I
Journal Number 5
I've started numbering my journal/diary/review entries. Looking back on the previous ones, I think I must have gotten them mixed up or completely lost track of time, since my second entry mentions having spent three days in prison, while the previous entry starts with "Day nine". Ergo, my introduction of a numbering system to keep track of it all. But enough meta-journalling.
Jinx didn't show up for lunch today, which is odd. I found myself faced with the choice of horrors. I could sit next to the angry midget and the geektacular vaguely-scottish adolescent, a girl with angle-like wings held against her body by an uncomfortable looking golden chain, and a creepy caped fellow with red eyes and a silver collar who was eerily silent. It was either that, or sit next to Kitten. I looked at the nerd, the enraged oompa-loompa, the aerially gifted girl, and the mute with glowing eyes. Then I looked at Kitten, the normal-human child. I thought about her latest non-stop litany, which was a complaint about the prison's lack of sufficient grooming products, particularly in the area of intimiate hygiene, and went into far more detail than necessary.
Lunch was just horrible. On one end of the table, a detailed discussion as to whether elves were underpowered when compared with gnomes had reached such intensity that the lawn-ornament known as Gizmo was physically climbing up the fat nerdy guy to give him a piece of his mind, while the latter was trying to drive him back in a mixture of righteous indignation and rising panic by belting him on the head with a spoon. The angel-type was chewing through a tuna sandwich and a slice of light fluffy cake with a kind of prolonged savoring usually reserved for decades-old wines. She conversed periodically with the red-eyed kid, asking him yes-or-no questions to get a subtle nod or a soft shake of the head in return, but she stared at me a lot when she thought I wasn't looking. (Another perk of my hybrid physiology is I have incredible peripheral vision).
I hope Jinx shows up again soon. I don't think I can take much more of this. That Gizmo character reminds me so much of a shrew, with his belligerent, almost paranoid demeanor, darting movements, and those beady white eyes, I don't think my self-control would last for more than four days, tops.
The greasy nerd, porky as he is, wasn't a tough test of self-restraint because of the smell. I had to bite my tongue half the time to keep from passing out; it's like dead grizzly bear and gouda.
Even if I wanted to talk to somebody, I couldn't manage more than a few words under the weight of all that red-eyed kid's listening. It never struck me before how much of a presence silence can have. You can feel the sound collapsing into whatever passes for his ears like a sinking Spanish galleon, and the dull, cold pressure of unspoken words bubbling in every movement and gesture, crying to be set free.
Then as if wasn't uncomfortable enough, trying to eat with two beams of red light pointed at you, there was the angle-girl. She spent every chance she got looking at me with a hungry expression I can only describe as hawk-like.
I was pretty shook up after lunch, and my meatloaf might have been a little past its expiration due to the fact that it kept trying to crawl off my plate and mate with the au gratin potatoes. Maybe that explains the dream I had.
II
I wasn't in the mood for a journal entry , so I just curled up and dozed off for want of something better to do.
I dreamed I was in my old house, or maybe it was just an old house, and I was walking down a hall I'd never been in before. There were pictures of cartoon characters on the wall, and whenever I looked into a room there was nothing in it but old furniture and skeletons. At one point I saw a mirror, with a beard and hair on it, and for some reason that frightened me more than any of the skeletons had, and I smashed the mirror and ran down the hallway.
I ran past the rooms again, and all the doors were open. The skeletons asked me if I wanted to come in for tea, but I couldn't stop because I knew there was something behind me, something very old and slow. When I reached the end of the hallway, I ran down the flight of stairs and opened the first door I came to, but I was in the hallway again, and there was the horrible little mirror, my own wide-eyed face staring back at me obscured by a beard and hair.
I smashed the mirror again, and this time water started spilling out. I tried to get in the boat, but I couldn't reach it, and I just sank into the water. I drifted through it, bubbles rising up around me, and then everything changed. The water melted into mist, and there was a very bright flash of blue. I saw him there, Mad Antimarion, standing right in front of me, hair splayed, eyes not quite pointing in the same direction, wearing nothing but a catheter and a grave expression.
He reached his hand out and offered me a book, free, gratis. I looked down at it. The words on it were all hazy, but I didn't like the look of it.
"Take it", he said, speaking in words for the first time. "It's a book of spells, you can use it real easy. He will help you."
"No," I said. "It's a bad book."
"I'll leave it for you under the shell," he said. He pressed the book into my hand, and I felt horribly revolted and violated. I couldn't have been more disgusted and upset if he had stuck his hand into my crotch. I leaped back, trying to throw it away, and I screamed, and the sound of my own scream woke me up.
I still haven't worked up the courage to look under the shell yet.
III
Darkness.
A single match flared, a mote of blue in a thin droplet of orange glow, tickling the night. Its only companion was a dead red glow, as small and distant as solar wind, the visual equivalent of an empty ringing in the ears or a radiator's hum.
The match lowered. Its feeble light fell upon a smooth waxy surface and a wick..
The flame sputtered, lent, and caught. A flicker of blue and orange sparked violently, then the flame grew and turned to a steady, spectral green.
By the fire of the same match, another candle was lit, and another, each the same eerie emerald glow, seven in all. Their poisonous, juicy light reached up to encircle the faces of the Teen Titans, caressing them like the fondling hands of an aging pervert and distorting them like a childhood accident with a meat grinder.
Cyborg's steel and blue frame became alive with glistening radioactive light, too bright, too keen, as if he was some video-game nemesis brought to life by a demonically possessed computer or a freak electrical storm. The glow was a mix of smoky aquamarine matte and unrealistic plutonium green. The glowing red eye just looked like a blood clot on the surface of a sepulchral searchlight.
Terra's long blond hair was a toxic-lime net that filtered the light, glowing like highlighter on a sunlit day or subterranean fungi on a deformed corpse, leaving her face in a veil of shadow that encouraged the imagination. Her more recent veil of plumpness was stripped away by the mind's eye, leaving instead the implication of jutting, naked, gleeful bone and a deaths-head grimace. I bit of pasta sauce smeared her cheek and a strip of chicken, and any person with the slightest degree of imagination would have said that the dark textured dribble reminded them of drying blood and human entrails far more than Italian food. Whenever the light shifted slightly enough to reveal that indeed meat cushioned the skeletal frame, the unflattering glow implied it was a scar-on-scar stolen collection of molten flesh, ripped from the unwilling by marrow-blunted teeth. The two eyes set in the face of shadow continually alternated between grotesque vacancy and malicious keenness.
Starfire had never looked less human. The green light enhanced her, embraced her, enlarged every feature and tint that did not belong on earth until she made the sleek chitinous creature in "Alien" appear as powerful and threatening as a dead kitten.
Her eyes were metaphysical constellations, each facet blazing with the intensity of a nova and the focus of a gun-sight laser in what seemed more than just reflection in this preternatural light. Each facet of the compound eyes was a trapped soul, all of them crying out screams of light, begging the observer either to release or to join them. Every line of her body went wrong, perfectly comfortable in a pose that should have been mind-killing agony to a human body. Everything in her that was sharp or jutting loomed into foreground, floating ahead like baleful phantasms. Her sharp, serrated chitin and three rows of teeth gleamed like polished jade. Her prehensile tongue reached and writhed like a groping, animate, severed phallus. The curve claws on the end of her arms reached and glinted with matte glow. The hair seemed to sway and wriggle lazily, like sedated bloodworms. Clothing, neon blue in the green light, stretched and strained like the Greek legend Echidna's labia, waiting to burst forth with a new wave of monsters to plague the blue planet. The bare midriff gleamed in an unseemly manner, the vague indentation that appeared in place of a navel seemed as grotesque and abominable as a naked eye-socket.
Even the innocent childishness of Beast Boy was warped by this rotten-copper phosphorescence. Opening up to soak in the caustic glow, his eyes seemed to bright and shiny, as glossy and mad as those of a flightless bird. His whole skin was alive with a panoply of brightness. In that radioactive iridescence, his small wiry form looked more like the angry shape of a diseased reeses monkey or the beginning stages of some non-linear lycanthropic affliction than a morphologically gifted person of color.
Robin shivered in agitation. His beady little Pikachu eyes gleamed unpleasantly. They did not look at all like gaps of emptiness or holes into some nether other-world. Rather they looked like great dark marks of oily slickness, gleaming like black bug blood. His teeth flashed. His skin was an acidic yellow-green, a color when expected to see dripping from a snake being milked or bubbling in a bio-chemical warfare lab. The overall impression was that some thing crawled out of hell had captured a raccoon, rabbit, or similar cuddly animal, skinned it alive, worn its tanned hide, and by some unhallowed osmosis the adorable frame had transformed as the hellish essence leaked out.
Jinx stretched luxuriantly. The light did not distort, malform, or warp her features. The green light loved her. It embraced her form, highlighted her minimal curves, skipped over her flaws, and made her into a demigoddess of luscious passion. It hugged like a an effluent female friend. It condensed and rolled across her, dripping off her form like friendly blood.
Jinx reached up towards the sky, inhaled deeply the thick, citrus, coppery, incense air, took the items conveyed by the dumbwaiter and put them at the center of the table.
"Let the magic begin," she announced.
IV
Jinx carefully lifted up Robin. When he growled and sparked at her, she smiled at him broadly and said "Look, this curse-breaking stuff requires your cooperation. If you bite me or fidget too much, you'd better get used to hamster food." Thereafter he became nearly rigid with passivity*.
"Cyborg," Jinx said, with the unquestionable authority of a third grade teacher with a name like "Ms. Anthracite" and a hairbun tight enough bend steel around, "tie pi-Robin up with this chord. Beast Boy, fetch me the mortar and pestle, mixed herbs, witchazel, seven sprigs of belladonna, and the aspirin bottle. Starfire, Terra, I need you to help me stir."
Terra hesistated. "Why do you need both of us just to help you stir?"
"Because," Jinx said in a voice suggesting a heroic effort of patience on the part of the speaker, "we don't have a mother here, so I'll have to make do with another maiden and a murderer."
Terra stared at her, uncomprehendingly. "Starfire didn't mur-"
"Witches rockhead, witches," Jinx said admonishingly.
Terra stared vacantly.
"Oh never mind. It's not vital anyway," she said, waving a hand dismissively.
Starfire and Terra reluctantly gripped the long willow-branch stirring spoon.
Beast Boy came back uncertainly, holding some plant-based medicines, a concrete block, and a handgun.
"I said pestle, not pistol. Stop playing around Beast Boy."
Jinx hauled out a huge, black, iron pot of clear cold water. The green light glimmered off of it, making the still waters seem like a phosphorescent sea. She dumped in the witchhazel and began to stir.
"Double double, love-life trouble, suppress the stress to brew and bubble," Jinx chanted in a dry, low, voice.
Terra and Starfire worked with her, churning the unwieldy stick to mix the witchazel with the water.
"There's some rowan wood under the cauldron that needs lighting. Starfire, could you oblige us? The book says that magic rituals work better with as much green fire as possible, especially if it comes from an unusual source."
Starfire unleashed a few small starbolts and the fire flared up with green light. It cooled to an amber color, unnatural but soothing and somehow warmer than the green candle flames.
Jinx rolled back her head and uttered the next verse.
"Double double, love-life trouble, teenage passions broil, redouble,
Break the hymen, bite the balls
Kingdom comes, kingdom falls,
Rome and Chicago burned, in the all-killing fire
Art and life are driven, on teenage desire
Baptise with blood among the rubble
Chests mature, chins sprout stubble"
She paused her improbable litany and lapsed again into silent stirring. Terra had chuckled at some of the words, but her sense of humor had been quietly strangled by the glowing eyed glare Jinx administered to her. When Beast Boy returned with the mortar and pestle, Jinx motioned for the girls to keep stirring, and poured the herbs and aspirin into the bowl. She mashed the pills and plant-parts with violent intensity, as if each one of the dark green leaves and white tablets had been mocking and assaulting her since grade school and only now did she have the opportunity to give the little bastards what they deserved. In time with the rhythmic thumping and sickening grind of her tools, she chanted again.
"Double double, love-life trouble, stars that can't be seen from hubble
This boy's bewitched by magics fell
Some conjurings straight outta hell
Fiction-made flesh, poor pikachu
Make him well, herbs of virtue
By the power of spell and rune
Setting sun and rising moon"
She did not pause in her pounding, but her face relaxed a little. "Beast Boy, sponge my forehead."
Beast Boy hesitated. "Why?"
"Surgeon's have somebody to sponge their forehead, and their just cutting apart and stitching up a person's body, and this is the first time I've done this, and I'm under a lot of stress because I know from the warnings in the book that if I screw this part up, we might be cleaning Robin-chu off the walls with a hose. Now quit asking silly questions and sponge my forehead!"
Beast Boy obediently dabbed away the rivulets of perspiration.
"By the willow's healing power
By the coming of the hour"
Jinx inhaled deeply through her nose, then let out a breath through her mouth. "Sponge my forhead."
Beast Boy obediently dabbed.
"By the herb of lycanthrope's bane
Make this monster whole again"
Jinx poured the mixture of herb, flower, and pill into the pot. The resulting fluid turned a chalky blue and began to give off sparks. She grabbed the handle like an ex-husband's neck and helped Terra and Starfire stir until the mixture turned the dull red of a dying sun.
She made three, strong stirs, then turned around and gently rapped her fingers on the table to draw everyone's attention.
"Alright, before I finish this, I need to know, who here is a virgin?"
This unexpected interrogation was met with a chorus of stammering uneasy responses.
"Well, it may surprise you," Beast Boy began, "but-"
"Oh come on," said Cyborg, with barely a quiver in his voice, "You know that I-"
"Umm…Well, dead can't create life, so it's not procreation and…or, does losing it in a bicycle accident count?" Terra stammered, trying to nervously poke her fingers together and missing.
"Um…err, what is this 'virgin' of which you speek? Kadflax, kaphooey phooey. I do not understand your 'earth-virgin' word concept," Starfire stammered, trickling yellow sweat and twittering her wing buds nervously.
Jinx raised up a hand to silence them all. "Just forget it, I don't want to hear your evasions." She sighed, and tried to repress a giggle.
"Beast Boy, come over hear," she instructed firmly.
Beast Boy hesitated only a moment, then toddled over to her anxiously.
"Stick your arm out over the cauldron," she said, firmly but not harshly.
Beast Boy obeyed. Jinx carefully reached over and looked closely at the arm, as if inspecting it for ticks. She inhaled deeply, then bit clean through it.
Beast Boy blinked stupidly for a second, then let out a glass-cracking scream as a geyser of blood sprayed from his arm. Jinx held it firmly to ensure the vast majority of the arterial fluid landed in the bubbling brew. She let it go on for what must have seemed hours. Beast Boy was beginning to slacken and turn yellow when she let go, and he stumbled a little before closing the wound by shrinking into a sea urchin. Jinx set back to stirring and announced in a high, clear voice,
"To heal the mix of spirit and mud
Add a quart of virgin's BLOOD!"
*Being passive without in any way relaxing is all part of the Zen of Robin.
V
The fire rose up. A wind stirred the air, and the candle flames sputtered. The cauldron gave off a huge cloud of acrid steam. At the bottom sloshed a meager measure of fluid the color of radioactive urine, whether by the distorting touch of the green light or some phosphorescent property of the brew.
"Cyborg," Jinx intoned coldly. Cyborg jolted upright. He had nothing to occupy him for the duration of the ritual after tying up Robin, and had quietly dozed off listening to an internal Simon and Garfunkle mix.
"Hw-yes?" he asked, trying to look attentive and choking back a yawn brought on by the thick scented air.
"Fetch the antidote and be ready. Administer it…the rabies way."
Cyborg winced and nodded solemnly, then brought a syringe of dark green fluid with a needle the size and shape of a railroad spike.
"Alright," Jinx said, ladeling three heaping spoonfuls of the noxious syrup into a glass vial, "You drink this all up. I hope you're good at suppressing your gag reflex." She put the spoon down on the table, where it turned blue and gave off smoke.
Robin-pikachu swallowed and twitched his tail nervously, and then proceeded to lap the mixture up. He managed to convey, with his limited facial capacity, that he had eaten better tasting bird droppings*. After that, a slow change came over him. His features went slack, his limbs hung, his tail lost its rigidy, and his entire body sagged. His skin flashed green before reaching a distinctly bluish color, and then things got a little weird. His nose and eyes began drifting around his face like model airplane parts sliding on useless model glue. His limbs stretched and bent at improbable angles. His entire body began to vibrate and give off a noise like a rusted Oldsmolbile revving its engine. His face straightened out into a rictus of pain, features fixed in Picasso-like positions. His color shifted to a sunburnt pink, and his limbs withdrew into his body and his tail spaghettied into an untidy heap. The adolescents witnessing this feat of rapid transmogrification could only stare on with muted horror and revulsion. Robin-chu gave a small hiccup, and then exploded in a burst of flatulent orange light.
When the air cleared, Robin was lying on the table, slightly scorched and dazed but otherwise unhurt, and markedly human. He sneezed a few times and adjusted his eyemask.
"Never speak of this a-what are you all staring at? Haven't you ever seen a boy wonder before?" Robin demanded. "I've still got my mask on don't I?"
Cyborg had put his hand over one eye and quietly shattered the red LED in his mechanical one. Jinx was staring at him, eyes halfway lowered, with a rather worrying expression of intensity. Starfire had her head cocked and her inner eyelids shut, but the green glow showed through creating the impression of glowing sockets, and her mouth was dribbling something citric-smelling. Terra had both hands over her eyes, but was somewhat furtively and intensely peaking through the gaps between her fingers.
Beast Boy could have said a number of things. Humorous, sitcom-esque replies crowded his mind and tripped over each other, so one of the slower, lamer ones got through.
"I thought robins where supposed to have red breasts," he said, though his snarky tone was somewhat dulled by shock.
Robin looked down and deftly shielded himself from view with a strategically placed candle.
*sadly true. Never stand looking up with your mouth open in a city with a pidgeon problem.