madness
for just a little bit your madness was really quite funny. What a
hilarious psychopath.

I was chuckling at my psychopathic self
a little bit. You had to cut that jugular with swift precision if
you had any desire to gnaw on the chicken wing with a beer on the
side to wash it down righteously. How about some hot sauce to spice
things up? Eating Professor Coffin and The Red Lady seemed like the
height of civilization. Why not peer with the dead eye at the
carnage on the television over the bar? That horrifically brutal
war on the television is fascinating. Barkeep, my good man, can you
crank up the volume so I can hear the bullets hit the
bodies?

Chapter

I wanted to reach into Professor Coffin
and The Red Lady. I wanted to squeeze out that last beep. What an
interesting song to find within yourself? Whoever is responsible
for these thoughts should be shot. Witchcraft will pay, I
thought.

Periodically Madison flicked our
teachers, elders, whatever they were, under the chin with her thumb
in an almost imperceptible way. Their heads would bobble on their
broken necks. Sadly they were still living for now, the vegetables.
You can’t have it all. Otherwise we’ll need canoes to get down the
bloody rapids. The world doesn’t need anymore rapids of plasma. We
got plenty of puddle of blood that we’re constantly stepping
around.

You’ve got to try to think
constructively periodically and not make matters worse. There are
just too many thinkers out there in the world these days as it is.
We throw treasure at them to placate them, the savages. We gift
them with higher office, the savages. We let them wage unnecessary
wars all over the planets, the savages.

We’re currently topped out on global
conflict to keep that gamey riffraff occupied so we can’t make
anymore savages right now. Pretty soon we’ll have to start
executing the ones we’ve got. We have to give their successors a
shot in the barbaric carnival. Or we’ll just put them all in the
trenches instead of the other way around.

I was beginning to really have a happy
day here in Flemish hell. What a gorgeous place to take your mind.
Maybe I wasn’t going to hideously kill whatever force was behind
this. I was just going to pluck it until it stopped clucking. Then
pluck it a bit more for good measure. At some point that cluck
would restore then vanish forever. How do you like your chickens
now? I believe that it has come home to roost. At least that’s what
that fire bird is intimating as it flies off in a burst of
fire.

The most disturbing piece of what
Madison was doing vis-à-vis the corpses, our former instructors,
elders, whatever, because corpses was what they were now. The most
disturbing piece was the utter casualness with which she operated
their dead bodies. The sheer force of Madison was what was so
disturbing. It was not only horrendously powerful. It was graceful.
See, that’s the thing that was so frightening.

The utter graciousness of her savagery
was elegant. She knew it too. The fact that Madison knew what she
was doing and she persisted in doing it was extremely disturbing.
Where to file a creature of such deadly self awareness?

I didn’t give a damn about the dead
bodies or the fraudulent lives that they had once contained. I
wasn’t lamenting the loss of the even worst ideas that those hides
had once contained. I could bring them back anytime I wanted. Not
that I would. Perish the thought along with the mind behind
it.

The thing that I couldn’t control was
Madison or her massive power. That’s what was so
troubling.

The gruesome horror that was flying out
of her fingertips with such elegance was a total affront to the
system. The way that she delicately operated the corpses with such
a light touch was horrific. It was artistry of the first right. It
was a mastery that seldom comes into your life. It was a greatness
that constantly avoids you. It’s done such a good job avoiding you
your entire life that you’ve forgotten that it actually exists in
people. It’s safer to think that way because if you think the other
way it will drive you crazy because you don’t have it. You can’t
capture it either.

That greatness is constantly spying on
you like a rabbit. It’s under your bed when you’re in it. You get
out of bed because you have a hunch that there is a rabbit under
your bed. It’s just a crazy thought but to dismiss it is the
quickest solution so you get out of bed. There is no rabbit under
your bed. Turn out the light and stop having crazy thoughts. The
rabbit has gone in the closet. You’ll never catch him. Why do you
think he takes the form of a rabbit? His name says it all. He’s a
rabbit.

It was like having a Russian theorist
destroy your entire life while casually reaching for his
cigarettes. Why don’t you stop by the housing project for a cup of
saw dust coffee and a corn cigarette, comrade? We shall have a
little chat about art. You need to get out of the Politburo a bit
more often. Even apparatchiks need a breath of fresh air from time
to time.