Mad Max was an elf . The Ice Queen was an elf , too. They were modern elves, not ancient elves with names like Elrond and Gadrielle . and like all elves, they hungered for something with their whole hearts and souls. For them, it was snowflakes. No, not just any snowflakes, but magical, good stuff type of snowflakes that are made in the western hills.
The companions would roam the forests and mountains, looking for wayward travelers with a flake or two. These kind never melt until they hit your tongue and when they do…Man! You just zoom way the hell out there! It’s like an instant rush of ‘everything’s gonna be just fine’ then crashes into an parallel portion of the uglies. The better it is, the worse it gets.
The last set they had was about 2 weeks ago. They caught a beaver trying to slip back to his dam with some. They laid on the beaver for the snow and the fuzzy little thing wound up with his poor brains beat out of him behind a fallen tree.
Thing was, you see, Mad Max and The Ice Queen were actually – normally – a good sort of elf, not was just the magic that lived in the snowflake, what made normal folks do real abnormal shit. Once our friends got their tongues on the first flakes, it was an wrap.
The snow was made by an ancient and primitive breed of elves who lived in the western hills and near the sea. They spoke an old , forgotten language that no other people could understand and they carved and chipped and chiseled the snowflakes from the ice that formed at the tops of the highest mountains of their land. Legend has it was that when the magic from the ice combines with the magic of the hands and song of the ice elves, a dark evil manifests in the snowflakes. There are only a couple times each year hat the ice elves worshipped their gods in a ritual dancing as they did, casting down the snow they made in a blizzard across the land far and wide.
Our friend the Ice Queen, was was a real and true ice eleven who had broken the most forbidden rule of her people. Her mother always warned her to not taste – ever – the snowflakes of her people. But very free-spirited, was the Ice Queen, even for an elf and was caught up so much in the ritual that she couldn’t help but to reach into the chill nights wind with her slender, innocent elf tongue and lick a snowflake right off the air. A fraction of a second and the Ice Queen knew that something was going to happen. A full second later, here we goooooaoh -woohooaoh!!! There wasn’t any ‘before’ there was no ‘after.’ It was one moment that everything in the world , the universe, every-fucking-where that all was perfect…beautiful…shang-ra-la-ti-da! This feeling was like leaving your body, but no. It was like being free of your body. Every and all limitations were gone every little thought could be pleasured and whispered to. It felt a little off balance, but it certainly could be gotten used to, indeed.
One moment our Ice Queen was dancing non the highest mountain in the land and the next she was walking in the depths of some medieval forest with a sick feeling in her gut. She was lost, cold lonely and tired. So desperate was the Ice Queen that all she could think of was how – if – she had just one snowflake she could walk back up the mountain and explain to everyone that the snowflake chose her to be Queen. It called her to lick it so that its spirit could melt on her tongue , but she would rule the people as a good Queen should. Well, that never worked itself out because for every snowflake she found and licked it just took her farther and farther from home.
The Ice Queen met Mad Max one day when they stumbled into each other while trying to rob a dwarf for a weeks supply (about 15 flakes in a jar). Trailing the dwarf, Trying to get him unawares to the robbery and not succeeding in bringing any plot into fruition, they were in a badly way for the flakes. Out of need, greed and desperation they teamed up and laid the dwarf low. Mad Max jumped from behind a wide based tree with a wooden club and belted the dwarf across the bridge of his nose. The blow spun the dwarf around and made him sneeze a stream of blood. Enraged, the dwarf looked back and around with stormy, darkened eyes and faced his robber. All max could think was how angry he looked. Just then, the Ice Queen came from behind and stuck the dwarf with a blade as she vanished into the bushes. Swinging back and around, the dwarf split nothing but air as Max came back from the other side and broke his for with an over the shoulder blow of his club. That stumbled the dwarf to one knee. The Ice Queen dated in again and out again in harmony to Mad Max’s club until the dwarf was just a piece of unidentifiable, steaming, raw flesh in he snow. It was a marriage of convenience.
A month of robberies on the road later, Mad Max told the Ice Queen his story after she told hers to him. Mad Max’s people lived down south in the flatlands and marsh, where no snowflake ever reached, magical or no. Most elves down that way are very poor and live harsh lives. By nature, elves are a forest and hill folk. A long time ago one of his ancestors refused to bow to a cowardly king and his whole family were banished. Perhaps, they could’ve gone back but each new generation was as stubborn as the one before.
Mad Max’s family was poorer than most because there were too many children There were like umpteen of them and most of them were crippled or retarded and couldn’t work. Mad Max even had a brother who thought he was a girl-elf and would get really angry if you didn’t refer to him as ‘her’ or ‘she’ and address him by his girl-elf name , which was ‘glimmer.’ Working all day, back bent, max pulled cabbage from the stagnant marsh water , doing the work of three elves. Coming home Max would hardly be able to stand straight to help his mother care for all of his lame , game and no brain siblings. He had a big heart, Max did. Perhaps that was his downfall. Call it compassion fatigue if you want, but Max simply – just – couldn’t take anymore.
One night Max lay atop a small hill , starring up at the sky and wishing that he could stop all the hurt and unfairness. He first heard whistling and then smelled the weed smoke from a pipe. Max stood up, facing the direction the smoke and whistles came from. He saw an old, old and anciently old man walking up the hill towards where he now stood, with long hair trailing behind .this was a wizard of sorts. He looked kind of freakish in the way he jived and , even though this freakish wizard whistled off-beat, the melody was unmistakably the notes to the theme song from Sanford and Son. Mad Max just stood there in fucked up confusion. Who is this cat? Max wondered. Long, frizzy hair, loop earrings and a bundle of bracelets gleamed and jingled as he snapped his fingers in perpetuation. Dark-Boy sunglasses slid down the bridge of his long, crooked, brown nose filthy, stone-washed jeans chicken skin boots and a rave hat pitched jauntily atop his dome.
Then old black man stopped just before Max, swirling his tie-died poncho as he did. Straightening up to the very tall height of a basketball player and placed his hands on his hips sorta gay-like ya know? Anyway, our wizard of the moment looked down at Max for a very long time, and smiled. After that very long time, the deeply dimpled smile took on a touch of sadness. Then he proclaimed himself to be a wizard. No. Not just any wizard, but the wizard of all wizards… The Nubian wizard from the land of the colored people who had learned his craft at the foot of Doctor Buzzard brown in southern Georgia. The Nubian wizard of the moment went on to lay claim to the powers of mental manipulation, sublime masturbation, quantum calculation, master rooter of constipation and the soul brother owner of the only snowflakes that could be found in this artificial insemination, white bread, southern nation.
Max didn’t know what fascinated him more all the gold in the tall man’s mouth or the way he talked! ”So , what’s your name?” ventured Max.
”My name?” fumbled our wizard of the moment” My name is Rebound and you are Max, the elf. You toil all day in the cabbage patch to help support your Mona and kinfolk, driving yourself to an early grave, only to keep in a room full of your brothers, who I might add, either fort, shit or piss on you…Am I right Max. But I won’t mention Glimmer, who always seems to find his face in your crotch when you wake up. No Max you need not introduce yourself, you are already well known in every slum in the south.”
All Max could do was stand, head low and tears, slowly falling from his dirty face. He should never come up here to look at the stars…Never hope…Never dream…..
…Never wish for a life free of his impoverished, demented and dysfunctional family never want anything for himself at all because no matter how he tried, well, it just didn’t seem to work. He never could understand how some folks could get every damn thing so effortlessly and an elf like himself, who gave everything, could get nothing. Max concluded that maybe it was just meant to be that way.
Max had no real idea who Rebound was , nor why he chose to put down on him and his family, but Max wanted to part company from this wizard of the moment and the shame he was feeling. Just as Max was turning away from Rebound and towards home he felt a hand on his back. Max turned around and and saw outstretched in the wizard’s other hand a most beautiful object. It was gleaming white and intricately carved ”Have you ever seen one of these before, eh, Max ?”
”What is it?” ‘This, Max, is all of your hopes and dreams, bound up and etched into one snowflake, and … ”the wizard paused to look around to be sure no curious creatures could overhear this revelation”… and, I am not here to rag on you, Max. I was sent here by the soles of my feet. I was guided here to lift you up higher than imaginable. Take the snow, Max, it’s yours.”
”But what do I do with it..ah..er..Rebound?” ”it’s not what you will do with it, it’s what it shall do with you!” Rebound then drew in his breath, tilted his hand in a slight arch and …swish, blew the snowflake into the air. End over end, it swirled and soared higher. Rebound laughed, turned and went walking back down the side of the hill. ”It was nice meeting you, Max,” he called over his shoulder,” catch it on your tongue when it comes back down!” then Rebound was gone.
Max looked up in time to see it floating down and towards him. Without thinking, he laughed and stuck out his tongue. Before he had time to think, the affect from the snowflake hit him and it was like the world got instantly thicker. That was the last time Max ever laughed.
After a couple years of licking snowflakes and chasing all over the hills and woods, Mad Max changed from the simple, hard working and compassionate elf he once was and transformed himself into the exact opposite. Poor Mad Max, only while under the spell of the snow did he believe that he could find the answers and make a difference. However, each time, his tranquility and fortitude were only fleeting. As the snowflake began to wear off, Max would fight with it. Do battle within himself. Ranting and raving like a wild boar caught in a trap, Max would storm through the forest, tearing apart everything in his path. Nothing was right, nothing was good.
Mad Max would run to whatever hilltop he could find, stand before the gods and cry out to them,” Why does your world reject me ?! Why must I give all and receive nothing while the greedy land-barrens give nothing and get it all?! Then falling to his knees, our elf would cry…he would tremble and wonder to himself at just how things could have gotten so out of hand.
Sitting there with tears streaking his face, Max thought of his Mother and siblings , the folks of the land that he’s robbed and killed. He wanted so bad to be able to go back through time and fix everything that he’s destroyed…Back to the simple life that was hard but abled him to love. These days Max couldn’t even get all of the blood out of his hair and from under his fingernails. This would make Mad Max crazy with rage and he would beat his fists into the ground until he passed out with exhaustion…A fitful sleep at best. Each day when he awoke, he would turn towards home with the resolve to make amends. By nightfall he was licking snowflakes and could not be stopped.
Sighting by a fire under an overhang of rock on a mountainside, Mad Max and the Ice Queen sat huddled together. They were crying in each others arms over the misfortunes, loses things they’ve done and the destruction of their lives. Both completely helpless to the power of the snowflake and on the edge of simply giving up, prior to becoming slaves ton the snow, they both had given to life mentally, emotionally and physically. These were elves who possessed a passion for giving wholly. They both felt unsatisfied, unfulfilled, if you will. I guess you could say it a school of thought that is illusory feelings and reality seldom, if ever, agree. Life did, or had, given back to them in ways unnoticed. Now at the end of their bloody trail, they discovered an ultimate truth no matter how much you give to the snowflake…no matter how much you sacrifice, compromise or serve it, it simply wasn’t enough. It would take and never give back. It would take and never be satiated. It would take and take and take and there was no end to it. The spell was like a vacuum that sucked one dry of self worth, dreams and life, until there was nothing left to give and what then?
Sitting, crying and holding on to one another as they were, Mad Max thought that he heard a sound far off. A faint whistling. Must be the wind, but no, no.There was a distinct rhythm to it, sort or catchy. Max knew that round from a long time ago. He first heard it on a hilltop back home. Giving the Ice Queen one hauntingly affectionate squeeze, he pulled her back at arms length. Sadly, he looked into her eyes…Looking for a soul, but soul there was none left. The Ice Queen wondered what moved him this way. Max could only think in pictures now and what he thought was pure madness unleashed by addiction, knowing, it was time to pay. They would die this night and be set free. No, it didn’t need to be, but they were creatures of misfortune. It would happen this way because they had lost the will to fight.
Max bent down and kissed the Ice Queen on her brow, with tears hotly, wetly, silently trailing down his face. The smell of pipe-weed invading. Max knew who it was behind him and what time it was to be.
Embracing the Ice Queen to his chest one last time, he could feel the wetness of her tears on his shirt. Reaching up, Max caressed her neck, shoulders and hair.
”Hello there, Mad Max, what are you doing?” called the wizard of the moment.
Quickly, Max enveloped the Ice Queen with one powerful arm and pinned her arms to her side. He wrapped his other hand in the long beautiful hair at the base of her neck, making her head back and twisting it almost all the way around until her neck popped. Letting the limp body drop, Max shouted in surrendered anguish ”I loved her!” standing there moaning into his hands.
”Yes , yes, I’m sure you did, Max.” Quirked Rebound. “However, the little one was all ready to go. Do you think you could’ve killed her so easily?” An swearing his own question in his ever lofty voice ”of course not, you greedy fuck! The Queen gave up …Already gone…Tombstones in her eyes. She just chosen to die by your bleeding-hearted hands rather than meet the fate that awaits you. You know it Max, didn’t you? You did! They all do!
”Our lives may have once been unfulfilled, but in our cowardly nature we hadn’t the wherewithal to act…To take action and fulfill it. We chose not to find satisfaction from what life had to offer. Nothing worse than a greedy coward , eh, Max?
”Frightened of your own strength and self-worth, you lick your own illusions from the sky, rather than build the contentment you seek one stone at a time. Due to your feelings for your companion, I’ll cut you a break.” Reaching under his poncho, Rebound withdrew a large, bright snowflake and blew it high into the night air for the wind to carry and toss around. Instantly, Max sprang for it.
”Run, Mad Max run to your death my cowardly friend!” Shouted Rebound.
Higher up the mountain path Max ran after the snowflake, with Rebound’s insane laughter behind him. He could almost reach it now, he was gaining on it. Keeping it in sight, the snowflake started to rise again as Max was about to lick it. Needing to get himself higher, Max took a few bounds then kept into the air with all his might, just barely catching the snowflake on the end of his tongue. His soul flaw forever…His body dropped seven-hundred feet to the bottom of a gorge on a sheer cliff…..
Mad Max knew no more.
Grace Moskowitz: Writing and Art 