Chapter V.

(Pages 52-62)

Chapter V.

Sir Levit gets tangled in a tree

The mystic man of misfortune and mischief

Fried eggs and a tuber tangle

In which lots of weird stuff goes down

            Sir Levit begins to shimmy up the branchless bottom of the Brobdingnagian birch as Desvot is distracted by a traveler coming from the east with a dark sheet shrouding his face. “Salve, how art thou fellow traveler? May I ask thine name by chance?” he asks him to no reply, continuing walking toward them through a gentle breeze that pushes the sheet more firmly fit over his face. Levit places a foot on a branch and tries to stand on it, causing it to snap and him to fall into the dirt. He goes back to the tree to shimmy up it once more. “Hello sir, may I ask your name?”

            “Greetings gentlemen,” he says, pushing back his shroud, “My name is Thraxus, I have come from faraway Lionoir, do you have any matches I may borrow?” Levit finds a stick much more capable of holding his weight to step on, carefully placing his other foot next to it and reaching up to a branch above him and pulling up onto it.

            “Indubitably sir, would thou wish for an entire matchbook or only a single match?” Desvot reaching into his saddlebag, captivating Thraxus’ eyes. Levit is currently twenty feet in the air, climbing through the branches yet higher from the ground. He hits his helmet on a branch by accident nearly knocking it off his head, but he catches it and continues his ascent.

Thraxus flips out two flintlock pistols and clicks back both the hammers, “May I please inspect thine saddlebags, Sir?” Levit doesn’t hear or even see the situation unfolding below him, continuing to a branch just a foot above his head. He gazes up at the thirty feet of tree remaining in the climb, the nest being settled precariously at the crest of the tree. After removing the saddlebag of gold from Desvot’s steed (and leaving the other) he looks to Sir Humphrey, “And I will be taking thine saddlebags as well sir,” removing the two saddlebags flooded with gold. “I fare you well, ye twitful travelers, and shall ye never forget the name – Thraxus, the Cryptic Klepto, acquirer of that which is not his own.”

Levit has finally reached the crest of the birch, removing his helmet and reaching into the nest for a total of six eggs. Placing them inside it, he turns around, and sees the phantasmal form of Jacarbi at the top of the tree next to him, “What the hell are you trespassing in my tree for boy, get outta here before I beat you over the head with my Gada,” he says raising into the air with his right hand a grandiose Gada nearly as great as (if not even greater so than) that of the Hindu God Hanuman himself. Levit shrieks.

On the ground, Thraxus has turned, whipping the sheet around his head, and made his exit into the plain. Levit plummets into the ground on his back, the eggs remaining intact in his hands. “Anyone care for some fried eggs? I say Fried eggs simple because I know not how to make any other kind. Unless ye may be interested in raw eggs; I can whip those up with even greater finesse than the fried.”

“Sir Levit, we have just been burgled of all our gold, this is a time of mourning. Silence if thou wilt, sir,” Humphrey grieves at the loss of his unredeemed éclairs. Desvot finds it in himself to hand him a tissue from his one remaining saddlebag.

“It is true Levit, our gold hath been plundered by the inimical Thraxus; Cryptic Kleptomaniac, Acquirer of That which is Not his Own, and we have naught but my cooking saddlebag and our two steeds left to our names,” Desvot says lifting a pan from his saddlebag, “though some eggs would be soothing about now.”

Near the boundary of the forest they form another firepit of stones scattered in their proximity and overtop it they place a stone slab on which Levit cracks open four eggs to start with – the scent slithers savory into your nostrils sizzling from the scalding pan. Around this time Humphrey wanders in jaded disenchantment around the edge of the forest, collecting sticks and whatever else may be around when he discerns two bizarre plants he had never laid eyes upon before.

Grasping ‘round the stem beneath the leaves and below flowers of mauve, he uproots what appears deceptively like a potato plant with the singular Mother Tuber attached at the base of the stem – the strings of stolons hold onto the dangling tubers amongst clumps of dirt and riddles of roots. Shaking it out, much of the dirt falls away; one tuber snaps from a stolon and plops into the grass. The plant’s tubers are a smidgeon smaller and of more concave, more hourglass figure than a healthy potato. They are beige, and the insides – as apparent through a cut he makes through the center fallen tuber with his scimitar – are colored crimson. They are the size of tennis balls; the outsides are fuzzy almost like peaches while the insides seem to have a similar texture to nectarines yet are mushier almost like a rotted apple.

“Sirs, I have found something quite captivating yonder in the forest; if the eggs are secure, wilt thou set eyes upon these two tangles of tendrils and tubers ripe for the consumption by any courageous enough who care to try?” He drops them into the dirt a safe several centimeters from the fire, holding in his hand the one which he had bisected. “If one of you would be so willing and brave as to join myself in the consumption of this tantalizing treat.”

“Is this not Mescabin Root?” Sir Levit asks, taking from Humphrey the other half in his hand. “Sir Desvot, I insist thee try but a single moiety of this mushy, magnificent masterpiece of a fruit forthwith.” He gives the other half of the tuber to Desvot and reaches down for the rest of the plant, taking an entire tuber for himself. “I plea that thou wilt not inform Delcita of such activities for I know many not to have such a favorable view in terms of the consumption of Mescabin Root, and I know not whether such an act would deplore or please my darling lover Delcita Lavie.” He crams the entire Mescabin Root into his face; bloating his cheeks chewing on it, he mnemonically remarks its sour sweetness like citrus and so soon he collapses into the ground staring up to the sky, a smile spread stubbornly across his face. Humphrey and Desvot ingest their respective halves, and after several minutes the trio projectile vomit a sour, near fluorescent fuchsia into the grass next to them to soon be followed by a vent of visible steam that leaks from their mouths. Their minds begin immediately to fabricate fractals and slur the space around them, a collage of color corrupting those familiar to them, the sky is as reflected through a glass prism. Their faces turn orange as their heads proceed into paltry paranoia.

“How did you know my name was Desvot?” Humphrey asks before growing upon him the same smile spread on the lips of Levit and collapsing into the ground, beginning to crack and cackle cacophonously for no discernable reason other than his Dionysian delirium. He collapses back into the grass followed by Desvot, now convinced he may indeed be Sir Humphrey himself. He begins to grow another nose on the roof of his mouth.

“Are we making eggs still?” Levit asks the eggs as they begin screaming at him from the pan. “AAaaaahh! Haha, an impressive attempt, I shall flip thee momentarily. Simmer, wilt thou please?” The eggs stare back at him funny and he jumps to his feet “Thou art not laying claim upon my darling wife Delcita for thineselves; art thou Foul, festering yolk-sacs?” He sprints to the edge of the fire and flips the eggs using an eight of spades – the closest thing resembling a spatula they possess – following this with a pinch of salt and pepper from their respective pouches in Desvot’s saddlebag. “Thou vile, corruptive beasts shall not defile the sweet and innocent Princess to my Castle, Mother to my Unconceived Children; for if thou Wilt this Kris shall decussate thine chest and no more wrongdoing shall thee commit unto her sweet innocence. Delcita and I are dedicated to another by an unspoken vow, and any who shall intervene must taste the cutting edge of this Kris – a variety of voluminous slashes sanguine.” The eggs do not respond to this, standing their ground until he is to remove the pan from the slab and speak to Desvot and Humphrey, “If thou Wilt, the preparation of these egregious eggs has concluded, and if ye will oblige as to share with me their salted succulence then please do,” scooping them individually and placing two of them in his fellows’ hands and the two leftover on a white cut of cloth. He cracks two more eggs open into the pan and lies back down, certain to keep distant from the puddle of polychrome puke in the grass. He takes an egg from the cloth he had laid out to eat it whole, the yolk over-easy drizzles out the corner of his lip. Humphrey and Desvot’s hands are a mess of yolk; Levit uses those that he has clean to season the tops of these eggs and Humphrey takes that unclaimed egg lain upon the white cloth, begins to eat around the yolk.

He gazes over to the forest where high in a birch he sees a crystalline squirrel – chiseled much like a diamond or gemstone – eating an emerald acorn. Its head perks toward Sir Humphrey and after staring him down for a great plenty minutes, he makes a mad dash toward the tree. He latches onto the tree with his thighs and starts to shimmy up it to the squirrel, who has recommenced its acornal consumption.

“Do you feel the earth beneath us?” Desvot asks with his ear pressed into the dirt, “I can hear something rumbling beneath us; a vile, voracious creature is tunneling far below us.” Sir Levit remains lain in the grass closer now to the puddles of purple, he does not even remark on Desvot’s delusion as he gazes up at the colorful clouds and tangling twirls in the sky. It only takes about four minutes now for his face to set to the same expression as when he dreams of Delcita Lavie, growing bored already of the chaotic colors and distorted terrain. He misses her smile, the way she walks, her warmth, her voice, her heart, and he cannot bear being away from her any longer. He begins to grow anxious that she may have fallen for another man, ruminating in his head the names of many others more beautiful than himself, much more impressive and wealthy than himself. He looks over to Sir Desvot who is burrowing a hole into the ground with his bare hands; looking at him in the eyes, now over to Sir Humphrey who is halfway up the tree, balancing on a branch outward to the crystalline squirrel.

“Ye best not pilfer the powerful partnership of Delcita and me, commit larceny upon our love, or deflower her ye venereal vertebrates,” Sir Levit tries to say to them without talking, knowing not whether they hear him through his mind. He stares deep into Sir Humphrey’s psyche, inside the networks of neurons of his head as he holds his scimitar out toward the squirrel, finished with its previous emerald and onto another. Sir Levit attempts his damnedest to assure himself these men will not take in their hands the lovely Delcita Lavie from his side, his wonderful wife and lover for life. No matter how hard he stares at their heads, his eyes cannot seem to penetrate far enough inside them to know whether these men are friend or foe, willing to aid in his journey to impress the divine Delcita, or are plotting philanderers, potentially romancers as himself believing they are worthy of her despite having no feelings or love for her anywhere near as severely or strictly as he.

            The hole Sir Desvot digs has reached the approximate size of a watermelon; he tears through the dirt deeper and deeper, “It’s tunneling even closer to the surface Sir Levit, I can hear its claws shredding through the soil,” throwing from him two fistfuls of dirt.

            Sir Humphrey confines the squirrel at the end of the branch from which it leaps with the emerald secured tightly between its teeth, and it lands safely on a neighboring tree. Humphrey jumps after it, immediately losing his footing upon impact and crotch landing on the branch, flexing under his weight he slides off it and grabs on with both hands, staring fathoms below him at positive pain and irreparable damage. He puts one hand in front of another to reach a sturdier part of the branch; the squirrel long having hopped to another; he reaches the base and pulls himself up onto a branch closer to the crystalline squirrel.

            Sir Levit has lain back in the grass and is envisioning Delcita’s image in his head, and he watches as her face materializes inside the fluid flow of flashy fractals in the sky. He feels so soothed and relaxed for once in his harrowing journey that he lies back down and cuddles up with his haversack; imagining Delcita by his side, the quintessence of her vivid visage burnt into his corneas as he closes his eyelids and dreams of their days together in the future. He dreams of legally marrying her as opposed to that nonverbal oath he had made to her already to love her forever and in all eternity. He falls asleep, her voice speaks softly into his ear, “Tomorrow tender lover, we shall be in arms together at last. Have faith dear and keep thine confidence, but do be weary thine ego shall not be overfed – do not charge ahead so headstrong that thou wilt fall and make a fool of thineself,” she soothes him slowly to sleep feeling her warmth from miles away, and slowly his consciousness quits on him with a smile of subtlety slipped onto his lips.

            Levit awakes in the middle of the night; the sky is screaming half past two. Glancing over the fireplace, whereby are rested Sir Humphrey and Sir Desvot; they are having a conversation, digging through his haversack and ridiculing the contents as well as the owner.

            “Look at this, Humphrey,” Desvot says withdrawing the aforementioned thousand pages of his unfinished manuscript, “An Inane Immersion, by Sir Nicholas Levee (above Levee are the crossed out successors to his standing pseudonym: Lev, Levi, Levit, Levee).”

            “Hah! Look at this – it’s just like that Cervantes novel; it’s got that Quixote character and everything. Who does this loser think he is? What, does this guy think he’s better than Cervantes or something? Amateur is what it is. Worthless trite; may as well throw it in this fire to help him out a bit,” Sir Desvot says, crumpling page one thousand seventy nine and throwing it into the fire to burn.

            “Wait, look at this part,” Sir Humphrey says, “Oh, most petrifyingly pulchritudinous Delcita Lavie, wilt thou please wed and love me for the rest of our days. Oh most caring, loving woman alive, wilt thou please spend the remainder of our lives together enriched in passionate romance, arms wrapped around another in an intimate embrace. Oh, most calm and comely caregiver, wilt thou be the mother of my children and raise them with me to achieve happiness and acceptance in the eyes of God. Oh, my beloved, wilt thou please spend the rest of eternity with me, thine ardently virgin lover, once age has taken hold in heaven happily next to me still my perfervid lover? In one another’s arms still? It matters not in heaven whether there is more art or game; so long as thou art happy with me there I will be the happiest man alive.”

            “Is this guy one of those obsessives or something? She probably just wants to get this freak as far from him as possible. Most petrifyingly pulchritudinous, can’t this dude get a life, maybe a job or something? He probably just sits there looking at niche and exorbitant words all day; he should honestly just end himself.”

            “Pff. At the end of this thing I’m gonna snatch that girl from him, I know it. I’ve got all the money we need right here; perfect wife sounds nice to me. Sounds like one of those Jesus-freaks to me, I bet she’s still a virgin too. She’ll probably stay with me forever anyway, could probably screw her all day and she’d stay with me. Do you think I could convince her I’m a virgin?” Sir Humphrey of Bovet says to Desvot batting his eyes.

            “You think you’re getting this Delcita chick? Get lost, she’s mine. Perfect body is what I see in this chick. Who knows, maybe she’ll be loaded, too; that would be even better.” Desvot leafs through the pages of the novel and turns his body over to Levee, whose eyes shut spontaneously – he looks at his frail form lying on the ground. “Why on earth do you think Delcita Lavie of all people would fall for this crackhead? I mean I’ve never met Delcita Lavie before, but I’m sure she’d have much higher standards than that.”

            “Crackhead? I don’t know if I’d go that far; I haven’t seen too many knights errant smoking crack anymore.”

            “Just look at him though – his hair’s a mess, he barely has any teeth, all crooked like unkept gravestones: Here Lies Sir Levee’s Teeth, soon to be replaced with a much finer pair of dentures,” the begin to cackle at him.

            “Do you think we could steal this novel from him and take all the credit for it? We could get that Delcita chick all for ourselves. I bet we’ve got the sexiest girl of them all over there if Sfouma; could scoop her up all for ourselves. She’s probably never even met this guy before, I could run over there and say I’m Sir Nicholas Levee and take her all for myself.”

            Desvot grabs the other half of the story and tries to pull it from him, leaving them tangled in a game of tug-o-war that results in the remaining thousand seventy eight pages flying into the air and landing in the fire.

            About an hour later Sirs Humphrey and Desvot have fallen asleep; Levee stands up and takes his haversack, still full of gold, of unwrit pages. He cannot stand being away from his wife any longer. He takes Sir Humphrey’s steed and bolts into the distance for Great Trickle, the true town of his lover’s birth: for Sfouma was but a ruse to offput the devious Don Juans deuce (or more accurately one Don Juan and one lecher). Delcita shall journey to Sfouma by his side where they shall live with friends and family, sequestered from the preponderance of society in their cozy cottage so joyously together. “An Inane Immersion was terrible anyway,” he accidentally thinks out loud, “I can do much greater than it; I shall commence work on scribing my new proposal for her as soon as I reach Great Trickle.” The steed speeds into the night as the man’s sanity further fades the longer he is away from his darling Delcita Lavie, for once they reunite, her love like a panacea to his ills. He begins to cry in desperation but catches himself early – he wants to keep his face smiling for his Dearest Delcita. He shall head straight for the chapel – it has been years since he has attended mass – he hopes God and The Dulcet Delcita shall forgive him for all his sins and insufficiencies. He ponders praying to God once more in the hopes that they shall be together just as he has tried his best to do every night since falling so hopelessly in love with her. He tries to make the sign of the cross, but the steed shakes too wildly for him to keep his balance; he stays holding onto the reigns as the steed gallops forth. He decides he must marry her immediately to keep away any ill-intented ‘adversaries’ wishing to capture and use her as a vessel for their venereal desires; those wishing to take her and not even love or show compassion to her. He tears up again but catches himself once more and gallops graciously to her.

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