If you have ever spent a weekend with an owl god, you will know that it can be a character-building experience. I have vivid memories of the time Chalchiuhtecolotl, the night owl god of the Aztecs, made itself at home in my flat for three trying days. I live in a glitzy and gleaming block, of futuristic design, impossibly stark, with lots of exciting remote control hubs, but the fact is it is small, even pokey, and it doesn’t help that I have crammed into it the contents of my ma’s laboratory and my pa’s garden shed, together with much of the furniture thrown out when the local vet refurbished his waiting room and a jumble of junk from a hellhole.
That Friday evening I was crumpled on a settee, eating lemon meringue pie and reading Pebblehead’s bestselling paperback Brute Beauty And Valour And Act, Oh, Air, Pride, Plume, Here Buckle! when the front door sensor vibrated, the hub hummed, and the plasma display flashed insistently. I had a visitor, though no one was expected. Thinking it might be a goon coming to serve me with an Asbo, I depressed the locking knob on the entry pod, put down my pie plate, and tiptoed my way through some of ma’s alembics to the door. Peering through the tintin slat, I saw a hunched and somewhat shabby figure dressed like a bus conductor, if you can remember bus conductors. He – I thought it was a he – was not holding anything that might be an Asbo, so, being an affable sort, I opened the door.
“Good evening. I am an Aztec god. My name is Chalchiuhtecolotl and I am an owl god. Of the night.â€
“You look like a bus conductor,†I replied, “And a shabby one at that.â€
Then it screeched at me. It was the loudest and longest screech I have ever had the misfortune to hear. My ears did not stop ringing until Sunday lunchtime, by which time the owl god had completely taken over my life. Within the confines of my fab but tiny flat, it swooped, it pecked at things, it shifted shape, it did some strange rewiring manipulations to my stereo system, it fluttered and preened, it fixed me for hours with a cold inhuman stare, it sprouted tufts and feathers, it would not let me read my Pebblehead paperback, it hawked up gobbets of semi-digested pie, it smashed all ma’s lab equipment to smithereens, then ate the smithereens, it shifted shape again, it summoned some of its Aztec god pals and held a rowdy Saturday night party, it kept me awake by looming menacingly just out of sight, it filled the bath with wounded mice and stoats and weasels, it made me sit through a four-hour documentary about Spandau Ballet, its metabolism speeded up to the point where everything in the flat was shaking, it phoned up my friends and told them I had moved to Dawlish, it somehow managed to drag a live swan into the bathroom and savaged it with its talons, it screeched and screeched, drowning out the Shipping Forecast, it burned its bright incandescent fury into my soul, and on Monday morning it shape-shifted again, just as it was pulverising my bread bin, and turned back into what looked like a shabby bus conductor.
“I am leaving you now,†it said, and it sounded almost regretful. I watched it leave, and slumped on what was left of the settee. I took a nap, and then I went to see the priest to explain to him that I was renouncing the Roman Catholic faith, forever. He tried to lure me into the confessional box, but I threatened to tear his beating heart out of his chest and make an offering of it to That Mighty Orb, the Sun. That shut him up. I sashayed off through the glittering streets, past Pang Hill Orphanage and across Sawdust Bridge, towards glory.
Are you saying that during the whole three trying days there was absolutely no shimmering vision of the knitting St. Yoko to strengthen your flagging faith?
When I find myself in times of trouble I often see St. Yoko perched on a nearby amplifier knitting.
I’m disconcerted by the conduct of this Owl God: if ‘making oneself at home’ for Aztec deities involves hawking up semi-digested gobbets (even of something as intrinsically appetising as LMP) then I am quite glad I don’t move much in such circles.
Shades of ‘The Doubtful Guest’ here … a guest even more doubtful than Mr Gorey’s unsettling visitor. http://www.weis-family.org/dg1.jpg
OutaSpaceman : Yoko Ono does not use wool for knitting. Her devotees wind it around their legs when standing in the street. The significance of this action is not yet clear to me, but enlightment will surely come after further years of study.
R : Do not tar all Aztec gods with the same brush. Remember that Chalchiuhtecolotl is an owl god. Had the narrator been visited by, say, Huixtocihuatl, goddess of salt and saltwater, or Ometotchtli, the drunken rabbit god, things might have been quite different. And I think a few regurgitated gobbets of lemon meringue pie were far preferable to what would have happened if Itztlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli had come barging in, it being a god of stone, obsidian, coldness, hardness, and, last but not least, castigation.
I would like to draw your attention to the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqP3wT5lpa4
I rest my case…
The video you link to shows an example of blindfold knitting, which is another thing entirely. See Pebblehead’s bestselling paperback Chalk & Cheese : The Unbridgeable Gulf Between Knitting & Blindfold Knitting.
Once again I must bow to your superior understanding and meekly point out that I incorrectly identified Our Blessed Yoko as ‘knitting’. The truth of course is that she is, in fact, crocheting.
I shall now observe an hour long mortification of the flesh, hammer a nail into a piece of wood then take Linda Outa_Spaceman shopping in Brighton…..
Asbo or ASBO? You be the judge.
“Had the narrator been visited by, say, Huixtocihuatl, goddess of salt and saltwater, or Ometotchtli, the drunken rabbit god, things might have been quite different. And I think a few regurgitated gobbets of lemon meringue pie were far preferable to what would have happened if Itztlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli had come barging in, it being a god of stone, obsidian, coldness, hardness, and, last but not least, castigation.”
Personally, I fear for your continued well-being in light of the above. Ometochtli might seem like a nice enough, if somewhat uncoordinated fellow, but his visitations are invariably followed by follow-up nuisance calls from Papaztac, Quatlapanqui and their kind. Say what you like about Itzlacoliuhqui, but at least you know where you are with him, plus he’s not exactly Sebastion Coe in the foot department and is therefore, much like any classic slow-moving Doctor Who monster, easily eluded.
CMA : The idle reader may find your last comment persuasive. You have clearly not read Dobson’s out of print pamphlet How Itztlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli Obtained A Booster Pack To Counter His Slow-Moving Nature, With Devastating Effects In The Castigation Department.
Whilst I make no claim to have imbibed said pamphlet at a personal level, I have enjoyed (from a distance) several discourses upon its merits (or otherwise) during which at least one person cast doubts upon its legitimacy given the apparent inclusion of Big Bird’s Book of Words in the bibliography. Mind you, perhaps my fear of puppetry and the like has predjudiced my views somewhat. Perhaps it is time I reassessed my position on this matter.
Though fast or slow, I still say you know where you stand with Old Frosty, and furthermore, it probably depends upon whether one has perpetrated any deed which might warrant castigation – wouldn’t you agree? Hmmmm?