The water was so yellow and it looked so clean and the boats you'd see on it, it was like looking at a vision of actual paradise. Especially when you'd hear the splash and the whale or the dolphin would tear up out from under the water and soar through the air for a moment and then fall back into it. Never saw nothin like it.Hence I just wanted to sit there taking it in forever and smelling that pure air that they have there... so different from home..looking out occasionally at the people, and especially the Tyrhennian women, waltzing about down on the shore. I always thought it was a lie and a load of merd' but the Tyrhennian girls really are something else. Marinella is gorgeous, so are all her sisters, but the girls in that part of the World? Something is different. I suppose it's the teeth. Not sure.
One part of me was almost hoping maybe it would rain so the day would be cancelled and we could stay at the Gold Sea (Marinella despises rain and goes insane when it rains) but it did not happen. No rain came and the sky was clear and now she had awoken, promptly at 6 in the morning, the sun not even up, totally prepared to embark.
Throwing my "Who the hell is Mick Richards?" shirt over my head I walked out back on the balcony, I remember, after Marinella got up.
The half moon was just about to clip out from the sky and get replaced by the new Sun the "Gods" had installed. It had been writen in the brochure online about how the Gods were putting in a new sun and it was very nice looking,but not quite up yet.
Marinella had literally woken up that early...it was basically still dark. I poured a small glass of the vino from the bottle that is forever replenished on the balcony and looked out. Some boats were docking at the shore and a few kids were running around getting wet where the mighty waves were crashing. The waves were getting bigger and louder now that the sun was arriving.
A woman with a long black dress that was shimmering appeared holding a guitar, strumming it. Our room was real high up but you could still almost hear her strumming the strings and singing. It seemed to be in another tongue. Probably Finnish. Everyone out there seems to speak Finnish these days for some reason and I got no idea why, though I picked up some words from a street busker .... "Pieni musta kettu"... I've no idea what it means; but it sounds cool, especially when someone skilled is singing it.
Marinella came up from behind me and surprised me, kissing me on the back of my neck. "It is going to be the most splendid thing thus far William." she said, "You cannot even imagine how incredible Zanzara looks. You can't even imagine.I honestly think you are going to faint. You should have watched the documentary on it. It is ashame your sister Consolata didn't come. She would have loved it. It is nothing like here and nothing like casa. The sky is bright pink William all day long, and there are these incredible...oh my god they are so incredible...statues of the Gods, everywhere you look. And William, the wizards. You'll go crazy. You'll lose your mind. Literally." she laughed, still behind me, slipping her hand up into my shirt squeezing a bit of my gut, rubbing me. "They just... BOOM! They blow spells off in the streets all day long like nothing. You will love it, William. I can't wait to see the look on your face."
"I hope so, Marinella. I'm a little tired ,to be honest. I was up all night watching Fear of Odros. They finally released it and I got it on the Kinney and watched it. 6 hours long honey."
"Was it good? I should have liked to seen it. Tell me the ending."
"You sure?" I said.
"Siiiiii." she said, the way she says it, drawing it all out, kissing my neck with her wet kisses, and then moving onto my bald shaven scalp, "siiii tell me William, I don't care."
"Well Odros defeats the elf, Marinella. You remember the elf?"
"The woman."
"Yep. The cleric Sibenna. She starred in the last 2. Megan Witherspoon played her. Odros beat her. Badly. He decapitates her and then drags her body all around Melkai world. And then he burns out all of Melkai in a freak rage. It was a tragedy." I said, "It was really sad, Marinella. I don't think you would have liked it. I can't believe they killed Sibenna. Sucks..."
"Damn." she said, "it does sound awful. I'm sorry. I know you loved those films."
"Yea and its over now. That was the last film. The director is going back to Pluto now and he is done with film making..."
"Well, lucky for us, our splendid 6 month vacation is just beginning. Soooo, come on. Drink the last bit of your vino there and then lets go."
I took my last sips from the glass guzzling the black wine down as fast as I could, almost actually choking, and then we were off. I put on only a pair of sandals (big mistake) and we left. We took the elevator down to the Golden Lobby and passed through, some big dreadlocked black guy was screaming and slamming down on some big piano playing an extremely weird version of a Bob Marley song, and then came the street. It was jam packed with people, noises everywhere, cars soaring through the sky , and buses, huge buses, just zipping through the aur looking like they were about to crash. I don't think I've ever heard horns honking so loud; I thought my ears would start bleedin'.
It was nothing like the scene when you walk out the door that leads to the beach I saw from the balcony. This was what they call the "Third Exit" and it was densely populated, not meant to be quiet, and from it you could access the stations to get to the other cities. Like now where we were headed with Zanzaru. I lit up a red marby I had in my shorts pockets and took in a suck, passed it to Marinella, as we walked through the crowd. A chill ran through my body and I got shivery. Some busker was singing a song I recognized in Gaelic; another was singing not far behind him an old Beatles song "Marmalade Man".
Marmalade man with the Marmalade skies
Marmalade baby with the Marmalade eyes
Big blue donkey in a big blue field
Tell me little boy, is it all real?
Hey Marmalade man! Marmalade skies!
Marmalade baby with the Marmalade eyes!
Jack knife, Hound knife, rip it up tight
Jack knife, blood knife, rip the Dream right!
We came to the train station then. Marinella handed over our tickets and they let us in. It was unbelievably enormous, and the advertisements were like something you might maybe see in Gally Center at Christmas but ..well, probably not. Huge billboards flashing about ninety colors at once with wild faces, usually wearing masks, popping in and out of them, and everyone was trying to sell you something. I saw ads for all the diamond shops, for the adamanrel necklaces, for the air cycles, the new Spider-man flick (and he looked like he was jumping all over the skyscraper, etc). Everything. Even a fairly hot porno ad with a blue skinned lady walking and throwing off a towel in a super steamy bathtub.... (for some reason I remember that one clearest of all).
Marinella was in love with it of course and her hair was radiating with her happiness, turning pink to blue to white to black like crazy. Honestly so muich was going on, I was almost dizzy. , and I was imagining what my Old man would make of it, barnyard cat he always was, never wanting to leave Louisville. I bet his head would explode seeing it.
Marinella though, she is never ... nothing ever tires her out or dizzies her. The more populated a place is, the more she loves it. The more people, the mmore noise, the more she's into it. Marinella honestly doesn't dig a train unless it's packed. She doesn't bother with a concert less she knows its going to be sold out. She loves "communal things".
I was holding her hand and walking behind her and we were walking pretty swiftly. I lit up another marby and took a suck just before we got in the train; then I handed it off to some bum who was lying there wrapped in blankets. He thanked me and we boarded. The metal doors slammed shut with a big bang like a grenade back in the jungle and fancy little smoke erupted out of it. It smelled real nice. Marinella was taking in deep huge sniffs of it. "i bet it gets you zooted." she said with a smile. "Gives you dreams of beauty." Little kids were jumping and clapping through the smoke. Some little dwarf with a mohawk did a handstand through it and everyone shouted like at a baseball game. He had these cool emerald shorts on that looked like they costed a pretty mint.
Then a voice came through the overhead speakers of the train, a womans voice: "All passengers aboard the Gizzy Zomba take your seats please. All passengers aboard the Gizzy Zomba take yer seats!" The voice was loud and cold, but sexy. Probably a hot lady, I thought to myself, imagining her. Do the captains of such big trains cruise naked?
We took our seats and got strapped in. I had to help Marinella a bit, she didn't really know how to get the big bar down over her to cover her chest. It was a big metal thing and it was pretty heavy, actually, so it took some strength to pull on. My cousin Allie boy of course keeps me forever stocked with the jimmies so I'm never lacking for muscle (its one part of the reason, though she won't admit it, that Marinella stays with me).
I pulled it down and locked it up nice and tight for her. She kissed me on the cheek. "Mucho gracias baby." she said.
"No problem girlie." I said.
It was like a roller coaster strap in, you could say, but almost shockingly heavier. Marinella was kicking her feet with her high heels, excited as hell. I turned and looked out the back window as best I could twisting my neck. I seen a big red bus with black smoke blowing out of the back of it zip right out of sight. The floor started to rumble like when you're on a jet plane and they start the engine. Everything got muffled out with the loudness of the sound. I was surprised with how loud it was. Then music started to play, some horrific old Wendy Winni song. "Showers and Gold, Gods Growing Old". Blast off was a second later and we were in the sky. A 4 hour ride. I leaned my head back and switched on a little fan above my face and it blew nice chilly air on me, smelt like strawberries and boomers. Marinella took out her Kinney and started watching some ridiculously old film (her big obsession that year) about some ancient Queen Elizabeth or something. The stewardesses came over promptly after we had been in the air for about 40 minutes and offered us something to eat, all of it complimentary, included with the tickets. I looked over the menu briefly, and ordered a pizza margerita , I remember. And I am honestly not lying to you: the one they brought to me, a big huge one that Marinella also ate some of, it was probably one of the best pies I ever had in my life. It had these huge pieces of pepperoni on it like I don't know what. big slimy pink pieces, and the mozzarella cheese .... it was to die for. I remember I asked the stewardess where they got it. "Zanzaru." she said. "If you like this, you're going to literally go insane in Zanzaru."
"Really/" I said.
"Oh yes, sir. Oh yes. I came from little Selma to live in this part of the world. And I...it's crazy, man, it's really crazy. It's, like, the excitement, the good vibrations, the good food, the hot liquor, the thick wine, man, it's never ending."
"And the crystals?" Marinella asked. She had been dreadfully curious about the crystals for months, reading endlessly about them in text books, on the internet, on message boards, etc.
"The Zanzaru crystals you mean?" said the stewardess.
"Yea."
"They're fucking insane." she said, leaning in to us, and sort of whispering so the kids could not hear, cause there was a red bamboo kid right next to us. "One of my husbands gave me an entire bag of crystals to eat the other week ,right, and Wicked Zep was playing an arena. Girl, I never felt so psychotic in my life. It was, like, I thought Zeus or something was about to burst out of the sky and come, like, sleep with me or something. It was insane."
"Wow." said Marinella. "And they're usually what, like, 20 bucks a bag right?"
"Yep. And so good. You'lll love it. You guys will fucking love Zanzara."
"Does it taste bad?" she said.
"The crystals?"
"Yea. I read on some websites, they said it tastes shitty." Marinella laughed.
"Nah. Just drink up before you eat them and you won't mind."
"Oh. Ok. Thanks."
The stewardess disappeared then . "See?" Marinella said, as I finished up the last of the pizza, "you're digging it all already ain'tchu?"
I nodded. "Yes. Even though I'm sleepy."
"Well you'll get you some coffee when we land and you'll sleep for now and you won't be."
So I went to sleep then; and when I woke up, we had landed.
Marinella was struggling to get the big metal bar off from over here, and she had whacked me in the head a bit to get me up. I wiped my eyes of some sand dust, I had been lost in the most incredible dream where I thought I was with the wizard Merlin in Camelot, riding a huge black horse, and then, once I realized what she was doing, I proceeded to get mine off and then hers. Outside through the windows of the train you could see the brightness of the pink sky that Marinella had described, and then too I saw a big tall stone castle that looked very beautiful, like out of some old oil painting. The doors blew open with the same spectacle of smoke and everyone began to shuffle off. Marinella, ever in a rush, grabbed my hand and we quickly pushed ourselves out as one of the first. There was a bit of a jump from the train to the ground that took her (and especially those heels she wears) by surprise. I lit up another marby first thing and she took the rest and we started to walk. She already had her camera out -- hre big one -- twisting her head every which way, taking a million pictures, flashing them everywhere. There were huge elephants with guys on the back of them riding, zebras, dragons out in the sky soaring above your head breathing fake fire, and of course children everwhere you turned literally screaming at the top of their head with excitement. I didn't see any wizards though, which kind of surprised me, since Marinella had said they were as common as buskers in a normal city. I was hoping to see one right away.
She decided we ought to get something to eat again, as she was hungry and apparently the pizza margherita hadn't done her in. We stopped a little kiosk with a guy wearing a long nosed Venetian mask selling hot dogs and eagle burgers. I bought two dogs and stuffed them down fast; Marinella ate one and then got a Coke. She asked for a marby to smoke, plus a Zipper pill afterwards. "I think you ought not take a zipper right now." I said. "You'll get too excited. " But of course Marinella insisted and Marinella always wins, so I handed it over. She swallowed it with the Coke , a big gulp, then stuck out her tongue flashing her fancy tongue ring smiling. "Wooooooo!!!" she said, "Whoooo!" and she started to dance around. She jumped up onto a big ledge, staring up at one of the little dragons we saw soaring through the sky. "A green tarantula that one." she said, "beautiful isn't it?"
"Not as beautiful as you." I said.
"Awwww, thank you baby."
She jumped down. "Well what do you suppose we ought do first?"
"I dunno girl. You were the one who said Zanzara is the best place on the planet."
"And I still say that! It's just, well, there is so much to do that I think I am sort of confused. There is the Cheshire Cat attraction, the Museum of the Red Night, the Wishing Pool, the Library which I very much want to get books from, because Zanzara books are like no other books, and ... well, then there are all the bars, babe with the music. Which I really want to see."
"Well it doesn't make a difference to me, Marinella. You know that. And it is no rush. We are off for 6 months, half a year. We got a lot of time."
She blinked her eyes. The left one went from her usual bright fire red color to light blue. The zipper pills were starting to work their way through her bloodstream. She stumbled backwards a bit; I caught her.
"Feeling OK?"
"Yes yes." she said, shaking her head. "These are some strong ones though. Merda."
"I told you that on the plane when we came. Dan gave me some extra potent ones some new dude is manufacturing in Texas. These have traveled very far to entertain us, baby."
Her eyes flashed again. Now the right eye went from red to green.
"How do you feel?"
Her cheeks were looking paler than usualy (and she is incredibly pale, as a rule, one of the palest women I've ever known). "
"I'm.. oh my god..No.. I'm okay. God you should have told me!" she said, and she seemed mad. She swung her purse at me. I held her up.
"I did tell you Marinella. I told you!"
She wobbled. "You never said POTENT!"
"On the plane I did. But come on we'll go get you a drink, you'll be okay."
A little boy painted to look like a blue smurf from that old TV show suddenly ran up to us then. He was holding a big box filled wit popcorn he was apparently trying to sell and tried to start hawking it to us. "Popcorn fresh popcorn, hey old timer popcorn, baldie, popcorn here get ya popcorn! Official Zanzara popcorn baldie! Blessed by the best Gods blessed by the best!"
"Go away kid." I said. And then suddenly I turned and I saw that Marinella had fallen to her knees now, and she was choking and coughing, gripping at her throat. Her dress was falling off of her shoulders a bit revealing her breasts ever so slightly, or her bra at least.
'Sir something is wrong with the gal." the kid said.
I went and grabbed at her. I was shouting and panicked. "Marinella!" I said "What is wrong! Come on! You swore you wouldn't!"
She just kept coughing and choking. Her face was turning bright red. I didn't know what to do. In the service even in the worst of times I had never had any training as a medical fellow, period. So I just slapped at her back. That's what I always do with this shit. A crowd started to gather around. The kid was calling them over. An old man in a long black trench coat appeared. "Whats going on?" he said.
"I don't know! Something is wrong with my woman. " I said. "She gets too excited with nice things and then gets flustered and....well, then this."
And then, right then. she just fell over. She was no longer breathing and her face was bright blue. I was aggravated, and I had warned her, but Marinella can never cease. Any time she gets a chance to vacation and be a tourist and see something nice, she just goes balls to the wall, and this was all especially the case after she was working for that weird chocolate shop, because she sort of despised the job and they'd give a million months of off time, cause the boss was in love with her, and she just went nuts with it.
The guy with the black trench coat spoke into a walkie talkie, and suddenly a bike whiplashed right out of the sky. Two guys in masks were on it; they landed the smoking bike smoothly on the ground, then came and got her. They lifted her up and threw her on it. He pointed. "Zanzara East Hospital." he said to me. "What's the ladys name?"
"Marinella Clover." I told him.
"Age?"
"40."
"Birth city, birth planet?"
"New Franz, on Obrion." I said.
"Any offspring?"
"She has 4 kids."
"Alright. Well,lucky, she'll be good, boy. Just gotta know... It's the air here, you understand? Zanzara ain't like other places. It's much different. The air." he said. "The Gods pump it full of all sorts of whacked out chemicals and shit. So it's like a constant carnival you feel me? You gotta...you gotta tell your lady that. Didn't either of you read online?"
"She did. Not me"
"I see. Well, get in the bus when it comes, ride to Zanzara East. She'll be ok, though it might be a few days til her eyes open again and her breath comes back."
"God damn't." I said, though of course I felt good that it was nothing that would be longer than that. One time in North Carolina she got so excited at some stupid waterfall she passed out for a month. I lost my mind.
-----
While she recuperated at the Zanzara hospital and slept in her dreams, I went out and did a little sightseeing of my own, caught a baseball game, did some drinking, and then -- cause I knew she would be mad if I didn't -- I made sure to buy her a whole bunch of clothes and dresses and jewels. I got her silver adamanrel earrings, three dresses like out of a Shakespeare movie, two wigs I thought she would love (she hated them), and then a bunch of weird rings for her hands, because Marinella is obsessed with rings. She woke up a bit later than the fellow had predicted -- 7 days she slept -- but I stayed by her side night and day , just watching films on the tube, mostly, and occasionally eating some of the zipper pills myself and then going for a swim in the pools. Sometimes flirting with some girls too. Youngr green skinned ones from the deeper parts of the universe. For some reason there were a lot of em around.
When she woke of course she was very aggravated. She knew what had happened right away the moment her eyes opened. She looked at me , I handed her a marby, she sucked on it right down to its finish, then immediately demanded I put on a Beatles song for her to hear. "Lucy in the Deep Night." she said. "Thats the only song a Marinella wants to hear right now. Lucy in the Deep Night. I am so mad." Her cheeks were bright red with anger and her hair fire red like some old Gaelic girl. She looked sexy but I wasn't gonna say anything. "I wasted the first 7 days. I am sorry. I don't know how to act, do I William? I get too excited."
"You just love being alive,Marinella, and you love the planets, and you love seeing everyone so happy. It's OK. " I said, and I kissed her.
The song started to play through the room though and John McCartneys voice made her smile wide as it always does when its the Beatles early stuff.
Deep night Lucy walks the gardens Deep night Lucy walks the road
Deep night Lucy bangs the windows Deep night Lucy watch her GO!
"I suppose I'll be here one more day til my heart is replaced, and then we will go see everything. We will take it easy. First thing I want to do, husband, I want to go see the Museum of the Red Night. We'll just take it easy I guess. "
"It's all alright by me, Marinella." I said, "It's all alright by me."
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