Apocalypse of Jude

The sun lights up a tempestuous sky as it begins its rise from beyond the peaks of the enclosing mountains, ready to scorch the earth’s surface and burn the people with fierce heat. A wind, blowing in dry warm gusts down from the north, is whipping up the ocean bay with the storming intent to turn it into the blood of dead men, so all that life within its waters may die.

The wind blows stiffly through a colonnade of trees, their boughs yielding up ancient groanings that seep down deep into the soil, calling out for the earth to release its foul and painful sores upon those who inhabit it. Beneath these boughs the hot wind picks up loose strands of Mae’s raven black hair, and blows them across her face. She slowly, lovingly rubs against the bark of each tree with her outstretched hand as she passes, seeking to draw from them a sense of their primeval power to strengthen her new-found temperance.

/its like a sacred grove/ /so much as happened since that day caul passed me by here/ /im eating healthier/ /im coming on more regularly again/ /and working again/ /im more conscious of things going on around me/ /it cant be a coincidence that im here now experiencing these thoughts and going to meet him later today/

Under the trees’ mottled shadows, she stills herself, allowing herself to draw more deeply from their source of life. As she does so, a spirit of joyful wildness so intense begins filling her that her skin shines with inner energy. She stretches her arms in worship to catch more of these trees’ life, wanting more of their ecstatic joy. But what flows into her blood and into her mind is her sibylline Easter dream of being taken by a man she is unable to make out. As the memory passes, she feels frustration and a haunting of knowing the perpetrator, but is unable to make him out for a blind spot in her own vision.

/its like youre still in control of my body/ /if i could just find out whats blurring my vision/ /i need to take control of my own body again/ /yes/ /i claim my body for myself again/ /do you hear me caul/ /soon i’ll be able to see who you are clearly/ /and when i know for sure its you caul/ /i wont be your consort/ /be careful of maenad/ /she’ll rip you to shreds and devour you in sacrifice to dionysus/

Shock at her thoughts stills her with ashamed guilt at her sudden intemperance. Yet the fresh remembrance of her name fills her with pain, and thoughts continue to fall from her thick like leaves.

/what did you see mother to name me after such a horrid creature/ /what fruit did you bear in your attempt to marry the cosmos with my merchant father/ /did you see your utopian mix of free love and free markets for this town going all wrong/ /is that why you left me behind mother/ /to dad playing king in his business suits/ /did i scare you/ /what hope does that ever give me of being free to the ecstatic joy of my name/ /and now you mother/ /famous clairvoyant/ /coming to visit in december/ /what tidings is it that you are bringing with you this time/

Breathing deeper, she turns to face the seven amphitheatre peaks from underneath the boughs. As the air entering her goes down into her lungs, stretching them to capacity, energy again begins pulsing all over her, and she becomes aware of the stream of blood circulating her life force around her body. Again she feels the wildness, not of joy, but of savagery rising through her, and she forces it back down with a heavier feeling of guilt.

Being resolute with herself, Mae passes out from the colonnade into the sunlight, the guilt of her gluttony searing upon her soul. She walks to where the town’s river runs channelled through a park. Here the hot wind blows down upon its fresh waters, all so that this river too might become like blood. Here, along its banks, she determines not to give into the lust for flesh that promises her freedom from her guilt. All the while though, she curses God under her breath, though she knows not why, except that it comes from within her spirit.

Wasteland Mix: Fragment 10