{112}

This is. . .

City is darkness, electric lit;  glistening wet streets reflect flickering neon, between the grit and shadows.  Half-bent, half-buckled, rain-coated figures hide themselves from the wind;  protected behind their coats and pulled-down hoods, from swarms of plastic packets and other bits of wind-battered debris.

It seems to be a cloudless night, yet there are no stars.  Lively guts of red spray-paint - splashed passion on bleak walls.  Rusted iron buildings, haunted by smashed glass, chipped paint.  Coated with layers of grime-thick oil stains, from the exhausts' of voluminous motor-herds;  which at this late hour seem mostly sheltered in their quiet lairs.

A pair of boots grind their way over the tarmac.  Hands are thrust stiffly in the pockets of a tall coat;  but his head is upright and steadfast, confronting the wind.  In all directions hair protrudes blonde with long unbending spikes;  menacing like the thorns on a cactus.  Sallow skin - and the look in his luminescent ocean eyes focus intently forward, yet strangely unbalanced in a fixed stare.  Chains on leather pants are in rhythm with his stride.

A yellow police van crawls up the side of the road, its occupants scanning the pavements for a likely suspect.  Zero Tolerance Crime Prevention.  Nail the small offenders - drunks, whores, pushers, users, beggars, punks.  Then the murders and mugging and rape will decrease.  Well, that's the theory anyway.

The van comes slowly to a halt, next to an unmoving body lying face down in the dirt.  One of the cops gets out and walks over to it.  He prods it with his truncheon, and it stirs with a low groan.  The face that looks up to his, has a bloodied eye - which startles suddenly, and is awake at the sight of a Uniform.  She kicks and screams, and pushing him aside, runs lopsidedly on one shoe down the street.  The cop gathers himself, and grinning at the challenge,

takes off after her.  The engine revs to  action, and she is pursued by both of them now. 

The van cuts off her run at the next corner, and as she slows undecided on her next move, is then crash-tackled from behind by the full force of a flying full-back.  A bottle of wine is flung from the collision, spinning through the air at the force of the impact, and shatters as it hits the ground;  the scarlet liquid of its contents spilling darkly onto the hard tar.  Amidst the crash of glass and the dull crunch of the tackle, they hit the road together, and her breath is expelled with an anguished moan as her meagre form is crushed beneath him.

Paul's stride does not falter as he observes the scene from the other side of the street.

He turns off at the next corner, not looking back. 

With the thirsty taste of salt in his mouth, he merely looks down at his pacing boots, trying not to feel. 

Rage.

He hears screaming and wailing, but he does not know if it comes from the street behind him, or ahead of him, or if it is just in his own mind.  Instead of looking back, he increases his pace.  And runs.  And runs. . .

{113}

A few blocks later his running slows, and with breath heaving, he rounds a corner to the comforting thump of grunge music.  The sound pulses together with the flickering coloured lights of a night-club.  Outside, a few dozen night-crawlers mingle with the shadows and the streetlights, sucking cigarettes, joints, each other's faces, or a hidden something.

Laughing, farting, looking for a flirt.  No-one pays him a second glance as Paul walks through the doorway and climbs the long narrow steps up to the entrance.  A large shaven-headed bouncer selectively ignores his arrival, so he pays his cover-charge to an anorexic looking girl who looks up with a half-shaven red-mop-hair, and a nose ring. 

He hands over the full price even though it is late and the club will close soon.  She smiles at him lopsidedly from behind a row of thick iron bars;  her face taught, and haughty.

He is stamped with approval from the bouncer, and leaves his coat at the door;  his feet and legs feeling the discordant pull of music.  The club is mostly full.  The dance-floor is mostly empty.  His adrenaline is already pumping, so he skips past the jam at the bar;  and feeling a little self-conscious at first, slows down, and lets his emotions fill his body.  Swinging from foot to foot in ever widening arcs, he then spins and lets his head loose.  Hair rocking, and neck swinging with such rage that it feels like it might snap off at any moment.  The sound thunders, and every inch of skin becomes soaked in perspiration.

The songs blend into each other;  his movements drowning his mind;  music swamping emotions with a pure and fierce energy.  After a time his legs begin to feel like jelly as his sugar-levels drop.  In mid-stride he stops suddenly, to a slow nonchalance, still in rhythm to the sound: {...bullet in your head...}  and moves toward the bar to get a Coke.  Seeing a gap in the throng, he buys a beer and a double whisky instead.  He takes his drinks over to a piece of floor, and sits down.

He pours half the beer into its glass and downs it.  Next the whisky is swallowed straight, and then he takes a swig of beer from the bottle.  A dark-haired, dark-dressed creature next to him watches his movements, then touches his arm lightly and asks for a sip of beer.  He vaguely recognises her, so he offers her the bottle.  She takes it, and her thin lips enclose its head.  Their eyes connect suddenly, so she closes hers and leans back to drink.  Liquid pulsing down her throat.

When she opens her eyes, he is still looking at her;  but his face turns, and looks toward the dance floor.  His profile is well formed with full lips.  She notices the abstract tattoo that runs the length of his arm in a black and red design.  She hands the beer back to him.  There is a moment where they are strangely comfortable next to each other.  Yet neither will take the risk of conversation, so silence gathers in the void between them, pushing them apart.  He gets up to dance, his tired body moving less vigorously than before.  The night deepens, and the club begins to look empty.

{114}

On the street outside he stands, wondering which way to walk;  enjoying the cool air of the night after the hot cigarette-clogged and sweaty fumes of the club.  He turns to see her standing next to him.  “Want a lift?” she enquires, softly.  She is all in black.  Jeans and sleeveless top - carrying a leather jacket.

“Thanks.  Going to town?”

“Mm-hmm.”

She drives a small battered French vehicle, and has to open the door for him because it sticks.  As the lights flash past them, the silence grows;  at first nervous, then ominous and almost destructive. 

“I live here.”

The car stops, and she turns to look at him.  Her eyes are brown, and her mascara is smudged across her cheek.  The smudge distracts him for a moment.  They both take a breath to say something;  and then stop;  preferring to hear what the other has to say, rather than willing to risk some words of their own.

“You first” she says, penetrating the void.

“I... was going to smoke a joint... if you want.”

“Great.”

“What's your name?  I'm Paul” (poker face).  “Some people call me Spook.”

“Anne” (faint smile).

As they cross the road, he looks at her curiously:  “What were you going to suggest?”  Before she can answer, a diesel engine sounds a block away.  They cross the road with a quickened step as the yellow van roars past them grinding loudly, and skids around the next corner.  They scurry the rest of the way towards his flat in nervous silence.

{115}

The grimy corridors are splattered with all manner of graffitti.  Doors are stark and grey, and one opens to his room, which is crammed somewhere inside layers and layers of similar flats;  in similar buildings, in similar cities.  Once the light of the corridor is shut out behind them, a match burns into life and illuminates several candles around the room.  “No electricity”, he says and lights a paraffin stove, placing a pot of water on it, “but we can have tea...?”  He is hesitant at the meagre offerings - she accepts gracefully.

He moves a table, then lifts up a piece of the floorboard that lies underneath it.  Placing his arm deep into the hole in the floor, he retrieves a plastic packet.  Delicately he removes two large heads of grass, and places them on a newspaper.  She gestures:  “I'll do it”, so he passes it to her.  He returns the rest of the stash, floorboard, and table to their original positions.

As the sound of the bubbling water rises, he notices her features.  Long neck, thin body;  her hair shaved up the back of her head very short, but long and dark in the front.  A black single strand hangs over her cheek, the end of it touching the side of her lips.  Thin and lipstuck black, they part and are briefly wetted by her tongue as she rubs the heads of grass into dust with wide-eyed satisfaction, removing the stalks and seeds and placing them in an ashtray.  Her tongue again flashes, as she wets the glue on the Rizla in a quick lick;  then rolls the joint deftly.

He watches every movement of her long fingers.  The light from the candles on her skin is inflamed lighter by the erupting brightness of an exploding match.  Her eyes widen further as she inhales deeply and passes the joint to him.

She sighs, and her shoulders slump relaxedly next to her.

They smoke in a comfortable silence, enjoying watching each other as the aromatic clouds accumulate warmly between them.  By the time the joint is finished, he has made the tea, which steams hot and sweet into their noses, warming their mouths and throats.

“Wow, that is the best I've smoked in ages” she grins back at him, her eyes sparkling-stoned;  her words slow and soft intoned.  She moves a little nearer to him, and he responds;  moving his face closer to hers very slowly, so that she can withdraw without a sudden movement if she wants to.

Her smudged face inches up more with a nervous and quick smile.  He closes her mouth with his, feeling the thirst-quenching kiss of her moisture, which had been hovering around their lips from when they first shared each others' words.  They recline on the bed, their arms holding each others' bodies, awkwardly as strangers would;  tenderly as best friends could.

{116}

They awaken the next morning still in their clothes, on top of the covers, not having moved for hours.  She does not look at his face, and stands up stiffly.  A single dusty ray of Sun from a small rusty window lights up the room.  He sits up, rubbing a shoulder.  “I'll put tea on”.  She notices a large poster of some sort of bird of prey on the back of the door.  Giving it a second look, she sees that its intent beak and carnivorous eyes are alert for a victim, but with a somewhat detached smirk.

As they sip the tea, and inhale its comforting aroma, their eyes watch each other from the top of the metal mugs;  like creatures, or birds, circling each other.  Her face rises in surprises as she notices his eyes for the first time properly.  One is green, the other blue.  “Your eyes are beautiful...”

He smiles;  yet the smile is large and his laughter cackles louder.  It rollicks on for a long time, and eventually slows down to a few cheerful sniggers. 

“What is so funny?” she asks, smiling and enjoying the mood.

He puts his hands over his mouth and mumbles “speak...”, and pauses, looking at her.

 She answers correctly:  “no evil”. 

His hands cover his ears and he continues: “hear”, and her reply “no evil”.

He grins and covers her eyes with one of his hands.  She eagerly giggles, moving forward on her knees. 

“See...”, and he quickly takes his hand away from hers, covering his own eyes.  He opens his fingers and peeks a look at her with his green eye.  She shrieks

delightful: “no evil!”, and he covers his face with both his hands and turns a way from her in a sudden silence.

“Paul...”, her voice is unsure as she reaches over to touch him on the shoulder.  He turns around;  his face a malicious grin, as she continues “Are you...?”  The look on her face drops with a start as he looks at her with his green eye.  There is a sick black void where his other eye should be.

She jumps back in a state of horror;  but his grin changes as his mouth opens, and his glass eye stares back at her from between his teeth. 

“I have seen evil, Anne;  and it is half-blind”  he mumbles past the crazy looking eye. 

She is momentarily struck square in the centre of her insides with sharp emotion.  Yet pauses, then laughs a little nervously;  giggling with her hand covering her mouth as she remembers her own earlier comment about his eyes.

Then she notices her hand over her mouth, and then as he joins in, they are both carried by wave after wave of uncontrollable tear-streaked, belly-aching laughter.

{117}

She lies on her side, her head held up by one hand.  Long black-nailed fingers have run half-way through dark streaks of hair up her cheek, stretching her eye peculiarly.  Making it look cat-like, or oriental.  Her skin is white beneath the white sheets. 

There is a fine line between a smile and sadness, where her lips meet.

Paul's voice is slow, the words cracking the silence into large spaces:

“I had a dream last night... or was it the night before... anyway... I am in an open place beneath a huge sky where desert-birds indignantly fly... there is a sphinx... with a lion's body and a man's head.  It is huge.  The gaze on its face is blank... staring at the Sun... pitiless.  It is alive, oddly.  Its thighs move

slowly.  And all the time the desert-birds circle above... I can see their shadows circling on the

desert sand, swooping past me, aiming their shadows at me... coming between me and the Sun.

“Weird.  What do you think it means?”  She sits up now, wrapping the sheet around her, tucking it between her arms and chest;  looking at him intently, listening to him.

He lies back, hands behind his head with his pale wiry-built torso open, revealing many various tattoos.  He is sprawled in a very slight grimace.

“I dunno, something about the birds.”

“Is it him?”  She points to the poster of the bird on the door.

“Maybe. . . .  These desert birds. . . something in the way they. . . fly, turning around and around.  Circling in wide arcs before they hone in for the kill.  They bide their time.  Waiting for the precise moment.  Waiting.  But Falcons have honour in the way they kill.  They hunt for specific targets - not just killing because they can.  Only what is needed.  Their prey is carefully chosen and removed without trace at all.  The Falcon is majestic in flight and in killing, and its face is strangely serene.  Those other birds, the scavengers;  they may fly quickly, or nimbly, with large powerful wings;  but they have no grace in how they live;  in how they kill.”

{118}

She shakes him out of his sleep in excitement, he stirs, a bothered look on his face.  At the wakefulness in her eye he is aroused, and so he asks:

“What..?” at first a bit loud, but then more in a quieter voice:

“What is it Anne?”

“I dreamt of it too... the sphinx.  What is it?  It terrified me - it was so large and alive, hovering above me in the night-sky.  I was swallowed by it, and found myself in a room with twenty beds in it.  All of them are made of stone; 

and on each of them are Roman-looking Centurions, but they are also made of stone.  All around me rises a tide, but the water is red, yet dim and half-real;  thin and transparent.  I see a Priest who tries to baptise me, he calls me, but it seems he

cannot remember my name.  The tide of blood sweeps him away... I see a cradle rocking, yet I know there is some nightmarish beast inside it, so I dare not look.  The cradle emanates a warm alluring light.  So bright it is terrifying;  but so dark as well.  A shape moves like someone's shadow, yet I cannot see it properly because the light is so intense.  The form behind the cradle slouches beast-like and dark;  yet its head is illuminated by a bright star above it.  I cannot see its face.  I hear the faint sound of music in the background. . . Umm. . . did I wake you?

His hand moves near to her cheek, not quite touching it; 
“Yes. . .uh. . .  thanks.”

{119}

She stands with her back to him;  he is lying on the bed paging through a pop magazine.  Eggs splatter and bubble in a pan on the paraffin stove where she stands.  He hardly notices the pages of the magazine;  his eyes watching her.  Blues-rock subtly slips out of the tape-deck.  Her voice is low:  “Paul, why do you insist on being underneath every time we fuck?”

Before she turns around, he looks down to the magazine.  “You can be underneath if you want sometime.”

“OK  How about now?” 

“What about the eggs?”

“They can join in if they want.”

By the time they are undressed, the eggs are half eaten;  half smeared across their faces in sticky yellow giggles.  She rolls off him onto her back and pulls him up above her.  Her hands move down his back and then instinctively to the cheeks of his backside.  But instead of a smooth skin, she feels thick hard bumps.  She stops, and wriggles out from under him.  “Let me see.”  They both stand, and he turns his back towards her.  The lines across his buttocks

are thick and hardened into clear white scar tissue;  many years old.  “Who did this?”

“Cops.”

“When?  Why?  What for?”

“About ten years ago, at school... It was nothing really... We shoplifted a fishing reel.”

She falters;  feeling naked... remembering back to... No!  That was a long time ago too.  At least she was not left with such scars. 

“How about your eye?  How did that happen?” 

They lie next to each other, half naked above the sheets.  He takes a half-smoked joint from the ashtray and lights it off a candle, taking a slow deep drag, then passes it to her.

“Motor accident.  My father and I.

“We went over a cliff at about 120.  After we hit the bottom, I turned to see him dead next to me.

“I scrambled out in shock and managed to run half way up the cliff before I collapsed.  Both my legs were broken, only then did I realised I had lost my eye.  Then I crawled the rest of the way up to the road on my arms.  The last thing I remember was lying there wandering if anyone will notice me, and then lifting my hand up and sticking out my thumb, trying to hitch a ride.

Her nails click together as she runs her hand over his arm.  “And this one?” 

A large and purple ridge-like scar had been decorated with red and black tattoos.

“I was in school.  I don't want to talk about it any more.”

“Why not?”

“Damn you bitch!  Why did you have to open these old wounds?  What are you trying to do to me?  Get-the-fuck-out-of-here!”  His face is white and red with agony and rage.  His features distorted, grotesque, diabolic with a seething hatred. 

“Just Fuck-off!” he screams at her;  at the world in general.

She is thrown back by the force and fury of his words, fumbling for her clothes;  stumbling into her shoes.  He is silent, staring at the Falcon;  seeing it circling. 

She nervously makes it to the door, gives him a quick glance;  and mumbling to herself, makes her escape.

He takes a cloth, and wipes the yolk from his face, remembering the glee and joy in her brown eyes as they smeared each other with it.

A little laugh ripples from his lips.

{120}

The next night they see each other outside the club.  He is on his own, leaning against the wall, standing on one leg, with the other bent against the wall.

She stops as she is half-way past him.

 He looks at her high boots, black jeans and leather jacket.  She hides a black smile at him from behind her long fringe, now tinted dark red.

They go for coffee at a seedy restaurant, and then decide to drive to the beach.

As the black waves crash with white explosions, he fiddles with the button on her jeans;  she compensates by removing her top, and his attention is immediately diverted to the purity of her skin. 

They collapse to the sand as she shrieks.  Then they are close, and quiet.  Lips.  Eyes.  Breathe. . .

Before their breaths can softly intermingle, a sharp light blinds their faces with fury.  They shield their eyes with hands instinctively, while trying to make out the figure that has invaded their night:  He has a squat muscular body, with short hair and a thick neck, wider than his head.  He holds the harsh torch in one hand, and gestures with his other:  “Stand up!”

They stand, and she covers her breasts by crossing her arms.  The light shines at them, up and down;  lingering for a long time on her shoulders. 

“Hey!!!  Was you going to fuck her?  Hey?”, he gestures towards Paul with the torch, his voice bitter. 

He wears a police uniform, but no hat on his greasy head.  His shirt is untucked as he stumbles forward.  They take a step back at the smell of brandy. 

“Hey?”, his look is indignant, angry, jealous.

Paul is silent.  Unmoving.

Anne says softly, looking down at the cop's feet “no”.

Paul looks at him directly;  his gaze not leaving him. 

Then the light of the torch burns into his eye - so he closes it and stares with the blind intensity of the fake eye. 

“Oh. ...OK.”  The cop takes a step back, and stumbles backwards over a bush, falling over in the drunken process. 

They turn and run. 

He does not try to follow.

{121}

“Anne, Do you believe in God?”  He enquires as they lie on his bed, staring up at the cracked dirty ceiling.

She waves an incense stick in front of their nostrils.  The exotic Indian fragrance enriching the air with its seductive smoke.

“Yes, of course.  If you don't, then . . . why do you ask?”

“Well if you do believe in God, then perhaps you might ask him why he created evil?”  His face is strangely calm, without its usual cheek, or spunk.

“I don't know about that.  Perhaps evil is when they don't believe in him.”

“Do you think God is against all killing?”

“Of course”.  She is firm in her response. 

“Have you ever been raped?”

“Yes.  Seven times they managed it.  Twice by cops.  The first time after flagging down a van after having been raped already, the cops that picked me up raped me as well.  Both of them.”

“What if that cop on the beach had drawn his gun and raped you... and I had killed him?  Would God be angry then?”

“Yes.  Look at me.  I am whole, I tried every time to persuade the bastards not to do it.  Four times I succeeded, but I don't fight.  Its not worth it.  If they use force, I stop resisting.  I become a dead log.  I don't move or say anything.  I close my eyes until its over.  Then they leave.  They know they've won.  They know I won't do anything.  Know there is nothing I can do.”

“Do you think God invented rape?  And cops?”

“No, that is the devil;  God is good.”

“But God created the devil, he created everything.”

“God created freedom.  Freedom to choose.  Some people choose to be evil;  but God does not make that choice for them - they have to do it themselves.”

“I'm tired of being raped.”

“When were you raped?”

Getting fucked up is getting fucked up, no matter how its done.  I haven't told you the half of it.  The first time I got fucked up by the cops I was thirteen years old.  Four on one.  I must have looked quite ferocious to them (cynical snigger). 

They were off duty with nothing better to do than fuck some kid up.  Afterwards, I found some friends and we went to call the cops, but it turned out they were connections with the cops that fucked me up.  Then they all laughed at us. 

It was about a year after that we were bust lifting the fishing-reel.  Getting whipped by the cops like that is worse than rape.  Worse than anything.  They make you strip naked.  They have a special bed of wood which they lie you

down upon, front down.  It has a hole in it where your dick goes;  and a bucket underneath, so that you...

She interrupts him...

The second time I was raped was after they caught me and a girlfriend with a kilogram of grass.  They said we would get two years inside prison, but they would let us off if we...

“Christ I hate cops so fucking much!”

“But what can we do?”

“I can destroy them by the dozen.  It is so easy.  But I do not know if it is right.”

“Really?  How?  I don't believe you.  Have you got a gun?”

His face is sharp, his voice rings clear:  “No guns”. 

Then he looks ahead of him at the Falcon and half-sings:

                Though I walk through the valley of death,

So shall I fear no evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power,

                and the glory, for ever and ever,              

                                                                           Amen.

She is taken with surprise at this turn in tone.  He looks over at her, smiling very slightly.  A tingling feeling crawls across her skin, like mild electricity, or bell-chimes. 

Her voice is smooth and graceful:  “Perhaps the point of the Crucifixion was that even though peace is preferable to war, death is not the worst thing that can happen to you.”

 She tries to look at him, but he stares ahead, and quotes again:

                  And he who believes in me

                  shall not perish

                  but have everlasting life

She sits up, and turns over to him, putting one hand on each of his shoulders;  looking him straight in his eye.  “If you know a way that we can get back at them. . . tell me and we'll do it.”

He laughs softly, looking down at his upturned hands.  “It is just so easy.  We could take out a whole police station on our own.  A different station every night.  We could bring the entire city to a standstill.  Fuck that, with just a few hundred people we could stop the Country.  Within one week we could blow the world away with just a thousand dedicated missionaries.  So easy...  But is it right to do so?

“Tell me!  Tell me how!”.  She is shaking his shoulders vigorously;  laugh-shouting hysterically at him.

His voice is still clear, detached and low.  It quietens her desperation.  Their hands hold one other in the space between them.

“They do not know how weak they really are.”

“You're lying.  You're deluded, how can two of us take out a whole cop station?  Its ridiculous.  There are hundreds of them, they'll stop us before we can do any damage.”

The look in his eye is steady, and a slight grin escapes his mouth.  “So easy.  And the best part of it is that they will not even be able to catch us.”

“How?  Fuck it!”  Her eyes bulge with ferocity, just inches away from him.  He looks at her, feeling more than a little anxious.  His spirit is however, lifted by her passion.

“OK”  his voice is even-toned,  “I'll tell you how...  What do you know about LSD?”

“Well, its a very powerful hallucinogenic.  What is your point?”

“Some people enjoy it like chewing gum, others go psychotic.”

“Sure, some people flip when they take it.  But those are normally people that are quite fucked-up to begin with;  or people that refuse to transcend being

fucked-up.  LSD shows you exactly who you are.  All your neuroses, hypocrisy, pain and subconscious fears become realised in your face.  If you go

with the trip, everything returns back to normal later.  If you refuse to acknowledge what the LSD shows you, and repress your dark side more, then you get even more screwed up.”

He listens, impressed.  “Great.  But the amazing thing about LSD is that so little is needed.  One teaspoon of liquid LSD can do for a hundred trips.  A few litres of the stuff, could trip out a whole city.”

“But it is expensive.”

“Only to buy.  Its price is directly a result of its illegality.  That's how people make cash out of all illegal drugs.  The legislation against illegal drugs is what keeps them profitable.  The only reason anyone could want to keep drugs illegal is if they were cashing in on it.  The cops, the drug-barons, the judiciary - they're all in it together.  Parasites!  Sucking the blood of the sufferers.

“It is actually quite cheap to make LSD.  The recipe is freely available on the Internet anyway.  We could make a few litres, and put it anywhere.  Their water-supply, coffee machine, anywhere.

“Particular cops - especially the narcotics police can easily have something slipped into their drink in the pub.  Ha-ha-ha, they are so weak, and think they are so strong.  It makes me laugh;  it really makes me fucking laugh at how stupid they are.  And they think they are so tough with their guns, and vehicles, and numbers.  But one clever little punk can fuck them up completely.”

“But how will it effect them?”

“That is the interesting part.  Who knows?  I mean, all the people that I know that have taken it, have experience in taking hallucinogens.  They've smoked grass, or done mushrooms or something.  Even on really bad trips that bring out all sorts of dark hidden secrets, they at least normally have people around them that know what is going on.  People that can look after them and reassure them.  It also takes a certain amount of bravery, and confidence in the strength of one's mind to take such things.  Those cops are so fearful and paranoid and weak-minded that they'll just lose their heads totally.  This is war on a totally different level.  They can't even compete.  Even if we spike all the water in the city.  Those who know how to trip will enjoy it.  Those with strong compassionate minds will survive.  The rest will become basket cases.  Survival of the fittest.”

“They could just start shooting each other when they lose it though.  Many innocent bystanders will be affected.  Fuck!  We could cause more mayhem with a few litres of acid than with a thousand soldiers, no matter how big their fucking guns!  No matter how many of them there are.  Fuck!  We could wipe out millions just on our own.  And they won't be able to see us.  They won't know what has hit them.  And it will be impossible to trace.”  Her smile is wild with glee.

“Especially if they are all completely coo-oo-ooked!”  They laugh together victoriously, holding each other.  Feeling the power that lies within them.  Knowing the ecstasy of certain victory.

“We can get into a lot of shit though.”  Her voice is suddenly calm and quiet, as if they have been heard.

“Well, its not like this society has given us much more besides shit;  and will probably carry on giving us shit anyway.  My life feels so futile sometimes.  I love music, I love to dance;  drugs can be fun.  You are great.  I would not want to lose this... what we have.  Things seem worthwhile since you've been around.”

Her face drops slightly.  “We'll not be together forever. . .”

“When you are gone, will the music be enough to sustain me?  Before we met, I was nearly on the edge.  This life seems to offer so little - I often think death would be a soft relief.  But I am not one for a morbid suicide.  I'd rather go out with a bang.  As big a bang as possible.”

Her smile is full back at him:  “How many do you think can survive it?”

With a detached smirk he slowly answers  “Maybe 144 000... who knows?”

His face is serene and eyes her closely.  She takes him by the hand;  slowly, carefully.  Their passion is soft.  Fearlessly gentle within the fleeting bonds of the infinite moment.  Sirens echo the strife of the city in the background;

but only-they-only

hear the mingling sound of their own lone breathings,

safe in the confines of this floating moment’s nothingness