Two Husbands'... Part 2, Chapter 33

Blankets Above

2 Wives and helpful Witchdoctor

(There has been another change of procedure. The Witchdoctor is improvising for the two Ladies with El Sultam’s carpets and the German formulas)

ONLOOKER 

Look! A Wife is are supposed to go up

through those blankets!

NARRATOR

Yeah, the Witchdoctor’s carpet blanket comes down,

sees swiftly through them - and they float upward

through its consecutively imposed reflections.

ONLOOKER

More illusive blankets,

like hallucinating tissues floating up!

NARRATOR

The Wives keep reaching a further hole

to get a lift-off up through - on and on,

as they broad band over the earth

until they reach home.

ONLOOKER

As they broad band through unfolding,

peeling up tissues that are lifting

further and further off, away from each other...

2 Wives’ expanding universe

NARRATOR slowly describing a lifting and descending arc with his hand,

Yeah. And the Wives latch on and pull through and lift up

and appear above - and above - and above -

until they get let down softly at home.

ONLOOKER

They appear to be going through

propelled by an attraction up

from the fitting over of the original carpet

by the Witchdoctor - that causes them

by imperilous magic to revert to up -

    to soar up, to spring fully chastised

    (or chastity-sized, I think)

from the launching table set out in the jungle

near the Witchdoctor’s grass hut.

Witchdoctor’s blanket and Two Wives

NARRATOR

Yes. They are lifted off by the Witchdoctor’s help -

by his woomping down on them with

a splendid carpet seemingly bejeweled

    with strange occult designs

which, like bumpers in a pinball game,

seem to light up and talk to each other,

    ‘cling!’ and ‘clang!’

all along the carpet threads

    sending messages;

until the buttons (sewn in too)

open up a supercharged airy hole

which geyser-shocks the Two Wives

    half-way across the world

through many magnificent, magnifying lenses

appearing like towels or tissues

spread out in infinite succession

    across the sky

    one after the other,

    for miles!

Until the Wives can get down safely

    on to the ground.

Many Blankets

TWO WIVES

The blankets seem heavy

but they turn to air.

ONLOOKER

Is the Witchdoctor helping?

NARRATOR

Yes.

ONLOOKER

The blankets and rugs are lifting up?

NARRATOR

Yes.

ONLOOKER

The Witchdoctor is a friend?

NARRATOR

Yes.

ONLOOKER

So, they didn’t steal his oil-cloth blanket?

Why not?

NARRATOR

So that he could demonstrate ‘insubstantiability’.

ONLOOKER

Who’s insubstantial? The women or the blanket?

Or neither?

NARRATOR

He can demonstrate that they can go up through the blanket

by his waving it down upon them.

It sees through them and they soar up through, somehow!

Blankets above!

He told them, “Get up on that table!”

And they both did. Then he waved

a big, dark blanket over them,

like the eclipse of the moon.

And then, they were flying up through it -

sort of propelled above - projected onward

from blanket to blankets

    that seemed to peel off

    one after another

    like bells ringing in the sky...

And the echo following after,

to the farthest valley going.

ONLOOKER

Like the Wives traveling

until they reach

their destination

to be set down carefully...

(The Narrator looks put off by this response but he’s interrupted by a thoughtful Medical Student who has been attentive to their descriptions)

MEDICAL STUDENT 

Excuse me, I say the pressure of going through

the blankets’ skin or weft

pushes them upwards,

always through to the next capillary

where they’re prepared and palpitated

and passed through

to the next floating entrance valve.

NARRATOR

Like fading echoes of ringing bells

they get farther and farther away 
from the jungle village and the Witchdoctor.

ONLOOKER

The many consecutive blankets

appearing as their causeway in the sky

fade quickly into nothing seen -

    after being passed

    through twice.

NARRATOR

By each lady at a time.

MEDICAL STUDENT

I believe the jungle Witchdoctor

has modeled his special blanket toil-cloth

    (as a functioning apparatus)

on jungle paramecium and their suckers:

    the pumping feelers

    that catch their prey

    and pass it along

by squeezing it up through the system

    in an oily film.

ONLOOKER

Yet, the Two Wives destination, through blankets ,

is not to be ingested anywhere

    but to get finally home!

(End of Chapter 33)