Their Call, Calico: The Series
Part Seven
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Based on Original Published Work by Author
☯ Legend on reading Calico’s Life:
☴ Indicator for dialogue: “ ”
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☳ Poems and Songs [ are indicated ]
☷ Names : Bold Italics
☵ Setting set inside: Brackets: {SETTING}/{BOLD}
Rendemra removes two of the torches out from the Golden Buddha statues and ignites the blood, and a huge eruption of smoke jets into the air.
Calico bursts out from the darting pyro, and urinates in fear. The torn persimmon falls out his mouth and he tries and turns to take off.
Through the charcoaled remains fueled by intentions of bloodlust, Rendemra eyes sift through and widen on Calico’s sprint. The other tiger clannar leaders do not, as they are enjoying the ripping of their former colleague into shreds.
Calico runs as fast as he can away from torment blazed.
His claws tear through the ancient turf, piercing through a trail of smoke whipped behind him above the view of the mountains. He dashes through the tunnel. Calico vaults forward and trips, rollling down the hill to the Great Bonsai.
He roars in fear and reinvigorates his pace. Trying to maintain his focus under his dizzying panting, Calico accidentally runs into some of the Magnolia trees and scratches his face on the branches. Small ample drops of blood bubble off his face in comparison to what he just witnessed.
Quickly, this pure kind scampers onto the marble flooring of the Hall of the Fountains clawing the ground and chipping some of his claws. He defecates on the way, and tosses his body up the stairs of the mountain gate. He quickly runs down the tunnel pushing himself from the walls as he is having trouble walking.
He runs straight to Gammina’s quarters.
There she is, holding a persimmon fruit and turning to glance at her long-lost Calico.
She notices that he is completely covered in soil and his face is bleeding.
Gammina drops the persimmon and walks to Calico.
Gammina:
“ I asked one of my friends for- Calico, what happened to you? ”
Calico:
“ Before your Rendemrabo kills me, and his tiger clannars, I want to tell you what I saw before they come-BEFORE THEY COME! ”
Gammina:
“ Lower your voice, my love. Come inside, quick, let me clean your wounds. ”
Calico:
“ Your Rendemrabo…your Rendemrabo…he (panting) is using the tiger clannars to to kill the regular Kind because (panting) I do not know, he tells them to kill and they kill. They killed Jul! and Komiak, and Hig, and Aub! ”
Calico vomits, and is completely embarrassed. Gammina starts crying and embraces Calico, holding his head close to her heart.
Gammina:
“ Oh Calico, oh Calico, oh Calico. ”
Calico:
“ What am I…(gasping for air)…doing? I…shouldn’t…I…shouldn’t…be here with you. ”
Gammina:
“ Oh Calico, oh Calico. I am here my love. Stay with me.”
Calico:
“ Gammina, Gammina, then again I may have no choice but to be with you, and…and… ”
Calico passes out, and Gammina screams.
She whimpers on top of him, trying to wake him up.
{ The morning has come. Calico wakes up inside the Atrium of the Palace Temple. Gammina is across from him wearing torch holders acting like cuffs on her front arms. Gammina has a few cuts on her arms, her legs and down one of her cheeks.
She is situated upright revealing her nipples to the many brottos who are sitting around her. Calico is in the center of this arena of the Palace’s Atrium and slowly raises his head to Rendemra.}
Rendemra:
“ Calico, Calico, the outsider bear; one I thought I could trust.
I, even let you play with my own grubby — yet, you tortured her and never gave her intercourse. And look, she is ashamed to be upfront with her body like all female pure kind and is instead shy-as if she is on that bridge that you and I talked about. She is still waiting for your dimwick to get into her. It’s between your legs, or do I have to be any clearer for your weak Kind mind to understand! ”
Calico:
“ What did you do to her? ”
Rendemra:
“ She told me she sent you to fetch a persimmon-which is likely more of a request of a male pure kind who forgot it himself, am I correct? Yes, it is clear that I am. ”
Calico:
“ You did not kill her, did you? ”
Rendemra:
“ Brottos, do you hear his tongue? He inquires of her Rendemrabo to have murdered his dear, dear grubby. He does not hold trust in any of us for that matter-and we all took him in — and look at him-he expects that we would kill our own! What filth hath entered our solemn haven! ”
The pure kind brottos roar, some scrape the wooden floor boards with their claws in anger.
Rendemra:
“ It has been in full decision to my own, and by the minds of us, the brottos that you meet your own exptectancy of us all, at the final moment of this antiwonian, just as Chlorestigon reveals the new day. ”
Calico:
“ Maybe, death is purer than any pure kind could ever be. ”
Rendemra:
“ A pure kind, Calico, does not judge the beauty of death; you should ask Antoine if you are still interested by the time he makes rendezvous with your remains. ”
Calico roars and tries to lift his body up, but his neck is harnessed on a metal pillory with jagged metal chains. Rendemra has leashed Calico, and quickly tugs Calico’s neck back.
Rendemra:
“ You should be used to this treatment; this is how the gorilla whore trained you? To roam and follow in their Therochordis footsteps, is it not?
Calico your whole purpose in life was to come into the pure kind kingdom and to live your life like you were birthed to be. But you have refuted your true destiny, and not only of this failure, you have interrupted the most sacred of rituals of the pure kind, the Night Trail and the Passage of the Pure Kinds. This symbolizes our great struggles of sacrifice we had to undertake to get to our safe grounds that we stand so strong, bold and free on today. ”
Calico:
“ That is a lie, Rendemra! ”
Rendemra pulls Calico’s leash all the way onto the ground, and the sharp chains tighten on Calico’s neck. He begins to bleed, and then Rendemra loosens the chains.
Rendemra:
“ Those are the most torturous words that were ever given to myself or my existence, or our existence. To say that our pure kind have never struggled, have never lost a great many because of the war of the inbreeding of the original planets to our kind, is: to say that we are all dead, Calico.
And I see in your eyes-those are not pure kind eyes, Calico; they are lustful eyes hungering for our blood… you want us to die!
I can see you wishing Antoine would just come and wash away us. Is that what you want? Yes, it clearly is. ”
The pure kind brottos roar again.
Calico:
“ Muh-muh-murder-eruh! ”
Rendemra pulls Calico’s leash down again.
Rendemra:
“ I thought you were trained in, what do gorilla whores call it? OBEDIENCE! ”
Gammina:
“ No, stop this, Rendemrabo! ”
Rendemra:
“ Silence, Gammina! I said silence once, and I have repeated myself.
Brottos, see this tool again? ”
Rendemra takes out a rusty carving knife that he has on a pillar next to him. It already has some stains of Gammina’s blood on it.
Rendemra:
“ This is a gorilla whore utensil (signals to Calico), a tool, a weapon and a way to punish another one who disobeys, who refuses to act in obedience.
Gammina has been poisoned by Calico, and we may be too late. Calico-watch and see what you have done to Gammina. Gammina! ”
Gammina:
“ Rendemrabo, no, do not come near me again! ”
Rendemra:
“ See, Calico, she refuses the hands who brought her into this world, like you, Calico! ”
Rendemra takes the knife, and takes regal strides to his grubby.
Calico:
“ No stop, you whore! You gorilla whore monger! I love her, I love her! ”
Rendemra takes the knife and slices off one of her nail tips of her right front paw. Gammina moans and whimpers, yet forcefully tries to stay silent.
Rendemra:
“ If you love her so much, why are you hurting her more? Why aren’t you protecting her? Why aren’t you permitting to her the pleasures she so deserves? Why have you turned against us?
Calico, you will never be one of us again, and your life is coming to an end.
Now I have never injured another kind in all my life until this day, and I feel like a Therochordis in this moment. Oh, how I ask all of you for forgiveness from the Juhykiop — as they were like I feel today: slaughtered by inviting you into our world, and murdering us.
Forgive us oh great descendants of the Juhikyop. ”
The Brottos:
“ And we forgive you, oh great Brotto Rendemra. ”
Rendemra:
“ As I feel oh-so-horrible for my actions that I have committed today, I shall give you, Calico, two positive favors of my dearest sympathy-as you were a pure kind and a part of our great lasting family.
The first favor is that your poisoned love, Gammina, will be at my side to privately watch you die in the Flames of Mercury; something only a pure kind leader can do.
The second… is your last request — that cannot involve murder.
Now, Calico what is it. State it right this instant! ”
Calico coughs and holds a vital gaze towards Gammina. Her tears run from her head onto her sliced paw. His head spins around the room while his eyes follow the tiled Pure Kind mosaics and all the brottos in the room, each hunting him through a welded vision.
Rendemra:
“ Time is moving on now, and if I have to repeat myself- ”
Calico:
“ Take me… to see the full interior of the For…Forbidden Tower. ”
Rendemra:
“ An odd request.
See, he does not love my grubby, and he has already broken a rule… and now he wants to break another, and as many others as he can. Only the kind, and the gorilla whore break rules.
But, I am the most loyal of Pure Kinds, my brottos, I shall keep my promise. ”
Rendemra swallows and tries to recalculate, as he did not expect those words at all. The other brottos are murmuring words around about Calico’s bizarre request.
Rendemra:
“ Brottos it is such an odd request, that even I, myself, am outraged at his bringing up of such… a greedy act. But, I am loyal to our kind, I shall hold my word.
Calico must, and can only, come with me to the tower.
Brottos take Gammina to the Great Labyrinth. Bind her with this rope as I instructed on the days whence I presented the texts of gorilla whore construction… against one of the Golden Buddha statues — so that she is sitting on its lap facing the rest of the statues and the trail.
Brottos, also bring bamboos and persimmons as you will all wait at the labyrinth. Bar her escape and do not give in to her lustful polluted desires which Calico has planted in her body.
Go now brottos, I am gratefully pain-stricken it has come to this. ”
The pure kind brottos begin to head towards the koi bamboo bridge, and all of them eye Gammina and her blood dripping arm, and her breasts.
Gammina is whimpering more. They unfasten her and Rendemra hands some makeshift rope from a pillar behind the knife’s.
The brottos leave. Calico wants to voice out to Gammina but knows that Rendemra may only push her torture rites further.
Rendemra grabs, { opens the pillory. The rough metal snags the back of Calico’s head and pulls bits of fur out. Rendemra shuffles Calico’s leash and Calico begins to move slowly back off the opened stand. He sees that his paws are chained and cuffed together, but with enough length so he can huddle a bit forward.
Rendemra drags Calico over the koi bridge. Calico trips and scrapes his legs on the bridge, and realizes he has to keep up with Rendemra regardless of his physical limitations with the tightened chains and choking leash.
Rendemra exits the Palace Temple. Calico painfully takes in that the village brottos, and their loved ones, including their grubbies, many he sat side by side in his text studies, are all waiting to hear Rendemra’s last words before he executes Calico’s request.}
Rendemra:
“ I have unfortunate news to explain to all Pure Kind. Calico, the outsider that we took in, turned against us all. Last night, he interrupted the most sacred of rituals, the night trails of Pure Kind suffering.
Tonight, death will be brought upon him. From these last words, Calico is no longer a pure kind, but a kind. On these grounds, no…nooo….but on these grounds he is considered a lustful gorilla whore!
And now I take him to his last desire — to see the Forbidden Tower!
Then, my brottos, maffas and grubbies, he will be put to death to bring no more suffering to us.
Join me in chanting what his true name is, as I depart into the bamboo forest extending behind the village to the tower. ”
The Pure Kind and Rendemra:
“Gorilla Whore! Gorilla Whore! Gorilla Whore! Gorilla Whore! Gorilla Whore!”
One Brotto:
“ Calico of the Therochordis, death awaits you.”
Another Brotto:
“ Stay away from my lover, and my grubbies! I helped you learn the texts and you defecated in our homes. Death awaits you.”
The brottos exit, carrying Gammina and the rope towards the Mountain Gate.
{Rendemra jerks Calico’s sharp chains, and begins slowly down the painted brick paths of the village while the Brottos are chanting “Gorilla Whore!” over and over towards Calico. }
A few grubbies go up to Calico and horrendously spray the words in his face. Rendemra laughs.
{ At the end of the village is a large iron gate with a broken padlock covered in rust. Rendemra draws his watchful glance back, and indicates to the Pure Kind to stay back as he and Calico will go to what is beyond this: alone.}
Rendemra opens the gate, and it creaks back slowly.
He opens it enough so that only he and Calico can wedge into it, and closes it quickly behind Calico.
{The Pure Kind Temple is not as closed off as Calico thought as the forests of the Park continue passed this point.}
Calico glances back at the rusted gate, and it is covered in vines; barely visible from the forest, with the bamboo stems flocked together in front of it.
Calico begins to remember the treachery that brought him to the Pure Kind Temple, and swallows. The weight of his journey sinks back in.
{ Rendemra takes Calico through a long path into the forest which extends down into a cavern part of the way with a carved out opening. This exit appears to be some sort of lookout over a small waterfall.
It is the same small waterfall that Komiak’s bones ran down from. Calico can’t stop to take in the realization, and is pulled harshly by Rendemra; he takes in the ramifications of his punishment.}
Rendemra drags him up a carved set of stairs coming from the cavern that extends out to the Forbidden Tower.
{ The Forbidden Tower stands like the Dongdaemun Gate of Seoul constructed of techniques passed down through generations of skilled craftpersons and masons working together for form over function; possibly derivative of a starving inquiry of fellowship toward a binding of something much deeper: For form or truth?
Hand carved woods by painstaken hours, and the same blue brick used on the village huts separate three large storied levels of this tower.
The height and size of the tower doubles, no, triples that of the Palace Temple. Despite its behemoth nature, the edifice will always remain an unseen enigma in its current state, underneath vines, crumpled leaves and dying petals.
To the right side of the gate is a dried marble pool buzzing with flies and scale pieces, half-fleshed kois, and one that flickered its wavy red and black tail no more, only moments before. This is where the dead koi are deposited from the Palace pond.
Near the marble pool, are several rusted bicycles dating back from the 1940s.}
Calico:
“ (coughs) Rendemra-“
Rendemra tightens Calico’s leash.
Rendemra:
“ You shall see the interior, and not talk; that was your request. ”
Rendemra tightens Calico’s leash a little more and it pins into Calico’s neck so that Calico receives the point clearly. Rendemra, then, loosens the leash.
{ Rendemra forces Calico to the front of the tower which does not have a door, and is, instead, a circular opening into a smaller blue brick base of the wooden tower.
The humidity in the forest air has increased. Mosquitoes and a gathering of flies seem to be grouping above in the tower. Both Rendemra and Calico are panting.
They enter the circular opening.
Dust plumes out on entry, as they are surrounded by cobwebbed covered wooden walls and flies buzzing about. Rendemra claws a bit at the flies, but knows exactly where he is going, as if this is a common routine.
This ground floor is used for storage. Around forty cans of different colored paints, and colored ink bottles are piled against the walls. There are also matches, dishware, bullets, flares, torches, some rusty flashlights, quills, brittle browning toilet tissue, gardening tools all covered in rust, batteries, a few old books with charred rust-colored, torn apart pages and unstitched bindings. A few lanterns sit idyll by. Deteriorating scrolls of sorts, envelopes, and empty canned foods cans are tossed about the floors and shelves.
Rendemra takes a flashlight (an electric torch) not too far from the opening of the floor, and blows on it. He presses its on switch, and the bulb flashes on.
Calico freaks out at first, and {then remembers the outside lighting near his enclosure at the zoo.} He ducks down as the light is immense, and tries to cover his head but his paws are restrained. Rendemra tugs on Calico and continues to walk forward.
Rendemra:
“ Every time I enter here, reminds me of the time the museum keeper in the Australian Museum, south of here, in Sydney took me out to walk around the halls.
To sum it up, my museum days ended when the exhibit changed, and the gorilla whores adored me. They loved me.
They called me: Chip.
I was worshipped through a pane of glass, all until they just decided to get rid of me, just like that.
Ra, gorilla whore, is Egyptian relating to our Chlorestigon, and Rendem is what is Portuguese for Yield (he tugs Calico). Be under my command.
I heard recordings, and the tour groups, and the discussions between the Gorilla Whores. Oh, the times of my imprisonment.”
Rendemra was an outsider?
Rendemra:
“ What you are going to see, you cannot tell anyone of the village. You will lose your tongue tonight anyhow; I can make your death more sudden now. I could kill you right now, say that you succumbed to the fly’s grubbies. Yes (Rendemra smiles).
But it is crucial your death means something to Gammina. This is very special, Calico, the witness of one’s first death. Remember that camel?
Understood?
Yes, you understand, but I see in your eyes you are already planning how to undermine my own request over yours, isn’t that right? ”
Rendemra pulls Calico on { with the flashlight revealing a wooden stairway with broken floorboards. Oil stains and some other liquids are permanently staining them. Calico’s skin on his legs are becoming raw from the restriction yet he struggles fully to get up the stairs hitting his paws near the corner of each edge going up. There are flies murmuring about, as they head up to the next floor.
Darkness and warmth are on an even scale amidst this tropical weather; this room has no windows.
The air smells of an immense odor. Rendemra waves his flashlight around and then paws on a lever switch. Sparks fly from the ceiling as the piped lighting slowly turns on. The generator hums louder and louder: so does Calico’s heartbeat.}
Stay awake, Calico, or else all this will be worthless. I need to live for Gammina.
{ The lights illuminate the large room that takes up the entire floor.
There are piles of decaying human skeletons all around, and shriveled up reddish brown robes. The skeletons, none in perfect condition, have inconsistent lines of antons inhabiting them.
There are torn up cloths all about and broken furniture. The bodies of these skeletons were bodies of both children and adults.
Calico is shivering despite the boiling nature of the room, and takes deep breaths. }
For Gammina. She is all that matters.
Rendemra:
“ That museum put my maffa to sleep- they called it! They called it ‘sleep’, and I waited. Everyone else, but her own grubby knew they slaughtered her, sold her, made a blanket from her fur. I will never know. But she is gone: that is permanent. ”
Rendemra tears a bit, so does Calico. Calico wants to say he understands him, but he is being punished by him.
Rendemra:
“ These were the former residents of the Pure Kind Temple village, the gorilla whores. Many of these, were called monks who were regulating their peaceful palace devising ways to make more gorilla whores forget their ancestory, in the spreading of their peace.
To live by a fantasy where humans would eventually become the Therochordis dream: to achieve ‘Enlightenment’ through self-searching and identifying. They would achieve this through things that sound, as they call it, spiritual or magical, and soothing to their minds.
Like the gorilla whore in the museum they would watch, smile, and laugh at the pandas- as the pandas were to live inside a section of the village unable to escape. Every often they would throw usually cold or soggy bamboo in- to watch us eat.
When you defecated or urinated, because they were right next to you they would laugh, and make jests about us or look disgusted!
They would hit our cage or the glass that separates us over and over, and they would always talk about how much we were if our lives could be purchased by another one! The gorilla whore! ”
Rendemra suddenly pulls Calico’s chain harder, and moves him by the piled bones and deteriorating objects.
Rendemra:
“ And so, back to my journey here. If you remember from my teachings, pandas are not from Korea, they are from China…
Through the shipping process, they placed me with other pandas going to a South Korean zoo. One of those pandas, who became my mentor was named Galarxemra; yes, he gave me my name. He came from Brazil. Galarx is what his trainer, Samir, would say to him. It is Azeri for, “get up”.
During the trip over the ocean, our cage opened. I deliver my praise to Chloresto!
We, wondered into a truck bed blanketed in tarp, and stayed there: scared for our lives.
We wound up here, back in a cage.
But before this, I, and another one, Parxfour, fell off to journey into this land like you did. He was killed by a gorilla whore, but I fought my way here.
And like you, I entered this land without a clue as to what to do next.
How did I know about the camel, Calico, you already wonder?
I recall, you heard the entire conversation last night with the clannars. They are everywhere in Korea acting as surveillance for myself, the Leader of the Pure Kind.
When I had heard about your roughened arrival, I quickly deployed the noblest member of the 12 Clannar Leaders, Gengall, to bring you to my presence. Gengall, had his own fascination with grubbies and I took that to my advantage. Manipulation is key.
Now, let me tell you about Gengall’s father, old Krengall.
During a few nights, Krengall would go on the rooftops of the village huts with other clannars to steal some of the baked fish. Not too far from where the fish filets were cooling, was the cage which the monks locked us in. The first of many panda cages to come. Krengall, nor the other clannars had ever laid eyes on a panda before.
In response to Krengall’s curiosity, Galarxemra gave Krengall knowledge of the pure kind’s history, and they established a partnership aimed at killing the villagers in order for the kinds to exist with little gorilla whore involvement in their land.
It was quite a revolutionary move, but the pure kind should have done this ages ago.”
Rendemra, goes and rips off a skull from one of the nearby bodies and looks into its eye sockets.
Rendemra:
“ During an outside walking meditation meeting of sorts, where the monks would permit us to wonder the village on certain mornings while leashed to a post, Galarxemra, with the other three, had uncovered the cage key which was placed near the cooling racks for their caught fish. He figured out how to open the cage lock, and hid the key in our cage.
The monks had another key, but they were blaming each other for the disappearance of their tool.
Their trust was beginning to split.
Not too far from our cage, was the village’s weapons and tools storage, observed by Benovolos, of our group.
The plan was set. Krengall and young Gengall went to the front of the village and wandered into a home. Jursaw, another clannar, informed us. Galarxemra unlocked the padlock, and clamped it shut on the storage hut.
Once the screams and threats emerged, the spree kept on until there was no mercy left to be provided. An alliance over the kinds was formed.”
Rendemra tosses the skull, and it smashes against another skeleton.
Rendemra:
“ Years passed as the pure kind, and the tigers lived together.
Galarxemra, very wise, yet saddened in guilt over the slaughter of that evening decided to change his ways to bring peace with the kind from the gorilla whore, right?
Let that sink in, Calico!
Galarxemra was starting to lose his mind. He started to chew on metal tools like the knife I showed you, to reprimand himself through infliction. To verify this, he would wipe his blood stains on the walls and urinate on them. He was muttering to himself, and the newly arriving pandas saw this. We eventually had to lock Galarxemra in the same cage he freed us from. He kept wanting to see his Samir again.
So how did I become the Leader of the Pure Kind? Let us to the next floor, shall we?”
Calico, half listening, is picturing the children from the zoo encapsulating the smaller boned bodies. He grips his claws in growing rage. Rendemra proceeds to yank the chained leash. Calico salivates out some blood. Flies are crawling on his wounds.
{ A heightened volume of flies ascends as these two opposite levels of life go up the echelon unto what nightmare lies ahead.
The creak of the stairs yells underneath, telling Calico to turn back. The flashlight turns off, and Rendemra switches it back on.}
Rendemra:
“ You don’t look too salient, Calico. We should go back.”
Calico:
“ (refusing to give in) I can endure. Show me… everything.”
If we turn around, too early, he will punish Gammina more. He will say I am too weak.
{As they enter the surface, the stench is unimagineably putrid. Calico starts choking and coughing. }
Rendemra gives a quick snap of the leash hinting of doing worse if Calico continues.
Calico swallows, and tries to hold his breath, but gulps in the fumes.
Something squishes below his paws. Calico knows he has stepped in the worst thing perceivable. {There are visible cracks in the ceiling of light streaming.
Rendemra’s flashlight goes out.}
Dread fills Calico…no…
He is not weak. Calico, unsociable, Calico concerned, Calico is filled with the torment and flames of a volcanic inferno.
{ Rendemra’s flashlight goes on.
All around Calico and Rendemra are severed heads of the Kinds murdered, of such were ordered by Rendemra in his governance over the Pure Kind Temple. There are thousands of antons on the hundreds of muscled or fat combed skulls dripping with maggots and other liquids. Calico has stepped on the inside of an elepant’s torn open head and raises his gut-covered paw.
Even on the high ceiling there are hooks holding heads of different kinds, birds, snakes, and some are still drizzling. It seems like there is no floor as the space is contorted of one of the three: covered in decapitated heads, bodily liquids, or a skull of some sort. }
Rendemra:
“ Impressed by your decision, I take it?
So how was I elected Leader of the Pure Kind? Let me see if I can find them…Aw, yes here they are.”
Rendemra moves through the piled heads and skulls getting nature’s liquid on his coat. He raises out two deteriorating bear-no pure kind skulls, and a somewhat, in a more robust condition, elephant skull!
Rendemra puts one of the pure kind skulls down with the elephant skull.
Rendemra:
“ This is my mentor, Galarxemra. I am glad you two finally met. Better late than never (he laughs). He became somewhat of a soft bear per se, soft in the head, and soft towards uniting the kinds alike.
One day while he was conversing with the Great Bonsai, he asked me, personally, what I thought of his sharing the pure kind power of keeping the peace with the clannar kind as they had watched over us for so many loyal years.
I explained promptly, as the text indicates, the Kind derived from the Therochordis, raping our kind and developing wars and destruction. And not only was he asking me as a colleague, he was already designing a set of rules- while becoming madder by the day- that have been eagerly extinguished.
Such changes of the latter were, of course, necessary to balance the power with the kind.
Yet, at the time, I felt sick. Everything we had started from that one-night rampage felt brittle: meaningless.
When Chlorestigon left, I snuck out of the golden doors of the red wall, and ran in the dark. I wanted to end my life. ”
Oh, if only.
Rendemra places Galaxemra’s skull down and lifts up the elephant’s skull, and continues the story.
Rendemra:
“ I trotted out until I got to the edge of one of the cliffs, and peered down into the wilderness, a gorilla whore term for a mass collection of trees and kinds unowned by their reign. At the edge of the cliff, I realized that I didn’t have it in me.
In anger, I tried something else, I took a sharp rock and tested it on my leg. I cut in oh so deep-until I couldn’t take it. I roared for the first time in my life and then cried; cried like I did the day they took my maffa away.
An elephant, as humans call them… elephants, by the name of-yes…your oh-so-dear Komiak came onto the scene.
Seeing that he was partially blind, and he wanted to help me, I used him to get me back; not knowing he would memorize the way he came.
Anyhow, on his back, I devised a beautiful plan.
I came back to the palace and snuck in, cleaned the wound with persimmon juice and tied it with a slice of bamboo. As I cared for my wounds, I still had the sharp rock with me.
Galarxemra was sleeping in the cage again that night… and that was the last time.
Mmm, (Rendemra smiles) but the plan did not stop there. I moved the body against the opening of the cage door. The direction of suspicion.
Sequentially, I took Galarxemra’s ‘crowned’ head to the sleeping Krengall, who was out cold from hunting for food for the village. What helped finished my masterpiece, was that Krengall rolled all over it while he slept.
The morning came. Krengall was forced into the Great Labyrinth circle.
Oh, how I remember it. His grubby, Gengall in tears, close to my age, unable to speak, unable to fight back from the weight of the elder clannars. He watched as his father was torn apart by the clannars who did this out of loyalty, without asking for Krengall’s story. Their freedom depended on our actions.
Gengall needed a friend. Manipulation was the key.”
He will be the death of the pure kind! Even if I am not one anymore, he will destroy the balance and lead the bond of goodness between the kinds and pure kinds to an apocalypse of no undoing: the clannars killing themselves, and the kinds — already.
Rendemra puts down Komiak’s skull and picks up one other Pure Kind’s skull.
Rendemra:
“ And this one doesn’t have too much of a story. This is Lassurria, she was the female pure kind who I performed the acts with, forcibly. She gave birth to another female pure kind to my demise. An insult to me is given repayment immediately — as she was taken care of by the tiger clannar. And once again I was spared for spilling the blood of a pure kind. Oh thank you, Juhikyops!
The sunset will return as we will venture back, and your death will be much quicker than Krengall’s. That will be certain.”
All Calico feels to maintain his sanity, is that his heart is still beating ever stronger than before. Rendemra turns off the flashlight, and brings him back down the stairs.
On exiting the Tower’s base floor, Calico vomits. Rendemra also kneels down to catch his breath. Calico wants to help him, convince Rendemra that he can still care for his own kind like a true family, but knows now, his time to change has long since passed.
{ As they get into the caverns again near the waterfall, a painful wail is heard. }
Calico:
“ Gammina!”
Rendemra:
“ No, Calico, that is not Gammina. But, I have no choice now, but to take you to it. I have to keep them fed.”
{ Rendemra turns towards a corner before the end of the cave. There’s a metallic stairway going down. Rendemra pulls Calico down. However, Calico trips forward and rolls down, taking Rendemra with him. Calico tries to get up}, and Rendembra bites into Calico’s ear.
Rendemra:
“ Your next folly will be your death ( he tears off the tip of Calico’s ear).”
They get up, and there’s a wooden and metal track.
Rendemra:
“ This village was a mining village. Some of them weren’t monks, but families hellbent on destroying this brother planet to reap its resources like the Therochordis of old. They found gold ore here. I have ‘my own’ here as well.”
They step over a stream in the tracks; Calico wiggles his tongue to take as much as he can while swallowing in a short time. That little bit feels life-changing as the cool liquid runs through his bones.
There are multiple wails, and the pitch of the cry makes Calico’s spine straighten up, and he doesn’t know why.
Rendemra suddenly turns towards a set of wet wooden doors with a window of metal shutters. To the right is a wooden wall with a crack that is viewable to the chamber from where they are situated.
Rendemra:
“ I am here to feed you.”
Unknown:
“ Maffa, please. I will do what you ask, just feed me.”
Maffa? Why is that voice referring to him as maffa?
{ There is a burlap bag to the left of the door, and Rendemra pulls out some pieces of bamboo from within.}
Rendemra:
“ Calico, you recall that I mentioned that more cages kept coming to the area? After all, Korean pandas do not just grow on trees.
Let me introduce you, Calico. This is ‘Lemur’. In fact I have named all of them after the pure kind black and white Lemur in their honor.”
Rendemra gives Calico’s chain a yank, and Calico stumbles to the crack in the wall and peers in. Nothing could prepare him for what he sees.
{ There is a young anorexic Manchurian bear grubby with a red chest. It has several bald spots on its body. Above the cavern is a small hole aimed at the Korean sky. }
Calico can’t control his tears, as both his eyes water and he begins to urinate with whatever water was in him.
Calico:
“ Lemur has red like me. My chest, it’s the same mark. ”
Lemur:
“ You are like me? Have you come to save me? Are you, my family?”
Rendemra:
“ Enough! Hmmm, that is quite the theory, isn’t it. You’re not only a gorilla whore, but you’re a mix, Calico! A bastard of mixed blood. Oh, how I can’t wait for your skull to be besides Lassuria’s!
This land was full of these-these kind things, of which do not share our pure kindship bloodline.
One day, with Gengall, we were watching two Manchurian bear kinds being murdered and thrown into a gorilla whore water vessel. The same gorilla whores would only come on the surface so far, before going back in their boats to deliver the goods.
You see, these gorilla whore collect these ‘Lemurs’ for their bile. They harvest us for our organs, and find their health through our internals. Their sickness is beyond repair.”
I can relate to one with this same classification.
Rendemra:
“ With the clannars, we began to round up the grubbies. They learned to respect us, calling us their maffa. When they came of age, we brought them to the coast. Their wails brought in these same vessels. Little by little after each capture, we led the poachers and the grubby placement closer to the village.
The poachers were beyond surprised that there were pandas in this region.
Soon, specialists were brought to the village to observe us. We were labeled as a rare type of panda that evolved from these Manchurian bears. The nickname of our kind, of course being, ‘Korean pandas’.
In order to help our repopulation, China and other countries donated their pandas to this ‘refuge’, and now I must say our brottoship is doing quite well. Galarxemra would be frightened at how successful my undiplomatic plans have worked.
With the shipments of the pure kind, came other kinds like Jul..”
Calico growls, and scratches the ground on the mentioning of the elephant who helped him out, slaughtered on Rendemra’s orders.
Rendemra:
“ Yes… like Jul…
Unfortunately, their population, now, is near extinct, while our kind is ever-so blossoming. Simply, music to my ears.
For what is the difference between saving or invading a population? Perception, perhaps? Yes, that is what makes all the difference.”
Lemur:
“ Maffa, feed me. Save me, family?”
Rendemra:
“ See, what you started? Starvation usually does the trick with these matters. Lemur, dear, it looks like we are all out of bamboo. We will have to wait till tomorrow, okay, dear.”
Lemur:
“ Maffa, please. I am so tired. ”
Calico:
“ Leader of the whores…”
Rendemra:
“ What did you say?!”
Calico takes the bamboo out of his paw and feeds it through the crack.
Calico:
“ This is for you, my family.”
Rendemra:
“ What difference you have made, Calico. I will just have to order Lemur’s death now, as she has been tainted by your paw.”
Lemur:
“ Thank you. Save me, Calico!”
Rendemra ignores Lemur’s plea, and pulls Calico aside. Calico moves one of the loose chains from his makeshift leash at the edge of the door, and it tilts open slightly. Rendemra keeps moving, and yanking Calico.
Rendemra:
“ I have a death sentence to announce now; this is your grand affair, Calico.”
END OF PART SEVEN
Including Content from the original story published in the author’s work
The Trails To Attrition © 2007, Wasteland Press, Inc.
ISBN-13: 9781600471520© 2024, Their Call, Calico: the Series
Wasteland PressAdam Mullin (a.k.a. Good Day, Adam)
