Dead Awake: The Last Crossing (3 page)

The blade was dripping the
thick substance and coagulating drops were splashing on the floor.
I was aghast when I saw the stain it was making on the magnificent
carpet underfoot. I hadn’t noticed the rug before because of the
other artifacts and relics, but in any other circumstance I would
have seen it first. What a shame to stain such master-craft
material. It was woven with the most intricate design that pulled
you inside and made you part of another world, weaving you into its
fabric. It could easily have been someone’s life long work and here
I was staining it, ruining it within seconds. Well forget looking
around for anything else, I had just bought myself a carpet and
wasn’t even sure if I could afford the blade any more.

I now understood the man’s
expression and why he had been looking at me like that. His face
held a mixture of surprise, rage, and terror. I didn’t know if he
spoke any English, but it was clear that I was in big trouble. I
was sure, no matter what language he spoke, I would be able to
interpret the words when they flew from his face. I owed him big.
To my surprise, when he began to shout, it was in
English.

“
What are you doing here,
you imbecile?” Those were the first words of his address to me and
from what I’d done to his rug, I considered it a mild start. “You
have not come to seek counsel from the incense of
Meni
ⁱ
, and now
you trod under foot forbidden and untouchable oblation! This place
is sacrosanct! It is protected by law! What are you here for, you
baboon?” He threw the question at me, alongside many words in some
foreign tongue that I could not even begin to recognize, but I’m
sure were insults. Funny how one can always recognize slander, no
matter what the language.

His attitude bothered me. I
didn’t care to be insulted like that, especially when I just wanted
to pay the man for my accident and leave. It was very unfortunate
that I couldn’t buy the knife because of the spill. That alone made
me a little crabby as I responded.

“
Look. I am very sorry I
stained your carpet. I will pay you for it and if you tell me the
price of this blade, I might buy it as well.” I was hoping, once
again, that the lure of the possible sale might relax the man,
although I knew there was no way I could afford it after my
mess.

“
I do not need your cheap
money, you son of a wild cockatrice,” the man answered, as he
yelled out his anger, and almost spit out his lung on top of me.
“You will get out! You imbecile!” I became irritated at his
insults, and would have left had he not began again.

“
You are a baboon! An
idiot! You do not know what you mess with. You die – you die if I
want and you don’t know why. The things you molest with your hands,
they are for anointed hands only! You disturb Gad
ⁱⁱ
, you bother him and you are
a fly!”

With those last words, I
could take no more, even if it had been my fault. I started to
leave the store, but he called out to me again, so I returned. He
wanted the blade. All the time it had been in my hand. Remembering
it now stirred a fire inside of me. Again he called out to
me.

“
You are a thief, you son
of wraith! You steal from Heloa. You steal from Baal. You steal
from Meni and from his numinous offerings! You are a profane child.
You are violate! You were formed of unholy union from demon-mother!
Give me back the Hecatomb, thief!”

The only answer I could come
up with after that was, “What is a Hecatomb?” as the rage foamed
and bubbled within me. I guess being called a thief was the part
that upset me the most. I thought that I was relaxed at the time,
but inside I was a boiling furnace ready to explode. It was added
to, moment by moment, with the insults of an unreasonable man, a
man who lacked any real skills in listening. A man who would not
reason, but insisted on referring to me as some kind of blasphemer.
How could anyone hold out his or her temper in such a
circumstance?

“
I only wish to buy your
blade!” I shouted. “How much will you need for it? I am a very
reasonable man!”

“
I do not want your dirty
money, I have said! Leave the blade and go! Go, before I smite
you!” So there he was, that little puny man, threatening me. Smite
me, he said. What more could be done? I could only take so much. So
my anger, that thus far I had managed to keep somewhat bottled in,
spilt over as an igneous overflow.

“
Look, you little man, I
said I would pay! Why can’t I buy from your store like anyone
else?” By now the anger in my voice could not be kept. He answered,
but it was not the answer I wanted.

“
This is not for sale to
you!” then he started waving his hands to frighten me. “But you
stay still, so I give you a curse, you tyrant from the pit! I say
to you, your children shall be sons of snakes as well. They will
eat on their bellies and curse the Earth each day for its
unfruitful nature towards them. There... You go now! You are dirt
on my scarification. Now I will have to clean it up!” He waved me
off, but I would not go, so he kept on insisting. “I have cursed
you, so go, you dirt from Abaddon! You unfit even as
sacrifice!”

“
Sacrifice!” I screeched.
“What sacrifice? What is it you have here?” I asked, looking around
in disgust and beginning to understand the meaning of the place, as
the hideousness of it filled my stomach. “What sort of place is
this?” I yelled with abhorrence, as I began to suspect that that
place was something else besides a merchant store. Perhaps this was
a medicine man – a witch doctor. I couldn’t help to think that if
he was, all the things I had seen and touched were some sort of
evil sacrificial instruments used in rituals to Satan.

Even the knife! What of the
mass on the table, the thing where the knife had lodged? “What is
that on the table?” I demanded in deafening tones.

“
It is the heart of a woman
who died,” responded the man with a gnarling grin. “Now you make
unrest for her soul! She will wander for a thousand years because
you have bothered her. And because you have desecrated the offering
of Meni, the highest of all gods, you will take upon you the
highest of curse.”

My disgust for such crude
witchery became the cause for the lash-out off all my rage.
“Desecration!” I shouted. “If I have desecrating anything, it is
only false desecration, for that is not a god but an idol!” I
turned with hate towards the dagger and continued shouting to the
old man, this time without any bridle of composure to hold me
back.

“
You old man! What kind of
sick brain is in your filthy head? A human heart! You ought to be
put away! I care nothing for your gods nor for the sick perverted
joke you call a religion! You will go to hell, I am sure of that!
The real God will ensure it and not some demon whom you worship
with this sickness!”

My mouth was frothing with
anger as I determined to take my course of action. I went over to
the mass of gray, now with destructive intention; but since I
couldn’t stand to touch it, I reached for another cloth, without
the slightest regret towards its value and pushed the heart onto
the floor. Then I stomped on it with my foot, as the mass of gray
collapsed under the weight of my boot.

The man let out a scream. I
think he wanted to get violent with me at that moment, but changed
his mind as he measured the size differential between the two of
us. He was only about five feet tall and looked well over a hundred
and fifty. Even still, he gambled with his dexterity by jumping
over a small bar, some altar of sort, but knocked it over in his
attempt and landed right in front of me.

I am sure I did the wrong
thing then, but I was under the influence of my rage and
momentarily out of mind, so I took the blade and spoke. “As for
this knife,” I yelled, and put it in my pocket, “it is mine! I am
taking it so that you can’t be a sick-o with it any more! You
should be put in a nut farm, or thrown away as a pig.”

He tried grabbing the knife
in vain and pleaded his final threat. “You are defiling the gods!
You cannot do this, don’t you know? Baal-Berith-Meni will be
kindled against you. You are a robber!”

His eyes turned towards some
stone image, while he spoke, as if he was claiming a right for its
assistance. It was as if he expected it to agree with his words.
The statue stood beside the place where the heart had been, tall
and dark, submerged in the shadows. I wouldn’t have noticed it, had
it not been pointed out. He was trying to scare me and I’m
embarrassed to admit that he was successful.

The whole affair intimidated
me, as a man often is when he is in the wrong, but that didn’t mean
I was going to back down. In my right mind I would have thought
twice about the thing that I was about to do. I don’t think I
normally could have damaged such a piece of art, no matter how evil
it looked.

My eyes fixed on the idol
that stared at us from the back of the room. It was at that moment,
drunken with a rage that consumed me, that my hands flew on the
statue. I picked it up and held all its power in my arms.
Menacingly, I looked at the man, this time with much more the upper
hand.

“
Well, if you’re not
selling it, you’re sure not going to use it for sick stuff!” I
said, holding the statue above my head. I would have said something
more profound, in the act of idol bashing, but the weight of the
thing was enormous and my arms gave way.

It fell away from my grip
and cracked in two on the floor. I stared at what I had done. For a
second or two, I felt ashamed and wished I hadn’t done it, but then
I noticed that a thick, red as crimson, substance oozed out from
the broken stone. It had been hollowed and filled with this
liquid.

‘
Blood!’ I thought, ‘Was it
blood?’ It sure looked like it! It was horrible, more so than the
heart, for it looked like the stone-god was bleeding.

I looked at the man and
punished him with my eyes. “Is that blood?” I asked, but the man
did not respond. My assertion had been right then. Whether human or
animal, it was blood so I could now justify, within my right, to
destroy the ungodly place. It was safe to assume that everything
there was part of a devil-worshiping act and that this man before
me was responsible for all of it.

Without further hesitation,
I picked up the two halves of the statue and threw them across the
room onto a table. As if possessed, I then began destroying the
entire hut, while the man shrieked behind me.

When it was over, I looked
at my doings and was pleased with myself. The stone god was no
more. All that remained were fragmented pieces of what had been a
masterpiece. The place was a death-scene. Only the carpet remained
in the same place, stained with a crushed human heart.

Only a few remains showed
that there had ever been a sanctuary. The altar was on the floor,
along with everything else, and the man was on his back, still
screaming. All the while, a crowd had gathered. They had witnessed
it all, as the man, with his cries, threw curses upon me. Most of
his words are a foggy memory, but they were full of death and
torment.

Fear fell on me again. Not
of the people, for I didn’t think they had come to do me any harm.
It was the look on their eyes that frightened me; the same look
that the man had when he called to the statue for assistance. It
was the look of fear, as if I had just awakened the dead. I felt
the fingers of the Devil touch my back. Perhaps he had, and the
crowd had seen.

* * *

As I arrived at my hotel, my
rage died. Now there was nothing left to do but regret. I was glad,
as any man who still feels the pains of conscious can be glad, that
there were no police on the island to make me pay for my vandalism;
at least not police as I knew them.

Why had I done this? Did I
have to impose my beliefs on that man? Was I so hot-headed and
stubborn that I could not allow a man to worship what and how he
pleased; and if I thought him wrong, certainly that had not been
the way to set him on the right course; in fact, it had probably
done the opposite. Had God sent me as a destroying angel? Did I
have that right? No. I felt ashamed of being such a proud man, so
full of self-righteousness.

I didn’t see Blanca for the
rest of that day, nor did I care to, for I wanted nothing to
interrupt my escape. I couldn’t let anyone else know me that day,
hoping word of what I’d done would not find its way to Blanca by
nightfall; telling her what sort of fool I’d been. At least, I
hoped, the news would wait until some other time, when I could deny
the whole thing and be able to stomach the lie.

* * *
When morning finally came, the warmth of the island swept into my
window. The dampness of the air and the free breeze woke me gently
to a new day. I almost forgot the calamities of yesterday, until a
couple of young girls outside my window started pointing their
fingers at me. No doubt they had come to see who had agitated the
medicine man and destroyed his ritual ground. My fingers crept up,
carefully and noiselessly, in search of the shutters. I pulled them
to hide my shame from the girls or any other creature that might
have a case of morning curiosity.

Luckily, the guilt didn’t
last the entire morning. I got up and dressed, then splashed some
water on my face and brushed my teeth. I decided to wear my
Gilligan hat, just for kicks, and left in search of breakfast.
Hopefully, by now, Blanca had gotten used to me occasionally
skipping her home-cooked meals. She had to understand that I needed
to go out and look around. Blanca provided excellent conversation,
but that’s not what I had gone on vacation for. I wasn’t going to
stay cooped up in the same little house, even though I sure did
appreciate her cooking.