NIGHT STREAM III- NILE LILIES- 2004
[#122. UCB Catalog]
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DEADLY TRANSLATIONS
1.0 The Beast and Sister Mary
In the morning, he usually stood in his white boxer shorts surveying the vista from his ‘cave’ on a hill that sloped down from snow frosted mountains above, down to the vast plains of the Mojave Desert below. He stood in the doorway of his studio apartment as he’s done so often, waking usually before sunup. His place had once been a large, partially underground root cellar that had been ‘improved’ just enough for modern comfort with a magnificent view.
Usually, he’d be checking the conditions that would greet his morning run—ten miles or more. He had the lithe, tall form of a runner with some of the left over bulk of a body builder years past. Usually, after determining what kind of day would greet his run, he’d go back in, change into his running gear, stretch through that long sequence of yoga postures and then burst through his front door, across his flagstone patio, past the pinion and juniper trees that held the hill-- leaping, bounding down the switch-back path of sliding gravel as it cut cross country to the dirt road half mile down.
Usually. But this morning, he stood still at his portal, thin white boxers twisted too tightly by some violence across tensing muscles flexed by terror and threat. His chest heaved, not finding its breath, his flat stomach, the envy of athletic friends, now concave in vulnerable rigor. His face looked stricken as by a ghostly hand, eyes desperate to find his bearing.
He stood in his familiar place, alien, feral. A long hunting knife gripped in his right hand, dripping its dark red violence to bare, calloused feet upon the uneven stones of a fenceless yard. Unable to scream, he stood frozen having gazed too long upon the sin of his survival within—
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“As each instant slips into the past, we form memories of that instant, spontaneously creating a form of historical fiction. Poetry and mythic operatives distill essential elements from that vast array of memories--personal, genetic, environmental--to form culture and personhood. These are the play of spirit and matter investigated here.”
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1.1
The main house on this same property was built in the ‘40s as a retirement cabin above and to the east a bit of the separate root cellar. It is owned now by a Roman Catholic religious order as a place of private retreat for priests and nuns. Sister Mary was the elderly caretaker. She enjoyed the place and its solitude-- and the view, sometimes harsh, sometimes magnificent across hundreds of miles of open desert. Her door was only hundreds of feet from the patio and cave/studio rented by this quiet, tall man—runner, writer and translator of ancient religious texts whose rent paid most of the expenses for keeping such a house.
Sister Mary had become friends with this scholar/athlete during his time there. They kept to themselves mostly, but proximity brought a crossing of paths- and a kindly friendship evolved between nun and young scholar.
Jack Hartley had finished his first Ph.D. at 18 when he was at Georgetown, quite the savant. His gift was recognized in kinder-garden and he was put in schools for the gifted early. He finished his third doctoral degree by the age of 25.
His father was valued as a manager of a ranch owned by a banker. The banker and his family lived in the exclusive enclave of San Marino next to Pasadena closely removed from downtown L.A. But the ranch was not too far from town, about 50 miles. The banker’s family spent weekends and holidays out at the ranch in the mountains north of L.A. where Condors still flew and Piru creek found its head waters. It was great for Christmas and summers. That’s where Jack grew up. The banker had arranged for most of Jack’s special studies. Now in his 30’s, Jack still preferred the quiet reclusion of country near the tree line of these desert mountains well east of the ranch.
It was here that Jack wrote reports to the Vatican, his principal employer, as well as continuing his own research. Jack’s special fascination was languages, especially old languages like Sanskrit, or not-so-old languages like Aramaic, the language of Christ. He helped keep the Vatican Curia up to date on recent scientific theories about ancient religions and the development of human culture.
St. Andrew Benedictine monastery not far east of Jack’s cave apartment is located just close enough for him to faintly hear the bells that call the monks to prayer. Just above that, in sight of Sister’s patio, the magnificent huge boulders of the Devil’s Punch Bowl bump against one another, as the infamous San Andres Fault comes to the surface of the earth before it dives under these mountains. These mountains, punched up radically vertical from their own rugged foothills, protect coastal Los Angeles from the real desert to the northeast. (Maybe now, it’s the desert that needs protection...)
Sister had often seen Jack testing the environment of his run as he stood before his early morning door, sometimes sipping a cup of coffee. She smiled in these moments at her successful life of celibacy- his vigor and health, happy to have such a good neighbor and friend. The years slowly twist her bones now- ankles bulge a bit and her brow has become more prominent above a still gracefully curved nose. For her, muscles no longer regenerate. What little fat ever was has fled the planes of her face and body. She is the picture of an ancient matriarch, confident in her stance and the joy she believed was the underpinning of life.
But this morning, something, everything was wrong.
As she puttered about with the usual morning chores of watering the garden before the day’s 100 degree+ heat arrived, she noticed Tom standing rigidly with arms out holding something in his right hand. At first, she thought he was simply standing in prayer before Creation and she liked that, felt her influence might be having some effect on the rather too intellectual and practical young man. But when she glanced up a bit later, she was just in time to see him bound across his patio and disappear down the side of the mountain, not in his usual sweats and expensive running shoes-- he was barefoot and naked but for his white boxers.
Sister Mary was not a busybody. She had spent her life weeding out the usual human pettiness, any sort of ill will. She was not the type to intrude in somebody else’s privacy. Her old, disciplined body attended to her own faults rather than everybody else’s. But she had a terrible feeling-- like at night in the desert where one might hear a rabbit being killed by some predator- a feeling like that creature’s high pitched scream, unforgettable and disturbing, haunting even to more hardened souls-- whipped through her being.
After a while, worry and curious concern about Jack got the better of her. The mid morning heat of spring was coming on when she decided to check on her neighbor. On the path to the ‘Cave’ there was a bell about half way down that let the occupant below know that someone was on the way for a visit. She rang the bell and waited a moment before proceeding. When she turned the corner of the studio, she heard a terrible noise. Flies. The kind of buzzing that announces only death.
Sister Mary proceeded to the door that hung open as she peered inside. Hundreds of flies agitated the room as her eyes adjusted to the gloom within. First she gasped, and then, against the discipline of years, she could not stop a deep and horrified scream.
She stumbled back along the front of the studio. Nearly falling more than once, she made her way to the house. Called Emergency Services. Then, grabbing her walking stick she fled the front door, stumbling and trotting as fast as her 76 years allowed to the nearest neighbor.
Well known and loved in this spread out community, she was taken in without hesitation. Though still shaken and terrified by what she had seen, she kept her mind about her as she recounted her story to neighbors and police. Before saying a word about it to anyone, she had decided to follow a tiny whisper in her mind and heart. She steadfastly failed to mention that she had seen Jack Hartley at all that morning. Or, what she had seen in the studio before she began to scream, or tried to run- just a large pool of blackening blood on the floor and the near total destruction inside the apartment. She did not say that she had seen the back wall of the cave/studio seem to move as if it were a door closing on a dusty hinge of light —hard to see through the flies, gloom and horror in that room, hard to imagine, much less understand. She needed to think about all of this on her own.
Her trust in Jack Hartley was such that she would withhold judgments as to what had happened in that cave and was confident that he would be able to take care of himself out in the desert, somehow. She did however call her Order to report and have them send some one out to stay with her.
Sister Mary was hugely relieved when Sister Celestine arrived. Celestine, at 6 feet and a solid 200 soccer and basketball pounds, is smart enough, street smart, and a dear, trusted friend. Sister Mary had been the novice mistress when Celestine first started religious life and the two had become friends early-- shared many adventures through the years. It’s to Celestine that Mary, later that night, revealed privately what she had seen of Jack and the moving wall-- and what she had seen, covered by flies, corrupting the studio floor.
What do you think it was? Asked Celestine.
I’m not sure.
Have you ever seen anything like it?
Yes.
What was that?
I don’t want to say.
What do you mean?
Saying the name might attract its attention again. I don’t want it coming back here.
Alright. Tell me another time. When we are not here. Suffice it to say you think there might be something supernatural about all this? That Jack was involved in something, perhaps-- unholy?
No, I don’t mean that. Not intentionally. But there was a cruel suffering in the air when I got down there. Maybe whatever or whoever it was went back into …from wherever it came.
Though the studio was still cordoned off and entered only by forensic personnel, all they had to examine was the wreck of the room inside and large black tracks of congealing blood. Whatever, or whoever had bled there was gone by the time the police arrived. Sister Mary had decided that discretion was once again the better part and said nothing to neighbors or authorities about what made the smears of blood. Only that she thought she had seen a body…
Later, she accompanied Sister Celestine to Home Depot in Palmdale to purchase heavy steel angle-irons. That night, when everyone was gone, they had one more duty to perform before they could rest. Though no one on the forensics team suspected that it had moved, Sister Celestine bolted the back wall of the studio securely to the floor with the extra heavy angle-irons as Sister Mary intoned blessings and exorcisms from the official rituale. Holy Water. She used sacred sage as aspergis and incense to purify the room.
To be continued...
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Artists process information differently than do intellectuals and other more pragmatic people. An artist, at least this artist, ‘takes in’ information for a long time, often intuitively choosing what is necessary for the ultimate artistic expression that results from such preparation. The artist can be involved in all kinds of occupations, including travel, metaphysical practice, labor and usually makes acquaintances in every quarter- at least this artist did. All of it feeds the inner vision/experience that will ultimately express itself in the art. Often the ‘inner experience’ is unrecognized until it does express and develop itself outside the artist.
This process might involve days, months or years. This series of presentations starting above with “Night Stream” and “Deadly Translations: Old Sister Mary and the Beast” is an example of an artistic process that uses both images and ideas; images, commentary, stories and poems to grind a lens through which to better perceive and form our lives.
‘Grind’ is a good word for this long process. It began as a dedicated intention in 1973. Now in the fall of 2011, I hope this series begun above will be the final integration of elements developed in the NEPSIS FOUNDATION: http://ecai.org/NEPSIS/
