Queen's Fowls

Queen's Fowls


by Ethan Smithers ©  2019




This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.







1


Oscar looked around a toy store to buy himself a new toy. There was a man with an extremely tall top hat and a woman who wore so much jewelry on her she shone like a galaxy.

The sycophantic toy store clerk told his apprentice that she was the richest woman in Dublin and sent him off to bring the item from the basement vault. The item. The flaxen-haired boy replied the basement was still full of rats and he was afraid to go there but the man kicked him in the butt and gave him a lantern and a rifle to kill the rats with.

The boy went down there and crashes and screams and shots were heard as the clerk smiled and reassured the lady that everything was in control.

The rich lady was cooling her agitated face with a golden hand-held fan and kept saying that the brat should come back soon or she would leave the place and never come back.

Oscar played with a wooden toy dinosaur and dropped it by accident. The clerk yelled at him. The man in the top hat said in a French accent that he was just a boy. The clerk said boys that age were nothing but trouble, but he let it be. And when the apprentice returned, his legs, uncovered because he was wearing shorts, were full of bloody scratches.

The clerk didn't pay no mind to the scratches and only showed concern about the item.

The boy gave it to him.

The clerk unveiled the object revealing a stunning show of craftmanship: it was a music box of outstandingly careful details. It was made of twelve of the most expensive materials in the world, and it was gifted to the Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna of the house Romanov, who died at six, by Maria Amalia, the wife of Louis-Philippe, herself, as the clerk explained with great reverence.

He needed to take several extra breaths just to be able to bring himself to open it: a miniature platinum statue of the Grand Duchess was dancing in a tutu. The holes of her bodice were exceedingly rare twinkling sapphires and especially her ballet shoes were beyond mortal price as they were cut from rubies that, the Romanov family story goes, were derived from a pair of earrings Napoleon stole during the French campaign in Egypt and which had belonged to Cleopatra who valued the pair so much she wouldn't even take them off during her baths or other times, that is to say, never from the moment she received them from her fourth and last husband until the day she died. The song it played was the only good part from the unreleased tenth symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven, and although the composer was practically deaf by then the legend goes that he could hear that melody - and only that melody from amongst all of his symphonies and compositions - physically as if the Lord's angels themselves had performed it just so that his accursed worldly ears could once again experience true music which he had so loved back in his hearing days. Beethoven had discarded the rest of the symphony, which Beethoven never cared to release as a whole, but decided to gift that, no, this, particular melody to his infantryman lover from Paris during the French occupation of Vienna. The infantryman had no device to record the piece, nor was he musically literate, so he had no chance but to whistle it unceasingly throughout the trying years of the occupation until he was finally sent home to France, where he immediately rushed into the court and whistled it to Napoleon himself. Alas, the infantryman got executed for this foolhardy deed, but so many around the conqueror were touched by the melody that it survived to be played just for this exact moment, for none other than you, m'lady.

The clerk put on silk gloves and carefully opened the music box.

Oscar was playing with the toy dinosaur and the apprentice was treating his wounds with rubbing alcohol while the man in the top hat and the clerk and the lady listened worldlessly to the tune that jingled as the meticulously ornamented child ballerina slowly pirouetted.

When the ballerina had stopped dancing the clerk and the woman were in tears and holding each other. The lady said it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard and that no one could ever replicate it like the music box did. The clerk agreed, and said that the price of the music box was a meager hundred thousand; a sheer mockery of its true artistic worth. The lady who was still in tears was about to write a check when the French gentleman interrupted the transaction and asked for a permission to challenge the fine lady's remark that “no one” could ever replicate that particular tune from the extraordinary music box as finely. As the richest woman in Dublin was convinced she was right she gave the man a chance to do so, and the man proceeded to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his fly, quite shocking the clerk and the lady as he did so, and turning around so that he was facing the woman he lowered his underwear and farted the entire melody at her with the skill of a world-class trombonist. Not a note was missed. The clerk was frozen from sheer amazement of the whole situation, being unable to speak or move, while the woman tried to fan her face with her hand-held fan...but dropped unconscious. The Frenchman pulled back his underwear, buckled his belt, and buttoned his trousers like nothing had happened, and left. When the clerk finally came to his senses and began to attempt to bring the woman back to consciousness Oscar took advantage of the situation and ran off with the toy dinosaur he had been playing with without paying.


2

It was a nice summer day on the family farm where the last shower of rain had just fallen and rainbows were seen and the next rainclouds were still hours away.  The house was surrounded by apple orchards and a meandering river that glimmered in sunlight on days like that and an apiary wherein his deranged uncle, estranged from human life and social interaction, made the "best honey in Ireland" and the separate guest house where Oscar's mother spent the nights with other men as Dad worked on his yet another invention until yet another sunrise and the various buildings for the sheep and cows and poultry and horses.

Neither of the parents spent time with the kids since they always had either men (Mom) or inventions (Dad) on their hands. When Mom wasn't with the men, she would write poetry, and when Dad wasn't working on his inventions, he was writing his Definitive Collection of Irish Folklore which took the rest of his time and thought. In the end, it had been his uncle who raised up young homeschooled Oscar.

Oscar was playing hide and seek with Hank and Alice. He was hiding his face in his hands behind the Love Cottage and counting to one hundred while Hank and Alice were finding a place to hide. After counting to one hundred he ran after his siblings and searched for them everywhere. He found his sister hiding under a turned rowboat from the riverbank. His sister made him play a game in which Oscar would only be  allowed to go find Hank once they'd have shown each other their private parts. Alice showed Oscar her vagina and pulled down Oscar's pants to see his penis. Alice told Oscar that she had seen through the window of the Love Cottage how Mom sometimes kissed the peepee of the men who visited her. Oscar wanted none of that but Alice kissed it anyway. Then she made Oscar kiss her slit and it was the most  horrible experience he'd ever had and something he would never want to experience again in his life. Alice let Oscar go after that and he ran to find Hank. Hank was hiding in an empty wooden pallet in the apiary. Hank was naked because there had been some unexpected bees and they had forced him to throw away his clothes. He was covered in honey. Oscar got naked in case of the bees and entered the pallet with Hank. Hank's eyes gave off the usual silvery glow so they could see each other's tiny bodies even though the lid was on. Oscar told Hank what he had done with Alice down at the river, and said that the new rule goes that they can only leave the discovery spot if they kiss each other's peepees. Hank was hesitant and said that he would like to kiss Alice's slit instead but Oscar said there was no difference since they loved each other.

They talked about it for a second and concluded that Hank didn't need to kiss Oscar's but Oscar could kiss Hank's. As Oscar did so, he noticed that his own thing got stiff and that it was the first and the last time he enjoyed the taste of honey - which he hated otherwise - in his life. He licked all the honey from the limp penis and they left the pallet. After Hank told Alice what had happened between him and Oscar, Alice told them it was not to become a new hide and seek rule since it was something grown-ups wanted to keep to themselves and they never repeated the acts again.


3

The classroom where Paddy, Oscar's uncle, taught Oscar was the attic of the family house. Oscar was sitting in his school desk and playing with his toy dinosaur as Paddy was standing in front of a chalkboard and teaching about the workings of the human eye: he explained how the eye worked, and how people were actually a lot uglier than they really seemed because there was something called a need to please which made humans see other people as more attractive than they were. Oscar paused his uncle and asked why Hank's eyes were like that. Paddy said that technically he was not supposed to tell but then again Oscar was old enough to know the truth about his younger brother. He said that Hank was a changeling. He told Oscar that when the real Hank was seven he was kidnapped by the Aos Sí and replaced with the new Hank. Hank never grew older but was always seven years old. That's why he looked younger than Oscar and seemed to never grow older.

He told Oscar his little brother was actually his older brother but that he would always be like a child physically and that Oscar should keep treating him as such so as to not confuse him. Oscar asked his uncle why Hank didn't go to school like he did. Paddy said that Hank had a special friend in the woods who taught him everything Oscar and Alice learned from him and more so he didn't need to teach Hank as well. He repeated Oscar's dad's words of warning that doing so would have been a great insult to the Blessed Ones and he knew better than not to mess with the Good Folk. Paddy told Oscar that if he could relay one teaching of real value to Oscar, it would be to never mess around with the supernatural because only evil would ensue and asked Oscar to promise him that he would never do so. Oscar promised, and Paddy said that it was quite enough of the boring school stuff and time to go work in the apiary. Oscar was happy: he loved working in the apiary with his uncle because although he got stung a lot he didn't need to study. He took his toy dinosaur with him and so they went.


4

Zeus - Oscar's dad - took him to the town market on an automobile prototype built by Zeus which was the first ever gasoline-powered vehicle in the world and which thus made everyone in the town afraid of them as the townsfolk expected it to explode at any given moment. It was a three wheeled automobile with a front mounted engine. ”Well, if the engine did explode we'd probably lose our heads like these poor bastards,” Zeus told Oscar while dangling a bundle of decapitated chickens. Oscar played with his toy dinosaur as Zeus paid his usual visits to the stores.

Oscar saw from the car that his dad stopped to talk with a blonde woman in the butcher's store and whenever he talked with that particular lady he could spend half an hour doing so. Oscar left the automobile and ran through the narrow streets of Dublin while holding his toy. He stopped to catch his breath. He pretended that the wooden dinosaur crashed like a plane and brought it to a wall, breaking its thin neck. Soon he heard a roar coming through the sky and saw a smoking object tailed by black smoke fall and crash into the cipollino columns of a bank building. The crowd screamed in panic as it smoked like a pyre with wet wood. Oscar saw small flames begin to appear in its engine, and ran up to Zeus who was a couple blocks away.

He drove Oscar to the crash site and told him to carry his toolbox to the monoplane. Zeus took off his overcoat and covered the fire with it. He told his son everything was okay! That some parts of the engine could still be used, and began to remove it from the monoplane while Oscar watched the pilot bleed. When Oscar asked about the pilot on the way home with the brand new monoplane engine at his feet, Zeus told him, ”I am a scientist, not a bloody doctor!”


5

Tim's dad was Arturo, a circus strongman and a Crimean war veteran and the best sharpshooter in the world.

Before marching to the East with the 50th Foot he made himself and Winifred, his then-girlfriend and now-wife, survive the Great Famine by using his pocket pistol to drop birds from the sky which his teenage redhead sweetheart then roasted on the spit as they babbled at each other senselessly like new couples did. He was letting Oscar and Tim perform pull-ups on his biceps as he spoke to the boys about sex with a woman. He mentioned that sometimes women were visited by Auntie Flow, the biggest cock-block cunt on this bloody planet. Whereas Oscar could only perform two pull-ups until he was physically exhausted due to his asthma, Tim continued doing them, and asked, ”why not just do it with Auntie Flow instead?” Arturo said that ”you don't get to do that with Auntie Flow. She only lets you do it up 'er arse.”  ”You can... do it like that?” Oscar wheezed.  ”Well, yeah,” Arturo said. What Arturo had said was enlightening to young Oscar.


6

It was springtime in the Mary and Joseph College in Ireland. Oscar was taking a walk after classes on the campus. He decided to visit the library which was in a separate building. On his way he noticed a girl painting a hanged man. Oscar lit a cigarette with a holder and walked up to the hanging male body whose trousers were around its knees. Oscar gave the man a push, and then knocked on it, and noticed it was made of plaster. The girl interjected to say that she would rather that Oscar didn't break her model. Oscar kept doing what he was doing.

”Why are you interested in painting such crap anyways, Hierodule?”

”My name is Estebella. What ever are you called?”

”My name is Oscar.”

”To answer your question, I want to die.”

”Why?”

”Well... Let's see. I was—” she coughed and continued, ”a bit tipsy since it was weekend. It turned dark real fast and I guess I should've walked with my friends like they asked but I was feeling like shit because of a thing or another. They went on their way and I cleared my head. I then took a shortcut to the dorms, diverging from the main path. I heard a noise as if someone was shaking a bush and turned to look where it came from. It was then when I was tackled and... it was the strangest experience I have ever had.”

”What happened?”

Her eyes were wet but she wasn't crying. Maybe she was about to. ”I could see what I could only describe as... I know this sounds pretty fucking crazy but...I could see acorns fly from its back like there was some kind of—a machine behind him that caused them to fly like...like water gushes from a fountain. Its face was... It had this red pointy beard and a really fucking long red moustache.”

”Really?”

”I swear I'm not pulling your leg, Oscar. I'm not like that, seriously.”

”I believe you. What happened next? If it's okay to ask...”

”He had this...this forest green tunic and this felt hat of the same color and a really bitchy grin, like... I was afraid it'd be the last face I'd ever see. I know it sounds silly...”

”Was there actual... You know what I am trying to ask.”

She looked Oscar straight in the eye, a single tear rolling down her cheek, and said, ”Yes.”

”Why didn't you just fight back? Maybe you could have overpowered him?”

”I couldn't. He tied me with this rope that wasn't... The more I struggled, the tighter it got. My ankles and wrists were burning and I couldn't but yield sexually.”

”You don't need to be too specific if you don't want.”

”Thanks, Oscar.” Not only was her voice like honey but she was really pretty as well.

”No...problem. I'm glad you are okay now,” Oscar said, smiling. ”You mentioned it was very dark. How could you see him so well?”

”He... I've been trying to put it out of my mind but I guess I can tell you. A greenish light emanated from him...it was surreal and I know it sounds fucking nuts but I swear on my Mom's grave it all happened and the light was just as real as any other physical light.”  Her face was red and streams of tears ran across her cheeks. ”So what should I do?”

”If you are asking me, you shouldn't make bad art just because life is unfair. Life and art are seperate entities. You should make fine art instead. Making bad art is worse than murder.”

”You turn on my reptile brain.”

”I do?”

”Maybe that's why I have a dildo named Oscar.”

”So do I.”

”I was only joking,” she said. ”About the dildo.”

”Maybe you should take your easel and beat this doll into little pieces. Should the easel break as well it would be a sign that you are to create your art, and yourself through your art, from scratch.”

Estebella did so, and the easel broke. ”I guess I am ready, then. I just need you to show me the way.”

”I am not a fucking guru.”

”Maybe I could paint your portrait?”

Oscar was heading to the library after his conversation with Estebella when he noticed a young boy walking behind the campus gate. He wore shorts like school boys did that time of the year, with summer nearing with every day, and he was very attractive. Oscar decided to chat him up on a whim, and so walked up to him.

”Tell me. Where could such a cherub be from? Certainly not from these Cro-Magnong caves like everyone else around these parts.”

”I do not know, mister, but you could show me where I should be.”

Oscar took his hand. ”This is a good start.”

They embraced and kissed.

The boy asked him: ”Would you to be like my boyfriend?”

”Yes.”

”I am a virgin.”

”We should only hold hands and kiss.”

”I don't think it matters. It's a good thing that you are both confident and experienced. Besides, I like my boyfriends old and deliciously muscular like you.”

”I have to think about the sex.”

”I will wait twenty-four hours.”

”What is your name?”

”John. Yours?”

”Oscar.”

”I'll wait for you here.”


7

Oscar went into his room to get a bottle of whiskey. Aleister, his roommate, was sitting on his bed while typing on a typewriter. Aleister was a spitting image of the creature Estebella had described.

”Whatcha writing?” Oscar asked.

”A poem.”

”Another hocus pocus poem?”

”An esoteric poem, yes.”

”And what is the only dandy in the university thinking he is doing? Taking my whiskey again?”

”This is an emergency, brother, a spiritual emergency. It should be right up your alley. I'll buy you one back ASAP.”

”I bet. Like last time...”

”I'll buy you three, then. By Friday!”

Aleister grinned, and said, ”Alright. I can live with that.”

”How is the poem, anyways?”

”Sharing unfinished poetry brings bad luck.”

”Do poets ever actually get lucky in life in the first place?”

”That is where magic comes in.”

”Here we go again...”

”Since you are such a naysayer maybe you should join my next ritual if you want to experience real magic that truly transcends luck and comprehension.”

”Only if I get off scot-free with this one,” Oscar said and gave the bottle of whiskey in his bag a tap with his hand.

Aleister looked him in the eye - sending a chill down Oscar's spine - and said, ”Fine.”

Oscar went to meet his mentor and poetry teacher Mr. O'Kief in the literature department. He poured him a glass of whiskey and sat in an opposite armchair. Mr. O'Kief proposed a game a chess and Oscar had no choice but to play although he found chess a bore.

Mr. O'Kief asked him why he looked so worried as Oscar sipped his whiskey with a shaky hand.

”I have just met the most purest and perfect flower in existence, but I do not know if I should open the bud prematurely.”

”Son, you should make this one a journey of spiritual self-discovery. You could always use a well-established medium such as the Christ as a focal point.”

Oscar thought that his mentor had read too many Russian novels but he had also always been helpful and quite frankly correct concerning every problem he had faced so far during his stay at the Uni and that it never hurts to try.

”I should be going then...”

”Our game is unfinished.”

Oscar stayed until the bottle was empty & yet the game was still on-going:

”I resign.”

Mr. O'kief fell asleep as he said so.


8

Oscar went outside, being quite drunk. It was already late. He walked to the Uni chapel which had a Latin quote etched above the door. He picked the old lock and entered the church, closing the heavy door behind him. At first he sat down on a bench like in service, but soon realized there was no priest around so it made no sense and so he got up, feeling a wave of dizziness as he did so, and walked down to the chancel and looked at the gigantic crucifix.

He got on his knees and clasped his hands and began to talk to Jesus. I am torn between right and wrong as perceived within the currently established morality paradigm, and I do not know what to do. Jesus remained unmoved. Oscar licked his lips. No, let me put it this way: I am unsure whether it is wise to follow my heart and body when the opinion of my soul is unknown to me as of now. He looks at Jesus, who remains unmoved. Oscar continues, Perhaps it is all clear to you, oh son of God, like, you have all the answers because you are the direct descendant of the Big fucking Kahuna and I am just a fucking writer. Where do I descend from? My parents? Let me tell you something about my parents. They contributed to my genes, yes, but they never gave me magic powers. Sperm and eggs versus supreme moral superiority. Here we are, me on my knees when it should be the other way around! I have studied morality. I have studied religion. I write perfectly on both because I have done my research. I have done my work, Jesus. I have honed my prose. I have sweat tears and cried blood over a single adverb to the point it has haunted my dreams like the revolution of the French. Where do you think I get my ideas? From my father? I get them from me, Jesus. The soul, the consciousness, whatever the fuck you want to call it. Would it be too much light for me if I got to have my way with this boy, this fallen angel, this... God! my days have been numbered ever since the first day of my life. I am a mortal born from the sin of human existence. My crime is that I was born; shaped and molded by the infinitesimal Chance into the sculpture that flips the angels off in the paradise. The cosmic bastard from the pits of the abyss. Is there not a place for me as well, Jesus? Granted, I don't belong in the sheep pen. I do not walk in line with the meek nor the just. I pay my alms by not showing up at the service. I steal from the beggar and whip the pauper into submission until he has no teeth left to bite into his unfair share, why? Why not? He was born a slave and never learned himself a king—not once did it occur to him to break the leadlights! To burn the manmade and worship the flames instead! Jesus, son of God, son of Mary, son of Joseph. Oh Christ! I believed for a second in the conventional lies of your sanctimonious trinity but I smashed the trough I smashed it and I converted to the only sane faith of apostasy and I killed the priest and I raped Mary and every fucking Mary wannabe until they all bled coevally like whores do when they are put together. Jesus, I am drunk....but so fucking what? Are we writers to write sober? Are we to listen to idiotic criticism sober as well? Are we to look general stupidity of the masses in the eye sober like a monk? Jesus, I don't think so—I don't think I'll stop until my liver dies, no, no that would be the same as if you'd step down from that fucking ridiculous cross of yours and finally, for the first  time in recorded history answered a motherfucking PRAYER. Jesus opened his eyes. He jerked an arm back and forth until a nail came loose. A clank was heard as the nail fell and hit the floor of the chancel. Jesus used his free hand to pull out the other nail, then squatted down, back against the cross, to reach his feet and freed them as well. Jesus threw the bloody nails aside and walked up to Oscar who could but look at the son of God with his mouth wide open as Jesus came up to him. Jesus undid his shroud, dropped it on the floor, and displayed a huge, virile manhood. He grabbed Oscar's head and proceeded to penetrate his mouth. After the deed, Jesus put on his shroud, collected the nails from the floor, and climbed back to the cross, and crucified himself using his hands and teeth and became a statue again.


9

When Oscar woke up from the church floor he could see from the pale light coming in through the stained glass windows that it was already dawn.

He pulled out his watch and saw how he had precisely twelve hours left to give his answer to John. He left the church, paying a visit to the canteen where Mr. O'Kief was enjoying his breakfast. Oscar sat down in Mr. O'Kief's table with three glasses of water for his headache, and told his mentor what had happened. Although his voice was low it wasn't because of the other people in the canteen but because his head hurt whenever he spoke louder. After Oscar had finished his story, Mr. O'Kief nodded and told Oscar that what he had just experienced was a prime example of a teacher-catamite relationship and that if the highest heavens had no problem with Oscar returning the pure love exhibited by John he would never advance spiritually unless he did so (and, what's worse, John might seek sex elsewhere and Oscar might lose his boyfriend).

The words of his mentor encouraged Oscar to tell John that the sex would be okay. Dubitable. John hugged Oscar and they shared a French kiss. John then said that they should meet again soon. Oscar said that he was wealthy and that he could rent an apartment where John could live and go to school from, should he have wanted and if his parents were fine with it. John liked the idea. He said that his mom would let him as she wanted him to be happy. John was rather excited, and said that he had never lived on his own without her. They picked a time and place to meet again. Oscar promised to find a suitable apartment until then. They kissed once more, and John left.

Oscar skipped the lectures and slept away his hangover.

He shaved his facial and upper body hair, took a hot bath, and put on a new set of clean clothes and spent a quarter of an hour fixing his hair. He perfumed himself and went to the canteen where he started to eat a luxurious meal, sitting alone in the table, while thinking about the play he was working on. Estebella saw Oscar in the canteen and approached his table.

”May I sit down to lunch with you?”

”If that is your desire, my Hierodule.”

”My name is Estebella!” She hesitated for a second but sat down in the table, opposite to Oscar. ”I am totally not a hierodule, you know,” she said as she opened the lid of her apple juice. ”I looked up that word's meaning - and it so is not me.”

Oscar cut a slice off the squab on his plate with a silver fork and knife he had brought from his room, ate it, chewing it meticulously, and said, ”It is not that I think you are such a person, pretty one, but it is part of something which rings true with a certain something in your rather undeniably charming make-up.”

”Well, aren't we being cryptic! What something, exactly? I am at the same time flattered by your eloquent choice of words describing me and also a bit, if it is not a too strong of an expression to express my mood, appalled by your lack of tact when it comes to the way you talk to the female sex.”

Oscar chewed another bite, took a sip of wine, and said, ”Saying more than Hierodule would bring forth something from within you that begs for another time and context, dearest.”

”Eugh. Whatever. Let us just pretend that this conversation or the conversations that included that particular word never took place.”

”Fine by me. But I still recommend that you don't just attempt to breeze through art, if you know what I am saying. I would most readily agree that I may come off as being pretty blunt from time to time, but despite being still relatively young, I have seen way too many shitty paintings to be perfectly honest.”

”But you never even looked at my painting! How could you even tell it was shitty?”

”I couldn't. I just said that I have seen too many of them. For all I know, it might have been a fantastic piece of art. Do you yourself think that it was just that?”

”No... It was indeed horrible. I am a terrible painter. I guess you saw it from the crude and hesitant strokes of my brush... oh, I don't know. Maybe it was impossible to tell from your point of view. But it wasn't great art, and you were right—I've got to start completely anew. I need to reinvent my craft.”

”If you still wish for me to be your sitter, I can very well play just that part. I must repeat that I can be rather blunt, and I do not wish to see a bad painting of my own self for it would be like looking into a mirror in a nightmare. You must have had one of those dreams. You know it is you, yet you are definitely sure it isn't.”

”I guess... but does a painting really need to imitate life, or is there not, after all, some level of subjectivity involved; some leeway which separates it from a photograph?”

”Most certainly there is. A portrait is a soul taking a photograph of another soul, and not a mere machine taking a snapshot of something it couldn't dream surpassing. No, it could never dream in the first place. But the soul must first be purified so that it could be a worthy lens. How could a chicken not fly higher than an eagle if it could not dream of a hot air balloon.”

”So I need to learn to dream big?”

”No, not just that. You need to learn to paint so well that your dreams pale in comparison. Then you are a true master.”

”I just love listening to your voice, Oscar. You are like the god Mercury! Tell me more about art. Please.”

Oscar ate several bites of different items from his plate, and sipped his wine. ”Very well. All great objets d'art are the final results of a very long road paved with sorrow. If only the muses could hide their ears from the early songs of struggling musicians or their eyes from the hideous caricatures of penniless sculptors they would have it easy, but alas, it is an unfortunate fact that the brain has not only to experience its greatest successes in art but also its greatest travesties in the self-same pursuit.”

Estebella looked at Oscar with her green eyes. ”Oh, I know what you mean! Please, do continue, Oscar. I mean, if you have more that you wish to share although I am far from being anywhere near mastery.”

”If you were a master, darling, I needn't speak of such basic things to you. You are most likely at least an intermediate, or else you would not even be a student in a high class university such as ours.”

Estebella nodded.

Oscar said: ”The world of art has way too many intermediates but only a handful of geniuses. Of course the definition of genius varies. I believe that it is unattainable to most. Not even hard work can make a randomly picked philosopher Socrates, and it is something we must accept. True enough: they can be more wise than anyone in their village, nay, anyone in their capital, but they may not be Socrates.”

Estebella hid a blonde curl behind her ear, and said, ”You seem to be on a better mood today. Maybe I could try to have a shot at painting that portrait of yours at five o'clock in the studio, should you desire so.”

”Sure,” Oscar replied and then he sipped wine and looked her down, ”I am free at five.”

10

Aleister and Oscar were in the middle of an occult ritual in the gymnasium in the middle of the night. They were standing in a circle. Four candles placed in the four cardinal directions at the edge of the circle gave off soft light to the otherwise dark gymnasium. Aleister was dressed as a pope while Oscar was wearing his own clothes, yawning.

Aleister wielded a medieval sword and was about to finally finish a rather long conjuration: ”...And once more I evoke thee, O Lucifer, by all the names of things high and low and in between in the universe that may have gone unmentioned in this sacred ritual, to appear visibly and amiably and humbly to your king, that is to say, Solomon of the Israelites, sovereign of your legions. Come, therefore, and appear before the karcist of the ceremony, for you are being evoked by the Great Beast Konx Om Pax!”

A voice belonging to a boy of thirteen or fourteen spoke from behind Oscar and Aleister: ”Well, well, well. Am I being honored here, being invited by such a pair of handsome and able young men.”

Oscar and Aleister turned around. Aleister pointed his sword at Lucifer. ”Do you swear in the presence of Adonai the Most High that you are Lucifer, and none other than Lucifer—for if you fail to reply affirmatively, you will be banished forever from the ranks of existence."

Lucifer smiled, and said, "I am indeed Lucifer, the one and only."

Aleister lowered his sword.

"Tell me, magician. Why have you called me?"

Oscar was very impressed by Lucifer's extraordinarily beautiful form: the fallen angel was fully naked and had a perfect small nose at the center of a perfect visage of flawless boyhood and his limbs were nimble and his hands and feet most beautiful. His penis was rather large for his age, on the other hand, and his muscles were neither too big or too small. Nice.

"I wish to learn how to attain the Summum Bonum and how to complete my True Will as it is possible for me in this life," Aleister said.

Lucifer waved his hand, and great black wings grew in his back. He was now wearing a golden crown, and - to Oscar's disappointment - his body was covered by a toga now.

"And what would be your name, magician?"

"My magical name is To Mega Therion, and the name given to me by my parents is Aleister."

"Nice to meet you, Aleister. What about your companion: what shall I call him?"

Oscar was speechless. Aleister knocked Oscar's shin with his sword, and nodded at him.

"Oh. I am Oscar."

"Nice to meet you too, Oscar. What would be your request to me?" asked Lucifer.

Oscar pondered this for a moment. "What do you suggest?"

Aleister lowered his brows but didn't say anything.

"I can grant you a wish. Whatever it may be I will fulfil it at your pleasure. I do not require you to come up with it at this instant. Only call my name and I will come. It will reduce your life span by exactly thirty years."

"That is outrageous!" Aleister said. "Do not agree with the demon."

"Why shouldn't I? What is old age to me anyway? Most likely I'd grow to be a miserable, withered version of my prime. Like with anyone else there is a certain thing I have always desired but could never achieve even in my wildest dreams. So be it. How Faustian of me. I have wondered about the great talents that might surface after my time on this Earth. Naturally, there is no way for me to read their works. However, with magic by my side...perhaps I could catch a glimpse."

"And you would lose thirty years of your life for that?" Aleister contested.

"Readily.”

”If that is your wish, it is done,” Lucifer said.


11

Oscar found a two-bedroom apartment for John.

It had a French balcony facing the East on the highest floor of the building, allowing the couple to enjoy a view over the roofs of Dublin as the sunrises would paint them red. Oscar was flicking ashes from his cigarette on the balcony, but this time it was past sundown, and the roofs were cold blue. John was hugging him from behind.

”I love it,” the boy said. ”I just love it. And I love you.”

”I love you too. And nothing less would be enough for my beloved. Come here.” Oscar lifted the boy so that he ended up being squeezed between the iron balustrade and Oscar's body. He placed John's little hands on the balustrade.
”Look: this is all yours.” John took the cigarette from Oscar's mouth, sucked smoke from it, and put it back between Oscar's lips.

”I cannot believe it. And the pigeons! They are so close to us. The stars too seem nearer than ever. I can almost touch the eaves of those other upper class apartments, and there is no greater fortune I could imagine befalling me.”

Oscar slipped a hand under John's shirt and gave a peck on his cheek. ”Money, my dear, is not the root of all evil as they claim. It is the root of love. Can you not feel it? I know you can, the way it all falls into place once you have this. It is not just the person we love. We love love as well, the emotion. The elevation, the sense of accomplishment. We want to see ourselves happy. We want our chosen to see us happy. Love without money is never perfect.” John's belly felt hot to Oscar, and the boy was moving restlessly, but Oscar's weight kept him tightly pressed.

”I can! I can feel it, Oscar. I would have loved you anyways, but with this apartment my love can truly express itself. If only my mother could see me now! I can not ever let her see this place, though. I told her I am moving in with two of my best friends, and that we would work to pay the rent.”

Oscar flicked the cigarette holder, took a drag, and put it in John's mouth. ”Well, you won't need to work to keep this place. I have it all covered.”

John took the cigarette into his hand, and said, ”Why are you so rich, Oscar? The rent must cost you a fortune.”

”I write. I have always written. But I write better than others.”

”What do you write?”

”Plays, mostly. Some poetry as well, but I haven't shared them with the world.”

”But you are so young! Are you, like, really really good at writing? I mean, it must be a difficult profession.”

Oscar chuckled, and said, ”My love, it is not only difficult. It is impossible. What kind of artists do you see when you look with your heart through the walls of those apartments, knowing, that this part of town is filled with the bohemian types?”

John dropped the cigarette butt off the balcony from the holder which Oscar then took and put in his pocket. John said: ”Well, I see painters...and poets as well. Actors and actresses practicing their lines before their full-length mirrors. I see musicians trying to come up with that one hit, and of course lonely writers working on their first manuscript that might end their loneliness... or perhaps they have what we have right now.”

”No. They do not.”

”How come?”

”They do not have what I have. They will never suffer enough for their art. They have come up with this idea of being an artist. Someone who makes art. They share their unedited drafts with their friends and family members. They paint anything they can find. Their poems are too self-aware and riddled with unimaginative rhymes and cliches, and can never be taken seriously by anyone but their hand-picked circle of yes men who only serve to prevent real success. They will never impress anyone but themselves, their own ego, unless they kill themselves...that is to say, kill the sedative convenience that has clouded their thinking throughout their lives and become mindful of their craft instead, and, for the first time: honest.

”I visualize everything I write. From the smallest detail, I picture the scenes as if they were reality. I choose every word with uttermost carefulness. There is not an extraneous thing in my manuscripts. Everything I put in them belongs. I outline everything. I edit and re-edit. I edit the lines, I edit the structures. I play aloud every part over and over and over again. I spends days thinking about a single expression or simile or metaphor or description. Nobody writes like me.”

”Tell me more, Oscar.”

”Sure thing, sweetest. I assume the roles of the readers and the audience. I read my works as if I was somebody else, someone who wanted to be entertained and nothing more. I become the most vile critic imaginable and yet I love my work to death all the while being perfectly honest. I have no need for humility or servitude. I only have my pen, and it is the mightiest sword in existence! This apartment, this everything, even you, my darling, is the outcome of my genius for which I have worked unceasingly. I know that you would want me, you would want this that I am doing to you. But would you love me like you do know, would you hear my name in your dreams, would you plan your days around your Oscar, commit your exceedingly beautiful young body to me like you do now without no end to your love, should I not be the very best writer in the world? I personally think you would not. And that is perfectly fine, because you fell in love with me, and you sensed what I truly am at the very moment our eyes met for the first time.”

”Yes! I sensed it, my handsome! I sensed it and I fell in love with it. I loved I loved I loved it. And I love you,” the boy said as his eyes beamed gratitude, continuing, ”there is something I need to share with you.”

”You aren't seeing someone else, are you?”

”No, that's not it,” John said, smiling faintly. ”It is my mother. She... She thinks I will be the one to be the leader of free men in the future.”

Oscar brushed John's brown hair so that his both eyes became visible. ”What exactly are you talking about, pretty one?”

John shrugged his shoulder, and said, ”I know it sounds crazy, but she is really persistent. She talks about these machines that will enslave humanity and that I will be the one who will free the said portion of mankind from their slavery.”

Oscar stroke John's leg and said, ”The future is unwritten. Nobody can know what events may unfold. Whatever destiny may await you therein, I wouldn't worry about it. It may be nonsense, and then again, it may not. What we have right now, these machines from the future cannot take.”

John nodded. ”You are right. I shan't worry my head with it as long as I get to be with you. This moment in this luxurious apartment, this special pocket in time and space, is ours, and ours alone. Before the demise.”


12

Oscar was sitting on a couch in the studio. Estebella was painting him as she was sitting on a stool in front of a rosewood easel. The studio was equipped with an open oven used for claywork, and there was a pile of ash on the floor in front of it.

”This is the twenty-fourth one, Oscar. Can you please stay still?”

”The sitter can move all he wants. The position of his legs and his arms, the expression on his face, the way his hair hangs, are real life. As an artist, you are to be above it.”

Estebella took a deep breath. ”I guess you are right. I must see you the way your soul sits, and not your body, like you said before. I must be a clairvoyant of the theosophists, an oracle of the Greeks, a mystic of the Russian vasts.”

”Yes, Hierodule. You are to be those things.”

Estebella tucked wheat-colored locks behind her ears while holding the brush and palette in her other hand. She loaded the brush, and continued painting.
”I recall you mentioning you are working on a play, am I not correct?”

”You remember right.”

”And apparently your play, for the time being, consists of twenty-three scenes, like you said.”

”Yes,” Oscar said, ”I am working on the twenty-fourth.”

”Such a fated occurrence.”

”I would chalk it up to mere coincidence. What of it?”

”Nothing. Just wondered, if you were up for sharing these scenes with me. After all you did make me burn all the previous portraits... Maybe I will suggest that you should burn the scenes after a similar manner.”

”Maybe I should, darling. And then again, maybe not. I will gladly share them with you.”

”Really? Even if I said that should I find one single flaw in them, I would have you burn every single page?”

”Yes. I shall promptly burn every page of my play should you find a flaw in it.”

”You are the most confident artist I have ever met, Oscar. But sometimes confidence can be double-edged. It can be your fall. In which case you would be nothing but a hypocrite.”

”I agree. In your imaginary scenario, I would be just that. But when it comes to my art there is no pretense. You will find that yourself tomorrow as I will hand you the script. I will edit it tonight just for you.”

”That would be great. I will read it on the weekend. Next Monday I will give you my most honest and ruthless feedback.”

”You are free to do that.”

”Please tell. Just why do you take art so seriously, anyway? Why would you let me humiliate you like that? Why do you keep insisting on humiliating me, Oscar?”

”Humiliation has nothing to do with anything. I am not an ignoble bully. Nor am I one of those critics who judge art without being thoroughly immersed in waters too deep for them. Confidence as well is just a word. Anybody, even an idiot, can choose to appear such and act accordingly. Peacocking about your art takes no talent whatsoever. I can imagine all kinds of meritless works of art and their creators parading around them like a king whose country has just lost independence would around his throne one more time before it's too late. Do not succumb to empty self-praise, my beauty, and do not bother listening to those who do so,” Oscar said, and recrossed his pantyhosed legs. Estebella's grip on the brush had become noticeably rigid while Oscar was speaking.

”I choose who I listen to, Oscar. Is there no end to your vainglory?”

”Just what about me is vainglorious, darling?” Oscar lit a cigarette. He took a puff, shook the match till its flame went out, and continued, ”Honesty, to me, is essential. I don't give a rat's ass about glory or vanity.  I know what they speak of me, and you must have heard them as well. Dandy, nouveau riche. Elitist.”

Estebella smiled.

Oscar continued, ”Yes... I can tell you have definitely heard them talk. But let them talk, I say. Let them keep their opinions, they mean nothing to me. My last play was praised everywhere and it brought me money on top of fame. They pay to see it over and over again! And I can only smile as I think of their joy! It is not flattery to me, nor does it make me an egoist. It is feedback, which is what artists are most afraid of. I knew what it would be like before I sent my first child into the world. Why? Because I raised her after my own image. I am a ruthless father. I expect more from my children than anybody else.”

”I have seen it,” Estebella said. ”Sure, it was entertaining. Yet, it's just a play. There are better ones.”

”Which ones?”

Estebella cleared her throat, and said, ”Well, for example... The Tempest!”

Oscar was quiet for a moment. He took a deep drag of his cigarette, flicked the ashes onto the floor, yet didn't say anything. His eyes were big whites.

”I was just kidding. It's no big deal.”

”Art is always a big deal, baby.”

Estebella seemed to enjoy having gained the upper hand: ”Like I said, you seem very serious about your writing. I, on the other hand, don't bother comparing myself to any of the Greats. That would only give me a headache. I don't attempt to paint like, say, Turner or somebody on his level. I am not a genius, but I am comfortable with my art. To me, art is respite. It grants me a channel for self-expression, but it never consumes me. I wouldn't let it! God knows I am already consumed by my love life, or, as it stands for the time being, by the lack of it. Why would I want a boyfriend as difficult as art? I mean, Jesus, it's just a pastime.”

”And so it will forever be to you if you approach art like an airhead.”

”Excuse me?” Estebella said. ”I am not an airhead.”

”You must know, my sweetest one, that I don't think that of you in general—as if you were not equipped with the necessary tools for making great art. Indeed you are; lest you'd be studying in a lesser university. But here you are! With all your privileges, your wealthy background, your gracious talent...and you call art a pastime. It is as if you compared painting a painting to enjoying a painting. The latter is repose: it takes only five seconds to check out a masterpiece, but easily five years to complete it.”

”I don't have five years to spend on a bloody painting. I want to enjoy my youth. I want see the world. To find love! It still begs to be answered why art is so goddamn important to you, Oscar. It is as if you were possessed by it. Modern psychology knows cases that are much akin to possession but in fact originate from the human brain. I am not saying that you are mad, but maybe you should take it easier before you eventually will be.”

”Pray tell, why would I consider myself a lunatic just because I have high standards for art?”

Estebella made a stroke with her brush, and said, ”We are dangerously close to a semantic dead end. There is madness and then there is madness. Sometimes we ourselves aren't the best judge on the matter.”

Oscar spent the night at his desk in his candlelit dorm room as he reviewed every scene of his unfinished play. As sunrise reached his eyes, he was done. He concluded that the scenes had been almost perfect to begin with. Almost. He had changed only one word, though, but it was a necessary improvement, and he was thankful to Estebella. She had become a sort of a muse to him as of late. Watching her struggle at getting better made him try harder as well. There would be no room for mistakes if he were to surpass Tempest...would it even ever happen? Art was not purely subjective: there was bad art and there was good art, this he was sure of. Oscar took the last handwritten page in his hands and looked at it against the rising sun. He was not mad. He knew he was holding a leaf from the tree of life. He didn't doubt his sanity nor his genius. His art would speak for itself, and he knew he would be one of the Greats. Future generations would most likely speak his name. Similarly, he could see himself as being part of the canon, and even the lowest caste who wouldn't have the time in their slavish lives would at least recognize his name. Was this realization really a sign of vainglory? He was simply being perfectly honest, like a writer always should. The room was red from the sun. Oscar put the pages in a big envelope, and sighed. Time was nothing to him. Even his face, which was such a beautiful thing to behold, would get old. He could have always asked Lucifer to make him forever young. But why would he want that? It was a necessary tragedy to get old and to die eventually. He found comfort in the thought. The world was ugly. To be the lily of the valley forever! Now that was vainglory. There was a bundle of stars in the sky. Cosmic waves full of stories such as mankind flushed throughout that emptiness; civilizations we would never learn of perished like weak animals upon winter's arrival and he too was dashing to and fro in vain. Only his offspring would continue, but not for long. Dust would settle eventually and the words he had spent so much trouble forming and arranging would become meaningless. He massaged his eyes. Would it have been, after all, better if he had just enjoyed his youth while it lasted? Maybe he did take art too seriously. He had always been writing. It was what he enjoyed the most, even more than sex. Or was it, after all, the other way around. Oscar looked at his quill. It was just an object, something one chose to use. It wasn't opium which he spiced his cigarettes with. Opium was a clingy lover, but a lover nonetheless. Oscar didn't get pleasure from writing. It didn't satisfy him like John did. He was simply addicted. Was it possible for this pleasureless addiction to drive him mad eventually, he wondered. Literature was a taker. He gave, and got nothing but some money and praise in return, both of which would soon pass until he would have to give again. Oscar bathed and put on fresh clothes. He shaved with scented cream and painted his lips just a little redder than they were, like he always did. Aleister was stirring. He was a slow waker. Oscar left the room and went to the canteen. He saw Estebella breakfasting with two of her friends. Both Oscar and Estebella had midterms that Friday, but unlike her, Oscar hadn't studied much. He had been too busy with his play. Estebella had talked about the exams while attempting to paint him, how stressed out she was, and how there was way too much reading involved in art history. Unsurprisingly, she looked tired that morning. Oscar walked up to her.

”Oscar!” Estebella said, as her friends took notice of him. ”Would you like to join us?”

”No thanks, I am a bit busy. Just thought I'd drop by to give you that thing we talked about.” Oscar handed her the envelope containing his play.

She smiled. ”Oh! Right... I will definitely read it over the weekend.” One of the girls leaned towards Estebella and asked her ”You know him?” as he walked away.


13

The next day was rainy, and Oscar didn't leave his room except to dine. The day after that was Sunday, and the sky was grey from clouds but they weren't rainclouds and he used the opportunity to walk hand in hand with John in the park. Geese had returned from the south and the trees had small leaves. The wind was moist and cold, which made John's hand feel warm to Oscar.

”They must think we are brothers,” John said, after an elderly couple had walked by with warm smiles.

”As long as we don't kiss, yes, they probably think that,” Oscar agreed.

”But I want to. It is only natural to express my love by kissing you.”

Oscar brushed John's hand with his thumb. ”Natural to us, but not to them. They would never accept our love.”

”Why not? Why wouldn't they accept something as natural as love?”

”Maybe when you are fourteen. I would be twenty-two. It would be relatively normal. Right now you are prepubescent, and most boys your age aren't sexually awakened. People project assumptions onto relationships as if we were all cut from the same cloth. They will never understand that it is not so, and we must accept the fact.”

”So... No kissing outdoors.”

”We could hug,” Oscar said, and John did so, but followed it with a kiss on Oscar's mouth.

”I cannot hug you like this without feeling your lips against mine. It would drive me insane,” John said.

Oscar was aware that a man walking with a young girl saw them kiss. He took a step back, and said, ”Then no hugging either, my love.”

”Holding hands is still fine, isn't it? Brothers do that. And even if their grip wasn't as tight as ours, I don't care!” John grabbed Oscar's hand, and pressed his shoulder tightly against his side from time to time as they kept on walking. –––Him and John would only ever kiss anyways because he was mortally afraid of imprisonment––– Oscar saw a park bench with a white envelope. ”Let us sit, darling,” he said. The bench faced a pond with lily pads and a family of wild ducks was gliding idly near the grassy shore. Oscar looked at the envelope: it was upside down.  There was no one around the bench to whom it might have belonged. He took the envelope in his hands. The obverse side read: ”Oscar.” He opened it. There was a folded letter inside. Oscar spread it out, and read its contents:

  Alone
when not together
  umbrellas
in sunny weather
 together
when not alone
 Two hearts
with a home

(From Paul to my Linda)

Oscar was quite puzzled. He didn't know anyone by that name, and he certainly hadn't written the poem he had just read. It must have been a coincidence, he thought, and slipped the letter back and put the envelope where he had found it.

”What did it say?”

”Nothing.”

John put his arm around Oscar and rested his weightless head against his shoulder. ”This should be fine, right? I am sure there exist brothers somewhere out there who would do this.”

Since no one was looking, Oscar pecked John's forehead, and said, ”I am quite convinced there do not. Our love is in every respect forbidden in the eyes of society—there is a clear line separating brotherly love from romantic lust and we cross it all the time, even as we speak. It can be noticed, I am sure. Even when we don't touch our eyes are hazy from foolish desire.”

”Then brothers don't really love each other. They just like. It cannot be the same as love.”

”I don't know... I never got to love my brother. He was taken from me when I was very young.”

”Your brother died?”

”He was kidnapped. My sister died, though.”

”I'm sorry.”

”What about you, do you have any siblings?”

”No, I am the only child, and as such I feel blessed.”

”You never wanted someone to play with as a young child?”

John seemed to mull over the question, and replied, ”I didn't play as a young child. I was the serious type just like my mother. Maybe that is why I am already so mature; as if I skipped four years of my childhood. Do you think it might be the reason? It makes sense to me, dude.”

”No absolutely not. Have you ever written anything?”

”Nope. I am more physical than intellectual.”

Oscar didn't mind. He didn't expect artistic ability from his boyfriends. ”I see. You are smart for your age. Who knows what heights you will attain one day.”

John shrugged, looked Oscar in the eye, and said, ”I rather live in the present.”

Oscar wanted to suck John's tongue and play with it in his mouth but there were strollers and he had no choice but to refuse himself the pleasure. He knew John wanted the same; that the forbidden aspect of their love turned them both on immensely. Oscar said to John: ”Come summer, we can be together as much as we want. Do you not at least dream a few months ahead, knowing this?”

John touched Oscar's knee, and smiled: ”Of course I do! But life is uncertain, and nothing is worse than crushed dreams. So it's better not to think too far.”

”Fair enough. Speaking hypothetically: if you knew you would die young would you still remain as nonchalant, or would you come with...say, a bucket list?”

John placed his hands in his lap, and tilted his head back: ”Ah! I would probably try to find myself. I wouldn't bother trying to fuck as much as possible or anything of the sort. Does that make me weird?”

Oscar took the envelope and threw it away, watching it fly like a frisbee until it hit an oak and fell on the grass. He said, ”Yes, to be perfectly honest, it is a bit weird. I would do just that. I do not know if there is anything about the self that isn't already present. What is there to find? We can always look at ourselves objectively and see all our parts at the very instant.”

”I wonder. My mother tells me there is more to me than I know. Could it be there is someone out there who would know something more about you as well?”

Oscar took a cigarette and lit it up, ”Certainly not my mother. She never tried to understand me..”

Wind breezed across the park.

”Hmm. What about someone outside your family?” John asked curiously.

”Maybe you, John?” Oscar said. ”Do you see anything about me that I perhaps cannot see myself?”

”Let me take a look at my most delicious boyfriend.” John climbed on Oscar's lap, leaving his legs on the bench beside him. John took the cigarette holder from Oscar's lips with his mouth. He twirled it into a smoking position with his skilful tongue, took a drag, and replaced it, still with his mouth. He blew smoke at Oscar's neck, and nibbled it. John looked Oscar deep in the eye. ”I see a young noble who thinks too much for his own good. He hates people, but there is a peculiar strand of love as well. He is afraid of letting other people close, but leaves the door open for hedonistic relationships.  He speaks to his self through his characters, making them suffer because he wants to tell himself to stop tormenting his mind. He cannot relax— no—he cannot even consider letting go completely, which is why he abuses opium and never stops working in his mind or at his bureau.” John pecked the corner of Oscar's mouth and sat back, leaving his lap.

”You are... very perceptive, but I already knew those things about myself. I would like to point out, however, that I don't hate all people. You are to me one such exception. You are as honest as literature should be.”

”So honesty turns you on?” John said, and smiled. ”I will have to keep that in mind.”

”I'd rather you not. Nobody wants to hear the truth. The world is a tiring web woven of harsh waking moments. Why should we join the spiders?”

”Whichever way you want, Oscar! As long as I get to be yours, I am happy.”


14

Oscar was standing at a bulletin board inside the university near the main doors. He was piercing the board again and again with a tack while he was thinking about the rhythm of a piece of dialogue of his play.

”There you are!” Estebella's voice said. ”I was looking for you all over.”

Oscar glanced at her. Oscar pushed the thumb tack as far as it went into the board, and said, ”Right! Let us go to the studio then. I would love to hear what you think about my play as we walk...”

”Now that you mention it, I almost forgot: here,” Estebella said, and gave Oscar the envelope with his manuscript from her canvas bag where she always carried her palettes and brushes and sketchbooks and the like. Oscar took it and put it in his bag. As they walked, Estebella said, ”I liked it. No, I... I really liked it. I couldn't find a single flaw. How is it that someone your age writes like a deity?” Oscar put his hand on her upper back in a friendly manner, and said, ”I have explained, darling. I simply do not let myself fail in art. I know that should I stop being mindful of my every syllable, and begin to see the art of playwriting as the hobby of playwriting, I would soon be just that; a hobbyist rather than an artist.” He removed his hand.

”Is there not a grey area at all to you, Oscar? You seem to think very black and white.”

Oscar didn't reply. He tried not to look back at some students who stared at them as they walked. Some of the female students even looked Oscar in the eye and smiled with visible rows of well-kept upper class teeth.

”You are well loved, Mercury. Do you ever love girls back?”

”What do you mean?”

”Oh, you know I cannot avoid bringing this up. I am a young woman, and you are the most extraordinary person I have ever met.”

Oscar stopped, and Estebella followed suit. Oscar said reluctantly: ”I am...flattered that you would think me extraordinary. I am however seeing somebody.”

”I knew you would say that. The interesting ones are always taken.” Estebella said and defeatedly looked down into her shoes.

”If you manage to paint my portrait you will find that there is nothing left in my soul you wouldn't have captured.”

”That is nice,” Estebella said, a tear rolling down her cheek.

Oscar was lying on the studio couch, the spikes of his shoes on an armrest, as Estebella was painting him. The oven floor still had a layer of ash from the past twenty-five paintings Oscar had had her burn. The last one had a miserable boutonnière. Oscar had given her a chance to fix it and yet she had failed even then. This time he didn't wear one. He wondered if Estebella would take its lack as an insult. It certainly wasn't meant as one.

She said with her paintbrush, ”If you make me burn this one as well you must let me read your next scene, Oscar.”

”Very well.”

Seven months later they were in the studio again.

”–––This one will be the sixty-ninth portrait of you, Oscar. I have done everything I possibly could imagine in my wildest fucking dreams in order to paint it. I even paint it in my dreams! There are no other dreams, not at least that I remember upon waking, and when I close my eyes, I see you - lying there in a cloud of opium which I smell as vividly as I smell this turpentine. And thus before I start painting this one, I must ask you: do you even want me to be successful in painting it?”

Oscar stood up from the couch, walked up to her, and said, ”Want has nothing to do with it. Will is everything. It is time that you realize your will.”

”How?” Estebella said weakly.

”By your true name, may you be present, Hieroduleardatukedeshazonahhetairapallakepudendaputtanacunnusscortumuterofalsiparenscharshanimeretrixundecimus the Whore!!” Estebella started painting at once. She didn't need Oscar to sit for her. Not anymore she didn't. Her hair seemed to be alive from static electricity, and not once did she lose her concentration. Oscar saw a true artist; a master at work. Even before the portrait was finished he was convinced it would be the portrait to end all portraits, and so it was. After the last stroke of her brush that finished her signature Estebella lost consciousness. Oscar took her in his arms to prevent her from falling on the concrete floor, and carried her to the couch. She woke up on the couch an hour later, asking, ”What happened?”

”Why don't you see for yourself?”

Estebella got up, looking groggy. Oscar helped her up, and she walked to the easel. When she saw the painting, she broke into tears.

”I must thank you, Estebella. For giving me an idea for my tour de force.”

Estebella killed herself just before the end of that semester.


15

Twenty years later Oscar was sitting in the box of the Royal English Opera House during his play's premiere. The play was nearing the end. Oscar stared at the stage emotionlessly. And when the act was over, the whole audience stood up and clapped and Oscar could hear the ovation as he walked down the carpeted hallway and alabaster stairs and the ghostly thunder continued in his mind's ears all the way to his mobile. His valet drove him to his mansion. Oscar visualized the actors' performances, comparing them to the lines in his mind, during the trip.

There was a young man smelling the roses in his garden.

He walked up to him. The young man turned to look at Oscar, and said, ”Oscar!”

”Xavier.”

”Marie said I would find you here,” the young man said in French.

”Well, this is my home,” Oscar said, also in French, which was the language they always used when talking to each other. ”What can I do for you?”

”I wished to congratulate you on your play. I am sorry to say that I couldn't make it to the opening. If I could but hug you it would make me feel so much better about my crime.”

Oscar opened his arms and tilted his head to the side: ”Your wants in life are so simple, my lord.”

Xavier pressed his arms around Oscar's waist, and burrowed his cheek into his chest. The young lord had lips and cheekbones of pale rouge and skin free of worry. He was at the age in which his muscles grew almost visibly and sometimes his enlivened package was visible through the white inner thigh of his pants. A bird pool was full of rain water and the roses were wet and the sky was dark grey but it wasn't raining right then. He could feel Xavier's bulge. The French nobleman pecked both of Oscar's cheeks and put his hands on his shoulders, and said, ”I am so happy to be so near to you.”

”I have enjoyed our conversations. You are such a clever young man, my lord, and your poetry is...it is not worse than Baudelaire's. Why shouldn't I keep you close as a friend?”

”You flatter me, Oscar. I am nowhere near Baudelaire.”

”Oh, I never flatter when it comes to art.”

Xavier crossed his arms over his chest and stamped the lawn lightly with an expensive shoe. ”You do like Baudelaire?”

Oscar smiled. ”Some of his work.” '

”Voila, you like some of my work.”

Oscar put his hand on Xavier's waist and lead him to a stone pavilion. As they walked, he said, ”I have never read a poet whose all works were stellar. Could such a person even exist? The soul has its rhythms—sometimes its passions aren't up to par with the poet's standards for his art. Yet he has to press on, neverminding the rut he is stuck in. I have done that countless times, Xavier, and conquered many a rut.”

”How? How do you never fail like the rest of us? ...even at my age you were already working on your first masterpiece. I can only imagine how you must have felt back then as you were writing it in your room and realized that what you had right there and then in your typewriter was really great.”

Oscar took his arm from Xavier's back and let it fall by his side. ”I wasn't writing. I was drafting. And I never use a typewriter. I always write with the same quill I bought when I was seven. It was the first thing I bought with my own money. I wrote the play when I was seventeen. By then I had rewritten the manuscript sixteen times. The final draft was a pebble that finished a pyramid.”

”That is... very dedicated. I have never edited a poem that many times, and yours was a play.”

They sat on a marble bench.

”Tell me about yourself, my lord. I hardly know you yet I see you all the time.”

Xavier looked happy. ”You have never asked me that before. We have only discussed art and I have secretly hoped this day would come. You must know that my mother is the Duchess of Orléans?”

Oscar nodded. ”Everybody knows that. Otherwise I wouldn't call you my lord. What else?”

”I like it when you call me that,” Xavier said, blushing.

”Hmm, what else... Do you know about my father?”

”No, I only know Sir Jean-Marie Ponce by his name and that he was rather rich.”

”Yeah, he was a wealthy man. He imported negresses from Africa and brown-eyed nubiles from Near East to work in his chain of brothels across Europe. It was the exotic nymphs rather than the white ladies of the night he had working for him that brought him his fortune.”

”I see. How did he die?”

Xavier pushed hair away from his face. ”He died in a duel with my mother. Soon after that we sold all but one of our residencies in Orléans and moved here. Marie wants me to study to the Masters level in Cambridge or some other university of similar repute before I get to use my savings, and that is why I am such a dedicated student, and don't have much time for else. Oh! Now that I remembered...” Xavier took a gift box from his velvet bag. There was a yellow rose between the ribbon and the box. ”Because of your play.”

Oscar thanked him and tilted the box. Its contents sloshed. He opened it, putting the rose on the bench between them, and revealed a bottle. ”Cognac. We should drink it.” As they drank the bottle in Oscar's home the rain pattered on the windows. Oscar held his liquor better than Xavier.

And the next morning Oscar woke from his bed next to Xavier who was still sleeping. He was in his undergarments, half under a blanket. Oscar removed the blanket without waking him. He studied the young body: the feet were a little big, as were his hands, both almost as large as his. His stomach was flat and his buttocks and thighs were well-formed but had too much meat on them. His arms weren't bulky from exercise, which pleased him. Oscar liked his calves, and his shoulders were yet to widen too much. He had a head full of curly hair that smelled of June rain like his garden. His face and nose were too big. The mouth was rather narrow, and his brows were trimmed, but then, his forearms and shins had body hair on them. Oscar put the blanket back on Xavier, this time covering his whole body up to his neck. Oscar did his morning activities, downed two glasses of champagne, and began to smoke a cigarette on his terrace with a cup of tea in his hand. Xavier joined him and said good morning although it was afternoon.

Oscar said against the dewy morning: ”Morning, would you like to take a bath? I can tell my maid to prepare it for you.”

”No thank you, I have to leave before my mother begins to worry. I'm rarely away from home all night. Look, Oscar...” Xavier started, and paused to think. ”I... hope you didn't mind my coming on to you like that.”

Oscar smiled. ”You were drunk. It happens.”

Xavier looked down at the tiled floor of the terrace. ”I just hope we can still be friends, I mean, I really want to keep talking with you about—” Oscar put his hand on Xavier's head. ”Don't worry about it.” He stroked his curls lightly, and said, ”we should continue on the subject some other time when you are sober.”

”Whenever you want!” Oscar looked at the boy walk across the garden to the iron gate as he smoked the last inch of his cigarette. He went to his library, took a novel from a bookcase, and sat in an armchair. He rest his feet upon a stool, and, once he was comfortable, rang a bell he always kept on a round table. A uniformed housemaid, not older than twenty, walked up to him. ”Sir,” she said.

”Can you prepare my breakfast now, darling?”

She curtsied with innocent eyes. ”Right away, sir”

Oscar opened the book and began reading the foreword. Once he saw it was a writer bio he skipped to the story proper. He read until the maid returned with a catering trolley. She pushed it to Oscar's reach. ”Is there anything more you need?”

”If you feel like doing your groceries now, Julia, I would love it if you'd buy the day's papers as well.”

”Is it because of the reviews?”

”Yes, I don't give a damn about the rest, but I know you rather love the causeries.”

”Very much!” Julia said, beaming. ”I'll be on my way then.”

After his maid left Oscar lifted the food cover and placing it on a lower shelf of the trolley he began to eat a little bit of everything found on his plate as he read. The meal and a common cigarette and a stretch of reading and a nap later his maid brought Oscar a pile of newspapers. He thanked her and his maid left with the trolley and Oscar began reading through the reviews. 'Excellent satire.' 'Witty dialogue.' 'Society exposed.' He scratched his neck, and thought about the carefully constructed rhythm of the dialogue that had been butchered by the main character's young actor. ..That one young actor had really pissed him off. But had it only been butchered in his mind, or had the critics enjoyed everything else so much they ended up praising the play anyway? Oscar put the newspapers on the round table, got up, and got into his slippers. He stretched. He walked down to the shining main hall and looked at everything his art had brought him. Was there anything more for him to achieve? The so-called critics would probably lap up everything he'd conjure from his quill because it was ever-sharp – but the thought came with a wave of disgust.

On the evening, Oscar hit the pub. A stocky bartender prepared a glass of absinthe and put it before him on the bar counter before they had exchanged a word. Oscar lifted his glass as a nod of thanks and took a sip.

”Ey you're that writer,” a patron sitting next to him said.

”Guilty as charged.”

”My niece read that novel o'yours. She's into that stuff...”

”What do you mean by stuff, sir?”

”You know... Between men.”

”Ah! It's just literary honesty, my friend.”

”I know,” he sighed. ”That's what them cultivated folks write in their columns.”

”Yes... A book is a separate entity. It has its own world.”

”Just curious, though... Do you yourself...? You know. With men?”

”No. Not ever.”

The patron cheered at Oscar with his pint, and Oscar smiled.


16

Gray industrial sky loomed above Inner London whose boroughs Oscar knew like the back of his hand because he enjoyed walking down their streets, aimlessly more often than not. It was four in the afternoon and he was strolling, one hand snugged in a silk pocket of his dress coat, an umbrella hanging from the bend of the arm, the other hand smoking a cigarette. The clacks of his spikes were muffled by the cacophony of chattering Londoners and roaring engines and horns of automobiles and cries of city birds and of his own thoughts to which the cigarette brought calm as he smoked.

He had come upon a writer's block. There were no ideas in his mind. Only mindless ghosts he banished as they came: characters whose life situations would offer no meaningful conflict whatsoever, only vapid entertainment—drama for dilettantes—and self-conscious humor which he abhorred. His literary agent was waiting on an old bridge upon Thames, and he got there once he had exorcised every such idea without mercy; for true art was perfectly cruel.

”And the celebrated playwright finally appears!” Mr. Fletcher said, golf clapping as he spoke.

”Lucas,” Oscar acknowledged.

”Oscar.” The agent took off his top hat, showing his bald, and put it back. ”I had some time on my hands as I was standing here, three quarters of an hour if I should be so matter-of-factly, whilst looking at the bosoms of waving female tourists in their Edwardian hats on the boat decks.”

”What of it?”

”I happen to fancy descriptive words when they aren't marring fiction, and couldn't help but underline each one I could find in Spencer's review,” the agent said, referring to the cultural critic of The Times. ”I am also somewhat enamored with arithmos and seventy-two percent of the adjectives were unequivocally complimentary. Look, they are the red ones.” His agent showed Oscar a newspaper page. Oscar glanced at it.

”Seventy-two percent doesn't sound like much.”

”Oh, Oscar—but it is. You see, Hieronymus Spencer hates theatre. He is absolutely disgusted with it! To him, actors are the Devil's bastard children, not even wanted by their Antichrist father but rather alone in the world of culture even when poetry has its place in art. Mr. Spencer is the one who even hates the renditions of the Bard of Avon's work. Sure, Spencer appreciates his Iambic mastery and the emotional accomplishments of his tragedies and how they are more complete than his sonnets in purpose and intent—this all paraphrased from his critiques, by the way—but the actors are the plague that disfigures the otherwise fine poetry. To Mr. Spencer, Shakespeare is to be read, not watched.”

”What about the twenty-eight per cent?”

The agent read aloud, ”Intermittently childish, devoid of thought-provoking social criticism, not as daring as his novel, at times lamentably unpoetic...”

”So you saved the bad news last, my friend. I have read that nonsense already. Would a fireman keep his job should he suffer from pyrophobia? He should be banned from all the national theatres and hanged, drawn and quartered if he ever tried to sneak in,” Oscar said, and added, ”...and if nobody volunteered to do so to him, I would raise my hand in a heartbeat.”

”I, if anyone, know your personality, Oscar. And this is why I wanted to see you. You see, the charming demimondaine whose son you are acquainted with and who happens to be a dear friend of mine has invited you both to her costume party on the coming Saturday. I am your only friend, Oscar. Please, promise me that there will be no...incident between you two.”

”Oh, I promise. I am a man of high art and not some delinquent prole,” Oscar said without a smile.

Next Oscar was sitting on the coach of his car with Xavier. He had asked his valet to drive slowly so they could enjoy the scenery through the windows. Xavier looked like an adolescent satyr with his naked belly rising and falling with his breath as he pretended to speak like Puck from the play. It made him seem younger. Oscar enjoyed looking at the boy-sprite. A Venetian mask was lying face-side down on Oscar's crotch and he thought what it would have been like if it was Xavier's face, and not his mask, buried in his lap right then! They had discussed art and love and French history in Oscar's mansion, and Xavier was giddy from the absinthe and most likely also from the evening full of light beams from the bluish clouds that had rained their share.

”Oh, I just love acting!” Xavier said in French. ”It makes me feel warm inside when I imagine the audience following my every gesture and line. How I wish I could one day act in one of your plays, Oscar...”

”I love you like a brother, Xavier, but your accent is all over the lines. Why not seek to act in your native tongue?”

”That would be boring. I love English. It is so poetic.”

”Even more than French?”

”Yes!” the boy said. ”I feel possessed when I speak it. Like there was Chaucer or someone speaking through me. Every word feels so pompous, they come out like English rain. Oh, the range of your vocabulary slaughters my native tongue like the Yeomans' arrows. How it pains me that I cannot ever pronounce it as finely as you.”

”And I will never pronounce French as well as you. I will always have an accent.”

”Eugh. It's like a curse!”

Oscar ruffled Xavier's hair, rustling its dry leaves, and said, ”I know a German guy who speaks English as well as me. Granted, he is a genius when it comes to literature and majored in English. Maybe you could do the same...if only you more than tried. Have you thought about your major yet?”

”Nope,” Xavier said, and rested his head for a second on Oscar's shoulder, ”but I know it doesn't interest me that much. I love nature! I love animals and flowers and freedom. Language is a human construct. It would only be a prison in the end.”

”That is only temporary. Once you transcend you are above it. It becomes your whore and you can use it anyway you please.”

”Do you think that of your women as well?”

”I do not partake in pleasures with women. I have known them all too well to even consider marrying. And, between me and you, my sweet boy; it would only be a front. You must have realized this yet you still have some doubt in your heart because I have never confirmed your suspicions.”

”So it is true what they say. Oscar, my heart is beating so bad. Your wisdom is a mountain I always hoped to have a golden lining from a sun as mine. The pass below is full of shadows. I cannot see down there what they see; I cannot appreciate the flowers below for the life of me. I see them hand in hand: boys and girls my age, and I cry when I am alone and away from their sights. I am the black sheep of my school...bullied because of my nature. Oh, they see it clear as day. It is not because of my accent—I know this because there are students from the Kingdom of Hungary and Italy and Andalusia and God knows from where, and they are loved just as much as the local students. But not me, Oscar. To have a friend like you is a blessing.”


17

The ballroom glittered with opulence and it was filled with high class ladies and their servile husbands of great fortune all of whom wore Venetian masks as per the unwritten rules. Only their youth wore full body costumes.

Oscar couldn't spend much time with Xavier due to the ambiguous nature of their friendship but they did exchange a few words here and there as they met at the drink table. On one such occasion, as a male servant was filling a champaign fountain right next to them, Oscar brushed a naked spot on the inner thigh of Xavier's deliberately ripped costume, playing it off as an accidentally exaggerated wave of hand as he spoke. He was tipsy and full of lust, yet he had had no choice but to take part in boring conversations with other guests.

Xavier was chatting with his friends at the opposite end of the hall when Oscar was approached by his mother.

”Oscar! I am so pleased to see you here. I wasn't sure whether you would come, to be honest,” Marie said, holding her Venetian mask from its stick. Oscar was wearing his own, which came with a ribbon. She had a mole on her neck and long curly red hair that exuded lust for life despite her age of fourty-five. She was clearly drunk.

”Of course I came, madame,” he said in French.

Whereupon Marie switched to French as well: ”I hope my boy hasn't been giving you too much trouble. I know he is at that age ...and with that irresponsible costume as well! He can be such a miscreant.”

”Come now, Marie. He is a free spirit.”

”Oh, I am aware of that. That he is sixteen and that I should let him do his thing. His... drinking and partying and.. and poetry. His similes are so depressing! I hope you have told him at least that. He has been talking about your masterful verse and he has clearly taken a liking to you.”

”His poetry is about emotions. Surely you feel down from time to time as well, my lady?”

Marie laughed, and slapped Oscar's shoulder. ”Oh, you betcha! I just don't dwell on it like my son. What does 'like dead on the Moon' even mean? Everyone there would run out of air.”

”Context, my darling. To take a simile out of its context is like changing collars between dogs and beating the wrong dog. I have read that particular piece and it was rather well-written for his age. Sure, it was gloomy, but should one read the poems of the likes of Rimbaud and Baudelaire - whom he both adores and often praises - one would soon find that his aren't that dark in tone after all.”

”Mmhm! I may have not read those particular poets, although I know of them of course, but I have read many a poem with both happier themes and great artistic value. I just wish he would at least once try something different.”

”Themes come to poets like clouds arrive onto a clear blue sky; they form out of nothingness and cannot be forced to surface from the depths of their souls for the soul is a different beast and unknown are its tempers,” Oscar said, and sipped his drink.

”What is it about poets that makes them so morose as compared to, say, novelists? I truly wonder...” Marie said, as if continuing her last sentence.

”Novelists aren't really an exception. Or do you know of a novel that was only sun and light from cover to cover?”

”Let me think... Milly and Olly?”

”A wee children's book! and even Milly liked her stories gloomy. It is not that poets are different from novelists; they just don't have the need to write full-length novels. Like musicians poets are mostly creatures of emotion whereas novelists are a more intellectual breed by default. There are exceptions of course—some novelists attempt to write poetry and some poets dabble in the art of novel.”

”As a playwright, I assume you are both emotional and intellectual, then?”

”What makes you think that?”

”Well... plays are much akin to long poems yet have actual stories to tell.”

”Some plays. Perhaps you could say that,” Oscar yielded, wanting to change the subject. ”Speaking of playwriting, do you happen to know if Mr. Hieronymus Spencer from The Times has made it here?”

”Is he a playwriter? I though he only writes critique.”

”Yes, that's what I was coming to. I would have wanted to discuss his critique. I am a great fan of his. His insights are fascinating and full of wisdom that I could, should I be able to talk to him face to face, question him about.”

Marie smiled. ”Certainly! Let me show you to him.” Marie walked Oscar to a man in his mid-twenties. He was alone, and exceedingly handsome. His skin was like porcelain, pale yet aristocratic. He displayed no unnecessary twitches on his face or mouth or eyes as he spoke in a most beautiful voice whose every syllable came like notes on a piano: ”Oscar from Ireland.” His Venetian mask was black, and so was his tailcoat and other garments. His cane, too, was as black as the northern winter. Marie made an excuse to leave them, and disappeared into the crowd. Mr. Spencer was holding a glass of red wine, and yet Oscar could sense that he was entirely sober and aware.

”Mr. Spen—cer,” greeted Oscar with a lump in his throat.

”What have you on mind, Oscar?”

”I... I read your critique on my play's premiere. I just... wanted to discuss it as I learned that you are here.”

”What about it would you specifically want to discuss with me?”

Oscar saw that Mr. Spencer's black hair was perfectly cut. It shone like far space under the crystal chandeliers. ”You— I liked the review... but you mentioned that my play could have been less facetious and... and that at times there could have been more punctual social commentary. I— think I did the best I could writing it, and, even though I greatly respect your opinion, I couldn't help but wonder if you may have been just a little bit biased due to your dislike of theatre as an art form. Don't get me wrong, I don't pretend to know your likes, Mr. Spencer. It's... Just what I heard.”

”Perhaps we could continue our conversation on the balcony, Oscar. I love the night.”

”If that's your wish, sir,” he said.

And so they climbed up the stairs and opened a pair of glass double doors and stepped outside onto a semicircle balcony. Mr. Spencer closed the double door behind them (expressionlessly like a murderer).

”What do you see, my child, when you look down there?” Mr. Spencer asked him.

Oscar looked at the roofs of the cars that were parked in a line. A cobbleway meandered across the shady lawn. There were bushes with roses that looked like tiny purple whirls from their vantage point. ”I see a yard, Mr. Spencer.”

”That is exactly what the audience sees. They see a yard. They do not see the night.”

”I'm sorry. Of course I see the night as well. I... I wasn't writing a play here. Should I have I been doing that, I would have described it one way or another through the setting or characters.”

”How would you know the night if you haven't experienced it, Oscar? How would you describe something you do not know?”

”I have my... I am... As a writer I have my imagination.”

Mr. Spencer gave a tiny smile. ”Would you like to know what imagination is?”

”I already think I... No, I am quite sure of the definition of...whatever it may be, it is the world that opens as we close our eyes, no?”

”Imagination is the world that opens when your eyelids droop for the last time. There will be no heaven of relief nor pearly gates of hope, but there will be another life in the  mother night's eternal embrace. You will then see for the first time the world as it truly can be: you will smell the roses speak. You will commune with the stars and the branches and their little leaves. You will no longer suffer from bodily aches. No longer will the cars be as beasts in the wild for they cannot harm you. You will only know the night once you become the night itself, Oscar.”

”How do I... I am happy to be who I am, but...what can I do, while being who I currently am, to know the night, Mr. Spencer?”

Spencer looked at Oscar with his obsidian eyes. ”How are you happy?? I have heard that word, I have read it. People speak of happiness as if they had it just like they speak of the night. Soon enough you will begin to crumble like Rome. Your steps will grow difficult. Your eyes will no longer see as they used to. Your mind will be demoralized. You will see the young enjoying their youth and think, if only I - the playwright - could be like them. The sunrises will not bring a new day, they will bring sorrow. Even your literary accomplishments will sooner or later be out of style as new genres and new ways of thought come as new generations are born into this world. Will you then not think you are as Plato?”

”Of course I won't: I am not Plato. I will think myself Oscar.”

”Oh but you are Plato. For Plato is dead.”

”I am alive! Right now, I am breathing this air. I am not dead.”

Mr. Spencer sipped wine from his glass, and then threw the rest of its contents away. ”That wine was you as we speak. God was my hand. How are you not dead?”

”You too will... I know we all must die. I may not be as young as you, but I am what you will become.”

”No. I am what you could become,” Mr. Spencer said, and his voice grew more severe. ”Quit with making assumptions, Oscar. Stop trying to understand the society when you are an outcast. You do not belong in my world. Not yet. I have experienced the human soul in a way you can not.”

”Have you experienced my soul as well? I would like to think that you have not. I do not assume things. I study things. I have researched and researched and...I really focus on my art. It is everything to me! You have the right to question my poetry, Mr. Spencer, but I have the right to question your criticism as well. It's just humanity talking through me right now which agrees I do.”

”I accept. What is there about my work that you would like to bring up, Oscar?”

”You called me an outcast. I have read thousands of novels. Thus I have lived thousands of lives. Characters in novels are more intelligent and sophisticated than real people. You must know this, Mr. Spencer. It is your work to read them. You are looking at a man who is a thousand times more wise than an ordinary human - since I read - and you are telling me that I am not equipped to comment on their society. How is it possible to not know the fucking sheep inside out? I have never met a surprising person. They are all a bore. I bring them to life in my works, though. I breathe life into them and make them interesting. I purify them. Pray tell, Mr. Spencer, how is it that I am not worthy of judging them?”

Mr. Spencer put his empty glass on top of the balustrade. ”I have read more than you can ever read. You will not have the time or mind to read or study as much as I, Oscar. The human life is brief. It is but a bullet in a war and there will be new battles. They come and go like civilizations. The earth is nourished by the shells, and full of metal. Its veins taste them, and suck them in. They become layers upon layers of sorrow turned green as mortal death. Stones with names become meaningless. Moss covers them. Animals urinate on them like mindless dogs. Birds cover them with white feces. Their flowers whither like the elderly of your kind. Their lanterns will no longer be lit for the ones who used to light them are soon as them. Trends will rise and fall, and here you stand next to me in your fashionable outfit, blinded by your self-importance. I have seen them all come and go. New ones will come, Oscar. Clothes you can not imagine. What would you look like amongst them? What about your plays? Would they still gather around you just to clap their hands - hands which would soon be spotted and weary, and too weak to applaud once their wrinkles will sag like folds of velvet; and what about their offspring who would no longer follow the trends of their forebearers?
”They would have already forgotten your name and soon theirs would be forgotten as well. There will be a time when even literature itself will be a past sport. I used to be a philosopher. I studied it in the first university. I was a nobleman and a warrior. I was the husband and the wife. I slept with queens and their brothers. I tormented them all to learn the truth in their cries and sincerity in their tears. And what for, Oscar?, why did I wander the Earth at night. To seek enlightenment? To find the impossible? There is certainly nothing out there—not for them. In you I see what I saw in the first pool that reflected: A man, no longer of the youth, past the innocence and ease of life, asking what his purpose may be, and if there even is a purpose to all this. Is it to write plays? To make others parrot what you write? Or is it to see them grow old as you stay young, Oscar?”

”Growing old is inevitable, Mr. Spencer. I know I will be old one day. I want to die eventually. I do not want to be here forever. People are selfish and impatient creatures. Why would I desire their company past my natural days?”

”If that is your wish, you will never write your masterpiece. You will never be what you could have been,” Mr. Spencer said.

”Shakespeare was great,” Oscar said, tears welling in his eyes, ”and you hated his plays... he didn't need to live a thousand years to write his works.”

”Oh I knew him. I even saw him act. I never hated his poetry, but I did hate his acting. I hate all actors and actresses alike and nobody is an exception, Oscar.”

”But why!? Why do you hate actors, Mr. Spencer?”

”Because unlike written word they grow old and die. They do not know the night, Oscar. I know it. Do you want to know the night as well?”

Oscar was crying. ”I... I have never... I do not want to live forever. Please let me go, Mr. Spencer.”

”Very well. Off with you then,” said the literary critic.


18

He was sitting at his writing desk, quill in his hand, and an empty paper before him. Two weeks had passed and Oscar hadn't come up with a single word worth writing down.

Julia - his maid - sometimes asked if there was something troubling him. Oscar replied to his maid with either smiles that veiled his worry, accompanied with a request for a drink or meal or some other meaningless chore, or by telling her that everything was fine; that he was just tired or busy or thinking. The writer's block had however continued and there was no end in sight. It was an occupational illness. He had had it before... He visited museums, read novels penned down by the Greats, watched plays, read poetry aloud as if he had himself written the verse, all the while knowing deep inside that the ideas had not sprung from his well and he could only drink from theirs' to sate his thirst. The paper before him was at the same time as innocent as his maid and as cruel as the universe. It was pure, but then, it demanded something he couldn't give. The universe took lives. The paper took his at every glance. He put the quill on the desk and laid back on the chair. He browsed his memories. He recalled his siblings and past friends, the things they had said and done. He went through every event his memory reached, every line spoken by every person he had met, and none of them moved him: everything was predictable. Livid evening light filled the second-floor room as he rummaged through his brain. He could see rectangles of light on the walls cast by the window, some of them darker than the others. They meshed together like lives of people did, overlapping. What lives should he create? Why would their stories even matter. Oscar lit an ordinary cigarette - ordinary in that it didn't have opium in it - and blew out rings of smoke. He looked at them meet. How would they break each other?

Then he realized, and began to write a play at once.

It took him six hours to write it.

Oscar read through the play aloud, editing only the language but not the message. He rang a bell, and Julia came. ”My love, you did buy that bottle of champagne, did you?”

”I did, sir.”

”We should celebrate. I have in my hands something I have never achieved before.”

”Can I read it!”

”You can. Once the actors play it, you can read it from their lips.” Oscar raised his hands and his bones crackled.

”I am so happy for you, Oscar.”

They drank the bottle, and when the morning came, Oscar read his play anew. He used the telephone of the house to call Xavier. He told him to come see him. Since it was Sunday, the boy had nothing else. They saw each other under the summer sky that had both the Moon and the Sun and some stars but also clouds with rain. But it didn't rain right then, and Oscar wasn't worried about a thing anymore.
He put his hand on Xavier's thigh in the pavilion.

”I have never been with a boy as old as you.”

”Oscar! You must be lying to me.”

”No, my lord. But I wish to try it.”

”Whenever you want.”

Oscar took his hand back. ”Let us talk, and take it easy. The day is young.”

”I would love to talk with you.”

”Tell me about your siblings. Do you have any?”

”Well... My sisters are twenty and nineteen. My brothers are thirteen and eighteen. I love my youngest brother. He is such a sweetling. He is living in France, though.”

”What is he like?”

”He is so full of life! He plays soccer and talks about it whenever we meet. He even has a girlfriend! I am sure he will be a great person one day, someone who will look after his family and won't turn his back on his responsibilities. So unlike me, Oscar. I will never have a family. I will never see my children grow. Have you ever had a loss?— I truly feel like that is my only bereavement in life.”

”I had a sister who died young,” Oscar said, telling him: ”She was such a beautiful human being. She had no flaws, and her English was so bare: she would say things in an unnecessarily complicated manner. She would bring sun to a rainy day. But she was taken from me when I was very young. My mother didn't seem to mind. She was always distant. She didn't care about me or my brother. And she was a poet. Maybe you should care less about your verse and pay more attention to yourself, my lord.”

”I am so astonished, Oscar. You never say such things. You never belittle art.”

”What is art? What does it bloody matter? I am bored of it. I am thirty-eight for Godsakes. I have written and written and written...  My quill broke at the last stroke of my last word of my last play, and I am done!”

”The very same quill you bought at seven?”

”Yes. I am quitting.”

”But why! You are the greatest writer of our time! God knows, there might never come someone like you. You grace this planet, Oscar. You are sent from Olympus. Please don't leave us.”

Oscar massaged his face. ”Olympus. The gods don't hear us. I have prayed to the muses, Xavier. I have called on them through my quill. I have felt their breasts against my back and their breath on my ear and their promises of inspiration I have found empty. Empty as a beggar's wallet! They dance around me, they drink of my wine. They sit on my lap like dogs. Their big eyes are full of lies. Lies; just lies. They are maidens of the Fallen One; they come from the unconscious. Their bouquets are rotten, my noble boy. Do not wait for inspiration. You have to press on. There is no one but the artist when he is alone.”

Xavier said: ”So you are devoid of inspiration, sir? If that's it, it will pass, I'm sure! I have it all the time: there are times when I sit in my loneliness and even my room is foreign to me. Though it is full of the stuff I've bought, I do not feel a thing toward my possessions. They are part of the emptiness. Should I take a step into the world full of pointless chatter, of people with no dreams, I would never write a line that matters. So I write only when I am fully immersed in my loneliness. I eat my loneliness. I feed it to myself. I get thirsty from it! And I write, Oscar. I don't give a fuck about the others; about their lives full of happiness. I write about my lonely heart. I stab it again and again, and with black I write. Is that not what a poet should do?”

”Indeed,” Oscar approved, ”but I am no longer lonely. I am accomplished. Everybody loves me - even when they do not. Do you know what I mean? They love my art yet they hate me as a person. Once they love your art enough they stop caring about what you do in your personal life. A feat only the human society is capable of. Animals, for sure, would abandon a reprobate member of their pack. People, on the other hand, are different in that respect. They hate you until you are a genius. At that point they couldn't care less. They see you as something great, and they even value you above the members of their family and circle of friends. They can never learn anything interesting from them. They don't get entertained by them. Their friends are only there to make them feel less lonely. They are something you need so you don't have to dine alone. I know I don't have any real friends, Xavier. Even you are a romantic interest.”

”I have friends,” Xavier said. He blushed. ”And I love them. They bring me joy and they are often interesting. I would stop watching a play just to be with them if they so desired.”

Oscar said, ”I used to be like you in that I tried to make friends, and found social life empty. I remember how my own thoughts back then were still immature. Now I am not saying that you are like I was back then, even though it was around the same age. I—”

”Oh - please - can we please change the subject,” the boy interrupted. ”You are making me awfully sad now.”

”Sure. Let's talk about your romantic life. Tell me about your last boyfriend.”

”Hmm. He was a rich boy. He was totally not like me except that he let me hold his hand even though they saw us do so. He kissed me under the rainy London skies and brought sunlight to my body. Until he.. found someone better, I guess. And yours, Oscar? I really want to know.”

”He was a good boy.”

”How old was he?”

”You first, my lord. How old was your boyfriend?”

”As old as me, from the same grade.”

”Mine was twelve.”

"How old were you?"

"Around your age."

”Four years younger than mine! Christ! you really like them young.”

”They are like little birds. I love the innocence of early boyhood. I love them short and small. They are not troubled by the thoughts we grownups suffer from. As such, they are as pure as summer snow in some forest whereupon the sun of wisdom has not yet shone. From that age onwards, they will only widen and bloat. What is there not to love, my lord? I like you as well, but I have never touched a body as mature as yours.”

”They are still children. Are you not troubled by the fact? Even my younger brother is older than twelve!”

”Why should I be bothered? I do not fuck children. I only hold hands with them – and I always choose the ones who are mentally up to par. Sure, they have such traits, like I said: they are still innocent, but also aware that they desire me as I desire them.”

”I have to cure you, Oscar! I want to be the one who makes you feel what you feel with them without being so young. Please, let me try. I am very skillful. I love you. I will be the best boyfriend you have ever had.”

”What a come-hither line there! Should I be the girl of the play I would kiss you right now.”

”Why won't you?” Xavier said, ”we are alone.”

Oscar did so. The boy was very good at kissing, too good—as if he was showing Oscar how to do it. Every stroke of his tongue was premeditated. But his face was still too large. Yet Oscar tried to get into it. He even touched his body like he had touched the prepubescent forms of his past lovers; like petting a kitten. Xavier's lips were wet as they departed from the kiss. And then they ate supper in the dining room - rather as a couple.


19

Oscar had retreated to the beach. It had a cliff from which many a life had jumped and waves that were forever cold. He looked for flat stones to throw. He had no worries as he flung them. They leapt like frogs from a fire. He threw them repeatedly as he looked into the horizon. Ships had glided into that hazy edge, taking with them men who had left their families behind.

And men and women had jumped off that cliff. What was out there behind that cliff? What world awaited those who jumped? Did they find happiness afterwards? Surely they expected to, leaving it all behind. They left a note maybe, a short statement of discontent. They no longer felt a thing for the past. They only had their own future waiting for them in their hearts. Maybe there was no anticipation, only the relief of falling. To be free from the necessity of feeling towards someone or something; now that - that was freedom. It must have been like writing without needing to write well. Oscar managed to make a stone jump fifteen times before the waves ate it. He looked for a new stone. It felt like glass. He threw it, and it sank soon. Seabirds cried in a choir, their stupid bodies flying stupidly, directed by some necessity. Yet they were handsome: their spread wings were like a small angel's with no other duty. Oscar sat on the sand. It was an early afternoon, and he had eaten and taken care of all his bodily needs. He was drunk, but comfortably so. He didn't need to empty his bladder. Should he ever leave the beach, there would be a house with a phone. A marvel of science! He was ready to walk into the waves. Their cold embrace would be that of a strange mother, someone who takes a child not her own to live with her for the number of his days. There would be love, but it would be remote. They would hug him, wet his clothes, pull him into the depths. And how would he feel about people of Ireland? Would he mourn them like they would him? Would he miss them in some strange existence, should the soul unexpectedly soar. He closed his eyes, and he knew the answer. An artist was most valuable when he was gone. A legend! Now that was a stupid thought. Yet it made sense: tragedy sells. As long as he died young...

Oscar lit a cigarette. The first drag brought peace. The first memory of his brother was from a Christmas. They never touched each other like he touched his lovers. Yet they kissed, mouth to mouth. It was an innocuous thing to do, something young children did when they expressed their love. It wasn't sexual, it was a kiss of goodbye. Then Hank disappeared. He relived it in his mind. He felt it like a sailor would feel a burning typhoon. He stood up and walked straight forward. He let the waves kiss his ankles, shins, waist, stomach, and chest. He could taste the salt. He closed his eyes. While underwater Oscar opened his mouth and swallowed as much of the freezing water as he possibly could. It filled his lungs, and filled them even more, and he never went back. . . .