The Obscene Figurine

©2002 Phillip Weber
All rights reserved.

Of all the objects in the house of Roland Molenko, there was none so vulgar as the figurine that watched his guests from his fireplace mantle like a gargoyle appointed sentry to the darkest chambers of the Id.

This object, deliberately placed by its owner, elicited many comments, even exclamations of disgust, from the members of the elite whom curiosity compelled to dine at Molenko's home. Anticipating this, Molenko remained impassive throughout the meal, dismissing inquiries with a wave of his hand and insisting that his guests think only of enjoying their pork. But then, at evening's end, as the ladies sipped their brandy and the gentlemen puffed their pipes, Molenko requested that the lights be dimmed and walked casually to the fireplace, where he took the perverse sculpture like a child in his arms and politely asked for his guests' attention, using the glow of the fire's dying embers as an actor might use a stage-lamp.

"Centuries ago, when the infidel took the throne, there was a crusade of sorts: a campaign whose inglorious intent was to eradicate any lingering belief in the old gods; a belief that had, since the birth of civilization, given our ancestors an understanding of their nature that Izilism has since failed to provide. As the legion combed the empire searching for hidden idols, the gods themselves began to fear persecution and so hid from the traitorous plague. Moki sealed himself up inside an impenetrable monolith, never to revel again. Azam let his body sink into quicksand, where it drifted through innumerable strata and finally dissolved in its depths. Even Mlek fled to the wasteland. Now he wanders the hills with imperceptible movements, his once-stately beard overgrown with moss and his eyebrows gnawed by reindeer."

Molenko's face twitched with excitement as he cataloged the ancient affronts. His guests whispered to themselves, amused that events buried so deeply in the past could still have the power to rankle their host. Animated with vague purpose, Molenko kept on with his frothy sermon.

"Of all the gods only Omot, antithesis of everything lovely, stood his ground against the turncoat army. Like a statue carved in a visage of contempt, he waited for John Porridge, the overzealous leader of the monotheistic horde, on the northern bank of the Ulya. As the icy river raged, the two warriors hacked at each other until John Porridge, endowed with the power of his newfound faith, swung his mighty arm and severed Omot's head from its torso. Legend has it that Porridge, in the ecstasy of victory, chopped the body of the god into a thousand pieces that he intended to feed to the emperor's dogs. But in his haste he neglected to retrieve the head."

As he spoke, the shadows on Molenko's face, as well as those on the object's, consolidated in the fire's waning glow until each resembled the other in mask-like appearance.

"This head, my esteemed guests, lay unmolested for years in a ditch, staring up at the sky, its neck pressed against the rich soil of the Ulya. Eventually it took root and grew into an unlikely tree. An oak the like of which has never before been seen, bristling with thorns like those that tormented Izil. That tree, unfortunately, no longer stands. But before suspicious monks chopped it down, a lone woodcarver came across it and gathered its branches. The woodcarver's specialty had been oaken forest animals carved standing upright, paws raised in a gesture of greeting (or, I suppose, farewell). But that night in his hut the carver brought forth from the tree's dense matter an object of singular perversity; an object so repugnant that the carver's first impulse was to throw it into the fire and forget it had ever existed. But then he reasoned that he could destroy it later, when he had more energy. Esteemed guests, this woodsman's dark carving is the object I now hold in my hands."

One distinguished-looking gentleman removed his pipe from his mouth. Another lifted his pince-nez. That Molenko's guests doubted the story was as certain as the fact that they clung to its every word. Molenko paused a moment to bask in their gaze, and then continued.

"After the woodcarver had ushered into the world this diabolical carving, he hid it away in a corner of his hovel. He found himself afraid of his own creation. It's not hard to imagine why. You can see that the thing is positively dreadful. Its head is shaped like an infant's, one that's obviously crying out to be fed. And that is not even its most disconcerting attribute...." Molenko spoke dryly, letting his eye fall to the enormous protrusion that curved upward from the figure like an absurd jug handle. In the light of the coals his guests appeared uneasy. Molenko absorbed their malaise and moved on.

"With the coming of night the woodcarver sought the comfort of his blanket. But comfort was something that he would never again possess. As the lines of his face filled with sweat, the carver felt a persistent tugging at his thoughts. It was the memory of his carving, drawing him from his repose like a fisherman reeling in his catch. The woodcarver rose from his cot and crept to where the object lay waiting. With trembling hands, he pulled the object from its hiding place and clutched at it with something that resembled reverence. As he did, a realization blossomed inside him. It was the awareness that his soul held an impossible hunger and that no matter how much he tried to hide from it, no matter how many prayers he mumbled or how many hours he spent bent at his lathe—or how many stupid wooden forest animals he carved—his hunger would always be there, silently raging. And the longer he put it off, the greater it would become, until finally only his life would be enough to placate it. In the light of this truth, concepts such as consequence, punishment, and guilt, were revealed to be illusions, and even the notion of the sun ever rising again seemed a humorous hoax, a prediction of a future so distant and so vague as to mean less than nothing. Then, as if an arm had pulled back a curtain, he noticed the window and the starlight-swollen darkness that hung beyond its frame.

"The carver could discern a handful of huts in the distance. Their shingled rooftops reflected the moon's mirth and glowed with a quiet welcome, even though their shutters were drawn and their inhabitants almost certainly sleeping. A sudden impulse entered the woodcarver's mind. Sleeping or not, he decided, it was high time to pay his neighbors a visit. Without even pausing to don his pajamas, the carver started off across the lawn."

Molenko then launched into an account of the terrible pranks the woodcarver had played upon the sleeping village. As he described scenes of insufferable chaos, the light from the fireplace shrank into its shell and ceased to illuminate the room. The guests were left listening to a voice without a source, uncertain whose mouth uttered the tale.

The voice explained that after consuming its creator, the object had passed through a succession of owners, inhabiting the soul of each, and in each one reenacting the crimes of the first. In this way the carving moved through history, an irritating particle in the eye of mankind, appearing at various times and places to fulfill its purpose as agent of Omot's vengeance.

The guests were appalled by the voice's unrepentant tone, dizzied by its litany of sins, and deeply troubled by its indeterminable origin, but felt compelled nonetheless to listen to the end of its tale.

"This carving, ladies and gentlemen, eventually found its way into the possession of an eccentric. A collector whose tastes outraged his peers and led them to suspect the worst of him. These suspicions, the collector could even admit to himself, were not wholly without cause. In fact, the collector took delight in confirming them. It was this trait of his, coupled with the carving's potential to shock, that led him to place it on his mantle. It also compelled him to invite the so-called luminaries of his society to dine with him. The collector was shrewd enough to know that as much as his contemporaries despised him, they, too, could not help being fascinated by the obscene and would love nothing more than to gawk like tourists at the oddities he kept in his home."

The bodiless voice paused for effect.

"The collector was pleased when his guests noticed the carving leering at them throughout dinner, as if it were possible to ignore such a thing, but he dismissed their inquiries with a wave of his hand, insisting that they think only of enjoying their pork. What his guests could not have realized was that the pork they enjoyed had been spiced by laced cloves. Yes, cloves soaked in a tranquilizer whose effect would become apparent during the later stages of digestion after the guests had turned out the lights and were completely surrendered to their host's narrative. Despite its delayed release, the tranquilizer was an exceptionally powerful one, leaving its ingestors in a state of paralysis while in full possession of their senses. All of their senses, of course, except their sense of sight, which had been nullified by the absolute darkness of the room in which they listened to the tale of their fate."

"From the darkness the collector informed his guests that the use of a tranquilizer had been absolutely necessary. Otherwise they might needlessly fret and move about. This could not be permitted, the collector explained, because nothing short of their complete and undivided attention would suffice for the occasion at hand. For that night was no ordinary evening, the collector explained. That night Omot himself would handle one of their souls."

The voice itself seemed to smile.

"The collector's guests had, by this point, been in total darkness for so long that many of them had forgotten the dimensions of the room. Some had even misplaced the memory of their own bodies. The collector reminded his confused listeners that just as their ancestors had made offerings to the gods, they too must appease Omot with one of their number. Omot, the collector told them, sought a soul whose very substance was swollen with suffering, whose fibers were steeped in the sadness of a thousand sleepless nights, and whose delicate essence was saturated to the core by the awareness of its own isolation."

All of this was said with a sardonic humor, the voice making no attempt to conceal its delight. It grew greater in volume and expounded the following in a theatrical cadence:

"The guests, unable to tremble, recoiled inside themselves. Stricken with fear, they could suddenly hear the steps of the vengeful god beside them, salivating as he considered their naked souls...."

At that moment a rough baritone interrupted the darkness:

"I don't remember any cloves."

"Nor do I," echoed an agitated woman's voice in response.

"I remember a delicious honey mustard glaze ... but no cloves."

Before the guests could replace the silence with their chatter they heard a thud, as if an object had been set upon the floor, and then footsteps leaving the room. They listened as the footsteps headed through a doorway and around a corner. Then came a sound like that of a bandage being removed from skin: it was a refrigerator door being pulled open. The guests heard containers being shoved about. The search abruptly ended and the narratorās voice was reborn in a cacophony of curses in which the word 'Izil' was used no less than six times.

There was a resonant click as one of the guests ignited the dining room lights, forcing the dinner party to blink in the glare. The figurine lay abandoned on the hearth before them.

With able anatomies, the guests pushed their way out of the dining room and into the entrance hall, through the foyer, out the door, and down the front steps, leaving Omot alone with his prey.

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