Mirage

I sit upon a blanket of red and white checks amidst waving stalks of gold-white wheat and blood red poppies, the sky a hard blue shield overhead, arms stiff at my sides, legs as a doll's.

Around me are the remains of a picnic which began the day before when I thought I heard a World War II bomber flying so low it rattled the body of the car I was driving.

I nearly drove off the Interstate as instead of a warplane overhead, a gleaming black and chrome Duesenberg effortlessly charged past me, weaving through shoals of semis and boxy family cars on I-70 in a trail of exhaust and gleaming chrome.

When it ghosted through a semi heading west, I pulled over and took a nap.

Off to see the (a) wizard...

I heard it again early this morning in my basement workshop while examining the damaged edge of a chisel with a magnifying glass: the deep guttural roar of a powerful engine on the prowl.

Not my problem.

Only it was.

"A moment, if you will?"

The intruder's voice was clipped, almost British, but not… quite?

Startled, I turn.

"Zenith?"

We face each other in endless wheat.

The dragon disguised as a man casually snatches a glittering green fly from the air without looking.

"Nein. Zodiac." He laughs. A buzzing cloud of metallic flies, the scent of burning electrical wires… and something… worse erupts from his mouth.

The world flips upon its axis.

Illusion of Life

I wear a dress of pink chintz, stiff Mary Janes, and a broad-brimmed summer hat.

There are pearls.

They are glass.

As are my eyes.

This is not real.

White gloves conceal my work-rough hands.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the gleaming trim of the Duesenberg. Delicate paint gives my porcelain face the illusion of life.

My undergarments are equally appropriate.

This final personal liberty makes me angry.

Very, very angry.

This is not real.

I totter to my feet, my stiff joints wooden balls and sockets strung together with elastic cords.

Soon pearls, dress, hat, gloves and all hidden beneath lie scattered among the white-gold stalks and their accentuating blood-red poppies.

My ringlets are a mess, the feast, the little tea set, all pictures torn from an old magazine scattered at my feet to the persistent drone of flies.

Good!

Ravens circling overhead, I crouch fuming upon the hot, dusty earth among the tracks of tanks, wrapped in the red and white picnic blanket, wondering how I'm going to escape this unwelcome dream.

Cobra

A long, gloved hand closes gently but firmly upon my shoulder from behind. I start.

"Not exactly the way this feast I planned." Zodiac's sweet breath caresses my ear.

"I'm no doll!" I snap. "To be dressed, to be pretend fed at your whim!"

"I was aiming for a certain… aesthetic. It seems, messy little thief, that you do not appreciate… art. Very well," he rasps softly in the hot, thundering silence, "Have it your way."

Clutching the blanket around me, I scramble upright to face him, an angry wind-up mouse in bifocals confronting a cobra.

There is the stench of carrion upon the wind, the thump of exploding ordnance and the the distant random crack of small arms fire.

Scarlet Poppies

In his elegantly cut tailcoat of silk shot white linen, black lace at the cuffs, the dragon pretending to be a man lounges with elegant insolence against the hood of the same gleaming monster of a car I'd seen the day before.

Only… I squint… it's a burning tank, laying upon its side, the torn earth hemorrhaging scarlet poppies. "What the fuck's going on here, you son of a bitch? Take me home right now or I'll—" I exclaim angrily.

"Oh dearie me. Such language!" Zenith waves a broken ebony cane at me in languid derision. "That's not how to feel upon such a fine day."

"Don't tell me how to feel." I say flatly, back in my usual work clothes and apron.

"Really? Take. A. Seat." Bowing theatrically, Zodiac snaps, long white hair rippling silk in the furnace wind.

"Fuck off." I polish my bifocals on my sleeve and put them back on. Things don't look any better.

"Sit." He gestures.

I am suddenly acres away, a shabby theater chair behind me, the horizon endless black smoke.

Act I

My abductor, battered violin case in one hand, broken cane in the other, approaches me through the burning wheat with inhuman grace, fastidiously avoiding where the ground has been raped by treads.

Over the crackling flames he says, "I said, sit."

"I said fuck off." Stiff arms at my sides, I remain standing.

Eyes hidden behind smoked mirrored lenses, Zodiac frowns.

"Sit." He gestures. The chair thumps into the back of my painted ball and socket knees.

I sit.

Hard.

I am once more in pink chintz and Mary Janes.

This is not real.

Violin case set aside, Zodiac grins, too close, delicately rouged cheeks and lips startling, silken white hair curtaining us, purring, "Let the show begin."

His breath is sweetly bloody.

Predator's Waltz

Ruby set in black silver glittering in the sun upon one finger, Zodiac's long hand waves the broken cane with indolent violence at a phonograph resting upon a broken tread. It clicks, needle teasing out a distant violin upon a wax cylinder in hissing, crackling accompaniment to the slow waltz of wheat, smoke, and poppies drifting from its simple horn.

Cane tossed aside, Zodiac leads my doll's body in a waltz of predatory grace, bruised poppy a single drop of blood upon his lapel.

He stinks of cologne.

Of electricity.

And rage.

With a flourish, my abductor returns my small self to the worn chair with its Art Deco geometry, arranging me so I miss nothing.

In the brutal sun…

"In my 1939, I led an electric tank charge in Poland against the Nazi Blitzkrieg." Storm clouds upon the distant horizon, Zodicac's masking antique sunglasses glint red, a whirling scarlet kaleidoscope of corn poppies, short brown cigarette in an ivory holder lit one-handed with a heavy silver lighter pulled from nowhere. "To slow their advance enough to allow the Polish army time to deploy."

Broad of shoulder, narrow of hips, the dragon disguised as a man grins, lighter vanishing, painted, almost feminine lips clenched about the ivory holder. "A futile gesture on my part." Blowing rings, he shrugs languidly. "But we all have our moments of folly, no?"

Though nothing but fabric, porcelain, molded sawdust and glue, I fend off the sweetly floral smoke with a tattered theatrical handbill printed in German.

Zodiac's face adorns its yellowed paper.

This is not real.

Old bruises mar the painted dandy's mouth in the brutal sun. "Weather unusually hot and dry, the harvest delayed… I warned them. Oh how I warned them in 1933… but none listened!"

Zodiac whispers, bored by his own story, "Particularly my cousin, Begg, who refused to listen most of all!"

The handbill bursts into flame. Hastily, I release it, black ashes upon the wind.

"Warnings ignored, I chose sides (as I am expected to now). For my stupidity, I found myself, legs broken, trapped in a burning tank… by petrol," Zodiac rasps down at me with a knowing smirk." He gives a discreet cough, adding, "Petrol fueled internal combustion engines and superior munitions, manufactured in Mirenburg, a city which once produced some of the finest porcelain dolls and automatons in the world, should you care to know."

Prometheus

"What the fuck do tanks, shells, and fancy wind-up toys have to do with—?" I snap, trying to recall my work clothes and boots. At least he allowed me to keep my glasses.

Zodiac interrupts me with a red snarl, "My dear, dear foul-mouthed little thief. As the exiled Count of Mirenburg, how charming to be blown to bits by your own city..." He slurs, tone conversational, "By stolen technologies, criminal that I am, once dabbled in: lightweight, agile tanks which outmaneuvered and outgunned the electric behemoths I commanded. Porcelain battery casings shattering, acid spraying, loosened wires electrocuting their crews… all because of stolen blueprints and notes I'd hidden from my sanctimonious cousin and his temporal agents only to be found by agents of the NSDAP — NSDAP as in Nazis."

Crouching, elbow on the arm of my chair beside me, Zodiac languidly traces invisible pictures upon the wind, sweet-smelling cigarette a pencil of silvery smoke, another discreet cough: "Head shaved, branded by my captors a race traitor, a freak, an enemy of the Thousand Year Reich, I was presented in Berlin to Hess as a gift by an ambitious NSDAP underling."

This is not real.

The albino emits a slow laugh. Heavy black smoke drifts around us in the furnace wind of the approaching storm, stirring the surrounding grain with its adorning poppies into a hissing dance as it catches fire.

Arms wide, Zodiac rises above the burning grain, head thrown back, painted chiseled face impassive as a cathedral saint's, mirrored lenses reflecting searing infinity as he stares into the sun, bruised mouth gaping in a silent scream.

As I lay bleeding…

"My useless title no longer protected me." Breaking the long silence, Zodiac flicks ash to the ground with a single, languid gesture as he slowly drifts earthward. "It seems," He laughs ever so softly upon touchdown. "Perriot, Die Führer's white-faced clown, no longer amused."

This is not real.

There is a blur.

This is not real.

I flinch.

This is not real.

Zodiac kneels before me, "What Hess did while witnessing the second breaking of my legs," Cough, "…was mock me for how easily bruises appeared upon my pale flesh… But that was after he had one of his men…"

This is not real.

Our eyes meeting through dark glass, the conjurer makes a languid obscene gesture before removing his white gloves and tossing them behind him, abruptly pushing his torn, blackened nails into my face. I recoil.

This is not real. This is not real.

"Then he personally kicked my teeth in," Zodiac straightens, inhales deeply, holds, and then exhales a sweet, silver stream. "...followed by my ribs."

This is not real. This is not real. This is not real!

"As I lay bleeding into his expensive carpet, with its broken crosses and nonsensical runes, the deputy Führer of the Thousand Year Reich personally broke my hands, finger by finger upon his ebony desk, using a small bronze bust of his master."

This is not— "Hess did WHat?" I exclaim. "Holy fuck! I thought that creepy little vegetarian wouldn't so much as FART without Hitler's permission."

If I can focus long enough, I will…

"Language, dear thief, language! Your Hess? Perhaps. But mine, schatzi?" Zodiac trails off, studying his crooked fingers where they now rest lightly upon my denim-clad knees, "Ohhhhhh, schatzi, schatzi! Mine was furious about me openly seducing his wife in '32."

"Why the fuck would you DO such a thing?"

…wake…up.

"Because it was amusing." Tips burning with silver flame, the exiled count of Mirenberg flexes each bruised figure individually, murmuring in gleeful confidence before casually pushing my glasses up my nose, causing me to flinch, "And because... I could. Ilse? Easy conquest. Jaw like a bulldog!" With one blazing hand the albino conjurer snatches a large metallic fly from the air, releasing it to careen burning towards the merciless sun.

Don't blink.

"I don't believe you." I say, trying not to think about the flaming insect.

Wake up.

"From consummation to climax, she lay there, obedient as a corpse." With an insolent flourish, the flames vanish.

"Ugh." Is all I can say.

I am a dumpy little middle-aged woman with a bad haircut and an antique doll on her lap.

"I too, have my limits." Savoring my disgust my gentleman shit-stirrer languidly tips his hat to me.

If I scoot forward just a little, my feet will touch the ground… easy… easy… easy…

Hat replaced, he rasps softly as he leans into my face, pausing once to cough: "Aside from later gaining a new appreciation of pain, (I am myself.) the only pleasure I achieved from the entire boring experience was her husband's impotent rage – the Little Corporal was courting anything with a title. All Hess could do at the time (Why me?) was stand in impotent cuckoldry while I, cheap cabaret magician and orchestra pit second violinist with a useless title, openly tangoed with his wife."

My boots now touch the ground.

"For that, he...?" I glance at the battered violin case which lies open and empty upon the dusty earth.

"There was an abortion, and because," Tossing aside cigarette and holder, the lean albino looms over me, "Ilse told him they were my second-best feature. As for the first?" He shrugs, "That was reserved for when I regained consciousness… and could fully appreciate my …loss."

Ebon bow tie loosened, exquisitely tailored coat and vest with their carved buttons of jet carefully folded upon the back of my lone chair, Zodiac stares up at the sky, thumbs hooked under the black holster straps and suspenders binding his torso, "It took years (This isn't right) to recover the use of my hands, my legs, little thief. (They ask too much!) As for the pain? One learns to ignore it (cough)."

Aerial Dance

"So?" I ask.

The cock of a darkened eyebrow, a flash of crimson from behind silver lenses reflecting black smoke and storm clouds.

"So. So? After pursuing Herr Hess across five continents, it gave me great pleasure to arrange for the vegetarian's public lynching in Buenos Ares in 1945." Paint livid against his pale skin, Zodiac thoughtfully examines his torn nails, but his attention is upon me, anticipating my reaction.

…I will not let him win.

"Were you satisfied?" I ask levelly, one booted foot exploring the ground unseen.

"Satisfied? Ohhhhhh, angry little thief of mine… (I won't do it!)" Tittering, Zodiac rises to his full height, arms wide, bowing, turning this way and that, accepting the applause of an invisible audience, a crucifixion in white – top hat kicked aside, wheat and scarlet poppies flattening in a flaming spiral around us. He crows, raggedly cut lock of hair falling away in the wind, "Why, dear little thief, (No!) I (No!) was (No!) the last thing Hess saw as he capered at the end of an iron carcass hook manufactured in a Mirenburg foundry – satisfied indeed!"

He lands before me, in a sardonic, theatrical bow.

I recoil. He grins.

Got to get away. Got to get away. Got to get away.

"Did you know, (This isn't right!) tiny thief," Zodiac croons, ragged white hair matted with sweat. Kneeling, he rapidly shuffles a deck of cards pulled from nowhere one-handed, unlit opium cigarette jutting sharply from between tightly clenched teeth, "Hess relieved himself as I had that long-ago, boring day in Berlin, (I did my part!) my fingers broken one by one as he cavorted before the mob?"

Got to get away. Got to get away. Got to get—

The cards fan, snap shut, and fan again. Zodiac, now behind me, giggles raggedly in my ear, breath reeking of alcohol.

Of opium.

And carrion. "Such exquisite attention to detail from an enemy (NO!) does not go without similar payment in kind, no?"

There's blood on Zodiac's hands.

And… then… there… isn't.

I blink.

He's gone.

Run

Doll and tea set broken underfoot, I run past the gutted carcasses of tanks, an Alice who once followed a white rabbit down a rabbit hole, only to learn too late that the rabbit was rabid.

I am… I am… almost to the dark horizon, the scent of rain upon the wind... of cordite and battery acid… of the distant sound of gunshots… my foot hits something, sending me sprawling to the violated earth in a rising emerald cloud of flies and gorging ravens and the rich, complex stench of burning human bodies, the desecrated blossoms of their bullet-raped skulls silent shrieks of outrage…

It is hard to scream when you are vomiting.

Empty, I sit back on my heels, adjusting my glasses.

"Nein, nein NEIN!, my tiny thief, my not so pretty toy…" Smirking, the living, marred Tamara de Lempicka painting with razor blade teeth kisses my cheek within the spotlight, "Oh Schatzi, schatzi! Don't you know?" he exclaims in a wail.

I jerk away, clawing at my cheek where Zodiac's kiss has left a cold, bloody mark.

Beyond is a dark, rain-filled wilderness of overturned tables and broken chairs.

"…tis but the first act!" he giggles.

Dignity

Turning towards the darkness, Zodiac's taunting voice deepens as he bows to the left and to the right: "And now, ladies and gentlemen, a simple card trick!"

The phonograph warbles on, music blaring and fading in and out, the key forever winding down.

"Observe, ladies and gentlemen… nothing up my sleeves!" Walther PPK a disfiguring bulge beneath one arm, bloody sleeves rolled up, single nail upon the smallest finger long and sharp, Zodiac offers me the deck as something precious.

"Pick a card, any card - nein!" Interrupting his own patter, Zodiac snatches the deck beyond my reach. "Not yet, Frau Dieb! Not yet!"

He grins, head cocked, smoked glasses reflecting me back at myself.

We are in the shattered remnants of a cabaret beneath a midnight sky slashed by lightning. Zenith once more proffers the deck, the muscles of his scarred forearm knotted, white powder glittering in the single talon. Dull thuds echo in the night, followed by lightning.

That's not lightning. It is searchlights. That is not thunder. It is bombs— I have GOT to get OUT OF HERE!

The taste of vomit upon my tongue, I reach for the deck.

It's withdrawn – Zodiac pivots, bows, free hand doffing his top hat to a long-gone audience, lithely turning back to me, hat rolling across his shoulder and back, to be bounced off one heel, caught and set once more at a jaunty angle upon his disheveled head in a single, fluid motion.

A long lock of blood matted white hair lands damply on the stage floor.

"Choose." Zodiac snaps, heels click, back ramrod straight, cards fanned, a sudden rattle of bones, as tracers scream across the dark sky.

I choose.

Smirking, the illusionist studies me, darkened white brow quirked over one round, mirrored lens, my face staring back at me, "And, little Frau Dieb?

"Ace of Spades."

"Ja! Well done!" He chortles, adding confidentially, "If not for Hess, I, a man-shaped counterweight at the mercy of the Balance, would not be bound by my word."

Lenses glinting darkly, Zodiac watches his hand shuffle, adding, "The Old Contemptibles found me dying in the darkness of a disused lavatory at the end of the 3 Day War when the White Rose Society ousted Hitler by force. Begg, my sanctimonious British cousin, their commander, took advantage of my… temporary weakness. Extracting an oath from me that were I to put aside my criminal pleasures, I would live… Choose! NOW!"

Another matted lock of white hair falls.

I reach.

The deck is snatched away.

Zodiac relents with a teasing grin, offering it to me with a graceful flourish.

In the echoing silence of thunder and the drone of unseen aircraft, I take a card from the worn, greasy deck.

"Display your choice, Frau Dieb." Zodiac snarls, "I was not allowed to die – as once more I am GIVEN NO CHOICE!" He stinks of anger, alcohol, and sweat. Every hair rises on my body. "Where is my stolen dignity – I have no choice they say – I am myself, MYSELF!"

I shudder, displaying the card I selected.

"Ace of Spades."

Teeth clenched, Zodiac rocks back as if struck.

A scorched background flat falls with a bang, taking its burden of Expressionist wheat and poppies with it.

Child of Thieves

Zodiac absently touches his mouth, his ribs, his legs with his free hand as if I wasn't there, shuffling the well-worn deck one-handed with inhuman dexterity, "But I didn't invite you, Frau Dieb, to my show to reminisce over old conquests, thieving daughter of thieves. (How DARE they ask this of me?) I have a favor to ask of you– pick a card, any card." He snarls, madness flowing from him in waves.

"Ace of Spades."

"Nein!" Zodiacs snaps, hand reshuffling the deck. "Nein! It is not right - AGAIN!"

Another lock of pale hair falls away.

"Ace of Spades!" I pull away. He follows.

"I am myself." Zodiac slumps, deck disappearing somewhere upon his person. Four charred Ace of Spades adorn his hatband, a faded wreath of tattered crepe paper poppies. "I am myself…I am myself…"

I shudder.

"…I am myself…" He falls to his knees, arms around himself, and rocks.

A single bead of sweat trickles down one lean cheek from behind a darkly silvered lens.

It is red.

There is the sound of snapping wood.

"Bitch!" Sobbing, snarling, Zodiac rises, lurching behind me as I run, fingers bent talons, sending burning cards into the air, "Return what you've stolen, BITCH –I did what was asked of me – I am MYSELF!"

He grabs me, I struggle to fight him off, ragged white hair and flaming cards whirl around us in the dirty rain. A tank blazes with broken treads, the pale man's violin case lies open, rare violin cradled within a million splintered pieces, broken sword cane tossed aside, phonograph smashed, single wax cylinder of original compositions shattered underfoot.

"Let go of me, asshole!" I scream, clawing at his face in a smoking avalanche of loose white hair, the stench of high explosives and burning human flesh.

"MYSELF!" Zodiac shrieks, toppling us to the wet boards with him on top, the brass insignia on his scorched uniform stabbing into my flesh. "GIVE IT BACK! GIVE IT BACK!"