#Perfection Wife to Rictus

[talesfromthegraavim]

(UNFINISHED) WHAT IT MEANS TO BE PERFECTION

When she was born she had a brother, Miss Giddy said. She didn’t remember what it was like to have a brother anymore, she didn’t remember her Whelper- some Wretched woman who gathered too many debts and paid them on her back- but Miss Giddy said that’s where Perfection got her looks. Her eyes like Aqua-Cola, and her hair like rust, and her unmarred, unmutated face and body. Miss Giddy told her that The Immortan Joe saw her in the Whelping Bay and Chose Her Special, that He Himself had named her Perfection and brought her to the High Vault to be a Wife for his own son when she was just seventy-seven days old. 

Perfection had just turned five years, and when she asked Miss Giddy what a year was the woman had explained that a year was three hundred and sixty-five days. Perfection had lived three hundred and sixty-five days, five times over. The Immortan Joe had brought her chrome gifts: a sparkly suncatcher and a soft thing that Miss Giddy said was called a Teddy Bear, and a whole watermelon just for Perfection. The Wives had come together and sewn her a new blanket and slippers, and asked The Immortan Joe if they could have ham that night to celebrate. He had nodded and ruffled her hair with a chuckle, “Anything for my Perfection, of course.”

So Perfection and The Wives and Rictus (who Miss Giddy said was eleven years old, and she was going to be his Wife when they were grown, and give him many babies) and even the Immortan Joe all sat down to a Special Meal while Miss Giddy played happy songs on the piano. Perfection was thrilled, Special Meals only ever happened when The Wives were going to have a baby. The Immortan Joe always did Special Meals when they told him, even if the baby died later or was born wrong. None of the babies that she gave Rictus were going to die early or be born wrong, Perfection decided. Her babies would be Perfection, just like her. 

When Perfection was nine she was allowed to sit in The Immortan Joe’s lap during meals and sing for him while he ate. She loved The Immortan, and she loved that Rictus stared at her the whole time she sang. Her husband should pay attention to her always, even if he was more like a kid her age than a Grown Man of fourteen. They played together alone now, since she was older and he had once even kissed her! He blushed afterward and said that he was sorry.

“Why are you sorry, Ricky? I’m going to be your Wife and have your sons.”

Rictus blushed harder and ducked his head between his knees, “Dad said that I haveta wait until we get married to give you any babies, and I heard one of the Warboys talking about how doing… That. What I just did. Is how you get babies.”

Wildly Worldly Perfection had asked Miss Giddy last year how to get a baby, because The Immortan Joe had said it would be time for her to have Rictus’s babies soon. “Just a few more years, my Perfection. Then you will be my daughter, and give me fine Gransons.”

“Oh, Ricky! It takes more work than that! And besides, I can’t give you babies yet. Miss Giddy and The Immortan said it isn’t time.”

He peeked at her over his knees, eyebrows raised, “Really?”

Perfection laughed and butted her hip against his, “Yeah, I asked Miss Giddy how to get a baby and she explained it all.”

Sitting close to Rictus, Perfection could see the bump in his pants that Miss Giddy said was called an erection, and in a fit of boldness she placed her soft, pale hand on his thigh. Rictus flinched hard away from her, eyes wide and gasping, “Persha! What are you doing?!”

“Miss Giddy said that I have to touch you. To make your erection go away. With my hands or put it inside me, and some people put it in their mouths, or their butts!”

Rictus was stricken, “But you… You poop. From your butt? And I piss from there, why does it go in your mouth?!”

Perfection shrugged, she really didn’t understand it either, but Miss Giddy said that it was supposed to feel good and she told him as much. Rictus only looked more confused and he chewed on his thumb as he thought about it. “I don’t know about all that other stuff, but I know kissing felt good. And I like when you hug me. And when you sing. Maybe we should save everything else for when you can give a baby?”

“Okay,” Perfection said brightly. She just wanted Rictus to be happy, and obviously he wasn’t happy when she tried to touch him like The Wives and Miss Giddy said you could touch your husband. “D’you wanna hug? And then I’ll sing the Mountain song?”

Rictus nodded and opened his big arms, her future husband was so strong, he could lift her in the air with one hand. Perfection sat squarely on his thighs, her own skinny arms wrapped tightly around his neck. He smelled like the Garage, motor oil and sweat, she loved when he smelled like that even if Rictus thought he was stinky. They sat like that for a while until Perfection noticed him squirming, and she readjusted to sit in his lap just like she did when she sang for The Immortan Joe. 

Softly, slowly, she hummed “Listen, baby. Ain't no mountain high. Ain't no valley low.

Ain't no river wide enough, baby.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later that evening Perfection was seated on The Immortan’s lap, being gingerly fed fresh strawberries from his fingers when Rictus -who had been staring at his Wife and his Dad with a gaping mouth until Corpus had told him he’d catch spiders if he didn’t shut his gob- cleared his throat and looked frantically from his Dad to the table. 

The Immortan sighed, the heave of his belly threatening to unseat Perfection, who scrabbled at his shoulder and twisted her fingers in his hair to hold on. He favored her with a soft smile and untangled her fingers before addressing his son. “Rictus Erectus, you will stand proud and look me in the eyes like a man if you wish to speak.”

Rictus stood and took a shaky breath, “Dad…”

“Speak up, boy.” Perfection smoothed away invisible dust off of The Immortan’s chest. It wouldn’t do for him to be upset tonight, Glorious was going to tell him about her baby later and The Immortan didn’t give as good Special Meals when his sons had upset him. 

“Dad. How do you get a baby?”

The Immortan Joe stiffened and Corpus began to cackle madly, “How- heh-heh-gak-heh-heh- Rictus have you not had a woman yet?! Even I’d had a woman at your age! And I’m in a fucking chair!”

The Immortan glared at Corpus and his hand on Perfection’s hip tightened until she whimpered at the sting, “Corpus Colossus be SILENT. Rictus Erectus, I will teach you later tonight. You’re old enough to observe The Wives at their duty. But not around my Perfection, your Perfection. Women are jealous creatures, son.”

He gently lifted Perfection off his lap and sent her off to bed with a kiss to her hair. She swished herself down the table by Corpus and whispered, “You don’t need to be mean, Cory.”

Corpus rolled his head to the opposite shoulder and whispered back, “Wouldn’t need to if he wasn’t such a baby, sweet Perfection. Goodnight.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perfection was dreaming of a Green Place hidden in the mountains where she ran through pools with her lost brother and played hidey-seek with Rictus through a grove of lemon trees when she heard a humming. It wasn’t bees, though she had seen hives in the boughs, and when she looked around the grove she noticed that Rictus was nowhere to be seen. The humming grew louder, and she willed her eyes to open. 

Rictus was sitting on his heels in the corner of her room, his frantic rocking making jumpy shadows in the moonlight that streamed through her window. He flicked a glance at her, catching her confused gaze and, with a muffled screech, rocked harder. He was chewing his thumbnail, humming tunelessly and staring at her like she was scary.

“Ricky? What’s wrong?” Perfection had never seen him like this, and she silently slipped from her bed to kneel in front of him. 

“Uh-Uh. No. Won’t. He hurts them, Persha! Uh-Uh. Won’t,” Rictus stared resolutely at the wall behind her, refusing to meet her eyes, still rocking on his heels and humming as if the movement and sound would drive the things he’d seen away into the waste.

Perfection remembered that The Immortan was going to show Rictus what The Wives’ Duty was. Why would the Wives’ Duty upset him so, she didn’t understand, wasn’t it meant to be wonderful and filling and an honor? She had to get him calm, Rictus’s feelings mattered more than her questions. “Ricky, I’m going to touch your hand okay? And I’ll sing the Mountain song. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Perfection waited until he nodded to touch him, sometimes touch frightened him worse and she remembered the time The Immortan Joe had beaten him for accidentally pushing her before she knew to ask. She’d resolved then not to touch him without asking first, he hadn’t deserved to be hurt over her, even if she was Perfection. She gently rubbed one finger over the back of his clenched hands as she sang and sang and sang. It felt like forever, and Perfection had nearly sung herself back to sleep when Rictus relaxed and pulled her against his chest like a Teddy Bear. 

“Persha. If I gotta do the things Dad does to the Wives I don’t want you to be mine. I won’t hurt you like that. Dad said she were happy, that she loved it, but I could see that Righteous was hurting. She cried and yelled and flinked away and it was awful! And then he said he changed his mind! That you’s big enough now to practice Wifing!”

Perfection was confused, “But that’s how you get babies? And I can’t give you a baby yet?”

“He said it don’t matter, practice makes perfect and Perfection makes sons!” Rictus started to rock again and his breath came quicker, “An’ if I don’t do it he’ll take you away from me! He’ll make you his Wife, Like Glorious and Righteous and Heavenly and Merciful and Pleasant. He’ll hurt you if I don’t, and I’ll hurt you if I do and… And.. NO! NO! I WON’T!”

Perfection wriggled loose enough to wrap her limbs around Rictus’ torso as tight as she could, “Shhh. Shhh. It’s okay Ricky. I love you, and if The Immortan says you have to do it for me to be your wife, we will. It’ll be okay. It’ll be chrome. I just wanna be your wife, and I bet we can make it not hurt, It’s okay, Ricky. It’s okay.”

They sat there like that until Perfection figured out how to keep Rictus’ promise to The Immortan and help him relax. She hushed and rocked with him until he looked down at her with steel in his eyes, resigned but determined, and pressed a clumsy kiss to her lips. 

She kissed him back, that’s all she could do. It was not graceful, their first foray into lovemaking, far from it. But they, a child of nine and a child of fourteen, managed. Rictus was timid, deathly afraid to make her flinch or cry as he had seen his father do, and Perfection -while well-versed in the theory- struggled against demands made of her body that she was too small and too young to accommodate. It wasn’t until dawn, when the pair was exhausted and tearful that they could relax. Rictus spooned his naked body around hers and sobbed into her hair, while Perfection could only hum and rub mindless nothing-shapes into his encircling arm, eyes on the wall, her gaze a thousand miles away. 

Part of Perfection was happy, Rictus loved her enough to do what it took to keep her. But she felt sick and stretched like old rubber. Sore and wobbly and too tired to do anything but appreciate her husband’s warmth at her back. 

In the four years since The Immortan Joe’s drunken demand of his son Perfection had learned to enjoy making love to Rictus. He refused to call it any of the names the Warboys did: fucking or tumbling or even simply “sex”. Rictus said that he wouln’t tumble Perfection, or fuck her or sex her, he would only make more love with her.  But she got her First Bleed just days after her thirteenth birthday, and Miss Giddy had convinced The Immortan to wait to announce their marriage for a year. 

“She’s more likely to survive if she’s past the first year of her bleed. Strong sons are not born from weak mothers, My Immortan. Your late Wife is proof of that.”

Miss Giddy meant Delight. Delight was a sweet girl, just older than Perfection, with tight curls of black hair and rich, dark skin that The Immortan Joe had plucked from the pit of Wretched. Perfection had liked her smiling brown eyes, and appreciated having someone her own age around for the few months before Delight had fallen pregnant and died pushing out a deformed daughter. Perfection was reminded daily by The Immortan that she would never fail like that, and she didn’t need to be afraid of having a Mutie or a girl, because she was Perfection. She was better than any Wife from the Wretched, because He Himself had chosen her for Rictus when she was a baby. She would have a thousand strong, smart sons to grab the sun like their grandfather before them, and before that she would watch over his Vault with Rictus as Alpha and Omega. Rictus’s eyes had never strayed from his Wife, but The Immortan Joe, her Second Greatest Love, was a jealous man and only allowed Rictus to guard The Vault from the outside while his Wife In All But Name held sway over the Wives inside. 

Perfection ruled over her little queendom with an iron fist, sharp eyes and ears like a hawk. There was no whisper she did not hear, and no secret that she kept from The Immortan. The Immortan Joe loved her best, above even his own Wives, calling her to sit in his lap and sing or be fed from his plate, though it drove Rictus to distraction, fearing even now that The Immortan would steal his Wife away. But The Immortan had his Five Wives, and Perfection was for Rictus. 

As soon as Miss Giddy could be convinced to Kibosh the rule about making love to her husband before marriage. 

She and Rictus had gotten used to making love as often as they liked and sleeping in Perfection’s bed since the morning after they had first made love and Perfection waddled in like an Oldworld penguin with a sore bottom and stiff legs. Miss Giddy, silly fusspot that she was, had wanted to put a stop to it that very day, but The Immortan laughed and said that meddling old women minded their tongues or lost them. And Miss Giddy grudgingly allowed it until Rictus had woken from a midday nap positively covered in Perfection’s menstrual blood, screaming that she was going to die. Once Perfection got her First Bleed she couldn’t so much as touch her husband until they were Announced. 

It was inconvenient, but The Immortan Joe had explained that he allowed Miss Giddy’s overstep because He wanted Perfection to stay alive. “No Granson is worth the loss of Perfection. Not My Perfection, the Best and Beautiest of all Wives.”

Sometimes Perfection mulled over whether or not she would be better off as Wife to The Immortan, not Wife to Rictus. Obviously the Wives as they were didn’t appreciate his Greatness or Legacy, and they had no respect for the V-8, or the Warboys who would soar Fury Road with The Immortan Joe to Valhalla. She had crouched in secret once, listening to The Wives whisper treasonous thoughts amongst themselves and they had scoffed at the Warboys dying for Valhalla. Whelping children was a far harder, and far more worthy reason to die than something as stupid as guzz or bullets, Manifess Dess said. 

Perfection was astounded to hear a buzz of agreement from the other Wives, and nearly fell over when Heavenly - who should have never spoken, she was about to be Retired having borne two Mutie Girls and just last week bled one child from between her legs- laughed and suggested, “Maybe Old Joe should put us shotgun when we die birthing his get!”

Now wasn’t that something? To ride shotgun with The Immortan to Valhalla, Witnessed and Mediocre. None of the Wives who had died in her thirteen years were worthy, but surely she would be? She asked it of The Immortan that night when she was sat on his lap at dinner, stroking his fleshy chest with her head pillowed on his shoulder.

“My Immortan?”

“What is it, My Perfection? What do you need?”

She was unsure the second she had spoken his name, feeling like a foolish child, but she pushed past the lump in her throat, “If I were to die birthing your Granson would I be allowed to ride shotgun with you to Valhalla? I overheard the Milk Mothers saying that birth is a Woman’s Fury Road.”

The Immortan Joe stared deeply into her eyes, searching for some joke or deception. He was silent, gravid and heavy before he smiled at her toothily, “Birthing my sons may be a Woman’s Fury Road. It’s not something I had considered, My Perfection. But if any Wife was ever worthy of being Witnessed it would be you.”

He was still for a moment, and he wore his calculating face, “What would you say, My Perfection, if I told you that I would attend the birth of every child you carry? So-ways, if your Whelper’s thin blood overtakes you I will Witness You into Valhalla myself?”

Perfection felt tears well so hard that her vision blurred. She launched herself into his arms, burying her face into his thick neck and fisting her hands in his hair. The Immortan chuckled as he rubbed her back, “Anything for My Perfection. Anything.”

She was fifteen and it was deep in the dark of night when she felt a wrenching pull in her enormous belly. Miss Giddy had warned her over and over for what felt like an age that the contractions would be horrendous, and the Braxy-Hizz “practice” contractions had been… Strange. Odd more than truly painful, and the twinges she had vaguely noticed for most of the last two days were intense, if short-lived, but this. This was another beast entirely.

“MY IMMORTAN! RICTU- AUGH! RICTUS! MISS GIDDY!”

Perfection could only stumble from bed and clutch at her tight belly, the next wrench-pull followed by a fierce kick from her son stole her breath. Poor choice to sleep in the Vault that night, not beside her Husband as was her custom since their marriage. But Perfection was determined to show the ungrateful, weak Wives that there was glory in carrying Blood of The Immortan Joe. She’d been too tired afterward to walk back to Rictus’s rooms, and he wasn’t there to carry her. Perfection gasped through another contraction. She was dripping… Something. From between her legs. It dribbled slowly down her thigh, over her calf and her ankle and when she dared to look it was clear like Aqua-Cola. No blood. She wasn’t bleeding out Rictus’s son, Blood of The Immortan Joe. Perfection fell to her knees, bracing her hands against the floor of the Vault and rocking back and forth. For ages, it seemed, she rocked and keened and screamed for The Immortan, for Giddy, for Rictus, for a Wife, anyone. 

Manifess Dess stormed out of her room to see Perfection on all fours, whimpering, and she ran to the Vault Door. Deliriously Perfection thought she looked like an Impala, the fastest of animals and the fleetest of cars, graceful. Manifess Dess pounded and hollered for Giddy, The Immortan, SOMEBODY NOW! IT’S PERFECTION, COME NOW!

“Hold on, Persha! They’ll be here!”

She opened her mouth to correct Dess for using her nickname. Only for Rictus, and The Immortan, if he ever called her anything other than Perfection. Rictus gave her that name, it wasn’t for lowly Wives. What came out was not an abrupt and haughty reprisal, just a moan. 

 Flurry of movement, horrible pain, uncounted eons, voices raised and the staccato snap of broken bones and the fwump of a body hitting the soft sand of the Vault floor. Walls blurred through tears, sobs echoing, panicked gasps that did not come from her throat. Aqua-Cola dripping. Dripping. Drenching. Everywhere. Blessedly cool. Praise The V-8. Perfection felt her body being moved, belly wrenching tight and a high, thin scream tearing from her lungs. 

“Shhh. Easy, My Perfection. My Granson is coming, that’s all. It’ll be over soon, breathe and listen to Miss Giddy now.”

EASY FOR YOU TO SAY. FANGING PENIS-HAVER. I HOPE YOU CHOKE. 

The Immortan chuckled and rubbed her head soothingly. It wouldn’t occur to her until later that The Immortan could not read thoughts, that she had shouted directly in his ear those, and many more, hateful things. “Where is Rictus? Where is my Husba-AAAAANGHH!”

“Rictus! Your Wife calls!”

Distantly she heard Rictus retch up his dinner against the far wall.

FANGING-FUCKING PENIS-HAVER! CAN’T EVEN BE HERE! HE WAS HERE TO PUT THE VALHALLA-DAMNED BOY INTO ME! LEAST HE COULD FUUUUUUUCKING DO IS HOLD ME WHEN HE COMES OUT!

She labored in the Vaultpool for many vague and blurry hours, braced against the chest of The Immortan, catching only fleeting impressions of sight and sound. White powder floating on clear water, mixing into galaxies with red ribbons of blood. A high voice screeching profanities and The Immortan’s throaty, deep chuckle. The animal urge to bear down and roar like a lion of the Oldworld. Squelchy-pop. Slick slug of Something slipping out of her body. Relief. Cheers. The Immortan’s words of praise, his arms around her tightly before he handed her over to Miss Giddy.

Through her lashes she saw Her Immortan lift her squalling son in the air and shout triumphant. 

“HE IS CALLED EQUITUS AURELIUS! HE IS OUR GOLDEN RIDER! MY GRANSON IS BORN, UNMUTATED AND WHOLE! PRAISE PERFECTION! PRAISE RICTUS! PRAISE THE V-8!”

When Perfection was seventeen she labored against The Immortan again, this time in her own quarters, and birthed the howling Filius Superbus. A second strong, unmutated Granson to carry The Blood, and there was no prouder Grandfather than Her Immortan. He praised Perfection to the high heavens, and anything she wished was hers for the asking. Perfection was shown off to The Wives, and the three new ones were in awe of her. 

“How do we make him love us like he loves you?” They begged.

“The Immortan will never love you as he loves me, silly girls. I am Perfection, chosen when I was only a baby to birth strong sons for Rictus Erectus, who carries The Blood of The Immortan. But if you work very hard to please him, and give him strong sons, he might come to care for you.”

The girls looked disheartened, and Manifess Dess- heavy with her third and final child before Retirement- scoffed, “Don’t be stupid. Joe doesn’t love any of us, not even you Persha. We’re bodies for him to fill with his rotting seed and discarded when his Muties rip us open. The best you can do is lay quiet while he gets ‘em on you and be grateful that you aren’t still down with the Wretched. The rapers there don’t bring you watermelons and ham when they see your belly round.”

Perfection screwed up her nose, affronted at Dess’s constant disregard for her status, but let the comment go with only a pointed look to the woman’s belly. The Immortan, as a show of graciousness, gave each wife three years, three miscarriages or three mutated or female children before he Retired them to the War Boy Pleasure Pits or they could be shuffled into the ranks of the War Boys, serving The Immortan as warriors until their death upon the Fury Road. As far as Perfection ever knew there were only two Former Wives who had chosen that path: a woman called Jive, originally Wife to the Organic Mechanic before The Immortan Raised Her Up, she disappeared on a scout patrol and had been presumed dead for nearly twenty-five years. Jive herself was unremarkable, except for the son she had given to the Immortan, a son that He had named Rictus Erectus. 

And the other was the newest Fleet Imperator, Furiosa. While the woman had utterly failed as a Wife -bleeding out all three of her hard-won pregnancies before they had so much as quickened- she was fearsome as a War Boy, a Blackthumb and now as an Imperator. Perfection vaguely recalled the acerbic, often verbally violent woman. No Wife before or since had fought The Immortan so hard and, if she hadn’t been a particularly vigorous Full Life despite her missing arm, Perfection suspected that The Immortan would have rather tossed her from a window after her third failure. She had defied him with mind and mouth, and it would seem that her body followed suit, but she was a boon to the War Fleet. 

“Dess, you of all people should be grateful to be here, under the shelter and protection of The Immortan. I was here when you were brought in from the Wastes; dirty, sand-scraped, halfway dead from thirst and hunger. Here you are cared for. Well-fed. We do not scrabble for our survival, we only have to rest and pray that a child catches in our belly and grows strong, healthy, and male. A simple tradeoff, don’t you think?”

Manifest Dess stood to her full height, towering over Perfection and glaring down with rage-bright grey eyes, “GRATEFUL?! YOU SAY WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL?!”

Perfection was unmoved, taking a breath to meet Dess’s gaze and resting her hands placidly on her lap. Dess, fueled by long-repressed anger went on, “WHY  SHOULD WE BE GRATEFUL THAT HE SEES FIT TO CRAWL BETWEEN OUR LEGS, WHETHER WE WANT IT OR NOT?! WHY SHOULD WE BE GRATEFUL THAT HE LEAVES US BRUISED AND STICKY?! HUH?! STICKY WITH THE PUS FROM HIS WOUNDS, AND THE SEEPING SEWAGE FROM HIS COCK?! HOW MANY WOMEN HAVE DIED BECAUSE HE SAT THEM ON HIS COCK, PERFECTION?! HOW MANY!! DO YOU KNOW? CAN YOU COUNT THEM?!”

[arthrobug]

I can't stop thinking of that one line Rictus says (I HAD A BABY BROTHA), but replaced with wife

I HAD A WIFE, I HAD A WIFE! AND SHE WAS PERFECT- PERFECT IN EVERY WAY!

[globalcatastrophe]

Blonde -2022

Written last year, longlisted for the Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism.

Blonde – 2022

For a film purportedly about the ‘real Norma Jean’ (or what is left of her), the Great Spirit that is Marilyn Monroe looms large in perpetuity over the narrative, to the point where, as often happens with biopics, the famous images necessarily dominate. Besides, what would the subject be without them? Where would the interest lie in Norma Jean Baker without her conjoined twin? Marilyn stands above the grate, white dress billowing. Marilyn smiles at us with bedroom eyes. Marilyn cries, and finally, Marilyn dies. The Norma Jean that was has by this time faded into the background completely. Presumption takes the place of knowledge when there is very little information to be found that isn’t fabricated by those who knew her the best, honest, or would have known her best or even saved her if only they could have met her, scout’s honour. The controversy of Blonde, shared with the Joyce Carol Oates novel on which it is based, seems to lie chiefly in how many liberties it is appropriate to take when telling the story of a deceased subject who appears to have suffered enough, frankly.

The first act of the film is a passably sensitive examination of a troubled childhood, a sequence of maternal alcoholism and mental illness, paternal absenteeism and eventual near abandonment of poor Norma Jean, what we now can clearly see as the fatal starting gun to her inevitable death race. The second act, the longest, is much wobblier in quality, so brimming with passion play pathos (and talking foetuses) as to be almost comical. After a few scenes with Showgirls-esque line delivery from the principal players, one is tempted to discard the film as yet another piece of underdeveloped Marilynalia, but perhaps it is necessary to look deeper. Ana de Armas (who apparently received approval for her performance from Marilyn herself, such is her omnipotent loyalty that she still makes time for fans from the hereafter) appears on the film poster in perfect Marilyn drag, all thick red lipstick and bleached curls, and the likeness really is rather uncanny at times. She does an impressive job of portraying all the Marilyns we know and love. Marilyn as giggling, dizzy, fizzy movie star, Marilyn as Dostoyevsky reading intellectual and Actors Studio disciple, Marilyn as a grown-up little girl still aching for the love of a father figure, Marilyn as wife, Marilyn as almost-mother, Marilyn as abused object of male (specifically Kennedy) lust and finally, Marilyn the most famous corpse in the world, sprawled upon her satin sheets. Unfortunately, de Armas’ performance as a believable Marilyn is patchy, giving the impression of a Marilyn waxwork or, at darker moments, an act of necromancy gone horribly, horribly wrong. Marilyn the smiling, shining star, transformed into a pitifully weeping child, each tear lavished with attention, the famous red rictus pained and hinting at the horrors to come, as come they do in the third act, the spinning camera turning Marilyn’s Hollywood bungalow into a disorientating house of horrors, claustrophobic Blair Witch impressions in abundance, the dark fairies finally arriving to steal the princess away for good, to eat her up and swallow her.

It is as a horror film that Blonde gives the most satisfactory viewing. As a traditional biopic it is a borderline offensive exercise in stretching artistic licence to its absolute limits. As a raw piece of reflection on Hollywood’s treatment of women, it is too voyeuristic and fetishistic, all-too male to be taken seriously. It does however, work masterfully when considered as an expression of the great booby-trap of fame. Marilyn as the corrupted ideal, a glittering object of fantasy transformed into abjected object of ghoulish pity, to be enjoyed and reviled in equal measure. Ultimately, it says more about ourselves than about her. It speaks to our tabloid hunger for pain and pity. After the execution we soak our handkerchiefs in their blood then wipe our tears with it. In this sense, the Marilyn of Blonde functions as a cipher for several familiar stories of tragic Hollywood doom.

Marilyn’s persistence in our memory is reflective of our continued reverence for sainthood, of death without putrefaction, an object corrupt yet incorrupt. We want her both as we remember her when alive, and we intone the piteous circumstances of her death time and again, in songs, in books, in films. If we view Blonde as a forceful cultural exorcism of one of our most eminent departed, every possible instance of pain considered in conscientious detail, and ended with a full stop, perhaps when the next nostalgia cycle comes around the necromancers will have nothing left to resurrect. No more illusions left to shatter, Marilyn can rest in peace, lipstick, diamonds and satin sheeted death all but forgotten. An unlikely story. The Blonde remains.

[lem-cup-rev]

Osmosis Jones (2001)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

November 27, 2021

The characters are so GOOEY. One of the most beautiful kinds of animation to gaze at. Everything is an absolute feast, especially Osmosis's insane rictus grin. I love the disgusting bodily worldbuilding and gags. The gratuitous grossness hits the perfect note for me in the cartoon style.

The animated story is an excellent roller-coaster, all full of punch and creativity. The villain is so sexy. The final fight outside the body is so cool. Genre-typical sexism is unpleasant but unobtrusive.

Meanwhile, much of the live-action part is viscerally offputting to me. It's not only the unkempt man himself but the slightly grainy camera and the cluttered, muddy sets. There's a particular scene that makes me physically ill.

I feel like our reactions to grossness are quite affected by the surrounding narrative context, and the male-entitlement discomfort-humor vibe in the live-action isn't conducive to putting my nausea at ease. I can feel my own little Ozzy edging toward the barf button.

Still, I find the live-action part decently funny and charming overall. I thought it was remarkable that apparently the wife was just as gross as the husband. I think it would have done a lot if she was the main character instead of him.

[theheadlessgroom]

https://beatingheart-bride.tumblr.com/post/613082583642849280/theheadlessgroom-beatingheart-bride

@beatingheart-bride

The Pace parents immediately applauded upon seeing their daughter-in-law, praising her beauty as Randall gave a delighted, lovestruck sigh as he went to take his wife’s hands and kiss her, saying, “You look gorgeous.” His cheeks glowed a bright green not only from her praising his handiwork, but simply how stunning she looked: A perfect Beauty to match his gruesome Beast, with his torn and tattered dinner suit (one he made and then shredded to look as though he’d crawled out of the grave) and the mask he’d wear, a horrifying, almost skeletal vision with a stretched-out rictus grin, a’la Mr. Sardonicus.

“I have to say, Mr. Disney’s idea of the Beauty and her Beast pales in comparison to yours, you two,” June grinned, watching her son pull on that terrifying mask. “You two make quite a sight!”

“Yeah, you just about put that Mr. Chaney to shame with that get-up, son!” Wilhelm grinned, at which Randall flushed, rubbing back of his neck, unsure of what to say to that as his father looked to Emily, beaming, “And Emily, a spitting image of Ms. Philbin if there ever was one!” She made a wonderful Beauty to Randall’s startling Beast, a very elegant contrast.

[owlmylove]

things to write about:

- being 21 with blood under my nails and curls in my hair and smoke on my fingertips

- the halos of angels hidden behind foliage in Jules Bastien-Lepage’s painting of Joan of Arc

- why do i keep stealing necklaces to assemble myself?

- how sliding a hand into the rip between the brushed wool and silk lining of my coat is a metaphor for my relationships with people? the appearance of ease, of effortlessness, the inner dichotomy of a fit that does not fit.

- coat sleeves as as a metaphor for my family? all this silence, all this slickness. all the rips we never mended. looking graceful on the outside

- how my sister and i have some untranslatable similarity between us, a wall incapable of being toppled, the hurt of her never meeting my eyes. but how i can serve, perfectly, as a translator for my mother’s unwieldy affections. the incapability to consider how her daughter may misread her sentiments, find threats or offense in the morse code of her disapproving periods.

- my sister and i read so much into codes and glances and pauses that naturally, we’re inclined to secret languages. to subtext. we’d like to think we pick up on what other people don’t, but that’s not really true. or at least, I would tell myself that — I’m an empath, I’d brag, as though a childhood of fearing the next downward drag of a mood swing is an experience that gives you skills & marketable tools at the end instead of just trauma (ugh, how mundane)

It doesn’t. I can’t read minds, or moods, any more than a blind man. In fact, I’m almost incredibly oblivious to emotions in others that I haven’t thought to anticipate.

I cannot read moods, but I can read into them. So, so, so much — my sister and I aren’t telepathic, we’re touchy. Vulnerable. I always praised myself for never falling to my sister’s despairing depths (our mother ended a text with a comma, not an exclamation point, and suddenly she is in tears) but I am slowly coming to grips with the fact every younger sibling or offspring must reckon with: We are not stronger than our predecessors. Rather, we are simply crueler. At whatever moment, we have the privilege of callousness to guard ourselves with, cynicism to look down on the huddled forms before us. But that isn’t strength, and we realize that too terribly late: when we, ourselves, are huddled and weeping and bewildered by it all, shaken and startled as if from a terrible fall. the shock of a child skinning their knees, the sharp stab of an inhale before the tears. Such is the terror of growing up.

- write about how one night at a party i sat cross-legged on the dining room table, perched my $12 bodega wine on the microwave and smoked bowl after bowl with a girl who drenched her skin in glitter “because how else could I look like I was going to a party?” she was coked out and blissful, imbued with the serenity and sibyllic wisdom only skinny girls with collarbones and drug-dealer boyfriends seem capable of. i stared at the edge of her crop-top and realized the clavicle is the most imminently fuckable joint of the skeleton. What could be more suggestive than another cavity to fill?

- “even now, there remains something intrinsically half-finished about me,” i wrote, and it feels like i wrote it weeks ago but according to my phone it was two days ago. “about how I interact with the world. I am still too inclined to retreat into myself with a book. Or is it really a problem? Is it not a strength? To constantly be seeking, reaching, hoping outwards — is that not vulnerability? Weakness? Is not my ability to be utterly self-possessed something be applauded?”

- another thought, two days ago: if you’re holding someone else’s hand, it can feel impossible to reach out and grasp another’s. i watched a man stare down an actress during her performance, an utterly believable mess of wet hair and wounded eyes, her hand outstretched for his; his implacable, unmoving gaze; how his knuckles tightened around the grip of his —  girlfriend? wife? he wouldn’t help her steady herself, and she went toppling to the floor before another audience member came to help. focusing too intently on what you have in your hands can kill the possibility of what’s waiting for you. of helping another. is a bird in the hand really worth two in the bush?

- speaking of actresses: “i think have cracked the code of theatre kids, of bohemians and artists and obsessives of every creed,” i wrote, after purchasing a book of Luisa Casati and immersing myself in her endlessly self-creating whimsy, her carefully, forcefully studied aesthetic indolence. “the innate theatricality of self: realizing you are displeased with the organic resting state of an introverted personality, of childhood shyness, and thus practicing. performing. perfecting. we are so naturally anxious and eager to please — ourselves, if not others — that we have no recourse but to study and emulate all we can find worth aspiring towards, and desperately hoping to give as unstudied an air as possible. chameleons and packrats and plagiarists, all of us.”

- I am 21 years old and i am pushing the newly-long curls from my eyes, the blood from my cuticles. twisting the stolen rings on my fingers and carefully assembling the charms and chains i’ve stolen from assorted jewelry stores with my teeth alone. taste of copper on my tongue. 21 years old and i am pouring rum and coke from airport lounge bars into water bottles to smuggle on board — why? i am trying to keep cheesecake chilled all day. i am picking, picking, picking at my skin. i am tired, yet wired. too soft and yet too hungry. unrecognizable in mirrors and candid photos. somehow, still, i am always a fugitive to myself.

- today i learned light headed and delirious with laughter is not the same as happiness, but if you hold your breath for long enough it feels the same. same rictus of dimples, the headaches of mirth. if you can’t find happiness, the pains of joy will have to do.

- i am 21 years old, and i don’t know how else to be.

[norsecoyote]

MCU Rewatch: Guardians of the Galaxy

My god, I had forgotten how much of a sucker punch right to the solar plexus the opening three minutes of this film are.

I mean, I remembered that it opened with Peter losing his mom, but not how insanely fucking painful it was to watch the child actor, who knocks that tiny but critical part out of the goddamn ballpark. It probably doesn’t help that I became a parent between the last time I saw the movie and now, and so the emotions in that scene felt way more real thanks to having an actual relationship in my life to map them onto. And with all that hitting so damn hard, the suddenness and unfairness of the abduction comes through in blazing contrast; I really felt the despair of losing any chance at closure that I already understood intellectually that it represents.

(I realize I’m doing the thing where I write about myself rather than the movie, but I was so totally unprepared for my response to its opening that I can’t not discuss it.)

Anyway, after paying the Despair Toll, the rest of the movie is still superb; the worst I can say about it is that, three viewings in,��some of the shininess has worn off, but nowhere close to like with Avengers. The vast majority of jokes still work, thanks to excellent delivery and timing (even the bit where Quill flips off the police officers processing him, which by all rights shouldn’t be funny once you know it’s coming because it’s just about the shock value, still works beautifully because of Pratt’s incredible facial expressions). It also continues to amaze me how not just non-terrible but actively good the character of Rocket is; despite looking on paper like a cringingly stupid gimmick, the combination of Cooper’s voice acting and the amazing subtlety the animation gives his body language turn him into probably the most real character in the crew after Quill himself.

Ronan the Accuser... still really sucks as a villain. The movie does pay lip service to the Kree/Skrull war that sets up his motivation, but it (quite rightly) doesn’t spend any time actually exploring that backstory, and so it leaves Ronan as what I thought was the single most one-dimensional cardboard-cutout MCU villain until I finally watched Ant-Man a few days ago. They vaguely try to make him funny? but it’s nowhere near enough, and he just kind of sucks all-around; neither genuinely threatening nor campy enough to be worth anything.

But okay, if you’re still with me after three and two-half paragraphs of random farting around, I want to actually talk about something this movie does exceptionally well: shockingly rarely for the MCU, every single action scene actually means something and teaches us something about the characters. We’ve got five heroes and two villains, and each of them have a physical fighting style that reflects their personality and outlook, such that seeing them fight is part of how we learn about them. 

Consider Rocket, for instance: trying to capture Quill on Xandar [1] he uses traps and snares, keeping himself distant from the actual fight; we learn that he’s a sneaky and opportunistic bastard, and begin to form a mental picture. When shit goes down in the Kyln, however, as soon as he gets some guns he’s up on Groot’s shoulders, spinning around and firing wildly and screaming in some kind of crazed rictus. In other words, beneath the cool, sly exterior there’s some really uncontrolled anger.

I’m not saying that these are shocking and revelatory observations about Rocket; I’m just pointing out that they’re both elements of his character that we first encounter via the action scenes, before the more complex and subtle exploration of them in dialogue. And this is true for every character, from Ronan’s first onscreen act being crushing a dude’s head with a gigantic sledgehammer to Quill’s signature move (as we see in his very first fight scene) being using hidden jets in his boots to run away from tense situations (which, again, comes before we get a single line of dialogue expositing adult Quill’s serious avoidance issues). Not even to mention the incredibly-obvious-but-nevertheless-perfect metaphor of the Xandarian forces fighting literally via the power of friendshipunity

Also, every fight scene has a purpose to the plot; there’s not a single action sequence that’s the equivalent of “Captain America beats up some more Nazis” or “Iron Man shoots up some terrorists.” Every fight has at least two clearly defined sides, whose motivations for that particular fight are clear and sensible, and in which the shape of the battle and its outcome are determined by/determinative of character and narrative. 

Contrast this with, say, the battle against the giant fire robot thingy from Thor. Why is it there? Loki sent it, presumably, because... he suddenly wants to kill Thor? He is punishing the Stupid Buddy Crew for their accessory to treason? He hates cutesy little coffee shops? Why is it a giant fire robot? Like, ice has associations in that movie, but not ones that set up a direct contrast (Asgard, after all, is associated with gold). I mean, I know that the gun was hung over the fireplace in the first act, but why was the gun there at all? Why that gun?

Whereas every element of every action sequence in Guardians makes perfect sense and fits into a broader picture. Nothing is arbitrary, and it means that even on a third watch, everything is still exciting, because even the bits with no dialogue are integral parts of the narrative.

So yeah. I am pleased to discover that Guardians remains one of the best films in the franchise.

[1] I absolutely had to look up that name, but after my wife gave me shit about “Indiana or somewhere” from my Iron Man 3 writeup actually being Tennessee I wasn’t going to try and reconstruct it from memory. Otherwise I’d be calling it “the white planet” throughout this post.

[undertangledboughs]

Lupine: What does your name mean? Why is that your name? \ Larkspur: What do you think of yourself?

Yvet’s answers wouldn’t provide much to work with. I wrote a thing instead. Sorry if it gets a little dark! Despite my dumb anxieties screaming about putting a character’s story on a public medium, I’m going to make myself post this as backstory drabble. Help. Thank you for the ask @s-udarshana

Lupine: What does your name mean?

Children in Yvet’s homeland aren’t properly named until their 8th month, after the moon’s blessing has been given to them by the senior Mender. A pudgy baby with large petal pink eyes and tiny stubby ears fell forward flat on her face instead of choosing one of the objects placed before her. Wailing cries were tended to with soft cooing comforts and the baby was soon laughing again. Most of the ceremony was now finished, and they waited for the last of it with bated breath. The old spirit-hearer smacked her gums and squinted at the babe, waiting for a choice to be made. An arrow, feathered and painted in bright colors was ignored by the child. A crystal tipped branch sparkled in the sun and tempted, but remained unclaimed. A chipped old spear tip from a great ancestor, completely failed to grab her attention. The babe reached out for a flower growing out of the cracks of the treehouse and yanked it free in a fit of giggles, waving it around to the disappointment of the elders surrounding her. The old shaman laughed with the child and named her Fjola, after the Lupin flower crushed between fat fingers.

Larkspur: What do you think of yourself?How many share a similar fate, the trait of the door that must not be unlocked? Those heavy realizations about ourselves that we push to the farthest corner of the mind, oft forgotten with help from ill conceived vices of drink and the flesh, if our strength wanes so thinly. Memories we dare not even share with our dearest loved ones for fear of total rejection, as we reject the self so harshly - perhaps worse even than those who cherish us ever could. Yvet, despite all appearances of demure goodliness and bookish innocence, was no different. We all have our ghosts, adventurers more so.

—

She’d never relished the hunt, or stepped forward to make the final kill - even when it meant the honor of bringing the forest’s bounty home, and highly desired praise from those stoic and strong hunters that strode alongside a rambunctious set of youth, teaching them the ways of the land through grueling training regiments. Yvet, as she was not called in those days, found reasons to stay in the back of the hunting party, and become lost when she was not. She hated the braying cries of the dying beasts and the glassy wide stare they fixed her with, as if accusing her of some wrongdoing. Even if she /were/ fleet of foot and true of aim, she would have liked it no more. 

When the leaflets dropped, a scant number of her kin left the woods, taking the long harrowing path towards the unknown. After that, they weren’t content with drawing small numbers out through intriguing maps and honeyed words - the Rava had something they wanted. The first time it happened, she was held in a rictus of fear as a fully grown man in curious armor roared and charged through the underbrush, weapon lowered and closing in on her. Instincts born from turns of practice swept back in a rush, with hands moving to draw the symbols in the air to make the elements dance, she knocked him backwards off his feet with a blasted gust of wind. He’d fallen hard - winded, ironically. Vjkta’s familiar svelt figure swooped in from the side to slip her spear through a weak point in the man’s armor, but she paused before ending it, meeting gazes with him ere the blade pushed between armored shells. The warrior flexed and yanked her weapon back, tossing a playful grin of shared camaraderie back at Yvet. The young girl trembled with shock, but the older warrior didn’t seem to pay any heed to it.

Left there alone with Vjkta silently slipping away, she heard them move around her - scouting with bird calls and animal sounds thrown back and forth. The mimicry was near perfect, but only just. Her large ears could tell the difference where other’s could not. She knew not what to do. Her mind turned to activity and action where reason and understanding were beyond it’s current ken. Leaving the man untended to felt wrong, it only made the pit in her stomach yawn wider. Giving him Vieran rites was likewise not an option. So the girl created her own ritual to see his spirit safely into the lifesteam, hoping it might forgive her. Hauling rocks large and small to cover his body with took a good part of her day, but the child was determined. It wasn’t enough, and she sent a trickle of encouraging aether into the earth until it responded to her song and a carpet of moss grew over the cairn, making it look like an enchanted hill. Over time, tall blooms of Larkspur popped open and garnished the burial mound, growing in bright azure stalks. And though she was supposed to hate and revile the fallen figure, she couldn’t forget how he’d called out the same word over and over during the last moments of his life - a litany for his god, for someone else?

Years later, after she had matured into adulthood, it wasn’t any easier. Intruders for any reason were not permitted, at the pain of death. This was no idle threat, and remained a warning well known to the outside world. This was the Law, the way to honor her people and keep the old Ways. They were so different from each other, soldiers all; faces of many ages and races felled by her mastery of magics as she aided her sisters. Yvet always tried to be quick about the deed, to make it painless and avoid needless suffering. But her hand oft paused. The ones who’d pleaded and cried, and begged to let them return to a wife or a child especially haunted her. She did what she could to settle debts - taking personal effects and dropping them off at the edge of the wood. Smashed pocket chronometers, lockets with shorn hair, rings, medals, letters unsent; she robbed the dead in an effort to bring closure to anyone that might come searching for them. But Yvet herself was unable to share in any comforting sense of closure afforded to others.

—

A single orange light in the great dark, a single fire in the outer edges of HER forest. The gangly child moved silently through the dense green despite being all knees and elbows and looking anything but graceful. Amber light revealed an old hyur, illuminating all the crags and scars on his weather-worn face. A beast at his side, the likes of which she’d never seen. What were they doing? What did they want? The young viera followed their tracks day to day, seeking answers. Against the rules, she told no one of the outsider. What was he looking for? She had to know. On the third night when she crept close to listen to him sing his strange songs at the crackling fire, she was suddenly yanked bodily up into the air by her ankle.

“What do we have here, Elliot?! FINE RABBIT STEW!” he bellowed, laughter splitting the cold air. The child twisted and swung her body wildly, trying to kick him with her free leg. The huge bear of a man only chuckled as he took her back to the campsite, held aloft and upside down, flailing and screeching about his doom in Vieran. Etgar and Elliot taught her many things in the short time they remained as unknown and unwelcome guests on the edge of the Rava’s domain, but most importantly, they’d taught her not to hate outsiders.

[sister-to-the-queen]

Under - Chapter Two: Submersion

His name was Caleb. He was seventeen years old. He was a tool maker, like his father before him. Caleb's father had lived a very long life. He had died at the age of thirty-eight, after his wife had given birth to a healthy daughter when Caleb was five years old, after two unwanted boys. Caleb's father had been culled immediately after the birth. Caleb's mother had followed half a year later, after the girl had been weaned and no longer required her.

The girl's name was Elspeth. She was almost thirteen and had come into adulthood a year before. She and Caleb had been mated at this time. As yet, they had produced no children, which was unlucky. It was not understood why Elspeth had not yet conceived. The law of the People dictated that efforts must be made every night, to hasten them collectively on the Path to total Perfection and, if the child was of the wrong sex, to provide materials. Elspeth's barrenness was doubly unfortunate because she herself was so beautiful already, far more than Caleb. She was very small, the legs short and stunted, her spine bent naturally to one side. Her eyes were tiny and so close the corners almost touched above her nearly flat nose. She had almost no teeth. Many men had already told Caleb that they wished their mate looked like her.

They lived together in one of the twenty-five rooms of the World. As in every other room, the Outer Wall bent inward, shielding half the floor from the sky for the greater part of the day. The blackened, jagged edges of the Wall were like sharp teeth keeping that sky at bay. This was a source of great comfort and security for the People.

Caleb and Elspeth's room was richly furnished. It had a low table, a sitting mat and a sleeping mat, and a bucket for waste. This was normal, because all the People lived in luxury. Their room was special, however, because they also possessed two drinking cups that Caleb's father had made after his wrong children had been descended. Caleb had promised his neighbors that they, too, would receive cups from him when the proper material presented itself.

Caleb was no longer young. Elspeth was leaving her youth behind. As they were of the People, this meant nothing. All about them was sublime, and the People knew this. Elspeth knew it. Caleb knew it.

But.

The evening of the day after the old woman's descension, Caleb sat cross-legged on the sitting mat in his room. He was using his father's pricking tool to make a hole in one of the old woman's arm bones. His father had once told him, when he was very small, that he had heard from his father's father - who must have been ancient beyond conception - that the pricking tool had once, long ago, had a flat, dull head, almost impossible to make holes with. Now, it was worn down to less than a finger's length, and so sharp that even touching it drew blood. The black handle, too, was nearly gone, from the endless grip of so many hands.

While Caleb worked, Elspeth lay on her stomack on the edge of the sleeping mat, drawing shapes on the metal floor with the tips of her fingers, and occasionally letting out squeaks and gasps of delight. Caleb paid this no mind. She always behaved like that in the evening. Eventually, however, she could no longer contain her excitement, and exclaimed, "Caleb, it's so strong!"

Caleb looked up, frowning. He and Elspeth rarely spoke. When they did, it was usually when he asked her to bring in fungus from the Garden or water from the rain tank. She would always quietly obey. When she herself began a conversation, it was without point. Caleb said, "What is it?"

"The ground, Caleb!" she answered. She put her palms flat on the metal and began jerking her arms forward and back, forward and back. She began mumbling to herself. "So strong, so strong, so strong, so solid, so hard, so thick, protects, protects, protects us, pretty, pretty, pretty..." She had apparently forgotten he was there.

Caleb resumed his work. By the time he'd managed to perforate one end of the bone, it was almost completely dark. This did not matter. Caleb was so familiar with the motions that he required no light. He turned the bone around. Elspeth spoke again.

"Get in me, Caleb," she whined. He looked up again. In the very faint light, he could see her on her back on the sleeping mat, skirt pulled up and legs spread wide. Caleb laid down his tool and the bone, got up, and went to her. As he lowered himself between her legs, he felt a slight reluctance. Before, he had felt nothing at all.

On the sixth day after the old woman's descension, there was a Convocation at the Temple. On this day, Priest was to point out the breeder couple, whose child-to-be would complete the sacred number once again. The People were happy. The Dread Six Days of incompleteness would soon be over.

An hour of silence passed. Priest rose from his seat. His legs shook under him. He let himself fall forward off his dais and began to crawl. From the beginning of the Convocation, the People had been standing up, their legs bare to the knees. Each time his groping hands encountered a pair of feet, Priest would feel up the legs and dig in his fingers. His nails were rough and brittle. The first member of the People to bleed under his grasp would be one half of the pair to provide the missing part.

Twenty members of the People were tried and discarded. Then Priest's nails encountered Elspeth's skin and scratched it open. Her legs had many sores that tore easily when touched. Elspeth groaned and shivered. Priest twisted his neck till his face was turned straight up. His mouth opened in a rictus, revealing his pale gums. "Chosen!" he barked.

The Convocation was finished.

That night, Elspeth made Caleb lie on the metal floor instead of the sleeping mat. She kept putting him inside her. This was without purpose. Caleb could not sate her after the first time. Elspeth knew this, but did not seem to care. Each time, she would fall forward on Caleb, press her face to the floor and rub her hands on the metal. Each time, she made the same sounds as she did when he could sate her.

This continued for many days. After this, Caleb ordered her to stop and made her lie on the sleeping mat. She obeyed. From then on, she did not move and made no sound during duty time. She was as limp as though she had been dead.

Elspeth was carrying. She and Caleb were forbidden to move from the room. Each day, in rotation, a different neighboring pair would come twice to bring them water and fungus and take their waste away. The fungus for Elspeth was enriched with blood from the woman of the pair. This was to hasten the growth of the child. The man of the pair was forbidden from serving her. Only Caleb could receive water and fungus from him. Neither member of the pair was allowed to speak

Elspeth too did not speak. She smiled all the time. As the days passed, she became very fat. Unlike Caleb, she never walked around their room. He had to put her on and take her off the bucket. It was said that she would not be able to walk anymore after the birth. This often happened to women of the People. She would need to crawl until she could walk again.

After many days of seclusion, Caleb found that he had difficulty in thinking. His work did not require it, but he had done it sometimes. He felt distressed by the change. Sometimes, in near dark, he would look towards the door and wish he could walk through it.

Elspeth saw him looking sometimes. Those were the only times she did not smile.

The child was born. It was a girl. It was very small. It cried often, especially when made to drink the watery, bluish milk that ran from Elspeth's breasts. This was normal for a child of the People. Caleb's neighbors congratulated him.

Elspeth caught her excess milk in the waste bucket. Every evening, Caleb went to pour the bucket's contents onto the Great Pipe. To do so was a habit of the People. Once every six days, when the top segment of the Great Pipe almost ran over with excrement and urine all made bluish by the milk of several nursing women, a ritual similar to a Descension Ceremony would take place. This was because, to the People, there was no difference between living waste and dead waste. Both were filth to be shed and cast away on the Path to Perfection.

Elspeth slept on him every night, the child lying right next to them. Her dress was always open at the front, and one of her dugs hung down next to Caleb's side, that the child only had to purse its mouth in order to drink. Sometimes Elspeth leaked a little.

One night, for a reason he could not understand, Caleb wanted to scream.

Not long after came a black day for the People. Horror and dread had struck in a way that only the eldest had experienced before.

A bird had appeared on the other side of the Net.

The People all knew of birds. In their youth, they had all heard stories of nightmare from their parents about the winged monsters that sometimes came from beyond the Walls of the World. They came like demons from the vast cosmos of evil that spread infinitely in all directions on the other side of those Walls, and even a glimpse of them was a harbinger of disaster. Of course, there were many, many more horrors surrounding them, revealed by the unnameable sounds that every member of the People had been taught from infancy not to hear, but birds were by far the worst, because they could be seen.

This particular one had been black, not much larger than a grown man's hand, yellow-beaked, and it had made a horrible sound from where it had perched itself on a strand of the Net. When the People saw it, the women among them screamed and screamed. Their eyes rolled back in their heads and some of them fell into convulsions. The men beat their tools or their fists together and howled to chase the monster off. It was around two minutes before it flew away, and by then the People were half dead with fear. For one dread instant, it had even seemed as though it meant to cross through the Net.

After the clamor had died, the People heard the familiar screech of Priest, summoning them for a sermon. Their hearts grew heavy with peace, and they filed into the Temple.

The bird remained on Caleb's mind. He had screamed and clashed his tools with the rest of the men. But when he saw the bird take off and fly away, he wondered where it would go. It was solid, because it could land on the solid Net. So on what could it land beyond the Walls of the World, if not something solid too? Would the bird, once out of sight, really melt into a ghost, as some stories claimed, or would it take on an even more hideous shape and work its evil in tangible form, as other stories said? What was Caleb to believe?

Caleb was disturbed by these thoughts. They were thoughts that no member of the People had ever had before. Caleb knew this. The World was the World, and there was nothing else. What lay beyond the Walls existed and did not exist. It was not to be thought of.

Still, in the night, while Elspeth and the child drooled in their sleep, Caleb would sometimes turn his eyes towards the Teeth of the Wall over his head, and wonder.

The thought of the bird and what it might mean would not stop going through his head. It became stronger and stronger. He could not wait anymore. He would have to act.

He pushed Elspeth off him. She gurgled and smacked and kept snoring. He got up from the sleeping mat and went to overturn the waste bucket. He placed it under the Teeth of the Wall. He stood on the bucket. If he raised himself on his toes, he would be able to peer over the edge.

He did not get the chance to do so. Elspeth was awake now, and slammed her full weight against his legs. He fell awkwardly on his arm and screamed. Elspeth had fallen into the waste he'd poured out of the bucket and was rolling around in a fit. She'd shoved or kicked away the baby in her haste to get to Caleb, and it was lying on its belly and shrieking.

Neighbors had come running. One woman picked up the child and turned it over and over. She did not seem to know what to do. Several others were standing around Elspeth. They appeared afraid to touch her.

One man had pulled Caleb to his feet and started poking at Caleb's arm. It was oddly twisted. Caleb screamed again and hit the man's hand.

Elspeth was able to use words again. She howled out what he had done, and then fainted.

The neighbors stood frozen. The man who held him stared at him open-mouthed. Then they fell on Caleb and dragged him away.

Caleb was on his back in the center of the Temple. Four men were holding him down. He did not struggle.

Priest was sitting next to him. His head was swaying from side to side. He slowly raised his arms and shrieked, "Heretic!"

The People shuddered.

Priest continued in a lower tone. "You are one of the People. You live in the World that is the Glory. You live in Paradise. The Walls of Paradise are the Ward given to us by the Sacred Pair." He twitched. "Outside the Walls lies Hell. The demon birds are creatures of Hell that come to plague us. When one came, you did not scream loud enough. I heard you. We heard you. Your woman heard you. Behold!" he shouted and gestured to two women of the People. They came forward, dragging Elspeth between them. She was barely conscious.

"Your woman is stricken," said Priest. "Nothing can be done. If she does not heal by herself, she will die. She was yet to breed more. The fault is yours. Do you see her?"

"Yes," said Caleb.

"Behold!" Priest said again, and gestured to another woman. It was the one who had picked up the child. She was still carrying it by the back of its swaddling clothes, dangling it by her side. Its limbs moved weakly. It made no sound.

"Your child is injured," said Priest. "Nothing can be done. It will die soon and provide for the People. This is good and not good. It was to have lived to keep the sacred number intact. The fault is yours. Do you see it?"

"Yes," Caleb said again.

"Much breeding will have to be done to undo your deed. You have endangered the People. Two may die. Two less than fifty weakens us. Hell may attack. You have done evil. You will be punished. Why have you done what you have done?"

Caleb hesitated.

"Speak."

"Speak," the People repeated.

Caleb swallowed. "I wanted to see."

Silence fell. Priest opened his mouth. He did not speak. After a time, saliva began dribbling from his lips. Some of it fell on Caleb.

Priest gurgled in his throat. White foam appeared at his lips. A spasm snapped his head back. "Cage," he sputtered, and fell on his side.

Half the People fainted.

There lay a passage in the Fungus Garden around the Great Pipe at the center of the World. It was hardly longer than the height of a man, but the idea of anything going downward was a source of dread for the People. Because of this, the daily gathering of food was always tinged with fear. The women did not like to go beyond the round edges of the Garden. They only plucked off what they could reach from the safety of the metal. No-one was ever hungry. The fungus grew rapidly enough.

The passage was halfway between the Pipe and the edge of the Garden. At the end of the passage was a room, the same size as each of the rooms of the People. This room contained the Hatch and the Cage. Two men carried Caleb to the Cage. They were both very pale. They opened it and threw him inside. They left.

Caleb looked at the Cage. It was made on all sides of bars of metal as thick as his wrist. The bars were about a hand's length apart. The Cage was large enough that Caleb could almost stand up inside. There was a very thick cable attached to the top of the Cage.

He was frightened. He wanted to scream. He could not scream. He retched and vomited copiously through the bars on the bottom, onto the floor of the room. There was hair growing on his vomit.

He heard Priest scream, "Now, send him! Send him!"

The door to the passage was closed. It was very dark. A clicking sound began over Caleb's head. The Cage rose up a little and began to move. The Hatch opened. The Cage passed through. Caleb was sent into Hell.

It was too much. It was too much. Caleb wanted to put out his eyes.

Everywhere, before him, to the left, to the right, there were shapes and colors and shapes and colors that Caleb could never have imagined. He knew brown and gray, and there were many upright brown-and-gray things, one after the other, rising up from a ground dizzyingly far below. On top of the things were what looked like gigantic, irregular tufts of fungus. The wind made them rustle. Every now and then, a bird monster would rise up from the fungus. Among the upright things, Caleb could sometimes see other demons moving. Those demons had four legs and were full of hair. Caleb was only able to see this because the upright things did not come all the way to the Great Pipe or even to the shadow of the Walls of the World. Instead, they formed a large circle around them. Within that circle, the ground with the unnameable color was dotted with tiny circular things in many different colors still. As far as Caleb could see, the same view went on.

It was too much. It was too big. Caleb wanted to die.

A bird demon flew screeching right over the Cage. Caleb screamed. His head snapped up. And then it happened.

The vastness, in that moment, of the enormous sky, not separated from him by the black netting, stirred up something in Caleb. He wanted it. He wanted that open sky.

He looked at the lower view again. This time, it did not seem so horrible. He understood it no better than he had done before, but now there was a strange kind of beauty about it, a beauty he'd never seen and never imagined, but he wanted it. He wanted it so badly that he began to cry.

He sat down. The bars were not comfortable but he did not care. He wanted to sit there and look forever.

He could not look forever.

A clicking noise came from the chain above Caleb's head. He looked up. The chain was beginning to lengthen. It was slowly lowering the Cage to the ground.

For one moment, Caleb felt wild with a feeling he did not recognize. It occurred to him that the Cage might open and let him out. If it did, he would never go back. The feeling was very pleasant. Then he looked down.

The ground of the unnameable color was not quite uniform. There was a black square directly under the Cage. The sunlight was very bright. Caleb could see that the square was crossed in two directions by bars similar to those of the Cage. They were lower than the level of the ground.

The Cage kept going down. Caleb felt afraid. Then he saw something, and then he tried to climb up the sides of the Cage.

There were eyes down there, watching him.

They were yellow balls. They had no irises. They had no pupils.

Lower and lower. The Cage was no more than its own height away from ground level now. A thing like an arm with no hand reached out from between the eyes. It reached for Caleb.

Caleb screamed and clung to the top of the Cage. The arm could not reach him. Caleb could not see the rest of the creature.

The Cage was the exact same size as the hole above the bars. It began to sink into the ground.

Caleb tried to squeeze through the top of the Cage. He could not.

The arm reached again. It failed again. It drew back again.

The Cage was completely in the hole now. It stopped and rested on the bars.

Caleb felt as thought his throat would tear. He could not stop screaming.

Once more the arm reached out, slowly. Slowly. It curved, it curled, and it reached for Caleb's face.

The Cage flew up. After a few seconds, it was back to its original level. The Hatch opened. The Cage went back into the World. The Hatch closed.

The men came and dragged Caleb out. They brought him before Priest. Priest asked him, "You see?"

"Yes," said Caleb.

Caleb went back to his room. He ate and drank. He tried to sleep. Elspeth was still alive. The child was not. Elspeth slept. Caleb could not sleep.

He could still taste it on his tongue.

Years had gone by. They had produced three children, all boys. The second and third children had been culled right after birth. Caleb made two cups and gave them to his neighbor. He received a new shirt in return. A year after birth, the surviving child had received a name. Caleb had not bothered to remember it. He never listened when Elspeth spoke to the child. It did not matter.

Caleb was twenty-five years old now. He was almost an old man. His teeth were gone. His hair was falling out and gray. His limbs still served him well, though, and his senses had not yet dulled. He could still work.

Elspeth had become monstrous. White rolls of fat blubbered out between her shirt and skirt. Most women her age were fat, but there was still some solidity in their bodies. Elspeth's all but pooled around her where she lay, day and night, on the sleeping mat, water and fungus always within reach. Caleb had to enlist a neighbor's aid to carry her to and from the waste bucket now. When they performed their duty, it was difficult for Caleb to know how to enter her. There was almost no room.

All this time, Caleb thought of only two things. One was the blue sky without the netting, even though he had never even looked up at the Teeth since that day. The other was that thing.

Elspeth was almost at the end of her pregnancy. It was impossible to see.

Her mind had been steadily going for the last few months. She could hardly speak now. She made strange noises. Many had already come to worship her. Priest, it was said, had spoken of making her the mother of the next Priest.

When the child was not lying on top of her, digging itself into protruding skin, it sat and watched its father work. It had already learned all there was to know about tool-making, but it was not allowed to work while Caleb was alive.

The new child would perhaps be a girl this time. Caleb sometimes hoped it would be.

Since the Cage, he had felt a longing build inside him. He did not know for what it was. He thought it might be for the sky. The longing grew stronger at night and weaker in the daytime. Still, there was a kind of constant growth.

One night, Caleb lay awake. Next to him, Elspeth made noises and twitched in her sleep. Suddenly, she jerked and rolled on top of him. Her weight nearly crushed him. A neckroll pressed against his nose and mouth. He could not breathe. He was going to die. He knew it.

He panicked. Something snapped in his brain. He shoved her off, got to his feet, and kicked and kicked and kicked her in the face. She wailed and hacked and spat blood. The child screamed. Caleb could hear neighbors stirring. He turned, grasped the pricking tool, and leapt for the Teeth of the Wall. He stabbed at the netting. When they came and pulled him down, he had managed to cut one thread.

Caleb lay upon the steel platform. His eyes, the lids strained to tearing, stared upward at the stark sky beyond the black metal netting. No part of him was missing. He was whole. He was alive.

The People, all forty-eight of them, now that Elspeth had fallen into final idiocy, stood in a Circle around the Great Pipe, waiting in silence. There was a collective gasp and shudder when the first of the horizontal doors slid open, dropping Caleb six feet down onto the next portal. The first door closed again, and the next one opened. So it went on, door after door opening and closing again, and every time the sound came, thud, thud, thud, as Caleb, screaming and screaming on behind his bloodied leather gag, fell deeper and deeper away. Every time, through the metal, he could hear the voices of the People rise higher in chant, on and on and on.

Finally, there was a splash, and then nothing.

[talesfromthegraavim]

Perfection Moore, Wife of Rictus Erectus, Daughter -later Wife- of The Immortan Joe. Mother of Equitus Aurelius, Filius Superbus, and Bellator Stellarus

[culturalgutter]

We people of Earth are experiencing a renaissance in horror on TV like we’ve never enjoyed before, as traditional gatekeepers are dispersed in the wild hunt for content, any content that is compelling or innovative or just plain outré enough to collect people at watercoolers, where presumably advertisers can drop a net on the whole pack and harvest their disposable incomes and/or pineal juices. There’s Scream Queens, Scream, American Horror Story, Ash Vs. Evil Dead, Stranger Things, Bates Motel, and so many more jostling for your eyeballs, and they are all worthy of your eyeballs. The surprisingly gory Supernatural is in its 80th season, I think, and The Walking Dead has proven itself stronger than even zombie fatigue. And for every Penny Dreadful or Hannibal that is cut down, a Twin Peaks or X-Files will rise. But everyone in my house is sick, and have been in various configurations for the last month and a half, so I can’t tell you about any of those new shiny things at the moment.  Sick babies are hell on your Netflix queue. And while David Cronenberg and Anthony Burgess’ epidemiologic horror is also top of mind these days, I find myself ultimately retreating to the comfort food of old favorites. In this case, the genteel rictus smile of Boris Karloff’s Thriller.

Stephen King had high praise for Thriller in 1981’s Danse Macabre*, and you’ve got to respect Stephen King’s opinion in these matters. Deference to King aside, since it wasn’t widely syndicated like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock’s anthology shows, and a slew of others, and I fall in the Gen X cohort that missed the first go-around, I never actually clapped eyes on the show until Netflix picked it up a few years ago. There’s only two seasons, but these are 1960s seasons, so the hour-long format delivers a full 50 minutes of content, not the 37-42 minutes we get today, with a total of 67 episodes, so it certainly doesn’t feel like a short-lived series. I think a show would have to be on for almost a decade in Britain to ding 67 eps.

In a lot of ways, Thriller is just like its horror anthology contemporaries and successors: weird standalone teleplays – usually horror, but sometimes a crime or mystery story —  starring many faces who, if not already famous and beloved, would certainly become so later on: Ida Lupino (who also directed a boatload of these and scripted one), John Carradine, Leslie Neilsen, Ursula Andress, William Shatner, Harry Townes, Elizabeth Montgomery, Rip Torn, Mary Tyler Moore, and on and on and on. The stories tended to be horror siphoned from a very EC Comics vein, where bad people succeeded in bad things, only to be visited with hells of their own making. The most upfront difference was its host, a man once simply billed by his forbidding last name in Universal’s horror heyday, Boris Karloff, who also starred in a handful of the stories as a glorious bonus.

Boris was a big value add, no question, not only bringing the heft of his horror credentials, but investing every host segment with superbly ghoulish glee.  Each episode, after an appropriately shocking cold open, Boris would step into the scene or the camera would pan to reveal him, much in the manner of Rod Serling’s introductions in The Twilight Zone, but instead of Serling’s moralistic omniscience, Boris was conversational and warm, and the bloodier the subject matter, the more delighted he seemed.  It’s a neat trick, possibly unparalleled, to be at once so kindly and so sinister. I could watch nothing but a loop of his host sequences for hours. And Boris really worked for it. When he warned, “And those were no ordinary pigeons. They were pigeons from hell!” you knew he meant it. Before the lights went down for the story proper to begin, he would also introduce the cast, reminding you of the unreality of it all briefly before returning to his convivial threats. I love these sequences, especially when the cast physically walks into the picture with Boris, looking haunted or malign, and I love that, at least initially, Boris referred to them as “Mr. Rip Torn. Miss Patricia Barry,” etc. It’s exquisitely mannered. The tagline was, “As sure as my name is Boris Karloff, this one is a Thriller!” And he was pretty true to his word.**

There were a few clunkers, though there always are, and even the success of the better episodes may be a matter of taste, particularly several decades after some of the punchlines and the story outlines have been retold so often they’re blunted with quaintess. But the source material was as top notch as The Twilight Zone at its height, harvesting work from August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, Richard Matheson, and particularly Robert Bloch, who wrote seven episodes. And hell, Ray Milland directed an episode about Jack the Ripper. There was a ton of talent going into these shows, and if it had had a better timeslot, maybe it would have survived to become the institution The Twilight Zone (deservedly) is. Thriller did at least spawn a comic series, Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, which survived the show and Karloff both into the 1980s.

My favorite Thriller episodes all turn on that EC Comics flavor horror. You could easily swap out Boris for the Crypt Keeper as far as that goes, but I do prefer Karloff’s puns. Here, in no particular order, are my five top Thriller episodes for the adventurous viewer. There’s a DVD collection, plus it’s currently showing on the Decades cable channel. You may find many episodes on YouTube.

William Shatner did two Thriller episodes, and I have a hard time picking a favorite. Part of this is simply because Shatner’s really good in both. People make fun, but he’s a damn fine actor, and his black-and-white work could be a lot more restrained than we expect from Captain Kirk or Denny Crane. In “The Hungry Glass,” based on a Robert Bloch story, Shatner is one half of a young married couple who have just bought a house . They were sold the house by a realtor friend, who you may also recognize as Russell “The Professor” Johnson, and it has a spooky reputation that has kept the Century 21 sign out front for a generation. When the Shatners take possession of the house, they’re there for approximately a minute before the realtor’s wife screams that she saw a figure outside the window, and it’s not Torgo because the window overlooks a scenic sheer drop. There are nervous chuckles and rationalizations, but it doesn’t take very long at all for Shatner and his wife to start seeing fleeting figures in reflective surfaces. And then the wife finds an attic full of mirrors.

The second Shatner episode is called “The Grim Reaper,” another Bloch adaptation, and it stars a cursed painting that really looks like sweet heavy metal van art. Here, Shatner is the nephew of a different castaway, Natalie Schafer, who plays an eccentric, exuberant, and very alcoholic mystery writer. She recently acquired the cursed painting because she’s the kind of person who would, and her caring nephew has come to warn her off of it. As he explains, when the scythe of the depicted grim reaper drips blood, someone will soon die. And wouldn’t you know it? He touches the painting to demonstrate and comes away with bloody fingertips. That same night, his aunt discovers her husband is trying to snuggle her assistant. It’s a story that’s equal parts Clue and the Roddy McDowall vignette in the Night Gallery pilot, and it’s perfect.

My third Thriller pick is called “The Hollow Watcher.” The Hollow Watcher is a scarecrow, and  I love demon scarecrow stories. It is also a story of southern white rural poor, which always interests me since, well, I was/will always be, and their treatment always grabs my interest, but it’s fair here.*** It starts with Denver Pyle as a meaner version of Briscoe Darling, attacking his son Hugo’s mail-order Irish bride. As father and son fight it out, the bride sneaks up and whacks Daddy dead. Since the son was pretty well knocked out by his father, she’s able to convince him that he beat his father so profoundly that his father ran away, forsaking his land. Hugo, in hillbilly man-child mode, expresses anxiety that “The Hollow Watcher,” a scarecrow up on the hill/avenging monster will visit judgment on him for raising a hand to his elder. In the meantime, a man claiming to be her brother arrives on the scene, his wife recently dead. Hugo is called away, and brother and sister are revealed to be man and wife grifters with a very Crimson Peak approach to building a nest egg. Hugo might be gone, but the Hollow Watcher still overlooks the property, and as Boris reminds us, “The beliefs of simple country folk can create forces that can certainly surprise you.”

Next, I choose “The Terror in Teakwood,” a story about a hatred between two concert pianists so white-hot, it survives death. Hazel Court plays the wife of the still living pianist Vladimir Vicek (Guy Rolfe), disturbed that since the death of his rival Karnovich, he’s been acting, well, a little weird, and she keeps finding him covered in blood. She thinks that someone is trying to kill him. So she goes to her ex Jerry (Charles Aidman) and asks him to come work as her husband’s manager, while secretly trying to get to the bottom of the blood-covered husband biz. Imagine how worried she’d be if she knew what her husband did at his rival’s grave in the cold open.

Lastly, I recommend “The Incredible Doktor Markesan,” based on an August Derleth story, starring Boris Karloff as the titular doktor with Dick York and Carolyn Kearney as his nephew and nephew’s wife, driven to the door of his Old Dark House in penniless desperation. Markesan, creepier even than his house, agrees to let the poor couple stay, but insists they never leave their room after dark, and just to be sure, he locks them in. Markesan, sweetie, if it didn’t work for Dracula, it’s not going to work for you.

Those are my favorites, but even as I make the list, I want to recommend “The Purple Room” for the Psycho exteriors and Rip Torn almost unrecognizably young, “Mr. George” for its darkly comedic tale of a specter foiling three wicked people’s attempts to kill their young ward, Patricia Barry’s Jekyll and Hyde performance in August Derleth’s “A Wig For Miss Devore,” the weird voodoo weirdness of the Robert E. Howard story “Pigeons From Hell,” and on and on. This show has so many goodies. Even the crime thriller episodes have their good points, like…Robert Lansing. “Late Date” is a pretty good one of those, based on a Cornell Woolrich story. And while there’s a lot of exciting new stuff out there that deserves your attention, just because something’s of a certain vintage, that doesn’t mean you should give it up for dead.

[manic laughter, discordant organ music begins]

* Among Stephen King’s very astute judgments in Danse Macabre, I have, with time and home ownership, come to appreciate his verdict on The Amityville Horror as being mostly horrifying when you think how much money that poor family hemorrhaged.

** Of course, he never legally changed his name from William Henry Pratt, so if a show wasn’t a thriller, I suppose the joke would be on us.

***I will note here that the setting is rural North Carolina, and everyone pronounces the word “hollow” with a long o sound at the end. That has a very spooky ring and is certainly evocative of a man made of straw, but since it refers to a place, i.e. the hollow the scarecrow is watching over, it really should be pronounced “holler,” especially by country folk. I assume no North Carolinians were consulted in the making of this episode.

~~~

Angela does wonder about the alternate timeline where Bela Lugosi hosted an anthology show.

For No Mere Mortal Can Resist We people of Earth are experiencing a renaissance in horror on TV like we’ve never enjoyed before, as traditional gatekeepers are dispersed in the wild hunt for content, any content that is compelling or innovative or just plain outré enough to collect people at watercoolers, where presumably advertisers can drop a net on the whole pack and harvest their disposable incomes and/or pineal juices.

[talesfromthegraavim]

THE FIRST OF FOBBER, HE WHO STOLE THE LEMONTREE

War pups, fresh-weaned off Touching Soft and Mother’s Milk, were tossed from the Whelping Bay and into the Pupyard by one thousand days, if they lived that long. Fobber shouldn’t have.

His Whelper was young and Senty-Mental like all first-time Whelpers were, and while she didn’t make enough to be a Milk Mother, she had managed two healthy pups even if one was small and the other was a girl. The other Whelpers and the Milk Mothers encouraged her to do the kind thing and give them to the sands so that they didn’t struggle and hurt her worse for their failings. But his Whelper fought for him, nursed him on Touching Soft and what little milk she made. She didn’t give him to the sands and hid him from Culler. The girl survived because The Immortan himself was brought down to inspect her, and he declared her Perfection, to be taken and raised in The Vault as a future Wife for his young son Rictus. His Whelper cried when The Immortan took Perfection away, seventy-seven days old and her future decided.

While his sister easily grew fat and strong on the thick of plentiful Mother’s Milk, wrapped in white and comfort, the tiny boypup struggled and fought for every breath, every inch, every pound. But he too grew strong off of stolen sips and smearings of gruel, indulged by the Milk Mothers only when he beat other Pups to the tit. When he was coming to his nine hundred and fifty-sixth day his Whelper, carrying heavy another pup - her third since his own whelping- cried out and collapsed, soaked in red, clutching her belly. Bad luck, the Milk Mothers and other Whelpers whispered. She shouldn't have been back in the rotation so soon after her last whelping- another boy, born perfect but still as stone- and such a hard one at that. She died, but managed to whelp a living boy before she did. Another strong back for The Immortan, if he should survive.

A shame, they whispered. She was good for boys, and they stuck well in her belly. There were rumors that -had she lived- The Immortan himself was going to raise her from the Whelping Bay and into the world of Wives. Such a shame, though, and her first son so near Weaning couldn’t be kept in the Whelping Bay.

So the unlikely tiny boypup was tossed unceremoniously into the Pupyard. He didn’t earn his name for four hundred days, after he had learned to scrap for his scraps, knocking teeth and taking bruises, tasting blood and breaking bones to earn his place. He was called Fobber, and he never forgot his Whelper; the smell of her hair, the kindness in her eyes -blue and shining like Aqua-Cola-, the warmth of her pressed against him as they slept.

On the day that Rictus was announced to have a Wife, Fobber looked up and nearly cried for seeing the ghost of his Whelper on the platform. Perfection was plump and healthier than most, smiling on the arm of Joe’s son who bounced on the balls of his feet in excitement. Fobber felt sorry for her then, even though she would be cared for and unwanting for all her days, she was too young. He knew he wasn’t older, he’d been told about his Whelping by the Milk Mothers when he did a Milkrun, but she seemed so frail next to the hulking Rictus Erectus. So frail and so young.

Time passed. Fobber blackthumbed, he stared out at the vast yellow expanse of the Fury Road eagerly waiting for the day he could ride Lancer and be Witnessed to Valhalla. Days and days uncounted were a whirl of black and grey and red and white.

Perfection, he heard in passing, had their Whelper’s gift for sticky boys and bore two for Rictus, though they died a-cradle. It wasn’t until The Immortan took her for himself that their Whelper’s curse of thin blood came through. Perfection was lost, and Fobber quietly prayed to the V-8 that she had been Witnessed into Valhalla. He’d heard the Milk Mothers saying that a woman who died Whelping should be Witnessed to Valhalla, that Whelping was a woman’s Fury Road, and -having heard the screams and seen the blood when he did his Milkruns- Fobber was inclined to agree.