Pricksongs & Descants Read Free Page A

underside—but bugs! millions of them! She drops the thing, shud ders, stands, wipes her hand several times on her pants, shudders again. A few steps away, she pauses, glances back, then around at everything about her, concentrating, memorizing the place probably. She hurries on up the path and sees her sister already at the first guest cabin.
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    The girl in gold pants? yes. The other one, Karen? also. In fact, they are sisters. I have brought two sisters to this invented island, and shall, in time, send them home again. I have dressed them and may well choose to undress them. I have given one three marriages, the other none at all, nor is that the end of my bene fi cence and cruelty. It might even be argued that I have invented their common parents. No, I have not. We have options that may, I admit, seem strangely limited to some ...
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    She crouches, haunches flexing golden above the bluegreen grass, and kisses the strange poker, kisses its handle and its long rusted shaft. Nothing. Only a harsh unpleasant taste. I am a fool, she thinks, a silly romantic fool. Yet why else has she been diverted to this small meadow? She kisses the tip—poof! “ Thank you, ” he says, smiling down at her. He bows to kiss her check and take her hand.
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    The guest cabin is built of rough-hewn logs, hardly the fruit of necessity, given the funds at hand, but probably it was thought fashionable; proof of traffic with o ther cultures is adequately pro vided by its gabled roof and log columns. It is here, on the shaded porch, where Karen is standing, waiting for her sister. Karen waves when she sees her, ducking down there along the path; then she turns and enters the cabin through the broken front door.
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    He knows that one. He ’ s been there before. He crouches inside the door, his hairy body tense. She enters, staring straight at him. He grunts. She smiles, backing away. “ Karen! ” His small eyes dart to the doorway, and he shrinks back into the shadows.
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    She kisses the rusted iron poker, kisses its ornate handle, its long rusted shaft, kisses the tip. Nothing happens. Only a rotten taste in her mouth. Something is wrong. “ Karen! ”
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    “ Karen! ” the girl in pants calls from outside the guest cabin. “ Karen, I just found the most beautiful thing! ” The second step of the porch is rotted away. She hops over it onto the porch, drags open the tattered screen door. “ Karen, I— oh, good God ! look what they ’ ve done to this house! Just look ! ” Karen, about to enter the kitchen, turns back, smiling, as her sister surveys the room: “ The walls all smashed in, even the plugs in the wall and the light switches pulled out! Think of it, Karen! They even had electricity! Out here on this island, so far from everything civilized! And, see, what beautiful paper they had on the walls! And now just look at it! It ’ s so—oh! what a dreadful beautiful beastly thing all at once! ”
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    But where is the caretaker ’ s son? I don ’ t know. He was here, shrink ing into the shadows, when Karen ’ s sister entered. Yet, though she catalogues the room ’ s disrepair, there is no mention of the care taker ’ s son. This is awkward. Didn ’ t I invent him myself, along with the girls and the man in the turtl e ncck shirt? Didn ’ t I round his back and stunt his legs and cause the hair to hang between his buttocks? I don ’ t know. The girls, yes, and the tall man in the shirt—to be sure, he ’ s one of the first of my inventions. But the caretaker ’ s son ? To tell the truth, I sometimes wonder if it was not he who invented me ...
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    The caretaker ’ s son, genitals hanging hard and heavy, eyes aglitter, shrinks back into the shadows as the girl approaches, and then goes bounding silently into the empty rooms. Behind an unhinged door, he peeks stealthily at the declaiming girl in gold pants, then slips, almost instinctively, into