I wondered, as my mind tended to lapse and to lose reflection in the bark of a tree to which I clung, in shed leaves of memory here and there or cracked branches of trees into which I occasionally climbed (as my Carib or African or Arawak ancestors — runaway European antecedents as well — had done in the sixteenth century when slavery and persecution ruled the Americas), whether the Predator was Carnival Lord Death after all despite our secret treaty or understanding. A part of that understanding was to inform him of flying or running strangers in Limbo Land.
I had no intention of doing so but I humoured him, especially when he assured me that the Inspector would take me to see the Prisoner or Old God of Devil’s Isle who claimed to be the father of the Virgin of the Wilderness, Marie of Port Mourant.
BUT NO! The Predator was older than Death itself. The Predator possessed a curious weight that lay beneath gravity’s Skull, beneath every falling or fallen creature, a curious violence that subsisted on nuclear deadlock, or perversity, or cosmic devastation, on meteorites colliding with Jupiter, on the manipulation of elegant mathematics into spectacles of beauty that kill, random bullets in space, or from space, that strike the Earth from time to time. The Predator’s craft and skill and range in Limbo Land was immense and I felt his breath (unlike the breath of resurrectionary organs of Compassion) rearrange the grain of the hair on the back of my neck.
The tickling sensation of the hair on my neck and head aroused in me a contrary sensation to absolute fear that the Predator sought to instil in me. I broke my Nemesis Hat or Bag into two containers. One I retained as a Hat and this I replaced on my head. The other I adopted as a Bag. I retraced my steps in Limbo Land and collected the fallen leaves of memory from cracked branches or trees into which I had climbed. They possessed the numinous texture of a book and I promised the three Virgins (Jonestown, Albuoystown, Port Mourant) that I would write a Dream-book should I gain Trinity Street in New Amsterdam …
How much did I know, how much remember — within composite epic — of ages prior to Death, ages in which the Predator’s regime of violence seemed both immanent and transient, ages in which nevertheless the Womb of Virgin Space seemed shorn of violence, shorn of intercourse with reality that was violent?
Within that implicit and terrifying opposition how wounded were the parameters of genesis — the genesis of the Imagination to cope with terror and grace — how wounded the Virgin herself as she broke into a trinity of Masks, the three Maries?
I scanned each leaf as I placed it in my Bag. A variety of inscriptions appeared upon leaf after leaf. Faint light-year vistas … Were they progeny of the Virgin driven by a quest to minimize violence in a world in which Death had appeared? Were they progeny of the Predator to augment or absolutize violence in a world in which Death had appeared?
Such vistas lay beyond absolute translation into certainty.
They were resources of uncanny drama, resources of uncanny rehearsals of the genesis or unfinished genesis of the Imagination …
The Scorpion Constellation shone in the eyes of the Tiger-mask of the sun. Which blinded which, who whom, it was difficult to say. The Scavenger swooped. The Eagle dealt the Jaguar a blow on the Moon and on the walls of abandoned Maya cities. But all such manifestations were curiously hieroglyphic: self-deceptive and true within the partialities of genesis. They bore on the mystery of injustice that runs hand in hand with the resurrection of the Soul of Compassion for all wounded creatures whether born of the Predator or of the Virgin.
A further complication lay in another well-nigh indescribable imprint, a huntsman who seemed to stand within the Womb of Virgin space. I sensed that he had no illusions about the might of the Predator. As I listened to the whisper or rustle of each leaf within my phantom fingers I dreamt that I heard his voice seeking to instil the strangest wisdom everywhere, into creature and constellation, however prone these were to linkages with the Predator, into heroes and angels, however prone these were to linkages with monsters. I sensed his tread at Night in the footprint of the Predator.
The gathering menace broke into a Storm and I felt it was useless running from the Predator any longer. My desire had been to destroy him by hook or by crook. So much so that unconsciously, subconsciously, I was driven to contemplate poisoning the air everywhere that he breathed, the seas and oceans and lakes and rivers in which he swam, the environments and places that clothed him. ‘Kill him even if it means killing yourself‚’ Carnival Lord Death had said to me. Death’s freedoms encompassed the advocacy of Suicide. ‘Walk with a Bomb of environmental disasters under your shirt to blow up the globe.’
But the huntsman in the footfall of the Predator — close on the heels of the Predator — possessed a different tune.
‘Leap‚’ he said (in the gathering menace of the Storm), ‘into my net and help me to hold the heart of the Predator at bay within rhythms of profoundest self-confessional, self-judgemental creativity. The leap into space I grant is dangerous. It is a kind of surrender to an unfathomable caring Presence that seems absent in a cruel age. It is the leap of the unfinished genesis of the Imagination that may bring to light unpredictable resources in an open universe that nets, in some paradoxical way, creature and creation. LEAP …’
But I was unable to do so. Nevertheless my desire to poison or slay the Predator loosed its grip on my unconscious, unconscious motivation, motivation of disaster. I settled myself on a tree-platform instead and created a pillow with the Bag of memory leaves and pages. The Storm blew a further volume of leaves upon me. The Predator knew of my lofty hiding place. He knew of my inner Dream-pillow or book. He knew of the outer volume that the Storm had granted me, the raining blanket of leaves in circulation, cross-circulation, rehearsal, re-visionary momentum … I was lost. I was convinced I was lost. It was finished. I lay in the Predator’s bed and he knew.
And then the huntsman threw his net. I knew without knowing how I knew that the net fastened itself upon the limbs of the Predator even as it appeared to release me, leaving me still to leap …
‘I cannot leap‚’ I said. ‘Not now. But thank you huntsman for saving me from madness, from being devoured by an appetite for violence that grows everywhere.’
I wondered in a flash of lightning whether the huntsman would now seize and destroy the Predator forever. I listened and my heart virtually ceased to beat. BUT NO. The huntsman held the Beast at bay, he lifted him in his net. And I was privileged to gain, with another flash, a glimpse of terrifying beauty. I was bewildered, confused. Heartrending grief arose in myself at the sight of such stripes of beauty. Such was the inimitable hide of the Predator. As the huntsman turned in the lightning Storm with the Beast in his net I dreamt I was free to surrender myself at last, not to leap now but to contemplate surrendering myself to an omen of Beauty that I needed to turn inside out for hidden graces, hidden sorrows, in creatures one despised because they appeared to lack the might, the power, the charisma, of the Predator.
The Storm passed and as the Moon descended on my tree-platform it shed a striped visor over my Nemesis Hat: an astronaut-knight above Limbo Land. One version of Limbo seemed charred, another version appeared to have been pierced to the heart, still another glowed, intricate, lovely, beauty translated into inside-out, marvellous graces and sorrows. It was the vulnerability of the Earth, planet Earth, that made me weep.