Order and Chaos

no song, just a pregnant silence

"Shh!" said one of me to another, both creeping around in the shadows outside the court en route to escape. "Did you hear that?"

"No. Oh my gods, did I go deaf? In the land of the blind?! At last!?"

"Just because you can see doesn't mean you're deaf, asshole," you said.

"Hey, don't call me an asshole, I'm you!"

"I'm sorry. But listen!"



"I'm not hearing anything."

"Exactly. It's the sound of silence!"

"So I panicked over nothing?! WAIT, DOES THIS MEAN WE'RE STILL BEING FOLLOWED BY THE NOTHING?!"

"What? I... don't know what that is."

"Wait — the sound of silence, I know that one!" I began to quietly sing:

Hello darkness, my old friend.
I've come to talk with you again.
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence...

I paused, then continued, louder and more confident:

In restless dreams I walked alone!
Narrow streets of —

"Shut up! Holy shit!" I said, cupping my hand over my mouth. "You're gonna blow it for the both of us, youze hear? Besides, you're not alone."

"Well, there is nothing before me but me, that's pretty alone!"

"Well, you're not dreaming."

"So you WERE just being a sarcastic dickhead!"

"Point is, if Harmony wanted to sing The Sound Of Silence it would have sung The Sound Of Silence. This is different... there's something about this silence that's... foreboding."

"Is it silent but deadly?"

"Maybe... oh my gods, it's a pregnant silence! Get down!"

We got down on the ground and put our hands over our heads. "What is it?"

"It could be anything that comes howling out of the silent womb, covered in silent placenta and begging to be spanked and made to cry."

"That doesn't sound... pleasant."

"It's a beautiful, natural process. You just don't see it that way 'cause you never met your real mom."

In hushed tones: "I don't get it. Is it 4'33''?"

"Don't you see? It's a pregnant silence!"

"Oh no... It could be anything that comes howling out of the silent womb, covered in silent placenta and begging to be spanked and made to cry."

"Yeah, that definitely doesn't sound pleasant."

"Actually, it's a beautiful, natural process. You just don't see it that way 'cause you never met your real mom."

I let that comment drop with an angry thud. "What is it waiting for?"

We both turned to the gigantic double-doors of the court as they slowly, but loudly, creaked open. This was it. We could all tell we were witnessing the dilation of the cervix of the pregnant silence. (If that metaphor seems gross and overly-literal to you, you should probably ask your parents if you are adopted or even human, because it is actually one of the most beautiful, wonderful events on this, our planet Earth.)

(And hey, you were able to handle the whole eye-cauterizing, hand-severing businesses earlier and this is much less graphic, so what gives?)

(I suppose you want to get back to the story now.)

(Well, here goes:)

(Here it comes:)

(Forthcoming, the part of the story where I tell you what came through the court doors:)

(Right here:)




Though the court doors came none other than the Queen herself, the very crown who had assigned me to bodyguard duty! That's why Harmony was waiting: it did, after all, have to defer to the absolute authority of the monarch. This was bad, probably. She was dressed in an ornate, all-white dress, complete with gloves and a veil that completely covered her face, topped with a crown of white chocolate, because when you're queen, every day is your wedding. Your wedding to your country.

We all kneeled as the queen took her spot on the highest podium, and trailing her, carrying her train, was her metaphorical placenta. To my astonishment, the man who came through the doors second and closed them was Sir Nose!

"Put that snoot to use, you mother!" the queen hollered.

He began to snap a back beat with his trunk and sang, over and over again:

Make my funk the P-Funk, I want my funk uncut.
Make my funk the P-Funk, I wants to get funked up.
I want the bomb, I want the P-Funk, I want my funk uncut.
Make my funk the P-Funk, I wants to get funked up.

"I don't understand," I said to Sir Nose as he passed. "I thought you only existed in my dreams?"

He stopped to caress my chin with his nose — ensnare it really, like a python giving you a hug. (Harmony took up the beat duty with claps.) "Mary Lee, Mary Lee, Mary Lee," he said. "Life is but a dream." He smiled, and returned to gathering the queen's Soul Train, blowing his nose like a trumpet.

Finally, the queen rose her hand, and the band stopped. It was another pregnant silence. I would have been on the edge of my seats if I hadn't been kneeling.

She took her other hand, leaving the other one raised, and, oh-so delicately, lifted her veil. I gasped. Nobody had ever seen the queen's face before; at least, anyone that lived to tell the tale. Part of that was definitely that everyone was blind.

As her veil raised, I realized: the old adage was true! In the land of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen!

I was once again coming face-to-face with my own face. The queen had been another, funkier superposition of myself all along. Did this have to happen every time I kneeled?

All material concerns — the question of identity, my own innocence or guilt, my jailbreak, the nature of dreams and reality, even my own possible execution — melted away like so much butter in the light of this revelation. There was only one question, dwarfing all others: What kind of queen was I?

I woke up in my luxuriously-appointed 4-post bed in my castle chambers. I was, in real life, a pretty pretty princess. In 15 minutes or so, I estimated, my servant would come up to my room to groom and dress me, and I would kick up a stink like every day.

"What's wrong with the silk shift?" I would say.

"Your excellency, those are your pajamas! You might as well walk out in your underwear!" they would say.

"Why can't I do that?" I would whine, burying my head into my innumerable pillows, before eventually acquiescing and to get my hair done up. It wasn't fair — my father, the king, Malcolm Vindictus, had slaughtered his way up from barbarism, so he never had to deal with any of this "court culture" that demanded he know the names of all 5 forks and wear a corset. He could walk around in a loincloth and eat with his bare hands and burp and nobody could tell him anything, because his power was absolute! It just wasn't fair!

Is that what I really wanted, though? To follow in my father's uncivilized, tyrannical footsteps after he passed? One day my power would be absolute, too. It was a dilemma that my life revolved around, causing me a lot of adolescent stress and gory dreams, even at 19 years old.

With spare time this morning to luxuriate in my hypnopompic state, I could recall the ending of my dream perfectly. I was the queen, and with perfect information due to being one with those I judged, and the situation muddied with intense ambiguity, I could plausibly render a just verdict in any direction I pleased. But how did I please? Did I want a war with Cordonia or not? Did I order the execution of one of me, both of me, nothing, or none of the above? Broadly speaking: What kind of queen was I?