All Of Us Are Not Illustrated

ALL OF US ARE NOT ILLUSTRATED

(A dream. Inspired by Mary's stalker.)

Scree scree

Ah, fellow apus apus
Our kind so very seldom land
As we sleep on the wing
And harvest flies as we sickle through the skies
of wide, fat days
Becoming nothing as they purple and sink
into an oily ocean

Scree scree

While I am briefly grounded
Let me tell you, apus apus
How I almost became a nautilus

There once - I say once - was a boy called Fulano, and he interpreted
people only as illustrations.
He could not see them for illustrations
All that they were was formed from illustrations he had seen in
books
manuscripts
museums
galleries
where their meaning was made clear by the detailed annotations that
accompanied them. So every day he saw, combing the earth for sensual
pleasures, the angel of hearth and home go by, deformed and
ludicrous,
and he saw Bertrand Russell in drag, being so careful in his
endeavours,
and he saw Christ carrying the cross to Calvary through the streets of
Cookham
dull canals tracing sinews
plummeting Icarus
and Beelzebub having so much fun, with such a grin on his face
This will later appear ironic

Now Fulano could not see himself, and nor could others
When he looked down, he saw only the ground to which he was
attached
Even if he stripped naked, others could not see him - they saw only
Nudity, and their riled sensibilities
The mask of depravity!
If he danced about in a mad fashion they saw either Sympathy, or an
absence of Sympathy
For a sad clown, you see.

So Fulano prowled unseen, becoming only a number and a name, and a
taken place, an occupant. While this displeased him, it was not nearly
so unpleasant before the poor boy became so unfortunate as to get the
hots for a girl.
The girl's name was Mary.
Do you know her?
For a moment there you looked like you did.
As a lover yourself - I can see it in your dishevelled plumage - you
will know what I mean when I describe what Fulano saw when his gaze
came unto Mary, and stopped her there on the road to the next
hour.
Romanticism is almost dead, I am informed.
He saw one hundred thousand doves
He saw flowers and fish
He saw the bay walls of the Last Supper where most people saw only the
roses of her face
He saw Christ preaching at Cookham regatta where they saw her
clothes
He saw the marriage of heaven and earth
There is more to these images than at first you suppose. I see you are
familiar with some of them.
I can tell you in all sincerity that Fulano desired to make contact
with this Mary, far moreso than with the St. Antony's and the
Guernicas. Mobile phone numbers are scattered around liberally -
finding hers was a case of leafing through litterbins. He phoned her
several times.
How does a man whose hands are made of nothing reach out and hold a
hundred thousand doves?
"Hello?" she said to her phone.
"Sorry. Wrong number. Where are you?"
"Excuse me?"
"What are you doing?"
"Why do you want to know what I'm doing?"
And so on. You seem crumpled by a faint familiarity with the scene I
describe.
Fulano found her window, and stood on the grass slope in front of the
steep blonde beach, near the bus stop. From there he could clearly see
her, though she, of course, could not make him out. She could only see
the sensation of being watched.
"We could meet in Hotlegs. Tomorrow. Noon."
"I'm sorry. Do I know you?"
"Not yet."
He said it so hopefully. He sure had the hots for her.

Presently, there emerged another man, out of the forest. He dashed and
smouldered some, and more importantly, Mary could see him. He pocketed
her near the golf course, and they were part-calcified, between the
biological and the geographical.
Fulano met Jealousy then and there, and they became travelling
companions. And beyond Jealousy, there was Disappointment, who wore a
startled face. Disappointment said that at least Fulano should have
expected this new man, this interference, to be intrigued by the flight
of a non-Euclidean fly, to possess a joie de vivre. But instead he was
another of the hoard.
Fulano thought that she might as well have taken any of the others. He
could not see what Mary saw. (I say that in hindsight.)

Jealousy clung to him like a lost child. It murmured sweet nothings
into his ear. He became angry at Mary. He no longer wanted to cradle
the hundred thousand doves, but drug them and possess them.
He raged.
Until one evening, retreating from her window, Fulano crossed paths
with the famous flasher, the pervert who the newspapers salivated and
spat over. The flasher must have thought Fulano was a girl. Fulano
never knew how the flasher even saw him.
Perhaps there is recognition between those in exile.
The flasher threw open his coat and exposed his crusted corpse. All
Fulano saw was Napoleon in the wilderness, wrapped in wind weathered
orange peel, ogle-eyed as Fulano stood, scarred stone statue, a
lichen-pillar between them. The sight made him calm and he
lingered.
But poor Fulano lingered too long! His riled sensibilities up and
throttled him in a feat of shock. He was slain by morality! Not the
mildest of all deaths known to man, not by any means.
That was an end to his initial incarnation, unseen by the object of his
Jealousy and Surrender. His corpse was carried away by a ragged party
of blackened, toothy, dwarfish monsters created by Jealousy's sickly
visions. Their claws hooked every crevice and line, and he could not
protest.
They took him to Satan himself, who animated his mouth so that he could
reply.
An arresting development - Satan wanted Mary. He'd been planning to
have her for some time, and now saw Opportunity begin to speak. He was
on it at the first clear word, and so Fulano was taken to his charred
Underworld and made to converse.
"She is a heavenly truant whom I wish to make hellish. She will be my
impulsive, free counterbalance the same as I am mankind's. I need an
obsession to serve. I need someone who can conjure for me a happy,
idiot whim. Jealousy was my agent - he has brought you here. Now you
will bring Mary to me."
Fulano, who was still angry at Mary for leading him to this Jealousy,
and did not realise even as he said it that the devil laid claim to
this very act, said, "I will, I will."
"Very well, Fulano," said the devil. "I will furnish you with the body
of Roy Walker, once the host of Catchphrase, so that you may reinstate
yourself among men, take up the saddle of that fine daytime quiz show
and lure Mary into a tryst with Rage. Once she has lost herself to
Rage, I will set you free. You shall become a nautilus, and hunt in the
unseeing depths."
Such a fate like a stranger appeals strangely to those bitter and dark
like cocoa. Fulano loved his nautilus vision of the future, the eye of
silence. With his animated mouth he could mould himself a smile, but
upside down as his head was it became the sad gape of a trout.
Years fell through his fingers as he schemed and blueprinted.
He had only been briefly dead. Now he was alive again in the body of
Roy Walker.
Where was Roy Walker? I couldn't say. Perhaps he took Fulano's actions
to be his own, seeing as they came into being through his own
body.
Perhaps this accounts for much of men's behaviour. Who knows how many
times we our possessed, and by whom?
As far as I know, Roy Walker is alive and well today. Now enough of
him.
When the years had fallen and lay behind him on the blonde beach,
indistinguishable from a million more, the moment became and he was
there, in the Catchphrase studio, with Mary.
He had never been so close to her, but in that time his vision had
grown blacker. The doves were concrete, the bay walls grim with soot
and heaven's wedding dress a bleached bone. He longed to see her as he
once saw her, and fought to keep a firm grip on Roy Walker's calm and
merciful nature.
"Tiny woman on face, caressing her thigh?" the contestant
guessed.
"That's very close. That's very, very close," Roy Walker told him. "But
it's not quite right. The catchphrase I was looking for was 'beauty is
in the eye of the beholder.' Mary, you're back in the game. Just say
what you see."
Did you ever watch Catchphrase? Simple concept: the contestants are
shown a picture, or a brief animation, that represents a catchphrase.
They have to guess the catchphrase.
Thank heaven we were so easily entertained.
"Red cross&;#8230;on top of a tongue and a calculator?" Mary
haphazarded.
"Ah! I'd like to give you that. I really would, but I've got a gun
pointed at my head. The answer was 'there's no accounting for
taste.'"
The game went on.
"Cat on a hot tin roof?"
"A wonderful guess, but I'm afraid it was 'gone to the dogs.' Mary,
you're back in the game. Here's another catchphrase."
Fulano began to unfold his grand design here. It startled the studio
audience.
"Red, horned babies coming from&;#8230;is that my face??"
Mary became fearful. She does not see&;#8230;she sees.
"Do you know," said Roy Walker, "I heard someone saying that in the pub
only last week. But I'm afraid it's not the right answer. The answer I
was looking for was 'bear me demon offspring, Mary.'"
"Excuse me?"
"Yes, you whore! You heard me right. Strip down to your naked flesh
now, Mary!"
"No!"
Fulano's vision was becoming blacker. He could hardly see the feathers,
the bridal gown or Jesus' rough hands.
"I said you're a whore! And a tart! And a foul harlot! And Satan wants
you naked!"
He strode toward her, and the devil loomed behind him. No one
intervened.
"Disgusting, deceitful wench!"
He took her wrist and squeezed it tight. Roy Walker's other hand went
to her shoulder, and the fingers closed around the neckline of her
attire.
But as he made to wrench it down, he noticed for the first time the
bright ball that was the genesis of a tear. It tore at the blackness.
It was Christ's two hands tearing the bread.
He released her. He felt Rage shrivel. Behind him, the devil lost his
footing.
Fulano had never been very good at plans.
He had failed to give Rage free entrance to Mary's body. And as the
blackness there dissolved, it was not replaced by the hundred thousand
doves, or the marriage of heaven and earth. Instead of seeing them, he
saw Mary herself. He thought she was very pretty.
Consequently, he became an apus apus, and has never been more
happy.
Now I can see everyone. Even you.
Don't think I don't recognise you.
I do recognise you.
I saw you with her now and then.
That is to say, I saw that the hat makes the man
I saw a wheatfield with crows
I saw a black joker, dangling,
Discarded from the pack
Insincerity jangling in his hat's bells
I see you too found the desire to change your form