I was seeing double with fatigue. But Narcisa was just getting started.
She hopped along, from subject to subject, like a cocaine-crazed, hyperactive little fairy, flittering between realms of thought I could barely fathom.
I forced my eyes open. What else could I do? I needed to know all about her paranormal genius mindscape; to understand why Narcisa was the way she was.
As if reading my thoughts, she went on, telling all.
“I no come from de city, Cigano. I know ’bout only de country thing, de plant an’ de water an’ de weather patterns, an’ I know de little animal habitat, an’ all they habit. I know where to get de food an’ de water an’ de real psychedelic mushroom, an’ how to make de ayahuasca tea, an’ how to talk to de plant e’spirit peoples too. I know all ’bout these kinda thing. But de human e’society, forget it! Is like one big alien program for de Narcisa. Afffff! ‘My e’shoelace, my e’shoes!’ Argghhh, I don’ like it de e’shoe an’ de clothes, all these e’stupid technological e’sheets, is only for de caution an’ de organization! Fock! No good for me! What de e’stupid human society wan’ for me to do, hein? I don’ wan’ all de e’stupid peoples asking to me all de day, ‘Hey, hey you, Narcisa, what you mean? What do you do? What thing you e’study? Where you work?’ Arrggghhh! Shut de fock up! Porra!”
I stared at her in mute fascination as she powered on.
“Listen, Cigano. When I first come to de city, I go live with de most worse tribe of de anarcista. Destruction punks, got it? An’ they e’say it all de day, ‘Lixo, lixo! Trash trash! Destroy!’ In de city, nothing but noise! Arggghh! De whole focking zoological garden can e’scream in their animal language to me now, cuz I don’ care! But I am here living in these e’stupid earth, so now I gotta just accept it. What else I can do, hein?”
She stared at me, waiting for an answer.
Bewildered, I shrugged.
Just then, an airplane passed overhead. She ran over and slammed the window shut, holding her fingers to her ears with a pained look.
“Tecnologia! Arggghhhhh! I got enough of these focking noises an’ I don’ wan’ it no more! If Santos Dumont come up out from de grave today, I gonna take a big e’sheet on his head for all de e’stupid airplane traffic that make me crazy, got it? What de fock I doing here, Cigano, hein? Why I gotta e’stay on these e’stupid planeta? What it can be my mission with de earth peoples? Is no my tribe! No way I ever gonna believe I got de e’same DNA like these focking race of machine builder an’ telemarketer! No no no!”
Her voice changed again, into a haunting little robotic drone.
“‘Din din! Hello? Good afternoon! May name is Maria, Joanna, Talita, Sofia, Julia, Alessandra, whatever. Din din! We got it de e’special promotion for you, can you buy it? Din din! You got de credit card? I wanna sell to you so I can get more money, so I can buy it on installment plano too. Din din! My name Maria, Talita, Julia, Whatever, bla bla bla . . . ’ Fock! E’stupid! Porra! Que merda! Affff . . .”
I watched as she loaded another huge rock into the pipe, fired it up and took a deep, long hit. When she exhaled, there was no smoke.
What th’ . . . ? Where’d all that smoke go to? Narcisa! Strange alien physics!
“I don’ wanna participate in any of these e’stupid e’sheet, got it?” She sat up, yelping, her eyes blazing, interrupting my drowsy musings. “Get me de fock out from here, mano! Out!! Arrrggghhh!!”
I cocked my head like a curious dog as she ranted on.
“All de human systems only exist for disguise it de true nature of de existence! Is only by de anarchy system where peoples ever gonna know themself! De human being is de beast, de killer, de savage, de who-ore! I don’t even wanna take a e’sheet on you consumer world an’ all de human waste production machine! An’ I don’ wanna make no waste or influence nobody! No focking way! I don’ wanna make do nothing on these e’stupid earth! Nada! Porra! Frustration! Arrghh!”
Struggling to follow Narcisa’s mad discourse, I felt like I was interviewing an elusive extraterrestrial visitor who was on a tight schedule. Maybe I was. Transfixed, I got out my little notebook and began scribbling away like a nuthouse scribe.
“Arrrggghhh! Din din din din! Hahahaha! Everywhere I go on these e’stupid planeta, de focking earth peoples all de time come an’ ask to me e’say all what I know! Arrgh! Fock, Cigano! Why me? I don’ wan’ it! Don’ wan’ know ’bout nothing! What I gonna do with so much informations, hein? If I live five thousand more year here, I can’ e’say all de thing I already know ’bout! Affff! Why?”
I shrugged and kept writing down everything she was saying.
“Is good!” She smiled, gesturing at my note-taking. “Cuz I always gonna be these way, Cigano, you know, so I wan’ only for you keep going an’ write it down all these e’sheet. I give it all to you, all of who I am, for you to do whatever you wanna do with all these informations. Hah! Maybe you can figure these e’sheet out. I only e’say it to you these one thing: Narcisa can be de beginning an’ de end of all de thing, de Alpha an’ de Omega. But they never gonna put me in de middle of de road here, got it? Nunca! Ne-ver!”
Her face seemed bathed in a strange, majestic, angelic glow. “Porra! I can think of a million thing to do, mermão. Whatever thing any human being can do, I can do it better. So that’s it. E agora? What now, hein? What I e’suppose to do? My mind? Hah! Completely without ambition! Afffff! Only I wan’ exist anymore for teach it all to you now, Cigano, got it?”
I got it. I nodded and kept writing, scribbling, scrambling to get it all down.
“ . . . But I don’ understand it all de peoples who wanna be de animal doctor, de veterenario, Cigano. Why? They wan’ be e’specificly doctor to de dog? Or only for horse. For de poodle, or maybe de pony, hein? Or maybe de pato, de duck! Qua qua qua quaaaa! Pato-logia? Hah!! What about de insect? How come they no got de doctors, Cigano, hein? They got it de cats doctor, de donkey doctor, even de rat doctor, but no got it de insect doctor! Why? Injusto! Porra! Discrimination! Why, hein? Meow meow! Woof woof! Qua qua quaaa quaaaaa! An’ what about it all these e’specialist doctor? De foots doctor, hein? Do insect got de foots? Wear de little e’shoe? What is it de size, hein? Where do this subject e’start? What it is de relevance, hein? An’ then they e’say is me gotta be lock up in de crazy house? Where they get such e’stupid idea, hein?”
I looked up from my writing, holding back laughter.
“I really wan’ try an’ believe it there some kinda force fields or de metaphysical e’sheets like that, or some very big Somebody who responsible for all these focking question. Serio! Is better for me if there gonna be some kinda gods or something, got it? Cuz, fock, mano, what if I gotta be in charge of so much e’sheet only by my self, hein? Arrrggghhhh! Fock! Nothing can fill it, de void of de existence, got it?”
I was fading fast, but I got it. Sort of. The bottomless pit ain’t got no bottom.
“An’ what about these e’stupid e’Stephen Hawking guy, hein?”
“Huh?” I looked up again. The room shifted in and out of focus. My brain was shutting down, melting. Everything was going fuzzy and weird.
“Oí Cigano!” She nudged me on the arm, snapping me back to attention. “What is it de ambition of all these cripple deficient peoples, hein?”
I shook my head and shrugged.
“Conspiracy! They wanting to teef it what can’ never be teef or be for sale or purchase or find it or give or even inherited, but only can be acquire, Cigano, only by de intellectual naturality of de biological sanity, de e’shielded e’spirit body, use it all they knowledge an’ understanding, for go an’ destroy ever’thing! Destroy destroy! Why? Arggghhh! E’stupid human race! Clone peoples! E’stupid focking military machine! Heroic champions of destruction! Chaos! Ridiculous competition! Porra! Why, Cigano, hein? Para que?!?”
I shrugged again and again as Narcisa ranted on, her big, mad eyes bulging out of her head like a pair of rocket ships about to shoot off into space.
“Better they got de focking pope in de Holy Vaticano than all these e’stupid politico e’sheets in charge of de earth now! War! Hah! Fock! Was better here when you got it only de priest and sacerdotes to rule you e’stupid planeta! Better I go an’ look inside my own focking poosy an’ ask inside my asshole, ‘Hey, where is de God? Anybody home?’”
That did it.
I began to chuckle out loud. I laughed and laughed, until I was crying; the irrational, cackling, delirious laughter of the insane.
I looked at Narcisa through a haze of humid, sweaty tears. Her face was fading in and out of focus.
Like a ghost.
An excerpt from Narcisa by Jonathan Shaw, from Sensitive Skin 13.
Sensitive Skin 13 available here in PDF format here for just $4.95, or get the full-color print version via Amazon and select bookstores.
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