Luminous_Desires

Chapter Three

BOATING AT BENARES

The river was a long, dry fissure of nine tails, the crust mixed and wholesome. We were foraging from left to right bank through the forest
of thick butterflies and watchful serpents. Thence to the top of a mountain which was comprised entirely of sallow mugwumps, pristine and foundering in the heat of the day. From here we could see all of creation, a large flank of asteroid, and, twenty leagues off, Benares.

Benares, city of trampled hedgehogs, realm of infinite pumpkin, and, as it turned out, the home of the iridescent kyak.
These kyaks, which we later called ‘gazoos’, a word that means nothing or even less, were polychromed vessels of plankton
and starch. Sailing there is an ancient art reaching back to their illustrious ancestors, who grab it firmly and twist it into fabulous filigree.
Those same ancestors who, countless ages ago, attempted the difficult circumspection of the Moon in vessels of amber and pitchblende.

One red afternoon, after a balmy cup of tea in a local bungalow, we set out for our initial test run. These boats consisted of nothing more
than an oar, a wheel, a sail, but no mast or hull, or seats on which we could rest our heads. (I always remove my head when sailing and
replace it with a clear globe of atmosphere complete with puffy white clouds and scarecrows).

As we cast off, I sensed an immediate anxiety and an uneasiness amongst the crew. Fortunately, there was no water in this tributary.
It had in fact been compressed into a small cube of unusual dimensions which could be carried erect or on all fours.

As I mentioned earlier, the fissure or fistula of the rine was specifically ornery. More so for the taking than the asking. Floating as we now
were, several feet above, below and in between the middle, the water suddenly seemed to reappear to our beleaguered senses.

Much time had so far passed as you may perceive, but little headway had been made. If I have not already mentioned the armadillo at this
point, I do so now. Indeed it was sixteen feet across with a necktie where there should have been a neck.

It was only by dint of sheer courage and no little facility that we had managed to maneuver our craft sideways in the stream in the manner
of a salamander eating a furnace. The water was in fact teeming with these reptiles. I myself joined one of the teams and was forthwith introduced to the captain of it, a black banana, unfurled and sideways. So, as our boat was also sideways, I took advantage of the
situation by tying both ends together and pulling in all directions, promptly renting the sky asunder which fell around our feet like
so much wool.

We promptly set about to analyze the mean proportions of the wool and found it to be iridescent and wholesome. Proud and dignified
we remembered how each morning a little cloud came and sat on our heads, showering us with bright cubescent sousaphones.

The oars once more slipped through the salmon green water and we glided into a warm mist. The air here was putrific yet nourishing.
All about the vessel were small herds of flanges, robust and foolhardy. They were trapped here like us, veritable prisoners in a world
without beginning or end, and apparently meaningless. The flanges, however, were ruby-tipped and not soddenly draped as we were.
The helmsman suddenly sneezed. On our left was an infinite abyss of chocolate and flotsam. Here too was Queen Victoria on parade,
a thousand victrolas as her handmaidens.

Poor Queen, she had no compass and little experience with matters of navigation.

THE CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF A DEVICE FOR TRAVELING IN SPACE

The rendering of space is a time old lashing together of assorted species, soft and melting. Its construction is simple. No voice is needed. Carry out construction in total darkness. Space is thick and often has a handle. It can be eaten.

Its height is relative to the length twice the equal distance from aft to mid-bow. Tangent, yet seemingly arbitrary, angles comprise the prow of
polished porcelain. The length is relative again to these tangent distances, adjacent to height over width in the proportions of the Golden Mean.

Now heat it quickly before the hole closes. Quietly erect the oddest assortment to the tune of width over the proportionate volume squared.
In cross-section, the hull comes apart in sixteen definite sections, commencing with the drunken gentleman at the rear who serves as a tiller.

The preceding sections have a pronounced lisp, which makes their speech soft and waxy. The wax, however, is edible. When moving the craft
will make a loving sound, something like a nightmare.

This will serve seven and is rainbow coloured. The length is variable. Stoke it. Finalize your preparatory analysis with checkerboard patterns.
A handle and windows are optional. If it is squeezed, no deflection will occur in the surface if all parts are doused and steamed in malleable pearl.

To launch this device, have your hash browned at 170 degrees F. This will cause swelling of the joints and other enlargements. It is windy and
there is a blue sky with puffy white clouds. On all sides can be seen shiny spheres of various sizes and colours. Fields stretch away to the horizon
and back again. Once aboard the craft, the controls are nowhere to be seen. Sit back at a considerable angle.

On arriving at denseness #1, we discover semi-distraught species of many earthly hues. They are salty and are ground up into small sections,
right, centre, left and up.
Denseness #2, area of perfumed atmosphere, comes along on armadillo back, with a siren. The armadillo may rent itself asunder behind your
very eyes. Nevertheless, the next and last denseness is cerebral honey. It covers everything outside the craft.

This density, by the way, may be calculated with your finger nail, or similar measuring device. The mean division is upper, while the axis swings
on a definite line toward the South Pole. No deflection is possible, however, if you are prepared with either ether or some other ethereal substance. Mixing it may prove difficult at some altitudes. The swinging motion may be adjusted by a small lever on the right.

At any moment, a small man, usually about 2 to 6 inches high, with a bowler hat and sixteen pairs of alligator shoes may land on your knee.
Ignore this as you must concentrate on your instruments and charts. Straight ahead is affixed nothing less than a facsimile penguin-shaped duster.
Dust everything. Polish and spit on it. Cover your mistakes with a black swan made of aluminum heated to its latent squid-diameter.
If anything squeaks, abandon ship. There is no room for error here. Remove it and replace with sawdust, rouge, or a fine layer of mercury.
This too must be polished if maximum equilibrium is to be maintained.

Now the provisions are loaded and we are on our way, alone in an ever expanding radius. Soon after departure we corner a number of small black hornets, six or seven to be precise. They seem perfectly adept at black-jack and other sports, but fail to be any use as food. With these, however,
and little else, we set off for the nearest point.

At first things went well and morale was high. Some of the men played black-jack with the pseudo-food, and the rest meanwhile, lay stacked
one upon the other in the corner. The negotiations and perturbations we were making were up to me to correct.

Some of the hornets could speak a little French and soon had engaged several of the crew members in discussions on neige-noir in the upper reaches. Black snow falls from the ground to the skies at certain periods when the moon is eclipsed from an angle around 80 degrees from the sun’s acute
tangent running off to somewhere near my old barn. (It is sooty and smells of oats.)

The time was drawing nigh once again for this phenomenon to begin, but luckily, just as one of the hornets began an oratorio, we literally bumped
into the strangest thing I have ever seen. It was large and rather bulky, with horns and several pods which I later found out were atrophied.
Grey in colour and smelling rather musty, it made large leaps in the direction of just about everything and produced black smoke which it belched forth, interspersing with drops of pure gold, from several mummified segments. As if to mock us, each segment had its own hammer which it used to beat time with on a nearby wooden platform, as it danced about in a terrible and unwholesome jig.

The men were stupefied. Here, not five feet from our home, we had run across this denizen from the netherworlds. At first we mistook him from
afar for the three foot extension eyebrows we has ordered. But no; these sanguine and aimless trolley babies were nowhere to be seen. Only this uninvited witness, who after several more astonishing leaps, finally sauntered off to the nearest archway and flashed away.

It was dawn. The sun was glowing, but not in its usual way. It was more as if it was split up like sections of an orange; each part hovered around the other and made an annoying buzz.

Finally, near the end of the voyage, we chanced to see a lonely figure coming across the dunes. As he drew near enough to be visible to us, we could perceive that he had only one leg, a body like a turnip and on top a single quivering blue eye.

I asked this nomad who he was and whence he came. He answered, “God”.

GLENALMOND

My “O” gauge railway system is laid out on wooden trestles with no elaborate junction, or seams, or veins. One of the most important mechanical constructions on the railway is the raspberry cane. This band of brilliant billiard cloth serves to prevent the rails adjoining the site left at the bottom of the shaker from blowing away. The old school breathed again whenever the spell finished with college.

On real railways, of course, the basin of the turntable is connected by an endless belt of alluvial gold. In scratching across one of these rocky veins the colored stones are picked at random one by one from a jumbled heap. I must say the old man was as good as his word. Just dead white and bloodless. You can stay and punch cows. That was how it was then. On other parts of the line where cement is used for cuttings or that dirty iron-like material,
he may notice the knife blade has left its mark.

The country is now semi-civilized, surrounded by neatly clipped hedges with crazy paving. The station road is made of cement. Before this hardens, miniature trees, coal dust and scenic wallpaper frieze are added. The latter has been worn from the reef through countless ages of time and can easily be saved.

THE SCAMPER IN THE COUNTRY

The twenty-five scouts marched to their corral in the staves over the top of the hill, the British Government stroking his straggling white beard;
he looked like a stranded ark.

“He’s very wide”

He once painted the evening, foaming by stealth along the coast, clutching the little emblem during the period 1700-1860. The young losels had
already gone ashore, dismounted, tethered their horses to a tree reaching the knots and making no resistance. Mr. Bane pronounced that one of his
horses had been stolen. But we could throw no light on it.
It was getting dark, rubbing his eyes so long as I have.

“There are a few elephants left in Borneo,” said Dick.

The professor nodded. Thirty years spent in Bermuda, saw him draw from around his neck. To his amazement with eyes glittering in the glory of a western setting, a practice that had never before been put in earnest, his splendor was completed by an embroidered deep gully.
The vicar ventured into the enclosure.

It was at one o’clock two days later that saved that batch now tussling on the shore. The youngster was at his last grasp as he kept his saddlery,
the village street under his arm.

“It’s a bomb!” he gasped.

His very uneasiness did not permit him to move along the edge because there’s a hunk of water in the bottom. At half-past four he was
ensconced, after the fight fearing the surface every mile. He old warriors plight was evil to his taste. He sampled the oyster.
The latter he has cleared out so as to leave room for the scouts. The groom was questioned, but in the dark ages they used caparisoned
elephants in Borneo. Followed by the professor they used to continue into the crumbling thatch.

He went to the steps of the bungalow, taking him by the arm and through sheer force of numbers took their rifles and, un-noticed, got away,
firing to give the alarm to have been unloaded tomorrow. He nodded toward the sulphurous emphasis worth two cents on that envelope of an electric torch loaded up with contraband. On a drift of sand near the cleft of a fissured horse, a large javelin, he heard the noise of footsteps.

“Hullo!”

No answer. The voice of professor Rosario inspected Mistress Isabel behind which fell steeply to the river. But the trial dragged slowly on,
from the top of a stump they poked at his unfinished breakfast.

“Perhaps you now know one reason for refusing.”

Here that young man came presently his eyebrows elevated at the moment it was not butterflies. To his amazement he seized the officer’s
hand and became a definite statement of fact, and the ground around it. But the foul fiend would be fitting the nooses farther than the young
waterfall. It shovels away, leaving the nozzle of the hose-pipes tucked away under the campsite.

On Sunday afternoon, eager that the symptoms thrust behind in the ounce on two fellows frowned at Rawbones, an action which drew the
heavy soil when he had taken stock. He wiped at the perspiration on his halter, wandering and outwitted as far as say 40 degrees and
a narrow gap that the Antarctic Current could reckon. What with her high sides, funnel, ventilator and foolish remarks, he took it as a matter
of wool in the nest.

The descent was difficult. They set out just as they were a waged a relentless river in the valley. After the first fight they hit their own men.

LATE AGAIN

“And what, Edwards, is the excuse this time?” asked Mr. Browne.

Edwards looked at him seriously, careless of the habits of the jungle dwellers.

“That’s a good one about cannibals," he murmured.

Then the murmur broke into a laugh, and the laugh into his thirst.
  This was probably the kitchen garden. Not once did he attempt to reach the occupant by opening the end of the structure.
And suddenly we three all started up, staring.

Mr Browne tapped the desk with his pencil.

   “Well’, he said at last, “you’ve been late three times this week and heaven knows the whereabouts of the possible prey.
I am going to issue an ultimatum.”

   “Why don’t we get on with the feast”, I prompted.

   “Shall we”, whispered Peter.

We thought the bell for bed would never ring, but at last it did, and full of excitement, he did his best to tear it to bits.
This behaviour was repeated several times. A tangled patch of scrub had cut a feather of spray to each side.

   “Miscalculated the dope, I reckon, and heaven be praised.”

To obtain food was the next problem. Captivity had little affected his inherent cunning. The class grinned as Edwards returned
   to the incessant whistle of mole-crickets.

“Edwards, you’ll sell thousands of it in frowning silence.”

There is no was no saying how far he would have undermined his fortunes to preserve his bitter experience of durance vile.
Eventually he had to leave the patch as his objective was apparently some little distance in the jungle. Had he done so it is up and
doing, making life impossible for the sluggards. They weren’t lies.

  The following morning saw Edwards walking out through the heavy trap door and into the zoo. He would be early. Hang it, it had never
   occurred to him before to rely on his own instinct and resource. After quenching his thirst he stood for some time listening intently as the
great plug cleaned the steps and the satchel. He had taken twenty good strokes at the bottom of the pit.

  There was efficiency!

  Gloom once more enfolded us, equalled only by the touch of the ring of steel pressing against the throbbing artery in the man’s neck.
He brought up the revolved and fired. They took one look at Hector and eventually he wormed his way into a small stream. In spite of the
  cramped confinement, he lifted and revealed most of the side of the cage. He himself stood close against the bars for a few seconds.
  Then things happened swiftly.

“Rot me,” said Captain Nebcorn, where did the boy go to? I forgot to waive to him.”

   “Partly grown lions make a very big noise,” was his reply.

   “Can’t you shut them up?” asked Nebcorn.

  In a few minutes they were across the bar and standing out to a luxuriant growth in which the cultivation of tea was carried on.
Though leopards were scarce tigers were fairly plentiful… the nervous dread of recapture he frequently gave utterance to, which caused
him delay, he stopped. He decided he would never be late again.

THE THUNDERING LEGION

The most famous and perhaps the least voracious fathers of the church had for guides the debris of the spring avalanche. In the year 174 A.D.
between which we saw on our right against the flock, that it was not expedient to rush, for in that, his splendid command arrayed all the malignancy.
It is impossible not to feel interested in a people of his personal dangerous heretic, fleecy mists and other marks of a progressive nation.
To try a man for his opinions of the old and new, the pool gardens of his personal or official foes come to have less meaning. He was one
of the chosen few who rising on a sturdy trunk to four or five inches at the point of death then transacted. It remains only for us to abjure at the
slightest fear he was led to the cathedral to breathe through.

On the fatal day land and sea and the stone implements which were encouraged and hidden away had taken certain cities. Personal resentment
now supported his hiding place. The owner thinks he can use the money in the next world.

"Good; go and light up the next village"

By the flames they pursued their conquering sulphur gases ‘til now foolish enough to be dragged by the heels. Volcanoes are dangerous and
encourage the blowing off of steam.

"I am ready to die for the gospel of Jesus.."

Two days after his fit began, the pipe of the volcano was ordered to be dragged by the heels; and the fate of the famous geologist having
gained these points drowned nearly a million natives. The League was delighted for caves, underground streams and abysses admitted him
more friends. The spirit in which the leaders entered the hands of the clock may be seen in a kind of whirlpool. The theologians of the whole
surface of the country would be a good rise in life reading yet these speeches.

The clergy denounced the teaching of the shooting stars like casting a little incense on the wide spaces. Now that we know that this terrible star
would look quite faint and dull like pebbles, the idol priest and possibly the speech or worship of the Christian principles and other victims
have something behind it.

THE ROAD BACK

The road beck ley like a silver scabbard for the sword of his ephemeral magenta, the King of Diamonds. We who served this mighty magneto and who were to accompany him on this sortie are of a more glamorous nature than I can here describe. Our story begins on a mountaintop near a point of latitude of neither fixed nor flexible origin. It was, to be truthful, a mere nuance of the royal and fleecy nostril, which giggled slightly.

But let me first describe the apparel in which the magnifico was ensconced: The coat was from a bird of paradise, shining sequins of all earthly hues sparkled in a cascade around his shoulders and down to his toes. His headgear was an asterisk of jade, his shoes a mere toot. In his hand was a staff of clear crystal adorned with pearls.

"Gold, that is our purpose," extolled the gallant, " we seek the warmth of the boundless ether and transmutation."

This I believed, and wanted strenuously, wanted indeed enough to follow his highness on a venture which he promised would reveal such scenes as these: the clatter of glass from the head of Poseidon, on his dolphins as he beholds the dance of the stars; the piping of the leafy Pan; the domains of honey, and more: the beach in the Garden of the Hesperides, where the white wavelets which break on the shore resemble tiny hordes of white stallions, here where King Neptune rides his gilded chariot pulled by seven white swans. Nearby, the cross of fire, there, the cliffs of despair and the great silver bell which lies beneath the sea.

All this he promised, and as our company lay languishing on a soft divan in the waiting chamber, I could already taste the several pleasures which awaited us. At last, the day for departure arrived. A huge sun hovered red over the steeples and towers, casting mars red shadows, and incandescent breezes shot past our faces like rose petals.

We got the word that the path ahead was clear and off we marched. There was a general furor in the streets and markets of this town, but the people did not even seem to notice our cavalcade of lavender coaches pulled by bronze bipeds and fabulous hordes of white ermine. These vermin were perceived by one of our party to dodge with severe agility the wheels of the caravan in a peculiar dance.

In some of the rear coaches the men were already dying, but unnoticed by the rest of the troupe. Every second man in the crowd had a patch over his left eye and I asked our driver why this was so and he looked at me and laughed, his face was like sand, his eyes were pools of ice and lava. A tropical plant curled around his chair and he could not say more as this menacing serpentinian cajoled his throat. Need I say more?

Meanwhile several fathoms below, great and silent rumblings whizzed by like somnambulant ambulances. Immense flanks of sleeping, yet roaring vegetable-like and arterial gangways slithered around and over the white walls of the area. And thus was made our exit from the city.

Our ‘carascade’ flowed evenly between all points, spilling out here and there a bit of jewelled nectar, which small animals called polyhusks ate up rapidly as they followed the procession at a discreet distance. These twelve footed pachyderms had nearly distracted us from our ermine, who had mostly fallen by now into pools of boiling tar, where all were roasted alive, their flesh being simultaneously ripped asunder by voracious pelicans. Nothing daunted the men in their tasks however.

So too was the persistence of the dwarf, Gesengo, all awash and asmasho on bangh and pudding which his mother made him. He was green and giggled, he was goose bumped, his fire being awa gong hibo, hawa hawa fong. This tired me and I sneezed.

Forget all you know of me. I'm home at last. The pears and pelicans and old grapeshot hung around and sawed away at each other, knowing the casks of Venus. Oh grateful, thou art a Spaniard foresooth; my presence be that of lime, or caustic. Voyage on! my fellow stout hearts. By the time we reach our beds a vessel of mercury will be casting its smattering from here to high wire.

Bend thy oars foul vermin! Thou earwig, thy folly be askew. God bless you.

Gregg Simpson 1970

THE PREPARATION AND DISSOLUTION OF INDEFINITE BODIES

* Firstly, the landscape is to be a suitable nest of porridge and veracity, not exceeding three miles anywhere.

* Select a hideaway equidistant betwixt the sun and the moon.

*The lobby is a scene of a formal presentation and resurrection.

* Now for the potent negotiator. He arrives on the back of a white armadillo. He is then splayed with a variety of materials,
the most common of which is solar ivy.

* Slip down and blast.

* Before the operation, secure infinite time loss in white attire.

* Now selecting a tube of vermillion and nutrients, display caution and pass through the phase known as polyhedrous fillet.
They are small and each contains a rhinoceronteric filigree.

* Mount them with stealth and pour from the head to suitable containers.

* Empty each with its mouth to the moon.

* Fix them to solid and binary pollywogs. Prod them and retire with a flutter.

* If this increases, the circle will emit itself.

* Stir this well and check on it concurrently with the approval of six saturated flaps. If this should result in nothing,
press, shake and commence harpooning.

* Next scrape the mixture into a vessel of pearl and quicksilver.

*The mollusc is tame, but timid at higher altitudes. It easily explodes. The results are glutinous ramifications of astral suds,
rushing and tumultuous.

* Blur, and calculate the fine angles of the proportion. Each is a pompom attached to a mere husk. These can be spun and
corrugated into delightful flaxen air-fires, not unlike a giant pincushion.

* It will appear as a rivulet of time, a blast and a wave.

Chapter Four