{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, , ,

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

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!”

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.

“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,

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.

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.

“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.”

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:

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.”

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 . 

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

{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.”

>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

towards those of us that choose to partake of the other life.  Meanwhile you consume more illegal drugs than anyone else, plundering the third world with opportunist financial schemes, drowning them in your alcohol and suffocating them with tobacco.  Then snaring them with your anti-drug laws, and ‘fining’ system, whilst millions of peasants have no opportunity, but to work for imprisonment and slave labour.  Producing drugs of ego-pleasure for you.

Our LSD, anti-psychotic, psychotropical mind-bender attacks, are going to save you from yourselves.  And the millions of enemies you have made in Central and South America, Asia, the middle-east, and Africa will be open to Attack you.

How can you build a Nation by stealing the land from one Race, and enslaving another one to build it?  What kind of foundation is that?  It was only the Nazi’s which brought you to power.  It was probably you Americans that persuaded Europe to start world war two.  So that you could arrive as the heroes, once everyone else had exhausted themselves.

“And you! 

You are a first-lifer.  That is why you need to carry weapons of murder, because you are paranoid about the inevitability of losing your first human body.  So you would rather the other person died.  But you are the other person.  He is your mirror.  And your real fantasy, Mr Cowboy, , , is to die.

“We have lived thousands of lives in human form, and we have also undergone The Awakening, whereby the well of the Soul’s personal past lives are unlocked, and able to be remembered by the conscious mind.  Some of us even have access to the whole genetic history of the species from a subjective viewpoint.  We are able to relive the paths of entire aeons.

“But you have no sentience, nor have you care and love for life, because you are a mere first-lifer.  And you will now have to spend a thousand years as a discarnate spirit, watching the living, but unable to touch the pleasures of life;  unable to taste and touch its contented essence.  And then, after that, maybe you will learn to appreciate this sacred of most sacred gifts.  This very bleeding life.

“We must therefore slaughter you as a Pagan sacrifice, in as painful a way as possible.  This will awaken your soul into its next phase with emotional momentum.  After which you will be cured of the need to carry weapons

of murder, and declare your wars upon the meek and humble people of the Earth.  When finally you have learnt the lesson a thousand times, you may be allowed to return to this sacred incarnate physical form.  Maybe you will begin the cycle again as a Pig.  Maybe as a chicken, or sheep.  If you’re lucky you may even get to be a guard dog.

“And!  On every continent Shamans from all the peoples of the Earth, from each tribe under the Sun, will also make such ritual sacrifices.  The impact this will have on the communal-spirit of your people, and the Daemon who binds you together, will trigger something, the like of which this world has never known. . .”

“Or we could let them go,”  adds Marvin.

The others all nod in quick agreement, except Anne.  She looks intent at them all in turn, then finally says, “Yes, the sacrifice is months away.  We’ll have to get someone else closer to the time.”

Marvin pats her lightly on the shoulder, “I say we keep the one with the mushiest mind to have some fun with, and let the other one go.  Don’t worry Anne, there will be others to sacrifice.  The US government uses these guys as cannon-fodder.  The lowest IQ always get sent out here first.  Its a way they have of weeding out the dumb ones from their society whilst expanding their interests globally.  Their type has been doing this since before Ancient Greece, before Egypt, since. . .”

Negos cuts the bonds from one of them.

“Well, Frank, You’re free as bird,” Marvin grins.  “There is about a  thousand kilometres of desert on all sides.  If you follow the path North from where we came, you’ll most likely end up in one of three civil wars in the region.  None of the sides are friendly to White people.  So I suggest you head South.  With any luck, you’ll bump into a Boer.

Bye. . .”

“Oh and if you get thirsty, just break off the tip of a cactus and suck the juice.  The small cactuses with the button-like seeds are also good to eat.  But don’t eat tooo many.”

“So you say I just head South until I get out of this here Sahara desert?”

They turn away from him and push the other American into the car.  Ignoring his question.

“Did he say Sahara?”

“Yes.”

“Poor lost soul.  The Kalahari will sort him out.”

The vehicles spin away in the dirt.

“Its not really 1000 km in each direction,” enquires Anne with a sneaky giggle.

“Naa.  About 500 to the South is the longest part.  And 50km north is a Boer town.  But I thought he might need to stay lost for a while.

Though they have just driven for two days, they head onward.  Pausing only to fill with fuel from the fuel-drum in the Kombi-van.  The last stretch of the journey is very flat.  Only the occasional rocky mesa breaks the monotony of arid semi-desert, and sun-bleached sky.  Large cumulus clouds are burnt to furious fire by the setting sun.  The two rumbling vehicles come to a stop at the base of one of the mesas.  Its rocky shape perched on top of the desert;  a dark island outcrop, in a sea of hazy orange dust.  The long shadow of the mesa stretches for miles over the smooth barren desert, as the coming darkness hints at the most spectacular starscape on the planet.

The group of travellers leave the vehicles behind and head up the side of the mesa on foot.

First Marvin.  Then Anne, leading the agent by his tie.  Then Negos, after the agent, both eyeing each other closely.  And Danny watching out nervously behind them.  A familiar voice greets them from ahead.

Maxine: “You guys made it!  Great!  Any news of Leon?”

Marvin looks up at where she stands at least twenty feet above them:  “He’s chickened out.  Forget about him.”

“But where did he go?”

“Who cares. . .”

The group found its way up the cliff face and through a thin natural tunnel deep into the centre of the rocky outcrop.  The sound of drumming and flute-music lifts their travel-weary spirits.  Negos puts his hand on Danny’s shoulder.  “So, you have never seen the place many of us have called home since the American invasion, Daniel?  No?  Welcome to The Oasis.”

{141}

“So nobody here has done this before.” mutters Danny.

“No.” says Anne, her dark round eyes look up to him, “except when my Great Grandmother of seven generations ago on my maternal line, used this method to escape being hung for witchcraft in America.  She then fled to Africa.”

“But she’s not here.”

“Oh, she very much is, , ,”

“. . .Uh, Anne, uh, explain how it works.”

“Well, we need two people.  The Traveller, that’s me, and the Host: in this case old Yankee doodle dandy here.  First he has his mind softened.  Then, when the will is weak, we suddenly drain his resources by dehydrating him of water and starving his body of nutrients.  Then we pacify him psychologically again.  The Traveller, that’s me, has been preparing herself in the mean time, by fasting and meditating. 

When the moment is ripe my Spirit leaves my body and enters his.  My body will lapse into a coma.  A little later he is revived to his normal waking state, and my spirit follows him around.  Lurking in his subconscious.  Meanwhile my body must be attended to at all times, prayed over, blessed, and cleansed

with pure water.  If it is not attended to, it will become susceptible to invasion by other discarnate entities.  For up to a month I can observe his every move.  And when he sleeps, I can even take over his body;  for him it would be as if he were sleep walking.  Of course, this is the trickiest part, because if his stream of consciousness realises that I am in his mind, , , well lets just say that many different things could happen, the large portion of which would be of dire consequence to me.  And him.”

“Not exactly the safest way to spend the Summer?”  Marvin grin-gleams, a half-shaven grimace.

Anne says nothing.  “I need three days of meditation to prepare.  During that time our friend here must be kept pacified.”  She gestures to the other side of the Oasis where the Agent lies in a sun-chair, soaking up the sun.  He wears just a pair of shorts, sunglasses, and his grey tie.

Also chatting humorously with him, are two young Indian girls, entrusted to look after him.  One of the Gopi’s holds onto the end of his tie.  Tugging him gently with an enchanting giggle from time to time.

“Hey, I don’t wanna ever go back to the Agency!  I’ll be your prisoner any time.  So help me Lord, I’m livin’ in paradise.”

“Maybe we can just leave him, Anne.  He’s seems to be enjoying himself.  There are so many other people are fighting the Americans now.  Its not worth risking your life, when we so nearly have won.”

“I want to be sure that they are stopped.”

“Its beyond us now, we would just get in the way.  And besides, I’ve got something you haven’t tried yet.  I know you’ll enjoy it.  MDMA!  Ecstasy!  Its what the kids in London are doing nowadays.”

“I’m not into discos and ‘raving’ Marvin.”

“You don’t have to rave to take ‘E’!  Come on I’ll show you.  We can try Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.  (I’m a bit of a traditionalist you see).  After MDMA, you’ll learn to feel sound in a whole new way.  There’s this cottage on some remote part of the Wild Coast, and a pod of a thousand dolphins just a few hundred yards away, endless dunes of virgin beaches. . . and. . . and eternity. . . if you’re interested.  And afterwards, if the war is not over, we can try dosing them with Ecstasy instead of Acid.”

They make their way to the top of the mesa.  As the sun rises, a blood-red moon sets on the other side of the horizon.  She looks up at him, the ominous moon brooding behind his face.  An expression of ironic humour crosses her brow.

“Its. . . so. . .” her whisper,

“I know. . .” his tone.

She looks up at him.  “Is’nt it odd how the Sun is setting, and the full Moon is rising?  They’re perfectly contrary to each other.” 

Pagan orange is the colour of the Sunlight behind her.  It burns the auburn alight in her otherwise black hair.

“They’re always like that when the moon is full, and the sun is setting.”  His voice resonating through her breast,  “the only place is here, the only time is now.  The path to eternal bliss is in momentray pleasure.  These are elusive truths that enlighten us, even as they slip betrween the silk strands of our understanding:  The fleeting marijuana high. . .A song just sung, elated by the lullably of its perfect echoes.  And a glimpse. . . cool flush. . . erotic, , , your snow-soft. . . . . . . . . thigh.”

{142}

                shells of distant languid smells
                large drops of warm windless rain and
                wet skin, tasting
                blue rain at midnight

                laughter - an innocent chuckle
                unaware of its perfection

                smiles wash away with the rain
                glistening tarred roadways, muddy pathways,
                gutters rush the waters

                down years of drains
                the smell of sweat and roses and

                honey in the heated night
                under a streetlight
                angels in the stars - like eyes
                                                                    so bright

                vision:  the dust of dirt-roads,
                naked days, untempered lust throes;

                regret meanders tar-roads;
                and history carelessly covers it

                with feathers of time.

{143}

The late evening winter-wind blowing in from the Indian ocean, felt paradoxically warm.  Anne stood on the edge of the cliff, looking with her wild eye at the sheer panorma of the midnight-ocean-scape.  Andromeda Galaxy hung fixed above the horizon, unbelievably far away. Ancient beyond our human memory, yet visible right before us.

A wave crashed into the cliff face and sent a soft spray of salted mist into the air.  It was instantly caught by the wind, and then sprayed over  Anne’s face, and body.  Her nipples perked out, hard and erect like twin little penises.  Bursting to be in the world.  Her T-shirt was soaked through, so she dispensed with it.  Her high white breasts reflecting perfecft curves of shadowed moonlight.  The rest of her clothes follow her T-shirt, and she looks down to the churning sea, where Marvin bobs and sways in the swirling swells.

The moon passes behind a creeping darkness of cloud-gloom, and for a time the world is darkened.  When the shroud passes, and the cliffs are alightened by the moon once more, Marvin notices that Annes has vannished.

The sea picks him up on a high wave, throwing him about in ferocity. . . her hand closes around his thigh, , , delicate fingers, slip up his living wet skin.  Slim limbs of love, , , as she surfaces to his embrace.  Her lips.  Vulva of birth.  Womb of succulent heat.  Blood-pink.

Mad, the frothed ocean lifts them up on its cataclysmic storm.  Locked tight in the embrace of Ancient Celtic emotion, they are born by the grace of the midnight milky way.  Beyond the borders of this voice.

{144}

And the lonely Princess Aphroka,
found her way to a hidden cavern,
where she could rest in warmth.

And there she discovered treasure
beyond her wildest dreams.

so
the
essence
of us
can lie above love and death;  as birds to the flightless,
too intense for the present;  too immense for fumbled fingers,
and half-found
 absurd bits
of chased,
 grasped;
at a missed
 chance,
glimpsed
 flits of
word