girlies of Oblation, the Dirt girlies of Sacricunt, and the Bark girlies of Dutilove will now be standing to listen to the Son of the Son delivering his evening telecast of the State Anthem of the Dual True Faith before sitting down to watch the News for Girlies. And on to the empty cunnydorm. I go to Pearl’s bed and lie down there, my face in my friend’s pillow. I inhale deeply, but the linen has been freshly laundered and there is no scent of her.
I lean over to my side of the table and pick up my rare book, its pages brittle and yellow with age. It has been a very long time since I have looked through it. Pearl and I had pored over it together many times, marvelling at the bravery and prowess of the noble Man whose chronicle it was, for it is full of pictures of a Hero with a spiderweb painted on his suit. (There is only a little bit of text and mostly pictures, so we were pretty sure we could handle the stress of intellectual effort. Though a female mind might tremble at the scale of the task – which was further complicated as some sections had been blacked out, and in some cases whole pages excised – still we did it! And the rewards for our efforts were boundless!) In each frame the spider Man does something dauntless. We had often mused about him. Who was he? How long ago had he lived? How much was fantasy? The height of the buildings, or the porno clothes of (wo)Men like those in the displays of pre-Liberation artifacts in the Museum?
Here I sit once more, alone this time, allowing my mind to wander along familiar tracks for the comfort that is in it, when I notice something very odd. Tucked into the middle of the book is a new, unfamiliar piece of paper. On one side is part of a story of great heroism, like the ones in the book of the spider Man, but with girlies instead! Like Pearl and me! The bravest one is named ‘Tank Girl’, and she is dressed in huge boots and very tight garments that expose her thighs but render her cockslot nigh-on impregnable! Porno!
The author of this text is clearly unschooled in the ways and roles of Man and (wo)Man, for it is not only pornographic but a most foully heretical tract – may GodFather (BBHCM) forgive me for reading it to the end! And worse – wishing for more!
I turn the page though I know it is a sin. But another page, deeply creased, has been pasted onto the original text. In one corner of this overlaying sheet is drawn the face of a person with a mask over its nose and eyes, a fat pink tongue sticking out of the slit of a mouth, and on the head a ridiculous hat with devil horns on it, brightly coloured in red and green and blue. Impossible to tell the sex of this grotesque thing, this leering, jeering gargoyle. Profane, haraamasur.
8.
‘Fools Rule OK.’
These words are written below the ugly face. Whatever that means. What is this creature? An animal thing or a grown dudbub? A mutant Man or a misspelling?
Below this incomprehensible legend is another image drawn by an amateurish hand. It shows the wall that surrounds Perfect State and the narrow path that wends its way into Stone Plain towards BigAmass, that great pile of licheny rocks by the curved finger of Yellow Swamp from which one may see, if the sky is clear and cloudless, the tilt of the roof of Hagovel, under which she grovels in a stew of her own filth, or wallows in nearby muddy streamlets to salve her lust-scorched hungry loins. We have no maps that extend further than BigAmass for we have no need of them. Yet this one shows several more landmarks dotted throughout the desert of sickly grass and into the main body of the swamp. I note Tor Man, longer and narrower than BigAmass; then Black Defile that dips down, down into Longully, then up onto higher ground and a dotted line marked as Last Beat. There are other signs leading towards the green line of forest – One Tree, Womanbane and a few more – thence to the extreme edge of Perfect State and onwards, into Unrule, clinging to the land’s end, beyond which is only the terrible sea. Comprehensive instructions, but no key telling exactly how far it is – though I could guess at roughly two days walking, possibly less, judging by the distance from BigAmass.
But inevitably, my eye is drawn to that dire crossroad, clearly marked at the edge of Civilisation, whither that foul enchantress had been banished: Hagovel. Once one of us, the Hag now lives in a muddy hovel that half-melts when the winter rain comes, so she is always caked in filth and thus suffers from a mortifying skin disease; her armpits and groin are paved in ulcerated sores, the skin of her face and arms is as warty as a toad’s, and like a toad she lays in stagnant streams her strings of tadpoles conceived in rut with any number of the semi-corporeal ghouls whose reeking gelatinous bodies she presses up against in the heat of her loathsome lust. Her broods of halflings grow there and when they are mature, populate the forest; their groaning cries are sometimes carried to us if the wind is right. I have heard them and pitied them, for they are vengeful and hate-filled and half-starved. But they are known to catch and dismember anyone unfortunate enough to lose their way beyond the city walls. They are particularly fond of sucking the soft organs from their cavities of flesh and gristle while their victims still breathe, so strong is their craving for fresh meat. The Hag lives alone with her demons and this punishment is adequate.
Everyone knows she lives at the crossroad. One path goes from Perfect State through Stone Plain, all jaggy granite and tall thin grasses hiding scorpions, trapdoor spiders and the treacherous holes of small burrowing things with teeth white and sharp as ice-chips, then further into Yellow Swamp and on into the forest. The other path skirts its edges and forms the boundary between Civilisation and Unrule.
The route is clear. By His Cock-and-Muscle, alive-alive-oh, even to think of the Hag, Satan’s emissary, stirs my gut to a stew, would make me tremble were I that kind of girlie. But though I do not quake I do admit that the idea of her chills me, oh yes it does.
Two simple facts: here is a map; Pearl has not been seen for weeks.
So she was not the rose vessel?
This is her map and she has followed it, though it shows the way to the forest with its savages and monsters, beyond which is the blank space whose far side is Unrule where Agnostic Rogues live and breed like human tumours feeding on the world’s flesh.
Who provided her with these directions, I could not know, nor why. But – and here is the heart of the strangeness that my experience in the Nursery has wrought in me – I now know what I will do. It is written: ‘The ways to ensoulment are various.’ I must follow this strange way.
Nothing else is possible for me now, for when I had crouched fainting in the Orchid Nursery I had felt a deep spiritual tremor, portending perhaps a loss of faith. I cannot bear this. To have all that I believe in and live for, my entire life, sullied and spoiled? The nobility of the aspiration to Perfection all stained and smeared by traces of doubt, the narrow edge of the wedge of apostasy? I feel the bonds that hold me to the life I know unravelling around me, as if my life were nothing more than an old garment that has outlived its utility. No! I will rewind the threads and mend the garment if I can, and to do this I will set out on my own in search of Pearl. This will be the first step towards the redemption of my home, my faith, my reason to live. Then I will return with Pearl to Perfect State, our perfect state, the birthright hard won by Men so many years ago. Though the punishment for disobedience will be severe. But I put this from my mind.
Pearl is my friend, and so it is my duty to do what I can to save her as well as myself, even if that means saving her from herself. And there is something else still, yet another reason, simple and definitive: I need her. My friend who has patently not taken the map with her – who has left it behind for no credible purpose unless it was for me to find. She would have known not to speak to me of such a plan, for she knows me well. It would have caused me a fatal torment of divided loyalties. I am glad she did not put me to such a test, for what would I have done? Betrayed my friend – or betrayed my home and all the people in it who have raised me and taught me and trusted me to be what I am meant to be?
As I sit on her
