Alea iacta est
Feb 24, 2017 8:52:59 GMT -5
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Nathan Saniti, The Anarchist, and 1 more like this
Post by Grimm on Feb 24, 2017 8:52:59 GMT -5
“What is your body now if not a famine road?” – Eavan Boland
Out beyond the perils of Hangtown cobblestones, there at the crossroads, Phinehas Dillinger taps a dance of frenzy and woe.
Head over shoulders over hips over knees over ankles over toes. Seat tucked. Arms at your sides, cradle the baby. Turned out and crossed.
He bangs out a step on a door lying dead set at the junction. His hobnail shoes scratch and spark. Rattle deadbolts and hinges. Toss flecks of rust and limewash into the air, where they hang before settling like blood and snow. Phinehas interrogates the patch of land under his feet to the accompaniment of his sister’s fiddle.
Ruth holds the instrument tucked under her chin. She saws out a reel native to Hangtown and as she does she sways, her skirts stirring dust and ash. A dissonant tune, discordant in nature, with more than its share of augmented 4ths. She plays on a fiddle rumored to have been constructed from the remains of a poor unnamed girl, pushed into the river by her jealous sister.
If she couldn’t have the miller’s son, no one would.
The drowned girl’s long finger bone became a fiddle peg. Her breast bone, the body of the fiddle itself. And some resourceful luthier strung the bow with her long yellow hair.
Well. Yes.
Regardless of where the fiddle actually came from, there is no doubt Ruth knows her way around the fingerboard. So Ruth plays and Phinehas stomp-shuffle-hops-back. But this is no mere performance for the wind and rain. This is an act of awakening, of summoning. Of preparation for the weeks and months to come, beyond that of yet another championship bout.
But that being said…
Grimm and Dan Fierce will be facing one another on a larger stage soon enough, so I don’t want to give away all my secrets just yet. But I’ve run antivirus on myself. I am optimized and hollow. I am ready for what’s coming my way.
And I understand, Dan. I do. Time in this business has taken its toll and left you a warped, frustrated old man. You’ve said yourself that your days here are numbered. You’re worried you’ll be viewed as a flash-in-the-pan champion. Why else all the pageantry – you have to do something to make sure the fans remember you when you’re gone. And that’s what drives you, isn’t it? You’ve got one of the more, let’s say, extravagant entrances in the history of the federation, and you rolled it out even for the duties as a referee. A role that is to be seen and not heard, but, boy, did we hear you. We get it, Dan. You’re a *snap* fab- *snap* u- *snap* lous world champion. There’s no need to insist upon yourself.
The music and the dance weave together. One feeds the other. Somewhere down the cinder road, around a bend, a great black hound walks out of the weeds. A dissimulation of even darker birds erupts from the boughs of a sycamore tree.
Though what do I know. Maybe there is. So you cling to your scraps when you’ve not even put anything on the line just yet. With clinging comes delusion. And with delusion comes suffering. Unless you hope to suffer as penance for…what? What have you done, Dan, that torments you so?
Or maybe the question is…what didn’t you do?
Ruth moves seamlessly into a jig. Phinehas follows suit. The door cracks at the weak points. Phinehas, raw-boned, all sinews and tendons, rises and grinds, shuffles and cuts. Toe, heel, toe, heel. Each tip a crack of thunder.
I’m not out here to get under your skin, as they say. The Horror of Hangtown doesn’t have the time or inclination to engage in psychological warfare this week. Besides, I don’t need to. You got the message already. Shovels in the locker room are the cost of doing business, but a glitter attack by the official, well, that’s just impolite. We’re sharing the same ring, though, so I’ll give you a head’s up: another poof of glitter, you get a beating. An ill-timed groping, you get a beating. Gratuitous merrymaking with the audience, you get a beating.
I expect you sense where this is going.
But go ahead and try it. Because I would love it.
On brother and sister go. The dance follows an ancient pattern familiar to creation. The elements recognize it, and stir.
Out beyond the perils of Hangtown cobblestones, there at the crossroads, Phinehas Dillinger taps a dance of frenzy and woe.
Head over shoulders over hips over knees over ankles over toes. Seat tucked. Arms at your sides, cradle the baby. Turned out and crossed.
He bangs out a step on a door lying dead set at the junction. His hobnail shoes scratch and spark. Rattle deadbolts and hinges. Toss flecks of rust and limewash into the air, where they hang before settling like blood and snow. Phinehas interrogates the patch of land under his feet to the accompaniment of his sister’s fiddle.
Ruth holds the instrument tucked under her chin. She saws out a reel native to Hangtown and as she does she sways, her skirts stirring dust and ash. A dissonant tune, discordant in nature, with more than its share of augmented 4ths. She plays on a fiddle rumored to have been constructed from the remains of a poor unnamed girl, pushed into the river by her jealous sister.
If she couldn’t have the miller’s son, no one would.
The drowned girl’s long finger bone became a fiddle peg. Her breast bone, the body of the fiddle itself. And some resourceful luthier strung the bow with her long yellow hair.
Well. Yes.
Regardless of where the fiddle actually came from, there is no doubt Ruth knows her way around the fingerboard. So Ruth plays and Phinehas stomp-shuffle-hops-back. But this is no mere performance for the wind and rain. This is an act of awakening, of summoning. Of preparation for the weeks and months to come, beyond that of yet another championship bout.
But that being said…
Grimm and Dan Fierce will be facing one another on a larger stage soon enough, so I don’t want to give away all my secrets just yet. But I’ve run antivirus on myself. I am optimized and hollow. I am ready for what’s coming my way.
And I understand, Dan. I do. Time in this business has taken its toll and left you a warped, frustrated old man. You’ve said yourself that your days here are numbered. You’re worried you’ll be viewed as a flash-in-the-pan champion. Why else all the pageantry – you have to do something to make sure the fans remember you when you’re gone. And that’s what drives you, isn’t it? You’ve got one of the more, let’s say, extravagant entrances in the history of the federation, and you rolled it out even for the duties as a referee. A role that is to be seen and not heard, but, boy, did we hear you. We get it, Dan. You’re a *snap* fab- *snap* u- *snap* lous world champion. There’s no need to insist upon yourself.
The music and the dance weave together. One feeds the other. Somewhere down the cinder road, around a bend, a great black hound walks out of the weeds. A dissimulation of even darker birds erupts from the boughs of a sycamore tree.
Though what do I know. Maybe there is. So you cling to your scraps when you’ve not even put anything on the line just yet. With clinging comes delusion. And with delusion comes suffering. Unless you hope to suffer as penance for…what? What have you done, Dan, that torments you so?
Or maybe the question is…what didn’t you do?
Ruth moves seamlessly into a jig. Phinehas follows suit. The door cracks at the weak points. Phinehas, raw-boned, all sinews and tendons, rises and grinds, shuffles and cuts. Toe, heel, toe, heel. Each tip a crack of thunder.
I’m not out here to get under your skin, as they say. The Horror of Hangtown doesn’t have the time or inclination to engage in psychological warfare this week. Besides, I don’t need to. You got the message already. Shovels in the locker room are the cost of doing business, but a glitter attack by the official, well, that’s just impolite. We’re sharing the same ring, though, so I’ll give you a head’s up: another poof of glitter, you get a beating. An ill-timed groping, you get a beating. Gratuitous merrymaking with the audience, you get a beating.
I expect you sense where this is going.
But go ahead and try it. Because I would love it.
On brother and sister go. The dance follows an ancient pattern familiar to creation. The elements recognize it, and stir.
