Bookmark 10 withheld from the online publication

The twittering of a robin accompanied by the clucking of squirrels called to him across the centuries, whistling like song through the rent fabric of Space-Time through which he was being drawn like a strand of DNA that had just won some dubious lottery.

He had no words, thoughts, feelings or sensations. He did not even exist. He was merely granted a timeless moment of clarity as he was brought into being once again. The nature of his re-composition hinted at a setting for which he had been engineered, a world, a time, a place in which he could thrive. He was coming home to a time he had never been to—drawn remorselessly into the pulsating platinum sun that was the inner horizon of this instantaneous world; a momentary existence, a birthing of sorts which he had experienced now—and somehow he was reborn knowing this—more than any other creature that had ever lived…

He burst to vibrant potent life beneath the towering trees of the primeval forest. He could smell the confluence of the Tioga and knew he would be among the Seneca, among friends, with Three-Rivers.

Home again you are hillbilly.

It was an early spring day when he came to life holding hands with Three-Rivers.

The boy spoke to him in a comforting tone, “Sweet-morning-of-joy to you Fury. It is the Fourteenth day of the Flower Moon, in the year of the Whiteman’s Winter Count Sixteen-thirty-eight.”

The elders, women and principal warriors of the Seneca were gathered around, surely witness to the miracle of a lifetime, even if all it produced was a naked battle-scarred Whiteman. After one look around he looked down—not so far down now—into the angelic blue eyes of Three-Rivers, who appeared now to be a young man of perhaps 19 years, a handsome athletic youth with the compassionate eyes of a wizened old man. Three-Rivers was dressed in flowing purple cotton robes with a band of colorful wampum confining his blue-black rock-star hair. The dang squirrel—dressed in fancy beaded buckskins—was chattering on his shoulder and a robin with a missing wing perched on top of his head.

The voice was no longer that of a boy, but that of some designer pop-star that could surely woo all the pretty girls. The speech pattern though was familiar and the evenly creased smile was unforgettable, “My friend Fury, welcome back to Mother Earth. I would like to introduce you to my good friends but other friends of ours call out to me, across the ages, from Mother Earth’s ravaged sister.”

Prepare for deconfiguration and translocation Yule Alpha 7.

Mother?

“Fury, stand at attention you! We must go to Europe while the call yet comes to me. It has been seven days now—my favorite number you know! The Masters of Further Sunset, who you know so well without knowing, may even now be snaring our friends and the Sunset Grandfather called Best-purpose.”

Look at all these fine folks. It would be so nice to stay.

The wonderful voice became impatient, “Fury, we—even I, Thunderboy—may only travel to a different place when the dream-catchers, call. Arlene’s calls as we speak.”

Yeah, but look at that fine girl in the white beaded buckskins. You know she dressed like that to get a look at you—the warrior…

The youth’s urgent voice cut through his whimsy, “Fury, Mother has read so very many books of Sunset Past, and her imprint of mind is within me—she remains angry with you by-the-way for sexing that dancing girl you abducted from within the crowded belly of the bus-beast without her consent.

“We must journey to the land of the Helen-speakers to the Whiteman’s Up-side-down Winter Count of Three-twenty-two. This shall be great fun. I shall impersonate medicine-man Daedalus and you Achilles, Smasher of Crowded-together-spear-warriors and Big Cat among Men! Moon-Beaver here shall be my drowned and revived son Icarus.”

What is that kid holding—a U-shaped guitar? There are turkey feathers hanging from his shirt sleeves.

Three-Rivers perked up to a higher pitch, “Icarus flew too close to Father Sun, and the candle-fat that held his wings melted. Moon-Beaver is impersonating Icarus reborn to me, singing of his woe, as his sea-soaked feathers hang limply. I have summoned you to avenge him against our evil captor from whom we had fled, and to rescue Arlene and her friends. Attention Fury, military op imminent—I got that from Mother. How do you like that Sunset Lingo they call it?”

the Sun of Time—the hole we get sucked through... He’s not a kid anymore.

Not waiting for an answer Three-Rivers gave his robin to a small boy, and turned to an Englishman gone native and some buck-naked French queer and motioned them forward. “Come friends, my Angel of Battle would have his panoply!”

With that the two men and some Seneca boys came forward with a 16th Century blacksmith’s version of a dory [a seven foot spear], the bowl-shaped oak and iron “Shield of Achilles”, a modified morion [distinctive helmet of the Spanish conquistadors] with a crest of hair donated from Seneca maidens rather than from a slain horse, a heavy British cutlass on a baldric, some nice moccasins…and a really gay looking leather skirt.

This is a weird get-up.

Three-Rivers spoke with an apologetic tone, “Apologies Fury, for the ragged nature of your armament. I had not the time to fly to the magic mountain of Thunder-chief to employ the services of his crippled craftsmen. Not to worry; our next foray into the past of the Helen-speakers of Ravaged Sister’s Tear-drenched-land shall be made with more forethought and attention to detail. The maiden-hair battle-hat I thought would agree with you. The very maidens that gaze upon you now donated it for your adornment!”

He made to say thanks and the words stuck in his throat, turning to a rumbling snarl as he became irritated at the prospect of such a short stay, and conscious of the fact that these people wanted him to stay, and that the lush hair felt so soft, and the little girl farthest to the left was getting wet looking at him sniff her hair and snarl...

Three-Rivers put a comforting fingertip—which somehow did not feel offensive—between his eyes and intoned with the deep base of a blues singer, “Hold onto your fury you—Blue Bird be gone. It is DeathSong who is needed.”

So the little bleeding-heart pacifist vegetarian peacemaker just gave you a hit list?

Three-Rivers laughed into the sky and it sounded like ice crystals falling on glass. “The cotton-hide faun and the big cat may be at peace with themselves and each other. So says the Witty Slave about different-natured men my friend Fury. Be at peace with me as we fly.”

He was thankfully fitted with a breechcloth beneath the gay leather skirt. He did not have to lift a finger or move a muscle. He was dressed and outfitted by the craftsmen and their apprentices, all the while holding hands with Three-Rivers and his faithful disciple Moon Beaver, who now appeared in his mid-teens, dressed in feathered buckskins and carrying the weird harp strapped to his back, just as Jay’s massive 30 lb shield was strapped to his own back.

We aren’t going to be able to transport all of this stuff we are carrying. We are only jumping three.

Three-Rivers’ voice took on a tone of authority, “Concern your mind not for our equipment Fury. You are canoeing across time with Thunderboy, and the cloud that buoys our time-canoe shall accommodate us. Time is our river DeathSong and it is time I began paddling this canoe—besides, Mister Hicks is coming too!”

Three-Rivers began singing a beautiful but haunting Iroquois song as he stared into the noonday sun shining down through a narrow gap in the canopy. For background music Moon-Beaver clucked like a squirrel. The squirrel—he calls it Gerald Hicks right?—however, was hunkering down behind Three-Rivers’ neck like the apocalypse was nigh.

Here we go, seared ass hair and the top blown off of your head all over again.

Don’t sweat it, the people are smiling and singing and the girls are still pretty. You’ll be back hillbilly.

He felt somehow whole as he scattered and echoed across the land. When he was nothing more than sound he could still see himself, speeding across the void holding hands with a mighty squirrel—the King Kong of Tree Rats for God’s sake!

He saw Brenner’s tiny baby-face smiling before him. He watched through Mother Corp’s clear amniotic fluid as her blood flowed through the bifurcated tube that joined him and his brother and separated to pump her essence into them through their navels. Brenner was asleep, eyes closed, sucking his thumb. But he, Yule Alpha 7, was awake, and Mother’s thoughts were echoing darkly within his still forming mind…

Then, all of a sudden, he was a baby boy, a newborn, cradled in the arms of a tall lithe nurse, a raven-haired golden-skinned beauty, who set him down easily in his plastic crib with one long elegant hand, as she removed the bemused baby that had occupied that spot just a moment ago with the other hand.

As the phantom nurse walked off silently he looked through the plastic, upon the face of the exhausted little woman who was asleep in the great white bed beside his barren plastic crib…

Mom?

He was conscious of his reconfiguration but was somehow being drawn toward the sound of a twinkling crystal voice backed by the strumming of a lyre:

“Sorrow-of-the-people smash their serried ranks!

Swiftest of men course them as hares by the hound!!

Lion among lambs spatter the meadow with their blood!!!

He who fought the River, choke him with their corpses!!

First among Shades, feed them to the triple-headed hound!”

As he merged and his form took on its functions this most beautiful of voices rocked his cosmic cradle with the endless—for it truly was endless—recitation of this hideous verse; and in The End, or possibly The Beginning, he became as one with the song; he came together in some other peoples’ past as Sorrow-of-the-people.