A Spy in the Ruins. Christopher Bernard

of oblivious to all but your confusions. As the quarrels increased in frequency and violence in the tight apartment.

      I did not let myself be aware.

      It was easy to hide behind the eyes.

      And the sibling antics made for a scintillating sideshow. Oh how the laughter masked the rancor oh how the mask slipped oh how the face unhinged with rage stabbed the air with its teeth.

      No more. An acane favor given for uncertain at best highly suspicious reasons. The justifications carefully nailed down airtight waterproof. No jury would convict on such slender grounds. All we need do is put you on the stand they won’t believe you you did it you could have done it you are fully capable of having done it indeed of doing it then indeed of doing it indeed of doing it now not him your honor must be kidding he’s a total wimp. Although you did and we know you did. Juridical persiflage. A modest pride in the capacity for crime. Against your past against yourself. And all the cutouts hanging on the rope that extends from your window down to a pulley in the garden. Multiple avatars of Her.

      Anger became him more than kind.

      To say nothing of his literary style.

      The solitary one gropes for his solitude like a blind man. He cannot feel it cannot find it. What. Around him there is only bitterness and air. Nothing but eyes.

      She had made the transition without ease hanging by her fingers on to the escarpment. Transition into an endlessly delayed maturity. Childhood was pushed from her with the budding of the mounds on her torso the distending of the papillae ragging of the pudendum trickling then flooding of the blood. Which from all men must be hidden they faint so easily. The thread down the inside of her knee that humiliated her one afternoon in the school hallway. Set her mother crying when she told her in the evening. It left red spots behind her on the tiles. It led up to her a bleeding leaky mess with a blatant trail behind me. I am disgusting. Hide me. The powders the perfumes the hairdoes the hankies the combs the jewelry the squeegees dresses laces clogs the pumps the stockings the garters the jumpers panties petticoats the blouses the barrettes the bustiers the flowers in the hair cute little hats the darling pendants disguises for the blood camouflage false face theater to fool them from the repellence of this flaccid ugliness smelly and bleeding that surrounds the fallopian nausea. The filthy moon of my body. Brain-dead who says he loves me knows nothing when he finds out he will run. Away. Off. Gone. After another disguise.

      Women are filth men are idiots.

      Help me. I can’t bear it anymore. Help me please God help me.

      The edge of the escarpment bit her fingers where she hung over the bright abyss.

      Greetings from the fire. There we handled with care for it was breaking at the folds this blueprint for an invasion of the past. Her fingers flickered in and out of the flames. At the other end of the city where the incinerator belched. A smoke wattled in and out of the air a weave of bark in whose chinks shone crosses of sunlight.

      We were helpless so we prayed. Heroism not being an option however demanded. We had no choice but to take the boot in the face. No one else felt our mortification. That was consoling. To be human at that time was to live in a state of shame. For we destroyed everything we loved. We touched. And were instant ashes. Good King Midas of fire. Grinding the sea into a great pillar of salt. As we gazed rapt happy frozen behind. No power there had ever been to match our weakness. We drew all with us down.

      Oh to melt into each other’s skins. What rapture. To vanish into the hour of our gazing. What delight. They were no more and yet they were.

      The mind learned to match the world that did not match the heart. A slow learner or rather a recalcitrant student. No. But two plus two and so forth. Make three. You must grow up sometime. Never. You are going to have a hard life. Over my dead body. Ah!

      Demonic attachments have their place. Frankly. Honestly. Eye to eye. Without flinching. Callous was called for it will come with time. With disappointment. When.

      The desire to penetrate a woman and keep penetrating her without end in view. Forever or a close facsimile. So this is where it belongs this hitherto deeply frustrated thing. But what a payment plan! The worst crime to give yourself your pleasure on her of course. The pleasure you gave and took. Crafty she never did admit the joy of. You the accused in her holding cell. The mug in the box.

      So she crushed you slowly between her loins for the privilege. Little knowing the links. Or chain. Her own dissolution taken on trust. Into fulfillment. Or ecstasy.

      You the love I have come to destroy. Forever more or less.

      The place where they camped on the edge of the kaldera. Curling tongs of loathing officious of no explanations. Glancing witheringly down. He was a beaten dog about the legs. Kept his eye on the cold faces. Studied his tricks. Gamboled at whistle. Made his A’s. Received his imperial approval however detached. Was only slapped by the father once in these later years. For not purchasing the gift for which he had no money.

      Skeletal weeds strummed the windows. Nervous dogs of the neighborhood bayed at the passing cars.

      I saw my first cockroach the egg sack sticking out behind the vestigial wings. It was a memorable day. Though disgust was followed by dismay. Rotten fruit outlined the edges of the palace. Knives piled up like a house of cards ready to crash down over my little solemn head. I saw the future a flat darkness stinking of rotting banana.

      They giggled together nervously in the white kitchen.

      The meals remained sumptuous long after the wind had ceased to rattle the windows. They were aware somewhere of a flaw diffracting the perspective but could only infer what no one was allowed to see.

      The fingers pointing in the distance from the caravans of traffic. As if the only mirrors waved into the grotesque and the only allowance was for repellence. Their eyes smears on glass slides checked by unmatriculating lab assistants through uncalibrated microscopes. All the vivid microbial life hidden in their tears. Lachrymae rerum. Revealed by a simple stain.

      Mud fell from the sky smearing its fingerprints on the windows. The city waited patiently outside like a cat burglar. The corruption had already begun. Yet you were growing soaring awkward passionate though immobile. Everything you touched brought amazing pain or joy. Ecstasy and misery were your closest companions. I didn’t know where I was.

      I found my solitude unimpaired in the throngs. The city was the home of my anxiety. Everything advanced into an ambiguous hope. The world was scaled to my measure and my measure was infinite.

      I gazed longingly at the clouds framed between the towers. They bellied like sails against an azure sea. The sun railed at the city.

      Trapezia retreating in perspective.

      No loss that was not loss of all.

      And at the base of it such mad hope such uncompromising happiness.

      We were never wiser than in the folly of our youth never more faithful than in its cynicism and mockery. What generosity burned in our eyes. We spread our nonexistent wings and plummeted blank and giddy. The air whistled past us obscure with hallelujah. We never learned till we were almost wiped out and what we learned then was worthless. Prudence. Circumspection. Duplicity. They were not yet our second nature. Our foolishness was our glamor our self-absorption was our gift. Our infinite self-centeredness the panels of our armor. We were breathtaking. We destroyed each other like children. We wore the mask of corruption of adults. We took as far as we dared and then collapsed. It took ten years to explode our fireworks each day sending up a regiment of stars shaking the house and banishing night yes for ten long years. As though the supply were everlasting and the applause must roll forever. We dug our hole cheerfully and jumped in shrieking with laughter. The world shook in our embrace and wouldn’t let us go. Unbelief was not available to us except as an extravagant charade. Because we were the gods.

      At that time.

      At whatever time was available to us.

      As he walked at the edge of the crowd longing to become one