The Thirty Days of Bellesgrant and Zerxaquarius
In fury--haggard--flailing--weary. Thus were his energies depleted. There was confusion of a bipolar nature. He could not choose an extreme, and both claimed him. They divided him up between each other. They cooed, he gibbered. They named him: one Bellesgrant, the other Zerxaquarius. Naturally, he did not know which to prefer. At times he was Bellesgrant, at times Zerxaquarius. More and more, he came to be both simultaneously; he accomplished this by splitting into two distinct identities, by no means mutually exclusive, but independent and unique of each other nonetheless.
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There were great wars in the ancient times. Bellesgrant fought them. He examined their qualities, and reproduced them in his mind, and rebuilded them anew: modern, lethal. Bellesgrant was history's tactician. His insight into the martial philosophies was so keen and artful that had he been both generals in the first war, there would only ever have been fought one war, and that war would still now be raging in stalemate. His every defense perfectly checked his every offensive, and his every counteroffensive was perfectly checked by his every reciprocal defense.
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Zerxaquarius filled out forms. There were blank spaces on these forms, crying for calligraphic opacity. He made every underlined space mean something. He gave each its due, and its proper respect. He deliberated all the potential inksweepings through those spaces (positioned carefully atop those lines), their form suggested by neatly printed subline (or sometimes supra-) instructions. Through a complex process, he calibrated the journey of his pen, the exact yet meandering route, the country through which that nib would trek. He negotiated with native bearers, calculated distance so not to overshoot the objective, maintained the integrity of his ink supply (for ink was his medium, and no other would suffice).
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This was what Bellesgrant carved in that tree: I am immortal. When the tree was chopped and converted to lumber, Bellesgrant traced the distribution of its boards and planks. Each building, and every furniture piece, and all the objects fashioned from that tree: Bellesgrant burned them. He inhaled the smoke of all the blazes. His lungs turned black, and shriveled.
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One day in the garden, Zerxaquarius sipping his wine imagined that a fine day was: precisely one such as he was experiencing: yet the day did not to him feel so fine. He pondered this for a while sipping his wine until the wine was finished. Then he went to sleep and dreamed of Bellesgrant.
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Bellesgrant waited in the shadows. Finally, a petite woman walked by, and Bellesgrant leaped out, took her struggling limbs in his arms, closed her in his body, entered back into the shadows. There he subdued her. He pierced her bright eyes with the twin brass wires he kept coiled in his belt. He sought the secret of her brain. She did not relinquish it. He wondered what Zerxaquarius was doing right now. This woman's brain was frustrating him. He devoured it, and when he was sated he played with her breasts.
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There is something perverse in the way that man watches me, thought Zerxaquarius. The man in question had been watching Zerxaquarius for over an hour, without blinking or nodding or changing the position of his buttocks against the hard chair surface. That chair is constructed of steel and cold iron, thought Zerxaquarius. His muscles must be in agony by now (as mine are). But the man still did not move. Zerxaquarius watched him for a long time.
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In the witching hour, Bellesgrant carried a heavy sack. It undulated languidly, bulging and flattening in unexpected places. Bellesgrant utilized his own sharp fingers to dig a hole deep in the soft loam. He tossed the sack, which was by now writhing, into the hole. Quickly, Bellesgrant refilled the hole, then made away into the woods as dawn approached.
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Occasionally Zerxaquarius induced a promising girl to fall in love with him. He utilized her for purposes of masturbation, for he found it much pleasanter to stimulate himself in the orifice of a young girl than in the orifice of his own hand. When he broke the girl's heart (as well as her hymen), he was careful to effect a lasting and utterly permanent damage, so as to be certain that she never would be happy with another man. This increased his pleasure in the sexual act. He felt he had one up on Bellesgrant.
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There was a place Bellesgrant went to when he needed of rest. It was a place of bones and cobwebs, mildewed, mossy, rank. The bed there was soft, however, and the blanket provided a surprising share of warmth considering how patched and thin was its material. Yet Bellesgrant slept fitfully. He was comfortable, and this made him uneasy.
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Once Zerxaquarius stubbed his toe and wept for three hours as a consequence. He vowed never to stub his toe again, but it happened again, and this time he wept for four hours. He did not know what to do, for it seemed quite possible that he would stub his toe a third time, and what if he never stopped weeping? This was a potentiality he could not allow for, so he borrowed an axe from his neighbour (an executioner by trade) and with it removed his toe. Bellesgrant would approve of my solution, he thought. He returned the axe promptly.
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The liquids surged into frangible forms. The metals fucked the light prismatic. He rose up through the trees to look out over the landscape, but saw only the white beauty of the villas. His body varied in density as an oscillating function of time. He wept, and this was painful, for his tears were crystal.
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Zerxaquarius hired a servant to clean after him. The servant, of indeterminate gender, face pallid and immobile, followed Zerxaquarius throughout the mansion, mute, somber, in its hand a dustpan and a rag. Zerxaquarius grew so accustomed to the servant's presence that he forgot he had hired a servant. One day Zerxaquarius thought, I ought to hire a servant to clean after me. That very day he did so. When the servant, of indeterminate gender, arrived, it joined a troupe which followed Zerxaquarius, making the number thirteen. The others, superstitious of the number, killed it that night while it slept. They were efficient in their disposal of the body, since cleaning was their métier.
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On a road, Bellesgrant encountered a boy with broken legs. The boy breathed only faintly, too weak even to raise its head, yet it regarded Bellesgrant with insolent eyes. Bellesgrant took sticks and tied the boy's legs into splints. The boy found a voice to say, Thank you. Bellesgrant did not reply, but continued on his way.
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Zerxaquarius devoured an entire pheasant in one sitting, yet he was still hungry. He went to the icebox, but there were no more pheasants to be had. His craving for pheasant consumed him. He searched the icebox again. He thought, Save me Bellesgrant. Zerxaquarius pondered the pheasant situation until, that night, he slept. The next morning he resumed his pondering.
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Bellesgrant fell through a space which was located in the center of a gorge. There was more space below him as yet than above, but this proportion was steadily reversing itself. Soon he would be at the ground, and the lip of the gorge from which he had leapt would be but a tiny memory, never regained, for he knew that no one may climb the cliff but only leave it, as he had done. It occurred to him that Zerxaquarius might be up there, but it was too late to meet him. Perhaps Zerxaquarius would be down there. All the while, he continued to fall.
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The poem spoke of beauty. Zerxaquarius remained unmoved. He turned the page. The next poem spoke of eternity. Zerxaquarius remained unmoved, and turned the page. The next poem spoke of seven diamonds in seven corners. It spoke of: the faces in the facets; the cleaving silence; the lethal angle; the eye which migrates through the structure. Zerxaquarius turned the page.
