WILDFLOWERS

Wildflowers

            I left the battle in a hurry, stumbling over a crowded floor of bodies. Headless, maimed, some gurgled the last of their prayers through mouths full of blood. Others just pretended. An old friend pulled at my trouser as I squished through a pool of intestines. I put my heel through his skull and kept moving. I reached the hill and let go, tumbling over myself, onto rock, through bush, and cactus, until I reached the bank of the river. It pooled calmly in a swirling elbow before rushing out to the falls. I sank to the bottom and watched the arrow wound in my chest spit clouds of deep velvet around the shaft, blanketing the mermaid grass, the rocks, and the fish that knew only of fear and food.  

This place was once beautiful, now it is just like me.

            I came up for air and paddled to the other side. My head rang from a rock I'd met falling downhill that had kept a good portion of my left ear. Back underwater the cannon fodder, muskets, and effeminate shrills of the dying faded into the last reverberations of an echo. The icy waters slowed my chest wound to a few streams of blood smoking upward here and there. But the blood would not stop and I was having trouble standing against the light current. I wrapped my hands around a patch of valisneria grass along the bottom and let my feet drift down river. Periodically I came up for air and was struck by the enormity of the sky. Plumes of black powder drifted up into clouds of grey and a purple so dark it seemed to bleed through the canvas. This sky, hung low and heavy, pushed down at the ground, fighting the natural gravity of everything. Our war was locked in a vice and only seemed to tighten things with progression.           

All of them booming, screaming, dying together. Should I return?

            My breath gave out long ago, and I made peace sucking the river into my lungs. The grey and purple clouds found their way into my head, slowing the blood that raced around my brain. The mermaid hair waved back and forth. A palomino trout swam out from the rocks and blinked at me.       

I hope to die before the river takes me to the falls.

            The cold water closed my eyes and I began my journey back to the womb.  The palomino blinked thoughtlessly, and swam away. All the life drained down to my hands still clenched in the grass. But the warrior came early, tearing me from death with a forceful, pungent hand. Dragged over a beach of smooth rock, through a meadow where I stole a wildflower, and up a hill, I was given a moment of relief as the warrior stopped to look back. The sun set behind blots of grey and black ink playing out across the river. I put the wildflower in a pocket. The warrior caught his breath and clubbed me across my temple. My palette lost all saturation and the spectrum of hues breathed dark then bright, pulsing with my heart. Electric polka dots popped and crackled through tiny pinholes of blinding white light that danced out from the corners of my eyes. Then black. Then the dream.

What kind of flower is this? I shall be the first to name it.

            Nightfall, stumbling about the dark, the dream finds me mid-journey. With a sporadic gate and a head too heavy for the neck, I know I have been walking for some time. Familiar with my destination, I cannot control my approach. Not drawn, or pushed, but steered. A passenger in my own skin. At the campfire I am greeted by familiars but reply with a word I do not understand. I wander about a camp, tearing open the flaps of tents until I find him. My father shaves by lantern light, in the jagged reflection of a large shard of mirror. He speaks about our country, a place I cannot remember. A home and a mother I’ve never seen. I walk behind the mirror and hold it up close to his face. He dips the blade in the basin, whisking it about. Then he looks at me. The blade clangs to the bottom of the basin, his pupils dilated with horror. The mirror enters his neck. He falls to the floor and the mirror looks back at me. My face hangs about my skin, gray and frayed. I look into dark, wide eyes I have not yet seen and smile a smile my face cannot fully express.

You and I share this dream together.  But we never speak of it or try to change the outcome.

            I awoke with a muted call for help. Saliva dripped down along my cheeks, my mouth kept open with wood. Wives and daughters of the enemy held down my arms and legs as a man painted white as chalk with a crown of feathers and elk hide, stole the arrow back from my chest. I bit down on the cedar and the fire rose. Shadows congregated above me, flickering about the conical canopy. The man in white passed the arrow around the room until it rested in the palm of the warrior. The warrior stoked the fire and a new chant began. The man in white picked up a glowing iron rod and pressed it deep into my chest. The cedar cracked between my teeth and my mouth filled with blood in the place of words. The smell of cauterized flesh wafted up through my nostrils. The women removed the stick from my mouth and poured a deep-green gravy down my throat. The dark taste of earth and thin metallic poison welled up from my stomach as it tossed about inside. I looked up to the man in white and watched him pass the bowl of cactus juice to the warrior. The warrior stared back at me as he drank down the last of the bowl. The medicine took affect and we smoked tobacco rolled in corn husks, watching our thoughts rise in the smoke.

All the men and women I’ve killed are waiting outside. Babies too.

            The dream finds me walking again. I am guided through darkness by the offspring from my father’s dog and a wolf that snuck into our camp. I drowned the pup long ago. We reach the river and she whimpers. I pick her up and we cross the waters together.

I did not give you a name.

            She is glowing and too bright to carry. I put her down on the bank. She barks and the sun peaks up above the hill a bit. There is lavender growing up out of the rocks and through my clothes. The cacti are birthing faces from their flowers that scream up to the sky. I can hear big heavy plates shifting underfoot, forming mountains, valleys, this very river. Everything growing faster, brighter, louder. The cacti screaming louder and louder forming one solid note that folds over itself, spreading back out into a pitch that can only be felt.

Stop barking! There’s a river right behind me.

            She takes my threat and stops barking. The sun falls back behind the hill, but the darkness is uncertain, and stirs about with reinvention whenever I look away. She climbs the hill with ease, her tongue bouncing out from the side of her mouth. I step carefully not to wake the snake having trouble finding footing among its scales. When we reach the top we run towards the campfire as the hill slithers back down to the river. At the first tent I say goodbye to her, hoping she will find me again in another dream.

Coyote! Come sit by the fire. Have a drink, friend!

            I stare into their fire, and follow its light to their eyes. They are drunk and sit among pile of discarded armor.

Koyaanisqatsi…

            They shrug and fall back to their wine. I walk down isle after isle of tents, poking in through the flaps now and then. An old man pulls needles from his foot. The needles fall into a silver bowl with a short satisfying ping. A young boy covered in lashes spits the seeds of a fruit at a tapestry of The Virgin. A pair of madams entertain themselves with a mouse. Their laughter frightens the vermin as it skitters about their folds of skin.

Someday I will build a home with doors and lock them.

            I find my father with a blade to his neck, concentrating in the mirror.

Back home, my father shaved twice a day. As do I and so shall you. You must keep your face clean and distinguished. Ready for the doctor to stitch.  Ahh! This mirror is terrible.

            I grab the mirror and hold it up to his face. He stretches his jaw, tightening the skin, as the blade scrapes a smooth hairless path.

Back home we have a mirror so big you can see the whole family. I miss our home sometimes. These tents force us to live like the enemy. Just wait till you see all the rooms. And the stables. Our horses live better than this. I can smell your mother’s Paella Valenciana. She has such a way with everything she…

            He whisks his blade in the basin, and looks me in the eye. I hear the blade drop in the basin, and his breath escaping from the hole in his neck. He stumbles back through the tent, pulling over bookshelves and furniture, grasping for something to help him. He dies on a chair, made of buffalo. He looks embarrassed as his blood stains the hide. In the mirror I see myself one last time. I admire the stitching, running a finger from my temple down to my neck. My pallor is grey and fading. A smile is formed underneath my skin. A smile my face cannot express. I pull at my hair taking my face off in one perfect piece. The warrior stares back through the mirror. Voices call out. I turn and run from the tent.

            Coming out of the wikkiup I encounter a young native girl who screams with fright. Her mother picks her up and takes her into a small hovel made of sticks. It is dawn and a few faces peak out from their homes, rubbing the crust from their eyes. A horn is blown, and the men gather at the far end of the village. Behind them, an orange cancer spreads through the valley. I run faster as the situation is realized.

            Down the hill and through the meadow I am chased by over a dozen. Spears, sticks, and arrows, litter the countryside, nipping at my feet. All I can feel is the wind burning my flesh. Ripping at the fresh naked muscle. I reach the river and am struck between the shoulders. Headfirst into the water, I swim to the bottom. The icy depths cool my face but I cannot hold onto the mermaid grass, as I have no skin to cover my hands. I pick at the flowing grass, my nerves jerking quickly away from any contact. I hear the falls pulling at my legs. I float up to the top and turn over on my back. The natives are still on top of the hill screaming at the troops who have assembled to the west across the river. Muskets and arrows cross through the sky from hilltop to hilltop, some falling to the river.       

Do you still have the flower?

            I find it mashed into itself, and can barely pull it open. My skinless hands shiver as I float down river. I am sad about this. Sad that I will die without a face. But glad to lie between these two hills. These two sides, their two wars. I hear the falls growing bigger and bigger at my feet. The flower is nowhere to be found. The fire burns in the sky and across my face.  The water chills my spine, filling my ears with empty space. Looking between my boots the river ends quickly. I close my eyes and listen to the falls.