The Tent Read online

  The Animals Reject Their Names and

  Things Return to Their Origins

  I.

  It was the bear who began it. Said, I'm getting out from under.

  I am not Bear, l'Ours, Ursus, Bar or any other syllables

  you've pinned on me.

  Forget the chateau tapestries in which I'm led in embroidered chains.

  and the scarlet glories of the hunt that was only glorious for you, you with your clubs and bludgeons.

  Forget the fairy tales, in which I was your shaggy puppet, prince in hairshirt, surrogate for human demons.

  I'm not your coat, rug, glass-eyed trophy head, plush bedtime toy, and that's not me in outer space with my spangled cub.

  I'm not your totem; I refuse to dance in your circuses; you cannot carve my soul in stone.

  I renounce metaphor: I am not child-stealer, shape-changer, old garbage-eater, and you can stuff simile also: unpeeled,

  I am not like a man.

  I take back what you have stolen, and in your languages I announce I am now nameless.

  My true name is a growl.

  (Come to think of it, I am not a British headdress either:

  I do not signify bravery.

  I want to go back to eating salmon without all this military responsibility.)

  I follow suit, said the lion, vacating his coats of arms

  and movie logos; and the eagle said, Get me off this flag.

  II.

  At this the dictionaries began to untwist, and time stalled and reversed; the sweaters wound back into their balls of wool, which rolled bleating out into the meadows; the perfumes returned to France and old men there fell sweetly dead from a surfeit of aroma.

  Priests gave their dresses up again to the women, and the women

  ditched their alligator shoes in a hurry before their former owners turned up to claim them.

  The violins of the East Coast shores took flight from the fingers of their players, sucking in waltzes, laments, and reels, landed in Scotland, fell apart with wailing into their own wood and sinew and vanished into the trees

  and into the guts and howls of long-dead cats and the tails of knackered horses.

  Songs crammed themselves back down the throats of their singers, and a billion computers blew apart and homed in chip by chip

  on the brains of the inventors.

  Squashed mice were shot backwards out of traps, brides and grooms uncoupled like shunting trains, tins of sardines exploded, releasing their wiggling shoals; dinosaur bones whizzed like missiles out of museums back to the badlands, and bullets flew sizzling into their guns.

  Glass beads popped off gowns and moccasins and fell on Italy in a hail of dangerous colour, as white people disappeared over the Atlantic in a whoosh of pollution, vainly clutching their power tools, car keys, and lawn mowers which dove like metal fish back into the mines; black people too, recapturing syncopation; all flowers were suctioned budwise into their stems.

  The Native peoples made speedy clearance work of cowboys and longhorns, but then took off westward instead, chanting goodbye to ancestral plains, which were reclaimed by shaggy mastodons and the precursors of horses and everywhere

  the children shrank and began to drop teeth and grow hair.

  III.

  Well, there were suddenly a lot more flamingos before they in their turn became eggs, while people's bodies reverted through their own flesh genealogies like stepping stones, man woman man, container into contained, shedding language and gathering themselves in, skein after skein of protoplasm

  until there was only one of them, alone at the first naming;

  but the streetwise animals, forewarned and having learned the diverse meanings of the word dominion, did not show up,

  and Adam, inarticulate, deprived of his arsenal of proper nouns, returned to mud

  and mud itself became lava

  and lava the uncooled earth

  and the uncooled earth a swirl of white-hot energy, and the energy jammed itself into its own potential, and swirled like fluorescent bathwater

  down a non-existent wormhole.

  IV.

  I could end this with a moral, as if this were a fable about animals, though no fables are really about animals.

  I could say: Don't offend the bear, don't tell bad jokes about him, have compassion on his bear heart; I could say, Think twice

  before you speak.

  I could say, Don't take the name of anything in vain.

  But it's far too late for that, because you can't read this, because you can't remember the word for read, because you are dizzy with aphasia,

  because the page darkens and ripples because it is liquid and unbroken, because God has bitten his own tongue and the first bright word of creation hovers in the formless void

  unspoken

  Three Novels I Won't Write Soon

  1. WORM ZERO

  In this novel all the worms die. That would include the nematodes. Also anything wormlike in shape, though it may not be a worm proper. Should grubs be included? Should maggots? I'll know better once I get thoroughly into this thing.

  Worms, anyway. Those in the earth, and those in the water. Those inside fish. Those inside dogs. Those inside people, such as pinworms, roundworms, and tapeworms. They die, each and every one. It's not all downside.

  Or it's not all downside at first. But quite soon - because the earthworms are now defunct, and that's important - the soil is no longer circulating in the usual fashion. Worm dung is no longer extruded at the surface, wormholes no longer allow rain to penetrate. Valuable nutrients remain sealed in layers of subsoil. Formerly productive fields turn to granite. Crops become stunted and then won't grow at all. Famine gets going.

  Who shall we follow in the course of this doleful story? I vote for Chris and Amanda. They are a nice young couple who've had great sex in Chapter One, or possibly Chapter Two. Then realization has dawned on them, ruining their plans to renovate their kitchen and install a new round eco-friendly refrigerator that pops up out of the kitchen counter.

  They flee to their summer cottage, as civic order breaks down in the once-thriving town where they live and people start eating their cats and goldfish and the dried ornamental sunflowers in their dining-room floral arrangements.

  Amanda, who is the optimist of the pair, tries to grow some Tiny Tim tomatoes in the pathetic little patch of ground they once used only for petunias. Chris is a realist. He looks disaster squarely in its wormless face. (Yes - it's come to me! - the maggots have perished as well, which explains the various animal carcasses littering the cottage premises, gnawed on by crows and such, but not cleaned up neatly the way the maggots would once have done it.)

  Last scene: Amanda is trying to poke holes in the flint-hard soil with a knitting needle. Chris comes out of the house. He has a cup containing their last scrapings of decaf instant coffee. "At least we're together," says Amanda.

  Or should I have Chris yell, "Where are you, fucking worms, when we need you most?"

  Maybe Amanda should yell it. That would be unexpected, and might show that her character has developed.

  Now that this has happened - this cathartic, revealing, and somehow inspiriting yell - a small, still-wriggling worm might be discovered in the corner of the garden, copulating with itself. It would sound a note of plangent hope. I always like to end on those.

  2. SPONGEDEATH

  In this novel, a sponge located on a reef near the coast of Florida begins to grow at a very rapid rate. Soon it has reached the shore and is oozing inland, swallowing beach condos and gated communities as it goes. Nothing is able to stop it. It shows no respect for roadblocks, state police, or even bombs. A sponge on the rampage is a formidable foe. It has no central nervous system, not like us.

  "It's not like us," says Chris, from the top of his condo, where he has gone with his binoculars to reconnoitre. Amanda clings to him fearfully. What a shame this is - they just bought the condo, in which they had great sex in Chapt
er One, and now look. All that decor gone to waste.

  "Could we sprinkle salt on it?" Amanda asks, with appealing hesitation.

  "Honey, it's not a slug," says Chris masterfully.

  Should these be his last words? Should the sponge fall upon him with a soft but deadly glop? Or should he be allowed to defeat the monstrous bath accessory and save the day, for Florida, for America, and ultimately for humanity? The latter would be my own inclination.

  But until I know the answer to this question - until I'm convinced, in my heart, that the human spirit has the wherewithal to go head to headless against this malevolent wad of cellulose - because as a writer loyal to the truth of the inner self you can't fake these things - it might be as well not to begin.

  3. BEETLEPLUNGE

  I heard it as if in a dream. "Beetleplunge." I often get such insights, such gifts from the Unknown, They just come to me. As this one came.

  That word - if it is a word - might look quite stunning on the jacket of a book. Should it be "Beetle Plunge," two words? Or possibly "Beetle Plummet?" Or perhaps "Beetle Descent," which might sound more literary?

  Let's think outside the box. Scrap the title! This is now a novel without a name. Immediately I am freed from the necessity of having to do something about the beetles. I saw them so clearly when I was first thinking about this book - all the beetles in the world plunging over a cliff, like lemmings, driven by some mysterious instinct gone wrong - but they did pose a problem: that is, what was to follow as a result?

  Maybe I misheard. Maybe it was "Bottle Plunge." Maybe it was Chris and Amanda, in Chris's green Volkswagen, being forced off the road, and perilously close to the edge of an escarpment, by a black Mercedes driven by Amanda's drunken husband. Chris and Amanda had great sex in Chapter One, but Amanda's husband arrived in Chapter Two, in the Mercedes, just as Chris - who is their student gardener, at the gated community - was giving Amanda a post-coital explanation of the infestation of Coleoptera (red and black, with orange mandibles) currently ravaging the herbaceous borders.

  As Chris was pronouncing the word ravaging, the husband sprang in through the French doors, in an advanced state of inebriation, with murder in his heart. Chris grabbed Amanda by the hand and made a dash for his own battered vehicle, a green Ford pickup: I've reconfigured the Volkswagen, it wasn't muscular enough. Cut to the chase. (Chris will drive very skilfully despite the distracting screams let out by Amanda, and he will swerve at the last moment, and the husband, whom we have never liked - he was a dishonest oil-and-gas executive and a sadistic foot fetishist - will go over the cliff instead. Chris and Amanda will end up shakily but gratefully in each other's arms, exactly where we want them to be.)

  But maybe it wasn't "Bottle Plunge." Now that I think of it, the phrase may have been "Brutal Purge."

  Where does that get us? Down to earth. But which brutal purge? There are so many to choose from. Those in the past, those in the present, and, unfortunately, those yet to come. Anyway, if it's "Brutal Purge," I can't see a way forward. Chris and Amanda are very likeable. They have straight teeth, trim waists, clean socks, and the best of intentions. They don't belong in a book like that, and if they stray into it by accident they won't come out of it alive.

  Take Charge

  I)

  - Sir, their cannons have blown a hole in the ship. It's below the waterline. Water is pouring into the hold, Sir.

  - Don't just stand there, you blockhead! Cut a piece of canvas, dive down, patch it!

  - Sir, I can't swim.

  - Bloody hell and damn your eyes, what wetnurse let you go to sea? No help for it, I'll have to do it myself. Hold my jacket. Put out that fire. Clear away those spars.

  - Sir, my leg's been shot off.

  - Well do the best you can.

  II)

  - Sir, their anti-tank missiles have shredded the left tread on our tank.

  - Don't just sit there, you nitwit! Take a wrench, crawl underneath the tank, fix it!

  - Sir, I'm a gunner, not a mechanic. Anyway that wouldn't work.

  - Why in hell do they send me useless twits like you? No help for it, I'll have to do it myself. Cover me with your machine gun. Stand by with grenades. Hand me that spanner.

  - Sir, my arm's been burnt off.

  - Well do the best you can.

  III)

  - Sir, their diabolical worm virus has infected our missile command system. It's eating the software like candy.

  - Don't just lounge there, you dickhead! Get going with the firewalls, or whatever you use.

  - Sir, I'm a screen monitor, not a troubleshooter.

  - Shit in a bucket, what do they think we're running here, a beauty parlour? If you can't do it, where's the nerdy spot-faced geek who can?

  - Sir, it was him wrote the virus. He was not a team player, Sir. The missiles have already launched and they're heading straight for us.

  - No help for it, I'll have to do it myself. Hand me that sledgehammer.

  - Sir, we've got sixty seconds.

  - Well do the best you can.

  IV)

  - Sir, the makorin has malfunctioned and set off the pizzlewhistle. That has saddammed the glopzoid plapoodle. It may be the work of hostile nanobacons.

  - Don't just hover there, you clonedrone! Dopple the magmatron, reboot the fragebender, and insert the hi-speed crockblade with the pessimal-point attachment! That'll captcha the nasty little biobots!

  - Sir, the magmatron is not within my area of expertise.

  - What pixelwit deployed you? No help for it, I'll have to do it myself. Hand me the mutesuck blandplaster!

  - Sir, I have been brain-napped. My brain is in a jar in Uzbekistan, guarded by a phalanx of virtual gonkwarriors. I am speaking to you via simulation hologram.

  - Well do the best you can.

  v)

  - Sir, the wild dogs have dug their way into the food cache and they're eating the winter supplies.

  - Don't just squat there, you layabout! Pick up your stone axe and bash them on the head!

  - Sir, these are not ordinary wild dogs. They are red-eyed demon-spirit dogs, sent by the angry ancestors. Anyway, my stone axe has a curse on it.

  - By my mother's bones, what did I do to deserve such a useless duck-turd brother's nephew's son as you? No help for it, I'll have to do it myself. Recite the red-eyed demon-spirit dog-killing charm and hand me my consecrated sacred-fire-hardened spear.

  - Sir, they've torn my throat out.

  - Well do the best you can.

  Post-Colonial

  We all have them: the building with the dome, late Victorian, solid masonry, stone lions in front of it; the brick houses, three storey, with or without fretwork, wood, or painted iron, which now bear the word Historic on tasteful enamelled or bronze plaques and can be visited most days except Monday; the roses, big ones, of a variety that were not here before. Before what? Before the ships landed, we all had ships landing; before the men in beaver hats, sailor hats, top hats, hats anyway, got out of the ships; before the Native inhabitants shot the men in hats with arrows or befriended them and saved them from starvation, we all had Native inhabitants. Arrows or not, it didn't stop the men in hats, or not for long, and they had flags too, we all had flags, flags that were not the same flags as the flags we have now. The Native inhabitants did not have hats or flags, or not as such, and so something had to be done. There are the pictures of the things being done, the before and after pictures you might say, painted by the painters who turned up right on cue, we all had painters. They painted the Native inhabitants in their colourful, hatless attire, they painted the men in hats, they painted the wives and children of the man in hats, once they had wives and children, once they had three-storey brick houses to put them in. They painted the brave new animals and birds, plentiful then, they painted the landscapes, before and after, and sometimes during, with axes and fire busily at work, you can see some of these paintings in the Historic houses and some of them in the museums.

  We go
into the museums, where we muse. We muse about the time before, we muse about the something that was done, we muse about the Native inhabitants, who had a bad time of it at our hands despite arrows, or, conversely, despite helpfulness. They were ravaged by disease: nobody painted that. Also hunted down, shot, clubbed over the head, robbed, and so forth. We muse about these things and we feel terrible. We did that, we think, to them. We say the word them, believing we know what we mean by it; we say the word we, even though we were not born at the time, even though our parents were not born, even though the ancestors of our ancestors may have come from somewhere else entirely, some place with dubious hats and with a flag quite different from the one that was wafted ashore here, on the wind, on the ill wind that (we also muse) has blown us quite a lot of good. We eat well, the lights go on most of the time, the roof on the whole does not leak, the wheels turn round.

  As for them, our capital cities have names made from their names, and so do our brands of beer, and some but not all of the items we fob off on tourists. We make free with the word authentic. We are enamoured of hyphens, as well: our word, their word, joined at the hip. Sometimes they turn up in our museums, without hats, in their colourful clothing from before, singing authentic songs, pretending to be themselves. It's a paying job. But at moments, from time to time, at dusk perhaps, when the moths and the night-blooming flowers come out, our hands smell of blood. Just the odd whiff. We did that, to them.

  But who are we now, apart from the question Who are we now? We all share that question. Who are we, now, inside the we corral, the we palisade, the we fortress, and who are they? Is that them, landing in their illicit boats, at night? Is that them, sneaking in here with outlandish hats, with flags we can't even imagine? Should we befriend them or shoot them with arrows? What are their plans, immediate, long-term, and will these plans of theirs serve us right? It's a constant worry, this we, this them.