Post by Morndakiél on Dec 22, 2006 16:03:19 GMT -5
Magic Words
Then she became teenage, small, and remembering to put her feet into the ground just like a tiger’s claws. Out beyond the short angle of her arms in the coarse fashionable sweatshirt a sword stretched toward the enemy, and on its length might have danced ecstatic phrases of Bradbury, and she had no qualms with the blade which in length nearly matched her height.
Then she became sixty years of age again and the sword pulled at her stick-shaped arms, threatening the soft grandmother skin she had almost succumbed to until the burner men came and reminded her how to put her feet into the ground like a tiger’s claws. History had dulled her senses, as had foul scents and repetitive music. So quickly had the generations changed while she lost the business of books, and now the burner men had come as she had known they would; because fiction is a kind of clairvoyance.
The books behind her had voices. They clamored of secrecy, of childhood adventure through their colorful covers, and she felt no sin in her soul though for all sixty years she had endeavored to obey the laws and keep quiet. This law now invaded her, not only once on her property but one thousand times in each book, in each memory in her head, for she saw no difference in the two--it was her past they endeavored to take. The eternal past flowed and had chosen not to touch the four men with their uniform, ‘humane’ weaponry.
The faceless men saw behind the old woman posing on the grass a small mustard-colored building packed with the worst kind of library; fantasies without any value for education--
full of unreality’s intensity, richnesses forged out of nothing and of authorsblood! the old woman thought. “No”, she breathed, while the teenage self inside her raged in one thousand nonexistent languages, cursed in them and in Shakespeare’s English, and endlessly repeated “You shall not pass.”
The evil one pretended to be kind. “Please ma’am we don’t want to hurt you.”
She made a wavering in her strength into a furiously commanding dip of the Toledo blade.
The evil one pretended to be open minded. “Why do you want these worthless things? What’s your need to protect them.”
Said the old woman, “It is not out of arrogance which I speak. It is not out of superiority. I do not need superiority. It is out of empathy, and em-pity. Please don’t burn my parrot with the books.”
“Stop the mad talk--”
“Let her be.”
“I have been one thousand souls.” said the old woman. “I have lived. More than you can say! The fourth wall--there is none for fiction. I am the fourth wall. Do you remember how to learn?”
The evil one laughed like the last bark of a seal when the harpoon goes into its side. “You’re brain rotted. You don’t contribute to the community, ma’am. Please, come quietly and we’ll try to reeducate you.”
The old woman’s eyes matched the sword-point, and their white sides had flecks of earthling blood in them. “Education! Community! Your words don’t mean what they used to. Now I want only the masters to save you. Milton! Shakespeare! Lucas and Rowling!”
The policemen draped a white cloak of wire and circuitry over her. Lunge, and the long sword was turned away by a flak jacket. The woman warrior’s arm shook and at the first pass of electricity she slipped the blade out through the mesh, out to its hiltguards, and dug into the dirt the fine Toledo steel. Her body shook and gasped once, and none of the flocking foes saw how she recorded the new pain. Another man shocked her again through the nebulous filaments.
“Bradbury! Asimov! Orwell! Tolkein!” She screamed.
The policemen heard the words and did not understand them. The old woman saw eons of book-universes, and fell in love again. “Stover! Marlowe!... Lewis!... Bronte! ...Fitzgerald! White--or perhaps Arthur!”
The policemen caught her further in their net, wound it around her old old arms and neck, and pressed unfeeling buttons. The woman screamed the magic words as she shook and felt and died. “ Alexander! Adams! Grahame! :-Xens! :-Xinson! Poe!”
The magic words set her free.
Then she became teenage, small, and remembering to put her feet into the ground just like a tiger’s claws. Out beyond the short angle of her arms in the coarse fashionable sweatshirt a sword stretched toward the enemy, and on its length might have danced ecstatic phrases of Bradbury, and she had no qualms with the blade which in length nearly matched her height.
Then she became sixty years of age again and the sword pulled at her stick-shaped arms, threatening the soft grandmother skin she had almost succumbed to until the burner men came and reminded her how to put her feet into the ground like a tiger’s claws. History had dulled her senses, as had foul scents and repetitive music. So quickly had the generations changed while she lost the business of books, and now the burner men had come as she had known they would; because fiction is a kind of clairvoyance.
The books behind her had voices. They clamored of secrecy, of childhood adventure through their colorful covers, and she felt no sin in her soul though for all sixty years she had endeavored to obey the laws and keep quiet. This law now invaded her, not only once on her property but one thousand times in each book, in each memory in her head, for she saw no difference in the two--it was her past they endeavored to take. The eternal past flowed and had chosen not to touch the four men with their uniform, ‘humane’ weaponry.
The faceless men saw behind the old woman posing on the grass a small mustard-colored building packed with the worst kind of library; fantasies without any value for education--
full of unreality’s intensity, richnesses forged out of nothing and of authorsblood! the old woman thought. “No”, she breathed, while the teenage self inside her raged in one thousand nonexistent languages, cursed in them and in Shakespeare’s English, and endlessly repeated “You shall not pass.”
The evil one pretended to be kind. “Please ma’am we don’t want to hurt you.”
She made a wavering in her strength into a furiously commanding dip of the Toledo blade.
The evil one pretended to be open minded. “Why do you want these worthless things? What’s your need to protect them.”
Said the old woman, “It is not out of arrogance which I speak. It is not out of superiority. I do not need superiority. It is out of empathy, and em-pity. Please don’t burn my parrot with the books.”
“Stop the mad talk--”
“Let her be.”
“I have been one thousand souls.” said the old woman. “I have lived. More than you can say! The fourth wall--there is none for fiction. I am the fourth wall. Do you remember how to learn?”
The evil one laughed like the last bark of a seal when the harpoon goes into its side. “You’re brain rotted. You don’t contribute to the community, ma’am. Please, come quietly and we’ll try to reeducate you.”
The old woman’s eyes matched the sword-point, and their white sides had flecks of earthling blood in them. “Education! Community! Your words don’t mean what they used to. Now I want only the masters to save you. Milton! Shakespeare! Lucas and Rowling!”
The policemen draped a white cloak of wire and circuitry over her. Lunge, and the long sword was turned away by a flak jacket. The woman warrior’s arm shook and at the first pass of electricity she slipped the blade out through the mesh, out to its hiltguards, and dug into the dirt the fine Toledo steel. Her body shook and gasped once, and none of the flocking foes saw how she recorded the new pain. Another man shocked her again through the nebulous filaments.
“Bradbury! Asimov! Orwell! Tolkein!” She screamed.
The policemen heard the words and did not understand them. The old woman saw eons of book-universes, and fell in love again. “Stover! Marlowe!... Lewis!... Bronte! ...Fitzgerald! White--or perhaps Arthur!”
The policemen caught her further in their net, wound it around her old old arms and neck, and pressed unfeeling buttons. The woman screamed the magic words as she shook and felt and died. “ Alexander! Adams! Grahame! :-Xens! :-Xinson! Poe!”
The magic words set her free.