CHURCH of NINE: chapter eight

Albert watched Eleanor leave the apartment building and turn the corner out of his sight. This was the drag end of Simple City; no one lived here unless they could not afford to live somewhere else, and no one walked these streets alone unless they had no where to belong.

He had been on Earth for long enough now to see how greed and ambition carved the routes of evil in humanity, sculpting the best democracies that money could buy so the rich became the super-rich, and the poor paid dearly. Back home, everything was equal. He missed home.

Humanity troubled Albert, but not Mortimer, who read a newspaper in disgusted distraction in the passenger seat.

“I cannot believe these morons have not worked out what crop circles are yet.” He flicked in contempt to the next page. “And look at this! Another bloody UFO story!  What do you think the next headline will be? Scientists find darkness to be absence of light, perhaps?”

“If you have nothing good to say Mortimer, try not to say anything.”

Mortimer creased down the paper in despair. “We are on a rock with a bunch of heavily armed and seriously under developed monkeys, who still get excited about flat screen technology! Do tell me when I should blow up the first balloon!” Mortimer heaved a deep sigh of frustration. “Why are we just sitting here waiting for something to happen?”

“Sooner or later something will happen.” Replied Albert with zero conviction. 

“Sooner or later?” Mortimer mocked him in despair. “Back in the good old days we would have descended on mass with Chariots of Fire and trumpets calling out our charge! We’ve lost our touch.”

Albert sighed, tired of the same debate. “It is sad to see you, of all beings, lose your faith in the cause of humanity.”

“I have not lost my faith! It is impossible to lose your faith in something you never had faith in! Humans are nasty, counter-productive violence ridden SCUM. They even hate themselves, and who would blame them?  They still use God as a justification to blow seven shades of crap out of each other. Pure evil.”

“We used God for the same reason, back in the good old days.”

Mortimer raged. “Oh no you don’t! There is not one similarity between our race and theirs! If it were not for us they would have no concept of right or wrong, they would have no concept of afterlife, they would have no idea about how good exists.”

“They would have found out sooner or later.”

“There you go again. I’ll give you a £1000 if you give me one example of something useful that this race of miscreants have ever added to the universal consciousness.”

Albert struggled for minutes to come up with no answer.

“I rest my case.” Said Mortimer smugly. “I can’t believe we came here to defend these ungrateful little bottom feeders from a fate worse than Hell! We should have let them rot!”

Albert did a rare thing, and lost his patience. “We came here to find the Prize, the war between demons and angels only began because of the Prize. We didn’t come here for them, we came here for us, and we stayed here because the Prize is still here. At least be honest if you are not going to demonstrate any other kind of virtue. Your theories on this species maybe sound, but they have been caught up in our crossfire for so long that I am not surprised they are all screwed up! She is different and not to be under estimated. It is foolish to judge a book by its cover.”

“If books weren’t meant to be judged by their covers, why would people give stories titles?”

“You forget she is not all human. She is half Church of Nine. Andrew McGrew was her father. It makes all the difference.”

Mortimer had a new spanner in his works to consider. “It makes no difference,” he said, needing to convince himself more than his partner. “She will need to use the clue sooner or later and she will open that envelope. And when that moment comes, I will take no prisoners. Once we have the Prize this world is going to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven once more, even if I have to kill every single human on this planet myself.”

CHURCH OF NINE: chapter seven

07

Harry parked the Mini at Hak’s doorway and smiled awkwardly. “Well, here we go.” They were the only four words he had been able to find for the entire journey.

Four words more than Hak could find.

“Nice to meet you, take care of yourself.” He called after her as she slammed the car door behind her, juggled in her pockets for her keys and entered the lobby to her flat.  She had lived in Dartmoor Street for three years.  At this time, there really was no place like home. 

But as she pulled her last step onto the first floor landing, she noticed immediately something as wrong. Her door had been forced, though the enterer had done well to conceal their broken entry. As silently as she could she slipped into the doorway, all senses tingling like a spider at the edge of a waterfall.

She heard…whale song. She sniffed the air to place the sweet smell of frying onion coming from her kitchen. She was not alone. Cautiously, she paused at the half-open door of her kitchen, her sweaty palm gently easing the handle forward, finally digging out the courage to peer her head around the door.

She was punched squarely in the face. 

Her knees buckled and she bundled through the door, landing in an heap at her attackers feet.

 “Darling?” Hak recognised the pitch perfect voice immediately.

“Eleanor!” Blood dripped from her nose unevenly onto the black and white checked linoleum floor. She lifted herself up dizzily by the edge of the cold porcelain sink. “I might have bloody known.”

“What a relief.” Said Eleanor, as casual as a weathercocks forecast in a breeze.

“Relief?” Black spots jived in front of Hak’s eyes. She ran cold water onto the closest tea towel and bunched it to her face.

“One can not be too careful,” Eleanor replied, flicking back a strand of her long red hair, making no effort to help her daughter, or apologise.  She was most aptly described as a handsome woman, she never wore make up or glamorized her appearance in any way; the only thing Hak had ever seen her wear was military fatigues; today was no exception.

“Fancy creeping about the place like a midnight marauder, you nearly gave me a heart attack! You could have been anybody!”

“Creeping around? I live here you lunatic! I knew I should have called the bloody police!”

“That’s not the way I raised you, darling. Besides, there is no law against visiting your nearest and dearest!  Bugger, I think I smell the garlic burning.”

Eleanor adjusted the hob heat, and chopped mushrooms with the speed and precision of a vegan samurai; Hak needed her company less than Van Gogh needed stereo. The small kitchen felt like it was shrinking around them. Another person would have made the occupation crammed. Tension rose with the scent of every new ingredient Eleanor added to the wok.

“So what are you doing here?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m fixing us supper! Your cupboards were bare of course, there is a reason you haven’t got yourself a man yet.”

“A very good reason, not that it’s any of your bloody business!”

“My only concern is for your well being my darling, you really ought to look after yourself Henrietta, a woman can not live on pot noodle alone.”

“You’ve broken my nose. Again.”

She scowled, ignoring the complaint. “And I found bacon in your fridge!”

“Oh, here we go…”

Eleanor threw down her wooden spoon and picked up the knife; her short temper was as legendary as her whimsical approach to violence. “I am your Mother, child. I did not raise you to feast on the spoils of the hunter-gatherer! Meat is murder!”

“Don’t go there, you hear me. You are not going to be the one who lectures me on murder any more, you hearing this? Your not due parole for another six months. How did you get out? Have you escaped?”

“There were special circumstances, actually” Eleanor pouted with pride, seeding her peppers. “The board, in their infinite wisdom, saw in me a justification for early release.”

“How?” Hak raged indignantly. “You killed four people when you blew up that lab! Four people with families, and friends, nothing can justify that.”

“My darling, it is my greatest sadness and disappointment that you my only daughter have always refused to join me in the cause. Can we not put the silly past behind us?”

Hak would never forgive and never forget.  “Will you just shut up about the fucking Cause? You killed four people! You and your bunch of crack-pot militant soap-dodging cohorts might be able to hide behind your little crusades to raise funds for blind mice, or activating an adoption programme for all the little Bambi’s out there, but the rest of the world can see you for what you really are!”

 “You know I will not tolerate your sarcasm. Those foul men were torturing innocent animals in the name of cosmetic science! They were sinners, and for doing what they did against the bounties of our eternal Mother Nature, they were punished accordingly.”

“Punished according to the psychotic gospels of Vegan Vengeance you mean? You’re a mad woman.”

“This is a mad and horrific world Henrietta, only a mad woman would not allow it to rouse them into furious action. I have paid my debt. My Karma is clear.”

Her Mother never failed to offend her, but she dare not turn her back.  “I didn’t see you at the funeral this morning.”

“Funeral?”

“My Father’s funeral.”

“Oh, I was with Ben. He thought it would be better if we didn’t get involved in the whole sham. Death is an illusion.”

 “Ben?”

“He is my spiritual guru.”

“Of course he is.”

Hak could not tell for certain, but she thought her mother blushed before she added. “And fiancé.”

The news hit Hak like a metric ton of laughing gas. “You’ve met someone who wants to marry you? Did you meet him on the mental ward?”

“I have my regrets darling,” said Eleanor stirring the simmering sauce tasting a little, before adding salt. “Try not to still be top of them, for me?”

Hak hated her. “So why did he ditch you tonight? Has he got somewhere less dangerous to be?”

“Ben is with his mother.”

She paused. “How old is he?”

“26.”

“He is younger than me?”

“Get your ego out of this darling, it is not about you, it is about me.  I am in a delicate state.”

“The only delicate thing about your state is your sanity.”

 “Jealousy is an ugly thing, daughter, but I forgive you, and you have Ben to thank for that. OK?  If it were not for Ben showing me the ways of God, I would surely be lost like you.”

“The ways of God?” Hak laughed. “You are a bloody terrorist, the last thing on Earth you need is advice from a God botherer!”

“I will not have you talk about the father of the child in my womb in this way!”

Hak staggered sideways, suddenly the joke was over. “You’re pregnant?”

The black plague had more maternal instinct than Eleanor. She had fallen pregnant to Andrew McGrew in her early teens; the only reason the birth control failed was because she wanted to milk him dry of all of his fortunes.  Hak was an excuse for her mother to become rich, and her father hated them both for the burden.

“How the hell did you get pregnant in prison?”

“Ben was teaching a meditation class, over the last four years our passions became uncontrollable.  With Ben’s recommendation the board saw fit to show compassion, after all it has been twelve years.”

“That is the most unethical story I have ever heard.”

“Are you happy for me, darling?” Her tone became tender and loving, manipulative and eerie. Hak had forgotten just how many personalities lived within her Mother, and just how quickly they could surface without warning.

“Of course I am not!”

“Sixty-seven stitches and forty-nine hours of hell raising labour I endured because of you, and this is how you repay me?”

“What about the three broken arms, two cracked ribs, twelve dislocated jaws, twenty-nine stitches and the lifetime of shit you have given me?  We are square. Go!”

“Go?” Protested Eleanor in a sweep of melodrama. “You cannot surely be considering throwing a pregnant woman out into the cold winter night!”

“I will not give my blessings to you ruining another child’s life just because you have been brainwashed by a hippy! That poor bastard in your belly will find out exactly what you are capable of over time and I pity them. The child will always have a home here, however, if you set foot in my house again, I will call the police and have you ferried back to the asylum faster than you can say sausage roll. Go!”

She watched closely as her mother packed up her things into a loose over-the-shoulder bag, kleptomania was one of her weaknesses.

When she was finally ready to leave she handed Hak an envelope.

“What is this?”

“It is from your father. He sent it to me in prison six weeks ago, the only thing he ever sent me.  He wanted me to give it to you.”

“I don’t want it.”

Eleanor dropped it on the floor at Hak’s feet. “There are many things I do not want, something’s you just have to take. Farewell daughter, I shan’t expect to see you again.” And she left.

Hak bolted the door behind her, picking the envelope from the floor and throwing it in the closest bin. Her head throbbed like a bass amp. She swallowed two painkillers, turned off the lights, and headed for bed.

church of nine: chapter 6 - part 2

         

Hak cautiously followed Aunty down a narrow corridor and into a kitchen that was hotter than hell in a heat wave. There was very little space to move, due to a table awkwardly parked and set in the middle of the tiny room, marginalising everything else into a squeeze to get passed or to.  There seemed to be twice as much as a kitchen twice as big could hold, piled into every available nook and cranny. Hak couldn’t decide whether this was order on the brink of chaos, or vice versa.

Harry sat in half lotus pose precariously on a rickety rocking chair, deep in the pursuit of no-thought, every tip forward threatening to spill him on the floor, just as he was saved by the rock back.

He looked like a strategically shaved monkey gone AWOL from a lounge act, obviously one in a long genetic line of misshapen links.  The oddity of him was discomforting, beyond any textbook definition of biped life that Hak had ever encountered, but there was something so familiar... 

“Do I know you?” asked Hak, moving closer. She never forgot a face.

Harry opened one eye carefully, and wished immediately that he hadn’t. “Jesus Christ, your head!” He his legs untangled desperately beneath him, and he sprawled forth from the seat like a deckchair picked up in a twister.  Hak stumbled back a set, hitting into the wall behind her. “What about my head?” She patted it frantically as if she were on fire.

“Harry!” Aunty declared, bursting into the fray. “Where are your manners this evening?”

 Harry pointed above Haks head, his face whiter than a Bing Crosby Christmas.

“What is he pointing at?” She freaked. “What’s going on?”

“Calm down dear” Reasoned Aunty while snarling, “Harry! Stop pointing at our guest!”

“But she is one of…them.” He said, still pointing.  “Her head! Look at her head!”

“I am very aware Miss Sinclair has a head.” Said Aunty, physically forced to lower Harry’s right arm. “I do not approve of this behaviour. Go – now – very far away!”

“B-but Aunty!”

“Harry, there are chores for you to do! Chop-chop before I really lose my patience.”

“Yes Aunty, sorry Aunty. Sorry, Miss…Jesus!” His words faded as he backed out of the room, staring Hak out in absolute fear.

“What the hell was all that about?”

“That was my houseguest Harry.  You must excuse his manners, he is seeking enlightenment.”

“Why was he staring at my head?”

“Because you are marked Miss Sinclair.  Anyone who has been delivered unto by the Consorts of Destiny carries a mark of three circles above their head, visible only to those who can see into the fourth dimension.”

Hak was certainly not in Kansas anymore. “This is too weird.  This is all too weird!  You know about the Consort of Destiny? You know about the envelope? He can see into the fourth dimension?”

“That is the least of his worries dear, he brought it all on himself of course. As for the Consorts, it is only humans who have no knowledge of them, they tend to stay away from the less,” she paused diplomatically, “under developed species.”

“So, now you are saying that you are not human? What is this madness?” She pulled at her hair, not knowing what wall to hit first.

“My dear,” Reasoned Aunty as best she could, “I understand this is rather a lot of strange information to digest in a relatively short period of time, it is rather a trademark of the Consorts to bring total anarchy into the lives of the Ones they Choose.”

“Why did they choose me?”

“Luck of the draw my dear. Fate is fate.”

“But the envelope was in my handwriting. How could that be?”

“Who else do you think writes your destiny?”

 “I’ve had enough of this.” Hak pulled the envelope from her pocket, preparing to tare it open.

“NO!” Aunty exclaimed desperately, slapping Hak’s hands away from the seal. “You must under no circumstances open that envelope for the next 24 hours!  They cannot get to you whilst you are protected by the Consorts of Destiny; while those three rings shine above your head you are safe.  The moment you open the envelope, the three rings will disperse and you are on your own.  Trust me my dear, you need all the protection you can get!”

“From whom?”

“From those who seek the Prize.  The envelope you have in your possession will lead to the discovery of one of the most powerful items in the universe; an item that many have been seeking for many reasons for many years.

“If the demons succeed this Earth will return to the dark ages of fear. If the angels succeed, humanity will be destroyed and all its imperfections obliterated. I have seen what can happen, and it is unacceptable.”

“Angels? Demons? Lady, call Flash Gordon, I’m a little busy for this crap!”

“I do not like sarcasm Miss Sinclair.”

“It is not meant to be liked; it is meant to be understood.  You’ve got the wrong woman.”

“My dear, fate rarely calls on those who are ready for it.  You may deny as much as you like, but you are in the game whether you like it or not.”

“Game?”

Aunty shuffled closer, pouring tea freely from a large red pot into two delicate blue China cups on the table. “Milk?” She poured a little into her own cup, stirring gently. Hak shook her head, ignoring her refreshment.

Aunty slurped her tea with gentle satisfaction, placing the cup back perfectly into its delicate saucer. “Do you really want to know everything about the Church of Nine?”

 “Church of Nine?” Hak’s interest soared. “What do you know about them?”

“More than I would care to, my dear,” said Aunty, not trying to disguise the contempt from her tone. “The Church of Nine are the most advanced and powerful carbon based species in the Universe. They are driven by an inexhaustible need for power. If they find the Prize, and it could happen, this Earth would be destroyed. You must stop them”

“Say that again.”

“Why? So you can disbelieve me twice. It’s true. Do you really believe human beings are the only intelligence in the universe? This race is barely on the first rung compared to most of the species lurking out there. The only reason any of them come here is to find the Prize. The Church of Nine are no exception to this rule.”

Hak laughed at the insanity of it all.

“You see,” Aunty said, shuffling closer in, not allowing Hak a moment to dwell. “The Chosen One, in this case you, is the only One who the Consorts will aid in finding the Prize. And they only do it every 2000 years. Looking for the Prize in any other way is like searching for a needle in a million hectares of haystack. This has not stopped them trying.

“In your envelope there is a clue. If you use the clue, you lose the protection of the Consorts. Until you use the clue, three circles will shine above your head, and no one – not even the Church of Nine – will lay so much as a finger upon your hair.”

“O-kay.” Hak breathed deeply. “Back in the room now, do you have any legitimate information about how I can stop the real Church of Nine?”

Aunty smiled. “Find the Prize without using the clue, and all will end well.”

Hak knew she would have to concede to the ladies fairytale to find out more, it is a game she had played many times before. “Let me just get my head around this. You expect me to believe that my father was an alien? One of the most powerful aliens in the Universe, in fact, and the only reason he came here was to find a Prize that I have been Chosen by destiny to find?”

 “Very well put, I can see why you chose journalism as your calling.”

“You must be out of your mind.”

“Oh, I am my dear. I feel it frees me up to think.  Let me put it another way to you, can you prove me wrong? Considering all that I have told you, does any of it feel like a lie?”

Hak hesitated. “I feel sick.”

“Unsurprising.  I wish there could have been another way of breaking this to you, but unfortunately, sometimes you need to be thrown in at the deep end.”

“Deep end? If I believed what you were telling me, I would have to believe I was half-alien!”

“Is this not the way you have felt all of your life?”

Hak conceded. “I thought that was normal.”

“Hmmm, there really is no such thing as normal my dear, just life.”

“Where is your bathroom?”

“Down the hall, second on the left.”

Hak staggered out without a polite excuse.

Harry waited until the coast was clear, and ran into the kitchen as if his heart was on fire.

“Aunty, this time you have gone too far! Kidnapping the Chosen One? You might as well barbeque Buddha! Bloody hell, you can’t get any more severe Karma than interfering with the work of the Consorts of Destiny! What are you thinking?” He paced in despair.  “It all makes sense now, you knew all along she was behind the door! You can’t tell if someone is a Chosen One or not if you or they are unconscious, you knew I would never have agreed to get involved in this if I had seen the spheres! Well, thank you. I’ll just be getting ready now to be wiped from existence!”

“Calm down Harry, you are making a scene. Miss Sinclair is not feeling very well, and she has not even began with the task ahead.”

 “Task ahead?” Harry was still in panic, but Aunty did not ease him.  “You can’t seriously expect me to carry on with this?”

“Do you have other plans?”

“Not if the Consorts catch up with me!”

“Then there is no good reason why you should not carry on, is there?”

A braver man would have walked away. Harry knew fine well he was not that man and listened as Aunty weaved her plan.

Hak loitered unseen in the corridor, eavesdropping every word of the conversation.

“What do you want me to do?” Harry asked, finally conceding he had no choice.

“That’s the spirit. Did you deal with our friends outside?”

“Two flat tires and a banana in their tail pipe, they won’t be following her anywhere. Trash taken care of.”

“Good boy. Drive her home and ditch the car. “

“Aunty, I am not comfortable with this at all.”

“Think of the bigger picture Harry, there’s a good boy, chop-chop! The game is afoot!”

church of nine: chapter 6 - part 1

06

The evening sky was the colour of a bruised Apricot. Heavy white clouds tinged with a dark green hue floated like mould out of its horizons.  Harry sat in the small concrete garden with his legs folded underneath him, palms facing skywards, and attempted to empty his mind.  He might have succeeded if Aunty had not marched into the courtyard with all the pomp of Sgt Major on parade day, wrapped in a heavy purple blanket to protect her from the frosted tips of the evening air.  “What is that distracting sound you are making Harry?”

“It is called a Mantra,” He sighed.  “I am attempting to escape the heavy world of materialism that has our souls caught in its web.”

“Never mind that,” She insisted, budging him along the seat. “Sit up straight! Legs down and stop humming!”

She sat squarely next to Harry. The crystal amulets dangling from her neck clinked together like boats moored in choppy water, as she took a deep swill from a concealed pewter hip flask.  Harry looked on in radical astonishment.

“It’s camomile!” She snapped, her sharp blue eyes piercing into him, easily accessing his thoughts. She always punished assumption. “Will you sit properly? Think of your circulation! I should not have to tell you twice!”

Harry obeyed, immediately suffering from severe pins and needle stabs, as his blood attempted to re-circulate in his system. “Aunty, are you going to tell me what fine mess you are getting me into?”

“I had a vision. Three visions, actually.  And if they come in three’s they are prophecies.  We need to help that young lady save this world.”

“Oh good.  Then what?  Write a New Testament perhaps?”

“You know I will not tolerate sarcasm Harry!” She scowled at him.  

“But Aunty, you can’t just go interfering with people and their lives like this! How do we know she wants to save the world?”

“Tosh, I heard no objections from you when I interfered with your life!”

“That’s…different.” Harry knew he was beat.

“I see.” Smirked the old lady as her eyes drank in the beauty of the sky above her. “That’s the problem with your generation Harry, too busy thinking of how you’re going to escape rather than concentrating on the bigger picture.”

“I still think you ought to ask before you help!”

“Nonsense.  People need saving from their antics all of the time, most have not a clue when it comes to playing their part in the celestial scheme of things. It’s always too late if you wait for permission.”

“She may not want to be saved.”

“What difference does that make? There are bigger things at stake here!  Now, enough chatter and chop-chop!  She will be awake in seven minutes and thirty four seconds – and she will not be happy.” 

“You don’t need a crystal ball to suss that one out Aunty.  We bloody kidnapped her!  That’s bad karma!  And trust me, I know about bad karma – I’ve stolen several library books on the subject!”

The lady would not be moved. “Chop-chop!”

 “Yes Aunty.”  Harry sulked and followed her wearily back into the cottage.

                                                      

Six minutes and thirty four seconds later…

Hak opened her eyes. She had no idea where she was.  The room was small, dark and over heated. The air was thick and dry and she struggled to breath. 

She was mummified with duvets and blankets secured tightly under every edge and corner of the single bed she lay on.  It was a struggle to get free, he efforts hindered by dizziness and a shooting pain that executed her head as she wrestled loose from the comfortable constraints, and tried to recollect the events that had lead her to this point.  All she could recall was Hargreave’s face and she was sure that was out of context.  She blundered around the room like a blind man in an unfamiliar district trying to find the light. Fumbling in the dark she patted down the wall surfaces knocking several pictures loose from their hangings, the glass frames shattering on the floor around her.  The door opened. 

“Hmmm, decided to rejoin the land of the living, have we?”

Aunty stood in a halo of light, her arms crossed across her modest bosom.  In one hand she held a small brush, in the other a dustpan.  She quickly got to work clearing the chaos in the most uncomfortably strange silence Hak could ever recall enduring. Then Aunty got up with a small groan.

“Sorry, I was looking for the light.” Hak shuffled her feet.

“Aren’t we all dear,” Aunty brushed herself down.

“Where am I?”  Hak staggered towards the door, trying to step past Aunty, but her legs could not carry her, buckled, and she fell.

“Take care, my dear.” Said Aunty coming to her aid.  “You have been unconscious for nearly three hours now. No point running around like a headless chicken, is there?”

“Three hours again?” She peeled herself from the floor. “How do chunks of time keep getting sucked out of my life? How did I get here?”

“It’s called a quickening dear.” Aunty paused, not for effect but necessity, helping Hak to the edge of the bed.  She was a small woman, but by no means frail, with hair that looked like it had been cast out of pure silver and teeth that were set like piano keys in her mouth.  

“Quickening?”

“Hmmm.” Said Aunty, “it takes a little while to adjust, but you will get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it! Lady, who are you? Where am I?”

Aunty shook her head in self-reproach. “This is the difficulty with 20-20 foresight, sometimes it can have a terrible effect on your manners. Forgive me. My name is Arcana Linear Lunn, known to most as the soothsayer, but you may call me Aunty.  It’s nice to make your proper acquaintance Miss Sinclair.”

“Soothsayer?” Hak laughed, anticipating a punch line that did not come. “You are a fortune teller?”

 Displeasure lit like a firework in the old ladies eyes. “No I most certainly am not!  There is nothing of fortune worth telling, and if you must know I have an allergy to silver, so I won’t be happy if it crosses my palm or any other of my extremities!”

Hak shook her head. “Lady, I don’t mean to be rude, but what the fuck are you talking about and why am I here? I can’t remember how I got here. Where the fuck am I?”

“I will thank you for not using such profanity in my home! You are a guest here!”

“Guest where? Who are you?”

“Miss Sinclair, if you insist on only asking questions and not listening to the answers, I do believe this could take forever.”

“Or it could end now.” She tried to leave, but her vision split into three and the bedpost suddenly became the only thing that prevented her from hitting the floor again.

“Miss Sinclair,” explained Aunty, helping her to the bed once more. “There are very few futures that I can not see way in advance, unfortunately the future is a multiple choice so I felt the safest option for you was here.  That is why you are here. Here is my home, and I have already formerly introduced myself.

“Now, if you wish to make any kind of sense of what is happening to you, I seriously recommend you stay for a while longer.”

Hak rubbed her weary head, crushed under the confusion. “This is the weirdest day of my life so far.”

“Oh I would not count your chickens my dear, you wait until tomorrow.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

 Aunty sighed. “Follow me.”

occupy wall street

In the first flurries of the Wall Street Occupation, I must confess to feeling the revolution had started. The signs were all there. The Police were macing the innocent while the world watched on the edge of their seats…

Well, not the “world” as far as the American presses were concerned, who were looking in the opposite direction whistling Dixie and hoping the whole thing would go away before they would be forced to give it a column inches worth of attention. Amanda Marcotte in the Guardian on Wednesday brought my attention to one response I was not aware of from the American Right. She Wrote:

“The rightwing response is shockingly incoherent, even from a right wing dominated by putting emotion before reason: the Tumblr We Are the 53%, a reference to the 53% of Americans who pay federal income taxes. The Tumblr was started by Erick Erickson, and the argument behind it appears to be: "Sure, America may be suffering record unemployment, a go-nowhere economy, uninsured numbers in the millions, a foreclosure crisis and household debt that is 90% of the GDP, but as long as there's still a federal income tax, you should shut up and suffer." It's a strange argument, much akin to telling homeless people they shouldn't complain about being hungry because you pay rent every month, but then again, there's no reason to believe Erickson doesn't also do that.”

America is a bizarre country.  As a punishment for violating the use of pepper spray, deputy inspector Anthony Bologna faces losing ten vacation days…that’s it.  This is how the NYPD deal with their most stressful, incapable employees? By taking their holiday away from them? Isn’t that like locking an arsonist in a highly flammable room but only giving him two matches? Please? Give the man a permanent holiday, behind very strong bars with nothing but his excuses to defend himself with.

But I don’t want to besmirch this otherwise entirely peaceful protest with negative smear, unlike the Daily “hate” Mail (I can’t help it, the sooner these fascists are gone way of the NOTW the better humanity will rest at night) who could think of no better way than slamming the cause than saying local Manhattan residents (the superbly rich) were in “fury” because protestors were “showering in sinks, brushing their teeth (is dental hygiene now a public offense?) and making a huge mess (this next to a photograph of people scrubbing streets and clearing up the huge mess that they were making into orderly piles?)”

Now in its fifth week, occupy Wall Street is making the discourse of corporate greed, at the cost of the majority, highly public.  According to Wikipedia: “By October 9, similar demonstrations were either ongoing or had been held in 70 major cities and over 600 communities in the U.S, including the estimated 100,000 people who demonstrated on October 15.Internationally, other "Occupy" protests have modeled themselves after Occupy Wall Street, in over 900 cities worldwide. An October 11 poll showed that 54% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the protests, compared to 27% for the Tea Party movement, and up from 38% in a poll conducted October 6–10.  An October 12–16 poll found that 67% of New York City voters agreed with the protesters and 87% agreed with their right to protest.”

The slogan that will no doubt be remembered long after the last camper has headed home (not for some time, I hope) is we are the 99%, referring to the difference in wealth between the top 1% and the rest of the world. It cannot go unnoticed any more.

We all know that modern war is Capitalism with its gloves off, Iraq was as much a part of Halliburton’s aggressive expansion policy as it was a warning to the Middle East that a new domino had fallen the way of the Anglo/American free market pioneers.  Anyone who still believes that 9/11 was the act of terrorism really ought to watch a documentary called Zeitgeist, it’s free to view. These nasty bastards do need regulating (behind bars), and it is we the people who need to draw the line.

I must confess however that I agree with Guardian writer Alex Slater, when he said it was ambitious to suggest OWT was becoming a political force. “Quite apart from the deliberate absence of leadership and organization in the movement, its disjointed complaints and sometimes contradictory demands, Occupy Wall Street has put a particular emphasis on remaining an apolitical movement, unattached to any party and unwilling to be co-opted by Washington. Chris Ketchum writes in the Los Angeles Times that this movement will either "organize or just prophesize." I don't believe either seems likely.”

So what do we want? What can we hope to expect? Dr Martin Luther King, writing in 1963, said: "In these turbulent days of uncertainty the evils of war and of economic and racial injustice threaten the very survival of the human race.  To co-operate passively with an unjust system makes the oppressed as evil as the oppressor."

Perhaps in this spirit, saying no is enough for now – there are more of us. Lets keep saying no.

why does love hurt?

Is it just me or is love one of the most misused words in the English language? It’s like we can’t make up our minds whether it is a good or a bad thing, poetic folly or hard line spiritual all-pervasive truth.

It’s talked about in so many contexts, but never so much out of context by those who suffer the pains of love. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself why love hurts? Why so many crap films and crap songs are written around the theme of love being an ache of the heart, suffered by fools and players alike?

We are short of words, because that is not love.  We have all felt love (hopefully), even in the act of doing something we have a passion for we feel love, and it never hurts. So why does love get the blame for pain?

Pain is the opposite of love, in my opinion, not hate: hate comes from pain. Pure and simply it hurts not to have love, not because you love too much, but because you love too conditionally.   We might as well face it, we are addicted to love, or else all of us would have given up hope a long time ago. When we finally get love, we feel rewarded – as if finally something has gone right for us.

And we want more of the persons company, and more of their time, more of the rewarding feeling.  Love becomes need, and wherever there is need there is condition. There is nothing more conditional than saying “I love you”, when really what you mean to say is “I need you.”  And in fact, it is not the person you need, it is how the person makes you feel, that is what we crave.

Why does love turn to need? If we really loved someone, really cared for him or her – as we do for most of our friends – we would let them be free. When was the last time you were worried if your best friend loved you as much as you love them? You give them the freedom, without condition, to have other friends. You give them freedom, without condition, to love others equally to you. In fact, in most cases, best friends encourage their friends to make more of their loves and lives.

But lovers are a different story. The one we are in love with is the one we often wish to control the most. This is true of me; it might not be true of you. The one you are in love with is the one you expect to call, expect to show you special treatment, expect to love you most.  If any of these expectations are not lived up to, your love flips into pain. From that pain comes anger, doubt, resentment, entire days in bed watching shit films/afternoons in the bar drinking heavily until night falls.

If not for the expectations/conditions in the first place, the pain would not be there. The pain is self-made. You can love without pain. Our friends are proof of this. But it’s so hard to love without condition.  I’m not saying that I know all of the answers…I’m just looking at things from a different point of view.

There is an illusion that has a lot to do with flipping love into pain, and that is the future. Everyone is obsessed with the future, what it holds, how to get there, who to go their with. But…it does not exist. You might as well book a day trip to Narnia; you will never meet the future. What is important is now. Life is happening to you now.  The future, for most people, is their exit strategy from the past. And this is where love comes into play.

It is not uncommon for someone, man or woman, to have a run of shit relationships and then suddenly meet “the one”. They feel love has changed them, they can let go of the past, and now look to the future…but something is deeply uncertain about the future because you do not know what is going to happen, so to fight uncertainty, you begin to condition the other.

You do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, your lover might change his or her mind and love someone else.  I love you means you must love me. Everyone in a relationship has the fear of this not being so. Only those who really take each other for granted don’t fear this. 

Happy couples are obsessed with future, it all becomes about the future.  With every relationship, sooner or later, the question arises of does this have a future? It seems the more we can imagine ourselves with someone, the further we are pulled from reality as it is.  

You can think about or feel something from your past, but you are doing it now. You can project your thoughts and your feelings into the future, thinking they are taking you somewhere, but you never leave now. It is in the known, and the unknown. The only time you can feel love is now. The moment you think of love, and you feel pain, ask yourself is this really love?

alchemy

The ancient art of Alchemy is believed to have been alive in our species since 1900bc, founded by the great Egyptian King Hermes Trismegistus. Because so much is shrouded in here-say it is hard to tell apart the fact from the fiction, especially as Emperor Diocletian ordered the destruction of all Egyptian books relating to Alchemy and other occult sciences, to stem a revolt in Alexandria in the year 296.

What is clear from the few fragments that survived, is that to the ancients, the practice of Alchemy had little to do with making money out of thin air, W B Yates made this point clearly in his work Rosa Alchemica, when he wrote;  “I had discovered, early in my researches, that their doctrine was no mere chemical fantasy, but a philosophy they applied to the world, to the elements, and to man himself.”

An example of this can be found in 35ad, when it was reported that Chang Tao-Ling, the first Taoist Pope “declined all offers to enter the service of the state,” instead preferring to “take up his abode in the mountains where he persevered in the study of Alchemy and in cultivating the virtues of purity and mental abstraction.”

Alchemy is synonymous with a quest for the discovery of the Philosophers Stone, the mythical element that was the secret ingredient required for transforming base matter into gold or silver, and unlocking the secrets of immortality.

But it was not until 8th-century Persian Alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan (Latinized as Geber – and from which we get the word gibberish) came along that anyone had ever applied this as a scientific method. Geber theorized that a thorough understanding of the natures and qualities of the basic elements (fire, water, air, earth), combined with a magic “red powder” made from the philosophers stone, would lead to the transmutation of one metal into another.

Many scientific minds of the time rejected the theory, one opponent of Geber’s stating: "Those of the chemical craft know well that no change can be effected in the different species of substances, though they can produce the appearance of such change."

However, during the Middle Ages a crusade began to discover the stone (some going so far as to link it with the wisdoms of King Solomon’s temple).  And “according to legend, the 13th-century scientist and philosopher Albertus Magnus is said to have discovered the philosopher's stone and passed it to his pupil Thomas Aquinas, shortly before his death circa 1280.” Wikipedia

It wasn’t until the 17^th Century when an Alchemist by the name of Robert Boyle wrote a book called “The Skeptical Chymist”, that modern chemistry evolved and eventually disenfranchised itself from the fanciful thinking’s of Geber. But we in the West are a literalist lot, and still we crowd our minds with images of witches and warlocks lurking over bubbling cauldrons whenever we conjure up the word Alchemy.

German theosophist Franz Hartmann wrote in 1902:

“It is erroneous to confuse alchemy with chemistry. Modem chemistry is a science dealing only with the outward manifestations of matter. It never produces anything new. One can mix, compose and decompose two or three chemical substances any number of times, and make them reappear in different forms, but in the end there is no increase in substance; there is only the combination of the substances used at the outset. Alchemy neither composes nor mixes: it increases and activates that which already exists in a latent state. Therefore alchemy can be more accurately compared with botany or agriculture than with chemistry. In fact, the growth of a plant, a tree or an animal is an alchemical process taking place in the alchemical laboratory of nature and conducted by the Great Alchemist, the active power of God in nature.”

It is such a beautiful idea when the transmutation of lead into gold is presented as an analogy for personal transmutation, from the mundane into the spiritual, or the ignorant into the enlightened.  It is a gorgeous idea that our ancestors have left us to consider: that we were all born with unlimited potential, and as Gerhardt Dorn said, all have the power to “transmute themselves from dead stones into living philosophical stones.”