latest edit on into the cradle

latest edit on this piece, much removed.

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We'd gone to a building in the mountains. Not a place for children I thought but it was not my place to say. I listened to the sounds of insects and pine needles needling. I listened to the sounds of men and women dancing hot and clackety to music and laughter. I wondered if First got a cake.  He liked chocolate. I wondered where Little was and then she was right here, climbing onto my lap where she liked it best. I made myself as warm and cosy as I could. She sat there, trying to keep her eyes open but she lost the battle and her body softened like butter. She was so light-weighted it was no effort at all for me to hold her.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember was all of them pulling the party out of the taverna. tramping towards me crunch, crunch, drunk and reeling and singing and arm linking arms. There was the red-haired American and the long-legged woman he liked. There was flash-eyed local man Woman had danced with. Her scent stuck to him like flypaper. He climbed in behind Tall so as not to be easily seen.  First took Little's hand and helped her into the back. Woman got into the front. Tall started up, leaving the American with his leg half out of the door. Maybe I should drive, Woman said. Tall pulled away from her. Woman was going to say something further but the local man leaned forward and slipped his hand behind her hip. She pressed her body back and said nothing. Her foot tapped in time to music that was long over.

We veered from one side of the road to the other. The road was empty and I then thought this a good thing given the way we were lurching over it. I had First and Little sleeping in the back and that's what I kept my attention on. I felt their soft light breathing. Little was tucked in behind her brother, her hand in his. A drop of her spit dropped onto me. It was sweet and warm. I tried to steady Tall but he was having none of it. He had his foot down hard and we were going too fast for a straight road which was not what we were on. The road was terrible, all humpy and corroded. It's old country here. They don't use road metal nor bitumen. There were no markings, not a line of white nor a yellow cat's eye to keep me company. It didn't feel like a road I could handle. It was unkempt and unfit for anything other than a gentle stroll in the thickening afternoon when the crickets start their cricking.  I searched forward as far as I could, brights on high, the tongue of the road licking out in front of me promising a destination but not the destination I was expecting.

It didn't start with the road. No story starts where it got bad. Things lead up to a situation, some things which don't even seem to be related to each other.  There is no such thing as an unrelated thing. Perhaps the story started when Tall took me in. I was as happy as a nut on the right bolt when he came along and said, I'll take you. I'd had enough of lying there with a notice by my side detailing qualities I did not have. I made no sound when he took me away, not even a squeak. I was going to be as good as good could be so he'd keep me and he did, even when I turned out to be just so-so. Tall took me to meet Woman. She looked me over. I could tell she didn't think much of me. Woman had high standards. She turned to go but Tall stopped her and took her in his arms. They stood there holding each other and then a picture opened up inside me like a blossoming flower. Woman dressed in white, her eyes looking up at Tall.  I thought it a fine thing until words dropped like petals one by one onto the bottom of my heart. Do you love me still? the words said. Tall kissed Woman and Woman kissed Tall but the words would not go away, they kept shuttling back and forth between Tall and Woman, even when Little came by and shone as bright as she could. Tall sometimes held her close but I could see her brightness dim and become muddied up with his difficulties.

Perhaps the story started when Tall and Woman exchanged words that Little should not have heard. Little came to me and sat near. Moon was shining brightly. Little looked up and tried to make out the rabbit her brother First said was there.  Little could see all things in that dish white face but no rabbit. Maybe Moon caught the sheen of Little's heart and envy filled her up. Maybe Moon didn't like Little looking so fearlessly through her guard of stars. Little came in special.  I think on this, and wonder if I have got my story askew. Perhaps Little did not suffer, perhaps Moon was looking out for her all along. We are on an island where human sacrifice was once a holy thing. Perhaps it is still and all I have done is perform the rite.

All I know is the night of the road, Moon was just past full but she hid her maybe jealous eye and I had no one guiding me through the dark until Moon unwrapped herself. Tall was with me that night but his mind was on the man who could not take his eyes off Woman, his mind was on the long round thigh of a girl who was not his.
He twisted his body around and looked into the group behind. Sing, he said and they did. Sigha sigha, they sang, slowly slowly. A song and the reasons for which I've muddled over in my mind for many years. They who sang must have known something or maybe the gods were trying to send a message to Tall. Tall did not know the meaning of the words or he chose to ignore it because he carried on throwing me around like he was a racing car driver and then Moon slid out from behind her clouded veil. She was still one-eyed and then I must have blinked because suddenly she was three-eyed staring hard and then I blinked again and time spread wide and slow and quiet like an oil stain on sawdust, time that could have been no longer than a second and then that second was a great thundering screech from something unholy and massive flinging itself past and behind us and into the black night until it was nothing but two red eyes watching us and then it was just pitch thick and screaming inside and the next thing I knew I was no longer on the road but halfway hammered into a tree.

I was leaking bad. I was steaming out of my head and dripping from underneath, sounds ringing off me like a battleground. And then the crickets and other small alive beings and the rustling fingers of ancient trees went dead quiet. There was nothing but silence and the dark. I heard the quiet of all things listening to a horror. It was the silence of breath held, ears held, eyes held and a wish that this was some kind of moment that was a slip in the mind of the gods, a thought that could be unthought and then we could all breathe again but it was not that.

I could not move. I tried, but I couldn't. Something was whirring behind me and I thought it might be a nightbird but it was a part of me that had fallen off. I worried there'd be fire. I tried to feel behind but I had no feeling. Nothing moved inside me, nothing but my own drip drip. I asked Tree if it could see if anyone was alive. It said nothing I could understand but at least it said something. I asked again but the answer was the same, something gentle and woody. Trees have soothing voices no matter how bad things are so I couldn't decipher its meaning from the tone.

After a time that seemed longer than forever but was probably no longer than a heartbeat the crickets started up and wind began to breathe. Something shifted inside me. It was the American. I felt into his body and he was hurt but not badly. Blood trickled down his shoulder. His fear was loud. He had seen his girl. He had seen the others. His thoughts had pictures and I tried to turn away but I couldn't. Put a man inside me and I can tell you things only he knows.

The long-legged girl was crumpled over the front seat where Tall was sitting but not sitting anymore. One of her long legs bent in a way that legs are not supposed to bend. She was broke at the collarbone but out cold so no pain reached her sleeping mind. Secrets lurked there but I was not in the mood for listening. Local man was shuteyed but breathing, his face ruined.  He too had no thoughts but I felt inside his heart and it was lonely and had been that way since he was born. Woman was crushed into the dash her forehead resting quietly. She was bleeding in several places. She had one thought and that was a swear word so I will not repeat it and then she too slept, her breathing heavy. Tall was with me, his body sprawled flat on top of my crumpled hood, his head pressed against Tree. Tree was feeling around him but I could tell it was no use.  His skull was split down the middle and his brains were seeping onto me. American turned away quickly but the picture stayed. It burned into both of us. I wanted to cry but the ducts were closed up and twisted. Tall was the closest man to a father I'd ever had. Maybe he shouldn't have taken me in. Already I knew I was to blame. I'd blinked and Moon had blinded me and truck monster had deafened me. It was my fault.

I wept tearless tears and the American vomited onto the earth. He stood up and I went with him to the back. First was alive. Bruised but unbroken. American gathered him up in his arms and put him gently on the ground and said, Stay there. Then the American turned his back on First. He made himself wide and impenetrable and he leaned back inside. Little lay with her blue eyes open. American began to retch but then he saw her small hand reach out for First. Little rolled onto her side and into First's arms. Let me, said American. He held them both for a moment and I thought he was not strong enough but he was. He picked them up, a man holding a boy holding a girl. He took them away from me, far away but not so far I could not feel them. He sat down slowly, still holding them. Little looked at his arm. You're bleeding, she thought. Yes I am, he thought back, but it doesn't hurt.  She was alive. She was all right. I said thank you to whoever might be listening then that was enough, I needed to sleep or go down to where the guilty go and never come back. I blacked out or Tree put me to sleep in all her kindness.

I woke in another place. This place. A place I've been in for the rest of my so-far life. It's not where the guilty go, no, that's still waiting for me. Hairy Back brought me here amongst others with parts crushed or mangled or missing. Hairy Back was the one who found Tall for me. He wishes now he hadn't, and so do I but it's too late for that. Some of us in this plot are missing more bits than when we arrived but Hairy Back doesn't let anyone near me. He says I've suffered too much and should be left in peace. Peace is not in my vocabulary but I'm glad for his opinion and I am glad for his company for he is familiar with suffering. Hairy Back killed seven men in the war and he cannot forgive himself although those men did far worse. Hairy Back fills me with his suffering and when he's poured himself dry he tells me stories from before his time and mine. They are tales beyond belief but I am beyond belief so I listen. Images of bullmen and heroes layer themselves down on me, my own story sitting hard and unredeemable at the bottom of my soul like the pea in the princess's bed.  

I cannot stop wondering what happened after the road. Did Woman find another word-defining man? Did the American marry the long-legged secret filled girl? Was she still long legged or was she a cripple? Was local man still flash-eyed? I try to sleep, the forever sleep but I do not. I go over the details of what happened until even I cannot listen anymore. I wait and I dream of unfinished journeys. I dream I am lost in the bullman's maze. I dream of fierce curves and dips and rocks underfoot. Great twisting trees loom up out of nowhere, trees that look like they know everything since the beginning of time and maybe they do. One of those trees knows me well, bits of me are imbedded into its bark. Maybe one day the gods will take a look and find the bits and they will relieve me of my pain but I've given up on higher powers looking kindly down. It's just me and the others like me here, disintegrating bit by bit into this cradle of civilization. I've heard that time does not run in a straight line.  I've heard it runs vertical. Each moment layers upon the other as if all things occur at once. If this is true then there is no beginning and no end and the road I speak of is vertical and I must travel upon it forever.

A woman puts her hands on me and I think she's the lady of the maze leading me to sacrifice and then I think maybe Hairy Back has brought a woman who is not his wife. He is a true man so I don't think that is it. The woman sits down inside me and I know who it is and I think I must be dead and gone to the Elysian fields because Little would go nowhere else. Oh gods, I think, let me stay dreaming, I do not I am wide-awake and she does not leave. She puts her hands underneath her bottom and presses them into me and she stays there awhile. Hairy Back leaves her alone with me, I guess she'd told him to but I'm not listening to that kind of talk, I'm inside Little's soul and it is a room I don't want to leave. I feel myself ease and it is not a feeling I am familiar with.

Little pulls her hands out from underneath her and traces a finger across the dash where her mother's head once rested and then her finger travels down to the door to the glove compartment. It is rusted hard but I drop the door open and Little puts her hand inside, her fingers as soft a kitten paws. At the back she finds something. Tall's notebook, the pages stuck together like wood. Tall once took me for a drive and parked us under the big cypress to write verse in that notebook. Little tries to peel apart the pages, but they tear and crumble. I warm my old and splintered self, I rise out of my rusted heap and try to sparkle. I do not know if she can hear the words but I send them out as best I can. She leans back against me and closes her eyes. Tall writes of his love for Woman and his love for First. He writes of his love for Little. He writes the words he could never speak. He writes the words he could only hide away inside of me and now Little has let them out. I share them all and then she puts the book back inside the compartment. I want to say something else but I cannot. Forgiveness for a death is not a thing anyone can ask for but Little leans forward and puts her lips to me and takes my story inside her. I am surrounded by her, I am blind with light. Tall's poetry opens within me as if he were here now, his hands on the wheel, just he and I driving a wide and open road, the orange sun smiling down upon us. I am no longer a darkling beetle scratching in the night. I am shining from inside out, I am an ocean upon which time cannot create a ripple. Little sings a cradlesong and I am rocked by her voice into the earth, into the mother's arms until where she begins and I end is of no consequence. My dreams stream red, the colour of life, the colour of the black-eyed poppies Hairy Back places on my empty body.