One seldom thinks of C’Krrrarn these days.
King Phnudge, unexpectedly, makes good companionship. We freqently embark on foraging walks together, gleaning nothing of consequence or edibility but nonetheless conveying if only to each other a heartening tone of decorum and kinship. King Phnudge alone, besides myself, retains the outward dressing of his former self (I should say: apart from my top hat, which was stolen and presumably devoured by a monkey). He cleaves to good cheer at all times and acts as though bounded, as we all once were, by the strict gutters and panels of decency. Despite his gormless patois, I find myself understanding his highness better and better.
*
Phnudgesong
Fear and rage it shakes my soul
I say only Poorly Moorly — deedle dole!
I want to fuck and eat and strangle you
I say only Starving Carving — hoodle hoo!
Shit hole shit hole shit hole
I’m sick of myself—hup hizzole!
*
“I’m better than this. I’m better than these people. I don’t belong here!”
“Try this on, dear.”
“I don’t want to try anything on. I don’t need another hat. I want my family, nobody’s even listening to me. Where are the children?”
“It’s not a hat. Lisa’s playing with the rabbit, and Spark is out exploring the island.”
“Quit crafting stuff out of palm fronds and frogskins and pond scum, Keener. Nobody needs that shit.”
“Just see if it fits, Theo.”
“How could they send me to a place with monsters and hunters and clowns and theater critics? The clown and the theater critic, they’re not even in color and I want to go home! They make me feel old!”
“Nobody sent you, honey. Our plane crashed.”
“It’s a setup. It’s always a setup. What were we even doing on a plane with those types? What is this, some kind of wicker hockey mask? I can’t breath through this thing.”
“Oh, that looks silly. It’s not for your face. Put it down … there.”
“You wove me a thatched codpiece?!?!?”
“I’m working on breastplates and a helmet. The samurai often wore wicker armor, you know.”
“What good is wicker armor on an island?!?!”
“I’m just trying to get you prepared for a new life, lover.”
“!@&$%#! I don’t want a new life! I want my old life!”
“You’ll eventually have to lead this island, Theo. Nobody else is going to do it. Peter Rabbit isn’t going to do it. The black-and-white characters aren’t suited for it. Poacher Junebug’s discredited himself. King Phnudge, well, he’s just not right. And Murkly is a villain.”
“That’s another thing, I don’t want to go around there anymore, I don’t like the way he looks at you!”
“He can’t help himself, Theo. I just wanted to bring him a sun hat.”
“Did he let you into his little hiding place?”
“Yes, we sat and had a very nice talk.”
“I don’t want you to have a very nice talk!!!!”
“Yes, dear. I won’t in the future.”
“How can I lead the island when I can’t even keep tabs on the Dingbats?!?!?!”
*
Spark Dingbat ascended the volcano easily. It had steps. Near the top he passed a small pyramid of skulls in various shapes and sizes — a skull duck with giant ovoid eyes, a skull robot with antenna ears, a skull pig with a tiny bone beret incorporated into its cranium.
C’Krrrarn perched at the rim of the volcano, seeming bigger than he had in the plane, looming like an outcropping of the rock itself. As the tiny beret was to the pig’s skull, so C’Krrrarn was to the volcano. Beyond C’Krrrarn, Spark saw trickles of steam seeping from between burnt-umber rocks, the undersides of which glowed orangely, like enormous briquettes. Seagulls massed on C’Krrrarn’s brow and shoulders, their dried liquid droppings striping him in the manner of a jailbird character, perhaps some crow or weasel standing before a parole board of bulldogs.
“I hope I’m not bothering you.”
C’Krrrarn did not speak.
“You didn’t look like you were doing anything.”
C’Krrrarn did not speak.
“Are you waiting for something?”
C’Krrrarn did not speak.
“My mom says you could just probably swim off this island any time you wanted, or else maybe walk along the ocean floor, but then where would you go, because it’s not like you have a home somewhere, and maybe in a way this island is as much like a home as you’ve ever known, and maybe we even crashed here because you were sort of attracted to the island from the airplane, like you felt some kind of geomagnetic tropism or maybe you glanced down and it reminded you of your mom and dad, do you think that might be right?”
C’Krrrarn did not speak.
“Are you going to kill us all? Just kidding.”
C.D.N.S.
“How can you sit like that in the same position for so long? Don’t your legs or your butt fall asleep?”
C.D.N.S.
“My mom is weaving you a tatami mat out of all this crud from the beach. Do you know what a tatami mat is? She said you would.”
C.D.N.S.
“Do you mind if I sit here for a minute?”
*
Note to artist: Everywhere along the bottom gutters of the pages now, muddy footprints, rabbit droppings, and Dingbat spoor (ed.: What does that look like?), forming an abject trail of smeary pictograms spelling out an unknown future.
*
Page forty-two, panel one, King Phnudge, alone in the woods. The island’s sole monkey has approached him from underneath a fern. The monkey carries a hand-cranked music organ and wears a top hat. King Phnudge raises his eyebrows in delighted surprise.
Page forty-two, panel two, a campfire in a clearing. Large Silly and Poacher Junebug and King Phnudge and C. Phelps Northrup devour shreds of the monkey, whose scorched remains still hang from a spit over the fire. The monkey’s carcass still clutches the organ. Northrup wears the top hat.
Page forty-two, panel three, in the brush at one side of the clearing, Peter Rabbit and Lisa Dingbat stared wide-eyed at clown, hunter, king, and critic as they eat the monkey. The rabbit and the girl are unseen by the others.
Page forty-two, panel four, moving on all fours, the rabbit and the girl silently slip into the woods, where they resume nibbling on ferns.
Page forty-two, panel five, night, the campfire, now abandoned by the others. Theophobe Dingbat tiptoes up to the extinguished fire, where he locates a charred monkey rib. He sucks at it thoughtfully.
Page forty-two, panel six, Murkly Finger. He crouches in his cavernous shard of airplane hull, reading a comic book, which is opened to a splash page showing C’Krrrarn towering over an alpine village.
*
From where he sat beside C’Krrrarn, Spark Dingbat could see into the island whole, as if he sat within a camera obscura. He saw his mother, now outfitting Poacher Junebug and King Phnudge and C. Phelps Northrup in thatched armor, adjusting the palm-frond breastplates over their torsos while they stood at awkward attention, trying not to disappoint.
He saw Large Silly covered in baked mud, with dried grasses stuck to his arms and legs, sitting beside the creek masturbating.
He saw his sister and the rabbit hiding in the grass watching Large Silly.