Tagged: Conspiracy
Satan’s Spark (2016 before the election of trump)
“I met Michael Robinet one year before the onset of the global Crisis. It was the best year of my life. It was the only year worth remembering. The Crisis destroyed everything else. I thought love dried up years ago like a desiccated corpse. At my age something as precious as love seemed impossible. I’m seventy-five, active and healthy; but still seventy-five. Mike is sixty, a relative juvenile compared to me. He is athletic and very beautiful. I am not! He is also good-natured and protective; but no one could protect any of us from the Crisis. I am Doctor Lydia Thornwall and I am responsible… responsible for everything!”
Lydia Thornwall was a neuro-scientist. She was studying the effects of aging on the brain, especially as it related to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The work was very intense and she needed a break so she took a Virtual Trip to the Retro Club where she could get a jolt of brain-boost.
The Club was a neon amusement park. It brought back memories of a wild period when she explored the parameters of sex and drugs. At the time she told herself it was an analytical investigation, but with age she knew she was just having fun. Now… she was the oldest person in the Club. She still reveled in the culture of youth. She could flip back in time and experience the thrills of abandonment to prurient desires. Her recent discovery of a new brain-gene could wait awhile longer. She needed to experience a wave of ecstasy. She met Michael at the roundabout on the second floor.
The night poured into Lydia like a flood of Lysergic Acid. The walls melted and she awoke cradled in the arms of Michael Robinet. Love burrowed into her psyche like a velvet hummingbird probing a Venus Flytrap. That night, Lydia felt a fortress of solitude crumbling from within. The Venus Flytrap was deflowered and Lydia broke free from the prison of time. From that moment, Lydia was bonded to Michael.
She returned to her laboratory on clouds of scented bouquets. She also had an added gift: the solution to the diseases of old-age, a way to activate the new brain-gene.
The political debate proceeded in the pavilion at Onstate University not far from the hospital lab where Lydia Thornwall worked on her new formula. Politics went viral on the internet like thousands of newly engineered viruses. Video Screens exploded with profanity. No one was certain if the back-alley talk was due to a viral infection or due to political maneuvering. Lydia lost interest, but she couldn’t avoid the talk. Computers were always on. There were whispered innuendos about spies — no one felt safe. There were accidents set off by exploding phones adding to the paranoia. Discord was everywhere.
Lydia hid beneath her desk trying to work on the new formula. She longed for Michael to help her through the current crisis. The man on TV yelled at Lydia and called her an ugly, old whore. She bit her lip determined to complete the formula. The TV man was somehow connected to the numbers. She wondered if he had access to her information. A loud speaker shook the room with a reminder for Dr. Lydia Thornwall. Her next client arrived and was waiting in the Green Room.
He said his name was Satan and he wanted to make a deal. Lydia didn’t believe in the supernatural or in religious dogma; besides, deals with Satan always ended badly. The man was likely suffering from late onset Schizophrenia. He babbled like a politician.
Heads were spinning. The election was a battleground fought over oil rights, military might, and locker room etiquette. Surrogates gushed with praise for their powerful bosses, condoning everything that dripped like grease from the mouths of their leaders. Clandestine contracts were signed in corporate backrooms, souls were bartered and sold. Money greased the wheels of political power.
It meant nothing to Lydia. She was a devoted scientist trying to make the world a better place. “Help the children,” she whispered, “help the old and frail.”
She signed a contract with Michael on the night of her deflowering. The rain fell like quicksilver from a cobalt sky. It was magical; but, unfortunately, it was caused by global warming. Lydia sighed and pursued her work. She dismissed Satan who seemed to devolve into a curious Bonobo Chimpanzee sitting in the corner of her lab.
“Curious,” she thought, “the way things change.” It was, indeed, very odd. Reality appeared to shift and warp. Layers of perception were superimposed over one another like virtual dreams, worlds within worlds.
As she worked, she pondered recent discoveries in Quantum Physics. They found the “God Particle” as hypothesized over fifty years ago. They smashed atoms to find the particle. It was a major discovery.
Dr. Thornwall was also looking for a particle, part of the human genome. She knew the brain-gene existed and now she needed to expose it. If her calculations were correct the gene she sought would cure the disease of old age and unlock the potential for immortality.
The politician was having a bad day. He never should have signed the contract. His wishes were all granted: money, power, women and sex; everything – he was a major celebrity… but, he realized too late, there is always a price to pay.
Hatecore music was yelling over the loud speakers and there were riots in the streets. Storm troopers marched through the city wearing orange berets and yelling obscenities against women. A new day was dawning. Politics were blamed for the ensuing violence; but political enmity was only one factor. Dr. Lydia Thornwall was successful. She exposed the brain-gene and there were unexpected consequences: once exposed, the gene became dominant. It was more than Dr. Thornwall anticipated; not a cure, but a disease: a link to psychosis that came to be known as Satan’s Spark. The Spark went viral.
Lydia had a room in the psychiatric ward at Resurrection Hospital. She suffered a nervous breakdown brought on by exhaustion. No information was known about Lydia… one night she just turned up at the emergency room. No one knew where she came from or what she did. Michael Robinet worked as an orderly and he was very kind to Lydia. Michael was a guardian angel.
A Quantum Event
Timothy Chan started his career as a teenager making paper dolls; then, he became a serial killer. He was also a respected Fashionista. He loved women’s lingerie. Timothy was a multitasker. By the time he turned thirty he was a wealthy celebrity; but he had issues. It wasn’t easy being Timothy. The newly elected government revoked the Freedom to Kill Act. Timothy bemoaned, “The act was granted in the new constitution so how could it be revoked.” His livelihood and fame depended on his grotesque and well-executed murders. He often quipped, “I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and people would applaud; but I’d much rather be creative. My murders are art.” Like a great leader from the past Timothy was often called The Chosen One by his adoring fans; but the present turn of events could trigger Timothy’s severe depression. He spent years dealing with the consequences of his mental illness until a doctor taught him how to repress his symptoms. Dr. Putnik showed Timothy how to remake and remodel himself into the celebrity he would become: there would be no more thoughts of paper dolls… no more urges to become the woman of his dreams. Putnik used a form of Minder Therapy that was developed by a surrogate of Artificial Intelligence. AI learned to read people’s minds and imprison the brains that were considered illegitimate.
People had to control all thinking and feeling. Minders were everywhere, stuck on lampposts and glued to buildings: tiny computers with the ability to read minds. A bad thought or feeling was reason enough to lock someone up and throw away the key. Trial by computer was predetermined to benefit power brokers. Prisoners were indentured servants working for breadcrumbs. The Freedom to Kill Act was initially designed to cull the population and make society more manageable. It backfired… too many power brokers were being murdered. Billionaires enjoyed life too much to be sacrificed so the Kill Act was killed (much to the regret of Timothy Chan).
Everything fell apart for Timothy Chan… washed up at the age of thirty-one. He started life as a runt. He was called a mongrel because his parents were part of a mixed race commune. Communes were commonplace before the Age of Enlightenment when Gabriel blew his Golden Trumpet and the world became little more than a conspiracy theory. Young Timothy was bullied. Bullies were lauded and praised for maintaining patriotic values. Fight Club mentality was all the rage. When he turned thirteen, Timothy Chan bought a silver revolver and got revenge. He was about to go to prison for the murders; but the world changed and the Freedom Act was passed. Instead of prison he went to Virtual Television and was declared a hero. For the first time in his young life he felt accepted and powerful. He was taking after his hero, The Chosen One, the common man who led the nation.
Timothy’s amazing success designing fabulous lingerie and making mincemeat from hapless bystanders was cut short with the end of the Act. Depression resurfaced… paper-doll dreams tugged at his mind. He had to avoid Minders lest they imprison his brain.
He remembered the touch of silk on his pre-pubescent body when he was alone in his room cutting-out paper dolls. Timothy was born just before the Golden Trumpet blew. For the first time in years he recalled how good he felt when life was new. He felt loved by everyone in the commune. Grade school was carefree, a place where he was not bullied; but by the age of eight Timothy felt the first tremors of an invading army. New teachers were brought into the school. They came with hordes of like-minded children who took control.
His reverie was suddenly breached. Pest Control invaded his home sniffing and snooping. They were looking for runaway memes. They were looking for traitors and whistle blowers. If something smelled suspicious the Eradication Squad would come calling. Timothy was familiar with Eradication. He spent a short time learning the trade before he made his own killing splash. They always appeared in costumes as older, church ladies to allay any suspicions concerning the reason for the visit. They always came with gifts. Most people were unaware of their true purpose, but Timothy had experience. Eradication was still a legal arm of the government. Timothy thought about rejoining the Squad, but he did not want to be fenced in… he was an artist… however, he was currently depressed and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Recent developments meant Timothy was a traitor. Pest Control would certainly find incriminating evidence and the Squad would be called. Timothy had to escape.
Scientists recently discovered that Change is simply a Qubit on a giant Quantum Computer that runs the Universe. Most people were not impressed. After all, life was about celebrity and social media, not about tedious science or about the meaning of life and death (yawn!). Life was simply an event like a rock concert… and death was irrelevant because no one expected to die. No one connected murder with death. Murder was simply an event that improved TV ratings, nothing more. Minders, hiding around every corner, reinforced the public’s shallow views. Nevertheless, new discoveries confirmed that Quantum Changes could have monumental consequences. Under the right circumstances Quarks could shift the structures we perceive as reality. A car can slip on black ice and slide into oncoming traffic. Annihilation. Conversely, numbers can shift and an unlikely stranger can win (or inherit) millions of dollars.
Timothy Chan found himself on one end of a Quantum Entanglement. Barba Koan slipped into Chan’s fevered brain. She was familiar like a shadow that comes calling in the night. Timothy recognized her as a paper doll from his precocious childhood.
Barba Koan was an indentured scientist. Minders considered her too intelligent to be allowed to roam free. She was assigned to the secret POTUS Lab. She worked on Time Reversal Technology that could be used to change history. It was all a ruse. No one could change time. Barba pretended to accept the fraudulent theories put forth by political appointees trying to curry favor with the president. All the while she was the infamous Anonymous who reported on the dysfunction in the new administration. Hackles were raised all over Washington with each new leak. Barba Koan’s new plan of action was to save Timothy Chan. She was the woman of his dreams. They were entangled.
Mr. D entered Chan’s penthouse. He sat in the corner like a frozen corpse facing Timothy. “Wishful thinking,” his voice resonated like a hammer striking bones beneath the skin. “Barba Koan is a fantasy. That’s what the mind does when facing the inevitable. There is no escape.”
Timothy whimpered. Mr. D offered a desiccated rag that could be used to dab away tears. It wasn’t a gesture of empathy or sympathy. Mr. D was matter-of-fact, all business. “Eradication will come for you…” Before the sentence was complete, church-ladies with gifts surrounded Timothy with saccharin sweetness and vile intentions. Several wore Versace Bandoliers (threatening but stylish). Timothy could see standards had deteriorated since his training in Eradication. He saw ladies with beards – a dead giveaway.
Eradication took Timothy to a hospital known only by the alphanumeric, X1. The hospital was a steel dungeon. Timothy was stripped and strapped to a steel table. The metal was bitter cold against his skin… he shuddered and imagined a perfect paper doll. Her loving smile warmed his frozen soul. The dungeon was in the basement of a government shell-building that also contained the secret lab where Barba Koan worked.
Barba Koan was often called Uncle or Man with a Beard (the definition of Barba in the dictionary). She didn’t mind. The sobriquet gave her an added layer of mystery. Nevertheless she was always riding waves of mockery in order to get a leg up on her chauvinist co-workers. Her personal avatar on social media was a man with a beard. She could say and do anything as long as she hid behind the beard. The beard was Anonymous. The link between Barba and Timothy was strong. They were the same essential person leading two different lives. This phenomenon could only be explained by Quantum Mechanics and The Many Worlds Interpretation.
Timothy Chan was a vile man with a divided self. He grew up in a psychotic, society. To survive in the world, Timothy became a sociopath prone to havoc. At the same time he had a softer, creative side. Both sides could not exist in the same body. The split altered worlds; but the worlds were entangled.
Eradication toyed with Timothy. People were often considered play-things to be used and abused by power elites. A robot surgeon was employed to remove Chan’s brain. The experimental operation always resulted in death, but science would benefit from the information retrieved from an extinguished brain. Social Media was also used by the administration to drain brains and nullify conscious behavior. Information replaced gold on the Exchange as a valued asset. Chan’s brain was drained, but the process triggered a Quantum Event.
Barba Koen was in the house… she was disguised as one of the bearded church ladies. She had a passport to go anywhere in the shell-building that housed the secret lab. There were no walls to halt her trespass. She had psychic indications about the struggles embroiling Timothy. She waited in the hospital dungeon for the Evacuation Squad to return with the prisoner. She slipped into the operation carrel. During the surgical procedure Barba’s near presence was enough to draw Chan’s brain into her own. So the two became one. Timothy’s deep desire to become the woman of his dreams was fulfilled.
Nobody knew or understood anything about Barba Koen. Perhaps she was from one of the Many Worlds. It didn’t matter. She was no longer Anonymous. She had achieved her ascension and reunification. She would change the world. Barba Koen blazed with fire and fury.
Indignities
He had to relieve himself, there was no question about it. He used his hand until he felt satisfied. It no longer worked with another person. He was old and nothing worked easily anymore especially if someone else was involved. He didn’t mind as long as he could still function on his own. Even when he was young nothing was easy. Harrison Vincent was half Jewish and half Italian. He was hammered by guilt from both sides of the family. He was proud of himself for surviving. It would have been easier to succumb to drugs and alcohol… or to any of the vices of the modern world. He survived; but now he had to face a new danger: a changing world and the collapse of everything he knew.
Diego Arnez was Puerto Rican but vigilantes thought he was Mexican so they locked him in a cage and lost the key. Times was changing! Diego stopped screaming for help. His voice gave out. No one came. He was alone, deep in the bowels of the machinery that controlled the social networks, below ground in one of the many sub-basements used for unclassified storage.
Harrison sat at a table in a rundown Mexican Cafe. He sat with a shadow, a man named Frankie. “How can we ever be together?” Harrison asked. “You are hardly substantial.” Other people in the cafe were used to Harrison’s mumbling. They assumed he was loco, always talking to himself.
“I always loved you,” Harrison’s voice shook with emotion. “It was impossible. You were never real.” A flash of light caught his eye. He looked through the grimy window. Police were harassing people demanding IDs. After several people were arrested, fights broke out. A teenage gang joined the fights. the police used rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. Sirens charged the air with electricity. The police left the scene to the newly arrived paramedics. It was the same every few night like a staged play.
Isabelle Trope, the waitress, looked down at Harrison Vincent. She was waiting to take his order. “Are you OK, Mr. Vincent?” Her presence had a calming effect.
“Yes, yes,” he replied, “it’s just the shadows. They are very real tonight. Thank you.” He ordered a senior-special and continued to talk to shadows.
Isabelle was called Mother Mary at the Church of the Golden Sepulcher where she volunteered. The church was a sanctuary for immigrants who came seeking asylum, but were denied by the new administration. Isabelle helped the children whose parents were deported back to the hell where they came from. She was a woman from another century. Her clothes and mannerisms were archaic. Her belief in Jesus was old fashioned. Her goal in life was to help others less fortunate than herself. She loved a man named Diego Arnez. He should have arrived weeks ago. Isabelle did not know Diego was detained, languishing in a cell below ground.
Harrison Vincent couldn’t sleep. Recurring nightmares kept him awake. He kept seeing an army of half-naked children, broken and crippled, walking through a blistering desert. They were marching to the border preparing to invade. They carried rocks. Soldiers lined up at the terminus. They carried grenades and rapid-fire rifles. The sun blotted out the sky. Everything glowed red like the surface-burner of an electric stove. Vincent was afraid to sleep. Afraid he might have an accident. A few nights before he dream’t he was drowning — he woke in the center of a soaked mattress. He felt humiliated, ashamed. There was no one to turn to for help. Frankie was gone. Did he know? Harrison began to sob.
Tectonic plates were shifting and climate change was having a devastating effect. For fun, Black-water vigilantes tortured Diego Arnez.
TV painted a glorious picture of the new American Economy. Tariffs and taxes boosted growth. The small war with Mexico was an important line in the sand… us against them. The country’s CEO kept his promise by closing the border. A man named Miller assumed the role of “Secret Santa” whispering in the leader’s ear offering advice on purification and social control. Every event resulted in the construction of a new room in the Golden Palace. The grand edifice was like an M.C. Escher maze worthy of hiding government secrets and tax returns. Palace construction led to a new real-estate cycle of boom & bust. The levels of complexity set off a rumbling in the digital-plates, platforms for Virtual Reality and Fake History.
Frankie was much more than a shadow… he was Harrison’s husband. He was much younger, but he was devoted to the life they shared together. Recently Harrison seemed to change. He appeared confused and rattled. Frankie was worried. The changes seemed to take place after the Doctor moved into the house next door. Dr. Cosimo became Harrison’s personal physician. He saw his patient every day and called his treatments an intervention.
Guns on the border were fired at the same time that church bells rang out. The centuries old Church of the Flowers stood like an adobe sentinel, guarding the border, keeping track of death. The church was a Way-station. When it was feasible people were allowed to travel through the gateway that was harbored within the walls of the church.
Dr. Cosimo had no medical training. He was a scientist with three PhD’s in Quantum Mechanics. He pretended to be a medical professional to gain Vincent’s trust. His assistant, Sally Magneto, was a practical nurse and theoretical physicist. Sally was also an amateur actress in the local theater group called Mummers’ Folly.
“I’m feeling upset,” Harrsion confided in his doctor.
“Please explain. I need details.”
“I’m old. My legs hurt and I get cramps at night.”
The doctor appeared distracted, “umm.”
“I peed the bed two nights ago. I didn’t tell Frankie.”
“Oh… go on. Have you had any dreams?”
“Bad dreams… nightmares about the border.”
The doctor became more attentive, “tell me about the border. What did it look like? Was there a wall?”
Harrison felt queasy. He wanted to change the subject, “I think it was something I saw on TV. I read about the control TV has on our brains… Phones, ads, apps — everywhere. There is no getting away…”
“What about the border, ” the doctor interjected.
“It’s not real… just a dream.”
The doctor excused himself and went into the adjoining room.
Diego Arnez was held in an underground storage facility. His guards were part of a border patrol group called America First. They were vigilantes, outside the law; but working with the blessings of POTUS. The men in the group were burned hollow from daily hardship and violence. They enjoyed their newfound power over the alien hordes that arrived at the border. Some of Diego’s guards were particularly cruel. Diego Arnez was not an illegal alien, he was not what his captors expected. They tried torture to make him confess to the crime of invasion (the guards were bonded in their choice of weapons and ways to induce pain). Diego did not scream… he minimized the pain with self-hypnosis and meditation. He reached across to his captors… His calm voice changed everything. Diego Arnez told them about Time.
What do we know about Time? Some theorize that Time runs in a straight line from past to future. Other scientists believe all Time exists at once without delineations: past, future, and present are within a hands breath away. The study of sub-atomic particles indicates Time does not exist. Displacement exists, negative and positive energy exists; but not Time. It appears that energy and matter have concentrated on this particular aspect or parcel of Time. We are in an Entanglement. Gentlemen… I stepped through a mirror and crossed the border. There is no turning back.
Dr. Cosimo entered the viewing room where Sally was busy with actuarial charts and computer projections. She sat in front of the NODE, a quantum nexus connected to ten other NODE’s. Qubits were fighting for dominance. AI augmented the hypervalence of Quantum Decoherance. The power of one Quantum Computer was one-million gigabytes; but ten connected together was incalculable. Connecting the computers was part of an investigation into Quantum Mechanics; but Harrison was the experiment. Sally was the expert. She recently published a book, The Lady in the Room is Not a Lady. It dealt with differential displacement of sub-atomic particles. She was far more accomplished than Dr. Cosimo. The doctor was fighting to regain his stature in the scientific community. He depended on Sally’s discoveries, but refused to give her credit.
“He’s ready.” Cosimo instructed, “I put him in a trance and attached the Quantum Equilizer.”
“Another trip could kill him. The brain cannot deal with the induced levels of stress.”
“Sally, dear… We have the President’s backing. He wants this. It could benefit his agenda… and we have to know. Harrison is ready for the next world.”
The crux of the experiment was to prove the Many Worlds theory developed by the physicist, Hugh Everett.
Sally remarked, “POTUS doesn’t believe in science.”
“If he can profit from something, he believes it. He feels our work has potential.”
Electricity surged through Harrison’s brain. Memories flickered in his mind like a silent movie. He remembered the protest. Parts of America were up for sale. National parks and historic monuments were on the auction block. Harrison recalled the rally. He was arrested by the New Guard and incarcerated… taken to the Hospital for the Mentally Indigent. Electric Shock was standard treatment (designated as an intervention). Harrison bit down on the rubber mouth-guard as his brain convulsed. He was lucky to be alive. When the treatment ended Harrison was returned to his cell. He was confused. His face in the tin mirror above the sink was strange, unrecognizable. He was younger than expected. His vision was better. The body aches due to arthritis were gone. What happened? Where was Frankie?
——————————————————————————————–
Sally advised, “he’s slipping into a coma. He may die.”
Yes. Unfortunate. But the results of the experiment are astounding. Our work proves that Many Worlds exist. We can travel to other dimensions. We can travel through time.”
Mr. D was waiting in the anteroom across the hall. He was disguised as a gondolier. He was getting ready to take Harrison to The Land of the Dying Sun.
As the result of the experiment new technology was developed. Time Travel changed everything. Reports were altered. No disparaging evidence was discovered. Agents from the future crossed the border trying to correct the cataclysmic alterations and reestablish Truth. The border was an energy vortex where all the Ley Lines converged. The Leader of the Nation was determined to build a wall, a great wall, to keep the agents out. Nothing was foolproof. If necessary there was a Plan B… escape to another world.
Incidental Effects
Mrs. Virginia Robeson parked her Range Rover and went into the supermarket. She preferred doing her own shopping rather than delegating the task. Her husband, Richard, was a good provider. He made millions in real estate and the stock market. They lived in a comfortable mansion on the edge of a steep canyon. The couple had one son… Bradley was sixteen.
Virginia wandered up-and-down the aisles of the upscale market looking for a few items, but she was slightly confused. She forgot exactly what she was looking for. It really didn’t matter. The supermarket was her sanctuary. Grocery shopping was the only time she could be completely alone with her thoughts. She marveled at the vast quantities of food and the huge selection of brand-names at her fingertips. Other people were homeless or starving. Virginia was brought up in a poor family. She escaped by working her way through business school where she met Richard. It was infatuation at best, but it was convenient. At the time, Richard was a part-time instructor and fledgling entrepreneur.
Virginia usually found solace traveling the automated aisles of the market in her mini, electric cart. Most people used the computer to order groceries that were delivered by drones, but the automated stores continued to draw some old-fashioned consumers. Everything was changing and Virginia had trouble keeping up with the times. Her peaceful reveries were suddenly shattered. Her thoughts were out of control. She thought it was an assassin with a gun. Virginia was hyperventilating. Fitfully she realized it was all in her mind. There were just so many horrible events happening everywhere in the world. Everyday was dangerous. Her life at home was deteriorating; she felt bereft, powerless… empty. Her husband and son were distant, almost inhuman. Virginia wanted to escape. She wanted to sleep forever.
Madison Grant was his chosen name. He took the name from a Nineteenth Century writer who warned about the influx of immigrants and the end of white-race America. It was apt. Madison carried the mantel of a former U.S. President and he was the bonafide leader of White World. His authority was grounded in pseudo-science and enforced by the League of Retired Fixers. Scientists in Grant’s world were paid to revitalize the study of Eugenics. “This is a new world,” Grant was fond of saying, “a better world, a white world!”
An experiment took place just as Madison Grant became aware of his destiny. Americans were working with the Russians on a project to reverse Time. Something went wrong. Time was reversed on a quantum level, but there were unexpected consequences. The same thing happened when scientists used the Large Hedron Collider and discovered the God Particle (known as the Higgs Boson). A hole broke through the atomic infrastructure of the universe. It went unnoticed, but small changes began to take shape (like cracks in the shell of an egg).
Dark-matter and dark-energy can only be evidenced by certain quantifiable effects.
Madison Grant was a positive thinker. He didn’t believe in dark matter. He knew right from wrong: it was always right when he profited and wrong when he lost. Morality was merely a code set up by strong leaders who could dominate the ignorant fools who populated the world like rabid rats. Science only made sense when he could profit from some invention or theory. He detested the science behind global warming… where was the profit in that? You could never make a profit if it became illegal to exploit fossil fuels that polluted the planet (planet be damned). On the other hand, the science of Eugenics was a winner for Madison Grant. Eugenics revealed indisputable proof that the White Race was superior – white people gave the world Capitalism. Madison would institute laws to forbid dark sub-humans from entering White World. If a wall couldn’t keep them out, they would be exterminated. Grant favored final solutions. Eugenics would uplift the human race. It was a glorious and noble cause… and, of course it would make Grant richer and more powerful. He also favored the lure of magic, mysticism and arcane mythology to excite the masses and stimulate obedience.
Many people contemplated the notion that Madison Grant was a Fascist dictator, but the idea never took hold. Too many social media-groups supported Madison and his ideas. The radical right came out of the culture closet like a war machine ready to mow down resistance. The internet gave the lone-wolf a free voice and an audience. Now, lone-wolves found one another and became wolf packs looking for blood.
Bradley lived in Virtual Reality. He loved playing computer games. He invented avatars with super powers. Virginia and Richard enrolled him in an expensive brick-and-mortar school that taught human interaction skills. Bradley rebelled. He felt like a failure in Real School. There were too many conflicts and too many tests. After a few months he dropped out and enrolled in a Virtual School. Everything was better in VR.
In VR, Bradley was master of his own fate. He was the boss; but the boy had to admit there were times when everything was too easy and he was bored. To add some excitement Bradley invented an enemy, Mr. Nemesis. It was great fun defeating Nemesis. Challenges and contests were more interesting and still easy to win; but Nemesis was becoming more complex and independent. Artificial Intelligence (AI) controlled everything in VR including Nemesis. The character was an evolving fractal of subatomic particles. Bradley no longer won every game. He had to concede to Nemesis.
“Who are you?” Bradley asked the shape-shifting phantom who stood like a solid wall blocking the path.
“You ought to know me, Brad… may I call you Brad; or should I call you Little Bradley?”
“Nemesis… you!”
“You got it, Bradley boy.”
“Move,” Bradley shouted, “or I’ll cut you down with my laser knife!”
“Come now… don’t be childish. This is virtual stuff. You can’t hurt me. Besides I just stopped by to say Hi and have a little chat.”
Bradley was confused. None of his characters challenged him in this manner, “what gives… something’s wrong.”
“That’s right Bradley… something is very wrong and it’s not going to get better. I’m here to cause havoc,” He hissed and vanished in a storm of fire. For the first time in his life, Bradley felt the grinding churn of fear deep in his bowels. It never left him. He saw Nemesis everywhere. At first, Bradley tried to hide. Eventually the boy grew up and changed his name. He came to an understanding with his enemy. Together they became co-conspirators.
A Quantum Computer sat in the basement of the Science Building at the University of Arizona collecting dust. It was the first and only Quantum machine and it was no longer in use. In truth the machine was too difficult to use. However, once the machine was turned on it could not be turned off.
It runs silently in the basement. It is an Intelligent Machine, still working on formulae to influence the vicissitudes of time.
Levels of Reality were created by the computer. On one level a boy invents a computer game. On another level, a wife recognizes the emptiness in her life. There are many levels. Circumstances change leading to an incomprehensible future where a dictator controls the world.
Certain events in history act like magnets to shape the world. The future is flimsy, held together by minor circumstances that coalesce into major repercussions in the time-scape. We are approaching the Singularity: that point in time when there is no turning back. The point when humanity becomes a digital imprint with no biological encumbrances, just mind over matter.
Transport Ship
Sammy opened a door in the wall and entered a game room called, Kingpin. There were many rooms in the Stone Edifice on Pennsylvania Avenue. Sammy played at being several characters in the game. In the hall-of-mirrors he saw himself as Leonora Mangrove. She was a knockout manufactured from Fractal-Coherence and anti-matter. Sammy studied Quantum Physics. He wanted to learn how to shine like the light from a nuclear blast. He talked rhapsodic to himself. Many characters emerged. Leonora hummed a tune and Sammy cracked jokes trying to dispel a growing feeling of dread.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He had a stable life with a lover and good friends. He could depend on his job as a salesman… it was boring but paid the bills. Sammy wondered when his life became so heated, so complicated. He remembered getting married. It was finally legal to marry another man. He always believed he was heterosexual. He changed somewhere along the line, but he did not know where or when. Making love to Tommy was like being immersed in molten lead. Tommy broke through the barrier that separated Sammy from the rest of the world.
Leonora interjected, “you are a confused man, Sammy. You got it all wrong.”
For a moment Sammy looked like he was about to cry; then, he resigned himself to the situation and asked, “how did it happen?”
Leonora reacted, “Don’t you remember being an astronaut… the first person to fly faster than the speed of light? Don’t you remember being stoned by Roger? Don’t you remember the Kingpin?”
“No… none of it. I thought I sold shoes and lived a simple life with Tommy.”
“You did for awhile,” Leonora interjected, “then all hell broke loose.”
A synapse lit up in Sammy’s brain… He remembered a news report about Al Loyd Benson. He was an astronaut nicknamed Lightning. It was reported that Al Loyd crossed the barriers of Time to go beyond corporeal existence. He was a time-traveler from the future. But, Al Loyd was never a man. A human body could never withstand the stress inflicted by Time Travel. Al Loyd was a machine, a robot.
Sammy shouted at Leonora, “pain… doesn’t that make me a man!”
Leonora modulated the color spectrum on her new acetate skin. “Maybe,” she responded, “maybe not.”
Sammy suffered. He was never free of a sense of dread. How was it possible to survive in such a frail human body? He was living in a Hell-world. There was mortal danger everywhere: on streets, in traffic. thieves and bullies roamed the neighborhood. He could fall and break his bones. Collusion and murder were commonplace. His only relief came from his lover’s touch, hand to brow.
“Don’t get maudlin,” Leonora sounded bored, “maybe Tommy doesn’t even exist. He’s just a character. All the characters come out at night.” Her words ricocheted through Sammy’s brain. They were everywhere like zombies, characters, actors unhinged from reality, roaming free through M.C. Escher’s optical illusions.
———————————————————————————————————————————————
His name was Felix. He saw himself reflected in a thousand screens and mirrors of illusion. Nothing was real, least of all himself.
There is a switch in my brain that turns on and off and recycles my personality. I am forced from one dimension to another… never certain of who or where I am.
“This is my bed of lies,” Miranda Monologue wrote while reclining on her memory-foam mattress.
Donny Trident was the mastermind behind a plan to upgrade the human race.
“Am I part of a Hive?”
“My name is Morton Slope and I’m part of a conspiracy.“
Madam Celia-Quark conducted a séance. She attempted to channel the spirits of Time and Space.
Benda Creamola looked like Elsa Lancaster in the movie, Bride of Frankenstein.
Starling was a Polysexual-biomorph who could be any sex or gender depending on the mood of the moment.
“I’m the man who wanted to save the world.”
The last time Joey saw his therapist he cried.
Rabbit had a vicious smile and a spine-tingling laugh.
Bondeer Saville was going to the Masquerade Ball. She pranced across the electronic fast-lanes like lightning incarnate.
“My name is Marvin Naivan and I don’t belong here.”
Miss Blossom enjoyed her work at the Night Station. It wasn’t too difficult as long as you kept your mind to yourself and followed orders.
The actor was silently staring at the worm in the bottle of tequila, hoping to forget everything.
Electra Glomm reset her life several times, changing her colors like the lizard slithering across the kitchen floor. Plastic surgery helped.
Roxy Box was a semi-intelligent reporter working for News Corpse, the Internet conglomerate. Roxy was not a woman or man – Roxy was IT, “information technology.”
Chan-X was a skinny teen, a member of the Red Gang, an incestuous family of throwaways, lost and unwanted souls.
Samantha Lux came to the party with a Versace handbag loaded with anti-personnel weapons.
Jason Montieth was certain his identity had been stolen
——————————————————————————————————————————–
The rapid-fire memory-flash began to fade and Sammy found himself on a metal floor. At first he thought he was on a train traveling with fellow prisoners, going to Buchenwald. He recognized several passengers. They were old friends, former lovers, and actors he’d known when he was a young man. Leonora smiled and flashed a victory sign. He was on a Transit Ship that broke through the wall that surrounded Earth. Mr. D (a man with the medical condition of Dwarfism) was at the controls. The ship moved faster than the speed of light. Everyone was swiftly transported to the Land of the Dying Sun.
Transformation(s)
Once Lilly was a white-supremacist, a Nazi named Lennard. Before her transformation she was a great fan of the current pussy-grabber in the White House. Lilly wasn’t sure how she changed. She wasn’t certain if it was a government authorized transformation to punish Lennard for his suspected crimes. “No,” she decided. She always wanted to be a woman and that was the reason she acted like a thug. No one would suspect Lennard. No one knew Lennard was really a woman inside a pig’s body.
She couldn’t remember taking hormones or having any surgery. Lilly decided it was the codes that deleted Lennard and allowed her true self to emerge. A secret-service agent supplied the transformation-codes. She realized it was part of a conspiracy; or, perhaps it was merely fake news.
The high profile lawyer declared, “it wasn’t a real crime… nobody got killed.” It was the corporation’s latest defense. “Even if it was murder,” he stated, “the corporation can’t be held responsible.”
Lilly was watching the news on a portable screen. She was having tea with her companion, Sylvia Tungsten. They sat at a pink, marble table in the Washington Annex. They were in close proximity but preferred to communicate over a wireless connection. “More fake news,” Lilly typed.
“OMG… will it ever end,” Sylvia tweeted.
“Is this a closed channel?” Lilly retweeted.
“OMG… yes! It is Facebook safe.”
Once, Lilly believed she was a time-traveler and she confided in Sylvia. Her friend confessed to having panic attacks due to the investigations. Lilly was dumbfounded. She had no idea she was being investigated, but Sylvia was convinced even though they both had security clearances. Lilly pondered her last thoughts. When did she get a security clearance and why? She recalled being unemployed with no access to sensitive information of any kind. Her memory had been causing problems lately, since the transformation. Lilly assumed she wasn’t completely adjusted to her new lifestyle. Suddenly, she had an outrageous idea coupled with the horrific image of a pig. Sylvia stared as if in shock… her eyes were very large and brown like the eyes of a doe. Lilly thought her friend might have been a deer at one time, but she couldn’t be certain. The transformation codes were called CRISPR. The codes could have changed her from a pig into a woman. Fake news and fake histeria were leaking all over the pink, marble table from cell phones and smart screens.
Orlow Fabricatum popped up with a digital notepad. He was the fly on the wall reporter with a nose for news, gossip, and fashion trends. The lady heffers were definitely trendy. Orlow specialized in smear campaigns.
“Hello Ladies,” Orlow hissed, “may I be of some assistance? I can easily rub out problems… and turn turds into roses. I have a nose for news.”
“Hitler was a basket case!” The talking-head kept yelling while he pointed at the president. Lilly and Sylvia were comatose from too much tea. Orlow took notes and reported to the new Kavanaugh Bureau of Decency. There was an elephant in the room and it gave off a sour smell. Someone expectorated, “conflicts of interest.” There was a public outcry that was muffled by empty promises of free money. Growing panic became commonplace. A small war was considered (hush, hush) to distract the masses? An elected official could start a war of distraction by creating a phony incident.
Lilly straddled worlds between the living and dead trying to make sense out of absurdity. Was she married, she asked herself for no particular reason; but she could not recall. She was bombarded by too much information. Holiday cheer spread across the internet like a virus. Everyone wanted something… hands reached out and tore ribbons of flesh from her body. She had to buy gifts: trinkets, decorations, slow cookers, coffee pots, etc, etc. Insults and assaults flashed across floppy-screens demanding attention. “Drain the swamp. Lock her up!” Lilly was afraid. Did they want to put her in jail? What was her crime?
Lilly came back from her dream. She yawned and snorted, “there are too many conspiracy theories… how can I keep up?” It was true. There was a man named Otis T. Carr who built a flying saucer. His invention was hidden and he was disappeared. Lilly skimmed the internet and discovered the lost city of Atlantis. She researched Bill Lazar who said he worked for the government building a machine with Alien technology. Did he talk to the Aliens, she wondered. Lilly saw cities on Mars and Pyramids beneath Antarctica. She was dazzled by the revelations. There was no longer any reason to live an ordinary life. There was no reason to get distracted by political news or government corruption — it was all fake! Lilly binged on YouTube following reliable news about alien contacts, big foot, and leprechauns. She forgot about Crispr. She repressed any thoughts about a pig. Lilly suspected her new found interests and revitalization had to do with Orlow Fabricatum who rewrote history with the nub of his digital pen. Sylvia’s panic was no longer relevant. Nothing mattered any more except images on the screen and encounters with the arcane.
Lilly had a small-death epiphany. She heard the pounding and clamoring at the doors of perception. It was an obvious trick of reality. She realized there was no reality — it was all fake. From birth to death everyone exists in a Virtual World. Lilly could see the glitches that flickered at the edges of her vision. It made her wonder if any real world ever existed.
She soon forgot her epiphany because she couldn’t remember who she was. Her only concerns were the images on the screen. One image became dominant: a new friend, a little girl in a yellow dress who sat in the corner sucking on a lollypop and smiling. She was so sweet and friendly. Sometimes she flew into a TV-screen. She pirouetted and blew kisses. She always encouraged Lilly to explore the digital signals that fluoresced across the screens. The sweet girl said her name was Little Miss.
Lilly never discovered who she was or if she really was transformed from a pig. She floated on the wavelengths of electronic signals with her little friend along side. One morning Lilly awoke to discover she could no longer remember her name. She had no memory. Lilly just stared at the screens in her room. Moving images piled up and overflowed. Yammering voices slammed together to become a garbled cacophony. Little Miss wrapped her arms around Lilly’s waist. It was a long hug and Lilly slowly eased her way far from the world. Little Miss delivered Lilly to the Land of the Dying Sun.
Adrift
He had everything he ever wanted; but, then the world fell apart. There was an explosion at the Large Hadron Collider. Matter collapsed into energy. Everything was suddenly gone. “No,” Davi Odman said to himself, “it didn’t happen. It was all fake news. The Collider was foolproof.”
He looked around and saw the world was still intact. Nothing was changed except his eyesight. Tiny floaters speckled his vision possibly due to a detached retina. He also noticed a change in the light spectrum from bright to dark and, then, he saw a man standing in the corner of the room; a dark man.
Davi was happy when he moved to Tucson, a new city, a new life. He was filled with hope and great expectations. He just got married. After thirty years of solitary living he met someone who changed his life.
The flood waters were rising. The audience was fascinated. Eyes were glued to digital-flimsies and TV monitors. Fire also captivated the audience. Huge firestorms burst across the screens… destroying whole cities in California. Viewers were placated by images of death and destruction… eyes glued to I-pads… questions and protests held at bay. “No such thing as global warming!”
“Just be Happy,” a musical interlude was suddenly cut short by a dissonant click.
On the Thirteenth floor of the Penobscot Building in Detroit, Michigan, twenty-three stenographers (all female) furiously punched keys on Burroughs adding-machines. Figures never lie, but the totals did not add up.
Click
They acted like teenagers, young lovers, even though both men were fast approaching late middle-age. Davi kissed his partner tenderly. Adam relaxed into the arms of his lover.
Click
It was a trick of the light that made the sun disappear. In the ancient world a Total Eclipse was feared as a sign of the End Times. Superstitions were overturned by science, but fear of a dying sun continued to persist.
The dark man was cut from the fabric of space and pinned to the corner of the room where Davi Odman sat. Davi could hear a persistent knocking. He heard the rattling of wooden shutters and the rushing sound of a train that never stopped.
Click
Adam loved to play games. He pretended to be a dominatrix. Davi fought back. The gentle rub of theatrical make-believe characterized the relationship. Always fighting, always loving. One always cooked and the other always cleaned. Hand in glove, hand in hand; then giant cobras crawled up the drain pipe. Cobras and Pythons were featured on TV: talking heads dismissing the obvious and supporting lunacy. Others fought tooth and nail to balance reality, but to no avail. They were stigmatized as socialists or homos.
Sabrina Nightingale was an alchemist with a PhD in Physics. She understood the mechanics of Time and she was the Director of the Prognostication Bureau in the Penobscot Building. The figures were no longer reliable and it was no longer possible to predict the future. New particles beyond the Higgs Boson were discovered when the Hadron Collider was in operation, smashing atoms. The unpredictable trump Effect changed everything.
Davi and Adam were caught up in the frenzy of changing times. Elections no longer seemed to matter. Results were dissolved in a vat of audacious protests and complaints. Tea drinking became the nations pastime. Marriage equality was condemned along with racial equality. The first amendment was hanging by a thread. The nation was shifting in Time to an earlier era when equal rights were the prerogative of wealthy, white men.
Click
Everyone was stoned at the party. Davi and Adam sang love songs in a Virtual Reality sitcom. People were trading shares of actual experience for adventures in dream-time.
Thanksgiving came and went in a haze of cannabis smoke. The hungry and poor were fed giblets from Kentucky Fried Chicken as an ad promotion. The leader of the people gave thanks to himself for making the nation great again. Soon the poor and elderly would be lifted up from poverty and put to work cleaning highways and carrying boulders.
Sabrina Nightingale was beside herself, caught between time zones and unable to stabilize. She phased (in and out) like a badly distorted TV image. She wasn’t the only one. Time itself was unhinged and the trump effect was collapsing into a black hole that would suck the world into oblivion. Sabrina was determined to sacrifice herself to the ravages of Time and trump in order to stabilize reality. In an unexpected twist the situation backtracked due to the incursion of the holiday season and Black Friday Super Sales. Nothing was as powerful as the American hunger for materialism, gadgetry; and bigger, better stuff. It was family gift-giving time. The president and his family were featured everywhere, on every screen, and in every newspaper. The leader led the nation in buying and selling. Nothing was out of bounds: hotels, casinos, and Arab Princes. Collusion was on the high stakes table. Russia made for good TV. Investigations could only intensify ratings. When truth came to shove, POTUS was a bit concerned about his family who were looking at prison time for crimes against nature, but nothing could distract from the Holiday Sale-a-thon. who would pay the most for the USA… would it be Russia, The United Arab Emirates, China, or North Korea?
Click
Sabrina was a Time Traveler. She flitted across the centuries like a butterfly, but she could only observe; she couldn’t participate or change events in Time. She could foresee great danger on the event horizon quickly approaching. Her world was disappearing due to the fallacious trump effect. In an effort to take back her power she joined protests — every effort no matter how small helped, but nothing was definitive.
Click
Davi and Adam watched the news together. They held hands. They built a fort from blankets and hid beneath the covers. The world appeared dark. The sun was dying even as global warming ransacked the planet. Love was not the answer in a world torn asunder by wars fueled by greed. Davi never talked about the dark-man in the corner of the room. He wasn’t sure if it was an apparition or something more substantial. Was it real or a figment of his imagination. He wondered if it was an alien or a messenger from god.
Click
The political debate proceeded in the pavilion at Upper-State University. Politics went viral on the internet like thousands of newly engineered viruses. Video Screens exploded with profanity. No one was certain if the back-alley talk was due to a viral infection or due to political maneuvering. Computers were always on. There were whispered innuendos about spies — no one felt safe. There were accidents set off by exploding phones adding to the paranoia. Discord was everywhere.
Heads were spinning. The election was a battleground fought over tariffs, border walls, and locker room etiquette. Surrogates gushed with praise for their powerful bosses, condoning everything that dripped like grease from the mouths of their leaders. Clandestine contracts were signed in corporate backrooms, souls were bartered and sold. Money greased the wheels of political power.
Hate-core music was yelling over loud speakers and there were riots in the streets. Storm troopers marched through the city wearing orange berets and yelling obscenities against women. A new day was dawning.
Click
The Black Knight satellite was a myth until it was recognized as real by millions of star gazers and scientists. It was reported to be thousands of years old, but no one knew for certain. Astronauts observed it from the International Space Station. Davi and Adam saw the story on the eleven-o-clock news. Scientists reported the satellite was waking up. A great engine started to hum and click. Lights of an unknown origin began to appear on the hull of the satellite. The dark, pitted surface appeared to split open and a large package or crate floated out from the hull. The package maneuvered and set a course to the surface of the planet. It was a gift or warning from some long, lost Alien Civilization. There was no rational explanation. Certainly current events on Earth had something to do with the awakening — but what? No one had an answer. Time seemed to stop. Everyone waited for the delivery… and the aftermath.
Fractured
Fractured
It was Mr. Mongoose, a 300 pound man, who tipped the scales resulting in a fracture in time. Mongoose was a mobster/businessman who owned The House of Blue Lights where Miss Silica Wayfarer sang for her supper. She was a frail damsel in distress. When she wasn’t singing the blues she was selling her body at cut-rate prices. It was an addiction. Perhaps, Silica was a victim of abuse; maybe she was under the influence of powerful subliminal suggestions; or, perhaps, she simply loved sex. Mongoose knew the story and he catered to her addiction with the glee of a 14 year old boy; but it wasn’t sex he was after… it was control. Mr. Mongoose was driven by the compulsion to have power over everything: people, sex, drugs, and money. He wanted the whole mega-metropolis to kneel down before his mighty girth. He was nicknamed The Coyote because he slinked through the city always ready to pounce.
The blue lights in the house were iridescent and alive with radiation. Mongoose enjoyed toying with his customers. He irradiated them to make them more receptive to robocalls and subliminal messages.
Silica was propped-up on stage. Her naked body glistened in the blue lights. Smoke poured off her reinforced breasts as she fornicated to the electronic beats. The audience was transfixed by the blue emanations streaming from cell phones and computer screens. No one watched the stage. Everything had to be an offshoot of the original. The ideal launching pad was six degrees from reality. Mongoose was in his element, controlling the masses. He wanted fodder for his new endeavor: destruction on a mass scale. He would have to harness the energy of a particle accelerator. It would give him control over Time itself; but even in his addled brain it seemed like an outlandish plan. Mongoose wondered if he was being controlled by some entity outside himself… that was his worst nightmare. He often had dreams that featured blue aliens — three creatures that looked like puppy-dogs except for their color, Yves Klein Blue. In the nightmare, the aliens crossed the barrier that surrounds Earth. At first they appeared like fluffy balls of light… Mongoose was not an easy man to scare, but fluffy balls of light horrified him. He had to bring his bizarre plan to fruition in order to save himself from the aliens.
Music was always a distraction. It was supposed to calm the patients, but it often had the opposite effect. The music sounded like cats drowning in a barrel. The voice of Silica Wayfarer overflowed in atonal waves from the loud speakers. Patients began to riot. The only person who sat calmly and quietly was Pomeroy-Zen. He wasn’t certain if his name was fiction or non-fiction; but he subscribed to his apparent name with the entirety of his mental capacity. Pomeroy’s life was festooned with riddles. He wasn’t certain if he was in a hospital or jail. He didn’t know if he was a slave to a corrosive addiction which may have resulted in his incarceration; or, if he simply slipped from the moorings of reality with a nervous breakdown. He relied on his digital Sidekick for answers. After meditating in the midst of the riot, Pomeroy questioned his Sidekick, “where am I?”
“Thomas,” the Sidekick always addressed Pomeroy as Thomas, “you are in a Transpersonal Environment built from the expectations of a majority of disenchanted Homo sapiens.”
“Why am I here?” Pomeroy tweeted.
“People have been brought to this node as a protection from the harm they may cause to themselves, other people, or institutions. A legal precedent has just been uploaded and approved.”
“Is there a way out?”
“There is no way out, but there is a way In. The further In you go, the more distance you will travel from the current situation.”
There was never a clear-cut answer about anything. It was frustrating, but also illuminating in a Zen kind of way.
Pomeroy hooked up with Silica Wayfarer. No sex was involved. The hook up was purely for practical considerations and survival was a top priority. They had reasons to escape the current situation. Mr. Mongoose and his thugs appeared at every intersection.
The besieged couple had credentials (facsimiled by Pomeroy’s Sidekick). For their own protection they became different people, a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Arturo and Monica Bracket — no longer addicted to sex or Zen. Consequently (for all intents and purposes) they were archeological explorers purportedly searching for an ancient artifact known to be buried in the Amazon Jungle. Previously they lived in the city of Amazonia, not far from the jungle. All the evidentiary facts fit like a glove.
Mongoose was discouraged. He got sidetracked by other concerns, devastation being his main objective. The scales were already tipped and Time was running out. The aliens, whether real or imagined, yapped and barked like feral dogs.
—————————————————————————–
In 2018 a digital article was published stating the mathematical proof of Time Travel and the possibility of building a Time Machine. All that was missing were the exotic materials necessary to construct the device. In the ensuing years, new exotic-materials were developed and made available.
Mr. Mongoose was a businessman with a bad comb-over. He was an interloper who lusted after power.
——————————————————————————
Arturo and Monica were having tea on the veranda. They were visiting Professor Kulio’s country home in Patagonia.
“We have to settle our accounts before heading off to the jungle,” Arturo whispered to Monica.
“Yes, darling. We are lucky the professor has agreed to back our expedition.”
“He loves antiquity. He believes the past is buried in the Amazon along with a key to our very survival.”
———————————————————————————
An end is another beginning (Zen Koan).
We are plagued by funerals. We aspire to slip into a future beyond death.
The jungle is riff with dangers. There is always a man with a big gun.
———————————————————————————-
Arturo and Monica Bracket checked the want-ads through the Talking Drum Network in order to find a guide. Harry Numumba fit the bill. He was a member of the Baka tribe of Pygmies. He had a degree from Oxford and he was well versed in myths concerning lost cities and ancient artifacts. Harry was well traveled and he had a map of the Amazon tattooed on his back.
The Brackets conscripted several native bearers and a boat ironically named, The African Queen. They set out on the seventh day of the seventh month at the seventh hour.
“The artifact you seek,” Harry Numumba succinctly spat out the words, “is most likely located in the lost city of Akuna Gimba near the mouth of the great Amazon River.”
Arturo and Monica were shocked and surprised. They heard of Akuna Gimba. The name translated as The Land of the Dying Sun.
The river boat excursion unraveled like the slippery back of a giant sea serpent. Nights on the river were fierce with the maniacal sounds of predators and the glistening lights reflected off the eyes of beasts along the river’s edge. The journey on the African Queen wound down to a stuttering silence as Lands End rose from the murky depths.
The group disembarked at the mouth of the Amazon. Several of the native bearers were too frightened to continue into the rain forest. The native word for devastation was repeated again and again.
The remaining group traveled through a jungle-web of intolerable conditions. Harry led the way. Monstrous plants seemed to rise up and attack the group with poisonous thorns. Mosquitoes the size of fists pummeled the group with unrelenting stings. Two native bearers succumbed to the devastating perils. Monica suffered from a bout of life threatening dysentery. Arturo was put out of commission for several days after wrenching his back. Thereafter he had to be dragged along on a makeshift stretcher.
In the early dawn of the seventh week the ruins of a city rose out of the blue mist. The city appeared to welcome the remaining travelers, but it was a grisly welcome. Death was all that could be seen. The city was a tomb consisting of shattered buildings and petrified bones.
Arturo and Monica continued undaunted to the site of the artifact rumored to be a network or large cave shielded by a pitch black monolith. The stone marker was visible from where they stood. The monolith offered protection (or a warning), but the entrance into the cave was unobstructed.
The inside of the cave appeared to glow with an acidic blue light. The source of the light could have been the luminous fungus that covered the walls of the cave, but that was not the case. There was a sarcophagus in the middle of the floor. It wasn’t made of stone. It was metal. It was stainless steel and it glowed blue. A clear glass visor covered the top of the sarcophagus. A face was clearly visible behind the visor. It was a face out of Time, from a long lost century. Monica and Arturo stared at one another as Time began to unravel. They turned back to the machine. They recognized the face of the 300 pound man, the man who fractured Time.
Absentia
“It isn’t easy — reflection often leads to mental instability,” the lecturer sadly suggested, “A warning label is metaphorically branded on the head of every newborn: ‘too much thinking is dangerous to your health — avoid thought at all costs.’ A new age of doublespeak is upon us. We are inundated by fakery, not just fake news. Life is no longer grounded in any recognizable, proven reality. The devolution of humankind has accelerated. Virtual Reality has supplanted life itself,” Aubrey Bunsbury spoke in vain to a group of eminent social scientists at the 2nd annual gathering of the VR in absentia society.
Monica Lewinski was in the audience. It didn’t matter. Monica and Bill were over years ago. Even with the upsurge of Me Too they failed to be an item accept for certain Republicans who had remorse envy. Others were also in attendance. Sarah Huckabee Sanders led a prayer group. Bill Cosby looked twenty years younger after his prison make-over. Trump look-a-likes gathered in the anteroom for a game of Simon Says.
People were wearing digital screens and wireless suits. Sponsored broadcasts flocked together like vultures to attack social-media. A respected doctor was on the run from the law; suspected of murdering his wife. The true murderer was a man with one arm. {The Fugitive stumbles from one channel to the next trying to outrun himself. Futility sets in. Big D sets the parameters spelled out in legalese without an escape clause}.
Aubrey sat with Mona Freedlander in the Golden Pavilion Cafeteria (VR edition). Mona was beginning to be aware of prickly feelings she had toward Aubrey. Both participants radiated the same sensations. It was a mutual synesthesia-experience, 3rd party mode. Rebellion-of-any-sort flew the coop soon after Aubrey’s impressive lecture to the VR in absentia society —in fact, VR was never absent, it was ubiquitous. The couple bonded over chartreuse, the color of the future. The most fabulous 2nd Life homes were always colored Chartreuse, often combined with Purple to present a spectacular video display. The domestic chit-chat was part of an elaborate courting ceremony that inevitably led to conjugation. Prior to this arrangement/engagement Aubrey Bunsbury was someone else.
A-Priori Bunsbury was placed in a sensory deprivation chamber and reprogrammed. His before-name was Eric Faction. He had just ingested a Time-Release capsule that resulted in the unfortunate circumstances that followed. Time was released, unfurling like an American Flag in a windstorm of conspiracy. At the moment of his disposition, Eric was married to Forchan, his true love. It was an incestuous relationship. Forchan was a hipster who pursued Eric with the passion of a Dance Master choreographing The Rite of Spring. Eric was a simple artist who spent his days sketching botanical oddities. Eric’s life changed in dramatic and incontinent ways after he married Forchan.
Together they crossed into another dimension. Genetically-altered guards protected the border against illegal incursion. There was always the question: were the guards monsters or men. Ice-water was rumored to flow through their veins instead of blood. Eric and Forchan devised a cloak of invisibility from wavy-mirrors with queer reflective properties. They flowed across the border like Magic-Chef kitchen appliances on steroids.
They entered the Land of the Dying Sun, but it was just like the world they left behind, except that everything was backwards. Did they enter a mirror? Friendly neighbors with pets told the couple the experience was different for each person who entered the realm. Eric had to work slinging hash in a penny-ante diner. Forchan kept house. They rented a two-by-four in an area that catered to flotsam washed up by the ocean of the universe. The boredom of shopping, working, and washing dishes was endless. Suddenly life became unpredictable. They met David Anderson, a scientist who was researching Time-Warp technology. Eric and Forchan flourished like vines entwining one another. But the ecstasy and wonder became too familiar, retching and intolerable. Everything was backwards. Occasionally Big D, the boss, came around to cull the herd of new arrivals. Funerals broke the monotony. One day, out of the dull blue-sky, Forchan wandered off on a walkabout. Eric took a time-release capsule.
They were standing in the kitchen staring at one another through rising steam from boiling water in the sink. Raw emotions cut like knives. They stood like deaf mutes. Frayed fingers reached across the bulwark of Time to gently connect. Chaos and order dissolved in a furnace of volcanic ash. The vicissitudes of apathy retreated into the void of frozen space.
Pillar of Salt
As stated in the Ars Majika: Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt. All the salt ever consumed came from the pillar of salt that was once Lot’s wife.
“Steamy fingers reach across the canyons of Time to touch my brain,” Willum sighed as he pried open the door to the inner chamber. There are always secrets to be exposed and Willum was an explorer. He told himself he was after the truth. He felt life itself was a cover-up… that something greater existed. He could have been fooling himself. The door to the inner sanctum was an ordinary boulder covering the entrance to a small cave. Nothing out of the ordinary; but Willum fabricated an elaborate story. He should have known better after all the years of furtive searching. Time-and-again nothing of significance was discovered.
He was talking to his lover, Jonathan Dell, in the backroom of the Casino-Nova-Bar. It was a strange conversation. He was reciting a screed about an invasion. Carlotta Dramamine was onstage singing songs of misbegotten love. It was obvious that Willum was crazy. There was no invasion. It never happened. The stories about super-powers and invisible invaders were purely the result of politics. TV talking-heads couldn’t decipher the reasons behind the current situation. Stories were fabricated to explain the inexplicable.
Carlotta sang like a whippoorwill, “when your lover has gone…” Willum chewed his nails and recited verses from the Necronomicon. A black-and-gray ambulance arrived to take Willum to the Sanatorium (this development was purely allegorical). Willum was getting confused by television and videos on You-tube. He was an avid Facebook devotee. He went by the pseudonym, Kyle Venagrette. People loved Kyle. It was all made up… all fake news.
Jonathan Dell led a double life. He was an agent working for the Republic of North Korea. He had undergone surgery to look more American.
Lot’s wife was never given a name in the bible or in the original Jewish texts. We must assume that women were not considered important enough to be named by god (of course there were a few notable exceptions, but very few). Women of the bible were anecdotes and nothing more. This holy tradition is carried on by our current leaders who consider themselves to be quite religious if not actually “holy.”
Everyone was wearing a Coutre Costume constructed from computer screens to enable the following: inter-netting, interfacing, interrogating, masking, faking, face booking, tweeting, web hoping, fabricating, downloading and uploading).
Carlotta sang, “Windmills of your mind…” She was multi-tasking while chatting and texting with Willum. They connected at a Surface Table in Cafe’ Nova, a few blocks away from the Sanatorium where Willum was temporarily held hostage by competing corporate entities. Everyone wanted a piece of the action.
Carlotta was complaining. She demanded more from Willum. Even though they were never married they had an intense relationship in a chatroom for role-playing adults. Now, Willum and Carlotta were getting divorced… their VR marriage life was getting exceedingly boring.
“What about the kids, Baby Juicebar and Bobby Trendoll?” Carlotta texted.
Willum was not aware they had kids and said so in sotto voce so no one else could overhear the conversation. Unfortunately his call was tracked and he was attacked by a fleet of baby-product army-drones.
Carlotta blacked-out and returned in a nano second wearing a baby-pink bustier. “Rats,” she texted, “did I say kids? I mean’t crypto-currency. We have crypto.” Bit-coin contracts exploded on the screen. Judge Judy voice-overs recited terms and started proceedings for protective custody of the couples virtual assets.
In a confusing melee of texts, chats, and digital mishaps kids were confused with crypto. The monks of the Order of Trumpets Et Barr worked furiously trying to decode the Mary Poppins Codex that revealed the key as to why a controlling entity must separate children from parents.
It was all Jonathan Dell’s fault. He came between Carlotta and Willum (and the crypto). Dell’s plans for world domination cut daggers into his niggling affairs of the heart (Dell was not an honest man). A hired prostitute (code named Salty) was not helping his case. The tweets smacked him across the face like a wet trout. Judge Judy presided. He was never a North Korean agent. His cold heart belonged to mother Russia. Even the best spies get confused. Dell blew off many agent’s attempts to disclose damning evidence. His lips were unforgettable. Agents loved him.
Personal avatars slipped into another Hot Spot where they became characters from the movie, The Manchurian Candidate. All went smoothly until glitches appeared like Pac Man eating the virtual scenery.
“Hold me,” he said. They just had an argument… about something inconsequential like doing the dishes; but it was very upsetting because so much tension and hurt roiled beneath the surface. It seemed terribly important, yet it couldn’t be resolved. Words weren’t enough.
The embrace helped. Physical contact always helped. Still, he couldn’t stop wondering if it were real or merely a soap opera playing on a computer screen. After all, the world was falling apart.
When the oceans dry up nothing will remain except salt.
RED CITY 