Totem Poles Read Free Page B

ceaseless flurry of subtle, mercurial patterns, like wave-chop, or like the scales of a swimming fish.
    â€œYou always understood them better than anyone else, Kalinin,” said Ida. “Do they plan to annihilate us? Is that why they sent you back?”
    â€œThey’re refining us,” said Kalinin. “Like ore within a crucible. Like vapor in an alembic. Life and death are philosophical mistakes.”
    â€œSometimes I miss the old Kalinin,” said Ida. “It was noble to be so stubborn. Fighting the inevitable, no matter what.”
    â€œDiscarded dross,” said Kalinin. “Economics, government, military power—nonsensical, distorted, irrelevant.” Imposing as he seemed to others, when he gazed at Ida, his eyes were as warm as ever before. “Love remains. Art is the path to the final unification.”
    â€œEveryone at the party was saying things like that,” said Ida, shrugging her bared shoulders in her shining gown. “People are so full of themselves in America! They talk as if they were demigods, but what do they do? They crank themselves up on grubs and watch someone’s thousand-hour video in ten minutes.”
    â€œA mirage that flies by, half-seen, half-sensed,” said Kalanin. “The saucers want a richer kind of art. They want us to change the world.”
    â€œBut Kalinin, what if the saucers are like children who poke sticks into anthills to watch the ants seethe? The ants build and build, they strive and strive—but are any of them famous artists?”
    â€œWe’ll craft a great work of ant,” said Kalanin.
    â€œEveryone at the party was talking about totem poles,” said Ida. “In the old days, the Native Americans of the northwest carved faces on sticks with stone knives. That was their art. But then, one day—one strange day—the sailing ships came to them, and strangers brought them steel axes. How did they respond? They made huge totem pole logs, from Oregon to Alaska!”
    â€œTotem poles,” said Kalinin slowly. “Yes. Of course. Totem poles are good.”
    â€œBut the story is tragic! The old world that the natives knew by heart became someone else’s New World. A world of syphilis and smallpox, with the totem poles stored in museums.”
    â€œThe grubs are our steel axes,” said Kalanin.
    â€œWhy don’t the saucers speak to us, Kalinin? Will they let us join their world? Can we join the Higher Circles of galactic citizenship?”
    Kalinin gave a dry laugh. “Higher than the Kremlin.”
    They walked along in silence for a few minutes, bringing their minds into synch. They even got a levitation thing going, loping along in long strides, laughing at each other.
    â€œYou see it too?” said Kalanin, coming to a stop, panting for breath. “You’ll make a painting. Monumental. And then—
    â€œThe end of the world,” said Ida. “Brought to you by a crazy woman who made her crazy boyfriend slit his own throat with a bayonet.”
    â€œAnd who brought him back to life. This is holy, Ida. No need to joke.”
    Ida held out her hands. “I laugh because I’m scared.”
    The two of them embraced, lit by the moon and the silver saucers and the first rays of the rising sun. A gentle puff of breeze came off the bay.
    â€œI’ll paint now,” said Ida.
    â€œPaint everything,” said Kalanin. “Can it fit?”
    â€œI’ll use—poetic compression,” replied Ida. “Room to spare.”
    She raised her arms and the skies opened. Tens of thousands of saucer grubs rained down upon her. Some of the grubs became brushes, others formed pools of paint.
    Ida and her living brushes set to work, painting on the street, on the sidewalks, on the nearby warehouse walls, Ida swinging her arm from the shoulder, carving sweeps of color and form. Her loose strokes limned buildings and people and trees. She depicted the