back / next / Sarcon’s Son 3
As the next turn begins within the Age of the Book, Lord Jesus is a newcomer to the sky, having recently died and ascended into Heaven for the purpose of ruling the World. This is, of course, at the pleasure of His Virgin Mother who micromanages the successions between sons. She monitors Her boys and measures out to the hour which one might be king. The brothers alternate power in the tradition of divine twins, cycling through Their ritual deaths — Lord Jesus hammered to the tree to signal His reign and Lord Judas hung on it the next — so that one wields as scepter His iron nail and the other His noose.
Lord Judas is the less accommodating of the two, more restive during His downtime, more resentful when the Virgin Mother sequesters Him inside Her rocky womb to rule its subterranean cities. As it is brother Jesu’s turn to be above, so it is Jude’s turn to go below.
One of Lord Judas’ many spies brings news of two imps who plan to jump ship from the dusty outside covering of the World.
“Bored are they?” says Lord Judas. “Most imps haven’t the sense it takes to be bored.”
“Odd little fragments of Life, these imps,” says Love, having dropped in for a visit. Love and Lord Judas go way back. “Mongrel crossbreeds. Windbags. The output of carnality, so of some minor interest to Us. But You know imps are sterile hybrids. We tend to ignore them. Outside Our sphere.”
“In this damnable cycle it all is outside My sphere,” Lord Judas observes with some mild bitterness.
“Such a loser!” Love jests. “Mama’s bad boy, sent to the corner to pull on His pud.”
“There are no corners at the earth’s inward parts.” Lord Judas waggles His male parts. “At least I have a pud. Not sure what You sport under the tunic — going all the ways You go.”
Love roars with great good humor: “We sport whatever We want, where-ever We want it.”
Lord Judas, of course, knows this. It’s banter between old, if ambivalent, friends. Lord Judas feels flattered whenever Love appears within the sepulchral realm because They aren’t the appearing type. Love is diffuse, Primordial, and not localized as are divinities of subsequent Eons. They are more a force than an entity, yet here They are — is, rather — consolidated in one radiant body for a bit of a chat, complete with bow, quiver, and poison-tipped arrows as told in mortal legends.
“Now there’s a concept,” muses Lord Judas. “Wanting something. And then actually getting it.”
“-c-o-n- -c-e-p-t-” Love tastes the word, rolling its vibrations across Their tongue, rinsing the sounds with divine spit until they sodden and shred into filaments. Phonemes dissolve, wash between Their chiseled teeth.
“Mother would scoff,” says Lord Judas, “would find it indulgent — the wanting part. She gets without the bother of wanting since everything is Hers already. While mortals want without any possibility of getting. Poor buggers.”
“Concept?” Love backtracks the conversation, seeking clarification. Their essence is pre-verbal instinct. Abstract nouns can be a challenge.
“Ah, Your sort of word,” says Lord Judas. “Metaphorically speaking. Concept. Conception. Think conception. Think baby making. You are all about baby making. But idea babies. Thoughts, theories, notions — conceived by the brain instead of the loins.”
“Brain fucking. What fun. And out pop clever concept bastards. Why, there must be absolute mobs of brainy brats running around.” Love looks right and left, as if a line of dancing concepts will materialize any moment.
“Legions of them,” affirms Lord Judas, happy with His whimsical analogy. “Invisible populations of them. Yet imagine. Concepts take up no space. Mental constructs have no mass. A whole faction can fit neatly inside Your pocket.”
Then, Love being the way Love is — intractable, and as changeable as weather, the mood shifts. In a voice gone stone cold They say, “What business have these concept rogues in Our pocket?” The voice warns: We grow bored with You.
A spasm twists Lord Judas’ heart. Love grows bored. A frisson of panic fills Him with pain, but also arousal. Why is Love the only Immortal who can unsettle Jude so? He loathes Himself as, loud and jolly, He shouts a word that always gets a laugh from this visitor: “Coitus!”
He is pandering. Unimaginative and tasteless. It works.
Love sizzles within a sudden, fiery aura of gold and red. “What rascals!” They exclaim. “A pocketful of horny ideas!” Their laugh has the hardness to crack rock.
Bull-like, Love’s nostrils flare, twin furnaces of bronze. Their face shape-shifts through a multitude of masks, from glass to jade to fired pottery, settling on beaten metal, first narrow, then wide, with abalone eyes and then without.
“Yes, yes. Concepts. Restless, fecund things,” says Lord Judas, eager to followup on His success. “High energy. Straight edge. They skitter and zip. Knock each other sideways. Every collision an intercourse. Jarring things loose. Mashing things together. A rough crowd.”
Love pats Their monumental chest, and a pocket opens. Out of it Love takes a handful of jittery, glittery photons that launch from Their fingertips to hurtle and ricochet inside Jude’s high ceilinged hall. None of them collide. The dazzling particles shed streaks of tracer fire. A web burns the black air. Strands cross and recross, old ones fading, new ones erupting faster than the eye can track.
“My Uncles are these concept-things,” Love murmurs. “Primal Winds are rude and unruly. Winds have no memory whatsoever. Winds just blow.” Dreamily, Love recites: “Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; / Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!”
“I don’t know that poem,” Jude says. “Not in My Book.”
“Hasn’t been written down yet. Not everything is in those tedious Holy Tomes of Yours.” Love puts out one resplendent hand and the photons rush into Their palm. Sparks wink out as if falling over the brink of a black hole.
Love is a black hole, Lord Judas thinks. He shivers.
The light structure crumbles and evaporates. There’s a moment of silence Lord Judas cannot bear. He rushes to fill it. “Hominins make up concepts willy-nilly, always needing to explain, explain, explain, whether the explanation is right or not. Dunderheads. They’d go mad without their comfort concepts. And greedy! Building fantasy castles inside those itty-bitty heads, then anointing themselves royalty.”
Love shakes Their own magnificent head. “Yet mortals are but a pulse of Life. Poof. A flicker. Then gone. Why bother?”
“Oh, Love, You just don’t get it,” sighs Lord Judas. “You are all about the passion and nothing about the consequences.”
“Oh, Jude, You witless mooncalf,” mocks Love. “We invent consequences. We don’t suffer them.”
“Well, I suffer. Here and now, impounded as I am beneath the earth. I should like to invent some consequences for my insufferable brother, Lording around as He is up in the bright air. I should, dare I say, love to put some suffering on blessed Jesu. A couple of runaway imps might do it. With Your help, My friend.”
“A caper!” Love cries and claps Their Immortal hands. “Knavery! Oh, tell Us, tell Us. We are all Yours.”
And that is how Cornumsdotter and Sarconsson, in the midst of leave-taking preparations, receive an astonishing summons from the great and terrible Lord Judas of the great and terrible underworld.
Sarconsson is giddy with anticipation.
Cornumsdotter goes for the fun of it.