Chapter 26 of The Cage: Sanctum

Image, slightly altered, with permission of Becka Wolfe.

Sanctum

Finley J. MacDonald

All rise.  Heads tilt toward a marble woman about whose ankles coils a thick serpent.  At her waist, the priestess’s head weaves.  Each chanted syllable dies a slow, drifting death beneath the ceiling.  The priestess turns to face kneeling supplicants.  Flat hands rise between candles taller than her head.  Her hands drop.  She turns, and her steps echo as she proceeds across the space and then through a circular doorway.  An instant later, from the same doorway, three figures emerge.  The first—white-robed, shaved, trailing incense—is followed closely by a young girl with golden hair and a bowl wider than her waist. 

The hindmost figure, a woman with a stringed instrument and bow, turns aside and settles into a chair.  Her hair is arranged with metal barrettes.  The bow is still, the eyes flatly inscrutable.  The instrument tilts; the bow dips.  Notes, one flowing into the next, pour saturnine and resigned from a woman swaying as if in a trance, one hand rocking at the bridge of her instrument. 

Coins are clattering. 

The girl with gold, curling hair follows the incense-fanning guide among the small congregation, and coins tumble into her bowl.  When the girl reaches him, Mouse drops in the four coins with the squares cut out of the centers—which the host had earlier pushed into his palm.  The incense bearer and golden-haired girl pass out the round exit.  A moment later, the same incense-bearer returns, leading three shaven youths in white robes.  They bear smaller bowls filled with paper slips.  Incense rising up her robe, the usher with the gray, shaven head stands where the priestess had.  She is staring directly at Mouse.  The girls go handing out slips of paper until everyone, except Mouse, has received a response from the oracle.  The chamber lacks air.  Mouse feels light-headed.  At last, the doors swing open. The congregation flows into the isles.  Light shining on her stubbly head, one of the youths stands in Mouse’s path, hand out to receive his.  Mouse stares at black, female eyes.

“Please come.”

“Where to?”

“The high priestess requests it.”

With Ronaldo shuffling behind her—hand rubbing his whiskers—the host steps up.  

“Is there a problem?”

“Mistress, the high priestess should like to reply to his request personally.”

“We have not paid for this honor, and I’m afraid, cannot afford to.”

“The priestess will forgo the customary fee.”

“This young man is under our care.  This is his first furlough.  It is our responsibility to see that he returns before noon tomorrow.”

“Mistress, please enjoy the gardens for the day and lodge tonight at the inn.  There will be no charge.  You may pick him up in the morning as early as you wish.  A refusal will mean his questions will go unanswered.”

The host is speaking, an angry dimple in her forehead.  Mouse attempts to limp around the girl, to breathe fresh air, but his hand is somehow in the girl’s, and he finds himself starting in the wrong direction, moving toward the rounded doorway. On wet, bandaged feet, girls on both of his arms, he lurches through the passage, into the gloom within.  They pass along a low, sky-lit hallway with curtained doorways.  One curtain opens and the three pass through. 

At first, Mouse can make out only a low candle-surrounded pallet.  Several attendants are posted nearby, hands clasped below their waists.  Deeper in the room, Mouse notices a face surrounded by silk scarves and cushions.  A gold nose ring reaches the full, perfect mouth.  A wrought tiara is nested in black hair.    Mouse pulls back.  The torso is missing its arms. 

“Please do not be afraid,” says a voice, liquid and compelling.  The face gazes at one, scarred stub. 

“I was chosen to represent a path that demands sacrifice of the most terrible sort.  This particular way, I must add, has nothing in particular to do with you.  A long time ago, I ceased mourning that which is gone and cannot ever be returned.  Let us focus upon other things, please.  Do sit down.  If you’ll allow, I should like to see to your feet.”

Mouse is guided to a couch in the darkness.  He sits.  Two attendants are at once untangling the damp strips.  His feet are plunged into a basin of water so hot that he gasps.  A sponge moves over the the top faces of his feet.

“I have dreamed of you before me,” says the goddess.  “Exactly like this.”

“Of me?”

“I see you somewhat differently than you might imagine.  At this moment, I can see red—a cloud—especially across your chest and there at your throat.  That’s pain.  Some of it is new, but most you have been carrying for a long time.  I may be able to relieve some of it.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I have my reasons.  You shall have to trust me.  I will not harm you.  That, I promise.”

“It makes me nervous when anyone says ‘trust me’.”

The high priestess smiles.

“But you’ll have to let go a little.”

Mouse’s feet are dried and a salve caressed over the abrasions.  Strips pass and wind about his ankles.  

“My friend—I hope you’ll allow me to call you that—I wish to induce a vision in you.  We shall begin quite simply.  You’ll lie down, and a drop will be placed upon your tongue.  Every few minutes: another drop.  This tincture is powerful, but it is the power of intention, ours and yours, which will guide you where you most need to go.”

“I have had my experiences with that tree of poisons before.  All I got was vomit and nightmares.”

The priestess laughs.

“But it is not the tree of poisons!  The tincture is produced from a species of mushroom.  No one has been able to raise it domestically.  Let’s call it “The tree of possible knowing”.

“All right.”

The curtain opens.  A girl bears a small wooden box upon a velvet cushion.  She sets it before the candle-surrounded pallet.   Two girls take Mouse’s hands and lead him across the floor, and Mouse turns and perches among candles.

“Please.  There is nothing to be afraid of.  Lie down.  Relax.”

Mouse takes a deep breath.  He lies down, and a pillow is tucked under his head.  A soft voice speaks at his ear.

“Close your eyes.  Open your lips.”  

A tasteless, oily drop spreads over the tip of Mouse’s tongue.

“You will sleep for a while,” says the priestess.  “When you awake, you will find yourself in a meadowland.  I shall be with you.”   

Chapter 25 of The Cage: The Oracle

This story is coming to a close.  It has been an interesting experience, attempting to write a full story without any re-writes and posting every chapter.  Of course, new ideas come up as one writes, and one must leave one’s tracks in the sand as they fell, as it were.  If I were to do it again, I would try writing the last chapter first.  

The Oracle

Finley J. MacDonald

Across the smoke-gray, spittle-swirling ocean, they push across the bay, the motor popping.  The planks of the boat are chalky with salt, with old pairs of gloves, buoys, shells, and a heap of nets in the bottom. The host sits uncomfortably close to Mouse, her hair sometimes lashing his face.  Mouse takes off his sandals and rubs his toes.  The fat boxer, Ronaldo, stands in the boat guiding the handle of the tiller. 

“I thought you were going to fall in the fire!” he says. 

“Look at those toes!” says the host.  “They look like sea cucumbers.”

“I told you, don’t go up there!  What are you doing, son?  But you had something you had to do up there, I guess.”

Ronaldo and the host laugh.

“I don’t remember anything,” says Mouse.

“Don’t kill yourself on your first furlough, son,” says Ronaldo.

On Mouse’s mind, there is an imprint of a bonfire, dancers, and fireworks.  He recalls a dream landscape, a street with intersections through which he lurched like a cripple, supported on the arms of strangers.  Ronaldo tells him he broke free and plunged among corn stalks, looking for an ear of corn and that he climbed a bluff, screaming nonsense, tearing his ankles in the spiny undergrowth.  The host touches his knee as she laughs at him, and Mouse looks at Ronaldo, whose eyes are slits as he chuckles and guides the boat into the wind.  The host opens a bag of chicken feet.  They chew and spit tiny bones into the water.

When they arrive at the dock, Mouse lurches off the keel, rope in hand, ties off the boat according to Ronaldo’s instructions.  He takes the host by the hand, helping her out of the boat.

They clamber up the stone slide, up onto the dock, and along a straight roadway shining from the morning’s rain.   Dark butterflies twirl, and drops cling to spider webs in dark, wet leaves.  Across a field of shifting corn, cottages bear a ceiling of fog.     

“The Delphic Zoological gardens are some of the best on the islands,” says the host.  “I hope we get our chance to question the oracle!  Think about what you’d ask.”

  At the end of the lane, they pass through a great arch with an inscription across the keystone: Know Thyself.  Through a dark pink and lavender forest with statues and fountains, Mouse hobbles after Ronaldo and his host.  Hands wagging over sketch pads, women in flowered dresses crouch among blossoms, or they walk hand in hand around green pools swirling with giant fish.  Ronaldo stalks from pool to pool, studying the fish. 

“What is this!” he demands, pointing at the surface of a pool.  ”You tell me!  Why have they been taking fish from Delos!  These are the superior Delos Koi?  My eye!  I need to speak to someone.”    

The host laughs and takes Mouse by the arm.   Her yellow hair stirs in the wind, and her eyes seems to blend resignation with gaiety, as she leans toward him confidentially.   

“Ronaldo tells me you are a witness in the Makepeace trial.” 

“Yes.  But I’m not supposed to talk about the case.”

“I understand.  Can I ask you when the first trial date is?”

“Weeks away.”

“Do you like the gardens?”

“Very nice.”

“We are lucky today.  It is usually so crowded.  There are the games this week.  I am not interested in javelins and racing.  I do enjoy the plays and music, but that’s later on.  Ronaldo and I will attend.  It’s too bad you can’t come with us.” 

They approach another arch great arch and pass beneath.

“Do you like working at the hatchery?”

“It beats grapes.”

“You should put in a request for a host.”

“Pardon me for saying so, but I’m not sure I want to get involved here.  I’ll wait for my trial.  If I’m found not guilty, I will leave.”

“I see. I’m sorry.  I heard about the young girl.”

She squeezes his arm.

“And I’m sorry your experience here has been so distressing.  Ronaldo has told me something about it.  Under other circumstances, I think you would have loved our islands.  I’m sorry for that too.  Here we are.  The Oracle is in the temple there.  It is said to be very powerful.  I’ve never seen it without a crowd.  It is usually impossible to get inside.  They say five priestesses without arms channel the python spirit.”

“Without arms!”

“So they say.  They are chosen at birth, and their arms are tied with cords.”

Mouse’s steps drag.

“I don’t think I can take part in this.”

“Oh!  It is only a rumor.  Anyway, you did not take anyone’s arms.  Please come in with us.  Come, Ronaldo, let’s consult the oracle!”

They move down among the crowd of mostly women, a few with male partners.  Mouse shuffles his feet, intensely uncomfortable.  Ushers with shaven heads and white robes sweep down from the entrance of the temple.

“The oracle will close at five!”

One of the ushers lifts the cord across the entrance to the courtyard, and a dozen people trample through before the cord cuts off the flow.  Guides at their flanks, the group goes trotting between giant plants in urns.   Mouse, standing taller than anyone in the crowd, can see them splashing  through a shallow pool below a fountain with stone fish spewing gold streams.  Following Ronaldo, the host tugs Mouse along by the hand and reaches the rope.  The ushers are there again, drawing open the cord; Renaldo, the host, and Mouse slip through with the gush of more aggressive hopefuls.

“The oracle is closed!  Please leave the premises!” shouts an usher. 

A path of paving stones leads them to the edge of a shallow bath. 

“His feet are injured,” the host says to the usher.  “Is it possible for him to go around?”

“All must be purified before entering the presence of the oracle.  He can go back if he wishes.”

The host smiles and shrugs at Mouse.

They slosh through the shallow bath, and Mouse’s bandaging is drenched as they climb marble steps, pass between monolithic columns, and step into an antechamber lit by a thousand candles.  Chanting at the far side of the chamber, a shaved priestess in red and gold robes faces a curtain.  Between two rows of supplicants, ushers swing bronze, smoke-dragging cages.  One usher pushes the latecomers toward stone seats at the rear of the room.  All kneel.  Mouse hesitates.

“What are you doing?” whispers the host.

“I don’t get on my knees.”

“Please!”

Mouse kneels.  Ushers move from person to person, handing out slips of paper.  Mouse takes one, along with a pencil.

“Write your request for the oracle,” says the usher.  “Nothing too long, please.  Fold it, and write your seat number on the back.”

Mouse lays the slip of paper on a slanted wood easel in front of him.  Everyone is writing.  The ushers begin to gather the slips of paper.  Mouse puts the pencil to the paper

My father and mother sacrificed to the gods.  Their oldest son drowned.  My father died in the mines.  And my uncles came to take our metal roof.  I started stealing to stop the rain and hail.  Who are you snake goddess?  Have you too stood in the rain?   

Chapter 23 of the Cage: “Something She said in the Garden”

(Image with permission of Becka Wolfe).

Something She said in the Garden

Finley J. MacDonald

“I have some bad news, I’m afraid.  The young woman, Orchid, has gone missing.  We are quite concerned for her safety.  Over the past year, some disappearances have not turned out well.  If you know anything about any of this, Andrev–if you are involved–I promise you, we will see that you are well represented.  Just tell me what you know.”

Mouse stares down beside the white hem of her dress on tile, the sandal edging toward the bath.  Upon the liquid surface, two, black reflections shake.  Tuft at the base, a white feather  floats and trembles in glare.  From a distant hall, female voices dip and peak like swallows over hedges.  Complex, ringing clusters of notes well up.  Mouse tries to make out words.  Cordon off the sky . . . Sky upon the sea that drank you.  Sky upon a sea that drank her.  Sea of dirt, crime, blood, slavery. 

Mouse can feel the eyes of this woman taking measurements.  What was the name?  Perpetua.  Of the hollow cheeks.  The giddy urge has been replaced by a cold pound of clay.  The face gone basalt.  He has been gulled, taken unawares by discursive chatter.  Eyes cold autumn.  He has to look down at the stone tabletop.  A winged insect stumbles along the base of the wine jug.   

Orchid’s eyes, in the right light, were spokes of blue acid.  Sometimes, with naked, childish hunger leaking in.  After they had made love, wet from the sea, she lie with one leg across him.  Her hand, a bit of red upon it from herself, was touching his skin.  As if that skin were sacred.  His face, his arms.  The tattoo, blotted across his chest.  Witchcraft, the way she was cutting through prison-grit and spittle.  Her hand presiding over a horrid sacrament: his soul there, heart of a dog.  Bitter, burnt seeds in its leathery rind.  So small that it could be captured and pressed in the fist.  He had shoved her off him.  She trotted after, voice lost in the surf.

The woman is speaking.

“Andrev, you must tell me.  Did you harm her?”

Harm her? 

Perhaps he had.  In no more than closing his eyes.  Somehow, she mirrored him.  Making love was an agony.  Like incest must be.  Mouse had closed his eyes but still heard: I would die for you.

 “I need a cigarette.”

The woman lifts a leather bag.  Her hand roams around inside.  A metal case is laid upon the stone, lid folding back.  Mouse picks one cigarette from the row.  The end of the cigarette pushes unsteadily into the flame above her thumb.

“Do you know where she is?”

“God, no.”

 “Where is this man you call uncle?”

“Long gone, I guess.  Said he was taking the ship out.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He is my uncle.  I don’t really know him.  Built like a bull, got a big beard.  In a fight, he cannot be whipped.  No saints in my family, but he was the only one I was never allowed around.  I always was afraid of him.  ‘Shut your little mouth, boy; gut you like a fish’.  Everybody said he’s a firebug.  You know, a house burner.  Always in and out of jail.  Like me.  He told me he had killed before.    This time he seemed friendly enough.  He said, come along to this island, this paradise.  So, I went.”

“What did Orchid say about him?”

“She didn’t want to talk about him.  At all.  Suited me.  I can believe that Uncle Thondup would sell me off.  Easy as breathing.  I’d stake my mother on it that Orchid would have nothing to do with it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Everything.  Once, while she was sleeping, I busted, just to the garden.  When she found me, she was crying.  She held onto me like she had just saved me from from a shark.  It isn’t safe, she kept saying.  This girl is touched, I thought.  Maybe she was hip-deep in something with Thondup—it’s possible.  But she wouldn’t have let me go for money.  She wanted eat, drink and sleep nothing but me.  Strange, I know.”

 “When did you last see her?”

“On the beach.  She was keen to get me up on a horse.  She was hollering at me, stay on, stay on.  I stayed on, by the gods, and that damned steed took me miles, halfway round the island.  Then I thought I’d stay put. It was getting so as I couldn’t breathe.  I thought maybe I could push off this rock on a fishing rig.”

 “How did she seem that last day?  Was she afraid?”

“No more than usual.”

 “Did you kill her, Andrev?”

“No!”

“She was smothering you.”

“Don’t ask me that again.  I didn’t harm a hair on her head.”

 “Did you have relationships with any other women while you were on this island?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been in the company of— a chief justice here?”

 “What?  You’re joking.”

“You’ve heard of Justice Makepeace?”

“Naw.”

 “You’ve heard the name, certainly?”

“No.  The only time I ever met any damn judge is when the hammer was coming down.  I never met ‘a chief justice’.”

“You’ve no idea about the trial?  It has been in the newspaper every day for months.”

 “No.  I don’t read well.  I never read a newspaper.”

“Justice Makepeace has been charged with betrayal of the public trust.  Orchid was a part of our case.  Without her, we are greatly compromised.  Can you think of anything she might have said that could help us?”

Along the wall, fat bees with dusted heads buzz and land heavily and push in and out of blossoms like purple, hanging helmets.  An unbroken melody sinks and climbs, a goddess of sorrow wandering in a forest of loss.

“There might be something.  Something she said that morning in the garden.”

Chapter 22 of The Cage: “Musselgrove meets Perpetua Sacrament”

(Image with permission of Becka Wolfe)

In which Mouse begins to unravel the nature of his predicament . . ..

Musselgrove meets Perpetua Sacrament

Finley J. MacDonald

The hood is damp.  Gloves of female screws guide each of Mouse’s elbows.   Midday sun burns his arms.  He hears jingling chains, feet in gravel.  Voices.  Metal gates.  Crates sliding,  loads thudding.  A whining buzz through metal.  A rhythmic shaking of rock.   

“We are climbing steps.”

 Like the action of a giant rifle, a door latches.  Mouse stands listening to the pecking of metal birds.  After several minutes, he is pulled onward, through a labyrinth of harps, falling water.  The water sound is magnified.  The hood slides.  A bright, liquid reflection strikes him about the eyes.  He is standing between two screws.  Another is there, stiff in the open doorway.  Next to a bath, a woman is seated at a stone table.  A flash of red wine shows in the pottery jug at her hand.

“Remove his chains.”

One of the screws eyes him, stick tapping her palm; the other unbuckles his leg irons.  The wrist irons are pulled away.  

“Thank you,” says the woman.  “You may now leave.”

“One of us will remain at the door.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“He could get violent, this one.”

“Are you civilized?  I won’t have you in the room.”

“While you are here, we are accountable for your safety .”

“Bring him back then.  I shall report you for refusing me my privacy.”

The guard at the door shrugs at the others.

“All right, then.  Someone will be just outside.   Any trouble out of him, call us.”

One of the screws shakes her stick at Mouse.

“Be gentle.  We’ll crack your peanut for you.”

With the screws gone from the room, the woman shakes her head.

“I am sorry for that.  Your name is Mouse, I understand?”

Mouse gazes about the room.

“I am not a real mouse.  Not even an animal, but tell them that.”  

Round windows the size of teacups let in spreading light.  Along the rim of the bath, lit candles are staggered.  In repeated squares upon the wall, women in colored tiles bathe, bear jugs.  Below, flowering plants overcome a brick trough.  In the corners of the room are bushes in urns, and here and there, a bronze statue. 

“Andrev is my real name.”

“Why are you called that: Mouse?”

“Musselgrove’s the family name.  Mouse is easier to say.”

“Andrev.  Let’s sit on the platform.   We can—speak more privately.”

Sheer, white robe nearly brushing stones, she bears two glasses of wine to the bath.  Grasping the jug of wine by the neck, Mouse steps behind, her hip just in front of his hand.  She sets the glasses on a block of stone and pulls at her robe as she lowers herself, profile against the splashing curtain of water.    Mouse sets the jug also on the block and sits down, facing her.  Above a hollowed cheek, her fingers touch her temple.  Her neck is long, pale.  Steam is rising off the water.

“Are your new accommodations sufficient?”

Caution is thining the appetite  in Mouse’s lower body.  

“You a lawyer or something?”

“An intern.  My name is Perpetua Sacrament.”

The woman nods at the mural.

“For appearances, you should probably take off your shirt.  You understand general purpose of this room.”

Mouse drinks off his glass of wine and draws off his shirt.  He pours himself another. 

 “Andrev, has anyone talked to you about your trial?”

“The warden said I would get one.  Soon.”

“Soon could mean a number of years.  And then the quality of the trial is likely to be—compromised.”

She turns her head, and under the hair  like spreading angora, the hollow cheek reflects shimmering light.

“Andrev, we have seen each other before.”

“Oh?”

“In the vineyard.  I was the second passenger in the carriage.  Our visit was not by chance.  We are aware of your difficulty.”

“Why should you care?”

“The man who brought you to the island.  You are not his first guest.  The girl you were with is one of his accomplices.  Money changes hands.”

Mouse sets his glass down on the block.

“Are you sure?’

 “Fairly.”

Mouse dumps some wine from the jug into his glass.  He drinks it off and wipes his mouth.

“The inmate in the cell above me—in my last cell.  He dropped me a note.  Said  he was five years without a trial.  For the charge of blasphemy.”

“One can rot in jail in Amazonia for spitting.”

The woman glances toward the doorway.  Beneath eyes the color of beech: a trace of a smile.

“If you could, I should like to show you my sub-commune.  The veranda is admirable, ornate woodwork.  Looks onto an exquisite garden.  The women who live there have plenty of leisure time to vaunt the vibrancy of  civil society here, and they do.  They recommend fine art, noted writers.  Everyone, they say, is becoming wealthy, producing wine, cloth, figs, and paper.  A great portion of that wealth will go into medicine and education.  In Amazonia, we are establishing a second university.  I attended the first.”

“Way ahead of me there.  I went to primary school.”

“This is a strange place, Andrev.  Education is looking through one eye while covering the other.  And that is because any frank, honest person will see that the Amazonia in its entirety–from its philosophy to its goods–is tainted.  For while we profess to be an exclusive community of women, we are constantly in need of men to produce a next generation.  And while needing an increasingly number of men for the growing population, Amazonia is not willing to  credit men or allow them a voice.”

The girl dips her hand into the shining water.  A stream dribbles from her fingers.

“In every room, the temperature is perfect.  But someone must dig the coal.  Someone must tend the boiler.  You hear the harp music?”

“Yes.  I was listening.  Reminds me of a day long ago.”

“There are no better harpists anywhere.  Amazonia is not only richer in base terms, it is rich in fruits of human intelligence and spirit.  If the topic arises of unjust sentences and forced labor—not that it often does—it easy to dismiss.  It must be done for these higher goods of Amazonia.”   

The Cage, Chapter 21: “The Communal Female, by Gertrude Godchosen”

(Image with permission of Becka Wolfe)

In which Mouse finds improved accommodation . . ..

The Communal Female, by Gertrude Godchosen

Finley J. MacDonald

As he climbs, clinking in darkness, Mouse can hear the screws, one front and one behind, their feet echoing as they step round and round, up a tight, clammy staircase.  A key clunks in a lock.  Hinges squeal, and Mouse is pulled through.  The air smells of wet stone, and Mouse can hear voices and clicking metal.  The hood is pulled off.  Next to a wooden bucket in the dim hall, an old man looks up slowly, a mop handle in purple-veined hands.  Mouse, between two female screws, is shoved along toward a cell.  The door swings open to let him through and clashes behind him.

“Feet.  Feet near the bars!”

Mouse shuffles alongside the bars.  One screw regards him–young, comely, undesirable as an angel of death–while the second screw drags away the ankle chains.   

“Hands through the bars.”

Mouse offers his wrists, and the irons click and slide.

  Clean yourself up, inmate.”

Apart from the fact that he is locked in inside it, the room seems hardly a prison cell.  The bars across the window are posted in sunlight.  Upon the cot frame, a mattress four inches thick  invites him to slumber in a  bright splash of light that climbs from the floor and up the whitewashed wall.   Along the opposite wall, a pitcher of water is set over its shadow on the table.  There is a washbasin.  Shaving knife.  Comb, soap.  A folded towel and wash cloth.  On the shelf above, the top book reads: The Communal Female, by Gertrude Godchosen.

The slap and slide of the mop on stone works closer.  The old man sways into view, grumbling. He halts for a moment, looks at Mouse’s feet, and giggles.

“What, old man?”   

The mop slops across the space and moves on.  Mouse looks himself in the metal mirror affixed to the wall.  Mug covered in black wool, nose and forehead red as iron ore.  Mouse fills the basin with water.  He unbuttons his shirt and drops it to the floor.  He dips his face into water, and the dribbling stream clouds the basin.   He starts with the sideburns, and he scratches away the beard, piling the tufts at the edge of the table.  He touches his face, his cheekbones like worn cliffs, his two eyes over bruised moons.  With the cloth, he sponges his burned shoulders, neck, and back. 

Toweling himself, Mouse steps across the clean floor to the window.  He stands in the light breeze.  Below, weather vanes on a stone building pierce a green field with milk cows—black, red, and spotted.  Bells that tinkle as the cows wander and graze. 

At the bed, Mouse takes up the shirt.  He pulls it on, sits on the bed, toes off his shoes, and stands to push down his trousers.  He tugs the trousers to his waist, and he slips on the canvas slippers he finds at the edge of the bed.  He runs his hand down his chest.  The light, woven fibers smell oddly unworn.  A padlock clacks, key delving.  The bottom, barred door in the larger door squeaks open, and a tray slides through. 

“When you finish, place that shaving knife on the tray and leave it near the door.”

The door slams.  Mouse steps to the table and sets off the basin and empty pitcher.  As he carries the food to the table, he smells pepper and spice.  Mouse has not eaten.  He sits down at the table and begins shoveling lentils and dark, spiced rice into his mouth.  He sips hot, strong tea.   Afterwards, according to the screw’s demands, he sets the shaving knife near the bowls and spoon and leaves it all near the bars.  He picks The Communal Female off the shelf.  The copy has been rebound, and the pages are tattered.  Mouse drops to his side on the bed and reads slowly, sounding out words he has never encountered. 

What we wish for

Most will take a dim view, no doubt, of our project, and indeed, heap scorn at the prospect of a commune excluding male humanity.  It is our purpose, notwithstanding, to set forth a vision, to suggest tenets, and to extol the merits of sororities directed by females for the benefit of females. 

We note and shall describe again in more detail the current state of affairs whereby post-cataclysmic societies appear to be reforming themselves along lines which have already led to grave depopulation and irreparable damage to many regions of our earth.  Regrettable technologies and institutions are already in place.  We feel we can trace this unthinking envy of and pell-mell rush toward imitative invention to an enduring, patriarchal mindset—as well as to a lack of reflection and imagination.  As mankind does not appear capable of altering or ameliorating courses of action that have led and shall surely lead again to disastrous consequences, we make the following, brazen proposal: tear down the edifice of patriarchy entirely.  We are certainly not proposing violence, which is altogether useless and impossible at any rate, as patriarchy outstrips us entirely in the realm of violence.  Rather, such as we propose may be accomplished through bringing up children entirely uninfected with patriarchy, advancing persons steeped in lore, crafts, customs, music, arts, and indeed, religion founded upon and steeped in the feminine.

That being said, we do not wish to be complainers.  We have no desire to wallow in conflict and petulance.  We do not even impugn patriarchies per se, for we might then diminish our claim to the establishment of utopian communes quite beyond mere matriarchy, for we aspire to communes whose full-fledged members are women exclusively.

Objections will be raised, no doubt, even in the mind of our female reader.  We shall attempt to disperse them.  While perhaps admitting to a certain diminished climate, to a subtly repressive air which has flattened her person; while quite likely associating rape, war, abuse of children, and destruction of earthly environment as belonging essentially to the male sphere; our female reader may protest that she has little wish to swear off associations with males entirely, if nothing else, as a matter of sensual concern.  Let us rush to assure her that swearing off all associations with males is not implicit in the project of creating female communes; however, such associations should transpire outside the institutional container which ascribes feminine rights and customs.