Myths of Origin Four Short Novels - By Catherynne M. Valente Page 0,12

my skull at its base, obsidian arrowhead dripping in liquefied faux diamonds, the viscous substance that pools in my brain pan and slides from the edges of the wound, thick with hieroglyphic ideation and the terribly worrying diagnosis of blood-poisoning. Oh, yes, I feel it already, marching through the byways with alkaline toes. Sad to think I am so streaked in squid-ink poverty that I cannot even be devoured properly. She was right. I do not know my name. But. I accept.

A sound fractured the air, behind a Wall of diamond and boiling pitch, spilling onto the Road in a writhing swamp-hand, reaching, reaching. My scalded eyes rolled like slot machines, pivoting to follow, sliding to wrap the molten corners. I was not ready, not ready for another thing to disturb my madness, growing like a favored son in me. I could almost see its source, spy with my little eye—

“A MAN!” it cried out, voice bleeding gasoline, slow and egg-runny, wriggling towards me.

“WALKS!”

And I could see it then, scaled knee sunk into the pitch, mouth gaping like a cellar Door. A swath of green hyphenating the Doorscape, glittering coldly and savagely in the brittle sun, still slick with the waters of some distant marsh. His great tail slapped the air, thumped the earth with enthusiasm and abandon as he, a monstrous Crocodile, clacked his feral jaw and winked, launching full force into his sermon, quivering in every green claw, gesturing with fat scaled fingers.

“A MAN WALKS INTO A BAR! Hallelujah, child, hallelujah, I say! Say it up and say it down, say it east and say it west, say it diagonal, child, say it out loud! A MAN! WALKS INTO! A BAR! A! MAN WALKS! INTO A! BAR! A! MAN! WALKS! INTO! A! BAR! AMAN, child, sing it, AMEN, glory on high, walks into a bar, and do he ever walk tall! A man walks into a bar, my child, do you hear what I say? He walks and he walks slow, he walks like paint drying, my friend, but he walks straight up to that bar and it’ll only be the best brand for this one with his five-day-beard and better-day-seen jeans! Oh, yes, girl, surely so, a man walks into a bar and don’t he have the look of a union man, don’t he have the look of coffee and cigarette break on the hour every hour, don’t he look like our kind of boy! Oh, pour him that double shot! Pour him that twelve-year old brand name! How many apostles on that holy mount, my child? Oh, yes, my girl! There were twelve! Can I get an AMEN? Oh, pour him that apostle-scotch, barman, pour that drink! A man walks into a bar, holy holy, holy! Oh, he walks long and he walks strong and don’t he walk grand, like a boot-barrel man should, and ain’t that cigarette in his mouth just as white as your mama’s wash-day, child, and don’t that smoke rise up? Oh, way up high it’s said that men they don’t walk but fly but oh, my child, I say unto you that that man walked into a bar and he drank that whiskey down! Say it high and say it low but in he walked and lay his money down, in he walked and sat on that red vinyl, in he walked and tipped that barman five dollars, hallelujah, child, five dollars! And ain’t that green bill crisp, friends and neighbors, ain’t it brand new, ain’t it mint? A man walks into a bar, in his holy name, and it is nigh on last call but he lays his money down, he lays it down and drinks it down and ain’t that just fine? Ain’t that right as rain?”

I arched a kindergarten-paste eyebrow like a flying buttress. The Crocodile stamped his feet joyfully, splashing my ankles with black grime. His eyes glowed like pools of crude oil.

“Do you hear me, girl? Do you get what I’m saying? Can you grab hold and swing it around? Can you feel it in your teeth? Can you grasp the sublime and angelic perfection of the Gospel of the Man and the Bar?”

I leaned on one hip, exhaustion covering me like a lead shield. “I heard. I hear. It is no different than the Gospel of the Hare or the Gospel of Ice-Fishing. Everyone has another useless revelation.”

“But it is different. Can’t you see it through and through? I have heard those Gospels and they