The sultan lay in his bedchamber, cooing to his harem.
He called to his favorite concubine, who approached shyly and lay beside him, warming her feet, which were cold from the marble floor.
She whispered a poem very softly to herself. She imagined the artifice in the sultan's bedchamber, wooden animals and silken tapestries gathered. She lay on a feather bed and the sultan lay a bunch of grapes on her face.
"Eat, darling." He spoke milk.
She ate them, and they were very sweet grapes. She rested a moment.
The sultan puckered his lips next to her ear, making kissing sounds. He touched her inner thigh and touched her necklace, inlaid with lapis.
She kissed his earlobe and asked him a question in a moment of intimacy: "What, my liege, do you most fear?"
He pressed the sides of her face with his warm hands, which were slightly damp. He responded calmly. "I cannot tell you what I most fear." He kissed her over and over. "I cannot tell you what I most fear, sweet mistress, because then you will use it to exploit me."
The concubine massaged his chin. "I am certain of the care I may take when thinking of you." She nestled and paused, breathing. "I may tell you what I fear, however."
The sultan did not move. He snorted in mock exasperation. "Perhaps you ought not."
The concubine massaged his chin again. "But I shall now. I fear ruining the moments we share, or sullying the great affection we have for one another."
He clapped his hand over her mouth.
She spoke into it, "I fear this so, every day I live. I cannot move or breathe from this fear."
The sultan rose from his feather bed and ate an apricot, tossing the pit into bed next to her. "You will do well to plant this in the garden. Nurture it and cause it to grow large and fruitful. That is all that remains for it, the stone."
She took the stone and placed it underneath her pillow every night for two years before finally planting it in the countryside on one of her many trips. It was stunted and bore a multitude of minuscule and inedible fruit.
A cockatoo in the cage of the sultan's bedchamber spoke of fear when offered crackers, and this could never be trained out of the bird. It was killed and buried in the garden, next to a rose bush, which bloomed very brightly and fully.
4/24/11
4/7/11
Dream Dream
The season is late winter, with snow still laying around waiting to melt, ice in some places, et cetera.
Walking out of a bar in my cowboy boots in the snow, making it difficult to walk, a female travel companion and I walk toward the park, where the sun is shining. We step into the mud and snow and it is an open field. a wild boar comes running up to me, curious, and then leaves.
My family and I are standing in the field when two large trucks let loose a pair of hummer-sized boars with no faces, tusks, or eyes. They possessed only a single gigantic snout for rooting, eating, and smelling. One comes up to me curiously. I was frightened for my life, but it only smelled me and was completely gentle. Then it signed and lay on the grass. My dad said, “That means it’s going to die. Don’t anybody touch it or else you’re not coming home.” I got the sense that he would have called a bus for us.
There was a picture book story of a number of different dead animals. First, it mentioned the boar-thing. Then it settled on the picture of an emaciated lion. “He has been here for months.” I got the sense that the fur was very well preserved for it being dead so long. There were a profusion of other things, such as an eagle being forcibly relieved of its beak..
Next there was an aquarium of bizarre things. Mostly it was bugs and sponge like things eating one another or combining in some way to cause each to die. For instance: a silverfish swims inside of a gelatinous, predatory tubule, which then rockets into the water out of fear and then turns from green and translucent to white and opaque, drifting down to rest, standing up, next to a number of different similarly rendered tubules. Also, there was a great deal of glowing matter around, which shone very brightly in the dark.
Walking out of a bar in my cowboy boots in the snow, making it difficult to walk, a female travel companion and I walk toward the park, where the sun is shining. We step into the mud and snow and it is an open field. a wild boar comes running up to me, curious, and then leaves.
My family and I are standing in the field when two large trucks let loose a pair of hummer-sized boars with no faces, tusks, or eyes. They possessed only a single gigantic snout for rooting, eating, and smelling. One comes up to me curiously. I was frightened for my life, but it only smelled me and was completely gentle. Then it signed and lay on the grass. My dad said, “That means it’s going to die. Don’t anybody touch it or else you’re not coming home.” I got the sense that he would have called a bus for us.
There was a picture book story of a number of different dead animals. First, it mentioned the boar-thing. Then it settled on the picture of an emaciated lion. “He has been here for months.” I got the sense that the fur was very well preserved for it being dead so long. There were a profusion of other things, such as an eagle being forcibly relieved of its beak..
Next there was an aquarium of bizarre things. Mostly it was bugs and sponge like things eating one another or combining in some way to cause each to die. For instance: a silverfish swims inside of a gelatinous, predatory tubule, which then rockets into the water out of fear and then turns from green and translucent to white and opaque, drifting down to rest, standing up, next to a number of different similarly rendered tubules. Also, there was a great deal of glowing matter around, which shone very brightly in the dark.
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