A Momentary Lapse of Reason - 13
A Novella
13. 对牛弹琴[i]
(duì niú dàn qín)
Then she looked up, and the force of the tower came gushing out with the sound of drums.[ii] The windows started to gush water below, between, a side as if they were standing alone in a heavenly place, though heavy and unclear.[iii] She screamed wishing there was some magic that she could cast to cast aside the broken windows which fell upon them as by the rising moon. It was like coming out of the world and leaving an empty path by the grind of the mill.[iv] It was as if the pressure made Kowloon Walled City a ghost work and made Maggie deaf.[v] Then she saw that corners blocked the sun and seven layers covered the sky as if by a hole.[vi] And in light there was a huge, even massive, tall crane that seemed to be listening down at the startled wind and torrential rain.[vii] The towers were like waves trampling to the east along a road lined with green locust trees with slender herbs rooting to them.[viii] As she painted she saw colors come out from the West and all was filled with green.[ix] She lost consciousness with her eyesight becoming misty.[x]
When she came to, she saw that she had been dragged beneath a 2 m granite monument which had the name 九龍寨城。 She did not know how she got there but she suspected that Kit must have dragged her. Spires of falling glass rained down from above and glanced off of the granite making a rainbow as they did so. She looked and saw Kit looking for something, but she did not know what. And for the first time, she saw him as heroic, it was in his face, in his body, that grim determination and lethal focus to his muscles.
Above the noise, she managed to ask: “It is like the revelation. What is going on here?”
“While you may not believe this this is what magic looks like when it rains down.” He angled the granite knocking aside the shards as they came down like the pendants of gems.
As if on cue, the water from the windows became like a flood pouring out horizontally amid the air as if by a cage. Maggie closed her ears and shuttered her eyes as she became drenched, but not with water but blood. When she opened her eyes, the blood had drenched the ground and started to accumulate. Then she heard a screech going from the lowest notes to the highest and then beyond. She looked up and saw a red Dragon with nine legs. She needed the granite, but she knew that this would not be enough. The Dragon spiraled down from the top of the wall eager to place its nine legs in two Kit and Maggie.
Then she heard from Kit: “Use the pieces!”
At first, she did not understand what he meant, but then she realized she had a pawn in her pocket and took it out, but she did not know what to do with it. But then she realized that it was her move and the response to the opening of e4, was to advance in the Sicilian opening and rip aside the thrust from the Queen’s Pawn. So, she took the pawn in her left hand struck to the center, and gouged out a limb, knowing that the pawn she used would be slashed in return. The position became unbalanced, as is the way with the Sicilian opening. But the Dragon did not know the correct opening moves and it showed immediately. She slashed and dashed with the next pawn as the red Dragon plummeted to the ground and immolated once he got there.
Then there was quiet as all of the shards, water, and blood came to a halt. There was a dizzying sense of ghastly freedom. They are closing all the factories down.[xi]
It was at this point that Kit took her hand and reached for the nearest exit that he could see. They looked like a dancing couple from the days of Astaire and Rogers, lilting their way to the egress, hoping that they would not be seen by whoever had summoned and released the Dragon.
Then the doors on all sides of the wall opened up and flooding out came ghastly apparitions with twisted faces and many hands. But they were not chasing the pair but grappling with each other. Just in case Kit released Maggie’s hand and pulled from out of his shirt a long knife for filleting fish. He only needed to stab one and the rest proceeded to avoid the couple. They managed to enter one of the doors in a collection that spat out like a collection of urine.
It was dark and it took time for their eyes to get used to the dim light which came from fluorescent bulbs that were barely visible. But as her eyes grew accustomed to the diminishment, she felt she was the alpha and omega and she could feel the power within her hands like something that would wail the Earth’s grottoes.[xii] She then looked around and saw seven golden candlesticks and some matches.[xiii] She lit one and all around them there was a grimy white kitchen with a stove and a Micmac.[xiv]
She whispered: “If I did not see this, I would have thought it was the hearsay.”
“It is neither real nor unreal, but the illusion of a magus, who fills it with the dreadful and the despair of the city.”
Then from outside their team a glistening light seemed like a new heaven and new earth. But Maggie knew that this was an illusion and probably from the summoner of the rude Dragon.
And out of the wall, the brick came away with a terrible ghastly scream. And on the other side was her father but dressed in the old Mandarin way, a panling lanshan with ong, red, round-collar robe with long sleeves as if the folds were steep. And in his hand, he held a quill and he tried to smite Maggie’s throat with the tip.
But he did not reach her and instead Kit slashed down with his knife as cleanly as could have been wished for with panache and some grace. The hand of the Mandarin lunged to the floor.
The Mandarin flew backward in a display of magical enchantment that he, alone, could monopolize.
And then everything was quiet, and they looked out and everything was a dirty intense hollow with an alley running between the gutted buildings.
[i] Cast pearls before swine.
[ii] Reference to Cen Shen, “Climbing the Tower at the Temple Blessings” L1
[iii] Reference to Cen Shen, “Climbing the Tower at the Temple Blessings” L1
[iv] Reference to Cen Shen, “Climbing the Tower at the Temple Blessings” L2
[v] Reference to Cen Shen, “Climbing the Tower at the Temple Blessings” L3
[vi] Reference to Cen Shen, “Climbing the Tower at the Temple Blessings” L4
[vii] Reference to Cen Shen, “Climbing the Tower at the Temple Blessings” L5
[viii] Reference to Cen Shen, “Climbing the Tower at the Temple Blessings” L6-7
[ix] Reference to Cen Shen, “Climbing the Tower at the Temple Blessings” L8
[x] Reference to Cen Shen, “Climbing the Tower at the Temple Blessings” L9
[xi] Reference to Billy Joel, “Allentown”
[xii] Reference to Revelations 1:7-8, specifically the King James Version.
[xiii] Reference to Revelations 1:12, specifically the King James Version.
[xiv] Ναι, μιλάω κοινό.