"The one seem'd Woman to the waste, and fair, but ended foul in many a scaly fould voluminous and vast, a Serpent arm'd with mortal sting: about her middle round a cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark'd with wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and rung a hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep if aught disturb'd thir noyse, into her womb, and kennel there, yet there still bark'd and howld, within unseen." [2.650-660]
"The other shape, if shape it might be call'd that shape had none distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, for each seem'd either; black it stood as night, fierce as ten furies, terrible as Hell, and shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head the likeness of a kingly crown had on." [2.666-673]
"Him the Almighty Power/Hurld headlong flaming from th'Ethereal Skie/With hideous ruine and combustion down/To bottomless perdition, there to dwell/In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire/Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms." [1.44-49]
-- John Milton, Paradise Lost
~~~
"Life shouldn't fit inside a cunt." A wheezing exhale followed by a sharp intake of breath. "But it does." And with that, Abuela expired. A unanimous choked sight went up through the packed assembly with Mama sighing the loudest of all, tears spraying from her chubby sockets like a sprinkler, rocking back and forth on her knees like a Romanian orphan. But Maria was distracted by a strange sensation that began to creep up the arm of the hand grasping the cooling dead one. Abuela was about to teach her that death is really just the Great Disappearing Act.
~~~
While other teachers used the final useless weeks of June to force their students to clean their classrooms, Sister Cecelia took them to the beach. She was the sort of teacher who took pleasure in explaining plant respiration. She would hug the trees, breathing in and out slowly, feeling as though she were taking part in some sort of communion.
~~~
She would live in the pocket of adventure that danced between bill and palm. And it gave her hope, this evidence that it was not always all about pussy or power. Those times when she saw her own desperation mirrored in the struggle of the 24-year-old newly minted stockbroker ripping off the expertly tied tie his girlfriend had yoked around his neck that morning, tossing it aside like a purple heart and falling into her, searching for that bottomless perdition. And there would be dreams and there would be time. Looking out the window with the yellow slits just breaking over the gray city still humming with lust, she knew there would still be dreams and time.
~~~
She had managed to avoid the Great Disappearing Act in the Big River, but there were still many chances ahead to make Houdini proud. In front of her lay miles upon miles of sand and beyond that she knew would be the fence and men with guns, lots of men with guns.
~~~
Mary stood on the railing and looked out at the sunset. Suddenly, the ground sprang up and met her skull, watering the slices with blood and then when the world went red her mind said "Yes" and it split open and went flying to the four corners of the universe with a front row seat to all of space and time.
"Oh abuela, don't you see..."
