Apocalypse of Jude

Jude and Mae sit opposite each other in wicker chairs before a big window looking out on a world of single stories below. Above these houses, no mountains can be seen, only the silver-grey clouded sky and the westward-moving sun angling golden-turning rays on the north and eastern walls of Mae’s large studio apartment. The sun glows on both of them as they exhale smoke from their lungs to watch it twirl listlessly away in the confined air.

She looks over at him. “Jude.”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing. Just sounding your name in my mouth.”

He just smiles. They sit finishing their cigarettes in silence.

“What does Jude mean anyway?”

“It’s short for Judas. Whatever the name meant originally is now irrelevant.”

She is sitting upright now, her legs crossed, gazing at him, listening.

“But the Jude I was named after was the writer of the book Jude—the saint of hopeless causes.”

A grunt of a laugh comes from Jude. “And I feel I live up to his toil very well.”

“Why is that?”

“Because in being a hopeless cause, I am a saint. I don’t think that’s what my parents had in mind though.”

“What do you think they wanted?”

“Someone to save their dying church.”

In her eyes is a reflection of the broken storm clouds through which the sun is shining. But his remark drives deeper into her not yet fertile womb where a devouring hunger lies in wait for him. It is a hunger that is formless and empty and something she cannot put her finger on, but that has insistently refused to let her go since Jude’s storm announced arrival at the Hofgarten earlier in the afternoon.

“We should get up and go out on the roof to watch the sunset.” She gets up without waiting for his approval.

“Come on, I’ve got some red wine in the kitchen. I’ll get it so long and meet you up top.”

She leaves the room and Jude hears her making ready in the kitchen. He doesn’t move, having been suddenly haunted by the beauty of this daughter of man sitting cross-legged in the golden sun. She comes back into the room, calling from behind his back as she climbs a narrow staircase in the room’s far back corner.

“You’d better not let the sun go down on me.”

He pushes himself out of the chair and wanders up the wooden and wrought iron staircase, through a trap door, and into the breezy air filled with yellow haze.

She is sitting with her legs hanging over the wall that surrounds the sunken flat roof, her lithe black cotton dress accentuating the thinness of her form. Her long black hair is catching both the breeze and the sun and he finds her in that moment and pose more sexy than any girl he has ever seen.

“There you are. Come sit close and have some wine.”

He hoists himself on top the wall and takes the glass she hands him. The fresh dryness of the wine grips his smoke-stale throat while she talks.

“You know, the view straight ahead is the only one in this town where you can just see sky. No mountains and no sea, just the freedom of the western sky. Not many people can boast a view like that here.”

Dying quickly now in the west, the sun turns the clouds into burning pillars of fire. But with no ocean or mountain to swallow the sun, and just the open horizon to let it fade away, the sun’s death is made more comfortable and easy to let pass.

“What a fine, splendid way to start the weekend.”

“Hmm.” Their legs are swinging easily together, carelessly scuffing against the white wall. A lethargy has settled into their gait and Jude is trying not to allow his mind any leisure to range free with her, as another burst of wine glistens his throat.

“I just love my apartment. It’s got a character just so different to this town. Did you know it was one of the first built by an outsider after the law was changed?”

Jude takes another gulp of wine, being engulfed by the stark beauty of her black dress on the white wall.

“How did you find it?”

“I was looking for a place when I separated from Gary. I remember walking by one day and seeing it, and I fell in love with it on the spot. It just so happened that the owner was selling the property. Coincidence of not?”

She laughs, and carries on.

“So I decided to use the opportunity as a half-attempt of reconciling with my father. I said daddy dear, buy the place and we can make the top storey my apartment and rent out the lower storey. One can play the guilt of divorce very successfully if you are the victim. I sound so vindictive don’t I?”

“Well put it this way. I wouldn’t want to be the object of your vindictiveness.”

“I’m not bad Jude, really. Just that when your parents divorce, it seems like you are fruit that goes bad. And that rot kind of just hangs around, affecting all your relationships.”

To him her smile is winsome and her lithe frame tantalises his hands for wanting to touch.

“So do you feel the same way about your mother?”

“The mid-wife to destiny?”

“That’s quite bitter.”

“It’s true. I was seventeen when my father left. My mother and I grew quite close from then on. Then I grew up, and she moved north. Now she spends most of her nights reading about newfangled ways to plot destiny, and migrates south every winter like a bird to come try them on me. She’s coming out this Christmas.”

“Just think how many paths you’ll have to choose from by the time she goes.”

There is now in his eye the merry twinkle of a man seeking to have his way with a maiden.

“Thanks, but no thanks. If she were any wiser for her own paths she has chosen, which keep changing by the way, I’d be half inclined to listen.”

She swings her head seductively, looking from below her brows into his eyes.

“But I’m quite happy now to keep myself until Dionysus comes bearing the truth. Him will I follow.”

Her seduction is zeitgeist to him; the ephemera of his eternal longing present in her.

“Do you know I’m named after the women that Dionysus frenzied with wine?”

He wants her seduction, and is resolute to follow.

“I had no idea. Tell me more.”

She tosses back the last of her wine and licks her lips almost crudely.

“The Maenad. They were mad women who went deep into the forests and mountains to worship Dionysus in ecstasy under the night sky. There he would give them great peace and freshness. That’s why I can’t wait for the party tonight. I feel like I’m about to go deep into the forest and just let my hair down to revel under the night sky and dance to resurrect the spirit of life. I haven’t felt like this in a very long time.”

Wasteland Mix: Fragment 14