Thursday, March 28, 2013

William Burroughs, from The Soft Machine (1961)

And the other did not want to touch me because of the white worm-thing inside but no one could refuse if I wanted and ate the fear-softness in other men. The cold was around us in our bones. And I could see the time before the thing when there was green around and the green taste in my mouth and the green plant-shit on my legs. Before the cold... And some did not eat flesh and died because they could not live with the thing inside... Once we caught one of the hairy men with our vine nets and tied him over a slow fire and left him there until he died and the thing sucked his screams moving in my face like smoke and no one could eat the flesh-fear of the hairy man and there was a smell in the cave bent us over... We moved to keep out of our excrement where white worms twisted up feeling for us and the white worm-sickness in all our bodies. We took our pots and spears and moved South and left the black flesh there in the ashes... Came to the great dry plain and only those lived who learned to let the thing surface and eat animal excrement in the brown water holes... Then thick grass and trees and animals. I pulled the skin over my head and I made another man put on the skin and horns and we fucked like the animals stuck together and we found the animals stuck together and killed both so I knew the thing inside me would always find animals to feed my mouth meat... Saw animals chase us with spears and woke eating my own hand and the blood in my mouth made me spit up a bitter green juice. But the next day I ate flesh again and every night we put on animal skins and smeared green animal excrement down our legs and fucked each other with whimpering snorting noises and stuck together shadows on cave walls, and ate surface men... Thick time before thing when the skin over my head and green taste and the horns and we fucked before the cold. The thing inside me would. We caught one of the hairy men animaled him over a slow fire eating my own hand, and the thing sucked his screams green bitter juice. Those lived who learned to let the softness in, eat animal excrement in the brown bones... I made another man put on the skin green plant shit on animal stuck together flesh. So I knew with the thing inside always find animals to feed with our vine nets. Blood in my mouth made me spit up moving in my face like the next day I ate flesh again... Moved to knee legs and fucked each other twisted up feeling and stuck together shadows on our bodies.

Vampire bats—reservoir of rabies virus—gave us the virus gimmick back in the White Time which we used with monotonous results in our frequent skirmishes with the Surface People who moved South ahead of the cold. The virus reservoir was in the brown fat of the bats on which they subsist during hibernation. We learned to make extracts of this fat. Regulated doses could produce either the walking cold inside—our habitual state—or the state of hibernation that preserves the meat indefinitely. Stacked up cord-wood of Surface People in our cool blue grottos where The Queen who now produced the fat from her vast body sat immobile covered with limestone spinning the juice out of her eyes. We are blind and we eat with our eyes which sometimes run together into one, by the usual procedure, giving rise to Cyclops stories and other stories which we edit for improbability scatter before issuing them over the fire to The Carriers privileged class of Story Bearers who are exempt from the meat grotto and go their insouciant South way spreading our edited copies.

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