Dreams That Burn In The Night (15 page)

I am Saksis. For
seven years I lived alone in the mountains. Making powerful medicine. For seven years I dwelt
among the shadows, reading the signs, marking the path of the yellow snake. And then, on the
morning of my dream's beginning, the ground beneath me whispered in its sleep. The sun shook the
cold of morning out of the sky. The world came awake like it did on other mornings of this
world.

I settled back into
the dust as my father had taught me and be­came the earth and the grass and the insects. And I
listened. I felt the hooves of the deer grazing upon my body. I felt the bird's flight in the
breath I took. I heard the morning sound of the tree's roots and the crying of the grass and the
smell of things came to me. And I saw through the burning eyes of the hawks, felt the fear in the
muscles of the small eaters of grass. And I was the hunted and the hunter.

Then a strangeness
flew into my head from far away. It pushed upon my face from inside and it got stronger and
stronger.

Suddenly the star
eggs fell upon our mountain and the pushing within me made me cry out in pain. I rolled in the
dust like a dying animal. Then I slept in darkness.

When I awoke, there
was a talking hi my head. It was different from animal talk. I wondered who talked inside of my
head. And I looked around me.

Then, through the
eyes of a hawk, I saw the star egg break open, and the talker hi my head was hatched from his egg
mother.

"I am Koda! I am
Koda!"
There were the new birth words
that flashed like lightning in my head. There were the walking-upon-first-legs words of Koda,
born knowing his name. I began down the mountain.

Koda was full-grown
at birth. He closed something hi his face and the talking stopped.

He had red hair and
black hair and his face was red and black. But the black on his face and the red in his hair were
ornaments painted on.

Koda pointed the
light of his world on me. The morning grew strangely bright around me and I was almost blinded by
the glare of the sun in his hands. I flapped my wings and three tunes I
circled above his head. I, Saksis, the loon, the vision
keeper, I circled above the new god.

Koda opened up
something in his face and the talking in my head started again. Koda asked me what I wanted. I
said only to serve. Koda pulled me out of the sky with his hands and said, "Loon, I shall teach
you a strange long call like the howl of the animals of my home. Because I am lonely and you
shall be my messenger."

And thus it is that
I give a strange cry in the lonely parts of this world. Calling out to the lonely god who could
not stay.

I am Saksis, the
loon.

Eye am found out.
They saw me in the wisdom urinal. Eye was putting a pair of pants on. Yes, eye was embarrassed.
Eye was mortified. Eye hope the people who read this will regard me in a kindly light. Eye hope
they will forgive me. Eye did not always have atavistic desires. Eye once walked as nakedly as
anyone. Yes, eye did.

If eye am let go
this one time, eye promise eye will never wear clothes again. Eye am a victim of environment. Eye
am a product of a happy home. Eye was once fixed in the lap of luxury. Yes, eye was fixed. U can
check my records, eye complied, eye obeyed, eye am no lawbreaker. Eye am not habitual.

Eye was fixed just
like the big old tomcat (he traveled the neighborhood extensively) we had around here once, eye
forget if it had a name, but eye was fixed just like the tomcat was fixed. After it was fixed,
the tomcat gave up traveling. It used to sit around in the bread box and just stare. Eventually,
it died.

Eye know there is a
lesson in that but it escapes me.

Eye guess U wonder,
perhaps U muse, perhaps U speculate.

U look at me (the
pants still draped obscenely around my ankles) and U are thinking eye am no good. U imagine me in
various de­generate poses in the wisdom urinal (where the handwriting is on the wall). Perhaps U
visualize me saluting a flag or brushing my teeth. U hypothesize the use of dental
floss.

Eye, by my very
nature (which is sadistic and vengeful), resist this wintertime of speculative despair. Eye am a
human being. Eye am not a neutered tomcat, dressed in bread boxes, wallow­ing in existential
despair. Eye have only slipped up this one time and eye do not appreciate the rude phantom of
sure prediction eye see tumbling from U into the hurtling jet-night.

Eye admit my error
quite freely (the fact that U have me on videotape has no influence on me). Eye, citizen 6749,
sensitivity-trained, a fellow toiler in the nude therapy society, a committed group analyst and
grope avoidance counselor and swell dancer, admit to U, in the face of a mere five billion
viewers (and believe me, eye am grateful that eye am being tried in prime time), that eye have
sinned.

As U have noted,
the hidden cameras have revealed that eye have gone clothed in the outhouse of learning. Eye have
cam­ouflaged, momentarily, the live ammunition eye use in my art and in my sex life. Eye have
committed a violent perversion of natural instruction. Eye have violated the basic tenets of
cosmic potty training and eye know it full well. Eye am a lowly wisdom urinal sinner.

But (and this is
where the mitigating circumstances come in) mitigating circumstances come into this case. For
instance, eye believe eye can speak well of my otherwise sterling character. Eye believe eye can
cite chapter and verse, so to speak, of a past life that is blameless. U doubt me? U ask for a
for-instance?

Well, eye once
saved the world from a plague of understanding that threads the world like a spinal tap of the
backbone of our universe. (Eye apologize for this seeming poetry. The whole world is a savior.
Who could ask for anything more?) Eye saved the world. Eye was a mere child at the time. Eye did
not know the world needed saving. Eye showed initiative. Eye ran over a poet with my father's air
car. Eye did it intentionally. Since this is strictly a fatal retelling of a fatal incident,
surely this tantamount good deed will sway U to mercy. Surely, it will.

Eye cite this
incident from my past to demonstrate to U that
eye have my good side. Eye have not always lived my life like Ferris wheel shrieks,
rusted shut. Oh no, eye have lived a really exemplary life until just lately.

Lately, eye have
transgressed a little but surely eye
cannot
be held responsible for one fatal dip into the
forbidden benediction of zippers and collar buttons. Look (eye shake the pants, vile things that
they are, a hideous primal reminder of an age when things touched each other abrasively, off my
ankles and step free of them), see, eye am properly naked now.

See, see, see, look
at the genitals, note the genitals. Those are my genitals. See how they dangle over the edge of
the cold bench. Brrrrr! That is what eye might say if eye were my genitals.

Eye do have a nice
growth of pubic hair. Thank U for mention­ing it. Unlike some, eye have never shaved my pubic
hair (not even at the height of the pubic hair shaving craze of 2127). U are seeing the actual
pubic hair eye was endowed with. It is not a hairpiece, eye assure U. Eye braided it once in a
wisdom urinal in a monorail station in Flatland but eye was only fooling around. Eye tell U, eye
am proud to be naked, eye was only fooling around. This pants situation, eye don't know what came
over me. Eye really deserve another chance.

See how my penis
hangs apologetically over the center of my scrotum. See how sad and forlorn it is. Love me with
your eyeball and touch me not. That is what eye would say if eye were my penis. Eye know it is as
contrite as eye am.

U ask me where eye
found the pants in the first place. U ask a very good question and U enunciate clearly. Actually,
since U just can't find pants growing on trees these days (they've been illegal for a hundred
years), eye am hard-pressed to come up with a satisfactory explanation of how these pants (lying
in­nocently at my feet) came into my possession. Eye fear it is a long story.

U say U have plenty
of time. Eye was afraid of that.

In that case, eye
tell you, eye was hanging around. Eye was lis­tening to a lecture in the Nudiversity. Eye was
listening atten­tively to a speech about retina cunnilingus (eye have a degree in visual love,
did eye mention that?). Eye was holding up my end of the speech.

Eye was listening,
eye was at attention, eye was about to hit my peak when someone actually touched me obscenely
from behind.

By obscenely, eye
mean eye was touched criminally and licen­tiously from behind. Yes, U guessed it, eye was touched
by a per­son's naked hand.

Eye was touched by
a naked sexist hand! U say it is shocking. Well, U can imagine how eye felt! Eye was stunned! Eye
missed my peak (my attention waned)! Eye almost fainted. Who wouldn't? U ask. Yes, U are right.
What a trauma this atavistic crudity gave me! Why, the very academic sneak feel of wisdom escaped
me!

Eye was unmanned!
Eye was exploited! Eye missed my peak, and when you miss that, you have missed everything. In
short, eye was grasped. Eye turned to look at my criminal assailant. Eye saw that it was, GASP, a
member of the opposite sex! Eye was struck atonal!

Eye felt sullied,
dirtied. Eye felt degraded. Eye felt like excre­ment. Mind U, eye am the type who has never even
thought of physical abasement. Like eye have said before, eye am foolish in some respects but eye
am no criminal. Eye have spent my whole chaste life visualizing. Optical sexuality, visual
promiscuity, to these precepts eye have been eternally faithful. Eye have breathed the coiled
filament of sex into my retinal stream, yes, and sent the hot patina of desire coursing along the
synapses. Eye, visualizing sensuous heavens, had no trace elements of behavioral abnor­mality, no
obscene physical range. Eye inverted my images, eye functioned chastely, eye sent the gray clouds
of visual sex swirling up the gray-matter tubes. To dissipate with the dim, respectful hiss of
modesty in the pleasure dome.

Eye am, eye have
always been, virtuous. Eye, like my numeri­cally annotated fellow citizens, have lived the visual
LIFE BLAMELESS. Eye have followed the wisdom urinals. Eye have kept the writings and precepts,
the teachings of the ancients, sa­cred. Eye have written in my diary the urinal wisdom. Eye have
committed the proverbs of wisdom urinals to memory. SUE SUCKS . . . FLUSH TWICE, IT'S TWO MILES
TO THE CAFETERIA . . . CALL 586- FOR A BLOW JOB ... RICHARD NIXON HAS OVERBITE . . .

Eye have made
sacrifices. Eye have made the pilgrimage to the holiest of holies. Eye am one of the fortunate
ones. Eye have visited the sacred memorial shrine of urinal aspirations. Eye have seen the fabled
URINAL of AMBITION. Eye refer to the wisdom urinal in Flatland which has the sacred inspirational
mes­sage scrawled on the ceiling: IF U CAN PISS THIS HIGH, U OUGHTA BE A FIREMAN. Eye mention all
this so U will un­derstand that eye have had a good, water-closet, Christian up­bringing. Eye am
no pervert. Eye am merely an innocent dupe who in this situation of the pants (now in a heap at
my feet) has simply been led astray.

Did eye seek out
the physical excitement of wearing pants? Is this crime an act resulting from actions solely on
my part? U ask. Let me make this clear to U. Eye have spent my whole life wait­ing, ding dong,
for the mail-room slot of my visual abilities, the mailbox of my eyes, to bring me lewd letters
written on optical tracks. Eye have been waiting all my life for porno-holographic dirty French
postcards, vividly depicted, open beaver, non-rejec­tion slips. Eye have been normal, normal,
normal, normal. Eye cannot say it enough. Normal, normal, normal, normal.

Eye have never
touched certain areas of other people's bodies. NEVER! What? Eye digress? Eye care not, my
sterling luster of normalcy remains intact. Where did eye get the pants? U ask.

Eye was just
getting to that. Frankly, eye was seduced by a hypnotic machine voice at the ARCADE. What? U do
not be­lieve me? Where did the voice come from? Eye was getting to that. U really should try to
be more patient. U really should.

Eye was in the
amusement arcade, eye went there to see the peep shows, to put aluminum nickels in the pinscrotum
machines. Eye am an arcade man. Eye go there every Saturday except when it rains. If it rains,
eye go the day before. Eye like to play the submarine machine. Perhaps U are familiar with it.
Huge gray metal battleships with hand-painted vaginas amidships float across a sea of oozy
lubrication. In this game, eye am the subma­rine. Eye fire tiny magnetic phalluses out of my
crimson torpedo tubes. Eye strike out at the vagina battleships. Eye get an orgasm for every
direct hit eye make on one of the hand-painted vaginas. If eye miss the vagina target zone on the
battleship but still hit the ship with my tool torpedo, eye am credited with a premature
ejaculation, which counts for three points. If eye am credited with twenty points in any one game
(a direct hit on a vagina counts five points), eye am awarded a second erection and a bonus game.
Eye am a real submarine fanatic.

What about the
pants? U ask. Eye am getting to that, eye really
think you should let me tell it my own way. After all, eye am the one who faces a
six-month work sentence as a towel attendant in an all-night Working Woman's Wisdom Urinal. After
all, eye am the one who . . . ahem . . .