JOHN TREFRY / SOIL FOR FLOWERING CITIES
«the chain» — Identification — · — Stanisław Haller, Anemone-11.19 — sloping floor and the red wall and spalling flecks of paint into disturbance of sweaty hairs at the base of the neck,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Alojzy WirKonas, Phlox-23.09 — the clammy aroma of lime and an illlit alcove into a series of rooms is unfolding through a wide doorway perpendicular to a red wall,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Henryk Minkiewicz, Lantana-06.12 — spalling into disturbance of sweaty hairs at the base of the neck where red vapor in superimposition over splatter and rasping is gurgling,
In the loam of a tillingly expeditious massgrave many cadaver extremities—in various levels of flesh and bone—are outcropping fingers pointing to the barren canopies intertwining above chiselly toothmarks on a lavender weenus distant from a nose and a collarpoint, the hairsinge of lingering creamsicle filamentglow and brainsinge and bloodsinge of the muzzleflash vaporizing lifeforce into the heat of the backroom into the humid and metallic interior atmosphere carnivorous supping, wincing because the spoonhandle is heavily—abnormally large for the steadying of his weary and tremulous hand—probing a ramekin of barley porridge slowly «Basileus Blokhage»—the «apparatorosma» of all forest tissue lying betwixt voronoic boundaries of municipalities and meadowlands where the ADA navigationmesh is null—his wife «Estra» is massaging his knuckles and fingertips, the speaker is buzzing on the wall of the «Blokhage» parlor, several prisoners are painting the polystyrene insulation on the walls of the backroom crimson, thin watery pigment is running from the walls across the inclination of the floor to a gaping drainbody at its lowpoint, two men in coveralls stumbling through the forest dragging a man in dressclothes—pinstripe trousers a tartan flannel and the tatterings of a linen blazer—from his armpits barefoot toes across the ice, parallax of tree trunk is exacerbating obfuscation of the crass convolution of masonry bonding on a low outbuilding in the forest, bare concrete masonry and wispy brocade of damp efflorescence, the icemelt of damp boots and dirt is grinding across the floor in an archival corridor choking with documentation damp and blooming brown gray ochre waterstains and moldbranes in orderly binders of russet marbleization and in collections of larger vertical folder organizers and expandable envelopes with cords, documentation in the corridor of the sylvan executions is listing only folks of the ADA, soldiers—an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 landcaptains, 17 seacaptains, 85 privates, 3420 «noncom» officers, and seven Daemonic chaplains, 200 airpilots—, government representatives and royalty—a prince, 43 Daemonic officials—, and civilians—three landowners, 131 refugees, 20 physicians, 6267 public intellectuals, several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers, and more than 250 writers and journalists—, a fine hoarfrost is crunching on leaflitter under the eave of a long barracks unfurnishingly echoing heavy breathing and visages pressing to foggy windows, «Blokhage» is sitting in undercrackers beside his uniform in meticulous arrangement by «Estra» on the seat and over the back of the adjacent chair—bronze cufflinks and studs, blue low waist trousers, black necktie, «Order of the Silver Ellipse» medal, neck tabs, white longsleeve dressshirt, black jackboots, blue dresscoat—with aiguillettes, «Order of Daemon» seal of «Murmur», brassards, decorations, «Order of the Badge of Honor» lanyards, closerange marksmanship badge—decussate emblem heralding a vertebra on a pike—, «„Black Ghost“ Sylvan Service» regimental insignia—black allweather coat, black leather gloves—reaching to fingernail a fleck of crust from the cuff of the trousers—
«the chain» — Identification — · — Kazimierz OrlikŁukoski, Flaxton-14.04 — sweaty hairs at the base of the neck where red vapor in superimposition over splatter and rasping is gurgling across the floor into the drain,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Bronisław Bohatyrewicz, Wildrose-14.04 — through a wide doorway perpendicular to a red wall and sloping floor and the red wall and spalling chips of paint,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Kazimierz OrlikŁukoski Jr., Belle Rose-12.01 — red vapor in superimposition over splatter and rasping is gurgling across the floor into the drainbody of blackness swaddling,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Franciszek Sikorski, Little Sunflower-13.19 — gurgling across the floor into the drainbody of blackness swaddling currycombs of scintillating annihilation,
The transport—on whose side panel is the word «MEAT»—from the convent is carrying 355 prisoners deeper into the forest, the sky smothering, blowback operation, the leather apron is turning and returning on a wireclotheshanger under the eave of the low concrete masonry building with the languid streaming of a gardenhose over rosy chumslush, bits of skin and skull and hair are becoming forest understory in the snowmelt, the sun is not rising although the sky is white through interlacing canopyfingers raining icemelt down the collars of «apparators» filing through the silvery hypostyle hinterland, dayshift hosing and painting of surfaces, on the fringes of the forest, on the fraying ends of the navigationmesh a man is whispering to oblivious young mollusk boys playing beside the boundary — They are Beating Me, A Sickly Old Man, Lying Facedown They are Beating Me On The Soles Of My Feet And My Spine With A Rubberstrap — he is curling onto his side with the lapel and hemline of his blazer ensnaring beneath him — Sitting Me On A Chair And Beating Me Hard On My Legs With The Same Rubberstrap, I am Losing My Connection To The Thickness Of Space, They are Finding The Areas Of My Body Red Yellow And Blue With The Most Tender Haemorrhaging And Beating Those Into The Tingling Of Quicklime Eroding My Flesh With Such Intensity I am Climbing Across A Landscape Of Leafless Treebranches That is The Exposure Of My Nerve Endings — in smoldering umbrage struggling to find a position of equilibrium on the uneven treeroots — I am Screaming am I Screaming, My Legs are Bloody Unrecognizability, Do I Have Legs, And They are Repeating To Me «This is continuing in place of your signing this confession», Wiping the Loosening Flesh Across My Lips «We are sparing your right hand and your head but the remainder of your body will be a shapeless bloody heapment of gristle», And I am Signing Whatever They are Placing In Front Of Me — although the tollgates of municipalities are rolling in expansion they are not without the contraction of neighboring tesserae—whose centers additionally are mutable for the persistence of median boundaries—against the voronoic tissue of elastic forestland, in an ambulatory surrounding the cloister courtyard within a vitrine is sitting a wax likeness of «Basileus Blokhage»—the edges and glimmerings of his medals and commendations coquettish around the edges of his protective leather garb—with dignity and dutybondage on his lips curling faintly with the relishment of beginning a nightshift, — I Have Not The Imagination For The Cosmos Forgiving Us —
Organization of the concrete masonry silence is around the textural creaking of tree limbs against one another and the snapping tension of hibernatorial xylem, the index of spectral soft breeze in shivering tree canopies, on a concrete pillar well beyond the sensory apron of the building—the pregnant abduction of vagal voice reeds screaming upon the still and silent airmass although the screaming is far away in the dustwake of autotruck pathways—«Blokhage» is activating a lever inside a protective compartment with the accompaniment of thick whirring white noise filling the forest floor in a palpable medium swaddling the trees—which are contorting and shaking above the series of exhuastvents on the ridgeline of the long gable—and lulling his approach to the nominal front door puffingly against its jamb a the thin sheet of sand on the concrete is blowing out to a radius commensurate with the swelling volume of the whirring—
up against the dark glass of the church is damming is not seeping the aroma of beetroot soup and dense cakebread baking from the grist of nettle seeds is wafting from the refectory, smotheringly sunlight behind the low cloudiness is vibrating in creaking of limbs in creaking of beams in the high gable of the nave the groaning of rosewindow and priedieu firewood crackling beneath a cauldron of molten sheep fat and beet sugar in the crypt of the convent a nude man scaldingly hairless is shrieking — This For A Couple Of Lines In An Editorial — with a tourniquet around his penis — Whispering To A Friend is A Crime If His Father is A Demon — throwing him against the sturdy attachment of a long table to the floor — Beat Him In The Balls — sobbing crying wailing interrogation women wailing — Beat Him — the slimy damp walls and the cold damp floor sprawling from the «apparators» are locking him in a strangely scorching stone cupboard—a «tallow boiler»—where a wood box is bisecting the floor into two levels wracking his body in the dark — My Sad Cell Why Do You Need Me, Here are Ghosts and A Fiendish Demon — the intentional wafting of culinary fragrance in the dark in the starvation unflinching dim unyielding neglect with the interruption of strapping his elbows to the table while sitting on the inversion of a stool leg in front of a cube of nettle cakebread and a bowl of boiling—though raw—pearl barley porridge with the consistency of shrapnel is eating under duress this extreme unction of the intestines in such weakness that the leg of the stool is entering his rectum, the ventstacks of the nunless convent seeping acrid sweatsteam fluming fecalpiss bloodbillows into the indelible sumptuousness of bread baking—
«the chain» — Identification — · — Aleksander Kowalewski, Magnolia-15.08 — the red wall and spalling into disturbance of sweaty hairs at the base of the neck where red vapor in superimposition over splatter,
In a wide radius around the edifice boys are scraping the treeroots bare with shovels and small spades, circuitous between machinery and dormant blowers to the red back room heaping and overflowing with topsoil and filling the corridors with topsoil men are working their way toward the front door, the pleasurability of swinging shovelblades through glass shattering and crumbling of muntin dryrot, children are arranging pebbles in approximations of ranging shadowlines—and annotative letterforms—atop the localization of a small asphalt hillock, around the panorama—but not atop the hillock—and in conformance with the uneven topography varying thicknesses of haphazard asphalt meniscus swampingly continuous around mummifications of tree trunks—craziness of blackaggregate fissures over surfaceroots straining against the Venturian «massive» gales in wailing canopies—in natural sylvan dispersion, — aren't The Ghosts Of Executionees Haunting The Convent — glass shards on concrete floor crunching under tires of small handcarts heaping over with soil, apparitional cacophony of ravens in a clearing in the forest a long and low asphalt hillock with a gable, men in dark blue coveralls are rolling small handcarts of topsoil through the flayingly balding forest to a phalanx of men shoveling the accumulations through the vacant window and door portals of the building tenderly patting onto heapings against concrete masonry wallbuttress in liberation of the constraints of freestanding friction is piling up through the rooftrusses, casting of soil in the edifice mould—
throughout the long—otherwise empty—front room a battery of machinery is running for the sake of its clattering—a syncopation of sharp metallic reportage and imperfect cogs struggling for registration—and whirring and nothing else, exhaustfan gusting in sweaty hair flash evaporation of coldsweat on brows and weakening legs between two «apparators» through the maze of machinery toward the door leaf of thick woolfelt baffling with an imperfect billow along its centerline swollen from the heat and moisture of blood and hot water, behind the hingeside of the door «Blokhage» is glazing at the red insulation panels within a precise framework underlying execution rhythm in «the chain» with five executionees—with spacing and coiling route for preservation of serenity and mystery—in a parcel—six sentences in the magazine with allowance of one misfirement per parcel—and a respite in which the executioner is moving the firearm to his left hand is placing the firearm in a pocket of his leather apron is leaning his right hand palming flat against the masonry wall splaying the stiff fingers—
«the chain» — Identification — · — Rudolf Prich, Primrose-14.05 — over splatter and rasping is gurgling across the floor into the drainbody of blackness swaddling currycombs of scintillating,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Leon Billewicz, Goldenrod-06.12 — a series of rooms and through a wide doorway perpendicular to a red wall and sloping floor and the red wall and spalling flecks of paint,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Piotr Skuratowicz, Goldenrod-06.12 — swaddling currycombs of scintillating annihilation,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Xawery Czernicki, Peachglen-16.01 — a red wall and sloping floor and the red wall and spalling flecks of paint into disturbance of sweaty hairs at the base,
Beside a decanter of oil and column of rags—fading purple lettering stating «Blokhage» blurringly in marker on foldcreases of undershirt dismemberments in the column—beside a leather case lying hasp ajar with excisions in velveteen at an isosceles table in the corner of his dayroom with a small electricfan blowing back out into the room for makeshift dust abatement «Blokhage» is removing the magazine and checking that the chamber is vacant, pressing the gunmuzzle with his right hand against the soft cushion of the settee and pushing the gunbutt down to the arrestor against the recoilspring, with his left thumb is turning the barrelcatch up to its arrestor in the direction of the gunmuzzle and lifting the barrelslide assembly forward and off the body and pressing in the lockingpin with his left thumb is opening the lockingpiece allowing removal of the barrel from the front of the barrelslide, arraying the four pieces of the pistol out on a towel and with a fine brush is dusting and excavating all the fine troughs and crevices, a fragment of skull—vitreous table clinging to toothy diploe—between tweezertips clinking distantly into a vacancy in the aluminum ashtray, gently and carefully exquisitely indulgently with warm gunoil on a soft rag—the sallow underarm seam of an undershirt—lubricating the pistol, working the surging gatherings of the seam into the crevices and through all the inner workings, reassembling the pistol and placing it into the bespoke case with three other identical foreign firearms, easing the ball of his stocking foot back and forth across the parquet floor and his palms flat across the small corner table «Blokhage» in the breeze of the small electricfan is plucking a billowingly long hair from just above the knitcollar of his undershirt, wincing in the eyes of the suffering the musculoskeletal disordering of repetitive action is the human cost—the cumulative trauma—of the living murderer, «How much is an arm worth—It's a byzantine checklist», the speaker is buzzing in the basement of the convent—
«Estra» is lancing watery blisterings on his palm from knurly pistolgrips—kicking back is minimal with pressure against the back of the skull leaning into the work as minimally as necessary but the urgence of crosshatching knurl quaking in rotation or jolting backward against taut tense palmskin and jolting in quaking rotation of crosshatching against the palmskin leaning into the work is kicking back with quaking in rotation against the knurl—and triggerfingertips, fingers clawing at a pen—
alfresco executions in the forest tissue itself—discharging a pistol against below the inion at the base of the occipital bone and astride a grave—of migrants and defectors and covert agents is including 14 generals and 4351 intellectual agitators—nonnarrative novelists, performative sculptors, verse essayists, liberatory theologists, physical historians, generative filmmakers—, the summary pardon of 395 prisoners digging the graves are boarding a transport with pantograph guidance to the frontiers of the navigationmesh for punitive civilservice to the expansion of the multidirectional track network, crumply against the base of a tree men are surrounding toeing jackboots under his chin — He is Desirous Of Preparations For The Other World, All Of You Smashing His Face In — nearby a low concrete masonry outbuilding through the trees—
«the chain» — Identification — · — Leonard Skierski, Humptulips-23.01 — the drainbody of blackness swaddling currycombs of scintillating annihilation,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Konstanty Plisowski, Daisytown-16.01 — the neck where red vapor in superimposition over splatter and rasping is gurgling across the floor into the drainbody of blackness,
«the chain» — Identification — · — Mieczysław Smorawiński, Orchid-06.12 — a series of rooms is unfolding through a wide doorway perpendicular to a red wall and sloping floor and the red wall,
The transport from the convent—on whose side panel are the words «DAEMONE CHAMPAGNE»—is carrying 262 prisoners deeper into the forest, a pregnant woman jostling in the movements of the transport cabin is giving birth on the floor where a clearing of prisoners is opening around her—severing the umbilical cord with the hard edge of a bootsole—screaming to wrap the writhing baby in a greatcoat beside the «apparator» drawing his firearm is rolling the woman onto her stomach and shooting her on the floor of the transport, contortions of the fingers are unguiform in pensive resting position on stiff uniform trousers where the murk of thickening cloudcover and the shady inheritance of treebranch wicker on the orderly column of paperwork is echoing the nocturnal laborings in diurnal clerical accountability to the increasing Daemone predilection for bureaucracy and attention to detail, usurpation of ferrous blood indelible on the palate and in the sinuses by meticulous documentation—codification of brain matter into protocol and quantitative doubling in black satisfaction in the tabulation of formletters for his signature are stating the lawful execution of kin and internal memoranda for the verification of the executionee identity—peaceful posthumous review of condemnations and writs, removal of the prisoner's trousers is exposing a lump of meat, only the backs of the skull only the base of the neck only the sweatflat hair and the acrid odor of fear, lying on the floor in crumpling annihilation the obliteration of a face and the grinning teeth, only requiring his signature on the documentation of 262 executions, he cannot sleep, «the chain» is endless, the daylight is swollen on vaporous medium, a writ of execution with a halftone face in mezzotint facsimile, the higher and finer and more deliberate whirring of the autotruck is trundling away the corpses—
a gray wave in which the muscles of his body are moving with the subjectivity of their own inscrutable electricity cycling from one to the other — «Estra» I am machine Whose Gears are Sentient — raising a clawhand from his lap with a countenance of fascination in the absence of purpose the figure of a darker cloud is across the white underbelly, a vacuum without medals or hierarchy is an armchair in silent darkness, — Punishment is More Satisfaction Than Erasure «Estra» — on the penultimate interrogation the «apparator» swirling three fingers into the abdomen to clear a path is stabbing the prisoner in this offal vacuum with precision of forestalling death but allowing the reconvening of the intestines through the incision, shooting the convalescent prisoner in his hospital bed, — There is No Accounting for Anything «Estra» — in idleness «Blokhage» is strolling the hills and understories of asphalt rolling amidst the dead trees is stopping to tap on the apex of a hill with his palm searching the reassuring solidity for a subterranean resonant chamber atop which he is ending his life—
«the chain» — Identification — · — Sergei Efron, Cherrylog-07.01 — the clammy aroma of lime and an illlit alcove into a series of rooms is unfolding through a wide doorway perpendicular to a red wall and sloping floor and the red wall and spalling flecks of paint into disturbance of sweaty hairs at the base of the neck where red vapor in superimposition over splatter and rasping is gurgling across the floor into the drainbody of blackness swaddling currycombs of scintillating annihilation.
John Trefry is an architect and the author of the novel Plats, the caprice Thy Decay Thou Seest by Thy Desire, and the forthcoming novel Apparitions of the Living. More diminutive writings have appeared in various other outlets. He is the editor of Inside the Castle, a small press. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and on Twitter @trefryesque.