Stories by Moikom Zeqo
Cloud Sculptures
Translated from the Albanian by Wayne Miller
A cloud floating through the sky announced she was a sculptor.
She was like white marble in motion, unique and alive. The cloud put all her faith in her boundless imagination.
She cried out, “I’m a whale!” Then she swelled slowly into the shape of a white whale—the kind found only once every thousand years by whalers, the kind old men might call the “White Queen.”
“I’m Zeus,” she said.
She became an enormous face with a tall forehead, a straight and magnificent nose, and the flowing beard of the chief god. She tore off pieces of herself, and each of them became the face of another deity: Aphrodite, Hera, Artemis, Ares, Poseidon.
When she tore off the next piece, the others became uneasy. It was the rebellious face of Prometheus.
“Now I’m the ship of the Flying Dutchman—who was condemned to sail the seas forever, unless a girl would fall in love with him. He was incredibly brave, but ugly—no girl would even look at him.
“After a hundred years, the most beautiful girl in the north seas fell for him.
“The ugly had become beautiful.”
The cloud had taken the shape of a ship sailing toward infinity.
“I’m the aerial city of the New Jerusalem!” the cloud boasted, “the capital of heaven, which Moses and the other prophets failed to see with their own eyes.
“I’m the city of immortal dreams!
“I’m the colossal sculpture of the New World, I’m the Statue of Liberty. Admire me!
“I’m the first and last dinosaur on the planet. Look how terrible I am! How powerful, unstoppable, and proud!
“I’m Pegasus—the stars like golden knights can ride me through the cosmos.
“Would you like to know what the sunken ruins of Atlantis look like down at the bottom of the sea?
“Here I am: Atlantis! I can see you’re surprised—bewildered by the unexpected . . .”
The white cloud kept transforming and transforming.
Any shape she dreamed of, she became.
Her soft, malleable body kept morphing and changing, so that the cloud came to think she was the very genesis of the world.
She shouted and boasted. She wanted to be cherished.
She was a strange and mad cloud, indeed!
The wind listened silently.
Finally the wind began to move.
The cloud became terrified.
The wind blew across the enormous expanse.
The cloud dissolved. Soon nothing was left of her.
The cloud’s sculptures had been nothing but images on a screen—when the screen is turned off, the images disappear. They were dreams within a mystical sleep, always mortally endangered by the inevitability of waking.
The Homunculus
Translated from the Albanian by Loredana Mihani & Wayne Miller
“The homunculus,” the general whispered.
“Excuse me?” the priest replied.
“The homunculus. That’s the solution. Our salvation. Our everything. It’s the only answer to the riddle of the Sphinx. The only answer; there’s no other. The only answer—doubtlessly, irreplaceably. Without a doubt. You get it?”
The priest whispered back sourly, “Sorry, I don’t.”
“You have to get it!”
“I don’t get it.”
“Weird—that’s really weird. God said, ‘Make a soldier,’ and Man was born a soldier. And he’ll die a soldier.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Nor do I understand you.”
“God created man.”
“Adam is a soldier.”
“Adam is a figure of clay, whom God breathed into to make Man.”
“Adam is a soldier who will turn back into clay—his preexistence—when he dies. An army from any epoch eventually becomes clay. Cemeteries are clay and nothing else.”
“I don’t understand.”
“So what. Don’t understand, then. The fact that you don’t understand doesn’t mean you don’t actually understand—it just means you understand what you want and not what I want. Understanding doesn’t bring us together—it divides us. You can pretend you don’t understand, or else that you understand only the misunderstanding between us.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“What the hell kind of priest are you, if you don’t get it?”
“Don’t be blasphemous.”
“Your refusal to understand is the worst sort of blasphemy!”
“You sound as though you’re having a fit.”
“Oh, priest. Priest! Don’t exaggerate.”
“You, either!”
“I’ll explain. The homunculus was Oedipus’ answer that vanquished the Sphinx. Soldiers die in wars. Who will replace them? They’ll have to be replaced artificially.
“So let’s eradicate the maternity wards, the cradles!
“To hell with sex, pregnancy, sperm, eggs, cuddles, lullabies, birthdays, cupcakes with candles on them, gifts of dolls and flowers. The homunculus is Artificial Man.
“In the blessed Middle Ages, alchemists tried to create a homunculus. But alchemy is closer to magic than science.
“Artificial Man is made of poured concrete, Man in an incubator. This Medieval idea is the only great idea we have for the future. It’s not perfect, of course—and no one should expect us to feel wonder or make ourselves mad scribbling incomprehensible formulas. The formula of the homunculus is everything.”
“God is above any formula.”
“God, himself, is a formula. The formula of the homunculus is greater than God.”
“I’m losing it! You’re insane.”
“On the contrary, I’m completely lucid and calm.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“I couldn’t care less whether you understand me or not.”
“Relax. Maybe someone, somewhere in this damned Albania, might be willing to write something about our official mission—that of gathering the bones of the Italian dead from the last war.”
“There is no last war. War is always a beginning. Every end is, in itself, a beginning. War is like God—never born, never dead. God is war! It’s not for nothing that in the Psalms God is called ‘Lord, God of armies,’ right?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Yes, you do!—and that’s why you should say whatever you want.”
“I’m a priest—My job is to attend to the souls of the dead.”
“I’m a general, and I lead those souls to their deaths. The general comes first. I’ve created you, not vice versa. And God is the head general.”
“That’s horrific.”
“You know you can never cause people’s deaths—you’re a priest. Handling deaths caused by others is your profession. And death always follows in my wake.”
“That’s enough. Stop—please!”
“My dear priest, the homunculus is the truth. Let the soldiers die. In addition, the unborn—let them be killed. The homunculus is infinite—endless. His resources are inexhaustible. Let’s produce Artificial Man and death will stop feeling like a loss.”
“Stop.”
“Homunculus! Priest! The homunculus is our salvation—without the homunculus there would be no need for a general, a priest—even God. The homunculus is everything.”
“. . .”
“What was that?”
“. . .”
“Don’t stop—please! Keep speaking with me about the homunculus . . .”
Moikom Zeqo, born in Durrës in 1949, was one of Albania’s most prominent writers and public intellectuals. Over the course of his life, he published 100 books. In 2019, he was named a Knight of the Order of Skanderbeg, the highest civilian honor an Albanian can receive. Two of his poetry collections have been translated and published in the United States: Zodiac, which was shortlisted for the PEN Center USA Award in Translation, and I Don’t Believe in Ghosts. Zeqo died in 2020 in Tirana.
Wayne Miller is the author of six poetry collections, most recently We the Jury and The End of Childhood, which is forthcoming. He has co-translated two books by Moikom Zeqo, most recently Zodiac, which was shortlisted for the PEN Center USA Award in Translation. He teaches at the University of Colorado Denver, co-directs the Unsung Masters Series, and edits Copper Nickel.
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