Fossiloctopus by Forrest Aguirre Read Free Book Online Page B

Comte de Montesquiou – black whiskers sharp as a scalpel, pointed as a syringe needle, every hair of the head waxed into its proper place.  In his immaculately-manicured hands he holds a flamethrower, pointing the dragon’s mouth toward the viewer.  The pilot-flame that peeks out of the weapon’s muzzle in anxious anticipation serves to darken, rather than illuminate, the salamander’s ebony eyes.  The malice-filled orbs glitter with emptiness, sparked by something more searing than flame, yet darker than the abyss.
     
    THE JONGLEUR – Opposite the salamander, on the right breast, the Jongleur.  He is a plump wag, his wide blue eyes and jaw-gaped smile full of élan.  He is a Disney Bacchus in renaissance garb.  A black and white checkered cap replete with two belled horns balances atop his foppish Ringo mop, and beneath the goateed double chin a frilly, laced jabot attached, in turn, to a once –piece harlequin suit in black and white stripes.  Below the Goliath Beetle ( Goliathus regius Klug ) corpulence, a pair of bell-tipped genie shoes in red.  The Jongleurs face might be the salamander’s, sans sinistry, and fattened on the paychecks of his audience.  He laughs aloud, surrounded by generic stick people, empty heads with drawn-on smiles and inexpressive eyes.  He juggles five fuse-lit cannonballs.  The crackling of their sparkling wicks stops the sound of laughter from reaching the un-ears of the stick people crowd.  Had they heard through the fizzle, they might have realized the danger they were in, for his laughter was less mellisonant than maleficent.  The crowd laughs ignorantly.  The joke is on them.
     
    KNUCKLEBONES – Two pairs of knucklebones in three chronological stages on the inner left forearm.
    Stage I: Four knucklebones reading 2:2:6:4 or 4:10 by the pairs.  This is the oldest and purest of the three stages, the cubes clean, white, dots clear and distinct.  Read the pairs – Song of Solomon 4:10: “How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse!  How much better is thy love than wine!  And the smell of thine ointments than all spices!”
    Stage II: A touch-up job in reverse. The crispness of the initial tattoo has faded and wear has appeared – hand oils and nicotine stains smudge the skin inks, and two dots have appeared on the first die.  Let him who hath eyes read.  Psalms 6:10: “Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed: let them return and be ashamed suddenly.”
    Stage III: More dots, 7:11, and things have become unclear.  The knucklebones are gnarled, cracked, grooved, dirty, used, worn smooth on the vertices from obsessive rubbing, smudged with soot, and burnt.  Interpretations diverge.  One – Genesis 7:11: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.”  Or, two –the old books are decontextualized and, thus, defunct.  A new book has superseded the old, and a one-letter deviation in its prologue can lead to drastic results in the denouement.  Events are nudged by even the slightest punctuation error, the resulting plot line careening out of control.  Chance has taken over in the fractal interstices.  Cracks infinitely deteriorate, and chaos spreads like a cancer through the history of the man who wears the dice.  The empty shell of the knucklebones barely hides the rot within its crumbling ivory veneer.
     
    BARBED WIRE – “The Devil’s Rope” wrapped crosswise over the biceps, rusted spikes digging into the veins and arteries flowing between heart and hands.  They simultaneously protect and entrap, snagging the flotsam of his squalorous urban habitat: matted rat’s fur; smells of dog food cooked over a 50 gallon drum; unheeded screams of domestic beatings and marital rape; droplets of gin, cheap wine, smack, urine, and a twenty-nine-ingredient cocktail of industrial toxins, rheum from