PRAEMISSES PRAEMITTENDIS

The Archbishop Sleeps At The Altar

2006-08-31T17:58:00.000-07:00

Our dear Captain Ogle has been unable to sleep tonight, so here we have him in his white robe, a glass with lemon juice at his side, he loves lemon juice in its purest form, it makes him think that all those pigs and cows he has eaten will somehow be wiped from his arteries by the acerbic nature of his lemon juice.

Please remember we are not here to judge this man, he is one of us.

The television is blaring away, something is being sold to him, a step-master exerciser, there are these very robustly plainly beautiful people in tights moving their legs up and down and smiling from all those endorphins that they are releasing, in the back ground a voice alerts us to the fact that these people will live to be one hundred years old because they have healthy lives unlike say, pork chops. But as we zoom back at our husky and lovable Ogle, we know we don’t want him to live to one hundred, age doesn’t improve your looks, any further deterioration here and the world might react to correct the anti-aesthetic aging process which this step exercise machine would allow.

Fortunately for us, our sleepless man is sort of dozing off, and not really hearing anything, wait he is moving. His body is stretching, he is grabbing at his balls, literally grabbing his balls, don’t look if you don’t want to, I have no choice I am the reporter here. He is trembling, his hands and arms grab a hold of his chest, he is perspiring, his head is stiff, the head on his face, stiff, his mouth is semi open, saliva, dry saliva is creating strings between his lips, he opens his eyes, wide, he sits up in a frenzy, looks at the stair masters doing their thing, and he calms down, everything is ok, everything is ok.

But just as he was reaffirming normality the wood on his floor started to creak and then it started to laugh and Ogle’s eyes and ears freak out doing the rounds to determine where the laugh was coming from, even as it was clear that it was coming from beneath the wooden floor, only he lived on the first floor, so there was no room for noisy neighbors, then the wood started to bulge, and bulge and a figure started to protrude from it, and Ogle got closer to his couch, his hand gripping the arm rest, the figure was laughing, as it was now obvious from a face, even as the figure was still flat, on the floor, it laughed, and still it sprouted, and then it started to talk, “ha, ha, ha, you just don’t know what just happened to you captain, you just don’t know, of course you couldn’t know…” the figure continues to spring out of the floor, into a full vertical upright, making about four feet tall, where captain can now see a creature, precisely shaped as if it had just gotten out of a cookie cutter, the figure is all black, flat with about eight inches of squared width, and its entire body is star shaped only very normally human with limbs and fingers, only just like a star cookie cutout, and all black with shiny white teeth, “Yes captain, I am real…” The captain was trying to look at the step master people exercising, but on the screen was just this easy credit card offer: “For only $129 dollars you can be on your way to 100 years of age…” this was not reassuring the captain “…and if you buy now…” so the cookie cutter figured sensed it and “…very real, real as you are real, only I just got here.” captain all scared but noting how entrance equally implies an exit option, “Just got here?” “Yes captain, I had to come you were looking so silly, I’ve got to witness all that and I said to myself, hey I better help the Capt out, true, I shouldn’t be here but hey I am a little devil, I try to be where I shouldn’t be.” “You’re a devil, oh Jesus lord, what have I done, forgive me lord…” Captain summoning all piety drops to his knees supplicating, “…lord, lord I promise I will change, please forgive me lord…” The captain would have gone on like that except that little devil decided not, “shut up, shut up now, he ain’t going to hear your pleas.” Capt pauses his inclination to seek mercy, “What do you mean he ain’t listening? Am I so damned that he wont listen to me!” Tears streaming from his eyes, “Oh Capt you’re such a show, forget it, I can’t explain the universe to you, I just wanted to tell you what just happened, here, when you got your balls all scrunched up nicely, or don’t you want to know?” Captain Ogle compromises with himself, he decides to listen to the insanity just to see if it will go away, only it doesn’t it just giggles, smirks, laughs and talks on, “listen here Capt, you got a nice visitation tonight you were in fact being possessed by a hungry female spirit that wanted to touch your growing, and just feel your husky fat football player essence. She was just passing through and lusting for mortal passions; and you Captain Ogle had your guard down, that is you weren’t busy reminding yourself that you are a human being that has to work and think, instead you were dozing off and that created an opportunity for this rapacious somewhat old and not so beautiful female spirit, do you remember what she looked like?” Captain Ogle now engaged in the conversation, “She looked all of purple with amoeba like figurines.” Little Devil replies, “Yeah the older ones get like amoebas with liquidy shades of purple and black. Ogle you should have felt this purple feminine flat blanket like wall, specially when she firmly grabbed your balls and a shuddering electricity rounded your body, but that’s when you thought that this was some kind of an evil thing, and wrongly started to pray, thus ending what might have other wise been the fulfillment of spiritual ecstasy.” Little Devil laughs and rubs its belly, then it turns and spins, “Yikes! gotta go, be back though Captain, best to you.”

It was close to five thirty in the morning so the captain shook his head and looked at his hands, he didn’t see anything, right, right, and so went to take his morning shower, only today it would be a cold one, he needed badly to wake up; yet as he was bathing his hunky black body, he saw an unusually magnificently engorged penis, and he felt sexual so he put it in his hands and thought “I hope it stays like this… this should stay like this for the babes…” but of course, he not being Habakkuk and not being susceptible to a spiritual awakening had no way of reaching the whole experience.

Meanwhile I wish I could tell you that Lauren and Antoinette were home together having a nice sleep but such was not the case, Antoinette was home with Loki while her beloved darling was out working. She had been asked to investigate the possible murder of an archbishop, the tragedy had taken place in the church, he had been found dead on top of the altar, with the chalice on his chest full of red wine. He seemed rather comfortable, nicely robed, and tranquil to the admiring eyes. The church had been as empty as the house of god can be when there isn’t any one there; Father Trocin found him just like that, he immediately phoned the authorities, suspiciously without first waking up the rest of the church gang.

Lauren speaks to him. “Father Trosin is it?” “Yes, yes,” he is skinny, partially bald with thick hair creating a crown on this pin of a walking man skeleton, all spirit I’d guess, “Yes, yes, Trocin, pronounced phonetically just like you spell it “T” “R” “O”” “That’s quite alright Father Trosin,” she mispronounced it, his eyes opened like an eagle ready to target a poor but attractive innocent white bunny on the hop, “that’s alright father Trosin, I get it, I am very good with names.” Father Trocin molested, moved his cheeks and tightened his mouth, he was a scholar, he had just dimensioned the entire cerebral Lauren cortex and found much to his comfort that he was smarter. “What time did you find the body?” “Oh I’d say about an hour ago? He was just laying there, at first I thought he was just getting some rest…” Lauren interrupts, “Getting some rest!” “Well yes, sometimes when we are keeping watch at night we climb on the altar and take a brief nap, it is very affirming, (raising his hands) the altar is the center of all the holiness that surrounds us.” “But would the Archbishop be on watch duty?” Hands clasped and almost spitting into Lauren’s face, “On no, no, his lord ship no, of course not.” “Then what do you suppose he is doing there Father?” “Well I think he is being dead…” retorts Father Trocin with raw condescension, “…but that is really for you to figure out isn’t it?” Lauren cutes her head a few degrees to point out to the father that he is smaller in stature, “Precisely why I am here and not sleeping with my honey.” And walks away.

She stumbles into Danny, “Hello Lauren, I see we continue to assure you job security.” Her eyes dart towards him, “Feeling cranky tonight!” “Jesus yesterday I had three druggies all done up the sleeves, the day before it was a bunch of rookie rompers all bulleted up, and now I have the honor of the archbishop.” “Yeah well don’t worry Danny… she closed up to his face as if to almost kiss him and grabbed his chin… “…he ain’t murdered until you say so, with any luck he was just taking a nap and died.” “Is that what you think happened?” “Danny, you know me, I don’t try to figure this stuff out so early in the game.” “Yeah right.”

Danny was unusually not himself, he seemed out of touch, Lauren took note of it, that was her job, notice the subtleties even if they dead end, besides, it was Danny, he was bound to have a bad night, specially if this place was beginning to feel like Daley’s Chicago.

Lauren waited for the cops to tape down the crime scene, she had talked to the only apparent witness and hence the only apparent suspect, she had something against the Jesuits, and this Trocin fellow had something of a Jesuit priest look about him that stirred eons of molestations within her. She opted to not care anymore for the night. “Hey Danny I’ll see you in the morning bright and early.” “Don’t bank on it.”

As she walked out of the massive cathedral a beautiful drizzle shined the brick walk, she covered herself with her dazzling much too cosmopolitan red jacket, and made way towards her brand new Ford motor car. Ford was a company financially in trouble, Lauren did not check the car buyers bible to see if the possible resale value of the car would make it a worthy investment, she didn’t even have the money to buy it, she did not even know that she was helping to save Ford, she just bought it because the dealership was on her way home. Antoinette gave her the money and the red jacket, Antoinette wanted her to buy a nice sexy European car, Lauren acted crustily indifferent, “They are all cars.” Sometimes Ford gets lucky. She made her way to her Ford when she stumbled upon a rattling bottle of pills. She picked them up, used her key chain flashlight to take a closer look, “Timothy Wellington” The prescription was for “Timothy Wellington” The label read “Paxil.”

Lauren placed it in her coat pocket looked back at the massive cathedral where she now knew Timothy Wellington lay dead, got in her car and went to kiss Antoinette good morning before rushing to the police department.

The Day the Whole World Closed

2006-08-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

Habakkuk, our former prophet had gone back to his roots, he now wasn’t from an exotic place, his real name wasn’t Habakkuk, he wasn’t a prophet nor a seer, he was now more a pimp that had fallen in the snow in Times Square, and he had gone back to the ghetto that he was from, back to the poverty, back to his people which were thugs and petty criminals, an AIDS ridden malediction of drugged humanity; he had gone back home because he was no longer hiding from it, because having had sex with a whore he had lost his only escape from the shanty town of his youth and of his fears.

There he walked the streets, said hello to the cats and stayed away from the dogs which took the time to snarl his way; it was a bright sunny day, a perfect day to examine your roots, “Why do I come from this place?” He went to the house that had grown him, where he witnessed the sweet family beatings, “Jesus must have been an abused child too, he never got over guilt or wanting to be punished…” He remembered the belts, the hangers, the brooms, the books and piggy banks thrown his way, somehow his guardian Angel Gabriel always made sure that most homemade projectiles missed, but occasionally one would hit its intended target and the pain would revoke any previous failures. He remembers when rocks the size of a turtle would crash through the window and land to nestle by his side, never forget that rock that could hit your skull, never forget that rock that was bigger than your brain, never forget that that rock that had access at any time, that had no bus schedule; never forget that rock laying there next to you in bed, lacking the hollowness of the zombies that, having been unable to sleep, opted instead to practice their long shot.

Here was where the maladies played with Habakkuk’s innocence, here was where he could never figure out the world from the start, in this little tiny town called Belen, where women could not walk home alone so they took the frightened eight year old with them and presumed it was safe for him to return by himself with all of his imagination painted on the night canvas. The returns were never physically safe, boyish slurs and iron bars noticed his back, occasionally he was lucky enough to just get a nice punch, feel his jaw for a few days after that, made him doubt cowboy movies forever, no one could take all those punches. Thirty three years had passed before he could bring himself to return to this place, only his father still lived here, he was very sickly, Habakkuk had come with the looming fear of a final separation.

The town was practically painted all in white or red, an occasional yellow or green but really not for the houses eerily made of brick, squared brick, squared brick with its reddish hues which muster insanity and trashed any hope of possible escape. Habakkuk got away, one lucky day he got to walk away from this place and forget himself long enough to become a major prophet and a successful astroplaner, now his magic carpet had run out of fantasy and he was back inching into himself every fear just like those that he had as a child. Habakkuk was a classic sufferer of “Culpus Paranoia.” Defined in the venerable Velazquez Dictionary of Mental Illnesses as: “Culpus Paranoia: fear of feeling guilty about something that one is not yet guilty of.” As you can imagine a very debilitating condition, in which our boy could in this case dream up charges against himself without warrant.

In this instance Habakkuk was feeling that he was going to become like this place again, that he had never really escaped and that within minutes he would once again be an endemic part of the whole of Belen; and our Habakkuk did not want that and yet he felt that there wasn’t enough of anything else in him to fight the irresistible urge of being part of the scum of Belen again. Sure, even as a child he had not felt a part of this place, but the truth was he was unable to face the truth, that is where he was born, the universe tells you that you are born where your desire energy survives with its desire. Why Habakkuk had, according to the laws of the universe, wanted to be born in Belen and selected his parents as he indeed had, only he knew. Habakkuk knew and believed this to be true and now he was helplessly standing in the middle of this plaza, where all his memories of youth rose to their maximum size and with the old ladies that only dressed in black and parked their mollusk bodies on the benches, yelling at him, “You never left, you never changed, you never were anything more than what we are all here, good for nothing donkeys; and the only difference between you and us boy, is that you thought you didn’t belong, see how far you gotten!” Habakkuk looked down at his shoes firmly on the plaza’s brick floor, he looked up and got surrounded by a traveling circus of flies, which promptly made off but for some that stayed tangled in his nostrils.

He asked a couple of folks passing by where he might find his father, “Moises, have you seen Moises?” Everyone knew Moises, he was a drunk from times past, a man that had a genius of a brain, and the mind to speak it, where he could only make bitter friends of all. Too rabid rapid for his town, he still could never leave them, oh he tried, there were adventures and opportunities dangled that could have changed everything, except that his brain always sabotaged them. Why? Well that is anyone’s guess, the son didn’t know, the ex wife didn’t know either, everyone was aware of his brilliance but the man thought too much and too hard, and the drink wasn’t able to shut down that piercing brain, he could never quiet down the incessant mental notes, ‘specially because he had shut down his emotions tightly so that they would not feel what he felt as a child. Rivers of blood had flooded his eyes, children drilled by their parents and men going down river after having had sex with a machete. Some people see horrors and write them down to feed off of them, Moises was different, he locked it all within, he didn’t want anyone else to have to witness the tragedies, and he was not a sane containment vessel, tight inside of him he was being eaten away by witnessed atrocities.

Moises was laying on top of a white concrete bed. He liked things that were harsh, it was part of his being tough campaign, he was looking straight up at the top of another concrete bed right above him, only three feet no more from him, the sun was translucently dancing in all of the white, a color that rejects the sun is a color that keeps it moving, going, crossing itself, there was a sun show going on and father and son meet after thirty three years of absence.

It is obvious the father is suffering internal pains that he will not share with the world, his hands are crossed across his chest, he is wearing a gray suit, white shirt, black shoes and socks, but no tie. He is all of 78 years old and he still talks like a brilliant man full of certainties, proofs, facts and social formulas which if properly applied will make the world a better place, but people will not listen, he always finishes his brilliant statements, “no one is ever going to do it because they are idiots.” This rings tons of memories upon the son, he remembers being the incessant child idiot, a father that could rule complex mathematical terminology and deduce the logic squared from an inference ruler, was the man that Habakkuk the mystic heart had chosen for a father; you could see him now asking the universe, “I would like a father that is my precise opposite.” The universe didn’t flinch, it complied, Moises always thought that his son was too soft, too woman like, weak even, and there was nothing more intolerable to this fine Moises intellect than weakness. Neitche’s overman was the quintessential Moises, “I will never surrender to the vacuity of your nonsense, I shall prevail in the end even if now I must endure the harshest of critics, and I shall not endeavor to populate my humanity with fear or with weakness, I shall accept the expedition to the unknown blunder rather than accept the gentleness of a common life.”

Tough was a very tough way to live. Moises had had a very rough life, certainly his own doing, his own doing, he had refused to listen to anyone else and the universe was the only one that gave him what he wanted, the chance to be a coffin for fears, there they all went to be kept locked up for life. No one of course knew what would happen to all those fears, locked in severe confinement, upon Moises’s death, no one knew, but fears have certainly longer lives than humans.

Habakkuk sat on the floor next to his father, his father did not acknowledge the thirty three years of distance between them, nor did he acknowledge Habakkuk wearing some strange colored wool hat, orange, black and yellow.

Habakkuk with timid voice, “Hello father.” Moises turned to look at his son, his tiny eyes, skinny body, man could not weigh in at more than 90 pounds, “Hello son, how are you.” Hello son how are you. Irritatingly I was hoping to learn Habakkuk’s real name here, “My son…”, I don’t know why I was expecting more from this encounter, Habakkuk knew his father and wasn’t surprised nor moved, but I really wanted something more, instead all we get is the piercing sun, dancing around the white everything with impunity, a dying father acting out as if 33 years was only yesterday, and Habakkuk tolerating the whole thing!

“Are you feeling pain sir?” “No, no pain here.” “Have you seen a doctor?” “I don’t need a doctor, what do I need a doctor for, the only thing the doctor wants is my money, and I don’t have any money, and they don’t have the cure.” “Father it would make me feel much better if you saw a doctor, I will pay for the doctor.” “Those doctors don’t know nothing, I am treating myself that’s enough.” Father was taking herbs and holistic medicines, and he felt that he had the right prescription and undoubtedly that was the truth. In the meantime he was dying of prostrate cancer.

The neighbors had told Habakkuk that father had been there for days, only getting up to make himself toast and coffee or to get his incessant diet of cigarettes refilled. Now, Habakkuk, sitting on the floor, next to the bed saw the smoke coming from his fathers shaking fingers, only now, so involved he had been in their encounter, so involved that only now he saw the chain smoking that had started when his father was six years old. “Father lets go for a walk shall we?” His father always liked to go for a walk, always, there was never a bad time for a walk, not even rain could impede his father from walking, the question merely showed 33 years of distance between the two hearts.

Moises guided like Mc Arthur marching his troops, “this way… …over here… through here we can see some beautiful flowers…” And so they went on their little excursion, the man full of energy and life even as his life was coming to an end. Moises would point out some of the fallacies of the government, nothing much that Habakkuk could comprehend for he read nothing that had to do with current affairs, he read about things that were cosmic in nature, he had no time for the little world, but his father was a master of the little world, everything that was happening here today, he knew. Habakkuk did not want to get himself in an argument with his old man, instead he complied with as few responses as possible “yes… aha… that sounds right to me…” and the truth was that his father could carry on a conversation by himself so Habakkuk wasn’t really doing anything very much necessary under the circumstances.

They got to a plaza that had been the center of trade and commerce in town, when we speak of that we mean onions, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, tamales and morcillas, chickens with feathers, pigs, pigs so fresh… anyway you get the picture, a true farmers market; his father lit up another cigarette and almost falling out of character climbed up a certain group of stairs, came right to a corner that seemed away from the plaza and still you could see the whole plaza from it, smiling bright eyed, “here is where I had many trysts, oh this spot holds many bosoms, ah, ha, ha, ha, such a foolish young man I was, all those blunders… ha, ha, ha, and here I barfed as often as I spat… surprised this floor hasn’t dug itself an acid hole…” Habakkuk saw his father happy recollecting those bygone days of drunkenness and carelessness and womanizing which had ended the day the whole world closed, ended the day the whole world closed. The day of his divorce. The day his wife left him. The day his children left him. The day he walked into an empty house.

After the dancing recollections they returned to Moises’s house, and father noted that he needed a nap, so he went back to his concrete bed, where now the late afternoon had subdued the sun and the old man. He smiled at his son and remarked “You came a long ways to watch me die.” Moises quickly went into a feeble snore, and Habakkuk sat on the floor, there next to his old man, when he suddenly heard a thump slapping noise. He looked under the bed and engrossing his eyes there were a bunch of Banana Slugs hosting some kind of a massive convention, only falling off occasionally from their upside down enterprise. He fixed his eyes on them slugs, big yellow bodies, two and half inches more, he watched them slimy things and didn’t try to count them, the repetitive sameness of each member to the group would obliterate any count before it was done; permissive in their lack of defense, Habakkuk watched them fall and climb back up and persist, where above was his father, sleeping one of his last few sleeps.

Crazy Things Happen In A Sane City

2006-08-31T17:56:00.000-07:00

Lauren might have gotten to the office only there was a distress signal coming in through her police radio, “calling all units, calling all units, shooting reported downtown, city hall steps, people down, people down, I repeat casualties,” “…people down, shots are being fired, use extreme caution while approaching the scene.” Lauren did not hesitate to approach the accelerator of her brand new Ford Mustang, a hefty 450 pounds of horse power, that is more than one horse, two horses, or three horses, Lauren pressed on the gas and floored her way to the shootout, and once there slammed her car into a circling halt.

The screeching Ford came to a screaming halt, and the pavement lay there as if nothing were happening, our Lauren got out of her car in a dashing move that presupposed importance, urgency, a need to get to the scene of the crime, and fortunately she was wearing pants, which made it easy for her to avoid any embarrassment that would have been produced by a dress moving out of her menacing way.

Revolver in full view, don’t know much about guns myself, kind of afraid of anything that has to do with weapons, so I don’t know what type or make it is, for sure it shoots lead particles through the air after some kind of repressed tunnel conducted explosion, it is silver, white handle, semiautomatic I presume, cops shouldn’t have to reload, they don’t in the movies; her hands firmly holding the weapon sometimes pointing at the sky sometimes pointing at the ground, always pointing away from her, she is looking, rushing, searching, looking rushing, that sort of thing, we are close behind her, sometimes in front of her, sometimes beside her, she looks dashing, sexy sort of, determined, yes; but still nothing pops up until a crossing corner defunct of meaning rushes in front of her the dying body of an innocent bystander, soon dead by any measure. She diagnosis him with her eyes, doesn’t squeamish, doesn’t drop a sentiment, pulls her gun up high and throws herself into the ground in front, rolling fast enough to be a moving target, when before her she sees the Major, the Major of this fine city, her bosses boss, he has a machinegun, one of those fancy things from Israel, the Usi, apparently sampling blood all over the place, he kills two and three people, one would think by accident, hard to tell, seems intended, but at the same time the machinegun seems bigger and more demanding than him, and Lauren pauses her overwhelming shining barrel in his direction, clearly at her bosses boss, “Sir, you must put that weapon down or I will shoot!” The Major halts for a second looks at her, doesn’t really recognize her but he is used to being known by unknowns, and attempts to aim the weapon towards Lauren’s pacing eyes, “Sir, I am warning you, put the weapon down, now!” The Major decides that such a move is not in his best interest, and so he pulls the trigger, a few hundred times, only the thing is empty, empty, nice gun fires fast but empties fast too, Lauren doesn’t hesitate nor wait for that empty metal hammering without a spark, she unleashes two, three, four and five maximum deadly bullets, all daggering in the Major’s direction, upon which he seemed very surprised to receive. His eyes swollen bright, he was caught by each with Lauren accuracy, and his tie, and his suit, and his moustache, and his flesh, caught all the flaming torches, which wobbled him into the schematic floor.

Lauren, from the urgency of the moment had held the gun to close to her head, and suffered a concussion from the shock, and would have the pleasure of hearing a ring in her ear, every now and then for the rest of her life. For now, she rested on the floor, in shock, while her peers attempted to recover her thinking that she might be wounded, even as she had only a mild shock.

Ogle, is ogling his dead boss, we are not sure if he realizes that now he can’t fire him, they never got along anyway, it was a rough going relationship, Majors have a constituency and police captains have criminals, both are captives of a different kind, obviously both men were bound to misconstrue each others activities. The Major always wanted to fire Captain Ogle and Ogle always wanted to resign. Now, thanks to Lauren, his favorite detective the Major was dead. Only from the look in Ogle’s eyes he wasn’t happy, he did not seem to be cherishing the moment, rather, he walked back towards Lauren, that was now fairly awake, looking towards her up and coming captain, who was now walking towards her with his charcoal revolver in his hand, seeming to not care where it aimed. “Lauren, Lauren, this is it you shit! You have finally ruined me, that is what you wanted to do,” Lauren’s eyes are still trying to focus reality, her hand feeling her pained head, “Huh! Huh” “Lauren, this is what you have always wanted to discredit me, to ruin my career, you have done it now.” Captain Ogle rinses his forehead with his arm, “fine Lauren, this is just fine, BOOK ‘ER, BOOK’ER for killing the major” And with that a very frustrated captain walked away.

“Ogle are you out of your fucking mind, Lauren was seeing taking defensive action against the Major that was attempting to waste her.” “Oh fuck you Cook, you have always had a crush on her, you just want to save her, to be her rescuing prince wonder, you asshole, she shot the Major, if I don’t take immediate action then my ass is on fire!” “Listen to me Ogle, listen to me,” pointing his finger straight into Ogle’s forehead, “you put her in jail and everyone will know you’re a coward, she was defending herself for god’s sake, defending herself!” “Cook, in case you didn’t notice his Usi was empty! Empty!” “Yeah it was empty alright, after six people were dead and four were injured, it was completely empty! A man fell dead in front of her what was she to do Ogle! Was she to think that it was empty!” Ogle preferred to ignore the district attorney’s worthy points, instead he said, “She stays put.”

Lauren was immediately taken off of custody, after minor screening she was released by order of Mr. Cook, district attorney. At least twenty-three witnesses testified that the Major had gone on a shooting spree, that Lauren had come on the scene, that he had attempted to kill her, and she had put a stop to that venture.

The next morning the papers headlined: “Major Dead, Killed by Cop”

The Nest of Insanity

2006-08-31T17:55:00.000-07:00

I am not into murders, these first few chapters go against everything I wanted out of this book, but then I am not the one dictating, it is Lauren and her cast of characters that determine that. Yesterday, to appease myself, I opted to take a drink at a local joint, I am an old male, and so it is not that fun to go out for a drink anymore, the drinking crowd is so young, so distant from my emotional world or my history, I feel out of place, all the good drinking joints are infested with callous youth, with all that hyper plastic magenta character that promises you, with a smile, that there inst a worry in the world, that everything is wonderful and they are themselves wonderful; I went to have a drink at Buffalo Joes.

Buffalo Joes was a bar voided of people like me, I don’t know what people like me are like, I have never found the bar that they hangout at, I always go into the bar scene knowing every discomfort will dress me with incertitude and alter my sense of fear. I feel that an entire world alien to me is watching my every move, I feel their bodies menacing the languishing pudgyness of my fondling fat cells; when I reach the urinal to release acidic content from my bladder, I smell within my lungs every man that has been in the room, part of them now burnished against the ceramic wall and floor, cankerous sores swelling my oxygen, cornering pungent acids filtering through osmosis to feel every cell I have duly created with sausages, hamburgers, and steaks; where cows and pigs must be equally frightened by my presence.

I order a martini, I should not drink martinis, they are the supreme drink, I don’t know of a more arrogantly elegant congregation of minimalist essence. A touch of vermouth, Vodka, two olives, a chilling touch and there is her majesty. No, no, no. A martini is wholly masculine, the vermouth is full of palpable emotions that can’t surmise themselves into anything, you don’t imagine that you can like it by itself, you don’t imagine that by itself it is tolerable nor can you say, this is what vermouth tastes like; the chaotic congregation of possible influences tells you it has a convoluted history of certainty but only certainly doubtful of its own self. Vermouth says, “I don’t know what I am but I want to be something to do with alcohol.” Vodka is precisely the opposite, you don’t have to ponder what Vodka is, the entire certainty of Russian culture which stirs the blood of anyone willing to touch it and suffer a little hard pain, the gulags and slaughters of Russian history, are there plenum. Those hard Russian winters, the Russians waiting for Napoleon, the Russians waiting for the Germans, the Russians waiting for Lenin, it’s all the same, waiting, waiting for somebody to come and kill them so that they can show their perdurance. A potato and the Russian character have everything in common, there was no need to try to convince the Russians that rooted potatoes were a national necessity; from there you have to purify the essence of the potato and you get your vodka, the Russians and Vodka know how to drink each other. The olive is a distinctively different matter, added after Tsar Nicholas and his family found out that all those souls that they tortured and killed and maintained in perverse poverty, would send the living hate in for natural retribution; the olive added to remind us that though vermouth is confused and vodka harsh, there is still room for a touch of aesthetic intervention. Every olive inside a martini is saying “I refuse to surrender to your barbarism.”

Yes, yes, I know what you will say, the Martini was invented in the west. You will never convince me of that.

My brain doesn’t like Martinis, I like them and I don’t like my brain. I drank, and drank until I forgot myself. This morning I woke up with blood on my hands and clothing, I am trying to recollect precisely what happened last night. Fuzzily disturbing fragments of recollections start to climb into my judgmental brain. There was a young beautiful woman, she portrayed all the ambivalence that causes me to break into a feverish rash. I kept on watching her, partly trying to admire her but I found her beauty obfuscating any desire that may have risen. She was saying “like me, love me, envy me.” I don’t know why I have such a strong conflict with people that say, “envy me.” We all want to be loved and liked but amongst us there are people saying, “envy me.” I wasn’t attracted to this woman I was mortified by her much as another woman might feel threatened by her; I kept on watching her incessant laughter as a direct assault, and so I dashed towards her with a fork and pricked her lips with it, I pricked her lips. Oh dear God, what have I done, why did I drink that devil drink! Why did I go to a joint where all the discomforts would accompany me!

I recall running out, running furiously, a gang of youth after me, I don’t know where I got the adrenalin to outpace them, fear does such a thing, legs keep moving fast and forever forgetting that muscles have physical limitations, my legs are now in excruciating pain, my wretched imagination kept the vivid images of this woman feeling the lacerations of a tool not designed for cutting, I stormed my brain to stop recalling, it was too late, I had inspired this pain loving brain that doesn’t feel the reconstructed images of the splitting blood, of my forked hand before me, of the anguish in her face, the constructs more monstrous with each evolution of the fork, and then the awakening of fear, my pounding heart, my racing body! At some point I saw Lauren, wearing a business light yellow pant suit, arrive at the crazed scene, she immediately made me out and rushed towards me but, by some magnificent miracle I floated upwards away from her. Upon seeing my heavenly rising body, she hastily looked all around her, and upon seeing no witnesses her arms and hands fisting towards the ground: “Shit! Why do this crazy things always happen when there are no witnesses! Shit! Shit. shit.”

Somehow I made it home, but now I knew that I would be remembered by all eyewitnesses, the bar was only four kilometers from my apartment, I was locked in, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know why I did what I did, I don’t know why I am confessing this to you, I am trapped and now Ogle’s star detective is hunting me down.

After much thought I cut my long wavy brown hair completely, went completely bald and started to grow a moustache, I love hair and I hate moustaches, but now I had to not be me, I had to not be me. And continuing my documentation of Lauren’s life becomes now for me a burden.

Lauren had never gotten angry at Ogle for insisting that she be locked up, she knew that he had to act as if there was every possibility of her being guilty of murdering the major, and then allow for the system to vindicate her, which was precisely how events had unfolded. She is now in Ogles office, “Captain this whole city is going nuts, we have a dead priest, a dead major, a bunch of massacred citizens and now some crazed fuck with a fork running amok! I don’t get it what the hell has been added to the water, we must start imagining that there is some contaminant in the water or food supply, at this rate the entire city will be a funny farm in less than a week.” The captain’s eyes were blood shot, he certainly wasn’t getting any shut eye, his frustrated masculine hands running the length of his face as if to mask the anxiety building within, “I don’t know Lauren where we go from here, we got no clues, nothing, this is really a nest of insanity and I am not sure reasonable conclusions will help us any. Lauren places her hand in her pocket and takes out a bottle of medicine, placing it on top of his desk, “well I do have one clue Capt” “What is this where did you get it?” I don’t know yet what it is but Danny is working on it, I found it outside the cathedral where lay the dead priest, I have a hunch that this bottle is a start, with nothing else, we gotta a hold on to this bottle Capt.” “I didn’t see this bottle in the list of evidence?” “Yeah, I sort of found it outside by accident, I think it best not to mention it to anyone for now, who knows what will pop up.” Captain opens a drawer, takes his gun out of its holster, places it inside and closes the drawer. “Maybe it is a good time not to think like a cop. Keep me posted, right now I got a dinner date with something in my refrigerator.”

I don’t get the papers, I don’t like reading newspapers because they are full of bad news, because they are written by the worst writers, reporters are not writers, and there is no law that says they should be, reporters are just that, reporters, it is wrong for any of us to demand that they write better prose, that they ink a little fortune and imaginative narrative to their extroverted introspections. Anyway reading a paper bores me and reading news is for those people that want to make a difference in the world, I never wanted to make a difference so I didn’t read the papers, I didn’t vote, I didn’t even believe that democracy and information were the key to an intelligent society. But now, I needed to read the paper, so at 6am this morning I committed my second crime, I stole my neighbors newspaper.

“Crazed male attacks woman with fork.”

I don’t know what I thought at that moment, I knew that guy, I didn’t want to know him. The article read:

“In what can only be construed as an incident muscled by insanity a man attacked a woman with a fork, aiming straight for her lips, causing severe injuries to her jaw, cheeks and lips. The incident took place at the popular Bermuda’s Bar, a place where many yuppies gather for happy hour.” Witnesses were many as the place was crowed and the full tragedy of the event is well documented, including a clear description of the male, an older man, presumed to be in late forties early fifties, long curly brown hair, husky, 72 meters tall, he had drank five shots of whisky, was alone, and apparently did not know the woman involved.” Joe Monger, a software engineer described the scene “It was harrowing, she was not doing anything to him, she was just in standing there in shock, and so were we, we could not believe what we were seeing, you are used to seeing that at the movies or on television but when you see it happen like that you just freeze you cant believe that’s real.” Many of the other witnesses were equally in shock and some are being assisted by the red cross to seek counseling, Mandy Williams a frequent customer of the place, was all tears, “How could some one do that, how could such people exist, why this is horrible, I will never be able to come here again.” Obviously many people deeply affected by this terrible incident. “A composite of the man will be released by police today, and detective Lauren, charged with the investigation, is urging the public to collaborate but use all caution, “We have a very accurate description of this male suspect, a composite will be draw up from independent interviews with the witnesses, we will release the profile to seek assistance in the capture of this man, but we urge that anyone making contact with the suspect should use extreme caution as only a deranged man could have accomplished this atrocity.” Police will further release a psychological profile of the suspect, expected to round out misogynistic traits and psychotic anti social behavior patters. Already the police have requested that mental institutions report any missing lunatics.” “Your reporter promises to stay very close to this tragic story. Alfred Mangled.”

Oh no, not only did I now have Lauren assigned to my case, but I now too had my very own reporter, Alfred Mangled. From hence forward I would undoubtedly become an avid reader of this Alfred Mangled fellow.

Sun You Are The Last Of A Line

2006-08-31T17:54:00.001-07:00

Antoinette and Loki and Francisco were home alone, as was their plight being married to a detective one could expect nothing else, nothing else. Antoinette had willingly resigned her executive job and opted to stay home for a year of rest, and to pen her emotions while taking care of the kids. The kids were Loki the mischievous god, and a new addition, Francisco an orange tabby cat, of gorgeous and aggressive proportions, prone to biting that hand that fed him. Antoinette had found him an irresistible must rescue from the iron pet store, where animals went to get sold to humans. Francisco, or Pacho as was his proper nickname, Pacho had been most happy to be rescued and then expected that from there everything would just get better and better; no dry food for him, no cold nights, always nestled between Lauren and Antoinette, running interference in-between their mutual tenderness, yes Pacho became a lovely pain in the ass, as both of his masters were patrolled by his self serving character.

Antoinette is feeling the absence of her mate, she is inking away frustrations, equally wishing she was not writing them down, how else to hide her weaknesses from her lover than to destroy them by way of manifesting them, “if I let the ink pen them they will vanish,…” so went her reasoning, “…the world can not hold a thought if it is spoken...” the pen was silent enunciation, the light from three candles powdered the air, her wine glass held next to her cheek to warm her, “Sun vitriolic center of emancipation… where thy spun angst is negligent… where I sit here, oh sunrise your one rendition, of a dying line, a dying line, oh sun…,” her sentiments pausing, she hates herself for missing her lover, she is not going to accept it, she decides to be truthful to all but Lauren, the fear of being spotted by her detective, “One day you fall in love with a tiger and the next you get swallowed whole by her.” There, that abruptly, the lines came to an end, “one day you fall in love with a tiger and the next you get swallowed by her.”

The wine isn’t enough to explore all of Antoinette’s feelings, she downs a couple of cough medicinal tablets that do not say, “does not cause drowsiness.” The sleep call will take two hours to pronounce itself throughout her body, Antoinette is aware that there will be a wait, she cuddles next to Loki on the couch, and begins to explore her fantastic reality, she is in love with Lauren, she doesn’t know why, she knows that there doesn’t have to be a reason but she doesn’t want to comprehend it, its just that it would be so much easier of there were a reason where she could say, “I love Lauren because she eats hotdogs.” But that isn’t a valid reason to love someone and Lauren doesn’t eat hotdogs, and if she did Antoinette would find less of a reason to love her since her person abhors hotdogs and its hearty slouch companion baseball. But if that were a reason Lauren had already a horrible trait in that she loved, loved SPAM. Yes that weird combination of shit and ham and shit again, where the Federal Drug and Tobacco administration have failed to recommend a daily dosage of Spam, at any level, and though they have not officially announced it, the FDA was anti spam, evidence that they did not recommend it as lunch meat, dinner meat, healthy breakfast. What was spam anyways? No one had ever accurately described it, nor should it be, was it everything that one shouldn’t eat combined into something that one could eat but shouldn’t? Was it the coalesced regiment of souls from all of the cows and pigs killed in the universe in one day? Was spam an act of God to prove that he could create something impossible to eat that could be eaten, and worse, would be eaten? Spam, easy to cook, fills you with lard sensitivity and Lauren, our Lauren, was an avid fan, Spam sandwiches! There is no point in going further, Spam wasn’t going to be any less for it nor would consumption deteriorate, Spam, is one of those staples of the food chain, it was always there, no one can remember when it wasn’t, it will always be here, it doesn’t need any advertising, it is self serving, self sustaining, a perpetual food supply, when everything goes in the universe, there will still be spam and Antoinette will still love Lauren.

Antoinette dozed off. She fell sleep clinging to, “Sun you’re the last of a line.”

But her sleep was not to be, she was awakened by a kiss on the lips from her detective, her swollen eyes rehearsed an opening, and then pronounced their natural discharge of affection towards the one person that somehow made her feel herself. A sweetness crept all over both admirers when Lauren spoke, “Babe, did you forget that we have the engaging moon asking us to listen to some Jazz tonight?” Antoinette’s lips in full blossom, while her hand retrieved the permissiveness of her hair, “yes, we have a night out, I will get ready, just give me a few minutes…” her voice disappeared and followed her into the bedroom.

I must confess from a writers perspective that it is difficult to define Antoinette, hence your lack of knowledge of her. I have a firm grasp of Lauren, Lauren tells me “this is who I am! this is who I am!” Antoinette is an ephemeral creature, she doesn’t say “I am here…” Instead she tries not to be noticed by not trying to be noticed. She fades into the crowd even as she is beautiful and alluring; something in her tells you to look away, to distance yourself, any approach could be dangerous, or strange, but you don’t know what, instead you end up avoiding defining her and meeting her; in a crowd she is with everyone and no one, she is willing to listen, she is first not to doubt your superiority of wit and charm and might, she assumes you are correct about everything, she is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when you are wrong or worse when you are afraid of yourself. She will never muster the necessity to say something obligingly ridiculous about your ways and feelings, those things are not there for her. In a crowd she subtracts herself, and yet she is with all and in all more than any of those others which have so well defined the fences of their character.

Perhaps her intangible nature is based on our avoidance of feelings, we are afraid to feel, Antoinette feels everything and worse wants to feel more and more and doesn’t want to subtract herself from feeling. Perhaps when we approach her we are afraid to go into that limbo of sentiment, into those eyes where reason falters, where the comforts of logic and discernable matters fail to enter; Antoinette’s heart is engorged with lust for the emotional life, when she left her executive job she left nothing, there was nothing there, her indifference won her much, but it was a genuine indifference, she didn’t care if the internet survived in the modern world, she didn’t think the world a better or worse place because of the internet, she didn’t feel it either way, if some day the last in a line of Sun’s were to banish and only moonless nights would continue, Antoinette would not see how that could change what she felt, for even as the beautiful flowers which she loved so much, might disappear, Antoinette did not hold them hostage to mandatory existence. It was all a flow of events transpiring while some conspired to stop them, she did not.

Lauren and Antoinette went to listen to Jazz at a joint that had not reached the levels of professionalism that would educate the faltering notes, instead hapless musicians sure of their breathless beats, blew meaning down saxophones and pounced upon riveting pianos, while guitars got hand molested in ways that guitars shouldn’t be touched. The two women laughed, the smoke was illegal, the abundance uninhibited; at any time everything in this place could be in first place, right now it was all simply in last.

Lauren drove home, she was over the drunken limit, she didn’t have a wedding ring on her, she noticed this as she saw her hand on the steering column, she felt herself complete, she turned her cigarette and face towards the woman next to her, “Hey lets get married.” Antoinette leaned back away from her lover, so as to capture all of that woman before her, “yes, I will marry you Lauren but you have to get me a ring.” “Shit yeah woman I get you an emerald ring, but you have to get me one too.” Antoinette leaned back and kissed her detective.

The Aztec’s Root For Maguey

2006-08-31T17:54:00.000-07:00

The next day was a Saturday, Lauren felt that something wasn’t completely right with Antoinette, and so she decided to skip work, sometimes murder cases can wait, once the coroner does his evaluation you have seven years to discover if the body was killed or if it was an accident that looks like a murder or if it was a deceptive suicide, or if it was simply a murder by mother nature. Lauren was one of those who believed that everything was a murder because she was a homicide investigator but Habakkuk could have told her, though he never did, that the universe considers all murders accidental overload, when enough things agglomerate in a certain direction and all the participating entities are in negative accordance someone gets killed, simple as that, the murdered is an equal participant in his undoing, and the murderer is equally a victim of their mutual interaction. But we are not going to try to explain that to Lauren. Anyway she now felt that Antoinette needed some time away from the rambunctious city, and so awakened her with a scramble egg breakfast on what was a lovely sunny Saturday.

Antoinette munched down on the buttered toast and the delicious tea, of the latter she preferred more than coffee, Lauren was the coffee addict, in its pure essence, no sugar, no milk, black, and Italian roast preferably though sometimes she softened and accepted French roast. “Hey why don’t we go to Salinas tonight for the weekend, its near here but far away in every other sense, we can have some delicious Mexican food, and perhaps get those banana leaves you been wanting for your tamales.”

Antoinette loved to cook tamales and she always complained that she could never get the banana leaves, so this was a very pleasant idea, “Salinas, yes that sounds wonderful.”

Salinas was not a tourist town, it was instead a farming community full of illegal and legal Mexican migrant labor that worked away the days pulling lettuce, spinach, celery, broccoli; and contrary to popular belief, they were mostly happy people, migrant labor yes, hard and dirty work yes, but they didn’t consider ground dirt, and mostly they were happy; poor yes, mostly illiterate yes, they hadn’t even heard of homeboy Steinbeck; nor were they as sad about Salinas and their lives as he was. Would their sixteen year old daughters mostly get pregnant out of wedlock and with the wrong boy? Yes, but they were happy families just that the fathers and the mothers were a bit unreasonable, they wanted the best for their daughters; yet most of them would end up just like them, which could be a sort of compliment; the parents wanted their daughters to marry rich white boys or some Mexican from Mexico City, but they were not being realistic, sixteen year old girls from poor families don’t get to meet a lot of white guys from Harvard, specially not where white boys are a minority, nor do these girls get to Mexico city because they are part of a caravan of lettuce pickers in America, these Mexicans parents were just being idealistic so as to protect themselves from the reality that the chances of their daughter getting out of their way of life were nil. Statistic after statistic showed that 80% of a community kept on reproducing itself, rich and poor alike; sure, the Mexican families took their daughters to the famous Salinas rodeo to meet the cowboys, but the cowboys were nothing more than migrant laborers themselves, and just as happy and as drunk as the Mexican lettuce pickers. So little Conchitas or Mijitas weren’t going to get anywhere beyond this little town, and it was only for the parents sake that they were punished for getting pregnant like their mother did; and little Fernandito that got her pregnant would get his balls temporarily tied, by mother tears, like those horses at the rodeo, but in the end he would be an added and much loved son to the girl’s family. They were all mostly happy. Most of the time life was calm, food was good, very good for it was Mexican food, but of course you couldn’t tell the human rights activists, you couldn’t tell them that these were the descendants of the Aztecs; that the Aztecs were the worlds greatest farmers of their time, hence the reason why the Salinas Valley was so productive, Aztec energy, but you couldn’t even tell it to the big plantation owners; that the Mexicans picking their lettuce were the descendants of Tenochtitlan.

The two pretties drove to the fertile Salinas Valley and found an inn where they could rest the coming night, though they had every intention of eating out, and ignoring their hostess’s offerings. They went to the town market, “Jose’s” and there they went of a buying binge for everything that composed a tamale, lard, pork butt, nixtamal and including banana leaves, sure Mexicans were more in the habit of using corn husk but Antoinette had her own version, she was an avid lover of the dark green texture of banana leaves, that is how she hid her tamales.

Coming out of the town market they stumbled into Jose, the owner of the market, a Mexican, now in his late fifties, that had worked the fields all of his life, but saved enough money to open his own market. He was getting into his white van and Antoinette and Lauren greeted him, as they knew him from their occasional shopping. Jose greeted them cordially but seemed a bit distant, less his usual cheery self. Antoinette took notice and made her way closer to him, “where are you going Jose?” “Out to the field to pick Maguey for some Pulque.” Antoinette was familiar with the miracle plant and Pulque its fermented sweet liquid that was the product of the end of a Maguey’s life, the sweet liquid was the result of ten years of maturity and a blossoming stem, to get to the sweet liquid Jose would have to cut the stem, that would kill the plant. Perhaps the Aztec in him was into pulling hearts and tasting the sweetness of the act. Antoinette without asking Lauren “Jose we will go with you, would love to see you extract the sweet liquid.” Jose didn’t know how to say no to the ladies, he was himself a sweet man, and though underneath his ruana his heart hesitated, “Come on then, that plant and I have waited for ten years for this moment.”

This was why Lauren loved Antoinette, because at any moment something different would happen, the shopping trip had turned into a trip for extracting some liquid from some plant, and this was what they were going to do. She was pleased, they hopped on the van both sat in the back, the front was all cluttered with boxes, the back had no seats, it was not going to be a very comfortable trip, but Jose’s conversation made things comfortable enough. “Worked this fields all my life, there hasn’t been a place where I haven’t stood beneath a hot sun to rip harvest from the earth, long years.” Antoinette, “Did you ever marry Jose?” there was some hesitation from the man, “No, no, couldn’t bring myself to it, there was so much work, all the time work, Mexican woman require lots of attention and I didn’t have the time, not the time.” This was highly unusual and Lauren took notice of the cultural dissent, so she decided to dig a little deeper as was her nature, “Jose but surely you have some children running around all of Mexico?” She finished that sentence with the appropriate smooth over giggle and eye play towards Antoinette. From the drivers seat the pause was another long one, then the man that had no philosophy in him, only worked the fields all of his life, picking lettuce, carrying boxes, loading trucks, and shelling out dough to fill the shelves with inventory, the man with fingers always inflamed and dirty nails, but dirty with the grub of the earth, dirty because the earth had sculpted them so that he could touch her, “children, no, no…” and his voice faded then he revitalize himself, “Pulque will be good today, that plant doesn’t give around these parts, planted it there myself just ten years ago.” With that the van came to a halt somewhere next to a huge lettuce field. Lauren and Antoinette followed their tour guide, he pointed somewhere towards what could have been the center of the field with military precision, “its over there.” Only Antoinette and Lauren stared at each other, over there could be anywhere, it was a huge field, you couldn’t see the other side, they started through the furrows occasionally losing balance and crushing the total production of lettuce, Jose walked firmly but slowly, after about a seven minute walk they reached what they had not seen but should have seen, amongst all the lettuce was this gorgeous and huge Maguey, a leach collection long and sturdy plant, belching out towards the sky and then subdued by gravity retrenching towards the earth, a desert plant amidst this fertile valley, she seemed like the queen of the lettuce patch, and a huge stem rising full of blossoms, “children, children” his hands up, cried out Jose, “children you wanted to see my children here are all my children, blossoming after ten years.” Antoinette and Lauren smiling joy, seeing the glory in these man’s love of his plant, “beautiful.” Cried Antoinette, “yes, very beautiful.” Followed Lauren.

“Well but to get our Pulque we must cut out the stem.” and with saying that, Jose, grabs a machete from his bag, and chops the twenty foot stem right off its foundation. And a jolly Jose grabs the yellow exposed heart of the maguey, and he takes this yellow large banana shaped organic container, and from the top, cutting a small hole, begins to suck agua the miel, then he gives some to his companions, which approvingly enjoy the honeyed water, though not wholly aware that the formation will arouse drunkenness. After the afternoon hot sun had shied a little, the three were laying on the lettuce, next to the plant, Jose utters, “the plant I now freed to die.” “What do you mean Jose?” When I cut the stem the plant’s life was over, but it was the only way to get the pulque out of her heart.” Lauren a bit disgusted, “You mean that beautiful plant dies after you cut it?” Jose inching no sympathy, “Well we just drank the blood within its heart lady.” Antoinette, “It’s a shame, a real shame, Jose we could have let it live, it was wrong to kill it.” Jose, is now just as drunk and somewhat candidly he said, “you don’t know why I cut that heart, you don’t know why I drank its blood, I had a child, I had a child, you want to know I had a child!” Antoinette and Lauren are a bit out of comprehensive range, “I had a child, had to come work this field, work this field, we wore head covers, couldn’t afford a hat, so we used blankets, cover our heads from the presumptuous sun, I brought little Joselito here many times, couldn’t leave him at home alone…” Antoinette and Lauren have lost any drunkenness they had amass, they remained silent, “then one day, I get done and having Joselito in my back the blanket heat had killed him, I held my Joselito in my arms, I held my only companion in my arms, he didn’t cry, never cried, he didn’t breath, didn’t breath, I buried my Joselito there.” Pointing his earthly fingers at the core of the dying plant while tears drained him. Lauren puts her hand to her mouth, Antoinette, doesn’t move, “My little Joselito, today I drank his sweetness, no one knows lady cop, now you know, you wanted to come here with me, my Joselito is the root of this pulque we just drank. You can arrest me now, I am ready to go, I was just waiting for ten years.”

Lauren and Antoinette don’t know how to react they haven’t a socialized ritualized reaction for what they are witnessing, they came here to get away from the vibrant city, and now they are both in front of a man that lost his baby to the sun god, and now before the altar that he constructed on top of his baby’s grave they have drank the sacred liquid in his honor. Something Jose had waited ten years for, ten years.

Lauren somewhat restored but hesitant, “What happened to your baby’s mother Jose?” The despondent man responded, “never had a wife, she didn’t want to marry me, she said she never wanted to marry me, that she didn’t love me, she had Joselito and gave him to me, said she couldn’t keep a child from a man she didn’t love.” To Antoinette the complete separation that had existed between them and Jose became huge and impossible to ignore, Antoinette got up, walked over to him, grabbed his earthly bound hand, “common Jose, come with us, you can stay at the Inn with us tonight, it is best we talk later, for now lets just go.” Lauren, who was not quite sure she was in agreement with Antoinette, helped to carry him into the van, and Antoinette held the languishing Aztec, while Lauren drove them to the Inn.

Happenstance Tragedies

2006-08-31T17:53:00.000-07:00

The sane world had passed away into obscurity and come back again, Lauren was preparing for her morning shower; cleaning her teeth she stared at herself in the mirror wondering if the Chinese had also invented the toothbrush, this she thought possible because they had invented clocks, chess, gunpowder, religion, and now everything that was being used in America even her toothbrush was made by Chinese, cheaper, better and faster so why not equally assume that it was genetics, the Chinese were the inventors of that cumbersome morning task, a toothbrush was one of those inventions that could never be taken back or forgotten, just like perfume. Though the latter was most certainly invented by the French, the French wanted everything to look pretty and part of looking pretty was smelling pretty, but maybe the French were also a Chinese invention, so cutely intellectual they, a timeless receptacle of cute thoughts.

Lauren considered brushing her teeth time for mental chatter, and so these were her thoughts, but when she jumped into the shower, that was time for serious thoughts. “How many Jose’s in the Salinas Valley, how many lettuce fields are nourished by the happenstance tragedies induced by toiling under the hot sun?” And after her dutiful killing of Sister Bertha she sure wasn’t a convincing moralist, but still she thought to ask herself the tough questions with hot water running through her back, “Do I report this to the captain and turn the burden of judgment upon him? What would he do with Jose? The man is obviously a victim of circumstances, a hard life, maybe Captain wont look at it purely from a legal perspective, or will the burden of knowledge force him to charge Jose with involuntary manslaughter?” The noise of the water droplets hitting the shower curtain kept rhythm, Loki was outside the shower watching Lauren’s shadow flourishing through the plastic, his head moving back and forth with it.

Lauren turns the water off, and is met with fresh coffee by Antoinette, “eggs will be ready in a few.” Lauren looks at her lover with the anticipation of many beautiful years to come. Over breakfast Antoinette “Last night I realized that we are just puppets of the relationship being felt by our souls, we are mere reflections of it Lauren, you and I are a poor construct of the true love that our souls are experiencing, I felt our souls last night bonded, truly bonded.” Antoinette’s sincere remarks struck a truth within Lauren, just she too somehow felt that there was something that wasn’t complete here in the material between them, and yet that they were in separately together in the spiritual realm. But Lauren was definitely not ready to move on from the happenings in Salinas instead she reverted the conversation, “Babe, I don’t know if to report Jose, or to let it be, a child has been born, who knows if he was baptized or just had in some field of labor, and now this child has died, and no one has recorded his death, and how can I let that go, someone has to say something.” Antoinette pauses everything, “No Lauren you cant say anything this is not a matter for you or the authorities, let this man be, what ever happened to that child he has done nothing wrong but be a victim of painful circumstances.” “Even if that is true I cant ignore it, and the community needs to be aware of what can happen when they take their babies out into the fields, and that if it happens social services will take action to hold them accountable, Joselito did not deserve to die like that because of the ignorance or squabbles between his parents.” “No, your insane, your just going to punish him to serve a greater good that has no immediate benefit but to further destroy this already burdened man. Your not going to correct the ills of the world by hurting him further, only try to feel how devastated he is Lauren, feel him, please.”

Lauren finished her coffee searched for empathy within herself, “He has something terrible to live the rest of his life, and I might have to hold that within myself too without any resolution, a child has lived and died without record, a mother has abandoned him, a father has buried him in silence after a hot day of picking lettuce, I don’t know, were we put there by destiny, by his soul to let the world know what took place? Was it a coincidence that we met this tragedy, that we went out to the field with him was that a coincidence?” Antoinette placing her hand on Lauren’s heart, “Perhaps it is not a coincidence, perhaps Joselito guided us there to be with his father that had loved him all of those years and he didn’t want him alone in his only birthday a decade long, he brought us to Jose to be with him, that’s really what happened Lauren, Joselito did not want his father drinking his blood alone, and we were there to take him home afterwards, where else he might have stayed there and dry under the hot sun like his son.” Lauren didn’t know what to say to this, she hugged Antoinette, they both felt each other, with ten thousand times less sensitivity than there souls were hugging now.

Bobbie’s Love Letters

2006-08-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

Antoinette was home alone, another day for her contemplations to reach beyond the sky net of her now more or less normal life. She is rummaging through one of Lauren’s unpacked wooden chests, the opened vault offering insight into her lover, Antoinette is just thinking she will organize things a bit, when she finds a golden envelop, wrapped nicely with a silken lace. Antoinette admires the wrapping, she unleashes the silk, and within her view captivating letters, at least 62 letters she counts, yes, she decided to count instead of reading first, then she posed herself the moral question, “If I read them am I betraying our trust, is Lauren going to eventually let me read these letters? Should I wait? What if she throws them away before I read them?” Her curiosity helps her decide to see who they are from, they are from Bobbie, Bobbie to her lover. Antoinette does not read any more than that, she quickly puts the works back into the chest, closes it as if definitely for the last time, she mentally notes that the letters do not have a date, they look fresh, they even have a scent, could not be that old, and yet, Lauren had told her that she was her first lover.

That night with Lauren home, over dinner and the usual glass of wine, Antoinette was moody, she wanted to bring the topic to the conversation but could not bring herself to do it. Lauren noticed moodiness, but having had a hard day she opted not to bring the matter to life. Silently the two went to bed, almost without touching each other, and each facing her side of the bed away from the other, the night stood still for a few weeks.

Bobbie, who was Bobbie? I can tell you but I am not sure if I shouldn’t wait till Antoinette and Lauren discuss it, maybe for good reason I shall let Bobbie be silent for now too. It is always safer to follow a pattern.

The next day and the next day after that, Antoinette stared at the wooden chest, the wooden chest stood silent, wooden chests perhaps because of their pirate history have a tendency to keep treasures and secrets for long periods of time; this particular wooden chest seemed content with keeping within something that somehow separated Lauren and Antoinette.

The house became a dueling ring, Antoinette in the house, with the chest, the chest at the center of her grueling attentions, another dinner and another dinner of silence, this went on for about three weeks and then one day things exploded. Antoinette, “Is there something that you want to tell me?” In the middle of a bite Lauren replying, “Something to tell you…” Spaghetti stringing between her teeth and the expanding chasm, “…something like what, that I had a hard day at work or…” Lauren knew that Antoinette was tremendously jealous and so she uttered the following without thinking of the implications, it was just to curtail what she thought her mate might be conjuring with her vivid imagination, “…or do you want me to tell you about a lover or something like that!” And she raised the accent as induced by the breathed air between the two that had undoubtedly huge quantities of dark matter embellishing their lungs.

“You never want to listen, you never want to talk, you keep this silence between us, makes you feel more in control! Well I am not like that, I want to talk things through, there is something eating at us and you don’t want to discuss it because you think it is going to magically fix itself, well it isn’t going to magically fix itself, we have to talk, I want to talk about it, because I love you, and I want our relationship to work and I am willing but you’re not and I can not do this by myself!” Lauren frustrated replied, “Look I am happy in our relationship, I don’t have any problems with it, you’re the one that seems to think we have problems, I have never been happier in my life, so I don’t have to fix anything, why don’t you go see a psychiatrist if that will make you feel better, I personally don’t believe in therapy.”

“See how you are, because you don’t believe in therapy you won’t go with me and it does me no good to go by myself because the problem is within our relationship, I can’t fix it by myself, it won’t do me any good to talk to someone if you won’t go with me!” Antoinette finishing with some starting cries. Then she continues, “we are distant, we haven’t had sex in practically a month, I don’t feel you, you are off somewhere else, I admit that I have been cold, but that is because I can’t open up, and I can’t open up because you are so distant, there was a time when you made me feel so much.” Tears unleashing trickling past her fruitless fingers.

Lauren walks over to her, holds her neck, she gives her a kiss on the forehead, “hey, listen to me, I love you, I love you, I am happy with you, I am in love with us, with us you hear me?” Sobbing Antoinette joins with a few gasps, “Yes, I am so silly, sorry I know you love me its just that sometimes I feel so insecure, I feel that nothing has any seriousness, like I cant grasp anything real.” Lauren holding her hands, breathing near her, talking next to her ear, “We all feel like that at times, there is nothing wrong with that, but you just can’t make it into a problem of our relationship, and more jealousy is not a sign that you love me, it is instead a sign that you are afraid of our love, please, just calm down; think of us; when ever I have problems I think of you and me, and us, and I feel better immediately.”

Antoinette moved her arm and the wineglass went crashing down into crystals. They both took attention and Antoinette, “I am becoming such a klutz.” Lauren laughed, “A beautiful klutz, lets go to bed.”

The two went to bed, in the bedroom was the chest with Bobbie’s letters.

Ok I will tell you about the letters.

Bobbie, Bobbie, was someone that was madly in love with Lauren, she was a nicely husky natural baby face and sedately beautiful woman, she had this very wonderful calm way about her, like she knew just what she wanted, like she would not make any mistakes about her choices in life, that she knew where she was going, that she might have to go at it alone for a while but that she would make it in the world. Such people have an enigmatic attraction, life does not seem complex to them, it is something that they just live through without much doubt. Bobbie, was the daughter of one of Lauren’s mentors, Ralph Andalonol. Ralph had taught Lauren much in the way of detective work, he was, along with Ogle, a first rate mentor, he knew the business of digging up crimes and their criminals, but he had something else, he had been frank with Lauren, he once told her, “this police work is shit Lauren, I never wanted to be a cop, I fell into the labor of it one day and never found my way out of this shit hole. I will teach you, you want me to teach you I will help you become the best, but don’t expect me to tell you that you chose a fine profession or that we are on the side of the good guys. You’re going to see shit here and you aren’t going to be able to tell if the shit is from your guys or the bad guys, that’s the truth here Lauren. You will do well to know that from the start, that way you don’t get any fancy ideas about saving the world and becoming the first cop Wonder Woman.”

Yeap that is exactly how their friendship started, Lauren at the time thought, “Oh another crap spitting disappointed cop.” Later she grew to love him as a friend and mentor, and she realized that his early speeches had trained her in the most difficult art of law enforcement, seeing gray all over the place, seeing gray all over the place. This is where life blurs definitions, where you see the likeness between a judge and a syndicate boss. Where you see the gray relationship between supreme justice and supreme injustice, where the hoodlum in the street learns your heart and you his, where bullets define the only genuine difference between humans, some are dead some are alive. Detective Andalonol, was not here to define the gray line, everything was gray.

He had always wanted to be the captain of a fishing vessel, he thought of himself as a man that had never caught his ship, he had the mariner’s blood, he read the nautical charts with pleasure in his eyes, he even knew how to use a sextant and would use it in his backyard charting the earth’s navigation across the universe strapped on to a solar system. He was Bobbie’s father, he adored her, and cared for her after her mother died in a car accident. So many people die in car accidents; in any given day a metal clump on wheels smashes into pedestrians, churns and crushing their bones, organs and flesh, the noises are subtle, the screams of the driver that perhaps realizes that there is a nightmare that will never sleep, the pedestrian’s tumbling eyes helpless under the wheels going into shock realizing helplessness; what scream can rescue you now when only silence can buy you peace, there before your eyes your mangled body parts, an open wound throwing blood into your face, your favorite shirt an invalid tourniquet, your eyes reading rubber threads, the street severely motionless, the lights, the colors, the passers by, all distorted from this angle. Bobbie’s mother died that way, a painless memory a splinter in her daughter’s brain.

Detective Andalonol wanted his daughter to be the captain of a shipping vessel. He would take her on deep sea fishing excursions, she saw her father struggle with swordfish, reel them in, take a picture with them and then back into the shining sea they went. Her father didn’t have the heart to kill any of the fish that he caught, he was always throwing them back, no matter how big no matter how abundant he always ended up throwing them back into the waters where from they came. Bobbie understood the implications that his behavior implied towards his dream of being a fishing vessel captain, but she was so beautiful of mind, one of those rare types, that could keep all of those comments to herself, her Dad was a good cop, he caught criminals and no fish, and he probably was more a cop than a fisherman but he had to think of himself as a fisherman and she did nothing to discourage this behavior. Naturally he wanted his daughter to be a fisherman, even if that meant getting up at four o’clock in the morning, even if it meant that she would have to endure long periods at sea, away from her loving father, a father that had never remarried and needed his daughter more than she needed him.

One day, one day, Lauren went to Detective Andalonol’s house, to fix herself a shot of whiskey and to drown a bad day at the office, a bad day at the office was usually a shootout that had dead cops, dead civilians, dead criminals, dead all over. She went over, to a beautifully constructed wooden house, it was a sort of modern cabin, large, five bedrooms and yet small, or quaint, lusciously clean, and reeking of comfort from all angles, it had a sauna, a Jacuzzi, a nicely cared for backyard, and within, the furnishings were modest but all so well laid out, that they seem part of the wood fixtures, grown organic furnishings. While they waited for Andalonol to get home, Lauren and Bobbie chatted in the studio. The drinks perhaps made them more honest, they had always had lots in common but nothing in particular, they just liked talking and being together. This day Lauren was frazzled and she had welcomed a much needed hugging session with Bobbie. Comforting as that might have been, and redundant and pointless as it was for Bobbie to tell Lauren that she was never going to be a ship’s captain, as it was the hugging and drinks were nurturing more, and so it came that the two stared at each other, for a brief moment when the aperture of their mutually probing eyes let them know something intimate about each other. Something told them that they loved each other, their souls reached out and told one another that they felt loved, and yet neither Bobbie nor Lauren admitted anything, not a word was spoken. Lauren removed Bobbie’s frazzled hair from her forehead, while Bobbie touched Lauren’s shoulder in a comforting manner.

Then Bobbie, moved Lauren to the couch, gently coerced her to sit and then rushed over to a desk drawer, withdrew some contents, a beautiful golden envelope wrapped with silk, she then, smiling, handed it to Lauren and said, “these are for you,” Lauren was a bit uncertain of what she was accepting, Bobbie noticed and complied with a difficult explanation, “I have always been writing letters to my lover, they don’t have your name because I didn’t know your name, but they are for you, I wanted to give them to you sooner but I didn’t know how, and I wasn’t certain till now that you are my spiritual lover.” There was just one little problem, at this time Lauren still thought of herself as merely a dissatisfied heterosexual, she still thought that it was all still a matter of finding Mr. Right, everything would be good after that; and so she replied, “Oh no, I can’t accept this, I can’t accept this, thank you but no.” And with that her long fingers, palm stretched, pushed the golden envelop away.

Normal people understand rejection but Bobbie, a tomboyish short-haired blond with a confident baby face, blue eyes disposition, was sure of herself, “No, don’t say no, these are for you, don’t worry I don’t expect anything, I wrote them knowing that you wouldn’t expect them, I am happy to give them to you, I am happy knowing that they were not written in vain, that you did show up, I wouldn’t have expected it to be you, but I am certain these are for you,” she paused, smiled, and reasserted herself, “…they are from me to you.” Lauren helplessly accepted the letters and placed them in her purse, taking only a brief moment to acknowledge the gorgeous wrapping.

It was then that “Hello girls how are we?” It was Detective Andalonol, the two saw him entering the room and readjusted themselves, Lauren feeling like she had done something wrong begun to look for an excuse to get out, “Oh I really must go now.” Detective Andalonol unaware of the transpiring emotional cauldron, “I won’t hear of it, you will stay and you will have a few more drinks with us until we forget three dead, two seriously wounded by stabbings, and one that got away, we have to first forget all that Lauren.”

After much comradeship Lauren managed to get out, with a brief moment, to search Bobbie with her eyes, she felt something, something which she liked, she noticed it, and said “Bobbie, I am glad you are trusting me with these letters, I will read them, read them soon.” Bobbie, greeted the warmness with a spiritual smile, Dad noticed nothing.

On the way home, Lauren got a flat tire, she didn’t want to be bothered by anyone, so she pulled over on the side of a very busy freeway, and changed her flat tire for a good one. Occasionally cursing the tire, but really seeming to enjoy the arduous moment.

When she got home Lauren did not read the letters she placed them in her wooden chest, and forgot about them. Forgetting was made easier because Detective Andalonol was killed three months later in one of those bad days. Bobbie moved away, without even telling Lauren where she went.

Then one day, Antoinette opened that wooden chest.

Second & Third Suspect

2006-08-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

Lauren was at her desk, sipping the morning drug, hot and dark and thick as she liked it, perhaps it made her feel more passionate than someone holding a clerical desk job, though any analysis of her detective work would reveal more paperwork than the more alluring chase scenes, which mostly never happened because Lauren was really a criminologist, studying carcasses, locations and relationships to divine why some unnatural event would curtail the possibility of a natural death.

In her wallet was a picture of her best friend, Antoinette, it was a photo taken quickly at one of those instant photo machines, Antoinette looked like the mug shot of a seductive killer, her hair uncombed, her face pale, her lips seeming disjointed, it was Lauren’s favorite photo of her lover.

The entire precinct knew that Lauren had a female lover, some had suspected that Lauren regardless of her blond daisy-spring-day beauty was not keen on men, specially because she never paid attention to the handsome and very manly detectives and officers that she was constantly in contact with. The fact is that Lauren did date men, that before Antoinette she had not considered herself sensitive to the sensibilities of the feminine, and more a fact it was that Lauren had no interest in marrying another cop, she didn’t like the mental construct of police neurons, she felt that there was nothing to share in that world, she herself did it because it was easy, Lauren had never fought with her self, she did what came natural to her, there was no thinking involved in her job.

Danny pops in, “Hello Detective Lauren!” She puts down her coffee cup so that she can use all of her physical proportions to greet Danny with raw warmth, the one face in this place that always cheers her up. “Hey buddy, give me a hug, how are you?” The words were filled with mutual emotive actions, the hug was long and soothing to both, and then they automatically took their seats and again robot like commenced to talk business as if the previous instant had existed in another dimension.

“Got you the final results on the Archbishop’s autopsy, guess you were right.” “Right about what Danny?” “He just died of natural causes, he just died in his sleep, that’s why the results from the autopsy took so long to finalize; see when someone gets poisoned or hit over the head with a hammer, that usually makes it easy for me to reach a conclusion, but when they die of natural causes I have to run more test, and more test, just to make sure that it isn’t one of the 101 ways you can kill someone without detection. We finally finished all the testing on the sleepy Archbishop and you were right, he died of nothing other that natural causes. It looks like he might have felt a little tired, probably wanted to sleep, felt comfortable in the house of the lord, and plopped himself to snore on top of the altar. At some point, an act of god perhaps, his body functions ceased, very much their own decision.”

“He was taking Paxil, we spoke to his psychiatrist,” Lauren perplexed pauses Danny, “He was seeing a psychiatrist?” “Yes, am afraid that the good father was suffering from a severe depression, unfortunately we are not privy to those medical records unless you subpoena them as part of a murder investigation, but anyone can suffer from depression, and Paxil is a commonly used mood normalizer, I wouldn’t think that there would be a reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary.” Of course Danny wasn’t a criminologist, he was a coroner, there was a slight difference there, sufficient enough to cause Lauren to ask, “What’s the name of the Archbishops Psychiatrist? “Doctor Rosen, Bill Rosen.” “Did you meet with him?” Danny replies moving his head off kilter as if trying to divine what Lauren was seeing here that he wasn’t, “No, we spoke on the phone, twice, once to confirm the medication and the other to ask about the Archbishop’s condition in general, he reported nothing extraordinary, and acted as if he were willing to cooperate with us if such need arose. However he did make it clear that his patients’ mental health records were sealed.” “Danny why would he offer to cooperate with us if further assistance was needed?” Danny pauses for a thought and responds, “Maybe he would just want us to know that he is not a suspect in his own eyes.” “That’s why I love you Danny boy, precisely that, he wants to assure us that he is not a suspect in his own eyes. I think we got our second suspect in the murder of Timothy Wellington.” “But Lauren I just told you he died in his sleep…” Danny pauses, he realizes now that something is or could be out of whack, then he continues, “…second suspect Lauren?” “Why yes, second suspect, my first suspect is Father Trosin.” Danny takes a look around the office, almost as if he is searching for an anchor of sorts, then ever helpful and understanding of Lauren, “Is there something that you need me to change in this report before I hand it to the Captain.” Lauren sits up straight and shifts some papers on her desk, letting Danny know she was moving on to other business, “Nope Danny, you say he wasn’t murdered, he died in his sleep, then he died in his sleep; just write it like that, works for me, I will worry about the murder wrap, after all there are 102 ways to kill a man without killing him.” Her smile blinking the trust me eye at the coroner. He placed his hand on his chin, paused there for a few seconds, then moved on, “You’re something else.”

As Lauren watched Danny walk away, his sexy ass covered by denim pants, she recalled last night, her coffee sipping begun again, Antoinette laying on the bed, with Lauren straddling her, was sucking her breastless nipple, Lauren holding her lovers hair, the night holding both; the coffee had all that memory in her lips.

Unfortunately her phone rings and cancels that, it is the voice of an elderly man his name is Otto, he wants to meet with her, at a grease pit called Sam’s Truck Stop. It is a truck driver’s heaven. His coarse voice has a quick and volatile charm, she assumes nothing from it and asks, “How will I recognize you?” He replies while thinking the question ridiculous. “Lady, you will be the only well dressed lesbian cop in the joint” Lauren hastily hung up the phone. Went to the bathroom, and self consciously attempted to search her self, to see if she could also see a well dressed cop and a lesbian, she couldn’t see either at all.

She sat down at Sam’s, the place a giant squared box of architecture, a fine example that you don’t have to design beauty into buildings nor do you have to care about the surroundings, the square box was only in touch with the restaurant and with truck drivers, it function well, as far as the outside world was concerned, that world did not exist. The truckers were surely from all over, this was one of their important pit stops, showers, restrooms, food, gas, they could buy stuffed animals, they could have a drink, they could gamble poker hands, and they could chat to their comrades from the big and long highway. Lauren didn’t look like she belong there, the sign on her table read, “breakfast all day long.” Another “coffee is always free.” She ordered a coffee. Her waitress was in between a reddish, brownish, yellowish hair die situation, she was surely forty something and divorced; “Hello Doll what will you be having?” nicely unpretentious, “I will have just coffee please.” “Well if you have just coffee then you have to pay for the coffee, its only free honey if you eat something with it.” Lauren moving her hands over her thighs so as to rub off any clingy energy. “yes, that’s fine, coffee please.” The fine maiden could have waited to get closer to the counter before yelling “Jose, coffee table 9” but then, she was just as efficient as the building.

A man in blue jeans, worn red shoes, a long charcoal colored coat, wearing a brown cloth hat and hardly shaven, “hello lady may I join you?” Lauren recognized the voice, “Please.” Jose a very alert bus boy arrives with two coffee cups; though he does ask if the second cup will be needed, to which the man replies, “Get me a bourbon will you.” The boy calls for help, “Madge quieren bourbon on 9.” Madge replies loudly without ever changing her current tone or activity, bending down to get some muffins from a warming drawer, “Jose, how long have you been with us now, you tell those people we don’t serve bourbon and we don’t serve any liquor before 8 PM, mothers against drunk drivers pain in the ass.” Jose turns to look at the customers in table 9, the man blinks both eyes, warm smile, “I’ll just have coffee.”

Lauren offers a greeting hand, “I am Lauren.” The man does not acknowledge the hand, instead he reaches in his blue jean pocket and pulls out a cigarette, offers one to Lauren, she declines, “suit yourself lady.” A red disposable lighter ignites the nicotine charm, while Lauren takes notice that his hands are trembling, that normal trembling of someone that has drank too much, seen too much, been too much. “Your name?” “My name, oh yeah you would be wanting one of those, don’t matter what you call me now lady, you can call me Otto, Otto is my name, just like that guy that invented car engines.” Lauren became compulsively more detective, “What do we want to talk about Otto?” “I think I can tell you about a man that you need to know more about. But first I want you to swear to me that I can walk out of here regardless of what I tell you, else I say nothing.” “You have my word.” “Good enough for me.”

“I used to be a priest with the diocese, you wouldn’t know it from looking at me today, that’s heavy work the lord’s, takes a man down fast if he is not ready to give his soul and blood. I could drink all the bourbon in the world back then, now I just ask for it, no where to get it.” He pauses as if to acknowledge that he misses the missionary work load, his cigarette lighting the way, he resumes, “then Mother Superior Adelaide happen to me, and the archbishop now and I know it is strange to tell it to you lady, but I think you sense something is very wrong with the whole thing.”

Lauren replied slowly as she was still stuck with the mother superior part, how did Adelaide fit into all this. But she reassured Otto that she was being patient and was listening and that he could continue so indirectly through his story.

“There was a nun, sister Estela, she was the holiest of nuns, she was always in holy prayer, always helping the poor, always shining a path to the lord, she never had time for nothing else but the lord, then one day, I walked in on Mother Superior Adelaide and she had handcuffed Estela and Estela was on her knees. Fortunately she did not see me, neither did the other nuns that were apparently chanting, but they weren’t chanting for the lord,” he pauses, runs his trembling fingers through his forehead, “chanting for the devil spirits, chanting for the devil spirits, Detective, this is going to sound weird to you but where else are you likely to find daemons, more likely than the church no place ever, now I know that, I didn’t then, nor should I have known it.” Lauren was all ears. “When I was a child I used to see spirits, mostly bad spirits, mother used to punish me for seeing them. I came to be a priest to get away from the bad spirits, I became a man of the lord and faith to escape the spirits, till I saw Sister Estela cuffed and being drawn up into some kind of master devil ceremony, that day I realized that I had not escaped the daemons, that day I realized that there would be no escape for me, with the daemon lady present within the house of the lord, there was no place to escape. I watched as they chanted, as they poured oily liquids into her robes, as they chanted occult madness, they would bring flame close to Estela’s body, yet not lighting her robes. She was sweating but not scared, she didn’t seem scared or heavily troubled, I, I was scared, but I felt there was nothing to be done. The whole thing must a lasted over an hour, then they removed her cuffs, and allowed her to leave. Estela got up and moved out of the room as if she had been in cohorts with them, she moved to her room, I followed her there, her bedroom door closed, I came upon it and heard cries, cries, long cries, I whimpered but knocked at the door; her eyes opened it, she looked me in the eyes, “yes Father Otto?” “I saw what they did to you, what is going on here.” “Father please, please,” “She suddenly got brave and direct Detective, as if she were there to protect the evil happenings. Exclaiming with her hands, ” “...Not a word to anyone father, these things are strange, the lord does not explain himself to us, we are not here to judge why I am in this predicament, nor why your here too, where you have witnessed the evil spirits too, so have all.”

“But why do you let them do that, why don’t you go to the archbishop and tell him what is going on right underneath his nose!” “Listen to me father Otto, the archbishop is not naive, the world is the way it is, who are we to explain it or change it, the lord always prevails in the end but to fight evil one must only be good, one can not fight evil, to fight it is to be evil, I shall, and you shall remain silent about these happenings, we can not escape the lord’s will, nor can we overcome evil spirits that have capacitated themselves within our church.” “It is the will of the lord, that’s it, it is the will of the lord, I don’t think so Estela, we must rush to heal the world from this infamy, you must help me to expose this.” “Calm yourself father Otto, you are not so wise or so able, they are aware of you, they know your limitations, your only able to feel evil spirits, you have no divine power over them, the evil is among us and we must face it with patience and calm, rest your energies, pray to the lord as I do father, here sit, (she patting the bed with her angelic palm,) next to me, and lets give the lord prayer, where in us he will find the faith that we have and must posses.”

“I sat with her Lauren, sat with her till we both fell sleep on her bed, holding each other so that heaven might take pity on us and save us from this infamy.” “More coffee?” Madge arrived at the table all smiles, it took both Lauren and Otto some time to recognize her presence, they both refused the coffee offering, even as both of their throats were dry. Lauren finally accepted a cigarette from Otto, who kindly lit it for her, they felt each other under the same lung mess.

“We were rudely awakened by the nuns which promptly took us to Mother Superior Adelaide who was waiting for us in one of the classrooms; next to her was Father Trocin,” Lauren had to pause, her mouth agape, “Father Trosin the same one that works with Timothy Wellington the now dead archbishop?” “Yes Lauren the very same Trocin, a spiteful little man, a conceit of intellect, a man that through pure intelligence dominates within the diocese; he knows all the rules and esoteric trivia of church court protocol, he cancels people out by offering to take their actions and comments to the Holy See, and he can because he is empowered by knowledge of the church hierarchy and certainly not by faith.”

“But let me continue before I coward, let me continue. Father Trocin, (Laura noted that there was still respect of some sort in Otto’s expression of Father Trocin.) told me that trying to rescue Estela from the clutches of a destiny which her Lord had divined for her was a sin, a sin Father Otto, a sin Father Otto!” he said this to me. “We shall not endeavor to control that which is beyond our grasp and reach, we shall endeavor to change what the Lord has deigned in us to change and not any more than such can we expect or impose upon our persons. As you are tempted Father Otto, so you shall tempt others, where your night of prayer can only be seeing by the Lord as a betrayal within our church, thou shall not lie in prayer, thou shall knell and stand and sit in prayer, but this night has witnessed the trespassings of a nun by her priest.” “I don’t know why I attempted to defend myself, I made argument, it was useless the only fool was I. Estela demanded of me to honor our Christ and quiet myself with devotion.”

“I was unable to do so from disgust and anger, till I saw her go up to Father Trocin and offer her wrists for the handcuffs. He had the nuns place them upon her, and then the ointment was poured on her, while nuns danced with candles fully lit all around her, motioning to torch her but just gesturing was enough; Father Trocin looked pleased with himself, and he spoke pointing at me, “Your silence is requested by Estela.” With only this words Estela pronounced upon me, “Father Otto, I beg you to remain silent, our Lord will vanquish all evil from the earth, what ever sacrifices he deigns from us now will advance his presence among us, our will is the lord’s, our will is the Lord’s.”

“At this point she was on the ground, her robes saturated with oils, incense was diluting visibility, I didn’t know what was going on, part of me said listen to Estela, it is lack of faith to be rational, but the other part of me was saying, I need to call the police, even as this meant that I had no faith in our Lord.”

“It was while I was thinking that, listening to my palpitating heart and to the chanting round about reducing Estela’s divine energy, that a sudden shrieking blatant and horrid noise escaped from outside the school barriers, it was enough to freeze us all, we rushed outside, and watched the garden in darkness pouring rancorous soul walling voices usurping from the fences and the trees, and rushing us from all sides accompanied by a wind, a furious wind; and suddenly we did see the crumbling earth succumb to heat, smoldering dirt lost its darkness, lava was scurrilously syndicated everywhere, no one had time to pray, we were all, even the evil ones amongst us, unaware of what was occurring; yet we were not running away, when from the darkness rushed these hideous gray huge flock of bird like figures, formless, and flying without wings gelling through the atmosphere, and another, and another as if it were the night of the gel-birds, only these things did not have any reasonable shape, swooping down upon us all we could see were large dark bulbous eyes, popping out so as to see the night, and then, they grabbed, snapped and disappeared Sister Elena. And then another Sister and another, and a severe choir screeching accompanied each disappearance; one by one and blood rained on us all, that hideous night, while the flightless swooping gel-birds of prey continued their sanguinary excursion into our still night.”

Otto severely stressed from the recounting, Lauren in capsized yet serene disbelief.

“The creatures did the night take; even father Trocin had in him the fears, and we must all have gone into shock, as the night kept on stealing one after another. The morning came, the Garden had been ravished, not a single flower had been left unraped, it looked as if a hurricane had destroyed our beautiful Eden, and only the four of us remained, Mother Superior, Father Trocin, Sister Estela and I, all soaked with our sisters blood.”

“Father Trocin was the first to abandon us, then Mother Superior Adelaide, neither saying a word. Sister Estela got up, came up to me, and putting a caressing back hand to my cheek, “We should all abandon this place.” I watched her procession away from the place, away, she didn’t stop to pick up clothes, to clean herself the bloodstains, to say good buy, to kneel and bless her leaving, she just walked away just as she was. I never saw her again.”

“I don’t know why, but I followed her instructions, by doing the same, I never went back. When I read in the paper about the Archbishop’s death, I felt it was time to say something to someone rational, and that’s why I called you.”

“I must go now.”

“Wait I have something’s to ask.”

“Remember your promise.”

Lauren sat there with her arms crossed, watching Otto walk away, managed by a strong sense of commitment and responsibility, she let the estranged man distance himself. She nurtured a few thoughts, but really to few, she was emotionally distraught, she was trying to cope with something, she did not know what to do. Finally she too walked away from the truck stop, got in her car and made it back in the office. Instinctively she looked for Danny, where she was sure to find comforting realities.

When Lauren told her tale to Danny he was familiar with the name Otto.

“There was a Chinese Fortune cookie note in the archbishops mouth it read, “Have you seen Otto? Have you seen Otto?” Lauren replies hands slamming into her sides, “but you told me that he died of natural causes!” Danny not motioning any regret, “I told you he died of natural causes, he did, the fortune note did not kill him, it was just stuck in his mouth, as if he had started to chew on it.” “But why didn’t you tell me about the note?” “It was there in the autopsy report Lauren, common lets not make a big deal about this, you didn’t read the report, you should have read it, specially sense you think there is a murder wrap here somewhere to paste on someone!” With that, Lauren puffs some air from her lungs, and the whole incident is forgotten; only now Lauren is really troubled, she drives somewhere, “Have you seen Otto?” She is sitting at her desk, “Have you seen Otto?” “Who is Otto?” “Where is Otto?” “Fuck I had Otto and I let him walk away!” She would practice telling Captain Ogle this charming fact, “Capt, I had Otto and I let him go because I can’t break a promise!”

The next morning bright and early Lauren, attempting to correct the error of her ways, proposes a hearty breakfast at Sam’s Truck Stop. Antoinette grudgingly accepts the offer. Madge is there, Madge is probably always there. Lauren, who had never been there for breakfast nor for that matter ever before her meeting with Otto, orders for both, “two breakfast skillets, over easy on the eggs, and English Muffins instead of toast.” Antoinette approvingly disavows herself from making decisions in Sam’s truck stop. Lauren holds Madge’s arm to prevent her from leaving, “Do you know Otto the man that I was with yesterday?” Madge replies with recognition, “You’re the lady cop that was here the other night with Otto. Otto, no I don’t know him and I don’t like that guy he seems weird, but he is friends of Achfad’s” “Achfad?” “He’s my boss, the restaurant manager big bad tempered guy, I better git.” And with that Madge leaves. Lauren seemingly offended leans towards Antoinette, “Do I look like a cop?” Antoinette kisses her, “No darling you don’t look nothing like a cop.” Kiss.

A tall skinny man, with a thick moustache, dark complexion, a Syrian with bulging veins all over his bony body, comes up to the table. He is habitually trembling, smoking straight into his audience. He sits next to Lauren without urging permission, she slides to the side. “Your asking for Otto he isn’t here.” Lauren introduces herself so as to establish much needed authority. “I am detective Lauren this is my friend Antoinette.” Achfad looks at Antoinette with predisposed desires and doubts about Lauren’s concept of friendship, “Your friend, yes, your friend, nice to meet you I am Achfad, from Syria.” He gets lost in himself and continues with what could be a glaring and obtuse misuse of pickup lines, “I was a member of the Syrian Air Force, I flew jets, we had the most powerful secret jet in the whole world, it would riddle the sky with bullets.” The two women were not very much moved by the holed up sky images, he relentlessly puffed his cigarette, “Otto, what do you want with him.” “I just want to ask him something, we met here the other night, do you know where I may find him?” “Otto comes an’ goes, we have coffee together at least once a month, he is very lonely, I got tired of watching him all alone with his coffee, his brain talks to him too much, I think I have helped him a lot, we have long discussions, we are both expatriates, I can’t fly jets any more and he can’t be with his lord. Messed up worlds.” “Do you have his phone number?” “No he just comes when he wants to. But if you want next time I see him I will tell him your looking for him.” Lauren hands Achfad her contact information and thanks him. The egg skillets arrive with Madge, they are placed on the table, hogged washed with grease, bacon, lard mushy potatoes, both Lauren and Antoinette look at each other with greased awareness, Lauren apologized to Madge, “sorry Madge, just got an emergency call, we have to dash.”

The Mood Camera

2006-08-31T17:50:00.000-07:00

Antoinette is in line waiting for the bank to open. She got there early, debated waiting in line, finally while she was adamantly against waiting in any line, and indeed considered it a sign of personal stupidity, she opted to wait it out, in some way she was bored, perhaps waiting in line would give her some time to think and to redirect the events of her day; maybe she would meet Lauren for lunch, but that was such a happenstance event that it could not be included in any certain plans; maybe she would flirt with the idea of going to the flower garden and convince herself that smelling the roses was some wonderful experience, or maybe she would go down to her favorite coffee shop and munch on some book; as she was a avid reader, three to four books a week. Mostly Victorian, mostly mysteries, biographies, she was fascinated by the past, she was one of those few people that wanted to go back in time, undaunted by horse manure or Jack the Ripper.

Antoinette back in the Victorian jungle of civility, makes for an amazing story, maybe some day I would send her there on a time machine, but it seems implausible, I just don’t comprehend this desire of hers.

She also wondered about her cats, Pacho and Loki, “what a waste of alertness.” She pondered their incessant emotional demands, “maybe species are specialized testing grounds for all the aspects that make up a human, cats were predefined to be the vessels of emotion, hence the reason why they seemed so emotionally absorbed, so socially needy and strangely solitary.” Her conclusion, “maybe being a cat goes against being a cat.”

Ah that is why I love her character so much, her natural distraction makes her lovable to all, both the devil and god would share her company with glee, she, so inoffensive and impossible to judge.

As she was mulling over the possibilities a man, perhaps in his late fifties or just simply perhaps a harsh life, decided to work the bored crowed. He had this huge pen, the size of a twelve year old child, the pen was; it had a long solid plastic body, colored in a still yellow color, and he was hauling it like it was a burden, moving it as if it were heavy, which it certainly could not have been, and yelling and waving to the unyielding waiting crowd; “I have a pen, some one is going to get lucky today I have a giveaway pen, heavy as it is I am not hauling it back with me, got to get rid of all the inventory today, if I have to give it away I will but I prefer a buck or two of your kindness, just enough for the bus back home; that’s right not in it for a profit.” Antoinette, smiled to herself as her eyes engorged the unfolding event. A guard from the bank stood up to the glass door so as to investigate if behind the façade lurked a hidden gun for a nice bank robbery. Instead however the man seemed congested by his huge pen and tripped over it a couple of times, while the crowd mused over the entertainment that fortunately made their wait a little less. “Yes for less than two bucks this pen, with a especial refill included, can be yours, perfect for a child’s bedroom or for a laugh at the office.” Obviously the thing would require at least two people involved to write anything, Antoinette didn’t bother to calculate the precise requirements of the task, but the man, apparently an experienced salesman in front of a captive audience undid the casing with a zipper aperture, and out came the extra ink cartridge, “yes sirs comes with a free refill, you can’t get it for less and your going to waste your time saying no to this incredible offer.” He was sure that the sale was a done thing, one of the bystanders, a young man, came forward, “I will buy it.” As he said this he was placing his hand in his pant pocket, when the salesman stumbled over the spare ink cartridge, and fumbled himself all over the casing, wrapping himself on the way to another precarious fall, “I will just wrap this up for you, here, quickly, be done right up…” and of course the pen just kept on wrinkling his intentions. The young man was dispirited and amused, Antoinette was having a spirited laugh, and holding her nose so as to prevent nerves from splattering. It did not take long for the pen salesman to realize that he wasn’t going to sell the pen, he could not get the extra cartridge back in, the guard was not amused, it seemed at times he would use his gun, the bank finally opened its doors, and the man was left outside orbiting his pen.

Antoinette walked out of the bank and found the older looking old man sitting at the bus stop bench with his unsold giant pen despondently leaning into him. Anyone else, you, me a nun, would have found the image disheartening and would have walked over and bought the pen so as to cheer the fellow on in his miserable life. Not our Antoinette, she immediately thought something which had been brewing ever since she quit her fast paced addictive life, as an Internet executive. “That’s a photograph.” Yeap that’s precisely what she felt and thought, not feeling a bit sorry for the man, she immediately saw that man’s condition and pose, as an image plenty ready as an exquisite photograph at an exhibit of modern photography. Her mind’s eye quickly capture the image, he looked like a down and out clown without the suit, a failed salesman, an ambivalent father, a careless friend now a gone loner, the whole semantic of his being shutout in a shootout with Antoinette’s shutter eye, there, waiting for a bus he didn’t have the fare to take.

Antoinette image in frame reference, smiled to her innermost self, she had found what she wanted to do, all that time sitting, cooking, reading, waiting for Lauren’s happening life to come home to tell the tale of the outside world, all that became shadows, lighting fixtures, shades, images, she was going to take up photography. She found a phonebook, camera shop in the area, found Edgar’s photography studio. She noted that they taught the fine art of photography, only five blocks from where she stood she walked shutter eyeing everything in her path.

Edgar was a man far into his fifties, energetic fellow, dark greased hair, back towards the stern of his neck, a muscled face, hands steady as a tripod, giant cavernous eyes, perhaps of Greek ancestry. Antoinette entry into his photo-shop did not alter his stance, the door rang a warning bell, “someone has entered into your premises.” He did not twitch, simply continued manhandling a camera. Antoinette did not seem to care his absence of mind, instead she started to look at the photographs, a ballerina tending to her pained toes, gone was the leathered slipper, the toes were bruised purpled pretending to have divinely upheld Swan Lake without caring for their after the fact, her toenails had long fallen out as audience to her profession, her splendor undiminished, she graced the black and white lighting with her stingy silhouette. Next to it was a picture of three little girls all friends or sisters, sharing the same type of dress code though one was shiny pink, the other green and one reddish complementing a plum little girl that was all joy if not beauty. They all had one thing in common, their front teeth were missing. A third painting was of a dog, waiting outside a door, a terrier it was, it was dark, a lamp sprung from the top of the frame as if there to shine exclusively on this lonely expectant dog, his brown, white coat, stealing the only color in the entire photograph.

“How can I help you ma’am?” The monotone voice echoed and recoiled through Antoinette’s skull, stubbornly awakening her from some trance, “oh, yes…” her hand to her chest, “…sorry, yes, I was wondering you teach photography and I was thinking of taking some classes.” “Have you ever done any photography.” “No, well no but when I was a little girl I got one of those toy cameras…” she was smiling, “…and I did take photos of every relative that came to the house.” Edgar unamused, “Not exactly what I eman ma’am.” Antoinette recomposing herself to a more professional stance that didn’t go with the dusty, chaotic and stuffy atmosphere of the place, “No of course that wasn’t what you were asking, my apologies, I am interested in taking classes, how much do you charge and what is the class schedule sir.” “Don’t call me sir, call me Edgar, Edgar is my name. And I don’t have a class schedule you just tell me when you want to learn, I charge by the hour $33 dollars an hour. You are a beginner so I have to teach you everything, give yourself three months about four times a week, four hours a class, and if you have any talent ma’am I will make a photographer out of you.”

Antoinette, “what do I need?” “You will need to have a 35 millimeter camera, you buy all the film and development materials, they are not included.” “Do you sell cameras here?” “No ma’am strictly I am a photographer, real photographers don’t sell cameras, I don’t make much money, but I don’t betray my art.” “Is there one that you would recommend?” Edgar laughs, his beer belly helping to pronounce his laughter, “ma’am yes, I could recommend one but it would cost you ten thousand dollars, nice German brand, but I am not going to recommend one, you just buy yourself any 1980’s popular 35 millimeter and that will do, funny it was a wonderful decade for cameras, the eighties I mean, then come out then digital nasty things and killed the perfection of photography.” “Very well then, I will purchase one, when can we start?” “Well it depends do you want to learn color shots or do you want to learn pure black and white?” “I don’t know which is better?” “Well ma’am you can want color because color is good and it is happier and contemporary and concentrated in the present and future, black and white is another era, many photographers never migrated from that perfection which was oddly killed by the imperfection of color. Strange ma’am, it always seems the perfection gets killed by innovation. Anyway black and white or color either are fine by me, am not one to brand one better than the other, it’s the artsy crowd that wants to dote on the past as avant-guard needs and does that, not me ma’am.” “well I suppose then color would be best for me, I don’t have a preference, but if I take pictures of little children in the park I think color would be best.” “Well then fine ma’am, we can start Tuesday, 9am, have your camera ready. And remember it’s four hours. Oh, and also bring four rolls of film, every class.” “Thank you Edgar, Tuesday, I will be on time.”

Antoinette, walked out with her hands in her pockets, happy soul, she was thrilled with her decision, she had wanted to do this, there was still money in the savings to bankroll this minute-adventure, besides, Lauren would help out, they were both so liberal with their wallets, they shared everything. Worries aside, she went camera shopping, she wanted time to feel and touch the camera, time to accustom herself to it before her first class. The first camera shop she went to was pushing the digital camera’s Joey, the digital attendant, “lady this one is hot it handles 1600x1200 pixels, and it does 32 bit per pixel, you can even shoot short movies with it, has built-in auto adjust zoom…” Antoinette knew technology, but she was exhausted by the talk, she left Joey without a sale, though fortunately he was convinced that she had made the wrong decision by not buying.

The next camera shop was full of 35 millimeter digitals, and a tie robed salesman eager to explain why their cameras were still superior to digital. Salesman Freddy “Digital cameras still don’t give you the genuine resolution or color that 35 millimeter SLR does, even the industry admits that the texturing and lighting characteristics are still far from reaching the flavor of 35 millimeters…” Taking the huge black camera and putting it right up the Antoinette’s face. “…specially if you are going to be a professional photographer, this is your camera Ms.!” Antoinette walked out, she didn’t know why, she walked out, for sure the camera she needed was in that store, she walked out. Almost decided to go home and leave the camera shopping for later but opted to visit one more place though she was tired.

It was a used camera store, an old bald man with round glasses and a nice cotton sweater immediately paid attention to her. She said, “Hello I would like to buy a 35 millimeter camera, what do you have?” “Well excuse me for being intrusive lady but what do you want it for, I know you say you want a 35 millimeter camera but my customers often come in here wanting one thing and they walk out with the thing they need.” “Why do you say that.” “Its something to do with the business, I been in this business for 33 years, and not to sound hardened but I am more likely to know what you need than you do.” “Well I am going to be taking photography lessons, I start on Tuesday and I need a camera.” The old man seems to munch those words with his mouth and not his ears, he is probably not listening, he probably made Antoinette out from the moment she walked in. “I would say then that what you need is an instant Polaroid so that you can see what your shooting immediately.” “But my instructor suggested a 35 millimeter.” “That doesn’t surprise me, photographers are in love with those things, because they are complicated, because they require nursing, because you fall in love with them, they require maintenance, calibration, sunshine, and so on… lady I been in this shutter business all my life, am not saying I love photography, frankly I haven’t taken a photo in eight years, when my wife died, I stopped taking pictures, but not because my wife died but because it was time to stop. Anyways the most important thing to learn when you are taking photographs is perspective and mood, the mood is the most difficult thing to capture, that, only born photographers catch, perspective, you shoot 200 shots your bound to get some perspective in there, some people are better than others with perspective, but the difference between a genius and a good photographer is mood. Capture the mood and you have the moment. And photography is only the moment.” “Something about the man’s words caught Antoinette, he seemed right about something, “So then what camera would you recommend?” “The best camera for you is an instant Polaroid…” he slides a cabinet door open, from behind cluttered lenses and cases, he pulls out a dusty instamatic Polaroid camera. “This here is what you need, its not the latest model, there are newer, but this does the job just fine, it takes the picture, you wait five minutes and it develops before your eyes. Its just a mood camera, it takes dusty pictures, granular even, you can’t get too much color out of it, the color always seems dull as wax, and brightness and clarity are obscured, but for the mood, this is a mood camera, it only, primarily and fundamentally takes a mood picture.” While Antoinette was dealing with some uncertainty, without asking he briskly loaded some film on it, then backed away from the counter, and shot a picture of Antoinette without giving her an opportunity to pose. “These cameras are grossly underrated, it is the only mood camera in the market, and they are going to be abandoned after the digital revolution walks all over them.” The minutes pass, “See here, there you are, the sort of undefined colors, the lack of a propensity for anything to stand out, even you from your surroundings are largely indistinguishable, there isn’t a part of the photograph that doesn’t mandate complete attention to define its details, and the whole one dimensional expression of everything, nothing is far away, nothing is closer, and your eyes are the ones that define the focus, its amazing, purely a mood camera, I recommend this one.” Antoinette, intensely looked at the man, “I will take it thank you.”

And with that ended a successful purchase of the mood camera. Even though a few hours had passed, Antoinette made it a point to go by the bus stop to see if the old man was there, he wasn’t, she took out one of the many cartridges of film that she had purchased, loaded it, and took a picture of the empty bus stop. That was her first picture, she never went to class on Tuesday; an emotion like Antoinette did not need classes to handle a mood camera.

You’re Just Breathing Through Your Wound

2006-08-31T17:49:00.000-07:00

I think the reader is aware that I am a writer but what you may not know is that like all good and great writers at the time of this writing I was, well broke. In order not to discontinue documenting the lives and times of these two women, I searched the newspaper for job ads. As I was sipping my coffee I almost spilled it all over myself after reading an ad, “Wanted PAGEBOY to run Atkins diet plate to the President.” The president that they were talking about was Ronald Reagan, he hadn’t been president for almost a couple of decades but was still called Mr. President, this because it is customary to allow, out of respect, the use of the term, President, as if somehow they still retained the title but not the paycheck.

One shouldn’t judge this type of honorary practice; getting to be President must be difficult, perhaps the most difficult job to get in the world. Especially president of the United States; Italy for instance has a tendency to have a new government every six months, this probably gives a lot more Italians the opportunity to participate in their government, but it also increases the chances than anyone, including you and me, could be Prime Minister of Italy. Giving Italy perhaps the greatest possible mass participatory government in the world. But as I was saying getting to be President of the United States of America is very difficult, your timing has to be right, you can only apply for the job once every four years, you have to get the democrats or the republicans to give you a pretty good reference, and even when they do, you still have to ask the American People if they agree that you are the person qualified to hold the highest Office in the land; and even if they agree you still have to get the Electoral College to agree that you are the president of the Untied States; and if you don’t win by an astonishingly large margin, if it is too close to call, then the Supreme Court has to decide if you indeed are the President of the United States. As you can see it is not like being a shoeshine boy or anything like that, you wouldn’t for instance want to continue being called Mr. Trashman if you had just retired from the Waste Management Industry; I think this is because there are a lot of garbage-men, and there’s a lot of garbage and a lot of job openings for the garbage man. People after all run for office but have a tendency to run from garbage.

I got the job as “runner of the Atkins diet plate for the president.” I was told to meet President Reagan at his house for instructions, fortunately I lived rather close to him, this is also unusual most people don’t live close to their presidents. Well in Iceland the Prime minister has a regular house, just like you and I might, and people can pass right by the house like if it were any other house; but The President’s White House is, yes near the street, but in another planet. You don’t think of the White House as some place that you can go for dinner, you can’t, invitations are required, the president only dines with invited guests; you just can’t go up and say I would like to have dinner with My president today, you can’t, your president wont see you, and don’t even ask about sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom, the White House is not an Inn you see; it’s instead the place where the most powerful person, usually a man, always has been a man, Antoinette and Lauren have then an even smaller chance of being the next President of the United States; why even a garbage man, if he were a man, has a greater chance of being president. Anyway the president I was working for was a former president, and he lived within walking distance of my house, this was unusual but the city I lived in was just so properly distributed, that you could have million dollar houses, blocks away from $700 dollar a month apartments.

I don’t know why I got the job of “runner of the Atkins diet plate for the president.” I really never applied, it was one of those consummate errors that may happen to a person and one shouldn’t say, no I won’t do it, when one receives the mistaken letter offer. Yeah, I did see the ad in the newspaper but I thought of it rather as propaganda for how open our society was, and thought nothing more of it, especially because I counted, in my mind’s eye, hundreds of thousands of applicants. I supposed this because “runner of the Atkins diet plate for the president,” for some odd reason, had more appeal than a steady job as a garbage collector. This is not to say that garbage collection isn’t important, and I apologize to any one collecting trash if I am offending them, no it is not that at all, it is instead that when you get the job of “runner of the Atkins diet plate for the president.” You have an entrance into history, you break the barrier between history and yourself, between history and averageness, between being just a member of the masses and being someone registered in the historicity of the world, and of the most powerful nation on earth.

Yes, “runner of the Atkins diet plate for the president.” Would imply that The Ronald Reagan library would record your name, your address, your social security number, the date that you worked for the president, and could you call it work? Of course not, nothing in the letter that I got in the mail said anything about pay, you aren’t going to be paid to be immaculated into the Annals of American and World history. Can you imagine it, thousands of years from now, when the true analysis of the Ronald Reagan presidency comes into being, there, some scholar, will stumble into my name, served in the ceremony as “runner of the Atkins diet plate for the president.” Something about that makes me feel good, I don’t know what it is, it is not petty though, nope, it is not petty, I can’t tell you why it is not petty, you probably are laughing at me now, but for some reason that some scholar will read about me thousands of years from now, connects me to all of my humanity. You have to think that you don’t die in history and what if that scholar that reads about me goes on to write a book about the Presidency from the perspective of that now gone and dead fellow, “runner of the Atkins diet plate for the president.”

The truth is I didn’t make it to the president’s house on time for the practice session, “stand on this X” … “do not look at the reporters.” … “do not make eye contact.” “… be sure to wear a tie” … “you just hand the plate” … “you just hand the plate to him, kind of, assisting him, by putting it into his lap like this.” The Atkins diet was something of a miracle diet, it had survived its critics, Dr. Atkins would also be noticed by future scholars, and I was putting all of the Proteins with not an ounce of Grain, not a single Tortilla, on a silver plate on Ronald Reagan’s lap; what would all those Spanish voters think. Yes, the implication to Maize eating Mexicans had to be demoralizing.

Anyway I made it to the ceremony, they sort of figured I wouldn’t need to practice; but as I was getting in, I got trounced on by a bunch of secret service men, all well meaning, registered me, they were able to gauge that I was not going to spoil the photo opportunity because this was after all a privilege; they pointed out where I needed to be, and I made my way, there. It was a sunny day so they had moved the reception outdoors, beautiful green grass setting, the white chairs and red, white and blue podium, all well set; and people were converging on the place nicely. I got a bit bored and decided to meander the hallways of power; when I stumbled upon a gathering that was apparently an initiating rights ritual for republicans.

There were all these young men, a couple of staidly pretty women too, all standing almost as if at attention, orderly, and they were listening to a speech about the importance of being a good republican. “big government is for those Kennedys!” there was an approving laugh from the audience, “big government is what is wrong with this country! we can take care of ourselves, the government should just be involved with defending our nation from foreign threats, and subsidized imports!” I wasn’t and ain’t much into politics, but I had seen the guy giving the speech on the television, I can’t right at this moment recall his name, a war hero, former naval officer, now Senator, damn I think it would help you if I thought of his name, if I remember it I will be sure to tell you.

“Them donkeys we are going to ride them.” And having said that marching music blared out and in came a pig covered with democratic garb and a roasted turkey presumably Republican, well placed and belted on the pig’s back. It was time for lunch, and everyone had a big laugh; till unexpectedly the Senator saw me and rushed over and said, “is it time yet?” I crossed my eyes and reared my head, “time?” He grabbed my shoulder and brought his huge face up to mine, “for the Atkins’ diet ceremony.” I immediately reacted knowingly, and looked at my watch, “shit we missed it!” I rushed out the door, only to see my substitute to history, a little blond girl, Shirley Temple like, wearing a white dress with a red ribbon around her waist, black laced shoes, placing the Atkins diet plate on the Presidents Lap.

Oh my, I seem to have gotten so involved with my person that I have forgotten to continue Lauren and Antoinette’s life happenings. I apologize; a writer should never be of relevance in any aspect over those he reports on.

The phone is ringing, it is the former Father Otto, he is calling Lauren, she is relaxing wearing a most comfortable white robe, Antoinette is laying next to her wholly naked. Father’s Otto’s voice consternated, “Lauren, Lauren!” “Yes this is me.” “Lauren I saw the devil, I saw the devil, he is after me now!” “Father Otto please calm yourself.” “How, how do I calm myself, the devil is after me, did you hear what I just said he is after me! No cop is going to help me now.” “Listen to me Otto (she dropped the father bit to bring the man down to earth,) listen to me Otto you need to calm yourself, panicking is the worst thing that you can do now.” Otto does calm down by a few decibels, but he quickly switches to tears, “what am I going to do now, what can I do.” “where did you see him?” a crying Father Otto, “see who?” “The devil, you saw the devil right!.” “Yes, I saw him, he was in the basement, the devil is always in the basement. I was working on a new product, Liquid Coffee, it sounds crazy I know, but there is this company, a couple of entrepreneurs funded it, they are making liquid coffee to sell to hotels and restaurants.” Lauren a bit incredulous, “Otto they already, the hotels and restaurants, already have coffee, it comes grounded, why would anyone want it in liquid form, it would cost more to transport, more to store, NASA has been trying for years to get out of liquids altogether, and someone is trying to make liquid coffee to sell?” Otto had calm down some, “Yes I told them the same thing, I told them it was going to be rough to change all those granular coffee pounds into liquid; and Lauren don’t think I am dumb, I needed a job, they offered to help me out, I work the storage facility and give out free samples to the Hotel Managers that come by to inspect the Liquid Coffee flavor, and the production facility, what else can a former Priest do, I only know how to serve the Lord.” “Well, ok Otto, listen we need to talk, can we meet at Sam’s today?” There was no response from the other end.

We swing in to see Father Otto, his face in his hands, the phone hung up, his cries, those of a man that has just seen the devil. “He was large, human like, huge body, the size of the statue of Lincoln in Washington, all charcoal figure, his body solid, shiny, lucent, smooth, and there are grates in it, that are as open perfect wounds, perfect vagina shaped knife cuts, coming out of them red, fiery red; he seemed, no he was breathing through them, as his face did not have a nose. I remember when I was a child and father would warn me, not to breath through my wounds, “your just breathing through your wounds.” He would say, and now I see the devil does too. And this Lucifer was laughing at me, laughing at the fallen, I am damned. Damned for eternity.”

There was lost resignation in his voice.

Meanwhile, Lauren was on the phone attempting to get a permit to find out where that call came from, fully concentrated on her quest to find Otto.

Eureka! I got it, Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona.

120 Lupin St

2006-08-31T17:48:00.000-07:00

The street is empty, a neighborhood of middle class blocks, Lauren’s Mustang swings into the night layered cleanliness of repeated housing, repeated lawns, repeated frames, repeated night.

Her radio blaring, “caution machinegun fire detected in the area.” “caution machinegun fire use all caution.” Unfortunately Lauren was all alone, she took her gun out and started to sniff the darkness, the firing was coming from one of the houses in the four corners. Lauren displaying insignificant levels of fear, moved, searched each house with her eyes, when blaring from a machinegun caught her off guard to her left. She saw a tall fat brownish blond haired male, dressed in a mountaineering outfit, “approximately 6 feet 2 inches and approaching 300 pounds;” unleashing a fiery storm from a well worn machinegun. Lauren immediately dashed to the house in front of her, bullet-broke her way through the door, and stood by the living room, behind the couch, searching over it and through a wide living room window, when a round of bullets smashed her view; she saw the crazed male go behind the bushes, and out came someone from behind her, it was a moment of shock; it was her mother, calm dressed in white and blue muumuu. Lauren pushed her mother into the hallway, when more bullets rung through the door, and behind her crashed, what appeared to be the bruised flesh and blond haired remains of a bullet-scalping job.

Mother and daughter did not communicate, her mother did not seem frightened; Lauren was ushering her mother into safety when the mountain man came trouncing the place, and somehow Lauren saw herself falling behind the kitchen area, and her mother left stranded near the living room couch, Lauren sneaking a view over the counter, saw the back of the mountain man, but for some reason she didn’t shoot, she just watched as her mother became riddled with smoked bullets. The mountain man then, turned around and dragged a lead load off in her direction as if he were jerking off in front of the cop lady. Blaring sirens and red lights dashed through the walls, Lauren took her aim, as if there was time to think, her face cold, when suddenly her mother reappeared bloodless and calm, just to the right of the crazed man; it seemed like she thought about it, maybe she didn’t, but she fired, and fired until all the bullets were gone. The man was dead. Her mother was gone.

Lauren was not breathing heavily, her face was more pale than usual displaying more red on her thin red lips. A police officer rushing through the door, found Lauren erect, standing over the dead man’s body. Her mother nowhere to be seen. Lauren wasn’t moving much, the officer attempted to move her, she refused, there, her stark moment, Lauren reflecting the lights, her usual light colored pant suit, rumoring numbness.

After some time, she walked outside, the Officers left her alone, they knew she was in some kind of shock, but they did not know it was over her mother, Lauren however was not fixed on the dead man, she was voided of all thought, she was in a blank state of mind, all her neurons were painting the whole world white, so white that even people didn’t stand out, features didn’t protrude, the whole world was white.

Captain Ogle was called to the scene, so was Danny, but Danny wasn’t called in as coroner, he was called in to talk to Lauren. Captain Ogle concentrated on the crime scene while occasionally looking at the stark white image of Lauren against a dark night. Danny took his coat off and placed it over her, and walked her over to his car, and drove her a few blocks from 120 Lupin St, parked the car, and hugged her.

She would have cried if she could.

Danny didn’t say a word, he gave her an equally stale silence, he didn’t want to disrupt her monotone condition, he did everything to match it; instinctively his heart beat at the same pace as hers; his breathing lungs kept with hers, his skin temperature could not have been discerned from hers. Her head limped on his shoulder, the cold night resting on both.

Whatever You Do Just Don’t Let Them See You Cry

2006-08-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

Antoinette is home, she is at the end of their bed, a chest is exposed, she has revealed the contents of Bobbie’s letters, her curiosity prying into her lovers existence, even as her lover had never pried them open, instead Antoinette had her fingers in them, her mind not sure what to make of them, part of her curiously trying to find Lauren in them so as to deprive herself of the difficult assumption that Bobbie and Lauren had never been lovers, or and that Lauren had never read them, never read them.

Antoinette couldn’t understand why Lauren had never been curious enough, it seemed implausible. But Lauren was just like that, the letters contained that element of childish romanticism, which wasn’t Lauren, Bobbie giving her the letters seemed a bit odd, and writing letters to an unknown lover, Lauren didn’t have that concept within her inner being. Lauren was of course superstitious, how else to explain her friendship with the prophet Habakkuk. Even Lauren could admit it to herself, sitting on the toilet waiting for a resistant urge to manifest itself, she would circumscribe herself to being superstitious because it was inane enough to be so; and it would require unnecessary effort to ditch her bit of doubt over it. So it was that Bobbie’s letter seemed a bit futile to her, Bobbie made the wrong choice of confidants, but then again being superstitious Lauren could have conceived that Antoinette would read them, and that they were truly meant for Antoinette a person that would have never had anything enough in common with Bobbie, to meet her. In a sense Lauren was the messenger to communicate to the person that Bobbie wanted to truly feel, but Bobbie, being such an internalized conflict of self, could never embrace.

From letter #6
“I don’t know when I first sought it, young I was, could not have exceeded my eighth year, but I never thought of boys. I thought of the tender warmth of the blankets, more of my pillows softness, sometimes just putting my face against it comforted my being.”

From letter #9
“Later it was thinking of you, by the age of fifteen I knew I would never make love to a man, I was grossed out by sexual education, the male genitalia seemed so impotent, so incapable of feeling me, strictly a thing to bring comfort to a man, and somehow, I don’t know how, I noticed the gentleness of the girls, so distant from the fray, so abstract, so far away from the boys, and yet so permissive of them, still I found much comfort in seeing the girls aloofness, their enchanting grace, and I must say I was not fully evolved, a fifteen year old girl in blue jeans does not make anyone a saint, and less me already a deviant, I had no promissory note to heaven, of course from my angle of sight heaven wasn’t an abstract and neither were the angels.”

When Antoinette heard the front door lock being unleashed by Lauren’s key, she immediately went into a frenzy to place the letters back into their security chest. Just as she was done, Lauren enters the bedroom, Antoinette is still sitting on the floor, leaning into the chest, when she realizes that something is very wrong. She jumps to feel Lauren’s aching aura, she touches her silent lover’s cold and pale cheeks, Lauren reaches for the bed, she lays down. Antoinette doesn’t say anything, she knows her lover’s silence is dealing with something that happened at work, something terrible, she limits herself to touching her pain, absorbing aching energies, Lauren, laying on her side, her eyes dry, her mind seemingly blank, silence.

An egg never stops cooking itself. There is something odd in that eggs can not be kept warm, they gradually cook themselves and overcook and burn themselves at any temperature. You have to imagine that that is nature’s way of making sure that birds may reproduce in Antarctica with the slightest bit of warmth. Oddly, Antoinette’s eggs were always kept perfectly warm while retaining moisture and freshness, Lauren was mesmerized by such delicate ability, how could over easy eggs be so damn good, Lauren had never liked eggs, Antoinette had made her eat them and like them. That morning they were particularly tasty. They were both mostly silent, Antoinette accepting every Lauren need. “Your eggs are always wonderful.” She didn’t say, “I accidentally shot my mother last night.” She didn’t say, “I riddled and erased her with bullets.” Lauren knew she didn’t day dream, it was a clear shot to her mother, she didn’t want to say anything, she kept quiet, she ate her eggs, enjoyed them even as her whole being felt the sterile universe.

In Lauren’s silence Antoinette took a moment to ponder one of Bobbie’s letters:

From letter #7
“After becoming fully aware that I would never allow a man within, I became aware of you, I didn’t know you, I don’t know you as I am writing this, I don’t have any idea what you look like, it seems pointless to know those things, perhaps I have involuntarily or voluntarily decided to fall in love with you, I don’t know, I just like thinking of you My Lover.”
The same letter continues…
“It is so menacing to feel a man, so beautiful to feel you.”
The same letter continues…
“I will save myself for you.”

Then there was a knock a the door. To their amazement and surprise it was their friend Habakkuk. “Habakkuk! How precious to see you.” They really both expressed the same sentiment, the friends all hugged, though Lauren maintained her pale face against the happiness that her friend Habakkuk was now present and accounted for.

There was much talk of where Habakkuk had been, he liked New York but only as a place to see no more than once and not for more than two weeks. He used the term “empty human spaces loaded with deadening symbolism.” Neither women tried to make out the precise ramifications of those words, they just liked Habakkuk, they didn’t care that he was a prophet and that much of his commentary didn’t appear to have any immediate practical use.

Antoinette excused herself to warm some tea and wrap some home baked breads, while Habakkuk spoke to Lauren, “You didn’t tell her about your mother last night?” Lauren paused, swallowed her sorrow the length of her neck, “no couldn’t say anything, how can I say anything when I can’t even figure it out myself. What happened last night do you know?” Habakkuk replies, “I felt your angst and dreadful state, I have come to see you, but even I don’t know what is going on, I do know that it is not finished, that something stirs with you, that your heart has taken a golden turn, golden as where your breath weighs and depth is heavy with some child’s history that is obtusely struck within you; but I know no more than that.” “What should I do then?” “Steal some roses, that’s the first thing that comes to mind.”

With that said, Antoinette entered with the tea, her presence instilling life affirming colors, Habakkuk couldn’t resist, “Antoinette I have missed you! Missed you lots.” He got up and touched her shoulder with recalcitrant love.

The Day The Cops Stole The Roses

2006-08-31T17:46:00.000-07:00

Danny and Lauren were on their way to a briefing of the Mountaineering man’s case when a red light pause brought them to a halt. “What is that there in front of us Danny?” “The Rose Garden Lauren, where botanists and lovers of pretty things go.” “Yeah,…” her eyes squinting as if to focus down to individual petals that were restrained from her presence by distance and a chain link fence. “Don’t act so surprised we have seen this place a million times.” “I haven’t seen it Danny, haven’t seen it really until today. And right now I need you to help me with something, will you help me with something Danny?” “Sure what?” “I need you to park near the gate, keep the engine running, just wait for me and when I get back we need to rush out ok?” confused Danny, “Well, ok.” Lauren walked sprightly paced, into and through the garden walks, for now she saw gorgeous yellow roses, huge pink roses, succulent red roses, every type of rose with tags to tell you their English and Latin nomenclature; young, old, school children, guided or guiding themselves were admiring the pretty things; a painter was taking the opportunity brought about by the posing Roses while nervous monarch butterflies kept on interfering color. A dog had managed to get into the premises and was being humorously escorted out by a guard, definitely a sign of other animals, including gofers and snails, whose extinction was made evident by the good health of these blossoms. Lauren, oblivious to the pristine slaughter, sighted white Roses and gripped a couple with her hand, the thorns intuitively administered an equal grasp of her flesh, ideally reaching for each other, she struggled to release them from their rooting branches, and when she accomplished release, her hands fully bleeding in plain view and adding drops of hands blood on her typical light colored pant suit outfit, she rushed to the exit gate where she slammed into the car, “Danny lets get out of here.” Danny looked at her rose clasping bloodied hands askance, but dropped any measure of response and drove away.

Meet Your Humanity Old Tramp

2006-08-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

It was nighttime somewhere nameless in the crazy city. The ionic night clasping everyone with its darkness fermenting the sounds of “where am I?” … “is the night alone in being at home here?” … “where is the envious moon discrediting its dark side?” The solace augmenting the silence brought forth by all those humans sleeping in their beds and hammocks, sleeping in their dreams, sleeping.

Roaring through the windows the echoless snores, the spirit world freezing energies alive, a ghost, a spirit freak, a hand touches someone’s forehead, the electricity riveting with excitement, the spell spelling the touches of the night; not a hungry mentor to be seen, no genius grinding away at some higher formed expression, just the dirty lights, the whores, the bums, the drunks, the red roses which reflect only their lost glories, petals crying “you can’t give red roses anymore.”

Whims rushing to their destinies, enamored with their instinctual drives on high, from zero to sixty neurons nothing would sin faster; pavement called to action, “hear these steps, inform this person, yell out if you hear a body or a rubber drop.” People passing every studded wall without feeling Jack the Ripper. People passing with cousins knowledge in-between. Heard a brain wave bristle clean clawed in nouns mispronounced, touched a wig, a hairless man, and a saintly priest, and a walking donkey, all for once equaled through their pervert tenure.

Alongside the road, the whore, wickedest basket of treats, a promise tied to Hollywood ingrained, luring with her black hole the golden trinkets of fame and fortune. I once noted this is where the ladder ends, this is the last step in any living order, in synch with her the loop comes clean, every male passes through to her, and comes out just as clean of crabs and lice as once did Henry the VIII.

From another angle a charcoal skirt, the long boots, buoys swimming in between, dangling dangled an obtuse object primed for being and not wholly intended for the task. A bold headed, full faced black man stops, reviews the fancied fancy cytoplasm. His clean brown eyes unfettered by the light, his smile recognizable at a distance, the boots stop their senseless patrol, the roaming eyes cease and gauge the admiralty with antagonistic frailty. One might say they said, “I don’t know you.” … “I don’t recognize you.” … “We don’t know each other.” … “I am not here.” … “You are not here.” And once the truth is trounced enough times it ceases to get up.

Both, besieged by each other, first it seems breathing is the only guest but soon there is mumbling utterings on an inconsequential quest, then the gentle hands become rough, the spirited horses admit that they are in a race of mutual disagreement and with same accordance of intent. One grabs the penis hard and firm and forces him to walk in staidly form, the reigns still hard seven inches and half more, the force is felt and relinquished, the trotting hooves detained and forced to march again, coerced voices deepen stench, where pour forth the yellow men, anguished in relief of their precipitous charge, where blade of grass and dung heap end their successful bark.

It is a dark night, there are no witnesses, the entire night conspires to withdraw, but someone is bleeding, there must be someone to retort, cankerous sores, penance for the sore, the spirit evil has condoned, the nails shut closed to his heart, exchange the bowels, drain the gals, meet your humanity old tramp.

What is Happening in the World Today?

2006-08-31T17:43:00.000-07:00

We all want the world to spit out its truth to us, but the world doesn’t. Not far from the neighborhood where wants torment their users, is the residence where Lauren and Antoinette make their home. They are sitting on the couch, watching a sitcom, sometimes laughing tiny smiles at the tiny quirks the show characters pronounce with utter ease, as they are contrived and must seem natural. Occasionally in their assembly they return to themselves and notice each other in the process.

Antoinette is particularly good at self examination, and I don’t mean by that that she is truly able to observe herself but simply that she expends an inordinate amount of time doing it; while Lauren perhaps because of her profession is more inclined to analyze others. As the television continues to clamor for attention, Lauren’s devotion is paused while biting into melted cheese on a wheat-cracker, which she significantly blands by weighing its caloric content. This permits her to further pause and notice her exposed red blush painted toes, while noting that Antoinette had socks on for she was always bordering on cold. Antoinette’s particular set of socks were full of colorful circles, imbued with meaningful woolen restrain. Lauren thought to herself, (Antoinette still enjoying the show) “My sensitive darling wears socks most of the time because she can’t take all that stimuli that would arrive through exposed feet, maybe we wear clothes because we became hypersensitive and not instead because we could be moralists or cold.”

Antoinette was subdued by the absent presence of her lover, she senses that she is now watching the show alone and this bothers her, “Can I keep her attention?” In all verbal reality the truth was that in this relationship the Sun was Antoinette and the revolving planet was Lauren, but Antoinette was an emotionally unstable sun, she didn’t realize that Lauren wasn’t going to go anywhere because Suns have a maximum gravitational hold on their planets and more terrifying have a tendency to swallow them whole. Someday Lauren would be all within Antoinette and what must have truly troubled Antoinette, because unbeknownst to her was that Lauren might not satisfy her, that perhaps the grandeur of her Sun emotions would not find a double star. That in a sense, Antoinette had to make her partner explode into being her passionate lover and that working at it might be the static state of their relationship.

To reconnect the disconnect Antoinette grabbed Lauren’s hand and kissed it, and the TV show lost in the ratings; the two lovers then playfully kissed and Lauren busied herself in Antoinette’s bosom hiding underneath her hair. But Antoinette kept on thinking as she caressed Lauren, “We share so much but so much remains unfulfilled, if only my lover would quench her thirst with me, but she won’t, she is afraid to let go, she doesn’t trust me enough, I am not enough to gain her trust, I am her first woman lover, she must seek another and another, she won’t find fulfillment within us…”

And these terrorism of thoughts careened through Antoinette’s neurons, but again, wholly unaware that the berserk essence was hers, that the uncontrolled raging fire was within her, and that the incredible but restrained passions that she attributed to Lauren were indeed hers. But again, Antoinette’s examination of their relationship was wholly self contrived, Antoinette was worried that Lauren would abandon her, never truly willing to say to herself, “I could be dissatisfied here,” instead she would say, “my lover is dissatisfied with me.”

Ironically and equally troubling and perhaps the reason why the precarious relationship was working out. Lauren was afraid that she could not satisfy Antoinette, which was why she kept some distance from her Sun, it was as if to say I do have my independence from you and if you decide to leave me I could still survive. But of course that wasn’t true either. There are not many truths that one can consider absolute, but it is doubtful that there is such a thing as a planet without a sun and Lauren must have been aware of this, and now she was helplessly in love with Antoinette and helplessly trying not to drown from her knowledge of it. In other words there was a mutual and natural repelling trepidation between the two lovers, and somehow this quantified their orbiting around one another. Only Lauren, as one might expect of a planet, never contemplated that she could be the one that could leave the relationship, she never felt that kind of independence. While Antoinette considered from an odd internal sequestration perspective, “I am doomed to love you, you are my planet, mine, mine, and even though you might never become my shining star equal, I will stay with you because I am doomed to love you.”

Neither considered that the relationship could be doomed from their perspective, it was the other that was going to fail it. Such was the trigger that had the hammer pulled back. And yet it was innocuous enough that the tension could be ignored, they were both equally learning about themselves and each other, even their love making had not wholly crossed into the boundaries of sanctity, it was still carnal, they were still satisfying cravings and urges, seemingly mostly satisfied with gentle releases of what could be grander, the essence of love unleashed without fear. They were not there yet, still Lauren could remember the first time that she felt Antoinette truly love her, in that room in the convent, where all the inhibitions of the world had amalgamated to form a church, there, for odd reasons, in that bed, in that room, with those laughs, and even with Habakkuk looking on, both women had felt free of spirit to commune.

Yes that had been the moment where their love first dared to say “I am here.” And then things started to get complicated, work, even cleaning the dishes and where to put the dirty clothes got in the way of love’s soul expression, and now the fears, both lovers not wholly aware of each others incessant “I want more buttered croissants from you.” and not aware that neither was more than now, because they were, in this instance, everything that they could be to each other, and no more.

Habakkuk is on his bed, he is wondering why the world continues with such hostility, he has transcended his transcendental phase; and he is debating what to do with himself now, he thinks maybe he will start a business, he knows how to make excellent burritos, he will open a burrito stand. He loves pork, he doesn’t know if it is good to serve pork, part of his transcendental residue self tells him that maybe it is not a good idea to serve pork; and he would have to keep at least two sets of knifes one for the pork and one for the fowl, though he had heard that you could wash the knife before cutting either and still not violate some immutable law somewhere, but he wasn’t knave enough to accept that. Finally he decided that his Burrito Hut, would serve only pork burritos and that was that.

Pork meat is one of the great things in the universe, you can love it because it is not impossible to love it, chicken meat is the neutral meat, it tells your taste buds I will accommodate myself to you, don’t worry about my fowl, there isn’t a good reason to not to eat chicken, even vegetarians think they are not cheating when they eat chicken, and when we speak of meat we are not necessarily speaking of chicken. Which is probably why the inoffensive bird is not requested or mentioned in bible sacrifices. In fact they always like to sacrifice 70 bulls, 100 goats, 25 boars but you don’t ever hear of anyone wanting to get on good with gods offering them chickens. Even one pig must be a better sacrifice offering than a thousand chickens. Now there is cow meat, nothing bad to say about cows, milk is one of the finest products, and used either as a drink or to make pancakes or any of a thousand and one things, milk is a wonder product, and so is the meat from a cow, but the meat from a cow is not as tasty as the meat from a pig. Pig’s meat, from shoulder to ass is great tasting; the Cubans with their Lechon could easily be cooks in heaven, and Mexican carnitas, nada que decir!

Why do certain religions deny themselves pork? It is because they don’t want to feel like they are being opulent, they don’t want to indulge, they want to deny themselves the most exquisite meat in the universe, PIG! And through personal denial they can then say to themselves that they are not Cretans, Plebeians, Commoners, Pagans like the rest of us. But then Habakkuk reasons, that to deny one’s self a creature that god has exemplified as the swine of the earth is to deny one’s self of god. “I can not deny myself what god has created because that is to deny myself of god.” And so it was that finally our former pimp looking prophet Habakkuk decided to finally get himself a job so that the characters in this book would not appear as needlessly unemployable upper class denizens.

Habakkuk then started walking the city, to find the perfect Burrito home for the perfect burrito. He had not a penny to his name nor could we expect him to understand burrito mass production and quality assurance day after day. Habakkuk might have succeeded in creating burritos for himself that were fine pleasure, but what of the lady that didn’t want any beans on her burrito, or the Mexican punk raised on cheap fillers that wanted his burrito with more rice, or the old car plant worker that liked beans with pork but didn’t see the need for tortillas, and frankly found them offensive after NAFTA and the maquiladoras. There would certainly be the customer that would want his money back, too hot too cold, and of course there would be bad sales days when the burritos would exceed the number of customers, and Habakkuk wasn’t economist enough to determine and add the supply and demand cost factor to his burrito prices. Habakkuk was sure that if he just added the cost of the beans, avocado, garlic, tomatoes, pork, onions, salt, cumin, peppers and tortillas that that was that. But of course there wasn’t just that, there was the rent and the electricity and the labor involved in buying and selecting the goods, and so on, so in his head, Habakkuk had a burrito that was undervalued and rightly to him, highly competitive in the market; the only thing he needed was his burrito hut.

We should however not worry ourselves with the possible success or not of Habakkuk’s burrito hut because a post transcendentalist can not possibly be searching for anything meaningful in this life. More he is wasting our time, Habakkuk doesn’t belong here, not in this book nor in this world, that he hasn’t realized it won’t mean that the entire world will not combine its energies to make him aware of it. If the world has to make sure that Habakkuk never has a lover, then that is how it will be, if it means that the burrito hut will be a case study of disaster and tragedy combined, then so be it, the world will tell this post transcendentalist that he is no more, that he hasn’t got a chance, that the perfect burrito sold in the perfect location to the perfect clientele will not be enough to survive, is one of the ways that the world happenings expire.

Lauren had fallen sleep, this was usually the case, while Antoinette continued to scan the channels for a good murder mystery or something historical, as she was changing the channels she noticed one particular ad, why she noticed it she did not yet know, they were selling a unique collection of clothing, priced at an incredibly affordable price, everything about the clothes spoke of expensive, unique, and full of character, yet as she was watching the sales number counter on the side of the screen kept on going up and up, which would of course contradict anything that the spokes lady was saying, “unique” was next to “1500 in inventory” and the dizzying number, “803 sold, 804 sold, 805 sold…” and some times the elegant clothes with character and uniqueness were selling so fast that the sales ticker had to skip numbers to keep up. And Antoinette instead of considering purchasing some for herself before demand would drive them out of circulation and make them a collectors edition, was trying to picture all of the people buying this, her mind’s eye was holding this image of all these people across America or the world calling in orders, and all of them doing precisely the same thing, and closely synchronized and Antoinette thought, “what does this mean? what induces these people to all make the same decision? what drives them to make the call? to give their credit card number? to want to get to the clothing items before the next person? they are all doing this at the same time, are they motivated by the same urge? what do they share in common? (and with grimace on her face) And do they really believe that polyester could be all those wonderful things?” Antoinette hated polyester even well designed polyester even polyester touched by Princes Diana.

She promptly fell asleep next to her honey neither to sleep comfortably on the couch, but neither with the energy to drag the relationship into the bedroom.

Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe

2006-08-31T17:42:00.000-07:00

The next morning at breakfast, Antoinette had cooked some delicious over easy eggs seasoned with dill and salty enough to deter robber barons, accompanied by pancakes with maple syrup and unscrupulous amounts of butter. The usual stringently dark coffee, Lauren would have hers without cream or sugar, while Antoinette not having to prove anything to anyone obsessed hers with sugar and cream. If you ever wanted to see a true expression of distaste all you had to do was switch coffee cups, on occasion, even with their mostly mismatched cups, Lauren would accidentally taste the overwrought sweetness of Antoinette’s coffee, the failed bitterness as constipated by the cream, and you could just imagine the rocky coast of whales on Lauren’s brow.

Fortunately this morning the two lovers were complaining about their failure to make it into the cozy bed and so could amply express that couches were never made for sleeping, maybe for sex, hence the love seat, a sort of couch for teenagers, which is so uncomfortable people are always trying to get on top of each other to stay comfortable, or the ever ridiculous and heavy sofa bed, solely of course to suggest a guest to stay no more than a night, properly intended to discourage any delaying from departing guest. Obviously the sofa bed and the love seat display a clear and direct line of understanding between furniture designers and their customers. You wouldn’t want me to comment on a lazy chair, and besides this is the Lauren and Antoinette show, my commentaries are leftovers here.

It was while chatting about this and that, Antoinette discussing her latest photo shoots, photos of Loki and Pacho set against cotton balls and toiletry, and last nights commercial, where Antoinette discussed how silly all the shopping channel circus had seemed, that Lauren paused her, “Wait tell me again, tell me again what was happening.” Antoinette complied, “All these people were buying up polyester as if it were a unique once in life time item, and all of them were rushing to buy thus adding momentum to a feeding frenzy and yet unaware that their actions were making others buy and thus equally reducing the uniqueness of the purchase or the likelihood of it becoming classic wear any time soon. (twirling her arm up in the air) Or maybe I am wrong about that, maybe classic wear is something that is worn a lot, maybe…” Within seconds of those notes Lauren was on the phone asking to meet with Habakkuk.

Later…

“Listen to me Habakkuk I need your awareness of the Akashic record, I need to know something, is it possible for their to be a collective knowledge of an event, that is to say that if some one got killed, (she was being anxiously expressive) does that too become knowledge within the Akashic archives, I mean, pounding her finger on the table, I mean does the information become part of the collective knowledge?” Habakkuk wiped his forehead with the napkin, his nose started developing moisture underneath his nostrils, he did not like to answer metaphysical questions, he now felt it was pointless and it could all lead to strange troubles and situations which he had no control over but that he could be blamed for. In the case of Antoinette and Lauren he felt responsible that their circumstances led to a lesbian relationship, he was sure that in another context they would have never gone so deep into it. And now Lauren was asking this, so he decided to coyly ask a question instead, suspecting that within some context, if he gave Lauren the proper answer she would not know what to do with it.

“Why do you ask?”

She replied, “A man died, a priest, “Archbishop Timothy Wellington”, I don’t know why I am asking you this, they tell me he died of natural causes, but he was taking an anti depressant, Paxil, and while there was no evidence of foul play, he was found prostrate on the altar, and one of his fellow priest gave me the creeps, and while it all seems fine, and I could write it off as another solved non case, I can’t; but of course there were no witnesses, no one will even say that it was his habit to sleep on the altar, though one priest did claim that it was a priestly possibility.”

“I think you are stumbling into the high ground of criminology, where cases are solved through what a detective might intuit from the Akashic archives, often when you gain access to the records, you have to draw lines of connectivity so that the records may guide you to the appropriate conclusions, witnesses are often the best source of direct connection and serve as an index so that the intuitive detective can reconstruct the crime, but you say you had no witnesses, this decreases your chances of accessing the Akashic record.”

“But are you then saying Habakkuk, are you saying what I think you are saying, that the crime, catching her lack of objectivity) if it is a crime, would be recorder in the Akashic and all of humanity has access to it?”

“Indeed.”

“Then what do I do to gain access to it, what do I do Habakkuk help me out here.”

“I would like to help you but I am opening up a burrito hut, and that is taking up all of my time right now, and I can’t get metaphysical when I am making refried beans.”

Lauren lost her tension and joined her friend with a smile.

“Tell you what you can do, you have to draw a connection between him and you and the killer, the way to do that is to get near to those that were nearest to him, that way you will have an opening to his Akashic time line and where and why it ends; the archives tend to open to those that have the scent of the “within” the archive.”

On kissing her good bye he noted, “Keeping part of his physical self with you might help, the dead always keep on trying to find themselves in the physical world, a hair perhaps.”

Her arms at her side, standing there talking to herself, “Where do I start?”

The name Bill Rosen came immediately to mind. That was the archbishops psychiatrist. Lauren wasted no time, made her way to his office and unkindly requested that Dr Rosen cancel his next appointment so that she could question him. When she arrived Bill was not in a good mood, nor was he the type to like women wearing red shoes, and for some strange reason Lauren had decided to were her red shoes against a well fitted gray pant suit, made an entrance. Habakkuk might have told her that a hostile interview wasn’t conducive to triangulating and indexing the Akashic but then Habakkuk was too busy with his burritos for the finer details.

The questioning did not go well, Bill was most uncooperative to the point where he could not possibly be a suspect, he would say things like, “Detective I don’t have the time for this, lots of people die in the world every day, some of natural causes, some of not so natural causes, I am an atheist when an archbishop dies I am all for it.”

“But he was your patient surely you wanted to cure what ailed him?”

“Look before he died I was trying to convince him that he should find more help from god than from a psychiatrist, he just wanted to come and sit here and watch me as if watching me was going to cure him or something, and I hate to admit it I don’t like patients that make me feel uncomfortable. As a last resort I told him that I was the wrong type of therapist for his case, I wanted to offload him on a friend of mine that loves Skinner and he would have enjoyed the operant antics of faith, but not me Detective, I was done with him.”

“Did he mention any friends to you?”

“What?”

“Did he mention any friends people he knew or he played golf with, or family?”

The doctor was impatiently playing with his fingers against the wood on the chair, and yet he scrounged up a gesture of disbelief, “this guy didn’t have any friends, he was a loner, he wasn’t even a homosexual priest, he probably wasn’t friends with the angels or with god, maybe god killed him, who knows but I can say this, you want to see a loner, this guy was a loner, he had nothing to say, didn’t even want to talk to me, and I can tell you that if he had family he had left them, the church must have been his excuse to abandon all comradeship and to avoid any pretence of love or human touch.”

“Do you see many cases like that?”

“We see cases like that all the time but they are usually insane, the problem with Timothy is that he wasn’t insane, he was maybe too sane, even to the point where it would seem irrational for him to believe in a god.”

“Did that not intrigue you Doctor Rosen?”

“Look, I went to a nice school and studied psychiatry because it was the only thing that I knew how to do easily enough to get away with it. I got a very nice home, a nice car, I like to read and vacation often, I am not some brain doctor that wants to discover the inner workings of the human psyche, nor do I possess the ego to believe myself a genius, I am just a worker bee just like you detective, putting in my hours, lets leave it at that.”

“Thank you for your time Dr Rosen, I don’t think I have any more questions but if something jolts your mind give me a call.”

Lauren left somewhat satisfied, two important developments had taken place, she could easily eliminate Rosen as a suspect, and what he had said about Timothy certainly implied that there was more to this case and to his death than was readily apparent.

She called ahead to make an appointment with Father Trocin and on her way to the church she stopped by the morgue, where Danny had already removed a sample of the Cardinals hair. As he handed it to her, “You’re really flipping lady, I don’t know what the rose thief is up to, I told you he died of natural causes, haven’t you got enough real murders to solve?” “Danny I fancy myself a true detective like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, we enjoy solving impossible cases.” Danny knew his dear friend was on to something, “do you want to let me in on it?” “don’t ya worry your going to be in it up to your ears.” And with that she rushed over to the church.

Father Trocin was exiting a confession booth, he walked up to Lauren, clasping his hands together and said, “I just dispatched another sinner from his guilt.” “I am sure you find that power rather comforting Father Trosin.” His hands unclasped and he got his face real close to hers, “the name is “Trocin” with a “c” it’s not too much, it’s the name my parents gave me, it’s the name the lord wanted me to have, I respect the name, its important to respect something even in this jaded world.” “I am sorry Father Tro”c”in, I will bare more care when enunciating it.” “Thank you. Now how may I be of service to you?”

“Well as you know I am working the Archbishops case,” he interrupted… “but wasn’t that closed already, he died of natural causes, what more is there to that.” (Lauren molesting her hair back,) “…it could seem a closed and obvious case but I still have to investigate and answer all the typical questions so that my Captain will think I am still doing my job, besides, I can’t pass up the temptation of solving a crime that doesn’t require solving.”

They walked out to the garden, sat on a concrete bench, and looked out over a beautiful lawn enhanced by the flowers and the flirting birds.

“Would you consider yourself a friend of the Archbishops?”

Father Trocin covering his mouth so as not to spill any spit, “I don’t think I was a friend of the Archbishops, no wouldn’t go that far, we serve the church you see, we didn’t really have any reason to be friends.”

“But aren’t priest friends amongst themselves or is that frowned upon?”

“Oh no, we are rather good at being mostly both, then there is always a cantankerous priest among the lot, I pride myself in being that one in this flock, however archbishop Wellington was not a man given to musing over tea or wine, he was a rather studious figure that held a distance from his parishioners as well as his church fellows. I think he considered it his duty to remain distant, it was as if to say, the sin can not be given birth if we avoid human contact, or at least suspicion of sin could not be given birth, but who knows maybe it was something else, our conversations were always to the point, and I never much cared to get to know him, I have other ways to seek out my future within the church.”

“Has any parishioner ever complained about him, and complained about him in a confession to you or anyone else?”

Father Trocin held back an immediate reply, showing discomfort with the question but then recovered himself and delivered a soothing response.

“I don’t know of anyone who has. No, I don’t know of anyone that might have said something in that regard, but then Detective Lauren, even my god wouldn’t let me answer to anyone else but him, so you place a man of faith in an uncomfortable situation.”

Lauren realized that all the doors to Father Trocin’s mind were now closed, she wasn’t giving up on him, she still thought that he knew more than he was telling, but she would have to come back with something more tangible than a strand of Timothy’s hair in her pocket.

“Father I appreciate your being so honest and helpful, could I trouble you some more? (without waiting for a reply.) …I will need a list of all the parishioners that attended the archbishop’s mass, or that had any regular contact with him. I want to arrange for an interview with any and all them, this Sunday would be best that way we can move forward and the church doesn’t have to endure months of investigations.”

Father Trocin was taken aback and he knew he had to cooperate, so he made arrangements for a session of questioning Sunday’s parishioners, after mass they would be asked to speak to the police, any and all of them, and the police would not allow any of them to leave, until they had all signed a statement that they had or had nothing to do with the archbishop.

The birds, the garden and the flowers continued to chime mighty fine, even as Father Trocin followed Lauren’s leaving with the devil in his eyes.

The Akashic Record Takes Part in a Murder

2006-08-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

Sunday mass was happening, Lauren felt the need to bring Habakkuk with her, he wasn’t too pleased by the ordeal. “Why do I need to be there, I am a post transcendentalist, beyond the metaphysical, the church is for energies that have evolved past mythology but haven’t gotten past fiction.” “Look Mr Habakkuk you’ve gotten me in trouble in the past with all your mind bending rules and beyond anthropomorphic knowledge, besides how am I going to interpret anything without you there, tell me how!” Finally Habakkuk agreed to go but only if Lauren and Antoinette consented to making tortillas with him. He said “its easy, all you do is just add water and a little bit of oil, and then flour, and then you just mix, and mix adding air with your hands and then you roll them out and fry, ta ta.” So that is what they did on Saturday, make tortillas, the tortillas didn’t look like tortillas, and both Lauren and Antoinette were in agreement that adding air to the masa is not as easy as Habakkuk made it sound. To which he responded, “And I like going to church?” There was no reply.

Sunday mass was rather well attended, a huge crowd of what was obviously a well to do bunch. There must have been lots of lawyers, many ties were the common indicator, doctors, maybe even scientists, but certainly the archbishop had amassed a healthy segment of worshipers, not a truck driver or an inventory control clerk among them. Both Habakkuk and Lauren arrived early enough so as to review everyone as they entered; they both sat in an area that apparently was reserved for additional musical instruments should for some reason the choir not suffice. Lauren had felt sufficiently confident that their regal sitting position was justified by the authority invested in her by the state. She was apparently unaware that such pretenses of authority were nullified in the house of the lord, and so her belief gave her a false sense of control.

The well-heeled started entering the church on the early side about a half an hour before the mass. Mostly old women who went up to the altar, inaudibly speaking to the lord but moving their lips as if he could read them. Christ was hanging on the cross, nailed to it, blood running throughout his body, at one side there was a seemingly complacent virgin Mary, having a face that seemed to have never had a hard life or been bestowed upon the tragedy of her son’s crucifixion. Certainly she did not look the part of a carpenters wife, but then neither did any other woman in this church.

Young altar boys were moving around preparing incense and filling up the holy water receptacles. A lonely young woman, dressed in black pants, white blouse and holding a rosary, wept by the side of an angel, her hands might have been trembling, she promptly left leaving us without her story.

A couple of older men walked in, more as if they owned the place, they paced around, as if the church were a waiting area in a train station; their hands in their pockets, always seeming not far from pulling out a cigarette and using a holy candle to light it, but fortunately they didn’t, or so thought Lauren, who then noticed that Habakkuk was practically asleep. She immediately elbowed him, without realizing her own unwitting contamination by the church’s values.

Closer to the top of the hour the choir arrived, a rousing cacophony of noises in a preparation that was to find its contrary later; they robed, sounding notes here and there, telling an occasional joke, for there was laughter and what else could have produced it, they all looked like Mormons, but they were Catholics, their leader was a big woman, in her late fifties for sure, she didn’t seem very spiritual, stern, maybe in another life a factious leader of some communist obsession, here, in this setting, she had become a choir leader, a mentor, and organizer, and you could tell a great baker at home. She ruled the group to a fast order and silence, and they all, far too many to bother counting, lined up properly facing her and preparing their musical chords.

Habakkuk was trying to astroplane but he was a bit out of practice so he sort of had to stay there, and Lauren kept on reminding him that he was grounded. Occasionally he thought things like, “how much cilantro is too much? Do beans last longer if you don’t add garlic and onions? Do I lose a lot of flavor if I don’t add the ingredients to the beans? Can I freeze burritos overnight? Is it pointless to try to perfect the art of finding the perfect avocado?” and Occasionally he would economically ponder, “I don’t belong here, what am I doing here with this cop lady?” when Lauren, disturbed by his thoughts, would say, “quiet pay attention.” And he realized that the mass had started.

The proceedings were magnificently boring, Father Trocin was giving the mass, he accused everyone of being sinners, “you are all sinners,” then perhaps sensing that culpability ought to be shared, “we are all sinners,” and he followed with this very long and tedious sermon on why the Song of Solomon was not in the new testament; which perhaps no one but Habakkuk understood as he was on the verge of laughing aloud many times, and one time practically blew himself up just from trying to contain himself. Finally Trocin finished off, “…and it is the wisdom of the ages that edits our lives and calls upon us to live them in the ways which have been deigned by centuries of discovery and repetition, to be proper. And proper in the eyes of god! Not proper in our eyes! Not proper in the eyes of the local constabulary! Proper in the eyes of the old mighty, for only he is lord, only he is king, and only he is god, and only he represents salvation for us all!”

Whew, Lauren and Habakkuk certainly took notice, and didn’t really know if he had just told them that he wasn’t guilty of anything by their judgment, or if he had just told the congregation not to cooperate with the authorities.

“My flock, I leave you to the eyes of god, go with him.” There was a pause, “amen.”

The flock was just getting ready to flock when he changed his tone to something more constructive, “My fellow children of god, it is a tragedy that recently Father Timothy Wellington left us without his warmth and heart; but it is god’s doing which we shall not dare to question as only the lord knows the ways of the lord. Today however, as is often the case that we must collaborate with Cesar because god does not want us to deny Cesar what is his, today we have among us members of the police department, that will want to ask you some questions before you leave, please in the name of our father, collaborate with them, even as we want our archbishop to rest, we shall serve Cesar well.”

The congregation wasn’t amused, at all. In fact they were some what vocal in their dismay, and perhaps, since they were people that ticked their lives via a calendar, felt intruded upon. But Lauren had anticipated all that, she walked up to the podium and asked everyone to be calm and assured them that this would not take long. At which point cops appeared at every entrance thus helping her to enunciate.

The interviews went on for approximately two hours, then the interviewing task force got together and Lt Moro, a tall football type, responding to Lauren’s question if they had gotten anything, “Gotten what Detective, gotten what? What were we looking for? A murderer’s confession? You know in this business no one readily surrenders, even if they just attended a mass, and from the looks of this crowd no one here needs any charity from god.” He then cleared his sinuses as the rest of the officers added a sense of relief that someone had uttered their sentiments.

“Hold on everyone, I know this is a little unorthodox but when we don’t have anything else to go by what else can we do, we have to keep on trying.” Upon saying that she looked at Habakkuk who was not at that moment about displaying a sense of shame and guilt, which did not serve to fortify Lauren’s position. Fortunately the voice of reason and down to earth police work stepped into the crowd, “Ok, ok lets stop whining, everyone, surely we all have better things to do on a Sunday, so lets huddle now, review results, and then we can all go home.” Captain Ogle.

Lauren again in possession of the ball and the game plan if any, “Yes sir good to see you!” she did a snappy salute and then begun to command, “Here is how we are going to do this, we have six interview teams, each team is to give their interview notes to a different team, and they will review them, then will again exchange them with different interview teams for further evaluation, and finally we will brainstorm them together. Go!”

The teams were meeting in the garden outside the church, Habakkuk wasn’t made to read anything, nor did he want to, he was just there to listen, so while the groups were sharing their notes he was forced to go get drinks for everyone. Unfortunately after that fall on the ice in New York city he hated coke, for some strange reason he held coke responsible, and never bought coke again; so he brought back healthy drinks like pineapple sunburst, kiwi-mandarin surprise, and chocolate-dynamic with ten times the caffeine of a sack of coffee beans. Needless to say, this merely reaffirmed what they all already suspected, he was a freak and a weirdo.

Curious, Father Trocin stopped by where Lauren was sitting on the grass reading notes, when she looked up he was standing just in such a way that the sun was a halo on his head, she made futile attempts to cover her eyes, he did not bother to alter his position, but rather as if speaking for the Sun, “Did you enjoy my service?” “Yes Father it was… passionate, and inspirational.” “Well, may I be of service to you here?” “No thank you Father, you have done enough.” And with that the Sun and Father Trocin left.

Another hour or so later the teams had finished their sharing of notes and they sat in a circle with Captain Ogle and Lauren in the center, and the weirdo somewhere to the side, well outside the circle.

The feedback started from different groups, “no one liked this priest.” “he offended a little girl by telling her that her sins were not forgivable by god’s own standards and recommended she settle for purgatory.” “a couple of guys noted that they did not understand why he was serving god if he hated people.” “an old lady asked me to check to make sure if he was really dead but it was the way she said it, “you better check if he is really dead, he wasn’t alive in the first place you know.”” “I had two businessmen that said they would want him to negotiate their next contracts.” “Hey that is nothing, a very wealthy man said, “this church isn’t the richest church in the world for lack of talent.” “Yeah! Shit, it sounds like this guy was really hated by his parishioners.” “Well but being hated does not mean that someone is going to kill you or that you are going to inspire that in someone.” “Personally if you ask me, I think we got nothing here.”

Habakkuk, interjected, “Are you sure about that Officer?” Lauren and Ogle looked at each other. Habakkuk walked himself within the circle, one hand in his pocket and the other helping him with the conversation. “I see a mass murder here, I see that people have willingly amassed within this congregation, held such opinions of the archbishop in common with one another, that they may have unwittingly brought upon the energies that would consume him. (continuing with his gestures) neither he nor any one parishioner could have been excluded from the plot or aware of it, intensifying within the calculations of a servant of the lord’s ill will towards those he was to guard and foster, was a self deprecating plot by no doubt a very intelligent archbishop, that had it in him to guide his flock into a mass murder plot which would surely resonate through the ages. As the antagonism against him grew, antagonism which he must have preached in his sermons, the man rippled, stroked the wall of condemnation against himself, to perhaps demonstrate forces unknown to us, to himself, and equally to prove how damming it all is. There are no innocents in those notes. Not even the little girl is safe from having added to the harm done.”

The Officers were all dumbfounded, they didn’t understand one word that this man had said, they were sure he was a lunatic, they looked at Lauren, a few threw up their hands and exclaimed that they were going home, others waited to be appropriately dismissed which captain Ogle promptly obliged; and then he turned to Lauren, “Shit Lauren, shit, shit, shit!” he got up from where he had been seating, put his coat on, “I am gonna leave you two alone to contemplate what you are saying, please Lauren, this guy is not even in the payroll, we are liable for the things we say, we are not voodoo surveyors of the murder prone, oh fuck it. I will see you tomorrow.”

Ogle knew that regardless of her unconventional approach Lauren was his best detective, he had to put up with a lot, but result after result had shown the girl had what it took. He would swear here and there, and talk badly of her methodology behind her back, but he always knew that the weird shit always lasted only so long and always gave him what he needed to keep bringing in results. Some times though, he just thought it would never stop.

Lauren however was not at all thinking about the other Officers nor had she much heard what captain Ogle had said, she had heard everything Habakkuk had said, she was digesting it, she knew it was out there, deep into the sojourn of eternal life, but something made sense here, something which she needed to absorb. She got up and took her friend’s hand, “have I told you that I like your brown striped pants?” “No you haven’t.” laughing “that’s right I haven’t.” they walked towards her car, got in it, closed the door and felt that no one not even the universe could hear them now, they were inside of the water proof ford mustang, and if water couldn’t get in much less the universe that was way out there.

Lauren spoke first,

“You’re saying that these people all thought so poorly of Timothy that indirectly they wished him ill, the Akashic got the information, echoed it through the congregation, which only reaffirmed it and thus caused him to die of natural causes.” Habakkuk joined his hands somewhat happily, “precisely.” Lauren bobbing her head up and down and touching the steering wheel, “yes, that is what happened, it makes perfect sense, only that isn’t a crime, or at least it is not a crime yet, or there isn’t any way that I can pin that on the flock because they all just killed a little itty bit of the archbishop each, until finally they did him in.” Habakkuk interjected, “There was one that had to be the murderer, the one that took the last bit of the archbishops energy, all of them drained him, but only one could have thrown him over the top, they all contributed, but only one had to take the final step. In fact this is precisely what happens in an obvious murder, that the person who does the killing can’t take that person any more and loses all civility. But others generally want him dead too. I told you this before Lauren, it is the most sensitive people that carry out the crime as they are more prone to the tune being played by the Akashic record.” He pauses from his unaware excitement, “no one within the vicinity of an action is excluded from the action. The hardest thing to do in the universe is to disconnect from everything else.

“If you are correct then the little girl would certainly be a prime suspect. She being more susceptible than the adults.” “I think it so.” Hesitant perhaps remembering another little girl and perhaps wondering if this was her, then he continued, “the more susceptible would be the most tainted, sadly this implies their guilt and not their susceptibility which would be more accurate.”

Lauren took a deep breath, she didn’t doubt any of this, she knew it was right. She turned the car on, and drove Habakkuk home, not another word was spoken between them, even the “see you later.” Was muffled.

On her way home, she stopped at a candy specialty store, and bough a rich delicious Belgium chocolate, one that she knew would curry favor with her precious Antoinette. Then she went by the supermarket and picked up some chicken for the cats. On her way home she ran out of gas. That part sucked.

A Hen In the Hand is Worth…

2006-08-31T17:39:00.000-07:00

“The hen was not a willing participant in the act. The forcefully clenched hen, wretchedly tried to eke beak sonorous irritations, perhaps shrieking to the chickens guardian angel, though none appeared. The ferocious hands of the man satisfied their misguided lust; the hen might not have had eyes or head, a headless chicken would have done, a legless chicken too, perhaps even a picture of a hen, though the latter seems unlikely. The male was in some kind of a trance, was not even aware that he was doing what he indeed was doing, his stance was that of a man masturbating from the upright, only he had the feathered fowl in an penile analytical probe context, and was sweating unto its feathers, what may have been his innermost desires, wholly perverted in their maximum repressed manifestation. The plucking having been done, the man whimpered into the hay, his eyes rolling in ecstasy that seemed somewhat relegated sooner than not to perdition. His irises must have caught the witnessing by the farmer’s daughter and son, starkly surprised at the incomprehensible witnessing of cross species sexual encounters. The children were only able to say that the hen had not enjoyed anything. In a sense the only one that wasn’t a pervert certainly were not the children watching in amazement, nor the man found in his ravaging sexual masculinity, but the hen, who was clearly raped.”
“B.R.”

The incident had been reported to the authorities, the church had been informed, a general brief was filed by the consulting psychiatrist on the case, B.R., an expert in the field of perversions, his specialty was bestiality. Lauren finished reading the report and was somewhat astounded by the initials. It didn’t take her long to convince her suspicions, “Bill Rosen, Consulting psychiatric ward, Helen Asylum and Recovery Center, Manchester New England.” The patient reference: T.W.

Lauren touched her lips with her fingers, partly trembling partly comprehending that she was certainly on to something. She called up the detective that had been in charge of the bestiality case, Jim Wilson. His words, “It was a pervert priest, shit you hear about priests fucking boys and girls, but chickens, you just can’t get used to that.” Lauren paused for a second, “Did anyone press charges?” “Heck I would have if I could, the wife told me to, but farmer John refused to file, he didn’t want his kids associated with the event, can’t say I blame him the media would a had a flurry, and the major wasn’t keen on making a case; the district attorney whittled at it a bit and concluded he could only make stand up comedy of it. He did force the church to reassign the bestial father out of county and state.” “Thank you Jim.” “No problem Ma’am, not often that I get calls from out of town about my cases, you need any more help you just holler.”

Lauren was not happy with herself, she had originally failed to request a basic backgrounder on Timothy, why it would have hinted at so much more, now she was in the hothouse, the death of Timothy Wellington may have been a natural event but the man was certainly not. She called Dr Rosen.

“Why didn’t you tell me!”

“I am not here to do you work for you, I am a doctor, I heal people I don’t put them in jail for being human.”

“But you have a social responsibility, besides you told me that you did not want him as a patient, but your specialty is perversions and bestiality at that, so he must have been the ideal patient.”

“Fuck you! What do you think that there aren’t enough perverts out there? Do you think that specialists in perverted behavior can not be picky? Is it in your head detective that what you read is an unusual occurrence? Allow me to warn you that it is only unusual in that it was reported!”

Lauren realized in less than a split second that murder to her was a normal occurrence, putting her hand to her brow, “Dr Rosen, please accept my apology, this is a very frustrating case, I am going up a tree that has an infinite number of branches and I find myself tired and irritated that everything just keep branching, seemingly never ending.”

“Please don’t worry, we encounter a lot of incomprehension from all those that get visited by our world, it is ok, don’t worry about it, why don’t we meet for lunch and see how I can help you?”

They met at a sushi restaurant. Hot spicy sticks with real crab dumplings were being smuggled into their stomachs. Lauren ordered a Martini, the good Doctor ordered a Whiskey. The lunch special, which was still a very expensive special, was a crab, scallop and tuna roll, that was scrumptious; the two hardly noticed it, they did not notice the sushi chef, they were busy trying to get past their original menacing stances. They had broken a relationship barring Gordian knot but now they had to examine how to reproach each other. Lauren noticed that the Doctor was actually sort of attractive, roughhewn, he didn’t have scholarly pretensions, though he was learned and schooled, his language was disarming with sophistication and street talk antics which would disembowel themselves when the listener least expected it. She liked his thick eyebrows, his big hands, underneath she suspected that he was hairy, a bear; part of her coquette self came out, she twinkled her eyes, she acted startled when he told how he decided to become an expert on perversions, “I figured the species couldn’t guarantee its success without fuck roaming.” She exulted his charisma by tightening her lips, or on occasion puckering to one side as if the kiss could not be given but was. Occasionally she pondered if what she was doing was cheating, she decided the good doctor was just cavorting fun.

For his part the doctor had obviously gotten into Lauren and her essence, she was well poised, her natural arrogance and sophistication was a charmer, he momentarily imagined introducing her to his mother, he pictured his wife dying of natural causes, he conceived what it would be like to cum all over her face, he wondered if she liked the symphony; he loved the outdoors but she did not seem near wearing hiking boots, he pondered a solution, none immediately; he couldn’t imagine her doing a barbeque, he wrote that off; he could change, she seemed wealthy, he knew she wasn’t, she was a detective, he thought he would have to have a lot of money to be with her, he watched her fingers, her ears, her temples, he looked for signs of approval, he was cooking inside, he was a boring married male, sushi was way out there. This was his no thrills frill, he knew that, he didn’t want to know it.

He spoke,

“William Blake once said that “those that can resist their desires do so because their desires are weak enough to be resisted.” Perverts just don’t restrain their desires, they act them out, they live them, they enjoy them. That doesn’t mean that they are prepared to pay the consequences, they are not, they don’t think that there should be consequences, further they suspect that it is the world that is perverted for not allowing their perversions or just perversion.”

“Why would Timothy Wellington risk his career, if we can call the priesthood a career, but why would he risk it so by performing such a vile act?”

“Lauren, he could not resist his desires, his desires needed to be expressed and they didn’t take into account the fact that he was in someone else’s barn, accidentally in front of someone else’s children, and bound to service to the church; all that disappeared because he was being strained by his desires which did not take into account a social reality. You see this all the time with your murderers, the blunt expression is in the act, but a murderer is saying a thousand things more, about how he feels about life, about how life affects him, and even bothering to express that action is important, that emotions are important, that there can be nothing held back even if the ramifications are irrevocable and damning for your mother will find out.”

The waiter was standing by and yet being ignored, though he used the moment to listen.

“It makes sense that people would follow their desires if they are not civilized. But fucking a chicken doesn’t seem like an ideal end in itself?”

“It isn’t Lauren, fucking the chicken is just what Timothy does to express something else, how powerless he feels in a church that doesn’t allow sex, sex, SEX! They don’t allow it, it is an unspoken necessity, the church derives much of its energy from celibate priests that instead of acquiring interaction with the female essence are fucked by the church and cannot have another lover. Same with the nuns, they are not authorized to go outside the bounds of the church for satisfaction, the static that is generated is superb, a first rate kinetics-hypothetical orgy, the church is constantly having sex with itself, the energy has to go somewhere, it goes inside of the church as an institution without fear of individual expressions, you are nothing unto yourself, you are everything within the groin and womb of the church.”

“Those are radical statements Doctor, you are turning over the church on the premise that it acquires its energy from the inhibited sexual energy of its congregation. That is a formidable notice.”

“Look Lauren, it is, but I am an authority on the subject, the pervert is the catholic church, the pervert isn’t the individual priest or nun, they are not allowed to be themselves, then, where does the energy get put out? Where! (pounds his finger on the table, dangerously near the crab scallop roll,) the nastiness of it is the foundation, the monster doesn’t know it is a monster, the pope is the head of the church and the head of the church has been dead for many years but still thrives from the energies of unified masturbating seminaries and convents of depravation, congruent in their manual devotions; devotions voided of communality absorbed by their isolation from communal interactions.”

“That seems way too terminal for me, I can’t imagine that people would pervert their desires so they could serve a church.” (Lauren wasn’t finished but the doctor intruded anyway.)

“Sure you don’t see it that way because most people end up going after their more natural desires, to please social norms, to get along with others, to be liked, those desires thrive and dominate but not everyone is betting on being a socially accepting animal, there are those that think outside the herd instinct and feel society forcing us to be certain things, and struggle against their desires to conform and so end up bursting their personalities into perversions.”

“But that sounds as if the social fiber were a straightjacket.”

“You would see it as forced because your job is to be an enforcer and you have the opportunity to observe the disheveled, but the reality is another, “those that resist their desires do so because their desires are weak enough to be resisted.” (Rosen snapping his fingers for accentuation,) “The expression of anything is always the manifestation of the stronger desire. Lauren, people are more given to express their desire to get along and to be apart than not. Whereas the pervert is less concerned with social or mass approval, thus the desires that a pervert surrenders to are different, most people desire to be common and are thus because of their desire to belong, to not be different; being different requires a lot of attention and self examination, most therefore confine themselves to common desires, which are not less desired because they are common.”

“This is all very heady Bill, it seems I have some kind of a murder in my hands, it seems an entire congregation wanted to kill their priest and they did, and I can’t prove it, but what you are saying only helps to confirm it. And I don’t want you to think I am here to judge the man, I am actually trying to find out who murdered him because it is not right.”

“It is not right? What if his desire was to die? What if I were to tell you, in violation of my patient’s rights, that he did not like who he was and that he wanted to go away?”

Lauren instantly recalled Habakkuk’s words, “…neither he nor any one parishioner could have been excluded from the plot or aware of it, intensifying within the calculations of a servant of the lord’s ill will towards those he was to guard and foster, was a self deprecating plot by no doubt a very intelligent archbishop, that had it in him to guide his flock into a mass murder plot…” and she said, “Dr. Rosen of course it could all make sense it just couldn’t make sense any other way but then again no one would believe it, it isn’t provable, there is no way that this rational world is going to solve irrational crimes.”

“Well kiddo I am not the one that has to come up with a formal answer to this Timothy Wellington’s life’s happenstance, you’re the one that gets paid for wrapping things up nicely, me, people just come to me to listen to their own questions.”

“Dr Rosen it truly has been a pleasure to meet with you, and without meaning insult but rather its opposite, you are an unusual man; thank you truly for taking the time.” She started to get up, and the doctor paused her with a touch from his hand, “Would it be possible for us to meet under different circumstances?” “It certainly tickles my fancy doctor but I am a perverted lesbian and in love to boot.”

Isolated Unity

2006-08-31T17:38:00.000-07:00

We don’t ask how because some questions have too many answers which will render them meaningless, but we know that our friend Habakkuk went to a certain Latin American country, we don’t mention the name of the country because we must be faithful to Habakkuk’s philosophy that there are no countries just continents populated by the world’s people who have fenced themselves into a conjunctive of paragraphs, molested enough to arm themselves against their fellows. He neither acknowledges the separation of mankind nor does he believe the success of the fence builders inevitable. Habakkuk was sure that the transgressions that brought humanity apart were not sufficient gravitational evidence to prove individuality nor patriotism; rather everywhere he went everything seemed perfectly replicated; thus only proving beyond doubt the isolated unity of humanity.

Why in his conversations with Lauren he would say, “the people all look the same, same beggars, same yuppies, same students, same birthday cakes, same anxieties, same streaks of jealousy and desire, the newspapers all look the same, they all mostly eat beef, rice and potatoes, even when they sauce, garnish and make pretty, it is still beef, rice and potatoes.”

“Lauren, Latin America is not a bunch of countries, it is a bunch of people that seem to think very much the same, nothing about productivity everything about the emotive moment with a little bit of a humanizing crisis, everything becomes either a pending tragedy or a tragedy, there is never a lull for the emotions, sons and daughters have to get killed or have horrible spouses, mothers exist as supplicant tears, husbands as lonely bulls on the quest of the forgivable; the government must not exist and doesn’t exist, a bunch of crooked never-ending-reform-minded set of dictators or populists that on occasion grab hold of the national purse; the populace as a whole doesn’t know that they are a part of GDP, they visit with witches instead, fix their illnesses with herbs and medicine men, and believe that there is going to be a harmonious jolly good afterlife, hence the reason why they can ignore this life and its set of social rules. They tend to have lots of babies; and they birth them when they are young because they are gregarious and fun, and music driven and more because by having babies they propound a psychological war against the fears of the civilized nations; they trounce on them by having babies not based on economics, logic or covenants with world population control authorities, or the educational quota of well healed schools. The civilized world is psycho afraid of all those third world babies, void of knowledge, poverty ridden and crude hoards, third world weapons of fear against any civilized abortion practicing person.”

Habakkuk was in Latin America, don’t ask me how he had money to travel, Habakkuk always had money to live some place, to eat something, he still hadn’t a job or a burrito hut. He got on a bus, the bus was almost empty, the seats were mostly broken or barely holding on to their positions, under some you could see the road just like on those glass bottom boats where you can see the fishes; Habakkuk gets in and speaks in fluent Spanish, “Me puedes ayudar, necesito llegar a la loma, mas allá de la iglesia del Carmen.” The bus driver, dressed entirely in dirty whites, a genetic suntan, knew instantly two things, Habakkuk was saying he didn’t have the money to pay, and that he wasn’t going to get off the bus. So he nodded, “esta bien, cabron.” Cabron didn’t sit down because he didn’t see the difference from sitting in chairs that he would need to manually stabilize; the bus driver might not have charged for the ride but he was certainly making Habakkuk and two other passengers feel it, “el siempre toma la ruta mas difícil.” Laughs one, “la que tiene mas huecos.” Smiling yellow teeth and thin, the other.

Habakkuk bangs his head against the bus, he doesn’t react, it would have been out of place, even as he doesn’t feel it anyway, he is instead thinking of where he is going, the houses pass by so near the bus that he could touch them if he stuck his head out, it is cold, the bus windows are closed but all glass broken, Habakkuk is thinking of Antoinette and Lauren, for some odd reason they are always in his mind, they are always with him, they are the souls that he most connects to in this life, and this is very understood in the happenstance emotion that is Antoinette; but Lauren, a cop so ordained, how could that explain Habakkuk’s affections towards her? He explained it to himself as, “I am not adverse to liking her.”

“Hombre, vas para donde no debes.” Yelling at the bus driver one of the men, the bus driver doesn’t acknowledge him, this is common around these parts, not because the person is being ignored, but rather because real life doesn’t register here as quickly as in the first world, nothing reacts in real time, hence why everything is always out of step, moments later, after the question is repeated the bus driver responds, “el quiere ir a la loma, vamos para la loma, huevon, despues te llevo a tu puta amante.” The huevon, having just been told that his lover is a whore, lifts his hands up in the air swaying arms up in the air, “yo quiero flotar, yo quiero flotar.” The white bus continued in it’s wrong route. Habakkuk ever silent.

The bus finally stopped where the houses ended, there you could see mountain tops swell over the horizon, Habakkuk recognized the place, he moved to the rear of the bus, “Gracias senor.” His voice barely audible across the bus tumbling with idling engine noises barely adulterated by an indifferent muffler. As he got off the bus Habakkuk felt as if he had gotten off a Volvo, a car that is always willing to sacrifice comfort for safety, strange verisimilitude where only skeletons can feel comfortable, or so our Habakkuk thought it an ultimatum, “we don’t care that you are human we are going to keep you alive.”

There was a steep climb up the remainder of the street, it dead ended the concrete and the grass grew dirty with horse manure, cow dung, dog and chicken shit, and the stench of fresh human urine was all pervasive, the rubbish had its own olfactory performance; Habakkuk taking notice remembered parts of Turkey, India and France, the darling smellers of the universe, along with China. And just when you thought you had reached the crossroads of every country Habakkuk came up upon a dark vivid green door, wooden and aged beyond repair and safety; he knocked; knocking, another thing that was done by humans all over the world.

A set of magnificent large eyes with potentially cavernous secrets, dressed entirely in black Muslim garb, only opened the door. Habakkuk comprehensibly limited himself, speaking in Korean, “May I speak to divine spirit, Wohyo.” The woman, noting that perhaps she didn’t have the power to grant anything, “you may come into the sun chamber.” With this she led the visitor through a gorgeous Spanish style house, though certainly not maintained, Habakkuk still had somewhat his western curiousness, and was trying to imagine what the woman underneath the black sheet of privacy disguised, he could certainly feel her, but he wanted to reveal her essence. They arrived at the sun chamber, “I can not go beyond here, you must follow yourself.”

Habakkuk, (irritatingly to me,) always failed to be amazed, amused, or surprised, simply nodded and entered into a hallway long and deep, sloping 35 degrees, he walked, the walls were gold, the carpets were Persian, there were mirrors everywhere, you could not see where the light was emanating from but the place was amply lit, after walking down this hallway, maybe all of ten minutes, he finally found an entrance to his right, the hallway ended, he entered while being admonished by a voice, “Habakkuk man of many ages, you don’t come see the old man till now, this century has been a bore without you, remember her highness, was it 637? Korea was something else back then, such a pleasure chamber now it is humdrum.”

He could not have risen beyond 5 feet, he was healthy, you could tell he was old but not because of wrinkles for there were none, his head was bald, his eyes were incandescent brown, he looked deeply at his guest, “bus rides are never much fun, oh I miss Korea, do you think I will ever enjoy another time as much?” Habakkuk, not responding to all the recognition and excitement. “I believe you are witnessing another Habakkuk more like Seoul Korea today than the pleasure chamber of old with the Emerald Princess; (his soul drooping,) I have been to New York, I have drunk Coke.” “Oh you have drunken the sweetened water.” Wohyo let his hands release his ponderous friend, “yes, yes its happened more than not, look at Korea, now two Koreas, the division of soul and body has made a left and right, rational and irrational, good and evil, it all has dislocated the unified pleasures of being human, it has allowed our scientists to sow the eyelids of cats shut and to deprive monkeys of their mothers.”

Wohyo walked a little further away from Habakkuk, “I am in a prison Habakkuk, sun chamber is a prison.” “Yes but only here Wohyo, only here, and only in this century, there will be other centuries, as there have already been so many and too many; for people like you and me it is only a matter of time, and with any luck we too will lose our ability to recollect the eons of memories.” “Yes, it is the haunting memories, the pleasant extremes of the days when divine glories could still quench our hungers, now it is not so, but even with sweetened water you seem wiser, while I am still missing the Emerald Princess.” “Oh hush, I haven’t a sun chamber to retreat to, I live out there.” “Good, I notice that, your aura is silent and your time here short, what must have brought you here?”

“Wohyo, random happenings always imply change, I need to know if there is going to be an upheaval, and if so where and when?” “Habakkuk you surprise me, you’re not speaking for yourself, you’re doing this for others whose affection has struck you, please inform me of them.” “That would be long in telling, I am tired, the world has dampened my spirits, I am going to open a burrito hut, I need stability.” “I see what you mean, fine then I wont persist with interrogations that will only yield evasiveness, Mexican food, masa, beans, a whole earth growing race, the Aztecs, (he started to mimic an unfolding drama.) “I am here my friend let me eat your heart,”(irking his fingers in the air.) “Please eat my heart, please dig that obtuse object so as to pry open the vessel of my experience.” He resumed his known posture, “yes I like the idea Habakkuk, a burrito hut so far from your religious glories,” “Wohyo I must be going.” “alright, alright, I don’t get many visitors you know, its been a lovely but boring century, yes, alone here, without the emerald princess; the relation of history to the future is fractious, something is about to be born from the current perfections, the chasm is largely an ordeal for civilization, the unworthy world will not be much touched, as it never has, but the worthy world will collapse from too much perfection.” “and how soon is this Wohyo, how soon is this?” “You insist in dates and times but the universe doesn’t give us dates and times, the cosmic time period is infinite.” He pauses long, Habakkuk nears the exit of the chamber, Wohyo holds him as one who has been lonely since the year 686 in Korea, “ah you respect nothing Habakkuk, nothing, alright I will tell you, a decade seems long, a decade seems long, that which has risen fastest has the least foundation, a decade seems long, frailties will be witnessed in the humans which most express social sentiment. And you might not want to blink or you will miss technology’s life span.” Wohyo then put his hands together, “you’re a prophet Habakkuk, you don’t have to come to me for these questions.” Responding, “Sometimes even prophets feel fragile.”

Habakkuk ascended the hallway, the cold from the patio quickly reached his nostrils, the woman led him to the exit door, “Sir, may your travels keep you well.” Habakkuk joined his hands and bowing his head in grace, “your mercy is renowned.” He walked outside, thinking of the major and the archbishop; and pleasantly noticed the white bus with its driver waiting for him; “yo no se huevon, pero mejor yo te saco de este lugar antes de que te saquen la vida.” Habakkuk smiled and hopped on the bus for another free ride.

The Day of the Burrito Stand

2006-08-31T17:37:00.000-07:00

Let’s be realistic, neither you nor I had much faith in Habakkuk opening up a burrito hut. We doubted him from the start, not because we are not willing to believe in him but rather because time and again he has proven an unreliable creator of monetary value. It would be wrong and foolish for us to believe in him when he has amply demonstrated an incapacity to understand market forces and the benefits of capitalism. In conclusion, neither Lauren, Antoinette nor I had shown any appreciation of the seriousness of his quest, nor were we willing to help make it come true, knowing full well that it would flop. So when the notice came in the mail, it was handwritten by Habakkuk in nine languages, Farsi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish, English, Italian, Russian, and it simply read, “Come to my burrito stand.” That was all, that was all indeed.

That Sunday Antoinette and Lauren got all ready to support their good friend at the opening, they offered to make the guacamole and to fold burritos, neither task which could have been much fun. They got to the quasi park-plaza in a modestly rundown neighborhood, and sure enough, unreal and fantastic there was this white little stand, a wooden frame, obviously not three dimensional, but it gave it the look and feel of a hut without being there. Habakkuk had nicely decorated the frame with Jalapenos and Mexican Hats, so it looked surely as intended of character. Behind the one dimensional wall, were large pots, two were filled to the brim with refried beans, that were certainly smelling deliciously spiced, there were six stacks high of tortillas, obviously store bought, Habakkuk had concluded that there was not that much really to be gained from making them by hand. There were three crates full of avocadoes one could imagine a good days supply of everything, though doubtful that the avocadoes would last the afternoon if sales were brisk.

Lauren slaps her friend in the back, “hey buddy you really did it, you really did it, congratulations.” Antoinette butted in, “how much are we going to charge?” Habakkuk responded with complete confidence, “pass me the cilantro over there please… …we are going to chop tomatoes too, now price, yes, we are going to charge a dollar thirty-five each burrito and fifty cents extra if they have guacamole.” “How much if they don’t want any pork in their burritos?” “There are no burritos without pork and none without beans.” “You’re losing the vegetarians… they would pay close to the price of a meat burrito for just beans, and that’s true profit.” “Nope only have one kind of burrito, we don’t want to complicate things, there is not enough labor at hand to please the picky eaters. We don’t put cheese or sour cream in the burritos either, only salsa.” “Ok that should make for lots of happy customers.” When Lauren interrupted with “ouch I almost cut my entire nail off.” A concerned business owner replied, “careful you don’t want to put any blood in the burritos.”

It was about 1030am, when everything was ready for the grand opening, there was a good stack of about seventy burritos, a hot plate with a covered up pan would be used to heat them, things were clearly looking good. They were ready for business, Antoinette asked about pocket change to cover customers with large bills, Habakkuk responded with his usual customer satisfaction seal, “they have to give us exact payment. $1.35.” Lauren hit Antoinette in the arm with a make fight fist, “hey at least the salsa is free.” Habakkuk put on a Mexican radio station the sun was gorgeously exposing everything.

Their first customer is a man in his late forties, obviously with nothing to do on a beautiful Sunday, was just out walking about, “I love Mexican food, if those are good burritos with lots of carnitas you have won yourselves a regular customer.” The gang went into immediate customer satisfaction mode, first customer, fresh burrito, with lots of beans and beef mix, barely could the burrito be properly sealed, handed to the man, he didn’t want any guacamole, saved himself the money instead, “gotta watch the cash, I am divorced so I support two households, my wife kept the kids, I live alone in those apartments over there, nothing much to do, gotta save the money so the kids can some day go to college, this is a good buy, and the burrito is delicious, you’ll see me next Sunday.” Both Antoinette and Lauren thanked the man, Habakkuk didn’t, “I don’t need customers that are going to tell me all their family problems.” Antoinette and Lauren agreed that the man had been nice and they appreciated how candid he was with them.

The next customer was a huge business success, a grandmother on an electric wheelchair, she drove right up to the stand, “hello young ones, I think you are going to save me a longs day of cooking, I have the grandchildren coming today, they are all big boys, one of them is a football player you know, he is something, the girls love him, his coach says he is a natural,” Habakkuk interrupts, “How many burritos madam.” The little old lady giggles, “madam, madam, why no one has called me that in ages, people stopped doing that in the forties, you must be older than you look sonny.” Antoinette and Lauren join in the giggles, the little lady starts to do some mental calculations, “well there is George that good for nothing son in law of mine, he will for sure eat three, then Michael will eat two, probably all four boys will eat two, and Susan she won’t eat anything she will just pick at it so she can keep that petit figure of hers, and Irma will eat one and so will I, I guess that’s about all of…” Antoinette bails the lady out from having to reach a sum, “14 but you could take 15 just in case someone wants more.” “Yes, 15 is a good amount, besides I am not giving them anything else, not cookies, maybe just Coke, certainly will have to satisfy their insatiable appetite for that. How much are they?” Antoinette, “$20.25 plus tax.” Habakkuk silently pondered for a second in his own mind, “tax, oh I hadn’t thought of that.” The old lady, “ok wrap them up.” That’s went they all noticed that they hadn’t any bags. Lauren leaped to a nearby grocer to secure bags.

The rest of the day went just as well, by 3pm they had sold over 120 burritos, a considerable number. The trio were also very exhausted from having to make last moment arrangements to compensate, surprising for a prophet, for Habakkuk’s lack of planning. The exhaustion led them to decide to shut down early, originally Habakkuk had wanted to stay open till six to hit the early dinner crowd, but they jointly concluded that they should wrap things up, go home and celebrate their success with some wine. As they were packing up, a rather fat black lady cop, “hey you guys look like your closing but I need to eat me one of those delicious burritos, I just talked to the guy at the grocery store and he said they were mighty fine. Habakkuk liked the compliment, he said, “sure will make you one.” “Ill have it with cheese.” Habakkuk replies, “we don’t have cheese.” “oh that’s alright, it isn’t like this fat body of mine needs any more cheese.” She burst out laughing. “I will have sour cream instead.” “sorry we don’t have any sour cream either.” “well what do you have?” “we only sell them with guacamole but we are out of it.” The lady cop felt that these guys were probably being prejudiced or were too lazy to open up the cheese and sour cream for her, she had suffered as a child racist remark after racist remark, she could smell here that she wasn’t worth the trouble of reopening up the cheese and sour cream bins, “hey listen here Mr. do you have a city license to operate here, cause this doesn’t look like a proper establishment, let me see your permit.”

She was obviously throwing her weight around, both Lauren and Antoinette looked at each other knowingly, fully aware of what was unfolding. Habakkuk was a little startled, he really wasn’t into understanding the semantics of city government, properly getting a city permit or getting a tax id were not things of his world, he thought he could just sell burritos, and that only the people touched by the transaction were affected, he didn’t see the relationship between selling burritos and city taxes and city street cleaning and city lights. He didn’t even know that the city was indeed a franchise operating under a license within the county, and the county was really part of a franchise from the state, and that the state too operated with a license from the federal government and even that the federal government existed only because it could defend its territory against other countries and the right to tax its own citizens.

“where is your permit!” Habakkuk looked stunted, he was a man of the cosmic universe, a traveler through eons, now he was up against some local jurisdiction, Lauren interrupted, took out her badge, “I’m a detective working with Captain Ogle, perhaps we can discuss how we can resolve this matter without issue.” The fat lady cop flew into a laughing rage, “ha, ha, from where I am standing you seem to be trying to bribe a fellow officer, and from the looks of your badge detective, you’re outside your jurisdiction, I don’t care who you are, who you work for, your badge don’t matter me, and the only thing I want to see is a permit, I am an honest cop doing an honest job, now where is that permit.” As she finished those last words, she slowly pushed her fingers into Habakkuk’s chest, “where… is… that… permit.”

They finally got out of there, with a ticket for peddling burritos without a permit, they had an order to appear at a hearing, and they were told they had to notify the district’s tax collector of their activities, so that they could take further action against them. Her parting words, “And don’t think I haven’t got the mind or authority to jail your asses now, its just too close to quitting time for me to book you guys.”

Antoinette insisted that depressed Habakkuk come home with them and have some wine anyway, “we have to celebrate we are not in jail Habakkuk, we beat the wrap.” They bought five bottles of wine, and sat in the living room laughing at how hard they had worked to get caught at the end, “I told you we should a had sour cream.”

The Centurians

2006-08-31T17:36:00.000-07:00

Habakkuk was not as humorous as his friends, and he had a lot on his mind, he said, “Lauren, I went to see an old friend, Wohyo, I think I understand what is happening in your city. Why the killings seem without cause, the major’s rampage, why an archbishop died the way he did, why you witnessed your mother during the shooting at 120 Lupin, all these things can be explained from a simple set of cosmic rules, I went to Wohyo to confirm my suspicions.”

“What suspicions?”

“Everything in the advanced world is about to suffer a major change, it started happening long before September 11th, long before, it actually started to unfold when Britain lost the Suez Canal in 1956 to Nasser’s willpower, and by default then transferred all responsibility of the Middle East to the United States. Perhaps longer before that, world conditions fall apart when they reach some kind of perfection, the first critical signs that the old world order was collapsing probably came in three waves, Gandhi relieves the British of the jewel of empire, India in 1947; Mandela takes over for F.W. De Klerk in the early 1990s, ending apartheid in South Africa, and the massive event of the century the Berlin wall fell in November 1989, starting the collapse of communism by the hand of the head of the politburo, Gorbachev, 1991.

Both Lauren and Antoinette are dumbfounded, they know Habakkuk is off kilter, they don’t care that he sounds so profound, they are just trying to figure out how it is that he is making murder and mayhem in their city seem connected to world events. It doesn’t make sense, and besides, Lauren doesn’t even have jurisdiction in Washington much less the universe.

“What are you saying Habakkuk, are you saying that the major, the archbishop, 120 Lupin St, are all interrelated crimes rising from some global specter?”

“I know it sounds crazy Lauren but I am not telling lies here, I know things because of my life’s centuries, I don’t see just these instances, I am aware of things that happen outside of our times but make our times what they are…”

The door bell ringing interrupted…

Antoinette answers, “Hello dear my name is Father Trocin, I think I am expected.” Antoinette looks back towards the living room, calls Lauren, “Father Trocin what are you doing here?” from the back of the room Habakkuk’s commanding voice reaches them, “let him in, he is expected.” Trocin walks in ahead of the women as if he owned the place, Habakkuk gets up and both men hug, Trocin utters, “well at least there is someone welcoming here, one does get tired of the hostilities of this world.”

Lauren decides not to look juvenile anymore, “would you like a glass of wine?” “what year do you have available?” Lauren consternated, and twisting the bottle so as to read its label, “Robert Mondavi 2004.” “oh dear no, we must celebrate this is after all an unusual day, the day the rebellion gets acknowledged by mere humans,” saying this he takes off his navy blue wool coat and pulls out two bottles of lush red, “I have here what must be the last two bottles of Silver Oak, Cabernet Sauvignon, of what promises to be the last of the greatest harvest of all time, 1991.” Antoinette rushes to the wine bar to muster an additional glass, when Trocin notes, “better bring two more.” With those words the bell rings again as if on queue.

The visitor is not a stranger to Lauren, but he is wet for it has started raining, “Lauren it must be incomprehensible right now, but events just play us all like pawns, we haven’t the dignity to struggle against destiny, you must then be expecting me.” Lauren leans into the door, “Indeed I am expecting you Father Otto, or is it right to still call you Father?” “Ah you have a modest sense of humor, that is good.” And with out further ado Father Otto ignores Lauren and walks right in, “Hope I am not too late for the good wine.” Both Habakkuk and Trocin greet him with knowing grace, and Antoinette introduces herself.

Antoinette uncorks one bottle, both her and Lauren ignorant of what is unfolding here, when Trocin interrupts her, “oh give me that, we are going to open both bottles, there is no point on waiting for they are both going to be drunk and we might as well let them breathe some of our air.” We that he hastily sits down, and pours the glasses.

And a toast all, “to the centuries!” “to the centuries.” And Otto adds, “that we have the wherewithal to muster through.”

All seated and more comfortable and uncomfortable in equal doses, Habakkuk interjects, “Lauren and Antoinette are not fully involved yet, we expect them to join us tonight, but I am afraid they are novices at these matters of the ages.” Otto and Trocin nod kindly at the ladies, and Trocin adds, “it is all hocus pocus and that’s that.” Lauren throws her hands up in the air, “hocus pocus and that’s that, well you are in our house and we don’t want any hocus pocus so why don’t we get to the matter of these surprising coincidences and sum up what’s what before the cop in me gets all riled up.”

Habakkuk replies,

“It is as I was saying Lauren, the world is suffering from the perfection of its most advanced system, capitalism, no one really knows what will take over, anything could happen now, we are just members of a clan that understands a little of what is happening but we don’t know enough to know when it is going to happen or how, or what will replace it. We only know enough to witness the signs which seem to howl that the change is imminent, the first sign is the perfection of something, that is there has to be no contradiction to the thing itself, you saw the rise of religion, where there were many gods, and then finally it started getting boiled down to just two or three important gods worldwide, that kind of unity hints at the perfection of religion and hence its demise, it can survive as a shadow of itself but not as the pure essence of religion.”

He pauses and drinks from his wine.

“We are observers from centuries past, we don’t draw conclusions we just sort of enjoy guessing more or less right what is going to come after, it is a centurians game, only centurians can play.”

Father Trocin adds,

“We are not here to so much as judge the sporadic nature of the crimes that you are investigating, rather we are interested in their randomness and their futility. They seem to have no purpose, in the case of our beloved Timothy there seems to be no purpose, the major was certainly acting erratically, and your crazed mountain man was classic unadulterated mania. It is that they had no cause that is beautiful, today still most crimes have a solution because they tend to have a motive, this is classic because we live in rational times where cause and effect are worshiped and the symptoms of a murder generally lead to the assassin. But if crimes start to happen without cause, then there has to be something else going on.”

Father Otto interjects,

“You saw something magnificent happen when Gorbachev single-handedly brought down the very system which had hailed him to power. There is a great man, but what he did was illogical, how could you go against the very system that put you in power, yet he did just that, Gorbachev brought down the Soviet Union, and more remarkably, he did it without a major bloodbath. But the insanity of that moment doesn’t end there and it goes further back than the fall of the Berlin wall, for the Berlin Wall was only the final wave of a dynamic perfection breaching its final retainer.”

Father Trocin without missing a beat,

It goes back to India when Gandhi inhibits the aggression of the British Empire by refusing to fight on their terms. Gandhi would have lost against the British if he had fought, he didn’t fight, that was the best fight, and Martin Luther King did just the same, he didn’t give in to the aggression which would have, had he used it, emboldened the aggressors, and you go just a little further forward, and you see the cataclysm of events unfold, the Berlin Wall Falls ending communism, and in parallel an unremarkable man, F.W. de Klerk commits a remarkable act by releasing Mandela and literally making him President thus symbolically and beyond reproach ending the history of Apartheid in South Africa. These are mesmerizing events, all strung together by the impossibility of their eventuating, and all happening with the same century!”

Habakkuk enters the fray,

“And then a madman orders the attacks on the World Trade Center, simple airliners become weapons against the unimpeachable foe, the towers collapse with perfect symmetrical implosions which accomplish minimal damage to the surrounding area in comparison to their size. But they do unlimited damage as they break the impregnable uninterruptible and mighty psychological impugnability of the worlds greatest super power. America’s might becomes stoppable, it becomes finite, it is no longer about weapons and armies, little people with little more than 300 million dollars can wreck an entire empire.

Iraq then gets clobbered, Afghanistan gets clobbered but what is revealed is that the most vulnerable and the most fearful of all is, the empire! A national collage of walls, legal, financial, technological and psychological circles the wagons of the great power. Home security against external forces becomes dominant but then The People of the United States begin to commit senseless acts of violence in disproportionate numbers.

Children fire upon their fellow classmates, snipers rack up victims at random, the Unabomber sends disposable mail, hackers virus their own abode, CEOs pluck the plumage of their own companies, Governor’s lose elections that they had won, underground criminals celebrate that their activities, prostitution and drugs, are not legalized, the archbishop dies of causes which cannot be diagnosed, the major goes on a shooting spree, a generally nice mountain man outlandishly massacres a neighborhood.”

He pauses to sip his drink, the audience captive, he resumes,

“There is now no contradiction to capitalism, perfection is self-destructive, the countenance is bleak, there is no hope, in a world where a system is perfected, the system dynamic will seek to destroy itself.”

Father Trocin interjects,

“The Kabala would render our formula proven through numerical mysticism, the sense of the modern world was born with the magna carta, it was confirmed with the French Revolution; and capitalism’s conquest and supremacy begins to fall with the Berlin Wall. People and historians like to isolate history but humanity only has one history America was just a logical extension of the British Empire, hence the communality between the two countries. Then on the eleventh month, on the nineth day, the World Trade Center towers, a hallmark representation of the supremacy of capitalism, collapsed on the nineth month on the eleventh day, and the number most dialed that day had to be 911. It is written.”

Habakkuk interjects,

“The interesting element of all the events is that they are generally highly unexpected, no one expected Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela and Gorbachev to prevail, surely the British could fight all the Indians into submission, surely Luther King would surrender to the blithe persecution instigated by hate, Mandela should have died in his tiny prison cell, and Gorbachev should have been able to ignore the lure of an American Express credit card; but more telling with all the technological guardian angels in the world, America fell victim to a simple plan, executed by suicidal zealots.”

He pauses, pours more wine, everyone remains silent,

“The method is interesting but the willingness of the men to suicide themselves for a faith, claiming that there was nothing more important than the faith, that temporal life was not all that important, goes back to the feeling that must have possessed the men and women that fought Britain for American independence, people willing to kill themselves for a cause are irrevocable in the eyes of history, the civil war was a prime example of when humans think beyond the temporal reality.”

Pausing

“The days of the safe wars are over. The days of the wars that can be won through power are over. Neither Saddam nor Osama lost their wars, from here on out the next and the next war will be based on the creative genius of an indecent foe. But the sporadic foe is only temporary until the world finds itself again.”

Antoinette poised in the center stage…

“Are you then saying that we are witnessing the end of civilization as we know it, and if so how does that explain the sporadic acts.”

Habakkuk…

“The end of history is nurtured through upheaval, the random acts are manifestations of unwilled energy that falls into actions without a profound desire.”

Otto continues,

“He is correct, in the universe the lowest energy representation that is workable to produce a desire unto its manifestation, an action, is called ergio. The unit ergio is generally thought to be a constant in the universe, and it may well be thought that analysis is not pertinent here, ergio always seeks to embody itself through a desire, that is, its natural tendency is to be within the context of a desire, when the energy of an ergio unit finds itself void of any desire, then it just keeps on arriving from all angles into any and all dimensions and seeking to express itself in any context without meaning until some entity can absorb it for its own purpose. That is to say that ergio units do not in themselves have any other aspiration than to participate in the universe, this means that Hitler could use them or Mao or Gandhi or the Buddha. The entities in themselves, Mao or the Buddha, are just embodiments of ergio units combined into particular desires which may possess multiple configurations, that is, Mao is a man, he is a political philosopher, and he is a father, he is a brother, he is a human being, each category contains its own ergio units of desire which act to maintain that reality within the governess-self. The random acts are just the energy collapsing on entities that have no use for it or have not the basis for such energy overflows, suicidal people generally are suffering from an ergio overflow that has no direction; and terribly it is the most sensitive of people that will actually absorb and engender radical ergios.”

Lauren…

“But this is the age of the Internet, miracle medical cures, nano technology, genetic engineering, DNA sequencing, space probes, the world is more civilized we are better educated, the modern world seems kind and good for us.”

Habakkuk…

“It does seem all wondrous and all encompassing but it really isn’t, it is one sided, the imbalance is great, ergio energies are reaching an impasse, because they cannot produce technology fast enough, even as the desire for technology exists, the entity, the human being that ultimately expresses the technological advancement has natural limitations where it can not be productive enough, where it fails in efficiency, where it often gets it wrong, ergio units respond to this by diverting themselves unto other things, soul ambitions, gold ambitions, but there has to be an outlet, the desire for technology calls upon more ergio units, but they can’t be used so they bounce off into other areas which sporadically will not accept them because their desires are not necessarily athletic.”

Lauren…

“Does this mean I can’t solve the riddle of my crimes?”

Habakkuk…

“Don’t look so despondent, of course you can solve your crimes, just in the same way that you have been solving crimes hitherto, until the solutions you seek make sense to you. The persistent will always be able to find a truth, and ergio units in the universe without anything better to do will help you fulfill your desires.”

Lauren…

“Why am I not happy with that, why do I want to go to Ogle on Monday and resign my job. You guys aren’t helping us feel very fulfilled!”

Trocin…

“I think you are just feeling uncomfortable with a possible truth that seems unfathomable from a detective’s perspective, that crimes can be committed without cause, or that the cause of a crime may not have local world facts to support it, that a crime indeed may be the product of many intangibles that have nothing to do with every day life.”

Antoinette…

“Seems to me if you cannot offer a human being a way to love their existence and more if you can’t really help them to comprehend the incomprehensible, then you are merely opening an exit door to hell as you have done with us today. Yes, what you say sounds interesting, and yes it even seems plausible, but so what, we are not centurians or philosophers like you people, we don’t remember all of our other lives nor do we have it in us to see other dimensions, then what gives you the right to lock us out of the only existence we know, especially when you know full well that reality matters to Lauren and I!

Otto…

“Do you think it was always so for us? Do you think it is fun just watching the television show that is humanity? It is not, and we were not involved with you by choice, there is some reason we have been brought together, something that we all want to know, something that we all have to resolve and it is together that we are going to do it.”

Lauren was looking terribly saddened, Antoinette noticed it and she knew that more than anyone of them Lauren had the most vested on the truth.

Antoinette…

“I think we better eat something and don’t suggest leftover burritos, I think we’ve had enough of your burritos Mr. Habakkuk.”

It was midnight.

Examining The World

2006-08-31T17:35:00.000-07:00

The next morning Lauren got up early, she barely could sleep even as she was tired, and had bags under her eyes of darkness. She walked past the living room, where the three men were sleeping in variously uncomfortable positions, one of them was a snorer surprising for a centurian. Past that she was out the door at no less than half past six.

She got to the office, drank her coffee with her thoughts, the whole world wasn’t making sense for her, and she needed things to make sense so as to arrest herself in this life. She waited patiently for the person she was going to talk to, she drank her coffee, no sugar, no cream. Occasionally she would look at her hands, focus on the right one, move her fingers, “are they real?” she would watch them touch the air, no she would feel them touch the air, she noticed she had forgotten to paint her nails, she felt her hand muscles move, perhaps it was the cold morning that was making them more obvious, or perhaps it was that she was more sensitive to them, she thought the latter, for she was also feeling her bones, her joints, she was feeling the Lauren that she thought she knew.

It was about 830am, when she made her way to the coroner’s office. Her gentle face leaning into the door, “Hello Danny.” He quickly got up and rounded his desk and giving her the slight hug she was calling for, “This place is feeling more like a morgue everyday.” “Do you have time for some tea, I have already had all the coffee in the world.” “Sure.” They went out the door, captain Ogle passed by them in hurry but with enough brevity to point with the folder that he was holding uttering, “Lauren I want to see you in my office later.” Lauren and Danny looked at each other seemingly saying, “yeap, that’s’ our captain.” Only Lauren paused to notice the mutual acknowledgement, something was said in silence, Danny and she had confirmed something.

Danny didn’t have coffee, he ordered an orange juice instead, it was fresh and delicious, and he felt compelled to tell Lauren this, then he snapped back into his usual casual self, “what’s up?”

“Danny what do you think of the world?”

Danny mixing his fingers together. “What do I think of the world?”

“Yes, what do you think of the world?”

His head bouncing around as if trying to capture the meaning of the impossible. “I don’t know the world as a whole, the whole thing Lauren, what are you asking me.”

“Come on, just try to answer the question.”

His fingers uncomfortably touching his eyebrow. “You know the world happens to be the world, and it happens to happen and I am ok with that, I don’t know is that a good answer?”

Lauren leaning into Danny holding her hands together and advancing them back and forth, so as to have his full attention. “Danny the world with everything in it, do you think it is real or do you think we imagine it?”

“Well I like to think it is real, I am not going to contest it,” leaning back into his chair as if he had gotten it right. “Yeap I think it is real.”

“Why did you decide for forensics as a career?”

“Frankly I never gave it much thought, I always just stumble into things, you know a pile of dead bodies here and there, hard to avoid,” Momentarily covering his eyes with his fingers, “I guess you wont settle for that answer, I think I became a coroner because I always wanted to be a scientist, but I thought about it and it seem complicated, writing papers, trying to get grants and deciding what to research, though chemistry appealed to me, even if some people do say it is a dead science, you know there is always something to discover or some truth to disprove, but I believe being in forensics allows me more or less to work with the types of tools that I feel most comfortable with, I don’t like the dead bodies, but after a while the dead bodies are just dead buddies, each opens something new.”

“That’s it something new, something new the corpse tells you things Danny, don’t you see the corpse is talking to you, it is trying to tell you who killed it, it is trying to reveal to you its gastronomic history, or the history of its last 36 hours, it is trying to communicate with you, that is why it came to you.”

“You could say that, sure.”

“Haven’t you wondered about that, haven’t you wondered about the world and all the people in it, what are they doing here, it seems odd what we do, I don’t know but lately I am starting to question if I want to be a detective.”

“Well if your wondering about the world that could happen.”

“Danny I am serious, I have been stumbling into some things that tell me that there is many worlds that I haven’t observed, many worlds that I don’t see, many events that I don’t witness, last night for instance, I was with three men that seem to have been through all kinds of time periods and they talk about you and me being the representation of ergio units…”

“I seem to remember from my Latin studies, a unit of energy right?”

“Yes, I didn’t know that, but they say that these units of energy, ergios, seek to express our desires, that this table is solid because we press upon it to be solid and to hold our coffee, that our desires make it do that, that if we stop desiring this table that it will banish, that this table needs us to confirm its existence and that it somehow confirms ours through the interaction.”

“Jesus Lauren you have been going through some serious tripping.”

“Oh yes I know it sounds all brouhaha but I am telling you because I am starting to feel it, it is as if those men and the events of the last few days had turned me on to something that I was ignoring, and then perhaps, according to them, it is now real simply because I am looking at it. I prove my own thesis.”

“Well if that is the case then every crime you have ever solved has been merely a process of finding the evidence that convinces you of the facts.”

Lauren triumphantly expressive, “Obviously! cases are never proven by some key fact or some grandiose discovery, simply the consequences and witnesses keep on piling to make of circumstantial evidence an overriding fact.” She pauses as if she had found some truth she needed to deliberately absorbed before it would escape back into her jungle- subconscious, and pensively utters, “Habakkuk has a saying, “it doesn’t matter if we are alive or dead, what matters is our actions.”

“What is more, the links could all be real, or are made real by the attention that I give to them, I am a good cop because I tune into the murder thing, to the relatives, friends, to the office where the victim worked, to their homes, down to the type of clothes they wear and why they prefer certain patters on their socks. And there is this thing Danny, its called the Akashic record and apparently its stores everything, and so when I am concentrating in solving a crime the incessant associations give me greater asses to the Akashic and somehow I get closer and closer to what is the most promising truth, until I make an intuitive leap and catch the murderer.”

“This all comes from your friend Habakkuk,” he holds back some of her reaction by calming her with palms up gestures, “hold on, hold on I am not saying he is crazy I am just saying that he is the source of this, certainly everything that you are saying is fascinating even if just for conversation’s sake. But even at that, it makes me think, I don’t know why I had never thought about the world, I guess I was always at the supermarket or working and I never gave it much thought, I guess I let the politicians do all that.”

“Well according to these guys the entire human race is interconnected Danny, everyone is connected to everyone else, not only through the Akashic but through some medium, they say that all knowledge possess by one human possesses all, and it all adds up, that anyone who intuits and senses the universe can be a genius, though they say genius is just a human being that is roaming through the ideas of our entire humanity. Things get simpler from there, some how if you can touch humanity then you are smart.”

“That is very heady stuff.”

“It is but it also seems right, think about it what is original, doesn’t everything that we know come from a shared understanding?”

“Yes, of course it does, I have somehow always thought that, I never believed anyone could invent anything really everything must be invented by everyone.”

“That is what these guys say also, they say that the only thing that created originality is isolation. That when we isolate ourselves we create individuality. Can you believe that.”

“Jesus Lauren this is really fantastic stuff, I want to join in your meetings with these guys.”

“I don’t think we have meetings, its not like that, we just happened together,” laughing mostly to herself, “its not like I can just say hey guys lets get together for dinner and have deep discussions about the world.”

“I guess you right. Now what are you going to do with all this new awareness then?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know what it means to be aware that your not yourself but just an expression of what you prefer yourself to be. I can’t imagine that I really want to be a detective, it sounds so trite now.”

“What would you prefer to do instead.”

“I don’t know have children maybe.”

Danny not hiding his surprise, “how would Antoinette feel about that?”

Her eyes moving back and forth through the ceiling, her arms scratching each other. “Its funny I always thought it was going to be her that would complicate things, but if I think about it now, if all this world is really a temporary apparition then it stands to reason that I should leave children here so they can continue to observe and make happen this world, this table, and heck people like you Danny boy.”

Danny and Lauren shared another silent communication which told them it was time to go, “Lauren I ain’t paying for this, you brought me into this, you pay.”

Slapping him and hugely laughing gorgeousness, “I tell you the great secrets of the universe and you make me pay, just isn’t fair.”

As soon as they got to the precinct the front desk clerk, a savvy old bitch, or that’s what the gang called her, yanked Lauren’s attention, “Ogle told me to tell you to go straight to his office, straight to his office, do not pass go, do not go to the bathroom, do not make any calls, go to his office, you get it missy!” Lauren was simply to happy from her dialog with Danny, thronging her nose up in the air, “Fine, I’ve heard you savvy old bitch.”

Ogle gives one of those “I want to kill you,” looks but somehow realizes that it would backfire so he pretends to be happy instead. “How are you Detective?” “Fine sir.”

“Yes you should be fine, you haven’t done any work, no reports from any of your cases, no charges filed against anyone, no new evidence coming to the forefront, it would be useless to ask for a progress report from you.”

“Sir I have been making the rounds, and think I could be getting close to something important.”

He leans into his chair. “Why don’t you share some of that something with your boss.”

“Well sir, I don’t think this is the appropriate time, I still need to tie down some loose ends.”

“Lauren, quit the shit, you never call me sir, tell me what is going on.”

Her hands behind her back nervously playing with each other, “I think I have stumbled into a global plot, there is something big happening and it has to do with Martin Luther King and Gandhi and even Mandela, lots of people and events, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, I know nothing about so I have to investigate further before I file a report.”

Ogle, gets up from his chair, grabs his desk and flips it entirely over in one swoop. “Get the fuck out of my office now, get out! get out!”

Lauren not five feet from the office, “sometimes wining a little time can be so risky.”

At her desk she starts playing with her thoughts and her pen. The name “Otto comes to mind.” “Father Otto. Ex Father Otto. Friend of Habakkuk. Friend of Father Trocin. Worked with Timothy. Was ousted from the church after witnessing some strange shit.”

She calls the Vatican customer service and public relations department. She doesn’t speak Italian, they find someone that speaks English, Gina speaks, “What country are you calling from?” “America.”

“Are you a practicing catholic?”

“No.”

“Will you be joining the church?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you want to believe in Jesus?”

“Gina I am a pissed off…” her teeth greetting, “…police officer from the United States I don’t have time for these types of questions!”

“Gee sorry ma’am but we have to do this surveys, but fine, you Americans are always so hostile. How can I be of service?”

They make it past all the bureaucratic questions,

“Yes we do have him registered as a practicing priest, he gets very high marks from his Archbishop Timothy Wellington, I quote, “Otto is a good servant of the Lord.”

“Well his archbishop is dead.”

“Not he is not.”

“Yes he is Gina. I am investigating the case.”

“But in the holy database he is not listed as dead.”

“Then you better add a note that he is dead.”

“Yes, good idea.”

“Is Otto still a priest in your database then?”

“Well yes, but these Oracle databases don’t know everything, only god knows all.”

“Gina, please tell me is he then, according to your Oracle database a practicing priest.”

“Yes. But if you want to hold I could do a check with the head of the American section.”

Minutes later…

“Yes ma’am still an active member of our church.”

“Thank you Gina.”

“Call again,” whispering “if they are not monitoring me I promise no survey next time.”

Lauren hangs and races to the church. Speaks with a nun that is working the garden. “Hello is father Otto here?” Pointing “Yes he is in the office in the back.” The nun goes back to her gardening.”

Lauren opens the door, before her a somewhat startled but not much Father Otto, even dressed the part. “I see we are still a practicing member of the church we got kicked out of. You want to explain.”

He puts a book down, “its really rather silly Lauren, how are you?”

“Feeling a bit silly why don’t you reassure me that you didn’t lie to me about being ousted from the church, that you didn’t lie to me with all that hogwash of a scary night in the garden where nuns were disrobed and killed, and Father Trocin and the Mother Superior were the evil host and hostess.”

“This is rather uncomfortable, you temporal people just can never amuse yourselves, here I want to share a little bit of fun with you, adding a little juice to your life and you won’t have it. Well then, get ready for the truth lady, this century doesn’t much matter to me, it is a bore, I never got kicked out of the church, I was just having some senseless fun, and the demonic ceremony was only a nightmare that I had which I was trying to sort of bring into real life, only you are way to slow to have gone on to domino events with a genuine investigation.”

“This is the most absurd thing I have ever seen a grown man do. You are absolutely ridiculous. I can’t even press charges because I will look even more ridiculous if I do.”

“Yes you can, yes you can, because I will confess now, I will confess now.”

“Confess to what,” mocking him with adulterated facial expressions, “…to killing the Archbishop!” Her fists spelling anger.

“Precisely Detective, precisely, you can charge me now, I am willing to sign a confession. I did kill him whether you believe it or not, and I killed him in the most interesting way possible.”

Lauren crosses her arms, plants herself dead in front of the man, “well then how did you kill the archbishop Father?”

The reply was instant and surefooted, “I scared him to death.”

“You what?”

He sat down. “I scared him to death. He was at the altar cleaning up when I came from behind and loudly proclaimed, “BOO!” the place really echoes you know. At first I thought he had fainted, but when I touched his neck, I thought perhaps he was dead, I didn’t know, it didn’t really bother me, he wasn’t going to promote me within the church, so I wasn’t panicking over it, instead I just picked him up and placed him on the altar, and I thought the oyster a nice touch.”

Squinting her eyes. “Why do I think you are telling me the truth. Why do I think you are telling me the truth.” She massages her forehead, “this is ridiculous.”

“Well I think you do have to arrest me. Or I would have to arrest you for dereliction of duty, that would be even more humorous.”

She doesn’t pause, she doesn’t take out her handcuffs, she begins, “you are under arrest for the murder…” she thinks… “is this really murder?” she continues, “for the murder of archbishop Timothy Wellington, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you…” They reach the car, they both get in as if just going somewhere together.

While in traffic he seems completely resigned to his fate, “it is such a boring century, I think I could learn a lot in jail, I don’t imagine it is as pretty as the church, the church is really boring, there is nothing but duties and rituals and the repetition does get to you and the confessions are a bore, fathers have abused their daughters three hundred times over, and people confess to rape and playing with Barbie dolls, and I just sit there, it is all very monotone, there is no variety, no one has ever confessed for making too much money; there is just no escape from it, it is everywhere, this is just the human condition, it was the same in other centuries, but in other centuries we had Cesar and Cleopatra and Anthony now you have Jennifer Lopez.”

Lauren wasn’t listening, she was concentrating on her driving.

He twisted his torso so that it faced the driving woman. “Jail, how bad can it be, I suppose I better get used to a little abuse, specially if they tell them I am a priest, I wont lack for a fuck there, totally the reverse of priesthood I think, perhaps I will commit suicide, maybe I wont be man enough, who knows if the lord will protect me there.”

“Father Otto, you have been very nice to confess, I really needed to solve a case to please the captain, but could I please have some silence till we get to the station.”

Captain Ogle could not look more awkward, both Otto and Lauren standing in front of him, a couple of officers giggling in the background, “I ask you to solve cases Lauren not to buy confessions from humble priests.”

“Captain I am convinced that he is telling the truth, if I am correct there should b a slight, almost insignificant but abnormal spike of adrenalin in Timothy Wellington’s autopsy report.”

Captain picks up the phone. “Danny get your ass in here with the TW report.”

Minutes later, after they explain to Danny the confession and he reviews the records. Everyone standing still as if the world had suddenly stopped. “Yes, there is, well not an unusual spike, it can occur during dreaming, if the dream events agitate the subject the adrenalin will pump itself up, this one does show a spike, that means that it didn’t have time to fully dilate within the body so there was no physical reaction, but if the subject was dreaming the muscle functions are disable anyway.”

Ogle “What does that mean?”

“It means that sense there was no reaction there would have been no physical injury, either from sudden death while sleeping or from something suddenly spooky.”

Ogle, “So there is a possibility that he died from being surprised by a scary boo!”

“Sure, its possible, something caused the spike, it could have been a dream, it could have been a boo!”

The captain takes his legs of his desk, he throws the file back at Lauren, who dashes to catch it, “Book him for murder!”

“Yes sir.”

Those Most Distant In Likeness To Us Are Not Average

2006-08-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

Danny was home, it was Friday, the phone rings, “Hey Danny the centurians are coming over for dinner, well minus the one that is in jail, I think you should come over.” “I can’t I am busy.” Danny wasn’t busy, Danny was never really busy, this was the problem, this was something that bothered Danny but even Danny did not know that it bothered him; he was never busy because the world did not much move him to be busy, and so he liked all activities to beg themselves upon him. “Danny come on it will be fun, besides Antoinette wants to see you.” “Ok, I will dispense with my busy-ness.”

Danny stopped over by his favorite wine store, he was as many well educated and cultured people involved in the fine art of selecting affordable wines. He browsed the section, same as he always had, and lightly with his eyes touched the more refined obsessions, finally settling between one of the three $10 dollar brands. And remembering that last time he went to Lauren’s they ran out, bought two bottles.

I don’t remember if in the previous book, or in this one, if we had introduced Habakkuk to Danny or the other way around, anyway we can introduce the two here but forgive the repetition if any, though you can forget you met someone and two people can forget that they met each other, and an author can equally forget who knows whom and why.

Lauren opens the door, always happy to see Danny, hug and a kiss on the cheek, Antoinette follows suit, and then comes the appropriate introduction to the centurians, Habakkuk looks at Danny but does nothing else, Danny might not even exist in the context of the world, Habakkuk has a problem acknowledging individuals, he is more likely to acknowledge histories and movements, entire societies but a person standing in front of him, has to act to be certified into his brain.

Father Trocin is more gregarious, “Danny the coroner fellow right?” Shaking his hand, “Yeap that’s me father.” There that was also part of Danny, resigned to his post, but equally amused by the moments, “you must be one of the centurians.” Trocin laughs, looks at Habakkuk with discreet concern, while responding, “what are those, anyway, centurians, old people perhaps.” Antoinette steps in to cuddle the uncomfortable moment, while handing out wine, “These guys have lots of world wisdom behind their thoughts, only centurians could be so wise.” They all laugh at the non-joke.

Trocin leads a toast, “to ruminating.”

Trocin realizes that they are all a little uncomfortable with Danny, so he decides to help Lauren and Antoinette by instituting the conversation, “Father Otto took his arrest rather well.”

Lauren, the most qualified to reply, “He practically insisted, he really was tired of the priest gig and considered being an inmate a change, but I don’t think he was looking forward to it, he confessed mostly out of boredom, he could have fought the charge and yet he didn’t.”

At that moment, Lauren spilled some wine on her pants, and little drops of red wine splattered across her pant leg. She thought, “I didn’t feel anything, if I hadn’t seen it happen my feelings wouldn’t have told me anything, what else am I missing? What if my clothes could feel like my flesh?” Images of the wind in the street, passing cars splashing dust, water droplets from air conditioners, the smells of people pouring through her porous clothes. “Incessant distraction.” Or so she thought.

Danny wanted to instigate something, “Well I am not sure that he is guilty of murder, but he certainly is guilty of manslaughter.”

At that point Loki cat was passing by, unable of course to comprehend the English language, he was still startled enough to pause and stare at Danny’s lips dig his tongue, whipping up the air, while his mouth cavity created vacuum tossed syllable waves that crashed into Loki’s ears in a very distasteful manner, “murder” “manslaughter”.

Trocin assaulted the idea, “O common haven’t you ever walked up to someone and scared them; he didn’t mean to kill him, Father Otto is a sensitive creature, he is always touching flowers as if they were part of his soul, which they are but that is a whole other story.”

Antoinette tasting her wine, “I have been reading Pravda, the Russian newspaper, on the Internet, and they recently reported a candidate for the presidency that carried a potted plant around as a representation of his soul. He even left it in a meeting once so as to be represented.”

They all laugh, Habakkuk stops laughing first, “Well it is not possible to disembody the soul into a plant, that is a lower ergio consummation than is humanly possible, but the plant does feel and absorbs soul expressions. So he might be misguided but not wholly wrong.”

Danny, “Well that doesn’t take away from the fact that Father Otto did “Boo” the archbishop into sublimation.”

Habakkuk, “Well yes, but the entire congregation wanted the guy dead, Timothy was walking around on borrowed time, a whisper would have killed him just as well, a chandelier might have fallen from the ceiling, a falling hammer from a construction site, or a mugger could have instigated his death; what Timothy had of a problem was that too many people had wished him death and the universe was trying to act out their combined massification of desire.”

Trocin added, “Yes, yes, we all know that already, just like it is obvious that even Timothy with his general disregard for everyone didn’t like it here, didn’t want to be here and was asking to be killed.”

Danny whose head had been raising back and forth between the speakers, “Obvious to you perhaps but not obvious to a coroner such as myself, in the evidence I did not see that he wanted to die nor that he had been literally murdered.”

Trocin, “Doctor, you’re a forensic pathologist, an experienced one at that, I am sure that you were looking for physical evidence of what was a metaphysical crime, hence the reason why there was no reason, and hence the aspect void which forbids forensic scientists from solving these types of crimes.”

Danny, “But all crimes leave evidence behind.”

Trocin, “Sure, so does this one, only it is not rational evidence based on cause and effect, it is not one person that wanted the archbishop dead, it was an entire congregation, friends, acquaintances, and even Timothy himself, with your logic you’re only going to find one reasonable suspect, Otto, and he is the least guilty, for the archbishop was going to die of a spider bite or the flu.”

Danny, “How can you prove that.’

Trocin, shrugging his expression, “I can’t, nor do I want to prove it, it would be senseless to prove it.”

Habakkuk, “Doctor you use evidence to solve crimes, the universe can always provide that, but it won’t solve the real reason for the murder. Just like it would be difficult to ascertain if Jesus was killed by the lack of interference from the Virgin Mother, Joseph that resented his existence, or if he was killed by the Romans, or if it was the Jews, or if it was that the Christians wanted him dead to have an immortal idol, or if it was that Jesus himself wanted to die and be seen as a martyr for humanity for masochistic glory. None of those things can be proven, they can be speculated upon, and yet what might be more real than that, is that while you are looking for a linear one track solution to why Christ died on the cross, the only real solution might be that all those people killed him, including himself, his parents and his god.”

Danny, somewhat smirking, “I am not a unreasonable man, I could agree with all that, but in this world people get killed for some very obvious reasons that have no bearing on mystic preconceptions, for instance; recently a man killed his daughter and himself, why, why, because he could not deal with a divorce, and recently a young Muslim girl killed herself because she was not allowed to continue with her studies by her traditionalist father. These crimes are clearly motivated by something very evident to us logicians.”

Habakkuk, feeling as if he needed a cigarette, “These are logical energies, you use them at a local level, it is how they manifest themselves through the agglomeration of something we call the ergio aggregate, that is, a desire mutilates itself if it is not being fulfilled to its maximum aspiration. The girl did not kill herself because she could not study, she could have left her father’s influence and gone on to study as many people have chosen to do when they are forced to act against their desires, but she didn’t leave him, why, because maybe it was just more than going to study, she wanted to kill herself, and her father gave her the perfect local excuse to do it, where she needed to reason it out, because she could not logically deal with her wish to die. A wish that may have arrived at her from some invalidation of her existence which she herself could not acknowledge; this because it could prove that she was many times more wrong than her father or because being oriented towards studying she didn’t want to do what you Doctor don’t want to do yourself and that is question the logic of logic.”

Antoinette ate a piece of cheese. Lauren continued to deconstruct herself, her clothes did not feel, clothes isolated her from her environment, a veil a tunic more so; her job was based on logic patterns, this was based on some local logic which the universe did not bother to obey, so she utters out loud, “So my investigations are pointless, what Danny does is pointless and we should just kill ourselves!”

Habakkuk, “But why kill yourself, life is so short, everything is going to kill you before you reach one hundred years of age, so why rush it, what difference does it make? buy some music, read a good novel, engorge yourself with the intensity and seriousness of a world where everything has a short fused, who cares about the belief, you can’t participate in the emancipation of your being from this perspective because you are what you already decided to be. The archbishop deigned himself as much as his parents deigned him, as much as the pope deigned him, and as much as then everyone worked to undeign him. There is no crime there, no one is guilty of anything. No one killed Timothy, in this world, your world view had to have someone kill him.”

Lauren, “No one should be punished then?”

Habakkuk, “Lauren you know Father Otto is a gentle creature, he is almost a saint, you don’t believe he killed anyone, but because your logic tells you that there have to be consequences, then to complete your linearity you are willing to accept that he is guilty, at least of manslaughter. Does that make you feel better? Do you feel better because generals say that there have to be nuclear weapons to safeguard our world?”

“No, it doesn’t make me feel better, but if Otto hadn’t come up from behind him and literally scared him to death he wouldn’t be dead now would he.”

Habakkuk, “Lauren he was going to die no matter what, Otto was just there at that moment.”

Trocin, “He is right, there was nothing Otto could have done to rescue him, the only thing Otto did, and mostly because he is a centurian was acknowledge that he was there and that nothing he did would change anything, including the actions that justice would take.”

Antoinette, always the quiet backbone of the universe, “well then it doesn’t matter what happens to Otto now, and Lauren can certainly worry less about solving her cases, and she could stay with me more. I think am a liking this helpless universe where everything we do is now not some individual choice but a joint venture in which we are all prisoners of each other and there is no way out.” She took a serious bite of her cheddar cheese, showing her fangs in the process.

Habakkuk understood too well what she was hinting at, “It is a wholly symbiotic relationship that tangles humanity, everyone is a parasite of everyone else, and the human subconscious executes the will of the whole whether we like averageness or not, it doesn’t matter, we are average. And it is that averageness that safeguards us from all the things in the universe that are most distant in likeness from us.”

Antoinette responded, “Maybe I am an idealist, maybe I am a purist, but you all give in to this humdrum banality of some disciplined cosmic will that somehow brings together all of our wants and fears and averages them out so as to produce the most cohesive results; and so Lauren and I what! We don’t matter, we are just part of the local constituency of a cosmic desire to love women and we ourselves don’t matter. No, that sounds trite, even if you tabulate the incessant number of algorithms that the cosmic would have to crunch to meek out an average of any given desire, and then to accumulate all of our desires over some modified constant so that we wouldn’t explode from the quartering incompatibles within our nature.”

Trocin, “The fiber doesn’t have to calculate, such an awful thing to say, it just does it, everything is instant, all cats are the same ergio desire manifested one cat lives because all cats live, you’ve seen one cat you’ve seen them all. And gratification is instant satisfaction, instant pay backs, there are no debts in the universe, the universe is trying to execute your desires but it doesn’t feel that it owes them to you, nor will it have fail if it dies in the process of executing them; see the universe doesn’t know it is executing your desires or an agglomeration of all the desires of all lesbians in the universe and somehow compacting them within the relationship that you and Lauren have. The universe doesn’t know you exist, it merely supposes your existence from the existence of the desire that is you.”

Danny, “I think I am really lost now.”

Habakkuk, “You are not lost Danny, it doesn’t make sense, it can not make sense, it is only logical in that it is not supposed to make sense. Things that make sense have a tiny form factor, they don’t go beyond contractual obligations, which can break apart as soon as someone doesn’t think they make sense. So just don’t try to make it comprehensible to your aspiring logic, just stay away from trying to fix it or neatly terminate the fuzzy loop in your mind.”

Trocin added, “The only way to be rational is to ignore the unexplainable.”

The evening came to a close, Danny was the last to leave, he walked with burdened shoulders. Antoinette hugged him, “Those shits, words don’t cost them nothing.”

That next Monday was the hearing to determine if Father Otto would go to trial.

At the hearing, presiding was Judith Priest, a very intelligent and highly respected and honored judge, who was known as heavy handed with sentences, a no nonsense attitude towards her work. She didn’t like fancy lawyers, from fancy law offices such as William, William and William and McMillan, that were constantly trouncing on the law with their creative scheming. She respected public defendants and district attorneys because they generally didn’t come from the well healed aspects of society, “you’re all street slugs like me.” She was fond of saying. And indeed she did come from a modest background, her father had been a mechanic at a Sears department store, practically his entire life, he resented that he had to provide all his own tools, had never traveled outside of Michigan and was enamored with beer, Coors, in particular, he didn’t think much of his wife, she was the cook, she didn’t do anything right, but neither did the rest of the world. It was trying to escape that beer drinking, TV enslaved father of hers, that she went on to get an education, and become the critical judge that her righteously opinioned father would have become had he had the opportunities she did or better said, lived in her times.

Judith Priest, sat there incredulous listening to the simpleness of the case as finally argued by the district attorney, “And so he came from behind,” pointing his fingers at the judge and emphatically so, “by his own admission your honor, assaulted the victim with a “scare tactic” a “Boo” that “quickly” ended the Archbishop’s life. In this way your honor was a life that had been dedicated to the service of god taken, in this way, in the ever to be expected silent and holy altar, sound broke in and startling uncovered a crime of priest against priest,” raising his hands way up in the air, “for it was known high and low that Father Otto did not like the archbishop, was not happy with the reviews that had been sent of his person to the Vatican, and so a crime was done within the house of the lord your honor.”

Your honor sat there silently for a while, everyone was waiting to hear her words, she had listened to Lauren call for leniency, that she felt it was an accident of the moment, Ogle had testified that he felt murder was murder no matter how it was done, maybe it was negligence and poor judgment but the fact was Timothy Wellington would still be alive if Father Otto hadn’t scared him to death. She had listened to Danny explain how the body’s adrenalin system works to raise the body into action when faced by a threat, and he carefully and even methodically explained how the spike effect is caused by a sudden event, and yet how it implies that the body almost responds but doesn’t and why the very similitude can be found in subjects dreaming.

After the long silence, she gazed intently at Father Otto, who had confessed and expected justice by his own admission, “…to be sent to prison for a crime that I did not premeditate but that I did commit as I was myself a witness.” Then she arrested the district attorney with her alert eyes, and commenced pounding away at the long drawn abyss of silence which she had so effectively created, “You are not Al Pacino, this is not a play, you are playing with peoples lives here, you are not Moses giving out the twelve commandments, your not even political material, you are not going to be president, I am going to make sure of that though I doubt I will have to do anything to prevent it. You don’t point your fingers at me! you don’t try to run for office in my courtroom, you will never again rouse all those fancy words in my courtroom to state your case, you will keep it simple so that the people can understand what you are saying and why you are saying it; I don’t care if you are boring enough to read the dictionary every night, it is my duty to make sure that your self imposed pomposity doesn’t wash all over the justice system that I highly respect and defend.” She pauses again, obviously understanding the effects that timing and voids have on us all, then she proceeds, “now why do you bring this case to me? Father Otto is not a criminal, he might be a bit naive but he ain’t no criminal, do you think he will commit this crime again?”

The district attorney touches his forehead to wipe off some nervous sweat, his palm returns to his coat pocket all wet, “It is possible your honor that he could scare someone else to death if pranks are proven to be part of his nature.”

Judge Priest remains quiet, looks at him, “do you really think that scaring people is part of his nature?”

“Your honor I can not make the assumption that he is not capable of committing the crime again, it would be improper of me, as district attorney, to risk the lives of our citizens based on the lack of impropriety in Father Trocin’s history, the man scared a fellow priest to death, he didn’t like him, he even said he did not mind that he had died, he hid the crime from the authorities and so obstructed justice, if I let myself think that this man is innocent he might do it again, or worse I might start to judge others that only commit one time crimes, “innocent” because they are not recalcitrant criminals; I beg you to remember your honor that justice is an example more than a punishment. We serve her best through preventive measures.”

“I see, so at some level you agree with me but you can’t really agree with me and you hope that I will agree with you for the sake of justice and your definition of preventive justice at that.”

“Your honor please, you are much better at psychological games than I am, please I am not going to try to convince you of anything, I am trying to make sure that you let these hearings proceed to trial by jury where this man’s peers will judge him rightly.”

Tapping her podium, “I see and you think you can find a jury objective enough to judge a priest, should it be conformed of all Catholics then?”

“No your honor of course not, that is not to say that Catholics would not equally have the capacity to judge him, but it should be a mixed jury, with other religious faiths included, Mormons, protestants, Jews, anyone that is willing to be objective including atheists.”

“Are you then saying that you believe that you will be able to convince such a jury of the guiltiness that you have assigned this man.”

At this point the DA was sweating so profusely that he was looking rather like an uncomfortable radish in a courtroom, and he lashed out, “You honor, with all d respect, am I the one on trial here today? Because I don’t think I am the one that we are here to judge your honor, and if it is me, then you are out of line.”

Judge Priest substantially irritated, her eyes so large as to gobble this man, “Al Pacino You will not make a scene in my courtroom, I don’t care how much you think of yourself and your case, I don’t care! Now compose yourself, I need to know if you are making an emotional case or if there are facts and objectives and facts! Truths are the only things that can judge this man guilty of murder or manslaughter. I am not going to suppose that you, as district attorney has his best intentions in mind; nor am I going to give myself the luxury of believing that his signed confession means that he is honest and that he comprehends the impact of his confession or the nature of his actions. Do you understand me!”

“Yes, your honor.”

“Are you a catholic!”

“No your honor I am not a catholic.”

“What religion are you then?”

“I am an atheist your honor.”

“Are you a practicing atheist?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you try to convince others that there isn’t a god, would you be convincing Father Otto that there wasn’t a god by showing that his god would put him in jail, that is what I mean!”

“No your honor, I don’t give it much thought, I don’t even have the time to practice it, if there is such a thing.”

“Then did you just commit perjury in front of this court by agreeing to tell the truth so help you god!”

“Your honor, I have every intention of telling the truth, swear it by god and the bible if you like, I wasn’t thinking of that, I was thinking that I was going to tell the truth no matter what, that’s what I swore to do.”

“Very well you may sit down.”

The district attorney takes his seat, drinks two glasses of water without taking into consideration that one of them belonged to his assistant next to him.

Judge Priest proceeds, “It is normal in these types of cases for the court to adjourn and to hand out its verdict through a communiqué, but I think too much damage that is unheralded can be accomplished by not coming to conclusions today. This court therefore prescribes that this case does not merit going to trial, better to save the taxpayers dollars for more grievous cases, that doesn’t mean that this court does not consider the circumstances surrounding archbishop Timothy Wellington’s death sad and misguided, but it merely means that they do not warrant the full extent that the law could place upon them, because of happenstance. Happenstance is not reason enough to apply the law. With that,” she intently and almost motherly looks at Father Otto, “I do recommend an immediate psychological review, and minimum three months of counseling, where you Father Otto, might be helped in coping with what must be an ordeal, complicated enough to require assistance outside the church.”

With those words she pounded the gavel to drown out any silence, and sternly noted, “this court is closed.”

Optimism Gone Awry

2006-08-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

Waking up to the morning was not something that Antoinette did willingly, she was trying to discover herself in her coffee, she was waiting for it to take effect, she didn’t need to wake up early, but today she did it, she wanted to get out of bed, the bed had been bothering her, the bed had kicked her out, now, sitting on a stool, a place where one can only sit uncomfortably standing, she looked at her coffee, and waited, and waited.

Lauren walked in, not saying good morning, straight for the coffee zone, energetically wincing her eyebrows, “that was a weird but welcomed outcome at the hearing. I never thought much of judge Priest until then.”

Antoinette searching for something in her coffee’s surface, perhaps a reflection of the future, “well I liked the results, I suppose Otto did too, or have you spoken with him?”

“I haven’t but, I forgot to tell you…” scratching her head, “…he is coming over tonight, I thought I owed him that much.”

“Why do you always do that, I want some peace, your work is constantly in our house, we date the people you put in jail, we have to make friends with all of your witnesses and snitches, frankly I didn’t want to do anything tonight, I want peace, I cant get these people out of my hair!”

“Fine if you want me to cancel I will cancel! Is that what you want!” Lauren didn’t want to cancel, and she thought Antoinette was being ridiculous.

“You don’t care how I feel about this, you don’t care because the only thing we do is live your life, your career, your friends, you don’t care because you’re fine and comfortable because I always cater to your every whim! And no! I don’t want you to cancel because then I will only feel bad.” She started to cry.

Lauren came up to her and held her head, “I didn’t realize you were feeling so badly.”

“No you don’t, you’re so busy with your incessant emergencies that you never notice me,” pain touching her brow, “I am even beginning to hate the person that I have become.”

“Don’t say that, please, you are saying that our relationship is making you ill that you are not happy with me, don’t talk like that.”

“This is not about you Lauren, it is about me and how I feel and I have to express myself, all this time you have a world and what do I have, your world.”

“But my world is your world babe, I am here with you, I don’t want anything else. You want me to quit my work I will, you are my priority, you’re everything to me, and if I am enjoying my work today it is because of you.”

Antoinette now sobbing, Loki and Pacho who were trying to figure out what was happening.

“Nothing is going to change, nothing is going to change, I am just getting old and missing all the best parts of myself and you are too busy to see that, too busy to see that the years are passing us by and we are not feeling each other the way that we should, we are not touching each other, we are missing something and it is because you are out there in the world, like a man!, out there somewhere, figuring out your big crime story, while I languish in here.”

Lauren didn’t know how to react, being compared to a man made her want to go into shock, was she really so negligent of the most important relationship in her life? She knew that Antoinette was her heart’s ambition, someone she had dreamed of someday having for a mate, so much so that she had lost interest in everything, that she worked hard more to impress Antoinette than herself, and now here was the woman that had changed her life and given her fresh inspiration to be more her own essence, and she herself was failing her. “Darling we will go away, we will do what ever you want, we can hide from the entire world, I want to make you happy, please, please let me try, tell me what to do and we will do it.” What she was truly imploring was to please not compare her to the insensibilities of maleness, what she was saying was, “I am not like that.”

Having problems breathing from the teary anguish, “you don’t even know, see you don’t even know what is missing, we have this huge hole in our relationship and you don’t even notice it, cant you tell I feel all alone inside.” Her hair falling through her wet fingers.

Those little words tossed a myriad of feelings of inadequacy into Lauren, her heart felt this little raw nerve being peeled, little fire ants crawling and eating her little nerve, and the pain gained ground but it could not be shown, more little ants came and bit and bit some more and more of the little red nerve that now though less in mass was greater for it was swollen. She wanted to say something but she couldn’t, she tempted herself but she failed to conjure anything meaningful, her mind unable to form form; she felt how distant she was from Antoinette, how she had not managed to get within her, how yes, the relationship was harmonious and beautiful and she felt a comforting heart, and a mutual need fulfilled, and, and she didn’t want to say it because it went against everything that she wanted to feel with Antoinette, but she felt that they shared their loneliness in common, and that agitated her, she breathed deeply but her heart was now trying to crawl out through her esophagus, pains swelled her throat, she caressed her Antoinette, thinking, “we share our loneliness, is that what keeps us apart too?”

Antoinette was in another sentiment, “unfulfilled desires, Lauren is too busy guarding herself to release herself completely to us, she is causing me to hold back too, I have to repress what I feel so as not to overwhelm her with feelings, I am languishing, I don’t like what I am becoming, that stupid mood camera doesn’t do it for me, the centurians with their master minds, what a fruitless expedition of ideas, I feel old, I need a massage, perhaps I could find a friend that would listen to me; I need Lauren to let her emotions feel me, I have just made a fool of myself, there is my Loki cat.”

She grabbed Loki and spoke, “don’t worry about me, I will be fine, I just need to be by myself right now.”

With that she grabbed some incense and made some tea, and locked herself in for a hot bath the next three hours. Loki sitting by her side, occasionally drinking her bath water to feel and absorb his friend’s pains.

They never cancelled Father Otto’s visit, though they didn’t talk to each other until the door bell rang. Whereupon they hugged each other before answering with all the good humor imaginable. Though behind the scenes, Lauren was looking at Antoinette and asking herself, “Is she going to find someone else, can I imagine that anyone else will make her happy, she is so difficult to understand, is she really that complex underneath all that enigmatic essence, am I making more out of this, what is happening to me, I cant let her see me weak, she is too strong, she hates weakness even as she feigns compassion.”

“You two look in a somber mood, shouldn’t it be me that feels that way.?”

“Oh hush Father, you ought to be rejoicing you escaped the long arm of the law and even managed to do it honestly.”

That will tell you that there is a god my dear Antoinette, it will tell you that while we may view the world with hostility the world is trying to be kind to us.”

“Tell that to all those minorities in jail Father Otto,…” said Lauren, “…all those black men languishing in prisons more for being black than for being the children of god.”

“Something has you upset today my child, it is ok, you can express it that way with me if you want to, better to save someone else rather than stare at yourself I suppose.”

Antoinette assisting Father Otto’s coat off, “You pinned the tail on the donkey father, but before we get so crusty, can’t we just sit for a little bit and chat little petty stuff, after that we can sear each other like steaks.” Finishing off by giving Lauren a targeted stare.

Lauren, “I took the risk of cooking some chicken curry, it is a magnificent recipe, you do like curry?”

The father, was looking a little worn, he had not shaved for a few days, he was wearing all black attire with a sweater, “Curry…” he wrings his hands, “…that is one of my favorite foods, but then it is cosmopolitanly popular these days, I don’t know too many people that don’t like it.”

Antoinette divulges, “well my friend Shangra doesn’t like it, and she is from India, the other day we went to lunch and I ordered it, and incredulously she made me sit far away from her, she said she couldn’t stand the stuff, she hated it.”

Lauren enters the ring, “Shangra, Shangra? she doesn’t like curry?” She was really surreptitiously asking “who the fuck is this girl Shangra!”

Antoinette, “Nope, can you believe that, someone that doesn’t like curry, might be someone really different these days, in the seventeenth century it would have been the other way around.”

Father Otto, “Internalization is just the kind of monster that is not going to let us dislike anything, we need to like everything, I think that is probably a good thing, just more evidence that what keeps us apart is not as strong as what brings us together.”

Antoinette as if trying to enjoy the silence she was forcing on Lauren, “I have always felt Father that everything has a single source and the single source is everything divided and subdivided onto itself.”

“Well I couldn’t disagree with that, you know our church has a history of determining singular origins for everything, why it was a catastrophe when someone once suggested that the father, the son and the holy spirit were wholly different from one another in essence, and thus not the same.”

Lauren, “And so how did the family feud get resolved?”

“Oh those things are never resolved, if they are resolved then I am out of job, part of what I do as a theologian is to reconstitute the faith and to set it in motion with the same controversy, I mean that it is to my benefit for there to be an unresolved balance of inquiry so that the hunger for intellectual freshness is satisfied while in reality we are merely walking across the abyss on a thin rope that wishes to toss us to one side or another. Lack of equilibrium is what keeps me going.”

Antoinette, sitting on the rug, near the Father, her head leaning on her hand, “And its that why you tried to tempt your faith by confessing even though you could have ended in jail for ten years.”

“Nobody wants to go to jail, it means a lot of horrible things, but I guess you are somewhat right, though I didn’t think it, it was instead that I didn’t want to play the game of saying I am innocent, I am innocent let me convince you of that, it would have taken so much energy, and I didn’t have it to give, I am not a good fighter, I like to lie down at the beginning of any battle.”

Lauren, “So you merely acted out a philosophical stance of meekness that was why you did what you did?”

“Sort of, I didn’t plot it, just like I didn’t plot to kill the archbishop, though I wasn’t sorry when he went and was rather amused that I had something to do with his demise.”

Lauren again, “Did you go to the psychiatrist and are you in treatment now.”

The Otto laughing lots, “Yes, a sweet man I found there, Dr Locus, what a fine man, the lord works in mysterious ways, we have a rather amusing arrangement, he is going to act like his is treating me and instead we are going to discuss the centuries, the fall of the Berlin wall the rise of China, the Roman empire, that sort of thing, I don’t think he thinks I need treatments, or he has me thinking that, so we are going to fake it for the authorities, but Dr Locus promises to be a fine chap, frankly I am not displeased with how things have turned out.”

He pauses, then continues ominously…

“Was that fellow, the coroner was he testifying on my behalf or against me, I didn’t quite get that spiked adrenalin bit?”

Lauren, “Danny is a scientist, he wasn’t there to take sides, he was there merely to state the facts as the lab results showed them, I don’t think he was testifying against you or for you.’

Father Otto relishes the thoughts uttered by Lauren, “You gotta take sides in this life, your either for me or against me, I don’t know him but it seemed he was against me.”

Lauren, “He is a good friend of mine Father, and I don’t think he enjoys the idea of someone going to jail, he is a harmless soul just doing his job.”

“Harmless, how many people has Mr. Harmless put in jail just doing his job.”

Lauren shifting uncomfortably on her seat, “His job is to link the criminal with the evidence if he can’t do that he doesn’t care, he is not political about his investigations he doesn’t moralize his job, if the DNA or the fingerprint make a link based on laboratory evidence he tells it like it is.”

“Well I mean no harm by this, but he was of no help to me, the judge was a fair minded woman, I always thought the only judges should be women, but then male judges are the only ones that can be fooled by lawyers. Solomon the wise was made wise by a mother,” he realizes he had stumbled on a quiz, slapping his lap, “guess which mother made him wise?”

Antoinette, “well it couldn’t have been the one that wanted to split her child in half, it had to then be the mother that pleaded that the child should remain whole and not split in half?” Lauren agreed.

Enjoying himself way too much, “wrong, wrong, it was Solomon’s own mother that made him wise.” … “Solomon’s mother must have told him that he was the most important of all, she must have told him that he was brilliant, that he was capable of anything, that he was “Solomon the wise.””

The girls made a serious effort to please their guest and enjoyed it all.

The curry was spectacular the conversation bordered on endless continental plates, Father Otto left, feeling much closer to Antoinette than to Lauren.

The cats were asleep, the dishes didn’t get done, rest had priority.

Please, Not Another Mystery

2006-08-31T17:30:00.000-07:00

Another Friday night the centurians meet, Danny is now very much a regular guest, and so is the wine. They have been discussing many odd things that happen in the universe, the evening is drawing to a close and Danny interrupts the sleepy eye with a simple but remarkably elucidating question. “Why are famous people famous?” If anyone should be able to answer that, it ought to be a centurian.

Habakkuk noted, “Ah, yes, why are famous people famous that has been the question hasn’t it?”

Danny, “Well I might sound a simpleton for asking it but be if so, it remains an enigma why some people are born rich, and why some people have the propensity to be famous, in some cases it seems no matter what those prone to be famous do, right or wrong, they always keep on stumbling into fame and fortune.”

“Well then very well, I think being a centurian I can answer that most puzzling of questions, but I should warn you that once I give you the response you will be greater disappointed for it, than when you merely did not know the answer.”

Defiant Danny crossing his arms either as imposition or defensiveness, “And why is that?”

Habakkuk, looking awfully smug, browsed the room so as to say, “I warned you.” But instead said, “Invariably some questions are never answered because it is not in anyone’s interest to know the truth. More often than not the case is that it is better for some things to remain complicated through mystification, curiosity and lack of definition, than it is to have answers; and also it is true that most of us don’t want to know many things because then we might get wholly troubled about our existence.”

Antoinette interjects, “Are you suggesting that it is easier for us to search for the meaning of the universe and to search for a god than it is to find their particular answers.”

Again Habakkuk had gotten more arrogant recently, hard to expect from the boy whose lineage was that of a snake catcher. “You got it, you got it just right, no one wants to know if there is a god, or how the universe was really created,…” stopping severely, “…clearly the universe was never created, but,” he pauses himself, intentionally forgets to follow that line of thought and proceeds with, “…well imagine all those professors hunting down the existence of god or the beginning of time, imagine all those professions based on service to god and science, imagine what they would do if we told them definitively that there wasn’t a god, or that there wasn’t a big bang, it would crush them wouldn’t it. Or put it another way, could a scientist see the end of science?”

Lauren, “I don’t think so, I don’t think it would crush them, as you say, I think they would be closer to whatever greater truth and that would please them more.”

“I see you haven’t noticed that people are hard to reprogram, specially professionals. But ok, say you were right, I don’t want to disagree with you, but say you were right, then what of it? Nothing of it, that is what, because we are not going to find the meaning to the question of God until god answers it by himself and without intermediaries; and he isn’t going to do that until he does it.”

Lauren again, “But he could do it conclusively through intermediaries, the Virgin Mary and Jesus were intermediaries, and they could prove the existence of god.”

“Lauren it surprises me that I am your friend; if they had proved it conclusively you and I would not be having this discussion.”

Lauren, “Good point.”

Habakkuk, “And so I was telling you that there are questions better left unanswered and I have presented clear evidence of a couple and now Danny wants to know what makes famous people famous even though knowing so wont solve any desires that he may possess to be famous himself.” He takes a few sips of his wine, “now then, everyone has lived many lives we all know that, pretty straight forward; that is not to say that people have to continue to reincarnate a thousand things have to go wrong and a thousand things have to go right for anyone to reincarnate, and people in general do not necessarily want to reincarnate but sometimes, even in the metaphysical, there are endless loops, which is not to say that that is why I am here, I might want to be here though I would prefer not to answer that to myself or to you.” More wine. Everyone expectant, “It’s all rather silly, you have the propensity to be famous because you have accumulated a lot of ergio within your soul embodiment. Before you go to question that, it means that you have lived a lot of lives and you have accumulated your multiple life’s energies which gives you access to having greater communality with your humanity. The greater association with your humanity the greater your propensity to have mass appeal, mass appeal comes from the associations that others make to you and you make to them, these will always be greatest with those that have had more lives, and the aggregate of all those lives in turn see more in common with each other which means that the most famous will have a communality not only with the average folk but a greater communality with those that are not average, which allows them to stay at the top of the heap with greater ease.”

The room was filled with exultation, this guy had panache, Danny grasped the answer and its consequences immediately, “you are saying that people depend on the number of incarnations which adds the energies of others and theirs through life times and this gives them a propensity to be famous as their energies recombine and recognize each other with those of the masses.”

Habakkuk, “A bit repetitive but yes.”

Danny, “Then your conclusion is that I will never be famous within this life time because if I had that propensity for it, it would have already displayed itself, your saying that I lack communality with the average person, or with the current humanity in general and so if I try to be famous it will be a wasted effort.”

Habakkuk, “Your grasp of the situation is surprisingly good.”

Danny too interested to pause, “Then politicians have lived many life times and that is why they get the popular vote?”

Habakkuk, “Everything has an exemption clause, politicians are precisely the opposite, they have lived the least of life and have the lowest ergio energy quotient. See politicians by their very nature are not complicated beings, they are simpletons, this is not because they are idiots, on the contrary, though to the universe as a whole they are indeed idiots, in their locality of being they are an impressive local force. There are a lot of local forces, witchcraft is one, forces that apply at the local level but have no cosmic significance, in that light it is that we see politicians; they are a local energy, which accumulates the local ergio desired consensus and expresses it. This is why a good and an excellent politician doesn’t have an opinion but rather they are servants of the mood of their times. To summarize it a bit, a politician simply takes up the belief that is most nearest him, and that has the greatest ergio mass units, so that it has a propensity for popularity. That is that politicians are not themselves popular as might be an Emily Dickinson, a first rate poetess that had obviously touched the universe too much, but rather it is the ideas that are popular and the politicians are just the carriers. This is why they must not be possessed by too much universal history or carry too many previous lives, the less the better, you can’t come to this world possessed with too much to be a politician, you must be pretty much running on empty and you must allow yourself the ability to populate your mind with the popular beliefs and ideas of the times. Others characters suffer this type of thing, critics, journalists, salesmen, these are types that come to life ready to be filled up with something, which is why they will have a tendency to be more satisfied than Emily Dickinson whom coming here rather full of stuff couldn’t take anymore.”

Antoinette gets up to get some more wine for the gang, lightly raising one arm and commenting on her way, “makes perfect sense to me.”

Otto adds, “It is so, and there is nothing wrong with that, we need politicians if we didn’t then who would express public opinion.”

Trocin gets in, “The chap is right, politicians are excellent explainers of the public will and have the ability to amass the ergio desires of the mass within themselves and use them towards constructive ends.”

Lauren, “Scary, if you are right then Hitler was mostly an empty vessel effectively incorporating mass will unto himself so as to acquire a following of believers in their own faith!”

Trocin, “You could not have gotten it more right, and depressing as it might be the general public is always most wise to blame their puppet leaders for the consequences of something which can only be carried out through mass will, mass participation and mass desire.”

Danny, “I better be going, this doesn’t solve the problem of why I have to earn a living, tomorrow is not going to be as glamorous for me as tonight.”

The guests all took their time leaving after that, Lauren and Antoinette did not make it to bed until close to one in the morning.

The House Has Been Broken In Half

2006-08-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

The very next day Habakkuk came over for dinner, he had not wanted to get out of his dingy residence, but Lauren had insisted upon it. She also made sure that Danny participated.

Antoinette had gone out to eat with Shangra, her new buddy from the gym, and so it was just the three of them. You might want to know how Lauren, not usually a jealous person felt about the new Shangra friendship. Well knowing her as well as I do, which is probably very well, I think she was having a Morphine Attack! For the sake of those readers that are not well educated and this is the first book that they read or for the sake of those that are not familiar with the concept of a morphine attack, I shall explain.

A morphine attack is an emotional paralysis with full blown consequences that may only manifest in a future context, at this very moment Lauren is suffering from cancer of the colon, the doctors have to operate immediately, they make her drink tons of water so that she can feel perfectly uncomfortable, they put her through a magnetic scanning machine where she is told that her the fillings on her teeth or anything metal that she may have swallowed as a child will acquire earth orbit velocity on the way out of her body. It is discovered that her cancer has metastasized it is all over the large intestine, the small intestine and her stomach, she will have problems shitting, sitting and eating. Unfortunately three very common functions, but the doctors are optimistic that they can go in there and cut her insides all out, and even remove her ovaries just to make sure they don’t have to hack in there again, and whammo she should be cured. The operation goes without a hitch though the rectum will take some time to heal from such abuse, but Lauren will survive the cancerous tormentor. This is how she feels, and she feels it so much that no amount of morphine is going to deprive her of her agony. And it is that agony, that can not be expressed but must be felt by Lauren, by anyone that has suffered emotional abuse at the hands of their lovers, it is that agony that Lauren is feeling now as she is having spaghetti with meatballs with Habakkuk and Danny while precious Antoinette is dining with Shangra!

Neither Habakkuk nor Danny detected that Lauren was having an incapacitating morphine attack, they chatted about this and that, and neither complimented the spaghetti and meatballs because it had suffered Lauren’s current emotional state and hadn’t been cooked with love.

They move over to the living room, Lauren, like a worrying mother, does a check on the time, but immediately realizes that she is afraid of her teenager daughter, not afraid for her, but afraid of her.

“Listen to me you guys, I haven’t solved any cases in a while now, Otto’s case counts for something on the record, but I need your brains to tally up neatly the Major’s case and 120 Lupin St.”

Danny remarks, “So the dinner wasn’t free.” Pacho cat, a somewhat emotionally paranoid creature, has taken to Danny and is now sitting on his lap. “Well I’ve gone over and over the evidence, nothing pops out as dramatically explainable by some overwhelming fact, I have even checked to see if other cities throughout the world have had similar crimes, and if they show a pattern of some sort, nothing.”

Habakkuk, “You have access to crime data from other countries?”

Danny, “Yes, it is routine now, there is a giant oracle database that has everything on crime, types of crimes, types of criminals, types of victims, types of relatives, professions, even types of witnesses weather and environmental conditions. Its massive and you can ask it questions, like “number of people that have reported their pet lizard stolen?” or you can use it to detect unusual patterns, “how many Anthonys have committed a crime, those born between 1964 and 1968 and ate Spam?” And the thing is fast too, most questions you get an answer within 72 hours.”

Habakkuk, “Well I’m impressed, we didn’t have anything like that in the 12th century BC.”

Lauren exclaims, “we don’t have time to learn right now we need to reexamine our cases.”

Habakkuk, “Lauren may it be noted that you and Danny get paid for this, I don’t.?”

Lauren, smiling at her heart friend, “duly noted now where do we start Mr. Prophet.”

“Danny I think that you should go back to that huge database that knows so much about everybody and just do random searches, don’t worry about anything, just listen to yourself and do as you say.”

“What will that accomplish.”

“I will explain, but first Lauren, you need to go look at your victim, the first person that you murdered,” Lauren chills at his words but knows better than to sound surprise or hurt over Habakkuk’s comments. “I need you to feel him, to sense him, go back to where he lived as a child, review his life, sense his friends and relatives, that will help us tremendously.”

Lauren, “I think I have already done most of that, I have gone over all his personal files and have reviewed his past in great detail.”

Habakkuk, acting way more certain than the Habakkuk we have known, “I believe you have to do it again and you need to call him by his name from now on, he isn’t no one, he isn’t 120 Lupin St, he is a person, a man, someone’s son, and he has a name and you have to use his name and don’t think the Akashic record hasn’t already recorded you as the official murderer, it has, you can’t hide by hiding his name.”

Lauren turning sadly pensive, “he has a name, yes I know he has a name,” squandering her voice, “I don’t remember it, I will memorize it tomorrow.”

Danny, “But this sounds like work to me, and I don’t think we are going to learn anything from this.”

Habakkuk wanting to smoke a cigarette, “You’ve asked me what will all this accomplish,” sitting up on his chair, and very alert in the here and now, “you have to cope with some aspects of reality that are less obvious and less accessible to you which are now the only aspects that are going to help you both solve your cases. You see how we arrived at solving the archbishop’s murder, which was congregationally premeditated and through incessant chanting executed. We are in the same quandary, we don’t have immediate logical clues, logic is always the most apparent thing, hence the reason why it is so simple to understand and so well liked, but when logic fails you, you have to use something else.”

He pauses breathes deeply, “The universe only manages principles that are amorphous, they don’t handle details at the cosmic level, the details are for people like us, but the universe is keen to remain undefined, it matters to us to find meaning through facts and knowledge but the universe doesn’t have knowledge and facts; it may well be that the major and your mountain man were just committing perfectly random acts of violence but you have to assign a value to their actions so that you can understand and so that you can explain it to your constituency; because they want to know that they live in a world that is consistent, logical and secure and particularly in a world that makes sense. You are then charged by them to give meaning, cause and effect to these random actions, and through your perceptions and observations both of you will intuit any meaning that can be deduced from this; and you will be able to channel it into some functional aspect of reality even as in this case it looks dismally hopeless.”

Lauren repeats her understanding, “You are saying that if I just go around doing my job that I will find the solution to the puzzle because it is my job to find it.”

Danny, “…and he is saying that we will make it up if we have to.”

Lauren, “…and make it up until it makes perfect sense.”

Danny, “Habakkuk you know I like you, and I like all these theories of the universe that you have, and I want them all to be true because frankly they are cool and anything else would be a bore. But Lauren and I answer to the captain and he isn’t going to buy all this.”

Habakkuk, “Ogle, Captain Ogle is a very intelligent man and he only wants the facts, this is a fundamental weakness of very intelligent men and intelligence,” both Lauren and Danny liked and respected Ogle a great deal, they thought him wise and knowledgeable and they felt like traitors for listening to Habakkuk speak in such a derogatory tone and not attacking him for it, “intelligent people want to be in control through the facts which are cruel with their unfeeling objectivity but because they are antihuman we suppose they must be genuine; more genuine than human feeling.”

Danny, frustrated, “Jesus this guy is not getting what I am saying, neither Lauren and I are going to dispute what you are saying, we are merely saying we have to convince the captain and he has to report it to the municipal authorities and they have to believe it too before we can call it a closed case. We can’t just go up and say it was a random act, there has to be a reason why, even if we have to convince the world that the major was insane, we have to convince the captain first, and he then has to convince everyone else.”

Lauren doing a quick check at her nails, “Habakkuk he is right, we have to convince Ogle and the evidence has to be real, verifiable we can’t just send those men to trial on circumstantial evidence, the victims relatives will have our heads if we don’t hang them.”

Habakkuk darts out enthusiasm, “I never imagined that doing something as simple as proving something logically correct would be a challenge, I am up for the game, I am enchanted by it, I think we can do it, I am optimistic we can, through intuition, comprehension, understanding and a complete lack of compassion prove that both the major and the mountain man were guilty of provable crimes!” he pauses lifts up his wine glass, I propose a toast, a covenant “do as I ask and together we will find the rational explanations that you need to keep your jobs.”

Danny joins in, “hell the crimes have already been committed anyway, nothing we do is going to change that.”

Lauren, “Cheers.”

Antoinette got home at around 1145pm, Lauren thought that for some strange reason one is only suppose to react madly after midnight, things only got weird after midnight, midnight was the adult curfew, midnight was Cinderella’s curfew, she was in bed, she looked at the clock, 1145pm, the door had been shut, her lover was coming to bed, she was still having her morphine attack, stiff as a Popsicle.

Antoinette slipped into bed, kissing her Lauren on the cheek, “how was your meeting with the boys?” Lauren kept her back to Antoinette, “fine darling, it was fine and your dinner companion?” The tone was holding back suspirations of agony by the pound, the room had to be wet with nitroglycerin, and neither girl wanted to light the match so they acted as if they could not detect the explosive. “Shangra? she is magnificent, she has such a wonderful personality, you are going to love her character, she wants to meet you.” There was the one word that would ensure that Lauren would hate Shangra for the rest of her life, hearing Antoinette say, “she is magnificent,” yes Antoinette was always expressive, but this was high treason. “that’s wonderful, I am sure I will meet her soon, right now I have to get some sleep, goodnight.”

Of course Lauren didn’t sleep that night. Instead she plotted a full background check on this girl Shangra.

Eighty Billion Miles, Ten Hours Distance

2006-08-31T17:26:00.000-07:00

“We are channeling immortality everyday with every birth.” Spoke Habakkuk to his mind’s eye. He was having prophetic visions, in one he was sitting on Mount Tomapayas viewing the panoramic entrance of the pacific into San Francisco bay, he saw “a much celebrated, huge white winged aircraft crashing on the Northern-Western side of a Mountain by the Golden Gate bridge. I have prophesied.” In another vision, “I see a cover of The Economist all dark blue flat, with one giant comic eyeball on the upper left cover area, this will be one of the last editions, if not the last, of the renowned Economist. I have prophesied.” He knew that these things would come to pass. Did the passing of The Economist mean the end of capitalism? Did the massive winged plane crashing mean the end of humanities love affair with technology? The Heidelberg , The Titanic and now The White Plane, “things happen in threes.” The only thing Habakkuk knew was that he was a prophet and prophets rarely got to live within the ages of their prophesies.

Antoinette was making him a cup of tea, he didn’t know how he felt about tea, he drank a lot of it, but he didn’t know if he liked tea, if there was something worthwhile in the taste, he didn’t know, he tried to convince himself, “I like tea.” But then he would doubt it, “its just irksome water, somewhat neutral,” that was it, it was neutral he didn’t drink much beyond earl gray, he always added two bags to secure flavor, “maybe it’s the lack of definition in my taste buds, tea is not as offensive as coffee, tea doesn’t seem to be trying to pull the darkness of your soul out through agitations.” he was somewhat right or so I thought, but really I think tea is just a reminder of the days when we drank dirty water like cats and dogs will drink from any puddle, today we don’t drink from any puddle, but it has to be that tea is a refreshing reminder of our long history of drinking dirty water.

Antoinette arrives with the tea. Lauren is not with us today, Habakkuk just stopped by for what he didn’t know would be tea, he could refuse it, he rarely has the energy required for refusing.

“It is really odd Habakkuk I have this new friend Shangra and Lauren is acting as if it were a betrayal, I won’t ever betray Lauren, our relationship is everything that I want; sometimes I feel she doesn’t need me, that she is too independent, but I mostly survive those moments, so I don’t understand why she gets so insecure about our relationship when I am the one that mostly caters to her every whim.”

“As long as I have known her she has liked to control everything around her, she seems easy going but she isn’t, and she doesn’t believe that she isn’t.”

“I am so glad to hear you reaffirm that, at least now I know that I am not crazy that it is not all my head making it up, but how can I get it through to her, and now with Shangra I have to worry about what she is feeling, her insecurities, her tendency to feel that if she doesn’t control everything then everything is going to abandon her, how can I convince her that I am here? We could be so much more if she weren’t so ruled by those fears which she hides with her nuts organization and incessant work activity to create certainty.”

“Lauren can never relax, tension is part of her makeup, she registers nuttiness everywhere else, she has this eternal distance from everything,”

Antoinette interrupts, “that’s it, it is her distance, she keeps her distance.”

Habakkuk continues, “There is something about her that is 80 billion miles away, where communication and physical distance are at once Near and Far. To communicate with her, we can send a message at the speed of light and it would only take ten ours to cover her 80 billion mile safety zone; fortunately for us, Lauren’s distance is physical, her jagged emotions reach us instantly with their turbulent definitions propelled by a litany of self denials.”

Antoinette comments, “we are all distant here, I feel that friendship is when the distance disappears without cause, when the distance is not there, like you say, 80 billion miles can be surmounted in 10 hours through a simple message.”

At that point there was a knock at the door, it’s opening revealed an apparently joyful soul, a soul that was healthy, she was effervescent ergio units dispensing an aura of clarity, of earth spirit, she was in touch with her nature, she had never gotten the technology bug, she had not constructed a political or scientific world, when she hugged Antoinette you could see the hug was thousands of years of an effort to squeeze the distance between herself and her humanity; you could see Antoinette’s back being mandated to relax infinitum, to release her spinal chord into snake-flexibility, she could have been born again; but then whenever another observer is there, he is altering everything too, the women reacted to his stares and composed their wayward spiritual release.

“Shangra, this is Habakkuk he is our local prophet, he has traveled the centuries, he has in his belly,” she pads Habakkuk’s flat belly with her palm, “he has in his belly wine that comes across the centuries, his aged well.”

Habakkuk puts his cold tea down, something he had wanted to do but did not have the vigor in him to accomplish until exerted by someone else, the sudden impetus made him spill some of the dirty water, “how do you do.” Head opting for a momentary bow.

Shangra’s effervescent character was immediately charmed by the prophet, she sensed the centuries within him, she didn’t feel any sadness enemating from him, she felt that he had no pain to nurse, that he was just walking the earth without a mother, she instantly took to him.

Habakkuk on the other hand envisioned that Shangra was a soul that would not last the length of the earth’s existence, that the constant cycle of desire energies to come would surrender her as unobservable, that somehow she was done here and she would be leaving sooner than she could imagine; he immediately understood that a soul like hers had no husband, lived alone, was instantly in love with the world, but all alone. He was right, Shangra had never married, was platonic with all types of associations, and she had no ultimate aim but to touch what touched her and not to touch beyond that.

Antoinette noticed the two strangers instantly becoming aware of each other, and their level of intimacy was such that they would not have to meet again, there would be naught to discover, they were in a comprehensive communion of spirit. Which is probably why Habakkuk dismissed himself.

“I am delighted to have felt your heart, I shall be going now but I remain with both of you.”

In part Habakkuk was lying, he was certainly in humane communion with Shangra, but he wasn’t in the same way with Antoinette, there was something about Antoinette that was puzzling and difficult to extract, there was something she wasn’t telling anyone, even as she surmised herself to be in sweet alterations with Lauren, the truth was that the mystery was hers; Habakkuk was going to say that only Shangra had arrived wholly into his essence, only now he wasn’t going to say it; but then how could he become aware of the eon background radiation that was Antoinette.

“It’s too bad that he left, he is so wonderful I really feel he contributes his soul when he is present.”

“He seemed a fine and wholesome fellow, hardly a man, he didn’t seem much a man, I don’t know if that is bad to say that, I don’t know if I should be saying it, I don’t mean to insult your friend Habakkuk, and he does have a wonderful name.”

“You don’t insult him, he doesn’t have a gender, the physical is, as he says it: “a logical deviation from everything and the truth is lack of imagination.” He doesn’t consider himself a man, he considers himself a desire manifested from nothingness through something called ergio; a kind of symbolic representation.”

“Whoa that’s meaning a lot.”

“I am not going to the gym today, Lauren is kind of upset right now and I should probably stay and see what is happening between us.”

“Is it serious?”

“No, nothing serious, just a strange feeling we have to sand down some rough edges that still keep us apart, and your being in my life is making those rough edges prick a little.”

“I am so glad I don’t have to deal with that in my life, girls can be so silly. Anyway I am not going to the gym either, I just thought I stop by and read Bobbie’s letters with you, see what we make of them, if only to past some time. But if I am going to be causing havoc I rather leave.”

“Oh no, not at all that isn’t a problem at all, we are just being silly you can stay I will bring out the letters, it will be fun to sneak into Bobbie’s life, Lauren has never had the patience to do it with me.”

They reached the master bedroom, they clutter the floor with their bodies and Bobbies, letters, they amused themselves here and there as they read on…

From letter #1
“I don’t know why I am starting to write this silly thing. I am not much in the way of expressing thoughts in writing, but it feels so lonely to be me, I have to write to you now, I have to tell you about my way to you, perhaps you will be curious, perhaps you will think me silly, perhaps I will never give you this letters. My bedroom door is closed now, father is watching a football game, the entire house seems empty, I am here by myself, away from the dangers that revealing my indiscretions could endure.”

From letter #3
“I have eyes, but then you probably deduced that, you wouldn’t have fallen in love with me if I were an eyeless woman, or would you?” “I have blue eyes, they are tiny compared to the rest of my face though my mouth is also small, so are my lips as I print them here for you to know them before you touched them.” (lipstick lips, thin)
The same letter continues…
“I look at myself in the mirror a lot, too much, I wander if other girls do the same, is the mirror an accurate representation of me? Does it really talk about me, In science class they said something about inverted sides, how a mirror shows your left as your right, and then they also talked about the brain, the left side of the brain is on the right side and the right side on the left, so does that mean that the mirror and the brain outsmart each other? Oh you must be very smart, you will answer all these questions for me, I am just a dumb girl, I don’t really like school, boring, very boring, I only get through it daydreaming about you.”
Same letter continues…
“Oh how I wish I were already eighteen.”

From letter #50
“Those infallible bastards, they think the know who I am and what I want, fuckers, I don’t want their advances, I don’t want to suck their cocks! If only I could tell them about you but pretense is my deep silence, I injure myself when ever I giggle with those fuckers! So full of their fucking dicks!”
Same letter continues… it appears time has passed…
“Ok maybe I am a little harsh, what harm are they, storming through life without taking notice of why they trounce all over the place, that’s not really their fault, they are just zombies walking around being men, I am perhaps too a zombie walking about thinking of you, maybe my being in love with you requires that I be a zombie too.”
Same letter continues…
“And how do I know I am not stepping over everyone’s sensibilities. Father doesn’t know anything about me, am I stepping all over his sensibilities by not telling him? Is my vault of secrets hurting him as much as it sometimes suffocates me? How has the world done this to me.” “Sometimes I don’t know if I have grown up.” “I don’t know too many happy moments.”

From letter #45
“Maybe mother was gay, maybe she was gay, maybe she didn’t want to hurt father. Maybe she walked into that car to escape her vault of secrets.” (dry tears cover this letter.)

Letter 18 was particularly explorative and telling, Bobbie was controlling her urges and yet not wishing to administer them.

From letter #18
Where are the others? It would be unthinkable to imagine myself special. Still the feelings of my singular nature approach me with incessant persistence, am I a man in a woman’s body? Or do I represent masculine spirits within the body woman? Have I betrayed my sex?

From letter #18
When I feel the weather changing, humidity breathing, aching clouds, my body responds, my belly inflames, my ass feels everything it rubs against, almost air seems a part of me, trembling in the anxiety my lungs; the rain pours, I forget everything.

From letter #18
I saw girls walking in the park... my eyes followed them... my insolent mind trying to figure something about them... breathing them was easier... I fell that sunny day, I broke an ankle in three places, that hurt; the doctor, a man in his forties, darted at my crotch with devilish eyes. I was later treated for irritable bowel syndrome, I don’t want men staring at me, I am caged by their stares, caged!

From letter #18
The aches of a woman’s body are felt by so few men.

From letter #18
Everything in this world speaks a different word to Bobbie, everything.

From letter #18
No, a sex change wouldn’t do, I am a woman that loves women, I am not a man, I am not a man, I don’t want to be a man, it hurts to just think that what I feel might be masculine, it hurts so much.
(Here tears were lustrously illustrated.)

After continuous indifference, Shangra utters, “This isn’t a woman, this isn’t anyone yet, this soul has a long journey to curry favor from the world, she doesn’t kindle hearts with these trite one dimensional confessions, I mean Augustine’s confessions were a little more surprising and original, it just doesn’t do it for me; she is all alone.”

“I didn’t think to say it but that is what I think too, precisely that, and yet Lauren is afraid to read them or doesn’t read them for some strange reason and yet she hasn’t thrown them away. Why?”

“Maybe it’s the incomprehensible attention that she feels that she is receiving, maybe she is subconsciously aware that this is just a little heart thinking lollypop emotions, and so we must assume, that she is complimented by the attention but feels that if she acknowledges it by reading the letters, that she will realize how shallow they are, and so the admirer becomes an insult to the one that is being worshiped.”

“You speak truths there Shangra, that is it, the fan is not picturesque enough, there isn’t any passion there, there isn’t any guilt, there isn’t any anxiety, gay Barbie Doll could have written those letters and not assaulted the ears of Christian fanatics.”

Antoinette leaned her head into Shangra’s shoulder, and Shangra, turned her physical body essence, and gave Antoinette a powerful French kiss! Antoinette did not necessarily respond but she didn’t not respond either.

Shangra got up and said, “well I better go.” Seeing Antoinette perplexed and asking, “Why did you do that?” “That kiss wasn’t a kiss, it wasn’t even nasty, there is nothing between you and I, I kissed you because you were feeling guilty about being in this bedroom with me, as if you were betraying Lauren; I just kissed you to eliminate any romantic pretenses that weren’t there, just the same way that Bobbies letters eliminate true love in any genuine heart. Just throw those stupid letters and petty fantasies out to the trash. I will always be your kind friend Shangra. That’s enough, no need for foolish guilt.”

After Shangra left, Antoinette sat by the bed with the letters, “I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t feel anything, there was nothing there, and I was sort of toying coyness and acting as if something was there, how silly I must have seemed to Shangra, she wasn’t afraid to face it, she wasn’t afraid that there was nothing lesbian-love between us, what a magnificent confrontation to expose me to some basic fact.”

She collected all the letters and used them to light the fireplace.

When Lauren got home she noted, “I burnt all of Bobbies letters.” Lauren didn’t pause her activity of washing dishes, “That’s good I knew they bothered you, so that’s good you did that.”

“You are so arrogant, I did it for you, I did it so your fan would never die assaulted by her own pettiness.”

Lauren “Whatever, you needed an excuse I am sure of that, you just wanted to do it, you did it, I am ok with it.”

They didn’t speak the rest of the night, though Antoinette lit some incense which they helplessly breathed together.

The Meek Shall Have More Children

2006-08-31T17:25:00.000-07:00

I was at café where I document some of the happenings of the girls, the orange juice was from bad oranges, bitter, acidic, cold, you should not drink orange juice that is bitter, acidic and cold. You go to a café, you pay for the juice so you feel like you have to drink it, and I did. This is just one of the silent ways by which the dollar controls your life.

Anyway, Lauren walked in, surely an accident, but I can’t take any chances, in my next book I am going to make sure that I live in a different city from my main characters that way I can remain objective and not emotionally involved. In this case, Lauren must still remember the little incident at the bar where I scratched that woman’s lips with a fork, frankly I had forgotten about it, so many things have happened on top of that that it almost doesn’t exist anymore. But the point is that I managed to get out of the café without Lauren noticing, though part of me wanted to stay and just have a chat with her, but no, she is so busy trying to solve cases she might just impound me. I left.

Now here, at a less comfortable café, where the waiters are too happy to serve me and I find it difficult to believe, where I am near the door and a bone bruising cold is endemic to the place, I come to continue about the girls. There have been some petty details which I have not documented, and so I will try to bring you up to date a little.

Loki and Pacho were now not the only cats in the house, there were now four cats, that’s right I said four felines two males and two females. This had changed the house frenetically; Loki was always on kill mode, and Pacho was always on frightened runaway mode. Loki did not ask himself philosophical questions like, “am I my brother’s killer?” This lack of incertitude allowed him to be wholly controlled by a raw interest, in getting the girls by eliminating the competition. Loki wasn’t familiar with the concept that you could talk your way into female preference, he insisted that killing Pacho would eliminate his only competitor, and thus he would be a successful progenitor of his species. Further Loki wasn’t aware that researches had discovered that dominant males live shorter lives, apparently the stress of being on the alert and on the attack, kills longevity. Loki didn’t know that, see Loki didn’t even know what ignorance was, so much so that he didn’t know that L and A had had the females neutered. And so nothing he did now was going to ensure the success of him, you could be less afraid for his species. Any observer would have to then conclude that Loki wanted the girls just for pleasure, or maybe Loki really just got a bigger kick out of being an aggressor cat, after all that was what he actually did most of the time.

Now then, one day Antoinette is sitting on the couch reading, something to do with fantasy, you know the genre, those books in which people are half gods with human perversions and animal instincts, there are a more princesses and kings and lords and dwarfs than normal people, and everyone is a controversial zygote that has more eternal lives and sexual fantasies than empire. I don’t know why Antoinette reads those books, maybe it is because they are so free of boundaries, there isn’t any dimension or team spirit that fantasy characters can not explore, except of course for emotion, emotion never shows up in fiction or fantasy.

She is reading, when suddenly Sara, a cat that Lauren had found begging for love, and only love, Lauren recalls the pet store, she was an older cat, maybe six months old, no one was going to adopt her, she was skinny and homely then, she looked up at Lauren with her snow gray harassing sensitivity, she wasn’t saying please, she was saying “get me out of here, I am going crazy in this cage, I don’t want to be here anymore, get me out of here.” There wasn’t a “please take pity for me, I am hungry, help me.” None of that, instead, “you will take me home.” Now that scrawny cat, had grown into a gorgeous snow leopard, completely indifferent and independent, once in the house, she negated any patronizing love, she didn’t feel that Lauren and Antoinette deserved any particular attention instead she offered to leave them alone if they left her alone.

Sara was laying on the couch next to Antoinette when a sound and movement disturbed her reading, she took notice, and before her was a mother and a newborn, who would soon, because of her impetuous nature, be given the name Lolita. The beautiful irony is that the father isn’t Loki the aggressor cat, but rather the meek and the scared Pacho. Which only proves the biblical theorem: “the meek shall inherit the earth.” And even for more precious irony Lauren and Antoinette had become very protective and tender with the frightened Pacho; by any count the loser was Loki yet he felt in control.

Without discussing the practicality or not of a meek controlled earth, I should tell you that when Lauren and Antoinette had Loki neutered they had nightmares about it, they felt like they were betraying him, and when he got home all less of a male, Antoinette fell into anguished tears. And now that they had a full blown war in their home territory because Lola had given rise to cat aggressions with her cat sexuality, now they wished they had neutered Pacho before Lola’s conception; raising the specter of sensibility into insensitivity.

What they had done was kill the eternity of Loki, they had killed his ability to express himself through a continuum of birth and rebirth, his existence had been punctured, he had been stopped! He was a cat that had been given an immortality suicide pill, he would not reproduce, he would not go on, he would cease to express himself. How long could he live, fifteen years, max it out, regardless of the sum, he was doomed, he was a man on the golden gate bridge committing suicide, he had already jumped, the fall would take fifteen years, the decision had not been his; contextually Lauren and Antoinette had taken a psychotic count of the world cat population, their income, the size of the house they could afford and they decided to spay Loki. This is just one of the silent ways by which the dollar controls your life.

Metal Concussions

2006-08-31T17:24:00.000-07:00

Sadly by happenstance, I can’t imagine it any other way, my café house trance to seduce the biography out of Lauren and Antoinette, those two coquettes of mine, though when I say coquettes I don’t mean to say that they are women that have lost the ability to love, I mean it in the sense that they are so profoundly in my life and make it so wonderful indeed, and yet I don’t think we will ever vacation together, and yet here I am again interrupted.

“Hello Mister.”

I look up it is Lauren again!

“Do you mind if I join you for coffee?”

I did not consider the proposition valid, Lauren was out to get me, I didn’t pause to suppose that the universe had explained to her how complicated our mutual entanglements were.

“I am sorry I am preoccupied at this time with my own affairs, and frankly I have plenty of friends I don’t know how I could possibly make the time for one more.”

In her business she was used to this sort of rejection, she placed her hands on her waist so that I could see her detective’s badge.

“You remind me of someone, someone I happened upon at Buffalo Joes.”

She stopped cold there, she waited for my reaction, a slight movement of my eyes this or that way, or even holding them focused would tell her everything she wanted to know. I opted to act confused, cops like people that get nervous around them, it gives them an inkling sense of control and suspect honesty instead of a hardened criminal.

Looking down at my notes, “Lady even the bar’s name doesn’t sound like a place that caters to me, I think you are looking for someone else, but don’t worry anyone can mistakenly identify strangers.”

“Only I have been trained a little better, when I see someone I am always sizing them up, height, color of eyes, shoes, even how they tie their laces, it doesn’t take much.”

My amygdala intuitively withdrew the shoes more underneath the table, she took notice of the sly action.”

Why don’t you come over to the precinct, we have coffee and even orange juice, what you had at the other coffee shop, we could then chat and you can then explain to me why you don’t like Buffalo Joes, they have good Martini’s or don’t they?”

My amygdala projected my bodily frame upwards darting towards her shoulders my arms disrupted her balanced and launched her against the coffee bar, where her head banged into silence. I dashed out the door, people were screaming, I saw everyone with an unforgettable clarity, an old lady finishing her eggs took the time to wipe yoke from her thinning lips; the waitress moved to take action but the stumps that held her thighs were glued to the earth’s mantle, movement for her was an unused radicalism only manifested through her engorging eyes and her rhinoceros nostrils; the cook, a charming alcoholic came out but he wasn’t going to get involved, every time he tried to do something the world punished him, his actions had been predisposed for cancellation, he limited himself to “what is going on here!” and “hey old man what…” I didn’t stay to hear the end of that.

In my mind’s eye was Lauren, stranded against the foot rail of the coffee bar, a head injury can mean so many things, “Should I have gone to the police station with her?” I could have continued to write from jail, no, a head injury could put her in a coma, could cause her amnesia, there was no telling what I had done, I didn’t want to do it, she pushed me to do it, I was only reacting to her persistent pushing-shoving at me. Damn it I threw away all the clothes that I was wearing the night of the incident Joes, except the shoes, they were so comfortable, it takes so long to wear shoes out to that level of comfort, where you can’t feel them any more than your feet, perfect shoes, besides that they were good for running away and here I had yet escaped twice under their guidance.

When I got to my apartment, a Spartan retreat historically allied to the stoics, few comforts, it could be abandoned at any time, I credit myself with the same inability to fall in love as suffered by a coquette, I can live on the surface of the earth unlike that waitress I am not tied to the earth’s mantle.

I paid a years rent and cancelled all the services, I didn’t want to make it obvious I was leaving, I went to small fishing village not too far away, from such safety zone my mind’s eye would continue to scan the lives of our beloveds Antoinette and Lauren.

Habakkuk and Antoinette visit Lauren at the hospital. Lauren is mute about her situation, she suffered a concussion with some memory loss, she forgot why she went to the café, who she was there to see and who pushed her. The doctors assured her she would recover this part of her memory, funny it seemed nothing else was affected.

Captain Ogle brought in the waitress, the old lady and the cook to try to refresh Lauren’s mind, nothing.

The doctor assured them all that minor concussions rarely caused permanent memory loss, some day Lauren would remember me. Part of me was happy to hear that, part of me was disturbed by it.

Habakkuk and Antoinette kept a vigilant silence; Habakkuk whose gift for prophecy continued even as his having slept with a whore was supposed to have nullified it, was having a prophecy arrive into his third eye, he gently spoke it.

“A new and tall tower of Babel will be erected, it will look like a Chinese building with many roofs one atop the other, it will be made of metal glistening with shades of copper flavors giving rise to the second Chalcolithic age; this copper tower will have red stringing flags, small windows, floor after floor will cater to hoards of partying foreigners, a storm will yield its copper utterances, the sky will darken for days, a sight to witness. I prophecy.”

Antoinette, who now knew Habakkuk well, was not surprised by the prophecy, she touched his hand, and said, “It will be so.” He replied, “yes.” They returned to silence.

Another day, Danny visited Lauren.

She was asleep, he didn’t want to awaken her, he whispered into her ear as he prepared to leave. “The stranger left some notes I picked them up before anyone noticed, you will want to read them.” He kissed her adios.

The first few days in any fishing village are soothing to the mind, though the fisheries have a way of infesting the air that will eventually be noticed, and the tension from all of those mass bludgeoned to death fish carcasses reminds one of the cruelty of survival; you still eat the salmon in that garlic cream sauce with potato puree, the fish are dead already, gone, what can you do but help them in their involuntary transmutation into human flesh and bone.

“I left some notes there, I could be a dead fish too.”

Another Crime

2006-08-31T17:23:00.001-07:00

The night rapaciously discovered him, the moon disguising his leather jacket with demarcating shimmering, he ushered himself through the alleys of wet subdued rotting perfumes, everything had been eaten already, everything had been used up, he kept his hands in his pockets, deprived from touching anything, ulcers harboring notions of greatness held a stomach convention. He paused at the end of the road, a huge brick wall rose before him, security wired mesh everywhere violated, he was outside of any prison of convention, outside of any tributary custom; his eyes looked up, there was a red light coming from a vagrant window, he ascended the slippery fire escape. Occasionally sensing unhinging statements from creaking metal, the rain long subsided, the night persistent, the rusted door offered an escape.

He pulled the handle exerting force with his thumb but the handle refused to augment accessibility, a door resisting, then a bell became obvious, he pushed it, the sound was a harsh dull bell, it clung, clung to ear drum, the door was partially released through some unlocking machination of mechanic wrenching, he helped himself in, a set of cement stairs waited further ascension, up, up, he went.

At the top of the stairs lacking all coziness a mostly empty room welcomed him, a woman entered his presence, she was well oiled in liquor and rivaled any sanctity of horrors, her face was a mask long worn and pressed into her flesh, rivets of makeup helped to obfuscate complete cruelty towards any observer, but her character trounced the success of any gentleness. “Here you must keep track of your insanity.” And so she smiled with her eyes tossing themselves into a howdy air. “What do you mean?” Said the stranger, his eyes searching the corners blathering rounded darkness. “We aim to please your perversions Mister, careful here then, we aim to harvest them, and suckle their muted nature, we thrive financially on that.”

He hadn’t expected to end up here tonight, he went for a walk to lose himself, but the dead ends kept an unwanted true north. “Falsify your want all you want, we’ll keep it alive here for you.” She lurched towards him bouncing her hands on his shoulders, her reddish curly hair anointing him her territory. “We can go in my room,” She began to undo his belt, she pulled him closer grabbing his crotch, “in my room your jewels my lips will tender,” she pulled him her way, “oh drop that face of confused doom, you’re not here by accident, hard to climb all those stairs and follow all the loose scents without raw intent.” He mutters. “I think I better go.”

With these words another came in the room, she was a tall lusty husky beauty, dressed in a black coat that was revealing ruby lingerie uncovering a figure that was busting out oozing creamy dreams, her lipstick well placed, her makeup could have used a touch up, her long black hair complimented her satin black flesh, her eyes large a robustly embracing everything man around her, “I think he is here for me Camille, why don’t you let him be, I am willing to take care of this one and pay for it with my pleasure.” The hag took immediate insult and pushed her bound lover towards the wall, and arch her hands behind him to protect him from the leaching Diva thoughts. “I bare him my all, therefore he is well take care off, mind your hunting someplace else.”

But he was not so sure, he kept his eyes on Diva, her real name, he kept on staring, her amazing flush of straightened black hair, oiled mystic her flesh crawled within him, confusing the old hag with his erection, “I think I better go.” “Go, but go where to her, Diva is an usurper of men, she will suck you dry of your manhood, she doesn’t want to offer you her womanhood, she is creepy beast, her breast poison milk, her cunt a trap, a rabbit trap.” She pressed herself further into him, he pushed her off, she fell onto the concrete floor.” He was startled and expected her to get up but she just lay there, her eyes spitting sapphires, her dress all over hiding her intent. Diva came up to him, she placed her long hands on his neck, embraced him while her fully ripened lips kissed him and buried his breath in her. He felt all the oily scents perfume him into disrepair, he felt her waist, she opened her breast unto him, gorgeous sumptuousness, her nipples brazenly alive, peeking into the thick air, his hands caressing and saucing sentiment from them, her face in ecstasy, his breathing hers, her eyes unto his, talking sermons of illusions, without being within her, flushed creaming into her palms, his fingers in her lips, soaking libertine entrances, she pushing herself more into his hands, thrusting spasms quivering both, her hand to her lips, his lips to her breathing breast, tasting the salt of their sin.

“There he is, Coyle, there he is.” Camille’s fiery fingers pointing and startling the two lovers, he pushed me so,” she pushed a barrel that rushed to brake against a wall, “he pushed me so, ha, but now Coyle is going to show you that you don’t push a lady around, show him Coyle!” Coyle was a tall fat boy of plenty mass but few muscle protrusions, still an overwhelming fellow against an unthinking and inhibited man, a man that would measure his punch, against the bully Coyle.

The trouncing lovers separate, Coyle reaches for hand to hand combat, we now realize that he is capable of grunt uttering but not of common speech, a fist sort of lands on the face, sort of lands on the stomach, but lover escapes towards the door, he dashes through the wet stairs, his body partially covered by his undone clothing, he is now on adrenalin, mounting invisible horses, escaping over genuine obstacles, his lust crushed ashes, he is escaping from the fire.

A whistle blows, another whistle blows, a third whistle blows, a chase chain has been fused, three men in pursuit of one that got too close to his perversions, he manages to climb a roof, he makes it through to another, the three chasing bullies on him, one calls out, “you fuck with our women you have to pay asshole!” The escapee ponders for a second, “pay, is it about money,” he has none in his pocket, he quickly concludes this exasperatingly defined into a corner. “We are going to bruise your skull Mr.” Another utters, obviously not fat boy, “you touched Diva, you touched her, you’re not suppose to touch Diva, he touched Diva!” a fist went up in the air.

Our pervert is cornered, the fists start rolling through his face, never quenched, a brick wall lends the bullies moral support, blood splutters happening color damped by his expression, his vertebrate refuses to compliment the erectness of the stiff wall, “you’re a dead man, you’re a dead man.” One pokes his finger though his skull, the limp body held tightly to its earth mother, the lungs collapsed under the red inundation, silence.

Fat boy pulls the leather jacket off, tries it on, “doesn’t fit me.” Throws it to his buddy, “hey thanks man fits me perfectly,” kicking a dead body, “you fuck Diva you gotta pay.”

Easy Solution Found By Walking On Water

2006-08-31T17:23:00.000-07:00

Lauren was looking over the photographs, Danny adding his two bits, “They smashed his skull but good, cracks and even dug a hole the size of a thumb, the size of a large thumb, these thugs hadn’t a clue about human life.” Lauren searching Danny’s eyes, “Is there any point in going to the crime site? We are never going to find them, they obviously did not know him, neither did he know them, he was an engineer walking away the dreary nature of his job, there is no connection to any sensible crime here, he walked into his death Danny.” Danny checked the room to see if anyone was listening, “Lauren we have to try to find out why he was killed, that is our job, you can not arrive at a conclusion without doing an investigation.” Lauren with tears in her eyes yet sternly whispering, “Investigating is what we do, it is what we do all the time here, but finding criminals or true causes, that is not what we do here. Here we pacify the public, we pacify the politicians, though they know that we pacify them and want to be pacified, that is what they pay us to do here Danny, to help assist the system is convincing the general public that the world is really a lot nicer and quieter than it is; only problem is it is falling apart from every angle, there is little holding this semblance of a civilization together, people are digging holes through people’s skulls with their thumbs Danny, with their thumbs, and generally sane people do this, we are just the lollypop for the citizen that doesn’t want to pay homage to this reality so they pay us instead.”

At that point a now familiar face poked through, “Hello officers of the law, have you made the city safer for me today.” And with that came the general air of jolly perdition that always arrived with Habakkuk. Danny moved his head in the negative and ousted himself from the scenery. Lauren placed her palm to her forehead trying to close the shutter on her third eye. Habakkuk grabbed her palm, rubbed it between his hands, made it a little hotter than the cold within, and sat on her desk, noticing with an unspecified mask, the photos of a man dead. Without a wince, “How about I take you to lunch?” Lauren’s responsible and worried mind hesitated but Lauren’s heart could not allow Habakkuk being refused, she modestly said, “ok.”

Habakkuk suggested all kinds of exotic places, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Indian, Lauren disgracefully said, “I don’t want to have a relationship with what I eat right now I need something that doesn’t need my attention.” And she pointed to the “Chicken Palace” where they duly went to have a breast of chicken sandwich, and much to his credit the chicken kept quiet.

“It’s just that everything is going wrong, nothing is getting fixed the stuff is getting weirder, and I just can’t keep up.” Habakkuk, “remember I predicted that there would be an earthquake, there was an earthquake in Iran in the city of Bam, 40 thousand dead! I lived there once long ago, that’s probably why I felt it coming.” “Hey, hey stop it, anyone can predict an earthquake there are thousands of earthquakes all the time, some devastating some not, but forget it.” Habakkuk looked at his chicken sandwich, looked at Lauren, moved his eyes to the right, then to the left, then centered them again, and took a bite of his chicken.

They ate quietly for a while and then Habakkuk spoke again.

“Its like this, the universe is made up of energy units that are called ergio because of their tiny size and ephemeral nature much like the Latin language which is very much here but you can’t really see it and you don’t even have to learn it, but it is everywhere. These ergio energy units are what hold the background energy that comprises the sentient universe, you and I are possessed by it, those people over there, and those people over there, they all have it and they all share it, voluntarily or involuntarily the ergio energy is distributed and redistributed by human contact, a personal aura is made up of ergio units, and these units dissipate the type of feelings that generate a community and ultimately a society.” He pauses, eats a French fry, “did you get that, are you listening to me!”

She drops her lower lip to the right and raises her upper lip to the left displaying her Dracula self, “I always listen to you, I know I should listen to you, and don’t take this personally but I don’t understand what all your wisdom has contributed to my life, except maybe my lover, which now seems substantial, but you come off with this wild theories which I cant land on my desk or in my head,” her hands flustering her hair, “and yet I keep listening, do tell me.”

Habakkuk not even pausing to reflect on the rebuffing comments, “The world is going through schism, there is some kind of psychosomatic event happening to the points of space, metric tensors which govern our geometry and we are feeling it, and are manifesting it with conglomerate violence and political dysentery. I am not sure why it is happening but I see the signs. Before the French revolution could truly concretize its republican ideals we had Napoleon, you can not have republican ideals without first shitting all that is Emperor to its fullest. And before democracy you had dictatorships, the first and second world wars were predominantly the last cry of fascism, something that could have ended its final death throw with the first world war but since it didn’t finish very right, then inevitably it had to continue, the second world war put an end to the first world war, ending any preconceptions of militant rule as the standard for nations. So the first cycle kills monarchy and the second its logical inheritors the fascist dictators.”

“And how do you explain communism, the rise of China and the Soviet Union, or were they not dictators?”

“Both were the same ideologies, which were the prediction of the socialist and communist philosophers, but they arrived before their time, that is the world wasn’t ready for communism, communism is a movement that must be inherent within the psychology of the entire world, we have never been there, the young communist idealist of 20’s and 30’s were nomads, jubilant children, scared and angry, pathologically perfect criminals bent on saving humanity so as to save themselves, so they ushered in communism against the will of the very people that it was suppose to liberate. By brute force they thought to make everyone like them, it was inevitable that there would be a correction, I predicted it in another time but no matter, point is that the correction is done, communism never was, and is now back to sleep until a different world order is called upon which will follow the logical evolution of economic history.”

“Jesus what are you saying.”

“I am saying that just as Napoleon had to prefigure on the death of monarchies like him, you have Bush the president of The United States. He prefigures in the end of capitalism, I am prophesying though with all the evidence it can hardly be that anymore, but Lauren, your world is close to ending, capitalism has reached its apostasies, it has perfected itself and when things perfect themselves they cease to be, like the Roman Empire, like the Greeks, all reaching perfections caved in upon themselves, no one has to destroy them, they destroy themselves through the confectionary of their ideas.”

Lauren head was dizzying. Habakkuk wasn’t stopping.

There are the key events of history, you have to watch them, Gandhi peacefully ends empire, The British lose the Suez Canal, Martin Luther ends segregation, Botha and Mandela end Apartheid, Gorbachev ends the communist experiment. And when Gorbachev ended the experiment he left America without an enemy, even your president Nixon said that America feared being without an Opponent like the USSR. The cold war world was well divided and the powers waged their political wars mostly to keep the rest of the world watching, but then came Gorbachev, a man that boldly did what Botha did, end the system that had harbored, for them, only good will, and America was left in an exclusive club of one. More prescient Lauren, South Africa and the USSR and Indian went through bloodless political revolutions. This foretells of a new world order, but the old world that was comprised by the cold war era ought to rise like Napoleonic savagery to retain old world standards.”

“In such a club you have to find a reason for being, you can draw up ideals but the fact is that wars have always defined greatness, that is the world we have lived in, that is the war that people like Gorbachev and Gandhi point to end. America has lived its glory and now must wane, a man who blindly believes in its staying power is at the helm, he cant see anything else. That too is important, that he be blind like Napoleon was blind, for him there was only France and the French and he did the most damage to both.”

“This is magnificent, and it truly is interesting, but what does it have to do with me, sorry I don’t live much beyond myself, I haven’t lived a few centuries like you, this is my first life, am not saying I don’t like it here but I probably will not come back, so what does this have to do with me and my job of solving crimes.”

On that note they got up and walked through a park.

“We are just nobodies we walk through here but the energies that are harvested as a community are what control us, we may wish to be individuals but that is most positively what we are not and what where we will never thrive. The herd is humanity, everyone is at about the same level, more or less, plus or minus a few things and you can put the peoples of the world in the same box. They don’t know it because they don’t want to know it but the world is on lock step, it is the world today that is the world all over. The social fabric and the forces of capitalism are seeing the beginning of their end, and so they will unite so that end might not come, but it will come. I have prophesied.”

He pauses, picks ups some blades of grass and plays them on his fingers.

“It is the changing ergio energies that are causing malice throughout your city, no one knows where it will end, no one knows where it is going, but America without the Soviet Union can not exist because they ruled as one.” I have prophesied.

“Why do you always have to talk like that it is so obnoxious.”

“It is very difficult not to be obnoxious when you are a prophet. But I have a proposal for you, if you see me walk on water will you believe me?”

Taken aback, “Will there be nothing underneath your feet?”

“nothing”

“will the water be deep?”

“very deep”

“you are not going to be wearing any rubber shoes or anything like that?”

“nope none of that.”

“how are you going to do it then?”

“Just like I told you, just walk right on it, just for you?”

“Can Antoinette watch too?”

“Yes indeed the Dame can watch too.”

“why are you doing this.”

“Cause I like you.”

“You don’t have to walk on water to prove that.”

“Cause I want you to quit your job and go some place and be happy with your girl.”

Lauren enjoys that moment intensely, closes her arms around Habakkuk and says, when then?”

“I have to go practice, give me three weeks that should do me ok.”
“Three weeks! You have walked across the centuries and it takes you three weeks to prepare for a walk on water. Well alright, I suppose is worth the wait.”

She turned away from her friend, laughing within, happy.

Habakkuk kept watch on her till she blended with the crowd. He too felt good inside, he wanted Antoinette and Lauren to be truly happy, he thought he would walk on water for that.

At home preparing to walk on water, Habakkuk decided to pull the Tarot card on himself, he did the shuffle, he touched the cards, he felt them, he let his ergio energy touch them and reflect, and then he pulled one, out came the Tarot: “Disillusion.”

“Your ability to dream and to fantasize allow you to create false worlds and grandiose expectations which can only lead to disillusion.”

Habakkuk lost some spirits there, but then felt a little better as he read the final part, “never the less your fatalistic optimism and your false certitude have the ability to charm and make others happy.” And that was all he needed to know he was on the right track.

How To Walk On Water

2006-08-31T17:21:00.000-07:00

Lauren was at the office, the papers that I left behind at the café were strewn throughout her desk. She was shocked, it was a brief on her life, on Antoinette’s on Habakkuk from all dimensions, she read about Habakkuk being from the 12 century BC, she read about Antoinette the former software company executive, she read about how the author of those papers thought he had little to like in Lauren, “she doesn’t have that emotional abandon that I prefer in a person, now Antoinette there is a woman that never takes her own pulse…” whatever the things meant, the notes were insufficient to draw a map of the person that wrote them it was a hapless random sampling which lead to no other conclusion than the morose feeling of being stalk by an insightful man with idle time in his hands.

Lauren felt dizzy, she almost fainted, her body felt naked, she closed her palms between her legs and closed her eyes for a second, Danny harped her back to life, “it’s the dead man’s pangs.” “Oh hush.” “You’ve seen hundreds of deaths Lauren what is wrong here!” Maybe Danny was just feisty because he too was suffering the same effects but he couldn’t take Lauren’s liberties to manifest them, instead he had to suffer the frustration of seeing Lauren express them and this did irk him some. He had to calm her down, he had to get her to say, “everything is ok, moving forward moving through.” As she was in the habit of saying, so he could be ok and remain in his unmolested environmental therapy.

Only she didn’t pep up, she didn’t rise to rescue the moment, she was precipitously throwing herself into her job dissatisfaction. Her hands holding her head up by the chin, “one more dead man, one more dead man, it rhymes, maybe what we are seeing is the composition of a living rhyme, one more dead man, the letters are human bodies, the breath of spaces our lack of comprehension, chasing solutions, the rhythm blooming with bloodied piano fingers.”

Danny composed himself alone, and whistle a topical British war hymn, and as he went Lauren did not utter a smile, he went, for the first time in all their years working side by side, for the first time they had not spoken, the connection was broken. Lauren saw the phone, pictured Antoinette at the other end comforting her, then she lapsed back into her confusion. She looked at all the insolvent crime files on her desk, the incessant accumulation of threads tying only incongruities, her listening membranes capturing the hustling machismo of the precinct, the policeman as doorman, just letting the crime wave have an audience, allowing for the only hearing a criminal might suspect for empathy, their worlds coalesced, Lauren had wanted to contribute something to the world, something redeeming and worthy but now she felt she was a part of a criminal system, not of preventing crime, but of being a critical axis of the crime network, the whole thing was a collage, a puzzle kept together by criminal and justice practitioners, each bidding their task to keep the system whole, keep the equilibrium, balance the cop with the murderer, the punishment with the crime, the law rose from the foundations of crime.

Lauren now didn’t know what she had done with her life, what she was, she lost her senses as a detective, her well define world had become susceptible to doubt, the strange Habakkuk, her lover Antoinette, brought up in a world where the definition of relationships were so different from her desires, brought up in a world where she could only feel guilty about being her self meanwhile her cop self fought for the righteousness of that world.

What would she do now? She wasn’t solving cases, she wasn’t even close to understanding how and why events were unfolding and piling on top of her desk. What could she do, she didn’t know any other job, nothing had ever really interested her, now what? The captain was sure to get rid of her, nice as Ogle was, he loved her for her results and would fall out love with her as soon as a self made upstart would trounce along. She was a just a position for the captain, the role of chief detective for homicide was her, the role was dependant on results, her years of results would not aggregate any loyalty, every year she had to reinvent results, she wasn’t in insurance sales, where each customer added to the retirement plan, it was instead a new case and a new case and another new case, senseless violence needed to be made explicable, that was her job, that was what she did, that was not who she was. And now, perhaps a little late in life, now she knew it.

Back at her abode a whole other aspect of her life was unfolding. Antoinette was resting her body on the arm of the couch, listening to Habakkuk explain that he was going to walk on water. Lauren had managed to remain skeptical and whimsical about it, but Antoinette was instead marvelously supportive, she was not doubting that Habakkuk could walk on water, she just wanted to know how he was going to do it. And so with her listening Habakkuk rendered the event:

“It is very simple there is never a shortage of energy in the universe because the universe is nothing but pure energy all over. There is fast energy, slow energy, energy that is dying and energy that is energizing, energy that just seems to go on for eternity, and all that energy is embodied in something so rudimentary as a simple 100 watt light bulb with gushes out a billion-billion photons or in the vacuum we see as empty space where there may or may not be a half a photon, there is energy everywhere and my trick is that the energy…”

The conversation was paused by a ring at the door. It was Otto and Trocin, I don’t use their Fatherly nomenclature because being they here with Habakkuk and now dear friends of Antoinette and Lauren and the cats, it was obvious we were not talking to the church.

The standard greetings were shared, Antoinette much delighted by their appearance. “Oh you have come at a most opportune time, Habakkuk is about to tell us how he is going to walk on water.” Trocin languished on that a bit, tilting his head a little to try to add more weight to the left side of his brain, Otto jumped right on in. “Why Jesus of Nazareth walked on water, I suppose any one could as he was the embodiment in flesh and blood of the divine principle and he died as a man, therefore it seems logical that any other faithful creature of god ought to be able to walk on water.”

Trocin jumped in, “You are supposing that because Jesus was born a man so as to relinquish us of our sins, that his traits as savior would amount to traits that any man can possess, so he could turn water into wine, he could perform miracles, he could separate the waters of the red sea, these acts are holy and divine in origin and they can only be performed by an angel, a god or a holy spirit, but don’t imagine that your conjecturing correctly that Jesus was a man of normal attributes, he was not such.”

Otto, who was always subservient to the intellectual Trocin, silently thought in the back of his head, “Peter walked on the sea of Galilee to reach Jesus..” yet he refrained from mentioning it because as Peter showed lack of faith he sunk and Jesus had to rush to his aid thus becoming the worlds first lifeguard on top of all his other number one acts. Otto would argue that Peter sinking proves his point as Jesus confirmed by saying, “Peter you have so little faith.”

Habakkuk intercepted. “One does not need to be a man of faith to walk on water, to walk on water one must comprehend the energies of the universe and their flow, it is not about holiness, it is about the energy that keeps you going on about Christ which has less to do with faith and more to do with highly energized realities of the universe. Jesus would have had to use these energies to walk on the sea of Galilee, to separate the red sea, and to turn the water into wine; even to suffer martyrdom, tons of energies harnessed through his palms and third eye, were and must have been needed.”

Antoinette, “Through his palms?”

“Yes, the palms are the point concentrator where by all our sentient energies pulsate in and out of the body, the third eye allows for a localize rendering of the ergio units within the body, Jesus had miracle healing hands; when he was crucified the stigmata reflected the severing of his ability to feel and harness the miraculous ergios of our cosmic, he was severed intentionally. The stigmata is an extrication from our ability to alter ergio flows within ourselves and our surroundings. The Romans may not have been aware of this as they were grunting-materialists but they would have sensed it in some unknown way and so acted to undo the divine palms by symbolically nailing the stigmata.”

Trocin uttered, “ergio?”

The door bell rang yet again. It was no other that lively Shangra asking if Antoinette was going to the spa, to which she promptly replied, “the conversation here is too juicy lets stay and hear it, our bodies can withstand one day without therapeutic relaxation.” Shangra was not that thrill about it, she wanted to faint into the simple fragrances of mud baths, and when Antoinette noted that the conversation was about walking on water, it became clearer that she wasn’t that interested, “walking on water sounds like a waste of time, I will stay a listen for a bit but I will probably go soon and try to lower that pile of laundry I have at home.” The truth was that Shangra was a rock of a personality, she wouldn’t accept any new ideas or philosophies, she was complete, this was not to say that she was close minded, she was just in no need to explore a game where the results would not matter until the game was over. She would be there to review the results, that would be good enough for her. This was her theory about political campaigns too, she waited out the results, she didn’t fuzz about the race, she preferred to travel from results to results rather than deal with the cumbersome defining details.

As they returned to the living room, on the way picking up delicious morsels of French cheeses and more red wine, it was a jolly invitation to extent the evening indefinitely, but as they returned Habakkuk was finishing the grinding explanation of what ergio meant and how these units spread themselves and were amassed by objects and things, making everything in the universe really nothing more than a spectrum of energy which could manifest itself as light, matter or even gravity.

Otto, “So you are saying that spectrum interactions seed the universe with ergio units which as they smash, amass and change velocity based on interactions or not, comprise the base unit of everything that the dynamic energy quotient of any given thing is, and that determines how within the universe any given thing is; and presumably we humans have a low energy quotient and are in fact, according to you, a sort of sewer energy sipping out of high energy physics, this because the universe lives mostly off of higher interactions and the rarity of life is basically the result of the obvious youth of our universe, and so its lack of age makes rare its content of sewer energy such as humans.”

While the other members of the group were looking on in splendid wonder, Habakkuk replied while duly clapping.

“Precisely Otto, you have it on the mark, the universe shouldn’t really like us, we are as it might be quite obvious, (bristling sounds through the room, “aha”) the lowest possible energy holdout in the universe, hence the reason why we develop stomachs, eating is a futile last gasp attempt at reversing entropy; we develop brains and more logically consciousness as a way to escape our incessant energy perdition. The realization that we are alive, “I think therefore I am” is a realization that we are suffering a lowering of ergio status within the confines of the cosmic. A neutrino doesn’t have to feed itself and it doesn’t have to live the examined life, but we do; we have to figure out how to prevent ourselves from going over the cascading abyss into nothingness. We grew mind, an incredibly energy light device, to figure a manual solution to what will inevitably be a problem for a graying universe, that as it ages all those quarks, all those neutrinos, all those photons will have to face our peril, as they cool, as they reach lower energy levels they will have to face an organic existence, and when they face that they will realize that they have slowed down and become trapped in the puddle of existence; a recognition made possible by the gruesome depiction of their time line speeding up, they begin to age and to notice distance, they can now only live in four dimensions where there are ten, (hence the mathematics) in the organic everything becomes an obstacle for them, for them and us the universe now is not “all” there, instead they and us are locked in localities of dimensional space which consume us by any measure movement, so much that we need to breath.”

He pauses, almost sweating from how fast he was expounding his philosophy. “And the most terrible part of it, the most constraining part of it all is that a neutrino can pass through the essence of billions upon billions of masses but we can’t even go through one, thus rises our need to feel and love, our need to touch some one else is a condition comprised of our indelible right to crash into things. There thus rises our urge to feel that we are still feeling and passing through a billion upon billion of entities, because to feel all the universe is how we may feel alive, but organically alive we instead succumb to a linearity now comprise of time, comprised of stomachs, comprised of a history, comprised of energy stagnation, we are withering because we are now allergic to radioactivity, and in that withering we find the reason to find an energyless god, an entity that doesn’t depend on the physics or our universe for its existence, we reach for the universal supra-consciousness, which reaches across and beyond the dimensional boundaries of the universe to allow all of us lower energy entities to embrace each other on our timeline mandated death march.”

He pauses, swallows some saliva while the silence in the room encourages his countenance, “Still the universe is young, we won’t see large formations of humanities or supra-consciousness, that is, low ergio unit beings and energyless gods, for quite a while; it is doubtful that there are very advanced civilizations in the universe, they are probably largely in synchronicity with our earthly time tables. Civilizations will attempt to carbonize the feelings that they once enjoyed as quantum particles, technology a contraption of the scientific mind is just a mechanical way to touch what our new born organic limitations alienated, our ability two be in two places at once, our probability factoring exquisiteness where we could assume any guise purely dependant on who was watching us, the bounty of boundless space within us as voided of dull matter realities as we graced the speed of light; we have lost those effects. The only false optimism that we may now posses about ourselves, is that we are the elders of the universe, we were the youngest born the oldest now, we lived the eons and survived the big bang, we have crossed through the entire gamut of the energy spectrum, from the maximum crest to our current lowest energy state; which is why we can now have eyes to witness light, an impossibility for a photon; while our posterity, all those neutrinos, all those leptons and quarks are enjoying their supernova lifestyles, skyrocketing thoughtlessly and ricocheting unaware of the thoughtful sewer energy that they will become.”

The room remained silent, then Trocin entered some words. “It seems to me that you have the universe pretty well figured out, that mind of yours probably doesn’t rest very much, and now you want to walk on water, and I don’t dare speak for anyone else here, but for myself, even as your theory or philosophy whatever you want to call it chap, sounds most interesting, there are others but speaking for my self, you could gain a lot of belief out me simply by walking on water.”

The group did a roundup of laughs and they equally suggested that if Habakkuk could walk on water they would all be willing to believe him. To which he replied.

“Well walking on water, while not terribly difficult, does require some practice but it also requires tremendous amounts of concentration which any audience would quickly dissipate, so as you can see that being observed does offer a significant problem to the undertaking.”

Antoinette proposed, “we could put a video camera up, so we could watch from a remote location.”

Otto interjected, “no a video camera can be played with tricks, that would always leave it up to belief, I think I want to see it in person.”

Shangra offered, “We could be at a distance and use a telescope, I think that would be just fine for me, I’d be willing to believe it with my own eyes like that.”

Trocin interrupted, “I think old chap that we have to be there next to you as you walk onto the water, even if you only manage it for a few seconds because of our interruptions, a four second walk on water is an earth shattering accomplishment, so you just walk on water for four seconds and you have us convinced of anything you want to prophecy or say even if it doesn’t happen in our life times.”

At that point the front door opened and Lauren came into the room arousing the hunger of her people as she had been notified by Antoinette to bring plenty of Chinese food with a special request for Dragon Pork! The gang quickly disengaged from the topic and went to pick at the remains of duck and pork and cow sunk into oyster sauces and peas and noodles and carrots, so as to reenergize themselves with ergio units.

During the feast a general update was done, and Antoinette all caught in the story asked, “So how do you go about walking on water?”

But Trocin interrupted, “First can you tell us why it is so important for us to believe you that you will go to such lengths?”

“A fair question Father Trocin, and it is not because you are my friends that I want you to believe me, it is because I love humanity and because I need to communicate with my humanity so that once they acknowledge the perils of our situation they will move to overcome the hates and the angers and join to harvest the positive ergio flows which they posses as one and not divided.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question Prophet Habakkuk, that doesn’t answer it at all, we are not humanity, we hardly have the podium to become your apostles,” smirking some, “besides I hardly think that my parishioners are going to believe me if I try to convince them of something that the Vatican hasn’t sanctioned.”

“Oh but that’s just it you see, I don’t have to convince your parishioners to enter the medium of our humanity, to enter the message into the Akashic records I only have to tell it to you and it instantly becomes accessible to anyone within our humanity that wishes to sense or has a feeling for my message. And the replication of belief will take place once it is codified in the Akashic record it will spread, and based on how genuine it is it will organically grow to engulf others distant and unknown from us, even other sentient beings in other planets, the Akashic grants access to any and all sentient essence, my message has then the importance that the world wants to give it, it may pass a millennium before it gravitates into the worldly consciousness or it may pass infinity without bail, one doesn’t know these things, one can only bid one’s duty and hope for no more.”

“But isn’t that, what is in your mind already inhabiting the Akashic records and for that matter other sentient consciousness, including perhaps ours though unaided by our awareness?”

Habakkuk ringing a toast…

“Of course! I might only be a replicator, that might just be the case, prophets like me aren’t so much prophets as we are good readers of the Akashic consequences based on all the tanglings of events and their interactions. Just the same some one else may have planted these feelings and ideas into the Akashic and I am only just another apostle, though my ego has a difficult time reconciling itself to that probability; it would prefer to imagine that the current warring world is ample evidence that we have just to explore some harsh realities on the nature of our existence. Still the truth is that ideas and concepts form en mass, they accumulate potential as desires before they are born, today we are gripped with ideas that have axiomatically been spread throughout our civilization, psychoanalysis, evolution, relativity, these are but gripping ideas, they could exist, they may exist, they may well be real in some context and unreal in another, the grip that these beliefs have over us is what makes them real, should we let them go they will suffer a great unrolling, we will never blame ourselves for their new found untruth because when we believed in them, they were the truth. That is how science can change its theories and never feel bad, it is reconciled with the fact that what it believes as truth becomes axiomatic; what it can prove to itself is logically the truth. That’s not unreal. Psychoanalysis might be the biggest cockeyed entrapment of the mind by the mind, it doesn’t matter it is true to the mind; you can fix yourself through psychoanalysis, others know better how your mind should work, and for a minor fee they will listen to your travails and help you cope, we lean into some truths to help us cope that is the truth of psychoanalysis.”

Otto muttering, “ug…and evolution?”

“There is a dandy, evolution is most interesting because it serves to place us at the top of the ladder of biological existence by claiming that we are at war for survival and that we are the stronger the more adaptable the smarter and therefore inclined to be the most successful species ever at the expense of everything else. Hey it could be true, it seems a little far fetched because the observable world is bound to be an ecosystem more than a competitive affair. It is doubtful that we are a successful species because we eat cows but rather because there is a mutual accord, we preserve the cow species, look after their health, defend them from predators and help them to select the best of the best for progeny, and they feed us in return. Evolution is probably lucky that we can not observe its processes taking shape, I mean I still can not fit a dinosaur into a bird, but there is no doubt about it, Evolution makes perfect sense over billions of billions of unobservable years where broken links have to be filled in.”

Shangra enters the fray, “Well I would like to get to more solid things, you haven’t answered Antoinette’s question as to how you are going to go about it, I think it will serve the interest of humanity well if you tell us before you drown so others may follow in your footsteps as you like.”

Lauren got up to pour more wine for herself, and gave Habakkuk a tender shoulder rub. He touched her hand. Antoinette just watched him, she knew something of his truth, probably more than anyone in the room she understood what he understood, and perhaps more so, perhaps she lived it while he philosophized it, when she asked the question of how it was going to be done it was more to make sure that he had thought it through well enough, she could help him make adjustments, she of course did not know how to walk on water nor would she try, but she could help him do it, and also her question was geared to bring comprehension within the group, Antoinette for Antoinette understood that Habakkuk’s walking on water also depended on the belief of the observers. Like Jesus was only able to perform miracles before his apostles, his resurrection and rise into the heaven occurred before the faithful and because they too believed, Antoinette sensed that part of Habakkuk’s time for preparation was in reaching a high level of confidence within the group, that he would succeed, that they wanted him to succeed, the walk on water depended on that, and Habakkuk could not tell his audience that. She drank her wine, confidently waiting for Habakkuk to reply.

Habakkuk loaded his glass of wine, he looked around the room, seeing a somewhat mesmerized and approvingly bunch of friends, they really didn’t care about the reality yet, that was for him to accomplish, but they enjoyed his conversation and company, all was not lost.

“Well I suppose I should explain this more from a scientific perspective since that is the accepted science now a days and alchemy lacks its luster even as it is more applicable in this case.”

Trocin, “Don’t insult us Habakkuk, you forget that our church believes in eternity and fights evil we are more likely to believe in alchemy than science, it was us that slaughtered the witches, we are still working on a few demons and the traitor devil is just one of the scores we have to settle.”

“Well I do apologize it was an overstatement for the sake of the times and not for the liturgically open minded audience present.”

Feeling the double entendre smiles recoiled all around, even Trocin face expressed satisfaction.

“As I was mentioning earlier ergio units are part of a stellar medium, call it a plenum, a cosmic constant if you will that pushes on us as we push on it, generally with equal results thus zero effect to us all. The Greeks called the plenum the ether, this was done from a very local environment fire, water, air type perspective, after all the Greeks were very good at creating gods but they were the first to really kill all probability, parallel precursors to the Jewish creation of one god and individuality, the Greeks harnessed the very singular concept of categories as embodied in knowledge; they also grounded the concept that man could control the world and by extension the universe. Since then we have proven that what we can control can make us seem very petty. Anyway the Greek codification of the importance of knowledge and their exuberance for centralized control in the form of the State, was the feasible impregnation of modern civilization, which no doubt believes that it has access to the laws of nature through the table of elements, where all are accounted for and through physics, which via formulaic machinations allows even for black holes to be useful to our destiny. Again the Greeks were local creatures, regaling in the discovery of the idea of philosophical existence, remember what it means to be aware of being, you can only arrive there through consciousness which is a development induced by the pernicious slide down the energy hefty universe into the muddled puddle of space time. Where thus rises the creature which must figure out how to return to high energy states; a highly improbable possibility thanks to, a not surprisingly well understood principle of entropy. Which broadly speaking says that organized creatures are making a mess of the universe and will lead it to perdition.”

Sipping some wine before a brilliantly jailed audience. “But as we are composed of ergios regardless of our form-essence, for the universe again is merely pure energy regardless of its disguise, we have access to the energy plenum for it is touching us through everything as we are touching it through every aspect ratio of our bodies, only there are some minimal rules as to how to touch it, feel it and harness it and those are based on symmetric alignment with the electrodynamic-geodesic which embodies the geometry of our universe.”

Seeing confused eyes in his audience, “I am not going to tone this down for you because there is no way to tone it down and make sense of it, it simply doesn’t make sense, so just hang on and we will see where we get from what can not be known but for awareness. The plenum holds infinite amounts of cosmic energy, we don’t know nor can we know where it comes from and where it goes but we are aware that energy pops in and out of existence and some of it gets caught in our universe, which by the size of it seems like a lot gets caught, which might also be more a sign of how undesirable the nothingness is. And so energy globs and coagulates in our universe and we may then use this energy as it desires to be used, for definition into suns and sums, into matter and dynamics, into trees and children and turtles. All the hapless progeny of a pure concentrated desire devoutly inspired to simply exist in contrast to the nothingness plenum which ultimately embodies it wholly.”

Shangra, not even understanding but just asking as moved to do so by something in the audience which forced her the question, “Why does the energy want to be defined, that seems odd.”

Habakkuk, “Perhaps you are right and perhaps it would be better that you were right, however the energy that is allowed by its intense desire to enter our universe has to accept definition due to the endemic definitive nature of our dimensional space and time universe. Still we embody lots of energy that wants to escape from the nothingness and can not totally accomplish the feat, hence the troubling thriving dark matter in our universe. ergio energies that can’t overcome their feeling of nothingness would have to be urged by black holes to define themselves. Anyway the plenum contains plenty of energy, I touch that energy you touch that energy, that energy is what contrives the Akashic records and any sentient being should be able to sense waves of it crossing through their inner sanctum. The Chinese explore and use this energy in Chi, with it they may exert energy upon objects and beings without touching them. Western peoples less in touch with energy flows harness it through exercise or through activity or through mere persistence, as simply sitting traces a line path through time and touches the energies that paved their pathway through such time; physical existence never the less is sewer energy, that is most sedentary and so requires repetition and concentration to maintain itself in the parlance of being.”

“Once you comprehend the simplicity of the universe it becomes easier to handle, so you all might think I am insane for saying that I can walk on water or thinking that I am going to do it, but if you imagine that we are merely energy, and that everything, everything around us is merely energy then you can see how much I have in common with everything else. That communality has dramatic implications, it readily suggest that I should be able to communicate silently and to interact with that which is just like me” Sensing confusion, “Imagine this I am approximately 85 percent water! Water is 100 percent energy and I am 100 percent energy. I have a lot more in common with water than I do with Belgium chocolates, and perhaps there is the problem, my communality with water allows my mass to immerse completely in it, I don’t repel water, my existence depends on it, my mind and biology have been accustomed to seeking water, and do not reject it, and if my feet don’t reject the mass of the sea then they are not going to walk on it.”

Brief pause,

“Fortunately however we now know that water and I have 100 percent energy communality, and we know that I have 85 percent essence communality with the H2o, which translates to something very fascinating, I just have to harness energy from the plenum, that which is between the water and me, so as to create a natural repelling, caused through an aggrandizement of dissimilarity by adding the resistance of the plenum as an interference cushion, which should add buoyancy by blinding the water to my proximity and similarity to it, an act of dispersing my self essence throughout the plenum so as not to be felt by the water molecules so they wont react to me, and as a result I acquire buoyancy rights.”

Lauren being facetious, “sounds simple enough.” But Habakkuk was too enthralled in his medium to pause…

“There is however always the problem of similarity, the water and I touch the same metric tensors in the plenum, metric tensors are the pillars of the cosmic energy geometry, these anchoring points for the geodesic geometry of the universe are shared by all of us, and how we navigate our essence in relationship to them creates or not resistance or what you know as inertia. It doesn’t help that water leans into metric tensors the same way that I do hence the lack of resistance between us, as we navigate energy in the same direction, so to walk on water I have to walk towards a different cosmic energy flow and yet remain in synchronicity with the geometry of the plenum so as not to create drag or weight which can sink me. Not acting against the geodesic curvature of the universe will reduce drag and weight type resistance and by harnessing ergios within the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet, I will touch the curvature of space time and balance myself on it and not have to touch the water. So walking on water is actually not walking on water but rather walking on the cosmic plenum which causes a false appearance of levitation when one is in fact walking on the plenum. As long as I don’t walk against the geodesic footprint of the universe, which I should be able to sense with my mind’s eye while feeling with the palms of my hands, then I will become lighter than the surface tension of the water, and as I gather ergio units beneath my feet, palms and frontal lobe in a diametric oppression, I will float on the water on all fours. It is however difficult to balance yourself for a bipedal-walk on water; I don’t think Jesus’ account is accurate, when you are using the cosmic plenum to effect a cushion between yourself and the sea of Galilee the process is fraught with incongruent wobbling; it is unlikely to be an aesthetic ballet, it will be on all fours and will appear to the audience more like a clown sitting atop of four invisible balloons trying to hold a center of balance while mostly failing.”

Trocin, the well read fellow, incredulous, “Are you talking about Zero Point Energy, that is what you are going to harness to walk on water, that is what lunatics have been trying to do for space travel, eliminate the weight of an object and it becomes easy to move through something they call the casimir effect, now you could use your technique for traveling on land for that matter, just attach your floating self to a blow-dryer and happy travelings.”

“Well you are correct, and I see that you are familiar with it, indeed this field of research is now moving beyond speculation, the Zero Point Field which is nothing more than the ergio units in a vacuum, it doesn’t seem like much but through some kind of electromagnetic undulation could negate the energy effects which produce gravity waves and thus mass, which in turn negate inertia. The difference between the scientists and me is that I am aware that the plenum can be manipulated by human contemplation of ergios; used by me it is too small an effect but there is no telling how amazing it could be to have human community contemplations directed at the plenum, enhanced by crystals, produced many of the same effects we observed today so poorly done with technology.”

Trocin wrinkling his expressions, “Sounds complicated to me, I want to see it done, I think I need to see it done.”

Antoinette, “Well it does sound crazy but then many a crazy things are now accepted fact, and I for one would rather see a world powered by human ergio concentrations than by technology, it seems more humane.”

Habakkuk having accomplished a greater probability of belief towards his goal rested, the gang exhausted quickly broke up into individual dialogs that gently turned into goodnights.

Catastrophe Destroys The World

2006-08-31T17:20:00.000-07:00

Ogle is contemplating the list of rampaging murder cases, he is at home, resting with a beer at his side, the door bell rings. He wasn’t expecting anyone, he pauses to imagine whom it might be, he concludes that in this world no one surprises anyone, there are calendars, there are schedules, he neglects further analyses and answers the door. Much to his happiness it is Lauren, he knows they have been warring factions at work but she has come to his house and that lifts his spirits. He hugs her, longer than usual, he is feeling her warmth, he doesn’t get to close to humanity, he tries to get close to Lauren, but their relationship has always been of professional warmth, both the Captain and the Detective like it that way best.

Without a vocal greeting, the empress enters her bosses house, to a greeting of “how about a beer?”

“After all these years you would think that you would keep a bottle of wine for me, but instead you are still offering “me” beer, you don’t know me!”

“Hey, hey calm down I can order a bottle of wine from the supermarket,” he picks up the phone to place an order, “what year would you like.”

“Look I wont be staying long, a glass of orange juice would be just fine.” Lauren must have known that anything to do with vegetables and fruits would not make a home at Ogle’s.

“I don’t have any orange juice. How about water?”

She is bothered, her eyes looking at the brown rug, “its an ugly rug.”

“What’s wrong Lauren?”

“I just can’t do it any more.”

The captain’s mind immediately goes where it needs to go. “What do you mean?”

“I think I am tired of being a cop, I need a change.”

“Lauren!” The captain walking frantically towards the window, where a balcony amply offers escape through a futile horizon of smog and rows of graying buildings. “Listen to yourself, your not talking right, you are not thinking right, you are tired, we are all tired, you are on the verge of solving some of the most interesting crimes, you can write a book about this afterwards, but right now I need you here, the people of this city need you here, you are not going anywhere.”

Lauren too looked at the drab view of city buildings smothering into the barely visible arid mountains, and a crushed sunset by the nimbleness of rising car exhaust. Her lack of energy was evident from her non argumentative, arms crossed stance. “I am tired Captain, very tired, I came to resign, I don’t think I can solve crimes any more, I am just not enjoying it, I have to enjoy what I do.”

“You have to listen to me, the situation seems hopeless from in here, but the world is more hopeless than what we do Lauren.” He came right up putting his heavy hand on her shoulder. “You and I make a positive difference, we help people, where else can you feel more needed than in this job, here everyone counts on your ability to detect malice, you have the best record in the entire state for crimes solved, that type of talent doesn’t transfer well Lauren, you were born to be a cop, you are not going to go be some big shot executive for one of those software companies, like Antoinette, that are always promising to liberate the world of its chores and increase its leisure while pedophiles, rapist, murderers and CEOs are running amok with their greedy fantasies. You are a cop, you need a vacation take a vacation, you need more money I will get you a raise, but don’t
make a decision you are going to regret later.”

“It is not a decision that I have made, I never thought about it, I am telling my self that I have to stop this because I don’t love what I do anymore, I don’t feel it, I haven’t solved any recent cases, and in the last one the killer did me a favor and turned himself in; he must have known I would never figure it out.” She pauses then proceeds, “criminals want to be caught, the challenge of the false game is over for me, I don’t have to think about this, a vacation is not going to do it for me, I don’t want to write a book about the top ten crimes of the century, I don’t want to be on television, I want to be home with Antoinette, and I don’t care about the money.”

The captain realizing that his situation was worse than he had suspected, “Have you discussed this with her?”

“No, I told you I didn’t think it, I just found my self walking here with the decision manufacturing itself in the process.”

“How do you think she will react to your throwing away your career?”

“She doesn’t care about my career, she will probably try to help me figure out how we are going to survive on the little money we have in the bank, carefully watched it might last six months, we will be broke, but Antoinette and I don’t care about that, we will figure something out, gotta feed the cats.”

Her tone was cold, perhaps inside she knew that she needed to close all doors for Ogle, that she had to ice him, to give him only one option, which he dully accepted as he was a realist, “I guess I have to hire myself a detective.”

“Yeap, it won’t be so bad Capt, new energy is always good, you will see, new blood is good.”

The captain had tears in his eyes. “You will always have a job here waiting for you.”

“I’ve grown a lot with you and I loved my job because you made it interesting and challenging, and you always let me have my way, which really helped me to understand all the shit that comes with this, we can now be friends without the protocol of work, things will only get better for us, thanks a lot captain.” She came up to him and kissed him on the cheek. And made her way to the door.

The captain’s shoulders fell from him, he languished on the arm of the couch, watching his beer, Lauren watched him but knew that she had to move on, specially because her shoulders were feeling relief, her stress had disappeared, she walked outside, she felt the greenness of the grass, she saw flowers she had never noticed before, she squinted a little to try to refocus this new way of life forward, she felt the smog in her nostrils and felt its industrial taste, and sort of liked it, she felt gutsy, she felt free.

Inside, the captain was languishing, he didn’t want to find any other detective, he didn’t want to do this anymore, but he was the mold of the business, he couldn’t be anything else, he was watching Lauren escape the entrapment his profession offered, spend your life time with us carry a badge, honor and nothing really changes, and he thought of Lauren and he thought, “there aren’t any Sherlock Holmes in our business, just like there isn’t a Moby Dick for whalers, Lauren has escaped the ideal that keeps us fighting crime in reality.” He sipped his beer, “good for her that she escaped.” threw himself on the couch, placed a pillow over his head, and tried to convince himself that a terrible catastrophe would end the world, King Kong, Dracula, an Asteroid, anything, to save him from having to face his next day at the office.

In a room, not far from Captain Ogle’s tragedy, another man stood before his bed doing strange arm exercises. Habakkuk, raising his arms slowly around an arc, joining them at the very apex of his head, then separating them again and rejoining them in a forward arc, his frontal lobe centering the palms energy; this added and multiplied repetition, joined by deep breathing cycles and gently pounded by a long drowned ooohm, the sound of the humming universe, Habakkuk’s vocals were repeating the sound produced by everything rubbing against everything in the universe, the sound-wave crest canceling Habakkuk’s wave adding unity in the paraded conversion; the room reigned with darkness, Habakkuk and light had never gotten on well, the darkness shouldered some of the weight of the immensity which was being hosted by Habakkuk, he kept straight, poised, ergio balancing metric tensors, echoing distant star communication, rattling intransient perditions, his palms reeling in concentrations of the curvature of the universe, nurturing and feeling an awareness; slowly he was feeling silver spheres cycling and growing on his palms.

Now he just needed to nurture and grow the same spheres of ergio concentrations underneath his soles, he was sure that what he was feeling in his palms was manageable cosmic energy that would quickly add the surface tension that he needed to float, but he wasn’t sure how to transfer what was being managed through his mind’s eye and palms, to the sole of his feet. He was aware that the entire energy spectrum rested on the entrance to the stomach, where resided the sentient brain, unknown to science, this other brain was the one that together with the amygdales managed ergio flows, and constructed the corporeal structure around the metaphysical being. He was then fully aware that his body was just his soul’s earth-space suit, and he knew that what kept the anatomical structure functioning was the inflow and outflow of ergio-energies which were harbored by his surroundings and what others he could extravagantly sponge in from the exotic universe. Still he was having problems feeling the soles of his feet. He deduced that this might have been from his days as a snake catcher, his feet immersed in water constantly, and walking shoeless as he was always mostly too poor to own a decent pair of shoes, you could see the world underneath his feet forming a callous so huge that energy flows could not be felt and so could not be harnessed into little silvery spheres of ergios that would allow for walking on water.

He stopped his contemplative meditations, “Damn it I am not sensing the soles of my feet, I cant get at them, what can I do, I can’t just walk on my hands.” He laughs at himself, he imagines walking on water on his hands, “not exactly what they are expecting, still it ought to be a splendor of a sight.” But he wants his feet to float, he doesn’t think he can balance himself, he is not an athlete by nature, he is a prophet by nature, he doesn’t perform miracles, he doesn’t know if he can reverse the insensitivity that catching thousands of snakes induces, he doesn’t know how to get his stomach brain to talk to his soles.

Then there is a nock at the door. Before opening he smiles, he senses he knows the person at the other end. It is a little girl from his past, that always seems to appear when he needs insight. She gives him a big smile and hugs his legs to welcome herself into his abode. While uttering, “Can I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

As if time had not expired their unity. “You know I don’t keep any of that, that stuff is disgusting why would you be wanting that! Yuk.” He makes an unmistakably gross expressions. “Oh Habakkuk you don’t want to be a kid and enjoy some peanut butter and jelly with me?”

Habakkuk can not resist the precious gem of a young girl spirit, “We could go to the market, and get the stuff and come home and make them, I suppose you want milk too.”

“Only way to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

They walk to the store and on their way back she says, “Well are you going to tell me what is troubling you?”

He pauses and realizing that she always arrives in his time of need, “Why do you always come when I need help, who are you?”

“I am your version of the archangel Gabriel, I come when you need help and you don’t have any peanut butter jelly waiting for me.”

Habakkuk, surprised but not, “you are my guardian archangel, not just an angel, but the archangel Gabriel, how did I get so lucky?”

“Not so lucky, I am obliged to care for all the prophets, the great one’s and the minor prophets, and you’re my favorite though you really haven’t done much prophesying.”

“No, I haven’t done much prophesying that is true, but it is not easy, you feel bad when you get it right because it is usually the downfall or the catastrophe and you feel bad when you get it wrong because everyone is watching you, it is not a very encouraging profession and prophets cant have sex, it has all kinds of down sides.”

“I don’t know, I am just an archangel, I don’t remember when I wasn’t, my job is kind of cool I get to help lots of people, and I like you most because your always so lost, you come a long way to be still confused, you haven’t much figured out how to prophesy but I think you’re going to prophesy something big, soon. Anyway you’re fun, all the other prophets take themselves so seriously, I never enjoyed rescuing Nostrodomus, and Rasputin who was an inefficient, wished I let him die one of those hundreds of times he was poisoned, come to think of it that last time they killed him, I was a little slow in reacting.”

They got home and made the sandwiches and drinking milk and Habakkuk enjoying the peanut butter, “If you are right and very soon I will prophesy something big then I need people to believe me, at least I need apostles so they can spread the word, thinking about it that is probably why I haven’t been an effective prophet, lack of proselytizing, so I have decided to walk on water to convince the locals here that I am for real, only I can’t feel the soles of my feet so I don’t think I can walk on water.”

“Well why don’t you just float on your belly, you could do that, is your feeling of your gut brain intact?”

“Yes, its fine.”

“Then you could body surf on the water, that should impress upon them that you have divine powers.”

“I don’t think so, if you hold your breath you can float on water, it doesn’t take much to float, that isn’t going to walk.”

“Well then why don’t you walk on your hands?”

They both smile as they mutually acknowledge that Habakkuk doesn’t have the agility to manage it.

“Habakkuk you have a problem.” Pointing her finger at him and allowing a full view of peanut butter and jelly smears on her white dress. “If I remember you were a snake catcher right?”

“Yes.”

“You lost the feeling on the soles of your feet then.”

“Yes.”

“Snake energies can cause people to lose feelings, they negate, that can happen, it is usually not something that can be recovered, specially because people normally don’t notice and really don’t want to feel the soles of their feet, it is a pain to feel them, people are generally happy not to feel their feet, they even hate to cut their toenails, much to the dread of their lovers.”

Habakkuk expecting an answer, “Yes. But are you going to give me a solution.”

A serious little girl, “can’t do that, I don’t have one.”

“Then what am I suppose to do!”

“Well the Buddhist monks believe that walking on pink rose petals restores touch and sentiment to the soles of their feet, I don’t know if that is true, I don’t even recommend praying it wont do any good. But if you don’t try walking on rose petals you will never know if it works or if it doesn’t.”

She got up motioning to leave, “thanks for the peanut butter I wont need to crush that craving for another 400 years.”

they hugged goodbye though now that Habakkuk knew it was the archangel Gabriel he didn’t feel that comfortable hugging her.

He sat down, “Rose petals, pink rose petals, walk on pink rose petals.” He didn’t think that would work, he would try it, but his hopes were disparaged even as something told him, the archangel didn’t just come here for peanut butter sandwiches.

Stone Towers Of Silence

2006-08-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

Lauren had walked off the job and then something very strange happened, a bunch of lunatics evaporated themselves over the pyramids of Capitalism; the World Trade Center in New York collapsed over what was a brilliant attack if equally perverse and absurd. The rebels had struck the golden archers of the empire, there was nothing but fury to rip from it all, and surely the world would know then what it was all about; but of course there was no meaning behind the whole event, for neither foe knew of each other but more fatal they didn’t even know themselves.

At one end of the ring the Muslim extremists, willing to partake in savage attacks so as to denounce the supposed Great Evil Empire, but how evil was it compared to Arab civilization that had squandered its own history in vitriolic feuds not brave enough to be called wars, it was all battles, never ending skirmishes, feuding warlords mostly attacking their cousins; and these nomads were the people that were going to show the evil empire that it was wrong to be civilized; that to ware miniskirts and to allow the powerful feminine more control than she already had over all of them was an attack on Allah. “Cover yourselves women, cover yourselves!” The emblematic symbol of over-lordship draped in black from head to toe, her essence subdued that should make her equal to man, let her not own any property, let her have to walk next to us in her dark nights, that should put an end to our crushing desires that so enslave us.

Tick, tick, tick

Tap dancing, Lauren wasn’t thinking about the towers when the event occurred she was thinking of taking tap dancing classes, she had seen Fredstair doing it in a movie, she thought it didn’t look hard, kind of like skipping through water, she tried a few tripping sequences but hey, it was just the different thing to do, but then of course her movie was interrupted by the towers burning and then the bricks just kept on breaking through her television tube, one tower down, the burning horror, bodies jumping, two towers down the dying rescuers, the dying dying, and the wealth control towers of the nation and world buckling at the knees, the great and good had fallen.

The news pedaled on, a plane down in Pennsylvania, overtaken from flight by its business class passengers unwilling to share in the great jihad; then the pentagon, the nerve center, HQ, “flight 77 inbound,” hit on the shoulder blade, tick, tick, tick boom!

Then a president in flight, over here and there and everywhere not knowing if landing was the safe thing to do, he was teaching children about the importance of “reading” potatoe when a whisper in his ear rattled off “…nation under attack.” That takes time to grasp, perhaps he thought “what has gotten off here,” and then “what about the ranch?” and then that perplexive hit, “the ranch!” and that made him angry and he too went on a countering rampage. Quickly regaining his lost flight path and centering the nation at the crossroads of the axis of evil. “We will fight terrorism everywhere, here and there, in Iraq in Iran, in Syria in South Korea, in Pakistan, in North Korea, wherever and whenever and moreover beyond that.” And with that no-end-in-sight promise he pauses to ask for divine guidance, and after perhaps another whisper of destined assurance in his ear, he angers on, “the juggernaut is coming to your nightly news.” Reset in progress.

Tick, tick, tick

The world cringed for the world could not ignore all those documented victims; perhaps the towers had been faulty towers from the start, the architect didn’t seem that creative to the naked eye, people didn’t look up and say, “wow behold the world trade center,” and besides that they did fall; wasn’t it taken into account during the design phase, that two tall buildings right next to each other, killers of birds from all angles, were bound to be hit by planes too. “Clear the airspace”, the firebomb of airplane fuel put “done” with all that emancipating over-man architecture. But there were the victims and the angered friend and foe alike assimilated a resounding common cause, “we are with you Mr. President, we are with you and your nation Mr. President, today we are all Americans.”

Meanwhile in the trenches, roaring to fine tunes and lingering in the occult joy of cave dwelling, the great warrior extradited king, meandering the holes, whispering so that only the moles could hear, “victory is at hand, the great Satan has been brought to his knees, we are at the threshold of Armageddon, mount your battle swords, prepare your young ones and old ones for great suffering, the jihad is unfurling its wings, we are taking to the sky, we will dominate, we have revealed what the voice of god may guide, we have done a great deed today, this September 11th our faith has trounced many obstacles and flown into the heart of the great Satan. Kill them if they are anywhere, tick. Kill their assets, tick. Kill their police, tick, Kill their children, for sin is upon them all and we shall knot them and bind them and usher them away from our holy shrines; tick, let Armageddon begin with us here for only the unholy need fear Armageddon! Boom.

The holy terror was belching everywhere, the groom and bride were on separate mountains, and then, from the sky did rain fire and then from the desert sand did blast mortar fire, and the bullets whispered through the sandstorms, while resourcefully new ways to kill, destroy and mutilate were ingeniously found; deeper bombs, bombs that could dig up the earth, pilotless kamikazes and a new digitize battle field map, you could just look at the brilliant pebbles in the air and they would tell you who or what was threading on you. Everywhere the sand pebbles had eyes, and everywhere you could hide, because you were in the middle of nowhere.

“hello, hello,” and the air bled not a sound, you could only see the sun stir the sand by doing an old trick, heating it up.

Not The First Time The World Had Ended

2006-08-31T17:17:00.000-07:00

But it wasn’t that the world was coming to an end, oh yes there had been a thousand Armageddon pasts, entire civilizations had been whipped off the face of the earth, along with the dinosaurs and the so like us Cro-Magnons, there before the great renditions on the canvas of the universe they had all been erased, nullified, their existence not satisfying any of the ongoing routines which nature had opted to follow but more, more than that, their time had expired, their entire species concept had been disapproved, at some point they all decided to fade away, one by one till the last Cro-Magnon could not be heard, till the ultimate dinosaur breathed heavily through his lungs, till that innovative island cat made eye contact with that last dodo bird, there species ends, others will thrive because of their demise and others too will fade but the beginnings and the endings, the flooding storms the fiery outrages, were all part whole of the master magnificent, that the continuation of things depended wholly on there being a period at the end of every sentence.

Lauren stood by the television set watching the ensuing world disorder, there was no editing the news now, there was no time for it, people were killing each others in bully groups or one by one, there was a great deal of anger being expressed, where there were no fires soon there would be, explosions were raging throughout the city, the killings could not be labeled as murder, anarchy has other rules, looting was rampant, the police were helping, community leaders, politicians and priests had stopped asking the people to reduce themselves to humbleness and to turn the other cheek, no one could look away, no one could assume that their next step would not be their last, what they could assume was that civilization was suffering more than a serious set back, pushing the limits it was the end of a democratic ideal, it was the end of capitalism, the dark ages had arrived again and this time with all the lust to reclaim their honors at the sanguinary table where the human passions practiced their gluttony for the enlightenment.

Antoinette came in the room, she didn’t understand why her Lauren would watch and watch that tube tuned to the horrors, day in and day out, she was personally disgusted by it, she had locked all the doors, sealed shut all the windows, the world could collapse she wasn’t going to participate in the mayhem, not by watching, not by listening, she would have none of it, she did suspect that their house would not remain untouched, that it was a matter of time before the freakish mobs would close in on them, and in some way she guessed that that too was what Lauren was thinking about, seeing the moment of their violent death arrive, there was nothing to do, what little they knew about other countries was the same news, butchering everywhere, the mass had gone mad.

Lauren had still not turn around from her standing in front of the television to acknowledge Antoinette’s entrance, Antoinette came up to her and said, “I think we should go to the lake.”

The lake was where their cabin was, they had bought it a few years back with the intent of visiting often on weekends, they rarely went there, there was just no time, the city always kept their attention, Lauren hadn’t even thought of it, she replied, turning to hold her lovers face, “the roads are impassible babe, besides they will kill us as soon as we leave this house.” Loki laid on the couch, it seemed he didn’t know that the entire world was coming to an end, or maybe he did, maybe he just figured he’d waited out, wait till they all died away, and then he would make his way through the wreckage and bodies to the woods, and there camp out for the rest of his life.

Antoinette was undaunted as if in another life someone had chopped her head off and now there was nothing she could fear, “I have gathered what little food we have and I have mapped out a walkout plan, we just walk out of here and keep going until we make it to the cabin, at least there we wont hear the carnage, we can just wait things out, whatever happens to us there will happen and that is that, but at least we will be at peace for our last days, I just want it to be the two of us and nothing else around.” Her eyes teared, she didn’t want any end to come, and yet her tears held back flooding contained.

She motioned Lauren to sit on the floor, laid the map out, a penciled route was evident, with boxes marked along the way, “…see we can walk at night, I think maybe from 1am till 4pm, the rest of the time we can hide in these areas, if we walk briskly we could be at the cabin within 4 nights time, I am counting that once we are out of the city we can increase our walking ours, what do you say.” And she sort of nudge her on the shoulder so as to imply “lets do it.”

Lauren wasn’t even picking up a bit of hope, she was definitely tied to the life of a city, Antoinette was always mostly by herself, Lauren needed that world far much more than her lover, disillusioned at their prospects, “I suppose there is nothing else to do, staying here to wilt under the roués wont be any fun,” then she suddenly paused and looked around the room to spot Loki with his eyes draped over by his palms, and remarked, “what about Loki?”

Antoinette had planned everything, without a drop of doubt she said “I have this satchel and we will take turns carrying him, I don’t think he will follow us, I don’t think he knows what is going on, and besides that anything out there is bound to scare him.”

Lauren noted, “He weighs 20 pounds or more.”

Antoinette “We could take less food and just bet on losing some weight ourselves.” To which they both laughed as they cuddled each other and then laid there forgetting the world for a few unforgettable minutes.

That very night Loki was placed in a satchel, as always he didn’t mind anything that his mistresses did to him, he loved them adored them, and would probably have followed them but then that would be true in a perfect world, they were about to walk into the unknown. The night itself was inhospitable, it was moonless, dank, they could not use a flash light, fortunately both knew the city very well and would only encounter difficulty navigating the country side, they were off, their house slowly drifting into the background, slowly disappearing, losing its sense of home.

Loki turned out to be a pleasant travel companion, though occasionally cuddled next to his mistresses he would purr and they would urge his silence with serious eyes. For now he was the rest of the world to them, they had no cell phones no electronic gizmos to communicate with, where Ogle or Habakkuk were was now something that they could not know, both would wish to know but now all they had was their Loki cat.

The trip overall had its scary and inconvenient moments, but what matters to us is that after the fourth night as dawn sparked itself to life they saw the cabin, surrounded by trees and overlooking a glorious lake it was now heaven, certainly a sanctuary, for some odd reason Loki started to cry a bit, but they just concluded that he was trying to get used to his new surroundings through some kind of moaning ritual. Of course the girls were also starving, having forgone rations to carry a cat, and so they took to the cereals and can food that had been precariously but fortunately been left in the cabin.

They slept the entire day, and then afterwards took a shower together, after all this would not be the first time that the world had ended, it had ended many times before.