scott macleod

DUMP

I started changing the lyrics as soon as we got nominated, and I was happy to do it. I would have changed the whole song, every line, if the Academy asked me to. Hey, man, come on. This is the Oscars.

A teenager who kept a 29-inch sword displayed on his bedroom wall has died after the weapon fell and slashed his shoulder and neck, authorities said.



The speaker returns to the shallow use of words. Confounded and ashamed of having doubted.

Indeed, the lukewarm sub-layer of the believer is the actual interpretation of symbols.

Sometimes crumby stuff came up.

It penetrates.

I can think, but I have been turned completely inside out, and upside down, long ago.

I have been so loved, so detained, I wouldn't similar imitations.

I am striking myself, begging the bell. A double wound.

This is one of the most unpleasant things about our vegetable lives, ready to be picked, continues Tixcoco the barman with a sigh, gazing hard at the beautiful bush on the girl: that we are in our full prime made of too light material, which must give way.

All the earth is a grave and nothing escapes it, nothing is so perfect that it does not descend to its tomb.

Ach, it is true, acknowledges the Demon. Frankly, when the rim is bent it presses against the works and impedes the proper action of the currents.

Tixcoco wipes pint glasses dry. Rivers, rivulets, fountains and waters flow, but never return to their joyful beginnings; anxiously they hasten on to the vast realms of the Rain God. As they widen their banks, they also fashion the sad urn of their burial.

The Demon replies in demon-speak, a kind of laughter like concrete and bone: lpifi uirfr fj fsf mh jfgfnfl f gjmfo fjfg sdjksdfsdfsdlgkj sdflkjsdf lksdjfsdfsdfilled are the bbbowels of the earrrth with pestilential dust once flesh and bone, once animate bodies of man who sat upon thrones, decided cases, presided in council, commanded armies, conquered provinces, possessed treasure, destroyed temples, exulted in their pride, majesty, fortune, praise and power. Vanished are these glories, just as the fearful smoke vanishes that belches forth from the infernal fires of Popocatepetll kl pl luh k hn hohmh ohhhpfuijiui i ipmpi l ioip sdjksdfsdfsdlgkj sdflkjsdf lksdjfsdfsdf

Tixcoco sighs, pulls two cigarettes out of the pack, prods them into his dry lips and and lights them both; one for him and one for the Demon, who has no hands, says Nothing recalls them but the written page.

At that moment a door opens to reveal a middle-aged woman in white overalls who slips noiselessly into the bar but immediately announces that new patients can only be registered on the 19th of the month and not before.

Instinct tells Tixcoco what to do. Giving an expiring glance at the Demon he whispers: I'm dying.

The woman glances uncertainly at his bandaged head, hesitates, then says: Very well, and leads the barman through the hall and out into a sunshine like a bright gold pince-nez.

The woman says: This has priority.

The Demon’s face, clean-shaven, smelling of drink and with horn-rimmed spectacles, appears in front of Tixcoco. The Demon face says solemnly: Calm down! You're upset by death. We all realise how you feel. You need rest. You'll be taken home to bed in a moment and then you can relax and forget all about it.

Don't you realise, the woman interrupts, scowling, that we've got to catch the Professor? And all you can do is come creeping up to me talking all this rubbish! Cretin!

Excuse me, Comrade, replies the Demon face, blushing, retreating and already wishing it had never let itself get involved in this affair.

No, I don't care who you are--I won't excuse you, says the woman with quiet hatred. A spasm distorts her face, she rapidly switches the candle from her right to her left hand, swings her arm and punches the Demon face on the ear. The candle goes out, the horn-rims fall off the face hhm nmmmj mjmrmk mu ihmomfmtjol gk f jfjpfqjkj njk sdjksdfsdfsdlgkj sdflkjsdf lksdjfsdfsdf.

Oh no,' counters the Demon face. I assure you he's not going to get away. And remember--we are here to help him in every way we can and unless lni hf g fhf t flfq f gjnfi flfnfihqgtf tffjg gigtgu sdjksdfsdfsdlgkj sdflkjsdf lksdjfsdfsdf as the Nurse - for now Tixcoco finally must admit to himself that this is what the woman is - has hurled herself at the Demon face.

At this moment Tixcoco notices what seems to be a damp, evil-smelling substance oozing under the door of the bar and out onto the sidewalk.

A tremor runs down the barman’s spine.

Suddenly a clock begins to strike midnight and even this makes him shudder. But his heart sinks completely when he hears the sound of a latch-key being softly turned in the lock. Clutching his bar-rag with damp, cold hands Tixcoco feels that if that scraping noise in the keyhole lasts much longer his nerves will snap and he will scream.

At last the door gives way and the rest of the Demon’s body lurches into the street. Gasping for air, the Demon face smiles what is meant to be an ingratiating smile and whispers: God, what a fright you gave me.

The Nurse collapses into the gutter, moaning: Well this is the situation - sensing that her hour had come.

Terrifying as the Demon body’s sudden appearance is, it has its hopeful side--it clears up at least one little mystery in this whole baffling affair.

Tell me, tell me, quickly! croaks the Nurse, clutching at her one straw of certainty in a world gone mad. What does this all mean?

I'm sorry,' mumbles the Demon face as it is recaptured once more by the Demon body’s blindly searching hands, I thought you would have left by now. Without attaching his head once more to his body, the Demon crosses to a bus top and sits down beside the bench, Demon face cradled by Demon arms in Demon lap.

Give me some paper and a short pencil, says the Demon face to the now fat Nurse, then, turning to Tixcoco: ' But I don't advise myself to start writing today.

No, no, today! You must do it today! cries the Nurse excitedly.

All right. Only don't overtax your brain. If I don't get it quite right today, tomorrow will do.

But he'll get away!

Certainly, but why should he have to do it? Here: put down all your suspicions and accusations against this man on a piece of paper. Nothing could be simpler. And if, as you suspect, your mind harp you: Right you are!

Please give me pen and paper.

There is a facing to Tixcoco.

As he hands her a short pencil and a strip of soiled paper, she vanishes.

In her place appears one another, and be in the ground to sprout and grow and give birth to other people who knew about death before it happened, silent and unmoving.

Afterwards he remembers first meeting a little old Nurse who wants to take his hat, but since he has no hat the old woman hobbles off, chewing her toothless gums in a long, well-proportioned room with nothing frightening, solemn or medical about it.

Tixcoco has not time to look round before he finds himself in trouble glancing slightly anxiously at the bandaged Demon head.

It is a What is your? in a pleasant voice, saying back, summary keeping out.

I have just learned from nobody to listen carefully to everything you have to say.

'All right, then, listen: They say I'm mad and yesterday evening I met a mysterious person in that moon-flooded window studying Stravinsky. This Professor, for now the Demon face finally must admit to Tixcoco that this is what the man, is told me, before it happened, that he had spilt the sunflower-seed oil, and that hgmslslqm gmul oltk sm pmgjgjnf rjfjqjn i p lll il t mtmu rfoqnqo noto mqmsmikkmhmomom fi j mnmi mf ru okonooounoo ooqonqul j lul ilp hpll lolp lqrooof o t lohu l gl rl o onrh s gshstsls qsgulsi s lsnsioksushsi sdflkjsdf sdjksdfsdfsdlgkj lksdjfsdfsdf and that the desk itself was tilting.

On no account shall we allow anyone to say you're mad.

Wood evil purpose. am friend different rich not. Hggg hg tgl gqggil gi glgngi said Stravinsky seriously and reassuringly. Kknf k kg ugh gi sdjksdfsdfsdlgkj sdflkjsdf lksdjfsdfsdf who may or may not have been a foreigner, the Professor who died falling under a tram, there yesterday evening when the tram killed him, with a tremendous effort; he fought it off and did not fall on Bronnaya Street, did not fall on Stravinskaya, did not fall on Varenukhaya and a golden moon was shining, uuqlq sqkqr olpkq qqmujq nq iqf, but unluckily for him the Professor's arm was not a sword but a stick. The remnants of his strength were only enough for him to whisper pluck at the windows and wheels and sort the burnt sheets of paper with his fingernails and shake the frame. It seemed to him that the light of the desk-lamp was going out. He hissed and sucked as a wave of icy cold washed over him. His arm, coloured deathly green, started to stretch as it could, finally his green cadaverous fingers caught the knob of the window-catch, turned it and the casement opened. The Professor gave a weak cry, pressed himself under the flames with his foot and burst into convulsive, uncontrollable tears as the trolley wheels spread his head out across the cobblestones as if it were made of rubber.

Yes. And I was there too.

Aha. Tixcoco surprises. Obviously a man of exceptional intelligence.

Shining out convenient, stretched out as far.

Oh no, we will listen very Exactly. The Demon grinds his teeth* with fury and says something indistinct. Then with clamped lips** he starts carefully piling up the sheets, wrapping them up into parcels and tying them with string. All his movements show that he is a determined Demon who is ru spmppp upgpq pfqj sdjksdfsdfsdlgkj sdflkjsdf lksdjfsdfsdf rl oroiof o nofooois lo sojopokq sn r orlthulglr lo sdjksdfsdfsdlgkj sdflkjsdf lksdjfsdfsdf.

By the light of the moon, deceptive as it always is, it seems to Tixcoco that this is like a chapter from somewhere in the middle of the book, I forget which. I suddenly feel I hate this novel and I’m afraid. I'm sick. I feel terrible.

God how ill you look. Why, why? But I'm going to save you. What's the matter? and pointing his crooked fingers towards Tixcoco the Demon increases his efforts, pushes his head through the little upper pane trying to open the lower casement guarding the door, signals to the Nurse in the the garden jumping up and down beside a naked girl pressed in glass, swollen from smoke and weeping her bare arm reaching through the open top pane and burying her head in her shoulder.

Help! the girl, her eyes, her hands, the street lamps already lit over the scene.

I shall make you better, the Demon gets up from where he has been sitting by the bench and runs back to where he had been talking to the Nurse.

There is no longer a grain of doubt. Two thoughts strike the barman, Tixcoco: firstly: He's no madman. And secondly: Who in hell is he?

Mysterious character wants me.

But how on earth could he?

The tram-driver is a woman; would have my head. Tixcoco can see, feel her cool hands smoothing his brow.

Calm again, sitting on the seat occupied a short while ago by the Nurse, the Demon lifts Demon face to his shoulders, clicks the neck*** into the shoulder socket, while overhead in the thin star field Soyuz slips into a docking bay. Peace spins its invisible web above the planet.

Everything we ignore.

The Demon, reunited, stares at Tixcoco for a long time. Grave but sympathetic. The stars reel in Tixcoco’s brain as if he were a lost astronaut or a lone waltzer in a dry riverbed.

The Demon sighs. Everything leads straight back to that mad Professor.
That mysterious Professor forsees every detail of death before it occurs. And he said he sees the face of hell cut off by a woman. And what's more he said-

Did he arrange the whole thing himself?

Demon jolted by the idea. Of course! We've got to look into this! Read everything back to me, every syllable and every comma! Right now!

Tixcoco jolted. Wishes he’d never stepped out from behind the bar. Could use a drink right about now.

I didn’t keep a copy.

Demon’s eyes harden into molybdenum satellites orbiting Persephone.

You're going to write it again.