“City Gates” A Prequel to “Nameless” Part 2

“City Gates”

A Prequel to “Nameless”

by: Jeel Christine de Egurrola

Trumpeting Angel Musical Serenade, Haiti

PART 1: THE GREEN BROTHERS

PART 2: THE SIGNATURE

I am invisible. When I move, I move fast like a flash of light. I am swift as lightning... like light, like nothingness, in quantum level I am invincible. I am space. I am time. I am the universe. In a tear of a time, I manifest. The physical world is my making and I choose it the way I want it. I am creator. I am destroyer. And I am in wishful thinking...

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” I whisper. I pray my ho'oponopono mantra. I cleanse myself from the darkness inside me.

I run as hastily as I can through the mossiness and the rockiness of the ground, without leaving any tracks as possible. Otherwise, the huntsmen will find me. I cannot allow anyone to know I went exploring beyond the borders. My father would be in helluva ire. I step on the mosses, avoiding the dirt floor. I swing from one tree to another in great agility with my quiver hanging on my right shoulder, and my knives on my scabbard. Two more knives hidden separately on each ankle of my legs underneath my combat boots...

I course through the woods until I see the hedges that make up the labyrinth of the manor—my very own manor—my little kingdom of trivial happiness. Mine’s the smallest amongst my brothers’ and sisters who know nothing about my existence, nor does my father’s legal wife. The world knows nothing about me except Ani and Castor—my keepers and my guardians.

Unlike a property I am no one’s. My life is mine alone... and I’m alone... I have no family. I have no name to begin with. My father or my keepers aren’t my family. They co-exist only to my concealment from the rest of the world. Had the world known about me, my father’s political career would be in great jeopardy. He wouldn’t risk that if he is on the running for presidency in Pandemonia—our dystopian world.

I couldn’t say my father loved me because I know he didn’t. I love him, nonetheless. I am a mistake that is the reason why I don’t have his name, nor do I have my mother’s name. I do not even know her. I am not allowed to ask. My life is all restriction, but my life despite that is mine alone. 

I am deviant in some ways because I don’t behave the way normal people do or at least ‘normal’ in an influential person’s point of view. I act like a packrat they say, because when I was little, I am like a rat playing in the mud and collecting filthy and broken things. In fact, I have a vast collection of junk metals and materials for my ‘junk arts’ they call it.

I am an artist—a metal artist—in essence. It is only in my art that I have a name—a signature.

אָנ אַ נאָמען

These are traditional Yiddish characters that mean “Nameless.” It’s not exactly a name but it’s better a better signature than none. Heh!

I’ve got great fashion sense. Even though I am a packrat, I like to dress myself up and down. I love my curves, my voluptuous body , my short sexy legs (long legs are way overrated), my feet, my nails, my hands, my freckled face, my blonde hair and especially my blue eyes... my mom’s blue eyes, said my father.

My lifestyle has nothing to do with worldly appreciation and approval. I don’t need them. My lifestyle and my idealism are mine to appreciate.

I slip into a tiny hidey-hole that leads to a tear in the hedge where I slide in smoothly to the other side of the world, where my superficial and pretend life is.

Hurriedly, I run toward the house to my room in the attic. The safest place in all of Pandemonia, though I haven’t really been in other places outside Penndorion, the capital of Pandemonia.

The entire attic space is mine. One portion is my studio where I sculpt my metal arts and create my mixed-media arts. At the centre of the studio is my grandest masterpiece I call The Iron Fae aside from it being made from copper and iron, the Iron Fae is actually a faery with pointed eyes on the sides and Elvin ears and with the tolerance of Iron and blood and with golden-copper wings like that of an angel. Usually faeries and the folk die because of Iron. Iron are toxic to them.

One thing about faeries I like the most is that faeries are deceptive even when they cannot lie. They have this  amazing psychological ability to twist a lie to make it look like truth. Faeries are misunderstood as mischievous and selfish but they aren’t. They cling only to their natures and nothing more. Just as a man steals bread from someone else to fill in that need for food or when a good boy turns to killing a man who murders its father... our bodies operate exactly how it is made to operate and via our survival instincts and our very own organismic valuing.

And like an angel, holy and eternal, my Iron Fae is a spiritual creature that in my imagination experiences the amazing supernatural and human conditions.

In a child’s lenses, I am that faery.

Opposite my studio is my white divan bed that is pose at the center. Beside it is the lava lamp on my side table. Inside each drawers and niche of my bed are collections CDs and DVDs of several genres and of books that vary from the social sciences to literature and pure sciences. Though college education is an option for my father, it ain't for me. I can always learn on my own. My homeschooling experience make me realize that. 

Along the side of the wall on the left of my bed is my reading couch where I sit for a good read. Beside it is a  glass console with few of my metalworks in it. One is an broken iron-made birdhouse that I customized with cockworks, and a small pendulum that swings back and forth with every movements of the gears. Another on the second level niche is a bronze metal tree with base attached to granite. It has coiling snakelike branches that extend to leaves that aren't leaves at all but aluminum sculpted doll heads. On the next niche is a copper and iron made mini Stonehenge replica. Next the Stonehenge is my pure silver-made bow with Gods and Goddesses designs with three arrows. Other niches are still empty.

On my walls are my mixed media arts with acrylic and metals as my main mediums. One painting I call "Devotion" where two human bodies intertwine with circus-like flexibility. Both aluminum skulls are embossed like reliefs in canvas. Five more arts are attached on my white wallpapered walls.

Then, someone knocks at my bedroom door.

"Who is it?" I ask.

"It's Ani. Open the door." It isn't a request but a command. I am always commanded, but I am a maverick. Ani and Castor think of me as the most stubborn person in the world. "I said open up!"

I didn't answer for a moment. She starts banging and I only make a smirk.

"Your father called. Open up!" and so I do. She looks haggard and smells like sweat.

"Geez. You smell like filth." I tease.

"We need to leave now. Some paparazzo guy took a picture of you with your father. News say that you are your father's child. Some say you're the concubine..."

"That's shit!" I cut in.

and she continues "...the news has circulated throughout the media, and they're on their way." She panics. She pulls me from my room, and I jerk back.

"I need to get some things."

"No time for that." She is uncompromising. Even so I move back to my wardrobe to get my quiver.

We rush through the hallway, and Castor in his late thirties joins in. Outside is Castor's BMW 3 Series E30 vintage on the driveway.  We slide in, and Castor reeves the engine through the arched gates of the manor.

What are we running from anyway? Not that my father cares for me. He only cares of himself.

"Where are we going anyway?" I ask.

"To the City Gates."

"What? Are we leaving Penndorion?"

"Yes." Ani answer.

Well, isn't that shit! I say to my self. Now, I know exactly what to do. As soon as we reach the gates I shall carry on with my escape. We drive for almost less than an hour and we reach the City Gates.

"I need to pee."

Castor looks at me and he nods.

I get out from the car and to the crowd of people I slip in.

Ani follows my track but I move obliquely sideways to my left then to the right. In zigzag swagger I motion. I pace and push through the crowd to lose Ani and Castor. I hear Castor squeaks. "What the fuck! The girl's moving fast." And Ani calls "Girl! Come back!" I move a bit faster and when I lose them in the crowd. I push my self out and go inside a restaurant where I find my self in a midst of a fight between a big black guy and a white one.

The black guy hits the counter of the diner. To be in a place where people might be coming in to know about the commotion is not what I have in mind. I move to the restroom of the diner and from there I reeve through one of the awning windows. And out the back my feet reach the ground. And there  he is—a thief breaking a car window. Upon hearing my movements, the theif—a boy in his twenties now look at me with fear in his eyes and he flies to me in an attempt to hit me with the rod he's grasping. But I am faster. I catch the feebleness of his neck.

"Move and I will not hesitate to bring you to your death."

"Please." His voice is surprisingly apathetic. "...we're on a run. My brother and I. Our father's gonna kill us both if we don't flee farther."

With the tone of his voice I couldn't know if he is telling the truth or otherwise. But I let go instead. His infirm physique will not be a problem if he decides on aiming at me again. I am faster and stronger.

"Thanks. I need to run." He smiles, and he goes.

"Marcus" A guy in a blue shirt and a denim underpants looks at me.

"We have to move brother." Marcus replies and both men goes to their destination leaving the convertible with the broken window.

Must have been his brother... I make my way out the alley to another establishment. To a local motel I get me a room where I could rest for the night. It is almost sunset. In the morning I will be away farther from here. I will ride the train to Avalonia or to Cape Rune where freedom from restrictions awaits me.

I smile to my self.

*****

You may also read the last of the chapters...

PART 3: THE RED HERRING