Traveling the abyss with eyes closed.
Free at last, Zenith plummets void after void, paternal sword pulling him through the realm of possibilities and actualities, over one event horizon, then another and another and another— the Counterbalance sings in duet, a choir of himself, the first Wagner, the first Beethoven, the original Mozart, the original Hendrix hearing him in the womb, echoing, in eternal pursuit of a song they heard before they knew what a song was, echoing-echoing-echoing-echoing…
Language of Angels
Zenith lied.
Josephine, who'd decided that a labor camp was preferable to being sent back to the Free City of Saint Louis as a slave, comes to another decision as gas hisses from what they'd all been told were shower heads in the sudden hot darkness and the slamming of steel doors.
Sleeve tied over her mouth, Josphine recognizes by touch her friends from the brothel on Rosenstrasse in the screaming darkness, strangers she'd come to love, cross dressers and gunsels, effeminate undesirables and oddballs, bodies of the crippled, the elderly, trampled underfoot, gathering them to her: Dr. Idiot, whose real name was Albert, his mother, prostitutes too old or ugly to staff Party brothels, the girl with a withered arm, bawling in terror – Little Fritz and Little Flossie she balances on her voluptuous hips above the rising gas.
Eyes streaming, nauseated, Josephine snaps Little Fritz's and Little Flossie's necks with strong brown hands that once snapped the necks of chickens for Sunday dinner, "I'm so, sorry, I'm so, so sorry –Albert, Albert's (cough) mama… You can do it, babies! You can do it!"
"Come on babies, come on! Mama Josephine got you!" she stumbles, sleeve falling away from her mouth. Steadying herself and her limp burden one-armed, eyes streaming, she steps over twitching, jerking bodies, "Albert, stop that bawlin', RIGHT NOW! – take mama Josephine's hand - (cough) follow me!"
Head pounding, Josephine sings a song from her childhood to help them find her, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…"
God turned his back on her same as her own mama - Josephine figured that out a long time ago. But it's the only song she can remember… gagging between words, collecting those she loves, those she promised to protect until Zenith came back, only he hadn't.
"Was blind… now… I …ssss… e-e-e-eee…."
Josephine makes it to a corner, pushing them down low where the gas collects, to end the pain, to end the terror, "Breathe deep babies… mama Jo Jo got you… breathe deep… I'm so…sorry."
Sleek hair nappy and red silk dress torn, heels drumming, Josephine slides retching down the frigid steel behind her onto the piss and vomit smeared floor, arms cradling the smallest of her friends, average-sized blonde infant confiscated, surrounded by those she loves, finishing the song inside her pounding head, convulsing, middle fingers stabbed upwards in defiance.
The Paris of Middle Europe
…Zenith, yanked backwards, the sword shooting ahead - a black Roman candle between nowhere and nowhen… a briefcase with a bomb going off…
…to land upon the sleet beaded gasbag of the Fuhrer's personal airship en-route to Berlin, city of crystal, city of crap…where the Angel of the Perverse now dances in a borrowed green dress.
As I walk through the house of my ancestors, lost.