Francis of the Filth Read online

  The water gently lapped at the side of the raft as it twisted through the swell, occasionally spilling over the side and wetting his feet. He continued to work the oar and as he did, the island loomed into view. It was considerably bigger than it had appeared from the shore and it contained flatlands leading to a hill which rose grandly at the back. The nearer he drew, the more the mists lifted and by the time he reached the shoreline of the island, the air was crisp and clear. He alighted into cool and fresh waters and dragged the raft high up onto the sands.

  Pausing to scan the landscape, he heard it again. “Frank!” The deep whisper rolled up to him like a gentle wave. It was the most inviting voice he had ever heard. He froze to catch it and when it came again he could tell it was emanating from the hill. Immediately, he set off for it. The plains he walked over were covered with a thick but soft green grass which swayed gently in the gusts blowing across it. Fat, twisted trees with thick caramel-colored bark, each producing a multitude of leaves of different colors and designs, dotted the terrain. In clusters around them, shrubs spawned flowers of the most vivid colors and shapes while neighboring bushes grew fruits of seemingly unlimited variety. Frank noticed little, if any of this beauty, such was his determination to reach the hill before sunset, yet his spirits couldn’t but be lifted by the ambience that the landscape provided.

  He made good progress. With the sun ahead of him and still a fist above the pointed horizon, he stood at the base of the hill and peered up at it. Much of it appeared in silhouettes yet he could identify everything clearly. Every piece of flora on the hill seemed to be arranged around a massive tree rising from its summit, as though an audience before it, as though in celebration of it. It rose into the sky like a tower and had the girth of a grain elevator. Frank strode toward the tree. The closer he got the more he could feel its presence and its reach toward him. The grass he walked on somehow felt inexplicably connected to the tree, and in brushing his hand over the flowers as he passed them, he could feel the tree in each touch. It made no sense but he knew it was true.

  It wasn’t till he was a stone’s throw from the tree that he could make out its essence and it struck him like a knife to the heart. He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes frozen wide like skeets, his breath stolen from within him. He could neither advance nor retreat. The tree swayed slightly, though there wasn’t a hint of wind, as though to observe him. Gripped with fear, Frank continued to stare at the trunk of the tree, still unwilling to believe what he was seeing. Protruding from it, yet one with it, was the silhouetted effigy that he had seen in his nightmares long ago in Okinawa. The dark figure of unknown origin and nature, powerful and mighty, leaned toward him; fused to the tree, he could do no more than that. Just as Frank had seen in his visions, the entity was one with the tree, bare-chested with arms stretched across the trunk as though crucified on it, yet not. He was not just with the tree, he was the tree, sharing life with it, sustaining it.

  The horror of the Okinawan nightmares returned to him in all their fierceness yet at the same time, this was not the nightmare. This was something different; a fulfilment of the nightmares yet not their essence. And when the entity spoke to him, it confirmed this.

  “Don’t be afraid.” The voice was deep and sonorous and majestic. Frank didn’t so much respond as obey. “Come closer.” Frank stepped toward the tree till he could make out every line in the humanoid’s face and see every vein that ran from the trunk into his arms. “Frank,” he said. His voice carried such magnanimity that Frank was fearful and comforted at the same time.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I’ve known you for a very long time.” Frank peered into the figure’s eyes. They revealed much in their paradoxes. They were gentle yet powerful, ancient yet youthful, mystic yet simple, tragic yet consoling. Frank’s fear left him completely as the figure spoke on in a warm, resonant voice. “I saw you in the gutter in Indonesia. I watched you work at Soncorp. I felt your pain in dealing with the military. I heard your screams in your first passage to the frozen wasteland. I know your deepest fears and greatest longings. I know everything about you.”

  Frank felt a tranquil mesmerising as he listened. And when he thought he couldn’t be any more amazed, the entity spoke again. “I know everything.” These three words seemed implausibly absurd yet he believed them. The richness of the voice alone was convincing but it was more than that. A spirit of authority came forth with the words, leaving Frank no doubt as to their truth. Yet Frank still had no idea who this was. He didn’t have a clue as to his status. And despite the calm he exuded, Frank was still unaware if this figure was ultimately benign or malevolent. He asked.

  “Are you God?” The top rim of the sun set behind the earth supporting the great tree as Frank presented his question.

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you know everything, how can you not know?”

  “I don’t know. I just know that I don’t know.”

  Frank thought about this. “Could you be God?”

  “I’m afraid of the thought that I could be. Yet I don’t want that burden. I suspect I am deity because I am all-knowing but if it were possible, could God choose to not be God?” There was a faint rustle of discontentment from the surrounding bushes and shrubs as he said this. Some of the flowers closed. “I am what I am. And you are what you are, Frank.”

  “What am I?”

  “Yes,” he stated. Frank almost understood this.

  “Am I a chimpilla?”

  “You are both more and less than that.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Don’t ask my name.” Frank wondered for the life of him why not but honored his request. The flowers and leaf buds seemed to re-open and shiver at this response.

  “How old are you?”

  “I have no age. I have always been.”

  “What is my age?”

  “Older than you know, but still young.”

  “Did you make my world?”

  “I created your universe from nothing but only your universe.”

  “Are there others like you?”

  “There are others who appear like me to others.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “The rice fields on the edge of the omniverses provide… shelter.”

  “Shelter? Shelter from what? Shelter from whom?”

  “Shelter from my identity.”

  This perplexed Frank and led him to a million other questions but he suspected the answers would take him no closer to his most critical enquiries. His desperation to know who he was and why he had become like this, returned to him as a roaring flame. The entity pre-empted him.

  “You want to know your purpose.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Sit at my base and lean against me.” Frank didn’t hesitate to do so yet moved slowly and respectfully. As he rested his back against the bark of the trunk he felt immediately rested. It was as though a small bough were reaching inside of him and stroking his soul. Frank exhaled and softly lay his head back against the great tree and for the first time in his adult life, Frank knew peace. He had known of peace and he had longed for peace but he had never truly known it for himself and it was beautiful. Beautiful. The entity continued to speak in his lush tones.

  “You must leave here, Frank.” This would have devastated Frank had he not been in the cradle of serenity. Yet he failed to understand it at all. The figure spoke on. “Your purpose is not here. Nor will you find your true identity here. Your identity is inexorably tied to your purpose and both lie beyond.”

  “I’m scared to go on.”

  “You must leave here,” he repeated with a tone of urgency. “Let nothing distract you or tempt you from this.”

  “There is so much that is macabre and evil in the other realms. And besides, I have no co-ordinates other than those given to me by higher powers, and they always lead to unimaginable horror.”

  “You’re not trying hard enough.”

  If this were i
ntended as comfort, it failed.

  “I don’t understand,” said Frank frustrated.

  “Try harder.” From anyone else these words would have been torment but from the entity, they brought correction and hope. “With enough chromosomes, you can discover just about any coordinates you like.”

  Frank’s face fell at this. “Each time I begin to amass chromosomes, Chin Chin harvests them from me. I can’t escape him.” The thought then came to Frank and he didn’t hesitate to ask. “Is Chin Chin God?”

  “If Chin Chin were God he wouldn’t need your chromosomes.” Frank recalled hearing this somewhere before.

  “So he’s a peace lord?”

  “A very powerful one. But he’s not your primary concern.”

  “He’s not?” Frank felt like a small child talking to this figure. “Who is my primary concern?”

  At that moment Frank sensed the answer that the entity wished to speak: “Yourself”. But those were not the words he delivered. “I will share with you a mystery, Frank. Listen carefully. You are unique. Your multiplying chromosomes are a gift. They have been given to you for a reason. The chromosomes are yours. A curse be on anyone who takes them from you. But you must learn how to keep them. You must know how to hide them. Veil them. Possess them.”

  While still resting against the trunk of the tree, Frank turned to look into the entity’s eyes. They were magnificent. “How?” he asked. The longer he spent in his presence the more infantile he understood himself to be. He also felt supremely protected.

  “Translephony.”

  Frank looked up at him for an explanation.

  “Share your chromosomes with other entities and organisms. Chromosomes should never be taken but they can be freely given and returned. Chromosomes given through translephony remain the property of the giver. They are shared to sustain, and stored to nurture others. But there is another quality it brings. It makes chromosomes untouchable to any who would endeavor to steal them.”

  “Translephony?” Frank said in a soft daze.

  “Look around you. The trees and plants, the flowers and the grass - even the birds which have retired for the evening and feed off the plants - contain my chromosomes. I have given to all of them. I sustain this whole island. I can give and receive my chromosomes as I please. And this great tree,” he said looking about him, “I have given of my chromosomes so greatly that we are now as one. We remain separate entities yet we function as one.”

  Frank sat in silence for a long time absorbing all this. The sky was now quite dark and its expanse was flooded with a starry host. “Can I use translephony?”

  “Anyone with the gift, the purpose and the focus can employ it. The first you have. The second is forming. The third comes with practice.” Frank placed his hand on the grass beside him. It was soft to touch and he desired a connection with it. But he felt no more than that.

  He was tired after his long day and in the calm of the island he soon became sleepy. He moved away from the tree and lay down under its branches on a plush carpet of grass. Billows of peace rolled over and over him and the last thing he remembered was running his hands backwards and forwards delicately over the tips of the blades and feeling them tickle his palms. Sleep came over him like a warm blanket.

  An almighty crash startled him awake in the pre-dawn light. He abruptly sat up and looked out, incredulous, over the hill - that great hill that had supported the indomitable tree and the entity that was one with it. There was nothing left of them but an enormous stump cut clean through. The tree had been felled and lay, with the wise and mighty humanoid, now cold and deceased still attached, at the back of the hill, all broken limbs and wilting canopy. Beside the stump sat an enormous figure, dark and silent. It looked at Frank with a murderous gaze. Swollen, blood-red eyes bulged out from a huge emerald-colored, triangular head. Its body was lean but muscular and its limbs were hairy, impossibly long and sat neatly folded in front of its torso. It reminded Frank of some of the enormous praying mantises from the Okinawan jungle. It rubbed its front appendages together in a slow, hypnotic rhythm before leaning toward Frank and opening its steely mouth with a hint of a smile.

  “Fear the peace lords,” it hissed, “for we are more powerful than anything you can possibly imagine.” Frank was on his knees, mortified with terror. “Who are you?” The words quivered out.

  “My name is Dyopatera. Remember it.” Frank nodded. “Remain here on this island,” it continued, “until the dark lord comes again.” With that, it simply dissipated into thin air as though a hologram fading away.

  Frank remained motionless. After finally experiencing such long-awaited and sweet peace, to be crushed again and swept back into a universe of desolation and death was too much for him. He broke down and wept inconsolably. When he lifted his head again the sun had peeked over the new horizon and the island was flooded with a strong but sad light. The flowers and leaf buds remained resolutely closed and the grass had a ginger tinge to it. The trees all had a wilt to them and not a birdsong could be heard anywhere on the island. Instinctively he walked up, sat on the stump and looked down over the back side of the hill. A thin rim of water separated the island from the mainland to the east, beyond which there lay he knew not what.

  And then the dilemma dawned on him. Did he listen to the unsettling words of the victorious peace lord who told him to stay, or did he heed the pleasant advice of the defeated peace lord who told him to move beyond this place? It was a surprisingly easy decision for him; not because he trusted the latter, nor was it because he hated the former. It was primarily because he considered himself already a dead man and with nothing to lose he moved for whatever promised gain. He lifted himself from his seat and with an air of listlessness, strolled down the hill toward the stream running in front of the mainland. He never noticed the tiniest of hypocotyls peeping up from the centre of the stump. Neither did he see the lush, long grass which had grown around him as he slept.

  The stream separating the island from the mainland was narrower and faster flowing than it had appeared from a distance. It was also teeming with fish. Frank waded into the middle of it where it came up to his knees, splashing and washing about him. The fish, so near salmon they may as well have been, were literally jumping out of the water all about him. It was only a matter of time before a big one jumped right into his hands which he caught with a sense of glee.

  He carried it back to the island, all flipping and wriggling, to cook over a fire for breakfast, yet by the time his feet were out of the water, the fish was little more than a withered lancelet. His first inclination was to wonder what was wrong with the fish in this realm that they would perish so quickly out of water. He repeated the exercise and quickly caught another good-size salmon, this time keeping it under the water till he got to the water’s edge but again by the time he lifted it from the swell, it was embryonic. He was about to dismiss the whole incident and move on but the words of the tree entity returned to him. Was this translephony? With the remains of the fish still in his hands, rather than taking from it, he consciously gave himself to it and was amazed to see before his eyes the fish restored to full and vibrant life. He tossed it back into the torrent and picked up the residue of the first creature. It too, with encouragement, returned to full constitution in his hands. Considering it, he took from it again and it deteriorated right before him once more.

  Frank was intoxicated. He restored it to full health before throwing it full bodied onto a hastily made fire and ate it with relish. With his belly full, he turned his back on the island, crossed the stream once again and readied to venture deep into the rice fields of the eastern mainland. Before starting out though, he made one more wade into the stream, grabbed one more leaping fish and sucked from it its life source till there was nothing left of it but scales and bones. Giddy with pleasure, he discarded the remains on the ground and walked into the long, mature shoots.

  The day was still young when he started out. The rice fields stretched before him in an
endless run of green. The constant bleat of crickets rang like tinnitus in his ears. Distant hills broke the visual monotony but there were no impediments to keep him from making good progress. These eastern paddies seemed devoid of any advanced life forms; certainly he faced no opposition as he walked. He was pleased to be free of torment yet as the sun slowly crawled its way up the pale blue sky, it came to him anyway. Its name was Loneliness.

  As field after field passed beneath his feet, he felt the tiresomeness of continuing on his own to a place of no consequence and a time without meaning. He missed his friends Salamander Man and Pink Guy, Alpha Centurion and Drone, and Negi Generation 1. He recalled all their adventures, the laughter and the fighting that only brotherhood could foster. How he longed for their company again. And the loss of the tree entity only served to exacerbate the forlornness he was feeling. The sagely words he spoke, the deep peace he afforded. Yet he recalled the words which had been given to him: “You must leave here.” The words had been spoken with such potency. “Your purpose is not here.” This resonated deeply with Frank. Though he had no idea where he was going, these words put a spring in his step.

  “You’re not trying hard enough.” This confused Frank. He had no idea where to move on to and even if he did, he didn’t have the coordinates to get there. Frank found this deeply troubling yet he somehow knew that the entity had spoken the truth. He needed to try harder but he was at a complete loss as to how.

  The torment of frustration he felt was soon surpassed by that of loneliness which returned to him with a disturbing intensity. With each passing field, his desire for companionship increased. The higher the sun rose, the greater the desire he felt for fellowship with his old comrades. And the crickets kept singing their throbbing songs. By the time the heat of the day was at its most sapping, the sun seemed to pause directly above him and, growing delirious, he began to talk, firstly to himself, then to Pink Guy and Salamander Man as though they were walking right there by him.