The Ticket That Exploded (Burroughs, William S.) (10 page)

(“Now for me — The story of two halves — other parasite possessing every possible out for this painting — first it’s Symbiosis Door Con — There are no good relationships — There are no good words — I wrote silences — a storm leaving his brain centers — evening faces into the ponds — I wept in a land of black lagoons and skies — crumbling stone villas — green-black fruit that grows in jars — lonely lemur calls in ruined courtyards — ghost hands at paneless windows — ancient beauty in stone shapes”) —

Hospital smells and the wooden numbness of anesthesia — He saw his body on an operating table split down the middle — A doctor with forceps was extracting crab parasites from his brain and spine — and squeezing green fish parasites from the separated flesh —

“My God what a mess — The difficulty is with two halves — other parasites will invade sooner or later — First it’s symbiosis, then parasitism — The old symbiosis con — Sew him up nurse” —

Lykin lay gasping in the embrace of the fishboy who was gently tugging at the space suit, running delicious cold fingers down his spine — Finally it found a hold and ripped the tough material in one violent tear right up the back — Lykin, who had so far not been exposed to the
atmosphere of the planet, found himself choking as though ice claws were tearing his insides apart — A great smothering blackness descended on him and he fell back in the boy’s arms, unconscious —

He was drifting through space, wafted by currents of glowing gases — Myriads of floating forms passed in front of him some familiar and others alien — For a moment he was back in the brown canals of Mars in the grip of a giant clam, which takes a week to satisfy its consuming sex habit and spits out its unfortunate victim covered with its discharge like a gelatinous pearl on the dry red sands —

Thousands of voices muttered out of the darkness, twittering creatures pulling and tugging at him and dancing on their way leaping from soaring black heights into deep blue chasms trailing the neon ghost writing of Saturn through vast wells of empty space — From an enormous distance he heard the golden hunting horns of the Aeons and he was free of a body traveling in the echoing shell of sound as herds of mystic animals galloped through dripping primeval forests, pursued by the silver hunters in chariots of bone and vine —

Lonely lemur calls whispered in the walls of silent obsidian temples in a land of black lagoons, the ancient rotting kingdom of Jupiter — smelling the black berry smoke drifting through huge spiderwebs in ruined courtyards under eternal moonlight — ghost hands at the paneless windows weaving memories of blood and war in stone shapes — A host of dead warriors stand at petrified statues in vast charred black plains — Silent ebony eyes turned toward a horizon of always, waiting with a patience
born of a million years, for the dawn that never rises — Thousands of voices muttered the beating of his heart — gurgling sounds from soaring lungs trailing the neon ghost writing — Lykin lay gasping in the embrace can only be reached through channels running to naked photographic process — molded by absent memory, by vibrating focus scalpel of the fishboy gently in a series of positions running delicious cold fingers “Stand here — Turn around — Bend” — Ripped the tough material in brain waves — Lykin who had not so far been on screen of the planet found himself choking, the two brains tearing his insides apart — Smothering from the four halves and he fell back in the boy’s arms naked on the space bed wafted by currents glowing in and out shifting forms passed in front of him — Body burned with silver flash for a moment he was back in the brown rectal hairs of a giant clam — halves shifting and permutating out of the darkness — He drifted off into deep blue chasms and memories of Saturn — vast faces and pieces of distance — He heard the golden medium and was free of his body — Touched hunting horns of the Aeons silver hunters in chariots with flowers — picture temples in a land of black food — ghost hands twisted together in stone shapes —

Found himself choking as unknown bodies tear his insides apart — Wafted by currents of glowing halves shifting mist in electric waves — gelatinous rectal swamps fermenting darkness —

He drew the black berry smoke deep into his lungs and symbol language of an ancient rotting kingdom bloomed in his brain like Chinese flowers — myriads of floating sex symbols and the bronze flesh familiar — Now thousands
of voices muttered and pulsed through him pulling tearing — His body trailed the neon ghost writing as the two halves separated and sex words exploded to empty space — Lonely lemur calls whispered his knees up to the chin — smelling black movement of the other in ruined courtyards — slow color orgasm under ghost hands reflected on silent obsidian walls — The ancient rotting kingdom softened and glowed with black berry smoke drifting through pubic hairs under eternal moonlight to dust and shredded memories — pale word dust stirring spider webs from penis and lips — weaving memories of blood in his throat — rectum naked to color focus of the fish language running delicious cold fingers rubbing off encrusted odors in slow turns of amber — glowing torture films in a land of black food — Ghost apes tear his insides apart — He was in a ruined garden under two moons — one red the other a pale clear green — He could see pulsing black fruit growing in crystal jars — In front of him stood a young man molded in polished black bronze with streaks of green patina on the high cheekbones — From the lips, half-open in a dreamy cruel smile, drifted a faint smell of decay as if he were rotting inside the bronze mold — With a slow gesture he led Bradly along a path of cracked flagstones — Bradly saw that he had webbed feet leaving prints of silver slime that glittered in the moonlight — They came to a summerhouse of circular shape overgrown with vines from which dangled the black fruit in crystal jars — The summerhouse was lined with a glistening black substance traced with phosphorescent writing in blue metal that filled the room with a pulsing blue twilight — The guide focused projector pupils talking in
color blasts to some other being Bradly could feel stirring response in the liquid medium of his body — Color flashed through his body in chirps and giggles shifting to slow visceral pulses — Still talking to the other inside, the bronze boy put slow cold hands on Bradly’s shoulders — As the metal hands drew him forward his clothes shredded to dust — He caught a faint whiff of decay like tropical fruit on the wind — His body melted from within — The bronze mold sank into his flesh a black seal — The other moved back seeking some precise coordinate point with the blue wall symbols — The room hummed and vibrated — Pubic hairs of black wire crackled in blue sparks and a quivering blue line divided his body — Bradly felt his own body split down the middle like a cracked egg the two halves rubbing against each other, held together by some sticky gelatinous substance that leaked out the crack and dripped into the obsidian platform where he stood — From the open bronze mold emerged a transparent green shape crisscrossed with pulsing red veins, liquid screen eyes swept by color flashes — a smell of sewage and decay breathing from years of torture films, orgasm death in his black eyes glinting with slow fish lust of the swamp mud — Long tendril hands penetrated Bradly’s broken body caressing the other being inside through the soft intestines into the pearly genitals rubbing centers of orgasm along his spine up to the neck — Exquisite toothache pain shot through his nerves and his body split down the middle — Sex words exploded to a poisonous color vapor that cut off his breath — The floor dropped away beneath his feet and he fell into black water with the green creature
twisted deep into his flesh, vine tendrils twisted round the throat — Green flares exploded his brain — He ejaculated in twisting fish spasms knees up to the chin — a taste of blood as fish syllables tore gills in his throat — He was breathing now in a silent medium — slow color orgasms deep in the iridescent lagoon — long tendril pubic hairs caressing other memory, vibrated dead genitals — weaving orgasm deep in his testicles — twisting in slow marble ghost hands — gathering stone shape —

He moved through shadow alleys and canals of the lagoon city — fish smells and dead eyes in doorways — sound of fear — dark street life of a place forgotten — slow memory bubbles bursting in his brain — broken picture warnings — grey foetal lampreys along the canal walls, crab police with magnetic claws, dungeons where the prisoners are broken to insect forms under cruel idiot fingers of the Green Guards, slim elegant men with smooth brown flesh the color of an eel’s side hand ending in a crystal bulb and a dripping stinger: the Orgasm Sting that twists a victim to quivering pulp eaten by cruising Mugwumps with beaks of black bone and purple penis flesh — The Mugwumps milked for the orgasm meal by vampire women embalmed in predigested sperm, faces of smooth green alabaster giving off a smell of phosphorus as they sip spinal fluid through straws — He felt now the weakness of death in his fading larval flesh — He needed “The Slow Boat To China” — He found his way to “The Flower Market” where the nobles cruise languidly in gondolas of paper-thin black wood watching slow color bubbles of the fishboys climb to the surface and burst in flares of iridescent propositions — An answer vibrated
down through the water: “Two Black Fruit” — Thin and no conditions to bargain he bubbled back: “It’s a deal” surfaced and slid into a gondola where a young man lay naked on a bed of flowers — His legs were amputated at the hip and the stumps glowed with slow metal fires — The fishboy lay down beside the young man — His translucent green penis rose pulsing in the moonlight — Negro boys the color of glistening black tar beat little drums from a dais in the center of the lagoon — Lonely lemur calls drifted from islands of swamp cypress — Slow rocket burst over the water — They rolled on the flower bed crushing out clouds of odor — color fingers through his larval flesh feeling along his fish spine — Spasms shook his body and green erogenous slime poured from glands under his gills covering the two bodies with a viscous bubble — softening flesh and bones to jelly — He sank into the client — Spines rubbed and merged in little shocks of electric pleasure — He was sucked into other testicles — A soft pearly grotto closed round him pulsing tighter and tighter — He melted to sperm fingers caressing the penis inside — Quivering contractions as he squirmed through pink tumescent flesh to a crescendo of drumbeats shot out in a green flare failing into slow convolutions of underwater sleep —

Shifting dominion of the other inside — bronze mold blooms slowly from old dream odors trailing sweat of genitals before daybreak — slow orgasm in green roses — What you have loved remains stirring response in the fading body — naked pubic hairs caressing dream and the dreamer weaving orgasm in his ghost hands —

Coffin put slow cold hands on Bradly — body split
down the middle like sunlight and shadow — (Have you lost your dog?) — leaked out the crack of dead nitrous flesh — Sex words exploded to a poisonous sky — raw testicles twisting in slow marble — the evening you hear shredded to dust — last terrace of the garden in rotting fruit — dawn whisper knees up to the chin — Who is speaking? — Memory vibrated dead genitals without names — crackling paper shredded to dust —

“For i have known fires — Isn’t time is there left, cool finger running on our ticket that exploded, larval circumstances at far end of the creek? And these dogs knew nothing shifting the dominion of circumstances — What bronze mold blooms in aging roots? — response in the fading body beside you?” —

Could give no response in words — his body melted from within — crumpled cloth flapping wind —

Could have indications enough man lay on a bed of flowers — The stumps glowed with slow metal good bye on vacant lots — smell of healed and half-healed genitals — penis pulsing in the dog rotation — the bronze sweetness of khaki pants — feeling cool fingers on his naked dollars — larval erogenous face spurting out through orgasm—

“Talk, Face” —

“I’m just a vagabond along his spine and feeling well as you, darling — a biologic from viscous bubble with the St. Louis suburb” — I had a dog rubbed and merged to drumbeats open shirt flapping — shadow eggs through the other penis slowly reformed in delicious naked boy — (See that the client is satisfied this time?) —

’Twas good bye on the line — since you went slowly out of old dream odors into space —

Bradly’s canoe of paper-thin black wood grounded on an island of swamp cypresses — He strapped on his camera gun and walked along ancient paths and stone bridges over canals where the fish people swirled sending up color bubbles of orgasm that broke on the iridescent surfaces — He caught the twittering chirping sound of the tree-frog people like wind chimes in the trees and one of them leaped down from an overhanging branch and attached itself to his chest with sucker paws — It was about two feet in length of a translucent green color — The obsidian eyes were all pupil and mirrored a pulsing blood suction to rhythms of a heart clearly visible in the transparent flesh — A network of veins filtered through the green substance like red neon tubes suffusing the frog boy with a phosphorescent pink light — The mouth above a small pointed chin was of glistening black gristle that dripped a pale yellow saliva — Others leaped down from the dark cypress chirping and giggling — Sucker fingers unstrapped his gun and pulled down his shorts — Naked he lay down in warm swamp mud that gave slowly under him stirring a black smell of decay — He felt the soft mouth close over his penis and hang there pulsing, sucking his body to a vacuum — Earth and water stones and trees poured into him and spurted out broken pictures — The creature dropped off and rolled itself into a foetal ball of sleep — Bradly picked up another and held it in his hands — The creature vibrated like a radio — Little shocks ran up Bradly’s arms — The frog boy kicked in spasms ejaculating spurts of black liquid that gave off a
musty smell of damp roots, jasmine and sewage — Now he hung limp in sleep eyes veiled by green lids like a black pond covered with delicate algae — And Bradly fell slowly into the deep uterine sleep, frog boys curled between his legs and under his arms and on his chest streaked with iridescent slime from their sucker paws —