PRAEMISSES PRAEMITTENDIS

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Honey From Mama Bear

A week went buy in silence, what did Antoinette and Lauren have to say to each other, not very much, nothing really, they knew one another, their spirits were shared, their was a mutual sense of comprehension which made much conversation between them obsolete, and so the silence was welcomed, pure and even reassuring, their embraces a mutual guarantee that the world would have new beginnings harbored within them. This even as they could not have the one thing that was now wanted between them, Loki was fine and beautiful but they wanted a child, they said so to each other, without words just with longings.

Loki eventually got really used to the outdoors, he didn’t want to spend any time with his mistresses, he just wanted to be outdoors, he had never seen so many bugs, so many birds, and he saw those birds like the first cat had seen the first Dodo bird, he wanted them all. At times he felt frustrated that he could not reach to them, he begged Lauren and Antoinette to help him reach a bird by making a weird crackling awkward sound, but they didn’t comprehend bird language much less cat aggressor language, “help me kill that bird,” in cat speak sounded like an unconstrained and interminable meow, Loki still kept on trying even as the girls uttered back, “oh Hush!” and frustratingly so.

Unfortunately since Loki was a city a slicker he was condemned to chasing the birds and not catching any, and of course this only served to make him angrier and surprisingly less gentle than he had been in the city, while the very opposite was true of Lauren and Antoinette that became more loving towards one another and Lauren, much to Loki’s consternation, even stopped playing rough with him, thus he only became more disillusioned with the countryside experience.

The two women were certainly closer than they had ever been, they knew there wasn’t a world to go back too, the end of the world had made them unite in the moment, they had always had eternity on their side, they were soul mates, but now too so were they in the temporal world, the kisses were gentler and lasted longer, their embraces humbler and less passionate more constructed to bond the universe than to bond two people, they were firing lonlyness, they were prospering towards a consummation of souls unlike any other, they had always had the ingredients to do so, but now they had none of the impediments, they were truly together and indefitiagabel in their quest towards one another, interminable as that might be.

It was during that interminable eternity, a little after the moon had set on high, the bears were out looking for light snacks, the snakes had taken refuge from what wasn’t cold for animals that carried their own heater, that the door rang, there wasn’t of course a door bell, there was a rock pounding at the door, it was after all a thick wooden door, Antoinette and Lauren were sleeping next to the fire place when the abrut sounds rang through their habitat cabin, Lauren instinctively went for her gun, Antoinette instinctively remained unaware of weapons, they didn’t open the door, they didn’t move, the door continued to be pounded upon, and then a voice came through the door, “I know you two sweets are in there open the goddamn door its cold out here.”

Habakkuk was not one to swear much, so when he did you could say he was more serious than usual, more serious indeed, “I didn’t come all this way to sleep outside.”

I would like to say that they both launched themselves to answer the door but that wasn’t the case and it disappointed me as much as it might disappoint the reader as I happen to like Habakkuk more than anyone else, they didn’t however ran to open the door. Instead they paused, they had after all been in a personal paradise, why would they want to open that door and change everything, they didn’t, further they still had within them the fear of everything that was out there, of everything that the world was haplessly becoming, neither rushed out to the door, to her credit Lauren uncorked the gun, Antoinette remained incognizant of that other voice, but then Loki, who truly liked how Habakkuk would play with him and throw him around and help hunt flies, had to acknowledge his friend, he went for the door, he stood there, sniffing though the cracks, trying to figure how to open it, occasionally looking at the girls trying to get them to assists, he didn’t understand why they were reticent on the matter, and so he went to Lauren and sniffed her as if to say, “why are you being like that!” and thus Lauren reacted, “Its Habakkuk!” and once those words were uttered the external world could no longer be denied; so both of them rushed to open the door and let their friend in, and greeted him with all the love for humanity which they could muster which was a lot because they hadn’t been able to express it in so long.

Loki of course immediately made for his favorite spot, Habakkuk’s shoulders but he failed to announce this to Habakkuk that screamed like a bitch when he felt those Loki claws climbing throughout his back urging the birth of wounds that would certainly become life time scars. When he did settle around Habakkuk’s neck the affection between the two was immediately fond, buddies that had found warmth within each other, none competing.

The hosts found themselves in a dilemma, there was no coffee, no tea, no sugar, nothing to eat but grains, beans, cornflakes, there were no salads, no mustard, no soy sauce, what to offer the guest? But that really wasn’t the question in their minds that question was something else, something very else, “How had Habakkuk known where they were? Habakkuk didn’t know about the cabin?”

But then again Habakkuk was a prophet, the least one could expect of him was to read minds, he sputtered a laugh, a whole hardy laugh, full of muster and thyme and ginger, “Your both so silly, I always know were you two are, everything about you leads me to you, I always know where you are, friends always do, if they listen well enough.” The girls developed this concerted look about them which he immediately thought to calm, “no, no don’t worry intimate thoughts remain so, its just easy to find you, I know where you are, that’s physical that’s easy to do, knowing what your inner most feelings are, that’s more difficult, you have some privacy in the universe, though it is mostly because it isn’t what matters to me.” And with that last line he led out one of those evil laughs, one of those laughs that says, “you don’t know if I am telling the truth and neither do I”

After a chat where both parties explained how they arrived at the cabin admits the chaotic happenings, the real questioning begun, Lauren uttered. “What is going on prophet, you never told me anything like this was ever going to happen, the whole world falls apart and you were able to predict the fall of the Assyrian empire but you don’t tell me what is going to happen within weeks in our metropolis and you leave Antoinette and I to the perils of the unfolding events?”

“Well you know prophets and saviours are two different things, I aint no Jesus Christ.”

“Well then what good is being a prophet then?” Utters Antoinette in a kind of direct out of character guise.

“Being a prophet has no immidaite benefit that I can think of, it hasn’t even helped me to sell burritos, and in fact it has made me many enemies, predicting the fall of the Assyrian empire didn’t make me as famous as it won me animosity.”

He pauses, and then he continues, “but I can ease some pains, and maybe give repose to those that don’t have a right to any.”

Lauren utters with more certainty, “what is going on Habakkuk…” she overly expresses his name so as to emphasize that he must answer as Habakkuk the prophet, “…why are we in this mess, explain this, we are not talking about Antoinette in a little hut, we are talking about the bigger world here Habakkuk please be serious about this.”

Why Lauren never took her friend seriously as much as she should have, and more knowing that he was usually right was more a criticism of the world than of Habakkuk and he understood this, he paused his thoughts, “I think we need some honey, I need some honey in my water, lets go out and get it.” And with that he led an expedition, Loki cat in tow, in search for honey just like the bears would be in search of honey.

There wasn’t much of a forest here really, either the toxics in the air had long take away the variety or the bears were competing for same that the depletion of honey had long gone into a few sources, and so when Habakkuk found his honey he was not surprise that there were two bears already enjoying his loot. “it seems we are not the only one’s that enjoy honey.” He said.

Lauren and Antoinette stared at each other with unequal panic, they were less that forty feet from two monstrous bears, bears that could easily disfigure everything about them, Loki was swift about his decisions on the matter, he went back to the cabin, Loki liked to fight, he loved to antagonize and to create hostility, it tickled him to feel the nails of his enemy pouring themselves into his leather, still he left, he measured the bears well, he knew the foe not to foe.

Habakkuk motioned them to hold their place and to remain silent, then he walked towards mama bear and papa bear. The animals one would want to think were ready to attack but they were too busy enjoying lambing their honey even to notice the bees futilely stinging them, they just ate their honey on a stick, nothing else to do, it seemed. Habakkuk walked within two feet of that and mama bear and papa bear finally took notice, they turned aggressively so, so much so that the girls quickly took hold of each other so as to expect the worst or they may have been enjoying the thrill of the unfolding tragedy, difficult to tell, regardless the two bears stood up so as to look taller and more amazing than a prophet from the seven century BC, however the prophet was undaunted by this gargantuan silhouette, he paused to pick a blade of grass, smell it and said, “just here to pick up some honey if you don’t mind.” The monstrous bears, surprisingly, acquiesced, and moved out of the way for a few minutes while Habakkuk filled up a couple of four ounce jars of delicious honey, then left saying, “thank you mama bear and thank you papa bear.” But never saying thank you to the bees that had made the honey possible!

Back at the cabin they drank the honeyed water and the genuine discussion begun.

“I suppose…” said Lauren matter of fact, “…that you have your usual perfect explanation for the collapse of the world order?”

Antoinette walked to his unnecessary rescue, “I am sure Habakkuk had nothing to do with it, but he does comprehend what is going on.”

Habakkuk remained aloof, what else could he do. “Well it is not a pretty picture is it? And even if I do have an explanation no one’s life is going to be made better, easier or acceptable for it, we are doomed, there is a world ending, that there is a new world beginning wont make anyone feel better for it.”

Antoinette, always the one to forget her ego went forth, “what is happening Habakkuk?”

He responded without hesitation, “the world is coming to an end.” Then he added, “the world as we know it is coming to an end.”

Another world ending, the same as more of the same, the world was ending, a thousand, million, billion worlds had ended, we just didn’t remember, thus this one mattered most, hello, hello!

Habakkuk spoke in a quiet voice, “I think I have a lot to tell you though it is not much, lets go to bed and the morning will speak to us, definitely, it will speak to us.”

The sun rose, practically unawares that entries peoples were being massacred, that a whole new world was being killed and another was being born, the sun didn’t care, in part one could assume that the sun didn’t care because it couldn’t show the universe that it cared, a whole new world could ignore everything else.

The morning rose, hello.

The yellow tree spoke, “What is this?”

The squirrels pondered, “I smell something different.”

The little people, “Is this what it is?”

The universe, “a hiccup”

The yellow worm, the sanctimonious spurn, a fear stricken rat, a moon so solemn, a night so dark and Spring so strange, a new world, so far from common, hello, are you there, waiting for a reply.

The backward measure.

The silent expectant.

The measure measured.

Don’t get caught.

Habakkuk utters the incessant diatribe: “It is a new beginning! I yell and scream to you the new era, where everything is nothing like the rest or like the past or like the priori, you want answers there are plenty but none that will work, the world has changed indefinitely and consistently, nothing will ever be the same, nothing can touch you same, spirits are now among you, they will interfere in our doings and live among us, the sun does shine but sun shining doesn’t mean same, a skit with a moon face doesn’t mean the same, you are stuck in the rain, in the strain, away from the same, a new world order has arisen and squirted itself to your face, that is strange, it’s the same, you are same, there are now spirits and there are now you and yours, and there is nothing between them and you.”

“The world has ended, but we are blessed for only this world has ended.”