Chapter Eight

So the oddly reunited couple arrived in the sacred Cloud City, finding unimaginable comfort there in the cool, thick air surrounding both of them. Something felt completely right about this moment to J'aime, as if he had been here before and was returning from a long trip far away. Lucia knew taking him here would help. This is where she first saw him. Sebastián.

No, his name wasn't J'aime Merde, of course, but it wasn't James either. James Meredith was the one who had first noticed Sebastián. James had lived a few houses down from Sebastian and his mother in a seedy neighborhood. If anyone made it out, they never came back. Sebastián's mother, Yesenia was one that didn't make it out.

She had come to that awful place from Nicaragua in 1972 when the earthquake had hit. When it did she had taken shelter in a camp away from Managua, where she had originally lived. There is where she met Nicolas, a charming man with skin the color of coffee and cream and an irresistible air of confidence given the circumstances. He told her of the opportunities in the U.S. and how he could give her a place to stay, food to eat, and a steady income. There was nothing else available to her at the time. She hadn't seen or heard from any of her family, her house was obliterated and no one had a need for the cakes that her family's business once offered. She pictured herself in this new place with her friends all around, having a family again, opening a small bakery with her best friend Maira, and enjoying life in this new found safety.

She was 15 at the time and had just had her quinceañera the week before it all happened. Maira had lent her the most beautiful white gown embroidered with sequins and fabric flowers. She had finally felt like she was an adult and life was going in the right direction.

Getting thrown around in the overwhelming darkness of the back of a truck, breathing the stench of rotting fruit and knowing none of the other girls she had boarded the vehicle with was terrifying. But she knew it would all be worth it. Nicolas had promised her that Maira would be coming up soon to see her and they could live together to start a new life. She had been in the back of the truck for what seemed like 4 or 5 hours so far. This was all so exhausting. She shut her eyes and went to a better place in her mind.

She dreamt of a city in the sky.

Chapter Seven

A Redhead's point of view

Yes that is it, I will call him J'aime Merde. That wasn't really his name, but it somehow seemed fitting. Roughly translated, "I love shit". The situation we were in was shit, he frankly looked liked drunken shit, and to be quite honest, I feel like shit. A perfect name for a perfect situation.


As I looked at him I couldn't help thinking of the many nights we had spent together, entangled in sweat soaked sheets, rising and lowering, as if swimming in a lusty tide. Although he remembers nothing of his former life, I know everything about him. I remember the way he tasted, the way he felt, skin to skin, the way his eyes glowed in the streetlamp that shone outside his bedroom, and the way he had told me he loved me; in a sweet whisper.


But that had all changed a month ago when Agar had put a spell on him. And now he lives in a barren, empty land where he remember neither of us or our love. It had taken me time to locate him after Agar had worked his dirty magic on him. I will attempt to fix his memory shortly, but now we have more pressing problems; we have a war that we need to avoid for now.

"Zsu'Zsuri, can you fly us out of here?" I asked my dragon friend. 
"You need never ask," he said as he readied himself for flight. 
"Come on J'aime Merde. We need to get out of here now!"


I could tell that he was scared, the way his lips trembled and how the sweat trickled down his brow. I wanted to kiss those sweet lips and comfort him, but now was not the time for that. 


"Please," I said kindly. 

He walked towards the dragon hesitantly, swinging his body onto the great beast. I levitated upward, landing gently on my friend's back as we took off into the night's air. 


"Chicha? Where are we going?" he whispered in my ear. 
 I could smell his soft, black hair as it brushed against my cheek and again I thought of us together in that flat in the village. Must focus!
 "Don't worry, you'll see soon enough," I murmured. 

We flew fast and furiously above the clamor of the battle waging on below us. As we emerged into the luxurious clouds, I could see our destination before us.  The lights of the cloud city winked and invited us into it's embrace of safety. This is where I would tell him everything and hopefully he would remember, that he too was a magician as well. For it is only with this knowledge that we would have any chance of survival....

Chapter Six

"Zsu'Zsuri ?" I asked
"Yes, Zsu'Zsuri," she said. 


The nonchalant quality of her voice mixed with the lack of any 
immediate explanation left me thinking that I must have hit my 
head pretty damn hard on the bathroom wall.


I must be in a coma. Yeah, this is what it's got to be like, I'm in
some crazy-dreamy-pseudo-reality that my mind has made up from
experiences over the years. But no, because why the fuck would I be
in front of a dragon named Zsu'Zsuri? and why would I be hanging
out with Ginger-Xena here? 
--I pause--
"If that is Zsu'Zsuri, then you must be Tsin'Tsaru or something, right?"
"Do I look like an animal?" she laughed.


What. The. Fuck. I have got to be dreaming. 
Did I accidentally mix medicine and alcohol?
Am I sick?


"My totem named me Chien Fou S'en Aller, but everyone here calls me Chicha for short " 
she smiled casually  "And you are?"  


Shit. What is my name? What is my life? Taco bell, drinking in a motel, being chased by a midget, giant green dragon, warrior princess, and now I can't remember my name. Great. I said the last name I could remember.


"James . . . Meredith."
"James Meredith?"
"It's my full name. James Meredi--"
"That's a boring name," she interrupted. "If you go around with a name like that, no one is going to respect you."
"Uh, oka-"
"How about J'aime Merde?"
"Okay," I responded without question. I mean I'm standing in front of a fucking
dragon and just had my life saved by some gorgeous crazy bitch warrior.


J'aime Merde will do.

Chapter Five

    I was standing on obsidian black ground, solid, yet uneven under my inebriated feet. The clashing of metal mixed in a discordant harmony with frequent and distant roars of sound and orange and red flashes of light. The lights lit up silhouettes of craggy mountains thickly choking out the horizon. My drunken brain sluggishly dredged up a word a single thought: Danger. 

    Red hair momentarily whipped out in a curtain of glossy, fiery strands in front of my face, pulling my attention back the immediate area. The crimson haired woman stood at my left hand side with her eyes closed, delicate eyebrows furrowed in concentration. While she stood there with her attention elsewhere, I had my first chance to really examine her. I gave her a not so subtle up and down, pausing for a few extra seconds on the good bits.

    I'm a gentleman, through and through. Swear it.

    My gentlemanly self pictured redhead there with invisible clothes.

    Despite the nearly deafening sounds of what seemed to be the sounds of war, I could hear perfectly the words that cut like a sword from the woman's gorgeous pink lips. Eyes still shut tight, she said icily, "We are in the middle of the single most destructive war this world has ever known. If you value your life in the least, you will stop leering at me, both eye and mind, and give heed to your surroundings."

    "I- Uhm- How-" I sputtered, drunken and confused. I got the distinct impression that had her eyes been open, she would have been rolling them in impatience.

    Her eyes did open then, snapping wide as she raised both arms and outstretching her open palms to the sky. Pressure seemed to crackle around her. She muttered, seemingly as an afterthought, "And if you do it again, I will break your neck. I am no tavern handmaid... fool." The last word was barely audible, but still loud enough for me to be scared as hell of this mystery woman.

    Those flowery pink lips opened and with it, the strange pressure around her seemed to reach a crescendo.

    She sang.

    You hear about people having angelic voices. Well, Redhead didn't have that. Instead, she had a voice that would make angels weep in sheer jealousy.

    Her voice carried out across the stony, endless field, over the sounds of battle. It rang out, a pure and effortless sound, like some sort of instrument of indescribable beauty. It might have lasted for minutes or even hours. I was hypnotized by her song, and all measure of time was lost.

    Once her song ended, my face was wet with tears and I yearned for more. I was so lost in the song that I failed to notice the great torrents of air billowing across the field in a rhythmic pattern. It wasn't until I was blown off my feet onto my ass that I looked up to a sight of pure terror.

    A forest green dragon of unbelievable size outstretched its wings and caught giant sized pockets of air to slow its descent before finally landing in a cloud of dust. It raised its house sized head and roared a challenge to the battlefield. Then its reptilian eyes fell upon me and my unlikely companion.

    Readhead smiled fondly at the behemoth, laid a hand on the side of its head and said, "Hello, Zsu'Zsuri."

(Going to post picture)
:)

Chapter Four

 Out of the corner of my eyes I saw two hands reach for me and draw me back, away from the overflowing bathtub and the certain injury or death that awaited me. When I turned to look, I saw before me a slip of a woman with long red hair eyeing me warily.

"Rough night, eh?" she said in a voice that dripped with honey.
"To say the least," I muttered.
"I have a message for you."

Her eyes, the color of teal set aflame, looked me over from head to toe. She smirked at me, unimpressed with the condition I was in.

"Get dressed," she said in a voice that left little room for argument.
"Wait a minute. What's your name?"
"We'll have time for introductions very soon. Just get dressed."

I quickly rushed through the process of dressing and met her outside my room.

"If you don't do exactly what I say, you are going die tonight," she said matterfactly.

I really didn't know how to respond to that. She had saved my life though, so I figured I might as well listen to what she had to say. But there wasn't to be anymore words from her, for in that instance a strange, short man with unkempt hair appeared at the top of the stairs. He was maybe 3 feet tall in stature and waving his hands about as if he were juggler in a circus.

"Shit! Get the fuck down!" she said as she pushed me down and advanced on the dwarf.
"I told you never to show your face again, Agar! Now you'll see what mischief I can throw at you!"

She threw her hands together, palm to palm, and muttered strange words that I had never heard before. And with a force that was as strong as a wind storm, she sent Agar flying across the room and through the wall. Some kind of other magic, darker and more sinister must have been at play though, because the next thing I knew, the hallway we had been standing in vanished. Darkness crowded around us as the sounds of singing metal filled the air. What happened next I never would have believed possible.....

Chapter Three

   After a long period of staring into what seemed to be my reflection, I suddenly realized that I was fucking exhausted. and drunk. This was the third night in a row that I had remained in this shitty little motel room, walking across the street to get taco bell and a variety of drinks at the liquor store next door, approximately 8pm each night. What was I doing in the bathroom, even? Taking a piss, right? But then why was I in front of the sink? I didn't remember flushing the toilet. But the floor was wet. Oh fuck!

   I was drawing a bath, and my stupid fuck of a self was just standing there half passing out and just staring. Just staring, paying no goddamn attention to the fact that I had been waiting for this bath for at least ten minutes, and that is when I slipped on the soaking wet tile floor and fell straight toward the shower wall, knowing for sure that I was about to drown in the overflowing bath tub, but then something strange happened.

Chapter Two

As I held onto that aging card, I thought of my mother's house. Before the house been demolished, it had been located on Muskateer Drive, not five houses away from this card's address. And whenever I think of my mother I can't help thinking of her line of work. Mama had been a whore, plain and simple.

I had been five years old when I caught my mother in the act, during one of her nightly sessions. I can still hear the sounds of bed springs squeaking and animal grunting.  As I peaked through the keyhole, watching something I knew I shouldn't be seeing, my opinion of my mother changed forever.

Back in the hole-in-the wall hotel room, I stood up, dropped the yellowing address card on the dirty blanket that covered my tiny bed and walked towards the sink. As I stood at the mirror and stared at my reflection.....

Chapter One

I found his name and information in an old, brown suitcase I had purchased from a thrift store.
The words were jotted down in an all-capital-letter format, neat enough to read, yet not trying too hard to impress anyone. The index card it was written on was obviously a bit aged, yellowed and bent over the years. When I pulled it out from the pocket it was stuffed in, it read:

JAMES MEREDITH

6033 MUSKETEER DR.

CINTI, OHIO  -  45248

And so the story begins...

The Exquisite corpse, created by the Surrealists, is an artistic and literary method of group collaboration in which words or images are jointly combined to create something new and fantastic. This blog is dedicated to a literary experiment in which three bloggers will collectively create stories to share with our readers.

Cadavre Exquis, Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky, 1890-1976), Joan Miró. (1893-1983), Max Morise e Yves Tanguy. (1900-1955).

Method to our madness- The first blogger will write a passage of the story and the next blogger is responsible to take up the story where they left off and so on, until we have reached the story's end.