blessedchild

Raw indulgence

Sat, 06 Mar 2004 17:49:45 GMT

There was a bit of a ruckus at Damien's school this week, when students reported a foul-smelling, viscous fluid dripping from the lockers. School officials grew concerned that the fluid appeared to be blood. Fortunately, they discovered that the stuff was merely Damien's leaky lunch.

They did ask the strapping lad about the contents of his formerly brown bag, of course, and he explained plainly that he'd brought goat meat, and sweetbreads.

"Well," Damien's teacher replied, "I believe the stew has ruined your pastries."

---

On Thursday, Damien found himself in the Principal's office, with which he had grown quite familiar. The Principal, whose title is spelled that way because he is a Prince and our pal, stared long at Damien before speaking.

"Your teacher tells me that you invited Salmon Rushdie to talk about your book report."

Damien looked the Prince simply in the eye. "Unless she mistakenly believes I invited a fish, I assume you mean Salman, whom you may call Mr. Rushdie."

The Prince and Teacher looked at one another, and finally Damien's pal turned back to him.

"Do you know why it is inappropriate to invite Salman Rushdie to talk about your book report, Mr. Latrommi?"

The boy nodded once. "Salman is not yet entirely free to travel or make public appearances in safety."

The boy and his Prince stared at one another for a long moment of silence.

"I have canceled the book report oral presentations for tomorrow," said the Prince. "Do you think any additional punishment is in order?"

"I think missing Mr. Rushdie's appearance is quite punishment enough," Damien answered.

"But as Mr. Rushdie was not going to appear in the first place," the Prince continued sagely, "I feel that more punishment is in order. Tell me, Damien, what you feel might be appropriate."

Damien considered for a moment, and answered, "A detention, perhaps."

"Very well," his pal replied.

And so they stayed after school until 4pm, at which point all three friends went home, and Damien did indeed feel reasonably satisfied that both his pal and teacher had been adequately punished.

Nether Again

Sun, 18 Jan 2004 02:35:55 GMT

She may be gone in spirit, but
her body lingers...
her whole
essence sticks with mucus,
the walls
of her mind, mind you, don't
mind at all what you may
do to her.
Her unzipped purse bulges
pregnant with sugary
suckers, hard candy and Blow-Pops.
She is gone, slipped
away to bask in her tropics
today, warm but wet and ready
to host a vessel of distractions.

Back in class and barely upright,
her world upside-down,
she runs amuck between the
moments, leaving notes
of discord upon her page.
She has forgotten how to write; her
pen is
hot and hard
under the pressure of a thousand strokes of fiction.
Finally, her fingers fall frolicking
to the friendly abyss a woman keeps sacred
as the catacombs beneath her full cathedral,
with luck, unzipped, waiting
to receive her
pen. Is
there no pleasure
to be found here? She probes
the shallow depths with slow
fingers, lost for the moment in her hunt
for a solution
to the task at hand.

Above the waste
she looks to the board again,
bored, again, until
at last beneath her fingers she comes
across her most elusive treasure, her cherry
gum, plucked by digits from her purse
and slipped into her yearning,
oral groove,
as she slides further down her padded seat
to masticate, unseen.

Chapter 2: Calligraphy

Sun, 24 Aug 2003 09:14:26 GMT

Ms. Latrom soon forgot her confusing shock of the afternoon, and went about merrily preparing dinner. It could not be said that she cooked, though, for an odd but understandable reason. Like many children his age, Damien was fussy about food, and his particular distaste was for things that had been cooked. But aside from having a few foods he simply would not eat, such as vegetables, or fruits, this was Damien's only culinary hang-up.

And as it was Tuesday, Ms. Latrom had spent the day making sushi. A minute or two before 6pm, when Damien liked to eat, his mother finished setting the table they shared each evening, and adjusted the beautiful arrangement of sushi pieces and non-plant garnishes she'd prepared. When she was satisfied, she sat at her place at the tiny but pleasant table, admiring its simple but pretty white linen slip, and smiled as she awaited her son.

At 6:15, Ms. Latrom furrowed her brow. It was curious that Damien should not have sat with her precisely at six, as was his custom. She tested the sushi tentatively with a finger, and found it had gone cold. As her brow was already furrowed, she furrowed her toes.

Over Damien's closed bedroom door was the inscription he had artfully fingerpainted when he was just six. The once-scarlet letters had since faded to a sticky brown, but she nevertheless marveled at his craftsmanship. It read:

PROLES SOPHIA IN MAGNUS, MATER PARVUS SOPHIA EST

Of those words, the only one with which Ms. Latrom was familiar was "IN," so she didn't quite understand the whole thing, but marveled anyway at her son's superior knowlege.

She knocked politely at his door. "Damien, honey, your dinner's getting cold..." When there was no reply, she gingerly turned the knob and let the door swing open. She smiled to find her son at his desk, dutifully laboring over a large sheet of parchment. Ms. Latrom carefully took a breath and held it as she stepped over the threshold into Damien's space, and let it out with a happy sound of relief as she reached his desk.

"Oh! What's this?" she asked.

Beside the parchment, Ms. Latrom could see the opened envelope Damien had retrieved from the mail that afternoon.

"Rejection letter," Damien answered flatly, still quite absorbed in his writing.

Ms. Latrom stared wide-eyed at the envelope. "Honey," she said carefully after a moment, "this is from MENSA."

Her son said nothing, as he dipped his quill into the well atop his desk, blotted it, and continued writing. Ms. Latrom glanced for a moment at the box in the corner that still contained the computer he'd asked her to buy some months ago.

"Damien, your father was probably thirty years old before he got into MENSA. You're just in fifth grade, honey, and you shouldn't expect them to take you seriously yet. I certainly know you're a genius, but... those MENSA people probably know calculus and all sorts of things you might not finish for years, yet. You shouldn't feel badly at not getting in right away."

"I did get in," said Damien. His mother was stumped, and something furrowed.

"But," she began, and he interrupted, "I'm sending them a rejection letter."

Chapter 1: The Seed

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 04:14:41 GMT

Ms. Latrom expected her son, Damien, home from school at 3:15 each day, as he was a meticulous and responsible child who maintained a rigid schedule. As it was now ten after three, Ms. Latrom was putting on a pair of mits with which to safely pull a tray of fresh chocolate-chip cookies from the oven. They were too hot to touch just now, but would be perfect when young Damien arived. Ms. Latrom poured a glass of milk.

Just as she was returning the carafe to the icebox, the front door opened and her son marched past, rucksack on his back and with a book beneath his arm. So intent was Damien each day to begin his homework lessons that he strode directly to his bedroom after school, often scarcely seeming even to notice his adoring mother. Still, Ms. Latrom always seemed a bit surprised at his singleminded focus, and let forth a tiny chuckle as he passed.

"Damien!" she laughed. He stopped suddenly, ten feet through the living room, and said nothing.

"I made cookies for you," she said sweetly.

"Thank you," said the boy.

"Honey, turn around and let me look at you." She smiled as he turned 180 degrees, and after a moment she stepped across the room to kneel and hug her son. "How was school today? Here, let me put these on a plate for you, so you can take them with you to your room. What did you get all over your shirt?" she asked as she turned back to the kitchen.

"Semen," he said flatly.

A spatula dropped from Ms. Latrom's hand with a dull clink onto the baking sheet and her body went rigid. Her eyes were huge, and she could neither move, nor speak, nor breathe. Damien was ten years old. He was not much more than five feet tall, and maybe 90 pounds. He was in Mrs. Harmon's fifth-grade class at Benjamin Spock Elementary. And he was standing silently, ten feet through the living room, staring unblinking at his mother's back.

With both arms braced against the countertop before her, that she might not fall, Ms. Latrom whispered, "Whose semen." She could not move.

"Has the mailman come today?" asked Damien, unmoving. The two stood in silence for some seconds, and Damien walked back out through the door. His mother, who had not noticed that she'd burned herself on the hot cookie tray, heard him check the mailbox, and step back through the house and to his room, where he quietly shut the door.