jorahgothique

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The Sect, 1991, Michele Soavi

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Yves Saint Laurent // Haute Couture - Spring 1999

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Marilyn Hanold as Miss L’Arrière in The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956)

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Paris Opera dancers warm up in the foyer de la danse [source]

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https://www.instagram.com/p/B8pSKyNhtEK/

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 How foolish he’d been, letting himself get lured into complacency by his own weaknesses. The puzzle with its pieces strewn about practically anathema to him, a clear picture incomplete, taunting him, drawing him in as something with a clear answer; neat, simple organized. Something without any ambiguity about it, no myriad of solutions muddying the waters of understanding. And the piece she kept passing over too much to resist, begging for him to pick it up and put it in its rightful place. Of course, that revealed where others should go and he could not stop himself.

 A shared activity to while away the time, the game an adequate buffer between them. Neither of them seemed to enjoy silence and talk had followed naturally, tentative at first, but how soon he’d forgotten himself and who he had been having this friendly argument with. Somehow, it had outlasted what brought them together, but not by much. Pleasant as the puzzle’s depiction had been, it was only a temporary diversion, not a great work of creativity to be enjoyed for a long time. Acting as agents of entropy, his hands had torn apart both the street scene and the pleasant atmosphere.

 The lack of distraction had sent them back into how they had started this day; her on one side, him on the other. As it should be. His duties were many, yet entertaining her was not one of them, only to watch, to guard, to observe and report the day’s events back to his master. If there was a pang of regret, it was buried quickly underneath a shock of shamed rage. He was not the only one with barbs that hit with venomous accuracy. Though he’d never mentioned his circumstances, he’d come too close to alluding what he should not.

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In her eyes was disgust. Pure and refined putrid disgust that channeled to the man that shouted in front of her. Hardly a man at all, Jorah had come to determine. A man had a will that was free but he had none. There a time in history were people thought it right to try and suppress the will of others. that time, thankfully, was put to rest. People, however, did not lose their opinions of it. Over these years that had come and gone, people held onto thoughts and believes of those outdated. 

It restrictive and rather barbaric and still others held to it like it were their law. It was not anymore and those in the United States had already taken long enough to recognize that. There an entire world out there and they limit themselves to these rules that exist now only in their minds. And here Michael was giving into it. The color of his skin could not change. People would always see him as a negro man. If they think that, then they are at a loss. Michael correct he cannot change the skin of his mother and his mother’s mother and all the way back to his very first ancestor on her side. He could only be what he was. 

What and who he was was for him to define. Why could he not see that? Why did he sit there and yell no one would accept him. One cannot change the mind of others only the mind of ourselves. It the irony of that statement, Jorah did not see. There irony in that too. However, Jorah focused only the teeth flashed at her. Proclaim he not black? When had she instructed him to do so. The whole point she yelled was to not obey the schema others put one in. He must proclaim what he saw fit. Yet he chose to stay on his back and be stepped on. Let others walk all over him and be what they saw him as. How horrid. 

Jorah’s upper lip curled up to reveal a disturbed and disgusted scowl. There was a choice. There was the choice to go his way--create his own way. Everything and everyone needed to come from nothing. He could do that in a world that did not want to do it for him. Yet he refused to even think of it. No action. No thought. Nothing. 

-“Your choice? Your choice to decide?! You--!”- Seethed inhale and Jorah shook her head and pursed her lips. What more yelling could be done? She had already said so. He was lost. Lost in this obedient mind of his. Oh so boring. Just like the rest. -“Your willingness to lay on your back and act as humanity’s carpet is repulsive. You truly do fit that role of a tool you stated earlier. A bucket that catches milk. A wrench to fix a bolt. Something to be used and tossed away for another time. Forgotten about until needed. Under the will of someone else.”- Jorah exhaled a steady breath and leaned back with a folding of her arms.

-“So I was right.”- She shook her head once again, far more apathetic this time around. -“You think yourself difficult to read? You, sir, are a complete open book. One read so often and so common it almost forgettable. It certainly is forgettable to someone you wish it was not.”- 

Finished toying with the puzzle she tosses the last of its scattered remains into the box it came from. The lid filled haphazardly atop it. Got up to her feet and off she went to sit on a stiff chair. -“Perhaps that why you are unable to capture fancy or is it that staunch sense of morals you have? Hmm, I truly wonder.”- 

[jorahgothique]

Though he felt slightly insulted by the manner in which the message was delivered, Pocoloco would be the first to admit that ‘playing’ wasn’t a bad way to describe what they were doing. From that day where Jorah had pulled him down by his collar, they’d meandered on their way without much serious thought. San Diego was on one end, Yuma on the other and what lay inbetween may be desert, but how hard could it be to traverse? Folks did it every day, surely. Mail and things had to move between them and it wasn’t like it was magicked from place to place.

 And so far, Bernie was the first of any sort of trouble they’d run into. Or any sort of human being, which should have given them pause yet the implications had slipped Pocoloco’s mind. Their route must be the best one because look, on the map it was the shortest, a straight line from point A to point B. They were making great time, in fact! A little better every day as the bags got lighter. At this rate, they’d get there a day early without all that heavy stuff to carry around. Heavy stuff like water, which they’d been drinking without any sort of plan or ration.

 Somewhat dejectedly, Pocoloco crouched by the trickling stream as Jorah performed her examination, dipping his hand in and letting the water flow around it. Beyond cool, the brook was downright cold, a great deal fresher than the contents of their dwindling skins and bottles. Since he was here, he splashed some onto his face, letting the chilly rivulets drip down his neck and chest. “Y'all mind if we pop down later?” he addressed Bernie, attempting for the first time today to sound… maybe a little bit like an adult, like someone who had their life in order and would be open to something approaching a plan. Contrite. Grateful. “We got over here in a rush so we left most of our stuff back where were campin’, but the offer of sharin’ is uh, it’s ‘precciated.”

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Jorah stared ahead, her thumb toying with her bottom lip. Pushed it against her bottom row of teeth as thoughts bombarded every corner of her mind. She had already disregarded her previous instructions to Pocoloco. Jorah could not care less about the stream they needed water from and that they’d need to return to this damned cave again. However troublesome this cave turned out to be, it paled in comparison to the Shadow hiding on its walls. It was all Jorah could determine that little light show to be. It had not burned like real fire. Merely, sparkled with brief glamour. Something to catch one’s eyes for a moment. Make them turn their head and wonder about more. 

It suited him. A flashy little thing to capture excitement but, in reality, it did nothing. All show. All smoke and mirrors. That all he truly was. A fake. A sham. There nothing inside, only hollow. Yet, hollow or not, there still a Shadow waiting on the wall. If Jorah being truthful she’d have to say his seemed rather useless. A one trick surprise that did noting but have the chance of capturing brief attention. Her Father had always scolded her for her lack of faith in Shadow abilities. They all had their use. They all had their purpose. He had said that many times before and still Jorah did not listen. 

But if there any person in this world who could find a use out of a broken and lame piece of rubbish, it’d be him. Giotto knew how to and loved to do so. Everything and anything can benefit him, especially when it came to Shadows. Food everywhere if one knew where to look? Every person has a shadow that follows them when the sun shines. Others, those that were special, had them even in darkest times. One needed only to be aware of the possibility of its presence. That, Jorah had failed. Where Shadows common place in France? No. Certainly not. One needed only to know where to look. Shadows in the United States may just very well be the same. 

Pocoloco had not an idea of what they were and neither did Bernie. It had been just two but Jorah doubted they were the only. Not normally talked about just like in France. Just like in many places she visited before. Very few of them, but there. And here they were an ocean away lingering still. How? How did they come to possess one? These two had not a clue. Not the slightest insight to why. 

-“Mmhm.”- A smirk and her hand dropped back to her side. -“You really do not have a single clue as to what you possess, do you?”- Her brow arches as she turned her back around. Now, Jorah faced him with a look most knowing and most mischievous and foul. -“Not one tiny, little idea. It not there a day and then, suddenly, there it was. Came upon you like...a small itch. There is had been tapping and then scratching. Sometimes, it happens very slowly. So much so you do not notice it at first. Then, there are times when it hits you like a scream. Cannot ignore it at all.”- 

-“Oh, but I do because I know it. Do go on enjoying stoning those bleeding crows. I know somethings you do not. A great...many things it seems.”- Vague gesture of a hand paired with an amused fluttering of eyelashes lead Jorah back to her previous composure. -“For example, you claimed to live in such conditions your entire life, and yet, you forget drinking from a cactus is quite a danger.”- Jorah uncurled her fingers, extending them forward to him in a rhetorical invitation. 

-“I fancy myself a lover of most flora and fauna. Ferocactus wislizeni is the cactus I am most familiar with. Do you know why? I will tell you. It is the only cactus a person can drink from without inevitably perishing. Yet, you see, it should not be ingested in large quantities or else the acid in it will dehydrate you. Counter productive, is it not? It also should not be ingested on an empty stomach or else you will certainly become rather ill. I was never found of cacti. Much too difficult to be kept alive in a garden. They truly do suit a wasteland like this one.”- 

[jorahgothique]

 In general, smiles didn’t make up a large part of Mike’s current life, most of the day spent wearing his professional expression of aloof neutrality. The rest of it at home, a quick meal, perhaps an hour sketching out possible new shapes for Tubular Bells to take on or a chapter or two of a book. Then sleep, tomorrow always followed today at an alarming pace and fatigue would not do. All spent in solitude, only one chair at the table occupied, his narrow bed filled only by his own form, folded up so his feet didn’t hang over the edge. Not much reason to smile when there was no one to return one.

 This morning, he’d walked in with a tray of breakfast and an intent to hate. Breakfast was… in quite a state and the hatred… Holding it towards Jorah was too tiring. He’d expected a Jezebel, a Lilith, a Delilah; a creature hardly human at all, a succubus that took advantage of men, devoid of morals. Here she was, smiling back at him, causing his own to wax reflexively, not in cold satisfaction at the knowledge of his stand having found his victim but because… He was human, and so was she.  Of course. He was no gamboling Jim Crow and she was no beguiling devil. How easily worlds shifted when the collided.

 “Hmm, impossible… I’m sure there were many who said just that when the War of Independence was suggested, the numbers said it all. Even waiting for the Redcoats to come to them, the first free Americans would be crushed, especially when not every colonist was with them. You’ve seen Benjamin Franklin’s cartoon, right? ‘Join or die’. It wasn't— No, it was a threat, but not a direct one from the Patriot to the Loyalists, rather a warning. When the Redcoats came, they wouldn’t waste time asking whose side you were on, and the odds of their victory was much higher with the people divided.”

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Everything had been going so well. In that moment, the first meeting, the breakfast and chair had all flown away. Spread their wings and left for other places. Gone and onto better things. Left only with a clean slate to forge new memories. Ones far more pleasant than the previous. All of it would not matter and they could be two people having a conversation. Not two Shadow possessors playing a tasking game to determine a win. A win that’d fuel their egos and their sense of being correct over the other--being superior. It merely a casual interaction among most people. Something to pass the time without thinking about what time it truly was. 

Not staring down the clock and watching the hands tick away and the pendulum swing, hoping in some strange way it’d go faster. Living in that moment, saying goodbye and welcoming something new. Oh how fleeting it had become. Like the birds of the season, it all returned. Left but for a time. Returned with the summer’s wind and here to stay. It had been a trick and Jorah played the perfect role of the fool. Believing in forgetting, believing that it’d all start over. The past never dies. It comes back just the migrating birds. For a time she can forget but it never lasted. However long or short, it came back to hang over her just as that Shadow of hers did. 

Seen or not, she always came back. Rather, she does not leave only lets Jorah pretend she does. Things, actions, and memories like her stayed. A brick in pocket. There it would be and one got used to it for time. However, that weight always made itself known again. No matter the time, no matter the place, it pulled down. Sometimes it irritating, other it saddening and even hopeless. This time it had been rage. Enraged by his reminder of what they were. Enraged from his inability to see that of course people where not birds and a babbler could not grow a curved beak. That the entire point. People, animals, whoever, cannot be what they are not. They can be what they are and what they are can be an entirely different thing.

Brows firmly knit together like a needle pulling thread thin and eyes say nothing but red. Lurched forward, her hands placed firmly on the ground, her face came right to his. She’d grab it if she could but, currently, her hands laid painfully flat into that itchy carpet she hated so much. -“Of course people are not birds you bloody idiot! We cannot grow wings and fly! If we could then I certain would have left by now! It is not about becoming what already exists but something new!”- Jorah insisted vehemently; not backing down in her heated and emotionally driven crusade.

-“You think I ask for you to take the black off your skin and replace it with the pale skin color of your father?”- An assumption. A bold one. One not thought of entirely, merely inferred in a fury of thoughts. -“That is foolish! No one can ask that of you and expect it to happen. A babbler cannot become a shikra as you said, it is its own. People are not birds and there can be much that defines someone so much so there no written place for it! Ah, but you believe that to be a negative thing? Who told you that? Who said there nothing positive to be had in a unique setting, hm? It is not positive to create a place for yourself when there nowhere else to go? Who said that? Given two options of who you are when you feel you are neither?”- 

Voice driven by passion and a wildfire set free in her eyes. Wrath spewing from her teeth as word fired at him firmly. Yet, it was the desperation that lingered. -“If others do not fancy who you are that is there issue to deal with. Are you happy with yourself? Great, excellent! The opinions of others are nothing if you firm in who you are! If they hate you then that the weight they have on their shoulders! But you...you want to stay assigned to something someone else chose for you?! Something that does not fit you? You are happy with that? That sounds miserable, empty and completely unfulfilling! A chance to create something new and you see that as negative? Negative?!”- Raging at him, pleading with him, it all so world shattering for the idealistic young woman.

She shook her head. Scoffed and looked past him. -“You are lost.”- 

[jorahgothique]

 For the first time in his life, Pocoloco got an inkling of what spending extended amounts of time around him must be like. God, Bernie never stopped, did he? Apart from the beating — which, in hindsight, could have gone on a little longer — he bounced back like nothing had happened, like all of this was some misunderstanding that had been cleared u an now they could all go back to being friends. Except they weren’t friends and they had never been friends. The continued offer of food made Pocoloco’ stomach rumble audibly, but he still didn’t want any. Huh, their breakfast when they got back was probably better anyway.

 Still… it was hard to stay mad, really mad, when the burning scraps brought to mind sizzling bacon and fried eggs, maybe some hash browns and — oh, thick slices of bread fried up in the bacon grease left in the pan. It was a good thing he’d crossed his arms in indignation, all the better to press down against his gut when it grumbled again at the thought of it. When Jorah showed the thief her disdain, he didn’t take a step. Served him right, if they ate this breakfast, delicious though it was in his imagination, who was to say they wouldn’t end up poisoned? Uncharacteristically petty, he gave a satisfied nod at the scattered kindling, though he couldn’t suppress a little disappointment either.

 Nor could Bernie, standing over the dampened remains of his hopeful fire, probing his nose with an index finger to check for blood. As might be expected in this environment, when it came up clean apart from a little bit of mucus, he wiped it off on a pant leg. Hissing disapprovingly between his teeth, crouching own and dirtying the hand again by shoveling the dying embers together in a heap to no avail. “Excuse yew, Miss. A little harsh when you haven’t seen me perform, that. Smoke and mirrors? Fair go, I don’t mind saying it takes more than a little effort to turn this—” He used a sooty hand to gesture at himself. “—into a lady, but the sparks are dinky-di. A real crowd-pleaser too, I don’t mind saying, people haven’t seen the like.”

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Bag slung over her shoulder, Jorah stood with her back facing Bernie. A risky move if it turned against someone else. Someone competent. The one word he surely was not. More of a fool than when she first met Pocoloco. He was something Jorah simply desired to forget. Yet, what someone wanted to forget never left. Life was twisted in that way. Begging herself to forget about it only reinforced the memory. Trying not to think of it, well, that brought it to the front of thoughts. A counterproductive endeavor. Each time she’d tell herself not to think about it, it’d appear in her mind as clear as day.

Most of the time in pictures. The image of Bernie’s homely mug there at the center. Big, wide and smiling stupid. If it not that, then it his name written clearly in pretty lettering. The lettering she penned. How poorly it fit him. An explosion of ink suited the rat better. Blotches of black and smudged in all corners. Illegible, clumsy and disorderly. Like one’s pen burst in the middle of writing a name. A child holding a pencil for the very fist time and scribbling its jumbled thoughts away onto some lowly piece of parchment. One parents might coo at and then throw in the bin once their child forgets its existence.  

Then there was the sound of him that lingered in her thoughts. The worst sort of grinding and churning. Disgustingly rusty and off tune. Like a sickly choir boy always singing off key while the rest chimed away. A monkey banging on the drums or a clown walking on pots and pans. It truly a horrid sound those like him had. And Jorah thought the muddy sound of the south to be the worst. This Straya place had them beaten quite easily. No matter what type of showman he was, he’d always be a rat at the end of the day. A rat who waved a magic wand and lined up pretty dresses. 

It’d have been so simple that way. Jorah turned her shoulder. She knew not why, just happened to turn and look at him with disdain. Disdain that soon become a wide stare. The rat who waved a magic wand had no such thing in his hand. Fingers out tall and palm holding nothing. His hand merely gestured to and from. Not to line up dresses and boots but to shoot a concoction of colors. A swirl of a rainbow, one fresh right after the rain, lit itself into being. A comet on the tips of his fingers. Shot out and danced about with a flashy and vibrant tail. Twirled and curved through the still and dry air like there nothing there until the flickering faded. Faded just as the flames she stomped on.

Jorah stood. Eyes open and face frozen to stone. Her immediate gaze went to those hands of his. There not flint to bring what she saw to a spark. There nothing there. Nothing she could see. And yet those lights danced and flew just like they had earlier. The only mirror with them lay shattered on the dirt and the only smoke to be seen came from the fire she had killed. It hovered over him, hanging there like it had always been. Seen when the right time hit but always there. Just like her. 

Now Jorah heard no stray thoughts in her head. She heard nothing and saw only the wrist she gripped with a hand whose knuckles turned white. Looked at his palm even more closely, there nothing there. Pulled up his arm and pried apart each finger one by one. There still nothing there. Not a smudge. Not even a speck of powder or dust. More and more her fingers curled around his wrist. Squeezing and coiling like a snake did to a rat that wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time. Her gaze fixed into a glare. One sharp and complete with a hue of loathing. There was nothing there. 

There no magic wand. There no powder on his hand to fix a flame. There only his skin that he wore. But Jorah had seen it. Saw it clear as day before and now. Those lights and colors were real. So why was there nothing there?! There must be something. There should not be another explanation. It hovered over him and lingered when the right light hit. Even though it faded, it had always been there. From the moment she first saw it until now. It had been there the entire time. Jorah just hadn’t seen it. She forget it was there. Much like--₴Ⱨ₳ĐØ₩

There were more. There were more! In a room where the sun was bright, it impossible for only one to have a shadow lingering. There’d be another. And another and another and another...! Jorah’s eyes burned with foreseen demise. It was not just Pocoloco? This one too. This rat. Even the smallest and meekest creatures had the potential for it. An separating ocean did not stop how far a Shadow could reach. It could have been something else. It could have been one like her and Jorah ran in. Ran right into the nest. 

Her hand strained, the bones in her fingers and hand indenting her skin. Shaking and trembling with acute pain. Pinched around Bernie’s wrist, they left a burn of purple and red. The blood flow strained and suffocated under her hand. Brought around tighter and tighter while her thought raced again. Full of ideas. Ideas of how this could have gone differently. Ideas of how many more there were of them. This is why. This is why he wanted her here. Stone the crows. That was its name. He knew to name it just like she had. ₳₦Ø₮ⱧɆⱤ

Let go. His wrist slipped from her quivering hand. Sharply turned around and stepped forward and away from Bernie. -“Do whatever you wish and get what you need.”- Jorah addressed Pocoloco without looking at him. ₳₦Ø₮ⱧɆⱤ. -“You are far better suited knowing what we need and do not. What we have and what we have not. I leave that to you and him. I care not about whether we would make it in some bush. I only care about getting to where we need to go. We do what we must to get there. That is the plan.”-

₳₦Ø₮ⱧɆⱤ

[jorahgothique]

Catherine Deneuve, Belle de Jour, 1967

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 That she had heard of him filled Mike with an unexpected, diffuse pride and he smiled genuinely, the benign smile of a tutor who has seen his pupil put his teaching to use without prompting. For the most part it was directed at the puzzle breaking into pieces as easily as freshly rolled drop candy, the baker losing his head on this pass. Odd that she’d never seen a photo of him — he seemed to pose for them by the hundreds, spreading the image of his defiant scowl throughout the country. The exact opposite of Mike, who had smiled in the one picture in existence of him, polite and unthinking.

 Not that it likely mattered a lot if he had chosen to worn his deepest frown, it wouldn’t have the same provocative quality. Where fire leaped from Mr. Douglass’ eyes to strike the viewer’s heart with intended remorse, Mike’s turned his eyes dull, muddled violet hidden behind thick layers of ice. His other features likely would fare no better, more than once it’d been remarked that he looked like he’d smelled something unpleasant when he was displeased.

 Moreover, he hadn’t felt particularly disgruntled when he’d been jollied into sitting in front of the photographer and his ever so wonderful box. The period he spent with his father had been the eye of the storm, a time of peace and contentedness with where he’d landed despite his beginnings. Complacent, he rarely thought of his childhood and when he did, he only considered it one step in his journey, one that was behind him. No longer did he feel so intense a sense of injustice, not when he’d lied and smiled his way into a place among those who might have owned him.

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That smile of his. One uplifting, surprised and genuine. The only genuine sign from him that was not adverse. The overplayed smirking, mischievous eyes, the undying determination to find the suspected truth and the shock of something unexplained happening. It all lead to things Jorah found to be troublesome. More back and forth and teasing that got them nowhere. What had been genuine before were unpleasant things and irksome provoking from either side. However, seeing the smile upon Michael’s, it time for Jorah to feel shocked. The unexplained and impossible seemingly here in reality. A smile. His smile. A real smile from him. 

Jorah did not believe, previously, he capable of such a feat. It silly really. Everyone capable of smiling and everyone, at least once in their life, had smiled. No doubt he smiled before this moment. When he a child or maybe when Scarlet happened to look his way. This hadn’t been the first, surely, but it stunned the expecting mother all the same. Neither of them had given a smile of something that positive for both of them. Smiles had been reserved for causing a blow to the other’s mindset or pride or simply out of custom. It hardly seemed real for a moment and Jorah awaited this quip that typically followed soon after.

None came. It only his benign smile out of true intrigue and surprise. Perhaps it even better than a quip. Showing a piece of himself, forgot what air resided in the room. Neglected to remember who he talking to. A genuine showing of oneself can easily be manipulated into a useful tool. Once the wall down for even a single second one can infiltrate it. Worm their way in and make a pretty home out of a single wound. A smirk would do well as a signal for her victory. A little smirk just to acknowledge she could get him to shed that hard shell of his. That’s all it’d take. Just one. She could do it. She should do it.

But she did not. Did not notice her own smile etched onto her face naturally, reflexively. Her own genuine intrigue at his on her lips before Jorah realized it. Too late to smirk now. Not even a small one. The large smile on her face had sneaked right into its place. -“Radicalists? Were the first of your Revolution not the same? Or how about my country’s? Were they not radical in their ideas? Yours took seven, mine took ten. Somethings take less years, others more. I suppose it all depends on how radical the ideas are and how stubborn people can be. However, it not entirely impossible, now is it?”-

All it’d take, much like an invasion, was a single idea. An idea, as soon as it’s shared, will spread. Spread around from agreement, resentment or even plain neutrality. It there and it’d lay there in waiting for someone to pick up on it as well. -“Someone told me that an idea can be most infectious and it only takes one and the enough ears to hear it. Ideas can take time. Swift or sluggish, but they do move. It not the right man but the...most infectious idea is what I would say triumphs majority of the time. The idea may not be proper now but who knows who will think of it in the future. I am sure the idea of the monarchy ending quite silly or the freedom of men something in stories.”-

Jorah no longer smiling but that, truly, mattered little. The shikra and the babbler. The babbler could never hope to be a shikra. It impossible. Completely different structure, ways of life and place on the hierarchy. -“The shikra may live among babblers but it can never be one. Now, if it a shikra and babbler then neither side is the perfect fit. Say the babbler you speak of decided to live with the shikra, there will be some who will forever see just the babbler in it. Yet, it is the same on the other side. The babbler chooses to live with babblers but some will see it as part of the shikra. A bird that has great potential for harm against the rest of the babblers. A lose lose situation so why not be what it is. It is both, it is its own. Trying to fit in world that is impossible to move? Make one’s own. The babbler does not need to be a shikra nor does it need to be a babbler. There is another option and that option, I say, is making a world of its own with others who do not fit into that strict mold. Can the babbler still walk among the shikra and other babblers? If it so chooses but why compare itself constantly when it is an entirely unique and new creation? There is beauty in becoming one’s own self and being proud of that. If others do not fancy it, that is their loss.”-

[jorahgothique]

 Considerably more at ease after what he was more than happy to call an end to hostilities, Pocoloco’s hold on the picture was loose enough that Jorah could snatch it away easily, his thumb skidding over the glass. So he’d been right, the lady must be her momma. A nice looking lady she was too, one that might have a bright shiny penny for a poor black boy if he was polite or made her laugh. He felt no scruples about seeing that as a positive thing, it wasn’t like that kind of stuff was begging. The man, her father… to be frank he kind of reminded Pocoloco of the ole man, if he could multiply himself by 10 and then merge into a much more concentrated form.

 “Only touched it a little…” he put up the defense of a scolded boy, his expression one of childish injustice. What did she think he was going to do with it? Hoping for a moment of fellow feeling between men having to put up with a difficult woman, he tried his luck with the thief — uh, Bernie, he guessed his name was. He looked at Pocoloco, sure enough, but without any of the sympathy the farm boy was hoping for. If anything, his eyes indicated that it was none of his concern who Pocoloco had chosen to travel with. He’d made his bed and he’d have to lie in it.

 Instead he sought out the reassurance of his only true companion here, but there were no lopsided pits in dry wood staring down. Huh? While it wasn’t as if he’d been paying much attention, there was far too much going on, he hadn’t noticed that the li'l guy had moved on to wherever. Having him on his back was a little like wearing glasses, you stopped noticing they were there after a while. Even so, Pocoloco twisted an arm behind him at a tendon-tearing angle to pat himself down, gaining no other information than that some of his bruises were still a little on the tender side.

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Even with an unloaded gun in his dirty hands he had shaken and trembled like a naked man in the cold. Positively ridiculous. The gun had minimal chance of doing harm and he still could not bring himself together. Bought it for protection. How can he hope to defend himself when he kept the damn thing empty and worthless. What he to do? Ask the adversary company to wait until he found the ammunition and load the gun? Oh this man, oh this rat, he most insufferable. Entirely intolerable. If he wanted to give off the impression of a shaky and spineless man, he already did that. Did that by trembling with that gun in his hands. It could be a clever trick, have one believe they not as confident as they are. 

However, the entire purpose of that would be to shoot them when their guard down. This buffoon did not even load the damn gun! Lived in a wasteland for majority of his life and he had his weapon unloaded? No means to defend himself and now he offering breakfast? Oh yes. A nice serving of bacon and two eggs sunny side up and how about those lovely pancakes? Some nice sugar to top if off and sing a lovely tune around his crevasse campfire. Not shoot them over a few frocks...now what if others where. Say Pocoloco hadn’t gotten that knife away from Jorah and ran in here. Or a different party ran in guns blazing? What then? Throw pancakes at them? 

Jorah’s eyes did flips in her skull. The complete and utter absurdity of Bernie’s antics driving the young woman into a new sense of insanity. There not a thing left for him to do but offer a meal for their troubles. Troubles was putting it mildly. All of this and for what? All of his glittering lights and for what? The wannabe showman better at entertaining dust than anyone else. Threw his fireworks about which resulted in a few moments of stupor. By the sight of it, he had no more. Another loss on his part. Another hole in his pocket. 

Frustrated, irked and perturbed Jorah threw her arms up only to forcefully bring them down. Stepped forward, no--stomped over, trudged over, she swiped up the now broken mirror. Its glass remains on the ground. Where the mirror once laid now an empty and flat plate of silver. -“No we do not want ‘brekkie!’ So please, feel free, to stuff your rat mouth full and choke on it!”- Waved the mirror in front of his face, the crowned point pressed against the tip of his nose. Dug it in before flicking it up, dragging on one a of those nostrils before finally pulling it away from his face. -“Do make sure to check your supplies and make sure you do, indeed, have a bag worth of brekkie and you did not conveniently load that too!”- 

Pushed the birthing kindle with the mirror. Scattered dust flowing about and consumed whatever life the kindle had. Triumphant for crossed her arms, mirror tucked in the nook of them. -“I know not what they teach you in Straya but they clearly are lacking in common sense and all sensibility. No wonder you want to go into show business. What you seek is all cheap smoke and mirrors! Not real performances but tricks. What will you do? Throwing fireworks at them too? Oh but you have no more that I see. Waste them all on us too? Truly, what intriguing ways your mind works.”-

Spun around and, just as Pocoloco said, done with the rat named Bernie. Bernie with an awful sounding tongue and tactics that really were fit for a circus. Her items are soon taken one by one and put back into her bag. A speedy process of haphazardly folding clothing before stuffing them in nice and snug. The brush went back into the pouch followed by the now ruined mirror. Every boot the rat had touched and every blouse and trouser his greedy hands shifted through. Then, finally, and with the utmost wariness. The remembrance of her Mother and Father were put securely back into their box. Their little and ill suited makeshift home. Dust and grime littered around it. Jorah trying her very best to scrape it away with the now tattered nightgown she wore. Only then did she delicately hug it close, an apology, and return it to the bag with a smile like she had not seen it in years. -“Now, you best learn from this, Mr. Artist. If I ever, oh do I mean ever, see you around once more, a bruised hand will seem a blessing.”- 

[jorahgothique]

 Oh, had he truly been devious enough to keep her guessing? That was a genuine surprise, not because of the man’s unfitness had be neglected to name him, only because he assumed she’d be able to glean his identity. I was, for all intents and purposes, the choice most people would thin obvious for… someone like him. Birds of a feather flocked together, in his case in a literal sense. While he didn’t know what the popular opinion on it was, most of the renters had more in common with him in tone of skin than with their landlords. They’d simply trickled in after a wise and belligerent man of repute had moved in roughly a decade ago. Like felt safe with like, and walking down some streets you’d be hard-pressed to find a face paler than caramel.

 Taken aback, he delayed his rebuttal with parted lips, pinkish irises small among the sclerae of eyes that showed startlement that wasn’t part of the show. He’d expected some comment, snide or agreeable, and he’d received neither, left hanging like he’d kept her in suspense with his double-talk. He’d played a stupid game and won a stupid prize. And here she was accusing him of letting emotion play no part in his reasoning. What else could this be called? His first choice was nothing but, the wrong choice for the nation, yet entirely the right one from the perspective of his world.

 “I didn’t say they should agree,” he fired back somewhat weakly, true conviction missing from his low voice. His opened mouth closed, pressed together in a hard line after being reminded of the chair. Though he hadn’t forgotten, not exactly, it had slipped his mind momentarily, all the sound and fury and accusations. She had broken it, he was almost certain of that. If she had not, the fact that something not of this world had taken place was undeniable, woodworm would not have eaten away at the leg of his trousers that he fidgeted with.

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The weak quip he tossed back at her gave Jorah a fair reason to smile. Yet, she held that cheshire-like grin to herself. Merely continued to pull the puzzle apart piece by piece. Just as it was created. The baker, the pie and the lady down the road all began to disappear from their cardboard existence. A picture frozen in time but this one fleeting. Something to see for awhile then take it away. Put it all back together again if one fancied or one bored, such in her case. However it lead to conversation far more pleasant than Jorah’d admit to verbally. It such a contrast to their previous interactions. However limited they may have been in the grand scheme of things, they had not been anything close to pleasant. 

The moment she saw him, Jorah despised him. He an unknown face she did not want to see. There only one face of a man she wanted to see. Michael was not that man. Not even close. Different in every possible way. Where Foley had cream skinned, Michael’s dark like cocoa beans squashed for coffee. Foley had a head of hair clipped short. Locks that would be rung into tight small curls if given the chance to grow. It paired with a clean beard that showed signs of his age and wear. Michael had hair pure black. Styled only on the top of his head while the rest laid bare. It not only their appearances so different but who they were as a person. Where Foley was welcoming, friendly and humorous Michael professional, overly so, cold and childish. 

Spoke himself into a corner he relented to agree to disagree. Jorah found herself in victory, however, and took this interaction as one. And Jorah would not forget about it. Not after he spoke himself into a loop she tied a knot around. Jorah thought it ended at that and she would have not minded it at all. Yet, then Michael spoke again. The bygones not gone entirely and Jorah stopped in her effort to pick apart the puzzle. 

The man he chose, the man right for the job and the man Michael said to leave before more time wasted was someone by the name of Frederick Douglass. The name rang a bell, Jorah heard it before. Not often, not in Paris, but heard word of a man by that name in the United States. She knew not what he looked like or what most of his history included. The extent of her knowledge came from papers that featured him. Papers saying he a man once a slave from a slave mother but a white father. He so well spoken, they said, that many were astonished by his slave origins. Jorah had always regarded a person of mixed origins an unfortunate fate. Both sides tended to dislike the opposite and so that person did not fit in completely with either. They were there own and they were alone. 

Jorah looked up from the crumbling puzzle and gazed at Michael. -“I have heard of that man. Not much back home but more here in the States. I have not seen a picture of him, however. Yet not giving into the myths of a happy slave sounds quite lovely. What was there to be happy about something like that but perhaps I am missing something.”- Jorah hummed and rested her chin in her palm. -“So then why lie and smile in photos? Sure, he may be a man freed and experienced happiness like we all do but it had not always been that way. I hear he speaks for equality of all people or something along those lines. A bold and nearly impossible message but an easy journey can often be boring.”- 

She knew not if he closer or not to accomplishing that dream of his but, if it accurate, it a rather noble cause. It’d certainly be extraordinarily different than the previous men who sat in power from all parts of the world. -“A nominee for the Vice President? One he had not sought after? People believe in him, then. It certainly would have been a jab at those who did not agree with the idea of freedom for all. A scandal one that would really give it to those who fail to let bygones be bygones. A tad like...”- For lack of words Jorah made up in actions. She jut out her tongue past her lips and wrinkled her nose. -“That.”- 

-“With that, however, the importance of what Mister Douglass stands for would be lost. Perhaps, it would even take away from what Mister Douglass wanted people to think about or focus on. No one can ever truly know as it did not happen. Though it appears he still continuing his work now. It gives a ray of hope for the future some might say. Another man or person, for that matter, may take up his ideas and be your or someone else’s right man for the job.”- When her hand left her chin, her eyes left Michael. 

-“Stuck between two different worlds and he made his own place in life. It is, to say the least, admirable.”- She went back to collecting the pieces and placing them back into their box. 

[jorahgothique]

 Still behaving like Pocoloco was the least of his worries, the thief took another step back, close enough to lean against the rocks behind him arms looped loosely together, legs jauntily crossed. Not that the dark-skinned farm boy wanted the attention, the trigger under his finger repelled and attracted at the same time. They were… power of a sort, weren’t they, guns? A magic wand that let you decide who lived and who died if you just pressed down on cold metal. Bang. With a rifle like this, you didn’t even have to be accurate — you couldn’t be, the buckshot would spray out in a wide fan. If it didn’t kill, it’d incapacitate, and the second shot could be a leisurely one.

 Yet while it had a primal attraction, it revulsed him at the same time. Life and death, there was the responsibility to end all responsibilities. He didn’t want it. To be fair, he didn’t want most, to him it was fine to leave the authority to those with a taste for it. So maybe he didn’t have any money. No prestige either. What he did have was a peaceful life, one made up of a long string of stolen moments of drifting clouds and warm grass tickling at his back. Without pretension, that was all he wanted. Fame and huge amounts of cash he only wanted because they’d facilitate more of the same.

 Right now however, what he wished for the most was to put the gun down. It was heavy, weighing much more than could be justified by its components dragging him along or down or wherever, oddly beguiling. There wasn’t any reason for him to be holding onto it anymore, the thief turned out not to be a master criminal but rather a man he could only call whiny, the way he went on. He appeared to be thinking about something — eyes up and to the right, even brows crinkled, lips pursed — but it didn’t look like he was planning an attack.

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Straya? Where in the hell was he taking about? A place where only wayward souls collected, and happily too. Perfectly dandy moving about and going this way and then to the next. But not him. No, he dreamed of bigger and better things. Things such as squandering around in the desert with no money for his dear frocks. Oh those frocks, so illusive! Picked the absolute perfect spot to spout them out too. How many women in fine dressed traversed the wastelands? None that were sane! But here he was making his way and hoping to find a dress resting on a rock. 

Nothing about this man made any sense. The more he spoke the more Jorah desired to tear her hair out and up. Giant red rock? Giant red rock called Straya? What he trying to say? That accent of his potent enough to shatter glass. Slurred his words into something not even a drop dead drunk would gargle. Something from Wales if Wales removed all education from their curriculum. Jorah found the Welsh accent to be jarring but this one? This had to be the worst ever heard. Even more horrid than the slur of the south in America. And by God did that accent drive Jorah into a manic haze. 

Traveled from this Straya and for what? To live in a hole in the ground in a desert? Yes every performers dream! Jorah could see it now. This little rat looking up to his mummy and proclaiming he wanting to be an artist for the sand in wastelands. Damned fool. Caught wind of this infuriating and irksome race and came sniffing about. Look where that had gotten him. Look where that had gotten her. Stood here in nothing but a nightgown, glaring down at some petty thief and trying not to strangle herself out of frustration and stupidity. This damned dangerous and moronic race and both the thief and she were following it. Him for some chance at fame but poorly calculated that had been. It the same racers at each stop and the townsfolk growing bored of the shows, he’d have to keep moving. Left him with no time to stitch up even a mere handkerchief. 

Heading up to Monument something or another but that did not matter. What mattered him sitting down for his much needed ‘brekkie’. Jorah could only assume he meant to say ‘breakfast’ but that drawl on his tongue prevented him. Or perhaps he’d been dropped on his head when he a babe. As if Jorah had not minutes ago beaten and scratched him up, he relaxed into the background. Offered her a bite to eat. Might as well, he said. They all here anyway. Egregious, preposterous, complete insanity!

Jorah looked at him as if he bore six arms, fifteen legs, ten sets of eyes and that his name not Bernie but Monobubba Who Lives on the Moon! Breakfast? Breakfast?! Did he not realize what happening here? Did he not listen to a single breath she uttered? Polite? Polite?! Jorah did not request for polite! She wanted her things and to get the hell out of this rat infested hell. If a jaw could drop to the ground, hers surely would have. Hands rose up and out, as if she about to proclaim this injustice, but instead fell atop her head and gripped her already mangled and tangled hair. 

The only factor stopping her hair from being ripped out of her skull was a peep made by Pocoloco who had been mostly a fly on the wall. Jorah went in and out of forgetting he here with her. That was until he asked about a woman, a lady. One that looked like someone, like Jorah. Her--

-“Hey!”- An exclamation, a clamor, shouted from a banshee’s mouth. Turned right around on her heel and tore up the ground to stand before Pocoloco. -“Do not--Don’t touch that!”- Jorah demanded with a swipe of her hand. Snatched that photograph, the one this all for, right from his fingers fast enough to leave a trail. Doted on its condition, the first good look she got at it since last night. Turned the frame this way and that, every corner scanned over for a chip in the wood or a fracture in the glass. -“You have a clue how vital this is, Pocoloco!? Take care, that is my family!”- 

A smudge, a fingerprint, obscuring her mother’s darling face. A face Jorah hadn’t seen in months. A face Jorah feared forgetting each day he spent in this country. Pinched the fabric of her dress, it served as a way to clean away the sweat stained print over the matron’s face. Circled it around with her thumb and dragged it around it do away with any lingering blemish. -“Saleté laide, sortez! Sortez, sortez!”- Insulted the sand now dusted off with her hand and dirtied dress. The frantic scrubbing came to a sluggish stop. Her mother’s face now clear and Jorah could see only disappointment. It far worse in those eyes of her father’s. She need not wonder what they’d say if they saw her now. It evident through the moment captured in time. Her mother’s smile, it’d be gone. Her father? A smile he may not have but those eyes of his would only sink further into his face. Through them Jorah saw her own expression. The glass a mirror in desperation and exhaustion. The photograph now exposed. A true defeat. 

-“Mère père. Je vous en prie, je suis désolé. Je ne fais plus ce que je fais.”- Compressed the skin between her brow and, following a moment of quiet, turned to Pocoloco. -“Hold the gun firmly in your hands for Christ’s sake. You know not if he is--”- Jorah reached for the gun and grabbed it she did. Grabbed it with weight she expected it to match. However, the weapon far lighter than expected, hollow. Eyes blinked once, twice and then three times before the previously irate woman tilted the shotgun from side to side. 

Left, right...left, right...left...Not a rattle, not a cling. There nothing. Nothing at all. -“Oh...Oh my damned God.”- Exhaustion doubled with that whisper and Jorah shoved the gun against Pocoloco’s chest. -“Puis-je me réveiller maintenant Dans seulement des rêves, il peut y avoir tellement de folie.”-

[jorahgothique]

[jorahgothique]

Ballet Shoes 2007

[jorahgothique]

"Suzanne Farrell.., a poetical granddaughter of Pauline Rothschild, with her head bent so low on one side that she appeared like a bird with its head tucked under one wing." — Cecil Beaton