Doc’s Goodbye

Now we are in the Late Late Show studio of fading images. Only with Allbright’s infrared specs can we see the apparitions: shadows who have flickered across the box. - Some perhaps more dead than alive. Old lags such as R. Moore and J. Nicholson still hanging in there I see. Danker and Der Springer sadly gone to the other side.

A word should go to the Doc’s family and friends; the guys from Splinder, ESP Luci; awkward customers like Maldodor. The Shiekh I see has come in disguise naturally but you can’t fool the doc with those old Foster Grants. Here’s to the BB girls, Hadja, O, Felice you were my muses once. A special thanks to Kola, too I will not forget those thousand and one nights, nor will the General come to that!

The world may still be run by erseholes, Sharkhunter. I know Childe Harold is itching to qualify that. Well, we’ve got the c***s, Harold. - At least here in the box. We’ve nailed them on the head and stuck them in their coffins. They can only come back as Vamps.

Whilst we are on the subject. - I see Mart has mislaid his rizlas, well they’re under the seat, Mart – behind you. - We can, since we are all, are we not, actors in this Empire drama, choose to put a stop to the spin. - Go about the tough, awkward biz of negotiating for the peas on the plate. Even if it might well take more than just a couple of hard-nosed New York lawyers to button up the Elders and stop the Sheikh’s more trigger happy friends from tearing each other’s throats in some splatter-day Homeboy vid. -

There’s nothing much else to say. Except, there’s a tub full of champagne in ice out the back. And some eats. - Foccaccia courtesy of the aunts. Though I would not touch the quiche, Aunt Lorraine always skimps on the eggs. Afterwards there’s lemon cake. By all means go for the lemon cake. - That’s made by Mum.

P.S. Bill Burroughs is whispering in my ear to try some of that yage. Personally I think I’ll just stick – along with the Sheikh - to the qat.

Da Brigand

Da band ha’ brung guitar and drum
Dis music be for change
Da carbine make dis music dread
Wake up da woods,
Down south dey ready for da fight
Brigand deal in lead.
Da honkey eat our child
Rape our wild
Dis ting he done not right
Pretty wimmin bring da chill
Da brigand you would to save
Hallow be his grave
For da honkey dat make war have no pity
Man born brigand die brigand
So-till da end we go on, play dis ditty
And if da brigand die put a flower
Strike da blow
For freedom an power

(Adapted from the Lucanian)

Songs and cricket

Butch chuckles away.

The jihadists look merely confused since none of them have ever heard of “Pinnocchio” or “Giappetto” until Thierry reminds them of the Walt Disney cartoon featuring you know the cricket…

Eyes light up. The Karachi contingent brandish their bats; Imran as Khalid Four is known whips out the red leather.

Butch cries:

Have mercy on us! Not that incomprehensible game of yours!

What about those incomprehensible jokes of yours! Or for that matter your incomprehensible songs!

What is wrong with my songs!

Nothing is wrong with your songs only we do not understand them!

It is true, Butch says, more chortling than chuckling. My dialect is incomprehensible even to myself. Anyway, what about a rousing song?

The faces of the boys do not look happy at the prospect of Butch launching into a one of his – to quote unquote - rousing songs.

Butch, frankly, we would rather you put us the fire.

Yes, Butch, frankly we would rather listen to the Mullah’s sermon.

Enough is enough, boys! (Speaking is the Beeston boy – self-appointed arbiter of their affairs)

Hey Jamaica! - as Khalid Seven is known to his brothers – what about that reggae ting you done of Butch’s?

Jamaica shrugs disconsolately.

Man, we got no dubs.

Man, what about doing it as a toast?

Jamaica frowns with attitude, pushes back his dreads.

A Weapon of Mass Destruction

“He who pulls the strings
cioé – the puppet master –

As if by way of explanation, Butch is bending the ears of Khalids Thirteen and Nine (Eleven appears to be kipping on Nine’s shoulder).

“One day the puppet master decides he’s had enough of his show. He’s fed up with going in hospitals to make kids laugh, he’s fed up with queuing for the ticket.”

Butch breaks off ostensibly to explain the ticket in Italian hospitals, but ends up venting his spleen against Italian bureaucrats and so-called Italian “e-comunisti” (As if the wind is blowing in from Polenta). Qat chewers nodding away for they see no reason why anyone should have to pay for qat. (A thousand thank yous to the most generous of Sheikhs LeBooty.)

“ One by one, the puppet master puts them on the fire. Punch, Judy, Harlequin. When he comes to Pinocchio, Pinocchio holds up his hand.

Giappetto, he sez. Wait! Don’t throw me on the fire. What are you doing?

I am going away to fight. Fighting is no place for a puppet.

Pinnocchio says:

Giappetto, I swear I make a good soldier.

Giappetto laughs when he sees Pinocchio’s nose extending with this pork pie.

Pinnocchio, sez Giappetto, you can never make a soldier. You are just an old piece of wooden junk. You’ve been around so long, no one gives a flying fuck about your stupid education etc or whether you are Catholic or not.

Giappetto, sez Pinnocchio, I have an idea! - You can turn my nose into a weapon. Fashion it for war.

Why, Pinnocchio, you are right, sez the Puppet Master. Every time you tell a lie, we make a new weapon of mass destruction.

Hand of God (?)

Nursing his gourd of mate, Thierry is telling for the umpteenth time how he and Butch managed to thwart the attack of the one-armed bandit.

“There we were, caught between a rock and a hard place, we did not fancy our chances.”

“Not a donkey in hell’s chance, what with all those bullets pinging around us.”

The camera swivels round to where Butch sits, pipe in hand, like some amiable lawyer at the hearth.

Thierry goes on:

“In point of fact, we were taken as much by surprise as the Mullah there.”

The camera swivels round to where Mad Mullah Mustafa lies, like Cacofonix at the end of every Asterix, tongue tied and bound.

That damn Mullah, says Khalid Twelve – a.k.a. the Beeston boy. Better keep his clap shut, or they going to fix him damn good.

Everyone is nodding in agreement. The Mullah certainly got his comeuppance.

Flashback of the Mullah looking up into a shaft of blinding light

He cries out

As the AK47 is ripped from his hands.

“To quote Maradona, must’ve been the hand of God.”

Thierry passes on the gourd to Khalid Two who places his lips tentatively over the bombilla.

A discussion breaks out.

Where indeed did the shaft come from? – Was it friendly Pledeians or that aforementioned Klingon ship lurking on the dark side of moon come to check up on earthling weapon technology?

The improbable deus ex machina has the jihadistas scratching their heads at the mysterious ways of – as Butch puts it - He who pulls the strings.

Obi One

Hovering above the heads of the Cato Masked Interviewer and Sarah D, the jihadi seem to glow like Jeddi round the campfire. All it would take is for Obi One to complete the magic circle.

Child Poltergeist

Just when you woz thinking everything had turned to fuzz, a picture flashes across your screen… has the Parasite analysts running around for their equipment. The Geiger counter in the hands of Dieterling starts going off the wall at the voice of a child trapped inside an echoing scream. A hologram of the Jihad Boot Camp is being projected down into the Late Late Show Studio. Dieterling figures, then, it must be the child poltergeist who was watching the tunes. -

Postcard Bricolage

Some days later, she read, with tears in her eyes:

Perhaps it is the fault of my style – this postcard bricolage. In memory’s striving and telegraphing of events – the inheritance, too, of a certain kind of temperament. The cumulative effect appears so much defter and at times more dramatic than what actually occurs, whilst rendering the self more solid, less airy – no longer plagued by daily preoccupations and distractions.

If the writing occludes and negates so much of the above, in part this must be, too, the effect of retrospective judgement. - In the revisions of memory where we are the actors, words may tie us – bind us but they also bring us to unexpected places - something other – much more curious than we intend. Alas one can only have faith with the project – the search – this burrowing – excavation of the past – and that somehow something will be revealed in as much as what is not written as re-written.

Flying Away

To a rumbling chorus of Flying Away he bought the ticket with the old Costa Rican passport Carlos’d given him. When he reached departures, he changed his mind and put the postcard in the letterbox.

Projectors

First Projected Voice: Where are we?

Second Projected Voice: Wherever you want, you git. – We made it. – A week back, don’t you remember? It was dark outside. The seconds were ticking by. I said to you, I said:

Well, mate, you ready for some light? – You said: Don’t we need electricity for that. Give off, I said. We can make it ourselves. You said: don’t be stupid. You can’t get any light in here without a few batteries. I said: crank it up, mate. You’re the practical one.

First Projected Voice: It’s coming back to me.

Second Projected Voice: What took you so long?

First Projected Voice: It’s true. I forget sometimes.

Pause.

Second Projected Voice: Well then…

First Projected Voice: Well what?

Second Projected Voice: Got any ideas? – Sunshine, you still asleep.

First Projected Voice: Was having this nice, nice dream.

Second Projected Voice: -

First Projected Voice: I saw the sea…The sea everywhere.

Second Projected Voice: Sounds fascinating.

First Projected Voice: Wait a minute. I saw something else.

Second Projected Voice: Oh, prey what was that? A man from Mars, a dog in a manger – a crib sheet being read by an old crow – a hot air balloon swept along in the currents of primal wind. -

First Projected Voice: I saw a sheep on the horizon.

Second Projected Voice: A sheep. Can we all go back to sleep?

First Projected Voice: It was just a ship. You know. Couldn’t make it out very well.

Second Projected Voice: Oh, come on! You can do better than that. – Embellish.

First Projected Voice: Okay then. – (He starts to describe the ship) – Well, she had a white sail. Three sails, in fact. – She was one of them old ships with a forecourt. People said stern and daft.

Second Projected Voice: Aft?

First Projected Voice: I said daft, eejit.

Second Projected Voice: What happen’d then?

First Projected Voice: There was a storm. – A big one. Thunder, lightning. – A shot across its bows. The mast came down. The ship spun round and round. – Like they were in a whirlpool. They were tossed up, thrown down

Second Projected Voice: Were there any survivors?

First Projected Voice: Dragging their feet, gasping - sucking in air. –

Second Projected Voice: As if born again. –

First Projected Voice: Yes, as if coming into the world for the first time. –

Second Projected Voice: I like it. - A miracle! – A bathtub idea! You and Archimedes!

First Projected Voice: Why, don’t you believe it?

Pause.

Second Projected Voice: I said I like it.

First Projected Voice: You don’t believe it.

Second Projected Voice: Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that. Just I don’t know what we can do with it.

First Projected Voice: You’re crap.

Second Projected Voice: Okay, okay. – I admit. – I have my cynical streak. – I can’t get my head around it. – Anyway, special effects were never exactly my forte.

First Projected Voice: Well at least you can give us the speech. - The one about those shipwrecked baboons?

Second Projected Voice: There isn’t any time for that. It’s the endgame, Kuli Yuga.

First Projected Voice: It is?

Second Projected Voice: Yes. The light’s going out over Europe. Only one village holds out.

First Projected Voice: I knew it, the airports are closed again.

Voices off (2)

Voice off 1: They just got Alvarez.

Voice off 2: They did.

Voice off 1: Yes, in a salad bar. One shot to the head.

Voice off 2: Funny, I did not have Alvarez down as a salad man.

Voice off 1: Guess he was green. - What about the Frenchie?

Voice off 2: Got away with his cat.

Voice off 1: He did, the solitary sensualist! No one invited him to the party.


Back at the Parasite End of World Party, Dieterling and Longfellow appear in Roman togas; the puffed figures of Miss St Clair and Adele Wallace can be made out behind a veiled curtain. The Monkhouse does a double take - morphing from Whistleblower back to Swiftian projector.

First Projected Voice: Looks so small from here. – Can’t make head nor tail of it.

Second Projected Voice: Well, what do you expect. It’s just a box.

Doctor Destinus

The Monkhouse pulls off his jacket to reveal a soccer shirt (colours of AC Milan). He whips a whistle from his sleeve.

(Just had time to scoop up the cat before they broke down the door.)

“Telegram from Doctor Destinus.”

“Who is Doctor Destinus?”

“A dead microbiologist.”

Blue bottle and Spike in unison:

Not another dead microbiologist!

Monkhouse:

He was the 49th to die. After Mr Im. Mr Im suffered a cardiac arrest whilst eating pot noodles on a Singapore flight one September morning.

Blue bottle and Spike in unison:

A poor Mr Im!
What has it got to do with ‘im!

Rumour Has Its

Walking up to the Mike, jangling his pockets, which are full of loose change, the Monkhouse unleashes the scattergun of rumour-has-its:

(1) Dick Cheney was seen chatting up a Haggis on Burns Night.

(2) Nancy Allbright just slipped into the office cupboard with Dieterling.

(Cut to Allbright: scowling)

(3) Tony Blair has been keeping prosthesis of his rictus grin in Doctor Dino’s medicine chest. Doctor Dino is seriously worried now that Tony is having retirement hoisted upon him.

(4) Nancy just found out Dieterling wears a toupee.

(Cut to Dieterling: looking awkward)

(5) A jet-packer was seen flying over the city of Angels. The Angelinos have been busy tattooing the fellow to their forearms. Homeboy sez “dem Angelinos is full of shit, man”

(6) Dieterling just found out Nancy is not wearing a brassiere.

(Allbright: scowling. Dieterling: awkward)

Voices off

Voice off 1: Where are they now?

Voice off 2: Coming in through the back and up the fire escape.

Voice off 1: The Frenchman doesn’t have much time…

There are tears in his eyes, a sepia curtain of sentimentality, which is not particularly French or Henri Claude.


Voice off 1: What about Alvarez?

Voice off 2: On his way to the safe house. There’s a tail in his wing mirror. –

Voice off 1: They are out to get him, too.

Angry God

On the postcard is written in bold type:

An angry God has put a stop to love and intimacy.

The Sheikh wants to bring back on Ghost of Allen. Those party-poopers at Parasite will have none of it. A gagging order has come out from a by now extremely raucous Allbright – Longfellow assures him it must be the yage. Allbright would like to consign to the bin of history all those dead beats still bleating against the light.

The Sheikh shrugs.

It’s the final curtain call for the devil may care comedian of the BB. Before you start slow hand clapping here's a warm round of applause for the peerless coiner of one liners, surreal quips and Roger Like double entendres.

The Monkhouse runs on stage in the grip of a trademark panic attack:

I thought I seen a policeman. But, no, it was just a cat in the alley screeching for his mummy.

The Girl from Impanema

The Girl from Impanema wafts in from the back of the building; he lies slumped in the corner. The postcard peeps from under the empty bottle of Aux Vins de France.


Professors Hex and Horn rip off their duck disguises; the Sheikh shuffles on stage to explain. The Delaneys who were on the bill have been held up at Heathrow. Knowing, from personal experience, how much the Gentlemen in X-ray Specs do enjoy handling the luggage, the Sheikh looks round for the standby crew, but it appears that Big Daddy Lawman are playing down at Otium where they do look forward to Mr Stanton’s rendition of All Along the Watchtower.

Gentlemen in Duck Suits

(The following can viewed as a series of inter-cutting scenes only with access to the BB programme.)

Someone must’ve put something in the punch i.e. surely not some of that there hallucinogen William B. was on about a second ago, nor that vile mix of mushrooms and Darjeeling he remembers from his ill-spent youth… Before him, as if from a box in the Palladium, stand two gentlemen in duck suits:

First Gent in Duck Suit: Ladies and gentlemen,

Second Gent in Duck Suit: Masters and mistresses –

First Gent in Duck Suit: For your delectation and edification

Colonel Della Chiesa

Jonathan: Sez who?

Sharkhunter: I have it on the good authority of Colonel Della Chiesa of the Italian met.

Jonathan: Della Chiesa! Surely you realise he is with Razzi’s boys.

Sharkhunter: You are saying nothing new. Click here for the Italian Met’s predictions.

The Knightrider Chatroom is inundated with dire warnings from Northern Italian bloggers. Includes a wild rampage from The Wind of Polenta. (A self-confessed dietrolologist (Translator’s note, erse-ologist) the Wind of Polenta blows over the tenuous links between Razzi, Camorra, Christian Democrats from the first Yalta, and the uniform boys of the Italian Met.)

Meanwhile at The Parasite Convention of Altered States a drug veteran (not Ken Russell) is winding down:

“Of all the drugs I have experimented with it is the yage plant of the Amazon for which I still retain a certain affection…”

Re Jane’s Prediction (2)

Jabba writes:

You must be kidding! The year of the pig will be a year fraught with danger. Expect things to come to a head in the ninth month.

Jonathan writes:

Says my pregnant wife!

Jabba writes:

Two plus seven equals nine. Do the math, Jonathan.

Jonathan writes:

As usual, Jabba, you find yourself in fine company on the loony fringes of Armageddon.

Jabba writes:

Jonathan, you find yourself in fine company on the extreme front of Berkeley illusion. I for one am just beginning to feel a tad scared. Click here for the erratic weather patterns. They are no invention of your holographic universe!

Sharkhunter writes:

For once I agree with Jabba. Those hurricanes were not predicted.

Re Jane’s Prediction

With Jonesy and Fraser on an annoying loop (must be Homeboy sampling):

Don’t panic! We’re all doomed!

The BB editors would like to point out:

They accept no responsibility for the above worst case scenario. To the best of their knowledge, there is no worst case scenario although they note some rather unusual sunspot activity has been earmarked for later this year.

A numerologist with dangerous predilections in his Trotsky glasses would also like to point out re Jane’s prediction:

If one looks at the dates, the key date according to the Mayan calendar is 2012, so that gives us 5 years i.e. I825 days to put our affairs in order.

Nostrodamus adds:

Bin there, Laden that.

Jane’s Worst Case Scenario (2)

Mushroom clouds balloon in memory’s eye
Negatives of nuclear physicists in protective helmets and goggles
Somewhere on an island in the Pacific
Shrivel and burn over a cheesy soundtrack featuring fellow Alzheimer sufferers, Dame Thatcher and Ronald Holding the Ray Gun

The Captain tries to keep his stiff upper lip; pandemonium breaks out in the ranks. Jonesy flaps up and down, calling:

Don’t panic! Don’t panic!

In the process knocks off the Captain’s reading glasses. -

The Scottish brogue of Private Fraser booms:

We’re all doomed. – Doomed!

Pike whispers to Wilson:

Can I use the Tommy gun now, Uncle Arthur?

Jane’s Worst Case Scenario

Jane analysts outline the following worst case scenario:

(1) The Fifth Army, under General Alexander, is on war games around the oil fields of Babylon.

(2) The Mullahs, under a burst of infective, begin to sling their mud scuds in the direction of the Infidel (surely Macedonian) phalanxes.

(3) Stormtrooper chuckles from his Sherman tank:

Technology is uncountable, erseholes!

(4) George W’s finger twitches over the red button

(5) Tom Cruise leaves a hush-hush meeting with the higher echelons at Scientology HQ.

(6) Orders are telegram-sammed to Warmington on Sea where Captain Mannering fumbles for his reading glasses.

It appears to be official.
The Mars Attack is Imminent.

Eyebrow Movements at I o’clock (3)

Cato Masked Interviewer: Finally, what will be the impact if they do, as it appears, develop weapons of mass destruction?

FPU man: (Eyebrow movements at 3 min 45 and counting)… perhaps if I could refer you to Jane’s Worst Case Scenario.

Eyebrow Movements at 1 o’clock (2)

Cato Masked Interviewer: The question on everyone’s lips is there still time for a diplomatic solution?

FPU man: Well…(Eyebrow movements at 2 min 30 and counting)

Eyebrow Movements at I o’clock

Returning to the Late Late Show studio where a man from the FPU (Foreign Policy Unit) is exercising the heavy use of his eyebrows.

Cato Masked Interviewer: You would have to agree their rhetoric is extremely belligerent.

FPU man: (Eyebrow movements at I o’clock and counting) It is indeed extremely belligerent!

Duck Prophecy (3)

I saw the elders in the circles begin to choose, some in the first direction, others in the other, until all had made the choice, and while I could not understand why any would choose the first, I knew that Creator had a reason for the choice. Then all at once I saw the very fabric of the illusion multiply into two, not as one and a new one, but two old ones that were close together. They merged and the rules of creation changed, where each could manifest their destiny according to their chosen intent, with a single thought...And once again they split into two, the two illusions mirroring the events of the smoke shapes. I stood in a lodge in the second illusion, as I had chosen, with the other elders that had done the same. The Duck slowly looked at us all once more, and flew off... We stepped out of the lodge to see a bright sky full of fiery horses thundering across the sky, and riding all upon them were the Spirits of those who had thought they were sick or dying, each flaming with energy and health so intense, that the sun grew brighter from their energy as they passed...and as we listened above the sound of our own joyous hearts, we could plainly hear their voices sounding like children reborn, as they flew overhead ... and laughed...

This is as I saw it, this is as it was. This is as I, will dream it to be...

- Mitakuye dysasin ... nake nula waun -

Duck Prophecy (2)

In the other smoke was a planet of plenty and Spirit where its peoples created all they needed as easily as thinking it, where creation was honored and life within illusion was recognized as a step, not a destination. The animals had voices and the people heard and understood their wisdom, and the Spirits of those who had left the illusion gave wisdom to those still within. In this illusion the trappings of time were recognized as simple reminders to live to the fullest, and they held no fear for those there. Again the Duck spoke. "If you would live in the first world, you have only to continue as you are. The prophesied times are upon you, and you have chosen to dream this lesson into your world... But, if you would live in the second world, you have only to rechoose your dream. Once chosen, it will change the path of the prophesies, and your intent in every action will create the new illusion..."

Duck Prophecy

Then I saw the elders sitting in the circles of the world, saying "what must we do to stop the suffering?" and into their circles the Duck flew to rest on the centerpole of the lodge. Many said "It is the Duck, great mystery is upon us", while others said "It is the Duck, disaster is near", and while still others said "It is the Duck, someone will be plucked from the illusion"... Then the Duck spoke, and as he did the smoke in the lodges began to churn and become two, side by side pictures of what was to come. "I am the Duck, the watcher of all dreams, and I have a message. Both of these paths are possible, but only one will be chosen"...In the smoke shapes formed events, on one side was the decimation of a planet and its peoples...Wars fought with clubs and sticks and even humans feasting on others as all other food became tainted with the foulness of wars. Disease and pain were rampant, as was cruelty and suffering...

Call My Bluff (3)

Campbell: Extraordinary, Frank! You are asking us to believe that it was a duck. - The voice of a duck.

Muir: To give it its Latin name, Bullockhornis.

F. Amiss (Deadpan): The Demon Duck of Doom.

Campbell (Eyes wide shut): The Demon Duck of Doom in the black box of the God, Pachi Pichiu! Extraordinary!

Muir (Patiently): Patrick, if you will allow me to arrive at the denouement of my story.

Dream contagious

The dream was somehow contagious, it buffered me from all my senses.
It drew me headlong -


I saw the horses that carried the souls of those who thought they were sick and dying ride into the clouds their tails streaming behind them...and as they began to touch the darkness beyond the clouds their tails and manes became as brilliant multicolored fire, with their hoofbeats becoming a deafening roar...then I heard the laughter of the children they had once been rise above the sounds...and they called "look, oh brothers and sisters, truly the weight of the illusion is lifted from us"...and the ramuda of lights became so many as to not be countable, streaking across the heavens so brightly that even the sun could not dim their brightness...

Student v. Professor

From The Black Box Notes: On Dream Derive-ing.

The student (it could have been me) asked the professor once:

Why do we dream?

The professor, who was not only a learned man but also a fully qualified doctor, did not wish to bore everyone rigid.

We dream, he said, because the dream is more real.

The student, however, was not happy with this answer.

Professor, I asked the question, why do we dream?

The Professor, who was growing impatient, said:

Why do you ask me the same question?

Surely if the dream was more real, said the student, we would live it all the time.

Bravo! snapped the Professor. It is a question of survival!

Then we dream for our survival?

The Professor turned his back and did not answer.

Terminator’s Eye

To my surprise, there was someone in a mask peering over the commando’s shoulder.

I think she should be informed, I heard. There is a hole.

The commando looked at his watch.

We must hurry, he said.

The man in the mask seemed to agree.


I watched – in kind of morbid fascination – as the robot came towards me.

It stopped, and the arm extended out of the miniature scaffolding of a Macarno set.

On the end of the arm was what I am tempted to describe as the eye of the Terminator.


I had been persuaded as much by their dress as the Terminator eye itself. They were going to have to excavate.

When the pain came down, as though the arm had suddenly and yet quite deliberately ripped something from inside me, I thought:

It must be my stomach! - That is where the hole is.

Commando

The man, who was dressed in black naturally, just like my Milk Tray ad, and wore a beret slanted across his face, spoke to me.

Sorry, he said, there is no time.

What is happening? Am I in danger?

If he began to explain, I could not hear. Above the noise and confusion – where exactly was that coming from - I called to the commando again.

What danger?

Mountainside

I was dreaming again, only this time in colour of a mountainside. Or if not of a mountain, a hill with a precipitous incline. – The dream took me down to one of those sly little crevices where you expect to see a trapped goat being coaxed by a young shepherd boy. – Only it was me.

Then, like in the Milk Tray chocolate ad (why do I remember that in black and white) - I saw him, a faint figure, on the side of the hill abseiling down.

The question occurred to me:

Has there been an accident?

Third Conditional

Finally, in some difficulty, I managed to sit down; I remember I turned my head slowly. - Slowly turning my head to look at the flowers – there was an insect hovering, I found I could not remember their names.

Why could I not remember their names? – Had I not seen them all my life? Did I not have them named to me when I was little? Did I not use to call them out in Grandma’s garden?

What are they? - Those flowers?

The question would have sunk me had not remembered what the doctors had said. And how could I not fail to adhere to the wise words of the doctors?

Zero Conditional

I felt not only weak at the knees, but also in my bones. My bones felt as though they were about to crack.

My bones were about to crack. And what was even more alarming, suddenly, the distance between me at the top of the white dress and the ground seemed to grow.

I saw there was a bench, just off the path to my left.

A problem, which seems to involve a zero conditional:

How do I get from the path to the bench?

First Conditional

Pleased at my mental agility, they had showed me some pictures and asked me to tell a story.

Could I please make it cohere?

“One day the girl in the white dress went for a walk along the path…between the flowerbeds.

They had told her to use a first conditional. If you are not careful, you will lose your balance and fall.”

Mixed Conditional

I remember they’d told me the name of this place.
Leith Park.

They said

“You have been asleep a long time.
Things will not be easy.”

They had given me various language tests. For example, please combine the above two sentences into a mixed conditional.

i.e. if I had been asleep, things would not be easy.

Birdsong

When I awoke, I was standing on the path, between the flowerbeds, in a white dress that came down to my ankles. The sun was just hitting my eyes as I looked up at the trees and caught the birdsong.

Call My Bluff (2)

Muir continuing:

“Fernando Rey, as I am sure Patrick will know, was part of the delegation sent by Francisco Pizarro to deal with the unfortunate Inca king.

“The journal of Fernando Rey testifies to his presence at the court of Atawallpah where he learnt of a black box belonging to the God Pachi Pichui. Fernando Rey, overcome with curiosity and thinking there was treasure in the box, crept into the guarded room where the black box was kept. -”

A loud guffaw emanates from Captain Campbell’s corner.

Muir (Regarding his opponent with wry amusement): Patrick, I see you are having difficulty in containing yourself but if you will kindly wait for the denouement of my story.

Campbell: Frank, I am – we all are waiting with bated breath to know where this extraordinary pack of lies is heading.

Muir proceeds:

The journal of Fernando testifies to his trepidation on the point of opening the box. He talks of being struck down by a bright light. In the shadow of the light a voice spoke to him. -”

Call My Bluff

A Black Box as summarised by Robert Robinson is

(a) a record of communication i.e. between pilot and ground control
(b) an instrument of prestige and illusion
(c) a message from the Gods
(d) a simple lacquer table ornament
(e) the process – baffling to the layman - between input and output in quantum theory calculations.


For definition © Frank Muir takes over with a rather entertaining description of the last days of Atawallpah and the founding father of Thierry’s old school… Fernando Rey.

“Fernand-o - ”

Muir looks across at his opponent, P. Campbell who purses his lips in mockery.

Undeterred, Muir continues:

“Rey, spelt with a “j” but pronounced “por qué”, and not to be confused with the rays worn by Martin in my honourable opponent’s team. -”

Seventies Quiz

Kola: Doc, you are not going to believe this. They have cut to what looks like a Seventies Quiz. - Everyone’s wearing bow ties. And, besides, there is a rather young looking F. Amiss on the panel.

Doc: In the cord jacket and cowboy boots?

Kola: How did you guess!

Cyber Hunters (2)

Doc: Have they killed anything?

Kola: Not yet. It appears they are looking for something more than just simulation.

Doc: It makes sense. They have to satisfy their wunderlust. An idea has just occurred to me.

Kola: What?

Doc (Stage whispers): She is on the Lockjaw ranch. –

Kola: Who?

Doc: The Coma Girl.

Kola: How do you know that?

Doc: Mount Pleasant. – I seen it in photos. Besides, only real Texans will know.

Jabba cuts in:

Jonathan! Someone, help me! What has this got to do with Lockjaw?

Doc (As if hearing the voice of Jabba in his ear): Jon Lockjaw is an old buddy of Rev Hopkins. They regularly hold séances to contact the Springer Wraith. That is, he, the Reverend. Clarence Speakes, too.

Jabba: It is a relief to know there is after all a connection!

Cyber Hunting

A brilliant game devised by Texan hunter/rancher John Lockjaw.

Summary:

The game consists in sitting at home, looking through video camera at deer or other wild animal that has been confined in the Lockjaw ranch. Taking aim with mouse and pressing key shoots carbine in said ranch, thus killing said animal.

J Bond ( with S. Connery brogue) says:

“ Better than hot toddy”

Francisco Scaramanga says:

“Ideal for those in search of virtual adventure.”

Captain America says:

“Just the ticket to while away those boring Sunday afternoons.”

The Cyber Hunters

Doc (Practically epileptic at Kola in charge of the wraparounds): What is going on?

Kola: Looks like an ad… in Gameboy Weekly.

Doc: I knew it! The Cyber Hunters!

Return of the Horseman (2)

By way of explanation he spoke of the great unsettlement of the previous century - the world wars, genocide and persecution. The escalation of conflict has stirred their bloodlust, he said. There are those in your world who believe that the only way to appease them is through sacrifice.

Sacrifice?

Yes, there is a belief that they can be manipulated through the breaking of taboos and what greater taboo could there be other than human sacrifice.

Return of the Horseman

On the horse they rode with fear at their back. She huddled down behind the rider.

He rode with a sense of urgency.

The horse galloped on through the desolate landscape.

Before them was the mountain that rose out of the hills.

They began to climb one of the hills that lay below the mountain. They rode along a path that twisted and turned among the rocks.

When they were in the heights of the hill, she thought of an angry God stirring through the chill wind of the looming mountain.

They came to a stream that was broken by the rocks, and went down in steadily smaller - almost defeated channels.

The rider pulled up.

They cannot reach us here, he said. You can rest.

She stepped off the horse; the rider remained in the saddle.

She sat down on a rock.

Before she was rested, he began to speak again, as if he had heard the question that was forming in her mind without her phrasing it.

“If they are not of your world, it is true to say they are ever present. They exist in a-causal time. You do not see them but they surround you. - In the words of your mystics as above as below. If they remain hidden, sometimes they may leave signs in your world. Appearing in your skies in their ships. Or flying in humanoid form above your cities. If their purposes remain mysterious to you and your kind, their time is coming again.”

School of Laputa

The Monkhouse places horse and rider on Vallee mountain.

What could it all mean?

F. Amiss looks around for help. Apparently oblivious to the surreal exhibition of objects he is being invited to interpret, the other judges only have eyes for the silky skills of the Soho barman demonstrating how to make the perfect latte.

Only Sarah D who is keenly paying attention has cottoned onto what the Monkhouse is up to with his Harpo gag. As if the poor judge has been caught up in one of the more stifling debates at the school of Laputa.

I.e. between a Swiftian projector and a dumb Foucaultian:

Is it a question of mots for choses or choses for mots?

Longest Word

Meanwhile on the Latte Show (surely some mistake, ed) the Monkhouse has just proposed to write a poem for F. Amiss.


F. Amiss: So what is the longest word in the poem?
Monkhouse (Mouthing): A-va-la-n-che
F. Amiss (Patiently): What are you rhyming it with?
Monkhouse (Mouthing again): Mou-.

F. Amiss (Truly baffled, his eyebrows barely flicker): -

Wishing to be of help, the Monkhouse runs off set to return with a huge back of tricks, which he dumps at the feet of the confused judge.

His bag of tricks include:

A Cindy doll in a hospital bed
Besides a patient Craxman
A well thumbed copy of Interpretation of Dreams
And a clay model of the mountain that looks uncannily like the one used in the set of Close Encounters where Ufologist, Jacques Vallee meets the friendly Pledeians.

F. Amiss: Mountain…?

Readers Queries (8)

From the Borges Community of Montevideo to the rider gallant:

How would you describe your ficciónes?

Rider gallant: Surely they mean the writer errant?

From the Smart blog of Comatose Survivors:

Why do you continue to torture your Muses?

Writer errant: Surely it is they who are torturing me?

Her Name Was O

Kola (Peering over the writer’s shoulder, reads):

I myself do not have any confession to make unless it comes from the story I wrote many years ago of the girl, her name was O, who was transported by the ill wind of my malevolence into the cavern where the creature was waiting.

At first she was becalmed, for the creature did not appear to want to harm her, nor even acknowledge her presence until, from some inscrutable purpose of its own, her mind was seized and filled with ghastly visions. The creature seemed to take a perverse delight in the outlandish extremities of her suffering. When she began to rebel, the creature did not relent. It remained impassive towards her pain. - After many hours – perhaps days of torture, O found herself again in the hotel at Innsmouth under the shadow of an inexorable terror.

Blind Tiresias

Doc screeches with neurosis like of a sudden blind Tiresias staggering under the weight of new jugs:

What is going on?

Kola: Nothing. It’s gone blank.

Doc: It has. Those bastards!

Kola: Wait!

Doc: You see something.

Kola: Just a writer in a room. - Got his back to us.

Doc: One of those secretive types. Anyway, what’s he got to say for himself?

In flagrante

Evokes more of that time in the dormitories, where hands grope in the darkness, and his friend Raul flaunts a cheekily lit orifice… Everyone is laughing themselves sick at the fireworks! Raul, you cogno!

Amid those trigger-happy cries and chuckles over comic, springing beds… cocks and pillow feathers fly through the night air. – Postering walls with experimental ejaculations. The lights are on at the window, the priests and their proteges in the corridors, waiting to catch Thierry or one of his companions in flagrante.

Mouse Anatole

What he would give now for some cheese!

It reminds him of the mouse Anatole in one of those quirky fantasies drawn from the picture book of childhood memory.

Thierry smiles at the thought, remembering how Anatole sneaks into the cheese factory where the big cats (for which read Razzi’s breed) are sleeping. – There, he braves the long whiskers and stretching paws for a piece of holey (for which read spiritual) Emmental and melting Roquefort. –

Garibaldi biscuits

With these thoughts hanging over the pinging bullets, Thierry has a gnawing flashback to school and biscuits. Those Garibaldian numbers that were chewed in the dinner hall of the Jesuits, as a kind of special treat… only minus the cheese, since cheese was strictly forbidden. – The Jesuits in their role as Keepers of the Regimen convinced that cheese was bad for you, since, in no particular order, it clogs young arteries, provokes cholesterol and leads to the cardinal sins of idleness and masturbation.

Red Shirts

Butch nudges Thierry - jumps history. Cutting from Lucanii and Romans to brigands (must also be our exemplars, and strength) and back to the days of Garibaldi and his thousand strong red shirts… For which there may, too, be a thread for Thierry – the ultimate sticking place of impossible causes…

Lucanii

Butch puts it simply – romantically enough.

“We must be like the wolves of old,” he tells Thierry. – And in so doing draws an analogy with his beloved Lucania.

What is Lucania you may well ask if not for Butch some kind of fantastic Arden?

Falls under the protection of the ancient Lucanii whose very ghosts stir in the howling wolves, talking trees, fairies and little people, brigands good and bad. - The Lucanii understand were the last tribe to be subjugated and brought under the Pax Romana. They hid themselves away in the woods and left the filthy Reichers to flounder around like Sherwood’s men. – If it wasn’t coincidentally for the Lucanii chilli sausage the Romans would never have been able to march, would have been damned with eternal constipation.

The Imperium

T’was no doubt this sorry tale of the chastened young nation that pushed Butch down the path of deep hatred for the Imperium.

Having observed and analysed the Imperium at close quarters for well nigh three decades, Thierry knows; the Imperium is like a Many Armed Boxer shadowing every move they made. To wit, it brings to the party its own subtle feints and shades in the battle to capture and propagandise meaning. By which Thierry means not only the machinations of the familiar military industrial complex but also the academic and media erratic world that act through censorship and the subtler self-censorship to cover the tracks of the guilty Imperium…

But what of his own guilt ridden tracks? - Thierry smarts at sundry recollections of botched revolution.

Playing lip service to all the pitiful hopes of the cause libre. (For my mistakes I will hold up my hand, and if I erred on the side of the chickens in Nicaragua…)

Globetrotting in the name of duck freedoms. (We got it badly wrong in Angola).

Licking wounds between handjobs ( Saddam’s Scud War) until he fools himself to strike again. – As if the best lack conviction. Only he knows how foolish he has been, Butch, how abandoned to his own vices (interpret wine and cheer how you will)

And if in the long, drawn out analysis, slow defeat of the body politic… we may discern a chink of light here in the Burning Wells of Babylon. The Imperium may finally be over-reaching, if not exactly collapsing. Its failure and weakness converging in the melting pot of pure greed (for which read Halliburton, SpringerCorp and the whole sick capital bandwagon) …

Sensing his irony, Butch exhorts Thierry:

“We may not share the same values, Thierry, or even agree on the minimum standards of human decency but we know how these boys are feeling.”

New Yalta

“In point of fact, we are the victims, Thierry. The sacrificial goats.”

“We will be left to stew in our own still soup. Simmering for forty years in what the textbooks will glibly call Low Level Global War all for the benefit of some grand strategic plan cooked up by the ghosts of Churchill and Stalin at the New Yalta.”

“The Imperium, Thierry!”

“May curses reign down on it!

The Anglo Saxons

“… died a famished prisoner of war.

Like all poor, dumb Italians of his generation, he was fooled into fighting for the Duce in his madcap desert war.... Just as the Duce was in turn fooled by the Anglo Saxons.” – The thesis being that the double dealing Anglo Saxons (and why not the Jutes ho ho) pushed the oil-less* Duce into the hands of the mad Adolf Razzi. ‘nother gag Thierry only half appreciates, but one of those sweet ironies of the moment, which he readily does.

“For if we were fooled once, we shall be fooled again,
Destined to play out in some kind of eternal return,
To lose once again Abyssinia, Greece…
To witness Razzi like droids take over and new Duces hung.”

*Appears to be an allusion from the Italian, perhaps lost in translation. A man without oil for bread is considered to be very much down on his luck.

El Alamein

“My father, God rest his soul, emptied his tank at El Alamein…

Shoeless Boy

“In little less than a decade my family lost everything, Thierry.

… I myself was a shoeless boy made to sleep with dogs and farmer’s boys .

Fragment of Epic Roman

Fragment of Epic
Roman
Slips out
Of the baroque bordello
Of the Box
Like a Dali Clock:

Butch, by his own admission, is an unusual case study of a jihadi in the making.

“If you will allow the hand of the Dali clock to tug the whiskers and turn back to the days when Grandydaddy walks the walk with the Duce and fascism was sitting pretty with Socialist ideals. It is true, whatever the revisionists say, that it happens like this – peasants singing lustily in the fields, the Leaderine helping with the hay in a very literal way by annexing the lands of the rich and giving them away. It had for us a very real meaning, Thierry. The Duce was felt by all “la roba genuine” i.e. the real mackoy, until his own ego intransigence takes root, black shirts click heels and stamp out the hope sprouting in our very shoots.

Ars Retorica

Crunch time in the ars retorica:

What makes a man do the choices he has done? As if Butch and Thierry having forged their friendship can really say why they are hanging there by a thread? What obduracy in their souls made them march to the beat of a different drum?

Defenceless Rocks

Whoever it is is not exactly playing by the Queensberry rules. On the ground, as bullets fly around them, jihadists call to each other from behind their defenceless rocks.

Khalid, you okay, old boy!

The rocks reply:

Nothing doing, old boy! I am being pinged to death!

It would hurt much less if they could picture themselves in some kind of play station of sporting Gods v wanton boys. Indeedy, if only the situation could all be defused with such quick and easy humour!

Pinned down behind one of these defenceless rock creatures, and squeezed against Butch’s wide frame, Thierry feels very much as if caught between said rock and hard place.

Jihad Under Fire

News just in on the Reuters ticker tape:

The Jihad Boot Camp is under fire.

Someone we feel is going to have to put a restraining order on those ex-generals, who are spinning around like Daleks in front of the telex. Everyone is in a state of high anxiety. The PM and cabinet have been advised; fire brigade, and Yorkshire coalminers put on national alert. Expecting an influx of patients any minute, doctors everywhere are high fingering their stethoscopes and running through their emergency protocols. Doctor Dino struggles to keep pace with the demands on his medicine chest. Where in God’s name is the Prilosec?

At Parasite the remote viewers have been inundated with long shots and wild calls. Tasso is stuck with a screeching demon in his left earlobe. Dante and Gregorius have been blown out by a Kamikaze Trojan. Adele Wallace has lapsed into trance. Miss St Clair leans over with a Japanese fan as used by the more discerning pumpawallas in remote Himalyan outposts of the British Empire. For she says the brain must not be allowed to overheat. The channels must be kept open. Through all this the bloggers are standing firm. Why, even Sharkhunter has given up texting Hoarfrost and is glued, along with Jonathan and Jabba, to the giant plasma screen of prepounding theories and counter theories:

Is it finally Mars attacking?
Old Friendly and the double crossing SIS?

Or some kind of rogue element i.e. the Soccer Team that no one in a million years could’ve been expecting.

Old Friendly

Sarah D’s Notes in Margin:

L. Butcher, I Stanton and Paul Little Flowers come in on chorus.
Monkhouse with ax.

"Chop-chop at the door
And the hatchet
Chips the timber, splits the door
There in his storm trooper’s hat
Old Friendly
Looks down at my cat

I know it’s no use to inquire,
Old Friendly’s just dropped by
To make you a fire

He’s gonna make you a real friendly fire

He chops up the door
He piles up the wood
In the middle of the floor
He chucks on the stripper
He takes out his Zippo -"

Ghost of Allen throws a look across
At F. Amiss whose eyebrow hangs over a flaming spliff.

To chuckles Allen goes on

"The fire runs up the curtains
And so does my cat
It takes out the settee
My favourite poster
Of Mohammed (Wait a beat)Ali

Now my house is burning
Down at the bar
Old Friendly
Takes off his Storm-trooper Hat
He sits with his pals
Over a few friendly jars"

Band raise pints to Old Friendly.

Amid wild clapping and hooting,

Monkhouse swipes spliff

And runs off to leave F Amiss

Holding ax

in eyebrow shaping confusion.

Lady of Honour

I came to salute my lady of honour
She was married to a Southern
Gentleman, John Bradley O’Connor

John Bradley fought in the dirty war
And I was his victim
One of the fools
Knocking at his mansion door

Oh, how can you say the General
Has been laid to rest
When the doctor found the poison
In the flower we laid on the mound
For all those men who gave up their
Very best

Oh, doctor, general under ground
And John Bradley O’Connor
I came to salute my lady of honour

She was married to a southern
Gentleman, John Bradley O’Connor

John Bradley was a fixer, a raider,
A two timing, low down traitor
He sold us to the Sunni boys
He rode off with the dictator’s toys

Now I’m sitting here in a county gaol
On account of John Bradley
Lying beyond the pale

I came to salute my Lady of Honour
But not that no good cheat,
That son of a Moustache Pete
John Bradley O’Connor

Who robbed me of my Lady of Honour

If I was an A-rab

Would I fight for my country?
Would I fight for my home?

Is it worth all the trouble?
Would I pick up the rubble?

Would I fight for the butcher?
Would I welcome the thief?

Would I stand on the touch line
with the cheerleader-in-chief?

If I was an A-rab

Would I do what has to be done?
Would I send my wife into the street?
Would I put my child in a cell?
Would I lay down my weapons
at Caesar’s feet?

If I was an A-rab

Would I welcome the thief?
Would I fight for the butcher?

Would I stand on the touch line
with the cheerleader–in-chief?


Sarah D’s Notes in Margin:


Childe Harold claps and taps his feet
Prods F. Amiss
Still occupied with tricky biz
of rolling spliff one-handed
Ghost of Allen grins slyly
As Big Daddy Lawman emerge from background with banjos and harmonicas for:

Untitled (2)

Sarah D’s Notes in Margin:

Ghost of Allen comes over all enigmatic for this Nick Drake-ish number:


The man by the bar
On a stool
With his guitar

The man by the bar
With his hands
Over the strings
Of his guitar

And his mind so far

Know that he loves her
Know that he doesn’t care

The man with the
Guitar so rare

And his mind so far

He is the clown and the parasite
He is the shadow and the dream
Of all the things that lie
Behind what we seem

He sings the song
Of his life almost finished

Know that he loves her
Know that he doesn’t care

On her wedding night

Thought she was dead
On her wedding night

And the stars were not
So bright

On her wedding night

I took her to bed
On her wedding night

She threw up
I fell down

I looked up
She looked down

I got up
She fell down

Me too drunk
And she too proud

And I think I’m
Coming round

She threw up
On her wedding night

When the stars were not
So bright

And I keep thinking of her
On her wedding night

Sarah D's notes in margin:

During song Jeanette comes on, like Hiccuping Queen of Hearts; Monkhouse lurches around drunkenly with Lou Costello tick. Childe Harold grins from ear to ear.

Old Man Texas

Old Man Texas
Thought he was a western
He wore a holy Stetson

Old Man Texas
Shot the ceiling
Plastered my feelings
To the floor

Old Man Texas
Dug his heels

Old Man Texas
Used my wagon
For his twisted deals

Old Man Texas
Dumped his trash
Old Man Texas
Trashed our tower
For the needle and
The Power

Old Man Texas put nineteen
Arab boys
In the hearse

Old Man Texas went to war
For his purse

Old Man Texas
Hit the ceiling
Gagged on the floor

Old Man Texas
Left me reeling
At all his stealing

Now he sticks in his ranch
Waving an olive branch

Old Man Texas
Reads the baseball scores
In between a round of fours

Sarah D’s notes in margin:

Half way through song, Monkhouse kicks heels, drags Jeanette kicking and screaming onto dance floor for reel.

The Wild Org

Back in the Late Late Show Studio:

Sarah D: Now this is rather exciting! Ghost of Allen has brought along the Wild Org.

Cato Masked Interviewer (Masking surprise): He has.

Ring-side:

Judges standing around, for the most part looking foolish with the honourable exception of F. Amiss who is reaching for the stash in the heel of his shoe, as Ghost of Allen hasards a few notes on the Wild Org.

Sarah D. (Voice Off): Simon, we are in for a rare treat! Ghost of Allen is going to sing!

Hollering and foot stomping to the Wild Org, Ghost of Allen breaks into:

Footnote to 49th Edition

Ghost of Allen on I-scream:

Howl!

Jeanette on Jack-in-a-box:

Why not Jane?

Monkhouse over her shoulder:

Got two erseholes.

Footnote to the 49th edition:

The origins of this quibble are obscure. The nether regions of the Jack-in-a-box do not appear in the Folio version.


Childe Harolde on Twin Tower:

C****

Ghost of Allen on Capt. Corelli:
Let me play!

Jeanette on Icecream:

My favourite!

F. Amiss:

Heavy duty eyebrow action to all except Pascal’s Triangle, which merely elicits “Hm”.

The chin scratching Monkhouse comes up with alternative titles i.e. the Bermuda Triangle, or Bemusement Triangle, which still fails to elicit anything more than the aforementioned HEBA from the super louche judge.

Eye Poems (2)

Sarah D (Voice Off): Appears we are having technical problems with some of the poems. I shall just have to describe what you cannot see… an exact copy, or twin of the above tower, what purports to be Captain Corelli’s Mandolin in a jumble of black box lettering. Pascal’s Triangle encrypted with nines and elevens, an ice cream with eleven flakes, and last but not least, a Jack-in-a-box with two nines for an arm and a leg. - Now we go ring side to hear from the judges. –

Twin Tower

(2) Twin Tower

B
L
A
C
K
9
B
O
X
11

Eye poems

In competition at the BBC Awards the following eye poems have been shortlisted:

(1) X marks the spot

bl bl
o
X 9 X

Late Late Show (3)

Sarah Donut is in the Late Late Show studio with the Cato-Masked Interviewer for the BBC (Black Box Creatives) Awards.

The lights in the studio are particularly bright tonight. Sarah D has on a blue Paisley blouse, and a pair of loud purple spectacles.

Good evening, Sarah.

Good evening.

Sarah, I understand things are hotting up on the literary scene.

That’s right, Simon.

Empire of Ice Cream (13)

Danker was returned to his cell where he was made to strip his orange overalls.

He lay naked in the bright light.

Hours passed… or was it days?

Again he became conscious of a presence.

Someone had come to see him. – Although the face was obscured by the intensity of the light, he heard distinctly what was said:

If you co-operate, we will give you ice cream.

He remembered his colleague, Nylander in the bar in Stockholm.

Was he quoting or misquoting?

The only empire is the empire of ice cream.

Trial (5)

Danker was in tears.

Fearing that his wife was dead, he called her name.

What did you do to her? Someone cried angrily. She is dead!

Yes! Yes! Came other voices. He has failed the examination. - Put him to the back of the class.

It is true, said an inner voice. Every man kills the thing he loves.

In the depths of his disorientation and despair, the thought dawned on Danker. – Had he in fact killed her? He could not believe it. It was such a terrible idea. And yet it seemed true. He was appalled at himself.

He broke down. Please, he said. I have done no wrong. I will tell you everything you want to know.

Trial (4)

Danker waited, but the silence was all around him. - The court enveloped in darkness.

His accuser stepped into the light.

You must examine her, he said. She is waiting.

Danker did not understand.

Who is waiting?

Mr Danker, said his accuser. Have I made myself clear? She is your witness. It is your right to examine her.

Well, said Danker. I am not a doctor.

Mr. Danker, we are growing impatient.

Danker stepped out of his chair, and began to walk towards the light.

When he looked again, there was a woman sitting in a reclining chair. Her face shrouded.

He bent down to look closer. It was his wife.

Mimi! He cried inwardly.

But she did not make a sound. Her face under the shroud was perfectly still.

Trial (3)

The accuser seemed to speak for a long time. – Longer than Danker’s concentration could hold up. Finally, he paused – as if allowing the full effect of his words to be taken in by those in the gallery. Then, with a sweep of his hand, he said:

I call on the first witness.

Trial (2)

A terrible hush came over the courtroom. - Danker grew afraid for he realised the trial was about to begin.

A man who believed to be his accuser was pointing to a blackboard on the wall.

Mr. Danker, we would like you to read this.

Danker, who was not wearing his glasses, felt everything was out of focus. He searched in his pockets. The glasses were broken, but one of the lenses was not cracked. Even with the intact lens, however, the writing on the blackboard appeared indecipherable.

I am sorry, he said. I cannot read it.

Shall I translate?

The accuser’s voice was full of sarcasm, as he turned to the gallery and began to hold forth.

What was he saying? - It was all beyond Danker, even if he began to make out the rudiments of a case.

The Trial

Expecting to be led back into the chamber, instead, he was escorted, between two fat security guards, into what appeared to be a court of law.

A gallery of hostile faces was looking down at him. Three judges were seated at a remote desk. – The noise was deafening; Danker thought he was going to faint.

Someone called for silence, but the noise did not abate.

Danker looked around him. He could not believe what was happening. – They are going to put me on trial, he thought. What am I being accused of?

Monster Kilroy (2)

Struggling with his memories, a void had opened up.

As he tried in vain to hold onto those images of his former life (his friends and loved ones), the inner sanctum of his feelings (the sum of his egoism), he was conscious of a presence.

There followed an eerily abstract conversation.

What do you want with me? He had said.

What you know.

We know that you know, they had said.

What can there be to know? - I know nothing, he had said. But his voice had been lame with protest.

The writing was on the wall.
He could see they were trying to construct a case.
However bogus their reasoning, conviction was in their voices, the cold chill of certainty. – As if – like the Monster Kilroy - he’d been chosen to validate their reality.

Monster Kilroy

It looks like a film set,
Though you know it isn’t.

There are ketchup-like bloodstains
On the chamber walls – a graffiti doodle
Depicting a monster-like Kilroy with fangs
Almost brings a smile to your face
Until you remember

CC Murphy (2)

The Monkhouse pacing with his customary ticks stops by the table of Fat Tony and George to cue the swivel bow tie. Water squirts over Fat Tony’s face and onto his GM Burger.

Fat George begins to chuckle.

(Jus’ like Bogie to his African Queen), the Monkhouse shows a set of false teeth before launching his scattergun of gags at the bemused fat men.

“Murphy is on guard duty again. Gets to listen to cock rock again.

Murphy on guard duty again. Gets to listen to several English Officers and Gentlemen circa 1950 reading choice passages from the Necronomicon.

Murphy on guard duty again. Gets to listen to raving poofters berating each other at a drag fest fed through a magi-mix of acid beats.

Murphy on guard duty again. Gets to see the weirdest things i.e. holograms of the Illuminati and Papa Ratzinger hovering over a thousand and one splitting orifices.”

CC Murphy

Fat George and Fat Tony are in the middle of bible reading and prayers in the Springer Secure Corps Staff canteen when the unexpected happens, the stargate opens up, the Monkhouse falls through along with the Beadle box of canned laughter.

Brushing himself down, the Monkhouse approaches the spotlight:

They call me Concentration Camp Murphy. It’s sod’s law working for the Springer Wraith.

The Monkhouse looks about him theatrically before seizing the imaginary moment:

Do not move, or even breathe, if you wish to catch Der Springer before he finally leaves the limbo dancers behind.

Fat George and Fat Tony

Tis late at night; everyone has gone home. The Springer Secure Corp Staff canteen is all but empty except for Fat Tony and Fat George who are about to tuck into their stolen GM burgers and Delors French Fries.

Tony: The meal looks wholesome.

George: I always did enjoy these GM burgers, Tony.

Tony: They are the best. - As for these Delors French Fries

George: Very tasty, Tony. But first we must say our prayers.

Tony: I see you have your Good News bible.

George: It’s always best to come prepared, Tony. One never knows what might happen.

Tony: And which passage do you have for me today, George?

George: As always, the extract from the Book of Revelations.