Story of the Month: All My Kinsmen

All My Kinsmen
Inspired by a Darling Friend’s Dream (Friday, February 6, 2004)


I woke up. There was nothing in the room. It was abandoned a thousand years ago by its residents. There were no wavy lilac flowers on the curtain, there was no curtain either, no window, no sun far away beyond that window, no sky, not a single cloud on it, nor some flying black figure which might be detected as a bird, a raven, or a dove, a red-breast, or a nightingale. I took the ancient path before my feet; I passed through burnt-out candles, my heels crushing their cold waxed drops on the rug beneath: I could leisurely watch that beauty lying there just like some enticing lass of crimson body all adorned with faded yet enchanting blue flowers. It was as if she had been virgin for a thousand years: not a single soul had raped that innocent dust. However, I had to. I could lucidly hear the groans, see the desperate efforts of that lonely delicate body, but I had to subdue it. The shivering warps and wefts were finally surmounted. The dust had been scattered then, the primordial candle drops felt wet as if crying over the lost virginity, the rug had given up her secrets in total surrender. She was mine. My feet had left marks on her… What was that coiled idol hung from the ceiling, then? It carried some sinister flavor; some gaudy look was emitted from those oval eyes, or I’d better say, bare holes with frills around. The hermaphrodite creature was gawking at me, sniffing the air with capacious holes of that obtruded wrinkled nose, lowering that hulking head to inspect my shadowy figure. I went by promptly to the entrance of the cellar. There was no door. I easily glided down, as in a long-conquered night, or the half-opened arms of some resting lover, gazing forward, fervently.

I wake up. It’s half past eight,
So so late!
Then my fate,
Has to wait!
If only I could get rid of that mental habit of rhyming the entire world! I guess I’m a born poet, supposed to combine all the assumed contrasts in one single stroke of doggerel! I’ve gotta wait, though. Wait for some real inspiration, maybe some muse of silver wings,
Who just sings,
And brings,
Some diamond rings,
Of some quiet kings,
To my sacred soul,
Poisoned and stole!
My mom always says there’s a strain of madness in all of us. It’s in fact some ancient heritage, she declares, from long long ago, when we had to emigrate from Russia to America. My gal also says I’m a bit odd, especially when it comes to romance and such stuff. She says I don’t get into it like other guys, that I’ve got my own particular way, and that she’s quite pleased with having such a distinct chum around. I don’t know what she exactly means by that, but every now and then I feel this strange impulse within me, I get whimsical at times, or I feel a sudden urge to get enormously passionate about something, no matter what. My mother says I used to dig the ground relentlessly, with a little shovel, when I was but five or six years old, to get the worms out so that they wouldn’t get stifled under the dirty stones. Reasoning had apparently been futile. I never gave it up. Poor worms must have dried up to death under the sizzling summer sun, but I must have had a faint understanding of that all.

The stairs were unsafe to rely on. There was a thick layer of damp earth on each, and a smell like that of fresh mould, but I had to trust. I had no other choice but to keep faith in that treacherous prostitute with flatulent worn-out body and perilous flanks: My trembling nude feet groped down forty curved stairs, a rash pulse of heart dedicated to each limb of the whore. Down there, my toes revealed the ground sure, but soggy. I stopped to grow some sense of orientation. It was blank, yet full of frenzied echoes of water dropping incessantly down as if on ice, or some other crystal liquid. I pricked my ears. No other signal could be spotted. The low-ceiling enclosure had made me crouch over my knees; I crept toward the sound, my feet numb with frosty earth, my eyes developing fantasies of creatures crawling in the dark, faceless fiends with empty eyes, no tongue to talk, no ear to hear. Yet, I confided in my ears to hear their voice: dancing drops and drooling beasts besieged my soul. Darkness obliterated my sanity. I cried crazily for some cherub of light; however, I got some deafening moan from hell: echoes packed my head. I collapsed at the sight of lame ogres squatting in two-inch recesses of the wall: hundreds of forlorn sighs had got united in beseeching tones: “Help us out!”

It was my twenty-first birthday last night, and I’m glad, this morning, to wake up not as an under-age anymore, but as someone who could vote, drink in banned bars, or be taken as an acknowledged member of Freemasonry! My gal gave me gloves; my dad, socks, and my mom…Guess what? She approached me with a mysterious smile on her thin lips, announcing to all, “I’m going to give you something especial, my little son, and I bet you’ll be absolutely surprised” Everybody anxiously waited to see this unique gift: it was a little shovel! I burst into laughter; I felt a quick shudder in my spine, though. Something disturbed me, don’t know what, and everybody got naughty to utter naive remarks about how sweet I would seem if only I would take them out to the little family garden, and show them how I used to dig a hole when I was a nice small lad! I told them that I didn’t recall anything about such silliness, while feeling a strong desire to dig, though. When the party was over, I sneaked off to the backyard and began to dig,
With hands big,
Under the stars,
Stained with scars!

Light had delved into the wall. The pale door was opened. A soft blow of moist cold wind caressed my face. There appeared a green shape, as if emerging out of some jade miasma. It was not a holy tree as that of Siddhartha, nor some piece of shining emerald; neither a symbol of fertility nor a token of prosperity. It was but a woman. A devastated statue of something once gorgeous. The death-pallid green eyes were staring at me through furrowed ajar lids. The face was that of a princess; the nobility of silhouette and the petite female lines of chin were evident enough. If only my modest look dared to penetrate that dense solid film covering her countenance... I would discover more about her features. She seemed young; much younger than me, yet I had no confidence in my distorted impression. She was poorly attired in some long green robe; it was not tattered, yet torn here and there, as if in a despondent defiance. I could hardly see her trunk in that feebly-lighted cave, yet my eyes detected some ruby outline of a bleeding brand on her left shoulder. I deduced she had been brought there just a few days ago. Surveying me for a brief moment, she uttered some muffled grunt like that of a dying deer. “Hello,” I articulated at last. She was mute. I just repeated my greetings. She walked slowly, very slowly toward me. “You are my kinsman,” she whimpered, clasping both my hands with frantic fingers. I shuddered at the chilled touch. “You are my kinsman!” she squeezed my wrists; pain prickled my palms. I struggled to release myself, but she peeled away my skin with her long blue nails. “You are my kinsman!” she was repeating in arid tones of awe, “Help me! You must help me!” all of a sudden, she let my clammy hands loose, then fell on the ground. The filth-plastered robe blanketed her trim figure. “They’ll cut my fingers,” she groaned, “Hack my breasts,” her face downwards. “Help me out! Help me out!” she sobbed. I could not speak a word. I could only afford to mumble “My Lord”. She managed to stand up, “You are my kinsman,” she said resolutely. “You can get me out.” She glared at me for a long time without batting one bleached eyelash. “You will help me, won’t you?” finally she quivered, her once-pretty face smudged with tears. “Who are you?” I cautiously inquired, my heart hopping in my chest. She parted her withered thin lips, a ghost of a grin on her marble face, “I’m your mother.”

My gal believes there are times when I get stinking peculiar, practicing rituals rather out of order. Last night, for instance, I asked her out to dinner in a Russian restaurant, “to vivify some sense of following my ancestors,” I explained to her. I just wanted to fully surprise her, hence I put on some Russian costume, like that of Russian dancers in ballets, and wore a false beard and moustache to complete the scene. She didn’t recognize me in the first place. I had to partly remove my moustache to reveal my true identity. At first, she softly reproached me for such bizarre shows, but then, she had got truly surprised as I had planned. Arm in arm, we went to the restaurant in a far corner of a dark street. There were no neon or light bulbs as you can see in a typical urban restaurant; instead, there were candle lights everywhere right from the wooden door to the rug-decked tables. As a matter of fact, I had never dined in a Russian restaurant before, and I was as amazed at the uncanny ornaments there. My gal was gaping all the time at the coming and going lads clad in gaudy apparels, damsels in blue,
Just pure and true,
Their heads adorned,
Tout le monde,
Their hands bright,
Their feet light,
Their aprons torn,
Their babes not born!
We sat at a small table with short legs and soft skin.
My gal was all the time looking around, and I was about to get mad, and even sad, ‘cause not a single one of those
Russian-babbling souls,
Looked at me in downright doubt,
Or sent my gal and me out!
Instead, we were brought a long menu of scribbled odd names which part French, part Polish, part Russian, was managed to make sense in awkward English. We ordered at random, and my gal resumed staring at the empty air behind my hairy head. I just got annoyed by her hypnotized half-closed eyes, and asked her if she would prefer me to get rid of all the false hair on my face, but she replied she wouldn’t care about it and I might keep it there. Her curious eyes were glued again to the air behind my head. I got impatient and turned back to share her look. “That face seems familiar, doesn’t it?” she asked in tones of triumph. I mused for a while, trying to figure out
What she was exactly talking about,
Then out of blue,
I saw a clue!
The waitress came to our table, and put a large bowl of some green liquid before us. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but her face was dazzlingly similar to my mom’s! She was younger, though, and more appealing. I don’t know why something smelt queer at her presence; some repelling odor like that of mould or fetid wet soil filled my nose. I looked at my gal: she seemed absolutely indifferent to the smell; rather, she was breathlessly listening to the girl’s prattle. After the waitress’ departure, my gal told me how excited she was, of being there, of being with me, and of having me as her pal. I asked her why she was so keyed up about it all, and she enlightened me by a thorough description of what the waitress had just told her about the chow we had ordered: that was a very special Russian dish, made of a young goat’s breasts, and was perfectly seasoned with the powder of dried up plants grown only on Russian steppes. She looked at me, like an old adventurer, and dipped the large spoon in the bowl. I don’t know why I felt sick, but anyhow, I excused myself and came out. She just wanted to come with me, but I requested her to keep her seat, and eat her meat. I don’t know why I felt utterly abandoned when walking from candle lights to lamp posts. I guess it’s the effect of that old lunacy strain. It’s looming out, every now and then, as some sordid fetish of antiquity, some insane desire to dive into nameless passions. I do believe in night’s wonders, though, in her
Cuddling cures,
Gentle gasps,
Lulling lures…
I feel weary and cold,
Yet brave and bold,
For you to save,
Out of that cave.