beggers barbarians and beauty

a few more pieces from my break of day adventure. each location, encounter, etc. is drawn directly from language in Colette's novel Break of Day, a semi-autobiographical piece about the author growing old in Florence and reckoning with the role of pleasure and beauty in her life as we all must!!!! :000

 

begging animals (p. 42, p. 84)

pleaseoplease

• the passage of centuries has failed to bridge the chasm which yawns between them and man. so they beg.
  
  1. iguana

  2. cat

  3. dog

  4. cockatoo

  5. donkey

  6. goat 
• they waddle, stiffly, on their hind legs. an earthen jar of pink clay is bound to their stomachs with rough twine around its own garlanded paunch. 
•  most, not knowing any better, give them food, ignoring their heartbroken expressions as more apricots and bread crusts fill their clay jars. But anything you can give them, they will change themselves to use. If you give them a gun, they will change their paws to hands. If you give them a book, they will change their brains to read it. 

barbarians (p. 12)

we all know them

• 1d6 Barbarian motorcars chased by dust-white wind. 
• On a 5-6, 1d6 immediately spin out, flip and burst into careening fireballs. 
• each car holds 1d6 Barbarians. Each car that explodes kills 1d3 of its passengers and horribly burns the rest, though they remain frenzied and ready.
• Barbarians wear tight Italian suits and cameras on straps around their necks. their feet are bare so they can better scramble up trees and walls. they wear their hair long and kill things with their driving-gloved hands and their teeth. they love to take photographs. their eyes can’t focus.

jewels of light glittering in the running water (p. 32-33)

and around and around

• gems glitter at the bottom of a stream, easily mistaken for the flash of the sun on the water, and transforming back into sunlight as soon as they are removed from it. 
• a woman soaps linens in the stream, whistling along with the chaffinches 
• she’s missing certain things; an ear, one eye, one breast. follow her back to her little house and find another woman, identical, having the things the other lacks and lacking the things the other has. 
• the first is the artist, the second is her work. as she sculpts her, she slowly scoops features from herself and adds them to the model.
• she can do this with any creature; features she removes with her grubby, delicate hands can be placed, fully functional, on any living thing. 
• she loves herself, her work, and her life. she can think of nothing more exciting than to vanish entirely and be reborn, experiencing the beauty of the island with a tranquility born of familiarity and an joy born of her new senses. 

Beauty sleeps here (p. 6-7, p. 12)

one day she'll wake up she really will

• in the shade of the fig tree, in her vine-leaf crown, in the ripening color of the half light. She is attended to by 4 adoring servants, once Barbarians.
• the underside of the fig tree’s every leaf is a wild beast’s tongue, sandpaper sharp. They grew them just to praise Beauty and when the wind blows through them, they sing that praise in every animal language. 
• if you were to cut out your own tongue and replace it with such a leaf, (which would surely root itself in the soft stump of your flesh), you could speak to all animals. Their loyalty to Beauty would compel them to obey your direct commands, though with each command you gave the leaf would grow dry until the third, when it would wither altogether.
•  the Barbarians arrived plotting to ravish and ruin her, but stopped suddenly and listened to her breathing in her sleep. then, turning silent and respectful, they softly shut the gate in the fence. Now, they have no other desire than to serve Beauty and enjoy it. 
• Unfortunately, because she’s asleep, this mainly means sitting amid the variegated melon, whispering to one another about what they’d do for her when she wakes up, half starting to their feet when she turns over with a yawn like a flower, then sinking back on their heels when she settles back into her dreaming. 
• they’re very annoying and protective and possessively jealous of Beauty and everything in her garden. trying to mess about with anything will result in a brawl, though they will, above all, try to stay quiet enough to not wake Beauty up. they value this above their lives, and value your life a lot less than that. 
•  If Beauty ever wakes up she’ll wander around the island, quietly tidying things up. She will surprise the red dawn on the tamarisks wet with salty dew, water by hand the balsams, phlox, and dahlias, and the young tangerine trees. Once everything is the way she likes it, she’ll do what anyone with sense would do here; enjoy it, letting each day roll into the next.
• If Beauty wakes up, you’re playing a Different Game now: the game of Beauty.