photo by Σπύρος-Ίωνας Μαρκάτης
The pack would obviously be howling with joy. A little pig appeared
at the door, unaware the experiment was about to begin any minute.
They’ll make it lay eggs like a chicken and produce milk as if it were a cow. They’ll fatten it up real quick. They’ll turn it into an obedient edible species. And if everything goes well, they’ll polish its guise to make it into a piggy-bank.
“‘Did you notice he got a little misty-eyed at some point?’ a hyena said as she put on her glasses to see better, her eye glinting with delight. ‘Do you think he could be suffering a bit for his sins? Tell me this instant: Does it hurt? Come on, speak up! Cat got your tongue, dear?’
”‘…’
”‘Will you look at that cheek! He won’t answer me. What did I tell you, colleagues? He doesn’t hurt. The sound of the sobs you hear is simply the neurobiological stimulation of nerve cells. No need to pity him. He doesn’t really hurt!”
Mr. Query continued his associations: What do they do with it, I wonder, all this experimental knowledge they introduce into projects with a sprinkling of experiential activities? I guess they preserve it in barrels for future use. For future generations of werewolves… while Augustine was saying:
“Besides, I stood naked in their firing range… I remember them saying to one another:
”‘But surely, dear colleagues, we didn’t come all this way and waste so many hours at the meeting just to give him a two-day suspension! For heaven’s sake! Let’s make him bleed, at least…’”
“In the past they would sacrifice their children to Moloch in the Gai Ben-Hinnom valley. The prophet Jeremiah was the first to reveal the folly of their sacrifices. Now there are those who thirst for massacres at school. Grinded penalties, sharpened grades and occasionally a bloody suspension and disgrace for those who return to the crime scene as scapegoats!”
“I would really like to have let out a scream then… a scream like Vasiliki’s… to cut short their ironic chuckle… but fat chance!”
“And yet, those two screams exist…”
“Which two?”
“Hers on the bathroom tiles and yours… shortly after the stammer…”
“No, no, I never let out a scream. I would only get very angry and the blood would rush to my head… to fill a void… I guess…”
“Exactly! There is such a thing as a ‘silent scream, you know…”
“Yeah… I don’t know… maybe like back when I hollered and cried inconsolably and my mom locked me in the bathroom to punish me. She’d only let me out if I’d stop crying… but I cried silently on the inside and one day, when I’d grow up, I’d take my revenge…”
“Did you take it?”
“Vasiliki? No, I never took her the way I wanted, there… in the bathroom… the two of us… locked… You know, I often have the same nightmare: I close the bathroom door. I lock her in and I lock myself in the rest of the house. She calls to me to open the door. There’s no key in the lock, and yet, she’s locked inside the bathroom. Outside the bathroom I lock myself inside the pitch dark living-room. Two insides and a door like a transparent curtain between us. I hear the water in the bathroom running like a waterfall. She’s probably rinsing off the soap lather. I close my eyes. Tight. But no matter how tight I close them, my eyelids reflect her naked form in the bathroom. I’m embarrassed to see her naked. She draws the shower curtain by its rings. I’m drawn after her too… I’m fascinated by the whole scene, it turns me on… The water keeps running. I hear it running inside me. She beckons me to follow her to the womb. I close my eyes. The dream curtain falls. So does the shower curtain…”
“What is it that falls exactly?”
“That curtain… like a veil… it makes me shudder as it rustles from the water falling against it. If it’s suddenly pulled back, I’ll be forced to see that which will blind me”.
“Yes…”
“Her body. An empty garment. Naked, seamless, washing amid muffled sounds and mutterings in vapours of soap lather. There’s a convulsion coming and another immediately after… Multiple vibrations. Small earthquakes. That’s it! I have her lather on my hand…”
“Did Vasiliki have silent screams?”
“Silent? What do you mean silent? They could hear us to the next block. When I’d hear her scream like that, I recalled my own silent screams. I’d holler like that too if I could let go a little… I’d yell, she’d yell and then the space between us would be filled with an impenetrable silence, a clean silence resembling a hell for ever…”
A scream that calls the void and gives birth to silence… And pain? Despite the fact they both feel it, it still remains unborn. Thought curls up her tail and tightens knots in small nooses around the throat, Ezekiel Query thought in the few seconds pause that went wordless between them.
“Ehhh…” he stammered “… Vasiliki painted, you know; she painted faces with open mouths. She called them Scream No 1, 2, 3… She’d made four Screams. Only mouths, they had no bodies. Or, if they had, they were amputated… there was always something missing. Ohhh, yes, she also constantly painted circles. Circles and spirals”.
“Why did she paint screams?”
“I don’t know… I’ve never thought about it”.
“Did her framed Screams frighten you?”
“Yes… Very much… There was something very peculiar about them… Isn’t that open hole gaping between the teeth frightening? Gaping, yet, without a sound… When I’d tell her, she’d knit her eyebrows and make a mocking face.
”‘Oh, come on’, she’d say, ‘can’t you see they’re inhaling and exhaling through the mouth? What’s frightening about them? It’s the only breathing they have left…’
”I didn’t comment because I couldn’t get it; at all. To me it was a scream that ripped the head apart like the curtain of the temple…from top to bottom…”
They’ll make it lay eggs like a chicken and produce milk as if it were a cow. They’ll fatten it up real quick. They’ll turn it into an obedient edible species. And if everything goes well, they’ll polish its guise to make it into a piggy-bank.
“‘Did you notice he got a little misty-eyed at some point?’ a hyena said as she put on her glasses to see better, her eye glinting with delight. ‘Do you think he could be suffering a bit for his sins? Tell me this instant: Does it hurt? Come on, speak up! Cat got your tongue, dear?’
”‘…’
”‘Will you look at that cheek! He won’t answer me. What did I tell you, colleagues? He doesn’t hurt. The sound of the sobs you hear is simply the neurobiological stimulation of nerve cells. No need to pity him. He doesn’t really hurt!”
Mr. Query continued his associations: What do they do with it, I wonder, all this experimental knowledge they introduce into projects with a sprinkling of experiential activities? I guess they preserve it in barrels for future use. For future generations of werewolves… while Augustine was saying:
“Besides, I stood naked in their firing range… I remember them saying to one another:
”‘But surely, dear colleagues, we didn’t come all this way and waste so many hours at the meeting just to give him a two-day suspension! For heaven’s sake! Let’s make him bleed, at least…’”
“In the past they would sacrifice their children to Moloch in the Gai Ben-Hinnom valley. The prophet Jeremiah was the first to reveal the folly of their sacrifices. Now there are those who thirst for massacres at school. Grinded penalties, sharpened grades and occasionally a bloody suspension and disgrace for those who return to the crime scene as scapegoats!”
“I would really like to have let out a scream then… a scream like Vasiliki’s… to cut short their ironic chuckle… but fat chance!”
“And yet, those two screams exist…”
“Which two?”
“Hers on the bathroom tiles and yours… shortly after the stammer…”
“No, no, I never let out a scream. I would only get very angry and the blood would rush to my head… to fill a void… I guess…”
“Exactly! There is such a thing as a ‘silent scream, you know…”
“Yeah… I don’t know… maybe like back when I hollered and cried inconsolably and my mom locked me in the bathroom to punish me. She’d only let me out if I’d stop crying… but I cried silently on the inside and one day, when I’d grow up, I’d take my revenge…”
“Did you take it?”
“Vasiliki? No, I never took her the way I wanted, there… in the bathroom… the two of us… locked… You know, I often have the same nightmare: I close the bathroom door. I lock her in and I lock myself in the rest of the house. She calls to me to open the door. There’s no key in the lock, and yet, she’s locked inside the bathroom. Outside the bathroom I lock myself inside the pitch dark living-room. Two insides and a door like a transparent curtain between us. I hear the water in the bathroom running like a waterfall. She’s probably rinsing off the soap lather. I close my eyes. Tight. But no matter how tight I close them, my eyelids reflect her naked form in the bathroom. I’m embarrassed to see her naked. She draws the shower curtain by its rings. I’m drawn after her too… I’m fascinated by the whole scene, it turns me on… The water keeps running. I hear it running inside me. She beckons me to follow her to the womb. I close my eyes. The dream curtain falls. So does the shower curtain…”
“What is it that falls exactly?”
“That curtain… like a veil… it makes me shudder as it rustles from the water falling against it. If it’s suddenly pulled back, I’ll be forced to see that which will blind me”.
“Yes…”
“Her body. An empty garment. Naked, seamless, washing amid muffled sounds and mutterings in vapours of soap lather. There’s a convulsion coming and another immediately after… Multiple vibrations. Small earthquakes. That’s it! I have her lather on my hand…”
“Did Vasiliki have silent screams?”
“Silent? What do you mean silent? They could hear us to the next block. When I’d hear her scream like that, I recalled my own silent screams. I’d holler like that too if I could let go a little… I’d yell, she’d yell and then the space between us would be filled with an impenetrable silence, a clean silence resembling a hell for ever…”
A scream that calls the void and gives birth to silence… And pain? Despite the fact they both feel it, it still remains unborn. Thought curls up her tail and tightens knots in small nooses around the throat, Ezekiel Query thought in the few seconds pause that went wordless between them.
“Ehhh…” he stammered “… Vasiliki painted, you know; she painted faces with open mouths. She called them Scream No 1, 2, 3… She’d made four Screams. Only mouths, they had no bodies. Or, if they had, they were amputated… there was always something missing. Ohhh, yes, she also constantly painted circles. Circles and spirals”.
“Why did she paint screams?”
“I don’t know… I’ve never thought about it”.
“Did her framed Screams frighten you?”
“Yes… Very much… There was something very peculiar about them… Isn’t that open hole gaping between the teeth frightening? Gaping, yet, without a sound… When I’d tell her, she’d knit her eyebrows and make a mocking face.
”‘Oh, come on’, she’d say, ‘can’t you see they’re inhaling and exhaling through the mouth? What’s frightening about them? It’s the only breathing they have left…’
”I didn’t comment because I couldn’t get it; at all. To me it was a scream that ripped the head apart like the curtain of the temple…from top to bottom…”
