Two Husbands'... Part 2, Chapter 23

 

The Little Muffgee

Witchdoctor is visited

(A little jungle man - a Muffgee - holds up a flat, oracular instrument 

in front of the Witchdoctor’s mouth)

NARRATOR not able to understand what is happening,

Who’s popped up to give him the draw -

to get him to look at himself or to see something

in a mirror that affects the whole building?

Maybe it’s something to help the Two Husbands

inside of their real building?

The Witchdoctor is visited...

Yes, he is in the jungle fair and proper

but he is experiencing something so unfair

and improper - is this true? What is it?

A compass or a mirror?

It seems like an obstruction

but I guess he’s chanting into it...

ONLOOKER

And sun sound vibrations are gathering

into a perpendicular ‘time’ compass

held up by a little fairy man

(who resembles an old friend, long forgotten).

And the sound fairy is making ‘ring’ vibrations,

(as if out of an old phone-receiver)

going out and in from the Witchdoctor’s word waves.

NARRATOR

And we think this is all very ’trippy’ or strange,

as he clings to the

thickening model building,

so heavy that now he has to

sit in a chair or on a bench

because that building weighs him down so.

ONLOOKER

And that building only props up

    a minimal carrier

of this most special device

that’s used in preparation for

the Husbands’ departure:

     a small mirror,

laughing back and forth

to the Witchdoctor - who is surprised

and shocked that it’s working!

WITCHDOCTOR

Who is this little fella’

hopping up on top, on to the rooftop?

What is he doing?

First, flashing my face

and then turning his dime mirror into

a mediator compass for far and wide miles

to be navigated; just by the waves of sound

that I’m making: ‘Cha Cha Oo La La!’

I’m speaking and the compass finds

a place to go for my voice.

And I keep hold, close to my heart,

on to the Husbands’ real city building

so that my words can travel there

and maybe move some things around -

so that the Husbands will jump up

and exclaim exhortedly, urgently,

that their numbers can’t possibly do

what I am really telling them to do!

(which will be to ranch up tall - much higher

than the two men - and to step up, stiffly at first,

off the graph squares to present  themselves

coolly, almost defiantly, above the men).

The Husbands’ affected numbers

will be encouraged by my words to become

suddenly three-dimensional and lively!

Peering down at the men, they will tell them

stories in sing-song about moving -

about embracing methodically on to them,

to be carried away on a new flight

to come visit their Two Wives,

who are here on these islands with me. 

But first, I must have an interior knowledge

and magic use of the fetishistic building that I’ve made.

I must get in upon its windows to send the numbers in

and to bring them out, after puffing them up solidly

as life-size containers (not numeric containers for counting, 

but boxes for travel - luggage compartments)

for the two men, who will swiftly be swooned

out of their offices and carried over the seas,

squished or languidly resting - depending upon

how fat they are once inside their numbers!

However, since I cannot actually see the two men right now,

how can I fashion the right-size numbers for them?

I must ask the Two Wives to give their husbands’

measurements to me...

At first and insult but then...

NARRATOR quoting from Theodor Andrea Cook (1914),

“The science of mathematics has been defined as “the great instrument of exact statement and mental manipulation - and when it is combined with the extraordinary power of visual imagination possessed by such men as _____ we see to what astounding results it may lead the human intellect.”

(Re-iterating the latest scene)

The Little Muffgee...

The little fairy guy (Muffgee) is taking a chance!

showing him the mirror!

right up into his face

and over his blathering mouth.

At first it’s an insult;

    but then,

that mirror thing in the little man’s hands

    begins to flash

and, we think, it’s going to permit

the Witchdoctor’s whole motivation

    to carry through.

But we can’t draw out a picture of it here.

It can’t take form because it’s easily formless:

    mostly emptiness,

    filling out (but not seen)

with circular charges going out-ways

    sent into the mirror

from between the Witchdoctor’s  lips and teeth -

    compressing there as if coiling up;

pinpointed, so to speak,

from the compassing  directions

to the correlating exact degrees

of the Husbands’ offices

on the other side of the globe! 

(pause)

Or, something like that?

ONLOOKER

So, then he could, pray tell,

manipulate the numbers?

NARRATOR

Correct.

A transformation

(End of Chapter 23)