Apocalypse of Jude

Many are gathered at this old farm house that lies tucked in a vale to the east of the basin, far from the town lights and on the lower slopes of the crouched mountains. They are gathered here by an ancient notion of worship calling from somewhere deep in themselves that they do not understand, but choose to follow.

Hiding the farmhouse from the road leading into the town is a dark, silent green shrove of trees. And in front of it, across an open meadow is a small lake with a mist gathering. From within the farm house, comes the call of drums beating in deep, hypnotic rhythms. But for the most, the many that now gather a coven of souls here prefer to let the trance-inducing drugs drift lazily through their blood near the warmth of a large bonfire in the meadow, unaware that the drums that beat are beginning to beat the earth with the beat of war. All unaware that is, but for Janice. She wheels around the circle’s dark, outer circumference, watching the mesmerising flames dance on Audrey’s and Gary’s pill-bitten faces. Audrey pulls Gary’s arms in closer around her waist and then laughs with a delight that signals a growing security that she has grabbed him back. Unsure whether to smirk at Audrey’s idiocy or feel sad for it, she lets her eyes leave them, knowing that she is relinquishing all her remaining power over Audrey to Paul. Her eyes search out her last hope at escaping the man she has played the whore for, for too long. She finds him across from Gary and Audrey, and for a moment stills herself to enjoy the mesmerising effect that the fire’s hypnotic dance is playing on his frame. But as she watches, she becomes aware of a sac-like thing sitting on top of his head, and it irritates her that she can hold herself back no longer. She goes forward and shakes him on the arm.

“Hey sexy.”

Caul rises abruptly from his deepening visual exploration into hallucination, turns his head and is annoyed to see a tripping and drunk Janice.

“I’m sorry, but you have this brown egg white sitting heavy on your head.”

Janice’s voice mocks close to his ear as her body sways against his.

“And I just wanted to take it off.” She dusts her hand through his hair.

“Oh, but look. It doesn’t want to come off.”

Caul pushes her hand away in disgust.

“Just leave me alone Janice.”

He turns to go to another point on the circle. But she is awakened with a sudden insight and follows him round.

“So this must be what makes you so damn indifferent to me. You think because of your caul, you’re spiritually special and nobody can steal your birthright away from you. Don’t you? That’s why you don’t take me seriously. Oh you are such a fool.”

Her last word, however, is drained of any passion, and her blood suddenly grows cold as her eyes catches Paul, in the dark shadowy recesses behind an unaware Caul, his left hand bringing a freshly lit cigarette to his lips. His stare bores through her, the coal of his cigarette burning bright. He holds her gaze to him, before he exhales, letting her go, laughing softly to himself as he fades away back into the darkness.

With his fading though comes a new darkness from down by the lake where Mae is leading Jude out of the shadows in her tow. She is hungry and her smile is one of mad joy for blood and raw flesh. Janice watches dismay become Caul’s face and slumps to her own despond, realising Paul has played a trump she has no hope of beating. She watches Mae take Jude’s hand and move toward the house where the dance floor awaits. Janice knows that now all will irresistibly flock after, not realising that this is the sign for which their souls have been waiting. Beaten, she follows Caul towards the dance, cursing Paul and desperately racking her brains.

One by one, those by the fire turn, until Audrey is left with Gary, shivering now in the comfortless cold of her inadequacy, the sculptured image of Audrey Hepburn passing by in her head again and again freezing her body.

“Take me home.” Her face is pale.

“No. What you talking about?”

Her cheeks are flushing and her soul is shaking with a possession of jealousy.

“If you want to go in there, you go dance. But not before taking me home for good first.”

The threatening timbre of her voice mildly disturbs Paul in his watching, listening darkness. Hesteps up from his place of hiding. “Take her home Gary.”

Gary, looks up incredulous at Paul, riveted in a boiling anger, but knows better than to say anything. He turns in a ramrod stiff posture and stalks towards his car. She follows, isolated, some steps behind. Paul watches for a few steps, then pleased, turns towards the farm house.

In the dark sky above his absence, bats beat the air with their wings. There is no cloud, allowing heat from the earth’s surface heat to rapidly evaporate. The mist from the lake is beginning to cover the earth as the night deepens. As it deepens and grows colder, the rhythms of those dancing flow deeper together, the drugs having rooted themselves in the blood, and the beat having hypnotised them. In a dark corner of the dance floor Caul desperately, despondently seeks out Dionysus, the one who blinded him, the one who now seems to have betrayed him; seeks him beyond the barrier of heavy bass where his consciousness can enter and know the god’s calling upon him. As he concentrates his candy-flipped mind on dancing his body into oneness with the electronic beat, his mind dives slowly deeper into the outer edges of consciousness where the gates to the unconscious lie. In that moment, Caul looks up and the swirling lights flare out brightly, lighting directly above Mae, golden mistletoe woven into her hair. Then the voice he has been seeking comes.

“You know that she is the way.”

Then a sudden hand grabbing his brings Caul back to the surface, his blood growing cold, then freezing at the touch.

“What do you want Janice?”

“Come, let’s go steal the dance floor from those two.”

He literally snorts at her, but his eyes wonder back to Mae’s fertile body in red shoes seeking to free the waters of fertility by taking Jude in close to begin a gyration with him.

“If you don’t come with me now Caul, and break that energy, our fallen priest is going to end up sticking it into her after this party has fallen apart tonight. And there is no telling from that kind of reproductive energy being freed up, what power Paul is going to be able to incarnate.”

The desperate, threatening tone of Janice’s voice unnerves Caul, but it is the consonance of her desire with the dionysian voice that unsettles him more.

/is mae now his handmaiden/ /or is dionysus being capricious with me/

“You’ve had too much coke up your nose tonight Janice.”

She laughs in a high-pitched, bordering on hysterical way.

“You really are clueless you know that. You style yourself as some sort of spiritual quester that’s got some destiny to fulfil. But that caul on your head has got you blind. If you’d just let go of it, you’d start to see what’s really happening around you.”

“That’s really deep Janice…”

“Oh will you just hush and listen to me for once in your life.”

She turns and grabs Caul round the waist, looking straight at him.

“Jude’s the reason Paul’s got no use for you anymore Caul. But you wouldn’t have seen that. Or that my time is done. And unless you come with me and break that ritual going down on the dance floor, both of us are done for. Because then Paul will be open to resurrect a power that won’t rest until it destroys everything.”

She follows his eyes to where Paul’s malign eyes glassily take them in, but is determined to play her last card despite her fear. She runs her index finger down the middle of his chest.

“You don’t want to believe me do you? Well then don’t. But once that power is released, the Mae that you think is yours and to whom you will steadily grow closer in readiness for your coming…”

Janice’s lips mock a succulent taste. “…into her…”

She cannot withstand laughing derisively at Caul.

“…she will destroy you, because she is no longer yours.”

Her hand grabs his crotch, squeezing it gently.

“What a shame it has to go this way. I would have made you a good queen.”

She shrugs her shoulders in sadness and turns away leaving him to his dark corner.

From his isolated spot Caul watches with an opening depression, Jude openly betraying him, going with the woman he loves, and seeking to put his light out for good, mocking Caul’s attempt to heal him. The pain in his gut jackknifes into a sullen pride, a pride that turns him angrily away from both of them. He tries to go back into the dance, trying to ignore all that has been said, confused at what the dionysian voice said about Mae.

/can mae really show me the source of the love im looking for/ /but the rainbow pointed me towards God/

He turns again to look at Mae, only to see her drawing out her long black hair with her fingers that intimate a kind of whispered music, and then leaving with Jude, a piece of mistletoe from her hair falling to the ground. In their leaving he realises that his failure to act has not only bereft him of his consort, but in failing to take Mae from Jude, he has failed to save Jude from his spiritual death.

Wasteland Mix: Fragment 97