XLVII.

“What doesn’t kill you, makes you sadder. I
might have been born of parthenogenic rock,
maybe my ancestry can be traced to the land
of the Cimmerians. If there ever was a parent,

he or she might have dipped my body upwards
in the serpent-ocean waters that surround us.
I am Monkey, and I have come to believe in
entropy. It is like coming home after the wars.

XLVIII.

I embrace entropy, and that is why I am set on
this act of Terror, I want to burn the Archive of
Myth, with the artists and the historians in it.
That is my statement in the stale, pointless debate

between memorians and oblivians. But I hesitate.
Three women in blue, twitching with white lily
expectation, the air is as still a summer question.
They stand before me, like a three-headed hound.

XLIX.

If strenuous life hits me, I bend and break. There
is no glory in the explosion of birds in the green sky,
the variations of Goya’s witches, dancing within
me. But I see here my archenemies, those who

wish to bring me back to the right side of the road.
Cecco and Gawain, you are fools of the first degree.
Knights forever kneeled to a lady, in her lap. Ar ar
ar. Gawain is indifferent honest, Cecco is full of

L.

desire. What are you searching for, you morons?”
Gawain steps forth, and holds his breath. Cecco
opens his mouth, then he lets go of a fart. “We’ve
come to stop you from your foolish attempt at

undermining all that we’ve accumulated for eons.
I mean, you can’t just burn the thing down. Besides,
Ariadne is doing some research, and we are talking
about millions of milliseconds of cultadorale activity.”

LI.

Cecco and Gawain have come to battle with
Monkey’s enraged spirit. Emotional riddle-quote
with swindling attached is the weapon of choice.
Monkey: “Two against one, how’s that fair…”

Gawain: “Well, we are the good guys, so…”
“That is what hunters and murderers tell
themselves”, Monkey sighs. At the back
entrance of museyroom G in Volterra, a
door which leads straight into the heart

LII.

of the Archive of Myth, three spirits of
hypergalactose vibrational energy stand
facing each other, prepared for duel.

“Krishna, Krishna,
Now as I look on
These my kinsmen
Arrayed for battle,
My limbs are weakened,
My mouth is parching,
My body trembles,
[…] My brain is whirling
Round and round,
I can stand no longer:
Krishna, I see such
Omens of evil!”

LIII.

Monkey reverse-calls God, and asks
for justice. A question of emotional
riddle-quote with swindling attached.
The number you have dialled has not

been recognized. Please try again.
At this point Cecco steps forward,
he opens a letter to his lover, and then
throws it in the gutter. And then he

LIV.

answers “in the darkness of the north,
there is a fish; its name is leviathan.
leviathan is a fish so large that its
size is unknown. when it transform
itself, it becomes a bird, and its name
is predator. of predator, we cannot
estimate the size of the posterior.
caught in a rage, he flies off, and
its wings like clouds cliff-hang in
the sky. this bird, when the sea
starts to stir, heads toward the
darkness of the south. this is the
pond of heaven.”

LV.

Monkey “of thoughtless, free
roaming, I know nothing. I am
the bird that caught fire. ‘Birds
feed off birds, beasts on each other
prey; But savage man alone
does man betray.’ So, there.”

LVI.

Gawain “you are no lady Osprey
of Perth and Kinross, you are no
man, you are less than human.
You are a mindless, stupid monkey.
I should know that, I wasted my
life listening to your drivel. ‘Ay
ay, good man, kind father, best
of friends (long pause), these are
the words that grow like grass and
nettles, out of dead men, and speckled
hatreds lie, like toads among them’
you are no hero, Monkey.”

LVII.

“Oh, yes, I am a monkey, thank you
for reminding me. I’ve been constantly
reminded since, well… forever. Yet I am
human. And since I cannot be a hero… I
am determined to be a villain; I do hope
that I shall not end up in a Leicester parking
lot, though. That would be worse than dying.”

LVIII.

In the dark room with heavy curtains drawn,
Ariadne asks and asks, but El Greco refuses
to answer. Life as Neo-Platonist is very much
shut up in the digestive system of God.

Domenikos refuses to allow her to open
the curtains. He says that the light outside
disturbs his inner light. Ariadne decides that
it is time to act. She shows herself as one

LIX.

of the lilies of the river-bank at Knossos;
Domenikos is moved to tears. If only God
stood still like those timeless moments. If
only the icons of Byzantine paintings could

speak, if only His eyes had not been crossed
out (pun unintended)… Titian, in the other
room, converses with Desert Storm on how
Ariadne coming out of the sea to meet Dionysus

LX.

changed his life. “Ah, Domenikos, he is a good
student… a little restless.” The light at the site
of the gulf of Lerici… or was it further south,
toward the nameless Etruscan moors?

Volterra stands tall and angry, overlooking
Tyrrenian remorse. Titian was a mountaineer,
he idolised the sea! I can almost see the faces
of the many hundred imitation artists, Ione

LXI.

among them, who sought to capture the very
same light, the lazy, white clouds in the summer
sky, the gulls, the ripples of ocean wave…
“Ariadne came out of the sea to meet me,

and I offered a glass of wine, and the company
of my merry, slightly crazy friends… enough
said.” Desert Storm smiles, for the artist in

LXII.

in her knows that the road is steep and rocky:
‘Let peewit call and curlew cry where they
will, I long for your merry and tender and
pitiful words, For the roads are unending
and there is no place to my mind.’

LXIII.

Monkey ju-dances with Gawain; he wishes
to be dead, and he whispers in his enemy’s
ear: “I have roamed from cloud to cloud…”

El Greco: “… I am an immigrant. I have
died so many times, in Candia, in Venetia,
in Roma, in Toledo. I wasted my money
on orchestras and on clay, but the blood

LXIV.

and sorrow of the womb, I have captured
with my art.” And Cecco, outside, riddle-
swindling Monkey… “the sands of my life
do pass”… El Greco continues: “Rome
was more disappointing than Venice.
Second-rate mannerists! In Spain I have

LXV.

found the Absolute. And twenty-four
rooms. I was on the verge of a great
revolution, and a canyon. The Tagus
bubbled up nicely, like a mission.

I would create anything, new and
forever parasitic. The souls of countless
unbelieving visitors would have to
pay. My paintings are forever feeding

LXVI.

off the life-energy of unbelievers, that
is my curse on the shallow humanity.
I might have died in 1614, but the odds
and ends of my digestion are still being

processed, and they shall creep towards
you, dearReader.”

LXVII.

“Why am I not born like a Gentileman,
and why am I now so speak-able about
my eatables.”

In this endswell of chaperone five, book
the second, “Man is temporarily wrapped
in obscenity, looking through these accidents
with the faroscope of television (this nightlife
instrument… … … … )