Friday, September 14, 2012

Death Speech (Kurtz)



I’m waiting to die. 
Something has happened to me, I can’t doubt it anymore.  It came as an illness does, not like an ordinary certainty, not like anything evident.  It came cunningly.  Little by little… But you see Melrose, daddy has gone and lost his hat.  It’s humid in here.  Moist.  We Brits are born in clinics, free of this life fouling liquid taint permeating the air; we germinate far away from this goo of bacterial fornication.  I’ve lost my clean sheets you see. I’ve sullied each and every undergarment that the clinic presented me with.   Goo.  Goo permeates my loins.  Goo permeates my tendrils and my whispers. I hear you sweating Marcy.  Go on.  It was a slow stain.  I felt driblets each day but couldn’t be sure if I was walking too aslant or perhaps the sun more gay in the East during my journeys.  To be sure however, they fell in session each day like parliament then in the midst of this foul scum one awful night, I realized that the foul green musk had torn apart my undergarments for good.  Thick and oiled as to never dry or be white again.  Can you Imagine Margo?  Never again to feel that pretty white against my flesh…  I was doomed naked and free underneath my clothes. Doomed naked and free. I see you sweating.  You’re good. 
Yes I came here to civilize the howlers.  You sweat so much….  That was my cross to bear, or so I thought.  I would sacrifice my good years to correct God’s lazier ones.  I was groomed for it.  If a man can be measured it is by the weight of his books and sterility in his eyes.  That’s’ what I learned back in the clin..clever London.  I was a smart lad growing up; a quick one at avoiding the switch and clearing the ditch.  I got strict A’s.  I memorized my etiquettes, and logimathics.  I inscribed them all right here on my undergarments.  Look Mortimer.  You see them?  Well of course not.  Not in all of this algae that’s collected.  It’s ruined my underpants.  THIS JUNGLE HAS RUINED MY UNDERPANTS!  These damned hooter monkeys don’t care at all about these problems.  Yes well I’m getting to that boy.  YOU have no idea what the world is like when the clean whites you are raised and schooled in are trounced upon and smeared with jungle jam.  After they tore astray I stayed in bed for days on end.  I killed.  Weeks past, eating, touching myself, trying to remember what the nurse looked like in all her repressive layers.  I saw the maid undressing once by accident when I walked down to the wine cellar during a game of hide and catch, when I was nine.  I told her if she didn’t continue I’d tell my parents she was stealing kitchen supplies.  The blacks rescued me.  Rescued me from my boredom and dreariness.  Rescued me from the chronic masturbation.  I had the knowledge of my new situation, but the wisdom hadn’t arrived.  I gave them books.  They hated the books. A whole sled of books. I gave them humidors.  They hated my humidors.  I taught them about lawn cultivation and presentation.  They shaved my tum tum.  They were born in filth and so too, my green scummy incident was just a matter of time.  No one leaves this world in clean whites.  No one shares the same pair of whites.  Try it now Myrthil.  Let me in your britches!  You’ll see!  There’s no room, not in there.  Not with all the wonton sweat you have percolating.  Good white sweat I bet.  But give it time.  It’ll curdle and befoul your bed sheets too.  These idiots were born shackled, asses defiant. They are my friends and you ripped me away from them!
            Your cotton whites mean nothing to me.  All things fall apart.  My favorite jazz monkey was Merlot.  I named him to keep my sanity.  He was the best.  He loved me.  And now he hates you.  That him there.  He’s been watching you sweat.  He loves sweat.  He taught me how.  He’s good.  Death is something I wasn’t taught before the jungle.  It took air on my tum tum to even think about death personally.  Merlot is gonna be sore at you all tomorrow.  Merlot has all of my books.  They’re safe.   He fed them to the elephants.  As soon as the others come I will have to be off Marcel.  Kingship belongs to a child.  The world will change.  The Dark footed Africans are the least of your worries.  Explain Merlot.  Merlot doesn’t like you.  Horrors will come.  Look with me.  Hospitals will burn.  Undergarments will no longer be fruitful long-term investments.    Cheap factory made wool run offs will replace the clerical whites.  Apes will promenade with other apes.  Pants will fall.  Pants will rise.  The rivers will change.  Mothers will call sons who will call women who will father rivalry and this will break into another world of heresy the likes of which your bloated inner thighs are only just now beginning to feel.  Habits will bathe you.  Habits will hold you.  Habits will spread you like a wine cellar maid.  Choose your hatreds and never let go of them.  Hold them tight and cling to the little foundation you’ve made.  Weather the wobbles and remember your mothers voice and how lovely she could sing with a bottle to her mouth.  Listen to me Merlot!  Don’t fade off again into this night’s shade until your brothers arrive.  Africa is ruined for England without me. You nitwit.  You ignorant jelly.  Let the gnats have at you all.  The London Bridge is falling.  I left the wood.  You nitwit.  I am Damian.  I am France.  Merlot!  Your brothers are feverish!
The horror!  The horror!

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