A Window In Need of Repair | |
| Jiang Qing -- | By unidentified photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
A Window in Need of Repair
Dec 4, 2004
The
window casement needs to be restored. The window itself has been
shattered by a cruel stone.
My
force has been spent. Isis has forgiven me for wounding her cheek. I
fall down at her feet. What more can a stone do?
As
I feel the warmth of The Mother Who Has Forgiven, I realize that
everything is different in here. A stereo phonograph is playing,
“Let’s Do the Twist Like We Did Last Summer,” and the Houris
and Heroes are dancing.
Outside
the broken window, everything is in commotion. It’s not just the
tanks in the streets.
The
angry ghosts that float by, looking like mouths full of sharp teeth
with hardly any bodies at all, are denouncing an alleged conspiracy
between Nixon and Kissinger, and the Communist Party Chairman who
wrote the Little Red Book.
a
Back in the Material World
When
I look back into the material world, I can observe that my own body
is trying to get some sleep. But Thieu is complaining that her cheek
has been wounded, and she is demanding some answers.
I
can’t give her the answers she needs, because I wasn’t there.
When I look out the window, I can see that there is a cactus with
very sharp spines outside the bedroom window. But the spines are not
nearly so sharp as the questions that are being asked by the ghosts
who have flown in from the Poison Tree.
They
are asking, who buried that sheath of faggots bound with an axe, in
the courtyard of the schoolyard where they died. Was it the French
Foreign Legion? Was it the Catholic Church? Was it something the
Samurai forgot to take with them when they went back to their homes
in Japan? What is this tree that grew up from the seed, that grows
hatchets and vials of poison in place of edible fruits?
a
Fleeing to the Archetypal Place
Thieu
is leading me down to an archetypal place. Guided by only the
moonlight, we skirt about under the cliff where the Sphinx crouches
like some cruel interrogator.
As
we continue, we encounter Isis. Thieu asks her why her cheek has been
bruised by a stone. I see the bloody bruise on her cheekbone, and
realize that I have made a rather ugly impression.
“It
all has to do with a jealous little Godling named Set,” declares
Isi s. “He has been trying to get me stoned to punish me for an
alleged act of adultery.”
“Don’t
worry about the paint remover,” the Sphinx calls down from her
cliff. “I know that the Men of the World shall do everything they
can to restore the glamour of the Jealous God’s monument. .
Everything, that is, except to make meaningful reparations to those
whom their controlling ways have wounded. And so, since the
foundations are crumbling, I am going to let the tower fall.”
a
Voices on the Lawn
Thieu
and I are hearing voices out there on the lawn. A furious argument
has broken out between a man and a woman. The howling is becoming a
violent fight. The spirits who are angry at the way that they died at
Tuol Sleng have pulled down the curtains, so that we can no longer
see the angels who are singing the Song of the Spheres.
The
man and woman are chasing each other around the saguaro cactus that
stands guard over the corner of the lawn.
“Don’t
get involved,” advises Thieu. “They might be dangerous people.”
The
angry spirits, who still burn in shame over the way that carnal agony
seduced them into betraying those whom they held most dear, roll back
the turf from the lawn. The man and the woman both look down in
shock, because the bright light that is shining from below has
clearly been generated by Hellfire.
Down
there, Richard Nixon, Chairman Mao, Chou en Lai, Pol Pot, and various
other figures whose features are obscured by the shadows, are being
summoned to something that certainly looks like the Court of the Last
Judgement. In the background we hear a discussion about why Henry
Kissinger is taking so long to respond to the summons that was
delivered to him.
Except
for Henry, who is still pleading diplomatic immunity, these souls are
in the custody of devils in uniform, who have them all handcuffed
together. The Sphinx, who is enthroned in the Judgement Seat, is
taking depositions from Tibetan monks who were tortured. The painters
are scraping off the paint remover from the walls, and all the scenes
of horror the great leaders had hoped would be forgotten forever are
coming back to life.
We
see the cities burning. We see the napalm falling on the peasant, and
on the water buffalo. We watch the Bouncing Betties rise up from
under the soil like horrible apparitions to blow off the feet of the
children. We watch the crocodile swimming in the big rain-filled
crater that the B-52’s have made.
“You
must learn how to be able to speak about the pain,” I find myself
consoling Thieu. “It’s obvious, these ghosties will not stop
tormenting the people of the earth, until they have been given voices
with which they can scream.”
a
= a
The Pregnancy of Chairman Mao
“These
horrors shall be repeated, until they are remembered, and their
significance has been assimilated,” declares an intellectual in
glasses, who died of torture when Phnom Penh was purged.
“We
shall never be able to give a form and a voice to the Theater of
Cruelty, unless we are able to sustain each others’ spirits with a
little bit of carnal tenderness,” declares Thieu, with a sad little
sigh.
I
feel a pang so acute that all that I can do is to kiss her tittie.
General George Armstrong Custer gallops up from the hole in the
ground, to arrest both the man and the woman for creating a domestic
violence incident.
Custer
empties his Colt revolver into the sky, as a police car arrives to
haul off the victims.
“It’s
hard to give birth to a Revolution,” declares Chairman Mao. “That’s
why I became too heavy to be sent to Hell.”
“Like
everything else that you have ever said, that is an out and out lie,”
declares a tortured Tibetan monk. “Your waistline attained it’s
legendary size, because you were caught eating everyone else’s
dinner.”
“And
people thought I was the Lord of the Shadow,” declares Adolph
Hitler, with a frown.
“Don’t
worry, my son,” Custer comforts him. “People will still remember
you as the Father of Genocide.”
a
= a
“Mao Turned Me Into a Bad Dog”
The
man who is chasing the woman about the Saguaro cactus has become a
fat Chinaman, who wears a Red Star on a uniformed hat.
The woman also has Chinese features, but her body is much more
graceful.
“You
turned me into your bad dog,” Jiang Qing accuses the fat Chinaman.
“I wanted to change the national culture by transforming our
relation to the arts, but you were an old pervert who
just wanted blood. Every time I had just about gotten all of the
stage props in place, you would say, ‘go sic ‘em bitch!’ and I
would need to bite someone. But I put up with it, because I believed
that you were the world’s greatest revolutionary hero.
“All
of this I could put up with, until I noticed all the young girls you
were going to bed with in your old age. College girls I
could understand; I would be jealous, but then I would think, that
perhaps it was good for them to learn revolutionary theory from the
Grand Master. But you had a thing about virgins! It wasn’t
until I found myself alone in bed, wondering why it
always had to be a virgin, that I began to realize just what you
were, and what you had always been. You never really listened to
anyone who had enough education to give you a proper critique
of your theories. You think it is only a little thing,
but it was the principal reason why we had to bury so many Red
Chinamen in so many shallow graves.”
GGYYgg
