THE SERPENTLIGHTNING TRICKSTER TRANSMISSION By
DORK STORK OYSTERBAR
“Lightweights, I really can’t stand ‘em Stay awake or with the markers I brand them.”
-Lady Sovereign, 2006
The Serpentlightning Trickster Transmission Copyright 2014* ISBN# 8237942937402734
Dork Stork Oysterbar Publishing TM 2014 Eugene OR, 97401
[Text Only Edition Edition!, Illustrated Edition info]
Publishers’ Note: The Serpentlightning Trickster Transmission is a gift to the public domain, so we regret it had to be copyrighted traditionally at all. That was not done to restrict use in any way, but merely as a hex against trolls, hackers, player-haters, plagiarists, lawyers, or lycanthropes in the unlikely event they try to storm the Gate. To our friends and allies- please consider a “Creative Commons share and share alike license” to apply to any use. In other words- copy, distribute, and remix the book and music at your pleasure. We consider it a compliment! As curators of the archive, we are always happy to help! You can contact one of us here: www.dorkstorkoysterbar.com dorkstorkoysterbar@gmail.com P.O. Box 8o7 Dr6edg Rybfuftbv Be well!
-Mapping the OysterverseWe hereby cut the red ribbon on the Gate of the Empire and lower the drawbridge over the moat. To enter is your own choice. The Serpentlightning Trickster Transmission is a collaborative, multi-media art project composed of three illustrated books (a novel, a collection of poetry, and a book of short stories) and seven albums of music. It is also the official archive and complete historical record of the first 20 years of the work of Dork Stork Oysterbar, an eccentric and reclusive artists’ collective. This is our first public release. Our theory is that in addition to traditional publishing, by inoculating the internet with one massive synchronized free release, we will win your curiosity in a very special secret future project. Perhaps a friend gave you one of our Physical Boxed Sets, and in addition to an illustrated copy of this book you discovered the seven Enchanted Audio Cassette Artifacts which we hope found you safely. These tapes must be playing before you read any further. It is extremely important that the cassette tapes which accompany these pages be playing, even if at a very low volume in the background, whenever you choose to open the book. Those who ignore this instruction may be at risk of undesirable results. Perhaps you received the Transmission as a “Digital Boxed Sets” (for example, a folder labelled “Serpentlightning” containing a PDF file and seven mp3 files, to use the parlance of the day). Regardless, we trust that the music is now playing while you scroll through the document., or as you flip through the paper copy you will print and kindly give it to a friend yourself some day. The Transmission must be replicated and transmitted efficiently. Therefor we will always offer this archive as a public database and free download from dorkstorkoysterbar.com and elsewhere. All digital versions will remain free. To confirmed enthusiasts, meticulous collectors, initiates, and adepts, we offer products for sale by mail order such as various editions of our Physical Boxed Sets, the individual mystical books and paranormal albums published separately, paintings, fountains, and masks. By the way, welcome. You have already entered and are now within.
ENCHANTED TABLE OF CONTENTS -BOOK ONETHE GARDEN OF FLOWERS Preamble_________________________________________________________2
-PART ONEBEFORE MANERVA 1. A Missing Volume_______________________________________________4 2. A Greasy Diner__________________________________________________6 3. Bald Monkey Runs Free___________________________________________9 4. Yo-Yo’s and Fire_______________________________________________ 13 5. The Records of Mystery-Sphere Girly_______________________________ 21 6. Another Greasy Diner____________________________________________28
-PART TWOAT MANERVA 7. A Cozy Home__________________________________________________32 -Absurd Clutter ……………………......... 34 8. Room #13_____________________________________________________36 -When Will You Learn…………….……… 38 9. Keep Your Eyes on the Borders____________________________________39 -Endlessness………………..……………. 40 10. Romantic Entanglements________________________________________45 -Apple Juice………………………….…... 49 11. Enter the Lobster trap___________________________________________50 -Rise From Your Grave……..…..……........ 54 12. A Metallic Pandora’s Box________________________________________56 13. Scent of the Ouija______________________________________________59 -Catacombs…..…………………..……...... 60
14. Come Within__________________________________________________62 15. A Fireside Chat with Montag_____________________________________63 -Pirates Versus Scarecrows………….…...... 67 16. In the the Dark, Dark Woods ‘Round a Fire, Hot_____________________69 -The Hallowed Place……..……………….… 71 17. The Trouble with Kleinbottles____________________________________72 -The Medicine Man’s Throne………..….… 75 -The Deserts of Wine……..……………..… 81 18. Snowflake Warriors____________________________________________82 -The Monocle…..…………………………. 83 19. Ritualization__________________________________________________85 -The Epic Battle of The Warrior Zoth…….……………….....… 85 20. Chrissy Saves the World_________________________________________89 -The Crystalline Stethoscope…………......… 89 21. Something Beautiful____________________________________________90 -A Game of Eyes….……………………...… 90 THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS CHANT_______________________________98
-PART THREEAFTER MANERVA 22. Reunion_____________________________________________________108 23. Wrath_______________________________________________________110 -Yellow Petal……….…………...……….… 111 24. Perhaps Just a Dream He Had____________________________________112 25. The Foot-Thick Moss Forest_____________________________________114 -Insectoid Overlords…………………….... 115 -Slip Away…………………………..…….. 117 26. Bonsai Man and Gondola Girl___________________________________117 27. The Old Flophouse Couple_____________________________________118 EPILOGUE: The Footprints of the Patriarch___________________________119
-BOOK TWOA FROG ONCE MORE Introduction_____________________________________________________123
I. GHOST-TOWN TRAVELOGUES (Being a Variety of Invitations to Stroll Through the Avant Garden) 1. Once a Frog__________________________________________________124 2. The Dishwasher’s Consolation___________________________________125 3. Poetry Must Never Be__________________________________________126 4. Kaleidoscopic Kraken Vision_____________________________________128 5. The Legend of the Last Palm Frond_______________________________129 6. Happy Kitten Dayz_____________________________________________130 7. A Frozen Ghost Song___________________________________________132 8. Ghosts of the Druids___________________________________________135
II. TROLLS AND HEROES (Being A Handful of Dreadful Verses for Those with Discerning Taste) 9. The Toast___________________________________________________139 10. The Gnomes of Death_________________________________________139 11. Martinis for Breakfast_________________________________________141 12. Kitten-Cubes_________________________________________________142 13. Muses______________________________________________________143 14. The Earth Day Eels____________________________________________143 15. McDonald The King___________________________________________144
III. THE SUNFLOWER RADIANCE PUB (Being Some in a Peculiar Series of an Irreverent Kind of Incantations) 16. Disco Witchez________________________________________________146 17. Frankincense Incense__________________________________________146 18. Sweet '93____________________________________________________147 19. Say it Ain't So!_______________________________________________148 20. A Fake War__________________________________________________149
21. Flytrap Spiral________________________________________________149 22. Slimey______________________________________________________150
IV. AN OLDFASHIONED SPOOKFEST (Being Transcriptions of Strange Lyrics from a Band of Haunting and Mysterious Gentlemen.) 23. Mystics of the Flowers_________________________________________151 24. Citrus Dreamtime_____________________________________________153 25. MagicFlash__________________________________________________154 26. The Ticks___________________________________________________155 27. The Last Laugh______________________________________________156 28. Ouija Party__________________________________________________156 29. The Resin Scraper____________________________________________158 30. Beasterz in the Snow__________________________________________159 31. The Pharaoh’Curse____________________________________________161 32. The Pink Blossom Breeze_______________________________________162 33. Venus Flytrap Eyelash Wonder__________________________________165 34. Closer to the Truth ____________________________________________167 35. Freaky Bitchez_______________________________________________168 36. Kibbles and Bits______________________________________________170 37. The Nightwaters______________________________________________171
V. THE KINDLING IN GENEVA (Being A Few Curious, Inscrutable Poems Which Fit No Proper Description) 38. Going to Geneva______________________________________________173 39. Improper Use of the Word “You”_________________________________175 40. The Chasm__________________________________________________177 41. Oh My God The Sky!!!_________________________________________178 42. Cameras_____________________________________________________180 43. Bounce_____________________________________________________181 44. GPS = 666___________________________________________________182 45. The Mirrored Path_____________________________________________184 46. The Field____________________________________________________186
VI. FIREFLIES AND WEEPING WILLOWS (Being Some in a Scandalous Series of Lessons for Venomous Vixens.) 47. Etch-A-Sketch Girl____________________________________________188 48. Racoonz_____________________________________________________190 49. Bonkerz_____________________________________________________192 50. Mr. Kite’s Lament_____________________________________________194
VII. SKELETON TRAIN (Being the Remaining Fragments from Times Long Gone of a Long Railroad Journey’s Song) 51. Boarding: Melon-Water Fever___________________________________195 52. Embarkation: The Harlot_______________________________________196 53. In Transit: Havens_____________________________________________198 54. Mountain Tunneling: Submarine_________________________________199 55. Approach: Chaotic Cloaca______________________________________200 56. Arrival: Venom Leather-Oil_____________________________________201
-BOOK THREEHELLO AGAIN WOLFMAN “Twenty Tales of the Absurd and Macabre To tingle your spine and blow your mind” Introduction____________________________________________________204 1. The Triumph of Tying Your Shoes________________________________205 2. The Horror of the Drying Door____________________________________208 3. The Gravedigger’s Compromise___________________________________210 4. The Last Repast of the Pirate Ghost________________________________212 5. PartyPartyParty________________________________________________213 6. The Great Spirit-Lizard Skull-Tonguing Challenge____________________215 7. The Carmenian Cinnamon Harem Hologram_________________________218 8. The Power of Fire______________________________________________221 9. Periodic Table Blues____________________________________________230
10. You Too Can Win!____________________________________________235 11. Cheney's Cat_________________________________________________238 12. To the Skinner Institute________________________________________242 13. Zombie Baby Therapy_________________________________________246 14. Curse of the 4-leaf Clover_______________________________________262 15. La Clash de les Trollops________________________________________266 16. Darling Europa_______________________________________________269 17. How the World was Made From Bass_____________________________277 18.The Pearl Necklace and the Final Smirk___________________________284 19. Grandson of Montag___________________________________________293 20. Hello Again Wolfman__________________________________________296
-DISCOGRAPHYA. SPAZTASTIQUE A1. That Monstrous Device A2. The Problem with Icecream A3. Don’t be Ridikulous A4. Pathologically Anti-Athoritarian
B. DREAD SPACE B1. Wingz to Fly With B2. Moonlight Malfunction B3. Organic Shit B4. Perfectly Fine B5. Hydroponics Log B6. Mostly Human B7. Intermission B8. Ghost Town B9. My Dear Old Dog B10. Flypaper Ribbonz B11. I like Science Fiction B12. Suck These Loops In B13. Let’s Play Ghosts B14. Enjoy Your New Dreads
C. THE TALE OF A BELGIAN MUSKRAT C1. Spanking of the Wench C3. Hail Esplen C2. The Mandragon
D. THAT TREE D1. That Tree D2. Dragonslayer D3. Slaughterhouse D4. Hikikomori D5. The Flowers D6. Ghost Stories D7. Phenomenology D8. This Small Town D9. The Looking Glass D10. Come Back Inside My Heart
E. SKAMBOT E1. The Koxxman Walks E2. Tigersblood E3. Tesla’s Pigeon E4. The Alleycats of Harlem E5. Slytherin E6. Lickerish Snapz E7. Bright Red E8. Juicy Juice E9. Where Are My Pants? E10. Mini Winnie E11. Yeah
F. OKTOPI F1. Reptilian Illuminati Conspiracy Instructionz F2. The Ekonomik Kollapse F3. Have You Heard of Bradly Manning? F4. Hello Little Snake
F5. Release the Kraken F6. Beam Me Up Scotty F7. Sweet ‘93 F8. The Whole World Is Watching
G. SEPTIMUS
???
-BOOK ONETHE GARDEN OF FLOWERS
1
-PreambleI was walking in the woods behind my house. It was early Autumn, which is definitely my favorite time of the year. The weather was perfect- the kind in which the air is comfortably warm but a cool breeze is blowing. The leaves were turning, and some were on the ground, and the sky was rolling in thick, purple clouds. I was in a good mood, and hungry, and walking fast. And then I saw something lying on the ground. I had a strange feeling in my stomach that I should investigate. I knelt down to take a look. It was a leather pouch, partly buried in frozen ground and covered with dark red maple leaves. I uncovered it. It had a drawstring drawn tight and tied in many knots. I opened it. Inside was something wrapped in burlap and tied tightly with twine in many knots. I opened this too. Inside this was something wrapped in dark purple silk. It was a large book. It was very old. Its cover was black and its title was embossed in silver. The book was called The Garden of Flowers, and this is what it said:
2
-PART ONEBEFORE MANERVA
3
-CHAPTER ONEA MISSING VOLUME “Freakin' dark, symbiotic, malicious... Freakin' parasitical, dark symbiotes." These were the words of Max. He was speaking to his styrofoam cup of coffee and cigarette as he drank and smoked. He is very dramatic. We were outside in the dark just before sunrise, leaning against the old brick wall of the old bookstore with my van in front of us, awaiting our drive into the night. It was the beginning of a quest. This was a nice old brick wall we were leaning against - crumbly and with vines and whatnot creeping through crevices of crumbly brick and cracked shingles and writhing in the breeze, and it was the back wall of the old bookstore that had once harbored a strange series of books, amidst which was a volume - The Garden of Flowers, written by a man named Mr. Kite. We were seeking this man. So, the old bookstore was owned and run by an old man of the variety Max would refer to as a "freakin' hippie". But he was merely eccentric and treated his bookstore as a shrine to dreamy atmosphere and fat old Buddhas of stone and jade collecting dust, and candles. Candles! Hundreds of candles, in a bookstore of all places, with all that brittle old paper itching to be burnt, but the place never caught fire. It only withered away slowly and the old man has not been seen for perhaps a year. We had good times in that place, Max and I and our crowd from college, rummaging through the flickering dimness and dust and listening to the old man rave over a stack of books he had just obtained pertaining to his latest obsession - the forgotten archaic religious cult or mystical discipline of the week. It became a contest for us to appear at the college coffee shop with a dust-encrusted, poorly bound sacred tome, our scavenger hunt providing hours of laughter over the corniness of it all and allowing one of us to read aloud in mock reverential tones of "awakening the serpent power" or channeling an Egyptian god, while the rest of us bowed our heads and assumed yogic postures. I must admit some regret in writing of this playful sacrilege, but we attended Edward Abbott College, which was in actuality a hippie commune. There was such fervent channeling of Egyptian gods with a deadpan seriousness in all dorms and by the occasional professor that we could only rely on our sarcasm to keep us afloat. Even so, there were moments late at night in the coffee shop when we did not laugh, or perhaps laughed a different laugh, and when a certain volume bled away the mocking from our mock reverence. There was the time that Lana brought The Garden of Flowers to our gathering, not knowing what she held. Lana was indeed a hippie chick. She no doubt had an "aura" of sorts and resonated subtle feminine "vibes" from power centers along her delicate spine. Her spine would be delicate, as were the bones of her long, thin fingers and delicate neck and big, vulnerable eyes. She was tall and thin and stretchy. I know this only because she was always stretching, stretching and 4
giggling through life from one aerobics dance step to the next, from one cloud of sickly sweet cinnamon incense to the next. She had such wide, wide eyes. Lana was Max's girl. The absurdity of this will become clear as our story unfolds. I will say now that the bitter venom circulating through their relationship was the only thing they had in common, and they savored it and shared it freely and held it dear between them. I saw the book once. I saw Lana's delicate fingers trace the title, embossed in gold into the thick, dark brown leather of the spine. And all amidst the jazz and chatter and smoke of the coffee shop, and Max's jealous sneering at Lana for having tossed the trophy proudly onto our table, and Lana sticking her tongue out at Max. And it was a good, good book. Oh, I'm sorry, Reader, I won't even try for you to recall the lines of verse - they fade quickly from memory and I would muddle them, and I try not to even strain my memory towards the few weeks following that first night. But in dreams I sometimes hear the lines again, and always in Lana's lilting voice with her giggles forever just barely restrained behind the words. Perhaps it was only that our four years at Abbott College were winding to a close and we began to miss each other before even parting, but around the time of the surfacing of the book upon our corner table, our casual trickling into the coffee shop for a chance meeting became a nightly ritual, with a strange poignancy. Always by then it was The Garden of Flowers, every night turning the same brittle pages, reciting them like a chant, in a poignant trance. There was a silence in the smoky air those nights after the book was closed, deeper than the jazz and chatter, and we did not play around the edges of our friendship because it was there in front of us, and soon to wither with the end of school. We were close. "The chick... is a demoness," said Max against the vine-entwined crumbly brick wall. His cigarette was dwindling. "Lana... you know, Sachmo, she is a satanic being. She lost the book. Our beautiful, glorious freakin' sacred book, Sachmo! And it is probably lying somewhere between her blasted slabs of tofu..." He lingered on the word "tofu" with a most tragic mourning. I nodded thoughtfully. It was a shame - with the missing volume went our ritual and our goodbyes at graduation were feeble, and we have scattered to our separate lives. Things fall away; it is sad. But there was something there. Even as Max stepped over to the broken cobwebbed window on the back wall of the old bookstore and flicked his cigarette butt through the cobwebs and we followed the arc of the glowing tobacco embers onto the cold, concrete floor inside, there was once something there. We stood for a moment watching the glowing orange butt fading in the darkness within and at least the two of us did not forget. Then I walked to my van and got in and revved up as Max gently parted the vines on the wall to unveil a patch of brick, and said "Goodbye old wall." And then he kissed it, and he held his mouth to the wall for a moment. And then he licked it, running his tongue slowly along the cold, rough brick. And then he got in my van and we drove off into the night.
5
~ -CHAPTER TWOA GREASY DINER "You ever shuck logs, man?" Max asked me with an unusual weariness as we awaited our orders. We had been on the road for a couple of days, sleeping the night before in my tent, which we pitched clumsily in the cold Autumn dark when I was too tired to drive. We ached. Max huddled around his steaming cup of coffee looking pitiful and glanced up occasionally at our fertile Greek waitress with merely hunger and without his ever present lust. I shrugged my shoulders at his question. "You know, man? Shuckin' logs? That's what we called it when I was a kid, anyways. Like shuckin' corn, right? Where you pull the husk off an ear of corn, you know? But stripping the bark off trees on our farm my dad would cut down with a chainsaw- pine, fir, cherry, you name it. He demonstrated with his hands and I nodded, trying not to appear overly concerned. But Max was a farm boy child who had shed his own farm boy husk, if you will, and became a modern, angst-ridden college boy. He resented his past as he resented reality and spoke of it only in rare moments of weakness. "So I was telling Lana about it the last night I spent in her bed before we hit the road, I guess cause it was a fond memory. So we’re lying in the dark and passing a bottle of wine back and forth, undergoing a purely temporary truce." I sensed somehow that this story did not end well. I was correct. Max fired up a smoke by the power of his shiny silver lighter and continued. "So I was getting into it, about stripping the bark from these Willingham ironwood logs, using a draw knife and a bark spud. (I knew nothing of such matters but nodded encouragingly.) The bark just slides off so easy and slippery, cuz the wood is still fresh and wet, y’know. Oh man, Sachmo, I tell you, the smooth layer underneath the bark, it’s got all these colors like gold and brown and freakin’ amber swirling around with the grain of the wood, and you’ve got your beetles and weevils in their so their tunnels are snaking around. There’s this hot summer day and I get the idea to carve a sculpture out of the wood, a big African voodoo mask or something and…) But self-consciousness was dawning on Max as it always does and he lost momentum and mumbled to a close. "I dunno... the ironwood… it was kinda beautiful... in the sun, you know, I dunno - screw it."
6
"The turkey-gravy sandwich for who?" asked our voluptuous waitress through a thick Greek accent. I raised my hand humbly before her. She was a not meant for this den of grease and truck drivers and profanity, but it was her complete comfort and poise in the place which lifted her so above it. She was clearly some kind of Greek goddess of myth. Fertil. "So what's a cute chick like you doing in a place like - " began Max, but she had served him his burger and fries and left. Max shrugged his shoulders with a slight grin, feeding perversely on rejection as usual. And then we feasted. Things were stirring once again, as they inevitably do when Max and I step into a greasy diner as into a most healing womb of sleaze. I even took kindly for once to the smell of Max's tobacco smoke because in our greasy diner stops it signals the beginning of a smoky stream of consciousness soliloquy, and so I feast and sip my orange spice tea and be amused by my friend. Max's mood was brightening as well. "The chick is a demoness, Sachmo," he said with utter seriousness. There was much fervent hand gesturing in the comments which followed. "All she could freakin' appreciate out of my damn bark shuckin’ story was 'Oh, Max, those poor trees, why can't we all just not hurt nature and sing songs and eat tofu?'" It is safe to assume Lana's role in the conversation went slightly otherwise, and did not possess the ridiculously naive sing-song tone which Max ascribed to it. "She's freakin' looney tunes, man - you don't know her like I do, you know, I see the satanic forms she takes on certain nights." "Ah, yes, the wolf and bat forms..." I proposed. I liked Lana. Such wide eyes... "I'm serious, man, she lost our freakin' book." Max immersed himself in the gravy and melted cheese amidst which where his French fries. He always took the loss harder than the rest of us, I think. He held onto The Garden of Flowers like it was his only thread to the divine. There were times in the coffeeshop when his eyes would just sparkle like a little kid, the only sparkles I'd ever seen from those eyes, like he couldn't help it, though he surely tried. Or the times he would close his eyes and just smile, listening to Lana read aloud, and the rest of us would nudge each other and smile too because we knew that Max would soon rest his head softly on Lana's shoulder as she sat next to him and read. But it was long, long before Max could forgive Lana for the night she showed up before us with her big eyes looking sadly down and her delicate hands empty and trembling. I nodded thoughtfully. "But there's the money, at least," I offered. Lana's father was rich and foolish, and distant, living in British Columbia, and kept only a hefty financial tie to his daughter, giving her money to educate herself and frolic extravagantly with. Somehow Lana had convinced her father that Max was a budding journalist, though his contribution to the school paper of a weekly spiteful comic strip had petered out two years ago. There was a "research grant" from Lana's dad for our current investigative reporting into the whereabouts of the elusive Mr. Kite, author of sacred texts, presumed holy man. "Not how it was supposed to go down, man," said Max shaking his head and digging through his backpack to produce a thick blank journal with a title written in Lana's orange crayon script reading "Journalist Stuff". "I mean what the freak is this?" he asked waving the journal. 7
"It's my going away present. And she was all teary eyed giving it to me that night. 'Journalist Stuff' - for the love of God! Remember when it was just you and me, on the quest, you know, one last road trip? Free of responsibility to some old guy in British Columbia hunting moose?" And so I took the journal and put it in my own backpack without a word, and our story is written upon those pages in blue ink, by myself. "The money's good, I guess," admitted Max, attempting to smile, which does not quite fit him. I knew where his thoughts were. "So Lana's dad must sure like you..." I said for no reason. "I know, alright? He thinks we're gonna get... married." I raised my eyebrows in question, with some hope, because I am a romantic I suppose, and I am too hopeful. Max laughed. "She is my toy," he said. That is just what he said. And he blew a steady stream of smoke from his third cigarette onto the table without shame. "She knows it," he went on, without shame or anger or resentment in his voice and with instead his strange, perverse affection which I will never understand.. "So maybe she should be with a sweet guy like you, but our poor Lana is my toy, and she knows it, and she likes it. She is my hippie chick specimen, and I study her and laugh because she is so freakin' super-freaky. And she likes to make me laugh. And when I'm tired of studying her I play with her, just like a toy. However, in my defence, Sachmo, she likes that." "Check please," I called to our royal Greek waitress, disguised among the peasants. There was little else to be said, and so Max left the ten dollars for our feast and a generous tip from our research grant, and we sat and watched a little trucker in overalls play pinball, his whole body tensed, putting his heart and soul into the game. Max knew himself well. Perhaps his ways in romance were simply all he could do. Max rubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and did not light another. "There was one thing she told me though, that night," he said casually, as if commenting on the weather. "About shuckin' logs, you know? I kinda liked it, you know how she gets cryptic, sometimes? She said 'maybe, my little cold one,' you know she calls me that? She said, 'maybe, my little cold one, this road trip will strip your own bark off, and you'll know just how those trees feel, and your own swirly colors will be all naked without any bark to keep them warm, and your own tender wet sap will be stinging in the air', or something like that, I dunno, screw it. And so of course after that she just giggles away while I'm trying to get some sleep. Freakin' immature girly." But there was no imitation naive sing-song tone in Max's retelling that time. I smiled at the waitress goddess as we left and she smiled back. We drove off.
~ 8
-CHAPTER THREE-
BALD MONKEY RUNS FREE There once was a man who was called Bald Monkey. We did not know this as we slowed down to pull into the gate of his palatial estate and drove past him on his long, winding driveway, us in my cheap old van and he in his pink Cadillac convertible being driven by his chauffeur out to freedom from his own riches. We knew only the words "Bald Monkey Publishing Society" were inscribed minutely at the bottom of the first page in every volume in the collection once carried on its entirety by the old brick bookstore. The volume of special concern to us was but one of many similar volumes in the series, the remainder of which are beyond the scope of this humble story. We can but wonder of what lies in those foreign pages, or of what mischief they would surely stir up. Evidently, Bald Monkey Publishing Society employed a long list of authors of sacred texts, perhaps on a pension plan with dental benefits, as absurd as it sounds. But then, with a name as absurd as "Bald Monkey", the man behind the society must have been a strange fellow. He was. I recall him standing up in his pink convertible, a stout, bald, and furry man, yelling in a proud, robust manner that he was free of his riches at last, even as chauffeur was patiently attempting to calm him. As I recall, he looked into my eyes for the first time as he bellowed in the third person "Bald Monkey runs free tonight!" and he was gone. We had second thoughts as we drove through the huge stone arch serving as a gate to the place. The sign on the stone gate read "Bald Monkey Estate. Welcome to warp zone." We drove on in. It was not until we had parked and were shuffled into a pleasant waiting room by one of the many French maids circulating the property with trays of drinks that we could look at each other in the eyes and realize we were far, far from the simple pleasures of Abbott College. "Far out," said Max. I concurred, but with reservations. We had seen swimming pools, tennis courts, hedges pruned to geometric perfection, and a curious frequency of scantily clad women. This style of life offers too many distractions to carry on with my usual thoughtful melancholy. I slouched down in my soft leather chair and closed my eyes. I was weary already from Bald Monkey Estate. In that church of comfort I did not feel safe. It was not simply the cheesiness of the blatant hedonism, for though embarrassing to me in its immaturity, at least it was sincere. I would be amused by the endless drunken debauchery and the pretense of poetry and artistry and goatees amongst the rich as I was amused by the same amongst us students of the middle class at Abbot College. I am not so prudish, I believe, that I cannot be at ease in revelry. But there was something else going on there as well - an atmosphere less blatant and more threatening. Not malicious exactly, but somehow secretive and paranoid. We were outsiders there, and not because of my cheap van and scuffed clothing, but because everyone we met within the stone gate partook of a very hushed loyalty to home or what we did 9
not yet know. However, we had been driving for too long and at least the black leather chair soothed me. Max was soon shaking me by the shoulder to awaken me from an unintentional but deep slumber. I was disoriented and at first did not recognize the old man standing at ease before us in a robe and slippers, puffing on a large pipe. It was the old bookstore man. "Old Bookstore Man!" exclaimed Max. There was a humble bowing of the once again familiar balding head, and a falling forward of the long white hair which remained. "At your service," he said and lead us into a den of sorts. The room was too comfortable - the kind where it would be easy to lose track of time from deep within the plush couches. There was warmth from a blazing fireplace and a wall-long fish tank populated with exotic tropical fish, and a bar, of course, as there were open bars in every nook of Bald Monkey Estate, and speakers playing them most tragically weary songs of Bob Dylan, as all speakers on the estate played only Dylan. "Sit, my young travelers," began Old Bookstore Man in one of his possibly senile rambling tales. It was good to listen to his deep raspy voice and smell his sweet, expensive pipe tobacco burn, unlike Max's cheap cigarette smoke which mingled in the odor. It reminded me of the old days of rummaging in our long gone literary scavenger hunts which would never come again. "Oh, my young friends, so good of you to come for me and back the days of seeking to my feeble memory, but the hunt is over and the kill has been brought down, or rather the kill has brought us down and we surrender to the ravenous taste for the human heart. We surrender our hearts to the holy words of Kite, eh? What say you my young travelers?" "Freak that," suggested Max. "We're here on business - a serious investigation in which our journalistic ethic requires your assistance. Now what say you, Old Bookstore Man?" Max's heart surrenders only when defeat is inevitable. "Ah," continued our host, knowingly nodding his balding head, "no doubt you are one of the many these days on a pilgrimage to the source, eh? Alas, if you had come but a few hours earlier you would have had the honor of accompanying the inscrutable Monkey himself on such a pilgrimage to the blessed soil of Manerva University." It was always odd to hear those at the estate use the title "the Monkey" with such deep respect. "On that regard," said Max, pouring himself a drink and unconsciously assuming the gentlemanly authority of the surrounding wealth, "we must hear more of this... Monkey. Just who is the man we call... 'Bald Monkey' and what is your interest in him?" Max disinterestedly spun a globe and sipped his scotch, taking obvious pleasure in pretending to be rich while listening to Old Bookstore Man. I resisted the temptation to take notes on the "hot leads" in my "Journalist Stuff" journal, and reminded myself to change the title on the cover. "Ah, yes..." began Old Bookstore Man once more, savoring his proximity to such an illustrious figure. "Bald Monkey is my mentor and most admired friend. He was there from the beginning, at the source. He took his daily meals and laid his head to rest at the focal point in time and space from which the sacred shockwaves have not yet dissipated. And our own petty 10
roles in the Bald Monkey Empire are but shockwaves from Manerva themselves, eh?" If I were keeping notes in my journal I would have written "next stop - Manerva University" and underlined it twice. "Alas," our host went on with somewhat less bravado, "all Bald Monkey can hope to find at the end of his rainbow pilgrimage is the vapor-trail of a long-gone laugh... but Mr. Kite is no more to walk those grounds, for he left after the change, of course..." There was a moment of respectful silence in which I was too disappointed in hearing of Mr. Kites disappearance to ask of the nature of this "change", and in which Max was too immersed in his scotch and pretend-wealth to stoop to conversation. We both required sleep. "At least we have The Garden of Flowers, praise the blessed ink," mumbled Old Bookstore Man, and Max's eyes lit up like comets. He seemed almost too hopeful to speak. "You... you have the book?" he managed. "Of course." "Show us," breathed Max through his breathless hope. "Well, I can see you are a true enthusiast," was the unenthusiastic reply. "But leave it for the morrow, eh? There are rites and ceremonies to be performed, of course, before unveiling the tome, and as it is a Thursday there is no usual midnight chanting ceremony for you two to attend, and it is late." "Chanting... ceremony..." whispered Max with an almost erotic desire. "You promise - in the morning?" "I assure you," agreed Old Bookstore Man, happy to have averted further excitement, I think, and looking forward to sleep himself. It was late. Old Bookstore Man lifted a golden walkie-talkie from his desk and spoke to a servant at the ready, asking for use to be show to our "oddly prepared rooms," though I could not see how our appearance had been predicted. In moments one of the ever-present French maids roaming the estate like helpful ants appeared, and we said our good-byes for the night. We followed a certain uniquely dressed French maid down long corridors. She wore, in addition to the traditional black and white uniform, a necklace of shark's teeth, a thick exotic belt woven from tiny bright beads, a large red gourd hung on a leather shoulder strap, and tattoos of abstract patterns or foreign symbols snaking across her dark skin. I have rarely seen eyelashes as long and mesmerizing, but predatory like the spines of twin venus flytraps. She apparently misunderstood the concept of eyeliner, applying it novelly like war paint in thick black streaks radiating from her eyes and criss-crossing like spiderwebs across her face. It suited her. As we followed close behind, Max looked over to me and whispered the single phrase "spacepants," for reasons which I was too innocent to yet surmise. From then one we would affectionately refer to the Voodoo maid, a rather troubled soul, as "Spacepants". "You two I know," she announced without turning to face us in an accent which conjured the image of white sand beaches and swaying palm fronds. She was once perhaps an island princess of war, the champion of her peaceful fishing village people's hopeless battle against 11
drunken pirates. "You two are friends of cute wacky girl who insisted to prepare your rooms, no?" There was an exotic sensuality to her voice, as there was in certain wholly unnecessary accentuations to her manner of walking, but there was a sharp edge to that woman. It could have been the drunken pirates had chaffed her once peaceful spirit raw and she harbored only resentment and vicious fantasies of revenge beneath her alluring ways. "Wacky... girl?" asked Max tentatively, not yet allowing his fears to materialize. We turned a corner towards our adjoining oddly furnished rooms. "Yes, yes," answered Spacepants, "the one who was here earlier to check up on your reporting? With the bag of grass seed?" But it was no use explaining, for Max had stopped dead in his tracks well before opening the door to his chamber due to an odor he knew all too well and dreaded. It was the odor of well cared for, freshly sprouted, indoor planted lawn grass. "She's here," gasped Max, his skin tone becoming subtly more pale. I hoped my expression did not register as much joyous surprise as I felt upon Spacepants' opening of our chamber doors to reveal an indoor lawn of the Kentucky Bluegrass variety blanketing our respective floors and the surfaces of our TVs, tables, and dressers. Lana had taken recently not only to decorating her own dorm room at Abbott College with thousands of blades of grass bristling from every available surface, but had somehow convinced Max to do the same with his room, for which his regret, shame, and ensuing silent resentment continue on to this day. "Where is she?!" Max demanded, his brief and precious bubble of independence thwarted. "Oh, but cute wacky girl has flown away just two days ago for Manerva, so sorry," said Spacepants, but there was no disappointment in her voice as she cast a sly, suggestive glance into Max's libido. I was beginning to see why Spacepants would just as well have Lana out of the picture. This did not bode well for our group unity, and less so for Max's faithfulness. I tried to preoccupy myself with taking off my leather sandals and appreciating the indoor lawn with my bare feet as Spacepants offered her hand to Max in a goodbye handshake of sorts. In Spacepants' native island village such a handshake would be an ancient custom implying the imminent corruption of any remaining innocence. We had left the doors to the shared closet between our rooms open so as to talk in the darkness before sleep, Max perched on the waterbed above the living green carpet below and I on the floor of my room, each tickle of the soft grass against my neck somehow very poignant. As the soft, thick mat of blades was a good 2 - 3 inches, too mature to have been grown in place from seed since Lana's arrival, she must have transported at least 300 pounds of grass and thin root latticework and soil in her van in sections to be placed together carefully above the blue plastic tarps protecting the floor, only to make us feel at home, or perhaps to shrewdly disarm Max's distress at the feminine invasion of our last private male road trip together. I chuckled softly thinking of Lana's naive good intentions with the grass, no doubt unaware of Max's spite against all vegetation since the regretful fate of his dorm room turned lawn.
12
"What's so freakin' funny?" he asked from the darkness, through the empty closet between us. I was silent for a long while, running my fingers through the cool grass, just barely moist from its last watering, and pulled a sheet from my waterbed down to me for warmth, because I knew I would sleep where I was for the night. "Where are we going, Max?" I asked softly, and as always when Max detected the doubt and sadness creeping into my voice, and could tell I was looking for conversation, his answers were strong and abrupt. "Find Kite," he said. He had no time to comfort or reassure, and there was not even the luxury of glory and drama to his reminder of our quest. His words were simply an unquestionable, unwavering fact. "Why?" I asked feebly, sad and weak of spirit for perhaps no reason, as I sometimes am, listening intently for my friend's voice, for some camaraderie, some compassion. He answered through the darkness with only the single word "Holy". I dreamt that night of endless fields of grass under a cloudless sky.
~ -CHAPTER FOURYO-YOS AND FIRE As it turned out, Mr. Kite was a student at Manerva University only three years ago. Assuming he still walked the earth, he would be a 25 year old college drop-out, as he managed to slip through the public's fingers towards the end of his junior year into a mysterious absence from which he has not yet emerged. He was rumored to have a fondness for yo-yos, and owned a monocle with a purple-tinted lens. The "yo-yo" is a common children’s toy. At Bald Monkey Estate it achieved the status of a religious icon along the lines of the cross, Star of David, yin-yang symbol, and the like. For this reason it was unheard of for the members of the Estate to be seen using the toy for its common purpose. The 13 ceremonial pink yo-yos on the estate were reserved for use only by the 13 specially appointed ceremonial “virgins� (who were far from it) in the chanting ceremonies such as the one Max and I found ourselves in the following night. "That's the girly," said Max, pointing to a certain young lady in a white silk gown amidst the pre-ceremonial bustle of people perfecting the atmosphere for the ensuing chant. Max refers to females as "girlies", with a tone suggesting that they are frivolous, trivial things to be 13
dismissed. It was difficult to catch a good look at her through the dim illumination of flickering candlelight, but as I was straining to make out her features she caught my gaze and flashed me a peace sign. Max had related to me a most peculiar encounter with her earlier in the day. It involved a cube of transparent soap in which was encased a small yellow rubber ducky, apparently designed to slowly liberate as one cleans oneself, thereby making bath time fun. Max had found the ducky-soap lying in one of the many showers in the spa down the hall from our rooms, and adopted it for his own. He kept it in the locker in the adjoining changing room, a locker which unfortunately he did not bother to lock or even keep closed. Perhaps he was proud of his soap and wanted it to be displayed. But one day Max was sad to notice it was missing. The soap had changed hands. Max spotted it beside the towel of the peace-sign flashing "girly", who was then in the shower and likely to soon reach out, grab it, and lather herself. This she did, though the reach was too far to avoid revealing the slightest cross-section of her unclothed and exceedingly healthy physique. This I know because I was there at the sinks washing the sticky residue of my breakfast orange from my hands, and a pair of facing bathroom mirrors offered a convenient path of reflection by which I could not help but observe. Truly, a lovely creature in that ripe stage of blossoming into womanhood. Until the moment of the shower curtain unveiling, Max was making a direct and swift line for the ducky-soap, but his libido then stopped him in his tracks and sent him receding to a deeper and more cunning state of mind. Max is my friend. I know him well; I have observed the transformation more than once. Something primal awakens. Ancient instincts writhe anew. Faintly through the muggy shower room wafts the scent of the prey. "Where's my fuckin' ducky?" asked Max. Max rarely uses profanity. He attempts it on occasion and he fails. As I overheard the exchange I smiled and shook my head restraining the urge to run up and pat my friend on the shoulder for so, so obvious an attempt to make a little joke. Upon utterance of the profane word, Max's voice cracked like a schoolboy. In such attempts, Max's voice never fails to crack. It’s quite adorable to behold. The girly screamed, as per the usual in such abrupt disturbances from so vulnerable a state. It was more a startled shriek than a scream, but not the warmest response to a cute sexual advance. There was a remarkably loud and distinct echo and a painfully extended reverberation across the tiled walls of the shower room, and the soap in question was dropped in fright to bounce out of the shower in Max's direction. This was my cue to leave, which I was able to do unseen while Max awkwardly took up the ducky-soap and offered it to the girly from under the shower curtain. I closed the door and stayed near long enough to hear Max's whimper of "here you go," and the girly's nervous "It was my ducky anyway, dork." I had made precious little headway down the hall towards our rooms before Max caught up with me and began his supposed tale of glory. 14
" ‘Where's my fuckin' ducky’, I said to her, you know, the girly that swiped my duckysoap?" Max had apparently mastered the profanity and it now rolled easily off his tongue. I told him that I did not know her, which at the time I did not, though she was later to figure significantly in our quest and acquire a name. "Fuckin' ducky, eh? Yeah, well she thought it was funny when she leaned out to give it back to me in seducement." The appropriate term "seduction" was muttered, an irrelevant afterthought, as Max tapped a smoke out of his pack and took it with his lips. He coolly coincided the lighting of his silver Zippo with a glance of shared understanding and the phrase "healthy physique". "Of course, I let her have it," continued Max, the smoke tendrils wafting up around him to regenerate his womb of coolness. "The ducky-soap, that is." "You are kind," I managed with a nod, looking down at my feet as we neared our rooms. I was not sure if I couldn't look at him out of shame for his lies, or if it was so as to hide my smile at having witnessed the sole brief window of vulnerability in Max's life. With each passing innuendo, my offense at being lied to receded and my smile grew. A lie is always a sin only to a prude, and nothing sexual can be taken seriously. Max was using me as at times he must, to reform his icy shields, and I was glad to be of service. "Fuckin' ducky..." mused Max once more, as if savoring a brilliant chess move. His voice did not crack. Back to the chanting ceremony. "Hey, dork!" chirped the girly at Max with a smile of recognition as she wove her way toward us through the crowd. The gig was up. Max's alternate worlds were soon to collide and leave only the simple truth standing in the wreckage of their collision. I knew he had simply stolen the soap of and startled a possibly underaged naked chick in the shower. But as far as he knew he had successfully convinced me a river-nymph beauty had returned his prized soap in “seducement”. His facade breathed its last; his expression was one of almost noble resignation. “Feeling all scrubbed and squeaky clean?” she asked Max with a wink as if they were old friends. Max lit a cigarette as is the custom when blindfolded before a firing squad. But the chanting spirit was in the air and the overcrowded bustle of the underground chanting vault dampened conversation. I had to yell above the crowd to be heard asking the girly what she was carrying. She gave us a well-polished look of untold wonder and mystery. An alluring look, as she harbored mystical secrets of the Orient. Yet something prevented me from taking her seriously. It may have been her application of a few gallons of eyeliner and a quart or two of mascara, giving her the distinct likeness of a raccoon. It may have been her neon blue hair in pigtails or her attire, which, in addition to her bright white ceremonial gown, consisted of an abundance of shiny rainbow-colored plastic beads, and a necklace made of glowsticks, and clunky army boots. She held out her secret before us, a basketball-sized sphere of dark purple velvet, lined with golden strips of metal at its meridians and studded with golden bolts. She slowly opened the 15
mysterious sphere a sliver, revealing it to be two halves joined together at a golden hinge. There was darkness and something else within. Then she quickly snapped shut the mystery sphere and smiled wickedly at us, perhaps at Max especially, relishing her tease. She then giggled mischievously and slipped away into the swarm of chanters with her secret, leaving Max's exaggerations unexposed and our curiosity peaked. A hush was slowly dawning on the room as the ceremony fell into place. Max strained to follow sight of Mystery-Sphere Girly as we were ushered into one of the many chanting circles forming, but she was gone. She would find a place in our quest. And acquire a name.
~ Girls to the left of us and girls to the right of us. To our right sat our old acquaintance "Spacepants", garbed in her traditional war-paint and shark's teeth motif, and luckily for our curiousities as to the contents of the velvet mystery sphere, to the left of us sat Mystery Sphere Girly. I was sure that we had lost our young ducky liberating friend when she dissolved into the crowd, but she edged her way into our chanting circle at the last minute, mystery sphere in hand. Spacepants shot suggestive glances at Max. I rolled my eyes. The chanting seemed to have emerged out of the bustle before even the formal ceremony began. I simply notice a rhythm had tamed the bustle and the more voices accorded with it the more orderly our arrangement became. I was not sure what was happening in the chanting chamber. We were as unwilling participants in some form of cult synchronized swimming event, caught in a slowly shifting configurations we did not understand - a kaleidoscope of bodies and voices which ultimately resolved itself into groups of seven, in rings around the few white stone slabs on the black stone slab floor. I bobbed my head along with the rising force of the chant, but could not make out the words, save that it was a single phrase repeated again and again, echoing to grand effect with primo underground stone chamber acoustics. It was loud. "Down came the rain and washed the spider out!" These words I caught for sure, though they most certainly were not found on the lips of anyone other than the dreaded Spacepants, with her devious smile to Max revealing a secret irreverence for the event. Max is not unfond of irreverence. He smiled in return, but was met with a hard nudge from Mystery Sphere Girly, whose goofy innocence did not detract from the sincere reverence setting into her manner. The chant was on. It was not unlike the droning of a swarm of bees, drone drone, deep and intense with a queasy edge. I felt myself sinking into a syrupy trance, which I suppose is the object of the game, but which I could not allow. I fumbled for my "Journalist Stuff" notebook, reminded myself to change the title, and flipped to the last page. I took notes to return me to the thoughtful melancholy I sorely missed. I had given up hope of doing my part for the ceremony, and had receded deeply to the private world of my writing. I needed the familiarity of the pen in my hand. 16
Why does the droning so disquiet me? I thought for a moment I had caught a familiar couple words amidst the queasy rolling waves of the chant, but it was then lost to me and I returned to my book and my blue ink. My notes read as follows: -QUEST:
Find Kite.
-WHY:
Holy. (response courtesy of Max)
-BALD MONKEY ESTATE: Unfortunate sidetrack. Too freaky. Do not submit to freakiness, remain in perennial mild amusement. Bob head and mouth words but do not chant. Record phrases chanted as deciphered for later analysis. -MYSTERY SPHERE: ??? -LANA:
Such big eyes. Is she with Bald Monkey now? She has surpassed us on our own quest if the pilgrimage to Manerva was successful. How long did the grass take to be laid down? 10 hours? 20? Hopefully reunite with Lana at Manerva, ask for traces of Kite. Does Max know what he has?
There is rhythm even to the droning of bees. It is not a uniform sound, but comes in layers. Perhaps that is only a trick of the ears, finding order where there is none. The layers were falling into place, each circle of seven voices apparently with its own harmony, each ring a separate instrument. There were words and meaning somewhere in the drone. I mouthed along to the words of a catchy nursery rhyme which Spacepants was singing in parody and mocking of the event, if only to appear in service to my ring. "Out came the sun and dried up all the rain." A familiar tune, and a convenient ruse. I grasped at the threads of memory for the next verse. I did not go so far as to play out the hand gestures depicting the trials of the itsy-bitsy spider as did Spacepants. The rhyme was a cunning play at Max's war against formality, a shared irreverence which Mystery Sphere Girly did not like. Mystery Sphere Girly raised her mystery sphere above her head with an honor and sense of gravity which she flaunted in Spacepants' irreverent direction. Mystery Sphere Girly rose to her feet and carried the mystery sphere to the center of our ring. I looked around to indeed find a mystery sphere for each ring of seven, each carried by a beautiful young lady to the special white stone slabs. A phrase so familiar bobbed to the surface of the waves of the chant. So familiar, so elusive. The mystery sphere was set down on the white stone slab and the halves creaked open by young fingers. I caught the single phrase after a thousand repetitions. "Heart beats within a womb of laughter." The mystery was unveiled. Then Max lit a cigarette. I knew before even it touched his lips that we would regret it. Although I do not partake of tobacco myself, I have acquired a thorough understanding of the vice through my long association with Max. A cigarette is an informal thing. They are not for the squeaky cleanliness of hospitals or the gravity of courtrooms. For underground chanting chambers? A quasi-religious ceremony? A more difficult call, but most likely not. Max took the chance and I smiled at the stir it caused. Subtle ripples of distress registered around the burning 17
embers of cheap tobacco, first from around our ring of seven and later from foreign rings. Some of the elderly chanters stuttered and lost their rhythm only to quickly retrieve it. The distress of Mystery Sphere Girly was not so subtle. She turned to Max and scrunched up her nose at him in retaliation for tarnishing her ceremonial mystery sphere doings. The sphere was blossoming open in layers at the hands of the girly. The creaking apart of the two velvet halves was enough to alight my curiosity and rivet my attention. This was, however, merely a tease. Within the velvet outer shell was a layer of burlap, bunched up and heaped over the bulge of something deeper within, in the center. Rough, rugged burlap with the weave not uniform but wavy and misshapen as if stretched out and frayed in places and with loose threads bristling free from the fabric. This burlap was not the light brown of the potato sack variety, but apparently had been dyed a dark purple to match the outside surface. I was beginning to discern the chant. It put the strange old lines of verse that were the prologue chant to The Garden of Flowers to a primal beat. A slow, steady, electronically synthesized drum beat could be heard from large speakers mounted to the walls, each deep base beat resonating slowly to silence before the next. Spacepants bared her teeth in a mock she-wolf snarl to Mystery Sphere Girly to defend her darling Max from the prudish distaste for his vice. Another nose-scrunch was shot to Spacepants in return, then business was returned to and the burlap was unveiled. The drum beat quickened. The chant was changing as well, though my desire to decipher the words was waning with the growing pull of the trance, always lurking beneath the waterline, eager to swallow me up. This was hardly dignified. I recalled moments from long ago, in our old beloved Abbott College coffee shop, when The Garden of Flowers chant was read not fervently in booming stereo but in softer tones, by Lana with her pretty lilting laugh. Then too the words tickled some deep faculty of mind alien to me and I would lose track of time and return to myself an hour later, revived, reborn. I suppose then I was more tempted by surrender; Lana was a gentle orator. "Heart beats within a womb of laughter." That line brought back memories, brought me back to lazy college days and skipping class to care for other studies. Hot afternoons laying in the tall grass carpet of Max's dorm room with friends like a pack of lions in our endless African grassland. Times when I thought even that I might understand the book and not worship our missing cult leader/author Mr. Kite from afar, but nod my head in grateful togetherness of insight and say, "ah yes, of course, heart does beat within a womb of laughter." But where have our friends gone to now? I can't say even if they remember. And understanding the book came only with luck and with thoughts from a deeper place in my mind on which my hold is too, too feeble. Especially at Bald Monkey Estate. As the burlap was lifted to reveal another veil beneath, the synthetic drum beats quickened further and a new line emerged from the broiling sea of voices. Too, too many voices. "Laughter is a divine symbiote." Spacepants took the cigarette from Max's lips and breathed its smoke into her own lungs, and passed it back. Her hands in fishnet gloves and rings of gold and bone and long red nails made the itsy-bitsy spider climb up the waterspout. The deepest veil was of purple silk. Sometimes I am at a loss to recall the profound and the poignant in the lines of this old book. The chant was speeding up, becoming feverish. At times even when I could decipher the lines of verse through 18
the boom of the electronic drum, it made no more sense than gibberish. The silk was lifted with two pale, delicate fingers. Another line from the pen of the holy man - "World can be forgotten." Beneath the silk was a bright pink yo-yo. By the time of the yo-yo unveiling, a quiet old man towards the other side of the chanting ring could hold his peace no longer. I had been keeping my eye on him as he was a sketchy character, scruffy and in ripped camouflage and leather and with eyes like cold steady lasers in Max's direction. The ruffian had become increasingly agitated with Max's smoking and general foolishness over the course of the chant, especially his flirtation with Spacepants. I hoped that he was not Spacepants' overprotective and violent father. He was too old and scrawny to be her significant other, especially with his rugged militia fashion sense clashing with her glamorous Caribbean island-dominatrix style. Most likely he was a frustrated admirer of the voodoo maid from afar, his simmering bitterness at her rejection turned to scorn of Max. Either he was waiting for the culmination of the ceremony with the yo-yo exposed, or Max's use of the itsy-bitsy spider hand gestures threw him over the edge, but finally he got up from his place in our ring and came to squeeze in between Max and I, making an uncomfortably tight fit for both of us and bringing with him an unidentified sour odor. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and the better part of his forearm before putting it around Max's shoulder in a most definitely sarcastic camaraderie. "G’day, mate," he began in a dialect that was almost illegible due to his thick Australian accent, his drunken slur, or some combination of the two. "By crikey I think you've got the idea of Kite all wrong. Why don't we see if I can help you out here, shall we mate?" It was rare to hear the name "Kite" used without the appropriate title of respect beforehand, and it disturbed me to hear this man speak so informally. The man ruffled through a disorderly collection of string, gum wrappers, proofs of purchase, and whatnot spilling out from his coat pockets to produce a small pamphlet. There was one thing about the man that I will never forget - he had a tattoo of a barcode on the middle of his forehead. "Here we go now - holy words from a holy man, right here." The pamphlet appeared to be a homemade and miserably poor reproduction of the sacred original, photocopied and stapled together, with a ring of flowers on the front drawn messily in pencil. Above the crude illustration was the title The Garden of Flowers. My heart sank. The attempt at counterfeit was abysmal, pathetic. "These are holy words," mumbled the ruffian, his mock camaraderie fading to deadly seriousness, "and holy words are to be respected, mate." With that last admonition the man snatched the dredges of the cigarette from Max's lips and knelt down to rub it out on the cold stone floor. "Try some reverence, tyke!" commanded the man, opening the sad little pamphlet and thrusting it at Max, who was intended to read along from it as he chanted. Then the man got up and walked to his rightful place, where he slumped down, satisfied with his manhood. Max has a sharp tongue but is not much for fighting. That would require more confidence from him and less self-pity. But where women are concerned, he would like to maintain at least a pretense of
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dignity, and this rowdy drunken troglodyte had just humiliated him in front of not one, but two of our feminine friends. It was a rare moment when Spacepants and Mystery Sphere Girly could both be united, one on either side of Max and comforting him with fairly pure hearts and no jealousy, some maternal instinct calming their opposing forces. But Max was not soothed by Mystery Sphere Girly's gentle caress of his hair, nor by the haven of Spacepants' bosom, which was offered perhaps too freely. This would be too easy. Max looked up through the swarm of feminine solace toward the degenerate confronting him and, instead of reading along from the sad pamphlet, he sparked off his silver Zippo and lit it aflame. If the cigarette caused a stir, the writhing creature of flame which was once the praised holy book caused a stir indeed. The chanting, which had been ebbing slowly away from the yo-yo crescendo, stopped altogether. Mystery Sphere Girly took frantic action, running back to her precious sphere and quickly swaddling the toy in its many veils, as if to shield a little baby from a macabre sight. The girly was fast, but not fast enough to finish before she was stopped with a tap on the shoulder the tap of Old Bookstore Man, master of ceremonies. Old Bookstore Man was not mad. His eyes were filled with tears. He did not accuse the girly of allowing the ceremony to be defiled but looked to her with aching disappointment and a silent plea to explain what had occurred. The smoldering pamphlet was writhing gently on the cold stone floor under the last of the flame's dance. The girly could not look our kindly, if senile, old host in the eyes, so rested her gaze on the ashes at our feet. In the brief moments before the ensuing chaos, I took a good look at Max and found in him no regret, but instead a vast calm. As he raised the flame up to the pages, he let go a heaving sigh, and I like to imagine he was making some kind of peace with the book we have so long cherished. Can I read so much into a sigh as to think that Max found some deeper level of appreciation for Mr. Kite even as he set the strange old words to flame? Perhaps not. In any case, no such insight saved us from the roar of rioting chanters, aiming most of their fury not on Max himself, but on our nemesis of the smoldering pamphlet, who for some lucky reason was thought to blame for the fire. At least in the whirlwind of bodies and voices, Max grabbed the back of Spacepants' neck and pulled her valiantly towards him for a stolen kiss, and then swung Mystery Sphere Girly over his shoulder from amidst a rumble which she was unlikely to withstand. We were off. Looking back, I still can find no explanation as to why Mystery Sphere Girly agreed to escape from the insanity of Bald Monkey Estate and take her place in the back seat of our van, ready for adventure. The engine was revved up, in anticipation of Manerva University. "Max," I asked, still somewhat discombobulated from the chanters' riot. "Yes, Sachmo?" answered my friend between drags on his celebration-of-freedom cigarette. "Why did you give Spacepants that name?" Max took another few drags as I waited. "Because her ass is out of this world." We drove off. 20
~ -CHAPTER FIVETHE RECORDS OF MYSTERY-SPHERE GIRLY What follows are the records kept in a small red diary with a silver lock that was left unlocked. The diary of Mystery Sphere Girly. Max had procured it from amongst the absurdly growing mass of clutter in my old van and read it aloud to me as we drove through the night, with Mystery Sphere Girly asleep in in the back all the while. It began as a joke, with laughter and giddiness on Max's part, due in part to his fondness for deviance from propriety and in part due to our few days on the road nonstop, sleeping and driving in shifts and its accompanying insanity. As Max was at first all giggles and lighthearted mischief, I didn’t think much of the trespass of privacy. After all, we did not even know our young traveling companion's name real name at this point. Max had taken to calling her “M.S.G.” for short as a nickname. But the fact that she was still mostly a stranger to us was no excuse to invade her privacy, and if it seems I shirk an apology, in hindsight I do admit my regret. We did not know what we would find, and it turned out to be very personal indeed. Yet I transcribe the records here, because this journal is my only solace and it comforts me and is my shield from the loneliness; I will hide nothing from it. And so the diarySeptember 14th, 1993: Hello new diary! Since this is my first entry I’ll start by describing myself. I’m a fun-loving, drop-dead gorgeous girl with a spirit of adventure, destined for fame and fortune. I have a natural sense for fashion and I carry myself with grace and elegance. I basically just hang around being rich and following the words of Mr. Kite like we all do here at Bald Monkey Estate. It’s been a day like any other. Some tennis, shrimp and scallops for lunch, lounging around the 21
spa, and getting my toenails painted. Then a chanting ceremony tonight and maybe some martinis with the girls and dancing at the club later if there’s a good DJ. By the way, a glowing orb with wings often flies around my head, zipping around in circles so fast it must look like I have a halo. Her name is Kali. Kali is a fairy. When she’s not flying around she’ll take a snooze in my backpack. I have one of those stylish little backpacks the size of a small purse, made of nice red leather, very pretty. Fashion is important! Bald Monkey said I dress like I was walking by a Crayola factory when it exploded. He cannot hurt my feelings. I am a strong woman with self-respect. I am a woman who knows secrets. Kali tells me secrets. She shares things with me. But not in words. It’s more like I can hear her think- like our minds are linked up somehow. Fairy Telepathy I guess. Kali is so cool and magical! She is inside my backpack right now, amongst my clutter of paints and brushes, fluttering her wings. She always flutters her wings. I can feel the vibration on my back like she’s purring.
Septemeber 15th, 1993: Kali speaks to me in her so, so faint chirpy voice. So cute. You can barely hear fairies, they’re so quiet. Most people can’t hear them at all, let alone see them. Sometimes she’ll be circling my head and I’ll hear the faintest cry of "Hey, listen!" How many times have I heard her words "Hey, listen!" in her cute faint fairy chirp? So many. When I do I stop whatever I’m doing and listen and she flies down and perches like a parrot on a pirate and whispers in my ear. She tells me secrets. I try to respond but communicating to her is difficult. It is purely receptive on my part, not like I can ask her questions or hold a conversation. So I just listen and do whatever she tells me to, which so far has always turned out to be the right thing to do, like she can see the future or something. I trust her completely. It’s like having a guardian angel, I suppose. In return for her impeccable guidance I 22
feed her. She’s very picky and won’t eat anything if it’s not fresh fruit. Grapes are her favorite.
Septemeber 20th, 1993 When I first met Kali I tried really hard to talk to her, to get her to tell me where she came from and get directions to the Fairy Realm, where I would relocate to without a second thought and never look back. No such luck. She is not interested in my words, only my ears. I have no magic secrets to tell her anyway, the way she reveals things and prophesizes for me. But she stays with me. She will never leave me, we are best friends forever. Kali tells me stories to help me fall asleep, especially when I wake up scared in the middle of the night, because I have a lot of nightmares. Mostly she tells me about her Fairy Realm. Her home is she calls The Ecology. The Hierarchy is how different species of nonphysical entities have different dimensions of the Ecology that they inhabit. Yep, there are other entities which live in even higher realms than Kali, such as the Elves, who govern the Fairies and are sometimes called The Elves of the Fourth House, and the One True Alien who is the Queen that the Elves serve, and others we don’t know about. I’ll describe just how the Hierarchy works, as I understand it. See, of all the species we are but one. While humans are higher beings than plants and animals, there are beings higher than us. Non-physical beings that know more than we do and are ethically superior. But they are not ghosts or the souls of dead people. There are different kinds of these beings and their different habitats are what forms the Ecology and the Hierarchy. It goes like this- plants, animals, humans, Fairies, Elves, different kinds of aliens, and then the One True Alien. Communication between the different levels is really hard. Only very special humans can see Fairies, let alone hear them talk like I can. It’s very rare, but possible to communicate with beings one level higher. I’m living proof of that. But you can’t skip levels. So you can’t see or 23
talk to the Elves directly. But there are these curious things that act as interpreters and translate between the different levels. They are called Astral Jellyfish. The One Queen keeps thousands of Astral Jellyfish as pets, or her “familiars”. They can be sent downstream, down the Hierarchy, and trained to return like salmon swimming upstream or like messenger pigeons. The Astral Jellyfish are like the Queen’s Royal Delegates, diplomats that can be sent down to the Elves, the Fairies, or even all the way downstream to us humans. They plug into an invisible power outlet that all humans have on the back of their necks. But I’m special because I can hear and understand Fairy-Language directly from Kali, without the Jellyfish latched on to put me into trance and translate for me. This means I can understand and remember the messages much better than most people. She communicates the Will of the Elves to me in some kind of telepathy which I believe is a gift I am blessed with, and I will always do the Will of the Elves, nomatter what. Since the Fairies serve them, so shall I. I sure wish I could just teleport to Kali’s fairy dimension once and for all. For some reason I think I was supposed to have been born there. Maybe that’s why Kali came to me, cuz I was a fairy in a past life…? Anyways, I gotta get out of this place somehow. Even with all the distractions, the Estate has gotten so fucking boring lately. I’ve been thinking I need to go out and see the world. Kali would come with me of course. She could fly away at any time- fly, fly away back to her Fairy Realm, but she does not. Kali can hardly be seen inside the bright glow that glows from her, so she looks like a glowing orb with dragonfly wings that extend all fluttery beyond her glow, but she can fly faster than a hummingbird so her glow leaves a trail like a comet. Sometimes in a whole ring like a halo. When I cannot see her glow overhead I can feel the subtle vibration of her flutter from within my very expensive and stylish red leather backpack and I know she is taking a nap. Even when 24
she sleeps her wings flutter, flutter like a cat purring. It’s comforting. October 17th, 1993 Sorry I haven’t written in a while, diary, but finally I have some action to report to you! My life has been just about turned upside down! There were these two guys who came to the Estate and they messed up our chanting ceremony really bad and then I left to go on a road-trip with them! They think they’re gonna find Mr. Kite and I don’t have the heart to tell them it ain’t gonna happen. Impossible, I say. I’ll just let them think they have a chance so I can ride along with them and get some wind in my hair finally. Now that I think about it I haven’t been outside Bald Monkey Estate in over a year. Most people who come to the Estate never leave. It’s a pretty tight-knit community, you could say. Ok, so it’s a cult. I can’t even hardly believe I left! I feel like I broke free from something that used to be my whole world, and now look at me, on the road again! But I don't have a sword yet. That’s imperative to acquire. I think I’d like a katana. No Egyptian warrior princess leaves her cult without a katana. But for that I need money. How the heck do you make money? It’s not gonna be easy after having everything you could ever need all supplied for free, like at the Estate. But I think being on the road adventuring now is even better. Well, diary, it’s not often I have adventurous tales to write about. But things feel different now. There’s no turning back. Kali, if you’re reading this, let’s sale off into the horizon together baby! Of course, even though I keep this diary in my backpack along with you and my paints, I guess you wouldn’t snoop, so nevermind. Yeah, I guess you could read this whenever you wanted, but you wouldn’t, because only a horrible, loathesome person would do something like read someone else’s diary…
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[Interjection from Sachmo, myself- This last entry was the last one read by Max in whispered jest, with laughter barely restrained so as not to awaken our sleeping beauty. As he progressed his voice slowed and became more serious, with breaks to light a cigarette and shoot me raised-eyebow glances, perhaps in hope of an admonition to stop reading. I gave no such admonition. By this point curiosity had gotten the better of me. Plus, I told myself, there may be information which I had a responsibility to gather for the success of our quest. Clues. The entries were certainly… revealing. And a bit disturbing. This chick was clearly fixated on her fairy game. Did she ever write about anything else? Surely she couldn’t believe this stuff! She gave no outward impression of being mentally unstable or deranged. Maybe a bit spacey and eccentric. She certainly dressed weird. I mean who wears frilly dresses and clunky army boots? But listening to Max read, I had the uncomfortable suspicion that someone who believed this stuff might just axe-murder you in your sleep, and she was lurking in the shadows just behind me. But I listened on, and even transcribed these entries here, praying she would not awake before I finished. Read on if you wish, reader, as we did. I have no chastisement for you. If you turn your eyes you are nobler than we…]
October 22nd, 1993 I have a story to tell. One day, a long time ago, Kali flew out of my backpack and she had paint on her. My paint got on her, on her waist and her wings, and on her legs. Oil paint, very sticky and thick, because I was not careful to screw the caps on the tubes. This paint no doubt had lead or other harmful chemicals in it. It was my fault, Kali. I'm so sorry, Kali. I could tell she was hurt because the paint stopped her glow, which had never happened before. Kali's glow couldn't get through the paint, so it was the first time I could clearly see her body and face. She looked so naked and fragile without her glow, her tiny body was visible and the blue oil paint all smeared on her. She was whimpering in her chirpy voice and flopping around. I was scared; I get nervous just writing about it. At first I thought the splotches of blue on her were her blood, since for all I know fairy blood might be blue. Then I realized the blue was my
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oil paint on her. Some was on her wings and she couldn't flutter right. I was so scared. Instead of fluttering she made a hurt sound like it was almost a flutter but not quite because the paint was too heavy. Like: "flutter, flutter, thwump, flutter, thwump". It was sad because I could tell she was trying to do her neat purring flutter, but she couldn't do it. Also she was heavier than usual and when she could lift into the air a few inches off my palm, she sagged and floated down like she couldn't stay up. I was so sorry I cried when I realized it was my fault. It still makes me feel bad, like I'm not such a good person, or I'm not a strong woman. Just a stupid, silly girl. I don't keep my possessions ordered enough. I'm not so careful. Kind of clumsy, kind of flakey. I probably don't even deserve to have Kali. Do I deserve you Kali? I had to help Kali, and actually touch her to get the paint off her, and she let me. But I could tell she was scared to be touched, I guess because fairies aren't supposed to touch anything. And it was like touching a butterfly when I plucked her out of the air, and sparkling dust came off her. She was real cold! I didn't expect that. But it wasn't cold like ice; it was a weird tingly cold like her dust tingled and got under my skin and made me numb. I could even feel it seeping down to my wrists and arms like frostbite. But I didn't mind that. At first I tried to clean her with snow. The snow didn't work though, because it turns to water, and water and oil don't mix, so snow doesn't get oil paint off. And she kind of whimpered in a real sweet, faint voice like it hurt her but she was trying to be tough. It broke my heart, I cried real hard. Then I got an idea and I ran with Kali to the groundskeepersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; tool shed. I got just a little paint thinner on my hand, and rubbed it on her. It hurt her pretty bad. I bet it stung you all over and especially on your fragile wings, Kali. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m so sorry. But it washed away most of the paint and then I held you carefully under water from a
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hose and after a while you seemed better. I'm so sorry, friend. My only friend. I love you. God, if Kali died I would probably die too. But Kali is better now, and in my cute backpack right now, and all my tubes of paint have their caps on real tight, and they are all wrapped in cellophane and tied up with rubber bands so even the fumes can't get to her. I can tell she forgave me because she still encourages me to paint. She always tells me how she likes my paintings. They are mostly all of her anyway. I love you Kali!
~ -CHAPTER SIXANOTHER GREASY DINER M.S.G. was gone, having wandered away after the last unnecessarily loud and prolonged slurp through the straw of her strawberry milkshake. She must have become bored with Max's caffeine-enhanced philosophizing. I thought I had seen her betting on pinball games with the local diner riff-raff, but the crowds had gone home for the night. Was she out in the backseat of our absurdly cluttered van, dreamily writing another sanity-questionable diary entry before slipping safely to sleep? Or did she relinquish her body to a greasy trucker as payment for a pinball game gone awry? A pang of almost fatherly concern shot through me. Why did I feel responsible for this female? She was 18 years old at the time, (as we learned to Maxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relief) and not as innocent as she would like people to think. She was one of those young women who use puppy-dog eyes too often and to their calculating advantage, as a thin and never fully convincing veneer. Her adulthood could not even be hidden even poorly for much longer beneath her blue hair and bubble gum and ever-present wide-eyed gaze of supposed wonder. She clung too desperately to her veils of cuteness and it gave her the sense that a deeper side was hidden within. I stepped out into the dark and drizzle of the night and made my way to our van, which was empty. I paused in my search to lean against a phone booth and gaze into the reflections of neon signs in the puddles as they shimmered in the faintest of rains. It was cold and the cold and dark were good and the sleaze and warmth of the diner nearby was good. It was a night of 28
strange feeling for me; the exquisite loneliness in the air which comes for me at times was close. My sadness comes like an angel, a relief. A loneliness that is like being wrapped in cool silk, sensual, and with an aching of my heart that makes me want to write. That diner could have been any diner. I was sad and at peace and leaning against the phone booth. I could think and remember my special thoughts. I will always remember those raindrops; they were so very small. I heard the laughter of our friend from around the back of the diner. I walked slowly to her and found her playing alone in the timid rain which was like mist more than rain. And she did not see me watch her. I watched her play alone with joy, with a white feather that she took the greatest care in tossing about and catching when it drifted slowly down to her. She laughed and talked to the feather in the voice of play, talking for no reason and making up words and giggling. It was a game for one and I stepped back to watch in cover of darkness. It was painful somehow to see her so content with her own little game, laughing so sweetly, next to an old wet dumpster, and with me the voyeur to pop the little bubble of play from the outside. It was a game for one. I realized now how I could never, never join her and laugh as she did then and I felt that I had failed. She was beautiful, tragic, and perhaps insane. Coincidentally, those are the three qualities I look for in a girl. You see, I like my women shell-shocked, just like me. But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a story for another day, or perhaps not at all. Did she actually believe the feather was her little fairy friend? "Yes, Kali, come down here to play with your pretty friend!" She waved to the feather to fly down and it complied with its lazy zig-zag drift. "Oh, thank you my sweet little fairy," she giggled. "Don't worry, I won't put you back in my little red backpack just yet, we can play â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;til the boys are done with their meal and come get us." And for this next part she held the feather close to her lips and whispered, "But remember to never fly our when the others are around. Don't let them see you, they just wouldn't understand how we love each other." And she gave the soft white feather a gentle kiss and threw it back into the air with a laugh. "Do you like our new friends, Kali?" she asked with her arms outstretched to catch her pretend fairy once more. "I think that Max thinks he's tough, but he's kind of a dork, isn't he? Tee-hee!" At this I could restrain my laughter only because I was beginning to think that M.S.G. was not so right in the head. I wanted to embrace her and take her away from the old rusted dumpster and give her my sweater so she would not be cold in her frilly pink dress, or just help her out somehow. But to interrupt would be inexcusable, like dropping one of those glass spheres that are shaken so snowflakes can float down on a perfect little world within, which is just what she carried around in her head- a perfect little world. A world populated by Elves, Fairies, and Jellyfish, but whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to say not a better world than this one? She really believed she had a fairy. And she loved her fairy-feather with all her heart, and I could no longer laugh at her crazy diary because she was lonely too perhaps and she took some friendship somehow, however she could, even if from an imaginary friend. I would not shatter her fragile bubble of play. But she saw me.
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"That other one has the heart of a poet, though!" she was saying, in reference to me, when she caught my gaze and her innocence bled from her face all at once, because I was there to steal her pretend world even as I wished to be in it with her. And her expression fell so quickly, as if one girl were made to face all the hollowness of all the world, because of me. And at first she took her feather in her hands as if to hide it, to hide Kali from me, but it was too late and she just let her feather fall to the wet pavement and she cried, and I hugged her though it couldn't do any good. Looking back, I should have pieced together the simple facts- this chick was severely traumatized, she was a tragic beauty, and I was in love. The rain was like mist.
~
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PART TWO AT MANERVA
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-CHAPTER SEVENA COZY HOME "Chrissy, get up!" Mystery Sphere Girly's real name was Chrissy. That was just one of the things we figured out on the long drive to Manerva University. We had finally arrived at some time after midnight with big fluffy snowflakes beginning to fall outside and no place to sleep on campus. Chrissy was swaddled in blankets and clutter in the back of our van and had no intentions of waking up. I have been writing this humble tale in blue ink for a long while now. It is time for a change. I am weary. As you have perhaps noticed, Reader, I have so far done my best to invoke a pleasant, conversational tone with which to convey the events that have befallen Max and I on our travels prior to our arrival at Manerva. These events have for the most part been a pleasure to recall and I have enjoyed reliving them from a safe distance, with almost two years having past since Max kissed the crumbly brick wall goodbye. I have enjoyed writing by the light of a candle, nestled awake in the absurd clutter of our van while my traveling companions slept. I have enjoyed envisioning our story in the hands of another soul like myself (I hope it is you, dear reader), who can empathize with the peculiar nature of the forthcoming drama. In that case, I feel that I should apologize. From this point on, we are walking on weird ground. Things become difficult to remember. Difficult to remember sequentially, that is, and very difficult in respect to logic or believability. I do not look forward to having to relive certain memories. I am indeed weary. Some images leap to me with great urgency even while I do my best to suppress them. There was the large, jagged shard of a broken mirror, sure to haunt me to the grave. Others I am happy to carry with me even unto my own deathbed of moss. Such was the mingled odor of cigar smoke and whiskey, which inevitably signaled a meeting with Bald Monkey. Chrissy was just checking the door of the campus dining hall to see if it was unlocked and if we could steal some cereal. It was locked, but a window was not. Chrissy commenced a precarious ninja maneuver. As she held the window open with one hand and balanced with her shins on the windowsill, she heard a warm chuckling from the dark of night behind her. "Who's there?" gasped Chrissy, startled by the chuckling in the darkness. "An old friend," answered Bald Monkey. And from that moment on we have never been the same. As Chrissy would explain often, the moment she caught Bald Monkeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gaze some unearthly amber light glimmered in his eyes and she felt as if she were struck by lightning, enraptured, spellbound by some strange magic perhaps passed down to Bald Monkey from Mr. Kite himself. She went completely limp and felt a huge tidal wave of catharsis wash through her soul, causing
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her to sob uncontrollably. And Bald Monkey took her in his arms as she wept and he whispered "Poor little flower" to her and kissed her on the forehead. She said she immediately saw the whole path of her life and ours- past and future all at once. Though we asked her relentlessly what Fate had in store for us and if our quest would be successful, she would never say. She would only remain silent, smile faintly and mysteriously, gazing far away as if into a distant horizon, and sigh. As this unruly piece of writing forms slowly into a whole in my head, I suppose what has come before has been merely an introduction of sorts all along. Perhaps it is nearly time for Max and I and Chrissy and Lana with such wide eyes, soon to arrive, to step aside and pass this tale along to its more rightful heroes …But no, I suppose there is much more to be told of us “side characters” as well; I will record every detail. Yet know that we all and all our cares are merely on the fringe of a different story. The story of a small group of young men and women. The colorful students of Manerva who were here when the Holy One was in attendance and are the carriers of the Legacy to this day. A society. The exact number that composed them was seven. But just who composed this “core” group was never entirely clear. Of the seven core members, most of these were in flux, each one being replaced by a new initiate when they left. There were ex-members who would return, prospective members in training, those who would attempt and inevitably fail to infiltrate the group, and later the girlfriends of members hanging about. Some members were less public and more mysterious than others. Some were never once seen or heard from, merely rumored to exist at all. Some were lost and have not yet reappeared. I cannot even relate to you most of their names. It was a secret society. We first became aware of the existence of the Society in a crowded dorm room in the allfemale dorm in which we were being harbored illegally. We were not even in attendance of the college, let alone female. Unfortunately, our stay as fugitives from college regulations was cut short, but our brief stay was very eventful. Each of us had a poem. A poem of our very own. This makes me happy because it links Max and I and our crowd with the true core members of the Secret Society. Something odd is afoot in the realm of language. The van in which I write these words is so damned cluttered. Absurdly cluttered. It would be impossible to separate the useless clutter that accumulates in our van from our actual belongings, let alone keep our belongings organized and net. And Max with his cigarette smoke always overpowering the incense I have taken to lighting as I settle into the clutter to write these words. At least he knows my habits well enough not to disturb me and merely awakens in the night to smoke a cigarette and then return to sleep while I continue to record the events of the day. I often ask myself why this strange limerick language has chosen us in our grunge and folly to make its appearance. Was there an actual gate out there somewhere in the woods, or was it metaphorical? I always picture an immense stone gate having been eroded by wind and rain 33
long enough to look rough-hewn and be sandpapery to the touch and entwined in vines. Perhaps carved of stone of deep blue or shining emerald. Or perhaps jet black. A darkest black would be fitting. There was most definitely a path which Max and I had the honor of following at a good distance behind the Society on their single most complete descent into the mystery and madness. Max and I are no Native American trackers, and the Society was surely aware of being followed, but they allowed us to continue in their footsteps without a fight, as if they had planned it all along. The path was not much of a path, in any case, as it petered out into the dark and lush legion of woods known as "Moss Hollow Haven". There is a curious form of language which became manifest in the voice of a number of us, at certain moments over the course of our association with the Secret Society. After discussing the first few appearances of this phenomena with Max and Chrissy, we were able to recognize the occurrence as it began to slither into the speech patterns of the unsuspecting recipient. It reminds me somewhat of the poetic form of a limerick, but of a darker and more ancient character. Speaking in tongues is a bizarre religious, spiritual, or perhaps paranormal tradition that has been around for a long time. As is possession. We eventually had to arrive at the conclusion of some mysterious latent faculty of the mind was being activated in us in an abrupt, sporadic manner. The awakening of this faculty had some connection to a Manerva University tradition remaining from the time Mr. Kite was in attendance, which is still practiced to this day. A ritual. We had been on campus for three days, becoming further entwined in the lives of our three hostesses, until Lana made her appearance. I simply heard a sweet, lilting "Hi Sachmo," as I heard so many times from the old Abbott College days. Lana- ever casual, as if not a day had passed. She was swinging on an old swing besides the path to the school library and intoning a most curious nursery rhyme. Charms abound. Little rhymes which mean nearly nothing, heard as if sung by invisible beings of melody, humor, and magic. The students of Manerva University are fond of reciting these rhymes from time to time. Let us just say that now and again something slips in on the wind. Perhaps the most appropriate way I can introduce The Secret Sacred Society is to record as best I can remember the strange charm which Lana was singing as she swung on the swing. It goes like this-
ABSURD CLUTTERWe seven are splayed about in this van amidst the absurd clutter and we will never clean it up. 34
We will clean it up never. But in our best moments we are bonded together. Naked in our souls, up high in a ring of seven we are bonded forever and we will never be apart. Wouldn't it be a pleasure if we were always together up high in this ring of seven that could never sever instead of splayed about in the clutter of this van we can never clean out.
The branches of the trees, They interweave We form a ring of seven, If you will believe. The ring of seven gathers In the Dark, Dark Woods Round a fire, hot Where by the wind Through the writhing branches of the trees Of the Dark, Dark Woods are the secrets taught.
~ 35
“Weird, huh?” asked Lana as she hopped off the swing and walked up to give me a reunion hug. "Anyways, wanna meet some cool friends of mine?" she asked. “Lead the way.” I said, and we were off…
~ -CHAPTER EIGHTROOM 13 So I followed Lana across campus as she bragged about her close ties to Bald Monkey, and how he had promised her a position as Dance Instructor at Bald Monkey Estate, and how he had introduced her to her new "cool friends". I followed her to the all-female dorm. "Good grief," I thought as she walked down the hall to Room 13 - our room. Not only did Lana arrive at Manerva first, but Bald Monkey had evidently directed her to the same three girls as he had pointed us in the direction of. Little did Lana know, but Max and Chrissy and I had made quite the acquaintance with the denizens of Room 13. I thought it prudent, for Max’s sake, not to mention this. "Whassup, girlfriend!" called out one of our hostesses as Lana entered the little room. Good grief, indeed. Lana was special, but always one step ahead of us, and likely to cause trouble somehow, because it was all just fun and games to her. She just didn't have the questing spirit that the male members of our party did. The girls were on a circle on the floor drinking some girly alcoholic beverages and giggling. Lana tried to introduce me to the gossip circle as she grabbed a tall glass for herself, but I was looking for an excuse to escape. Such gatherings were more Max's department, but too much giddy femininity always made me uneasy, nor am I much of a drinker, although it seemed to be as much of an extracurricular activity at Manerva as it was at Abbott College. "Oh, we know Sachmo," one of the girls assured Lana. "We've been keeping him on sleeping bag on our floor for the past couple nights with his two friends. We think he's a little scared of us though." They giggled in unison. "Hey Sach’, where's your friend Maxwell?" "Uh, I think he's looking for leads with Chrissy." I said as Lana gave me the raised eyebrow of doom. The cat was out of the bag. Lana now knew that me and Max had been inhabiting this this very storm of estrogen which I had allowed her to think she was introducing me to for the first time. I didn’t blame her for her suspicion that Max had succumbed to temptation. That’s what Max does. Also, there was definitely a competitive spirit developing 36
when it came to sleuthing skills, with Max and I on one side, and Lana (later joined by Chrissy) on the other. The fact that we had met up with the females of room 13 as Lana had meant we were hot on the trail and closing in her lead. "Ooooh, big detectives!" taunted the girls. More giggling. "How come you guys never asked us about Mr. Kite, huh? You think 'cause we're freshmen we don't know the story?" I was not in the mood to discuss our missing holy man in this context, but there was something curious about Bald Monkey leading Lana to the same place as Max and Chrissy and I, towards Room 13. "Listen to these chicks, Sachmo," advised Lana knowingly between sips of her pinia colada. "They're not the most popular girls in this place for nothing." I was feeling out of the loop already, and seeing no way to avoid sitting down in their circle without seeming rude, I sat down. "So what do you know?" I asked. "Just the facts, ladies," is what I was thinking, but doubted I was cool enough to pull off the role of a real detective. "We know things!" exclaimed the one named Scarlet, a little too loudly. She was a bit of a lush and had been intoxicated most of the times I had seen her. Unbeknownst to her, she was known to some as “Scarlet the Harlot”. "Secret things!" added another. They were enjoying this. "You're talking about that club, right?" asked Lana. "What did you call it? The Invisible Committee? The Underground Agency? The Secret..." "Shut yo' mouth, girl!" interrupted one of them, "My man would kill me if he knew I was talkin' about this stuff." My interest was piqued. "Blah," said Scarlet, rolling her eyes. "Those boys just wanna feel like gangsters in their little clique, actin' like they're all that, and they're like 'We’re magic, we knew Mr. Kite, we have the key to reality, blah, blah...'" She said the word "reality" with extreme sarcasm. "Go on and tell him. We can trust Sachmo, right Sach’?" "Yes," I agreed. I dislike nicknames. "Well," continued another one of them in an overly dramatic, hushed voice, "the reason we are so damned popular is not just our good looks. Our boyfriends are in deep shit in this school. Not everyone knows this, but these boys are causing a lot of fuss, and this is only the beginning. They told us you’d be coming." She pointed at the quieter, less flashy one"Remember? You’re man told us that. Just before he abandoned the Legacy last summer, didn’t he? "He didn’t abandon the Legacy." the Quiet One said, but she seemed unsure. But yeah, he kept saying “In October four will come to follow us to The Cabin, but they will become the leaders.” A chill ran up my spine. Could the four people be us? Me, Max, Lana, and Chrissy? The Cabin was the place where The Garden of Flowers was supposed to have been written. Of course we were being drawn there. But there was no way anyone could have known we were coming to 37
Manerva, let alone last summer, long before we ever decided to. And furthermore- what was this about us becoming the leaders? "Plus,” the other went on, "these boys must have an image consultant or somethin', the way the whole campus is tryin' to figure out what they're up to and get in their club, President Tezzract would have given them the boot and had them expelled already if they didn't have everyone in attendance as their fan club." "So what are they up to?" I asked. "Just the facts, ladies." Excessive giggling. Oh well. "You think they tell us?" asked Scarlet. "No... we're just diversions for their free time, aren't we, girls? Admit it! They love their secret club more than us, don't they? If they had a treehouse they'd put up a 'No Girls Allowed' sign and we'd never see them again!" They all laughed and clinked their glasses together, except for the quiet one, who just smiled and mumbled something about how her boyfriend loved her. Lana smiled at me and opened her eyes wider than normal, sharing the excitement of these prime clues while Max and Chrissy were probably getting nowhere trying to interview professors and librarians. Max and Chrissy then returned from their interviews with a knock, like that of Fate itself on the door of room 13. It was Lana who answered the knock, gave Max a most penetrating stare, and was gone. Trouble brewing…
~ And here is a most unusual poem or chant, but more a kind of incantation, which was sung by Bald Monkey one of the many times he would slip into a trance. Although we all came to equip ourselves with tape recorders which we carried with us at all times, Bald Monkey was the only one who was able to write down the lyrics to a chant while he was receiving it. He called this talent “automatic transcription” or “ghost writing” and said it was most unpleasant and creepy, but fascinating. He said this usually happened to him in the early morning, and so he kept a pen and paper by his bed and would often awake to find a few pages of verse to read as if for the first time, having no memory of writing it…
WHEN WILL YOU LEARN? Hark, The Nowhere now is listening and its slumbering secrets are finally bristling 38
The HolyAbsurd is once again visiting and the voices come out of the woodwork whispering.
The grain of the wood on the walls will flow and the secrets will blossom which few can know The waves of the Nowhere will come and go and the faces in knotholes the Nowhere will show.
Where now is your haven of moss and fern to hide from the Nowhere's endless churn? For the waves of the Nowhere to stop will you yearn. That it never ends, when will you learn?
~ -CHAPTER NINEKEEP YOUR EYES ON THE BORDERS There is enough time for all of us. More time than we could ever use. More than we need. We are in the business of converting time to timelessness. Tragedy is real. There are things which deserve your sadness. There is the timelessness of infinite white light to which there is nothing you can add and of which there is nothing to be said. There is also the timelessness at the core of a sphere in which time swirls on the periphery. As soul is the core of a sphere of ourselves, there is a soul of World as well. Everything has already happened and everything is known.
39
ENDLESSNESS Ceaseless endlessness seeps forever into the infinite waves of the Never which coil in spirals until they sever from each other before they melt back together
Watch innocence fade into the faceless hollowness of a Dark, Dark Well with waters bottomless And yearn for the meager solace of nothingness Until Endlessness draws us into dreams of togetherness.
The Garden of Flowers is our solace For within the Garden dreams are flawless. Let the sheen of innocence veil the hollowness. The sheen will hide a chasm bottomless.
My apologies, dear Reader, my mind wandersâ&#x20AC;Ś
~ All right. I will be concise. I will make you the peace-offering of a concise overview of the scope and arc of this unruly and confusing tale. This is the story of Mystery Sphere Girly. Also known as: MSG. Also known as: Chrissy. She was an innocent soul. She ended up a flower. Still. Silent. A trauma-induced catatonia? A 40
psychosis-induced paralysis? An intentional, permanent retreat within some Fortress of Solitude? Never again to say a word. Never again to move. In her own private cocoon for all eternity. In meditation? Enlightened? One would hope. More likely in shock… Dead to the world. Sitting. Waiting. This is the story of Spacepants. Sexy. Evil. She was no good at all. Voluptuous. Fishnet stockings. Tattoos. Leather. Vanity. Lust. Sadism. Eyeliner. Mascara. Yet this was all before her corrupt era. Long after we first met her, she came to be in allegiance with the old man with the tattoo of the barcode on his forehead- the man who we would come to know simply as "The Enemy". Together, Spacepants and the Enemy brought Bald Monkey Estate to its knees. We returned later to the Estate to find a perverse militia. This is the story of Max, my friend. Cold. Promiscuous. Addicted to tobacco. He found his heart because he was ritualized; I was not. This is the story of Sachmo. Myself. "The heart of a poet," I heard Chrissy say once. I'm still looking, dear Reader. Never laid my eyes on Mr. Kite. Perhaps I never will. This is the story of Bald Monkey. He knows what's up. The Secret Society? Did they really exist at all? Yes. We followed them down the path which peters out to find a cabin in the dark and lush region of the woods which we call Moss Hollow Haven. Moss everywhere. Beautiful and lush and green and dark. And a cabin by the river. And the pages of The Garden of Flowers abandoned, with the wind blowing them away. With the mildew decaying them and the pages withering and wilting. This is the story of Lana, with such wide eyes, always a smile. She lost our book. We forgive you, Lana. This is the story of Mr. Kite. A Holy Man. The Last Shaman. His book is not so long. Easy to memorize. Right at the center of this tale of mine. The Garden of Flowers. In the heart of the storm. The preface- a chant in rhyming couplets. Did the Secret Society know that we were following them? We are no skilled wilderness trackers. I suspect they knew very well and let us follow. In fact, I believe they expected us. Was there really a gate? Out in the woods somewhere? A big stone gate for all to see? We don't know. This is the story of Bonsai Man and Gondola Girl. And for all I know, you may never know them, because this story takes time to write, and I may die before I have a chance to tell you. One never knows… This is the story of the Old Flophouse Couple. But you don't know them yet. For all I know, sitting in this cluttered van, you may never know, because this story takes time to write, and one never knows…
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These words are true. And this has been coming for a long time. And this is why I write now- quickly, because I want to get all the words down on the page. So that you may understand all the trouble we've gone through. To make it all worthwhile. Do you remember "Happy Together", by The Turtles? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Me and you and you and me no matter how they tossed the dice, it had to be. The only one for me is you, and you for me. So happy together...â&#x20AC;?
~ We're getting close now! From this point on, keep your eyes on the borders of the pages. For there will be different editions of this book, and some will have designs in the borders of the pages, especially when prose dips into verse, as it has been known to do. This is the story of a ritual. A magic ritual. And the ritual which Mr. Kite has given us, we have found. So sorry to wet your curiosity, but I cannot explain to you the exact nature of the ritual or teach you how to perform it. Ask Max. For he was ritualized and I was not, the bastard! We may never lay eyes on Mr. Kite, but his ritual is here. You see, the Secret Society attended Manerva University at the same time as Mr. Kite. Mr. Kite dropped out but the Society remained to complete their stay and graduate, except for one, the only one from the Society, who was rumored to have abandoned the ascetic duties of a devotee and left for the full-throttle life of a rockstar. We knew the Society and therefore have knowledge of the ritual which is still practiced to this day. See, Mr. Kite is a holy man. He is a shaman. The Last Shaman. Are you still alive out there Mr. Kite? We hope so. We love you. Whether there was really a gate out there or not - we don't care. We thank you. Maybe we'll find it someday. Run our fingers through the vines which entangle it and bow down before it. Maybe not. Would the Secret Society be so angry with us for publishing their secret files? To them it may be sacrilege, but I care not, because, my dear readers, you deserve to know. 42
That moment when we first saw Bald Monkey at Manerva, when Chrissy stood before him, something changed. It was like an earthquake. I couldn't write of that moment for so long? What I did was to leave a blank space in my notebook, and continue with the story, always meaning to get back to it. What happened in that moment? Something paranormal to be sure. Nothing has ever been the same. We were just trying to steal some cereal, perhaps some granola left out overnight for hungry students next to the milk dispenser in the dining hall. But the dining hall was locked. Bald Monkey let us in. He had the key. Balancing precariously in the window, Chrissy heard a ruffling in the shadows, and a warmhearted chuckling. Bald Monkey was wise. "Who's there?" gasped Chrissy. And Bald Monkey emerged from the shadows, invoked some kind of paranormal amber glimmer power in his eyes, then held Chrissy and kissed her on the forehead. Those three words whispered as he hugged her and she broke down crying- "Poor little flower," he said. A thunderclap. Our welcome. How did he know that she would become a flower? I don't know. It may have something to do with Chrissy’s description of her experience then, how she said she saw the past and the future at the same time. Maybe she only gazed out into some distant horizon and smiled faintly and sighed when we begged her to tell us of our Fate because she was mourning her own in advance. Those three words whispered as he hugged her and she broke down crying- "Poor little flower," he said. A thunderclap. Our welcome. I remember her sobbing violently in her plaid skirt and clunky army boots that night, inconsolable. So quirky. So vibrant. So full of life. Yet Bald Monkey knew somehow that soon she would become a flower and never speak again, caught in a private solitary confinement with no return. We love you, Chrissy. We miss you. Why did she have to take that path? I don't know. Are you curious just what a "flower" is yet? I'll explain. It’s a slang word used around Manerva for a medical or perhaps a spiritual state, a condition that afflicted quite a few unlucky souls in the area. Or perhaps the luckiest souls. We saw a few as we were driving towards Manerva. College kids sitting like Zen monks. Motionless. Silent. We stopped and asked a cluster of them for directions. Their eyes were open, revealing enormously dilated liquid black pupils, but vacant. No response. Dead to the world. Creepy. We got back in our cluttered van and left them to sit. The number of these "flowers" increased the closer we got to our destination. The campus itself was virtually littered with them, to the point that we came to ignore them or just pretend they weren’t there as heartless people do to the homeless seeking change on the street. Max made a game out of putting silly hats on them- pirate hats, chefs hats, more than one beanie complete with propeller (where did he even get these?), and a fake afro wig once, which I have to admit was pretty funny. Indeed, the sacred shockwaves from Manerva have not yet dissipated.
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I suppose before that instant when Bald Monkey’s eyes shone amber, we all were just a few young adults on our way to glory, all bright-eyed and bushy tailed, with a bad case of wanderlust. But his simple gesture of kindness- a hug and a little phrase of compassionate pity, well, you could say it ushered us within the lobster trap. You could say it was a flash of synchronicity, a moment where we, the outsiders, were welcomed into some inner circle where the “sacredness game” became suddenly all too real. Yes, we the participant observers were ourselves frozen into grand archetypes in the drama we came to witness from afar- inextricable, entangled, lost within. Not to mention Bald Monkey’s little phrase “Poor little flower” was prophetic. He told the future then. How could he know? This is the story of an eccentric artist named Septimus. And he was a member of the Secret Society. The "Secret Sacred Society of the Eternal Purple Monocle Protocol", if you must know its full name. But he left to start a band. These words won't make sense unless you play the music of this band in the background as you read, and picture dark purple storm clouds overhead and the writhing branches of the trees. Yes, this story has a soundtrack. And if you buy these albums- these seven albums of music produced by Septimus and his band, Dork Stork Oysterbar, you will understand better than I could ever explain. In fact, you should not even be reading these words without their albums playing in the background. For Dork Stork Oysterbar can spin a web, and they can weave a yarn, and they can cast a spell. A dark, haunting spell, some would say, but one that puts all this in the proper context. Because Dork Stork Oysterbar knows where it's at. And they were ritualized a thousand times over. A billion times. And they have died before and they will die again, and they can speak, and they have been out in the woods, down the path which peters out, down in Moss Hollow. And you can trust them because they're old-school. And if you buy their albums we will be rich. There is a chant and there is a trance which can come to you under certain situations, and there is a ritual, way out in the woods, down the path which peters out, down in Moss Hollow, beyond the cabin where the pages of The Garden of Flowers wither and wilt, beyond the stone gate which may or may not exist at all, where no one could ever find you. And where words took place which I can never repeat, because I wasn't there. This is the story of an angel. A real live angel from heaven. But we haven't gotten to her yet...
~ 44
-CHAPTER TENROMANTIC ENTANGLEMENTS Max has assured me that he has never seen Lana cry. I have. But mostly she just looks more and more glazed over, in hippy-chick fashion, each time the bitter venom circulates between her and Max. There was surprisingly little jealousy on the part of the Secret Sacred Society of the Eternal Purple Monocle Protocol when they discovered that a large percentage of their girlfriends had slept with Max during our stay in Room 13. Curiously, the Society seemed comfortable with the fact as if they were merely extending hospitality to a favored guest. Max told me things regarding his experiences with Scarlet in particular that a gentleman such as myself could never relate, let alone comprehend. I was at first pissed that our detective game had been cut short and we had lost our chances at an alliance with the S.S.. However, I had no reason to worry. It turned out that the society was strangely grateful for Max's relieving them of the burden of these lusty college girls. Though max and I were both evicted from the dorm room, Chrissy was allowed to stay. I argued with our hostesses that I should be allowed to stay as well, because only Max had complicated things, but they said they wanted Chrissy to teach them about Bald Monkey Estate and the Mystery Sphere Ritual, and they were tired of guys being around all the time. Damn Chrissy and Lana for getting the girly connections to all this Mr. Kite detective stuff and damn Lana for getting the ultimate playing card- the connection to Bald Monkey as his student in all this. It seems that while all the best clues to the strange history of this campus were being given only to Lana, Bald Monkey was also teaching her about some old Manerva University ceremony cloaked in secrecy. Lana was acting all too proud of this, and was becoming very close with Chrissy and very secretive, and sharing all kinds of inner sanctum secret ceremony teachings. Max was bewildered by all kinds of soap-opera bullshit, and glad to leave Room 13 before he outstayed his welcome. To tell the truth, I was merely eager to take a drive with Max to the nearest greasy diner so as to plan our strategy and so I could get any new information Max was able to acquire during the recent stressful developments in his love life.
~ Another greasy diner. "The Demoness will show no human emotion," explained Max, "because no human heart beats within her bosom." 45
"Lana is not a demoness," I countered. Although now that I think about it, she did lose our sacred book. Why does the resentment for that never fade completely for Max and I? Perhaps because if Lana had not lost that old copy of The Garden of Flowers that we first discovered, our group of devotees at Edward Abbott College never would have dissolved. How much simply everything would have turned out if we had only been able to continue worshiping the book, instead of actually having to track down the author. The waitress, a tall Swedish lady, brought Max his BLT and onion rings and I my English muffins and eggs and the excellent orange spice tea. Breakfast is sometimes served all day long in these strategy sessions. It was getting dark. "So get to the point, Max," I said after feasting in silence for awhile, "what did you learn from these girls?" Max smiled and lit a cigarette. He shook his head. "Sachmo, my friend, you wouldn't believe me if I told you." He went on to tell me anyways. "This is what I learned- we are in the middle of the largest cult in the Western Hemisphere. But Mr. Kite was an unwilling leader. That's why he dropped out. He never wanted this much attention. He wanted fame only for his writings, not for himself. He wanted fame for his writings, not for himself. Bald Monkey was a smart businessman. He capitalized on the publications, and spread a little holiness on the side. He was supposedly an innocent middleman between Mr. Kite and a growing legion of fans. But something was a little off in the translation. People are acting weird, and we are by no means the only ones on this road trip. Lots of people are making the pilgrimage, and Mr. Kite slipped away just in time, 'cause things aren't letting up. His disappearance has only mythologized him and his fan base, or his 'followers', rather." "The girls knew all that?" I asked, impressed. I felt a ripple of subversive excitement thinking of all the little groups forming across the country around the book which evoked the same reverence in us. "I pieced it all together from their various testimonies," said Max as he leaned back in his chair. "Anyways, Mr. Kite had come to feel that something was being lost in the filter of Bald Monkey Publishing Society. Most of the works published were transcripts recorded by the inner circle, and the circle had and agenda of its own. The transcripts were by no means word for word. Things were changed. Lost. Things were added. Later the chants were set to music, and seven sacred vinyl albums were pressed. Since these albums were produced after Septimus, the founder of the band, defected from the Society and went missing, no one knows for sure if they represent the original doctrine correctly." He paused for a moment and gave me a most serious stare. "These Secret Society freaks are freakin' weird, Sachmo." If I had my "Journalist Stuff" journal with me the next note I took would surely have read: "1) Make contact with the Secret Sacred Society of the Eternal Purple Monocle Protocol ASAP. 2) Collect all 7 Dork Stork Oysterbar albums.â&#x20AC;? As we were walking out of the greasy diner, Max paused and seemed melancholy. 46
"Why can't I get any reaction from Lana?" he asked as he lit another cigarette. If I seem less than outraged against my friend for his infidelity, it is because he is not alone. Lana was just as good at these games. I decided to give him an honest answer. "Because all you two do is fight and sleep around to make each other jealous," I said. "Your heart is numb, and Lana's is getting there too." Just the facts. We got in my van and drove off. I had left our impossibly voluptuous Swedish waitress a large tip.
~ So that night the van was our home. And the rain pattered on the glass as I wrote in the back by candlelight, with Max asleep in the front. There was a frail knock on my window. It was Lana. Before I even rolled down the window, I could tell she was gently weeping, though any tears were lost in the rain running down her face. There was not much to say. "Lana," I whispered, leaning out so Max would not awaken, "I've known you for three years. You do the same thing. You deserve each other." I was quick to intercept her big pleading eyes with my cutting truth. Lana always came to me after these events, but I don't know what she was looking for. I was in a "just the facts" kind of mood. "Listen, you girl," I began firmly, "Max and I are on this last road trip together and you are here to help us find Mr. Kite. Max was always numb, but lately you aren't the bright-eyed hippy girl you used to be. Did you tag along ahead of us because you're scared of losing Max now that college is over, or to help us find Mr. Freakin' Kite?" "Find Kite," mumbled Lana unenthusiastically through her gentle weeping. I was just acting tough because I had felt a rotten feeling in my stomach all day. I was hoping that this would be a good, clean, family pilgrimage, but these things were always happening, ever since I enrolled in Abbott College. Why was I always the mediator? I miss my simple high school days sometimes. Before Lana turned away, I allowed myself to feel sorry for her and I leaned closer to her ear, and told her what she wanted to hear, what I always told her at times like this. "Of course he loves you, Lana. You guys are all fucked up, but love is from a different place than all this shit." She smiled weakly at me and walked away into the rain. I thought back to the Abbott College coffee shop, when Lana would read aloud the writhing words in her sweet, lilting voice and Max would close his eyes and no matter what shit they were going through at
47
the time, he would slip into a trance and lean his head on her shoulder as she read, and heal. Those words could heal. "Max, wake up," I called out. "Mmm?" mumbled Max groggily . "Your personhood, Max," I said. "Your fucking personhood, Max." He was silent. So I continued. "They're real people. The girls, all the girls. Lana's a person. Chrissy's a person. All the girls you fucked are people." He lit a cigarette. "I never fucked Chrissy," he said. I did not believe him, imagining he was lying to protect my feelings and our friendship because he could tell I had fallen in love with her. "Doesn't matter," I continued, skeptically. "You would. And she wouldn't be a person to you if you did. Your personhood is numb because you have to own them, always have to be a man, be a man, get it out, get it out, can't just be. Don't be seduced, Max." I growled the word "seduced" at him with all the disappointment that had built up in me over the years. "It's... so... easy," he said, his voice actually quavering with the anguish of expressing his fatal flaw. "It's so... appealing, like a light switch, flicked on and off. One flick" - he snapped his fingers - "and they're not people." Objects can’t hurt you. Toys can’t break your heart. He knew himself better than I suspected. "Why can't you forgive them for being females?" I asked. "It isn't their fault… haha.” My own misogynistic joke had made me laugh, so of course I temporarily forgot to be mad. “What have they stolen from you, anyways?" "Too much... they've stolen... me. What I am." He tapped his heart, or rather the place where his heart was once upon a time. I imagined him as a romantic in his past as I still was. Whoever did this to him, he must have loved her very much indeed. My anger softened. "Don't be seduced, Max. Don't be seduced... Not by lust, not by nihilism… not even by reality." Then Max turned back to look at me, and we shared a puzzled expression for a moment. "What the freak did you mean by that, Sachmo?" he asked me, sounding uneasy. "Why did you say that?" I shook my head. "I don't know," I answered. We were both strangely unnerved by my last comment, and neither of us said another word before we were asleep again within the pattering of rain on our windows.
~ 48
And this was a most novel spell in verse, but also a lovesong, that Max sung to Lana a long time from now, when they were older and he was trying to win her back after one of their break-ups-
APPLE JUICE The light, it bleeds from your eyes, girl, much too bright for me You know I cannot compete with those visions that you see Come on, girl, come on now, come back down You've seen the sun, now come back to your little town You saw the Gate and so strong, girl, you stepped right through Now there's a loaf of bread waiting down here for you I think we've got some peanut butter and some apple juice Wave goodbye now to all those colors that we all like so much The walls can't breathe forever while I wait for your touch Yeah, I know you're in the flow now of all life and death but you just tell those walls there to hold their breath Did you really think the world would never re-crystallize? It's nothin' special girl, everyone's reborn and everyone dies Forget all those golden secrets that wait so deep within This sad, old, dusty world has come back again Let all your colors wander to their home so far away They'll be back for us when we go back some other day Come on, girl, come on now, come back down You've seen the sun, now come back to your little town You've seen the Gate and so strong, girl, you stepped right through Now there's a loaf of bread waiting down here for you I think we've got some peanut butter and some apple juice.
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~ -CHAPTER ELEVENENTER THE LOBSTER TRAP These are not easy words to write. The time Max and Chrissy and I spent at Manerva University was no love-in. There was pain all around. There was pain for Bald Monkey despite his happiness at having us for his new friends. There was a sadness to him because he knew somehow that Bald Monkey Estate was crumbling. This is not to say that he was not at peace with the situation. Sadness was not a taboo for Bald Monkey. I really had nothing against Spacepants before her decent into evil. I must be clear that Spacepants, in the days we first met her at the Estate, was surely a wicked vixon, but not yet evil. People change. Her previous alluring wickedness was nothing compared with what was to come for her. I had no suspicion that she was to become a servent of The Enemy or that the two of them would become the warlords of a rebel military state- a militia. Much bloodshed was to be had before I corrected the situation. Despite all the pain we all endured at Manerva University, there was a madness which was our salvation. There is a calm at the heart of the storm, at the center of this book. There are grand marble pillars of truth in the rhyming couplets of that chant and the Secret Society were the cobwebs between the pillars of truth. Did they really exist? It's hard to believe that they did. M.S.G. will never speak again. But I should call her Chrissy by now, because she is a real person who I knew and loved and who deserves to be remembered by her true name. There was that wonderful quality to her - a longing. She really wanted to live in a good world, and nomatter how the world hurt her, she never blamed it. Despite her trials she continued to give World the benefit of the doubt, to endlessly forgive it, and to expect it to care for her as it should for us all. She never lost hope or let her spirit die. None could pry the lightheartedness and fun from her cold dead hands. But all her clinging to innocence with her blue pigtails and bubblegum and the ribbons in her hair was a mask. It always seemed so pretty to me, for some reason, that behind this mask there was a vast emptiness she could never conceal, like a numbing, anesthetic void. My porcelain Madonna- Our Lady of Mourning. Chrissy was orphaned by her mother at an early age, who died after raising her in various cults. Considering her upbringing, it was only natural for her to get swept up in Bald Monkey Estate. She went two years there without venturing into the outside world, but she never let her independent spirit die. Though almost trapped there, I was so proud that she never fully gave up 50
and surrendered to the group. She escaped Bald Monkey Estate with us just in time to avoid its darker era to come. She was a bright girl- she could probably smell the hedonistic vanity already wilting into corrupt vanity and then rotting swiftly into an arsenal. See, Manerva is a whirlpool. There is a seductive quality in the air of the place. It's like the lobster trap which only goes one way but never the other. Like a black hole, a vortex. You can't get out; you can only get farther in. Chrissy accepted this with glee and was so quick to become just another Secret Society groupie. And who could blame her? The Society have charisma on their side. And the Society were with Mr. Kite as he walked across the campus with his yo-yo in hand to get his supper from the cafeteria and take it to a picnic table a little out of the way. They laid their eyes on him and found more than the vapor-trail of a long gone laugh. They were a level closer than us as Mr. Kite was a level closer than them. The Secret Sacred Society of the Eternal purple Monocle Protocol produced documents secret files, which were brought to the attention of the president of the University. Max and Chrissy and I discoveredâ&#x20AC;Ś (well, I shouldn't say "discovered")... rather, we stealthily retrieved the documents from the locked file cabinet of President Tezzract office when we pried into it with a crowbar. So much information to take in. Discovering the Secret Society files at the same time as the Writhing Language took hold of us! What strange days... Of course Chrissy would have the honor of being the first one among us to open the floodgates and enter fully into the world of that strange tongue. And she would have the honor of being given the jewel of a verse which we call â&#x20AC;&#x153;Catacombs". But I will resist the urge to transcribe that one until another time. I believe that on one hand the Sacred Society was pleased we... "retrieved" their top secret files, but on the other hand they knew that by crowbarring the file cabinet like a metallic Pandora's Box, we had signaled the end of them in their current form. The secret was out. And they all knew that the University had an interest in their files because they were mostly transcripts derived from conversations with Mr. Kite. Mr. Kite was a man whose whereabouts were unknown to anyone, and who was sought by everyone, including many people in black cars and black suits. We spotted these human phantoms more and more frequently during our stay. It turned out we stole the files just in time to prevent them being handed over as evidence to these mysterious supposed authorities. As to the precise contents of the files, that I have sworn to never say. During the course of our journey I had come to realize that journalism was my passion and my way of life. The Secret Society were reluctant to trust us. They would not give us their secret files because they feared my journal and my blue pen. They thought my reporting would dilute and obscure the original teachings, and they made me swear never to reveal many things. But I owed them no allegiance. I had no interest in becoming entangled in the exasperating and morbid secrecy of the Society. I despised the vanity and hedonism of Bald Monkey Estate. I did not bow to the petty tyranny of the University bureaucracy and President Tezzract who sought desperately to keep all this under wraps. I gave no mind to the unsettling spooks in black who 51
haunted the campus. I wanted to find Mr. Kite for matters of the heart. And because of Lana’s uncanny skill at making connections with key characters in the drama, it seemed we had as fair a chance as any. Although we weren't aware of the scope of this at the time, by acquiring the files, we were setting in motion a chain of events that would bring the holiness we found to the attention of many more than those directly involved. Those who were seeking Mr. Kite for reasons other than spiritual guidance wanted the shockwaves contained and the general public awareness limited. But strange things were afoot and slithering within and without of Manerva. Not monsters, but rather a very intense loyalty amongst certain clusters of people, cult-like formations of extremely tight-knit groups of students who shared a very secretive devotion. Very odd means of behavior were witnessed by those in the affected areas. Reports of spontaneous paralysis and mass catatonia surfaced. A new form of behavior was being seen, and not merely a 60's style jubilant rebellion at all. People were up to something. Something vastly, epically weird. We retained connection with the outside world through Lana's father for a long time before we were completely enveloped in Manerva. He was rich, and made his money through ownership of a number of newspapers. Being well-connected with the press, my correspondence with him enabled me to communicate with a quickly growing audience of eager fellow journalists, contacts of his from his reporting days. I had taken to sending out encrypted telegrams for him to pass along to his most trusted contacts, but I shared only the basic facts of what the media had taken to calling the “Manerva Crises”, knowledge of which was leaking like a canoe made of swiss cheese. Sometimes I intentionally obscured the facts or even lied blatantly at my discretion. The official story was that a viral outbreak from a biology lab at the college was expanding very rapidly and causing people’s higher mental functions to shut down, resulting in manic fanaticism, delirium, and ultimately paralysis. I was responsible for this theory, which I made up to throw people off the true path. I also hinted at the possibility, citing anonymous sources, that Mr. Kite never existed at all. Lana’s dad’s generous funding also enabled us to later invest in mass production and distribution the music of Dork Stork Oysterbar. The Secret Society were aware of this and allowed it despite our conspiring with their sole defector, Septimus, who sacrilegiously abandoned his post as an apprentice of holiness for the full-throttle life of a rockstar. The Society was aware of everything that was going on, as they were aware of events which had not yet happened, such as the completion of this book, and the return to Bald Monkey Estate after its fall from grace. They knew that time was short and drastic actions were taken. It was as if they played along in some private in-joke by acting outraged at the theft of their files and our distribution of the albums, yet we all knew they intended for their documents and the seven sacred albums to be acquired and released into the public domain by us all along, before we ever stepped foot on campus. They were expecting us. During Mr. Kite's attendance at the University, there was a period of time in which he resided in a cabin in the woods by a stream, in the sections of woods that we call "Moss Hollow Haven". Max and Chrissy and Lana and I arriving at Manerva inspired a pilgrimage back to the 52
cabin, where the tyranny of the bureaucracy of the University was left behind, and where all sanity was left far behind. The Secret Sacred Society of the Eternal Monocle Protocol returned to the cabin to hold one last ritual before all the shit went down, after which there would be no more University, and no more Secret Society in their form at that point, and when there would be no more Chrissy, because she is a flower now. There were three major branches of strange language which manifested at Manerva - one The Garden of Flowers itself, one the Writhing Language as it took place in our very throats, and one the Secret Files of the Society. There were also the 7 sacred albums of Dork Stork Oysterbar, which may or may not be included in the original â&#x20AC;&#x153;officialâ&#x20AC;? cannon. Any one of these branches of language alone could have been a sacred text. We all loved Lana. Max did love Lana as he finally found out with tears in his eyes before the sightless Gondola Girl, but you shouldn't know of that scene yet. And neither should I, sitting here in this cluttered van. The confusion of this in-between state! This is difficult to explain, but this book you are reading is composed of different parts and this book is the story of our travels which lead us to the cabin and that place is not your average cabin. There will be other editions of this book than the one you are holding. There will be color illustrations of oil paintings and portraits of characters in sumi ink, drawn with sharp bamboo pens, and Celtic knots and mandalas and fractals illuminating the borders on the pages of editions of this book to come, but the point in time now as I write these words in blue ink in my "Journalist Stuff" journal in our cluttered van is a peculiar point in time. The confusion of this inbetween state! I write these words in blue ink knowing that I am close to the heart of things! But the closer I get to the center, the less I am able to report things as they happened sequentially. It is as if the more vivid my memories become, the more disjointed and chaotic they seem, and the harder they are to explain, at least in a way that makes any sense. Such shockwaves! The sacred shockwaves from Manerva are so vast and peculiar and take so many forms, yet all we find when we arrive here is the vapor-trail of a long gone laugh. I recall when the Enemy handed Max that tattered pamphlet. And I recall the copy that we procured from Old Bookstore Man, in that vine-entwined crumbly brick bookstore amidst the dust and candles. The volume which we read aloud to each other in the Mobius College coffee shop. There were patterns on those pages. There would be page of text and the fibers of the handpressed rice-paper pages were dyed in inks, so as to form intricate geometric patterns like snowflakes and spirals and Celtic knots and crystals and patterns which would converge at the center of the page, beneath the text. And there would be pages where portraits of the characters were painted in sumi ink in the center of the page and around which the text would fall. And there were oil paintings, reproduced on gloriously glossy paper. And there were pages of this book which sent chills up our spines just as if they were written in blood, and which were so good to read aloud that we couldn't help ourselves despite students who worked at the coffee shop bringing our orders of food to us and thinking they had stepped into an insane asylum. The lines of this chant are not something which could be read in just any place. But Edward Abbott 53
College was a good school and it forgave some madness. My memories of Abbott College seem so long gone and irretrievable that they may has well have been a dream. It is strange to think that I lived there in a far simpler life than now, and had friends which I will never see again. My memories of Manerva, on the other hand, are far from nostalgic. Rather, they are all too vivid, too intense, disjointed, intrusive. Flashbacks, I suppose. For example, I have a recurring nightmare I for the life of me cannot shake, and I fully expect it to follow me to my end. It involves the large, jagged shard of a broken mirror. A jagged shard which Max found at the cabin in the woods where the dead are kind. There was a mirror, broken, and pieces of glass were lying on the dirt of the forest floor by the campfire and just before Max was ritualized, he stepped on the large shard blade with his bare foot and there was blood, and this image of the jagged shard, reflective and smeared red, will stay in my mind until I am gone, and remind me of what took place that day. There was a split-second when I saw the blood-smudged reflective mirror surface as Max let out a roar of pain, and I felt somehow in my gut that I knew just what Max would be made to feel that night at the old Gate out there somewhere which may or may not be at all. Something was triggered in me and though I was not ritualized myself, I felt an absolute empathy for him. "Good luck, my friend," I remember thinking as I felt the slithering in my stomach and the shadow of the dark purple storm clouds passing over my heart. And all you who are experienced in these things know of what I speak.
~ And here is a most dreadful and curious incantation which Max voiced once when he was asleep. When he awoke he said he dreamt he was Mr. Kite, singing a song to soothe an old samurai dying on a battlefieldâ&#x20AC;Ś
RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE Make your heart as light as a feather You are dead now but you will live forever Your soul is too bright now to stay in your head You will live forever but now you are dead Pray not that your soul will be saved 54
As you die vow instead toRise from your grave Rise from your grave Rise from your grave Rise from your grave With the hearts of your tribe each light as a feather Float to the Land of The Dead now together Let the Rivers of Life and Death be connected Before you can die you must be resurrected For the souls of the living now will you mourn for the living will die but the dead are reborn On your deathbed of moss will you weep or be brave? It matters not, just die. and thenRise from your grave Rise from your grave Rise from your grave Rise from your grave
~ Spooky, huh?
~ 55
-CHAPTER TWELVEA METALLIC PANDORAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BOX I will always remember the sound of the file cabinet being pried apart by my crowbar. A screeching sound. Like a metallic screech by some ghostly metallic demoness. It was not easy. This was a heavy-duty file cabinet, and it took Chrissy and I both puling on the crowbar to bend the metal apart while Max was downstairs keeping watch for night watchmen other than Bald Monkey. So we got ourselves the crowbar from the University maintenance shed. That part was easy. Getting ourselves into President Tezzractâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office in the dead of night was easy as well with the help of Bald Monkey's keychain. Did I mention that Bald Monkey was a Manerva University night watchman from way back, before even Mr. Kite's time? Bald Monkey was there all along, before his sacred text publishing days and his estate management days. Whether his return to Manerva was as on official staff member or as an unwelcome troublemaker, he knew the campus in and out, and he had a keychain. Chrissy reached for the Secret Files of the Secret Sacred Society just as Max rushed upstairs to inform us that someone had entered the building. "Bald Monkey?" I asked hopefully. Max shook his head. "Too tall; hair," he replied while closing the door to the President's office and putting his ear to the door to listen for footsteps coming our way. Chrissy was sick. The pages fluttered from her shaky hands down to the floor. Though it was dark, I could see her face turn pale and clammy. But her eyes! She looked up to me and I could tell this was no fear of being caught breaking into the President's file cabinet. "He's coming upstairs!" whispered Max from the door. Chrissy moved closer to me as if in a trance. I could not look away from her eyes. I will not even try to describe the look in her eyes, save to say that her pupils widened into enormous black pools and she seemed to peer deep from her soul into mine. I was afraid. I touched her cheek to feel her cold, clammy flesh, exactly as one would expect a corpse to feel. And then she sang. In the faintest, most ghostly voice, she sang. As if from deep, deep inside herself. As if the words were being sung through her by an achingly sad and lonely spirit. And she sang the verse which we call "Light as a Feather", the first time any of us had witnessed the Writhing Language. Well, except for when I ran into Lana at the swing set, but for Lana it was always more of a casual thing. Maybe I am a little jealous of how effortless it always seemed for her, unlike all the rest of us for whom it was an overwhelming experience, often involving great fear. Lana was never in danger of being lost in the trance but remained calm and
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present. She may have had a natural talent, or developed a keen skill from some manner of discreet research or training she chose to keep to herself. But when Chrissy sang it was a full-blown channeling, a possession. In the faintest, most ghostly voice, she sang. As if from deep, deep inside herself. As if the words were being sung through her by an achingly sad and lonesome spirit. It was the first true fragment of the "Nowhere Poem", which is the name we gave to all the collected versus that we channeled and did our best to record. But I cannot transcribe the words just yet, not at this point in our story. Later, later... Max was transfixed. He had forgotten his watch post and instead knelt in front of our possessed singing beauty, looking back and forth from her in amazement and to me in raisedeyebrow disbelief, as if asking how could this be happening. I can relate the facts - the wild, shining dead eyes; the faint, ghostly voice; but these do not convey the feeling of witnessing this event. something entered the air of that room that night as the pages fluttered down to the floor. Magic, peace, absolute, bone-chilling fear. A quiet, breathless dread. Max could feel it, but he didn't have to stare back into Chrissy's eyes, the eyes of our young, silly friend, only 18, still so bright and alive, so eager to flirt and frolic and share her personality, her quirks. The girl who held her Mystery-Sphere so proud and who made a feather into her imaginary friend. The same girl who harbored a vast emptiness within. My porcelain Madonna; Our Lady of Mourning. But those eyes when she sang were not her eyes. Even as she looked so deeply into me, riveted me, those eyes were not hers at all. The jellyfish had taken hold. The second she finished the verse, the non-Bald Monkey night watchman barged through the door, as we knew he would. It was obvious to us at the time that there would be absolute silence while Chrissy sang - there could not have been an interruption. I cannot explain this. It simply would have been against the rules. Chrissy collapsed. Max ran with the roar of a conquering lion, shoved the night watchman outside and pinned him to the wall. This is not ordinarily something Max would do. All his toughness and supposed manhood are merely the techniques by which he numbs his deep insecurities. His strength was surely a momentary burst of religious fervor upon hearing the first fragment of the "Nowhere Poem" in Chrissy's eerie voice. But nonetheless, in perfect action hero fashion the night watchman was pinned and I had time to grab what Secret Files I could, sling the dazed Chrissy over my shoulder and head out. Max was soon to follow as I bolted out the door and into the night, laughing crazily, with Chrissy bobbing in and out of consciousness and mumbling cryptic things. Max laughed too, as the night watchman was in fact rather old and seemed in no shape to follow us into the cover of some trees. We laid Chrissy down on the light dusting of snow and pine needles. I fanned her face with the documents we had just stolen, but which seemed so secondary to the real discovery. Finding that Chrissy was slowly returning to normal only allowed further laughter to escape from Max and I. It was an insane kind of laughter, I suppose - a combination of the remaining fear and a beautiful, unexplainable sense of triumph welling up in us. 57
"Where are you, Mom?" asked our sanity-questionable friend. I stopped fanning her when I remembered that she had been cold to the touch and was lying on snow. "Bald Monkey's not my mom!" she went on, very confused. But her eyes were her own. "We've got to get this chick to people who understand," urged Max. "I know," I said, "but how can we find them at this time of night?" "I have connections," Max assured me. So we led Chrissy to just outside the all-female dorm and I encouraged her to stand on her own two feet as Max tossed pebbles against the window of the three seductresses of Room 13. "Go away, Maxwell," was the response from one of our slutty ex-hostesses after opening the window. "We're done with you; we're all quite bored with you now, so leave us alone!" "I'm done playing with you, you freakin' girls!" growled Max, gritting his teeth. "We need to speak with the Society, now!" The girls merely turned away. "We've got a sick girl down here!" I called up. The lights to their room were turned on. After a while the quieter one leaned out after some argument with her roommates. "Did she sing?" she asked. "You are not my mother, where was my mom, my mom!" cried out Chrissy before I muffled her and nodded up to the Quiet One. More argument from inside. "Fuck!" yelled out Scarlet. It seems they were familiar with this strange condition. The Quiet One came outside the dorm with a glass of water for Chrissy, which Chrissy promptly let slip through her clammy, trembling fingers to fall to the pavement and shatter. We got directions to an apartment off campus and were gone in a flash. "Nowhere," Chrissy mumbled from the back seat of our van. "Nowhere, not anywhere, no one, not anyone, no one, no one at all, who? Who?" She reached up and grabbed Max by his denim collar. "Who?" she demanded. "Um, no one, I guess," answered Max, trying to play along. Wrong answer. "No, no!" wailed Chrissy. "Not anyone, ever, never, no one, forever, forever." She finally trailed off into occasional mournful pleas of "Who? Who?" and "Mom?" The van screeched to a halt. A loud knock on the door of the apartment, and we were let in.
~ 58
-CHAPTER THIRTEENSCENT OF THE OUIJA Though it was late, late at night, none of the young men had yet retired to sleep. The living room area was dimly lit and ornate tapestries blanketed every surface. The furniture was plush and low to the floor. Clutter, Incense galore, candles and strange, exotic chanting wafting from the stereo. The scent of the Ouija was in the air. "Septimus, get down here!" called one of them and at once a young man with wild hair emerged from the top of the spiral staircase. Though we were in the midst of an emergency situation with Chrissy and all, I will always remember this first time I saw the one called Septimus. He immediately struck me as an eccentric artist type. I could see it in his sleepy eyes, with that far away gaze into some private clear blue sky. It was the befuddlement of a kindly mad scientist or the dreaminess of a lazy hippy awakening to pancakes, with a touch of the crazed gleam of megalomania. Septimus glanced down over the banister and quickly wound his way down and took the wobbly Chrissy from my arms and laid her down on the intricate patterns of the fabric of their oriental carpet. One of the others (who we never learned the name of) quickly changed tapes on the stereo, putting in a different chant with a sitar in the background, and turned up the volume. Then Septimus produced a pen and notebook from somewhere and was kneeling over Chrissy and slapping her on the face. "Remember!" he ordered. Another of them began beating slowly upon a large African drum. "What the freak?" asked Max to me. I shrugged my shoulders. Of course our instinct was to stop all of this chanting nonsense and speak to these strange people, but we were out of our league. "Remember!" Septimus almost shouted. Chrissy was in pain and squirming around, but appeared to be resisting something she knew was for her own good. Another of the young men knelt down and grabbed Chrissy by the jaw and moved her head so she could not help but look Septimus in the eyes. This was too much. Max kicked the African drum across the room and the quickening rhythm was cut short, in addition to one of the stereo speakers being broken on collision with the instrument, thankfully muting the sickening relentless chant, leaving only the background sitar from the other stereo channel to accompany the scene. But before Max got his fists on the Society member who was holding Chrissy's jaw in his, something stranger still happened. Chrissy became instantly sober and nodded very calmly. "All right, she whispered in agreement to remember, as if by her own decision to allow it to happen, her pupils swelled up again into those enormous black pools. An alien telepathic jellyfish plugged its tendril into that socket on the back of her neck. And she sang.
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It was the same verse she sang in the file cabinet escapade, but this time less intense, and with her voice less eerie, and her eyes not so completely robbed from her. At one point I even thought I detected her own lighthearted personality float up, like a single lonely petal from a bottomless well, and her lips actually curled upwards into the faintest smile, only to fade in an instant into this "Nowhere" so new to us, sending chills down our spines all around. And this time, I will record it here, word for word, to be set to music and transcribed in this book under the name "Catacombs", here. It is set to the tune of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Happy Togetherâ&#x20AC;? by the Turtles. Sincere Apologies to the Turtles.
CATACOMBS As shamans we have had our fun but now the truth we've sought has finally come The fight we've fought so long is finally done Now our hearts are light light as a feather Now we will fight no more no more forever. There is nothing left for which to strive We sit inside this room We are alive We hear the truth and heed the call The Truth is not so big and bad after all The Truth was like a wolf And us it chased but now by the Truth 60
we'll be embraced There is no “Other World” where we can go just the gentle breeze the falling snow There is nothing left For which to strive and for the “Other World” It was a lie There is no “Other World” There's only one We have come home We've finally come In catacombs deep underground the alchemists are hard at work without a sound It's time to roll away So far away We need to roll on through The world's fray We need to dry our tears We need to play We need to steal those Happy Kitten Days. There is a place to go a place of light We’ll roll and roll and roll And roll all night We won't be here for long We're soon to die 61
We are in this room We are alive We don't know how this works We don't know why We can look into Eachothers' eyes The world is sad The world is mean But light is in our brains We're finally clean Our innocence We've found again Heaven is not so far Just roll within.
~ -CHAPTER FOURTEENCOME WITHIN I have seen language in my day. I and my friends have encountered many different forms of language. The rhyming couplets of The Garden of Flowers are the pillars of truth and the Secret Files of the Secret Sacred Society are the cobwebs between the pillars of that truth; the reflection of that truth in the minds of the Society, which may or may not have existed in the first place. Forgive me if I play along with the Society and shroud them in a veil of mystery, but they wanted it that way. They were those who watched what went down with steady eyes and recorded the events with painful accuracy. Their documents are sincere and speak of sad things. The "Nowhere Poem" is a reflection of the truth written not in ink on a page, but with Writhing Language in the throats of myself and my friends and we are grateful for this. My claim to fame is small. I have undergone the Writhing Language experience but twice in my life, whereas Max was actually ritualized. I am not jealous. I was given but a fraction of the 62
"Nowhere Poem", but I held up my part and offered my voice to that power when I felt it in my throat. Just what is responsible for all this language? Was it Mr. Kite himself? Did he invent these powers of language himself? I think not. Just channeled them especially well. I think he spent all that time out there in the woods immersing himself in an ancient language that existed long before he was born, perhaps even before the human race. Language is made of words and these words I am writing in blue in by candlelight in the clutter of our van are one thing, but the heart of language itself is another, and there is an intensity of communication and there is information which is passed from one soul to the next in patterns resembling beautiful, intricate spiderwebs extending outwards in rings of sincerity. And there is language transmitted in verse by entities of humor and mischief who love a good trick and a good rhyme and from whom lymrics came. And there is Language sent down through the tendrils of jellyfish into the back of your neck. And there is the whispering of fairies and water nymphs to soothe and tickle you and bloom again your heart, and there is the One True Alien who speaks archaic hieroglyphs in neon. And there is a strange language. I have seen "innocence fade in the dark, dark well with waters bottomless" and I have seen the eyes of Spacepants as she dangled her poisonous spider above me, the spider of red and black and yellow, when she knew there was no turning back and the evilness was all around. There is good and there is bad, and human beings have eyes. And human beings can speak. World swallows, World devours; Come within the Garden of Flowers.
~ -CHAPTER FIFTEENA FIRESIDE CHAT WITH MONTAG "Yo!" I called out as I entered Montagâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dorm room. Montag was one of the members of the Secret Society. Wires tangled all over, CDs, video games, movies, and computer parts spilled out across the floor. No incense in sight. I was happy to see my new friend, who I had been playing video games and talking philosophy with lately in the free time I set aside every day to forget about the grim seriousness of questing. "Information..." mused Montag. He speaks his mind. "Culture drifting inevitably in one direction. Remember vinyl records? Sound born from a diamond needle running along the groove on a vinyl album. Now we have lasers, reading a secret code. How could we not be mesmerized by music crystallized into matter, shiny and reflective with those rainbow shimmers 63
on the disc in the light. But as vinyl passed away so shall the tape cassette and compact disc with its sexy glossy rainbow reflectivity. Soon information will have no physical form at all and travel through the air. Digital code. Ones and zeroes. The new language. "What we are, are crystals. We are these organic creatures swarming about on the surface of this planet, but what we are, are crystals. And we carry around our brains in our skulls. And there is electricity inside your brain. Can you feel the neurons firing? Electrical impulses blinking like a flurry of fireflies in a tree. Blinking on and off. Stroboscopic. Like digital code. Trance. And the network of these electrical pathways, like fibers twinned about, writhing and slithering into each other wildly, desperate to interface and communicate with each other, this insatiable instinct to transfer these intricate chemical and electrical signals, the network writhing endlessly into itself, unaware that it is all one thing in the first place. One network. And there is nowhere to go. And The Nowhere is waiting. So don't be late." Montag set the controller to his video game system on the floor at this point and turned to look me in the eyes. It was hard to take him seriously with his fedora and Salvador Dali mustache, yet he knew he had caught my attention with his reference to the mysterious facet of The Garden of Flowers which had puzzled me for too long. I wanted answers. "The Nowhere," he continued, ridiculously, as if it were a casual acquaintance, "is like before World was born. Meeting it face to face can induce a certain very specific psychological and physiological reaction. It has been called by other names. He paused for a long while. "How shall I explain this?" he mused. "I can tell you certain things about the state. Physiological things. Tears well up in the eyes. The body becomes languid. Sweat. The blood can drain from the face, causing a paleness or even a bluish tint around the lips and eyelids. And the pupils are vastly dilated... but you knew that, didn't you?" "It's all in the eyes. There is the tactile element, in which the sense of touch is magnified to the point where the host is intensely aware of the physicality of his or her own body, giving the sensation of being immersed in syrup, very heavy. But it's all in the eyes. There is a union of the sense of touch and sight, or rather that the visual field has absorbed the immediacy of touch. The visual field itself becomes a very real thing, like a forgotten organ, a gelatinous substance surrounding the host and an almost magical extension of the body, supremely malleable, so as to allow the physical world to imprint itself upon the seer. There is the general impression of being a single-celled organism, with a central core of soul and an exterior sphere of perception. Perception is in truth a protective coating. "When I say that perception becomes malleable, that is an understatement. There are shimmers. A delicate rippling across all that one can see. This is known as 'the vapors'. And this rippling is very important because it allows you to see that the human capacity to perpetually distinguish and separate various individual 'things' is a secondary phenomenon, founded on a more primary unity of sight. And that 'things' are made of World. It is all made out of the same everything. One fabric. Such beautiful ripples. 64
"The ripples are one thing - those almost transparent swirls, like incense smoke, the delicate, exotic wisps of fluidity, slippery and coy, luscious, seductive at the periphery of your vision, hooking you gently from the other side at the corner of your eye. The writhing is another. "Fear. Dread. Ritual. "This is no joke. There are things which deserve your fear. Be ready. Know what you are." "See, all this reformation of perception is merely the recognition that you are alive, and the unification of your life-force into a single thing. You are simply becoming one of the real people." "Then things become strange.â&#x20AC;? "Hark, the Nowhere now is listening. It's all in the eyes. A person undergoing a direct confrontation with the Nowhere has to live through it. It is something you learn with the marrow of your bones. This experience takes time, and there are stages which must be passed through with respect. "The turbulence of the ripples increases, and the character of the rippling turns from exotic and coy to seething and lustful. Then come the archaic hieroglyphs in neon surfacing from The Nowhere; the carvings of Language-in-Itself from the maw of the One True Alien. Who reading this knows of what I speak? Have you seen vision, this tactile vision, dissolve into something resembling an endless sea of serpents writhing forever into each other? There is something dawning which calls for your utmost attention, isn't there? This is Language-in-Itself. This is the archaic hieroglyphs in neon surfacing from the maw of the One True Alien and transmitted like electricity through the tendrils of Her Astral Jellyfish familiars. This is the Dawning of the Other. You like the writhing, don't you? Despite the fact that your stomach is churning the vomit slowly up through your entrails and the saliva is welling up in your mouth, and the shadow of the dark, purple storm clouds passes over your heart, you like it because this endless slithering is the living circuitry board behind the lies of this culture and you are the Microchip and the Olive. And there are vines a-twining, and spiraling around your limbs, and the plants are alive and well, and their tendrils know where you where you have been, and the long curling leaves of the ferns coil round the slender fingers of the veiled ones, and the endlessness is not a sin, and you can forgive yourself and let yourself slip, slip away, because the interwoveness of the tendrils wants to take you in. And you will find a home in the writhing, and heal. "I'm sorry," Montag said, looking embarrassed. "I lose my common decency at times when I am enthused. I must remember that rhyme is inappropriate for casual conversation." He regained his composure and continued. "What are we here to do? We carry around these brains and at times they are ablaze, illuminated all at once, their function plain to see. One network. In these moments of luminosity, all is summed up very succinctly in a single flash, and all one's story on this Earth is encoded in the immediate instant. The solidarity with sentience. The Absolute Personhood. We have beaten
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the game; there is nowhere to go, the purpose of the brain is impossibly obvious- it is meant to take solidarity with sentience. "There is yourself and there is World. No matter how this culture twists you, World will be there. Do you make contact with World? Do you have a relationship with World? How could you? You are caught up in the game. The clinging, cling drama has bled the personhood of World out. They have made you believe that food has a price. That you don't deserve to be fed by your tribe. You do. "When you become aware of what you truly are, you have been given a peek through the keyhole into World. And you become a worthy specimen for World to form a relationship with. As yet you have fallen through the cracks. Your culture has occupied you with wretched practicality. One big scam. What we need is a World Government that does not live in fear of the Nowhere and can raise our children under the knowledge that we have nothing to do and that we are ends-in-ourselves. We need a planet that can feed itself. Until then, you will go unnoticed by World because you have been abandoned by the tribe that you deserve, and because there is no hand to give you your food, no hand to give you the ritual which you are starving for. Except for Mr. Kite, of course - good old Mr. Kite. But he's only one man. "When World shows its true face through the writhing latticework, it is like looking into the eyes of another human being. You have made contact. There is something there. This is no storybook World; this is the true face of World - gnarly and ferocious, slithering endlessly with nowhere to go. Humans are perhaps the necessary byproduct of World having nowhere to go. World needed some personhood to face on one hand so as to balance out its facing of The Nowhere on the other. Do you think I'm making this shit up as I go along? Fuck no, dude - I'd draw you a diagram if my hands were free." (Montag was immersed in his video game all the while as he spoke. I'm not sure if this discredits his doctrine of the Nowhere, or impresses me that these thoughts were second nature to him and required no concentration.) "World is a substance. A viscous substance." And as he said the word "substance", he rubbed the fingers and thumb of his right hand to demonstrate what he meant, as if he was feeling a slippery residue. "What is this stuff? Is this what we are made of? Mr. Kite was a connoisseur of the World-substance, and he penetrated deep into its heart, deeper than any human I have ever known. His relationship with World was inconceivably intimate, and it was obvious that World had an interest in him as well, because his eyes were valuable to it. His eyes were trained by years of peering into World. It was painful to look him in the eyes because he could not easily make the transition back to 'people-eyes', unless he really wanted to for some reason. Who wants to be gazed upon with 'World-eyes'? It's unsettling, except maybe for lovers. But we all loved Mr. Kite, so we forgave him. "Mr. Kite had the call of ritual in his heart. This is why he could take place in World with a symmetry which we do not have. He was symmetrical, and when he faced World, World faced him back. His eyes could peer. He had a clear, steady gaze. What, did you picture him with a glazed expression? He's no doughnut, dude! 66
"Mr. Kite was free, because he would face World eye to eye, but was not himself made of the substance of World. There is another substance. What we are dealing with here is the substance of Personhood. "World is in between Personhood and The Nowhere. As we take our place in World, so World takes its place in The Nowhere. Spheres within spheres. As we look outward in all directions to find World, The Nowhere is seeping drop by drop into World from all sides. It is seeping in and it is already within us. As we have formed a ritual symmetry with World, we can also form a relationship with The Nowhere. "Say goodbye to your mind. You are a Nowhere creature now."
~ Montag was very dramatic. Moreso when drunk. And here is a rousing, spirited drinking song, (but also a sacred chant of sorts), which Montag used to lead choruses of on the many occasions he was able to convince us to drink rum with him-
PIRATES VERSUS SCARECROWS Come forth my swarthy pirates and live by the gristle of your tendons Feast on hemp and tendril-spine and send secret code on pigeons The time is now to gather your prowess and let the dragon scales glisten And overthrow the scarecrows and to the whistling splinters listen This song is curiouser and curiouser the longer it is written For mine words are written in blood, boiled to a syrup in my kitchen If you are a true and swarthy pirate and sail the Icicle-Light Seas Then slay a scarecrow for me and cast its blood to the icy breeze For the purple drops of scarecrow-blood as they crystallize in the wind Will materialize on my lightning rod to be scraped to a paste, my friend And this paste will be blessed by virgins, a hundred and ninety-nine As they sing an invisible song and drink the Fractal Medusa Wine The blessed paste of scarecrow blood I will drop into my pot 67
And boil it to a syrup and cry for the battles my brethren fought The syrup-blood I will use to wet my peacock quill And write such songs as a hundred Chinese mystics never will If you are a true and swarthy pirate and sale the seas for gold Then know of an underwater battleground of which I have been told It is there by the coast of a land of plenty where the Serotonin fruit bloom And then but once in a century under the crescent moon It is there where the waters are thick with scum and the swords are dipped in the Bloodlust Rum There is an outpost of scarecrow demons- demons amphibious Who swim there in the scumwaters and their flesh is delicious But before you roast their scarecrow flesh and steal all their gold Fill a flask full with their blood so that my stories may be told And if the lure of dusty palm fronds shall never cease to call you Remember the dreaded curse which shall most certainly befall you For in times of old when the scarecrows ruled over all the earth They placed an unholy maggot in a tomb beneath the dirt And if the maggot is awoken by the scent of the Bloodlust Rum It will spawn a Plague of Metal and the Plastic Puppets will come The Plastic Puppets will most surely soon infest all the world And the final hour is most certainly soon to uncurl So when you slay the scarecrows and your pirate eyes shine with glee Save a flask full of their blood for my ink; you must save a full flask for me But beware the Plague of the Maggot and use caution as you run For you must lick your swords as you plunder, to taste the Bloodlust Rum
~ 68
-CHAPTER SIXTEENIN THE DARK, DARK WOODS ‘ROUND A FIRE, HOT The Secret Sacred Society of the Eternal Purple Monocle Protocol do in fact gather in the Dark, Dark Woods 'round a fire, hot. Max and I were invited to meet them at their apartment one night and were taken along a path out into the Dark, Dark Woods. It seems Lana was busy making a fire, hot, and had one going well by the time the Secret Society led us out there. Max looked down and shook his head when he saw her. Why is she always one step ahead of us? "Hey guys, do you like my fire?" asked Lana very proudly as we approached. "It's a good fire," I agreed. We all sat down on the old logs forming a circle around the fire. There were seven of the Society members present. They were wearing monk’s robes for god’s sake. Robes! Chrissy had been invited to attend as well, but was avoiding anything that could remind her of her recent episode of channeling. "Where's Chrissy?" asked Lana, disappointed. "Well, she's probably in Room 13 teaching the college girls how to worship yo-yos or talk to feathers," offered Max. The Society member called Euclid nodded knowingly and mumbled about how the old symbols were still alive and well. He then pulled out a joint and lit up. "It's always marijuana with you guys, isn't it?" I asked. The smell of the vile weed had not escaped me in my experience with college life. Lana was noticeably giddy as the joint was passed to the left in her direction. She had often tried to get me "high" in ye olde Abbott days, but I never accepted. Lana smokes a lot of marijuana. This is because she is a hippy. In fact, she was wearing a tie-dye t-shirt and hemp necklace at the time. How cliché! -Lana:
"Feather?"
-Max:
"Long story."
-Me:
"The yo-yo was a symbol of Mr. Kite in the Mystery Sphere Ritual, I get that, but Chrissy was really into that feather. That was no symbol to her."
-Montag:
"It was a symbol in the beginning - when the ritual was created."
[Max did not take a "hit", but passed the joint when it came to him. He was content with his cigarette, because, as he says, he is unable to keep his cool when he smokes marijuana.] -Max:
"Why do they play that repetitive electronic drumbeat behind the lyrics of the chant? I couldn't pay attention to the words."
-Montag:
"Techno music was the best thing that’s ever happened to this planet." 69
-Me:
"Hey, wait a minute-" I began to protest, but I decided it wasn’t worth it. Pop culture marches on.
The air was cold as hell that night but the fire was hot and there was a good pile of fallen branches gathered nearby. "Man, this is some good grass," exclaimed Lana after only two "hits". Although my drug of choice is Orange Spice tea, which rarely fails to make me feel warm and cozy, at times I found myself in a group of students smoking "weed" at Abbott College. I was often the only person in the circle refraining from the joint or pipe as it was passed around. The conversation of the group inevitably became languid and my fellow students on either side of me gradually slouched deeper into the furniture. I could tell when all those present were thoroughly "stoned" when there were moments of stillness and silence, as if everyone except myself had forgotten that time was not standing still. So why have I never inhaled the smoke of this plant when the primary effect seems to be to make its users gentle? I am gentle by nature, so I don't need any influences to become less manly. I suppose I never smoked "pot" because whenever I would consider it, I would imagine all manner of curious microscopic chemical changes happening inside my brain, and this always produced a squeamish feeling which made me avoid the plant. The thought of entrusting my brain chemistry to odd reactions that I had no understanding of seemed unwise. I noticed that a few of the Secret Society members had brought drums and began beating on them, softly at first and then more forcefully. -Me:
"So what did the feather symbolize?"
-Max:
" ‘Make your heart as light as a feather,’ you sacrilegious bastard." The Society members seemed very pleased to hear Max quote this phrase. At first I thought that it must have been one half of a rhyming couplet from Mr. Kite's central chant, one that I had forgotten, but it was not. It was a line from "Light as a Feather", a fragment of the "Nowhere Poem".
-Zoth, another member of the Society: "Excellent, excellent. The Writhing Language is brewing..." -Another unknown Member, wearing a fox mask: "A campfire always seems to do that around these parts." -Max:
"All right. That's the last cryptic comment I can allow from you freakin' potsmoking mysterious robed people. For God’s sake, look at yourselvesyou’re wearing goddamn ROBES! You must tell us right now - just what the freak is this 'Writhing Language'?"
-Zoth:
"Would you like to hear an example?" Zoth flicked the minute remains of the joint, known as a "roach", into the fire.)
-Max:
"Yes."
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Then Septimus caught Lana's eye and winked, at which point she picked up a drum at her feet and the two of them began playing a simple rhythm. And then they chanted together in very quick monotone, synchronizing as one voice though neither of them had ever heard the words before, and this is what they said:
THE HALLOWED PLACE Congratulations , my child, you have done very well For you called the Monocle down from the heavens, from the heavens where it doth dwell. You forged the Sword of Many Colors and the Sword that cuts through Time. Only men who wield these blades may say “The Monocle is mine.” As a Samurai of Symmetry you have lived through many wars So believe me when I tell you child, that “The Monocle is yours.”
It is now the Days of the Death of Heaven; these are the Days of the Death of Hell You can walk now on the Earth for you have smelled that purple smell Our lungs are not made for the air of Heaven, nor are they made for the air of Hell This Earth is The Hallowed Place; This Hallowed Place is where we dwell The verses flutter down like snowflakes; from their heaven have they fell But that this earth is The Hallowed Place is the secret that they tell You can now look to Reality as into your lover's face You have done well now, my child, so welcome to The Hallowed Place; Welcome to The Hallowed Place There are angels and there are demons but thank the Gods we are but mortals We are creatures born to die but we can open sacred portals; We open up the sacred portals Some would say that the Monocle exists so that we can make contact with the elves, but it is reversed, my child, it exists so they can monitor ourselves 71
Fear not, my child, these eyes of yours are not the Eyes of Satan Nor are they the Eyes of God; if you believe this you are mistaken Thank the Gods we are but mortals and God knows we are forsaken When you don the Purple Monocle, to The Hallowed Place you will be taken To the Hallowed Place you will be taken.
Fear no more, my child; fear not the voices in your head You are breathing still and despite the things you see here you are not dead Like a wise old song once said my child, just â&#x20AC;&#x153;breath, breath in the airâ&#x20AC;? And cross your fingers to walk in safety amongst the whispers everywhere The elves will show you to look at Reality as into your lover's face And when you can do this they will be proud and welcome you to The Hallowed Place You will be free to come within and dwell within the Hallowed Place Some would say that the Monocle exists so that we can make contact with the elves, But it is reversed, my child, it exists so they can watch and speak with us ourselves.
~ -CHAPTER SEVENTEENTHE TROUBLE WITH KLEINBOTTLES -Max:
"That's all very well and good, but a spooky campfire chant is one thing, and what we saw Chrissy undergo was another."
-Montag:
"Different levels, different levels..."
-Euclid:
"A similar phenomenon, it was just that your friend Chrissy was extremely vulnerable to deep trance states. This is a condition no doubt resulting from her years at Bald Monkey Estate, exposed to the loud, repetitive electronic music of the Mystery Sphere Ritual. It also explains the
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somewhat schizophrenic belief that a feather was her special friend 'Kalii'." -Max:
"Man, I knew that chick was messed up back when we called her M.S.G. remember?"
-Septimus:
"No, no, Max - not messed up. Just evolving a bit too fast. She has unique powers."
-An unknown and most mysterious Society Member who was wearing a snake mask and strange burlap robes: "Well, there could be another factor contributing to the episode of channeling." -Septimus:
"Yes - the secret contents of the ceremonial yo-yo."
-Lana:
"And what secret contents were those?"
The Secret Sacred Society only laughed softly to themselves and began to drum. Finally Septimus put down his drum and put his hand on my shoulder. The other drummers became silent. -Septimus:
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sachmo, we invited you and your friends here because you are fellow enthusiasts of The Garden of Flowers, and there is a power that slips in around these parts now and again on the wind. It whistles on in now and again and we seven by now can tell when it's settling in. There are certain signs. And it showed up in the voice of your friend Chrissy when she sang. This power - it slips in around here now and again. And again, and again, and againâ&#x20AC;Ś"
I was becoming a bit unsettled. Despite becoming friends with him and playing many a video game with him as we did with Montag, Septimus was a rather unsettling character in many ways. Perhaps it was his wild hair, or his hand resting so casually on my shoulder, or his repetition about this "power" that "comes in on the wind" again and again. Or perhaps it was the feeling that all those present at the campfire other than Lana and Max and I were of a different depth of devotion to Mr. Kite. It was hard to believe that this odd character Septimus and his associates had broken bread with the mythical man with the fondness for yo-yos. -Me:
"Septimus, what was in those yo-yos at the ceremony?
-Another, Unknown Society Member we never learned the name of, wearing a fox mask within the shadow of the large hood of his burlab robes: 73
"A secret sacrament, Sachmo." They all smiled mischievously. "The yoyos could be twisted open and the secret compartments inside contained something good to eat. Something very good to eat." I became suddenly very concerned that these Secret Society members had brought us there to reveal their true faces. Was I being very unreasonably paranoid? Why did I keep having the ridiculous suspicion that these Secret Society people were aliens? Absurd, absurd... -Lana: -Montag:
"I knew it! I knew it! This is all about those glowing things inside! "It’s true. Your enthusiasm for the Legacy of the Symbiotes is one of the reasons you have ended up here, in this place where the Holy One walked."
Max looked at me. -Max:
"Holy freakin' shit, Sachmo," he whispered, "these people are fruitcakes!"
-Zoth:
"Sachmo, do you know anything about shamanism?" I gulped.
-Me:
"Shamanism?"
-Zoth:
"Yes, shamanism."
In fact, I did, because Lana was always telling us about it. In fact, you could say she was obsessed with it, from an academic perspective anyway. Lana was, to be honest, very intelligent. Even a bookworm, kinda nerdy. She majored in sociology and wanted to go out and do fieldwork in the jungle- do classical “participant observation” and write ethnographies. Could her efforts to find Mr. Kite be fueled by the credits she would earn for some PHD thesis about it? -Lana:
"I know!” she exclaimed proudly, as if this were some game show“shamanism was an ancient religious belief that there was a spirit world where dead souls lived that could be accessed with sacred plants!"
-Zoth:
"Very good, Lana. Now, Sachmo, would you believe me if I told you that there is such a thing in this world as a sacred plant?"
-Montag:
"Or dead souls, for that matter?"
I remained silent. -Euclid:
“Let’s say that our ceremonies are an advanced form of shamanism that, instead of sacred plants, uses a certain species of insect eggs from far, far away. Tiny, frisky little rascals, like Mexican jumping beans. The larvae are sacraments to us in the same way Christians take communion and eat 74
the wafer, and they are just as sacred to us. We call them. “Divine Symbiotes”. Perhaps you have heard this term before?” I had. The Society members began to grab the African drums by their sides and one by one began drumming a primal rhythm and joined their voices in this most curious and spooky drinking song, or sacred burial-song, rather-
THE MEDICINE MAN’S THRONE This poem is but a story which I have been told In the woods one winter all alone I was told ghosts are hungry to find their way home I was told this by the lonely ancestor spirits which roam Round the lone forgotten tomb concealing the bones Which rest on the icy jet-black stone Of which was called the alter called The Medicine Man's Throne The death of a shaman kindles mischief aplenty As his allies the spirits are freed back into the Mystery For they hunger not to aspire to symmetrical crystal purity But to feast on the marrow of the bones of The Divine One's legacy I was told this by the whispers in the breeze over a tombstone As I trudged through the snow as I made my way home And I was told other secrets which chill to the bone I was told to open the tomb and enter the dark all alone And I was told to fall asleep on The Lighting-Eyed One's throne Where I dreamt of the resonance of the poignant nostalgia Of the spirits which hunger for a chance to follow you. For they are doomed without their master to summon them from his throne So pray that unlike me they not follow you home Pray they not hunger and follow you home.
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You too can be a ghost in the winter woods all alone If you open the creaking tomb and sleep on The Reborn One's throne Where you can dream of the resonance of the peculiar nostalgia That haunts you and entwines like vines round your collar Or you can listen to whispers of other persuasions Ones which whisper of secrets that coil in spirals And hypnotize sneering in mischief all the while For as the ears of the leprechauns will curl in lycanthropy So their pupils will dilate to steal the will from thee There are secrets of play and there are spirits of trickery Which reveal hungry fangs as they sneer at the Mystery So a wise shaman blesses his marrow, his marrow with secrecy To repel the hungry spirits which hypnotize wandering jesters like me So pray that unlike me they won't follow you home Pray they not hunger and follow you home Instead listen for whispers of other persuasions For there are beings which desire less predatory relations Ones which whisper of secrets that coil in spirals And hypnotize sneering in mischief all the while For when a shaman is laid to rest he is free to reincarnate As a wandering human jester which conceals an elven heartrate So trust not my words, nor come closer to me For a fanged elven sneer may beneath my smile you see And if you think my tale be jest toss at my foot no coin of gold For I am merely a wandering jester reporting a story I have been told In the woods one winter, all alone By the whispers in the breeze over a lone tombstone Which I passed quickly by as I made my way home. 76
~ I had taken in nearly as much as I could handle that night already. The straw that broke the camelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back? One of the Unknown Society Members- one of the only females, with red hair and long eyelashes behind a silken veil within the shadow of her hooded ceremonial robes of burlap looked to me and smiled devilishly. She was pretty. And yet something in her eyes and in her sly smile, even beneath her veil, made her look like an alien. A beautiful alien. "We're not aliens, Sachmo." she said. I got up immediately and walked away from the campfire. I heard Max call out to me to return, but I needed some "quiet time". Part of me knew that that veiled chick who made that joke about being aliens was only reading my mind and making fun of my paranoid fantasy, but even the fact that she could use telepathy to tell what I was thinking was scary enough. Damn she was pretty. I brushed some snowy leaves away and sat down on the cold soil of the Dark, Dark Woods. I could see the campfire flickering in the distance. Being alone, I could piece the evidence together. The Garden of Flowers was a powerful book. It was impossible to know the true nature of Mr. Kite at this point because he was long gone, leaving only the vapor-trail of a long gone laugh. The Secret Sacred Society had taste for the Ouija, the paranormal, the mysterious, and the mystical. Lana was enamored of them. How could she be so smart and yet so susceptible to flakery? I thought of the Mystery Sphere Ritual and the ceaseless electronic drumbeat. The wind was whistling through the branches of the trees. Could Mr. Kite have been some kind of voodoo witchdoctor wearing bones and shaking beads at chickens? Was that the meaning of all this? That would explain the drumbeats and the chanting I could hear in tribal fashion from around the fire in the distance. But how could alien insect eggs be a sacrament? "What the hell have I gotten myself into," I thought, before I heard Lana calling for me, sounding concerned. "Over here!" I called back. She came over. "Sachmo, it's okay," she began. "These people knew Mr. Kite. They are trying to help carry on the work he was doing. They are trying to take us home. And you know what Chrissy told me the other day? She told me about the yo-yos. For each ring of seven chanters there was a girl with the Mystery Sphere, right? Veils within veils within veils. And within the veils, a yo-yo, right? Well, you and Max didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get to see the end of the ritual. Eventually the Mystery Sphere Girl of each chanting ring unscrews the two halves of the yo-yo. Inside there are eight compartmentsseven in a ring, one for each of the chanters, and one in the center for the Mystery Sphere Girl. Inside the compartments are tiny things about the size of a watermelon seed, vibrating and glowing extremely brightly and emitting a humming sound, which they were 77
supposed to eat.” Lana had a way of always knowing the best clues first. I prepared to be surpassed. Nothing cuts through my occasional dislike of all people and the desire to be left alone like sheer curiosity. My mind was racing at the prospect of finally getting to the bottom of all this mystery that had clung to us for so long. Could the well-guarded sacrament of the cult, instead of just some symbolic communion wafer shrouded in mystery, be a little alien insect? The phrase “Divine Symbiotes” came to mind, and seemed an old memory, though I could not quite remember where I’d heard it from before Euclid’s ridiculous egg story... Maybe the little Divine Symbiote eggs were the seeds that grow into M.S.G.’s fairies, I wondered. Nothing would surprise me at this point. Lana and Chrissy had absolutely refused to disclose this information up to this point, leaving Max and I endlessly confounded. “Go on…” I said. “Get to the point.” “Well, the thing is... the insect...” Lana continued dramatically, relishing her authority over me in the realm of participant-observer journalism and mystery solving. “It’s like some kind of virus or microscopic robot- a nanobot. Something that infects you and replicates, takes over your body, and changes your DNA. But the thing is, it’s an object… a device…” She seemed at a loss for words. “A Divine Symbiote is an object…” Lana went on. “It definitely replicates and uses humans to stay alive…but it’s more of a… a Shape than a creature. Not a cube or a sphere but something more… exotic.” Lana talked for a long while about this thing called The Shape. I will try to record here what she told me. It was found by archeologists. They were operating a remote-control aquatic robot and they retrieved a container from the ocean floor, a container made of a strange metal not known to exist on earth. So the container of the unknown metal was sent from another planet. The egg it contained harbored a shape in its DNA, or rather in the way its DNA was arranged- not in a double-helix like ours but in a shape that cannot exist in this world. Not planet- world. This thing they called “The Shape” apparently disproved all of physics. The miracle was in the way the DNA was arranged. Not in a double-helix but in this new shape that made no sense to science as we understand it. A biology professor from Manerva University received specimens of the seedpod which she was able to activate, re-animate. Then, ironically, The Shape activated the faculty and students as specimens of its own, and used them to replicate and for other unknown reasons that have to do with séance and possession. Lana’s eyes were wide even for her when she tried to convey the mystery, the paradox, and she went on like the ditsy chatterbox she could be sometimes. “But all we really know about them” she continued, “they vibrate really fast and glow extremely brightly, they seem to seek out a symbiotic relationship with humans. They use us to reproduce but also for other reasons that relate to séance and possession. But they are not organic creatures, or robots. They are actually a paradoxical shape. One that cannot exist in this world!” 78
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “Do you know what a Mobius strip is?” she asked in return. “Yes.” I said. I had taken some geometry classes in ye old college days. It was a shape in geometry with some interesting properties. “Well, Sachmo, my friend…” she said slowly, dramatically, like a drumroll. How corny. "They’re like that but better! They are something called… ‘Kleinbottles'. She grinned her diabolical skeleton grin. “But come on back to the fire, Sachmo, we'll get to the bottom of this," she said warmly, encouragingly, as if I were some shy wallflower at a party and she was trying to convince me to come back to mingle with the friendly campfire mystics at some kind of paranormal “keg party”. I wasn't going anywhere. "So that's what this is all about?" I asked in disbelief. "This whole pilgrimage, this whole religion- just some kind of science-fiction bullshit?" I knew what Kleinbottles were. Writers and journalists need a proper vocabulary. As a Mobius strip is a two-dimensional object with one side curling through threedimensional space, a “Klienbottle” is a three-dimensional object curling through fourdimensional space. But it only exists in the notebooks and equations of topologists and mathematicians and science fiction writers. It can’t exist in real life because there is no such thing as the fourth dimension. Well, Einstein treated time like a fourth dimension, but that’s not what I mean. I mean that a line is one dimension, a square is two dimensions, and a cube is three. And that’s it. There’s no higher object than a cube in the way a cube is a higher object than a square. There IS no fourth dimension. Three is the limit. “There’s no such thing as Kleinbottles.” I said grimly. Lana smiled condescendingly, and patted me on the head. "This is about transformation," she assured me. "This is about transforming humans into another form. This is about hope. Oh, Sachmo, you wouldn't understand, you silly square! You’re so square you’re a tesseract! The fourth dimension- well, that’s where the Elves of the Fourth House live!" And she laughed her sweet, lilting hippy laugh. I never suspected this. Lana's father funded the pilgrimage, Lana arrived at Bald Monkey Estate before Max and I. Lana formed an alliance with Bald Monkey and then the Secret Society before Max and I. She was always one step ahead of us, and now this! I was so very sad. Until that night I had considered myself a genuine devotee of Mr. Kite. I kept a quiet reverence in my heart for his words, and many nights I poured over the pages of his book when my sadness kept me awake. Suddenly my pious feelings felt very foolish. But Lana wouldn't relent and even grabbed my arm and pulled me up from the ground and escorted me by force back to the fire, where Max was getting into trouble as usual. Max was eating Kleinbottles. 79
~ The entity has been invoked. The dark purple storm clouds cast their shadow. A funny feeling in Max's tummy. -Lana:
"I want some too!"
Euclid smiles knowingly. He passes the yo-yo to Lana. She twists it open and shakes out one of the glowing, vibrating eggs and eats. A funny feeling in Lana's tummy. Words are spoken. The fire flickers, illuminating the faces of the Society. Some have closed eyes, reverent. Some wear the masks of animals. There a bird, there a snake. Some drum and mouth words silently. There is a time of silence. Why is my heart fluttering? I am an outsider here. I am not sure if I should be present, and consider slipping away again but Lana is sitting next to me and I don't want to abandon her. The wind is blowing now. Max sits across from Lana and I. The wind is blowing through the branches of the trees. "Oh... my... god," whispers Max. He looks to me. For help? Sorry, Friend, I can't help you now. I have never seen Max look so afraid. He turns to Septimus. "What... is... this?" he stammers. "Is this... some kind of… hourglass?” The word “hourglass” hangs in the air. “But it’s inside-out! How…?” Max vomits. Lana's hand reaches for mine and I hold her hand. Her hand is small and warm. Her fingers are so thin. She slowly turns to me and her eyes are "those eyes". Those dead eyes. It seems the pupils of my friends were dilating all over the place these days. But while Chrissy's eyes were chilling and ghostly, Lana's have a mischievous, lighthearted grin. She was too good at all this. She was saying something to me. I didn't want to hear it, not from her. Not spoken through her. I wanted her voice to be her own, but of course it was not. It was "that voice". That dead voice. "Come within," she said. "Whose words are those!" I demanded instantly, loud and clear. I was still holding her hand and I squeezed tight. I thought for a moment that I could see her trance waver, but she only gazed through me and whispered it again. "Come within... come within." So I looked to Septimus and demanded an answer from him. "Whose words are they?" I asked loudly. My voice had a forcefulness which I rarely heard in myself. I did not like being gazed through. 80
"Whose words?" he mused. "Oh, just words. Old words. Mr. Kite's words, perhaps? A little plant's words? Plants have words too, Sachmo. As do insects. And their larvae! ” Lana laughed. No sweet lilting laugh this time. She laughed as if she knew secrets. Max reached for his pack of cigarettes, lying on the ground before him, but a Society member grabbed them quick and tossed them into the fire. "Not tonight, Friend," the member said, apologetically. Max started to cry. Snot made its way down to his mouth and there were remnants of vomit on his shirt. He looked to me through watery, pleading eyes. He pointed to his stomach. "It’s... in... me," he gasped. "Sachmo... don't let it get into me. Oh, God... it’s in me." The wind was blowing hard. "Maybe you should apologize to Lana now," I suggested calmly. Tears streamed from Max's vacant eyes. "Oh, Max, my little cold one," said Lana, sounding very sad and forgiving, but far, far away. "Do you want a kiss?" I felt as if ghosts were on the wind, no doubt about it. And she got up with some difficulty, steadied herself, and made her way to Max as if walking through heavy syrup. And she put her lips on Max's. The branches writhed and writhed. And together they kneeled, facing eachother, noses almost touching, and sang simultaneously, though neither had ever heard these words before. And this is what they sang-
THE DESERTS OF WINE In The Lonesome Howl of The Haunted Winds In The Caves of Moss, In The Canyons of Desolate Frost, which harbor the portal to The Deserts of Wine, wherein are hidden the tents of The Saints of Time who weep for the honor lost by the kiss of Charlatan Shamaness Venom. As only the Saints of Time can weep for the sting 81
which the Charlatan Shamaness savors when unto Her victim the poison is given As only The Saints of Time can sleep, alone in the Deserts of wine, foresaken, wholly human, for in The Winds of Time they live in.
As it is only The Saints of Time who can pray for the cure to the curse of the long-forsaken ultimate longing, long-since torn asunder from the once-tender mournful yearning of their now calculating, silent hearts. Yet they could never fathom this question, which a cursed and blessed different brethren must live with: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Could Charlatans be the real shaman?â&#x20AC;?
~ -CHAPTER EIGHTEEN-
SNOWFLAKE WARRIORS And everyone was called to battle. They are Snowflake Warriors now. Rainbow People. Samurais of Symmetry. They are together now. In sync. There is a battle to be won. The good people might just have a chance. The good people might just still have a chance. 82
So Sachmo and Max and Chrissy and Lana and Bald Monkey followed the Secret Sacred Society of the Eternal Purple Monocle Protocol further down into the Dark, Dark Woods, down the path which peters out, down into Moss Hollow Haven. Until they came to a cabin by a stream. The stream was frozen over and ice glistened in the winter sunlight. All was writhing. Sachmo's gentle poet soul was writhing. Max's new-found innocence was writhing. Chrissy's necklace of glowsticks and bracelets of rainbow colored, shiny plastic beads were writhing. And Lana's sweet, lilting laugh was writhing with the trees. And the mingled odor of Bald Monkey's cigar and whiskey was writhing. And the Secret Society's drums slung over their shoulders writhed to a primal beat. And the trees folded and breathed and cradled them all. And the Secret Society gathered branches to make a fire. And the fire was lit. And the Kleinbottle eggs were passed round and round. And all the beings of all the worlds were curious and peered in close. And the Secret Society made an outer ring of seven, drumming to a primal beat to keep the inner circle safe- the inner circle we finally realized were us, ourselves. They had been expecting us. And we chanted a magical kind of poem in unison, though we had never heard the words before-
THE MONOCLE We are creatures of magic; we are creatures of blood If you care to take your place you will surrender just like you should The wind is blowing now and with your nerves can you feel Your mind is made of blood but the dreams in your head are real The trees they interweave and you know what that means The wind is blowing now and this moment Time will unfreeze Just keep your eyes on the swaying branches and open your nerves to the touch of the breeze To twirl a feather is enough, if in The Monocle you believe There are secrets in the ice and there are secrets on the wind And if you can feel with your nerves you will now come within Your mind is made of blood but within it you must dwell 83
The Good go straight to Heaven and the Bad go straight to Hell.
Our minds are made of blood but with our nerves can we feel There is electricity in your brain and our dreams are better than what is real There are snowflakes in the ice and there are snowflakes on the wind And a snowflake is what you are if you don't believe me just come within There is a Power that comes in waves and there is a secret on the wind And to the Power you will surrender and you will now come within. You can never forget the secret if once your nerves can the secret feel The wind on your face is all there is and your dreams are better than what is real There is a twinkle in the eyes that cannot be said in words And there are twinkles everywhere; if you strain your ears they can be heard The wind is blowing now so open your nerves to the touch of the breeze You will surrender now in your bones if in The Monocle you believe Your mind is made of blood but within it you must dwell The Good go straight to Heaven and the Bad go straight to Hell.
~ And Sachmo and Max and Chrissy and Lana and Bald Monkey huddled close to the fire within as the outer ring of seven drummers passed the Klienbottle eggs round. And the dark purple storm clouds were rolling thunderous in the sky. And the thunder was like silence. And the fire they all gazed into as night began to fall was the same fire Mr. Kite gazed into long ago. But Mr. Kite was nowhere to be found. All that was left was the vapor-trail of a long gone laugh. And all the angels looked down through the rolling purple storm clouds. And all the demons slithered in and out of the forest. And animals ran in circles around the gentle souls. And the aliens gazed with their enormous black eyes and whispered secret things for those with ears to hear. And all the plants of the forest swayed in the breeze and the tendrils of the ferns crept close and caressed the skin of all the gentle souls. And the drummers unfolded their secret files. And chanted together for the inner circle they encircled. And this is what they saidâ&#x20AC;Ś
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[Apologies, dear readers. The secret files must remain secret.]
~ -CHAPTER NINETEENRITUALIZATION And Max, silly with his bare feet and his new-found innocence, slashed his foot open on the large, jagged shard of broken mirror, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the bloody, reflective surface as Max let out a roar of pain. Like Bald Monkey hugging Chrissy, this moment felt like it was from dream or myth, like the flash of an archetype being burnt into my memory.A Fatal Flaw? The price, like Odinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye, for drinking from the Well of Wisdom? The Achilles heal, the birth of the wounded healer? Unsure. All I know is that I dream about it still, and probably always will, with the acceptance that I chose not, or could not pay the price. And though I wake from these dreams as if from a vivid nightmare, my feeling is not fear but jealousy. Although I was not ritualized myself, I felt then in my gut what Max was about to undergo. And I felt the shadow of the dark purple storm clouds pass over my heart. And all you who are experienced in such things know of what I speak. And just as Max slashed his foot, there were suddenly whispers all around, and the drumming stumbled to a halt, and out of the whispers came a sad, yet noble voice. It was the voice of Zoth, carried along from the ruins in the woods not far from the cabin, the ruins called the Fortress of Stone, carried on the breeze, through the branches of the trees, to our gentle ears. And this is what Zoth sang-
THE EPIC BATTLE OF THE WARRIOR ZOTH Tear drips from my eye Spins in a spiral down to die Ticks sucking my blood My mind is in a rut Fluid in every joint Tired of walking point 85
Constant buzz in my ears This night could last for years Staring out at the view From the tower above you
My name is The Warrior Zoth And I have come from afar. My soul has been cleansed In a holy war. The fires have raged For nine long years. All has been burnt to ash And the Wild Wind the ash has cleared. I have seen wherein madness lies. I have seen the Nowhere with my eyes. I have passed the point of no return. And my eyes are as hollow comets where the icy fire burns. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Burns, burns... Oh how it burns, burnsâ&#x20AC;?
Of all the species we are but one. And the Alien is Awake, To this earth She has come. Her Jellyfish descend on ZothThe only beasts he cannot slay And verse in him they did call forth And this is what Zoth did say:
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“The elves are creeping ever closer Their shadows flit across the corners Their limericks bounce and tumble And their whispers slither beneath the rumble Well there are souls and souls aplenty Of this there can be no doubt Of one thing I am certainThe souls of elves will bounce about!” “Bounce, bounce... Yeah, they go bounce, bounce”
Of all the species we are but one And the Alien is Awake, To this earth she has come. Her Jellyfish descend on ZothThe only beasts he cannot slay And verse in him they did call forth, And this is what he did say: “Oh Mr. Kite was a magic man A magic man he was And he called the Thunder down from the heavens From the heavens up above And the Lightning shown from his eyes And all who saw him fell in love And they were loved by the love of God In the heavens up above
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Oh Mr. Kite was a magic man And his heart was filled with love And he is dancing now in his heaven In his heaven up above.”
Dwarvin hammers hurled through glass Destroy Zoth’s world. Dreaming of Zoth’s Cabin In chaos and disorder A red-haired lady at his Fortress Don’t know if we can afford her The vixon had an elf soul She kept attached to Zoth’s smoking bowl Her Black helicopters up abovePropellers choppin' up doves Pieces fall down below And they do not sprout and grow. “No they don't sprout, no. Nor do they grow. No they don't sprout, no. Nor do they grow Oh, Oh no Oh no.”
~ 88
-CHAPTER TWENTYCHRISSY SAVES THE WORLD And the demons knew that this was the last chance before the center to prevent the miracle. For once the book was found and once the Gate was passed, they would be too late. And these things were to happen very soon. We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t speak often of the demons, for to do so is to feed them. Let us only say for now that there are beings of Light and beings of Dark. And the demons slithered close and whispered sad things, but the outer ring of seven drummers drummed and kept the inner circle safe, and the whispers were drowned out in the beat. And they drummed louder and louder until sweat poured from them and they were weary, but they only drummed louder and louder still, until all of the plants of all the forest and all the beings of all the worlds swayed to the beat of their drums, and snowflakes began to fall. And Chrissy took the shiny red lollipop from her mouth and caught a perfect snowflake on her tongue, and smiled. And in this instant the most inner veil snapped shut like an iron sledgehammer and we were trapped, frozen perfect within. And the verse descended on her, and she welcomed it calmly this time. And this is what she sang-
THE CRYSTALLINE STETHESCOPE There is a magic thing for those with hope It is called the Crystalline Stethoscope. Hold the Crystalline Stethoscope to your ear And Language Naked you will hear In an Ancient Tongue It will be Told Watch Language Into Itself Unfold. But beware a sound of fright untold Beware a sound so faint, beneath the Roar of Language Bold, Beware a gnashing sound, so faint beneathIt is the Wolves of Language when they gnash their teeth. So go now quickly past their jaws, snap-snapping at your heels and carry the magic device on high to hear what it reveals And with it catch the Crystal Words from a Void and Silent Sky 89
Listen nowNames like snowflakes are drifting by!
~ -CHAPTER TWENTY-ONESOMETHING BEAUTIFUL And Max, knowing it was his time and that he was called and chosen, Fated, got up and limped over to the small, old cabin and limped inside. And he stayed inside for a long time. And when he came out his eyes were glowing bright. There was something beautiful inside. And then he limped out behind the cabin and without fear, he disappeared into the writhing branches. And we knew that he had gone deep, deep into the Dark, Dark Woods to find the Gate. And I sang a song, but it was more that the wind sang through me. And this was the Song of the Wind:
A GAME OF EYES I'm going down to Moss Hollow Under the Purple Skies Where the dead are kind and the branches writhe. There a secret is sung by a maiden wise:
"This Life is but a Game of Eyes"
My Muses lives down there, drinking licorice tea The most beautiful fucking ghosts you will ever fucking see. 90
The Amber Ones sing to me Secret Puzzle Lullabies And I drink the warm syrup Which weeps from their eyes.
I learned of them so long ago when I was still very much a fool my clutter always filled the room, and seems now it always will then with my books all spilled and my coffee mugs and my laundry tossed upon my rugs, Yet NowMy laundry clutter follows every lonesome maiden-clone back down to the Pine Forests where the Amber Ones roam.
In the Dark, Dark Woods, round a fire hot, A Sisterhood of Muses haunts; this we were taught By elder wise men in tribes of the Frozen Mountains Who are called "The Amber Ghost-Maiden Watchers"
Of the Amber Muses by them we were once told In verse on well-hidden papyrus scrolls Blessed with blackest ink from peacock quills aplenty and a scholarly appreciation for spells and luscious Garden Mysteries.
91
I'm going back down to Moss Hollow Under the Purple Skies Where the dead are kind and the branches writhe. There a secret is sung by a maiden wise:
"This Life is but a Game of Eyes"
Flame on kiddies, let the fun begin! It's the Garden of Flowers; Lets come back within. Can you hear the lullaby a maiden sings? On the wind through the trilling of cicada wings? The wind has blown from faaar away To The Garden of Flowers let's come back today! Can you hear through the wind the words that she sings? Can you hear though entranced by concentric rings? Strain your ears through the trilling when her secret nears And the rings blossom into concentric spheres Hear the secret and succumb to the trance And let the writhing patterns dance.
See the secret as transparent films of interlocking concentric rings, Rings of frequencies which interlace and overlay all things and in the pattern of their humming solve the geometries of a maze And other Puzzle-Worlds blooming brought to you in different ways. Hear the Wolves of Language gnashing yet heralding snowflakes for your ears which crystallize as the rings blossom into concentric spheres. Here the branches are writhing and the air is brisk Arrive at your own soul at your own risk. 92
The wind is blowing through the branches of the trees And there is a secret on the wind, if you will believe. Yes there is a secret carried on the wind. And you will now hear the secret and you will now come within. Let your mind lull to cicadas and lay your soul to the Song of the Wind You are now what you are and you will now come within If you trust the Pale Sisters with their glowing amber eyes Drink deep the sweet warm syrup which ever they will cry
I'm going back down to the cabin, Long time no see! To that Byzantine Emerald Prism City that awaits me Can you hear the faint singing? Down in Moss Hollow? From the path overgrown which the woods will swallow? If you are a man of luck, The path you will follow. The path which peters out Down in Moss Hollow.
Flame on kiddies; let the fun begin! There is a symmetry which unites the without and within There are secret paths in the woods interweaving Raise your hand if the trees are breathing The darkness is writhing and the air is brisk Arrive at your own soul at your own risk
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There is a latch of twine wound round a nail on the old cabin door. Be gentle with the frail twine. If you are gentle with the frail twine, You may stay and let your mind unwind Just be sure to wind the twine at dusk Round the old cabin door Then you may stay until the morrow and speak with ghosts before.
Then through the humming of cicadas at the cabin you will hear a secret in the wind which has never been so near So hear now the secret and succumb to the trance And let the writhing patterns dance. Trust the Pale Maiden Muses with their glowing amber eyes. They will whisper to you secrets which would cause most men to die. Those beautiful slow secrets beyond this culture's lies are out in the moss that will sink your feet a full foot down tonight.
Oh where are those luscious Garden Puzzles that once hummed like a tuning fork's drone? Do you remember the green fern tendrils so vivid from the throne? Those beautiful slow secrets beyond this culture's lies are out in the moss that will sink your feet a full foot down tonight.
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I know my Muses are still down there Sipping still their liquorish tea The most beautiful ghosts You will ever see. To know them is to love them and for our kind it means to try to tether them with leather harness-gloves so we may fly Upon the wind with them as they spin their yarns of rhyme and materialize for True Artists mourning them from time to time, those deft at sewing harness gloves for to Peacock Angels bind.
It is ours to follow the ghost on the wind wherever she will go And Peacock Angels are the best ghosts to follow I suppose For we are to Peacock Angels tether all submissive and bound in leather, the straps of which lead to my gloves which to have sewn was quite the pleasure, dreaming of the ones I love. My peacock quill still humming as the tuning fork of the Muses who come to me from beyond the grave for those are the ones a True Artist seduces. And it is only them a Shaman courts for only in their dead eyes gleam the most exquisite and elusive puzzles you've ever fucking seen and the most obscure of riddles as have been forgotten in any dream.
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and the most eloquent and intricate of geometric devices which gleam with reflective prismatic surfaces with which I'm sheerly delighted harboring a brittle fractal velcro structure upon its corrugated surface which interlocks with other personhoods and souls through elven verses, In fact this peculiar clockwork structure of idiosyncratic suchness arranges itself in obscure rhymschemes to which it is analogous So when nursery-rhymes and limericks and spells in verse and charms and secret codes and snares trigger synchronicity-alarms, an analogy like a snowflake structure materialized in ice, With a velcro fractal pattern on an impossible device a device like a holograph stethoscope implant of the mind, or a synesthetic geometric vision wand which you will find, a simple 3-d snowflake which is used to fracture dimension a Single-Puzzle revealing itself as a nameless abstract mission It's all really quite simple- like a meme sent back in time, an idea that if it were translatable would deconstruct your mind a structure which could be drawn with precise architectural blueprints, Each page a dimension of Mind transcribed as a symbol upon translucence. The sheets overlaying eachother to form a complex abstract world, where inexpressible concepts use geometries to uncurl and tendrils of fractal fern flora can unfurl as if they are symbols, for complex structures of thought are crystalized in their very tendrils Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a jagged language of spatial analogy for visualizing what we are And its logic is elegant and consistent but untranslatable thus far.
So Trust the Singing Amber Maiden with Her glowing amber eyes The Muses come of their own will But that they will is no surprise For to seduce them is Our Way. 96
And to see one blossoming open is to then tether Her away And to have two harnessed to leather straps which are the reins I wear as gloves means the Peacock Angels must carry me On the wind to the Puzzles I love.
And that Single Puzzle is so delicate its beauty catches me unawares but then the breeze undoes my certainty as it plays upon your hair. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Translate Meâ&#x20AC;? the vision says as it vanishes into thin air. And then the breeze undoes my certainty as it plays upon your hair.
~ And we all danced to the Song of the Wind. And we danced, And danced And danced And danced And danced. And we into the cabin, where the true Garden of Flowers lay inside, its pages withering and wilting and being swept away by the wind. The book began with a long chant as an introduction before the chapters. And I knelt down and whispered aloud the words of the chant as I read. And I fell into a trance. And healed. Those words can heal. And this is what they say: 97
-THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS CHANTCome within the Garden of Flowers World swallows, World devours
Our path is not straight but in a spiral curled Be strong- go now hand in hand from World to World
There is a Place of Safety and a Place of Danger To neither World be a stranger
There is possession by Beings of either Dark or Light Be very much in fear of night
Wolves encircle your lonely tent To your loved ones now repent
A serpent has slithered within your tent To your loved ones now repent
There are Angels watching from on high An Angel's eyes are never dry
World swallows, World devours Come within the Garden of Flowers
We forget Interweave the Worlds like the strands of yarn old ladies knit
There is a Gate between World and Things From the light of another star comes the gift a Veiled One brings
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The Gate is so open, more open than can be Mesmerizing patterns breathing in The Gate your eyes will see
The Gate's resonance ritualizes us and lets us rise Enter now The Gate and let your optic nerves now mesmerize
The openness of The Gate is sacred, lifting Through memories of swings and slinkys you will be sifting
We run The Path through The Gate and we must laugh we have become so humble Deep within your belly a Divine Symbiote round and round will tumble
We forget An Angel's heart is infinite
A Nature have we Someday our Natures will we be
On a good day our Nature swallows us Silently the Strange Ones follow us
Natures take place in the Place of Meetings All together Beings shout their greetings
Things take place in the Place of Meetings All together Beings shout their greetings
We take place in the Place of Meetings Hear the chorus of athousand interwoven greetings
World swallows Things From long ago the Trilling rings
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World swallows us Play follow the leader with Beings that follow us
We take place in World and we are swallowed by World The edges of a girl Alien’s lips are upwards curled
Perhaps sadness swallows us but could swallow World never, never The Nowhere into World's periphery seeps forever
True Sadness is a Symbiote Divine Mermaids sing their mournful songs in rings of nine
An Angel's eyes are never dry Away, away with an Angel fly
True Play is the forgetting of World Our Path is not straight but in a spiral curled
True Play requires World’s forgetting That a swing swings back and forth is fitting
True Play is a Symbiote Divine Before danger find a warning sign
An Angel’s Gaze is always bright Hold an Angel as she soars in flight
Perhaps a Divine Symbiote will swallow us Let not the Demons follow us
True Gaze is bright and warm 100
Soon in millions through the air will Angels swarm
We forget With luck hand in hand will on the Bed of Moss you sit
Things are forgotten A warning sign lies falling and rotten
Forgotten is World Our Path is not straight but in a spiral curled
There is a Gate between World and Things Round the Gate are seven Angels with silky splendor peacock wings
The Peculiar Resonance from the Gate is True Play Nowhere seeps forever into World's fray
True Play is remembered when are forgotten World and Things The Alien Trilling fades when the Mermaids and Angels sing
Fall backwards into the forgetting of Things Shapeshift first into a wolf and then into a bird with wings
An Angel's eyes are dry never From eachother we can never sever
World swallows Things With The Trilling Rings that chill the bones a Veiled One sings
In the Place of Meeting Things take place Beware seduction by a Strange One with a mesmerizing veiled face
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Forgotten are Things A shapeshifting Veiled One in she-wolf snarl sings
World is the Meeting Place In danger make a Hidden Being show its face
Forgotten even can World be There are many things now to see
We forget Within the Fortress of Stone you sit
World is the Place of Meeting To be your Nature is your Greeting
World is The Place of Natures, The Place of Things Beware caress in the Dark, Dark Woods by slender hands with ferns for rings
World is The Place of the Meeting of Natures and Things Hear the whirring of silky splendor Peacock Angel wings
We are Open Beings of flesh and eyes and gender We couple and how hard World is to remember
True Sadness is a healing which is forgotten within forgetting On your Deathbed of Moss will you be sitting
We forget Perhaps alone with tears will on your bed of moss you sit
In World we are together With The Dangerous Art become of fang or feather
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World is swallowed by True Play In a tower lonely does a sleeping princess lay
True Gaze is warm and bright Upon your shoulder let a little glowing blur of wings alight
We forget Be much in fear of night but into the Dark Dark Woods now get
True Play is a Symbiote Divine On the fringes of the Dark Dark Woods lays fallen and rotting a warning sign
True Play is the Resonance which swallows Things all Into the Writhing Darkness to find your heart now fall
True Play is the Resonance which swallows World Look now to the flesh of your own two hands and see them curled
True Play is remembered when are forgotten World and Things Beware caress in the Dark Dark Woods by slender hands with ferns for rings
Heart beats within a womb of laughter A drop of Nowhere in your blood seek after
The Meeting of Gate and Heart is the Divine Realm- the place of Angels, the place of Soul World does not go anywhere, it has no goal
The Meeting Place is World- the place of Natures, the place of Soul World does not go anywhere; it has no goal
World is Forgotten by the Realm Divine 103
Mesmerizing patterns breathing of unveiled secrets is a sign
Heart within a womb of laughter beats World we ate and we World eats
In World we are together Fly away, away holding to an angels' feather
True Play is the womb of World Our path is not straight but in a spiral curled
True Gaze is warm and bright There are secrets unveiled only in the dark of night
We forget Into Nowhere does World fit
World swallows us A Single Puzzle forever follows us
Perhaps us will World devour In Alien hands is held a flower
We tremble A Second Heart of Mercury is most nimble
A Peculiar Resonance we find The Flesh of World is The Flesh of Mind
World swallows us as it swallows beauty and truth With luck be marked by an angel tooth
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Down an Angel's cheek ever fall her tears Let die for one moment all your fears
A yo-yo is the symbol of the True Play of World and Things Hold tight and fly away, away on Angel wings
The Place of Peculiar Resonance we touch Things as they are, are such
The Place of Peculiar Resonance unveils the True Mischief beyond World Your lips like The Gods of Mischief will be ever upwards curled
Heart beats within a womb of laughter The Samurai of All Colors will laugh forever after
The Gate swallows World In a spiral is a slinky curled
Let die for one moment all your fears Upon your cheek let fall your tears
Come within the Garden of Flowers World swallows; World devours
Our path is not straight but in a spiral curled Be strong- go now, hand in hand, from World to World
There is a Place of Safety and a Place of Danger To neither World be a stranger
There is possession by Beings of either Dark or Light Be very much in fear of night
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Wolves encircle your lonely tent To your loved ones now repent
A serpent has slithered within your tent To your loved ones now repent
There are Angels watching from on high An Angel's eyes are never dry
World swallows; World devours Come within the Garden of Flowers
-
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PART THREE AFTER MANERVA
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-CHAPTER TWENTY-TWOREUNION It was three and a half years before I saw Max again. There was a lot of history behind my knock on his door. When I first laid eyes on him in his apartment in Vermont, I instantly broke down and tears streamed from my dead eyes. "Long time no see…" I managed to say as I crumpled into his arms. At last to be held in the arms of my dear old friend! He accepted me in a true embrace - without a trace of selfconsciousness. We looked like hell. I was as thin as he. His eyes were as sunken as mine. The adventurous spirit we once shared was vacant from both of our hearts. He smiled faintly at me. He was a changed man. A very different Max. "Let me put on some coffee for you," he suggested, impatient to play host when caffeine was involved. I chuckled through my bleary eyes. The same old Max, but so different. It was not that he was broken and beaten down, sickly, and inhabiting a dreadfully cluttered and bad-smelling home. His war-torn situation was almost a relief to me, and did not depress me in the least. This is because I was in as wretched a state as he, and was very afraid of becoming a burden to him. Misery loves company. No, Max was changed in a deeper way. He had an older look in his sunken eyes - almost wise. He looked somehow mature and humble, as if his bravado and his "cool" were no more. Yes, that was it - Max was no longer cool. And it looked good on him. The coffee was brewing, and we listened to it percolate and fill the clutter of Max's sad little home with the odor of electricity. There was so much to say, but there was nothing to say. We drank the coffee from heavy mugs. (Yes, I had picked up the habit and abandoned my old Orange Spice tea somewhere in the fog of the last three and a half years.) "So you were ritualized, eh?" I asked just as Max asked me his first question as well "So you break up with Chrissy yet, or what, dude?" Funny. Probably the two subjects we each wanted to speak of least. Max took off his sneaker and showed me the scar on his foot from that evening in the woods so long ago. "Yes, I was ritualized, indeed dude. Indeed." I pulled down my t-shirt and pointed to my chest. "And while we're showing off war wounds, " I said, "this is where Chrissy broke my heart." Max smiled at my joke, but it was true. The wound I carry in my chest is no simple heartache of a first love lost. Not at all. Max and I drank our coffee in silence for a while. “You still a poet?” asked Max. I shrugged. 108
~ "Max, this is some strong coffee," I commented. "It's hot, black, and sweet..." he explained, "just how I like my women." And we laughed. "Max, we never found Mr. Kite," I pointed out sadly. "Not yet..." he said. But we both knew our questing days were behind us. "So I guess we should find a good greasy diner and strategize, huh?" I suggested in weary jest. But Max grabbed his coat and headed out, in that charismatic way he used to when we were on a mission. "I guess so," he agreed. And we were offâ&#x20AC;Ś
~ The restaurant we agreed on was not our usual greasy diner variety, but a local vegetarian place run by hippies. Max ordered a vegetarian burrito and a root beer and I ordered baked ziti with a mango drink. Our waitress was a glowing voluptuous thing in a bright tie-died dress and hemp necklace, and her hair was in dreadlocks. She was filled with life. Filled to the brim. We feasted. And then we ordered a bottle of scotch. We drank. And we talked. Eventually, I brought up the reason for my visit. "Max," I began, "we both know that Mr. Kite is long gone, leaving behind -" "Yeah, yeah," my friend cut in, "leaving behind only the vapor-trail of a long gone laugh." I continued. "God knows we are too far short on life force to track him down. But I've kept in contact with Septimus, and he made me a job offer recently, which I am seriously considering. The offer goes to you too, if you want it. It's an offer we can't refuse." Max seemed thoughtful, then shook his head. "Fuck Septimus," he replied. "I want nothing to do with his brand of holiness. He thinks because he knew Mr. Kite that he has the keys to the kingdom, but the castle door has long since 109
rusted shut and there are sharks in the moat. There is no hope for this planet and Mr. Kite's work cannot be carried on by some megalomaniac rockstar asshole like Septimus. The dream is gone, Sachmo my old friend." And so I sipped my scotch for a while and wondered if Max was right. Were there really sharks in the moat? We sat in silence for a minute. And then I laid my briefcase on the table and opened it just enough to reveal that it was filled with neatly stacked hundred-dollar bills. "Okay, I'm in," agreed Max. And we were off... (But not without taking the voluptuous hippy waitress with us as our new "secretary".)
~ -CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE-
WRATH And then Max and I went down to the organic food warehouse where Max worked. Many workers were loading boxes of food into trucks late into the night. [Or perhaps this was just a dream Sachmo had one lonely night…] "Hey people!" I yelled out to the warehouse. "Who wants to join an Army of Vengeance?" The workers were silent. Then I opened my briefcase and tossed stacks of hundred-dollar bills out to the warehouse workers. And when we walked out of the warehouse, one hundred men walked out with us. And the one hundred men were went out into the world and slit the throats of every person who had ever hurt an innocent soul. And all the battlefields of all the wars on the earth fell silent. And the blood of every mortal who had hurt an innocent soul spilled into the soil, and every demon on earth was dead, forever, and never again would an innocent soul be hurt. But there was one demon that was left alive, left alive for me, Sachmo...
~ 110
What I have here is a Will. A pristine, crystal-clear, laser-beam, infinity will. A supercool, streamlined, hyper-dimensional, all-seeing, third-eye Will. And it resides in your sensitive, romantic poet friend Sachmo. How did this come to be? How did such a supremely gentle soul come to display such sharp fangs? A simple equation. A lover turned hero. Love lost and a heart hardened into the straight arrow of resolve. A love meant to be. A love made in heaven. A Phoenix of Righteous Vengeance reborn from the ashes of Tradgedy if there ever was one. With our love we could have saved the world.
~ And some of the workers from the food warehouse who became the Army of Vengeance were sent out as spies. And they snuck into Bald Monkey Estate, which by then had become a corrupt militia. And they returned to report back to me. And they whispered in my ear that night. They told me who hurt Chrissy so long ago, and by the nature of that trauma stole a love meant to be before it had a chance. It was the old man with the tattoo of a barcode on his forehead. I ran my tongue over my fangs, which were growing longer and sharper by the second...
~ Here is a charm that came to me the last time I saw Chrissy, after she became a flower. I sang it to her. I like to believe she heard me. I laid a bouquet of actual flowers on her lap, buttercups and dandelions I had picked myself, since her favorite color was yellow. I put a buttercup into her hair and turned away. That was the last time I ever saw Chrissy.
YELLOW PETAL We ran and played from breeze to breeze beneath the interwoven branches of the trees By the branches, like our fingers, interlaced a latticework on purple clouds was traced 111
In the rise and fall of the latticework, breathing in the breeze blossomed yellow flowers from the branches of the trees nestled like golden secrets in the branches of the trees A petal wilts when it is stolen and so to hell go those who steal so for my love on the thorns of our garden, to pray I get down and kneel. She has a single yellow petal in her vault deep underground, far below this garden of thorns lying in darkness without a sound.
~ -TWENTY-FOURPERHAPS JUST A DREAM HE HAD Sachmo fought a war for love, but what did he win? Nothing. It was all for nothing. For Chrissy never triumphed over her childhood trauma. The young lovers never went on to a happy ending of sea breezes and rose petals. Chrissy became a flower. And she is still a flower, sitting motionless in her glass bubble- her snow-globe. He loved her more than oceans roar. When he touched her his heart was as big as the sky. Sachmo fought so hard it drove him mad. But he could never win. The Enemy was too strong. And now Sachmo is alone. Where is his angel? She sits- perfect in Sachmo's memory, back at Manerva. Waiting, forever, for the happy ending. He does not remember her wilted with sorrow. He remembers her as an angel, a perfect flower, waiting, waiting... And for a long, long time Sachmo wandered the earth alone and dreamt of Manerva, and the magic he once knew there. 112
And humanity was soon to be transformed. But Sachmo was very sad. Because he missed Chrissy and the perfect love that he could have shared with his angel was killed before they even had a chance. And his fangs grew sharper. And one day, he went back to Bald Monkey Estate.
~ Bald Monkey Estate has crumbled. It lies in ruins. It has decayed into evil. Wires are tangled over the floors. Smoke spills from broken pipes. Broken circuitry boards and microchips clutter the tables. Bugs crawl, crawl, through the Estate. Things move in the shadows. Screams are heard from underground, from what were once chanting chambers. The graffiti is painted in blood. All is tainted now. And this is what will happen to all of the earth unless there is a revolution. Those who care will unite and act. Bugs crawl, crawl... The Enemy and Spacepants live in evil. And the horns grow from Spacepants' head. And Spacepants dangles her spider for Sachmo. And the venom wants its home in Sachmo's blood. But the spider, the Demonic Symbiote, cannot bite Sachmo because his heart is pure. His heart is pure, but his fangs are sharp, sharp. And Sachmo walks up to the man with the tattoo of a barcode on his forehead. And he knows that this is the man who hurt his true love when she was a little girl and stole a love meant to be before it had a chance. And Sachmo bites into the man's neck with his sharp fangs and the blood of the evil man spills, spills... His blood spills, spills to the floor, and he is dead, dead.
~ 113
-CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVETHE FOOT-THICK MOSS FOREST It’s been a long time since I’ve known Max and Chrissy and Bald Monkey and Lana and all the souls I’ve loved. This is the last journal entry in my trusty “Journalist Stuff” journal, written in blue ink by yours truly, dear reader. There are few blank pages left, and this story is soon to end. I suppose I am at peace as I lay down my blue pen, for I know that even though this is my last chapter, somehow I know the story will continue… Anyways, in a time long from now and not easy to remember, and perhaps in a dream, I gathered mandrakes from a field near a dock, waiting for a gondola. A wall of white mist, a mist like no other, rolled over the waters and forced me to take my mandrakes and wait at a closer spot upon the weather-beaten dock where I might better see. The mist did not merely conceal the landscape as mists do. Rather, it appeared to dissolve the land as it moved, leaving only a moist bright whiteness in its place. The land yielded unquestioningly. The mist rolled up the dock towards me and my mandrakes till it overtook us, and there was only moist bright whiteness. After a while the front tip of a gondola materialized, floating forward to reveal a woman dressed in flowing silken purple robes rippling in a gentle wind, and strings of beads of many colors. "Travelers aboard..." she said from within a veil in an accent spoken by people from no land known. And I stepped in and we were gone.
~ I spent the voyage on the edge of sleep, lying on blankets under a canopy, listening to the boatwoman singing. As dreams came her singing seemed to float between my language through her strange accent and her native tongue, which sent me dreams of ancient forgotten lands beyond the other shore. Although I could not understand the boatwoman’s language, I somehow knew the meaning of her words, and this is what she sang-
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INSECTOID OVERLORDS Close your eyes, wandering child, it is the Sleepytime now The flowing shrouds of the silken veil are rippling and how! May the black helicopters' propeller blade winds never disturb your slumber But may the Blessed Winds of the Mists of Time ever so gently numb you The night is long and the Nymphs of the Mists of Freedom are already dancing The night is long and the fire is hot so we may as well now begin entrancing May the Blessed Winds of the Mists of Peace weigh down your weary leaden lids And may the amber milk in your tummy turn a bluish tint your lips This tale is long but the blizzard that howls outside will last much longer My words may tumble at times and my rhymes may splice and falter But let my stuttering not awake you, my gypsy child, from slumber And may the shadows of black helicopters never be known to haunt you And may the Blessed Winds of the Mists of Serenity ever so gently numb you Fell the gentle breeze on the shrouds of veil as it ripples now the silk And if you can slip beneath the spiral membrane then suckle the nectar of amber milk There is the flesh of exotic beast, a-bloody and warm there by the fire Take your pick of tendril-spine to strip of meat at your desire The flowing shrouds of the silken veil are rippling, and how! Close your eyes, wandering child, it is the Sleepytime now
Photosynthesize now, my wandering kin, and breathe light from a floral lung Photosynthesize and freeze the air with Icicle Light for fun And turn your thoughts to God and Myth when your lips grow tingled with numb This song will never end but the World has only begun When butterflies quiver in sunlight and in their secret wing-powders fly So then summon The Power Unflinching as the butterflies in amber will die 115
And if these underwater lullabies fill your synapses to the brim Take the leather pouch of butterfly powder and cast it to the wind When the powder summons the sunlight encased in a prism-drop of amber The Dawning of the Final Hour is creaking open to unleash the thunder And if mirrors reflecting eachother splice and splice all through the night And the Power fills your eardrums and crackles your trembling fright Then take the Silence Candy and hold it beneath your tongue And smile the Buddha Smile while you are still breathing under the sun
~ I was awoken by the cry of birds lamenting in a weary wail: "Too true, too true..." My stomach turned at the calling of the birds, turned with an old wisdom- a fear that knew itself to be irrelevant. The gondola slowed, drifting along the edge of an island. The mist that dissolved the waters and the land for the length of my voyage hesitated coyly at a distance from the shore. The boatwoman pulled me by the hand onto the white sand. Odors which I could not understand wafted from the darkness between the gnarled trees of the forest beyond the shore. She led me into the forest and along an ancient winding path, so overtaken by vegetation that the branches of the trees on either side had met and intertwined, leaving only a narrow space in which to walk, like a tunnel through the vegetation. A faint breeze channeled through the tunnel of the winding path followed us, sometimes one way, sometimes the other. The boatwoman then paused and told me to go on alone after emptying half my woven mandrake basket for payment. Perhaps she lingered over a meeting of our eyes on parting with an expression indiscernible beneath her veil. And she was gone. The cry of the birds lamenting in a weary wail "Too true, too true..." rose in urgency as I followed the ancient path deeper into the forest. The birds were all around but nowhere to be seen. A blanket of foot-thick moss of many brilliant shades of green blanketed the forest floor. My feet sunk deeply into the moss. Deeply, deeply my feet sunk. [This is the end of the records left by Sachmo.]
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~ And here was a strange charm Mr. Kite often sang to himself in his head as he whistled a haunting melody-
SLIP AWAY Let's go back to the Nowhere and slip, slip away Let's roll, roll on through Through the World's fray We'll give World a glance as we pass on our way Let's roll, roll on through before we slip, slip away.
~ -CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXBONSAI MAN AND GONDOLA GIRL And this is the story of Bonsai Man and Gondola Girl. And they were two lovers who walked the earth long ago. Maybe they were the parents of Mr. Kite. But anyways, they were in love, and they lived on a little island out in the Clear Waters of the Nowhere. And one day they were fishing and they saw that two people were caught in their nets. And they pulled their nets up onto the shore and nursed the two people back to life. And the two people were Max and Lana. And Max and Lana ate fish and mandrakes and listened to Gondola Girl sing. She had a most beautiful voice. But she was blind, and only sung in the moonlight on the shore at night. 117
And she sung them beautiful songs, and her voice was so beautiful that Max and Lana fell in love again, and they were given a second chance. "Can this really be true?" asked Max. "Yes," answered Gondola Girl, "but only if you have not smoked any cigarettes after you were ritualized out in the woods so long ago. Have you?" "No," answered Max. "Ever since that night I have not once smoked a cigarette." And he was telling the truth. "Good, my little cold one," said Gondola Girl with a blind wink. "But just remember, if you smoke even one cigarette, this will all have been a dream and you will wake up in your cluttered, dirty, foul-smelling apartment, and you will be alone. But if you do not smoke any cigarettes, then that dirty apartment will be the dream, and you can stay on this island forever, and learn to grow bonsai trees with my husband, Bonsai Man, and you can swim in the Clear Waters of the Nowhere and make love with Lana on the shore for ever and ever." And Max and Lana stayed on the island and learned to grow bonsai trees and swam in the Clear Waters of the Nowhere and made love on the shore forever and ever.
~ -CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTHE OLD FLOPHOUSE COUPLE Imagine- a little house out in the woods. A humble house, but a warm house- a hearth! With smiling puffs of smoke rising from the chimney. It will be called The Flophouse. The house of a happy old couple who will live way out in the woods where the laughter of children not yet born would someday fill the air with music. And this was the house that Sachmo and Chrissy will build when they were very old. A happy ending! Or perhaps it was the house that Sachmo and Chrissy will never build, because life is sometimes sad and because Chrissy is a flower now, and it is not yet known if she will ever wake. It is not yet known.
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See, deep in Chrissy's heart, she loves Sachmo very much. But, in a way, a spell was cast on Chrissy so that she fell into a deep, deep sleep. And that is why she is now a flower. But Sachmo will never give up. He will always walk the earth and wonder if there is some way he can break the spell. He will always wonder if there is some way he can find his way back to Manerva and see his perfect yellow flower again. And if he can he will save her. He will rescue his sleeping beauty! And they will make love on the shore forever and ever… And they will grow old together… And build a humble little house way out in the woods… And now and then their grand-children will visit and play in the garden in the backyard, and their laughter will fill the air with music. And theirs and all the human family will be happy and safe and live in world peace because by the time Sachmo and Chrissy are old, the world will have been saved. Saved by a magic book and by a magic trick! You see, way back at the cabin in Moss Hollow, after Sachmo read the chant on the first few pages of The Garden of Flowers, he turned the page. What he found were only 1,000 blank pages. You see, this book was written with a special kind of ink. An invisible ink, but one that has the power to turn visible at the instant the one who writes with it chooses. And Mr. Kite chose December 21, 2012 at 11:11 am. So don’t be late. And there was another trick! It turned out the magic book was not called The Garden of Flowers after all! It is called The Protocol. And it will save the world.
~ -EPILOGUETHE FOOTPRINTS OF THE PATRIARCH They are here now Creeping Whispering They are hiding behind the vines... Peeking out from behind a tree And there is one behind a log! 119
They are everywhere at once now. They are the voices in the heads of schizophrenics They are the whisperings of ghosts They are not the angels They are not the demons They are just the elves Watching us Waiting for a chance to sing a little song You will know them when you hear them They are coming. Closer, closer Perhaps they are the souls of the dead Perhaps they are the ancestors Perhaps they are only in your imagination But that's what they would want you to think, isn't it? They are very shy See- there is one running to hide now! And there are the footprints of the patriarch, Mr. Kite, the holy one So close! We are so close now! He is just around the next bend in the path, just around the next bend... Something is glowing up ahead Shining If these elves would only stop whispering you could hear the rustling of the leaves under the feet of Mr. Kite, the holy one But who is that? A girl with blue hair? She is swinging a bucket of water and frolicking in bare feet 120
A spring nymph! If only these elves would clear away so I could get a closer look! So bright now! Shining, shining... Is the girl saying something to you? A secret? Or is she just singing a nursery rhyme? "Mr. Kite?" "Is that you?" The girl smiles and winks. And she is as close to the heart of the mystery as an angel.
~ The End.
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-BOOK TWOA FROG ONCE MORE
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-greetings and warningsI suppose you are all wondering why we have gathered you here this evening. It was to welcome you into the inner sanctum of the Oysterbar, and to invite you to feast on many more poems we've written over the years. But first, we must remind you that this book has a soundtrack. You must now play the seven Enchanted Cassette Tape Artifacts, which we hope found you safely, before reading any further and whenever you choose to open the book, even if only very softly in the background. They operate in the periphery and work just as well if not better that way. Some will find these albums of mystical and paranormal music dark and unsettling. They are correct. You may find focusing on the text while absorbing the music simultaneously to be distracting or disorienting, and it may even seem to play (entirely benevolent) tricks on you. However, it is best for you to follow these instructions. Trust that the different genres of media are designed to interact in random, subliminal, and uncanny ways you may not be aware of. This may seem loathsome and abominable to some, but please trust it is all in good fun! To those who prefer dessert for breakfast and skipped to the poetry and color here in the middle of The Serpentlightning Trickster Transmission, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s explain how The Garden of Flowers, our novel, relates to these poems. The Garden of Flowers is a story about two friends on a road trip in search for a missing holy man. On their adventure they discover that people who encounter the holy man, Mr. Kite, sometimes fall into a curious trance and start singing or chanting the most peculiar kind of charms, limericks, or incantations of some kind. This is usually pretty awkward and embarrassing, since it seems to happen at random and for no reason, quite unexpectedly, and the unfortunate live performer generally faints after their song and then wakes up having no memory of their little â&#x20AC;&#x153;spellâ&#x20AC;?. This phenomenon came to be known as The Writhing Language. Now, some of the spells in this book (for we may as well call them what they are) are in truth enchanted lyrical artifacts, transcribed from times when The Writhing Language happened to some of us or to people we knew. But you, dear reader, will need to figure out which ones those are and which ones are just normal silly poetry. Good luck!
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-PART ONEGHOST-TOWN TRAVELOGUES (Being a Variety of Invitations to Stroll through the Avant Garden)
ONCE A FROG Once there was a frog With a barcode on his noggin Catching frogs is almost as fun as a ride in a toboggan! But buying frogs is better Check isle five next to the cheddar But this little frog is marked And hops in a shopping cart Till the laser reads his barcode like a red light bull’s-eye dart A toad was his best friend The toad said “it's a sin!” The frog said “baby, green is out and barcode stripes are in” The frog is $9.99 But the toad refused the code The toad was all organic, sold on Farmers' Market Road The aquarium is extra, with aerosol cans of slime That jiggle with tadpole eggs on sale for $9.99 And the eggs have nanotech seeds To protect against disease And the nanotech warms the slime so the eggs will never freeze But the toad is all too proud And says he's natural to the crowd But the crowd can't hear cuz the sound of the airwaves buzzing is much too loud 124
And the frog hears the airwaves too Like the sonar of bats at the zoo And the airwaves are transmitted from the nanotech seeds to you And the next generation of frogs Will be cheaper than the last Because the nanotech tadpoles swim by remote control at last! And they grow into frogs that are smart And dodge the red light bull’s-eye dart Of the laser which shows you which are on sale and which ones sadly aren't The toad got pretty tired Of people asking if he was wired And began to say he was Though his airwaves didn't buzz And the next-gen tadpoles laughed As they were asked for autographs Cuz Farmers' Market Road was bulldozed to make room for the cats That were raised from stem-cell cribs And ate lobsters with silicon ribs And every single drop of butter Was absorbed by fiberglass bibs.
~ THE DISHWASHER’S CONSOLATION When the ghostly incandescence of a flickering neon bulb In the back alley of a restaurant where dishwashers often go reminds you of a séance , yet soothes you to the core, a mood sets in that pleases you but to others is true horror.
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When the Ouija night slips in and makes you wish to only watch As the presence of sentient luminescence comes to town, The scent of something viscous and slippery to the touch alights upon your pineal gland with a trilling cicada sound.
When the Ouija tendrils lust to inflict their telepathic crime; They plug into the socket in the back of your neck and spine; When their Inoculation Sequence throttles the bandwidth of your mind; You channel a current not of electricity but Fractal Medusa Wine.
Once the mingled scent of cigarette smoke, fry oil, and soap Clung to your apron in a way that nearly depleted all your hopes. Then a mischievous whisper from dimensions enveloping your own hissed â&#x20AC;&#x153;All who look into your eyes we shall possess unto the bone.â&#x20AC;?
~ POETRY MUST NEVER BE Poetry must never be. It's too fabulous, too fancy-free If I wanted the Muse to feed me grapes by the sea No feathered quill needed, just charm and whiskey Poets are dainty and prim, you ask me You know the sort- black beret and goatee? 126
The type who discern the best crumpets and tea And have leather-bound journals with a lock and a key They'll read round their candlelit circle till late And would serve you their poems on a silver plate A poem appetizer with blue cheese and brie ~Oh so devilish~ with their caviar and red wine until three!
Verse falls slow like cherry blossoms When circus circuitry fries it's awesome Like a malfunctioning DVD: Pixels splice, stutter, guttural Gibberish Limericks tangle sweet Poetry is a country club for the elite Frames of moments clicking by Stuck in a loop? Just try To shuffle instants like a deck of cards Joker Skull Fire God Snowflake strobe Moment pearls Drifting down on miniature worlds Water-filled blown glass globe Silent night, secret code Pristine world, trapped inside Shake it up, run and hide No work, no school It's plain to see Poetry must never be.
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~ KALAIDOSCOPIC KRAKEN VISION Once there was a conundrum which none in the Kingdom were versed in save one elderly bard (the brothels he used to work in) They say he fished for shark and ate lobster-tail stew and drank whiskey to the Gods when the behemoth's spout blew. For every behemoth he conquered sealed a labyrinth round the conundrum which only his anchors of stone have been known to crush beneath them This poetry of the sea- it is just what the townsfolk know but only the bard feels the chill of the spray when the behemoth's spout blows. As the bard knew all too well and as he often liked to say, when his heart tired of brine and yearned to take harbor where it may, “To ask whether princess or harlot can wait another day.” “Yes ‘whether princess or harlot?’ can wait another day.”
We sailor-bards find in port by morn a solace from the sea But the kraken blows a geyser that is the church bell’s toll for thee I reckon swill and skank has shook you to the core and on bended knee you'll beg for the kraken to haunt you says the lore 128
for double or triple vision from rum and the cheap perfume of whores makes for three or even four krakens to haunt you to the core Who knows? Perhaps kaleidoscopes more...
~ THE LEGEND OF THE LAST PALM FROND The Ancient Grizzled Mariner, He mourned for the sea Now the sentry of a desert gate, His key the answers to riddles, three His queries growled, His sword of fire Barred from the Pleasure Dome called Kubla Khan An Eden with the wilted leaf of the last California Palm Frond With these riddles, he tested me“What themes of poetry must never be?”
And my first answer held the conviction with which Moses parted the sea“Love” I murmured, as easy as Larry Bird catching a frisbee. The Ancient Grizzled Mariner scoffed 'neath his beard. “For this no throng of cheerleaders for you will cheer! “I have cast to the sea tomes which even mention this word! “As if that answer in all my years as sentry I've never heard! “I warn you, this next riddle is no freebee “Larry Bird himself would fumble this frisbee! “Name now the second theme of which poetry must never be?”
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“Soft and tender ruminations on spiritual revelations,” I stated, matter of fact. His raised bushy eyebrow cued me to be more exact And so just to blow off his tattered burlap socks“…those found in journals and diaries with precious silver locks.” The Mariner spat the rum from the flask he eternally swilled. I made a blood oath to prove the Palm Frond Legend true whether allowed to pass or killed.
With his gnarled staff From which lightning flashed The third riddle he roared at me “Of what third theme,” he bellowed, eyes wild and ablaze, “must poetry never be?”
“Nature?” I guessed. He chuckled, pat my back, and let me pass with glee.
~ HAPPY KITTEN DAYS Having Happy Kitten Days And lists of ways to misbehave Being not what they want Is a now a long forgotten-thought 130
What was it then which you forgot? Was once a vow or so you thought. We’re Doing the best that we can to nullify the happenstance “Raver Kids in phatpants; Raver Kids in Phatpants”
...need Happy Kitten Days a lot to kill the sin the preacher sought Dancing round and dancing new Remember back when that was you? “Having Happy Kitten Days; Having Happy Kitten Days” The paper grinds out every day but nothing new they have to say That all is bad and all is wrong in columns both short and long In black and white and shades of grey “Having Happy Kitten Days; Having Happy Kitten Days” Read the paper while you eat Till black and white is all you see Coffee and oranges, news so sweet Till black and white is all we see. That all is wrong and all is bad, Till black and white are all we have Fold it up, nice and neat 131
or toss it to the dusty street It matters not for by the morn' another paper newly born Another day, another chance to nullify the happenstance. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Raver Kids in phatpants; Raver Kids in Phatpantsâ&#x20AC;?
~ A FROZEN GHOST SONG A Sacred Memento swarthed in haunting, The Klienbottlebong gurgles grace of cease from wandering The sweet spirit within the Kleinbottlebong tells of souls lost to the fogThe Souls of Ancestors flitting as fireflies through a bog Disappearing, and through mystic mist teleporting Reappearing in the future to begin anew there swarming. The sweet and mournful spirit brings melancholy remembrance Of the girl who once caught firefly tears shed to save the innocent.
Ever my memory turns to teardrops slipping to murky twilight waters, Falling in vain to the Bog of Nyever wherin rests the Fisherman's Daughter Who was called by the Songs of the Will-o-Wisps, faint in the lazy breeze, Songs of frosty Peacock-Angel wings wilted from battlefield-freeze, Which stirred a longing in the heart of the pale maiden with scarlet hair so fine who once chased will-o-wisp whispers in the warm summertime Ever so faintly filtering in the breeze through the auburn rootbark-vines. 132
I try ever so hard to remember the feeling on the tip of her mind, As she wandered into the Forest of Emerald Moss where she whiled her time. There was nothing to do in the summers then but daydream of the Fall And listen for the Neon Spirit Foxes prowling and howling their mating calls, She loved to catch the tears of fireflies in her flask of purest clear, Before slipping to the Nyever Waters, frozen for all its years.
She wandered into the fog, until a crust of ice crunched beneath her sandals; Her toes were pale white.
The sweet lines of verse were drawing her along. The rhymes of the Garden of Flowers Chant and the Curling Fern Tendrilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Song The rhymes to be whispered in darkness, caressing us along. There is a sweetness in the melody of the Kleinbottlebong Like cupping a sea-shell to your ear, or listening to ferns, The flickering of fireflies through fog is for what I yearn. I still seek to know that longing in the heart of the Fisherman's Daughter, Who once captured firefly tears but will be seen forever no longer She who once kept a special artifact tucked away beneath her bedA flask of purest clear which could heal even the dead. If only she had taken the Flask of Clear from the oaken chest beneath her bed To the dark where the Garden of Flowers Lullaby soothed her weary head... The deeper into the bog she went, the more frozen the Waters of Dread. So it is best not to trust every whisper there which lulls you from up ahead; The Bog of Nyever has drunk many souls with foolish hearts and weary heads.
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In the Foot-Thick Moss Forest where verses faint you barely hear The vibrant moss is encased in ice as clear as the purest clear. The ice upon the moss melts to feed the Spirit Deer Quenching them with the nutrients which Splinterdemons fear. The Trickles of Purist ClearThirst-quenching drops for Spirit Deer, are melted ice which was once the tears Spilt for the Fisherman's Daughter Who was never seen after the Song of the Nyever did called her to wander. These trickles are the most delicious wine ever tasted in All Time. and it is waiting before our eyes, Aching for us to dine. Here lies a banquet feastfor any Fractal Medusa Wine thief. who whispers the Nyever Wine Blessing Rhyme in time before he eats.
She wandered into the fog, until a crust of ice crunched beneath her sandals; Her toes were pale white.
I will ever mourn for She who became the Frozen Mermaid for forever. We fall blind from joy when her temple we enter. Different crystals conduct different energies, hers channeled the purist frequency The only one which can bring the Splinterdemons to their knees.
You know the Rhymes of the Virgin Mermaid Ghost could never be a lie When a drop of her Fractal Medusa Wine is slipped into your eye. This funny tear flows backwards into your heart from fields of rye 134
While the Call of the Neon Spirit Fox Priestess echoes under the purple sky.
The Ancestor Souls in The Bog of Nyever which are reborn as fireflies Honor the Grandaddy Medicine Kleinbottlebong Ghost Porcelain Ancestor Sky And the Frost Crystal At The Center which unlocks the Colorbox Rhymes, The Crystal of the Virgin Mermaid Ghost, frozen for all time.
There are ghost songs so special, they must in mist be whisked away Into the spirits of the foxes which prowl the Bog of Nyever in day And at night slay the Splinterdemons Who Clutch Red Knives. The Love Crystal will never hide.
~ GHOSTS OF THE DRUIDS Oh some of the Slytherin Women I've known have told of ghosts from Thrones of Glass in heavy mist On liquid floors floated Thrones of Glass, air-bubbled to the core And some from Thrones of Dank Purple Moss drank a serum of ghosts that haunt no more.
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A second death, when haunting dies And frozen in time the ghost resides A mermaid ghost entombed in Halls Where fractal bricks like doors revolve You dream things so morbid you fear you've been cursed! The trick is truck; the game is lost. Now you've done it- you'll need a nurse!
And some of the Slytherin Women I've known from Emerald Thrones cast beckoning glares that chill to the bone On a liquid of fractals serpents aplenty floated and writhed from the hair of Medusa Mermaids I've courted A Medusa City (underwater) In fractal Halls is flooded a water that shines of Medusas snakes shimmer in rhythm While glimmers from the wall The Paint of the Druids... The Slytherin Halls.
A shimmering surface, a mesmeric curse, this! Everywhere to rest your eyes there has become non-existent everything that floats by when on a River of Time went and every instant of the Rivera cross-section of the current 136
infinitesimal and transient, like a pearl earing'd spirit Pearl Necklaces click by dear. All you Slytherin Women I'm sure have spent time there.
Like pearls air-bubbled A serum of ghosts in the bubbles of air They once swam as mermaids with flowing underwater hair Like a pearl earing'd spirit Pearl necklaces click by dear. All you Slytherin Women, I'm sure have spent time there.
A City of Emerald An island of prisms A shine that dimensions Get lost like snakes in
A labyrinth of riddles A jester resides there. Every tattoo a moral, Every cigarette a scythe there.
Joker Skull Fire God! A puzzle to come inside 137
a layer of dimensions intersect in rhythm Oh those Slytherin Womens' lips have venom in fangs within them Layers of dimensions intersect like clockwork Those Slytherin Womenhow they make the dark burn!
A Labyrinth of riddles, A Jester resides there Every tattoo a moral Every cigarette a scythe there.
Hair of Medusas Never be human a curse of the blues when the black crows fly in The black crows fly out with their mournful cry but what shivers my spine is the grief of a mermaid ghost frozen in time and stuck in a river that clicks by like pearls an Emerald Hall of bricks was built then To entomb the dead in. The bricks- how they glistened! And the Ghosts of the Druids imploringly listen.
~ 138
-PART TWOTROLLS AND HEROES (Being A Handful of Dreadful Verses for Those with Discerning Taste)
THE TOAST I killed the man who killed the dogs The dogs who fought in pits while we drank grog The dogs who sealed our fortune with their lives and could make a poor man rich unless they died And rich they made me as the gamblers cheered But a dwarf in red, he did not laugh, but stroked his beard The dwarf, he lost the golden hammer which he forged and in rage he killed his dogs whom we adored This dwarf I killed, who I will surely meet in Hell again, I drink this toast to him with juice and gin!
~ THE GNOMES OF DEATH Highly aquatic Never frolic Misanthropic Alcoholic 139
Swilling Brine While Killing Time Awaiting victims To drop from the vine Like grapes of wrath The tourists gather Their kin bereft They should beware The Gnomes of Death.
The Gnomes of Death Lurk underwater Pull you down Disgrace your daughter No need for snorkels Scuba gear In the undertow Swims your fear Epic Fail Shredding Face Niagra Falls A scary place.
On Facebook pages They advertise With texts and tweets They spread their lies Wrinkled as prunes They seal your doom 140
Ravish the bride Drown the groom Gasp for breath Your kin bereft All beware The Gnomes of Death.
~ MARTINIES FOR BREAKFAST A sinister gnome slithers to the phone his sinuous muscle tone gleaming like chrome sweating profusely shivering goosebumps He lives alone with a Lazyboy throne And a bottle of whiskey There by the phone
He calls his skanks and telemarkets Hissing â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hello? Cigar butts on the carpet He uses his phone 141
To sell bogus loans To skanks he convinces To come to his home
He answers the door when the buzzer rings Sells them insurance Then a lovesong he sings He offers them whiskey And soon they shall moan In the morning, martinis Served dry as a bone.
~ KITTEN-CUBES A Los Vegas cyborg, rusted and squeaky compresses kittens in its vice-clamps- freaky! Their purring silenced, compressed completely Kitten-Cubes the size of diceby the superstitious kissed sweetly shaken, blown on, and tumbled, the house is favored In Los Vegas, by cyborgs, Kitten-Cubes are savored The cyborg bookies mark each side with salt, tobacco, or powdered pork rinds and hot sauces from peppers of three different kinds 142
Each flavor signifying the six dot-patterns on dice Good for gambling purposes, and for snacks, also nice.
~ MUSES I need two women in love for me to paint to forget my tears because I ain't a painter in my heart no more haven't been for years.
~ THE EARTH DAY EELS Eels writhing can't help but ravish A hentai robot, demure and polished Her resistance futile, crumbles like chocolate Pseudopods covet the prototype maid-bot Her hair of blue, eyes wide as sky Earth Day always made her cry Sentimental, a dark streak from her eye Motor oil mascara made her circuitry fry.
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~ MCDONALD THE KING I has actually met Ronald McDonald. He came to me in New Orleans like a pimp. On his gold chain, a massive pendent in the shape of double arches, emeraldencrusted. A peacock feather in his purple hat. Big Shoes. A leopard-skin robe, from which peaked a revolver with custom pearl inlay Puffing a cigarette in an ebony holder longer than Cruella Deville's The clown had class.
McDonald nodded his head toward a cow on a street corner behind him, His grin all innuendo, slick as oil “$50 for a night with a heifer” He whispered. “No rough stuff. (that's extra)”. The cow chewed its cud under the warm glow of a streetlight, bored. I declined. (The cow was past-ripe)
I asked if he could arrange a threesome- The cow, the Hamburgler, and I. A long stare-down. This could turn bad fast. McDonald's eyes were like security cameras behind black orbs. Inscrutable. Finally he laughed and tossed a matchbook with the address of a Walmart in the French District. “Knock three times on the backdoor. Ask for One-Eyed Jack.” 144
“Tell him The King sent you.”
On a mission now. It wasn't kink I was after. It was the Hamburgler. One-Eyed Jack was drunk on cheap whiskey, looking for a fight. Told me Ronald could go to hell. (Meat deal gone bad) Offered a bribe. Ten crates of McNuggets. It was an offer he couldn't refuse. I was lead into a room with a heart-shaped bed. No cable. No minibar. The smell of stale perfume and broken hearts hung like smog. Slid a quarter into the massage machine. The bed vibrated for 30 seconds. There weren’t enough quarters in the world for satisfaction.
An old Pakistani lady brought in the cow. Gave it a salt block to tide it over until the action started. Waited an hour. Then another. Gave the cow half a pastrami sandwich on rye. Just as I was about to seek out the customer service desk the Hamburgler arrived, dressed in fishnet and stilettos and not much else. “Do you party?” he asked with a lisp. “No,” I said. “Do you like the taste of steel?” He tried to take cover, tripped over a salt block. I pumped him full of lead and blew the smoke from the barrel of my sawed off. Maybe next time he'll think twice before taking a hamburger that didn't belong to him. “All's fair in love and fast food” I said to the cow, straightening my tie. The cow chewed its cud, looking bored.
~ 145
PART THREE: THE SUNFLOWER RADIANCE PUB (Being Some in Series of a Peculiar Kind of Irreverent Incantations)
DISKO WITCHEZ I knew this one freaky chickthis disco witch down in 'frsico (some dominatrix heartbreaker like the kind I'm sure y'all know) Well, her manifestation-magic was fucking marvelous baby! This witch could frizazzle the frazzle out of any scattered spazzday This chick was a magnet for frequencies dialed interdimensional And every single giggle that shown through her vestibule Well she veiled them coyly in venus flytrap conceptuals The subliminals were outa-fucking-virus-sight-contagious Way back when manifesting synchronicity was still oh-so-outrageous
~ FRANKINCENSE INSENCE Frankincense incense casts trails from embers when woven in spirals like glowsticks by members of hidden cult voodoo tribes nestled in redwoods up high where The Evil Blackberry Vines do no good The members of voodoo-cults weave and they spiral 146
the threads of a fable that burn in the night well For embers can weave as a legend alights there and Frankincense incense reminds of a night there when elderly witchez wove fabric and daydreams and night comes so swiftly your survival knife gleams and caught in a river that clicks by like spirals and into the night where the frankincense scent goes.
~ SWEET ‘93 I can write lyrics faster than y'all And every koan I'm thrown is one I've already solved And every zen riddle cast in fire burnt my rubber light years hence “A Riddle A Day”: electrified wire burns a light when dialed higher Than intended, the mistake is highest The price for spontaneity’s mire Stuck in Abstract, Random patterns But Fate intends to throw you no bones Wicked Forsaken bottle-rockets and in '93 we Almost Had It. We almost made it home.
I know y'all remember when 147
The NES was king and ALL Was Won And in every Good Man's Breakfast Club Was waiting a Sunflowers' Radiance Pub And every toast was raised in vain For there was not yet need to fear the rain, but these days ghostly lips in puddles' sheen whisper parodies of we spirits reflecting in vain. As the right side of a parody is the one to be on, We Ghosts of Nostalgia might eventually move along...
~ SAY IT AIN’T SO! The NES was king in '93 and every living room was free to overlord with Playground Fire And every joint was a livewire And purple storm clouds as they rolled burnt stories I've been told And every riddle ever since has been a riddle cast in gold Which rolled from out the dark into waiting veils and warp zones where raven-owners yell “HARK!” “HARK!” they cry as flapping wings settle into silence and the cry of the raven pierces the night and echoes as the violence sheds blood across the fields where the opium poppies grow and if blood and oil save us tell my ghost it wasn't so. 148
If blood and oil save us tell my ghost it wasn't so.
~ A FAKE WAR We're at war but war is old and seems now to live forever And every time the war goes cold it is fed fish heads and leather And every meal of fish heads and leather invigorates its daydreams And laser-cannon hijinks spring to the mind it seems Every time the bullet clicks it slides the time into place And every instant dreams it was a bullet and every bulls-eye a face And every death a number filed in tombstone magic code And every serial number scratched off with a file of gold And in every birthday cake a file with which to file your freedom And in every filing cabinet your number has been seen man And in every cameras' third-eye shine A security ecstatic, divine, captures every instant when the plants begin to switch back to the fucking jesters that inflict you with their glitch.
~ FLYTRAP SPIRAL Sulking, tragic, ever so deep Casting shadows mascara weep Extending eyelashes outrageously baybee The Venus Flytrap Spiral Crazy 149
Got me thinkinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; too much again About spraypainting nuns while drunk on gin and making girls where more mascara than could fill a swimming pool, I dare ya! I got a laser cannon here And no one dies without my cheer And every girl that ever was smoked cigarettes and lied because They told themselves it didn't ruin them Gateway drugs paid tolls to get through them And gateways soon gave way to riddles and forests, populated by LittlesLittle forest-spirits, whispering secrets such as which humans best to eat next.
~ SLIMEY Something I've been wondered and a click that snaps the time Makes a waterfall fell undered And a fertile swamp of slime And something almost came to mind then And it stuck on the tip of your tongue And every jester-skeleton-grin was never meant in fun And every click-snap moment pearl weather won or cut short by gun Gave credence to the conundrums that with Puzzle-Logic come 150
And every maiden immortalized by tattoo, poem, or love Has been tattooed by poetry and given roses by a dove a-thousand times before- that's why she's called a “Maiden” Every sailor on earth can see them; without their telescopes they see them.
And every maiden Immortalized weather grown, made, or won, came from off the Assembly-Line, From the Assembly Line they come And from their ALONE they come.
~ -PART FOURAN OLD-FASHIONED SPOOKFEST (Being Transcriptions of Strange Lyrics from a Band of Haunting and Mysterious Gentlemen.)
THE MYSTICS OF THE FLOWERS There are secret kinds of monasteries in catacombs, say the storiesThe Catacombs of Alchemy, in all their glory The victims of the battlefield above die bloody and gory 151
And the holy men are locked in cages these days in this real-life fantasy story And the truth is strange and stranger, growing stranger by the hour And there are but secrets three, say the Mystics of the Flowers There are but questions three to ask, this the wise men say“What is World?” and “What are we?” and “What is God's name are THEY?!”
Ask the Mystics of the Stars, dancing without a care Or the Mystics of the Sea who sail by winds of the salty air Ask the Mystics of the Battlefields of the revolution to come, Spilling the blood of the wicked under the weeping sun The plants, they were to guide us, and it has all gone awry And the earth is bleeding to death and soon she is to die And the sweet nectar of the Gods is condemned by those in power And though they have poisoned our mother's milk and turned it rancid and sour, And though the tighter our teethe will clench the longer we must cower, “Rage can never heal” say the Mystics of the Flowers “No, Rage can never heal” say the Mystics of the Flowers And the Mystics of the Brier Patch shed tears for those locked away Who will not taste the freedom of the salty air today And the truth is strange and stranger, growing stranger by the hour And there are secrets three, say the Mystics of the Flowers There are but questions three to ask, this the wise men say“What is World?” and “What are we?” and “What is God's name are THEY?!”
Ask the Mystics of the Jungle, carrying gourds of wine Free of wretched piety but ever slaves to rhyme Ask the Mystics of feudal Japan, a samurai sword their cross Slaying enemy mystics as their silence slays your thoughts Ask the Mystics of the Fields, fed grapes by beautiful girls 152
Seducing your daughters with dance and opening portals to alien worlds The plants they were to guide us, it is few who understand But the resistance is growing silently underground across the land And there are revolutions of blood And there are revolutions of mind And there is time still to decide But there is only so much time
There is a Plague of Metal now, spreading across the land And our Mother Earth is dying; she is dying of our own hand. And there are those who know of secrets which few will understand The Mystics of the Elves are as three grains in a desert of sand There are revolutions of blood And there are revolutions of mind And there is time still to decide But there is only so much timeâ&#x20AC;Ś
~ CITRUS DREAMTIME You can streamline your steam of consciousness and make it glide and glisten With Dewdrop Dreams from heaven and happiness frozen in prison For Frozen Happiness shimmers and shines like an Icicle Chandelier Prism And a second of imprisoned serenity trapped in a neurobotanical alchemy Is enough of a heaven for humans as a glimpse from the Transcendence Balcony For trapped within the white Nothingness Icicle a second can lapse like a year And under the Icicle Chandelier's reflection rings of concentric ripples near 153
Reflecting the symbiotic waveform rhythm of the Splinterworld Prism So simply reach for the splicing lasers and be in Lockdown Freedom and dance But remember that things are not as they seem in the surreal Freedom-Prison Trance The Icicle Chandelier gleams with trickles of warm liquid sunshine Which slip down slippery ice like starbursts of Citrus Dreamtime Into the crystal-clear Waters of Surreal Synthetic Serenity Where the rings of concentric ripples cycle in rhythmic voluptuous purity But when you fall for Dewdrop Dreams and dive for the Frozen Happiness Pearl Beware the lure of the Languor Whirlpool and fight its seductive swirl Swim quickly and pass by the beings below which are most certainly not what they seem And know that such creatures use mischief to camouflage themselves within the Citrus Dream So dare swim not with the aquatic angel mermaids who hide silvery, thorny wings But hear them sing to the blurry sunlight from beneath the concentric ripples rings.
~ MAGIC FLASH Keep a flashlight in your backpack and when the demons strike, fight back! Just be sure the batteries your packin' in that flashlight are the magic kind if you're headin' down to the Dark, Dark Woods to unwind You'll need that synthetic rechargeable battery sunshine cuz the Dark Ones whisper when the night is icy black And the schizophrenic whispers slither through the cracks in the icy night when there's no homies to watch your back 154
So keep a magic flashlight in your backpack and when the demons strike, fight back! Don't hesitate to blind 'em with an electric synthetic magic sunshine light-saber attack Because damnit- you gotta get 'em back! So go ahead and get 'em out of your system with the blinding symmetry flash attack of the stroboscopic insanity wisdom You know you need that blinding, slippery, blooming, flicker-flicker of the orgasmic rainbow crayons like a Ouija junky needs his sĂŠance And to all the Purple Ones around the world, get down with the spice and let the magic uncurl! And when you surrender to the hypnotic symmetry wisdom mystery when the shimmering emerald serpentine electricity shimmers, Enter then a spiraling infinity where the eternal peacock angel miracle slithers
~ THE TICKS The special place is a spider-web and we are caught in its tangle And for forever the Single Puzzle we will never cease to unravel I am sorry but with the molecule we will have to intermingle With The Other we are interchangeable and we intersect with it like clockwork Into the insectoid alien Otherness we must plunge or we would not work So into the interlocking gears as they rotate, how could we not fit? For if the mystic electrical concepts in our cortex make the clock tick Then the Single Puzzle of Otherness will tick onward ever after in ecstatic miraculous frames in rhythm for this misfit 155
~ THE LAST LAUGH Who is wiser; who is wisest? We could debate for hours The Mystics of the Brier Patch or the Mystics of the Flowers? A crown of thorns to bleed you or the magic Druidic powers? Or is the wisest the beast of the jungle while our village it devours? Or the monks with their cups of tea, silent and stern as stone Or the wry smile of philosophers as they chatter all the way home? There are perspectives many and we may all debate or not, But the Mystics of Paradox laugh last to a sun that is Icy Hot.
~ OUIJA PARTY There is only one way to get down with God Play the Ouija It ain't that hard Well do you close your eyes? Or do you want to see? There is a seat for you Save a seat for me Well do you brew them in tea? 156
Or do you eat them whole? And if you have one too many, do you eat your soul? We're goin to a Ouija party for everybody. We're goin to a Ouija party for everybody And if you had a Slush Puppy, but it was made with mush Would that make it a Mush Puppy? And would you drink that stuff? And do you see the shadow-people, whispering in the walls? And do you hear the elves singing? And do you heed their call? Well just be careful out there. And watch eathothers' back There is stuff out there. You'll wanna find your way back. Make sure you find your way back.
There is stuff out there, you would not believe. Just thank your God you haven't seen what I've seen There are things out there you would not believe Just listen to the whispers that hide in the breeze. 157
There is only one way to get down with God. Just play the Ouija! it ain't that hard.
We're goin to a Ouija party for everybody We're goin to a Ouija party for everybody
~ THE RESIN SCRAPER The glory of The Resin Scraper is in his peering ever closer Straining to see the infinitesimal as if his eyes were supposed to For encrusted in crevices slumber the molecules of resin Till awoken by butane flame as by the blast furnaces of heaven And warmed to their waxy wetness they wake to their malleable ripeness Till their true nature of luscious insight-dew oozes and boils with timeless pricelessness As it evaporates into tendrils of twirling threads of smoke The scent of which The Resin Scraper wears as his Splendor-Cloak The Splendor-Cloak which conceals in mystery as subtly as it dazzles intense With its fabric of Peacock Kaleidoscope Smoke offering seductive its exotic scent Like palm frond tips stretching out to send a shiver when your neck they caress A warning wisp of smoke alerts his paperclip of its time to be blessed As the boiling point is reached by flame licking metal of cheap metal bowl 158
The paperclip is pried open and blessed with a new and higher soul For objects used by The Scraper to collect the jet-black slime Are hallowed by blistered hands and find their meaning in the Stream of Time And so the particles of consciousness-goo warmed and ripe for the tip of the clip's point Cast a glance to their birth as resin from a long-gone roach's past life as a joint The roach held in a dusty overall pocket not without a hole Managing to sleep safely their till found later and packed in the bowl Which hung from the lips of the weary Rasta man sweating his life into fertile soil And worked land with his bones and soaked sun with his skin as he blazed high above his toil
~ BEASTERS IN THE SNOW Across the frozen wasteland, brokenhearted will I go To search in vain for my lost beasters, lying in the snow I procured them from a lassie, a kindly hippie chick was she And with tummies full of kind across the tundra did we flee Hither and thither did we romp unto the fabled house a'haunted And as I sat, burnt and goofy, myself my friends a'taunted â&#x20AC;&#x153;Pack thine bowl thou foolish stoner!â&#x20AC;? was the command that I heard But no tumbleweed in my empty pocket blithely stirred So alas, dragging heels, over frozen ground we go Forevermore doomed to search, for the beasters in the snow.
Beasters in the snow! 159
Beasters in the snow! OH DEAR GOD NO! Beasters in the Snow! Now, if a funky brother were I, I would equip myself with 'fro And if were I a gangsta I would keep a lookout for the po-po God damn the icy winds, for forevermore they blow I raise my fist to damn the skies for they taunt me so I shake my fist in vain as I wander to and fro The heavens are now my enemy. My home are the fires below.
Beasters in the snow! Beasters in the snow! OH DEAR GOD NO! Beasters in the Snow! Well I am merely a man. But a single man am I And broken-hearted at that. In my shadowy haunts I cry. From the land they call â&#x20AC;&#x153;B.C.â&#x20AC;? up in the frolic of the North Doth come the potent beasters to be smoketh in due course Oh, would that I smoketh! But no smoke shall I toketh! No mine lungs shan't choketh! Nor my carpet in bongwater shall I soaketh! For out in the cold, cold world, where the icy winds doth blow Layeth my heart, alongside my beasters, lying in the snow.
~ 160
THE PHARO’S CURSE Mystic electrical energy once writhed through the earth And slowly the Insectoid Overlords came forth to give birth These entities, screaming obscenities as if to expel a vile wrath, Sayeth “The Path of the Pharaoh is the Only Path.” What mystical Goddess they sacrificed for him shall you follow And a path to the tomb of the pyramid you will find in Moss Hollow Down behind the fields of Elysium to the Caverns of Frost you must pass Have your history lessons so soon gone the way of your dreamworld grass? You must follow Cauldron Way down to the path of the Tomb of Bottomless Doom And there allow yourself to be cocooned in the Insectoid Overlords' womb. Metamorphosize there into supernatural form Your soul's release shall burst its cap, anew it's born. Though The Path of the Pharaoh is the Path of Doom Take these three seeds with you and its stark beauty shall surely bloom Only then can you fall backwards and so find symmetry Call on your grandfather, The Pharaoh- though dead he can still see Mummified now, his slaves' bones long-lost beneath the rubble Steel skyscrapers fall as your grandfather wakes to shave his stubble He found Nowhere once upon a time and was gone in a flash of fire and brimstone leaving behind only the maladies once creaking in his bones and a curse which you have inherited, now the way of your kind's DNA Just as it came to pass to your father, so too his morals it slayed. The Pyramid's Vault creaked open, as creaked your father's rocking chair Now too late you understand the omens he begged you of which to beware The curse which you have inherited is the way of our DNA When it first came to pass to your father, his morals it slayed The apex triangle stone and the eye within are passed down to you now 161
The Insectoid Overlords have breathlessly awaited for millennia your bow This little Egyptian tale is soon coming to its end... The Dawn of the Cult of the Eye of Horus shall now begin.
~ THE SONG OF THE PINK BLOSSOM BREEZE I.The Grand Blasé No True Tricksters dread The Face of Death For they alone Own their last breath Death cannot steal it from them They die as if it were their whim Tossing all Epic Victory away they fold instead into the Grand Blasé So if you be a True Trickster Just like me Lurking in the gnarls of moss covered trees, Feel detached lately much? From the self-evidence of suchness and whatnot and such? Has the hyper-dimension made you shiver and quake? And left you numb and jaded and alone and fake? Then take heart, you mystic, for heaven’s sake. Take heart, for you are not alone. The Grand Blasé shall be your throne.
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II.Hello Again Invoke thus: “Hello now!” “Hello Reality!” “Oh shining mirror shining back at me!” The Other is awoken. Warning- It is upon us! Like mirrors reflecting eachother, Let the Otherness dawn on us This is The Dawn of The Other And things are not as they seem What is that in your eye? Is it a mischievous gleam? You are a fearless samurai warrior, so why are you giggling like a schoolgirl? Did you dare to hope just for a second that your smile could fool the whole World? Something is peering around the woodwork and peeking from under the stairs There is surely something going on here, or somewhere over there… It is close now for those who are open and for those who still care My friends, things are Most. Definitely.not as they seem Just keep your eyes out for the mischievous gleam.
III. Straight out of the Woodwork Yes indeed the elves are real, Yes you can see them if you dare Straight out of the fucking woodwork, They stare their unsettling stares Though their Mobius habitat uncoils in impossible spatial puzzles And implodes into you invasively in its rapacious avalanche crumble, And though the fractal medusa liquid oozes again throughout your brain, 163
Still The Mirror is shining steadily And The Other is calling your name The hyper-dimensional mechanics of sensual space and time Can be languaged another day or bifurcated in couplet rhyme Go ahead if you desire and dissect the jungle away With mathematical precision, or just as well be lost in the fray Just never forget the vow you made when you caught the scent that day.
IV.The Peacock Angel And when Her Whirlwind of Eyes began again sensually unfolding Was it really real and was it really truly actually happening? ... or perhaps after all in the end it was all just the serotonin glowing? So when you doubt the hyper-dimension, and when it makes you shiver and quake, And when it leaves you numb and jaded and alone and fake Remember The Wild Wind is REAL, serotonin waterfall or no, And The Other can be your friend, or a lover, even so. The scent of the Pink Blossom Breeze told me so. “Downturned lashes, Sad repose The pity of the Virgin Mary, I suppose. But sometimes, rarely,Her Eyelashes flutter In Nystigmia, I vow to love Her.”
V.Maria, the Venus Oh those Sexy Venus Flytrap Eyelashes on the Third Eye of Reality! They are fluttering now and when they flutter I am not to be seen. You won't be seeing me, at least not for awhile Reality is too sexy now, I must enfold into Its smile It is just as well for all the fools to think I’m lost in dream But when I say “I’m Getting Frames” I think you know just what I mean. 164
Just like the flickers of cherry blossom petals, fluttering stroboscopically down now Maria is my Geisha in pink and She Loves Her Wicked Clown. Even the Trickiest Tricksters some days doubt the Secret they believe But you will NEVER forget the perfume that once brought you to your knees. “Downturned lashes, Sad repose The pity of the Virgin Mary, I suppose. But sometimes, rarely,Her Eyelashes flutter In Nystigmia, we vow to love Her.”
~ Venus Flytrap Eyelash Wonder Men of Marble, Men of IronWarrior Vikings force their Nature. Pillars stand for Lady FreedomTo unfreeze Time she desires. To break our stasis we were ordered By a purple stormy Goddess Veiled in Mysteries she languor’s, Deep within the forest. For the voluptuous sirens classy, yet seductresses voracious, We give forth classical order to carve our Names upon the nameless, but for them only to be devoured, 165
In the Jaws of the Great Temptress How we so wish to be rememberedIn the black stone of the tower Our “Happily Ever After”… Our memorial; Her alter. But we are scattered in the toggle And blink out just as the embers We are scattered by the flicker As The Glitch undoes us Ever We so wish to be remembered, But we are scattered by the Goddess. She laughs vicious in a frenzy Blending us in the Blades of the Strobe, To see the best of Her Vikings forgotten like the sands upon the road. When the wine and passion calls you unto the solemn Caverns of Frost, Where your trauma be hallowed by Honor And where the Tale was worth the cost, Though the Rum and Chaos Spirit makes you swagger willful forth, No form will conquer Her, not Ever because her eyelashes, of course, Will flutter coyly ever after And her sly grin shows no remorse.
Though you rush so quickly upward Since She gives birth upon the Hour, Learn the Venus you so anticipate was but encoded in the Flower. 166
From the beginning, in the Flower In the first unfolding frond the Reason pulls you under, And the Quest becomes the Song. And though still as Ever was the Path, and still Ever the Gate forever onward, you know just true as Ancient Heroes swim upstream to their Ancestors, The Venus Flytrap Power Will forever best the warriors.
~ CLOSER TO THE TRUTH Sometimes I feel like my bones are made of ice I am 7,000 years old and I have collected just a few vices I have habits that may seem odd, and I've been known to scrawl spells on papyrus And I will use my scrolls of papyrus- I will use them to divine for us Yes I divine prophetic wisdom, though I have not even a humble abode You may see me pushing a shopping cart on down the road I just might be one of those people that you laugh at and make fun of The homeless schizophrenics- this world they have the run of Cuz they are closer to the Truth than you assholes will ever be And if you listen to them, they will set you free Although they know not how to harness The things which through them are channeled They listen and they do the best they can 167
If they were only enabled! By those shaman to come in generations of the future who will lead the schizophrenics to be kings and refute you These kings will crumble down the walls of your filthy, stinking system Schizophrenic madness shines- a most beatific wisdom! They are open to those realms which you would rather sweep under the rug They can't seem to help but freak out and run through the streets and bug out and shout things you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ever understand; you had best not make fun of them! for one day they shall be your Lords and they shall show you to come within
~ FREAKY BITCHEZ Freaky bitches- that's all I seem to know I could tell you a story about many a freaky ho They seem to crawl right out the fucking woodwork And everywhere I go I see freaky bitches. Freaky Bitches! Just beware- Freaky bitches. I knew one freaky bitch who was an alcoholic She drank from the bottle. She made no sense And everywhere Jim Beam went so did she And there were many more, many more than three
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There was this one freaky ho whose name I must censor And everywhere she went she brought crystal meth with her I don't just know the druggiest druggy freaky hoes around I have to know those who in themselves crystal meth drown She injected that poison into her veins; Her father whored her out at thirteen. I wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tell you her name.
I knew this one freaky ho in a mental asylum (a good place to meet chicks, I suggest you try 'em!) Cuz there ain't no normal bitches that get me off I'd rather smoke and cough Some of the stankiest moss and reminisce About those freakiest freaky hoes that I miss
I knew this one freaky ho who lived out by the sea And she took a razorblade with her wherever she be She used it to cut herself Cuz she didn't like what she did see.
Raise a glass to your health, drink a gulp from my cupDrink from the fractal dimension Let your pain dissolve, don't even bother to mention We all have pain; it is part of the condition. Get down with the sickness and to the Mischief Wisdom listen Let go, there is nausea creeping through all the walls And if you take out your garbage the maggots will crawl; they crawl 169
They come forth, just like out of the air How the fuck did they get in the garbage everywhere? Spontaneous generation you could say Those maggots they come and those maggots are hard to slay You can't get the contamination out from beneath your skin It is everywhere you look, so you might as well begin to get down with the sickness and come within while you're still alive, just get with it!
We may be humans- the satanic species But there is salvation from this disease.
~ KIBBLES AND BITS If you're feelinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; lucky, give your crush a rose Life is short boy and hey, you never know... We have to help eachother keep away those late afternoon slows Keep away those late afternoon slows So break out the kibbles and bits, kidz, it's time now I suppose Pass em around like a charm to ward off bad vibes ya don't need those The sun is setting now and the time is right if the doors are closed.
Break out the kibbles and bits in the sunset rain If just to reminisce and gaze out your liquid windowpane Different days boy, but the shit is all the same 170
Sometimes you just have to sigh the pain away The beaded curtains sway in the breeze as does the world, what a show! Everyone knows the Final Secret, everyone knows Just do your best to keep away those late afternoon slows Keep away those late afternoon slows It's too late now, let out a sigh, this is the path you chose The bad things are outside now, they can't come too close The raindrops are smearing the world through the glass with the trickles flow Just let out a sigh, this is the path you chose.
Break out the kibbles and bits in the sunset rain If just to reminisce and gaze out your liquid windowpane Different days boy, but the shit is all the same Some days you just have to sigh the pain away Sometimes a sigh is all it takes to feel ok It's ok to be sad and remember those who have slipped away Remembering minds broken and shattered like ice over a lonely, lonely river Tonight I built a fire after wandering through a thousand consecutive winters. The drops of rain are smearing the world through the glass with the trickles flow It's as good a time now as any I suppose We have to help eachother keep away those late afternoon slows Just help eachother keep away those late afternoon slows
~ THE NIGHTWATERS Wade into the Waters of Archetype Into the ink of myth you slip 171
and if you wish to be submerged, Then in the Nightwaters dip Dive beneath the surface and let yourself forget Let yourself surrender Into the viscous liquid slip The Old Gods are much closer here Much closer than you think They are still there in the Nightwaters where beneath the surface may you sink
So in this brief while, while you are still alive, Gather your courage and into the Nightwaters dive It is in the syrup of life we swim and in the primal realms we thrive The Gods turned out to be Those Things beneath your feet, alive.
~
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-PART FIVETHE KINDLING IN GENEVA (Being A Few Curious, Inscrutable Poems Which Fit No Proper Description)
GOING TO GENEVA All you motherfuckers are undercover, aren't you? And me? I'm hiding under my covers goo-goo dolling my hamster brother In the downward slope of dreams, while at my window peck the beaks of thirsty junky fiends. With beaks like ravens rapping, pleading, then demanding for a hit of particle smashing Rapping gangsta at my window While I'm gaping-jaw astonished With my sci-fi journals tarnished, Tarnished by being true As is the supercollider polished
I know that while I'm nesting Safety hyper-vigilant testing With one toe from â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;neath my covers While the other is tickled by tentacles, Mythical, From the archetypal waters. I know that while I'm nesting
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In my grunge of laundry clutter Somewhere out there is the flutter; The flutter from Geneva.
My Valkyries on pale winged horses take me home And the downward slope of dreams will soothe me when I am alone But safety is a luxury and comfort gets so old The confidence to leave ones nest is common, I am told But I don't believe it- only Valkyries could be so bold.
I know that while I'm nesting In the calm of bosoms resting Suckling archetypes of Valkyries Who's confidence I'll never own And never know, A flutter and a gentle glow Are being kindled in Geneva
The rings of Saturn turn against us, And gold is turned to lead â&#x20AC;&#x153;All should leave Genevaâ&#x20AC;? Was a lie I once have read Writ by a false prophetThe False One, Nostradamus Who of our folly warned us, But of our destiny he barred us And gold is turned to lead 174
Like the nuclei they whirl Of the electron-stripped lead molecule, As heavy as the dead But a humming from Geneva From a ring like Saturn's own I hear faintly in the tuning fork of which was once my bones
I know that while I'm nesting A wave is out there cresting Or will be soon Like a Cali' surfer's wave Or a super-collider's boom As if from the thing in Geneva On earth will walk the dead In the morning Geneva calls me, Pulling me out of bed.
~ IMPROPER USE OF THE WORD “YOU” You can't call World “You” Cuz it ain't a who God is a who for some (because they are dumb) Not to say it don't exist, 175
But if it do It ain't an “it”
You can *almost* call World “You” Damn hell close enough at times But save that for them sweets you see that's a REAL you (the ones with eyes) Not like it don't look back Or better- “across” It don't look down; it ain't your boss Would we pretend it saw us kindly Want to so, so fucking bad But to existence add the holocaust, and well, it = sad A fair trade to say it's not It's fault... But if not, then when you RAGE “Then who the fuck was it, YOU?!” Is raged not at “it” but “who”
Well it's oh so Nyevery And it's so so Everything Sparkly, candy even- whatever you see It all around And sure ain't dead It lives as much or more than we but hides Whereas our life is a fact, exact, Its is such that it pretends to be a “that” Nor has to die Our deaths the bow is tied A pretty bow of ribbon red 176
Finality and therefor fact Jealous It gets to live forever? But the bow is exactly what It lacks! And what we winwe with eyes.
Whisper to it, pretending it a mother-ear But to “pray” is to forget you WIN as one who can have died. Hard won, so cheer. You pray + wish + are squeamish in your grief for sins of yours and theirs and All But when you “pray” you've let It win- you lost the ball Don't pray- GLARE It's bigger but not above Don't beg for its forgiveness like a precious dove And beware, When you RAGE at It for what they did in the camps and are eager to attack If you let slip a “You” Your atheism died for blame, And you can never take it back.
~ THE CHASM Gazing at the East from afar Unclenching fist stuck in cookie-jar A Chasm makes for Scent Exotic "Always Springtime" mumbled as he drank the tonic 177
Hekuras lured into the circuitry Disciples lined up to infinity They beat a pathway to my door and bow to me as I have bowed before to witchdoctors grinding roasted monkey meat with solemn molars gnashing to icaro beat Would the Primitive entice without the Chasm? A tweed suit and snazzy bow-tie is the fashion Spectacles and briefcase complete the modern man as Geisha girls peak behind rice-paper fans A Westerner till death- guilty as charged My fist stuck in the cookie-jar, so large Connected, but the Old Ways seem so far Yes, those wires, like roots and vines, channel light and the Microchip is the victory of sheer iron-fisted might but from black depths the Chasm shivers and emits a mist with the scent forgotten since the first time you were ever kissed Enshrouding a feeble bridge of woven vine the Chasm mist smells of another time Luring Hekuras across the divide Can't quite connect the sides but, like a samurai, I tried.
~ OH MY GOD THE SKY!!! In a world where your own mother very well may be a spy 178
sent by evil psycho fiends to frame you with a lie,
It is best to keep some muffins handy in a wicker basket You can drop them on the doorstep of psycho evil fiends or pass it to them through a friend to pay off a debt they say that will be paid with your own nutsack if they don't get those muffins today!
Absurdity Absolves us Frylock helped me to survive. This kind of world requires a hero That is a talking box of fries.
Now, â&#x20AC;&#x153;OH MY GOD THE SKY!!!â&#x20AC;? may well be the name I was told was the real name of my lassy, whose heart was made of gold She was a pretty shade of plain, and there was dystymia in her brain The spies are parked outside, in the sun or in the rain.
Frylock was a Benevolent King, The Father we deserve. Meatwad was the child within 179
we so wish to preserve. Mastershake- the Lightning Flash that Crumbles the Pillars Down “All is wagered for the Final Laugh,” from his deathbed said the Clown.
One day when you are dishwashing, the surreal, oily sent of fries will remind of a crooked eyebrow seen somewhere above “What The Fuck?!” eyes After all, “What The Fuck?!” is the only logical way to say “Goodmorn'!” To a World too old to frolic, but too young to be reborn.
Absurdity Absolves us Frylock helped me to survive. This kind of world requires a hero That is a talking box of fries.
~ CAMERAS Now, a camera is the Mind of God! And a camera is all more the odd, When a camera is in the egg of a tadpole that is inside the butt of a frog. And cameras are mighty weird indeed in synchronized nanotech swarms Of micro-drones for cruel voyeur porn of which Orwell so well forewarned, Which makes for the kind of earth on which it’s better to have not been born, And make your heart sink to your belly where it has never been more forlorn.
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A camera is irrefutable like the clear light of the Void And a camera is the anti-laugh that freezes and so destroys. And a camera is the wicked snare which traps your unseen soul at play The World Ends not with a whimper but with a Lens, I say.
And a camera is the devil! As he smokes a cig' on his motorcycle. And a camera catches the trickle Of tears from the eyes of those whom mace will make think twice before they dare to record the grimmest fables.
Their cameras are so Forensic Science can freeze us in The System And our cameras shine the blaring light which they liken to treason But both our souls are captured, as the primitives will tell. And surveillance is the reason This World will go to hell.
~ BOUNCE A funny thing happened to me today Actually it was quite sad but I'll tell you anyway I bumped into someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arm at a rave I never wanted to be so bad and misbehave I felt so ashamed I wanted to hide in a cave I looked at her and she just smiled at me 181
She even pet my shoulder with empathy I thought “how much more selfish can I be?” almost apologized to her on bended knee She said “It's no big deal, it happens all the time!” “So just keep on bouncing, friend of mine.”
Still, I felt so clumsy I swore I'd never bounce again You try to bounce but you never win. But then I asked myself, “why do you care so much?” “You barely brushed her arm with the slightest touch!” Guess I forgot how much I was supposed to care must have been something in the air. She laughed and said “It happens everywhere!” wanted to run my fingers through her hair But you can't do that to strangers; it isn't fair! So I just kept on bouncing without a care.
People die in war while we're having fun But fun is so fun to have I can't help having some Compared to war, bumping someone’s arm is not a sin Some soldiers come home and they won't ever bounce again When you think about it, we're the only ones who win.
~ GPS = 666 First we creep into your taxi cabs (just to determine the correct fair) Soon you'll see us popping up in convenient places everywhere 182
We just may be in your cellphones soon (just so you don't roam too far) For just $99.99 they will install us for free in your car It would only be wise for your offspring to have one of us in their hiphop sneakers Or perhaps in their contact lenses (oh how did they get such beautiful peepers?!)
So many more humans can we infect once we are in your pagers and beepers It will be quite too little too late when you all cry “Jeepers Creepers!!” You shall see us as cute fuzzy tribbles but we are micro-electronic grim reapers
We know where you are!! We know where you've been!! G!! P!! S!! ...It's the ultimate sin! (x2)
Now what was it we snuck from the folk? Just what was it we stole? If your name is not in The Book of Life, you'll find a GPS in your soul! Now, freedom is wandering lost And forgetting who you are You can stick all the Grateful Dead stickers in the world on your car But you can't get lost no more. Some say “not all who wander are lost” “NONE SHALL BUY OR SELL WITHOUT THE MARK OF THE BEAST!!!” Cash comes at too high a cost Cash is the last to go Now cash is a crime! Then a credit card on your right hand and forehead
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“Hey mister, can you spare a dime?’ “Hey mister, can you spare a dime?”
Convenient in your wallet, more convenient under your skin, The Book of Life is for the few; which one is your name written in? With charisma like the Anti-Christs’, how can we win? With convenience like this GPS, how can we win?
We know where you are!! We know where you've been!! G!! P!! S!! ...It's the ultimate sin!
~ THE MIRRORED PATH
Here now is given you the Sacred Ancient Mystical Key To the Mythical Forgotten Archetype Kingdom for eternity. But to open the Final Gate and unravel the Single Puzzle, You will need more than this sacred gift you have been givenYou will need also the Surreal Neon Dreamworld Glowstick Wisdom.
So go forth now alone to where the paths intertwine And the trees breath in the rhythm of rhyme. There kiss the Peacock Angel in her Dance of Gentle Splendor And the love given to Her will be returned to the sender. 184
Go forth now alone to the mesmerizing absurdity Where the air trembles in ever-reverberating Jello windows of fractal medusa liquid quivering And there within claim the Surreal Neon Dreamworld Glowstick Wisdom And the offer the Key of the Forsaken Archetype Kingdom Portal Opening Mystical Prism Ritual Miracle to the Peacock Angel in her dance of gentle splendour, But remember to cross your fingers when you kiss her, So the love given to Her will be returned to the sender.
Or else the Hallowed Mirror Path of the Absolute Otherness-Miracle will shatter! And its Asymmetrical Crystal Prism Rainbow Spectrum Miracle Shard Remnants Shall fracture into a handful of Fractal Voodoo Splinterdemon Dimensions. The moral of this Voodoo Splinter Dimension Fractal Medusa Liquid Lymric, child, Is that if you offer the Fabled Emerald Alien Elvin Deity Supremacy Key And surpass The Path of the Map of the Ancient Archetype Wrath you have been given, By following The Path of The Surreal Neon Hieroglyph Schizm Demon
But if you forget to cross your fingers when you kiss the Peacock Angel in her Dance of Gentle Splendour, The love given to Her will NOT be returned to the sender, And instead the Hallowed Mirrored Path of the Absolute Otherness Miracle will shatter! And alas, the Clattering Mystical Prism Shard Remnants will fracture into a myriad of disasters.
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~ THE FIELD Quiet sit the humans, Like gods of acoustic precision. Turning up the silence Of a prismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fractured schism
At least we have auditory space, The Silence is so real. The vibration of dust particles, That subtle frequency we feel.
We may craft a bubble round usTen feet in diameter. Nothing bad allowed within. It is best to be in there.
Can you craft the bubble too? Can we with eachother triangulate? The space is communal! From this moment: extrapolate. 186
From where we are (and wretched) To the field there is a path. Point A to Point B. You want the field? Do the math.
The space to be OPEN. Up forward in the future. We all want it bad. We want it so bad it's torture.
We all get off And shine bubble gift inside. We all suspect that moment has nothing to hide.
And if that moment was the New One Earth? And we made-believe the field was near? Pulling us into the futureâ&#x20AC;Ś We were born to this Earth so we can come here.
~ 187
-PART SIXFIREFLIES AND WEEPING WILLOWS (Being Some in a Scandalous Series of Lessons for Venomous Vixens.)
ETCH-A-SKETCH GIRL Playin with a fuckin Etch-A-Sketch On the bus, first day at college I bet. “Yep” she tell me, it ain't no lie “Are you going there too?” (hopeful look in her eye) Now I shake my fist at the empty sky Why didn't you say “YES!” motherfucker? WHY?!! She asks “Do you have a cigarette?” (a hopeful look I can't forget) Wish I did- she'd share one I bet Good thing I don't mind girl-spit Woke up that morning like “Why do we bother?” Now I know daydreaming of her girl-slobber “Can I have the earbuds to your mp3?” Is this chick for real or is she kidding me?!
She got a little dirt beneath her nails 188
I can smell the road on that female Smells like fine perfume to me Takes a half a cigarette to set you free Smells to me like fine perfume Takes a half a cigarette to seal my doom I can smell the road on that female, I can smell it right away (but you didn't say “Do you have a place? Do you have a place to stay?”)
So, is that your cellphone? “No, it's my Etch-A-Sketch!” A mini pink one, scratched to shit How damn retro can you get? “People think that I'm retarded.” (If you only said “No you're not! You're gonna be a star, kid!”) But you didn't. Idiot! Now go smoke a cigarette. She shook that Etch-A-Sketch at me like a voodoo hex under a witches tree Haven't seen that spirit since '93 (and everyone knows that was the time to be) She shook that Etch-A-Sketch at me like a voodoo hex under a witches tree She make me feel like I'm back in '93 (and everyone knows that was the time to be) Shake it, shake it, Etch-A-Sketch! Shake it, shake it, Etch-A-Sketch! Shake it, shake it, Etcha-A-Sketch! Shake it, shake it, Etch-A-Sketch!
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Why didn't you ask her to smoke a bowl? Why didn't you just take her home?? Why didn't you ride to your college with her??? Cuz you're a fucking coward and IN-SE-CURE! â&#x20AC;&#x153;Can I have the earbuds to your mp3? Now I've got no fuckin earbuds for ME!
She shook that Etch-A-Sketch at me like a voodoo hex under a witches tree She make me feel like I'm back in '93 (and everyone knows that was the time to be)
Shake it, shake it, Etch-A-Sketch! Shake it, shake it, Etch-A-Sketch! Shake it, shake it, Etcha-A-Sketch! Shake it, shake it, Etch-A-Sketch!
This poor boy has but one desire I wanna set your Etch-A-Sketch on FIRE.
~ RACOONZ She got so much eyeliner she look like a raccoon And she headbang when the bass goes BOOM-BOOM-BOOM Down at the train-tracks Or down at the docks
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Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re feedin' those duckies like around the clock! Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; strapped to the trax as I bomb the blox And the bass tastes best with the glitch on top She's on a redwood log and my bass is the buzzsaw My laserbass crowd-draw is exclusive to outlaws Who shred face to unlock The bassjumps from skybox And bunji the fungi that mindwarp the headlock Of skankatronic headcases fiending to freebase The logic that glitches so perfunctorily erase The time-slicing, the frequencies dialed on Etch-a-Sketches The sketchiez that scavenge the wreckage of witches The tin-foil helmets and manifestation-catchers And the randomness of skateboards and hoodies of many flavors The Ouija Board headfucks that hoodrats get stuck in And the graveyards and trainwrecks of ghost-towns-grown-up-in The trademark raccoon mascara of runaway angels With switchblades for strip-poker deals under the table And like them I headbang and handswat at waveforms That none but me see as I trasnsform to Beast Form To ravish a maiden who received a stricter education On the road with her Headmistress (A Dark Summer Vacation) So far from the boneyards her childhood took place in With the ruler she could scarcely conceal her elation. She was spanked with the Ruler of Seven Dimensions And the crystals which rapped her knuckles spilt rainbows from prisms And the ghost of her Headmistress (A Lady of Royalty) to this day haunts the fetish-clubs these goth chicks so enjoy with me! And she samples caviar as infinite waterfalls Of jet black eyeliner drip from the walls
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A raccoon under my arm, a ticket to Paris. Down at the train tracks ghosts can't even scare us.
~ BONKERZ They say Zoth was un-fucking-believable in bed. “Who would have thunk it?” would surely be said By every one of his college classmates; That's just what they'd say Where the fuck is that hot little hippychicky Sunflower today? Or all the others Zoth dreamt of taking against the lockers He’d have bound them in bondage gear and gone bonkerz “Now they've scattered to the Four Winds,” he thinks, “Just as have I.” But somewhere along the way Zoth saw a part of him die Well, many, with each alleycat he let into his bed They took pieces of his heart for a spider which they fed And that spider grew larger and stronger with each piece With the dinners of his heartstew that spider grew teeth and the alleycats in perfectly synchronistic teamwork spiced that heartstew with his dignity and the spider went berserk And when you've got a 900-pound spider on your ass, it makes you wonder if all the alley cats are sharing a good laugh 192
~ Oh yes they're sharing a good laugh! ~
Well the venom was extracted and how cats love to taunt As if they knew the fantasies of the cool kids and the ones who aren't. Well guess which kind Zoth was, I'll give you just one hintHe was the dorkiest of dorks and to the locker-room he went But where he wanted to be was in the one across the hall With the prom queens and that hippychicky Sunflower and them all The ones who were to shun him and make his skin crawl As they giggled and gossiped all the way to the mall. Well Zoth must admit, his thoughts for them were elaborate! He had much hands on his time and he built quite the labyrinth. A labyrinth of fantasies, as they grew into felines, adept at milking venom glands of spiders that climb Into his bed To wrap him in webs. Zoth’s heart is now tangled, “Yr a dork” is what they said But now they say “Wow!” and “Oh My Fucking God!” And every time it's so amusing, he laughs, it's quite odd! And still they conspire; it seems all the more And yet the ones who destroy his spirit most, he most adores. And the ones that know a revenge fantasy when they see one have a desire that burns with the heat of the sun. A desire to be revenged and cleanse the Prom Queen out of them For that was their own burden and their own spider venom Zoth’s all happy to help, where is Sunflower now? She bows to her Spider-King with a meow.
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~ MR. KITE’S LAMENT Fucking wicked female shaman Made Mr. Kite’s blood boil like water for Ramen boiling hot, till his skin was crawlin' The greater their Power, the harder he’d fall for 'em Hot with lust, but this time with jealousy He cried “How the fuck did her power manage to eclipse ME?!?” Mr. Kite didn’t take kindly to receiving Full Transmission He was in the habit of giving them like granting wishes The good witch/ bad witch question he’d answered The results were in and more distressing than cancer He thought “I’ve rarely seen a Power greater than mine…” “OK, never, until this time!” He was a good shaman tho' and he liked to mingle his blood As the humans do with eachother, it is fitting that they should But his kind mingles Spirit and can inflict that on mortals Turning us on like flicking the light-switches on our portals Inflicting spirit like bestowing The Strange, A touch of fear forever more in our brain We can't remove it with surgery, prayer, or magic It's implanted, their Transmission involves the deranged and the tragic But we shall wonder anew when night falls and curtains sway And they honor The Strange when they convert us this way They’ve won us for their kind, a notch on their belt But their side has its own version of the conversion we felt 194
When two of them meet, recognition is like dynamite The shockwaves of Mr. Kite’s recognition took All Night He mingled blood and may die for that For to be as Nature is is the way of magical alleycatz Plastik had no place between them, didn't even cross his mind But mingling Spirit was less safe and was in no way divine Your Power eclipsed his, yet he chose to change you Just as mortal to shaman, so bad shaman to good, yo! Mr. Kite was a hero, but his foe was stronger Congratulations bitch, he’s a good shaman no longer.
~ -PART SEVENSKELETON TRAIN (Being the Remaining Fragments from Times Long Gone of a Long Railroad Journey’s Song)
I.BOARDING: MELON-WATER FEVER "We're on a skeleton train, baby, We're on a skeleton train now If you're wondering why,
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Maybe we'll tell you somehow. The prison train's aâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;chuggin Soakin' coal through a straw The engine must go on in this coal-shovelin' craw.
Swaying back and forth like a squirel on a stone wall pushing up the mountains into the dessert snowfall
A Demure Beauty brushes my shoulder Her quiet sanctity touches my soul This train could lurch forever Its swaying flow, her sweet Melon Water coal
My glass of merlot becomes an ocean Of Demure Beauty Sanctity Potion The skin absorbs... a witchcraft lotion! As Melon Water fever yields my hearts deepest devotion.
~ II. EMBERKATION: THE HARLOT Lust and drunken debauchery Reach for me with claws 196
If only I had a virgin nurse with pure, white gauze to wrap my industrial wound with a crystalline microchip God.
But not before swabbing the festering puss-filled wounds that dribble from my flesh (like tides pulled by the moon) with the fragrent herbs to act as a poulticeSagebrush from the hills and from the water, a lotus
The lotus which blooms from the mud the mud of the industrial revolution. Oh where is my nurse of pristine electric purity to redeem the whore of Babylon with her interconnectivity sanctuary?
Perhaps she's in the mountains, running razor ridges, crooned to sleep by coyotes, woken up by midges that bite into her skin, flushing pale with scarlet; but she won't succumb until she defeats the harlot,
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No, she won't succumb until she defeats the harlotâ&#x20AC;Ś
~ III.IN TRANSIT: HAVENS Where should I choose to cease my wandering? The dank and spicy forest with pebbled streams meandering? Perhaps on the cliffs of a wave-chewed coast? Or on the peaks of snow-capped mountains, flitting like a ghost? Or in a Turkish harem replete with the notes of flutes smoking cigars rolled by harlots whores the tailors of my suits
Or lost in labyrinth cities, those above-ground sewers, enticed by flashing signs- neon fishing lures, whose purpose is to hook you right upon your lip, but if the hook is swallowed, your innards they will rip.
If there is but one haven from the screeching of metal gears like teeth, it is the Honey Melon Soul beseeching raining Melon Dew Forgiveness on every falling leaf.
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On high my Demure Beauty sits serene upon Her throne For Her my organs rupture; for her splinter my bones But each drop of Melon Water Dew that blesses from the skies, encapsulates the oil of the machines, and so it dies...
~ IV.MOUNTAIN TUNNELING: SUBMARINE A pure sphere of blinding white to carry this orb takes all my might Soul on my back like a hermit crab's blight I carry my home into the howling night.
For it is always night in the ocean beneath the chaotic motion of the waves. And it was from this potion the first flickerings of life arose in.
Of the prehistoric amoebas, funking in their muck, did they evolve complete with soul? And did their guardian angels give a fuck? Of their swamp of primordial scum, the cradle of sparkling lifeif it only knew the horror of dystopian biomechanoid strife! 199
For you'd hope, in the depths of the sea, the taint of mankind wouldn't be But an army is transmitting signals Submarine radar shrieks mingle with the cooing of whale's communications They become beached due to loss of direction.
~ V.APPROACH: CHAOTIC CLOACA China blue corneasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; water and salt from the sucking sea crams in our sockets and scatters images of amber and green
The flight of frightened sea-gulls, torn with wind asunder, clinging to pirate ship masts, huddling to their sea-gull brothers,
Dripping and dropping in dribbles, the chalky white smut from their rears, crusting on sun-worshippers' nipples and leaking inside of their ears. 200
A scream from the lungs of the captain muffled by train-window tinted, sabers slashing at feathers; a war on high seas is presented
But though the legions of air have been routed, the pirates celebrate victory too soon, for the whales and dolphins (bottle snouted) drag them down to their watery doom.
~ VI.ARRIVAL: VENOM LEATHER-OIL The Skeleton Train's a cruel mistress where the water is white as a dove. The filet minion is divine, but the wine is bottled Godsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Blood from above.
Swirl it around your palette; Let the crushed sap soak into your tongue, but make sure to spit out the sip, don't swallow it as others have done.
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The fractal medusa wine lingers on your tastebuds like scorpion spine A bottle of snakes- beware! A bear-trap claw-snap divine. For this brew was brewed in fury By a reptilian dominatrix most surly She oils her leather with venom and with a grin wishes you a pleasant journey,
"Yeeeaaaaaaah, have a pleasant jouney.... Yeeeaaaaaaah, have a good trip!â&#x20AC;?
~
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-BOOK THREEHELLO AGAIN WOLFMAN “Twenty Tales of the Absurd and Macabre, To tingle your spine and blow your mind”
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-Return to the OysterbarThis is Dork Stork Oysterbar. We’re pretty obscure. You’ve probably never heard of us. Here are some stories we’ve written over the years. Together, they form the last book in our series of three. These three books can be read in any order, and like the poems in A Frog Once More, the short stories here can also be read in any order. In fact, we recommend flipping through these pages and pausing when a certain word or phrase catches your eye. It may not have been coincidence that it did. This method of reading is best because none of this is sequential and the Single Puzzle can be better unraveled that way. The character portrait illustrations in this collection were drawn in sumi ink and bamboo pen by a hermit monk who asked not to be named. These stories are offered merely for lighthearted entertainment and nothing more. They are just fantasy and sci-fi experiments, written flippantly and without ulterior motive. There are no symbols or secrets here- just a collection of horrible, twisted and demented tales to shock, offend, amuse, amaze, confuse, and entrance you, to tingle your spine and blow your mind. They may seem dark or vulgar to some, but please trust it is all meant in good fun. Kind of like a fun but scary campfire ghost story! We will now remind you one last time to play the enchanted cassette tape artifacts before reading any further. By now you should know well to do so whenever you open this book. It is best for you to follow this instruction. Oh yes, and please… Enjoy!
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-1THE TRIUMPH OF TYING YOUR SHOES
Freezing rain. Black ice. A 40% chance of the Death of Hope with a twist of lime. Yet college cheerfully open; no cancellations. It’s often hard to get out from under your bed in the morning, and today you’ve got the Term Paper Blues, son. The deadline crept first like a zombie- slow, persistent, and with an aroma not unlike codfish. Yet you savored these last few days, procrastinating like you really meant it, and God knows you did. In fact, late last night, through bleary videogame-induced eyestrain you dared challenge the very serious assignment aloud by cheekily taunting it to “Bring it on!” “Do your worst,” escaped through dry lips past a dangling cigarette [strangely, you don’t smoke] in your best Clint Eastwood drawl. Sure, you could have pulled a classic caffeine-fueled all-nighter at the library, or at least shuffled through your withered syllabi to determine which class the paper was for, but Hell! Fortune favors the brave and it’s always springtime. A menacing purple fog settles into the piercing rain about two hours before class. The slow shamble of the zombie-deadline has swiftly transformed into a wild boar in the later stages of rabies, and, by your unsettling diagnosis- in heat. The foamy froth sliding down its jabbering tusks seems inherently unkind, and the red eyes of the beast are a special kind of crazedsomewhere between deranged frenzy and a disconcerting lust. This is, as they say, when “The weird turn pro.” So you don your trusty sunglasses, rev up the red convertible, and cruise casually up the winding hill to campus, wet wind in your hair, tipping your debonair fedora devil-may-care to the ladies, and whistling “A Rhapsody in Blue”. A Rose may or may not have been tossed in the direction of your clunky VW van (okay, it’s not a convertible) by one of many secret admirers. First impressions are important! You shoot fast and loose for Fred Astaire or maybe Humphrey Bogart. You can on occasion pull off Woody Allen (that’s on a good day.) Do it! Park directly in front of that fire hydrant, rationalizing that the hydrant is redundant considering the hard black rain. Drenched but debonair, you swagger into the computer lab which is packed with bushy-tailed scholars like sardines. The Eternal Social Anxiety will not prevent you from rolling up your sleeves and commanding your space with a heavy black typewriter under one heroic bicep. The typewriter is an antique, painstakingly hand-constructed decades ago by some bushy eyebrowed Luddite WIZARD (remember this!) from the pages of a Harry Potter novel. It was the only inheritance you received from the passing of a great-uncle who spent his deathbed sunset 205
suing the government for secret psychological experiments which he claimed left him unable to tie his shoes. Suddenly- a loud thunk/clang from the ancient rusty hunk of metal pregnant with literature. Yes- you tossed it as if it belonged amidst a row of sleek electronic wonders you have been told are called “interwebs”. But the black machine was more different than we can even yet surmise. It’s Alive! Here we go! The jingle-jangle morning of metal keys thwacking inky ribbon quickens as does The Genius.
“DEADLINE MINUS 45 MINUTES”: The zombie-turned wild boar-deadline phases into its third and final formthat of a large, wise, old, black centipede, flayed like a biology 101 dissection experiment with pins and chloroform cotton ball tears. Maybe the dwindling of remaining time itself provided that cute buzzy tingle in the cortex of the centipede and struck jackpot, pouring words forth like pearl earrings from a Vermeer slot machine. Even in these grim days you can still pull a rabbit from a hat.
The thwick-thwack sounds of the relic language-generator strikes a primal chord, and causes the cell-phone androids and the i-pod cyborgs on either side of you to perform doubleand triple-takes, their eyes wide and not without a tinge of fear. The centipede-deadline’s sweet black inner meat is a delicacy savored by all gentlemenlosers since William Burroughs, and The Truth ferments a tangy brine in your mouth like old, well-veined bleu cheese. But will you (our hero) triumph??
ENDING ONE: “TEN MINUTES PAST DEADLINE” If you were a bitter, cryptic cynic-critter, you would say the moral of this story is “slow and steady wins the race; late to class is a disgrace.” Hard facts get you an “A”, The Truth a firm “C+”, and Art guarantees a “see me after class” in red ink. But cynicism is for the birds (ravens), the pitter-patter of rain softens on your daydream window, and here comes the sun…
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ENDING TWO: “DEADLINE MINUS 30 SECONDS” The clock melts like Dali wax and the hourglass sands run upwards- a 250 page doctoral thesis on the symbiosis of 1950’s-era typewriters with certain Amazonian basin insect species writes itself, a dedication page to the memory of your great-uncle still pleasantly warm. It screams Nobel Prize, spell-check be damned!
ENDING THREE: “CLASS CANCELLED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER” That old mystic typewriter sprouted antennae and a beak and hummed a sad gypsy lullaby in a chirping cicada language that no one could translate, except that it had something to do with chloroform cotton balls and the melancholy of how people take tying their shoes for granted.
~
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-2THE HORROR OF THE DRYING DOOR In truth, I can hardly bear the burden of the karma of even telling you of the Drying Door. Bad karma indeed- the kind that creeps back for you like the scent of a wet towel under the bed, returning just as a hot date is tossed to the pillows. Of course, you can no longer detect the foulness of the odor, some gaseous witch’s brew of airborn bacteria expanding like billions of microscopic German paratroopers. You can’t smell it because it has been your constant bedpartner, but she can, and she doesn’t even bother to slam your door on her way back to the bar (street) you met (bought) her at. Yes, just telling you of the Drying Door invites that kind of karma, but living with one is worse. It would be better if you had lived a gravedigger’s life and died without knowing, but you soon will, for I can suffer to carry this tale alone no longer. I write to soothe my burden, much like a man empties the sack of cats slung over his shoulder before setting up camp for the night. First, you must understand for the record that I could wish the Horror of the Drying Door on no man. Not even Hitler deserves to own a Drying Door, and I would stand still if you said I could dance one into his Hell while I jitterbugged on his grave. In fact, I would fight to the death and die gratefully if only I could seal a deal with the devil that no Drying Door shall ever soil Hitler’s Hell. This is how bad it is. Trust me- I’m not an old man anymore and I’ve seen enough of it to know it’s bad and I want none of it. The Drying Door was once a normal door. Well, a tall one and not the kind with a peephole that your friends flip the bird to because they know you’ve been breathing silently with your bloodshot eyeball glued to it for hours before they even knock, mostly nightly. Anyway, the drying Door was the closet kind; the kind that folds as it slides open on tracks. How it was aborted from its tracks none know, but it stands alone, leaning naked on my wall. This severance from its tracks cannot be called being “unhinged” as my deadbolted and thrice-chained front door would be, for a sliding, folding door in grooved tracks has no hinges. Nay, it is not the Drying Door which has been unhinged, but I. As I stood with feet like iron roots, plunged into a bathroom I never made, did I twist the towels. Not to snap with a thunderous crack like whips at asses that crash cars as the drivers gaze on by- the asses of sorority college girls frolicking in a locker room dungeon of my very own, no. I twisted the towels to wring the last sad drops of water from them in tandem with my angry tears. I was doing my laundry, and by “doing”, I do not mean palming a $100 bill to a young errand boy with a prematurely ruddy complexion and a taste for the action, knowing by morn the folded garments of my wardrobe will have been nestled into a dresser made from the varnished wood of cherry trees, no. 208
I had taken the laundry into my own hands, first casting the wretched mess into my tub and sploshing well enough sticky blue detergent so as to really grind the clean into them, then hitting them with the blaze of my shower nozzle full blast and hot. Does the detergent sink down through layers of cloth or is it washed away? How many times must the cloth clutter in my tub be tossed and re-detergified? How long to wait before the heat sinks slowly back into my frigid nozzle-spray between tossings? How far do I push the wringing before the effort required to extract a measly few drops outweighs the degree to which the garment is the drier? How to hide, conceal the infinitely shameful fact that my tub is used to wash my clothes due to a poverty and hunger so extreme that I will gladly eat swiss cheese, which I find only slightly more agreeable than death by the blade? These and other questions flitted across the screen of my awareness at high speed as I wrung. There was a neediness, a desperate grasping in my actions and I was not proud; nor by that point was I even a man at all. It is said something ‘bout men who make beasts of themselves, but the kind of bleary, jowled hound-dog I knew I was then lower than was no teen wolf. Yet the Drying Door must be served. After the wringing of drops and a period of beating my fists futiley and half-heartedly against my chest like a defeated King Kong, I took the still-damp garments from slung over my shower curtain rod and served them to the Drying Door. Though I hated it, every seventh night when the clock tolled twelve, I found myself again trapped in a twisted ceremony, discovering my own hands offering wet clothes to the drying Door again like macabre communion to an Angry God. The Drying Door was folded at 45 degrees and held horizontal by twin red and blue folding chairs, the kind you would take camping were you not afraid of the dark to the point of mute, catatonic paralysis. I always thought the chairs, when I left them on my porch, would scream to the relentless traffic outside of either the flag (minus pure dove-surrender white), or of rival gang colors united. Nomatter… Now my clothes are dripping the last of their fresh-scented drops from the Drying Door to a carpet upon which rests a tangle of electrical cords to a dual-turntable hookup the likes of which would make one think I “spin”. Ha! Far from the flailing arms of a sea of dancers, I scratch random jazz albums alone into a sound similar to the whining screech that comes from a sack of particularly wretched cats slung over the shoulder. But even this pastime of mine will seem soon to the spying neighbors like chamber music by flute compared to the noise of my skin- stung, scorched, and sizzling electrified by the drenched cords ‘neath the Drying Door. I expect the noise of that to sound much like a sack of cats left in the fuse-box of a rollercoaster gone haywire. Laugh, laugh, neighbors mine, but when I haunt you I shall laugh last! Nomatter. Anyway, a lone fan buzzes wearily, resigned and wicking a few drops of wet into the air of the room, which is sealed off by wooden door and warmed by a thermostat cranked literally to the hilt. To enter that sweltering back room induces instant flashbacks to the sweet, sweaty jungle that was once my home in Saigon... less than pleasant days, those. Yet worse, the Drying Door’s insatiable appetite for my clothes, and soon my skin. I feel the heat closing in, much like 209
the drawstring does on a sack of cats. It is hot in there, and with the fan-buzz dreamily luring me, I often check on my clothes, though for a reason only an Angry God could know, they never dry. I alternate between wishing I had the $ to spend on even a half-assed laundromat once a week and wishing twice as strong for the same. Better you had lived and died a gravedigger’s life than know of the Drying Door firsthand, for it lives for three things only- clothes, heat, wind, and sizzling skin. That makes four, but the fourth is yet to come, surely not soon enough for me…
~ -3THE GRAVEDIGGER’S COMPROMISE I became a gravedigger directly after a period of mourning over the closing of a rollerdisco of which I was the founder, sole proprietor, and only customer. The period of mourning lasted roughly twelve and a half years and left me with a nasty case of alcoholism and countless bastard children. Yet a man must pull himself up by his bootstraps, eh? My first night on the job I was given a rusty shovel and a tape measure with the six-foot mark highlighted with a neon yellow marker. I had nothing but a flask of banana flavored rum and Grog to keep me company. Grog is my dog, and a more loyal companion a man never had. He followed me over the plank of a whaling vessel once, into the unforgiving sea, but that is another story… My shovel hit upon something hard as the cold wind tussled my perfectly styled hair. I considered my options- waking my hairdresser Smithfield with a cell phone call to his emergency hotline, or uncovering what I suspected to be a coffin. Why would the owners of the cemetery ask me to dig a grave already pregnant with death? “Why indeed” I pondered as my rusty shovel scrapings revealed the “coffin” to in fact be a large pineapple upside-down cake, frozen hard by the autumn frost. It was not till two feet deeper and the midnight toll of the church bells that I struck the actual coffin. No sooner than a gravelly growl rose from Grog’s diaphragm did my blood run cold, as a loud rapping emanated from within the coffin. I dislike rap because of the misogynistic lyrics, so I began to shovel dirt back onto the coffin. Yet something in Grog’s growl made me suspect the worst case scenario, and I decided that it was my duty to investigate. I uncovered the coffin and opened the heavy lid. It was just as I suspected- Ice Crisp Flavor glared back at me, his 210
enormous, diamond-encrusted gold necklace just as I remembered it- gleaming with a terrible gleam as hollow as his eyes. Ice Crisp Flavor was a “gangsta” rapper who I murdered in cold blood not a fortnight ago. I beat him savagely with a curling iron until he would kick fresh rhymes no more. Not for Gold nor Woman, but for revenge. You see, it was by a simple twist of fate that Ice Crisp Flavor and I first crossed paths long ago. He, an original gangster who made funky beats, yet still kept his love for the street, was touring England with his rap group “Ill Fresh Dope Sick”. Their hopes were to kill two birds with one stone- increase sales of their new album “Melodies in F-Minor for the Chello”, and cut the red ribbon across the entrance of their new hip hop club in foggy London. As Fate, that cruel mistress, would have it, my Roller-disco was opening the same night, and our business lawyers who had to sign the fire safety code and such paperwork happened to be one and the same frazzled and neurotic pencil-pushing geek. Damn him. Damn him straight to hell! This sniveling dweeb lawyer was always late, always apologizing for his mistakes, cost a small fortune to pay, and worst of all insisted upon wearing a lapel in his rumpled tweed sports jacket. If I only knew then what domino chain-reaction of horrors he would unwittingly set into motion, I would have ripped that cursed paper carnation lapel from his breast and plunged its pin into his bald scalp. He apparently had been without sleep on the morning when he was to bring the paperwork for my roller-disco to the House of Lords, and wrote my name on Ice Crisp Flavor’s forms and his on mine. It is with solemn gravity that I admit to you, dear reader, that the next night I became the owner of “Gangsta’s Paradise”, a den of lawless depravity and violence, and my thuggish nemesis became the owner of “RollerdiscOVERY”, a place where joy was once meant to live. By this point I knew in my weary bones that Ice Crisp Flavor was in cahoots with the cemetery owners, and conspired to bury himself in the path of my trusty shovel. He always did have a flair for the dramatic, that beautiful black panther! But the fabulousness of his physique only masked the ice-sculpture of a scorpion he had instead of a heart. As he would always tell me in those first delicious weeks in London when we were lovers, “life ain’t nothin’ but bitches and money”. How can a man gather the courage to get out from under his bed in the morning with that kind of grim attitude? To make a ghastly tale short, our precious communion turned sour when the angry posse clientele of my now curiously named “Gangsta’s Paradise” realized they were not bouncing and grinding to pulsating beats and lyrics about drive-bys, but were in fact doing pirouettes on wheels to the tune of “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. If you can imagine the rage of all the oppressed urban outlaws in London welling up into one traitorous and tumultuous mutiny, well, such was the scene for a riot which ended in arson, the flames still flickering and licking the corpse of my DJ and lightshow technician Rumsfeld into the early morn. And this is to say nothing of the twin riot which brought roller-discOVERY, that poorly-named booming rap haven to its knees.
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I murdered Ice Crisp Flavor a second time that dark and stormy night, strangling him for a long, long, long time with my trusty tape measure while Grog howled at the moon. How long? About six feet.
~ -4THE LAST REPAST OF THE PIRATE GHOST The plank was a cruel mistress, but the kraken crueler. Twas not the shock of the icy brine nor the law that never a pirate heaven was which set the terror shivers tingling in me, nor the solemn walk over the dread plank as the fifty cheers were cried from men who for me would once have died, but to know that my faithful dog, Grog, was shot by musket boom and could not follow me to the krakenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s doom. I paused and pondered if Grog would, and nodded to myself- he was a good dog; not I, but he was good. And so a last cigar of tobacco and hash from Turkish coast was my meal last, this repast once smuggled on camels amongst other spices and treasures of spell-scrolls and gypsy rubies, red- as red as the lips of Harem Maidens of died from the petals of the rarest flowers, or so the merchants said. They gave me that last hash and tobacco repast and not a lie- I was grateful to them for it. Grateful!! What a scoundrel coward would allow a thankful heart to sigh upon a mutinous crew with sabers unsheathed and thirsty- a crew for who thirty years before I died were like my own tentacles, as those in brine of the kraken hide, mine slithering not for me but plunder. But my own bones and their marrow not yet then ten years hence a ghost, and not yet gone deep under, were soon to be the plunder of the tentacles of the kraken, lapping up the deep down under. But grateful I was, for there was something in that cigar, hand rolled, or so the merchants said, by Harem Maidens veiled by fishnet silk and moonlit pity from that ruby-encrusted Turkish city that was, next to the sea, my second home, in a sandy, windy port with the sighs of rest that comes with the fall of my anchor carved of stone. There was the taste in that tobacco of the memories of the fifty pairs of ragged sea-legs finding Turkish port soil and the lusts of my crew finding portals of their own, as the ocean floor was met by anchors carved of stone. The kraken does not wait, its steely beak eager to shred me, its tentacles speckled with suction cups like the yearning ruby lips of the Turkish Harem Maidens from a time once upon I 212
was alive. Yes, the hungers of the brine are insatiable, serious, and true, but the lips of the gypsy women, though died from petals red, for all their coldness may have as well been blue.
~ -5PARTYPARTYPARTY I fell into a deep sleep the night I was buried a second time. The first is a tale for another night, luxuriating on another polar-bearskin rug before another fireplace, with another voluptuous wench from another world. I like my women shell-shocked- just like me. The unwashed peasants and all the poor children were excited over a carnival which was coming to our village. Everyone was jolly and jittery and I waited with the humans for the wagon to come up.* [NOTE: All lyrics in italics by the profound Insane Clown Posse.] The jubilation hung in the air too long, like a thick stew getting thinner and thinner as the famine came, until in the low sideways glow of the late afternoon when I awoke for the second time today the wagon had almost come up, but the peasants were weary. Sad- they break their backs to earn a day of leisure but the carnival, every year same as it ever was, is best for the rosy fingers of dawn. My cemetery patch was as fine a bed as the lice-ridden hay in the stables of the peasant farmer-humans I could have had for a pence. But I had no pence and I preferred the dirt anyway for the beauty who lay beside me. My folk can not easily die- that is one of our curses. So to the hunchback gravedigger I say: “dig, fill, repeat”. With no fuel of the kind my ship requires for a thousand of your years and I, lazy- afternoon naps are so evolved on my world that they encompass generations, but I was curious for the carnival as I was every year, though they were the same as they ever were and why I chose this one to awake to I do not know. Their sound of jubilation, and their alieness muffled above me made me feel homesick in a way I found melancholic; bittersweet; precious. So this year I awoke. As I awoke that year long, long ago for the second time that millennium from the frostbitten ground and stretched my long, some of you would say “insect-like” limbs, I saw the sunlight same as it ever was and absorbed it for photosynthesis, as I did the sounds of birds 213
chirping for no apparent reason. But most of all I absorbed a jubilation from the humans in the air. Not to imply that the humans were in the air- only their jubilation was. The humans were earth-bound, as was I until our ship can be re-fueled, when I and my bride will awake for the fourth time. Until that breakfast there can be no fuel, but in, let us say, approximately 3012 of your years since the birth of your savior (we, as each folk does, have our own), a species of bird will be genetically engineered, because a compound called hypotrillobite found in the fossils of the bird was pre-determined to become our fuel. Until 3012 the science of geneticallypredestined organic mineral growth and fossil mining cannot yet be, or is extremely unlikely to be, due to the nature of the fuel and the nature of the science which pre-determines its existence in species not yet actual, as well as the nature of the minds and hearts of your folk. Suddenly at dusk there was the sound of cursing from strange men, filthy, and a cold wind. There were clowns setting up the dreary tent.* Something was declared wrong by the constable and the miller, but the cobbler didn’t agree and he refused to summon the healer. They smiled, they juggled, they laughed- but something was terribly, terribly wrong with these clowns. I didn’t like these clowns for I could see through them. I knew what they were really like. I knew that this carnival which had come to your village was an evil, evil thing.* I rolled over in my grave so I was facing another of my folk in the grave next to mine- a female, the only one which had not chosen either suicide, which is not considered a sin or dishonorable in any way in our beliefs- or mutiny. But mutiny after a ship has wrecked on foreign soil and there is no chance of return is a chaos that is not heroic revolution but redundant. Of course, as the captain I was despised and must be hung and impeached in that order, but that wouldn’t turn the coal in your mines into hypotrillibite, and the hypotrillibite in turn into nuclear fission. The cook went down with the ship by means of his own butcher knife rather than his loyalty, as did many of my terminally homesick folk including relatives and a dog. Not to say the dog, Grog, took his own life with a cook’s butcher knife. The cook did. He took Grog’s immediately before his own, as a gesture to me, as if to say: “Fuck You.” A more loyal companion there never was. Grog, not the cook, of course, if you follow. The peasant farmer-humans and the poor starving children were totally unaware of the evilness of the clowns. But I could see their eyes reflect stairways into hell*. The clowns, not the children, that is- The childrens’ eyes did not reflect at all, for they followed the clowns with stares that came from wild eyes, deep in hollow sockets. The merchant fled the town with no silver in his pockets. I could have run from the carnival grounds, but I knew every road and every path would lead me right back to the freakshow, the strongmen, and the ringmaster.* So I stayed and gazed into the dirt separating me from the grave next door and pet the dirt, no longer frostbit, like it was the soft hair of the female who abstained from suicide AND mutiny, though not absinthe. Hers was a love that need not speak its name; hers was a grave the same by any other name. Her grave was a place where nobody knew my name, not even her. Hers was a taste not unlike the fire of hypotrillobite once turned milky white in the fires of our ship more bright than many of your suns. She slept as patiently as I did, for years in the thousands, excepting the days and 214
nights of carnival, but those years had not passed yet- we lay side by side in these graves our second burial. The circumstances of the first are a tale for another night, luxuriating on another polar-bearskin rug before another fireplace, with another voluptuous wench from another world. We slept because we were waiting for the species to be made, and then for that species to be a fossil, and then nuclear flame. I wondered if the species made a chirp as did the birds that medieval day. It was Halloween. It was a joy. I wake my bride and we dance among them in costumes for three days. This patience was one that love could endure, though I think it maddened us. I like my women shell-shocked- just like me.
~ -6THE GREAT SPIRIT-LIZARD SKULL-TONGUING CHALLENGE Gorgeous church organ music is playing. You find yourself, disoriented, in a candle-lit ivory hall, along with about 15 other spiritual masters plucked from different times in the history of the earth. Some, like yourself, are Tibetin monks- Dhali Lamas shroud in orange robes and bells no less. Some are silent Zen priests with black robes and bald heads, some rabbis with beards aplenty in a heated debate over where they were, a gaggle of nuns cloistering around a younger and surprisingly foxy Mother Teresa calmly doing her rosary, and John Belushi, eating as sandwich. There is no question the reason you all have been summoned to this curious place, this other plane of reality, is that you represent the highest spiritual attainment achieved on Earth. The weird part is you all are surrounded by Giant Lizards, slouched deeply in their soft, plush thrones, and passing a golden pipe from which sweet purple smoke billows in abundance. The phrase “lounge-lizard” comes to everyone’s mind (except the nun, who’s thought are pure).The Great Spirit-Lizards are about 12 feet tall and not especially threatening. Sure, their teeth and talons are sharp and they could tear a nun to shreds without a second thought, but their attitude is clearly lazy and sensual, and they are fat. Their yellow eye-slits dart about quickly, keeping the treasured golden pipe in sight as it makes its rounds. “Something is not right here” Guido Sarducci suggests. Such comments are why she was known in the seminary as “Captain Obvious”. Still, everyone agrees. One of the Great Spirit 215
Lizards stifles a choke on whatever it is that produced the purple cloud from his lip-less mouth, and then sighs. She (you can tell she’s a she due to the mascara) orders the human folk to each choose one Great Spirit Lizard for their own, and kneel before their chosen one. This order was given in a cold-blooded tone, but not mean. Just neutral and authoritative. The sustained hissing “s” sounds gave away her reptilian accent (if the fact that she was a 12-foot lizard did not). The human masters reluctantly chose their Spirit-Lizard mentors with little disagreement, except that John Belushi insisted he kneel before one of the younger female lizards with exceptionally long eyelashes, nudging the zen monk out of the way. “Remove your skulls” was the second command, again, hissed with strict, frigid authoritative coldness and an extended “s-s-s-s” in “skull”, but no anger. This request did not go over as well as the first, and meeting reluctance, the Great Spirit Lizards took the initiative and brought out a vial containing a fluid resembling olive oil. Each Spirit Lizard anointed their earthly masters with a few drops on the forehead, like some perverse reverse-baptism in the Bizarro World, and a change took place. The human spiritual leaders shared glances of squeamish discomfort as they felt their skulls become rubbery and then flop like loose elastic around their shoulders. There was a murmur of “thine is the kingdom and so-on” from one of the nuns and some faint whimpering by a Rabbi. The Zen monks endured the jellification of their heads with stoic resignation and straight-backed dignity. John Belushi seemed either completely unaware of the rubberization of his cranium, or perhaps did not mind the sensation. When the Great Spirit Lizards hissed that it was time to pull their skulls out from the humans’ now-elastic nostrils, there was little debate, because the anointing and rubberization oil had the side effect of putting the earthly masters into a most embarrassingly drunken and senseless trance. Mother Teresa did summon some reserve of moral indignation and, reaching as high as she could, gave her assigned Lizard a crisp smack on its scaly cheek. The Lizard seemed to love this and let out a cold, hissing sort of belly-laugh. “We’ve got a feisty one over here Svensylin!” he called out to his sister. Still, Teresa’s skull was anointed, rubberized and removed as with the best of them. It would have required large buckets beneath their chins to catch the amount of drool which flowed freely in the Dome that day. The brainless human bodies squirmed spastically on the floor like fish out of water and their floppy empty heads giggled and exchanged goofy wet kisses with each other. If only their disciples were to see them in such a state! What an embarrassment! Luckily, it was a private show and their keen mystical consciousness was familiar with the out-of-body transition and was carried intact which their brains towards the foot of their respective Great Spirit Lizard The timeless ritual begins with an old custom. Each lizard touches the skull of their assigned earthly spiritual leader to first their small toe’s talon on their left foot, then to their bigtoe’s talon, This symbolizes the absolute surrender necessary for the proceeding ceremony. It was told that the Belushi’s brainless body flipped the bird to his Lizard while the talon-touching ritual was performed, causing his Spirit-Lizard to only grin widely. They seem to appreciate resistance in their human subjects as a sign of spiritual dignity and courage. It is clear the human masters could only assume that they have been teleported to some hellish dimension and are 216
undergoing a devilishly elaborate torture, but the opposite is the case. It is in truth the highest honor for a human to be summoned to the Plane of Reality known as Sssslysssthon- the Opium Den of the Lizards of Shrosssnizzz. You see, the highest spiritual attainment a person can attain on earth is pretty darn high, yet it is limited by the particular evolutionary, physiological, neurological, and cultural situation that humans find themselves in on Earth. The only way to transcend these limitations is through complete surrender to a higher organism. And there are no higher organisms in this World than the Lizards of Shrosssnizz. The only problem is that the method of a human receiving the enlightenment of a Slyyysssthen is unusual to say the best, horrifically vulgur to say the best. And so it beginsâ&#x20AC;Ś The Great Spirit Lizards extend ungodly long bright red forked tongues , dripping and thrashing about like snakes on coke. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re talking 5 feet of tongue here, puts that guy in Kiss to shame. The Spirit Lizards guide their wriggling slender tongues into the jaws of the skulls of their respective earthly master and seek the gelatinous brain still inside. Then, with surgical precision and a dash of frenzy, they pierce the brain and begin a curvy winding path throughout all lobes of the brain, out one eye-socket, back in through the other, twirls and spirals through the temporal lobe, a brief pit stop in the patella, out through the spinal columnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hole, and so on, twirling a curvilinear path like a twisted roller-coaster, occasionally bursting out a socket like a swimmer rocketing above water by his upward momentum and gracefully plunging back into the sweet soft jelly of the exquisite brain, the tongue-burrowed pathways of which are soon thickly slathered in spirit-lizard saliva, which happens to contain an enzyme that, absorbed greedily by the synapses, produces first a tingling sensation, and then a vision that cannot be described in language, but which has something to do with holograms, the smell of lilac, and a strange vase with a stem that bends back into itself. The skulls are replaced and the earthly masters wake up, hardly noticing the difference in their brains. They no longer feel fear or jealousy of the Great Lizards. They feel calm and refreshed, and know that they are to walk out a large green door and down a staircase. For them, this experience will not be remembered- when images from the ceremony begin to surface they will think them merely echoes of a dream. But one night, on his way home from the meditation hall, one of the monks will pass by a lovely lady wearing lilac scented perfume and feel nostalgic. And that night he will draw sketches of a most curious vase made of a special metal, with a stem that bends back on itself, and soon he will mail them to a patent office in London.
~ 217
-7THE CARMENIAN CINNAMON HAREM HOLOGRAM Though a great many may think me mad, they are but the flecks of froth I wipe from the mouth of rabid dog, and little help that does! But I shall continue if even one fleck of dog-froth can be convinced to wait outside, in the atrium, as myself and my few disciples take tea. And still, of all my few disciples, six are the crazed melody of a flute with no name, played by a senile goat with the same for a name (none), and two are gothic widows of black lace and mascara, weeping silently over the futility of saffron, and pelting themselves in guilt for sins not even their own, as with stolen perfume. They are lucky to absorb any of the teachings whatsoever, for their gaze falls only to their sketchbooks, as do their ears only upon the materialization of dew onto a lettuce leaf from the still air. Two other disciples of mine are Vikings and act as such, skewering bison and wild boars upon their helmet-horns, and drinking mead from a vast earthenware jug. By the time my sermons are nearing a conclusion, the Vikings have either drummed and chanted themselves into a war-frenzy, or have convinced the gothic widowers to slip away to the filthy bars which sprout from the city like blades of the sickly sweet phalaris grass. As to another two of my disciples, both are lesbian whores, seducing all in their path with an unending display of mutual lust. If only their caressing and undressing led to some epic resolution, some cataclysmic climax, I could at least then continue to elucidate fractal radiology, but no- theirs is a perpetual show of foreplay, a great deal more for the pleasure they derive in stealing the attention of passing on-lookers than from any genuine intimacy. I doubt at times if they are even true lesbians at heart, for they never so much as lose themselves in eachother's gaze, nor in the tangle of their scantily-clad limbs. Instead their eyes seek the room for the attention of my own disciples in a "come-hither- aren't we pretty? - give us money" kind of unspoken bedroom-eye message. Some of use was made of them by forcibly directing them to the back of the class, where the view of them from the street convinced more than one expressoswilling businessman to sashay inside and set down his laptop and cell phone long enough to be anti-brainwashed. I was told once that the word "cult" comes from a word meaning "to cultivate". They say cults are in the business of "brainwashing" their members, and they are right, if by "brainwash" they mean strip all the many layers of cultural brainwashing AWAY, to reveal a raw and stinging soul, exposed and glowing in the winds of corruption as a homeless puppy whimpering in the swill of its own government-issue kennel, which is in fact but a waiting room for the lethal injection of capitalism.
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My other two disciples are also lesbians, but much older and wiser. They carry with them the dignity of countless dynasties of lesbian harem-mothers; madams of Egyptian and Carmenian royalty, and bakers are they, who nightly arrive at the temple early in the morning, when they bake the pastries which we use in our waiting-rooms and atriums to entice the hungry and World-struck masses. The creampuffs, however, are but a delivery system for a certain genetically modified DNA strand, which was placed into the biology of a certain variety of Carmenian cinnamon by aliens. The DNA strand may be the synthetic modifications of a subversive league of intergalactic communists, but I assure you that all this is true, and moreso, that the strand is but the molecularly encrypted code for the instructions with which to build a machine, which itself is only the generator for a hologram, a hologram which represents the symbolic geometries of the human mind- a hologram which is our only chance in hell of saving the world...
~ Mr. Kite, the old laughing Shaman bellowed a screaming prophecy, then quickly whirled himself into an interdimensional portal. He vanished only so long as to build a fire six days in the future and teleport it through a novelty-wormhole into the "present moment". He then huddled around the fire and began to sing a hymn, a very old and forgotten song, which was rumored to have originated in the Spanish Wine Vineyards of France. The writer of the limerick was an old Egyptian spice smuggler, who was also the madam of a Persian harem. The poem was a kind of chant, but more an instruction for the construction of a machine, and also of a certain pastry made with olives and splendor-wine, and a cinnamon of the Carmenian variety. But all of this nonsense is only the prelude to the real heart of the matter, which is this: the limerick was written in a dead archaic language spoken only by the most prized and glorious Empresses of every third dimension in the Persian Cult of the Prophecy of the Curse of Eternal Folly. The language allowed the Harem-Mother/Empresses to communicate between dynasties, and thereby pass down the transmission of the infinite-dimensional-spectrum hologram, which is merely a blueprint for a forgotten recipe for the pastry of which the variety of Carmenian cinnamon is the molecular carrier of the encoded DNA strand. If I were to assure you that a league of aliens were responsible for the introduction of the encoded, synthetic DNA strand, I risk being called a fool, and yet to deny the timeless destiny of the alien-communion frequency runs a greater risk. In short, the molecule is the blueprint for infinite freedom, yet may only be accessed through a symbiosis with human mammal nervous systems from within the evolutionary cloak of a plant-host. If the instructions serve as well to alert the community of spirits that humanity has summoned the courage to confront its own deconstruction through a labyrinth of jungle-dwelling, genetically altered species... 219
Simply unravel the riddle, and thereby activate the hologram.
~ If the Ruebenessque arms of powerful milk-jug carrying Earth-Goddess mothers knead the bread dough of their own superstition, are we to pass quickly beneath their balconies and delight in their Spanish songs of peace, as they fill the air of this Madman's Paris? Or shall we scurry forth with a stack of books under one arm and a dozen roses under the other, so caught in the merry-go-round of literature and romance that we are unable to pause, frozen in wonder at the guttural motherly rumble of sheer life-giving, bread-kneading merriment? And what will become of us if we were to fling coins of gold upwards, up onto the balcony of the All-mother's den, would not our gold fall to her feet as the charity of a goat with not so much as a name to call its own? Our gold coins are as useless applause, the dull thunk of wrists clunking together upon a standing ovation at an opera for the handless. We have no hands, or at least our hands are as limpid water-rabbits in the face of THEIR hands: the hands of mothers so motherly that no children may call them "mother", the hands of the Valkerian All-women who are the mothers not of men, but of rocks and waterfalls and of the dirt itself, the hands which kneed bread to the Rhythm of Spanish songs, past down from times before time, to those young witches of the vineyards who's magic surpassed that of their teachers. "To knead, to knead this bread we shall, We'll wrap the scent of spices round you like a shall The smells will entice you for untold spellbound hours While our splendor-wine chills in the icy waterfall showers And our olive-branch bristles spill oils of lush And the scent of the olive is captured with love To be tied in a bow round the Carmenian spice The cinnamon altered by beings with pupils white And fingers which stretch like curling tendrils of fern To wrap you and knead you and send your stomach a-churn And remind you to be born unto the wisdom for which you yearn This cinnamon will inoculate your cortex soon;
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You are next, it is your turn... Could this be the grisly philosophy of a splendor-cult in the guise of maternal warmth? Or a re-kindling of the female bloodlust found heretofore only in the bellies of she-demons? If you were to scale the balcony and present your lover's bouquet to the fat-fingered Frenchwoman, and begged her to teach you the ways of the Pastry Chef Shamaness, she would but laugh and snap her fingers, calling from beneath her dress a cacophony of lizards, each with their lips and eyes sown shut with black thread, each lashing you with their thorny tail.
~ -8THE POWER OF FIRE They call me Johnny Blaze. Prior to my death I was a pathetic scoundrel of a man, sulking from one agonizing embarrassment to the next. I could spend months obsessing over the tiniest minutia of an awkward moment in conversation with a pretty cashier. Meanwhile my dishes threatened to burst through the ceiling above my kitchen sink. I turned to alcohol to ease my loneliness and to make the squalor I lived amongst seem at least a bit stoic. I was good at being a self-pitying drunk. It suited me. Out of poverty and rage, but mostly from boredom, I took to pilfering superfluous amounts of effervescent campaign from the local liquor stores before I suffered a near-fatal decapitation attempt at the hands of the father of a farmer's daughter of the French countryside I was sowing wild oats in. The attack was fatal, but the attempted decapitation was only partial and therefor only near-fatal, since I met my end far too many hours later at a hospital where they patiently tried to re-attach my neck to both the above and below of that. It was all for the best- my death, that is, since as I say I was a cowardly scoundrel and none noticed my passing, let alone mourned it. It was only then that the real fun began...
~ 221
Quite surprised to find myself surfacing from the anesthesia, and feeling Spritely, I found myself in a shithole that only with great clarity be called an “operating room”. Sure, just as moments before as I died, I was strapped to a table with tubes emanating from me, but now the table was a pool table and the tubes were the stems of a large plaid bagpipe. The “doctor” was a devilish looking fiend enshrouded in flame. He was not so much on fire as made of fire, and blew a brimstone smoke into the mouthpiece of The Great Bagpipe. I could taste the brimstone as it made its way into my veins and finally the delicate capillaries of my tongue. I fell back into the warm void and an indeterminate period of therapy in purgatory.
~ My last psychiatrist in the endless Purgatory of Therapy was made of ice. He said I needed to see someone who was a better fit, but I'm sure it was because he kept melting during our sessions. He kept trying to convince me that my firy disposition was the result of repressed rage from my childhood in hell, but I firmly disagreed and held my ground. I refused to fill his prescriptions for ice cubes (they give me heartburn). During our last session, we embraced (at his initiation) and he became a puddle. Just as well.
~ It was the late 80's. I was making a layover in Texas. Worse than my hometown if you ask me (my hometown is Hell). I was deployed to earth on a vague assignment to “Raise some Hell”. Luckily, that was what I was born to do. “We don't take kindly to your kind round here.” mumbled a trucker in a mutter so guttural it was more murmur than message. “You mean folks with long eyelashes?” I asked coyly, batting them for all they're worth. “No, we mean troublemakers on fire.” He spat what I can only guess was “chaw-juice”, some kind of tobacco-saliva goo, brown and just coagulant enough to form an expressive loogie, like a mucusy punctuation mark. I latched my long flaming finger-candles into the back of his neck and singed the bundle of nerves on his spinal column.
~ 222
We were attending a nun convention in New Orleans (disguised as nuns of course) when this maniac runs a red light, drives onto the sidewalk to avoid an Oscar Meyer Weinermobile and plows into our roadside crucifix-vending-machine. The vending machine topples over onto Sister Rita Hanson, the gun-toting nun, and turns her into nun-sauce. It was extra-spicy sauce. If you knew Rita, you'd know what I mean. I grabbed for her 6-shooter just before the vending machine smashed her into marmalade, and emptied the chamber into the driver.
~ It was bad, bad mojo. I was in court, fried out of my mind on shoe polish, awaiting the verdict of a jury which had just deliberated for two long days on whether being smashed on 'polish behind the wheel can be considered “driving under the influence”. The cop who took the stand sure thought so, as I imagine the nun convention I plowed through would have. I've been too twisted on 'polish lately to pick the crucifixes out of my hubcaps, and I don't think those helped much as exhibits A, B, and D. Nor did exhibit C- the shine on my shoes, which the prosecuting attorney described to the jury as “blinding.”
~ The Judge did not rule in my favor. Apparently nunslaughter is a felony in Lousiana. The loudest sound I ever heard was the steel door clanging shut behind me, except for the silence that followed. I learned to meditate and harnessed the Eternal Fire Within. I re-heated the meals of slop for gang members with my bare hands and earned respect. I pumped iron and kept my fireball throwing powers toasty to ward off those who would have had me as their bride. For cigarette money I wrote Hollywood blockbuster screenplays and haggled over royalties on the prison phone with my agent in L.A. Smitty “The Carebear” Veddanta. Perhaps you might enjoy perusing some notes for my next couple films pitches?
~ 223
Johnny Blaze’s Film Pitch #1: “The ChickenHead Solution” -Civilization progresses -In the future develop “problems” with the Meat Industry -Radical neo-environmentalists vs. dystopian one world future government -Came up with a compromise, “a solution to chicken” -Chickens aren't that smart. -Scientists invent way to keep the heads of chickens alive (chopped + instantly head is attached at severed neck to a device which keeps the chicken's head alive (regulating bloodflow, etc) -This means that the chickens are not actually killed, since they continue to experience life as a Chickenhead and don't realize or care much that their bodies have been eaten. (chickens are not that smart). -Vegetarians can eat! -Chicken becomes overly popular. The radical neo-environmentalists are satisfied that vegetarian masses can feast on chicken ethically. The Government is relieved, and promotes the programs. -But chicken becomes overly popular! -Chickenheads accumulate into mountains -These mountains are kept alive by remote computer systems which operate the devices attached to the Chickenheads. The devices and the operating system become overly sophisticated. -We join our protagonists at a school for the gifted attending courses in learning how to operate the system or “pilot” the virtual reality holographic control helms which sustain and “orchestrate” the network of Chickenheads -The mountains are shipped into space in giant containers. -The Chickenheads attain consciousness of their situation and become an intelligent hive-mind.
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-They overthrow the control system (only one of our gifted protagonists, the head operator, realizes this is happening but keeps it secret. He is a double-agent working for the Chicken Hivemind. -The Chickenhead containers attack earth and destroy it. Nothing is left of human civilization, except the Chickenhead hivemind containers continue to live and are sustained autonomously by themselves, existing as confusing and inscrutable relics of a planetary consciousness which no longer exists. -FINAL SHOCKING SURPRISE ENDING SCENE: Aliens discover the containers floating in space and open them. The Chickenheads attached to their devices float weightlessly in intricate patterns like zero-gravity synchronized swimmers, an unfathomable wisdom in the exquisitely choreographed geometric dance. We see the expressions of aliens of two different species as they look aghast at eachother upon the moment of revelation of opening the containers, dumbfounded and confused by the optical illusion of the Chickenheads mathematically exquisite swarm. They marvel wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the inscrutable relic.
~ Johnny Blaze’s Film Pitch #2: “Hot Shark” SETTING: Los Angeles. An unspecified time in the near future. Things are largely the same: no commentary on this future as better or worse than present or any dramatic change in social atmosphere, other than massive overpopulation, an increase in the hectic pace of modern life, and a pervasive decadence. The rave/hip-hop party scene has more or less swallowed all of culture, and celebrities and their party organizers have taken on the role of kings and queens: the celebrities have all the real power, while a feeble, clunky government struggles on in the background. Only moderate use of new slang and technology. We are going for subtle clues that times have advanced rather than a sci-fi context.
MOOD: 225
Surreal. Absurd. Plasticky and colorful. Shallow. A general sense of the loosening and dissolving of any substantial order, authority, or meaning other than hedonism and fame.
BACKSTORY: We focus in on the large extravagant parties hosted by the enormously wealthy and powerful celebrities, who in effect rule the land like kings and queens. In the years prior to the events of the film, there has been the introduction of a bizarre new fad in pop culture. The neo-rave/neohiphop parties began to feature a live shark as the centerpiece of the dance floor, on exhibit inside a large tank or swimming pool. At first it was a kind of status symbol signifying a very high-class social event, and a "mascot" of the party in a sense, as the creature symbolized the spirit of primal, wild energy, celebration, and chaos. This trend, appearing everywhere on music videos and t-shirts, etc., grew in popularity exponentially. Soon no party would be "cool" without the shark. Celebrities began to outdo one another with the size of the shark and the extravagance of the displays, which became like modern altars to Dionysus.
-Eventually the only way to surpass one another in status was not in the size of the shark, but in the method of obtaining it. The sharks were no longer obtained from the ocean, but were stolen in increasingly daring and outlandish schemes from the lavish shark collections of other celebrities. The "coolness" of a party was judged by which celebrity's private and well-guarded aquariums it was stolen from. This new development of the trend was similar to how high school football teams would steal their rival team's mascot, with all the accompanying joyous mischief, competition, and domination/humiliation, but on a far more epic scale. The status symbol pets changed hands quickly like a very "liquid" currency of fame: they were bred, traded, made to fight and gambled on, and most of all stolen. The whole chaotic merry-go-round was part in-joke in good fun, and part bitter feud.
-It should go without saying that the title of the film is a play on the word "hot" as a slang term for stolen property, like a "hot car", but this phrase has another level of meaning due to color, which we will get to soon. The film will garner a whole franchise with its own terminology, and this is a large part of the fun. "You've just been hot sharked" is the key catch-phrase, meaning to have a hot shark dumped on you unexpectedly.
-We enter the film just as the bizarre hot-sharking subculture is beginning to turn dark. The decadence of modern culture is wreaking havoc on the environment and global warming is beginning to take its toll on the marine species, as water levels and climate are thrown into havoc. The environmentalist resistance is one of the last remaining subcultures with any degree 226
of ethics or ideals. They have launched a campaign to force what remains of the government to save the ecosystem, and they have chosen the shark as the symbol of their crusade: because it is endangered as most marine species are, because of the gambling on shark fights by hot-sharkers, and because it is already the chosen symbol of the decadence of the party-devoured culture. The ruins of government crack down on Shark Parties and will no longer look the other way. However, this has the opposite of its intended effect and sets the Shark Party scene on fire...
ROUGH PLOT OUTLINE: Immense amounts of money are changing hands in a darkened surveillance chamber. The suitcases of money are being given by what appear to be "fabulous" gay party planners (who work for the celebrity kings) to a tribe of neo-primitive shark thieves, amongst which is our hero. The shark thieves look like a cross between the Pirates of the Caribbean and the outlaws from The Road Warrior. Our hero is played by Keanu Reeves.
-We follow the shark thieves at breakneck pace as they compete with rival tribes in life-or-death battles. Car chases, explosions, and gunplay are excessive and continuous throughout the film. There is complex double-crossing, spying, and assassination attempts by and against the shark thief neo-tribe we are rooting for. It has 5 to 7 members, some female (and sexy), and they are very close friends but volatile, unpredictable characters; except for our hero, who is comically calm in all situations. He is an everyman: not cool or heroic, but likable and ordinary other than his strange ability to take every horrifying crisis in stride. His crew has an adventurous and comic pirate spirit, and it seems they are willing to die for the next prank, stunt, or "owning" of rival tribes.
-Midway through the film, the ruins of government initiate a program in which all sharks are injected with an experimental drug which acts as a GPS system. When a shark is moved away from its official location, it gradually turns a bright red color, making it a target for the authorities. The penalty for being caught in possession of a "hot" shark (hence a play on the color red, as well as stolen property in the meaning of the title) is death.
-Our hero continues his work, because he is fond of the general absurdity and surreality of the profession. He seems to always have a smirk of mild amusement. He also reveals a sensitive side related to the fact that he loves sharks: not for status, environmentalism, money, or power, but he just loves the species. He makes a great sacrifice for the success of his tribe: he injects himself with the experimental GPS drug and turns bright red. Many odd side effects ensue, in addition to the motive for doing this: hot sharks now consider him one of their own. He can swim with them 227
safely and discovers he can communicate telepathically with them, making him the greatest shark thief ever.
-The film follows his insane journey and that of his tribe members. The action is extremely fastpaced and shows ridiculous, hilarious, adrenaline-fueled situations that invoke a feeling of pure, crazed absurdity in the audience.
EXAMPLES: -Infiltrating the environmentalists' protected shark reserve habitat -Stealing a Great White from a rap star's guarded mansion -Negotiating with the ever-fabulous elite gay party planning subculture -The central joke of the film: always having to hide something as massive as a huge shark from the authorities -Dealing with comically bleeding-heart environmentalists -Pranking or "owning" rival tribes by dumping used hot sharks on them in inconvenient situations.
-Here is another central joke: say the authorities are closing in on a hot shark possession of our hero tribe. They "dump" the hot shark on a rival tribe without their knowing. For example, a rival tribe of shark thieves are riding in a car, which is then clamped down upon by mechanical teeth which lift it into the air. The rival tribe has no idea what is going on and climbs up into the structure which has lifted their car into the sky, discovering it to be a massive helicopter. the camera pans back to view a tank in the cargo of the helicopter containing a bright red hot shark, which the rival tribe is still unaware of. Our heroes parachute out of the helicopter, while the authorities close in to capture the Sharkers. The leader of the rival tribe sees a message appear on the radar screen of the helicopter he has taken possession of, which reads, "You've just been hot sharked". As is always the case in these situations, the reply is, "You've gotta be fuckin' me!"
-There are beautiful, peaceful scenes of our hero swimming and befriending the sharks. Here is another central joke of the movie: when the hero telepathically "hears" the thoughts of the sharks, they are voiced by famous actors. There is a Woody Allen shark, an Arnold Schwarzenegger shark, etc...
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OBSERVATIONS: The success of the movie beyond the sheer originality of its premise is in a careful balancing of super fast-paced action and violence, profanity, sex, etc. with humor on the other hand. There are goofy elements (like shouting, "Oh my God! Look at that!" to a policeman and pointing the other way while a giant bright red Great White swims past, or intentionally silly and too-human voiceovers for the sharks in the telepathy scenes), but these elements will not dominate the film and lead to Disney-esque flatness. There will be surprisingly touching and raw moments when wellliked characters - perhaps a love interest - are devoured by sharks, and a gritty commentary on corruption and the futility of decadence.
TWIST ENDING: -Our hero has gotten out of the shark-party scene and has settled down with a family in the suburbs. With Thermos of coffee, he kisses his wife, hugs kids and hops off to work in his SUV. While driving on the freeway, he gets a call from an old contact in the flamboyant party planner society. The dude wants him to do one last shark heist for an incredible amount of money. But warns cryptically that the game has changed since our hero has been absent... -Instantly, the epic special effect visual of his SUV being clutched by an immense steel claw attached to a monolithic, tremendously large blimp-shaped orbital tank device, which carries the SUV into the sky like a hawk with a rodent, and the immense skycraft is translucent such that within it can be seen to be water-filled and containing an unfathomably titanic monster squid. The old contact of our hero, still in the airborn SUV in the steel “talons” of the Squidcraft, looks to us and says “You've just been Hot-Squided.” and parachutes out. Hero looks to camera- “You've gotta be fuckin me.” as the monster squid blooms with a deep, deep crimson color.
-FADE TO BLACK-
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-9PERIODIC TABLE BLUES A day like any other day- we drag our weary bodies like ragdolls to class. Creative Writing class. But we find a periodic table of the elements has been hung on our wall this day. Not any periodic table of the elements. This bitch was HUGE. I mean, like WOW. I have never seen a periodic table of the elements as ginourmouse as this one- it took up half the wall. It was like some kind of combination periodic table of the elements and a drivers’ license eyesight testing chart for giants. If you were 7,000 feet tall and stood about 4 miles back, it could determine if you were fit to drive. But to us, hapless and misused students of “culture” it was glaringly out of place. Was this the work of some mad scientist who managed to land a job as chemistry teacher in our classroom during another period? As we were to find out, to his chagrin, and to our doom, in a word- “yes”. A few jokes were made. The oddity of the massive periodic table was made light of. And we moved on to poetry, that pleasant diversion which seeks to wrap up this grim world in a warm effeminate garb. It served to divert us until the next week when we entered to find another periodic table of the elements had been added to supplement the ungodly large other- but this new one larger still. It was hung on the ceiling like some kind of scientifically relevant tapestry in a pothead’s flophouse, curving down in a bulge as the weight of the center strained the rows of tacks fighting their losing battle. Yes, although it covered every inch of the ceiling it was not flat and taught, it was actually too large for that and formed a convex dome which nearly grazed the tip of our instructor when she stood. Needless to say, the class erupted in laughter and merriment. Our instructor thought we were perpetrators of a practical joke at her expense and at first wept, then became enraged. She stormed out of the room to address the front office. We passed the time until her return shooting spitballs, making out, and smoking dope, figuring we were getting detention anyway (can they give you detention in college?) plus you only live once, right? Well, our teacher did make it back that day, but only to apologize for threatening the unnamed culprit with feeding his fingertips to the wolverines and to inform us that the two periodic tables, both the vertical AND drooping horizontal one, were put in place by a new part time chemistry teacher at MATC (our humble but virtuous college) named Dr. Dementox. When one of the more succulent of the females in our class asked if we should leave a note on the blackboard for Dr. Dementox to go easy on the periodic tables, our instructor turned a lighter shade of pale and seemed genuinely chilled, as if a mermaid ghost from beneath the ice-sheets of Antarctica had walked through her on its way to an ice-sculpting contest. “I…. don’t think that would be prudent…. The front office informed me that Dr. Dementox is best avoided… he apparently was never the same after reading MATC’s contract for part time faculty and became 230
demented, violent, and unhealthily obsessed with the periodic table. Until we are given another room to meet in I suggest we ignore any of his… distractions. Now, please remember to finish your short stories for class tomorrow!” I hate homework. We shrugged and left, nonplussed. After all, most of us were texting something transcendently vacuous followed by “LOL” under our desks during her explanation.
~ Goddamn I hate homework! However, I hate flunking college, being on academic probation, and having my sweet, sweet financial aid suspended even more. I need that money to buy anime figurines for fuck’s sake. So, that night, I put on some tunes, got weird, and wrote the shit out of this goddamn story for creative writing class called “Cool Versus The Beast”. It’s pretty rad. Maybe you’d like to read it…?
Cool Versus The Beast Hunter S. Thompson, John Belushi, Elvis, Marlon Brando, and The Fonz were pushing a rickety old fishing boat into Greasy Lake. It was a symphony of cool. The Fonz gave his signature “aaayyy” with thumbs skyward when Brando christened the worthless creaking vessel by smashing a bottle of Guinness against its rotting wormy side. “You drink that swill?” asked a young and spritely Hunter as he hopped into the Boat, which he had been referring to as “The Filthy Whore”. Every boat is a “she”. “Swill? …SWILL?!” cried Brando incredulously, his lower jaw jutting about four feet into the chill night air and brandishing the jagged half-bottle dramatically. “This shit is black gold.” “Yeah, the Guinness on tap in Ireland, I’ll give you that. Even the Guinness on tap in the states is a decent brew. But my piss tastes better than whatever they put in the cans or those new bottles.” Brando takes a swipe at Hunter with the makeshift weapon. 231
“Shut up you assholes,” growls The King, his rhinestones glistening in the moonlight. He raises one arm and points to a small shack on the shore. “That’s where Rusko was decapitated.” “Aaaaayyyyyy,” replies The Fonz in agreement. “Rusko?” asks Hunter absentmindedly, his eyes not on the dingy shack but following some objects apparently flitting about above him which none of the others can see. “Yeah, they say his father was the groundskeeper of the old Rumsfeld Slaughterhouse and stayed out here in the summer. They say he sawed off his own son’s head in that very shack.” A chill runs down more than one spine. The crew imagines whispers and strange forms in the thick layer of mist which The Filthy Whore cuts through on its voyage out into the deep part of the lake. At that moment something large moved under The Filthy Whore. It nudged the hull of the vessel and caused Brando to pierce his thumb with the bright red Flaming Queen flyfishing lure he was tying onto his line. While whipping his hand away in pain he dropped the lure into the dark greasy water, where it was gobbled up by an unlucky catfish. “Fucking Whore! My Grandaddy tied that lure!” “FILTHY Whore” corrected Hunter, definitely preoccupied with the objects buzzing about his head which none of the others could see. “I wasn’t talking about the boat!” Brando growls, still sore over the Guinness thing, and reaches for his half-smashed bottle of swill. Before he can get a grip on it the massive thing underneath them lurches upward against the bow… or was it the stern? This crew didn’t have much experience, though Belushi wore the cap of a captain, under which he slept, snoring loudly. “Motherfucker! What in the fuck was that?!?” he gasped, jolted awake. “It ain’t nothin’ but a houndog,” sayeth The King. The Fonz apparently likes this casual attitude and again points his thumbs to the heavens. A satisfied “Aaaaayyy” escapes from his lips. “That was no houndog you fool.” Says Hunter. “That felt like some kind of Monster Of The Deep. What the hell kind of freakshow are you running hear Brando?”
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“That’s it, you’re toast!” screams Brando, lunging at Hunter S. Thompsan with a large Speckled Cockney Thug flyfishing lure intended for salmon and slices the journalist stright through his Hawain shirt. Belushi screams “Bonzaaaaii!!!!” and does a cannibal into Greasy Lake. Elvis was attempting to steady the wildly tipping vessel by girating his pelvis in the direction opposite to that which the boat was leaning, but sees a headless boy out of the corner of his eye, stumbling through the tall reeds on the shore. He decides not to mention it. Hunter is clearly disturbed, swatting wildly at things he believes are circling him in the air with Brando’s flyfishing rod. How ironic this is, considering there is so much actually happening to be disturbed by. “I’ll swat the shit out of you!!” He cries, then loses his balance. As he wobbles on the rocking boat, a moment of calm overtakes him. He suddenly looks over to The Fonz, who is not doing much to help. “You know what I hate about these fishing trips?” Hunter asks the cool but goodhearted young man. “These fucking bats.” With this Hunter falls into the dark water with a splash and tries to swim to shore. Brando, a great lump of regret and forgiveness rising After a few hours the Fonz realizes he is alone on the boat and that he doesn’t know how to use an oar, nor fish. He hears a splashing from the stern, which he figures is Belushi fighting the seamonster. “Aaaaaaayyyy” he says grinning, his thumbs like the Lighthouses of The Lord, happy to have company again. “Belushi you madman, get back in The Filthy Whore!!” Belushi gets one arm over the edge of the boat, his weight letting some slimy water ease in. “I can’t. Your mother says she won’t see me until I get sober!” Belushi replies, and at that very moment a tentacle slithers around his neck and pulls him backwards into the Greasy Lake. He was never seen again, but the kids who party there say on the right night you can hear a mournful voice wailing from the pine forest on the far side of Greasy Lake, chanting “toga…toga…toga…”
Pretty rad story, huh?
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~ Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to read that story to the class, which I figured might impress some hot bitches. Instead, on that fateful day, the damn broke. This was neither funny nor appropriate. We took our seats to find in front of each of us a large ramshackle, homemade virtual reality visor like some kind of clunky scuba mask with a plasma screen on the inside of its plastic window, decorated with strange rusty gears and antennae and switches and buttons and clamps. These virtual reality visors were clearly intended for us, as each sit neatly in front of our seats upon a piece of graph paper upon which was written our respective names and the message “Don the visor and yield to the Logos”. Not a one of us knew what this “Logos” was, and when our teacher mumbled something about it being a Greek word for the inherent order and reason in Nature we were like “Gnarly!! Go for it dude, yeah don that visor and surrender to the Logos bro’!! ..Or are you some kind of pussy?” We fearlessly donned our visors despite a faint screeching from our teacher of “NOOO! They are the wicked creations of a disgruntled part-time faculty member! There’s no telling what they’ll do!!” This last plea for sanity seemed like a faint murmur in the distance, because it was drowned out in the buzz of whirring rusty gears and the insidious disco soundtrack to a brainwashing powerpoint demonstration that appeared in 3-D before our eyes within Dr. Dementox’s contraptions. While our bodies flopped and convulsed like limp ragdolls in our seats for days (or who knew… years?) our brains were transported to a netherworld of purple in which a digital virtual reality Dr. Dementox (a short white man in a labcoat with the biggest afro you’ve ever seen in your life) guided us through a tour of the elements, which appeared to us as zooming particles rushing through clicking Chrononsindividual time-atoms, fractilizing and splintering seconds into nanoseconds and then splicing them again into ungodly small increments of time in the purple void until we could perceive electrons clicking across co-valence shells in their mad path, one trillionth of their own infinitesimal width each instant, in a slow motion. Some of us discovered new elements, some went mad. Few desired to leave that realm, and many of us are still there, though our bodies, wearing the visors still are kept fed by the school nurse, who keeps us in the basement and feeds us porridge every morning and evening.
~ 234
-10YOU TOO CAN WIN! Woe and gnashing of teeth upon you who scorn mention of Sheen. As if one mere earthweek could reduce the Last Free Man to a mere excuse for a hipster's shrug and a haughty dismissal of the shallowness of the popular media through which the Triumph of the Absolute and Final Win happened to be unveiled. It could not have been otherwise. Granted- we find ourselves unwitting participants in a circle-jerk of epic, epic proportions in which Fame feeds on Fame feeding on Fame. Is your eye-rolling at Sheen's ascendance actually an eye-rolling better intended for the public's lust for what they mistake as degradation? The eye-rolling may be even better served with violent love toward a system of journalism that has devolved into exhibitionism of the character flaws of those who are famous for reasons having nothing to do with character in the first place. For those with eyes to see, roll them at yourselves, for the pleasure of looking down upon the folly of celebrities AND the media which takes them ~oh so seriously~ is the jolt of smug pleasure which is exactly how People sells out every glossy copy. In unrelated news, partake of a merry-go-round! Then add to the joy of a world spun the creeping and creepy realization that the seamless blending of “real” or “political” news with tabloid pablum is an intentional maneuver to pacify appropriate civil outrage. If you can't siphon the poetry from his fingertips and WIN, at least summon the remaining strength to wring a few last meager drops of tigersblood from the entire exasperating charade before you moan in boredom under your covers beneath which no Goddesses luxuriate. These are the vital things! The things that make you say “Huh?” The things that make you wonder why they even make syringes large enough to contain a liquid solution made from seven grams of rock cocain and more to the point how someone who is by some sources reportedly NOT an F-18 could depress the plunger to climax prior to death, and still retain the composure and altruism required to perform intercourse with a prostitute. Then, in quieter, less envious moments, perhaps over a cup of lavender tea, we may ponder why a handsome famous actor getting 1.8 million an episode can't get laid for free? Of course he can! You wouldn't understand.
I. Media is the Mess Whatever it is that was once “Charlie” has become an inexplicable, mystifying, inscrutable, and certainly unconscionable explosive outpouring of Wild Genius, but a Wild Genius harnessed by a superhuman shamelessness, genuine curiosity and straightforwardness, 235
and a focus of will which is in humble service of something inexpressible and absolutely impracticable. He has given the word audacity the meaning it has waited for and he has recaptured the seriousness with which children play. To look his secretly wet interviewer in the eye, with that deadpan, almost impatient seriousness and manner of dry courtroom factuality, to look the dread security camera in its evil third eye, and to look America in its glossy plastic eye with the gravity of the grave and say not that he was “proud of what he did” in “that party moment” his moist questioner referred to, but that “I am proud of what I CREATED.” In other words, we have fans of a sit-com comedian who are in a contact-crack-high frenzy that is exploited by what no one in their right mind would confuse with news. The fact that you cunningly recognize that an avalanche of thirsty glazed eyes trained on a sit-com actor crackhead Overlord, like billions of dull sparks fanned to an inferno by an oil-greased Propaganda Machine masquerading as Pop Trash, itself masquerading as Journalism, or vice versa, is a sad affair, well, goody godamn gumdrops! [sarcasm] Yes, you with your “towering and indisputable standards of irony” clutch, salivating, for that tender moment when a meme born and forged in gold wilts into the played-out retread of jokes staler than a phish jam. Which message your media shouldn't be pop-culturing you over the head with until you are too woozy to put oil + blood together with or of have asserted your position blissfully transcendent over both the folly of fame, wealth, TV, an unfathomably glazed public. If the tiger is Sheen's power animal and he possess it's spirit, was this condition bestowed at birth by the squealing rusty gears of Fate or was it attained, and if so, how? By accident or heroism? And can we too have tigersblood? I say it is our birthright.
~ II. The Logical Fallacy of the Shadow Facility The general consensus among peer-reviewed academic journals is that the discovery of tigersblood in Charlie Sheens' circulatory system was due to an intentional genetic mutation. The probability of a human child born with blood identical to that of a jungle cat is so ridonkulously small, (and assuming the scientific perspective is not in fact profane to apply to this case which it is) we are very likely dealing with a procedure performed by a certain street performance puppeteer troupe in Switzerland composed of radical environmentalists with backgrounds in veterinary science and genetic engineering, known respectively as Bread and Puppet. Their aims and political affiliations are in dispute, although their puppeteering events, or “extravaganzas” if you will, are both masterful, charitable, family-friendly, and offer a relentlessly scathing and 236
insightful, if at times bitterly sarcastic condemnation of what they refer to as the Idolatry of the Media. In April, 2009 a defector and whistle-blower from the band of puppeteers disappeared shortly after leaking architectural blueprints to People magazine proving the massive highsecurity fortified compound in which they purportedly molded giant paper-machete puppets was in fact a biological weapons research lab and veterinary hospital in which vials of Sheen's blood were secured, replicated, and mass-produced: cause unknown; chaos suspected. The lab, christened “Sober Valley Lodge ” was built four miles directly above a quaint underground cavevillage known as Racoon City. The whistle-blower and both literal and figurative puppetmaster, Professor Schonk Fonkinstein Rachmonticoff is a man of national, but not international mystery, depending on which nation the citizen is owned by. In any case, he was a Hungarian man of Icelandic descent and French ascent whose mother, a circus-animal veterinarian, was mostly eaten by a tiger whom she spent summer afternoons lashing viciously with a scarlet whip. Although the Swiss government denies the very existence of Professor Rachmonticoff, they did sentence him to death as well as exile to “anywhere but here”. Upon his capture and subsequent yogurt-boarding [a slightly more inhumane water-boarding technique], he went mad, then swiftly escaped. Years later, horrifically, the left hand of Professor Rachmonticoff was discovered lying on a crisply folded copy of the New York Times TV-guide section, fresh and hot off the press, although to the relief of his girlfriend the hand was attached to his rolex and arm, along with the rest of his healthy if exiled and yogurt-boarded body.
~ III. A Savage Transfusion On the other hand, the transmutation of Sheen's human blood (and spirit) into that of the tiger may have taken a more traditionally shamanic process in which a coming-of-age ritual during Sheen's puberty in Brazil turned a bizarre shade of dark. Sheen's youthful infatuation with all things shamanic, fueled by his father's mortified, humiliated, teary-eyed, but unbending financial support, lead him into a South American Jungle village on the coast of the Amazon, where men were jaguars and a woman's fertility was judged by the number of shrunken skulls of her past sexual conquests strung on her thong. The village elder and witchdoctor, Von Shronkenhedz Shriznok, was an evil man who made no excuses and asked for none. This guy was all business all the time. He raised Sheen as his own son until his coming of age ceremony at 237
thirteen, then felt that Sheen himself should have a coming of age ceremony as well, and arranged one for him too. In the tradition of the godless savages, the largest and most ferocious ghost-tiger of a scorned ancestor is captured with poison-tipped darts blown from the blowguns of virgins who weren’t. Far from it. The beast is then tethered to a stone alter and a gnarly and redonkulously unsterilized blood [spirit] transfusion begins in which the plasma of the initiate is siphoned through a device resembling a beer-funnel crudely constructed from a gourd and vine, into a wound gnawed by the virgins who weren’t into the wrist of the beast while simultaneously the tigerblood is siphoned into the self-inflicted gnawed wrist-wound of the soon man-to-be. Similar to siphoning stolen gasoline through a hose from a bitchin' hotrod, some suction is initially applied to the vine funnels by the “virgins” to get the blood flowing through the vinefunnel. Suction is then applied to the initiate, the witchdoctor, and the tiger, also to get the good ol' blood flowing.
~ -11CHENY’S CAT Ok, we know that our middle-east economic satellite nation is Isreal. Read Chomsky. Due to an UN-FATED and UN-DESTINED series of facts and events, Jews seem to be the universal scapegoat extraordinaire. Why? It is not some grand archetype from their tribal origins, some unique virtue in the collective character of the people, hardly greater “accuracy” or wisdom of their religion, not higher-level “secret” or rather obscure mystical sects of Judaism-(Kabbala), no world-devouring financial puppetmastery, and if DNA played a role it was a side character. These all play a part in the unique role of the Jews and certainly language is power and that's all I'll say about that. The point is, none of these Jewy things are so unique compared to other groups that they could account for the rather blinding spotlight Judaism operates under. To exalt in stereotypes, it is as if we have a short balding man with large nose who is nothing special- but was thrust by persecutors into the role of victim- the single most potent symbol of victimization in human history. The spotlight itself is not intentional. To speak accurately of the unique role of the Jews in world history and prophecy is to be more or less doomed to being labeled either a racist or a “Zionist”, which is surely not the best or appropriate term to complete the polarity, but those with a passion for end-time conspiracy theory or just plain curiosity for the 238
apocalypse will seize on this point like a rabid pit-bull. The claim of racism will be directed against those who profess the unique role of Jews in this drama because they will interpret Zionism (the belief that Jews globally should make a mass pilgrimage to their claimed homeland, Israel.) in Illuminatii terms. The sub-category of conspiracy theorists who's focus is Zionism interpret Israel as a satellite of the US, which may be largely true, certainly economically, and their perception of a mass pilgrimage to Israel will be as a gathering of forces by those who they associate with greed, the classic Jewish stereotype. The misperception by many, many nations and religions, will be that Israel is becoming the control helm of a One-World-Government that means very different things to different people. It is my personal belief that it will exist and the confusion over what is really happening as it formulates will make for chaos moreso than war. For the transition to take place without a single nuke dropped is going to require some kind of high-priest warlock frequency modulation shit. Most likely they'll fly like spitballs but a few stray missiles from some rogue organization is not necessary nuclear winter, and a nuclear display by the one country that can assert its once-and-for-all overlord status wouldn't mean the death of the species either, although the collective disorganized and weak global resistance to that overlord could mobilize enough technology of one form or another to kill us all, but so will the drought. Einstein said he knew not what weapons WWIII would be fought with but he did know what WWIV will be fought with- rocks and clubs. What he didn't say was to stockpile an arsenal of as many seven-gram rocks as possible, while there is still time. The remaining nation forces and religious armies and whatnot will give it their best, kill millions, and aim for dominance. The biggest power player in this will be the US, but OUR homeland is conveniently on the other side of the world from where the action is going down. It goes like this- We got fucked. We fucked Iraq for no reason. We tried to fuck Afghanistan but that doesn't even make sense because there's little centrality to fuck there. Iran, by comparison, is more fucking unified and holistic a force than we are prepared to fuck after our economic and friend-depletion. The idea of a ground war with Iran is ridonkulous- their religious ideology is so imeshed with their political structure that we would be in for a real-life religious war, and Americans don't fight those as our cause-- it's one of our virtues. The lines of power run as such: a strong short thick line between Iran and Israel. With the world watching, Zionism begins to scare the shit out of everyone either because they hold racist delusions about Jews being the economic Illuminati or because they are anti-American and view Israel as McAmerica. Iran is very strong compared to Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a flea compared to Israel or the United States. Here lies its insidious power- It can provoke Israel until a blatant act of war occurs, or the reverse. The United States has ZERO option but to defend Israel with all its might, regardless of the details of the conflict between Iran and Israel, and that is what I would call the â&#x20AC;&#x153;exposureâ&#x20AC;? or the point at which the economic/oil/military/nationalistic/greed war reveals itself to have been about desire to own the holy land. By this point no one will believe the wreckage of that warzone is holy or that there will be a New-Age Era of Afterglow after all. The motivation continues however because the warlords who defend the by-that-point rather symbolically empty patch of 239
rubble will have, not a holy land, not a satellite of a removed puppet nation, not a safe-zone to populate with Goddesses, but the one control helm from which to operate the One World Government. The patch of rubble is arbitrary-- the religions which clung so dearly to the ruins will have been eclipsed by many novel things that are of a kind of religion but also not. We won't need oil by then, hell â&#x20AC;&#x153;there aren't even roads where we're going!â&#x20AC;? There will be myriad factions fighting over yummy water using the most diabolical, secretive, and psycho-frequency tactics. We will yearn for the good old days of nukes when absolute annihilation was the risknot global totalitarianism by Dick Cheney's cat. The nuts who have allowed paranoia and 9/11 conspiracy obsession to nurture rage against mainstream America are correct in one thing- that greed is the culprit. But the enemy has a name, it's name is McWalBucks. I find it particularly disappointing that wackos and subversives who are a lot of fun could be correct enough to know that capitalism is the face of tyranny but deluded enough to think that the Jewish-money connection is the same blind greed that operates the cash register at WalMcStar. From this pessimistic *ca-ching* perspective, WWIII is over, the US (the blind mechanization of the economic/pleasure-principle of capitalism- the dollar bill and the burger) won. Have we lost? But wait! It's a bird! It's a Plane! It's an F-18 bro'. There is hope. Geography is boring as fuck but there are supposedly some dusty old holy cities out in yonder dessert which Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all consider theirs and they are being mean and won't share. Has anyone noticed these three religions are pretty fucking similar? We're not talking Satanists vs Zoroastrians vs. Scientologists here. The dispute is on a level deeper than mere nationalism or patriotism- they each believe the land was given by God to them as the Chosen People. The concept of ownership of land is an almost-original sin. The concept of a Chosen people is also reprehensible and plain racism, (unless you mean us, of course, the good guys. Ethicals.). There's only one Chosen person and we know who that is bro'. Bring it. Nationalistic ownership is responsible for horrendous tragedy. But supposed Divine ownership of a homeland split three ways is not the Path of the Threesome which Charlie has taught us leads to the Promised Land of Afterglow. NO people can own land and to imbue a small chunk of land with a sense of entitlement raised to the level of religious fervor, coupled with a sea of black gold underneath, should be enough for us all to admit that regardless of the details, the shit is going down and we know where. The sad part is that the Kabbalistic crème de la cream of Jews, like the sweet esoteric kernel of mystical symbolists within every religion, are total bitchin' rockstars from Mars, you can take that to the bank and smoke it. On a sad, sad note: Once upon a time there was a little thing called the holocaust. Why it happened and placing blame, determining the degree of intentionality and on what society's collective part may be as unproductive as debating if the US could actually have dropped the towers. Beware the role of rage in human psychology and ask if there can be such a thing as righteous rage, and what that means. When the Enterprise gets too close to a black hole Picard's transmissions can't quite make it back to the Federation. Similarly, to address the long-term georeligio-political aftershocks and repercussions of the holocaust with reason and logic and the best 240
prophecy we can manage is not going to work in entirety. I think we can with difficulty get a good hunch but there are blind spots here. The problem is not so much a battle between reason and emotion where the traditional masculine philosopher holds a firm upper lip as he trudges through the trenches of sentimentality, eyes wet but not sobbing until he can complete his thought. That can be done. That would be easy. The problem is the enemy of undistorted truth and therefor accurate prophecy in this instance is not emotion as human weakness but more insurmountable due to its being an elemental force of nature like gravity. In terms of ethical gravity, in the 1940s there was a disturbance surrounding a “nation”. Let's skip the details. In short, the earth was bruised in its ethical body (which is the truest and only body of the earth). It was the worst bruise the earth has yet suffered. Yet. The characters in this drama are nations, and also religions. Due to the significance of the holocaust and thus the Israel’s status as “haven” first and “Nation” second, it plays a unique role which will not be revealed fully until the endtime scenario plays out further and the nationalistic/economic and “practical” or “industrial” stage of the WWIII is shed and the religions and new attempts at forms of religion begin to compete more blatantly for geographical dominance. America is unique in that currently (and barely) it is still the foremost superpower, but Iraq and Afghanistan have depleted more than our wallet. They depleted our friends. What we can see is a striking convergence of 1) Oil, and 2) Holyland in the same place. This is either an accident, a cosmic joke, or perhaps a cosmic screwing, but what it does it mean? It means the war will have two faces. For some the war is a pilgrimage to the pot of gold (oil). We'll call them the 'military-industrial complex”. For some, the war is a “defense” (ownership) of the Holyland. The radical islamic jihadist terrorism we have seen is a miniscule threat compared to the use of psychological terrorism to instill fear. 9/11 was bad. No one disagrees, not even in jest for all comedy is forbidden. But the sane person looks out upon the last decade and sees what was a scrape on the knee compared to the holocaust. 9/11 could have invoked a universal outpouring of support from the international community to aid and heal America, but Cheney squandered that. Defending against terror is possible. A global hunt for terror is not only impossible, it is not only counterproductive, but it is not even being attempted. What is being attempted (and quite efficiently) is a myth of a global war on (hunt for) terror to instill fear ($) and to destabilize the entire system of nations, the very concept and meaning of what a “nation” is. I yearn for the “good old days” of the cold war where despite the universal blanket corruption we find in every social fabric, at least there were two sides and boy, we were the gooduns! WWII was the last “noble” war because it was us versus them, and we were good and they were evil, and at worst a few cities and the conscience of our species died. The role of victim the Jews must live with because of the Nazis is no prize that wins them worldwide sympathy. It is because of the magnitude of the gravitational disturbance of the Gaien bruise that a counter-reaction was seen, and this is the claim, the belief, that the tragedy of the Holocaust JUSTIFIES the right of the Jewish people to OWN Israel. In personal psychiatric terms, after massive trauma, who would deny the victim one corner of the world to retreat, escape, find fellowship, hide, heal. Is this fair? A very, very good question. It is very tempting to 241
say yes, if not for the fact that absolute ownership of any land (in the “Divinely decreed” sense tied to religion rather than traditional nationalism), and for this to be recognized or even condoned by the international community, is a recipe for disaster. Ownership of any land is an almost-original sin, and when the land in question is a playing field with a potential global control helm up for grabs, we meet the Shadow Facility- Black Mesa. We don't conspire to make this more grandiose than it is, for that could never be. From within the seven-gram calm at the center of a maelstrom of high-definition propaganda which blends the absurdly shallow celebrity merrygoround with the whole oil/blood/end-of-times thing like so much fingerpaint, Cheney strokes his fluffy white cat with the most delicate of scheming caresses, his sinister frozen half-smile like the evil twin of Steven Hawkings' achingly virtuous one. Dr Claw's cat sits in the lap of luxury indeed- at the pinnacle of the Cabal, the All-seeing Eye of Horus is the one anti-soul with the calculating feline intention to inflict mandatory Judaism on all reptilians. His entire grandmaster conspiracy for world domination is in service of a black viscose substance composed of the fossils of dinosaurs which is huffed in paperbags by gutterpunks. And that's just no way to get high. It is the flight of the pterodactyl which indirectly through “fossil”-fuel, fueled your VW van to get to that show you forgot about. A psych-ray is transmitted 24/7 through your screen to lull a species (with the exception of one man, Charley Sheen), into acceptance of a one-world totalitarian government operated by Dick Cheney's cat. I for one welcome our fluffy overlord.
~ -12TO THE SKINNER INSTITUTE *DISCLAIMER: I took somewhat of a risk with this letter. I am gentlemen enough to at least admit that it is not without some structural flaws. What we have here is not my usual bitter venting of the spleen in protest against the Skinner Institute for the Treatment of Video Game Addiction which characterizes my multiple previous attempts at correspondence (which you may note have remained unreplied to), but this is not to say the concepts I will present are intended as flippant. In fact, I took the risk of relating the “treatment” I have endured during my stay in the acute 242
detox unit of the Skinner Institute to the symbolism in a specific video game because of the direct relevance. I was willing to gamble an even lesser possibility of any response on this occasion for the sake of bringing to light some aspects of the Skinner Institute with a biting wit none of you can deny (or even withstand). Yet all swashbuckling risk lies on the precipice of doom. I only ask that this letter be judged primarily on the clarity of the lines I have drawn between many different facets of the video game in question and the methods of the Skinner Instititute, and that the concepts I present are not overlooked prematurely due to the poor reputation of video games as a medium.
Dear Gentlemen (and women) of the Skinner Institute, We now dive straight into the complex and esoteric symbolism of the wryest piece of avant garde art that exists in the miserably disrespected genre known as the “video game”. This diving beneath the surface entertainment value of the game and into the depths of its weighty symbolism will indeed relate impeccably and with laser-sharp precision into the very heart of my addiction counselors as they perform assessments and produce diagnoses with the questionable tools of their agency’s choice. Trust me. The hero of the game “Portal” is Chell. She is not an addict (that we know of), but let’s say she is. She awakes in a pristine research laboratory to the chilling, feminine, and subtly sarcastic voice of a disembodied computer. Having no freedom but to follow the dictums of the sexy and all-powerful dominatrix/operating system, she complies. To survive, and to (we hope, dearly) be granted the mythical, grandiose, metaphorical, and yet so simple “cake” (more on this symbol later. Is it just me or is everything a symbol? I find this way of looking at things pleasurable because it is as if there is a shadow or reflection behind common things, the shadows brighter and more colorful than the original object, and sometimes a series of shadow/reflection symbology. The cake is a perfect example, later…), she must obey. So Chell (for our purposes) is the addict. The cubical, pristine, white-walled chambers which she is lead like a puppet through could easily be seen as the intimidating formal atmosphere of this addiction treatment facility I find myself in yet again. It is against the law to force a human into drug treatment, which is a curious fact to me considering a mentally unstable person can be legally trapped in “that white and medicated place for weeks which pass like eons”. And so technically I am free to leave, although there are external forces beyond my control (namely my deluded and overbearing parents) which more or less confine me here. But Chell is a true prisoner. Her only mobility is afforded by obeying the sensuously-toned sarcastic suggestions of GLaDOS [Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System], an increasingly sinister computer who must eventually be defeated. Is it not uncommon for the addict in rehab to feel trapped, forced to obey the commands of an amorphous “agency”, a “system” or, in common 243
terms “the man”? Yes. And though GLaDOS is the villain, her “assessment tool” is a very systematic and effective series of tests which increase in difficulty as successive pristine cubical chambers are navigated, with the help of an apparatus known as the “portal gun”. This is merely the basic setup for an adventure which offers moments so touching and human that we genuinely learn lessons of compassion, though I doubt any staff members who see this letter (assuming it is not perfunctorily shredded as I am growing to suspect may have been the fate of many of my previous ones) will take the time to investigate for themselves the pleasures of this video game firsthand. GLaDOS does not care one atom for Chell- she only cares to carry out the testing of the portal gun, a device which can shoot and link two portals on any surface, bending space, creating a chance to teleport around obstacles, and offering a kind of very intellectually stimulating and pleasurably entertaining elaborate geometric puzzle mind-blowing. The portal gun can be many things in the “video game dependency” context. It can be that thing (willpower, grace, surrender, benevolent human service professionals, the goodwill of the group…) which creates a portal between the life of “video game addiction” (as you people call my treasured pastime) and the life of abstinence. By the way the portal gun can withstand the thousands of degrees Fahrenheit of the furnace which Chell’s assembly line leads to, although tragically Chell cannot. Chell is expendable, for the test results (see my diagnosis of “chronic and acute video game dependency and corresponding intermittent withdrawal” in the files and charts you people so enjoy keeping on me) themselves were the entirety and the totality of the intentions of the tester, who (despite the lilting attractive voice, which I might note is coincidentally (?) quite similar to that of my individual counselor Miss Rachel Racette) is inhumane- a machine. Of course, the heroic moment when the tables turn is when Chell uses the portal gun to escape the furnace and begins hunting the computer/goddess of the facility. I will add that despite the undeniably appealing long, wavy, scarlet hair and ample bosom of Miss Rachel, and her supposedly benevolent attempts to counsel me, I at times suspect her too of being in fact a cleverly designed machine. Yes, though a kind of very advanced and admittedly attractive robot, Miss Rachel may be sincerely attempting to help me reach a turning point in my addiction at which point a leap is necessary to solidify and actualize my slow, resistant, and yet steady progress- a turning point when one ceases to be a victim at the mercy of external forces (one’s addiction, or the agency when it is viewed as the enemy in this case, to say nothing of my hopelessly confused parents), and becomes the commander of their own destiny, (as corny as that sounds.) So the portal gun was once the property and equipment of GLaDOS which Chell takes ownership of and turns against her captor in the end- this is that process of recovery in which those trying to help you are initially resisted as threatening confinement, but are only later realized to be pointing toward a more satisfying and decent life and in fact offering an alternative to the confinement of incurable and fatal video game dependency. Yes, even I, at times, in the lonely moonlight of my room here wonder if it is only when a client ceases to fight the agency and realizes that they are on the same team that progress can occur (that’s my theory anyways, 244
but it implies the agency is at least intentionally benevolent and not instead much more similar to that cruel “home” from “One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest” as is the Skinner Institute- the type which deserve to be fought because it is primarily a diabolical institution- a recovery factory, spitting out the product of video game-abstinent, responsible citizens- this will never work; the pastime of interactive electronic entertainment is too passionate and organic a phenomena to fit neatly on an assembly line. The Cake is what we all want. It’s connotations of a birthday recall the happiest and proudest of memories. Cake is sweet. It is not “good for you”, yet we cannot help desire it. Cake is the drug of mastering and completing a truly great and absorbing video game. Perhaps you people would say, as Miss Rachel never ceases to convince me, Cake can also be the reward that is the elusive freedom from addiction. It is both poison and reward. The brilliant use of Cake in Portal is one of those examples of symbolism in art so powerful it surfaces from the murk of your dreams around 3:00 AM and rises like a serpent leviathan breaching the conscious surface of Jung’s purple collective unconscious. Cake, again and again, is promised to Chell if she can merely survive, but we know in the hardened ice cubes which were once naïve hearts that “the cake is a lie”. Indeed, this horrifying revelation that “The Cake is a lie” is scrawled as graffiti by a previous victim of the test chambers. This sequence of the game (towards the end) in which Chell discovers a passageway into the rusted industrial innards of the laboratory and the remnants of a frightened, half-mad test subject who hid there like a starving rodent, was genuinely moving. How does this relate to my stay here in the acute detox unit of the Skinner Institute? I shall tell you how. The relevance is in the stark contrast between the pristine whitewalled cubical test chambers of the Aperture Science facility [the agency which has currently replaced my temporary home in my parents basement] and the rusted, decaying wreckage behind its walls [the emotional geography of the video game addict in early recovery, and hence severely uncomfortable withdrawal], a behind-the-scenes splinterworld which has become a kind of nest for one who has rejected the performance of the test [the “non-compliant client” in the language of the Pharmaceutical Machine which no doubt funds the research branch of the Skinner Institute like an umbrella agency only as horrendous as it is insidious.]. We see a duality here- the cleanliness and order of the test chamber is very much the “good intentions” of the Skinner Institute, and of my lovely yet synthetic counselor Rachel, for that matter. Rachel may have been programmed to see nothing wrong with the antiseptic, clinical style of her assessment tools (assuming her assessment tools are of the DSM-IV garden variety, which I suspect), but the noncompliant client- the difficult, reluctant, resistant, sarcastic, or even dangerous client, which you people no doubt take me for, can see “the writing on the walls”. By this, I allude to the chilling repetition of the graffiti “the cake is a lie” but also the perhaps naïve or arrogant nature of some assessment tools. Or perhaps I should say “the way some counselors administer their assessment tools along with the rest of their medically sterile style of “helping”. It is true I don’t know enough about the different assessment tools available to make a judgment on them as being mostly too blind of the rough, chaotic, twisted corridors of the human gamer 245
client’s mindscape. But I do know enough of the style and approach of those who do assessments here, including my own redheaded cybernetic case manager, to say that the ones who treat clients like organic personalities rather than “test subjects” are few. If cake isn’t a symbol, nothing is, and I am growing daily closer to the suspicion that the Skinner Institute for the Treatment of Video Game Addiction, which I hereby yet again formally request graduation and immediate dismissal from, is hardly “a trusted friend in science”, which is the slogan on my Aperture Science coffee mug.
In Fellowship and Respect, A current client of the Skinner Institute and Hardcore Gamer, -Smithfield Fontibue.
~ -13ZOMBIE BABY THERAPY INTRO- We fade from black to wisps of smoke illuminated by bright light against black backdrop, pan down to Dr. Laan’s cigar, then his full form, knees crossed on leather chair. Pan back further to encompass Zombie Baby [ZB] lying on leather couch. All besides the two actors is black.
-Scene OnePuffball Love -Dr. Laan:
Tell me about your mother.
-ZB:
You gotta be kidding me! 246
-Dr. Laan:
I assure you, Yohan, I am most serious. You will describe your earliest memory of your mother.
-ZB:
…OK, why not? …I remember suckling at her breats… But something is wrong. There is no milk. Only… dust. [We see dr. Laan scribbling feverishly on his clipboard as he does whenever ZB says something revealing.]
-Dr. Laan:
Dust!?
-ZB:
Yes. Liker a puffball you pop open in the forest[Insert very brief shot of a page from an encyclopedia or biology textbook with picture of “puffball”, correct botanical name for the plant (?), and text- an out of place shot with no explanaition but important as “puffball nipple” becomes central image, symbolic of Fruedian breastfeeding issues and lack of nurturing mother.]
-ZB-
[continued] …from her nipple only a cloud of dust. [Shot of withered zombie-nipple emitting a puff of dust, slow-motion, very dramatic, perhaps with sad, rejected face of breastfeeding infant between nipple and expanding dust cloud. This shot could be spliced up and repeated quickly in a series from different angles or involve stroboscopic illumination of expanding dust cloud. The most important symbolic image in the film, to be repeated numerous times over the course of the film, including the final shot.]
-Dr. Laan:
Why was this, yohan? Why was there no milk from your mother’s breast?
-ZB:
Because she was a zombie, [Camera zooms in very quickly to extreme close-up of ZB’s lips as they mouth the following words:] …just like me. [Emmediatly begins exhilarating music (genre? Techno? Metal?) Something along the lines of Rob Zombie would be fitting. And a clean cut to the opening credits, which will be presented in a whimsical artsy manner at the discretion of the team which tackles this animated sequence.]
~ 247
Scene Two: What Is It To Be Dead? [We fade from black to wisps of smoke illuminated by bright light against black backdrop. This is 2nd time we use this, it will be repeated, perhaps regularly between scenes? Pan down to Dr. Laan’s cigar, then his full form, knees crossed on leather chair. Pan back further to encompass “ZB” (Zombie Baby) on leather couch. All besides the two actors is black.] -Dr. Laan-
Relax, my bright young man. My somber friend… My somber, zombie friend. My intelligent young recovering zombie. You do know that regardless of their length of time clean and sober, recovering addicts do not refer to themselves as “cured”, yes? Similarly, I cannot promise that your condition can be reversed. No matter how long you remain dead… undead, whatever the term… You may tragically never partake of the pleasures of the polite society of the living. Nevertheless, the maladaptive behaviors which have resulted in your confinement in this psychiatric institution can be… controlled.
-ZB:
…“controlled”?
-Dr. Laan:
Correct. Now tell me what it means to be dead.
-ZB:
You wouldn’t believe me. You don’t believe me. That doesn’t bother me. I mean, why would you? It is not normal. My behavior, before they took me here was… “maladaptive” as you say; maladaptive in the extreme. I am not normal- that explains the straightjacket. But don’t patronize me.
-Dr. Laan:
An unusually strong subconscious defense mechanism of savage aggression coupled with the severe oral fixation which makes you bite those who care most for you is what earned you your clean straightjacket. Your obedience will loosen its straps and buckles. So obediently reply to me and quell my curiosity. Can you blame me? Wouldn’t a man kill to know what awaits behind the curtain? Yes… one of the classic and most cliché of unanswerable questions which philosophers and two-bit hustlers have connived over for eons. Yohan, do not make me kill for the answer. Tell me know what it is to be dead!
-ZB:
I detest therapy for this reason. Not because it is contrived intimacy, or because it does not work, nor because I have had it ad nauseum (all of which are true), but because a therapist will invariably have a hidden agenda behind his questions. You say- “Tell me what it is to be dead!” But you mean- “Be at ease. Talk of your 248
delusions. You are safe to do so, for I am on your side. I will never reject your lies, your nonsense, even if I believe them to be such. What I believe is irrelevant, while asking eternally “How does that make you feel?” Such a safe question. Such an unmanly one! -Dr. Laan:
[extremely loud, angered, disgusted, + final] “CAREFUL!!” [long silence, ZB’s eyes shift nervously]
Dr. Laan:
You will tell me what it is to be dead now. Regardless of whether you think I will belive you. True- I don’t give a fuck for your “expert opinion”, nor for the true answer to the question itself. Am I a junky pool hustler looking to score for a Big Cliché? No. Am I a schizophrenic adolescent with a pool cue in one hand and a syringe in the other, running after the Big Answer as if it were a bent spoon with warm brown poison in it?
-ZB:
[interrupts] …I see you’ve read my chart. [humor]
-Dr. Laan:
The Law here is this- I am holding you in my hand like a doll, because I hold the keys to this psychiatric hospital and because someone of your intelligence-
-ZB:
[interrupts] –thank you.
-Dr. Lann:
[continues] –will already feel caged and resentful, bored of the droolers and mumbling infants in adult bodies whom you are caged with. I could let moss grow on you here young man, so you will humor me. Patronize me and tell me what it is to be dead at once.
-ZB:
The Law here is this- I will tell you, but not before you first admit you will not believe my answer; that you will never believe I am dead.
-Dr. Laan:
Granted.
-ZB:
Excellent… [savoring the intro to the description for dramatic effect]
-Dr. Laan:
yes, A point for you, bright young man. Sad failure of a man. “So much potential!” they must have told you again and again. Before you begin- you are correct- I will never believe you. This analysis would be easier if you thought we were friends and that I shared your intriguing but pathetic delusion. The truth is that I care far more about the article on you I am submitting to The Journal of Abnormal Pathetic Delusions than I care for curing you or if you live or die… “a second time”. [with a smile]
-ZB:
Are you really writing an article about me?
-Dr. Laan:
Indeed. It will not make me rich, but it will further my reputation and status and pass the time in my smoking jacket while my wife sleeps. Of course the name of 249
the journal is not “The Journal of Pathetic Delusions”, but it may well be. That or “The Tale of the Boy who grew Moss on his Tongue”. -ZB:
Again with the moss! What does that expression mean?
-Dr. Laan:
It’s hardly cryptic. I find it odd the moss reference is lost on you. It means you are my captive in these white walls amongst the droolers for as long as I wish. My liverstock- a weak veal calf, fed milk. A Perdue chicken. A doll and some day an old redwood which remained stationary lomng enough to let the moss grow. Cluck for me Perdue Chicken! [makes “cluck-cluck” noises] Moss only grows on that side of the tree that gets no sun.
-ZB:
Or is it the side that does?
-Dr. Laan;
Regardless, that is how a lost child can tell which way is east or west when they are alone and scared in the forest. [exaggerated sympathy voice] Poor baby, poor “zombie baybee”. Is poor zombie baybee alone and scared?
-ZB:
[sighs, acceptance] Cold and black. That is all.
-Dr, Laan:
Death?
-ZB:
Yes.
~ Scene Three: A Dirty Little Secret [A quiet room in the psych ward, night, moonlight and the sound of rain from the window. ZB has a roommate with no role in the scene- oddly, considering the macabre display. Roomate merely watches calmly in the background. ZB asleep as nurse enters, wearing soft, loose outfit with lace, merely suggestive of a uniform. Large bosom if possible, long blond hair. Nurse has heavy accent (Swedish?). Speech choppy. -Nurse:
Yohan! Wake up! [softly, Nurse speaks in lullaby whisper] It’s time for a midnight snack! 250
[Nurse takes brainjar from behind her back and presents it with a big smile to Yohan. Yohan’s eyes light up like a little kid at Christmas, very excited. Nurse teases him by withdrawing brainjar. She enjoys his excitement and makes sexual advances toward him, using brainjar as bait. Perhaps holding it between her breasts or demanding a kiss before she gives it to him. Yohan is uninterested in her, distracted by brainjar.] -ZB:
Does Dr. Laan know about this? He will be mad, yes?
-Nurse:
Dr. Laan knows what is best for you. Dr. Laan knows you hunger for brain but that brain is Death! Heart is Life, Yohan! [takes ZB’s palm and holds it against her heart; holds brainjar away as ZB grabs for it.]
-ZB:
What is my reward FOR? Did I do something good?
-Nurse:
[teasingly] What makes you think you could ever do something good? [giggles] No- this is just a taste for you, for no particular reason. Just to let you know that Dr. Laan can let you have the pleasure… even if it is a… guilty… pleasure… If you obey him there will be moew tasting. [All through this ZB is salivating while ZB’s roommate can be seen in the background, watching the exchange with casual curiosity (humor).]
-Nurse:
We keep this as our little secret, yes? [giggles mischievously] You are not to thank Dr. Laan- he would act like he didn’t know! You see? He cannot admit he would let you have this… guilty… pleasure. It is… aprivate thing. So he told me to give it to you, so you not think you have his approval. [then, to herself-] I shouldn’t be telling you this… But you see? If he gave you from his own hand you would think it is ok, is… permitted. [shakes jar at ZB as if wagging finger and frowns] This is not allowed!! So I give it to you. From morgue in basement of asylum, to Dr. Laan’s hand, to mine, to your lips. [almosts hands brainjar over, quickly withdraws it, almost dropping it, which ZB panics about] But first you must promise not mention to Dr. You must pretend he doesn’t know, even if he tests you and asks if I gave you a treat and told you he said was okay, okay?
-ZB:
YES, YES!! [Nurse tries to open jar, cannot; askes if ZB is strong enough to help her in a very suggestive, sexual manner and big puppy-dog eyes. ZB opens the jar with a dramatic *pop* moment, takes brain, eats, gorges himself animalistically. The process is very messy. Nurse pets his ZB’s hair lovingly as he feasts. This goes on for a long time, until the brain is consumed and ZB is sated. He seems very sleepy and happy, and curls up into a fetal position in Nurse’s arms. He starts suckling on her very large breasts while she pets his hair and cradles him.] 251
-Nurse:
Close your eyes, wandering child. Do you want to hear a bed-time story while you fall asleep? [ZB is too sleepy and busy nursing lazily to respond.] I will tell you the story of Klizzandra the Princessâ&#x20AC;Ś [At this point there is a story within the story. We fade into an animated segment in a pastel construction paper style that follows the following story of Klizzandra, as follows:]
~ Scene Four: Klizzandra The Princess [This scene should be animated in pastel colors and narrated by the silky thick-accented voice of Nurse]
-Nurse:
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Once upon a time there was a beautiful young maiden. She was a princess from a far away magical kingdom. Her name was Klizzandra, and she was a very, very sad person. She had mountains of diamonds and she was going to be the Empress of the Emerald Prism Mirror Halls when she grew old enough, and she had a handsome young prince that wished for her hand in marriage. And yet she was so very, very sad. No one knew why she was so sad. Her father, the emperor sent for a wise old wizard to find out why this young maiden was so sad. The wise old wizard gave Klizzandra a magic potion and told her to go out to the cemetery and fall asleep on the grass, wet with dew. Klizzandra almost fainted with fright. She thought this was a very scary thing to do. But she did as she was told.
252
The grass was very cold and wet with dew, and the wind seemed to whisper scary things to her, as if it were the voices of the people who were buried in the cememtery. But the potion the wise old Wizard had given her quickly began to make her feel very comfortable and warm. “Oh! I am so cozy!” she said to no one in particular. “Be not too cozy, princess young For to this cemetery the Wizard comes!” (Said the voice of the wind.) But Klizzandra was too warm and cozy to do anything but fall into a deep, deep sleep. It was a trick! The Wizard had given Klizzandra a love potion. And he came to the cemetery in the night, just as the voice of the wind had said. He sat down beside Klizzandra and whispered to her as she slept: “Now you are my wife, princess young, And this old Wizard will away with you run!” Klizzandra woke up and saw the Wizard sitting beside her, but he seemed young and handsome, far more handsome than the young prince that wished for her hand in marriage. “Go not with the Wizard, princess young, For if so, you will die by the gun!” (Said the voice of the wind.) Of course Klizzandra did not know what a “gun” was, because her magical kingdom was from long ago, before anyone had made a gun. All of a sudden, the young prince who wished for Klizzandra’s hand in marriage ran and jumped over the cemetery fence with a gun in his hand. “What is that thing?” asked the Wizard and the Princess at the same time when the young prince fired it into the air with a loud boom. Klizzandra then heard the voice of the wind on last time253
“You will know what it is when you are alone and poor, princess young For the Wizard’s bride you will become There was a cave in Hell the prince took that thing from And he brought it to Earth and named it a “gun” And when the prince is old and heartbroken and alone He will shoot his gun through both your bones.” (Said the voice of the wind.) And the Wizard grabbed Klizzandra and ran off with her. And because of his love potion, they lived happily ever after. The Emperor refused to see Klizzandra ever again and she never became Empress. Klizzandra and the Wizard were poor and had only broth and hard bread to eat, and they lived like peasants, but they were happy together. Until one day the young prince (who was then a bitter old man) finally found their little cabin and shot them both in their marriage bed with his gun. And guns have killed people ever since, and they always will, because that young prince was the devil.
~the end~
~ Scene Five: Hollywood [Opens as always with a close-up of Dr. Laan’s thick milky cigar smoke illuminated against black backdrop; this shot is repeated throughout the film, at times with continuous backlighting, at times strobe-lit as in transitions to any flashback scenes of ZB’s childhood]
254
-Dr. Laan:
You will excuse me for drawing my questions from the only source which has afforded me some window into the zombie phenomenon…
-ZB:
Hollywood.
-Dr. Laan;
Correct. At the risk of sounding culturally insensitive, is the portrayal of your… “lifestyle” generally accurate? Or am I succumbing to a crude stereotype?
-ZB:
No offense taken. I too am a fan of the cinematic genre, but exclusively foreign art films dealing with the undead. Strictly black and white. Silent films if possible. I adore inter-titles.
-Dr. Laan:
“Inter-titles?”
-ZB:
Inter-titles are the use of written paragraphs in old silent movies to explain some plot development or transcribe dialogue that would be lacking due to the absence of audio in very early films. [Dr. Laan looks into camera at audience and nods in understanding. (humor, because there is substantial use of inter-ritles in the play. Dr. laan turns to ZB]
-Dr. Laan:
Go on. Speak of the films you love.
-ZB:
Films of French or Italian descent are my bread. The only modern work of any substance are certain experimental Japanese horror films of the avant garde variety-- [cut quickly to Dr. Laan who looks suddenly perplexed and mildly disgusted.] --I have been digging recently. Yet their take on horror leans more toward the surreal and the subtle- more dreamlike re-imagined folktales of ghost hauntings than the raw, explicit gore essential in depicting the… eating disorder which runs in my family. Surely there is gore aplenty to be found in Asian cinema, but it is the rare avant garden in which grow both gore and art.
-Dr. Laan:
[suspicious, raised eyebrow] …the fuck did you say, boy?
-ZB:
Nothing.
-Dr. Laan:
I thought so. Now go on, boy- talk of the films you love.
-ZB:
There were some obscure film noir zombie flick gems from my youth in the French quarter of New Orleans- “Jealousy Toward the Living”, “One Last Dinner Party”, “The Gravedigger’s Compromise”, and of course “Mourn Not For Us”. Most of them long, subtitled, dripping with symbolism; some would say pretentious. I used to sneak in without paying, now I would write a grant proposal to revive the old theater… It was called “The Avant Garden”. I had my first true kiss in the balcony. Would you like to hear about it?
-Dr. Laan:
No. 255
-ZB:
[ZB’s expression is deadpan and he is silent for a moment]…Anyways, such zombies as those are not seen these days on the big screen or elsewhere.
-Dr. Laan:
You are a snobbish zombie aren’t you, you sonovabitch?
-ZB:
Well, let’s say if I were to cross paths with Sam Ramie in a dark alley he would likely leave the encounter missing a large portion of his temporal lobe, if gnawing through an exceptionally thick skull were not as tedious a process as I have endured on occasion.
-Dr. Laan:
Ahhh, Sam Ramie- the imminent horror film director and cult favorite responsible for the “Holy Trinity’ of zombie films.
-ZB:
you disappoint me, my friend. It was George Romero who was responsible for those, not Sam Ramie. I pray your precious journal article on me is better researched. However, I am ashamed to admit I am familiar with the trilogy you speak of.
-Dr. Laan:
I suspected as much. But wasn’t Romero the special effects makeup artist who worked on Dawn’ and Day of the Dead…?
-ZB:
Too old and withered of libido to bother hiring a buxom, obedient secretary to check your facts, Dr.? The man you refer to is Tom Savini.
-Dr. Laan:
For someone who detests popular American blockbusters you are well versed in their film crew.
-ZB:
True, I know of them. We move in some of the same circles. But they are charlatans. They do not believe what they film. Are you aware that my birthplace, New Orleans, has a rich voodoo heritage? There is superstition in the humid air. I ater blackened catfish and drank wine in jazz bars with women who did not want to make love. They were afraid of something in me- that or I was just too shy then, and my virtue was too strong for the strip clubs and cathouses with their red lights like fishing lures. But it was weak enough for the heroin and pool halls. There are fake witchdoctors, moreso during Carnival, but for every ten con-men there was one genuine old woman in a shanty houseboat who could sacrifice a chicken before an alter with the Madonna alongside older, nameless idols. She would shake beads at the thing, sprinkling blood to the west, to the east, whispering in French, I believe. A chicken really does run about after its head is cut off. Why was New Orleans the place where a zombie could be awoken? The pins in dolls. There was some Caribbean influence? Haiti? I can still smell the voodoo in the humid air. But don’t think my being dead is from a love of New Orleans magic. I am dead, at least half-dead, by accident, because I was abducted by the dead when I was less than one year old and raised to be as one of them. It 256
is just luck this happened in New Orleans. In Carnival everyone can blend in. In a dark, cool movie theater you can be anyone. -Dr. Laan:
It is clear you have an obsession with Sam Raimi because your dates were not interested in having intercourse with you. And conversely, they were not interested in having intercourse with you because of your obsession with Sam Raimi. This is my final diagnosis.
-ZB:
I know you think I am a zombie because of the films I loved as a child. But in truth I loved those films because I was dead myself. And it is not Raimi you mean. His magnum opus was Evil Dead II, one of the very few domestic foreign films. You meant George Romero. But my eternally correcting your ignorance concerning these people does not mean I am defending them. Romero is spoken of with detest and… gnawing… hunger in my circles. Genuine zombies are not an audience that tolerates shock cinema, let alone factual inaccuracies.
-Dr. Laan:
How has this… Tom Savini… misinterpreted your… race? Is race the politically correct term? Or species? Heritage? Radical political fringe group? [By this point it should be clear Dr. Laan is intentionally provoking ZB. His motivation is to get him angry and reveal his delusions stem from an obsession with the Romero trilogy. His face cannot conceal his delight.]
-ZB:
[barks out in anger] Romero!! Not savini!! Savini was the special effects makeup wizard!! Romero directed the popular and enjoyable swill!! [ZB hangs head in defeat and frustration. Long pause…] I am beginning to suspect you are intentionally confusing their names to enrage me. To make it seem as if by correcting you I am defending those filmmakers who pale in comparison to the directors of elitist Italian art cinema. [growling] If I were not in this straightjacket…
-Dr. Laan:
[Smiling exaggeratedly, savoring this; uses sarcastic goo-goo voice] But you are, aren’t you? Poor lost zombie baby! Are your straps and buckles too tight? Does poor lost zombie baby need his meds spoonfed by pretty nurse? How cute! [ZB reveals another flicker of stung-ness, one of the few rare cracks in his armor] Zombie Baby has a crush! Oooohh, the treats! Will he blush when I tease him about crush on pretty, nurturing Nurse that tucks him in at night?
-ZB:
[sighs, absolutely defeated, head hanging down] You’ve won. I will admit some admiration for the original Night of the Living Dead. The stylistic approach was stark and minimalist. (I adore minamilism). The speed of the zombies approach was accurate, and the racial commentary was progressive, with the black hero mistaken for a zombie and shot tragically in the final sequence. How appropriate for the time! The civil rights era was a crucial and universal concern, living or no. 257
We cringe, however, at the attempts at scientific explanation for the living deadif I am correct the film referred to some manner of space satellite crashing or radioactivity as the culprit. This is unacceptable. In truth, there can be no explanations- this is very much part of our horror and our honor. It is said “When there is no more room in hell--Dr. Laan:
“--the dead will walk the earth.”
-ZB:
Very good. For once you didn’t mangle things. Well, even this closest of reasons is not true- as I told you before, the first thing you learn when you die is that there is no hell and no heaven. Only cold black.
-Dr. Laan:
You mentioned the speed of zombies in cinema. Say more about this.
-ZB:
I did?
-Dr. Laan:
Yes. You said of the Tom Savini’s Night of the Living Dead- -
-ZB:
[fully enraged] “ROMERO YOU ASSHOLE!!” [ZB lunges toward Dr. Laan but straightjacket inhibits movement and he falls curled to the floor.]
-Dr. Laan:
[unfazed and smiling, savoring this] –you said of the film that the speed of the zombies was accurate. If my obedient, submissive secretary has checked my facts correctly, I am to assume that the speed of the zombies in that film was generally quite slow.
-ZB:
That is our way.
-Dr. Laan:
Yet in my research for my journal article on your deranged fantasies, I have noticed a trend in modern cinema of zombies being portrayed as extremely fastmoving- more like rabid, feril animals than creeping persistent shamblers. Your response?
-ZB:
This is a painful thorn in the side of my people. We know of the trend and it makes us sick to our stomachs. We blame the general acceleration of technology and the worsening craving for instant gratification by the deluded populace. Speed is mistaken for fright value. If we are to believe the 28-days Later or the Resident Evil series or the recent big-budget remake of Dawn of the Dead, for example, the dead are frantic like businessmen late for an important meeting. In truth all schedules die witgh the heartbeat. The intense hunger for the living uis tempered with a paradoxical patience. There is no hurry in death. Neither is their glamour.
~ 258
Scene Six: Why Brains? [We fade from black to cigar smoke illuminated brightly against black backdrop as usual. Pan to Drt. Laan, legs crossed in leather chair, ZB in straightjacket on floor in corner. (Classic psychoanalysis leather couch is used in therapy scenes initially, later in the film ZB is seen huddling in a corner on the floor.] -Dr. Laan:
Let’s begin today’s session by bringing the topic back to your compulsive obsession with brains. You must explain why… why is the brain the sole delicacy to be found in the human body?
-ZB:
I cannot easily explain that. It is an acquired taste. I could describe the exquisitely pleasurable culinary experience of the brain- the resistance and then the surrender of the hard shell of the skull. How it succumbs like a coy mistress to her suitor. The tenderness and succulence, the warmth, the rolls of corrugated grey flesh like a tangle of thick overcooked pasta. The earthy, sour aroma- the sheer juice dammit! The intoxicating pulse of blood pulsing more and more faintly. The blood, yes, but also the opaque and milky fluids- bitter alkaloidal enzymes the biological function of which is unknown. [ZB does a quick aside to the camera for next line] This twisted soliloquy is making me quite horny. Few would believe the remaining electrical impulses of the brain after death can be discerned by the discerning palette, but they can indeed- much like the tiniest sliver of poisonous flesh left on the blowfish by sushi chefs of the highest caliber, just enough to tingle the lips. The fabled “pineal gland” which most deny can be detected, and yet to the connoisseur it is like a rubbery oyster containing a citric nectar which is the soul itself to believe the more superstitious of my kindred from my youth in the good old humid New Orleans.
-Dr. Laan:
Stop right there. I can tell right now we will return to your savage, degenerate desire to consume the brain during the course of our [sarcasm-] “journey of healing”. In fact, I predict that deviant, shameful tendency of yours will become the primary clue toward the precise psychiatric diagnosis and exposure to my colleagues of your full perversion. Without opening the can of maggots prematurely, I will inform you that in my professional opinion the deformed, pesrtilent aggression gland within your selfish, infantile Id has swollen with the puss of am obsessive, demented oral fixation, which for some unfathomable reason focuses not on the life-giving breast, nor the comfort of food, nor the 259
soothing cigarette, but on the human brain. I cannot yet deduce why your sniveling worm of an Id, that fiendishly greedy amoeba, extends its selfish pseudopod, grasping, grasping desperately toward the cranium of others, but indeed I shall. As too I shall uproot the shameful subconscious desire and expose it to the cruel, hot glare of my own superego. -ZB: The Id is the pleasure principle. I am familiar with it. It is that part of the mind which works on the instinct. My instinct is to feast. It may be deviant; “maladaptive”, as you say, but it is not sublimated or repressed. In fact I am quite comfortable with it. It is my nature and my nurture. Blame my upbringing. [next line in a sarcastically vulnerable tone] By the way, do you have a box of tissues? -Dr. Laan:
There is truth in jest. I could give you a tissue to weep into, or to cue you with the offering of a tissue as the symbolic gesture that you have my permission to weep, as is the “trick of the trade”, but I will certainly not. We all had brutal, abusive swine for parents. My own took to drowning my pets regularly, for no reason whatsoever. [next line Dr. Laan looks to camera and muses to himself absentmindedly…] “But why always on my birthdays…?” [humor] But we are men, Yohan! [punches Yohan gently in shoulder in friendly fashion]. And strong, heroic men, my boy! Slaying dragons, saving princesses, and asking no reward! Despite what they tell you these days, a real man never cries. Thus my office lacks tissues and always will.
-ZB:
I will never cry, Doctor.
-Dr. Laan:
Good, good, my boy. Now tell me more about a good braibn. [next sarcastically] How does it make you feel?
-ZB:
I suppose the heart of the instinct, the desire, is knowing that this organ is the seat of the personhood of the victim. To eat a brain is to take into oneself the concrete dwelling place of all their idiosyncrasies- their individuality, te organ that contained who they are… were. A mouthful of bicep is merely meat. In comparison the brain is the Life.
-Dr. Laan:
[slams fist on table in rage; following dialogue very angry] Dear Yohan, you are the Ultimate Cocksucker! If you were (and you are not) a real zombie, your clan of rotters should clamp a rusty bear trap on your limp, decaying genitals and laugh as you chew the device off your own scrotum like a resourceful bunny! [sarcastically] “The brain is the Life”! I’ll show you the Life and the Fruit right now!
260
[Dr. Laan gets up, grinds out his cigar, andf takes a black velvet cloth of one of the two jars that have been sitting on the coffee table between them throughout this scene. The large glass mason jar contains a human heart, still beatiung. Yohan looks puzzled. Picks up jar, opens it, takes out beating heart, turns it round skeptically in his hand, smells it, shrugs disinterestedly, and replaces in in jar with indifference.] -Dr. Laan:
[Disgusted] You are more the cocksucker than Juan Valdez ever hoped to be.
-ZB:
Who is Juan Valdez?
-Dr. Laan:
[re-screwing the lid on heart jar and draping the black velvet cover over it again] Juan Valdez was a patient of mine during a sabbatical in Mexico. He was a coffee baron who was orally fixated beyond the scope of my powers to cure and had an unholy relationship [ with his donkey. The donkey filed sexual harassment charges and Juan’s will to live withered over the course of the scandal. His good name was so tarnished by slander that to drink espresso brewed from his coffee beans was an integral aspect of a traditional South American suicide.
-ZB:
[ignoring story] What’s in the other jar?
-Dr. Laan:
Something that will make you salivate like the obedient Pavlovian dog you are. Something you don’t deserve.
-ZB:
Don’t tease me Doctor.
-Dr. Laan:
Very well. [Dr. Laan removes velvet cloth from brain jar with a dramatic flourish and forcibly holds ZB back from it, bitchslapping him. The Docor takes brain jar and caresses it seductively with as grin.]
-ZB:
[forcefully-] Give me! Or I will have your swollen egotistical fresh one first and then the specimen preserved in brine!
-Dr. Laan:
Do you like pickled eggs, Yohan?
-ZB:
[strangely calmly, caught of guard by the question] With beer, yes.
-Dr. Laan:
This brain is pickled in much the same process. The hint of the salty sea, the vinaigrette… [swooningly, almost singing] “Oooohh the treats!
-ZB:
[restraining himself, eyes like lasers on brain jar, which Dr, Laan finally unscrews, removes brain, lets ZB lick his finger for taste. ZB sighs, eyes 261
roll briefly back in his head orgasmically, then lunges with his mouth, almost biting Dr. Laan’s finger as Dr. pulls his finger away just in time. -Dr. Laan:
Merely state that you are a deluded fraud who has never had intercourse with a woman. [ZB struggles, contemplates, weighs options.]
-Dr. Laan:
[continuing] …and that you are a George Romero fanboy! [camera locks on ZB’s expressionless face for a long while, an uncomfortable, still silence.]
-ZB:
[Silence…] [Dr. Laan eventually shrugs, tosses the brain to ZB as he sits rocking in the corner. Dr. Laan picks up his hat from the hat rack and puts on his trenchcoat, flicks off the lightswitch to his office, and walks out as ZB hunches over to feed messily and noisily in his straightjacket, as we fade to black.]
~ -14THE CURSE OF THE FOUR-LEAF CLOVER Rain. Killing time, waiting for Guido as usual. A little elf in the whole nine yards - pointy shoes, pointy hat, pointy ears... (what is it with elves and pointy shit? Only a God we never made could know...) So this elf scurries up, he’s chomping on a cigar and pulls out a switchblade (snikt), says, "Hey Meester, you with me to sell ass for glass now," and I'm like, "Slow down you little freak. First, whose ass is being peddled here and just what kind of 'glass' are you talking about?" The thing starts bouncing up and down and giggling, "You know! You know!" (I did.) It (he? It?) squeals and then turns abruptly serious and flings itself around my neck, alternately kissing me and brandishing its blade. "You go with me now- sell ass for glass, little massage parlor in Red Light District of Hyperspace called 'Spice Harem', or I slit your throat soon as look at you (giggle)." I figure 262
Guido will leave me hanging for a few hours and I could use the action so I scoot the elf up around my shoulders and we head through fog and rain down the eternal winding cobblestone streets of Neo-Surreal London to the Spice Harem. Thunder applauds us like a raven's omen. The weather was as cruel a mistress as my mood was grim and the lime wedges in the Coronas at the Spice Harem bar were hardly squeezed whatsoever. A storm is brewing outside and the nostalgia meter is revving up into the Red Zone in direct proportion to my Corona intake. "Bartendress!" I call out. "I'll need something with more balls than this watery swill. Run me a tab on Guinness and I'll also need to hold a serious conference with the Captain." "Morgan?" she asks. I nod. "Just the one," I agree solemnly, taking off my Joe Buck cowboy hat, wet with acid rain, to reveal my bald head. The bartendress, a Swedish blonde with the kind of bosom that makes a strong man weak and a weak man revert to babbling infancy, cocks an eyebrow. "Liquor before beer..." she begins. "You're in the clear," I finish. "Beer before liquor, never been sicker. Spare me the limericks. Just line 'em up and look pretty." She shrugs and bends down for ice, revealing cleavage like an ocean of warm milk and daydreams. A bevy of harlots swarm the bar and make crude propositions, which I summarily accepted (on credit). The harlots seem to regard the elf as some kind of hero and hang on his shoulder, croon unspeakable slander in his pointy ear. Yes, elves can mix a mean Pina Colada. Surely they can flirt with necrophilia and even embrace cannibalism, but can they get tickets to a good Rob Zombie concert? We all head up to a room, Swedish bartendress included, and kick the Living Shit out of some gentlemen scholars engaged in an ethnobotany conference. One of the sluts breaks out a Ouija board and pours some pink powder onto it before we turn on the strobe light and someone busts out the Technic 1200's. We join hands for the seance. And then I glimpse The Moth, and know its' going to be a long night... You know the one - the flitting of that same moth you always see at the exact same point in cyclic time, surely too synchronous to be coincidence, like finding yourself once again going through your pockets as a trip comes on, looking for something (probably a lighter) so crucially important that all will be well if found, and yet we are in a loop still and not quite sure what the precious misplaced object even was, or if it mattered. Thing is that it's the same damn lighter that sneaked away from all of us, every time, and fumbling through pockets as The Power comes down on you too heavy too soon, no chance that that cigarette will cut through The Heavy and afford even a brief last window of clear thought or intention, that is if you could just find that fucking lighter, and then you glimpse that same moth out of the corner of your eye and roll your eyes. "Here we go again," and "We've been here before, exactly as it is now." Always be prepared. In ten minutes, just as the vibe was getting nice and spooky, one of the bruised and bloodied ethnobotanical scholars opens the door and stumbles in, muttering something about having forgotten his spectacles. The elf and I share a glance of shared understanding, as if to say wordlessly to each other, "Should you get him or should I?" I guess the elf decided he had a wee 263
bit more of the old whoop-ass to distribute, so he hotrails one final line of the pink powder (what the fuck was that shit, anyways?) and then he gets up and strolls over to the old gentleman, hopping up on him and putting his short arm around the shoulder of the man, whispering in a tone of confidence just between us men, "You want spend night with Freaky Lindsy, not call her 'freaky' cuz she does needlepoint!" The elf gestures at Lindsy, who smiles crazily back and flashes a peace sign, stars and turntables in her eyes, mouthing silently the words "I do do needlepoint," and winking. She's the girl all the bad boys want. The ethnobotanist stammers and stutters, blushes as he reaches for his broken spectacles. It was then that Freaky Lindsy slithers up to the poor bastard and runs her finger slowly down his tweed coat, down to his crotch, her teeth morphing liquidly into fangs. "Heh, well, I do say-" begins the ethnobotanist, but is cut short by Freaky Lindsy kicking him hard in the nuts with her stiletto and the elf slicing clean off one of his arms with a single slash of his switchblade. Out of the blood-spurting stump immediately extends a thin, manyjointed robotic arm made of petrified light-fibers, holding in mechanical insectoid fingers a treaty delineating certain political strategies and probable future timeline bifurcation extrapolation equations, detailed instructions for intra-muscular ketamine injection procedure, and a hearty, eloquent declaration of shamanic independence. The elf scans the treaty, his eyes widening, whispers, "Fuck me running!" in pretend awe, then shits on the floor and uses the treaty to wipe his ass. Offended to the point of sheer madness, the robotic arm of the ethnobotanist grabs Freaky Lindsy by the hair and swings her around the strobe-lit room like a helicopter. The other sluts advance and start ripping huge chunks of flesh off the ethnobotanist with their fanged teeth, but beneath the blood and gore more robotic mechanical structures reveal themselves, until only a grizzled, freshly-flayed biomechanoid with an immense erection stands in a pile of loose fleshshards in the nauseous flickering of the strobes; the flickering of the strobes which will never end. I'm getting bored registering the flux of Time-Atoms composing the scene of this ultraviolence, and although choice cuts from Plastikman's minimalist techno classic "Sheet One" is being spun into an atmospheric glitch-core remix of "The Best of Cindy Lauper" on the Technics 1200's by an enormous black centipede, I'm in the mood for something more along the lines of "Voodoo You" by the Lords of Acid. I keep checking my stopwatch for the exact time, as it is almost midnight, December 31, 2011. I know Guido the Leech will be at least three hours late, but the predictions of a certain T. Mckenna indicate that if the multiverse is not exactly scheduled to explode in a stardust memory on New Year's Day 2012, there will at least be some transition to a form of synthesis from which Guido may be unable to extract himself. Ah, poor Guido - I knew him well, but by 3 AM the rat bastard may be nothing more than a modulation in the substance of novelty imploding in on itself towards the infinitesimal assemblage point. This would be all well and good if I wasn't dopesick for H. Indeed, I've been through the desert on a horse with no name and let me tell you, ain't no camel's hump with water inside I sliced off four score and twenty of those fuckers and not a drop to drink. 264
The biomechanoid is daintily and in vain trying to past together shreds of the shitsmeared treaty, but the pink powder seems to be clamping down on my brain like a steel beartrap, and those fucking rainbow serpents are not only spiraling lazily again but smiling mockingly at me with faint, mildly suggestive flickers of their hideous innuendo-laden forked tongues. This is about all I can take. "Humanoids must report for M-M-M-Mantification to the Chancelor of the M-M-MMantatorship," the biomechanoid drones in a glitchy stutter. "Shut your proboscis you Glitchy Cocksucker!" I howl at the thing, which the sluts are dismantling as efficiently as pit-stop attendants at the Indy 500. Electric wrenches buzz dreamily. Never was much for the races, but you know it's a low-ride Surf Safari with a babe on the arm in my Ferrari, so long as the foggy cobblestone winds. Slow ride, take it easy, I think languidly. "Languid" is a word that cannot be overused. Fuck, it means "slow as syrup" but I like the word enough to call a glass-rush languid if the mood strikes me, as it has been known to do. I dial my landlord of the "1-800-Dial-a-Fool" hotline which I use normally only for phone-sex with your relatives, and got Smitty the Squid Vedanta on the line. "Smitty-baby! Whassup Baby-Girl?" (I call my landlord "Baby-Girl" for kicks. He hates it.) "You been kickin' it O.G. style?" (O.G. is an abbreviation of "Original Gangsta", you poor, meek souls.) But seriously, speaking of , the whores were trying to convince the elf creature to "get off in the bum" (?) with the biomechanoid's detached mecha-schlong. The elf put off a struggle that would warm the heart of any homophobic macho frat boy, but eventually relented to submit and melt in a delicious, yet perverse and Godless surrender to forces so sinister they should only be hinted at while as Cleopatra the Bartendress (not her real name) positioned the robotic device firmly into place on her interchangable strap-on dildo holster. What ensued was neither Christian, nor was it Pagan, but such things as would turn the stomach of an undead tapeworm played themselves out to the inevitable savage climax. "Smitty-baby, what kind of creepshow are you running here? ...You know damn well what I'm talking about! Those fucking neon rainbow serpents nesting in the walls of my apartment have been spiraling lazily again and now they've followed me to the Spice Harem! The fucking things are multiplying, “bro”. I know you're behind this, you sniveling sissy-boy! ...I expect an exterminator by midnight!" The fucker said he would see what he could do, but I thought I caught the word "hallucinations" in his disgruntled grumbling. The séance produced a range of apparitions and phenomena that whet my metaphysical appetite, but other appetites were turning the corner and making a run for close second. I threw Cleopatra over my shoulder caveman-style and headed out to the dismal grimness of a reality teetering ever closer to the brink of banal nihilism. "Hey Meester!" (Sweet Mary, what next?) The elf tossed me his switchblade, which I noticed was embossed with a four-leaf clover, and called out, "You may need this. Word on dusty street is Guido has been dipping into the absinthe again." We shared a glance of shared
265
understanding, as if to say "You just can't win." I shook my head languidly and stepped out into the rain.
~ -15LA CLASH DE LES TROLLOPS [The following is an account written by the notorious voodoo maid known as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Spacepantsâ&#x20AC;?.]
So I burst in on Chrissy in the bathroom of the Chancellor's Suite of the Spice Harem as she was shooting up. You could say the funny part was she was still wearing her damn roller skates. I mean, who blasts off in skates?! Ghod! But I wouldn't call it funny at all. Cuz I knew she was just tweaking. "Fucking Christ, Chrissy! What are you doing to yourself?!" She looked up at me midshot beneath her cute pigtails with the expression of a doe caught in the headlights: a mixture of fear, shame, and the slightest tinge of devilish pleasure in being caught in the act like the "bad girl" she wanted me to perceive her as, perhaps even a hope I would just shrug my shoulders and ask her to tie me up (and not S&M style either; I mean tie me up). See, I'm kinda like a big sister to Chrissy (hmm, no... that would make the sex we have incestuous)... so let's just say I'm like her dominatrix role model. I wasn't born with the title "Spacepants": I earned it. (My real name, by the way, is Cindy von Fishhooker.) Part of coming from a long line of German dominatrix witches (we're called "Replicons" for short) is being able to put your warm, human heart aside and knowing when the maternal role of care and nurturing just doesn't cut it. "This is how you pay respect to Mama Aya?!" I howled like the she-wolf I was ready to transform into at any second (being a lycanthrope as all Replicons are). I slapped Chrissy hard against her cheek. She lost her balance and nearly fell off the toilet, causing the rubber tie around her pale arm to snap off and spring with elastic fervor into my eye, which only enraged me further. She had lost all control of her rig (that's a "syringe" to you shamans), which hung from the engorged vein of her inner elbow like a bloodsucking glass leech. 266
"You CUNT!" screeched Chrissy, wildly scratching at me with the long, black nail polish painted talons of her left hand, in a half-hearted attempt to claw my eyes out, but she only managed to draw some blood from a superficial scratch on my massive left breast. I could smell a catfight coming on, so I touched my fingers to the fresh blood trickling down my heaving bosom, then licked my fingers clean. (The taste of my own blood is the surest way to enflame the Primal Bitch-in-Heat within me and send a crazed bloodlust surging through my circulatory system.) Chrissy's circulatory system, unlike my own which was surging with that wacky, crazed natural venom I knew so well and loved, was in the throes of a vicious withdrawal, and she could hardly put up much of a fight while at the same time trying to salvage the shot she so desperately craved, or so I thought... But events turned a grim corner as the wheels of her roller skates swung at lightning speed into my pussy. Let me tell ya- if I were male, that would have been the end of the fight right there and my balls would have been smashed like the grapes of wrath into the wine of remorse. Luckily, I'm a chick, and a leather-clad whip-wielding Hellbitch at that: a Hellbitch who wouldn't allow some Rainbow Brite panty-wearing 18-year-old ditz to get the upper hand in a catfight. Meow! I mean, just where does she get those Rainbow Brite panties anyways? From some long-canceled cartoon show lingerie catalog? Now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind a pair myself... hmm. But none of those fashion musings now: back to the action! Well, it seems that in the time it took for me to recover from the roller skate wheels pounding into my Holiest of Holies, Chrissy was attempting to "register". Now, for all you new-age vegans who are blessed by knowing naught of such naughty things, "registering" means pulling back the plunger of a rig (syringe) to suck some blood into the chamber wherein lurks the "sprackle sauce" (methamphetamine fluid), y'know: just to make sure you've hit a vein, as Chrissy evidently had, because the crimson flash and her mascara-encrusted eyes widened in gleeful anticipation. "Terrence Mckenna would be ashamed of you!" I yelled in blood-curdling vibrato, and swung my whip skillfully around Chrissy's neck as if I were some lasso-wielding cowgirl. At this point the needle popped out of Chrissy's vein in the midst of our heated struggle and was sent whizzing across the bathroom like some kind of Hell Dart, straight into the thirdeye chakra of a little gnome who had been whacking off to the catfight and giggling mischievously at my Terrance Mckenna reference. "Mckenna was a fag!" exclaimed the gnome before the tweak discharged violently from the needle into his third-eye chakra and an avalanche of pure white lightning tweak energy swept him reeling away into a private artificial paradise in the corner. Chrissy gazed upon the gnome with an expression of such tragic envy that she nearly forgot my demon wing-leather whip was coiled around her neck. And where do you buy a demon wing-leather whip, you ask? You poor, feeble charlatans! You can't buy one: you have to follow in the footsteps of generations of Replicon Queens and embrace lycanthropy, thereby 267
transforming at will into she-wolf form and slaying more leathery-winged demons than sweet little sissy Timmy Leary could shake his magic pixie-dust wand at. Then you rip the wings off those damned demons with your wolfen fangs, bring them to some rather thuggish leprechauns who live under the streets of Brooklyn, where the rare demon-leather of the wings is oiled, stretched taught (pickled for taste), and cut into long, thin strips... strips which make for the finest bullwhips in all of Hyperspace. "You wouldn't understand!" squealed Chrissy. "I need it!" "I understand, Honey," mumbled the gnome in wholehearted agreement through a crazed skeleton grin; but I kicked the little tweaker hard in the nuts with my stiletto heel and he didn't dare corrupt my lovely Chrissy any further, not in front of me. Well, Chrissy was turning a tad blue, so I loosened the whip and took her poor, pale arm, down which a long, sad streak of red was making its weary journey from that point on her inner elbow (which she had always likened to a hungry bird chirping, chirping eternally for a wretched worm, a hit) and I lifted her arm to my lips. I lifted her pale arm to my full, red lips and began to kiss that intimate spot on her inner elbow which had almost been graced with that avalanche of pure white light imbued in the clear liquid sprackle sauce within the chamber of a rig which was now dangling from the forehead of a gnome. Yes, I began to kiss that spot on Chrissy's inner elbow, in fact licked away the blood streaked there and felt tears of pity run down the blush on my cheeks. "You don't need it!" I sung to her. "Mama Aya is what you need." At that point the catfight turned in a somewhat erotic direction and I noticed that Chrissy had begun to tenderly, ever so tenderly, suckle my soon-to-be erect nipple. I cradled her and petted her head while she suckled, happy to participate in the healing warmth and gentleness that only true lesbians can know, and whispering, "There, there, my poor little tweakette, it's okay..." Chrissy paused in her suckling (which was blossoming steadily from tender to seriously kinky) and looked up at me, a bit fearful. "But Spacepants, do you know why I'm afraid that I'll always be a dirty junky? Because I have to self-medicate with meth to block the pain of my PTSD!" "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?" I asked. She nodded. There was silence for a moment while I pondered seriously whether Chrissy was just making excuses for her addiction or whether this was truly a valid explanation. If only I could make her see that Mama Aya could heal any childhood trauma within her; if she only surrendered to the healing catharsis... perhaps, perhaps...? But then the gnome ran over, nudged its way between our tender embrace, and slapped Chrissy. "We've all got PTSD, Honey. It's called the human condition!" Then he skipped away merrily and was never seen again. 268
~ -16DARLING EUROPA [Being Non-Sequential Fragments of An Unfinished Interactive Novella]
-Chapter OneThe Café Ennui
These grim days you can barely summon the strength to get out from under your bed in the morning. Yet somehow you drag your weary body like a limp ragdoll out into the cold. Fate is a cruel mistress this particular morning (afternoon rather) because you have overslept again. Luckily you are engaged neither in education nor employment, nor have you had any social obligations in recent memory. None would notice your absence, let alone mourn your death. Still, you vowed last night to begin a program of strict discipline and had set your alarm for 6:00 AM, at which time you were to drink carrot juice and go for a long run. As always, you silenced your alarm and burrowed deeper into the nest of tangled blankets beneath your bed, suckling the hour before stinging light would splice through the blinds. This charade has been going on for almost four years, every evening finding you a dictator with iron fist, everymorning a tragic clown. As you grab your hat and step into the howling winds, you shake your fist at the heavens. There is no response. In moments you trace the familiar path through the winding cobblestone streets of Frankenhaven and sit at the Café Ennui with espresso in hand. The caffeine evokes some faint lingering memory of a feeling your heart once knew… a time when the hunt for a pretty girl or an idea quickened your pulse; a time when The Feminine was not yet discovered to be barbed like rusted wire and when figuring something out was possible and promised true reward. Treasures were hidden round every corner. The caffeine is like an artificial echo from such a time, a meager consolation you cling to like a ghost. From your perch at the corner table, within the soothing cocoon of jazz music playing on the phonograph, you haunt your own life. 269
A man in black suit and sunglasses walks in and sits at your table.
DO YOU…
A) Kiss the man? [turn to page Chapter 6, page 13] -orB) Toss your steaming coffee at the man’s face? [turn to Chapter 2, page 4]
~ -Chapter TwoThe Terraformer’s Guild of Frankenhaven
The black-suited man calmly removes his sunglasses and shakes the last drops of Espresso from them. He then unfolds a handkerchief from his breast pocket and calmly wipes his wet face. “For future reference I take cream and two sugars,” he says dryly. You first met the black-suited man years ago during your brief stint as a secretary with the Terraformer’s Guild of Frankenhaven, a small group of retired physicists and astronomers who met at The Café Ennui. Terraforming, as you learned, is a theoretical process by which a planet inhospitable to life is turned from barren wasteland to a lush world with an atmosphere and climate similar to Earth. The possibility of Terraforming and colonizing Mars came into vogue in the early 21st century, but it was deemed unfeasible due to the immense technological hurdles required to affect climate change on a planetary scale- titanic nuclear-powered reactors the size of mountains consuming billions of tons of the natural resources necessary to produce a breathable atmosphere. During your time as a secretary at the Guild, between transcribing lectures dictated on tape cassette and licking envelopes, you were privileged to witness the Eureka moment in which Franz Heidenflaggen made the crucial breakthrough at the very corner table in the Café Ennui at which you now sit… 270
Franz realized a certain species of genetically engineered bacteria, of which a byproduct is oxygen, if introduced to Mars could replicate and over millennia could organically (and elegantly) create an oxygenated environment. Unfortunately, before this theory was introduced to the international scientific community, darker forces came into play- namely, the black-suited man, who was deployed by a shadowy and diabolical secret world government to recruit you as the spokesman for a disinformation campaign designed to discredit Terraforming. “Care for a smoke?” asks the black-suited man.
DO YOU… A) Step outside for a smoke? [Turn to page 13] -orB) Attempt to kill the black-suited man? [turn to page 26]
~ -Chapter SixMacabre Surrender
You lean over as if to whisper something in the black-suited man’s ear but instead quickly cup your hand round the back of his neck and pull him toward you. Though you feel the rough scratch of stubble, you show no sign of hesitation when met by the sandpapery texture. You are as open-minded as the next guy, but you take little pleasure in the black-suited man’s resistance crumbling and then melting like chocolate- the sexual advance is merely a calculated ploy to prey upon his sole weakness- his hopelessly unrequited love for you. You force yourself to continue the macabre surrender, bringing to vivid life dreams the black-suited man has harbored since he first laid eyes on you years ago. Soon a guttural revulsion begins to churn in your stomach and pre-vomit saliva releases plentifully from glands in your mouth as the black-suited man’s lips part all too willingly. Your eyes flick anxiously to the cash register of the café, behind which, exactly as you feared, is Delta- the waitress whom you have a crush on, amused by your shameless display of wickedly 271
deviant homoeroticism. Finally the forbidden drama subsides for a moment and you come up for air. “Can this be real?” the black-suited man whispers, breathless. “It can if you give me the MJ-12 file.” you reply coldly. It dawns on the black-suited man that your kiss was a bribe intended to procure his top-secret documents rather than his heart, yet he hungers for more, even if it must be bought with classified information. The abrupt crumbling of sweet hope in his eyes and his pitiful willingness to take what crumbs of affection you are willing to dole out somehow consoles you, healing your near-fatally wounded security in your sexual identity. He agrees to meet you tomorrow night at the Red Plush, a local wine bar and lounge, with the MJ-12 file. He is unaware that as your souls intermingled, you placed a tiny tracking device on his collar. The aroma of aftershave lingers in the air.
DO YOU… A) Ask yourself if some deeply hidden part of you was aroused by that? [Turn to page 21] -orB) Reaffirm your masculinity by asking Delta the waitress? [Turn to Chapter 29, page 35]
~ -Chapter twenty-NineA Reaffirmation of Masculinity
You ask Delta out on a date. She says yes. You are swept up in the swell of romance. It is, appropriately, “swell”. As you push Delta on a swing in the park, your noble hands lingering on the achingly precious small of her back, her cell phone rings. The ringtone cuts ominously through the joy in the air like a Belgian Muskrat, rabid and frenzied as if it were howling directly toward your groin, launched from a taught catapult by an angry gnome. This is due, yes, to the fact that Delta’s ringtone is “Hit me baby one more time” by Brittany Spears, and you summarily vow to 272
never speak to her again, but the ominosity of the ringtone also has much to do with the fact that somehow you know it is Mr. Peterson on the line, Delta’s boss, and that he will demand she go immediately to Prom Island, a place of work for her far more grim than even the Café Ennui. “I’m sorry.” She says, but she is already straightening her collar and putting on her public face. “Be gone filthy whore!” you shout, but she knows you love her and that this is only your standard response to her Brittany ringtone. “I must indeed get myself gone…. There has been another incident at Prom’. Have to clean up.” She shrugs casually, though she has every reason to expect that not only will she not return from Prom Island, but that if she fails to “clean up” it could mean the death of every mammal on the planet. Prom Island is a bioweapons research facility. Put the pieces together, stupid! “Let me come with you then.” you propose. She refuses, then you tell her you’re the man and she has no choice but to allow you to protect her, but that she DOES have the choice of weather to swoon while you do it or not. Dealing with these ladies is like asking a child if they want to wear their red boots or their blue boots to induce them connivingly to get dressed and face the Cold World you never could when they would prefer to stay inside and play with slime. You gotta give em a choice. Very well, she says. Her eyes mourn you, rather prematurely you feel, and you two have blown the popsicle stand. The wind cries Mary.
DO YOU… A) Don Delta’s extra biohazard suit? [turn to Chapter 79, page 160] -orB) Just go in your denim jacket because in it you feel like Bruce Springsteen? [turn to Chapter 79, page 160]
~ 273
-Chapter ThirtySeptic Shock
Soon you are furiously mopping the icewater that is steadily streaming from beneath the freezer where they keep their diabolical germs on ice… or at least intend to. There is precious little ice remaining inside the freezer (though a persistent a decent-sized cube in your heart) because the island’s power went out in the storm, the storm which paradoxically taunts the electrically null island laboratory with a wilder and more portentous electricity of its ownlightning. Delta’s sweet face is illuminated like a flashlight ghost-story prop under the chin round the campfire you never had and then fade to black again, only the glint of fear in her eyes remaining. Thunder follows, cutting her majorly worried announcement short so that all you here is “Good Lord, the [thunderous thunder] has overflown.” “Hold on-“ you say annoyed but patient. “I’m counting between the lightning and thunder each time… if the count gets longer the storm is moving away!” “NEVER MIND THAT YOU FOOL!” she spits back, your meteorological skills lost on her. “THE DAMN [thunderous thunder] has overflown!!” “The what?” “The sewer.” “Oh shit.” You agree, no pun intended, and none suspected.
DO YOU… A) Valiantly save Delta from shit-drenched viruses in the name of Chivelry and Romance? [Turn to Chapter 102, page 334] -orB) Say “Fuck this shit!” and head out to the Amazon Rainforest in the name of Heroism and Adventure? [turn to Chapter 147, page 2070]
~ 274
-Chapter One-Hundred and forty-SevenHellbroth
The natives call you “Snitchslayer”. You came from a bad home and turned wrong. It was four months ago, squatting in an abandoned church with your landlord Smitty "The Carebear" Vedanta (not his real name), that began a chain of events which would lead to your discovery of and inevitable indoctrination into The Satanic Witchcraft Torture Cult. You were into drugs and had been dealing this concoction called "Hellbroth", which is a mixture of ayahuasca, datura, ketamine, methamphetamine, and good PCP. It sold like hotcakes. You had so many custies (customers) coming to the old crumbly church at all hours of the night, sweating and shivering like degenerate junkie freaks on a leash in heat, that you had to move out to the Amazon rainforest to escape our own deranged clientele. You built a hut out of banana trees. Set up shop. Your new customer base was far more deranged than your last, however, especially since a deranged madman calling himself "Zoth the Warrior" had started a neo-shamanic church and proclaimed that Hellbroth was the highest sacrament, a way of communicating with angels and demons. (It may be that, but you and Smitty only use it to get in a good headspace for doing crimes.) You and Smitty like to pillage and vandalize the small Rainforest villages together, twisted out of your minds of Hellbroth, leaving a trail of pentagrams and anarchy symbols spraypainted on every available surface. But the dudes who became Hellbroth addicts take this shit seriously. They all wear black witchy robes with hoods and demanded more Hellbroth than you can easily supply. They also want to hang around the hut with you and get wasted, but they are no fun- they light candles and incense and sit around in circles chanting all manner of perverse and Godless hymns in rhyme. By the time you and Smitty relocate to your new campsite down by the river these witchcraft fuckers have made plans for you and it’s a slim chance that you can escape without being deified as some kind of Pagan God figures.
DO YOU… A) Escape into the deeps of the humid jungle forever and live as savages? [turn to Chapter 181, page 1,785] -orB) Remain as village witchdoctor to await the foretold coming of “She Who Shall Come and the Beast of White? [turn to Chapter 312, page 4,012]
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~ -Chapter Three-Hundred and Eighty-FourShe Who Shall Come
It is a cold and grim evening around the campfire when you meet CraftWitch. She is a gorgeous, voluptuouse wench with black hair, a broom, and a well-behaved polar bear on a chain. "My name is CraftWitch," she says in a thick German accent. "You crazy bitch!" howles Smitty. "How did you find us down here and who the fuck are you?!?" “I am the Chosen One- High Priestess of the Satanic WitchCraft Torture Cult.” She replies, suffused with royalty. “I realize the name we have chosen for our organization is controversial, but the idea is to shock those squares without a sense of humor who would condemn us. It is the grim truth that our Pagan beliefs and behaviors are so terminally misunderstood that we may as well call ourselves the worst things that the Establishment suspects us of being. It is sarcasm, dammit!” “So you aren’t an evil demon like the natives say?” you ask, reminding yourself not to trust the village elders’ superstitions. “We are not Satanic,” CraftWitch continues, “but our rejection of Christianity is fierce. We do not practice torture, although some completely consensual S+M rituals are involved with the later stages of Datura magic. We in no way endorse bestiality without serious training in power plants.” “What’s with the bear?” asks Smitty. "Nevermind that," she replies. "I have reason to believe an ancient Egyptian Serpent God named “Snothsssnizzz” is operating through you two boys. I chose to indoctrinate you two pathetic degenerates into the inner circle because it was told “Two Fools Shall Come to Bringeth the Sacrement”. I can already sense that you are unusually receptive to Kundalini- the Serpent Power. I come from a long line of German Dominatrix Witches and I can sense these things! It is time for the indoctrination ceremony!” The thing about CraftWitch is that she is an crack conissuer, but the funny part is that the contents of her backpack are in the form of one single freebase crackrock the size of a basketball, which she occasionally takes out and chip away at it with a hammer and chisel. The other thing 276
about CraftWitch is that she fucks animals. She unchains the damned polar bear with her and in the show she put on (which is thoroughly enjoyable), she believes she is somehow harnessing the primal power of the beast and converting it into magical energy. Smitty and you, on the other hand, simply think of it as "a good time".
~the end~ Congratulations! You just reached ending #67! Why don't you return to page one and try again? Your Fate will be different depending on which choices you choose!
~ -17HOW THE WORLD WAS MADE FROM BASS -Part OneThe Birth of the WorlD Before there were people there was Music. People think they make music but they are made from music. Before there was music there was only Sound. And before there was Sound there was only Silence. Back when there was only Silence there was nothing else- no Earth, no Sky, no People. Because these things are all made out of Music. All of a sudden, there was Sound. No one made Sound. It just happened. This was first miracle. Sound was like lava- heavy as stone, burning hot, and as red as blood. Sound was everywhere at once, and was all one thing, flowing everywhere. No one was there to hear it. If someone heard Sound they would die, because it was so loud. Then Sound started to move. Sound wriggled and twisted and writhed and wobbled itself into a shape. Now Sound had become a fat, dark green, thick, wobbly inchworm- ten-thousand 277
miles long in both directions and a hundred miles tall. It was hungry but there was nothing else to eat so it began eating its own tail. Now Sound had a new name- it was called Bass. This was the second miracle. Bass was born along with its brother Time. This is hard for People to remember because they think everything is inside Time. But Time itself is made from Bass. And because Bass was in the form of a circle, so too does time forever returns to the beginning in loops. But people don’t know this because they are too small to see it. Now, Bass was lonely, because it was all there was. So Sound laid an egg that would hatch to keep Bass company. Bass was very hungry, but it did not eat the egg because it was waiting to see what would hatch. One day the egg broke open and out flew millions of dragonflies with shiny neon wings. These dragonflies darted about Bass in a colorful swarm, leaving neon trails in the light. The dragonflies said, our name is Treble. Now Bass was happy because it wasn’t alone. When Bass started to grow older, spiny thorns burst out of its back. Each one pierced the sky in a row, some thin and silver, some thick and black. The thorns were called Percussion. This was the third Miracle. Then Bass laid another egg. Bass was very hungry but it did not want to eat the egg because it was waiting to see what would hatch. One day the egg broke open and out flew butterflies surrounded by a cloud of sparkly blue dust and glitter falling from their wings. The butterflies were called “Melody”. With Treble and Melody to keep it company, Bass was in a fine mood and felt generous. So he bit off a piece of his stomach and tossed it, and it was called “Earth”. Now Bass and Percussion and Treble and Melody began making sounds of all kinds. Bass made howls and growls which became beasts of the jungle. Percussion made clicking sounds which became insects. Treble made high pitched sounds that became bats and dolphins. Melody made chirping songs that became songs birds. Sometimes they made strange sounds that became animals which people cannot see and have no name for. Each time Bass and Percussion and Treble and Melody made sounds, a piece of wing or spine or flesh went with the animal. There were two more parts that made special sounds. The sound from the tongue of Bass gave a sound to animals which cannot be seen and a sound that cannot be heard. The second special sound was from one of the black spiny thorns that grew out of Bass’ back. Remember that these spines are called “percussion” and they were very special. So Bass plucked one of the spiny thorns out of its back, and as a very special secret gift, Bass hid it inside the skin of one of the animals. This animal was the goat. This gift was for a another animal to find that did not exist yet and would not come from Bass itself. Bass new that the new animal would cause lots of trouble and would in the future make Bass very sad. He hid the spine of percussion in the skin of the goat for the new animal to find after the conflict arose. Bass thought the new animal might at least deserve a chance to find this gift and use its magic to make
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peace. After having given so much of itself, Bass was tired, and treble and melody had to sing Bass to sleep with lullabies.
~ Part Two: The New Animal
Bass was awoken by a horrible ruckus. It seems the new animal had come about, and no one knew from where. It did not have a sound like the other animals, so it was very jealous. When it heard the others beautiful sounds, it would hit them with rocks and kill them. The new animal was called “Man”. Treble and Melody swooped down to Earth and they cried “Stop, Stop! We’ll give you a sound of your own. Wait here and we’ll get a sound for you.” They returned to Bass and asked “Please, we need a sound for this new animal. Give him a special sound so he’ll stop hurting the others.” So Bass said “Then take one of my teeth.” Treble and melody pulled and pulled and plucked out one of Bass’ teeth and took it to Man. This caused Bass great pain. Man was happy for a day, but the following night, he called to Treble and Melody. He said, “This is such a fine sound. Ask Bass for just one more.” Treble and Melody did not want to cause Bass any more pain, but they were afraid that Man would cause more trouble if he was not satisfied with his sound. So they flew to Bass, but they were afraid to speak to him. Bass said, “What is it? Why are you afraid? They said “The new animal is not happy and wants one more of your teeth.” Bass said, “Never before have I ever given one animal two sounds. I will give them one more tooth, but if they have too many sounds, they will not be like the other animals any more. They will have Language. So they plucked another tooth from Bass and again it caused him great pain. This went on for many nights until one night, when Treble and Melody asked for another tooth, Bass said “I have no more.” Bass was very weak. He said “I’m going away now. I’m going under the ocean to try to heal.” By this time Man had many, many sounds, and all the sounds together formed Language. Man soon forgot where he received his sounds from, and he busied himself making stories and
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giving names to everything. Man grew very strong and filled the Earth and became very clever, but sometimes felt a loneliness he did not understand.
~ Part Three: The Tale of Frobro and the Hidden Spine
One day, far above the octopusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; garden at the bottom of the ocean where Bass was healing, there was a ruby fruit jungle. In this thick jungle lived a tribe of People. By this time Man had all the sounds from all the teeth that Bass had given them, and all the sounds together had made language. But the People had forgotten long ago where they got there sounds. And because they had forgotten Bass, who was so kind to them, there was something wrong with their hearts. Their hearts did not beat with a happy, steady rhythm like the animals but skittered clumsily. The rhythm of their heartbeat was frantic, jumbled, and stumbling over itself, and this gave People an ache in their chest and made them feel anxious all their days. Language had made People very clever, and People were very proud of themselves- of their fire and tools and huts and canoes and especially their bows and arrows. They told stories at night by their fires of the animals they killed and they drew pictures in caves down by the sea of battles between the tribes and which tribes were the strongest, and the kings of tribes had many wives and always had as much meat as they could eat. Sometimes the kings of the strongest tribes waged war and many tribes were killed. The tribes which made the best bows and arrows won and they stole the wives of the tribes that lost and gave them to their king. And they had a great feasts. This story is about a man from one tribe that lived far from the sea at the source of a long river. This tribe did not have many men, and it did not have the best bows and arrows but its people were a kind that even the strongest tribes were afraid because they would eat the flesh of the wounded warriors from the tribes they killed. The warriors this tribe killed were roasted alive like boars on a spit and anyone who heard their screams would move down the river toward the ocean. This tribes was called â&#x20AC;&#x153;NotGoâ&#x20AC;? because all the other People had a law that no one could go upriver where they lived. The NotGo tribe had different feasts that were held at night instead of in the day and were not happy feasts like the other tribes. At these feasts they drank blue honey that had changed into a special drink which made them sick and let them talk to animals that no one else could see. The King of one of the NotGo tribe had two sons. One son was a warrior and the other son made drawings of the parts of the jungle where different plants grew. 280
One night during one of the horrible feasts, the son who made drawings felt a strange emptiness inside him to which he just could not relate. He walked away from the feast and sat by the river and fell asleep. He had a dream where his father, the King, was laughing at him and pointing to his chest. His father, the king, was laughing at him because he would not eat the flesh of a man he had killed and cooked. The king kept laughing and then ordered his two sons to eat. The warrior son ate some and said it was good. The son who made drawings of parts of the jungle where there were different kinds of plants ate some and then felt sick. Then the drawingson looked down at his chest and there was only a huge empty hole with no heart inside, and this made the son so afraid he woke up screaming. He decided then that he would leave his father and brother and follow the river down to the sea and find a cave to live in by himself, and never go back to his tribe. And this is just what he did. This son was named Frobro, for he was a soul brother with a massive afro. After many many days and nights of walking, he was bit by a lizard on his foot. He knew the lizard that bit him was a yellow and red lizard and that it had put poison in his foot. He grabbed the lizard by its tail and would not let it get away but he did not kill the lizard. Frobro said to him “I know it is your nature to kill with your bite. But if you save me I will let you go.” The lizard said “I cannot save you. When I bit you I put my poison in your foot and in two nights your foot will turn blue and die. In three nights your leg will turn blue and die. In five nights your chest will turn blue and your heart will not beat, and you will go to the stars with your ancestors. But if you let me go I will tell you a riddle. And if you solve the riddle you will make powerful magic that will make all the children of your tribe and every other tribe and their children and their children happy forever.” Frobro laughed and said “If you can do this, I would have let you bite both my feet and both my hands! But you are surely lying.” “I am not lying.” Said the lizard. “Listen to my riddle. Follow this river down to the sea. Then walk along the beach until you find a place where there is tall grass and rocky hills covered with thick fog. There is a herd of goats that live there. One of the goats is special, and you will know it because his coat shines like gold. Kill him and eat his flesh, but save his hide. It is in his hide that a secret gift was hidden by a great worm that made everything you see. The worm is called Bass, and he hid a secret gift in the skin of the goat so you will find it and make up for the hurt that Man has done to Bass long ago. But you must figure out how to use the gift. That is the riddle.” Frobro smiled and let go of the lizard, who ran away quickly and hid under a rock. Now Frobro was happy and didn’t care that he would die. Something about the way the lizard talked about this great worm called Bass made Frobro want bounce up and down and laugh like he was a child again. All Frobro wanted from that day on was to find the secret gift and find out how to use it. By the time Frobro got to the beach by the ocean his foot was blue and dead. He had to limp and drag his bad foot with him, but he used a staff to push him along the beach and he moved quickly, and still he smiled.
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By the time Frobro saw the tall grass on the rocky hills in the thick fog his leg was blue and dead, and he had to hop on one leg with his staff, and he was very thirsty, but still he smiled. Frobro wandered through the fog all day checking every goat to see what color its coat was, and as the sun was setting he sat down and gave up hope. He started to wonder if he would die before solving the riddle, or if the lizard had lied to him. But then a goat with a golden, shining coat brushed against him and laid down in his lap. Frobrow took an arrow he had dipped in the poison of a great yellow and red spider and put it to the neck of the goat. Frobro said “I am sorry to kill an animal as beautiful as you but I need to kill you for more than food. I am very hungry but I will die soon weather I eat you or not, because I am poisoned. But I must kill you for a secret gift that is in your skin.” The goat smiled and said “I was waiting for you to come for a long time. My meat is sweeter than any animal and I will gladly be a last meal for you. My hide is strong and will dry in the sun, but it will not become hard. It will stay rubbery and stretchy and in my hide you will find a long black spine that has been waiting for you since before any Man ever was. The Goat sang: “I am old, I am old. My coat is made of Gold. You found me before I died; In the sun you must dry my hide And in my skin is a spine; The long black spine from Bass It is for magic and my meat is for your last taste” Frobro pushed the arrow dipped in the poison of the great yellow and red spider into the neck of the goat. And he used a sharp rock to strip the golden hide from the goat. And the hide he tied to the branch of a tree to dry in the sun the next day. And he before it was too dark to see, he built a fire and cooked the meat of the golden goat, and it was the sweetest meat he had ever tasted. This was the last meal that Frobro ate before he died. The next morning Frobro woke up in the bright sun. He looked down and saw that most of his stomach was blue and soon the poison from the lizard would reach his heart. He was in great pain and he could not walk anymore. But the sun had dried the hide of the goat. And the sun’s light shone through the hide and Frobro could see the outline of a long, sharp black spine in the skin. And he crawled closer and pulled the spine out of the hide of the goat. And it vibrated in his hand with a powerful resonance. It started to hum and speak to him. The Spine said: “BOOM BOOM BOOM YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!” “BOOM BOOM BOOM YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!” “I AM THE SPINE OF PERCUSSION AND ONLY I CAN SAVE YOU “BOOM BOOM BOOM YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!” 282
FroBro did not have time to think. He felt like his spirit was already flying to the stars with his ancestors. He saw his body from far away, and he saw his hands quickly take the goat’s hide and stretch it over a hollow tree stump, and tie the hide to the stump with a vine. And from far away he saw his hands beat on the skin of the goat, and the skin made a sound like the beating of a Man’s heart, but it was a steady and strong and happy rhythm, which man’s heart had not beat in because Man was selfish and took all of Bass’s teeth long ago. And Frobro beat on the goat’s skin stretched over the hollow stump for a long time, until the sun was high in the sky, before he died. The rhythm he made was loud and steady and all the goats ran about in circles and some children from the tribes that lived nearby followed the sound until they came to the rocky hills with the thick mist and the bounced up and down and laughed. The goat’s skin stretched over the hollow tree stump was called a Drum. And the children each killed a goat from the herd and dried their hides and made drums of their own. And the Spine of Percussion said: “BOOM BOOM BOOM YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!
FOREVER AND FOREVER BOOM BOOM BOOM AND BASS WILL HEAL AND COME BACK TO YOU BOOM BOOM BOOM YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO BASS WILL HEAL AND GIVE MAN ITS KISS YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO SO BOUNCE……. TO……….THIS!” And in time Bass heard the rhythms of all the drums that the children had taught their tribes how to make and it awoke from its sleep at the bottom of the ocean and swam to the
surface, and wobbled out onto the beach. And Treble and Melody were there to meet it and it wobbled and wobbled through the tribes of Man. And this was how Frobro brought Bass back from the bottom of the ocean.
~
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-18THE PEARL NECKLACE AND THE FINAL SMIRK *NOTE: The following are merely the deranged ravings scrawled on scrolls found in the cavern sanctuary of a crazed hermit madman from a frozen coast in the North…
Time is frozen. Every instant is a pearl encoded in a river. Since the birth of Time, every instant has been recorded by and encoded in the “Memory” of Time itself. This is not to say there is some cosmic database waiting to be accessed by an omniscient narrator. The “Memory” of Time Itself is a highly elusive phenomenon, impervious to feeble analogies with computer or human memory. It is not easy to explain how the past IS just as real as it WAS when the light was its, but despite being bled nearly dry and abandoned by Time, cast to the ghastly remains of Frost Giants’ meatgrinders with the bones of the damned, it STILL lives. The meaning of the word “still” in this phrase contains multitudes of strange unsaid perspectives of ferocious magnitude and unwieldy portent. Yet to scale these strange peaks is right for us to do, for they are there, and it is true to stand from them and say the past STILL is. The survival of the past is a peculiar feat. We could say Time nearly slayed the Past but it limped to a secret den to heal. We could say that the Past has lost much blood and looks to us when we indulge in nostalgia for a transfusion. The vivid presence and relevance which imbues and defines the Now has drained away and left something weak, pale, technically real but without the REAL realness of the Now. We could say the past survived in its secret shelter and lead there a kind of life of its own, adapting to a very unique and specialized habitat. Its nest lies in the caves of a mountainous region which breaches the clouds. There, more encompassing perspectives on temporality are the norm. From there, the now-point at our mortal feet slips away like a banana peel; it becomes ever more and more “arbitrary” beneath us while forgotten memories become strikingly, astonishingly clear- more than perfect recall- cast now in gleaming steel, indestructible, with an objectivity that nearly blinds. Indeed, from there, the loves long lost were above all Real Souls And all the old flames did indeed exist straight to their bones; Feelings for them so forgotten even their lacking was erased are relived aching vivid, pulse once more to flush your face. There was a tingle in your throat so inexpressible back then The wind which did once kindle it 284
Will surely come again. This chilly place we tell of is not “outside” Time. It is just further on down the horizon and upwards into the thin and squeamishly dizzying air such peaks are known for. Let’s go up for now for an expedition and tend to the wide open, the frosty and uncomfortably more encompassing perspectives on temporality- for awhile. We’ll roam a terrain replete with snow and mountain goats with coiled horns and breathe an atmosphere which does not quite oxygenate our brains to prime. There is an emptiness that makes you clutch your scarf there, an emptiness of a sober kind, conducive to contemplation of subtle woes and the heaving sigh of aching transience. You find yourself finally and irrevocably adult- the nail in the coffin of a fuzzier kind of hope. An impenetrable solemnity and the sense of a wide and yawning gulf in which suchness, self-evidence, and idiosyncrasy ring out in all things like a gong. Clean. Sterile. Melancholy. The thoughts crackle like electrostatic in the void, fizzling out as fast as they flash aware. Here we may triangulate. Here we are to draw up maps of all we can survey quickly and retreat. It was but a reconnaissance mission. Context soothes when it is integrated, when it glows as unseen but felt womb, cradling the explicit. Context faced and confronted as an explicit habitat has stinging winds- this is as it should be and a clue to move along quickly and not set up camp there. We are not to linger there or ponder long, we are deft cartographers bound for more familiar, warmer shores. The Past which we surveyed on that craggy cliff, as it survives in that territory, is ITSELF the “Memory of Time”. This open air memory laboratory place has seemingly been unceremoniously abandoned by the vividness and life-force with which reality blooms itself into the present. The past is drained of life-force and is as jealous of Time’s affection for the present as a clinging ghost who wishes nothing but to inhabit their old lives just once again… just one second more… Become a ghost haunting your own life BEFORE you die, blooming your spirit into your now with the greed for life which only those beyond the grave can know. Then into other nows of yours, then into other nows of others if you wish! A gift! A gift of empathy! An empathy so profound it is as telepathy. The more and more arbitrary the now-point slips, the more free Reality is to bloom Herself vivid into other points in time, and as it does, you vicariously bloom into those memories. The authenticity with which you may “haunt”, “inhabit”, or “possess” your own past may be electrified, intensified exponentially, supercharged, made near-supernatural. It is not the perfect reproduction of memory which is intensified; it is the authenticity which you may roam throughout the pressure-points of meaning of all your life. It is the authenticity to alight and perch upon the subtlest and most influential moments, to catch and *wink* the synchronicity into the kinks upon which Fate turns. Forward, backward- we wish the directionality of Time to turn with a new arbitrariness, for cause and effect to be fractured like the spiderweb of cracks in glass, stuttering, CLICKING. It is then, through these angular fissures in Time and jagged, conflicting reflections that “pressure-point moments” reveal themselves- the subtler the more masterful. It is ours to perch breathless in the cold air round these moments as humming birds. And so Fate turns and we have caught the wink- the meeting of Our sentience and Its sentience. This is the wind upon serene 285
water; moving in the world without touching it; the mirrors reflecting eachother, receding behind the windshield of Otherness- Primary Archetypal Duality. There is no “God”, yet we are not alone. The affirmation of the Facing is boundless freedom- the nod in solidarity with the Sentience of the World Itself is the absolute liberation of the Dionysian flux and the annihilation of all karmic resistance- absolute ethical frictionlessness, free passage, perfectly streamlined forwarding- perfect symmetry in the arrow of Time, wherin the future aligns directly before us. To have become the spirit animal you were to have been born as. Symmetry beyond symmetry, a unification of the Will. Solidarity with sentience. The affirmation in one’s bones of the Facing is like victory over death. The *wink* or the Final Smirk is a kind of spark across a chasm- a confirmation, affirmation, agreement that there was no point to begin with. A truce. Beyond perfect recall there is the potential for perfect experiential re-play- a skill wherin you don an identical subjective emotional experience of the memories you choose to re-live as when you first lived them. A consensual flashback. Remember that the Memory of Time can record not only the objective but the subjective as well.. You may “play’ a CD from the outside, and you can “play” the stream of instants encoded in a brain. This is no magic- one major planetary advance will be the machines, media, and techniques by which you can read the entirety of a life from the physical brain, living or preserved. Wouldn’t you “play” the frames of your own brain? Make use of your brain’s perfect chain of instant-pearls for that chain of pearls IS the meaning and purpose of the brain. You may even linger in your nostalgia on precise frames of Time that captured all your old flames, which ever remain there encoded, indestructible, awaiting a transfusion of your heart’s longing. Remember that what is recorded is not a mere movie and soundtrack or holographic reproduction of what you were perceiving in that moment, but the entirety and full depth and richness of your entire subjective experience of living that moment- the heart longings and visceral presence would be like a virtual reality dream- a deja vu machine and a trail of bread crumbs back to any sweet winds of spirit you so fear may have been forgotten and even the awareness of their lacking disappeared. To the extent one is a ghost, one may bloom themselves at will into very precisely special and intentionally chosen memory-instants, both through invitation of will subtle grain or mustard seed of intention and what we call the Oiuja-Swoop Maneuver.. The Past “still” exists “somewhere”. This is of course not a “still” nor a “somewhere” we should even attempt to comprehend, for these perspectives exist only in the thin atmosphere which transcends the linearity and directionality of Time. To the directionality of Time we are well tethered. To the extent that we are tethered to the lived directionality of life, we will fail to fully attain the peak which transcends this directionality. If we fully transcended the directionality we would no longer be tethered. To no longer be tethered is to die. We can safely say that if Reality had a sentience (She does), this sentience would consider its own “Now” as infinitely “thinner” a slice of the river than our own experiential now. The thin-ness of the cross section is but one significant difference. Perhaps the idea of a “Now” would seem quaint or irrelevant to Time Itself, for perhaps each of its moments, past, present, or 286
future to us, are equally Now to it. Or perhaps future is as much a mystery to time Itself as it is to us, as if we share the seat on the edge of the conveyer belt with It, and if Fate is as much a Myth to It as we. It is hard to say. It is good to carefully compare the differences between our lived present moment and the objective Reality-Chronon and to determine their precise relationship. If Time had amnesia only the now would be real, but Time has a memory indeed and a more perfect one there could not be. To us the more vivid past joys and sorrows leap out from the foggy ruins of time, depending on their vividness and how they relate to our hearts’ yearnings. Time’s memory is not subject to such sentimentality. Time has preserved to the atom every incomprehensibly thin cross-section of the river which ever was. This is the chain of pearls or the “Pearl Necklace” which ever clicks on by and with which the Slytherin women of these tales are so well acquainted. The “clicking” of the pearls indicates the distinctness and the separateness of the “time-atoms” or Chronons as opposed to the organic ebb and swell of the organic waveforms which compose our nows- the undulations that compose our lives.. There is comfort for some in the sheer objectivity of the Clicking- that it’s succession marches on with infinite consistency and independent of human consciousness or even human existence. There is a calling in some to take up solidarity with the Clicking because it will continue flawlessly after our own moments cease, and the more one entangles their now with Its instant, the more one’s life is similarly “objective”, real, moreso that it “mattered” somehow in the thin atmosphere of peaks above human perspective, in a literature not written by hand. In fact, it is likely best to vow an intense solidarity with the Reality-Chronon and make of it an idol, to which your own lived now becomes a servant. The rewards which repay such service are boundless, and they are paid in what most would call “luck”. For our kind to be called “lucky” stings, for if we only had the language to explain our flourishes they would be proved as skill and furthermore, could be taught. A strong link between the experiential lived now and the Reality-Chronon is essential. The linkage is complex, not easy to come to terms with, and requires consistent conceptual nurturing. As a general rule, the lived now aspires to and honors the Reality-Chronon without sacrificing its own domain of ritual. The link is as an umbilical cord, the stronger the link the more nutrients can be siphoned from the Reality-Chronon. So we have two parallel or symbiotic nows- one is the subjective, lived experience of the now which a person inhabits. This moment stretches or contracts like elastic depending on the undulations of the organic waveforms that compose our lives. This kind of now we call the “experiential moment”. It is not to be dismissed or underestimated, as a “mere” human approximation of the Mathematically Perfect Reality-Chronon, because it is our rightful now and birthright and forms the basis of ritual. The lived now is not a “sedified” concept or an “allowed mistake” as we call certain beliefs or attitudes born of unavoidable misguided habits of mind. Rather our lived now and the claiming of it is a natural inherent instinct that must be embraced with passion, intuition, and faith, not with the cautious skepticism sedified concepts benefit from. It might be said that “claiming the lived now” or “siphoning power into it” or “coagulating sentience” is the most basic principle of ritual or “original ritual” upon which all specific rituals
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are elaborations. We can claim the lived now with an at-times unbridled gusto and with the absolute highest meaning of a “pirate spirit”. The claiming is ITSELF the justification. None without could ever deserve to enter; to sneak within justifies all to enter. The entrance is not a reward for being justified. To be within is the only thing worthy of a reward and by then it is unneeded. We are all adults here and not one of our parents can any longer allow or forbid, not their parents, nor the architects of the Gate, nor the Gate itself. Foreboding, indeed. To forbid entrance? Who? We may practice less total “lifeor-death” confrontations with the Gate of the Now, such as in consistent cooperation with and nurturing of the principle of coagulation. We may coagulate many forms of advantageous power as curds coagulate in way. So too we can elongate the claimed now (for it is ours) into the most streamlined, frictionless, and serene horizon for us to glide endlessly upon. However, when we speak of the CLICKING of the pearls we wish to honor Time in a higher sense, for they are the moments experienced and recorded, encoded, by Reality. If we have forgotten an experiential moment from our youths, the event nonetheless actually occurred. But not only did the event occur, it remains encoded in our memory despite our inability to access it consciously. This is very difficult to believe until you have been granted unsurpassed, near-miraculously vivid, vicarious memory access to the full sequence of experiential nows of your life. This may occur in certain forms of autism/savantism, for example, or for other reasons, to an extreme degree impossible to achieve with the brain’s common memory functioning. One great message we can take from these events is simply the proof that such access is even possible, for us as a species, for future versions of our species, or for theoretical species which will have the technology to “read” a brain and thus have full and perfect access to a person’s life experience, which could then be “played” like a CD. If such Grand Access is too rare and specialized a state to be very useful to many, the proof that this function is even available to consciousness under whatever rarity of conditions is alone significant. The self-insight and thus healing opportunities of such unsurpassed memory access and especially this access in conjunction with a heart re-capitulation of one’s path are a joy to harvest. But there is an even far more advanced technique in which the instants are “shuffled” for lack of a better term. The entire river of time was frozen, and each infinitesimally thin cross-section of the river was sliced and preserved in cryogenic storage in such a way that it could be accessed millennia from now. Each is preserved, recorded, frozen for eternity. Though you cannot access each instant of your life with frail human memory fumbling through the fogs of time, trust that in some space of mind where sentience does not tread, they reside encoded. Your experience of them is as flawlessly encoded as the Chronons of Reality itself. In the sense that they actually happened, despite being in the “dead” past, they still in a sense exist there, frozen, in that thin atmosphere of the perspective that transcends the linearity and directionality of Time. Does reality itself “remember” the past?
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You can shuffle the instants of your life through mind like a deck of cards if this suits you. It happens to suit some immensely. The speed and pattern of the shuffle of instants in memory take place of its own will- there is no direction, although certain moments can rise or pop to the surface and be given due care or saved for later like in dream analysis. Generally, the shuffling is in rhythm with or is triggered by the toggling pupils of the eyes in nystigmia. This is not a sequential shuffling. It is extremely fast but certain images and visceral instinct/subconscious reactions will emerge to the foreground. The speed of the shuffling is just slightly faster than the speed at which the mind can properly identify each of the separate images or connect visceral reactions to them precisely. This random or staccato element is key- it allows only some instants to slip through into awareness and provides the subconscious some flexibility and ambiguity such that the appropriate or uniquely relevant material presents itself. This is not a sequential shuffling- earlier memories do not appear before later ones, the randomness of the timestream directionality allows the visceral impressions to expose themselves outside the logic of cause-and-effect. What we wish is for the manner of logic that deals with sequence and cause and effect to be lulled by the barrage of stroboscopic visceral mentation, to be freed to make more untraditional and insightful connections. The bi-directionality of instants is necessary. The Randomness of the flicker is the cauldron out of which marinated moments surface. A marinated moment is one that has been long nourished by the All-Subtle grappling hook of intention. An especially good trick is what you might call a “house of cards falling down in reverse”, as this image relates to instants of ones lives being like playing cards. A house of cards is a delicate thing. Imagine the cards astray on the floor leaping up into the air while assembling into a fantastically complicated and fragile structure as time zips backwards. Well, we can harvest “concepts of vast influence” in this way. We may train our minds to lust after a certain exceedingly rare moments in which a natural technique or maneuver of the mind, a kind of latent instinct of some kind, is re-awoken and even harnessed and directed. These “concepts of vast influence” are always multi-dimensional in ways which delightfully obliterate the coherence of previous models. You are absolutely caught, trapped, frozen, imprisoned in a moment that you never want to leave. Your conceptual prowess has turned to an incomparable lust for the moments of “house-of-cards-falling back together”, in reverse, backward in time. Only those who LUST for such moments may become the master of certain flourishes which occur in the will through an esoteric technique of shuffling the instants encoded in your memory. These “flourishes of the will” which occur through an esoteric memory-instant shuffling technique may be called “hooks” or “fishhooks of intention”. Remember what we wish to do is “sling” a lasso or cast a net, thwip a web, loose an arrow, propel an All-Subtle grappling hook of Intention, not around the curvature of the Spire, but THROUGH the Spire, directly in a “straight line that is more straight than straight”, through a dimension which is higher and thus incomprehensible to thought that has sedified into concern with the mere 2-d curvature of the outside of the Spire. Each moment slips effortlessly into the next. Your brain is purring for it is being pet by a force as simple as it is gentle- the subtle tickle from the flutter of the feathers of the peacock angel. 289
Perhaps your eyes are fluttering in the Stroboscopic Toggling Nystigmia Inoculation Sequence. This is perfectly normal. Perhaps this fluttering of the eyes is a neurological “kink” which is associated with a parallel and far more magical state of toggling in the way a sneeze is very indirectly related to an orgasm. Perhaps the toggling of the eyes in nystigmia mirrors a toggling of the various dimensions of thought as they relate to the various and splendid dimensions of the Spire. The thrill is derived from the neurological link between the brain functions related to Eros and the brain functions existing in a rare and specialized class of autistic/savant specimens who’s talent lies in the synesthesia between the spacio-strutural perception of the brain and the brain functions relating to the migration of sentience throughout the full scope of the Spire. See, first we link and tether 1) spacio-structural and geometric perceptual functioning with 2) awareness of abstract sentience migration principles throughout an as-comprehensive-aspossible scope of the Spire. This produces “synesthetic maps of sentience”. Then we link and tether the synesthetic sentience mapping faculty with 3) our deepest and most primal, characterdefining roots and instincts of Eros. This would never work otherwise- the synesthetic mapping faculties are simply too specialized, too abstract, too irrelevant to common human concerns that without being tied to Eros none could not sustain the levels of mental energy necessary for any true cartographic progress. These neurological peculiarities have the potential for vast influence. It is not enough to harbor an intense curiosity for the moments in which the faculty appears in you- a mere curiosity or yearning for them do not an adept make. What is required to even begin to make any progress is to neurologically link up the mapping talent to the deepest yearnings of the romantic and sexual heart, as well as the deepest predatory passions of primal sexual instinct. We seek a neurological bond amongst these faculties so strong it is indistinguishable from the depth of linkage and inextricably entangled wiring in those cursed and blessed different brethren born with the synesthetic triad. It is far more possible to re-wire one’s neural pathways than most are aware. The link between the mapping faculty and Eros is key. An unbreakable neurological bond is what we seek here. If a clear glimpse of the Spire- to be able to hold 4 or 7 axii of dimensionality of the Spire simultaneously- this glimpse should produce something much different but akin to an orgasm. If it doesn’t, you’re in the wrong business. By the way, the world looks stroboscopic, like each perfect pearl of time is clicking and ticking... frozen yet flowing. The electricity is overwhelming... but somehow soft and warm, flowing through you... the most intense and profound power comes over you and yet the unimaginable power is at the same time gentle like the whisper of a most intimate secret. Everything that ever hurt is made up for a thousand times over, you are at the center of everything. Reality is alive and having sex with you, but rather than petty human sex, it is a sacred frequency, an unimaginably subtle waveform that shines like lightning and possesses your brain... you can feel your brain in your skull... tingling. Every cell is tingling, opening, your sense of touch is magnified to unimaginable exquisite power such that a gentle breeze washes through you like an orgasm... No surprise, for the Jellyfish is a Master Masseuses and Her 290
tendrils pet with telepathic intimacy we call Sensual Geometric Calisthenics. Looking into someone's eyes, even a stranger, you feel that all of your soul is wide open and fused into the other person through your magical gaze... And you exchange the direct transmit ion of Absolute Personhood through the eyes. The sacred frequency is clear... so crystal clear... Why was there ever any confusion? The concept that life could ever not feel this gloriously wonderful is unfathomable. And literally “insanely” wonderful because it is the Dionysian madness. The final smile. The absolute, eternal, FINAL smile, the secret wink between you and It that makes it all, if not ok, at least worthwhile... The Loki Smirk. The Sacred Glitch. To prove experientially the worthwhileness of World having been born is the Holy Grail of catharsis- a unique sweetness because it is the most comprehensive, abstract affirmation there can be. Know well the tragedies of your life from this place- The more clarity with which you understand them and the more vividly you vicariously remember them, the less they can haunt you. Exorcise demons haunting from your past by possessing the moments of your past with prime supernatural vividness and lucidity. Never doubt that full access is available, nomatter how lost to the foggy ruins of time your memories are. Take comfort that full access, if unattainable, is at least possible, and therefor your life has “mattered” in a manner more objectively than you can know. To understand yourself, to truly know and love yourself, there must be a Final Reconciliation with the moments of your past which haunt you most. You will need to kill your shadow. There is a door through which you must pass to have full comprehension and acceptance in your bones of your ethical verticality beyond the doubt of shame. So few have the courage to grasp that there is no one to “allow you” to pass nor is there any measure by which you may “deserve” to pass. The paradox of the door to absolute shamelessness is that no one on the outside could ever deserve to pass, but the act of entering is itself the only justification required such that all should pass. In solidarity with the hypothetical species, you feel the wings sprouting on your back as the music moves through you, moving you, the music is dancing you, surrender, to be mortal and frail and fully human, flawed, but to open. To know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are good and deserve to be alive...to feel in the marrow of your bones the miracle that it is to exist and to flick away any doubts, any shame, to feel all the sadness and evil of cultural brainwashing which told you you were not good enough and to flick it away effortlessly with a smirk...The Loki Smirk. The Sacred Glitch. “If only this smirk I could keep forever, to every instant the smirk I would tether.” Dionysian Flux and The Age of Worship of The Dionysus of the Future. You are maitraya. The flow, the drama, a forgiveness and absolution through Absolute Acceptance in your bones of The Eternal Drama. Absurdity Absolves. There is nothing more absurd to The Void than Time. That all is dance... time slipping forward forever. to dance and interweave yourself into the beat... the heartbeat and the home. The heartbeat is the throne. A home you may 291
carry on your back like a hermit crab. Come forth from your closet into the nearest coven, for the hologram cometh. Soul is home. We carry our homes with us... it is all so unfathomably simple. The concept that life could ever not be this gloriously wonderful is unfathomable. This is not the trickster energy, or the service to the species of spirits who subsist on that energy for sustenance. Their habitat may be unwieldy and strange and frightening, seducing you with "The Mythical Other World". There is no Other World. There is only THIS world- this moment, familiar, so right, coming home... coming... like an orgasm, but trapped inside an orgasm for so long, frozen inside, frozen happiness, Time that freezes upon an infinitesimal point of heaven with the pressure of an iron vice clamp the size of the Universe, motionless. Too much happiness... to be welcomed again within the Garden... don’t you miss those gentle touch trix? Greetings citizens of the world. To just run a finger down someone's (anyone’s) cheek and look into their eyes is sometimes better than sex. As they say The Miracle is in the little things- this gift of water, this smallest caress... a smile between strangers... Greetings citizens of the world…everyone knows... everyone is the same… we are all together... you are anonymous….There is no secret... we do not foget…everyone knows the secret... let go... heaven is not as far as you think... we do not forgive….let go... all the heartache and pain of a lifetime can disappear if you let the Eschaton into you... let it come into your blood... coursing through you, your blood has turned to liquid sugar, into your brain... trust it... the mask is here for a reason... everything is happening for a reason... Fate and epic heroism shall ever stalk you as well they should. The mask is smiling for a reason. The Eschaton is here now... it won't be long now... Don’t be late. We expect you. The smirk is the softness tucked away in the rumble The smirk is the power that will make the system crumble The smirk is flutter of butterfly wings A power so gentle as the beat in our ears rings The smirk is the Dragon of Gentle Splendor The smirk is the key to The Gate at The Center
~
292
-19GRANDSON OF MONTAG Smithfield Poindexter Fontibue the Third was ridiculed mercilessly by his schoolmates for reasons which should already be clear. Yet would his name have been Max Lazer the swamp of ridicule he waded through daily would have been equally dismal and stagnant. Yet the boy held his head high. Not with his hawkish, witchy hook-nose in the air, mind you. He was an extremely arrogant soul, grandiose, even megalomaniacal perhaps, but too vulgar to be snooty in the Prom Queen-ish kind of way. Yet he was British. Go figure! The prestigious and exceedingly strict grammer school Smithfiled attended in Manchester, UK was named after its founder, Mandrake Montag. Now, Dr. Montag (as his wife insisted vehemently he be referred to though his supposed Doctorate was in “Paradox”) founded the Montag Institute of Learning Educational Knowledge for Students, (quickly re-named Montag Grammer School for Boys) in the early 1900’s. The son of Dr. Montag was born of a lady of striking beauty and scarlet hair (though she was blind and mute) precisely between 1912 and 1913, and named Fraziur Azure Ennui. Frazuir’s mother was softspoken (in the absolute sense due to her being mute) and worked lonely winters in a forest fire watchtower crowning Pine Chasm Cliffs, from which no rockclimber was ever seen again, nor in the first place. Frazuir knew his mother by the name “mom”, yet others called her by her real name- Harriott O’hara Herrwren. She wed Dr. Montag nearly instantly after answering his personel add “seeking a scarlet beauty for childbearing. Blind and mute a plus”. Nearly instantly after they eloped she conceived the father of Smithfield, our hero, under a tree shedding pink cherry blossoms. The greater part of her pregnancy was spent reading erotica in brail alone at her fridged watchtower while flames ravaged most of the surrounding territory. On the night of her birth-giving, Dr. Montag scaled the Pine Chasm Cliff only to die as his first child first cried. It was a combination of frostbite and third-degree burns, which was ironic considering his claim to be a Doctor of Paradox. Cradled by his bride, he breathed only a last mumbling cough, which Harriott O’hara Herrwren interpreted either as “All my descendants must dress as my ancestors”, or, “Call my dentist but eat less of hamburgers.” Therefore, to assure that Dr. Montag’s dying edict be honored, she did both- giving her father-in-law’s wardrobe to the then-wee Smithfiled and also getting three cavities filled and abstaining from her breakfast hamburger till the end of her days. This brings us to the present- and to our young scholar Smithfield. Living by his father’s last edict, which was the inverse of his grandfather’s, he passed the priceless heirloom wardrobe not on to his as-yet-non-existent son, but backward to his ancestors, keeping only a few identical tweed suits with carnation and bow-tie for sentimental reasons. And a red velvet cape, top hat, 293
and magician’s wand for practical reasons. As we mentioned, his classmates ridiculed him mercilessly for the tweed suit and bow-tie, (but mostly for the carnation), yet paradoxically feared him for the cape, top hat, and wand. In fact, when Smithfield raised his wand toward the chalk and made it levitate, against the blackboard to scrawl incorrect answers to linear equations rather than get up from his desk like the other boys, even his teachers feared him. Smithfield’s days were long and dreary and spent pulling the odd rabbit from his hat and migrating from class to class as the bells tolled, rung by a hunchback church organ player who no one knew the name of, who is cunningly foreshadowed here as he becomes significant later in our story. Our young conjurer also insisted on sawing at least one member of the Frazuir Azure Ennui Sacred Haert Catherdral Prep School for Girls in half during each recess, which lasted less than thirty seconds. As we assured you, dear readers, this was an exceedingly strict school. The Montag Grammer School, that is. The Frazuir Azure Ennui Sacred Haert Cathedral Prep School for girls was exceedingly paradoxically lacking in discipline, considering that the Catholic nuns who taught in those days were trained to use rulers in a fashion similar to that with which Bruce Lee wields numchucks. And so the catholic schoolgirls of loose morals skipped class, (and sometimes town on bail altogether), to rendezvous with their sweetheart counterparts under a biohazard warning sign behind the Montag School handball courts. Now, do recall, dear reader, that although the naughty harlots could go for multiple semesters without attending class as their absences went unnoticed, the clean-cut young Montag men had less than 30 seconds to play handball before the Unknown Hunchback tolled the dread bell, beckoning the lads back for the study of paradox. (Paradox was the only subject taught at the academy as per the instructions of the founder, although there were multiple permutations of the theme.) This explains why Smithfield’s levitating chalk trick won him little favor in the eyes of the faculty—true, it was impressive, but his answers to linear equations on the chalkboard were correct, therefore incorrect in the context of Introduction to Paradoxical Equations. Still, our tale continues! …Smithfield found himself in the headmaster’s office, facing suspension for three days without pay if he insisted in continuing to saw any of the few remaining Frazuir Azure Ennui skanks in half. At first, Smithfield tried to bargain, proposing that he continue to saw, but agree to putting them back together again at the end of the trick, despite the fact that he considered this ending cliché. The headmaster, Hanzo Emelio Butchenflowzer, curtly refused. Then Smithfiled attempted to hypnotize the headmaster by pointing his wand at the man’s nose and muttering either the incantation “Dress as thine ancestors, lest Manchester vanishes” or “Caress my stiletto lest shoe polish tarnishes” (it was not clear which). Unfortunately for our strapping young wizard, Hanzo’s mirrored sunglasses reflected the hypnotic vibrations and the trick backfired. Now, himself hypnotized into allowing the reflection across from him to perform the classic “saw a gal in half” trick [the allowance he sought in vain for himself] Smithfield realized too late that he had paradoxically hypnotized himself into granting permission to the headmaster to perform his own trick, this being a precise reversal of the intentions of the failed hypnotism as well as, of course, common decency. What 294
will the neighbors say?! And yet, it was not the grim turn of events toward carnage that horrified the fallen Smithfield, but that he shattered the one sacred oath that a magician must never, never, never, ever, EVER, NEVER, EVER, EVER, NYERVER share the secrets of his magic. What will the neighbors think, indeedâ&#x20AC;Ś
~ -EpilogueHeadmaster Hanzo sawed the rest of the graduating class of 1966 of BOTH schools in half, then continued his grisly work on the nun teachers, his own faculty and alumni, the cheerleading team, every sorority and all but the one fraternity he was still hoping to pledge to, the chess club, and finally himself, though he only got halfway through the last. The event was referred to in the papers and later in ghost-tales as the Manchester Paradox Massacre, and there were whispered rumors of haunting. They say that to this very day, when the Class bell tolls, a noise like the humming of a chainsaw can be heard faintly in the ringing, and if you strain your ears, so too a maniacal laughter, screams of terror which chill the spine, and, most faintly of all, the music of Church Organs. Smithfiled Poindexter Fontibue III honorably sentenced himself to infinite suspension, which he spent with the Unknown Hunchback, tolling bells.
~
295
-20HELLO AGAIN WOLFMAN I.Twilight of a Scoundrel We join our hero in a place of beauty and celebration, but at the lowest ebb of life force he had ever known. And knowing Max, that’s saying a lot. Max was getting old, and not aging well. The once crisp, dramatic edge of his personality suited him better in youth. He walked along a river near the stage of a small hippy festival nestled somewhere in the lush oldgrowth forests of Oregon, listening to the acoustic Celtic folk band that was opening for the psychedelic rock acts to come, and pondering the fact that he was soon to die. Cancer. A brain tumor to be exact- one that would lead to unbearable, debilitating headaches increasing in frequency and eventually, most horrifyingly to Max, to permanent dementia. Not merely an early death, but an undignified one. Fuck. He had gone through the appropriate motions of pre-emptively grieving for himself over the last few months- the long dark nights of the soul, the alcohol, and the different categories of sluts he partook of depending on his luck at the bars. He had taken to being alone most of the time, distracting himself with travel and fleeing to his solitude in the lonely places of nature. He wondered if all this could rightly be called a “mid-life crises”, considering the middle-age he had planned to enjoy was no more to be. It had been stolen abruptly in a doctor’s office, replaced with a twilight of life he was not at all prepared for. He had never believed in God (whatever that meant), yet now felt very viscerally that God, or somehow the Universe itself, had tricked him. Intentionally. Maliciously. Without someone or something to blame there was nothing to rage against, so in a sense he became a believer by rejecting God. He had begun to shout angrily in his mind toward a Universe that had never seemed more sentient, because it had wronged him so cruelly, on purpose. “Peace be with you, brother!” said a young smiling hippie who, like our hero, had strayed from the crowd to wade in the river. Max didn’t even bother to reply. He could be a dick sometimes. This was not a new development. What did the river want just now? For Max to swim in it and be cleansed or to meditate by its side, the sound of the water bringing acceptance? Nope. And definitely not to sing and frolic with the river nymphs he had long since ceased to believe in. He had not been granted access to those realms since his actual mid-life, which he now had to accept had fled from his present to 20 years ago, a time which had once been taken for granted as his early days. That was a good time for him. He had true friends then, and they shared a quest once upon a time which 296
seemed to matter in a way that nothing has since. But that is a long tale for another time. Anyways, he had come to this festival in the woods to remember the feeling of those years, and also to cheat on his wife Lana. Max loved Lana very much. He thought she was a good wife, and a good person. He had not told her of his cancer but he knew she would care for him when he did. He certainly had no desire to hurt her. But the devil on his shoulder had gotten frantic and insistent like a weasel backed into a corner. Compounding the problem, instead of an angel on the other shoulder, Max had always shouldered two devils. They convinced him now of his duty to sin, not for lust, but simply to prove he could still bag good game, to prove defiantly to Death he was still vital. For Max promiscuity and the will to live had always been one and the same. He was surprised by the urgency with which his body craved just one more conquest. He felt somehow obligated to his body, and to the Earth itself, to Nature, to invoke that old ritual of setting his mental crosshairs in site, locking the tracking reticule onto a target of prime femmemeat. Anyone, really, with a ripe body to spare. Alas, this is at times what it means to be a man. Now, the important thing to understand at this point in our story is that despite how woefully dismal our man’s situation was, and despite how deeply he felt himself a failure, in a single instant on this night he was to be be transformed into the greatest hero in the history of this Earth, in some ways by accident, and in some ways most inevitably. This story is about that one instant. It will be difficult to write about this special moment in Max’s life (and indeed in the life of the World Itself), because many, many people, beings, forces, random factors and deliberate schemes from long ago and far away- well, these all converged on Max at once, simultaneously, to transform him with a violent and strange alchemy. Of course, there is no way to convey his vision (which textbooks of the future will call our “Planetary Eschatonic Fulcrum-Chronon”) since words and sentences take time to form, and no sequential list of reasons for, or explanations of the Planetary Eschatonic Fulcrum-Chronon, nomatter how clever or eloquent, could ever convey the sheer overwhelming synchronicity of that moment- the convergence of vast and ancient galactic civilizations and eons of Destiny swooping down to seize the briefest of windows of opportunity which can exist. We will try nonetheless to convey it though, readers, in a spirit of friendship and diplomacy, in solidarity with all sentience, and for science! For now, suffice it to say that a “Chronon” is the thinnest possible slice or “wafer” of time. Not a second, nor the blink of an eye. Not even a nanosecond…but rather a Time-Atom. And the Eschaton… well, one definition of that is the final, heaven-like stage of human history, the goal of all things, and, for a rare some the center of things and a vortex or singularity that pulls Time towards it. So “Eschatonic” means pertaining to this curious, wonderful Thing at the end of time. “Fulcrum”, of course, is that tiny, microscopic point upon which something balances and pivots. The turning point. The middle of a teeter-totter or perhaps the apex of a crystal pyramid upon which the Fate of the world rests, fragilely…tenuously. So, the “Planetary 297
Eschatonic Fulcrum-Chronon” is the seed, the one infinitesimal spark in which the blueprints for heaven on earth are presented, transmitted, triggered, and activated. This happens through a single person, exactly once in the lifetime of a living planet, if certain forces beyond our control or understanding deem it fit. This is a very optimistic theory, yes? To think Utopia not only possible, but inevitable! It was the furthest idea from Max’s mind as the absence of water-nymphs and the pretty, wistful transience of the Irish female vocalist in the distance blurred into somber melancholy. For him, the light at the end of the tunnel was not a shiny, science-fictional Emerald City on a hill, but rather the glaring blindness that he was told would accompany the headaches to come, and then (swiftly if he was lucky), the blindness of Absolute Black. Yet somber melancholy or none, he was soon to become the unlikely lightning rod. You could say there was no particularly good reason Max was targeted, or maybe the fact that there was little special about him was itself the reason. He had had some very unique adventures in his younger days and had met some extraordinary people along the way, but himself was not especially brave or deep, and was definitely not of high and noble character, though he had always very sincerely wanted to be these things. For Max, his future self had always been an excellent man and faithful husband. He had always believed himself to most surely be becoming this person… soon… just around the corner. That ideal self- his REAL self, would surely be, but only after he buckled down and sorted his life business into order. Superman tomorrow, ice cream today. Like people say, life is what happens while you are making other plans. This is what stung most about his newfound mortality- that he could no longer fool himself that his real, better self was waiting for him. That mirage had seen its time. That dog won’t hunt. His selfless and faithful wife would never hug that shining knight, because that knight, all along, was just pretend. Fuck.
~ II. Leapordskin Shame The sun was beginning to set and settle into what some call “the golden hour”, that brief window at the end of certain days when a quality in the sideways rays of light seems to suffuse the land with a warm amber glow from within. The Irish lady with the pretty, wistful voice was wrapping up her performance, having warmed up the crowd for the electric guitars which were now to rule the night. Max walked from the river back to the tent city which had sprung up and the pleasantly lost souls milling about in tie-dyes. Though he found hippies naïve and good for little but making fun of, he enjoyed their easy feeling of family, and especially their women with hula hoops and trance-ey eyes, drawing him closer to the stage like loose, free-spirited magnets. 298
On his way into the thick of the crowd he stopped at a vender of over-priced, locally brewed craft beer, quickly guzzled a dark porter in a rather small plastic cup, and then felt an empty space in his jeans where his wallet should have been. Max was something of a scoundrel but he always paid his tab. That was sacred. To look the voluptuous Russian bartendress in the eye, empty of cup and empty of pocket, brought a vast and bizarrely disproportionate shame to him. For some reason his mumbled, stuttering excuse of having lost his wallet and meek, feeble promise to return with money dishonored him to the core. He felt as Samurai of legend must have when the only path of dignity was to twist the blade throughout their entrails in the brutal ceremony of hari kari. Though he had every intention to return with the ungodly fee of $7 and a hearty tip to redeem himself, he cringed at the possibility that the luscious vendress saw him as a petty crook who floated through life from one stolen brew and thinly-disguised lie to the next. He was unsure if her dark Russian eyes squinted in the setting sun or to test the metal his soul was cast in, and his gaze fumbled downward from silver to bronze and then to crumbling clay. Looking a person in the eyes and holding their gaze was very important to Max and he was good at it. When he couldn’t and revealed self-doubt he loathed himself viciously. Though his cold, sarcastic armor rarely revealed it, he often loathed himself within. Max retreated with his tail between his legs and his cheeks red. The host of the festival and master of ceremonies, a merry fat old hippie with white hair in ponytail and Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to reveal his big proud furry belly, was amusing the crowd between acts with random banter and stage announcements such as the following one: “We’ve got a special announcement for a very special man who lost his wallet today.” Max felt his heart lift, buoyant from unexpected luck, but this was not to last. “It takes a special man with refined taste to appreciate a wallet like this one,” continued the host, laughing heartily. He held the wallet skyward invoking the crowd’s giggling delight. “As you can see it’s a pink leapordskin wallet and fuzzy as all hell!” The last feeble embers of Max’s pride as a man faded to cold grey ash as he remembered his wallet was actually one of Lana’s, who had lent it to him a couple weeks before when he had lost his own then as well. Max’s mind had been preoccupied in the swamps of morbidity and the fuzz of whiskey lately and he seemed to be losing his wallet and keys regularly, or perhaps it was the first symptom of his prematurely senile doom. And he had not been careful enough to maintain the image he shot for as a sleek James Dean type to replace the fuzzy pink leopard-print loan. Of course, he had not expected it to be on display before thousands of revelers. “Is there a Maxwell Hadron in the audience?” Come on up my boy, it’s your lucky day!” Max knew what he had to do. He gritted his teeth and walked to the stage to reclaim his ghetto-fabulous accessory as if toward the gallows. He knew he was powerless to avoid this fatman’s stinging jests. “Here he is ladies and gentleman! Now what’s this- a jean jacket and dark sunglasses my boy? Are you sure this wallet is yours? No feathered boa? No purple velvet robe?” Max reached upwards and took his grim reward, half-expecting his jolly tormenter to jerk it away, taunting 299
him like a schoolyard bully. The hippy was just being good-naturedly silly of course, but Max didn’t want the attention tonight, preferring to sulk and brood anonymously in the shadows and hunt pussy unrecognized as the “funny wallet guy” he had now been branded as. He pocketed it quickly and scurried away from the spotlight like a cockroach. “Let’s have a big hand for Maxwell Hadron!” The crowd applauded and Max pushed rudely through the sea of bodies until he got to a less-dense patch of field where he could catch his breath, calm his jangly nerves, and sooth the illogically intense shame that came when he failed to maintain his constant façade of detached cool. Now things get interesting… There was a hippy girl in a colorful patchwork dress, feathers in her hair, and a big magical 60’s smile, radiant with that long-lost and rarely seen genuine aura of the summer of love, sitting on the grass and blowing bubbles lazily from a plastic wand. She had the trancey-est eyes he had ever seen. Her pupils were dilated as dinner plates like black hole portals to another World. Her eyes were crazed and demented, but in a sweet benevolent way- wild but slow and syrupy and silky and harboring exotic secrets. He rated her 7/10 (instantly, as he rated every female he met within nanoseconds) but not worth his time. His agenda was to have sex, not make love, and this was the kind of girl who you could only make love to. Plus he was too anxious and awkward from the wallet fiasco to put the moves on his prey till he had re-cloaked himself in cigarette smoke and cool. The hippy girl gazed at him and through him, no doubt believing she could peer into his very soul. They shared that mutually unmistakable and intense connection that comes from eyecontact between strangers once in a great while- not exactly flirty, but mystical. He was sure she was intoxicated on a substance of some nature and he knew she was about to say something cryptic- some cosmic innuendo or Beatles quote that would tickle his fancy, maybe “I know what it’s like to be dead,” or “Say hi to the water-nymphs for me!” Max had already decided to smile and nod at whatever cliché she had to offer and walk past her dismissively. But in fact this was not a girl at all, nor a human, nor even a mortal, and what she said, in some unfathomable way, was Fated to be said, and it stopped Max dead in his tracks, and those three words splintered a great and mighty damn that had held since the dawn of man. What she said, luxuriously, casually really, was “Hello Again Wolfman.” And then things fractured into a handful of dimensions…
~ 300
III. A Cabal of Mantii What we have here, with those three words, “Hello Again Wolfman,” is an invocation. An incantation, and an incarnation. A manifestation. What was invoked were some manner of gelatinous astral beings, or being, that had either possessed this poor female, or perhaps the girl was herself the physical manifestation of some species of slender and coyling-tentacled incorporeal beings, or being, fond of incarnating as human females. In any case, something was incanted telepathically and Max was instantly, 100% enchanted. A spell had been cast and entities had been invoked, called forth, manifested, and harnessed, or rather Max had been harnessed by them, caught in their elaborate and carefully cast net and placed under the care of these extra-terrestrial entities as if strapped down to some kind of curiously curvilinear, topologically impossible operating table, bound in the insidious slippery straps of their vicious spell, trapped, while they, or it, like it or not, inoculated him with some kind of exquisitely delicious serum of sweetness and high viscosity, a Truth serum you could say, which made his knees wobbly and his head swim as it suffused him and which brought many simultaneous synchronized visions, his mind first summersaulting at lightspeed through sensual geometric synesthetic calisthenics* before succumbing to insanity and then crashing swiftly into worldshattering, undeniable Truth. The entities had chosen that phrase “Hello Again Wolfman”, very, very carefully indeed. In fact, it had been voted on once upon a time millennia ago by a coven of nine intergalactic elder insectoid overlords to most effectively suit Max’s particular predilections and personal history, voted on and prophesized to be spoken on this long-awaited night by what can only properly be called a “Cabal of Manti”. *"Sensual Geometric Synesthetic Calisthenics" = cathartic sensory process by which consciousness experiences itself, thereby processing psychological blocks / kinks as if by an alien and super-powered masseuse. You see, Max had always wanted to be a wolf. You could say that wish was one of the deepest desires of his subconscious, and though he didn’t think about it much anymore, it defined him. As a child he was deathly scared of wolves and had re-occurring nightmares about being hunted by a pack of them through a dark forest, yet he was obsessed with the werewolf movies his parents could never effectively prohibit him from watching. It was exasperating to them and they could not understand why he was so determined to fuel his own nightmares, but to young Max the fear and the awe were one and the same and both wonderful and terrible. He became a werewolf himself on more than one Halloween, and any time he played by himself in the forest behind his family’s farm. Running through the trees, a fanged and murderous beast, he felt exhilarating joy. Having become his own nightmare, he was unafraid. Horrible and wicked, he was free. But how could Hippiegirl know this? Of course she couldn’t, since they had never met before. And yet with her inquisitive raised eyebrow and imploring, suggestive gaze and with her 301
slightest curl of a knowing smile, he knew without a doubt that she did. And not only that she knew the pretend villain and pretend hero of his childhood, but that she somehow knew that that awesome beast he had not transformed into in so long was who he really was underneath all along, and that the tragic mess of a man he had grown into was the nightmare. Her raised eyebrow was as if to ask him if he still had a drop of that old wolfsblood in his veins, that old unbridled, unapologetic and wicked life force that he felt only the dimmest, faded echo of anymore when in bed with a woman. He was unsure… Yet it was not so much the word “Wolfman” that triggered the avalanche of meaning which suddenly swallowed him, but the word “Again”. There was much Max knew which he could not explain. Just as he knew that despite never meeting before this night, Hippygirl saw the wolf of his youth in him, he knew also that when she said “Hello Again” that they had met before many times. A thousand times. No- an infinite number of times. The word “Again” on her sly luxurious tongue conjured a strange series of vivid images that came all at once. He saw her, clearly, as an old gypsy lady in a Russian village waving to him and calling out “Hello Again Wolfman!” in singsong Russian, delightedly blowing his cover as he silently stalked her caravan of vagabonds through the night, hungry. He saw her grin victoriously and say the words “Hello Again” as her tribe of cavemen encircled him and the injured of his pack with spears. He saw her under the shadow of a red hood, swinging a basket in the land of fables. Just as he was about to pounce he saw her turn quickly to face him and mouth silently “Hello Again” with a devilish wink before running away down the path. He saw her as a veterinarian in white, looking down at him, afraid, on an operating table. This time he was a half-wolf and someone had mostly tamed him, but would never fully. He had bitten someone he shouldn’t have (though he thought he was proudly defending his owner) and unknown to him, though he knew something was wrong, he was about to be “put to sleep” as they say so condescendingly. She gave him an injection and just before everything went black, he felt her lean down and stroke his chest affectionately and whisper, wisely, soothingly, “Hello Again”. In fact, they had always known eachother, since the beginning of time. She had always been his prey and he had always been her hunter, and so it would always be, forever.
~ IV. Of Arachnids And Archives Many things were falling in and out of place suddenly- wonderful things and horrible things. While Max felt a rising feverish hunger for life, meat, murder, and sex so powerful it nearly made him faint, he also felt Death before him, and it was awfully huge. It was very, very big. Damn Big. That was his first impression. It had no attributes whatsoever, no characteristics 302
or descriptions that made any sense, and this was part of It’s Terror, but it pulled the word “Big” from the depths of Max’s stomach like vomit, and then the words “Cold” and “Black”. He flashed upon a memory of the monolith from 2001, one of the Kubrik films he adored and watched many times back in a safe and air-conditioned “real life” that from this vantage point was now to him “my past as a human”, the daydream of an ant. But while that old, eternally mysterious monolith was quite big, very black, bitterly cold, and pregnant with meaning, Death Itself was bigger than Big, blacker than Black, colder than Cold, and had no meaning At. All. It was the inexpressibility which mocked and horrified Max to his core. This vision of “Big Cold Blackness” he felt his bones tremble before was itself a visceral but merely human conception of the Absolute Void of all that could ever be felt or conceived, and even the name Void has its intrinsic qualities, readers, but this monstrous thing had none. There was not much Max could do in the face of Death besides tremble, and perhaps note briefly in some rational corner of his mind not yet obliterated that the Christians with their heaven and Buddhists with their reincarnation were bullshitters extraordinaire as he had suspected all along. He felt some small satisfaction in the midst of this vicious whirlwind that he, Max Hadron, had experientially, if not scientifically, verified the age-old question of what lies after death- Nothing. Small condolence perhaps. The thing that surprised him about the encounter was how the intensity of inconceivable Non-Ness currently violating him ruthlessly was undesirable in direct proportion to the intensity of his new scalding hot desire for Life. Life had been no Swiss picknick for Max of late. Back in the day, and on his best days, Max wielded a crackling, electric sarcasm which held life at arm’s length and in contempt, but the news of his brain tumor fizzled that lightning into a soggy bitterness that was neither dramatic or in any way capable of humor or happiness. He realized that the more demonically vast he felt the Non-Ness to be, the more urgently the simultaneous fever for life, meat, murder, and sex rose within him. What was this old tingling in the throat, so inexpressible back then? The wind which did once kindle it had surely come again. It was that old wolfsblood calling. Still got it, baby! The edges of Hippygirl’s lips curled ever so slightly upward into the subtlest hint of a joker smile. Max’s senses were becoming rather… acute. So acute, in fact, that while he underwent his confrontation with the Great Nothing, he also witnessed Hippygirl’s curling smile in microscopic precision and with a time-sense so dilated that he felt himself caught, stuck in the ever-more splintering fractal patterns of the spiderweb of time within the fraction of a second it took for her smile to curl, as if within eons. To be clear, the next 10 pages or so must all be devoted to describing the sensations and revelations which Max endured between the moment of Hippygirl’s raised eyebrow and the first third of the 1-second facial gesture which composed her Fated jester smile. It seemed to Max that he could detect the chemical composition of her hemp lip balm, the pseudopodal activity of the skin cells of the saliva-sheen on her lips, and eventually the skipping of covalence shells of the electrons in the atoms which composed the carbon molecules of her flesh. It was beautiful in a clinical, scientific sort of way.
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The time-dilation was especially fascinating because Max’s mind had been dwelling almost exclusively lately on the briefness of lifetime left available to him. Here, in the calm at the center of the hurricane which is the Fulcrum-Chronon, he came to the pleasant realization that what his past human life (or ant’s daydream rather), had mistaken for a “brief” rest of a lifetime, was actually an elastically stretchable, potentially endless expanse containing billions of micro-slices of temporality like this one, each so infinitesimal as to be uninhabitable by normal consciousness. He took a “moment” (?) to ponder an intriguing theory that occurred to him- if he could simply contract his consciousness into a thinner and thinner slice of time, he might be able to therefore relativistically elongate the time left available to him before the dreaded headaches came. Was such a thing possible? He was unsure, but the moment he decided to attempt it, he found himself easily capable of convoluting his consciousness inside out with the fervent willfulness of a whirling dervish and re-directing his time-stream from the classic “forward” alignment into a paradoxically “inward” direction, but immediately regretted it since the convolution began to increase exponentially (or decreased exponentially rather), and became irreversible and all-devouring. This was roughly the “point’ in time during the first third of a second in which the forces behind Hippygirl’s Mona-Lisa-esquee expression sent Max reeling into a splinterdimension of incandescent phantasmagoria. Hopefully we need not remind you that Never Before had this happened, nor would it Evermore. Upon reaching the last 10th of the first third of the second of Hippygirl’s curling lip mischief grin, Time as we know it more or less collapsed like a singularity under its own gravity into a secret cobwebbed place that is mostly unknown to any configuration of consciousness except certain species of spiders known as the Custodians of the Catacombs of the Arachnid Archetype Archives, or the CCAAA. Some historians say the Custodians are not actually arachnids but crustaceans, and therefor refer to the agency as the CCCAA [Crustacean Custodians of the Catacombs of the Archetype Archives] but this is neither here nor there. Anyways, the creatures were the forefathers of the aforementioned Cabal of Manti which voted and prophesized the mind of Max to swallow itself up and then vomit itself back with a newfound mission and specific planetary blueprints, but these insects are unrelated to anything we are allowed to speak of in any detail here… The point is, as our hero is soon to find out, that Time is not infinitely divisible but instead, when convoluted inward and divided and divided and so on, it eventually reaches structures which may be called quanta or “granules” which are indivisible because they are roughly homogenous, except for some less than relevant fluctuations. In this place, spoken of only in whispers, which Max is very close to experiencing now, Time may be conceived of as having “Pillars” much like the pillars of marble upholding the temples of Ancient Greece. It is the space between these Pillars that is of unique interest to us, because it is the space between the Pillars of Time in which the Custodians spin extremely thin silk or “cobwebs” in fractal patterns appearing somewhat like stained glass and which may be thought of as the Logos or Gnosis that constructs reality, a kind of objective reason or order in the fabric of Being or the DNA of Nature, or maybe what people of your earth like Einstein or Steven Hawking called the Mind of 304
God. There is a very elegant theory proposed by certain physicists from the constellation Fantasia Mathematica in the Klein Quadrant of the Crab Nebula which claims that Max’s subjective experience of the Fated facial gesture of Our Harlot of the Chronon (as Hippygirl will come to be known as) is analogous to the first moments of the creation of the universe after the “Big Bang”. Personally, I believe the Birth of the World to be a matter for lovers and comedians moreso than scientists, and yet there seems to be some legitimate analogies between Max’s psychological processes of this period and the stages which Reality Itself supposedly passed through in the very first moments of time after the Big Bang. It’s almost as if poor Max was made to live out intensely visceral, vicarious reactions to seven stages of Time: [3 stages in which he “died” backward from Time towards the Big Bang; a fourth at the center, which we already described as his confrontation with Death (analogous to the void prior to the big bang) and then three stages in which he was “born” forward back into Time. Allow us to delineate:
~ V. That Ripe Stage of Possesion Now, it is fair to say Max was beginning to harbor some misgivings about this patchwork-quilted hippy chick. He did not exactly blame her for incanting her invocation on him, for by this point he was fairly sure that she was either not a human female and was just a hologram constructed for his benefit by bugs from space (he sensed this but could not prove it) or maybe a Haitian voodoo corpse possessed by ghosts (he felt he could prove this but not sense it). It was horrible and creepy, yes- he didn’t believe in ghosts but what he was sure of was that Hippygirl was not a person in the normal sense, at least not during their little flirty cosmic eyecontact scenario here. She was more of a puppet. A conduit, like a copper wire channeling some current at once electrical, metaphysical, and paranormal. Her body, at that ripe stage of possession, seemed dead because it was vacant and hollow, having become an empty vessel for things from long ago and far away to have their way with. It was as if a great searing laser was focused through the twin magnifying lenses of her optical ganglia and emitted from her green pupils, acting like a tractor beams upon his own light blue ones. Her psionic gifts were admittedly kind of hot, he granted. He reconsidered her rating and thought he might award her a 7.5 or even 8/10. Even in the midst of metaphysical whirlpools, old habits die hard. Max wondered if these clever, cryptic, and mischievous critters which he was beginning to figure were working through her only seemed to him like ghosts because they were so removed from the realm of humans that, like ghosts, such a thing as a physical form was wholly 305
inapplicable to them. Or maybe they were just, in fact, ghosts. Or maybe just one big fucking ghost. It was hard to tell if the force focused through her optic nerves and into him was a swarm of scrambling ghost-bugs or one big slimy, insidiously gelatinous, coyling-tentacled hentai beast. Perhaps these unsettling, skittering things were so removed from earth that they were fused by some trans-spatial group-mind into a kind of mighty, transcendent hyperhive or possibly joined by vibrating on some single ouija frequency like a jiggley tapioca-consistencied frog-egg jelly. There was ambiguity in this point. Maybe the souls of the dead fly up to that happy hunting ground in the sky and merge into the Great Spirit as Max simplistically imagined Native Americans to believe. Maybe Hippygirl was some wise old Native American shaman herself, exorcising the demons of indiscriminate lust and cold, hard anger from Max’s marrow. Maybe she was a she-demon, possessed by the Devil Himself, on a mission to steal Max’s soul. Upon pondering this last possibility he decided to award her a solid 9/10. Max was weird like that.
~ VI. Night of the Flamenwerfers Life. Meat. Murder. Sex. These four callings gathered power like a storm, gurgling in Max’s gut where they repeated themselves like the pre-verbal impulse of a mantra when it is too subtle to hear, an incessant primal drumbeat rising from his subconscious until Max heard his own twisted reveries explicitly and nearly jumped out of his skin. “What the freak?!” he exclaimed to himself. “How did “murder” slip in there?!” The word smashed him even more forcefully than his meeting with the Horrible Void. Upon recognizing the vile instinct gathering strength somewhere in the depths of him, he immediately felt the pre-vomit saliva fill his mouth and doubled over and hurled epic chunks. (It was unclear if this was after Time stopped or before, or somewhere in-between, the spew frozen in the Chronon like a putrid ice-sculpture.) The contents of his stomach (the few overpriced craft beers he had consumed that day and a large order of poutine from a food cart) narrowly missed Hippygirl, yet she didn’t mind in the slightest. If anything the twinkle in her eyes glimmered all the more. Max was very troubled and confused. As far as he could piece together at the time he had never murdered anyone, and he believed murder to be just as hideous a crime as the next guy. He had no idea why that wrong thing was mixed up with the bitchin’ trinity of Life, food, and sex. …No, it wasn’t merely “food”. Not the freaking sprouts and the blasted slabs of tofu that filled most of the food carts in this damn place. It was meat. This was a clue to him. In a way sex was 306
meat too, just another form of desire of and for the flesh. In a way, he supposed, Life itself was a form of meat. His body and everyone else’s were naught but meat in fact. And meat was prey. To be it, eat it, fuck it, or kill it were just irrelevant details- all these instincts stemmed from the one original instinct- primal, orgiastic revelry in the meat and blood that is us living things. The wolf told him that. But he didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it, or at least the “civilized” part of him didn’t, and it hurled chunks valiantly in protest. But while puking can cure a bellyache fast, it didn’t stop this hellish and tenacious feeling, which continued rising, inexhaustible, blooming like a fireball into his chest and nearly blowing his head clean off. The more he trembled in awe before The Nothing (still violating him viciously and ravishing him with relentless maliciousness), the more he saw red and the more ready he was to fight- not with his fists or a gun, but with his teeth and claws. He knew what it meant to be an animal- to live wicked and free meant ripping out the throat of deer or a man with a clean conscience. It was their juggler veins or the hunger, and the hunger was Death. Killing wasn’t a “sin” yet, the way it was for man. The wolf told him the word “sin” was a cage. That he had been chained and tamed by the word and that “his sins themselves should justify the Earth” (whatever that meant). This was all clearly wrong, it sickened him. But it was absolutely unavoidable. There was a ferocious furnace within him, in his bones, which for all his personhood were still the bones of an animal. He had evolved from the carnivores and they were still the roots of him. With his super-human perception he saw, literally saw the murderous savagery programmed into his DNA, which had evolved from predators without conscience, without apology. Max tried to think. “I am still alive. I am sentient.” he reminded himself. Sentience Itself was divine or magical in a way, yet something he could believe in unlike God. It was something he could stand for and participate in, something that made humans seem worth being around, and it gave his anguished, nihilistic life some meaning at least. He was the farthest thing from a Deadhead, but the songs weaved their way through his life by his choice of friends, and a certain Jerry Garcia lyric lingered on his mind: “Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the World.” …But Sentience could only bloom from the evolution of biological life, he thought, and that meant it must pass through that detestable, ugly realm of raw, bloody meat on it’s way out of and and its way back to into the Void, on it’s way back home. Max felt a Great Doubt like a hot iron ball in his throat he could neither swallow nor spit out. He wanted out of the trance of the inescapable meat-dimension, out of this endless paradoxical and claustrophobic catharsis, this whole wretched festival and most of all out of his animal body. Ultimately, he mourned that Sentience Itself could not have somehow blinked perfect into existence without having to rip itself so carnally from Being by evolving through his ancestors, the predators, and having been tainted evil by bloodshed in the process.
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Max mourned the carnivore’s conundrum soulfully, with more sincerity for this abstract folly than he had offered anything for years, even his own death sentence, and he wept inwardly, altruistically as he never had for all men, so sorrowfully that he wondered if it would have been better for Sentience not to have awoken from Being at all, so long as it did not have to fight “tooth and claw”, as it were, to do so. To go even further, he thought, perhaps it would be better for Being not to Be at all, for that seemed to be the only way to wash this blood from his hands. Yes, he would turn backward and wash his hands in the Void. He had become a werewolf many times on Halloween, and now that what he finally realized was his Power Animal was claiming his body as its territory with all the lust that came with being caged for a lifetime erupting, he wondered if he must kill it before it became him. Then Max took a very, very dangerous gamble. He said “No.” to the wolf. This turned out to be a bad move, for the wolf had many friends, and instantly Max heard a grizzly chorus of growling surround him as an ungodly pack of 7,000 savage and starving werewolves emerged from the darkness beneath the pines of the oldgrowth forest surrounding the festival, which was now in full swing. Werewolves with flamethrowers.
~ Needless to say, things got very bad, very fast. What ensued could be called nothing other than “Maximum Carnage”. In the macabre chaos of fur, fire, fangs, and tie die there was little place for metaphysics. The white-hot infernos that leapt from the horrendous monsters’ flammenwerfers (they were German werewolves) scorched not only the vegan hippies ironically to succulent barbecue remnants beyond all hope of recognition or redemption within seconds, but so too singed so much fur of the beasts’ own brethren so as to coat the festival grounds in a thick, black, burnt-hair-smelling, choking smog, and the collateral damage caused the carnivores to turn on themselves, blazing eachother into smoking manwolf crisps and shredding eachother ravenously into bloody spaghetti until their ravaging fangs were ground down to the root on the endless crunching bone of both man and beast, and of beastmen, till the last claws were clawed clean off, and until their flammenwerfers sputtered fuel-less and werfed their last flammen. The wailing of the few survivors sang a poignant tune over the blood-drenched battlefield and the odor of hair-smoke, despair, reefer, and patchouli mingled in the awful night. Only the dead can know peace from this festival.
~ 308
Our hero knelt amidst the wet shreds of wrent revelers, howling and gnashing his teeth at the unspeakable tragedy, but just before he collapsed, an old, mysterious power known as “the Writhing Language” took hold of Max. You can read about this Power and many other wondrous things in our book The Garden of Flowers. Max had not felt this strange spell settle upon him in many, many years. But here it was- that same old Wild Wind in his vocal chords possessing him, just as if he was back at Manerva University, and it sang a verse in rhyme through his very throat. That verse is called “The Frost of the Void” and it goes like this:
THE FROST OF THE VOID Humans are strange, Humans are sad. There is a Good And there is a Bad. Paint not "God and Devil" On the Face of Sentience, For The Frost of the Void In no way resents us. And though Sentience peeks Through the Universe Window, No God and No Devil Are there to pursue you. Yet Unknowing calls and Absolute Black Is the prettiest color. That is a fact. Matter is Something And Space is so empty Matter says "Space!" "Oh how you complete me!" The Other is always There facing in. 309
When you meet the Wolfman Say "Hello Again!" When Tom is the loser And Jerry the King, To streamline the Drama Is how we begin. Tis the orbit of poles, Each round the other Therin lies the reason The Universe even bothered. "Oh how you complete me!" Emptiness says to Form And thus makes it worthwhile That the World was born. Tis the Eternal Drama And its motion through Time As dynamic equilibrium drips from the vine. Hark- The double-helix! The secret is found! In the fractal of brambles Paradox Fruit abounds. I want you to know Nothing more intimately. True Nothing is too Nothing To ever be empty.
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VII. The Serpentine Solution Max emerged from unconsciousness at some ungodly dark hour of the night to groggily feel himself shivering, drooling and hugging himself in the fetal position on the ground in his own regurgitated poutine and porter, traumatized irreparably by the carnival of carnage into severe and quite possibly permanent catatonia. He felt personally responsible for unleashing some kind of hydrogen bomb of power-animal wrath, and as an afterthought he wished he had not been so sarcastically derisive of the sweet naïve hippies all his life. They did not deserve this. But then he felt a cool hand gently and lovingly stroke his cheek, and he opened his eyes to see Hippygirl, still smiling ever so slightly with a transcendent hope and pity only the princess from The Neverending Story or the Madonna could have for humanity. But she was now holding a gnarled staff and her eyes, as yet soft and imploring, turned lightning. Serpentlightning, to be exact. “I have my power animals too.” she cooed. And thus Max received The Serpentlightning Trickster Transmission. In a flash her green round pupils switched to the black vertical slash of the reptile upon bright yellow irises, and an insane streak of blinding green electric voltage shot from them into Max’s soul. But instead of the jagged patterns of white lightning’s electricity, this otherworldly green energy was swimming at lightspeed in duel corkscrews intertwined- like two snakes writhing in opposite directioned-spirals as they flowed forward. The Double-Helix Power. The Dyonysian Flux. All became serpentine. She was Medusa, of course, (but she was also a mermaid ghost, and a Goddess of sorts) and snakes writhed not only from her mesmerizing hair, but all upon her neon green scaled naked skin, and the fractal medusa liquid dripping from her voluptuous fertile form shimmered like snakes coiling through endless dimensions which intersected with the precision of clockwork on all surfaces as does the Paint of the Druids on the revolving emerald brick walls of her frozen tomb- the Slytherin Halls. The two snakes coiled in the eternal mystic double helix round her gnarled medicine staff slithered up and out of the staff and then onto the ground where they became hundreds and then thousands of snakes, which slithered out and into the mouths of the fallen hippies, where in their chests began to glow golden orbs of light which healed and re-animated them anew with vertical pupils, forked tongues, scaled skin, and fire breath. She then bent down and French-kissed Max and her sizzling electrified forked tongue, like a snake of coiling green lightning, slithered into his mouth and down his gullet into his gut, where it coiled and convoluted him symbiotically into Serpentlightning from the inside out and ALL became the Double Helix and the Dance, from the massive over-arching double-helix shape of the Grand Archetypal Form of Time itself, to the double-helix of the DNA in the redeemed reptilian marrow of Max’s bones, to the opposite-directioned interwoven corkscrew rotation of the electromagnetic fields in the paths of twin photons as they proved the double-helix to be 311
intrinsic to the fabric of matter and light itself, and the orgiastic flux of Dionysus the Snake Goddess redeemed Being for having to pull itself out of the Void and then through the savagery and sin of the Carnivorous Mammal Meat Dimension to reach the fruit of the Divine Reptilian Rave Sentience through Man reborn as Triumphant Were-Dragon. It was not that the sin was extinguished but that the sheer momentum of Life, released through the fruition of the ancient secret of the Mystery Cults of the Icy Caves of Elysium- the Secret Serpent Coiling Momentumgleamed itself forward regardless, and so swept the karmic resistance of sin up into its irresistible momentum as it does all things into the hyper-streamlined, resistance-less forwarding towards the inevitable Destiny of the Illuminati who live amongst us as reptilian shapeshifters to bring forth the Eschaton, solely through the writhing-language rhymes of their cunning and mischievous forked tongues. And then Max’s thoughts turned to his wife Lana…
~ VIII. The Gods of Mischief *Editor’s Note: As Max vicariously lived through the cataclysmic death and rebirth of the Universe, a calm and reasonable part of him viewed it as if from the balcony of a laboratory- sterile, clinical, and abstract, with the clarity of logic. There he watched and took notes at the very edge of his seat. The following interludes in italics interspersed throughout the prose are transcriptions of his notes. Unfortunately they make no sense whatsoever. Lana’s power Animal was the Hawk. A noble and wise creature with keen vision, like she was. Max wished he was a hawk too, instead of the wolf, so he could know what it was like to be an equal to her and so she would know what it was like to have a better match than him, one she deserved. He saw a vision of two hawks making love, as they do- their beaks clenched together, spinning around eachother as they spiral down in free-fall, becoming one and releasing eachother just before they meet they ground, and flying away. Or, he mused, was this the mating dance of eagles rather than hawks? He supposed it didn’t matter, since Lana was far too subversive to have a symbol of patriotism for her power animal, and after all it was his own hallucination. Anyways, it was a beautiful thing and it made Max weep, far from the first time he had on this day. He wept because he knew Lana deserved this- a perfect union, a graceful and true one he could never give her, since she knew his sins and they would forever stand between them, an ugly chasm which filled him with a feeling of gnawing worthlessness and infinite 312
remorse. But maybe there was hope… He could begin again, and make a new vow to honor her… but he did not know if this would be enough… The Realm of Archetypes is the proper habitat for magical Spirit-Animals because, as they are more real than their human counterparts, It is more real than the mortal realm. The messages from such animals are to be more trusted than any thought, and service to them must be unfailing. The reason access to the Archetypal Archives by normal consciousness is so very limited is because normal consciousness cannot suffuse the vast subconscious area which exists underneath it. The analogy would be of the tip of an iceberg verses the submerged (Archetypal) area. Thus the Realm of Archetypes seems LESS real and somehow insubstantial as dreams do, but this is an "optical illusion" due to our lesser ACCESS, not an accurate description of its true nature. Max watched the hawks of his vision spin around eachother, locked, and wished only that Lana might somehow still know this beautiful feeling he once had a chance to give her, but after awhile his sorrow faded, and he felt himself become drowsy and lose all connection to his body, far below. He watched the hawks, until he forgot everything he had ever known except them. He watched them for what felt like a lifetime, locked in perfect love against a starry sky, spiraling down until they splashed into a great dark sea. The hawks remained bound to eachother and spun round and round underwater, lazily now, and as they did they blurred into two shapes, like the sun and moon. Max was mesmerized by these two shapes, which no longer seemed to be falling but floated with him, weightless. One shape was white, and one was black. They were eternal, and they had always chased eachother, in perfect symmetry, since the beginning of Time, and so they always would, forever. The surrender to the Dyonysian Flux offers a rerdiscovery of the Archetypes of Humanity (such as that of the wolf for our hero) that populate the dreamworld or the area of the mind and human culture/ concerns which have to do with our true faces- the "animals we are always being to eachother".) Every person has a secret dream in their heart of hearts. Some recognize that they have this wish, and some do not, but all do, if only in their subconscious, perhaps in dreams they do not remember. The wish is to become an animal, and different people are called to different animals. But why are these Animals so intimately tethered to both Dreams and Archetypes? They are demigods from the depths, super-powered and magical. For frog-called souls, the frog they are in misremembered dreams is not only a frog, but a magical frog. It is faster, wiser. For a frog-called one, to become this frog could be considered the one victory and
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triumph of the trajectory of ones life. No other quest is as valid or encompasses all the other quests. Suddenly a memory from Max’s life as a mortal came to his mind like a bubble floating up from the depths. It was a poster from his youth, a poster of what most people call a “yin-yang symbol”, but which is also called the “Tai-Chi”. It had hung on the front wall of a martial arts studio he had attended as a youth, and he had many chances to stare at it as he practiced his form, before he grew more interested in girls and gave up the practice. At the time he thought the symbol, like incense and stone Buddhas and all eastern religious things, was silly. But now, watching the two great orbs cycle and cycle, he understood. The yin-yang symbol was not “invented” by men at all. It was drawn long ago by old mystics who were simply recording the same thing that Max was watching now, hypnotized. He was watching the Forever Chase, before Time, when all the World was still two thoughts- the first hunter and the first prey. It didn’t matter which was which. One would run, run away, and the other would follow, so close behind, but would never catch the first. Or they would switch roles and the other would flee, while the first was always at its heels, but never close enough to pounce and end the game. They were playing tag! Max had a funny thought. He thought it was a brave and honorable thing, for the Shape that first decided to volunteer to be the Hunter to do that, for the Hunter would always later come to be known as the “bad” one. Maybe it didn’t know this at the time, and would later always regret the decision. Or maybe it did know this, and yet was still willing to take on the burden of that role and begin the Forever Chase anyway, like a martyr. Max thought this must have taken great courage, and he thought that if one of the first Shapes could do such a thing, then he could honor that choice by at least finding the courage to face his own future without bitterness, tumor be damned. One of the two Original Faces of Reality decides to volunteer to become the Original Hunter and so begins Primary Archetypal Predation (the “Forever Chase”). They begin to orbit around eachother almost instantaneously in a Primordial Time before Time as we know it. They could barely wait to start! The fact that there were two halves was *merely* interesting [Sentience vs. Being, Good vs. Evil, Matter vs. Void, etc. and the many other colors we paint them with] but it is the orbiting of the two poles around eachother which transmutes a merely "interesting" Universe into a dramatic and "mischieviously vital" situation. And that, my friends, is known as "nodding one's head in solidarity with Tom", for reasons which shall soon become clear... Max had another funny thought. He thought of Tom and Jerry, the zany cat and mouse of his Saturday mornings cartoons as a child, who would always be locked in mortal combat, forever. He thought maybe “the Tom and Jerry” was a better name for the yin-yang symbol, and 314
he simply decided to name it this, and by doing so he reclaimed it. He was grateful for Tom, the cat, because Tom had been willing to become the “bad” one, so that the Game could happen. What a horrible fate, and what uncompromising nobility! What courage! He thought of the Wolf, doomed forever to play the “bad” one, while its prey had it so easy as the “innocent”, and he felt pity for the wolf and forgave it with a heaving sigh for the first time in his entire life. And then, simply, he decided he DID want to be a wolf, but it was a Golden wolf this time. This made Max smile, and he felt wickeder than ever, but heroic at the same time, and a great bliss and joy washed over him. But he drifted further away, backwards. Tom is in truth the loser. Neither can ever actually "lose" but Tom has volunteered to sacrifice itself to play the "villain" or "wolfman". This is his unrecognized altruism, his humility. Why would Tom endure this sacrifice? He was acting in reluctant service as a martyr for certain entities who worship the ideals of Drama, Paradoxicality, and Mischief. His assignment was to set in motion Priomordial Time, so that it could evolve into Time as we mortals know it: Time as defined by the Grand Archetypal Form of the Double Helix (mathematically speaking: the Form created when poles of Primary Predation or Primary Mischief orbiting around eachother begin simultaneously tracing a forward direction perpendicular to the direction of their rotating binary orbit.) Sachmo’s power animal was the Frog. (Sachmno was a true friend Max had once upon a time, and someone he would meet once again some day.) He was a gentle soul with the heart of a poet, and like him, his power animal was no great and terrible beast. But hunt it did, from time to time a fly. Max missed his dear friend, and remembering him and empathizing with him, he became the Frog. Now amphibious and slimy and gentle, Max was a great big bull frog in the deep dark waters of Being, with only its eyes peeking out above the waterline. He was absolutely still, watching, watching. He felt his eyes were the Eyes of the World, the Sentience of the World Itself, peeking out from the pregnant, briney depths of the blind mud. There was a fly before him on a lily pad, washing its arms with its proboscis in tasty clicking motions. Max, The Frog, sat in true meditation, absolutely still. Soon he would strike out his sticky tongue in a brilliant flash and catch his prey, but for now he was content to sit, breathless, and the stillness enveloped Max and he learned how to be without hunger, and without shame. His eyes, The Frog’s eyes, were Sentience Itself, and the lily pad frog saw before him was World, not bigger than him, but equal, like two mirrors facing eachother. He understood that Sentience was not a thing inside World, but its equal pair. When he chose, he would strike out and begin the game of hunter and prey, the Forever Chase, but before that, he resided, luxuriously, in the vast stillness of Two, not orbiting eachother in Time yet like the hawks, but like two static, infinite mirrors, one white and one black, facing eachother, silent, breathless, and he was content to reside there. For awhile...
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As for the generative stages, it is not that first there was None (void), then One (being), then Duality, but rather Void bifurcates *directly* into Two. A new “something” (even an infinite homogenous unity) is different from Void Itself and implies a beforehand in which there was Nothing. This contrast is the two original faces of Primary Archetypal Duality- the two mirrors facing eachother. It is fair to say that Sentience chose to take on the cloak of the Nothing Before, because it had more room to breathe there and because Something was more interesting to look at than the reverse. This is how Sentience became associated with “emptiness”, although true Void in Itself was [is] no more “empty” than it was “before”. This implies that Sentience was there from the beginning, waiting, and it was . Why was the bifurcation of Something-ness directly into Duality of such importance to Max? Because understanding this concept experientially, viscerally, in his bones, was an awakening that liberated an enormous amount of psychic energy. By "Healing unto Duality" or making a final embrace and acceptance of duality (nodding one's head in solidarity with Tom) he reclaimed the True Primordial Yin-yang from the false yin-yang as eastern mystical yearning backward toward aquatic and homogenous womb, and it triggered the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb of psychic energy and like all satoris of concern to us it radically streamlined his lineartemporal forwarding karmic process. After all, it is the STREAMLINING of karmic resistance that is the purpose of satori and ritual. Primary Archetypal Duality is born from Void and Void, alas, becomes forever painted as “Before” to humans, and this is an unavoidable delusion due to the fact that we inhabit Time. So too our deep fear of experiencing it (which Max conquered triumphantly in this story), is a fundamental psychological roadblock due to the deep instinctual fear of our own eventual non-being via death. This biological survival programming necessarily paints Non-Being Itself as threat and prevents us from knowing It’s harmless inconceivability intimately. Beware mystics who yearn backwards for Void painted as Maternal and Warm Aquatic Unity of the Womb. Void is not womb, nor is it death, but to abandon these paints is impossible due to our habitat of Time. The best we can achieve is to retrain ourselves to experience the void viscerally and intimately as “inconceivable” rather than “empty” as it appears to us. How did max’s arrival at Primary Archetypal Duality trigger the sudden release of streamlining energy? By giving honor to the pre-time, post-void state, which is a "before", and yet like all Primary Archetypes is a constant ongoing process that continues to be vitally relevant. (Our "Void-face" still exists, our "Static Yin-Yang (mirrors)" still exists, the "advent of mischief through drama and the sentience of this emergence STILL exists. These all and others 316
are like dimensions of ourselves in addition to convenient creation myths. Processes and dimensions this Primary are of course the hardest to retain conscious awareness of. If the building blocks which compose us are the most difficult to see, all the more so for the most basic of building blocks of Being- the Foundations, the Scaffolding. They are most susceptible to falling into pre-conscious assumed unknowing and descriptions of them are most vulnerable to becoming abstractions understood and perhaps logically accepted while thinking of them but lacking visceral relevance. They are also victims of our eternal nefarious painting ways. Such building blocks are also, however, the most valuable to retain, viscerally potent in the bones of one's knowing, since they apply to the widest array of experience. They color and explain all things, known or not. In a sense these dimensions (for example, pre-time void) are one's face whether known or not; "one's face before one's parents were born" as some say. It was the potential of the goal of Sentience Itself in Waiting which pulled Primary Archetypal Duality from the Void, because it was bored. And because it knew that this would set in motion an inevitable chain of events that would lead to the evolution of organisms in so It could “cheat” and retroactively explain where It came from to satisfy a causal or physical perspective. The future in this case was too good not to create its own cause in the past. The Future Goal of Time (Sentience) is also the reason Time (Its proper stage) was constructed in the first place. This means it had to exist in a form of potential or “knew itself before it had a place in which to exist”. Pure Paradox. Thinking in terms of this paradox intimately, one can know the true ultimate Sentience as not merely an event *within* World but as a habitat “outside” World or “on equal footing” to World, (as a field and valid counterpart) in a manner that transcends linear temporality. Thinking in terms of this paradox intimately, it is precisely in the way Sentience is “outside” World and in the way it transcends linear temporality that it can do miraculous things such as be the cause of and reason for World to be Born despite Itself not existing yet. As an analogy, If Einsteinian Space-Time is the field through which Newtonian physicality and linear time curves, Grand Ultimate Sentience is the field through which Einsteinian Curved Space-Time and Transcendent Temporality *themselves* Curve. This is why Grand Ultimate Sentience is sometimes called the “Curling Sentience”. Then Max slipped back all the way into the Nowhere, which was no longer the Horrible Void. He understood now that he had painted it as Death, but this was ridiculous folly. It was not what would remain after his death by the tumor, because “After” did not make sense here at all. He had also painted it as Womb, some mystic warmth he yearned to return to, but it was not this either, because “Before” did not make sense here. He had painted it all along, like we all do, as Mother and Father, as Cold Void and Night Sky, as the Grim Reaper and as Solitary Confinement, the Final Alone. As White Heaven, as the Great Black Monolith, and as Tomb. 317
Just as many foolish humans do, he had sometimes painted it as “God”. But it was none of these things. He did not know what was enveloping him but he was sure he should surrender to It, and when he did he disappeared entirely, and it cleansed every single drop of sin from him, before he, and It, were reborn anew, together, clean. The initial spark which caused the Big Bang explosion, the decision by “God” for the Universe to Be, as some fools would say, or the “reason there is Something rather than Nothing” is neither inconceivable nor outside the boundary of science, but must be understood “backwards” in time from the perspective of potential future entities more advanced in the project of sentience than humans. And so we define and explain the cause of the Big Bang through the sheer desire for the ideals of Drama, Paradoxically, and Mischief by agents of the “Curling Sentience”, ideals which require Double-Helix Time as their proper stage upon which to play, ideals so transcendently high that their agents may best be treated as the Gods who Created World retroactively so as to have a place for them to exist. Suddenly, Max was struck by one final vision before the Chronon released him back into his mortal life. He saw the reason the Double-Helix Shape was woven throughout his DNA and in the electromagnetic behavior of photons. It was because the Double-Helix was precisely, mathematically, the shape that is formed when two spheres orbiting eachother trace a path forward through a dimension perpendicular to their binary orbit. He saw how The Grand Archetypal Form of Time itself was a double helix and how this miraculous shape was necessary for Drama because unlike the eternal predictability of Primordial Cycling Time, the new perpendicular forward direction signified an “unfinished” and mischievously vital scenario for Tom and Jerry to play within. It made the outcome of the chase unknown, exciting now. And solidarity with that new unfinished nature of the Forever Chase reminded him once more of a tingling in his throat, so inexpressible back then. The wind that did once kindle it had surely come again. The Gods of Mischief, as we may as well call them, are the “reason” or “cause” of World, and whose mere potential for existing demands that (4)They pull themselves out of Time as we know it or “Double-Helix” Time, as (3)DoubleHelix Time pulled itself out of Primordial Orbiting Duality, as (2)Primordial Orbiting Duality pulled Itself from Static Duality (mirrors), as (1)Static Duality pulled Itself from Void. This chain reaction of sequential “pullings from” is ultimately the cause of all phenomenon by the future potentiality of the Mischievious, Curling, or “Jellyfish” Sentience (represented by that/those entity/ies which possessed the character Hippygirl) which is the higher dimensional field through which curved 4th-dimensional spacetime *itself* curves). 318
~ -EPILOGUEDAWN OF A SCOUNDREL Max awoke from his wondrous and horrific stupor to find himself still alive. There was science to do and cake to be had! He wiped some vomit from his lips with his sleeve and steadied his wobbly legs. The Chronon had mercifully released him, and he felt more or less as if he had turned a new leaf. He gladly opened a new chapter of his wilted scrapbook. Grateful for his second chance, with a clean slate, he grinned stupidly. He was in the midst of the most epic of frazzledays. The wild wind was to his back and all was well with the world. Although we can’t say he would live happily ever after, he would have many bubbles of happiness of a flavor he had not known since childhood. The wings of the birds chirping in his heart were embroidered with the most delicate patterns of frost, for these were the Ravens of the Frost of the Void, and their song was crisp and crystal clear. It was a melody he had heard before, but he could not place it. The rosy fingers of dawn were tantalizing the horizon. Apollo was riding his golden chariot against the azure sky once again. If he had made it home before daylight he just might have gotten some sleep tonight, but it was too late, or rather too early for that. Then he remembered where came the melody of the Ravens- from a video game from his youth, one called “Dragon Warrior”. He bowed to Hippygirl, who was just finishing her smirk, and she bowed in return, ceremoniously, and walked away. Max just couldn’t help himself, and called out to her “What are you?” She paused, turned back, and granted him an answer: “In your language our name would be translated as “The Jellyfish”.” “Hrmmm…” thought Max, as he watched her walk away, barefoot upon the morning dew, and disappear into the fog. Her ass beneath her patchwork dress looked to him like two Belgian muskrats fighting in a wet burlap sack. He hated to see her go, yet he could watch her walk away all day. Then Max yawned, brushed himself off, lit up a smoke by power of his shiny silver lighter, pretended he was a Wicked Golden Scoundrel Wolf Hero and went home to give Lana the fuck of her life.
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-The End-
(For Now…)
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