13
Macbeth
Chicago, Illinois
Shakespeareʼs Twelfth Night Pub
October 31st, 2014
Time: 6:50 AM
__________________________
Night found him.
(He recited Berchánʼs words).
In Biblical decay, with the moon a loudmouth, leering Lucifer preying on the lost angels on the outskirts of town, night found him: His passion unequivocally perilous, piercingly fearsome, written in the black slits of its tragedy. The ashen, ebony hands of Chicagoʼs veined smoke consumed him when he entered the lionʼs mouth; his body a machine of war, his face baptized in blood as he lurked among the shadows.
(He reread Marjorieʼs spells).
Night always found him, with its bedded virginity r*ped by accursed kings and white angels and the memory of Glamisʼ cold ardor. Whether it was the darkness in a Barbados bungalow, or a cottage dotted along the Scottish farmlands, or a hovel sequestered in some European fiefdom, night always found him. An icy screech from Luciferʼs mouth that damnèd even the purest of souls. When Night came, he heard screams. Screams that came from the shrill throats of Scotsmen in Fife, in Dunsinane, in Inverness. Martyred by dark, clouded ambition.
(He grieved the Windy City. He commemorated a successful conquest).
Chicago was a croneborn holdfast. Painted in the blood of Merovingian immigrants and mestizos from the Cronish cities buried deep in Haiti; sobered by its heavy emphasis on trade of Catalan gold and Princely silks. To the rest of the world, the Windy City was a metropolis of modern innovation – one of the United Statesʼ diamonds-in-the-rough. But in reality, the United Statesʼ people were controlled by the Roman Republic in the modern Rhaetian Age of The Hellbender universe, an old boyʼs club that withheld privileges and knowledge about the world which they lived in from their people. Every modern day country practiced their politics and their governance this way. Hiding the civilizations that were still struggling, still bleeding for freedom, in favor of the illusion of freedom.
History was fiction. It wasnʼt written by the victors.
It was written by Gods.
(And Macbeth was a God).
Written by magic, by authors called Prophets. Every leather-bound book, every published novel, possessed Godʼs power. Blessings, disguised as poetic words and artful lord. Authors were scribes, ordained by Gods, Prophets that played God, and their Books were His gospel.
Literature was currency.
(And Godʼs Prophets – his hand-picked authors tasked with recording manʼs history and not abusing the power that could change it forever – they profited the most from that venture...)
(...Master Shakespeare profited the most from that venture).
The fire was a wine-red moor, immortalized by its violence, and as the moon ingratiated the clouds – delightful, surreal and sad, half divine, semi-demonic – the exorbitance, the expensive hunger quenched with a belly oʼ blood...it was erotic. Shrieking with primordial pleasure. With the hair of the Nightʼs blood braided into violent tapestries, and its color hot as mothʼs kiss, Macbeth reveled in the way Chicago burned around the Twelfth Night. The croneborn were migrating towards the warmer waters with the Vale – the borders architected by the Order to keep the supernatural out – cracking open a bit, and Macbeth would be there to greet them. When Chicago burned, Illinois would follow, and the croneborn would bring their accursed aristocrats, their white magic, their sicarios and Port commerce, their premier hubs of undead bloodsuckers and Cronish wolves and otherwordly creatures that slept in the streets.
He would bring civilization back to Scotland through Ellis Island, and he would be king.
(He would always be king).
As Chicago burned, singing with trepidation as Night changed her innovative, petroleum-laced song, Macbeth watched the Enlightened – the supernatural populations exiled from the Order of the Dragonʼs court; gypsies trapped in-between the politics of the New World and the Order of the Dragon – and the Dragonsfolk – the members of the Orderʼs court; the aristocrats, the rich, the wealthy, and the occasional supernatural governor – scurry along the streets with grim, harrowing faces in the dead of the Night. The choruses and melodies they sang were tuned to tease a corrupt flavor, the cadence manipulated with a poisonous tongue was of destiny, of suffering, of the hatred Night harbored for Macbeth. When the Sidhe rose, with the Scotsmanʼs vengeance and the footmen's bloodlust and the Gentlewomanʼs carnality and the Knightsʼ skill, Night froze in the sky. Unleashed by his beasts. Day was gone, and all that remained was the Everlasting Night; the fabled story of the Order saers and the New Worldʼs prophets told about etched in the sky, forever.
Night came. Illinois burned with Chicago, and he...
(He was the Dragonʼs king).
Atop the throne of cinder and ash and gassy flames, he heard the Prophet – Berchánʼs – voice:
(Hear it now, Bérchan, you poisonous villain. Marjorie is mine; and I always winwinwin and take whatʼs mineminemine from yours–)
Night found him – Night rose from the dead: (Glate ann an Ùpraid 'bholg).
Night always found him –
(An leigheas an teine Dhè uaigh).
– and would bring him Orderʼs head:
(This is war, you monstrous wroth! I always win. We are the undead. The conquerors, the purest of blood, the steel and sinew of coveted, the next thousand years. And we always win. Scotland always wins).
Macbeth always won.