The Great Beast shot through winter sky, a flash of fiery-red plumage darkened with thick, rimy blood. Gripped in obsidian clutches, a clump of slick, matted hair swung wide the head of some poor child’s body. The brilliant mass of shimmering scales and feathered wings gleamed iridescent in the moonlight and a noxious green flame hissed in between its ragged teeth. As it soared through elemental waves of heavenly dark, fleeing gulls cried in horror and billowing clouds wept empty in retreat. Freezing rains swept over countless miles of crystalline woods, an endless phantasm of terrible, wondrous geometries. From somewhere deep within its shadows – a horn blast – and a thunderous call rises high to meet it, a javelin through the glowering doom – hot in pursuit…
Rusty jolted awake, gasping, wide-eyed and panicked. He sucked in burnt smelling-salts of consciousness; his studio – full of smoke – his eyes aglow by the light of a small worktable nearly engulfed in flames at the farthest end of the room. Naked and leaping, a superhuman Rusty cleared the distance in a single bound, smothering the fire with the heavy comforter from his bed, collapsing the table and everything on it under his considerable weight. Table smothered underbody, the flame choked to a wisp and died.
A fucking candle. When the hell did he fall asleep? And when did he acquire, much less light, a candle? Abruptly, Rusty’s nude form was slapped with a reminder that it was freezing down here. A snowdrift had formed against his window. Shivering, he threw the singed, smoking comforter around him like a monk’s hooded robe. He coughed weakly. The batteries for the smoke detector had long been removed which might’ve helped sooner but Rusty was grateful a blaring alarm wasn’t wedged into the headache already splitting his head. On the shelf above him, little toy velociraptors snarled at army men, plastic stags & lions battled, wooden Buddhas & painted saints proselytized by the greenblack light of the windowsill. The lingering smoke intermingled with his worker’s ashram’s chemical off-gassing, filling his lungs with a mind-altering mixture of ash, sweat, solvents, soiled clothing, oils, inks, and glue - a maker’s millions.
Rainbows of acrylic tubes and coarse soiled rags, graphite shavings, bleeding pens, pen caps and palettes smothered in ancient paints all patiently awaited his orders. Black mold precursors conspire in the carpet, Gordion knots of hair tighten and mature, breeding eddies of possibly-sentient dust huddle in chimeric, alien forms in dark corners and dank recessions. Rusted tools in hieroglyphic ruin mingle with trash, cumulus stacks of books, paper, and canvas languor freely across the room while torn, taped cardboard boxes – latent infinities of paints, pastels, and markers – seed evermore complex microorganisms. A newborn glow smiles across its chaotic breadth...
Rusty smiled. None of this he paid much attention to. What commanded his immediate attention was the explosion of brushwork lighting up a canvas leaned up against the wall, a waking dream of color and form as bewilderingly “real” as the room around it. The paint echoed shimmering calligraphic rhythms, a grand, harmonic expanse, a field of light, a flower of Sun descending, a thick, blood-full heartbeat – LOVE, LOVE, LOVE – Rusty, a rascal vessel for the eternal mantra of Father Time; Mother Nature too, filling that canvas as She would any other biome.
Still half-asleep, Rusty closed his eyes, tittered, sighed, depressurized. His heart skipped a beat (uh-oh), as sometimes it would after an especially long night of working and God knows what else accompanying a deep, rejuvenative, daresay-mystical slumber. Abruptly, his life-scrambled brainscreen refreshed and somewhere not far off he could faintly hear a voice singing – transfixing, heavenly – and he unconsciously rose from his subterranean painter’s hovel to seek its source in the shining spheres of the worldly realms above.
Rusty stood an easy six two depending on his daily level of slouch, peaking at a solid six and a half, dropping to his worst at five ten. A nest of hair floated around his head in wily auburn curls, a vaguely vegetal, slightly concerning, oddly attractive but wholly mysterious fragrance preceded him. He had an ordinary face: eyes, nose, a mouth (even ears!) – hardly remarkable as features go but one could call him handsome in the right light. In his corners, creases, and contours there was something familiar – uncanny, universal – even familial and intimate.
When it comes to fashion, Rusty exhibited the outward inclinations of a hunting chameleon. When active and “on a mission,” he dressed with a natural and shockingly effective camouflage that often rendered him completely invisible even when directly next to someone. When inactive and in no mood for human convention, he stuck out like a screaming red tongue shooting at flies – antagonistic, flamboyant, alien, dangerously other. Depending on the day, if you could see him at all, his attire matched his surroundings with such bizarre synchronicity that no matter what was around him he somehow blended in like a ghillie in grass. On others, he contrasts in such preposterous ways as to elicit raised eyebrows, puzzled smirks, uncontrollable laughter, street-crossings, shrieks of terror, and even the occasional threat of physical violence. Some days this made him feel like offing himself but was too proud, spiteful, cowardly, and just plain BUSY to actually do anything about it.
He continued upward toward the sound of song. Outside the window it was strangely dark for the time of day. A melancholy fog and overcast sky bathed the neighborhood snow in shadowy grays, blue-green, filtered ultraviolet. In the bare, white trees, a flock of crows draw close for warmth. Nearby and unseen, a luxurious, well-to-do, and impossibly white cat stalked with ill intent in the penetrating silence. An unpleasant draft creeped through the upstairs windows, as it did in his studio, annoying Rusty’s red-freckled, babyfat cheeks and big hairy feet. He watched for a moment – “Life or Death?” He cared, but not enough to really care.
The beautiful sound retreated in a slow decrescendo and he frowned. A couple of ambience’s greatest hits, Life as Usual, and Might as Well get a Move On,” carried on quietly in the background. Now and generally unsure of what to do with himself, Rusty boiled some water on the stove and sat quietly. Moments passed, he made some tea – a damn fine oolong. With a careful pour, further thoughts of action left as quickly as they came; simply sitting in his comforter-robe, eyes closed – what blessed meditation. 10, 20, then 30 minutes of reclaimed convalescence, inside and out. An hour passed in silence – his tea went cold.
In crescendo, the world outside swayed in the freezing wind and his consciousness with it, like alveoli expanding in the lungs of some deity, a kaleidoscopic majesty of color, light, and sound. As he slowly unwound, he drifted further and further into the confines of his skull, beyond what his eyes so vividly relayed, into infinite space & silence, the invisible connective gulf between flora and fauna, predator and prey, up-quark, down-quark, object, subject – resting. As Rusty returned, he whispered to no one, “Wow. How incredible.”
The somber shroud that blanketed the sky began to retreat. Sunlight dappled through the clouds, pooled at his feet in warm evanescent puddles. Maybe it was going to be a nicer day than he thought. He looked and saw the same cat, still stalking but with a singular target now, shoot up the nearby sycamore after a particularly small crow that dared let it close. The tree’s skeletal crown exploded in a fearful plume of black diasporic wings. Not today! Ears bent back with a feline frown.
With Rusty newly recharged and ready for anything, Destiny knocked and ushered him out the door, now in everyman cold-weather gear, still enchanted, a step in the direction he thought the siren song might have gone. Gliding “festina lente” to nowhere in particular, black rivers of snow-muddied asphalt streamed astride him, the creeping cacophony of the city upsetting his internal quietude, but as something he’s well accustomed to, he didn’t pay it much mind. As he walked, his eyes met those of a breathtakingly beautiful passenger rushing past him toward some attracting magnetar on the horizon, a moment that lasted much longer than it actually did. His heart fluttered. Maybe he was heading in the right direction after all. As he worked his way downtown, the city noise rose, absorbed his footfalls, muffled his breathing, clouded his thinking but after long, he was just another body amongst the throng, buzzing now at peak density and decibel as he reached one of the city’s busiest districts where a Halloween celebration seemed to be gathering about fifteen minutes from home…