20. The Tree of Love
ZOOL.A.ND was quiet. At least this side of it. I was hiking up a barren hill which leads to the Tree of Love. Sha-Rronne was going to meet me there. Right now, at this very moment, I am panting, cursing my lack of shape. The slope was steep and muddy, but she’d promised a view to die for at the summit. This view I’m fantasizing is Sha-Rronne buck naked with her maidens. Orgy the black cloud hovering with its tempestuous waterfall, unleashed at our very beck and call. Corroding the golden bracelets and anklets on the girls, the necklaces becoming chains around the neck, a prison of pretty criminals, handcuffed, feet bound to iron balls. And still they were gyrating, shaking under the rain, without umbrella; even after the rain, puddles of water, female mud wrestlers; and till the sun shone a blistering heat, caking the sludge, scorching hot enough to burn flesh, they danced on, a feverish pitch, as if in religious fervour, a cleansing, a mutilation, washed of impurities by the torrents, and then dried and tried in the furnace; cut diamonds found to exhibit the finest indulgence, the most exquisite elegance, a glamorous balance. Glam-bang bling-bling. Premium meat.
At the top of the mount was the panorama of valley. An accordance of many peaks circled from the very ends of earth, some snow-capped, but all leading, slanting to the epicentre, a humongous crater. All roads lead here. And a grassy incline descends toward the axis, which is a giant tree growing out of a giant hole.
Legends and fables tell of an enormous meteorite the size of New York City that came crashing on a fine summer day long millenniums ago, depressing one surface of the planet that it now looks like a bashed-up face from outer space. Other stories spoke of Leviathan crawling out of hell to eat the souls and bodies of sinners alive even as they yelped and yelled in repentance for god to forgive. Still, there were versions of the entire world as a test base for alien nuke-tech, extraterrestrials progressing on a universal vision to parasitically engorge planets of resources in order to become the one supreme race of the universe. There’s even a tale of a massive war fought by two warring clans at this very spot, an innumerable number of boys and men lost, their blood crying to the heavens from the ground whereupon it was spilled; a pointless agony, a suffering end, a lamentation of violence and vengeance against greedy lords luxuriated and fluffed in gluttony. Lives gone without cause; and the collective spirits of sorrow sink the earth, deflating it to a valley, and the abyss beneath.
The Tree of Love. Strong. The source and energy of Life n’living in this metaversal realm. Note: Life n’living is an international café and spa chain capitalizing on the twin paradoxical desires of the flesh – gluttony and vanity. A beauty parlour demonizing you for being too fat, not fit like a stick the way runway models and actresses are, easily slipping into that tiny dress - ridiculously tight, outrageously small, absurdly sexy, abnormally in, absolutely cliché and genuinely insane. A fashion designer’s dream – she. You? His awful nightmare. Lose some weight, burn that fat; eat those carrots…only the carrots. Not the cheesecake. Exercise; run five miles a day, ride those wheels. Dumbbell training, dumb alright…yeah, you – Dumb! Fat n’ Dumb! Join our gym. We promise you, toned and trimmed, abs deliciously evil, slim and beautiful, fuckable…yes, very, very fuckable.
Envy. Everybody wants you.
Envy. Everybody hates you.
Envy. Everybody loves you.
Now relax. Enjoy our aromatherapy, our sacred mud bath with healing properties, foot reflexology, massage. Therapeutic hot stones placed on the pivotal charkas of the body, spiritually defined, chi aligned, bringing into equilibrium spirit, soul, body and mind.
Peace. You are at peace. Peace from the world. Peace from the troubles. The world can go fuck itself. My crying children, go on, scream. Scream till your lungs explode. I don’t care; I’m at peace. Endorphin overdose. My horny husband, seeking my attention only when sexed. Otherwise I don’t exist. It’s the news, or the game, or the buddies, or even work. I’m not in the equation. Only when your dick rises. That’s right, I’m sorry. Yer not getting any. God gave you two hands. Use them.
Peace.
And now…eat. Enjoy the buffet. The leg of lamb, Kobe beef, roast pork, the fat and rind. Cholesterol oil. Eat! Eat! Clog up the arteries, grease up your blood. Alrite, we are a meat nation, a society addicted to flesh. Slaughter them animals; cut them throats. Blood oozing, pouring to the ground. Ribs on hooks. Headless chickens running around. Headless chickens running around.
Cream. Icing. Chocolate. Ice cream. All things nice. We have them; we have them all. Indulge. Roll around. Filthy as swine. Soiled with sweets. Snorting. Debased. Groaning and moaning while swimming in cakes. Your face is baptized in pies, a caramel beard, applesauce eyebrows, and your mouth is overflowing sick.
You overeat; you’re a pig, a cow. Pathetic. You throw up. Vomit mixed with caviar, foie gras, delicacies, and rich gastronomic delights. Now hit the gym. Drop down and give me fifty. You need a drill sergeant. You wretched piece of shit! Too fat, not fit like a stick the way runway models and actresses are...
The Tree of Love. Its leaves are gold and green, branching to the heavens. Dripping like vine…like wine, and beneath a multitude of beasts take shelter. Little animals burrow in its thick trunk, making it home; and birds perched and nested, secured from storms. Fruits, red and ripe hang big, the size of a pumpkin coach in Cinderella’s tale, a hypnotizing glow of sickly pale illuminates from the inner core, but with a warm light, like a cosy corner of a Balinese-themed home inviting you in.
There are no doors. They’re merely fruits after all, like apples and oranges, durians or rambutans. And we, individuals, couples, seep in two-by-two through scarlet skin, as though god commanded; we, the animals, enter Noah’s Ark, one male one female, from the largest to the smallest. Dinosaurs to germs. Viruses, bacteria, parasites in Petri dishes, stem cells harvested from all manner of life, stored in a library of DNA and genome for the continuation of the species should there be a holocaust to wipe creation out.
Aptly named, the Tree of Love, the collector of sperm and egg. Semen, the juice of love…climaxing, embracing, souls entwined like the Tree itself, in shared breath, joined orgasms, rhythmic hearts and a proclaiming vision – that two become one, man and wife, the bride and bridegroom. The marriage bed. And at the pivotal peak of pleasure, break on through. Break on through (to the other side). Like Jim Morrison, like that The Door’s song. Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix, the guitar of love, music of love, at that time in the future, the year 35 billion 69, at the brink of the end of a universe, the galactic empire, sent back to tame the song…
But they were all wrong. Break on through (to the other side). Break on through (to the other side). And you will see. You will see the size of things, the scope of things; the universe, only a seed, your universe. All you hold precious, that which you deem important, miniscule; your rule and conquest, possessing galaxies, advancing wormholes for travel and exploration, commerce, trade, development and innovation, building for the future, nothing; a mere drop in a drop in the ocean, a single cell of eternity’s. Which is yet, all things, a potential to be, a brand new dimension, an original universe; a fresh face for creation, a nouveau god, you; a newer you, more confident, more jovial, all ready to face the challenges of an eternal, futuristic day. Whatever it throws your way, you smile like you’re in a fucking ad on TV.
Uncountable, the giant fruit balls, overflowing from the towering tree, some at its utmost branch; others draping the floor, connected to the trunk by thin vines. Still, there are those that are fallen, ripened perhaps, plump and matured on the ground, ready to be gathered for the feasts of the gods. The inhuman race.
Sha-Rronne was decked in glitter, a pop diva. Plunging neckline on a gold-beaded halter neck, micro skirt, legs that go on forever, and stilettos from hell. Above, her hair is bouncy, a beehive, which seems to be having a lot of spiritual activity. Evil spirits delve in and out of the strands like Formula 1 race cars, like World War Two Japanese warplanes supreme in dogfight, pod-racers of Phantom Menace fame. Guardian angels stand firm. Archangel Michael wields his flaming sword, protecting this follicled Eden. Demons run helter-skelter, and Satan is frustrated. Vesper pops by and says hi. I gave him a wave as he darts mischievously about Sha-Rronne’s curls of glory.
Fast forward. After sex. After the jizz and trickle, plonked to panting, to perspiration. Some chemicals excited in the brain, but calm like a stream. We can hear our breathing, the beat of nature’s tune. When I opened my eyes, I was in the inner side of Sha-Rronne, quite literally. My cock rested, flaccid on the walls of her vagina, slimed with semen and lube; and it’s as if I were my cock itself, a head on a stick with eyes and nose and ears, a stupid innocent face enthralled by the magnificent garden of the pussy, a worm ecstatic on fertile soil. If my dick and soul, (now both one and united), were to be illustrated in a children’s book or cartoon, it would be drawn as a cute looking sausage someone dropped on carpeted grass in a barbeque cook-out, grasping knowledge of the world. In its journey, it would meet wild wonderful creatures untold; some hungry, some loving. Some lie, pretending to love, before tricking it into the bite of the mouth. Others appear devious, but honest in the end. Mothers. Whores. Bitches and brides.
In this womb-like version of Sponge Bob’s Bikini Bottom, in which I am the incarnation of my penis, my peaceful penis, I play along the forest lines, along the river shore. Discovering. An innocent child meeting magical beings, sitting on polka-dotted mushrooms, chatting happily. A sexless cupid with the womb for a playground. Groin of a mannequin, but the face and body of a cheeky preadolescent boy. There were others, young girls even, all playing games in Sha-Rronne’s reproductive organ. Her jungle, her desert, it was huge, with its own north and south poles, with its freezing, humid and dry temperatures; but I hung out most at the equator where it was wet and moist, rich with flora and fauna, exotic beasts, and the rainfall in excess of two thousand millimetres per year.
I played Tarzan with my band of gorillas, and occasionally I visited the shrine of her temple at the core of the uterus. A Sheena Queen of the Jungle; and since I was merely a dick, I shook instead, my whole body and limbs in a weird uncontrollable jig. I didn’t comprehend; it was intuitive, like a killer’s instinct. This marauding Jane commands certain hormones off my prepubescent biology. And at the end of the dance, I foamed in the mouth, an overtaking fit; convulsion of the psyche. Saliva blurts out like a lie, mucus overflowing as a flood, and I puked like a precisely coordinated fountain-and-lights showcase.
Marauding, because this Jane, whenever she is horny, hunts my monkey bros; she eats their brains as delicacy while they scream alive with fire burning under their feet. But I didn’t know death; I don’t recognize terror. It was all a childlike game to me. Something funny. Something fun.
One day, in the depths of the tropical rainforest, during a torrential storm when flood rises, rapids flow and mud slides, the Queen strikes. This little boy goes stomping in knee-high water, pretending to be Christopher Columbus hacking through primitive America. And out of the bright blue, a spark of yellow, a macaw flashes, orange, fire and cerise flying across my sphere of vision; a squawk, and there she was. Standing as an Amazonian warrior in battled-leathered-armour, clutching a shield and a spear. A helmet hid her face, revealing only two intense grey-set eyes, a violent mouth, and blonde hair flowing from the sides. Cakes of dirt and dried blood made her up, war paint and camouflage, a soldier’s Estee Lauder.
She sees me and smiles. I returned it, warmth emanating from my heart, and I called out, “Mama?”
She smiles again, wider this time; slowly the mouth spreads across the cheeks as if she’d been sliced through the gums.
I raised my chubby cupid arms, “Mama,” I called once more.
The Valkyrie reached out. I looked up. She must be a six-footer and I a puny three-feet-seven-inches tall. Hand-in-hand, mother and child, and I awoke a midget giving cunnilingus to a muscled lady in a bubble ball.