.The Symbïôsìd. .XIII. A POST-NOUVEAU COMPANION.
A. -- Overture Board. 'Colossi Of Gotham'. 'The Welcome': Raindance: Impressions of a Native Land.
B. -- The Crawling Marquee. 'Ride On': AC/DC.
C. -- Citation Raiser. The Bard On Such Creatures As Do Inhabit This Brave New World. 'Hot Sun': Raindance: Impressions of a Native Land.
D. -- Deli Menu: -- Colossi of Gotham -- A Beached Cæsar -- The Occidental Express -- Refresh Stop -- The Mint-Green Sea -- Æsop's Washtub -- The Ruby Deluge -- Frost Giant Irony -- Surtr Noon -- Kali Sunset -- Osiris Bright -- Star Grey -- Nebula Blue -- The I.C. Hydra -- .
1. -- Washed Ashore, In The Derelict, Castaway Manner Of Some Dead Or Dying Whale, Upon Some Nameless Spit Of Land -- & Whose Ash-Complected Sands Are Being Routinely Lapped By The Monotonous, Unrelenting, Rollers Of An Incoming Tide; Each One, In Color, Most Like That Of Freshly-Spilt Blood -- , A Human Figure, Sans Trousers, But Clad, Nonetheless, In Dimpled Folds Of Corpulent Flesh, Fish-Belly White, Is -- Presumably Male; Though It Is Difficult To Tell, Given The Stupendous Extent Of Its, As They Say, Morbid Obesity; That Scraggly Mane Of Dirty-Blonde Hair, Sasquatch Long -- Is, On All-Fours, Crawling, Crawling; To, It Seems, This Jagged Line Of Seaside Cliffs, That We Have, By Now, Discovered, Just Ahead; & Whose Sheer, Sawtooth Range Of Periodically Calving Glaciation, Ruby Pink, Encompasses (Going On, In Either Direction, For As Far As The Eye Can See) The Horizon Line, Entire. Overhead, Racks Of Churning, Seething, Nimbus, From Iron Grey To Navy Steel, Are Looming Low In The, As A Consequence, Quite Gloomy Firmament. Behind The Funereal Occultation Of This Gaseous Shroud, However -- & As Revealed By A Momentary Parting Thereof -- , There Lurks The Undulant Corrugations Of An Omnipresent Aurora, Putrid Green; Beyond This -- With The Sinking Of An Emerald Disc; Rising Of A Starry Twinkle, Amethystine -- , The No Less Inexorable Presence Of A Nebula, Blue ....
2. -- All This In The Shadow, Now, Of A Colossal Statue; & Whose Partially Recumbent Figure Is, In Essence, A Replica Of 'The Dying Gaul' [1]; Arrayed, Though, In The Martial Regalia Of A Thracian-Style Gladiator: Griffin-Crested, Iron-Greaved, & With His Hook-&-Ladder Axe, More Than A Little Reminiscent Of A Vintage, Turn-Of-The-Century, Fireman, Heavily Helmeted, Facelessly Vizored. Its Console-Shaped Pedestal Is An Architecturally Incongruous Amalgum Of Sloping, Rooftop Terraces, Pagodaesque, Plus A Two-Tiered Colonnade Of Alternating Archways, Gothic & Ogee; All Buttressed After The Aërodynamic Fashion Of Some Mediæval See. The Scantness Of This Sculpture's Chainmail Shirt Is, Furthermore, Revealing A Fullbody Preponderance Of Celtic Looking Tattoos; & A Rosary Terminating In An Italian Crucifix, Is Suspended From The Corded Throat, Gruesomely Gaping; The 6-Pointed Emblem Upon The Ponderous Headgear, Of David/Solomon; The Modelled Approximation Of A Shoulder Strap (Appearing To Keep Secure The Right's Articulated Piece Of Scale Armor) Bearing, In Countersunk, Pseudo-Leatherwork, Relief, An Inscription Of Punctuated Numerals, Thus: 'MM.XI.IX'.
[1 Or, 'The Dying Galatian' ('Galata Morente'); 'Epigonus Made It' (?), The Capitoline Museum.]
3. -- Having Followed A Southern Branch Of The D & Q [2] For As Far As The Mainline, North -- Crawling, By Inches, All The Way, Over Each & Every Rotting Tie; The Razor-Straight Line Stretching Out Before Him Like Some Interminable Vision Of Bronze Age Damnation; Pulling, Dragging, Himself Along, In The Excruciatingly Incremental Fashion Of Some Fantastically Mammoth Slug Or Snail; &, In The Process, Traversing No Less Than A Few Of Those Lattice Or Suspension Bridges Which Had Anciently Communicated The Gothamite Islands With Those Belonging To Cape James; But Whose Long-Since Dilapidated Spans Now Look Down Into New Ice-Age Fissures & Chasms Of Yawning Dimensions; Stopping Only To Crash Out, Or, Pausing Momentarily, To Lap, With Animal Satisfaction, Greedy Gulps Of The Puddle Water That Glacial Drip Has Deposited In His Path -- , This Shambling Mound Of Flesh Has Managed, At Last, To Mount The Bed Of An Old Excalibur Gypsy; & Which, With Its Fifth-Wheel Attachment, Hand-Pumping Method Of Locomotion, Has Evidently Been Modified For Use As A Sort Of Post-Dystopian Gandy Dancer.
[2 I.E./Viz., The Demopolis & Quad-Cites Railroad. Vid., Megadex.]
4. -- Almost Too Late Does Our Quondam Emperor -- Formerly Known To Us Under The Throne-Name Of Augustus Nahum II; Then, By The Epithetical Agnomen (Though Never To His Face) Of Tantalus The Magnificent; Long Presumed By Recorded History To Be Deceased [3] -- Appreciate The Significance (Never Too Quick, Truth Be Told, In The Connecting-T'-Dots Department) Of Those Jury-Rigged Booms Stacked Up Along One Side Of The Gypsy's Truck-Like Lining -- Basically, In Each Individual Case, An Odd Assortment Of Rods, Of Various Lengths & Composition, Held Together With Copious Amounts Of Gaffer's Tape -- ; Their Function As Pertains The Rapid Approach Of That Rusty Rail-Switch Up Ahead.
[3 A.K.A., Neussenstein, M. Apollonius J. (Josiah). V.A., VI - XII. Vid., Megadex).]
5. -- Now On The Right Track -- That Is, Along This Westerly Course Which 'll Eventually Take Him To The Southernmost, À La Badlands, Frontier Of Greater Indiana [4]; & From There, God Willing, Onto The Trail Of His Long-Lost Nadia; Or, At The Very Least, One Of Her So-Known Protæan Simulacra [5]; Replica Grey-Cells Included (But For His Present State Of Quite Unmarketable Adiposity, He Might Have Already Begun To Question The Genuine Authenticity Of His Own Bonafide, H. Sapiens, Identity) -- , &, Understandably Spent From All The Grueling Toil Required By The Attempted Fulfillment Of Such An, As He Has Contemplated, Epic Pilgrimage, A.J. Is Seeing Fit To Take The Next Available Siding; & Whose 'Buffalo Hunter' Motif Exit-Sign -- Conspicuous Between That Consecutive Succession Of Billboards Which Has Been, For Some Time Now, & So Frequently, Promoting (This Many Hundreds Of, Then Less That, Miles Ahead) The Sidetrack Attraction Of A Certain 'Hemp House'/'Ogallala Mall' (Whatever Such Unheard-Of-Things As These Could Be) -- Looks To Offer Some Degree Of Respite From Those Most-Recent Exertions; & Which, Given The Extent Of His Massive, All-But-Cetaceous, Frame, Must Be Regarded As Just Short Of Heroic; Moreover -- As Indicated By The Etching-Style Illustration Of That Disembodied Hand, Pointing The Way -- , The Promise Of A Complimentery 'Post-Nouveau Companion'.
[4 V.A., X. V.U., XIV; XV. Vid., Megadex (Fallen Timbers Conference, The; Hudson Valley Summit, The; Imperial Park System, The; Imperial Preserve System, The; Indiana, Greater; Indiana, Lesser; Indiana Major; Indiana Minor).]
[5 V.A., VIII - XI. Vid., Megadex (Demetrians; Döpp'lers; Macrobials; Macromorphs; Macroörganisms; Macrozoids; Macrozoöns; Pornomorphs; Pornoörganisms; Pornozoids; Pornozoöns; Protæans; Pseudomorphs; Pseudoörganisms; Pseudozoids; Pseudozoöns; Servomorphs; Servoörganisms; Servozoids; Servozoöns).]
6. -- Dominated By A 3D Original Of The Aforesaid Piece (The Pigtailed, Pompadoured, Lance-Wielding, Game-Hunter, Preferring Kustom Trike To Equine, Evidently), This Singular Oddity Of A Rail-Service Turnout Is Also Boasting -- Flanked By A Peak-Roof Pair Of Directories, Rood-Like, Tripodal -- , Equally Novel, The Delicate, Intricately Crafted, Works Of What Looks To Be, By All Appearances, Some Species Of Outdoor Planetarium.
7. -- Said Orrery, Of Cyclopean Proportions, Fully Automated, Is Exhibiting A Climactic Shift Within Our Solar System, From Unicentric To Binary; The Duration Of Which This Mechanism's Uncredited Designer's Have Labelled The Deolithic Era; & Spanning A Period Extending Roughly From Outset Of The Old Demopolitan Count To That Of The Present Post-Nouveau Epoch [6]; Including The Introduction Therein Of The Roving Grey-Dwarf Planet Zurvan [7], With Its Attendant, Nebulous Harbinger Of Livid, Shiva-Skin, Blue, Into The Outer Zone [8]; The Gradual Migration Of The Gas Planets, Ultimately The Inner Spheres As Well (Including The Earth) Away From Helios Into -- Especially In Light Of The Latter's Transition From Yellow Sun To Green Star; The, Albeit Fleeting, Red Giant Phase Of This Stellar Metamorphosis (& Just Preceding The Chrysalid One: In Which The Larval, Incipient Osiris, Magmatically Sanguine, Had Been Temporarily Encased Within A Blackened Crust Of Igneous, Post-Volcanic, Material [9]) Having Jumpstarted The Process, For All The Bodies Concerned, Of This Outward Trajectory -- , Into An Orbit More In Sidereal Accord, Harmonic Equilibrium, With The Newcomer's Gravitational Forces.
[6 V.A., I.]
[7 V.A., X. Vid., Megadex (Damascus, Planet; Damascus, The Planet; Toledo Sphere, The; Zurvan, Planet; Zurvan, The Planet).]
[8 I.E., In their totality, Öpik-Oort Cloud & Kuiper Belt. V.A., X. Vid., The Sleeper Inside. Cf., Megadex (Inner Girdle, The; Main Belt, The). V.A., VI; XV. Vid., The Sleeper Inside.]
[9 V.S.. Vid., Megadex (Kali Sunset; Osiris Bright; Surtr Noon).]
8. -- Upon A More-Thorough Examination, The Telluric Model, Itself, Is Revealed To Be, In Its Own Right, A Clockwork Automaton, Likewise Functional; Albeit, Of Less Macrocosmic Specifications, Naturally. And, One In Which The Tectonic Jigsaw Is -- While Initially Being Subject To, Per An Epidemic Superabundance Of Scoraic Avalanching, Glacial Calving, The Cataclysmic Displacement Of Already Turgescent Sea-Levels, Ruby-Red -- Is Shown To Have, Ultimately, Succumbed To A New Ice-Age. The Full Force Of This Mass Glaciation Having Long Been Somewhat Moderated, Though, Paradoxically Enough, By Those Smoggy, Carboniferous Emissions That Had Resulted From The Advent Of A Postindustrial World [10]. The Consequences For The American Longitudes Of This Coastal Erosion, Coupled With The Environmental Byproducts Of An Almost Instantaneous Flash-Freezing Of Said Floodwaters, Being -- The Interplay Between The Latter & An Almost Constant Runoff Proceeding From A Rapidly Quick-Thawing Antipode (The Obliquely Elliptical Relationship Which Terra Firma Has Since Developed With This Neo-Solis, To Say Nothing Of Its Novel, Unclassified, Bombardments Thereof, Cosmic, Radioactive, Keeping Antarctica -- Viz., Nova Patagonia -- In A State Of Perpetual Twilight) Instigating A Geological Circumstance Of Seasonal Ice-Floe Accretion/Melting; & In Which, In Either Case, The Old Coastlines, River-Bottom Lowlands, Were, Therefore, All Year Long, Monopolized -- Being A Reduction Of These Erstwhile Inhabitable Landmasses To That Of A, More Or Less, Glorified, Continental Grouping Of Isthmian, Mostly Mountainous, Topographies; By Now Widely Termed, Respectively, North & South Caycæa; A Coloradan & An Appalachian Chain, Separated By The Mississippi Channel, & Draining From A Mare Magnum Above; Together, Joining Their Andæan Counterpart Below.
[10 V.A., X.]
9. -- Most Shocking Of All, Though, Is This Automated Directorie's Incredible Assertion That Everyone Currently Upon The Face Of The Earth, Is In The Process, More Or Less, Of A Literal, Actualized, Resurrection, Alive Or Dead. For While The Latter, For The Most Part (But With A Number Of, Admittedly Notable, Ostensibly Random, Exceptions [11]) Slumber On -- Though Undergoing, More & More Everyday (C/O The Deohedreon-Sowing Activities Of Johnny Hedgeball [12]) 'The Change' -- , Awaiting That Period In When All Of Departed Humanity Shall Be Called Back, En Masse, To Living Consciousness [13]; Those Born In The Years Between The First-Few, Premature, Transmutations, Having -- Wrought By Certain, Successful, Applications Of The Neussenstein Treatment [14], &, Le Bronze-Couquetier Touchdown Of (In The Immediate Vicinity Of Tel Shiloh) The O.Z.O Omphalos [15] -- Having Unwittingly Become The Collateral, Or Osmotic [16], Beneficiaries Of That One Passage In St. Paul's Correspondence; & Upon Which All Post-Awakenings Evangelicals Base Their Whole Doctrinal Concept Of A Pre-Tribulation 'Rapture' [17]. For If These Neo-Pentecostals [18] Had Been Aware Of Such Apocalyptic Reiterations, Resurrectionwise, They Would Have, Likewise, Known That Ye Good Reaper's Cloud-O'Glory Harvest, Of The (But Barely) Salvageable Crop, Had Never Been Intended To Deliver Anyone From The Horrors Brought On By Warning Shofar (As If An End-Times Disciple Should Fare Better, In This Regard, Than Those Whom Had Actually Known The Lord; The Only Begotten Son, Himself), But Only From The Chaff-Devouring Conflagrations Offered By Those Subsequent Chalices Of Wrath. Unlike The Experiences Of Those More-Fortunate Souls, However -- Feeling The Full, Transmutative Effects Of That Metamorphic Combustion Which They Have Embraced; The Resulting Reanimation, Antemortem, Or, Otherwise [19] -- , The Vast Majority Of These Unsuspecting Revenants (Still Walking Around; Or, From Out Of The Ground; What-Have-You) Have Thoroughly Suppressed, Per Some Psychospiritual Species Of Mass, Autohypnotic, Delusion, The Physical Realization Of Their Newfound Immortality, Altogether Asexual (Technically Speaking [20]), Ethnically Ambiguous; Clinging Instead To Those DNA-Based Identities Which No High-Functioning, Egocentric, Mammal, Is Able, Apparently, To Do Without; &, As A Result, Continue To Exist In A Kind Of Actualized, Living, Purgatory; Until Such Time As They Are, Finally, Willing, &/Or Able, To Leave Behind, Once & For All, Such Zygoticist/Ethnocentric Conceits. For Those Whom Never Do, There Is Only An Eternity Of Somnambulant Acrimony To Look Forward To [21] ....
[11 V.I., 16. Vid., The Sleeper Inside; The Anarchicon (E).]
[12 V.A., III. Vid., The Sleeper Inside.]
[13 V.A., III. V.U., XXVI.]
[14 V.A., XII.]
[15 V.A., XXV. Vid., The Sleeper Inside.]
[16 Viz., The Evangelion (I.E., The Good Friday Revenants). V.S., 11.]
[17 Viz., I Thessalonians.]
[18 Here, as an Umbrella Term for all Postmodern Evangelical ('Born-Again') Sects: Apostolics, Adventists, Charismatics, Etc.).
[19 V.A., XII. Vid., The Sleeper Inside.]
[20 V.A., XV.]
[21 V.A., III. Vid., Megadex (Ahriman, The Tropic of; 'Everdead, The; Grey Main, The; Indigo Ocean, The; Mare Infernum, The; Mare Oblivium, The; Necropode, The; Netherzone, The; Ormazd, The Tropic of).]
10. -- An Implacable Dévotee Of Its Neurographic Programming [22], That Macroörganic Life-Support System Which Has Kept Augustus Nahum Alive Through All The Long Years Following The Traumatic Auto-Crash Which Would Leave His Beloved Cousin & Co-Ruler, Titania IV [23], A Walking Sarcophagus (Though Cold As A Stone), Himself, A Shambling Catafalque (Still Breathing, But Paraplegic [24]), Having Detached Itself From The So-Known Cæsar Mobile In Which The, Then, Abdicating Emperor Had Ordered Himself, For An Indeterminate Period Of Regenerative Hibernation, Has, At Long-Last, Sniffed Out -- In The Vicinity Of The Aforenoted Stop; & Where He Had Been, At That Time, Availing Himself Of One Of Those À La Automat Complimentary 'Hairnets' For Which The Present Episode Is Named; The Cephalode Rectifier Then Relaying To A.J.'s Awaiting Brain A Further Marvel Concerning The Post-Nouveau Epoch (The Particulars Of Which, However, Are Probably Best Left To A Succeeding Number; Sufficed To Say, As It Turns Out, The Old-Western Dance Circles Of The Ghost-Shirts Had Not Been, After All, All In Vain [25]) -- The Trail Of Its Solemnly-Sworn Lord-&-Master. A Tentacular Mass Of Malleable, Gelatinous Cosmoplasm [26], Molded To Resemble Nothing So Much As A Polycystic, Hydra-Like, Aggregation Of Sightless Eels -- That, Or A Writhing, Ball-O'-Yarn, Wad Of Gigantic Earthworms, Mandibularly Beaked -- , This Viscid, Polypous Horror, In Pursuit Of Its Intended Target, The Image-&-Likeness Of Some Pseudopodous Bowling-Ball, Ichor-Green, Is Rolling; Bouncing Along Those Very Tracks That Our Adipose Heldentenor Has Passed ....
[22 V.A., VI; VIII.]
[23 I.E./Viz., Mme. Nadia X. (Ximena) Neussenstein; A.K.A., Augusta Titania IV; 'Lana', for short (V.A., VIII).]
[24 V.A., IX; X. V.U., XVI.]
[25 V.U., XIV.]
[26 I.E./Viz., 'Demetrium' or 'Ichor'; also -- on the Periodic Chart/Table of MegaElements (Inset) -- , 'Element M14'. V.I./Ibid., 22. V.A., V; VI; VIII.]
E. -- Horus Roll. 'Watching The Wheels': John Lennon.
F. -- Microdex. 'Planet Caravan': Black Sabbath.
