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Mira Corpora Jeff Jackson For Stephanie Eternal thanks: Alethea Black, Giorgio Hiatt, Anna Stein, and John McElwee.
“There is another world, but it is in this one.”
–Paul Éluard CONTENTS This novel is based on the journals I kept growing up. When I rediscovered these documents, they helped me confront the fragments of my childhood and understand that the gaps are also part of the whole. Sometimes it’s been difficult to tell my memories from my fantasies, but that was true even then. Throughout I’ve tried to honor the source material and my early attempts to wrest these experiences into language.
There’s an empty notebook in the bottom drawer of my desk. I place it on a flat surface. I fold it open to the third page. I tap my pen against the paper three times. Then I draw the picture of a door and beneath it write the word “open.”
The floor beneath me begins to shift. I keep my eyes fixed on the page, where the door is now ajar to reveal a staircase. I enter the page and walk down the steps. In pitch dark, I feel the way with my hands, running my fingertips along the walls. I move slow and breathe deep.
There is a bottom and my feet experience the relief of flat ground. I stand still and let my eyes adjust. A pinpoint of light beckons in the distance. I follow its faint glow as I move down the corridor. Soon I enter a round room with no windows. Torches encircle the rough stone walls. A wooden altar stands at the center of the space.
I look closer. A boy with alabaster skin—always alabaster—is tied to the altar with twine. He’s bare except for a modest loincloth and I can see the blue veins beneath his pale skin. A delicate specimen. His body briefly spasms in a struggle against his bonds, but it’s just a twinge of animal instinct without much conviction.
I’m careful to prepare this sacrament correctly. I start by plucking the stray hairs from the boy’s otherwise smooth chest. Soon his skin appears as blank as a page. A steel dagger lies next to the body. I grip it tightly. As I approach the empty surface, the blade feels as sharp as a quill. I’m ready to begin.
“We never have to stretch our imaginations,
it is our own lives we can’t believe.”
–The Mekons THEY TAKE ME OUT HUNTING FOR STRAYS. PEOPLE stride through the woods and shout things at one another. They practice propping guns on their shoulders and breaking them in half so the empty shells tumble to the ground. Everybody here is older than me. I’m small and constantly underfoot. It’s the afternoon, or something like that. Sunlight breaks through the trees to illuminate kaleidoscopic patterns on the forest floor. Pine needles, fallen leaves, patches of dirt. The pack of stray dogs barks in the distance. These are the first things I remember. Gunshots. Popping sounds. Little bursts of gray powder blooming from the end of each rifle. Of course there are things before the first things: A stone farmhouse, warm meals served on white plates, a large room filled with narrow beds tucked with wool blankets. But this hunt is my beginning. The kids fanning through the forest. The slow-motion ballet of soundless steps. The silent chorus of raised rifles. A bearded
