The sea surged at me. I climbed a large rock as fast as I could. Worn steps were carved into it. I followed them to the top. There was a jolt. The steps disengaged from the rock. I was lifted up over the top and down into a walled enclosure of weathered wooden buildings. A well dressed couple approached me. They were polite but their voices were firm. They would escort me to my quarters. They took me into one of the buildings and down a hallway past comfortable rooms, some with people sitting quietly, then ushered me into a small suite covered floor to ceiling with intricately inlaid marble. An anteroom was filled with consoles of machinery.
They left me there with an attendant, a large, lanky man with a sad face. I asked him if I was a prisoner. He rolled his eyes. The consoles in the anteroom jerked and swung into motion like rocket launchers on a warship. He walked over and closed the door. I asked him if I could leave. He said I could not. His eyes showed concern. My unease was turning to fear.
I tapped his shoulder. “ I must leave.”
He turned away and repeated himself. “You cannot.”
I took his hand and pulled him toward me. He was taken aback. I kissed him. He pushed me away. I kissed him again. I opened his shirt. He shuddered. I put his hand in my shirt. He didn’t withdraw it. I loosened his belt. He grabbed me. We fell to the floor. He tried to stop himself.
“You want to!”, I hissed. “You love it! Be yourself!”
He shouted something incomprehensible. As he gave in, he transformed. His ears grew. His arms shrunk. His nose was black and moist. There was a large black spot over one of his eyes and tears flowed out of both of them.
“You fags!” The woman was standing over us, her heels in my face. She ordered me up and dressed. The dog-man was weeping in a heap. Two scowling guards with wasps the size of light bulbs on their shoulders surged into the room, picked him up and dragged him out.
The woman ordered me down a corridor. “My husband figured you out immediately. He wanted to throw you into the sea. I reminded him that Michelangelo, Leonardo, Alexander were all fairies.” She opened a door and pushed me into another marble room. “Before we use you, I will use you.” She closed the door. “I want you to love me.” She unbuttoned her blouse. She was attractive. She was a witch. I had to escape. I unzipped her skirt. Her expression softened. I would make her delirious.
“Mommy! Daddy wants to tickle me!”, she cried in the voice of a toddler. “Hi, daddy!” she fell to her hands and knees. “See daddy?”
I stepped away. “I can’t do this.”
“Of course you can’t! You’re queer!”, she snarled.
“I need a shower.”
The room was suddenly screeching with huge wasps. “You will not shower!”, she choked as she pulled on her clothes. “You will come with me!”
The wasps led us out of the room. She stomped behind me down halls, past more quiet rooms filled with silent people. We stopped at a gate that exited the building. It was over grown with vines and alive with lizards whipping the air with long tongues. Her husband was waiting. “He prefers dogs.”, she whispered loudly, and to me, “The wasps will show you away.” The lizards began to sing. The husband and wife joined in. The gates opened.
As the couple stepped out, I launched myself onto their backs and the three of us tumbled to the ground. The woman screamed. The man freed himself and rushed to an idling ambulance. He opened the door and jumped in. I followed him and we struggled desperately. He grabbed the wheel and stepped on the gas. We careened toward his wife. Her skull burst under a tire like a melon. We sped straight through a barrier and over a cliff. I heard gunfire and shattering glass.
The ambulance rolled in mid-air. I was thrown against the roof. We slammed into the ocean on the driver’s side and I was thrown on top of him. Water rushed in. We sunk like a stone. I pushed myself out of the window and swam to the surface. Debris from the ambulance floated around me. There was no land in sight. I grabbed a stretcher. I was alone.
The stretcher just supported me. I jammed as much of the debris as I could under it and stabilized myself. If the sea stayed calm, I could survive a few hours, maybe days. I pulled myself onto the make shift raft and lost consciousness. When I came to, it was night and the light of the moon danced on the water. Panic rushed up in a clattering storm. The raft only partially supported me and my legs dangled in the water. The thought of sharks battered my sanity. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, the sun was rising. I felt it on my skin and images of peeling, flaking sunburn taunted me. I was terribly thirsty. I was barely afloat. I thought about drowning.
The lapping of the waves was disturbed by a dull churning sound. There was a ship in the distance and it was steaming toward me. I heard frantic yelling. I was yelling. A large motor yacht pulled up along side me and a Jacob’s ladder was thrown down. The sun was in my eyes. I saw forms moving above me. I pulled myself up.
No one helped me as I fell over the railing onto the deck. A crowd gathered around me, a crowd of brown spheres each standing on a pair of stubby legs. I heard gasps and cries of alarm. Large depressions with faces in them appeared and disappeared on the spheres. One of the spheres spoke to me. The ship was going to dock on a beautiful island. Everyone was going to have lunch.
The engines surged and in almost no time an island loomed large. We pulled up along side a wooden pier and a gang plank was lowered. A gravel road led us through golden fields spotted with gnarled olive trees. A limb sprouted slowly out of a sphere next to me and grew a couple of digits. I felt them stroke my back. We came to a group of simple, round tables furnished with bent wood chairs resting under trees. Dozens of egg plants were piled on linen table cloths.
“Egg plants!”, boomed the spheres. “Ha hah!”
Richard Talbot Hill
2015
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