Pricksongs & Descants Read Online Free PDF

looks inside. “ What ’ s this? Oh no! A flower! Karen, this is too much! ” She runs into the mansion, returns carrying the green piano on her back. She drops it so hard, one leg breaks off. She finds an iron poker, props the piano up with it, sits down on an imaginary stool to play. She lifts her hands high over her head, then comes driving down with extrava gant magisterial gestures. The piano, of course, has been completely disemboweled, so no sounds emerge, but up and down the broken keyboard Karen ’ s stubby fingers fl y, arriving at last, with a cre scendo of violent flourishes, at a grand climactic coda, which she delivers with such force as to buckle the two remaining legs of the piano and send it all crashing to the terrace floor. “ No, Karen! Oh my God! ” Out of the wreckage, a wild goose springs, honking in holy terror, and goes flapping out over the lake. Karen carries the piano back inside, there ’ s a splinterin g crash, and she returns wield ing the poker. “ Careful! ” She holds the poker up with two hands and does a little dance, toes turned outward, hippety-hopping about the terrace. She stops abruptly over the man, thrusts the poker in front of his nose, then slowly brings it to her own lips and kisses it. She makes a wry face. “ Oh, Karen! Whoo! Please! You ’ re killing me! ” She kisses the handle, the shaft, the tip. She wrinkles her nose and shudders, lifts her skirt and wipes her tongue with it. She scowls at the poker. She takes a firm grip on the poking end and bats the handle a couple times against the stone parapet as though testing it. “ Oh, Karen! Oh! ” Then she lifts it high over her head and brings it down with all her might—wham!—poof! it is the caretaker ’ s son, yowling ’ with pain. She lets go and spins away from him, as he strikes out at her in distress and fury. She tumbles into a corner of the terrace and cowers th ere, whimpering, pale and terri fied, as the caretaker ’ s son, breathing heavily, back stooped and buttocks tensed, circles her, prepared to spring. Suddenly, she dashes for the parapet and leaps over, the caretaker ’ s son bounding after, and off they go, scrambling frantically through the trees and brambles, leaving the tall man in the white turtleneck shirt alone and limp from laughter on the terrace.
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    There is a storm on the lake. Two children play “ Chopsticks ” on the green piano. Their grandmother stirs the embers in the fireplace with an iron poker, then returns to her seat on the window - bench. The children glance over at her and she smiles at them. Suddenly a strange naked creature comes bounding into the loggia, grinning idiotically. The children and their grandmother scream with terror and race from the room and on out of the mansion, running for their lives. The visitor leaps up on the piano bench and squats there, staring quizzically at the ivory keys. He reaches for one and it sounds a note—he jerks his hand back in fright. He reaches for another—a different note. He brings his fist down—blam! Aha! Again: blam! Excitedly, he leaps up and down on the piano bench, banging his fists on the piano keyboard. He hops up on the piano, finds wires inside, and pulls them out. twang! twang! He holds his genitals with one hand and rips out the wires with the other, grunt ing with delight. Then he spies the iron poker. He grabs it up, admires it, then bounds joyfully around the room, smashing win dows and wrecking furniture. The girl in gold pants enters and takes the poker away from him. “ Lust! That ’ s all it is! ” she scolds. She whacks him on the nates with the poker, and, yelping with pain and astonishment, he bounds away, leaping over the stone parapet, and slinks off through the brambly forest.
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    “ Lust! ” she says, “ that ’ s all it is! ” Her sketch is nearly complete. “ And they ’ re not the worst ones. The worst ones are the ones who just let it happen. I£ they ’ d kept