Echolalia

Cassandra

CASSANDRA AND DELILAH

Prologue

And I hear the ministers singing all those twitting hymns of theirs,
of God in His heaven, and there is the sound of war and the soldiers,
and the guns and the nightmares on the run, as uncertainty overtakes
the human soul.

And prophecies, why they litter all the streets, the thoughts of
ruination and destruction, and everyone is holding tightly to their
hats as another threat overwhelms like a passing storm and after

when they are proven wrong well then the prophets all exclaim
how it wasn’t really their fault because after all they were trying
their best and who has any right to believe whatever they have to say?

And I am caught by the thoughts of it all and taking pen and paper
try my best to tell a little prophecy of my own, when God once fell.

Part I.

1) Her name was Cordelia and in the world was she born. Given all
chances she found none and given all hopes she lost them too
for the poor girl with her golden hair and gold-bright eyes could
never see ahead of any moment but the moment she was in just then.

For when every child is born they gaze ahead of them and see the
future all spread out, each moment caught and studied, seen and viewed,
and nothing that they ever do can ever skirt that path they’ve seen
and even after death they see ahead, know the heaven awaiting them,

or the hell. But not so for her. When she was born she actually cried
instead of how silent children were and had to be taught number, letters,
words and phrases instead of knowing all such things instantly, but no
more than this. It seemed that she had stumbled backward into greatness

though, for she did more she then be told what to learn, she learned herself.
Snake blossoms in her hair were put there by herself and she taught herself
how to do such things, to imagine the sheltered expanses of the moons and
stars and more to the point she asked questions.

In class, for children still had to go to school even though they knew all
things at once because they had seen themselves in school they had no choice
but to go, she would ask questions and the teachers could not answer for
they had never seen themselves answer her.

In fact her mother and her father often could not tell they loved her for
they had never seen themselves tell her such a thing and yet they moved
because they saw themselves giving her food, teaching her things, acting
as they were supposed to act, and afterward they saw hell awaiting them,

but because they could change nothing, neither act nor thought nor word
it barely bothered them, because they didn’t know it was supposed to.

2) Her name was Galdisana and she was a classmate of Cordelia’s and
when she was eight she saw herself about to hit the girl, but couldn’t stop
it for all such things were writ in stone, and so felt nothing bad about it,
for she couldn’t help herself.

And so Cordelia hit her back but Galdisana had never seen herself be hit,
and at the moment of impact her memory of future things dissolved. Or to
be more precise it changed a bit, and suddenly she couldn’t gaze ahead.

And screaming now is heard for Galdisana now is screaming but no one
can help her for they have not seen themselves so help her. And Cordelia
reaches down her hand and Galdisana shoves it away on instinct and
knowing it is but instinct knows not what to do next. Thus their great
rivalry was born.

3) And Maximilian Cuthberg gets up every day and has his coffee, pats his
daughter on the head even though she’s know sixteen, kisses his wife
goodbye and goes to work. And the feelings too great to ever be ignored
well up in him, but he hasn’t seen the feelings grow against him, and in

his office types and types and never makes a mistake unless he was
supposed to and he never once proclaims himself the man of the green
wood, wild man of the woods, never once says that the parade of scorpion
men are walking through the colonnades of Karnak with the stone temples

and black pyramids far behind them, but those thoughts like scars still
linger and no matter how fast he is supposed to type it never seems enough
and thinking of three things, four, five all at once he begins to wonder why
he is typing words he never learned to understand.

And at night he goes home to his wife and Galdisana, the daughter that he has.

4) “The roots of the world are dead tonight,” so the preacher says, and looking
up into the eyes of God somehow expects something there. But God answers
not because God is expecting someone to answer Him and as no one has

seen themselves ever question God such questions never are asked and
because God can see no less than anyone and everyone can see all things in
turn He never stops to question once Himself.
“The world is littered with the world’s unconquered dead but the Maker
of all things stands still upon the floor of the world, floor of the world littered
with the world’s dead, the roots of the world are dead tonight . . .” And so on

he speaks for he has no choice but to speak nor never can he ask God in his
throne to stop for he doesn’t know that he is supposed to. And God never
answers him.

5) And the ocean swells and falls and the tide of humanity rises and comes
to its end but the ocean is still the ocean all the same, and it weighed fitfully
on her mind as the she grew, as Cordelia grew, to learn that when the dreams

are given skin than the dreamers will have none, for in her life all seemed but
a dream, and all were the dreamers lost in turn. And she read books she never
saw before and learned things in ways that no one else was able to

and imagined the cold lands, the barren grounds of places she had never seen
and never could have seen, and had her parents the strength to marvel than
they would have marveled when she told them of things that they too had

never seen. And she would sing, for no one stopped her, and talked of a
paradise of scarecrows, parade of raven masked scarecrows carved of bones
and who was there to stop her, to call her, to even know her name unless it

had been preordained? And when war came and nations clashed and perished
then she took her parents away, dragged them through tar and blood if needed
but they could not go any other way for they had never seen such a fate for

them; instead they saw only the fire, the gun, a hell awaiting. And nations
fought for no gain and soldiers learned to shoot before they ever left the
womb and when they died they died to go to hell or heaven, but they never

had a say in it, and never knew they could have dared to speak. Piles of flesh
in a row, tatterings of flesh, parchments of bone and a closing down of history
for what is history if no one can ever unlearn what has been, what is, and what

is surely yet to come? And the war cost much and Cordelia cried and wept
and her parents never saw that they were supposed to cry, so they never did. Yet.

6) And in the halls of infinite grace God is able supposedly to see trillions of
possibilities and all at once choose the right one for His own ends and the right
path for his chosen creation.

But amid the tide of eternity, tide of humanity, tide of oblivion all consumed
in blazing white light even while the world was nestled in the hem of God’s
garments He still seemed so unsure, so blind of everything, even as approached

the unhurried pace, the soft slow footsteps of Death. And he is there, Death
is, in every city in all the world and she seemingly on ever street corner, the
shadow of Cordelia, and all is slowly now unlearned by God in His heaven

and none know why. And we are all mourning the loss of one we could not
ever really claim and I despair of all I could do, all I was for I was one who
contended with the very stones themselves, to no avail. I always won for they
could be nothing other than stones upon the naked ground.

And hidden in the wings of God is none other than God Himself.

7) Dead on good living the man spent ten years going the wrong way, eating
and never stopping for he never saw himself once stop. Music, memories,
faith, reason, hope, all of these things were never given once to him and

so he sought them never. And one despair always furthers another unless
alleviated by hope but what hope was there for him? And for every step
forward there is always a backward step, but for one who never saw the

chance even a bottle of miracles, a place of wonders, a feast of sorrows
could not be enough to change the man. And between the infinite complexity
of everything and the finite resources and simplicity of one lone life, between

those poor benighted fools all in a row on some battlefield about to die,
pressed and folded men all in a row til then the slaughter started, and this
one here avoiding all, saving himself at the cost of all, even if one pushed

him into making a mistake that he could never really ever walk away from,
still it wouldn’t be enough. And yet when he died he went to heaven and they to
hell, not for any sin of theirs or virtue of his own but only because they were all

made that way, and truth to tell they couldn’t seek to change. And if he was just
a worm before he became the man he is would that change a thing? And if after
death he spent eternity in empty white rooms with nothing to do, no not even

eat, but just wait for time to end, and they in hell left to wait in red rooms for
something to happen, even torture or fire, but this too never comes, no not once
to them. And that is the only difference between heaven and hell; the colour of
the rooms.

8) And money moves from hand to hand and seems to have a life above the lives
about, for even as they cannot act it acts, spreads and thins, collects and channels
itself like a living fire across the whole of the world. And every coin and every
piece of metal moves and passes and uses them all like beasts of burden

but they can never have nor hold unless they’ve seen it happen yet, or at least
know that it is bound to happen, and so the money moves and travels and never
once complains, for like them it knows not how.

9) And one day Cordelia tried to breath in eternity or failing that like naked
upon the ground, and noticing a heaven round about she went to take a look.
For heavens and hells were left at odd angles and odd places

by God and everyone looked and knew where they were but
no one dared explore them while alive for none had seen them ever
do such a simple thing. And so she walked into the white rooms and

asked people what they were doing there. And one said “before my eyes
constantly is death and before his eyes constantly is death, and death lingers
after me in this place.” “So what’s the point of being in heaven?” She stopped

to say, to which he had no answer. And on it went, soul after soul speaking
of death, but being dead themselves it seemed a pointless exercise so
Cordelia threw a few of them out, bodily, to the streets. They didn’t

quite know what to do with themselves for they had not seen themselves be
thrown from heaven’s reaches. And of course they could have simply walked
back in but they hadn’t seen themselves do that either and

so there they were, white robed souls on a street corner, uncertain
what to do or how to act. But Cordelia was still bored so she went next
door to hell and did the same to them who were lying there, bemoaning

Death of all his graces. “Now what are you going do?” She asked them
all, but of course they couldn’t answer. So she simply walked away.

10) Where the shadows go to sleep eventually and angels on the far shores
howl eventually for me, where the worst thing that I could do to you is leave
you as you are, that was where Cordelia made her own destiny.

Galdisana, partially freed was trying to kill Cordelia again but being only
partially freed could never figure out how things couldn’t be seen before
they were seen, and so all her plans dissolved to schemes that she would be

utterly sure of, and of course nothing is truly sure in the life that is unexamined
of its own future. And in her usual fashion Galdisana failed to exactly perfectly
aim the gun which would have hit the knife which would have hit the wine

bottle which would have released the cork at Cordelia’s head, which would
surely have killed her, or so Galdisana assumed. After Cordelia’s meal at the
restaurant was over (which was free because no one stopped her from just going

in and taking what she wanted,) Cordelia noticed her nemesis once again.
“Give it up,” Cordelia said. “I’m bored.” And so she walked away. But
Galdisana followed her and tried to kill her again with an even more
convoluted scheme I won’t get into now. But as she was walking away

Cordelia tripped and fell and hit her head and almost died. And while almost
in the realms of God she saw Him arrayed in all His splendor and asked “what
am I doing here?” before she fled away back into her body, no

thanks to the paramedics or the strangers who passed her by. And God
couldn’t give an answer. But at least now someone asked the question.

Part II.

1) Old sins have old sinners attached to them but old virtues are always
held in the possession of young men or young women. But even a little
girl in time’s reach becomes a crone all too soon I fear, and Cordelia did

die although she was not supposed to for another century at least. And that’s
where things got interesting. For she went to heaven but decided she didn’t
like it and left. And Galdisana who had also died followed her, because she

didn’t have anything better to do. And watching the world unfold it seemed
an army of the crowds were all becoming but silences themselves, just
shadows on the grass which cut the feet of dreamers as they pass, but no

dreamers were passing there. So, being dead and not really caring Cordelia
decided it was time to leave earth for a while and see what else was there.

2) She rode in a dragonfly spaceship which she had to build herself, with
Galdisana’s help. There wasn’t anyone else. And off they went, past the
limits of the earth, past the moons, for there were a few around, at least two,

and decided to go somewhere else for a while. No one expected that some
one else was following Cordelia out. Not even the one who was doing it.

3) First they journeyed to a world of ice where great winged beings dwelled
and pointing out to them that there was more than ice or blackness many
decided to leave with them, with Cordelia and Galdisana who grumbled

constantly. Then off they flew again and found a world of only clouds, cloud
lands of the barren ground and the crimson winged harpies sailed themselves

across the infinite white, blinded to all else, till Cordelia showed them. And
there was the world of great jungles, the jungles and the jaguars of Zatarajia,
and in the giants’ silver city where no one lived Cordelia took photographs

of the ancient ruins. And the angels on the far shores howled and the
harpies turned silent all of a sudden and turning to face them suddenly

Cordelia all at once asked their names and they were the names of the people
which she had known, all of them. And turning suddenly to face Galdisana
Galdisana just shrugged and didn’t know what to say.

And his oval upturned smiling face appeared
and M. Hequa introduced himself to them.

4) “A practiced hand am I,” he said, “at changing things. Sorry for the
delusions child, or illusions, but I don’t mind telling you that you gave
me quite a fright, leaving earth and all, after all I’d done for you.”

“And who are you?” Cordelia asked. “Why I good child am the evil
one.” He replied, and smiled. “Sure you are, goodbye.” And Cordelia
walked back to the ship, with all the angels and harpies in tow and

Galdisana but following after. “Wait, I really am, and those are just
figments of your mind! I created them.” “They’re mine now,” Cordelia
said and bundled her angels and harpies all inside and left the jungle world.

5) After that M. Hequa wouldn’t leave them alone. He used to follow
from star to star and world to world but Cordelia didn’t take to the evil
one very well. In fact on many occasions she simply ignored him.

But one can only ignore M. Hequa for so long and so Cordelia finally
confronted him. “What do you want?” She asked. “Why you are my
vessel, chosen to unseat God and make the universe the way it’s

supposed to be.” “What if I don’t want to?” She asked. “Well you
have no choice.” And so she ignored him again, only saying once to him

before leaving “my eyes but follow where my heart has led. My heart
is not leading me to you. Get lost.” And what could he say to that?

6) M. Hequa tried to convince Galdisana to turn against Cordelia but
Galdisana already hated her for giving her freewill and besides as they
both were dead it wasn’t as if there was anything Galdisana could do to

Cordelia anyway. But again he pressed Galdisana til she finally tried
and had all things together to force the woman to the devil’s side,

only to ask at the end “What is the point again? I don’t see why.”

7) Wings are mine to hold and mine to ruin, wings and eyes and hands
all at the same time, and no roads have I but wings to tread upon, yet my
wings all are torn or ruined or there are simply none left to find.

Angels and rabbits, across the path I saw a rabbit as an angel stood
or would have stood in Eden, barring paradise to a few, to none, to all,
all meeting an uncommon end by being too common after all.

And don’t make the same mistakes, make a different one instead or
so I have been told, and they should know, who make them all in a row.

And here is my protagonist crossing stars and seasons, and Cordelia
doesn’t notice for a moment that I am. And I walk into the bronze city
upon the bronze world, wings all torn and tattered, an angel in all but

name, but she doesn’t notice me even as I pen the words I write, even as
I write of how she reaches a chalcedonyx world of blackness overarching

all else besides and M. Hequa claims that he can stop the blackness if
she but bows to him, yet never can I make myself write that she will bow
to him, and so instead the utter blackness now gnaws at my very soul,

in the bronze city of Knayria, upon the bronze world.

8) “Let’s go back home,” Cordelia said, and turning the dragonfly ship
homeward brought the angels and the harpies and the cancermen with her,
and because she would not bow decided instead to make illusions of her

own and so imagined great floating continents above the world for her
children now to dwell upon and great labyrinthine cities underground for

her children too to dwell in and imagined at once M. Hequa as but a cancerman
with the sum of all his sins upon him, til he had a talk with God. But he had
never seen himself having such a talk so she dragged him to the throne of

infinite grace and made him speak. But she would not play his game,
nor cause all souls some mad destruction, even as angels in other worlds

atop their plateaus built again great silver cities for the giants now to claim.
And that seemed the end of the story; shades of people she knew brought home,
God and M. Hequa forced to talk again. But the story was still not done.

Part III.

1) In the city of bronze, the city of Knayria I thought I saw Cordelia one day.
I sat and felt my shoulder blades where wings had been and there was Cordelia
with her golden hair looking across the great golden space between the temple

and the prison. And she was just walking by and all of a sudden she disappeared
and I don’t know where she went. And then Galdisana came after her, and I looked
next to me, hoping to see someone I did not know, but instead M. Hequa with

his oval upturned smiling face was staring now at me. “We have some
questions,” he said, and I nodded and realized that for me it already far
too late. My children and my shadows had come home to find their maker.
Yes, it was far too late.

2) “What do you want to know?” I asked Cordelia as she stared at me.
“Why?” She asked simply, to which I felt compelled to reply.

“The practiced pursuit of knowledge above all else I fear.” “Well that’s
no answer.” “It is for me.” The world, the whole world hung hollow
all about, and as it was empty save for me and them I felt free

enough to explain myself. “This whole world is empty you see
because people made choices and I thought that if I could imagine
a world or a place where all choices were made before that they

would be somehow happier than I was. If nations fought and identities
were carved in stone before anything terrible happened to them that
maybe it would be better.”

“What about hell, or heaven?” Cordelia asked. “What do I know about
hell or heaven, and what’s the point if no one has a say in the matter?
Even dirt is clean in the eyes of God, and I’m not God.”

“God isn’t really God.” Cordelia replied. “He’s how people see Him.
That’s close enough, isn’t it?” “So where is here anyway?” M. Hequa
asked. “I don’t know. I’ve just been here forever after

everyone else left.” “And you never looked for them?” Cordelia asked.
“I never thought to look, I never saw myself looking for them.” She
smiled. “I can think of doing that.”

2) Before they left I had heard stories, stories of Cassandra taken by the
knowledge of her own death and Delilah who felled the terrible monster
Samson and saved her people.

Those stories clung to me while I waited alone and here was Cordelia
making a story herself, even as I was compelled to write it all down.
And in her wake Galdisana followed and asked me why she had been

made to follow after Cordelia. “Someone had to,” I stammered out, at
which point she hit me. But I had already written that she would.

3) To go from Cordelia’s world to mine or mine to any other is not reached
by walking but only by force of will. I don’t know how she dragged the
others with her but soon enough she was leading us to go seek those who

had vanished long before. And could I say no to her? All I could ever
say was yes. So we left and she lead us out and first we retraced out steps
for every things leaves a trace and in the world I had made we yet found

no one that we sought. And trying to imagine them I could not save
as wings or words or eyes and then the bonds that kept the world
moving as it was moving slid away, and everyone, everywhere couldn’t

remember what was going to happen next. Suddenly heaven closed up
and hell with it and twisted into some other shape, suddenly God vanished
and M. Hequa with Him, suddenly no one save Cordelia, Galdisana and

myself remembered what the world was like before, world of my own
invention now utterly out of my control. And Cordelia’s parents came
and wept with her and I barely remember thinking that that might happen

soon. Then we were again off to other parts of other minds, to the isle of
women’s wanting, to the rain forests of Britain, to the maiden’s fair where
men were often left as the dreamers were left when their dreams were

clothed. And Galdisana changed during those wanderings and finally
simply walked away, which I could not ever imagine her doing, leaving
her fixation upon Cordelia and finding some centaur named Uther Laradei

in a world of ancient forests and knights of dragon scales. We sailed the
seas of black water and reached the isle of Uthaira where riddles scattered
on the ground pricked at our heels. And there are many other things which I

could tell, but I won’t tell here, until we came across Elagalus Markub Taji,
holder of the silver sphere, sitting upon the wine dust sand beneath two
suns, one of gold, and the other black.

And within the sphere weeping now is heard and the tent behind the seer
rolls back against the wind and he lays bare the questions of my heart
and makes me afraid. But Cordelia just rises up,

snatches it from his hand and asks him a question of her own. “Why did
the people leave this man? Answer me if you know.” “They left because
they were compelled to leave; there was no other reason but that.”

“But why were they compelled to leave?” She asked. “I won’t give this
back til you answer me.” “Because you might not be who you are. Because
no one is who they are. Because people can’t choose for themselves. And

because no one is there to choose for them.” So she gave the sphere back
to Elagalus Markub Taji, the seer of the desert in his tattered robes of coarse
hair and fabric, though I could not tell what kind, but before we truly left

Cordelia went back and took the sphere from him, looked at it carefully
then tossed it behind her back. And it cracked and out came my people, all
of them, all those souls who looked so much like the people that she knew,

and I felt myself compelled to speak and say “It’s like a fire inside of me
that must at once be let out or I must burn, the fire of writing all that you
do, all that you are. But how can you do what you do before I have the

chance to put pen to paper? You cannot be. You are burning way in the
middle of the night like lightning must from time to time.” And she
just smiled and I noticed the pen and paper were in her hand

and she asked me the question I could not think to answer though I
tried, I so ever hopefully tried. “Who are you? No, rather the question
is not who are you, the question is who do you want to be, now that you

know I’ve written all that you are?” To that I gave no answer as my people
were created from out the hand of the woman who had first created me. May 3-4/11.

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