TCOTNK 9 A Sculpture The Size Of A Castle
TCOTNK 9 A Sculpture The Size Of A Castle
Her bare feet, ankles, and calves were covered in gore and dark with mud. Michelangelo was shocked. 'Jesus, what happened? Are you hurt?'
A sculpture the size of a castle
Halfway through the next day, Scarlotte returned to the rusty RV. Their mobile residence had been built in. The week before a full size pair of shipping containers with an old parachute stretched between them had been placed right in front. Michelangelo sat under the silken firmament at one of the improvised workbenches when Scarlotte arrived. She was still wearing her red dress and smelled of fire when he accepted her embrace. The hug went on and on. Several times he wanted to let go but then she protested and tightened her grip. With her ear to his chest. Like a standing bed on which she wanted to continue sleeping. Until she suddenly seemed to wake up and let go.
"You weren't there!" Her surprise was sincere. As if it was impossible that he hadn't been there, hadn't been through what she had been through. She bit her lower lip to process this realization. It seemed she couldn't place it. She clutched at her heart.
"I was sure we had something to do together," she said, clearly confused. She picked up the large plastic sphere that was to become an eye. 'I mean more than practical cooperation.' Michelangelo was silent, showing her how the eyeball would go into the head. She nodded and sat down at the table. "You feel that too, don't you?" She said, drawing curls and spirals on the table with paint markers. Both hands at the same time. She looked up and smiled. "I don't know if I'm left or right." She tossed the markers aside and climbed onto the large workbench. "If I didn't know any better, I could fly." She spread her arms and closed her eyes. "No, I am already flying. I look down and see the whole landscape." She looked at Michelangelo and stared at him for a long time. And usually he would avert his eyes. Not this time. He could continue to look at her relaxed. After a while he nodded. Hardly visible. "Fly," he said, "I will be right behind." Then she let go of her gaze.
She lifted her long dress a little. "Oops," she said, "I'm leaking on your table." Her bare feet, ankles, and calves were covered in gore and dark with mud. Michelangelo was shocked. 'Jesus, what happened? Are you hurt?'
She waved him off and jumped off the table and cartwheeled through the grass. Like an accomplished circus performer. "On the contrary," she said, bowing gracefully, "I've never been as whole as I am now.”
Then straight up, hands on her hips she howled; “As whole!"
After a long and at the end sort of hot shower, in the brand new pallet cage, and with borrowed sanitary towels back in her jeans and painting shirt, she was eating breakfast like a canal digger. Her hair was restrained by a headscarf.
"Where are all your volunteers?" she asked through her mouth full of peanut butter lettuce sandwiches. “Oh, mmm, sure… just like me,” she answered herself, “all ended up in the wrong bed.” Her eyes widened. And she swallowed too big a bite. Until, after a tense moment, she chuckled and asked, "After having sex with the universe, are you still, technically speaking, a virgin?" She smiled broadly and added more sambal to the rest of her thick-cut sandwiches. “Oh, don't say anything,” she said, “and tell me what needs to be done today. Cut more scales for our dragon?”
It was a short day for the dragon workshop. The volunteers who trickled in, today only women, yawned more than they worked. After a few hours, Michelangelo gave up on his listless team. He was full of energy and felt deflated on the sticky vibrations between the full-mooners. He filled a thermos with hot sweet chai and a lunch box with dried fruit, fresh walnuts and dark chocolate. He started to rub himself with Rose's homemade sunscreen. The inventor herself took over to do the unreachable bits and then he was made further non-stick by another two pairs of women's hands. Which softened him up a bit but didn't shake his determined mind.
He was filling his backpack when Scarlotte put a quickly written sign on him. 'Do not disturb' on one side, and 'Please hug me' on the other. She kissed him on the hand and said, 'go, get lost, you bearded dragon slayer.'
At the dragon-gate site he donned a cherry picker harness, filled a toolbelt with a hefty bundle of extra strength tie-wraps, selected a long playlist of film music, put on his headset and climbed into the still bare structure with tears streaming down his cheeks.
This was the first time he climbed up. Eleven meters was not much on paper. Just a good width to height ratio. Large paintings could be laid flat or rolled up. Worked on in parts. On the trusted ground. But a statue? A sculpture the size of a castle? He breathed deeply. Concentrated on the music. Tried to be an observer of his body. Still, his leg muscles were shaking when he reached the first level. Shoulder height of the dragon on the right. Now through the neck to the protruding head. Which hung freely above the descending path below. A thin construction of scaffolding pipes with loose gangways inside. Planks barely wide enough to crawl on. He held on hand over hand. At shoulder height. Alternating left and right. Looking at his clasping hand instead of looking down. That helped a bit.
In the still completely naked dragon's head was a little floor. A sly smile escaped him. He would spend the rest of the day in "his head." He sighed deeply. Was a bit nauseous. Exhaled his breath as slowly as possible. It was not his imagination that the floor moved, was it? The tube skeleton really did move. Hadn’t it been calm down there? Here the wind blew. Just to annoy him. He was on hands and knees. All muscles tight. He fucking made it. Sweating buckets. With tunnel vision. And oxygen deficiency. Slowly he lowered himself onto his buttocks. At least then he wouldn't look down between the enormous cracks. Now the direction of gravity was somewhat normal again.
Wow, here he could see the whole area. And so the head would also be visible from everywhere down there. From the campsite, the food square, the marketplace and certainly for everyone on the battlefield at the foot of the low hill on which the gate stood.
The dirt road underneath would lead to 'Inside The Imaginary Castle'. Where you’d only be welcome in full regalia. There was the other world, where the new rules applied, there the game was afoot. That was the purpose of the time travel. At least, that was the idea. In front of the gate was the classic version, on the other side a few steps further. The land through the wardrobe. Oz. Gimlé. Maybe too many steps, Michelangelo thought. They had exactly one month left. Fock, he thought, what a bunch of dreamers we are.
Ha, the fear of heights lessened through annoyance. A good bit at least. The sign around his neck helped too. The rest was nitrogen deficiency. Breathing incorrectly. Too much oxygen. No shortage of it. Why was it that there were so many misconceptions about essential processes? Understanding the basics of what is going on. Did that improve with a few hundred years of science? Did knowing become deeper as a result of specialization? As a Renaissance man, it was as if you stood on the roof of some high rise building. Looking out over the world. While almost everyone else was busy working in the chambers. All those tiny walled spaces. He was an eagle. Not fit for a cubicle. An eagle with fear of flying. Yes, he had wings and it was high time taking the small step to use them. How did you do that? Learn to fly?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he thought, thinking is an excuse to not do. That is why thinking and doing are opposed in society. It was a conspiracy of the clever to get out of the dishes. Let others do the digging and only pick the ripe raspberries. Like, while he was at it, yoga. Yoga and the whole spiritual whimpering was the same slick trick. Meditate, to not get your hands dirty. Go to tai-chi because you sat on your ass all day. Yes, I guess head-work made you tired too. But the body only benefited from work if the body was involved. The head and the other limbs. And better yet, he thought, sitting up straight, when everything was on board, when he needed every inch of fiber in his carcass to make it happen. And that was exactly what he did. If he would do it. That’s why he was up here.
It was time to attach the first piece of electrical conduit to the ear. He stood. His nerves were tightly strung. His jaw clenched. He cut the first piece of gray PVC pipe, by accident dropped the off-cut, closed his eyes for a long two seconds, and then tightened the fastening strips with trembling hands one by one to secure the first bend towards the jaw line.
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“We need a cherry picker, a hydraulic one, and three-phase power at the gate, and I want to expand the team with ten permanent workers, no longer that voluntary walk-in thing. I select the people, if they are suitable they can stay, otherwise you put them somewhere else.”
Joe looked past Michelangelo in exaggerated amazement to Scarlotte standing behind the artist. "Where have you left Micky the Humble?" he asked. And to Michelangelo, “¿cuánto cuesta eso? To install a bucket hoist here for a month? For a three phase generator I need an oil well right next to it.”
"Buy one," said the artist. and resell it later. Or better yet, "Borrow one."
Scarlotte stepped forward, “Yes,” she said, “in exchange for the owners’ fantasy. I'll handle it. If you know a guy who has a bunch of those things. Because we actually need two.”
Joe stood up, picked his nose deeply and pulled open a filing drawer. “Let me think,” he said, taking the can of weed from the otherwise empty drawer. “Fantasy?” he mused, looking for rolling papers.
“Mmm mm,” Scarlotte confirmed, “he, or she of course, gets a patch in the Medieval land he can furnish, all for himself, a playground where he can let off steam as long as it doesn't contain porn, abuse or violence, and of course without saying, is completely approved by the party committee. We'll just turn things around. Only participate if you get a permit from us. And pay real dough. Cha-ching-ka-ching. In return they get imaginary wealth. I call that neodal. And I just think it has to be a guy, sorry, women aren't stupid enough to fall for this deal. The richer and more arrogant, the better. He needs to be dripping.”
Joe finished his joint and put it aside.
"Well," he said, frowning, "that's for later."
He put his legs back on the desk. Arms behind his head. 'I know exactly who to call. And I also have a few things for the wish list. We don't have to be too modest, right? It's all not real. All imagination.' He sat up so quickly that both Scarlotte and Michelangelo flinched back. He searched in vain for a pen and paper in the cluttered office. "Fat Goddesses!" he exclaimed, “That's the one!” They looked at him confused. And Joe raised his hands to heaven. “The slogan of the year for this funkin' festival!” he shouted, “It's all imagination! That's it! No doubt about it. It's as hard as a…a…,” He stopped abruptly with a look at Scarlotte, and finally found a grubby piece of paper and a ballpoint pen, which he left blank on the table. He sighed deeply as if the weight of the whole world was slipping off his shoulder and said, “Well, that's sorted. Do you need my phone? I got his private number. His name is Picasso.”