Just For You, Keri

“So, I hear you’re looking for something audacious to do.” My eyes open gently at the words. I am sitting cross-legged on the ground. A black feathered cloak is draped over my shoulders and wrapped around me. I had been in a different headspace and was now confused by my surroundings. I saw I was seated on a six pointed star that had been inscribed within a large circle. Cream white candles sat where each point touched the circle. Outside the circle, the world was hazy, as if I was looking through semi-opaque glass.

I knew at once where I was at.

“Well, yes, I am. Have you any suggestions?” I did not try to pierce the veil that shielded the speaker from my sight. I knew his voice well by now. I was in his world, and no amount of my will would override his.

The smell of a musty cigar wafted through the veil. It itched my nose and made my eyes water. I tried to remain sitting still, but my eyes burned and I lifted my hands to wipe them. At my movement, he laughed.

“I thought a pipe smoker like you wouldn’t mind a well aged cigar.” I heard the sound of a deep pull, then I was engulfed in a peppery cloud of smoke. As he blew the smoke over me, the veil was pushed aside. At the sound, I knew to take a deep breath, but the smoke still itched my eyes and nose. I waited until the thickest of the cloud had passed to resume breathing again. I caught enough of the smoke to detect hints of rum, berries, and dark chocolate. It’s a stinky cigar, but it’s a premium, high-end, stinky cigar. Fitting for a man of his station.

“The denser smoke takes a bit getting used to, Sir.” Again, I rubbed at my eyes as he laughed at me. As I did so, I heard him moving from my immediate right, to in front of me, but a bit further off. When I was able to look again, the veil had been completely removed and I could see the room clearly.

There were the tables with piles of skulls, claws, and feathers. Lit candles with pictures tied to them. Melted candlewax everywhere. Daggers and crosses and odd little pots covered with tied cloth. Many of the items, I recognized to be symbols of death or of people that have passed on. This time, I looked without fear.

On the walls, imagery of saints looked down on us, but now I knew them for what they were, and I did not itch under their gaze. The Gentleman waited for me to finish my examination of the dark room, and for my gaze to resettle onto him.

He stands in front of an elaborate altar. There are many human skulls here. Some are wrapped in cloth, some are sitting bare. Some have candles burning on them. A few are upside down, held securely by loops of rolled cloth, with a dark colored candle burning atop. He is glancing at me, then chuckling and mumbling over the assortment of skulls. He glances at me again, stares hard into my eyes, fixing me in place and stealing my breath. Then he laughs great peals that break the entrancement, allowing me to slump slightly.

With no ceremony, he plucks a skull from the table and stares at the eye sockets deeply. He nods and brings it to the circle where I am still sitting. With sudden and deep severity, he holds the skull, face first, out to me and entreats me to take it.

With equal severity, I receive the skull from him. It’s a human skull, dried and devoid of any soft matter. The lower jaw is missing, of course, but I get a sense that it is not required. The bone is free of tool marks, although it has an unusual softness to it, as if lovingly hand buffed by a soft cloth. As I turn the skull over, he moves a few of the candelabras closer to the circle, improving the light I have to examine the skull by.

I did not notice the facial markings when he first handed me the skull, as it was backlit by the multitude of candles on the tables. Now that I’ve turned it over, I see the facial bones have been painted deep hues of blue and purple. I was concerned that an image I had seen recently in the waking was imposing itself into the dream. I called the image to my sight explicitly, and banished it away from sight and memory.

The Keeper of Skulls watched my actions, knowing what I was doing, and nodded his approval.

I looked again at the skull, and saw the patterns on the facial bones had changed somewhat. The image from the waking had left completely, leaving behind a black painted design. Of the upper teeth, only the molars had been removed prior to death. All the rest were intact. But the four incisors had been stained black postmortem, while the two canines were bleached a brilliant white. The rest of the teeth were untouched. The black staining also covered the bone between the teeth and the nasal cavity, extended around the nasal cavity and around the eye sockets, almost looking like a giant black butterfly had settled on the skull. The interior of the eye sockets had been painted with a fluorescent dye that reacted with the unnatural light of the dark room, making them glow slightly.

Imagine, if you would, a kid running around on Halloween, dressed as a skeleton with a face painted to resemble a skull. He would have blacked out most of his face, with a caricature of a skull painted in white. Inverse the coloring, and that was what I was looking at.

I was not afraid of what I was holding. Neither the skull itself, nor the painted marks on it frightened me in any way. I felt as if I was being introduced to a new friend, and I was acquainting myself with that friend’s peculiarities.

As the skull warmed in my hands, the black areas changed slightly. It now appeared as if painted with deep shades of a rich, metallic blue. As I turned the skull in the light, the temples and “eyebrows” of the skull sparkled with flashes of light. The brightness in the eye sockets intensified. The cheek areas had flashes of red, as if the skull was blushing from my inspection. The face of the skull was no longer devoid of life, but had an inherent gaiety to it.

I kissed the skull on the forehead, and thanked it for allowing me to inspect it. The Gentleman had been crouched nearby the entire time and was studying me closely as I studied the skull. He was still smoking his cigar, but was blowing his smoke around the circle instead of into it. I handed the skull back to him, the Keeper of Skulls, and thanked him for the experience.

He held the skull up to face him, the sparkling blues and reds starting to fade away. He held the skull close to his face and whispered something in the skull’s “ear”. He closed his eyes and “listened” to the skull for a few moments more, then began to laugh great peals of laughter that shook the room. I could not help but laugh and smile with him, so infectious was the sound.

“No, Kerian. This skull, is yours to keep.” My smile froze and my laughter died. His mirth deepened at my response. He handed the skull back to me, placing it in my cross-legged lap. “But it’s up to you to find out why.”

I picked the skull back up with my hands, noting at my touch, the blues and reds returned to the blackened areas, as did the strange glow in the empty eye sockets. As I looked at the skull with a hint of fear, I heard the Gentleman say, “Well, you did ask for something audacious, didn’t you.”

“Yes.” My voice sounded so far away from me, as if from another room. “Yes, I did, but I didn’t think it would be this audacious. And I still have another offer to consider.”

“Yes, you do. But regardless if you take up my offer for Thursday or not, this skull, and all that comes with it, is yours. A gift, from me.” I hear him taking a deep toke from the cigar, and look up just in time for him to lean over me and blow a darkening cloud of smoke over me. Instinctively, I clutch the skull to my chest, hold my breath, and bow my head from the stinky assault. The cloud continues longer than I can hold my breath however. At my first gasp, I feel my awareness snatched from me and I fall into a deeper sleep.

When I woke up, despite being in a smoke-free place, where no cigarettes, cigars, or pipes are allowed (even unlit!), I still smelled the Gentleman’s cigar’s marked scent and realized the dream to be of import.

I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I decided to do some relatively light reading to pass the time and unwind. The first article queued up on my RSS reader is the delightful and fun to read blog Ex Libris Hieronyma. Her article, entitled “Generations“, is a short read, perfect for those 2 (damn early) in the morning blues. Of course, it stabs at me, reminding me of my own maternal issues, and then, to make sure I get the hint, slaps me with a final image that you have to see for yourself to understand why it stung. (But I still recommend her blog!)

Make of that, what you may.