photo by Σπύρος-Ίωνας Μαρκάτης
He suddenly remembered a dialogue with Vasiliki and projected it on his mind’s screen:
“How should I pose, in what position?”
“It doesn’t matter, so long as you don’t move”.
“How do I look?”
“Like Mona Lisa would look in Vincenzo Peruggia’s damp chest after she was stolen. Dark and melancholy”.
“Come on, don’t tease. Where should I look?”
“Into space and farther still…”
“If you don’t cut the bullshit, I’ll leave your picture and you’ll be left with the frame”.
“So what? Subjects come and go. It’s the frame that sets the scenery… Why don’t you wear something sexy that pleases the eye…?”
“Right, that’s it. Damn your subject and me along with it for standing here all this time and allowing myself to be your victim!”
“Easyyy, or else… I’ll wrinkle your cute little face first and then seal your mouth with breathless kisses. It’ll be a sweet death… you’ll see…”
His voice broke as he uttered the next words:
“Now that I’m so unbearably thirsty…”
“If you gratify your thirst by overindulgence, you enter the ‘hereafter’ in animal form”.
“Yes… with the head of an animal on a human body”.
“A brute gender?”
“I don’t understand… What was I saying? I lost the plot for a moment…”
“One loses the plot only to find it again some sentences later”.
“Not exactly… You know… when they found her dead… the TV was on, but the sound muted. Like some sort of silent movie. A moving picture on the screen and the film’s soundtrack playing in the room. Probably from a CD. It was… how can I describe it… something thorny… a thorny sonic mesh whose memory still makes me bleed…”
“Did it frighten you?”
“Immensely! It felt like the sound was separate and came from the depths of the abyss. And yet, it was me inside the mouth of the beast in the abyss. I felt I was being swallowed by the chaotic mouth of Leviathan… being lost in its entrails… being…”
“Did you hear it yourself?” Mr. Query abruptly asked, interrupting his phrase that was already flirting with the brink of the abyss.
“No, the police inspector, Mr. Beergut, told me. He got there first. He’s huge and his belly testifies how he got the surname Beergut, but he meticulously collects the evidence of the cases he works on, so I have no reason to doubt him. I imagined the rest…”
“Such as?”
“Well, how the sound would invest the room with auditory delusions”.
“The sound of the silent movie or the sound of Vasiliki’s voice?”
“Both. I don’t know… there’s something supernatural about the whole thing. It’s like a movie”.
“What would you consider natural?”
“Vasiliki’s voice flowed unchecked by sound barriers. It still sounds strange to my ears. It filled up space so tightly, it was asphyxiating. It still does…”
“What does it do exactly?”
“It comes for the Land of Never-Never or the Land of Now and Again and haunts me… I can’t get away from that voice… It’s terrifying! Like she’s undead and omnipresent. Like back then, when she screamed and the glassware moved of its own accord. How can I describe it? It’s a voice that bores through the reality I live in, it penetrates it, although it doesn’t even have a body. It never wanes!”
“And where does Vasiliki reign?”
“Where dawn breaks and dusk rises… She reigned like the sun reigns. I was just there to say; ‘Good morning… Good evening… Goodnight…’ you know, like the lighthouse keeper in the Little Prince… like I had a mission… like I had to keep the rhythm in her small kingdom. But she didn’t have the slightest kingdom of her own. You know, it’s very odd… I know who I’ve lost and in which sundown she set. What I don’t know is what I lost along with her disappearance…”
He rose tentatively and sat at the edge of the couch for a little, exhausted. How did he become so tired? He rested his chin in his hands and closed his eyes. Mentally he counted to four, drew in a couple of deep breaths and decided to move to the door. How strange! He felt like he’d just come out of the shower.
“Yes… a shower with words…” whispered a small voice inside him and he leaped to his feet like he was hit by lightning.
Wherever that voice came from, it was eerie; it sounded like a child’s, but he’d never heard it before. His eyes opened wide with surprise, and just before he passed the threshold towards the exit of this peculiar place, he turned to the analyst.
“I’m I going crazy?” he asked.
Ezekiel Query granted him a reassuring smile.
“Words sound different here… they carry a different weight…” he replied and shook his hand in a long handshake.
“How should I pose, in what position?”
“It doesn’t matter, so long as you don’t move”.
“How do I look?”
“Like Mona Lisa would look in Vincenzo Peruggia’s damp chest after she was stolen. Dark and melancholy”.
“Come on, don’t tease. Where should I look?”
“Into space and farther still…”
“If you don’t cut the bullshit, I’ll leave your picture and you’ll be left with the frame”.
“So what? Subjects come and go. It’s the frame that sets the scenery… Why don’t you wear something sexy that pleases the eye…?”
“Right, that’s it. Damn your subject and me along with it for standing here all this time and allowing myself to be your victim!”
“Easyyy, or else… I’ll wrinkle your cute little face first and then seal your mouth with breathless kisses. It’ll be a sweet death… you’ll see…”
His voice broke as he uttered the next words:
“Now that I’m so unbearably thirsty…”
“If you gratify your thirst by overindulgence, you enter the ‘hereafter’ in animal form”.
“Yes… with the head of an animal on a human body”.
“A brute gender?”
“I don’t understand… What was I saying? I lost the plot for a moment…”
“One loses the plot only to find it again some sentences later”.
“Not exactly… You know… when they found her dead… the TV was on, but the sound muted. Like some sort of silent movie. A moving picture on the screen and the film’s soundtrack playing in the room. Probably from a CD. It was… how can I describe it… something thorny… a thorny sonic mesh whose memory still makes me bleed…”
“Did it frighten you?”
“Immensely! It felt like the sound was separate and came from the depths of the abyss. And yet, it was me inside the mouth of the beast in the abyss. I felt I was being swallowed by the chaotic mouth of Leviathan… being lost in its entrails… being…”
“Did you hear it yourself?” Mr. Query abruptly asked, interrupting his phrase that was already flirting with the brink of the abyss.
“No, the police inspector, Mr. Beergut, told me. He got there first. He’s huge and his belly testifies how he got the surname Beergut, but he meticulously collects the evidence of the cases he works on, so I have no reason to doubt him. I imagined the rest…”
“Such as?”
“Well, how the sound would invest the room with auditory delusions”.
“The sound of the silent movie or the sound of Vasiliki’s voice?”
“Both. I don’t know… there’s something supernatural about the whole thing. It’s like a movie”.
“What would you consider natural?”
“Vasiliki’s voice flowed unchecked by sound barriers. It still sounds strange to my ears. It filled up space so tightly, it was asphyxiating. It still does…”
“What does it do exactly?”
“It comes for the Land of Never-Never or the Land of Now and Again and haunts me… I can’t get away from that voice… It’s terrifying! Like she’s undead and omnipresent. Like back then, when she screamed and the glassware moved of its own accord. How can I describe it? It’s a voice that bores through the reality I live in, it penetrates it, although it doesn’t even have a body. It never wanes!”
“And where does Vasiliki reign?”
“Where dawn breaks and dusk rises… She reigned like the sun reigns. I was just there to say; ‘Good morning… Good evening… Goodnight…’ you know, like the lighthouse keeper in the Little Prince… like I had a mission… like I had to keep the rhythm in her small kingdom. But she didn’t have the slightest kingdom of her own. You know, it’s very odd… I know who I’ve lost and in which sundown she set. What I don’t know is what I lost along with her disappearance…”
He rose tentatively and sat at the edge of the couch for a little, exhausted. How did he become so tired? He rested his chin in his hands and closed his eyes. Mentally he counted to four, drew in a couple of deep breaths and decided to move to the door. How strange! He felt like he’d just come out of the shower.
“Yes… a shower with words…” whispered a small voice inside him and he leaped to his feet like he was hit by lightning.
Wherever that voice came from, it was eerie; it sounded like a child’s, but he’d never heard it before. His eyes opened wide with surprise, and just before he passed the threshold towards the exit of this peculiar place, he turned to the analyst.
“I’m I going crazy?” he asked.
Ezekiel Query granted him a reassuring smile.
“Words sound different here… they carry a different weight…” he replied and shook his hand in a long handshake.
