speciesforhire: even rebels have regulations

speciesforhire: even rebels have regulations: Kids are cruel. Isn’t this what we say? They lack compassion for misfortune, laugh at weakness and tribe up in groups of peers, playing t...

even rebels have regulations

Kids are cruel. Isn’t this what we say? They lack compassion for misfortune, laugh at weakness and tribe up in groups of peers, playing the acceptance game, which can only be won through rejecting others.

Bloody teenagers! There are so many insults we can throw their way! They lack concentration, they’re ambition is not for personal growth but for glory, fame and adoration.  When asked if they wanted world peace, or a piece of the material action in the world, they’ll plum for the latter 9/10. Teenagers are selfish, amoral, and lazy. Isn’t that what we say? Wasn’t that what we were accused of?

A survey taken in a British girls school about 7 years ago asked 30 students what they wanted to be when the grew up. 29 said famous. They did not have ambition to cure cancer, end world debt or poverty, or even discover a new musical octave: they just wanted fame. To be heard of, talked about, recognised.

This was one of the aims of Billy the Kid.

Even teenagers who manage to reach the higher echelons of fame don’t appreciate it when they get it, or at least, this is what our beloved media are hoping every day to prove. Just look at the young football stars rolling out of nightclubs with fifty- pound notes rolled up their nose! Or podgy Jamie Waylett, the 22 year old Harry Potter star who was sent to jail for 2 years for drinking champagne while rioting in London in Summer 2011. We cynical adults love to put shame to youth’s trespasses.

That angry 14-year old mob that looted their capitalist hearts out during the London riots last summer, more than underlined the prevailing belief that teenagers have no appreciation of anything! No value for anything! No concept of money or hard work! Wasn’t this what most people concluded to be the cause of the uprisings in the capital?

 Teenagers want everything now. This is the quick fix generation, and if films can’t be downloaded onto their computers faster than pizza can be delivered to their doors, teddies will be hurled out of prams from London to Tokyo!

The music they listen to is either too loud or too fast. You can’t understand the words half of the time.  Teenagers are the reason Simon Cowell drives a Bentley. The cultures they create are meaningless and passing, filled with fads and embarrassing haircuts that are destined to plague them for the rest of their lives.  Isn’t this our grievance every time we get stuck behind a slow-walking 17-year old boy that still hasn’t found the belt department in his local clothes shop?

Do we really want to put our faith in a generation that believe it is better to wear expensive pants on show then it is to find out their own waste size measurements? Perhaps our present problems will be solved in the future by everyone walking like a penguin constantly referring to everything as either “sick” or “safe”.

But in their defence…

Rejection is an enormous part of teenage life.  The innocence of childhood ends almost overnight; the integration of boys and girls divides itself asunder when the shudders of hormones first tremble through our young, awkward bodies.

We go from sand pit to hell pit in one leap. Suddenly the boy next door, who has played with your toys and pulled your hair since you were two, is an alien presence in your life. He has hair on his face, spots, and new discovered deepness to his voice.  And you know that whatever you got changing in you, if he is so inclined to notice, is not going unnoticed.  Puberty is bloody weird.  Adults forget this, mostly because we do all we can to block it from our memories.

As well as this tectonic development in body change, teenagers have school to consider. Social aspect aside, the national curriculum is not designed to educate teenagers on how to know themselves and love themselves unconditionally. It is designed to disorientate and confuse. There is nothing coherent or meaningful at all about the way children are taught.

Do you remember school? Registration followed by a bell that directed you to some arbitrary subject such as Geography. Then, an hour or half hour later, another bell, and off you plunder to some utterly unrelated subject such as English Literature or Art. And on it goes. Can you imagine a trade that could run on these irregularities? From 9-10 you are a painter and decorator until the bell rings, and then you have to present a weather forecast for the BBC? It doesn’t work.

There are so few schools that encourage kids to learn what they wish to learn, or afford them time to pursue it. But those who run schools know that their institutions have very little to do with education, and everything to do with training for meaningless and banal employment. Deskwork.

I have nothing but compassion for teachers who actually want to teach something valuable, and not just stand in front of a class like a mock-boss, encouraging young adults to meet their targets and keep their CV in mind.  It is drilled into kids: doing well at school gets you work.

The Curriculum is not there to increase your appetite for knowledge or greater understanding of your place in existence: it is there because it is what has been decided, by extremely misguiding authorities, what kids must learn to fit in to the system of adulthood.

Therefore those who are rebelling against schooling are also rebelling against conformity, banality and brainwashing and that could be admired. Having said that, most of the naughty kids at my school who refused to wear the uniform, were often seen hanging out together wearing identical tracksuits.

Even rebels have regulations.

I can fit you in between...

I never buy a diary in December – unless it’s for someone else. I rarely buy a diary in January either. My urge to buy a diary usually comes mid-February, when no shops stock them any longer and you have to once again suckle to the teat of amazon.co.uk…

I haven’t written anything in a while, you may have noticed, you may not.  Writing a blog is like keeping a diary. Months of unenthusiastic missed entries can float by without notice, until one day you realise that four months of your life have passed you by without any written record of them in existence.

I have a very busy life, full of appointments that people (such as my part-time employers) require me to attend. If my life was a carefree crusade with time to play with and nothing much to do but have fun, I would bin my efforts at personal management until the next life.

I know this is true for most people. This is why we all want to win the lottery.

Diaries are more hassle than they are worth for unorganised people. Organised people love diaries like they love lists and pencil’s that accessories with post it notes. Giving an unorganised person a diary is not going to make them more organised: it’s going to make them more aware of their disorganisation.

Diaries need more attention then a Tamagotchi.  We need to feed them with our schedules, constantly amending the circumstances. We need to consult them, rely on them, they become the safe keeper of our futures and nothing short of our reputation relies on them.

I have a friend that cannot make a decision without her oracle. And she does actually refer to her diary as an oracle, as if it was somehow writing her future out for her – ready for her to follow. It just goes to show how powerful this book is in some people’s lives.

Mae West said: “Keep a diary and someday it will keep you.” Truer words cannot be found. A Diary is a book of prophecy to those who believe they are a human doing, not a human being.

I know all of this. Yet somewhere in the deep recesses of my subconscious mind, the word diary is entirely associated with the word handy.  As if it is important that I persist to write down dates in a book that I will stop looking at, and probably lose within a month. As if it is important that I have a book that is there to aid my memory, when my memory is so bad that I rarely remember to take it out with me.

 I also have an aversion to committing myself to disappointing someone: if you are written in some peoples diaries you might as well just been carved out as the eleventh commandment: thou shalt not be late.  For some people, ten fifteen really does mean ten fifteen.

Diaries diminish our appreciation of time, in the same way that mobile phones diminish our abilities to have a conversation with the person sitting next to us in the pub. The busier you are, the less time you have to be open to your present circumstances.

Is it diary keeping that provoked such utterly nonsensical sayings such as “there just aren’t enough hours in the day?” How many hours do you need?  Would you like to put forward the proposal on how we can somehow slow down the sun to suit your agenda?

Do Diaries, and the thinking and language they encourage, help the evolution of the species, or diminish its chances of survival utterly?  Is this a topic of debate that should be fit in somewhere between lunch and three, or can it wait until Monday?

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.”