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Title:
His Bones Inside
We were there
before the sea crept so close – but Death was already upon us. We
spent our days saturated by the elements: the sky vacillated between a
drenched sun and the overflow of dark clouds, For my companion, W., and myself, we had journeyed precisely for this sense of decay, for the promise of the end, and every moment was passed in search of skulls in this land of graves, of fetishes nailed to doorways, of blood to feed our pens. We secured a room on the upper level of a building that housed a bevy of characters, most of whom, though amusing still, spent their days repeating the same conversations in an endless loop while staring at the television and smoking cigarettes. The most omnipotent resident of the building was the one we never saw – a rumored voodoo expert who lived downstairs, and who had placed throughout the premises protective drawings and objects depicting Baron Samedi – a skeleton in a top hat, the guardian of the crossroads, of death and sexuality, of cemeteries and fertility. High up in the tree that stood in front of the entrance to the building was a message warning passersby that the house was guarded by the Baron. A bruised, much-abused doll, affixed with multiple nails to a rotting board and then nailed to the wall, was presented with a tale – she had been discovered on the grounds during renovation of the building, and the owners had been advised to keep her near. She and the Baron kept watch. We recorded our dreams: the first night, W. dreamed rats and spiders while I dreamed of rainstorms and fighting. We overtook the terrace's table with books and pens, smoking vanilla cloves, drinking watered down anise liqueurs, and watching the gentle dimensions of clouds lit from within, witnessing the rising wind and the roar of rainfall, the lightning soft and deep. After the first night, an envelope containing nearly all the cash I had brought for the trip vanished suddenly and inexplicably, leaving me with the overwhelming sense that here, now, the metaphysical had begun to manifest in my physical with an urgency not previously experienced – that the veils between the realms were about to dissipate, and the demons and angels wanted me vulnerable. Cryptically, W. felt also this surge of the shifting realms, and his sense promised Death. The second day passed in a humid din of one voodoo shop after another, seeking treasures amid the clichés, blood throbbing with the scent of oils, powders, stones and dusty altars that clung to our skin. I ate voraciously at a 3 a.m. dinner, eyes swimming behind the gold and black imagery of the day. Though exhausted by the wet, cloying heat and the onslaught of mosquitoes, it was nearly dawn when sleep finally overtook us. W. was in the liminal space, between consciousness and unconsciousness, having a vision of black mountains and a black sea. He held the canopy that contained the sea, and he let it go. The black water rushed past. Three minutes after closing my eyes, I rose from the bed gasping, choking, my left arm burning. In the space between, my eye traveled downstairs, to where the “voodoo guy” was, and I was aware that a ritual was taking place - it may have been medicine for my arm, which had been the object of many a mosquito's attention that night, and which now which felt like it was being eaten away from the inside, by an acid that trickled from the bone to the surface of my skin. Though my eye was downstairs, my body was upstairs in the room, and I manifested another eye that watched from the terrace as Baron Samedi, in the form of a hot, burning light, rushed from downstairs and came up past the terrace, transforming with each moment into a more complete image of himself – first the skull, then the trailing black tuxedo jacket and then the top hat, spiraling through the double doors into our room, and then slamming into the space right above my body. He was taunting, invasive, and yet still playful, reaching into me with bony hands. My flesh became rigid and numb with the fight to keep him out – he slithered around and within me like a shadow, eating away at my breath with his black substance. I was overtaken by white flashes of that burning white light and struggled to breathe and possess myself. Finally, I jolted “awake” and he was no longer in the room. As I lay there restlessly gasping, the Baron was there every time I closed my eyes – blink – in the back of a hearse, beckoning to me – blink – in a morgue, looking at me from around the corner – blink – surrounded by graves, calling me – blink – always death, always the Baron, staring at me and grinning as only a skull can. I began murmuring to W., The Baron is a painter of red, and I am a painter of black; ...I paint voids and abysses; ...He took a chunk out of me; ...I am starving... W. put his bracelet into my left hand and offered solace and protection as I continued alternately mumbling and gasping and trying to coherently describe what had just transpired. The bracelet kept me aware, to try to maintain some connection to consciousness, and kept me from slipping away. My stomach ached with hunger, despite having eaten heroically only a few hours prior. I kept my burning arm close to me, so as not to let it dangle over the bed, where unknown gods roamed. When sleep returned as the sun rose, I dreamed blackness. W. dreamed of reanimating dead dogs. For the remainder of our journey, I felt as though the Baron had taken residence in my guts, impregnating me or possessing me – it mattered not. I felt disrespected by the abruptness of his presence, and yet also respected the force that he embodied. Our days continued to pass in the pursuit of dank hiding places, marveling over white blooming flowers that drooped to the dirty ground, leafing through books and bones. Every encounter was mysteriously heavy – we felt watched and even feared – but we felt also deeply protected. The city and its inhabitants, both alive and dead, spoke to us. Though we kept our eyes quite open for him, we never crossed paths with the man downstairs – I wondered whether or not he knew what had happened. Our departure one week later was delayed by storms that came and went with fury, with constant debates from people about whether or not the next storm would be the one that flooded the city, whether or not they should evacuate. The airport and surrounding hotels were full of people waiting for their moment to flee. Many seemed to think them rash, but not two months later, Death came to them all. I think of the Baron, walking them into their graves, welcoming and elegant, his tuxedo decaying in the black water.
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