Brueghel In Jastri On All-Hallows Eve

[Robert Crisman]

Breughel stood in shock at the edge of the plaza as Jastri went up all around him, recasting light in the service of devils, who came out now singing and sucking up smoke like an incense.

The devils, mere shadows the texture of ash, but the humans stampeding into the plaza were bombs lit to blow, and among them, he noted, were guillotine makers, the cold dreams of gunmen, and shrouds who'd sent rain to the gardens of Moloch, then spit on the thirsty and taxed them like sheep.

They darted like thieves and roaring jackrollers, through flames and every which way; their teeth snicked like knives as they picked clean the bones of all those who'd come seeking surcease from sorrows on All-Hallow's Eve and remained till the last tick of midnight to die.

At the edge of the plaza a gaggle of gendarmes, drinking from cups with their pinkies extended, at rest and laughing--imagine their laughter as snarls from a boar--their work on the way to completion at last.

Breughel withdrew, a shadow himself now, back down the alley he'd come, and then down another that smelled like Old Europe, and he knew he'd paint it, ripped children and all, and that someday the children would hang on the walls of the Prado.

Overhead now as Jastri aped Hell, white gods with mouths full of snakes raining poison...

[Angela]

So surreal.  I hate to use hate world nightmarish again.  There's got to be a better word for this kind of terror.