"firescope ship tremor"

Yes, the breeze was freshening. The boat was leaning, the water was sliced sharply and fell away in green cascades, in bubbles, in cataracts. Cam looked down into the foam, into the sea with all its treasure in it, and its speed hypnotised her, and the tie between her and James sagged a little. It slackened a little. She began to think, How fast it goes. Where are we going? and the movement hypnotised her, while James, with his eye fixed on the sail and on the horizon, steered grimly. But he began to think as he steered that he might escape; he might be quit of it all. They might land somewhere; and be free then. Both of them, looking at each other for a moment, had a sense of escape and exaltation, what with the speed and the change.

Nisha’s instruction was clear and simple: go and look for Caucasian rugs. My search led me to the warehouse of Memet Bozbay, an affable Kurdish carpet trader, whom I had led to believe that I was a professional buyer. He pulled out heaps of Armenian, Kurdish and Kazak rugs, many characterised by bold colours, high piles, and unusual motifs. Gesturing to one of them he commented, “And here, again, you can see the typical Caucasian dragon motif.”

By the most diligent and careful search they gradually found out that there was nothing in this world that could procure for our earthly and corruptible body immunity from death, since death was laid upon the Protoplasts, Adam and Eve, and their posterity, as a perpetual penalty. But they did discover one thing which, being itself incorruptible, has been ordained of God for the good of man, to remove disease, to cure all imperfection, to purge old age, and to prolong our brief life—a boon actually enjoyed by the Patriarchs.

‘Ah! Sir,’ said she, involuntarily, ‘hate you! Heaven is my witness, that did my birth and rank equal yours, it would be my glory, to accept your hand; but as there exists not a possibility of that, I beseech you to spare me and yourself unnecessary pain; from this instant determine to avoid me, and I will esteem you as the most exalted of men.’

Without giving him time to reply, she darted like lightning towards the house, leaving him overwhelmed with admiration, grief, and despair.

He turned around to look at the men who were seated on the decayed rush mats; they were looking at him intently and listening in wonder to what he was saying. Then he added, laughing and letting his amber prayer-beads fall one by one through his thick, reddish fingers: “The war has made scorpions valuable.” He shifted his gaze forward again, towards the cracks in the mosque walls. A low, hoarse, anxious voice rose from behind: “And made men worth nothing.”

It was like a game, a challenge for her. Two strong personalities collided. She would undoubtedly be the winner. She liked his desire to be a good slave, his attitude to everything, the way he carried out her orders. He evidently tried to foresee her wishes and did his best to serve her. She had to direct him and soon this game would become the sense of life for him.

"What does the choppy ocean remind you of?"

"It reminds me of my mind and my rushing and restless thoughts."

"You can calm down the wind in your mind that makes the ocean of your mind restless. The wind are your thoughts and the ocean is your mind."

"Yes master"

So they roared and flashed, fast clenched to each other in that devil's
wedlock, under a cloud of smoke beneath the cloudless tropic sky; while
all around, the dolphins gamboled, and the flying-fish shot on from
swell to swell, and the rainbow-hued jellies opened and shut their cups
of living crystal to the sun.

It was still quite light out of doors, but inside with the curtains drawn and the smouldering fire sending out a dim, uncertain glow, the room was full of deep shadows. She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.

He stopped to study her and found that all thoughts and desires for food had evaporated into the silence. It had been months since he had seen anything that could stir that deeply buried portion of his instinct that now cried out so dramatically. In fact, he had been at home, on leave, when the last such surge occurred.

The war had not touched the house with slugs or shells. Rather, an invisible icy hand had peeled paint away and wilted flowers, leaving a dead flavor to it, as if it were somehow like one of the thousands of soldier corpses left on the battlefield unburied to slowly rot away.

The only feeling she knew was the cold neck of the wine bottle in her hand. Perhaps it was autumn, for outside the filmy window the trees seemed to be rotting away from sickly yellow to dull dusty brown. But she couldn't open the window to inhale the crisp air. That would require getting up. The deeper she drank, the less real her world became. But the longer that bottle was at her lips, the clearer his smiling face was. Then it grew duller and duller, until the anesthetic effect dulled her senses completely. She was only sleepy now. The bottle fell from her increasingly clumsy grasp. Liquid like blood splattered her shirt and pants. She could only pray this time, as she faded out, that she would fade to wherever he was and embrace him once more.


"firescope ship tremor"
to be continued...