William and the Visitors

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

William Blake, 1794



William first saw God when he was four. It has been widely described since then, by his patrons, his mother, his dear Catherine, and by those men who so desperately wish to discredit him, but only William knows the Truth. The God who bent his great shaggy head and peered in through the bedroom window that summer day on Broad Street was no Christian God, and certainly not the God of the Church in which William and his family spent Sunday mornings. This was a nameless God, with black eyes so deep and wide William saw all of history reflected in them, all the bloody Deeds of men flashing back to him in shades of black and gold and red. This God did not blink, and in his lidless and Endless eyes was a challenge – one that William was not, at the tender age of four, strong or brave enough to accept. The Pagan Godhead moved closer until only one great black pupil filled the window, and William screamed.

William saw the Angels when he was ten. Six years after his terrifying experience at the window, William walked the broad lanes of Peckham Rye Park. He often partook of long solitary walks through this city he so loved – he loved the smell of the fishmonger’s stalls and the fresh droppings of horses, the clattering of hooves along the cobblestoned streets, the calls of the newspaper boys and the screeching of gulls overhead. Despite this, he often visited Peckham Rye, simply for the quiet of it – there was nothing sweeter than an afternoon spent ambling through the park. He nodded to the ladies as he passed, and dodged the chattering doxies in the shadows. He would bring his sketchbook and draw, or work on his engravings – not the trees and flowers and dogs of the park, but those visions of ancient Jerusalem crumbling, the Great Fall, and Lucifer himself that so plagued William. There was a gnawing in his belly, always, a desire at once Divine and Profane, to bring forth the Grotesque and give it form. His drawings, so vivid and terrifying, drew gasps and surprise from others, but never William. The Godhead that had so scared him had given William a great gift, and he was bound to honor it.

He was not surprised, then, when he glanced up from a sketch of Jonah wasting away in the Belly of the Great Fish, to see a tree filled with Angels. Twenty or thirty of them, all a’glitter, their wings outstretched like brilliant nets of gold to catch the sunlight. Leaves wriggled in them like fish. The angels were so bright, so shining, that William could not see their faces – though he had the sense that they smiled at him, and though he couldn’t see them, he knew they had long Greedy teeth and incisors that could cut him to ribbons. The Angels spoke then, in a language that only William could understand – Latin and Hebrew and something that was never meant to be spoken. It was a warning. William listened, and nodded.

That night, he told his mother what he had seen, though he left out the teeth. He did not wish to upset her.

Many years later, William saw the Flea. He was thirty-three years old at the time, and living in Lambeth in a small cottage with his beloved Catherine. During the day he taught Catherine how to read and write, and together they worked on his engravings. During the night they loved each other as man and wife, in increasingly ingenious ways. In Catherine, William had found a helpmeet and a lover, and at her side and across her bosom (and other places besides) he spent his pleasure.

Often he was visited by the Angels of his youth, and such dead friends as chose to linger; it was not unusual to raise his head from an hour of painstaking engraving to find Moses or Michelangelo sitting in the chair Catherine had only then vacated.

On this evening, though, Catherine was out calling on a poor family down the road; though they had little themselves, the Blakes (as instructed by the Angels, in fiery tones that ought not be ignored) gave readily to those less fortunate. Catherine had left him to work on ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’, a pamphlet that, directed by the Angels and a brief visit from John Milton (William had not expected to see the great poet’s bowed head and milky eyes glaring at him from Catherine’s chair when he happened to look over one evening) was turning into a much more complex work, a work that William was loathe to finish. He had gotten up from his chair and walked to the door leading to the small vegetable garden of which Catherine was so proud. He looked out over the verdant patch of grass and dirt, and was about to glance up at the moon, so fat and content in her own patch of sky, when a shadow passed across his vision. He started, and scanned the garden for the Creature, for he knew it was no ordinary owl or moth that had darted past him – he felt a presence at once malevolent and giddy, something that even Nature, grand as she is, could not have borne forth. He stepped onto the lawn, and there it was. He described it later to friends as ‘scaly, speckled, very awful’, but mere words could never do the Creature justice. He later came to know it as the Flea, but that night it was the Creature – taller than any man, skin as green and horn’d as a toad, long curling fingers, and a tongue that flicked in and out of it blood-speckled mouth, obscenely, and, William thought, mockingly. Its muscles rippled as it walked toward William; it walked oddly, lightly, trippingly, like a dancer, as light as any winsome midnight fairy. 'William', it hissed, and licked its red eyeball. 'William, let me in.'

William shut the door.

However, the Flea soon became a constant companion, often sitting next to him as he wrote or drew, offering snide comments and criticisms; though, William admitted privately to himself, the creature’s conversation was so witty and shrewd that he soon grew to enjoy and even anticipate his visits. William loved the Angels and the Secrets they told him; he tolerated the paranoid circumlocutions of the dead Milton; he was warmed by the tales and homilies of Moses; but he was amused – and, strangely, comforted - by the Flea and his bawdy jokes.

William is 68 now, and in the last year of his life. He knows this because the Angels told him, many years ago, exactly when and where he would die. He has confided this only in Catherine, and so they are both prepared for the End. William is very tired. Although his death is still eight months away, he longs for it. The Angels have promised that his return to the Heavenly Realm will be met with great pomp and circumstance. His death, they assure him, will be but a new Birth, and he will be born again, bloody and mewling like an infant, from the loins of the Heavenly Father.

Now though, it is the last evening of the year. Only an hour remains in this year of Our Lord, 1826, and William is glad of it. His stomach pains him, almost without pause now, and the fits of uncontrollable shivering continue unabated. His body aches, always, now.

Catherine has gone to bed already. He imagines her warm body, gone soft and loose with age, nestled in the blankets of their marriage bed, her grey head resting on the pillow. She will be snoring loudly. William has not been sleeping well – the nausea that gnaws at his stomach so terribly during the day is nearly unbearable at night – so he often spends his nights in this chair, by the fire, so as to allow Catherine the rest she so deserves.

He is rarely alone, and tonight is no exception. A succession of shimmering, ghostly visitors have come and gone already; the Angels made an appearance earlier, as did the great magician Merlin (in the guise, oddly, of a small tabby cat that William stroked absentmindedly as it spoke, in increasingly agitated tones, of dragons and Camelot and the sorceress Niviane). The Flea is sitting in Catherine’s chair now, reciting his own ribald version of ‘The Wyf of Bath’ and chuckling quietly to himself. William is only half-listening; he has heard this tale many times, and he closes his heavy eyes and allows his mind to drift. The room grows cold, despite the fire, and when William opens his eyes, the fireplace has disappeared; the Flea’s chatter is but a distant murmur. He is no longer in his parlor, but standing on a street that he has never seen before. On either side of him, tall buildings rise to the sky; taller even than Big Ben himself, buildings of glass that shimmer like his Angels, strange buildings stretching into the clouds above. The sounds of this City are unlike anything he has heard before. The screeching of gulls, yes, but also the purr of machines moving of their own accord; there are no horses to be seen. Machines glide past him on four wheels, machines the fantastic colors of his engravings - blue and red and yellow and green. Suspended above the street, poles blink red, yellow, green; the machines move in accordance with the flashing of the colors. William realizes there are people inside the machines, people controlling the great purring beasts as they glide past him, faster than any horse or man.

What marvels! What fantastic world is this? William feels no panic; he is Gulliver and this is Brobdingnag. There is nothing to fear, William has learned over the years, from the Fantastic and the Grotesque. God’s eye marked William over sixty years ago, and he is not afraid.

William’s reverie is interrupted by a shove from behind. A girl hurries past him, intent on some rendezvous or appointment; William can only imagine how the denizens of this strange City live, or how they while away the fantastic hours.

‘Wait!’, he calls to the girl. ‘What is this place? Where am I?’

She turns. Her hair is black as night and her face is decorated in colorful paint, but all William sees are her ears; soft white lamb’s ears. The Lamb. This is the Lamb.

Of course.

‘You’re in the goddamn way, old man, that’s where you are,’ the Lamb says. She sneers, turns, and hurries away. William smiles, and nods to himself. Yes, he thinks, that’s right. That's exactly it.

Twelve bells clang. William is home; the Flea has returned to its hovel, and Catherine’s chair is empty. It is midnight, 1827.