CHAPTER SEVEN: UNUSUAL SIGHTS SEVEN #1, #2, #3, #4 SIX #1, #2, #3, #4 FIVE #1,#2, #3, #4 FOUR #1,#2, #3, #4 THREE #1,#2, #3, #4 TWO #1, #2, #3, #4 ONE #1, #2, #3, #4 For characters in Story: check Biographies

#1


The silvery snake of the road, slid under the castle, to the col and then further down to the village of Cucugnan. The villagers already sitting down to their evening meals, as the sun began to set off the clouds.

It was slow at first. Like you get goose pimples and know something is different. The temperature of the air dropped, and became unbearably dry. Old vignerons, stood up from their tables and watched as clouds began to swirl and mix. Where blue sky had been, black and blacker clouds, moved like arms around a corkscrew. As if mighty hands were behind turning turning with Queribus the cork. Families stood away from their meals, children rushing back and forth, pointing upwards. Some crossed themselves, as if they knew the immensity of what was happening.

And there was I at the center, at the point of the screw. The walls of the castle glowing red as if the bricks were on fire. Where walls were fallen, floors broken, all came back to be. Goethe had to move as a wall threatened to swallow him up. Eva was frozen, her skin all white, her eyes black and bottomless.

Over Peyrepertuse out of the black spun wool of a cloud, a small white ball came spinning, with lightning biting into the rocks and the lone bergeries below, smashing a tree to fall here and there.

And I began to depart from my body. Only the shell lying below me.

The Guide was beckoning me to walk with him in the blue water. Eva and Goethe did not see. Nor the villagers. It was the secret shared from the pool.

The black clouds whirled through the holes in the walls of the castle, spinning below my hovering body, - but above the physical shell that was me, like a multi-pointed star shaped octopus, each arm pulsing with living particles that teamed like ants. Each one whispering in voices, that rose and fell like the sound of waves crashing within a cave.

At the center an eye began to form, little by little, becoming full and round, till a its pupil popped teasing itself into a nipple shaped heart. Within this four sided heart, small objects seemed to run, spiraling out down to the tip. Slowly drops of white molten cream, fell, falling hissing on the shell that was my frame, that had been tied flat on the ground by Goethe, an hour before.

Each drop solidified into curved ingots, that in themselves broke, and fell into an abyss under my body. What had been me was looking like a colander. Every drop of milk, hardening, taking away part of a finger, an arm, a leg. Soon there was little left save for part of the head floating over a deep hole.

Steps appeared where my shoulder had been, and a welcoming warmth of light punched out of the depths. Eva was somehow caught, trapped, pulled down like a fish on a hook, walking as if in sleep, and Goethe followed, even pushing in front, to clamber down the steps, through what was me.




#2


Joe was getting into the swing of it. The road turning without warning. The rocks butting in from overhead, the river swimming deep below. She loved hugging the corners, biting the middle of the road, and putting her foot down.

Back into cutoff jeans, and a shirt that had seen to many washes. Her hair in shreds. All her electronic this and that stowed away in a hotel safe. She was on her own. Wild where it mattered. In her heart. Her breath. The rush of taking the day by where it led.

A brush of wind tugged at the side of the car, almost pushing it over the edge. A truck skirmished around her small shiney dark green car. Clio. Yeah - she was Cleopatra. And she was letting out her venom.

"Yeeahhh!" She screamed.

The venom beaten in from all those days all those years of flirting and fighting and making what it takes to be in the USA.

"Yeahhh!" She let her voice out again. Loud until it hurt.

She swung the car off the narrow road, letting it run down a track, until hanging bushes, broke into her vision. She grabbed the bread and the pâté and the wine from the back , and slammed out, rushing onward down the path.

A stream cut across, bubbling over a fall, into a clear pool. Putting the picnic to one side - she jumped in, staying under till the need for air, brought her to surface. Clinging to the hill above her, not much more than a ruin, butted itself down to the stream, and her pool.

Down she went again. Gulping at the water. Hungry for the cool. The stones, and smooth rocks on the bottom, gleamed. Small fish, came and went.

Up she came, striding, splashing, out yells and whelps.

She sucked at the bottle till the wine, skirted down her neck. She tore at the bread, squeezing hunks of pâté, punching it into her mouth.

"God! I'm hungry"

And falling back the wooze of the wine, and the shine of the sun, snuck her one.

"Yeahhh!" The first word as she dreamt.



#3


I was swept into a current of light and wind and water - that pushed and pulled me through a cave, an opening and out along a path of light that rested on a pool.

In the bushes on the rock, lay a woman, hair wet, eyes closed, skin gleaming in sweat and sun. My shadow moved over her, and I bent to touch her lips.

A familiar warmth, moved me, to drink again.

She felt the brush of lips. It was only the wind. The sound of a bird's wings. She slept on.

A walk by a pond, under pine trees, a song keeping each step light.

A coldness swirled around me. I looked up, saw the road, a car snug in a track, a peak catching the clouds against the sky.

I fell again into her warmth. Moved up around, even took the earth as a companion, moving close into her.

Joe smelt the scent of him, or was it the earth? The man in the plane. The first day in Paris.

"Yeahhh........"

She smothered the scream in herself, and let it out in a trembling - her hands digging into the soil. And the earth took her. Wanted her.

Again I felt the twist of cold. An icy wind turning. And then droplets of gold, dropping onto my skin. A sweetness pulled me back into the water. Then everything twisted backwards, a curdling of body and mind, and again I was solid. Lying on the cold earth, the storm clouds still grasping down, the castle walls of Queribus around, and Eva and Goethe, pulling themselves out of my stomach, faces white, eyes with tears that fell.

The sun tore through a break in the wall. Eva and Goethe, holding hands, faces down, walked out, forgetting everything, seeing nothing. The walls of the rock quivered with the cries of birds, and from beyond the words and prayers of many, children, men, women, rose and fell, swirling back into the sound of wind and rain that pelted and pelted and pelted.

Joe could hardly believe her eyes - as she saw him tied down. Not in her wildest dreams -Why she only had seen the castle piercing the sky and with a why not?!- put the foot to the pedal - parked her car, and almost ran to the castle walls to beat the black clouds pinching lightning.

She put her lips on his.




#4


"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

John and Joe were hard at it
Their bodies crashing into each other
Like they were throwing off demons
For Joe it had never been this good
For John he had long gone past that point!

The pleasure stayed with them as they walked out onto the terrace, looking across the rooftops of their village.

Joe faced John, raised her eyes

"Oh yes I forgot"

He would often walk out naked into the sun, unaware he was in full view of village folk as they took their daily walk to get their daily bread.

With shorts pulled on, they sat down for their leisurely cup of coffee, the steam mirroring the pattern of smoke curdling from old vines being burnt in a distant field.

"I'll beat you!"

"No you won't!"

In a second they were both out of the back door of their house, running through the rag tag of a garden, through the trees, until sliding through rocks they dived into the cool inviting pool.

Coming out of the water they eased into each other, and disappeared back into the water, coming up from time to time to catch the air.

In the drowsiness that followed, Joe looked back on that day at the castle, and how everything changed. With one phone call she left Clive in charge of her hair salons, for a year until things worked themselves out. Her last shoot at Cap d'Agde, the display of her new line of fashion icons, would keep the business happy for a year. A year to turn off the flirting with fashion and the biz.

John had closed his eyes, and felt the warmth of her breath against his chest.

The youth of his songs came back to him. There was a new vibrancy in his voice, his melody. No more black despair. No more craze. He had already lined up a few low key performances in laid back clubs in Germany, with owners who knew him from the old days. Yes this was good.

The walls of their house, hung over the pool. He looked back on the wild night at Queribus, when the Guide gave him the key to this new life. He could not explain - how it came to be - but who cares when it all comes together.

This surely was the land of answers but there will be always more questions - thank god!

He felt Joe's reaching hand.

She was going to be the end of him!

He turned over and met her lips.

Marine turned over the postcard in her Paris apartment. Jean had just gone out on another asignment. They were always on the move. Thanks to Joe.

She still remembered her closeness the first night in her apartment. That wild American fashion queen. She felt hot. Sweat.

When Jean had come back with her, they fell in together. They made a good team. and Joe - where was she? Bought a domaine, by a river pool, deep in the Corbieres. And here - a standing invitation. To come. To stay. Perhaps she would.

She layed down on the bed. Remembering that night, the night it all started.

Hot. It was hot.

Queribus, held the sky. Its outline, shimmering against the falling sun. A man walked in his vineyard. Put his hands into the earth. Smelt it. Took one of the last grapes and ate it.

He lifted his head, his eyes to the hills, to the sky, and began to sing.

"Languedoc - Oh Languedoc!"


END

© Giles Denmark/Giles Mitchell 1997. Worldwide Copyright.