The Sodomized Dictator
by Marcus Speh
In the night after the killing, Ali washes himself in a bowl. His wife comes close and takes his hands, slowly stroking them with hers. The bowl is filled with red water, but Ali is not bleeding. Something stands between them now, they both feel it but they don't know what to call it. It's not one of the ghosts that come from the desert to wake up the sleeping children and talk to them sometimes for hours. It's not a mere memory either, one of those old memories that wraps itself around their naked necks. It's not a thought of the brown sandy future, or a storm from Syracuse on the other side of the blueness. They touch each others' bare foreheads. —“What is it?” says his wife almost without a voice, and Ali says: “It's a volcano. It's opened under our very feet.” — “We must stop it,” she says. “It can't be stopped,” says Ali, “get the children. Let's sit together under a green blanket and pray.”
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Author's Note
Written to deal with some pictures from Libya that went around the world in 2011.
This is one of 80 stories in my collection “Thank You for Your Sperm” (MadHat Press, 2013).
Published in PANK 7.1 January 2012 with audio and with an interview.
Other stories by Marcus Speh
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Well done, Marcus.
"Something stands between them now, they both feel it but they don't know how to call it."
Yes.
I think you've put into words what many feel but cannot express - not this eloquently, at any rate. Well done.
Well and beautifully said, as usual, Marcus.
*
I ask myself, "Am I invested?" I listen for the answer. Nothing comes. Now this.
fave
I too tried to capture in my day's story the horrendously odd mix of satisfaction with utter despair I felt. You said it better.
Marcus, I followed your tweet to here. This is excellent, simple and eloquent. *
Fine, Marcus, really fine *
The three "It's not..." statements build wonderfully to the volcano. *
Always a pleasure to read your work.
"The bowl is filled with red water now but Ali is not bleeding." The color of the abyss.*
"the brown sandy future"
Wonderful.
*
Excellent line: "The bowl is filled with red water, but Ali is not bleeding."
It is so difficult to be throughtful and reasoned in the midst of emotion and emotionalism. Overthrows are so painful, even for the victors.
"The revolution like Saturn devours its own children" Danton
'Let's sit together under a green blanket and pray.” is such a wonderful line and such an enlightened and necessary response.
*****
So very interesting to behold. Your work always rocks the boat. And afterwards it reveals a sheet of northern lights.Sheer and beautiful.
I am wordless, it appears, but deeply moved. *
You slipped into another reality.
*
I didn't want to read this except you wrote it, beautifully.
I would like to have seen Saddam, Osama, and Qaddafi growing old together in a cave somewhere. But I don't know them as others know them so what I think doesn't really matter. Still, the celebration of death in the media is unnerving.
a volcano - can't be stopped,
so sad. Your last line was heart wrenching.
Nope. Can't be stopped. *
I am already under that blanket. Will take me a few more days to be able to peek out. The horror of having it shown again and again on TV, and the hypocrisy of apologizing in the name of "the News".
That volcano is under the feet of us all.
Lady Macbeth has been washing her hands for four-hundred years now. Still in vain?
naked necks ... *
Marcus, I've been away for a week and look at all of this great work posted here! Including yours. What an end, so emotionally drawn. How you do this is beyond me.
Fave.
dense with layered language *
YES
***...
Yes and yes.
*
Trauma indeed. When things are at their worst, when the earth is opening to swallow, all that is left is prayer under a fragile blanket.
Micro-Magnificent. The closing line is a killer! *