smokingboot

Here is a story and rather a weak one. Its flaws are very obvious but it is part of something bigger which may or may not be taking shape in my head, so out it comes raw and all. The story told is not the point, so to speak. Beware, some may find aspects of it distasteful or grotesque, but I promise, this is not intentional. The important thing is the story behind it, so why don't I tell that?

Because I can't see its shape yet.

Now though this is St George's Day, I have no tales to tell of him that fit; and because he is a noble knight, he will not mind if I speak instead of something that happened to me in the lands where once he travelled;

I had been wandering for a long time, searching for my father and eventually ran out of money. On a very hot day, I was travelling through the village of Ufe, and met a beggar who showed me what he called the greatest tattoo in the world, and indeed it was; for 40 lira he bared his back and on it was inked the skeleton of an archeopteryx, traversing the length and breadth of his spine, the outstretched bone frames of its wings extending down his arms, the skull sat open jawed between his shoulders, the tail coiling below his waist, where my 40 lira were not enough to buy me answers. It was impressive, and I left with the sounds of his blessing behind me.

I wandered past a mosque and fainted; when I came to, the air above me was turquoise and honey bright with sunlight that poured like liquid out of the air, and a cool breeze fanning me. I thought it was a skylight in the roof of the mosque, but in fact I was high up on a ledge that burned with heat; below and above me were mountains, and all around me was what seemed like a giant nest made of scrub and scraps. I lay among pieces of egg and shed snake skins; and beside me, fanning me with great wings grown from his tattooed shoulders, was the man.

I asked if he was an angel, and he said 'Yes' though he seemed bemused by the question. He fed me water from half a huge eggshell, and his wings swept the air and the snake skins rustled in reply like reeds by a river. It was then that I noticed his tail and his teeth, and checked over the edge of the nest for a way out; But there was only down or up, the wall was sheer against the nest. Looking around I saw old scraps of newspaper, fabric, sheeps wool, bones, fur and even a rolex tangled in the great nest. I wanted to faint again but couldn't, so I accepted his hospitality, though not the raw meat he offered me; He warned me there would be nothing more till he hunted after sundown, so I ate some of the flowers that grew in the detritus of the nest. Then, lying against his shoulder, I found my head grew hot again, and to cool me he made me drink more and told me the story of the rolex watch.

The nest, he said, was not his. It had been made many years ago, and he was only its latest inhabitant; he had had it for 20 years or so; the person there before him had left the watch. He said it was a tale of my time, so I should enjoy it.

He said that once there was a woman, a model in the west, whose wealthy husband was obsessed with cats; Now this is the very same woman who is always seen on those programmes about plastic surgery going disastrously wrong; the woman who tried to make her face like a cat, you know the one I mean. Yes, it was her husband, nodded the outsider, who introduced her first to cosmetic surgery. And he did it by giving her a gift quite extraordinary byt today's standards, let alone 20 years ago when such things cost thousands upon thousands of pounds.

For their engagement party she gave him a gold and diamond rolex watch. His gift was much greater. He presented her with a leopard, drugged of course, but more than that, adapted. These were the early days of experimentation, and the cat had been changed; behind its shoulders sprouted wings, dappled and tawny, the fur edging up to the feathers to become like owl down. The wings couldn't work of course, they were purely ornamental. The husband loved his gift more than she who received it; she was afraid he preferred the new creation to her; more than that, even drugged, the beast seemed inclined to viciousness, especially in her presence. She feared it, and she feared his interest in it.

He was indeed captivated. She tried to woo his interest by having more surgery done upon it and herself and had the skin around its eyes tightened and shaped to make its eyes more like hers; this could only be done so much before damage would occur, so she changed herself too and had surgeons tilt and cut the skin around her eyes to an alien, almost impossible angle. The cat's face was sculpted with cheekbones and nose flattened slightly, while hers was stretched and carved into the likeness of a muzzle; To her mind, her husband seemed more obsessed with the cat than ever, and indeed, found her more exciting as her own alterations proceeded. Her final amendment to the leopard was the addition of breasts, moulded to look just like her own, perched incongruously between its front legs; At this point her husband left her and took the cat with him.

The angel found her sobbing in a hotel in Istanbul; the beast had been spotted high up in the Caucasus mountains in a nest unapproachable by all save the most expensive lens in the world. One camera had captured the likeness of what seemed to be a tiny clawed hand clutching at the creature's breast. Her husband was never found, and of course, we had no flying leopards in the nest. 'But here is his rolex,' smiled the angel. And the gold and diamonds shone in the heat that threatened to kill me.

I laughed of course, but not too loudly, for the sun was setting and early moonrise made his eyes and scales glitter. 'The Sphinx is just a statue, far away from here,' I told him; 'You divert me from the real story which is about you and how you came to be,' then it was his turn to laugh. 'I seek only to entertain you with stories from the shadow world,' he said. 'When I return from hunting, we will talk of the real; and perhaps discuss the tattoo you will have.' With that, he spread his wings, rippled his tail, and fell out of the nest, into the vanishing air.

No, not there yet. But there is something tapping around the edge of it ...