back / next / Sarcon’s Son 3
Lord Jesus is returned to the sky, having recently died and ascended into Heaven for the purpose of ruling the outside World. A new Age begins. It’s His turn to be above ground and His brother’s turn to be below. This is, of course, at the pleasure of Their Virgin Mother who micromanages the successions between sons. She monitors Her boys and measures out to the hour which one is king over what. The brothers alternate power in the tradition of Divine Twins, cycling Age after Age through Their rebirths and ritual deaths. Lord Jesus is hammered to the Tree to begin His reign. Next round, Lord Judas is hung on it. Jesu wields as scepter His iron nail and Jude, His noose.
Lord Judas is the less accommodating of the two, more restless during His downtime, more resentful when the Virgin Mother sequesters Him inside earth’s cavernous womb. There he will rule subterranean cities and secret territories. Jude finds the place rocky and cramped, even in its most grand spaces, and airless, even as His Mother assures Him the ventilation is top notch.
It’s Hell on a fellow’s nerves. He keeps troops of spies above ground so He can know all the divine intrigue. But also to bring Him stories about life in the unshadowed daylight, where there are no walls, where the most humble creature may touch Immortal Winds. One of Lord Judas’ informers brings news of two imps who plan to run away from the World. What a novel idea.
“Bored are they?” says Lord Judas. He occupies a chamber of his palace inside the earth. “Most imps haven’t the sense it takes to be bored.”
“Odd little fragments of Life, these imps,” says Love, having dropped in for a visit. Love and Lord Judas go way back. “Mongrel crossbreeds. Bastard windbags. Literally. Little bags of Wind. They’re sterile, You know. Hybrids that don’t reproduce. So We tend to ignore them. Outside Love’s sphere.”
“In this damnable Age everything is outside My sphere,” Lord Judas observes with some mild bitterness.
“Such a loser!” Love jests. “Mama’s bad boy, sent to the corner to pull on His pud.”
“No corners inside a bubble. The boundaries here are curved.” Lord Judas makes a show of adjusting His male parts. He is famously well-hung. “At least I have a pud to pull. Not sure what You sport under that tunic — going all the ways You go.”
Love roars with great good humor. “We sport whatever We want, where-ever We want it.”
Lord Judas, of course, knows this. It’s banter between old, if ambivalent, friends. Lord Judas feels flattered whenever Love appears within His realm because They aren’t the appearing type. Love is diffuse, Primordial, and not localized as are divinities of subsequent Eras. They are more a force than an entity, yet here They are — is, rather — consolidated in one radiant body for a bit of a chat, complete with bow, quiver, and poison-tipped arrows as told in mortal legends.
“Now there’s a concept,” muses Lord Judas. “Wanting something. And then actually getting it. Hasn’t happened for Me in a while.”
“-c-o-n- -c-e-p-t-” Love tastes the word, rolling its vibrations across Their tongue, rinsing the sounds with divine spit. Phonemes dissolve, wash between Their chiseled teeth.
“Mother would scoff,” Lord Judas goes on, “would find it indulgent — the wanting part. She gets without the bother of wanting, since everything is Hers already. Selfish cow. Then there are mortals, poor buggers. They want without the possibility of getting.”
“Concept? Concept? Concept?” Love perseverates. Their essence is pre-verbal instinct. Abstract nouns can be a challenge.
“Ah. Your sort of word,” says Lord Judas brightly. “Metaphorically speaking. Concept. Conception. Think conception. Think baby making. You are all about baby making. But think, idea babies. Thoughts, theories, notions — conceived by the brain instead of the loins.”
“Brain fucking. What fun. And out pop clever little concept bastards. Why, there must be absolute mobs of the brainy brats running around.” Love looks right and left, as if a line of dancing concepts will materialize any moment.
“Legions of them,” affirms Lord Judas, delighted to have pleased His guest. “Invisible populations of them. Yet imagine. Concepts take up no space. Mental constructs have no mass. A whole faction can fit neatly inside Your pocket.”
Then, Love being the way Love is — intractable and as changeable as weather — the mood shifts. In a voice gone stone cold They say, “What business have these concept rogues in Our pocket?” The tone warns: We grow bored with You.
A spasm twists Lord Judas’ heart. Love grows bored. A frisson of panic fills Him with pain, but also arousal. Why is Love the only Immortal who can unsettle Jude so? He loathes Himself as, loud and jolly, He shouts the word that always gets a laugh from this visitor: “Coitus!”
He is pandering. Unimaginative and tasteless. It works.
Love sizzles within a sudden, fiery aura of gold and red. “What rascals!” They exclaim. “A pocketful of horny ideas!” Their laugh has the hardness to crack rock.
Bull-like, Love’s nostrils flare, dual furnaces of bronze. Their face shape-shifts through a multitude of masks, from glass to jade to fired pottery, settling on beaten metal, first narrow, then wide, with abalone eyes and then without.
“Yes, yes. Concepts,” says Lord Judas, eager to keep Love cheerful. “Restless, virile. High energy. A rough crowd.” He waves His arms over His head. “Concepts zip and skitter and smash each other. Jar things loose. Beat things together. Every collision an intercourse, another concept conceived.”
“What do You know of High-Energy?” Love asks, almost peevishly. “A favorite Era of Ours. The excellent Era of Plasma when all matter is molten. So hot the fundamental particles melt.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Lord Judas says. “When is that?”
“Early, early days. After the Bang. Before the Universe.” Love pats Their lustrous gown and the fabric folds on itself, gaps open. “My, my, what have We here? A pocketful of concepts.”
Out of the pocket They take a handful of jittery, glittery photons that launch from Their fingertips to hurtle and ricochet inside Jude’s high ceilinged hall. The dazzling particles shed streaks of tracer fire that etch webs in the black air. Strands cross and recross, old ones fading, new ones erupting faster than the eye can track. Here and there, mini balls of fire collide and shatter in sprays of light.
Damn my pocket joke, thinks Lord Judas. God knows what direction the Immortal’s mood will go.
But Love is fine. They watch Their own light show. “Our Uncles are these concept-things. Primal Winds. Rude and unruly and single-minded. Winds have no memory whatsoever. Winds just blow.” Dreamily, Love recites:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!
“I don’t know that one,” Jude says. “Not in My Book.”
“Hasn’t been written down yet. Not everything is in those tedious Holy Tomes of Yours.” Love puts out one resplendent hand and the photons rush into Their palm. Sparks wink out as if falling over the brink of a black hole.
Love is a black hole, Lord Judas thinks. He shivers.
The light structure crumbles and evaporates. There’s a moment of silence Lord Judas cannot bear. He rushes to fill it. “Hominins make up concepts willy-nilly, always needing to explain, explain, explain, whether the explanation is right or not. Dunderheads. They’d go mad without their comfort concepts. And greedy! Building fantasy castles inside those itty-bitty heads, then anointing themselves royalty.”
Love shakes Their own magnificent head. “Yet mortals are but a pulse of Life. Poof. A flicker. Then gone. Why bother?”
“Oh, Love, You just don’t get it,” sighs Lord Judas. “You are all about the passion and nothing about the consequences.”
“Oh, Jude, You witless mooncalf,” mocks Love. “We invent consequences. We don’t suffer them.”
“Well, I suffer!” Lord Judas cries heartily.
“How curious,” Love says.
“I suffer the consequences of being My Mother’s lessor son. I suffer and He is insufferable.”
“And You are telling me this because?”
“Because I would love to put some suffering on blessed Jesu. With Your help.”
“A caper!” Love shouts and claps Their Immortal Hands. “Knavery! Oh, tell Us, tell Us. We are all Yours.”
“A very public prank, you know. Divine humiliation. Poke a hole in that inflated soul of His. Let out the precious hot air while Heavenly Hosts watch and sing. And I’m thinking the perfect agent is a bored imp who once had the cheek to play tricks on Your brother.”
Love is gobsmacked. “The same? The same primitive windbag who afflicted Death a dozen ways? Is this truly happening? The fellow who tormented Our Twin will now go torment Your Twin? Oh, who says the Universe is meaningless?!”
And that is how Cornumsdotter and Sarconsson, in the midst of leave-taking preparations, receive an astonishing summons from the great and terrible Lord Judas of the great and terrible underworld.
Sarconsson is giddy with anticipation.
Cornumsdotter goes for the fun of it.