Chapter 21

Jahid
190
 


{130}

They came to visit me one day.  You remember them:  Marvin the Falcon, and that guy they called ‘Spook’, his real name was Paul.  This was almost two years ago.  They took me to a holiday resort near a game park. 

There were a few others there already, then more arrived.  More than a dozen in total.  I didn’t know all of them, but you knew a lot of them from the nineties :  Maxine, Carolina, Nick, Freddie and Anne.  And of course good ol’ Abraham the man.  He cooked the stew.  Spook had supplied the recipe.  I don’t know what was in his brew that time, but it tasted kind of like dried meat.  Abraham assured us though, that it was purely vegetarian.  Seeing as half the crew never ate meat, it must have been so.

What transpired that week, I’m still not sure. . . but everything was far more synchronous than ever before.  Its. . . still. . . without. . . a word-structure to me, but I’m beginning to give it a metaphoric picture.  The part I can explain most vividly is that I fasted like a few of the others did first.  For a full day.   I ate only a few mouthfuls of Abraham’s magic broth, then collapsed about two hours later, and went into a semi-conscious trance state :

I remember floating through something like outer-space, amongst starry entities in a dark vaporous mist.  At first I thought that this cannot really be space, because the stars are around me;  so close I could nearly touch them.  And they pulse like bright living, breathing lights.  Yet, it is like space because I can see the milky way, and other Galaxies in the distance.  It feels so warm and tranquil, a peace comes over me, like I’ve never even imagined.  Just thinking of it now, makes me anticipate the sacred day that I will feel that again.

Then I spoke to Her, , ,

the Goddess of the Stars, , ,

 

    191
 



And we laughed at life.

She told me that it was not my time to die yet.  That I must go back into the World.  And so I did, but from then on, Marvin, Spook, Anne, and Maxine had an absurdly powerful psychic link.  I felt it less than the others, and after a few days it had faded almost completely.  Some of the others were telepathising with such consistent accuracy, it was uncanny. . .

Marvin had been networking with all sorts of people all around the world for quite a while.  At first it all sounded like a typical conspiracy theory.  But the more they explained themselves the clearer it became.

They talked about the global illegal drugs trade and how it is not the drugs themselves, but post-millennium, neo-medieval legislation that is driving the entire planet into a crime vortex of cataclysmic proportions.  The Taliban have been doing it for years in Asia.  That is how they financed their war in Afghanistan.  They produce Heroin for sale on the black market.  They make it illegal on punishment of death to use Heroin, thereby artificially inflating the price, so that the demand far exceeds the supply, even though it is cheap and easy to produce.

By controlling the dealers and the police, they have control of the consumer-price.  By squeezing everyone harder, they increase the casualties which eliminates competition and increases the stakes at the same time;  which increases the price and the profit enormously.

And, this process is global, involving virtually every police-force and government in the world.

To use the threat of death, or imprisonment simply because someone is being decadent, is just completely so out of proportion, that the real issue surrounding just how the drugs trade works just has to be enmeshed in corruption.  Its a rotten practice from the Police to the Dealers & Manufacturers, and the Judges who pass down the sentences, to the Smiling Lawyers who make a living off it, and the wardens who carry on supplying whatever is needed to survive in a post-millennium, neo-medieval penal institution.  Its the users lose.  Its the users that are normally have wealth because many illegal substances improve one’s capacities for work.  And we are preyed upon by the scavengers who feed off us, with fines and jail

 

 

    192
 



sentences to enforce payments from those of us that are smart enough to get away or rich enough to pay their extortions.

All of us agreed that LSD, marijuana, ecstasy and most other hallucinogens were not only good, but earth-shakingly important in evolving the human race beyond the post-millennium, neo-medieval mentality it seemed to have a hang-up with.  And that this whole corrupt money-making, life wasting scam called ‘The War on Drugs’ was giving us a bad trip in a big way.  It seems that we had assistance from entities beyond this world who had supplied us with the metaphysical power to co-ordinate our plans to end the scourge.

It started with an information campaign, trying to petition people to listen to our pleas on a moral basis;  but it soon became apparent that no-one who was worth talking to would listen to us. And it seemed that every editor in the global media was happy to collaborate with the principles of   post-millennium, neo-medieval anti-drug propaganda.

Our attempt to be reasonable lasted  only about a year.

Then Paul got impatient, and decided to implement his idea.  To use the threat of force.  At first it was just to be threats.  We would pretend that we were going to dose water supplies of various government institutions with LSD.  That’s when it went wrong.  The pigs had bugged some phones as they had been onto Spook for some time for dealing marijuana.  Obviously he was taking business away from them and they just wanted his clients;  or his stash, or preferably both.

We were at his flat in the city when strange things started happening all at once.  Pictures falling off the wall. . . The curtain erupted into flame before my eyes, and I swear there was no fire in that room at all before-hand.

The fucking TV kept flipping channels, and it was Maxine that realised the conection, the pictures that fell off the wall were all of racing cars.  The TV kept flipping from motor-racing to a program about vehicle safety.  The moment she said it, the flame vanished in smouldering flash, and the TV went off. . . “Its Alice’s spirit. . .

“. . . she’s trying to warn us of something!”

 

    193
 



Marvin was looking out the window.  His loud yell of “Pigs!!!” sent us all running in a heated panic.  But it saved us.  Some of us.  They had guns, and used them like fire-hoses, extinguishing our little revolution in its infancy. 

Even though they seemed to have far too many police for a normal drug-raid, it was a such a huge apartment block, that they couldn’t quite cover every single outlet.  Spook, Anne, and I thought we had made it safe to a nearby parking lot, when we realised that in all the fracas, some pig had put some hot lead in the back of Spook’s head.

Anne’s face was beautiful as we watched him die.

Spook laughed:  “Hey . . . I’ been . . . talking . . .  to . . . Alice . .  she says . . . you guys should . . . visit sometime. . . the grass is . . . greener on. . . t . . . th. . . the . . . other side”. 

He looked at Anne, his smile fading in quizzical contemplation at something in her eyes.


{131}

“So that’s why I’m a poet in a run-down flat in Africa.  The revolution died for a while.  Then a few weeks later Marvin the Falcon finds me.  He needs me to help him crack some password in some chemical laboratory security system.  Over the Internet.

“It took us a couple of sleepless weekends to do it.  But we got away with it.  Seems Paul has this new plan to hit them hard, using some new chemical process that will allow them to process tons of LSD.  Billions of trips worth.  After that I left.  It was too hot.  They might still be able to trace our computer hacking.  So I’ve been laying low for a while now.

“You can’t find someone who has no life.

“But you should have seen her eyes when he died.  They always were deep brown.  But at that moment they were black as hell.  And just an inkling of white flame seemed to flicker in them.  She runs the show now as far as I hear.  Marvin says they’ve juiced more than a dozen police stations globally.  Never two in the same place.  Don’t want to leave a trace.

 

    194
 



“Next week I’m going to the coast to meet with Marvin.  You can come along if you like.”



{132}

D
anny looked at the marijuana on the coffee table.  How long had it been?  Years... At least two years since he had smoked some.  But the last time he had tried it, he just passed out straight.  Negos said that he had obviously not been getting enough sleep, and the marijuana had just let him do what he needed. 

The time before was really unpleasant, those voices in his head.  God, he had thought he was going mad.  Marvin had laughed.  “Instead of being paranoid and closed-minded about it, why don’t you listen to the voices. . . They only speak if they’ve got something to say.  And if you don’t want to heed them;  if what they say is profane to you, then don’t pay them any attention.  Treat them the same as you would a living person.  They’re not that different from us after all.”

The perfect bud on the table before him had been grown under the purest Rastafari meditations.  Danny selected his late Grandfather’s tobacco pipe from the mantelpiece, and checked to see if it was clean.  Soon it was loaded and alight.  The pipe kissed his lips flirtingly, then came back for a longer, more sensuous taste.  The ancient familiar aroma entering his breath, his lungs and his mind.  He breathed the soft warm clouds out through his nose, so that the olfactory nerves were tickled, thus gaining the full affect of the herb.

>Danny.  Do not be afraid of me<

“oh... aaah, um, , , ja?”

>Why do you give Leon such a hard time?<

“Who is this?”

>You know who I am.  Think.<

“God ? ? ? ! ! ! Omigod, uh... Lord ?”

>Close, but not quite<

 

    195
 



“It was your voice that told me to keep still when the field-mouse ate from my hand. You who talked to me that time when I left my body after that drinking spree.  So you’re some kind of, , , uh... um... aah... uh, , , Deity?”

>Something like that.  I’ve got something to give you.<

“What?”

>Understanding.  But of course, only if you want it.<

“I do want understanding.”

>Good. Open up your mind then.  Let it go totally blank.  Just visualise whiteness.<

>>>Danny closed his eyes and envisioned a blank whiteness.  Soon though a point appeared.  Then another next to it, and another, and so on until a line extended from the original point going at first in one direction, then in both directions.<<< 

>>>The line began to curve slightly, until it encircled itself, but before the two ends could meet they slipped past each other, and traced the curve around again, and again, and again until the spirals formed a tube, extending out in both directions.<<<

>>>The tube now began to curve slightly, until it also encircled itself.  But again, before the two ends could meet they slipped past each other, and traced a curved spiral around again, and again, and again until the spiralled tube itself formed another spiral within the original spiral.<<<

>>>And these spiralled spirals extended out, curved, and themselves formed spirals within spirals within spirals.  Until at last instead of slipping past each other ad infinitum, the curves of the spiralled spiral finally joined each other to form a solid ring-shape.<<<

Danny opened his eyes to look at where the voice wasn’t. “What is it?  How did it get in my head?  What does it do?”

>Its the essence of ordered complexity.  It exists in your mind now, though it is beyond your brain itself.  It is an Ally.  A non-corporeal,

 

    196
 



non-human Being that can sometimes live symbiotically within the human mind.  Whenever you’re confused about something that seems too complicated, look at your confusion through the spiral, and any answers possible will be revealed to you
.<

“Just like that?”

>No.  You still have to put in effort and energy, its just that with the Ally, as long as you persist, any answer can be revealed to you.<

“What’s the catch?”

>The hard part is to translate the vision revealed to you, into something which normal people can understand.  And. . . stay true to your essence.  The only truth a person can really know is personal integrity.  If your are true to yourself, not even death will touch you.<

“Can I speak to you again?”

>. . . I will come when I am needed. . . <

{133}

Daniel and Leon sat on a log.

Marvin the Falcon stood with arms folded, looking out across the vast oceanic seascape.  His long dark hair whipped lively in the South-westerly wind that had blown up across thousands of miles of Southern ocean, from Antarctica.

“Queen takes Knight at B7” motions Danny towards Marvin.

“Hmmm. . .” Marvin ponders this one for a while. . . then his crinkled brow melts down his face and rebuilds itself as a confident smile.

“. . .Pawn to C4.  Check from the Black bishop, and Check-mate in two moves.”

Danny grimaces and Marvin grins wolfishly.

 

    197
 



Leon looks over to them:  “You guys are weird.  Why do you go through the effort of playing chess without a board or pieces?”  Then shakes his head.

Danny speaks “Well, it sharpens the mind, and chess is just a concept anyway so why go through the cumbersome problem of using a physical board and pieces?”

Don’t you ever forget where the pieces are?  And how do you prevent cheating?”

Marvin interrupts  “Both questions have the same answer. . .”

Leon:  “. . .which is?”

Marvin gives a slight smile, unfolds his arms and walks off along the cliff face, leaving the question suspended in the salty windy air.

Leon turns to Danny,  “Why is he so full of answers?”

Danny shrugs,  “Its what happened to Paul. . . I think its really getting to him.”

“Death?  That’s what his problem is?”

“No.  Its that Paul made a big mistake.  We all did.  Spiking those cop stations with LSD is not what our purpose is.  We are supposed to raise the consciousness of people.  Not push them further into barbarism by stirring up fear in their hearts.”

“What did actually happen to the cops that got dosed with the Acid?  You never told me.”

“Look hallucinogenics never work the same way twice because no mindset is ever the same.  A simplified explanation is that the drugs never enter your mind.  They only enter your brain.  As your mind perceives the sensual world via the brain, it is only your perceptions that are altered.  How you react to the altered state of awareness is you own issue.  If someone has a complete breakdown during an hallucinogenic experience, even one induced without substances, its simply because they did not have the resources in their personality to deal with their new perceptions.  A creative, open-minded free thinking person, will always be able to come to terms with the altered state.

 

    198
 



“Even if the visions are horrendous and ghastly, if the personality is strong, it will remain mostly unaffected.  If the person’s faith is weak they will crumble.  As their sense of reality is challenged, they must have the strength to adapt their understanding of reality.  If they cling to their past state of consciousness, and refuse to accept what should be a revelation.  Then they are doomed.”

“A devout Christian will undergo a positive meaningful gnosis, they may even be able to speak to the spirit of Jesus in person.  As will anyone whether Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim.  Even an atheist who has a spirited integrity will attain enlightenment.  But the hypocrite will suffer.  For instance, if one pretends to be a Christian, but underneath, ones motives are Godless, the result will be a permanent living hell.”

“So what happened in those cop stations?”

“At the one station was total mayhem.  The pigs just took out their weapons and opened fire on each other.  The only survivors died soon afterwards from their wounds.  The LSD just manifested what was lurking in their minds.  They were trigger-happy cowboys waiting for a shoot-out.  The Acid just brought their fantasies to life. . . or death.

“At another station, only a handful of office-job cops were spiked.  They all received dishonourable discharges for acts of gross indecency.  Apparently five of them were found fornicating.  One girl and four guys.  The males were all handcuffed, and this huge behemoth of a Police-woman was having her. . .  her way with them.

“Ha, ha, that is amazing!”

“It is interesting.  But does it help make the world a better place?”

“Anne believes that if we turned up the number of dosing engagements, then we may force the world to accept that the War on drugs is lost.”

“That would be fine if the media gave us half the debate, but we get zero from them.  We’ll all just end up like Paul.  Marvin wants to try another plan, to be more diplomatic.  But after Paul’s death, Anne and Carolina have become fanatical.  They won’t listen to reason.  We can’t even try and stop them or we’ll be seen as collaborators.  Its a very sticky situation to be in.”

 

    199
 



A visionary image burst through Danny’s mind, and in an instant his tongue seemed to speak almost out of its own free will :

“Seduction. . . is how we win this fight.  Its our main weapon against the machine. . .”, he stepped back, astounded at the words sprouting unasked from his mouth,

“No.  You cannot love your tormentor, and keep your self-respect.  They declared the war on drugs.  Its up to us to finish it.”

“I didn’t say love, Marvin,  I said seduce.  We are the Yin force, the pretender - they hold the power, and the numbers.  They are the Yang.  We can only undermine them from within.  With Subtlety.  Open confrontation will always fail.  Seduction is not love, seduction is trickery.  We can only outwit them because the only way we are superior is intellectually.  And morally.  But you cannot fight a moral war.  So we have to fight a war of intelligence and try to make fools of them.  Let the blind giant stumble over his own feet.  And then lie defeated in shame from its own foolishness.”

Leon’s lip quivered with irritation, “I say the giant will squash you midgets flat, I’ve had enough of this shit.” and turned away, not looking back as he left.


{134}

The fire crackled fiercely in the grate.  Negos sprinkled marijuana into the chalice of the coconut bong.  He took a small stick from the wood pile, and let it alight from the flames.  Holding up his hand a moment, and then let his head bow down. 

The circle of people surrounding  him fell silent at the sight of the burning twig.  Some of them closed their eyes.  Others looked up, and away from each other.  Listening inward.

He then did lift his head and spake:

"Jah Ras Tafari. . .

be praised:

 

    200
 

We have come only to honour the King of Kings, Lord of Lords. . .

By Your command we have come to rid our humble world of this MENACE !

this DAEMON ! !

the PARASITE ! ! !"

Negos flings the coconut-bong into the flames in a fit of anger. . .

“NO MORE WILL WE SUFFER THE PARASITE.  FROM THIS DAY I VOW TO DO ALL IN  MY POWER TO DESTROY THE MAFIA WHO HOLD OUR HERB TO RANSOM, AND DESTROY THE LIVES OF our people. . .”

His voice calms down.  Eyes close.  Bows his head.

“Forgive me Lord. . . for I am weak. . . and am consumed with the wrath of vengeance.”

>So be it<

Anne touches Negos’ arm lightly and he looks up to her.  She offers him another coconut-bong, and a large green broad-leaf with a pile of cleaned marijuana on it.

“This bong is untainted.  The marijuana in it is home-grown.” she says softly.

“Thank-you.  The Ganja has been tasting a little bitter lately.  Tell me Anne, what has happened to your little war?  How many have you killed?”

“Its not my war.  You know as well as I do that wars are guided from the other side of the grave.  It is the slain that lead on the warriors by murmuring in the ears of the living with ghostly whispers.  And those that have died from it have craved their own death, and been granted it.  The only ones who have died have been violent people.  99% of them male.  I am defending my hearth.  That is all.”

“I know no such thing, I’n’I leave the dead for the dead, and it is still the living who choose to listen to the voices that are heard from the otherworld.”

 

    201
 



“Otherworld. . . z.”

“Your actions bring no peace, sister.”

“They are long since not my actions.  Its been inevitable how people have been quick to mimic Paul’s plan.  The whispers that remain of him in this world can only be dissipated when his Soul is avenged.  This is the drug war they wanted.  Only difference is:  they’re losing.  If the only way we can have peace is to destroy their minds then that is what we shall do.  We shall give them warning though.  They will have the chance to retreat.  But first they must know the power of our will.  And they must feel our strength.”


{135}

As the evening deepens, Marvin steps out of the house and into the farmyard for a walk.  The night is young and the stars light up the moonless evening enough, so that his hand can just be faintly seen, sleightly in front of his face.  Considering the muddy farm road, he makes his way through the void-like blackness at a slow and careful pace.  His neck arcs up, straining at the enormity of the celestial dance. . .

The glittering Pleides near the horizon. . .

Aldebaran. . .  Orion. 

Sirius. . . Then Pollux and Castor. 

The centre of the milky way spread itself luxuriously from one end of the sky to the other.

Alpha Centauri.

Beta Centaurus.

The Southern Cross hung brilliantly at an angle over the mountains in the far deep-purple distance.

Marvin had stopped sloshing through the mud, and instead leaned back against a tree stump.  His eyes absorbed by the magnitude of the Galaxy.  The night shrilled around him with a symphony of insect sounds.

 

    202
 



A satellite tracked its way across the sky.  Just a tiny slightly moving speck making its way across the entire Universe.  What it must be like to drift in space. . .



{136}

“. . .Houston, we have a match on your bogey!  The code is niner zero zero zero Bravo Charlie.   Great work men. . . The data will be rechecked on next orbit.  Over. .”

Commander Ronald Herbert looked at the continent of Africa from a porthole within the isolated confines of a creaking old weather satellite.  The Agency had been using some of the world’s older weather stations for years.  These ‘flying tin drums’, had been updated with much more recent detection equipment.  The Agency had been tracking and pin-pointing all manner of wanted people all over the most remote parts of the world.

This particular group of narco-terrorists had been tracked by coating a selected batch of marijuana with a radioactive substance which could be detected by a satellite.  By supplying people with the ‘marked’ marijuana who were known to be familiar with the with the targets, detailed movement maps could expose clandestine group-gatherings.

This particular grouping had to be a gathering of important gang members. A cluster of radioactive signals became targeted by the satellite detection system: An unused farm in South Africa.  Six readings in one household!  On the screen, each light signalled each bag of marijuana.  He could see the individual movements of all those carrying the bags.  One of them had just left from the farm, and travelled along a highway straight into the path of an Agency roadblock disguised as a routine speeding trap.

 

    203
 



At last!  Somewhere down there they had found the problem that had been causing havoc with the worlds National Police Authorities.  Some wacko bunch of Drug-crazed lunatics had organised themselves into a narco-terrorist organisation.  The gang had been doping cops in Africa, Singapore, Japan, London, Delhi, and now they had started the menace in  California.  Spiking drugs in our coffee machines was the most common way the bastards attacked!  They are all the same this lot.  Once a puff of pot goes in,  you might as well just put a few bullets in after it.  Just to finish the job properly.  Well, our agents will pick up the bunch of lunatics pretty soon now.

The number of deaths as a result this group’s attacks had been increasing to more than one hundred per month.  Those were the lucky ones.  The ‘wounded’ in this type of war were often left babbling away incoherently in a straight-jacket in some remote mental asylum.  And they were mounting to over a thousand cases per week world-wide.   It was getting difficult to keep the press quiet about it.  The usual excuses of ‘nervous breakdown’ and ‘work-related stress’, or ‘schizophrenia’ were starting to sound thin.  Some cops ended up shooting their partners, or even their families.  It was getting to be a dirty little war.

George Walker in Statistics says that full-scale open-media onslaught could erupt pretty soon if only we knew who to attack.  Well we do now.  Good luck to the boys down there.  I’d hate to have to arrest one of them drug-addicts, they might spill aids-blood on you, or stab you with one of them drug needles.  And George says that some of them drugs gives them the power to read other peoples minds.  That’s why it drives ‘em crazy.

Commander Herbert suddenly grabbed a plastic-bag container, which he then shoved into his mouth, doing his best to catch most of the puke that came gurgling out.  He just managed to stop it in time from flying around the weightless confines of the satellite cabin in gross globular clusters. Like it damn-well always did.

Shee-it!  Space-sickness.  Why can’t they invent something to stop me from puking all the damn time?  And this tin-can they call a satellite stinks to high hell.  I could sure use something to freshen the air. 

And to numb the nerves.

 

    204
 



Keep out the cold.

The cold on the inside.

When you’re so far away from home,

and comfort.

Not even a shot of whisky allowed.

Sure could use something to pass the time. 

Space-sickness had virtually stopped the exploration of space since the early nineteen seventies.  Few could withstand the nausea and vertigo, combined with incredible loneliness and fear that was the life of a Twentieth century astronaut.  Any missions other than short shuttle trips into Earth’s orbit were considered to have such unpleasant side-affects so as to be not at all worth undertaking by living people.

Except a crazy sucker like me. 

God

I miss the smell of morning-fresh garden.



{137}

Marvin’s neck ached back as he watched the satellite get dimmer in the distant evening sky.

>> !! STAND STILL MARVIN. . . <<

>. . . that is. . . if you want to stay alive. . . <

His body melded with the unmoving shadows, as the sounds of people sloshing through the muddy road became audible amongst the screaming of invisible insects.  The newcomers seemed to be trying to walk without getting to much mud on their feet, but would have been more successful if they had remained on the grass on the edge of the dirt-road, instead of in the muddy tire-track.  Obviously Northerners.

 

    205
 



Without daring to move or hardly breath, he watches, as two dark-suited silhouettes tentatively make there way up the farm-road, then walk past him, just a few inches from where he blends into the tree-stump.

”That’s the ranch up ahead, Frank.”

>Omifuck!  Americans!!!  O.k.  Stay calm.  There only seems to be two of them.  Should I try take them out now?  No wait.  Lets see what they’re up to.<

”Sure looks like it, Jim.”

”Yeah. . .”


{138}

Inside the farmhouse, the mood had simmered. 

Danny plucked away patiently at an old acoustic guitar.

Then he stopped his strumming suddenly, his hand dampening any echo from resonating out the soundbox.

“Did anyone here that?”

“Yes. . . the insects have quietened down a bit. . ?”

A shiver with the texture of death’s finger tickled Danny’s spine from top to bottom;  then he sprang with a start. . . moving quickly to behind the front door. 

Sudden panic spread through the group.  In one sudden instant they all changed direction, as if they where a flock of swifts, diverting their course in mid-flight.

The door bursts open, snapping a wind-chime in the process, which splinters into pieces, kejangling off in all directions.  The two Suits and their Weapons

 

    206
 



reveal themselves at the door, fighting off the alien attack of chiming metal tubes, cotton-string, coloured feathers and bits of semi-precious stones.  In the split second before Danny hits the lights off, he sees Marvin’s shape lurch out of the shadows, and swing a garden spade , , ,

(CLICK)

then darkness. . . then

”This is the A. . . (KRUNCH). . . ah, ah, ooh, aaaa . . .

“Frank, help me! . . .  (KICK!) . . . owwww. . .

. . .ya caant do this to me,

Ahm an AMERICAN CITIZEN ! ! 

(KICK!  KICK!  Kick ! . .)

“Jim !  Omy Gaad. . .

I demand to see my lawy. . .

        K!K

                                     . . . e . . r . 



 

    207
 
{139}

An off white Ford Capri skids around a dirt road, bursts clean through a flimsy wire fence and bounces over the wild bush-veld in a helluva hurry. A yellow kombi-van lurches loudly after it, scrambling over the dirt and rocks and crumpled wire fence.

A plastic packet of contaminated marijuana was flung out the window of the kombi amidst the howls of protest from the women, and a firm reply of “I’d rather contaminate the environment than my van with that poisoned stuff.  You heard what they said.  Fucking RADIO*fucking*ACTIVE*!

“But it might kill some poor creature. . ?”

The plastic packet landed in a thorny bush.  A large curious seabird investigated it a few minutes later, but only managed to get the plastic tangled around its leg.  Its instinct to fly North for the Winter was however stronger than its clumsy attempt to rid itself of the toxic burden.

The bird finally managed to loose itself from the plastic packet half way up the West coast of Africa, somewhere over the South Atlantic.  The packet then drifted Westwards until it was swallowed by a playful dolphin which spewed it out near the East coast of Mexico some time later.  It drifted vaguely northwards until it was eventually washed up on a Texas beach.”

”This is Commander Ronald Herbert Jnr.  I have traced the contaminated marijuana, and found five bundles wrapped together, but It looks like we’ve lost our bogey.  Damn.  We’ll have to call off the satellite fleet.  Shee-it!  And that means two of our finest agents are M.I.A. and we’ve got at least five illegal Aliens who are all wanted for Narco-terrorism and dosing


 

    208
 
Police officers with LSD, all running around loose in Texas.”


{140}

As the Van comes to a halt deep in the Kalahari desert, the Ford Capri revs up beside it; the few extra dents it has gathered from bush-whacking are not really noticeable on its battle-worn armour.  After all, what’s five hundred kilometres of off-road desert driving, when the world is flat?  Well, mostly flat.  It looks flat in this part of the world.  But it can still be a bumpy ride.

“Right Captain America!  Out you get.” 

The two Agents, bound hand and foot, are yanked from the boot of the Ford, and thrown to the ground.  Anne pours water down their throats, which is mostly clumsily spilled.

The Sun pounds their squinting eyes.  Hotter than the temperature of blood.

“So what are we to do with you?”

”We demand our rights as prisoners of war under the Geneva convention!”

“Isn’t the Geneva convention a U.N. institution?” says Marvin.  “The same U.N. motherfuckers who are fighting this war on drugs?”

“Yes” says Anne quietly.  Then she looks up and at the agents.  “Why?”  And turns away “Why?”

Then turns back, “What for? . . its like you want to die. . .”

“No!  please, don’t!  Please.”

 

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>But you see we have to<.  Her smile is Dark

“Please!.! She’s inside my brain! Nooooooo!”

>Stop Anne<.

“I just wanted to see what it looks like.  Its been such a long time. . .”

“What do you want with us?”

Anne looks exasperated.  “You just do not get it, do you?  It is I that should be asking you that.  We are peace-loving people, but you push us to this extreme reaction.  My Husband was murdered by you and your kind.  What the Hell is actually the matter with you?  This war on drugs is a foolish childish game.  Surely you must see that shooting, murdering, and imprisoning people in your dungeons is infinitely more destructive than even the worst drug could possibly be?

“And the definition of a drug is a medicine.  Something for healing people.  For God’s sake.  How wounded and demented are the souls of you Americans that you must declare war on the healers and the Shamans of the world?  Us who soothe the world from your firebombs.  Us who would soothe even your own twisted pain.  And now as you are captive and kneeling before us, you still demand of us and threaten us.  Are you complete fools?

Her demeanour quietens, yet seems more intense “We are the spiritual source of our race.  Of the White race.  We stand closest of our kind to God.  We are the oldest souls of the Celts, the Picts, the Gauls and the Saxons.  Our Families have all left the North centuries ago, and come to Africa to live far away from your need to persecute others.

We left our sacred homelands because we could bear the tyranny of your kind no more.  And now you try to follow us here?  Do you not realise that one day the world will look back in horror at your ‘drug trials’ in much the same way that we now do at the Witch trials of medieval times?  Its become the Great American Inquisition as to who uses what substances.  You are such Oppressors that most Muslims, by comparison, seem peaceful and tolerant

 

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